This morning in the yurt, I read the scripture which is supposed to be, which has been said to be the first... Is this loud enough? No? Is that loud enough now? So this morning I read the scripture which is supposed to be the first teaching, first formal teaching of the Buddha to the five monks, his first five monks. And the name of the scripture is called Setting the Wheel of the Dharma in Motion. And so what we've heard is that the Buddha was living in Deer Park near Baranasi, Benares, and he addressed a group of five monks and he said, Monks, these two extremes ought not to be practiced by one who has left the household life

[01:18]

What are the two? There is devotion to indulgence in sense pleasures, which is low, common, in the way of ordinary people, unworthy, unprofitable. And there is devotion to self-mortification, which is painful, unworthy and unprofitable. Avoiding these two extremes, the Tathagata has realized the middle path. It gives vision, it gives knowledge, it leads to calm, insight, to enlightenment, to nirvana. And what is this eightfold path? I mean, what is this middle path? It is simply the noble eightfold path. right view, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.

[02:45]

This middle path is realized by the cittadita, which gives vision, which gives knowledge, and which leads to calm, to insight, to enlightenment, to nirvana, nibbana. And this morning I talked about the expression What are the two? There is devotion to indulgence in sense pleasures, and there is devotion to self-mortification. And I asked if people were aware of devotion, because devotion is a strong word. And I looked at another translation of this text, and they used the word devotion there too. And the word devotion in the American Heritage Dictionary, the first meaning is ardent attachment or affection.

[03:53]

The second meaning is religious ardor or zeal. Piety. Third meaning is, which is usually in the plural, is an act of religious observance or prayer, especially when private, especially when private. The fourth meaning is an act of devotion or the state of being devoted. And the root is di, which means completely, plus vovere, which means to vow. to completely vow. So I asked this morning if some people felt that they could feel a devotion to indulgence in sense pleasures.

[04:58]

Another translation, by the way, is addiction to sense pleasures. But actually it doesn't say pleasure. Oh yeah, it does. It says addiction. It says kamasuka blambla anuyoga. Addiction to sensual pleasures or the pleasures of sex, sexual pleasure is another way to translate it. And some people actually said that they could identify a kind of devotion to these things. And that's really good if you can identify that, because I think not everyone is aware of being devoted to these things. But if you can be aware of that devotion, that's really good, because then you're aware of your devotion. You find out what you're really putting your energy into. So a lot of people are either putting their energy into giving themselves a hard time or to addictions.

[06:15]

And these are two ways of not really settling down where we are. It's hard for us to settle down where we are. So we have a Zen center and in some ways one of the main agendas of the Zen center is to support people settling down where they are. to help us become devoted to settling down to where we are, rather than being devoted to getting away from where we are. So retreat, what do you call it, devotion to addiction.

[07:19]

Addiction, for me, one of the main points of addiction is some way to turn away from what's happening, to turn away from from what's happening, from life, actually. And if you take life and couple it with ignorance, you get pain. So if it's ignorant life, unenlightened life, then it's turning away from life, which is experiencing some pain, some anxiety. It's perfectly understandable why an animal might want to try to get away from pain. So we have many, many addictions, many, many ways of turning away from our life. So one is indulgence in sensuality and the other is indulgence in giving ourselves a hard time. If you can identify that devotion

[08:24]

then you maybe could get a feeling for your devotion. You've got devotion in your life. In a sense, you've got religious zeal in your life applied to getting away from your life. If you could identify this devotion and then instead of directing it towards escaping from what's happening, direct it instead towards being here with patience and gentleness, loving-kindness, practicing the precepts, being generous, being enthusiastic about all this, and being concentrated, then you could realize the middle way. So to ardently observe what's happening right here, rather than ardently trying to get away from what's here, is a pivot. Easy to say.

[09:27]

In this valley, there's concern among some of the senior people about how to have a year-round monastery. how to have the monastic spirit continue throughout the year. And one thing people are referring to then is maybe how to continue the monastic spirit during guest season. Because when the guests come, there seems to be so much work to do. And it's hard for the students, hard for the monks, to continue to have a sense of being here when they're doing many, many things. So then there's some thought,

[10:40]

have a place that doesn't have a guest season, some other place, where we wouldn't have all this work to do that would make us think that we had many things to do and we couldn't be devoted to just facing what's happening in our life. But it may take us a while to get that place, so maybe we should really try to work on facing our life right now and not wait until we have some other place to practice. And again, that's easy to say, but it's hard to face what's happening when you are doing a lot of different kinds of work. It is hard. But... We have to find that. We have to find that. And if having a monastery that doesn't have a guest season will help some people find it, that's good, but we still have to finally face the fact that there has to be a way for people who are doing a lot of work.

[11:53]

Or anyway, we have to find a way to work and still not turn away from our life. How can we look at our life without turning it into self-mortification if we have pain? How can we look at pain without making it self-mortification? Would it be alright to be relaxed while we look at our pain?

[13:37]

Would that be okay? Is that antithetical to looking at pain, to be relaxed while you're looking at it? Physical or mental? You're saying it's hard to relax in the face of physical pain. Okay? But is there anything antithetical about it? Any problem? Is it okay to relax if you have pain? Yeah. Yeah. So I'm saying, do you have any problem with relaxing in pain? Hmm? Sometimes it helps pain if you relax? How does it help the pain if you relax? Okay, physical pain. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's pain on top of pain, plus it also is a little bit, it also separates you a little bit from the pain.

[14:51]

Whereas relaxing, you can actually get closer to the pain, I think. That's my experience. I feel closer to the pain when I just kind of go Okay, we got pain. So I'm not saying it's easy to relax in the middle of pain, physical or mental, but I guess I'm saying that's part of facing it, is to relax. Does being honest, is that okay? Is it okay to be honest while you're in pain? Like, be honest, like, I'm in pain. Is it okay to be gentle when you're in pain? Is it okay to laugh when you're in pain? As long as the laughter isn't running away from the pain as a distraction.

[15:57]

Is it all right to practice patience when you're in pain? Is it okay to not steal when you're in pain? Is it okay? Is it okay to not kill when you're in pain? Is it okay to not take intoxicants to distract yourself from the pain when you're in the pain? Is that all right? Is it okay to be, did I say patience already? Is it okay to be enthusiastic about practicing patience when you're in pain? Is it okay to be happy when you're in pain? Is it all right? Is it possible to be happy when you're in pain? Is it okay to be concentrated when you're in pain?

[17:08]

Yeah, I think so. And if we are involved in these various ways of being with pain, as Anne was saying, if you tense up in the middle of pain, it adds pain to pain. And I would say it also tires you out more if you tense up with your pain. It tires you. If you try to run away from your pain, it tires you. If you're stingy while you're in pain, the stinginess tires you.

[18:23]

Killing tires you, lying tires you, stealing tires you. Being unenthusiastic, of course, is Your energy is going away, down, down, away. And being unconcentrated disperses your energy. So not only does not practicing virtues in the middle of pain make the pain worse, it also wipes you out too. It makes you very tired and weak. which makes you more want to fight the pain sometimes. Except sometimes you get so wiped out, you give up and start practicing. And then the Buddha says, he just starts talking, he didn't warn anybody about this, but he said, the noble truth of suffering is this.

[20:02]

He might have mumbled something, you know, that people didn't notice, like, I'm about to tell you the four noble truths now, so get ready for this. But anyway, he didn't announce it, he just says, the noble truth of suffering is this. Birth is suffering, aging is suffering, sickness is suffering, death is suffering, sorrow and lamentation and pain and grief and despair are suffering. Association with the unpleasant is suffering. Dissociation from the pleasant is suffering. Not to get what one wants is suffering. In brief, The five aggregates of attachment are suffering. The five aggregates of attachment, the five aggregates means the five dimensions of the five aspects of all of our experience, when there's attachment, is suffering.

[21:09]

you can either say the five aggregates of attachment or attachment to the five aggregates is suffering. So it doesn't actually say, he didn't say attachment to birth is suffering, attachment in birth is suffering, attachment in aging is suffering, attachment in sickness is suffering. But at the end he said, in short, the five aggregates of attachment are suffering. which I understand to mean that attachment was happening in each of those previous examples. So, when there's birth and there's attachment, there's suffering. When there's death and there's attachment, there's suffering. When there's aging and there's attachment, there's suffering. Okay? It's the attachment to our experience that is the definition of a suffering. And attachment is, we attach to our experience because of ignorance, because we think there's us in our experience, or us in our age, or us in our illness, or our friends in us.

[22:26]

Therefore we attach, and when we attach to anything, this way or that way, this is suffering. This is the basic definition of suffering that he has offered in his first talk. Yes, Jackie? Yes. You did? Well, kama means sex, but also it could be... It's kama-sukha. Kamasuka something, anu yoga, attachment to the pleasures, the pleasure of sex or the pleasure of sensuality, that's the one extreme.

[23:37]

But that's an extreme, that's not the definition of suffering. So he talks about these two extremes, but then he talks about, after talking about the two extremes, he's saying, if you avoid these extremes, you enter the middle way, and on the middle way, you have a chance to realize the cessation of suffering. And then he says, the first truth of suffering is that attaching to the five aggregates is suffering. But the five aggregates, one of the five aggregates is feeling. And feeling comes in positive, negative and neutral sensation. So here he actually lists, he says, association with the unpleasant is suffering. And dissociation from the pleasant is suffering. OK?

[24:41]

So if you have attachment and there's something unpleasant, if you're associated with the unpleasant and you have attachment, that's suffering. If you have dissociation from something pleasant and you have attachment, that's suffering. Not getting what you want and having attachment, that's suffering. Okay? That's suffering. Now, the extremes are ways of distracting ourselves from this truth. So, one way to understand this is that he's saying, okay, people tend to go towards these two ways, these two extremes. If they would drop them, they would enter the middle way. What's the middle way? Well, the middle way is to listen to this. the noble truth of suffering, this is this, this is it, okay? It is this, [...] and this.

[25:47]

All those are suffering. What did I just say? I said everything in your life is suffering. Everything's suffering if there's clinging to what's happening. And if there's any ignorance, there's some clinging. If you avoid these extremes, you enter the middle way. The middle way is you start facing this teaching. Where's the teaching coming from? It's coming from everything that happens. Everything that you experience with clinging is suffering. The First Noble Truth is coming at you all the time until you realize enlightenment. It's being delivered to you every moment. If you avoid indulging in these two extremes, you come into the middle way, which is to study this, study this truth. And sometimes this truth is so strong, we really reach the limit of our ability to stay present with it.

[27:02]

We reach the limit of our ability, of our patience. and so on. And we just, well, we turn away. That's okay. Just admit you're turning away and when you've had enough turning away, come back. Don't be hard on yourself. There's going to be more turning away's maybe. But if your intention is to enter the middle way, that's what's really important. Do you wish to face is truth, which is that all your experiences are suffering if there's clinging. Now, the way I put it, so to forecast the next truth, the noble truth of origin of suffering, is this.

[28:05]

It is thirst or craving that produces re-existence and re-becoming bound with passionate greed. It finds fresh delight now here, now there, namely thirst for sense pleasures, thirst for existence and becoming, thirst for non-existence. This thirst is the point of origin. So this is almost like one step before the attachment. Because of ignorance, there's thirst. And then because of thirst, we grasp, we cling. Pardon?

[29:08]

You mean read the scripture? The scripture? The noble truth of the origins of suffering is this. It is thirst, or craving, which produces re-existence and re-becoming, bound up with passionate greed. It finds fresh delight now here, now there. Namely, thirst for sense pleasures, thirst for existence, thirst for becoming, thirst for non-existence. So the thirst, in a sense, is before the clinging. When our mind creates something out there, we thirst for it. Sometimes the way we thirst for it, we thirst to get rid of it.

[30:16]

Sometimes we thirst, you know, to attach to it. Anyway, following the thirst is attachment. Attachment. And then there's becoming, and then there's birth and death, or birth, old age, sickness and death, lamentation, grief, and so on. This is the process. If you avoid these extremes, you enter the middle way. You see your suffering. You keep avoiding the extremes. You see your suffering. You drop the extremes. You see the suffering. And so on. And you keep seeing the suffering. And you see that all the things where there's clinging, there's suffering. And you see that the origin of the suffering is clinging. And the origin of the clinging is craving.

[31:20]

And the origin of the craving is the mental apparatus by which we create things that seem to be out there. And the way we do that is by ignoring the truth. And this is how it all arises, and we see how it all arises. And then we see how if it wasn't, if we didn't ignore, there wouldn't be these dispositions, there wouldn't be these mental activities which create the sense of something out there. There wouldn't be the craving, there wouldn't be the clinging and so on. We see that. And this is the noble truth of cessation of suffering. The noble truth of cessation of suffering is this. It is the complete cessation of every thirst giving it up renouncing it emancipating oneself from it detaching oneself from it yes

[32:40]

It's not something that the separate individual... It's not something that the self, which is separate from the thing that the self is attached to, can do. It's an organic process? It's an organic process, right. It's something that happens, it seems to arise in a person, seems to happen to a person, who's practicing the middle way. If the person somehow doesn't grasp the extremes and gradually finds a way to settle with the first truth, and doesn't grasp the extremes and settles with the second truth, and doesn't grasp the extremes and settles with the third truth, which is the dropping away, the letting go. The letting go is a cessation of the suffering. But it's more like you keep settling into what's happening.

[33:55]

And what's happening actually is that there is letting go. Clinging is not the ultimate truth. The ultimate truth is non-clinging. The ultimate truth is that there's nothing to cling to. And therefore, there's non-clinging in that truth. You can only know what kind of clinging. Is the ultimate truth an experience? The ultimate truth is something you can be aware of. Well, you can think of it, but it's not like regular dualistic thinking. It's a non-dual thought. you can think of the ultimate truth. And I say you, I mean, there can be non-dual thought where there can be awareness that there's nothing to cling to.

[34:58]

Yes. You mean in dualistic thought? Like, you think something's out there and you're working with it? Yes, uh-huh. If you're in dualistic thought, you can't have the experience of dualism. No. So you have to stay with the settling. You stay with the settling, right. And the more settled you are in dualistic thought... the closer you're getting to just settling rather than trying to get something or hold on to something. So you gradually are letting go of dualistic thought. Not by trying to let go of it, but by just becoming more and more intimate with what's happening. And when you're really intimate with what's happening, then you're intimate with the fact that everything's actually dropped off and let go of.

[36:12]

And also there's nothing to hold on to outside yourself. Okay? Yes, Scott? It's because of attachment that what? So are you saying, is it because of attachment that the aggregates come into existence? No. I think because of ignorance, the aggregates come into existence and then they come into existence as, you know, they come into existence and then they come into existence or then it comes into existence the belief that they exist out there on their own.

[37:23]

That comes into existence and then there's attachment. I think the attachment follows the setting up of this world out there on its own. And the world out there on its own comes up because of ignorance and various, what do you call it, various inclinations and approaches and dispositions that have been built up over a long time of karmic reactions to ignorance, then these dispositions create the sense of a world out there. When there's a world out there, then there's craving and clinging and attachment. Both.

[38:24]

both moment to moment and what we call birth in the more large-scale sense. We have at least three midwives in this retreat. So it seems to me that probably quite a few of you are familiar with how to distract yourself from suffering. Or just how to distract yourself from what's happening moment by moment. And In these two modes, one is to be hard on yourself. Because one of the things about being hard on yourself as a mode of distracting yourself is that you don't have to be guilty about being easy on yourself as a mode of distracting yourself.

[39:26]

So some people feel good about that. This is like a Puritan ethic, right? How could I be doing something wrong if I'm being mean to myself? I mean, I'm not being selfish, am I? So overwork and various forms of being hard on yourself, you don't feel like you're getting anything out of it, right? So you don't feel kind of like, hey, I'm just like, I'm doing something for myself and I'm distracting myself from my suffering. Right? I'm suffering. I'm doing things to myself to make myself suffering, so I'm not trying to run away from my suffering. As a matter of fact, I'm making it worse, so I can't accuse me of running away from my suffering. But actually, what's being proposed here is that that is running away from your suffering.

[40:31]

That's choosing the suffering you voluntarily administer to yourself instead of the suffering that comes up which is the one that's really tied very intimately with ignorance, with your attachments. That's the place where stuff is really, you know, really letting go. It's right there. That's closest to the core of your problem, the suffering that you don't intentionally administer to yourself. Greg? I'm having trouble sort of coming up with ideas and conceptualizing how you do So,

[41:33]

Well, like I gave you the example this morning, maybe you don't want to hear it again, but instead of needing to go to the toilet, how about being hungry? So you feel hungry. And maybe you have a headache, too. Your blood sugar is dropping. Okay? So, you know, maybe you think, well, maybe I should eat something. This isn't necessarily good that I got this headache. I haven't eaten for several hours and maybe it'd be good to eat. So maybe I'll go to some place where some people might give me some food. So you walk over there and sit down at the table and they bring you some food. All right? Is there anything wrong with that? No, Buddha did that. Buddha liked Got up in the morning and walked into town and actually said, you know, here I am. If you want to give me some food, I would be happy to receive it.

[42:58]

I gave him food and he would eat it. Okay? That's a reasonable thing to do under the circumstances of having a body and so on. But you have to look at yourself and see whether the pain you feel just around that particular issue, whether you're running away from that pain or not. So you're feeling hungry and at point X you're feeling hungry and then you haven't eaten and then again you're feeling hungry and you haven't eaten and you're feeling hungry and maybe you feel more and more your headache gets stronger and you're feeling hungry and feeling more and more hungry and and then finally somebody gives you some food, and you eat it, and the pain goes away, you're not hungry anymore. But every step of the way there, you could have been with how you felt. You could have felt what it was like to be hungry and just felt it.

[44:06]

And you could have also been compassionate to yourself. You could have wished, I guess, you could have said, you know, may I be free of this pain of being hungry. You could have that kind of compassion for yourself. That'd be fine. May I be free of this pain. But free of the pain doesn't necessarily mean may this pain go away. Because in some sense, it doesn't make sense it would go away until you eat. Does it? I mean, that would be kind of unusual. If it wasn't unusual, then why eat? If the eating didn't have to do with the thing. So that's why you eat is because it's reasonable to eat because if you don't, you get these headaches. And eventually, of course, you get emaciated and you can't sit up straight or you can't give Dharma talks anymore and help people, which you love to do. So the eating has something to do with it.

[45:08]

But before you eat, you still have the headache. You're still feeling weak. Compassion is not to wish that you weren't the way you are. Compassion is not to wish that if you have a toothache, that the pain would go away. That's not compassion. Compassion is wishing yourself to be free of that pain. There's a difference. See the difference? Because pains, you know, these kinds of pains, there's nothing really wrong with the pain of being hungry or the pain of being cold. It's not a bad pain. But what about freedom from the pain? So taking care of yourself in many cases is reasonable and it's not separate from compassion. But if you're trying to take care of yourself to get rid of something, rather than just doing what seems to be appropriate, then I don't think it goes so well with compassion. And compassion operates whether you're able to get the food or not.

[46:14]

And you might become free of suffering before you get the meal. Just like if someone's in the hospital or you're in the hospital, you've got a disease, but you can take care of yourself before the disease goes away. And some diseases will never go away. In some people's stories, they never go away. For example, the Buddha's disease had a disease that didn't go away. But was he practicing compassion with himself while his disease didn't go away? What do you think? Yeah. He was doing the best he could. He wasn't like, you know, he was trying to take care of himself with his disease, but In some ways he had a hard time and he didn't get over his disease and finally he decided to let go of his life. But he was practicing compassion before the disease and during the disease. And he was taking care of himself.

[47:18]

But his practice of compassion was a different way of taking care of himself than medicines. So if you eat or rest in these kinds of things, which are reasonable things to do, if you feel doing reasonable things, taking care of yourself reasonably, that's a certain kind of activity, and that's not separate from compassion. But compassion, I think, is wanting yourself to be free of the suffering, which means you want yourself to understand it and become free of it, so that even if it keeps happening, even if something like this keeps happening, you can be free. So you want yourself to become free of attachments. But in order to become free of attachments, we have to face our attachments. And that's no special deal, that's just not running away.

[48:23]

And if we face our attachments and see what they are, we'll see that they're dropped away. then compassion has done its job because now there's wisdom. And now the compassion is even purified of all duality. Does that make sense? So, everyone wants you to take good care of yourself. That's good. But when you're taking care of yourself, you do not have to be running away from what you're taking care of while you're trying to do it. You can be present every step of the way with how you feel And you can be taking care of yourself in the way of making yourself comfortable with your pain at whatever state it's in. So as you're walking around looking for food, you can relax into the pain of your headache and feel what it's like. And sometimes, as you may know, sometimes you feel what your headache's like, and then after a while you can't find your headache anymore.

[49:31]

And you say, but I was looking for food, I remember. So I probably should keep looking for it, even though I've become free of my headache. I've become enlightened in the process of trying to get lunch. But I think I should still keep begging for my lunch. Probably still a good idea, just like it was before. It wasn't a mistake that I was hungry. So you go ahead and have lunch. It's one of the basic principles of Buddhism. is that you eat before and after enlightenment. It's just that after enlightenment you're not using food to distract yourself from your suffering. You're using food as fuel to share your enlightenment, your freedom from suffering. But the Buddha did keep eating. I don't know offhand any comments he made about what he was eating.

[50:36]

Does anybody know about that? Did he say, hmm, that was good? Any sutras where he commented on how delicious the lunch was? It was mainly lunch. He was into lunch. No dinners and no breakfasts, but big lunches. Okay? Greg, does that answer your question somewhat? Vaughan? You have to look into your own mind and think about what you're doing there. Is that taking care of yourself? or distracting yourself? Is that an addiction or a reasonable thing to do?

[51:38]

Is that a way of turning away from life or just a reasonable thing to do? If the pain keeps you from sleeping, is sleeping a healthy thing? maybe like i know sometimes people have operations i've heard uh particularly open open heart operations and things like that and then there's lots of fluids in the chest afterwards and they're And they need to clear these fluids by coughing or sneezing or whatever, or breathing to move the fluids. But it's painful sometimes to breathe. So what sometimes people do is they kind of hold back on their breathing because they can't... It's so painful to breathe, even though they need to breathe to clear. You say, well, but if you give them some pain medication, then they can breathe and then move these fluids.

[52:43]

Now you might say, well, couldn't they just face the pain of the breathing and just go ahead and breathe? And I would say, well, yeah, it's probably better, actually, if you could actually breathe without taking the pain medication. But if you can't breathe and your chest is going to fill up, then probably you'd say, you know, in this case, maybe it'd be better for me to take it because I need to do this Otherwise, I'll probably die of fluid and fluid asphyxiation. So I've got to clear these fluids. And I just can't stand the pain of clearing them just by my breathing. It's too painful to breathe, so I'm going to take some pain medication to breathe. In that case, you're taking the medication because you feel like you'll die if you don't take it, given your levels of patience. So you accept that. But if you could breathe without it, it might be better. It might be some drawbacks to the medication. I don't know. So, yeah, in those cases you may feel, this is a reasonable thing to do.

[53:48]

Given my level, my ability to be with this pain, I can't be with this pain, and not being with this pain will make me not be able to sleep, or I just can't be with it, and I'm going to tense up, and I'm going to make it worse, so maybe if I take medication it's good. So maybe that's an example that's kind of confusing, a more complicated example. Because we have this high, we have all this technology of stuff, so it's kind of confusing sometimes. But I think, you know, sometimes you have a headache or something and you don't take the pain medication and it goes away by itself. Other times you have a headache, you take the pain medication and it goes away. So you have to kind of experiment. But I think the point is, look into your heart and are you trying to get away from this experience is that what you're up to or is this experience something you really feel is unhealthy for you to struggle with this pain that if you struggle with it you're going to like get into some unhealthy reaction because you're not able to settle with it and maybe you feel like a little painkiller will help me settle with it so you do that

[55:01]

This is an experimental thing, this finding your balance between self-mortification and indulgence. So again, you might feel like, oh, I'm supposed to not be running away from my pain. I'm not supposed to be indulging. Then you might go too far the other way and be too self-mortification. That's why it's nice if you're just always aware of your pain. Because you have a kind of through line of practicing compassion. So you're quite familiar with what it's like to be practicing compassion. And then when these other new pains come up throughout the day, you sort of have your feet on the ground already. And then you can like, you can say, oh, here comes another one. And it's not like out of the blue, so to speak. You know, you're coasting along with no pain and suddenly this pain comes up and you go into reaction and blah, blah. It's hard to tell, you know. Your reactions are so strong, it's kind of like

[56:02]

Jeez, I can't practice. So find yourself some suffering as soon as possible so that you don't get like, you know, shocked by a little suffering or even shocked by a big suffering. If you're working with a little suffering and a big one comes, you're better able to tell what it is. It's really nice to be in touch with it continuously. It's good for your health. And if you're in touch with it continuously, you must be finding a good way to do it, a relaxed way to do it. You can't keep it up if you're not doing it skillfully. Is there some kind of a... Are you trying to give me some information, Ann? Oh. I didn't, but I saw you.

[57:05]

Yes? I don't say to people, you know, don't take such and such a medication. I just try to get them to look at, you know, what's going on in your own mind? What are you up to there? Look at that and tell me about that. And sometimes their attitude towards such and such a medication is really, I feel, you know, off. And sometimes it's on. And it's possible the same person The medication might be perfectly fine to take and might be good for them, but that person could have a really off attitude or an on attitude about that.

[58:10]

A good practice attitude could be there or not there, even though the medication might be in itself basically a fairly good, reasonable experiment. But the person's attitude will make it bad for them, bad for their practice, because they're using this... You can use anything, you can use good things as addictions, right? But there's nothing wrong with the thing, it's just the way you're using it. You're using the thing to distract yourself. You can use exercise, you can use Buddhist scriptures, you can use being kind to people as a distraction. Even though the thing is fine, the way you're using it is to distract yourself from your pain. So it is a virtue, but you're misapplying it. Like you're feeling insecure so you do something so you can distract yourself from how you're feeling insecure. You still feel insecure after you do it. Like a lot of people try to do good things so that they can stop worrying about whether they're a good person.

[59:14]

Right? They don't just do the good thing because they want to do the good thing. They do the good thing because they're feeling like they're not sure they're a decent person. So they do the good thing and then they say, now I don't have to worry about whether I'm a good person or not. Because I am a good person because I did this thing. But as soon as they finish doing the thing again, then they're anxious again. Because that didn't really convince them. Because it is possible, you know. It's possible that we're not a good person. It's also possible we are a good person. That's what we're anxious, anxious, anxious, anxious. Because of the self. Is it a good one or a bad one? Is it a good one or a bad one? So you do a good thing. That's okay, the good thing's okay, but you're doing it because you don't want to face the question, am I okay? So I'm saying face that question, am I okay? Face that pain. Face that suffering. And if you're facing it, you're doing your job. And then you can do a good thing if you want to, but it's not to pull you off that awareness.

[60:20]

So I just say it again, you know, it's do good, yes, but don't use doing good as a, for example, as an indulgence in sensuous pleasure or as an indulgence or as a self-mortification. Don't use these things to distract yourself from what's going on. Yes, do them, but don't distract yourself with them. Don't use them as addictions to pull yourself away from what's happening. Okay? Yes? Yes? and the two side paths, which are flattened educations and levels. The question is that, if that's... Avoiding those, avoiding those, he says, avoiding those is entering the middle way.

[61:44]

And my conclusion comes from why you cannot be practicing, why we're thinking of those two. Particularly, my conclusion comes from... So, why you can't be practicing if you're indulging in sensual pleasure? If I were practicing in Central Plains, I don't see the difference between Central Plains, where you can meet with sexuality, but not experiencing a good run, or experiencing a walk in, appreciating the field. I don't see how you can't be uplifted in whatever action you take in Central Plains. He didn't say you can't be upright in sensual pleasures. It says addiction to sensual pleasures or indulgence in sensual pleasures.

[62:51]

He didn't say having a pleasure, you have to abandon having a pleasure. He didn't say you have to abandon having a pain. It's the indulging in the pain and indulging in the pleasure. It's being addicted to it. To use those things as a way to get away from what's happening. To look at a color, a pleasant color, as a way to get away from what's happening. It is possible to be upright in pleasure and in pain. Me? Right. Yeah, right. That was a statement, right? You just made a statement? I agree. So can we be ardent about the middle way, the way we're ardent about these other two devotions?

[64:13]

Can you identify your devotion and see that you are a devoted person perhaps, but now can you be devoted to this middle way? Mm-hmm. No. Devotion does not mean indulgence. Being ardent about the middle way doesn't mean indulgence in it. The middle way is not really something. It's just not, you know, It's just not running away from what's happening. It's not something in itself to indulge in. Did you find something to indulge in?

[65:24]

No? No? It's hard to find something to indulge in in the middle way. That's why it's not very popular. There's not really something there to, you know, get your teeth into. You're being devoted to, you know, you're just being devoted to what's, to how things are. So, there's nothing in it for you You say, well, what about the insight and the knowledge and the calm and the enlightenment and nirvana? That's not for you. That's for the middle way. It sets people free from being concerned about themselves.

[66:30]

And we're concerned about ourselves because of ignorance. We can't help it. But when you're free of being concerned about yourself, that means you're free of ignorance. You're free of ignorance when you see how things are. Because ignorance is about looking away from how things are. So how are things now? Kind of like enough is enough?

[67:06]

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