It said that it was going to go start Friday at 2.30. Is it okay if we end at lunchtime? Is that right? I'd like to end at lunchtime. That's all right. So, if you have any questions at this time about what was presented last night, please, if you like, bring them forth. I have a question I was thinking about last night or this morning of how I think I've always thought of calling this kind of the way I didn't have Christian upbringing but like the way I thought of God kind of like this a lot that everything I said or did or thought was somehow you know like seen or kind of like I couldn't no matter how small that somehow somewhere something like if you think of God as like a presence that maybe you can travel to your actions

[01:08]

In Buddhism, I guess, I was wondering if it's... You spoke of the mechanical aspect of the law of karma, you know? How it is not exactly like a wreck with everything you've done, but how it accumulates. Well, this little one-page thing I gave you has three sections. One is, what is... Next section is about the retribution or result. That's the section you're bringing. And the third is who inherits or what inherits this, you know, where does the result go? Okay, so I'd like to have a separate discussion about the consequences. in that time, you can bring this up, okay? I'd still like to focus on, you know, at this point, what is karma to see if we understand what it actually is in the first place?

[02:18]

Any questions about that? Before we go on to the, how does the, how do the effects manifest? What's the pattern of retribution for action? Um, Last night, I'm sorry, I can't remember the exact reference, but maybe the word will bring something to your mind anyway, but you said something about karma as bondage, or even if you understand, somehow if you understand something, you could still be caught, and there was something about bondage in there. But the question that occurred to me is, what about, or how did that have something, what's the relationship to bodhisattva vow, that even if you maybe see through it, come back and exist in the mud, somehow that and lotus and muddy water, how karma and that vow are re-entering, if there's some relationship there.

[03:20]

Or is it not karma? Okay. So... Last night I talked about what karma was. Before I talked about karma, I talked about how important it is to study karma. Remember that? So, there is a teaching that there is this true body of Buddha that this enlightenment has a kind of reality body. The reality body is like vast space, but it can manifest in the world in response to beings. So if you have beings, for example, beings who are involved in karma, the reality body of Buddha manifests in response to those beings, like us.

[04:27]

And the way it manifests It manifests in the form of teaching, reality. So, for example, it manifests in the form of a person like Shakyamuni Buddha, and then he teaches, and what does he teach? He teaches right view. So, enlightenment comes into the world where beings are caught up in karma. It teaches them to look at karma. It comes into the prison of karma. ...study the prison. Sonya's saying, well, you know, now I've got this bondage prison, this karmic prison. What about the bodhisattva vow to come in, you know, come into the prison, come into the dirt, mud? Yeah, the bodhisattva vow, if that enlightenment does come into the world of karma, You teach beings in the world of karma how to study karma.

[05:34]

And from the point of view of enlightenment, the prison, the mechanical prison of karma is a playground that they jointly jump into in order to teach beings how to get out. It's a favorite game called teaching dharma in the world of karma. suffering being. And bodhisattva, there's no way for a bodhisattva to do her work other than entering the world of karma. But the world of karma bodhisattva does not have a job site or playground. So it's not necessarily escaping karma of that moment, but Understanding karma or engaging. It's understanding how to live in karma, how to move through karma.

[06:39]

It's freedom, to find the freedom in the realm of karma. Not to be free of, but to have freedom. To be free of, to be free of, but not have to lead to be free. You have to give up the world in order to be free of it, probably. You don't have to leave the world to be free of it. And it's the same with our own mind. As a living creature, we have a mind, we have a field of experience. What's the way to be in that field of experience that's free of? And first of all, is if there's any obstructions and clinging catchments, confusion, and suffering in that field, if we study it, we can come through it. So I tell a story quite often. In the land of Islam, a man was put in prison, and one of his friends sent me a present, an opiate present, a prayer log.

[07:56]

He thought, well, why didn't you send me a file some money to bribe the garage or a gun or something. What a friend. Anyway, he put the prayer rug down and started bowing on it, doing that practice with Islam, and he bowed on the rug. And after a long time, he started to get to know the pattern in the rug. And then he'd actually notice that it was a rather unusual pattern for a prayer rug. you'd realize that actually it looked like a diagram. It looked like a diagram for a lock. So you realize that it was a diagram for the lock itself. They made a key and got out. So if you just keep studying the diagram of your bondage, you'll see the key. So we'll, you know,

[09:00]

There's some pattern, so there's some pattern. That's a Chinese character for thinking, for volition up there. So you see the top part, the rice, the pattern of rice field, other parts of mind, so it's a pattern of mind. If you keep studying the pattern of the mind, you'll see how there's a lock there. If you understand the structure of the lock, you'll see what kind of key there would fit that lock. and then you're just in your mouth. Right while you're in. Yeah. I have trouble telling the difference between and situations. Well, you mentioned that the need for activity is . But what about? And the working of the scare here. but it's a working, it's a function, but there's no, there's no thinking there.

[10:07]

It's a non, the way that Van Hoon thing works with the water and the earth, it's not thinking. So like putting your hand, taking your hand off something really high? Yeah, you can do that, or like a child, you know, little kids, if they, When they're quite young, if they're on a table like this and they move towards the edge of the table, they get scared to get back away from the edge of the table. Because if there's a pattern and the pattern changes, they're wired to move away from that pattern change. It happens from different distances of things from the eye. And so you can actually have a floor which has big squares on a flat surface, and then little squares on it, and the child will come to the little squares and back away. And if you push it on the floor into the little squares, it'll get really upset. You know what I mean? You following that?

[11:08]

Because usually, there's a continuous pattern, and the size of the pattern gets smaller. You can get the drop. So they're built to move away from that. And, but at a later age, they jumped into that space. Especially boys. So what if I, um. The dude, the mother is there. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I didn't, I didn't, I forget to ask my question. Yeah. So anyway, that's an example of not karma. They're not thinking, they just fit this book into it. So what if I, Yeah, right. It seems like this is an example of where... But in that story... There's a story he's referring to, which we have to tell now.

[12:12]

And the story says... I can tell a story now. So, two months of talking. And one monk says, should watch this. And he calls to a boy who's nearby sweeping. He says, hey, you and the boy goes like this. And then he says, what's, he says, hey, you and the boy goes like this. And he says, what, what, what. Okay, two different responses to the words. One case, he just turns. And the other case, he starts thinking. Okay, so what's your question? I want to say, the first one I'll say won't help. The original story was, hey, you. He says, I call it, hey, you. If he turns his head, I say, what is it? So in other words, if I say, hey, you, and he just responds like this, then I say, what is it?

[13:17]

He hesitates. So we're not going to pick up a cheap cup yet. So we're not like talking about it. I could be. Either way. Please, I want you to do that. Well, again, there could be an intention to do it, OK? So there could be this kind of like busy thing. The mind's shaped in such a way that guides the hand over the teacup, all right? And that means you could say that that's karma. And it's particularly karma when there's the operation of a self, and a belief in a self, which is isolated from other selves, and that self is now going to act upon this pattern of thought and move the arm.

[14:20]

That could all happen. Simultaneously, there could be complete presence with that at the same time, which wouldn't be karma. But you're saying, well, there's karma there too. Maybe there is. Now, what if by training oneself in a situation of karma and studying karma for a long time, you become more and more intimate with this kind of non-thinking that's going along with the thinking. And gradually you uproot, or you know, finally you uproot the belief in self, which is what makes physical and verbal and mental action lead to karma. Then you can reach for these things and there's not any karma at all. It's just non-thinking. So whether there is

[15:26]

this, whether it's a case of karma by itself, the person just involved in karma, whether it's that karma can observation of karma, or whether by having observation of karma for a long time, the person become intimate with the process and seeing the source of it and become free of it. And now all the action is not connected, it is between itself. Which stage of the process it is, I guess we have to look into ourselves and discuss with someone about where we are in the picture. If we're discussing it, we're probably just on the verge anyway of starting to study. But there could be a long training period when we're studying the karma, but have it not yet done to the source of illusion that makes karma possible. So there can be this kind of thing with that that can get me out of the future.

[16:28]

And in fact, that's the way they really are before we get into projecting self onto the process. And Dania was talking about something about, last night she talked about, if you can become completely intimate with the process, whatever process, even the process of karma, that intimacy, from that intimacy appropriate action comes. So if someone could call your name, turn your head, say a Buddha would turn your head. Hello Buddha? No big deal. No kind of like, well I'm Buddha, so I'll turn my head. Just Buddha? Buddha knows, knows his name. Any Buddha? Yes? They call me Buddha. So I turn my head when they say Buddha. But no kind of like I do it, And sometimes you might say Buddha, Buddha won't turn her head, because it's not appropriate.

[17:35]

It's in a session of no head turning. It's hard for us to understand how, once you start becoming aware of karma, or even before you might not be able to understand how you can act free of self. But when you're free of self, then action can be free of self. When the living person, when the living being is free of self-belief, then there still can be action. So enlightened beings can walk around without doing an eternal. That's the proposal. Unconscious, subconscious, green. The relationship between subconscious.

[18:37]

Subconscious thoughts, unconscious thoughts, unique set. The relationship, they count as common. If you have an unconscious impulse, you act it out, it's still correct. Which kind of action? That's the difference is that when somebody calls your name and you turn your head, if it's by habit, it's about karma. And if it's just according to the circumstances, circumstances determine it, rather than there could be no habit, then it's not.

[19:46]

But particularly, I guess you'd have to say, well, could there be a habit that doesn't have anything to do with self, that didn't have anything to do with self, that would have to be okay and not be not karma? And I would say, Maybe even a habit that had no self mixed in with it might not be common to you. For example, the habit of the language habit. So that there's some kind of like, you're going along with the world that each of us had this name called you when somebody else says it, right? We're you when somebody's looking at us and saying, that's kind of the language habit. So I say, hey you. to have it to turn your head, or the agreement, the convention, to turn your head. But there might be no view there, no attachment to you, that separate being when you turn it. And I think that part, looking at the story again, these two monks are sitting there trying to tell there's difference between ignorance and enlightenment.

[21:00]

So the one monk's gonna show the other monk how to test it. So they call this boy, they say, hey you. the boy turns his head. But I think what they mean is that the boy turns his head, just turns his head. He's got no concern. He's not worried about, you know, whether he's turning it well or not. He's not concerned whether he's going to gain anything from it. He just turns his head. And when he turns his head, the monk who's trying to show says, is this not the immutable knowledge of all Buddhists? Hey, you. So he turned it in such a way that the other monks didn't say. The point was he could see that the way it had turned it was like a sunflower opening. Isn't the way a sunflower opens the immutable knowledge of all Buddhas? Isn't the way the rain falls the immutable knowledge of all Buddhas? Isn't the tear on your cheek when you see something being the immutable knowledge of all Buddhas?

[22:04]

Yeah, no big deal. If somebody's suffering and a tear comes down, you're wondering, now, is this tear not, is somebody noticing this tear? Am I, you know, is it really, like, am I going to get something out of this? That's not it. So when he said, hey, you, welcome up to watching, hey, you, he turned his head and he said, there it is. That's Buddha. Then he says, what's Buddha? And then the boy starts thinking. He didn't think anything. Various things happen. And it's just not the fundamental affliction of ignorance. So even though it's a habit maybe to sort of turn your head when you're called, there's a way of doing it. There's no self clinging at. There's just a response. And there's a way that you're concerned. Should I turn my head? Should I not turn my head to police?

[23:04]

Are they not likely? It's not likely. It's not likely. Then you turn your head and you're suffering. So I think there could be habit when it is to have mixed in itself. If it is, then it's common. Yes? No. There is a law of cause and effect of karma. Karma itself is not cause and effect. Karma is, well, if you say karma is an effect, and karma is a cause, but it is not cause an effect by itself. But it is a result of cause, and it can be a cause. And there is karma cause and effect. Karma itself is just phenomenal. When it arises, it has effects.

[24:05]

So the teaching is that the right view is karma does have effects. It isn't just action, but it is a reaction to it. It is a consequence. So we study the cause and effect of karma, or we study the karma involving cause and effect, but karma by itself is strictly speaking is not cause and effect. Yeah, but the Zodzin, I mean, let's see, what is it? You say Zodzin will do that, but the Zodzin that does that, it's not what I need by Zodzin. The Zodzin I'm talking about is there prior to your blood pressure in blood weight. So the first time you sit, the way you sit itself is also before you even start sitting.

[25:18]

So before you start sitting, when you first sit, when you practice for three hours and 27 minutes, your blood pressure drops. But your higher blood pressure, itself is ours, and being a lowered blood pressure itself is ours. Housing is all pervasive. Let me say, it's near before and after the spectrum to the end. It's exquisite feel, resonant through all time and space. But this lowering of blood pressure and all the other good stuff, which we know happened, right? Please. Pardon? It's not what I call it. Now, some people, the Zaga can be used by anybody if we don't have a pattern on the earth.

[26:18]

So some karmic being will say, I'm doing Zaga now. I'm doing that kind of karma. It's fine. You can't control this word. Strictly speaking, a thousand of the Buddhists, Buddha doesn't do prana. Buddha just saves our being in that thought. But the Buddha doesn't. Buddha doesn't save being. It doesn't necessarily love blood pressure. But certain kind of concentration practices are just cool. Ready? How is that to care for such a mission or not rejecting it to people?

[27:21]

What is what I'm talking about related to objectivity, which is to see a situation and not going to get into it? relates in a sense that what you're referring to of seeing a situation and not bringing judgment to it, that's the best way to study karma. That would be a good way to study karma, to see a situation and not bring judgment to it. Now what situation do you see? You see a situation of karma. What situation of karma? Perhaps that means bringing judgment to situations. There it is, you've got a situation with your mind, okay, got this mind, got this experience field, there's judgment there. In most, almost all, states of consciousness, in almost every experience we ever have, there's judgment. That's part of the pattern, that's part of the landscape of a moment of experience, there's judgment.

[28:27]

Okay, so now you've got judgment there someplace. And then what else you got going on? various other, you know, impulses and emotions and values and intentions and perceptions and concepts, all this stuff going on. And then some judgment. So to observe that field without judgment, you know, just let it be as it is. That's the best way to study the field of judgment. So some people are attracted to Buddha even by Zen because they hear it's non-judgmental practice. But again, it's It's not that when you're practicing a meditation that's nonjudgmental. It doesn't mean that there's not judgments in your mind. You realize freedom from judgment by studying judgment. So in most states of karmic consciousness, part of the pattern is that there's some judgment there.

[29:30]

Some judgments are really painful. Some judgments are not so painful. Some judgments are actually quite pleasant. Yeah, non-judgmental meditation is the way to become free from... also from treasures. If you're bondage to treasures, you're falling to bondage to junk. But this is, you know, when all kinds of bondage, they suffer. You bondage to beauty, bondage to the lovely, bondage to the holy. Bondage to liberation. Bondage to liberation.

[30:38]

So if we non-judgmentally study bondage, we become free. And again, say free of bondage to junk means free of bondage to the judgment of junk. Well, it's not so much that junk becomes gold, but that junk becomes beautiful. If you study things with a non-judgmental attitude, you gradually see how they happen. When you see how anything happens, it becomes beautiful. The way junk happens when it's beautiful is the way treasures happen. And I don't think so. Because although the treasure may be nicer to look at, and so that's a nice plus.

[31:50]

So you've got this nice treasure plus the beauty of how it happens. Wouldn't that be better than this very obnoxious thing, plus the beauty of what that happens? Well, the thing is that you're you get extra bonus from seeing the beauty of the other. So they kind of balance out and everything actually is kind of equally overwhelming when you see how they happen. So it isn't exactly that junk or obnoxious change into something else, but rather that you see the light of everything when you can look with this inviting attitude. I think someone else, yeah.

[32:51]

You're having trouble coming in terms of beauty? I told you that you talked before, because Dr. Brown was in medicine earlier, the bird is . And so, is that one bondage? What are you referring to when you say is that a bondage? So, you're talking about . Well, Jen was talking about getting away from junk, and I said also, come free of treasures. You can't actually, I don't think you can just become in bondage to beauty. I think what you do is, when you see beauty, and try to get it, you kill it.

[33:56]

So, because you want to be in bondage to beauty, because you want to have beauty, you kill people. Beauty is, what do you call it, you can't exploit it. You can only convert it, you can only kill it. You exploit to kill beauty. Because real beauty is just totally out of control. But we don't like that, so we try to make it into our own version of beauty, which we then can sell, or possess, or manipulate. Then we kill beauty. If beauty is just the way things are happening, you can't get a hold of that. No, not necessarily. As long as you, when beauty happens, as long as you just let it be, and therefore lose it.

[35:01]

Because part of the way beauty is, is that The way things are happening, the way things are happening doesn't hold still. Then you have to let it sort of be out of control and just keep overwhelming you, then you haven't killed it. Now, in the midst of that, you might say, geez, I wish I could get a hold of it. Geez, I wish I could have it for a little while. Just hold it for a second. That wishing, that yearning, that won't necessarily kill it unless you act on it. and stop your car and get out to take a picture. And then you look at the picture and say, what happened to you? Like, you know, when you drive down the Green College on that road, you know, and you come, you drive, and you come around the corner, and you go, there's the ocean. You know, kind of want to stop your car and, you know, hold it there for a second. But have you ever stopped your car?

[36:04]

I've stopped my car every time. not there. You know, you come around the corner, just this flash of ocean and sky just strikes you, you know. And then you keep driving, you go around another curb and it's gone, you know. Because you can't keep watching, otherwise you'll have an accident. Right? So you turn, you know. And you lose this beauty. You lose the ocean, you lose the sky. Then you come around another corner, there it is again. But not the same one. Not the new one. You want that, but you have to keep turning. If you actually stop your car and look, it's all gone. Because you're trying to get it. With that urine, I think that's okay. The fact that you drive around the corner of beauty, and you're lost. It hurts you when it hits the first time, and it hurts it when it goes away. But that hurt is not, that hurt doesn't hurt you. It's just painful, because it just attacks your heart.

[37:07]

wakes your life up, and then it goes away. You're not quite completely willing to let go, right? A little bit looking forward to the next time. And if you look forward to the next time you come around, you don't get it. If you're watching for it, if you're going to turn, not there. If I'm waiting for it, it doesn't come. It's when it's surprising. The big Garuda bird comes in and it dives into my heart and blows it up for a second. I want more? Okay. That doesn't hurt you that much. But to actually act on it, then you pretty much close your eyes. Close your heart. I don't want any more of this kind of beauty invasion and beauty abandonment. I'm going to fight back and stop my car and just go out there and get it. It doesn't work. So there you are sitting in the window, and the birds sing, and it gets you, the sound gets you, okay?

[38:19]

And then it goes away, and then you hear it. But it really wasn't the sound of the bird, it was the way it happened. It wasn't just the sound of the bird, it was the sound of the bird coming in weird ear while you were listening. All that is what was the beauty. We had a job with problems with that. Yes. . And a friend of mine once looked in there and she said, that's amazing.

[39:26]

You should take a photograph. And I looked at her like, you're not going to be kidding me. The way we have really, I remember that. Fresh eyes. Study our chrono with fresh eyes. Okay, yeah. Yeah, I think that's probably, yeah, uprooting the carmen means uprooting the source of the carmen.

[40:29]

But we really should be... If you fight karma, it flares up. This gentle, alert presence with it leads to freedom from it and get it through. But if you just try to pull karma up directly, it just can make karma stronger because trying to pull up, if you're in the world of karma, you try to pull it up, That's just more karma. If you know how to pull karma up without interjecting yourself and repeating karma, then you wouldn't have to pull up karma because it would already be pulled up. Okay, thank you. Yeah.

[41:38]

Uh-huh. Well, I kind of used to relate to the experience, but it seems that some of them, it's very easy to see with women. Not allowed. But there was intention of being able to come up the ball in a very specific way. It's quite exciting and exciting. ... [...]

[43:04]

It's not very special. Ultimately it's not going to happen. No, what is it that's not that official, a wholesome, a dualism between wholesomeness and unwholesome goods? Yes. Yes.

[44:07]

why it's totally uncomfortable. And I'm happy to be walking, and the time was there for the morning. But why the thinking is not there, it's action. Okay, well, one of the things you said was difficulty of observing. The other thing you said was that doesn't seem necessarily helpful to categorize what you're seeing in yourself, unless you get mad. So, again, you're saying it doesn't seem necessarily helpful to categorize what you're seeing in yourself. And something about and it seems to be dualistic, and I'd be dualistic.

[45:10]

So what I'm talking, so meditating on your mind, meditating on your consciousness, it's not to say you should make your consciousness dualistic. If you can look at your consciousness and see the non-duality of your consciousness. then you have no problem seeing the duality of your consciousness. If you can't see the duality of your consciousness, if you can't see the non-duality of your consciousness, then you're going to see the duality of your consciousness. Now the question is, is it somewhat beneficial to see the duality of your consciousness? And I would say, my proposal is, basic principle of a meditation which will free you from something is that if you study the things, you can become free of the thing.

[46:13]

So, selfishness is dualistic. Selfishness is based on I'm separate from, or I'm isolated from, or I'm independent from, or I'm dual with the other. So my proposal is If you want to become free of X, study X. If you want to be free of dualistic consciousness, study dualistic consciousness. I'm not saying... I'm not recommending that you think dualistically. But as far as I know, everybody I've met that I've talked to thinks dualistically. So I'm not telling anybody to think dualistically. People come that way. I'm saying, okay, so we got dualism, fine. Now if you want to be free of the dualism, I'm saying study it. So I'm not saying you should categorize your mind into wholesome and wholesome.

[47:18]

I'm just saying, do you have a mind that has these different types of, different qualities of consciousness? Do you sometimes have wholesome states? Do you sometimes have unwholesome states? If you do, study the different kinds of states. Become familiar with how they work, and you'll gradually start to develop the conditions for liberation from this world where there's different kinds of states. And that would be good to do whether you're going to act out from these dualistic states in terms of speech and posture towards other people, but it would also be good to do if you're all by yourself, you know, in an empty room with no other living beings in the room, it still would be good to do that because you yourself are in there, and you yourself are suffering from duality.

[48:23]

So I'm proposing that it is beneficial to study in this upright fashion, to study the dualistic thinking we're involved in, that it is beneficial in the sense that it sets you free from the prison of dualistic thinking. Dualistic thinking is a prison, I'm saying. If you want to be free, now if you don't think it's good to be free from this prison of dualistic thinking, then it wouldn't be good to study it because you might accidentally become free of it. But if you want to become free of dualistic thinking and free of the suffering that's involved there, and free of the actions which emerge from it, which cause these unfortunate effects, then I say study it. I propose study it as the way of freedom from it. Yes.

[49:36]

Okay, stop there. You don't have to do that. Okay? You don't have to say wholesome and wholesome. You don't have to. But if you're curious about it, you might notice that such and such an action causes pain. Right. You don't have to sort of say, Okay, that's pain, that's unwholesome. But you notice, oh, when I do this, that happens, and I really feel bad. That's what we mean by unwholesome. In other words... It's simply... Pain both for yourself. What was it the point that you said? shouldn't be something that's not brought into awareness. What is it? This meditation is nothing about what should and should not be brought into awareness.

[50:50]

This meditation is awareness. Karma is about what should and should not be brought into awareness. Karma is about what should and should not be brought into awareness. Karma is like I'm going to bring this into awareness. I'm going to get that out of awareness. I'm going to get these people into awareness. I'm going to get these people out of awareness. In other words, we're going to get these people out of here. We're going to bring these people into here. We're going to get this kid and all his toys out of awareness. We're going to get a different kid into awareness. This is karma. So I'm not saying you should do karma. Karma is about moving stuff in and out of awareness. Karma is like timing it. You know, I'm going to move. I got a messy house. I'm going to move that out of awareness. I got a clean house. I'm going to move that into awareness. I got this kind of thought. I got that kind of thought. I got this kind of food. I got that kind of food. These kinds of friends. It's this manipulation.

[51:50]

I'm going to manipulate the world into being a world of a certain experience. I'm going to change my experience. I'm going to prove my experience for me. That's current. I'm not saying you should or should not do that. That's what karma is like. So karma is doing, and there's two kinds of karma. One kind of karma is trying to manipulate things in a skillful way. The other kind of karma is trying to manipulate things in an unskillful way. They're both karma though. So you say, oh, when I try to clean my house this way, I get pretty good results. When I try to clean my house in that way, I get pretty good results. But both those things are karma. And both of them are bondage. However, one is more skillful than the other. And what we call more skillful, one of the qualities of skillful action, and if you watch, you can see it's a skillful action.

[52:52]

One of it leads to good material results, namely like if you drive a car skillfully, you tend not to break your arms and legs. But another thing about driving a car skillfully, besides physical safety and a car being in good shape, is the opportunity to study karma. So skillful karma gives rise to the opportunity to study karma. And unskillful karma not only leads to unfortunate physical results, but it tends to darken and obscure your ability to study. And that's the most important thing away, is that wholesome action tends to promote the ability to study action, and unwholesome action tends to undermine the ability to study action. Is that clear to everybody?

[53:56]

Because that's really important. Unskillful and unwholesome are synonyms. Unskillful is a synonym for wholesome. Good, skillful, wholesome, healthy, swell, these are synonyms. Bad, unskillful, unfortunate, unhealthy are synonyms. Skillful action leads to good results in the material world, and increases your chances of study and understanding. Unskillful tends to lead towards unfortunate results and suppression and deterioration of your ability to study the process. I still haven't dealt with the thing about the difficulty of study, but maybe I'll deal with that before I take the question.

[54:59]

So she's also saying that she finds it difficult to study this stuff's happening so fast. I think she says something about difficult to hold an experience long enough to study. And I would say many people have that problem that your experience is changing so fast, it's hard to hold it there long enough to study it. And matter of fact, you cannot hold it. You can't hold an experience. You can only kill it, freeze dry it, and look at it, sort of some memory image of it. That's not the experience. So what you gotta do is not try to fold your experience or slow your experience down. In a sense, you gotta speed up. And the way you speed up is by slowing down. So the more you can be still, the more you can be faster. And you can be there when these things happen and get a little picture of it before it changes.

[56:02]

because things are changing very fast. And so we can't hold something long enough to see it. As we start to meditate on what's going on inside of ourselves, we just get a little bit of it. But the more you study, the more you get. The more you start studying these rapidly changing states of mind, the better you get at that sort of like taking in a lot in a very short time. Like maybe sometimes you make a dentist experiment and you just like, you know, look at something for a very short period of time and then close your eyes and then try to remember all you saw. Now it's true if you looked longer at it, you would get more information, but gradually these come back to you. Like this, I saw it, what do you call it? an advertisement for a new Eddie Murphy movie, and he's training some new cop.

[57:10]

And this one scene I had, he's sitting there, and this guy opens the door. He comes to the room, and he says, close your eyes. He comes to the room, and he says, close your eyes. He says, what did you see? The guy says, all the stuff he saw. He saw a tremendous amount. And so part of the training was how much can you see like that in that space? And you train yourself to see more and more in that little space. Still, if you look longer, you get more impressions and you can learn more. But still, we get a lot of information in a short period of time. And we often get enough to be able... I mean, our experiences are very short and the information does come to us and we can learn to start evaluating it. And so, but it is hard. But still, if you start looking, you gradually start getting a little information.

[58:13]

You can start to, and sometimes things of similar nature keep coming back over and over so you can get different aspects found. Like you feel, like again, when you're sitting, you feel an impulse, for example, to move. And that impulse to move might come up again and again. And there's some similarity, if you keep the body in the same position, there's some similarity to these repeated impulses to move. Because it's the same body, in the same room, in the same position, basically. And it's the same impulse. Categorically, it's the same impulse. I want to move. And the motivation for it might be similar. I'm uncomfortable. So they're not exactly the same experience. But some of the ingredients are the same. So you can watch that. You can see now, would this be wholesome or unwholesome to move? Would this be beneficial or unbeneficial to move? So you can study in that way. So one can get a little better at this gradually.

[59:19]

One can get actually quite good at it gradually. Yes, Judy? when we spoke of wholesome and skillful karma, we still were not talking about good karma as is often used. You could say good. Good's another word you can use. Yeah, but it's still bondage, even though it's... All karma is bondage. All karma is bondage. And yet, street language karma. Yeah. There's often a good karma. Yes. Which... Which I think of almost a little bit like when we're speaking about the yoga and that It will bring good results. All good karma is like that, though. Good, wholesome, skillful. Good, wholesome, skillful. Whatever other words. All those things, they all bring good results. That's the rule. They do bring good results. They bring good material results, health, lower blood pressure, better looks, nice boyfriends and girlfriends,

[60:28]

Cute kids, nice house, cars, money. They bring all that kind of stuff. Plus, they also bring spiritual opportunities, like they bring the ability to observe what you're doing. So that's what good karma brings. But it's still bondage. Because it's still based on and perpetuates the belief in duality. Like, this is good for me. But it's true that certain actions are good for me and good for people I like. And other actions are bad for me and the people I like. Those are the bad karma, the unskillful karma. So in the world of duality, which is miserable throughout, good things happen for me. But to live in a world where good things are happening for me, who's separate from you, is still... Lots of anxiety and pain there.

[61:30]

And freedom is somewhat limited. Somewhat limited. And somewhat limited is a big deal. Because freedom is like not somewhat limited. Freedom is like zero limited. And until we experience complete freedom, we are miserable. Because it is our nature to be free. That's the proposal of the Buddha. The nature of human beings is that we are totally free. We have a nature which is prior to this whole karmic trip. And until we realize that, we're not going to be happy. And actually until everybody realizes that, we're going to have to keep striving to realize it. And good karma, if you're in the world of karma, good karma is recommended because good karma promotes this realization of how to become free of good and bad karma, or bad and good karma, whichever way you want to put the emphasis.

[62:45]

Where's our treats? I'm sorry. No, no, no. Stay there. I want to see if they come without you moving. No, no. Stay. Stay. Stay. Please stay. [...] I think it's more interesting to see what will happen if you don't go. We know what will happen if you do go. You'll make it happen. Please sit. Please. Is it Holson? I don't know. Is it Holson? No, I think you're saying something. No, I don't want her to go and make this thing happen. What's the adjunct heart? Okay, it's a break time. Break. Go have tea. No, tea's coming. Go have tea. Break. It's break time now. Break time.

[63:56]

You see, you won't do what I say. We are breaking. Break time. Some of us are already broken. At this time, see the pattern of consciousness. You have a sense of how to do that. If that means nobody can. What did you say? You can't do it? How come? No, but what makes you think you can't do it by citing case 37, what do you mean? You can't look at the mind.

[65:02]

No, I didn't say look at the mind. I said, can you see the quality of your consciousness? You can't see the awareness. You can't be aware of your awareness. But your awareness can be aware of the quality of your consciousness. Because the qualities of your consciousness can be objects of awareness. So I'm wondering if you If you have a lack of response, then nobody knows how to do that. Is that what it means? I wonder, isn't it kind of relative? Like you said, or I don't think I could completely about it. Did you know if you were? I should say, are you a little bit aware to have some sense of calling your conscience? Yeah. And what are you aware of as quality of your consciousness?

[66:09]

For example, right now can you see the quality of your consciousness? Right now you can't. How about if you, pardon? Can you see quality of your consciousness right now? Can you do that? Can you see a little bit of the quality of your consciousness right now? Rightly. You can see the crease in your movement. How can you see the crease in your movement? How could you see quality of your consciousness preceding moment since it's gone?

[67:16]

But how could it be better if it's gone? Yeah, what? So you can see a reflection preceding consciousness in the present. And where is that reflection facing your consciousness? Yeah, so you can't see it. It's not really the present, it's a reflection of the past. Yeah, so what you're looking at right now is a reflection of something that happened However, this is theory that you're talking about. You actually see something, don't you?

[68:18]

You can call it a reflection, but don't you see something right now? So what do you see? When you look at the state of consciousness, what do you see? I know, but what reflection do you see? The beginning of this conversation is about your state of mind, okay? We got that. We're talking about states of mind. So I'm not asking you to tell me over and over again that we're talking about your state of mind, okay? I'm asking you to tell me about what is your state of mind. I can see that. I thought it was Not so much what you said, but what you're thinking of right now. For example, a person can think right now, I would like to keep this great.

[69:21]

A person can think about like that. I want to be great. That's a thought. That's a kind of thinking. That's a pattern of thought. have a grape in my hand. And I want to eat the grape. The grape looks good. I want to eat the grape. That's an example of a pattern of thought. I'm holding a grape. I like the grape. And I want to eat the grape. That's an example of something I could be aware of in myself. And actually, I'm actually telling you what's going on right now. I see the grape. I'm holding the grape. I see the grape. I like the grape. I want to eat the grape. That's actually going on with me. I'm telling you actually what's going on.

[70:22]

I also think it's okay that I'm holding the grape. Okay that I want to eat the grape. And okay that I haven't eaten the grape. Oh, that's also going on. Actually, I'm telling you actually what's going on. I also think I'm telling you about what's going on. And I want to tell you what's going on, and that's going on. I'm actually observing my mind right now and telling you about it. And I would say that what I'm doing is, if I judge, if I want to judge the quality of wholesaliness or unwholesaliness, I would say it's a I guess it's fairly wholesome. I could put that in there, but I haven't done that yet. I haven't put in that I'm not so hungry. And now that you want me to check, I am kind of hungry. And part of the pattern in my mind is, I think it'd be all right if I ate this thing in terms of my diet.

[71:35]

I have part of what's in my mind is that grapes are okay. Now I have it in my mind that grapes are very good for me. I don't feel like I'm overweight. I haven't eaten that much today. I think it would be okay to eat this grape. And I want it, which is also part of the reason why I think, aside from my awareness of what's going on, which I think is quite wholesome, but wanting to eat the grape, I think it's fine. That's what I'm talking about. That's my opinion. and it's changing all the time. When you say, it's up to me, that nuance of language sounds a little bit like I get to decide all that myself. And I would say, that I wouldn't go that far, because the way I figure out what's Holstein or not Holstein has something to do with the consequences that will occur.

[72:42]

And the consequences are eternal and external. So internally, I get to decide whether what I'm contemplating doing accords with my sense of who I am and what I think is appropriate for me. Externally, I'm concerned with whether the behavior will be approved of or punished by society or by nature. So both ways, I use those two considerations to guide my behavior. So it's not just up to me, but it is up to my, not up to, but it My sense of how things will work for me among other creatures, my sense of that, of what they think is appropriate, that's what I'm using to evaluate whether action X would work out well or not.

[73:51]

So it's not that each of us gets to decide unilaterally about everything we do, but rather that the terms of evaluating and getting to know how karma works in your own mind You can go by what you think. And if you have some questions about it, you can discuss it with people. But basically, nobody else can really check inside on what your motivation is. They can ask you. But basically, you're the one who looks and sees the elves in the end. So you may lie to them, but basically, you're the one who looks inside and sees, I want to do this or I don't want to do that. And you do or you do not want to do certain things. You do or you do not want to stay in this room. You do or you do not want to wake up. If you have the motivation to wake up, I would say, if I had that motivation, I would say that that would be a wholesome motivation. That would be my judgment. In fact, that is my judgment.

[74:57]

But whether I have it or not, I have it or not, and I'm the one that can see whether I have it or not. And that whether I judge it to be beneficial, firmly beneficial, or not, then according to my present understanding, I would have that sense. But also, sometimes I'm not clear about it, and so what I do is I act out various impulses and watch what happens. I review in my mind histories of the world that I have available to me and check to see how certain things go. And I might remember, oh yeah, last time I did that, actually last 15 times I did that, this happened. So I think that is beneficial because it worked that way all those other times, even though it's a somewhat different situation. Generally speaking, I've observed that when I do this kind of things, it leads to good results.

[76:01]

So maybe this time it will again. So I think I'll try it. I'm going to try it and I'll watch. In fact, to some extent, many of us may already be involved in this meditation, and I'm trying to just get us to be more involved in it, more aware of it, and maybe practice it in some situations where we sometimes don't. To make this kind of meditation more fluid, more fluent, become more fluent with this kind of observation. Grace, would that answer your question somewhat? So what part of meditating on the whole semester on boxing is checking out whether the good boys or family Well, for you, that's part of it, right?

[77:05]

That's part of what you feel helps your sense of doing a wholesome eating practice is to check out the source of your food. So that's what you feel, given your background. Someone else doesn't even know about organic or inorganic. So for them, it's not a consideration. So for the best of their knowledge, since you don't even know about it, they try to figure out, given what they know, what will be the wholesome skillful way to go. What if they know, but they know to some extent or something, but how much do we have to check out about positive effects of our actions in order to do what's wholesome? Yes, I do. Well, it's like, again, like in any kind of, this is kind of like, in some sense, this is a kind of scientific experiment, right?

[78:05]

You have some feeling to do something. Like you think of reaching over to get the grape for any zap. And I stop just to try to check out, now what's my motivation to get this grape? Well, my motivation to get this grape is the discussion of meditation on karma. Now, is that sufficient? Let me pull this grape off here to get into that. And also, am I going to get into me doing it? I think maybe I'll just, for the sake of study, I'm going to get into me doing it. So now I've got the grape. Now it comes time to consider what it is. The grape's already here. consider the experiment being a great. As in most scientific experiments, you bring a certain amount of information to bear. So if you bring a certain amount of information to bear in the experiment,

[79:21]

And with that information available, you think this is a fulsome act. And I say, well, for the sake of studying karma, I think it'd be good to try this experiment because this will lead to beneficial results, according to my understanding, plus increase the likelihood of me to continue to meditate on karma. So I have the thought for doing that, and I entertain that thought. And I have not yet eaten a grape, but I've entertained the thought of doing it. And actually, I don't know if you could, are you following this? I'm entertaining a thought about, basically the thought is supposedly a wholesome thought. The point of this thought is that it's wholesome. I'm putting that emphasis on the wholesomeness of the thought is determined by the fact of you being able to meditate. So the kind of thinking I'm doing, I'm trying to see if the kind of thinking I'm doing promoting awareness of my thinking.

[80:29]

But if the kind of thinking I'm doing promoting awareness of thinking, for me and for you. I'm talking and your thinking is the kind of thinking you're doing right now, listening to you talk, is the kind of thinking you're doing promoting your awareness of your thinking. Yes. Well, I was just asking myself that question because when you first started with the question of would this day of all our consciousness, I let talk now go in and out of watching what state of consciousness. And what I realized was that I could only be being out with what you were saying because a lot of my attention and focus was being with my consciousness.

[81:32]

So I hear you say that when I asked you the question, you kind of turned around to look at the state of consciousness. But that when you try listening to me, in some way it's harder to watch your state of consciousness while you're listening to me. Yeah, but sometimes I would, and it may be on this label, my state of consciousness, maybe both of my states of consciousness, but there was one state of consciousness that was focusing on my internal thoughts. Yes. And then there was a number of which was listening to what we had to say. Right. So it sort of seemed to me that when I focused on what you had, you were saying, I left behind what I treated with my book as one state of country, which was really good to observe in mind at the moment. I would, I would, I would, what he said, he said you couldn't do both at once, and what I thought you were saying was you couldn't listen to me, and at the same time observe your

[82:44]

internal process. I would say you can do both at the same time. However, the internal process of listening to me is different from the internal process of not listening to me. But both, the internal process is going on in both cases, and in both cases you can observe it. I would say to you. But they're different. One might be karmic, and the other, it's not actually karmic necessarily to be receiving information. hearing, strictly speaking, hearing and seeing, listening, it's not, it's not coming, necessary. You say it cannot be. It cannot be. So, if you're not, if you feel like you're not particularly listening to somebody, and you feel like they're looking inside to see if there's anything like impulses, that certain kind of awareness, And when you hear something, you notice that you're more like listening now than looking to see if you have some motivation or impulse to do something.

[83:54]

But in both cases, you're watching your internal positive. Receiving information is not a volitional act, necessarily, except in a sense of you feeling like you're turning your attention to that But the actual listening, the actual reception is not karma. Not everything that's happening with us is karma. A good share of our existence is just receiving information. Karma is when we think, I am going to do this. In other words, you have a thought of an action. You have a thought of an action. In other words, your mind, the thinking of your mind has a kind of inclination. thinking the pattern of your mind is the karma, but receiving data is not the pattern of your mind. But the act is going in to observe my daily consciousness, that repeating impetus was common, in that it was a try, it was an attempt, it was a volition to throw in, to do it.

[85:09]

It may then turn off for me. So, watch this. She's telling us that the trope, the mood, the gesture of looking at her karma, of looking at her mind, she said, she's confessing to us, she's telling us that that for her was karma. In other words, she watched herself turn to look, and she says, and we can believe her or not, she's telling us, in all honesty or whatever, she's telling us that she felt that when she turned to look at karma, that turning was the karma. It didn't have to be. It could have been like the boy when you say, hey, you. Like it could be that at some point in this retreat, I could say karma. In your mind, you could turn and look at karma without me feeling like you did it. But you're telling us that that wasn't the way it was for you, that you

[86:11]

You intentionally said, I'm going to turn and look at the karma. So you're turning to look at the karma was karma too. But you see, she watched, she saw the karma of her action and she was doing it. Okay? So if you say that, I agree, that for you, that's karma. And you might say now, I might ask you, do you think that was wholesome or unwholesome? I would say so too. And it doesn't seem like it was not karma, but I don't know why. What's that being? When it stops being intentional, then it stops being karma. And then once you're now watching your karma, the watching doesn't happen in karma anymore. But the turning toward the meditation, at the beginning of the meditation, you might feel like, I don't know how to start it without it being karma. But after a while, it might be able to happen, like, I just say karma, and suddenly she just goes, boop! She's watching it. But she's not watching it like she does the watching.

[87:14]

And then the watching itself is not karma, plus the starting, the initiation of the watching might not be karma. But she might be able to watch the karma. So again, that was a really nice example, you see, because she heard the instruction, she decided to do something about it, what she did was she looked at her karma, and she noticed that while she was doing that, that was another karmic act, Then after she started just watching, the watching itself wasn't necessarily karma. Then she noticed that if I talk, particularly if I talk about karma, she starts listening to me. And that listening seemed to take her away from watching her karma, which is right, in a sense, because when you're listening, you're not watching karma at that time, but you are watching your internal state. And your internal state is now, you know, in terms of what you're looking at, you're not looking at karma, you're looking at just reception. Receiving data is not karma. Feeling pain is not karma.

[88:17]

Feeling pleasure is not karma. Tasting a grape, the taste of the grape, as you're aware of it, that's not karma. The feeling that you don't like the taste and wanting to spit the grape out, that impulse to spit the grape out, that's mental karma that's the pattern of your mind you know given you know you calculate all these factors now okay so now you got um a state of consciousness and in that consciousness is a certain registering a certain taste certain values about that taste and also there's there is a sense of self-respect here and there's a sense of a sense of decorum Like, for example, it is or it is not permissible to spit grapes. They should be carefully taken out of the mouth or whatever. Or, you know, for me, I don't care about spitting grapes, but I know these people, they don't like spitting grapes, so I've got to realize that I think it's okay to spit grapes.

[89:23]

I don't feel like that's beneath me, but these are kind of highly refined, civilized beings I'm with, and they don't like it, so I have to take that into account. But I still have this impulse to want to spit this grape out. And maybe what I should do is come up with just carefully taking it out. And so on. So you have the added states of mind. You observe them in response to the taste. But the taste itself, the bitter or rotten taste, that taste itself was not caramel. And you can learn the difference between that and the impulse to do something about it. And then, when the impulse to do something about it, you can tell... What kind of context is that in? Is there a promotion and a permission and an encouragement of that act, such that it seems beneficial? Or is there a promotion and a permission for the state, even though it's harmful? And when you have a harmful impulse and there's support for it, then you've got a state of unwholesome karma, at least mental.

[90:33]

Then are you going to act on it? If so, you act on it, physically or verbally, and you watch, and you say, now it looks like we've got unwholesome verbal karma here. Now we have unwholesome physical karma. And then hopefully you keep watching and see how it works. And again, you don't have to put this heavy thing on there. You can do this in a very light way of just being aware. And all this data, all this intelligence, tremendous intelligence you have about all the experiences you have is there. And without like running around and trying to like heavily categorize things and analyze, your mind naturally analyzes. You just need to sort of, sometimes like just relax in the space and let all the information start coming to you. Like when you try to remember your telephone number sometimes. You try to remember, try to remember, where's my telephone number? It won't come, you know. If you just relax, boop.

[91:36]

And similar with this situation, if you can relax in the middle of the situation, somehow you'll learn how to, like, get the information instead of, oh, it seems wholesome. Now, that doesn't mean it is. It just means it seems that way to you. It still remains to be tested. But at least you've got an example. And you can write it down up in the paper and check it out later if it's a mental thing. Or if it's physical or verbal, it happens, and you can see how it worked for people. You can say to people, did that seem wolesome or unwolesome? Is that skillful or unskilled? They can give you feedback if you have trouble telling yourself. Because there's an internal and external aspect of it. Internally, you can say, that worked well for me. How did it work for you? These are not final truths. These are constant experiments in how things work. and how this kind of thing works. I'm not sure, but I think the original term used when you originally posed the question that could break was, can we observe our state at mind?

[92:44]

Is that fair? For quality of consciousness.

[92:48]

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