I did a little research on animals, a little dictionary research, and at lunch some people were wondering about the relationship between rodents and mice, I mean rodents and cats. So cats are defined as a... Pardon? Cats are defined as a... carnivorous mammal. And rodents are also mammals. But the word rodent comes from ro, I think rodere, which means to gnaw. So the dent of rodent is like indentures or teeth. So ro probably means to row the dents. Rodents have specially designed incisors for gnawing. I guess cats don't.

[01:02]

Rodents, like rats, not only do they have specially designed, this is not in the dictionary, but not only do they have these specially designed incisors or gnawing, but they grow in kind of a curved way. So if they don't keep gnawing all the time, the incisors just curl around and go back up into their head and will kill them. They'll go back into their brain. So they have to be, rodents have to be gnawing, whereas cats don't have to chew that much. They don't. Like, between meals, they don't have to be gnawing. But rodents actually have... Even when they don't have something to eat, they have to be gnawing. So that is my little discourse on the difference between cats. If you've observed cats, you may notice that when they're not eating, they don't necessarily gnaw.

[02:07]

They scratch. But they don't gnaw. Whereas rodents, even if they're in a situation where they don't have food, you're supposed to give them stuff to gnaw. You're supposed to have those things in the cage, right? For, like, gerbils and... guinea pigs and stuff like that, and the rats and mice that you have to pet, you're supposed to put something in them to gnaw on, because food is not enough. That's why it's difficult to keep them out, because they're actually gnawed to sheet metal. Another dictionary thing to tell you about is I looked up the word bigot recently. Do you know the definition of bigot? I already told somebody today. Anybody who I didn't tell today know the definition of bigot? It's an important word, and now you're going to learn the definition. I read this to my brother's family because we were wondering what it meant.

[03:11]

It's someone who has very strong opinions, and when I got to that point, my sister-in-law said, that sounds like everybody. for all of us anyway, someone with very strong opinions who refuses to accept different views. That's the key point. I guess if you don't have strong opinions and you refuse to accept other people's views, maybe you're not a bigot. But if you have strong views and you don't accept, You're a bigot. That's a bigot. So we have to be careful, especially now, to accept the views of people we don't agree with. Doesn't mean you agree with them, because you don't, by definition. It just means you don't reject them. It's because you don't agree with them. Or even you don't reject them, their views, even though you think their views are wrong.

[04:16]

You think they're wrong, but you don't reject them. So, ideally, not being a bigot would go with being able to not think that you're superior to stupid people. You know stupid people who have stupid ideas, wrong ideas? They're stupid, right? You think so, because they're wrong. But you have to not think you're superior to them. It's difficult, right? But you're a bigot if you think you're superior to them. because you not only think they're wrong, but you think, you don't have that problem. And I think I would be diagnosed probably by some people as an introvert.

[05:18]

So that's a kind of a warning about things I say. uh... not the beginning of guest season uh... people are coming to me and talk to me about problems adjusting to the guest season that's what i've been hearing in uh... about twenty interviews uh... People who are coming from the practice period are having problems going from the practice period to the guest season. People who are coming here from outside the practice period, who weren't in the practice period, they're having problems coming from not a practice period to the guest season. And one of the things that the people coming from practice period particularly have some trouble with, I think, is... They're not sure that they're actually being supported anymore to practice mindfulness.

[06:20]

They think maybe other people don't want them to be mindful. And so I'd like to talk about that. And I'd like to start with a story that the Buddha told. I heard he told it anyway. And I first heard about this story in abbreviated form from Thich Nhat Hanh. And then recently in studying the four foundations of mindfulness, I found the actual sutra. Is there a blackboard? It's not around. It's not around. So, anyways, Four Foundations of Mindfulness I'll tell you about later, maybe. But this sutra is collected in, there's a collection of scriptures called the, I think it's called Anguttara Nikaya, which means the basket of kind of like, what's it called?

[07:24]

Anyway, there are collections of scriptures that have similar topics. So there's a bunch of scriptures on Four Foundations of Mindfulness, so it appears under that collection. And so the story goes like the Buddha says, there was once a pair of jugglers, and they There was a juggler and a juggler's apprentice. And they're called the bamboo jugglers. And one way to picture this is that they set up a bamboo pole and then the juggler climbs up the top of the bamboo pole and then the apprentice climbs up the bamboo pole and gets up on the shoulders of the of the acrobat, and as she gets up on his shoulders, he says to her, now you look after me, and I'll look after you, and that way we'll protect ourselves from danger and we'll be able to do our feats skillfully and get down safely and collect the money.

[08:37]

And she says to him, Master, Noble Master, it's not like that. You take care of yourself and that's how you will protect me. I'll take care of myself and that's how I'll protect you." Then the Buddha says, this is the right way. It's that just as the apprentice said, I'll protect myself in that way, the foundations of mindfulness should be practiced. I shall protect others. In that way the foundations of mindfulness should be practiced. Protecting oneself, one protects others. Protecting others, one protects oneself. How do you protect yourself?

[09:40]

So that you protect others? By practicing the four foundations of mindfulness. How do you protect others? So that you protect yourself? by practicing patience, non-harming, kindness, and compassion. That's how you protect others to protect yourself. But he doesn't exactly explain this anymore, but I would say If you try to help others, like for example, the way Buddha said, the way you protect others is, you remember what he said, the way you protect others? To protect yourself? You do? Do you, Chan? How do you protect others in order to protect yourself? Do you remember what he said? Right? Right? Right? Unto others as thou would have... Non-harming and kindness.

[10:50]

That's how you protect others and thereby protect yourself. But if you try to help others, if you try to practice patience with others and practice non-harming and kindness and compassion to others and skip over taking care of yourself, you will not be as successful as you would be, is if you practice mindfulness of your own experience and then practice patience, non-harming, kindness and compassion to others. So it actually goes round and round. Taking care of yourself, you can take care of others. Taking care of others, of course, takes care of you. It's like they go together. But you start by checking in with what's going on with you. So if you're a juggler, and you climb up the pole, you gotta get balanced on the pole first before you put somebody else up there. You don't get up in the pole and then concentrate on the other person first.

[11:54]

You concentrate on your own position first, and then you can put somebody up on your shoulders. Now, if you're the person up on their shoulders, You don't concentrate on how the other person's balancing. First of all, concentrate on how you're balancing on the other person. Now, if the other person's not doing his job, you're in trouble. If they're looking at you and you're looking at them, then you're in trouble. But if the other person's not doing his job, and you're doing yours, you might not climb up on the pole in the first place. You see, that guy's not doing his job. I'm not going up there. And you get up there and you find out he's all worried about you and doesn't know what's happening with him. You say, I'm not going to get on your shoulders until you check into your state of balance. By the way, the apprentice's name was Frying Pan. So that's the situation here this summer.

[13:04]

You guys are like doing this balancing act with each other. And I propose to you a number of things. First of all, you listen to this teaching of the Buddha and realize if you want to help others here, if you want to help the guest season and so on, practice the four foundations of mindfulness. And if you get a work assignment, somebody asks you to do something, practice the four foundations of mindfulness. Practice, for example, mindfulness of body is the first one, mindfulness of feelings is the next one, mindfulness of... Mind states is the third one, and mindfulness of mental qualities is the fourth one. Practice mindfulness of these things, learn how to do that. Let's just take the body first. Somebody asks you to do something, listen to what they say, but also check out how you feel when they're talking to you, and after they're done talking to you, look at yourself.

[14:12]

For example, you might check out whether you understood what they said. How do you feel about what they said? How do you feel about the weather? How do you feel about the war? How do you feel about your anxiety about being with this person and so on? Become aware of your own body. And when you're aware of your own body, then you're going to be able to do the work well. So people are giving you work assignments. in order to perform them well and in a way that protects others, In order to do your job in a way that's patient with others, not harming to others, kind to others and compassionate to others, you need to be based in awareness of your own body, your own feelings, your own mind states, and also the other mental factors, which I don't have time to go into today, but some of them are the things that you should develop and some of the things are things you should drop.

[15:18]

But the first three categories of body, feelings, and mind states are just what's happening to you. The other ones are things you should look for which might be hindering your mindfulness or might promote your mindfulness. So, another thing I'd like to say is, Ruka, I think, said something like, in a healthy marriage, or in a spiritual marriage, he might have said, maybe some of you could help me with this, in holy matrimony, he didn't say that, but in holy matrimony, the two people should be devoted to protect the other person's solitude. And I would change it to, in the context of what I just said, when you are interacting with each other during the summer and also during the winter, but winter is easier, during the practice period it's easier to protect people's solitude because we're often not talking.

[16:21]

But in the summer, when we're more social, it may be more of a challenge to remember to protect the solitude of the person you're interacting with. In other words, give them a chance... to be in touch with what's happening to them. Sometimes people come to talk to me, formally or informally, and they sit down and they say, could I have a moment to calm down or to kind of like settle? And I almost always say, yes, go ahead. Sometimes they don't ask for that, and they just immediately say, I'm nervous. Or they immediately say, my heart's pounding. They don't say beating, they say pounding. So they're already aware, and then they report that to me. So then once they're aware that their heart's beating, that they're nervous-anxious, they're grounded in awareness of their experience, then they can have a pretty good conversation with me.

[17:29]

then they can be perhaps patient and non-harming and so on. But if they come in and aren't in touch with the fact that they're nervous, anxious, hearts pounding, and they just speak from up without being aware, it's not so good. But most people actually have a feeling, I better check in to what's happening here because if I try to balance, I've got to get grounded before I talk to this person Now, we have other situations like, you know, again, like going to the dining room or just walking around Tassajara. You might actually want a little solitude throughout the day. In other words, solitude means an opportunity to be in solitude where you can check out what's going on with you. Even when you go to the dining room and sit down next to somebody, you might like a little solitude when you first sit down to just see how you feel before you start eating.

[18:41]

And you may feel that the person next to you wants you to start talking to them. And maybe they do. Maybe they're anxious too. But maybe they don't want any solitude. Maybe they're scared to even become aware that they're nervous and they're wondering if they should talk to you or they're hoping you will talk to them so that they'll not be so aware of how anxious they are that you sat down next to them. And so maybe they start talking before they even become aware of their own anxiety in hopes that you'll help them not have to notice it because they didn't come to the, they came to eat. They didn't come to become aware of anxiety. But now, lo and behold, unbeknownst to them or unpredicted by them, they're getting not just dinner, they're getting anxiety. And they would like you to join them in like, not paying attention to it they don't want solitude with what's going on with them they don't want solitude with their pounding heart at the dinner table so then they start talking and they want you to talk back so they don't have to notice and you may feel like i'm not a very nice person if i would just sit here silently and listen to them like

[20:02]

But I'm not saying you... I would say that if you want to really be nice to them, but they start jabbering at you to get you to, like, talk to them, to prove to them that you do love them and that you don't hate them because you've been silent for three nanoseconds, that you take care of yourself so you can take care of them. Because if you immediately respond before you take care of yourself, you might start harming each other. You might have an insincere conversation, and both of you, being anxious and distracted, might say things that you don't really mean, just because you're so not present, unbalanced, because neither one of you gave yourself the opportunity to bounce and get your feet on the ground before you started to do this juggling act of having a conversation. You're both concerned for the others and you're both concerned for yourself but you forgot to check out yourself.

[21:14]

So now you're trying to help somebody else and be kind to somebody else but your feet are on the ground so you go to help them and you slip and fall on your face and knock them down. Another image I've used with some people is the image of getting your sea legs when you go on a boat. Sea legs is kind of like getting legs that kind of like learn how to move in relationship to the deck moving. Your intelligent body eventually will find a way to move your legs so that you absorb the shock so that your innards are not getting, what do you call it, agitated, you know, agitated. beat up by the movements of your body. That make sense? Does it make sense to you? That's what sea legs are? Some people get it very quickly, some people get it not so fast.

[22:19]

People with relaxed legs get it faster. Their legs learn faster. But people who get scared tense up their legs and then their legs aren't shock absorbers anymore. So then the shock gets transferred through the legs to the tummy and the eardrums. Not the eardrums, but the inner ear. And so you start feeling like you're going to vomit. So if you haven't got your sea legs and somebody wants to come up and talk to you, you really, you know, you're not ready to talk. Kind of like, I need to get my... You know, and you see... Before you came up to talk to them, they were just like trying to cope, you know. But now, if you start to ask them to talk, they're going to even get more away from their body. And so it's really going to bring up the stuff. It's like that. I support you to practice mindfulness of your own body throughout the day during the guest season and of course during practice periods.

[23:26]

But during practice periods, there are certain periods of time in some sense, fairly large periods of time, where you know at least the policy is silence. So people during that time are not so much coming up to you and saying, would you please talk to me now because I'm anxious, and if you don't talk to me, I'm going to get more anxious, and you're going to be selfish or whatever, mean to me if you don't talk to me. That doesn't happen during those silent periods so much, a little bit, but not so much. There's periods of time when people let you have your solitude, but in the summer... It may not be clear that people are letting you have that, and some people actually may not have it in their head to let you have it, to give it to you, I would say. Actually, they're letting you have it, but they're not giving you this thing. I would like you to let each other have that, so when you meet each other, that you give that person the opportunity, if they aren't already aware of themselves, You give them the opportunity to be aware of themselves and one of the ways you can give it to them is you give it to yourself.

[24:31]

So you come to them already aware of your own lower abdomen. How is it down there? No, I'm not. It's kind of like a little bit agitated. Okay. Well, would it help to breathe in there a little bit? Maybe. I'll check it out. You're taking care of yourself when you meet them. And the more you're that way, the more they'll get the idea that they could be that way. You could also say, I just want you to know it's okay with me if you take a little time to figure out what's happening with yourself before you start talking. Matter of fact, I'm doing that right now too. So you let me do it, you let me take care of myself, I'll let you take care of yourself. And then when we're ready to talk, let's talk. And you might say, thanks, I feel grounded in what's happening to me and I'm feeling gratitude and anxiety at the same time.

[25:36]

How are you doing? Well, I need a little more time. Fine. If sometimes that's happened to you, I've seen it happen a few times, people come to sit down at the dinner table and somebody starts talking to them, or the lunch table or the breakfast table, and somebody starts talking and the person says, I need a little time to get settled here. And sometimes the person says, okay. Okay. And sometimes something else happens, I don't know what, but sometimes they nearly feel like, oh, we're an insult or whatever. But not so bad, especially if the person doesn't snap at them and say, I need time to adjust! I suggest to you that you start giving this to each other and also that you realize that it's not selfish of you necessarily to... basically it's not selfish of you to take care of yourself so that you can take care of others. Of course, if you had something in your eye, like something got stuck in your eye, and you asked somebody to go in there and pull it out, and they came over to you and you saw that they were shaking, you might say,

[26:57]

Look for somebody who's already calm. Or you might say, I need this taken out, and you're the only person in the area. Would you please calm down? And then when you're calm, calm down. Calm down, yeah, calm down. I've got a problem. Calm down, it's okay. Calm down. I need you to calm down and pick this thing up. I don't want you to poke my eye. Okay, ready? No, calm down. So I request you to give yourself that gift and give it to other people, and if other people don't seem to be offering it, ask them for it. And at meals and so on. Silent tables are okay, but I think all the tables should be mindfulness tables. Not should be, but need to be. So you can take care of each other.

[28:01]

And whether you're... Even if you weren't trying to practice mindfulness, you still might feel when you sat down that you feel kind of protective of your space and want people to leave you alone. You still might feel that. And you might feel it unconsciously. So that when they do actually start coming to you, you feel attacked. Because you're not conscious that you want the space. But if you know you want the space, that will help you not feel so attacked when they come to interact with you. Because you know, I'm feeling kind of defensive. But if I kind of like get into it, my shoulders are up, kind of like defensive and tight here. Okay, got it. That's how I am. Okay, now I can relax a little bit. And somebody starts talking to me and says, hey, guess what? I'm feeling defensive. But new people are going to keep coming all summer.

[29:06]

And of course, since they're newcomers, they're going to be highly anxious. And they're going to be needing a lot of, you know, soothing and reassurance. They're going to come up to you like, is it okay that I'm here sitting next to you? Keep giving some sense of vibe that I'm here. I mean, you come, I hope you're, you're an old man, I hope you, you support, you know, it's going to be that kind of energy. But it may not appear like that, it may look different, it may just be, I don't want to talk about it like that. So how can you kindly respond to them? You will be able to kindly respond to them if you've been practicing taking care of yourself. You take care of yourself, then you're kind of like, oh, here comes a new student, really nervous, it's going to be a chatter now, and I'm going to be patient with them because I am settled in my own mess. That person's jabber is not that much of an increase in the jabber level because I'm jabbering too.

[30:08]

but I'm aware of my jabber, so their jabber is not like, kind of like, okay, I'm not, I'm quiet, I'm, you know. Sometimes you are quiet, but sometimes you're just unconscious of your noise. If you're not in touch with your anxiety and somebody who's anxious comes up to you, it's like a shock. Like, anxiety, my God, where'd that come from? But if you're already, well, God, I'm really anxious, and I'm here with my anxiety, now you can handle another anxious person. Just like if you're balancing on top of a pole, you know, Once you're balanced, you can deal with another person on top of you. But if you're not balanced, you don't have a very good chance. Anyway, I could go on, but maybe that's enough for starters. Do you have any questions about this? I'm giving you time to settle with up-lap now.

[31:21]

But I'm, like, silent. Yeah, I'm silent. And then I'm doing the practice in the kitchen, which is very stressful. Sometimes the way I try to balance that stress is through humor. I noticed that some people either don't make sense of humor or find it a little bit off in some way. Yeah. So which should they do? Should they just... Okay, so you're attempting to relate to the stress you feel with humor. Okay. Sometimes that's appropriate. However, if the other people have not settled into their stress, they may not be ready to congratulate you on your good joke, on your humor. Also, watch to see, are you using the humor to do some kind of skillful

[32:29]

interaction with your stress, or are you using the humor before you have made peace with your stress? If you use the humor before you settle with your stress, although you may be trying to do something helpful, you may actually be ineffective, because you are coming from not being with yourself. So really, rather than humor, at that point, you'd be more honest to say, I'm feeling stress. And you wouldn't expect people necessarily to say that was funny. Thanks a lot. But they wouldn't say things like that. But you wouldn't even be expecting them to. I usually don't. Usually don't what? I don't expect people even to laugh or do anything. It comes naturally to me. Yeah. But I notice that some people don't take it that way.

[33:34]

Well, you say it comes naturally, but comes naturally could also be that it's your habit. It comes naturally, or is it just a habit, a coping habit? I don't know. You have to look and see. Look inside to see if this is a way of you coping with anxiety. And then the question is, are you really settled with your anxiety and tension? Or is the humor... I would suggest to you that humor that comes from familiarity with your own troubles is a humor that people will be able to work with more. easily. In other words, I think it's generally kind of a good guideline that humor at your own expense works best. So if you see something funny or something about yourself and you settle with that and you can make a joke with that, that people can join with. However, sometimes in this particular kitchen, people actually would rather, even though the

[34:40]

would like to hear a good joke occasionally, when they're working in a kitchen, they may be challenged to be able to check into their own anxiety so that they actually do not want you to offer them humor. Actually, what they want from you is that you give them solitude. And they're willing to give you solitude to just be with your stress rather than sharing how you're dealing with the stress. If you want to deal with the stress with humor, you can tell the jokes in your head. If they want joke time, they can say, okay, now everybody gets to tell a joke to help the group. But who gets to decide that? Some people might say, I'm not ready to have joke time. I'm barely able to, like... be present with myself. So I think it's often the case here that if you have several people present that some number of them, half of them, third of them, a fourth of them, may not yet really be sufficiently present that they're ready to put somebody up in your head.

[35:49]

Now if you are ready to put somebody up in your head and tell a joke, fine, but they may not be ready. They may say, I'm not ready to climb up on your shoulders yet. Yes. I understand the principle of what you're saying. How would this be applied real practically, going back to the kitchen table, sat down... Yeah, the dining room table, somebody's blocked down. I actually didn't start talking, and I'm still checking in with myself. Practically, I just, maybe he hadn't heard your lecture. Right. How do you stay to the guns? Yeah, right. So anyway, last night, some of you know, I sat down at the biggest table. The table's just two or three tables put together. I sat down next to Jeremy, and I think you were sitting to my left, and he was sitting to my right, and I sat down. Remember what I did? You don't remember, right? Yeah. Probably just settled in. Yeah. I just sat there and ate my dinner.

[36:52]

That's what I did last night. And I thought, maybe I, maybe, the thought crossed my mind, maybe I should ask everybody their names. What's your name? David. But last night I didn't do that. He was sitting to my left. I didn't say, my name's Red Butchers. Where are you from? I didn't do that. I just sat there and ate my dinner and I heard David talking to somebody else about something and I was kind of, I was listening and I was kind of interested but I didn't actually say, what are you talking about? And maybe you know what they're talking about because you were sort of talking to them. But David, not David, but Jeremy was talking to somebody over there and David was sitting on my left and David was talking to him. So people were talking all around me and I wasn't talking and they weren't saying, hey man, how come you're not talking? I said, well, yeah, and I can say that to you, because you're the old guy. But anyway, they didn't say anything to me, and I didn't say anything to them during that meal.

[38:00]

That's one scenario. I was enjoying the meal, and I was actually like seeing how it felt to be there with those people. I wasn't talking to them, I was seeing how it felt to be there with these more or less younger men. I think there was one woman. Where is she? Is she here? Is her name Mimi or something like that? Is her name Mimi? Yeah, so Mimi was there. One woman and the rest men. I was sitting there feeling how it was to be with them. I was aware of my mind states. I was aware of my posture. Now, if they had talked to me, I might have been ready to respond. You know, if they were saying, like, what's your name? I would say, my name's Dreb. What's yours? David, blah, blah, blah. And I could have also just, it could have come up in me to ask everybody to introduce themselves.

[39:05]

But actually, I heard Mimi did introduce herself to somebody over on the other side of the table, so I heard it. So it was happening, you know. Now, this morning, I sat down at the same table, and to my right was none other than David Zimmerman. And he said to me something like, how's Diana? And I said, blah, blah. And we talked. Now, I happen to have been ready for, the first time last night I sat down, I was like constantly throughout the whole meal, I was getting ready, I was trying to be ready for whatever happened. If they tip the table over, I was ready for it. If they all started saying, who are you? I was ready for it. If they said, you're being mean to us, you're not talking to us, you're not giving us a lecture, I was ready for it. Last night. This morning, I also sat down, and I actually got a little while to get settled before David started to interrogate me.

[40:12]

But when he asked me, I was ready, and I said what I said, right? I told you about Diana, and then we started talking about Rozzy, and so on. But I didn't... I was ready. Now, if I wasn't ready this morning... When David said it to me, I think I might have said, could you wait a second, David? Could we just talk about that a little later? Now, if I was even less ready than that, I might have said, could you wait a minute? Could you wait? I mean, I need some space here, man. But I wasn't that not ready. So I didn't attack him. But I was ready. So I accepted the invitation for the conversation. But if you feel like you need to take care of yourself in order to respond to somebody who's coming to talk to you, I think you're asking, now, how do we do that? So you meet a new person who doesn't know about, hasn't heard about, they want to come to Zen Center, but they hadn't heard about being mindful of your body, being mindful of your breath, being mindful of your mental state, being mindful of your food, hadn't heard about that.

[41:24]

And they come up to talk to you and they say, how are you, man? And you say... Just let me check. I'll let you know in a second. Well, I waited quite a bit there, waiting, you know, to answer that question. Now I actually was kind of upset, actually before you came up even, and I'm still kind of upset. You might say, how are you? I said, take it easy. And you can be that with people. But it's possible if you're not taking care of yourself, and then they ask you, and you answer right away, because you haven't been taking care of yourself, you might hurt them. Because you might feel insured upon, disrespected, like you're just upon their votes. You might say, kind of a disrespectful way to talk to me. And you might snap back at them.

[42:25]

Which is harmful and impatient. Whereas if you're checking out what's going on with yourself, that pretty much gets you ready for the shit that comes at you from the world. It gets you ready. It doesn't mean you're always going to be successful. But you need to have a chance, because we all carry problems around all the time. We've all got some difficulties, some anxiety at some level. So if we're facing that, and other people come and do something that's a little bit less than really pleasant, We might be able to actually stop and not come back at them too quickly, but get settled with what's going on. And then if you're settled with what's going on, you have a chance to be patient, even if it's kind of uncomfortable the way they're talking to you, or the way they look, or the way they're costumed, or the way they're leaning, or whatever. This is like something, zillions of opportunities. Yes. Did you have your hand raised? Yes. Is your name Trevor?

[43:30]

Yes. Yes. Could you explain the difference between the four foundations with mindfulness a little bit and kind of define those terms? Sure. Before I do that, which is kind of a big deal, Let's see if he has a question related to this. Let's get his question included. Yes, what's your name? Chris. Chris. What's your question, Chris? Mine was about... I don't know what you've been talking about. Sometimes I do pause. People who don't understand why I'm talking expect me to respond. Right. And they're wondering why and there's some sort of My only way, usually, or at least I attempt to just be quiet and try to wait for that to settle down, and then go on, or ask why the response was like that.

[44:39]

But I try to figure out a more easy, loving, kindness way to continue on beyond that. OK. Again, I've sort of said this again, but I'll start again here. To reiterate, the reason why I'm bringing this up to you is because, generally speaking, in this world, when people come up to you, they are usually not practicing mindfulness of themselves. Not very common. That's people lack of mindfulness and unconsciousness. They're not coming up to you with, I'm present with what's going on with me, and I'm going to go up to this person and give them some solitude. I'm going to get close to them because I'm going to walk by them now, or I'm going to stand behind them in line for dinner, or I'm going to sit down next to them, but I'm going to give them, I've given myself solitude, I'm present, and I'm going to give that to them.

[45:41]

Generally speaking, people don't do that. So if somebody comes up to you and is present, and is mindful, When they ask you how you are, you feel that you've got time. Probably. Matter of fact, they might say something which would even prompt you to tune back into your own mindfulness. But they might say, are you up for me asking you a question? And you might start to talk to them and say, well, take your time. I want you to check out to see if you're really ready for this question, because it's a big one. And you might say, okay, I'll take my time. I'll see if I can. But usually, often people are not coming to you that way. So when they talk to you, they're actually anxious and they kind of like want you to answer quickly. So when they say that to you, then it would be good in that case when you feel a lot of anxiety to say,

[46:44]

Could you please give me a moment? I'm feeling kind of upset. And you are because you were feeling somewhat upset before, perhaps. And now this person's bearing down on you and asking for a quick response to a nervous, unconscious comment. You need more time to get settled before you're gonna be able to be patient with their anxiety. So you just, you respectfully, respectfully say, man, I have a little bit of time here and I'm kind of upset. Yes? It might be. It might be. It's possible. But the more you do this, the more you pick up the nuances of how to convey. Or you might even say, you know, I just feel generally irritated today. It has nothing to do with you, but I'm feeling kind of irritated. So would you give me a little space? I'm just feeling irritated by everything. No, it's not you. I was that way before you came. I mean, I'm like ready to blow up here. So please let me know. I'm in a dangerous mood now.

[47:46]

You don't want to deal with this until I calm down. The person might say, actually, go ahead. Then they're ready for it. Then you can go, cool, cool. You've attuned, you know. You recognize the danger of a meeting with someone. that people can get offended and angry and attack each other. It's possible. But you're not taking that lightly. You know every meeting could be like that. Everyone could be like that. People that you meet are dangerous and you are too. That's why we have to check ourselves out because unchecked out human beings are dangerous beings who are unconscious. You are dangerous. You can hurt people. You can hurt people. You can hurt Small animals, large animals, right? When you're driving a car, you can really hurt people. If you've got an infection, you can hurt them even more. But if you're a normal human being, you can hurt people.

[48:50]

That's why the first, you know, that's why it says patience and non-harming is the way to relate to people. But if you're not taking care of yourself, you're a dangerous person who is an unsupervised dangerous person. So do you feel... uneasy and so on, and somebody comes up to you and they seem to need you to answer right away, maybe you do have to answer right away, but you don't have to answer. You can answer kind of seriously, like saying, well, I got a headache. I'm really upset. Can you give me some space here? And they might be insulted. but they might not be as insulted as if you came back and just told them that you really feel attacked by intruding on your space or try to pretend like you don't feel attacked and say something which sounds real friendly like, you look really nice today, you know, really insincere and snide and really sarcastic and ridiculing them. People will not necessarily be coming to you with disrespect.

[49:56]

And when people approach you without respecting you, that often is uncomfortable. If you're already uncomfortable, that could be part of, add to your discomfort. If you're not uncomfortable, it could be experienced as uncomfortable. And again, people, when they're anxious and they're frightened, they sometimes have trouble respecting people because they kind of, they're yearning for somebody to fix their situation. Maybe you will. You've got to be grounded so you can handle this attack. And they don't mean it intentionally. They don't mean it on purpose. They're just like having a hard time in there, having a hard time being present with their hard time. So all this unconscious stuff comes leaking up around because there's nobody taking care of it. So it just goes flying all over the room. And if you're in the neighborhood, you get splattered. often happens. That's why you need to take care of yourself. If you're balancing somebody and they slip, their foot's going to come down towards your face.

[51:01]

You've got to be ready. They don't mean to slip. They got scared and they were slipping. Here comes their body. You've got to be ready. Four foundations of mindfulness. The first three that I said are just sort of three categories of three ways to look at what just happened. So your body's happening, your breath's happening, so that's the foundation of mindfulness of breath, I mean of body. Also your posture, be aware of your posture, and be aware of when you're walking, be aware of your walking. When you're standing, be aware of your standing. Okay, so you're standing and talking to somebody, you are aware that you're standing there. And also, you're aware of it. First of all, you're mindful. In other words, you're remembering that you wish to be aware. And then you are ardent in the sense that you not only remember that you wish to be aware of your body and your posture, but you actually then go ahead and be aware of your posture.

[52:15]

And then you're alert. in the sense that you're aware, not just in general that you have a body, but you're aware of the particular present moment of standing, if that's what's happening, or the particular present moment of breathing, or the particular present moment of walking. So that's the alert part. And that's the mindfulness of body. Next one is mindfulness of feelings. So every moment you have a feeling about what's going on. What would ruin my feelings is the way your mind basically is evaluating what's happening. So right now, if you're aware of the temperature of the room, you find it to be pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. So how do you feel about the temperature of the room right now? How many people think it's pleasant? How many people think it's unpleasant? Yeah. And how many people think it's neutral? And five minutes from now, even if the room temperature stayed basically the same, you might change your feelings about the room temperature might change, but it might be the same.

[53:25]

But every moment, if you're aware of the room temperature, you do think positive, negative, or neutral. That's just the way it is. If you think in my face, I won't ask you how many things you'll think about it. How many people feel positive about my face? How many people feel neutral about my face? How many people feel negative about my face? Now how many people feel positive about my face? Anyway, usually people like it better when I'm smiling. Whatever you're looking at, you do have Your mind evaluates it. Every moment, every color you see, every smell you taste, every touch you touch, every thought you have, your mind evaluates it positive, negative, neutral. So another foundation of mindfulness is to tune into this dimension of your moment by moment experience.

[54:28]

The third category is mindfulness of mind states. And that just means like a general sense of your mind state, general. It's like calm, you're aware of calm. Agitated, you're aware it's agitated. Concentrated, you're aware it's concentrated. Distracted, you're aware it's distracted. Aware that you're being mindful is not mentioned, but you could also be aware, not only I'm being mindful, in fact, I'm being mindful. Sad, depressed, elated, alert, sleepy, whatever the general state is, you're aware of it. The fourth aspect of the foundation of mindfulness is various kinds of awareness that either hinder your mindfulness or deepen your understanding based on your mindfulness. So the kinds of things that hinder your mindfulness are mental states like ill will, sensual desire or lust, slothfulness, corporate,

[55:40]

agitation, worry, and doubt. These are mental states that arise, and so those are things which you need to look at, and by being mindful of them, abandon, because those interfere with you being mindful of what's happening. Other mental qualities which should be developed and studied are like teachings about the nature of reality, teachings which help you refine your vision of what's happening, and see more clearly the nature of your experience, and so on. Those are four conditions, my things. Yes? I have a question about this kind of, like, yearning for someone to fix the situation. Like, when you talk about, like, please sit down at a table, Like, I have to admit, like, I think I was hearing for you to, like, say something that would make me feel comfortable.

[56:47]

Mm-hmm. And... Or someone to take away someone's anxiety. Yeah, someone told me recently, they said, I'd like you to say something to help me feel more at ease with you. Someone said that. And then they said, like, you could ask me a question. So I said, how do you feel? So I was a little bit going along with their sense of me doing something so they would be more at ease. But once they told me that, all they had to do is say, how do you feel? And things started flowing. It was easy for me to ask a question when somebody said that to me. But if somebody said, just fix me, I'm anxious, fix me, I might not say, I'm not going to fix you. But I might say, you're feeling anxious? but I'm not necessarily going along with them, I'm going to fix them, but I might ask them, are you feeling anxious?

[57:48]

And they might say, yeah. And I say, yeah, in a sense, but what it's about? So in fact, if we enter into the conversation, they might actually, their anxiety might be somewhat fixed, but I don't really argue with them necessarily right off, I'm not going to fix you. In some cases, if they say, please fix me, I might say nothing. And that sometimes happens, that people say, please fix me, and I just look at them, And maybe they feel more anxious. And then I look at them some more, maybe they feel more anxious. And then I look at them some more, and they might say, thank you, you fixed me. Of course, they know I didn't, in a way, because I just sat there and they saw that I didn't do anything, and they were fixed. Here's my question. It's also kind of around the area of we need to take care of ourselves. And so there is some thing we need to take care of our own anxiety.

[58:50]

And yet we don't do that by ourselves. Like we do that as if some of the, so, you know, like I want, say I want Leslie to fix my problems. If she's the person I'd hope to for my support, then maybe she's not available. So even, I don't know, I'm just trying to, trying to see how it's not that we do it on our own, this meeting, but you do do it on your own, but we don't. Well, again, look at the story, okay? The person starts out by saying, no, you look after me and I'll look after you, okay? And the apprentice says, no, teacher, you look after you and I'll look after me. That's how we'll take care of each other. But they're trying to take care of each other. This is a relationship. They're not doing this by themselves. They're practicing, they're both practicing awareness of themselves together with somebody else in order to take care of themselves.

[59:53]

So you don't practice poor foundations and mindfulness just for yourself. You practice them to take care of yourself so that you can take care of others. And then when you meet others, then you practice patience with them. When you meet the guests, you practice patience with them. When you meet the other people in the guest program that are helping you, you practice patience with them. You practice non-harming with people who are working in the dining room in the office. Practice non-harming and you can do that. The non-harming can be practiced because you're taking good care of your own mindfulness. And when you take care of them in a non-harming, patient way, that takes care of you. So you actually, you have to take care of them in order to take care of yourself. You don't do it, you can't take care of yourself just to take care of yourself. You take care of yourself to take care of others. And you don't take care of others just to take care of others. You take care of them to take care of yourself.

[60:54]

And if you're patient with people and non-harming to them, and that doesn't take care of it, that doesn't take care of you, then you're not practicing patience and non-harming, really. And usually, if you're practicing patience with people, people who are taking care of the guests, or practicing patience with the guests, if you do it well, it's because you're taking care of yourself already that you can be patient with them. If you're trying to be patient with them and you're not being successful, like you're trying to be patient but you're grinding your teeth and just you haven't yet reached patience, and therefore you're not ready to be non-harmful, you're somewhat non-hungry because you haven't attacked him yet, but any minute you will because you're not taking care of yourself. You're not grounded in your own anxiety, your own legs which haven't yet achieved seaworthiness. So in order to actually, to a great extent, in order to

[62:03]

be able to ride the sea of a relationship, you have to be able to ride the sea of your own internal state. When you can ride the sea of your own internal state, then you can go into perhaps increased turbulence of a relationship with somebody else. And if you've been taking grief, you've learned to see life with yourself, you still might not immediately be able to do it in the increased challenge of a relationship, but you have a pretty good chance, a much better chance than if you hadn't done your homework So then you enter into a new relationship and then you go, but because you've been previously trained yourself to be aware of yourself, as you enter into the relationship and notice that you haven't learned quite how to balance there, it's not so difficult for you to say, I'm feeling kind of unbalanced. I'm feeling kind of nauseous in this conversation. It's not because of you. It's just because it's really dynamic and intense. There's a lot of intensity around here between us. But you can say that because you're in the mode of being aware of what's happening to you.

[63:06]

So as you enter the relationship, you're aware of how that changes what's happening to you. And it's... Nobody wants to do this.

[66:09]

I heard that Buddha does, but nobody else does it. Too much. The odds are too great. I can't do this practice. And when you feel doubt like that, you should bring up your doubt and discuss it to see if people who are promoting this program would agree with you. But the Buddha will just say, we need you to do this. You can say that you can't do it. That's fine. You can say that. But now that you've said it, I just tell you that before I was enlightened, that's what I thought too, occasionally. But that's doubt, and I got over that, and then I faced my anxiety. Buddha was anxious too. But Buddha faced it and got over it. And then he could relate to people. But you may not get over your anxiety. I said, I put it wrong. And then he could relate to people as Buddha. But before he was Buddha, he could still relate to people pretty well while he was being mindful of his anxiety. So being mindful of your anxiety and being perfectly free of it happens when you're fully enlightened.

[67:19]

But you can be somewhat free of it even prior to becoming free of the root of anxiety, which is delusion. But until you're enlightened, there's going to be some anxiety. about your misconception of your relationship with all beings. But you can make yourself pretty non-harming. Actually, yeah, pretty non-harming if you're aware of your anxiety and confess it to yourself and others. Yes? Once you become grounded in your awareness of your body and your anxiety, okay, then you become calm and then you turn to the categories in the fourth foundation of mindfulness, which are the teachings of about the nature of reality.

[68:28]

So one of the teachings in the fourth category is the teaching of the Four Noble Truths. And the first truth is, we say the truth of suffering, but one way you practice the truth of suffering is you practice it by, in this way, you say, this is suffering. In other words, you identify the current example of suffering that you're experiencing. One more step. In the second Truth is a truth of origination. So you look, first you look. This, you see, this is suffering. This is stress. Right now, this is, I see it right here. But you're looking at it after having settled down in your situation with your anxiety and your pain and pleasure and positive and negative sensations and all your emotions and stuff. You've settled down with that now. You're calm and you're present with what's happening. And then you look at the fourth foundation. You're ready for it now. okay, this is suffering. And then you see, and this is the origin of suffering.

[69:31]

When you see the origin of suffering and the suffering and the origin of suffering and suffering, you will see another thing. You will see this is the end of suffering. But if you're not founded in what's happening, then the teaching of this is suffering or the truth of suffering, what does it apply to? Well, I guess it applies to my life at some point. Well, how about now? Well, to apply it to what's happening now, you have to see what's happening now. And also to be applied clearly and precisely, you have to sort of be calm with what's happening now. So you can see, yeah, this is like, yeah, this is suffering. And this is the origin and this is the end. And the path to it is what you just did. Namely, you took care of yourself. You checked into what was happening. You found the, you calmed down. You calmed down. You heard the teaching and now you see the teaching in what's happening. The first truth, the second truth, and you realize the third truth. And that's the fourth truth, what you just went through.

[70:34]

That's the path that took you to the seeing of the cessation and realizing the cessation. So this is the path. This path is the fourth foundation of mindfulness. The Buddha says at the beginning of the scripture, he says, this is the direct path to freedom from suffering. This is the direct path to the bliss and peace of nirvana, this practice. But he didn't say, and this training takes a little while. Of course, when he's talking to the monks, he would be patient with them, non-harming with them, kind to them, compassionate with them, and keep encouraging them to practice this And occasionally when you say, this is so hard, you say, yeah, I know. But it's a direct path, so go back to work. Go back to play. Go back to you. Take care of yourself so you can talk to me again.

[71:35]

And again, and we'll just keep going over this, until you get settled and until you can see and become free. And then you can really take care of others. But in the meantime, before you have complete freedom, you can take care of each other much better if you take care of yourself first. But take care of yourself doesn't mean praise yourself, be nice to yourself. It means, it does mean that too, but it means that you take care of yourself, like look after yourself. You look after yourself. You look after yourself like a kid who is in a dangerous situation. Keep your eye on her. Keep your eye on him. Take close. Help and help. Help, help, help. Become more and more mindful and alert and fully aware of what's happening. And realize the world needs you to do this so you can help it. If you don't do this, you're going to be less helpful. Plus, one of the main ways you'll help is in addition

[72:40]

to being literally patient and non-harming and compassionate and kind, you're going to be showing people the very thing that they need to do in order to help themselves and help others. So you're not only being kind to people, but you're setting an example of how to do it, plus you're letting them do it. When you meet people, you give this to them. And if they don't realize it's being offered, you tell them you're giving it to them. And you have various ways to tell them that you're letting them take care of themselves. But this is just a little encouragement for you, I hope, for the summer. And if new people come, on an individual basis, you can tell them you're practicing caring for yourself by the Buddhist practice of mindfulness of what's happening. And And if they want to practice that, you support that, if you would.

[73:44]

Thank you.

[73:48]

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