I like the title, Roots and Fruits of Perfect Wisdom. And in my meditation, in my Zen meditation on the roots and fruits of perfect wisdom, I'm seeing different images than I originally shared with you and I'd like to tell you about that, okay? So, I think I said in earlier sessions that one of the roots of perfect wisdom is that living beings and perfectly enlightened beings called Buddhas, living beings and perfectly enlightened beings, are not two. I said that that was a root, but actually I'm changing my story, and now I'm saying I think it's the ground, more like the ground, or the womb.

[01:04]

the oneness, the non-separation of Buddhas and living beings is like the womb in which the seed, a seed is put in the womb. And the seed is a thought, a wish, in a living being, which is also the kind of thoughts that Buddhas have. It's the wish to become perfectly wise. It's the wish to realize perfect wisdom for the welfare of all living beings. That's the seed, and that seed is put into the womb of the intimacy of the beings that have that wish and those who have realized it.

[02:16]

The non-duality of those who have realized perfect wisdom and those who aspire to it, and also to those who do not aspire to it. Living beings who do not yet wish to realize perfect wisdom are not separate from Buddhas. And that non-separation is the womb in which the thought which arises in some beings of becoming Buddha for the welfare of all beings, that seed is now in this non-duality. And that seed then, if cared for, germinates and sprouts roots, first of all. Sprouts roots. And the roots are roots of this thought.

[03:20]

They're this thought expanding into many, many thoughts. But all these thoughts are coming from this basic thought, which has been planted in this womb of good friendship between Buddhas and all living beings. And those roots then engage with all the living beings, and then from the roots comes a stem. A couple of classes ago, Fran made a drawing, which if I remember, I'll bring or you can bring, kind of about this. So this sprouts, and finally it blossoms into wisdom, and then actually the blossom is not a fruit.

[04:24]

It's a flower. it blossoms into a type of wisdom which is, you know, which is perfect wisdom but not yet the fruit. So it blossoms into wisdom and then when the blossoms drop away, you have the perfect wisdom which is the fruit. So this thought arises in the womb of the intimacy of living beings and Buddhas. And if cared for, it germinates and sprouts roots and then a stem. The stem makes a flower of wisdom and then the wisdom even drops itself and becomes the fruit. And that fruit then leads to guess what?

[05:31]

Just guess. Seeds. The seeds come from the fruit. Sorry that this is a cyclic process. It's a cyclic process of wisdom to balance the cyclic process or to save the cyclic process of birth and death. So that's a change in the imagery I'm offering you. All right? Now back to the seed. Back to the seed which is a thought in a living being. When a living being has such a thought arising in them, in their consciousness, they are not yet a bodhisattva. But if they take care of the seed, the seed sprouts roots and as it sprouts roots, they become a bodhisattva. The roots start to embrace and sustain the bodhisattva practices and they start more and more to become a bodhisattva, which gives rise then to the cultivation of the wisdom.

[06:45]

So let's say we have the seed now. which is this thought, this wish to realize Buddhahood for the welfare of all beings. And then the next step will be to germinate this by practicing compassion with this seed. And the first bodhisattva practice of compassion is giving, generosity. towards the end of the last class, the issue, we're talking about sadness and we're talking about how certain distractions have gone flat for certain people and how some of those people for whom certain distractions have gone flat, they feel a little bit sad about it. So I think I promised, let's talk about sadness and grieving next time.

[07:53]

Did I say something like that? So here we are, and I'd like to talk about sadness and grieving as part of compassion, as part of generosity, as part of germinating or germinating and caring for the roots of this thought of enlightenment. Some people said that some of the things they used to do to distract themselves have lost their vividness and their life They're not very good distractors anymore. They try to use these methods to distract themselves or to entertain themselves and they're not so much fun anymore.

[08:56]

They're getting to be so flat that they're actually thinking of maybe giving up the distractions. But that's kind of sad. And so opening to that sadness... is a gesture of generosity, opening to the sadness of the loss of the apparent effectiveness of certain distractions. some distractions, although they're not as much fun as they used to be, and some that might be almost as fun as they used to be, are holding us back, are hindering our growth. And the wisdom part of us

[10:04]

want us to let go of that, of those hindrances, of those habits which are distractions from just letting this thought grow. But it's not that easy for us either to find where we're holding or to see where we're holding. If we can see where we're holding, it's a little easier to let go, but sometimes we don't know where we're holding. Like when we think of something that we used to do that seemed like it was fun and it's not fun anymore, we may not see that we're still holding on to the thing that's not fun. But when sadness comes, if you open to the sadness, you let go of the place you're holding on to something that you don't really want to hold on to anyway. But you are holding on. And if you weren't, the sadness wouldn't be coming. The sadness is saying, open more to letting go of this thing.

[11:09]

And it doesn't matter what it is, if you're holding on to it, it's holding you back from your practicing compassion with this thought. So this grieving or sadness is part of cultivating the thought of enlightenment, which is going to mature into wisdom. And I now, I feel like there might be enough sadness in the room now so I can just ask if you have any questions about this. Is there really such a thing as distraction or are we what? Okay.

[12:12]

Is there really such a thing as an incomplete action? Not really, but sort of. Like you can say hello to me and not really pay attention to what you're doing. Like you can say hello to me and look right at me when you're saying it, but you can also say hello to me but look at somebody else. But you can also say hello to me wholeheartedly and not look at me. But you can also say hello to me wholeheartedly and not, half-heartedly and not look at me. Somehow, you can't do anything half-heartedly, but it's kind of like, it seems like you can. Like you can be talking to somebody. It's been a while since I've been to a cocktail party, but I remember and I've heard about that at cocktail parties, people are talking to you, but they're actually looking around the room for somebody more interesting to talk to.

[13:20]

Now that's really, it's a wholehearted conversation. way of talking to this person without really paying attention to them. But it doesn't seem like it. It seems like you're not really there. Like you really don't notice the tear in their eye. And then you see that the person you're talking to is actually looking around the room for somebody other than you to talk to. And it kind of bothers you. But you don't like completely be bothered just the exact amount that you're bothered because, you know, it's not that big a deal. You know, I'm not going to like me to be bothered by somebody who I just met not being interested in me. Now, if they're not interested in me to the extent that they, you know, like spill wine on me or something, Then I might somehow say, well, actually, this is actually, this is a problem.

[14:25]

And I'm going to really, and this is my party dress, and I'm really upset. Just what came to my mind is I took my daughter to a movie when she was a pretty little girl called The Song of the South. And one of the scenes in the song of the South was of a little white girl who had two, I don't know if they were white boyfriends or white brothers, but anyway, she put on a party dress and she was going to a party and they pushed her into the mud and got her party dress all muddy. And that little girl was, this was a big sadness for her. This was a big pain. And my daughter could not stay in the theater. That was the end of the movie. It wasn't like, oh, I don't know. But sometimes people don't pay attention to us. It doesn't bother us that much that we have to leave the movie. Matter of fact, it bothers us so little that we think we don't have to even notice it.

[15:30]

Like, I'm not going to like totally feel slightly offended. it seems like I'm just not willing to have that experience, like be offended by such an unimportant thing. Even though I really did have the experience, it's like I didn't really allow myself to say, I was here when that happened, and I wasn't anyplace else, and this is the practice that I'm committed to. And then a little later, you're going to be sad. If your wisdom's working in you, you're going to be sad that you didn't experience that minor event wholeheartedly. Sometimes we have really strong events that really hit us hard and we feel them wholly and then there's no sad. We completely get hurt and there's no sadness.

[16:32]

And sometimes we get hit really hard and we hold back from that. And then, you know, we don't completely get hurt. Even though it's really intense, we hold back because it's maybe too intense. So if it's too intense or not intense enough, we sometimes miss it. And when we miss it, we create a ghost that haunts us, that says, you wasted your life. Or Another possibility instead of a ghost is a feeling of sadness. And if you open to the feeling of sadness, you let go of the fact that you missed the opportunity and, excuse me, you let go of what you're holding on to. But I think sadness is more for something that happened you don't let go of. The ghost is more for things that you don't experience fully. And I told many of you this story before. When I was a little boy, around eight years old, I started to hear a ringing in my ear.

[17:37]

Did you hear that? Yeah, I heard a ringing in my ear. And I didn't know what it was. It usually occurred in the afternoon or evening when it was quiet. I didn't hear the ringing in my ear when my brother and sister were yelling and screaming or when the TV was on. But I turned the TV off. and be quiet. I think the train whistle could be going now, and I could hear the ringing. But when it was quiet, I heard this ringing, and I didn't know what it was, and I thought, maybe it's my conscience. And you know, I think it was. But it wasn't my conscience about something. And it was my conscience, and what it was about was about something I didn't do properly. and what it was almost all but I didn't know at the time and several years later like when I was about thirteen I heard the ringing and then I knew what it was about and it was about something that happened earlier in the day you see something unpleasant that I didn't totally address and as soon as I remembered what it was and addressed it the ringing would go away again like

[18:53]

A teacher appreciating one student more than me, another student more than me. Something that, you know, not like, Rab, you're the worst student I've ever had, you know, and slap me in the face. It wasn't like that. It was more like appreciating, you know, some little thing like that. But I didn't feel it. I didn't acknowledge it. And I didn't even notice I didn't acknowledge it. So what really happened was the thing that I didn't distract myself from was from not acknowledging it. Then later in the day I heard the ringing and then I realized what it was about. And as soon as I did address it, the ringing went away. So anyway, somehow it's a training thing to learn how to be fully present for each moment. Somehow we can get distracted from that. Somehow we can think of, when we're doing something, we can think, well, what am I going to get out of this?

[20:00]

Like you, I don't know, you help somebody, you know? Or you think, I wish to realize perfect wisdom for the welfare of all beings. You think that, and then you think, I wonder if anybody knows that I have this wish?" Or you might say, well, how do I even know that I really mean it? That's not fully experiencing. Can you see that? It's like, well, I said it, but I would also like to know that it was true. And I wish other people knew what wonderful thoughts I have, So I'm not really, we can't be distracted. So we're trying to train ourselves into reality by admitting non-reality, by confessing.

[21:10]

You know, I actually thought I could care for that person halfway. I thought I could pass up on that sadness that just came by, or I could feel it a little rather than open to it completely. But thank you for your question, not thank you, you know, that's important. Any more comments on this? This, by the way, this is how to take care of the, how to help this thought sprout and how to keep the roots healthy, you know, so they don't get too much bacteria on them, just the right amount. Nitrogen fixing bacteria, right? They bring nitrogen to the roots. We don't want to sterilize these roots. But some roots, if you don't take care of them, fungus will come and mold will come and kill them, right?

[22:12]

So you have to clean the roots with, for example, sadness. And confession of any type of gain that starts to accumulate around the wish. In other words, practice generosity with the wish. Don't try to own the wish. Don't try to be sure of what it is. That's part of what lets it grow. Yes, was there somebody? I had a question over there. Yes, Frank. You're not sure if it's what? Applies. Yeah. He's feeling pain in relationship to a person he's lost.

[23:33]

And the pain is what? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. The leading to thoughts is not the sadness. The sadness is not thoughts. The thoughts are depression, depression. Depression is thinking. Feeling is just a feeling of grieving and feeling are not, they're not thinking. they're a feeling being given to us about something and they're basically saying, feel this. They're not saying, think about it. And if you think about it, you're distracted from the offering. And the offering is because you were distracted from another offering. You lose somebody and you don't see it as an offering.

[24:38]

You lose something And in this class, you lose distractions from this class, perhaps. And sadness comes as a wisdom offering saying, would you just feel this and you'll let go of what you should let go of. And then if you start thinking, you're resisting the sadness. And if the sadness, I'm not saying sadness can never be intolerable. I'm not saying it can't be intolerable. But it seems to me that intolerable is what I think about the sadness. The sadness itself It doesn't come with a label on it like this much sadness or too much sadness. That's a reflection on it. But I'm not saying... Sadness is an option which is offered and you can get rid of it. You can get away from it.

[25:41]

All you got to do is like jump up and do jumping jacks. Or, you know, just get really busy and the sadness will, you know, it'll recede. Depression won't. Because depression can think right along with you while you're doing jumping jacks. Depression is more like doing jumping jacks with the sadness rather than just feeling it. And, you know, sad jumping jacks, repetitive jumping jacks, like, why did this happen to me? If this person would only come back. It's not a wide-ranging creative thinking. It's more like a rut. And that is deadening. So part of the work of psychotherapy is to tell the difference between, in this particular example, between grief and sadness and depression.

[26:43]

That grief is an offering which you can push away just by getting busy. And you don't have to think about it. It's not asking to be thought about. It's asking to be felt. And when you feel it, You open to it. It's an opening. The practice of sadness is to open to the sadness, to feel it. And the thought can cause depression. And some people are more likely to do that than others. And the medication can stop the thoughts. Medications. Medications can stop the thoughts. And thoughts can distract you from the sadness.

[27:49]

So when sadness comes, if you start thinking a lot, that pretty much pushes the sadness away. So many people... are kind of surprised they come to a Zen Center retreat. They sit down and they start crying. They didn't know. They didn't know that they were sad. They didn't know that there was something they were holding on to, that there was some change in their life that they were resisting. and the sadness was being offered to them, the wisdom of their life was saying, would you please just be sad about this and let go of it? Things have changed. Would you please let go of it? And the person can't hear that. So it says, well, how about would you feel the sadness? And the person says, I'm too busy. And they sit down, and the sadness says, hello. And they say, I'm not too busy anymore. And then they're sad. And they open to the sadness. And when they open to the sadness, they open to the change. and then they can move forward in the practice of wisdom, in the practice of life.

[28:52]

So thinking is a good way to distract yourself from the opportunity of sadness. And if you're thinking in a depressive way, which can also be a distraction from sadness, but it can be more directly in response to the loss, because you know the loss sometimes. It's not a secret what it is. And the thinking gets so worked up that people give medication to the person to reduce the thinking, which is disturbing their psychophysical chemistry. Yes. I saturate myself by the use of the form as fear. which might say that it's good, but it's really .

[30:10]

I keep on . Not exactly, not really. It's my fear, really my thinking, my fear, but the reality, the reality before that is that I was already, in my mind, in a war, Address the fear and exhaustion? Yeah. That's what I need to do. I'm aware that I'm disconnected from myself. I'm in fear and thoughts. I'm in my head. I'm completely disconnected from myself.

[31:12]

So I sit down and reconnect with my body. Feel the fear. I don't want fear, but the fear and the need of warning the fear and the two fighting each other and this like this dynamic that it's Sounds good. Now, if You're resisting the fear. Yeah. And you're resisting the fear. And the fear came because you were resisting something else before that. Like... Unknown.

[32:13]

Unknown. Maybe unknown, but maybe also just, you know, the stuff on the TV you're resisting. And you're resisting the way your body feels when you look at that stuff. But anyway, you got the right idea. Engage the fear. Now if you happen to have a thought to realize perfect wisdom for the welfare of the world, if you had that thought and then you happen to see such things that you were resisting, then the way to take care of that thought, even if you could remember the thought, the way to take care of that thought is to engage the fear. Even if you can remember, oh, I'm watching TV and I'm afraid and I wish to attain perfect wisdom for the welfare of all beings. Even if you can still remember the thought, you still have to take care of this fear. Otherwise this thought is either going to disappear or it's going to start rotting with mold.

[33:17]

So that's the right thing to do. Right. Yeah, being authentic is another word for practicing compassion. So being authentic will protect and will germinate this seed, and if it's already germinated, will protect the roots and encourage them to go more deeply into the thing that you are resisting. So sometimes they go in, sometimes roots go someplace and they turn corners and stuff, but they don't really resist. They just go someplace else that they can embrace more fully. But sometimes maybe they need some help. And so we practice compassion with these roots even after they resisted, even after they weren't generous with the situation, and the lack of generosity leads to fear.

[34:26]

But practicing generosity overcomes the fear. So when we're not being generous, we get afraid. But if we practice generosity with the fear, we come back and the fear subsides. The fear isn't totally eliminated until we have perfect wisdom. But most fears are overcome by generosity. So as this thought is starting to put down roots, it's going to run into stuff and fear is going to come up. And then we have to find a way to be generous with the fear that comes up as this thought starts to grow into our life. So it will continue to grow into our life. First step is generosity, and then ethics and patience. Yes, yes, and yes.

[35:35]

Yes, Kim. Yes, John. Yes, Patrick. wholeheartedness with such total presence you think you're way too busy to do that way too busy to do that is something to do totally that thought Be generous to the thought, I'm way too busy. Now you might say, I'm way too busy to be way too busy to be compassionate to the thought, way too busy. Well, then I say do the same with that one. Practice generosity with your thoughts that you cannot practice generosity. Noticing stinginess is generous.

[36:38]

Being stingy and not noticing it saying, I don't have time for this and not noticing you said that, there's not much chance to be generous with that thought. So, I don't have time to be generous, and I also don't have time to notice that I said that. But if you notice it, you did notice it, and you're wrong, and you can see it, and you can be generous with it. Are you talking about cutting distractions? Okay. You can cut busyness. That's fine. That's fine. Go ahead. Cut it. That's another activity.

[37:40]

But cutting distractions is fine. So for example, what are the distractions? I wrote some down. One of them, the basic distraction is trying to get something out of your life. So when you're doing something, for example, doing something good, just be vigilant and see if you're trying to get anything out of it. Again, like I said before, if you think, I would like to realize perfect wisdom, that is the thought of enlightenment. It is, you know, to say it's good is not really like, it doesn't cut it. It's much better than good. It's the best thought there is. So the basic one, the basic distraction is, what we were just talking about before, the basic distraction is to not do what you're doing completely.

[39:14]

And if you feel like if you're less busy, you could do your less busyness wholeheartedly, then be less busy. But just start right now with what you're doing. Start by setting the tone of doing things completely. And completely, again, means you do them so completely, you have no room to think about what you're going to get out of it. If what I'm saying to you right now as I'm talking to you, I'm also thinking about, is she going to like this? Am I going to get famous for what I say to her? Will she appreciate me more after I say this thing to her? That might distract me from just really being here talking to you.

[40:19]

And somehow we can notice those distractions and you can like drop them and try to say it again. It's like training in reality. Like I say to someone, are you present? Sometimes people look like they are not. I'm looking at somebody who's right there in my presence and they look like they don't appreciate it. I'm present with them, they're present with me, but they look like they don't believe they're present with me. They often think, well, I'm not present with you, but you're present with me. And if I ask them, they'll sometimes say no. And if I ask them again, they'll say no. And if I ask them again, they'll say yes. Finally, they admitted reality. They are there. But somehow they look like they didn't believe it, they look like they didn't believe it, and then they look like they believed it. And the third time when they looked like they believe it, they said they believed it.

[41:27]

And they were present in all those cases, but they finally looked like they were. And then a minute later, they can look like they forgot again and got distracted. Somehow we can't be yet. Magically, we can be by believing our thoughts are more than thoughts and so on. Somebody can sit in front of us and sit in front of us hoping to get something out of sitting in front of us. They can sit in front of us and be thinking about trying to get us to like us, to like them for sitting in front of us. They're totally there doing that, but they don't seem to get it. If they were just cut away, sitting in front of it to get something, somehow they'd be closer to reality. This is a training method.

[42:31]

And so in taking care of yourself and all your thoughts and all your actions, it's the same method. And to take care of the wish for perfect wisdom, this particular one is totally calling out for this kind of presence. if you have unwholesome thoughts, they're not calling out for presence. Matter of fact, they're saying, we can do fine if you're not paying attention to us. John? Distraction being my sense of all the violence, but in the Senate where they put people along in a room with no distractions, except they're required at the book pot to give shots and stuff. And they wouldn't attest that they were comfortable with their own thoughts.

[43:39]

And the longer they sat in the room, the more they shocked themselves. They couldn't be comfortable with their own thoughts. Yeah, I was wondering, you know, the way I feel that some of that chronically came to my life, in this factory, and things that I thought of. It struck you as very sad. And what did you do with the sadness? Yeah.

[44:43]

So I think that's kind of the way it goes. If you open to the sadness you feel about what you felt sad about, it's because, I would say, that you couldn't really accept that situation. By opening to the sadness, you're more able to accept it and pay attention to it and to be intimate with it. The Buddhas are already intimate with us, so they're not sad about us. But when we're sad and we open to it, we start to move in the direction of Buddhahood, of intimacy with whatever it is. we start to move in the direction of completely feeling what we felt when we saw that thing that we flinched at. And then the wisdom part of us says, here's some sadness. Feel this so you can be with this thing. And again, thinking about it is another flinch.

[45:48]

It's a flinch beyond the original flinch. And that, you shouldn't be opening to the thinking. Open to the sadness, the feeling of the sadness, but don't open to thinking. In other words, don't let that kind of thinking give it free range. You can drop that. It looks like you're following that. Are there people following that? Any questions about that? Does that make sense? I think it's really good to do, but it's hard to do because you've got to be really present to catch it. And when the mind's spinning fast, it's hard to catch it. And again, you don't even notice the sadness when you're going fast enough. It's not always there. It has rhythm. It's not always there. But when it is there, if you're going too fast, you won't notice it.

[46:52]

So the medicine's being offered. And then if you're going too fast, you don't notice it. And then it doesn't get offered the next moment necessarily. So then you're still, the thing that the medicine's for is still there, untreated. So we have to spend some time slowing down. And slowing down doesn't mean you go slower. It means you do things more completely. You sit more completely still. And then if there's any clinging, sitting still doesn't mean there's no clinging. It just means you're working on being present. If we do that, whoa, here comes the sadness. Well, welcome, sadness. And that welcoming the sadness also welcomes this thought of enlightenment and lets it be without trying to get anything from it. If I had the thought of enlightenment and I tried to get something from it, I would be sorry.

[47:54]

I would regret that. And if I didn't notice that, sadness might help me come back and notice it. Patrick? Related to what you were saying and when you were talking earlier about strong emotions, I was just wondering, or assuming they had to talk about it. One of the things that I try to do is I try to meditate. What I'll do instead of the strong emotions, the very strong thoughts, and what I can do to formally say it, or just take a deep breath, or finding balance. That's one practice, to be able to . Excuse me, it sounded like you were saying that one of the ways you try to meditate with these strong emotions is try to find balance. I thought I heard you say that.

[49:01]

Well, do you? Is that part of your meditation to try to find balance? Well, it is. My meditation in the midst of strong emotions or thoughts would be to settle strongly Settle? Did you say settle? But what if they aren't settling? Yeah, so how about before they settle? What do you do then? What's the meditation before they settle? Well, that's good. That's fine. But how about engaging them? engaging the disturbing thoughts and emotions how about embracing them these thoughts which may not be which may not in other words how about not waiting to practice with them until they're calm but work with them before they're calm which may be seem intolerable but how about it I'm asking you

[50:12]

well those are more thoughts those are more thoughts what you just said so that's not exactly like embracing them that's more like commenting on them and then those thoughts those comments those may or may not be upsetting but since they're happening they get to be embraced now So again, you said balance. The balance of the meditation, which you said the word balance, so I'm picking up on that. That's the part that sounded to me auspicious for happiness. Balance. Try to find a balance with this stuff. Try to be balanced. Like I often use the example of surfing. Now, a lot of people go surfing, but not too many of them wish that there was no surf. Some people maybe go out surfing and they say, I wish there weren't any waves. But a lot of people go out there and they actually do not wish that there weren't any waves. They just wish that they could be balanced.

[51:27]

They go out there to try to be balanced. And if you're balanced without smoothing the waves out, well, it's one of those happy things that some human beings experience called being balanced in turbulence. Because you can go out into a swimming pool in Walnut Creek, I think they have swimming pools. We don't have too many in San Francisco, you know, like private swimming pools. We have swimming pools, but there's usually other people in them stirring the water up. But when I was frying over Walnut Creek in the airplane, I looked down and I see all these swimming pools. And I suppose... I suppose there's other places out there on the other side of the hill where they have swimming pools. And you can go in those swimming pools and there's nobody else in them. And you can lay down on a floating mat and there's no waves. And then you can notice that inside you're really upset.

[52:29]

But you didn't go lie down on the thing to notice the turbulence probably. So you might say, well, you know, The boat of compassion is not rowed over smooth water. So when these turbulent thoughts come up, look for a way to be balanced with them, to ride in the boat over these waves in a balanced way. This is the meditation which will bring you to perfect wisdom. This is the way of balance in the middle of the turbulence. One, two, three. One, two. No, you weren't raising your hand? No, I was calling on her. Yes.

[53:33]

It's not what you're saying. [...] Yeah, it doesn't seem to come naturally. It's part of our nature that we can learn it. But it seems to require To learn renunciation, to learn generosity, seems to require friendship.

[54:40]

We need to be friends with somebody who will teach it to us. We're not naturally, it doesn't come naturally from us alone. It comes from our relationship that other beings can be our friend and teach us renunciation. And I've learned it from life, like, you know, when my people explore and escape me, I can create all the possibilities that they might need. And I can get my way to doing that, so I can learn to do it, and I can do it anytime. But I think, this is the thing that I'm learning now, that's a kind of, you know, one thing, but there's a much bigger battle. Yeah, good friendship, right. It's very hard to be consistently mindful.

[55:44]

When you're mindful, it's not so hard, but when you notice that you're not, there's a practice for that which can bring you back. Namely, I wasn't mindful. Really, I was, but I didn't get it. And I confess that I didn't get it. And I'm sorry. And I want to try again. I do. I do. Yes? Did you say feel feelings? Yes. Well, the way you feel feelings is usually to... The way you embrace feelings is to feel them. Yeah. So, embrace the thoughts. Yeah. Embrace the thoughts. Yeah. Yeah, so what I mean by engage or embrace is, number one, practice generosity with them.

[56:56]

But if the word engage doesn't work there, let it go. The first way that you engage with thoughts is generosity. And the first way you engage with a feeling is generosity, which means you let the feeling be felt and then you go on to other practices of compassion so that this thought of enlightenment can take root in whatever. And whatever means whatever living event is happening and that living event that's happening is in intimate friendship with Buddha. So when you become intimate with what sentient activities going on, you also become intimate with Buddha. If you are not intimate with our sentient life, we can't really get away from it, but if we shrink back from our sentience, we shrink back from the intimacy of that sentience with enlightenment.

[58:05]

But forget about that and just talk about going forward into intimacy with our sentient life. and thereby realizing that our sentient life and Buddha life are not two. And everything that helps us be intimate with our sentientness is conducive to realization of this intimacy with the Buddhas, which is perfect wisdom. Perfect wisdom is this intimacy. Perfect wisdom is not Buddhas, and of course it's not unenlightened people. It's the intimacy of enlightened people and unenlightened people. That's perfect wisdom. And unenlightened people can enter perfect wisdom, but they have to be completely unenlightened people, which is really hard. Right? Of course, we really are completely unenlightened people, but somehow we shrink back from that a little bit.

[59:12]

We have to train to be totally the unenlightened person, to be authentic. Like, I don't get to be Enrica, and she doesn't get to be Reb. But I do get to be Reb, and you get to be Enrica. And that's hard. It's easy for me to be Enrica, actually. You might say, well, that's not so easy, but it's easy for me. relative to being me. And it's easier for you to be Reb than to be Enrica. But that's not your job. And that's not my job. My job is to be me completely. Your job is to be you completely. That's authenticity. And that's what, if you have this thought, a wish for enlightenment, for the welfare of all beings, that's what nurtures it. One, two, three. Who's the third person? Oh, Sophie. You don't know how what?

[60:20]

Well, you don't have to not you don't have to get rid of your thinking when you open to a feeling. It's okay if you're thinking at the same time. It's just that if I, for example, I might notice I'm sad, and I might think I'm sad, and I might think I'm sad, and I might say, I don't want to feel this sad. I think that too. And then I kind of don't. So my thinking actually can kind of hinder my feeling sad. But it's also possible that I might feel sad and think, I'm sad. And I might even think, hey, why don't you just feel it? And then feel it. But the feeling of it is a little different than thinking, why don't you feel it? Again, I could say to myself, why don't you feel the sadness since it's here? And I might say to myself, I'm too busy. One of my... So you don't have to get rid of the thinking.

[61:36]

Try to get the thinking to cooperate with the feeling. Maybe I've told this story to you. I've told this story many times, but I don't know if you heard it. One time I was waiting for a parking space. You know that story? And... But I wasn't just waiting for any parking space. I was waiting for some parking spaces along a particular street, and I had to watch... I was in the car and I had to watch. Because if I didn't watch, probably nobody would come over to me and say, hey, there's a parking space open. So I was sitting there watching for somebody to pull out. And I couldn't get out of my car. So I had to be in the car and I had to watch for this parking space project. Now, while I was waiting, I don't know if the thought occurred to me, but the thought might have occurred to me.

[62:38]

Well, you could turn the radio on. I couldn't read, because then I wouldn't be able to see very clearly. I mean, I could try. I could read and look over the edge. Anyway, the thought occurred to me, I'm sad. And I thought, well, I don't have to turn the radio on, and I have nowhere to go. I'm not really that busy. I'm just sitting here. I do have a job, but the job's not requiring me to not feel this feeling. I said, well, I think I'll just feel it. I was thinking. I was thinking, when is the parking space going to open? I'm thinking, oh, there's some sadness. And I thought, oh, well, the sadness is here. I have nothing else to do. I think I'm just going to feel it. And I just felt it. And I really felt it. And it was so wonderful to feel it. It wasn't an intolerable sadness.

[63:39]

It wasn't intolerable. It was just a little sadness that I could notice because I was sitting there quietly. But then I thought, I didn't have to feel it, though. I could have just turned the radio on, and I wouldn't have really felt it. But I turned everything off, and I just watched the parking spaces, and I just opened to it, and it was wonderful. And it came to a conclusion. I felt it until it was felt completely, and there was no more sadness. I didn't feel like to get rid of it. I just felt as much it was being offered. And I'm telling you about that because that was a great moment in this lifetime that I know that you can do that with sadness. And you can feel totally refreshed and feel like, hey, I really... That was great. And I wasn't trying to get anything out of it either, but I did. And what I got out of it was a feeling of joy and refreshment. And I wasn't expecting that.

[64:43]

I just thought, somebody's asking for attention, so I'll give it. And I gave it, and I felt great about it. And I didn't... Now, if that comes back again, I think, well, maybe I'll get it again. But that time, I had no idea I was going to get this wonderful reward For what? For just listening to what was being called. What? I did, but the parking space came after I was sitting there in joy for quite a while. It just took a few minutes actually to feel it completely. And then there was some time waiting after that in this great space where I didn't turn the radio on. I was just so happy that I had listened to this. And I was going to bring a statue to class but a statue that's about almost three feet tall that's at the Noah Bodin temple.

[65:47]

And it's a statue of this bodhisattva who's called the one who listens to the cries. This statue is of the possibility of listening to the cries of the world completely, to hear each cry totally. I was going to bring it because this figure, this bodhisattva is called Avalokiteshvara and that's the bodhisattva who's in this heart citra. That's the bodhisattva who sees the way things are and this is the bodhisattva who practices perfect wisdom. What bodhisattva practices it? The Bodhisattva who listens to things without trying to get anything from the listening. Who listens to her sadness.

[66:49]

Period. Doesn't say, I'll listen to my sadness and then maybe this great thing will happen. Or I'll listen to this sadness and, you know, then the person will stop crying. They won't be sad anymore. Avalokiteshvara listens with no expectation. And that way of listening is the way of listening when you're cultivating perfect wisdom. The teacher of perfect wisdom in the Heart Sutra is the one who listens completely to sadness, to all kinds of thinking, to depression, to fear, to anger, to lust, to confusion, all those cries he listens to.

[67:51]

And he just listens to them 100% and doesn't expect anything, and then listens to another one 100% and doesn't expect anything. That state of listening is the state in which we will our wish to benefit beings will mature into perfect wisdom but of course it's hard but then we have a practice for that if we don't listen completely we say I didn't listen completely and I'm sorry but I still want to I want to listen totally I do do you? Do you want to listen this way to all the cries of the world, inwardly and outwardly? Do you want to learn that? Yeah. And if you want to learn it, try.

[68:52]

And if you fail, you can notice, I didn't listen 100%. But I'm sorry, and I want to try again. And if you keep doing that, you will eventually And this is how you melt away the roots of distraction from this practice, by confessing and repenting every time you get distracted, every time you do it not totally. It is possible to do it totally, but then it's often followed by forgetting. But there's a practice for that. Yes. Yes. On the New York Times, there was a cover of a boy who was killed on a beach by a bomb in a house.

[69:57]

And he was just crumpled up in a little ball. That's it right there. When you see that and you feel sadness, if you don't feel it completely, you can't go on with your day. If you do feel it completely, then you can go on with your day. If you see something like that, and of course you resist it, I mean, not of course. You probably resist it. Then the sadness comes and the sadness says, don't resist this. Feel it. But you can't. So feel the sadness. And if you feel the sadness, then you don't resist this whatever. And then from there, you can really live your life. But if you resist it, the things you do, you're kind of like you're hobbled, you're you're not able to actually go on with your life. You can sort of get through it, but really part of you is back on the beach resisting, not admitting this horror.

[71:05]

So you said it perfectly. How can you go on with your life? By feeling the sadness. And you're feeling the sadness because you couldn't fully embrace the horror. Which I don't, you know, it's really a big challenge, like totally open. Totally welcome, totally be a good friend to that horror. That's not easy. And if you don't do it, sadness comes and says, well, feel this and recover and go on with your day. And then the next time it happens, embrace it fully. Just like the Buddhas are doing. The Buddhas are not resisting these horrors. They're embracing them to show people how to be free. But it's hard to embrace horrors. It's hard. It's even hard to look in the face of my granddaughter when I do something she doesn't like.

[72:07]

Like she... like she wants to watch another TV show, I, you know, and if I, at a certain point, I say no, you know, and then I have to look at this horror on her face that I'm not another TV show. I have to watch her writhe in agony at not another TV show. But I want to learn to do that But it's hard. And if I turn away from it, sadness will come. If I don't face it, sadness will come. And if I feel the sadness and I say, okay, darling, here I come again. I'm going to try to be with you. But it's hard, even with a healthy, happy little girl, you know, not having another TV show can look, to her it could look like, for a moment there it looks like, this is like really the most terrible thing that could possibly happen at this moment.

[73:15]

But fortunately, she snaps out of it. And people who are there with her help her snap out of it, people who are really there with her. That's what I want to do. And that sponsors and develops this wonderful thought of realizing perfect wisdom, which then you can really help people. OK? Adam. Yes. Yes. The sadness isn't a lack of presence.

[74:18]

The sadness is medicine for people who weren't present. When the sadness comes, it's medicine. It's medicine, but it doesn't count unless you take it. If you ingest the sadness, that's the practice. That's presence. The sadness comes to people who missed an opportunity to be present. Yes. Embrace the sadness and then the place where you weren't able to be present gets addressed. It gets referenced. You don't know how to get to it. If you could get to it, then, you know, if you had a little Zen master sitting on your lap, he would slap you in the face and say, you know, don't run away.

[75:20]

But you don't have that, so sadness does it for you. It comes and says, feel this, and that will help you do what you missed on doing. Sadness is really a good, it's a great gift. And Vivian has a look on her face like she's not sure about that, or she is sure. Huh? Out what? Ouch. Ouch. Yeah, sadness hurts a little bit. Okay, so if you're willing to open to that hurt, then you're willing to open to something else which you weren't willing to open to, which you don't even know how to open to it sometimes. So the sadness says, here's an ouch. This ouch is coming to you from you. This is your own life which is saying, Vivian, here's an ouch. Would you please feel this ouch? Here's a cry which might hurt you if you listen to. And if you say, I'm here for you, I'll feel you. If you open your heart to it, then you open your heart to something which you didn't open your heart to.

[76:27]

And the thing you didn't open your heart to is not the thing, but your lack of openheartedness to that thing is dragging you away from your life. And again, as I said, if there was a little Zen master who could have said, if even you missed it here, feel it, then you could have done it then. But you didn't get that help. So now you're getting it as something that's not pleasant, But the question is, can you open to what is not pleasant? And if the answer is yes here, then the answer can be yes there. Does that make more sense to you? That's my story about sadness. And I was helped by good friendship to learn this. I didn't learn it by myself. Some people told me about this. That's why I'm telling you about this. I believe in sadness as medicine for people who are resisting something other than sadness.

[77:37]

If you resist the sadness, then you're resisting the sadness and the other thing. If you open to the sadness, you open to both or all of them. So sadness is part of protecting It's part of developing compassion and it's part of developing the bodhi mind. So it's a nice simple sweet, bittersweet actually, it's a bittersweet practice because it's bitter and you open to the bitterness and it's sweet. Zen is kind of like that. Bitter medicine, sweet fruit.

[78:14]

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