No Abode Dharma Talk - July 10th, 2021, Morning

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The first in-person meeting at No Abode since 2020

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somebody just came to see me and showed me his rock sioux
and on the back of his rock sioux
it's it's written in chinese homage to great compassion
and then people hang their rocks is on the rack outside the toilets mango by and i read the rocker i read the roxas
and so one of the rocks as i read was eyes of compassion observe sentient beings another rocks so i read was
ah compassion forest
where are your compassion forest yeah
so anyway ah there's a lot of compassion written on the back of your robes
and
we just started series of
of classes or meditation sessions at the yoga room and the topic of the
series is zen meditation on great compassion

and also we we have a text which is sort of in the background of our discussions
a text on compassion written in the fourth century in india
by the great for a sanga
just thirty four verses and but still we will have it'll be hard to get through those thirty four vs and seven weeks but we got through to suffer
and the first two are about listing up
objects of compassion
and
yeah
and in that first class i was gonna talk i was considering talking about something but i thought
maybe too much maybe not ready for it
and i must admit to you that working on line if i bring up something difficult it's hard for me to see how the assembly is dealing with it
because the and i can't i can't see the whole assembly even if i'm looking on gallery view i can't see everyone
and so if somebody's having difficulty
it's hard for me to pick up
and even if i just look at the m gallery view i can't see people's faces very well and also their bodies aren't aren't there either for me
so but today i can you know i can feel you all and
and you can feel each other and you know it's not just me sensing you as you sensing each other to the intelligence of our bodies together is what so makes these kinds of meetings so
precious
and workable and there's a chance that we can like actually like include each other the original practice it so i'm going to bring up here some really difficult things
that i and i and i hope that by bringing and up here first
that said the people here who were in the yoga room series we can develop kind of our herd immunity to these difficult to these difficult teachings so if you if you get exposed to them now and you can kind of like vac we can get vaccinated from these very difficult
intrusive teachings because they're kind of challenging
they they kind of challenge our human sentiments
the teachings aren't just what we already think and some of the teachings are really different from what we think for example great compassion isn't what i think it is and so if i bring up some things it's surprises me and you
so i'm going to try to bring up some really difficult teachings that may be difficult for you but i i want you to feel free to question the teachings so you're having difficulty with and watch other people
i'm
let other people watch you bring up your difficulties and watch other people bring up their difficulties with the teachings
that makes sense
so great compassion i've seen for me great compassion
our let me say there's many kinds of compassion but basically there are three kinds
and great for me great compassion embraces the other kinds of compassion
but they don't embrace great compassion
just like
boot embraces all beings but some beings don't embrace all beings so that means you don't embrace buddha
buddha includes all types of compassion but some types of compassion don't include other kinds of compassion
so the three types are
the first type has living beings
sentient beings as it's objects
the second type
has
you could say the dharma as its object
or dharmas as its object so the word dharmas used for the truth for the teaching but also means individual experiential elements like feelings emotions ideas
beliefs
and feelings of pain and pleasure and so on those are dharmas so the second type you can to understand it deals with actually experience your elements
or you could say it deals with experiential elements or deals with sentient beings in the light of the dharma
so you look at us at a human being or a plant or an animal you look at them you see them but you see them you're you're also meditating on the dharma as you look at them that's a second time
the third type is called great compassion
and it doesn't have any objects
it sees all living beings
as they are
but they're not objects of it
all living beings are not objects of great compassion
great compassion is all living beings as they are
and that compassion liberates them
and that compassion liberates the previous two types of compassion which are included in it those first two types of compassion
however great compassion embraces them and liberates them
but we need to drop we need to compassionately consider the first two kinds of compassion
which which is hard
because it may be seen as an affront to some of the ways we're already practicing compassion
so the first type of compassion has
beings as it's objects but not just beings but it has substantial
beings as its object
beings who appear
to be substantial and existing on their own
the first type of compassion relates to beings with the view that they're really the way they appear and also it relates to compassion that way as a substantial thing as a independently existing thing called compassion
that's the first type of compassion
which is i think many of you many of us already know that type
and
it in the vimalakirti sutra it's called sentimental compassion in other words it's compassion according to our
customary way of practicing compassion it's compassion in line with our customary way of seeing beings we customarily see beings as
a substantially existing separate from other beings
and we and we have emotions and then we feel emotions about that and those emotions also we might see there was also might be objects
of compassion and we might see the emotions as separately existing substantial things
and also we might see compassion as a substantially existing thing and we might see liberation as a substantially existant thing
this is again but it it but
in the be molecule just in be measured purchases or this sentimental compassion and in chinese it cause it
i'm loving view
so there's a loving affectionate view of beings
but it's also a sentimental view of them
but it says it actually says
loving view great compassion
which surprise me
it's the loving view or the kind of like
yeah the obstructive type of of great compassion is this type
it's still part of great compassion but it it's a sentimental part of great compassion and it has drawbacks it's drawbacks are for example
that we get burned out
practicing compassion according to our emotions
we get burned out
by practicing according to emotions our emotions are not our guides to practicing compassion our emotions are another thing to be compassionate towards
we don't try to get rid of our emotions but they're not they're not the compassion that compassion is to be with those emotions and to be with the beings
free of our view that they substantially exist and that compassion substantially exists
and it's it's this is it and this is not it one time i was gonna give a talk at green gulch about compassion and night
as i started i realized it didn't know what i was talking about
and i told people i came to talk about compassion but i don't know what it is but may i continue
that's the that's the situation today to i don't know what it is
and buddha doesn't know what it is
it's buddha buddha doesn't know what boot is buddha's just buddha
come great compassion is just great compassion the other kinds of compassion
are different
so how do we and
some people may not notice that when they practices sentimental compassion it drains them
they may not notice it
anything we do
any action we take any being we relate to any object we relate to with a substantial his view
drains us
but again you may not notice it like if you region for a doorknob with a substantial list view and you grab a hold of it and turn it with a substantial his view
you may not notice that that drains you

it has to do with the see it as separate like you see the door knobs separate and also you see the door knob separate from the door and you see the door separate from the irises in the back i'm so happy you get to see the irises i've been looking at those irises it i hope somebody comes here and enjoys them besides me and amanda and tad and i
lean
you get to see him i'm so glad they're there for you but they're not separate from the knob the doorknob includes the irises and also includes the irises when they die
that's great compassion
but to think the doorknob is separate from your hand that thought if you're if you agree with it it drains you a little it doesn't necessarily knock you out
but if you turn that dornob a quite a few times like many times with that attitude you will actually just too
your parish
however if you turn that door knob with great compassion you just feel more and more energy you might ask thing how strange and my life is turning this dornob over and over how strange it is for me to relate to this person over and over but if you relate to this person
over and over with great compassion you don't get drained because you're not separate from them they're not an object they are every every time you meet them they affirm you
that's great compassion is not tiring but the first type is
set at risk of burnout and again burnout doesn't usually mean a tiny little bit of loss of energy a tiny little bit of loss of enthusiasm a tiny little but laws of courage
it means a big loss of those things i'm i'm really losing i've lost my courage i don't feel i can face these people anymore i gotta get outta here
get out where get out of being with these people who i love so much get me out of here
it's not them that are draining you it's the attitude
that there are substantial and that you're helping and them
substantially or you're not helping them substantially are they're helping you substantially or you're not helping them
really you're really not helping them they really are helping you there really this way that drains us however that way of practice is unavoidable it's one of the is that form of compassion is in this world
along with for example cruelty
cruelties in the world to but this is compassion
cruelty that's practiced
a substantially also watch this up but we're familiar with the cruelty as draining
and miserable but compassion
burn out yes
and there's workshops all over the place now on i think burn out from compassion of some way that those titles
potassium compassion fatigue yeah it's it's well known and the people who are
who know this are the people who are trying to help people that people are trying to murder people do not have compassion fatigue
they have another kind of fatigue you know the fatigue of the fatigue of cruelty it's also draining
the kindness itself is fine it's the attitude that
of seeing it and other seeing it the kindness and the beings as objects as really substantially existing that's was draining and that's the first kind of compassion
and again it is compassion and it does encourage people it's not it's not is it is good it's good but it hinders
entering into great compassion and it is susceptible to
to giving up giving it up and running away from the very beings your devoted to
like a lot of parents is a lot of mothers and fathers run away from their children because of this
they learn their children so much and they so much want to get rid of them yes

yeah and that you so in your consciously you're seeing a preference
now that preference again in the in the first two verses of this text we're looking at that preference isn't meant the preference isn't on the list but really it i can find it on the list if i look carefully preference is an object of compassion
anybody here have any preferences appearing in their consciousness
those all those preferences are objects of compassion and those preferences are coming up out of your body
t and giving rise to unconscious cognitive processes of preference and then some of some of the preferences not all of them come up in your consciousness and when they come up in your consciousness they are calling for compassion they wanna be free
they don't want to be annihilated
they want to be related to with compassion
and if we relate to our preferences with compassion we will become free of them but again the first way we relate to them compassionately is likely to be that preferences an object of compassion
and the way we relate to it
may also have preferences of how to practice compassion
so but then again that's another object of compassion so noticing these preferences noticing these outflows these leakages these wearying waves a prank paying compassion those to the the the sentimental
way of practicing compassion is also an object of compassion
and of course in that case and kind of starting to tip the hand now i'm having compassion towards the idea that these objects exist independently it's almost like you're seeing the joke
how must get the job there
there's a lot there and we'll talk more about that later i'm sure for the rest of our lives because sentimental compassion is alive and well and it's part of great compassion again be molecule juices sentimental compassion loving view great compassion is part of the probe
graham the obstacles to great compassion are part of the process of realizing great compassion
which of course cruelty is also an obstacle to great compassion but we don't usually need to mention that but now i mentioned cruelty is great impassioned great compassion embraces cruelty but cruelty doesn't embrace great compassion great compassion keeps embracing cruelty
intel it's liberated and then it turns around and joins great compassion
i'm not gonna talk about cruelty so much right now i'm talking about compassion didn't touch of compassion the next type of compassion is again called
it's more cut some in in its techs were talking about it's like analytic compassion or it's compassion have the object of of that people are not just independent things but their collections of causes and conditions is starting to see people as the
coming together of causes and conditions is starting to see that they appear certain way that's due to various forces they're not really that way they're kind of conjured up by causes and conditions they're kind of the beings suffering beings you see and suffering feet
feelings you have aren't kind of illusory
they're non substantial they don't exist on their own suffering beings are suffering beings but they don't they're not substantial suffering beings
suffering beings are insubstantial suffering beings and compassion towards them is insubstantial compassion and the liberation which they get
from this type of compassion is illusory are non substantial compassion this is the hard kind of the hard practice that
this compassion addresses illusory beings who have illusory delusions illusory suffering
an illusory compassion and illusory liberation
this type of compassion liberates us from the sentimental type
which is good
in other words we're not going to get rid of the sentimental kind but where can become liberated by it of it with it
with this next kind of compassion
this net compassion is specifically to liberate us from the first type but without getting rid of it it's good it does a lot of good in the world is just said it has these linkage points
it has drawbacks is still good and it but it's a hindrance to great awakening and great compassion so we have the second kind of compassion to address it
but again it the second kind of compassion has problems too it's problem is it tends to add here to non substantially
it tends to adhere to the view of the a loser in us of living beings and the loser of suffering
suffering is really illusory it's not the way it looks but if you would hear to the illusory in us that is an obstruction to great compassion
so you see the suffering and suddenly see oh it's a dependent core arising wow and i can't get a hold of and i don't know what it is
good
but the problem with that as you might adhere to that and adhering to that obstructs
great compassion
and that kind of compassion also is not going to disappear it is not so common as the previous kind
many people
are involved in this sentimental compassion is many many many many humans on this planet many many animals on this planet
i've just think of this video that i was shown
people show me videos this is a video of a mother bear taking her cubs across a road
in a dragging them across and then setting them down and going back to get the other ones and the one they'd take across follows them back across again and then they take that one over again and the other ones in a rush anyway it's really delightful to see her doing this and we i can't tell if she thinks those
cubs have substantial i can't tell
maybe she doesn't and i would say good for her
but it is definitely
who is this lovely to see her taking care
and the friend she doesn't seem to get angry at the ones that she took over and that keep coming back with her
that's a sign that maybe she's not adhering to the idea of getting them across she wants to get them across she's doing that service but maybe she's not adhering to the substantial allottee of getting them across and this case is really nice because the cars are all stopped and watching her know
and people are video so that's kind of like she could just do this all day and everybody's really enjoy it
so maybe she's not at maybe she's not trying to get anything out of this maybe she's doing this lovely thing i'm taking these comes across the road and not getting drained by it so if they keep running back she just keep doing that until i don't know till lunchtime
it's part of the deal and we can do these same acts of carrying a each other across the road we can do them with and without a substantial his dick view
so these types of compassion of serving beings of taking them across the road a bringing them to the honeypot whatever
these forms of compassion are opportunities to see
are we grab are we trying to get something out of this
do we think we know who this person is and what this suffering is the we are we are substantially involved here in this wonderful process of helping people and we can tell and if we can't tell you can also ask a friend
do you think i'm trying to get anything out the practice and the friend might say
am
what do you really want me to just do
are you sure you want to hear from me yeah i really do yes i do think you're trying to get us something out of it
do you think i have a substantial his view of helping people
i think so you have a substantial his view of me having a substantial view know it but it's i think so
i don't really know if you but again and when i saw the mother bear sheet if you're not getting angry at the pumps for not cooperating with her program
if you're helping people in a substantial istick way and they don't go along with your program
mit
you might find that quite irritating
and you might even
find so irritating that you're not kind of them
cause you're doing this for their own good
again that impatience is part
of the burn out
so that's a difficult topic which i didn't dare bring up last week online
and
so those of you and the yoga room class please help me bring it up next week
and especially if you have questions not good to ask him now
to get warmed up to dealing with an with a large with a larger group
under the difficult and of the constraints of of the video interactions
i'm sure it just say right on sure close enough
where'd you get a loan from a hearing asia know so i put these on and when i put these on i tend to talk more quietly so remind me if i not if i start talking quietly
but i'm having trouble hearing on sure
louder please maybe louder

yes
it's it's a problem with anything it's a problem with anything thank you but and it's even a problem with the best thing
it's a problem with your possessions is a problem with your friends it's a problem with your ideas it's a problem with your political views and hearing to anything especially good things
i hearing into anything is troublesome painful affliction
and it's particularly sad to adhere to good things because any to files a good thing
so if you give a very good gift to somebody that's good if you adhere to it it it undermines the goodness of it doesn't actually destroy all of its goodness harvard might lead to that
but it's certainly undermines it and again if you keep giving gifts with this adhering to the giving you will get what you'll get wiped out
then and also if you adhere to nodding to not into non substantial eighty that's also a drain so the problem of the first one is adhering to emotions and feelings and ideas and beliefs second one is your hearing to deliberating teaching of dependent or arising and deliberate
in teaching of non substantially of beings and their suffering adhering to that obstructs the great compassion and adhering to that drains the practitioner so then you give up practising the second kind of compassion

yes there really are so that's a nice thing about the sutra says law loving view great compassion loving view by itself is at risk of draining us and wiping us out
but it's really another it's it's actually great compassion in that form part of great compassion is the obstructions to great compassion it's not a great compassion is over here and it's obstructions or over there will be another kind of compassion read the compassion here obstructions to compassion over there and then turn the compassion
towards the obstructions yes they should be looked at but great compassion it's they're not they're like this the obstructions and the great compassion are one thing just like sentient being suffering sentient beings and buddha or not to things
great compassion and suffering baines are not to things but that implies that there's no inherent nature
two sentient beings or buddhists
yes

yes yes
yes
yes suffering bread beings bring compassion to great compassion
great compassion understands that
lesser compassion compassionate don't necessarily see that suffering beings are bringing compassion
because there's no compassion without suffering being so suffering beings bring compassion
they call for it that brings it and also great compassion calls
and brings it
linda

see you
give me

i didn't hear that i don't hear i'm saying ah to those i don't know i'm not following you
to who

we can see them

right
well
yeah so that's right that's right there's not really giving or taking away however we need to study giving and taking away in order to realize great compassion and we need to study the giving and taking away to see if if our our our customary habitual ways of seeing the process our
are are functioning and if they are we then we practice compassion towards them
in the process of giving and receiving we go through the process we go through the process
of trying to help people to discover our are substantial list views and
fortunately there are indications that we can find or other people can ask other people that can help us knows we're trying to get something out of this
you can heal people and you can heal people
without trying to get anything out of it
you can heal people
he'll people but not be attached to the healing
and you can be not attached to the healing when you realize that the here that the sick person in the healing
our insubstantial and that helps you do the healing process which may or may not be successful

yeah so you can see that like you're trying to help somebody like know i have pain in my knee and people are trying to help me they can look to see
are they trying to get anything out of their help of me are they trying to get me to be feel better are they trying to get me have less pain
are they just
practicing loving kindness and compassion to me with no gaining idea
and if they have getting idea then that's another thing to practice compassion towards
it's hard
you have do you have a hard time being compassionate to you're gaining ideas
when you see a gaining idea in your mind do you have difficulty being compassionate to that

oh yeah it's hard because sentimentally we we wanted we want someone to be have less pain and we try to get that to happen and if if would effort if we try to help them
and try to get something we could burn out
if we help them
the way they are right now free of them being different namely have less pain so i try to help you now in your pain
and i'm free of you having more or less pain
i'm with the amount of pain you have now
and that's my that's my not that's my not sentimental compassion that's not the way we usually it but we need to understand that but the person who is suffering needs to learn is what we're doing
i need to be with the pain in my body without thinking about it being less or more i need to be with it now
and somebody needs to teach me how to be with my pain the way it is now not the way it will be more or less
so patience is compassion in the form of being with this pain right now
and if i'm trying to help somebody i'm with helping them right now not leaning into them getting better or worse
or more or less that's the training
and that not only do that
excuse the expression free me a big drained and burn out it teaches them what they need to do with their pain which they may or may not do know but there are they may know how to do it like if you're if you're if if the buddha's god pain and you're trying to help you want the butter to have less
the butare is not into having less the buddha's into having this pain so as i mentioned many times
the historical buddha was in pain at the end of his life he was it the buddha was in pain but she was still buddha and she was not thinking about her pain read being reduced in the future and she was not thinking about how long her pains been going on she was having her pain in this moment and she was
teaching all her per disciples who are in pain to be present with their pain in that way she was the buddha teaching them to be with their pain when you are with your feeling of wanted to help someone without trying to get anything out of it you're teaching the per
ersan what they really need to know they may feel better they may feel worse but if they get this teaching they'll be fine
if they don't get this teaching even if they feel better they're still going to be suffering
and if they feel worse they're still going to be suffering but if they get this teaching that's their on the path
to learn great while they actually are learning but when when we try to help them
with no gaining idea we're teaching them great compassion
and the insubstantial is supposed to help us
but even so we still we might turn is substantially into again

jeff
perjury explanation
i heard your explanation that makes sense of itself
how for example i'm having
stage i can see how
giving up
the interfering i want something my

i have much harder time giving up
that i help somebody have less pain was problem or whatever i'm doing with for them
because it still see
how do they know the difference
you said they would learn from it
how do they see
do the same thing regardless of whether i do it with an idea of helping them feel less pain or not
so how is it the that's transmitted
the learning that you think

the most basic transmission is unconscious
the most basic transmission is is an imperceptible
but there are also a perceptible differences so if you're trying to help somebody
and like trying to help somebody become more skillful at something or take better care of themselves or be more comfortable
and they don't get more skillful and they don't take care of themselves better and they don't feel better and you're practicing this they will notice that the that that does not in any way undermine your devotion to them they can see that
that's that's perceptible
but even before they see that if you're practicing this is being transmitted to them because we pick up much more we pick up on much more than we have consciously aware of so some people teach us a skill and we don't even know that were to being taught it
and then suddenly with we we used to realize the skill as in us and we wonder where did i get this skill and then somebody might say well that person showed you that over and over
and you you weren't consciously aware that they were showing you
but then you realized you learned it where did you learn it
and you weren't you weren't a conscious of the lessons one time of one the stories rich you're having trouble hearing over there right it's i'll talk this way see if you can hear me jeff
so we want we receive new a buddhist rose in a ceremony
suzuki roshi gave a number of his priests a new robe which was sewn to them in a new way and we got these new print these new robes and i think after the ceremony we we got the robes on somehow but at the ceremony we asked zucker as you how to put the robes on
and he got up and walked away
so then we ask how to get well as you how to put the robes on and
he tried to explain to us and he was having trouble explaining to us
and then someone said oh look
and sicker she was showing us how to do it he was showing us but we did notice that he was showing us but we did finally wake up to that he was showing us so a lot of the things we learn from in this
compassion business is taught to us we don't really even know like you walk next to somebody through difficult times
they don't necessarily say anything to you and then let you walk through
he start to notice a year walking to the difficulty and you're more comfortable sort of with the different difficulties still continuing but you you feel more relaxed and you don't know that there's a relaxed person you're walking next to was transmitting that relax there were suffering with you you both
going through this i don't know what
extremely hot weather maybe and you're tensing and resisting and you're walking next to somebody who's relaxed with it they also used to tense and resist can you hear me at all
so you're walking through extreme weather conditions you're having a hard time and used to person next year having a hard to and trying to matter of fact they might even be having a harder time than you
like they might be older
but they might have more experience with patients
and so they can relax with the pain of the heat and you're just walking through struggling away and you notice it
at a certain point is still hot and you're still having a hard time but you're relaxed also
where did that relaxation come from
and maybe is a three of you and the person over here is points over to this person says
she taught you to realize she was relaxed with you all the time but she didn't just say say relax she was just her
our body gives off a lot of information and other in other people's bodies pick up on it but we're not consciously aware of what we're picking up from other people's bodies
and also when our body picks up things from other bodies
the conch the unconscious processes which are very complex they're dealing with all that information to try to figure out with is what we're picking up
a dangerous is it good is a beneficial all that's going on or not consciously aware of it so somebody is like demonstrating relaxation we may not even
we met up not think that they're relaxed but our bodies picking up the relaxation and learning it
that in that relaxation is where having a hard time were practicing compassion and were relaxed in our compassion with this hard time and that gets transmitted and then but sometimes
we do consciously notice all of their teaching oh my god that they were teaching make a batch i see it now or oh my god they were not
they were not impatient with me learning this thing i was not learning it and they just kept teaching it over and over and over than didn't get impatient with one of the main characteristics of a bodhisattva teacher is impatient with the slowness of the students learning so weren't we're having a hard time learning or walking next
as a teacher were not learning the teachers patient with us and being patient with are not learning we don't know initially notice but we might
does that help you
yeah
and like i'm walking around now trying to find a way to walk that's not too painful
or rather i'm trying to find the most comfortable way to walk i'm not trying to reduce my pain i'm trying to find a way to walk that feels the pain respects it
yeah respects it and now respecting it seems to be leading to
walking more slowly and more carefully i'm not really reducing the pain i'm just finding a less painful way to walk if i walk faster it just come flaring back so i still got the problem haven't got rid of it but i'm adapting to it like the buddha adapted to her final illness
if she did a buddha at a buddha adaptation she showed everybody this is how to be sick the suzuki roshi was really good at teaching us this is how to have liver cancer
and the way he was dealing with it it's such as strong deep teaching to me to watch how he dealt with it
he worked you know and again
i don't know what he did they didn't give many painkillers maybe they had him and he didn't take them but he was in pain but the way he was dealing with it was such a strong teaching
and i didn't feel like he was trying to reduce his pain and i wasn't trying to reduce his pain i was just wanted to be with him with whatever he was up to
and that's kind of like great compassion to be with beings with whatever they're up to no matter whether up to i want to be there with them and i'm not into controlling them into being better people are of course not worse people i'm just wanna be with them through this difficult situation called birth and death
and they're not separate from me these beings i wanna be with but i have these other kinds of compassion which i had to deal with do that are going to keep coming up and i want to be with those two i want to be with beings and i wanna be with my different types of compassion practice and i want beings to help me
be with these different types of compassion practice
it's getting really late
yes yes yes yes

the insubstantial allottee of compassion so she's referring to this image of dark forest which is nice image from dh lawrence where he says this is what i know about the conscious self is like a clearing in the middle of a dark forest
and sometimes deities come out of the forest into the clearing for a while and then they go back
so this i see this as a picture of our of our conscious mind and our unconscious mind and body were surrounds our conscious mind and also in our and the forest are all the other people's for us to and there's a bunch of as many as a clearings in the forest but we can't see the as occur
earrings we hear about them we hear about them that's a deity coming out of the dark forced into are clearing telling us there's somebody else and in the forest
so great compassion is to welcome whatever peers and consciousness
so what would it so now we have something coming into consciousness that is both great compassion coming in degree in the consciousness and giving us an opportunity to practice great compassion
cause it's it's okay to practice great compassion to the forest the dark forest it just said you go ahead but you can actually test where the most people have no way of trying to make any gains in the dark forest
they're not trying to improve the dark forest they don't even know what it is

the challenges that the opportunities for the everything that appears in consciousness is an opportunity for compassion and all the opportunities are given to us by compassion
hmm
know it kind of like it's kind of like
what it can be found in the dark forest yes and it can be found in everything in the clearing
and it's also can be found in the body which is in the dark forest it can be found everywhere great compassion is found everywhere great compassion reaches everything it's everywhere all the time
that's good compassion we're talking about waking up to it and you wake up to it by dealing with things that you don't think are included in everything
and if you deal with them with compassion you they will become portals for you to realize
great compassion which is already a penetrating everything but we have to practice and train in order to wake up to that
i see you and let's see who is next
although sonia
okay it's okay to nit pick lists now
sonia there was somebody owns hama i think yeah da fiona bruce and
magdalene
and jeff
i think i think davina in sonia were next i'm not sure davina
ah ok

also what you know
talk to me yeah

voice i can use it if you see someone being kind you can go oh what does it all mean
oh that look
oh that looks like compassion you mean

yeah

yeah so i sound like you're this example is there was an obstruction you saw a kind of identified it
yeah you kind of our lives and instruct good
it was an obstructive object or written obstructive judgment gave her miserable
no
you can hear anything tracy
what
something's so sonia has brought up an example of an obstructive judgment and then it sounded like somebody was compassion to that obstructive judgment and liberated you from it yeah
yeah
yeah yeah in order to be free of it yeah so that kind of that's an example maybe out of the dark forest came the obstruction it was met with and compassion
and you know was a release own awakening
but it had to come out there before the compassion could deal with it it's hard for the compassion to deal with what the compassion is reaching everything in the dark forest but but we don't tend to wake up in the dark forest that's the key thing about this clearing his that's where the stuff comes out of the dark forest gets drip dealt with compassion and gets liberal
rated and then in addition to that we can watch and see was there a substantial his dick view of the thing and deliberation
usually when there's liberation
it's a sign that there's not it's not substantial istick but then the next that that's the second round compassion here we're kind of the second kind of compassion maybe that was that but then we have to them not attached to that which you didn't do right

or not so much recognized patients but become free of your impatience through recognize the year and patients

what do we maybe that's that's a choose your example you bring up the obstruction
you bring up the obstruction you deal with it was a compassion than you become free of it and sometimes the way you deal with it somebody helps you deal with it they say
you know
that was so great that you brought us that obstruction it was so helpful and you realize if if my instructions are so helpful maybe they're not instructions may be so they're illusory obstructions they're not real obstructions
but somebody we need to wake up to the are obstructions are suffering is not substantially existing
and people can help us with that so davina

i would say great compassion lives in everything in the universe
it's the way everything's working together with no separation in our biology is part of the story however there's other things in our biology besides along with great compassion which great compassion relates to for example
feelings of fear and vigilance and concerns for survival that's in our body in our unconscious and to some a small part of it comes up into our consciousness moment by moment that's also going on and that's what the great compassion is addressing
so the quit thing is how to join this wonderful thing that's already here that relating to our biology that's not separate from our biology it's totally intimate with our biology but we have to notice our biology and and notice these points of sticking in order to open to what is always there along with it
all along
you definitely everybody is getting what they said it's it's totally penetrating
marlene

injustice

they say

climate change

so you also see that

so
inequality of people
climate change

and i also feel
pain of people
racist
race
has been
and i can feel compassion i haven't seen
myself
get a great
russia

you want to be what
i want to me

i didn't say i didn't say
where is done

great

am
how are you dealing with the emotion now
are you being compassionate to the emotion now so you feel you see something you see cruelty you feel pain and are you practicing compassion with that pain and that cruelty
both
and so practicing that way period
well will awaken will will be
will be the awakening to great compassion
but most people don't just practice compassion with that they practice compassion with this pains
with some idea that it's substantially existing that way that i think it is so the way you think the pain is is not the way that she thinks the painters or he thinks the pain is none of you actually see and you're in you're clearing you don't see the way the thing
really is you see an appearance of it
and if you think it's real and substantially that way then if you work with that and practice compassion towards that substantial listing view
the compassion and then again not be stuck in that and then you will awaken
what you're looking like you i'm you're not following me
say again
yeah i'm saying and that's a that's called the views are substantial is a kind of compassion it's called sentimental compassion it's the customary way we see things we see floors and ceilings and people and suffering as substantial this is the way we normally do
this is customary this is our sentiment
k
so that's that's just the way we that's just the way we are
but to think it but to be informed now that this is a sentimental kind of compassion which
leads to leads to burnout
this type of compassion has a big drawback in that if your compassionate towards these pains and you think they're really existent you will actually give up practicing compassion
to find a way
okay you just said you just said he did not want to give up gay and i just told you what will lead to you giving up so if you don't want to give up than you need to give up your sentimental practice of compassion
you need to give up seeing suffering as substantial it's normal to see it this is normal to see suffering suffering a substantial it's normal to see delusion or substantial it's normal to see door knobs as substantial is normal to see people have substantial that's normal it comes with our
body with our biological imperatives gay so we got this problem
that we see things this way now if we practice compassion under that way of seeing we will give up practicing compassion and you said you don't want to give up
but you will give up unless you get over this type of compassion and
not even to go to it it's already here
acer
yeah great compassion is not concerned with seeing great compassion
being intimate with all beings is not trying to see intimacy with all beings it's it's just being what it's being that way it's not wanting to be that way i mean it is wanting to be that way but it's not like seeing you can't see how your
with all bags but you can see that you think that this
suffering is substantial and you can say oh i'm a human being so i think that and you can see that this is that this makes you at risk of giving up your compassion practice and you can see that you don't want to give it up
and the wish to not give up compassion
to see that also as not substantial protects it
if you want to protect you and your wish to be compassionate than seeing it isn't in than seeing it as insubstantial will protect it
it will make you more because of insubstantial do we do not become frightened of suffering if you see we will we will we will give become exhausted if we see it as substantial and so we're already in that situation we need to keep working on it to not
cling to our substantial is to view of this is cruelty this is kindness this is helpful this is not are going to can tape continue to have these views
but we don't have to continue to to believe that there are substantially existing on their own we don't have to do that we can be so kind to those things that they just started to get out of the way
they just say go ahead and see things in substantially and by the way when you do don't cling to that
you know they can teach us that and if we learn that we opened to the great compassion
which again we have to give up trying to get being able to see great compassion in order to realize it
we have to get give up trying to get great compassion in order to realize it
it's part is that it's it's required the see who's next
it's a it's a
it's twelve thirty so
so we will
we have lunch coming up pretty soon right
you are you sound tie her to go first
he oh
bruce okay bruce and jeff thank you

was

the strong lesson
he wants me to talk more about the strong lesson i got from suzuki roshi when he was dying
can you hear me over there about over here the strong lesson
and it wasn't just one the strong lessons he was giving me and other people
and you're doing that without a nice substantial istick viewing just wow
so anyway or before a read before we knew how sick before it was disclosed that he had liver cancer
after his gallbladder he had a gallbladder removed and did not tell us he did not tell us that are was malignant
but it was
and so we thought all us a girl she's well again great
still during that post
surgical time he did in the buddha hall in san francisco he did say one day to the group he said things teach best when they're dying
and i off i felt like he was like i felt like he can like turn to me and said things teach best journal dying things teach best i felt i can turn right at me and said that and i gotta was widely telling me this
i write it is like oh and also why is like well maybe because he's telling you his dying could have possibly be it anyway it was a strong teaching things did he said it to me
and i've been repeating it for fifty years
i think a bunch of other people in their own probably felt like why is this meant to me
and then a few months later he says oh there's it's liver cancer
so now yes now we know he's really sick
so
the way he was with this
a deadly disease the way he conducted himself everything he did somehow because he was the maybe because i knew he was dying or maybe because he was dying it just went boom boom boom and i can remember us some so many times i think back
i wish i could remember how it was when he said such and such but during that last time it was much clearer because it like this is the last time you know everything he did was teaching us and me
just because he was done the way you the way he responded to the moxibustion burning on his back
so i watched i watched i watched him received the the moxibustion and then i watch him he winced when it got close to his skin when it burned down and now at that time the person who is treating them would take it off
so i watched him lie there and receive this treatment and i watched him wince and i watched it
so i watched him deal with pain he was showing me over and over how he dealt with his pain
and
he was no less he wasn't talking about zen stories or it wasn't talking about zazen he was demonstrating zazen of a sick teacher of a dying teacher for a while we we used to go here could go to the zendo than for a while we carried him down to the stairs to the zendo
after why he couldn't go down the see
less and less dying more and more but
it was so so deeply penetrating
it wasn't that it wasn't like it
one time he was getting his his massage and he farted
and he said that's a good sign
it wasn't like that was the great teaching but that was one i'm
that was one of em you know that he just farted and then he said that's good you know this to some thing going on in their felt
in our the the fart stuff has to do with you know the bile and the delivers part of it
you can say or he was just trying to excuse his farts anyway it's a everything was penetrating but it wasn't traditional zen training but it was a traditional centering for a dying teacher to teach the students how they die is very penetrating teaching especially
when the teachers teaching while they're dying rather than talking about it actually showing this is how i die this is how i deal with the pain of liver cancer which was painful
now if they the the now they have chemotherapy and thing and stuff like that and but there was no treatment other than massage and moxibustion
and i got to watch him receive it so when the person was sick
he said you do it said to me because i'd been watching so and i did it and i could tell when to take it off because they would wince
so there was a transmission here
of moxibustion burning in relationship to my teachers body
yeah
he was like really there for his suffering i felt he was not i'm trying to be somewhere else
if somebody said hiroshi would you like to go some place else where there's no pain he might have said okay let's go
but nobody was offering that he was just pain pain pain pain pain not all the time i think sometimes he was more or less com more comfortable but he was dealing with it he was dealing with a painful death a painful to and he wasn't a comfortable death
and he did such a good job of dealing with the pen such a good teacher for us
and yet he didn't get better and my fact the disease wasn't much faster than anybody thought i was gonna be he thought maybe you'd be live for couple more years but it was just three months from the daytime of dirt can diagnosis
september october november and a little bit of septa of december just three months it really went fast but over such precious times and i tell you that to remind me of those times and to share those time with you i'm sharing his teachings with you i'm saying
he didn't do anything fancy you can all do this you can all face your suffering and your pain and you're dying like he did it we can learn this it's not super whew what a super him it's not but you you have a buddha within you that can practice this
and
unless we all die tomorrow we're going to have a chance
jeff

you can call him my coffin well i made it with pod just goes help
it's it's is my size
it's not like one size fits all
the bruce would have trouble fitting in and cyprus

yeah that's another pity is a kind of an unpopular word lately but a lot of a lot of translators translate compassion as pity so it is loving kindness
mehta my tree
and in chinese there's a character which means loving kindness
and there's another character and but that's never translated as pity is trying to and is translated as compassion and love
loving kindness but the other character for coruna in chinese is it says compassion pity
so but a lot of people pity is kind of like a buzzword now so i don't use it i'll let you read the surgeries and finding yourself but it's it's another translation that people are using
to translate
karuna compassion into english
but if you don't like pity that's okay here's compassion
and if you don't like compassion maybe mercy
and if you don't like any of those how about just be with suffering compassion means be with suffering be with the passion and be with it intimately so there's no object passion is not an object it's what we are living were living
not even with the suffering we are living the suffering with no resistance this is great compassion

substantial

you can say great pity
you could say great pity and but great pity a great compassion has no objects is just the fact is the reality that we're all together with each other's suffering there's no separation between our sufferings were all on his together said that reality is
great compassion and that's buddhist compassion and that's
that's also very joyful and it's also not a drain because there's no place for anything to go
and even though there's no place to go you can have lunch know if you want and also i i i request that you have lunch outdoors
please eat eat out here or of the woods or whatever but not don't don't don't you can and don't congregate too much in the kitchen maybe wait until as if you'll get there so yeah we don't get everybody and forty people in the kitchen
okay and we'll have another talk this afternoon
go into more i'd like to go into more about the great target ago i was talking to somebody about that just a minute ago the great joy of if you practice compassion triple bring you more suffering

if you practice compassion skillfully people do use a great honor of bringing you more suffering they say well look how it look how well she does with all that pain i think i'll bring home some more because because she she's so good with it if you see somebody who's all crumbled over and totally swiped up by the suffer
you don't bring a market suffering you leave him alone but somebody who is like
oh that hurts a little bit
you can take that moxibustion off me now
know maybe up
bring that person myself or they do really well with it so if you get more suffering it doesn't mean you're not practicing skillfully
it might be that your privacy so skillfully as the world's giving you
coming to you for more help because you look like you can handle it
and if you say i can't maybe the world will back off for a while but if you say yeah okay
this isn't the and i'm here for you then you get more

really you mean substantially
not substantially not substantially know in an illusory wish
in may change
equally extreme to every