I offered a story, an image at the beginning, I didn't talk about it so much last week and now this is the third week I offered the image again. The image is of a, of a, of something like a river, maybe life is like a river. And then the river gets covered by a road and because the river is covered by something like a road, the road is always hungry. Were

[01:21]

you here the first week? Good, now you heard what we talked about the first week. Yeah, so that's, that was the image offered first week. So, what we actually are, our actual life is like a river. And, but living beings, who are living in something like a river, or living beings who are the river, or are, who are like a river, are addicted to certainty,

[02:22]

addicted to grasping something in the, in the, in the river, in the river, like life. And because of this habit of wanting certainty and intolerance of uncertainty, living beings live their mind create this thing like a road. And because the road is really basically a river, sentient beings are hungry, they crave something, they crave their actual life. That was the image, something I offered at the beginning. And so again, I propose, one way to put it is, we really aren't just

[03:25]

sentient beings. We aren't just sentient beings, but as sentient beings, all we have to deal, all we know, as sentient beings, all we know is the road. All we know is appearances. The road is appearances. And appearances, you can be somewhat certain about, and it's almost like you can get a hold of them. And if you're, and if you get a hold of them, then you can, then in that realm, we notice some change, like we notice birth and death in, in the realm where we have appearances. There's appearance of birth and the appearance of death. There's the appearance of suffering. There's

[04:26]

appearance of self and appearance of other, and there's change. But at the same time, we're like a bird. So, we hunger. In the realm of appearances, we have desires. Although the mind of sentient beings individually and collectively creates the world of appearances, we need to be, we need quite a bit of training before we can actually understand how that process goes. And last week I talked about the creation of alternative worlds. So, the world, the world that we ordinarily live in is a

[05:38]

created world, but we're not so much in touch with it as an act of creation. We don't necessarily see our moment-by-moment daily life as a work of art. If we could see our daily life as a work of art, well, we would be artists, and we would be aware of how the world of appearance is created. And we would be aware that it was just appearance. And we would open to an understanding of what, in a sense, this world of appearances is exiling us from. It's really not a world, exactly. It's the way the world

[06:41]

actually is before it's a world, or when it's not a world. So, by creating alternative worlds, we have a chance to understand that the world we live in is created similarly to the way we create alternative worlds, that our actual, ordinary life is a work of art, that we've been missing out on, and taking as a substantial thing rather than a creation. Now I'm going to say some things about what to do with the road, which will tie into many, many previous classes at the

[07:45]

Southern Hemisphere, but mostly in the Northern Hemisphere. I just heard today that there's a glacier in Antarctica that's moving a foot an hour towards the ocean. As the show said, it's not moving glacially. This is a story about the road. The river is a different story. So, how do you make alternative worlds, which are works of art, and which give us freedom from our life which we don't understand as art? In the Buddhist tradition, the meaning of freedom is peace. When we're free, we're at peace. So, I talked about facing change and realizing peace.

[09:04]

That's the title of the meditation course. So, now I'm talking about how to face the change in such a way as to create alternatives worlds, and in the process, understand our ordinary world and alternative worlds, and thereby achieve freedom and peace. I mentioned last time something like, it's pretty much the same thing to say, everything is completely given, and everything is completely constructed. So, our life is completely given, and it's completely constructed. It's given to us, but it's also a construction. It's not like a solid reality that's given to us, it's a construction that's given to us.

[10:17]

Again, we usually do not understand. First of all, we have trouble accepting that it's been given. We think that maybe it was a mistaken delivery. It should be sent someplace else. Why me? Why me? Why did I get this life? All those New Yorker cartoons where people are at the gates to someplace or other, either up or down, and they're kind of like trying to negotiate with what's being given to them. You know those cartoons? Well, I wonder why they make those cartoons, because we don't do that. Even though we might read the New Yorker, we don't act like those people in those cartoons, right? So, the first step in the process of becoming an artist of freedom and peace, a peace and freedom artist, is, in the past I've said trust.

[11:31]

Trust in the sense of accepting that what's been given to you right now actually has been given to you, and so please accept what's been given to you. For example, this is Thursday night in Berkeley with these people and your body and mind. This is a gift. And now this is a gift. Every moment is a gift. Completely given. You didn't take any of this, actually. You didn't swipe this existence. And there's no alternative to it, because it is being presented to us. So, in a sense, that could be called trusting the teaching that everything is completely given. Or another way to put it is, what we have to live is given. How we live, however, is undetermined. Or you could say, is to be determined later. Or is to be determined now. It hasn't been determined. So, completely given, and there's a possibility of freedom.

[12:53]

And creating alternative worlds is part of the process of realizing the possibility of freedom. In fact, we are never completely determined, and because everything is given, our choice is not complete. We're free, but our choices are not completely choices. There you go. But they're not determined. They're not determined, and they're not really completely choices. They're given, and they're not determined. First step is, trust what's given. Trust what's given. And that means everything, because everything is completely given.

[13:55]

And then, how do you trust? In previous classes, we talked about, you practice compassion. Towards what? Well, towards everything, pretty much. The one possible exception to compassion might be the Buddhas, who kind of don't need it. They're so happy. But they do need assistance. So, practice compassion as Buddha's assistant. The Buddhas don't need the compassion exactly, except that they need it, because they want us to do it. So, we practice compassion as a favor to the Buddhas, and we practice compassion towards everything else that's given. And how do you practice compassion? Well, first three practices of Bodhisattvas, they practice towards what's given. And what's given? Do you remember what was given? According to me, what's given? Everything. So, you practice these first three compassion practices towards, just to make life simple, everything. Which means, you practice generosity with everything.

[15:06]

Everything's being given, and you meet that with, thank you very much, I have no complaint whatsoever. You meet that with welcoming, with generosity. You let the given be the given. You do that. Try to do it on a regular basis, like every moment. If you don't, then you move on to the next phase, which is to practice ethics, which involves saying you're sorry that you didn't practice generosity towards what was given to you. Say you're sorry that you forgot the teaching that everything's completely given. Now, when I say you forgot that teaching, that might be, for me anyway, that would be forgetting a teaching which I want to remember. I don't know if you want to remember the teaching that you heard here, that everything's given. Maybe you want to forget that. But I would like to remember it, but I sometimes forget. I sometimes think, no, no, not this. I want something else. But then I say I'm sorry, because that's not the teaching. Teaching is you're supposed to say thank you for what's been given, even if it's painful.

[16:19]

You don't just say I like pain. You don't just say I like disease. As a matter of fact, you can even say I don't like disease. But when you say it, it's completely given. And although it's completely given, guess what? It's not determined. It's undetermined when you say that, even though at the moment you say it, nobody knew you were going to say that. And at the moment you say it, it's completely given. I was listening to a, where was I? I was, oh yeah, I went to the opera last night, the Metropolitan Opera in Mill Valley. I wasn't actually, well, it was an alternative world. And I, it was, those people are good singers. And then afterwards, I was driving home, I turned the radio on, and there was a baseball game on. And I was quite surprised there was a baseball game on, because that baseball game started at four o'clock in the afternoon.

[17:33]

You know, here. And now it was like 9.30. So it was like five hours. Well, what happened is the baseball game got postponed for an hour and a half, and then it went to 11 innings. So I turned this on, and because it's in extra innings, that means that they're tied. Because as soon as it's not tied, well, I guess, anyway, it was tied. And so then there was a situation where this player from the San Francisco team came up to bat. And this player has not been hitting very well. He hasn't been hitting the ball very well recently. But anyway, he came to bat, and he had two strikes. You know, in baseball, there's three strikes, and you're out. You've heard of that? One, two, three strikes, you're out at the old ball game. He had two strikes, and he hasn't been batting very well. And during that game, he hadn't been batting very well. And by the way, there were two people on base.

[18:45]

And then he hit the ball, and it was like one of these balls that went real far, like way out of the stadium, called a home run. So then they had three runs all of a sudden. It was three before, and they just got three runs from this guy, and the announcer said, I saw that coming. Oh, by the way, before he hit the ball, he hit the ball kind of not very skillfully, and the ball ricocheted from the bat onto his knee, and he fell down and rolled around the ground for a little while. And since it was so late in the game, he had to finish his bat because there was nobody else left to play. They used the whole bench. They sent home the starters because they have an early game tomorrow, today. So this guy was all they had to bat. They couldn't get a substitute even though he was in a lot of pain.

[19:51]

So then he somehow stayed in the batter's box, and they threw another pitch to him, and he hit this home run. And the announcer said, maybe he was just faking it to make the pitcher feel like, well, this guy can't hit anything, I'll just throw him. We don't see it coming. It's given, but we don't see it coming. There is the possibility of freedom, always, and everything is completely given. We have to take care of both of those simultaneously, and that's a challenge, that's a problem, to balance those two. So we practice generosity, and then we practice ethics, which again is to be very careful of what's given. Don't get distracted from this thing that you've got to work on now, because this is what you're going to work on to make an alternative world, is what's given.

[20:57]

Not just let it in the door and say, okay, yes, but then after it's in, you've got to be there with it, look carefully. But not overbearingly, not controllingly, be right there with it, really accept it here, say thank you very much, and then be really close and careful with it, without controlling, without trying to control, and then be patient. Oh, look, somebody's eating berries off that plant out there. I wonder what kind of berries those are. Do you know what kind of berries those are out there? They're blackberries. Somebody's eating blackberries behind the yoga room. That was given to me, I didn't set this up, I didn't know, I didn't see this coming. So anyway, then you've got to be patient with the situation of developing freedom.

[22:04]

This is the process of freedom, by the way, what I'm talking about, but you still may be hungry, and the next practice is, so those are the practices, basically, of what we call trusting the situation. It's not like trusting like, I think things are going to work out really well. It's not that kind of trust. It's like, I think this is what I'm supposed to be working with. I think this is my husband. I think this is my wife. I think this is my mother. I think this is my son. I think so. I trust that. I'm going to work with this. Not, they're going to be nice. I don't know what they're going to be. It's more like, I trust that they're going to continue to be given to me. I'm going to keep receiving what's being given to me. I trust that I'm going to keep having things given to me. I trust that, and I trust that this is my job.

[23:07]

This is my job. In other words, back to, again, there's an obligation here, because this is my assignment. So I'm impelled to deal with this, and I'm going to start out by trying not to argue about it, and then accept this, and now I can start responding. Actually, accepting it is the beginning of my responding to what's given, and it's the beginning of my responding to the teaching that this is being given. And it's the beginning of the practice of responding by being generous, and again, ethical, and patient with the pain of this road, the pain of appearances. And the pain of how hard it is to learn this practice of compassion, and my present level of skill, to be patient with that, because that's also given.

[24:12]

And to be careful, and kind, and not controlling my level of skill, and other people's level of skill. And be patient, no matter how slow everybody is at learning, to be compassionate. Towards what? Towards what's being given. Towards our obligation, our assignment, our life. I'm going to say this, and you can tell me later whether it would have been better not to say it. There once was a movie called The Witches of Eastwick, and it was about these ladies who were witches, and I don't remember exactly, but they did some of their magic, and they created an alternative world in which a devil appeared, or the devil appeared. They created this appearance of a devil, and one of the things I remember the devil saying,

[25:14]

and of course the devil is played by Jack Nicholson, he said, the hand is dealt from above, down here we play the odds. He was a good card player. But, I don't know, it's hard to see that he was practicing compassion. So the alternative world-creating practice that I'm talking about is the practice that emerges from practicing compassion towards the given world. It's not the real world, it's just a given world. And the given world is the appearance of our life, the road. So we practice compassion towards the road, and then we're ready to practice relaxing.

[26:22]

So I'm saying trust, and the next practice is to relax. But in terms of the six bodhisattva practices, the relax is the beginning of concentration practice, of tranquility, of being focused. One of the qualities of concentration is to be focused, of course. Most people would think that, but it's a relaxed focus. It's an open focus. It's got to be open because we want to be open to the possibilities, the vast possibilities of what? Of what's being given here. We want to be open to the possibilities of creating alternative worlds which will help us be free of the given world. Well, we're already free, excuse me. We're already free of the given world. But when we create alternative worlds, we realize that we're free. We realize that we're not just a thing, not just determined.

[27:26]

And before we practice relaxation, it's really good to develop some enthusiasm for relaxing, to think about that actually it would be good to be relaxed, and alert, and calm. That actually would be good. To actually feel really enthusiastic about being really concentrated. Again, concentrated-focused-open-relaxed-flexible-alert-and-bright. Those are different. That fills in the picture of what I mean by concentration. And in that openness, there's a playfulness. With what? With the road. There isn't necessarily trying to destroy the road so we can get back to the river and satisfy our hunger.

[28:29]

Because as I was saying to somebody a little while ago, this hunger will not be satisfied because the hunger comes from the road. When you understand the road, it's not that you satisfy the hunger. There's no hunger. You're just in the river. You just realize the river again, which is always there. So it isn't that this is going to satisfy the hunger. It's going to liberate us from the hunger, even while the road and the hunger are still there. So these people I talked about last week that create this alternative world of Deadwood, South Dakota, when the show's over, they're still living in L.A. But they're a little bit free, or a lot free. And then they scurry back to create an alternative world the next day. So concentration is both relaxed and concentrated and focused.

[29:39]

It also starts to play with things. And as we start to play with things, then we open the door to creation. Not hurting the given world, but seeing that without moving it at all or changing it at all, a playful attitude starts to develop without meddling. You don't have to meddle with the thing, the hardness, that we actually like to get a hold of it. Not meddling, and yet developing a playfulness. And the playfulness will develop the ability to see creation, to participate in creation. And when we start participating in creation,

[30:42]

we understand the road. And when we understand the road, we become free of the road and have the life which is like the river. So now we have the life of freedom and peace again. Without breaking the bond with the road. As a matter of fact, we make new roads. We're making new roads now, alongside the roads which are given. And when those new worlds, at the moment, those new worlds manifest in creation, they're given too. But we understand that they certainly weren't determined because we participated in their undetermined creation and then their givenness and then so on. So, that's a starter for tonight.

[31:44]

Any response or questions about that? Yes. In the first class, you said that sometimes beings can't stand staying in the river. In the first class I said that sometimes beings can't stand to stay in the river. Right. I was wondering if you could expand on that a little bit. I didn't understand why the river was a place where someone realizes peace and freedom. Why it would be a place that you couldn't stand to stay. Well, one story, this story is coming to you on the road, right?

[32:52]

You're going to be able to... This story will appear to you now. And the story is that some of the beings who are living in the river or who are some living beings, some non-Buddha living beings, which are called sentient beings, they are addicted to certainty. Being addicted to certainty, they're uncomfortable with uncertainty. They're addicted to certainty. The Buddha said, you know, in the Buddha's first teaching, the Buddha said, there's two extremes which I have found a way to avoid. One is the addiction to sense pleasure and the other is the addiction to self-mortification. One is the addiction to self-concern and the other is the addiction to self-denial.

[33:55]

The Buddha said, I found a way to avoid those addictions. In the river, we're not addicted to self-concern or self-denial. In the river, there's self-concern and self-denial. It's in the river. But it's kind of not that clear where it is and where it isn't. I saw some self-concern but I wasn't sure whose it was. But anyway, I took good care of it. And now it seems it's time for self-denial, so we'll have a little self-denial. In other words, in the river, you deny your own welfare when it's appropriate and you take care of yourself when it's appropriate. You're not addicted to one side or the other or both. That's the way it is. People have trouble with that because they have become addicted to self-concern.

[34:55]

In order to live the addiction of self-concern, it really helps to be clear about which self is yours and which is not yours, which is other. And so sentient beings have this addiction or this habit of not tolerating ambiguity. Life is considerably ambiguous. Life is considerably ambiguous. There is unclarity. And sentient beings, non-Buddhas, and even great Bodhisattvas are still sentient beings, have trouble with uncertainty, with ambiguity. They like to get a hold of things. And when the mind that likes to get a hold of things runs into the river, it makes a beginning, a birth, and then a death. And now we're suffering but things are not quite as intensely ambiguous.

[35:58]

And now things are established. Now we've got a world. And now in that world we hear the teaching, this world is given. It's given by the mind of sentient beings. Without that mind there's not really a world. The world is more unformed, like a river. So most people can't stand the ambiguity of our actual wonderful life. So part of practice on the road is to learn road practices, appearances of how to work with appearances, stories of how to work with stories, like an appearance of generosity, an appearance of ethics, an appearance of patience, an appearance of concentration.

[37:00]

We use these appearances to address the appearances in such a way that we can develop the ability to stand ambiguity, of not knowing really clearly that others are not ourself. And also not knowing really clearly that others are ourself. Others are myself, yes, but that's sort of ambiguous. It's ambiguous, others are myself. And it's also an ambiguous, I am myself. And it's an ambiguous, others are not me. And it's an ambiguous, others are me. Everything's ambiguous, and one of the main things that becomes ambiguous is myself. It's kind of like, I approach myself through you. I develop that ability, and that's the way life in the river is. But most people do not have that training. So they have to train a long time to be able to stand exposure to the river.

[38:06]

But again, exposure to the river, the river is not out to eliminate the road. The river has no agenda to stop road building or reject sentient beings who can't stand it. Our life generously accepts our lack of generosity and generously accepts our generosity. Our life accepts our life. And if we can accept our life, then we won't be hungry anymore. We'll be free and at peace. So the river is difficult for us in that way. We're training to be able to, if it was offered to us, we could say yes, and yes, and yes. But both those worlds exist together. The world where, the world that you're born of

[39:12]

and the world you're born into, they exist together. Or rather, not so much those two different worlds, but being born of the world and being born into the world live together. Having all things come forward and then as everything comes forward, realize the birth of yourself and feel like you're here and you're going forward towards all things. Those two live together at the same time. One is called enlightenment and the other one is called delusion, but they're not separate. Each of us is in the middle of enlightenment and delusion. And in a way, don't take this seriously, this is the story, but in a way, enlightenments like

[40:16]

it's just given. It's just what's actually been given. And delusion is kind of like the fact that enlightenment is not determined. You don't have to be enlightened. Enlightenment is undetermined, even though it's completely given. So delusion is kind of like our freedom. And what could be better to be free from? What could be more important to be free from than enlightenment? I mean, being free of delusion is good, I know. That makes sense. But it's even better to be free of enlightenment. That's similar to your question, why would anybody want to not be in the river? But remember, I warned you, don't take what I just said seriously. Don't tell people

[41:20]

what I just said, okay? Even though you're going to put this on the internet. Any other responses to this, to these statements, to these appearances which I offered? Yes. I'm curious about the determinism, or what you said about determinism. What did I say about determinism? You didn't say anything about determinism, you said that things are not determined. Yeah. And I see it from my practice. I mean, you know, determined, like strict determined. Because I'm not saying there's no determining, I'm just saying things aren't completely determined.

[42:23]

In other words, there's freedom. Possible. Possible freedom. And I see that's useful from my practice, because otherwise if things were strictly determined, then whether I practice or not, or whether whatever I do is intended for I could not practice. You could practice, just that you'd have to. You would if you were determined to, and if you weren't, you wouldn't. And also it wouldn't make any difference whether you practiced or not. So that's why the Buddha, I don't think, did teach strict determinism, because it would make it would make, how would he call it, it would make misery and freedom or bondage and freedom, it wouldn't make any sense. There wouldn't be any addiction or freedom from addiction if things were determined.

[43:24]

Pardon? Say it louder, please. You said that there wouldn't be either of them. My idea is that there wouldn't be either of them. Or both of them. No, there wouldn't be any freedom if there was determinism. You just would have to be the way you are, and there would be no choice. You'd be given, and that would be the end of the story. You'd be given and determined. So you wouldn't be free. But also, you wouldn't even be bound. Because there'd be no alternative. So you wouldn't even be in bondage. I heard a story that the word freedom first appeared in Western culture among female slaves in Greece. The oppressive male population of Greece

[44:32]

didn't think about freedom. They just went around dominating people. They didn't feel oppressed and bound. The women thought of it. They thought, freedom sounds like a good idea. And also, one time, a friend of mine went to Poland to teach Zen. He said, usually you come off the airplane, you get off the plane, maybe there's somebody there to meet you when you get off the plane. If you come to a foreign country to teach, there's somebody to meet you and take you to the Zen center or whatever. And usually, sometimes, the person who is waiting for you will signal you by bowing to you. So you'd know which person among the crowd was there to meet you. The Buddhist signal. I'm here for you. See my palms joined? He said he came off the plane and he was trying to look for the person who was picking him up and everybody bowed to him.

[45:33]

Everybody in the airport was there to pick him up. Not everybody in Poland was there to pick him up, but everybody at the airport in Poland was there to greet him. It was like he was the Beatles or something. And then we were talking about why do you think the Polish people are so interested in Zen? And someone said, because they know they're in bondage. They know they're in prison. So they're really interested in liberation. So we, fortunately, know we're in bondage, so we're interested in liberation. And we accept that we're in bondage so we can be free. The people who don't accept they're in bondage, either they're not, namely they're Buddhas, or they're just not noticing

[46:37]

something. bring on the bondage if it wants to come. We will welcome it, because when there's that, then there's also freedom. If you take the bondage away, there's no freedom. There's no freedom. What do you have then? Yes? Love is bondage, willingly accepted by the free. Love is bondage, willingly accepted by the free. Yeah, right. Yeah. So the free, except there's one exception to that,

[47:44]

the Buddhas. But bodhisattvas willingly and knowingly enter into bondage out of love. Did you say willingly and lovingly? Or did you say willingly? Love is bondage. Did you say love? Love is bondage, willingly accepted by the free. Yeah, love is bondage, willingly accepted by the free. Or freedom is lovingly and willingly accepting bondage. That's a bodhisattva vow. I vow to enter the realm of bondage in order to help other beings be free. And if it takes a long time, I'm up for it. As long as they need. Hey, I'd just love to help them. So we're not rushing this. Bodhisattvas come into the realm of bondage

[48:47]

to play and to teach other people to play so we can create alternative worlds together. But again, not to destroy the bondage. Not until everybody was free and then they'll be different. But until then, we need the bondage to show people how to deal with it. People who are in bondage who don't even know about it, we need to have it. Somebody's in prison and you say to them, I'm having a hard time here in prison. What are you talking about? I just feel like I'm trapped here. You're not trapped, you live in America. We don't have bondage in America. I feel like I am. You're crazy. And then you walk away and the person says, why do they talk like that? Anything else tonight?

[49:58]

We have a lot of time. So, no rush to say anything. Yes, Marianne? Is your name Marianne still? Is your name Marianne? Okay, great. Is co-dependent origination the same as dependence? Well, yeah. But I don't know what you mean by dependence. I said yes, but do you mean something different from dependent co-arising when you say dependence? Sometimes

[51:08]

dependent co-arising is used in a technical sense which means showing the origin of birth and death from ignorance, karma, the arising of consciousness which creates the road, and then craving and clinging and then more birth and death. That rendition, that story of the birth of bondage and suffering, that's sometimes called dependent co-arising. Dependent co-arising in another way is just phrased as depending on this, this arises. In the absence of this, this ceases. That's the simple version of it. So depending on a mind that is untrained and has difficulty dealing with non-duality, for example, a mind which has difficulty

[52:10]

dealing with the intensities of intimacy and has a habit of trying to create separation as a technique of defense or in hopes that Saint Nicholas would soon be here, that habit is, depending on that habit, there arises a world of craving and clinging which then drives more of the same. That's what we're talking about here. Yes? Can you say more about the absence of freedom? Could I say something about addiction? Well, addiction, like I just said, I've enjoyed pointing out that caring for your own well-being,

[53:16]

the Buddha did not say don't care about yourself. Adjusting your posture to a more comfortable position, the Buddha didn't say don't do that. Eating when your blood sugar level is getting so low that you can barely spam anybody. The Buddha didn't say not to eat. As a matter of fact, it's clear that the Buddha ate before and after she was enlightened. The Buddha ate food. The Buddha took care of herself. But the Buddha wasn't addicted to eating. The Buddha wasn't addicted to taking care of herself. Of course, the Buddha was also taking care of everybody that she met. But she wasn't addicted to it. She could take care of herself instead sometimes. Go take a walk all by herself

[54:18]

and leave the students on their own for a while. Being addicted to taking care of others is one extreme. I like the term robotic altruism. It's an addiction. Some people are like robot helpers, helper robots. They can't stand the ambiguity of not helping people. Some people are very robotically self-centered. They're addicted to thinking about their own pleasure all the time. Rather than, well, that'd be nice, I think I'll do that. And then somebody says, let's not. And they say, why not? They say, because it wouldn't be helpful. And they say, okay. There's no craving. They just do what seems appropriate. In other words, they're not addicted. Addiction has the root, I think, of the word, you know, to be devoted. It's a kind of devotion that gets rigid.

[55:23]

So then, it obscures our relationship with playfulness and relaxation and creativity and understanding and freedom and peace. Is that enough? Almost? You're getting playful there. Be careful. Yeah, exactly. You're right. If you were addicted, I would encourage you to be addicted. Huh? Addicted. As she said, realize that your addiction is given. And also, don't forget the teaching. Even though you're addicted, you can still remember that although your addiction is completely given, it's being presented to you,

[56:28]

you should accept it. You are not determined. You can be free. But you're not going to be free if you don't accept your addiction. Everybody in the family thinks the person is addicted, but they don't. Other people are maybe pretty good at accepting it and being kind of free, but the person is not understanding how they're accepting her addiction as an opportunity for them to be creative and free. They're not joining the wonderful program of happiness because they won't admit they're addicted. The other people have admitted they're addicted, so they look like they're not. They look like they're not. They look free, but actually they're addicted. Not actually, just apparently, if you look carefully. But also, they're free. So you're right, that's what I would have said. Johan?

[57:30]

Sometimes we talk about a gaining idea. We do, yeah. And sometimes, I think, the gaining idea is always apparent. Things might be a lot easier, but lots of times we don't see the gaining idea. Do you relate the addiction to is that related to the gaining idea? Well, gaining idea when it's like a habit. But you can have a gaining idea if it's not a habit. You could think, I think if I go up the stairs it'll be a gain in altitude. You could think that. And then I could say, would you please not go up the stairs and help me with this for a little while? And you could say, okay. Do you think there's a relationship between addiction and gaining? People are generally speaking into gaining more of what they want. They often think of what they want as a gain rather than just what they want.

[58:31]

Then they add on to it that it's a gain. And they habitually do that. So that makes their desires kind of addictions rather than just desires. So, we say desire, craving, excessive desire. I desire, because it's given to me. I can't decide what I desire. It's just given to me. But I can work with it in such a way that there's no determination that the situation is undetermined. And we have a responsibility to take care of this desire, to relate to it in an ethical way. And there's our freedom. And gaining idea can pop up there, and we can relate to that

[59:32]

and find our freedom with gaining idea. But gaining idea kind of means habit. And we should do the same with habits. Yes? Yeah, the addiction is more basic than the craving. No, I don't think so. I think the same ethics relate to both. The addiction is more like not being willing to stand ambiguity. Addiction is more like trying to get a hold of things. Then once you get a hold of them, you've got a road, you're a success. And now you're hungry.

[60:34]

Because you just divorced yourself from your life by successfully getting a hold of your life. And now you're strangling it because of this addiction. So now you're really, really hungry. And then all kinds of stuff happens from there. But ethics should be practiced with everything. But the root thing is this clinging and this rejection of intimacy and rejection of non-separation, rejection of non-duality in our life. And we have this habit of being that way because we've done it in the past. We really need to accept that we have this habit. And if we can accept it, we can become free of it. And not try to destroy the road. Road destruction is as common as road building.

[61:38]

And road destruction is another type of road. It's another type of alienation and bond. Oh, tell me about the difference. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. More generous with the addiction than with the craving? You should be generous with both. Well, generosity is basically just welcoming what's being given. Ethics is getting into some discrimination about what it is

[62:41]

now that's been given and what's appropriate to do with it. And help us to be alert to either the addiction or the craving. Now we're going to look at it and be careful of it. So the thing we're being careful of is different, but the techniques of carefulness and conscientiousness and gentleness on those techniques are pretty much interchangeable with everything. Yes. At our first meeting of this series you asked us to look and see if we noticed a sense of obligation. Now that we're talking about habits I'm noticing there seems to be a little bit of a connection there. Things that I feel

[63:42]

obligated to do, I try to create a habit of doing. Feeding the cat or whatever. It's like you feel a responsibility and it seems helpful to train or create a habit around that. So that's mostly just an observation. Could you hear what he said? We're going to practice generosity. So we'd like to have the generosity be stable and consistent. We would like that. So I'm saying yes, we do want the generosity to be stable and consistent and widespread. We do want that. But really it's best if it's stable and widespread but not a habit. In other words, that it's connected

[64:42]

to concentration. That it's flexible. That it's open. We're not trying to turn the generosity thing on channel G and keep it there. We want it to be consistent. We want it to be all pervasive. We want everyone to join it. But we also understand that clinging to that is antithetical to it. Clinging to generosity is something to be generous towards. But generosity does not cling to generosity. Generosity gives generosity away. With the understanding that relinquishing generosity promotes it. So we don't really want to make a habit out of a good thing. We want to make habits out of bad things. We, being sentient

[65:48]

beings, want to make a habit out of separating themselves from non-duality. They want to do that because they've done it in the past. So they feel impelled to do that. But we also feel impelled to be ethical and to find freedom and peace. We feel that. Not being attached to these good practices is part of generosity. Generosity applied to ethics is to not There's a type of wrong view in early Buddhism and also is in the later practices which is called the wrong view of clinging to the conventional view of ethics. Which means clinging to your idea of ethics. Or clinging to your idea of being kind to your cat. That is

[66:50]

a wrong view about the practice of caring for the welfare of the cat. So how can we be devoted to the welfare of the cat and watch out for clinging to our idea of the welfare of the cat? That's the challenge there. How are you doing? It doesn't feel intuitive but it makes sense. But I still feel like it's a good habit to water the plants regularly and to put my seat belt on. I mean I think that's better than leaving it open. This teaching does say that there's good habits and bad habits. And the good habits are the ones that get us ready to give up all habits. So if you put the seat belt on

[67:50]

maybe you'll live a few more years and become even more enlightened than you are now. So please that's a good habit. Good habits mean habits conducive to freedom from habits. Bad habits are habits which interfere, which go against freedom. To be habitually listening to the teaching is generally a habit which is conducive to becoming free of habitually listening to the teaching. So you can listen to the teaching without it being a habit. But it may be that habitually listening to it has been a condition for a lot of people to become able to listen to it unhabitually. So for example, it's helpful to habitually put your seat belt on until the point where you are able to be continuously present enough

[68:53]

to not have to do it habitually. Right. Every time you get in the car think about it and be conscious of doing it. And until then it's better to do it even if it's unconsciously. You mean better than not doing it? Yeah. I think so. One of the things about the things that are conducive to enlightenment is they usually require attention. So that's part of it. You're developing attention by developing skills. So most skills come by practicing attention. Again, when I was looking at those musicians who were playing at the opera last night, they've got their seat, their music there, and these people can read that music. These are highly trained human beings. They can read that music and play. And I was watching this woman

[69:54]

play the harp and she really can pay attention. And that kind of attention is conducive to liberation. Attention, attention, [...] and then suddenly you're actually playing the harp. You know? And it's not a habit. Even though you learned this piece kind of habitually, but now at a certain point you've gone beyond the habit and now you're really in concentration and there's no separation between the harpist and the harp. You know about that. So I would try not to put my seatbelt on habitually. Try to be really attentive. And if you get super attentive to putting your seatbelt on, it will be done by

[70:54]

the river. C'est-ce? C'est-ce? Did you have your hand raised? Yes, I did. Just an observation that you've been defining freedom in relationship to bondage tonight. And I'm having a little trouble because at the same time I'm also in the area of the fear of ambiguity, exposure to the river, resistance to non-duality. So in the set-up tonight, I feel a little bit like I'm between a rock and a harpist. Between the hunger of the road and the clinging there and the fear of the river on the other side. In this kind of set-up. So, excuse me, you've got the fear of the river and then what else do you have? Clinging to the road. The bondage of the road. You've got the bondage of the road and the fear of the river.

[71:55]

I'm feeling like I'm between a rock and a harpist. Okay, you're feeling that way. So you've got three things. You've got the fear of the road, rock in a hard place, and clinging to the road. Fear of the river, clinging to the road, and bondage to the road. Rock in a hard place. Those are all the road. Yes. Yes. But one of the stories you told, I think at the beginning, and I don't know if this was intentional, you said that in the Buddha world, freedom is peace. Yeah. And then you used them separately after that. But I found that an attractive story because it sort of dealt with my fear of the river, in a sense. Being at peace with ambiguity. Yeah.

[72:56]

At peace with ambiguity. And that feels different from bondage. Just different from bondage all the time. There's some quality there. What feels different from bondage? Peace? Peace. Peace feels different from bondage. But aspiring toward peace, not simply escaping bondage. Yeah. Again, I said, and I'll say it again, real peace-freedom does not sever the bond with the world of bondage. It doesn't separate from bondage. If it separates from bondage, it's not real freedom. Like Sharon was saying, it's a love that's at peace with bondage. It's a love that's free with bondage. That's real freedom.

[74:03]

No separation between freedom and bondage is freedom. Not tampering with bondage. Not tampering with fear. Totally welcoming it. And understanding what it is. Because you can play with it and be creative with it. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you everybody. Good night.

[74:30]

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