I sometimes look at YouTube. And recently I was looking at YouTube and a picture of me just popped up. A picture of me sitting here. And I started out by saying, I'm really sorry that I wasn't able to see you all, all of you that signed up. I tried, but I just couldn't manage to see you all, and I'm really sorry. I want to, but I couldn't. And today I'd like to say thank you very much for all the people who came to see me and made time for the other people, because we managed to have meetings for everybody who asked. Thank you so much. You're so kind to your friends.

[01:02]

I also pray that you had a truly joyful day together here with your friends and all the Buddhas and bodhisattvas. I pray for that. There was such joy here today. I hope you got access to it. I see some faces and they look really surprised. Like, what are you talking about? Thank you so much for taking care of this little temple. This can be your offering to all Buddhas, that you take care of this little temple. Thank you for taking care of your own thoughts and feelings, superficial though they might be.

[02:17]

Thank you for being compassionate to them. May you continue. And I have faith that if you take care of all these difficult, sentient beings, inwardly and outwardly, that you will be very confident that you're able to do so because all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are supporting you to take care of these little details. To take care of the minute little troubles even though they're tiny, sometimes it's very difficult. We think, I don't want to take care of this little problem. But if we do, we will realize the whole universe was supporting us.

[03:19]

And it always is supporting us. And we share that by being willing to take care of this person who is being mean to us with great loving kindness. We verify the great ocean seal samadhi of the Buddhas. Thank you so much for taking care of the practice here and for taking care of the temple that's living in this practice place.

[04:25]

I remember Gary Schneider once said that what he heard in Japan, first take care of clean the temple, then sit. Is there anything you want to bring up? I have the whole sutra which I could bring out, but maybe you have some things you want to bring up. Yes. A small detail. I've been hearing this morning about the ocean seal. Yeah. And I wonder if you could say something. the seal the seal the word mudra in Sanskrit it's sagara ocean mudra mudra samadhi and mudra has a number of meanings one meaning of mudra is a circle or a ring another meaning of mudra is like a stamp like the

[05:39]

They put stamps on documents, a certification. Another meaning is a posture. But a lot of the postures that are called mudras are circles. This is a mudra. This is a mudra. This is a mudra. This posture, this upright sitting is a mudra. We put the hands together in mudra. So particularly the postures that are kind of circular, or like our circuit. Those are often called mudras. And those mudras, the mudra quality, is also like a seal to authenticate. This is an authentic situation, and we give a certification to it, a mudra to certify. So the Ocean Seal Samadhi is a circle that unifies all the surface waves with the whole ocean and unifies the whole ocean with each wave.

[06:51]

That's the circle. It certifies and stamps them as one thing and stamps their inner penetration. And again, if you're able to take care of every single little difficulty in life, but take away everyone, maybe just say each, each difficulty, wholeheartedly, with no resistance, or even the resistance is also cared for. That's how you verify that this little problem is united with all other problems, and also with all those who have realized peace and are supporting us to take care of every problem, like the Palestinian doctor, like mothers, who take care of every little detail, and sometimes they do it without trying to get anything.

[07:54]

Something was given to you. And now give it away. Something was given to you, and before you even had it, you give it away. Couldn't the ocean seal also be... Yes, it can also be that. Yeah, yeah. And the waves, the waves of the ocean, you may think that they could be there even if the ocean wasn't deep. But nope. Every little wave can only be that way because of the whole ocean. And sometimes you get a hint of that because you're looking at the waves thinking, oh, they're just little waves. They're not connected to the whole ocean. And then a whale comes up. And you go, oh, I get it. That whale couldn't be there if there was just a surface. But also all the things on the surface could not be there if there weren't whales. The surface does not make those whales come up, and when they come up, it's very enlightening.

[09:10]

Oh, yeah, right. I thought this was just a little wave, and now I realize it's a whale, and that whale makes me understand that those waves were actually just as great as the whale. But sometimes people need whales, and it's worth the trip. I met a whale one time. Like I was in a boat in the Bay of Whales off Baja, on the Pacific side of Baja. I was out in a boat with my spouse and some other people, and a whale came, a male whale, came up to the boat and went under the boat and stuck his head out right in front of me and looked at me. He was, he wanted, he didn't have to do that. I didn't make him do that. I didn't even say, come here. He saw us in the boat and he went over it.

[10:14]

He wanted to meet us. He put his head under the, and came under. And his eye, eye, the size of a pancake, just sat there and looked at me. And then he moved on. He told his family, yeah, he says, yeah, yeah, you should go check it out. And then the mother came with the calf, but she was closest to the boat. She kept the calf on the other side. And after that seemed to be okay, then she came back with the calf between her and the boat. It was, this is a big ocean. Such things can happen because it's so big. And we went out ten times in five days, once in the morning and once at night, once in the afternoon.

[11:19]

And we went out, and we didn't know if they would come to see us again, or even if we'd see them at a distance. And just about when we were ready to go back sometimes, they came, voluntarily came to meet us. It's possible that such things can happen. And every day they came. And at the end, one of them that was with us went away from us into the horizon and turned and put the flippers up. No, it's actually... Such things can happen in this ocean. It's so big. It can happen. And then our guide, our biologist, said, don't tell the next group. Because this doesn't always happen.

[12:20]

If they knew what happened with you, they might be disappointed. But actually, one encounter makes the whole trip worthwhile. And we got more than ten. And they were all so wonderful. And then not to mention the dolphins. Even more dolphins than whales, of course. And the osprey and the turtles. It was so wonderful. The Bay of Whales. It's waiting for you. Did you? Yes? Oh, yes. You mean it's kind of a little thing like what you just said there? Kind of a little thing. When you meet the minis.

[13:24]

I have to wait a really long time before I can meet that with compassion. And then if I go to meet that, they're like, I would say that if the mini comes and the passion hasn't come... The meaning? You said mean. You said mean. And I thought you said mini. When these mini means come, they're coming and they're saying, hello, feed me, give me compassion. And then if there's a month between, then you give compassion to the month between. Okay, give me compassion.

[14:25]

I can't. I'm not ready. Give that compassion. I'm not ready is calling for compassion. Can I be not ready? Can I be not ready? Can I be stingy? And now I've been stingy long enough I'm ready to give. I often tell the story of I saw somebody give a friend a new automatic pencil. You know that story? You want to tell it? It's your story too now. Reb saw somebody give somebody else a new automatic pencil and Reb said, that's a lovely pencil. And then he gave me one. And then I went home and I said, look what somebody gave me. And my wife said, can I have it? And I said, no. Now I knew that that was stingy.

[15:27]

My wife just asked me for a pencil and I wouldn't give it to her. I didn't want to. But I wasn't trying to not be stingy. I was not ready to give it to her. And so I said no. And I felt bad about that. Being stingy feels kind of bad sometimes. And I felt bad. I was embarrassed. But that's who I was. And the next morning, I wasn't that person anymore. I was somebody who had had that nice pencil long enough, not quite 24 hours, but like 18, I had had it long enough, and I actually was ready to give it, and I gave it. But I think I was pretty compassionate to the stingy guy through the night. I was compassionate towards the embarrassed guy through the night. That was my job, is to be kind to the stingy guy. And when the stingy guy had had enough of the pencil, and enough of compassion, he was ready to give it away.

[16:31]

Which he did. And she received it. And there's been several other pencils which she has managed to get off me, too. But that was the only one where I said no. After that, I pretty much said yes from then on. She's got a lot of nice pencils. She's so generous. She's so generous. It's amazing. That wasn't a quote. Oh, no, I didn't ask her because you kind of guessed who I was talking about, but I didn't say it was her. I didn't ask her if I could tell who that was. Yes. Yes. You're right.

[17:54]

That's right. There really is no stinginess. Stinginess is just not seen clearly. And so when you're kind to your stinginess, you can see it's not really stinginess. It's just a strange kind of gift. Stinginess is a strange form of generosity. But you have to be compassionate to the stinginess in order to wake up to how stinginess is in solidarity with compassion. Stinginess cannot get away from generosity. The path to perfect generosity is on the path of being kind to stinginess. Like, I don't want to have this problem. Yes. Yes, so I would say, to me, the self does not observe anything.

[18:55]

Ideas don't observe other ideas. Ideas don't observe feelings. Feelings don't observe self. Self doesn't observe feelings. Self doesn't observe self. Self doesn't observe emotions. However, this is a big statement, not a little bit, when self comes up, it comes with afflictions and beliefs. basically four afflictions. And one of the afflictions is being confused about the self. When self comes, it comes with confusion about itself. Another one is self-view. It comes with the affliction of the idea, the delusion, that we're looking at things from the self. That's one of the delusions we have, is that the self is looking at all you. That's a delusion. And it's an affliction. The self isn't what's looking at you. This body and mind is looking at you.

[19:58]

And there's a self in this body and mind a lot of the time. And when there is, then there's an affliction. It's the self that's looking at everybody. That's painful. Then there's self-esteem, which thinks that the self is actually in charge of what's going on in mind and body. Like the self is doing things. The talking. The self is doing the walking. The self is doing the hating, the loving, the feeling. That's a delusion. There's a consciousness in which there's a self appearing. But it's not doing anything. It's just with all the doing. And part of what's there is the delusion that it's doing what's going on. That's a delusion. And if you're kind to that delusion, you will see that it's a delusion that the self is doing these things. Another one is self-love, which is even when people find out that the self comes with all, I should say actually, when people find out that the self comes with all these afflictions, they have the thought, which is not one of those four, they have a thought of hating the self, which brings all this suffering with it.

[21:16]

which brings all this affliction. They start hating it. And then they have another thought, which is not one of the four delusions. They have hatred, and they want to get rid of the self. And even though they want to get rid of the self, they still don't really want to get rid of it because they want to keep this one. And if you say to somebody who's trying to get rid of their self, would you be willing to trade yourself for somebody else's? Nope. Of course, they still would have a self, but They know that the self isn't causing the problem. It's the delusions around it. It's the confusion around it. And it naturally comes with confusion. So if we practice compassion with all the confusion around the self, we will see that those are delusions. And we'll have a self and those delusions with no problem because we see that those are delusions. It's a delusion that I'm doing the talking here.

[22:21]

But I still might have the delusion that I'm doing the talking just I no longer fall for it because I've been so kind to it, I let go of it. And it's not hurting anybody else either. But when these delusions arrive and there's believing them, then they really take hold. Is that enough for now? Thank you. He's got his stick ready. Got his thing ready. There's a hand there pointing to a hand over here. Oh, it's you. Yeah, okay. Did you say what the four were that... I kind of did. Self-confusion... Self-confusion, self-esteem or pride, self-view, and self-love.

[23:27]

So the self-confusion is that people think that they mix up the self with, for example, what's going on in consciousness. They're confused. They think the self is doing what's happening. There is things happening, and they're confused because they think the self is doing them. Every moment of consciousness has a pattern which is the activity of that consciousness. That's the karma. And there's a confusion of thinking that the self is doing what's going on. But we don't think what's going on is doing the self. That the self is having the feeling, but we don't think the feeling is having the self. But why not? Why not turn it around? They coexist. They come up together and they go away together. They're really like family members. It isn't that one of them owns the other ones or is in charge. There's confusion about that. That's painful. Next is self-esteem or self-pride. You think the self actually is the smooth operator.

[24:30]

But it's not. That's another delusion. The next one is... self-view is that you think that there's the idea that everything's being viewed from here, from this self. Everything is being viewed here, but not from here, not from this part of what's going on. But we don't think that the feelings are observing everything, that the feelings are doing the talking. We think that the self is doing the feelings and the talking. because of self-view and et cetera. And the last one is self-love. Even when we understand that the self comes with all these problems, we still kind of like it. You know, it's our, what I sometimes used to say, it's our 4,000 pound teddy bear. It's a big bear and it's crushing us, but still it's our baby. However, there's hope.

[25:41]

If we're compassionate to the situation, things will get clearer and clearer, and we'll see, oh, these are just delusions. And there can be freedom without pushing the self away or pushing the delusions around it away. It really can be one happy family, but it requires... bringing lots of compassion to this mess and being willing to take the trouble of caring for this mess. Because if we take care of the superficial trouble, we're going to get a lot of help to take care of more and deeper care of the ocean. The self is really an ocean. It has a surface and it has a depth. And the same with all dharmas. They have a surface and a depth.

[26:44]

Could I ask a follow-up question? May she ask a follow-up question? I know it's getting late. But the self-view, you know, isn't it true that the self does characterize the viewer? It obstructs the view. It shapes it. Like when we're looking, you're saying when we're looking, When something is seeing, the self is... It's not something that's seeing. It's not that there's something that's seeing. That's kind of like the self. The self is something that's seeing. Seeing is not something that's seeing. Seeing is a symphony of many, many elements. Seeing is the interaction between electromagnetic radiation and a certain kind of organic tissue. And in that interaction, consciousness arises. So the seeing is the consciousness, is the light, and is the organ.

[27:44]

But it's not just that, because, what? Seeing is all that. So it's not that the consciousness is seeing, it's not that the eye is seeing, and this is an easy one, it's not that the color is seeing. But if you say the eye thing, why don't you say the color thing? Well, actually, none of them but themselves. It's when all three come up. The organ and the object interacting is called the door of arising of consciousness, of eye consciousness. So it's all three. But also when they come, all these other mental phenomena come too. So it's the whole being that's seeing, not just the self. However, the whole being... brings with it the idea that what's being seen is being seen from the self, or by the self, or through the self, or for the self, or of the self. That's where Abraham Lincoln got that idea. You're welcome.

[28:46]

Thank you for your questions. And it's now past five, and we don't want to discourage you from coming to one sitting by running over. So we'll stop now, and please write down your questions and bring them next time. And once again, thank you so much for this wonderful day. Thank you, Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, for letting us practice today together. I also looked to the left, but I probably should look to the right, too. Thank you, Buddhas. Thank you, Buddhas. Thank you, Buddhas. Thank you, Bodhisattvas who are living downstairs.

[29:34]

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