Here's a short little thing for you, and that is study karma, see dharma. Or to say it again, study the world of karma and see the world of dharma. Sometimes we speak of the world, and the world often means the world of karma. And in the world of karma there's birth and death, there's self and other, there's joy and happiness, but even in joy there's anxiety.

[01:10]

because in the world of karma there is a separate self always feels anxious at least unconsciously but there's another world which is not which is right there all the time and it's called the dharma world or the world of truth and in that world there's not birth and death not self and other and there's no anxiety and there's no karma in the sense of karma which the anxious individual does to protect herself from her anxiety. Okay? Is that all clear? Huh? So what I'm saying is that by studying the world of karma, by opening your eyes to the world of karma and how that works, your eyes open to the world of dharma. the dharma world, which works on the basic principle of the world of karma, but with different ingredients.

[02:26]

Both worlds operate according to causal processes, but the causal processes, the elements and the conditions of the causal processes in the dharma world are different. In the carnal world, the elements are, you know, belief in independent existence, anxiety, belief in personal power, and acting on that belief, try to cope with that produces a world which makes us more anxious, which we respond to by more power, which creates a stronger world, which again makes us feel we need to act against it or with it, to manipulate it, and this keeps it going. This is the world of birth and death. That's how it happens, sort of in short. The other world is a world which is also in constant change and conditions are evolving all the time.

[03:33]

But in that world, there's not a belief in self separate from other. There's not belief there's no anxiety and there's no manipulation to avoid the anxiety which is not arising. There is awareness of anxiety on the part of people who are still living in the world of karma. So in the world of dharma you can still sense and care for those who are believing in their independent existence and fighting the situation that arises from the karma which they've done, and the various conditions of that world. You can still relate to that. And there can be compassion in the Dharma world for beings that live in the karma world. They're right there. They're not someplace else. You can see that certain beings have a different perspective. And the beings who are living in the world of karma

[04:39]

They may not have started to study karma. If they study karma a little, they've laid the foundation for freedom from karma, and freedom from the world which karma creates. If they study a lot, more so, and if they study completely, then they're free. So that's my proposal to you. And so... Today I'd like to say a little bit about how you study the world of karma and what it might be like to study. So, studying the world of karma means being aware if you have any actions.

[05:41]

It means to be aware if you have any intentions. To be aware of your intentions is to be aware of what we call, what the Buddha called new karma. New, old, new karma, old karma, new karma and the cessation of karma. So in the process of studying karma, you deal with old karma and new karma. If you study the old and new karma skillfully, you realize the cessation of karma. So in a given moment, you might Old karma. Old karma is basically your body and your mind.

[06:46]

That's old karma. And new karma is your intention right now. So old karma, and by body we mean, what the Buddha means by body is the ability to see, which is called the eye. ability to hear, to hear, ability to smell, to taste, and to touch, or to sense tangible things. And mind. Mind in the sense of being able to receive and experience data. That's the body and the mind. That's old karma. In other words, That old karma arises according to certain conditions and independence on past karma and is the basis for current feelings.

[07:55]

It's called old karma, but really it's kind of a misnomer to call it karma. Really what it is, is karmic result. Or it's a receptive state of being where you're in a receptive mode in terms of physical sensation or mental sensation. So strictly speaking, I think it's funny to call it old karma, but the Buddha did. Another way to talk about it, which I think is but not as cute, is karmic results, karmic resultants, karmic consequences, in conjunction with various other factors giving us our current experience, that part of our life, and the other part is our intentions in that context.

[09:07]

And that's what's called new karma, or, you know, actual karma per se. But if you look at what's going on with you, you're aware of what's going on with you, you may not feel a clear intention. Like if you're sitting in meditation, or standing in meditation, or walking in meditation, you hear the sound of the stream. Hearing the sound of the stream, that's what the Buddha called old karma. or that's space, or it's just an experience, which depends on past karma, but also depends on various other things, like having your ear operating and having other sensations not be super strong. You hear the sound of the creek, and... And also that serves as the basis for feelings. A lot of people have a nice feeling when they hear the sound of the creek.

[10:11]

Some people don't, though. So if you're sitting and listening to the sound of the creek, you may feel, well, I don't see any karma, clear intention. I don't want to do anything about that. Now, if you continue to watch yourself and notice that receptive state, you might eventually notice some intention to do something. Perhaps you might want to, like, close the doors so it's quieter. You might feel the intention to close the doors so it's quieter. And then actually say, why actually do we want to close the doors so it's quieter? So I can hear maybe our conversation better. That is an example of thinking the shape of your mind and that's active new karma.

[11:21]

You may have a sensation of pain in your knee. That sensation is something which arises according to various conditions. One of them being past action. The impulse may arise, however, to continue to sit. You may say, I have pain in my knee but I want to continue to sit in this posture. I think it's good to sit in this posture. I sit in this posture of developing various virtues so I will continue to sit here with that intention and that's active karma or you might have the intention I think I will uncross my legs because I think that maybe I'm doing some harm so I'm going to uncross my legs and I'm doing that to protect and care for my knees so I'll be able to sit some other day and also be able to walk today

[12:31]

So those are examples of experiences that are arising in dependence on karma and experience and active karma that arises in the midst of our experience. In a big parenthesis, which I'll long time, but just for a moment, is if you notice I said that the experience you're having is arising in dependence on past karma. But the Buddha did not teach that the experience you're having right now is in dependence only on past karma. Past karma, past action, is a contributing factor to how and what we experience. But it is not the only determinant of what we experience. It's just one important element.

[13:39]

Both in terms of our physical sensation and mental feelings and emotions and mind, things that arise in our mind, are not just due to past karma. Past karma is part of it. Okay? I will issue later I hope, because I think it's important to understand that in detail. Okay, so we've got the old karma, the new karma, and the end of karma. The end of karma is to, as I said this morning, lovingly study the field which I've just described, the field of receptive states and active states. Okay? So receptive states are states that are coming to you which are dependently co-arisen to karma and present circumstances and various other factors and present active karma.

[14:51]

To lovingly study that is the path to freedom from karma. And the loving, two synonyms for lovingly studying, one synonym is being upright. So in the middle of your karma, the receptive version and the active version in the middle of that karma, to be upright is the way to study it. So I said studying dharma, you see dharma, means studying karma in this upright fashion. Or another way I put it this morning was to lovingly study it. And another way to put it is to study it non-thinkingly.

[15:56]

So active karma actually is thinking. So you study your thinking with non-thinking. And non-thinking means that you're aware of your thinking, it's manifesting, and then now changing and manifesting again. You study the constantly, dependently co-arising thinking. You study it non-thinkingly, which means You give every moment your full attention and you don't manipulate the data of what you're observing at all. The current phenomena of thinking, the current shape of your mind, you observe it. No manipulation.

[17:02]

And if there's any wish to manipulate it, that wish is actually part of what you're studying rather than the way you're studying. So if you see a shape of your mind and there's a wish that it would be a different shape, that wish is actually part of the karmic field. It's not the way you study. It's more thinking. So if there's awareness of thinking plus thinking that the thinking should be different, that's just another twist on the thinking. I often use this example. I was in the airport one time. I think I was in the Tokyo airport. But I'm not sure. Anyway, it was an airport where there's lots of Japanese people. Because I saw this Japanese mother with her son. in the waiting area and her son was a toddler and he was running around among the various seats and so on and she didn't have him on a leash and she didn't tell him not to go any place and she didn't tell him to go any place he was actually a little karmic machine he was like wanting to go here and there and here and there

[18:26]

And he was going all, he was coddling all over the, you know, waiting area. And she was right behind him. Wherever he went, she was right behind him. So if he went towards an escalator or something, or called forward his head on a piece of furniture, or if he was going to, you know, anyway, get in trouble, she was right there to help him. But she wasn't restraining him or encouraging him at all. She was just attending to him. And maybe she wished she had a different kid. You know, a little kid that kind of like sitting in a chair, not moving. But he didn't sense that. She looked really neutral and like she really loved the kid and wanted to help the kid be in the airport, which is what the kid had to do. Thinking about it now, I think, you know, If you try to keep your kid in a chair, then the kid like, you know.

[19:29]

So the kid actually was expressing himself and having kind of a good time just being able to move around. But he wasn't much trouble because she was right there. Strain him, he might have caused more trouble for everybody. But as it turns out, it was quite an inspiration to see her devotion to help him like enjoy his time in his boring place. But it really wasn't boring because he knew what to do, just toddle. And she just was there to make toddling. That kind of attention is similar to the kind of attention that we can give to our own karma, in our mind, in our speech, and in our moving about. It's kind of like just loving attention. Or, since all of it is thinking-based, it's that kind of like just kind of sitting above your thinking and just being very aware of how it is without the slightest manipulation. This kind of presence with your thinking opens the door to like the way Buddha thinks.

[20:39]

And how does Buddha think? Well, Buddha thinks not... Buddha thinks... Not that there's any separate people. There's not any separate people in the Buddha's eyes. There's like Amanda and Bert. But Amanda is like totally in resonance with everybody else. And Bert's in total resonance. So the Buddha sees everybody interrelatedly. Plus also that the Buddha's totally interrelated with the two. And the Buddha's vision is supported by all these interrelated beings. So by seeing this kind of thinking that we usually do, and leaving it alone, you start to see that this thinking that we usually do is not something that's done by the individual, and that the thinking which is about the individual is also not about an individual. You see that the thinking supported by all beings, all the objects you think about are supported by all beings.

[21:43]

But you have to tune in to the realm of delusion in order for your eyes to open to the realm of reality. And it's hard to, it's hard to follow. You know, the slightest move, he might bump his head, you know. There's some anxiety involved there. So we might want to just like Strap them down in the chair so you don't have to worry. Get your mind under control. Or build a wall around yourself so that the threat you feel from everybody else who you think is not you will be ameliorated. These are things you might think to do, but that's not lovingly studying. Lovingly studying is to see, here's somebody who's anxious. Here's somebody who's trying to cope with power tripping. Here's somebody who's causing more trouble by that. And this is exactly what kind of trouble is being produced.

[22:47]

So it's not pleasant to see all the trouble that we're doing in the world, or that we imagine ourselves to be doing in the world. Accurately, seeing this, our eyes open to the illusory quality of it, to the dreamlike quality of it. And if we open to the dreamlike quality, we open to the real quality, which is that it's a dream. Who was it? I don't know, somebody. When you start to see, when you start to see that you are in a dream, you're on the verge of waking up. But now it's a dream, but it's an anxious dream. So, it's hard. That's why you need a lot of encouragement to do such a study. Yes.

[24:01]

Well, I grew up with that kid, you know. She's following the kid, she's not trying to restrain him. And she's not trying to get him to move. So, with your own, observing your own behavior, you don't, you don't indulge in it, and you don't try to reject it. As I was saying to somebody this morning, like in terms of like, the forms of practice, we have like a schedule, for the monastery. To be upright means to not indulge in the schedule or reject the schedule. To not identify with the schedule or disidentify with the schedule. To not, what do you call it, the word, One word against the schedule or conform.

[25:25]

So in Buddhist practice, we often offer a form to help us find what it is to be upright. The form helps us, right? So like it's a vertical surface here. offers me an opportunity to be upright. So I can touch it, and I touch it without leaning into it or leaning away from it. So if there's a monastic form of the schedule, to relate to the schedule, which we can call follow the schedule, without conforming to the schedule. Conforming means you bend yourself over to the schedule and maybe betray yourself by identifying the schedule. Does that make sense? To betray yourself to identify with the schedule? Natalie, you are not the schedule.

[26:30]

Okay? If you think you're the schedule, you betrayed something about Natalie. Which I can see, and you probably can see too. People identify with the schedule. That happens to some Zen students. They have a schedule. They identify with the schedule. And you personally insult them if you don't follow the schedule. Because they're the schedule. They're having a ball being the schedule. But they're not upright. They're identified with it. They conform to the schedule. Now, there are other Zen students who reject the schedule. They say, I'm not the schedule. But if you're not the schedule, why would you have to reject it? So if you really reject the form or conform to the form, you find this balanced place between rebellion and submission. And then the form gives you a chance to find, oh, I'm rebelling.

[27:37]

Rebellion is one is one way to lean away from being upright. And submission or conformity is another way to turn away from being upright. Same with this vertical surface. I can indulge in it, lean into it, or I can lean away from it. But to be upright, I'm in contact with it, either directly in contact or I sense it, and I'm using it as a way to find out what it means to be upright. And the same in relationship to a person. you can submit to somebody, identify with them, and betray yourself, rebel again, and also betray yourself. You still become a subject of the object by resisting, by rebelling. There's two forms of resistance. And the same applies to your own karma.

[28:39]

Bulging your karma and identify with it, or you can try to reject it. If you do either one of them, you can't see your karma clearly, and if you don't see your karma clearly, that's not what I call studying it. When you see it clearly, you'll see that it's not a thing by itself. But if you mess with it, you can't see that it's not a thing by itself, because you think that if you stop messing with it, it wouldn't be a thing by itself. You understand that? If you leave something alone, you can see that it's a thing by itself. Right? Because there it is by itself. But if you leave it alone by itself, you'll see that it's not a thing by itself. However, if you see a thing by itself and then you touch it or mess with it, you think it's not a thing by itself because I'm messing with it. You don't. that if you stop messing with it and thought it was a thing by itself, that it wouldn't be a thing by itself.

[29:45]

But when you leave things alone, then you can see that they're not alone. But if you mess with them, you'll never understand that they're not alone. Then you keep thinking, well, you know, they would be alone if I stopped messing with them. In other words, We do think things exist by themselves. That's our basic delusion. I think I exist over here by myself, and you exist separately by yourself. Now we have this lip service to interdependence, but really we don't believe it. We even have trouble imagining how a person wouldn't be a thing by itself. And we try sometimes, but basically... It's by admitting that you do see the thing by itself, and therefore you are involved with karma, that you can see that the thing by itself, when you actually let it be, when a thing is completely by itself, you see the whole world swirling around it, and therefore make it.

[30:51]

If you start messing with the thing, And if things start wiggling and turning with your messing, you think that it's a thing by itself. Interacting is because you're making this contribution. If you take your contribution away and just leave it alone, you realize that when you're leaving it alone, you're contributing too. And so is everything else. That's the way karma is. Karma is like that too. If not an independent thing, karma is a causal process. When you think things exist by themselves and you don't see them as causal processes, you're bound to them. You're enslaved by them. And you see them as causal processes, there's no place to get a hold. And no place for them to get a hold of you. So, working with a schedule, working with another person, working with your own activity, the same upright pattern, the same being upright, will reveal to you

[31:55]

what the thing really is. And what all things really are is a isolated thing. Nothing is. But you have to find your balance with it to find that. Okay? Make sense now? Yeah. It's dangerous. It's dangerous if I identify with part of my mother and then actually, if you're describing really non-sensical. So are there situations where you use spiritual pen in a certain way and take action from a place of, you know, guarding yourself and watching a farmer or that more?

[33:04]

I do, yeah. So she said, first of all, she said it may be dangerous to make a party at the top of the mother. So it would be dangerous to think a part of yourself as like somebody's mother, a certain mother. That would be dangerous to have both mothers in your head. But in fact they are in your head, so it would be dangerous to try to get rid of them. But those mothers are, they're the little powerhouse that's doing that. You already have part of yourself with that mother, that dangerous mother. So what we need is a good mother who works with a dangerous mother. And the good mother is not like any mother we've ever seen, except that Japanese woman in the airport. So I wasn't, who she really is, I didn't see. I just saw the activity of love.

[34:07]

So part of us is not that mother, but part of us is love. Our wisdom, our wise attitude towards me is loving. We respect what's happening, first of all. Even before we protect, we respect. Because you can't protect something before you respect it. If you try to protect it before you affect it, you're protecting what you... Respect means look again. Re-spect. Look again. If I try to protect one of you before I respect you, then I'm going to protect what I think you are, rather than who knows what you are. So, respecting, if you respect somebody, and you start to see them moving towards a dangerous situation, okay,

[35:12]

First of all, you think, oh, there's the person moving to a dangerous situation. Okay? That's not respect. That's just a... Okay? All right? No. Respect means you think, okay, it looks like they're moving towards a dangerous situation. I wonder if they are. I think I will ask, are you moving towards a dangerous situation? And say, what if this little kid can't talk? We go over them, but, you know, if you have a little bit of openness, then maybe it isn't dangerous. Because, again, some people think that unless that kid's, like, chained to the chair, you know, it's a dangerous situation. They don't think about the fact that maybe it's dangerous for the kid to be chained to the chair. They've decided what danger is. So part of the loving attitude is to have some openness there. And in that openness and respect, namely, I don't really know for sure what's good and bad.

[36:14]

From that place, activity spontaneously arises. And you reach and pull him back. Not ahead of time would be before he even moved, you know. which some parents do. They smother their kid with protection, and the kid are stunted because they can't do anything. And the kid, you know, gives a respectful attitude towards himself, conveyed by the parents who say, you know, you can't operate in the world because it's too dangerous. So, somehow, we have to, like, attend to our children, attend to our mind, closely, closely. And from that non-interference comes an action. But the action is not interfering. It's an expression of respect. You guide the person to the extent that is appropriate.

[37:23]

And when it's not appropriate anymore, you take away the guide. And you listen to them as to when they don't need it anymore. And sometimes they make mistakes. But that's your attempt, is to respect. And it's action emerging from respect. Buddha respects all beings. But Buddha interacts. Buddha talks. Buddha shakes hands. Buddha pats head. You know, Buddha listens. Buddha acts but out of respect, not out of control. Which is disrespectful to try to control things rather than assist them in blooming. Same with their own mind. Same with their own karma. rather than trying to control your karma, which is just karma itself, you watch in the midst of these kinds of karma, you know, in the midst of wholesome, unwholesome, and in the midst of karma.

[38:33]

In the midst of all that, there is this upright way of being, which is the same intention to drop this skillful and unskillful manipulation. Is that clear? Before you ask your question, is that clear? In the midst of all the different varieties there's a kind of way of being which Buddha called the fourth kind of karma which I call lovingly studying which I also call non-thinking which liberates the practitioner from these realms of karma

[39:36]

and opens the door. It isn't like you leave, go away from the world of karma and go practice over here. You practice right in the middle of all these controlling impulses. But you do it in this upright position with your eyes open to how grisly a scene it is and how much pain there is in this manipulative, disrespectful mode of existence, when your eyes open to the horrors, your eyes open to the beauty. The most horrible thing, actually, in a way, is ignoring how everybody's interdependent and making them into these little monsters. That's what monster means, you know? Mon-o-ster. We make everybody into monsters.

[40:38]

We disrespect their reality. It's terrible. And if you see that, you open your eyes to that basic thing, then you also open your eyes to the beautiful reality of being and the beautiful reality of your karma. So that's the kind of karma or the kind of karma which releases you from believing in karma. Yes? Compassion, another word for loving study? No. But you have to practice compassion as part of this loving study. Compassion is more that you...

[41:39]

is more wishing that it's fencing suffering, wishing that beings will be free of it. And great compassion is being willing to work to help beings be free of suffering. Right? An intention. There's an intention. There's a desire and compassion, yes, to help people wake up. But this posture of study is more closely related to wisdom. Without compassion, you're not going to be able to have that posture. And also, great compassion comes from that posture. So, it's more like a compassionate way of studying. What I'm talking about, a loving way of studying.

[42:48]

It's a way of studying. Yeah, it's a way of studying. Part of it is when we talk about the free person who is with people who are suffering, who are feeling anxiety, does that person feel the anxiety of the other people? Or do they just somehow know that it's there, but they don't? It seems to me like we kind of absorb, I tend to absorb feelings around me. So my question is, a person, a free person, who is interacting with a person who has anxiety, do they feel the anxiety?

[43:49]

The suffering. Or the suffering. Do they have empathy? They do have empathy. But empathy is not that you have their feeling, but you understand their feeling. So, for example, you would understand that if you saw everyone as attacking you, you would understand how you feel anxious. you'd empathize. Say, yeah, if I felt like everybody was going to attack me, I'd feel anxious, yeah. But you don't feel anxious. Well, because you don't see everybody as your enemy. This person feels that everybody's like, basically, you know, I'm kind of like, well, you know, when, you know, is it going to work out or not? When are they going to turn on me? That's what everybody really is thinking all the time. When is the world going to turn on me and devour me? I'm condemned by all these people. When are they going to, like, you know, condemn me for all my evil actions? When am I going to open my eyes and see how meaningless my existence is?

[44:50]

When are these people going to kill me? So if you don't see things that way and you meet somebody who does think that way, you don't start thinking that way. But you understand what it would be like if you did think that way. And also, it hurts you to see them suffering. But you don't feel anxiety when you see them suffering because you're not like threatened by suffering. Anxiety is like shaped by... Here's a short little for you, and that is study karma, see dharma. Or to say it again, study the world and see the world of dharma.

[46:04]

Sometimes we speak of the world, and the world often means the world of karma. And in the world of karma there's birth and death, there's self and other, there's joy, happiness, but even in joy there's anxiety. Because in the world of karma there's a separate self, and the separate self always feels anxious, at least unconsciously. But there's another world which is right there all the time, and it's called the dharma world, or the world of truth. And in that world there's not birth and death, and there's not self and other, and there's no anxiety.

[47:19]

in the sense of karma which the anxious individual does to protect herself from her anxiety. Okay? Is that all clear? Did you hear that? Huh? So what I'm saying is by studying the world of karma, by opening your eyes to the world of karma and how that works, your eyes open to the world of dharma. the dharma world, which works by the same basic principle as the world of karma, but with different... So the world, both worlds operate according to causal processes, but the causal processes, the elements and the conditions of the causal processes in the karma world and dharma world are different. In the carnal world, the elements are belief in independent existence, anxiety, belief in personal power.

[48:30]

And acting on that belief, try to cope with anxiety, produces a world of anxious, which we respond to by more power. It creates a stronger world. which again makes us feel we need to act against it or with it to manipulate it and this keeps it going and this is the world of birth and death. That's how it happens sort of in short. It's a world which is also in constant change and conditions are evolving all the time, but in that world There is not belief in self separate from other. There is not belief in personal power. There is no anxiety and there is no manipulation to avoid the anxiety which is not a reality. There is awareness of anxiety on the part of people who are still living in the world of karma. So in the world of dharma you can still sense and care about beings who are believing in their independent existence

[49:39]

fighting the situation that arises from the karma which they've done, and the various conditions of that world. You can still relate to that. So there can be compassion in the dharma world for beings that live in the karma world. Right there, and not someplace else, you can see that certain beings have a different perspective. and the beings who are living in the world of karma may or may not have started to study karma. If they study karma a little, they've laid the foundation for freedom from karma and freedom from the world which karma creates. If they study it a lot, more so, and if they study it completely, then they're free. So that's my proposal to you. And so today I'd like to say a little bit about how you study the world of karma and what it might be like to study the world of karma.

[51:01]

Studying the world of karma means being aware of being aware if you are perpetrating any actions. It means to be aware if you have any intentions. To be aware of your intentions is to be aware of what we call, what the Buddha called new karma. So I think the Buddha talked about new, old, new karma, no, karma and the cessation of karma so in the process of studying karma you deal with old karma and new karma and if you study the old and new karma you realize the cessation of karma so if

[52:10]

in a given moment, you might wonder, what is old karma? Old karma is basically your body and your mind. That's old karma. And new karma is your intention right now. So old karma, and by body we mean, what the Buddha means by body is the ability to see, which is called the eye, the ability to hear, the ear, the ability to smell, the taste, and touch, or to sense tangible things, and mind, in the sense of being able to receive and experience data. at the body and the mind. That's old karma.

[53:12]

In other words, that old karma is something which arises according to certain conditions and in past karma and is the basis for current feelings. It's called old karma, but really it's kind of a misnomer to call it karma. It's karmic result. Or it's a receptive state of being where you're in a receptive mode in terms of physical sensation or mental sensation. So strictly speaking, I think it's funny to call it old karma, but the Buddha did. Another way to talk about it, which I think is maybe clearer, but not as cute, is karmic resultants or karmic consequences in conjunction with various other factors giving us our current experience.

[54:33]

That's part of our life, and the other part is our intentions in that context. And that's what's called new karma, or, you know, actual karma per se. So if you look at what's going on with you, you're aware of what's going on with you, you may feel some states, you may not feel a clear intention, like if you're sitting in meditation, or standing in meditation, or walking in meditation, You hear the sound of the stream. Hearing the sound of the stream, that's what the Buddha called old karma, or that's a receptive state or experience which depends on past karma, but also depends on various other things like having your ear operating and having other sensations not be super strong so that you can hear the sound of the creek.

[55:37]

And also that serves as the basis for feelings. People have a nice feeling when they hear the sound of the creek. Some people don't, though. So if you're sitting and listening to the sound of the creek, you may feel, well, I don't see any karma. I don't see any clear intention. I don't want to do anything about that. Now, if you continue to watch yourself and notice that receptive state, you might eventually notice some intention to do something. Like, perhaps, you might want to close the doors so it's quieter. You might feel the intention to close the doors so it's quieter. And then I can say, well, I have to feel that intention and I actually want to close the doors. Look quieter.

[56:38]

So I can hear the conversation better. That is an example of thinking the shape of your mind and that's active new karma. Sitting with your legs crossed, you may have a sensation of pain in your knee. That sensation is something which arises according to various conditions, one of them being past action. The impulse tries, however, to continue to sit. You may say, I have pain in my knee, but I want to continue to sit in this posture. I think it's good to sit in this posture. I sit in this posture with the intention of developing various... So I will continue to sit here with that intention.

[57:43]

And that's active karma. Or you might have the intention, I think I will uncross my leg because I think that maybe I'm doing some harm to my knees. So I'm going to uncross my legs. And I'm doing that to my knees so I'll be able to sit some other day. and also be able to walk today. So those are examples of experiences that are arising in dependence on karma and experience and active karma that arises in the midst of our experience. In a big parenthesis, which I'll I won't open for a long time, but just for a moment, is if you notice I said that the experience you're having is arising in dependence on past karma. But the Buddha did not teach that the experience you're having right now is arising in dependence only on past karma.

[58:58]

Past karma is a contributing factor to how and what we experience. But it is not the only determinant of all the experience. It's just one important element, both in terms of our physical sensation and mental feelings and emotions and mind, things that arise in our mind, are not just due to past karma. Past karma is part of it. Okay? I will expand that issue later I hope. I think it's important to understand that in detail. Okay, so we got the old karma, the new karma, and the end of karma. The end of karma is to, as I said this morning, lovingly study the field which I've just described.

[59:59]

Receptive states and active states. Okay? So receptive states are states that are coming to you which are dependently co-arisen, dependent on past karma and present circumstances and various other factors and present active karma. To lovingly study that is the path to freedom from karma. And the loving... Two synonyms for lovingly... One synonym is being upright. So in the middle of your karma, the receptive version and the active version in the middle of being upright is the way to study it.

[61:03]

So I said studying dharma, studying karma, you see dharma, means studying karma in this situation. Or another way I put it this morning was to lovingly study it. And another way to put it is to study it non-thinkingly. So karma actually, active karma actually is thinking. So you study your thinking with non-thinking. And non-thinking means that you're aware of your thinking, whatever way it's manifesting, and then now changing and manifesting again. It's constantly, dependently co-arising thinking. You study it non-thinkingly, which means You give every moment your full attention and you don't manipulate the data of what you're observing at all.

[62:18]

The current phenomena of thinking, the current shape of your mind, you observe it with no manipulation. to manipulate it, that wish is actually part of what you're studying, rather than the way you're studying. So if you see a shape of your mind, and there's a wish that it would be a different shape, that wish is actually part of the karmic field. It's not the . It's more thinking. So if there's awareness of thinking, plus thinking that the thinking should be different, that's just another twist on the thinking. So I often use this example. I was in an airport one time, Tokyo Airport. But I'm not sure. Anyway, it was an airport where there's lots of Japanese people.

[63:29]

Because I saw this Japanese mother with her son in the waiting area. And her son was a toddler and he was running around. among the various seats and so on. And she was just, and she didn't have him on a leash. And she didn't tell him not to go anyplace. And she didn't tell him to go anyplace. He had, he was actually a little karmic machine. He was like wanting to go here and there. And he was going all, he was paddling all over the, you know, waiting area. And she was right behind him. Wherever he went, she was right behind him. So if he went for an escalator or something, or if he was going to call forward his head on a piece of furniture, or if he was... Anyway, get in trouble. She was right there to help him. But she wasn't restraining him or encouraging him at all.

[64:29]

She was just attending to him. And maybe she wished he had a different kid. You know, a little kid that kind of like... sitting in the chair, not moving, but he didn't sense that. She looked really neutral and like she really loved the kid and wanted to help the kid be in the airport, which is what the kid had to do. I think, you know, if you try to keep your kid in a chair, then the kid like, you know, So the kid actually was expressing himself and having kind of a good time just being able to move around. But he wasn't much trouble because she was right there. If she had tried to restrain him, he might have caused more trouble for everybody. But as it turned out, it was quite an inspiration to see her devotion to help him, like, enjoy his time in his boring place. But it really wasn't boring because he knew what to do, just toddle.

[65:32]

And she just was there to make toddling safe. That kind of attention is similar to the kind of attention to our own karma, in our mind, in our speech, and in our moving about. It's kind of like just loving attention. Or, since all of our karma is really thinking-based, it's that kind of like just kind of sitting above your thinking, just being very aware of how it is, without the slightest manipulation. This kind of presence, what you're thinking, opens the door to, like, the way Buddha thinks. And how does Buddha think? Well, Buddha thinks not that there's any separate people. There's not any separate people in the Buddha's eyes. There's, like, a man there, and birds. But Amanda is like totally in resonance with everybody else. And Bert's in total resonance with Amanda who's in resonance.

[66:37]

So the Buddha sees everybody plus also that the Buddha's totally interrelated with the two and the Buddha's vision is supported by all these interrelated beings. So by seeing this the kind of thinking that we usually do and leaving it alone that this thinking that we usually do is not something that's done by the individual, and that the thinking which is about the individual is also not about an individual. You see that the thinking is supported by all beings, plus what you're thinking about, all the objects you think about, are supported by all beings. But you have to tune into the realm of delusion in order for your eyes to open to the realm of reality. And it's hard to follow a kid around the airport. You know, if he doesn't move, he might bump his head, you know.

[67:42]

There's some anxiety involved there. So we might want to just, like, strap him down to the chair so he doesn't have to worry. Get your mind under control, you know, or Build a wall around yourself so that everybody else who you think is not you will be ameliorated. These are things you might think to do, but that's not lovingly studying. Lovingly studying is to see, here's somebody who's anxious. Here's somebody who's trying to cope with the anxiety by power tripping. Here's somebody who's causing more trouble by it. And this is exactly what kind of trouble is being produced. So it's not pleasant to see all the trouble that we're doing in the world, or that we imagine ourselves to be doing in the world. But by accurately seeing this, we open to the illusory quality of it, to the dreamlike quality of it.

[68:44]

And if we open to the dreamlike quality, we open to the real quality, which is that it's a dream. And somebody said, who was it? I don't know, somebody. When you start to see that you are in a dream, you're on the verge of waking up. But now it's a dream, but it's an anxious dream. So it's hard. A lot of encouragement to do such a study. Yes. Well, like with that kid, you know.

[69:48]

She's following the kid. She's not trying to restrain him. And she's not trying to get him to move. So, with your own... observing your own behavior... you don't indulge in it, and you don't try to reject it. As I was saying to somebody this morning, in terms of forms of practice here, we have a schedule for the monastery. To be upright means to not indulge in the schedule, or reject the schedule. To not identify with the schedule. To not, what do you call it, the word, what's that word?

[70:53]

One word, to not rebel against the schedule or conform to it. So in Buddhist practice, we often offer a form to help us find what it is to be upright. The form helps us, right? So like this vertical surface here offers me an opportunity to be upright. So I can touch it, and I touch it without leaning into it or leaning away from it. So if there's a monastic form of the schedule, can you relate to the schedule, which we can call, quote, follow the schedule, without conforming to the schedule? Conforming means you bend yourself over to the schedule and maybe betray yourself by identifying with the schedule. Does that make sense?

[71:57]

If you betray yourself to identify with the schedule, Natalie, you are not the schedule. Okay? If you think you're the schedule, you've betrayed something about Natalie. Which I can see, and you probably can see too. But sometimes people identify with the schedule. That happens to some sense duties. They identify with the schedule, and you personally insult them if you don't follow the schedule. Because they're the schedule. They're having a ball being the schedule. But they're not upright. They're identified with it. They have conformed to the schedule. Now, the other Zen students reject the schedule. They say, I'm not the schedule. But if you're not the schedule, why would you have to reject it? So if you're really yourself, you don't have to reject the form or conform to it.

[73:00]

You find this balanced place between rebellion and submission. And then the form gives you a chance to find, oh, I'm rebelling. Rebellion is one form of resistance. It's one way to lean away from being upright. Submission or conformity is another way to turn away from being upright. Same with this vertical surface. I can indulge in it, lean into it, or I can lean away from it. But to be upright, I'm in contact with it, either directly in contact or I sent it, and I'm using it as a way to find out what it's like. And the same in relationship to a person. You can submit to somebody, identify with them, and betray yourself. Or you can rebel again and also betray yourself. you still become a subject of the object by resistance, by rebellion.

[74:07]

There's two forms of resistance. Okay? Does that make sense? And the same applies to your own karma. You can indulge in your karma and identify with it, or you can try to reject it. If you do either one of them, you can't see your karma clearly, and if you don't see your karma clearly, that's not what I call studying it. When you see it clearly, you'll see... that it's not a thing by itself. But if you mess with it, you can't see that it's not a thing by itself because you think that if you stop messing with it, it wouldn't be a thing by itself. You understand that? If you leave something alone, you can see that it's a thing by itself. Right? Because there it is by itself. If you leave it alone by itself, you'll see that it's not a thing by itself. However, if you see a thing by itself and then you touch it or mess with it, you think, it's not a thing by itself because I'm messing with it.

[75:14]

You don't understand that if you stop messing with it and thought it was a thing by itself, that it wouldn't be a thing. But when you leave things alone, then you can see that they're not alone. But if you mess with them, you'll never understand that they're not alone. Then you keep thinking, well, you know, they would be alone if I stopped messing with them. In other words, we do think things exist. That's our basic delusion. I think I exist over here by myself, and you exist separately by yourself. Now, we have this lip service to independence, but really we don't believe it. We even have trouble imagining how a person wouldn't be a thing by himself. And we try sometimes, but basically, it's by admitting that you do see the thing by itself, and therefore you are involved with karma, that you can see that the thing by itself, when you actually let it be, you'll see that it isn't.

[76:16]

When a thing is completely by itself, you see it swirling around it, and therefore make it. If you start messing with the thing, and the thing starts wiggling and turning with your messing, you think that it's a thing by itself, and the only reason why it's interacting is because you're making this contribution. If you take your contribution and just leave it alone, you realize that when you're leaving it alone, you're contributing too. And so is everything else. That's the way karma is. Karma is like that too. In other words, karma is not an independent thing. Karma is a causal process. When you think things exist by themselves and you don't see them as causal processes, you're bound to them. You're enslaved by them. And you see them as causal processes, there's no place to get a hold. And no place for them to get a hold of you. So, working with a schedule, working with a person, working with your own activity, the same being upright will reveal to you

[77:28]

what the thing really is. And what all things really are is that they're not isolated things. Nothing is. But you have to find your balance with it to find that. Okay? Make sense now? Yes? It's dangerous. It's dangerous to identify the part of myself as the mother. And actually, it is describing really non-sensical. So are there situations where you use spiritual pen in a certain way and take action from a place along the garden, you know, guarding yourself and watching our farmer adapt more?

[78:39]

I do, yeah. So she said, first of all, she said it may be dangerous to make a part of yourself as a mother. Okay. So... And actually, I could see in myself there would be another who'd change it, but he doesn't allow that. So it would be dangerous to think a part of yourself is like somebody's mother. Certain mothers. That would be dangerous to have both mothers in your head. But in fact, they are in your head, so it would be dangerous to try to get rid of them. As a matter of fact, those mothers are where there's a little powerhouse that's doing stuff. You already have part of yourself. You're that mother, that dangerous mother. So what we need is a good mother who works with a dangerous mother. And a good mother is not like any mother we've ever seen, except that Japanese woman in the airport. Who wasn't, I wasn't, who she really is, I didn't see, I didn't see, of love. So part of us is not that mother, but part of us is love.

[79:47]

Our, you know, our wisdom is, A wise attitude towards me is lowly. In other words, we respect what's happening. Even before we protect and respect. Because you can't protect something before you respect it. If you try to protect it before you respect it, you're protecting what you think of it. Respect means look again. Look again. If I try to protect one of you before I respect you, then I'm going to protect what I think you are, rather than who knows what you are. So, respecting, if you respect, and you start to see them moving towards a dangerous situation, okay, First of all, you think, oh, there's the person moving to a dangerous situation.

[80:52]

Okay? That's not respect. That's just an opinion you have. Okay? All right? But no. Respect means you think, okay, it looks like they're moving towards a dangerous situation. I wonder if they are. I think I will ask, are you moving towards a dangerous situation here? And say, well, this little thing can't talk. Okay? You go over there, but, you know, you're not so sure of it. If you have a little bit of openness, then maybe it isn't dangerous. Some people think that unless that kid's chained to the chair, it's in a dangerous situation. They don't think about the fact that maybe it's dangerous for the kid to be chained to the chair. Because they've decided what danger is. So part of gratitude is to have some openness there, and in that openness and respect, namely... I don't really know for sure what's good and bad. From that place, activity spontaneously arises.

[81:53]

You reach over and pull him back. Ahead of time would be before he even moved, you know, which some parents do. They mother their kid with protection and the kid are stunted. because they can't do anything, and the kids get this disrespectful attitude towards themselves, which is conveyed by their parents. You can't operate in the world because it's too dangerous. So, somehow, we have to attend to our children, attend to our mind, closely, closely, without interfering. And from that non-interference, but the action is not interfering. It's an expression of respect. You guide the person to the extent that is appropriate, and when it's not appropriate, it's the only way to guide.

[83:03]

And you listen to them as to when they don't need it anymore. And sometimes they make mistakes. But that's your attempt, is to respect. And it is action emerging from respect. Buddha respects all beings, but Buddha interacts, Buddha talks, Buddha shakes hands, Buddha pats head, Buddha lifts the foot and sets it down. Buddha acts, but out of respect, not out of control. which is disrespectful to try to control things rather than assist them in blooming. Same with your own mind. Things don't come. Rather than trying to control your karma, you watch in the midst of these kinds of karma, you know, in the midst of wholesome, unwholesome, and karma.

[84:09]

In the midst of all that, There is this upright way of being, which is the same as the intention to drop and unskillful manipulation. Is that clear? Before you ask your question, is that clear? In the midst of all the different varieties of karma, there's a kind of way of being, which Buddha called the fourth kind of karma, I call lovingly studying, which I also call non-thinking, which liberates the practitioner from these realms of karma.

[85:12]

and opens the door to reality. It isn't like you leave, go away, and go practice over here. You practice right in the middle of all these controlling impulses. But you do it in this upright fashion so that your eyes open to how grisly a scene it is, and how much pain there is in this manipulative, disrespectful mode of existence, when your eyes open to the horrors, your eyes open to the beauty. The most horrible thing, actually, in a way, is ignoring how everybody's... and making them into these little monsters. That's what monster means, you know. Monster. We make everybody into monsters.

[86:13]

We disrespect their radiance and their beauty. It's terrible. And if you see that, you open your eyes to that basic thing, then you also open your eyes to the beautiful reality of being and the beautiful reality of your karma. So that's, in a sense, the fourth kind of karma or the kind of karma which releases you from Is compassion another word for this loving study? Is compassion another word for loving study? No. But you have to practice compassion as part of this loving study. Compassion is more that you

[87:15]

is more wishing, is fencing suffering, wishing that beings will be free of it. And great compassion is being willing to work to help beings be free of suffering. So there's an intention. Right? An intention and compassion. An intention, there's a desire and compassion, yes, to help people wake up. But this posture of study is more closely related to wisdom. But without compassion, you're not going to be able to have that posture. And also, great compassion comes from that posture. So it's more like a compassionate way of studying That's what I'm talking about.

[88:23]

A loving or compassionate approach to children. But the way of studying is separate. Yeah, it's a way of studying. The other part of it is, when we talk about the degree who is with people who are suffering, who are feeling anxiety, does that person feel the anxiety? Does that person feel the anxiety of the other people? Or does that person somehow know that it's there, but they don't? It seems to me like we kind of absorb, I tend to absorb feelings around me. You know, so much stress. Does a person, a free person, who is interacting, with a person who has anxiety, do they feel the anxiety?

[89:24]

The suffering. Or the suffering. Do they have empathy? They do have empathy. But empathy is not that you have their feelings, but you understand their feelings. For example, you would understand that if you saw everyone as attacking you, you would understand how you feel anxious. you'd empathize. Say, yeah, if I felt like everybody was going to attack me, I'd feel anxious, yeah. But you don't feel anxious. Well, because you don't see everybody as your enemy. This person feels that everybody's like, basically, you know, I'm kind of like, well, you know, when, you know, is it going to work out or not? When are they going to turn on me? That's what everybody really is thinking all the time. When is the world going to turn on me and devour me? When am I going to be condemned by all these people? When are they going to, like, you know, condemn me for all my sins? When am I going to open my eyes and see how meaningless my existence is? When are these people going to kill me?

[90:27]

So if you don't see things that way and you meet somebody who does think that way, you don't start thinking that way. But you understand what it would be like if you did think that way. And also, it hurts you to see them suffering. But you don't feel anxiety when you see them suffering because you're not like threatened by suffering. Anxiety is like you're pushed out of shape by it.

[90:57]

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