Making calculations and making known to the conscious mind some needs that it feels should be cared for. And sometimes it misrepresents the situation in order to get the needs met. For example, it makes things... It puts up the idea that something will really be fun in order to get the person to get moving, which it feels like... It needs for the body to move. It needs the body to be active. So it kind of tells the conscious mind that it would really be good to go do something. So there's something about our nervous system that conveys or conjures up needs, which over time has been some survival value. So needs are something that keep popping up in our face.

[01:05]

And then there's also desires, needs and desires. And so to take care of needs can be selfish or unselfish. So if needs are arising, the context could be, or the focus can be, the happiness of others. With that focus or with that overarching context the needs appear and in that situation then how to take care of the needs is in that perspective. So there are needs and sometimes they should be And they should be cared for. And sometimes the way you take care of them is just to observe them and say, well, I'll get back to you on that later.

[02:07]

Right now, I'm doing something different from taking care of this need. I'm doing something over here, which I want to be. I want to promote the happiness of others by this thing I'm doing. But when I come back and take care of this need, I will be doing this need for the same reason. I will be taking care of this need for the same reason. So, in our practice, our formal practice, when we have meals, we remind ourselves that we're eating this food for the happiness of others. We're eating this food so that we have the strength to perform our services But we don't eat every time we feel a need to eat. Because we eat at times we generally feel are appropriate to eat. But not always at those times either.

[03:10]

But the concentration of the path here is to keep on the beam of always thinking of the happiness of others. Like the Buddha is always thinking of the happiness of others. Always think about how you can help people enter the path which will bring them happiness. And then in that context needs keep being presented to our consciousness. But again these are not necessarily needs But they look like needs and they should be cared for because by taking care of these things, something else that we really do need gets taken care of from the point of view of the nervous system. So we sometimes take care of our needs, we sometimes don't.

[04:19]

we always focus, in this tradition we always focus, I mean we aspire to always focus, always, always, always, always concentrated on the welfare of others. And then our needs can interrupt that concentration. I mean, not our needs, but our awareness of our needs can interrupt that and also are inattention to our needs. If you don't pay attention to your needs, that can also interrupt your focus on the welfare and happiness of others. So if your needs come up and you don't practice kindness towards them, towards that appearance, that inattention to the needs can kind of take revenge on your practice of focusing on the welfare of others. So it's kind of like you make a deal with your nervous system, and if you take reasonable care of it, it will let you focus on the welfare of others.

[05:31]

But if you aren't kind to your nervous system when it tells you it needs this and it needs that, it sometimes will just like close down the compassion shop. It'll just say, okay, that's it. You got a body and the body's now taking away your license to practice. Because when you're trying to practice, you ignore your body so much that that we're not going to let you practice anymore. Every time you think of practice, we're going to distract you. We're going to, you know, we're going to send demons, you know, big time to distract you from practice because you don't listen to us. So you need to be kind to your needs as part of being kind to all beings. But the focus towards your, the kindness towards your needs is not for your own happiness. but for the welfare of others, but that still you really are kind to your needs and you really do listen to them and you really do try to be, do the most skillful thing with them.

[06:39]

But again, you're not doing the most skillful thing with them to make yourself happy, you're doing the most skillful thing with them for the welfare of others and that's what will make you happy. And it will make you happy because other people will learn this from you and they need to learn this in order to be happy. And this concentration then sets the stage for wisdom. This concentration is somewhat wise, and you have to be somewhat wise to practice it, but then there's a further intimacy with reality that this kind of practice makes possible. which completes the practice of enlightenment, the wisdom.

[07:45]

And again, we talked earlier today about, we discussed, we contemplated dependent co-arising, cause and effect, the way the world is created. So part of the wisdom practice, which again, That's part of what you do the practice of contemplating dependent core rising, you do the practice of contemplating karmic cause and effect, you do that for the happiness of others. Contemplating that will make you more able to focus on the welfare of others and show them how to also focus on the pinnacle rising of karmic life which again is a need we need to do that but it's a need we have to be educated to notice so we need to study causation and if we

[08:49]

are kind to our own needs, and we're focused on the welfare of others, the focus of welfare on others enables us to do the difficult work of studying causation, which is not necessarily fun. It's not necessarily fun in itself. But doing it for the welfare of others is a great joy. And studying dependent core arising, studying karmic cause and effect, is wisdom, is the wisdom, well I should say, it's the practice which develops the wisdom which focuses on what we call conventional reality. Conventional reality is the reality of karma, karmic cause and effect. It's the conventional reality of how our mind sees what's going on and how our mind sees what's going on is our intention, is our karma.

[09:57]

It's how our mind makes up a story about what's going on and the story we have about what's going on has consequence. So studying the story and studying not necessarily seeing the consequence but anyway see the next story and the next story and the next story we are actually studying cause and effect even though we can't necessarily see how it works can't necessarily see how this intention leads to the next intention how this story leads to the next story we do watch the stories and this develops the wisdom which becomes more and more skillful with the stories And this skill with the stories, and skill with the stories involves all these compassion practices of bearing down on the stories, on the observation of the stories, and also the focus on doing the study of the stories, doing the study of our karma,

[10:59]

or the welfare of all beings, we actually become so intimate with this conventional reality that we open to the ultimate truth. Namely that all these things are, you know, vast selflessness, vast insubstantiality. And then we study that ultimate truth, along with continuing to study the conventional truth. And when we become skillful, we have wisdom of conventional truth and wisdom of ultimate truth. And then we use the wisdom that we've realized. Now we turn the wisdom back onto Our main focus, namely, the welfare and happiness of others. But now we have wisdom to look at the welfare of others. So we're not just focusing on it.

[12:03]

We see it. We see what the welfare of others is. We understand better than before how to work, how that would be, and how to work on that. And then we become really intimate with Buddha because, as I mentioned before, Buddha is always thinking, how can I help beings enter the path and attain Buddhahood? Buddha's always thinking that. That's Buddha's karmic cause and effect. And Buddha's studying her mind that's always thinking this way. Buddha's studying this story all the time. And understanding this story, and Buddha's also all the time not thinking. In other words, Buddha's also realizing that thinking, you can't really find it. Buddha's also looking at the insubstantiality of the whole process. And then Buddha's able to also understand the best way to help people in each case, what the best thing for the person is.

[13:09]

For all I know, that was perfectly clear to you. Hallelujah. But I welcome your feedback, if you have any feedback on the process that's been described here in this retreat. Yes? Sharing some joy, thank you. I'm sort of stumbling upon... So it's a misconception and a delusion in my thinking about working through the welfare and liberation of all beings. Because I feel like even though I'm a new person, and I devote myself to working through the welfare and liberation of all beings, there's a sort of threat of ugliness in all beings. That's what I think. Like, it was like a subtitle.

[14:17]

Under all, and that it wasn't just an inclusive... There's a story that's saying, I'm working with other beings with a sense of separation and a sense of... that other people are other beings. That they're... That they're... That they're alternate... it's a word, ontologically other, that they're actually separate beings rather than just other. And it was such a great joy because it felt like something just really opened when that realization, that illusion popped up. And... It felt very liberating. And... Congratulations. Yes.

[15:48]

The what? Oh, the tenth perfection of knowledge, how that supports wisdom. Well, the thing it does for wisdom is it makes wisdom continue to go beyond itself. It is a kind of wisdom, but it's not so much the kind of wisdom that goes beyond wisdom.

[17:01]

It's more of a kind of a knowledge. It's called knowledge. So, wisdom gives rise to knowledge, and then this knowledge supports the wisdom to go beyond itself, to never get stuck. It's knowledge of the ultimate truth. It's the knowledge of ultimate truth and the knowledge of ultimate truth which in some sense wisdom knows, that knowledge keeps wisdom not stopping to go beyond itself. Knowledge in one sense is what is known. Wisdom is more the knowing.

[18:04]

So when wisdom knows the ultimate truth, the knowledge which is of the ultimate truth keeps the wisdom from clinging to the ultimate truth, keeps it transcending itself. So it's a wisdom that keeps wisdom constantly fresh. but it's actually a little bit different because it, in some sense, isn't evolving the same way that the wisdom is evolving. You look like you're thinking that maybe there's some other understanding would be coming soon. Can I have the self-knowledge of something you've asked? Like I mentioned the other day, at the time of Aristotle, he was very influential, so he thought...

[19:30]

that a moving body would eventually stop if you'd leave it alone. And that's what he thought, so that was kind of like, pretty much people went along with that. That was the knowledge of the Greeks at that time. And then also, yeah, and then later, Newton said, no, if a body's moving and you leave it alone, it'll just keep going. It won't stop unless you interfere with it. Because moving bodies have a quality which some people call the laziness of nature. Which is inertia. Inertia is the laziness of nature. And we have inertia like that too. But this is a knowledge. It's a knowledge of inertia. That with around the time of Newton, Western... Western people started to realize, oh, there's a thing called inertia.

[20:32]

It's a kind of a laziness of moving objects and a laziness of still objects. Still objects also, if you leave them alone, they won't start moving. And moving ones won't stop moving if you leave them alone. So that's a knowledge. After he put that out there, it was in the world, that piece of knowledge, that information. And that knowledge made possible further insights which actually came to refute not that point but the world in which that point was made was refuted. That almost everything that the world where these large things are moving almost all the laws of that world turned to be wrong in the smaller world of quantum mechanics. So now we have a new knowledge called quantum mechanics.

[21:39]

It's a kind of a knowledge. It's not something exactly that I know or you know. It's like... It's not a personal thing. It's a kind of a... It's like a social phenomena now in the world that's affecting our wisdom process. And it keeps stimulating us to have a difficult time understanding reality. It's hard for us to settle on reality at this time in history because quantum mechanics is bugging us. And you can't really get away from it, even if you're not a physicist. Because this knowledge is in the world and we have these physicists who are working with it and they're affecting our lives. And so, you know, Our wisdom is being affected by this knowledge, this social phenomenon among humans and non-humans, like computers. That knowledge is functioning in this world.

[22:44]

And you can kind of know about quantum mechanics, but your knowing of it is not the knowledge. But that knowledge can stimulate your knowing process and stimulate your wisdom process. And that way that knowledge keeps stimulating your wisdom process is what's referred to as the tenth perfection. The tenth perfection is something in the world that keeps the sixth perfection, keeps disturbing it, keeps challenging it, keeps it alive. So is it like, for instance, the knowledge that comes from studying Yes. Yes. Previous what? Some previous wisdom.

[23:46]

The previous knowledge, if the previous knowledge is gone, now the new knowledge... but the new knowledge might be actually established now because it's going to be there for a while. Like Aristotle was there for a long time and then Newton was there for 300 years and now we have quantum mechanics. I don't know how long that's going to be there. But quantum mechanics isn't just my idea of quantum mechanics. It's a social reality, a social phenomenon that's going on on this planet now. And that knowledge is going to be there for a long time. Like a knowledge of the Samdhi Nirmacana Sutra that wouldn't be just mine or yours, but a knowledge which keeps challenging, a knowledge which I have access to and you have access to, but it has access to us. And it keeps my wisdom process moving. It won't let it settle down. It won't let it say, okay, now I'm done. I got it. It's a knowledge which perfects the wisdom process, which won't let it get stagnant

[24:53]

And I would hope that if the knowledge came to a place where it let the wisdom process stagnate, that that would be the very moment that a new knowledge would come which would challenge the old wisdom. So as long as the old wisdom is getting challenged by the knowledge, the current knowledge relative to that wisdom, then that knowledge is the tenth paramita, is the tenth perfection because it's still stimulating our inquiry, stimulating our insight, stimulating our wisdom to go beyond itself. There was, in the history of Buddhism sometimes, there was a wisdom of early Buddhism which is called old wisdom and then there's a new wisdom which is the wisdom of wisdom going beyond itself. The old wisdom didn't have so much the clear message that wisdom should keep going beyond itself, that it should keep transcending itself.

[26:02]

So the Buddha's knowledge keeps the Buddha's wisdom fresh. And at some point it's possible that the Buddha's knowledge will not keep the Buddha's wisdom fresh, and hopefully at that time of new knowledge, which would refresh the Buddha's wisdom. Yes, so those of us who are working on wisdom, when we came to, for example, a certain scripture called the Samyur Mochana about 15 years ago, there was not much knowledge of the Samyur Mochana Sutra because we hadn't read it yet. There was some knowledge. about texts which were derivatives of it, which we had been studying. So there was that knowledge. And that knowledge was working on our wisdom. But as we studied the Samdhi Nirmacana, a new knowledge arose among those who were studying it. And that new knowledge, again, became a challenge to the understanding or the insight of all the people who were studying it.

[27:11]

And again, when our wisdom process stagnates, hopefully it won't be long before a new knowledge would come to stimulate and exalt that wisdom, get it to, you know, be exalted, to rise above itself and go beyond itself. And the wisdom is something we share, so we can check out the wisdom So if you've got a wisdom that's not challenging, excuse me, the knowledge is something we share. So if you've got a wisdom that's stagnating, maybe if you checked out the knowledge, you might find out that you don't share the knowledge with me. And then if the knowledge changes, it would release your wisdom. So sometimes people do have a knowledge when they're studying a text,

[28:15]

when they're studying a teaching, and that knowledge is such that it leaves, it lets them hold on to their wisdom. But if they would check out their knowledge with the teacher, maybe the teacher would say, that's not the knowledge I have, and if they adjust their knowledge to share with the teacher, that new knowledge will free them from their wisdom and give them a new wisdom. So that's why wisdom really is is, you know, meeting the Buddha face to face. That's really enlightenment. So we have to be doing that exercise of meeting the Buddha and seeing if we share knowledge with Buddha to release our wisdom from getting stuck in, you know, in our current understanding. Because again, there's an inertia in us that our wisdom unless acted upon. Our wisdom will just keep moving forward the way it's moving forward unless acted upon by something.

[29:22]

Our wisdom has a lazy aspect to it. Or our wisdom could be not moving and it can have a lazy aspect in that. It's okay if it's not moving but we don't want it to be a lazy not moving. So we have to challenge the inertia in the stillness of wisdom and we have to challenge the inertia in the movement of wisdom. We need to keep challenging the whole process all the way through, including up to wisdom. And that the last, the tenth perfection is really not, it's included in the sixth. It refers to the way that the sixth one stays alive. but it's really just part of fully alive wisdom, is that it keeps getting challenged by knowledge. So thank you for bringing that up. We almost didn't finish the course.

[30:25]

Yeah? I think I have been thinking about wisdom as a kind of insight that... A permanent insight? Yeah. Well, it's permanent in the sense that the way it is now is the way it will always be. In the sense of this insight is this insight and that's that. But I remember one translator of the Perfect Wisdom Sutra says in a sense the concentration practices are pretty much the same as they've been from ancient yogic times. The concentrations that the Buddha practiced are pretty much the same as the concentrations now, except that in his time, they were in some sense more advanced. Maybe there were more advanced yogis then than there are now.

[31:34]

But still, concentration is just a human state. But there's always new wisdoms. But all the old wisdoms and all the old understandings, in a sense, they're eternal because they're just that understanding. And to hold on to that, though, wouldn't be healthy. So they're eternal in the sense of once you understand two plus two is four, that's it. It's over. It's forever. But then let's move on now. So there can be endless new wisdoms. But the old ones still kind of like stand in a way. They were stepping stones to this one. And now this one is a stepping stone to that one. But that stepping stone in some sense is that stepping stone. So in a sense it's eternal. But we don't hold on to it. We have to keep moving forward. concentrations, you conjure up new concentrations all the time in terms of just simply concentrated state, it's pretty much the same.

[32:42]

And the teachings about concentration really haven't changed for 2,500, 3,000 years. The teachings on concentration, how to concentrate the mind, they're pretty much the same. And they're not Buddhist, they're just human. All the different schools kind of do the same thing. But the Buddhist wisdoms, you know, they're like this total explosion of insights within Buddhism, like always new insights, not just one new insight, but many new insights every moment in the community. Hopefully. So the wisdom of the Buddha was the wisdom of the Buddha, but then the wisdom of the Buddha went beyond. So Buddhas go beyond Buddha. Buddha is something that goes beyond itself. The highest wisdom is the wisdom that goes beyond itself.

[33:45]

But the previous step was the previous step, yes. And the previous step doesn't change to something else. Of course, you could say, well, it does change because it's now the previous step of this thing, so it's... So there is some sense that that's it, and that's why we have to move on. I'm happy because it just seems so far out there already. It's still far, you know. Yeah. Buddha's kind of far out there, and then when you get there, you go beyond it. By the way. So, as you may know, one of the fascicles of the teacher Dogen is Buddha going beyond Buddha. And that's what Buddhas do, they go beyond Buddha. Because they're always trying to find a new way to help new people, to help new sentient beings to be happy. So they have to always have new insights about the welfare and happiness of beings.

[34:54]

And that insight's based on new insights about conventional reality, because sentient beings are part of conventional reality, and new insights about ultimate truth. Even though the ultimate truth is kind of the same ultimate truth, it's the same ultimate truth of a new thing, a new conventional truth, a new person. You have a new person here, and there's ultimate truth of this person. So it's the same ultimate truth, but it's the same ultimate truth of a new, fresh example. So the Buddha's studying the sentient being, understanding their conventional cause and effect, understanding that they're insubstantial, and because of that now can see what's beneficial to the person. And this is three new, kind of three new wisdoms in a way. But they're also one at that time because you're seeing the conventional reality of a living being, the ultimate truth of a living being, and the way to benefit a living being. They're all kind of together, the three aspects of wisdom. If you look at the Heart Sutra, Avalokiteshvara sees the ultimate truth, but then he starts talking to us without even being invited.

[36:18]

So in the Heart Sutra, Avalokiteshvara is practicing prajnaparamita, which means he's he's doing these practices and he's he's being he's doing these practices with conventional reality he's studying cause and effect he's studying his karmic consciousness and then he sees that it's empty and then that relieves all suffering and then he starts talking but in order to talk you have to come into conventional reality and he comes into conventional reality and talks about ultimate reality and then We realize ultimate reality and then go back into conventional reality. So it's a cycle between the two, but in a way that can happen simultaneously for the Buddhas. They can see ultimate, they can see conventional reality at the same time as they see ultimate reality, at the same time they see it's what's beneficial to beings, all at the same time. Bodhisattvas kind of switch back and forth between conventional and ultimate.

[37:20]

Any other feedback you wish to offer? So what you're saying as far as in conventional speaking, if... All speaking is conventional. All speaking is conventional. I understand. Well, except... That's not conventional speaking. That's not speaking. So that's not conventional. But the sounds are conventionalities. Sound is conventional. And all speaking is conventional. The emptiness of sounds is not conventional. That's ultimate. So speaking... Yes? So... So in my umbrella of unhappiness, which I have shared with you, like having thought stories, stories arising in my head last night, and then applying the practice of giving ethics, patience, and then looking at how, or in my mind it arose,

[38:54]

after practicing that my relationship to those stories somehow shifted. And were you saying earlier that that is a wisdom practice? Is that wisdom practice? When your relationship to a story shifts? Yes. Well, your relation to a story could shift without it being wisdom, but if you're in wisdom, it will shift. If you have a certain understanding of the stories, if it's living wisdom, it will then shift to another understanding of the stories. If you understand these stories as insubstantial, that might have been a shift from understanding these stories as substantial. But once you understand them as substantial then you should shift out of that either into substantial again or into a new realization of the insubstantiality of the new story.

[40:06]

So in some sense wisdom is shifting and adapting to the new opportunity for realization of truth. And the realization of the ultimate is based on the realization of the conventional. So wisdom, in some senses, is dealing with conventional truth in a thorough way. And thereby, by dealing with conventional truth, you can open to ultimate truth. If you open to ultimate truth without dealing with conventional truth, this is not healthy wisdom. This is a kind of crazy wisdom. it's not crazy wisdom, it's a kind of insanity. Can you say it again? If you open to ultimate truth of things without being grounded in a wisdom about conventional things, it's not a healthy, it's not the real wisdom. So we're not supposed to be looking at the ultimate until we're grounded in the conventional. The fact that we're suggesting here that that doesn't just arise, I mean, you don't just have a shift

[41:15]

if you go along in your life and, you know, you have thought patterns, due to what happens to you in your life, you have certain stories, right? Yes. And... And if you care for the stories by these practices... That's right. You need... Yeah. If you're kind to your stories... Practice carefully. Then you can... Then you can... And if you're kind to your stories... not just for yourself, but you're kind to your stories for the welfare of all beings. And when you come to look at conventional reality, conventional truth, when you meditate on it, you have a chance to realize the ultimate truth of these conventional things. And so the wisdom arises because of all these conditions. But those conditions are all impermanent, so... the wisdom should shift and now a new wisdom should arise with a new set of conventional things.

[42:24]

Conventional things are impermanent. And then if you're kind to the new situation, then you get grounded in the new conventional world, then you're ready for a new wisdom which sees the conventional and the ultimate. And then you can see what's beneficial to beings. And then again, a new conventional phenomena arises. In other words, a new dependent co-arising arises. We practice kindness towards it. Then you can see it. Then a new wisdom arises and a new ability to benefit beings. And then again. Yes? I talked a little bit about the ceremony of giving and receiving presents and a little bit about the

[43:25]

the figuration of the actions and how a lay person might have a different robe and treats the person. The part in my mind where I got stuck was whether or not this piece of cloth and that ceremony was describing how it might have helped us. Something about what? The ceremony, the rope. Where that fits in the context of who's working for the welfare and liberation faculty?

[44:38]

Describe your book. You're talking about a faculty that made the ethics practice. How does that make sense to you? Well, one place it fits into is it's before this whole process. It's a ceremony where you basically commit to this process. and where you get a new name, because now you're changing your life. You're becoming a new person who has a new life, and your new life is you are committed to these practices. Before you did the ceremony, you maybe did the practices, but you didn't make a formal commitment to them with a teacher, and you didn't ask for precepts. as a kind of ritual enactment of your commitment to this bodhisattva path. And you also got, in the robe is also, you get a new name, family, and clothing to start this path.

[45:47]

Even though you may have been doing these practices more or less before, you're now formally committing to enter this process, this path. And the precepts When people used to enter, for example, the monk or lay path of practice, they would receive precepts. So now you're entering this path, which is sometimes monastic and sometimes not, but you're receiving these precepts as a kind of parallel commitment to precepts that people used to take when they entered the Buddhist path. And so people feel like making a formal ritual commitment to this, they think that might be helpful. And so we offer that initiation. It's an initiation into this path here. It's an initiation into a life of work for the welfare and liberation of all beings.

[46:54]

I just wanted to mention when we're talking about the Bodhisattvas focusing on the welfare and the happiness of others, I just want to point out that the pre-Bodhisattva, before the Bodhisattva tradition really arose in India, we had the Buddhist disciples, the fully enlightened Buddhist disciples. They weren't Buddhists, but they were called Arhats. They were saints. And the arhats also taught that there's two ways to mature and sustain the mind of loving-kindness. So, developing loving-kindness and compassion is very familiar in the early tradition, but it's also the ground, the foundation of the Mahayana, loving-kindness and compassion, also the foundation of the bodhisattva path. But in the earlier path, path of so-called individual liberation, of individuals becoming saints, those saints said that there's two ways to develop this loving-kindness in that tradition.

[48:28]

One is to put yourself in others' shoes, and the other is to treat friends and foes alike. So that's an early teaching which is very much in accord with the bodhisattva teaching. I want to point that out, that there's not a rift between them, it's just that the bodhisattva is focusing on the liberation of others and the early saints seem to be focusing on personal liberation. And the Buddha went along with that. The Buddha said, I'll help you become liberated. And they said, okay, help me become liberated. And they did become liberated. But they didn't notice so much that the Buddha's work was to liberate them rather than the Buddha's work was to liberate herself. They said, well, the Buddha didn't have to because the Buddha was already liberated. But the Buddha's liberation came from spending his many lives working on the welfare and liberation of others.

[49:29]

But still, the early students of the Buddha were into personal liberation and they were successful. But still, even they said, if you want to develop loving kindness, which is part of personal liberation, then put yourself in other's shoes and treat friends and foes alike, which Bodhisattvas do that too. Now, that's not selfish. That's not selfish at all. Loving kindness isn't selfish. It's just that you might be practicing loving kindness for personal liberation. You might be wishing others well because you understand that that will give you personal liberation rather than wishing others well for their happiness. Now, it turns out it does make people happy usually when they're wishing other people well. The wisher is the happy one. Sometimes you wish people well and you're happy, but the person you're wishing well isn't.

[50:35]

And then you wish them well more, and they still aren't. And you get happier. And you wish them well more. And then finally they say, would you stop getting so happy wishing me well? And you say, fine, I'll stop. Not really. I can't. Sorry. So then they beat you up. There was a Bodhisattva who walked around In the Lotus Sutra, they have a bodhisattva walks around. Everybody, the bodhisattva man says, I do not disparage you. You will attain Buddhahood. I do not disparage you. I will never disparage you. You will attain Buddhahood. And people found this guy really irritating. And they beat him up. And he just kept saying, you will attain Buddhahood. You will attain Buddhahood. Bah! Yeah, there's a song about that, right? Right. One of the monks at Tassajara wrote a song, kind of a, with the guitar and everything.

[51:39]

I think it's on the internet. Maybe he didn't write it up. Do you know if he's here writing? Yeah. Oh, two people. Okay, yeah. It might be the Bodhisattva Never Disparaging. That might be the name. either never disparaging or never despising never disparaging or never despising that's the name of the chapter I think it's chapter 20 of the Lotus Sutra so sometimes if you're wishing people well it's better to be quiet

[53:02]

I was talking to a troubled youth one time and she told me how terrible she was and I really didn't think she was that bad and I said, you're not that bad. And she got more vehement about how terrible she was. And I thought she was just about ready to try to prove to me how bad she was. And I said, yeah, you really are bad. And she said, yeah, right. Thank you. Thank you. She was very happy when I acknowledged you are bad. I still didn't feel like she was, but I felt like I should acknowledge that she was. You know, acknowledge her sense of herself. Affirm her sense that she was bad as a starting point for going beyond that.

[54:13]

Again, that's sort of where the Buddha starts. Sort of acknowledge where people are at and then let's go beyond that now. Or let's go beyond that later. Or let's go beyond that sometime. Any other feedback? People haven't spoken, please speak. My invitation is given, of course, with no expectation. Yes? It seems to me that my enthusiasm sometimes comes right off as an adaptation. Mm-hmm. And I tend to confuse the two.

[55:18]

Mm-hmm. Well, that's what I said by one of those factors of... to support enthusiasm is to observe whether the level of enthusiasm is one that you feel you could continue more or less indefinitely. So if you start getting, you know, really bubbly, you might feel, this is probably not going to, this way of doing it is not going to continue much longer. So I'm probably getting a little worked up here. And remember that enthusiasm is coming just before concentration. So you should understand this enthusiasm is going to now feed into concentration, so you don't want to get too bubbly. So bring some vigilance into your enthusiasm to make sure the zeal is a sustainable resource. The zeal, the enthusiasm is a great resource.

[56:19]

for concentration and wisdom. So you want to work this resource in a sustainable fashion. Don't get ahead of its reproductive cycle. Like the forests, right? We can cut them down at a rate that doesn't get ahead of the rate that they reproduce. And that way we could use them for a long time. The same with the energy for concentration and wisdom, the sustainable level. So that's part of, what do you call it, husbanding your energy. So it can be quite intense, but you're husbanding it. You feel like, this level of intensity, I think we can keep going. We can keep, like, using the resource and then also, what do you call it, re-aspiring it. Okay, now we're going to use it. Now check our... are we growing some new baby inspirations here? Some new baby aspirations, are we still bringing them?

[57:22]

It's actually an ongoing process of renewing the resource and while we use it. And when you feel the enthusiasm, you're using it. And while you're developing the aspiration, you're fueling it. So yeah, that's part of the work, is to keep this energy store another definition for that word is energy to keep that energy resource for the practice to keep it on a kind of stable keel maybe sometimes it gets a little bit bigger than others or you use more of it than other times for some great exertion but then stop Like I said, don't just keep going. Watch out for the inertia, stop, and renew it. So that's why we actually have, on a regular basis, in the Buddha too, the Buddha had a daily schedule, apparently.

[58:34]

Some people said that, you know. In the morning the Buddha would sit in meditation, sort of renew his energy. And then he'd go off and collect food, and then he would rest for a while and then teach, and then he'd also teach in the evening to the celestial beings, and then he would rest, and then he would sit in meditation. So there's a cycle in the practice where you spend part of your time just being quiet and renewing the energy, renewing your aspiration, and then you've got the energy and then use the energy. So round and round all these different cycles through the day and the week and so on. So some people think, you know, why do enlightened people have to sit in meditation? They also have to spend time kind of like, so what is it like? To some extent when you're working with people there's a little stress in it maybe. So you need to rest so you can kind of like replenish and renew and repair things.

[59:38]

like our body does, we need some rest time so that we can do just repair work on our system. Yes? I just want to say it's good to be back up here again. It's been two years? Wow. If these... are amazing. Thank you for opening them up so much. I just wanted to share, I have been working on these, but specifically what I wanted to share is I've been very diligently focused on working with them. I've been able to help my daughter, who's 14, get up at night to school. And that's a maze of practice that went on all year. But it's finally, it finally kind of went beyond the goal of that to being up in that school, which for now is beautiful.

[60:43]

But it's this whole ceremony that's going on in that school. And transforming, I don't know what you mean, but it's sort of a farewell ceremony. You know, I remember thinking it was difficult, you know, sound and noise, but it won't get much harder. You know, don't let it get, don't let it get, won't be terrible, you know, it's, won't be, I don't know what you mean. And let's not get, what you do, I think I don't want to, I don't want to say I don't want to. But that's a beautiful word indeed. And I think she's getting to say her predictions at the first place. So I just wanted to say, you know, if it becomes like everywhere, obviously, that I look forward to having a document like this. 14. Well, before I respond to this thing about purity,

[62:34]

Focusing on the happiness of others is not the same as thinking that I'm bringing happiness to others or that I'm making others happy. I don't know if I'm doing that. But I do know maybe that I actually am focusing on the happiness of others that I'm thinking about. the happiness of others. I can tell if my karmic consciousness of my story is my story is the happiness of others. That's the story happening now and now and now and now. I can tell that. But I don't know if I'm actually if this story is becoming successful. I ask for feedback on if my life is how my life is going and maybe I feel like maybe it's okay, maybe maybe this focus on the happiness of others actually does promote their happiness. But obviously it doesn't make everybody happy right away. But I guess the faith is that this path of living for the happiness of others is the path which if they would see me doing that and they would adopt it, it would make them happy.

[64:18]

So it kind of needs to make me happy Otherwise, I'm teaching them a way that doesn't work. So although I don't know if it's making others happy, I know it makes me happy. So if it makes me happy and they see me doing it, then if they do it, they might be happy too. And that's what I really want. And if I don't really want them to be happy before myself, I won't be as happy. And you can sit and say... But I notice that and I think, well, that sounds really good to me because I want to be really happy. But again, if you want to be really happy, then you have to really want others to be happy before yourself. So continue, and a part of this practice then is to meditate when you have that, which I didn't go into so much, but now I will a little bit, is in working on being mindful that what we're doing is for the happiness of others then we also need to work on any sense of separation with them.

[65:27]

So we need to bring these practices of kindness to the sense of separation and really like look in careful detail with which we really can we really like look at that sense of separation and be kind to it and and work with it in such a way as to get over it. So as part of the work of living for the happiness of others part of the work is to look at any sense of separation with the others that we wish to benefit. So enlightenment is actually is not... enlightenment isn't just wishing to live for the welfare of others it is actually the happiness of others, it is actually helping them be that way that's enlightenment. And that happens when you actually understand that they are yourself. So part of what's entailed here in living for the happiness of others is to actually, part of your job then would be to understand that they are yourself.

[66:40]

That's just part of the course. And that, because that's what they have to learn. So number one, they have to learn to shift to focusing on the happiness of others and then they have to learn how to understand that others are themselves. So in order to help them do that, it would be good if you understood how to stay focused on the welfare of others and how to stay focused on the sense of separation and how to work with that sense of separation to get over it, to not believe it anymore. So those not believing the sense of separation and being devoted to the welfare of others and happiness of others, they go well together because we do want to be happy. And if others are ourselves, we want them to be happy. And when we feel like somebody else is pretty much ourselves, we often do want them to be happy. So again, it's sometimes easy for grandparents to want their grandchildren to be happy and to not get distracted from that.

[67:46]

Because they kind of feel like, well, they're me. Pretty much. And when I feel separate from them, that's kind of a problem. So this thing about impurity, if you sense any impurity in the process, do these practices with it. Be gracious towards the impurity. Be careful of the impurity. Be patient with the impurity. And then have the energy to now work on focusing on the thing which is impure. Go back and focus on it. Notice you've learned how to work with the impurity. It's how you go back and focus on the welfare of others and then when the impurity comes up you know how to deal with it. And the impurity is very closely related to a sense of separation. If you don't believe in any separation, really, if you get over that, then wanting to benefit yourself is the same as wanting to benefit others.

[68:49]

If you really see that, it's the same. But in order to see that, really, you have to focus on the welfare of others to see the non-separation. Focusing on the welfare of yourself, you won't get to see the non-separation. You'll just keep feeling the separation. Focusing on the welfare of others, you will eventually understand the separation is insubstantial. Even though it appears, it's just, you can't really find it. If you look carefully, you can't find it. Boy, you... You not only hear they have record profits, but you think that the record profits mean some harm to others. If you thought record profits were beneficial to the whole world, like some of them do, they think, well, yeah, record profits, that's good for everybody.

[69:57]

Because we stimulate the economy or something. But you feel like record profits, sometimes at least, means that that's not good for some people. So you feel pain over some people being really rich and some people being poor. You feel pain about that. So then you practice these things with that pain. Well, the anger is there because you're not practicing kindness to the pain. If you see some people really rich and some people poor, or even just everybody poor, you feel pain at seeing their suffering, and you're not kind to your suffering, you're liable to get angry. And then if you're angry, you're liable to break precepts. And if you break precepts, you're liable to get angry. so if you're not kind to the pain you feel when you see suffering poor people and rich people who are suffering too but you feel like their suffering and richness is harming others when you feel the pain of that you have to take care of yourself you have to be kind to your pain and if you're kind to your pain you will be able to come back to being devoted to the happiness of others including these rich people

[71:26]

of course, to poor people, but also, of course, to rich people. Then you come back to say, okay, I want these people to be happy. They're not happy. The rich people have this cloud of unhappiness over them, which you may say, I don't care about that. And they may say, I don't care about that. But they have this cloud of unhappiness over them if they're focused. I shouldn't say rich people. I should say rich people who are focused on their own welfare. Bodhisattvas are rich but they're focused on the welfare of others so they have a halo of happiness around them. So anyway, you come and you focus on the welfare of others and then you have to work at not feeling separate from the people who are making a lot of money in the oil industry. You do feel separate from them, but you also feel separate from the poor people. So you have to work on overcoming your sense of separation from the poor and the rich. You have to work on your separation from the selfish and the unselfish.

[72:29]

People also feel separate from Buddhas, the unselfish ones. So we can feel separate from anything. And as part of this path, we have to recognize our sense of separation, our belief in it. We have to recognize that and be kind to that. And by being kind to it, like we're kind to other things, like our discomfort. If you're kind to your discomfort, you can be kind to this sense of separation. And if you're kind to it, you will understand it. You'll understand it, and you'll understand it, and when you understand it, then you will be more effective at helping the situation. You might have an opportunity to meet someone who is poor or rich and see how they're doing. And if they're suffering, you have ways to help them. You teach both of them compassion. And because you don't feel separate from them, you see the truth and you can be very skillful in teaching them compassion.

[73:31]

So it's a big job to stay focused on the happiness of others and it's another big job to be alert to the sense of separation and another big job to be kind to that sense of separation and to do that over and over until you're relieved of that being a real separation. But then this is what we're striving for, which is basically Buddhahood. There may be trouble ahead.

[75:20]

So while there's music and moonlight and love and romance, let's face the music and dance. Before the fiddlers have fled, Before they ask us to pay the bill And while there's still a chance Let's face the music and dance Soon we'll be without the moon humming a different tune and then there may be teardrops to shed so while there's music and moonlight and love and romance let's face the music and dance

[76:32]

And one of our old friends is not able to be here today, but in his honor, I sing a song he usually asks us to sing. When the red, red robin comes bop, bop, bopping along, along. There'll be no more sobbing when she starts throbbing her old sweet song. Wake up, wake up, you sleepyhead, get up. Get up, get out of bed, cheer up, cheer up, the sun is red. Live, love, laugh and be happy. Though I've been blue, now I'm walking through fields of flowers. Rain may glisten, but still I listen for hours. And I was, I'm just a kid again, doing what I did again, singing a song.

[77:48]

When the red, red robin comes, bop, bop, bopping along, bop, bop, bopping along. Yeah. well Roberta's last I've heard well she lives in I think she lives in Mendocino County she comes down to know a boat every now and then things are going well I'll tell her you asked I'll tell her you missed her oh I told you the wrong one oh the older Roberta the older Roberta I don't know she came to know about not too long ago and she was well I told you about the younger Roberta I will make an attempt to find out get a report on the older Roberta and let you know how she's doing

[79:09]

yeah I think now when she comes to know about it now she usually has a chauffeur but thanks I'll check on her and she should be happy to be checked on Roberta has brought many of her friends to these retreats too about 20 Any other feedback you care to offer on the working for the welfare and happiness of all beings? Yes.

[80:13]

You keep looking at the character. Yeah. [...] well that's so you can say you hear the cries of the world and then you embrace the world but also another way is the world reaches out to you and you hear the world or you receive the world so the ears are usually seen more as receptive organs and the hand is more maybe active but the hand can receive and give it's harder for us to imagine the ears giving but anyway So the character has both a receptive and giving or active side.

[81:29]

These four methods I mentioned, which are skill and means for practicing these first three perfections, they're oftentimes translated as the four methods of guiding, the four methods of guidance. They're sometimes translated as the four methods of attracting or gathering. So sometimes it doesn't say anything about students, but sometimes they're translated adding in the four methods of gathering students or attracting students. People sometimes don't like that idea of gathering students, but that's where sometimes it's translated. But again, it could also be four methods of guiding students. But if you turn around, it's the four methods of the students gathering you. And the four methods of the students guiding you. And the four methods of the students collecting you.

[82:35]

When teachers get really old, the students kind of have to collect them. Have to help him get down and get up from frustrations. Have to remind him it's time to do this or do that. And actually, at a certain point, we had to carry Suzuki Roshi up and down the stairs at Zen Center. We made this little carrying thing. Come, Karen, I'll show you how to do it. You want to do this?

[83:38]

Yeah, do that. Like that. See? You can sit down on that. And then we lift him up and take him down the stairs or up the stairs. Now in the San Francisco Zen Center, they put in a little chair running up the stairs. They put it in for Lou Hartman. And now his wife is now using it. Hmm? It would be cute. Yeah, yeah. It would be something. I'd rather be carried myself. For your information, just in case I can't tell you that late. Yeah. We have elastic bands now. Do it yourself. Well, I would accept these new ones, but... The ones with the pins would be good, too, because then you can poke me and I... Oh!

[84:50]

What's happening? Yes? So, you have these teachings, and there's so many teachings that are very pragmatic and very... Everybody took a point of election, and they're very clean, and they're very effective. Well, I could tell you some stories. So the story is, and this is something I was not so aware of until fairly recently, but there's a section of the Pali Canon for the historical Buddha where the Buddha would told his human students about his conversations with celestial beings the night before.

[86:00]

He would tell them what their questions were and what his teachings were. So that's sort of like human beings wrote down what they said the Buddha said that he actually was teaching these celestial beings. And actually, some of the celestial beings he was teaching were people who were in the Sangha before, who the people in the Sangha even knew, who had died, you know, during the Buddha's teaching career gone to heaven and from divine realms they would actually keep in touch with the Buddha. So this is the historical Buddha talking about this. And some people say, well in those days it was more common for people to have yogic powers such that they could see these heavenly realms. But in our modern times

[87:03]

it's less common for people to be able to see past lives, to be able to read the minds of other people, to be able to see celestial realms, but the Buddha was able to. Buddha could see beings in infernal realms, in celestial realms, and of course in human realms, and could read the minds of humans and see their karmic consciousness operating and see how it worked. So this is like the astounding clairvoyance and clairaudience of the Buddha and magical powers of the Buddha too. Not magical, but supernormal powers. They're not supernatural, they're supernormal powers and they're based on the Buddha's, basically the Buddha's yogic attainments, he could do these things. And today, not too many Buddhists say that they're teaching celestial beings.

[88:09]

It's not so common to hear that. Once in a while, maybe, you might hear somebody say that a divine being came to me last night and I talked to him. But the Buddha, there's quite a few stories, like, I don't know how many there are, but many nights he would teach and the next day he would tell people sometimes what what the teaching was. And his teaching to them was similar to the teaching that he would give to humans. I don't know of stories of him teaching infernal beings living in infernal states, but his Jataka tales are about teaching animals. And we regularly do ceremonies for beings who are so-called unsatiated, unsatisfied spirits, departed spirits, and currently living spirits who are in a state of insatiable desire.

[89:17]

So we still in Buddhism do those ceremonies for such beings even though most of us cannot see them. When I say most of us, I mean really the vast majority. We do not see these beings. but we have a sense that there's some spirit, unsatisfied spirit in this world, perhaps, in that sense. Yeah, I think in India, it's a... They've had that, it's an indigenous tradition, so it's continued, so Indian people don't have so much trouble with that. But in the West, where we have, where we had scientific materialist philosophy, materialist philosophy is very powerful in the West, and of course it's now spreading into India, but there are indigenous views or beliefs, to some extent, surviving

[90:26]

But the scientific, what do you want to call it, the scientific mood, not the scientific mood, but anyway, certain aspects of it have crushed the sense of a spiritual reality and sort of we now have the materialist reality, which doesn't recognize the possibility of rebirth of celestial beings or spiritual beings. So it's harder for us in the West to open our minds to such possibilities. And when the Zen people came to the West, they generally speaking sensed that and didn't mention it. And also when the United States Army conquered Japan, certain people advised the Japanese to be quiet, the Japanese Buddhists, be really quiet about your esoteric practices.

[91:30]

Don't tell the Westerners about any magical things you're doing, because then they'll suppress you. So they just kept it quiet. And then after the occupation lifted, gradually the Japanese can be open again about the fact that they feel that they're performing magic within the Buddhist tradition. And also when it was transmitted to the West, Suzuki Roshi and other people kept it quiet. But now it's actually coming out of the closet, and I'm one of the people that's opening the door to tell you that it's part of the tradition. I'm not telling you to believe it or like it. I'm just saying there's just a few American Zen Buddhists, like I don't know how many, less than a million. But there's many million over in Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, and now in China it's coming back. So this tiny little minority doesn't like, doesn't just say doesn't like, but has some trouble with magic and ritual. But it's the center of gravity in Asia.

[92:33]

And so I think we can start opening up to the reality of the tradition that we're kind of like part of it and we're gradually opening up to the fullness of it. It's a big deal beyond what we've opened up to before. Yes. I would like to add to that, that there's actually quite a few Westerners, you know, I might call it underground, you know, spiritual communities, don't link the Buddhist teaching to the celestial human world. But there's plenty of people who connect to practice this, interacting with celestial beings. But maybe they're kind of lost at what to do with it after what purpose but there's also community in the West because it's profitable to appear to be able to do that to give the whole practice kind of a negativity because they're really fakes quacks appearing to be that for the sake of even if they're not quacks from the Buddhist point of view if they do it for personal gain yeah

[94:01]

they're not in accord with the, they're not real yogis. And that, even though they, even though, yeah. It's a connotation on Western people who practice deep kind of communication and connection, but maybe with your help with moving forward in the West, some of us with those affiliates can connect with this teaching that, you know, Yeah, I'm not sure I remember correctly the story, but one of the great Tibetan teachers, great Buddhist teachers, was named Malarepa. And before he was exposed to the Buddha Dharma, I think he developed considerable magical powers and used his powers... for personal gain and also to harm people. And then he got converted to the path of compassion, but he still had all these powers.

[95:08]

But then he gradually stopped using them for any purpose other than benefiting beings. The people I've interviewed, who think genuinely while they're doing it, while they receive money to sustain their lives, to take bills, That's nice, that's fortunate. However, in the story I told last night, In India, it's common for people with these yogic powers to use them for personal gain and to harm people. And in Japan, the people with yogic powers, the Buddhists with yogic powers, would often use their yogic powers to protect the Japanese island, which sometimes meant to undermine the attackers.

[96:19]

So, you know, you've heard the story about the Mongol invasion of Japan. These huge flotillas of, you know, many, hundreds of thousands of soldiers coming over to Japan to invade Japan. And what's called the kamikaze. Kamikaze. Kami is divine, or gods, and kaze, wind. The divine wind came up and blew the Mongol fleet into ruins. And I believe they came back a second time and it happened again. So this, you know, and the Buddhist magicians were trying to make the wind come up to blow them away. And they probably made a lot of, you know, got a lot of support after that from the government. Now you could say, maybe they waited for the wind to come and then just went outside.

[97:21]

But no, I think they were definitely working on praying that the fleet would not be successful, that the attackers would get blown away somehow, that Japan would be protected. But again, praying for protection is a little bit different than just praying out of hatred. But some people do do that. In India, that's understood that some will be doing that. And then we have what we call witchcraft black magic, voodoo. So there is that stuff. And in the West, most people poo-poo it, and I don't really know anything about it. I'm busy with other things, so I really can't tell you anything about it. I've heard about it. Well, I can share a story, not that magnitude, but my experience directly with Yoko Luntz. We were doing a performance in America five years ago, and we were traveling from Texas to San Francisco to perform at the big convention center, you know, 50,000 people there, overnight in a little town there, Mono Lake, probably dining.

[98:31]

And they were going to do a free performance on the shore of Mono Lake on such-and-such morning. There was a little handwritten note that said, in the market. And so we told all our friends and headed out there. And out of, I guess, the backdrop of this, it was the middle of March. It was the middle of winter. It was a blizzard. It was a really serious winter. Every day, snowing a little bit constantly. That morning, clear blue sky. We drove out to Mono Lake. sat on the shore where they set up and did their performance, and then they cut it off in the afternoon, blizzard, and the rest of it. So there's this window in the boat of clear, blue, warm sky. Well, you say that they did. Yeah. Actually, I did it. From San Francisco. Actually, that's where the weather center is.

[99:33]

So let me know if you have... Yeah, thank you. I appreciate that. You didn't know what the effect of your call. Yes, Karen. Well, there are two things I was thinking. This chapter in the Fundamental Sutra is told to be in response to a question by one who is being. It's in response to a series of bodhisattvas asking, and they ask these questions, and the Buddha says to several of them, Wonderful question. And you asked that question for the welfare and happiness of many beings. In other words, you're not asking that for yourself. You're asking that because you want me to answer because you think that will benefit beings. Do you remember who this chapter was? This chapter? This chapter is Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva. I didn't follow your question. Yes. The one that's right inside the door? It's the same one of the statue at the top of the steps, that little statue.

[100:56]

In both statues, the person's wearing kind of like a military costume. So in Buddhist cosmology, there's like a mountain called Mount Sumeru. And at a certain level of cosmic hierarchy, there are like four guardian kings. one for each direction, you know, sort of like divine celestial kings. And they have, I believe, each of them has 120 sons. So it's kind of like 364, right? Corresponding to the number of days in the year. And on the south side of this mountain, where there was 120 sons of the god of the south, at the time of the Buddha passing away, a tree spirit, a tree demon, came out of a tree near the Buddha.

[102:11]

And I guess it was... you know, at the time of the, right after the cremation, a tree spirit came down and swiped one of Buddha's teeth. He knew that that would be worth a lot of money. And flew off. And one of these sons of the celestial king of the south flew down and apprehended the demon and retrieved the tooth and gave it back to the Buddhist Sangha. went back up there and that divine being was called in Japanese they say Ida and in Chinese it's Weda and I forgot what it is in Sanskrit so the Buddhist sense made that divine being a protector of the Sangha

[103:12]

So then they made statues of that divine being and put them in monasteries to commemorate the protective spirits, the spirits that protect the Buddhist Sangha from harm, as a representative of the spirits that somehow protect us. And one time I went to visit a person called Yogi Chen. He was a yogi, He went to high school with Mao in China, and he was a Buddhist yogi, and he spent 25 years in a cave in Tibet, or China, whichever you want to say. So he was a dedicated yogi and student of Dharma. And then somehow he moved to the West, learned English and moved to the West. And I met him a few times. And I went over to visit him at his apartment in Berkeley on Shattuck Avenue.

[104:14]

Lived in one of the apartment buildings on Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley. I went to visit him. I went up into his room. And he had this little apartment. And he had this altar, you know, with lots of Buddhas on it. But he also had the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty. And I thought, I actually didn't have much problem with that because I thought he's kind of a tantric yogi, right? So I kind of had an idea what those were about. And then I looked at another one of his altars, or near one of his altars, and he had a nativity scene. And then also in one of the altars he had Santa Claus. And I said to them, I didn't ask questions about the other stuff. I said, what's Santa Claus doing on your altar? And he said, well, someone gave that to me. And I put it on the altar.

[105:17]

And then one day when I was meditating, I saw Santa Claus come and take refuge in the Buddha. And I realized... that Santa Claus is a protective deity of Buddhism in the West. That Santa Claus is actually protecting Buddhist values, you know, of generosity and kindness. So Santa Claus has become, at least at the time of Yogi Chen, kind of a beneficent spirit in Western culture, but he actually is also protecting Buddhist values. But people don't consider him a Buddhist protector, but he actually is protecting Buddhist values. And in that meditation vision he saw, he didn't get it before himself, he thought somebody just gave him this Western object. But then in his meditation he saw Santa Claus go over and bow to Amitabha Buddha,

[106:21]

and take refuge in him. And then he realizes, oh yeah, right. Better be good. He's watching you. He knows that you're nasty at night. So anyway, you know, we've got to be open-minded here. That's a Buddhist value. But again, be honest too. If you feel uncomfortable about things, please express yourself. Can you be uncomfortable and open-minded? Yes. Can you be uncomfortable and narrow-minded? Yes. Can you be comfortable and narrow-minded? Yes. And in some ways, that's really a dangerous situation when you're comfortable and narrow-minded. I'm comfortable, and that's not going to happen here.

[107:25]

Yes? Mm-hmm. You mentioned, I think you brought up the idea of all beings, all living beings working together. And you mentioned, even though you talked about the beings, I thought of my mind a little quicker. I felt it. working through this law frame liberation of all communities. It was more for these people that I considered needed help, and I forged that people. However, you said something in that moment, and I thought, I'm excluding both the other bodhisattvas in a sense, a slight exclusion in the idea of working for the other people as well. Would they be included in this realm of all communities? Well, Buddhas are included in the realm of all beings. So I said all beings, but bodhisattvas, according to some people's view, are sentient beings.

[108:30]

They're not yet Buddhas. So they're included in all sentient beings, and especially bodhisattvas who are struggling like us. who sometimes get distracted, who sometimes get discouraged, who sometimes don't practice patience, who sometimes aren't vigilant, who sometimes aren't generous, but they're committed to it. So again, talking about the ceremony, some bodhisattvas have been initiated into this path, they've committed to this path, but that doesn't mean that they're doing it all the time. And the initiation practice, the initiation process, does include the beginning, before you receive the precepts, you receive the practice of confession and repentance. Because you are going to sometimes slip up probably in these precepts which you're now committing to practice. You are going to slip up probably someday. There's going to be an interruption of your generosity

[109:33]

your ethics, your patience, your enthusiasm, your concentration. There's going to be some interruption in that. Wisdom doesn't get really interrupted. It just gets transcended. But all these other practices can be interrupted. And so we practice to help those bodhisattvas too. And we also want to help sages and we also want to help divine beings if there's any and we want to help celestial infernal beings we want to help all beings but most of the beings we see are humans of course we see animals too and we want to help them too and so we try to show animals generosity and patience and gentleness and you know we hope that that will We know that they appreciate that and maybe they'll even learn the Dharma that way. We don't talk to them about the sutras and stuff because they seem to get distracted

[110:39]

But if you talk to them about, you know, food, taking walks, going to bed, getting up, and you do that in a kind way, they seem to like, they could pay attention to that kind of stuff. Particularly food, they're really good at paying attention to. And so if you give the food kindly and patiently, it really does help them. You know, and then they may eventually be able to learn English. Anything else at this time? Anything else in the future? Thank you very much. May our intention equally extend to every being and place

[111:40]

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