And if we can be present with that with that think of self, even though there's anxiety all around it, we have a chance to see what it is. Seeing what it is, there's no more anxiety. And then being present with, in a sense, you might say easier. Because you're not that young of all this anxiety. But In some sense that's like, you know, this safari or this awakening. We have to somehow then go beyond that and go into situations where not necessarily we have anxiety, but we need other kinds of adversity and challenge. We have to go into other test situations. to test to see if we can do these things without slipping back into seeing the test as me passing it on me doing it, but to see if we can go back into the testing situations or challenging situations without slipping back into the independent self point of view.

[01:20]

And another aspect, I think, of the Zen practice or Buddhist practice, which to some extent might be different from psychotherapy, or it might be somewhat different from the goal of psychotherapy, is that even in psychotherapy, if you were led to this level of enlightenment, you still might not feel responsibility to take that enlightenment into the world. If you did, then I think you would be adopting a similar agenda of the Buddha way. Because it isn't just the enlightenment. It isn't just this true vision of reality that we play with. But to take that vision and bring it into human society and make theatrical production of it to get the whole community to participate in the vision so that it isn't just that you're healed by understanding that you're not really separate from other people but that the whole world is healed by getting everybody to participate in the vision

[02:46]

And to do that, it's very challenging because a lot of people don't want to play. They don't want to be in your play. And you say, it's not my play. And you really feel like that. But again, if your understanding is not really fully developed, you slip into thinking it's your vision and your play. And then they don't want to be in your play. Somehow it has to be our play. Even though it was your vision, in a sense, it happened to you, you have to somehow make your vision other people's vision. They have to be able to have their own vision included in the enactment of this enlightenment. That's another aspect that sometimes might differentiate between the goal of Buddhist practice and the goal of psychotherapy. But again, Psychotherapy could lead to people, the client and the psychotherapist, coming to an enlightenment together, which they then, both of them, take into Safeway and other stores.

[04:12]

By the way, you don't have to go back. But did you want it again? Well, why would you want it? Unless you have more padding over there, it's true. Is there any comments on what I just said or what Eleanor just said? Paul? There you go. I was struck when you were talking about, at the point of enlightenment, bringing people into your story, because Zen has not been my story, and I still don't buy a lot of the form. But as you were saying it, I thought of myself as an enlightened Zen person, and it wasn't my story that I would bring other people in. It was sort of everyone who had brought Zen to this point's story. I felt no possession.

[05:19]

And it felt weird for me to project myself in this future when I'm an enlightened Zen person, taking someone else's story out to the world. I think I'm used to bringing my story out and telling people, you know, this is the Paul story. And so it actually felt liberating to have it be someone else's story. Thank you. Thank you. So, you know, there's some kind of tricky language in Buddhism, you know, like we have this expression, nickname for Buddha, one of the nicknames for Buddha was World Honored One. You can't say that in English, World Honored One. But, you know, that's really antithetical to Buddha's enlightenment. Buddha's enlightenment is not the enlightenment of one person. That's not what it is. The story I've been repeating lately, you know, for the last few decades, is the story of the Zen teacher, Zen teacher, Zen teacher, Wang Bo.

[06:43]

We call him Zen teacher Wang Bo. And Zen teacher Wang Bo one day came up into the hall and needed students and took a big stick and started swinging at them and they didn't move. They just stood there. And he said, if you people travel like this, how will you have today? If you people behave like this, how will you have today? And then he said, you people are all a bunch of dreg slurpers. Dreg slurpers. You know what dregs are? You know when wine sits for a while, this sedimentation occurs, and the stuff settles out in the bottom of the bottle? And that's called dreg, right? And occasionally, you decant the wine It means you pour off the liquid and then throw the dregs away.

[07:48]

And Wang Bo said, you people slurp the dregs. You slurp the sediment of Zen rather than drinking pure wine. And then he said, don't you know that in all of China there are no teachers of Zen? And then one monk got up and came forward and said, well, what about all these monasteries where these people are gathering together and practicing together and being taught and led by others? And Wong Bo said, I didn't say there's no Zen. I said there's no teachers of Zen. Thank you. You're thinking about it. We'll take your time. You understand now? There's the practice.

[08:55]

There's the community. We're our own teachers. Well, yeah. And we're also teaching each other. And what we're doing together, we present. And part of that is to have somebody you know, play at the leader and be the teacher. But the teacher said, there's no teachers. And I'm the teacher, so you listen to me. That same teacher said, that Wang Bo teacher who said there's no teachers, he said some other stuff too. He said, the Buddhas have absolutely no, they don't attain anything. They have nothing to attain and they have no Dharma to teach.

[09:57]

He said, simply give up all seeking and grasping for anything in your mind. Simply practice non-seeking and non-attachment and you are Buddha. So what's it like when you're practicing non-seeking? and non-attachment. What's that like? You embrace whatever comes. It's like this. It's exactly like this. Including, if anybody here is seeking anything, non-seeking is that way. That make sense?

[11:08]

Everybody? Pardon? Non-seeking is seeking? Is that what you said? No, but if you're seeking, and you would accept that you're a person who's seeking, and not seeking other than that, that would be non-seeking. Are you seeking anything now? Are you drafting something? So not, you're trying to draft what I'm saying. So if you would, if you would just accept and not be, not part of the other, then somebody would be trying to draft this. That would be the non-speaking part. The non-grafting part would be that you just sit there and not draft what I'm saying. But fly by. Could everybody let that fly by? I can't remember what I just said. How about over in this zone here?

[12:26]

Anybody over there want to change? I was resonating with what was said earlier about anticipatory fears of, oh, maybe feeling like you did it wrong, that you did it right, and not feeling like you belong. One of the aspects of my story, as I understand it, is that I often feel an anticipatory feeling that I've got some deficiencies inside. And that people are going to see those if I expose myself. They stand up and they look at me and people are going to see or discover some defect. And it's kind of like the mortification of the mind. I can focus myself on that and it makes me feel very disconnected from the present moment.

[13:33]

And so as Reb was looking at me and I knew what was about to happen, that started to come up for me. And when I stood up, I was nervous because I was feeling exposed and vulnerable. And as soon as I finished speaking and I heard everybody say my name, it brought me suddenly into the reality that this idea that I'm lacking some basic human element there, or defective or deficient, is illusory. And it was sort of the power of then in practice, because I was struggling to be there, and you all helped me to come back into the reality that I am part of the flow. I just want to say thank you. And this issue of, he said he used the word, James used the word deficiency, and then he switched to defect.

[14:37]

And part of our, a lot of our experience is that at some point in life, we express ourselves, and sometimes what we express is actually... Some of our best qualities, like we express generosity or we express enthusiasm. And some important person in our life doesn't, you know, looks, is right there and doesn't recognize us. If they're not around, we just express it and the trees say, okay. But if our mother or father are there and they see us and we see that they see us and we don't get that light back, that's very painful for us, and we may think that there's something wrong with being enthusiastic or whatever. And then, out of that pain, we might cover up and lose track of one of our qualities, which we just expressed, but which wasn't reflected or what might have even been rejected.

[15:57]

And what we had rejected was something very good. But people really do appreciate that more than anything. That's the thing they appreciate the most. Now, of course, we also appreciate a whole bunch of other stuff. It's the thing they appreciate most is being present. Because they get to see you. Not you being there, not you doing that, but basically they get to see you. That's the thing they're not going to see, really. But to know the structure, to know the story, sometimes they can't recognize you as being present. So we need to understand that really, Because they do appreciate most of all us being present. And that's what they need to feel in order to go to the door to be present.

[17:02]

And to pray also could be recognized simply for being present. And I'm one person who most appreciates people being present, more than any of the other things they do. And I appreciate a lot of other things, too. and people are nice to me, I appreciate it. Sometimes the people are mean to me, I appreciate it. But the thing I appreciate most is being present, because then I get the actual person. It's really simple. And that's psychotherapy, and that's also Buddhist teaching. And in that way, too, I think that's a correct and good teaching from each other. If the psychotherapist is willing to be present, and a lot of patience because this is the key. It means you let them be through the ride. This is what they need to see. It's perfect.

[18:05]

Yes, I know it was perfect, but if you're there, you're going to stop there. It was my joyous fear on how the support and suggestion to take time to witness a feeling, witness my feelings, was standing up and sitting and sitting down. Oh, it was just a reminder to me to talk about all the things. So I really don't know the kind of stuff. And also, A lot of us probably feel that almost always when we're teaching or doing something, we don't take that road through. We're not sure if we're allowed that road through. And then something happened that surprised me where I didn't step.

[19:08]

Don't step on foot. You have to feel it. But what surprised me is after I said my name and pulled it back and then I started to sit down, I felt... I thought the concept of goodbye, it was the word goodbye, came into my mind. And I wasn't really aware of how I'd been through more than that. And so I thought to myself about it, and it took a while ago until I realized that there was kind of a bulging, there was kind of a sadness, there was a hurting that I was feeling. And then I thought, oh, I think that all the time. But I'd be standing with my feet off, and then he'd just walk away. And I think, no one will know that I'm strapped or anything. Now, I'm going to ask, why would you like to tell me what you're feeling?

[20:15]

What is it in the patient? How would you like to tell me anything? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. My experience was I felt some anxiety, but poor, and it's my choice. And then I wanted to be really present. I wanted to be very present and do exactly what you're saying, do it right. And I was right. At the time, I did not get my wounds up.

[21:22]

There wasn't any time, but it was just this feeling. But there also was, you know, news. There was news. I wasn't aware of anything. I was dating some youth, and I didn't see anybody else. And I didn't feel supported. Do you hear that? There was an experience, but the experience didn't hold like an individual's experience. It wasn't an individual's experience.

[22:24]

There was no individual experience. Such a thing can happen. And didn't do it today. If none is fairly better than our regular experience, whether somebody lose part in the experience, But you should know it. And you see, she survived. She didn't evaporate. There she is. Good problem, right? Judy? For me, the experience, I had some medicine, but it wasn't a big medicine, because it was really fastidious.

[23:33]

And I fully knew that I was physically disabled. I didn't feel like I don't know that that exists. in the same scenario and rock their place. And the people are gathering one by one, three by three, three by three. And I want to approach and meet with people. If somebody doesn't give me a very solid high, you know, like a very solid, warm invitation, I I don't even know how to do that. I don't know how to know that I am supportive.

[24:35]

And my rational mind is like, wait, I know this person. I know this person many times. But it will completely color. And then the communication that we see would be colored because I've created a field around myself. And it feels, you know, going all the way back and it feels so much like it's been throughout my entire life of never having that interaction of it just being a toy. You know, like it's particularly when you talk to a job, When you get a special sauce and you see that somebody saw you and they give you a note that acknowledges you, it doesn't feel like part of my memory. I feel like I was seen, but it's like, you know, it's me and that's why she said what she's doing.

[25:37]

But it wasn't like an invitation in. So now, somebody will see me. If they don't invite me in, that's my belief. And if they don't invite me in, then I don't want to go. I'm not promoted. And it has to come in a fairly blatant form. Which you certainly didn't produce. You couldn't have much more than invitation. You know, sometimes people do not want to come. But we aren't inviting this.

[26:47]

They may be . But just that they may be up to their eyeballs in the interaction they're involved with. And you don't feel they're scared. But they wouldn't be able to handle them. They wouldn't know how to even invite another person. But they're talking to somebody, and they feel out of the corner of their eye. But they feel like if they would recognize the other person, they'd say, you just betrayed me by even looking over my direction. You're not paying attention to me. So they're kind of scared to move. They're paralyzed in paying attention to the other person. They're afraid if they would look in another way, the person would think that they weren't being appointed. Even though in one sense, because you're seeing this other person who's kind of like over there saying, do you want to invite me? Or I want to invite you, but you're not inviting me. Maybe you feel that I should invite you, but I don't dare even look away from this person. But this person is sometimes not up for incorporating you into the conversation, because you're not being honest with the other person.

[27:50]

They're stuck in a while. in this story I'm doing here. In other words, they don't tell a person, you know, Judy's right over there, and you think she wants an evocation. But actually, before I tell you about Judy, I want to tell you, I'm afraid even to bring Judy up, because I'm afraid, you know, I'm afraid of what I'm feeling. I want to tell you something, and I'm afraid to tell you what I'm feeling. I want to tell you something. I'm afraid to tell you, but I'm afraid to tell you what I'm feeling. I want to, but I'm afraid to tell you what I'm feeling. And also, this conversation is a total rip. Maybe I shouldn't buy it. So it's not, it's not in the interest of anything to do with you, but they aren't inviting you. But in fact, they might not be inviting you. But sometimes, even though they're not inviting you, Sometimes you don't know they're inviting you. Maybe they're not inviting you, but you want to be invited. Then the question is, do you dare to ask, knowing that they might say, no, thank you.

[28:58]

We don't want to talk to you now. That sometimes happens. You walk over to them and you say, excuse me, I know I haven't been invited, but I would like to be invited. They're not getting in the person's way. Go away. If you're not up for that, then really you're not up for the conversation anyway. Because that sometimes happens. But it's not because of you. It's not because of you. If you dare to come over and ask for an invitation, you're fine. Especially if you dare to come over and ask for an invitation knowing that you might get rejected. It's the not there. It's the not there in life. If you don't dare, and they don't dare, and you both say stuff, fuck it. But if you dare, they still may not dare. They may be doing a very harmless conversation, or barely surviving.

[29:59]

They don't dare open up to you, too. But you give them a chance. You don't give them a chance. You know, I gave them a conversation, and they said no. And you say, well, how come I can't? You're entering the conversation, and you said you couldn't, and you're doing it. We're having a conversation. We don't want to do this. Are you sure? I said, yeah. I said, okay. You give him a chance. You get out of the box. There's something you don't want. If you dare, you dare to endanger yourself, to reject you. But that's also the path to finding freedom from yourself that you're not told anymore to get rejected. You stay away from the possibility of getting rejected. You start stuffing yourself, and you continue to be afraid of getting rejected. But if you actually want something, want to be in a conversation, just go, you know, what's the problem? But it's to take courage, and you are in danger in this time.

[31:07]

But I encourage you to do this. Also, when I was both in England and also last week at Green God, I brought up the fact that, and again, this is not necessarily part of psychotherapy, but if it is part of the Buddha way, is that we marry all beings. The Buddha marries all beings. And in marriage, one of the key things about marriage is that we fight with trough. Fight with trough. Do you know what trough means? Do you see a blank on trough? And fight? Okay. We need somebody with a blank on their side to explain. Trough means truth. The old English word for truth is troth, and plight means endangerment.

[32:13]

So in marriage, you endanger your truth to somebody else, who endangers this truth to you. Also, when you're in a couple relationship, but it was really a lie, you endanger your truth. And I think also in a therapeutic relationship, you have to endanger your truth. But you may have to develop a lot of trust before you can endanger your truth. Yeah? Yeah, that's true.

[33:30]

That's true, but even more than that, you're keeping the truth to yourself. But even if you're right, and the person doesn't like you, if you keep the truth to yourself, you're not endangering the truth to the other, so you stay unmarried. You stay ununited with other beings. So the way of marrying is to go to the other person and say, and say, I have this idea I want to tell you about. Can I tell you an idea about it? Yeah, that's true. That's true, but even more than that, you're keeping the truth to yourself. But even if you're right, and the person doesn't like you, if you keep your truth to yourself, You're not endangering the truth to the other. So you stay unmarried. You stay ununminded with other beings.

[34:33]

So the way of marrying is to go to the other person and say, I have this idea I want to tell you about. Can I tell you an idea about it? The person says, yes. I have this idea or this perception that you don't like me. So you endanger your truth to that person. And then they say, That's not true. I don't want to do it. I don't want to do it. I don't like it. I won't sign up. I won't sign in on the community. Can I say something to you? Thank you. [...] That's a good point.

[35:38]

Can you tell us a little bit about it? Do you want to say the last three lines? Okay. That point, David told you, I feel that he does nothing. He's always trying to do something. [...] We have a song, Sunday that we like to. But that might change the religious relationship. Yeah, you're saying it can be. Yeah. Even if you're right and they don't like you, it might turn into a good relationship.

[36:38]

That is like trick or treat. But people who like you, they're okay. But people who don't like you, those are the relationships that really have to come to become a good relationship. So the one thing that you're not going to change about now is that you're not going to change about now. Well, I'm feeling for us, especially in this time of the year. It's a time of the death. Yeah. It's a time of death. [...] Mm-hmm. So, generally speaking, it's good to, whatever your perceptions are, whatever they are, relinquish them.

[37:49]

Like all the cons, all of them. Relinquish your views. That opens your eyes. It doesn't mean you still don't have your views. You still got them. That's the filtering. It's all inside of the light beam. For the view, you just don't hold it. You don't attach to it. And you don't see anything other than that. Now it's . Are you ready for the break? You ready for the break? You ready for the break? What? So we had a break, and the break was supposed to start at 1, but it didn't. So it was going to be a long break, I believe.

[38:55]

Is that right? It was a long half break, then we come back at 2 o'clock. We come back at 2.40. All right? Thank you. One analogy I heard is that One approach or one style seems to be like the Eastern approach. It's more like the coming of the breath and exhaling.

[39:59]

And the Western approach is the coming of the breath and exhaling. coming back to life. And one I don't necessarily reject as far. But I'm not quite sure. I think maybe that both positions could have actually had both sides. Because what I was rather not doing before was that, in some sense, to openly see this psychological process, it opens our eyes to the way things happen. It opens our eyes to the fact that, look, it's like a physical zone's power dropping away. But we aren't really holding on to the metals of life when we're struggling in the body of evil.

[41:07]

And then after that realization, you shed that realization and re-enter the body-mind. And even the appearance of coming to the body-mind, even that is sometimes re-enacted or re-entered. So I think that you go round and round within the Buddhist tradition, or you can build a Buddhist tradition and come up with something to specialize in, and let the Western tradition complement it. Another thing that I heard is that the West, particularly if you read the West to some degree, The deep construction is typified as a power centered on a control model.

[42:24]

So you have juice at the front of with great intelligence and power influencing and controlling the whole thing. The other side is an empty center model, where everybody is distributed around in a circle around an empty center. And what we can show, the people have different roles. And we're cooperating in our roles around these countries, so that they can really become a power center and so on. But it's more like cooperative, interdependent, more than just either. But in some ways, I feel that the two together really characterize the way the world is.

[43:28]

Because these things, part of it, these different countries are not alone in this weapon power center. We call them that. and the work of doing research by reaching entry-centred cooperative models. So in New Deep, actually, the full potential of what New Deep is, is doing common demolition that's required. When we make this into work, we do a smoking figure and do a smoking face. And some people say, my face won't be really.

[44:33]

Another kind of dichotomy is that, which is similar to what Zane said, is that physicality in front of oneself often intended to need to stop the personality integration. And then the greater part of it comes from a feeling of personality transcendence. And again, that's because it's somewhat different to do acupuncture. But again, I would suggest it is that you kind of have to consider that maybe today, in America, if you're going to approach it through self or personality transcendence, you need to be based on personality integration.

[45:43]

And maybe even in the East, When the personality component worked, it worked for people who already had personality integration. And I just want to tell the story of the personality integration phase of their life. Partly because it wasn't that fast to become interested in history, psychological history. So again, I think in the wealth, one of the advantages of the research is in the wealth, the research is in terms of the development, the development of stories of the formation of self, the development of stories of the formation of the personality. In some ways, especially the development of stories of the formation of a particular personality is much more developed in the wealth. So it may be that many of the ancient masters in the East who realized self, they had their own personal history, which involved becoming familiar with the workings of the conventional self and discovering, within the workings of the conventional self, the kind of signal in view of the self.

[47:10]

And then we only do it a lot. how do they start before they, you know, finish off all the proxies themselves. So it may look like they didn't do that, so when lessening the first proxies, they may not be well enough prepared to successfully enter them, which is part of the reason why I bring up that stuff in workshops and similar kinds of studies, because I found that with the cytoplasm zone, and they flip because they don't have this document. And John Lippman's own training does not articulate this part of things. And I think that part of the way it is articulated, which, again, each play would be different, that putting a day-to-day relationship between the teacher and the student

[48:12]

and also between the students and the people who are responding before they come to the campus. And in particular also, this work, this difficult young work, I found requires, that I told you before, but again I found that it requires an immense love with the particular field, or the cell phone for others, or with the particular field, the common commodity. Well, again, in traditional zoning, the footprint was the property. But that wouldn't mention much. It's there, but you could miss it. And nowadays, you know, well, let me say that in the early days of, in the founding days at Circle One in Japan, the founders of our school did mention that, you know, every, that all the Buddhas are practicing together with every person.

[49:31]

Every person has all the support receivable. That is mentioned. But it's not making hundreds of pounds, 20 pounds even, you know, and the way the thousand words work, it didn't sell at that many pounds. Well, I saw that. You guys, when I told people about it, they were surprised. They were surprised to hear that the Buddha had practiced in the desert with this person. All the Buddhists had practiced in the desert with this person all the time. convinced students with surprise to do this, even though one of our own districts, more than one of our own districts, said that. They missed it somehow. This is a pretty important point. And many of them students, uh, mine was surprised to hear that, said how a little bit of difficulty is suffering, even though they thought it was basically good news.

[50:37]

And I felt that When I told them about this, when I saw how surprised they were, I realized that they had been practicing all this time without feeling the support. And as I talked around, I found out that a lot of them didn't feel like they were getting a lot of support. And no wonder it would be hard to practice without all that support. Because you can't process it all off the plate. And it's not that you do have the support, but if you reject it, then you feel unsupported. But if you're unsupported, and then you try to do things like this by your own power, you realize it's too hard. And then you would either become unsuccessful or sick. So I'm kind of like that.

[51:43]

Now, sort of, not exactly to convince people of this, but anyway, something like that. Or at least encourage people to discover it for themselves. And the main way you can discover this report is by giving it. If you won't give me your full support, then you might not believe that I'm giving you my full support. Some people think that Buddhas might support some people, but not them. Or they might think that Buddha would support them, but not some people. But if Buddha only supports some people, there might not be any substance in you. You might be the one they don't support. But for me, I go for a Buddha that supports everybody, because then I'll be included.

[52:50]

But if we think, if we hear about a Buddha that lets you and people out, it might be off. But that's not the kind of Buddha I've heard about. I've heard about a Buddha who wasn't true to any being, any human, any animal, no exception. And therefore, in order to really thoroughly be convinced of that and feel that and allow it, we have to need it. And if we only want to help one people, then we think, you know, maybe Buddha makes the question sick. But then when it comes to doing really hard work of meditation, It takes a really difficult time. Right? Yes, question anyone? Mark. I'm regarding the issue of intimacy with the personality and that he didn't talk enough about the personality.

[54:24]

It doesn't seem logical to me that psychotherapy can ruminate over dysfunction. It doesn't seem logical to me that psychotherapy can ruminate over dysfunction. Intimacy, ladies and gentlemen, is not ruminating over something. That's a good point. You thought maybe intimacy was to ruminate over it? Maybe you might just take a character involved with all of your ruminations. By the way, before we go further, the rock needs a red priority corolla.

[55:49]

I think what the people did I'd like to compare this idea of intimacy with the personality to the community yogis do, that I've told you a little bit about, regarding the metaphysical truth that the very foundation of our personality is based upon thought and the impression that are arising out of the parent, nothingness or avoidance. And I'm first interested in knowing the therapeutic effect of ending with the fundamental truth of our psychology as a way of getting to that metaphysical truth and deconstructing our social personality through having first-hand knowledge of that metaphysical truth.

[57:10]

that our apparent personality, which is based upon memory and continuity of events, is actually closely examined to check events that are arising as a bullet. Now, is that the point? Is that the goal of the intimate personality that medicine could do? Well, I would say that the goal of becoming a humanoid personality is primarily, or you know, initially, to get in touch with, I wouldn't call it a metaphysical truth, but I would call it a sublime, ultimate truth. And it's a slightly different truth than the one you know. The Buddhist truth of avoidance is not nothing. But anyway, initially, The point of studying the personality is so that the hindering, the blinding aspects of it, have dropped away, and we can see ultimate truth.

[58:24]

And particularly, we can see the ultimate truth of the personality. We can see where the personality really is. That's the first. It's similar in the sense that you said the personality arises through, and you mentioned various conditions. Well, I'm just interested in knowing what is the mechanism, what is the value? And to this personality, the reason I'm bringing this up, if it's according to the yoga Hindu view that I have a little bit of familiarity with, that kind of integrity its personality may be considered a repetition path path thanks to impressions and latent psychological the past and to bring up parts of our personality that may be not functional.

[59:34]

And according to the Hindu view, I think it takes a more direct approach with connecting with that metaphysical truth that thoughts are arising and to practice being present in the moment through meditation and various other spiritual practices. and perform according to what we can access in the moment without accessing past personality issues. I'm just wondering how kind of way it's with the relationship with you with that. Well, let me not say the Buddhist view. Let me just talk about the way I respond to the question. And so part of what I hear you saying is speaking about direct access to ultimate truth. Ultimate truth, as I said when I read that quote, we need to have a realization of ultimate truth in order to be free.

[60:41]

So what a lot of people do is they want to go right to the ultimate truth. But the Buddhist teaching is that if you go directly to ultimate truth without being familiar with conventional truth, you won't know what to do with it. You won't be able to handle it well. So it's saying that we can't jump over conventional truth to the ultimate truth. It won't be healthy Even, you know, so the ultimate truth in Buddhism is emptiness, which means not nothingness, but it means that nothing exists all by itself, that everything is an interdependent arising. So you and me, particularly, but also everything in the universe arises dependent on condition. And if you add up all the conditions of something, that's all there is. There's not like an actual thing there at the center of all the conditions. That's ultimate truth.

[61:46]

When we see that, when we understand that, we are free. But to go directly to ultimate truth is not appropriate until we understand the conventional truth, for example, of karma. the conventional truth of if you do unskillful things, there's consequences. Now, you could say, yeah, but aren't those unskillful things actually lacking inherent existence? Isn't the karma lacking inherent existence? Well, yes, but if you go directly to that, you'll get in trouble. First of all, you have to understand the conventional truth, and then based on that, the ultimate. And part of the conventional truth is psychological workings. Now, it's also possible to pay attention to psychological workings and just get submerged more deeply into them than you were before. That's also possible. That's why you need a tradition and a teacher and co-practitioners so you don't just sink into your conditioning and reinforce it.

[62:49]

So intimacy with a person is not necessarily ruminating on them. People don't want you to ruminate on them. They want you to deal with them now, and then they want you to let them change. They don't want you to say, stay that way so I can ruminate on you some more. And the same with your own experience. It's not really like to mull it over and ruminate on it, but to deal with it, as you say, in the present. What do you have right there in the present? And what you notice as you do this is you notice there's things, there's habits which are interfering with you just dealing with it in the present. But I'm thinking about intimacy in the form of psychotherapy and whether that is necessary or even useful for some people. There's certain forms of psychotherapy which are not appropriate for certain people, definitely. And that same form might be just the right thing for somebody.

[63:52]

So I can't say that psychotherapy practice X is no good. But I could say, I don't think that practice is good for this person because for this person, maybe this person has a strong tendency to, like, ruminate and mull over everything, and they need something which will pull them out of that. But some other person maybe doesn't go deep enough, and they need something which will keep them on the ball longer before they move on. So going back to the point that you made, though, about what meditation is, of actually working with what's happening in the present, and not using some other time and place. Many people try to do that, but they can't because they have a lot of unfinished business. They've got a lot of stuff that's actually still going on that's holding them back from actually fully engaging in the present. So they need to bring this old stuff out and face it, and when they do, it drops away, and then they can work on the present. But if you just leave this stuff back there, then they're like, hey, I'm like a super yogi.

[64:54]

Here I am, blah, blah, blah, you know, I'm just working with the present. I give up my path. I don't ruminate anything. And then there's signs that this person is nuts or they hurt people or whatever. So the psychological defense mechanisms that become problems can interfere with spiritual practice. Exactly. Exactly. And so you bring them out, face them, and then they drop away. And then you can actually work with what's happening directly. And when you work with what's happening directly and intimately in this balanced middle way, then you see the illusory quality of it. You're liberated. And that's the sort of initial phase of spiritual success is liberation from your illusion. That's the point I made up there. That's the first phase. But that's not the final phase. The final phase is to even go beyond liberation and come back into the world and help other people do the same. Makes sense?

[65:57]

Makes me a question. A commentary, oh good. Jacqueline is going to make a commentary. Isn't there also a difference between Eastern and Western in that in Western psychology It's more conceptual. It's more thinking oriented. Whereas in Eastern psychology, it's more feeling oriented in terms of the meditation and becoming intimate with yourself through a deeper level rather than through the workings of the mind, that kind of answer everything through the thinking aspect.

[67:00]

I don't know if that's a, you know, a fair characterization because, but maybe it is. But anyway, in my case, after I had been practicing Zen for about 20 years, I went to a psychotherapist and mostly what he helped me work on was becoming intimate with my feelings. The Western psychotherapist did. But he was he was the kind of guy, he was a feeling type of a guy. And feeling is kind of like my, not exactly, you know, it's kind of like for me, feeling is what I don't know much about. So that's what he taught me about. I'm naturally kind of a thinking type of person, so maybe I'm naturally the eastern type, I don't know. But thinking is my strong suit. Feeling is where I'm not so familiar. But he helped me become familiar with that in ways that I never got from Zen practice. and which are ways that would help me notice the ways that a lot of Zen students don't have in contact with their feelings.

[68:03]

So I think that Buddhism's about learning about whatever you're not aware of, learning about what you're ignorant of. So if you're strong in feeling, then you need to work on thinking. If I'm strong in thinking, I need to work on feeling. We need to look into the areas and round out our views so we know our whole personality intimately. Now, it may be the case that in the advanced levels of Eastern mysticism, the ultimate encounter with ultimate truth, the final encounter with ultimate truth, the deepest encounter with ultimate truth, is not mediated by conception. The Buddha's realization of truth is non-conceptual. But the Buddha warms up to this non-conceptual realization through studying conceptualization. And again, it may be that people hear about this non-conceptual relationship with ultimate truth and they try to jump over there and they're unsuccessful and get really misled.

[69:12]

What they need to do is actually prepare and develop an understanding through conceptualization and that understanding then is carried over into a non-conceptual meditation. Construction is important, then, in each other. Construction is important partly because there is construction. So it's not that we have to construct anything new, but that we have to own to our constructions. And a personality is a kind of construction. So you don't have to construct your personality if you've got one, but you have to find out what is the structure of your personality, what is the shape of it, what are the boundaries and borders in compartments in your body and mind. Where is your rigidities? Where are you frozen? You know, where are the iron posts and bars in your body and mind? So you don't have to build them, but we need to understand how we're built. So studying how the psyche or how the personality is constructed, becoming familiar with how the ego is constructed, may be helpful in us, helpful to us in order to discover how we are constructed.

[70:27]

You know, sometimes if you look at something and you don't understand how it was made, you don't quite get it. But if somebody explains to you how it was made, you have a whole new understanding of it. And you could make another one yourself after that, but the main thing is you have a new understanding just by understanding how it was built. So if we understand how our personality is built, that sometimes it all takes for us to just be relieved of it, be relieved of attaching to it. you look. Eric? We've been talking about the personality, but how does character fit? I think that character is one of the elements of personality. In the dictionary,

[71:29]

One of the definitions of personality is a collective pattern of character, behavioral, temperamental, emotional, and mental traits of an individual. So some personalities have big, heavy-duty character in them. Some of them have a little flimsy character. well-developed emotional traits, some have kind of flimsy emotional traits, some have strong, you know, behavioral tendencies and so on. So all these things together are the personality. And the ego or the sense of self, the subjective consciousness, is one very important element in the personality structure. Does anybody who hasn't Spoken like to speak now? Yes. I was thinking about what you said about people who experience ultimate truth and then come back and still function through the personality.

[72:44]

Or who are using the personality in order to talk to people. Yeah, because the thought I had was those people that I think might be free or that seem like master teachers, it's the personality that, you know, it's the humanity that makes the connection possible, which makes the teaching possible. Right. Yeah. But I don't understand what that mechanism is because some of them seem to have lots of personality. I don't know. You mean some of them seem to have too much personality? Maybe I get fascinated by the superficial, you know, but I just find that fascinating that they're different. Oh, yeah, that they use different bodies. Yeah, different bodies come with different money. Yeah. As a matter of fact, they used probably the same body that they had prior to their liberation. And sometimes, actually... The body that you... So... I kind of hesitate to do this because it's sort of intellectual, but... When we don't understand, we behave according to our lack of understanding, right?

[74:05]

If you misunderstand, your actions are based on your misunderstanding. And you develop certain habits based on misunderstanding over some period of time. Then you understand... You need something, Vajesh? No? Then you understand. In other words, you drop your old misconceptions and you have a new understanding. All right? But many habits were developed under the auspices of misunderstanding. And these are what you might call habits based on ignorance or misunderstanding. And so they're not necessarily good habits. But they're still there. They haven't died simultaneously with your understanding. This actually happens. Some people are enlightened in a sense. They have an enlightenment, but they also have a considerable repertoire of bad habits which were developed in the unenlightened phase of their life. So here they are enlightened, and here are these stupid habits. And people have trouble with that.

[75:08]

There's another phase of training where the enlightenment now interfaces with these habits, and these habits gradually get washed away. Then you have the person who has, in some sense, no habits, because habits are really built on misunderstanding. What they have is no longer personal habits or personal behavior, even. Their behaviors are no longer that kind of behavior. The behavior that they enter into is that the world uses this body and mind now, not the person. It's not anymore the idea that this inherently existing person associated with this self-consciousness uses this personality. and uses his body to operate. This has been... We now see here's a sense of self, here's a personality structure that includes it, here's behavior, and here's all the conditions in the world which create this behavior.

[76:11]

So now the behavior is no longer habitual and the behavior is coming from understanding. But still the person, still the body is animated But then it's no longer a personality. It's no longer a set way of being. So the body can do all kinds of different things, not according to history, but according to appropriateness. According to whatever people need, the body does that. That's why I say, you know, you ask the body, do you want dinner? And the body says, yes. And you say, no, you don't. And the body says, no, I don't. Just, you know, or vice versa, you know. Or not even vice versa, but just you say to the body, what do you want? And the body says, what do you need? And in other words, it does just the right thing given everything that's in the situation. It has no kind of agenda it's holding to about, well, this is what I do, so now ask me to do something and I'll tell you where that fits into what I do.

[77:20]

It's more like, It's like a wind bell. We have the image of a wind bell hanging in emptiness. And the wind blows from the south. The wind blows from the south. And then the wind bell goes to the north. The wind blows from the north and the wind bell swings to the south. It has no fixed position about what it's going to do. It has equipment. you know, like tissue and brain and tongue, and it's made of metal or it speaks English or whatever. And so a metal wind bell will sound different than a bamboo wind bell. But basically, they both, when the wind blows from the east, they move to the west, and they don't say, you know, I'm a north-south wind bell. That's my job. I'm sorry, I'm sort of like in this north-south thing.

[78:22]

Now, you could make a wind bell that's built on a track, you know, So it only can move north and south. So when the wind blew from the west, it would resist that. It would have a panel, two panels on both sides of the window, very tightly holding it. So it could wiggle from north to south, but not east to west. But this wouldn't be like the enlightened mind. The enlightened mind doesn't have any panels around it. So whatever people want, it can move. And when the people come from this angle and blow on it, it goes this way, and it goes . It goes that way and goes . So whatever way it goes, it makes its music. And it's different depending on every different wind. But it doesn't have that agenda. But the fact that it has a body, it's a body. The wind bell's a body hanging in emptiness. Because it has a body, people can push on it and see what it does. They can see. Oh, look, it moves when you push on it. And then if you keep pushing on it, it gets heavier, and then it starts coming back at you.

[79:25]

It behaves, but it has no agenda other than being available to you. And the fact that it loves you so much, this body, is why it can be whatever you need it to be. And it also, because it loves you, it trusts you to push it whatever way you need. It trusts that whatever you do to it is supporting its life as a wind belt. The wind belt trusts that whatever wind

[79:54]

@Transcribed_v005
@Text_v005
@Score_69.76