Thank you for coming back after our one week break. We have four more meetings to explore compassion, to investigate compassion, to experiment with compassion, to question and inquire about compassion. And tonight I'd like to, and then welcome Charlie. And tonight I'd like to go over something that we talked about at our last meeting with a little addition.

[01:01]

So I'm proposing various aspects of generating compassion. But before trying to enter into the process of generating compassion, I wanted to address the issue of being... What's the word? Impartial. Impartial. So it's a natural thing for us to find some people, some sentient beings, to find them pleasant, to be comfortable with them.

[02:07]

And it's also just like a physical fact that with some people, we are uncomfortable and we feel unpleasant being near them. irritated by their mere presence. So as a basic background practice, we need to be impartial. We don't need to be comfortable with everybody or uncomfortable with everybody, but we do need to learn how to not hate or be attached to beings. Now, usually there's some tendency to get attached to people we're comfortable with and people who we find pleasant.

[03:16]

And it's a natural tendency to hate people who we feel uncomfortable with, who we find obnoxious, disgusting, yeah, repulsive. So these feelings we have no control over as far as I know for the time being. but we can notice if we feel attachment to those we're comfortable with and pay attention to that. And in a sense, confess and repent it over and over until we let go of our attachment to beings who we are comfortable and with whom we feel pleasant.

[04:21]

And similarly, some people, with whom we have an uncontrollable aversion or I should say discomfort to learn to let go of trying to get away from them and avoid them and even hate them. This is an ongoing thing and so that we can treat beings impartially. If we don't treat, if we don't find a way to be impartial with people, then we wind up to be biased. And if we're biased, we are disabled to some extent in being able to see what's going on. We will be, if we are biased, it will interfere with and lead our practice and lead us to make mistakes due to our biases.

[05:27]

So with someone I'm uncomfortable with, I can be unbiased towards them, even though I'm still uncomfortable. And then I can have a chance to have, again, to develop loving kindness and compassion, and leading to Buddhahood. Because again, compassion is the main cause of Buddhahood. But if we don't practice impartiality towards beings, it will not be possible for us to practice true compassion and become the helpful person we aspire to become in this world. So I propose that at the beginning, and it's also a conversation piece, but I'd like to, if you have responses to this suggestion of the necessity of being impartial, let's talk about that later, okay, after I present a little bit more.

[06:41]

So then the next practice is the practice of, well, Oh, by the way, there's a traditional presentation of four divine abodes, which many of you have probably heard about. The first one's called loving-kindness, metta in Pali and maitri in Sanskrit. The next one's called karuna. or compassion. The next one's called pramudita, or finding the merit in others, finding their virtues and rejoicing in their virtues. And the fourth one is called equanimity. Equanimity is very close to being impartial, so that when we're uncomfortable, we somehow learn to treat our discomfort

[07:44]

without hating it. And when we're comfortable, we learn how to relate to our comfort without attaching to it. And then also, if we can relate to our own comfort without attaching, and our own discomfort without hating, then we can learn to do the same thing with people with whom we feel comfortable and uncomfortable. So the usual order, it's usually in that system, it's loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. But in a way, this, what I'm presenting to you, is kind of not quite the reverse. It's more like equanimity or impartiality. And then, actually, to see the merit in others, and then practice loving kindness, and then practice compassion, and then generate the wish, the deep resolve to live for the welfare of others, to be focused and steady and steadfast in our intention to live for the welfare of others.

[09:06]

And from there, In order to live for the welfare of others, we aspire to Buddhahood, because Buddhahood will enable us to be the best friend, the best protector, the best refuge, the best liberator for all beings. And this resolve, this aspiration, is the seed of Buddhahood and is necessary for Buddhahood. So again, going back to impartiality and then going back to a requirement, which I mentioned last time, a requirement for love, for loving kindness. And that requirement is that we have a gentle feeling of fondness fondness or affection for beings.

[10:10]

And in order to have this gentle fondness or affection for beings, we need some help. And the help, as I proposed last time, is to understand that in the inconceivably vast evolution that we have gone through to become the person we are now, all beings have been, last time I said, our mothers. They have also been our sisters, our brothers, our fathers, our uncles, our aunts, our friends, our enemies, They've been all those things to us in our vast evolutionary process. And then there was some discussion I was included in about the problem of seeing others as having been our mothers, because in the modern times, life is really complicated.

[11:22]

So I would suggest if we are in a time when seeing others as mothers does not kind of accord with seeing others as our benefactor, that we change, just maybe understand that mother means, and also in ancient times, maybe there was more strict division of labor and maybe fathers did not do caregiving. And the mothers were really focused on that. But whatever the reasons that we have trouble with this, I would suggest that we understand that we wouldn't be here if we hadn't been cared for by innumerable beings. Somebody did good stuff for us so that we could be here today. We are here by the kindness of others. And everyone... all beings who are currently living with us has served as an effective and loving caregiver for us in the past to meditate on that until we actually can feel gentle feelings of fondness and appreciation and affection for all beings through this meditation.

[12:44]

And this is a meditation to do not when you're on the street, but do it in your quiet meditation so that when you meet beings on the street, you already have understood this. Because as you know, people on the street sometimes are rude to us, disrespectful of us, or disrespectful of others. And I really feel that you all want people to respect everyone, right? You all want everyone to be respected. And I find that some people who really want everyone to be respected and want everyone to respect everyone have trouble respecting people who don't respect people.

[13:45]

So again, I know some people who want all beings to be respected, and they really want that, and I do too. However, when they see someone not respecting someone, they think that person should not be respected. And making exceptions like that will hinder the development of true compassion and true aspiration to Buddhahood. And I'm happy to discuss that later also. So once again, impartiality. Then next, learning through meditation, through recollecting that all beings have been our greatly compassionate caregiver in the past.

[14:59]

And then from there, being able to practice loving kindness. And loving kindness is to wish all beings to be happy and to be aware that many beings lack happiness and that we wholeheartedly wish every person who lacks happiness to have great happiness. That's loving kindness. And if we feel fond of people, we will be able to wish that for them. And not only do we wish it for them, we commit to work for them. We accept responsibility for that wish that they would have abundant happiness And based on this love, the next phase is that based on that love, we practice compassion. So that love, sometimes we use the image that love moistens the ground of all living beings.

[16:11]

It moistens it and softens it and prepares it for planting the seed of compassion. It will again hinder the planting compassion in ourselves if we do not practice this genuine, tender appreciation for all beings. We will be hindered in planting compassion in our mind and body and transmitting it to others Compassion is different from loving kindness in that compassion is not so much noticing that people lack happiness and wishing that they would have great happiness. It is more being aware that they are miserable and stressed and frightened and tormented and wishing them to be free.

[17:16]

of misery and suffering. So loving kindness wants beings who don't have abundant happiness to be happy, and compassion wishes for all beings who are suffering to be free of suffering. And then following from that wish is the commitment to that practice. Based on this compassion, we then will be able to really commit to the work, the aspiration to benefit all beings. So I offer these things and I welcome your attention your conversation about this and your difficulties in any aspect of these practices.

[18:19]

And once again, I want to stress that we want to be able to do these practices in the street, in the grocery store, throughout our daily lives with people. However, it's also important to do it when you're alone. when you have quiet time. So you're not like challenged to deal with people while you're trying to meditate on them as having been your truly compassionate and devoted caregiver in the past. And also I wanted to say again, that also all beings have been our enemies in the past. but we don't focus on there having been enemies. But we do notice that in the present, they are our enemies. We have enemies in the present. And these enemies in the present have been our enemies in the past, but they have also been astoundingly supportive and nurturing and kind to us.

[19:30]

And that we focus on so that we can be impartial and loving and compassionate towards our enemies, not to mention our friends. And one other thing, no, two other things, in that there's an order in these practices. So in the case of being impartial, we start practicing impartiality towards people that we aren't particularly comfortable with or uncomfortable with. People who have never done it, for whom we haven't really seen that they've done anything good for us or harmed us. People that we have kind of neutral feelings for. We start practicing impartiality with them because it's easiest to do it with them. It's harder to start practicing impartiality with people who are good friends

[20:34]

because those are the people we have a tendency to be attached to. But we start by practicing with people we have kind of neutral relationships with and develop impartiality with them and watch with them for any tendency to attach or hate. Then we go next to friends and do the same. Watch out for any tendency to attach or hate. And then we go to enemies and watch for any tendency to hate or attach. And with loving kindness, we start with those, we start with those. ourselves, and if you can't do that, then you start with someone who is a friend, someone who you feel has helped you. And you go to someone who you feel you have a neutral relationship with, and then you finally go to the person who has been cruel to you, a person who you feel you have reason to have resentment, or somebody you do have resentment towards.

[21:47]

Okay, so now I think I'm ready to talk to the people who have their yellow hands raised. But before we do that, how can I get the chat thing to go away? It's obscuring my view. Click on chat on the bottom of your screen. But where is it? I don't see chat. The chat's covering the chat. I see. It's next to participants. Yeah, so the chat's covering up the participants. It's blocking out about a third of the screen, the chat thing. There's a little box at the bottom. Yeah. And it says chat. If you click on that, it should disappear. But I'm saying, I don't see the little chat box.

[22:53]

It used to be there, but now this big black box is on top of it. Do you see a red dot on that big box that you can click to make it go away? Like it says chat and up on top, if you move your cursor, if you move your cursor up there, that little dot up on the upper left would turn red. And then you click it. I see a red dot on the top of the whole screen over on the left. Is that that one? No, not that one. The one in the chat. Yeah, I can't get the red dot to go on. Even with your cursor. Yeah, I'm going up to it. Oh, just a second. I pressed a button, a little arrow pointing down and it said close. I didn't press close. You got it. That didn't work. I got a message from Jeff. Pop left chat close. Okay. I'll try it again. Close.

[23:55]

That worked. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Two times does the trick. Now I can see many people. Thank you. So, raised hands. Justin. Correct. I have a confession and hopefully a question in there. In that, you know, in attempting to be impartial, I find myself, for lack of a better way of putting it, I'm looking for the right words about putting up walls. uh, of, you know, trying to, to exercise the practice and impartiality by being slightly closed.

[24:59]

Um, and I, and I, and it doesn't feel good and it's very, you know, very habitual for me. And I, and I want to, um, and I feel like I don't express, I don't express or mirror the, um, the kindness or affection that's coming from those that I feel it from and want to get it back to. So I guess I'm looking for advice in how to be impartial and feel and express joy and reciprocal, I guess, more delicate communication. Are you saying that in some situations you feel yourself putting up a wall? Yeah, or being almost aloof in my effort to be impartial or detached.

[26:02]

And I feel like I'm missing the mark. I think you're missing the mark, yeah. So with the people that you're trying to be aloof from, are they people you feel Comfortable with and uncomfortable with? More so comfortable with. I always have an easier time being with people that I'm uncomfortable with. I think being aloof and putting up walls doesn't sound the same as hatred, but it's more like hatred. So the thing is to, the purpose of this is to be unbiased. And it's, again, so it's like to learn to treat friends and enemies the same.

[27:07]

Now you could say, well, I treat my friends and my enemies the same. I put up walls between myself and them. Right, yeah. I think that's not really the same as attachment or hatred. I think that's more like, I don't know what that is. What is that? Putting up a wall. Are you putting up the wall because you, are you afraid of something? I'm afraid of being attached. Yeah. Yeah. You're afraid of getting attached. Yeah. Well, I guess I already am, if that's the case. Not necessarily. But, well, you're kind of, I think the fear may be, I don't think, I'm not sure. So there's somebody or something in your life, and you could well be afraid of attaching to this being.

[28:21]

And I guess I would shift to considering this fear as a being. And you said before that maybe because of the fear you want to put up a wall to protect yourself from this fear. So I think it would be good to Find a way to treat this fear with love. And also treat this impulse to put up walls, to treat that with love. But again, in order to treat the fear with love, the fear being with love and the wall building being with love, we need to have some gentle fondness for it.

[29:42]

And this fondness will be sponsored if you can realize that there's a long history of where this this wall building has benefited you, has supported you and has been kind to you. And where fear has been like your mother, it has protected you and nurtured you so that you can now wish your fear and your wall building, you can sincerely wish it happiness. So the good news is you can see these beings, this wall-building being and this fear of attachment being, you can see this being. And so now you have the opportunity to develop a warm, affectionate relationship with it so that you can wish it happiness because it's probably lacking happiness.

[30:53]

So this is something I would encourage you to meditate on to find some way to appreciate and be affectionate towards this fear and this wall building so that you can wish it love and compassion and thereby be devoted to liberating it from the suffering that comes with it because fear of attachment is suffering and wall building is suffering. So please meditate on that and let us know if you can find some sincere affection for these beings that you told us about. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. Good evening, Rev.

[32:04]

Good evening, Jeff. I have a perhaps question about impartiality, perhaps coming from the opposite issue that I think Justin raised, which is how does all that fit with our feelings about our loved ones, our spouses, our partners, our children, family members, longtime close friends, et cetera? Are we to be it's almost, I don't think you're quite saying that we should deny that we have those feelings for them and be impartial about in the sense that, well, we treat them just the same way we treat our people. We would be inclined to hate people, make us uncomfortable, whatever. So can you kind of elaborate on that a bit? And then I might have a second question afterwards if there aren't a lot of hands up. So all your loved ones, They all want to be happy, right?

[33:07]

And if by any chance a loved one should turn on you and become your enemy, they still want happiness. And And we're aspiring to wish our enemies happiness too. Our loved ones can become, we can become very uncomfortable. Our loved ones can be, yeah, obnoxious to us. We still love them. They're still our most precious people. But temporarily, we're very uncomfortable with them. They're actually sometimes become our enemies. And we do not want to start being biased towards our loved ones when they're enemies as opposed to when they're our friends, right?

[34:13]

So we want to be able to love our loved ones even when they are, yeah, like just, you know, our enemies when they're actually fighting us and Yeah, we want to be able to do that. So we need impartiality so that we can keep sending them love and compassion, even if they are becoming our enemies. And I'm not saying to, and also to not get attached to them when they're making us so comfortable and it's so pleasant and delightful to be with them. So in those cases, we usually want to not get attached to them because getting attached to them will also lead us to be biased, and being biased will interfere with our love. Being unbiased will make it possible for us to be more wholeheartedly loving and compassionate to our own flesh and blood,

[35:25]

So if you have any questions about that. I'm going to digest it. I probably would at some point in the future. If you have time for a second question, though. Second question has to do with this notion that I'm probably taking this way too literally, that everybody who exists in the world, who's there in the world at some point in the past has been our protector. you know, has acted, has been our enemy, has acted with, you know, hatefully or whatever it is, and also lovingly toward us. I mean, I'm having trouble understanding that other than apart from saying, well, all humanity in a certain sense or all sentient beings existence over the time they've existed in the physical world have contributed to our, my being here today. I mean, if that's, do you mean something different than that? Or more than that? I think that's what I mean. And as part of that process that has brought us to where we are now, what has actually made us be here is lots of love and kindness has brought us here.

[36:39]

along with all kinds of strife and the people, also the people at certain points in our evolution, some of the people who have been most kind to us, we've also been very difficult to take care of. And we've been, you know, it's been a great sacrifice for them to take care of us. And they have made great sacrifices for us because they loved us so much. And everybody's been part of that process. And the part that's the literal part, it's hard for us to imagine that somebody has actually served as our father or our mother in the past. But that's the general thing you're saying is true. And also the specifics are also part of the possibility that people have actually been our mothers in the past. And again, that's something to meditate on. And you can start by taking it literally, which is fine. But then by meditating on it, you get to actually understand in what sense, what you can learn from taking it literally.

[37:44]

So are you talking about something like reincarnation that you, you know, are you talking just as an object for meditation? I mean, How literally do you mean that? Do you mean the non-literal part of it, if that's clear? Again, this is a hard part for us, this issue that I had evolved from innumerable beings in the past, so we can see it in this lifetime. We had trouble seeing it from before we were in our mother's womb. Mm-hmm. But we are saying to consider the possibility that there was somebody, that there was some life that preceded us being conceived in the womb, that the conception in the womb didn't come from nowhere. And we are born of beings who existed before us.

[38:49]

We had this long evolution. Well, I will contemplate that. Thank you. Thank you. Beginningless evolution. Good evening. Good evening. I guess I'm feeling a little bit confused or uncomfortable with the notion of separating these four, you know, saying here's loving kindness, here's compassion, here's sympathetic joy, here's equanimity. And it feels to me like I want to think of them as a package, that they're different aspects of the same thing. That's fine. Because equanimity by itself doesn't sound very joyful.

[39:55]

It doesn't sound very, like there's a lot of warmth in it, you know. But I think if there's warmth and equanimity together, then they kind of balance. But I'm very uncomfortable with separating them out this way, except as a way of teaching them. Well, if you make equanimity last, it's following from a lot of warmth. It's following from loving kindness, which is wishing people happy. It's following from compassion, and it's following from sympathetic joy. So all this love and compassion and joy is leading to a state of equanimity, where you don't prefer pain over pleasure, for example. Yeah. But the non-preference of pleasure over pain or comfort over discomfort, you don't have a preference for that.

[41:00]

That non-preference or that impartiality where you don't hate discomfort and you're not attached to comfort, that is led to by lots of warmth and love. In the case I'm presenting it, we're primarily focusing on love and compassion. And we're saying that if you want to have real love and compassion, you need some impartiality before you start. So the other way I would understand as this is a warm, loving equanimity, which is slightly different, but they're closely related. And in both cases, it's the virtue of equanimity and impartiality is that we can approach beings in an unbiased way. We can give beings that we're uncomfortable with and those we're comfortable with the same love.

[42:02]

And without that, yes? But we don't have to turn the other three off in order to be autonomous. Turn what off? The other three. What are you turning off? Compassion, loving kindness, and sympathetic joy. You don't have to turn them off in order to be equanimous. They can be included. Did you say equanimous? Yeah. No, you don't turn them off. No, no, no, no. Thank you. Yeah. And the way I'm presenting it is you practice being impartial so that you will be able to practice love and compassion without being biased. If you're not impartial, it will bias your great work. So this one is starting with impartiality and then leading into discovering this affection.

[43:07]

And then based on the affection, wanting this, this wanting people to be happy, really, really wanting that for them and working for that. And then based on that, wishing to practice compassion. So I think it is important for us to, to get a feeling for this and feel good about, have a feeling, a good feeling about this, uh, about, about this impartiality, have a good feeling about it. But, uh, But maybe that good feeling won't be a pleasure, won't be comfortable or uncomfortable. It might not be either one, but it is not to this impartiality, which I have a good feeling about, I feel good about, but it isn't exactly comfortable or uncomfortable. It's I feel good about not hating discomfort and being attached to comfort. I feel really good about that, but that's not exactly comfortable.

[44:11]

but it's also not excruciating. It's just, I feel right about it. I feel like upright. Well, when you started the presentation, there were circumstances where you might start with love and kindness and work towards equanimity. Later, there were others, it seemed, where you might start with equanimity. What I was trying to say is that in the traditional presentation of the four elements, Brahmavihara is the four Brahma abodes. In that presentation, it's not the same order as what I'm presenting. Because I'm emphasizing compassion, which is not so much leading to equanimity, but leading to the wish to become Buddha. So somewhere different. In the earlier teaching, it was loving kindness and compassion leading to sympathetic joy and equanimity.

[45:12]

Equanimity was like, in a sense, in the early teaching, in that particular presentation, it looked like equanimity was the highest state. Yeah. Whereas in the Bodhisattva vehicle, compassion is the highest state. So it's a somewhat different understanding, but similar elements. And so now we're putting the equanimity first. to help our compassion be better. Because compassion is the boss, not equanimity. But we need equanimity for the boss to be realized. In the early teaching, equanimity was kind of the boss. To be equanimous was really real flat, but you need compassion to be equanimous. Now we say you need to be equanimous. So it's a prioritizing in this presentation, prioritizing compassion, which leads to Buddhahood rather than equanimity, which leads to arhatship.

[46:14]

Equanimity will lead to my personal freedom. Compassion will lead to the freedom of all beings. So again, so I don't know if everybody followed that. I appreciate you bringing this out because it showed that the earlier one has kind of the same elements But the priorities are changed from personal liberation in the first one to universal liberation in the second one. So I'd like to know if people followed that, because I think it's a nice thing that Karen's question helped bring out, the difference between the two systems and the priorities of kind of the similar elements. Thank you very much. Welcome. Good evening. Good evening. Oh, it's Sonia.

[47:18]

Hi, it's Sonia. Let's see if I can get my hand down. It's okay. I can live with that hand. Okay. I'm trying to enter this thing that you're bringing up called impartiality, which I'm trying to turn this word because it seems a little bit intellectual. And so I'm wondering about the embodiment of it, what that might look like. And as I'm thinking about it or kind of feeling it, it seems like it might be a return to this teaching you've given about silence and stillness or creating a pause because if a bias, for me, if a bias is turning up and it means I'm having some kind of activated response to something, I'm not actually, and maybe it's not allowing me to remember

[48:27]

to come from that which is most important, what I'm vowing to do. So I feel like maybe the impartiality is approached by creating this pause rather than immediately going into motion. And it could get caught, or sometimes I can get caught in the same way Justin did, which it can look stopped and kind of cold. rather than just kind of silence and stillness, and then kind of from that coming out with a response. Yeah, good. I think if you remember stillness and silence when... something really uncomfortable comes or an enemy shows up, somebody shows up and says, if you're wondering if I'm disrespectful, you're right, I really disrespect you and I am your enemy and I hate you. And so when that shows up, it's good to remember stillness and watch to see if by any chance when somebody declares themselves to be your enemy and insult you and so on,

[49:39]

to pause and and see watch out for for hatred coming up not to mention the reverse which some people get into of attaching to the person who's being mean to them yeah so being still is really helpful at that point and then say oh yeah i don't have to hate them they who are insulting me and threatening me and disrespecting me i don't have to there's a chance to to be there with that when these hormones start moving. And wow, it's wonderful. I didn't hate them. And so I, yeah, so I, and then the vice versa. Ooh, this is so comfortable. It's good to stop for a second there and say, well, watch out for this. This is so comfortable. Let's be present here and see if we're trying to get more of that or attaching to it. Yes. Yeah, I think in that pause, I can remember if I'm trying to get something or get away from something in that moment.

[50:48]

And then I have the possibility if I can remind myself of what it is I actually want to do as an offering. Yeah. But, yeah. And so I want to be impartial towards this really comfortable situation because that will help me move on to the more important practices. But if I have a habit of being kind of sloppy with comfort and discomfort, that will bias me to what's coming up in later phases of this meditation. So I want to work on this as a basis. This is kind of the basis for generating love. I can see how I feel like the word impartial is kind of cold. I can feel the difficulty with it, but I feel like you're pointing to something like not moving or not getting too overly animated. I can see that it's not a real warm word, impartial.

[51:51]

And also bias isn't a real warm word. Right. But we're trying to. What's the heart of what we're trying? Well, the heart is we're trying to develop love and compassion. And the heart of that is so that we can help people. Right. So now we're just saying we need some basis, there's some basic things we need at the beginning rather than later, rather than be biased at the beginning and then go into practicing love and compassion in a biased way, we will be unsuccessful. It's kind of like putting on shoes before you walk on a rough surface. It's not necessarily that warm and friendly thing to do, but if you don't put your shoes on, it may be difficult for you to walk on this surface and you may get very biased if you don't have shoes on towards the surfaces you're walking on.

[52:51]

So yeah, it's not, it's a basis, it's the foundation for these very warm, not very warm, for these warm, gentle fondnesses and these wholehearted loving kindness and compassion. It's some basics to take on beforehand. It's like equipment. Yeah. Perfect. Good evening. Good evening. So in a kind of a big picture, I feel like I'm with the program that you're talking about,

[53:54]

You know, just today on the radio, I heard a recording of Martin Luther King talking about something he's quite a few times talked about, which was, what does it mean when Jesus says, love your enemies? And he handled that question very beautifully. And you're talking about that too. And I'm aspiring with both of you. However, I'm going to raise a problem that i feel a question about how we really help people and about our skill in teaching and helping people and the example that i will give and some have given before i just have to say um that sometimes there's been an occasion when somebody said, because I raised an example of abuse, somebody abusing somebody, and sometimes somebody had thought, well, oh my goodness, is Linda being abused, or does she see a kid next door who's, no, I'm not being abused, I'm not thinking of a case of abuse that I need to do something about, but I like this example of

[55:06]

When a person is really being hurt, like you see somebody who's your enemy because they're hurting you, I haven't found it skillful or helpful to suggest to them that they should try to be impartial and cultivate loving kindness toward the person that is hurting them. And so I wonder whether this kind of teaching can be bad in cases like that. I've found it helpful both for myself and with other people that are suffering and being hurt to say, just experience that hatred. Just like you often do. You say, befriend that feeling. So that's my question. It seems not skillful to me to encourage a person who is actually suffering abuse to say, well, really, you want to love that person.

[56:21]

So please tell me what you feel. Well, could we start with me and you rather than somebody else? Okay. So I'm talking about training myself. I'm not telling other people what to do. However, I'm telling people about a training which they could do. I'm not talking to people who are right now being abused. You might be. There's 39 people on here. Right, but nobody's telling me that they're being abused. And if they did, if they told me they're being abused... So maybe if you want to do that, we can just say, you can tell me right now that you're being abused, okay? So tell me you're being abused by someone. Is this a role play? Because I'm not being abused. If I'm being abused, what I want to do is I want to not hate the person that's abusing me. I want to not hate them.

[57:28]

Now, if you tell me you hate somebody, even somebody who's not abusing you, like some people hate people who are being kind to other people instead of them. So if we have a person who's telling me I'm hating, then I would address their hate with compassion. But if I'm being... abused or attacked, I wish to not hate my attacker. That's what I want to do. Now, if somebody tells me they're being attacked, I might say to them, what do you want to do? I would ask them what they want to do. What should we do here? Or I might say, do you hate that? And they might say, I hate that person. Well, then I would deal with the hate. Mm-hmm. But if they tell me this person's abusing them and they say, I would like to relate to them without hating them, that doesn't mean that I would encourage the person to continue to abuse them.

[58:33]

As a matter of fact, I think that I have quite a few examples where somebody's being abused and they don't hate the person and that non-hate wakes the abuser up. I want to not hate people who insult me as an act of compassion. But I'm not, so now we can go more deeply. What do you think? Yeah, I think that I also want to not hate anybody, even if I don't. perceive that they're hurting me. I'm pretty old now. I can understand that somewhat. It's just that I don't want anybody to feel that they should love their abuser because I don't want anybody to get the impression that that's the wisdom of the Buddha, that that's all. I worry about that. Okay, so now we have a situation where somebody's being, like I'm being abused, the person hates me, they tell me they hate me, you know, and I... You're being abused and do you, but I see, they hate you.

[59:50]

And I want to not hate them. That's what I'm telling you, that's what I want to do. Okay. Based on that, then the next step for me in my training is not if I've succeeded in not hating them. If I hate them, I just got to keep working on that because I don't have my feet on the ground yet if I'm hating them. Hating people does not help me. If somebody's abusing me, for me, hating does not help me take care of myself in their abuse. It doesn't help me. I'm with you. Actually, I am completely in accord with what you're teaching and I just worry about prematurely or about hastily or anything, you know, insensitively. And I think you would handle that correctly if you met the person.

[60:52]

You've told me that just now. And I think you understand what I'm saying. I don't really have any more to say. Well, you are contemplating a situation where you see potential great suffering. Yes. And you're concerned about that. Yes. And that is not telling people what to do or anything. That is something that you... that you really want to free those beings from that suffering. Correct. And in order for you to do that, you have to do this work of not hating people who are being cruel to you. That will enable you to give these people that you're talking about the compassion that they need. And that compassion may lead them, and that compassion will protect them And that may lead them to enter the training program.

[61:53]

The first step will be their compassion for their hatred, for their own suffering. You feel that for them. Yeah. And they will feel that from you. Yeah. And then you can lead them back through the process of training once they have been touched by you. Yes. Touch. Touch. You don't start by putting them through the training program. You start by giving them compassion right now in their situation. Exactly. Thank you. And that really encourages them. And then they want to know, well, how do I learn how to do this? And then you take them through. Okay. Okay? Yeah. Yeah. And there's no, compassion is not rushing you to stop worrying about these people. We want you to keep worrying about them. So thank you for worrying about them.

[62:55]

And worrying about anybody misleading them or confusing them. No, thank you. I'm laughing because somebody showed me this video of this yoga teacher and her dog. And the dog was doing the yoga postures that she was doing. It's wonderful. Yes, Basya. Hi, Reb, and hi, Assembly. Impartiality is a very important topic right now in this extremely polarized world, painfully polarized.

[64:02]

And maybe I'll respond to your last conversation. As I was listening to you using the word cultivate, Maybe that's where some difficulties might come up for some people. Because in a way, from my observation, it's not so much that we can cultivate something like that. We find it that it's there already. Compassion is there already. We don't cultivate it. It's there. We just need to discover it because it's hidden behind those beings that you call, I like that expression, being of fear or anger or prejudice or whatever. And once we find, give them attention, loving attention, and love and compassion is really fully, full undivided attention, then they

[65:05]

They go. Something happens to them. I don't know what happens, but they disappear. And then what I discovered myself, that that's all there is, is compassion and understanding for things that are around me. And the reason I started with the polarizing of this world right now, because I must confess, this is my work right now, is to find impartiality in my viewing of the world divided by COVID politics, by vaccination politics, and many other things that are being... I'm afraid to use different words because I see how different words will... guide one in certain attitudes already so very important not to go too into too much detail but uh as i was struggling with with as i was listening to opposing views people of different very extremely different polarized views i was noticing that i have been leaning even though i wanted to

[66:29]

be impartial there was a tendency to see this as right and this as wrong and in that I recognized my own maybe it's from my childhood or maybe we all have it it's hard to explain but I recognized that there was this feeling of pain and grief that I'm meeting people who are asleep and in wrong views and stuck in their ideas and unable to meet the reality with more openness. And it was giving me humongous amount of grief and sorrow and anger and all kinds of stuff. And I was struggling with that. And until I kind of recognized that struggle, I was suffering quite a bit.

[67:38]

And then when you presented, reminded me of Bahia's story and how he received the teaching from the Buddha, it created an incredible space because I recognized that I don't have to put myself into everything around me. All I need to do is witness it. And somebody said in our conversation today that impartial seems cold. And that's what frightened me at first. Like, oh my goodness, this is so cold. This is so scary to view the world without... Emotions, which are what I think is part of me. It's not without emotion. It's without hatred and attachment. Right. But there's still emotion. It's the emotion of impartiality. Right.

[68:39]

But it's not, you know, it doesn't make very good movies. That's right. No drama, right? And actually, if it is, it's like a love story. Because when I finally experienced that. End of drama. Yeah. And it was terrifying at first. Like, oh, my God. That means nothing to get excited about. Oh, my God. It's God. And it's like, how do I live my life without this hate and attachment? Like, oh my goodness, this is almost hard to face. And then it's like, oh my goodness, it's so good to discover it. So then I started to have courage to just face the most frightening polarized sides, you know, people who are so into science and people who are so against science, you know, so into COVID, so into vaccines and those who are so against.

[69:42]

And I just started to just face it and be with it. And then suddenly I stopped being irritated by people's attitudes. And I totally started to see how we are all miserable beings, so afraid. And so struggling and so suffering. And so I discovered that deep compassion after I entered a very, quite a long tunnel of struggles, dark tunnel of facing dread and isolation. non-belonging. And so when last week we were talking about racism, I thought I was going to raise up the issue. Oh no, somebody else, some other talk, you know, how painful it is to feel disconnected with people from people around us, how terribly painful it is.

[70:45]

So, and I went through that and it was extremely unpleasant, but once I, face those beings they they are gone and it's different so but i'm it's still so much work to do to to to root myself into that kind of a way of relating right it takes a while Thank you again. I have no one else other hand up. So I just wanted to ask you one question about something Basia just said, which is whether we're supposed to be, whether you're telling us to be impartial toward the views people express, which I think I heard Basia say was the way she understood it versus being impartial toward to the person who's expressing it.

[71:58]

Because I don't think you're saying that, all views are equal, are you, or that some views aren't? No, I'm just saying, I'm just saying, when someone expresses a view which you really disagree with, you don't agree with it, or you even think it's a terrible view, and harmful view, it's a view of your enemies, I'm just saying, How about noticing that you can look at that without hating the view or the person? Just I completely disagree rather than I hate it and I hate the person who said it. And similarly, when you have an idea that you really feel good about, how about having that idea without attaching to it? And the people who have really great ideas, how about you appreciating them without attaching to them? That's what I'm talking about. That will help us be devoted to whatever it is and to liberate the enemy and to liberate the friend.

[73:08]

Not to get rid of enemies and friends or stupid ideas and good ideas You know, of course it's not good for people to be our enemy, but if we hate them, that's gonna derail us in our work. We can let go of the hate and let go of the attachment, and then we can work on discovering who this person really is. But we're gonna have trouble discovering who the person is or the idea is If we hate it or attach to it. That's helpful. Thank you. So if someone is expressing racist views, it's not wrong to hate the view or see the view as wrong. But the point is not to hate the hater. The person is expressing that view. Yeah, I wouldn't even call it wrong. I just call it cruel and terrible. It's just terrible. It's beyond wrong.

[74:10]

I mean, two plus two is 19, doesn't really hurt anybody usually. And we don't use that to control people and exploit them. But we use racism to hold up a system of unhealthy relationships. And it's very, very sad and very, very painful. And it's just horrible. But we need to study it and awaken to how to protect beings from this situation. And if we hate it, it's going to make us a little bit off one way or another in addressing the problem. So we'll be able to address the problem better if we don't hate it. I'm totally dedicated to freeing people from this cruelty. And hating it, it doesn't facilitate my work. And it makes it harder for me to see what the true path would be. And same with attaching to the good way.

[75:11]

And I still might think this is a good way. And I might work for it to realize it. But attaching to it will interfere with it. So hating the bad way, you know, kind of aids it. and attaching to the good way kind of undermines it. Thank you, that's very helpful. You're welcome. Are there no more offerings from the Great Assembly tonight? Such things do happen, I guess. Yes? Well, I thought I'd come back again, too. One thought I was having as I'm listening to you talk more about equanimity is that equanimity is kind of what protects us from sentimental compassion. Yeah. Yeah. So now I see that foundation.

[76:22]

And equanimity supports us to examine sentimental compassion more effectively and see its drawbacks and develop another kind of compassion which frees us from sentimental compassion. Thank you. Well, if there's no more questions, I guess I will say, I hope to, I pray that we meet again someday. On the Bonnie Bonnie path to Loch Lomond. You take the high road and I'll take the low road. May our intention equally extend to every being and place with the true merit of Buddha's way. Beings are numberless. I vow to save them. Afflictions are inexhaustible. I vow to cut through. Dharma gates are boundless.

[77:25]

I vow to enter them. Buddha way is unsurpassable. I vow to become it. Happy trails to you until we meet again. Happy trails to you. Keep smiling until then. Happy trails to you until we meet again. Again. Good night. Good night. Thank you. Good night, everyone. Thank you, everybody.

[77:59]

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