Also say, wisdom cognition. And I, okay, got those three down? Okay, and I think I maybe mentioned that conscious cognition is quite familiar to most human beings. It's what most human beings think of as mind. It's most what we're familiar with. It's the realm of language. It's the realm where you're aware of objects, or I should say it's the realm of awareness of objects or knowing objects. It's the awareness of something. It's aware of images.

[01:05]

It's aware of images. It's awareness of ideas. And it's awareness of ideas of colors and smells and touches and tastes and tangibles. And it's awareness of all kinds of emotions and feelings. And it's awareness of ideas about all ideas. It's the realm where there appears to be self and other. It's the realm where there seems to be somebody here. It's the realm of karmic activity. It's a realm where there's an awareness of suffering as an object. And then there's another realm which is the realm of cognitive activity which supports the conscious cognitive activity.

[02:21]

And that realm, there's not somebody there who's aware of things. And there's not language there. And that realm of cognition knows, for example, it knows that Gloria left the room, but it doesn't say Gloria. And it knows that she's coughing. And it might even know that the reason she left the room is because she's coughing. But it doesn't see Gloria as separate from this cognition. There's not somebody there who's separate from Gloria. And that realm, again, supports consciousness and that realm performs almost all, basically it performs all of our physical actions and it performs our language which appears in consciousness. It exercises action but it doesn't think, but it doesn't have thinking that thinks, that's my action.

[03:39]

And then consciousness sometimes notices these actions which are exercised by unconscious processes. It sometimes notices them, not always, but sometimes it does. And they appear in consciousness, like my hands are appearing in consciousness now, but the way they're moving is not being performed by my consciousness. If you pay close attention, you can see that your movements are not being operated by consciousness. If you're inattentive, you might think consciousness is doing them. But I can tell you, I'm not consciously moving these fingers. But I am conscious that they're moving. I cannot figure out how to do this consciously. I am speaking to you. I cannot consciously figure out how to move my lips and tongue and teeth to perform this miracle. Unconscious cognition is supporting this amazing thing of me making these complex gestures, these incredibly complex gestures, which no conscious mind can do this.

[04:47]

Only can see it, and also conscious mind can say, I did it. I would say that's a misunderstanding of what's going on. And actually, now we know that the instruction to move these fingers was administered before I saw the movement. And we are built in such a way that we think that the movement of the fingers is timed with my conscious instruction to them. But again, that's how it looks if you're not attentive. Or you could also say, if you ignore the facts, which an untrained consciousness is not very attentive. And so in the realm of consciousness, In the realm of consciousness, there can be study of it, and the realm of consciousness is often described or discussed in terms of psychology, as psychological phenomena.

[06:02]

But also psychology deals with the unconscious processes, because psychology knows that people do things that they don't know they do. but they do them. And they don't know why they do them, but they do them. And in the modern Western world, Freud discovered this unconscious cognition. It's been well known in Buddhism for 2,500 years, and the Buddha didn't go into it. The historical Buddha did not describe the unconscious process too much, but about six or seven hundred years after the historical Buddha, his disciples drew out and described the unconscious process. And Freud described it, and other people during his era discovered it in the West and described it. And there's ways that consciousness can access

[07:05]

the unconscious. Even though consciousness cannot know what's going on, consciousness can see indirectly what's going on quite well by studying how the unconscious processes are supporting the conscious processes. Some of you have heard me use this example before. This image is coming from D.H. Lawrence, who said, this is what I know about my conscious self. It's a clearing in the middle of a dark forest. And I think he then said, this is quoted in the book, Third Turning of the Wheel. Sometimes deities come out of the forest, out of the dark forest into the clearing for a while, and then they go back.

[08:17]

That's what he said. And I agree. But I say a little bit more. I would say everything that appears in the clearing where there's in the conscious self or the consciousness which has a self, everything that appears there, everything that appears there comes out of the forest. And sometimes what comes out of the forest are divine visitors. The divine visitors are the ones who come into the forest and give you instruction about what's going on in the forest and also tell you about what's going on in the clearing. But actually, everything that comes into the clearing really is a divine revelation. Everything that appears in consciousness is actually showing you the truth. However, in consciousness we have to train in order to see that everything that's appearing is a divine gift.

[09:22]

Or just take away divine and leave it at gift. process of the unconscious cognitive life is inconceivable and consciousness can access it and see how it works indirectly. It is the results, the unconscious process is the results of conscious activity. The actions that we that are happening in consciousness create and transform the unconscious processes, which then support more conscious processes, karmic processes, which transform the unconscious, which supports more consciousness. They're intimately related in each moment. It's a little, they're kind of perfuming each other but

[10:26]

It's not so much that the language that's usually used is not so much speaking of the consciousness as the support of the unconscious, but its cause. And every time I think something or say something or make a gesture, my unconscious process is changed. And the next part is, so is yours. Everything I do transforms your unconscious process. Everything you think transforms my unconscious process. How that works is inconceivable. And then there's a third consciousness, a third cognition, wisdom cognition. And wisdom cognition is the actual intimacy between conscious process and unconscious process. The way that they're actually working, the reality of how they work, is another cognition.

[11:34]

And that intimate reality, that wisdom, is not a consciousness. It's not consciousness, and it's not the unconscious. It's the intimacy of the conscious and the unconscious. The intimacy between them is not a psychological phenomena. It is a liberating phenomena. It is the phenomena which liberates. You could call it spiritual if you want. But it's not just any old spiritual. It's a liberating spirit. The intimacy of the realm of suffering with the realm of the results of past karma which support the realm of suffering, that intimacy is wisdom. And it's not psychological. And there's another intimacy which is in this forest there's not just one clearing.

[12:42]

there's more or less infinite number of clearings. And in each clearing, there's a separate, not a separate, each clearing there is a sense of I'm here. So all the consciousnesses are little clearings in the vast dark forest. And all the consciousnesses, all the clearings, are creating the forest, which is supporting them all, and also all the clearings are intimate with each other. And that's another dimension of wisdom. So the intimacy of all the little clearings where we live, and the intimacy between our clearings and our unconscious process, all that intimacy is Buddha's wisdom. And now you have it.

[13:46]

You have that intimacy. You have that wisdom. You have that intimate transmission. And you also have a little clearing. And you also have a vast, unconscious, cognitive life. So you have intimacy and you have a consciousness to deal with, and so do I. And you have also Buddha's wisdom. And then you're instructed, now that you have it, to take care of it. And part of the way you take care of it is that you hear these instructions and you hear these instructions in words, in consciousness, and part of the way you take care of a wisdom which is not consciousness, which consciousness doesn't reach, part of the way you take care of that is by taking care of consciousness.

[14:59]

Because if we don't take care of consciousness, we tend to think that consciousness is wisdom. In other words, that consciousness, that what's appearing in consciousness is true. Because in consciousness there's all kinds of processes which are subliminally and superliminally telling us that what's appearing is true. That it really is true that we're separate, for example. The intimacy is not moving. It's still. And in stillness is where the intimacy is living. So when we hear that instruction, practicing remembering that instruction in consciousness is part of what helps us realize this intimacy, this wisdom.

[16:11]

Nobody's consciousness reaches this wisdom. Yes? How do you take care of consciousness? Well, what I said earlier tonight is remember stillness. Practice it. Practice stillness and transmit it in daily life. That's a simple instruction. I think it sounds simple to me. A simple instruction for taking care of consciousness. So in consciousness, for example, you might be seeing me and I seem to be seeing you. Or rather, there is an appearance of you and there's an awareness of the appearance of you. And also Justin and Pat and Christiane and Fran and Cynthia, and so on.

[17:20]

All that's going on in my little clearing. All of you is happening moment after moment. In this little room, a lot of people are happening every moment, and you're changing, and there's an awareness of that, and I'm here too. That's consciousness, and I take care of that by remembering stillness. Stillness, I remember it. and I even say, remember stillness, out loud. And in consciousness also the thought might arise, what is he talking about? Or what am I talking about? Or what is stillness? That thought might arise. And that's an example of things that arise in consciousness. Questions arise. So, for example, the question, what is stillness, might arise, and then how do you take care of consciousness with it has the question, what is stillness?

[18:24]

How do you take care of it when that thought arises? Nettie? How do you take care of it? Remember stillness. I know what stillness is. That's a verbal expression of an idea. And so to take care of the teaching of suchness, I need to take care of the consciousness and the thing in consciousness which just said, I know what stillness is. I don't know what stillness is. I need to take care of that. How do I take care of those thoughts? By remembering stillness. I don't know. I don't know how I got to Berkeley. I don't know how I got to human life.

[19:26]

I don't know how I became a Zen priest. I don't know why I'm so fortunate to be surrounded by benefactors. I don't know. I don't know. I do not know. I can tell you stories, but... Remember, if I do, which I'm not doing right now, I'm just telling you I don't know, if I tell you any stories about how I came to be in this room, I want to remember that's just a story. And being still with the story I tell about how I get to be like this, that's the practice. Do you understand? I don't know how I remember stillness, but I do. I'm not operating myself. I'm not under my control, and I'm not under your control. Yeah. And you're not under my control.

[20:29]

If you want to remember stillness but experience... Disturbance, yeah. Oh, thanks for reminding me. In consciousness, the situation is disturbing. Consciousness is disturbing. It's disturbed. It's turbulent. That's a normal situation in consciousness. Where there's a self, you've got confusion. That's normal. So, the instruction is, remember in the place where there's a self, And there's confusion. Remember stillness. Where things are swirling all over the place, remember stillness. It doesn't say see exactly. See it because things don't look still in consciousness. Yeah. And then Delaney said, well, how can you remember? I don't know. I don't know how you can remember stillness.

[21:42]

But you can. It sometimes happens. You do remember it. I do remember it, but I don't know. I've heard this teaching quite a few times. You could say, well, that has something to do with it. Yes, but I don't know how that works. How many times do you have to hear remember stillness before you do? I don't know. I do not know. Does anybody remember stillness who never even heard the instruction remember stillness? Maybe. Does anybody who's heard the instruction, remember stillness, forget to remember stillness? I think so. I've heard that they do. Most people tell me that they've forgotten about stillness. How do they forget? I don't know. How do they remember? I don't know. Why am I saying this over and over? I don't know. but I am, and I'm not the only one, and I have good company.

[22:44]

The people who repeat this are great, the great compassionate people in history. Did you have your hand raised before? Well, then please. Yeah, I did. Is this clearing consciousness? Yeah, that's consciousness. Consciousness is so... He said, this is what I know about my conscious self. In other words, what I know about consciousness. So you're talking about a little place that you... It is kind of... It's a little place, but it's big enough to have a world. It's a little place that's a world. It's a whole world, and it's got galaxies in it, you know, lots of them in this little world. Like Siddhartha Ganesha said, it's little, but it's big enough to have problems. There's another world that's beyond measure, which is spoken of in the song, and it's greatness utterly beyond location.

[23:52]

It's like... And people are telling stories about this other world. They call it the universe and there's various theories about it. And then it says, in its finest, it fits into spacelessness. What's that? That's the wisdom. And then the unconscious is just huge compared. So our conscious mind is a highly, highly reduced version of our life. where you can do math. I don't think you can do, well, you can do math, you can learn languages, you can play chess, and you can listen to teachings. The teachings, however, are not words, but when the teachings touch consciousness, they get converted into words. In the forest, there aren't really words, but when things come out of the forest and they come through the surface of the consciousness, into the consciousness, they turn from big,

[24:53]

possible things into words. So consciousness is a highly impoverished version of our life that has a whole world in it. You can say, well, this is really, yeah, this is wonderful. We have so much stuff here in consciousness. I don't disagree at all with that. I'm just saying, you ain't seen nothing, sister. That's nothing. That's just a very, very, very, very pipsqueak version of your life. But it's still pretty big and wonderful. You know, it's got all kinds of babies in it. But the baby is not your conscious version of the baby. The baby is actually much, much bigger than that. Not even bigger, just far beyond any idea you have of the baby. And sometimes you get a feeling like, I think this baby is far beyond my idea of this baby. Don't you? Everybody's that way.

[25:57]

Everything that we see in consciousness is like a circle, a clearing in the forest. We also have the image, it's like a circle of water in the ocean. You go out in the ocean, away from the shore, and look around. The ocean looks like a circle of water. But of course the ocean is not a circle of water. It just looks that way. And it does look that way. It looks just like a circle of water. But if you pay attention to the circle, you realize this is not the ocean. If the ocean were a circle of water, it would not be behaving like this. And if people were like you think they are, they wouldn't be behaving this way. The way people appear is that you think you could control them, or yourself. You could think you could control yourself, but if you realize the ocean that you are, you realize nobody can control it, including Buddha. The whole universe cannot control

[27:00]

But in consciousness, it looks like, I think I could control this person if I, you know, I gave her enough money or... You don't think so. Well, some people think that they can. Some people think they can control people. And they try. And the more you try, the more scared you get. So, please, Jeff, ask your question now about stillness. Or later. I came across some text that sounds like it talks about . Yeah. And I asked for that, and you know, whether that meant more... I can't even... I don't know what it sounds like, but that's just, you know, the focus is still there.

[28:20]

There's... I don't know, I mean, these are metaphors, and sometimes it's quite... I don't know, maybe that, maybe that, yeah. You probably couldn't hear him, right? Huh? No. There's something about the way the room's set that they couldn't hear you. Anyway, he's raising the issue of movement. What's movement got to do with stillness? Okay? Okay. Movement does appear in consciousness. We see movement in consciousness. But again, if I pay close attention, I really cannot find movement, and also I can't find stillness.

[29:33]

But stillness doesn't really appear in consciousness. It's not an appearance. Now you might see something that looks more still than other things, like you might see a rock is still. But if you look carefully, you'll see the appearance of movement in the rock. I don't think we can see stillness. And the movement you're seeing is an illusion created by many causes and conditions. In stillness, we can enter wisdom. But the entry into wisdom is not moving from here to there. It's just entering the intimacy where we already are. When you look at someone and feel for them, you don't have to move to feel for them.

[30:40]

But you might think you do have to move to feel for them. But you don't have to move. You co-arise with them. You're not even connected to them. So again, we're interdependent, yes, but we're not connected because we're not separate. And our intimacy, if we move, the song says, if you move, you'll fall into a trap. What's the trap you fall into? You fall into the trap of movement. You think you have to move to get wisdom. You have to go someplace. You have to do something. And if you hesitate, in other words, hesitate, you're not still. If you hesitate, you miss it. Miss what?

[31:49]

Miss this intimate communion. You miss it if you hesitate or if you move. I cannot make stillness, but we all together are living in stillness. What's the stillness? It's our actual intimacy, which cannot move, and it is impermanent. Or I would say it arises our arising and ceasing life. I take back that it arises. It doesn't arise. It doesn't cease. It is the intimacy of our arising and ceasing is not an arising and ceasing.

[32:51]

It is a stillness. It is a stillness or it is living in stillness. The intimacy of our rising and ceasing life is living in stillness. In the rising and ceasing. Everything that arises ceases. Yeah. And also the unconscious cognition is also changing constantly in relationship to other things that are arising and ceasing. So the unconscious cognition, cognitive process is changing, is impermanent, and the conscious process is impermanent. However, yeah, I'll just stop there. Intimacy of all that is not arising and ceasing. The intimacy of your arising and my arising and your ceasing and my ceasing, that intimacy does not arise or cease.

[34:05]

That is, as I mentioned last night, that is the case. That's the case of our life. The case of our life is constant change and the intimacy of the conscious change with all other, of all change with all other change. And for some reason, what's the reason? I don't know. Oh, yeah. The reason, for some reason, and the reason is because of inattentiveness, we think it's possible to have some control in this world, we think it's possible for there to be a me, a real me, that's not just part of a process. And that this me can have power and can control what's going on in consciousness.

[35:11]

And there can be a desire to realize this me who is permanent, autonomous, free, and powerful, and in control. That desire can arise in consciousness. And that desire is the basic condition for suffering. Yeah? That's not the suchness. That is a characteristic of things that appear to be independent.

[36:23]

So it's a character that arises. It's a character, yeah. It's a character that arises, which is included in the suchness, the strong suchness. And there's a character that is cognitionally. Yes. And there's a character that abides. It appears to stay. It appears to dissolve. As you pay more attention, you start to see that. Or not just more attention, but more careful attention. So the stillness would be not being taught by these appearances or characters that arise. stillness is not being caught by them. And the suchness is living in that stillness which is not caught by these things, but doesn't exclude them and doesn't try to engineer them.

[37:31]

It allows all these processes to go on, and in the way that they're going on, that's suchness. And the way they're going on is that nobody's in control. and there's no independent self. But there is, in this picture, there is the arising of inattentiveness. And because of that there is the arising of a desire for a self that's impossible. So a character of inattentiveness? It's not exactly a character, it's ignorance. Ignoring what? Ignoring the way things actually are. Like, for example, you look at something, like, for example, I move my hands like this, and someone says, now, watch this, I'm going to say, no, I'm going to move my hand.

[38:36]

Okay, I'm going to move my hand now, watch. And I move it. But if I pay attention, I realize the way it happened, I did not know it was going to happen that way. I say, well, try to move it exactly some way. No. And if you try to engineer the way you see it, now watch this. If you look carefully, the way you watched is not the way you thought you would. If you're attentive, you'll see that you're not in control, for example. And people say, well, yes, I am. I can move my hand. Yeah, but if you look carefully, you cannot move it the way you want to move it. You want to actually be in control of it. Like you want to move it. I'm going to move it up one foot. Was that a foot? Somebody said, okay, I'm going to get a ruler, and I'm going to actually move it up a foot. But even if you do that, you watch carefully. You say, well, still, I moved it a foot, but that isn't the way.

[39:37]

I wasn't in control. It wasn't the way I thought. The actuality of attention, attention to something that you can't. There's no attention to the characteristics of, say, for instance, the space movement. I know one of the 52 doctrines is attention, but there's no inattention. Inattention. I think there is an inattention. It's called confusion or ignorance. Avijja is a dharma, and also moha, which also means confusion or ignorance. So inattentiveness is a phenomena. And inattentiveness has a range. It can be highly inattentive or just a little bit inattentive. So you said earlier, we can pay attention to, for example, we can pay attention to things that don't exist, but are appearing to exist, like an independent self or separation or movement.

[40:45]

You can pay attention to these things, and as your attention becomes more developed, you start to realize the teachings you've been hearing about these things. You start to see impermanence, and not the impermanence you used to see. like knowing what to attend to as opposed to, I mean, in other words, if you can attend to a field of events or just one event, you're missing all the other things that you're not attending to. So there seems to be some importance about attending to something that you should be attending to. And you're saying this is almost Well, one thing I'm saying to pay attention to would be stillness, yeah, which is a summary of being generous, being careful. When you're being careful, you're kind of like, being still helps you be careful. You're not rushing ahead. You're like checking out the precepts.

[41:46]

And then your patience, stillness, patience is very much about being still with pain. And again, to be diligent. and thorough and energetic, you need to be still. So stillness is a summary of lots of compassion practices. And so we're being asked to pay attention to those. And then by practicing those with everything, that will help you be attentive to everything. If we don't listen to people, it's hard to actually be attentive to what they're saying. Yes. We do conceive of an I, yes. And in consciousness, whether you're aware of it or not, whether there is the awareness of it or not, there seems to be somebody there.

[42:55]

And we're not always aware that there seems to be somebody in that awareness. But if the sense of self wasn't in consciousness, it wouldn't be consciousness anymore. It would be some other kind of cognition, which we also have available. So, for example, if I often mention, when you're asleep and you don't have any dreams, you're still basically somewhere in the neighborhood of 98.6 degrees, your body, and your cognitive processes are not asleep. I mean, your consciousness, actually I take it back, your cognitive processes are asleep and sometimes so asleep that there's no dreaming. So if there's no dreaming, you're still alive, cognitive processes are still doing all kinds of wonderful things like

[43:57]

you know checking out what's going on in the neighborhood and letting you know if you should wake up and oftentimes saying it's not necessary to wake up and other times they're aware of certain chemicals going on that were activated during the day in relationship to anxiety and then the unconscious cognitive processes say those chemicals are here I think we should wake up So then people wake up in the middle of the night and they don't know why. But the reason they woke up is because the unconscious processes said those anxiety chemicals came up. And so we thought maybe we should wake up just in case. So a certain set of chemicals are flowing in our body and cognitive processes relate to them. And then even if you're not aware of it, even if you don't think, I'm sleepy, sometimes the unconscious processes turn off the awakefulness, and you go to sleep.

[45:01]

Are you following that? The thing that puts you to sleep, you don't consciously put yourself to sleep. You can, however, consciously think the thought, I'm tired, I'm going to lay down, I'm going to close my eyes, and then you can think those things, but actually you're not in control of that, but you can think you are. In consciousness, generally speaking, where there's language, there's somebody there. Even if you don't say, I'm tired, I'm going to lay down. But what I just wanted to say was, when I lie down, or when there's lying down with this body, and the eyes close, usually, very rapidly, there is sleep. But the unconscious processes is what makes us sleep, not my conscious.

[46:04]

And I know some people who do the same thing that I do they lie down, they close their eyes or anyway there's lying down and there's closing of eyes and the unconscious processes put them to sleep just like me and then in the middle of the night the unconscious process detects certain chemicals that were not very important in comparison to the chemicals that are detected when it's said sleep. And then those chemicals go away, and the other ones come up, and the person wakes up. And the waking up process is a cognitive activity. And sometimes in the sleep, there's no dreaming. There's just this unconscious process, which again is keeping the person asleep or waking the person up. with no dreaming. Nobody's there. And that's always going on. If that stops, you're dead.

[47:05]

Because that keeps your heart going and so on. Yeah? To what extent or do we share the unconscious? To what extent what? To what extent or do we share our unconscious process? You and I, you mean? Yeah. The teaching is that the unconscious cognitive process we share is the physical world. The physical world is the shared unconscious cognition. The unshared section is each of our individual sense organs. And your sense organs, to me, are part of the world that I live in. but I do not have your sense organs. Your sense organs are not shared with me, but your body, which is connected, which is where the sense organs are, your body is part of my world, and it's a part of your world, too.

[48:14]

That world we share. So part of unconscious cognitive processes is not shared And a great deal is shared. And all of it is due to our conscious activity. And all of it is intimate. And in the intimacy, there is peace and freedom, which is the point of bringing this up. The teaching of suchness is is the guide for all beings. This teaching will guide you on the path of peace and this teaching will relieve all suffering. Reality is a good deal. It's not the problem. The problem is that we desire things that are not the case.

[49:14]

We desire something that's not real. And it's mainly we desire for this person to be powerful and in control and be a self. It's that desire that leads to clinging and becoming an old age sickness and death. But we don't try to get rid of this desire. We practice compassion towards it. By practicing compassion towards it, we realize that it's impossible to be in control. It's impossible to be an independent self. It's impossible to be autonomous because we're intimate.

[50:15]

And we learn how to deal with reality by being kind to everything. Including that. Yeah. We're not surprised to hear that. And we're having kind thoughts towards you and your electronic equipment. Right? In this room, we're all kind to her, right? We're trying to learn that. And some people actually think, no, you should not be kind to some people. Yeah, it's a nice idea, but there must be exceptions.

[51:20]

The teaching of suchness is an intimate transmission, which now you have. But it's not just you in this room that have it. Everybody has it. Everybody's part of this intimate, holy communion. Nobody's left out. the world we live in, we share. And everybody's included. And everybody is intimate. So, let's go to work on taking care of this intimacy. How do you take care of it? I guess, I don't know. I don't know how you take care of it. But here's some instruction. Number one, do you want to take care of it? Or number two is, do you have any questions or doubts that you haven't? And if you do, you're welcome to tell me. And I'm not going to try to control you out of having doubt. I'm going to be still with your doubt.

[52:29]

I'm going to remember stillness if you tell me you doubt that this teaching is will remove all suffering. If you tell me that, I want to practice remembering stillness with your doubt. And if I have doubt, I want to practice with my doubt. And I have respect for doubt because I'm intimate with it wherever it is. I'm intimate with doubt. I'm also intimate with faith. All the faith in the universe, I am intimate with. I'm in holy communion with all the faith in the world. And the teaching is you are too. And I want to take care of it. So I'm wondering, do you want to take care of this intimacy, which is what will guide you to peace and freedom? So I'm asking if you do, and if you don't, I'm also asking you to tell me that you don't, so I can practice being still with you, not believing this teaching.

[53:37]

Yes? So certain common phrases that we use could actually be causing problems for us versus the phrase endearment stillness, which is not actually Now, you can enter in stillness. It just, you can't move to enter it. The way you enter into it, that's why I said, I shouldn't say that's why, because I don't know why. Again, remember, I don't know why I talk like this. I don't know why I love you like I do. I don't know why I just do. I don't know why I talk about stillness. I don't know why I just do. But anyway... You don't have to move to enter stillness. You just have to remember it, and you don't have to move to remember it. If I don't remember it, moving doesn't help.

[54:41]

I don't know. So I remember stillness, and remembering it, I enter the place where I already am. It's funny. Like I remember me and then I enter me. I remember my body and I enter my body. It's like I inhabit myself by remembering myself. It's part of the paradoxical nature of humans is they have to work at it a little bit. We are humans. That's already established. And yet we have to practice being humans. If we don't, we can kind of miss it. Like, oops, geez, I missed out on that point. We are still, we need to remember it, and then when you remember it, you practice it. And then you transmit it. But you don't have to move to practice it. We enter it in the first level of consciousness?

[55:52]

You mean in consciousness? Well, you said first level of consciousness. Do you mean first level of cognition? Yeah. And by first, do you mean wisdom? Or do you mean... Do you mean we enter in consciousness? In consciousness, it might look like you entered. Like, it might look like you're moving, and then you go... In consciousness, it looks like you're moving, and then you go... And it might look like you entered it. Mm-hmm. but really when you're going like this you're actually still if you pay attention you see that I was actually still it's not that I'm not moving it's not that I'm not moving I'm not saying I'm not moving okay and I'm not saying I am moving but I guess I could say that but what I'm saying is I'm remembering stillness and I'm practicing stillness And you know some people do that, right? They go like this and they're demonstrating stillness while the movement's going on.

[56:58]

This is like what we call, some people call that a great dancer. They're doing this movement thing, but they're showing people stillness and everybody goes, Thank you for transmitting that. But they have to remember it and practice it. And if they do it over and over, they can transmit it. They can show it to people. And then they initiate other people to remember it. Oh, yeah, right. You can be still when you're... Like one time I offered incense. I went like this. And I realized that I was still. But I couldn't, I didn't really realize stillness until I saw it at this time. And I didn't see with my eyes. I saw it with my, I saw it with, intimacy took over. Yes? Intimacy doesn't include that you're, you need to stop there intimacy does not preclude now if you want to you can put a whole bunch of things after that basically the whole universe intimacy does not preclude it co-arises it is the co-arising of everything it is totally inclusive and not separate

[58:37]

It's not, excuse me, the wisdom part of intimacy, there's not a wisdom part of intimacy. Wisdom is intimacy. That's what wisdom is. It is the intimacy. It's not like wisdom's over here. Hi, oh, there's intimacy over there. I know, but I don't know how either, but I'm just telling you. It's not that intimacy and part of it's wisdom. The whole intimacy. Part of intimacy is not intimacy. Intimacy is the whole intimacy. Well, yeah, go ahead. We'll try to practice being still with it. Okay. Don't see myself resuming the friendship. OK.

[59:46]

That's the wisdom part. There's nothing there, so to speak. There is love. There is care for a person. But no need to have friendship. OK. I don't know what you mean by friendship, but for me, I would like to consider the possibility of using friendship as a, or use love as a synonym for friendship. Friendship, Buddhist friendship, okay? We call the Buddhist teacher a good friend. What's a good friend? It's somebody who, a good friend in this tradition, is somebody who remembers stillness, who practices it and transmits it.

[60:46]

So there's some people I don't go out to lunch with, and I used to. I went out to lunch with some people one time, and I don't go out. I haven't gone out with lunch with them for a long time, and I may never go out with lunch with them again, but I wish to be their good friend. Whether I ever see him again, I want to be their good friend. And this wish to be a good friend goes very nicely with being still. You're welcome. Yes. Is doubt there or is there consumption? I think I would say that there's different kinds of doubt, but there's a kind of doubt which goes with wonder. So if you look up the word wonder in the dictionary, you might find in certain dictionaries three meanings of wonder.

[61:55]

First is to think about. or to think about, to curiously speculate, to think about. That's part of wonder. Okay? Next part of wonder is to be filled with amazement and awe. And that's another part of wonder. Third part of wonder is doubt. For example, I wonder what is the precious, mere samadhi. I wonder what that is. I wonder. I do. In other words, I think about it, and I'm thinking about it with you. I curiously speculate about what it might be. I don't know what it is, but I wonder. And I also am filled with awe and amazement about intimacy in this teaching.

[62:57]

And I doubt this teaching What does doubt mean? I doubt that I know what it is. It's a wondering doubt, not a I don't believe in a doubt. It's more like I doubt that I actually understand it. I don't know all about it. It's that kind of doubt. The unimaginable definite, well, some unimaginables. For example, excluding doubt is also an unimaginable thing. If you try to exclude doubt, that attempt is also inconceivable. But this wisdom, which is an inconceivable wisdom, which is a wisdom which is inconceivable liberation, that wisdom definitely includes everything because it includes everything. But some other things are a dream of excluding something.

[63:58]

But even the things that dream of excluding something are really actually oceans, inconceivable oceans. Everything, nothing can get out of this teaching of suchness. It's not like there's the teaching of suchness over here and there's some stuff over here and over there. Teaching of suchness is the way everything is interdependent and not separate. And that, the way everything is, is intimately transmitting awakening and freedom from suffering. And so we need to take care of everything that we can take care of so we won't hinder this transmission. So we have some responsibility in this situation. For example, we have the responsibility to be still. It's our job, and we can do it.

[65:02]

Because, I mean, I should say, it's our job to remember it, and we can remember it. We can't do the stillness. We can't do the intimacy, but we can remember it. We can remember not to ignore it or try to control it. and we can practice it with everybody we know. We can give everybody our full attention and give up trying to control them. Like the song says, turning away is wrong and touching or trying to control is wrong. For it's like a massive fire. This teaching, this intimacy is like a huge fire If you turn away from it, you're half alive or just burned up or freezing. If you try to get a hold of it, it's excruciating. But you don't have to do that.

[66:06]

You can do neither and just be still with it. It's right here. You don't have to go someplace for it. The teaching of suchness is right here. So take care of it. And how do you take care of it? Just be still with what's been given to you. which again, you know, be still, can be articulated as don't move, don't get excited, don't hesitate, don't touch, don't ignore. In stillness you can really pay good, close attention. Listen to everything, look at everything, Listen to everything. Listen to everything. Listen to everything. Listen to all the cries of the world, every single one. And if you think, I can't, that's another one. I can't. I can't listen to that person's cry.

[67:08]

I can't listen to my cry. It's just too painful to listen to it. That's another one to listen to. I'm so nervous. I'm so fidgety. I want to be someplace else. I want to be someplace else. That's another one to listen to. I'm in the right place. I'm so happy to be here. That's another one to listen to. But we have to train ourselves. We have to remember that. We have to be mindful of listening to every cry inwardly and outwardly. And so far, I have not regretted listening to any of the cries myself. And if any of you regret listening to a cry, I'd be interested to hear about that. So one of our, the great bodhisattva of compassion is also the great bodhisattva of wisdom.

[68:16]

Avalokiteshvar is the big listener. She doesn't just listen to some people. She listens to all the cries. And that's how she practices wisdom. Oh my gosh. It's over time. I'm so sorry. Please forgive me.

[68:38]

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