I often mention, I don't know often, but anyway, I sometimes mention that it's important, after you've been practicing for a long time, to not lose track of being an amateur. So, like I'm, in a sense, a professional meditator, it's my, you know, Zen meditation is my vocation, my profession, and my avocation, and my hobby, everything all in one. But originally it was a hobby, you know, it was a love thing. I didn't start practicing out of any obligation. It was kind of a love thing, and my reputation and my status or anything like that didn't depend on it. I just did it because I wanted to. And a lot of meditators lose track of doing the meditation as a love thing.

[01:06]

And they start forcing themselves to meditate or pushing on, disciplining themselves in a way that's not loving and then gradually squeezing the life out of their practice. So the joy factor needs to be there. I heard a story, I heard two stories about being torn between two parents. You know, like right now I have this common thing of children having parents get divorced and separate. So they get, either they get taken away from one of the parents or they spend time with both parents.

[02:15]

And I remember one, I knew this young girl, she was a year younger than my daughter, and I knew her mother and her father both. And so at a certain point in her life, her father lived in Berkeley. After they separated, her father lived in Berkeley, and her mother lived in Boston. So she went back and forth between Boston and Berkeley, spending time with her mother, and then her father, and her father, then her mother. I guess she told the story by telling how it was to be with her parents, and then she used this very interesting image. I think she said when she comes to visit her father she's with him for a while but then towards the end of the visit she's not with him anymore because she's thinking about going back to her mother and she's so excited about being with her mother that she doesn't even notice that she's with her father and also when she's with her mother coming to see her father she doesn't even notice her mother

[03:46]

even though she's not with her father, she's with her mother, so she isn't with either one of them a lot of the time, even though she's always with one of them. So it's understandable that it's difficult to be with one when there's another. You can understand how she'd have that problem. It's a real challenge. It's a real challenge. to not do that. And she used the example, she said, it's like, it's like if you get a cabbage patch doll for Christmas. Do you remember the cabbage patch dolls? They were these very expensive dolls that you had to sign up for, right? And they kept, they had a life story and so on, right? Anyway, to get a cabbage patch doll at her age was when they were really hard to get. AND SO SHE SAYS, LIKE GETTING A CABBAGE PATCH DOLL, IN OTHER WORDS, A REALLY SPECIAL PRESENT, A REALLY SPECIAL DOLL FOR CHRISTMAS.

[04:48]

AND THEN YOU... AND YOU'RE UNWRAPPING YOUR PRESENTS, RIGHT? AND THEN YOU HAVE ALL THE WRAPPING PAPER AND THE PRESENTS AND STUFF LIKE THAT. SO SOMEBODY THROWS OUT THE WRAPPING PAPER, RIGHT, BUT ACCIDENTALLY THROWS OUT THE CABBAGE PATCH DOLL BY MISTAKE. THE CABBAGE PATCH DOLL GETS THROWN IN THE GARBAGE with the paper. And in Boston, when the garbage people find, like, teddy bears and dolls in the garbage, they put them up on top of the garbage truck. It's kind of a thing they do. She said, so it's like getting a cabbage patch doll and having it thrown away by mistake and then realizing it's been thrown out and running to the window and seeing the garbage truck go away with your doll on top of it. See, that's what it's like being with my parents. I keep feeling like I'm losing one of them. I love them very much, but I keep losing them. And then somebody else told me a story about how her parents separating and she had to kind of like, she not had to, but she kind of chose one of them.

[05:55]

She really loved her father and felt close to her father. But, you know, when they split up, she felt sorry for her mother and wanted to, you know, not abandon her mother and take care of her mother. But then she lost her father, who she loved very much. So somehow, when we're children, we can't figure out what to do other than to choose. And when we choose, we always lose. If she had chosen her father instead, that would have been fun, you know. Oedipal Victor and all that. I got dad after all. I thought I always would, and I did. You know, dad's fun and all that. Be close to dad. But then what about mom? So the same way you stay with mom and lose dad, well, then what about dad? And, you know, did I give up dad for mom? And I don't know how to resolve this because, you know, as soon as you choose, it seems like you're done for.

[07:02]

So somehow we have to start here again with ourselves, not choosing. Like there's no alternative. You've got to work with your whole self. You can't choose. If you start choosing with yourself, which you think you can do, then you're going to choose in other situations, which you think you can do, and you're going to not be happy with the choice. In some cases, you really feel unhappy choosing. Other cases, you may not feel so unhappy. But basically, start here and see if you can not choose here and then maybe you can not choose there. That's the equanimity part. Right? There's no choice. And it's not that you do nothing. It isn't that you just sit there passively and let somebody else decide. That's a decision too. Somehow you have to be engaged without choosing. I think... or not be fooled by the apparent choice.

[08:06]

Another verse about developing love from the path of purification is, may I learn to look at myself with eyes of understanding and compassion. with eyes of understanding, compassion and love. And then of course, may she learn to look at herself with eyes of understanding and compassion. May he learn to look at himself with eyes of understanding and compassion. May they learn to look at themselves with eyes of understanding and compassion and love. May I be able to recognize and touch or be intimate with the seeds of joy and happiness in myself.

[09:20]

And may she be able to recognize and touch and be intimate with the seeds of joy and happiness in herself. And may he and may they be able to recognize and touch the intimate with the seeds of joy and happiness in themselves. May I learn to identify and clearly see the sources of anger, greed and delusion. in myself. May she learn to identify and see the sources of anger, greed, and delusion in herself, and so on.

[10:33]

Yes. Well, I was, it's a little out of order, but I guess it's okay. Okay. I think it's better to do it in order. I'll briefly talk about the first one. First is, may I learn to understand, to look at myself, to look at myself with eyes of understanding and compassion. So if I look at myself with eyes of understanding and compassion, with eyes of love, Again, I don't look at just part of myself. And looking at myself, I see my, you know, my body, I see my feelings, I see my

[11:55]

perceptions. I see many mental formations in emotions, attitudes. And I can't see my consciousness, but I can understand that I'm aware. And, yes? I didn't understand the question. Does that involve going back to childhood sometimes? Sure. Sometimes. See whatever comes up. Whatever childhood you got available to you, let's check it out. Okay, so learning to look with, you know, into myself, to look at myself with eyes of understanding and compassion.

[13:01]

So I look at my mind, look at the individual elements of my mind and body. I look at the overall patterns of my mind and body. The overall patterns of my mind and body are my thinking. I look at it. I mindfully look at this with compassion and understanding. Well, at first my understanding may not be so good, but anyway, I'm being mindful with whatever level of understanding I have now. I'm being compassionate to my whole mind. I'm listening to my whole mind. I'm looking at my whole mind as much as I can. And I start to notice, for example, even if the way I'm looking or even if the way I'm paying attention, if that's appropriate or not, I start to notice if my mind is being used in appropriate or inappropriate ways. Well, I start to notice if my mind is thinking in skillful or unskillful ways.

[14:09]

I start to see if my mind is operating in loving ways or not. So I'm practicing loving kindness and other kinds of love, but still my mind may be working in patterns which are not loving. That may still be going on. So, like I said, you're practicing loving-kindness. You're saying, may I be happy? May I be peaceful? May I be light in body and mind? And that wish and that willingness and that generosity to give this to yourself can be operating in a mind which is completely well established in self-concern and selfishness. Okay? We're practicing this loving-kindness, we're making these good wishes to this person, whoever he or she is.

[15:16]

And if he's self-concerned and selfishly involved, that doesn't mean we say, oh, well, that's the end of love for you. No. We send love, we send these very best wishes. We care enough to send the very best. Even to this person here, sitting at my meditation place, even though this person is stuck in self-concern, like most other humans, even though this sort of comes with the human territory, I still wish the best for this person. If I don't want this person to be happy, and peaceful and light in body and mind because he has self-clinging, then am I also going to withdraw my love from the other people who are involved in self-clinging? Well, probably. Why not? Why discriminate against myself from my hang-ups and be nice to other people who've got the same ones?

[16:20]

Well, that doesn't work. So we practice loving-kindness to this person who's got these deeply entrenched, selfish habits. Okay? In the midst of self-clinging, which means in the midst of anxiety, in the midst of fear, we send this love. Does that make sense? Okay. So the self-clinging's still there, operating away, but this loving thing's happening. This loving context and loving intention and loving wish is pervading this selfish mind, this anxious mind. So now we're going to start, in addition to wishing the best for this mind, and in addition to wishing that this mind would be free from self-clinging, which means free of anxiety and fear and anger, we wish it would be free, but also we wish the mind which isn't free to be free. We wish this mind, which is harassed by afflictions of this type, we wish this mind to be free and happy.

[17:26]

But that's not all we do. We also check out and see what's going on there. So we know who it is or what it is that we're wishing well to. We know the scene in which we're wishing the well to. So we look into ourselves with eyes of understanding and compassion Eyes of compassion means hoping that this person will become free of his misery. Eyes of love mean we hope that this person will be happy and peaceful. And eyes of understanding means we see what's going on. And we notice, oh, this person is like on this selfish trip. And they're actually involved in this person, me, is involved in ill will and attachment. And thinking along the lines to promote ill will and attachment. And look what happens when he does that poor thing. Look how much trouble he gets into by doing these unskillful things based on self-clinging, based on ill will, based on attachment, based on violence.

[18:35]

Look at the trouble. And look at the anxiety that's going on all the time. This is what you understand. You watch that, and you get to see that there's other ways that the mind can be used, which are called loving-kindness. So now the mind, even though there's still clinging there and even though there's still anxiety, the mind is thinking along the lines in accord with the wishes that have been sent to it. In other words, you're not only wishing yourself well, but you're thinking that way about yourself and thinking that way about others. And you watch this, and your mind evolves And it evolves and gradually these unskillful habits drop away because of understanding. And also because... In that story I told yesterday about choosing between parents, I don't know if that was clear to you, part of my reason for bringing that up.

[20:27]

And that is, I guess I'm saying in some sense that I think it's good if we can not choose between people. within ourself. Was that clear? Can I speak up a little bit? Can you turn the amplifier? Is it on? It's on. OK. Maybe that's OK. I'll just speak up. Could you close your drapes and stand? You OK now? So yesterday I was talking about choosing between two parents and how even when you don't choose, if you're with one, you think of the other, that kind of thing. So I think part of the reason, again, I would suggest that part of the reason why it's hard for the little girl

[21:36]

to be with one parent when she's with the other parent, and vice versa, is this choosing thing. If you don't choose between them, which you don't want to do anyway, but you feel forced into doing, if you don't choose between people, I think that helps you be with the person you're with. But if you're choosing between people, then even the person you're with you're not with them when you're with them because you feel bad because you chose them. So then you say, well, I chose you and excluded the other person so I won't be with you either. I'll be sort of with them while I'm with you and I'll be sort of with you when I'm with them because I chose. And the same with your own mind. If you are paying attention to part of your mind as a choice to the exclusion of another part of your mind, you don't pay attention to that part of your mind.

[22:41]

There's something like that that I would suggest to you. So if you can be devoted to someone, when you're talking to this person, in some sense, it isn't that you forget about everybody else. But in some ways, because of everybody else, you give your total devotion to this person. You're not choosing this person to the exclusion of the others. Because again, if you think that you're choosing this person to the exclusion of others, then that exclusion will eat into the time you're with this person. So then you won't give anybody your full attention. So I think I need to understand when I'm paying attention to myself that I'm doing that for everybody. And when I'm looking at one part of myself, I'm doing that for all the parts of myself. Not that I'm choosing part of myself and excluding other parts of myself. So like Suzuki Roshi said towards the end of his life, now Zen Center is very big and people have to make appointments to see me.

[23:52]

But you need to understand when I'm talking to one person, I'm talking to that person for the benefit of everybody. So I don't think about my next appointment. But I think a lot of times when we're talking to one person, we think, well, I've got another appointment. And we start not paying attention to the person we're talking to because we start thinking of the next appointment. It's really tough. And the person we're talking to who feels us, whether we're saying so or not, thinking of our next appointment, they feel that we're not paying attention to them, so they want to have more time. But then as they ask for more time, you think more about the next person, so you give them less of yourself, so they want more. So then they just never... They want to stretch the meeting out forever because they're not getting your attention. But to start with yourself, do you really give yourself... complete attention and complete devotion without feeling guilty about the other parts of yourself or the other people you're not taking care of.

[25:04]

And most people do, so they don't give themselves what they need because they feel that they should be giving somebody else something. Well, you've got to give yourself what you need completely. That helps everybody. If you give yourself half of what you need, that doesn't help other people. Then we have to worry about you because you're not taking care of yourself. And you can't take care of us halfway if you take care of yourself halfway. So that's why I bring up that example of the, you're always kind of like, your precious thing is like going away on the top of the garbage truck because you're not paying attention completely to this. And so that's what I was trying to say. I'm not saying that's really true. I'm just sort of saying it seems to be the way things work. We have a hard time being 100% with anything if we choose.

[26:07]

Choice is not really like an exclusionary thing. It's just we have to pay attention to something. I was asked to talk more about this resentment thing. How do you work with resentment? So, in loving-kindness meditation you start with yourself, right? You really give yourself love. You really hope the best for yourself. And in this first aspect of love, the one where you're wishing well to someone, to yourself and to others, the usual way of doing it is after yourself, after you get kind of like into it, giving to yourself, then you give this loving kindness, you give this best wishes, you bestow happiness and peace upon someone you like.

[27:22]

Then you move on to somebody that you feel neutral about. And then you move on to somebody that you like a lot. And then you move on to somebody that you don't like, that's irritating to you, or that's hurt you. It could be somebody who you do like a lot, but who hurt you. In some sense, everybody that hurts us is somebody we really like a lot, but they hurt us so we can hardly tell, because it's so painful to see them. And, you know, the first one, the first one's in some sense the hardest one to yourself. Once you get it going with yourself, then it's not so difficult to move it on to somebody you like and somebody who's neutral and somebody who you like a lot.

[28:39]

But then when you come to the person that irritates you or that has hurt you, then suddenly the description in the text gets very big. It seems like this is really hard. I would say it's almost as hard to give to someone you hate as to give to yourself. Think about giving to someone who you hate or who irritates you. At least you don't feel guilty about that necessarily. You think, wow, that's really a great feat to give to my enemy. Okay. SO THERE'S BASICALLY THE BASIC THING ABOUT TRYING TO GIVE TO SOMEBODY WHO IRRITATES YOU IS YOU'RE PRACTICING LOVE AND KINDNESS, YOU'RE TRYING TO, YOU'RE WISHING THEM WELL, OKAY? SO THE BASIC THING IS TO DO THAT. EVEN THOUGH IT'S HARD, GO AHEAD AND DO IT. GO AHEAD AND SAY, OKAY, YOU THINK OF THE PERSON, AND YOU THINK OF THEM SPECIFICALLY WITH ALL THOSE OBNOXIOUS QUALITIES, OR YOU'RE ACTUALLY LOOKING AT THEM EVEN.

[29:43]

BUT IF THEY'RE NEARBY YOU, YOU ACTUALLY, LIKE, DIRECT YOUR ATTENTION TOWARDS THEM IN WHEREVER THEY ARE SPATIALLY. AND YOU ACTUALLY, IF YOU CAN, LOOK AT THEIR FACE OR IMAGINE THE WAY THEY LOOK AND MAYBE THE WAY THEY SMELL AND SO ON, OR THE WAY THEY SOUND. AND WHEN YOU FIND THE IRRITATING PARTS, DON'T FOCUS ON THE IRRITATING PARTS NECESSARILY. Okay, so you're thinking of this person, and the first thing you do is just go ahead and try to do it. And if you can't do it, if somehow you just can't do it, then what they recommend is to go back to doing it in a situation where you can do it. Go back and practice it in a place where you can really get it on. So you can do it with yourself or with someone else that you can do it fully with.

[30:49]

But actually, this kind of meditation can actually be extended in such a way that you extend it to various people. And then you actually let this feeling of love that you've generated, you let it go, expand it way out to the east, way out to the west, way out to the north, way out to the south. way up to the heavens and way down through the earth. You extend it in all directions around you so that you actually feel that the entire field of your consciousness is filled with this love, with these best wishes. And you just completely immerse yourself in this feeling. And if you do that fully enough and really stay concentrated on it, you actually go into what's called a trance. where you're actually like you're in a different world. And so you can go that far with this concentration.

[31:52]

You get that concentrated on it so it just takes over your entire field of experience in terms of the way you feel, what you see. Put yourself into a heaven by that kind of concentration. Either by doing that or just going back to meditating on loving-kindness in a way that you feel comfortable with. You go back to that, and when you feel that good feeling coming back, then you again go back and try it with this person that you're having a hard time with. And just keep going back and forth like that, and maybe you can get it to go. Now if you can't, actually, then they have special kinds of instructions. So one of them is, the Buddha said this, you know, he said, so if you still, in spite of your efforts, the resentment still doesn't die out, the anger and irritation still don't die out, then let the meditator reflect upon the saw and other figures of such kind and strive and strive repeatedly

[33:11]

to leave resentment far behind. So the saw is a famous quote by the Buddha, where the Buddha said, monks, as a low-down thief, might carve one, you, limb from limb with a double-handled saw. That's a saw example. Yet even then, whosoever sets her mind at enmity, anger, she, for this reason, is not a doer of my teaching. She is not my student. Okay? I'll just say it, you know, if a lowdown thief, lowdown dirty sidewinder comes up to you and with a two-handled saw starts sawing you limb from limb, if you would give rise to anger, okay, you're not a practitioner of my teaching.

[34:16]

Okay? Here, Here, monks, you should train yourself thus. Never will our mind become perverted, nor will we utter an evil word, but kindly and compassionately we will dwell with a mind of friendliness, void of hatred, and beginning with him, the one who hurts us, we will dwell in having suffused the whole world with the mind of friendliness that is far-reaching, widespread, immeasurable, without anger, without enmity, without malevolence. This is how we should train ourselves, monks, delighted, these monks rejoiced in what the Buddha had said." So he's really radical about this, like the most horrendous

[35:32]

He wants us to develop a patience and a loving-kindness, a patience with pain, and in that pain that we're patient with, to generate thoughts of loving-kindness when we're being tortured. So, if the loving-kindness doesn't work, then here's another construction for you. Saying, you're having trouble? Well, this is what I'm talking about here. Another instruction to give. Another thing he said was similar to this. When you practice looking deeply, and master yourself, you will dwell in peace, happiness, freedom, and safety.

[36:39]

The one who offends another after being offended by him harms himself and harms the other. And in this book it says, to repay anger To repay angry people in kind is worse than to be angry first. If somebody's angry at you and you repay them with anger, that's worse than their original anger towards you. Unless they were angry at you because you were angry at them, that would be the same. But when someone's angry at you, to repay them with anger is worse than the original anger. That's what the Buddha said. Anyway, here he says, to offer to the one who offends you anger back, to offend them back, hurts you and hurts them.

[37:42]

When you feel hurt but do not hurt the other, you are truly victorious. Your practice and your victory over anger benefit both of you. Your practice of not striking back is a great victory and it benefits you and the other person who you don't strike. When you understand the roots of anger in yourself and in the other, your mind will enjoy true peace, joy, and lightness. You will become a healer who heals herself and heals the other. If you don't understand, you will think not getting angry back is an act of the fool. So a lot of people think not striking back is foolish.

[38:50]

That's because they don't understand the roots of anger in themselves and in the other. So, practicing loving-kindness towards yourself is the context in which you look deeply into yourself and see the roots of anger. When you see the roots of anger, you will be the peaceful, happy, joyful person you wished you would be. So first you wish yourself to be happy. You wish others to be happy. When that feeling is really working in you and you really feel soothed by those good wishes, then you can do the work of looking deeply to see what's going on. When you see what's going on, you will be happy. So the wish to be happy makes you somewhat happy, makes you somewhat comfortable. But not only do you have to wish to be happy, but you have to look inside and examine deeply your mind.

[39:53]

When you see what's going on, you will be happy. And also, wishing others to be happy also helps you to do your work. When you really want other people to be happy and you know you really do, that again helps you do your work. If you want yourself to be happy and you don't want others to be happy, you don't really want yourself to be happy enough. If you really give to yourself fully, you will give to others. When you give to yourself and to others, when you really want to be happy, you really let yourself be happy, you're really willing for yourself to be happy, and you're really willing to others to be happy, when you know you really want others to be happy, you know you can do your work. Because you know you're not doing your work because you don't want them to be happy. You know you're doing your work because you want them to be happy. And for them to be happy, you have to do your work YOU HAVE TO LOOK INTO YOUR SITUATION, SEE THE ROOTS OF YOUR ANGER, YOUR AFFLICTION, YOUR ANXIETY.

[41:01]

THAT'S WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO IN ORDER FOR THEM, IN ORDER TO HELP THEM FULFILL WHAT YOU WANT THEM TO HAVE, NAMELY PEACE, HAPPINESS, LIGHTNESS, AND SO ON. DOES THAT MAKE SENSE? THIS IS KIND OF REPETITIVE, BUT I... So these are two famous statements by the Buddha. The basic principle is, no matter what they do to you, if you get angry, you're not my student. Or I shouldn't say, he didn't say you're not my student, you're not doing my practice. You can still be my student, but you're not doing what I'm teaching you. I'm teaching you actually to not get angry. Now the Buddha, there are times when getting angry is appropriate, but not when you're getting tortured. Isn't that funny? When you're being tortured, you're not supposed to get angry. When is it appropriate to get angry?

[42:03]

It's appropriate to get angry when it's helpful. When is it helpful to get angry? It's helpful to get angry when somebody else is getting harmed. It's appropriate to get angry when there's harm done to other people. Because that's not really, you know, that's in the context of you not getting angry at the person for yourself. It's appropriate to get angry when people aren't practicing the practice they should do. You get angry at them harming themselves. So somebody said to the Buddha, do you teach not to kill, right? He said, right. Is there anything that you approve of killing? He said, yes. What? Anger. I prove of killing anger. So the Buddha could get angry at anger, although he doesn't. But you don't get angry at anger in yourself. You get angry at anger in others, but not when it comes towards you, but because it's hurting them.

[43:06]

But you don't hurt the person. You kill the anger. But how do you kill the anger in the person? By loving them. By loving them, that kills the anger. Love the person, kill the anger. Teach the person how to meditate on their anger and see the roots of it, that kills the anger. So you want to kill the anger. You hate the anger. That's okay. But if you really want to get rid of it, you do it by love. In yourself, however, you've got to love it. in the sense of giving it your full attention. And when you understand and pay attention to it lovingly, that's how you find the root of it, and it ends. Yeah? I'm having a problem with this. Yeah, I know. And the problem is, to allow someone to torture me... Yes? ...is to... I didn't say you should allow them to torture you.

[44:11]

He didn't mention that part. If somebody's going to try to torture you, you shouldn't let them do it. Okay? He didn't say, let people torture you. He said, if the person's sawing you in a situation, you shouldn't let them do that though. You should say, please don't do this. It's really like, it's not worth your time. not going to make you happy. Try to talk them out of it if possible. It doesn't say you should let someone torture you. Do not let people torture you. If they start torturing you, say, excuse me, I've got to leave. But if you are being tortured, have you noticed you can't stop people from torturing you? They can torture you anyway. But when you are being tortured, this is about when you are being tortured. I'm not saying, Buddha's not saying let people torture you. When you're tortured, When I'm tortured, that's good, that helps me a bit. However, when I'm tortured, I feel, now maybe I'm the biggest fool of them all, but I feel angry at their actions, maybe not at the person, but I'm very angry at the behavior.

[45:20]

Because if what you're saying is... Yeah, he said, don't get angry at the person. But the behavior, I can be very angry about. Yeah, it's okay to be... You're not letting them. Well, if they're torturing me, then it seems in loving kindness I wouldn't want them to hurt themselves by hurting me. That's right, you wouldn't. So that's why you get angry at the anger. You try to get them to stop hurting themselves. That's your point of view. Because you love them. So if someone is being cruel to you and harming you, you want to help them stop harming you because it's really harming them. Your point of view is you love them and you want to help them somehow get free of hurting you. So you kind of hate the anger because it's hurting them. It's not hurting them, it's hurting them.

[46:21]

Actually stop being angry. And because you love them, you maybe can find skillful ways. And also because you love yourself, you find skillful ways to work with your anger. I'm Catholic. Yeah, it does probably. Would you like to do some walking meditation now? I know you would, Lucetta. Yeah. Walking meditation for Lucetta. So slow. It's so hard for her to walk slow. You can go on the outside lane. This is the high compression, you know, really slow lane in here. Go to the outside lane. They're going fast out there. And if that lane isn't fast enough, go around the building. So, do you want to do some walking meditation in some comfortable lane?

[47:26]

The fast lane or the slow lane? How's it going?

[48:53]

Some of you haven't spoken yet, or would you like to say something? Some of you that haven't spoken? I want to ask you, sometimes you say, May I be happy, peaceful, and light? Could you explain to me by the word light, please? Light? Well, like not heavy, burdened, squashed down, oppressed, buoyant. You know, life could be like not this big heavy thing, but something that you actually are up for. That you could like, you know, feel light about the next moment.

[50:04]

Like, yes, I want to live. I want to have a body. Not I want to have a body, but I got one and I'm willing to work with it. That kind of lightness. I mean generally joyous and sad. Spending so many years not being loving to myself as well as others, it feels like I'm way behind. It's almost like I need to catch up with myself right now. It's so difficult. I need to kind of be in touch with being more than kind to myself as well as thinking about other people.

[51:10]

So it's put me in a reflective mood. I'm glad that I have that thought. He said, when I talk, we have a long relationship. He's like, oh, it's so very difficult. I feel like I should catch up. I want him to get there quickly. Well, I think a sense of urgency is usually considered to be helpful. But rushing is not. So the urgency is good, the urgent feeling.

[52:15]

And there's some other people told me that they feel some grief over many years of not doing something which they now think would be good to do. So grieving is part of the practice too. In other words, letting go of the past. And grieving can be done simultaneously with loving-kindness meditation. Grieving can be done simultaneously with compassion. You can even be joyful while grieving. Grieving is a medicine for attachment to the past. For me, it may be different than some other people. This year I turned 65. I do feel like I want to live.

[53:20]

And you don't want to wait till tomorrow. Start tonight. But don't rush, otherwise you might forget. What was it again I was going to do? Because we don't have much time left, we should not rush. We should enjoy every moment fully. If we think we got a long time ahead of us, we think, well, you know,

[54:23]

I'm not going to enjoy tonight or the next 10 seconds. But it's a bad habit, that attitude. Thank you. You have to practice loving-kindness and compassion and joy and equanimity in order to be upright.

[55:45]

And also being upright, I think, includes those practices. But it's good to articulate them to make sure. So when you're really balanced, you actually are at peace. You actually are happy. You actually are light. When you're balanced, you're the most light. It's the most light posture. It's the lightest way to be with gravity, is to be balanced. Every other position besides balance is heavy. You're holding yourself up. So she's referring to, calling Mary, you know, Jesus' mother, standing at the cross and she stood.

[56:52]

She stood there, supposedly. Stabat mater. Mother stood. She just stood there. Somehow she took care of herself in her standing practice. So if you want to stand there and witness the suffering of the world in a sustained and you know, beneficial way, you have to take care of yourself to do that work. Otherwise, you can do it for a few minutes, but pretty soon you'll collapse. Can you say a few words about how one can, in the course of, say, their duty, perhaps their duty, say their job, is inflicted pain or they can have hardship on someone else because of what the other person has done. How to do that in a loving manner, for example, in a city group, an IRS agent has to come.

[57:55]

deeply interested in the practice. But she, for 20 years, has had to, you know, look for her returns and take money from people. Mm-hmm. That's what she actually wanted. And then she ended up just being in positions where we have to take a course of action, which is going to be bitterly resented by somebody else because, well, come on, because it's due to them. And they're not going to like this. Because they either lose their freedom or lose some money or lose prestige or whatever if that happens to be the job. How would you tell a person like this that they can do this in a loving way? Still maintain their loving kindness? You mean, how would I advise a person about their livelihood? Well, if that's their livelihood, yes. if their livelihood results in perceived pain or diminution of economic well-being or any other thing on another person?

[59:06]

Well, if the person wants to practice the Buddhist path, then if they are involved in some livelihood, then the livelihood should be harmless to other beings. That's one of the main criteria of livelihoods, that'd be harmless. But that's not, you know, that's just one requirement. You can go on from there. But in the case of this IRS agent, what she does is not harmless to the being that she audits, because they usually end up paying money. Well, if she thinks it's harmless, and you want to debate her, No, I'm just saying, but if she feels it's harmless, in other words, I don't think it's necessarily harmful to someone for them to give money to the government, not necessarily harmful for them to give up some of their money. Matter of fact, if someone gives their money away joyfully, it's very beneficial to them.

[60:15]

But if they give their money away and they hate while they give their money away, then if you're part of that, then you might say, well, maybe I don't want to do that anymore. The Roman Empire failed. One of the main causes for the collapse of the Roman Empire was that the tax collectors didn't want to do their job anymore. Being a tax collector became an untenable form of livelihood. So maybe the American empire will fall because the tax collectors will all become Buddhists. And they won't be able to collect the money anymore because they don't feel that it's the right livelihood. I mean, you could say the same about somebody who's a prosecutor. No, it's not for me to say about other people. One could say... No, I mean, it's not about one to say something about other people. Right livelihood is about your own livelihood. It's not about other people's. So you and I look at our livelihood, and we have instructions about how to look at it to tell whether it's right livelihood.

[61:27]

So we just have a set of criteria to check. So just look at the list and check it. Is it harming any beings? If so, it's not right livelihood. That's it. If there's any deception, that's it. And what are the things that harm people? Well, the usual list is killing people as a livelihood to kill people. That's not right livelihood. To sell weapons that kill people is not right livelihood. To make weapons that kill people is not right livelihood. To sell poisons or to make money administering poison and things like that, you know, that's not right livelihood. To sell people, you know, to sell people like slaves is not right livelihood. These are just examples of not right livelihood.

[62:31]

So you have the list, so you check after yourself, and then if you have, after yourself, if you don't satisfy those criteria, then you know you're not practicing right livelihood, according to those definitions. So then you have to decide whether you're going to change your livelihood based on finding that you don't think you're doing right livelihood. I don't know if I was... Was I addressing your question? Well, because, for example, people will suffer from what you do, but it's a just suffering. That is, they have brought it upon themselves by either cheating the government or cheating somebody else. So they're brought to justice, but they're going to suffer anyway. Well, suffering is not necessarily harm. Like, for example, if somebody is a heroin addict... And maybe you help people detox and they come to you and they go through pain in your presence. You support them through their painful experience. That pain isn't necessarily harmful. It is a normal part of the process of detoxification.

[63:38]

But to give somebody something that makes them experience temporary pleasure may be harmful. Like to give them alcohol, to sell them alcohol. or other kinds of drugs which they want because they've experienced some pleasure for you to make a profit on them intoxicating themselves or poisoning themselves even though they are begging you to give it to them at a low price and they really want it and they say thank you and they feel pleasure from it for a while that might be right wrong livelihood because actually you're contributing to harming them by supporting their addiction or literally supporting them to kill themselves So it's not just that they're suffering that necessarily means they're harmed. Suffering sometimes is not, some kinds of pains are not necessarily harmful. The question is, are you making a profit out of harming people? And if you think it's harmful, then if you think so, then you stop. It's not for me to tell you you're doing harm. Does it harm the person's happiness?

[64:42]

And sometimes If I would lie and then somebody makes me pay more money later, I may feel uncomfortable about that, but that doesn't necessarily harm me. Maybe I'll feel better after it. Say, well, I've got that over with. Now I'm not, you know, I don't have to worry anymore. I don't have to hide this anymore. It's all over. I'm glad, you know. Like some people go to jail and They're glad to get it over with, and then they can get out and start over. So it depends. You have to look, are you harming the person or not? If you feel you are, and you're making a living from it, that's not right livelihood. But even Buddhist monks, traditionally, who, they just beg, you know, people give them freely, supposedly freely give them their support. Still, there's various tricks that they can do to get more donations. like they can appear to be very holy. Like one of the tricks is you go to ask for a donation and the person offers you a donation and you say, oh, I'm sorry, I'm not worthy of such a fine donation.

[65:51]

Please, I don't need it. And they say, wow, what a holy man. They give you more. So there's various ways to trick. And another way is to say somebody gives you a small donation and you say, oh, that was quite a donation you made me. I wonder if the neighbors would like to hear about this. I think I'll go tell the neighbors about the big donation you gave me. You're going to be very popular around here. People are going to think you're so generous. Oh, here, take more. Anyway, the monks, the Buddhist monks apparently thought of various tricks to get people to give them more. For the monks, those are considered bad, wrong livelihood. Various kinds of trickery and deception and pressure and harassment to get bigger donations. Apparently they did this because it's in the, you know, it's actually in that book, the Visuddhimagga, the path of purification. There's all kinds of tricks that the monks did to get more donations. That's not right livelihood. Okay.

[66:52]

Any other people that haven't spoken and would like to tell us how it's going? Are you tired? It's been a hard day, all that love? Tiring to love? Yes. Okay. All right. Well, there's a lot of them, but I'll talk about some of them, yeah. Maybe tomorrow, okay? Anything else you want to bring up tonight? Yes.

[68:02]

I had a question before. It was in the context of loving the body, loving the body. Yes, loving the body. And I addressed some of my work, first with the cancer, love the cancer. And the outcome was very good. Well, it's possible. Maybe different kinds of khanchas respond differently. I don't know. Well, it's not so much that you love some particular part of the body, like I love you. It's that you wish... that part of the body to be happy, to be, you know, peaceful, to be light.

[69:03]

So if you could wish the cancer to be happy, why not? There's no, you know, in the Buddhist thing, there's no exceptions to what you don't, there's no beings that you don't wish to be happy. You don't say, okay, I wish everybody in America to be happy, but not Canadians. Everybody in America except the people in Las Vegas or something. No, you wish your entire body and the bodies of all beings, the entire body of the entire universe, you wish happiness to. You wish happiness to the parasites and to the hosts. And this love, supposedly, is going to make things work out for the best for everybody. So maybe the cancer is like, you know, went to happy cancer land and maybe the person did better too. This love is supposed to like make everything work out best for everybody because you're bringing things into alignment with reality and bringing happiness and health.

[70:10]

If that can work out well for the person while you're hoping the best for the cancer, great. Two people are fighting. You wish them both well. AND THEN HOPEFULLY THEY'RE BOTH HAPPY SOMEHOW. THEY WERE FIGHTING BEFORE AND NOW THEY'RE BOTH HAPPY AND NOT FIGHTING ANYMORE. IS THAT POSSIBLE? YES. WHAT BRINGS THAT? LOVE. LOVE CAN ALSO BE IN THE FORM OF ASKING THEM WHAT THEY'RE FIGHTING ABOUT AND ASKING THEM TO LOOK AT THEMSELVES WHERE THEY'RE FIGHTING. THAT CAN BE PART OF THE LOVE. HELPING EACH ONE, HAVING THEM EACH LOOKING WITHIN THEMSELVES AND TRYING TO UNDERSTAND WHAT'S GOING ON AND WHAT'S THE SOURCE OF THE CONFLICT IN THEMSELVES. THAT COULD BE PART OF THE LOVE TOO. SO I THINK IT IS POSSIBLE THAT YOU WOULD WISH THE WHOLE PERSON, EVERY PART OF THEM, WISH THEIR BACTERIA WELL, YOU KNOW, WISH THEIR DIGESTIVE BUGS WELL, WISH EVERYTHING IN THE PERSON WELL.

[71:17]

And maybe that would make everybody happy. I don't know. Seems like it. Yes? I said earlier that you worry a lot about keeping a fresh mind after having sat so long. You're saying I was worried about my mind not being fresh? Am I worried about my mind not being fresh? Is that what you're asking me? I wouldn't say I'm worried, but I do have that question. Is my mind fresh? I also sometimes wonder, is my mind too fresh?

[72:21]

I'm wondering about myself. I wonder about myself, don't you? So my wondering about myself is spreading. But I'm also wondering about you. I'm wondering if you're fresh. I'm wondering. But I'm not coming to any conclusions, I just wonder. And I'm not really worrying about it. But I wonder. I wonder about myself and I wonder about you. I do. But I don't know.

[73:13]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_87.64