So those are definitive definitions of karma. And someone said to me, a wish or a desire isn't necessarily the same as a will. And so a will could include a variety of wishes or desires, and they could be conflicting also. You could have conflicting desires at a given moment. And so the resolution or the totality of all your desires, some of which would be conflicting, would be a will that was conflicted, or would be an action that would involve conflict or you might say, irresolution, or ambivalence, or confusion.

[01:02]

Some wills are relatively not confused. Some wills are quite confused. Like, you know, a will that someone has at the end of their life to take care of their property or other things, some of them are quite confused. But still it's the will. And people... You'll listen to that will. And some wills are really not very confused at all, very straightforward and clear. And all wills have consequence. But if the will is confused, it's kind of hard to see what the consequence might be. If you have, I'd like to help you, but I can't, is not so clear as, I'd like to help you, period.

[02:10]

Or, I'd like to help you and I don't want to help you. That's also kind of, what does that mean? But people feel that way. I mean, they see things like that sometimes. And so it's not really clear that that's really wholesome or unwholesome, that attitude. Doesn't sound terribly wholesome, doesn't sound terribly unwholesome. Kind of... You say, well, I think maybe I would sort of say, I think it's kind of unwholesome, that kind of confusion. I would say that level of confusion is kind of unwholesome, kind of unfortunate. You're not trying to do something bad, but your confusion is strong enough so that I feel it's pretty hard to be skillful with all that confusion. Sometimes you can be confused and still feel like, I'm confused, but I still feel pretty clear that I want to do this. So I feel confused, but I'm clear. So these kinds of things are also possible. I'm clear that I'm confused. Yeah. So there's some clarity about this confusion.

[03:20]

And so even though I'm confused, I'm clear that I'm confused, and also I'm clear that I want to do something, even though I have this kind of confusion around it. So, again, that sounds a little clearer. But the most important thing is not whether you're clear or unclear, to me. It's important. If you're clear, that's important. If you're unclear, that's important. But the most important thing is to look at how you are. Being aware of how you are is more important than how you are. To me. You can be in bad shape, but if you're aware of it, you're on the path of practice. You can be unskillful, but if you're aware of it, you're on the path of practice. You can be skillful, and not be aware of it, and I'm happy that you're skillful in that case, but if you're not aware of it, the practice is not happening at that time. Any comments on that, or questions about that?

[04:36]

Yes? Please, please, up here. So as far as being with other people, I think it does sort of make a difference in my intention, people I spend time with, etc.? Yes. Our intention is affected by who we spend time with. So if there's someone who seems to be confused quite often and not aware they're confused, but yet if I say, they seem to always be confused. If you think that, first of all? Mm-hmm. I'm surprised that... Colder, of course, you're not muted. Okay. Now I can hear, but they can't hear. So you see someone, and you think to yourself, they seem to be confused.

[05:43]

Yeah. So that's your action. I just did an action... of thinking this person is confused. That's what I think about this person. Okay? Any new example? And I feel if I hold to that, then I'm stuck. Correct. Right. But even if you don't hold to it, there still would be some consequence of it. I think they're confused. If you think somebody's confused, there still might be some consequence just thinking that. But if you observe, oh, I think they're confused, you have a chance to realize, even though there's consequences if I think they're confused, that will have consequence, that thought, that thinking. But if you're aware, oh, this is what I think of the person, you have the chance then to realize or first of all, to entertain the possibility that this person who you think is confused is not what you think of them.

[06:51]

Right. And then you have a chance of realizing that they're not what you think of them. And they're not what I think of them. It's sort of like the tip of the iceberg thing, but maybe I'm seeing confusion That's not really who they are. It's a little bit like the tip of the iceberg, but it's more like a maraschino cherry put on top of the tip of the iceberg. It's not really the tip of the iceberg. Or you could say it's the tip of the iceberg, but you then do something to the tip of the iceberg called thinking about it. So what you think of a person as not even the tip of the iceberg When you see somebody, you may see a tip of the iceberg of the person. You just see a little bit of them. But then you make a little story about the tip of the iceberg.

[07:53]

So it's not really the tip of the iceberg. It's not a story. It's your story about the tip of the iceberg. That's a difficult situation that we're in, of dealing with stories about icebergs, not really cutting ourselves off from the actual iceberg. However, we are in relationship with the iceberg, which is part of the reason why we have a story of the iceberg. It's the way we deal with icebergs, is to make stories about them. Now, by studying the story of this person's confused, you will gradually not be caught by that story. By studying the story, you will become free of the story. If you don't study the story, you will be caught by it. I mean, you will feel as though you're caught. And you may not even be aware you have the story, but still you'll be caught by it.

[08:56]

But the person that you think is confused... And it's not that the person isn't confused either, because that's another story. So you can just as well say, yeah, the person's confused, but they're not confused the way I think they're confused. The person may say, yeah, I am confused, you're right. But the way I'm confused isn't the way you think I'm confused. I'm confused in a much more interesting way than you think I am. I mean, I'm a real person, not somebody's thought. But in a sense, you're right when you think I'm confused, except that you're right that I'm confused, but you're not right to think that I'm what you think of me. And you're also not what you think of you. Also, I'm not what I think of me, correct. And whatever you think of me, even if you're not caught by it, still will have consequence for you and me. and the work.

[10:01]

And it has a particularly powerful impact on the next person that arises based on this person. So your karma is more intensely connected, in a way, to the future karma. of the person we call Amy, which is a new person called Amy, has a stronger connection than my karma does to your karma. My own karma has more of an effect on the future me than your karma. Not so much the future you, but the future karmas of this person who depends on the last person than my karma, than my thinking. Your thinking is more influential on your future thinking than my thinking is on your future thinking. Because my thinking doesn't get to you except to what you think is my thinking. So then my thinking gets translated into your thinking, and your thinking gets translated into your thinking.

[11:08]

All that is very powerful for your future thinking. However, my thinking leads me to say things to you, and my words can influence your thinking a lot. But still, it's your thinking that my words are influencing. I say, Amy, you're a good student, and then you think about what I just said to you. So my words are processed through your thinking about what I said, and that has a big impact. But I do contribute to what you think. Everybody builds what they think. about themselves based on what I say about them and based on what other people say about them. We build our stories about ourselves, but it's the stories that are particularly important to look at, because you can look at your story about what I said to you, but you can't actually look at what I said to you, because you put it into stories. So when you look at your stories, you're looking at the place where you can actually see what's going on with you.

[12:09]

That's the pivotal evolutionary point. But still I know that if I say certain things to you, that will influence the story makings in such a way, I hope, that will make you look at the story. I don't particularly want to influence your story, although I do, except in the sense I want to influence your story to make the story attractive to look at. I want to make you interested in looking at your stories, not particularly telling. a story that you're a good student or a bad student or you're a Buddhist or a Catholic. I don't care about that so much, actually. I just care that you're looking at it. So a person who has a really bad story about themselves, who's meditating on it, I feel like, great. A person who's got a good story about themselves, which I'd love to hear, but who isn't paying attention to it, I say, uh-oh, I've got to get that person looking at this story. And not just because it's good. because it's good to look at it.

[13:12]

And that's pretty much all we can do for each other, is kind of what it's sounding like to me. No. I mean, I know that's what it sounds like to you, but then I say no. We're also doing things with each other besides telling stories and talking to each other. We're also giving each other life at a pre-verbal, non-conceptual level. And we're inconceivably assisting each other, which is, in some sense, inconceivably greater or smaller than this area we know about. But at the level of storytelling and at the level of karma, this is pretty much the main thing we can do for each other, is contribute to each other's conscious awareness of the conscious part of our intention. That we can contribute to.

[14:13]

And we have language and stuff to do that. But there's other ways we're interacting with each other where, you know, there's no sense of control. We're just like perfectly in harmony, helping each other out already without even knowing what we're doing in the sense of conceptual operations. Language and words and even the phrase each other don't make any sense there because life is too full. So we have this huge full life that we're going together. We're pretty much doing that pretty much with everybody. And then we have this conceptual level where we guide each other to look at what's going on consciously so we can become free of conscious blinding to the fuller picture of life. So we're practicing together on two levels, in a sense. A conceptual and a non-conceptual.

[15:15]

OK. OK. Thanks. You're welcome. Thank you for all your help. Deborah? Yeah. Yeah. Please. My question has to do with this. So we have intention, which I'm listening to creates karma. No, no, there is karma. Is karma. Yeah. It doesn't really create karma. However, it is a condition for future karma. So our ability to... The kind of intentions we have depend on our past intentions. Yes. Like your past intention to be a devoted family member is a condition for your present intention to be a devoted family member.

[16:25]

So past intentions are conditions for present intentions. They don't make the intention all by themselves because sometimes your family says, actually, we don't want you to be a devoted family member. We want you to, you know, just forget about us for two weeks. Mm-hmm. But we don't want you to listen to that, so go ahead and keep being devoted to us. Okay. So what they say to you influences your intention, too. Right. It pushes it off, shapes it, bumps it. But your past action also is a major ingredient in your present intention. Right, I understand that. Otherwise, if intention was all that created intention, then we'd be locked into it, but we're not. There's a possibility of becoming free of it. I guess what I'm trying to do is relate it to this idea of karma. I always understood karma to be action or cause and effect. It is. But I'm having trouble. I didn't realize, you know, if you're doing a cognitive process, that technically that is also karma.

[17:27]

Technically. You know, it's just kind of technical that we're saying. action doesn't seem such a technical term. Karma means action. It doesn't seem so technical. But actually, in the Buddha Dharma, we do have a technical meaning of karma, which you missed Friday night, but I was saying the action of glaciers is an action, but we don't call it karma in the spiritual practice. We don't actually pay attention to the action of glaciers as a spiritual exercise, you know, You can, but before you look at glaciers, you should be looking at your own intention. The type of intention which we usually mean in the Buddha Dharma is intentional action. But it's a synonym, because intention is the definition of the type of action we're looking at. Okay. Speech that doesn't have intention in it is not the kind of speech we're concerned with. Postures that don't have intention in them are not the kind of postures we're concerned with.

[18:33]

It's the postures that have cognitive intention. And you could say, in terms of technical language, you could say there can be mental cognitive activity and physical cognitive activity. That's true. How can there be a separation of them? Well, because speech is not mental. Speech is not mental, but it can be cognitive, because you can be speaking with an intention. and the intention is cognitive. But speech is a physical thing, and posture is a physical thing, but if it's cognitive, that's the type of postures we're supposed to be looking at. There's other postures you get into that aren't cognitive. Like, if I pick you up and throw you across the room, that posture you're in is not cognitive. It's more like you're more similar to billiard ball that got hit by a stick. It's not really that you were propelled by my kick.

[19:40]

You actually wanted to get up and move, and that's karma. So karma can be body, speech, and thought, or thought, speech, and body. But if the body and the voice are not imbued with intention, they're not what we mean by karma. They're not the kind of karma we're being encouraged to look at. your fingernails also, they grow, but we're not being highly encouraged. Pay attention to the growth of your fingernails. If you don't look at the growth of your fingernails, you can still, I mean, if you don't happen to notice for weeks on end that your fingernails are growing, but you're paying attention to your intentions, you can enter into Buddha's mind. But if you just look at your fingernails growing, but you don't look at your intentions, you'll be obstructed by your inattention to what your mind is doing. But once again, if you don't look at your fingernails growing and you do look at your intention, it's not a problem that you weren't looking at your fingernails.

[20:42]

We can't overlook our intentions and enter Buddha's Way. We cannot. But you can overlook other types of activities and still enter Buddha's Way. You don't have to pay attention. It doesn't cause you a big problem. You don't get more deluded when you don't look at your fingernails. When you're doing something cognitively and you don't look at it, you get more ignorant. And most people, everybody's got an intention, everybody's telling stories, everybody's got will, but not very many people are looking at it. Okay, let's try and help us with this weekend. Let me just ask one more question. In her example about, you know, she observes her friend is confused. Yes. She can see that, you know, she observed it and she's noting it, and she's able to see that she's doing some sort of discrimination about that thought. That would be good if she did. Right. But let's say, because she had, even though all of that has occurred, and she...

[21:46]

is aware of it. The person is confused, she takes an action of pulling back, pulling away. She takes an action that in a sense isn't supportive of this interrelationship. So I'll say that again. She sees the person. Yeah. She thinks they're confused. She's aware from a cognitive process. Yes. And did you add that she gets stuck on that and attaches to that? Yes, she did get stuck because she made the action to pull away. Yeah. Exactly. Well, not necessarily. She could make the action to pull away, not based on being stuck, but when you pull away, like, you know, separate yourself from the person. That's what I'm trying to say. That would be caught. To pull away as an act of embracing, as an act of support, as an act of appreciation, that would go with seeing them as confused, not being caught by that, and being able to stay, feel connected with them, and give them a gift of backing, moving away from them.

[22:48]

to help them by that, perhaps some clarity in my, whatever outcome happens. We're hoping that that would be helpful. And not feeling the least bit more separated from, matter of fact, feeling not separated from, and acting from non-separation in a way that could look like you're moving away, and it is, you're moving away, but not as an act of separation. So then you would be aware... Then you wouldn't be caught. You wouldn't be caught because you're able to see this process, the choices you're making, you're not just... You're able to see it. Actually out of fear or disgust or whatever. Yeah, you're able to see it and not be caught by it. Okay. That would be one of our goals. Is that whole process karma? No, it's only the cognitive. The karma is cognitive, and being aware of the cognitive is also cognitive, but it's not karma. Awareness is cognitive. But karma is the mental activity, not just the basic awareness.

[23:53]

Basic awareness comes with mental activity. That's great. But the awareness is not active, actually. It's just light, just awareness. It's clear. It doesn't have a story. But coming with this clear light is a storytelling capacity. And attention can be turned towards the storytelling capacity, the storytelling function. And then you can see the cause and effect of the storytelling. And you can see the cause and effect of the being attached to the stories or not. You can see this is one of the main places to study cause and effect, is to study karmic cause and effect, which means the cause and effect of intentions. But the awareness is not another karma. Now, sometimes people say, that's the kind of karma that undoes karma, undoes karma. I don't think it's karma myself. I think it's just clear light being turned on the storytelling function of the mind moment by moment.

[25:00]

Thank you very much. Yes. So I can continue this line of thinking. Before it goes away? Okay, so I know that I'm not separated from anybody. You know that on some level? But let's use my daughter as an example. So she's angry with me about something, so she leaves. And now I feel pain because I have senses, you know, human. So is my pain... Okay, so what I'm trying to figure out is if my pain, what that has to do with being caught or not caught.

[26:07]

I mean, it seems like it's a human function and perhaps isn't necessarily related to being caught. There's different types of pain. One kind of pain is a pain that a person who is free of discrimination could feel. The Buddha could feel pain when the Buddha looks at one of her children who is in pain. Mm-hmm. She sees someone she loves who is in pain, and she feels pain because she loves them. It's not because of attachment. They have non-discriminating wisdom. They observe all beings, and those beings who are suffering, which are quite a few, each one of them the Buddha loves, and each one of them the Buddha feels pain. So Buddha feels a lot of pain. He doesn't feel their pain, but feels pain because she loves them, and they're in pain. That's one kind of pain that goes with non-discriminating wisdom. There's other kinds of pain which go with discriminating consciousness.

[27:14]

Namely, my daughter's with me, now my daughter's away from me. Away from me is different from with me. I discriminate between her being with me and not with me. My daughter's angry at me, my daughter's not angry. I discriminate between angry and not angry. Okay? If you... study those discriminations and don't get caught by them, then when she goes away, it doesn't hurt. However, her pain will still hurt you because you love her. And nondiscrimination also will support your loving everybody in different ways. Okay, so my task in that moment, in that series of moments, is to examine my response and my pain to determine if I'm caught and just keep doing that until... Until you're not caught? I'm just not sure when I'm caught, though.

[28:19]

I'm not sure when I'm not caught. No, no, no. Don't get into being sure when you're not caught. When you're not caught, you don't need to be sure you're not caught. Right, right, right. Okay, so I'm caught. It's when you're caught. And actually, you don't even need to be sure when you're caught. You can just be suspicious that you're caught. That's enough. Okay. And there's reasons why you would be suspicious that you're caught. Like, for example, when you want to kill your daughter. Right. That's a sign that you might be caught. I did want to kill her. You love her to death. Okay, so that's easy enough. Yeah, so you don't know for sure that you're caught, but you think maybe you are. I think maybe I am, and I think I feel really bad wanting to kill my daughter. Wow, I think I'm caught. Okay.

[29:19]

Now I'd like to actually say I think I'm caught, and I feel bad about it, and pretty much I'd like to go back and look at the situation again in a way that maybe... give me another chance to meditate on this relationship. So I'm going to go back to work again to look at the situation. So that's a cycle of practice. You catch yourself, you see how you feel, you feel bad, and you want to try again to have a better look at it another way, look at it again. And again you may, I think I'm still a cop. I still feel bad. And around again, look again. Keep looking at your intention, which means look at the story of your relationship with this woman. called your daughter. Look at that relationship again. Now that you've caught, now that you've discovered that you probably were caught, or you might have been caught, because all this afflictive stuff came up around your relationship, then go back and try again. And then you keep doing that, and it isn't that then you know that you're not caught, it's just that you will become uncaught.

[30:20]

That process will melt the catching points, will melt the glue. by which you're stuck to your discrimination. It's a continuous examination. Because even if I stop wanting to kill her and I want to go out to dinner with her, it doesn't mean I'm not caught. No, it doesn't. It doesn't at all. I had a hard time when this happened just wondering how to discern between the pain And whether it was just the pain that you were talking about from being sad for how she was and being caught. Well, usually the one kind of pain... The one kind of pain, you feel great joy. And the other one, you don't. That's one of the ways you can tell also.

[31:24]

Not for sure, but... You have a long way to go. not always sometimes sometimes you feel sometimes you look at this person you love who's suffering and you feel pain and sometimes you feel joy when you look you just look she's not doing anything to you or wrong or something she's just in pain and you and you love her and you feel pain because she's in pain and you're very happy you're full of joy to have this relationship you're you're And the pain even shows you more how wonderful it is that you love her. I mean, you loved her before and that was pretty good. Now, a little bit of pain in her, a little bit of pain in her is maybe a bigger pain in you. Because you love her so much. And that pain is a pain you feel joy about. The other pain you don't feel much joy about. I don't think. Right. Right. It's just pain, and you feel bad, and you feel pain, and you feel not joy, because it's coming from attachment rather than love.

[32:36]

It's not really coming from love. The pain, however, in some sense, is coming from Buddha's love to make you feel pain about attachment. Okay. You used a phrase, I think it was Friday, Grasping the consequences? Could you relate that? I don't remember saying grasping the consequences. Oh, really? It's probably about the consequences coming back to the point of attention. Oh, yeah, yeah, that one. So when you do something, when you have an intention and there's a kind of, in your intention there's a sense of you being separate from the field of relationships, kind of you're holding on to this position in the field, you're not willing to be in some other position in the field or having something else in the position take your place or something, some sticking point in the field, then the consequence of that way of seeing yourself in a relationship is the point of attachment in the picture.

[33:43]

Oh, yeah. Okay. And then the consequences come back to the point of attachment. Oh, I see. Okay, I misunderstood what you meant, and that clarifies it a lot. Okay. It isn't that you're grasping the consequences. The point of grasping in your intentions is the place where you'll see the consequences come back to. Okay. So that shows in good karma, when you do something skillfully in a field, you see yourself in a relationship to people and you do something really skillful, it seems to be beneficial, and then the good results come back to the point of attachment, which you don't mind, right? Because it comes back to right around here where you were holding on to this position. So the good comes back here. You don't see it coming back to the other people so much. Or the, you know, like when you relate to a tree well, the consequences come back, with grasping, the consequences come back to you.

[34:46]

You don't see them coming back to the tree. That's the way you see things, is that you did this thing to the tree, and the tree's separate from you. You make this grasping around you, and actually grasping around the tree, too, in a sense, pushing the tree away as separate. So then the results of treating the tree well come back to you. That's the way it looks to you. Which, you know, in that case, that's good. However, you see, it's still coming back to this point of grasping. And it's not, you know, even though you're being good to the tree, the tree's kind of left out of the collection of merit. And when there's no point of grasping, I haven't heard this said in the scriptures, when there's no point of grasping, they don't talk about where the merit comes to. When they speak of that practice where there's no grasping, they don't say where the consequences come to. Because they kind of go everywhere. And you're included in that.

[35:46]

But it's not like you primarily. The consequences are for the whole system, which there's no separation from now. I'm really glad I asked that. That helps. Thank you. Point of grasping, point of attachment, in the field of intention. You can just come up. A good part of this weekend I've been sitting with the process of grieving. My sister died five months ago. And I've been trying to relate what you're saying to that process, but without any success.

[36:47]

Well, now's the time for success. I don't know exactly what to ask except, can you help me make connection? I don't know if I can help you, but I'd like to try. I would see the grieving you're going through as the potential for helping you let go of the sister that you lost and then be willing to be with the Barbara you are now. And then when you can be with the barber you are now, you can then start in the present looking at your intentions. But sometimes when we lose someone that we love, we hold on to them. We don't let go. Even though we think, oh, I'm willing to, some part of our body or mind is still refusing to let go of what we lost, which a healthy body will say,

[37:52]

Hey, here's some sadness. Here's some grief. Eat this. You know, let this in. Feel this. And if you open to this sadness, you'll also let that person go. Some part of you is holding on to it. And there's nothing there. Nothing you can grasp. You can love the person, but you just can't grasp them. Their body's gone. You can't get a hold of them anymore. But you're still holding on. Some part of your body wants you to open up. So it says, open to this pain, open to this sadness. And if you do, you're also open to letting go. And then you get to be present again, rather than being dragged back So I see grieving as a healthy body's response to attachment to something in the past.

[39:06]

Attachment to the past makes it hard for us to really just look at the present. So I think your grieving is getting you ready to do the work we're talking about this weekend. And until you finish your grieving, it's going to be hard for you to be really present again. the fresh moments of your life. So grieving is good. As a feeling. Just feel it. Feel the grieving. Feel the sadness. Don't talk about it. Don't try to figure it out. Don't argue with it. That's not grieving. Grieving isn't like, well, why did this happen? If I'd only done that, how come this is happening to me? Why did it happen to her? If we'd gone to that doctor and said, that kind of stuff is not grieving. That's thinking. But again, you can't really look at that because you're like caught in the past. So drop that and just open to the grieving. The grieving kind of will warm you up to this meditation here.

[40:10]

That's how I would connect them. Does that make sense to you? It does. And yet I think the missing element for me is how. Well, grieving, for me anyway, grieving or sadness is something which, you know, it comes of its own accord. I can't bring it on. Sometimes you might want to be sad, but it's gone. It's not there right now. Generally speaking, if you slow down and sit still, the sadness and grief come. If you're running around, somehow they can't catch up with you. When people come to retreats, oftentimes the grieving comes out, because it's like, oh, she's just sitting there, so I guess we've been coming, maybe she'll let us in today. I had a great experience, which I've told several times. One time I was waiting for a parking space, and, you know, I could have turned the radio on, you know, while I was waiting for the parking space to open, but I think, I don't know exactly what happened, but maybe I started to feel a little sadness coming on, and I thought,

[41:26]

Oh, instead of turning the radio on, I'll just feel the sadness while I'm waiting for the space to open up. Because I don't have to read a book, which I can't really do anyway, because then I won't see the parking space open up. I could listen to the radio and entertain myself while I'm looking for the parking space, but I could also not turn the radio off and feel this pain, this sadness that's coming up. This would be a good time to do it. So I just sat there and I just opened up to it. And generally speaking, I opened down. kind of feel like opening down to it. It's not up there. It's down. So I just kind of let my lower part of my body, from heart down, sort of, open up to it. And just open to it. And just say, OK, come and get me, or whatever, you know. Feel it. And I keep my eyes peeled on the parking space. And I hit the bottom of it before the parking space opened. It was really nice, and I just felt totally... I wasn't feeling... Before I came to the Parker speech, I wasn't feeling really sad or anything.

[42:36]

I felt okay, actually. And then I stopped, and I was in this position of no place to go and nothing to do. And the sadness came. No place to go, nothing to do. I'm not doing anything, I'm not rushing around. The sadness comes and says, hello. And I say, hey, I've got time for you. And I open to it. And I wasn't exactly surprised, but anyway, there it was, the sadness. And after it was done, I just felt really great. I felt really fresh, like, boy, that was great. I just felt clean and fresh and had like a heart shower. And then like, Okay, and now there's a parking space, too. Oh, great! So now I can park. But what a nice way to spend the waiting time of this nice psychic refreshment. Like I was in the... And then I was like... Of course, it's always fun to find parking spaces, but anyway.

[43:40]

I was like really in the present before I found it because I had done that. You just feel it. Just open to it. And kind of like down, I think, helps. And you've got to slow down. You've got to say, OK, I'm going to put aside all this stuff for right now, I'm just going to sit here and be quiet. And if sadness comes, welcome. If it doesn't, I'll just be quiet and enjoy quiet. But when you're quiet, if there's any grieving that's been waiting for an opportunity to be entertained, it says, now's a good time to come. And sure enough, that's when people sit down and become quiet, then comes And other things come, too, that you didn't notice. Anger comes. Oh, I'm angry. Oh, wow. Fear comes. A lot of stuff can come when you're not busy that's been waiting for some attention. And sadness and grieving is one of them. But what's really being asked there is you're being asked to let go of something you've lost.

[44:48]

And then after you let go of it, then you can just appreciate what that thing was. then you can just love your sister, which is not the same as arguing with her or not letting her go. Then you can go to the present way if you think about how wonderful your relationship was and look at the relationship there and see if there's any clinging in it and clean that up by meditation. But this is meditation too. That way I see sadness when you feel it as meditation. Grieving, when you're willing to give yourself to it, is meditation. And again, usually it comes with being still. Usually, some people are running around screaming while they're grieving, that's okay. But they're running around in the grieving process and not running around shopping. It's like a grieving run, you know. That's different. But for most people who are not into that kind of culture, where you're allowed to run around screaming, in this culture we don't do that so much.

[45:52]

In this culture we sometimes let people be quiet, and then it comes over and over. Usually in a session where you have like 50, 60 people, usually there's three or four people who have lost somebody and haven't finished their work on that. They spend several days just working on that. And don't necessarily finish, but sometimes they do. And that time, the example I gave you, I didn't know what I was sad about. It wasn't like I was sad about losing my sister. It was something, I didn't even know what it was. I just felt sad. It just came up in me. It wasn't pain, just negative sensation. It was definitely sadness. But this may take you... quite a few hours of giving yourself some quiet time to let this come through. Because with one, with a sister, there's many dimensions of attachment that are built up.

[46:55]

Some things are very simple and you can like that. Other things take quite a few periods of meditation to let go. And some people don't do that. They have low-grade grieving for like years. But if you're open to it and you spend time meditating on a regular basis, you can pass through the grief of a major person. Not to say you should rush it, but you can get through a major grieving in a year or half a year. But if you don't give yourself that time, it's going to turn into an ulcer. It's going to just keep dragging you on and on because you're holding on. And you're not going to let go until you let go. And you're not going to let go until you, I think, either let go or open to sadness. When you open to sadness, you let go over here. It's like a referred release. You feel it here and then let go there. Because it's in your body. All those years together, gazillions of little points of relationship.

[48:02]

That make sense? Yes. Yeah, so please... ask the world to let you spend some time being quiet so that this can have a space to occur. So when Jan was here and raised the question of Having a feeling that's just based on being a human body. Here comes the feeling of pain, I think was her example. How or whether that was necessarily starting, like stuck just in the immediate feeling of it. And I thought of a feeling of joy that came to me, a kind of ecstatic burst of pleasure at the thought that was becoming a possible possibility that my daughter might soon decide to get pregnant.

[49:13]

I'd be a grandma. There's many steps away, but the first expression that she gave to me made this leaping of very physical joy. And I enjoy telling it. But it's not happening yet, and I'm not dwelling in it particularly, but it comes back in these moments, like that month. And so I'm wondering, like I don't feel like I'm grasping this thing, but I do take some delight in it, and I certainly delighted when I first heard it. So it's possible or not to have these kinds of delights or pains just arise and arise again. without holding on to them. So that in itself, the fact of experiencing something joyfully or painfully is not a sign of being stuck. It would be like holding it or taking passion from it. You can think of certain situations and feel joy.

[50:16]

Like you could think of somebody doing something skillful and just feel joy at that thought. And And thinking of someone doing something and letting that be just that thing, that in itself, even if it isn't such a great thing, just letting it be can give great joy. Not to mention thinking of someone doing something really skillful and good and letting that be. So in the teaching of giving for bodhisattvas, It's very much about thinking about the activity of yourself or thinking about the activity of others and being generous in the way you think about it, but also it's thinking about people doing good things and letting them really do the good thing in your mind. Like sometimes you could think of something, it's possible, as you know, for some people to think of someone doing something skillful and good and actually kind of be stingy with them about that, actually wishing that they weren't doing something good.

[51:24]

Even though they're doing something good, you still wish that they weren't doing it, you wish you were doing it, or wish your friends were doing it. Like people watch, you know, Pittsburgh's a football town, right? People in Pittsburgh perhaps watch visiting teams play and they don't actually think of the other team playing really well and feel joy at that. You know? Which is ridiculous, but they might do that. They might think, they think of the other, or they even see the other team do something good, which means they think that the other team did something good, and they don't just let them have done that good thing and feel joy at that. Whereas the bodhisattvas, whenever they think of somebody doing something good, they feel good at them doing something good. And also, if they do something bad, they generously let them do the thing bad, and they feel good being generous towards the person doing something bad. Does that make sense? You see someone doing something unskillful and you generously let them do the thing, unskillful thing, and that is giving.

[52:33]

It's not that you're happy that they're doing an unskillful thing. It's that you're happy because you let them be a person who's doing an unskillful thing. You really let them be that way so fully that you... In other words, the basic kind of giving is to let things be what they are. It's basic generosity. You don't have to transmit any goods other than let the person or thing be what it is. Letting your breakfast be breakfast is giving. So in Jan's example with feeling pain because my daughter was angry at me, for example, that I could also be giving toward the fact that I feel pain at my daughter's anger. Yeah, and you could also be giving of saying, my daughter seems to be angry, and I let her be angry. Right. It isn't just that she's angry, that her anger is an opportunity for me to be generous.

[53:40]

In being generous to my daughter's anger. can I also feel pain at her anger and be generous to my pain, or are those antithetical? Because it seems like I could have both. You could have all of that. You could have generosity towards her anger, letting it be. Feel joy at being generous towards her anger. And if she's in pain, feel pain about her pain and feel joyful that you feel pain about her pain. Plus also for anger, like for some reason or actually like physically hurt you, you could feel that kind of pain too. But what about emotionally? Being hurt by it? I don't know how it would emotionally hurt you. But if it did, if you felt emotionally hurt, you could be generous toward your emotional pain. And that would be giving too. And you could feel joy. In fact, Maybe you can see that you would feel joy if you could be generous towards your own emotional pain, that you'd feel joyful about that, that you're generous.

[54:48]

Not joyful that you're in pain, but joyful that you could be generous towards your pain. For some people, that would be like, wow, that never happened before. This is great. I can be happy while I'm in emotional pain. And it would all change rather quickly, too. Oh, rather. Yeah. That whole complex of anger would just kind of melt away. You mean you can dial in emotional pain and a person can be happy? Yes. You might say psychologically, emotionally in pain, spiritually happy. So spiritual practice makes it possible to dial in psychological and material misery, both channels, and be happy. Generosity is a way to be happy when there's psychological and physical pain. So that's one of the differences, one of the ways you can tell the difference between spiritual, psychological, and material.

[55:54]

And spiritual has the potential to transcend those two without leaving them. It actually tested in those other two fields to see if it's a real spiritual joy. Because the practice of giving can be towards spiritual things, too. You can let spiritual things be also. And then practice giving towards spiritual things, and also giving away spiritual things. And psychological things, let them be, and experience spiritual joy letting psychological situations be that way. So when people are doing well, you can still be stingy towards that. And when people are being well, you can be generous towards it by letting them do well, be doing well, period. But let it be a gift. And I'm letting you be this way that you are.

[56:56]

This interesting response she's had to this teaching, I'm letting her be that way, and I'm having a good time letting her be who she is, who's coming up here to express her... herself about this point. Last recorded question. Here she is. This is Lori. Leaping Lori. Leaping Lori. I can understand being generous to a point. I can understand. So I can get so far. So if my daughter is angry and... Can I say something? Yeah. So can you understand being generous towards your breakfast? No. Okay. So let's start with that. Work up to your daughter, okay? Well, actually, I want to work well past my daughter. Okay. But I'm glad to start with my breakfast. Your breakfast. So I'm saying letting your breakfast be a breakfast is giving.

[57:58]

That's the unusual point. Most people don't understand when they come to breakfast and they let their breakfast be breakfast that that's giving. So they miss out on the joy of practicing giving towards their breakfast. Now, if they take their breakfast and give it to somebody else, they say, that's giving. And I agree, it is giving. But before you give it away, you can practice giving as soon as you see something, letting it be what it is. And I think that's hard for people to understand that that can be giving, and that it can be a joy to let your breakfast be your breakfast, and let the floor be the floor, and let other people be other people. So now we move to your daughter. Letting your daughter be your daughter. I can actually... Well, I don't... I'm not to a point where I can feel joy about letting my breakfast be my breakfast. I can at least imagine it. And I can more easily imagine letting my daughter feel angry and feeling joy about that, feeling generous about that.

[59:03]

Where I get stuck is for example, with Don's story this morning. So here he is teaching someone from West Africa, and he is feeling angry about the people who mistreated the person that he's teaching. And what I understood you to say, which I actually also can understand, is that part of a path in a circumstance like that, if I were in that circumstance, then the path would be to meditate on my anger or stuckness about the people who mistreated this woman. and to let go of my attachment to my anger about this mistreatment.

[60:10]

And I can even understand that. Where I'm stuck is to be generous toward the people who are doing this kind of harm. For example, in West Africa, it seems to me that being generous toward them continues to perpetuate the damage and harm that they are doing to other people in West Africa. And so I don't understand how only meditating and only being generous toward them. Well, I can't even get to generosity toward the people that are so badly mistreating other people. But I don't understand how my meditating on my pain about that is enough.

[61:11]

It seems to me that there's some moral impairment, Can't think of a word. Imperative. Thank you. There's some moral imperative to help stop the mistreatment, the really horrific treatment of other people. It seems to me that there's some moral imperative to do that. I agree. Right. I agree. And so I'm proposing to you that if you see someone being cruel to someone else... I'm saying this. If you see someone being cruel, or you hear about somebody being cruel, but let's say you actually see it right in front of you, and I'm saying this is easy, but if you can practice generosity, and if you have been practicing generosity, and you've been thinking about people doing good things to the point that you feel great joy at thinking about doing good things,

[62:17]

And now you see someone doing something not good, something that you think is not good. You say, okay, I think this is not good. But it isn't just that I think this is not good, and it isn't just that I want to stop this, but I'm in a state of joy. And I'm in a state of joy such that I am not afraid of these people. And because I'm not afraid of them, I am pretty much free of being violent with them. Or you could say, I'm able to be non-violent with people who are being violent and cruel. And I am joyful to do that. And being generous towards them is a practice that I've been practicing before I met them, and which I will continue to practice while I'm with them. And this will enable me to perhaps stop them like that. However, Even the Buddha couldn't stop people he was trying to stop.

[63:24]

So Buddha saw, maybe in some cases, Buddha saw someone who was about to be cruel to someone else. And sometimes the Buddha could, in one case, the Buddha was watching somebody who was about to kill someone. And the Buddha walked between the person, the murderer and the murderer's object. So then the murderer tried to murder the Buddha. But the murderer couldn't because Buddha was so happy and joyful and amazingly gifted with generous gifts to this person that the person just was totally amazed and says... In this particular case, the person ran after the Buddha and the Buddha was walking and he couldn't catch the Buddha. Buddha gave him that gift. So the guy stopped and said, What's going on, man? How come I can't catch you? And Buddha said, Because I've stopped. And the man snapped out of his murderous mind and became immediately Buddha's disciple.

[64:31]

Buddha not only stopped the guy from killing somebody else, he'd already killed quite a few people, but he immediately snapped them out of his insanity. This is one of his successes. Other cases, however, he was not able to stop the people. Even he couldn't. So it doesn't mean that you will be able to stop all cruelty or even a particular example, all particular examples that you can see. It just means that this is proposed as a way not just to, yeah, this is proposed as a way to work towards stopping violence and cruelty. And even if you don't succeed, still make a positive contribution. Because somebody might be watching you. try to stop the violence, and they might be helped, seeing you fail and seeing how you deal with your failure non-violently. And this ability to be non-violent with violent people, and sometimes to stop them and sometimes to convert them, but sometimes not to stop them and convert them at the moment, but maybe later there will be.

[65:39]

But anyway, you're not saying that there's a moral imperative about... you could say there's a moral imperative to develop the ability to stop all violence completely on the spot. That would be like... But even our Shakyamuni Buddha couldn't do that. But he said, well, let's even go beyond Shakyamuni Buddha. Let's be like someone who can make world peace. But that's not so much the point, because we don't seem to be able to end evil. It's the question of how to relate to it. And how should we relate to it? We should basically try to avoid it or stop it. But we should try. It doesn't mean we're going to be able to. But some people try to avoid evil, and they try, but they themselves are violent, unhappy, and seem to cause more trouble while they're trying to stop evil. They seem to be causing more evil. But if you're practicing generosity all the time, and then you come upon an evil situation, you may be able to continue and

[66:43]

definitely you will be working towards alleviating suffering and helping people be non-violent and kind to each other. That would definitely be your moral imperative and your spiritual imperative. Definitely. Generosity is a practice to facilitate making peace.

[67:03]

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