I don't know about you, but I meet a lot of people who are sick, who have illness. I have the opportunity or the gift of being talk to sick people. I'm kind of supported to be available to talk to sick people, to people with illness. Knowing this, sick people come and talk to me and tell me about how they're working with their illnesses.

[01:13]

Can you hear that in the back? No. Okay, so... One of the last times I was here, I sang this song with the children. You know that song, if you're happy and you know it, clap your hands. And then after they left, I sang a different song with the adults. I sang, if you're living and you know it, clap your hands. And then we sang, if you're dying and you know it, clap your hands. If you're sick and you know it, clap your hands. If you're sick and you know any... So I don't actually feel myself too sick today, but I know a lot of people who are sick or who have

[03:03]

sick or ill, not exactly sick like a cold, but sick like having a... One of my close friends broke her neck three days ago and it's not clear whether her sensation in her arms and legs will come back. So it's kind of an illness too. And another friend told me that she's been sick for a long time and actually now she's feeling, in a sense, less pain and a little bit more energy than she has like a few months ago. But still, when she considered she has much more pain and much less energy than she used to have.

[04:09]

And so she said to me, maybe it would be good if I don't expect to, she might have said, feel better. Or anyway, not to expect that I'll be like I used to be. And I thought, yeah, that's good. To be healthy. It's good to give up expecting to get healthier, to be like we used to be. Maybe we will be healthy, but, you know, maybe we'll be healthy and then hopefully when we're healthy we'll accept that and say thank you very much.

[05:19]

And I would say, I hope that if you're healthy that you're accepted and then you let go of it. give it away. And if some more health comes, I hope you accept it and give it away. But if illness comes, I hope you accept it and give it away too. I don't want illness to come to me or to you, but I do want us to accept it and give it away. I do want health and happiness to come to you but I also hope that you accept it and give it away. So when he said this about giving up expectation of feeling better I said good and I said also

[06:28]

when illness comes, when pain comes, in addition to not expecting it to go away or to get better, I would encourage, I encourage myself and others to be generous with the illness, be gracious with the illness, practice giving in generosity with the illness that comes to you. Of course it's hard to accept suffering, especially when it is a new form of suffering. or an increase of a familiar suffering, it's hard to accept it and be gracious with it, to actually give the suffering to the suffering, to meet suffering with generosity by giving the suffering to the suffering.

[07:51]

It's hard to learn this, but That's what I recommend to people who are telling me that they're sick if they seem to be open to that encouragement. And I try to encourage myself to practice the same way with my injuries and wounds. I would be comfortable if I could use the word Bodhisattva here. And how many people do not know, are not familiar with the word Bodhisattva? Would you raise your hand? So Bodhisattva means, originally it meant that the Buddha, all the lives of the Buddha leading up to the Buddha,

[09:03]

before the Buddha was a Buddha. So, you know, conventionally we say when the Buddha was a young man living in India, the Shakyamuni Buddha, when he was a young man, before he opened up to suffering of the world and set off on the path of enlightenment, and also after he set off on the path, he called himself the bodhisattva or a bodhisattva. It's a being who to enlightenment, who wishes to realize enlightenment in order to help all beings enter the same path of enlightenment to help all beings. That's a bodhisattva. So bodhisattvas who are working or devoting their life to the welfare of all beings, devoting their lives to free beings who are in the midst of suffering,

[10:15]

are the beings or bodhisattva is the kind of being which is trying to encourage people who are sick and suffering to practice with the sickness and suffering in such a way that they even while still aging and suffering. And when bodhisattvas, when suffering comes to them because of their mercy, when suffering comes to them because they are open to suffering, when suffering comes to them because they care for suffering beings, when suffering comes to them because they love suffering beings when it first comes to them they when suffering comes to them first due to compassion they are terrified or they may be terrified because they although they welcome and care for all living beings who are

[11:39]

Still when it comes to them, when they first meet it, they're terrified to see the beings that they love suffering. They do not yet know how to fully experience the suffering and therefore they're terrified. They learn how to fully experience and deeply penetrate the suffering. When the suffering comes, when the suffering comes to them because they welcome suffering beings, because they say, please come suffering beings, I'm here to help you learn how to deal with it. Then when the suffering beings come, they're delighted to see the suffering being. They're not terrified anymore. And the suffering being could be in the form of another human being or another animal or an environment. In terms of your own suffering, suffering that arises sort of in yourself, that is welcomed.

[12:53]

But still, when it first comes, it's terrifying. But then after you learn how to fully experience it, it is a delight. So I can say, you know, then, that given that kind of situation, as you get into opening to the suffering, to the suffering, and then feeling suffering when it comes, okay? But the suffering you're feeling... is the suffering that is born of your love for the suffering being. The suffering of us because we love beings surpasses all other kinds of happiness. Suffering born of love for suffering beings surpasses all other kinds of happiness.

[13:59]

Once again, suffering comes to the compassionate one. Suffering comes to compassion. You don't have to think of yourself as a compassionate one, but sometimes there's compassion in you. Sometimes suffering comes to that compassion. That compassion in you is like a being. living in your human being. Is it the Declaration of Independence, as all men are created equal, or is that the Constitution, US Constitution? The Declaration of Independence, unfortunately named, I wish it was named interdependence, but the Declaration of Independence says all men are created equal.

[15:27]

And one understanding that I have of that statement is all beings are created equal in the sense that they all have for compassion. not equal capacity, because the capacity can be developed more or less infinitely, but all men and women, all human beings have the capacity for compassion, for loving other beings who are suffering. When this compassion is alive or turned on in you or me, when beings, suffering beings, come at first, even though we feel compassion for them and welcome them, when they come in our welcoming, open state, we'll at the beginning be terrified.

[16:29]

But after we get used to it, we won't be terrified anymore. We will delight. And when beings... We will experience a happiness of feeling their suffering. And we will feel a suffering because of their suffering, but because they are suffering and we love them, we will feel a pain, a suffering ourself. And that is supreme, wonderful happiness. the most marvelous happiness, the happiness which comes from love for all beings. So now suffering is coming to the compassionate one,

[17:49]

They've gotten over their terror somewhat. They're feeling suffering with the other person, other persons, other beings. And they're feeling happy. They're feeling happy at the pain that they feel because they love the being. So, you know, just like again at the beginning I said, you've got some illness, okay? Give up expecting it to go away. Accept it. Welcome it. Welcome it. Don't want it to come. But when it comes, welcome it. And feel the joy in welcoming it because you love the suffering being. And then... compassion not only welcomes and feels joy in caring for this being, but now the compassion now encourages and instructs its first child, so to speak, its first offspring, its first student, which is

[19:19]

of compassion. The card of compassion has offspring. And the first offspring is giving, is the practice of giving. And again, this generosity which is driven by compassion provides the bodhisattva with a happiness which again surpasses all happinesses of psychological and physical happiness. It's a spiritual happiness. It doesn't put down any other kinds of happiness. It's just more or less infinitely more wonderful.

[20:27]

And, of course, it's not touched at all by the loss of all the other kinds of happiness. And it's not hurt or shocked by the presence of other kinds of happiness. It isn't afraid that the current happinesses will be taken away, which they will. So compassion has this offspring of giving and giving has the offspring or fruit of wealth or fortune.

[21:30]

Compassion leads to giving. First implementation of compassion, being generous and giving. And the result of giving is wealth, resources. And compassion giving, generosity, and wealth, coming with those three is three kinds of happiness. One is the happiness of compassion due to love. And next comes the happiness from giving. And next comes the happiness of being able to assist people with the wealth that comes from giving.

[22:38]

Happiness, compassion develops and grows through its own practice. Compassion, generosity grows or is motivated by compassion. And wealth grows by continual practice of giving. Wow, it's already time to stop. Compassion grows through giving, and giving, and wealth grows through giving.

[24:04]

So in this realm of illness, if we are able to enter it, if we wish to enter it in order to benefit beings who are ill and then once we enter we stand or sit upright or walk upright or swim upright in this field of suffering and practice giving a great joy arises through the practice of giving, of compassionate giving in the realm of suffering. And this joy gets, grows and grows in the field of suffering.

[25:12]

So we say like a lotus grows in muddy water. The lotus, if it gets connected from the muddy water, it will wilt, and fall into the muddy water. If it gets disconnected from the muddy water, if it loses its full engagement with the muddy water, the lotus will die. But if it stays connected and is fully rooted and fully embraces the muddy water, the lotus lives. And it only comes to an end of its living to reproducing and making more. It needs to stop being a flower in order to make the next generation. It doesn't really die unless there's no muddy water or unless lotuses become squeamish about the water.

[26:21]

But it's not really the lotuses that become squeamish about the muddy water, because if they're alive, they're fully engaged with the muddy water. Totally rooted and nourished by what? By suffering beings. The spiritual lotus is fed by suffering beings. It welcomes them into its roots and up through its stem and into its leaves and bud and flower. And so finally the lotus blossoms, this pure flower blossoms fed by suffering. A flower which seems to be free of the mud. The celebration, not so much of mud, but sort of of mud. I think I was in a pub one time in England, and there was kind of a smorgasbord there, and this man was saying, looked down at the smorgasbord, looking at the vegetables, and he said, these beautiful things come out of the dirt.

[27:40]

And he said to the guy next to him, he said, when I saw that, the scales dropped away from my eyes, and I became a vegetarian. It's so beautiful, these beautiful plants offered to nourish us coming from the dirt. The lotus has gotten over its fear of the mud a while ago. And now it's blooming and blossoming a beautiful flower. And now that the flower of the lotus, even the flower of the... offers protection and nourishment to living beings. Some animals at night go and sit on the lotus flower because the lotus flower closes at night and stays warm for these beings that live. And then they open in the morning to the light and the beings go out on their daily rounds.

[28:46]

So even the flower is supporting beings The flower is supported by beings. The roots are supported by beings and the flower grows through full engagement with the beings. The flower drops its petals and becomes a fruit. And the fruit, when it gets really heavy, droops over into the water and swells in the dirty water and pressure builds up explodes out of the water back into the sky and throws its seeds all over the pond, which go down again into the mud. And those little seeds have a gravitational attraction to the mud and they get situated and germinate and they engage with the mud and more lotuses come. So the lotus doesn't really die, it just gives itself away to make more lotuses.

[29:54]

But if the lotus loses touch with the mud, it dies. Compassion is partly trying to encourage us to give up our queasiness and our terror of suffering. We've got the suffering. We've got the mud. Now we just need some compassion and encouragement, some encouragement from compassion and for compassion to relax and just relax and be present. And when the suffering comes, just let the seeds drop into it. and feel the encouragement to be generous towards this process. And feel perhaps the actual intention to dive into this world of suffering

[31:14]

because of the great happiness of caring for people who are suffering and showing them how to find a happiness of caring for people who are suffering beings who are suffering and thereby find joy in the world as it happens to be right now and now And now, and now, accepting this world and growing lotuses in it to help others accept the world and grow lotuses. If the world ever runs out of mud, we'll deal with that. In the meantime, while there's still suffering on such a grand, more or less infinite scale, Shall we grow lotuses?

[32:18]

And show others how to grow lotuses? How to patiently, generously, graciously encourage ourselves to be gracious with all this suffering. All men and women are created with this capacity We have this potential. And I have the thought that in some ways what I've been saying is kind of simple but maybe hard to believe.

[33:32]

Hard to believe that the greatest happiness is the happiness of suffering that comes from love. And that that happiness gets more and more great, the more we practice generosity and giving in this field of suffering. Generosity with other beings suffering, teaching them how to be generous with their suffering, and generous with our suffering, which is a joy, if it's a suffering from mercy, and then generous all of our happiness that comes from compassion. Round and round until all beings are lotuses. I wanted to sing a song which goes something like

[34:44]

I'm going to love you like nobody's love you. Come rain or come shine. Happy together, unhappy together, and won't it be fine? We're in or we're out of the money. Something like that. I don't know that song. I looked for it. I have it someplace, but I couldn't find it. Happy together, unhappy together, and won't it be fine? But I do have the words for another song, which is, you know, appropriate because today's the 15th, right, of July.

[35:48]

And on the 10th, I was 64, so I have that song. Some of you know this, right? You can sing it too. It has some relevance to what you will find. Most songs do. I would like all beings to be able to sing and dance in the middle of suffering. Everybody together, sing and dance. If you're suffering right now, clap your hands. If you're suffering and you know it, clap your hands. If you're suffering and you know it and you really want to show it, if you're suffering and you know it, clap your hands. Like that. Happy together, unhappy together. So this one goes... When I sing... When I get old and losing my hair many years from now, will you still be sending me a Valentine birthday greetings bottle of wine if I've been out?

[36:58]

Will you lock the door? Will you still feed me? Will you still need me when I'm 64? You'll be older too. Ah, if you gave me the word, I could stay with you. I could be handy, mending a fuse. When your lights have gone, you could be by the fireside. Sunday mornings, go for a ride at the Green Gulch. Doing the garden, digging the weeds. Who could ask for more? Will you still need me? Will you still feed me? Every summer we could rent a cottage by the Isle of Wight.

[38:13]

If it's not too dear, we shall scrimp Ah, the grandchildren on your knee, Vera, Chuck, and Dave. Send me a postcard, drop me a line, stating point of view, indicate this is what you mean to say, you're sincerely wasting away. Wasting away. Somebody said to me the other day, you're getting so skinny. What's going on? You're simply wasting away. Give me your answer. Fill it in a form. Mine forevermore. Will you still need me? Will you still treat me? When? 64. Boom, boom.

[39:15]

Isn't that something? At Green Gulch I get applause for that. Yes? Can you say something about With the resistance to suffering, and you've mentioned terror... Working with the resistance to suffering? The resistance to it. And particularly, at one point you said something about deeply penetrating it, and another time you said something different. Exploiting. Right. And then you also mentioned... But that's enough, Tommy. That's enough, yeah. You listened well. So between terror and terror, terror usually comes with some resistance.

[40:26]

That's what I meant. Yeah. Terror, and then if the terror subsides a little, as you... Well, first of all, with terror, let's start with the terror. Be gracious with the terror. Give the terror a big field. Pay attention to it. Don't disregard it or anything. Don't like it or dislike it. But give it a big field and give it your attention. and let it do its thing, create a gracious, open, attentive, almost devotion to it, because terror is a being. Okay? as it arises and ceases? Watch it as it arises and ceases. Graciously watch it as it arises and ceases.

[41:30]

Be generous with it. That's the first thing. And if you're generous with the terror of suffering, then you'll probably get, it'll be replaced by some terror, but you might call resistance, or it'd rather be somewhere else. Okay? Be generous with that. Be generous with the resistance in the extreme form of terror and be generous with the resistance in other forms. The resistance to fully embrace the world of suffering and all beings in it. Be generous with your resistance. Be generous with your resistance. In this way you will fully experience the suffering. Eventually you will fully experience it and you will deeply your roots will deeply penetrate it and that penetration will nourish the growth of wisdom and compassion.

[42:33]

Already you're compassionate by embracing this. You're already practicing generosity which is the first child. So the generosity is germinating the seed of the lotus. and the seed breaks open and sends out its little tendrils down into the suffering. And then the suffering starts to nourish the seed, and the seed breaks open on the top, and the sprout starts coming up. In a sense, the seed itself, when it's germinating, it's not really like getting nourished yet. It's a seed. It needs the warmth of generosity to break it open. And then it starts to connect. And when it connects, then that suffering nourishes the growth. And then you go on to the other children of compassion from there, which I didn't mention today.

[43:38]

Ethics is the second child of compassion. Then comes patience with all the suffering. you could practice patience right away with suffering but I recommend starting with compassion in the form of giving so you have a warm relationship before you patience with it and then comes enthusiasm which pervades all processes of effort and then comes concentration and then you're ready for the full blossom so that's how you go from terror to extreme joy working with the penetration, you let the terror be the terror, give it a big feel, and then it gradually changes, and maybe you come to the suffering itself. Is that what you say? You start to more fully experience it.

[44:42]

You experience it somewhat. If you didn't experience it at all, you wouldn't feel any terror. So you're feeling it somewhat when you feel terror. But even the Bodhisattva, their suffering is not coming directly from the suffering. It's coming from the suffering that comes from loving suffering beings, which could include themselves. It's a different type of suffering. It's suffering that's driven by mercy. That's the Bodhisattva's suffering. It's real suffering, but it's a suffering driven by love. So they, towards their own suffering and towards other people's suffering, they feel compassion. And that brings a new kind of suffering, which is a joy eventually. But at first, it's a shock. Because there you are, you know, basically in pretty good shape because you care about people. And then when you start to see their suffering, you get shocked, frightened.

[45:46]

Okay, so you're already, compassion's already working, you're already aware of the suffering, you're facing it to some extent, but there's an initial terror. Then be generous with it, and then you start sinking more and more into full embrace. And then with the full embrace, then you experience the extreme joy of this kind of suffering. so that for yourself it's easy with others to feel compassion. Different types of people. Some people have easier time with other people than themselves, but some people have easier time with themselves than with others. Different varieties of karmic background. But you want to bring that same When the suffering comes, when it comes to you, you want to care for that person to whom the suffering is coming.

[46:49]

You want to care for the person, but you also want to care for the suffering. Because you love the person. Because you love the person. but also you feel the suffering because you love the person, and also because you love the person, you care for the person and their suffering. But you don't try to, you don't deny their suffering or tell them to stop suffering. You're generous and you let them suffer just like they're suffering. And that generosity helps you become less and less afraid of it. and experience it more and more fully, then you're not afraid of it anymore. Then you actually, it's a delight. When you experience it, the delight comes? When you experience it fully, you feel delight in suffering. Because you love someone. You don't feel delight in suffering per se. It's a special kind of suffering. It's compassion-driven suffering. Not attachment-driven suffering.

[47:50]

Compassion-driven suffering. That kind of suffering is the greatest joy. And that comes to you By deeply experiencing. Because you love that person being yourself, you know? Yeah. And also that your suffering and their suffering and your happiness and their happiness are not the least bit apart. Got a cold? Among other things? Well, I appreciate you making the effort to sit here with us through all your misery. All the little germs can also receive the Dharma. Yeah, great. Very nice of you. Okay, well, a lot of hands there. I don't know. We'll start far to near. Yes, what's your name? Catherine. Catherine, yes. When someone brings in suffering, they're suffering, but if there's In their suffering they lash out at you, yes.

[48:58]

It's okay to protect yourself. Part of giving lashing beings a big field is that you can have some space from them too so they don't disable you So it's fine to protect yourself, that's fine. And the best protection is wisdom, but the next best compassion is the beginning. So caring for them protects you, but again, At the beginning of this process, you can be terrified by what people do or how they're expressing themselves. So then you have to be generous with that situation. Don't force your friends. Don't attach to some idea about how near or far you should be from them. It's fine to protect yourself. Especially with the intention of I protect myself so I can continue my relationship with you.

[50:15]

Because I'm like, you know, I want to be your benefit to protect myself. So I mean, I think of these doctors that go like these, what do you call it, these doctors without borders that go to these places where they have more patients than they could ever see. And, you know, they work for whatever, 12 hours and there's still a big line of patients. And the line, which is okay, they'll just drop dead. in a couple of days and the patient will get two days of service or three days of service from the doctor. But if the doctor stops even before they finish their job and rests, then maybe they can get a month of service out of the doctor and the doctor can then go back and rest in Europe or someplace and come back again for another few months. So protecting yourself so you know taking care of yourself so you can rest and come back to work, that's part of the enthusiasm which is part of compassion. Enthusiasm requires rest.

[51:19]

You stop certain enterprises, so it's part of the program to protect yourself and take care of yourself so you can be a good servant. And next, yes, the gentleman with the beard. Years ago, I was a volunteer at the hospice. Yes. Yes, is there a hospice? Yes, that's right. In any case, the medical doctor in charge, to his surprise, discovered that when the patient accepted their illness, they lived. Right. Yeah, you can die healthy. That's a good thing, I think, is to die healthy. But if you're sick, then you might... Some people are sick and then they become healthy in their sickness, and then they die.

[52:25]

Some people are not really sick, but they also die. They're healthy and they die. There are stories of Zen masters like that. They're healthy and then they sit before their students and they say, okay, goodbye, and then they die. And if the students make a fuss, they sometimes say, okay, what's the problem? And then when the students calm down, they die again. One more shade. What? One more shade. If anyone knows that. If anyone knows it, yes. Thank you. Yes. It's an exciting topic. Exciting topic. For me. I want to check out and hear some pointers from you. So you're talking about suffering and meaning just, you know, basically sickness, emotional turmoil, just regular stuff.

[53:38]

In life, in the course of life. Yes. You know, talking about like the added on suffering that we bring. No, and the added on. And the added on. Like expecting to get, feels different, for example. The suffering that comes from expecting something. Well, that's my question. Yeah. So, um... And so something is happening with me. And it's not a pleasant thing. And it's likely that there will be some stories with it, which make it harder to be with. And I do have space to be with it. a little bit doubtful of what is how to watch where i'll be just kind and generous with what's happening and like the person that it's happening to or that experiencing it and where i'm just letting myself um be distracted be a little bit too loose and yeah distracted

[54:46]

You're saying you have trouble telling the difference between being present and being distracted? Well, I would say, for today, be generous with the sense that I'm not sure if I'm present or kind of spaced out, you know, which seems kind of present, but actually I'm kind of a little bit off to the side I'm distracting myself from being present. I'm not sure which it is. I would say be open to that, to that confusion. And clarity will evolve from moment after moment, noticing this question you have about the quality of your presence. Are there any signs? Yeah, there are signs. And those signs may appear in this space, in this generous space. You know, something real clear may come, like you may notice suddenly that you're shocked by a change in the form of suffering.

[55:57]

And then you're shocked by the present, because you're shocked by the turn of it. Because you thought you were going with it pretty well, and then it turned a certain way, and then you feel like, oh no, I wasn't really there. Yeah, so in a generous space gifts will be given to you which will help you find your way into more and more authentic generosity, more and more deep experience of the situation. I also wanted to say that the English word heal has a root which means whole. So sometimes you can be sick, but you can heal in the sickness when you become whole with the sickness. Is your hand over there?

[57:03]

Are you on? I think you were next. how the compassionate person is suffering joy now, like in a situation where a friend of mine is suffering, and they're talking about it, and I feel like I'm being present with their suffering. And I realize that that's kind of joy. I tend to slip into, like it becomes an ego thing, at least, where I'm like, oh, I'm this compassionate person listening to their story. How could I have? Yeah. Yeah, that sounds similar to this last question. So again, I... So I think feeling joy, when you feel like you're able to be with someone who's suffering and you feel like that's, like you're being generous, that's joyful too.

[58:13]

And I think it's okay to think the thought, I'm being helpful. That's okay. And to think, to have the story, I'm being helpful, and to feel happiness about that is what I would call the happiness of the three realms, or worldly happiness. Okay? ...being helpful and to feel happy about that, which is normal, I think, for a lot of people. That's what I would call worldly happiness. That you're happy when you have a story about how you're doing well. Okay? That's worldly happiness. It's still authentic worldly happiness. It comes from... ...that I'm hurting people, which is really not very happy, really. But I think a lot of people have this story that they're being helpful, and that's a happy story for a lot of people. Okay? I'm talking about another kind of happiness, which comes when you feel pain about your friend.

[59:24]

So you could be talking to your friend, and feel happiness with the idea or the story that you're being helpful to your friend. And your friend could also say, yes, you are, and you're being helpful. You know, I agree, and we're both happy about this story. And then you could suddenly feel this pain, this suffering over their suffering. But you realize that this suffering is coming because you love your friend. And that suffering gives rise to another kind of happiness, which is a supreme happiness. And when it first comes, you're terrified by the supreme happiness. So it's a spiritual happiness. It's not from a psychologically nice feeling on your part or the other person's part. It comes from that you really care for this person enough to suffer with them.

[60:28]

And when you open fully, you get this most wonderful happiness, which is not the end of the story, because then that happiness can be enhanced and developed through being generous with that too. So you don't hold on to that happiness, you keep giving it away. You give it to your friend and you show them how to find the same thing. Because they can also have happiness because they have compassion for themselves. And you can teach them how to do that. And so on. By being generous with this thing when it comes. But the story of being helpful to people is a worldly type of happiness which is an authentic reward for ordinary karma, ordinary storytelling of the wholesome variety. And it's a wholesome action to have a good story like that. Wholesome way of thinking. But karma, this other thing, is a spiritual dimension, which isn't just coming because of the way you think.

[61:33]

It's coming because of your compassionate relationship with people, which is not your story. Which is part of the reason why this is so shocking to think, to talk like this. Because it's not our conventional karmic way of seeing life that the greatest happiness comes from love, which gives us pain. Yes? What's your name? Tara. Tara? My question is, I'm thinking about, I mean, you definitely talked about interdependence. And a lot of the talk seemed about the individual nature of being with suffering. But I recently saw a movie called Sicko. And it's a lot about that system in America. And I just find myself thinking, in terms of social, political, economic realities, that this system itself is creating a lot of this suffering by the medical care itself and not providing.

[62:38]

So when I think about getting to the .. It doesn't seem to me that the roots are simply just to embrace the suffering when perhaps if we went to Cuba, we wouldn't be experiencing it. So I'm just curious about how you hold that awareness of those forces and how we could be of change in a larger system. Well, you said getting to the roots and... Well, it just said, I was not so much talking about getting to the roots, but how to be the roots, how to get your roots into the suffering. And I thought you were talking more about the roots in the sense of conditions for suffering, which it's another kind of roots. And to understand those roots is also part of our practice. To understand the roots comes with wisdom. And wisdom grows out of setting our roots into the suffering. So I feel like you're letting some of your roots go into the suffering of people in this arena that you're talking about.

[63:49]

You're letting your consciousness embrace and start to experience this particular huge realm of suffering. And as you put more and more roots down into that, that will help you have energy and joy with which you can then work to find ways to help other people do the same until more and more people are in that situation in a compassionate way. And from that compassion, then we start to practice generosity. And thinking of gifts to give to each other in this situation, which might then actually change the whole... it will change the whole situation. But before we change the whole situation we can help ourselves and others become while we're feeling the suffering of these beings, but being not demoralized and depleted and disabled by our awareness of this suffering, but encouraged by our care, encouraged by the suffering.

[65:00]

We're happy that we care about all these beings suffering who don't have proper health care. And then what will we do from there? We'll see what we'll do. But there will be activity. So what is it? First of all, generosity. So part of ethics would be that we would learn to not think that we're better than other people who are in this setup, that we're not better than, for example, the people who are making a tremendous amount of money in the system. And the people abused by the system, that they're not better than the people who are supposedly the abusers. That we enter into a more compassionate understanding of the whole field and we're patient with it. And then the fourth practice is the practice of going to work and doing some stuff. based on compassion, giving, ethics, and patience, a patient, generous, warm person is now working to make positive change in a situation which is partly contributing to people's suffering.

[66:17]

And then from that we develop wisdom which facilitates our work. That's the picture of the program of the Bodhisattva. I was talking to a friend recently, and he mentioned that I noticed that I think I'm addicted to suffering. You know, that I don't seem to be... Yeah, and I know you've been talking about that in a way, but I just wanted a little more clarity on it. Like, is it attachment to getting attached to my suffering or others' suffering and not being able to experience joy? I think it's possible to be attached.

[67:19]

It certainly seems possible to be attached to pleasure, right? It seems it's possible to attach to pain. It seems possible to attach to and tighten up around pain, doesn't it? Most people can tense up around pain, can't they? So when you have wholesome stories, the part of the reason why they're wholesome is because they lead to kind of positive results. But if you tense up around your wholesome stories or the results of wholesome you go somewhat blind to the whole program of enlightenment. Similarly, if you tense up around your unwholesome activity, that just facilitates more unwholesome activity. And the results of unwholesome activity is pain and discomfort and misfortune. And if you tense up, you get more and more pushed around by that, but also you get blinded.

[68:24]

to what's really going on. So yes, it is possible for us to tense up, grip, stiffen up around our unwholesome thoughts and our unwholesome unfortunate results. It is possible. So what do you do with that? Accept it and be generous with it. Be generous with your addiction. What? Generous with addiction? Are you kidding? Actually, if kidding would help, I'll kid. Basically, I'm sincerely saying be generous with your addiction the way you'd be generous with somebody else's addiction. Generous with somebody else's addiction? No. They should be punished, this addictive person. No, no. In the 12-step program, they don't punish the other addicted people, do they? Listen, they listen to them. They don't listen to them and then say, you dirty rotten addict. They don't do that, do they?

[69:27]

No, they listen. They make a space for the people to talk about their addictions. Right? Isn't that how they do it, sort of? People get together and say, and people just make a space for that. And they don't say, oh, that's good that you're an addict. And they don't say it's bad that you're an addict. They just say, we hear you. We're here. We're supporting you to be aware of yourself. So that at the beginning, they can go out and then they say, oh, I'm an addict. Yikes. Okay. When I told the other people that I was an addict, they didn't go, yikes. They listened to me. Maybe some of them go, yikes. Just involuntarily when I hear about the horrible things I'm telling. Maybe some of them do cringe. I don't know. Does that happen sometimes? I suppose. What? They identify. And when you say, oh, I did that too, that could be a kind of tense reaction rather than generous reaction.

[70:36]

Or it could be a gift. Like, oh, I did that too, rather than. Oh, that's me. You know, I got it. It's me. More like, oh yeah, I'm like that, rather than identify. Because identifying can be not generous. But identify in the sense of, hey, I'm in the same boat with you. That's more the big field kind of response to addiction. Yeah, we're together here. Even though I don't have that same particular variety of addiction, I'm basically with you. I'm with you. We're in the same boat. I'm supporting you. And you can go through this as long as you have to go through this and I'll just hang in there with you. Same way with yourself. Do it yourself when you're not in a room full of people who are ceremonially enacting the way the universe really is, is that everybody's supporting you while you're addicted. But If you're not generous with yourself, you don't report on why you're addicted.

[71:42]

Yes, and your name? Daphna. Daphna? Did you say you're listening to the things I've been saying for 30 years? Oh, Buddhism. Oh, okay, you've been listening to Buddhism. Okay. I feel like my skills, or if I call it skills, it comes to action in life, which I have to do, make decisions all the time. Most of my acting comes from conditioning, and the conditioning from all kinds of things, but it doesn't

[72:59]

that it drops in the sea when I have to take action that I can follow the things that I feel all the time. It's just something. And maybe I'm getting impatient with my ability. That's just what I thought. Yeah. I don't want to use this household impatience. Yeah, I don't want to use it either. To be a little bit faster learner and not to make some actions I can see and I can completely be aware about my actions. Everyone's suffering when I see clearly and it's... I would say 98% from conditioning. Yeah. Yeah, I think that you could say coming 98% from conditioning and the conditions are... very big. I mean, like, it's your whole past. All your past actions are conditioning your present action.

[74:01]

And other people's actions are also influencing your present action. Tremendous conditioning determining our action. Yes, yes, yes. Okay? So now, if we have a person whose action is conditioned, I'm saying, how about some compassion for this person? and start with being generous with this person. And after setting up generosity, then move down to the precepts with this person. And practice giving towards this person, teach... practice precepts towards this person and practice patience towards this person. Teach this person giving, teach this person ethics, teach this person patience. and also be honest that this person still seems to have not learned as much as you might eventually want her to learn.

[75:13]

One of the characteristics of a bodhisattva teacher is that they with the slowness of the student's learning. So we need a bodhisattva teacher to come in there and no matter how slowly you're learning, to make your actions align up with compassion, no matter how slowly, this continues to be every moment an opportunity and patience. Now, if the case ever arises, which it might, where you give yourself a kick in the butt, that might someday be helpful. Who knows? There are stories like that where the teacher All the way what? Harming? Well, that's the precept part.

[76:16]

As you're watching the precepts and you notice that you're doing harmful things due to past conditioning and present circumstances also conditioning. So we notice, and noticing harm is part, noticing harm is part of spiritual conditioning. journey, noticing the harm. So, of course, the harm is also . But noticing it is the key, that you notice it. There are times when people do harmful things and don't notice it, when they have harmful intentions and they don't notice that the harmful intention also does harm, especially to the person who is experiencing the harmful intention. So noticing harmful intention and noticing harmful consequences, noticing them is then an opportunity to generously, graciously, honestly admit this is a harmful intention and feel what it's like to observe your own harmful intentions.

[77:19]

Some sorrow around that. And feel that sorrow. That's part of the process of precept practice, which is part of the process of compassion, is to notice that we feel pain when we do things which are not skillful. To notice it. That's part of developing compassion. Wishing that people would be more advanced is fine as long as you're generous with their current state of development. Like, yes, I wish you would become extremely skillful and highly And I totally support you right now being at the level you're at now. And I feel joy being with you the way you are now. And I want you to feel that because I know that will help you evolve positively. For you to see about you and for you to learn how to do that towards yourself.

[78:23]

I don't know, there were some other people over there, wasn't there? I don't know. Yes, what's your name? Alex. So part of my question has to do with at first being terrified. Yeah. And then later, not so much. Yeah. And what the feeling is of that shifting. What? What the feeling is of that shifting and when that changes. What's the feeling of the terror going down? Just a feeling of less terror. You're shaking less. You're less tempted. Things like that. And now you're just like a little bit kind of like You're not totally there yet, but you're a little bit less to like try to flee the whole situation or push the whole situation away or whatever or fight it or blame somebody else.

[79:36]

It's more subtle. And then gradually you start to be upright with it. So first of all, you're noticing it and honest. Now you're going to try to be upright with it, not get ahead of it or behind it or whatever, and also try to relax with it and harmonize with it. See, in that way you're gradually more and more fully experiencing more and more fully the suffering and generously giving yourself to this. And then when the resistance and the avoidance is pretty much zero, then you start to suck up the nutrients of our relationship with all beings, and this great joy of our relationship with all beings starts to grow in us and lift us up. And then we go into practicing also the precepts to make sure there's not any kind of ethical, subtle ethical...

[80:39]

around this like this is my power this is my i did this by myself blah blah blah you start to notice that stuff and then so on and then maybe noticing that there is some infractions and being patient with yourself and generous with yourself around your infractions and they evolve positively which gives rise to patients with more and more subtle and so on and in terms of generosity i'm wondering i've noticed bringing recently sort of unskillful generosity versus skillful generosity, like sometimes sort of idiot compassion generosity. Like what? Like, pardon me to a friend. Yeah. For a couple of weeks we'll all be out of town. Yeah. But we had an argument earlier in the week. Yeah. So my impulse was to just give her the keys and let her take over my apartment even though there's this sort of emotional friction between us. Yeah. To me, I realized last night, but it was kind of like I was to be like, oh, please don't be angry with me.

[81:44]

Please stop me. Just here, take this. Oh, I see. Yeah. Generosity to get something. Yeah, right. Yeah, generosity, of course, goes with no expectation. I mean, that's spiritual generosity. So generosity with something is not the kind I'm talking about. So is that practice that you're talking about? Excuse me, but that would be an ethical infraction. So you're practicing generosity and you feel good about it to some extent, but then you notice, oh, but I'm trying to get something. That helps you like, okay, now I have a gift or some similar gift or some other gift that I can give. I can't give that gift with no expectation, but I can give this gift with no expectation and go back and find... This seems like a real gift. I'm really not expecting anything. It's just a gift. This isn't a manipulation. And purchase means buying something, but purchase also means getting a hold on.

[82:46]

I got a purchase on you. Got a hold of you. So in both senses of purchase, you're not really practicing giving. That's why ethics follows giving, to look and see if there's some kind of infraction going on in relationship to this wonderful practice of giving. And then go back and reform the giving by your awareness of the unskillfulness, some unskillfulness involved in the giving. And then again, be honest about it, relax with it, see how you feel, open to the feeling and be transformed. Okay? Yes. Robert. I talk a lot about expectations, and I know some of my own personal suffering is caused by expectations. And I do this dance between releasing the expectation, just letting things be as they are, and then taking it back.

[83:48]

And it's this whole kind of back and forth. Yes, right. Is there anything you could suggest to have that release or that just being able to let things go and be as they are more consistent? Okay, well, first of all, The good thing is that you're aware of this process and you're being kind of honest about it. Now, in addition to that, try to be upright with it. Try not to get ahead of it or shrink back from it or get around it. And your report sounds fine. Perfectly good report. Honesty there. And probably have some feelings about that. and try to just be present with those feelings, be upright with those feelings about this process and with the process itself. Just be present with it, without leaning on it. And then relax with it, be soft with it, be gentle with it. Or, you know, be generous and open with it.

[84:50]

It's kind of a nauseating process, it sounds like. It sucks. It sucks, yeah. It sucks, the things that suck, to be generous with them. You're really in them, you're honestly there, or you're there honestly, and you're balanced there, upright, and also you're open to it in a generous way. You're not trying to hurry this pattern into extinction. And now try to harmonize with it. Not like or dislike, but be in perfect harmony with it. And even if it goes on, even if this pattern goes on, the lotus is going to grow up there. And this pattern then will be the basis of great enlightenment someday. Enlightenment grows in the field of unenlightened being. Like expecting blah, blah, blah. That's where enlightenment grows.

[85:55]

It's inseparable from all kinds of ignorance, delusion that comes from ignorance and delusion. But the lotus won't grow if you don't practice properly in the mire of all suffering beings. So you've got the mire. Now situate yourself there in a relaxed, upright, harmonious way. And the lotus will grow. And while it's growing, even before it's fully grown, you can demonstrate to the other lotus seeds in the mud. Everybody's got this seed down in the mud. We've all got the seed. And the more you're working with warming your seed and letting your seed grow, the more you can point to other people and show them to take care of their seed. So it will germinate, sprout, and grow.

[86:55]

And of course, you feel people's seed not getting enough warmth and not growing because they're suffering with their compassion buried in a cold mud. So you bring warmth to it. and you're happy that you feel suffering in that unfulfilled state. That make sense? So take care of it. It sucks. Yes? I don't want to think about it myself. Someone who I care a great deal about seems to be rounding into my head. I'm manifesting and learning from myself and learning and growing and influencing this other person in any way.

[88:03]

And I feel like it's going to grab me and pull me away from the work that I'm able to do. Could you hear what you said? So, you're looking at somebody and you're seeing them drowning in the mud. You're seeing the seed buried in the mud. Okay? That's the normal situation for people. now and you're afraid that you're going to be pulled down so that's the terror okay so now you you may be able to find some way to with the fear that you're going to be pulled down into the mud yourself you're actually in the mud but you don't want to pull down into the mud you want to you're in the mud but you want to sit upright in the mud okay

[89:12]

sit upright in meditation posture, or stand upright, or walk upright in the mud. And it doesn't help other people for you to lose your presence with their suffering in your suffering. It helps them actually if you can be upright. And there's a terror that you'll be pulled into leaning one way or another. And that would be too bad in a way because then you'd lose your presence, you'd lose the way of being with the suffering that's helping you and others. So there is a danger and that's part of what we become afraid of. So if we can be upright with this danger of slipping into leaning one way or another with our own and other people's suffering, if we can be present, then we will be able to continue to be the way that's really helpful to all beings in this muddy world we're in.

[90:20]

And so that terror, there's the terror we were talking about earlier. You care for this person. It hurts you to see their suffering, to see them drowning. That part's good. And when you first see it, you're afraid that you're going to lose your... There's that danger. So then you have to like... Now you have to be with your fear and your suffering. Find your place again. Okay? That person needs it. I need it. We all need you. Please take care of your practice in this situation. Okay? Please. Yes. I resonate a lot with this lady. You resonate with her? Yes. Okay. And not currently. It's a long story. You don't resonate with her now?

[91:23]

Well, I still resonate. Okay, good. My circumstances have changed. I resonate very deeply with it. Okay. And I totally understand and embrace It has to do with my professional practice or friends and so on. And yet I was in a situation where I was intimately involved with someone who was drowning in mud for a very, very, very long time, you know, several years. And for myself, terror came. I was so occupied with trying to stand upright that I couldn't. do other things in the world for other people. And the way I kept expressing it to myself, like I'm concentrating on this one dot, I could do to stay upright. And the more I could stay upright, the more it almost angered this person that I was feeling compassion for because I wasn't down sinking in the mud with them.

[92:32]

And that... led me to realize that I was, that the connection between the two of us wasn't healthy. Wasn't what? Healthy. It was, you gave a word earlier, the word I would say is codependent or something like that, but instead of being inner, we were We gave a different word yesterday, but just earlier today, I can't remember it, of course, because it was probably so important to me, but we were too attached, in my opinion. And I guess I would just like you to address a few words. How do you know, or when do you get, or how do you get to sometimes the point of knowing that perhaps you can't, that all the compassion and even all the display of your own spiritual practice, or... I guess what I'm trying to say is the more I would get out of the mud, or the more I would get myself upward in the mud, and my chute was going up, and I kept feeling that this is what this person, you know, this is the way I could help myself and this person, the more... this person became angry, victim, and...

[94:01]

it just became... Was there ever a time you were supposed to give up? Every moment. Right in the mud and give up simultaneously. Every moment. But not just give up, be upright. give up and be upright in the giving up or in being upright and give up. Don't attach. That's not being flexible. But be upright in the mud with everybody. And if they get angry at you, be upright and give up. And you will be... You are in the mud, you don't have to worry about that, but you can be distracted from it.

[95:04]

So being upright, being upright, you dive into it, spread your roots, and also relaxed and giving up your uprightness is how you adjust to the next moment of uprightness. Be honest, I'm scared of what's going to happen here, I wonder, I question what I'm doing, fine. And harmonize with somebody who does not appreciate your efforts to be upright and generous. Upright and give up. Try to harmonize with that person. And if you feel, well, then you don't have that part maybe so well, but you can be honest, I feel like I'm not harmonizing. Or I feel like I'm not upright. Or I feel like I'm upright, but I'm holding on to my uprightness. Or I feel like I'm giving up. but I'm not being upright. I'm giving up to leaning into this person. I'm giving up to avoiding this person. I'm giving up, but I'm not balanced. Or I'm giving up, but I'm also, you know, evacuating.

[96:06]

I'm leaving the mud. That's not giving up. If you give up, you'll be in the mud. You're already there. But don't just be in the mud. Also be upright. Because you can do nothing but get into it. That's not so good. That's more like attachment. That's the attachment. Of being upright, you're not attached, but you're totally grounded in it, but not attached to it. But you're also not attached to being upright, so you're totally grounded. and you're honest about your lack of uprightness, or you're honest about your clinging to your uprightness, etc. That's part of it. Anything else today? Yes, Brandon? A lot of meditating sitting in the last few years because I found it was intuitively and practically the only...

[97:07]

a way to deal with a lot of illness and suffering that I was experiencing internally and externally. Yes. And just by practicing and sitting in what I could without being in a place and living in a place like this or having teachers for it, intuitively what I came to was what you described in it. Great. And the feedback within and without was how you describe it. And so I thought I was, you know, this is great. Now it's something that's very helpful. I said, I should really do something to be a part of my life. Because it's helping me and it can also help others. So I applied to come and live here. And since being here, I felt that practice in me kind of dissolve and disintegrate.

[98:17]

And I don't puzzle the three months I've been here, where it went. It almost seems like it's not the practice that's being practiced here. And that's just my story that conditions aren't what I expect them to be or feel I need them to be for me to practice that way. It's like I'll glimpse it for an instant. I'm trying to work with my attachment or clinging to that. I heard you say something about expectation. It's wonderful what you discovered and then you moved into another environment and you, sounds like you had some expectations, but when you were in the previous environment, you may didn't notice your expectations. So in the new environment, then you started to notice your expectations.

[99:23]

So the new environment showed you some, I don't know what the word is, some aspect of what was in the previous situation that you didn't see. Just like, I don't know, in various situations, like if you play tennis, you know, you've got some problems but you keep winning the games. You go play tennis with other people and you start losing because they can see all of your attachments to your previous way of playing. They say, oh, that's how he plays. Let's see if he can play another way. Oh, no, he can't. So I'll just play this other way. He plays this way. If I play this way, he can't adjust because he's expecting we're going to play like... He was playing with his other people who worked for him. So it's fine that you're playing and being skillful in this arena. That's fine. And it makes you think, well, maybe I'll go to, you said, to a bigger arena. In the bigger arena, people offered you some different games and you expected the same game.

[100:27]

You wanted to come and play your game in a bigger arena, but In the bigger arena they say, well, we're playing other games here. We're not playing that one you played. Well, we can play that game, but since you used to play that game, we're not going to play that one. We're going to see if you can adjust. That's what we're here to help you do. Because you wouldn't want to attach to your previous game, would you? No. So if you want to, you can go back to the smaller arena and be successful again, maybe. But as you expand into bigger you get new challenges, which means the game is not what you expect it to be, more and more. And when you adapt to that, then it gets bigger, and if you have any expectations from the previous expansion, then those get tested. But can you give those away now? Yeah, well, maybe. So it may be you could go back to a more limited situation where it's not so challenging.

[101:28]

So Zen temples are really for people to help them get over their expectations about what life is. But we let everybody come. You don't have to be, you know, I don't know what, you don't have to be up for it to be challenged. You get challenged anyway. So Green Gulch is like the most difficult and worst place to practice. Yeah, I could go back to the smaller Vita and be successful. Yeah. I don't want to be attached. Right. Be successful. But when, along with that success, I guess I've attached help. of many varieties. So yeah, on one side I'm saying, this is a great opportunity, a fantastic opportunity to break through all my expectations, broaden my practice.

[102:39]

I'm like, yeah, but in the meantime, all this stuff that I have been doing this for, or the mud that I've been working with, What am I sacrificing in return for? Let's hold the word sacrifice in parenthesis for a minute, okay? And just let me say that in terms of the unfolding of compassion, first is giving, then comes ethics, then comes patience, and then comes effort or work. And part of effort in our practice is to not take on something that's too advanced. So sometimes we get into situations where it's a great possibility but it's just a little bit too advanced for us and we should know that this is just a little bit too much. And just wait on that for a little while and go back to a place that's not what we are but a little bit of a stretch, an appropriate level of stretch.

[103:45]

And at a certain point, I don't know what, you know, like, for example, if you get in hot water, you know, it gets to be 118. Like if you start at 104 and it goes up to 118, you know. 120, well, maybe that's too much. You should actually get out of the water. You don't know how to handle 120 yet. So it's time to get out. It's not good for you. It's reasonable. It's good to get out now. Get out. Maybe someday you can come back and do 120. But right now, 118 is the limit. And that's good to stop, right? And staying in situations longer and longer sometimes gets more and more challenging for various reasons. So it may be that it's time for your practice to change a little bit, not necessarily go back to where you were before, but modulate the challenge a little bit. It's okay. What you can see when you're generous with yourself is that, you know, I think this is a little bit too much. I'm having trouble relaxing with this. I think I could relax with that.

[104:48]

But, you know, and talk to other people about it and you may get support to modulate the challenge of your life somewhat. It varies from person to person. A lot of times people tell me, say, take a rest, go rest. But sometimes I say, Well, just keep going. Not for you. In this case, you don't worry about it. You just keep going sometimes. In my sense, that person can handle this increased challenge. Or maybe if you push too hard, then you're going to quit. I'd rather see people continuing to practice by being a little easy on themselves than push themselves so hard that they just say, oh, Buddhism is just too hard, or Zen Center is just too hard for me, or it's just too challenging, and I'm going to quit. Rather than I push myself so hard, I'm pushing myself too hard.

[105:49]

and get some feedback from people about whether they would support you to push yourself that hard. And they might say, no, no, I think that's enough. You're doing enough. You don't have to take that on. Does that make any sense? What about sacrifice? Well, sacrifice is a thing that it seems like, you know, I'm not recommending it. I'm more into surrender and giving up and generosity than sacrifice. Sacrifice seems to be a little bit different from generosity in a way, because when you give, you really, when you give properly, it's really a joy, it's not really a sacrifice. And yet I noticed that in the history of certain great people, like, I don't know, Truman Capote, and Abraham, and Soren Kierkegaard, So in Kierkegaard, one of his main works, which he wrote when he was about your age, is a story about Abraham making a sacrifice of his... But also Kierkegaard chose that story because he himself was making a sacrifice of his beloved girlfriend.

[107:09]

He sacrificed her so he could write this book about sacrifice. And it's this great... It's a spiritual masterpiece. trembling or whatever, or sickness unto death or whatever it was. Anyway, he wrote that when he was just a kid. But even though he was a kid, he sacrificed the most precious thing in his life so he could feel what Abraham was into. And Truman Capote sacrificed these guys so he could write in cold blood. He sacrificed these these murder suspects, so he could write this masterpiece. And afterward, I think he was more or less destroyed as a person for that sacrifice. But he had his masterpiece. And Kierkegaard was, I don't know if he was saved or destroyed, but anyway, sacrifice is a spiritual dilemma, a spiritual koan about what people need to do in order to accomplish great, to be a genius maybe.

[108:16]

But I'm not sacrificing. I'm more encouraging generosity, which I think is really healthy. And one of the criterion for it is no expectation and joy. So I'm not necessarily encouraging you to sacrifice at this point for the sake of the Buddha Dharma. I think we've run over the time when we're usually supposed to stop. I'm sorry if I made you late for any important engagements. I really appreciate your wholehearted interest and compassion, and I hope you let it grow until it reaches its full potential. Thank you very much.

[109:12]

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