These six precepts are proposed to include more or less innumerable practices of enlightening beings. And there is also a presentation of ten practices which are called ten perfections, which add four onto the six. But the additional four are included in the six. And the additional four are actually like supports for the six. So the six again are giving, ethical discipline, patience, enthusiasm, concentration in wisdom, and the additional four are skill and means, vows, powers, and knowledge.

[01:18]

Those are four additional ones which work with six in kind of interesting ways. The first one And these four work with the six in this way. The first one, skill and means, works with the first three. The fourth one, vows or aspirations, works with the fourth, enthusiasm or effort. The fifth, power, works with concentration. And the sixth, knowledge, works with wisdom. So starting with the first skill and means, the first of the four, which helped the sixth, the first one works with the first three that we've been studying so far. And one presentation of this practice, of this skill and means, is what's called in various ways, there are four basic practices of bodhisattvas.

[02:28]

So I'm talking about six basic practices, now I'm talking about four basic practices. But these four basic practices, it's really not called basic practices, it's just called four practices. Four practices, in Chinese they're called four practices or four ways or four methods of embracing and sustaining. So in Chinese it says four embracing and sustaining ways. And these four embracing and sustaining ways particularly apply to these first three. They're not so much about wisdom. They're more about ways of engaging with living beings. And this Chinese character this Chinese character which is involved here I've shown you before, many of you.

[03:41]

This part of the character is a radical which stands for hand. And that's a character, which is part of this character, and it means ear. So the character is comprised of four characters. A hand and three ears. And it means to embrace, to nourish, to support, to sustain, to guide, to care for, to collect, to gather.

[04:45]

We have this term which we use in Zen for when we have these intense meditation retreats. They're called sesshin. And this character is the Se of Se Shin. And Shin is mind. So Se Shin means to embrace and sustain the mind or to gather the mind. To collect the mind, to care for the mind. It's the name of our retreats. But this character is also interesting because standing alone, it can have a passive and it can have an active connotation or understanding. So the active way is gather the mind, embrace the mind, care for the mind in Sashin. But in this case, it would be to gather

[05:48]

living beings gather all the living beings embrace all the living beings embrace each living being sustain each living being support all living beings that gathering but also has a passive meaning which means be embraced by all living beings be cared for by all living beings be sustained by all living beings be supported by all living beings receive all living beings compassion give all living beings compassion but receive their compassion so it goes both ways but it's hard to translate it both ways it's kind of clumsy to say embrace and sustain and be embraced and sustained but then these four methods of embracing and sustaining beings and being embraced and sustained by beings these four methods support these three practices of giving, ethics, and patience.

[06:51]

These three. And what are the four? Well, it's somewhat redundant, but sorry about that. The four are, the first one is giving. So giving, of course, supports giving. But giving also supports ethics and patience. But we already said that. The next one is kind speech. Not harsh speech, kind speech. A lot of Zen stories are exhibiting what seems to be harsh speech. And... Part of the reason why they're so famous is because harsh speech is not really part of the bodhisattva way.

[07:56]

But these Zen people are supposed to be on the bodhisattva way, so how come they have harsh speech? How could their harsh speech really be compassion? That's the big question. Well, because it was helpful. It looks like harsh speech, but... People present themselves said it was really helpful. Usually the practice is kind speech. To speak kindly goes with the practice of ethics, giving, and patience. And the next one is called beneficial action. And the last one is called identity action or cooperative action. or equality action, action together with beings, acting together with beings, acting with the understanding that you are actually in the same boat with everybody.

[08:59]

So, acting in that way. And again, we spoke of empathy earlier. So, doing these practices with empathy, with really trying to understand what the other person's position is and sort of like trying on their position, trying on their point of view. I heard of one of the people who brought Buddhism from India to Tibet. He went to Tibet and the king of Tibet asked him, well, please teach us about Buddhism. And the teacher said, well, would you please tell me about your religion? What kind of religion do you have here in Tibet? And the king explained to him what they had. In that way, Buddhism was actually introduced by being interested in the people and where they're at, rather than

[10:10]

Okay, we're going to bring our thing in. No, it's like, yes, we are bringing our thing in. The way we bring it in is we ask you, how are you? What's going on with you? That's like identity action. Try to learn. And there's many ways to learn, but try to learn. In your heart, you're trying to learn about who you're talking to. Even though you're maybe sitting quietly, basically just welcoming the person, your feeling is, I want to be able to learn their way, and if I can do that, they can learn this way. So those four practices aid these three practices. Those are practices, an example of skill and means for these practices. When one Zen teacher named Dogen taught these, he taught that giving is to give others to others and self to self.

[11:16]

So in other words, a basic form of generosity towards beings, a basic way to help beings is to actively give them to themselves. It's not just let them be, like, okay, I'll let you be who you are. It's to generously let you be who you are, to actively make a gift to you of letting you be who you are. Not just sort of like once, but over and over, generously support you and give you to yourself and give myself to myself. That is giving. Another way to put it is, where he puts it, he says, to leave the way, to leave the way to the way, you attain the way.

[12:21]

And when you attain the way, you always leave the way to the way. I said that one time in the Zen Dota Sahara and somebody got up and walked out because he thought, okay, I'll just leave the way to the way. Don't just sit through the rest of this period. And I felt okay about that. Hmm? It's kind of like he's testing you. Well, then can I walk out for you? Can that... I'll just leave the way to the way. I don't have to be around here anymore. But I think actually you should be around leaving the way to the way. It's not an absentee generosity. Now I'd like to talk about the next one, the effort one.

[13:21]

And I... Yeah, and I... And under this... I would like to look at the fourth practice under this... What is it like? It's like the eighth practice that helps the fourth practice. So the eighth perfection helps the fourth perfection. The eighth perfection is called the perfection of vows or the perfection of aspiration. There's these four additional ones and the second of the four is the eighth and the eighth helps the fourth.

[14:30]

And it's called the perfection of aspiration. The perfection of aspiration assists effort. So the root of enthusiasm, the root of the root of zeal in practice is aspiration or vow. I would say also the root of vow is aspiration. And the root of aspiration is... is to contemplate the cause and effect around action. Now we can't actually see causation, but we can contemplate it anyway.

[15:35]

We can contemplate that I seem to be acting like this, and this action has consequence. And although I don't really know that what I'm doing is wholesome or unwholesome. I understand that there's a teaching that some actions are wholesome and that means some actions have positive fruit. Those are the wholesome ones and those unwholesome ones have unfortunate, unhappy fruits. I don't know for sure if this one that I'm doing right now is wholesome. But I would like it to be one that has beneficial consequences. So I'm contemplating what I'm doing and I'm paying attention to what I'm doing. I'm practicing ethics in that way. But in addition to that, now I'm contemplating what I'm doing not just to be careful, but also

[16:39]

to check that actually I do have some understanding that it's important what I do. Not just what I'm doing, and does it seem to be wholesome, but in general, what I'm doing, whether I know its quality or not, I do understand that it's very clear, very, very clear in Buddhist teaching that what I'm doing is important. And doing good is really good. And not doing good is really not good. And also, worse even than not doing good is to think that not doing good doesn't make any difference whether you do good or bad. To think that is even worse than doing bad. That's the worst bad thing, is to think that what you do doesn't make any difference what you do one way or another. That's the worst. So although I don't know if what I'm saying now is skillful, I am contemplating that what I am doing has consequence.

[17:52]

And what I'm doing right now is important. And therefore, it is important to pay attention to what I'm doing. And someday I might actually understand whether what I'm doing is good or not. But I'm... I'm... pretty confident that if I don't pay attention to what I'm doing, that will reduce my ability someday to understand whether what I'm doing is good or bad. But again, even before I understand whether what I'm doing is good or bad, if I consistently or in a way frequently contemplate what I'm doing because I think that what I'm doing is important, that contemplation will develop the aspiration to do good. Even though I don't know what it is, if I think that what I do is important, I will more and more want to do good.

[18:57]

Even before I know what it is, I'll want to do it. Just like even before you know what it is to save all living beings, if you contemplate it, you will more and more want to do it, even before you know what you're talking about. Now, I don't know if you want to get into that, but that's what this is about, is about actually to contemplate the teaching that what you're doing is important, that what you're doing has consequences, and that's part of the reason it's important, and also to contemplate that this, that if you do keep thinking this, and you do contemplate, that will lead to enlightenment and also that is part of enlightenment and also if you do this you will gradually wish more and more to continue such a practice and you will wish more and more to do good and you'll wish more and more to do good and you'll be more and more enthusiastic about good and you'll be more and more zealous about doing good and you'll

[20:07]

be more and more joyful about practicing virtue. Even before you know what virtue is, you'll be totally psyched, amped, primed about doing good. And that's the root of this heroic vigor that contemplation, that leads to aspiration. Vow is then maybe to commit to these practices which you aspire to. And there's an interesting statement in one of my favorite sutras, which is called the Samdhi Nirmacana. And it says, under this practice, it says, if in this lifetime, due to many afflictions, enlightening beings, bodhisattvas, are unable to meditate uninterruptedly.

[21:25]

It says, if. Anyway, if in this life, due to many afflictions, bodhisattvas are unable to meditate uninterruptedly, and if, due to interior constituents and conviction, they have little capacity for surpassing thought and are unable to settle the mind internally, and if they have not fully cultivated concentration on the objects of observation that come from hearing the bodhisattva teachings, then they are unable to manifestly achieve wisdom that transcends the world. That probably makes perfect sense to you, right? Yeah, well, duh. And also, under various of those ifs, you might have thought, well, that's kind of talking about me.

[22:31]

Some of you might have thought, yeah, I... because of this, in this lifetime due to many afflictions, I am unable to meditate uninterruptedly. Yeah, that's me. And I do have these interior constituents and convictions, so I do have little capacity for surpassing thought. And I'm unable to settle my mind inwardly, yeah. And I have not fully cultivated concentration on objects of observation that come from hearing the Bodhisattva teaching, yeah. So, yeah, I have not been able to manifestly achieve wisdom that transcends the world. Yeah. That makes sense to me. And I'm kind of like that. But this is talking about bodhisattvas. So, you know, you're in good company. Some bodhisattvas have these problems. But it isn't that they haven't tried. They've tried and they found out, yeah, I'm having trouble with all these practices of concentration and wisdom. So we've done these practices, these wholesome, beneficial practices, and now we're coming into the section of effort.

[23:45]

And we're noticing, you know, and we're also trying to practice meditation, and we're noticing we have some problems with our meditation practice. We're having trouble with concentration, and we're having trouble completing and being really consistent continuous, uninterrupted in our meditation. We're having trouble concentrating on the teachings of the Bodhisattva so that we can settle down and have a wisdom that transcends the world. Okay? So we're coming into the area of liberation and removing the afflictions. Not just being kind to them, but now we're coming into practices which actually loosen and uproot transcend them. And we're having some bodhisattvas are having some trouble doing that. Okay? And then it says, since they have taken up the accumulation of merit, where have they taken up the accumulation of merit?

[24:53]

By practicing giving, ethical study, and patience. You develop merit and virtue These are virtue practices and you're developing them. You've been developing them and developing them and now you're coming into the section of energy related to these transcendent practices of concentration and wisdom. We've been developing merit even to a small extent since they have been taken up the accumulation of merit through the practice of giving ethics and patience even to a small extent they wish that their afflictions decrease in the present and future constituents they didn't say lives in this case because it could be just tomorrow or just afternoon you wish that the afflictions would decrease

[25:59]

in your present and future constituents, excuse me, their wish that afflictions decrease in present and future constitutes the perfection of aspiration. So we've been doing these practices and now we come in to try to meditate and develop wisdom and we've got some problems being consistent and settled in this practice but since we've been practicing these practices are now our wish that these afflictions that we've been bringing benefit to would actually be transcended or abandoned that wish that wish constitutes the perfection of vigor, of effort, that aspiration.

[27:04]

So we actually know how difficult it is and we still aspire to get over these uninterrupted, unsettled efforts. Though, through this aspiration, they are able to lessen affliction and to initiate effort. Therefore, such aspiration assists the perfection of effort. So part of the practice is to actually, in a sense, I'm going to say the word conjure or, you know, work up aspirations in order to work up energy and enthusiasm to continue the practice.

[28:28]

Which in some ways is more difficult than the ones we've been doing. And the ones we've been doing are really difficult. It's difficult to be patient when people are insulting us. And now we're trying to do these liberation practices and encourage others to do these liberation practices. And we're not able to. We actually haven't really got into them yet. We've heard about them. We're trying them. Here now and then we're trying them. That's good. But to a certain extent, we've actually been successful at practicing giving ethics and patience a little bit. And because of that, we can dare to aspire to these other practices, to continue to do them and to do these other practices which we haven't been able to do before. And we will be able to by this aspiration. So that's why that aspiration goes over on this side over on the side of liberation.

[29:34]

Even though I said before there must be some effort to do these previous practices, now we're doing an aspiration to do things which are, in some sense, more difficult. It's more rare that people can do these practices. As I mentioned before, people can practice giving without ethics, and they can practice ethics without giving, and they can practice patience without ethics and giving, but to really practice ethics successfully, it needs to be based on giving. And to really perfect giving, you must practice ethics and so on. Now, because of that, we can start looking at, do we have the energy to take on more advanced practices, which depend on the ones we've been doing? And the answer is, well, are you contemplating? And if you are, if you keep doing that, aspiration will arise. You will aspire to to liberate beings through meditation, through concentration joined with wisdom.

[30:40]

So that's number four. And in order to have number four, you need number six. To number four, we have to actually work on developing our aspiration. Aspiration is related to the word respiration. and inspiration and expiration. It means to breathe into. So aspiration means to breathe life into these practices. Breathe life into enthusiasm. Because you need enthusiasm to do concentration. Because there's lots of competition for our attention. And in order to focus on these practices, you have to really believe that it's really worthwhile. You have to really feel that it's really good to do them. to do the concentration practices.

[31:46]

And then, of course, that you've already been doing, and hopefully, if you're doing this course in order, you've already thought the previous practices were good. And by doing this respiration practice, you feel even more enthusiasm for them. And you feel more enthusiasm for the previous practices than you can feel more enthusiasm for the coming practices. If you want to, you can also come up here and look at this chart if you want to. And part of the chart says, the order of the teaching of the perfections. And so under generosity it says, the six perfections serve as basis for progressively higher achievements. Bodhisattvas who do not focus on their bodies and physical resources attain ethics.

[32:51]

That's kind of an interesting way to put it. Yeah. Bodhisattvas... Isn't that kind of interesting? Isn't that kind of surprising? Bodhisattvas who do not focus on their what? Bodies or... material resources, bodhisattvas who do not focus on them, attain ethics. I read that to you because I thought that was an interesting way to put it, kind of surprising. This is talking about giving. If you practice giving, you will attain ethics. And what does practice giving involve? Well, in fact, this is giving, but it also involves not focusing on your body and your material resources. You don't focus on them. You focus on what? Giving. Right. You focus on giving.

[33:55]

Rather than focusing on your possessions, you focus on giving them. Rather than focusing on your body, you focus on giving your body. You're not just focusing on my body, my body. You're focusing, oh, my body, oh, my gift, my gift, my material resources, oh, my gifts. So by not focusing on them and obsessing about them and compulsing about them, by not doing that, you gift them. By not doing that, you give them. In other words, by not doing that, you notice that they're gifts. You notice that you're giving them. You actually are giving them, but if you focus on them, you miss it. You miss out on giving. So, if you don't focus, you do give. It doesn't say it that way, though. It's kind of interesting. If you don't focus on your resources, you practice giving. And when you practice giving, you attain ethics. So in other words, if you try to practice ethics while you're focusing on your body and your resources, you'll have a hard time.

[35:02]

Or if you're not practicing giving, you'll have a hard time practicing ethics. But if you do practice giving, if you're not focused on your body and resources, you will attain ethics because you'll be practicing giving. I thought that was kind of a surprising way to put it, but there it is for you to be surprised. Yes? Is there a difference? Yeah, there's a difference. Taking care of your body is to give your body. Taking care of your body is to use your body for the practice of generosity. rather than taking care of your body to try to keep your body from changing, for example. Yeah. So some people think focusing... Some people think that obsessive-compulsive behavior is caring.

[36:04]

And so they're obsessive-compulsive about their body. Right? Especially in L.A. and... South Florida. They're like focusing on their body. They're keeping their body, getting those wrinkles out of there. Pull this back. Lift this up. Tuck this there. They're focused on their body. And they're giving their money to the plastic surgeons. They're willing to share some of their resources in focusing on their body. They're not really caring for their body, exactly. They sort of are. It's not totally uncaring. So this is... Bodhisattva's care for their body as a gift. Okay?

[37:11]

So we do care for our body. One of my friends in my early days of practice said, I'm enlightened, I drank some coffee. What other ingredients support these practices? Besides caffeine. Besides what? Caffeine or coffee. Oh. The main thing that supports these practices is aspiration. No pills. No pills? Well, I really don't know about no pills.

[38:13]

I'm just saying it's aspiration that's the root. And then if you want to take pills on top of your aspiration... I don't think there really is pills for aspiration. Not yet. Not yet. That would be a nice pill, just to give people a pill and they'd suddenly aspire to do good. That would be a nice pill. But your aspiration comes from thinking about how good it would be to do something. But some people who do think that something would be good, they don't think about it enough to really feel like it would be so good that I'm actually going to do it. I'm actually going to get off my butt and do it. I mean, it's good, but not that good. I just recently heard that Aristotle thought that if you just leave a moving body alone, it'll eventually stop.

[39:16]

I thought Aristotle thought, and he was kind of a smart guy. And then Newton came along and said, no, actually, if you leave a moving body alone, it won't stop. Hmm? What? He also said, unless there was a force. Yeah, but that's not leaving it alone. That's not, friction is not leaving it alone. a body will continue to move unless it's not left alone, unless it's acted upon. Aristotle said, if you don't act upon a moving body, it'll eventually stop. Newton said, a body will keep moving unless you do act upon it, unless you don't leave it alone. You've got to mess with it, otherwise it'll just keep going. And we have to mess with ourselves, otherwise we'll just sit there. Or we'll just keep moving. We'll just keep going along the same path unless we act upon ourselves by aspiration.

[40:24]

We will keep getting up from meditation and wiggling around until we act upon ourselves with aspiration and aspire to be still and think it's so good that we actually are still. Yeah. I don't know if this should be a private session or not, so you can tell me real quick if you get... This last session, I felt like I was idling, and I didn't know why I was sitting. I sort of lost track, and I started imagining all kinds of things on the carpet, just playing around with my mind. And so I wondered... if we sit with a situation that we're trying to correct, if it would be better use of our time.

[41:30]

Because if I just sit and wait for complete relaxation, which I did, and I got pretty calm, And nothing came, no wisdom. Even though I was trying to be very disciplined, I didn't have any object to give to. You know, I felt like if I had been contemplating a difficult situation at work, then I probably would have come up with some wisdom to a way I could solve issue. Well, if you sat and relaxed, and I would say you would be able to sit and relax

[42:38]

if you've been taking care of yourself by being generous with your situation while you're sitting and being patient with your situation and being careful of your situation, those would be virtuous practices which would set up the possibility of you relaxing with what's happening and calming down with what's happening. And then, I think it would very likely be the case that if then you... In that calm place, let's say you got to be really calm and relaxed and flexible and buoyant, bright, okay? In that situation, if some work situation arose, some problem, and you looked at it in that situation, it's very possible that some insight about something, about the situation, some new view, some new view of the situation other than the one you had before could arise. Yes. And what is said here before is these bodhisattvas, they actually were not able to fully cultivate concentration on objects of observation.

[43:56]

In your case you said, like a problem at work. But here it says, cultivate contemplation of observation objects of observation cultivate concentration on objects of observation cultivate concentration on particular topics you said work but here it says objects of observation that come from the teaching for bodhisattvas so it's a little bit different from concentrated cultivating concentration on objects of observation which are from your daily life. But not to say that's wrong, but it's just saying that what they're having in this case is trouble contemplating teachings. And these teachings are often about daily life, about how to relate to daily life or the nature of daily life, which could be applied to daily life.

[45:03]

For example, the teaching that the situation at work depends on causes and conditions, or the situation at work... Well, particularly like the concepts, these concepts, like you might contemplate the situation at work in terms of the practices which made it possible for you to calm down, But also you might contemplate a situation at work, because now let's say you've gotten concentrated. You might contemplate it in terms of like, that it isn't necessarily what you think it is. You might open to that possibility. You might contemplate that the problem at work is actually who you are. or that who you are is actually that problem at work.

[46:05]

This is not a problem out there separate from you. That might be a practice which you apply to the situation at work. But it's more from the point of you're contemplating these teachings and [...] your daily life keeps coming up in the middle of the contemplation of the teachings and you see how the teachings apply to your daily life and how your daily life is an example of these teachings. And that would be wisdom applied to the daily life. Yeah, so that would tend towards liberation. That would tend to wisdom when your mind is thinking about work. You're not at work, but your mind is thinking of work. And when you think of it, you think of these practices, and then you say, okay, on those, and then also, what does the teaching say about my view of things?

[47:12]

Well, it says, are you thinking that work is something other than you? Did you get the joke? Oh, yeah, right. Right now, I'm actually contemplating my mind. But I think I'm contemplating work. I'm not actually, it's not really at work, I'm actually looking at my own mind. And I do that at work too. And if I can now, with my mind, if I can realize that this is not other than me, my story of work is not other than me, actually it's me, then when I get to work I could do that too. It'll be harder because I won't be calm like this. But if I can do it here, it might transfer a little bit back to that situation where I'm not sitting so quietly and so on. That's fine that you did this. And it could have been private, but I think we share this practice. And we just moved up into the concentration and wisdom there a little bit.

[48:18]

We were actually on number four, but we just moved into five and six there a little bit. And now we're going to go back to number four. And I think it's nice to work on number four this afternoon so that you'll have tonight, when you're a little tired, you might have enough energy to stay awake when we talk about concentration. Because when you concentrate and you calm down, it's easy to slip into sleep. So I'm hoping that tonight we will actually be able to be awake. So now we need to think of how good it would be to be awake tonight. for our discussion of concentration. Some other aspects of developing energy, again, aspiration is the root, the trunk. But there's three other practices which are related.

[49:19]

And one is, well, one is related to the other one. So another one is What's the word? Well, I think I'll just say consistency. When you take on a practice, it's not exactly that you hold back, but you try to do it in a way that you feel you can be consistent at. Try to do it in a way that you would kind of like to continue to do rather than do it in a way that you'd just like to do for a few minutes. So don't do it so intensely that you think you can only do it for a little while. Try to find a way to do it that actually you enjoy and that you think would be reasonable to continue for quite a while so you have some continuity in it.

[50:23]

So it's not so much holding back, but more trying to find a way to do it that's more compatible with concentration. Another way to do it is sometimes called resting. Another thing that contributes to energy is sometimes called resting and sometimes called rejection. And it means... to, again it relates to this thing I just mentioned that in fact objects at rest tend to stay at rest unless unless you mess with them and objects that are moving will tend to stay in motion unless you mess with them so if you're doing some work You shouldn't just keep doing it just by momentum. You should keep checking on it to see how your energy level is.

[51:30]

Because sometimes we start doing something and it seems easier to keep doing it rather than actually stop. Because we haven't done it long enough. And it's time to stop. We should stop because we're going to start making mistakes if we don't stop. But it's actually easier to keep doing it sometimes than to stop. And it's kind of lazy to keep doing it. And hard, it takes a special effort to stop. But actually if you stop, your energy will be better cared for. The other side is, that's resting, and the other side is give it a rest in the sense of don't, if you're thinking of doing something that's too advanced, give it a rest. Reject taking on something that's too advanced. And too advanced means something that you think you could start, but you think, if you ran into trouble in the middle of performing this practice, which is basically, we're talking about a practice you think is good, but that you think is kind of difficult, and you think, well, if it got really difficult in the middle of doing this practice, I might stop. Or I probably would stop.

[52:33]

And it's not good to start doing something good and then quit. It's okay to start something bad and quit. It's okay to get in the habit of discontinuing unwholesome activities right in the middle of them, even before you fully accomplish them, it's fine. But if you start something that you think is good, it's, this is, I'm suggesting that you consider I want to do this. I might run into difficulty. And I think there's a good chance that even if I run into difficulty, I think it's so good that I'll continue and I'll complete it. So I'm going to do it. I'm going to try. And you can also consult with, hopefully, with your teacher and say, I think this would be good. And do you think so? Yes. Teacher says yes. I'd like to take it on.

[53:34]

I think it's going to be hard, and I think I'm going to, maybe at certain times I'm going to feel like I want to quit, but I think I can hang in there and do it. What do you think? He says, okay, I support you. Go ahead, try it. I think maybe you can do it. But sometimes you might say, no. I think it's a little bit too much I think you might I think you might quit and I don't want you to quit I'd rather have you wait till later when you could follow through and I think you will be able to follow through later so I actually think better to wait and the student says yeah I think okay let's let's wait until I feel more confidence that even if it gets difficult I'll follow through so we have that I've run into that situation quite frequently that people sign up for something some kind of training period or something and they want to do it, and they don't necessarily think, I'm definitely going to be able to have an easy time, but they want to do it. And then when they get in the middle, they think, well, how did I get into this? This is really hard. I don't want to keep doing this.

[54:35]

This is really, I didn't know it was going to be this hard. And at that point, I usually try to say, well, you know, let's be careful here. It's not good to quit in the middle. going to be a problem if you quit so let's really be careful here and once they get into it I try to help them finish and in the beginning I try to like help them look at whether they whether this looks really and sometimes it looks looks a little too hard they don't look like they don't have enough preparation it looks like pretty likely that they're going to get into it a level of difficulty that they haven't demonstrated ability to hang in there with it So, and sometimes we say, don't try this yet. But once they get in, we usually support them to continue. And one of the ways I do that is I say, if you do want to leave, if you want to continue, almost always I support them to continue. If they're having a hard time and they want to continue, I say, okay, let's go.

[55:36]

But if they're thinking, I think I want to quit, I want to leave, then I usually say, well, Now go back to patience. Say, well, if you can tell me that you're totally in the present with this difficulty and you're not trying to run away from it by giving up this practice, you're not trying to get away from the difficulty that you're feeling. You're really settled, but you just want to do something else. But not because you want to run away from this, but because you think something else would be better, really. then I think you're not exactly quitting a good thing. You're doing another good thing. And sometimes in the middle of doing a good thing, you think of doing another good thing. That can be okay. In the middle of doing a bad thing and you want to do another bad thing, I wouldn't encourage that. Just quit the bad thing and don't take up another bad thing. But if you're going to quit a good thing, I think you should basically replace it with another good thing or a better thing or almost a good thing.

[56:44]

rather than just like stop the good. And that's not so good. But the person just said, okay, I'm okay with this difficulty. I'm settled with it. I could continue, but I really don't want to. I want to do something else. Then they're practicing patience. They're in the present. They're not running away. They're not freaking out. Okay, I'll support that. And in all the years, only a couple times have people come back and told me that they have settled with it And they actually still want to leave. Only a couple of times they come back. One time they didn't come back and they left without talking to me. But one time they came back and they said, I'm totally at peace. I'm happy to be here. It's difficult, but I want to leave. I want to do something else. And I said, okay, you can go. I'd support you. But my feeling is, particularly when I'm at Tassajara, you know, it's in a valley.

[57:47]

And I feel like if you leave here, you go up over the mountain and down the other side. When you get to the other side, the same thing's going to happen. There's no point in repeating it. Just stay here. And, you know, suffer here. Don't go over there and run away from there. This is a perfectly good place to suffer. So that's the practice of don't take on something that's too advanced. Be careful when you take on the next level up in the practice. And, you know, it's a good time to talk to your co-practitioners and teachers when you don't take on something too advanced, namely something that you'll quit. And there's various places where various practices, like, for example, don't I mean, you know, I don't know what. In the case of the, maybe you shouldn't tell the king, the crazy king, that your practice is patience. When he comes all ready to chop you up, maybe you should say, my practice is doing whatever you say, boss.

[58:53]

I'm really sorry that I distracted your girlfriends. Don't tell him. My practice is patience to have him test you. And so there's aspiration, there's steadiness, there's arresting or rejection, and then there's the joy at actually thinking about how good it would be to do the practice, to actually feel the joy of it, to actually generate joy about doing good. So those are practices which develop this enthusiasm. But you've got to do the previous three practices to be most successful. And then you can aspire to do this practice of concentrating, of focusing on something that you think is really important.

[60:07]

Like, for example, constantly thinking about the welfare and liberation of others. To remember that all the time, to focus on that, to contemplate that, to contemplate these teachings that we're talking about, and really focus on them. Not so much doing them, in a way, in terms of interacting, but more like just focus on them, like steep yourself in them, and use them to calm down. So we'll talk about that more tonight. So do you have any other questions about this aspiration practice? Yes. I think I said four. Aspiration, joy, steadiness or consistency, and rest.

[61:10]

So rest in the sense of like resting, like you're doing meditation a long time and you're getting fatigued, rest. Don't just keep doing it, rest. But also, yeah, don't keep doing it even when it seems like you've got plenty of energy to keep doing it. But really it's just momentum, so rest. And then when you are doing the practice, and you're not going too long, and it's not too advanced, then try to use the appropriate level of energy that you feel like you want to continue this. Like some people, you know, they meditate all night. And I feel fine about that, except when they sleep during the day. I said, I'd rather have you, I kind of would like you to be awake during the regular meditations with the group rather than staying up by yourself at night and then when you come to practice with the group you're asleep.

[62:21]

So I, you know, that's what I would kind of like. So that's, you're doing so much meditation that you're asleep during a lot of your meditation. you're not really, you're overdoing it and so you're kind of being inconsistent. I kind of would rather have you be awake all the time with more rest rather than be sort of confusing sleep with your meditation. So why don't you be less of a, less in some sense, less zealous in a way so that you can be more consistently zealous and The other one is just actually to think about what you aspire to and generate joy in relationship to it. Joy of how good it is to do these practices. That's the fourth. I'm still struggling a little bit with what you said earlier this morning regarding knowing or having, trying to determine what actions are beneficial actions.

[63:40]

That you had an example with Sonoria, in fact, what you were talking about earlier, where you encounter some people are chasing somebody. Yes. You consider saying going the other way. Yes. To them, to protect the person. Right. The question, but then there's a, I'm wondering whether my thought of whether this person is, maybe the person who's being chased, there is a real reason to chase them. and that the action of lying to divert the pursuers may actually not be beneficial. So how do we know or how do we work with not knowing whether our actions are beneficial or not?

[64:45]

Well, in using that example, before I say using that example, I just say, when you think something is beneficial, when you think it's beneficial, then basically it's fine to do some research. And if the research kind of supports your thought that it's beneficial, and I would say generally beneficial, do that rather than something you think is less beneficial. That's the general principle. But still, I can go into more detail on that one of how I could have assumed more research, like it's not just they're chasing somebody, but you know the reason they're chasing the person and the reason they want to hurt the person is because the person is Jewish. or the person's African-American or something. You get a sense that that's really what they want to punish the person for, and you don't think that's a crime.

[65:48]

That's your view. Like, I was once called in to be on a jury, and the person who was on trial was on trial for escaping from custody. And I just felt like, well, if you've been falsely... If you've been arrested... and it hasn't even been determined that you're guilty of the crime, I think it's kind of complicated for me to be prosecuting the person before I even find out if they're guilty of the crime, because if they're not guilty of the crime, I kind of feel like I don't want it to be a crime that they ran away. So anyway, I had a problem with that. But in the case, I was thinking of an example of somebody who's chasing someone, and they're going to hurt the person for something that's not a crime. What they're accusing of is not a crime period, not a question of whether they did it. They're going to hurt the person because of who the person is. Like they're from Mexico, or they're a Jew, or they're African, or they're Asian or something.

[66:52]

That's what they're going to get punished for. In that case, I feel like it seems not good that they would do that. And it seemed better to protect them from making this big mistake. Okay? Okay? That's an example to try to make it really clear that they're going to hurt the person. Now you could say, well, maybe the person did something else in a past life that they're punishing for. But still, I think it's better for you not to be the angel of vengeance for anything, if possible. Let some divine being do that. Let the person's own psyche do it. Just leave people alone. If they did something bad, their own mind will punish them. You don't have to do anything mean to anybody ever again. And if you're about to do something unkind, I would be happy to ask you to not do it. And if you're not going to listen to me, you're going to do it anyway, I might even be willing to tell you to go in the opposite direction for where you'd be able to do it.

[67:56]

Even if I had to lie to protect you from being cruel. So I generally think it's not... I don't think it's good for you to be cruel. But am I right? That's the part where I can't be sure. My value is, basically, the worst thing we do is cruelty, and I would like to help people not do it as much as possible. But is the way I'm thinking of doing it now actually... Promoting that is the way I'm doing. Really going to have good benefits? That I do not know. But I should research as much as possible. And sometimes you don't have much time. And sometimes you have plenty of time. So you think, well, I think this would be good. Like one time, Susikorishi's wife was at a dinner where a man was being... honored for his wonderful contributions, I think, to the Japanese-American community in San Francisco.

[68:57]

He was going to be honored for this. Or he was honored for it. And right in the middle of the honoring, she thought, they don't seem to be mentioning his family. So she thought, I think it would be good to mention his family, she thought. She thought that would be a good thing to do. And she consulted with people, and she just happened to have two different people who had different tendencies. One kind of a liberal person, an easygoing person, and one other person who was really careful about Japanese etiquette. And she asked both of them, kind of a conservative and liberal, if they thought that it would be good to also recognized this family there. And they both said yes, so she did. She stood up and said, and blah, blah, blah, the family. And everybody cheered for the family, too. But she thought they were going to not be mentioned. So she did. She thought that would be beneficial.

[69:59]

But we still don't know if it was, because beneficial means not just that it seems good now, but that it has good results. And the good results don't end. The next day it seems good, and the following day it seems bad, and the next day it seems good. We don't know. Until we have perfect knowledge, we don't know exactly. But the thing is, we're trying to do what we think, that we sincerely are trying to do what we think is best, and sometimes we notice we're not actually paying attention. and we didn't really think that what we did was best. We might be wrong, but we really weren't trying to do our best. And the thing about when you don't try to do your best, you don't have to pay attention to not do your best. You can not do your best without paying attention, I often say. You can be unskillful blindfolded. You can drive a car poorly when you're drunk, You can drive a car poorly when you're blindfolded.

[71:00]

You can drive a car poorly when you're angry. But to drive a car well, you really shouldn't be so angry, shouldn't be intoxicated, and you shouldn't be distracted, right? I mean, that's what we think. But we can't be sure, because it might be possible that if you're drunk, actually, you wouldn't run over somebody. you don't really know but generally it seems like if you wish to do good you should pay attention you should be mindful you should think that what you do has consequence that would promote you paying attention and if you don't if you don't care about your consequences even though you don't know what you're doing is good or bad then you don't pay attention so if you want to do good you know you have to pay attention if you want to avoid evil you know you have to pay attention if you don't know that you are doing good You don't know that you are avoiding evil. And if you pay attention, it gets more and more difficult to actually sincerely want to do evil.

[72:04]

But it's still possible to be paying attention and say, I do want to do evil, I do want to hurt this person, I do hate this person, and I want to effectively hurt them. That is possible, but the mindfulness of it does start to contribute to noticing that you feel really bad about it, and so on. But we don't know. We don't know how it works because consequences are unfolding indefinitely. We approach it with that understanding that it will work out in time, but in the meantime we do our best to use the information we have But we think it's beneficial. Yes. And we understand that if it is beneficial what we're about to do, then it would be good to do it the way we intend to do it, which we think is beneficial.

[73:08]

If you think it's beneficial to drive a car carefully, well, then you should pay attention to driving it carefully. Because we generally know it's hard to be careful of something when you're not paying attention. It's hard to be vigilant when you're not paying attention. So... those practices, ethical practices, go with paying attention. But also ethical practices go with not rigidly holding to ethical practices. So being tense and self-righteous about ethical practices and say, this is good, and that's the end of the story. That interferes with ethical practice. It's called rigid adherence to your conventional view of good. That is contradictory to successful ethical practices, and it's contradictory to giving, to being generous, to not being possessive of your understanding of what ethics is. So to know that we don't really know what is ethical goes well with being ethical.

[74:14]

It goes well with ethics being ethics being gentle and kind. They're part of kindness. So it's working with forms and regulations and values but in a kind and gentle way. Ethics is not supposed to be a club that you hurt yourself and other people with. It's a skillful tool to be used with compassion. It can enhance compassion. It's an aid to compassion. It's a joyful resource of compassion. Therefore, we should not be cruel with ethics. And some people are because they grab onto it tightly and beat people up with it. because they think self-righteously, I know what is right and this is right and that's wrong and this interferes with facilitating the right. And then if we have trouble learning that we're trying to learn that and we notice that it's hard and so we're patient with ourselves not being perfect at this.

[75:30]

We're patient with ourselves with the pain of doing these ethics a little bit too tightly or too loosely. I think it's dinner time again. If you can stand it. Thank you very much.

[75:53]

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