So, towards the end of our last session, some questions were raised about the relationship between vow and intention and also vow and preference. So some people have a vow to practice the Buddha way, the great way. And one of the famous statements about that by an ancestor named Jiaojiao was, the ultimate way is not difficult. if you give up picking and choosing.

[01:04]

Or we could say preferences. It's difficult to give up picking and choosing, but if those are given up, the way is not difficult. So maybe I could consider that the great teacher, Zhaozhou, he wished to practice the Buddha way, but he didn't wish to pick or choose the Buddha way. In this way he practiced the Buddha way. And he also mentioned that he didn't abide in purity, which could be understood as I'm just telling you that the way is not difficult if you give up preferences.

[02:09]

But I don't abide in no preferences. I just find that when I don't have preferences, it's easy for me to walk the way. Not easy. It's not difficult. So I'm addressing again the issue that you can be really committed to something and having preferences. We do have preferences, but usually preferences are our problem. They're our problem that we prefer. For example, that we prefer good over bad. It makes it more difficult to be committed to good if you prefer it. It makes it more difficult to deal with bad if you prefer good. I suggest that.

[03:12]

It's difficult to deal with good and deal with bad, but preferences just make it more difficult. And you don't have to have them to be devoted to something. But you can. You can be devoted to something and prefer the thing you're devoted to. But I think that backfires. Now, if you want to do evil... then it would be good to prefer it. That would enhance the evil if you preferred it. I think probably it would help. But if you want to practice good, preferences are questionable. And no preferences are also questionable. And I often mention that I have the wonderful opportunity to receive and give bodhisattva precepts, the precepts of the Buddha's disciples.

[04:32]

I have the opportunity to give them. And then I ask people if from now on, and even after realizing Buddhahood, will you continue to observe these precepts And they almost always say, yes, I will. And they mean it. And I ask them three times, and they say, yes, I will. Yes, I will. And it's really lovely to see them promise. But promise doesn't mean they're going to do it. Does it make sense to you that promise doesn't mean they're going to do it? And so I don't expect them to do it. And then if they don't do it, it's kind of sad, but I don't get disappointed in them. I don't necessarily congratulate them, but I'm there for them if they've fallen on their face after they said they wanted to sit upright.

[05:35]

I hear their commitment. I think it's a beautiful commitment And I want to support it, but I don't expect that it's going to happen in the short run, like in the next... in the short run. But I do think we're on this path, and committing to it, I do think, helps us do it. And having preferences, I think, you know, it's okay, but... is more like, preferences are more like afflictions. But vows are, we vow to do what we, we vow to do the path which will protect beings from affliction and liberate them. And then there was an echo from, about the, about protect. And so, there's a story about the Buddha, that the Buddha was sitting and the Buddha said, I'm going to keep sitting. And then various assaults came

[06:39]

armies of assaulters came to visit. And he protected, not he protected, but this protection arose. It's not that he protected, but this protection arose in the face of these attackers. And the protection was loving kindness. Loving kindness is a protection. And in the story, the attackers went away. But even before they left, the loving kindness was already a protection. And in addition to loving kindness, compassion is our protection. Patience is our protection. It doesn't make the pain go away, and yet it protects us right while it's here. So that's a little bit more about how protection doesn't get rid of the thing. And yet the Buddha didn't get harmed by the attacks because the loving-kindness protected the Buddha.

[07:44]

The Buddha's sitting was not disturbed by the attack. Loving-kindness protects us from disturbance. when we're sitting. Disturbances come, and if they're met with loving kindness, that protects us. If they're met with compassion, that protects us. That's the proposal. and fighting and hating distraction. I know so many Zen students who are trying to be concentrated and they hate distraction. And that doesn't serve them, that doesn't serve their concentration. It serves their agitation. Hating distraction promotes distraction. Being kind and compassionate to distraction is immediately calming or calm. So, any more questions about vow and preference?

[08:48]

Yes? I was thinking more about it, and I think another way to ask the question is, where does the energy come from that we give to a practice or to a vow? Does it come from a preference or something, or does it come Did you hear her question? Where does the energy for the vow come from? For the vow and the practice. Well, I think kind of the practice comes from wishing, the wish to practice. And the vow sort of supplements the wish. You can wish to practice and then forget about that for quite a while. My early days of practice, I wished to practice. But then there were these huge, not huge, anyway, weeks between the practice sessions.

[09:51]

But I did wish to, because I thought, it seemed like this would be a good thing to do if I wanted to be like these bodhisattvas I heard about, because they did these practices. I wanted to do them. I didn't even know about it. I didn't really know about vows at the time, but I did know I wanted to practice it, and I did know I was having trouble. So the wish is part of it. Usually we vow to do things we wish to do. So first is the wish. then this vow. So where does the wish come from? The practice comes from the wish. Buddhas are born from a wish. Buddhas born from wish and Buddhas wish. Buddhas wish. I like that word, wish. Buddhas wish. They wish that all sentient beings will open to Buddhas wisdom. They wish that. And they And they demonstrate it. And they awaken people to it.

[10:53]

And they help people enter Buddha's wisdom. That's their wish. They wish that. They also then, in addition to wishing, they vow. So that's what they wish. And that wish, which is also a vow, makes them appear in the world to help all living beings. which they were doing that before, even before they appeared, because they're never separate. But they do wish and they do vow. And the practice comes from the wish and it's uplifted and enhanced by vow. And vows also... I'll go into more detail about that. There's various things which help vow be successful. But for now, I'll just say the practice comes from wish and vow. But where does the wish come from? That was your question, right? I don't make myself wish to practice the Buddha way.

[11:56]

You don't make me wish to practice the Buddha way. But our communion... and particularly our communion with the Buddha way, with the Buddhas, our communion with the Buddhas, in that communion, in that conversation, the wish comes up. The wish is caused by the communion of awakening to delusion and Buddhahood. In communion with living beings, this wish comes up. So when it has risen in us, We didn't make it come up. When we saw something which we thought, that's what I want, this is what I wish for, this is the life I wish for, you didn't make that happen, I didn't make that happen, Buddha didn't make it happen. Your communion with Buddha made it happen. It happened from the conversation. That's where it comes from.

[12:59]

So when it comes, it's because this wonderful communion is happening. You might not have even noticed it. Like, there's this movie which some of you may have seen. I think it's called Resurrection, starring Ellen Bernstein. Is that it? Yeah. So she has an awakening and she has healing powers. So she can commune with people in this beneficial way. But she finds out that she has to do it in a way that people don't even know. Because if they know, it causes certain things that she couldn't cope with. Too much public awareness didn't work for her. So she wound up working in a gas station. And when people came by, she would commune with them. And they didn't even know it. So we don't necessarily know that community even happens. People have communicated with us, and after they walked away, this wish arose.

[14:04]

But that's where I would say it comes from. In the meeting. Yes? The wish also can come from the suffering? The wish to end suffering? Yes. There's a wish to end suffering, and that leads to compassion. but not necessarily the wish to practice compassion, but it does lead to compassion. We're talking about the wish and the vow. She wondered, where does the wish come? So you can feel suffering, and compassion may arise, which is great, but where does the wish to actually practice it, even when it's not around, even after the compassion comes up? That's great. But then after that, I wish to do that again. That was good. I want to do that again. See the difference between compassion and wishing to practice it? And you can wish to practice it right while you're practicing it.

[15:07]

I want to keep doing this. Or after it's over, I want to do this more. And that's because in addition to the suffering and the compassion, there was a meeting, a communion that highlighted or drew your attention to how good compassion is, how wonderful compassion is. So we have seen examples of compassion. And in that seeing, even though we weren't practicing compassion, we saw them. And they were so lovely that we wished in that interface, the wish to practice that. But the wish could also arise right after you feel compassion in the midst of suffering. So the compassion comes from suffering, but the vow to practice it, and not only that, but the vow to practice it to the point where you can actually protect and liberate beings, that arises because of a meeting with the Buddha. But the suffering is sort of at the basis of the whole thing.

[16:11]

Because that's where Buddha lives. Yes? And Homa and June and Jessica and Yuki. I'm just questioning the wish itself and wondering if the wish It might be like that, but you could also wish for what's happening. Yeah, but you could also wish... you could wish for Buddhahood and feel like, you know, I don't think I'm there yet. I don't think I've realized Buddhahood yet. But I still wish for it. And I'm committed to realize Buddhahood. So that's where I get confused, and the confusion comes that Buddha and Buddhahood

[17:16]

You don't have to get into that, that it's out there. It's just that you don't feel like you fully, right now here, you feel some incomplete realization of it. Even though you wish, but you don't think it's, in other words, you have, I feel like I have an incomplete realization that Buddhahood is here. I don't think that it's out there, because I've heard that's not right. The Buddha is teaching us it's not out there. I accept that. But I don't quite fully understand how it is here. I humbly admit, or I honestly admit, I don't think Buddha is out there, and yet I don't really understand that this is, that Buddha is here. But I want to understand that. I think that would be helpful to everybody if we all understood that. So, yes, that not seeing the here-ness is a problem.

[18:37]

Did you say a problem? Well, you could say it's not so much not... Did you say not seeing the here-ness? Seeing. Is that a problem? That's not exactly a... You can say it's a problem, but you could also say it's just the way things are, is that you have not fully realized. And seeing that, seeing that that you don't... Seeing that you have not... Having this vision that you have not fully accepted it, seeing that will help you wish to see it. Because you can't really see it, but somehow you don't understand it yet fully. I was talking to someone just a little while ago. When Dogen, the teacher, great Dogen, was about to die, he said to one of his close students, concerning the Buddha Dharma, which the Buddha understands completely, there are ten million things I do not yet understand.

[19:39]

However, I had the joy of right faith, which is, I want to understand the Buddha Dharma. I'm so happy to wish to understand it, and the wish to realize it. But I have to admit, even though I'm Dogen Zenji, there's ten million things I don't yet understand. So he kind of, that's where he was at, so maybe we're kind of like that too. Maybe we're 10 million and three. But he had the joy of the wish and the vow. And the joy is, I wish to do it. And also, it's going to happen. We are going to realize it. I'd like to add the wish of not being understood. The joy of not wishing to be understood. Yeah, yeah. I don't know. Maybe June? I was sitting here thinking about, so how did I get on this?

[20:50]

Yeah. So I thought, well, two sources. Primary, my own suffering at the time. And I stumbled and was curious until I encountered people who helped. They were compassionate. So I think then You know, I observed. And then, from experience, I began to trust the process. So, you know, look at it other ways, but to me, this way It's the best game in town.

[21:57]

But I think the basis is suffering. I can say for me, the basis of continuing and wanting to continue is from suffering. Okay, you can say that. That's true. And you said it's the basis and the basis for wanting to continue. That's fine with me. Let's see, Jessica. I have a couple of questions about storehouse consciousness.

[23:03]

Yes. Is it something that when we're born we slowly accumulate or is it something that all at once is downloaded and we have access to all of it? It's downloaded, but then it continues to evolve throughout your life. Is it like a cloud that we can all tap into? It's like a cloud, except that there's certain parts which only your cognitive process can tap into through your sense faculties. And the way you do it through your sense faculties, nobody else does it that way. But there's other parts that can be downloaded that other people share. For example... the light of the sun. We all can download that. But there's this way we do it also that is not shared.

[24:04]

So this unconscious process is partly shared and partly unshared. But both the shared and the unshared are downloaded at birth. And then they both evolve. And one evolves through your own personal karma, through your sense faculties, and the other evolves together with others. It's part of how we're all connected. But, for example, it's not about how our consciousnesses are connected, but it is about how part of the basis of our consciousness is connected. And is it an external force?

[25:05]

Did you say external force? No, it's an awareness. It's an awareness which we're born with, and then it evolves every moment we have this awareness. So it doesn't exist outside of humans? No, other animals and plants are part of it. They also share this awareness. However, the way they share it is different than the way... their way is different from humans'. So, for example, a color is we share the... We don't share colors, actually. Humans see colors and other people, other living beings don't. We construct colors out of certain physical data. But we share that physical data with other animals. So you turn on a light, some animals perk up, and other animals perk up, and when humans perk up, they might see color, but other animals don't see colors.

[26:06]

but they're both responding to this physical data, and we share that physical data. Like when it gets hot, dogs get hot, cats get hot, humans get hot, trees get hot, we share that. But the way we, our response to it, the way we see it has maybe color, which we can construct, our minds construct, actually our unconscious processes construct, But other beings don't. We also make 3D out of it. Not all beings see 3D. Even some humans don't see 3D. If you do this, you don't see 3D anymore. Nobody can make 3D happen, but you can turn it off by closing your eyes. Dreams are not 3D. But when your eyes open, most people see 3D. But a lot of other animals, when their eyes open, they don't see 3D. But our unconscious, our body and our unconscious, makes the world appear 3D.

[27:09]

But what the 3D world we see is the same world that other beings see in two dimensions. And we share the physical space, the light bouncing off objects. We do that with a lot of other animals. We share that. It sounds like it's a perception. What's a perception? The unconsciousness. No, it has perceptions. Yeah, it has perceptions. And so does consciousness. They both have perceptions. Yeah. Yeah, it's feelings and all kinds of emotions. The greed, hate, and delusion are in the unconscious, too. It's just that they're functioning differently than they do up in consciousness. They're much more complex. Yeah.

[28:12]

Yeah, so Jung, for example, I don't know where he got it, but This is what he calls, I think, the racial unconscious, where all the archetypes are. So in the unconscious there's all these archetypes, which are the basis for the images that appear in our mind. And we're not in control of the archetype, just like we're not in control of 3D. It's given to our consciousness by our body and this process, which we share and also don't share. And all this is available for us to observe and experiment with, which we're doing and cognitive science is doing and evolutionary psychology is doing. Many people are studying this unconscious process and how it relates to consciousness, to the conscious process. So this is part of our work. The wish comes from, from where?

[29:20]

The storehouse consciousness, I would say, is definitely part of it. But the consciousness is part of it, too, because the wish appears in consciousness. The actual wish may be in the unconscious already. the wish to be Buddha. But most people don't access it. That archetype to be the protector and liberator of all beings, it's actually already in our bodies and minds. But we don't know about it. But something happens maybe between different unconsciousnesses and different bodies. Again, like we might meet someone and not even see them, you know, consciously. But in fact, our body senses them. And in the meeting of our body sensing their body and their body sensing our body, this amazing thought arises in consciousness to become Buddha. And we didn't see any Buddhas.

[30:29]

And yet we met somebody, some Buddha body, bumped into our body, you know, and then up in our consciousness this thing came. But sometimes there's a face on it, you know, like you meet a person in your consciousness. But you could also have your eyes shut and maybe meet the person and the same wish might have arisen. The wish is pretty much the same for all these different opportunities. But this, the arising of it can be conscious or unconscious. We can perceive it or not perceive it. Up here. So it can come to us in various ways. Basically perceptible and imperceptible. The most fundamental is imperceptible. Because that can happen. Again, that's why it's okay to visit people

[31:32]

who are in coma because there can be an imperceptible communion with them, which you don't know about and they don't know about, but it's happening. And the thought of attaining the way can be nourished in their unconscious body and mind. by it being in your unconscious body and mind and transmitted to them. And you still have a consciousness, but your consciousness can't talk directly to them, so your consciousness talks to your unconscious and your unconscious talks to their unconscious. Are you happy now? Temporarily? Can you wait until after Yuki, or do you want to go ahead? So after Yuki, Matt? What Jessica was asking is whether this is occurring in the unconscious or in the current consciousness. Whether what's occurring where?

[32:39]

The wish. I think the wish is already in our unconscious. Yes. I think we're born wishing to be what we're evolving towards. I think it's in there. I think it's in our cells, our struggling little cells. I think it's everywhere. The wish to realize reality I think is all pervasive. But a lot of people don't know anything about it. And they're perfectly good, beautiful little children. And they don't know anything about the wish to be Buddha. And then somehow they have a meeting and it pops up in their consciousness. And they maybe had meetings before. It doesn't mean every meeting will lead to this thing appearing in consciousness. Again, this wish to be a Buddha is a chetana. It's a pattern in consciousness. It's a thought. I wish to realize Buddhahood for this suffering world. But it's already in our body and mind before, I think.

[33:45]

It's just that some things, some meanings will cause it to appear in consciousness. And sometimes we actually think we're meeting a teacher or something when that happens. Or we're reading a story about a teacher. But sometimes it happens and we don't know, where did that come from? And we had a meeting, and the person who had the meeting was going, they didn't even notice me. I'm so happy. Yeah, it's yes. Yes to Buddhahood. yes to a life of awakening, yes to a life of compassion. And again, when I first saw some of these examples, I didn't even think the word compassion. I just thought, as you know, that's really cool. I didn't have the word compassion for it.

[34:47]

Now I would say what I saw was compassion, but I thought it was better than compassion. I'd heard of compassion before, but this was better. This was compassion. I think what I saw was great compassion, which doesn't even necessarily look like compassion. It might just look like, hello. Not like, oh, I'm really... Okay, I see, listen to Marlena and Linda and Beth. Yeah, Marlena, Linda, and Beth. Yes, yes, yes. And tribalism, you know. my tribe. In the unconscious, there's constant surveillance about, is this person in my tribe or not?

[35:53]

Is this person dangerous or not? Is that animal dangerous or not? That's going on all the time, neurologically. All these associations are being calculated by the computer. And a little bit of it the system down here says, a little bit of this we should tell the headquarters. So when we go to sleep at night, we kind of like even reduce the amount of awareness we have of the environment. And the unconscious lets us do that. Sometimes. Sometimes the unconscious says, you cannot go to sleep. This is too dangerous. Don't go to sleep. We need you. We need headquarters. The lights in headquarters need to be on. But fortunately or unfortunately, it lets us sleep. So we can reduce a little or a lot of our awareness of the environment. And then things are happening in the environment and the body and the unconscious process are dealing with them. Sounds of raccoons and gophers and people walking around the house.

[36:59]

A lot of stuff's going on and it says, probably it's okay, let her sleep. And then alarm clock go off and let her sleep. But then sometimes I wake her up. So the unconscious can wake you up, usually, unless you have dementia. The unconsciousness can wake the consciousness up, even when it's been subdued or turned off. And it's processing all this stuff, a lot of which has the potential for enacting social cruelty. Like, this is my tribe, and that's another tribe, and they're dangerous, and let's kill them. That's in our unconscious. And by practicing with our consciousness, we bring that stuff up and deal with it. And also, even some stuff that doesn't come up, we transform it and it never comes up.

[38:02]

It gets transformed without even appearing. But some of it has to come up and be looked at with compassion in order to be put to rest, you could say. Not killed, put to rest. We don't need you to be worked. We don't need that anymore. We're past that one. Yes, yes. And this is, again, this is a theory which we can test. And, again, testing theories doesn't mean you prove them right. It just means if you can disprove them and you can get confirmation or encouragement, but then that doesn't mean it's proved. It's just another experiment. So we keep experimenting. We do not come to the unquestioning trust and compassion.

[39:04]

We keep questioning compassion, keep testing it. Okay. Linda? I was sleeping when this discussion was going on, and this question came up that doesn't seem to have anything to do with what you're talking about, but I started obsessing about it, so I was going to bring it right up. Okay. We have a little story from the Buddha, you know, about the woman who was crazy, upset that her child died, and, you know, not standing, said, bring my child back to life, and then he said... Could you hear that? So there's a story about a woman who had trauma after trauma after trauma, and basically went crazy with grief, And she went to the Buddha and the Buddha said, okay, here's a mustard seed.

[40:05]

And she had her dead baby, yeah. And he said, please go to people's houses and get a mustard seed from each house where they have not had somebody die. Right? And she went to house after house. And nobody could give her a mustard seed. Because every house had birth and death. And in that process, she recovered her sanity. That's a different story. Yeah. So one story is the woman has the baby. And that's the one where Buddha says, go find the... a mustard seed from every house that doesn't have that situation. The other story is the woman had a similar but maybe even more horrendous background and she just went nuts. And she's the one where she showed up to Buddha and Buddha said, Sister, regain your presence of mind.

[41:11]

And she did. So in that case, he was able to like do a Hail Mary with her and And she woke up. In the other case, this woman had a more gradual process of visiting various people and seeing their suffering. And she kind of cleared up, realizing that this is normal human condition. So, Reverend, this is the question actually that was the preface to. We don't have a story about a woman who went to the Buddha and said, my husband keeps beating me up. We didn't get a story like that. I was wanting you to imagine that story. What was the story? So she said, we have a story of people and women being abused by birth and death, but not... Well, I think having your baby die is kind of an abuse of birth and death.

[42:15]

But anyway, we don't have stories about, in India, we don't have stories of women coming to the Buddha and saying, this man, my husband, is beating me. What should I do? You're saying, what would the Buddha do? Well, I would say the Buddha will protect this woman from this man. He will teach her how to deal with him in a way that will protect her. That's what the Buddha will do. And the Buddha will show her how to do that. I don't know how he will do it, but that's his vow, is to teach her how to protect her and him from his insanity. And in Zen, we have many stories of people being abused. For example, you know, so... And the Zen master usually does the same thing. He shows people how to protect. Like, one that comes to mind is there was a Zen temple, a Zen monastery where, you know, Zen monks in those days were very poor and one of their few possessions was bowls.

[43:18]

And bowls, you could sell bowls and make money on bowls because people needed them. And you put bowls, you can use bowls to raise money. People put money and stuff in your bowls and food. So anyway, in the monastery the bowls were disappearing. And they told the teacher, and the teacher registered the report. And then later they came back and said, we found a room, one of the monks' rooms, and there's lots of bulls in the room. And the teacher said to the assembly, everybody bring your bulls and put them in that room. So that was that teacher's attempt to protect beings from this thief. And that was his teaching. Rather than the regular call of the police, He did this this way. So what would he do in the case of a woman who was being abused? What have people done in cases like that? They have taught these people, who might be women, how to deal with it.

[44:20]

They've taught these women how to be martial artists. They taught them. And then there was protection. They taught them how to... They taught them loving kindness. They taught them compassion. That's what the Buddha would do. And that will protect the person. Would it mean that she maybe would not go home that day? It might. She might stay with Buddha and not go home. Sister, I think you should stay here with me for a few days or a few weeks or a few months. I think you should study with me for a while. Don't go home. You're not ready. That job is too big for you right now. You don't know how to deal with him. What? What did you say? He would say, you're not ready to deal with this abusive person right now. Stay with me and I'll teach you how to deal with people like that. I'll teach you how to deal with him.

[45:21]

And I'll teach you how to deal with Indian society. But that doesn't mean abusive men are going to disappear. It's just we're going to make these bodhisattvas out of all abused people. And hopefully he will come someday and he will then get his training. And the Buddha knows how to convert brutal, cruel people into bodhisattvas. But even the Buddha sometimes takes a while. So we have the story of the mass murderer who was going to attack the Buddha, right? The Buddha figured out a way to convert that person and was successful. And there's many Zen stories about Zen teachers converting violent people, males usually, sometimes instantly, sometimes it takes a little while. The Indian story with the Buddha, it took him a while. He had to work at it for a while, but he succeeded. So either to convert the abuser or teach the abused how to take care of themselves and others, that would be what the Buddha would do.

[46:32]

And in some cases it's like that. And sometimes it takes quite a bit of training. And quite a few women did come to the Buddha who I think were being abused and became his students and weren't abused anymore. In some cases they even went back and I think helped their family but they had to leave for a while because they didn't know how to deal with it. They needed somebody to teach them how to deal with their family. And the What's the word? Unkind, uncompassionate expectations of Indian society. Oh, and Beth. You've already been speaking to what I want to bring forward and start just by really appreciating preferences as intuitions. and teaching about intimacy and passion.

[47:37]

So I'm practicing with my family and a few in my family. And I have left my family because I realized I was unable to stay intimate with my own experience and be engaged with the harm. Part of my preference, I made some requests from my family before I left. And now I see my requests were, help me not to suffer. Help you what? Not to suffer. I wanted actions from them that I believed would ameliorate my suffering.

[48:41]

Which is my suffering from my experience and a next generation suffering. in which I see the same abuse. So your answer was helpful to me because there's also, I feel like that's an act of compassion both now and then, kind of outsourcing my preference to my family. There's also sitting someone that I know said to me last year, Aren't I in a position of accountability since I know what's happening? I mean, aren't you? Yeah, yeah. That there are perpetrators in my family that may still be perpetrating other innocent children. Aren't I in a position of accountability? Good question. And you are, I would say...

[49:44]

you are accountable, but you may not yet be ready to respond. So one thing is you said your first requests were kind of to Amelia, you're suffering, but before that you said you were not able to be intimate with your own That's the key thing, too. And part of finding a way to be intimate with your own experience may be to make some requests. But still, that's the key thing, is to get your feet on the ground of your own experience. And sometimes you have to go away from a situation in order to get your feet on the ground. And you have to leave in order to help them. Because you can't help them if you don't have your feet in your own experience. You won't be helped. So you leave them to help them, whether you think so or not. There's the pain. I feel like this is part of what my practice is and what is... From where compassion is arising, there's my pain.

[50:55]

There's my pain witnessing young people in my family. There's also this, I'm catching the edge of the affliction. It's, I want their not to be suffering. I want, there's some edge here I can't quite catch, but it's about sitting upright. and becoming more intimate with that pain that I experience in myself and the pain that I witness in my family. I was appreciating what you said earlier about ignoring and the ignorance. This is the way my family continues on, is the ignoring. And it feels like these are the conditions for my awakening Yeah, for your awakening, for your work.

[51:59]

Yeah. Yeah. So there's a slight difficult distinction to be made there between I want them, did you say not to have the suffering? No. Not to suffer. I want them not to suffer. That's one thing. The other would be, I want them to learn how to protect themselves from suffering. Because the suffering is omnipresent. The suffering is omnipresent. We're not going to get away from it. Trying to get away from suffering is not really going to work. But we can protect ourselves right in the middle of it. So if you can learn how to protect your being in the middle of your suffering, that you can transmit to your loved ones to teach them to not try to get rid of suffering which is not on the table. It's unreasonable. But it's not unreasonable to be protecting and protected.

[53:09]

It's not unreasonable to be liberated. But liberation does not mean getting rid of samsara, getting rid of birth and death. We're not going to get rid of birth and death. Birth and death is trying to get rid of birth and death. That's one of its main agendas. But nirvana is... protection and liberation in the midst of birth and death. But still, a mother, kind of like when my daughter had her second child, just, I don't want her to suffer. You don't want them, of course you don't want them to suffer. Of course. And I didn't say, but she's going to. I just heard her, she deeply didn't want her a little girl to suffer. And her little girl does suffer. And, yeah, I've been with her when she's suffering. She was really good at suffering. She was like, she could go from zero to sixty like that.

[54:13]

She was like just in total despair over moving some piece of food on the table. It's amazing, the power of despair. We're not going to stop that. You can't stop that. But you can be there and show them how to deal with it. And I think she does a good job of teaching this now big girl how to deal with suffering in a good way. But at first, she just didn't want her daughter to have any Perfectly it's built in that mothers do not want their children to suffer at all. Okay, okay, okay. Then we can move on from there of I want to learn how to deal with my suffering so I can teach her how to deal with hers. And right now I have to walk away from these people in order to be able to deal with mine. And I'm going to do this and when I can deal with mine I'm going to come back. I'll be back. I will be back.

[55:15]

And so I left my friends back in Minnesota, not because they were abusing me, but because I felt I really couldn't be a very good friend to them because I had to do work on myself. I left them. I said, I'm leaving you to be a better friend. I still feel that's why I left, and I think I may be a little bit better friend now than I was because I know more about suffering than I did. I know how to... I have some... practices to deal with it that I didn't have then. So I couldn't really be their friend because I didn't know how to deal with my suffering with them. And so sometimes we do need to go away. Like you did this weekend. You came here to exercise your compassion practices. Yes? This goes back to some of the original things you were talking about. I think the last time we met here, we talked about the lotus existing in muddy water.

[56:25]

Yeah, right. I don't know. It's possible. But we definitely have talked about the lotus in muddy water here, because there was these really nice lotuses painted on the paintings on the wall here. Yeah, lotus in the muddy water, that's right. So it's not that we're trying to eliminate muddy water. But still, when your baby's born, you wish my baby will have no mud on her ever. No mud on my baby ever. Okay. But really, we should move on from that and we want to teach our baby how to be a lotus in muddy water. When I was saying the phrase, the wish, may we exist in muddy water with purity. like a lotus. I got stuck on that purity for a long time. And then I realized, well, I think you would often do this. Let's look up the actual root of purity. The purity in my mind was I was in the muddy water for sure.

[57:28]

I wasn't even really that interested. The lotus was, you could kind of see a little pink through the water. Yeah, you get the idea. But in other words, I thought the purity of the lotus was something different from the muddy water. But something about the way you said intimacy, I was thinking, well, maybe exist in muddy water with intimacy. Yeah. And the purity is purity of separation from the mud. The purity is that it's not separate. If it's separate, it's a little impure. But it's not separate, in fact. So it's pure. It's purely intimate with the mud. The life of the lotus is the life of the mud. And the life of the mud is the life of the lotus. That's the purity. That's the purity. pure of duality between Buddha and sentient being.

[58:33]

Thank you. OK, now, I was going to go into more detail. Now, I don't know if I should start or not, but I just want to warn you that there's a possibility that we're going to have a break pretty soon, and there's going to be some food. Is it out there yet? some food may be offered to you out in the hallway there. I hope so. I don't want you to get... I don't want your blood sugar to get so low that you disappear. Anyway, I just want to warn you that I want you to take care of yourself so when you come back at three, after the break, you'll be able to be awake for what comes next. Because that's often a sleepy time when people come back. Are we getting to the really tough part now?

[59:42]

Not tough, it just, I think it requires some level of awakeness. Because it's a little bit like, it takes some concentration to stay with it. Is it some of this kind of new and difficult material, maybe, of studying karmic consciousness, which we can start now for a little while. But just warn you not to get too much exercise so you come back here and sleep. Yes. Preference seems like what you're saying is if you start to prefer it, it's a red flag, start and have compassion. But a lot of my cares motivate me. So what is their positive way to care?

[60:43]

Where's the line between preference and care? Again, you can care for something like you could care for somebody who's sick without having a preference that they'll be healthy. But you take care of them. Can you imagine that? Like you go to visit somebody and maybe you've heard that some people think they're not going to get well. And yet you're taking care of them. And you would like them to get well. You wish that they would. But you don't prefer the healthy person that you want them to be to the sick one you've got. if I'm sick or if I'm suffering and people come to visit me and they want me to not be suffering, I would say, well, maybe visit somebody else. I like the people who come in to visit me, people who are supporting me to be who I am, not who they want me to be. Even though they may, I know you want me to be happy and, you know, great and compassionate, but

[61:46]

not preferring that over the way I am. Accepting me the way I am will help me be what you want me to be. And again, some people go visit someone, they love them dearly, and they wish they weren't the way they are. Well, get that person away. We don't need that person. They should go work on themselves. People who prefer for us to be some other than we are, who prefer it, they're very advanced people to deal with. But people who want us to be very well and very awake, that's fine, as long as they don't prefer for that. And so they can come and take care of me. without preferring that I'm this way or that way. It's possible. And if they can't do that, I'd rather have some other people take... I'd rather have nobody take care of me. I'll take care of myself. And I'll give the chance to take care of me to people who don't prefer me to be one way or another.

[62:53]

That's the people that should take care of me. I don't want to distract them from their work. Are you following this, Anne, at all? Don't be afraid not to. Yeah. So again, you can take care of someone wholeheartedly, wishing them well, knowing that there's a good chance they're not going to get well, and maybe they're not going to feel better, and you're still taking care of them, and you accept the way they are, but you don't prefer the way they are. You don't prefer that they're sick. And you wish that they were well, but you don't prefer it because you're working with who they are. And who they are is they're sick. And they need somebody to help them not to prefer some other way than they are. So the real help that we give people is to help them get over their preference for being anything other than what they are. And if they do have preferences, to help them be compassionate to those preferences.

[63:59]

But for people who are having trouble with their own preferences, it's good to send in people who are somewhat free of preferences to show them another way. Does that apply also not just to people, but to cares about the world, for example? Say again? So does that idea also apply to, say, you care about the climate? Yeah. And so you can say, well... Yes, yes. So it goes. I can work better to protect the climate if I don't prefer certain outcomes. I'm doing a little bit, you know, I'm trying and, you know, I'm making my attempts and other people have different agendas for me and I'm trying to be kind to the people who don't Don't agree with me. To some extent, it's a matter of priorities, right?

[65:05]

How important it is to drive that car. How important it is to turn the heat up. How important, et cetera. How important it is to eat meat and so on. All these things, I'm working on them. And I find that preferences undermine my work and make it distract me. The work is not preferences. The work is to take care of things. Preferences are not helpful, but they keep popping up. And they interfere with me interacting with people, especially people who disagree with me. So if I disagree with you about how to take care of the environment, okay. Now we have to have a conversation. And if I have preferences, like I have a preference that you'd be different than you are, that doesn't help the conversation. Like I heard this, you just brought up about the stigma of unvaccinated.

[66:06]

And then we had this conversation between this very, he's a representative of the medical profession. His name is Dr. Gupta. And he's having a conversation with a man who doesn't think it's necessary for him to get vaccinated. He doesn't think so. He thinks, I'm really healthy. I've got a great immune system. I don't need the vaccine. And I don't want anybody to tell me I should get it. The doctor's trying to talk to him about that. And they talked for a long time. And they recorded it. And I watched a little bit of it. I thought they had a pretty good conversation. I thought that they both had a little sense of humor and they were kind of respectful of each other. The doctor wasn't like looking down on this. He's a radio personality. He's quite a charismatic person. So they're concerned about him saying, you don't have to get vaccinated if you've got a good immune system or whatever.

[67:09]

And they talked and they talked, but I thought that there was... I felt that there was... I appreciated the way they respected each other. They weren't talking down to each other. They were listening to each other somewhat. Afterwards, someone interviewed the doctor and said, do you think you got through to him? The person didn't say, did he get through to you? And I thought... I mean, this is a good guy. Both of them are kind of good guys, but they have really different views. And I think it's not a matter of me getting through to them only. It's get through to each other. That's what I'm concerned about. And taking care of the environment, we have to get through to each other. And it's really hard to respect people who disagree with us and who we think have views that are harmful. It's very difficult to respect them. But if you respect them, they'll think you're intelligent and they might listen to you.

[68:12]

If you don't respect them, they think you're crazy, worthless, I don't know what, et cetera. But if we're going to come to a good conclusion, we have to not get rid of our preferences, but be kind to them so they don't get in the way. I think that's what I think. We do have preferences. We don't have no preferences. We need to be kind to them so that they don't become stumbling blocks due to being unattended. Unattended preferences can trip up our communication with beings, can trip up our compassion. Okay, so now it's getting really close to one. So what I'd like to do is again look into the inner depths of karmic consciousness and look at the afflictions there around the self.

[69:24]

And, you know, who am I? What is the self? These are key questions in Buddhism. Understanding the self is what Buddhas are up to. They understand the self. But you have to deal with these afflictions in order to understand the self. And that's difficult work. So that's what I'd like to do in the next session, is go in there and look at these afflictions, see if you can observe them in yourself. It's possible. You can actually see, oh yeah, there's that one, there's that one, there's that one. And then watch, how do you relate to it? You know, are you trying to get rid of them? Can you respect them? Because they want respect. and so on. So that's what I have to do in the next session. But again, I hope you can find it interesting and be awake for it. Do you prefer that we be interested and awake for it? I do not prefer it. And if you all come in here and sleep, you will see the test of my practice.

[70:28]

Does he still love us when we're all asleep? Now, if you don't come, you don't show up, does he still love us when no one comes? It's hard to see that unless I start screaming. Yeah, come and sleep and watch how I deal with that. I have a little thing I just switched to. These are my grandchildren. They can sleep through whatever I'm saying. My grandchildren are not the least bit interested in me. I don't know. So yeah, I do not prefer it. And yet I tell you, I would love it if you, I wish you would be awake. And I don't prefer it. And if you think I do, check it out with me. Are you preferring that we be awake? Let me check. Yeah, I'm sorry. No, I don't, but thanks for asking. Keep checking on my preferences.

[71:32]

Do you prefer that I be a great Zen master? I don't know if I prefer that, but thanks for asking. I think it would be great if you were. If at the end of this thing you got just 50 Zen masters, that would be totally cool. But do I prefer it? No. That's what I say. Thank you.

[71:55]

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