It may be that in the midst of this stillness there is great enlightening activity. without moving at all, without doing anything, there may be the great enlightening activity of giving ethical practice

[01:03]

patience, enthusiastic effort, calm concentration. and the activity of wisdom. It is proposed that such great activity can be living in stillness. Enlightenment is living in stillness.

[02:25]

Wholeheartedly living in the midst of stillness is enlightenment. Thank you.

[03:48]

We have arrivals today, so perhaps we could do our meeting, our morning greeting again. So could you say your first name, please? Lisa. Lisa. Diane. Diane. James. James. Paul. Paul. Karen. Karen. Mira. Mira. Robert. Robert. Michael. Michael. Shelly. Shelly. Kim. Kim. Susan. [...] Donna. Donna. Tom. Tom. John. John. Elisa. Elisa. Tom. Tom. Alexandra. Alexandra. Jane. Jane. Judy. Judy. Judy. Mom.

[05:21]

Susan. Angelica. Angelica. Carol. Carol. Brett. Brett. Warren. Warren. Cassia. Cassia. Ron. Ron. Marjorie. Marjorie. Dave. Dave. Brett. Brett. Justin. Justin. Justin. David, [...] I'm contemplating the new people.

[06:34]

People just came this morning for the first time to this retreat. I can include you in what's been going on. On this paper up here, which I guess you probably can't see over there, right? On the paper, there's a picture. There's a word, sudden. Under it, there's an E with a circle around it, which symbolizes enlightenment. So on top of this paper, it says, sudden enlightenment.

[07:38]

And then it has, on the bottom, it says, six perfections, I think. and it has an arrow from the six perfections going up to the sudden enlightenment, and an arrow from the sudden enlightenment coming down to the six perfections. So that picture is the teaching that six perfections are the cause of sudden awakening, and sudden awakening is... cause of the practice of sick affections. Giving, ethics, patience, enthusiastic effort, calm concentration, and wisdom. It is possible to practice basic precepts

[08:42]

which are the basic practices of beings who are evolving towards not just sudden enlightenment, but beyond sudden enlightenment, evolving towards the realization of complete enlightenment, unsurpassed enlightenment. So there can be authentic enlightenment that is not the highest. So, in general, it seems that in the history of the human species, beings have practiced these six perfections and had awakening experiences. And after those authentic awakening experiences, they continue to practice these six perfections. The lead-up or the run-up to the sudden enlightenment is actually a process of awakening, of gradually awakening before you actually awaken, that you're actually equipping, you're becoming equipped

[10:06]

through various teachings you're becoming equipped in order to make a concerted effort in the practices. So you first learn the practices, and based on that learning you can really fully engage these practices. And when you fully engage these practices, an insight, a wisdom, an enlightenment, can arise or can be realized. It may not even or ceasing, but just a realization of the truth. And truth can be phrased in many ways. One way is the truth that is closed in our deluded mind. a truth which is free of our mental constructions, a truth in which delusion doesn't exist.

[11:19]

But the process of leading up to this realization of such truth is a gradual process of putting the deluded mind in some sense, engaging the deluded mind in these practices. And the deluded mind, while it's doing these practices, generally speaking, believes in the mentally constructed version of these practices. So you hear a practice like giving, The deluded mind receives construction about a practice of giving and the deluded mind would generally think that the practitioner and the practice are two different things. To the deluded mind, it looks like the giver and the gift are two different things.

[12:23]

To the deluded mind, it would usually look like the giver and the receiver are two different things. So when we first start practicing giving, we may notice, we may be aware of our deluded mind. Giving helps us become aware of the way our deluded mind works. We might not call it a deluded mind, but we might be able to say, well, it's a dualistic mind because it sees two things. It sees giver and receiver. That appearance of a giver and receiver or a practitioner and the practice, or a giver and the giving. That's another duality that deluded minds see. They see the practitioner and the practice as two different things. This is normal for... We are innately inclined to see things that way. In other words, we are inclined to having deluded states of consciousness that see things dualistically.

[13:27]

Still, if we practice these practices, even within the context of delusion, as we practice them, we become more aware of our delusion. We do feel separate from other beings. We do feel like we're one thing and the practice is another. Like there's me in the practice of ethics. It looks like that. And I see it that way, and I understand that that's a deluded way to see the practice of ethics. possible to be in a situation where there's the practice of the ethics, but there's no ethics in me. There's just the ethics. And there's just me. And there's no ethics. Those are two possibilities. There's just me, and there's the practice of ethics, but there's nothing in addition to me, and I'm not something in addition to the practice of ethics. But to have that realization, usually we have to practice ethics and giving a long time.

[14:35]

And by practicing them a long time, we become more able to open to the non-duality of practice and practitioner, of self and other. And when we actually open to that, and that truth is what's happening, This is the dream of, for example, the dream of duality. Duality is a conscious construction. It only exists as a construction in minds. Aside from minds, there's no duality in the others. The stars don't look at each other and say . The galaxies don't feel separate from each other. But living beings who live in the galaxies, they have minds which construct, he constructs, the moon is separate from the earth.

[15:39]

Men are separate from women. And parenthetically, that sense of men being separate from women or females being separate from males, the tension and stress that arises from that sense of separation is biologically auspicious. Because the living beings have a sense that if they would get really close, their bodies could get really close, that the stress of feeling separate would be eliminated, and wouldn't that be a wonderful relief of tension? So they're drawn, they sense that if they would get together, it would be a big happy relief from duality. So beings yearn, at some points they yearn to be free of duality because duality is so stressful. to be separate from someone that's right in front of you is quite stressful sometimes. You feel tension. So if I could just touch it, something's better.

[16:41]

One time I was visiting a friend of mine. He was younger than me, but he lived in a hospital with cancer. And I came to visit him, and I was close to him. And he, I don't know what happened, but anyway, I felt like, anyway, I felt I felt uncomfortable to be with my sick friend's attention. And I don't know what led to it, but I just felt like it would be appropriate to touch him or to adjust his position in the bed or something. And when I touched him, I felt relieved, kind of, separation from the sick person. So that we said, oh, the duality's kind of gone for a moment by just touching. But then it snapped right back. But that kind of wish to touch had biological function.

[17:45]

We actually like to be free of that pain of separation, and we get a temporary relief. So that is called... And to do things to get a temporary relief, those are addictions. So we have these addictions which we use to cope with the pain of delusion. And so you could say, well, the Dharma practices are addictions. They're not really addictions in the same way because they involve the ability to make... I would call, to tolerate delayed satisfaction of reduction of the tension of separation. They aren't like, right now I'd like to get rid of this pain of separation by doing this. It's more like, I'm going to practice giving and ethics and patience, because in the long run, if I practice these things, I will be in the long run relieved

[18:59]

of dualistic, deluded perception. Deluded, dualistic perception. I will in the long run become free of this, and it won't be just for a moment of touching. I will actually be completely relieved of it, and also I'll be able to help others who I then understand are not separate from me to have this. Just one, this is a big parenthesis, please excuse me, but... I read an article in the New Yorker a year or so ago about experiments in delayed gratification with children. They have these kids and they put them in a room where they can watch them with one-way glass. I think, yeah. They go in the room with the kids and they leave a plate of cookies in front of the children. And they tell the children that they're going to leave the child in the room. Some of you might think this is really cruel.

[20:03]

They leave the children in this room for a while and tell the children that if they can wait five minutes or maybe five minutes and not have a cookie. They'll get a cookie no matter whether they wait for five minutes or not. But if they wait five minutes, they get two cookies. And then they watch the kids deal with the cookies. And some kids just can't resist, and they just go right for the cookie and eat it. As soon as they don't, just take more. Maybe there's only one cookie. I don't know. Anyway, some kids cannot wait. They can't stand the tension. of the duality of me and the cookie for very long, or the duality, the constructed duality and the pleasure of cookie. They can't stand that for very long. They can't be patient with that pain.

[21:08]

They can't be generous with that pain and so on. Anyway, they can't tolerate delayed gratification. And then the kids who can't stand it, They can't stand it. They're having stress too, but they're finding some way to take care of themselves so they can tolerate the delayed gratification. One of the techniques of some of the kids that are successful at delaying a gratification is to not look at the cookies. Then they studied these children for a long time, and they noticed that the children who could delay gratification were less likely to go to prison and more likely to be able to accomplish what they wished to accomplish. And the children who had trouble, who couldn't stand to wait for five minutes to get the cookie, they were more likely to actually get in trouble with the law and have trouble applying themselves to work.

[22:18]

I can't remember exactly, but I think there was no IQ difference between the kids. Kids of similar ability, one group has trouble applying themselves, the other actually is able to apply themselves. And this path is kind of like that. To do these practices long term, happiness and bliss, peace and bliss, It makes it possible by being able to delay gratification, it makes possible to do work, hard and sustained work. So there's something about humans that in order to accomplish great things, we have to actually be able to not have immediate gratification for the good things we're doing. So one, you do a good thing. which involves a delayed gratification.

[23:21]

Or you do perhaps a good thing, like eating a cookie is not that bad for kids, but there's no delayed gratification. So other good things you might want to do you have trouble doing. So these practices, while we do them, our mind, our deluded mind is being transformed of our deluded mind. Our deluded mind is conscious. that the appearance of duality is a conscious mind. Unconsciously, we don't really see duality. But our unconscious supports the construction of duality in consciousness. And it carries the results of past conscious constructions of duality. When our mind constructs a sense of duality with other living beings, that activity of constructing duality immediately perfumes or influences our unconscious.

[24:25]

It immediately changes the reservoir which carries the results of our past constructions. So deluded minds keep planting seed in delusion and unconscious. Minds can also receive instruction about how to do these practices, these perfections. And as you do them, the basis mind gets transformed, but also, along with the basis mind being transformed, a simultaneous, a transmuted basis consciousness, which doesn't support defiled states, it starts to be developed. And the combination of transforming the basis for our deluded mind and developing the practice body leads to sudden enlightenment. When the mind takes a break, it's conscious, it's alive, it's not blank.

[25:26]

It's not blank and it's not constructing images of duality anymore. Or there's images of duality which are completely understood as completely convinced that it's a fantasy. You're looking at something and you're completely convinced that what you're looking at is your mind. In other words, in the story yesterday, you realize intimacy in all experience. It isn't the end of the story. The story goes on because after this moment when there's no, when the mind is completely free of defiled misconceptions, of defiling misconceptions, a moment when completely free of that because completely not believing and not even believing the conception of freedom from conceptions, that then

[26:30]

sets the stage for the continuation of the practices which you've already been doing. But now, now you more clearly go back to practicing giving, but you more thoroughly understand that the giving is not something done by you, but separate from you, and that you, the giver, is not different from the receiver, and that you, the receiver, is not different from the giver, and the gift is not different from either the gift or There's no giver or receiver without gift. You understand that, but at a certain point, by practicing giving and noticing how you don't see it that way, and being tolerant and kind to yourself, not seeing, that is an illusion that you are the giver. You see that illusion over and over as you practice giving, but you still believe it. And then time comes when you don't believe the illusion anymore. And then you go back to the same practice, but now you play the role of the giver and you know you're not separate from the receiver.

[27:41]

You understand, you believe that you're not separate from your donor. even though it might still appear that way. And it will appear that way because the basis consciousness which supported these diluted states from the beginning with time, it continues to support the appearance of these diluted dualistic states. So duality keeps flashing up in front of one who has had sudden awakening. And now, There is giving, there is a sense of giver separate from receiver, but there is also a realization simultaneously that giver is not separate from receiver. So there's no doubt, even though these challenges keep arising, And one can slip into doubt and is able to see, again, that there's no separation between doubt and doubt.

[28:46]

So then you, again, this is the cycle of practice that we went over yesterday. And I'm going over it again today for the new people who may possibly have understood something. Yes. [...] I would practice the practices that develop the ability to tolerate delayed gratification. So if I met someone who was having trouble with this, I would be generous. I wouldn't tell them, basically, usually anyway, I would not tell them, don't be so stupid.

[29:47]

No. Be a good girl. Don't, you know, be a good girl, you know, and stop that inability to delay your gratification. Wait until you're served, please. And to say that, I said I don't say that. Maybe I might say that, but I say it in a generous way, and I'm not trying to control you. And then you say, I can't wait, and you grab the pizza and eat it before anybody else has a chance. And you feel for me. But I totally, totally support you to be this impatient person who cannot tolerate the delay of the gratification of eating this pizza. You feel that from me. Even though I might ask you, please wait for the other people, you say, no, I can't, and you go. But I wasn't trying to control you by saying that. that I was giving you a gift by saying that, and then when you didn't follow my gift, or my request, which was a gift, you noticed that, you sensed that my compassion for you, my love for you was the slightest.

[31:01]

As a matter of fact, when you did what I asked you not to do, you got another installment of love. So you kind of got gratified unexpectedly to get some love along with the pizza. And you can see that. But you can't always see it. So you realize that all the time they were doing the things you asked them not to do, you were totally supportive of them and totally saying thank you to them at the same time that they were doing something you asked them not to do and you thought it would be good for them to do something other than that. So they're being who they are? Thank you for giving me an opportunity to practice. Thank you for giving me an opportunity to see what's happening as reality. So, yeah, if I'm looking at somebody else who's having trouble with delaying their gratification, it gives me a chance to see that person is not other than me.

[32:13]

And to be generous towards them and say thank you to them helps me actually support the person I'm trying to help who's having trouble with delayed gratification is me. I myself have been trained a long time, let's say, and I'm really good at delaying gratification. I want everybody to be happy. But I notice it isn't happening yet. But this is what I really want, and I can delay that gratification. And being able to delay that gratification makes it possible for me to continue working with somebody who cannot delay their gratification much at all. And that's very painful for me to see. And it's not gratifying for me to see them hurting themselves by having no tolerance for that dread delay. But they're actually helping.

[33:16]

They're helping my practice. I really feel great for it. And they're giving me a chance to show and to convey the practice to them while they're unable to do this one practice called patience. Or, yeah, basically it's patience. I think it will tolerate the pain of the delay. But they feel from me that actually I'm in no hurry for them to become Buddha. I want them to become awake as soon as possible. But if they say, you know, I'm actually not interested in this project you want for me. I'm not interested in what you think is good for me. And the person may not be conscious that they want to see if you can keep loving them, if they keep resisting doing for them. And the longer that they resist and the longer you love them, the more they become convinced that they actually want to do what you ask them to do. that they actually want to be patient because your patience is shown to them over and over and beautiful.

[34:21]

And they want to try. But they also, part of the reason, part of the way they find out this for real is by not practicing what you'd like them to practice. Part of the way they find out you love them is by continuing to be sick. Sick people, like my friend dying, I didn't feel like he was going to be sick to find out if I loved him. But today, I'm kind of feeling like when we're sick, one of the main reasons we're sick in this world is to find out that the world loves us when we're sick. But once we're sick, we realize, oh, my sickness is actually, yeah, it's one of the ways I can find out if the people who want me to be healthy really love me. Because if they want me to be healthy, And they love me. Then they'll let me be sick as long as I am sick. They won't run away from me if I don't get healthy. But people who want us to be healthy but don't love us, they will abandon us because we're not going along with the Getting Well program.

[35:32]

And I asked last night some people what they wanted me to talk about today. One way of putting it was In my life now, many people are really stressed. Many people have serious illnesses. People I love, and I see their illness, and I see their suffering, and it's really hard for me to see it. And I have a strong hope for them. So one question is, how can I let go? I think the question was, how can I let go of my impulse to help these people who are suffering who I love? Is that kind of the word, right? The impulse to help is not to help them at all. That you want to help someone that you think is beautiful and dear to you and is suffering. You would like to help them be free of suffering. That's fine. What I'm saying here is the strange thing is that letting go of wishing to help them will actually be more helpful

[36:43]

than continuing to hold onto the wish to help them. Holding onto the wish to help them is a distraction from them. And in some sense, it's an addiction, which we impulse to help people who we love and appreciate and wish to be healthy, that holding on to that wish to help them could be an addiction in the sense that it takes us away from being with this person who's suffering. It's a distraction from just being with a suffering person. And then it sort of tells them to be distracted from the health of the sick person. It tells them To wish that they would be healthy and to use that wish, to hold on to that wish and take them away from their sickness. Rather than be with the sickness, welcome the sickness. Be careful with the sickness.

[37:44]

Don't welcome it and then look away from it. Welcome it and keep your eye on it. And be patient with it. That way of being with it helps. But again, there's a delayed gratification there. Because you can't see how when somebody's sick and you actually are generous towards them by letting them be sick, which is a gift. You give them the gift of letting them be sick. You can't see. You don't necessarily feel gratification that way. And you can't see that they're encouraged to do the same thing. In other words, I'm sick, and this person said I'm sick in a loving way, and then I can accept that I'm sick. What comes to mind is a story from, I think, Iran about Harish Kigal and Inanna. You know those ladies, those ancient goddesses? Well, one of those goddesses, or Ereshkigal somehow went into the underworld and in the process got dehydrated.

[38:47]

You know, somehow something happened to her so that she became totally desiccated. And she was shriveled up in this little desiccated version of herself and she was suffering. And these little beings came to visit her. I think they were like, you know, she's a goddess, and little beings who were like her darling little assistants came to her. And Aristegola, or Inanna, I forgot which one of these goddesses it was, said. It was Inanna. I am really suffering. And the little beings go, you are really suffering. They weren't saying, oh, no, you're not that bad off, but now, now, don't, don't. They just acknowledged and accepted her suffering. So, of course we want to help our darlings. That's fine. And we have to let go of that.

[39:49]

And if it comes right back, fine. And then let go of it. How do you let go of it? By welcome to the wish that they be healthy, but also welcome to their sickness. And if you hold on to, I want them to be healthy, it makes it pretty hard to accept their illness. And then you become, what do you call it, a disqualified person. And people will take you away from them because you're bugging them. You're bugging the sick person by holding... Not your desire for them to be healthy is fine, but, you know... Deal with it. Don't dump your desire to be healthy on them. Because then they feel like, well, I've got to be healthy. Nobody wants me to be healthy. And now I have problems here, folks. I'm sick. Now somebody comes in and gives me another problem. Now I've got to take care of these people who want to help me or who want me to be helped.

[40:52]

Not just who want me to be helped, but who are holding on to their wanting. People who come and want to help. Cool with that. Not attached to it. Those are the people I want around me. I don't want people around me who do not want me to be healthy. Actually, I'm okay with some people coming to be around me who do not want me to be healthy but let go of that. The people I want to be around let go of the way they are. So you can have a person who doesn't want to be healthy, comes in the room but is not attached to it, and then they can show me what I need to do. I'm the sick one. I want some help. Please show me how to cure my illness. Please encourage me to be who I am. By you being who you are. And who you are is somebody who wants to help me. But being who you are is not attaching to who you are. As a matter of fact, to be who you are requires that you are so wholehearted about your wish to help that you're not attached to it.

[42:01]

And I'm sick, too. I'm sick, and I want to be well. And if I can be wholehearted about wanting to be well, I won't attach to being well. And then I will be well. This is saying, I will be well. practices. They will get me ready to wake up to freedom and peace without changing my illness the slightest bit. Right in the middle of illness, a sudden awakening can arise where me is not separate from illness. This is called the end of suffering. There's pain, but there's no suffering. There's bliss and ease and peace in the middle of what looks to be just the same suffering, wanting the suffering to end. All these states, all these states can be states which can be practiced with and where one can awaken in the middle of them, right as they are,

[43:18]

find ease and happiness and bliss and also enthusiasm to practice more so that the next state of illness or death that comes you can practice there too and wake up there too and based on that awakening continue to practice so I see beautiful grandchild who's sick. I want him to be healthy. I want him to be at ease. And then why am I at all attached to wanting him to be healthy? And if I notice I'm attached, then I practice with my attachment. I'm generous towards my attachment. I'm careful with my attachment. I'm patient with my attachment. And a time comes when I Moment after moment, I want this living being to be happy, and moment after moment, I let go of my desire to help.

[44:24]

So the Buddhas want everybody to be happy, they never are distracted from that, and there's no attachment in their desire for beings to be healthy. This is... They have suddenly been completely integrated with their practice. Their practice is unstoppable, you know, constant, wholehearted, and there's no attachment in the process. And this is what they are trying to convey to us who are living in the trenches of birth and death. Yes, did you want to say something? I wanted to ask you a question. Go ahead. From here? Yeah. And now that you're here, you'd rather ask... In that situation where you love someone after you fall apart, and they're in trouble and you want to help.

[45:34]

Can I say something? Yes. I'm suggesting to you, if you love someone with your whole heart, you're not attached to them. And you can love people a tremendous amount, and I think many of you do. But I'm suggesting that if you love a little bit more, there won't be attachment. You can love people a tremendous amount and still be very attached or very attached. I'm suggesting if you love wholeheartedly, the attachment will drop away. So I'm saying Buddhists love us totally and have no attachment to us. And they're trying to teach us to love ourselves totally, so totally, that we're not attached to our own well-being. Because being attached to our own well-being is one of the main ways of expressing this source of suffering. Being concerned for our own well-being is fine. That's fine. But being attached to it, that's the problem.

[46:35]

So you said if you love someone wholeheartedly, okay, what's going to happen? there's help they may want. There's help they may want, yeah. That I may not either want to provide or have the capacity to provide. The Buddha's meeting people who they totally love and have no attachment to and are totally devoted to. And the person asks for something and the Buddha doesn't give it. Like sometimes people want explanations that the Buddha sees are just addictions. They want Buddha to give them an explanation which will give them immediate gratification. And the Buddhists don't give it. They give love in the form of, I don't want to give that to you right now. I don't think that would be beneficial to you. So I'm not going to get into that, answering the question the way you would like me to answer.

[47:39]

And sometimes people argue for a while, and then in the middle of the argument, they wake up. So there are times when you feel like what somebody's asking for is not appropriate to give. And then the question is, can you have that? Then again, what we want to learn is, this is not appropriate to give. And also, am I attached to not giving it? To check and see. And again, I'm so wholehearted about not giving this to you that I'm not attached to not giving it to you, and I'm not going to give it to you. And then the person said, maybe, the next moment the person says, oh, yes, I am. They said, a minute ago, you said you weren't going to give it to me, and now you're giving it to me. I said, right. Things changed. And in the new situation, I was a new person who didn't want to give it to me. And things changed again, and now I don't. And I'm constantly studying, am I attached in the process?

[48:43]

And the Buddhas are open, actually, that they would be attached in the process. They've been studying this for an incalculably long time, studying their own attachment. and they're open to other . But there comes a time when they feel like, well, they might arise, but I have information that makes it seem like it's virtually impossible for them to arise, so I'm not attached. I feel like the likelihood of my attachment is really small. But I've been studying, and I've seen gazillion attachments in the past, and I've had the experience that the more I learned about my attachment, the more free the situation became. And I've been saying yes and no to requests throughout the whole time, and an innumerable number of times I was asked to give something. There was not attachment. In innumerable times I was asked to give something and there was attachment.

[49:45]

In innumerable times I was asked to give something and there was attachment and I gave it and I did want to and other times there was no attachment to giving it and I gave it. It's not that difficult sometimes to find that you are attached. It's kind of hard to find that you're not. It's more difficult. But you can often see, I want this person to be happy and I'm attached to it. In other words, I'm having trouble with delayed gratification. I want them to be happy like while I'm alive or while they're alive. And I'm having trouble waiting for a long time. And again, I find once I'm to be happy and not attached to that desire, it makes it easier for me to hang in there with them and support them.

[50:47]

And the people who want somebody to be happy and can't wait, again, sometimes they have to be taken off the case. They become a detriment to the thing that they themselves want to have happen. It's not permanent, you know. removal from the case. You can come back later when you recover your practice. Well, that brings up another question that came up for me this morning, which is, I started to see a difference between being patient with something and enduring it. So what do you mean by the difference between enduring and patience? What do you mean by that? What I mean by enduring is somebody going, well, it'll change, and I'm just waiting. Yeah, that's not patience. Patience is not patience. While you're practicing patience, such things may arise in your mind or in the neighborhood. You may be in pain about your suffering, your illness, or somebody else's illness.

[51:54]

You have the pain. Patience is not to be thinking, this is going to end soon. The thought is another thing to be patient with. That's okay if that thought arises, but patience is not thinking really. Patience is being present in thinking where there's pain. And so the painful thinking could be, or when is it going to end? So in Zen we have special training sessions for that called periods of sitting, where people are sitting and a lot of them are thinking, when is this period going to end? Such thoughts arise, and they're not prohibited. But there is a practice of patience which is encouraged to do when you have the thought, when will this suffering end? When will this period end? The practice of patience is to be in the present with that thought about the future.

[52:56]

Being patient means to be in the present and to learn to be actually in the smallest version of the present that you can get to. Because we can actually live our life in the present. Whatever happens, we can't live it. But when some things are going on, if you would have that going on for five minutes, almost no one could stand it. But we don't experience things in five-minute bundles. We just imagine five minutes. Or half an hour, or a week of this, you know, totally freak out. But one moment of it, Basically, be present with anything in a moment, right here. And then when you find yourself able to be with it, wow, we sometimes say, Buddhas teach the Dharma in the midst of fierce flames.

[53:58]

But in the middle, in the center of this fierce flame is a cool spot, or you could say a sweet spot. And if you get to that place, and then you think a little bit of the future or the past, the flame will burn you. You can feel that. When you look from the present into an enlargement, a little bit, you can feel, whoa, got to come back. Is there an album? Elizabeth, do you have a response to me trying to answer that point? A defender's mind will grapple with it. Yes. Detachment is difficult for me.

[55:02]

So one of the practices... that we talked about is patience with the suffering of people you care for. Another practice is ethics with the pain you get for your suffering. And part of ethics is to be honest about to their happiness. And one of the Bodhisattva precepts is not to be possessive of anything. Not to be possessive of the truth, not to be possessive of the happiness of your children. There's not a precept of don't want your children to be happy. There's a precept of don't possess your children's happiness. Don't possess your children's health. That is said to be the But also there's a practice of confessing when you are attaching to good things.

[56:07]

And confessing when you are attached to good things inspires you to be devoted to good things without that attachment. Because if you're honest about it, then you have a chance when you notice that it's making things more difficult. You know, like I'm working for your happiness. I don't have time to be attached to working for your happiness. I'm too busy working for it. I don't have any energy left over to be attached to it. That's the wholehearted working for the welfare. Helping, trying to help, to have any energy left to grip it. You're too busy giving to be possessive of giving. Yes. As we're talking about this, I'm wondering if there's a way of working with it by asking a question.

[57:09]

Yeah. That's sort of the wisdom practice, asking questions. As I find, I certainly have an addiction to answer. You're often addicted to wanting answers to your questions. Yes. But my practice is, or what I try to do some of the time when I remember, is to ask the question but to expect no answer. Or not. Just be with the question. Yeah, right. So I ask questions. That's the life of wisdom. The life of wisdom is not necessarily to answer the questions, and it's definitely not to try to get the questions with your... to get the answer with your questions. So, in many scriptures we have these great enlightening beings come and ask the Buddha questions, But then the Buddha says on a number of occasions, basically, you're asking this question for the welfare, happiness, and peace and bliss of many people.

[58:16]

In other words, you're not asking this question to get the answer for yourself. You know the answer. But you're asking the question in order to help others. So I do have a question which I'd like to give to the Buddha, but I'm asking this question for everybody else. and not even trying to get an answer from the Buddha for them. My question would be very helpful to them. It would show them how to question. They can watch me. Oh, look, he's asking a question, and I get the feeling he's not really trying to get an answer. Wow! And it's such a brilliant question. And he wasn't trying to be brilliant. So you can be brilliant if you ask questions. And so part of the wisdom question is questions for all beings. That's basically the way I ask it. And then if you do that, really, it does reduce the tendency of trying to get the answer for you. And it's possible that nobody else in the room is interested in your question, even though you're asking it for their benefit.

[59:16]

But although they're not interested, they still hear it. And the question is still transmitted to them. And they watch the Buddha respond to you. And they noticed that the main thing that the Buddha is saying at first, the first thing he says was, you didn't ask this question for yourself. That's the first thing. They say, oh, I just saw an example of somebody doing something for me. I am interested that they did something for me. That's interesting. I have some other suggestions for them, which I'll make later. Yeah. Yeah, I'm wondering... One more thing. To be able to ask questions like that, to have that kind of wisdom function, depends on the previous five practices. So if you're generous and ethical and patient and enthusiastic and calm, basically you're a happy camper. You're not asking questions to get anything. You're already in good shape. You're just making a gift of asking the question.

[60:18]

The gift of wisdom. I am asking this question for myself and everyone as an approach, because I'm struggling with Elizabeth's question too, of how to be with suffering beings in various forms. Excuse me, right there, that's another way to be. in an unattached way, is you're going to help them, and then you say, well, how should I be with them? Yeah, that's exactly what I was going to say. What's the way I should be with my suffering loved ones? I'm going to be this way with you, because this is the way to help you. It's more like, well, what should we do now? Here I am. Without, and be with that question, without holding on to something to do exactly, without accepting an answer. As your friend might say, please don't do anything, Paul. Now that you've arrived, do me a big favor, don't do anything. And you go, that's the thing I most didn't want.

[61:20]

Well, that's what I want from you, Paul. I want you to come and be near me and not do anything. That would be a big help. Because I'm here having a hard time not doing things, and I'd like you to show me how not to do something. Just be with me. They might say that to you. And you might say, I can't give that to you. I need to do something instead. Right. It's just too hard. And they might say, but that's what I want. And you may say, well, I hear you, and I can't do it. And they might say, I accept that that's really a hard thing for you. But that's what I'd like, is for you to come and do the hard thing attached to my welfare. Yeah, it feels to me like I need something to do, and asking that question, rather than getting caught up in the thinking of, I need to do something, and what should I do? Or I, yeah, might be a way to calm the situation. Just a question.

[62:24]

A calming down of the situation will support you to be able to ask a question without trying to get anything. It's actually kind of hard to ask a question without trying to get anything if you're not here. Like I said in the beginning, when you're sitting quietly and still in that space, enlightenment's living in that stillness, in that not doing anything. There's a tension in wanting to answer that the practice of being calm and not answering is the practice. So there's something to do to ask the question, not just being still. Well, there's an activity. But again, ultimately, there's an activity of not doing anything. Yeah. It's just, you know, like I'm not doing anything, but because you're here, there's certain actions arising.

[63:29]

But they haven't really been done by me because I wouldn't be doing it if you weren't here. So this wonderful activity arises, but nobody's really doing anything one-sided. Everything's concerted. We're doing it in concert. So then, you know, one person does not perform the symphony. Thank you. And again, I reiterate what I mentioned when you're sitting. I do often consider when I'm sitting if these six perfections are alive. I'll just say that somewhere in this stillness, there is where enlightenment is living. It's right here.

[64:29]

I'm not trying to grasp it, but just say the statement to myself and to you that enlightenment is living in stillness. Perfections are the activity of enlightenment. They are living in stillness. So I can say, I state that as an article of faith, that enlightenment lives in stillness. I state that as an article of faith, that living in stillness is enlightened. With suffering beings, living stillness with them is enlightened. And in that stillness, there's maybe all kinds of feelings, of wanting to help, but there also may be all kinds of, again, restrictions, which is when the feeling of wanting to help arises, we relate to it in a way to get immediate gratification.

[65:31]

Like, I want to help you, would you please tell me right away that I just did. I've come to help, tell me now I'm already successful. And some people would say, You are successful already, actually. That was really helpful, the way you put that, that you actually told me that you were trying to get gratification, and you got it. That was helpful to me. For where? And then I asked you, well, you know, how are you with that? Did you get the gratification I thought you were looking for? which I said, you know, I'll sign that. Yes, you did. Hi, I'm here to help you. Welcome.

[66:33]

Please sit down and be quiet. And then somebody else comes. Hi, I'm here to help you. Please join her. Sit down and be quiet. Pretty soon there's this huge assembly of meditators surrounding the sick person who is being helped by all these people who are willing just to be there with her in silence. This is called, as I mentioned yesterday, the bliss body of Buddha, an assembly of people who are sitting together to help each other by just being there together. And they're checking. Is this generous? Is this ethical? Is this patient? And then if anything's missing on the list, practice these perfections with anything that's missing. If ethics is missing, practice generosity and patience with it.

[67:35]

and then practice ethics with it. If ethics is missing, confess that ethics is missing. And confessing that ethics is missing is part of ethics. So then when you confess ethical shortcomings, you're just practicing ethics. It doesn't mean the shortcoming is not there. It just means you're ethically relating to a shortcoming. And to eventually be continuously aware of the shortcomings in ethics is sometimes called the supreme way of protecting beings from harm. But it's hard to be aware of ethical shortcomings. In ourselves. I'm continuously aware. It's amazing how easy it is for people. But to be continuously aware of my own ethics, that's really an advanced art.

[68:43]

But that continuous awareness, that really protects beings from harm. So if I look at myself, and I've noticed it's been quite a while since I saw an ethical shirt coming, I think, well, beings are in danger here. I just thought of an ethical shirt. And, yeah, it makes me feel better that I saw one. Now I'm wondering. The ethical shortcomings are going on here. You know, I think I try to be just not in a hurry to find out, to get the gratification of finding it. Where is it? And it doesn't have to be one that just happened a moment ago. If you get really desperate, you go back quite a ways and find something else.

[69:46]

And then that, yeah, right, that really was, that was a big shortcoming. That was, like, really short. They ask somebody else who can see them so well. Yeah, so I can do that. I can say to you, if you see me exhibiting what appears to be any ethical shortcomings, I welcome your feedback. Really, I do. It doesn't mean I like it. But suddenly people ask me, do you like your Prius? I say, I don't exactly like it, but I'm happy to be driving it because it gets good mileage. And then some people ask me, do you like your son-in-law? It doesn't really matter if I like him. What's important is that he's being a good husband to my daughter. If he's being a good husband to my daughter and I don't like him, so what?

[70:52]

That's really like, it doesn't matter if I like him or not. And if I do like him and he's not being a good husband, then so what that I like him? Except maybe, well, maybe your liking of him would motivate you to try to help him be a better husband. But the main thing is that I really feel good about is that he has committed to be to my daughter. That's what's important to me. It's not really a matter of like or dislike. It's a matter of that's what I'm devoted to is his devotion. And it's there. And I thought, yes. And the Prius is there. Is that a commercial plug? It's a commercial plug for having no affection for your Prius. And I don't mean to be troublesome.

[71:58]

People are just making fun of me. Do you like your Prius? Maybe that's an ethical shortcoming. I really don't like it. I more than honor it. I honor the great priest. That's beyond a commercial plug. I also saw a leaf on the way down here. First leaf I saw. Pretty cute. And it actually was moving right along. Is that a clean car? Is it totally electric? Yeah. A totally electric... Toyota Nissan [...] have any questions about my ethical conduct, I welcome the feedback.

[73:08]

If you ever see me do something and you can't see my practice of the ethical discipline, I welcome feedback that will help me become aware of that practice. If you ever see me not being generous and welcoming, I welcome your feedback. If you ever see me being impatient, again, what I mean by if you think he is impatient, it doesn't have to be true that I'm being impatient, but just if it looks like that to you. And I also always say to you that when you give me feedback on that, I think it would be good if you actually remember that you're giving me feedback not reality. That will help me receive your feedback without giving you any instruction it won't give to me. Like you say, I'm wondering. It appears to me that you were just not welcoming.

[74:15]

I just wanted to give you that feedback. So people come and tell me, you know, this and that, and I don't necessarily believe what they're saying to me as reality. I just receive it as feedback for me to practice with. It helps me. But I don't have to say it. If somebody says, you're evil to me, I don't say, well, that means I am evil. It's just feedback, and I got feedback, you're evil, so then I look at myself. I might even ask them, well, in what regard? And they might tell me. And that just helps me look. It doesn't mean that it's true, but that it helps me be there with myself. So I'm asking you, I welcome your feedback to me to help me study myself. like Carol showed me, her patch robe. People here yesterday didn't hear that this robe is called a patch robe. It's made of patches. Traditional Buddhist robes made of patches.

[75:18]

So it's called a patch robe. And so on the back of Carol's patch robe, I wrote many years ago, the pearl in the bulb rolls on itself. Because it rolls on itself or rolls of itself. And in a sense that refers to the pearl. The pearl is a pearl that's rolling on itself. It's working on itself all the time. The self that's working on itself, it becomes a pearl. So keep those pearls rolling. And they'll become brighter and brighter. It doesn't say the pearl in the bowl rolls on some other pearl or rolls on a piece of sand. It actually rolls on its own sand it's rolling on, right? Its own irritation. It's rolling on and rolling on. And maybe there's some nice stuff in it that can make the pearl bigger and brighter.

[76:23]

And also for the people who, the new people. Yesterday I told a story asking a student, what is the business under this robe? And I calligraphed that question, what is the business under the robe? What's going on under the robes of the Buddhist disciples? That's the question. Which is not on this clip, the answer. I'm secretly telling you. It's not on this paper. The answer is intimacy. Intimacy is sudden enlightenment. It's understanding that the beings we live with are not separate from us. Realizing that intimacy, that's the work under the robes of the Buddhist disciples. And again, these practices help us develop intimacy with ourselves and realize intimacy with others.

[77:46]

These practices help us realize intimacy with our feelings, our aspirations, our desires, which is the same as they help us realize intimacy we don't attach to our desires. We have them, They're given to us. And if we don't, again, as I said yesterday, if we have positive desires, if we attach to them, we undermine them. If we have negative desires and we attach to them, they're facilitated. If we have positive desires and we let go of them, they flourish. If we have negative desires and we don't attach to them, they diminish. ...about ourself, and that we don't attach. And the good things about ourselves flourish, and the negative things wane, and vice versa.

[78:53]

If we look at ourselves and notice we're clinging to ourself, we notice that the wholesome things So the flowers do. They wilt. Wholesome things wilt when we strangle them with attachment. Rather than say, oh, wow, a positive thought has arisen here. Welcome, big boy. Congratulations to the world. A positive thought has arisen in my mind. Wow, this is great. And that's going away now. Okay, bye-bye. Nice to see you. And it says, thanks for letting me visit. I'll send some of my disciples to you. And another good one comes. Oh, another one. Thank you very much. And then a negative one comes.

[79:56]

And we say, thank you very much. Wow. But I welcome you. Are you leaving now? Okay. I'm not attached to this challenge. I know another one will come. Thank you. Okay. Bye-bye. And challenges will come. The challenge are our generosity. They will come. They are coming. They are here. And more will come. And there's none now, more will come. And that's good news to the practice because the practice is a challenge. We don't try to help, but we don't try to get challenges, though. Don't go try to get them. Just be still and help. Say, oh, somebody's sitting still. They need a challenge. Walking meditation.

[80:59]

By the way, enlightenment is also living in the stillness of walking meditation. The stillness in walking meditation.

[81:19]

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