Now I would like to continue to discuss the Eightfold Path. Do you know what the Eightfold Path is? Yes. Do you know what the Eightfold Path is, madam? Do you know what the Eightfold Path is? Pardon? You read about it? What did you read about it? Do you remember what the Eightfold Path consists of? No? Do you remember, Elisha?

[01:02]

You don't? Oh, good. Well, first one, the first aspect, the first path factor, the first aspect of the Eightfold Path is called right view. It's coming back to you? Right... Speech? Action. Intention. Amen. Amen. write speech write speech and then write action and then write write livelihood and then write go ahead then write write effort and then write Do you think it's helpful about Q to actually say that? I think if you say it, if you hear yourself say it, it builds it in your mind.

[02:07]

Just say it. So then what was it? Right concentration? I should say right dog. Right mindfulness. And then right concentration. So right view or right understanding, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. Those are the traditional ways of expressing the Eightfold Path. And as I mentioned before, right can mean right or correct, but it also actually has the connotation of comprehensive or total or complete. So it's not like correct view, like this is the right view and there's a wrong... It's not like there's a right view and a wrong view and right view is like the right side and wrong view is like on the other side.

[03:14]

Right view is a total view. complete view of what's happening. Which you can call correct, too, if you want. But it's not correct, which is the opposite of incorrect. It is totally including incorrect. There's no, like, incorrect outside of right view. It sees how correct and incorrect in a dualistic sense interact. ... And so we've been talking for a while about this, and now tonight, last week, and I think a little bit more tonight, we'd like to talk about the fourth factor, which is right action. And In a literal sense, it means it follows right speech, and it refers to actions actually of the body.

[04:24]

Speech is also action, but traditionally taught as action of the body. The comprehensive or complete way of acting. That's what it's really about. That's the way of acting with your body that will set you and all beings free from suffering. A way of acting that is in harmony with totality. Yes? Yes? Didn't you say earlier on that the actions of the mind also have karmic ramifications? Yes. Definitely. And it would also... In a sense, you could say the actions of the mind are... Which one of the four do you think it might be?

[05:41]

Right mind? Huh? Mindfulness and intention. No, mindfulness isn't an action. No. Thought. Right thought or right thinking. That would be emphasizing the way of using the mind We've translated right thought as right intention? It actually can be right intention, right thought, or right motivation even. Because, I'm getting a little off track here now, but in a sense off track of talking about right action, but back to thinking of mind, the thinking is actually the definition of mental karma. If you have a moment of consciousness, the shape of that moment of consciousness is its thinking. And that shape, or that pattern of the various constituents of a moment of experience, or a moment of consciousness, that defines the basis of mental karma.

[06:57]

That is mental karma. That's the definition of mental karma, and that is the thinking. My question is also, do you think that mental karma has kind of effect on other people as well? Does it have effect on other people? Does it produce kind of, I don't know what, you know, effects that... Did you say mental karma? Yeah. You know, I think this is very interesting, but before I get into answering your question, I have to point out that, I don't have to, but I'd like to point out that the total, the complete thought, okay, complete thought, the kind of thought which liberates you is not karmic thought.

[07:59]

Okay? Alright? Just like the kind of physical expression that liberates beings is not karma, actually, either. And I think if you can... Okay, so picture now, you have right speech, comprehensive total speech, total physical action and total mental action, okay? At that level, body, speech and thought, okay, on a total level, in all those cases, there is no harm and there is no karma, and there is liberation. All right? Now if you move down from that level into each of those categories, okay, as you come into karma, which means that you come away from the total view into a partial view, into a limited view, and particularly you come into a view of an independent self, across the board of those three types of actions.

[09:09]

Not those three types of actions, but those three aspects of liberation. Comprehensive speech, comprehensive action, and comprehensive thought. If you move down from that comprehensive perspective to a partial perspective, namely, limited self, separate from others, then those three realms would correspond to three kinds of karma. Okay? And then for it to be... Then it would shift maybe from comprehensive speech, comprehensive thought, and comprehensive thinking, comprehensive intention, and comprehensive physical action, physicality. It would maybe move into more like right speech, right action, and right thought. Because when you come into the partial view, it's more like right and wrong, and you're in the realm of right and wrong. And then you start getting into descriptions of what's wrong and how you should abstain from those wrong things.

[10:15]

So under right speech, when it comes into the realm of karma, then you say right speech is to abstain from lying, to abstain from gossip, which is very similar to speaking of others' faults, sensationalizing people. idle gossip, idle chatter, just wasting your time kind of talk, and harsh speech. Those are four kinds of speech that you abstain from, and then positively speaking, you speak kindly, with the intention to benefit, truthfully, and that kind of truth-saying would go with the kind of thought that was concerned with thinking about what's true. And the actions also then would correspond to abstaining from killing, in the grossest sense, killing, stealing, and sexual misconduct at that level.

[11:23]

Now, if you say, if you come back down, so that's, does that make sense? The comprehensive total, and then moving down into the good karmic version, which is often phrased, first of all, by abstaining from these negative karmic actions based on these three modalities, these three dimensions of our being, which can be converted into karma if we have dualistic thinking. And if you're going to act karmically, then you should act in these ways of abstaining from these unwholesome dimensions. So you abstain from selfish thoughts, from hurtful thoughts, from envious thoughts in the realm of right thought or right thinking. Now, Is your question, I'll get back to your question, is your karma, does your karma affect other people, the thoughts you have?

[12:30]

Does it affect other people? Is that what you think? I just thought of a new question, but yeah. Pardon? I just thought of a new question, but yeah. Back to your old question? Yeah. I would say for practical purposes, at that realm, no, it does not. That your karma, the shape of your consciousness, does not affect other people's consciousness at that level. Now if you move into the level where you're interdependent with everything, then everything about you affects everything about you, and everything about you affects everything in the universe, and everything in the universe determines the nature of your mind. But the level of karma, it's your own personal shape, it's your own personal mind, and you're responsible for participating in that as an individual. That's the way you think about it. And then it's recommended, if you're operating at that level, to be very careful and observant of the nature of your karmic formations in your mind. But they don't, they don't actually, in that realm, you don't have to take responsibility for its effect on other people, except as karmic acts.

[13:41]

But it doesn't, it doesn't as mind affect them, but it sets the stage for verbal and physical things which do affect people, of course, in a big way. So, If you're operating in a karmic level, observing and keeping track of the shape of your mind, the kind of thinking you're doing, is observing and keeping track of your intention, your motivation. It's thinking, but thinking is actually the specific shape of your motivation. If you watch your motivation, there will always be some thought or thinking going on before verbal and physical karma. So by carefully watching your thinking, you're watching your motivation, then you can see if this speech is coming from an unwholesome thinking process, or if this physical action is coming from an unwholesome thinking process.

[14:43]

And if it is, then it's recommended to abstain from that speech and that physical action. And that thinking process? And also abstain from... No, it's already happening. I know, but you said before something about... Oh, I see, yeah. In the realm of abstaining from... Abstain from, but if it's already happening, you haven't abstained from it. The only way I can think of abstaining from certain thought processes is to suppress them. So, I mean... If they're there, they're just there. Well, if they're there, they're just there, so suppressing them isn't it. Okay? That's not it. So what would be it? If suppressing isn't it, what would be another possibility? We're talking about, again, the level of, in some sense, working with your thinking.

[15:44]

You've got some negative elements in your thinking. What would it mean to abstain from that? It's already happened. What does it mean to abstain from it? Let go of them. Let go of them. Also, don't do it again. Study them. Study them. When you notice a kind of angry, cruel thought arising in your mind that you want to harm somebody or you want to, like, you know... use somebody in an unhelpful, harmful way. If you notice that, you can then try to think of how did this happen? How can I think of something positive to antidote that? These kinds of things. Also, you can think of something else which doesn't really relate to it that's also positive. Not necessarily something that's an antidote or directly opposed to it or anything, but just some positive thing. Remember that you have once or more in your life thought of doing great benefit for a lot of people.

[16:48]

And remember that. And then perhaps act upon some thinking in that regard. And acting upon that has a tendency to promote further thoughts which are not is of the negative quality. So the verbal and physical actions based on the positive thing tend to structure your mind so that the unwholesome thoughts don't tend to arise in the first place. So if you see unwholesome thoughts and you can respond to them by generating positive thoughts and then act and speak upon those positive thoughts, that structures your mind to reduce the likelihood of the negative thoughts arising in the first place. But if they do arise and you notice them, and you see the impulse to act verbally or physically upon them, it is a good idea to not do that. To actually try to stop and suppress the speech. Suppress the speech. And suppress the physical action. But you can't suppress the thought because it's already going on.

[17:50]

It's happening. But if you see it, you can guard against physically and verbally enacting these things. However, this realm of behavior... Although, if you're in this realm of karma, this is what's recommended by just about everybody. We'll forget about whether it's everybody, but it's recommended by somebody. in that realm, this kind of negotiations will not in itself set you free, because it's based on delusion. It's based on the delusion that you're thinking, that you're operating it, that you're doing it, and that those people you're relating to are other than you. This realm is, you know, we have to take good care of ourselves in this realm, because this is a very dangerous realm, because this is a realm built on delusion. It is the theater of delusion. We're constantly in danger of causing harm because the whole situation is cockeyed. So we have to be very careful in the realm of where we're doing things by ourselves independent of other people.

[18:57]

Because we're basically walking, breathing, thinking delusions. We have to be careful of that, and if we are careful with that, it generates, it tends to generate the opportunity to start appreciating the totality of the situation. It reminds me of what you were saying about the power of intention involved in taking the precepts as opposed to, you know, wanting to. Uh-huh. Just kind of creating the atmosphere. Right. Like the mind and the attentions run in more positive or productive channels. Right. And by working with your karma in this way and be patient with the fact that we have to work with karma, we have to be careful of this. The great Zen masters also did this work.

[20:01]

And they didn't do it just at the beginning. They did it all whenever karmic consciousness manifested. They had to do this work. And doing this work provides the opportunity to do the liberating work. And the liberating work, the first step in the liberating work, is a key issue here in right action, and it is renunciation. It is giving up what's, you know, can be construed as any selfish motivation, and settling in to what's happening. settling into what's happening. If we settle into what's happening and become completely harmonious in accord with what's happening, then these karmic actions can't happen. Because we're living in a world where we're no longer operating as individual. We realize that realm of interdependence. We settle into what's happening. What's happening is that all beings are helping us right now to live, and we are helping all beings.

[21:08]

That's actually what's happening. If you let go of the world where you are operating independently of other beings, and some people are helping you, and some people aren't, and you're helping some people, and some people you aren't helping. You let go of that world, and you settle into the actuality of how things are actually coming to be. And then you see things that way, and then you cannot, then you no longer abstain from evil karma, it's impossible for you. Also positive karma is impossible for you. If someone was watching you, they'd watch you walking around and they'd think, oh, he's doing all this, she's doing all this good karma, being very pleasant and kind to people and so on. But you yourself would not see it as you are being a kind person. And you're walking from here to there. It would just be things coming to be, things coming to be, things coming to be. And you'd know that you had a body and a voice and all that, but they would be acting out of that complete thought, complete thinking, and complete speech, complete action.

[22:18]

But we... we need to settle into the details of what is meant by unwholesome karma, so that we, you know, in some ways, the more we are willing to deal with the details of karma, the more we settle into and are ready to practice renunciation, and the more we practice renunciation, the more we're willing to deal with the details. It isn't that people are free, sort of say, well now I'm free, so now I don't have to mess with this stuff anymore. No, you're all the more willing to deal with the details. It encourages you and supports you to get into the tediousness of having the ability to think karmically, which might not go away, even though you have some taste of liberation from the whole process. So, I don't know if the new people, so to speak, that just dropped in here and I don't have any idea what I'm talking about, but this happened. This is an example of something that's happening.

[23:24]

I'm talking about this. I hope you can settle into it. Yes? Can you elaborate a little bit on the last thing you said? I didn't understand. Were you talking about going into the tediousness of the karmic realm supports you? Pardon? You said something about going into the karmic realm or working with that Oh, if you're willing, you know, so, I was talking earlier about, you know, we were talking earlier about air points meeting, or boxing cover joining, these expressions we have in Zen. And I've spoken before about resistance, you know. If there's something happening, let's say something's happening, let's say there's something actually happening. And now it's over. Now something else is actually happening. Generally speaking, human beings have difficulty not resisting what's happening.

[24:24]

So what's happening is like, we have difficulty not pushing it a little bit. Would you move over there a little bit and happen a little bit different? Or would you come over this way and happen a little different? There's two kinds of resistance, basically. Resisting, fighting against it, or giving in to it. But to meet something, you know, just right, not adding or subtracting anything, this is hard for us to do. We have no power then. We just are in accord with what's happening, which is, of course, totally happy and nice and wonderful and all that, but it's not our personal trip anymore. if you are willing to come into and meet, if you're still involved, which we are, in thinking in terms of karma, of I do this and I do that, and you do that and you do that, and I do this this way, as long as you're involved in these things, these are things that are happening, in a sense. If you meet them just to what they are, and are willing to deal with it without sort of like, oh boy, I'm going to really get something out of this meditation, or I don't want to do this meditation, or I'll get into this teaching, or I'll do this because people want me to, or I'm not going to do it because they want me to, but just meet things as they are, that's renunciation right there, a little bit.

[25:44]

And you're also dealing with the phenomena just enough to take care of them, no more, no less. The willingness to take care of these details starts settling you into what's happening. And then once you're settling into what's happening, when more details, even tedious things like, you've got to be very careful now not to talk too loud or too softly. If you talk too loud, it'll hurt people's ears. If you talk too softly, they can't hear you. You've got to be sure that you say precisely what you mean, not more than you mean, not less than you mean. You've got to express yourself fully, but not so fully that you hurt people, because that's Too much, that's not really what you have to say. How do you carefully express yourself verbally and physically all day long? It's kind of tedious, kind of hard. Moment after moment after moment after moment, being right there, meeting the situation precisely, not too much, not too little. It's hard. It takes real presence, and when you're tired, it's really hard. Or if you're in pain, it's really hard to meet that pain and meet that fatigue.

[26:48]

Like, you know, not shrink back from the fatigue and not try to, like, push the fatigue over, you know? It's very hard not to jack yourself up to push the fatigue or crumble under it. It's how do you meet fatigue, you know? By being willing to meet these things, you settle into the what's happening. You get yourself ready to renounce everything but what's happening. And we can never hold on to what's happening, so basically being with what's happening... is like renouncing, trying to grasp what's happening. You favor what's actually happening over what you can use. You can't use what's happening. We have no power with what's happening. But if you make what's happening into something over there, then you can grasp it and move it around. And as a kind of resistance to what's happening is to make it into something you can use. Or make it into something you can't use, like it's unusable, rather than need it.

[27:53]

Here's an example, a really interesting example. You're going to think this is so interesting. Maybe you won't. But I thought it was really interesting. Yesterday, I went to a library. And it was about 6 o'clock. And I drove into the parking lot. I looked in the library and I saw people coming out, quite a few people coming out, and the lights didn't seem to be on. But some of the lights were on, so I went towards the library and a man was in the parking lot and I said, is the library closed? And he said, I don't know. So I walked up to the library and I looked at the time on the library, it was yesterday, Tuesday, and it said closing at 6 o'clock. So... The library was closed, so I left the library, went back to my car, and I saw this guy, and I said, it's closed. And he says, is it open late tomorrow night again? Is it going to be open late tomorrow night, like it usually is? And I said, I think so.

[28:56]

I got in my car, and I thought, why did I lie to him? Why did I lie to him? And I drove to another library, which was open till 9 or something, and I sat down, and I put some paper up in front of me, and I started writing down, why did I lie to him? And I wrote down some possibilities of why I lied to him. It was so easy to tell the truth, really, in a way. Why did I lie? You see, I said, I think so, but actually, you see, I didn't look at the rest of the week. I didn't look, so I didn't know that it was open later in the week. I didn't know. But when he asked me, I said, I think so. But that wasn't true. I didn't think so. I didn't even know. All I would have had to say was, I don't know. I didn't, I mean, I don't know. And I can explain. I don't know because I didn't look at the rest of the schedule. That's all I had to say. That would have been true. I don't know.

[29:58]

And I give explanation about why I didn't know. How come I didn't do that? I wasn't in that big a hurry. I really wasn't. Theoretically, I wouldn't have mind to tell him, but I said, I said, I don't know. And then I could have turned around a few more steps and said, well, actually, I don't know isn't quite the right thing to say. What I should say is, no, I think so. I think so is not quite right. What I should say is, I don't know. That's what I should say, actually. And the reason why I don't know is because I didn't look. But I would be happy to go back and look, if you want me to, and come back and tell you. I could have done that. I actually had plenty of time. But I at least could have, even if I didn't go back and check it for him, I could have said that. But I didn't. I don't know exactly when it hit me that I lied. But I thought, well, part of the reason was it's a little bit It's kind of like I was hoping that it would be open for him.

[31:02]

I hope it's open tomorrow night, because if you want to come there, I hope it's open. Or, if it usually is open on Wednesday nights, I hope it is, or probably it is. Or, you know, probably, I think so. You know, if you think so, I think so. And all that stuff, you know. But what seemed more true was I didn't want to be intimate with him. I didn't want to tell him what was going on in my head. Some stranger saying, you know, Is it open? I said, well, you know, I don't know. I didn't look on the chart. I didn't want to get into it with him. It wasn't because I was in a hurry. It didn't naturally that I wanted to tell him just flat out the simple truth, I don't know. I didn't want to tell him, I didn't know. I didn't want to disappoint him because I didn't know. I didn't want to not be able to help him. I didn't want to... It's such a little thing, but to be there like that... That's what it takes. And just the small things which aren't really that bad.

[32:02]

That was an easy one. To be there, and I wasn't in a hurry even. And I wasn't even, I didn't have a headache. But to be there in those kinds of situations, that's what it takes. To speak and act and think and watch your karma like that. So then, you know, and then at the library, I remember when I was leaving the library, I went up to the librarian and I asked her where the restroom was. But she's on the telephone, you know, and how do you, you know, get in there where the person's on the telephone, you know, and you don't want to bother them and, you know, and be there for that interaction. I wasn't. I missed that one, too. I did okay in the restroom, but... So, uh, To be there and meet the situation, you know? To be there and meet the situation, mindfulness has to be applied. You have to bring mindfulness to your thinking.

[33:03]

Bring mindfulness to your thinking. Meditate, be aware of what is the shape of your consciousness. Where is this speech coming from? Where is this action coming from? And listen to yourself when you talk. What did I just say? Was that true? And if not, why did I veer away from the truth? What was my motivation? Let me go back and look at your motivation. And again, this kind of meditation on the minute details of thought, speech, and physical action bring you, gradually settle you into what's happening. And when you get totally with what's happening, in order to be totally with what's happening, you have to renounce all your trips. And just really come gradually through this kind of effort into complete settling with just what's happening. And as you start to settle into what's happening, you have to start taking into the dynamism of that, of how the way the person asks you affects the way you have trouble answering them.

[34:08]

The fact that you kind of want to help them or you don't want to help them affects the interdependence that you start to settle into that. When you're perfectly settled with that, then from that place comes right speech, right action, right thought. Spontaneously. But we have to work hard to get ourselves to the place where these, where right speech, where comprehensive speech, comprehensive action and comprehensive thought naturally come up. And mindfulness is applied to the world of karma to get us to the place where non-karma comes up. That make sense? Very hard though, isn't it? So hard. Martin? It just occurs to me that often you don't need to register with your eyesight everything in order for it to become conscious on a different level. And you could have scanned and passing a timetable and in your unconscious at some point there could have been the awareness that the line would be open Wednesday evening.

[35:13]

So when you said to him, yes, or you think so, that could be coming. Yes. So how does one, because that happens quite often, that we're actually not fully conscious of everything that's coming in, but we are conscious more or less of what's coming out, and so if I say to myself I'm lying, when I say I think so, it could be that you actually are not lying. Yeah. But that seems to be a very tricky area, because if I say to myself I'm lying, that's not true, because it's a different level, of understanding or an intuition that actually I am aware that the library, or maybe three years ago it was open. But then why would I say I think so? Instead of, yes it is. Because that's where you're not actually conscious, fully conscious of it, but it's lingering there in the subconscious. It's like an intuition. You can say, I think so. Yeah, I think what you're saying is possible, but in my case, I think I felt like it was a lie. I think I felt like I copped out.

[36:15]

Like I wasn't really, well, you know, I could also say, well, how come I didn't notice about Wednesday night too? How come I didn't check the rest of the schedule in case anybody asked me? I mean, I was there. It could have been that pretty easy. And for future reference too, I've had quite a relationship with that library. I have many stories about that library. But I felt that I wasn't really present, you know. I felt like I flinched when he asked me and didn't say the best thing at that time. Now, I could have said, it's possible I could have said, I don't know, and then suddenly I would have this little insight, oh, I do know. Or, I don't know, but somehow I feel like it is. I didn't really clearly notice the schedule, but somehow I kind of feel like maybe in the corner of my eye I saw kind of a nine there.

[37:22]

Charlie? It reminds me of traveling in India. There was this thing that would happen all the time where you'd ask people how to get somewhere, and they'd never say, I don't know. It would be... It's a disgrace to say, I don't know, so we'll just completely make it up. And you don't just get lost. You wish they would just tell you they don't know. It would save you time and trouble. And they think they're helping, but they're really hindering. Yeah, they want to be helpful. Yeah, so it's hard. And the problem is that sometimes some of the people do know the way. Yeah. So it's not always they give you the wrong directions, so you could just go, you know... So in India, that's the very complex situation to settle into, is the situation of you're a person who asks for directions and there are people who tell you something no matter whether they know or not, and you settle into that world.

[38:29]

Very difficult to settle into that world. But if you can, Even though you don't get to the place you want to go, you practice a full path. And there's the trickiness... You probably wind up, you know, where? Bodh Gaya, right? All roads lead to Bodh Gaya. And there's the sort of trickiness of the intention to benefit people. Yeah, right. But not actually, you know... not paying attention to really good things. Right. I was a little bit wanted to... I was hoping, you know, I kind of wanted to say, I think, Zoe, that would be nice for you. I actually kind of... We had kind of a friendly interchange both going towards and back from the library. And I didn't want to just say, I don't know. It seemed like a not very nice gift. It didn't occur to me that I could just a second, I'll go over and check. There was something about...

[39:29]

There was something about be nice rather than be intimate. Do the nice thing rather than the thing which would really tell them something about me. Like we often do, people say, how are you feeling? You feel, you know, you're feeling lousy, but you say, fine. Or you're not sure they really want to get in, and you're not sure that you really want to get into it. You really want to tell them. Sometimes you think, well, they don't want to hear that I'm not feeling fine. But actually, you don't want to get into what they'll say if you say you're not feeling fine. Some people say, you know they'll say, well, are you taking herbs? If I didn't see you, if I didn't see you, come on over to my house, I'll give you the help. And you tell them. Just tell some people they're going to be so helpful it's going to take the rest of your day. So it's not that they're not helpful, you just don't want to get into a really intimate relationship with them. It's not so much that they'll be bothered, you don't want to get into it. So you say, fine.

[40:32]

And then you get past the relationship and all you've got is a headache instead of the headache plus... this person dedicated to your welfare following you all over the place, right? Making sure, did you take the vitamin C? How'd I get you? Yes. I mean, no. You know, they give you the medicine, right? And then they check to see if you took it and if you didn't, you feel bad saying that you didn't because they gave it to you, right? And also when they gave it to you, you didn't say, I don't want the vitamin C. I don't want the vitamin C because I'm not going to take it. I don't want to carry this to my house and then come back and tell you tomorrow that I didn't take it and have you feel bad. If you feel bad right now, I don't want it. I don't want to make you feel bad. Now you've got a headache. Here you are trying to help me. I'm rejecting your help. You're so mean of me. What a rat. I'm sorry. But actually my headache went away. Your headache will often go away in these situations.

[41:35]

When you get into it, your headache goes away. But who wants to... It doesn't always go away. And if you don't have a headache, you might get one. It's dangerous. But there's a great opportunity there. And the other way is dangerous too. Because after a while you start having no relationship with anybody and always trying to be nice and try to say what you think is nice and avoiding everything that would not be nice and then, you know. But somehow you miss out in the deal and you're not really settling into what's happening because you're not taking into account, you're not really getting in there and dealing with the details. Minute details. So difficult. And that reminds me of something that you said, Meredith, okay, which I thought was very helpful. I was talking about, you know, how if you're having trouble, like in a class or something, you're having trouble, and a teacher's, you know, very enthusiastically saying blah, blah, blah, and it's like the teacher's saying, you know, there's this expression speaking ex cathedra.

[42:38]

You know that expression? Ex cathedra means out of the cathedral. Like the... Like the pope. Yeah, like the pope or the archbishop or, you know, the priest who... Whoever lives in the cathedral, could be the dean, I guess, right? They come out, they stand in front of the theater and they say, So there's a way of speaking ex-cathedra. And I have that, I speak ex-cathedra. I'm sorry, I do. I once did a workshop with a yoga teacher. And afterwards, we had a kind of question and answer. And afterwards, my wife asked him how the question and answer session was. And he said, well, it's kind of like having a press conference with God. I said, Reb tends to speak ex cathedra, you know, like he would, people would ask him questions and start saying blah, blah, blah, and I'm speaking, the cathedral door opens, blah. So when, so when a person speaks ex cathedra, it's like, you know, this is like the latest table bull, right?

[43:40]

And everybody goes kind of like, well, if that's absolute reality, and I don't agree, I'm in trouble, right? So, you know, or... And then Meredith pointed out to me that, she said, have you ever done what they call interactive journals with people? She said when she teaches kids, sometimes they have difficulty You know, interacting with the teacher in front of the other kids can be embarrassing. And because you know what, sometimes kids now are embarrassed when they're happening, but afterwards the other kids sometimes tease them, right? That was really stupid what you said today in class. You are a moron. I hate you. Or, you know, we're not playing with you anymore, Meredith, because, you know, you blew it in class today. You can't be in our club anymore. Kids do this kind of stuff, right? Now, at Zen Center, I don't think you do that, right? If you make a comment in class, but actually sometimes I heard that did happen to somebody, that they made a comment in class and afterwards some people said, I think that was really good, and some other people said, I think, you know, that was actually, you weren't very respectful of the teacher.

[44:45]

That actually happens here. So the person kind of, oh God, you know. So even here, somewhat similar, but maybe not as bad as with little kids, it's dangerous to talk in a group. It's dangerous. So if you have these interactive journals, you can write and express yourselves and then give that to the teacher later, and you avoid this difficulty, which I think is actually a good idea, and I recommend that to you people if you don't want to talk in a group. do an interactive journal, and I'd be happy to read. Or if you don't want me to read it, give it to somebody else. Well, will you write back? No, I won't write back. No, I won't write back. That's impossible. I can't write. But there's another side. Huh? What? Well, I mean, I can write, but I write like I could answer half of one of the people's thing a week. I'm writing a book right now. That's taking all my writing. Besides that, it's just like little tiny little notes.

[45:47]

I can't keep, I can't interact with real writers. But I can read a little bit. Yeah, I get tape, yeah. Another way that it's used is that an issue is just brought to light through this sort of anonymous... student. Right. And so the teacher can then bring it up in class and then he address this issue and it doesn't ever have to be noted who that person was. Yeah, it's another way, right. It's much more comfortable. Yeah. It can be anonymous. Writing back and just speaking. Yeah. That way is good. So I just appreciate the feedback from anybody who, if you can't do it in a room right now, want me to say who it is, that often helps. process I would say any contribution you can make basically with wholesome intent is welcome writing or in class or after class or whatever

[46:54]

When I'm in a situation like walking back from the library, I think if I was walking out of the library with that book that I'd been waiting for for a month and that I couldn't wait to get home to read, that I might have said, oh, I'll go check for you because I didn't look. Or I might have been more likely to have looked. But if I find out that the library's closed and I get this thing like, Like I somehow have just been chipped by the world, you know, and I get that like little bit of disappointment, and that makes me checked out just enough that my probability of meeting somebody is decreased. Yeah, right. Well, if you're checked out, then you're checked out. So then it's going to be hard for you to meet the next person. So that even like the disappointment is the checking out. Yeah, yeah. So how can we not check out? When we're disappointed, how can we stay there with that disappointment and feel the disappointment and stay present with that so we can meet the next situation? It's very hard, but that's what's required in order to, first of all, not do unwholesome karma, because if you're checked out, then these unwholesome impulses, these thoughts that arise in your mind, you're not there to watch them, so then they can slip into action, into physical and verbal karma, untended,

[48:19]

So the karma gets bad, and then because karma gets bad, bad karma tends to lead you to check out more and more and more and more. Good karma has a tendency to support you coming closer and closer and closer to the karma. When you get completely immersed and completely aware exactly of the karma, you become liberated from the karmas. And good karma helps you get in sync with your karma. Unwholesome karma makes it... interferes with your being synchronized with your... totally at peace with... and settled with your karma. Yes? What is the special quality of right actions? What's the special quality of it? Yeah, you started to say it had to do with body. So, I was just wondering what sort of things that would be. You mean how the body acts? Yeah. When it's coming from... Yeah, we've been talking a lot about right speech.

[49:24]

You know, and I guess you can't, and thought, and I guess in some way you can't separate that from the acts of the body, but... Right. Well, if it's like comprehensive action... Yeah, yeah. Well... People look at such a person, and they feel, they not only feel kind of good... I'm not saying a good, like, positiveness of it, but they feel inspired. They watch, they see how the person is and they feel inspired to emulate and understand how it would be to have a body that walks around like that. They feel the person has dignity and it's the dignity which makes them feel their dignity. You look at the Buddha, you don't look at the Buddha and feel like, oh, I'm a creep. You look at the Buddha and say, Well, I want to be like that and I think actually that has something to do with the way I actually am. That's kind of like the way I actually am and I want to be more like that.

[50:29]

So the ideal is that the actual physical presence inspires people to practice and helps them be mindful and settle into awareness of what they're doing. You can tell the person is careful of the way they're moving. you feel that they're being careful, you feel that they're aware. And not only are they aware, but they're aware in an attractive way. They're not aware in a kind of like picky, you know, okay, I'm going to get across the room now and not hurt myself, and I'm going to be okay now, and this is going to be good for me. It's more like they're careful, and they're careful in a way that conveys respect for the whole situation. It's not just a self-protective carefulness, it's a carefulness which shows, I'm careful of all my relations because of the carefulness. And you feel that and you're attracted to it. There's some people who are very careful about things, but the way they're careful about it makes other people not want to be careful.

[51:34]

You know? That's happened sometimes in Zen centers. Some people are washing dishes. Huh? Make them nervous. Yeah. Some people are washing dishes and they're washing dishes so carefully that everybody else never wants to wash dishes again. Like, well, that's what it means to be careful. I don't want to be careful. But somebody else washes dishes in such a way that makes it look like, boy, that looks like fun. Let me do it. In a way that the Buddha is a partly Tom Sawyer kind of thing. Except that the Buddha really does like to paint the fence. He doesn't just do that to get other people to practice Buddhism. He actually enjoys it. And actually the Buddha does keep practicing Buddhism even after the forms of Buddhism, the Eightfold Path and so on. The Buddha keeps practicing these things, these practices, being careful of karma, even when the Buddha does not any longer have to be careful of karma.

[52:37]

The Buddha continues to be careful of karma. And the Buddha actually said, so you may wonder, he was talking to this Italian guy... Yeah, an Italian disciple. His name was Yaffa Nessa. Anyway, he said, you may think, sir, that the Buddha is not really liberated because otherwise why would I continue to do these practices if I'm liberated? And in fact, it's true. I don't need to do these practices anymore. I just do them because I like to. It's fun to test your liberation by seeing if you can deal with the details of daily life. Can you get into and handle all the complexities of our relationships? That sounds like practice and realization are two things. It does? Oh, I thought it sounded like they were one. How did I get that? Well, you made it sound like, oh, there is realization and then practice is kind of optional, but since it's so much fun, it's chosen.

[53:41]

Yeah, but it is chosen. So... But it's not chosen because there were two anymore. Before it was chosen because there were two. You see? Before realization you choose practice because it's not realization. You're doing it to get realization. By realization you do practice because it's what you want to do. Buddha is Buddha just because Buddha liked to be Buddha, not because Buddha wants to be Buddha. Not trying to get to be Buddha. But it's because you want to now, not because you have to. We have to practice. Buddha doesn't have to, but likes to. So, funny thing is, we have to, but at the same time, if we were Buddha, we would just want to. So when you just want to, rather than trying to get anything out of it, when you want to practice, but not trying to make yourself better, Then you're just like Buddha, because Buddha just wants to. And except for one other thing, he said, there's two reasons why I keep doing these practices which could be seen as tedious, and why do I keep doing them anyway if I've gotten the fruit?

[54:42]

One is because I like to, I enjoy it, it's my favorite thing. The other is for the sake of setting an example for future generations. So there's two reasons. So they keep doing it because they like to, but also so that they do it because when they do it, when the Buddha goes and does it, other people want to do it too because it looks so groovy when the Buddha does it. Like I'm sitting there on that tree. So let's go sit on a tree too. Different tree, but let's go sit on a tree. Oh, look at him walking so mindfully. Oh, look at him eating, you know, putting the food right in his mouth. Look at him chewing. Look at her being nice to these people. It's not just being nice, it's just beauty. It's so natural. It's not a trip. It's not to get something. It's not to impress people. It's just coming right out of the tissues of the person. It's lovely. It's like a horse running across the field except it's wholesome karma. But it's not karma. It's karma but not karma. And so attractive.

[55:44]

We want to try it too, right? They're not sitting there like, I am doing the beautiful thing and you should now emulate it. No. It's, I'm having a good time. How about you? Kind of thing. And you're kind of like, yeah, me too. Yeah. So, it's when you think that you're ordained. Like that. That's how the people got ordained. I want to join this practice. That's it. And your hair falls off. But I'm just kidding. Just kidding. The Buddha had hair too, you know. Cute little curls. Blue hair. Blue hair, yeah. Blue hair, golden skin. Anyway, it's getting late. So I'll let you go to sleep now. So you can get up and practice if you want to. If you want to. Thank you very much.

[56:47]

Good night.

[56:48]

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