We have a series of meetings through the venue called the Yoga Ring, and we've been discussing, we've been meditating and discussing great compassion and many forms of compassion. I just saw a new person. Did I see June joined? Did she? Welcome, June. And is Jack there? Welcome, Jack. So we've been talking about compassion and in particular towards the end of the last session, I was talking about the difference, the relationship between

[01:02]

loving-kindness and compassion. We could also say great loving-kindness and great compassion. So I would start by saying that there can be, what may I call, loving kindness that is not yet completely, what's the word, completely intimate. And kindness and compassion are very important. We have them in the world and they're wonderful.

[02:08]

And loving kindness in that form is basically to wish yourself and others peace and ease and lightness and freedom from anxiety and pain. Wishing, wishing, wishing well, yourself and others. And that practice is, when we get mature in that practice, it is a great joy. And then there's compassion, which we've also spoken about, of having different types. But again, the immature compassion is a compassion which has objects.

[03:13]

And I would say the immature loving-kindness is also a loving-kindness of objects. Where we wish people well, where we wish beings well, but we still see them as objects. And in compassion, that has compassion for suffering beings and sees them as objects, this is what we might call sentiment. Great loving-kindness and great compassion is to wish others well and to practice compassion with them where there are no objects. we practice loving-kindness, we wish well, we wish all beings well, we practice compassion, we are intimate with all suffering beings, but we are free of seeing them as separate. We are completely intimate with those we wish well and those with whom we are intimately practicing together in the world of suffering.

[04:23]

And one of the issues that came up again is there is a difference between wishing people well and wanting them to be different. Just as there's a difference between being compassionate towards suffering beings and wishing they weren't the suffering beings they are. Just the other day, someone said to me that they came to practice Zen to reduce suffering. And I think that the practice or the exercise or the skills reducing suffering are really wonderful. And if I'm in great pain and some medical person gives me help and my pain is reduced, I feel grateful to them and grateful to their skill.

[05:39]

But loving kindness and compassion are not so much about reducing For me, they're not about reducing suffering. They're not about reducing pain. There are people who are in pain wishing them well, wishing them freedom. They are about practicing compassion towards beings who are suffering, practicing compassion with beings who to reduce their suffering, being with them and protecting them from suffering, protecting them from their wish to reduce suffering, and protect them to be their friend, to be their support, to be their

[06:49]

to be their refuge. Being this way with suffering beings is what I mean by compassion. If their suffering is reduced, we all might feel a joy. And here's the part which I say very gently because it may be But although we feel joy when our suffering decreases or when the suffering of someone we love decreases, that kind of joy of a decrease in suffering is what we might call mundane joy. Practicing compassion with beings in suffering is not... about reducing suffering. It's about protecting beings who are suffering.

[07:53]

It's about liberating beings who are suffering. When we feel compassion for beings who are suffering, even if we don't see them as objects, we feel pain And in that pain that we feel for those whom we love, in that pain there is a joy which is not a mundane joy. It is the joy of the Buddhas who are with us as we are. and who are our friend as we are, and who are friend with our suffering as it is, and they understand it, and they protect us while we're suffering, and they liberate us while we're suffering.

[09:08]

This kind of compassion protects and liberates It doesn't increase or decrease suffering. This kind of compassion protects, liberates. It doesn't reduce or increase suffering. There are things which seem to reduce and increase suffering. And the things that reduce it, most of us would appreciate. And again, yeah. I feel a happiness or a joy if my pain is decreased. But that is, again, mundane happiness and that does not protect me from suffering and that does not liberate me from suffering. What liberates me from suffering is to feel joy not just in any old suffering, but in a special suffering.

[10:14]

The suffering of the bodhisattva, which is a pain, a suffering, because of loving beings and wishing them well. Yesterday I had a very clear experience of mundane happiness, mundane joy. I'm taking care of an electric hot water pot, hot water kettle. And this hot water kettle stopped working. You could say it became broken. And I endeavored to repair, or we might say to fix, the hot water kettle.

[11:35]

And in trying to do so, I looked at the bottom of the kettle and it had three screws holding the bottom on. But they were very unusual screws. They weren't what he called pentagons, which are usually what Allen wrenches fit into. And they weren't Phillips screws. And they weren't regular screw heads. The screw heads were not the usual three types of female part. It had a rectangular head. And I went to the Green Gulch maintenance people and asked if they had a rectangular screwdriver. And they didn't. Anyway, we found something else and with great effort managed to get the screws out. out and took the bottom off and looked at it and played with it and cleaned it up and but i couldn't see anything wrong i just i kept turning the switch which didn't work made the thing that was broken is the switch didn't work i kept working the switch back and forth back and forth anyway i couldn't see what the problem was and i didn't feel like i fixed it but i thought well

[13:06]

I'll just put it back together and see what happens. So I put it back together, and the switch worked. And it was really a, what do you call it, a mundane joy came from this experience of not only did it work, but I fixed it. So this is a mundane joy which I did experience, and I don't mind saying so. A little bit embarrassed, but anyway, that's a mundane joy. It does happen to us, and it's fine. But there's another joy which I'm bringing up, which is that when we love things that are broken and sick, we feel pain because we love them and we feel compassion for them and we want them to be free.

[14:09]

and we want to protect them, and we want to be their friend, we feel pain. We feel pain in being friends. And that pain is the pain of the Buddha, the pain of the Bodhisattva. And that pain is another kind of joy. That pain doesn't go away when the pot breaks. That pain doesn't when the pot is fixed. That pain doesn't go away when your friend who you love becomes healthy. That pain becomes because you love. It comes because you love people. And if people who you love are in pain or if they're happy, either way you feel pain that they feel when they're happy and when they're in agony.

[15:25]

In both cases, they are suffering and that hurts you. You may have questions about this later. So again, I do sometimes appreciate broken things being repaired. Some of you know, about a month ago, a little over a month ago, a great wave of I left knee and I could barely walk for several days. And now I can walk almost normally.

[16:28]

The pain has been reduced quite a bit. And as the pain went down, it was kind of a, what do you call it? I felt some, I felt happiness about the reduced pain. But at the same time, I also missed in a way Not so much the great pain, but how present I was with every step I took when the pain was really strong. It's a benefit. that came with me being kind of forced, or you could say strongly encouraged, to pay attention with every step I took. I was very mindful of every step about a month. I was so attentive to my legs and feet. It was wonderful. Now I'm still quite careful because I still have to be careful otherwise the pain may come back.

[17:35]

But reduced, the pain has quieted down. I still can't walk downstairs without pain, but yeah. My great joy is not the joy of my pain or fixing broken things, or even my dear friends having less pain, which I am happy about if you have less pain. My great joy is the suffering I feel because I care for beings. That is my great joy. And that keeps me going. in the ocean of suffering. That keeps me from running away to the land of reduced pain where I don't have to deal with people whose pain is not being reduced. I came to Zen Center not to reduce pain.

[18:45]

I came to learn how to be with pain. Stories of people who knew how to be with pain in creative and liberal ways was what attracted me. Not stories about people who could touch someone and take away their pain. I wasn't attracted to miracles of pain reduction or pain elimination. I was attracted to miracles of being with are my own and other people's suffering. And I'm still attracted to that. And this is what I call bodhisattva compassion. And even if I still see people as objects, I can still

[19:50]

be friends with their pain, and be friends with my pain. I can still them and work to protect them from pain, protect them from whatever pain they have. And also, I think, for me, there's a difference between reducing pain and healing it. I can imagine that healing pain, necessarily reduce it. And one of my favorite healers is a person who exemplifies what we call the wounded healer. He was a crippled person named Milton Erickson, and he was a wonderful healer who helped people be with their illness, be with their pain. He was with his pain and he showed them how to be with their pain.

[20:56]

So I have pain, you have pain. If we can become good at being with our pain, we can be with others and help them become good. Become good means be good friends with our pain. Be good friends with our pain and then be good friends with our pain. Our own This pain is going to keep coming to us, and we have the opportunity to welcome it and embrace it and be with it and feel pain for it and feel the joy of that pain. So maybe that's enough. We could open up now for feedback to this teaching. And our first offering is from Justin. Good morning, Justin.

[22:04]

My question is, you know, we're talking about not trying to change someone or take away their pain and also talking about trying to liberate them from suffering. From suffering. offering the example of being with their pain without trying to change them and the hope that they can be with their own pain without trying to change it? Well, maybe I wouldn't, I use the word hope seldom. The word I would use is wish, wish for them to be free and liberated without, with accepting the way they are now. What do you see as the difference between hoping and wishing? I think the English word hope has some expectation in it. It's wishing together with an expectation. And that part of the word I have a problem with because expectation is a little bit disrespectful and rigid.

[23:16]

It's in the compassion business. So if we're practicing compassion with suffering beings, expectation is kind of a drain. You can work for people without... If you have this joy of compassion, you can work for people that they're going to get better. You can wish that they'll be free. And this joy can help you not get into expecting that they will. And if they don't, not having the expectation will protect you from being disappointed and giving up on them. So the awakened one looks at the world and sees a lot of people are not yet Buddhas, but the Buddha does not give up on people. The Buddha wants everyone to become Buddha, wishes that they will, but doesn't expect that they will. And our wish,

[24:19]

person with whom we're contemplating compassion will also have the same wish. We hope that they will develop compassion, and we don't expect that they will. So if they don't, we don't abandon them for being very good students of compassion. And they can feel, if we expect it of them, they can feel that that's defiled compassion. If we expect it, here I am coming to help you and I expect you to be better. I expect you to feel, I expect you to be protected. I want to protect, I want to liberate, but I don't expect it. And you can feel that too if I don't. You can feel, you know, if I don't listen to him or follow his instructions or if I don't get with the compassion program, he still will stay with me. I know he will. But I just make sure, and I'm not going to get better, just to see if he'll stay with me if I keep being sick.

[25:25]

And sure enough, he stays with me even though I've been sick all these years. He never left me. but I had to keep testing him to make sure that he wouldn't leave me if I didn't get better. And he didn't. So now finally I can accept. Thank you. Our next offering will be from Angela. Morning assembly. And good evening assembly. Oh, and good evening, yes, to those around the world. I thought I heard you say protecting from pain. Yeah, from pain and suffering. This mind, I noticed when I hear the word protecting,

[26:34]

I associate it with eliminating or taking away. So can you speak? Yeah, it's not. Protecting from beings is not eliminating the suffering. Yes. Like, for example, somebody has cancer. You don't have to wait for them to be healed, for the cancer to be in remission. You can practice compassion for them now while they have compassion, while they have cancer. You can protect them from the suffering of cancer while they have it. Mainly, the first thing that comes to mind is practicing the paramitas. You start with welcoming compassion. this condition, this illness. You practice being careful of it, being tender with it, being respectful of it, and you practice patience with it. Patience protects us from suffering, but patience does not eliminate suffering.

[27:42]

If you take away the suffering, there's no patience. Patience protects us with suffering, protects us in suffering. Generosity protects us in suffering. And being ethically disciplined and careful, being honest and gentle and careful protects us in suffering. And it also, protecting us, it's being friendly with the suffering. Being friendly with suffering protects us from suffering. So if I wish to protect others who are suffering, I want to practice friendliness towards them in their suffering so that they can learn to be friendly with their suffering. They can be friendly with their suffering, they will be protected in their suffering.

[28:44]

And this friendship will eventually open the doors of liberation. So first I protect them by doing these practices and letting them learn to do these practices. These practices lead to liberation. So it is protecting and liberating. It's not eliminating suffering. And all along, hopefully, I feel joy because it's painful for me to see them suffer it. I know this pain has a joy, and that joy can take me in to hell and out. Okay? Thank you. You're welcome. Our next offering will be from Patrick. The question I have is about the joy.

[29:56]

Yes. Is that a joy that can be... How do you identify that joy? How do you... Well... Is there any bodily experience of it? Is there... How is that... Yeah, how does it manifest? Because... Thank you for your question. Yeah. You said something like, one of your questions was, is it recognizable? I would say you could recognize it. It is possible to recognize it. However, the recognition of it is not it. It's like, I don't know what, it's like your blood sugar level. It is physical. It's a physical joy. And it makes it possible for you to walk into hell to help people. And, you know, joyfully, not kind of like, oh, I have to go to hell again to help you.

[30:59]

But you don't necessarily think, oh, my God, I'm joyful about entering. You enter joyfully and you might recognize it. And somebody else might recognize it. Somebody might say, Patrick looks like he's actually happy to go help those people. But you might not notice happiness. But it would sustain you. So again, the recognition that you're a human is not being a human. You don't have to recognize you're a human to be a human. You don't have to recognize that you're a bodhisattva to be a bodhisattva. But you could. Recognizing that you're a bodhisattva is not the same as being a bodhisattva. And this joy... can be recognized, but you don't need to recognize it. If you've got the proper blood sugar level, you don't have to need to recognize you have it. You've got it, and you can go to work. If you've got this joy in this work of wading through the ocean of suffering of all beings, it sustains you, and it completely fills your body.

[32:12]

It fills your mind. It lifts you up and carries you through the great work. As you've heard the expression, the boat of compassion is not rowed over pure or smooth waters, right? It's on my rakasu. It's on your rakasu. So you've heard that. And this... Makes it so you can row, you know, put your whole body into the rowing. It's like those Olympic rowers, you know. You really get into rowing this boat, but you don't necessarily think, boy, I got a lot of energy. You're working rowing the boat. But you could stop and say, hey, I'm really working here. This is a joy. You may or may not think that. But I might notice it. I might say, look at that guy work at that rowing that he's doing. It's amazing. Yeah. But you may be too into it to be noticed, to recognize that you're into it. Like, again, those rowers in the Olympics, oh, I have a lot of energy.

[33:21]

They're just like, their whole body's doing it. They aren't judging themselves. And they know from experience that's a waste of energy to be recognizing that that they're you know so i would say it can be recognized is not the recognition the recognition is optional yeah so so so what what comes up as i'm as i'm listening to you talk and i'm hearing hearing myself in this conversation uh the joy is in a sense simultaneously with and the being with the suffering, those are simultaneous. They're not separate. And what I noticed in my own experience, to whatever extent I've actually been fortunate enough to manifest this, the pain and the suffering can be overwhelming.

[34:24]

And that's why I'm asking about the joy because, and so within that overwhelm then even, if I'm invested, if I'm fully and wholeheartedly with being with another, that is the joy itself. That's what I'm hearing you say. Yeah. And if the name of the game is called overwhelming misery. Mm-hmm. this is the joy you want to have because otherwise you'll run away. Yeah. Joy. We can be in overwhelming suffering. Somebody has to go into the overwhelming area. Yeah. This joy makes it possible to enter there. Yeah. Yeah. It's a razor's edge. Yeah. It's a razor's edge. Yeah. Thank you. Our next offering is from Tracy.

[35:34]

Since our class on Tuesday and today, someone who's very, very, very close to me asked that I join her in another city for a member of her family, which I did. And it was a horrible experience for everybody. It went bad. And I did have in my head from time to time remembering that the point was not to root suffering, which was all around in every person in the room. I could tune into that sporadically and in myself.

[36:51]

But I guess, you know, it feels so abstract when we're talking about it in class. On Tuesday, it felt like, oh, and today is really interesting. But kind of in the moment, it's so excruciating. And I do share Patrick's question, or I did share it. And, okay, I felt the blood sugar of that I was there, and I was a fuse, and I was. And I will be for the rest of this long journey. But I guess, boy, maybe that that's joy. I mean, certainly not what I ever thought joy was, that feeling. Yeah. So I guess I'm letting you know how much I appreciate the timeliness and Exactly in this moment of this teaching, and I am paying so much attention after spending a day in hell.

[37:57]

Yeah, and it's not what I thought joy was. This is not what I thought joy was. I thought joy was something else. But this joy is the joy that lifts you up so you can actually go into terrible situations. Other people maybe go into terrible situations too, but are they going from this joy? Are they going to be friends with the situation? And if after this terrible thing happens, you feel like, well, I'll do that again, rather than, well, I'll do that again.

[39:02]

So with this joy, you can say, yeah, well, I'll do that again. I'll do it again. I'll keep visiting this person even though they keep being sick. I'll keep visiting them no matter how long they're sick. And something's sustaining me to want that and that's not what i thought joy was not what i thought happiness was but now i have a new happiness which is the happiness i will i will continue i will i will go kinds of terrible situations that will come to me with my own body dying with other people's bodies dying, with people who love each other fighting each other, I will be friends to those situations. In me, that says, I will go there and I will be friends with that situation.

[40:06]

I will be a refuge in that terror. And this is not what I thought happiness was. This is not the happiness of the disease, the disease going away. Different happiness. This is the happiness that sustains protecting beings. This is a happiness which doesn't go away when beings feel. It also doesn't get stronger when they feel worse. It just comes from the pain of caring for them. And it sustains you to continue your work of being with all your suffering friends, to continue to be a friend with your suffering friends. Thank you.

[41:07]

Next offering will be from Maggie. Hello, Brad. Hello. Good evening. Good evening, yes. Very nice to see you. Yes, very nice to see you here. Today's topic is compassion, because I've been working on this for several years. Yes, you have. Maybe more. Never ending. Intensive these years. There's another form of compassion that is so hard for me to practice is to say no to my family. It is the kind of balance that I'm always fine but every time I'm not sure whether I should say no or yes, yes or no, yes or no.

[42:28]

Sometimes I said yes because I have a fear that the family will be cut if I say no. So because of that fear, I said yes. But then the other times when I'm ready, when I think I'm ready to say no, then I said no. After the no, there was consequence that that really the family relationship was cut because I said no. So I've been like sitting on the, this volcano can explode anytime, I don't know when, but every time when it explode, I always have to decide to say yes or no.

[43:34]

It's so hard to say no and then to live with it. I mean, to live with the consequence of the no. And I'm always not sure whether I did it right or wrong. I mean, should I say? My question is maybe more about, I call it, Something like upright compassion. Maybe it's more about the skills that I'm lacking to be firm when I say yes or no. And this is always a question for me. Stories not ended, but I'm still like every day I'm practicing and try to prepare myself for the next breakout of the volcano.

[44:46]

So I have always had this question. Did I do it right or wrong? I hear you. Was I too hard or was I sound too hard and not enough? question and you're not sure that and you're not sure yeah yeah so many people are like you they wondered did i do it right did i do it wrong and and some of them are like you and they're not sure and some of them are not like you they're sure they're sure they did it right and then some other people are sure they did it wrong so we have these different situations But these situations, they're not really compassion. They are situations, painful situations you've just told us about. Compassion is being with those situations. Compassion is being patient with the pain that you're in.

[45:58]

from which you say yes or from which you say no. So you're in some painful situation and you sometimes say yes and you sometimes say no. Also, you're in the painful situation of not being sure about what you did. That's another painful situation. These are painful situations. The compassion is to be with them, is to be generous towards the situation. And from that generosity and from that compassion, you will say yes or you will say no. And then you have the consequences, which is more painful situations. And then you practice compassion with the consequences. And if you practice compassion with the consequences, then you're doing...

[47:04]

the practice of compassion from which you might say yes and no again. And then you have consequences. And then you practice compassion with the consequences. And then you say yes and no again. And then you have consequences. And you practice compassion with the consequences. Compassion doesn't eliminate the consequences. Compassion doesn't eliminate not knowing if you did right or wrong. Compassion deals with not knowing whether you did right or wrong. Compassion also deals with thinking that you did do right. So if you think you did right, they're suffering. If you think you did wrong, they're suffering. If you're not sure if you did right or wrong, they're suffering. And all of you are suffering. And then you're being called to be compassionate towards these situations.

[48:08]

If you practice compassion, then from that compassion comes your offering. And then there's consequences. And around you go again. So I'm not wishing that you will stop not being sure. And I'm not wishing that you will stop thinking you're right or stop thinking you're wrong. What I wish for is that compassion with not being sure, with being sure, and with being sure you're wrong and being sure you're right. All the situations, I pray that you will be compassionate with them. And then from that compassion, you will act. And there will be consequences. And I pray that you practice compassion towards the consequences. But I don't pray that there will be an end to your uncertainty.

[49:11]

That's an unrealistic prayer. There's an ocean of uncertainty in which you live, in which you live with us. I don't pray the ocean disappears. I pray that we practice compassion with the ocean of uncertainty. with the ocean of consequences. That's what I'm praying for. I'm praying that you practice compassion with that ocean. And you will say yes, or you will say no, or you'll be quiet. And no matter what you say or don't say, there will be consequences for you to deal with. There will be consequences for you to be compassionate with. Pray that you are compassionate with all the consequences. And also, the consequences of acting from compassion are just as challenging as the consequences from not being compassionate.

[50:23]

Both consequences are challenging. It's just that the consequences of compassion are consequences that lead to protection and liberation of beings and the consequence of not compassion. Just keep the cycle of suffering going. But still, the consequences of not being compassionate, if they're dealt with compassionately, lead to protection and liberation. That's where the joy comes from. No, the joy. Caring for people who are suffering. That's where the joy comes from. And then there's another joy which comes from people feeling better or things getting fixed. Which is, you know, it's not a bad joy. It's just that joy is not undependable. But the joy comes from caring for suffering beings. That joy is indestructible.

[51:25]

You're welcome. We're next off from Barbara Joan and Jeff. So I'm wondering whether we might be able to call Monday by relief because when my pain, like my back pain subsides and I don't feel excruciating pain and I can move freely, I feel relieved. But I had the pain for many, many cycles. So having had this unfortunate great teaching of my own body and working hard in my life with myself to accept that I will have pain, whether it's my back or not, and that likely it will go away also, that this is just how my body responds to certain stresses and movements.

[52:55]

I feel relief And I think, just wondering if you could speak to the, I felt like the wording of mundane joy felt more to me like relief than the joy of just having the experience in my body, whether I'm in pain or not. When I'm not in pain, I get to dance. And that makes me happy because it offers more endorphins. So I feel elation and a kind of lightness and gratitude and grace. And when I'm in pain, it does bring my focus in in a different way. And as I've aged with it, I've become more gracious toward it. So can you help me with that languaging?

[53:58]

Just I want to hear what you. Yeah, I think relief is very closely related to. Well, not not what you call it. Some forms of mundane joy aren't really relief. Like, for example, if you're watching a sporting event and your team wins, you don't necessarily feel relief, but you feel. Or if someone you care about does something really skillful and you appreciate it, it's not really relief, but you feel joy. And that's wonderful. And when the pain in my knee subsided, I felt quite pleasant to feel that relief. That joy is, you know, that's gone. The relief is gone. Or if the joy of relief pain would come charging back, the relief joy would be gone.

[55:06]

So it's a good joy, and it's part of our body. Endorphins are part of our body, and endorphins are kind of helpful. However, it's understandable. This other joy is dependable. It's there when you're in pain. It's there when you experience relief. And it's there after the relief subsides and you're back to sort of like maybe not excruciating pain, feeling the joy of relief. You were relieved a few hours or a few days ago and you get over it. Now you're back to your ordinary life. But this other joy joy is there through the whole process through all these different times the other joy is there it it's with the joy of the coming and going of the relief it sustains us before we're relieved while we're relieved and after the relief you know evaporates and it's there for the next onslaught and it

[56:20]

that we aren't getting pushed around anymore by the pain. The other kind of joy, it's a little bit, it can be addictive, and we can get pushed around by it. Opiate addiction is... So this kind of joy helps us, protects us from addiction to pain relief. from pain reduction. But it doesn't mean pain reduction isn't sometimes really helpful. If you have open-heart surgery and afterwards, if you don't breathe deeply, your lungs are going to fill with fluids, and that's not good. But it's so painful to breathe deeply that you might not want to do it. But you need the freedom. Otherwise, you're going to get in trouble.

[57:23]

So they give you some pain medication so you can breathe deeply. However, they want to be careful because if the pain medication they give you so you can breathe deeply and clear your lungs, if you're not careful, you get addicted to the pain medication. But this pain, the pain of compassion, which is a joy we don't get addicted to. I haven't seen people addicted to it. It's not that kind of joy. It's the joy which to not run away from pain. And it encourages us to not run away from relief. It's not like, oh, here comes some relief. I got to get out of here. Okay, relief. I can handle relief. I can be here for relief. I'll stay with you if you take the relief away.

[58:24]

I'll stay with you if you bring the relief on. I'll stay with you in pain. I'll stay with you in happiness, in sickness, and in health. Mm-hmm. So it doesn't mean that pain reduction isn't sometimes really helpful. It's just we got to be careful not to get addicted to it. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Next offering will be from Leslie. Hi, good morning. Good morning. So I, because I've been also attending the Tuesday, your Tuesday talks, and it's some of it for me, I'm really trying to grasp the difference between

[59:30]

protecting from pain and trying to get rid of pain and I'm sometimes wondering what that reality for instance this morning I woke up overwhelmingly sad not even sure why and I don't know what it looks like to try to show the same kind of awareness as you would in your knee like I can imagine terrible pain, somehow having compassion for that, because maybe it almost seems like a thing. But when you're just feeling inside of yourself sad, how do you do the same thing? Even if I don't have the kind of joy that I'm talking about, But especially if I did have the joy that I'm talking about, the joy of pain comes from caring about somebody.

[60:42]

If I had that joy and I woke and I wake up and I have a very deep sadness, then that joy sustains me in the outrageous activity of compassion, which means that I would welcome that suffering. Suffering. The joy would lift me up so that I could say, welcome sadness. It would lift me up so I could listen to the sadness. Joyfully listen to it. I'm sad. I'm sad. But the sadness is calling me to listen. And because of that joy, I say, okay, I will listen to you, darling. I will listen to you wholeheartedly, sadness. That wholeheartedly listening is compassion. Joy of this compassion makes it possible to do that really hard work of listening to deep, deep sadness.

[61:50]

But that's what deep sadness wants. It wants us to listen to it deeply. It wants us to feel it. And opening to the sadness What does it do? It frees us from something we're holding on to that we don't know, that we can't let go of. But when we open to the sadness, we let go of the thing which we're holding on to, that the sadness comes to heal us. And the difference between trying to get rid of the sadness and protecting us in the sadness is this kind of welcome and patience with it. Patience is not getting rid of the sadness. It's being right there with it. But again, we need some joy and enthusiasm about being with the sadness and enthusiasm

[63:00]

about giving ourselves to it. If we completely give ourselves to the sadness, we will be protected from it. I should say we will be protected in it. And that way of being with it will heal us, which is what the sadness came to help us do. The sadness didn't come and say, run away from me. The sadness didn't come and say, go away. It came, feel me, feel me early in the morning. And it didn't even say, I know it's hard to feel me early in the morning, but would you do so anyway? But that's what it wants. It wants us to feel it. And we need joy to do that hard work. joy available, and it's right there in the pain we feel because we love beings.

[64:10]

But at the same moment, you're feeling joy and sadness. You're feeling joy in the sadness. Joy makes it possible for you to be with the sadness because the sadness isn't just, it's not just sitting there. It wants to be met. But without that joy, we might feel like, I don't want to be sad, and we run away from it, or we do something to reduce the sadness. Just getting really angry is enough. More like, you know, some people wake up sad, and they go running, and the endorphins come, and I'm not criticizing that. But they don't actually feel the sadness and then go running. While they're running, while they're feeling sad, they run, and the endorphins come and push the sadness away. They never really feel it. So the sadness then comes back the next day. Say, well, you feel me today? No, I'm going to go running. That's the nice thing or the difficult thing about sitting is if you sit still, the sadness comes and you don't run away and you feel it.

[65:16]

And that's what the sadness wants. I'm not saying you shouldn't get your exercise when you're feeling sad. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying we should give our sadness its due. We should give it its day in court. We should give it our wholehearted listening. But it's okay to take a walk. It's okay to get exercise. But if you sit still, then you're going to listen to it. And that's what it wants. Sadness wants us to listen to it. I tell you, I've learned that. I've learned that sadness comes and when I just sit there and listen to it, it's very much and it drops away because it got me to do what I needed to do, which was to be still and listen to it. And when I was still and listened to it, some part of my body and mind was released from something it was holding on to and to help me let go.

[66:21]

So now I'm refreshed and I can go on to some other difficulty. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Thank you. The next is from Pam. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. I've had about a half a dozen different questions, and they keep changing, so I'll just go with the current. Good for you. So... I have the experience, this is my practice, what you're talking about, of being with the sadness or pain or anger or fear, what's ever present, and listening to it. And I'm a therapist, so when I work with clients, I do the same thing. And sometimes... People get a little bit confused listening to it because, you know, there's all the thoughts that come with the emotions like, oh, my life is horrible.

[67:32]

Oh, I'll never, you know. Yeah. So I tell them this, let go of the thoughts and just be with the feelings. Okay, go ahead. They're with the feelings. Yes. You want them to do that, right? Yes. Then thoughts come up. Yes. Then do it with the thoughts. But there's listening to the thoughts, and then there's believing the thoughts. Right. Well, watch them do that. So they have a feeling, and you're trying to help them be with the feeling. Yeah. And then they start judging and commenting on their feeling, which you didn't ask them to do, right? And it's kind of a distraction from feeling the feelings. Right. Yeah. So you got the feeling and you're trying to get them to be there with it. Right. Want to do it. They think about it or they comment on it. Well, then turn do the same thing with that. So just so what I would think is that that means noticing the thought.

[68:40]

Yeah. Noticing the thought of same as noticing the feeling. Yeah, being compassionate towards the thoughts. Yeah, the thought may not, you know, maybe they missed the chance of being with the feeling. It would have been good. But even if they did and wholehearted and really felt the feeling, still a thought might come up like, that was good. Well, then practice with that the same way. Or I can't be present with it. That's not the feeling. That's not a judgment. Or I wasn't very good at being present. That's another judgment. Or I shouldn't be feeling this way. Then do the same with that. Practice compassion with the thoughts. It's not like you're trying to help people be with the feeling and then they get rid of the thoughts. No. They're going to have them. Yeah. But don't just let them have them. Say that too, that too, that too. Try to not miss a beat.

[69:42]

Even though you started with feelings, apply compassion towards feelings, towards thoughts, towards opinions, you know, whatever. I think the confusing part is people to, like, listen. You don't want to talk. I mean, if you say listen to the thoughts, it's hard for people to distinguish between listening to the thoughts and believing the thoughts. Well, tell him that. Okay. Tell him that or ask him. You can ask him, did you believe that thought? Did you think the thought was true? So once you're with the thought and being kind to it, then you can start asking questions about it if you want. And you may notice that some people say, I think this. And then some other people say, this is this way. So I think this is a thought, but it shows some self-reflection.

[70:48]

Like I think you're a good therapist, and you are a good therapist. So you are a good therapist, maybe said you could actually believe what you just said about me. And they might have said, well, yeah, I did. Say, okay. Okay. And then you might discuss the difference between I think you're a good therapist and you are a good therapist. See, what's the difference in those two ways? Yeah, one is you know you're having the thought versus just believing it. But you can be equally compassionate to you are a good therapist and I think you're a good therapist. Right. You can be present and patient with both of those, even though one may sound, you know, more awake than the other. But you're not more friendly to awake people than sleepy people, are you? When you listen to the sadness or fear or pain or whatever it is, do you hear things?

[71:57]

Does it say something or is it listening as a way of just receiving and welcoming and being present with it? It starts with receiving and welcoming and being present with. And then from there, things may move on. Was there something else besides that you talked about? Sometimes, you know, in internal family systems, we, you know, the pain, the sadness, whatever, is a being, and you talk to it, and it tells you things. Oh, I see. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So sometimes you might... Be listening to the pain, and you're welcoming it and open to it. And then in the middle of the pain, you may hear another little whisper. Right. You may hear a, I'm just kidding, or guess what I'm really saying. Right. Or you need to be stronger.

[72:58]

Some other voices that you didn't originally hear might happen, but that's like a gift. And you weren't trying to get the gift. You were just open. But in that openness, you may get a bunch of gifts. That might happen. But not necessarily. And partly not necessarily because the cry wants to see if you'll listen even if you don't get any gifts, any treats. Will you keep listening if I don't give you any treats? Yeah. Or will you just keep listening if I keep feeding your ego? Right. And the person who's calling says, yeah, you do keep listening when I feed your ego. Yeah, I see that. I do that too. So let's just keep that up, shall we? But some people say, actually, I want to see if anybody will care for me if I don't give them what they want. I'd like to see if somebody could. And then I'd give them no present.

[74:02]

Right. Listening for the sake of listening. Teach me how to listen like that. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, Reb. You're welcome. Write down your other questions for future reference. I still got them. Good, good. I used to carry a notebook, but I didn't ask them all the questions at once. I saved them for other times. My dog's got a question, too. He's like, when are you going to take me for a walk? When are you going to take me for a walk, right? Thank you. Thank you. Our next offering is from Homa. Good morning, everybody. Good evening. Yes, and good evening. I would like to offer this question, which is more of a quest for me.

[75:07]

And that is fear. Fear of anything. Fear of birth. Fear of all the investments that I can see myself and I can hear when everybody is speaking how invested we are in our suffering, in our emotions, in our feelings, in everything. And my question is, the possibility, questioning if there is a possibility that we talk about freedom, if there is an actual possibility of not being invested in our investments? I would say yes. And if that possibility is true, why are we, after all these years, still invested?

[76:13]

Because I see these people that they're coming, these people who have been practicing, they're very intelligent. They're not like stupid people that they don't go deep. So why, after all these years, I still see invested? So you asked, is it possible? And I said, yes. Another possibility, which is the possibility that if you are completely invested, you will be free of investment. Thank you. And even if you are completely invested in your investments and free, then that's great for the moment, but then another one may come and you have to do it again. And if you don't do it with the next one, then you'll be stuck in it. Okay, hold on, hold on, hold on.

[77:13]

The fullness of events then the question is, then the fullness of investment is not investment. No, no, it's freedom. You become free of investment by total investment. But total investment is, you know, most people don't get to total investment in their investments. For example, if you're totally invested, you have no expectation. Yes, my question was that you said when you're totally invested, then it's free, you're free. And then the next thing comes. Why is this next? I'm just saying that this is not a... So an investment comes up. If you're totally invested, you'll be free. But that's just for the moment. And then another situation comes up. And then you have to do it again with the next situation. So you asked, why are these people still, after all these years, inconsistency in their practice?

[78:22]

So they probably have had some freedom along the way. Okay. But then they're inconsistent. So then another investment comes up and they aren't wholehearted about it. And then they get stuck in it. But if they would be wholeheartedly, they would be free. But then the next moment comes up and we have to do it again. But it works. This is the way reality works, is that when we're totally something, we're free of it. Yes. Totally everything at every moment. Yes. Being totally everything and being everything in the moment. And some people do that, and that's great. And then they take a break for a week or a year. And then they suffer because they're not practicing again. But the practice is, this is the possibility. Total investment is freedom from investment. Okay. Then comes my next question. You say take a break. When you're totally in the moment, you're totally free.

[79:28]

You're totally in the moment. You're totally free. What's this break about? I don't understand the break. The break is everything changes. Then totally the change. Yeah, if you totally change, then you practice the same way with the next offering, the next investment. Okay, so the question to my answer is that I'm not being totally. I'm not the totality. Therefore, I suffer. Each moment is a kind of investment. Yes, every moment is. Yes, yes, yes. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. Our next question is from Linda. Oh, yeah. Good morning.

[80:28]

Good morning. I'm beginning to understand something of what you mean by great compassion. And I would like to the relation of that to mundane compassion. Mm-hmm. Because I don't think you're discouraging us from practicing acts of mundane compassion, but just not to be fooled by them. To think that that's... Yeah, not to... That is, there's so many examples that I've thought of while you were talking to people from providing oxygen cylinders to people in India who are dying because they don't have it. So, you know, that kind of mundane compassion. I want them to be saved. Or giving a pillow to somebody who needs to be sitting up. There are so many. Food or all these things. I want to take away that pain.

[81:32]

So that mundane compassion. And you, I just want this to be clear for myself. You're not saying, oh, what a fool. You're just practicing mundane compassion. You're letting us know. giving us a glimpse of great compassion so that we don't keep making mistakes with mundane compassion. Isn't that correct? Great compassion liberates you from mundane compassion, but it doesn't stop you from doing it. Yeah. It just lets you do it without getting hung up on it. Yeah. For example, you adjust somebody's pillow, and then somebody tells you that you adjusted it wrong, and then you get angry. Because you got caught by this helpful person. So great compassion lets you adjust the pillow. And then when people criticize you for the way you adjust it, you say, thank you. Yeah, I'm actually, I'm going to take a course on just pillow adjustment.

[82:36]

And everybody, you know, everybody's free of this good person adjuster. Everybody's free of her. And then she says, can I adjust the pillow again? And she just joyfully adjusts the pillow, but she's not hung up on it. I've been thinking, as you discussed this, of the story of Hyakujo and the fox. His wrong answer is, yes, the Buddha is free of cause and effect. So, Better answer turned out 500 years later to be, a Buddha does not ignore cause and effect. Right. So like that, we moved to relieve suffering or to take away pain. That's that part of it. Is it? Well, you can be moved to relieve suffering or to adjust a pillow.

[83:37]

You do that. You don't fall into, that was free of cause and effect, or I fell into cause and effect. You don't do either of those. That was right, or that was wrong. You're just watching, and you're ready. And then people say, you moved that pillow perfectly, or you moved that pillow in a very cruel way. And you don't fall into, well, I fell into cause and effect, or I didn't. You into, hey, hey, look at this. This is wonderful. It's like that story which I tell over and over about people accusing the Zen monk of being a terrible person. And he says, oh, he looks. He doesn't fall into, well, I'm a Zen master. I couldn't have done that. Or, oh, I fell into cause and effect. He watches. He says, is that so? Is that what's happening? Oh, okay. Joyfully looking at cause and effect. Still involved in the world of people.

[84:39]

trying to help and all that. But great compassion embraces a situation and now we're like meditating on it and not hung up on it. But still we're like active participants and to stay away from being an active participant would be another of mundane compassion, which again, we could be with that and not hung up on that. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Oh, by the way, can I just say one more thing, Linda? You know, the case 89 of the Blue Cliff record, I think it's called. Who is it? Anyway, the question is about great compassion. So somebody asked a Zen teacher, you know, what are the thousand hands and thousand eyes for? It's like reaching for a pillow in the middle of the night.

[85:44]

So that way of moving the pillow, you know. Yeah, hard to be in that state. And meanwhile, you, I don't know, do your best. Yeah. Well, maybe the darkness of our mind, right? So to reach for the pillow in our confused mind. Great compassion is doing that all the time. It's reaching for pillows in the darkness. What a wonderful opportunity. Our next offering is from G. Wren. Thank you for taking my question. Yes, you're welcome. I really appreciate your taking the time and the care to unfold great compassion and transmit it.

[86:50]

I feel like I don't have a question exactly about what you're explaining. I find it to be, it feels wise. have a question about chapter 25 in the lotus sutra which i have right here i read it every night and you know i'm just going to read a couple of what thank you yeah i'm going to read a couple of lines because i want you to answer to the way this describes compassion because it sounds a getting rid of element. And I have experienced that this kind of litany has helped do that. Like if it just says something like, if someone with harmful intent should push you into a fiery pit by mindfully invoking Avalokiteshvara's power, which I believe is great compassion, there will turn into a pool. The billowing waves cannot drown you. If someone were to throw you down like the sun, you would stand firm in the sky.

[87:51]

If pursued by evil doers, they could not harm a single hair. Thanks. That's enough. You don't have to read the whole chapter. Thanks. I don't necessarily hear that, that if you are mindful of Avalokiteshvara, something's eliminated. I don't hear it that way. How do you hear it? I hear it as this great blessing arises. And the blessing changes the reality of the pain. I think the blessing is to realize the reality of the pain. The blessing is to realize the reality of the pain. But if something is fire and then it's water... It was fire and then it's water. I don't read it that way. I'm saying in the fire, if we're mindful of this compassion, this great compassion, a great blessing will come.

[88:53]

And rather than just say blessing, we can make it cool, clear, refreshing water. But we could just say blessing. So another way to write that chapter, which is not so poetic, but also maybe not so shocking, is for all these problems that you're examining. If you remember great compassion, great blessing, but great blessing doesn't eliminate all these problems. So at the end of the, okay, let's just stop there. All this suffering, Remembering great compassion, great blessing, doesn't eliminate the ocean of suffering. It doesn't get rid of the suffering. It just brings a great blessing. It frees beings in the midst of the fire.

[89:55]

It frees beings in the midst It doesn't eliminate the pain. It doesn't eliminate the suffering. That's what I'm saying. And I think some people think that Buddhism eliminates suffering, but I don't think so. I think the Buddha way protects beings and liberates beings in suffering. Teshvara, great compassion is living in the middle of suffering. It's not living in some other place. It's living in a pure land in the middle of suffering. It's living in a joyful, peaceful place in the midst of war. It's practicing compassion with the flames and torment. It doesn't get rid of the flames and torment, though, I would say. So, again, at the end of the chapter, it says, eyes of compassion, observe sentient beings, which means...

[90:59]

Translated as, eyes of compassion observe an ocean of self-sentient beings. And observing the ocean of suffering beings gives rise to an ocean of blessing. So an ocean of suffering observed with great compassion brings an ocean of blessing. So the ocean of blessing and the ocean of suffering are together. Compassion does not eliminate the ocean of suffering. It gives rise to the ocean of blessing without touching or manipulating a blessing. In this way, it heals the ocean of suffering. But it heals the ocean of suffering. It does not eliminate the ocean of suffering. It heals the flames of pain. It does not eliminate the flames of pain. Yeah, I think what you're describing about the healing, I see this in people.

[92:08]

When there is great compassion and people can sort of face their own death, there is great joy. But it does change the tone of the pain. but I think that kind of... I don't know if it changes anything. You say it does. I would say the situation changes, but this kind of thing doesn't really change anything. It awakens to the truth of the situation. Thank you. And you may see some changes. It doesn't really change the situation. It just sees the truth. I mean, I think how it changes is that in our hearts, what we really want is to have indestructible compassion. And that if we feel like you can do anything to me, but this compassion will not fall, I feel courageous. And that in itself is everything I want anyway. So it does heal in a way that's profoundly.

[93:09]

Yeah, I agree. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. Our next offering is from Breck. Hi, Reb. Can you hear me? Good evening, Breck. Hi, Reb. Can you hear me? I can see you, but I mostly see that you look funny. Your face is kind of green. So my question is pretty straightforward. I think it was Linda mentioned a story of someone in the Fox, and I'm not familiar with that story. I was wondering if you could tell that story, please. So it's a story of the great teacher Baijian, he gave talks to his assembly.

[94:14]

And whenever he gave a talk, there was an old man at the back of the room. After many talks, the old man came forward and said, I'm not actually a human, I'm a fox. And a long time ago, I used to be the head monk of this monastery where you're living. And someone asked me, if a highly cultivated person still falls into cause and effect? Or as Linda said, does Buddha fall into cause and effect? And I said, no. And then I lived 500 lives as a fox. In other words, because I denied that a highly cultivated person like me would fall into cause and effect, I really fell into cause and effect. So if you deny that a great person falls into cause and effect, you seem to fall into cause and effect.

[95:16]

And if you would say that they do fall into cause and effect, they also might fall into cause and effect. But he didn't say that they do, he said they don't. And so then he went through what do you call it, a karmic spanking. 500 years, you're in karmic, you fell, you fell, you fell, you fell. And then he says, please teach a learning phrase. So the teacher took the expression and turned it from does not fall into does not obscure or does not ignore. And then he was liberated. So if you take a position of falling in or not falling in, And you act out the drama of falling and not falling. But the Buddha way is the drama of compassionately observing sentient beings in karmic causation. The ocean of sentient beings is the ocean of karmic causation.

[96:20]

Compassionately observe all that. That's the path of liberation. We don't avoid falling or not falling. We don't get into falling or not falling. We don't avoid, we don't get into either one of those alternatives. We practice the middle way. All suffering beings with great compassion. The name of it is, you can look it up, it's called Bai Zhang's Wild Fox. It's B-A-I... A-N-G. Bai Zhang's Wild Fox. Our next offering is from Basha. Good day, Red and the friends in the assembly.

[97:25]

Great to see you all. And nice to to this again. So I wanted to share some ideas of gates and stumbling blocks in my practice that I noticed. For me, the turning point that was really important in kind of falling into something that might be great compassion and discovering it is when I, in moments of difficulty and life has been giving me all kinds of in personal relationships for the last so many years now. And some of them were very challenging. And my instant reaction was like, I got to do something. I got to fix it. This is not right. Did you say that some of the difficulties are challenging? Yeah. All of them. Very challenging. And when I was doing it, I finally started to notice that I was creating a lot of suffering by creating that split.

[98:32]

By creating that split. something. It's like, you know, going back to Dogen who says, if a fish tries to jump out of the water, it will die at once. If a bird wants to jump out of the air, it will die. So that's what I was creating. I was creating the state of anguish that I want to jump out of my environment. So when I finally recognized that I was creating my suffering, anguish, pain, in real in on top of whatever is going on I stopped and when I finally stopped it was just this incredible joy that wow okay now I'm dealing with the situation and then I started to gradually sink into this recognition that This is my life. And I'm here to just respond to life as it needs to be.

[99:37]

And I will know what to do and things will be okay. Just started to really open to these things. And the more I practiced that, the more I was discovering the joy of just knowing that I am where I need to be in my place. place in life and but of course stumbling blocks arise all the time right my husband will do something totally out of the left corner of the field and the urge arises to do something to fix it and else and he noticed to just let go of that urge and I will find. So gradually I fell into this trust that it's all good. I don't have to. Of course, there are bigger surprises still that, you know, like you said, we still think it's just endless practice, right?

[100:42]

Even on the deathbed, something will piss me off and whatever, and there will be more opportunity to practice. But that sense of knowing my place and that all is good, incredibly joyful. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that with us. Thank you for listening. This is my life. For this morning will be from Karen Yuki. Good morning. Good morning. I would like to go back to the question about protecting beings. Yes. sort of progressed in my mind as time's gone on this morning. And I kind of understand it as becoming a refuge.

[101:49]

But in my mind, when I imagine that, there's sort of an image of getting between beings and harm or providing sheltering beings as part of being a refuge. And I just, I think that that's Maybe a little bit off. I wondered if you could say something about what it means to be a refugee. Well, it's kind of like that. It's kind of like getting in between. In a way, it's kind of like patience is in between misery and us. We have this patience practice, which we put up to meet the suffering. It's kind of in between, but really it's a way to be with it. It's an in-between. It's a type of in-between which actually collapses into intimacy. It's not like a protection that's pushing the thing away.

[102:53]

It's a protection of helping us be intimate. So patience, generosity, and being careful and respectful. These are, in a way, they're in between in the sense that we have a sense that we're here and then here's this practice out here which we're going to use to deal with this pain. It kind of seems like it's in between, but really it's about helping us to be with it in a way that protects us so it doesn't harm us. Death doesn't have to harm us. Birth doesn't have to harm us. Fear and confusion don't have to harm us if we meet them with these practices. And we can be that for others as well. Yeah, if you're practicing these practices, in a sense, then they see it, and then you are kind of in the mix of them and their suffering.

[103:56]

They see, oh, they get the patience in there. Patience by practicing patience yourself. They pick it up. your patients with their difficulty, they sense you're not trying to get them to stop being a sick person. So then they learn how to give up trying to stop being a sick person. And then they get to be a sick person. Oh, this is my life. Somebody has to teach them that. And if you can practice that way, that gets transmitted to them, even if they can't see you. So as long as there's any subject-object, it could seem like these practices are in between. So if it seems like I'm a subject, you're an object, and if I'm practicing patience with you, it's kind of like patience is between us. But really, patience is a way for us to get over subject-object separation. But in the meantime, it can maybe seem kind of, it's a facilitating relationship.

[105:01]

So it appears to be in between, but it's really not in between. And that's how we are a refuge. Yeah, that's how we are a refuge. Yeah. And that's how we are a friend. Yeah. And that's how we are a Buddha. Yeah. Thank you, everybody, for another wonderful morning and another wonderful evening. We have people from all over the United States, from the West Coast to the East Coast, and we have people in England, Sweden, Germany, and Switzerland, and maybe other places in Canada. Pardon? And Canada, yeah. Canada. And also, I think, Colombia.

[106:08]

Thank you, everybody.

[106:12]

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