It's difficult to take care of. I hate her. He hates me. He thinks he's better than me. I'm better than him. I'm better than them. They're wrong. They're not fair. I'm no good. I'm unworthy. I'm much more worthy than he is. This is a good place. This is a bad place. I'm terrible. I'm worthless. This is not easy thing to take care of in myself and it's not easy to take care of in others. I'm excellent. I'm the best. That's not easy to take care of and it's not easy to take care of in others. However, I think if we do really take good care of these things they won't evaporate They're more like the ground in which a great flower grows.

[01:05]

A great flower of compassion and wisdom grows in the ground of these delusions. These delusions are the ground or the field in which Buddha grows. So Buddha grows in this ground of delusion when the roots of study go into the ground. the roots of examination, of calm and intimate embracing of these delusions, grows wisdom and compassion. And it grows up a little ways if you study for a little while, and then grows further if you study longer. And the longer you study, the more the tree of compassion and wisdom grows. It has no life aside from delusion. So it's hard for me to understand the end of the study of this delusion.

[02:13]

And it's difficult also to actually study the delusion, to study the delusion and to study the delusion, to examine it, to quietly explore the farthest reaches of the causes and conditions of delusion. But this is the exact practice of the Buddhas, to intimately study greed, hate, and delusion. Greed and hate are different from each other, but they're both based in delusion. So briefly, how do we study, how do we become authentically deluded? How can we be authentic deluded beings?

[03:17]

So briefly but comprehensively, the way we realize delusion, which is Buddhahood, the way we realize affliction, which is Buddhahood, the way we understand defilement, which is Buddhahood, briefly and all inclusively we do it by practicing giving, ethical discipline, patience, diligence, concentration and wisdom. This is how we realize delusion and attain enlightenment. This is how we realize great enlightenment about delusion and in the midst of delusion.

[04:27]

And the first step is a rather difficult one. or just plain difficult. You can say rather, extremely, impossibly, whatever. Anyway, the first step seems to be quite difficult, which is to actually be gracious to affliction. Be gracious to delusion. Be gracious to unskillful passions. To welcome them. To welcome. To welcome hate. Yes. To welcome greed. To welcome pride. Arrogance. To welcome fear.

[05:35]

To welcome anxiety. To welcome pain. To welcome pleasure. Fear. to welcome joy, to welcome depression, to welcome confusion, to welcome contempt of self and contempt of others. Yes, welcome all those things. everything else. Welcome all forms of life. Like them? No, I didn't say like. Hate? No. Welcome. Be generous towards every experience, and every experience is, could it be, delusion? And then practice ethical discipline after you welcome, which is very difficult to do, but if you actually can welcome these difficult guests into your life, then practice ethics with them.

[07:05]

Which is, you know, be very careful with them. Be careful with delusions. Be conscientious with them. Be gentle with them. Be respectful of them. And again, this applies to all my own delusions. And my own delusions include the delusions I have about every other living being So every person I meet, for me, when I meet you, you're not a delusion, but I have a delusion about you. I don't just meet you. I meet you with my delusion of you. Perhaps I should apologize. That when I meet you, I don't come empty-handed or empty-minded. I come with my handy-dandy version of you.

[08:09]

Oh, here comes my friend. Here comes my pal. Here comes my enemy. Here comes the teacher. Here comes the student. Here comes the child. Here comes the parent. Here comes the enemy. Here comes the skillful person. Here comes the unskillful person. I have my own idiosyncratic belief or impression of everything that I experience. And can I welcome them all? I don't know. Do I wish to learn to welcome them all? Do I? Yes, I do. Have I ever regretted welcoming them so far? No. Have I ever regretted not welcoming them? Yes. I regret not welcoming delusion.

[09:13]

Then I just become a prisoner of delusion. Most people are prisoners of their delusions because they do not welcome them. Now, if they welcome them, they're starting to become free of them. Become free of them by accepting that they're in your life. Become free of them by accepting that they're in your life. Becoming free of the prison of delusion by admitting you're in the prison of delusion and saying, thank you very much, prison. Not that I like prison, but thank you, I'm so glad to know I am in prison. I thought there might be some problems. I'm in the prison of my delusions. And I've heard that all living beings are living in the prison of their delusions.

[10:20]

And that some have become authentic prisoners and thereby attained Buddhahood. Some people are in the prison of their fears and have authentically, have become authentically afraid and become free of fear. Again and again and again and again. Virtually without end. but still somehow continuing because the fourth practice I mentioned is the practice of diligence, which is something I will talk about in two more steps. That you can be diligent about a practice, a difficult practice like

[11:35]

welcoming delusion and being careful and conscientious about delusion, welcoming your imprisonment in your own deluded mind, welcoming it and being careful of it, understanding that it's not going to end necessarily ever, that it maybe doesn't have an end. That's why I have a problem with about to end them. Because ending is kind of like a mental construction. And then the next one comes into play, patience. The third practice is patience. Patience with how long it takes to become welcoming and careful. Patience with how little welcoming I'm doing. Patience with how often I forget to welcome what comes to me. Patience with being not careful.

[12:37]

Patience with myself not being careful. Patience with others not being careful. Patience with my lack of welcoming and patience with others who are not welcoming to me and themselves. And then comes diligence, which is enthusiasm about these first three practices and the next two practices, and it's also enthusiasm about enthusiasm. That you actually feel enthusiastic about learning to welcome the most difficult guests of life. And again, not liking, but welcoming for the sake of freeing beings from suffering. And enthusiastic about being patient with the urgency and difficulty of our situation.

[13:41]

Not patient like, it's okay. No, patient like, it's painful and I want to be right here with the pain. Our ecological crisis is distressing and it isn't that patience is like, it's okay. It's more like, I want to be close to this problem. I want to be as present with it as I can possibly be. And I feel enthusiasm about developing that kind of patience with this problem, with these problems. The root of this enthusiasm is aspiration to do the practices. And the root of the aspiration is to consider the cause and effect of not doing the practices

[14:49]

and to consider the cause and effect of doing the practices. If you think about doing these practices, you might come to aspire to practice them. If you think about how they might be beneficial, you feel more and more aspiration to practice them. And if you think about what happens if you don't practice them, if you think of how harmful it is not to be generous, not to be gracious, not to be careful, and not to be patient. If you think about that and consider that, even though you can't see exactly how it works because we're deluded, but still somehow it makes sense that living a life of not welcoming life is not the way to go. Actually, the other way is the way to go. And so I do have some energy in the midst of all my troubles, maybe even quite a bit of energy to do the practices.

[15:53]

And then this energy to do these first three practices, and these first three practices of generosity, ethical discipline, and patience, these practices are the practices which bring benefit to the situation of affliction. They bring benefit and welfare to the afflicted beings and to the afflictions. The next two practices bring freedom from the affliction. The next two practices are concentration and wisdom. And this enthusiasm is for practicing the beneficial practices and enthusiasm for practicing concentration and wisdom which liberate and cure, cure the afflictions.

[17:00]

cure the afflictions by making it clear that they are the ground in which wisdom and compassion grows. And so we have enthusiasm for practicing what I said at the beginning, practicing and being mindful and taking care of being serene, practicing tranquility, as much as possible throughout the day and night. Donate your unconcentrated, distracted, not calm self, donate that to your local charity. and give your life over to being tranquil and concentrated.

[18:08]

I'm not kind of sorry to say that among worldly pleasures it's the greatest pleasure, tranquility, but that's not the reason to do it. As a matter of fact, if you do practice tranquility, you might stumble upon the well-discovered fact that it is very pleasant to be calm. But then we must give away our calm, not hold on to it. We don't practice calm so that the practitioner becomes calm. We practice calm so that the practitioner can give her calm away, which deepens the calm and brings greater pleasure, which she gives away. And with this calm we then can move to the great practice of now looking at delusion from a calm, relaxed, unmoving presence and see the way delusions really are.

[19:19]

To decisively, certainly understand them and thereby be released, cut through them I'm trying to assemble the understanding in the community for this process of studying delusion. We have an intensive here now, which seems to have a beginning, and in some sense may seem to have an end, but I'm more thinking of the whole rest of our lives as studying delusion.

[20:33]

and at the beginning of this year to reiterate the importance of studying delusion in order to understand them and thereby realize great enlightenment. Yeah, there's tremendous resources in the tradition for helping us get to a place where we can efficaciously study these problems, these afflictions. And I'm trying to develop the understanding so that we can go deeper and deeper into the study of delusion. But before we study them, and liberate them, we must love them. Wholeheartedly love them, not like them. Just like you don't like if you have a friend who's a drug addict, you don't like that they're a drug addict.

[21:37]

But in order to free them, you have to love them. In order to see what would be helpful, you have to love the person who has this unskillful affliction. And we all have our addictions which we need to discover and be kind to so that we can get ready to really understand them. So in the midst of great suffering there is a little flame of enthusiasm for practicing the way of wisdom for the welfare of all beings. And this flame can be nurtured and can grow and grow and grow. this little sprout can grow and grow and grow if we take care of it.

[22:41]

But we have to remember to take care of our delusions, otherwise they sweep us into oblivion and we forget what our problems are. I forgot. What are our problems again? Do you remember? What's my problem anyway? Huh? What's my problem? Do you remember? I told you earlier, didn't I? What was it? Do you remember my problem? You forgot too? Anybody remember? I said I had a problem. I forgot what it was. What was it? I'm deluded. Thank you. I knew I... Thank you. Please remind me if I seem to forget. And actually some people come to me and say, if you ever see me acting deluded would you remind me?

[23:45]

And I say, well I'm willing to but I don't know if I'll be able to because if at the time I see it you may not be in the mood for me to remind you. So I sometimes go to the person and say, did you ask me to remind you when you seem to be deluded? And they say, so what? May our intention equally extend. It seemed to me that you were talking about delusions as things that could be looked at. Could you open that up a little bit, please? Okay, well, what, you know, the... The thought or the idea that delusions are things to look at is another delusion which you can look at.

[24:48]

So basically, the nature of our mind could be said that our mind is kind of like, is naturally deluded, or in other words, our mind is naturally deceptive. it presents a deceptive or inaccurate appearance of the way things are, and it does it in such a way that we tend to fall for it. It doesn't just, like it doesn't say, I'm going to trick you. It says, It does trick us, but doesn't tell us it's tricking us. So it says, for example, it says, other living beings are out there separate from you. The mind arises in such a way that we can be aware of each other And the way we're aware of each other is partly through the mind generating an impression of others so that they look like they're out there separate from us.

[26:08]

And it does it in a way that's kind of seductive or it's appealing. And we say, okay, yeah, people are separate from us. Yeah, I agree. the mind actually arises such that it arises as an object of itself. And the object looks like it's separate from itself. But it's not. It's the mind. So the mind is misleading or it is misguiding. And so to be aware of that is something we can train ourselves at. You're welcome. I'm trying to bring my question and my wish

[27:22]

One way, or in my mind, the only way that I see us free from this mind is the welcoming of death. And I am just putting the question out, is death also a delusion of the mind, or does death exist beyond the mind? Death is not just a delusion of the mind, And death depends on mind. There is no death independent of mind.

[28:37]

Death is a dependent thing. It depends on minds. There's no death wandering around the universe without minds. Death is a mind-dependent phenomenon. And part of what the death depends on is us having ideas of death. But our ideas of death are not death. So death is not just our ideas. So in a sense death is, you could say, beyond our ideas of it. But it's not exactly beyond, it's rather not our ideas. But it's not really beyond our ideas because it depends on our ideas. So death is not our ideas, it's not what we think it is, and yet it depends on we thinkers. And we thinkers die. Thinking is involved in birth and death.

[29:40]

Birth and death, that's what thinking is about, partly. So part of what we need to welcome is death. which is the same as we need to welcome our delusion of death. And if we can welcome our delusion to death, we can open up to the reality of death. And if we can welcome our delusion of birth, we can open to the reality of birth. And the reality of birth is not that it's some... And the reality of death is not that there's some, you know, inherently existing realities, but they are also ungraspable realities And because they're ungraspable, we can become free of both birth and death, which is called nirvana. We can attain freedom and peace with birth and death if we understand birth and death. In order to understand birth and death, we have to deal with our thinking about birth and death, our delusions about birth and death.

[30:45]

And again, my delusion about birth and death is not birth and death. But birth and death depends on my thinking. And in order to do this, I have to welcome my thinking. And when I start thinking about death and getting old and not wanting to be trouble to people to take care of me, when I start thinking about these things, I don't want to... stress everybody out by my aging process, but at the same time I would kind of like somebody to help me out. When I start thinking about these things, these are my delusions about aging. And I'm saying, if we love these delusions, if we care for these delusions, we will understand them. And then before we get any older, we'll become enlightened. And then we continue to take care of our delusions about aging.

[31:49]

Among all the other delusions, we have the delusions about aging that we need to love, we need to care for in order to not be imprisoned by them. And also the fear that comes up around aging. We need to care for the fear around aging. We should start now rather than later. Don't waste any time. Start working with these fears of our aging and death now. That would be good. Can I also wish for the tolerance of pain? Because I feel my lack of tolerance to pain is what keeps me in the delusion because it's too painful for me to... Lack of tolerance is part of what keeps us trapped... But it isn't just lack of tolerance or lack of patience. Patience isn't the same exactly as welcoming.

[32:53]

You can welcome something and then not be patient with it. And you can be patient but not really welcoming. We need to be both welcoming to pain, not liking it. You don't have to like it. You don't have to hate it. But we do need, if we want to be at peace, If we want to help other people who are suffering with pain, if we want to help them, we need to learn to be gracious with pain and be patient. We need both. And we also need to be ethical with pain. We need to be careful with it and vigilant and conscientious with it. It's something that if we don't take care of, if we're not careful, that lack of care can really cause a lot of trouble. But caring for the pain, being gracious with the pain, and being patient with the pain, those together, these bring great benefit. And be patient. If you can't be patient, be patient with your lack of patience.

[33:58]

Don't be mean to yourself when you're not patient. That isn't necessary. I think it's natural to feel uncomfortable when you're not patient. That discomfort is repentance. A little bit of stimulus, too. A little stimulus package. My my grandson said, what did you give my mom for Christmas? And I said, I gave her a lot of money. And he asked me how much I gave her and I told him. And he said, what about that other money you gave her? I said, oh yeah, I gave her that. And he said, yeah, but that was more like a stimulus package. So if you feel a little uncomfortable when you don't practice generosity and ethics and patience with your pain and with your fear when you feel uncomfortable, that discomfort can be a positive stimulus called repentance to poke you and encourage you to do these practices, which these practices aren't necessarily fun, but there is a sense of, well,

[35:23]

It's not necessarily fun, but it's beneficial, so I feel pretty good, even though it's not fun. Because it is helpful. I really feel it's helpful. I hope I can bring it to my practice. Yeah, good. Any other feedback you care to offer? Feedback ease, come. Come forward, please. So you can use a microphone and... Oh, it's Jackie. Here. Here. I have a little hard time with welcoming my delusions.

[36:27]

Me too. I mean welcoming mine. Do we have to welcome them? Do you have to welcome them? Apparently not. However, if you wish to be a Buddha, if you wish to contribute to the realization of Buddha, then you have to. Buddha welcomes them. So if you want to be on the Buddha team, learn to welcome. If you don't welcome them, then you'll just... Well, one of your teachings is always to be upright. Be upright, yes. Welcoming is kind of leaning over. No. Thank you very much. That's very good. Welcoming is not leaning over. That's a very good point. Thank you. Welcoming is... Isn't it like this, like welcome? It is not. So Jackie bends forward and said, isn't it like bending forward? It is not. Now, if you wish to bend forward, it's okay, but when you bend forward, be upright.

[37:31]

So you welcome, but you don't lean forward or backward in your welcoming. You don't lean to the right or the left. You're upright in your welcoming. Welcoming means... you are welcome to be here, and you are welcome to go. And I do not prefer for you to be here, and I do not prefer for you to go, or if I do prefer, I'm giving away my preference. So I'm not leaning into my guest, and I'm not leaning away from my guest. So that's very important to remember. That giving, being generous, is an aspect of being upright, and being upright is a quality of real welcoming. Thank you. That's important, I think, to get a feeling for it. Giving up your position is part of being upright, but that's not leaning, anyway. My understanding of caring for

[38:39]

positive events or negative events, negative events for one being illness, seems to be... In my deluded mind, there's a fundamental difference. There's similarities, but there's a difference in that when... welcoming disease, one attempts to understand the disease and then relieve the disease. And when welcoming, for instance, a new birth into the world, that practice feels different. The way that I practice in my diluted way is one of bringing in and pushing away, but I like to imagine that others are able to be upright, as you say, and welcome without leaning in, but it feels like the fundamental function of the two healings is that there is a difference and that it's important to acknowledge that.

[39:42]

I... The difference is another delusion, which is another delusion to acknowledge, be respectful of and welcome. The sense of difference. So pain and pleasure, those two, there's no difference there. When you say pain, there's no difference. And when you say pleasure, there's no difference. When you bring in difference, that's another thing to take care of. So if you do notice a difference in the way you take care of them, that's important to take care of that. What attracted to me, one of the stories that attracted me to Zen was a story of where a person was kind of attacked or insulted and then he was praised and he seemed to respond to both situations in the same way. But that wouldn't have been interesting if he didn't feel differently in the two situations.

[40:45]

In one case, if he felt nothing different from being insulted and attacked, from being praised, and then he treated them the same, it wouldn't have been that interesting. But the fact that when people were hurting him and disrespecting him and falsely accusing him, that the way that that feels, he welcomed that. But not like, oh, thank you very much, in the sense of saying that to them, but a feeling of really welcoming that. and being upright. And not saying, oh, do more. Just being upright with it. And then when he was praised, he didn't say, oh, don't praise me. Didn't say, don't blame me. Didn't say, don't praise me. He just perceived both in the same way. And the fact that he could do things that felt differently, that he could do the same thing, I thought, now that's what I'd like to learn to do. I don't know how to do that. So to be able to treat everything the same, to be able to treat friends and enemy basically the same, It isn't like, oh, a friend, you lean into the friend. Oh, enemy, lean away.

[41:47]

But really be gracious to both friends and enemies. But the feeling is different. The pain and pleasure is different. But to learn to treat them the same, basically, that's what I came to learn. And the proposal is somebody had learned that. People can do that. And even if they couldn't, just the idea that that's possible attracted me. And then there's a training program to learn this, which we're talking about now. But there is a difference. If you pinch the skin and twist it, it's different from patting it. Different. But to relate to them both, to welcome them both, that's a great skill for the bodhisattva. And I appreciate that. The question that I had, though, was what is happening or not happening when the fundamental desire, if you will, to offer human caring arises?

[42:55]

For instance, if a child comes up to me with a bleeding gash in her finger i would want to welcome that but i would also wish to stop it and i know that i would wish to stop it i wouldn't wish for the child to continue bleeding whereas if well excuse me so you have two things you have a child's bleeding and and you could welcome the bleeding child so you have no problem with that right welcome the bleeding child Pardon? I said it would be hard for me to not go. No, wait a second. You're jumping ahead, you see? You're not being upright. You keep jumping ahead. Your child comes. You welcome the child. And it's hard for you to be upright. It means it's hard for you to welcome the child. You hardly have time to welcome the child before you get into something else. That's what you're saying. But I'm saying, first of all, please welcome the child before you get into... I'm going to fix the child.

[43:56]

Now, if you welcome the child who is bleeding, then the thought may arise, I would like to help the child with this blood, with this wound. That's the next thing. You welcome that. Rather than not taking care of the first meeting, you may never have a chance to help this child with this wound. But you do have a chance to meet the child right now. So meet the child who's got the wound and be there, and you might find out, it's possible you'll find out, if you don't go from seeing the child with the wound and without being there, you jump into fixing the wound. You may find out the wound does not need to be fixed. But if you jump ahead, you may not find out it doesn't need to be fixed, and you may harm the child. It may turn out that the child's wound will heal by itself without being touched. that it will coagulate and does not need you to do anything about it. And actually you might touch it and give it, you might cause a problem.

[45:03]

To make the best decision, I would say, will come from being there with the first event was that you got a child here who seems to be bleeding and deal with that first. And then you may have, I would like to help this child in some way. And then maybe, How about a little respect for the child? And ask the child, would you like me to help you? Some children will say, leave me alone. Do not touch me. I know this gentleman I referred to earlier. We were riding down the road here on a bicycle. He and I, he was on one bicycle, I was on another one. We came to the bump, these speed bumps there. And I said, slow down. There's a speed bump. And he didn't slow down. And he hit the speed bump and flew off his bicycle and landed. And he was kind of okay with that harsh landing. But then he kept going for a while, sliding across. And then you could kind of feel the abrasion occurring. And then I came up to him and said, can I help you?

[46:07]

He said, do not touch me. Leave me alone. I'm never going to ride a bicycle again. Leave me alone. It's my body. So, and I did. I care for this little guy, but he did not want me to do anything. So take care of each step. And still your wish to fix people may arise, or fix woes may arise, but if you don't welcome that, then that will be a problem. If you don't care for the impulse to help them in the same way of being still with it, be upright with it, and see where that goes, rather than, I wish to help them, no further discussion is necessary. This is obviously good for me to fix this wound. It's kind of disrespectful.

[47:07]

But also, if you're respectful to the impulse to fix the wound, then the impulse to fix the wound will not be acted on disrespectfully, perhaps. You'll ask the person, would you like me to clean your wound? And again, they might say, no, I don't want you to. I want my mommy to. But I want to fix it. Lady, you've got a problem. Go help somebody else. I want my mom to fix this. But I want to fix it. And then the little guy might say, you know, well, okay, I accept that you want to fix it, but I don't want you to. Can you accept that? And with that help of that little guy, you probably say, yeah, I can pass up on me being the doctor today. I'll let you go find somebody else to do it. But it requires people to be present. with the present situation and welcome what's happening before half welcoming it and moving on to the next thing which is a common way to not wholeheartedly do this because we think we have to do the next step and then get to the next step we don't wholeheartedly do the next step and then we don't and so on not thoroughly studying the present delusion

[48:34]

Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Once a young girl came to visit our house, and she was, I think, a year younger than my daughter. my daughter's quite perceptive, and this little girl was too. She was like, I rarely met a girl, little girl, as perceptive as my daughter, but she was. And I didn't hear this, I don't think I heard this, I think I heard this indirectly about her, but anyway, the story is that she told this story about herself. She said her parents were separated. One lived in the Bay Area, And the other one lived on the other side of the country in Boston.

[49:49]

So she would go back and forth from west coast to east coast to west coast to be with her father in Oakland and her mother in Boston. She'd go back and forth. And she said, she said, when I'm with my dad, I'm I'm so excited to go back to be with my mom that I hardly even notice that I'm with my dad. And then when I get back with my mom, I'm so excited about going to see my dad that I forget about being with my mom. And then when I'm with my dad, I'm so excited about going back to my mom that I forget to be with my dad. We have this little girl notice that about ourselves. We all have this problem. We're so excited about the next thing that we miss out on this thing.

[50:49]

We're so excited about the next delusion that we miss this delusion. This is our problem. It's hard to take care of this delusion anyway, not to mention that there's other ones coming up that are more interesting. And she said, she told this story about 20 years ago when cabbage patch dolls were very popular. These are these very special dolls that were very popular. And she said, it's like you wish for a Cabbage Patch doll and you get a Cabbage Patch doll for Christmas that you've been really wanting to have so much. And you finally get it. And you open the package and there's your Cabbage Patch doll and you set it down and then you go to bed. And then in the morning someone comes up and cleans up the wrapping that all the presents came in at Christmas time and they throw the wrappings out to the garbage and accidentally they throw the Cabbage Patch Doll out too.

[51:55]

And you come down to see your Cabbage Patch Doll and you can't find it. Then you look out the window and you see the Cabbage Patch Doll going off in the garbage truck. So we have to train ourselves in order to not miss this moment. It isn't theoretically studying our delusions. It's studying this one, this one, and this one. Even though the next one will be interesting and challenging, this one and this one. And our minds are, again, tricksters. They keep saying, you don't need to pay attention to this. The next thing is really interesting. Let's do it. It's going to be lots of fun. Let's do it. No, you don't pay attention to this one. The next one. But the next one is actually this one. That's another concept of a next one.

[52:58]

If you take care of it, you say, oh, it's actually not the next one. So you're not leaning into the next thing. But it's hard. It's tricky. Excuse me. Yes. Now for the next delusion. Yeah, right. That's right. Next delusion, please. Just in reading the foundations of mindfulness, it is the mindfulness of body in the body, perception in perception. This to me sounds like welcoming. Yes, it is. To be mindful of the body in the body is welcoming. The question is, with the next step of caring,

[54:03]

To be caring seems to... Wait a second. Being mindful of the body, in the body, is caring. Mindfulness is caring. And I would say caring, real caring, is mindful. To care for things, to say, I care for you, and then not pay attention to you, that's not really being careful. Being careful is also being mindful. Careful speech is mindful speech, and mindful speech is careful speech. Careful posture is mindful posture. So being mindful of the body, in the body, being mindful that your body is sitting when the body is sitting, that is caring. That's how to care for your body. That's a part of caring for your body. So you have ethical action arising out of the mindfulness itself?

[55:06]

Yes. Mindfulness arising out of ethical action. When it moves into action, there seems to be a greater need for confidence. Confidence? Confidence. Confidence. And where does that come from? What does that look like in our practice? Well, when you say confidence, do you mean like confidence in being mindful? Or the confidence to react calmly. Not freak out. To do what is asked for. There's many sources of confidence in being calm. Many sources. But one source of confidence in being calm is that you practice calm and you think, I want to do this more. This seems, I feel like this is a good way, a good, this is something I'd like to practice.

[56:08]

I think it would be good. Sometimes even if you're not calm, you might see someone who's calm and say, that's beautiful. Like that story I told you, you know, I saw some guy being attacked and then being praised and he calmly responded and I thought, that's cool. I'd like to learn that. So that, in some sense, I had some confidence that that would be a good thing to learn. And then practicing it, the confidence might grow. Some things you might try, and you say, no, I don't think this is good. And then your confidence goes away. You doubt that it's helpful. I'm looking for how it is that I even show up to do it in the first place. If I know that it's going to take more than myself... I don't have confidence in that. I don't have confidence in you or me looking for how I happen to be so fortunate to be able to even try to be mindful.

[57:20]

That kind of contemplation the Buddha does not recommend. Because that will be what you call not a dead end, but a distraction. Because you will not be able to find out the answer to that question. And you've got some other business to do in the meantime, besides going after this virtually inconceivable project or situation. You will not be able to find it until you're basically a Buddha. So if you wonder about that, don't follow that. Just be kind to that and be mindful. I'm wondering how I come to be mindful. But you do not know how you come to be mindful. You can only have delusions about it. So when I think, like I sometimes think, how did I come to be practicing Zen? I can tell a story about that, but that's not actually how I came to practice it. And I can spend my time thinking about how I come to practice and mispractice in the process.

[58:28]

I'm so excited by that question I forget about the practice. So be careful not to get into these speculations which take you away from being mindful of your body. Being mindful of the body and the body, welcoming the body, welcoming the body, and welcoming the body. Well, I've been welcoming my body for a while now. Now I'm going to move on to wonder, how did I ever get into this business? But that's how I'm going to take a break from welcoming my body. No, please don't. Keep welcoming your body. And if you come up with the question, how did I come to be a body welcomer? Welcome that thought, but don't let that distract you. Just see if that's another thought to welcome. To go on with that, is it also a distraction to feel grateful for whatever it is that keeps bringing us back?

[59:44]

No. Okay. Nothing, the things that arise are not distractions. It's the way you relate to them that's a distraction. Or not, or not. So when a color comes up, a gratefulness comes up, We have a handy-dandy mind, which makes a delusion about either of them. And if you don't take care of that, you're distracted from caring for it. Now, if you wish to cause harm and you don't take care of it, then you're not distracted. You're actually not distracted from causing harm. You're concentrated on causing harm when you don't take care of things. But if you're trying to take care of things and try to benefit beings, and if you don't pay attention to and practice kindness towards things, you're distracted from the project of kindness. So when gratitude arises if you don't care for it but try to hold on to it or be possessive of it or deny it,

[60:54]

you've missed the immediate chance of caring for it. Like gratitude, hello, gratitude, welcome. What is, you know, please, I'm going to be careful of this gratitude. And then it's gone. And the next thing comes. Instead of saying, hello, gratitude, gee, why don't you have a seat and hang around. Yeah, you could say hello. Maybe you have time to say hello and then goodbye. And in that space there, you can be very kind. And the more you do this, you have a chance not only to be kind, but also to see what gratitude is. And the way you see what gratitude is, is by being aware of your delusion of gratitude. So you don't think that what you think gratitude is, is what gratitude is. Because it isn't. Don't believe what you think things appear to be. But you have to be kind to them, otherwise you will believe them. You will believe appearances unless you're really kind.

[61:58]

But if you are really kind, you can become relieved of delusion. So what is it? What is what? Gratitude. I don't know. I once gave a talk here at this place about love. And halfway through the talk, I realized I didn't know what it was. But I thought, I can continue to talk about it even though I don't know what it is. Just like I can talk about Taryn. Is that your name? Today. Today? Yeah. I can talk about you even though I don't know who you are. But I think it's good that I remember that I don't know who you are. I think you'd appreciate that. A lot of people don't mind if I remember that I don't know who they are. Some people don't like that. Some people say, no, I want you to know who I am. And when they say that, I say, I hear you, and I don't know who said that. I don't know who I am, and I don't know who you are.

[63:02]

I really don't, but I do have ideas about you, and I try to take care of those ideas. so that I don't get tripped up by them and think that I actually know who you are because I don't. But I'm on the path of realizing who you are by not believing what I think you are is who you are. I think it would be easier for me to ask the question in French.

[64:18]

Go ahead. And then my friend Michael will translate in English. Is that okay, folks, if he asks the question in French? What? What? Is there a risk of being completely caught up in the moment? Yes. So that means it's what we are doing here to be attached to the moment, studying the moment.

[65:27]

There's a risk that we are studying the moment, that we are studying the present, and that we will attach to that study or to that moment. There's a risk that we'll attach. But we're trying to give our full attention to what's happening without attaching. Okay. But there's a risk we'll attach. And the next step... Also, excuse me, but also if you don't pay attention to what's happening, you will attach for sure. You don't have to pay attention to attach. You can grasp things blindfolded. As a matter of fact, when you're blindfolded, you grasp things. You think you can get a hold of them because you don't really look. But if you do look, you can still... grasp. We're trying to learn this amazing skill of wisdom. Wisdom is to pay attention to things in the present, pay attention to people and feelings in the present without grasping.

[66:35]

This is what we're trying to learn. But the way to learn this is to notice that you are grasping and to be kind to the grasping. We'll release our Yes, but also my experience, it's like the Russian dolls. You know, you have the big one and then... But it's in the infinite, you know. And sometimes I really feel like I'm trapped in this... in this circle or in this movement. Yeah, it's difficult. It's very difficult. It's difficult when you feel trapped.

[67:37]

And it's difficult to be kind when you feel trapped. Yes, but who is trapped? That question is another form of being trapped. And it's difficult to be kind to that question. Yes, but if you can be kind to that question, you can realize Buddha. Have you realized Buddha? No. And even if you haven't realized Buddha, you can say that? Yes. From where come those words and those explanations? From Buddha. OK. Now you make my mind very complicated. So thank you. I have to think about that. Thank you. The Dharma comes from Buddha, and we do not possess it.

[68:58]

But if we care for things, the Buddha Dharma comes into our life. Isn't that wonderful? And then we have a possibility of not attaching to it, which is really appropriate. Ah. Living beings are numberless. I vow to save them. Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to understand them. And when I understand them, it won't be my understanding. And if it's my understanding, I vow to understand that delusion. Thank you very much.

[70:01]

Unless, are you coming up to ask a question? Oh, please come. So if we are made up of mostly delusions, or all delusions? I wouldn't say we're made up of delusions. We're made up of many things, and one of the things we are is delusion. And that's something which is an affliction, is our delusions. Like we're made up also of a body. But the body itself is not an affliction. But when we have misconceptions about our body, that misconception is causing us problems. So we're emphasizing the delusions as something that we need to take care of because the delusions are the source of our suffering.

[71:08]

We're not just delusions. We're a body. And awareness itself, we also have awareness. But awareness itself is not delusion. But awareness has a deceptive aspect, and that's the deluded part of the awareness. So we're not just delusion, but That's something we really have to be encouraged to take care of is our delusions, which we do not think are delusions. We think they're truths. So I was wondering if you're saying to not like your delusions but love them? Yes, I'm saying love them. Be compassionate to delusions, but I'm not telling you you should like them. If you like them, that's okay, too. That's just another delusion. And be compassionate towards liking your delusions. Some people like their delusions, and they don't like other people's.

[72:10]

Some people hate their delusions, and they like other people's. There's all different kinds of possibilities. And in the midst of this ocean of like and dislike, I'm saying, practice compassion. I was just thinking, I was wondering if, could that be also called loving yourself? Could it be called loving yourself? Sure. Loving your delusions. Yes. You're welcome. Thank you very much. Beings are numberless. I vow to save them.

[72:55]

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