learning the Buddha way learning self and the one main ways to learn about self is to learn about intention Intention is also a word that we could use for that as thinking or your vow or a vow or volition. And it is a pattern of relationship. Intention is a pattern of relationship.

[01:04]

It is the pattern of relationship. every moment of experience. Learning about that is learning the Buddha way. It's learning the path of enlightenment. It's learning the path of peace and harmony. It's the path of opening our eyes to the way we are working together with all beings. path of seeing, of learning, of being able to see, finally, that everyone is our close friend. And the chant we just recited, the chant of the ancient teacher says, I vow to hear the true Dharma.

[02:11]

And when you vow to hear the Tri Dharma, you will be able to maintain the Buddha way. You will be able to take care of the Buddha way. You will be able to enter it and give up orally affairs. In other words, give up being distracted from the moment-to-moment work of helping being awakened. the Buddha way. Awakened to the truth that all beings are close friends. We already know the truth that not all beings are close friends. That's the truth too. We know the truth of war and violence and lack of appreciation of life. can see that everyone is their close friend.

[03:20]

Or rather, awaken when you wake up from the dream that only some people are your close friends. And I know some people who say they don't have any close friends. People come and say, you know, I don't have any close friends. I have some friends, but no close ones. And I say, may I say something? And they say, okay. And I say, everyone is your close friend. But we can't see them. Part of the true Dharma is everyone is your close friend. And you are everyone's close friend. I vow to hear the true Dharma. Now I'm saying that to you, I'm saying that's the true Dharma, but I'm not saying that these words that are saying that are the true Dharma.

[04:34]

But I'm saying these words in hopes that you will hear, actually hear, that truth. Not from the outside. then after he says that, he wants to hear the true dharma. Because when you hear this dharma, when you actually can hear, everybody you meet, you know, you hear what you're hearing. You meet somebody, you see, oh, there's Rick. Oh, there's Tim. Oh, there's Barbara. But at the same time, you hear, oh, there is my close friend. And you hear that. You hear that. You hear that. Even someone who's being crook and you hear, oh, that's my close friend. You hear that. And so you don't get distracted by them being cruel to you and them doing things to harm themselves and others. You see that they're harming themselves. Yes, they are.

[05:35]

Because they're deluded. But you see that this person is your close friend. Very, very close. As a matter of fact, there's no separation between you and that. You see that. So then you can... them into the Buddha way. Together with you and everybody. The ancestor says, I vow to hear this so that we can together attain the Buddha way. And then he says, however our past, although or however our past evil karma has accumulated And because of this karmic accumulation, we have trouble seeing that some people are our close friends. Or we have trouble seeing that all people are. We have trouble seeing that we're not separate from each other.

[06:38]

So we have this program, which is an antidote to the karmic obstruction, to our hearing of tridharma, maintaining tridharma. And everybody attaining the Buddha way together. And the program is, settle yourself on yourself. Learn about yourself, forget yourself, and be awakened by everybody. By everything. So again, reviewing, settle the self on the self. It's basically tranquility practice. It's spending, it's devoting part of your lifetime to training your attention in such a way that you become tranquil. Part of the program.

[07:44]

It's not the learning the Buddha way, it's finding your place where you are and basically giving up It's like basically giving up thinking. It's giving up discursive thought. It's giving up wandering thought. It's like coughing, period. It's like scratching your cheek, period. It's like exhaling, period. It's like rubbing your nose, period. It's scratching your head, period. and smiling, period. It's a very simple way of just being settled into loving you through. Period. Giving up thinking about what's going on. Including that if you're thinking about what's going on, you just think about what's going on with no comment.

[08:51]

You give up wondering thoughts. Now, one thing he says, settle itself on the self and forget the self. He's suggesting that from settling yourself on the self, you can immediately leap into forgetting yourself. Maybe so. And this weekend, I'm emphasizing that between forgetting yourself and settling on yourself, there's a learning about yourself process. But if you can settle yourself and then forget yourself, I'd say, great. But if you have trouble making that leap, or I should say, if that leap doesn't seem to be occurring, then we have a program called Learning About Yourself, Learning About It. And if you learn about it, you will forget it. If you learn about yourself and learn about yourself, you will eventually be given a gift called forgetting yourself.

[09:53]

But if you don't learn about yourself, if you don't learn about yourself, if you don't study yourself, then there will be comic images, comic obstacles will appear before you and you won't be able to see what you're done or hear what you're done. Again, first of all, we need to ongoingly to give up thinking. If you just give up your thinking and give up your thinking and give up your thinking, you will settle into yourself. If you don't give up thinking, unless you've already settled on yourself, then you can pick up thinking again and use it to study. But if you haven't settled yet... unless you give up thinking, you might not be able to settle into your place right where you are.

[10:58]

Does that make sense? Does that make sense, Sharon? So part of the practice of settling is basically just give up distracting yourself from your experience right now by thinking about it. your experience right now, or thinking about other experiences that you're not having. Give up that stuff for a while. Give up that stuff. Give up that stuff. Give up that stuff. Give up thinking. [...] And the fruit of that is tranquility, concentration, flexibility, relaxation, buoyancy, alertness, joy. And with that mind, to start studying your intention. And when you first start studying your intention, when you first start finding it, you think, oh, I got an intention.

[12:07]

That's the way your self looks at first. I got a self that's got an intention to do something to the world. That's the deluded perspective. You're now studying, you're now learning about the self and you're learning about delusion. This is good. I've got to say, this is appropriate to the Buddha way. You've always got an intention. The intention can be wholesome or unwholesome, or indeterminate. In other words, the intention could be difficult to tell whether it's wholesome or unwholesome, skillful or unskillful. But if you always have one, it's going to happen. It has a tendency towards beneficial consequences, unbeneficial consequences, advantageous consequences, disadvantageous consequences, or you can't tell, but you've always got an intention. And at first, when you first look at that intention, it looks like an intention, your intention, disconnected from other people's intentions, and you are also disconnected from other people.

[13:20]

You've got a substantial person, an isolated person, who's got an isolated intention. In other words, the relationship you have with the world is you're separate and you've got your own stuff that you use to operate on the world. That's the way it would look to most people when they start to look inside and find out what their intention is. That's the kind of relationship that most unenlightened people have about the world. That I'm here. And now I relate to you. And I have intentions regarding you. I want to help you or not help you. I want to go walk with you or I don't. I want to practice with you or I don't. But it's me, separate from you, with my intention, which is separate from yours. That's the way it looks to me now. And I admit it. And I've heard that this is delusional. But hey, I'm tranquil, but I can handle this.

[14:25]

I can stand to be a deluded person because basically I'm cool. I'm relaxed. I'm buoyant. I'm concentrated. And I've heard that I should now start studying this. Study this intention. Once again, I propose to you that if the intention is good, is an intention which looks like experience and other people looking at it looks like an intention which might lead to all intentions, according to the Buddha, all intentions have consequences. Not deterministically, but they have consequences. They influence the future. That's the consequence. They all have some influence on the future. They're not the only thing that does, but they do contribute. Those that have positive consequences are what we call skillful intentions. Those that have negative, harmful, disadvantageous.

[15:29]

And disadvantageous means in the world and also spiritually. Those that have disadvantageous consequences are called unskillful intentions. Okay? You start studying. You're calm now. You start studying his intentions. You look at your thinking. You look at your vows. And you start to see how they look kind they are. Now, here's the principle, kind of one of the principles of how karma works, how action works, how intention works. Okay, synonyms, right? Karma, not synonyms. Karma and action are the same word. Action is a translation of karma. The definition of karma, the definition of action, is intention. So you're looking at your common, you're looking at your action, you're looking at your intention. If you do look, if you have an unwholesome intention, and you look at it and study it, that has a positive evolutionary effect on your intention.

[16:44]

Intentions, negative intentions that are observed, evolve towards positive intentions. And also, the observing, the consciousness which is observing unwholesome intentions, it also involves positivity. So the vision clears up and the action becomes more positive when it's watched. Unwholesome action watched evolves towards wholesome action. Unwholesome actions not watched evolve towards more unwholesomeness. Unskillfulness unwatched tends towards becoming more and more unskillful. Unskillfulness watched tends to become more skillful. Plus, the watching gets darker and more obscured if it's not applied to intention.

[17:47]

If you apply your awareness not away from your intention. If you don't watch your intention, if you don't watch what you're up to and point your intention towards things other than to what you're up to, overlooking what you're up to, your vision becomes darker and darker. As you apply your attention to your intention, your attention becomes brighter and clearer. And your intention... evolves positively. If you don't turn your intention towards, for example, towards any kind of intention, but let's say negative intention or unskillful intention, if you don't, if we don't turn our attention towards our intention, our attention gets darker and our intention gets darker. Our intention gets more negative and our ability to see gets diminished.

[18:49]

If you have a wholesome intention and you observe it, the wholesome intention evolves even more positively. And the vision, the observation gets clearer. Your ability to observe the state of your cognition evolves positively watching negative karma and positive karma and your cognition deteriorates, becomes less valid when you don't look at positive or negative common, plus the positive and negative common also degenerate unobserved. So a Holton state unobserved deteriorates. A Holton state observed appreciates, becomes more wholesome. But even more important than that the action becomes more wholesome is that the vision becomes more clear. Yes?

[20:00]

I have a question in a kind of practical realm. So, where I understand what you're saying, which is really great, is that... And I'm thinking of an example in the world where... Excuse me, you said things observed. Intention observed. Intention observed. So, for some reason, what came to my mind was organizations that exist to help people track intentions. And what's too popular to my mind is something like 12-step programs, which exist to help people track and strengthen their intentions. And yet, for a lot of people, also what moved my mind was that they find that to be a painful process. So what do you do about how do you work with this and the things that observing your attention sometimes is unpleasant or painful. Great question.

[21:02]

What's the answer, folks? I've told you already, what's the answer? What? What? Let's have one at a time. You've already hoped, before you start looking at intention, it's okay to look at intention anytime, anyplace. But before you really get into it, it's good to have already settled yourself on yourself. Otherwise, when you start looking at it, it's so obnoxious that you find out that you may want to take a vacation back to alcoholism. That's why we first say settle the self. Settle the self on the self. When you're buoyant and relaxed and clear and awake and enthusiastic to do this program, then when you start looking at this obnoxious material called your intention, because at the beginning, it's very coarse and diluted.

[22:13]

Me, separate from you, is going to practice with you. I'm going to do these good things for you. Very coarse, very diluted, and there's worse stories than that. So how am I going to watch not only that I have a dualistic attitude towards you and towards the world, which is quite obnoxious, really. You know, I'm separate from you. What an insult to you. You know, here you are giving me my life and you say, hey, I don't need you. Like a child saying, hey, I don't need you. It's an insult for me to think that I have a life other than what you give to me. And then in addition to that, I could think like, well, I'm not going to help you or something like that. We could have any terrible intentions, terrible views of our relationship with people. So we need to be tranquil and concentrated and relaxed and buoyant and joyful to do this work. That's why it's very important.

[23:15]

We have to keep doing that work. Otherwise, it is very difficult to do any kind of cross-step program or anything. And that's why... Yeah, that's why we have our concluity process. So we can do cross-step programs. So we can look at the grisly details of our own consciousness. And the grisly details of our own consciousness are our intention. Which, again, is how in our mind we see our relationship with the world. That's the problem. And if we don't study that, the consequences of that way we see the world will cause us to be more blind, to deepen our blindness of our relationship. But if you study this pattern of relationship, which is not true, the polluted pattern of relationship, which is our intention, I'm going to practice them with you, that could sound like a positive

[24:18]

attitude, that's a positive picture. It tends to lead to certain results, to good results, but it's still diluted because I'm still thinking, there's me separate from you. The more I study that, the more my vision will clear up and I'll say, oh my God, there is the me separate from you. There isn't the me separate from you. My intention isn't totally. given to me by my relationship with you. I didn't have it before I met you. It arose when I met you. What I want to do is totally a gift from the whole thing. But to do that work, you have to keep taking care of yourself. You have to keep basically soothing yourself. And the way you soothe yourself, the way you settle soothingly into being you, is basically give up, spend part of your time giving up, just as a thought.

[25:21]

Give up thinking about your life. Yes, what's your name? Shannon. Shannon. Speaking up on the 12-step program, there's an idea in some of those programs that you can be codependent, meaning you take too much responsibility for other people. Yes. So how do we reconcile that with the idea that we're all to get it together? What's appropriate? way to think about that idea, the sort of codependent idea, which I think has been really helpful to a lot of people, that you can't take responsibility for somebody else's alcoholism, really. So, but how does that square with what you're saying about, you know, you were part of me and I was part of you and this is all just yellow. Good. Okay, so when usually it's Again, you start off by, I'm here, separate from you over there. And I have intentions, for example, to help you.

[26:22]

Maybe if we have a problem with alcoholism, I want to help you. That's a diluted perspective on this alcohol problem. Okay? Now, jumping over to what you're going to wake into, what you're waking to is that everybody, all the alcoholics are... are coming forward and they give you life. When you see that, you realize that you are responsible for other alcoholics and they are responsible for you. Before you see that, you think that you're responsible for some things and not responsible for others. And other people are responsible for other things. and not for others. Everybody's responsible for everything, and everybody's responsible for everything in a different way. So I'm responsible for all alcoholics, and all alcoholics are responsible for me.

[27:23]

But they're also responsible for themselves. Not because they make themselves alcoholics, because I'm actually making them alcoholic. The alcoholic doesn't make herself. She does not make herself. Now that she's made into an alcoholic, she's responsible, not for making herself an alcoholic, but she can respond to the situation of being an alcoholic. There's too many of the responsible. One is that you contribute to the situation, and the other is you can respond to the situation. But we usually feel like if you didn't make the thing happen yourself, you're not responsible. That's the deluded attitude towards it. Which grows with the other side of it, is I am responsible for something because I made it happen. So like people think they're responsible for their own intention.

[28:25]

Well, they are. You're responsible, but you didn't make it happen. So we often say that we're not responsible for things that we didn't make happen. but I'm suggesting that you are responsible for all the things which you made happen together with everybody. And also you can respond to every situation that you made together with everybody. So, you can't... Every alcoholic that there is, you and I have contributed to their alcoholism. We have supported it. And we can respond to it. So we both have contributed to it and we have supported. The person who has not contributed to it is the alcoholic. They have not contributed to it. They did not make themselves. But they're still responsible. And what are they responsible for?

[29:30]

They're responsible for all the people that made them. They're responsible for the whole world. But they're not uniquely responsible for the whole world. They're... I mean, they're uniquely responsible for the whole world, but they're not, they're not, let me call it, they're 100% responsible for the world, but they're not the only one who's responsible for the world. And they also have a responsibility to be an alcoholic at that moment, which is that they could practice tranquility with being an alcoholic. that they could settle into the situation of their addiction problem. At the beginning of the past, everybody is basically addicted in various ways. Everybody's addicted. Addicted in this sense means addicted to some extreme, some veering away from the perfect balance.

[30:32]

Everybody is. You have to start where you are, and you have to start with your addiction. For me to think that I making an alcoholic by myself is wrong. For me to feel like I'm responsible for you being an alcoholic, I say, is correct. And also, you are responsible in the sense that if you're an alcoholic, you can respond to that situation. And the way I recommend you should respond to it is settle into yourself and study yourself. and settle into yourself, and settle, settle, settle, until, as an alcoholic, you're actually calm and thankful. Then you can study your alcoholism. You can learn about it. You're still at risk of, you know, acting based on your deluded perspective on your life, in the form of taking harmful things into it.

[31:38]

you're still at risk. But temporarily, at least, you're calm. Now you can study yourself. Now you can do 12 questions or whatever. Whatever will bring your intentions, and one of the intentions is, one of the main intentions is the relationship between you and the drug or the alcohol. You see yourself in relationship to it. And you see yourself in relationship to certain kinds of conduct There's the chemical, and there's the conduct, and you see a relationship there. And it's a diluted view of the relationship. And as a result of that, there's stress, and there's possible other actions which will follow from this view. The more you study it, the more your vision gets clearer, and the more the relationship evolves positively. The responsibility of the alcoholic is that they can do that.

[32:41]

And they can do that with our support. And we will support them when they do it. And when they don't do it, we will also support them not to do it. And if they don't study, we are responsible for them not studying. If people do not study their intentions, we are responsible for that. And so am I. I'm trying to encourage people to study their intentions. But if they don't, I'm responsible. And if they do, I'm responsible. Every good thing you do, I'm responsible for. And everything unskillful you do, I'm responsible for. But not just me. Everybody in this room is responsible for every skillful thing you do and every unskillful thing you do. Both in two senses. We all contribute to every skillful thing you do. We all contribute to every unskillful thing you do. And we all can respond to every skillful thing you do and every unskillful thing you do. We're doubly responsible. Without any limit. And everybody else is the same.

[33:43]

And there's nothing which we make happen by yourself. And there's one thing we don't make happen at all. So I don't make you happen by myself. Everybody in the universe makes you happen. Right now. And I do too. So I'm responsible for you in two ways. I contributed to your existence and I can respond to your existence. And I don't take that responsibility. I accept that responsibility. I medicate to accept that I'm responsible for your existence in two ways. I try to be with that. And again, if I practice tranquility, settling myself in myself, I am able, actually, to some extent, to faith that I'm responsible for all of you. no matter how bad your practice is, I'm responsible for it. I can face that if I'm really relaxed. And also, if your practice is, no matter how good it is, I can also face that, that I'm responsible for every good thing you do.

[34:47]

I can face that reality. That can be hard, too. And I can face the teaching that I can respond to you no matter what you do. Have we laid it off to your problem? Oh, well, it's not. And the codependence is basically, I think, taking too much or too little credit. Yeah, yeah. I think it does. I was thinking about one of my stepdaughters who is an alcoholic. And we had to distance ourselves a little bit from her. You had to what? You had to what? Sort of distance ourselves from her distrustments. But at the same time, we know that It arose because of her family and her city and her school and her religion. Yes, yes. All those things included to her. Yes. So, but we don't want to promote it.

[35:49]

You don't want to promote it. Right. No. You don't want to promote it. You want to promote her. I mean, I don't know if you want to promote it, but I would like to promote her awareness of her own intention. So... But she's not going to be able probably to be aware of her own intention unless she calms down, way down. So I would want her to get some instruction about how to be tranquil so that she could look at her intention. Because the reason why we're addicted is because we don't see our relationship with the world properly. As long as we feel that we're separate from the world, we're at risk, of addictions. Because feeling separate from the world is stressful, is painful, because it's contrary to reality. So all of us, until we actually see our true relationship with the world, we're stressed and at risk of various forms of worldly behavior, which is to take us away from the distractor from looking at this painful situation.

[36:58]

So, And the distancing yourself from her, can you use that distancing as an opportunity to look at? What is your intention in the distancing? And every time there's any distancing activity going on there, what is the overall pattern of that distancing activity? And do you see yourself as separate from her? And are you studying how you see yourself as separate from them? Because I don't know if you heard yesterday that somebody raised a thing about distancing. I think it was Louise, right? You can distance yourself from somebody and feel separate from them. And you can feel close to somebody and feel separate from them. You can also distance yourself from someone but feel totally not separate. And be close and feel totally not separate. But usually when you distance yourself from someone,

[38:02]

if you look inside, you'll find you feel separate from me. The separation means that you have a diluted view of your distance from it. The more you study the sense of separation from somebody you're distancing, the more you get ready to realize you're not separate. And when you realize that, then the person you're distancing yourself from is a person that can enlighten you and give you life. So you have this totally different relationship with the distancing off. But we have to study that I'm distancing out and I have to admit that I'm distancing myself and feeling separate from you too. And I'm sorry about that, but I'm deluded. But I'm working on this. And from my present way of working on it, I want to distance with you. And I'm doing that distance actually to help me understand better my relationship with you and to help you better understand the relationship with me.

[39:03]

although I still don't really understand it properly, I guess, because I still see myself as separate, existing separate from me. And so I notice that I don't feel really comfortable with distancing or not distancing. Either way, I don't feel quite comfortable yet because I haven't yet entered the Buddha way. The entry is when you forget yourself. The learning sets up the entry. Sharon? That's the very first step. It's settling on yourself. Really. Where you are and who you are. And then the second and third are really about being that we're not separate. That we're a part of something greater than ourselves. And I think that's how folks have helped so many people. You really get those first steps. And again, settling yourself on yourself and accepting yourself, I just like to stress that that's an ongoing practice.

[40:11]

It doesn't say, okay, I accept I'm an alcoholic. It's that you accept it, and the next moment you don't then sort of distract yourself from it. You find a way to not use your thinking to distract yourself from where you're at. So you've got this problem, but even while you have this problem, it's okay to relax with it. That's a big difficulty for people. How can you relax when you have a problem? You can relax when you have a problem when you're looking at it. If you've got a problem and you don't look at it, then it's hard to relax with it. But if you've got a problem and you're facing it, then it's time to relax. And when you relax, then you can start playing with your problem. You can start playing with alcoholism. Because you've faced it and relaxed with it. You've relaxed with the problem, the big problem.

[41:14]

You've accepted it. And accepting it means you accept that it's painful. And you've accepted it so regularly and over and over and over that now you've relaxed with it. And now you can play with it. Play with alcoholism? Yes. When you play with it, then you can start to see new possibilities in your relationship with it and the world. And then you'll understand that you had the whole thing backwards all the time. And then you'll be free. Joe? Joe? As we settle ourself on ourself, and when we begin to observe our... Is there a judgmental person there in the process? Or are we saying... Judgment is part of the pattern of intention. So, again, intention is your intention. Every moment, your intention is the pattern of relationship in your consciousness.

[42:15]

Your world is your consciousness. The way you see the world is the way you see yourself in relationship to the world. And enlightenment is one way to see your relationship to the world, and delusion is another way to see your relationship to the world. Most of us see ourselves in relationship to the world in a deluded way. Namely, I'm here relating to the world. Well, when the world's here, and then there's me. I'm totally included already. Great, I'm a success. I'm a successful cosmic particle. Okay? Part of the pattern of my relationship with the world is a bunch of judgment beings. Like, this world is painful. This world is pleasurable. That's a judgment. That's an evaluation. This person is my friend. This person is not my friend. That's a judgment. That's part of your intention. But even if a bunch of people walk in a room and they're wearing a little sign in their forehead called, I am Joe's enemy.

[43:21]

You know, and you say, are you really Joe's enemy? They say, totally. I'm like totally opposed to Joe's. I just, you know, I want to do the worst possible thing to him that I can come up with. So they come into the room. Okay? So you have a relationship with them. Right? So what kind of relationship? The relationship that you might have is, hey, these people are giving me my life. So you can have an enlightened view of your relationship with your enemy. Also, your people come in and say, we're Joe's friend. and say, okay, they say they're my friends, so I judge them as my friends. It's a judgment. They are my friends. But I'm separate from my friends. These are my friends, but I'm separate from them. I'm over here existing separate from them. And I have my intentions, and my intentions aren't their intentions, and they didn't make my intentions. This is deluded attitude towards these people who are judged as friends, or excellent Zen students, or beautiful people.

[44:27]

So there's judgment. They're part of the pattern of relationship. Judgment, that's a mountain. That's a valley. That's a judgment, you could say. If it's a good person, it's a bad person. If it's a stupid person, that's good. That's part of the pattern. Now, now you see the pattern? Now, what kind of pattern is that? How do you fit into the pattern? Look at that. And even if the judgments are really positive, if you're separate from the things of the world, you'll notice there's pain and fear. When you meet the beautiful people, when you meet your friends, if you kill sepulcomer, you're scared that they're going to go away. You'd be scared that they're not going to like you. If you kill sepulcomer. If you kill sepulcomer, there's fear in the field. That's a nice bumper sticker. When you get over separation, there's no fear. when you see this separation, it cannot be found.

[45:31]

There's no fear. But in either case, in an enlightened field or a deluded field, there can be plenty of judgment. Judgment, no matter what it is, if you settle with it and study it, you'll forget it and then it will become enlightened. No matter what. But if you don't study it, Then the lights get turned way down. And the patterns get more and more grisly and unskillful. And the awareness of them gets darker and darker. Get the picture? So the thing is, start calming down and start stuttering those patterns which have judgment in it. Does that make sense, John? It might sense, yes. Is there any more questions about it? No, it's like a lot of things.

[46:33]

I understand a part of it, but I think the other part is going to have to come through osmosis. Osmosis practical. Yes, Dave? Is your name Dave? Yes, it is. Smith? It is. Okay. Okay. One of the things that struck me from what you were saying was that sort of a side effect, I guess, that idea of being able to settle in on yourself resulting in a placefulness, a willingness to accept the world as it is. No, it's more like the settling is more like willing to accept the world as it is. Yeah. And then as a result of that, you can start becoming playful, even with alcoholism. Yeah. That's why I think the Dalai Lama says, My friend, yeah, my enemy. And yeah. And not just the Dalai Lama.

[47:33]

Jewish people and Christians say that too. That's a spiritual teaching. Your enemies are you, you love your enemies. That's like, yeah, sure. The Buddha did not teach hate people. The Buddha said that when you go around thinking, oh, that's my enemy and they hurt me and so on and so forth, then you're miserable. But when you go around saying, this is my friend, this is my best friend, this is my dear friend, then you're happy. But it's not just saying that, but seeing that. I, uh, I'm thinking about this crazy, and we go to the water, but I can't make it straight. Yeah? And I can, um, Can't even lead to the water. Well, I can believe in a universe where you've got horses that don't want to be lad and don't want to drink.

[48:37]

Well, in a world like that. I can believe in a universe in the 400 moments of things like that. And then in a universe in another moment where the horses are drinking. So I don't understand what happens when a horse decides to drink or anything. make a decision. You don't understand what happens when the horse decides to drink? I guess it's a question about what we consider self-determination. I made a decision and then something happens. Self-determination is, in a sense, anti-dynamic. You're not self-determined. You're determined by the whole world. You don't determine yourself. You're the one person who doesn't determine me. but you don't determine yourself. I determine you, you don't determine you. And not just me, all of us determine you. And sometimes we determine you as a person who drinks the Dharma, and sometimes we determine you as a person who doesn't drink the Dharma.

[49:43]

And the Buddha, you know, in the Lotus Sutra, the Buddha used as an example of some children, of a doctor who's got these kids, and these kids get sick, And he makes up this nice medicinal concoction for them. And he says, here's the medicine for you. And he says, with sober kids, take the medicine. And become well. But some kids are so intoxicated that they can't take the medicine. So then the Buddha, like, goes away on a trick. He sends, not Buddha, it's an analogy to Buddha, but the doctor goes away. He sends word back to the other kids who didn't take the medicine. He says, he sends word back that he died. And then these are his children, right? It's a doctor and these are his own children. So they hear that their father or mother has died and they're grief-striping. And by grieving, they become sober.

[50:48]

There's a thing in Buddhism about grieving, sobering us up. Sadness sobers up. It makes you able to come to the present. And sadness is part of also settling yourself on the self-usual. I'll put that in print if you can come back to the story. So then in their soberness, they take the medicine. And as soon as they take the medicine, their father, their mother, their doctor reappears to them. And the Buddha used that analogy because the Buddha, in the chapter where the Buddha doesn't... really go away or come. Shakyamuni Buddha didn't really come. I mean, Shakyamuni Buddha came, but the Buddha didn't really come. The Buddhas don't really come or go. They're all here. It helps people for them to come sometimes because people are into coming and going. So they come. And people say, oh, there's the Buddha. If they couldn't see because they're into coming and going, so the Buddha doesn't come, they can't see that one.

[51:50]

Say, okay, you can't see a Buddha that doesn't come? We'll give you a Buddha that comes. You can see that, right? Oh, yeah. Thank you. Buddha, hi. But some people won't even take the medicine when the Buddha comes. So when the Buddha goes. But as soon as the Buddha goes, and you take the Buddha's medicine, the Buddha's there again. But you're not in control of when you take the medicine. That's why... Because we're doing it together. And somehow somebody has to tell us, take the medicine. And we hear it. And we say, well, maybe later. And then they say, oh, okay, you're not going to take it? No, I'm too busy right now. Okay. Well, I'm going away. Bye-bye. Okay, I'm dead. Oh, don't. Don, don, don, don, don. Okay, I'll take that medicine you took. Since you're not around to play with anymore, I'll take the medicine. So did the Buddha make them take the medicine? Not really, because they made the Buddha give them the medicine.

[52:54]

The Buddha can't even give the medicine to people on her own. The people make the Buddha who gives them the medicine. The people make the Buddhas. And the Buddhas make the people Buddhas. But they can't do it by themselves. You can't leave the horse to water by yourself. You can't take the horse to drink by yourself. But still, we can work together and drink the water. It can happen. But it's not going to happen by me leading you to the water, or me getting you to drink the water, or you leading yourself to the water, or you leading me to the water. That's not the way it works. However, seeing it that way, which we do, and studying that, studying that way of you leading people to the water, or Buddha getting you to understand, studying that diluted pattern, you will forget it. And then you will see. how things work, and when you see how things work, you have just drank the water.

[53:58]

But you have to see yourself not drinking. And again, you can't control yourself under studying yourself and learning about yourself not drinking either. And I can't control myself into it either. But someone asked me, what am I working on? And what I'm working on is what I'm talking to you about right now. I'm working on the very thing I'm talking to you about. studying my intention. And also practice tranquility, so that I can find studying my intention palatable. But I don't... And to some extent, a little bit at least, I do sometimes think that I'm studying my intention. That is my intention. Rather than... rather than there is an awareness. Not that I'm doing the awareness, but there's an awareness here.

[55:01]

Not me having an awareness here, but there's an awareness here. There is an awareness here. I don't make it. All of you make this awareness. And it's an awareness which has within it a pattern of relationship. And there's an awareness of a teaching which says, turning this awareness toward the pattern of relationship illuminates the pattern of relationship. as to its illusion. And the more the illusion is eliminated, the more it is basically leaked beyond into another pattern of relationship, which is what I've seen, or what is a vision of how all things are coming forth to confirm each of us. So if I saw myself, I made a decision, it's not really accurate, but I recognize that something changed. Say again. If I say, I made a decision, it's not really accurate, but something changed and I recognized it.

[56:04]

I didn't see that change. Well, in one moment... Oh, I see. In one moment there wasn't a decision, and then there was a decision. Oh, yeah. So it's a little bit true. Another way to say it was, a decision had just a reason. A decision had a reason. It was a decision. Another way to put it. Another way to put it is, I made a decision, and then there's an awareness of the deluded way of talking. And the awareness that that's a deluded way of talking, that I make a decision, that's the key factor. And again, in order to be watching all the time, this deluded way of seeing my life, of I'm making decisions, the ability to watch that and see that that's the way you see your relationship with this thing in the world called the decision. It depends on if you're somewhat calm and relaxed because it's not that pretty to see that you're deluded.

[57:09]

Even if you don't see it as delusion, if you just think, oh, I made the decision, there's some loneliness there. There's some isolation. There's some pain that you have to make decisions. that you made the decision by yourself is somewhat painful. And when it's time for people to make decisions, that's oftentimes when we feel mostly pain because they think, oh, I have to make this decision by myself. That's when they come to me and say, I have to make this decision. And they're distraught because they have to make the decision. And so they're like... I can't make them drink the water at a time, but they are kind of like sitting horses, sitting ducks, because they're very vulnerable to, they're open to the teaching, which is the pain you feel right now is because you have this delusion that you have to do this by yourself. Not only do you not have to do it by yourself, but you cannot do it by yourself.

[58:15]

And you never did do it by yourself, and you won't do it by yourself. But because you're in some, like, pain, they're starting to sober up. They're starting to sober up because of their intoxication of their own power that they could make a decision by themselves. So we're intoxicated and grandiose to think that we could do anything like a decision by ourselves. And we're in pain about it. When you start to realize the pain, you start to open to the body. Yeah? I believe that. I wanted to ask, if I have a medical condition, and I need to go to a doctor, I have to decide this is my condition. I have to decide who to go to a doctor. Yeah? That's what you said. Yeah. That's your perspective. In my physical body, my perspective is that I have a condition.

[59:15]

Well, you have a condition, but also... you said that you have to decide that it's your condition. You said that too. So that's the way you see yourself in relationship to the condition. In other words, that's your intention at that moment. You just told me about the way you see your relationship with your condition. Okay? That's an example of an intention you just told me about. So let's say I have a vision problem and all of a sudden it becomes acute and I can't see, let's say. Okay. So then that's my condition. Yeah, you have a condition called blindness. Blindness. Okay. So then I want to do something about it, so I go to them and... Before you want to do something about it, before that you already have this intention before you think of doing something about it.

[60:16]

And the intention is that you think that you are separate from that condition. Already you think that way. You see that relationship of me and my vision problem. Based on that, then you want to do something about it to maybe get some help to help you with your vision. And then again, you think, I'm going to get help with this problem. And the help I'm going to get and the problem are separate from me. So I'm saying if you study those kinds of patterns, while you go ahead, I guess, and go to the doctor to try to get some help, you don't just go to the doctor, you notice step by step what your intention is, hopefully. And you notice step by step, I think I have to decide what my condition is and I have to decide what to do about it. That's the usual perspective of people.

[61:18]

And what I'm saying is, if you don't notice that. If you don't notice that, it's not really that you're separate from your condition, but rather that's the way you see your relationship with it. And that's your intention. That's the activity of your consciousness at that moment. And I say, if you study that, your vision will... Interesting example. But your observing abilities will get clearer. And also... your intentions will get more and less thoughtful. I think maybe you need to go a little further with this, but what you said. I think I understand that it is, I don't know, being involved with everybody else, I understand that this vision is my, I see this as my vision. Somewhere in the periphery of my understanding, I understand that this is not my body and this is not my vision, that I'm not there yet.

[62:19]

So I'm just like, This is my work in progress to see that this eyeball and vision is my perspective on my eyeball and vision. And maybe this isn't very clear, but then I get it somewhere that this body isn't... Well, I'm not being very clear, so I need to just look at it. Exactly. You're not very clear, and the more you look at this situation, the clearer you'll get. Plus, also, the situation will evolve positively. And also, as the situation evolves positively, the vision gets better. And as the vision gets better and it turns towards the situation, the vision, using your vision, even your not-very-clear vision, turns towards the pattern of your relationships, the relationship between you as a person and all the things that make you. even a not very clear observation of this, still is beneficial.

[63:29]

And partly because you just said, I'm not very clear. You started to look at the relationship between you and your body and your sense organs. You started to look at that. And you saw some relationship there, but you weren't very clear. But you noticed that you weren't clear. And noticing that you're not clear when you're looking at yourself in relationship to the world is very beneficial. And again, you need to be settled in order to continue such difficult work because it's not easy to repeatedly notice that you're not clear. It's not that much fun to see that you're not clear. Number one, you're not clear. And number two, with the situation, it's not clear but it looks like a mess. This is not that much. That's why you need to also practice tranquility so you can stand and study a messy situation, a situation which might be messy, plus that we can't see clearly.

[64:33]

But looking at a situation with unclear vision, unclear awareness, and it looks kind of unskillful, makes the situation become more skillful and makes the vision clearer. And when the vision gets clearer, the situation gets more skillful, and when the situation becomes more skillful, the vision gets clearer. Until you get to a point where the whole basic pattern of the world basically is forgotten. The basic pattern of you separate from the world is forgotten. And a whole new pattern asserts itself, which was there all the time, But because of karmic hindrance, you couldn't see. And karmic hindrance comes from not observing karma. The inability to see correctly our relationship with the world comes from not studying the way we see our relationship with the world.

[65:39]

Like you're with somebody in the car, you're seeing yourself in relationship to them. if you don't observe that, you do see yourself in a relationship. You do. And that's your intention. If you don't study that, you get a little bit more blind. And when you get blind, the unwholesome gets stronger and the wholesome gets weaker. When you study your relationship, the wholesome gets stronger and the unwholesome gets weaker. Plus, when the wholesome gets stronger, the vision gets better. When the vision gets better, the wholesome gets stronger, and this is how it works. The main thing is settle and study. Settle and learn. Settle and observe. And what? Observe yourself. Observe your intention. Yes? Can you provide some concrete and systematic ways of studying your intention?

[66:47]

For example, with precept practice, you and Wayne. Yeah, precept practice. So, for example, you have these precepts, right? And then you have the intention. You notice, hey, I see an intention. I see an intention. What's an intention? Tell me. It's a definition of action. So, what's an action? The definition of action is intention. What's intention? What? That's an example of intention, but what is intention? What? It's a relationship. It's a relationship. In your thought, every moment of thought has a pattern of relationship in it. When I look at Kirsten, I see a relationship with her, and that relationship is my intention of her. She's my daughter. I'm devoted to her. That's an intention. I want to help her.

[67:49]

Or she's my enemy and I want to avoid her. That's the intention of the moment. You see? Every moment there's an intention. Okay? Now the intention could be, and then I hear about the Buddhist precepts. The Buddha's got Buddhists in it or whatever's in it. And part of what's in here is the Ten Commandments and the Bodhisattva precepts. I hear about them. Okay? So they're in the pattern too. Okay? And these precepts are about patterns of relationship. So now I think, oh, now I see that there's a relationship between me and these precepts. I would like to practice these precepts. That's a deluded approach, but it's a wholesome thing. I would like to practice these belief-less precepts. I would like to practice them with you. So I think, okay, that's wholesome, but it's deluded. Okay, fine. Now, one of them is, praising myself at the expense of others. So, the precept reminds me that there's a pattern of relationship which is an intention.

[68:57]

Namely, I'm better than you. That's a pattern of relationship. See it? I'm better than you. I know more about something than you do. I'm more right than you are. I'm right, you're wrong. That's a pattern of relationship. That's also something that's pointed out by the precepts of saying, watch out for that pattern of relationship. Look for that one. You see, oh, there's that pattern. Oh, I'm better than you. I see that. There it is. Oh, that's like an unhealthy thing there. That's like a thing to get older. Me. And that's connected to me being separate from you. Then you start to see the thing about feeling better than other people is another dimension of I'm separate from people. When you don't see yourself, when I see the beginning of my life, I don't think I'm better than you. Also, I don't think you're better than me. I just think you're my life.

[70:00]

That's not better and worse. Better and worse goes with me and you separate. Or that I would flander others. That goes with me and you separate. Or that I would be possessive of you. That's another Bodhisattva precept. Not being possessive of dharma. Here's dharma. Got the dharma. Here's the dharma. Here's the dharma teaching. There's a precept of not being possessive of that. Or people. Or, you know, people you love. Not being possessive of them. So you got a relationship. I'm separate from you. Therefore, I want to possess you if you're a hot dog. But if I don't... And so there's a precept for me called not being possessive of you, which is a precept to help me become aware of my tendency to feel separate from you. And when I feel separate from you, I want you. I want to have you, hold you, keep you, because I feel separate.

[71:05]

There's a precept that says, don't do that. Don't be possessive of people. I shouldn't say, don't be possessive of people. There is a state of not being possessive of people. Get with that. But that goes with people are giving you life. You don't have to be possessive of what gives you life. And then, and so on. All those three steps are pointing out... Tighter the relationship between yourself and the work. Tighter the relationship between yourself and the world.

[72:24]

Tighter the relationship between yourself and the work. Tighter the mudeshi keep the tune yourself in [...] the work. in the world.

[73:50]

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[74:56]

Tighter the relationship between yourself and the world. Tighter the relationship between yourself in the world. How does the relationship between yourself and the world? How does the relationship between yourself and the world?

[75:57]

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[76:58]

Tighter the relationship between yourself. the relationship between yourself in the world. Tighter the relationship between yourself and the world.

[78:04]

Tighter the mudeshi keep to tune yourself in the world. [...] Thank you. Tighter the relationship between yourself and the world.

[79:23]

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[80:32]

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[81:55]

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[82:55]

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[83:57]

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[84:58]

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[86:04]

tighter the relationship between yourself in the world. in the world. Tighter the relationship between yourself and the world.

[87:30]

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[88:53]

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[90:04]

Tattered the relationship between yourself in the world. Tattered the relationship between yourself and the world. Tighter the relationship between yourself and the world.

[91:22]

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[92:36]

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[93:37]

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[95:00]

Tatter the relationship between yourself and the world. Tatter the relationship between yourself and the world. Tighter the relationship between yourself and the world. Tighter the relationship between yourself and the world.

[95:34]

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