Now, if what was most important to someone, if what, you know, if what, yeah, the most important thing for someone was anyotarasamyaksambodhi, then one would have a similar faith that Shakyamuni Buddha had or has. And then some other bodhisattvas also had this as their faith. What was the most important thing was this.

[01:03]

in the world of all living beings to have this awakening in order to realize peace and harmony among beings. I suggest that, no? That's an assertion and that's also a thought experiment. One can think about, oh yeah. And then, of course, one can say, is that what's most important for me? One could ask that too. But whatever is most important, that would be your faith, I suggest. And then, again, we move on to, is there a wish? to realize what's most important. And the word aspiration is, etymologically, to breathe into.

[02:10]

There's inspiration, to breathe in, and there's aspiration, is to breathe into. And then there's exhalation, or expiration, is to breathe out. So when sentient beings are inspired, breathe in, in relationship to anuttara samyak sambodhi. Sometimes sentient beings meet anuttara samyak sambodhi in some way or another, like they meet a person. And then this anuttara samyak sambodhi, like, They breathe it in, and then they're inspired by the meeting with a Buddha or a bodhisattva. And you can meet that through any of your senses.

[03:17]

Like you can hear a bell. You can see a face. and then you get this inspiration, and then in response, this aspiration, no, in response, the aspiration might arise, you might discover, that's it, and I aspire to it. And then when you aspire, that also then stimulates what inspired you, to come to meet you again. So the faith arises when you meet whatever the thing is. Like, you know, I can tell this story, I think. When my daughter was younger, she wasn't sure what she wanted to do.

[04:22]

with her life, she wasn't sure what was really important. And I said to her, I've seen what you can do when you see what's most important. You have tremendous ability and energy, and when you see what's most important, you can work on it. with amazing diligence and energy and thoroughness. I've seen it once or twice. And it's awesome. And I have confidence that if you ever find again what that is, you will be able to make that kind of effort. And she couldn't see it, so she wasn't able to make much effort. She had this great potential, but she couldn't see where to put it to work. I said, I was very lucky. When I was 23, I saw what I wanted to do, and I went to work.

[05:24]

Very fortunate. Some people do not find it until they're much older. And I said, and until then, it's like, Pretty much it's hard to be wholehearted when you don't see what you think is most important. But when you see it, when you see it, I've seen what you can do and it's a wonderful thing. And I pray you find it, I pray it is revealed to you soon. And not too long after that, she became pregnant and she saw what she wanted to do. She got inspired by pregnancy and And she aspired to be a really good mother and take care of the baby before it came out of her body. She suddenly was like engaged. She was a good mother before, I mean, she was a good mother before the baby came out of her body. You know, I wasn't surprised.

[06:31]

I predicted it. Even though I wasn't surprised, I was still awestruck. People said to me, do you like your grandson? And I said, no. Or, you know, yeah, they didn't ask me so much beforehand if I liked him before he came out. But after he came out, they said, do you like your grandson? I said, you know, I don't have too much feeling about it. But this, his mother, it's not a matter of like, it's a matter of she's just so, she's awesomely excellent mom. And I, you know, she's so great. It's really wonderful. That I could see. But honestly speaking, I told the truth.

[07:36]

Not that I don't like him, it's just that I don't have much feeling for him. Sorry. But then the feeling came. And it was a big surprise. I never had a little baby boy before, really. And then this thing came and that was awesome too. But there was a while there when he was just like, you know, little thing, little red thing. She saw what she wanted to do and she was inspired by that and she aspired to be a really good mom and she committed to it and she practiced it. And now it's 19 years later, and she's still a great mom, but he's kind of gone to L.A., to college and so on.

[08:44]

And she's still available, but it's different. And now she has another little creature to be. And then once she saw what it was like to be devoted, to practice devotion towards what was most important, once she saw it with him, she did that with other things too. Gradually it spread. So then it doesn't make so much sense to be totally devoted to this person and then like be half-hearted with that person. You can do it a little bit, but you can see it kind of doesn't make sense. Why do you turn off the total wholeheartedness when you go from this person to this person? Well, maybe you do, but you can see it doesn't make sense in a way. So it gradually spread, and she became really good at just about everything she does because of finding that one thing. It shows you.

[09:46]

You know what wholeheartedness is and you know that's the way you want to live. So that's that. Then there's this thing about practice and training. And so... Not knowing whether it's worth it to try to erase this stuff. I know, but it doesn't work very well. Would you come up here and erase, please? Is it ready? Can you get the other side there? Can you get the other? Can you hold here? I want to flip it.

[10:53]

Okay, here it goes. So we have, maybe we have faith in Anyatar Samyak Sambodhi. Maybe we have faith, yes, maybe we have faith in Bodhi. And we have aspiration to realize Bodhi. which is called bodhicitta. So the citta is mind, but it also could be bodhi aspiration, bodhi mind, bodhi aspiration. And then, again, aspiration has two parts. The bodhi aspiration has two parts.

[11:56]

One part is the aspiring. The next part is the going forward, you know, putting it in motion, committing to it. And then we have the practice, the training, the devotion to the realization of the faith. the learning, the school, the study, the imitation.

[12:57]

Oh, I remembered the ten vows of Samantabhadra I mentioned the other day. So I remembered the The ninth one. Number one. Remember the first one? Huh? Venerate or what do you call it? Pay homage to all Buddhas. Which is to venerate, but homage also has the meaning to line up with and join. It isn't just like, that's a really good basketball player. It's like, I want to be a good basketball player. It's like to line up with the Buddhas, and you can line up with something, and then the next, that's number one. Number two, remember? Praise. Praise all the Tathagatas. Three, make offerings.

[14:03]

Four, Confession and remedy. Five. Rejoice in the merit and virtue, and particularly of others. Yourself too, but maybe after the others. Anyway, and then comes Request the Buddhas to turn the wheel of Dharma. And seven, ask them to stay, remain a little longer, please. Just remain forever. Even if you have to die, stay. Or at least get some disciples. Okay, then comes To practice along with all the Buddhas, in other words, to do the same practice that Buddhas do.

[15:05]

And then ninth is to always work on according or harmonizing with living beings. So do the practices that Buddhas do and then harmonize with sentient beings. You don't necessarily... It may not be clear that it's good to do the same practices they're doing, You're practicing with them, but you're practicing with them like Buddhas practice with them. That's the one I forgot. And of course that's a big one. And then comes, dedicate the merit of all these vows to all sentient beings. So part of the practice is to imitate the bodhisattvas and the Buddhas. And again, the Buddha before being a Buddha is a bodhisattva. A Sanskrit scholar told me one time that almost all the technical terms in the Buddha dharma you can find before Shakyamuni Buddha in Indian culture.

[16:22]

They had Samadhi and Prajna and Buddha. They had those words. They had Bodhi. They had, you know, all this stuff. The one word they didn't have before Buddhism was Bodhisattva. That's a word that the Buddha came up with, referring to his career leading up to Buddhahood. That was a new word that Buddhism had, Bodhisattva. So to learn the way of Bodhi, to learn the way of Buddha, as you've heard, is to learn the self. To study the way of Buddha is to study the self. To imitate Buddha is to imitate the self. To be devoted to Buddha is to be devoted to self.

[17:36]

Devoted to self, what do you mean? Well, I'm okay with devoted to self. Most people are. kind of with some confusion and ambivalence, but anyway, devoted to self. And part of devotion, part of the Buddha's devotion to something is to study it, to learn about it. Self. Here it is. A word, self. And the self that's being spoken of is a self that is living in what I would call consciousness. Consciousness.

[18:37]

So I'm using the word consciousness for a mind in which there's the appearance of a self, which in the self is sometimes kind of an I or a me. And then also in consciousness are many, you could say objects, mental objects are in the consciousness, along with the mental phenomena of self. And so there's all these objects, mental phenomena How do you say phenomena of Deutsch?

[19:55]

Phenomen. [...] Man. Man. So, similar word, probably from Latin. How do you say phenomena in Latin? Phenomen. Okay. All right, so, oh, and then this is normal in consciousness. You have a sense of self and many phenomena. And some of the phenomena are we call afflictions. And there's four afflictions that are normally present in consciousness.

[21:09]

that are associated with the self. So consciousness normally has self and has four classes of affliction that come with it. So one affliction is that it's an affliction that there's a sense, which is not the self, it's an affliction. It's a sense that the phenomena in consciousness, like for example, there's a consciousness now that is being reported on which sees many people sitting in chairs looking in this direction. but it seems like the view of all the people in the mind is coming from a self rather than it's just there's a self over there and there's a view of the people over here or over there.

[22:20]

So it looks like the view is from here towards you and it looks like that's the same place where the self is rather than the self is in the back of the room and the viewing of the people is in the front of the room. That's an affliction. In what sense? In that the self is confused with the angle of vision. It's not, actually. The vision isn't coming from the self. The self is in the same place where there's this vision. But that confusion is a stress factor. in the awareness. So self-consciousness normally comes with the self and with this distorted view of the angle of vision being confused with the self. It's almost like the self is doing the vision, but actually there's self plus the phenomena of vision. So when there's consciousness and there's vision, then vision is one of the things that's going on.

[23:28]

And then there's another thing, which is an affliction, which is it seems like the vision is coming from the self. That's a delusion. Get that? So there's several things. There's self, something that's being seen, seeing it, and then the misconception in a way that the seeing is coming from the self. It's not. And it's not even coming from the seeing, because the seeing is coming from many factors. But when it's put in the self, it seems like the self is not even doing the seeing. But it's not. But that's normal that consciousness has this problem. Then another, and that's called self-view, which is viewing the self and also thinking that everything's viewed from the self. Then there's self-confusion, which is the self is confused with everything in the space. It isn't just like self and the other things. It's like self either owns them or doesn't own them.

[24:31]

And that sense of ownership and the confusion around it is an example of self-confusion. So, normally in consciousness there's me and mine. and mine applies to or does not apply to all these objects. That's an affliction to look at things and get caught up in mine or not mine. It's stressful. It's actually just an idea called mine. And to believe that these phenomena belong to the self is painful, is stressful, and is frightening. Because if they're mine, then it's frightening if somebody moves them a little bit or scratches them. So this believing, the belief that this mine applies to this vis-a-vis that,

[25:42]

is an affliction and normally is present in consciousness. Then there's self — what do you call it — self-pride. And one manifestation of self-pride is the idea — this is another affliction — the idea that the self could control the phenomena which it owns and doesn't own. So sometimes there's the idea the self, I, can control those phenomena which I don't own and make the phenomena I don't own into my possessions. This is like, you know, world conquest, right? That country which is not mine, I can control it into being mine. the things that are mine, I can control them to continue to be mine. This is self-pride.

[26:46]

And of course, this is really a terrible affliction that we think we can control, that not only are things mine and not mine, but I think I can control. And that is such a terrible stress. And again, terror causes great fear. And then when we act in conjunction with the attempt to control, it just makes us more and more frightened. The attempt to control. And then even if we're successful, we still get frightened that we have to keep controlling. This is normal. The basic sentence of Anxiety is, what should I do next? What should I do? What should I do? That sentence is anxiety in language.

[27:50]

And then there's self-love, which is like, yeah. being so concerned with the self that the whole consciousness and the body and unconscious processes are all stressed and rigid. So those are normal things. Now, to study the Buddha way is to study the situation, to study the self, to see about these afflictions, I mentioned that on Sunday, right? The way that sometimes it's talked about is learn the backward step. To study the self is to learn the backward step.

[28:52]

To learn to turn the light around and shine it back. What light? It's the light that's looking at what's going on here and seeing people and seeing rainfall and feeling good about the rain and feeling good about the people or not. and then turn the light around and shine it back to illuminate that situation. Not so much light on the people and the likes and dislikes, but now turn around and see how is that in the consciousness, how is that? So in consciousness we're looking at objects, but somehow the light can turn around to look at both the objects and the subject, not just the objects. and the relationship between the two, to turn the light around to illuminate the self. So what is it?

[29:56]

What are these afflictions? What are these objects? So this is, to study the Buddha way, is to turn the light around and illuminate the self to see what it is. And to see what it could be like when there's self afflictions, consciousness and objects, but not falling for the, what do you call it, the deceptiveness of these afflictions, and see that without getting rid of any of this There's a way to illuminate it, so all these different phenomena, the self, the various objects, the idea of mind, the idea of control, the idea of not control, the idea that I'm in control, all those things being seen for what they are.

[31:01]

Not realities, but it's not a reality that I'm in control, but there is this phenomena I think I am in control. Or there is the phenomena, I think I'm not in control. And there is the phenomena, I should be in control. And there is also the phenomena of hearing other people tell me I should get control of myself. All those things are out there and they're all living in their own phenomenal expression. And they're not stuck to each other, actually. But if we don't study, it seems like me being in control, that idea, is stuck to myself. I can't get away from it. But if you look carefully, you say, well, actually, there can be me, and there can be get control, and they're just like comrades. They're not stuck to each other. And I don't think it's the responsibility of the self to get control. But I think there is a responsibility of bodhi, the responsibility of bodhi is to observe the sense of self and the thought, get control and see that they're not stuck together.

[32:18]

They're not. But we have to investigate with compassion. Someone told me that this way of talking is very much like vipassana instruction, but the new element that is introduced here is to do this investigation of this consciousness with compassion. If we're not compassionate towards the self being stuck to the impulse to control, and if we don't believe, if we're not abiding in the thought, I am in control, I mean, if we are stuck in it, if we're compassionate towards being stuck in the thought, I need to get control, if we're compassionate to that, we can let it be, be careful of it, be patient with the pain of it, and see through it. And then it turns into a Dharma door. But if we're not compassionate towards, I'm stuck in trying to control people,

[33:25]

I'm stuck in trying to control people, if I'm not compassionate to that, I might actually be stuck in it. I might verify and reaffirm that I'm stuck. And if I think I'm not stuck and I'm not kind to that, I'll get stuck and I'm not stuck. And then that'll flip into another, in a way, a worse, it's almost worse to be stuck and not stuck than be stuck and stuck. But the compassion will free both situations and turn both situations into a view of reality, which is called anuttar samyak sambodhi. So the training is to do this study. And this study is done, this study, I should say, is living right now.

[34:47]

It's alive and well in silence and stillness. So when we remember stillness, wholeheartedly remember stillness and silence, we wake up to the study's already going on. And the mindfulness of stillness is there with this revelation of this study. And then the mindfulness of the stillness can continue to have revelations of this situation of self and the afflictions and the objects. And then the study just goes on and on and the illumination gets reborn again and again, moment by moment, and goes deeper and deeper. And then this study also transforms the unconscious processes

[35:52]

which are supporting the consciousness, and those get transformed by the study. And then when our unconscious process gets transformed, our body gets transformed, so then our body and our unconscious cognitive processes become more and more lined up with the practice which is transforming them. And this way the practice evolves. and gets deeper. And so there's two things I just mentioned. It's a synchronic study, is the study of the self right now. Looking right now into the consciousness and noticing that the that the looking is not the self, discovering that the looking into the self isn't the self. The self isn't doing the looking, but by looking we discover there's looking and there's self, but the self isn't doing it.

[36:55]

And then someone says, well, then who is? And that also, the self isn't doing that question either. But that who is is also in that same space with the self. And you can see, oh, who is it? And the self is doing the thinking, and the looking, and the self. They're all there together, and none of them is doing the other ones. So the who is it, we don't think the who is it is doing the self. We think the self is doing the who is it. But it should be reversible, and it's actually neither. But it shouldn't be reversible. And in which reversible, you see that it's neither. They're doing it together. OK. So maybe that's enough for starters. Yes. Yes, Drew. I think you might have just alluded to how to work with this, but in consciousness and seeing phenomena, recognizing the self or an I, and trying to work with, you know, acknowledging, letting go that the I is not creating the phenomena that's existing, like the thought or feeling.

[38:09]

And then how to work with not separating, feeling separated, and returning this, like... Just a second. Did you say how to work with feeling separated? Yeah, or, yeah, like feeling that, like... How to work with feeling separated? Yeah. Can you stop there for a second? Okay. So, just imagine I wrote it here, objects. For example, feeling separated. Okay? Okay? Now we have this feeling separated or feeling of separation. Okay? Put that on the board. That's in the consciousness. How do you work with feeling separated? How do you work with the feeling of separation? Okay? Well, we study it. And studying it is part of studying the self. We study it. How do we study it? We study it with compassion. So I got a feeling of separation, a feeling of isolation.

[39:12]

Okay. Okay, you could have the idea of a feeling of separation. I feel separated and that could be seen as an idea. Or I have the idea that I'm separated. And maybe I feel pain about that. So I could feel, I could work with the feeling of pain, which it might be living with the idea of separation. So now I've got both of them to work with. And I'm aware of them. I'm paying attention to them compassionately. that way of working with the thought of the feeling of separation or that way working with the idea of separation and working with the feeling of discomfort and fear. Fear often comes with the feeling of separation. I'm separated from that guy over there.

[40:16]

Oh, and there's fear too. Okay, so now I got the fear, the idea that he's separate, got the pain of the fear, the pain of the separation, the fear of the separation. So I've got quite a bit here to work with, right? Each thing can be investigated and the mode of investigation that's recommended here is compassionately. So compassionately allow, welcome the feeling of pain, welcome the feeling of fear that comes with the idea that we're separate. Welcome all of them and then practice ethical discipline with them. Don't try to kill the feeling of separation. A lot of people, when they have the idea of separation and then they feel the pain of the separation, They had this other idea, if I would just grab that person and get a hold of them, I wouldn't be afraid anymore.

[41:26]

You know, if I would eliminate the separation by getting a hold of them. And babies do that. They're separate from their mother. They think if I get a hold of the mother, this fear will go away. So what do we call it? We come by this unwholesome understanding honestly. We sort of have to go with that. Separation from mommy is, that idea is very painful. Let's do anything possible to eliminate the separation. Now it's time to study that. And some people have it, some adults have this. Being separated from this person is very painful. Let's get rid of the separation. And also, now that we got rid of the separation, let's get control of this person so that they never get away from us and we don't have to feel that pain anymore. Now we're at the phase of studying that, studying all that stuff with compassion.

[42:28]

Don't try to kill these painful things. Don't lie about them. Don't intoxicate them, and so on. And then be patient, because it's painful too. A lot of this stuff is really painful, so you've got to be patient and so on. Okay? Yes? Yes? I think when you study with compassion, one of your rewards, in a way, will be grief. So you're trying to, I don't know what, you don't necessarily even know what you're studying sometimes. Sometimes you're looking at your mind and you're quiet, but you can't see, and you're studying your attachments, maybe, that you can see, but there's some other attachments which you can't see.

[43:32]

But because you're studying the ones you can see by being quiet with them and respectful of them, the ones you can't see give you grief as a way of studying them. the attachments you can't see. And if you're compassionate to the grief, the compassion gets referred to the attachments which you can't see. So you're holding on someplace, you have some kind of attachments going on that you do not ... some changes have occurred, it's often around change that grief comes, some changes occurred and you don't know exactly what the change is that you don't accept. So then the healthy system gives you this grief. And if you can accept the grief, then you can accept the change. So if you can be compassionate to the grief, and basically being compassionate to the grief is to welcome it.

[44:40]

And so it maybe helps to hear a teaching that grief is to be welcomed. And it's to be met with compassion. And be careful of it. It's a precious thing in a way. Don't try to get rid of it. But grief in some ways is one of the gifts that really seems to need quiet and stillness in order to be received. If you're really busy, sometimes you can't practice compassion. It's like practicing compassion with grief kind of requires slowing down. So... Yeah, yeah. Exactly. If you practice compassion with the shortcuts or whatever, then that's good. And then the grief says, kind of like, oh, now maybe she'll listen to me. So it shows itself again. So sometimes it shows itself and you say, I'm too busy with that or get away. I can't deal with you now. And the grief goes, okay.

[45:42]

Yeah, you're not ready for me. I'm available, I'm trying to help you, but I can see you're just, you don't want to deal with me, you're a busy lady, you know. And then you go sit in the zendo and then it says, can I show myself now? And you say, okay. And then, okay. And all it wants you to do is compassionately feel it. And then this compassionate feeling gets referred to some other area that you don't even know about. And the same thing happens over there. And then you're flowing. Then you're flowing, which is what your life wants to do. But sometimes when flowing happens, we say, no way, I'm not going to accept this. And then there's stress. And then the grief comes and says, feel this. and you'll be able to join the flow. Flow with me and you'll flow someplace else that I can't tell you about but you're actually holding on to it in some deep part of your body and mind.

[46:56]

But if you do it here, it'll take care of it there. And then of course the change goes on. There will be other opportunities where we do not accept And then if we give grief a chance by being quiet and still, it'll come and do its thing for us for the new thing we're not accepting. And sometimes there's a big backlog. And so some people grieve for the first many years of their practice, mostly grieving. And then they catch up, and then there's new, more fresh griefs. So if somebody we love dies, then we have some part of us cannot accept that, so we have the grief for that. Maybe within the first few months we deal with that. But there's some stuff which is really old, but it will come if we give it a chance. And many people, as you probably know, They're walking around, you know, like, how are you doing?

[47:59]

Fine. They sit down in a zendo and suddenly the tears and the grief comes up, which when they're running around they can't feel it, but when they sit still it just comes. And it's quite normal, quite usual, that sitting still and quiet gives grief a chance to knock on the door and ask for some witnessing. And that's part of compassionate. But sometimes, again, being compassionate to this phenomena is also for a lot of other things, which is great. So you're being compassionate to this grief, which you can see, because you're having trouble being compassionate to some other very subtle things which you can't even figure out how to even recognize. But it gets transferred or referred over to those. Paula? Is it possible to have

[49:02]

feelings of grief and or fear over losing non-separation. Yes. Yeah. You could say, you could be afraid to lose, did you, you said, I think you said fear of losing non-separation? Yes. You could be afraid of that and you could also be afraid of losing separation. Yeah, but both, both are perfectly good candidates for fear. Like, yeah, yeah. Be afraid of losing separation, like some people who are very, some people who are very close to some people, like everybody is close to people. Right? According to me. Everybody's close. But some people we're close with were afraid of losing the sense of separation.

[50:04]

Because maybe we think, if I lost the sense of separation, they could walk away and I just let them go. So I need the sense of separation, otherwise we would lose our relationship. And I don't want to lose my relationship with my mother or with my daughter. So as we practice, and the practice through time can get more transcendent, can get, doesn't mean it well. The practice can get more what? Transcendent, less conceptual. Okay. Can we still feel that fear or grief when it's not, when a sense of separation is not so conceptual? Yes. Yes. when the understanding or realization of non-separation is full, it doesn't push away any of those silly thoughts from ancient times.

[51:10]

and as it deepens, you might have more and more confidence that letting go, actually realizing letting go of the idea of separation, which involves letting it be, you let the idea of separation be as you become more deeply settled into not believing it. But when you've fully settled into not believing, not believing it, then the thought of separation isn't eliminated, it just turns into a Dharma door. But we don't actually want to lose the sense of separation because then we lose a Dharma door. But we're not keeping it, we're just practicing compassion towards it, and when the compassion's full, we're settled into the realization of letting go of what we're practicing compassion towards. Wholeheartedly practicing compassion towards X goes with letting go of X, but also goes with X being liberated from us.

[52:28]

So in that wholehearted letting the thing be, the grip on it is released, but also its grip on us is released, and its grip on itself is released. So the sense of separation is liberated, along with us being liberated from holding on to it. It's a good deal. But as you approach it, there might be moments of, wait a minute, will I turn into a zombie and not care about separation from my mommy or my daughter Well, that wouldn't be good. Wait a minute. What wouldn't be good? Not caring wouldn't be good. That's called nihilism. We don't want to get nihilistic about all these things. that we're not attached to anymore, or that we're not abiding in the attachment. We don't want to stop caring. Actually, the caring should lead us towards letting go of them.

[53:38]

But fears about what would happen if we proceeded on this path normally do arise, and then they get the same treatment as the attachment, namely compassionate investigation. I see two people. I think you raised your hand a little bit before Al. You agree? Yeah, but? Okay, so who's going to... You guys work it out. Maybe it's the same question. You're right on this. I would love you to explore more the dynamism between... non-identification, intimacy. I'm thinking, at one point in your practice, like, if you're fused with a negative self-belief or an emotion, there's a lot of shame, you're totally blinded with it. And then to kind of shift your way back into, like, the mindful, compassionate awareness is still kind of a self-view, but it's useful.

[54:42]

It's good if you don't say too much, okay? Because you sort of said two things. So the last thing he said, something like, when such and such, then you're such and such, right? When you, say it again, when you're, when you're fused, okay, so he said when you're fused and identified, okay? In other words, when there's this affliction, which is the appearance of me being fused with that, when that affliction arises. It's not true that I'm fused with that, but there is this thought, I'm fused with that. That's like my body, okay? Okay, now, when it appears that we're fused, then what? What was your next part? So if you have shame over identification, isn't that a feeling? Oh, so now we have believing that I'm fused with it, dash believing that I'm identified with it, or that my identification is true, then there's maybe some discomforts, like if you're a meditator, shame that you're falling into this trap.

[55:56]

Any other negative energy you want to put on there, fine. A lot of pain will come up with believing that you're fused with somebody or something, like believing that you're fused with your car, Even though it's just metal, you can believe the car, me, and fused. I'm identified with this car, but not the one next to it. The one next to it was nice, but I'm not fused with it. So I don't feel pain with regard to that one, but I feel pain with regard to this one. Do not scratch this car. The what? The car could be the meditation, but... Also, the self and the car together. And what are the afflictions of this? Turn the light on the self, on the consciousness where there's a self and the car. And then also see, is there identification of the self and the car? And is there pain around that? and there often is, or self and daughter, or self and son, or self and mother.

[57:04]

All those things, there could be belief that they're fused, and then that belief or that thought that they're fused is calling for compassion. And with compassion, that idea will be seen for what it is. It's an idea. It's not a reality that you're fused with things. But there are these ideas, and the ideas themselves, if you're not camping out in them, if you're not abiding in them, they're not painful. The abiding in them is. The actual question, which this has come back to, is the dynamics between that kind of breathing room of dis-identification and non-identification, so it could see the mechanisms of this self-being and this fusing. It's kind of like a quantumist and a little bit aloof. But that's still stuck. That's still for affliction.

[58:07]

The aloof, I think, comes with being caught by the affliction of the self being fused. In this study, there's no aloofness. It's intimate. The feeling of aloofness comes with a sense of, I would be aloof if I did this study. Or I'm becoming aloof from that. Sometimes I feel that in Vipassana practice for me, there's this kind of clinical quality of, like, I am the witness. Well, there's two clinics. One clinic... One clinic is the clinic based on we're separated. The other clinic is the clinic of becoming intimate. So sometimes when people say clinical, they mean separating. Aloof is, I think, probably related to the word loof, as in loofbafa. Aloof probably means floating up into the air.

[59:11]

So if you're used to identifying with things and you start looking at your identification, then you might start feeling aloof. But that's really that you're not understanding how to become intimate with the identification. The study of the identification is not to float away from it, which for a lot of people is a big relief. So somebody might say to me, I feel overly identified with you and it's so painful. I just want to be with you all the time. Okay, so I'm going to go away from you. I'm going to be aloof from you. That won't get at the problem. You need to bring more love to the over-identification and become free of it. Turning away is wrong and touching is wrong. We're trying to find this place where we're devoted to But if we're touching, we should practice compassion towards the touching. But as we start practicing compassion towards the touching and we start letting loose a little bit, we might think we're going to turn away.

[60:18]

So be compassionate with the fear of turning away. Yes. You were talking about afflictions. Yeah. And I don't know what exactly what. She said, if you're kind to it, it turns into a Dharma door. Yeah. I wonder, what is this wondrous Dharma door? What happens if I go through this door? Such wondering is calling for compassion. What? Not enough is calling for compassion.

[61:23]

Pardon?

[61:26]

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