May I say that birth and death is the Dharma door to no birth and death. No birth and death is an epithet of nirvana. Samsara is the door to nirvana. And nirvana... is the door to samsara but birth and death doesn't open up on to no birth and death unless we are able to completely settle in birth and death and in order to fully settled into birth and death, we have to do so with, you could say, extreme joy.

[01:08]

Start with little joy and work up to extreme joy. Because we have a kind of like in-house resistance to birth and death. In other words, we have an in-house in-body. We are in the... We are the embodiment of resistance to suffering, which of course is suffering. We embody suffering and resistance to it, which is again part of it. So yesterday we really, well, we looked at the sutra which said the bodhisattvas who The bodhisattvas. Who are the bodhisattvas? Those who have this initial arousing of the aspiration to authentic awakening in order to benefit this world of samsara.

[02:12]

All the beings who are suffering in samsara. The authentic awakening is the medicine, is their liberation. Again, those who have this aspiration are encouraged to learn how to live in samsara joyfully. You don't have to like samsara, and you don't have to hate samsara, and you don't have to stop hating samsara. If you like samsara, okay. If you hate it, okay. That's also dharmador. What we need to love is samsara. We need to be its friend and be joyful about being friends with birth and death.

[03:19]

Then we live in birth and death and we become a refuge, a blessing. We live in this terrible suffering, but we can be a blessing. But we can't be a blessing if we're resisting it. We have to come into it and settle into it. Then, without doing anything more than joyfully settling, we are a blessing. Buddhas are sitting in the middle of the ocean of all suffering and joyfully blessing all suffering beings. with no exceptions that's what we talked about a lot yesterday right and that was the third of ten things that are encouraged for people who are who want to be a bodhisattva for people like that there's ten things to encourage

[04:28]

10 things to encourage study and learning about. Number one is to learn about making offerings to Buddha. Number two is this encouragement to learn... Actually, first of all, the first one is encouraged to learn how to make offerings to Buddha because we may not know how. Or... Or maybe we think we do know how. But what we need to learn is how to make offerings. We don't need to learn how to make offerings the way we think we make offerings. We already know our ideas about it. Making offerings is to make an offering, want to make an offering, and not really grasp the offering. Not know what it is, but still want to offer. Not know what Buddha is, but still want to offer to the inconceivable Buddha.

[05:32]

An inconceivable offering. That's the first one. To learn how to make offerings free of our ideas of offering. Number two, to learn and study how to live in birth and death. Joyfully. Cheerfully. Maybe not quite whoopee, but anyway. Cheerfully. Cheerful. Smiling. Maybe occasionally even laughing at how much we're suffering. How much I'm suffering. It's really kind of funny. And part of what's funny is that my suffering is so little. And I think it's... significant it's so funny and it's particularly funny how I'm wiggling away from a little bit of suffering it's kind of funny anyway this is part of learning and somebody said to me maybe bodhisattvas do not want to go into birth and death they may not want to bodhisattvas may not want to go into hell

[06:49]

to help the hell dwellers. They may not want to go into the realm of hungry ghosts, the people who have such a desire for happiness that they can never have any. Maybe they don't want to go into the realm of fear. Maybe they don't want to. Yeah. Even though they want to be a blessing, they don't want to go into hell. Yes, I'd like to be... a refuge to the world, but I don't want to go into the world. I want to be a blessing from, you know, above the world or behind the world or to the left of the world and bless it from a distance. Can you imagine? It reminds me of a story about myself. I was in Sachin one time. And I had problems in the session, but I settled with them pretty well.

[07:54]

And I went home on a break one time, and the people I lived with in the apartment were kind of fighting with each other. And I blessed them from a distance. Cloud Nine came in and kind of blessed them. Oh, yeah. I bless you, struggling sentient beings. And they found me to be irrelevant. They found me to be irrelevant. If bodhisattvas try to bless the world from a distance, they're irrelevant. They bless the world when they're in the world, just like everybody else. And then... I bless you. Bless you. I heard a story which I heard it but I haven't been able to confirm it that Gandhi was doing his morning prayers and as he was coming back from his morning prayers somebody shot him.

[09:04]

And as he was shot he continued his morning prayers and he blessed the person. He was in birth and death, maybe before he got shot. And then when he got shot, he still said, bless you. Not in English, I don't think. But anyway, I heard that story. That's where bodhisattvas are encouraged. You don't have to do this, but if you want to be a bodhisattva, you're encouraged to learn to bless people when you're in agony. And also bless people when you're not in agony, if that ever happens. That's what we talked about yesterday. Now I'd like to work on to the third thing that bodhisattvas are encouraged to learn and study. And this one to me is kind of difficult to bring up, but I'm going to do it anyway just because I don't want to shrink away from the pain of bringing this third thing up.

[10:08]

I feel kind of painful about it. Ready? Are you ready for it? You're not sure? Here we go. This is what the flower adornment scripture says. The third abode of bodhisattvas is to encourage and be encouraged to learn and study how to guide the world. That part I feel fine about. how to guide the world and affecting the eradication of evil karma. I got kind of scared when I... Eradication of evil karma. Yeah, so I'm just telling you, the word eradication is hard for me.

[11:12]

I somehow don't feel like that's a very compassionate word sometimes. But anyway, that's what it says. The other translation says to guide the world and reject evil karma. So anyway, I thought of, particularly I thought of the people, some of the people who left the city yesterday to go and protest. And they might have been trying to, they might have felt encouraged to go and guide the world this world that we live in, to guide the world and eradicate evil karma that's going on in this world. To go there and stand there in the suffering and offer guidance to this world to eradicate evil karma. To learn how to do that.

[12:14]

So that's big number three. And we also did the last one we did, which is to learn, we are encouraged to learn how to be a refuge for sentient beings. That kind of is taken care of by the second one. But here now I have the third one. And maybe I can stop there for now, because I think you might have some comments or problems with that encouragement. What kind of tea is this? Does anybody know what kind of tea this is? Pardon? Okay, thank you. Yes. Well, I think that would be part of what you would learn.

[13:26]

How to love evil karma in such a way as to eradicate it. It's not going to get eradicated by hate. It's not going to get eradicated by disrespect. If people go to a protest and disrespect... the people who are doing something that they're protesting, if they disrespect what they're protesting towards, that's not going to eradicate what they're protesting. Here's another one of my bumper stickers. People who you show respect to think you're smart. They think you're intelligent when they see that you respect them.

[14:35]

And you are. And they might even say, you're not only intelligent because you respect me, but you're also kind of kind. Maybe I'll listen to you. Is there something I can do for you? Yeah, so thank you very much, because the path to eradicating evil karma is what the bodhisattvas are encouraged to teach the world. What is it? The path of eradicating evil karma. What is the path? Of loving the world of evil karma. That's the path. So thank you so much, Duncan, for saving me. And thank you for pointing. And I will never call on her now. Would you like some tea?

[15:36]

Did you eradicate something right there? No, that was a joke. Now, somebody might try to eradicate my jokes. But if you want to eradicate my jokes, how is it going to happen? Huh? You have to love my jokes. If you love... If you love my jokes, they will be eradicated. Pardon? You can express love as an act of love. And actually, sometimes people do that. They see somebody suffering and they go, oh. They go, oh. I was just joking. Yeah, you get to joke too occasionally. Yeah. That's part of it. It's just like a loving groan for somebody's suffering. A loving groan for somebody's evil. Somebody's mean to somebody.

[16:39]

And you know, I respect you. And you did that? Oh. Not, oh, you're such a rat. Oh, I respect you, and you did that. Oh, oh. And I'm happy to feel, oh, because I love you. Are you ready now? I'm ready. Okay. Yeah, so it's what you're talking about, but I was thinking, could you say more about that process of... Loving and eradicating, maybe some other words, but... Okay, right there. It's like I can absorb... Just before, can I just say right there? You want to eradicate evil karma? Evil karma is the door to good karma.

[17:44]

If you're kind to evil karma, that's good karma. So you're saying, like, there's the level of here, and maybe there might be a level of the whole, and you're just, are you saying that produces more positive, more good karma, or more beingness versus karma? That was a little bit complicated for me. Could you say it more simply? Yes. well I wondered on a more on a bigger scale yes is there some influence that way well the first the first verse of this sutra is the body of Buddha pervades throughout all the great assemblies filling the realm of Dharma without end

[18:48]

this body. It is silent and still, has no nature, and is ungraspable, and appears in order to help beings. So here it is. It's now appearing. How is it appearing? It's appearing like a person, a woman, sitting there, joyfully settled in suffering as a resource, a blessing and a refuge for all beings. Right there. And that is the body of Buddha and that pervades throughout the entire universe without end. That's the teaching. This person who is settled there, that's the Buddha body. The Buddha body does not need to move. in order to reach all beings.

[19:51]

As a matter of fact, it is still. The Buddha body is still settling into suffering and not, again, sort of like, okay, I'll settle. It's like Buddha joyfully sits in the middle of all suffering and then appears in some way. It looks like a person sitting there or somebody raising a hand or raising a flower. It appears. And it appears because people sometimes get help by some appearance. But before and after the appearance, it's pervading everywhere. And the appearances help people understand that it's pervading everywhere, so they will do the practice which pervades everywhere. But we can't see how it pervades everywhere. We can just see how the person raises their hand. From where? From joyfully living in suffering.

[20:55]

The Buddha is happy to be in suffering in order to help people. But you can't grasp the Buddha. So the Buddha offers something graspable. And then you can use that to encourage you to do the practice. Because before the appearance, you didn't know the Buddha was pervading. So the Buddha appears, oh, wow. And the Buddha says, this body pervades everywhere. Please join the club and learn how to do this. What? Learn how to sit here in this world without trying to reach anywhere. You're already reaching everywhere. I see one, two, three. Four? Five? OK. One? The word reject in this particular phase.

[22:05]

The word what? Reject. My understanding is . The word reject? Yeah. Yeah, so again, it's It's a loving rejection. It's a loving rejection of evil. It's not a mean rejection. You can say, I reject that lovingly. That's right. It's not turning away. It must be. For a bodhisattva, it must be a loving rejection. And it's rejecting evil karma, I would say, in order to liberate beings from evil karma. The other translation says they eradicate.

[23:07]

And then Duncan said, well, is there a loving eradication? And I say it must be. Somebody can offer you a gift and you can reject it. And you can know they're offering it as a gift. And say, no, with or without thank you. Or you cannot even say anything, just go, no. No. Someone might offer you poison. And want you to get poisoned. And you can say, no. No. If it would help you, OK. But I don't think so. So I say no to the poison. I reject your poison. But I don't hate your poison.

[24:11]

I reject your wish to hurt me. But I don't hate you. I love you. I don't touch you. I don't turn away from you. And I say, N-O. N-O, darling. And, you know, the darling's optional. Buddha can say no. And there's many examples where Buddhas do say no. But they never say no in an unloving way. and oftentimes the no is it actually liberates the being from the evil karma that famous story of there was a serial killer in India a very powerful guy killing a lot of people and he eventually ran into the Buddha he was insane and killing people Angulimala they call him and he

[25:18]

He ran into the Buddha. One story, one version of the story is he was about to kill his mother. And the Buddha just happened to be there. This is too much, I know. But anyway, Shakyamuni Buddha happened to be there and got between him and his mother. And then he went after Shakyamuni. And Shakyamuni said, you know, I'm your friend, you know. And he didn't go for it. Shakyamuni said no. Put his body between them. as a way to say, no, he rejected this offer of murder. And then the guy was going to murder him, so he rejected it by saying, I'm your friend. And that didn't work. So then he just walked. The Buddha just walked away from the person. The way he rejected this evil was to just take a walk. And the guy went after him, running fast. And the Buddha was walking. And he couldn't catch him.

[26:21]

He said, why can't I catch you, monk? And the Buddha said, because I've stopped. This is teaching the world and eradicating evil karma. The Buddha taught this person and this person's evil karma was eradicated. He was awakened. But it was... It was a loving eradication. It was a loving rejection. And some people, hearing this story, might aspire to Buddhahood. We talked about where does this thought of aspiration come from? It comes from seeing somebody do something like that, maybe. But it also can come from somebody who's suffering, who's going, it could arise there. There's infinite where this thought can arise. And if it is arisen, then this is one of the trainings.

[27:23]

Learn how to meet evil karma, to guide evil karma in such a way that it's eradicated. Learn that. Right now, you may not see how to do it. And next might be, were you next? Go ahead. You seem to have so many things I want to say about all the things that have just been said. I know I should be brief. Well, you can be brief repeatedly. I think it would be good to be brief, but you can be brief on this one and then that one. So first is about the word eradication and even more problematic rejection. you taught us, and many of us have benefited from your saying again and again, we don't get rid of anything.

[28:26]

So those words cause a problem. Even though you try to open it up, I would look for other words. I would also look for other words for evil karma. You can call it... Well, you can do that, but anyway, that's fine to do that. However, I don't want to avoid what it says, because it doesn't say... Sometimes it says evil. There's a word called akushala. Akushala means unskillful. Sometimes the word is unskillful, but sometimes the word is evil. I would like to know what that Sanskrit word is, but not... Yeah. There are Sanskrit words for unskillful. Like kushala means skillful. And akushala means not skillful. But there's other words which mean evil.

[29:27]

And evil and unskillful are both harmful. So harmful is all... You can say harmful too. So I hope the last thing I'll add is... This discussion... comment on this discussion right now is about the joy, learning to sit with joy. Again, I'll just mention how I have a problem with suggestions like this because I get the idea that I'm supposed to be joyful and I'm not and then I get mad. That somebody tells me I should be joyful. So there's a way to say this. But it doesn't say should. It says they encourage it. They don't say you should. They encourage you to learn this. Encourage you to learn something. Like if I encourage you to learn Sanskrit or I encourage you to learn Chinese.

[30:35]

I'm not saying you should. How we learn it is by actually sitting in the suffering room. which for some time will not be joyful, but by actually sitting in it, then joy will arise. You said not joyful, right? It won't be joyful. Probably not. Right. So what I'm saying is sit and not joyful. You're being encouraged to sit and not joyful. Yes. Joyfully. But you're not told to be that way before you are. You're told to learn that. It's something to learn. Like you do it once, no, it wasn't joyful. Try it again, not joyful. Try it again, not joyful. Try it again, and then find, oh, that time was joyful. It happens by itself. No, it doesn't happen by itself. It happens between it and you and the teaching. You and the teaching together and it, it happens.

[31:36]

But it doesn't happen by you. It doesn't happen by it. The delight does not happen by itself. It happens by you giving it a try after you hear about it. And you want it. You feel encouraged. So it says, encourage this amazing thing. Not you should. But this is just for bodhisattvas. For them, we encourage it. We don't tell people to do this. If you're seeing somebody and people say, well, what about if somebody is in agony? Should I encourage them to be there with joyfulness? Probably not. Probably not. Probably you should just go, oh, you should do it yourself, not tell them to do it. But if they see you, doing it. They might be inspired to try themselves. So if you see somebody who's really in agony and you feel agony for them, then if you can sit in your agony, you can show them what to do.

[32:46]

You become a refuge. But you're doing it joyfully because you want to help them. You're so happy to be there with them to show them what they need to learn, which you have learned. But before you learn it, you're not going to be teaching it to them. Because you haven't learned it yet, you're still kind of like suffering but trying to get away from it. And if we don't have joy, we're going to try to get away from it. We need the encouragement that this is going to help people. If it's just for me, forget it. But if it's for you, who I care about and who I feel pain for, I'll be with my pain joyfully. You're not disagreeing. You're in the process with me. This is the process for you to tell me this. This is the process by which we're learning. But I'm not telling you anything you should do.

[33:47]

I'm just saying, if you want to be a bodhisattva, here's what the sutra is encouraging you to learn. Was that joyful? Just for a second. This is all about for the second. Thank you so much. Yes. of the possibility of no mind. That builds me up. And when you say to learn, I don't really know if this is a learning

[34:59]

Or if this is a kind of sea. It's like you see. Or you say... Before you brought up the word learn, you were fine. You were fine. You were filled with joy at this possibility of no mind. Pardon? Yeah, so that's that. And then, if this person is filled with joy like that, If she wants to be a bodhisattva, then she's encouraged to learn some things. If she wants to. If she wants to, exactly. But she may feel like, hey, I'm just full of joy at the prospect of no mind. I don't want to learn that. And to be honest with you, my response was, I don't even want to be a bodhisattva. Yeah, right. So there are people like that, and you're one of them, you think. So that's part of the Buddhist tradition.

[35:59]

My granddaughter had a class on Buddhism, at least one, at her school. And I said, well, what is it? What did you learn? She said, I learned there's two kinds. One is nirvana, for example, being full of joy at the possibility of no mind. And the other is helping people. But some people, they just want to be full of the joy of no mind, which is great. What do you say? We love them. And then there's other people who are, their practice is to help people. But just being full of joy at the possibility of no mind, I don't see a problem in that. That's lovely. Just that's really lovely. And then the person who's full of joy, they may not be sure that they would like to learn how to be in samsara, in order to realize nirvana in samsara.

[37:02]

They may not want to, because it's hard to learn how to be joyful in this world. Excuse me, especially hard if you're full of joy at the thought of no mind. That might make it harder. So that's why bodhisattvas are very careful to not get so happy that they don't want to live in this world. because it's a not-happy place. It's an unhappy place. There are happy moments, worldly moments, but they go away and then it's unhappy. Okay, maybe that's enough for now. Is that enough? Okay. And then there was... Yes? I don't know either. Yeah, well, there's other places where it says transformation. But here, I don't want to... I kind of wanted to skip over this one.

[38:06]

But I kind of like... This is about going into the hell of the third one. It's a really difficult idea of eradication, rejection. I kind of want it to protect you from those words. But I didn't. I said, OK, let's not jump over the hard parts of the sutra and just try to be comfortable. So anyway, here it says eradication, one translation. The other says rejection. Can we stay with her for a second? Yes. But other places we talk about transformation. but this is the teaching on this line, is rejecting evil karma as an opportunity. And by the way, I'll just say, at the end of all these ten, it says, why do you do these tens?

[39:14]

And the reason to do it is to broaden, to make the bodhisattva's mind broaden in the Buddhadharma. So this teaching, I think, is an opportunity for our mind to broaden because of these tight, painful, twisted words of reject and eradicate. These words are offered to make our minds grow, not to make them tight. But for them to grow, we need to notice that they tighten up when we hear the word eradicate. but they tighten up when we see someone disagree. That's normal. So rather than find something that I could say that everyone agrees with, and I'm not looking for trouble, I'm just reading the sutra. We're just on number three, that's all. I didn't plan or want to have number three, but there it is.

[40:15]

And again, I did kind of feel like, maybe skip this so nobody will be upset. Yeah. This is part of the learning, to look at that, to question that, to talk about that. This is part of the learning, to understand this teaching is offered to make our minds not just get bigger, but get bigger in the Buddhadharma. Because our minds are like, this is Buddhadharma like this, right? This is Buddhadharma, and I love Buddhadharma. And then somebody brings up the sutra. And it's outside of our idea. And then, I think, Sonia and Jean.

[41:17]

Wow. I want to try my hand at how I'm internally translating what I'm hearing you. OK. You try your hand at telling us about. Yeah. OK. to guide the world and effecting eradication, people, karma, I thought, that's an inside job. It's like, working on to study the Buddha, it's to study itself. So I was turning that, and I felt like the idea of rejection is actually, going back to what he used to say, the most concern, rejection is like returning to remembering Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And then when you brought up Bhaktoli Malva, I thought, well, he wasn't actually, he was, he was traumatized.

[42:26]

He was traumatized. He was actually in a reactivity mode to what was done to him. Mm-hmm. And when he saw the Buddha and that rejection, and that was, again, maybe remembering the more he was traumatized. Yeah. I've been kind of thinking about all of this is what's happening over here and not so much the evil out there. But the one question I have that you can respond to the back, but I just thought, well, if I think it's evil, how is that not arrogant? You don't have to think it's, you know, you don't have to think of evil karma as evil karma. You don't have to do that either. You can just be in the world, guiding the world, without thinking, oh, look at all that evil karma. You can go into yourself and guide yourself without thinking there's evil karma in here.

[43:35]

You don't have to think of evil karma. Anyway, I'm just telling you, you don't have to think of any of this stuff. You just brought up. So you're having a problem thinking of all this evil karma. You don't have to think of it. You can cure a disease without ever knowing about it. Give the person medicine. A sick person, they could say, would you pass me the medicine? You can give it to them, and it helps them without thinking that they're sick. but you did cure them. Or you could... Yeah, this is... You're on the edge of your mind. It's going to be painful for it to grow right now. Some people are like maybe in an appropriate place, if they're men anyway, they urinate standing up.

[44:41]

And sometimes a person might see them doing that, and they're not thinking this person is... evil, but this person is infested by evil. Their minds are twisted in evil and hatred. They're full of hatred. And they see this person urinating and they're free of their evil karma. That person didn't think, who's that evil person over there? They might have, but they don't have to. They can just be urinating. But the way they're urinating is the way they're guiding the world. And the way they urinate and guide the world is to eradicate the evil. But they don't necessarily think that. They don't have to think that. Like many people don't even speak English. They don't have to use the word evil. This is so wonderful because I see minds that are resisting growing in this room.

[45:43]

It's painful for your mind to grow. You don't know if it's true. I didn't say it's true. I just said it to help your mind grow. I'm offering this stuff to help your mind grow. Your mind is resisting growth. I made a face and you weren't looking at my face when you said that. I was looking at other people's faces, too, when I said that. You're not the only person I'm looking at, actually, if you can believe that. You're not the only person I care about here. And also, guiding the world, you can't guide the world in a way that frees people from evil karma if you don't practice with yourself. And you can practice with yourself in a way where you never are thinking the word evil karma about yourself.

[46:49]

You don't have to think that about yourself, but you can practice with yourself in a way that will eradicate evil karma in yourself and in others. Yes, Gene. I don't know how I'm using it. I just read it in a book. And then when people hear the word, their minds may go binary. Just like when people see a person, their minds may go binary. But it's not the person's binary, but minds look at the person and see binary.

[47:51]

Pardon? What's the point of using that word? Yeah, that's... This is part of learning. So I'm going down here. Number three, I'm reading it to you as an opportunity for learning what? Learning how to realize awakening. This is part of the, what do you call it, the curriculum of awakening, this book. So I would say the point of this is to make Buddhas. That's the point of using the word evil. to evil, this is good, and it's being used in association with various things, and I'm confused with that, the way it's being, this word is being used.

[49:05]

You're confused, that's one word you can use, or you can also say, I think you said, you don't understand how this word's been used. Is that right? Or do you want to just say confused? It sounds to me that it's being viewed as a binary term, that it is not something that is wanted. So the evil is consistently something that we want to change it or eradicate it or in some way do something to it or in some way reject it. Okay, so right there, I think I have something to offer. If you hear the word evil and you think that it should be eradicated, that you want to get rid of it, could that be another evil?

[50:20]

Could the word evil be brought up not as something which you're trying to get rid of? No, but could the word evil be brought up without any wish to try to get rid of it? I didn't mean to use it that way. I just read the word evil, and then I'm asking you now, is it possible to bring that word up lovingly? Is it possible to bring up the word evil and love evil? That's not my question. Yes, but it's not my question. The question is you're using the word... You're jumping over the... So, again, would you ask... Yeah, so would you ask your question, please? What is evil?

[51:29]

I don't know. Thank you for that one. Thank you for that one. So, all these things are brought up. And none of them do I know what they are. I don't know what these words in this book are. The way I would like to be with them with great compassion. That's the way I like to be with them. That's what I'm trying to learn, how to be compassionate with all words. But I don't know what the words are that I'm compassionate with. And I would like to be compassionate with all beings who use words. But I don't know who they are. I don't know what the words are. I don't know what the beings are. Yeah, I don't.

[52:30]

But do I want to be with them, with great compassion? That's what I want. That's what I aspire to. and I don't want to skip over any people or any words. However, I might not read this third line in the presence of some people, but not because I'm skipping over it. It's just not appropriate. And someone may say, well, you know, actually it wasn't appropriate that you brought up the word evil in this morning meeting. And if people feel that way, I want to be compassionate with them saying that to me. But I have this thought that the point of all the words in this sutra are all about helping people wake up and be free and at peace.

[53:34]

That's what I think the whole point here is. Do you have a question? Did I respond to your question? Pardon? Yeah, again, I'm not into answering questions, but I am into responding to them. I do respond to questions, but I don't try to answer them. And if you say to me that I haven't answered your question, I can easily be grateful for you saying that to me, that I did not answer your questions. If somebody says I did, I can also deal with that. But I'm not primarily answering questions because I think answering questions might not be good. It might be better for me to encourage questioning rather than having people answer.

[54:42]

And stop. This, this, this, pardon? You said that. I don't think that. But that's what I want. And if you said I was helpful, I hear you. I want to be, but I don't think I am. I also don't think I'm not. I think I'm beyond helpful and not helpful. That's what I think. And that's what I want to be. In other words, I want to be the Buddha body, which is ungraspable. So, I want to encourage this, but I don't think I am. I want to be a bodhisattva, but I do not think I am. I want to be a Buddha, but I don't think I am. And I've heard, I have some solace, because I've heard that when Buddhas are truly Buddhas, they don't think they are.

[55:49]

They might, but most of the time they're too busy helping people. They're helping so many people and helping so many Buddhas. They just don't happen to think of, I'm a Buddha. But they could. Somebody could say, you are a Buddha, and say, oh, I'm a Buddha. Yes. I really appreciate this third line, the guidance and helping people eradicate and move karma. And I think I also appreciate it as refraining from wholesome action in order to support life. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. and refraining as an act of compassion. Yes?

[56:59]

I just reminded, in listening to the question about evil, that some many years back, you said that you realized that the word evil was lived so backwards. It's like maybe the questioning or remembering is what's maybe moving forward. I don't know, forward and backward is the right duality, but maybe what it is to remember that I want to move, not backward, or in . Do you want to live, or do you want to live not backwards? Yes. Yes.

[58:13]

Linda, yeah, there were two Linda's other hands. Oh, I see. Go ahead, Linda. Well, I just am having a sense as we're talking that the thought of not knowing is coming up. And it's kind of, you were talking about medicine before, offering the medicine. And it's sort of like practicing with this as it is. offering this medicine, having no judgment about what is there or what needs to be cured or not, or about me and who I am or what I'm doing. It's kind of like that, one of the chants, which is practiced like an idiot in secret, like a fool. Something like that has changed my mind. Oh, the other Linda, or another Linda.

[59:22]

In the spirit, I don't know. I don't know if what I'm going to say right now is true or not, but it does come out of my conviction. I was just remembering, you know, I've known you for such a long time. I was remembering, in the 1970s, taking a class with you, and we're reading a lot of passages from the Law Book Project, who came upon some line that was demeaning to women. I always remember this statement. I said, I'm not going to read that. Why should I break my teeth reading a line like that? And that was the line. We came to a line that was demeaning to women. And I said, why should I break my teeth reading lines out like that? to you, you know, I remember that. But today I'm feeling with this discussion of the words eradication, and eradication is one problem.

[60:32]

And remembering about certain issues that came up with Lotus Sutra with you, as far as you mean that you're taking a kind of fundamentalist approach to these texts that we will read and accept or find wisdom in every single life. And, you know, I would say, well, maybe some of them are too wrong. I find the re-eradication to have thought, to be violent in its nature. And so, even if I do not, what do I say, even though I do not intend to say to you that you should accept these teachings, as true. I'm not saying that, but even though I feel that way and I'm not saying that, you may think that's what I'm saying. And I hear that I may be coming across as self-righteous, even though I don't intend it.

[61:35]

Like, this is the truth and you should accept it. I don't want to say that, but even though I don't say it literally, you may feel like Implicitly I'm saying this is the truth and you should accept it. I hear that reflection upon my behavior. Yes? I also hear a lot from you that study means understand the eradication or rejection that comes from understanding It comes from compassion. You take time to understand something. And then from your understanding is you reject. It's not the rejection doesn't come from truth. It comes from study, from understanding. So I think I can speak for myself that the word evil is more not being attacked.

[62:46]

When I'm not attentive to what is, then my mind goes into duality, goes into separation, goes into all kinds of me and you and this and that, and that I call it evil. It's not anything like evil. Okay, thank you. And also, if I bring this up, these things that are encouraged, people may feel like I'm saying, you should do these things. Because I brought it up. So I accept that when I sit in this seat and I tell you that such and such is encouraged for bodhisattvas, what you hear me saying is, you should do this. That's part of me talking. Some other people might say the same thing and you don't feel like they're saying you should do it. But I'm just saying, I don't think I should do these practices.

[63:47]

But even though I don't think I should do them, when I bring them up, you might think I'm saying you should. Like, I don't have to do them, but you have to. No, I don't mean to say that, but that may be what you think I'm saying. Without the first part, you may think you're doing them and you think we have to do them. I don't know if I'm doing these practices, but actually... kind of want to. This third one, I'm trying to learn about the third one. I'm not sure what the third one is. But the first two, I really kind of like, I want to learn about those. I feel encouraged. However, if I tell you that, if he feels encouraged, then I should do it. You might think that. Many people might think that. If that guy's encouraged to do that, I should do what he's encouraged to do. But I don't mean it that way. Yes, I Yeah, thank you.

[64:55]

That's also another point of this, is to broaden the bodhisattva's mind and understand immediately without relying on the teaching of another. Thank you. That's the reason for this number three, is to help you understand immediately without relying on the teaching of another. Yes? I just would like to... say thank you for sharing, being intimate with us and sharing that when you read the third one, I thought I heard you say something about feeling maybe fear or concern. Yeah, I was kind of afraid that people would get upset. Right, thank you. With the word evil and also eradicate. I think Dostoevsky said, huh? You were right. Yeah. I think Dostoevsky, or maybe it was Goethe, said, what is evil?

[65:59]

He said, that which you can't eradicate. No, Goethe asked himself, what is evil? He said, that which you can't eradicate. And Dostoevsky says, evil, the indestructible principality. Yes. I think that usually the evil karma it's not just evil it's evil karma the evil karma is based on ignorance so in ignorance we do harmful actions and harmful actions can be called unskillful or they can also be called evil so the Buddha says evil is what harms Good is what doesn't harm. So this is evil karma. It's not just the eradication of evil, it's the eradication of evil karma.

[67:04]

Evil action. I'm having trouble with the example that someone's sick and you hand the medicine, but you don't know about the sickness, but then you might have their own medicine and they might die, or how you become in life and watching when you're in age. I guess I'm... Well, again, I'm just saying, somebody was urinating, and it helped somebody else. Like one time, I was sweeping the street in front of Zen Center with my daughter on my back, and somebody took a picture of me. And it was put in the newspaper. When I was sweeping the ground carrying my daughter, I was not trying to... eradicate evil karma. I was just cleaning the street. A picture was taken of me. A person saw the picture and he stopped being a criminal and went to Zen Center.

[68:11]

He gave up his criminal career and went to Zen Center because of that picture. But I wasn't thinking of the evil karma, but he was involved in unwholesome activities. And he gave them up and went to Zen Center. Somebody else said to me, you don't know how you help people. And when they said it to me, I said, that's right, I do not know how I help. I don't know how I help. But he was saying, you do help. Yeah. And then somebody else, this other story is that somebody was being mean to somebody. And the person said to me, said to him, are you a Buddhist? And the person said, yeah. And they said, do you have a teacher? He said, yeah, what's his name? And they said, my name. And when they said my name, the other person said, oh, he's our friend. He's going to do our wedding ceremony. And the person turned and stopped being mean.

[69:15]

But I wasn't thinking that person was mean. I didn't even know about him. I didn't know about him. I wasn't saying he was evil. They thought he was being mean to them. I didn't even know about it. And yet my life... So guiding the world in such a way as to something, evil karma, doesn't mean you even know about it or that you're thinking about it. In these cases, I wasn't thinking about it, but I was behaving in a way... And this example I gave before was somebody wasn't thinking about converting anybody. He was just urinating. But somehow the way he was urinating, people woke up. And the way Buddha walked, people woke up. But Buddha wasn't necessarily thinking, that person's evil. Seems quite quiet now.

[70:27]

Is that enough for this morning?

[70:33]

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