How are you feeling today? All right? Rotten? One person feels rotten. Anybody else feel rotten? Only one person? What? One numb one. He's 71 years old and he's still running around with the kids. I'm wearing my beard. Welcome to this room.

[01:13]

Today I really feel like I don't want to bother you. But maybe, is there something you want me to bother you about? Fear? What about it? Do you know of any purpose, any useful way that it might have? Any usefulness in fear? Does anybody know any use for fear? Get your blood going.

[02:33]

Get your blood going? The word child hears the fire. Once burned, twice shy. I think it's a good indicator to let you know what we need to work on in mind. Thank you, Danger. OK. Amen. We were talking the other day about lack of fear, how lack of fear could also protect you from dangers.

[04:15]

If you don't fear some situation, then it won't bring the situation along sometimes. And it's got into a discussion of special powers or Samurai Zen, as you were talking about the other day, and how that kind of fearlessness And that kind of personal power fits into our practice. Someone went to Tatsahara recently, terribly afraid of rattlesnakes. And in talking with some of the people who lived down there and And they had to pal around with them, catch 12 of them. Some of them told him, you just have to have higher glides to be an adult. Also, they said they put a white man and an Indian going through around the country, and one of them gets bit, the world's biggest white man.

[05:21]

Indian treats the snake as if it's a drug. So the white men get bit first? Two people, one gets bit, probably beat the white man. All other things being equal. Well, that's... Someone raised... Yes, Julie? Here is a call to... Fear is a call to adjust. So it's a kind of alarm? Signal? It's a call. Yes?

[06:26]

I was really interested in the idea of no-relax fear, developing kind of sensing, where you can readjust without thinking. I mean, resensing other than the world. Can you say that again? Could you hear her? Sensing in developing sensitivity, opening to a point where you Things are safe. You know how to move without having fear. They just sense. You're able to sense another way. Besides fear. You're open. How are you feeling now?

[07:57]

I'm feeling a little uncomfortable because I think you want me to tell you something. Is anything like that going on, or is that...? So... Great talk. You're afraid to talk? Yeah. Well, it's not set up very well for you to talk. So if we really wanted a discussion, we probably should have rearranged the chairs. I don't mean to make things difficult, but... That's what I find them to be. I have the difficulty of not wanting to give you something, but tell you about some teachings which you reach out for and take to yourself.

[09:02]

And that's the first thing that moves me today is that that you're here, of course, to discuss and listen to the Dharma, but also you're here because you already have the Dharma. You're here to share awakening with other people who want to share awakening because you already have awakening. So I don't want to tamper with your awakened state by telling you something which will disturb you in any way. So I ask you, do you feel your awakeness now?

[10:03]

Do we feel what we feel? Yeah. And do you feel what you feel? And is there anything lacking in that? And if there is something lacking in that, then I would say that's what it's like to feel awakening. When the truth fills your body and mind completely, you feel something's lacking. So do you feel something lacking? Yeah? Can you feel that? Something lacking? I feel something lacking. I think it looks like some of you feel something lacking.

[11:21]

But every time you try to fill that lack, it has to be filled. That's one reason why we come here. Yeah, but you can fill that lacking. But when you fill that lacking, then the truth doesn't fill you anymore. When you feel that lacking, you become possessed by a demon. What? Well, maybe English is not so good. Not that you feel something is lacking, but you feel a lack. You feel that there should be more. That's what I mean. You feel something like that. Can you feel something like that? Really, there's nothing lacking, but you feel that way. How do you mean there's nothing lacking? I mean that when you feel something, when truth fills your body and mind, when that situation is nothing lacking, that's truth.

[12:42]

That's reality of our human situation. And when you actually are fully human and nothing's lacking in your humanness, when you feel some little... something a little bit off, you feel that. You feel some contradiction in your life, or you feel some contradiction in living. This contradiction can be phrased in many ways. One way to say it is you're perfect and because you're perfect you practice. But why do we have to do anything if we're perfect? Why do we have to practice generosity and

[13:48]

ethical conduct and patience and so on. Why do we have to do that? Well, we have to do it because we're awake. Awake people do that. But there's some contradiction in there somehow. Why do we come here? We come here because we're awake. Why do we come here to hear about the teaching? We come here to hear about the teaching because we have the teaching already. Why do we practice the precepts? We practice the precepts because we already have the precepts. Why do we practice mindfulness? We practice mindfulness because we are already mindful. And so on. Why do we take a bath?

[14:59]

We take a bath because we're clean. Now, of course, you can take bath because you think you're dirty and you can practice precepts because you think you're unethical. And you can practice concentration because you think you're distracted and you can practice generosity because you think you're greedy and miserly. And you can practice patience because you think you're impatient and angry. You can do all the things that way too, but I don't want to talk to you that way, because I don't feel right about it. And yet if I don't talk to you that way, something's missing. This is a congregation of Buddhas. That's why we're here. And because it's a congregation of Buddhas, something's missing.

[16:02]

And because something's missing, as a human being, I want to soothe that feeling of missing. I want to put something, fill that gap. If I don't get it, I feel the uneasiness. But if I feel it, I can't feel it because you're Buddhas to me. I don't want to fill you. You're already full, full of truth. Which means you feel something's a little bit off. You feel some suffering here in this world. And this suffering is the basis of your compassion for each other. And I hope for me. Could it be that the sense of lacking could be a sense of room beside that each one of us would grow?

[17:05]

Yeah, it could be that. I think it all came down to the experience. Yes, that's right. It has to do with expectation. We didn't come into this world because we wanted lack. Expectation of what?

[18:09]

It's not expectation of what, that's the problem. If it was expectation of what, that's what a Buddha is. That's what I think I feel in myself and in you. An expectation of what? That's a little bit uncomfortable. But that's just, that's right on. That's on the mark. Expectation of what? Or living with what? Everything that we've got is a reasonable facsimile of that what? You don't know what it is. We want this and we want that. You said it's a reasonable facsimile? We have, quote, gotten to fill that lack. No, I know what you mean.

[19:09]

I'm just picking with the word facsimile. It's similar? Is it similar? I suppose it should be similar rather than being just right. It's nothing quite make it. That's right. But I've got to be careful now not to get seasick. Are you feeling steady? Anything wiggly? I feel it's important to go into motion.

[22:45]

Did you say you feel steady, supported, but in motion? Yeah. Where did the feeling come from? All around? Who does? There are sources letting this film in.

[24:27]

No. Is there a source of studying this from within? It feels so cold.

[25:47]

Support from the outside. Steadiness from the inside. Emotion for both. There's a practice which I wanted to talk about today called patience. And one of the ways to practice it is to start with small irritations. like insects crawling on you or heat or cold.

[27:16]

or the discomfort that we feel right now. You feel that patience is related to generosity?

[29:31]

How so? First you feel uncomfortable, then what? You feel uncomfortable and then you want to accept the situation and then that has to do... We want to accept what is going on in the sky while we're living in a version of the world. And so one of my objectives is watching the general images. So what's going on?

[31:33]

Why are all the people leaving? I've never had so many people walk out before. Patience is a lack of expectation. Patience is a lack of expectation. Or maybe it's transcending our expectations. Maybe it's being able to settle down with the frustrations of our expectations. It's basically, patience is basically addressed to frustration. And I didn't mean to, I really didn't mean to drive all those people out of here.

[32:39]

I didn't, no, I felt, I felt bad when, to see them uncomfortable and leave. And I feel uncomfortable, I feel bad that I'm uncomfortable too. It's uncomfortable to be uncomfortable. I only saw one person leave when you two leave. What? I only saw one person leave. Well, the people in the back are the ones that are leaving. The one, that person, that person that left here came back. He's sitting in the back now. He went to get his glasses, I think. What did you leave for, Oswaldo? But someone did read the meditation in that state of mind. He came out and said, rather... You mean he left the meditation yesterday? Or this morning's meditation?

[33:40]

And he said, all the places are taken. Everyone, all the time positions were answered. And the people on the floor too. I said, do you even sit in a chair? No. Did he expect it to sit on the floor? No. Anyway, I want to say again, I most sincerely restrain myself from talking about Buddhism to you. And by restraining myself from talking about it and not telling you about it, I threw all of us right in the middle of it. And so people walk out because it's so painful. to be where Buddhism actually grows. Where does Buddhism grow? It grows in the midst of frustration. Where do you practice patience? On a beautiful Sunday morning at Green Gulch when somebody is entertaining you? No, you don't practice patience then.

[34:42]

You practice patience on a beautiful Sunday morning when somebody is not entertaining you. And I do too. I practice patience with my discomfort when I'm not entertaining you. It's hard for me not to entertain you, very hard. But if I met a great Buddha, do you think I'd go and dance around in front of him and entertain him? Here's some good jokes for you, Buddha. No, I think I'd shut up, and I think I would just sit and enjoy the discomfort. It's not so comfortable to sit in front of a Buddha. Because Buddha's not sitting in the middle of comfort either. Buddha's sitting in the middle of the ocean of suffering beings. That's where Buddha sits. Buddha's uncomfortable too. And Buddha feels frustration too. You feel frustration. You're Buddha. But I also understand I want to get out of here too. Not so much now because now I'm being more entertaining.

[35:45]

It's not so painful now. Laughing's okay. It releases the suffering temporarily. Fine, I have no problem. Okay, take a break. But in fact, I never saw so many people leave from one of my lectures, and I wasn't, you know, what was I doing? I don't know. I was not distracting anybody, or I wasn't distracting you and me from our basic frustration. Maybe I was even causing some frustration. I don't know. I didn't mean to. But you just had a sample, a nice little sample of where you practice patience. It wasn't a tremendously painful situation. Just a minor irritation of basically coming for a lecture and not getting one. It's not so bad.

[36:49]

But it's sort of irritating, especially if it maybe came all the way from Oakland. You know? It can be irritating to be entertained when you don't want to be entertained. Yeah, that can be irritating too. I mean, just being entertained does not mean I'm going to distract everybody from reality. But, in fact, It was just that little bit of discomfort that we had there for a few minutes. It was hard for me to practice to make myself comfortable with that minor irritation. Now if I sit there long enough, I believe that eventually, through familiarity with that discomfort, I'll be able to settle into it and stay there in that situation. just living with those little discomforts, gradually you become more and more at ease with them. To honor, to honor that discomfort.

[37:59]

Again, if we don't honor our little discomforts, we become the slaves of them. And little tiny discomforts can drive us all over the place. if we don't respect them and recognize them. Or even small fears, if you give in to fears, you can be made to do anything. So like up in the house I'm staying in, Green Gulch, there's ants now. Little tiny ones, really small. And they're all over the place. They're kind of irritating, those little ants. It's hard even to put up with that irritation and not kill them.

[39:06]

They're so small, it's almost like, it's almost like who would care, really? I mean, you know, who would care if I just kind of sweep them over there towards the sink? But they're so little that just sweeping them will kill them or probably hurt them anyway. And also so small that you can't sweep them with a brush because, you know, they're so tiny that brush hairs won't get them. You have to sweep them with a cloth, which, you know... So what do you do? Leave them there? It's a problem. It's a tiny, tiny problem. But can I even live with that one? If I can't live with those, how am I going to live with all the big ones? Well, not much chance.

[40:12]

So I tried honey to attract them. I mean, I tried sugar. They don't like sugar, but they do like honey. So now there's a kind of diversionary attempt to get them to follow the honey out the window and set up a honey station outside and gradually move them someplace else, but they'll probably come back. Yeah, and then if I stop giving honey, they'll be upset. And I'll feel obligated, right? Kind of set up an expectation. So how do you live with the irritation without becoming a part of the mistake that you've had for it?

[41:32]

How do you live with the irritation? Well, as I say, number one is, I guess, honor it. Honor it means recognize it. Number two, try to find out what What is irritating about it? For example, can you think of an example? Rush hour traffic. Rush hour traffic. Yeah, how can you deal with that one? Huh? Well, what's irritating about being in rush hour traffic? What's the irritating part about it? Yeah, what's irritating about stop and start? Huh? I missed a joke. What was it? What's irritating about stop and starting is stopping. Can you find out what's irritating?

[42:46]

What is it that's irritating about that stop and start driving? There's many things, aren't there? Being late. Being late could be one of them. Breathing exhaust fumes. Control outside yourself. Control outside yourself. You mean you're not in control? Is that what you mean? Yeah. It's a ridiculous situation to be in. You feel like a fool? You feel like an ant? And also this thing of waiting, and you have to stay alert too. You have to be more alert if you're in stop and go driving than in more open traffic, right? Open traffic, you can't even enjoy the record, the music very well when you have to stop and start. to be so alert. And your car might be, it's probably not too good for your car, right?

[43:51]

Your car may be overheating, and you don't want your car to overheat. Many, many sources of irritation. So then what do you do with them? Well, recognize them, and again, boy, this is a tough one, isn't it? Just imagine. Sometimes when I'm in, I don't very often get in traffic jams, actually. I don't have a job where I have to go with the traffic. I'm usually going the opposite direction. And just the other day, I was driving out to Marin County. As you know, they have the bridge so that the people who are leaving San Francisco in the afternoon actually often have easier time than the people who are coming in. Have you noticed that? Because they widen the... the lanes for the people going out and narrow the lanes for the people coming in. So sometimes the people going out, the traffic jam people, are not in the traffic jam.

[44:52]

The people who are peaceably just happen to be coming to San Francisco are squished into these two little boats. Like this. This sounds like bragging, but anyway, I looked at the people over on the other, on the squished two little lanes, and the first thing I thought of was, I just felt sorry for them. First of all, it seemed like they could have gotten at least one more lane for them. But anyway, I felt sorry for them being squished like that. But... Those people who were squished over there, how many of them felt sorry for us over in the fast lanes?

[45:55]

It's hard over there. You feel compassion maybe for the people who are squashed, but at that time you have trouble practicing patience because you feel, geez, I'm having an easy time here. Now you may think, well, so what if you can't practice patience? That's okay. You don't have anything to practice patience with. Well, I'm suggesting that that's not really, that's not so good because actually you need to be, now I'm telling you something, you need to practice patience. We need to practice patience. That's the hard part of this, is that Buddha is practicing patience. Buddha is not in an open lane. Buddha's not over on the easy side of the road. Why? Because Buddha's practicing patience, and it's very difficult to practice patience in the open lanes.

[47:00]

Now, if there's some other way, like if, I don't know, if everybody in the open lane suddenly, you know, some kind of, if we had this little machine, this very helpful, like we could have this, these strange things going through my head. If we had this kind of like, I don't know, Buddha Central, right? in downtown San Francisco, you know, and we'd look over the city and we'd say, oh, look at all those people in the free lane. Okay, now we have this little device that will ruin all their radios. So we just turn this little beam on and suddenly all the people's radios who are in the free lane, their radios go wacko for a little while to give them a chance to practice patience too, like the people in the, in the, what do you call it, Lane? The tight lane. Why not just eliminate the suffering?

[48:04]

Well, please. Well, again, the people in the free lane may not be practicing patience, but it's not because they're not suffering, it's because they don't notice it, because they're cruising down the road, and things are going pretty much what they expect, so they don't notice that they're suffering. Actually, they're suffering just as much as the people in the other lane, it's just a different type. What's the difference in the type between the lane, the free lane, and the traffic jam lane? What's the difference? Conscious and unconscious. The people in the tight lane are aware of suffering and therefore have to practice patience or they're going to get in trouble. They're going to get angry or something like that if they don't practice patience. After a few minutes, a few hours, eventually, if they don't practice patience, they're going to boil over. And when they boil over, they're going to start hating the people over on the other lane who are free and so on. Buddha is practicing patience.

[49:09]

In the mind of a wise person, a wise person is also practicing patience. Wise people see that life is frustrating, and they practice patience with that. Even when they're having a pleasant time, even when they're comfortable, even when they're eating ice cream cone, they feel suffering. Why do they feel suffering? Because they're awakened. Why did you feel suffering this morning? Why did you feel frustrated with what's happening here? Because you're awake. And when you can't feel suffering, you're just temporarily not noticing reality. But when you're in the traffic jam, you see reality. And then the problem is how do you practice patience? with that situation. And again, I start off by saying, I don't very often get caught in traffic jams.

[50:15]

And oftentimes when I'm in traffic jams, I think, boy, I don't have to do this very often. But as a result, I'm not too good at practicing patience in traffic jams. I'm not too good at it. Why aren't I good at it? Because I'm not familiar with that particular form of frustration. It seems to me that the suffering in the traffic jam, though, comes from being out of tune with the situation. Sometimes I find myself there, and I really hate the fact I'm there. I'd like to tune in and maybe get back a couple lengths, the cars, and just sort of accept that I know I'm suffering, but I'm still in the traffic jam. Well, what you just suggested is a kind of patience practice. That's good. I wonder how much obligation there is to reach out to other suffering. I mean, suppose you're awake, and you feel as though you've lived through a certain amount of trial, and there's patients that are in front of you on the lift. How much obligation is there to acknowledge someone else, or I get to announce you in the open lane?

[51:20]

Did you switch over to the chronic lane to experience the worthwhile of holding? Well, I think that would be kind of like what we call self-mortification. I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I don't advise that at all. You know, so you're going over the Golden Gate Bridge, you're going with the open lanes, you could turn, go get off of self so you don't get back. I don't advise that. I think that's too much. She said, what about a seven-day sesshin? You know what sesshin is? Sometimes we have these intensive meditation sessions where we sit most of the day with, you know, in periods of 40 minutes or so, with breaks for seven days, almost all day. And she said, that's an example of self-mortification. Well, I'm sorry about that, but...

[52:22]

That's not the point of it, but it may get to be that way sometimes. No, anyway, I wouldn't look for difficult situations to get myself into. I guess what I'm asking is, what kind of force do you gravitate towards if you want the child to continue to grow? Not just to maintain his weakness, but to enhance it. And I think you said something about... Well, don't you have enough already? Enough suffering? Yeah. That's all. You've got enough. Everybody's got enough already. You don't have to get any more. But we do have to honor it. Whatever amount you have, this much or this much, I don't care. The point is, in little ones, the problem of a little tiny bit of suffering is that we think we don't have to deal with it. We often think, oh, that's a small one, so it's no problem.

[53:27]

Take an aspirin or kill the ants. Now the big ones, we oftentimes, people are pretty good with the big ones sometimes. They get cancer, they say, okay, I've got a problem now. Now I've got to practice patience, which is fine. Whenever you start practicing it, it's great. The problem is we're not too good at the big ones sometimes because we don't practice with the little ones. So all the time there's some little frustrations. And those little frustrations are the basis for our full development as awakened beings. And we all have enough. All you have to do is wake up to it. It's right there. Now, wait a minute. If I'm walking down the road, and say I step on a nail, and I still need to have a friend to help me sit, would you ever depend on walking then? Are you certain that Maybe I could just leave the nail in the air and not deal with it, just in an exemplary way.

[54:34]

I'll just leave the nail in my foot and continue on my journey. But I have patience for that. Am I suggesting that, folks? No. That's right. Yes? I'm really practicing patience with this guy, let me tell you. What is impatience? What is impatience? What is it? No, what is impatience? What is impatience? Impatience is not frustration. What is impatience? No, discomfort is not impatience.

[55:35]

Irritation is not impatience. Irritation, discomfort, whatever the other one was, or frustration, all those things are the basis for the practice of patience. You cannot practice patience without those things. They are the food of patience. What is impatience? What's another word for impatience? It's a very familiar word. Anger. Impatience is anger. Anger is not good. Impatience is anger. Irritation, frustration, and so on, those are not something that you have to make. You don't have to practice those. They're already there. You've got enough of it.

[56:37]

If you don't have enough of it, well, anybody who doesn't have enough of it, it's easy to get more, but I think you all have enough, yes? No, I mean familiar in the sense that... I don't mean familiar like that old one again. I mean familiar in the sense that you work with it. You're familiar. You're very skillful with that is what I mean by familiar. Because in fact... An old frustration is sometimes even more annoying if it just happens again and again. Matter of fact, if it happens once, it doesn't bother you. It happens twice, but if it happens 50 times, pretty soon you can't stand it anymore. But if each time it happens, you get in there and honor it and work with it, then you can deal with it very nicely. That's what I mean by familiarize yourself means get in there and work with it.

[57:39]

Find a way to make yourself at ease with the discomfort. This is what I mean by patience. And then you can move forward and change it? You don't have to change it then. You're okay. So if you get a nail in your foot, nothing wrong with pulling the nail out. That's not going to defamiliarize yourself with the pain of the thing. That's perfectly fine. As a matter of fact, it might hurt more if you pull it out. But you should pull nails out of your feet and then probably get a tetanus shot if you haven't had one recently. Yes? Yes? Yeah, now that's, it does seem that way, I agree. But I disagree. Okay? I have seen people do that one. She said, sometimes you see a situation, I know a person who saw a situation where And not just a person, but saw a situation that he or she feels is not a good situation.

[58:47]

And then wanted to address the situation, but felt that he couldn't address it unless he got angry because he felt like unless he got angry, he would lose his determination to correct the situation. So he got angry. in order to sort of sustain his drive to correct the situation. Okay? That's using anger in a kind of instrumental way, which, again, I think we think that way. But he very much hurt himself and made himself very ineffective. Now certainly if I'm irritated, if I'm in a traffic jam, for example, and I'm irritated, if I start slugging myself in the head, that's not going to help much, right? That's pretty easy to see. Or if I start slugging my wife, that's not going to help. Or if I slug the dashboard, or if I start yelling at other people, all that's not going to help. It's going to make me more miserable.

[59:50]

That's easy to see. But what if I see some injustice in the world? Then will anger help? And I'm suggesting no, that I can be more effective in helping the situation if rather than practice anger at the situation, I practice patience with myself, with my own irritation. Because that patience is the ground for my awakening to what's going on. And I trust that the awakening will help me address the situation well. But in fact, this person totally, totally, he drove himself nuts. He totally wiped himself out. He was a very good person. But he got so angry at this thing that he sort of took away all his goodness. And he was willing, in a way, to sacrifice himself to fix that thing. But he really did sacrifice himself and became the most ineffective person in the situation. It's kind of like I got the image of him like... Oh, like sometimes you maybe bake bread in...

[60:57]

in some kind of container, like some people bake bread in coffee cans. But if you bake bread inside of a vase that goes like this, you won't be able to get the bread out. I have to teach my daughter, she likes to make popsicles. And she puts the grape juice or something into containers that go like this. And so, of course, the containers break. So I have to teach her that put them in containers that are vertical, or if better, they go like this. Because even vertical containers sometimes will break when it freezes. As it expands, it's got to have someplace to go. So it's better to put it in containers that go like this. put it in glasses like this rather than glasses like this. Angers like that, it will burst the container of your life.

[62:01]

It will hurt you and hurt other people. So this person very much felt like I have to keep angry in order to keep making this point, but actually he just undermined himself more and more and got very sick. And he would have been much more effective if he could have been patient. Because he had a very good point, he was a very good point, but he flipped over into anger and completely wiped himself out. An enlightened person can be effective to help people, but enlightened people, by definition, are those people which are grown out of the practice of patience, among other things. Generosity, ethical conduct, patience, Energetic effort concentration and insight this is what makes an enlightened person if you take away the patience you don't have an enlightened person Buddha is Buddha is not angry at people Buddha is not angry at himself, but Buddha is irritated Buddha is uncomfortable because we're uncomfortable and

[63:11]

And you don't have to go looking for discomfort. We've got enough. Don't you think? I never met anybody who didn't have enough. Never. But I've met people who say, I don't have any. And I've met people who say, I don't have much, and I have less than I used to, and I hope that my children have none. To wish that people would be happy is not the same as to wish that people don't have any irritation. To wish that people would be free of obstruction is not the same as wishing that they have no obstruction. Buddhists are free of obstruction, are free of hindrance, are free of irritation, and are free of suffering. That's the whole point of Buddhism, is to become free of suffering. But the way you become free of suffering is, among other things, through the practice of patience. And you practice patience with irritation and frustration. I'm sorry.

[64:25]

I really talked much too long, and I'm really sorry. You're stated in between. Yeah.

[64:30]

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