Would you say that again louder, please? Our one mind? Where does the illusion come from? Well, I'll tell you a story, okay? Story is a story of human consciousness. And that is, we have a consciousness which knows things. Okay? Like, for example, right now you may have a consciousness which sort of is aware of or knows the visual object or the auditory objects of my face and my word, my sound and my voice. Okay? So there's a knowing of the sound. Can you feel that? There's an experience of the sound.

[01:02]

There's a consciousness of the sound. Okay? Or there's a consciousness of the sight of me. But the way our mind works, usually, is that there seems to be a separation between your awareness of my face and my face. Can you see that? Pardon? Anyway, if you check that out, you might be able to tell that you have a sense that the awareness you're experiencing over there is substantially different from my face. And that sense of separation is an illusion. When your mind knows something, like it's aware of a sound, There's no separation. If there was separation, you wouldn't know it. It's actually like one event.

[02:04]

And part of the event is the knowing, and the other part of the event is known. When you know a sound is happening, what you know is not separate from your knowing of it. Most things are subjective, but most things are subjective because everybody understands. She said, is that the same as most things being subjective? From the Western psychological point of view, the word subjective means that which the knowing of objects. So subjective is the knowing side of an experience where the subject, consciousnesses are subjects. People are conscious beings. People are subjects. Subjects, by definition, know objects.

[03:08]

Subject is the subject of the object. You're subjected to the object. You are the subjective consciousness of the object. That's a Western way of talking, which I translated Buddhism into Western language, English. But there's no subjectivity floating around without objects. But it seems like the subjectivity is separate from the object. And that's the basic illusion of human psychology. And we actually believe that the things which our mind knows, which of course can't be separate from it, they're one event, to know something that But separate, you wouldn't know it. So because of that, if we think we're sentient beings, we think other sentient beings are separate from us. If you know another person, like if you see me now, your mind manifests in such a way that it thinks, that it appears that what it knows is separate from itself, which is an illusion.

[04:21]

It's not true. So then you think that other things are separate too. Like if you think you're enlightened, then you think unenlightened people are separate from you, which is kind of a dangerous situation to be in. But if you think you're unenlightened, you think enlightened people are separate from you. Which is, you know, if you think you're a living being, you think other living beings are separate from you. There are other living beings. I'm not you, but I'm not separate from you. But I appear to be separate from you. Can you see that, that I appear to be separate from you? I appear to be somebody who thinks maybe differently from you. I am different from you. That's true. I do think differently from you. I do experience differently from you. However, the sense of us being separate is an illusion which your mind creates, normal human mind creates, and my normal human mind creates. So then we also separate good and bad.

[05:25]

It's not to say there isn't good and bad, it's just that the separation between them, to believe that it's substantial, that's the source of suffering. That's a confusion. That's taking an illusion as real. And to think that you're separate from other living beings, unenlightened beings, and to think that you're separate from enlightened beings is the point of view of an unenlightened being. Buddhas do not believe that. Buddhas can see, oh, the person seems to be separate, but they can also see that that's an illusion simultaneously. So they don't believe it. So what we're trying to do is train ourselves to not believe the illusion of substantial separation from other living beings and from enlightened beings. That's a story about that.

[06:25]

And we go over that a few million times, and it starts to sink in. And as it sinks in all the way, you become a Buddha, and you see that you're not really separate from all other beings. It takes a while to let it sink in. You have to sort of live in it for a long time. Okay. I've got too much story that seems to relate to this. Great. We came back from England a couple of days ago, and suddenly wanted to do manatees and groundies here. I'm not going to spend the time in today's little place north from here. This is a former New York place, and never did this. And as I was going there, I thought, what am I doing here? This is so different. This is really different from the New York Times. I'm coming from this little kind of place where everything is Tudor and oral and you could be saying, this is so different.

[07:30]

It took for so many years for people to go to read the sign about this place. And the first thing I'm reading is that one of the things that they found at this site was a picture. Which they then traced to Drake County in 1600 and stuff on this site. And now this coin is somewhere in the weekly Berkeley Museum. And I thought, this is just great. Because I was trying to embrace, you know, where I'd been and where I was going to, and there it was. It was linked. Yeah, right. So your motivation to embrace where you have been and where you are now, that opens you to realize this. Right. But if you just read the thing about the coin, you might say, that's interesting that Francis Drake maybe was here.

[08:37]

But since you were yearning to realize the connection between these separate parts of your life, it had more impact. So we yearn, actually, some part of us yearns to heal this wound between ourself and other beings. And if you vow to realize that, then you're open to, like, things which will confirm that desire. Yeah? I'm wondering if you could say something about Well, just the first thing that comes to my mind, not necessarily in order of importance, was something I'd read in one of those calendars.

[09:38]

You know, they have these spiritual calendars with a word of wisdom for the day, and then you would get another one for the next day. They also have these cartoon calendars, you know, joke of the day. This was a wisdom one, and that day was a quote from the Dalai Lama which said, to think that blessings come from somebody else is an illusion. They don't come from yourself and they don't come from others. And realizing how they come is the greatest blessing. But to say that they're coming from yourself is a little bit off. And to say they're coming from others is a little off.

[10:39]

But to understand how everything in the universe is blessed and a blessing and how the blessings arise, to understand that is the greatest blessing. It's a life work and a life play too. Yeah. Is the what? Yes? Actually, separation is not perceived. Separation is conceived. Separation is a conception. You actually can't perceive a separation. It's a conception. So the conception of separation is is the illusion we're talking about. I would say conception or imagination of separation.

[11:43]

Separation is an imaginary thing. It appears, but it's an imaginary thing. The universe is totally penetrating thoroughly all over the place. But, you know, What are you going to do with that? Nothing. Just be alive. Well, give me a break. So then you have your conceptual equipment to cause all kinds of separations in this interdependent mass called the universe. And the way you project that separation is by your imagination. It's not really there. But if we don't imagine that separation, we can't get a hold of things, and we like to get a hold of them. Our mind constructs this illusion in order to grasp things. Separation is mind construction, which we do, you know,

[12:53]

And that tendency to make that separation is innate. We're born with it. Yes? Yeah, it is, right. The lotus is a symbol. The mud the lotus grows in is the, you could say, the world of duality and suffering. And it's possible, growing up out of this mud, to arrive at this understanding which is connected, which isn't separated from the world of illusion, but realizes in this wonderful way that there's no separation from this lotus and the mud. So the lotus is a realization of purity based on impurity. So the real purity is the non-duality of the lotus and the mud.

[14:00]

Lotuses do not grow in mid-air. They grow in mud. And they symbolize the beauty of the non-duality of the flower and the mud, which of course is true. You can never have these beautiful flowers without mud. But the mud is also a symbol of the transcendence of the flower. So when you really understand the lotus, you say, hey, no problem with mud. It's not like, oh, no problem with mud because I'm up in the flower. No problem with mud because I'm not attached to the flower. So you can plunge into the mud. which is not so difficult to snip around the top and cuddle up with the lotus. But the lotus is a symbol of being able to live totally in the mud, because that's how lotuses live. And if you're a lotus, which you are, and you hesitate to open to your roots in the mud, you're in a wilt.

[15:05]

And lotuses don't hesitate. They go, okay, mud. And then they're like totally brilliant lotuses because they don't hesitate to embrace the mud. But human beings think there's an option, so we will. That's what we're trying to learn. But embrace the mud doesn't mean hold on to the mud. Just be there and grow from it. Yes. Uh-huh. Yes. Question about precept, yes. Yes? I was faced with a situation that was with a group of children who were my students. They were outside playing. I had five, six, eight of them. And the only one who came running in was a captain from outside. And there was a starling with no feathers on it.

[16:08]

And he looked at me and said, if you think about not to kill, you can save it. Mm-hmm. And wanting to take the bird. And knowing the responsibility of the baby bird, and every three hours feeding, I didn't know my life could handle the commitment. And so we all spread around these birds in the discussion of who could take the commitment. And should we even pick it up? And what should we do? And then this one who started to cry just ate, but you need to pick it up and care for it, otherwise you're just killing it by not doing something. And then the vegetarian in the crowd said, yeah, but you kill chickens all the time in your farm and eat them. So how is it any different? And then the conversation felt really over my head. I don't know what I would have done, but... But I can say what I would like to do.

[17:14]

What I'd like to do is to take care of the bird, if I can. Yes? How do you tell if you're making progress in meditation? If today you're somewhat concerned about making progress in meditation, and then later today or tomorrow you're more relaxed, let's say today you're feeling somewhat concerned about making progress in meditation, and you're kind of

[18:44]

sort of uncomfortable with your concern, you're kind of worried about making progress in meditation, and you're kind of somewhat disturbed about trying to figure out whether you are making progress or not, or how you would make progress or not, if you were in that state, for example. And later in the day you were relaxed about being in that state, then I would say that I would I would say you make progress in meditation. If you're more relaxed with your concern about knowing whether you're making progress, if you're relaxed with it, I would say that was progress. And then even later in the day, or maybe even in the next day, you started to see that whether you were relaxed, whether you were worried about your meditation practice or not, whether you're upset about your state of meditation or not, that your meditation practice was actually just your meditation practice, and nothing more or less, and that there was no real... and that the distinction between your meditation practice and other people's meditation practice and Buddha's meditation practice was an illusion.

[20:02]

If you could see that, then I would say that was another great progress in meditation. And then if you realize that that progress in meditation didn't push you at all ahead of anybody or behind anybody, then I would consider that to be even more progress. When you're totally free of progress, when you're totally free of gain and loss, then that's a very high level of attainment. And when you are, you're not at all worried about being back in a position where you're making no progress and where you're the worst meditator on the planet. No problem. No problem being the worst person on the planet, or at least even just an average person on the planet. No problem with it. That's a very high level of attainment where you don't even care that you've got the high level of attainment. Someone said, ask a Tibetan teacher what the highest level of meditation is called in the Tibetan.

[21:03]

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