For you it's antithetical to give up privacy and relaxation? Yeah. Yeah. Or as I'm suggesting to you, if you're holding on to your privacy, you're not relaxed. Do you feel like when you're holding on to your privacy, you are relaxed? I think it's that I would suggest to you that when you consider giving up privacy, you notice that you're holding it and then you're more aware of your fear of letting go of it. I remember one time when I was in college, I did computer programming in college. They used to have operators of the computers, people who operated them. You'd submit your program and the operators would put it in and turn the computer on, make it go.

[01:03]

One time I couldn't. find the operator. So I went back behind the glass window to look for the operator. There was this guy back there running the computer and I went up to him and, you know, said, excuse me. And he was, you know, he wasn't expecting anybody to come back into his work area. And he was like terrified to see a human, you know. So he went back in his private little area. And he probably didn't think, you know, I'm scared that someone's going to come to visit me. But, in fact, when somebody does come in, you realize that you're actually, like, hiding out there. So that's why I think it's nice, this privacy thing is good, because you can kind of, like, locate your holding by bringing up the issue. And then if you locate the holding, you can start to consider, you know, well, what would be the conditions under which I would be okay with having a visitor?

[02:05]

And then as you think about that, you're like, well, actually, yeah, there are some conditions under which I would be, it would be all right to have someone come into this space now without, you know, to enter my space, to enter my world that I'm alone in now. But one of the advantages in some ways of our affluent culture is a lot of people have so much space. We have so many private housing units that a lot of people have private space, and therefore the issue of privacy is a good way to get at how they're holding on to their self in terms of their space. In other cultures, like in Japan or India or places like that, If you braid this issue of privacy, it doesn't necessarily strike home to their attachment.

[03:19]

They're also holding onto their self. But in their case, maybe in some way it's harder to get at. So for Americans, the privacy thing, or not just Americans, but sort of modern industrial countries where Situations have been set up so people can have independent housing areas or their own room. It didn't used to be like that. People didn't used to have their own, you know, like imagine a lot of cultures, people did not have their own private space so much but again inside there that inside everybody's got that thing of holding this secret place that you wouldn't let anybody come in and find and that's just part of our nature but it doesn't mean that we can't get in touch with that and relax with that and open that and let something start interacting with it and become free of it.

[04:20]

But it's very deep. It's deeper than an unusual idea of privacy, but there's some very deep private place inside of us that needs to be opened up. Not destroying it. Not destroying that place, but not hold on to it. And what would help you not hold on to it? Think about that. What would help you relax with the issue of being alone and separate? It comes down to that again. The basic thing of being separate from the other. So we have to be kind to ourself and be kind to the other in order to start playing with the other. We have to relax with the other first. The fact that you felt that can help you, because you got that feeling there, and you can work with that feeling to like, in a sense, massage yourself into some other way of relating to that. And the massage is basically compassion, giving, precepts, patience, diligence, and concentration.

[05:34]

If those practices are alive, they can help you, they'll make you able to relax with the other coming into your self, coming to meet your self. Another image that comes to mind is martial art. You didn't raise that issue, but in a sense in martial art, the person is kind of like making an attempt, they might be making an attempt to enter your space. But in a case like that, sometimes you can do this dance with them so that as they enter your space, you move out of it. in a dance like thing, or actually in a tango.

[06:37]

Sometimes I just, a tango teacher just told me the other day, steal the place that she was going to go. So you send your, the leader sends the follower to a place, but before she gets there, you move into the space. And essentially steal where she was going, and then she experiences the way you took the space where she was headed, and it's very dynamic. But in this case, anyway, you are dancing with this person. You voluntarily entered into a situation of suggesting she go somewhere, and then you go there and be where you told her to go, and then she winds up someplace else and sort of... which is a big surprise to her and kind of exciting and interesting. Plus, you're also interested to see what it's like to switch like that. But you want to do that, and if you're not relaxed, it's hard to execute this step. You know? So I think...

[07:39]

some people make it difficult to trust that you can relax. So if someone has the intention to get something from you without giving you something, or to take something from you that you're not really giving, if that's the way it looks, then it looks like the person in a sense is planning a theft. This is so interesting to me. If someone wants to steal something from you, sometimes the good thing to do is to give it to them before they can try to take it. So there's a lot of Zen stories about somebody trying to steal something from the Zen monk, but before the person actually makes the move, the person gives it to them. so the person doesn't have a chance to try to take it and you give it and they can feel that they got it from you not after they were going to try to take it but before that you were sensitive to that again this requires that you're relaxed

[08:51]

And so again, when a thief is approaching you, it's hard, a big challenge to like relax as they're approaching. So how can we be taking care of ourselves such that as a thief approaches, we're already taking care of ourselves in such a way that as they approach, we're already like practicing relaxation with what's happening so we can also relax with this thief and then do something amazing like, hey, I got something for you. What? Here. Oh, thank you. But if you wait to start practicing relaxation until they arrive, that may be too late. So if you're already practicing compassion with yourself and others, if you're already doing it with others, then when somebody who comes who's more of a challenge, you're sort of in the swing of it. You're already letting people be what they are, and you notice that when you're generous with them, that promotes relaxation.

[09:56]

You're already yourself practicing virtue with people. So when somebody arrives, you're more ready to relax. You're already being patient with difficult people. Now some difficult people are difficult the way you mentioned, but some other difficult people are difficult in another way. But like my grandson, even though he's difficult, if I practice patience with him, then his difficulty doesn't interfere with my relaxing with him. But if I'm not patient with the pain of him bossing me around, then I can't relax so easily. And if I don't relax, then I can't come back with some interesting comments to him. And then also, if I'm not diligent in in my meetings with people, then again that's going to make it difficult for me to relax. If somebody comes, some person comes, some nosy person comes, and you're not up to be diligent with this person, then again, they've got some energy.

[11:03]

They've got energy. If you're not up to meet them, then again, it's going to be hard for you to relax. And then also, to be concentrated and calm moment by moment. Then again, when a nosy person comes, you can incorporate that nosiness into your composure. And then with all that, you can respond, you can be relaxed and respond in a playful way, and maybe just again come up with what I just said. You seem to want something from me. Now I want to know if you're willing to give me something. And if they are, somehow it's not just nosiness It's nosiness meeting nosiness, which is now like, you know, more of a dance again. And if they don't want to do that, not that they shock to you because you're already practicing patience. You're already, you know, you're not trying to make them different from what they are. You're just making an offering, which you can make because you're doing these other practices.

[12:07]

And since you can relax, you can make a playful offering back. And even though they may be in this habit of nosiness, sometimes they can come out of it and say, wow, what an interesting idea that I would tell you something, too. And then it wouldn't really be nosiness. It would be like intimacy with difficult people being intimate. But then this is easy to talk. But you see, it takes a lot to meet certain people. You have to have a lot of compassion in order to dare. But when you're really compassionate with people, you can dare to relax with them. And then wonderful, amazing things can happen. Anything else to converse about? Yes? I'm just wondering, in your talk today, you talked about philosophy and several other No, no, not trusting the internal environment.

[13:11]

Vis-a-vis the external environment, do you trust that you can relax? I don't trust the environment. I trust that in that environment it would be good to relax. So again, the person, maybe a nosy person or a person who's trying to get something from me which actually I don't wish to give yet. Excuse me. Forget about whether I'm ready to give it. They want to take it before I give it. They don't know I'm going to give it. And they would be willing to take something from me that they don't know I'm willing to give. So they want to get something from me aside from where they are. Even if I don't want to give it to them, they still would like to take it, perhaps. Such a person approaches, I don't trust that that person isn't a thief. That person actually, if you ask them, they might say, yeah, I have a thieving intention here. I want to take this thing from him. And I don't really care whether they want to give it or not. They don't. Or they might say, I assume he doesn't want to give it. I assume he doesn't, and I'm going to take it anyway.

[14:12]

So I don't trust that the person is not intending to steal this from me. What I trust, if I practice compassion, I trust that being relaxed with him will be most beneficial to one and all. I'm not saying I can learn to trust that. But I don't trust the person, and I don't trust myself. I trust that relaxing with the person and relaxing with myself will allow initiation of the process of liberation. That's what I trust. But again, I'll have trouble trusting that if I'm not already practicing compassion. ... Are these three practices around invitation? Yes. And compassion is about invitation, too. So, invitation is operating there, but also the other dependence nature of things is operating there, and also the fairly established nature of things are operating there.

[15:21]

Those three are there in every one of those stages. And the stage of relaxing with your invitations about things Usually, whenever we have an experience, there is an imputational or an imaginary element in our experience. So if a person's coming to you, there's an imaginary element there. And that imaginary element's based on the other dependent nature of this person in your relationship with them. And then there's a thoroughly established character, a true character of this experience, is that your imputation doesn't actually reach the way that things actually happen. But those are all working, every one of these levels. At the level of relaxation is the level at which you start to enter into the process of loosening, potentially loosening the strong adherence of what you imagine a person to be or what you imagine yourself to be.

[16:26]

You start to loosen the strong adherence of that being what the person is. Relaxing starts the process. really if the process starts earlier, it's just that it's hard to see that it's getting any foothold because you still do strongly adhere to what you think of the person as being the person. But you're actually setting the ground ready to start relaxing with your strong adherence to your ideas about things as being the things. Once you relax, then you can start playing, you know, like, well this is my enemy, but I can play with that a little bit. Like, you're my enemy, so here, here, take my weapons. You still kind of like think they're your enemy, but you do this funny thing called giving them your weapons. But since you're relaxed, you're not so afraid to give them your weapons, because as they reach for them, you just pull them away. Say, ha, just kidding. Or whatever, you know, you can start playing with them. Even while you still believe,

[17:28]

that they are your enemy, or they are a thief, or they are your spouse, or they are your grandson. You're still kind of into that But you're starting to relax with it and start to play with it. And as you start to play with it, you start to see how this thing of them being a thief, enemy, grandson, you start to see how that happens. You get tuned into the creativity of it. It's still happening. The illusion of the person being some way and confusing that with the way they are is still happening. But you start to see how. And as you start to see how, you start to see how it's an illusion, too. And then you start to see, well, actually, what I think of people doesn't actually make it to the people. Wow. And you start to see that separation or that absence. And then you start to see the way it really is. So then you understand. And then when you understand, you're free of the stickiness of the process. so at every stage of this process the three natures of phenomena are still there it just as you proceed through the process you understand the natures more and more until gradually you're liberated from those three natures without changing them at all because they always were that way

[18:43]

From the beginning, it always was the case that our ideas of things never actually reach them. They just overlay them. But just like now, if you look at my left hand covering my right hand, it looks like my left hand is overlaying my right hand. But even now, in my right hand is absence of the left hand. But in fact, there is this left hand there with the right hand. And usually we take the right hand for the left hand, but when I see that the left hand's not in the right hand, then I stop believing that the left hand's in the right hand. And then, even though it's still going on, I'm free of it. And this process of trust, relaxation, playfulness, creativity, understanding, liberation, is about this ongoing nature of things, of having these three characters. So the imputation is going on all the way through. It's just that before you start trusting, then the adherence is so strong, there's almost no workability.

[19:48]

However, even within that strong adherence and very little workability, you still can start practicing compassion. And you can practice compassion at your imputational level. You can still practice compassion the way you think it is. And so you can still check out, am I generous with this phenomenon? Am I patient with it? Am I practicing virtue with it? Am I concentrated with it? You're still taking these things as being your idea of them, but they start to loosen up and make you feel like, well, I guess I could relax a little bit here. It would probably be all right. It's still your imputation of relaxation, but you dare to say, okay, folks, come on in. You dare. You still think they're not you, so you don't understand yet, but you're still willing to let the person who you don't think is you into your life. But you have to take good care of yourself before you're going to let anybody in. You say, okay, come on, you can come close. You can touch me. Okay. Okay. And then practice compassion with that and relax with that.

[20:53]

And then the more you relax with it, pretty soon you start to notice there's a play. And then things are really starting to cook. Even though you're still somewhat deluded, you start to feel some movement, some air coming into the chamber. And those three characters are throughout dynamically interacting with each other at every phase of our life. So the Buddha's working with them, and the person who hasn't even started practicing is still working with them. It's just that the Buddha understands them fully. Intermediate person understands them somewhat. And a person who hasn't started yet, they don't get it at all, but they're still working with them. All they see is the imputational. All they see is their fantasies about what's going on. And they think completely that what they think is going on is what's going on. So this is this person who's really like not completely deluded. However, even within that, they can hear sometimes the instruction and start practicing compassion within this tight world.

[21:58]

And the virtue of the compassion will start manifesting. Not trusting people and things because what they are is our idea of them for us. Not trust that because that would mean you're trusting your idea of things. Don't trust that. But you might be able to trust. I could relax with my idea of what's going on. And then you could start to open the teaching. Yeah, good. And guess what? Your idea of what's going on is actually overlaid on what's going on. Oh, okay. But you have to be kind to yourself to let that in. And other people sort of have to be kind to you a little bit, usually, to get you started. So some people you know who are not willing to start this process, if you're kind to them, they would dare to start being kind to themselves, and then they would start to be able to relax. Now they can't relax. Now they don't want to play. But if you're kind to them, That kindness can show them that maybe it would be okay if they relaxed.

[23:04]

Well, the thing you brought up there of being somewhat uncomfortable being alone, that's a little treasure store right there. Let's just put that on the shelf for later. As I said earlier, if you are actually willing to let go of your privacy and you meet somebody who's not willing to let go of his or hers, That would be a challenge to you, probably. But again, If you practice compassion with yourself, then you can be more patient with them. And also it would be practicing virtue is to not try to get them to give up their privacy that they didn't give up. But that would be a challenge. If you're ready to dance and the other person isn't, it's a little bit of a challenge to sort of be patient with that, to calm with that. Be diligent with that. Relax with that. That would be difficult. That would be an area for you to grow into. Exactly.

[24:12]

Right. Just like, again, the nice thing about using my grandson for an example is that a lot of people see that in that case they can be patient. So you go into a little kid's room... And you know, their room is like their universe to some extent, and they really do, they have their own sense of what makes sense there. And if you mess with that, it's a big deal. Like, I wanted to bring a radio into his room yesterday, and I was looking for a plug, okay? And the most accessible plug had a nightlight in it. And I said, can I plug in there? He said, I'm going to pull the nightlight out of that plug. No way, granddaddy. You're not going to pull that nightlight out of it, even though it's the middle of the day. I said, I'll put it back after a little while. Just let me listen to the radio for a minute. You know, he was not going to be playful about this nightly. Meantime, he has these, what do you call it?

[25:15]

He doesn't have like, you know, soldiers, you know, action figures who attack people. He has rescue heroes. So these guys don't have like huge weapons. They have huge equipment for saving people. like the putting on fires and pulling people out of drowning and stuff like that. They're rescue heroes. One of the rescue heroes says, he was putting on a fire and this woman, this one of his partners was saying, how did you get to be so courageous? And he said, I made a vow once not to leave anyone behind. This is like my grandson's watching that, right? And I said to him, have you made a vow? And he went, weird granddaddy. Anyway, he said, he's got this rescue hero. He's got these rescue heroes.

[26:16]

And these rescue heroes are all over the place. There's no order to them. They're just covering the bed. It's a big mess from a certain perspective. But they're right where he wants them. and we try to move that nightlight, he's not relaxed about it. So then how do I relax with him not wanting me to move the nightlight? Well, you know, I have to look, can I be playful and relaxed about that and maybe put the radio someplace else or perhaps call mommy for help. And mommy says, actually the fixture that the nightlight's stuck into allows another plug to go in. So I put the other plug in with it so it worked it out. But it is, there's difficulties like this. Sometimes people do not want to play. And you want to play or you want to do something. You want some play in the situation or you want to play with them. And they're not up for it. And you love them. You love them, but it's difficult to find any workability in the situation. But the more you relax, I'll put it this way, the more compassionate I am with the situation, like being patient with him, really being generous with him, appreciating him the way he is and appreciating me being the way I am.

[27:31]

And the more I practice not taking something he's not giving me, he's not going to let me use that plug and not try to take it. And the more I, you know, and so on, and the more I'm concentrated and diligent, somehow I relax and I have to relax. I may not even want what I'm trying to get in the first place anymore and move on to much more interesting things anyway. But then sometimes there's some new way to play with the earlier blockage point. Yes, what's your name? Well, again, Well, I don't know if it's innate or not, but let's just work with it, shall we? So you've got shame. First thing I'm suggesting is practice compassion with it. How do you practice compassion with shame? Be generous with it. If you're ashamed, be generous with it. If you see an animal that's ashamed, be generous with it.

[28:33]

If you see a child that's ashamed, be generous. What does be generous mean? Let him be ashamed. Don't try to talk yourself out of it. Don't try to talk him out of it. Let him be ashamed. And make that a gift. Give that to him. I give you your shame. I give you my shame. And this giving practice is compassion. It's letting things be. It's giving them themselves. And it's also, when it's done properly, it should be joyful to the giver. At least. And then later it may be joyful to the receiver when they get the picture. Learn how to be joyful at letting things be what they are and making letting them be what they are a gift. Learn how to let the flowers on the hillside be the flowers on the hillside as a gift to the flowers on the hillside and the hillside and the valley and the whole universe. Learn how to do that.

[29:34]

That's the first step. Next, practice precepts with the shame. Don't try to kill it. Don't try to intoxicate yourself into numbness about it. Don't misuse sexuality in relationship to it. Don't lie about it. And don't take something that's not given. Don't slander it. Don't place yourself at the expense of it. Don't be angry at it. Don't hate it. Don't be possessive of it and don't talk badly of it. Practice these things with the shame. Also be patient with the shame because it might be painful and have painful consequences. Practice patience with it. Be diligent with it. Make effort with it. And making effort with it means make effort at those previous practices and also make effort at being concentrated with it, being calm with it. Do all these practices and then you'll start to be able to relax with it.

[30:36]

The pain, the shame's still there. But you can relax with it. Once you start being able to relax with it, you can start playing with the shame. Play with shame. Ever heard of that? It's a new game called play with shame. Once you start being able to play with shame, you can be creative with shame. Shame, like all things, is a creation. It is a creation. The thing is, are you... exiled from the creativity and the creation of pain. Most people are. Most people are exiled from the creativity of anything. So this is starting to get into the creative process where shame arises. When you get into that, you understand what shame is. When you understand what shame is, you will be free of it. And we can say, I can tell you what shame is, you know, but still, to understand it, you have to get into the creation of it to understand the creation of it, you have to be playful with it.

[31:40]

Otherwise you're hearing about it, you know. Like one definition of shame is to feel separate from God. You know, kind of shameful. How dare you feel separate from your creator, you know. Another definition of shame would be separate from Buddha. If you feel like, how shameful that I'm separate from Buddha. How shameful not to be a Buddha. How shameful not to have realized my true relationship with enlightenment. You could be ashamed of that. Well, If you can understand that, you can become free of it. So it's just another thing to become free of. Shame, guilt, pain, suffering, pleasure, happiness, sadness, arrogance, fear, love, grandsons, uncles, friends, your body, your life, all these things, whatever they are, if we can trust that it's okay to relax with them. We enter the process of being liberated with them or from them, whatever it is.

[32:42]

Same practice would apply. But in order to get the thing rolling, you have to start being really kind to yourself and the thing, the self and the person or the thing or the phenomenon in yourself or the phenomenon of the other person. You have to be really kind in order to trust that we can relax. And generally speaking, really kind people are more able to relax with what's happening. And then this wonderful process can start. But the way, the particular style of compassion will vary from case to case. What it is that you're going to be compassionate with is constantly changing.

[33:28]

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