Yesterday I talked a little bit about the kind of attitude one might have in sitting meditation or in life in general. Someone asked, if you have the intention to follow your breathing, maybe to develop or maybe you just think it's a good thing to be mindful of. You know, what kind of attitude is good to have in the practice of being mindful of breath or concentrating on the breath. And I emphasize, you know, being upright with your breath. And I don't know if I said it, but being intimate with your breath. Try to be intimate. But if you don't want to be intimate with something, for example, your breath, or if you don't want to be intimate with some person, you know, I think, what do you call it?

[01:13]

Cut yourself some slack. Don't be too hard on yourself. If you're not ready to be intimate with something, just be patient. Someday you'll want to be, maybe. But you don't have to force yourself to get intimate with people that you don't want to be intimate with. As a bodhisattva, in a sense, we vow to be intimate with all beings. Does that sound familiar? I vow to save all beings. You ever heard that? Another way you could translate that or rephrase that, I vow to be intimate with all beings. Is that okay? Can you work with that? How many people cannot? Wow. You can't? Leave the room. Intimate with all beings means to be intimate with your body and mind too, right?

[02:15]

It means to be intimate with your breath. It means to be intimate with... Intimacy with a being is freedom with that being. It's enlightenment with that being. So, another way to put it, I would suggest, if you'd like to be intimate with your breath, fine. But if you're not in the mood to be intimate with your breath, what would you like to be intimate with? Try to find something that you'd like to be intimate with, and that will be a good practice for you. And if you can't think of anything, go ask somebody else for some ideas. Hopefully ask somebody that you'd like to be intimate with. So, anyway, I said that, and some people said they had really good meditation after that. That they went to the meditation hall and stopped beating themselves up. So, another person asked me, well, could you give me some structure, some kind of... be intimate with my life in my meditation practice?

[03:26]

So, in one sense I'm saying basically it's just intimacy with, ultimately it's intimacy with everything in your life. Or another way to say it is being upright in your life. It means not indulging in things, indulging in your relationships, leaning into your relationships, attaching to people, or leaning away and, you know, rebelling against what happened. It's just to meet everything in that upright fashion. That's the direction I'm recommending. And you may be more or less ready to practice that with something at a given time. So I would say pick in some sense your favorite thing to work with and then expand from there as you feel encouraged to do so. Now, in terms of formal sitting up in the meditation hall, most people seem to be willing to work with their body.

[04:32]

In other words, most people seem to be willing to, like, cope with, like, and having a body up in the hall. Most people actually like sitting up and trying to, you know, be alert. Okay? So most people are willing to some extent work with intimacy with their body. So, and also a structure to bring together what you're willing to be intimate with now, and then the full range of intimacy, there's what's called the four foundations of mindfulness. Or you could say the four foundations of intimacy. So the first foundation of mindfulness or the first foundation of intimacy is mindfulness of the body. So that includes being aware of what posture you're in. So when a yogi or a monk practices mindfulness of the body, when they're standing, they're aware that they're standing.

[05:45]

That's mindfulness of the body. When they're walking, they're aware that they're walking. When sitting, aware of the sitting. That's what the Buddha said. But, you know, you could be more specific. So, for example, we have various points of posture that we also bring up in the sitting posture. So, when sitting, one is aware of whether one has one's eyes open or not. And maybe one takes the instruction to keep the eyes open. So maybe you take that on. I would like to sit with my eyes open. Then you're mindful of whether your eyes are open or not. Maybe you also take the instruction of keeping your mouth still and your tongue still by placing the tongue on the roof of your mouth with the tip of your tongue touching the back of your upper teeth, which you can be mindful of, which you can be intimate with. Having a spine which is erect, upright, and balanced, not leaning forward or backward, right or left.

[06:51]

Having an abdomen which is not tensed, but a kind of full, present feeling there. Having a feeling of openness in your chest, length and breadth in your chest, and awareness maybe throughout your spine, and a feeling like that the top of your head is being lifted up in a relaxed face, but in a alert face. And make... Placing the right hand on top of the left, or you can also do the left on top of the right, but joining the hands together and making a lovely mudra, a lovely circle, or a lovely ellipse with your hand. And... There's quite a few people on this visit, and particularly I think it's hard for women who have long fingernails to join the tips of their fingers together because sometimes the long fingernails overlap. So it's a little bit of a problem for long fingernails to make a nice ellipse because you kind of want to make the tips go away from each other, right?

[08:06]

That make sense? Hard to do that if you have a long beard now, so... I don't know what to say. But anyway, try... Try to make a nice ellipse with your hand. And when you... Make a nice ellipse with your hand. Is that a nice ellipse? Okay. When you make this ellipse, this is a wonderful way to, like, develop intimacy with your hands. If you're tense or too relaxed... you can use this form in a kind of alert and yet relaxed way to make that mudra. So, this is an example of a form offered with which you can become intimate with your body and practice mindfulness of the body. Now, also part of mindfulness of the body is mindfulness of breath. And that's something which I think you should consider whether you really want to do it.

[09:11]

My feeling is that most people, my experience with people, is that most people, if they try to be mindful of their body and they're unsuccessful, they don't seem to get quite as upset as if they try to be mindful of their breath and are not. Or put another way, if they're mindful of their posture and have lapses in it, they somehow don't get so down on themselves is when they're mindful of their breathing and have lapses. People say, you know, I'm just such a jerk, my mind's so distracted, I can't keep track of my posture. In fact, they sometimes don't. But they don't get so upset about it. And I think it's because people are more accepting of dealing with their body. I mean, most people realize you can't lie down on the on the palm and then don't get by with it. You know you can't. So nobody does it, really. It's not that big a problem.

[10:12]

You also know to some extent you can't do that much with your hands other than this. Other than the mudra. You can put them on your knees or on your thighs, but you can only go so far. Most people don't get that far out. But with the breath, you know. that you can be totally not paying attention to it and you're not going to get in trouble. So you get yourself in trouble. So I would say, if you really pay attention and become intimate with your body, you will need to pay attention with your breath. Let it spontaneously arise. I caution you to force yourself to be mindful of your breathing. But anyway... If you force yourself, you won't be mindful. You'll be in this other kind of relationship. Mindfulness is, you're just there. You're not forcing yourself to do it. So those are mindfulness. Those are some examples of mindfulness of the body. There's many other ones, but those are some.

[11:14]

That's the first foundation, which you can practice all around Tathāhāra. And again, try to practice it in this loving, gentle, upright, balanced way. Okay? Then comes mindfulness of feelings. Now this connects to teaching the practice study of karma. Because feelings arise past actions and current circumstances. The formation of various conditions give rise to your feelings. So actually, when you're aware of your feelings, you're not only aware, you're aware of something that's happening to you, namely your feeling, but you're also actually studying karma because you're actually studying something that arises in dependence on your path to action and the formation of career condition. And you're also... So you're studying the feelings.

[12:18]

The next part... mindfulness the second foundation of intimacy is to become intimate with your feeling and these this means feelings in this case we mean basically positive negative and neutral feeling or pain pleasure and neutral it means that you identify them tell the different and be close to them If you can be intimate with them, then you also develop a good response to them. A good response means a loving response. An upright response. The next foundation of mindfulness is the foundation of mindfulness of the mind or consciousness. And this usually means the general characteristics of consciousness, like a distracted mind, an angry mind, a lustful mind, a confused mind, a concentrated mind, a clear mind, a happy mind, a sad mind, a joyful mind, a depressed mind, a faithful mind.

[13:33]

The general qualities of mind, sort of like gross typifications, which you can make. that you can also practice all the time. It's good to start first with the body, though, then move to the feeling, then move to the mind, because that's getting more and more subtle as you move along here. And in terms of what we call the aggregate to skandhas, the first mindfulness is mindfulness of the first aggregate, the first skandha, the second mindfulness is of the second skandha, and the third mindfulness is mindfulness of which in some sense you can't be mindful of, so I take that back. It's called mindfulness, it's called citta, citta smriti upasthana, but it's not really citta, because you can't be aware of your consciousness. What you're really aware of is qualities of the consciousness.

[14:34]

You can be aware of those, general qualities. These are three foundations to support your development of intimacy with your mind and body. Okay? Consciousness can't be aware of consciousness. I may have said you. Take you out of it and just say consciousness can't be aware of consciousness. Consciousness can't look at itself. So it's a misnomer to call smriti upasthana. Buddha made a few mistakes. He never said he was perfect. And maybe he didn't actually call it that. But it's not really smitten with the foundation of mindfulness based on the general characteristics of the consciousness. Like you can be aware that consciousness is disturbed or calm, but you can't see the consciousness.

[15:35]

Consciousness can't see itself. It can see everything else but itself. The eye can't see the eye. Okay? So these are four traditional structures you can use to work on intimacy with your experience through these foundations of mindfulness. The next one is the one where you move into, like, and you start to actually look, now really study yourself and karma. And the fourth foundation of mindfulness is called dharma-smriti-vipassana, the foundation of mindfulness based on dharma. And dharma can be taken as meaning the foundation of mindfulness based on the teachings of the Buddha, or the foundation of mindfulness based on the minute details of your experience, the subtle details, the subtle phenomenal aspects of your experience.

[16:36]

So under that heading, there's a whole variety of things to study. Like, for example, the Four Noble Truths are studied under that heading. But particularly I'd like to first draw attention to that one of the things that you study under that heading is a dharma, which is called cetana. It's one of the experiential things that you study. And cetana, I would translate as intention, motivation, volition, will, or thinking. First, the third foundation of mindfulness, you look over the surface of your mind, the surface of your consciousness, and you see some general characteristics like turbulent, tranquil, faithful, unfaithful, some general thing like that that captures something that's going on. When you move it, and then as you level of subtlety, then other levels of subtlety come forward.

[17:44]

You know, deeper levels of subtlety, or more subtlety. But first of all, you see the general characteristic of consciousness, and you start to see the more particular characteristics more minute. But at the same time that we start to see, first of all you see the general characteristics, and then you start to see the more specific characteristics. Also you get to see more specifically what the shape of the consciousness is. In other words, you become more intimate with your thinking, which means you become more intimate with the source of which is this mental karma, which is this the current thinking. It's the conceptions you're working with, it's the feelings you're working with, it's your level of faith, diligence, lack thereof, it's the level of concentration, it's the level of vision. All these things working together to create the current overall quality, including all the particular details of your mind, and that's the source of karma.

[18:52]

So, the fourth foundation of mindfulness It can be also understood as the foundation of mindfulness of thinking. The foundation of mindfulness of karma. Or a way to become intimate with karma. So if that was taped, you can listen to it later because it's a lot of information. It's very traditional with the innovation basically to change mindfulness to intimacy, which I think is a good, a helpful additional way to talk about what smriti means. Now, in Zen literature, you almost find no mention of the four foundations of mindfulness. The Four Foundations of Mindfulness were taught in China prior to the arising of the Zen school. But the Zen school seems to have made a conscious and didn't even tell us decision not to talk about the Four Foundations of Mindfulness.

[20:03]

And I think the reason for that is that they wanted to bring those together into one practice. And sometimes the practice, in the early days of Zen, the practice that they taught was one practice samadhi. Or the practice of being, or the samadhi, or the absorption into the oneness of practice. Or the oneness of life. Two different ways you could do that. Oneness of practice would be you could combine these four, and the oneness of these four would be what? What? What? And that's a different thing. The oneness of these four practices would be? Huh? What? Mindfulness. They're all mindfulness practices.

[21:05]

That would be the oneness. Or another way, the oneness of those four practices would be intimacy. In other words, you start by becoming intimate with all that's going on, and then you would shift to being intimate with the oneness of all life. By being intimate with your own processes, you become intimate with all processes, and you start to be absorbed into the oneness of all life. So anyway, you don't find so much discussion in Zen literature about But some people ask for more structure, so here's more structure. But these also can be unified into one practice, which is to simply be intimate with whatever is happening. Physical, posture, breathing, feeling, overall characteristics of mind and subtle characteristics of mind. All this, whatever is happening, one practice. Upright intimacy, which means mindfulness.

[22:07]

Okay, so that's kind of another way to talk about that's like, first of all, it's like structuring, giving some structure to non-thinking. Okay? This is non-thinking in four parts. But then once you understand, this is just detailing non-thinking, then you can collapse it back into just non-thinking. Non-thinking in regard to your posture, non-thinking in regard to your breathing, non-thinking in regard to your non-thinking in regard to the general characteristics of consciousness, non-thinking in regard to specific, exact, precise qualities of your thinking, which includes all the other elements of your psychic field. Okay? That's kind of an introduction. I see a lot of hands being raised, and I just want to tell you that I have one more little thing to say, but I will be willing to wait and say it later and take questions now if you want to do questions.

[23:13]

Do you want to have questions or one more little thing? I know that, you know, I... Somehow, there is some interest in what's going to happen. You know? People are somewhat interested. What's going to happen to me in the next... People are not different about what next means. But anyway, people are concerned. According to this teaching, what's going to happen in regard to these things I've done? I know I've done some things that aren't that cool. And you said a little bad thing. Unattended can... You know? A little bad thing. skillful act unattended by practice and i know i had a little bad thing a little bad act attended by practice don't worry just practice diligently and you'll be all right is be all right according to me it's not be all right according to you like i said to somebody this morning

[24:26]

Anything really that happens to a human being is not that bad At least you're human if you're like strapped to the wall and getting tortured, you know All right If you're a human it's not that bad because if you're human and you're really being tortured by whatever somebody can come up to you and do something kind and And you can say... Human beings are capable of that. No matter how much suffering they are, if somebody is kind to them, they have the chance of seeing it as kind and saying thank you. In other words, you have a chance of waking up. No matter how much you're suffering if you're human. So it's not that bad being a human. No matter how bad it gets, it's not that bad. What's bad... Ability is taken away. And then try to practice. This is what you have to worry about. So really, you know, like I say, what you think is bad is not what I think is bad.

[25:32]

I think, basically, you're all really in good shape. And you always have been, and you always will be, as long as you've got a human setup. People agree, and I have this little thing to tell you about. This is from the Diamond Sutra. This is something which I, I don't know, I read the Diamond Sutra quite a few times before this thing hit me. But it did hit me eventually, and I thought, wow. So now you get to hear it. And you may have to hear this several times before. A few times you may hear it and you may say, what? Weird. Buddhism? Anyway. So this is section, the key point here is section 16C. But before section 16C, there's a little preamble. which I'll just summarize quickly, and that is, if you study the Diamond Sutra, you study it, if you recite it, if you memorize it, if you copy it, and if you expound it for others, okay, you read it, the place where you memorize it, the place where you copy it, the place where you recite it, the place where you expound it, that place should be regarded as like a shrine.

[26:52]

It's a holy place. where you just read this, it becomes a temple. This sutra said, this sutra said, this is a good sutra. This sutra says, anybody who practices this sutra is doing something really good. But then it said, first of all, This translation says, and yet, you're practicing the sutra and you're like, really like cooking here. You've got spiritual life right here where you're practicing. And it says, and yet. Other translations don't say and yet. But this one says, and yet, that's the person who Buddha is talking to. Those sons and daughters of good family who will take up this very sutra. and will bear in mind, recite it, and study it.

[27:53]

They will be humbled, well humbled. And why? The impure deeds which those beings have done in their former lives and which are liable to lead them out. They, you know, like, super-woke. Like, not even be human anymore. Okay? Those deeds which beings have done, who are now practicing the Diamond Secret, who are practicing really, they're on the practice beam, okay? They're really practicing, are humbling them, are attacking them, are reviling them and disgracing them. those being because of impure deeds that they've done in the past. Actually, impure could be a wholesome animal on a person.

[28:57]

Any deed done with some sense of self involved, which would be liable to mature in the form of super-woe. In this very life, those deeds which would usually mature much later and are now maturing in this very life. By means that they will mature in this very life, they will, by means of this humiliation, annul those impure deeds of their former life, and they will reach the Buddha. Case 58 of the Book of Serenity, the same background, and it says, the Diamond Scripture says, if someone is reviled by others, this person has done wicked deeds in previous lives and should fall into evil ways.

[30:10]

But, because of that scorn and revilement, because of the scorn and revilement, in the present age, deeds of the past are dissolved, end of quote, but actually, and they attain, and they reach the enlightenment of the Buddha. So, if you're practicing, you will be reviled, unless you have incurred deeds in the past, then you won't be. But if you are practicing, you will be reviled. You will be criticized. You will be humbled. And by that humiliation, and by that criticism, those past deeds which you've done will be dissolved, will be annulled. And you will attain the enlightenment of a Buddha. If you don't practice...

[31:15]

You might not get reviled. For these things will not come to maturity. They won't be written off. And you can't attain the enlightenment of Buddha until they're dissolved. But guess how they get dissolved? They get dissolved by somebody being mean to you and insulting you. Any Tom, Dick, or Harry. Usually that's who it is. Or it could be Harriet also. Or, you know, Now, if you were to add in there that when you're reviled that you would not be appreciative of this revilement, then you would generate new karma, then the part about attaining the enlightenment of the Buddha wouldn't happen. So whenever anybody insults you, if you're practicing, if you're not practicing, forget the whole thing. But if you're practicing and someone insults you,

[32:20]

you should say, thank you. Not out loud, because then they might really insult you. You know, don't affront them. But basically, this is happening to you because this is your karma being matured. And if you can accept it, your karma gets removed, and your practice really starts to work. It's already working, but then it works unimpeded by this harassment, and you go straight to enlightenment. Isn't that far out? Isn't that a far out thing? So I thought I might throw that in before I left. Yes? He said, is there something in particular about the insult or revilement that leads to enlightenment? I don't think so. I think it's just the ripening of past deeds in conjunction with present conditions. and present attitude. When you practice, you bring things that would really be bad, you bring them to maturity early in the form of people insulting you.

[33:29]

And we have a practice for that called patience, which when patience is functioning well, which it can, then you say thank you when people insult you. So you're practicing the Diamond Sutra. It means also when you're studying the Diamond Sutra, there's another part of the Diamond Sutra which also mentions patience. The Buddha said, when at the time of King so-and-so, they cut me into pieces and flayed me, I did not get angry. So that's also part of the Diamond Sutra, is practice patience. Particularly practice patience with the Diamond Sutra and also practice patience with Section 16C. both in terms of the teaching and also the actual event. The thing that produces the enlightenment is the vision of what's happening. But if you can be upright with insult, your eyes open to what's happening. When you're first insulted, usually you think, I'm over here and the person's over there insulting me.

[34:31]

But if you accept it in upright fashion, you understand that that person over there insulting you is not somebody's that person is part of your process of liberation. They are playing a game with you to wash away the consequences of your delusion, of the actions based on delusion. Now, if you don't see that yet, if you act like you saw that, then you... In other words, if you saw that, you would say, thank you. With the aid of this teaching, when you're reviled, you say, Diamond Sutra, Section 16c, thank you. And then your eyes open. And you see that this person is you. More you. And the fact that they're insulting you is more you than if they were complimenting you. Even if they're complimenting you, they're you. But when they're insulting you, they're more what you are than when they're complimenting you. Because it's more of a reversal of your attitude.

[35:36]

You usually think, well, there's me and there's my friends and they're kind of like me. But these they're really like out of it. So the revilement is in a sense, I said no, it's not particularly related to the invite enlightenment, but it is in a sense that if you can accept it, that mind of acceptance is closer to the mind of enlightenment than if you could accept consequences like positive one. But other kinds of karmic consequences, if they're in the form of, like, going to a state where your human capacities are blown away, that's pretty hard. That's why we don't want to miss this chance here that we have here. We'll give this chance right now. Is there some other hand over there? Yes. Oh, you've painted your neck. Hold on a second. Right, right, right, right. But were you saying being reviled is a karmic fruit, a consequence?

[36:43]

Being reviled is a consequence. Again, if I say it's a karmic consequence, then you might slip into thinking you did something, so that goes to this. Okay? It's not just that way, but karmic, it is... And it wouldn't be happening unless you did do some impure deeds in the past. And also it wouldn't be happening unless you were practicing in the present. As I'm told, he burned off all his karma. He was still insulted and vile. And was that still consequent of past karma? And how does that reconcile with having burned off all his past karma? Buddha didn't burn off all his karma because he... Okay? But the karmas that were obstructing his enlightenment were burned off.

[37:47]

So now a general question. Open, whatever you want to talk about. This is a little disturbing to me. Yeah. If a person is in a relationship where they're being insulted and revived, did you say that that... Well, why is it only... I mean... Why is it only Diamond Sutra? I mean, couldn't a person... Well, let's start with that. Start with the example of Diamond Sutra and then expand from there. See if you can get the Diamond Sutra example first. You've got somebody practicing perfect wisdom. Right. And they're getting reviled. Got any problem now? No, I can... I can imagine... I spent time experiencing this and I can imagine using the insult... practical patience with it and seeing it as a humbling and karmic retribution of your final liberation.

[38:59]

Could I say again what you just said, what I thought you said? Okay. I thought you said, I can imagine using the insult or the revilement as a form of karmic retribution as a form of karmic retribution which would which would humble me You can imagine. I can imagine. Okay, good, because that's what this is about. But what about, so my question is... I'm getting excited. The person who isn't practicing, or isn't at that level of practice, to find in their life this type of experience, you know, that they maybe are in relationships where they find themselves being... insulted and reviled. Yeah. Is that also working off of... Is that also chronic retribution? So she said, what if... And they get insulted and reviled.

[40:02]

She can see that if they worked with that in a patient and appreciative way, it might be part of the way to free themselves from chronic obstructions and move them towards liberation. You can see that. And she said, what about somebody who isn't practicing? Okay? Could they... Could they what? Oh, like... If they use it, then what? If they use it the same way, they're practicing. Some people, believe it or not, are practicing. This happens to them, and then they forget they're practicing and punch the person. So they're practicing, but then they stop at that time. It's saying, you people are practicing, and because you're practicing, you're going to get this particular type of problem. Especially doing this weird practice of perfect wisdom, you're going to get tested. Here it says, and yet, but in another scripture it says, therefore, you're practicing the devil, therefore you're going to get reviled. You definitely are going to get insulted if you practice perfect wisdom.

[41:07]

So that's... That's the time now. Because you're practicing, you're going to get this test. Don't fail this test. They thank you and move on to Buddhahood. Now, you're saying, what if something happens to somebody who isn't practicing and they have to practice? You know what I'm getting at? What I'm getting at is that there's a very fine line here. Yes. For example, there's a book that was very popular a number of years ago called Women Who Love Too Much. Yes. Which is very much about women who get into where they might be treated like that regularly. Yes. And the experience is that if I just keep loving this person, if I'm patient, and if I'm just there for them, and I just keep turning the other cheek, you know, that it's all going to kind of work out. It's going to work out. The relationship, which is usually what the focus is on the relationship, but it might even be on, you know, that I am somehow going to... Yeah, that's a fine line.

[42:12]

That sounds pretty close to Buddhism right there. It's a fine line. And so then all of a sudden the person wakes up one day and says, what's going on? I'm getting, you know, I'm out of here. I'm taking this insult and abuse, but the karmic hindrance hasn't been annulled and I haven't moved on to Buddhism. Well, they might not even think that. They might not think that? They might not think that, but at some point they might just think it's practice. They think they're not aware that they're practicing. You know, they're not aware of the practice. So what's the fine line? The fine line is because you're saying that they say, if I would only love this person, blah, blah, and blah, blah, then blah, blah, and blah, blah. But do they love the person? Are they saying, I don't think so. I think they're usually in denial, and that's why it doesn't work to do that. Denial of what? Denial of that they're being insulted and reviled, okay?

[43:13]

And that they're now going to respond to this uprightly. I don't think. No, they're doing the thing of saying, well, if I do this and I do that, then that. That's not doing it. That's at the hypothetical situation that they're applying to their life. So they're trying to manipulate. Yes. That won't work. You've got to take and say, I'm being treated like this. And the question is whether I'm going to say thank you or not. And it doesn't mean the relationship is going to work out. It means you're going to wake up. And when it wakes up, you might very well say something to the relationship like, Bye-bye. Thank you so much. I'm so sorry that you have to go to hell for the way you've been treating me, but there's nothing I can do about it. Anyway, you're Buddha. The relationship works out in the form of, you know, having this person go to hell and you go to, you know, Buddha land. Which means, you know, you're sorry, you're very sorry, you feel great compassion.

[44:20]

See that they have to, like, get in big trouble now. I mean, that's a major thing. Imagine what's going to happen to them. It's terrible. But unless they're going to snap out of it, there's nothing that can be done for a while. But you don't stay around and kind of support them to do this. And think, well, if I did this or that, you're not trying to hold something together here. So I agree with that book that the dead end, it's worse than the dead end. It just goes on forever. It's codependent. You're doing somebody else's work. You're making it work. Now, what you need to do is say, thank you for showing me about reminding me of my practice. And if you do that, then you are practicing. And you must have been practicing somewhat to be a human in the first place. And you must be practicing somewhat in the form of people who tell you.

[45:21]

Can you believe that what sometimes happens to people? They're a little bit or a lot cruel in their lifetime, and they die without getting in any trouble. This happens, and people look at them and say, well, I don't see how this person's been battled for life. They were rich until they died, and they hardly even had any money. Don't give feedback. Everybody's afraid of them. So they do bad things without even knowing that everybody hates them for it. Everybody's just waiting until they're weak. You know? Until they're a slug. Then everybody pours salt on them. For lifetime after lifetime.

[46:25]

People torture them, get back at them. The mother is practicing patience. This is, anyway, most interpretations of this scripture passage is actually when somebody is cruel to you, when somebody insults you, the thing to do is to say thank you. But you are worried about them. because they're way off. It's one of the sad things about spiritual development is that the people who give us the greatest opportunity don't get in trouble for helping us. Except for occasional Zen masters who somehow revile us without really meaning it.

[47:32]

So they don't get in trouble for it. Because they're from them, but from the intimacy of the relationship. So sometimes when you get reviled, it's not the person. And I've had that happen to me. Where this big, you know, like a normal-sized person, you know, somewhere around maybe 5'4", 5'5", maybe 6'3", but anyway, a normal-sized person suddenly becomes 10 feet tall and turns red. and says, on the behalf of thousands of people or hundreds of people, says, some things to me. But I don't argue with this 10-foot human. I don't argue. I just go, oh, it's time to listen. I get it. So when that happens, this person doesn't get in trouble. It's okay. But if this comes from somebody who thinks that they're doing it,

[48:38]

by their own will. Which is that. Because those help too. The nice ones are where you get the same message and you just take it and say thank you and they don't get in any trouble. And both of you, they do you a favor. They become a conduit for your help. And you get to listen and say thank you. That's how practice works. Sometimes there's information in the revilement, but the information is not . And neither one of them is as important as saying thank you. These kinds of things happen to you through practicing. They happen to you through practicing. And also, if you continue to practice after it happened to you, then things really start cooking for you.

[49:40]

At least that's what they've been saying for a couple thousand years in foreign countries. Are you shocked? I've been hearing from Ted that it sounds like really good practice. The way to hold criticism or revilement. There's a good practice, and you've been doing a good practice to have those things happen to you. This bit seems really neat.

[50:47]

Can you speak up? Sure. Get on the recording here. Section 16.3 sounds very convenient to me. Convenient? How convenient? That it's good behavior. It's good behavior. What's good behavior? Oh, to... It doesn't... To what? To not respond in such a way where you're being hostile, angry, or physically abusive in return. Right. By the way, Section 16C doesn't tell you not to do that. Right? I'm telling you that the import of section 16c will be that you wouldn't do that. If you understood, then you won't tell in there that you shouldn't. But you're right. If you do, then you just create more karma and postpone your liberation even longer. So my question about it is the way I hold all the dharma, all the teaching,

[51:59]

an experience of them as being empty or the truth. And you said for you, this is my question, you said for you, you read it many times before you had the insight into it. I just wondered what happened for you that the Diamond Sutra Got to me at that time. I don't know. I can't believe I missed it so many times. It's an astounding thing. By humiliation. Actually, you know, when I read it, somehow, what I thought it said was, you will be humbled and by your tears of humiliation, your tears will wash away your karmic obstructions. That's what I sort of thought it said. By being sad at how, you know, Misdeed. And that's sort of like the quote I had from the sutra yesterday. If you think about the bad things you've done, you feel sad.

[53:06]

And by feeling sad, you wash away your bad habits. You think about how it wasn't good. That's another version of the same thing. So, that humiliation, that sort of like, geez, I really... And that's not good to not do good. And I really feel sorry about that. That kind of like washes it away. I'm humiliated, you know. That's the way I heard it. But then somehow that that would like remove all the hindrances and enlighten us. That finally got to me. What a strange combination, because we don't usually think of it. Practice is like humiliation and enlightenment. It's more like, well, I'm pretty humiliated now and I get a little bit better and a little bit better and a little bit better and a little bit better. And pretty soon I'm Buddha. It's more like you're a little bit better, you're a little bit better, you're a little bit better. And then you start getting humiliated. And then when you're well humiliated, then the way is clear. So humility is something that happens shortly before awakening, according to this.

[54:10]

And it isn't just that you just get humbled sort of because you feel like being humbled. The environment starts to like saying, you think you're humble, huh? No, you're not. Try this for humility. Can you say thank you for this one? And out of humility comes enlightenment. Out of humility comes clearing the way. Somehow it took me a long time to get that. And isn't it wonderful? Yeah, it's wisdom beyond wisdom. I mean, you know, it's amazing. Yes. You don't mean to correct you? Yeah. I'm hearing that there's insults that I'm humbled by that my karma thought to weigh with, and I hear that because that I understand that insult as something from capacity that I am

[55:19]

That part of it is that you have an understanding of karmic processes, so that makes it easier for you to appreciate what's happening. You've been training, you know, along, learning a lot, studying yourself, and now, as a reward for your study, which is really, as a reward for your study, you get some final tests. So you're doing pretty well, and can you go with this one, too? And with all that background, you can say thank you. So then that's one. And then the other one I'm hearing, which goes back to, I think, what Rebecca was talking about, is I hear also that somebody can insult and it can possibly have nothing to do, or at least I don't see, I don't have an understanding with how it connects with a past deed of mine. It could be... No. It could be totally somebody else's... All insults have to do with But I'm trying to emphasize over and over when I say that, that it's not just due to past D. There's not a linear deterministic relationship between this event and the past D. The past D didn't do it all by itself.

[56:35]

But there's nothing that happens to you that's not somewhat related to your karma. Because your experience... Things don't just happen to you. Things that happen are the basis for your feelings and then your feelings are always connected to your past karma. Our feelings... I mean, the sun rises and that's not necessarily related to your karmic stream. It's all of our karmic streams together. But when you have a feeling or an experience, your past deeds are part of that experience, but that's not the whole thing. So you get insulted that is connected to your past action. And it is the fruition of your past action, and it is the maturing of your past action, and if you're practicing, that may take care of it entirely. And that's it. There's going to be no future horror stories on that one. Clear.

[57:41]

So you're happy. You're happy because of your understanding, you're happy. And now that you become enlightened, and then you can really work to help people. So I'm not asking for insults or anything, but... Would you have some other hand over there for earlier? Yes. First of all, I don't quite understand how practice makes the consequences of your karma mature. He doesn't understand how practice makes the consequences of your karma mature more quickly. Yeah. What kind of system? How do you know it's not a random thing? Right.

[58:44]

You don't know. You apparently don't know that it's not a random thing. I guess. Is that what you're saying? Okay. I'm just telling you. This is just a Buddhist teaching, okay? Buddhist teaching is what happens to you is not random. Okay? Huh? Well, the Buddha saw that it wasn't. So he's just telling you what he saw. When he saw, number one, that it's not random, what happens is not random, and it's not deterministic. He saw both of those. Before the Buddha, there were schools of philosophy in India of intelligent people. even not just yogis, but yogis who had extrasensory visions of various things that most people can't see, who came up with a philosophy of karmic consequences where they said it's random. That's the indeterminist philosophy. There was a philosophy like that in India. So if you think that... Or if you could... Pardon? I'm just telling you there's some intelligent...

[59:46]

Gifted yogis came up with that philosophy. Other schools of gifted yogis, also intelligent, came up with the philosophy that when you do something, it leads directly to a result, and the result is pretty much in relationship to what you do. The Buddha practiced and discovered a vision where he saw that there was a middle way, where what you do and how you live has something to do with what happens, but it's not deterministic. If it's deterministic, then it's all over. then we're all going to hell, according to that deterministic school, because we've done bad things. It's all over. The Buddha didn't say, however, you're not going to go to hell. You can go to hell if things work out a certain way. But if you practice the middle way, you won't go to hell. As a matter of fact, you'll wake up to the whole system as an illusion. But if you don't understand illusion, you become a slave of it. So the thing you're proposing is one of the possible views that Buddha did not see, and he had refuted that view.

[60:52]

So it's not so much why isn't it that way, but if you analyze that way, it becomes... And if you analyze the other way, it becomes incoherent. But if you analyze the middle way, it maintains its coherence. It's beyond the scope of this present discussion for me to refute those two extremes, but it can be done fairly quickly... Is there a way to actually see that? When you wake up, you can see it. And before you wake up, you need to decide what school you're going to practice. And if you're going to practice the Buddhist school, then what you do is you study your karma. Because Buddhism says if you study your karma, you will understand it.

[61:55]

And when you understand it, you'll become free of it. And when you're free, then you'll understand the laws. The laws of karma you can't see on yourself. Because in yourself, you sometimes do a bad thing and nothing happens. Or you sometimes do a good thing and a bad thing happens. Your own self is not enough of a sample to verify the laws on. Even if you said, okay, I did a bad thing and then a bad thing happened, I did a good thing and a good thing happened, some other people do bad things and good things happen and they do good things and bad things happen. You can't verify the law, the universal law of causation on yourself. The Buddha didn't do it. He did see some stuff that did go along with the laws. But he didn't see how the results happened in the big picture until he was enlightened. Because when you're enlightened, you see everybody's story. You see the interdependence. You see how it all works. Prior to that, you cannot see the laws.

[62:57]

However, you can intellectually... These erroneous laws, but you can't verify the Buddhist law unless you see the Buddhist truth. Once you see the Buddhist truth, you can actually see how karma works too. Prior to that, it's just you're seeing how your karma works, but your karma doesn't make a law. I did a good thing and I had a good result with somebody else. We can refute you if you're doing a one-on-one verification system. See, I don't know. I can't remember exactly who was next and stuff like that. You can do this if you haven't asked questions. Yes? Past wounds. Past wounds? Yeah. If somebody insulted you or humiliated you 20 or 30 years ago, you weren't practicing and didn't know about practicing, and you carried this heartburn with you. That was an insult or humiliation. And it always comes up and you...

[63:59]

Is 15D applicable? Yes, yeah. If someone harmed you many years ago, okay, and you, for example, you weren't practicing, in other words, you got angry or whatever, angry at yourself or angry at them, rather than saying thank you, what some people do is, then they get angry at themselves for getting hurt, right? Especially 20 years ago or 40 years ago, you know, you did that, right? The nice thing about practice is you can go back and say thank you for all the bad things that ever happened. And you don't have to do it one by one. You do it with one and simultaneously go all the ones you didn't say thank you to before. I was doing actually a workshop with Sala and Yeshe at Kasahara one time. And I think they asked us maybe to think. I think one of the exercises was to ask something unrecognized or misjudged or something like that.

[65:03]

Is that it? And I can't remember exactly how it happened, but I thought of a time when I was five, when I was playing with my boy cousin and girl cousin. My boy cousin was four years older than me. ...was one year older than me, and I was playing, and I punched my girl cousin in the stomach. To me, I felt like I was just playing, you know? And I didn't... I wasn't... I really wasn't, like, trying to... But anyway, I hit her in the stomach in the process of this play and knocked her breath out. You know how kids lose their breath sometimes? Doesn't happen to adults so much, does it? Anyway, I knocked her breath out. So here's this five-year-old boy seeing his cousin, who he actually likes a lot... I don't know what, dying? Anyway, my uncle comes in, and she gets her breath back. Me, you know, if you ever do that again, I'll kill you. Anyway, that's something that happened.

[66:08]

I was not capable at that time of saying, thank you. Exercise, well I think another part of the exercise is at that time that you were misjudged or you felt you were misjudged or unrecognized, what could someone have said to you at that time that would have helped you deal with that? And I realized that what would have helped me is if someone said, after my uncle said that and left the room, if somebody had come in the room and said, how do you feel? If somebody would have asked me that, I could have answered that question, and the thing would have passed. And I could have maybe almost said thank you. And when I realized that that's the question that would have helped me, I asked myself that question, and I said how I felt, and it cleared for me. Forty-five years before, it cleared for me to be able to say how I felt at that time.

[67:17]

That's all it took. But because nobody... the way I felt for years and years, and it interfered with my relationships with women. You may feel like, well, good, but it did. It really made me feel like you can't play. That's why I translate that. You can't play. It's too dangerous to play. If you play, you get killed. If somebody had asked me, I feel like I can't play, that would have cleared it probably. But I asked myself the question 45 years later, and it cleared. I did what somebody could have done for me. But then when that happened, a whole bunch of other incidents like that that happened in my life during the last five or ten years, where things were happening to me and I felt misjudged and unrecognized, but nobody was asking me then, how do you feel, how do you feel, how do you feel? All those cleared at the same time. So when one part wakes up, a whole other area can wake up at the same time. So you can clear it. So you don't necessarily have to go back and do it,

[68:19]

But you can go back and then you can clear forward or you can clear forward, backwards. But, you know, our mind is like a unit. And it's connected to everybody else's. So waking up at one point wakes up other points. It doesn't mean that you don't have endless number of points to wake up the other points from all different angles and so on. But you can work like that. Meg? You mentioned the sun coming up. Could you say more about collective karma and environmental effects? Well, strictly speaking, I think it's a misnomer to say collective karma. But there is, like, a person does their own karma. We don't actually do karma together. You have ten people, each one of them does one thing. But the sum total of all the karma of all living beings has created a world which has some uniformity in it. For example, there are five senses. And nobody has a seventh.

[69:23]

We can't see any animals, any place in the universe that have seven senses. So far. And that's because we're all working together. We've made a world where it all agrees. We have done that together. And so now five senses, but we have five fields for them to respond to and we don't have any other time. Except we have ranges beyond the limits of what we can detect in those five fields. That's the world we live in. We don't live in another one. We've all worked on it together. We all have that equipment and we keep making a world like that. And we don't let each other have any other worlds. So the sun rising means, you know, the sun rising is not really something that actually happens out there aside from us working together to, you know, keep it. It does not keep happening without us working together for it. If we stop doing that, the sun will not be rising anymore. That's not really the way things are happening.

[70:27]

But we make it that way for each other. That's the condition of the result of the consequence of the karma of all living beings for history. Do you know what I mean by the sun's not rising the way we talk about it? Do you know what I mean? No? If you would like go up there and try to figure out where's the beginning and end of the sun, how would you actually come up with that? By what means are you going to say that this is where the sun stops and this is where it starts? How are you going to do that? Just think about it. Do you know what I mean? Would you like say, well, it starts right here because it's starting to get like, now it's like, what is it? Two million degrees Fahrenheit right here? This is where it starts. No, no, no, it has to start, you know, six million degrees Fahrenheit, you know, whatever. Where do you say the sun starts and stops? Does the sun stop at the planet Earth?

[71:34]

Is that where it stops? The heat, what is the sun? Is it heat? Is it light? The light of the sun, you know, where do you say it starts and stops? Well, you say, how about its mass? Let's talk about its mass. Where does its mass start and stop? We have, conventionally speaking, decided what the sun is. But without conventional designation, there's no beginning or end to the sun. Without language, there's not this ball which, you know, it's a defined thing which begins and ends. There is no beginning or end to anything. without conventional designation. No things can happen. No individual things can happen like suns, moons, earths, trees, people, eyeballs. Those things cannot happen except by conventional designation. Where does the designation come from? It comes from people having a convention. Without language, there is no world like we talk about. There's no sun or moon or anything like that. Is that clear? The world cannot arise without conventional designation.

[72:38]

Otherwise, there are possibilities all over the place all the time. There's a possibility of sun, but there's also a possibility of a totally different sun. There's a possibility of innumerable suns in this galaxy, I mean in this solar system. But we have come down on one of those possibilities by convention. And we have that by a certain conventional process, you know, in the East, we say the East and blah, blah, blah. This is kind of a big topic. I don't know who started this. Oh, Meg. Yeah, well, thank you, Meg. We discover that physical objects and quantum objects and all that are recreating them. Is that what you're getting into here? Well, you say when we discover astrophysical and quantum objects, that's the very point of those, is that we realize that the definition, right?

[73:41]

Yeah, and we know of nothing else other than what we make. So they go out there and they get various information, but then finally they come to a conventional designation and then they've got a thing. They get enough justification to get a bunch of people together and say, okay, this is happening, and then it is. It's not like we conventionally designate things with no other basis. There's three levels at which things are created. One is that various causes and conditions. The other is that there's various parts that are relevant to the thing we're talking about that are satisfied. But the third thing is, and the most subtle is, there has to be a mental imputation for a thing to appear in the middle of causation. But it isn't just that we go around and attribute conventional designation all over the place and make things. You have to have some conditions satisfied before that'll work. But without that one, things don't happen. No things, processes. But when you take a process and take a word together with a process and satisfy the requirements of the process, then you get things.

[74:48]

But without conventional designation, there's no things in the universe that anybody can come up with. and physics is coming along with this. The Buddha hasn't been saying it for a long time. He was doing it after that. I think he was doing it after that. He just had faith in it. And the study consumed the game, figuring out what the Buddhists had discovered through some long time ago. Is that the right thing to do? Recently the mathematicians have proved Pharma's last equation, but the mathematical technology that they used to prove it was not the technology that Pharma used to prove it in the 17th century. So Buddha used different techniques to arrive at the same conclusions that modern physicists are using. He used meditation on his karma. So by meditating on your karma you can actually witness what modern physics is coming up with with the energy and computers and everything.

[76:02]

Except it comes from the ground up rather than from the head down. So once you realize it you're liberated rather than have a real neat idea. I think Nice for me, and for some of you to go on after questions, but it's, I want you to be able to go and sit now, so we should stop. Ah, I see what she's reading, that's the...

[76:32]

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