This is the last class that I'll be giving during this practice period on the Four Noble Truths. So, we can do a little bit more today, but I will be... I think, at least for the next approximately six months, I'll be continuing to go deeper into these teachings about Four Noble Truths. I say that to myself, to assuage my sense of not being able to accomplish too much in these few classes, and to let you know too that This is kind of this year I'm particularly concentrating on studying the origins of suffering, and again in particular karma and rebirth, re-emphasizing, and also eightfold path.

[01:13]

So today's kind of a summary, in a way, but also an overview and maybe some new material. And I also want to mention that, due to the kindness of Martha and many other beings, we have many copies of this photograph. So if you like it, you can come up here and get it after class. So, as I've said over and over, nirvana, freedom, for me, is inseparable from the practice of freedom. So, the world of nirvana is a world of practice, of dharma practice. In other words, the world of truth of cessation and the truth of the path.

[02:20]

For me, that's the world of unselfishness. And then, just attainment, of cessation, and realization of cessation is also the path of realization of cessation. Because the path is the way, practicing the path is the way that you can help all beings enter into the practice of realizing cessation. So, just realizing it, for me, cannot be separated from the practice, because that would mean we need to keep walking. That's the world of nirvana for me, is practice and realization being merged into one thing. But you will hear some Buddhists will speak of, even some Buddhists will say that practice is different in nature from the fruit.

[03:25]

Almost all Buddhists say that I mean, the origins of suffering and suffering are not different in nature. They're just different aspects, cause and effect, cause and effect are one thing. Some Buddhists will say that practicing the realization of suffering, in the lineage of Dogen Zenji, they don't say that. We know that people think that way, but we try to emphasize that the practice and realization are not of the same nature. The nature of practice realization, as I've been emphasizing, is not messing with samsara. Nirvana, the world of nirvana, is not messing around with the world of samsara. So bodhisattvas vowed to come into the world of samsara, which I... simple for that is S with a circle around it. They vowed to come into samsara and practice the path of dharma to liberate all beings.

[04:32]

To practice is to come into samsara and not mess with it, or to live in samsara without messing, right? That's right. So not messing with samsara is nirvana. It is antithetical to Buddhist teaching to try to fix samsara. Samsara cannot be fixed because it's based on delusion. You can't fix a situation that's based on delusion. One can become liberated from samsara by abandoning the delusion. You can't fix selfishness. Selfishness is not going to be fixed. There's something wrong with it. It's not repairable. It has to be abandoned. Don't try to come in and make selfishness into a good thing. It's not a good thing, really.

[05:36]

It's a harmful thing. It's a problem. So we recognize it as a problem. we sincerely recognize it as a problem, we see what a problem it is, and then we drop it, right? So that's the Bodhisattva comes into samsara where there's selfishness, doesn't try to fix the selfishness, but sees the selfishness and encourages himself or herself and all beings to drop it. So samsara is a cycle of round and round, and the origin of suffering, and suffering, and suffering driving, origin of suffering, origin of suffering driving suffering. That's the samsara. Endless wandering, right? So, the practice is to not mess with that. And what does not mess with it mean? Not mess with it just means to not mess with it. What have I been saying? Thank you for asking. Why is it not messing with some stuff? Study it, acceptance, be still.

[06:39]

You know, study, and study in an upright, balanced way, right? Pure presence, non-manipulative, clear awareness in the midst of the world of birth and death. And I brought this picture here, it's hard to see, it's a picture of avalokiteshvara bodhisattva, or guanyin, or, you know, kanan. But maybe it's kanji za. It's hard to tell. There's no label which name you should give it. But anyway, it is the bodhisattva of great compassion, and he or she is looking down upon ocean of suffering. And you have to get close to see whether you think she's upset about it, or... Anyway, she looks like somebody who's looking in a pretty serious situation, and she's not freaked out. In this picture, it looks like her hands are in concentration mudra. Can't see. Anyway, if anybody would like to take care of this picture, come up and get it after class.

[07:42]

You can take care of it. It was given to me by Gregory Basin's will. It was given to him by his father. Gregory Basin's father was a collector of Oriental art, Asian art. So he got this in China. probably about around 1910 or something. And this is part of his art collection. So if you'd like to take care of it, you can get it. So, Avalokiteshvara, the response that I feel about Avalokiteshvara, it looks and contemplates the ocean of suffering beings. And there's two basic responses, which are really very similar. One is this. joining the palms and bowing. So you see how Vlaki Teshpar has the palms joined. And I interpret that today in the way Vlaki Teshpar bows to the world of suffering. He pays respect to that world. A powerful world.

[08:45]

I respect it. I enter it now joyfully to save all beings. But anyway, first of all, I pay my respects to the power of samsara. Another response to samsara is the hands in the Cosmic Concentration Mudra below your navel touching your abdomen. That's another response, hand response, which Avalokiteshvara can have to suffer. This is a non-manipulative, full immersion kind of attitude. I dive into samsara. I sit in the middle of samsara in order to save all beings. That's our vow. Or as I was saying on Sunday, sit samsara. Use your sitting to find your true place in the middle of samsara, to find your balanced response to that.

[09:48]

And then from that position of respectfully sitting in the middle of samsara, gradually we start to see The origins of the suffering. So I just wrote origin, suffering, origin, suffering, suffering drives the origins, the origins drive the suffering. So in detail, the suffering is first of all what? Delusion about self. That's the root. condition for samsara, misunderstanding self, which means misunderstanding the nature of life. This misunderstanding of self is, one way to put it, is that you think the self is something separate from the five skandhas. The Buddhist teaching is that there's not a self which is separate from the five skandhas.

[10:56]

There is a self, but it's just a five skandhas self. It's just a self which is like an idea or a feeling or a smell or a concept or emotion. We're misconstruing some element of experience as calling the self. We're not necessarily misconstruing it. If you call a feeling a self, fine. But to think that there's a feeling separate... from self, or a self separate from feeling, or an emotion separate from self. This separation of self from your experience, that's a misconception of self, that's a misconception of life. Like there's you and your life, and there's you and your experience of all life. This kind of thing is delusion. This is a root thing. This understanding of self, for beings that have self, is root cause. That leads to craving. That leads to karma. Karma has effects.

[12:01]

Always. The effects then come to the living creature. The living creature says, See, I told you so. I've got to have a... See, something's happening to me. So I'm going to do something back to it. and more karma. This is the cycle, and in that story there's no way to break it. The way to break it is to study the cycle. Study the cycle. The Buddha studied the cycle. He understood the causation of the cycle. By understanding the causation of the cycle, he experienced liberation from the cycle. So the key thing in Buddha Dharma, the central, pivotal thing, is understanding the causation of the world of suffering. which includes understanding causation more generally. The special sub-case is the causation of karma, karmic effects, and rebirth.

[13:07]

These are special cases. So the laws of karma, and also the principle of the pinnacle arising of the twelve stages, that's particularly the causation of rebirth. There's other kinds of karma which aren't directly about rebirth, but about the quality of experience we have in a given lifetime. So, thought is thought. So pretty simple, huh? So now, I pass this little sheet out to you. Point number one, karma is volition. Point number one. Point number two is karma has fruit as a result. And the three, something experiences the results of the retribution of the action.

[14:17]

And actually the thing that experiences it is the thing whatever generated it. Now, If you think as a self, separate from your actions, or a self separate from your experiences, that will inevitably lead to karmic activity, karmic accumulation. That thought, holding that thought, living on the basis of that thought, makes karma possible, and that is the definition of karma. But then when you look at the retribution of karma, you don't have to say necessarily that it was the self that collects the debt, or the retribution, but people usually do say it as self gets it. So, although we say that the causation of karma is keyed into self, the retribution, you don't have to necessarily say so. But something collects it. and usually it connects to self. You don't have to carry the delusion over into the teaching of what collects it.

[15:23]

The teaching that delusion creates karma isn't the same as the teaching that there is delusion, that there really is such a thing as a self. If something collects it, that's the part of the law. Something inherits. The place where the karma is created is basically what receives You do not receive the results of my deluded action. You do not receive the results of action which I think I do. Something does, but it's not necessarily me, but it's whatever around my life created it. That's the third point. I'll go over all these points in more detail hopefully today, if not later. Okay, first point. Someone said to me yesterday or something, that she thought that all thought was karma. And it depends on what you mean by thought, because it actually says, doesn't it say there that thought is karma? So, I'd like to talk to you about a pretty complex idea, and that is that, you know, karma is, and it's hard to find an English word for it, it's volition, or it's, you could say, or it's the synergy of a moment of experience.

[16:40]

It's the synergy of a moment of experience. It's the landscape or the topography of a moment of experience. It's the watershed of a moment of experience. It's the apparent tendency of a moment of experience, which can be called also volition, will, intention, motivation. Okay, so. In a moment of experience, a moment of experience is lots of things are going on. You notice? A lot of things happen between those two. Open your eyes. Close them for just a second and open them again. Close them. Open them. Close them. Closing. Now open them and then close them and see what happens between when you open and close them.

[17:44]

Do you see a world? Just like closing them, opening, closing. Wasn't there a world between the two closings? How did that world happen? How did you put together, you know, all that in such a short period of space? You know, we can see quite a few people, maybe have some feelings of the temperature of the room, your own self, you know, what's this exercise about? All that could happen in just a little flash like that. But particularly, you can see what you put together just in the visual world. You try not, that was like opening the visual world and closing the visual world. Now if you could also like stop sound for a second, turn it on, and then turn it off again, see how much you could hear in space. If you can turn off your smell, turn it on, turn it off, see how much you can smell in this place, then turn off your thinking. Then turn it on, then turn it off, and see how much you can think between point A and point B. You can think a lot. You can easily think of the history of the universe. It's a short version of the history of the universe.

[18:49]

But you kind of have a feeling, you have a feeling about that history of the universe that you thought of the right or wrong history of the universe. Like I just thought of the right or wrong history of the universe. You could think that. Or you could do two or three histories of the universe, two sort of right, one wrong. Or whatever, you could do that in a short period of time. Did you see that? You could turn your mind off and turn it on. That's what we're capable of doing, and all that stuff is happening at the same time. So a lot's going on. The five skandhas are our little description of what could be going on. There's always feeling, there's always form, there's always evaluation, judging, there's always emotions, there's always a whole set of proclivities which determine how you take the situation. Each person has a certain set of positional sentiments which come into play about what world they see. We take it for granted because we can put the world together so fast, but it takes a whole lot of mental factors to put the world together in this way and to check to see that it's all right.

[20:02]

Again, open your eyes, close your eyes, and somehow you stay in the room. But if you have the ability to open your eyes, see something, and decide, this is a dangerous situation, this is no good, I'm being insulted, or the room's going to fall down, we have ways to figure that out. It's to reflect like that. Every moment we actually have the ability to figure out whether we're okay or not, or we need to do something to protect ourselves. So there are many, many emotional factors that are present. There's a perception of what's going on. There's concepts, and there's overall consciousness in the whole thing. There's greed, hate, or delusion. There's concentration, there's faith, there's effort. All this stuff will determine the particular quality of the moment of consciousness. Every moment of consciousness, as Vaisakhan has accepted special yoga trances, then there's four. You don't have physical sense. But basically, it's not really important for most of our considerations. Usually there's five. And Buddha was awakened with five aggregates, five skandhas.

[21:07]

All right? Every moment, five skandhas come up, go away. Five skandhas go away. That is a moment. Five skandhas coming up, two going away. It's a moment. Now that's, you know, I can imagine it's hard to get a feel for that, but if you study it for about 30 years, you get a feel for it. Now, every moment of consciousness has a certain texture, a certain landscape or a certain synergy. It has a certain pattern. The Chinese character that they use to translate this synergy or this pattern of consciousness is this character. The rice meal over the mind. A pattern mind. It's the pattern of the mind. And the Sanskrit word for it is chitta, chetana, chetana. It comes from the word chitta, like you're meditating chitta sati or chitta smriti, mindfulness of mind states, the overall qualities of consciousness.

[22:11]

All right? That mindfulness, you know, the overall qualities of mindfulness. One of the overall qualities of mindfulness is its patterns. What shape is it? What does it look like it's going somewhere, intending to go somewhere? That tendency, if it has one, is the definition of action. That is the source of action, that synergy or that citta na, that quality of the citta. Some moments of consciousness, if you could take a snapshot of them, if you could look over the landscape of the consciousness, If you could look at your own, or if you could talk to someone else and hear what they're saying, their description of what's going on with their five skandhas, you could tell by their description of the five skandhas. Especially the fourth skanda, which is samskara skanda, which includes up to 64 different elements.

[23:13]

Not all at once, but 64 varieties of elements can theme that one. I forget. By hearing the person's description of that, by looking to see what's in your mind, you can see then the landscape. You can see, oh, this mind is tending in an unskillful direction. Unskillful means it seems to be going in a way that is a kind of unfortunate response to, for example, the feeling that's happening. Every moment of consciousness has the second skanda, the second aggregate. So by practicing mindfulness of feeling... positive, positive, negative, neutral, neutral, positive, negative, [...] positive, positive. Sometimes it's happening, it may happen, you've been driving along, and you're just feeling pretty lousy, and then suddenly, boom, positive, doesn't that clear, I feel great, and then... This is mindfulness of feelings, you can do that.

[24:21]

This is being aware of one of the aggregates, one of the main aggregates, Number two, it's the grossest of the mental phenomena, easiest to spot. Then comes the third one, which is perception or concept. Then comes samskara-skana, which has a wide variety of greed, hate, delusion, faith, concentration, adverting the mind, prana-dva, diligence, laziness, self-respect, or lack of self-respect, all the stuff it has. And if you look over the thing, you can see this mind seems to be, like let's say the negative sensation, and let's say the response to the negative sensation, the response could be, I want to get an emotional response, I want to get away from this negative sensation. Also, I think this negative sensation is because of Catherine. And also a concept of Catherine probably should be punished for this. and I'd like to, and, you know... I have some energy for this.

[25:28]

I'm going to do the Africa book. This is a really good book. This is a kind of unwholesome, unskillful response to a negative sensation. It will hurt me to think such a consciousness has an unwholesome vector. Can you see it kind of leaning forward? It's kind of getting set up for saying, you know, something mean to Catherine. or doing something immediately. You see the tendency of that consciousness? That tendency is the karma. That's the definition of karma. That is mental karma. You see the tendency? Now, let's say that same negative sensation came up and I thought Catherine was responsible. Maybe she spit in my face just as I felt that negative sensation. Or just before I felt the negative sensation, she spit in my face. And I think, well, that's because, you see, I don't... First of all, so negative sensation, spit, let's say it was stinky spit. And... a negative sensation, a stinky sense, stinky spit.

[26:31]

And then there could be, perhaps there could be, like a different story, it could be, I don't like stinky spit. But not thinking that Catherine did it. Yes, geez, Catherine, that was stinky. I don't like that. That's it. That particular scenario is not, doesn't have such a clear vector in terms of action. You see that doesn't seem to have such an intention or not? It does have a little bit of intention. What was a little bit of intention? Did you hear it? I don't like. I don't like. I want to get away from it. I'm going to plug my house. Or, you know, couldn't even meet. Might even leave. Didn't get that part. So far this has a slight tendency, a slight unwholesome tendency, just to avert it. Slightly unwholesome. What would be a more wholesome response to something that was negative sensation? What would be a more wholesome response? Can you imagine? Huh? Just noting it.

[27:33]

Just noting it, and what else? Sit it. Sit it, yeah. Not try to get away from it, but sit it. Just like, oh, that was stinky. That was stinky as a spit. I wonder what kind of spit that was. I wonder if that was her regular spit, unusual spit, special spit for me? Why would I say, not why, but how come it would be more beneficial or skillful to respond that way, rather than this other way? Can you see some advantages to this other response? Or is someone... Did she go around spitting in everyone's face? Pardon? Did she go around spitting in everyone's face if they did nothing? No, no, not for her. Talk about for me. Skillfulness is, first of all, what's skillful about me? Ability to inquire to reality. I'm developing the ability to inquire. No craving. No craving. No craving.

[28:35]

No craving, no karma. It's in that direction. Also, it's developing the ability to meditate on what's happening. Like that story I told you in the early part, the story that turned me on to Zen. Hakun got spit in the face. He said, is that so? You get afraid of these things. But if you get spit on and you try to move away, it's less skillful and you need to be studying. Because, again, being spit on and feeling negative about it and moving away, it's a karma. It's craving rather than study. You're trying to mess with samsara. You're in samsara, getting spit at, not liking it, feeling pain, and rather than study it, you're trying to use karma to fix it. So it's unwholesome. Now, let's say that the skips smell really good. It could have been good, you know, or it could have been, you know, like your lover skips on you, maybe you like it. But when my daughter first did a projectile vomit on me, I thought, she felt amazing.

[29:38]

It smells good. The first few were good. Pure, you know, the first pure, you know, just pure, probably digested milk. It was sweet. Not to sort of say, oh, let's do that again. Then that's sort of like, that's not the study response, that's the greed response. I never thought spit could be delicious, but this is nice, I want some more. Messing with samsara. Unpulsed. Not terribly harmful, but, I mean, potentially, I mean, not hurting big time right now, but it sets a pattern of not studying, which is pretty serious. Because it leads to another moment of not studying. Whereas the wholesome response is, you know, rather than greed for or aversion to or hatred of what happens, the wholesome response is called non-greed and non-hate. It isn't called the opposite of greed. It's not hate. Really.

[30:41]

They're both really karma. The opposite, not the opposite, but the... maybe the opposite is, but the wholesome response, the wholesome alternative to greed is not hate. Wholesome response is non-greed, and non-greed is being upright. Non-hate is not greed. Non-hate is being upright. So, non-hate, non-greed, non-confusion, these are the wholesome responses to a negative or positive sensation. And then, those could be the basis, non-greed and non-hate could be the basis still, you could still be holding the idea of a self, that could still be the basis of an action which you think you do. And the mind could be shaped in such a way that it had a shape or an intention to do something based on a non-greed or a non... That would be a carnal to be wholesome carnal. So... What you're trying to do here is to be able to see, in a moment, can you see the intention?

[31:44]

Is it getting hot still? Temperature okay? To see the intention or vector of your mind. It can be in a wholesome direction, an unwholesome direction, or it can be a situation called indeterminate. Where you can't really tell. It's kind of flat, you know. It looks like if you poured water on it, it would just sort of run all over the place. Rather than run down into a particular valley and make a nice strong stream. So, for example, again, the example I first gave with something negative, not liking it, blaming somebody, wanting to do something to hurt them, that's a real strong negative thing. Something negative, not liking it, letting it work that, that's not something, not so powerful. But still, that probably would stop right there at the mental thought, I don't like it. And really strong mental volition often leads to speech inaction. So, Part of the meditation on Dharma mindfulness is to meditate on aggregates and to notice the chetana, the overall pattern of the five chakras.

[32:56]

In other words, to start identifying wholesome and unwholesome and neutral karma. To be able to learn which one is arising in your mind right now, if any. The mindfulness of chakras a karmic pattern. However, the mindfulness does not have to be understood as karma. You don't have to say, I do the mindfulness of this karmic activity. There can just be mindfulness in the middle of the karmic field. In other words, just sitting upright in the middle of the karmic field. seeing it for what it is. This is unwholesome. This is unwholesome. This is wholesome. This is wholesome. This is unwholesome. This is unwholesome. This is neutral. This is neutral. This is unwholesome. This is wholesome. Just to see this, moment after moment, to observe this and get more and more skillful, which is wholesome. But the skill doesn't necessarily mean wholesome karma. is still connected to pure mindfulness, which is not trying to do anything, but just seeing. Wholesome, wholesome, unwholesome, wholesome, wholesome.

[33:57]

Just seeing that, and not even naming it necessarily. Just understanding, this is unwholesome. Okay? That's the practice thing about this first definition. I'll go into more... I'll just also say before I start asking you questions that there's three aspects you might delineate about how the causation of karma itself... So the first point, karma is volition, is about how action arises. It's the causation of action itself. The second point that has the fruit is the causation of its effectiveness. So it's arising as a causation and its effect as a causation. And its retribution as a causation. So I've been talking a little bit about the causation. I'm talking about the causation of the karma itself now. And the three factors in addition I would mention besides the basic thing, the basic definition of volition is that it's a kind of stimulus response situation and the stimulus issues are, there's an external stimulus, external to the self.

[35:07]

There's conscious motivation and unconscious motivation. Okay, these are the three factors. Now, if there's a stimulation, and a response, but no self, then there's no karma. If there's stimulus and a response, but no intention or motivation, there's no karma, in the sense that there's no moral responsibility of a self for doing something. So the typical example is a baby at a point in life prior to the establishment of a full-fledged self, burning his foot, touching something hot, moving the leg back. That's not karma. It's an action, but it's an action very similar to a billiard ball getting hit and moving. There's no moral responsibility. Not responsible. Next example would be an example where The action is conscious and can be motivated by greed, hate, or delusion.

[36:17]

And when it's motivated by greed, hate, and delusion, usually, if that's in the field, usually, the response will be an unwholesome karma. But not always, because as I said, if there were a negative sensation, and anger arose, and stopped there, and then you start studying, then you might do something wholesome. That would be somewhat wholesome. If you really intensely responded with study to the arising of anger, that could be wholesome. Your overall consciousness could be wholesome. Does that make sense? Usually when anger arises, it does not accompany by an extremely intense intention to study the arising of the anger. Therefore, the anger usually carries the day, and the consciousness is either a little bit or extremely unwholesome. Now, also in the field, there could be non-greed, and acting could be motivated by a very strong non-greed, non-possessiveness, like being very generous.

[37:21]

That's non-greed. Being very generous and hoping that the generosity would be helpful, not being generous because it would be poison. Being generous with a very positive sensation, that would be an example of a motivated, positive act. However, In both cases, you're responsible. You're responsible for your wholesome moral activity, and you're responsible for your unwholesome fault. You're responsible. And what about unconscious? There is unconscious activity. We have unconscious motives that we're not aware of, like, for example, We may have a basic, as in Buddhism is identified, a basic kind of karma, which is the karma which is basically protecting, promoting life, trying to make life go on, this life go on. And there's also the karma, karmic activity to try to avoid death. These are like unconscious, ongoing motivations, which most people do not notice.

[38:22]

because they're so built in. However, since they're based also on a misunderstanding of self, if the being is responsible, we are responsible for our misunderstanding. For a lack of understanding, we're held responsible. Lack of understanding leading to action is action based on delusion. It drives and has an effect on suffering. Even positive sensation causes some suffering because it's based on the idea of self. But it creates much more positive and much less negative than unwholesome action. So both conscious and unconscious actions are responsible for actions that don't have motivation. For conscious and unconscious motivated activity, are responsible. For non-motivated activity, there's no more responsibility. That's the short thing about the causation of karma. So now maybe I'll stop. Yes?

[39:23]

Can you give an example of Catherine and spitting? Yes. There's a minimum of two things I see there. Could you study? Is there a way to study Catherine without the spitting, without the idea of Catherine? What was that? The idea of Catherine Rises? You skipped over Catherine's spitting. In that example of study. I meant to start with the spitting. First on the spitting. First the spitting. Then I think, oh, who did that? Oh, I think she did it. I blink and she's responsible. First there's a spitting and there's a sensation that goes with the spitting, like a negative or positive experience of the spit. So first there's a sense, there's an experience of spitting, there's a judgment of the spitting, that's first. Then there will be, in another moment, there will be identification of some theory about how the spitting happened. Did somebody spit? Who was it? That's another moment. It could be concatenated. Spitting.

[40:25]

Negativity. Don't like. Next moment. Still don't like. Looking for who it is. Next moment. Having found the person and still not liking. Blaming the person. Next moment. Still not liking. Blaming the person. Wishing to hurt the person. Or, you know, hoping the person will get some kind of negative reputation for it. If I'm not going to do it personally. All that can happen with that person. So what's your question? So, well, because the way you turned it the first time is you went back to studying yourself and your whole thing on spitting, and I wondered if you could do that. I noticed that a person with their soul externally oriented... You can do that any time. The experience of the spit happens, you can do it right there, boom. Negative sensation, study. Negative sensation, not liking it. Study the causation of anger. Study the, like over here, study the origination factor of anger.

[41:26]

The study of the origination of anger, of how the sensory experience, negative, wanting to get away, that study, it's mindfulness which leads to liberation from this process. You can do it with the face, you can do it at any time, any place, you can always recover and be mindful. And that act starts turning the wheel in the other direction. Let's say you're thinking of the scenario of the captain spinning. The captain spins. at me, and... It's better to start turning around. We say take the scenario of Catherine's spitting, but it's better to learn to take the scenario of me experiencing spit. And then you construct this theory about Catherine did it. But first of all, there's a sense of wetness and identification that the wetness is not, you know, rain.

[42:27]

It's not your own, you know, nose rub that's coming from outside. But first of all, there's this experience that something's on the face or something, and you start building this theory about what happened. And maybe negative sensation right away, but maybe not. Maybe you think it's raining and you haven't yet said it's bad. I assume that I now know that it's spit. You've identified, you've made it the idea that it's spit. I've identified it as spit. And... You say it's spit. I say it's spit. Not your spit. Fuck. Not your spit. Not your spit. And I'm looking around to see who did it. And I see Catherine. She sees the most likely person. She's the only one who's right here. You don't want people to spit it up your face. I look up, make sure it's not coming from some window. You did a good job. Catherine's spitting. Catherine spits. And now I'm getting angry. You don't like that.

[43:35]

I don't like that. Yeah, getting angry. Yeah, and I spit back. You don't like it. No, first you don't like it, then you think, I want to spit back. Okay. I want to spit back. And then you spit back. Right, I spit back, so now I have built karma. You've built karma, yes. Okay. Now another scenario, same thing. Can you see the tendency, the shape in the mind that does that? Yes. That shape that was there. that wanted to get away from it and do something about it, that's the shape, it's the definition of that act. And then physical action which follows it is this thing of, what is it, it's that type... action after having been willed is this... That you did. That was a scenario of pretty clear negative karma. Which is, you know, not promoting study, not promoting freedom, and actually causing a lot of harm to Catherine and to you. Especially to you.

[44:35]

You don't know about Catherine. Now, the same scenario, yes? And now, I'm also angry, yes, calling the outfit, yes, she's the one that did it. Making it a theory. Making it a theory. You deciding it. I decided it. That's your idea. And I'm getting angry, but now I stop myself. And I don't spit back, but I just observe. Well, did you think of spitting back or not even do that? Yes, I thought of spitting back. So that's mental karma. The thought of spitting back is your mental karma. You're responsible for that. That has evolutionary effect on you to think. I think I'd like to spit on her, but not spit. To think that you want to do it and really be into that and not do it, you have to full-fledged mental karma. Then to do it next is another one, so you have two. But the first one is bona fide karma, source karma.

[45:36]

It counts, but there will be results. Okay, at this point, I decide to ask her... That's another mind. So you put aside from the moment the anger and the idea of wanting to spit. Now you're in another mind, which is thinking, I want to know something about Catherine. What else is going on? Do you want to know to make sure so you can justify your anger? Actually, just spit. and you're suddenly interested in Catherine. You want to know what's going on with her. And you just really want to know about Catherine. Now, you could want the stuff there, and that would be at least neutral, I would say. But you could also want to know about Catherine because you might be concerned how she's feeling, and you might want to find out if there's anything you can do to help her. That would start to be wholesome, that motivation. And that could follow right away. It doesn't so often, but it could. Does that negate the mental karma, the thought karma?

[46:39]

It doesn't negate it, but... Now we're getting into... We're getting into the next phase, and that is the efficacy of karma. That's the next point. Okay? How does karma take effect? And I'll just say briefly, because we haven't finished the first point. I don't want to skip over the first point. I want to go deeper in the first point. I'll just briefly say efficacy of karma is karma always has an effect... and there's a basic rule that wholesome karma leads to wholesome results, good karma leads to good results, bad karma leads to bad results. However, this is not deterministic. It's that good karma is related to good results, bad karma is related to bad results, but the way that works is totally dependent on many other factors. What happens is not, in our life, is not only due to karma. Karma is not the only thing, the only thing, and many other things. For example... Practice.

[47:42]

Practice is not karma. But a person who's practicing on a very big scale can do a minor, a minor thing. And it can have virtually no effect. Someone who has really loved you and really is devoted to you can think a kind of heavy thought about you or act in a slightly disrespectful way and have almost no effect. The effect it might have would be you might say, you know, it really hurt my feelings that you said that. That's the effect it might have. Which is really not that bad. It's actually quite helpful. And the reason why they said that is because you've been so kind to them for so long that if you're not kind to them, they think, that's strange, you're not being kind to them, what's the matter? So, you know, that's the consequence. But it's almost a good consequence. But it is the consequence. But the reason why it's that kind of consequence is because you've been so kind to the person for so long and they trust you so much. And whenever you do anything with disrespect, they think, gee, this is very strange, what's the matter?

[48:45]

Gee, tell me about it, you know, it's okay, you're doing well. This kind of response comes to me. On the other hand, if you never practice, and you're always being mean to people, then, like, one, you know, slight twist from the lip can get your head cut off. So, in both cases, it's a negative act. The same negative act can lead to going... to getting major physical damage or going to hell. In the other case, getting a minor, almost insignificant response. This is the second point, that karma does have a fruit, but its fruit dependently coalesces. It's not a deterministic thing. I'm not ready. I think if we do that, we'll miss this first part. It's a complex thing, how it comes about. We'll get into that. Is that enough for now? Yes. I think you were next, and then you, and then you.

[49:48]

I'm just wondering what this understanding of the studying mind, about studying experience, as it occurs, that when a studying mind person is faced with a real violence against oneself or against someone that you're with, or anyone really, and you're involved in this fracas, in this violence, is there any legitimate way to protect oneself without being involved in negative karma. Yes. If some violence is happening to you, you know, either from a person, an animal, or a tree, or a rock, or rain, or acid, or whatever, anything coming at you that threatens your health, you can have a wholesome response. This is karma. You can have a wholesome karmic response, an unwholesome karmic response. So as I told you, the word kushala, which means skillful or wholesome, comes from picking up this sharp grass.

[50:57]

So if somebody throws a knife at you, there's an unskillful way to receive it. You can kind of like freeze and let it hurt you. You can become frightened or you can reach unskillfully for it and cut yourself. Or you can move in such a way that it hits you rather than move in such a way it doesn't hit you. If you move in such a way that it hits you, that's an unskilled response because you did something and it got you hurt. That's negative karma. To move in such a way you don't get hit, it's positive karma. If someone insults you, to respond to it in a way that, you know, you get hit and you're also hit back, is a negative kind of response. If someone's being cruel to you or violent towards you and you respond in such a way that leads to good results, that's a positive kind of response. I'm wondering if you're in a situation where somehow violence erupts and you're the target of it, say, whether the studying mind should should accept that this is the fruit of some past karma.

[51:58]

Yes. That is coming to fruit now. Yes. And that in some real way, this is something that you have created. Yes. And is now there in front of you. Yes. And maybe that means that you're going to be hurt because of some prior negative act. Yes. This is good. This is a meditative, steady mind going on now, very fast. You're saying, this is my world coming to me. This is the world which my karma has created and is now manifesting. This is always the case. If your experience is, what's coming to you is the result of karma mixing with other things. So karmic retribution is happening now, and you understand that. So you're wondering, should you do some karma too? Should you even defend yourself against karma that is now wiping in your mind? There's two cases. One is you understand the nature of self or you don't. Let's take the happy story first.

[53:00]

If you understand the nature of self, still karmic retribution can rain on you. As long as you have a body, karmic retribution can rain on you. Okay, so here comes some cognitive corrective issues. Here comes a fist heading towards your nose. So if you're coming, you understand what this is. This is maturing cognitive. Okay, we understand that. Plus also, plus also, plus what? This is real stuff, I'm gonna get hit here. There's a real what? This is real stuff, I'm really gonna be hurt here. No, no, no, it looks like you're gonna be hurt. The guy may stop at the last second. You know, when you see this fist coming, you wanna take care of yourself. It's a good idea to take care of your nose. Here comes this fist, okay? You see this, you understand this. But also you understand that there's no self aside from the five skandhas. There's no self over there aside from the form skandha, which is now manifesting as a fist in combination with the concept of fist. There's no self aside from it. You understand that. Okay? And then this understanding of self then responds.

[54:04]

And it's not karma. It's not even positive karma. And it responds in a way that benefits everybody. It's not karma, because it's not based on the idea of you believing. And you take care of yourself in such a way as to promote the welfare of all beings, which might be to take the punch, it might be to move, but there's no karma. Because you have no... There's no self-delusion, there's no craving, there's no idea of personal action anymore. You don't think that way anymore. And yet you still go like this. Or you can go... Or you can go... Or you can take your clothes off. You can do all kinds of interesting things in response to everything. Because you have total... You can respond according to what's beneficial to the situation. You can read. You can read benefit. Because you see the world as a world of selflessness.

[55:05]

And if it's beneficial for you to take a punch in the nose, you take it. You take it, you say, here, take the nose, smash it, and then great benefit. You intentionally allow that to happen without being a personal intention. It's your vow to benefit all beings, which is functioning now, because there's no selfishness in your hearing, it's a vow to benefit. And whether it's to take the punch or not, Usually it probably wouldn't be to take the punch. Usually it would be to say something like, just a second before you do that, I have a question for you. That's the most common Zen story, you know. The warrior, you know. What's that story? The story of, oh, the samurai comes to see his Zen master and he said, you know, teach me the difference between heaven and hell. And he says, you know, teach you the difference between heaven and hell? There's no point in teaching you anything. You're a brutal, vicious killer. And now I know that even if you weren't, you don't have the intelligence to understand anything about Buddhism.

[56:13]

Get out of here. Get out of my room. And the warrior pulls out his sword, picks it up, and his teacher says, this is hell. He drops his sword, breaks into tears and says, Thank you for teaching me what hell is. I understand. I understand. He says, this is heaven. What you can do when a guy's got a knife in your face, if you're that selfless, you can help him. Because that's all you're thinking about. What can I do to help? Here's a person with a sword. What can I do to help? You can convey that. Now, if you still believe in self, and it's coming at you, Then you try to do the best you can, the most skillful thing you can. And you might do the same thing. You say, well, I heard his end story like this. Try it. Your intention is to benefit him. You're still a little bit worried about whether it's going to work or not for you. It's still because of you.

[57:16]

That's still basically wholesome. You're not trying to like, how can I kill him first? That's still a positive pulsing response, and it might work, because generally positive tensions like that, they generally protect you better, because they're called skillful. They're called a skillful way to receive the story. Turn it this way a little bit. That's a crucial response, rather than freeze and put your arm up and get it cut. That's unfortunate for you. If you're gonna do something, do something that's beneficial. So start practicing doing beneficial karma. When you sit zazen, try to sit your best posture. When you walk, try to walk your best posture. When you pick something up, try to pick it up in the most skillful way you can. When you sit down, try to do everything the most skillful, try to do everything the best way you can. That's wholesome karma. And that will promote you handling situations of being attacked, if they ever happen, in a skillful way, if it's still karmic. In a way that's beneficial, hopefully. Okay?

[58:17]

Right? Yeah. And then, hey, you owner, can you mark that move? Okay, I was wondering, I was thinking that I heard one time, say, if you decide to be your children, you do that because you were beaten as a kid or something like that. So you have a lot of what I always thought was kind of baggage, you know, kind of baggage and all these other people doing things to you in various conditions that are causing you to do things. And I was wondering... You know, is that including that there's an issue of karma that you carry other people's actions, the results of other people's... We do not carry the results of other people's actions, but the physical world is the result of all of our actions. So we live on a planet where people have done certain things, and the planet is a certain environment, you know, because of what they've done. for a long period of time we work together with each other and act together in such a way that there is some non-randomness and communal storytelling about what the world is.

[59:34]

And that's the world we live in, which we've made together. That we do together. But in turn, karma is what you do by yourself. That's the definition of what I do by myself. It is self-centered, craving action. That's karma. And that comes back to the situation which created it. It doesn't go over to other situations which are creating other karma. But all of these beings creating karma creates a world which all those beings share and live in together. You're saying that you're not affected by other people's actions and you don't... You are. The effect of those people's actions is your environment. The environment's a very important aspect of how karma manifests. So if you're in America, a place where beings were cruel to Native Americans, you're in a different environment than if you're someplace where they're cruel to native Russians or native Chinese. Every situation you're in is an important factor in the meaning of your action, in the appropriateness of your action.

[60:39]

And the environment is not determined by me personally. It's the sum total of all of that. And so the sum total of all beings' action is the physical environment. But the environment is different for every being. It is different, but there are similarities. The similarity part is the part which is a result of group karma. What's the individual environment? There's not an individual environment. Well, there are certain things that follow individuals around. Like what? I mean, supposing you're angry because... That's not an individual environment, that's karma. No, but as a result of somebody doing something, well, I mean, of course you could have dealt with it in a better situation. I think what you're trying to say is that what you carry around with you is your take on the world. So, one person looks, like the example, one person looks at the water and thinks it's a jewel palace. Not one person, you know, but one kind of being looks at things as a jewel palace. Another person looks at it and thinks it's, you know, a shopping center, a fish.

[61:43]

Another person looks at it and thinks it's water flowing. Another person looks at it and thinks it's pus and garbage. Another person looks at it and thinks it's fire. Okay? How you see the world, by your own personal point of view, your take on it. Some people take something and feel really irritated by it. Other people take the thing and feel fine about it. That's your take on it. But we can still identify we're dealing with the same physical thing. That's the result of the group. But your take on the situation is not due to other people's actions, it's your own. I mean, maybe when you're young there's a very strong tendency not to study your karma. Yes. Yes. You're just coming out of the period when almost nobody studies their karma. Very difficult, you know, for young people to study their karma. They're basically, you know, they're basically not studying it, they're just doing it.

[62:46]

with almost no self-reflection, and then gradually you start, as you practice, you start to become more and more aware in the riding economy and less and less being driven by it. He said, you get on the horse, you get on the horse to chase the thief, At first, you're just having things stolen by you, or stealing things from you all the time, and you're fighting back. That's the world you're living in. Whether it's an attack, or a confirmation, and you're responding, you're driven to respond to that, with no self-awareness. So, gradually, it increases, hopefully. I want to put Scott here, then to Scott. I'm just Scott. No, I was next, but you answered my question when you answered. When I answered? Oh, Scott, really? Yeah. Oh, I can read it. Yeah, let's just, and follow up to Scott's question and your response. Like, you're listing, like, situations that, like, let's say, you know,

[63:51]

some situation you might be in, like, somebody holding a knife at your throat or whatever, and then thinking of, like, okay, uh, some, in the past, somebody, like, what's the end story about this, you know, maybe I'll try that, but it's, I mean, it's, it's, Seems to me more what we're working with and studying is what's coming up right now, instead of some idea that we're trying to operate under. Yeah, that's right. So, knife at neck. That's the basic thing. Now, if you then start to blame the other person, and you want to hurt them or something, and you're skipping over the thing which I'm not saying you should think of, but it's actually an understanding. So, I guess, you know, one response is, like, I can't talk about this response, is that so?

[64:54]

That encapsulates the whole thing about, you know, is that so? this, you know, here I am with Zen Master and this is happening to me. People are coming to me and accusing me of doing this E for D and screaming at me about doing this E for D. And he's not spending his time saying, I didn't do this, you know, you're crazy and get out of my face. He's saying, is that so? So, knife to the neck, is that so? That encapsulates that you're not like distracting yourself from trying to understand what's happening. But, I mean, isn't it possible... Also, I mean, it seems like there's no way we could really say what the right action is. I mean, I could almost... You say the right action, okay? Right. Or a right... You can definitely say what a right action is. You can definitely say that. That's the whole point, is you can say what a wholesome action is. You can. Okay. But after the fact, I mean... What? But after the fact, I mean, like... No, not after the fact.

[65:58]

After the fact, you get feedback. But before the fact, you do or you do not want to do something wholesome. But we can't say specifically what that action will be. Yes, you do. That's the point. Karma is you do say specifically what the action is. That's the point. If you don't say specifically, it doesn't count. Yeah, but, I mean, like with Hathuan, you know... A guy's holding a knife at our throat. Take Hawkwind. He did have a reaction. And is that so? Okay, I can see that sort of, that operating from that place, but our reaction might actually be, the appropriate action might actually be like, get out of my face. Don't do that. Try to stay with this example. I think it'll be helpful. Can you do it? Yes. What did Hawkwind do? Is that so? Yeah. That was a specific example. Do you see that it was specific to that situation? It's always to a situation. Karma is never general.

[67:00]

It's always in a particular situation. And if you don't do a specific karma, that's the point. If you don't do a specific karma, that's what I was trying to say, is it doesn't count. There's no karma when you don't see it. When you look over the consciousness, look at your mind and there's no specific... intention. If there's no specific intention, then you can't say what the karma is. The whole issue is that there is something specific. That's the point. That you do have a specific intention. Not any old intention, but a specific one. When you want to hurt somebody, you specifically want to hurt them, and you want to specifically hurt rather than help. It's specific. And then you might even get specific about how. In fact, it is specific, and you decide to do it, and that's what you want to do. It is specific. That's what makes it karma, that's what gives it impact on your life. And you can notice, you can notice, you can, you can, you can notice whether you feel that this is skillful or unskillful.

[68:05]

You can notice, you can see. This is like, really, I have, this is like immediate tension. This is like, I want to hurt this person. This is negative. This is a negative thing I want to happen to them. And I'm willing to do a negative thing so that a negative thing will happen to them. You can specifically notice that. You can. It doesn't mean that it is the right action. It is, as a matter of fact, it doesn't mean it is the wrong action. It is just one wrong action. You can think of a whole bunch of bad things to do. Limitless numbers of evil, you could say. Limitless numbers of good karma. Okay? However... When it comes to selfless action, there's only one action. Because it's dependently co-arisen. When you act selflessly, you do everybody in the world. And that's why it's a miracle. Because it's not personal action anymore. It is the perfect thing at that moment. It is the thing that is most beneficial and liberating to all beings concerned. And you don't figure that out.

[69:06]

The best action you don't figure out. But good actions you have to figure out. Because good karmic actions have to be figured out. They're mental. They're mentally based. They are the mind having an intention. One intention in a particular situation. And you can observe that and you can see how these good intentions lead to good results in certain situations. You can notice how the same good intention works differently in different situations. All this you can study and you can learn this. And living with this, studying this, leads more and more to understanding how it works. And as you understand more and more how it works, you see the source of the karma. And as you see the source of the karma, you see the craving, you see the self-delusion. And you study that, that and that. You study self-delusion, craving, karma. Karma, craving, self-delusion. You learn that, you learn that, you learn... Karma, craving, self-delusion. Self-delusion, craving, karma, result, pain. Self-delusion, craving, karma, pain. Self-delusion. Round and round you learn that, and you become free of that. And then you become a place where selfless action is spontaneously arising, and that is always the best thing.

[70:15]

You're acting on behalf of the whole universe, and the world is acting through you. You're not interfering anymore with the causation of the universe at that spot. And when you're acting like that, you are a luminous Buddha, showing us the teaching of the Pentacle Horizon. And moment by moment, there is one true radiance of you after another. In the meantime, before you understand that, while we're still interfering, then we sort of know, am I intending to be wholesome? Is this skillful? I think it is skillful. I think this is the best thing to do. I'll try it. And you watch the results and say, oh, it didn't work so well. I think this would have been better. And you try again. Gradually, you get more skillful at grabbing swords and collecting sharp pieces of grass. You get skillful by trial and error. And the more skillful you get, you get skillful by paying attention to what you're doing, by seeing, how did I do it? What happened? How did I do it? What happened? How did I do it? What happened? you gradually start to get more and more intimate with your karma, and you get more and more intimate with your karma, and you get closer to the day of liberation from it.

[71:20]

But you get intimate with specific karma, exact specific tendencies, not general. Okay? No. I understand what you're saying and I fully agree with that, but I think the point I was trying to make is that what we think of as Like, what might be a positive, beneficial action in one place, might not actually be a positive, beneficial action in another place. That's right. So, when you see, this was a positive, beneficial action yesterday, but today it wouldn't be, then today it wouldn't be. So today I'm not going to do it. Because it wouldn't be beneficial. So today I'm going to do this instead, because today I think this would be beneficial. Okay? How is the transfer of merit explained in this?

[72:28]

In the mind stream of one and then another one, how does transfer of merit work? You mean how do you get it over to a particular person? Yeah. Well, like, let's say I do something meritorious, and then I want to give away my merit, not just in general, but to a specific person. I want to send it, you know, to Tassajara to lead the barrels. Why is that strange that it happens in such a way that it gets actually to him and doesn't accidentally get to Lester James? And they found, you know, they think they found that, you know, the best prayer is not specific, but just for general welfare, but it still helps to mention the name of the person. And also not just the name, but the full name. So its best prayer is to say, I hope that the greatest benefit comes to, that what may truly be most beneficial, I do not know, but I hope that comes to Lee Barrows at Tuscarawas.

[73:42]

So how does that get over to Lee? Does it also get over to? Well, It's hard to say. They haven't checked it out. They're just checking the one that's mentioned. But I think actually they have checked it out, and that is they have two sets of, you know, two groups, and they do prayers for one group and not for the other one, and the group has a prayer done for them. Their names are mentioned. They do better than the group that doesn't have prayers done for them. How does that work? How does that work? That's known as a question, right? Who's that? [...] Oh, scientists. Well, no, Christian scientists. People doing experiments on people, people with heart problems, they've done experiments on yeast. I think Doris Kruger has done that experiment with mice that have been injected within the thing.

[74:43]

Yeah. So, it's been done with various kinds of beings, and there seems to be, there seems to be getting, as the body of data comes up, a transfer of merit, of doing something positive, like having a positive talk, or chanting a scripture, and then giving the merit over, and even directing it, that it seems to actually work, have some function. So how does that work? That's your question, right? In terms of the doctrine of karma, you know, like classical philosophy of karma, how is it explained? It's basically explained as independently car rises. So, beings, Buddha and many of his disciples are able to see, they actually have the vision, and not even non-Buddhists have the ability to see that a person does certain acts and it leads to certain results and certain rebirths. They can also see certain things happening now which are the result from past rebirths. They have the ability to see that. But some of them misinterpret that and think that it's deterministic. You know, that because of this, that happened.

[75:47]

Whereas Buddha's interpretation was, karma has effect, it does, but how it has effect depends on many factors. So, yeast, for example, is simple to dedicate merit to because, as far as we know, there's not such a variety in practices of yeast. But the person... who you're dedicating it to, and the person who's sending it, have a strong karmic resolution. All these various factors of intention and so on, such that it happens. How does it go over across time and space to reach a particular person? It dependently co-arises. We have to get into talking about many different factors. It's actually quite... It's unusual to be able to see this, but I haven't heard any explanations of the process that aren't simply taking into account various factors of positive and negative karma, and various factors of intention and volition, of will and vow. The way the world's developed comes from our vows, our aspirations, and our karma.

[76:48]

Does the Abhidharma Kosha talk about transfer of merit in the discussion of karma? Yes, it does. And there's also the transfer of merit in the sense of transfer of merit of becoming a monk. When you do wholesome things or unwholesome things, it seems to shape... Karma comes from the shape of your mind. And if you make vows based on the shape of a mind, it tends to be like these plant in your consciousness a certain kind of like manifold or shape that lasts for the rest of your life. When you make a vow, that's the power of taking refuge. When you take refuge wholeheartedly, really sincerely, like you think of doing it, you intend to do it, you want to do it, you do do it, and you rejoice in it, it puts something in your head, not in your head, but in your consciousness, which stays there forever. It shapes your mind towards the triple treasure forever. However, if you do an unwholesome thing and don't respect what you just did, you can erode it.

[77:52]

All this stuff is to be studied and gradually understood more and more. And the Buddha really understood it really well, so he could make these amazing statements about how causation works, which most of us can't do yet. But, you know, we can learn. So the point is to study causation, study causation in many ways, but particularly this one. This is the one which is unavoidable. He studied once... Besides this personal one, he studied other kinds of causations, so he can see that it's universal. But for us, we have to concentrate on our own particular scenario. And it helps sometimes to listen to other people's stories too. Anyways, it's getting late. Should we stop or, you know? No. Hold it a little longer? Yeah. I think, yeah, you were next. Well, it forms a theory. I think Martha would... No, no, forget it. It's okay. At the beginning of the class, I formed a theory about the image.

[78:57]

Yes. That somebody in the back might be one of the people who could take care of this. Yes. And so, due to my kind of formations, I wanted there to be a fair process for distribution of the . A fair process for distribution of the image? Yeah, rather than the... What would you suggest? What would you suggest? Well, I mean... Like... How about the first person who gets it, gets it, and anybody else comes up to that person? And then if anybody else comes up to that person, that person will give it to that person. How about that way? And then if somebody comes up to that person, that person will give it to that person. So the last person to ask will get it. And the first person to take might get it if nobody asks. Other than that, is that fair? Can we see it? The first person to ask will get it. The last person to ask will get it. You may not get out of the room.

[80:12]

This could go on for years. This thing could move all around Green Valley all over the world. That's the idea. So, anyway, that's great. You haven't asked a question. Go ahead. I sometimes get confused over the Haskellene story over is that so? Because to me, is that so carries at least two meanings. One is, is that so? I'll just let that roll right off my back and not be any concern. Yeah, that's the way I took it. On the other hand, it could be asking for information. Yeah. Is that so? Yeah, and also it could be like, you know, you feel, you didn't think you did that, right? You didn't think you had sex with this girl, so you don't think you're the father, so you actually could, you're like, actually considering, is that so? Right now? If that so means you're criticizing me, I accept that I'm being criticized. Is this happening? In Japanese they have this expression, they say it to almost everything that you say.

[81:16]

They usually don't say, you know, like when you slap them in the face, but anyway... It's also desperate. Is that so? You know, hmm, it's raining today, or, you know, so... Oftentimes we'll get a compliment if you say it, though. Is that so? Also desperate. So it could be like, yes, you're saying that, it's just going to roll off, and it could be like, you know, what's really going on, and it could be like, could that be true? All those are possible. And the fact that he, at the same thing on the other side, for me that's all those are possible, too, to balance the situation. Linda? Is there a different character for karma? Yes, there is a different character for karma. This is the character which is the definition of karma. The definition, the word, the character for karma looks like this. Something like that. Like this. When you talk about karma, it sounds like you can do karma.

[82:19]

When I talk about karma, it sounds like you can do karma. Karma is based on the delusion. It is a delusion to think that you can do something. That's what karma is. Karma is a delusion-based phenomenon. Yes, but when you talk about Master Halfway, he was an awakened being. He was present. Yeah, maybe he was. No. I am mostly in the hands of mechanisms, mechanical reactions, things like this. Therefore, if I try to follow your suggestion, as I am the student of karma, I probably would end up by doing some pretty good stuff about Don't do this because it's not a clue, it's not... But I wouldn't, unless I'm present, I wouldn't know, for example, when it is right for that other Zen master to take the cat in the hand and cut it in two.

[83:24]

I wouldn't dare to do that. Oh, please don't. Right. So, what I'm saying is, you have to be present. You have to be present to do Goulson karma, too. Pretty much. To do wholesome karmas, you can do something fairly wholesome and not be grateful. Basically, wholesome karma, it gets more wholesome when you're more present. So good action goes well with being present. To pick up something really sharp in a skillful way, not cut yourself or anybody else, being present helps. So presence goes very nicely with wholesome karma. If you're present and you watch your karma, it gets more wholesome generally. Because even if it's unwholesome, if you're present, you start to see how unwholesome karma is a bad deal. So, presence goes well with karma, and presence will eventually take you back to see self-delusion. And presence with self-delusion will help show you that self-delusion is self-delusion. When you see that self-delusion is self-delusion, well, you're just present with it.

[84:30]

There's no self-delusion. That's the statement. No Buddha... First of all, Buddha in samsara means not deluded by samsara. That's what the first guy said, remember? Buddha in samsara means not deluded by samsara. So if you bring Buddha, bring clear awareness to this delusion, into this cycle of samsara, you won't be deluded by it anymore. Finally, no Buddha even, just pure presence, no Buddha. Samsara in samsara is itself. No samsara. Samsara is not real. When you become intimate with it, you realize it's unreality and a livery. So presence is important, but if you're not yet at the level where you understand selflessness, then be present with yourself. Be present with your actions based on that delusion. And if you're really present with this belief in self and the action of compliment, you will gradually become liberated from this.

[85:36]

But yes, presence, yes. Just a story about something that happened yesterday in the meditation group that we had at San Bruno jail. One of the prisoners who's been meditating for about four months now has come from a family of violence and has perpetuated violence on others and covered with scars and has been very violent in prison and ended up in a hole over time. But he's decided to do something different when provoked, which is instead of his hands usually being provoked in this position where he's cracking his knuckles or he's kind of patting his legs, he's taking the cosmic mood or they've been practicing, he puts it behind his back like this and he looks at the person that's provoking him and says, do you want to talk? What does he say? Do you want to talk? Do you want to talk? I was just wondering if we all, like the rest of the practice period, dedicated all of our merit, or whatever, whatever merit would come, to lead the barracks at Pastahara.

[86:43]

Yes. If that... It was just a thought that I wonder if some like dramatic infusion of something good might happen. I'm going to read it next week. We can probably just leave it at that. Is a possible extinction of thirst or desire The full expression of? Pardon? Is it possible extinction of thirst or desire? The full expression of? Yes, definitely. Matter of fact, you cannot become free of these things until you realize the full expression. The full expression of all these deluded phenomena are part and parcel of freedom from them. And the way you get the full expression of craving is experienced when you're intimate with it.

[87:45]

then you see the full expression, then you see exactly what it is. When you see exactly what it is, then it is no Buddha within craving is itself no craving. No Buddha means letting the craving just be fully itself. All these negative factors in our existence have to be fully expressed in order to become free of them, because if you partially express them, they do very well in partial expression. Any other burning questions? No. The full expression of anger isn't punching somebody up. The full expression of anger is full mindfulness of your anger. If you feel the anger, the full expression of it is to fully feel that expression of anger at that moment. Okay? If you're hitting somebody, the full expression of that hitting is to really feel the hitting that you're doing.

[88:52]

And take responsibility for what's happening there. Take full responsibility, because you can't take full responsibility if it's not fully expressed. Full expression means that you're present with it. If you're half-present, you can't take full responsibility. So, usually, if you were to feel anger inside and feel it fully, you would not be driven to say or to act physically on the basis of something. You would be done. You would be satisfied. But in fact, partial experience of anger drives you to act it out. Everything we partially experience yearns, you know, haunts us as a ghost and drives us Drives us and drives us until it's experienced because it wants to be liberated from its little box. So like Suzuki Roshi said, right?

[89:55]

Just die. Don't move. Just die. This is your last moment. Be true to yourself and fully express yourself. People hold back out of self-protection. Expressing ourselves partially is our usual way which we do out of self-protection. Fully expressing yourself is not self-protective. It's liberating. And you don't do it. You can't even do it because you're thrown into the thing too. It's not manipulative. There's no gaining idea. It's just reality.

[90:50]

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