I have these kind of two different approaches to practice in mind, and I'm not sure about how to bring them up, given both what they mean in this one meeting this morning. maybe I won't be able to, but one kind of, I guess one way to put it is, on one side there is a way of practice which is a little bit like, just a moment ago I thought, yeah, one's more like practice the Buddha way as vow.

[01:06]

And the other way is a little bit more like practice the Buddha way as learning the Buddha way. And on the side of practicing as vow, we could talk about practice as living vow or living every action as the celebration of the Buddha way, or making and intending every action as Buddha's action, as Buddha's deportment.

[02:19]

This is not just faith. It's also faith in action. It's faith that the Buddha way is to live the vow to make every action the Buddha way. So there's faith there, but there's also faith in action. And this is, I'm trying to express now, what we call grandmother mind. trying to express grandmother mind, and I'm saying grandmother mind is lived by practicing grandmotherly mindfulness in the sense that you are mindful that every action is a celebration of Buddha way. Every action is devoted to the triple treasure and so on.

[03:33]

So there's action and devotion in faith in Buddha, but also in faith that to realize the Buddha way means that you devote every action to it. And then statements can be made like, the Buddha way is, Buddha in action of a person. But my activity is not exactly Buddha in action. My activity is just my little action of enacting Buddha. In that sense, it's a ritual or a ceremony, a ceremonial enactment or celebration of the Buddha. So this way of behaving is like ritual activity or ceremonial activity.

[04:40]

It makes my activities, ceremonies, celebrating the Buddha way. And then there's a faith also, in the grandmotherly mind, faith is that there's no other Buddha way than somebody celebrating the Buddha way. There's not another Buddha way. that the Buddha way is, you could say, Buddha deportment, but it's also the Buddha way is intending that your deportment be the Buddha way. So there's a slight difference between the opinion that all activity embodies the Buddha way and the intention that all activity will embody the Buddha way.

[05:41]

And Dogen's faith is very much about this, making every action embody the Buddha way. But it's interesting to me and difficult to understand, or easy to misunderstand, the difference between that and saying that every action embodies the Buddha way. And he lived at a time when there was another influential school of practice called the Dharumashu, which means the school of Bodhidharma, which was a supposedly Rinzai-derived line of practice. And the teacher in that lineage said, I don't know if he said, but he implied such a strong faith in our fundamental original awakening that his students had the idea that every action embodies the Buddha way.

[06:51]

And that was criticized because people tended to understand this as an antinomian dogma, an antinomian opinion. In other words, it's your opinion or your belief that whatever you do embodies your original awakening. That's different from the intention. to make everything you do embody Buddha way. And one is actually a moral act. It is actually a moral act. It's an intention to act that way. The other is saying whatever way you act will be the Buddha way. And that school was actually suppressed by the Japanese government because of the anti-nomian. Anti means against and nomian means law.

[07:54]

So it's often applied to a religious or some other kind of opinion that undermines adherence to moral laws. Now, I'm not saying that those monks were antinomian, but their teaching, as it got out on the street, was seen as dangerous. not anti-moral opinion. So that's the main difference between those two. And Dogen lived at a time when he had students coming from this tradition, and he had to be very careful because his teaching was very close to that in sense of make every action the celebration of Buddha Way. And making every action that way means make every action a ceremony, and then to say that that is the Buddha way, it sounds similar to the other one.

[09:05]

And in terms of practice, this is what he meant, I think, by the grandmother mind. Yeah. Well, for me, faith is what I would call the ultimate concern. What you think is the most important thing in your life. That's your faith and my faith. And so if you think, what you mean by Buddha is wisdom and compassion, and yeah, if you think wisdom and compassion are where it's at, and you think that from your understanding the Buddha seems to represent, from the teaching you heard about the Buddha and

[10:11]

Stories you heard about the Buddha and some of the Buddhist disciples think these people sound like wise, compassionate beings. That's what I think is really important in life for me. That's my faith. And other people who aren't Buddhists also sometimes are wise. Wise and kind. And gracious. And gracious. and skillful and helpful and all that. So whether they're Buddhist or not, that's the way I think is really where it's adding life for humans. And I'm a human, so that's what I'm concerned about in this life. That's my faith. And you might consider that to be Buddha as a major representative of that way of being in the world. So you believe in Buddha. Your faith is in being a Buddha or being Buddha-like.

[11:15]

And then it also seems important to you that there be people, a lot of people, who kind of like are trying to help that happen. You believe in Sangha, community. And then you think, well, that teaching seems to be necessary for this because people are confused and aren't wise and aren't kind because they're confused. So I think the Triple Cherry is important. That could be your thing. So these people that Bodogin was teaching were people who entered monasteries and had taken bodhisattva vows and had taken had gone for refuge in the precepts, gone for refuge in the triple treasure. And he's saying, OK, now you're here and you want to be a good monk and help the world. And he had this one great student who was a very helpful person. But this student didn't think that everything he did was the Buddha way.

[12:16]

although he wanted it to be. But he thought that there was something more to the Buddha way than making everything you feel the Buddha way. That was his point that he was having trouble with, grandmother mind point that Tetsugikai had problems with. So that's one way of practice which is like, it's action-oriented. And Tetsugikai, after he understood this, was known to de-emphasize studying texts, like even studying his teacher's texts. He mostly just had the monks emphasize action, action, action all the time. And make every action. the Buddha way.

[13:19]

So again, one's more like, in some sense, it's a dogma, religious dogma, this way of all actions embrace the Buddha way. And the other is more like religious intention, putting more emphasis on your intention or your action, compassion and action. rather than just compassion and faith, or faith and compassion, that no matter what you do, Buddha's compassion is manifested. Yes. So is this a little like running a line between you're going to get something and there's nothing to get? Because on one hand, your actions, your vow is to, say if we say the beginning again, is something like what? Something you're going to get, something you're going to do, you're going to carry out a vow of doing it through the Dharma, as though somehow you weren't doing it and now you're going to do it. No, it's not like that.

[14:26]

It's not like that. Because on the other hand, everything you do is Buddha Dharma. No, that's the other side. That's the other side. The other side is Buddha Dharma. So it sounds like there's some space that we move in between the two there. You don't... This is a little bit, again, like you're calling the thing about finding yourself at the end of it, you know? The wind reaches everywhere and is permanent, so why do you fan yourself? This is saying that Buddhadharma is just fanning yourself. It's nothing more than that. But you have to fan yourself. Well, yeah, that's what I just said. Buddhadharma is nothing more than fanning yourself. If you don't fan yourself, there's not another Buddhadharma that's operating there with nobody fanning. It doesn't say that it's because of the Buddhadharma all the time.

[15:29]

It just says that there's no Buddhadharma but the fanning. It says, if you don't fan, if you don't practice as the way of Buddhadharma reaching everything, And you don't understand the meaning of Buddhadharma reaching everything. So Buddhadharma reaches everything, but the way it reaches everything is that you make it reach everything. You want it to reach everything. Your heart is that you wish this thing right here, now, to be Buddhadharma reaching this action, and this action reaching Buddhadharma. That's what you mean. And without that, we don't have Buddhadharma. It's not another Buddhadharma that's like cooking away when nobody's practicing, or when somebody's not practicing.

[16:35]

Dragan also says, when there's bowing, there's the Buddha way. And when there's not bowing, the Buddha way is destroyed, or something like that. But it's not to say there isn't a Buddha way. It's just that when there's no bowing, there's no Buddha way. It's subtle, huh? It's subtle. Yes. So if there's no bowing, there's no Buddha way. But if there's someone bowing, there's a Buddha way. Yeah, if there's one person bowing, there's Buddha way. But if there's one person bowing and everybody else is not, still Buddha way? Still Buddha way. Yeah. In fact, everybody that's not bowing is realizing the Buddha way together with the one person who's bowing.

[17:38]

It could happen now that all the Buddhas were like having lunch, and one of them was bowing. They keep one bowing all the time. And that one that's bowing realizes the Buddha way together with all the ones who are not bowing. Just give that some space, that way. One person's fanning. Nobody else is fanning. In that story, only one person was fanning, the teacher was fanning, the monk was not fanning. And the monk comes over and talks to the teacher. The Buddha way is happening, the teacher is fanning. The monk asks the question. However, the monk doesn't understand grandmother mind at the beginning of the conversation anyway.

[18:42]

That's why he doesn't understand why the teacher needs to practice. You're the master, why don't you practice? You are the buddha-dharma reaching a person. Yeah, but I'm only the buddha-dharma reaching a person when I make this action of this person for the buddha-dharma. And the monks talking to him also could be the buddha way if the monk intended the question. as realizing the Buddha way through that question. And many people do that, many monks, many students of the way ask questions. And when they ask the question, they mean to ask this question as an enactment, as a celebration of the Buddha way. If you look in the scriptures, these monks are asking questions. And they ask questions the way other monks have asked questions The bodhisattvas ask questions like other bodhisattvas have asked questions, and they ask the question in order to help the Buddha teach, in order to help people understand.

[19:54]

In other words, they are asking a question not to get something, but to make the Buddhadharma alive in the form of a student, a bodhisattva, asking the Buddha a question And then the Buddha will then say, oh, you asked this question for the welfare, benefit, and so on of all beings. And the monk doesn't usually say, well, yeah, I did, right. And he doesn't mind the answer. You intended this to be the enactment of the Buddha Dharma, and it was, and it is. So you don't do the practice to get something, you do the practice to an action. You do the action as the action of the Buddha dharmas. And this relates to what Tendo-san was bringing up about this teaching about just do it. But just do it is similar to just sit.

[20:55]

And Sri Sankaracharya said, you know, quite a few times, we say that our way is to just sit, but it's rather difficult to understand what just sit means. Just do it, yeah, it's fine. But what just do it means, in this case I would say, is, yeah, you just sit, but you just sit as the enactment of Buddhadharma. And it's difficult to understand the difference between that and this other thing. You're having trouble understanding this, I have trouble understanding this. Just do it means just lift your arm as an intentional act to realize the Buddha way. That's all. It isn't just lift your arm, it's lift your arm for the sake of the Buddha way. Only. Not because of that. And not with the idea that whatever you do is the Buddha Dharma. It's with the intention, it's with the action, it's with the karma of, I want everything I do to be the Buddha way.

[22:04]

Okay. Now, there's a bunch of hands raised, and that's good, but there's another side I wanted to bring up. And if I get into this side now, I won't get to the other side. And the other side is complementary to this side. And the other side is part of how it helps you understand what it means to just sit and just practice grandmother mind. So I think I might be good to go to the other side for a little while. Okay? Those of you who had your hands raised can remember your question. Is that right? The other side is also... The first way is like it's studying karma or learning about karma as... taking the vow or the intention and exercising the intention.

[23:09]

That's one side. It's similar to a sutra where it says, in order to purify your action, bodhisattvas wish this and wish that. So they purify their action and they learn. They don't really learn about their action, though. It's not so much that they learn about their action. They purify their action by having all these pure actions. They purify their intention by having all these pure intentions. So they just go around and exercise pure intention all the time. They wish, you know, when they meet this person, they wish well for all beings. When they meet this person, they wish well for all beings. They don't even wish well just for one person. But whenever they meet somebody, they wish the welfare of all beings. When they open the door, When they close the door, when they stand up, when they sit down, they exercise their intention in the direction of the welfare of all beings. That's like practicing action

[24:12]

has the Buddha way in a very pure way. It's learning how to do that. And Gary asked, well, what if you intend these things, but you don't really feel it inside? It takes to the other side. The other side is learn about your intention. Learn about your mind activity. Learn about your mental karma. That's the other way of practicing which I think is complementary. So there, again and again it says, you know, to learn the Buddha way is to learn the self. This is also to learn about yourself. Rather than just willing, self-willing, now you're self-learning. And so here I want to mention some things that came up in the last couple of days with people. One person, I think sort of following up on the Shiso's talk, somebody was talking to me and says, but isn't, you know, the person was sort of not feeling love for everybody.

[25:25]

And she noticed that she loved some people more than others. Some people Not too much at all. But wanting to learn how to love everybody. And realizing that not yet at that place of loving everybody, but wanting to learn that. And then she said, I think, or I said, or somebody said, but love is already here. Love is the actual situation. Carol King said, love is all that's real, everything else is illusion. I've been thinking about that for a while. Love is all that's real, everything else is illusion. So I think you might consider that love is real and it's what's happening.

[26:34]

But when you look at some people, you look and you see, okay, there he is, there she is, and where's the love? They don't love me. They don't seem to love me, and I don't seem to love them. I'd like to learn how, but right now I don't see that I love her, and I don't see that she loves me. I don't see it, but I'd like to learn. That's that present intuition. And the person says, well, how come I can't see this love that I kind of think is already here? And what's the answer? What? Karma. Karmic hindrance is why you can't see the love. The true dharma is actually what's happening. And it happens, you know, you can hear it.

[27:39]

Usually it's heard somehow because it's kind of like you mentioned hearing it. There's also sometimes we say see it. Not too often do they say smell it. But basically, whatever is happening, there's a true Dharma there. But because of chronic accumulations, we have trouble hearing it. We have trouble hearing the love, seeing the love, smelling the love, tasting the love, touching the love. We have trouble because of karmic hindrances. But it's already here, one could say. I sort of think so. And in the, what do you call it, the self-fulfilling samadhi or self-receiving and enthralling samadhi, they describe the situation where all things are engaged in Buddha activity. Which means all things are engaged in the activity of helping people wake up. And being helped to help everybody wake up.

[28:45]

And not just help people wake up, but help people wake up because you love them. and help them wake up because they love you, and they would love you to help them, help you help them, and so on. This is Buddha activity. It's the way we're all helping each other wake up. And everything's engaged in this according to, I would say, this tradition. Everything's in this imperceptible mutual assistance to help everything realize the Buddha way. But it's hard for us to see this. Another person was talking to me about appreciation. And the person said, that's kind of a low-key way of saying love, appreciation. And I sometimes feel appreciation. from people.

[29:52]

I feel appreciated. I see it. I see somebody or more than one somebody appreciates me, and I often wonder, do I appreciate them? And sometimes I do, and sometimes I feel like, hey, they appreciate me and I appreciate them. I wonder if they... I know that they... I know that they appreciate me. I wonder if they know I appreciate them. Sometimes I check. Do you feel... Sometimes I say, I feel like you appreciate me. Do you feel that I appreciate you? And they sometimes say, yeah. And then sometimes I think, you know, they really appreciate me. Do I really appreciate them? And sometimes it's like, they really appreciate me, but I just appreciate them. And then I kind of like, oh, yuck. They really appreciate me, and I just kind of plain old appreciate them. So I want to ask him now, do you really appreciate me? Do you kind of feel like I just kind of medium appreciate you?

[30:55]

It's hard to ask him that. It's easier when you look inside and you say, I feel appreciated by this person or these people, and I really appreciate them. And then do you people feel that? Appreciation, no, here's the other side. Appreciation, mutual appreciation is already here. That's, love is real. But it's hard for us to see it. And to look inside to check out if it's there and then not find it is not that pleasant. To look inside and feel like, well, they don't love me, It's not to see that you feel that they don't love you.

[32:00]

And just as difficult maybe sometimes is to feel like, they love me, but I don't love them. Now, I know it's because of karmic hindrance, but still, it's kind of painful to look inside somebody who you really feel, this person really appreciates me, and I don't appreciate them as much as they appreciate me. Like some people, you know, they appreciate you, and the way they appreciate you is they just bug you. But, you know, I have this grandson, and he doesn't bug me too much, but he really bugs his mom. He's just crazy about his mom. You know, and he's just like, as of recent reports, he's kind of a nonstop talker. And he loves to talk to his mom. He appreciates her. I mean, she's like super appreciated by him.

[33:03]

And he expresses it by giving her a lot of talk. And she kind of like sometimes doesn't appreciate it. I mean, she looks inside and she says, get this guy away from me. I need a break. I need space. I myself have not reached that point with him, because he doesn't love me that much. He thinks. So he doesn't give me that much attention. But even with someone like that, who you totally love, really, sometimes you can appreciate them. Comic obstruction, in a way. It feels like karmic obstruction. But karmic obstruction cannot actually ever be found. But looking inside and finding it can be very difficult to live with.

[34:11]

You have to look inside and find that this person who loves you so much, you feel like you can't appreciate them. Really, you do. And right at that moment, you just can't see that you do. You can't see that needing some space from him, or wanting some space, or wanting him to be quiet, because of karmic image, you can't see that that actually is a form of appreciation. Right then. So another way to put this is just walk around this world and look inside moment by moment to see if the self-fulfilling samadhi world was described in the scripture.

[35:16]

See if that's going on inside. And you might find not quite. It's not like that inside. But then it says, don't think that this will appear within consciousness. So the fact that it doesn't appear within consciousness maybe is okay. Because if you study how it doesn't appear in consciousness, that will open the door to understanding it. And let me now talk more about that. So, what I'm suggesting here is that when you look inside, what you're looking for is your mental action. You're studying your karma. And what your karma is is basically the cognitive representation of your relationship with everybody.

[36:26]

That's the activity of your mind. When you meet somebody, your mind has an activity to create within your cognition some representation, some picture, some story, some pattern of your relationship with the person. And not in relationship with this person, your relationship with everybody, but, you know, right now you're looking at this person, but the way you see this person also includes their relationship with everybody else, and you're more or less aware of that. Like if you meet somebody who's, you know, friends with somebody else, that's included in what you might see. So you see the person, but you see the person in relationship to everything that you're aware of at that moment. And that's mental activity.

[37:28]

Your cognition arises, if you're looking at a person, your cognition arises through the interaction of your body with this person and electromagnetic radiation and sound waves and so on. In a sensory interaction, in a sensory-motor interaction between your sensory-motor system and other beings, humans and otherwise, in that situation your cognition arises. And then there's knowing of this person or this tree or this dog. Then this cognition has activity, which is what Buddha meant by karma. And that activity, called cetana, is the total working of that is the total activity of that consciousness. And one person, in one book on Buddhist mind states or mind factors, somebody translated cetana, which is the definition of karma, they translated it as synergy.

[38:43]

And synergy, the root of synergy is sin together, and ergi, or energy, or work. Now, erg is an energy unit, right? Or is it a power unit? Power is the ability to do work. Erg. Ergs, dynes, mutants, nobody knows. Calories, horsepower. BTUs. Anyway, sin ergi means working together. Chaitanam actually means working together. So on one level, it's how your mind factors are working together. It's how your feelings, emotions, opinions, perceptions, faith, lack of it, diligence, concentration, all the mental factors that coexist with

[39:47]

how they're all working together is your cetana. That is your intention at the moment. How you see yourself in relationship to the world and how you see the world relating to itself, among itself, that is at the given moment, that is the activity of your mind, that's your karma. And paying attention, and this is the main evolutionary topic to be studied. If you study this topic this intention which is present in each moment if you study the pattern of relationship that appears that your mind is actively producing if you study that this is the source of positive evolution on the path. And not studying it creates karmic obstructions to being able to see our true relationship.

[40:49]

So your mind produces a representation of your relationship with the world every moment. Your mind gives you a picture of how you're related to the world, which helps you live in the world. And it's a more or less skillful representation. Like you could see a picture like, hey, there's a bunch of people in this room, and it would be really good to be kind to them. That's kind of like, these are the kind of people that are like the other people, and all the people are things that are good to be kind to. Now that's the kind of picture that's kind of what we call skillful, generally. And then it might be even more skillful to then have in the picture say, and by the way, what is kind anyway? Maybe I should check in with them and ask them what they think it is. That would even be more kind, I would think. And maybe it would be good not to be too rigid about what kind is, and not to be too rigid about what skillful is.

[42:00]

And that factor of not being rigid and skillful about skillful tends to be more skillful So there's this picture in your mind, every moment you have a picture of your relationship with the world. And it's more or less skillful, and it's more or less, not really more or less, it's basically just deluded or not. And Dogen describes in Genjo Koan the pattern of the mind just deluded. But this is the thing to study, this pattern of relationship that's in your mind every moment. And in that pattern, there could be like, oh, 90% of these people appreciate me, or 2% of these people appreciate me. Only one person here appreciates me. That could be the picture you have of the room. And I appreciate more people here than appreciate me. That could be another picture you have. All these different possible pictures of your relationship with the world appear in your mind.

[43:04]

Every moment there's a picture. There's a feel. And you can see it to the extent of your vision. When you first start looking, it's going to be pretty simple. Like, I'm looking at Judith, and I'm not going to be aware of, and I see myself in this way related to Judith, and her related to everybody else. You're not going to see all the refined details of what actually is there when you first look. because of karmic obstruction. You don't see clearly and deeply into the relationship which is actually manifesting in your consciousness and no place else. And I also want to say, I'll say this again, and again probably, I hope, is that this representation of your relationship with the world is not your relationship with the world. It's a representation of it, which is also partly due to your past karma.

[44:10]

But it's not just due to your past karma, because the cognition that has arisen, arisen in relationship to the whole world, and you didn't make it happen yourself. So this cognition is actually made by the rest of the world, but the rest of the world does not always make a perfect and most edifying picture of itself. The world doesn't produce in you the best possible representation of your relationship with the world that's produced it. However, if there is study of this pattern, it allows the world to help you, it allows the world to contribute to a better and better picture of your relationship with the world. So that finally, by studying this, your picture of your relationship with the world, the world will respond to you by making the picture of the relationship more and more liberating.

[45:25]

So that finally you have a picture of the world which, in the picture, it will be completely clear that everybody is not your best friend, because not everybody can be your best friend. But in the picture, it will be very clear in this picture that everybody is your close friend and that you are everybody's close friend and that you love everyone and everyone loves you. That will be clear to you. However, the picture will not be the way that they love you and not be the way that you actually love them. It will just be a representation of this inconceivable way that you love everyone and everyone loves you. But now we have a conceivable picture of our relationship with the world where it does not look like everybody loves us and we love everybody. It doesn't look like that. Therefore, and that doesn't look like that because we haven't been studying it, these kinds of things, for long enough and deep enough. And again, Ganga Koan talks about the difference between, you know, the way it looks and the way it is.

[46:42]

And one example, one that comes to mind is, you know, when the diamond fills your body and mind, when the diamond does not fill your body and mind, you think it's sufficient. When it does fill your body and mind, you realize it's not. So when it doesn't fill your body and mind, you might actually think, everybody's my friend. And you might think that your view of how everybody's your friend is actually the way everybody's your friend. That's the way it would be if the dharma didn't fill your body and mind, is that you would think your very positive view of your relationship with everyone was actually your relationship with everyone. When the Dharma fills your body and mind, if you had this very positive view of your relationship with everyone, you realize, this is how I see my relationship with everyone, but this is not actually how I'm related to everyone. This is a circle of water. There's something missing here. Similarly, if you thought that you didn't have a good relationship with people, and the Dharma did not fill your body and mind, you would think it was actually true that you don't have a good relationship.

[47:50]

But if the Dharma filled your body and mind, but you didn't yet have a clear vision, but it filled your body and mind, you realize, this is not really the whole story here. I don't think these people are my friends, but this is not the whole story, this view I have that they're not my friends. It's an unhappy picture, but it's also something's missing in it. But there can also be something missing in a happy picture. We are cognitive beings, and our cognitions are not. I'll put it positively. Our cognitions are limited. We are limited because we are created in a particular spot by a particular interaction of a particular body with a particular aspects of the world. It gives rise to these cognitions, which have activity. And studying that activity is the point I'm trying to make here. If you study the activity, you will be released from being enslaved by cognitive enclosure.

[49:01]

Cognitive obstructions will drop away. You will hear the true Dharma. You will have no problem practicing anymore. And you will be operating on all cylinders of the Buddha way. and realize everybody else is supporting you to do that, and not all of them understand that yet. And you have job security. And you love the job. Oh, and by the way, someone else asked me to mention that in this state of having no karmic hindrance anymore, basically, and being able to see that everyone loves you, and know that the way you see that everyone loves you is just a little circle of water in the ocean of love that they have for you and in the ocean of love you have for them. But in that little circle of water where you see all this love coming from you to them and them to you, this is a very happy circle of water.

[50:07]

You just realize it's bigger than this. Actually, I don't even know if it's bigger or smaller. I don't know anything about it. I mean, I know this a little bit. What I know makes me very, very happy and completely fearless and unselfish and generous. I'm happy, happy, happy. And I wish everyone else had this narrow view of how great the universe is. Because they have narrow views, too. But their view is, not everybody loves me. And I don't love everybody. And that's the whole story. And some other people actually have the view I love everybody and everybody loves me and that view I have is the whole story. So they have the right idea but the Dharma doesn't fill their body and mind yet. So they think that their view that everybody loves them and they love everybody that that's actually their view is actually going on. So they're not quite free of karmic hindrance yet.

[51:10]

But they're they're pretty happy about that too. However, that view is, what do you call it, at risk of being lost because they haven't eaten up dharma yet. So what I want to move on to next was, oh yeah, someone thought I should mention this, that when you're in a state of karmic hindrances have been removed, so you can see how everybody's your lover, appreciator, appreciatee, when you can see that and know that that's a limited view of this magnificent situation of infinite Buddha activity and mutual assistance among all things, living and non-living, in that space, the being, if this person's on their way to be a Buddha, this person, when they see these people that they love and who love them,

[52:14]

who don't know that they love them, they see that the people who don't know that they love them and don't know that they're being loved, they see that these people are suffering, which they are. And they're afraid, more or less. They see this. And when they see the people they love who are in pain because they don't know how much they're loving and being loved, they feel pain. But the pain they feel is the pain because they love the person and because the person loves them. So this pain they feel, in this pain that they feel there, they feel the greatest possible happiness, which is called Buddha's compassion. It's a pain from love. And bodhisattvas have this kind of pain, and they're very happy Not exactly. They're very happy to be in pain with the people they love.

[53:15]

They love being with the people they love, and they love being in pain with them when those people are in pain. When they're with people who don't have pain, like when the bodhisattvas are with the Buddha, they don't have that kind of happiness. It's different because they don't feel pain that the Buddha is in pain for them because of the people Buddha loves. So they don't feel the same way when they're with the Buddha as they do with their sentient beings. So that's why sentient beings are more their body, and Buddha is more their teacher. But they love their teacher, of course, and the teacher loves them, but they don't have this happiness of being with their teacher's pain because the teacher doesn't have that kind of pain that comes from ignorance. So anyway, pain is part of the process, and it's a pain that you're very, very happy with.

[54:18]

I was talking to somebody about, you know, it's like if somebody you love is in a real tough situation and you want to help them or be with them, so then you go over and go into that tough situation with them and now you're in pain with them, but you feel real, you're very happy to be there with them. and share that pain because you love them and you do not want to be not with them. Where it might not be quite as painful for you at a little bit more of a distance, but you don't feel as happy as when you actually get there and you're like in the pain with them. So that's compassion. It goes with this very great happiness. Compassion is happiness, which has this big dent in it.

[55:23]

I heard the etymology of the word karuna is happiness with a dent in it. Synergy, I just looked it up, and it's got a theological and a biological, or I should, it's got a theological meaning and a biology meaning. The biology meaning is the action of two or more beings to achieve an effect which each individual is incapable of. Your consciousness is actually an effect that's achieved together with other people. I cannot have my consciousness without other people, and also the activity of my consciousness depends on other people. So my own intention is actually a form of working together with other beings. But most people, because of karmic obstruction, when they look at their intention, they can't see how their intention is actually working together with other people.

[56:37]

But I like that word synergy for cetana, or for intention. because it alludes to the teaching that your intention, your motivation is not created by you. You're responsible for your intention, but so is everybody else. And we kind of know that. Like if we're practicing together and we feel like the people we're practicing with don't have much intention to be diligent, We kind of know that's partly our responsibility. Like, well, I must not be that diligent if nobody else wants to be. Somebody said that one of the secrets of teaching is that students love the teacher. And the point of that is that if the students love the teacher, they'll love what the teacher loves. And the teacher loves the piano. The students, because they love the teacher, will love the piano. So if the teacher is really a good piano player, if the piano player is really a good teacher, they can somehow encourage the people to play the piano.

[57:55]

So if you want to teach diligence and nobody else is practicing it around you, you kind of feel like, geez, I'm not a very good teacher. On the other hand, if people are diligent around you, you're a pretty good teacher. You say, well, I think somebody else is teaching. No, you're part of it. See, that's part of what one of the key factors of a teacher is to be patient with how slow the students are to become diligent. Because the student's not learning something, the teacher has to know, well, that's partly my responsibility. And actually, they want to see also if I'm patient by being really slow at learning what I'm teaching. Because they also want to find out if I'll keep loving them, even if they never learn what I teach, which implies that I'm not a very good teacher. But if I'm patient with it, and they have to really be sure I'm patient, even if they really take a real long time,

[59:04]

Maybe now I'll try it on what's been taught here. Synergy means working together. Your intention is how you're working. It actually represents how you're working together, playing together, appreciating together all beings. That's actually how your intention is formed. But because of karmic obstructions, it's hard to see it. And how do you remove power karmic instructions? By studying this karma. The more you study the intention, the more you'll see that your intention is something that everybody is contributing to. And if your intention somehow could be not very skillful, but you saw how everybody made it, that would be an unskillful intention illuminated by its causation would be an opportunity where you would have an awakening experience by looking at an unskillful intention.

[60:10]

So it's possible that you would study intention a long time. Here's a story. You study intention a long time. Karmic obstructions are removed. An unskillful intention appears. In other words, the universe makes an unskillful intention appear in your consciousness. But because you've been studying skillful and unskillful intentions for a long time, your vision is clear. So while you're looking at this unskillful intention, you see its interdependence and receive illumination through that meditation while you're looking at unskillfulness. Excuse me. Do you want to say something about what you mean with the four? Oh, could you bring the kirtan back just for a second? Just for a second. Oh, you can tell them, okay. I just want to say that before the practice period started, quite a while before I started, I committed to lead four retreats during this practice period, outside this practice period.

[61:28]

So this weekend, I was committed to do a two-day retreat in Santa Barbara. And the next weekend, a two-day retreat in Montana. And the following week, a one-day retreat in Carmel. So I'm planning to leave here three times for two or one day during the remainder of this month. I wanted to tell you about my plans, partly also as an exercise in meditating on my relationship with you and your relationship with me. So I'm putting that up, and if there's anything you'd like to say to me about that at this time, I feel that that's relevant to what I've just been talking about. I'm sorry I didn't do it earlier before you had to.

[62:32]

I was thinking about it. Were you planning and committed to make lunch? It's our intention. So we see that relationship. And so you have my full support. If you'd like to go. But before you go, if you'd like to say anything about this information, did you know I was going to be leaving? Well, you didn't. You knew already? Two of you knew? Did you know I was leaving? Jared didn't. Any feedback you have on me? Hurry back. See, now I felt appreciated. From the kitchen first, OK? Because they are leaving. I give them first response. First right of refusal. Anything you want to say about this or feedback to me about this? Things like part of the job. See, I feel appreciated again. Carol?

[63:33]

Thank you. Good night. Sabrina, anything? Thank you. OK. Anything you want to say about this? Thank you. I also, before I call on, thank you, Kitchen, for your, Molly, anything? Before I call on Steph, I wanted to mention that I thought maybe if I need a practice period in the application, could you say please consult the the teaching schedule of this person who's in this position, to see what other activities besides being at Tassajara they're committed to for the fall, so that they know that beforehand. I'm sorry if any of you didn't know that I would be leaving. Sometimes in the past, what I've also done, this is not exactly to butter you up, but sometimes what I've done in the past is I've done retreats like this before, but I stay away between the retreats rather than going and coming.

[64:46]

This time I'm going to try out coming back between. Yes, Steph? Would you mind letting the people in those other places know that they're appreciated by the people here? You mean you'd like me to tell those people that the people up in the mountains appreciate those people practicing? You're happy that they're practicing? Yeah, I was hoping that you'd carry forth the message to the people that you'll be seeing at the learning retreats that they're appreciated by the people at Plus Power. I'd be happy to do that, yeah. And oftentimes they say, just like some people say to me, thank you for coming to the practice period because I know that takes you away from this kind of stuff. And the people who are outside often say thank you to the practice period for letting you come up and teach here. But I'll be surprised to them that a message from the practice period is, they want you to know that they appreciate you.

[65:52]

That would be a wonderful shock when I tell them that. At least that one person does. Gita? Gita, did you hear this? I'm just moving. OK. What about because we have a sashi? Are you going to be here for the session? Yeah, I'll be here for the session. But I'll also be away from the session. So I'll be here the night of the first day. Four days. I'll come the night of day number one. I think I'll be back about 9 o'clock. And David had a question, but he left. Oh, so that was part of the biological meaning of synergy.

[66:59]

The theological synergy is the doctrine that regeneration is affected by a combination of human will or human intention and divine grace. Regeneration is effected not just by divine grace, not just by human will, by combination. This sounds like Buddhadharma. And synergy, the synergy between divine grace and human intention manifests in human intention. I don't know if in Christian theology, if they would say that the interaction between human intention and divine grace is the place to meditate. But that's what I'm suggesting. Yes? You said that karmic obstruction cannot really be found if you're looking.

[68:04]

That's right. If you look, you won't find karmic obstruction. So you have to look at your action? If you look at your action, if you look at your intention, you'll see some pattern. You'll see some pattern of intention. I hope. Some people are so obstructed, they don't even know what direction to look. So oftentimes they start out by just looking at, you know, if you look at the four foundations of mindfulness, the fourth foundation of mindfulness and part of the third is where you start looking at intention. But the first two, you just look at like your body and your feelings. Even if you're quite upset, you might be able to be aware of your body. As you calm down, by meditating on your body and breath and so on, then you can start seeing something of your intention. When you first look at your intention, you can't see much because of karmic obstruction.

[69:06]

But the more you look at karma, the more karmic obstruction is worn out and wears away. And finally, you won't be able to find any karmic obstruction, which is similar to having no karmic obstruction. Are you saying there is no karmic obstruction, you just think there is? There's no karmic obstruction except independence on, what do you call it, thought constructions. In other words, love is not hindered. It's just that we dream that it is. And the reason why we dream that it is is because we haven't been paying attention to our activity, which is the way in our activity, my activity is the way I'm working with everybody. Because I haven't been paying attention to the way I'm working with everybody, now it's hard for me to see that I'm working together with everybody. And so then I think, oh, I'm not working together with everybody.

[70:15]

I don't appreciate what everybody's doing. I'm not contributing enthusiastically to all their behaviors. They're not helping me. We're not working together. We're not on the same team. We're enemies and so on. That comes from not looking at what I'm doing and how it's related to other people. The more I look at what I'm doing and how it's related to other people, the more I'll see how it's related to other people, how it's related to other people, how it's related to other people and animals and plants and so on. And pretty soon you see that what you're doing is nothing, nothing more than how you're related. There's no substance to what you're doing other than your relationships. But does that depend on your intention or is there any action? Intention is the definition of action. All actions of the type we're studying, again, there's other type of activity. There's another type of action.

[71:18]

So what I mean is all actions that being recommended to study for the sake of removing karmic obstruction, all actions are intentions. I often say to people, to watch your fingernail grow is fine, but you're not going to remove karmic obstruction probably by watching your fingernail grow unless you're aware of the intention you have to look at it. So a lot of people look at their fingernails grow You know, they actually do. They say, oh, they're growing great, but they seem to be long and I can paint them. Okay, so they look at that, but they don't notice their intention about that activity. The intentional activity that's looking, that's called looking at the fingernail, being aware of that intention, that's the type of activity which is moral activity.

[72:19]

Studying moral activity removes moral obstruction. Ignoring moral activity creates moral obstruction. Looking at a fingernail grow or a rock roll down a hill is fine, but when you're watching a rock, what's your intention in watching a rock? You look inside and say, oh, I see myself in relationship to the rock and all beings and I want to make sure nobody gets hurt by the rock. I'm aware of the how I'm working together with everybody while I look at the rock. That has positive evolutionary effects. To watch the rock and not look inside has a negative evolutionary effect. To look at things on the shore and overlook the boat is the problem. The boat's activity is intentional activity. It's meant by intentional activity.

[73:22]

practice intimately. So there are certain kinds of activity in the universe which are, not to get into the discussion of rocks and stuff, which I don't see as moral activity because it's not intentional. So when Buddhist talks about karma, he's emphasizing that karma in his school means intention. So study intention. But intention is This is, again, a strange way to think of intention. Intention is actually how you see yourself in relationship to the world. That's your intention at the moment. Yeah? During any activity other than, any other way than a activity in a moral act, Yeah.

[74:32]

So if you, which is very similar to say, to do any activity and think you're doing it without working together with everybody, say, I'm doing this by myself, I'm not doing this with everybody, that's a kind of a sin, because you're separating yourself from working together with people. But actually, if you look at your intention, you will see that actually that intention actually isn't separate from another. You'll see actually, oh, my intention, my action is actually how I'm working together with everybody. But if you look and say, my intention is my intention, and you have nothing to do with it, that's a kind of a sin. It's immoral in the sense that it will cause karmic obstruction. So in the same way, there's no human morally neutral No human more neutral, actually. You know, in the Buddha Dharma, it talks about positive and negative and neutral.

[75:37]

But I think neutral actually means you can't tell. It's hard to tell. Because it doesn't really say neutral. It says indeterminate. In terms of karmic quality of different states of consciousness, they have one category which is called indeterminate. But in conversation with you right now, I would say, well, I don't think maybe what you interpret means is you can't tell. The jury's out on this one. But I would say that the main thing unskillful is not the same as immoral. Immoral is more, I think, has to do with... I think the main thing about immoral would be Now that I'm changing now, okay, immoral would be that you wouldn't be studying your moral behavior. Studying unskillfulness, studying that you're feeling separate from somebody and don't care about somebody, or even want somebody to not do well, just to be aware of that is a moral act, because you're studying your moral consciousness.

[76:51]

So that's a moral act and it's a positive moral act to be aware of your unskillful, a state that has a kind of unskillful quality would be, I would say, a moral act. But also in some sense not being aware, you could say it's immoral, but it's also moral in the sense that it has moral implications. Immoral, if we mean by immoral that which is not conducive to benefit for all beings, then I would say any state that doesn't have full realization in some sense has some kind of like harmful aspect. Well, just like I might say, I see myself in a relationship with David, and he's rubbing his arm right now, and he's smiling.

[78:02]

That doesn't seem to be terribly skillful or unskillful, that way of seeing a relationship at that moment. But if I hope that he causes a laceration on his arm when he rubs it, then that seems to be kind of more negative, probably. Unless I was doing it as a joke in one of his summer closets. Or if I say, I hope he's not in pain, I hope he's practicing while he rubs his arm, I hope he's aware of his intention while he rubs his arm, that seems more skillful, more enlightened. But the other one was kind of like, I'm not so clear whether that was positive or negative. Does that make some sense? But what I am saying is I think it's by far the best thing to do, in a way, is to be aware of what your intention is at the moment.

[79:14]

But there's witnessing, and there's all-you-witness. Hearing a theorist, witnessing that a thought can be an impermanence, Witnessing what? Could be an indeterminate activity of how you get more, make it more. Strictly speaking, witnessing, I would say, just again, I would say that witnessing is not really karma. The witnessing... witnessing the karma. You're aware of the karma. The awareness itself is not actually an action. The action is the total pattern of relationships of the consciousness. That's the action of the moment. The activity of your mind doesn't exclude awareness. Awareness in some sense is an activity, but this is kind of technical, that we're saying there's basic awareness, like I'm aware of you. of the presence of you, of the existence of you.

[80:17]

And my awareness of you is more or less valid. But I have an awareness of you. And then with that awareness comes an activity. And that activity is my intention. With that awareness comes a sense of my relationship with you and your relationship with the group and the group's relationship with you and me. All that is actually my intention. And the more I study my relationship with you, the more I'll see my relationship with everyone, and the more I'll see how we're all working together, the more I study it. But the actual awareness itself is not karma. Sometimes people say that that's another kind of karma. That's the kind of karma which undoes karma. So they sometimes say there's positive action, a positive intention, negative intention, indeterminate intention, and then a fourth kind, which is the kind of karma which undoes the karmic hindrances created by the previous three.

[81:21]

Because, ladies and gentlemen, good karma also will create karmic hindrance if it's not observed. So good karma bad or right, wrong, and neutral karma all have consequences. The consequences of good karma are different from the consequences of bad, but they all have consequences. And when any of them aren't observed, a karmic obstruction comes from not observing them. But the observation is not actually, the awareness is not actually the activity. The awareness is just knowing. But coming with knowing is a pattern, is an activity, which is the creation and representation and impact of the relationship of this cognitive being who has arisen interdependently.

[82:24]

It's a picture of their dependable arising, actually, with everybody that lives with them at the moment, plus their history. with everybody and their own past karma. That contributes to the present pattern. But the awareness itself isn't the pattern. The pattern is the object of the study of learning about intention. OK? to bring us up. Are you familiar with the story of the man in the South Bay who is recently convicted of molesting potentially tens of thousands of children? Who? Okay, so this guy was convicted and in the process of investigating him, he found reams and reams and reams of notes that he took on his activities over decades in Latin America and the U.S.

[83:26]

And so I'm thinking about this, I'm holding this as you're talking about the study, you know, it seems like this is a highly immoral activity, yet he's also quite engaged in terms of his consciousness of what he's doing. And it seems that his activity of being aware of what he's doing isn't really changing his action. It continues to perpetuate what he's doing. So in some ways, it's kind of . I'm also not realizing the details of his life. Well, I think it's fine by now. Thank you. Well, I would say that I would say that I don't know the details sufficiently. If I knew more details, then maybe I would have more to say, but I would say that even this person, if this person would pay attention to this, become aware of what's going on in his mind in relationship to these children, I would say that that awareness will eventually

[84:32]

release him from this unskillfulness, but has not yet been able to. But again, I don't know what kind of awareness he was writing in those notes. The notes might have been dissociated rather than being aware of the karmic quality of them. So I don't know if he's actually studying his intention. Or if he was describing... I don't know if he's studying the boat or describing the shore. If he's describing the shore, then that would help him continue this immoral activity. If he's describing the boat, I think he will realize that he will get less interested... If he was studying the boat, he would be less interested in the children. But I don't know what he wrote. Most of the ancient states of attention, it's extremely difficult to break those cycles without some other system.

[85:36]

I mean, just seeing it. Right. It's just, that's the end of life. Exactly. And that's part of the reason why we have a program like this at Tassajara for the addictions of inmates here. Mm-hmm. is we have this schedule and we have the temperature and we have teachings which are to some extent input to the systems of the addicted beings. And our addiction is basically to look at the shore. And the situation is to try to get us to look at the boat. And addiction in some sense is talking about the shore all the time. and never looking inside at what our intention is. So if I saw the notes and they were different from what I'm guessing they are, then that would make me think

[86:39]

in more different ways about this, but I don't know if these are actually notes looking inside his attention about what he's trying to do there. I don't know. He was keeping score. He was keeping score. Yeah, that seemed more like looking at the shore. Which is just keep that note, maintain the... Yeah. Yeah. like going to a football game and keeping score, rather than being concerned for the welfare of the players on both sides. But, you know, who would go to a football game to do that? I don't know. Usually people go who are, like, like I said the other day, the example of, like, you have your teams playing another team, and you would like the other team to do poorly. But that means that your team doesn't give you a chance to play somebody good. So you'd rather have your team win than have a good game, because you're concerned with this thing out there.

[87:49]

So we have this strange, we have this karmic immune system. Yes? If a counter-applicant comes from non-study, then can you call counter-destruction confusion or delusion? Yeah. Karmic obstruction is basic. Karmic obstruction is, I don't know if it's delusion, but by the definition of delusion in Genjo Kahn, it's that you have this self. and this a priori self that you've got, and then this self you bring forth to live your life. That's delusion. Confusion or karmic obstruction is that you can't see that this self is not separate from the things you bring it to practice.

[88:57]

You can't see that actually the things are what make the self. So the image of a self is not actually an instruction. It's just an appearance. And the inability to see it, or the inability to look at it, and then if you are able to look at it, the inability to see its actual relationship, that's due to the past when you didn't study it. And then the time at which you will look at the self in relationship and you will be able to see it through relationship, that will be the results of lots of study. Lots of study will mean removing the confusion that you have about your situation. So that's what he says. If you don't look at the boat, you think the shore is moving. He said, look, if you look at your body and mind, if you look at yourself with a confused body and mind, you'll think you're permanent.

[89:59]

In other words, you won't see yourself in a relationship, you'll think you're permanent if you look with confusion. But the more you look and the confusion clears, you'll see that there is no abiding self. But that will be the result of lots of study. Lots of study, I'm sorry to say, sometimes. And that's why we have to practice patience and generosity and lots of other supportive exercises to keep the study. Because this is a wisdom study, right? And it depends on generosity, precepts, patience, diligence, and concentration or tranquility. We need all those to help us look inward and study our karma, study our intentions. When we first look, even if you're kind and moral and diligent, when you first look, if you haven't been looking for a long time, you're not going to see that much. And then you're going to see some very important things, like independent self, who is separate from other people.

[91:02]

You might be able to see that fairly early on. But take a long time before the confusion clears and you see, oh... It ain't that way. The self is just an appreciation center due to everybody's appreciation. It's a beacon of appreciation for all beings who give it life, all divine and ordinary beings who give it life. You'll see that after study for a long time. Before that, there's some confusion or destruction. So, I'm going to study this field in any given moment. When I try to do that, I'm planning my death. I'm not sure if I'm looking at how inalienable it could be. Like, sometimes it could be an initial labor, or sometimes it could be different elements. But by the time I notice them all, things are already changing.

[92:10]

Can it be? I don't know if I'm looking for like a snapshot, but the sum total, or if I'm looking for individual elements that are all occurring together at the same time. It seems to happen in a different way. I seem to get different views. OK, well, I'll give you some examples. This isn't necessarily examples you'd like to use, but I'll give you some examples. Sometimes if you're, I don't know, sometimes during work period at Tosahara, you might be doing some activity. And you might think. Am I actually doing this for the welfare of all beings? Do I actually feel like this is what I would do for the welfare of all beings right now?

[93:22]

So you see your intention and your intention is to do this thing you're doing. And you do kind of want to do it. And you kind of want to do it this way. That's pretty good. You're noticing, you're aware. Now, because you're aware, then you can ask the question like, do I actually think this is for the welfare of everybody at Tassajara, even? Not to mention the whole planet? And sometimes you say, no. I think I'd do something else, actually. and then you go do something else. Now, this is more, I think, actually, this is more like for the welfare of all beings, this thing. It might be the same action, slightly different, but it might be just totally just put that aside to some other time when that action might be, actually, if you look at it. No, I think now, actually, everybody would want me to do that. That would support people. Anything really could be that way, practically.

[94:24]

Like sometimes during work period, everybody would like you to go rest. You know? So it's work period here and you feel like, I'd like to take a rest. And you go and you sit down and you take a rest. And while you're resting you think, am I doing this actually for the welfare of everybody? And you might think, no. And you get up and you go do some work. And go back to work. But in a monastery like this, I would support you to, like, if you're working and you want to rest, rest. But then when you rest, look at your intention and then say, how do I feel about this intention? Do I feel real comfortable about this? Like, would I be happy for anybody to find me here resting? If they come up to me and they say, what are you doing? You say, I am resting for you. Or you feel like, you know, I'm resting, but I'm kind of ambivalent about it.

[95:31]

I'm not so sure I'm doing it for your welfare. And that person might say, yeah, I actually want you to help me do this thing. I actually don't feel like I want you to do this. But it's possible that other times during work period you feel like, you know, I think I should sit down here for a while. And your co-workers might say, yeah, sit down. I'm feeling kind of dizzy. I think I should rest. And then you're resting and maybe working still nearby you. And you look inside and you say, now, was that for the welfare of all beings? And you might say, I wanted it to be. And I feel like, yeah, maybe it is. But sometimes you feel like, I don't think so. I don't think it is. I don't feel comfortable with it. And one of my first jobs at Tassajara was like that. I think my first job, I think my first job, does anybody know what my first job was? I told this story many times. Huh?

[96:33]

Yeah, pipes. That's the one, the example is the pipe, but the truck was actually my first job. Came out of the Zen, we had work paid after Tongari. We were interested in doing work after Tongari. You guys want to work? Yeah. Any particular... Anything. So we're having work and then Dan Walsh said to me, does anybody here know how to drive a truck? I said, I do. And they had this big truck parked right next to where the bathrooms are, facing the dormitory. So I got in the truck. I guess I started it up and then started to drive and I noticed they didn't have any brakes. I thought, ooh, the dormitory, here we come. But then I pulled the emergency brake and it stopped before it hit the dormitory. And that was that. That was my first job. Then I got transferred. And actually, my second job was to go up the road.

[97:36]

During Tongario, it rains a lot. And the creek jumped the turn, you know, where it turns a corner and goes under the bridge up above the parking lot. It jumped that turn and went up and came down the parking lot. So it was a big rut in the parking lot. A big hole like three feet deep from rain. So we were filling in the hole. That was my second job. And the third job was to go up and... repaired the water line, because the water line was above ground at that time. And it was in the creek, the side creek. And the water line had broken apart. So me and another guy went up and repaired the water line. And so we put two pipes together. And then we went to put the next two pipes together. And I said to him, let's go back and fix the pipe. And he knew what I meant. We didn't really do it the way we would do it for all sentient beings.

[98:40]

We didn't feel good about it. And we were looking. We knew we kind of wanted to get the job done, like, fix this one, fix this one, fix that one. And so we did fix this one, and then we didn't like it, so we went back and we did it again. And the second time we did it, We did it the way we actually wanted to do it. And then we went to . And later, I heard that guy talking, and he said, that was really one of the most important moments at Tulsa Horror for me, when he said, let's go back and fix it. And I realized that if you're looking at what you're doing carefully, it really helps other people, too. I wasn't criticizing him or me. And so that's one example of how you just look inside and see how you feel. And another way of looking, and that's not particularly analytical, it's just like, OK, we did this.

[99:43]

How do you feel about it? Something uncomfortable? Was it, you know, is it a selfish thing? Well, it's always selfish to some extent, but it can be selfish like, it's selfish, but I would be happy for everybody to be seeing me do it. And I was like, proud of it, but like, come on, everybody. Look here, see what I'm doing if you want to. I'm not hiding this. I'm not proud of it. I'm not showing off. I'm not hiding. That could also be, if you're a proud one, come on, everybody, come and see what I did. Good thing, you know. Something funny there, too, maybe. Another kind of not terribly analytic thing is what I mentioned earlier. Just while you're acting, whatever, like during work period, just look and see if while you're working you feel appreciated. Or no?

[100:45]

And also see if you feel like you're appreciating. Or no? Or like part of your work here is to gassho, right? When you meet people to put your hands together and bow, that's kind of part of our work. So when you see somebody and you want to bow to them, is this bow coming from that you appreciate them or not? Do you want to bow to them to show that you appreciate and you also actually feel appreciation before and during the bows? And do you feel that they appreciate you or not? And you might feel that they don't appreciate you. They might look like that because they might kind of like... A lot of people told me they try to avoid me around here because they don't want to bow to me. Because they're kind of uncomfortable to meet me and bow to me. So if they see me coming, they kind of like step aside.

[101:48]

Kind of find some other way to go. They want to just bow to me. Maybe because they don't think I appreciate them or they think I'll be there so they don't appreciate me. A lot of things going on there, but the important thing for me is that the person looks inside and says, I would like to avoid this person. I see the intention to get away from him. Or they say, OK, here he comes. I'm going to meet him. I'm going to look inside when I meet him and see what my intention is in this interaction and see if I want to bow or not. And if I don't, I'm going to stand my ground. That's not terribly analytic, but I think it's very much to the point of seeing whether you want to meet somebody when you have a chance to meet them.

[102:50]

And if you don't, what's the pattern there that leads you to not want to meet them? Like, actually, I want to go to the baths. And if I meet them, I may never get to the baths. So am I avoiding them really for the welfare of all beings or just because I want to go to the baths? And if I meet them, they'll probably start talking to me and then I'll miss the baths. So I see myself in that kind of relationship with them, that they're... They're one of my good friends, but they talk a lot. And they like to talk during bath exercise time. So I'm going to, like, just go a different path. So I want to talk. What am I up to there? Am I doing that for, you know... Do I appreciate them at that time? I think they appreciate me. They want to talk to me. I know they think I'm really interesting. But this kind of thing. you're looking at your intention and you're looking at your relationship with people.

[103:58]

And I'm not here to judge the pattern or even tell you to judge the pattern, although that probably will come up. It's okay to ask questions, but not necessarily to judge, but just to get to know it. Like, is this really selfless, this avoidance? Is this a selfless vow? The important thing is to look, to learn about it. The more you learn, the more you look, the more you'll learn. The more you learn, the more your vision will clear. And also, the more you'll see more and more deeper layers of love. You might on the way down see deeper layers of not love, too, sorry. You might not notice that you don't appreciate somebody. Or you might not notice you don't think somebody appreciates you. And then you look and you realize, oh my God, I really think they don't appreciate me. You're kind of like You had a little glimmer that they didn't appreciate you, but you just couldn't stand it, so you pushed it into, you denied it. Then as you start looking, you see all these times when you felt unappreciated by that person.

[105:03]

So part of removing karmic obstructions is to sometimes reveal ones that you denied before. So it's tough work. Sorry. But the more you get in there, like I told somebody recently, when I was in college, I worked in a rehabilitation clinic where I was a patient when I was two. I had polio when I was two. It was a polio hospital. But by the time I was in college, almost nobody had polio anymore. So now it was quadriplegics and paraplegics and hemiplegics. And I took care of particularly these young men had paralyzed legs and arms of legs. And I was very intimate with them. I really got in there to their shit and all their fluids and stuff like that. You get in there, and after a while, it's not so bad. So in your own mind, your own intentions, it can be pretty rough and grisly in there sometimes.

[106:10]

But that's why we need to be calm and patient with ourselves. But going in there, you'll learn the land and you'll find that there's actually, there's actually the self-fulfilling samadhis in there. Perfect, imperceptible, mutual assistance is happening. But we have to wade through a lot of hindrance due to past inattention to get there. And so we're going to see some some rough consequences of our past laziness and inattention. But if we hang in there, it will get clearer. I've seen that in people, that look inside and I see them clear, and [...] clear in this family. But it's hard work. And if you don't go up for it, be generous with yourself.

[107:12]

Be generous with yourself. practice tranquility until you feel, okay, rest, in other words, and rest with my full support and all of our full support. We all want you to calm down so you can do this work. We want you to rest until you feel well-rested and say, okay, now I'll study. I'm ready to study this person, this karma. Yes? 11.05? 11.05? Yes. So, Kazan, it isn't quite my ultimate concern, but almost my ultimate concern, to study intention.

[108:53]

It's almost my ultimate concern because I think studying my intention is the practice that goes with my ultimate intention of realizing the Buddha way. So I really feel enthusiastic about studying my view of my relationship with all of you. I look at that inwardly. I'm really enthusiastic about that, and I am practicing that and watching that. And I occasionally have a hard time doing that, because I occasionally don't see that people love me. Sometimes I don't see, oh, that person really loves me. Sometimes I don't see it. I'm sorry to say. I have karmic obstruction. Not always. Sometimes I see that you all love me. And sometimes I'm not sure I love some of you. And I feel even worse about that.

[109:54]

But then I keep looking and I say, oh no, I do. But then again I think, even that? Even that? I keep looking and, oh yeah, even that. I can learn that, too. Even that? Ooh, yes. Or even not quite that fast. But I have to look. I have to look that I feel some queasiness about being intimate with somebody some of the time. And if I just keep watching that, it's like, oh, OK. I can be close to that. I can do with that. I can be devoted to that. Okay, yeah. Pattern changes as I watch it. If I don't watch it, I can lock in, you know, on don't like, and it can stay that way.

[110:55]

It seems like that. It can stay that way. When it's not watched, it can seem like it stays that way. It doesn't. If I don't look, it seems like it does. I haven't liked them for several minutes now. It's like, well, it's because I haven't even been looking at it. If you're studying your own intentions, I'm thinking in terms of like letting input into the system. But if you just have your own, like I'm studying my intention, but nobody else can know about it. So I think a big part of it is that you gradually invite other people to check your study on your intentions. So I was thinking, for example, one of the nice things about the position that I'm in is that I have some assistants who can come into my room

[112:04]

and look in my drawers to see my underwear or whatever, you know? And then I can look to see if I'm trying to hide my dirty underwear. Like, here's my dirty underwear. It's right over here. If anybody wants to know, it's right there. And here's my prescription drugs, and here's my recreational drugs. But you can look inside there if you want to. But even if I, you know, I think we do need to invite some people to come in and check on us. And you do that at your own rate, okay? Gradually let people come in and look to see if you're hiding anything. Because if you're hiding something, that means you're not going to be able to see that yourself eventually. So that's part of it, too, I think, is to let people come into your system. What are you taking notes on there? What is that? Can I read your notebook? OK.

[113:09]

Yeah. So gradually invite everybody into your notebook. It's an interior medicine cabinet, interior drawers, interior closets. So you don't have an isolated study system.

[113:36]

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