just now I joined my palms and I bowed to the seat and then I turned around with my joined palms and bowed to you." And that reminded me that one time Oksan was asked, what's the most ... she was a principal of a kindergarten of more than one kindergarten in Japan. And someone asked her, what's the most important thing to teach the children? And she said, joining the poems. So when we join our poems, we're doing what she considered to be a very important practice. So this is a practice we can do. And then we bow. nice, simple, readily accessible practice.

[01:06]

Someone else told me outside just now that she met Oksan and Oksan said, there's no days off. Yeah, sometimes people say, do you have a day off? And I say, well, I don't usually say no. I usually say, well, every day is a day off for me, which is every day is not a day off. Because every situation, every situation is an opportunity for kindness. So all day long, every day, you don't get time off from being kind. And even if you forget, it's not really time off, it's just forgetting. Please come into the room. Hello.

[02:14]

Is your name Raphael? Is it? Is your name Raphael? Welcome, Raphael. Yeah, huh? Is your name Mike? I haven't seen him for five minutes. Is there anything you want to discuss? This is a discussion session. Yes, solve it. I started the talk saying about we're living very turbulent days. And I've been affected by these turbulent days.

[03:17]

And the other day I was thinking about thinking with love and compassion towards the people that are committing the murder. No? because that is our practice as well. Yes. And somehow it doesn't feel right for me to think with love and compassion towards these people that are doing that. But on the other hand, I say something we're doing to them that they are acting this way. How can we come to a new ground? And I think that there is no way that that is possible. So I do have a lot of turbulence within me. Yeah. So in some situations,

[04:21]

We feel so overwhelmed that we also, but even though we're overwhelmed, we can think thoughts like, I cannot be compassionate. It's impossible right now. We have a thought like that. So such thoughts do arise. But then there's also the proposal that some people have been practicing so that they don't get caught by thoughts like that. no matter how much cruelty comes in their face, they're able to come back with kindness. But these are our great teachers. So Shakyamuni Buddha there are stories where he was overwhelmed by cruelty and violence, but was able to respond with generosity and carefulness and patience.

[05:23]

But he also said, you know, that many people cannot do this, but if you keep practicing, you will someday be able to be compassionate to the most difficult situations. But maybe now I can't. And then I can be patient with my low level of development. There are some pains that are so intense that it's hard for me to relax. But I want to relax with the pain, but I just can't. But some pains I can relax with that I couldn't relax with before, and now I can. So the Buddha sends this message that if you keep practicing patience

[06:27]

you will be able to practice with more and more painful situations. And then he demonstrated that in various ways, the possibility of relaxing in the middle of tremendous stress and pain, the eye of the hurricane. that there is a place like that in the midst of the greatest turbulence and suffering. And it's not separate from it. It's at the center of it. But we have to train to arrive at that place. We have to go through a lot to find this place which is not disturbed and coexists with the turbulence. And from that place, Buddhas are trying to show us how to open to that place.

[07:31]

And then they also see that we're not ready sometimes to practice in a way that allows us to be in that center. Yes? Was there a question or anything there? Well, I can't hear you, so maybe you should come up here and come closer to me. Or I can speak more loudly. OK. All right. I became aware of how surprising it could be for souls that were killed during these events, and wondering if there were

[08:42]

teachings that I might bring into my practice to help those souls that die? Well, in this tradition we do memorial services for beings who die in the full range of ways that beings die. And we try to generate wholesome energy and wholesome thoughts. And we offer from this wholesome place, we dedicate all that merit to the beings in whatever way that they go through that change. We dedicate it to them finding their path. we pray for them to have peace to be at ease to be present and to find their true path we also pray for that for people who are alive but people who are dying or who have just died either calmly or very stressfully even if they die calmly we still offer

[10:02]

generosity and good wishes to them finding their path. If they die in a distressed way, with the same good wishes, the same good energy. And we do that in our memorial ceremonies, which we do on a regular basis. For people who are sick, we do ceremonies on a regular basis for people who are sick and seem to be dying. Again, wishing them to be able to find this place called Buddha's pivotal activity. We try to help them remember this possibility. Yes? Just to deepen their connection with the lineage.

[11:07]

To deepen their own practice without the intention of what Jesus said. Go over a vowel. Do you see? To deepen their own practice and their own connection with the lineage. Well, in our priest ceremony, our initial priest ceremony, we have the same precepts as lay people do. It's the same precepts. The priests have certain forms that they follow, like shaving their head and wearing certain clothes and following certain forms. But the basic bodhisattva vows in this school are the same for lay people and priests. there's basically two kinds of bodhisattvas. You know the word bodhisattva? There's two kinds of bodhisattvas in a way. There's lay bodhisattvas and priest bodhisattvas.

[12:10]

So both lay and priest have these great vows which they're trying to remember and by remembering them they are a basic resource for our practice is these vows. And they're the same in this school for lay and priest. But when we had training periods and so on whether we're then both lay and priest take on other kinds of forms for some periods of training. And there too often they're quite similar but there's some slight difference between priest training and and lay training in terms of certain forms. So, you know, like priests shave their head in a certain ritual way on certain days. Lay people do not shave their head usually. Priests wear a certain kind of robe. Lay people wear a robe like this. Priests wear a bigger robe. So it's a different form.

[13:13]

But the basic vows are the same. Teresa and Mike I'm not sure but I think you said something in the Dharma talk about how we don't do the practice but the practice is or we are yeah it's like we say Buddha's activity but then we sometimes think that Buddha does this rather than this is Buddha Like, you know, or like we mentioned, that person is a dancer standing there. And then now she's going to dance. But you could also say she's not a dancer when she's not dancing. When she's dancing, she's a dancer. Or her dancer-ness is her dancing.

[14:17]

So it's not like Buddhas do compassion. Buddhas are compassions. And their compassion is not them being compassionate to somebody who is not. It's more intimate than that. So if I do something, there's a little bit of separation there. Buddhas are the practice. It's not like Buddhas are one thing and the practice is another. Buddhas are the practice of being a Buddha. And you are the practice of being yourself. That's what you are. It's not like you do being yourself. That's the same for Buddhas. And Buddhas are the way you are you.

[15:19]

That's what Buddha is. You don't do being you. Like people say, be yourself. OK. Mike? So you started out your talk with kind of an invocation of aspiration. And then you developed it along a certain aspiration, which was repaying the kindness of your teacher. Yeah. And aspiration plays out in a lot of different ways. And I wonder if you could just say something about that, about the power of aspiration, how we can connect with our aspiration and allow it to change over time. Well, first of all, you said, how can we connect with our aspiration? So I think that's a good place to start.

[16:22]

So how can we connect with our aspiration? Well, one way to connect with it is to say to ourselves, what is my aspiration? And sometimes when I start a training session with people, I often ask them, well, what is your aspiration? Not just what are your aspirations, but what's the most important aspiration in your life? And sometimes they answer right away, and sometimes they go, they say, I don't know. And sometimes, yeah, and sometimes their answer right away is, my aspiration is to get out of this room. Or my aspiration is to have lunch. And then I may say, is that the most important aspiration? And they say, well, not really. Okay. So sometimes it takes a while for the person to discover what's their most important aspiration. And if I know them, they might tell me. So then that aspiration then can be the basis for their life.

[17:30]

So then I would say, well, if that's your main aspiration, if that's your highest aspiration, then what practices would follow from that? So then we start talking about how to unfold that. So the practices are based on aspiration. And the energy for the practices comes from the aspiration. So we need to keep going back to our aspiration, which I did during the talk, and which we do here. Keep going back to, what are we doing here again? And there's many ways to put it, but this is one way. So we just keep going back to that, and then, in a sense, refreshing that aspiration by remembering it and reaffirming that and thinking about it until we feel not only is that my aspiration but I have some energy for it. Because you can aspire to something and still feel like, yeah, I want to be kind to that person over there but

[18:40]

I don't have much energy, or I have other things I want to do. If you think about it for a while, you think, well, actually now I feel a little bit more energy for that, but I'm still not ready to do it. And if you think about it some more, I feel like I have enough energy now to actually do that. And I have so much energy for it, I'm not going to do something else, I'm going to do that. So our energy for the practice comes from the aspiration to do those practices. But we have to keep going back and, as you say, reconnecting with it. And once a day might be enough. But for a lot of people, you have to do it more than once a day. But, you know, if you can do it once a month and not stay with it, fine. But usually it's more like a moment-by-moment remembering. Oh yeah, I want to practice the Buddha way.

[19:50]

I want to be of service in the most beneficial way to all beings. Yeah. Which could also be simplified to right now with this person I want to be a good grandfather. I don't know what that is, but probably has to do with being patient and attentive and so on. To this person I want to be a good student. I want to be a good student to this person who is my good teacher, so then I understand maybe that teacher would like me to do the practice that the teacher is teaching me. That probably would really please the teacher if I would do the practice that the teacher is teaching. So I do it, partly because I think it's a good idea anyway, but now I have an additional reason to do it. I have to repay the kindness of my teachers. So I came to Zen Center because I aspired to be a bodhisattva. I didn't even know the word, but that's what I was aspiring to.

[20:53]

And I came to do a training which would help me because the bodhisattvas I heard about had a training program. So I was trying to do the training program, but I was having a hard time doing it. So I came to a place where other people were trying to do it, because I thought that would help me. And I also came to where I thought there would be a teacher. So I already had a practice I was aspiring to do, and so then I found a teacher who would help me with that practice. And then I finally got the idea, well, not only is that teacher helping me with the practice, and not only do I appreciate that, but if I want to repay the teacher for helping me with the practice, to think the way to repay the teacher would be to do the practice. And that's that intimacy. You practice because of your teacher, and you practice because your teacher is kind enough to show you, but also you practice to help your teacher be a teacher. to make your teacher a success.

[21:55]

You see, you do it as a favor to your teacher who's doing you the favor of giving you the teaching. So it's receiving and giving and receiving and giving. And then remembering the aspiration to keep fueling this process. That make sense? And it's all aspiration-driven. But it's not for me to tell you what your aspiration is. I'm here to try to support you to remember it and take care of it because it's coming from there, not from me. And the Buddha, in a sense, is helping you remember your aspiration, but Buddha actually is your aspiration. But Buddha can take the form of asking you, what is your Buddha? And then you tell the Buddha, and the Buddha says, okay, so how should we practice? And so on. Yes.

[23:00]

I think I want to sit with the depth of compassion. How far are we really sitting with compassion? Is it just an intention that we have for all the beings to be free? Or how would it apply when we live, for example, in a system that's creating all the worlds on the world, dropping all the bombs? And we are not there receiving the bombs. and to know what kind of a hellish place that would be. Yet living in a system like this, if we're supporting it at any level, like fake elections, paying our taxes, that supports the military government. How are we being compassionate if it's just an intention that is not showing at all levels, like a Jedi movement of,

[24:07]

on doing all this? I don't know if you get my question. I don't know if I do either. But I get it enough to respond if you wanted to. So we do live in some kind of environment, and you can call it a system, that's a good word for it, our environmental system. We do live in the world. And I imagine that the Buddha lived in a world too, the historical Buddha. And that for 2,500 years, all the students of that teaching have been living in worlds where there's more or less fear, hatred, attachment, confusion, stress, violence, that seemed to be going on at Buddha's time, and it seems that there's been no stop up until now.

[25:18]

We have new problems that they didn't have then, but they had problems that we don't have. So it seems like, during the whole history, people have been living in very challenging situations. from birth, which is difficult and stressful and sorrowful often and joyful, till death, which is difficult and stressful and sorrowful and joyful. So this seems to be a situation which keeps arising. So how did the Buddha teach to relate to the situation? Well, I guess the Buddha taught by showing that the Buddha loved, had compassion for all the beings who are living in this world. They demonstrated that. And so then if you want to know how you can be compassionate, they're showing, they've made examples.

[26:24]

But it doesn't mean that when the Buddha gave this teaching that there wasn't still war. It's just that the Buddha showed, in the middle of war, the Buddha showed compassion. It doesn't mean that there's no insanity. It's just that in the midst of insanity, the Buddha showed compassion. It doesn't mean that there's no selfishness and hatred, just the Buddha showed a compassionate response to all these examples. And for the 2,500 years, some people have been able to demonstrate something other than hatred when there's hatred. So when I was a child and some people hated me, I knew how to hate back. Nobody had to teach me that. But then I saw some people who, when hated, they came back with compassion. And I thought, I want to learn that. I saw some people who, when fear came, they met it with compassion rather than

[27:33]

contempt, who met confusion and selfishness with compassion. And then I wanted to learn that. And then I found there's training methods to learn how to be such a person. And how the training goes, how even when you demonstrate compassion, how some people get it, understand it, and other people don't. It's actually, until you're completely a Buddha, it's hard to understand how it is that you teach some people and they understand and you teach others and they don't. Even the historical Buddha gave teachings to some people and they did not receive the teaching. He had a cousin who he was very kind to and the cousin tried to kill him. and he responded to the cousin with compassion, but the cousin still couldn't receive the teaching.

[28:37]

But he didn't stop, he didn't quit his compassion, he kept being compassionate. So the theory is that by being compassionate, and compassionate means practicing justice, but we practice justice with the appearance of injustice. The Buddha doesn't say, be unjust towards injustice. But what is justice? Justice is to relate the appearance of injustice with compassion, with carefulness, and also being honest and say, this looks like injustice, this looks very sorrowful. This person's potential is not being realized. It's so sad. We need to help this person. And people say, no. And we say, I hear you. And eventually they understand that we're listening.

[29:41]

And things do change, but how they change basically I'm not enlightened enough to see. So in some sense I have faith in being compassionate in this world that we live in even though I don't exactly understand how that's going to work to help people. But so far I have never regretted being compassionate to anyone even though I don't always see that it helps them or helps me. I still feel like that seemed right to be kind and it seemed not right to be impatient and nasty to them. But I don't know why it isn't helpful to be nasty. I'm just sort of betting on giving up nastiness, which I already know how to do, and learning this new thing called respecting everybody. Everybody I have a granddaughter who has somehow been taught to not respect Donald Trump.

[30:55]

I don't know where she got that. She didn't get it from me, I don't think. But I don't know, maybe she did get it from me. Maybe on some unconscious level I'm telling her, hate Donald Trump. And also somebody else's grandchildren probably hate Hillary Clinton. I don't know who's teaching them that. Did they figure it out all by themselves? I don't think so. They can hate their brothers and sisters without any assistance. But to hate somebody they don't even know, somebody must tell them, this is our enemy. So... So now I need to be compassionate to whoever is teaching my granddaughter to hate people. But I don't know how that's going to work. But I'm just going to spend the rest of my life trying to remember to be compassionate. And I think my life has no end, so I'm going to keep doing this until it's proven wrong.

[32:07]

But I don't know how it's all going to work out. But this is the path I'm on, and I'm very grateful that I met some people who gave me this path. And I just want to give them back gifts, because I really feel thankful that they gave me this path, and that they're compassionate to me when I forget. I have not been thrown out of the Buddha way. I don't get kicked out when I forget. But I don't know how it's all working. And the Jedi, pictures of how the Jedi see that, that's a children's story of how that works. The Buddha says that how that actually works, how this wisdom works, is inconceivable to everyone but Buddhas. Yes, two people there. So, where compassion keeps coming up, and I think that's one of my core values,

[33:11]

Compassion doesn't seem to be the core value of my granddaughter. I do not, you know, I don't even know if she thinks about being kind to her mom, who she thinks is like the greatest thing, you know. And she almost never thinks of being compassionate to me. She enjoys running into me, hitting me, all kinds of things like that. I have not yet seen her have the concept of compassion, but I'm trying to, I'm joyfully

[34:13]

practicing compassion towards her. And I'm really happy to do it, and she loves me to do it, and she wants me to do it, and then she wants to test to see if I'll be able to do it, no matter what she does. And we're playing very nicely, and suddenly she slaps me hard in the face. She's not angry at me, she just wants to see what happens if you hit the guy in the face. And then the guy goes, And then he says, and I said, that was really hard. And then she goes, no, no. The slightest possibility that I don't appreciate it is like really a shock. But enough so that she recovers quite quickly from seeing that there's some consequence of slapping somebody in the face. And the consequence in this case is not that you're punished, But just as the person says, that was really hard. So I'm trying to, I love being compassionate to her, to being her servant.

[35:23]

And she loves having this servant. She loves having this guy who she can basically, he'll do almost anything wholesome for you. And like, she likes to ride me, you know. You know, she gets on my back, giddy up, horsey. Whoa, boy. Giddy up, boy. And then I said something and she said, Horses don't talk. Well, she loves me being her servant. But she doesn't want to do anything for me. Almost nothing. But she's learning anyway. It's gradually... So the values... usually take education by somebody who represents the value and some people have received education from people who have the value hate everybody that's different from you that's the value which they got from somebody who they lived with so in the book Being Upright I tell the story of this guy who was

[36:35]

a prominent official in the Klan, the Ku Klux Klan, and he was taught by his father to hate everybody that was different, hate everybody who wasn't white, who wasn't Protestant. So he hated Catholics, Jews, African Americans, Asians, whatever was different he hated. And then he met some Jewish people who loved him and [...] were compassionate to him and generous with him. And finally he melted and he adopted the value of loving people who are different from you, being kind to them. But he had to be taught that and he didn't learn it the first time or second time. He learned it by repetitive expressions of great compassion. everybody, according to this theory, will eventually melt.

[37:42]

All hatred and confusion in the light of Buddha's wisdom and compassion. But one of the main practices of compassion is patience with how slow the students are learning this. It's one of the things to look for in a teacher. How patient is she with the slowest students? Patient teachers are the appropriate type of teacher. And some people are really resisting because they want to see, how long can I resist before this person will lose her patience with me? And finally they realize, she'll never stop. Now I can stop resisting. That's the theory, or that's my theory. And the lady behind him?

[38:49]

So my question is, I thought you said when you were talking about compassion, that it also relates to justice. Yeah. So my question is, I really don't know much about you. Me neither. Your philosophy. Pardon? Your philosophy. Yeah. In my philosophy. I can only talk about my philosophy. So if someone is really unjust, does things that are violent, that really hurts people, then justice would be to have consequences. Maybe to take them out of society for a while? It might. That might be justice. But before you, before, if somebody, for example, one of the aspects of justice is telling the truth. So when there's lying, that's injustice.

[39:53]

So you could, in a compassionate way, you could inquire about whether the person just told you the truth or whether I myself told the truth. And if I lied to you, you might have a just response to me of telling me the truth for you that you have the perception that I just lied to you. You could say that to me as an act of justice. I think you just lied to me. And I might say, you're right. And then you might say to me, is there any further consequence other than me pointing this out to you that we need to do right now? And I might say, no. And you might say, well, actually, I think there is. I think you should take a course in truth-telling before we talk anymore." And I might say, fine. But before we get into the consequences, actually the consequences, before we get into putting people outside or inside or someplace, there's an immediate consequence, which how do you relate to the appearance of the injustice?

[41:08]

Like again, my granddaughter. I use my granddaughter because it might not be difficult for you to understand that when she acts unjustly, I maybe still feel compassion for her. So for example, she lies to me quite a bit. She's unjust. She acts unjustly quite a lot, particularly around her addictions. She's addicted to videos. when videos are very soothing to her. She often needs soothing and wants soothing. And one of the ways she soothes herself is with videos. We see a lot of young people now are soothing themselves with these little screens. These screens are designed to soothe, not just soothe, to soothe and excite. Right? So she's already addicted to this But her parents would like her not to spend all her time with these screens.

[42:14]

So when they're not around, she wants her granddaddy to give her screens to look at. And we make agreements beforehand of how many videos to watch. And so, like one. And when it's over, she says, just one more. And I say, well, we agreed just one. And she said, just one more, please. And I say, maybe I should call your mom and ask if it's OK. And she says, my mom said it was OK. And I said, well, can I call her? She said, no, don't call her. She's being, she's lying to me. She's lying to her grandfather. And she almost thinks it's going to work. And she does not want me to call her mother.

[43:15]

So we keep working on this. And this is my attempt to be just with her injustice. If I would ever lie to her, I would hope that she would someday be able to be kind to my lying. If she steals or she kills, then again I try to be compassionate to that injustice. But again it may not be surprising to you that I still have very warm feelings and I would still give my life for this unjust person. That doesn't surprise you, right? That a grandfather would give his life to a granddaughter who's acting unjustly? you know, I care for you with my whole heart. I want you to be happy.

[44:17]

But I really feel like too many videos is not good for you. And maybe I don't get into that she told me her mother said she could watch several. I just say, I don't feel comfortable with this. And also, again, let's call her and check. When I say that, she realizes that it's not going to do much good to keep telling me that her mother said she could have them. And we work it out. We find a way to be at peace with each other, even though, in a sense, she was unjust. She lied. But that's a consequence. Working things out is a consequence. There are consequences. And sometimes the consequences are, go to bed now. Sometimes the consequences are, go in your room. Sometimes the consequences are, leave this community. We have people here sometimes, we have policies here like you can't drink alcohol in this community except like once a year.

[45:26]

We have a toast on New Year's. Otherwise we, and we have, we put wine sometimes in the dishes here but otherwise people are not drinking in the temple and not smoking marijuana in the temple and not taking cocaine in the temple. and not using heroin in the temple. We have those policies here. If people do that they may be asked to leave. Not one hundred percent sure. It depends. Maybe if it's the first time the consequence might be a discussion and maybe they start doing some kind of recovery work and maybe they can stay but then we say the next time it happens let's agree that you leave. So we do do consequences But before we come to the consequence, there's already a consequence, which is that we find out about the problem, and the consequence, I hope, is that justice is brought, kindness is brought in the form of justice, that justice is meant as a loving act. And then the consequences just keep going on forever.

[46:32]

There's no end to them. So there are consequences to our just acts, and there's consequences to our unjust acts. But in both cases, my wish is that I would be part of the just response to justice and the just response to injustice, that that's what I'm betting on. But there are consequences, and we're totally into it. Like recently someone did something which was a violation of one of our policies and I felt like the appropriate response to start off with would be that the person would explain, would tell various people what he did and have discussions with them about why he did that. The consequence would be all those discussions. so that everybody could see how he understood what he did.

[47:34]

And then all the people had those discussions, so that was the consequence. There was no decisions other than have all those discussions. So there are certain things we do, which we can do just like that, but then the consequence is we have to spend a lot of time talking to people about what we did and showing our understanding and presence or absence of regret. So that's, I think, often a just consequence is for us to discuss the injustice and to show whether we, show how we understand it and whether we're sorry that we were unjust because all of us have sometimes been unjust and all of us have experienced consequences that part of justice is to learn from trial and error the consequences of injustice and the more we notice the injustice and see the consequence that promotes the process of justice until finally we maybe become less forgetful and distracted from justice but usually by many times of noticing I wasn't very just

[48:54]

and I'm sorry. I wasn't very just and I'm sorry and I do want to be just. I wasn't just and I'm sorry and I do want to be just. So when other people aren't acting in a just way, then we would support them to go through the same process which will lead them to be more and more just. Does that make sense? You're welcome. So this is not an easy process. Yeah, all this thing would apply to grandchildren, ourselves, and other... the same practice would apply to all forms of injustice, internal and external. And some people have the hardest time internally, to be just to their own... like you could have an unjust thought, like you could think Yeah, you could think of telling a lie or even tell a lie and then not be just towards your own lie.

[50:00]

Being just is compassion. Compassion is being just. So, like, I could tell a lie and I could say, that was a lie. That was lazy. Laziness is a form of injustice. Being lazy is unjust. So I could be lazy and see my laziness and say I'm sorry and try again in a not lazy way and feel really great about not being lazy but feel really great that I noticed I wasn't that I was lazy and then feel great that now I'm going to do it again. We have this expression doing justice to something, right? Like cooking lunch. You can do justice to cooking lunch or not do justice to cooking lunch.

[51:05]

You can do justice to washing dishes or not. Do you understand? You look like you don't understand what I'm talking about. I think it's when, I'm thinking of it more as when I've made really, used really bad judgment and then just let it go. Yeah, well, it is bad to... Yeah, I know that's what you're talking about. Having compassion for yourself not being just. Having compassion for yourself not being kind to your own mistakes. So you make a mistake and then you're mean to yourself. Okay? So first of all, you made a mistake, whatever it was. Then on top of that, then you beat yourself up for it. Then you feel ashamed that you beat yourself up. Then you feel stupid for feeling ashamed. And so the mask grows. At some point, if it gets bad enough, you might start being kind. But you could also start right away.

[52:09]

The first little mistake, you don't have to get a huge problem before you say, I think maybe beating myself up is not working. Somebody needs to be compassionate here, and I think it's a job for me. But even my granddaughter, if she watches enough videos, if anybody ever let her, she would eventually stop watching and just totally collapse in a very bad state. She would just eventually totally fall apart from watching if you just let her go forever. But fortunately, she doesn't go that far. But maybe someday she'll have to, to learn that this is not good. And hopefully she'll have some skills by then to deal with what happens when she goes, when her parents are not around and her grandparents are not around and her teachers are not around, which we call being a teenager.

[53:18]

It's part of the deal. So hopefully they have lots of good examples when they get away from the good examples. What time is it? One more question. Yes? I often find myself wanting approval from other people or how they think of me. Yeah. Can you hear her? It's very common for human beings to want approval. Sometimes I find it really detrimental to my well-being that I'm so self-concerned about what others think of me. How do you propose I work with that? Well, I think you've already started working with it by noticing it and noticing it has drawbacks or unfortunate consequences.

[54:22]

That's a start. Another thing I would just say to you is that it's normal for social animals like humans and horses to be sensitive to whether they're being approved of by other members of the group. Where, you know, a lot of us of our nervous system is very attuned to sensing approval because if other people don't approve of us, things can get difficult. So we're actually attuned to that. So that wanting it or feeling good when we get it, is totally normal for our nervous system, for the normal nervous system. It's normal. It's also normal to try to do things to get it. However, that's basically a mistake, to try to do things to get it. That's...

[55:26]

How about your response when you try to get it towards what you think is kind of abusive? Well, you're kind of getting ahead of me there. I think just to try to do something to get approval is usually, in terms of practice, is usually a mistake. It is in the ballpark of trying to get something. So if people approve of us, we usually feel pretty comfortable. If they don't, we often feel uncomfortable. Like my granddaughter slaps me, I go, ooh, that was hard. She didn't feel a lot of approval from me at that time. And that was hard for her, just that little bit of, ooh, that was hard. We're very sensitive to, rather than, ooh, that was really good, do it again. Like when she wants something, she says, again. But granddaddy did not say again. So she sensed, I didn't really approve of it.

[56:29]

And I didn't really approve of it. But to try to get approval is unhealthy. And most human beings have to train to give up trying to get it. and to do things that you think are kind and appropriate rather than to do things to try to get approval. So if she wants to watch another video, hey, do I know how to get approval? I sure do. Just give her another video and she'll say, good job, granddaddy. And another one, okay, she'll approve of me going along with her program. But if I say, no, no, no, I'm feeling uncomfortable. We agreed on just one, you know.

[57:31]

She doesn't approve of that. And does that hurt me a little bit? I don't like the little person to not be pleased with me. I don't like to see that little face go, I'm not trying to make her uncomfortable. So I am not trying to get her approval. For example, I don't give her certain foods which I don't think are good for her that she might then approve of me. Some grandparents do that. They give kids sugar so that the kids will approve them. They give the children a lot of stuff to get approval from the kids. So the main thing is do what you think is good for people and watch to see if you're doing that to get approval. And if you are...

[58:35]

Maybe don't do it until you can do it as a gift without trying to get anything. Because once we start going down the path of doing things to get anything, and getting approval is one of the main things we try to get from other people, because being surrounded by approval is, generally speaking, a better situation for us than being surrounded by disapproval. That's not going to change. But what can change is you can offer gifts to people and finally do it without trying to get anything back. And one of the things you can get back is approval. Another thing you can get back is fame and so on. Yeah, fame. Some people, like Michael Jackson, you know, he gives stuff to people to get their approval, and he tries so hard he gets it. And he becomes very famous, somebody who does something basically to get approval.

[59:42]

He does this amazing dancing and singing, but he's just starting to get approval. And he gets it. And he's a total disaster. because this life's all about getting approval and succeeding and then wanting more and succeeding and getting more and more and more and never, never being at peace. And we're the same if we go that road. The more you do something to get approval and when you get it, that's really trouble. because then you try it again. The more you do some big approval and get it, get the approval and then try again, the deeper the addiction goes. And we can notice that. We can say, I didn't just do that. I didn't just serve that person. I served them to get their approval. But I don't get her approval by serving her.

[60:47]

I just get more opportunities to serve. And then when she feels like it, she fires me and goes on to a better servant, like her mother is always a better servant. And I'm okay with that because I love to serve her even though I might not get anything. But if I do give approval, guess what? It's very pleasant. Her approval of me is very pleasant, but I'm always working to not try to get it and just try to do what would be beneficial to her, even if she doesn't approve of me or it. Okay, here we go. Let's try it.

[61:32]

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