One of the ancestors used the image of when you go for a ride in a boat and you look at the shore, you might assume the shore is moving. But when you keep your eyes closely on the boat, you realize that the boat's moving. Similarly, if you examine all things with a confused body and mind, you might suppose that your mind and nature are permanent. But when you practice intimately and return to where you are, it will become clear that nothing has an abiding independent self.

[01:16]

when you look at things you may notice that they're changing. And it's true, they are. But to a great extent the way they're changing, the way they appear to be changing is actually the way you're changing. And But when you look closely at yourself, particularly if you look at your actions, your intentions, you will see that you're changing. And as you watch how you're changing, how your intentions are changing, you will gradually see how nothing is permanent and also how nothing is independent of other things.

[02:50]

But if you look at things without examining yourself, you may be able to hold consciously or unconsciously the belief that you're permanent and independent. So as we relate to the world, and perhaps we relate to the world and try to do good, if we don't look at ourself at the same time, we won't see the world clearly. And if we don't look at ourselves, we will slip into the belief that we're permanent and that we have an independent existence.

[04:05]

Or rather, we will continue in this belief which we innately have. But again, if we look at our intentions, it will become clear. And when it becomes clear, suffering will be relieved. when it becomes clear that there is no abiding independent self in our intentions, in our actions, or in our personhood, suffering will be relieved. And you will see also that at this level of interpenetration and mutuality, suffering is not just relieved for the viewer, or for the cognition which understands this, but suffering is relieved by all beings at this level of reality. So when one person understands this, they understand that everybody realizes this with them, even though they do not understand it.

[05:15]

When Buddha woke up, Buddha saw that he together with all beings realized the way. He realized the way that he and all beings realized the way. But he could also see that not everyone understood this, even though they were totally contributing to the realization which he could see. So he wanted to initiate others into this vision of liberation, or this vision of the world which is liberating. And the initiation is to be initiated into awareness of intention. to be initiated into the pattern of relationship of our cognitions.

[06:25]

To be attending to the pattern of relations in your cognitions is to be attending to your action. And another thing I thought I might mention is that one person translated this term that I'm calling intention. It comes from a Sanskrit term. And the Sanskrit term is chetana. And chetana is Could someone write that on the board, please? Chaitanya? Yeah.

[07:30]

C-E-T-A-N-A. Thank you. Put a line over the A, please. But for last A, the last A. Yeah. Chaitanya. And it's related to another word. Could you write that too, please, Susan? C-I-T-T-A. C-I-T-T-A is Sanskrit and also Chinese and also Pali. And it means cognition, or consciousness or awareness. So it's the basic awareness. For example, the awareness of the presence of a color, like I'm aware of the presence of the color of Sylvia's shirt, and I would call it blue.

[08:42]

So there's an awareness of this experience, or there's an experience of an awareness of a color. And that experience arises with my body interacting with electromagnetic radiation bouncing off Sylvia's shirt over to my eyes, stimulating my body. And the way that radiation interacts with her clothes and my sensitive tissue, that interaction gives rise to a cognition. And the Sanskrit word is citta, that basic word. And then related to this, at the root ca, you make another word called cetana, which refers to the pattern within that awareness. So I'm aware of this color, but I'm also aware of my relationship to many other things at the same time.

[09:51]

And that's the cetana, that pattern of relationship. And that pattern of relationship is the activity of that citta, of that consciousness. So every citta comes with a cetana. Every cognition comes with an activity. Every cognition comes with a karma. And the karma of each moment of consciousness is the pattern of relationship that's in that consciousness. And once again, if you turn around and look at that pattern of relationship, it will become clear that you and everything else, all living beings and non-living things, that you and all things are not permanent and don't exist independent of each other. You will be able to see that if you give attention to all of your actions, if you give attention to all of your intentions, if you give attention to all of your patterns of relationship, all the patterns of relationship in your mind, moment by moment.

[11:14]

And so one of the ways that this word chaitanya is translated is intention. Another word would be wish, volition, will. But another word is synergy. And sin is like together, s-y-n. And ergy or ergy is related to the word erg, which is a word used in physics as a measurement of energy or energy. And erg means work. So synergy or synergism means working together. The etymology of it, working together. Chaitanya is the way all the different elements in your consciousness are working together. And the way the elements in your consciousness are working together is a representation of the way you and all beings are working together. Because you and all beings are working together, there is a cognitive rendition of the way you and all beings are working together.

[12:28]

It's not the way you and all beings are working together. It is a kind of reflection or rendition of it. It's your local momentary version of your relationship with the universe. It's related to it and it arises together with it, but it's not the same as it. However, it is your access to universal causation. It's your way to learn it because it's right in your mind to see. And it is more or less accurate depending on how much it's been observed. If it's been observed a lot, it gets more and more accurate, more and more interdependent, more and more fleeting. Because your relationship with the universe is interdependent to the fully, it's fully interdependent and fully transient. The more you study it, the more you will see how thoroughly transient and impermanent it is.

[13:30]

The less you study it, the more you'll think that you are permanent and independent. So again, really this word means working together is a good translation. It's the way your mind represents working together. The definition of synergy, there's a definition in biology and there's a definition in theology. The definition in biology is the action of two or more beings to achieve an effect which each individually is incapable. Like two or more ants, you know, acting together to build an ant hill. Which one of them wouldn't be able to do it. Or two or more, another thing ants do, sometimes some ants, is when they need to cross water,

[14:34]

two or more ants, usually quite a bit more than two, hold on to each other and make a ball. They form kind of like a, it's not exactly a sphere because it changes shape, but they make a ball and then they roll the ball into the water and then they roll the ball across the water. And they take turns being under the water. So they make with their bodies a boat. that floats across. One ant by itself would have trouble floating across a river, but this ball rolls across and they take turns being deprived of oxygen. So that's a synergy kind of thing. They're working together to accomplish this rotating ball flotation device, which not one of them wouldn't be able to do by itself. The theological meaning of the word synergy is the doctrine that regeneration is affected by the combination of human will and divine grace.

[15:38]

Rebirth, regeneration, but I think also, although this may not be the same teaching, I would say just plain birth, you know, life. comes from a combination of human will and divine grace. Human will, you've got human will, and your human will arises and lives because of the gift of the universe to you. The way you're interacting with the generosity of the world, the way you're interacting is your will, and your will combines with the gift of the universe to create your life. And that can have a cognitive rendition. Studying that opens your eyes to how your work, your activity, together with the world, is your life. And...

[16:48]

Your name's Peter, right? Greg. Greg. So your name's Peter. And your name's Greg. Yes. Peter had a question. Want to ask it now? Yeah. I feel it's kind of a little out of context. You feel what? A little out of context perhaps now? No, I think it's in context. You mentioned love. Love. I mentioned love. It's a very loaded word. It's a loaded word. Actually, it's a word of how... It's actually a word, the way I would use it, it's a word which refers to how loaded we are. Or how we're loaded. Yeah. So what I mean by love, the way I use it, in the sense that I would say that we are loved and we do love, I guess I would mean by love how we assist each other to live... and also how we assist each other to wake up.

[17:56]

Okay. So, this is what I... When I was hearing you before, I was hearing it as sort of a... It sounded to me like you were saying an inherent state of interconnectedness. Yeah, same thing. I just said it. Or perhaps the understanding of impermanence of all things. But then I'm wondering, this is... Can I say yes to that? Can I say yes before you go on? Yes. What you said is... Yeah, yes. Yes. Is it a state of consciousness? Rather than being something that is inherent and separate from consciousness? Is it a state of consciousness? We could say it's a state of consciousness. It is, you could say, Buddha's consciousness. Buddha's consciousness is like the awareness of all beings plus the awareness of how all beings' awareness is are mutually assisting each other. That's kind of like you call Buddha mind.

[18:57]

So you could call love Buddha's mind, or Buddha mind. But that's saying, yeah, that's making love not only the way everything's working together, but that which embraces that total working of all things. You could make it that big. But basically, love is this way that we're giving to each other and giving each other our life, including giving to each other and supporting each other in our lack of realization. I mean, we allow each other to be unenlightened. We support unenlightened beings, like we support unenlightened children. We love them even though they're extremely deluded and selfish. And they support us. Selfish beings support us. We support selfish beings. And also we support each other by not letting each other be comfortable until we are enlightened.

[20:04]

So we allow each other to not be enlightened. We allow each other to be enlightened. even though when we are enlightened, the way we allow people to be enlightened often is give them a real hard time just to make sure that they're enlightened. We tolerate confused people who feel selfish and don't see that they love other people. We tolerate people who do not realize love, we support them who do not feel like love, but we also support them to feel uncomfortable until they do understand their love. So part of we're supported to live and we're also supported to wake up. And one of the ways we're supported to wake up is that we're supported to be uncomfortable until we wake up. But everybody goes along with that too. They let us be deluded but they also let us suffer in our delusion, because they realize, to some extent, whether they realize it or not, but I say, if we were comfortable not being enlightened, we would not be motivated, the pattern would not be conducive to causing us to study ourselves.

[21:23]

And if we don't study ourselves, we won't learn what we don't know yet, the enlightened mind which sees how we're interrelated and how we love each other in this way of mutual support. I'll stop there for a second and see if you have more questions, Peter, or comments. It seems to me that love's a choice. It seems to you that love's a choice? Yeah, I disagree. How do you think it's a choice? Because we seem to choose to act upon the resistance call. We seem to act upon what? We seem to act upon the resistance call. we seem to choose to resist its call?

[22:27]

Oh, I see. Oh, okay. Yeah. But again, to think that you choose to resist it or choose to act upon its call is again to see yourself isolated. So a choice seems to be made, but you don't make the choice by yourself. Your activity is actually your karma is your cognitive version of how other beings do or do not support you to arrive at decisions. If the cognitive representation that I have in my mind of my relationship with you is that I make decisions by myself without your assistance, that's a diluted representation of my relationship with you. But if I study that picture that I choose by myself what to do, I will see eventually that I don't choose by myself. I always work with you in all my decisions. They're called my decisions, you know, like what my body does. You could say are my decisions, but actually what my body does is in relationship to all beings.

[23:36]

The more I study the picture that I have in my mind that I decide by myself what to do, the more I will see that I do not decide by myself what to do. in other words, I will see that my actions arrive out of this loving relationship, then all my actions will emerge from that pattern of inner penetration, and I won't resist it anymore. But until I study myself thoroughly and study my actions thoroughly, I will have more or less resistance to love. So studying my version of love, you know, some people's version of love is, I love two people. And one of them loves me back. That's some people's version of, that's what they think love's about. It's very limited. And as I said, some people think they don't love anybody. And they say, and the reason why I don't love anybody is because I'm not going to love before they love me and nobody loves me.

[24:40]

Some people think their parents don't love them. Some people think their children don't love them. But anyway, we have all these stories of our love relationships. Each one of us has a story. In the present moment we have a story. And then that changes. And I'm saying, if your story is a story of resistance to total love, if you study that story of resistance, you will become disabused of that story as being the truth. And then finally you'll get a story in there that looks very much like the story of infinite mutual support. And then you will also see, once you see that story, you will see that that story is not the actual infinite mutual love, but just a little cognitive representation of it. And that will be another step

[25:43]

But first of all, it would be nice to be able to see in your own mind that you actually feel love for all beings and you can see that they actually love you no matter what they do. And that you would actually be able to see that all those people who don't think they love you really do. So when they say to you, Peter, I do not love you, and I'm really serious, I do not love you, that you could actually see that this is the way that person is expressing their love at the time. Again, my daughter, which at various points in her early years would tell me that she didn't love me or call me names which sounded like she didn't love me. And for a number of years I laughed because I knew she loved me and I thought it was so silly that she was calling me all these names. And she didn't like that I laughed at her when she was telling me that she hated me. I'm sorry about that, that I laughed at her when she said that.

[26:49]

But anyway, finally she found a way to put it, you know, tell me her problems with me, which weren't in the form of I hate you, but were actually to express her problem with me. And then I didn't laugh. Then I felt pinned to the wall. And she felt successful at communicating to me she had a problem with me. But she didn't say that this problem in expressing it was her lack of love for me. In fact, her expression was the maturing of her love. At that time, I think she might have almost been ready to say, this was a great loving act I did for my dad. And he loved me by listening to me and getting it. So again, love can take the form of, you know, I really have a problem if you don't really listen to me. And you can hear that as someone being very generous to you and giving you excellent information and being very loving to help you wake up. Or you can see it as not friendly or whatever.

[27:50]

Not loving. And I'm just saying not being able to see love is characteristic of unenlightened beings. Being able to see it is a characteristic of enlightened beings or enlightening beings. And The ability to see this comes from looking at how you now see your relationship. And it means often to spend many, many hours, I should say, rather than many, many hours, many, many moments, infinite practically moments, not infinite, gazillions of moments, studying the picture you have of your resistance to this love. The more you look at this resistance, the more you realize that it cannot be found. There is really no resistance. It's just a dream of resistance. You actually never stopped receiving it or giving it. And they never stopped receiving it or giving it either. It's just a dream. That's why we wake up to love.

[28:53]

We don't make love. We're already making love. we just need to wake up to it. And the way to wake up to it is to meditate on the dream that there isn't this love, that there isn't this infinite, unstoppable mutual support. The more you look at that, the more you'll be free of that. And in that picture, there's wants, maybe. When you don't see love completely, you want something. But when you do seek love completely, you still want something, but what you want is everybody else to see what you see. Any more, Peter, at this time? OK. How do you feel? I understand cognitively what you're saying.

[29:54]

Should I let you be that way for a while? You're invited to say more. It's an overwhelming challenge to practice seeing someone loving you when that person is abusing you or hurting you or attacking you emotionally or physically? She said it's an overwhelming challenge to see someone as being loving to you when they're attacking you, abusing you and so on. Is that what she said? Yeah, so I'm not telling you to see it differently. I'm saying study that you see yourself in a relationship where you feel not appreciated and not loved, study that that's how you see the relationship. Don't try to see it another way.

[31:09]

Give close attention to how you do see it. Don't try to see it. And even that, even to look at how you do see it as abusive, that's also difficult. But I'm not saying you should see it in another way. When someone, sometimes a person who loves you, who doesn't understand that you love them and that they love you, they will abuse you. They will be cruel to you. They will say they hate you. They will try to punch you. Does that make sense? Yeah. And so, if a Buddha is being attacked by someone who loves the Buddha and is being loved by the Buddha but doesn't see that they love the Buddha and doesn't see the Buddha loves them, if they attack the Buddha, the Buddha sees, this person loves me, but they don't know that they do and they don't know that I love them.

[32:21]

And because they don't know that I love them, they're in a lot of pain. And because I do love them and they don't know it, they're in a lot of pain. And because they love me and they don't know it, they're in a lot of pain. If we just didn't love each other, it wouldn't be so painful not to understand it. But because we love each other, we're not comfortable not understanding that. We're in pain because of that, because we're out of accord. So looking at myself, looking at another person who doesn't understand that they're loved and loving, I would not expect them exactly, but I'm not surprised to see them in pain, afraid, and violent. But I can see some people anyway. I have the gift, the divine gift, of being able to see some people who love me and who I love who don't know they love me and therefore are trying to hurt me, like my grandson. But if I can't see that he loves me and if I can't see that I love him,

[33:27]

then if I watch and see how I don't see that I love him, or if I watch and see how my view of my relationship with him is I don't love him, and he doesn't love me, the more I watch this perhaps mutually abusive relationship, the more I will see more deeply how this is our way of expressing our frustrated love. Well, I'm not convinced of that. I mean, I... I accept these ideas, they're really appealing to me. But I don't see simply by looking at what's not working that it will work. I mean, I do have some personal experience in my meditation that... Can I say something right there? Yeah. She said, I don't see how looking at what doesn't work will make it work. I'm not saying that, okay?

[34:30]

I'm saying if you look at what's not working, as you look and see more clearly how it's not working, the observation of it, what's not working is impermanent. It's going to change, okay? But if something that's not working is not studied, The unstudied not working, the not working plus the not studying leads to, generally speaking, another not working, huh? More suffering and more not working. Yeah, so I'm not saying the not working is going, I'm not saying that when you look at the not working, it's going to make it work. Because Buddha looks at people not working, in other words, Buddha looks and sees at people who are working in such a way that they're suffering, he doesn't think that the suffering is going to change into not suffering, or that the not working is going to change into not, into, going to become okay. He sees people who are loving who don't realize it as suffering, period.

[35:32]

However, that's impermanent. And in the next moment, if that suffering is studied and understood, The person who's looking will develop more and more compassion. And if the person who's looking is looking in their own mind and sees how what's working in their mind is causing suffering, that improves their vision because they're looking at this complex situation and having more penetration. Plus it causes this thing to be a condition for the positive evolution. When you look at a disease, you study a disease, you often, not often, you sometimes can see the cure of the disease by studying the disease, but the disease doesn't, like, stop being a disease. It's just that you see the medicine for it. Please. Well, I'd appreciate some more how-tos. You know,

[36:34]

You know, I come from a family of psychologists and healers. And, you know, I'm thinking about my father who recently died, who didn't feel loved by his children, who, you know, was abusive, who, you know, he spent his whole life studying, you know, to gain... insight in order to love himself and love others. He died and I'm very unfulfilled. Could you hear what she said? And I see, I guess I would say, please forgive me if I appear to make this too easy. But sometimes you're doing your best effort at a practice, but it has not yet reached fruit.

[37:38]

Well, I see it as a process. I was starting to say earlier that in my own meditation I have seen progress, certainly, in greater understanding, greater equanimity, which allows me to be more loving. And still, I'm overwhelmed when I face the challenge of loving someone who is attacking. I'm not even thinking abstractly. in terms of nations and nations, but in my own family, including sisters and brothers. Yeah, right. Okay, so you said you wanted some how-tos, but I feel before I give you how-tos, I need to address some other things. Sure. Because if I tell you more how-tos, but you don't believe, you don't have confidence in what I'm saying, there's not much point in me telling you more how-tos.

[38:44]

So I think... Excuse me, can I keep going? No, it's okay, I just want to talk some more, can I? So you can interrupt me as much as you want, and then if I want to keep going, I'll ask you to, and you can decide to let me or not. You know, we're doing this together. Is it all right with you if I say some more? I feel like you're kind of discouraged. Yeah, so for me to give you more instruction when you're discouraged, I think we should work on your discouragement first, rather than giving you more instructions which you don't really feel much heart for. So I'd like to encourage you before I give you more instructions. I would like you to be like drooling for more instructions, because you have a feeling like, this is medicine he's going to give me. I kind of feel like you're saying, I've heard about this medicine, I've used it somewhat, but it hasn't given me, you know, I haven't come very far. I'm still pretty low level on the Buddha tree. And so I think I want to tell you that you said, I've achieved something from this practice, but still I can't do these amazingly difficult things.

[39:48]

That's what I hear you saying. It's like you're a mountain climber who's managed to climb the mountains around Santa Barbara and who says, but I still can't climb Mount Everest. And I would say, well, yeah. I mean, duh. You're a beginner at this. And I think it's good that you're willing to confess your situation, but you seem to be discouraged that you're a beginner. Beginners have the kind of problems you have. Namely, when people come up to them and attack them on the street, they have trouble handling it. It's not like, oh, great, I've been waiting for this. How are you? Or, I've been waiting all week for you to attack me, and finally you're doing it. That's more what you can do after many, many years of practice, is when you're attacked, you're kind of just waiting for a little bit of a challenge. And family is the most difficult arena to do this in.

[40:53]

Because these are the people who, you know, who obviously love you tremendously and who you love tremendously. And you want to realize that. So it's so painful when you don't. So oftentimes people say, I can't even do it with my family. And I often say, well, those are the last people you're going to be able to do it with. The last people to settle it with is your father, your mother, your brothers and sisters. Those are the most difficult. And your husband and children. They're the most difficult. The most difficult, where people think they should be the easiest. They're the hardest. So that's one thing I would say to you if you have trouble with these people. That's normal. You're like normal. And to be able to express, to work it out with them, like I said, you know, I got this fortune cookie which said you're very sociable and entertaining, and I thought it was not true of me, and I thought that they would agree, and they did. You know, they thought I was really funny because they find me very unsociable and not entertaining.

[42:01]

I'm just not entertaining to them. You don't know me very well, so you still think I'm entertaining. If you were my family, you'd think I was really boring. You might notice that I was very calm. They do notice that. And they actually don't like it very much. Anyway, family is very difficult. So you look at your father and you know very well what he wanted to achieve and you feel he didn't really accomplish what he wanted to accomplish. And I would say, okay. But if I knew your father, I might be able to say, you know, he came a long way. Or I might be able to see, he came a long way, but then he got lazy and stopped doing his practices, and then he deteriorated. I don't know what I would see. But I'm just saying that when I look at individuals, if I see them make some progress, usually it's because they're practicing in a certain way.

[43:09]

And if they keep doing it, I see them keep practicing. I mean, I see them keep evolving. If somebody evolves to a certain point and then they get lazy, they deteriorate. And people can be professionals, professional meditators, and be lazy in their meditation, and then even though they achieve considerable understanding, if they then don't continue to practice, they deteriorate. Just like athletes and musicians can get really good, and if they stop practicing, stop paying attention to their state, their music deteriorates. And when you get quite good, you can coast for a while on your skill. But if you don't keep looking at yourself the way you did when you were a student, your music, your art, your whatever, your healing practices will degenerate and some people get good enough so they can get rich and famous on their skills, psychotherapeutic skills, medicine skills, and then they stop studying themselves and

[44:12]

their skill and their insight drops away. So it's possible to be in a family of people who are world famous. We hear about people who are, these are supposed to be world famous blah-de-blahs, you know, and they can't even blah-de-blah. But my experience is if you look at what they're doing, if they stop doing the practice which got them the good results, they stop doing it because they didn't, they they didn't have the conditions to remind them that they have to keep practicing after they attain quite a state. You have to keep practicing. So like in AA they have like, they have, what do they call it, sponsors. People who are successful in AA can advise others who are in AA. But I think I heard that when the sponsor starts drinking again, they can't be a sponsor anymore. Is that right?

[45:15]

I hope so. I think so. But the sponsors do not think of themselves as non-alcoholics. They're still alcoholics, but they remember that. They keep looking inside and seeing, oh, I would still like a drink. I would still like to be able to take that stuff so I didn't feel this pain. but they're working with that and so they can advise other people who have just spent a few weeks or whatever not using drugs or whatever so they can advise them but when they stop drinking they're not an advisor anymore that's a good rule but it shows that the sponsors can slip the healers can slip the therapist can slip into what they learned how to get out of for a while and then they could help others But when they slip, then in some sense they should stop being therapists for a while. But they usually don't, unless it gets really bad.

[46:16]

And same with spiritual teachers and healers. They can slip. They can stop doing the practice. And when you stop doing the practice, you slip. And at a certain point, people get so developed that they never stop doing the practice. It's totally natural. So it's effortless. They don't need it. It looks like they don't need to anymore. It's so integrated. But usually those people keep doing it anyway, just for fun. Because they like it and also to show people how to do it. So I think that the thing you've seen is quite common. And to me what it shows is practice works when you don't do it. You slip. And the family is the hardest place to touch it. Now, what do you say now? Well, I encourage someone. Good.

[47:17]

Practice, practice, practice. Practice, practice, practice. Any how-to you want? Any particular how-to you'd like? I mean, guide me in the how-tos, because there's a lot of how-tos. Okay, in the moment you're being... Yeah. Yeah. I'm much less reactive over a lifetime than I was growing up, but I still react, of course. Right. So when I feel attacked, to me it's very helpful if I'm already looking inside and then I now see, oh, now I interpret this meeting as that person attacking me.

[48:24]

And I'm well trained at seeing my relationship with people and including how I see it. I mean, concluding being aware of how I see it and learning in that way that how I see it is how I see it, not it. But still, being aware of it is important because the person sometimes wants you to see it the way you do. Like they want you to see that they're being abusive to you. So you can help the relationship in that way. So to say, okay, I see it as abusive, but that's not true, that's not quite right. It's that I see it as abusive, And maybe it is abusive, but the way it's abusive is not the way I see it.

[49:27]

So the fact that you see a relationship as abusive or beneficial does not mean it's not abusive or beneficial. It just means that the way you see it is not it. That's one thing. And then when you see it as abusive, you feel a certain way. Like you very well may feel uncomfortable seeing the relationship in that way. So then you might be able to give the person a gift. it's possible to give gifts even when you're uncomfortable.

[50:32]

Especially if you're in the gift-giving mode of thinking of that you're a gift to the people you meet and intending that you'd be a gift and that what you say is a gift. And then you might say to someone, please stand up, please sit down, I'd like to tell you something. But if you are giving people gifts and you say, please stand up, you're not saying, please stand up to get them to stand up. You're saying, please stand up to give them the gift of that expression, not to get them to stand up. I sense that, I don't know, was that difficult? That often is difficult, that point. Is it? Well, I'm trying to follow you in this context of example I offered you.

[51:43]

Somebody being violent towards you? Emotionally or verbally. Emotionally or verbally violent, okay. So then you feel that they're being violent with you verbally. then you think, oh, I'd like to give them a gift. And the gift I'd like to give them is how I feel right now. But I'm not giving this to them to stop them from this. I wish I would like them to become free of their violence, an abusive way of talking, but I'm mostly giving them a gift right now. to start the process. And the gift could be how I feel, or I could give them a gift of trying to find out how they feel. You know, I could give them a gift of asking them, how do they feel? Or give them the gift of saying, may I guess something about how you're feeling?

[52:49]

I'm guessing you're feeling angry with me or something like that. Give them some empathy. Pardon? You guess you knew that. Yeah. But you can give them empathy, but you can also see if they would listen to how you feel. but do it as a gift, rather than trying to, rather than try to, what, defend yourself. Well, this kind of defends yourself. You could also try to defend yourself. That's okay to defend yourself. You might say to the person, I'd like to leave, I'd like to get out of the room right now, because I'd like to get out of the room. Please excuse me. And you can do that as a gift. But just to say to them, you're being abusive, they may consider that abusive.

[53:54]

I think people come and just walk up to me and say, you're abusive. I might experience that as violent, verbally violent. Because I might feel like that's the worst thing anybody could say to me, is to tell me I'm abusive. But for them to come up to me and say, I feel that you're being abusive, And they could say that in a way I think that I would feel as a gift. And so right now I would tell you, I would tell you, tell you all, that I would consider it a gift if you feel that I'm being abusive, that you would tell me you feel that. I don't want you to tell me I am abusive. I don't particularly want to hear what you think I am. I don't really want to hear. but I would like to hear how you feel about me, how you feel I'm affecting you. I would like to hear how you see me, but not the same as you telling me what I am.

[55:02]

And I would consider those gifts if you would say, you know, I see you this way or that way, or I feel that you're this way or that way, or I feel this way when you say that or this. And I would like you, if you want something from me, if you feel you need something from me in our relationship, I would like you to ask for it. Not to get it, but to communicate with me in the ways of telling me what's going on with you. Those are gifts you could give to me, which I actually am asking you to give me, if you wish. So right now I'm asking you for any feedback you have, and I'm asking you in the future If you feel like I'm being violent, abusive, disrespectful, respectful, appreciative, loving, gentle, kind, stupid, rough, I appreciate you telling me how you feel. Not tell me what I am, but how you feel and what you need.

[56:05]

And I think that would be good to do with people you see as violent. I'm not saying it's easy, but I would recommend that. Yeah, exactly. I feel hurt. I feel angry. I feel upset. And also, another good thing, I think, is that right after saying that, that you ask them for something. You make a request. Because if you just leave it like that, they're left with possibly you blaming them or something, or you judging them. Because you didn't actually make a judgment. You told them how you felt. But if you don't follow it up with a request...

[57:07]

you leave them with that space, they might then think, oh, you're probably judging me now as a bad person because you feel hurt. But if you request something of them, they can move into looking at what you request. Like, you're not saying I'm a bad person, you're just requesting me to talk to you in a different way. I think the main thing is dealing with my own internal reaction. So I know these things, what to do, I guess. It's dealing with my own internal reaction. Yes. Exactly. And if you're walking around dealing with your internal, you said internal reactions? But another way, if you're walking around looking at your internal intentions, a reaction is an aspect of intention. If you're looking at your intentions, hmm? Yeah, if you're looking at your intentions ongoingly, then when someone comes up, they feed, every meeting feeds into creating your intention.

[58:17]

So you're in the situations to see this kind of thing all the time, so it's not like, you're not caught flat-footed. you know, in your interactions. So challenging interactions feed into the basic, you know, cognitive digestion system of your incorporating each meeting into a pattern of relationship that you're looking at. And then you can, like, read that to yourself and to others and say, oh, a disturbance has just occurred in my mind. I see this pattern of my relationship with you. And before you said that, I had a slightly different picture of our relationship, and now it's changed somewhat. But it's not like you have to go scurrying around looking for how you see it when you're attacked. You're already looking inside at your responses to people. So you can watch somebody come and you say, oh, here they come and I feel something. And now they say that and I feel something different.

[59:21]

And you can tell people at any point in the process what's going on. And you can tell people what's going on even when things are going well. Because you see. Because you're looking. And it's a gift to tell people how things are going. You're welcome. And thank you for bringing out some, looking inside and finding some difficulty and bringing it out to clarify it and help work with it. This is that part of the how-to. Okay? But it's important to have a positive, kind of some enthusiasm about how-to because if you're not enthusiastic about the how-to's, Then they don't work. But the reason why they don't work is because you're not really wholeheartedly giving them a try. You say, this probably won't work. Again, one time my daughter came home from college and she was going to get some jobs.

[60:26]

But she tended to stay out real late at night, like really late. And then she'd get up around noon. And then she'd get, you know, gradually get her scene together and go out looking jobs. And she probably arrived at the job interview about 4.30 or 5 in the afternoon. And then she would kind of walk in and say, you know, you probably don't want to hire me, do you? I really don't want to work here either, so you're probably not going to hire me. And they would say, yeah, that's right. But I knew that if my daughter walked into almost any business, I don't know, anyway, to a lot of businesses, and she walked in and said, I'm here, I'm an intelligent, energetic young woman, and I'd like to work here, and I'd do a good job, do you want me? Almost everyone would say, yes. And can you demonstrate some of your abilities? And she could say, yes, and she could. I knew that in that case almost anybody would hire her except in positions that required specifically degrees from institutions of higher education, which she didn't have yet.

[61:36]

So anyway, at one point she wasn't getting a job and I I told her very strongly that I wanted her to get a job and I wanted certain consequences if she didn't. So then she went up and she got up at 7.30 the next morning and went to get a job and she got two jobs in a half an hour. Which really didn't surprise me that much. But she just sort of had to want to do it. Pardon? Yeah, she needed some consequences. And by the consequences, I'll tell you what the consequence was. I told her that if she didn't get a job within a week, I wanted her to move out of the house. Because I was going to leave the house and go to those mountains I just came from. And I didn't want to leave my wife with this unemployed, giant, powerful being to deal with.

[62:49]

I wanted her to have a job before I left. And when I told her I wanted her to leave, it didn't mean she had to leave. It just means that the consequence would be at the end of the week her father would want her to leave. That's the consequence. She might not have to leave, but I would still be wanting her to do that. And that's a pretty significant thing. And she said to me after I said that, what happens if I move out? What am I going to do if I move out? And I said, well, then you'll have to deal with that. That would be one of the consequences. You'd have to figure that out. And I said, I think you can. You can do that kind of thing. You're an amazing 19-year-old human being. You can do a lot of stuff which you're not doing. But then you would be doing those things. And she just got up and walked away. But she didn't slam the door to her room when she went in. which is kind of unusual when you give her feedback like that. And the next morning she was up at this amazingly early hour and she asked me if she could go to San Francisco with me.

[63:56]

I think she said to look for a job, but I don't remember, but I think she said to look for a job. And she even consulted with me about what to wear, which she never does. And like I said, after half an hour she found a job. And after she found the job, she said, do you think I found the job because of what you said to me last night? And I said, I don't know. And she liked that answer. I really didn't, but I knew she'd like that answer. I didn't say that just because I thought she'd like it. Because she does not want me to think I manipulated her into this, but I really didn't think I did. And I also knew I better not say I did. Because those young people do not like to think that you're under their control, which they aren't. They aren't under your control. But they don't want you to think they are because that would mean that their parents disrespect them. You'd be disrespecting anybody, especially a teenager, to think you had them under your control.

[65:01]

That would mean you thought your teenager was dead if you thought they were under your control. And they do not like you to think they're dead. But when you think that you can control them, you'd think they're not alive anymore. You're disrespecting them. So I didn't, I just always was, you know, respected her for being this very powerful person. But still I have to express myself to her and say, I would like you to move out if you don't have a job because it's very bad to have you around here when you don't have a job. It's a bad situation and I don't want it. Especially just having one parent is really unfair. You have too much of an advantage. So she got a job and that was the end of that. Ever since then she's been becoming, growing up. Anything else you want to bring up now?

[66:06]

Yes? So what I hear you saying is that intention is not separate from all those things we've talked about, the body sensations, the mental energies, the talking, the world, the environment, our relationships. It's the overall pattern of it. It's the overall pattern. Yeah. It's the synergy. of your consciousness. That's your intention. It's the way your consciousness is working together with the whole world. You can't see that yet, but the more you look at it, the more you'll see that there's divine will functioning with your intention. Right. So then, the idea of Can I say something? I said divine will, I take it away. Divine grace. It's not divine will, because if the divine had will, it would just make us into great people. The divine doesn't control us.

[67:10]

The divine gives us gifts. We have will, and our will is actually working together with divine grace, which is the way everybody's helping us. The divine thing is the way everybody's helping us. That's the gift. our will interacts with that. When you study that interface you will become illuminated as to the divine gift. And the divine gift isn't just coming from everybody to you, it's going from you to everybody. You are a divine giver and a divine receiver. And your intention is the location where you can look to see that drama. Yes? Right. So? Good idea. Think out loud. Again, another word for intention is thinking. Studying your thinking is another way to say it. And expressing your thinking to somebody, expressing your intention, is part of the illumination process.

[68:11]

So please, think out loud. You're welcome. So, there are two questions here. One is, you become habitually observing all of this, your intentions, moment by moment. The intentions are unconscious, often. Parts of them. Parts of them. But by observing them, you're actually Through your observation process, you are becoming more conscious of your intentions and then your intentions become more wholesome. That's right. That's what I'm saying. Excuse me, but again, I'm not saying that you will ever... Right after I'm done talking to her, maybe, or maybe while I'm talking to her, I will bring up another major aspect of this study.

[69:14]

But I'm not saying that you can see the totality of the causation of your intentions. But the more you study it, the more you'll see. But you will never see the totality. So it's an ongoing verb. Yes, yes, yes. Okay, so what is this stuff about intention? Let's say you're working on your patterns and you notice that you keep doing the same thing that's making you suffer and other people around you. And so you replace, you know, they talk about, I don't know who they go on, but you know what I mean. They say, well, you replace that negative pattern with a positive one, you know, a positive attention, as if your attention is separate from this form, this shape of your consciousness.

[70:16]

I used to have a real problem with that because I would feel uncomfortable because I would think, well, I don't really feel that, why should I say that? You know, I really feel negative, so I don't feel like I'm negative. And I don't believe it. But now I'm noticing that my consciousness is becoming more wholesome and my thoughts are becoming more positive and my environment is reflecting that. Now I started to be open to creating intention. Yes. So I want to know what, if you could just sort of deconstruct that for me, where does that intention, because I had this epiphany just a few hours ago that said, oh, there's this hole, and my intention is in there. And sometimes it's conscious and sometimes it isn't, but it makes a hole. And that's what I'm giving to the world, and the world's giving back to me because of what I'm giving to it, or whatever it is, it's a ball.

[71:24]

And how does it fit in then? real having like veils drop from your eyes and your life changes and everything becomes much much much more positive and you're open to making more positive attention because you want to move into a more pop you want to keep moving more positively yes it feels natural well it feels right and you see where you've been delivered and you see you're coming out of darkness which you're constantly doing but, you know, on a grand scale, where is that intention? Is that your will? Is that you just... What is what intention? The intention that you have to make up. to get rid of what you... I mean, this is all... It sounds silly when I'm saying it, because I just... Excuse me, excuse me, okay? I'm getting hysterical. Yeah, that's right.

[72:30]

So, the thing I'm saying is that by observing intentions, they will become more positive and wholesome. Okay? And I don't know if this is what you're bringing up, but I think there's also what sounds like recommendations not really to make up your intentions. You don't make up your intentions. The more you study your intentions, you'll realize you don't make them up. At first you think you make them up. At first you think, I thought of going to have lunch. I decided to have lunch. I made up the intention to have lunch. This is the way it looks when you first start looking. This is the deluded way to see the pattern of your intentions. But that's the way it looks at first. I made up this intention. The more you study your intentions, which you think you make up, the more you'll realize you don't make them up. However, there's some instructions which sound like a recommendation to make intentions, like to make vows.

[73:36]

You know, I vowed to live for the welfare of all beings, for example. You hear people say that. At the beginning of talks or at the end of talks, people say, I vowed to do this and that good thing. And then some people say, well, what if you make this vow, but inside it doesn't look like that? What if your inner landscape doesn't look like, oh, I would like to benefit all beings? Like, it looks to me like the pattern is, I want to have lunch. That's what the pattern looks like. And then I heard of this other intention called, live for the welfare of all beings. So how does that intention go with, I want to have lunch? When you're thinking of that, that is your intention. Your intention is, I want to have lunch and I'm wondering how living for the welfare of all beings goes with having lunch. When you think of having lunch and you don't think I want to live for the welfare of all beings, then the pattern is, I want to have lunch, and it doesn't have that other element in it.

[74:42]

But when you are at a talk and you say at the end of the talk, I want to benefit all beings, I want to live for the welfare of all beings, you say that, and a few minutes later you think of having lunch, you might think, oh, I wonder how that does have to do with what I said a few minutes ago. At least the question of benefiting all beings is in the same field as, I want to have lunch. Okay? At that moment. And it's there because a few minutes before you thought, you said anyway, I want to benefit all beings. And actually at that time you might have even thought, yeah, I do. And then in the next moment you want to have lunch. But the effect of wanting to benefit beings the moment before has an effect now on lunch is that you remember that and you think, how do those relate? Things are changing because you made that vow. The vow to have lunch has occurred many times in your life.

[75:45]

Now this vow to benefit all beings has arisen and it starts to seep into having lunch. But it hasn't quite like completely integrated itself. Now it's more like, what do these two things have to do with each other? They're right here both in the room with me now. The next moment you might say, I wonder what it'd be like to kind of combine them and to have lunch for the benefit of all beings, including me. To eat lunch for other people and me. So that would allow me to have lunch, but also to do it for them. Could I do that? I think I'll try. You start eating and somebody comes over and says, can I have some of your lunch? And you say, actually, yes, because I'm having this lunch for both of us. So it would make sense to share it with you. And the person says, this sounds a good practice. And then you might say to the person, are you sharing this lunch with me to help benefit all beings?

[76:48]

And the person says, actually I'm not there yet, I just want it for myself. But I think it's cool that you're eating for the welfare of all beings because that means you share it with me. And a couple weeks later they come back and say, you know I've been thinking about it and actually I want to share my lunch with you today. I had this really nice lunch and I want to share it with all beings and you're one of them and you're the one who tipped me off to this so I wanted to share it with you. This is how it happens. So there is this making these vows, but then the question is, how do they relate to what you feel right now? So right now you're making the vow, and you see how it relates, and then after you make the vow, you notice its effect on you later. Yes? When I saw the way you went from the particular to the general, you saw the... the general, then the skill, the challenge seems to be to make it so that the particular problem wasn't getting discounted, the person's adding.

[77:53]

So you go to the general, the universal, and make the beauty of that apparent. But the skill, which obviously you have, is to not make that individual possibly a discount. Discounted. Right. The basic thing is the empirical particular. That's where Buddhism starts. If you study the empirical particular, you will arrive at this general. Actually, yeah, the love comes from there, but the love comes from all, the general comes from the total of the particulars. All the particulars is the love, and all those particulars, which are now the general, make the particular. That's how you, the particular person, is made by all beings. Now you hear that general story to illuminate your particularity, and the more you study your particularity, you'll realize how all beings are making you.

[78:56]

Say it louder, please. Would you say it louder? Yeah. Yes. Right. It's very important to deal with the particular, to honor the particular, because the particular is supported by everything. So it's a very special, precious thing, this particular. So don't try to discount it. Right. Honor it. So there's two other things I wanted to bring up immediately. One is that this is also part of studying your activities or whatever, studying your intention. Is this another image of going out in a boat? If you go out in a boat and you get far away from the shore where there's no islands and you look at the ocean, you go out in the ocean, the ocean will look like a circle of water. But the ocean is not a circle of water.

[80:11]

But that's how it looks to you when you're out there. Now that's an example of when the teaching does not fill your body and mind, you think it's sufficient. In other words, when the teaching doesn't fill your body and mind, you think your view of what you're up to is sufficient. You think what you think is going on, you believe or you see that what you think is going on is really the story. But the more the truth fills you, the more you realize that in your picture of what's going on, something's missing. And the more you study what you think is going on, the more the Dharma will fill you. And the more you study what you think's going on and the Dharma fills you, the more you realize that what you think's going on is partial, something's missing. So you still think something's going on, like you still think someone is being abusive to me or whatever.

[81:15]

That's still your story, and you don't discount that, because that's what you see. You just know that something's missing. Because you accept that something's missing, Because you accept the limitation of your view, you realize that your view, although limited, is sponsored by the entire universe. So the circle of water is actually the manifestation of the whole ocean as the circle of water. It's not the whole ocean. It's the manifestation of the ocean, the entire ocean, and the working of the whole ocean as a circle of water. Because a circle of water in the middle of the ocean does not look like a circle of water in your backyard. A whale will not emerge from your backyard, but it will emerge from a circle of water sometimes in the middle of an ocean. A circle of water in the ocean will sometimes be part of a tidal wave, but in the backyard it won't. But even so, the circle of water in the middle of the ocean with ten whales and three tidal waves is still not the whole ocean.

[82:25]

However, it is the whole ocean manifested as a circle of water. It is divine grace manifested as an individual consciousness. But it's not divine grace. It's not the totality. It is totality in a limited form. If I do not accept my limitation, if I resist my limitation, then I think my view is complete and that view doesn't see something missing and therefore it closes to divine grace. By thinking it's complete, it excludes full illumination. So we're studying this, but the more we study, we realize, I'm studying something that's limited, and I accept that I'm studying something limited. It's like I'm studying this and I think, this is the whole story. Matter of fact, the more I study, the more I see how limited it is, and the more I accept that it's limited, the more I see how limited it is.

[83:31]

And the more I accept how limited it is, and how completely limited, and I completely accept it, then I realize freedom from the limited. by realizing that the limited is the manifestation of the unlimited as the limited. It's not the ultimate, it's not the unlimited, it is the unlimited manifested as the limited. When you understand the limited as the manifestation of the unlimited as the limited, you open to the unlimited, which you always do anyway, but you don't see it. But the price of admission to this realization is accepting that you're completely limited. And in that complete limited, you manifest the unlimited as the limited.

[84:31]

Yes, Melissa? Yes, that's right. Yes. And the more we meditate on that, in the particular. Don't just sort of dreamily think that, but look at this particular. And in particular, look at the particular of your actions. Don't just look at the particular of your ideas or your feelings, but look at how your ideas and your feelings come together in a pattern which is your intention, which is the synergy of your consciousness. And focusing on that particular temporary example, and then another one, shows that you really do think this is important.

[85:38]

Otherwise you're not doing the hard work which attests to your confidence in reality as most important. And realize that inattention to the cognitive representation of reality will cause the cognitive representation of reality to get more and more distorted and out of tune with reality, and also turn out your vision of reality because you sharpen your vision of reality by looking at the version of reality appearing in your consciousness, which you can observe. It is an empirical experience, which you can sharpen your wisdom eye on that. But you will see embarrassing things that are uncomfortable. Like you will see, even if you're supposedly, I don't know, an experienced practitioner of the Buddha way, you will see sometimes, I can't see, I can't see, I can't see that I appreciate this person.

[86:52]

I can't see it. I'm so embarrassed. I should be able to see that after all this meditation. I should be able to see. Everybody's my close friend. I'm supposed to be able to see this, right? But I don't see it. It's not that I don't appreciate them. It's I can't see it. Even after all these years, I still have some karmic obstruction. I don't see that this person is loving me. Karmic obstruction. I'm embarrassed to say. So at Zen Center... Every morning we say, all my ancient twisted karma. The teachers say that too, not just the new students. All my ancient twisted karma. Maybe the teachers think, yeah, well, not me. I just say that to set an example. For me, it's, you know, all karmic obstruction has been removed. I see unhindered love and radiance in all directions. But no, it's hard to look and see.

[87:56]

When you're in the beginning, you say, yeah, sure, I got a lot of karmic obstruction. I just started, no problem. But you practice many years saying, you know, I don't really care about anybody but me. That's, you know, so that's cool, you know, because I just started. But these other people have been around a long time. When the new students find out the other people don't love everybody, they go, oh my God, after all these years and they still don't see? But at the same time, sometimes they feel good and they feel like, oh, I see, they're human too. Does that mean after I practice for 40 years, I'll be like that? Oh, no. You say, well, they're still pretty bad, but you should have seen what they used to be like. They've come a long way. Although, you know, they've got a long ways to go. So there's both of those things. Practice works, but we've got a long way to go. And for me, if it works a little, that's something to be grateful for. But still, even working a little, hopefully, is motivation for, I will continue to look at this embarrassing situation to see the limits of my wisdom and compassion.

[89:12]

And the place to look is in the karma department, in the action department. Because if you don't look in the action department, your vision will get blurred again, will get covered. And if you do look in the action department, you'll see some scary stuff, but seeing the scary stuff sharpens your vision. Seeing only nice stuff, you're going to get, you know, notice you have rose-colored glasses on. Okay, take them off. But that's the mode of revelation right there. That's where it's coming. It's coming right through where you are. It's 3.06, and Leon's trying to tell me something. What is it, Leon? Okay. How about some walking meditation? Okay. Okay. I'll ring a bell and call you back before the end of the world.

[90:21]

@Transcribed_v005
@Text_v005
@Score_89.24