An ancient Zen teacher, can you hear me, Deirdre? Said that to study the Buddha way is to study the self. And to study the self is to forget the self. And to forget the self is to be enlightened by everything. And to be enlightened by everything means to drop off the body and mind of self and others. Okay? Did you hear that? That make sense? Another way to say this would be that word, you know, study is an interesting actually Chinese word originally.

[01:16]

And it's a character which has wings, two little wings. And it's a character which means to study, but also it means this kind of study that baby birds do with their parents. Like they sit and they sit in the nest and they fly and they go, and then someday they jump out of the nest and it's kind of imitation learning, that kind of learning that they do. As far as we know, the mother bird and the father bird don't say, now, you know, really work those, now work those, work those little wings there, spread them out. And it's mostly like they just fly and the kids watch. So it's a kind of learning or a kind of study, but it's that kind of study. So you could also say learn, to learn the Buddha way is to learn the self.

[02:17]

You could add a possessive pronoun in there if you want to. Like you could say, to learn the Buddha way is to learn about yourself. with or without the possessive pronoun anyway, it's the self around, learning about the self, the Buddha way. And to learn about the self is to forget the self. At the beginning of learning about the self, you still remember the self, and you're trying to learn about it, but when you actually learn about it, you understand it, you forget it. And when you forget the self, then everything makes your life. Everything makes your day. Everything wakes you up. Everything encourages you. Everything gives you life. Which we are anyway.

[03:21]

It's just that because we don't understand the self, we sometimes think what's happening is not helping us, is not lifting us up. is not realizing us, is not enlightening us, because we don't understand the self. Because we don't understand the self. Another way to translate that word, you know, to study, learn, is model. Like imitate. To study, to learn, to model the Buddha way, is to model yourself. Or even to imitate the Buddha way is to imitate yourself. And to imitate yourself is to forget yourself. When you forget yourself, ultimately, when you thoroughly imitate yourself, there's no self left.

[04:25]

You can't remember it. Where was that self again? Oh, it's here. It's just the self. You can't remember it. And when you have thus forgotten the self, then everything enlightens the self. Imitating the self completely drops the body and mind of self and of it. So in some ways, studying the Buddha way is to imitate the self. and forget yourself. Now, talking about karma here, take the word karma and put it right in with yourself. To study the Buddha way is to study karma.

[05:34]

To study karma is to forget karma. When you forget karma, everything enlightens you. Or everything is enlightening. Once again, to learn the Buddha way is to learn karma. To learn karma is to forget karma. To study the Buddha way, to imitate the Buddha way, is to model karma. And so on. When you model karma, when you imitate karma, you forget karma. Okay? So, how do you study? How do you study? How do you imitate? How do you imitate yourself? How do you learn? about yourself or learn yourself.

[06:38]

Well, yesterday I said what I said about how you study. Yesterday. By non-thinking. Particularly, non-thinking is particularly useful in studying karma. Non-thinking means being unprejudiced. Non-thinking means you're studying a physics book and somebody comes and takes the physics book away and puts a comic book in front of you. Okay. They take the comic book away and put a Buddhist scripture in front of you. You study that. Or maybe you even study their hands. You study whatever's happening. You have no prejudice. Another word I used for non-thinking was lovingly, respectfully.

[07:49]

And lovingly doesn't mean you like what you're studying or dislike what you're studying. It means you study it. You look at it, you listen to it, you smell it, you have thoughts about it. The basic definition of karma is thinking. So to study karma means to study thinking. To study the Buddha way is to study thinking. And thinking means not just like intellectual thinking. Thinking in this case refers to the whole pattern of your consciousness which includes all your feelings at the moment or feeling, all emotions and dispositions, conceptions, all attitudes of practice like concentration, diligence or lack thereof, greed, hate and delusion, all those things that a mind can come up with at a given moment.

[09:10]

That whole pattern is called, in Sanskrit, cetana, which means the overall pattern, coordinated synergy or interactive shape of a moment of thought, a moment of consciousness. That's thinking. To study the Buddha way is to study your mind, to see how it is. to see the individual elements, to see how they interrelate, to see what shapes or directions they have. That's thinking and that's the basic definition, the source of, the basic definition of karma, the source of karma, mental karma. Vocal karma emerged from thinking. Sometimes there is no vocal or physical karma. There's just mental karma.

[10:12]

Sometimes the mental karma, the thinking, is not clearly directed anywhere. In that case, the karma is indeterminate, unclear, neutral. Other times, the karma, the shape of the mind, the thinking, is very sharply defined, very clearly directed in a skillful, beneficial shape. This is skillful thinking, beneficial thinking. And sometimes it's shaped in a very unskillful, self-destructive way, in a way that doesn't help anybody. And most of all, the most unskillful shape of the mind to be in is a shape that's conducive to not being able to study itself. And the most beneficial shape of the mind is a mind which is shaped in such a way as the mind can be aware of itself. In other words, a mind that can study thinking.

[11:18]

So, studying thinking is to study the Buddha way. Learning about thinking is to learn about the Buddha way. Modeling thinking, not trying to think a certain way, but modeling the thinking that's actually going on is to forget the thinking that's going on, to be liberated from the thinking that's going on, to be liberated from karma. So I mentioned that in some scriptures the Buddha talks about four kinds of karma, the positive, the negative, or sometimes the black, the white, and the wholesome, the unwholesome, and the mixture. And a fourth kind of karma, which is among, which is right in the midst of these other kinds of karma, but which is the intention or the type of karma which is intending to forget or abandon all kinds of karma. It's that kind of karma.

[12:22]

That kind of thinking, which is in the midst of all kinds of thinking, the intention to abandon all kinds of thinking. But it isn't just throwing out the window, it's to abandon them or drop them by understanding them. When you understand thinking, you drop thinking. When thinking is understood, thinking is dropped. When thinking is understood, everything enlightens the area of understanding. And again, how do you study the thinking? You study the thinking. What's non-thinking? It's this way of thinking. It's not really a way of thinking. It's an attitude of being upright. Given this kind of thinking, hello. Given that kind of thinking, given this kind of thinking, hello.

[13:25]

Hello. Not, oh, I like you, I don't like you. That's just thinking. It's like, oh, I like you. Oh, we have, oh, I like you. Oh, I don't like you. Oh, we have, oh, I don't like you. Oh, this is amazing. This is amazing. Everything is respected. Everything is like, hey, okay, let's work with this. Let's work with this. Let's work with this. The other night at dinner... there were some very good vegetables and they ran out. And I said to, I said to, or Heather noticed that they ran out and said, would you like some more? And brought some more. And she said, sorry, we don't only have this much of, you know, of the these onions and these zucchinis. And somebody at the table, I won't say who, said, we can work with that.

[14:28]

And the other people at the table thought, said, hmm, yeah, we can work with that. Somebody by that comment. That's non-thinking. Non-thinking, we can work with this. This is like, you know, this is like, this is what we can work with. This is what we can study in order to be free. This thinking. Now, if you ask a Buddha, and Buddhists have been asked, one time a Buddha was sitting in meditation, sitting still, and one of his students came up to him and said, when you're sitting still like that, what kind of thinking is going on? And he said, Thinking of not thinking. In other words, I would say, vis-a-vis this conversation today, I'm thinking in the midst of having forgotten what thinking is. Thinking has been forgotten.

[15:34]

And the monk says, well, how can you get thinking? Or how can you think of not thinking? And he said, non-thinking. Non-thinking. The thinking of the Buddha, the Buddha's thinking is like thinking that's... The Buddha's thinking, but the Buddha's forgotten the thinking. There's like no, you know, thing. But there's thinking, like Buddha's thinking is like everybody's thinking in the universe. How can you remember that? Well, you can't. But everybody's thinking enlightens you, enlightens the Buddha. Everybody's thinking realizes the Buddha. But the Buddha's not doing this kind of thinking or that kind of thinking or not doing that kind of thinking and doing this kind of thinking. The Buddha's Thinking inconceivably. The Buddha's thinking is the entire universe. How do you think like that? By non-thinking. How do you, where do you apply the non-thinking? Okay, where do you apply it?

[16:38]

Better get this. Where do you apply the non-thinking? Thinking. So Zazen, the practice of Zen meditation of the Buddhas is the thinking that's going on is thinking of not thinking, is forgotten thinking, arises in conjunction with non-thinking about thinking. So in the Zazen mind, there's thinking like, you know, there's like my thinking, your thinking, you know, there's a thinking that's going on like around your body. There's a thinking in your neighbor's thinking, you know. And there's your neighbor's neighbor's thinking. There's thinking. All this thinking. That's zazen. That's in zazen. And then there's non-thinking about that thinking. There's a loving study of that thinking. Whatever thinking is available. You've got some thinking in your own head. Lovingly study that. It isn't like not lovingly studying it. It's not like not studying it. You are actually studying what's going on with you.

[17:43]

It's not just that things are going on with you. You are aware of it, and you are lovingly aware of it. You don't wish you were different. Well, you do wish you were different, but that's your thinking. So you're sitting there, I wish I was different. Somebody's sitting there saying, oh, he wishes he was different. How amazing that he wishes he was different. I don't wish he was different. So even though you're thinking about ways to be different, that's your thinking. And there's also just non-thinking about that thinking. Okay? Non-thinking about your thinking opens the door to the thinking which is everybody's thinking, which is Buddha's mind. And this thinking goes according to certain rules, and these rules by which the thinking works are called the laws of karma. Which, you know, we can talk about. But first of all, I just want to try to make clear how you become enlightened.

[18:49]

You've all got karma and the laws are right there. If you can lovingly study the karma, which means thinking, you will become free of that thinking. You'll know the laws, you'll learn the laws, But just learning the laws is not enough, because then you still could be learning the laws and be in the prison of the laws. You learn the laws, and when you learn the laws, you become free of the laws. Not by destroying them, but by... Because actually, there is no such thing as self. There's just the whole universe. There is no such thing as your thinking. There's everybody's thinking. Okay? So... Maybe that's enough. Did you understand how to study now? And do you know what to study? And do you know what's in store for you if you do study? The word modeling.

[19:54]

Modeling it? Yeah. Could you either give an example? Could I give an example? Yeah. Yeah, how that would work because... I don't know, with things like, well, imitation comes in and there's sort of like, well, parody comes in. I could learn from that. Or miming my own thinking. Parodying your own thinking? Miming your own thinking? A satire on your own thinking? A satire on my own thinking. Do these kind of perverted versions of modeling. That's fine. With a little humor, you know? Well, what do you have in mind? Well, you could do that stuff too, right? Yeah. kind of work up to like just simply imitation by doing parodies limericks uh mimes pantomimes nanomimes whatever you know satires various versions of gradually settling down to like actually like simply being yourself yeah and that's actually what learning is is to actually simply be what's happening usually with ourself

[20:59]

Self is always up to, like, you know, making itself better or worse. Usually trying to make itself better, but if it thinks it's dangerous to be better, then it tries to make itself worse. Basically, the self is always trying to, like, you know, protect itself because it feels anxious and afraid that it's under threat from the other. So the self is like, you know, doing things for itself and whoever else will help it. Right? That's the activity of the self. total public relations and private relations. Always trying to manipulate and maneuver and finagle and finesse and that's the activity of self. That's thinking. Sometimes it's skillful, sometimes it's destructive. But even when it's skillful, you're still basically a selfish, skillful operator. what's to study, what's to imitate, instead of, like, make it a little bit better, or make it a little bit more socially acceptable, or make it a little bit more enlightened, or make it a little bit more Buddhist, or make it a little bit more Taoist, or make it a little bit more male, a little bit more female, a little fatter, a little skinnier, instead of, like, doing that, which is more of the same, just, like, get with what is actually and how it's actually happening.

[22:19]

Learn from doing anything. That's a kind of karma which is basically intending to drop the karma. And how do you drop the karma? By completely becoming completely congruent with it. The congruence is not doing anything. It is actually enacting another mode of existence called non-manipulation, called love. Of what? Well, how about who you are? Of all things. And any other self, you don't try to be like other people. You just model your mind on them, which means you try to understand them rather than get them to be different. Try to wrap your mind around the way they are. You wrap your mind around the way it is. Model your thinking on your thinking.

[23:21]

And when you do that, the thinking doesn't hold together anymore. The self doesn't hold together and everything is just working together. And everything helps everything. But you can sort of, if you don't know how to like, a lot of people don't know how to like just be, you know, do a skit about yourself. Do various, you know, side, you know, come at it from the side, from the top. Get a twisted humor. Whatever way you can approach it, get close to it. There's millions of ways, whether that song is 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover. Okay? You know that song? Out the back. There's 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover. There's innumerable ways to meet your lover. There's innumerable ways to meet yourself, to face yourself. There's innumerable ways to meet your karma. Any way you can get intimate with your karma. Any way you can get intimate with it. Karma, again, is to do more karma.

[24:25]

Fine. That's not going to stop for a while. That's not going to stop until you're pretty enlightened. Enlightened pretty. Pretty. What you do is you got karma going on and you got to get intimate with it. Any way you can get close to it. And intimate with it doesn't mean indulge in it. And it doesn't mean to rebel against it. So to be upright with your karma, dance with your karma. If your karma pushes on you, you know, push it back about the same amount. If it leans away, okay, I'll lean away. But that's not really like rejecting and rebelling. It's more like just, you know, interacting. What's intimate? What's a balanced relationship? What's a loving relationship? You grow up, you struggle with this kind of intimacy with this thing called self.

[25:27]

And the same thing, intimacy with this phenomena called volitional action. Okay? Okay? Any way you can do it. All is fair. This process. Okay? There was somebody over there? Yeah. Let's see, who has raised their hands now? Bump, bump, bump, bump, bump. Okay. One point, and you said several times, non-thinking about thinking. What you said, but that's falling on in conjunction with thinking about non-thinking. Say it again? I said what? You said several times, and I think I say that because I think I comprehend what you mean, non-thinking about thinking. You use non-thinking to study your thinking. You said, but that's going on in conjunction with thinking about non-thinking. I think you were talking about being in the center.

[26:28]

I know you said that, but you don't have to think about non-thinking. You can do that if you want. You can think about whatever you want to, including... Non-thinking. But I wasn't really suggesting you think about non-thinking, except you have to remind yourself to practice non-thinking. Okay. Okay. So, you got the thinking. Everybody's got the thinking. You got the thinking. I got the thinking. Everybody's got thinking. Okay? That's not a problem. What we need is the non-thinking. Actually, we got the thinking, and we also got the thinking about Buddhist thinking, and we got the regular individual... deluded persons thinking. We got both of those. What we need to do is to bring the Buddhist thinking in close contact with the persons thinking. The way that you bring the Buddhist thinking and the persons thinking together is non-thinking. Okay? The way you bring the Buddhist activity together with individual deluded karma is by lovingly studying the karma.

[27:30]

Okay? So in your case, you brought the example of study yourself and you weren't non-thinkingly studying. Right. You were like thinkingly studying your thinking. Right. So you got to like non-thinkingly study your thinking. Okay? You got it. I think Salvi and then Greg and then John and then Elka. Lately... Doing Zazen? In other words, lately while you're thinking? It comes up my mother's, her health is weak. So I was raised... So you're thinking about your mother's health? She comes up, yeah, my mother's. That's the object of your thinking? Correct. So I... Something comes to me about praying for her, and I've been doing some praying in Zazen. Yes. And it feels to me that... What kind of praying?

[28:36]

I don't know the words in English, but it's... That's beautiful thinking. So I say these prayers, and it seems to me that while I'm saying, I am not thinking. So I've allowed myself to say these prayers. While you're saying you're not thinking, you say? I believe that when I say these prayers, I am not thinking. I'm just saying the prayers. Maybe so. That would be like non-thinking, just saying the prayers. In other words, you just let the prayers be the prayers. Okay? Just let the thinking be the thinking. That's non-thinking. The thinking's the thinking. The thinking's not non-thinking. It's the letting the thinking be the thinking that's the non-thinking. So if you're praying, the praying isn't non-thinking. Praying's a little bit, you know, karmic.

[29:37]

We got there. I don't know if people who speak Spanish think it's that beautiful. They probably do too. Because it's really Latin, isn't it? Anyway, it's a lovely prayer. It's lovely thinking. It's wholesome thinking. It's skillful thinking. Okay? But the letting that thinking just be non-thinking. So you can both have a nice prayer for your mother, plus... you can have non-thinking at the same time. So when in Zazen, some people are doing some thinking that they don't think is very good thinking. They think it's like, strictly speaking, not regular like Zendo thinking. They feel a little guilty. Well, okay, whatever. But if you let that like non-official Zen thoughts that you're having just be non-official Zen thoughts, with your, like, perverted thoughts.

[30:44]

And that non-thinking can open the door to Buddha's thinking right in the middle of your heretical activity. Or your, you know, orthodox activity. Either way, you know. Do you understand? The prayer is thinking. No. No. Non-thinking, there wouldn't be any prayer. It's the observing in a very loving and unprejudiced way. It's not the observing and thinking and saying something about it like, you know, blah, blah, blah. It's like there's the thinking and there's nothing else. But that nothing added or subtracted, there's a presence there. You know? you know, the key that opens the door to a thinking from where that prayer comes from.

[31:47]

The source of that loving prayer is a mind much bigger than that prayer. Could not be the source of it? Well, it's not the source, but when you understand the prayer, you realize there isn't a prayer there, and then that's the source. She wants to do something. Let her do it. Yes, she will. Just kidding. There you go. And your son comes out and you say, oh, my God, I'm praying. You're not a Buddhist. You say, oh, my God, I'm praying. I'm not supposed to be praying. Right. You're not supposed to be praying. Because you're in the sin. And I come over and say, what are you doing? And you say, I'm sorry, I'm praying. But I'm just praying.

[32:47]

And I have no prejudice. I'm one stop. I'm not attached to my praying. What is the non-thinking? I just showed you what it was. I know, but I can't get it. Do it again, do it again. Well, it's like having a sense of humor about your praying. That's part of it. Okay, so part of it is, oh God, you know. That's thinking. That's thinking. Thinking is, I'm praying, oh my God, I'm praying. Oh, I shouldn't be praying. That's all thinking. Okay. So what's the non-thinking? What's the right behavior, right non-thinking? It's not so much the right, it's not the right or wrong. It is the door to enlightenment way. Which is? Which is, whatever kind of thinking you're doing, And I'll stay close to you no matter how you think. And I won't try to change you at all.

[33:50]

No matter where you go, I'll go with you. No matter what you think, I'll always be there. prejudice whatsoever about what you're thinking, including that you have this prejudice and that prejudice. I'm not prejudiced about your prejudices. I'm not even prejudiced about being unprejudiced. So, that's why to study the thinking is to not take it seriously. Then everything that happens, including your praying, including your being guilty about praying, including your standing up for your prayers, all that stuff, everything's enlightening. So you sit there, you sit there and you can pray. Right, oops, wrong, oops, right, oops, wrong. All that can happen from now, from here to eternity. Every step of the way, there's non-thinking. Loving study.

[34:52]

Oh, now she thinks she's doing this. Now she thinks she's doing that. Now this kind of thinking. Now that kind of thinking. Always thinking, [...] thinking. But every step of the way, that's the kind of thinking it is. That's the kind of thinking it is. That's the kind of thinking it is. Not trying to move it at all. Appreciating it for what it is now. And that opens the door to Buddha. which is based on this unprejudiced attitude, this loving attitude, but has this vast reality of interconnectedness of everybody's thinking, including all the gods and goddesses and big gods and little gods, they're all included in that. If you can lovingly tolerate your own thinking, you'll be able to tolerate Buddha's thinking. Buddhist thinking is not that easy to tolerate. Can you imagine having everybody else's thoughts in your mind?

[35:53]

Including yours. But it turns out that if you can accept yours, you can... Because yours is the most difficult to accept for you. Isn't it? It's tough. So, you get it now? You can't grasp it, but did you get it? Did it sink in? Yeah, it looks like it. Craig? Is that the exact word? Well, it's a Chinese word, so you want to try and translate it with something else? Yeah, well, like I say, can you think of another word in that ballpark, like not take seriously, lighten up, drop off? Yeah. It's like forget, like, well, the self, usually you're going like, you know, it's like you're forgetting.

[37:00]

Problem to remember. If you need to remember who you are, usually, you can remember. Like if you should happen to forget, you know, actually, and I say, what's your name again? You probably could remember. We're talking about forgetting that we are holding on to so tightly that we don't even dare to go over it for a second, even though we would not forget it if we did. We've got this big burden. It's like forget the burden of misery. That's particularly legitimate. So I'm sorry that he used that word forget. There's some other way. We probably have that kind of like twisted quality of the other side of holding on to something very tenaciously. But it's not like, you know, some big favor you're doing the rest of the universe. Okay, I'll just set it down. You kind of like, it's like, it's involuntary. It isn't like, okay, I don't, I'll let go.

[38:03]

I won't be attached. It's more like you're just so involved. You just can't remember. You remember this thing you're always trying to take care of, which is not really there. Something like that. Yeah. Say it louder, please. So maybe it's like allowing yourself to be in a position that you're afraid you'll forget. Yeah, right. And usually we stand away from what we are or away from what we're doing because we forget. Like totally engaged in something, we might forget, you know, who is doing it or, you know, lose our control, control... self in control rather than throw yourself into it so much that you're just thrown into it and there's nothing left over and then everything enlightens you then everything brings everything resurrects you gives you new life we can't get new life if we're holding on to our old one so you put yourself in a position where you can get a new life

[39:20]

You're not holding on to your old one just in case the new one isn't better. One. Give him a hand of the laws of karma. One of the laws? You want some laws, Lou? No, just a hand. A hand of the law? A hand of the law. A hand of the law? Yeah, some direction. Some directions? What do you mean? Okay, just tell me a law. Law is... What we mean by... What Buddha means by skillful are those actions which have fruit in the form of happiness and protecting life. Okay? Skillfulness protects life. It's happiness. unskillfulness harms and is unhappy.

[40:27]

That's what we mean by skillful and unskillful. That's a law. Or that's a definition, an axiom. I don't know what it is. Something like that. Another law is that karma has that when there's volitional action, when the mind has a certain shape, a certain inclination, there is a consequence or an effect or a Something arises independent on that shape. You can never have a mind, you can never have a mind, a living being have a mind that has a shape, clear shape. There isn't something which will arise independent on that. That's another law. That's a basic one. The basic one is you've got a living being, they have a consciousness. If the consciousness has a shape, something will arise in conjunction depending on that shape. Nothing will arise. Another way to put it that I don't like so well is every shape of every mind has a consequence or an effect.

[41:30]

But that's a little too linear and narrow. I'd rather put it that every shape be in interdependence with the arising of some other consequence. That's the most basic law upon, is that action has effects. Another law is that the effects mature at different rates. Some mature instantly, some mature during this lifetime, some mature in a next lifetime, and some mature in many, many future lives. That's another law called maturing in three time zones. Okay? Another lesson is that the longer it takes for an action to mature, the more it grows. It grows over time. So if you do something good, in some ways you don't want to cash it in now.

[42:33]

Because it'll get, the effect will get better, of a good deed will get bigger and bigger. So a tiny good deed over a long period of time will be like full Buddhahood. A small misdeed over a long time will be full, you know, like, you know, really difficult to practice for a long time. That's another law. Another law is that if you practice studying karma in a loving way, okay, that tends, that is the cashing in, that's the but not entirely cashing in, that's like what he called getting dividends from your good karma, but leaving the principle intact. And if you study karma in a loving, you know, non-thinking way, it shortens the maturity of unwholesome actions.

[43:46]

So if you're really practicing very lovingly, studying your karma, and you do some small misdeed, you will mature almost instantly. And will be very small. If you're not studying your karma lovingly, or not studying at all, not even, you know, snidely or, you know, insincerely or any other version of studying it. You're not studying your karma at all. And you think, it doesn't do any good to study karma anyway because, you know, who cares about karma? It doesn't really have any... That kind of attitude. If that's the way you feel about your karma, then a small misdeed just is left to grow. And a small misdeed will throw you... One small misdeed will, like, throw you into, you know, postponement of Buddhahood, which is sometimes called hell for a long time.

[44:51]

So there's some laws. The upshot of these laws is practice. Yes? What happens when you don't notice you're in this deep? What happens when you don't notice you're in this deep? they start giving rise, they start, the work of an unhappy consequence starts to happen. Now, let's say if you do a misdeed and the misdeed happens and you don't notice it, plus also, let's say, not only don't you notice it, but you don't notice much anything, and not attentive, then the misdeed is going to come. But the consequence that will help you notice the misdeed won't happen if you're not practicing.

[45:55]

If you do a misdeed, and you're practicing, then the practice tends to mature the misdeeds so you can see the consequence and then you might be able to see or understand what that's a consequence of. But if you don't practice studying your karma, you can do a small or medium-sized misdeed. Let's say small for now. And if you don't practice, it just keeps growing and it finally gets so big that when it actually matures, you don't learn anything from it. It's like, you know, just squash Just smashed. Just crunched. It's like you don't have to practice at that time. And understand what you could possibly have done to be in such a terrible fix. You're saying, what about people who are really in a terrible situation?

[47:04]

That makes no karmic sense to you? I see. Well, before we talk about the people of Rwanda, let's talk about me or you. Let's say that I was in a state of where I really, really felt terrible. Okay? That's what we call a situation of what? Old karma. Old karma means what the situation is of me feeling really terrible, that's something which arises, strictly speaking actually, that's not right. It's not that the terrible feeling I have is old karma, but the terrible feeling I have is based on old karma. Plus, what do you call it? Huh? Environmental conditions. So we said old karma is the formation of conditions and the past action.

[48:16]

And that becomes a basis for a feeling. Something which arises based on past karma. So... You say Rwanda, but what you mean is you imagine that there is a person in Rwanda who's feeling terrible, that the combination of their past karma plus their situation of being in a country that has all this war, that they would have terrible feelings, right? The karmic sense of that is that some people are in Rwanda, they're in the same circumstance, and they have a certain kind of past karma such that their feelings are different from some other people or basically the same situation. Well, does it seem fair like that some people in this room right now are miserable and some people are happy? Does that seem fair? What makes... Well, let's start with what you can understand and work out from there, okay?

[49:29]

So, somebody could be in this room right now and having such a hard time that they're thinking of suicide. Okay? Okay? How do you... Right. Right. So what don't you understand? So, what you have trouble with is the environmental situation being bad? Is that what you're saying? Did you hear what I just said? You didn't answer my question. It sounds like what you're saying is the environmental conditions... Because if the baby is being tortured, you don't have much of a problem with it because of its past karma interpreting that torture in such a way that they feel bad.

[50:36]

You don't have a problem with that, right? Would you stay on this track with me? We have a person in this room, nice situation here, nobody's beating anybody up here, okay? And somebody's really unhappy. You seem to understand the problem with that, okay? But if now we move this same person, let's take the same person and put them in Rwanda, where they're being tortured, then you have a problem. So it seems like the problem you have is with the environment, right? Okay? So, the problem we have with the environment is that people are over there who are feeling so bad because they're in some environment. Before the torture thing happened, they were in some other environment, right? A non-torturing environment, maybe. Just hot and political chaos.

[51:40]

And they're feeling really bad. And these feelings arise based on the circumstance and their past karma. they feel terrible. So then what do they do? They start torturing other people. Right? Does that make sense? Anybody who's near them is endangered by their violent activity. And if you were there, given certain past karma you have, you might feel terrible about them attacking you. And you'd feel as terrible that they're attacking you. I mean, you'd feel terrible about what it felt like to be... It's terrible that they're doing it anyway, right? Well, it is terrible. But karmically, that's the explanation, is that the people who are doing this attacking are basically people who are in so much pain and so much fear and so much greed and so much that they act totally for what they think is self in a very, very unskillful and self-destructive way.

[52:48]

And not only self-destructive, but destroying everybody that they touch. That's the karmic explanation for the violence. And then the explanation for how each person feels somewhat differently in that situation and has slightly different feelings because of their background. The Buddha would feel a different... an enlightened person would feel different in each situation, of course, but the thing is that they they would they would because of their past karma be able to study and enlighten the situation and help people turn around even in the midst of being attacked and attacking so like The Shakyamuni Buddha couldn't turn everybody around, but he managed to turn around some of these kinds of people that were actually like mass murderers. He actually dealt with some.

[53:50]

But some of his own students he couldn't turn around. His cousin he couldn't turn around. So even the Buddha had some limit in terms of how to get people to turn around and look at what's going on with them. When people are suffering enough and don't look at what they're doing, well then they can do these unbelievably cruel things. Because they're in pain, not looking at their pain, trying to cope with their pain in unskillful ways, not looking at the unskillful ways. Therefore, it just gets worse and worse until somehow they start looking. And so we have a planet which has many humans who are not looking at what their motivation is moment by moment. And even some Buddhists If you ask them what their motivation is, they have trouble even knowing where to look for it because they have not started to really do this work of studying their karma. They want to be Buddhists, they hear about Buddhism, they see Buddha, they think it's cool, they love Buddha, but they have not started to do the dirty work of looking at anxiety and selfishness.

[55:02]

Therefore, their activity could be unskillful without even being noticed as unskillful. And therefore they could do something really cruel in the midst of karma. They could do some real cruel karma. Not to mention if they were in a terribly painful situation like, you know, starvation, mass theft. What would we do in a situation like that? Could we keep studying ourself and keep when we're assaulted and attacked and threatened? It's very hard. But it turns out right now we all feel threatened on some level. So you do have some threat to work with on an ongoing basis. If you can tune into the threat you feel now, the threat from others and the threat from your own potential unskillfulness, if you can tune in and start watching that, it's We could become people who could help people in extreme situations like that eventually.

[56:09]

Okay? It's tough. It's a tough, tough world. Great, huge challenge. Yes? A lot of people study karmic activity. In Petite Vibes yesterday, a Japanese mother following her child around. When you're doing a meditation that is on an object, like body sensations or the breath or counting the breath or whatever, it seems like that would be more like leaving the child to wander and coming back to the object. Do you know what I mean? I do, but I have a different view. So you're saying where you maybe have made a commitment or you have an intention to meditate on an object and give special attention to some particular object, like your breath, okay? There's two ways I'll look at this.

[57:15]

One way is your breath is the child. Your breath is running all over the world. Well, let's just talk about your breath now, okay? Do you really want, do you care as much about your breath as that woman cares about her child? Well, if I thought my breath was going to like fall down the escalator, I would. But we don't feel that our breath is in so much danger. But like, let's say we have asthma. You know, let's say the breath stops working. Then would we have any trouble meditating on our breath? You know, kind of wander off and let the choking go on? Well, if we had enough drugs, we would. But can you care as much about following your breathing as you do about watching a precious, endangered living being?

[58:18]

If you can, then you would follow your breathing in the same way that she lovingly attended to this living being. Now, she was probably thinking things while she was walking. Maybe she was running around thinking things, too. We don't know. Maybe she was thinking, you know, keep your back straight so you don't wreck your back leaning over to try to catch him. Or she might have thought, you know, I'm getting... Thoughts might have crossed her mind like, I wish I had a less active kid. Or she might have been thinking, you know, how much longer is it going to be for the airplane to come? But since she was so engaged, we have trouble imagining she was doing much besides following him. And if you're that engaged with your breath, if you're as interested as she was in that kid, there won't be a lot of much extraneous thoughts. Okay? Now another way to look at it is, what if there are extraneous thoughts? What if the mind is like the child? Okay? What if the attention is like the child? Well then, the same thing with the attention.

[59:20]

Okay, dear, here we are. You stay with the attention. You run around after the intention. Come on. Where's my attention? Did you know we're actually supposed to be looking at the breath? Did you know that? She didn't do that, actually. She didn't keep reminding him that he was supposed to be a little... He was supposed to be meditating on his breath. He was supposed to be on his seat. He was supposed to be walking straight. So what if you've chosen to meditate on your breath, but your attention is going all over the place? What do you do then? If you're attentive to the attention that's not paying attention, the attention is not following the breath in the first place, right? You notice it doesn't want to look at the breath. you're aware that the attention is looking at something else because that's what it's looking at. And then you think, oh, but I didn't say it was supposed to be looking at that. It's not looking at that. Right?

[60:21]

There's the breath. There's the intention to follow the breath. And there's the attention, which is not looking at the breath, but is listening to the stream or whatever. Okay? The consciousness notices that the attention is not being applied to the What is the loving attitude to this wayward intention? That's the question. Is it to say to the intention, do you really not want to be looking at what we agreed to be looking at? And maybe the intention says, Yeah, actually I'm not that interested in the breath. Maybe you should reconsider the meditation object. Who assigned this anyway? Or the attention might say, well, do you really want me to go back to the breath? And you say, well... The question that's raised is, do I lovingly study my attention in all its laundering or my breath?

[61:28]

You get to decide. You said you just pick one and stick with it, but what if your mind doesn't cooperate with your decision? Then what are you going to do? This is a story some of you have heard many times. I once, in old Zendo there, when I was, you know, 28 years ago or something, 29, 30 years ago, I was sitting in that Zendo, and I was following my breathing. I was counting my breathing, 1 to 10, but I... But actually, the way I was doing it, the way I was going, I was very relaxed. very comfortable, sitting. So I would like, I would count my exes and I'd go, one. That would be it. Then some, you know, sometime later, you know, I don't know, five minutes, weeks. I just got to one. And sometimes, sometimes I actually would do the other thing.

[62:36]

I would count, I would be able to stay with my breathing, but then I'd go 14, 15, 16. But very seldom did I go like 1 to 10 and stop at 10. Usually I just got to 1. But occasionally I would get to 10 and go beyond. But I almost never like got to 10 and stopped. So I decided, well... I don't know how I got this idea, I don't know where I got this idea, but I thought, actually, like, force yourself to count one to ten. Why don't you, like, actually make that happen? Just, you know, to see if you can. I didn't have, you know, 30 years of experience to say, well, what's the good of that? You know, why be on such a trip? I didn't come to Zen Center to count my breath one to ten. I came to be like, you know, A compassionate, happy person. And then I, so then I came to the place where the compassionate, happy people are supposed to be getting trained. And then somebody says, well, count one to ten.

[63:37]

So I said, okay. But it didn't want to. My mind didn't want to. It couldn't. One. That's what it could do. But then I thought, okay, well, you know, let's forget this thing about what, you know, what you want to do or whatever. Just like do this program. So I got myself to do it. And I got very tired. When my attention wandered, I said, when I found out, I said, you wandered, you know, if you do that again, there's going to be consequences for you. And then it wandered again. You didn't seem to hear me. I mean, we just raised the consequences. One more time. And I started to get really severe with it. And I got in line. And I counted 1 to 10. And also, I got ways to check to see how many times I counted 1 to 10. I got ways to check and count the number of times that I counted 1 to 10 and check whether I really was missing any of those.

[64:38]

And I got a whole period counting every breath, not missing 1, 1 to 10, never 11, never 9, never 1. And when I said successful, I said, okay, now I'm successful. This isn't what I want. I don't want to practice like this. And I don't practice like that anymore. I don't follow my breathing. But you know what? I do sometimes follow my breathing just because I happen to be noticing that I'm breathing. And it's quite enjoyable sometimes. I'm just breathing. I notice, oh, I'm breathing. It's kind of like, oh, there's a woman there. Oh, it's a screen. I notice my breathing quite often, actually. But I don't follow my breathing. But some people like to follow their breathing, and I say to them, go right ahead. But to force yourself to do it, what, you know, do you really want to do that? And if you do, fine. Do you have to get rough about it? And if you barely did it, do you have to force yourself to do what you want to do?

[65:43]

Well, sometimes you do, but really? Think about it. People don't usually, usually when people come to me, they kind of go, oh God, you know, I'm beating myself up. I'm a total failure, you know. I have to keep doing this. No. Do you want to? And some people like to, but they just like to and they got no problem. They just enjoy it. Breathing in, breathing out. There are some people like that. who feel about their breath like that woman felt about her kid. It's like their favorite thing. They don't like kids, but they love breath. So those are the kind of people you put in the meditation hall, and you don't put them in the airport with the kids. That woman may have no interest in sitting in the meditation hall. She'd probably be sitting up there saying, where's my little boy? Where's my boy?

[66:44]

So that's what I think, you know, is to be loving, not to be fascist. That's not what attracted you to Buddhism, is it? Fascist state of mind control? Concentration? Not at the expense of respect for your mind. Okay? Anything else today? Is that enough laws for you, John? Oh, I have one more law for you. The Buddha, this is a sutra called the Kanch. And the Buddha met this guy, the exalted one, was staying in Nalanda near Pav Mango Grove. They have mangoes in India. Mangoes are very delicious. Do you have any mangoes at Pal Sahara?

[67:49]

We do? When are they going to be? Tomorrow night? Mangoes. So Buddha was staying in a mango grove. Mangoes. Mangoes. And then, Buddha's sitting there like, you know, in Mango Grove, right? And this guy comes up to him. His name is Ashibandhaka. Actually, he's Ashibandhaka's son, and he's a head of a town, of a tribe or a town. And he comes to the Buddha, and this guy is a follower of the unclothed. And he's a follower of a Jain ascetic. And he came to the Buddha and the Buddha said to him, head man, in what way does the unclothed Natha teach Natha's son, teach the doctrine to his followers?

[68:53]

In other words, what does your teacher teach? And he said, thus, Lord, does the unclothed Natha's son teach the doctrine to his followers? He teaches, whosoever slayeth living beings, all such go to a woeful state, to hell. This is an abbreviation of the teaching. Some other stuff that happens, it's kind of interesting, but I think it's too late to get into it. But basically, this giant teacher was teaching that whosoever kills goes to hell. Okay? Okay? This is called karmic determinism. That if you do it, you go to hell, which means like you go to Rwanda and you're a little kid and you get tortured as a result of killing. That's called karmic determinism. Okay? So then this guy says, now here in the head man,

[70:03]

Here in Headman, if a teacher teaches such a doctrine as whoever kills goes to hell and other states of woe, this follower, if he has faith in the teacher's teaching, thinks to himself, my teacher teaches the doctrine, whosoever slayeth living beings, all are bound for a woeful state, for hell. Whosoever kills, without exception, goes to hell. Okay? I too have slain living beings, so I am a woeful lot for hell. The Buddha is saying that's what the person thinks. So he lays hold of that view, and not abandoning that saying, he thinks, and that thinking, not abandoning that saying and that thinking, not renouncing that view, he does as though forced there. Some people teach that if you do this act, you go to that destiny.

[71:13]

That's it. That's karmic determinism. There's also karmic indeterminism, which you say doesn't have consequences. That's karmic indeterminism. And there's another view, which is that some divine being is operating our karma. The Buddhist teaching is not indeterminism. It isn't like you kill a living being and you don't go to hell. It's not that. It's not that you kill a living being and you... That's this teaching. And if you hear the teaching, if you kill a living being, you will go to hell. And you take that teaching and hold that teaching and apply it to yourself and notice that you have killed living beings and you hold that teaching, then you will go to hell. by holding and reflecting it on your action. The Buddha said that. But that's not just killing and going to hell. That's killing and believing the teaching that if you kill, you go to hell. The two together put you in hell. The Buddha said that will put you in hell.

[72:22]

Right. Now, what about the Buddha's teaching? Then the Buddha says... Now, herein, head man, the Tathagata has arisen in the world. The Arhat, the fully enlightened one, the happy one, the charioteer of people who need to be tamed, the teacher of gods and mankind, the Buddha, the exalted one. He, she, sent strongly censures taking life. Abstain ye from taking life. He censures strongly. He censures stealing and so on. Abstain ye from all these actions. The Buddha tells us don't kill, don't steal.

[73:25]

He doesn't say if you kill, you go to hell. So, what happens to a Buddhist disciple? Buddhist disciple hears that teaching, abstain ye from killing. He thinks about himself. Now, by me, such acts as, for example, killing creatures, has been done. That is not well done. That is not good. The Buddha says not to do this. Moreover, as a result of it, I may be remorseful. An evil deed cannot be undone by me. An evil deed cannot be undone by me. It will have consequence. From the Buddha's teaching of not killing, you don't think, I'm going to go to hell and grasp that and go to hell. You think, oh, this is not right. This is not good. And I can't undo this. Okay?

[74:29]

Okay? With that attitude towards my misconduct, I abandon the misconduct. I feel bad about it. And I don't avoid my responsibility, and therefore I can't undo it. I can't take it away. I can't take it away. I can't take it away. And continually accepting responsibility for something which the Buddha has taught me not to do, I abandon doing And I accept the consequences from however the past things are going to unfold for me now. See, this is the law of karma. Isn't that interesting? It's a subtle difference, but it makes a difference between hell and not going to hell. But actually stopping... Going to hell isn't as bad as not stopping doing what sends you to hell.

[75:34]

Doing what sets up going to hell. Because it doesn't send you to hell for going to hell. One condition for going to hell is killing. Another one is stealing. Another one is lying. But those have to be put in conjunction with not understanding the Buddhist teaching. If you put the Buddhist teaching together with your misconduct... you feel bad about your mis-teaching, your misconduct, you want to stop your misconduct, you realize you can't throw away the consequences of misconduct. However, you can stop your misconduct. You can drop it. That's what's wonderful. And when you stop it, then you really can start to see, and you can become Buddha. Buddha also did some misconduct. But Buddha saw that it wasn't good. If you can see that it isn't good, you're already hearing Buddha's teaching. If you can't see that it's not good, then listen to the Buddha's teaching. And then with the Buddha's teaching, then you'll be able to see, this is not good, this is not well done.

[76:36]

I feel bad about this, and this cannot be undone. I will endeavor, I will devote my life to abandoning misconduct. With the aid of understanding, the encouragement of understanding, that it's no good. So gradually, in this way, your conduct evolves. Positive. And your study gets more and more loving. Until finally, you forget delusion. And everything enlightens you. It's the law. Law of karma. So, and you can see. If you see another law that's different from this law, let me know.

[77:25]

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