Abhijin was on the board last week. Okay. So this week we'll talk about the, these six, these five, actually, in the sutra it says... the sutra it says that the bodhisattvas these bodhisattvas have five super knowledges and there is a sixth which they do not have which is the

[01:03]

Anasrava or pure Abhijan. They don't have that one. Only the Buddha has that one or certain. Certain ones have that. It's called anasrava abhijña, or asrava kshaya, jnana.

[02:07]

In other words, the knowledge, the jnana of the kshaya, the cutting, the extinction of asrava, asrava, the outflows. Usually bodhisattvas won't have this because they haven't extinguished their alcohols. But they have the other five. Let's see now, where should we start? I guess I'll start with reading what this Mr. says says when he's talking about these riddies in this book in one in the Bodhisattva Bhumi Bodhisattva Bhumi is a Mahayana Buddhist text in the Bodhisattva Bhumi they list 18 different

[03:21]

forms that this Riddhi can take. And he says this was the high watermark of wonder mongering in Buddhism. This development is easily explained by the natural tendencies of the uneducated masses in India and in uneducated masses and the Indian thinkers ingrained love for exaggeration. the biographies of Christian and Muslim saints also abound in incredible miracles which are supposed to indicate spiritual sanctity. It is possible that some genuine psychic phenomena were observed and superstition erected a vast superstructure of marvels on this slender basis. The authentic testimony of reliable scientific investigators seems to show that thought reading, levitation, and other strange phenomena can be witnessed on rare occasions in India and other countries.

[04:29]

However that may be, the accounts of these ridhi wonders as given in the Buddhist treatises add a ton of sensationalism to an ounce of truth. The final outcome is a systematic catalog of miracles in the Bodhisattva Bhumi. which is reproduced below. I don't know who Mr., I don't know what kind of a person Mr. Har Dayal was, but anyway, this book is somewhat useful, but this point of view is, is, not exactly the point of view of the Bodhisattva. These supernatural powers, and particularly these Riddhi, are not so much... I don't want to say that they don't happen or do happen, but rather that they're part of Buddhist teaching.

[05:48]

the fact that they have these characteristics is a teaching. The fact that we say that they have these characteristics is a teaching, and if they do have those characteristics, that would be a teaching too. So there's two levels of teaching at least. One is that these sutras say they have them. That's one thing. The next thing is, if they do have them, then what does that mean? What would that mean? how would that make sense to us? And if the sutra says it and they don't have them, then what? But the sutra says they do have them, so then either they do or they don't. And in either case, these bodhisattvas who do or do not have this thing that the sutra says they have, these bodhisattvas have a dharani by which they would not be hurt by themselves having it or themselves not having it.

[07:01]

It is typical in Mahayana Buddha Sutras to start with miracles. And the miracles often tell you either the whole story of the sutra or the main teaching of the sutra. In this sutra we have bodhisattvas whose description tells us the whole sutra and also we'll have a little drama of a number of miracles right after their description we have this ten act miraculous drama. The intention is to, in a graphic form, give the whole teaching. In a non-intellectual way, give the whole teaching. Another aspect of this type of presentation is that in order to go on, you have to sort of loosen up a little bit because it's inconceivable usually.

[09:16]

So if you're going to read it, either you're going to say, what's this silly business here at the beginning, and then sort of go on from there with kind of a stiff attitude, and the rest of it's going to be also not very attractive or useful to you, or you're going to let this you're going to sort of get into this thing. And if you do, your mind is really becoming soft and open. And in fact, that which makes your mind soft and open is the teaching too. So it's two ways to talk about it. One way is that in order to go on, you must accept this. So we say avon. We should say avon to these characteristics too. And so there's this funny thing, you know, the same kind of thing happens with talking about reincarnation. In Zen we don't emphasize it so much, but we also don't say that it doesn't happen.

[10:28]

We don't get stuck in some antagonistic position towards reincarnation. and towards these powers, too. We don't so much emphasize them, but we don't get in an antagonistic position towards them. To say, people want to say, well, do you actually transmigrate through these lives? Do you actually become these animals and so on? People want to sort of pin it down. But some people are kind of happy if you say, well, it doesn't really happen that way. Because if it happens that way, they sort of have to walk off. They think it must be superstition. So it's a matter of skillfulness whether or not you're going to bring certain topics up like these powers or reincarnation or certain things in such a way that people with certain background will have to leave the assembly. They won't be able to stomach it.

[11:31]

everybody's open then you could talk like you could you could talk like there really is such a thing as reincarnation and you really do become frogs and kings and magicians and monks and you go through that you could talk like that as long as people had sort of blown the walls out of their minds then you could talk about this stuff because they wouldn't then they could take it seriously you know really believe it and yet without without some kind of a a vessel to contain it. This stuff wouldn't bump into any walls. You know what I mean? In other words, when you have no limitations on the way you're approaching something, then you can take it seriously. But if you're coming at it really strictly, then you have to take it not seriously. if people have already really opened up and there's no kind of they don't have any kind of arms and legs or walls then they can go right up and grab this stuff like reincarnation and say yeah let's let's go through these trips let's get into that let's think about that because they won't grab it in other words and it'll never bump into anything and there'll be no problem

[12:57]

But if people are still thinking in a tighter way with definitions and limitations and strictures, then we should talk about reincarnation in a way we should talk about it more psychologically. We should talk about it in a way that will not bend any of the definitions and concepts that they're not constrained by. And you can talk about it that way too. but it will depend on where the people are who are hearing this, which way we talk about it. And if people are coming up in a constrained way and they say, you know, does that really happen? I mean, you're really talking about thousands of lives and changing into other things. Is that really the way you're talking? Or with a person like that, depending on how well you know them, you might say, well, no, not exactly. You don't want to necessarily say no, but try to come around it in a way that they can accept nothing. And then, maybe by talking about it in a way that they can accept, little by little, they'll be able to drop their guard, so to speak.

[14:05]

And then you may be able to fly off into tropical lands and former existences and that kind of talk. Because former existences is a way to get at inconceivability. To talk about You say, why do I do this? Why do I keep smoking dope? Or why do I be my uncle? And a Zen teacher might say, because of your past lives. In other words, think about that. It depends on the person. Some people might just say, what? But someone else might say, hmm. and it might really hit. In other words, how does that hit you? Does that make sense to you? Does that mean you're supposed to look in your past lives with the answer of why you do it?

[15:10]

Some people would anyway think the message is inconceivable. The reason why you do it is inconceivable. So that's one way to talk about inconceivability, is to say it's due to your past lives. Or it's because you were a nun, you know, with such and such a Buddha, and you did this. You were a nun with such and such a Buddha, and you didn't wear your clothes nicely, or you bossed people around. You talked to them in such a way that they always felt like you were ordering them. Therefore, now you do this. So the point is not whether scientific people can verify these feats or not.

[16:15]

We might start with, usually the one that's listed first is this Riddhi. And it has, it's of three kinds, according to one source and two. kinds according to another source according to the dodger de lune to the . kinds the first this gamana is is literally displacement and near mana is a creation an aria you know is a pure or noble

[18:18]

And the other set is the parinamiki. Parinamiki is transformation form, transformation. And the other one you can see is like it, it's creation. In this book, this Har Dayal book, he gives 16 kinds of this second type over here, 16 kinds of transformations are listed in the Bodhisattva Bhumi.

[19:37]

And there are things like they can shake things, they can shake the room, the monastery, etc. They can shake towns, cities, mountains. Another thing they can do is they can they can illuminate lands for people. They can show. So what does it mean? What does it mean that they can shake the room or they can illuminate things? He says that the talked about wonder-mongering, he says the main purpose of these ritti is for conversion of beings. And in a sense, what Great Emptiness here brought up was that it seems like reading about these kind of things is a kind of, it converts the reader.

[20:47]

So just reading about some of these events, some of these miracles, As you read them, you somehow become converted. You convert yourself into a different type of a person, into someone who's saying, okay, after this, anything's okay. Or if you can believe this, you can believe anything. Okay, so I'll say that again. If you can believe this, the stuff here, these Riddhis, as we're talking about them, you probably will be able to believe almost anything else in the sutra. If you can think of some way to say yes to these, you might be able to say yes to something which is absolutely liberating. Actually, it's harder to say yes to the teaching that is later on given in the sutra because it's so multifarious.

[22:03]

It's easy to say okay once to some miracle. In other words, to say yes, a miracle has happened. It's easy to do that, but it's page after page to say yes. It requires a little bit more effort. But still, if you can do this, it's a good start. So where is the miracle? You see, that's another point. Is the miracle this, this? Or is it a miracle that I see this as a miracle? Some people can see this as a miracle. It's a miracle. How could this be created? All shiny. The people who, the cargo car people, people, they think that this thing that happened to them is a miracle. They can't. It's a miracle.

[23:06]

But remember, they believe it. They think it happened. It isn't that this ship, what? Cargo cult is when like a spaceship, well, then it'd be a UFO, but like if a 747 crashes in the jungle, And the people find it. It may have some nice cargo in it, which is pleasant for them. But basically, this event, they think it happened, right? But it's a miracle. It's a miraculous thing. It takes them to a totally different realm of existence that this 747 just fell into the jungle. And in one case that I saw in some movie, or some of you probably have seen it, a ship crashed in somebody's land, and they took the pieces of the ship and they reconstructed it and put it up on top of this beautiful precipice. And they put, it wasn't complete, I don't think this whole ship was, I don't think, the whole spaceship was not, airship was not intact, but they filled in parts of it so that they put it all together again up on top of this beautiful jungle peak, and they go up and do services to it.

[24:23]

worship this this wrecked plane and so it often sometimes have it sometimes happens that so cargo cult is means that some some major event happened to some people or some person and they they take this the cult side is not so good maybe but anyway for them with a miracle and they believed it happened for them was it through the radical something happened that they couldn't have imagined before. And that's the miracle. Now, it may also have extraneous benefits that there may be a bunch of, you know, lots of food inside or something. But I think that it's not necessary for them to get some material goods out of it. Just that it's really far out and nobody got killed. And it shows a whole other civilization, a whole other level of existence of maybe

[25:27]

might say a greater form and then the people worship it it expands probably the whole sense of the universe to something like that to happen anybody see that movie they can't they really said they really made a temple on this other spaceship so anyway where is the miracle is it that I mean, airplanes crash in Southern California, and it isn't a miracle. It's a disaster. Even if it doesn't kill anybody, but if it does kill somebody. If it doesn't kill anybody, it's even less of a miracle in a way. Just an airplane crashing and nobody gets hurt, it's not a miracle. Of course, people are used to it. It doesn't do anything to them. They just sort of get depressed and get more worried when they ride the airplane. But Why don't they make it a miracle? Well, they just don't.

[26:27]

Why don't people make this into a miracle here in this room? Why don't you make this into a miracle? You just don't. But what will you make into a miracle? Well, some of the things we're talking about tonight you could make into miracles if you wanted to. Just hearing them you could. especially if the thing comes with some way that you can't, without sort of equipment to explain why it happened, without a message or some causal connection. So there's various reasons by which miracles don't happen to you. The reason why miracles aren't happening all the time is because of reason. One of the main causes for lack of miracles is reason.

[27:31]

In other words, you can't walk up to a car and be awestruck by it because you're used to it. But you could make a miracle out of it if you just go and look at it. As a matter of fact, as you may know, many times that's what an enlightenment event is, is when somebody walks up to a car and they see the car and they realize how this car happened is very, very profound. and they're just completely wiped out by it. The car is a miracle to them, or it's an occasion for a miracle. The more classical things are, you know, a piece of pebble hitting bamboo, a flower opening. Flowers open to people, people think they're pretty or whatever, but they aren't miracles to them because they do not, they're not impressed by the ultimate reality happening right there.

[28:35]

So I'm just emphasizing the fact that the place the miracle happens is in the eye of the beholder. That's right. So you have... I won't say yes or no, I won't say it with one or the other, okay? I'll just tell the situation more widely rather than getting into that box, okay? But right now anyway. If, in fact, the miracles are not only in the eyes or the senses of the miracle beholder, but the vividness and extremity of the miracle is determined to a great extent by the conceptual background of the beholder.

[29:37]

certain people need heavy-duty miracles. Certain people are prone to certain, you know, extreme forms of miracle. Other people are not prone to that type of miracle. And other people are either prone or not prone to a certain type, but, well, forget about that, so just those two types. Some people are, can be miraculously affected by slight events like a pebble dropping on the cement or a hand or a landscape. That's all they need for the occasion. Other people need something else. So then there's variations in between the two. It's a whole spectrum, all right? Now, let's assume the simple case, or we can just make complicated cases, there's four categories of people.

[30:46]

One who needs the extreme variety of event in order to conceive that miracles happen, in order to have a miraculous experience. The other needs a less big event. Another person, and then Those two are broken down into those that can believe and those who don't believe. Or those who have, whose threshold of being overpowered and giving up their resistance has been met or not. Everybody, at some point, everybody's threshold can be crushed by certain events. They will believe. And, for example, one of our students studied Pentecostal Church, there are techniques by which you can crush people's resistance. You can make them have a miracle. It's possible. Everybody has that threshold.

[31:47]

Some people's threshold is very low. Some people's is very high. Okay. Now let's take some situation. Some people are, you know, some people are very superstitious. And superstitious does not mean that they believe in ghosts or something like that. Superstitious means that they believe in stuff. A lot of Marxists are superstitious. They believe in Marxism. That's superstition. So very superstitious people are the people who, generally speaking, will need... I don't know if I should say that. a very superstitious person might need the more extreme form of event for them to feel like they've had a miraculous experience. So if a bodhisattva meets such a person, when a bodhisattva meets a person who needs a certain type of thing, in order for them to have that kind of experience, a bodhisattva will allow them to see what they need to see in order to have

[33:06]

that release. And does the bodhisattva do something? Does the bodhisattva actually emit rays because he knows this person needs to see rays? Because you see, it's not just the rays because not everybody falls for rays. Only certain people, if they see rays, do they sort of say, okay, I give up. This is, I want to do this stuff. Whatever this guy does, I want to do. So, I don't want to say, you know, that these bodhisattvas are these people who are walking along and they can just give off raise. And I also don't want to say that they can't give off raise. I don't want to say that. It doesn't seem right to me to say that.

[34:06]

I don't want to say, well, they really don't give off the raise. That's just somebody else's idea. Because it's not giving off the raise that counts. It's the fact that the person sees them give off the raise, and when the person sees them giving off the raise, that the person is converted. That seems a whole point. In other words, the person sees what for them is extremely moving. In other words, they see what they want to see. They want to see this. So in other words, if you take a bodhisattva and you say, can this bodhisattva give off rays? As I say, I'd rather not say that they can or can't. But take this bodhisattva, this skilled person, and we'll talk later about what skills develop in order to do these magical powers. You take this skilled person, skilled meditator, and you meet this who's vowed to save all sentient beings, and you put them in the presence of another sentient being, just one for now.

[35:16]

This person has a certain kind of weakness, you know. This person has a weakness for a certain kind of conversion experience. is a certain thing which they want to see. When the bodhisattva meets somebody who wants to see something, then suddenly this skilled bodhisattva can create the opportunity for the rays to occur. But they couldn't do it unless that person needed that kind of thing. It's not like they just can give off rays. They need the other person to give off the rays. And in fact, with the aid of the other person who wants to see these things because that's the very thing that they want to have in order so that they can believe. They just want some excuse. In other words, I'm saying people want an excuse to believe. You can do it all on your own.

[36:20]

You don't need somebody to help you do it necessarily. Well, excuse me. To be converted, I guess, you need some pretext, right? You need some opportunity. But it doesn't need to be anything special, as I said. For example, I was converted by a picture of Hisamatsu Shinichi, sitting zazen. He converted me, and I saw a picture of him. You know, I was converted by a photograph. I was converted many times, but that's one of the major conversion events. Wasn't it a bodhisattva? No, it's a piece of paper in Life magazine. Just seeing a picture of a person's back, black clothes, on tatami mats, with a certain caption saying, in deepest thought, I was converted.

[37:25]

I wanted to do that. And I noticed that that picture did it. Did he give off rays? I could certainly say he gave off rays if I wanted to. I didn't need to say that. But some people, could I say he shook? Could I say he illuminated the room? Could easily say he illuminated the room. But he didn't do it even, the picture did it. That picture was Bodhisattva. Could I say, you know, what could I say? Could I say something on this list? I could and I couldn't. But it turns out I didn't need to say anything on this list. I could have easily said them if I needed to. Do you understand? But I just, I would say I'm the kind of person, and a lot of Zen students are the kind of people that don't need it. But some Zen students do need it. But I just didn't need anything on this list to convert me. I took other opportunities.

[38:27]

I would also say that certain things like this have happened to me. I didn't think I needed them. But when they happened, in fact, they were a big encouragement. I sort of plunged to a deeper level of sort of openness or something. I gave up. another level another layer of resistance when some of these other things happened I didn't know I needed it but and maybe I didn't but anyway it was benefit to me and I could see particularly when one of them happened one time I I shook hands with Suzuki Roshi after I'd been practicing with him for a year and a half and Maybe I shouldn't tell you this kind of stuff. But anyway, I was, I had an extremely strong experience of heat or warmth.

[39:39]

And he had been very kind of, he had always been very, left me alone very much until that time. And he initiated the handshake. I never shook hands with him. I wouldn't even think of shaking hands with him. But he shook hands with me. And he actually put his hand out and took my hand and shook it the first time. But that's after practicing with him almost every day of the week for a couple years. And him being very important in my life. But then he did that. Was it something on this list? A lot of these things on this list aren't as impressive as that was. And of course, this list is, you know, you could say it's one of the things on this list. I could say it is. But, you know, I could say actually there should be 19 things on this list. They missed one. Okay? It's called being inundated in warmth. But not burned.

[40:47]

I wasn't burned. And I noticed at the time that I was very susceptible to that because of the way I practiced up to that point. That by having this rather strict and formal relationship with him, I became very susceptible for that kind of interaction. I was very ready for it. And it was very encouraging. All the time I knew, you know, that actually all the Zen teachers are generally rather formal, and at least I thought they were, and cold. with their new students that actually is out of compassion that they're that way. They want to leave them alone and let them practice Azen without disturbing them. So I sort of expected that. And I heard that other students also had the same experience of maybe a year or six months since the Kirishi wouldn't say anything to them, even after they already had become quite familiar with him some other way. So it was all okay with me. But still,

[41:48]

That event was a confirmation that I had been practicing with him all that time. And then, you know, I was practicing Zen. So these kinds of experiences can happen, but it's the person that made them happen. I mean, he could shake hands with a thousand people and maybe none of them would have that experience. They might have other experiences too, but anyway, that was what I had the experience. Was it a miracle? you know you can talk about other miracles you can bring some magician here and do things and even if bring somebody here and float around the room it may it may not i may ask them to leave the room i may say i'm sorry we don't do that at zen center and be quite irritated with him for polluting the atmosphere with his body so for with me it wouldn't be it wouldn't be a conversion experience perhaps on the other hand i might like it a lot and go study with him so i'm saying I feel that you can do things that people want you to do them you can have super knowledges and superpowers if people wish you to have them if they want them because people can see what they want and have experiences that they want people can have experience you know conversion experiences at movies if they want so

[43:18]

I would say then, the bigger the front, the smaller the back. Some people have really big fronts. But those kind of people are the easiest in some ways. You just do one little thing, pow. There's a lot of people walking around the city who don't like Zen so much, but in fact, they wound up here they would have these big kind of experiences in other words they have big fronts so we a lot of you could do little things with them and they would have these big experiences sometimes that people come here to lecture or just to visit and they have these big experiences they walk in the door and and they say have some they have some momentous event experience when they come in here or some people meet some of our students and they just they're completely wiped out by a little thing some people come here and see rays and all kinds of other stuff and they're very encouraged they see that stuff and that's without even people knowing them but if you get to know somebody and you find that they need something

[44:44]

All you have to do is go along with what they need in order to help, in order for them to say that they've been helped, in order for them to say that they've been impressed. And bodhisattvas can do that. They know how to do that. So is that clear about all this? It's somewhat important. It's one of the things bodhisattvas can do. In other words, when you meet someone, if you sense they need something, if you sense that they're, for example, once again, if you sense someone comes into Zen Center and they say, I don't know what. You guys don't do that, do you? You can sense that if you just say no, that they'll have a conversion experience. That's all you've got to do is say, no, we don't do that. And they'll go, oh, God. And is it a miracle? It's a miracle. It's a miracle because they came here. They came to Zen, they didn't, you know, the thing that they might often ask is, you people don't do such and such a kind of practice, you know, some kind of spiritual trip that they don't like, right?

[45:54]

It's all the, they have an idea of a, if they went to Bank America and asked the people there, you people don't do that, and the people said no, it wouldn't mean anything to them because they don't expect those people to do it, right? But if they go to a real Zen center with an actual building, you know, and real people in there running around, hitting bells and stuff. And then you go and say, do you do that? You know that they don't want you to do that. Because they can't stand that or something. If you do that, they'll resist. And they'll say, here's another place where they do that, and therefore here's another place where I can't believe what they're doing. So they say, do you do that? Just say no. And they give up. They have, you know, who knows? Maybe they see lights all over the place. Maybe bells ring and All kinds of wonderful things happen to them. They have a miracle anyway. All you have to do is just hear what they want to say and say it. And it's not exactly that you're lying either. Because actually we don't do whatever it is that they say you do. Like they come and say, are you strict here?

[46:57]

No. Because they want you to say no. And if you say no, they'll be able to come here and go to Zazen and be on time every day and sit and go on a diet. they'll be able to break their bones because they'll give up and join they'll merge with the practice if you just let them let go by saying no so you say no and you're not lying because in fact we aren't strict it's not a lie to say we aren't it's also not a lie to say we are so that's what a bodhisattva can do a bodhisattva can sense this person wants this and I'll let them have it Because what they want, that would be good for them if they had it. So here, here it is. Take it. Okay. I'll sign. Like that. That's all it takes. All it takes is to know what they want, to know what's good for them. And these powers help you do that.

[47:59]

So now, what does the Bodhisattva do in order to develop this particular power? He develops the... Riddhipada, R-D-D-H-I-P-A-D-A, Riddhipada. And what are they? First one's called the Chanda, C-H-A-N-D-A, which literally means will to do. sometimes called zealousness. Next one is virya, which is related to virile vigor and energy.

[49:10]

Next one is citta, thought. next one is various spelled b-i-r-y-a chitta c-h i mean c-i-t-t-a and next one is samdi s-a-m-a-d-h-i prahana p-r-a-h-a-n-a that's called uh exploration uh of them s-a-n-d-a S-A-M-A-D-H-I. Samadhi. Didn't you say samadhi? I think I mean samadhi. But maybe I should check. I didn't think it was samadhi. It's either samadhi or samadhi.

[50:12]

I think it's samadhi. A-M-T-H-A? Yeah. P-R-A-H-A-N-A? No. Prahana. P-R-A-H-A-N-A. What is that? Exploration of the mystery or subtlety. Obscure. you'll see this this one is closely related to uh the paracitta abhijna um by the way that the uh the way that the chinese translate this uh is really translated as magical psychic

[51:18]

supernatural anyways the way the Chinese can say it is like this this character means a bus or like as and this is the character means So together they mean at will, at your will, as you wish. What's their translation for riddipade? The riddipade is at your, at will legs, the legs of at willness. So riddia means at will. I think it might be helpful to talk about the, before, to simultaneously talk about the paracitta, jnana, abhijama, because it's related here.

[52:53]

Paracitta, jnana, is, para means other, citta means thought, jnana, knowledge, the supernatural, the superpower of, of, others' minds. So, actually, all these powers All these powers have a lot to do with other people. They have a lot to do with other people. So you develop the Riddhis by developing those four which you just mentioned. And before I mention how that might be construed, how those four work, or how you'd meditate on those four, I'd like to say about how you'd meditate on them.

[54:06]

on things in order to develop the power to know others' thoughts, to know others' minds. So what you do is one of the meditations which are available to us is to meditate on the rising duration and extinction of certain dharmas or certain in this case we would say chitta the whole consciousness and you can read about this in the city maga or abhidam kosha anyway it's a somewhat advanced insight meditation prior to entering the buddhist path it's not strictly speaking a buddhist meditation because it's prior to Buddhist insight it's prior to entering the path it's preparatory to entering it but you still don't understand yet you can practice this without having understood the first truth so everything you do before you've caught on is

[55:39]

a prior Buddhist. Even though you say you're a Buddhist, it's not strictly speaking a Buddhist meditation, even though you're a Buddhist that's doing it. Just like driving a car, we don't say that it's a Buddhist method of driving a car, even though a Buddhist is doing it. It really is a Buddhist driving a car, a Buddhist is doing it, but still somebody else can do the same thing. So a person who doesn't practice Buddhism can do this meditation. Chitta Jnana is a yogic power that existed before Buddhism. But it turns out that both this and the Riddhi are very useful to bodhisattvas. Well, let me say about it. It's not a trance, no. However, in order to do it, You'd have to have concentrated powers, you know, verging on the kind of power that a trance would need.

[56:50]

You'd have to have that kind of concentration to do this. But strictly speaking, it's not a trance. You do not wish to enter a trance to do this practice. You do not have to enter a trance to do this practice. Okay, so, then... what you do is after you can after you can do this practice of watching the rise and fall of things then you turn your attention towards your own personal indications gestures your own personal gestures And you thereby see the relationship by centering yourself on this meditation in the context of observing your gestures, you will see the relationship between thoughts and gestures.

[58:02]

There are subtle, what do you call, nimitta, N-I-M-I-T-T-A, signs, that you can discern in yourself for thoughts you have and for desires and so on. And you can also then, when you can do it for yourself, and then you turn it towards others. It seems to me it doesn't, Yeah, but socialization is something that you do. You're quite active about it, aren't you? You do it. You study it. But it's by studying them that you know.

[59:27]

You don't do that, but if you did it, you'd be much better at it than you are. That's what I'm saying. These people are excellent at it. Very, very good. To the extent that they have the ability to read other people's minds. But I'm saying that you do know how to do it to a certain extent. All of us do it to a certain extent. And you don't necessarily think, well, you didn't do it based on this other meditation. And then you didn't, in the context of that meditation, study your own and then study others. It's true. But you did, you have been interested to look at people, to try to figure out what they're looking like, what that means. You have done that practice. We all have. because it's very useful to be able to tell by a person's face, hand, and body gestures what they're gonna do next or how they feel. In fact, this is important, especially in poker.

[60:32]

So people who play poker would like to develop this. So anyway, people develop this ability, but they don't develop it very well because they don't do these meditations. This is just a way to do it perfectly, almost perfectly. But we already know how to do it, and some people know better than others. People in New York are much better at it than people in Iowa. They are. Somebody told somebody that told me that the most difficult people, somebody said, who are the most difficult people to work with in psychiatric situations? And he said, oh, you want to see the most difficult people? Well, just go out in the Midwest town and watch the people who come out of their farmhouses to the mailbox after the mailbox, after the truck leaves.

[61:43]

Those are the most difficult people to work with. understand not the people who are waiting at the mailbox and say hi to the postman the ones who live in a farmhouse and after the mail truck's gone they come out get their mail and go back in in other words that's the only time you see them and that's maybe the only time anybody sees them except handhead and And I tell the story about these people, you know. A while ago I was in, since I'd been ordained, I was in Minnesota, in a small town in Minnesota. And one of my friends was working for these people. They didn't even live in a farm, but they lived in a small town. And I was standing outside with my shaved head and my subdued clothing. And I saw them come to the window and look at me.

[62:43]

And he was working, he had to do some, just finish up some work for them. And he overheard them talking. The woman said to the man, Fred? Fred? What is that? And he said, I think it's a monk. And she said, I didn't know we had any monks around here. So anyway, people in New York, or San Francisco, but even more so in New York, when they go crazy, they're easier to work with in general because, you know, because they talk to people, you know, because they know when somebody's coming down the street, you have to be able to tell something about what that guy's going to do by the way he looks. And people in New York know that other people in New York are looking to see what they're going to do by what they look like, so they change their face so they won't know.

[63:50]

But people have to learn that, too. So as a result, people in New York are much sharper about this stuff, and if they flip out, you've got all kinds of stuff to work with them. You can make faces at them and they go... They can spot all that stuff. So they're much better by virtue of their desire to survive or to get rich or whatever. So people, depending on their interest in being able to know what other people are doing, develop this as a sort of, just on their own. But meditators, if they want to develop this power, they do this, if they want to develop a supernatural, just to a supernatural degree, so they really can know what people are thinking, they do this practice. This is one way to do it. And each, you know, there's ways that you, do this it's been laid out okay I haven't told you enough now but if you want to do it you can do it so your mental organ is entirely due to your karma nobody else's however people can know very well what you're thinking about in the sense that they can know if you're thinking a defiled thought you know a good thought selfish thought if you're confused or concentrated they can tell all that kind of stuff because

[65:13]

from their own experience. They know what gestures go with certain types of mind. But still, even though they can tell almost exactly what you're thinking about, it's not that they're inside your head experiencing your thoughts. It's more that they read it on your face and on your body. And if you do this practice, you can get very good at it. And it's a conversion technique, too, in a way. Because people feel confidence with you if they think you in one sense they're afraid of you but in our sense they feel some confidence from you because they feel like they don't have to hide anymore because you know that's right a head monk somebody who's been sitting with people for years carrying the stick for years day after day day after day with a clear mind they know what you're thinking and they can it can hit you even when you're not asleep Because they know what it's like when you're not fooling around.

[66:16]

They know what it's like when you are fooling around. So they hit you because they know. But that's a very limited situation. But still, in a few years, you can get good at it. And bodhisattvas should be able to do it even in other situations. But you start with the ones you know. And since I agree, as you said, you know that when he sees people in the zendo, he knows very well what their practices. But when he sees them at parties, it's much more difficult. with different outfits on. It's quite a bit harder for them to know. So it's one of the advantages of Zen is that in that limited situation, we can know our fellow students very well. Now this one's related to the one we were just talking about, you see. But it's a little bit different, because in this case you saw what you were developing, but in the other case you're developing chanda, an energetic interest in your meditation. energy, thought, and exploration.

[67:17]

Now, these bodhisattvas, you don't have to have both these, okay? You don't have to have both of these powers. As a matter of fact, you can spend a year developing one and not know anything about the other one and go spend a year doing the other one. But you can see how these two would work very well together. In one case, you have the ability to read people's minds by the way they look. In the other case you have developed energy, emphasis on energy, because both chanda and virya have a lot to do with energy. So the bodhisattva develops a kind of full energy way of being. And in that way you make yourself very susceptible, or I shouldn't say very susceptible, but very sort of, you make yourself a good opportunity for someone to project these kinds of needs. And in both these meditations, you're meditating on mind.

[68:23]

Both of them have meditating on a thought as their critical element. And this one also, it has exploration of the mysteries or the subtleties. What subtleties? Not only a subtlety of what they're thinking, but in particular, this particular kind of subtlety of what is it that they want? What is their weak point? In terms of what do they need? What are they asking for? How can you use this energy, make this energy available to them, for them to project with it, for them to convert themselves with it. If you're sitting in a room full of energy, it's pretty easy for a person to come in there and feel like the room is illuminated, even if it's quite dark.

[69:29]

Do you understand? If you're bristling with energy, and you're bristling with interest in just sitting there, examining your thought, this is a very easy kind of person someone to feel this room is quite bright this room is bright why is this room so bright but you might particularly think about that because you feel that this person is very susceptible to lights to this kind of imagery that they like you can tell but you know them or saying something you may know them and know this would be very useful to them but this kind of lightness both to the eye not to the eye because the room might be dark but a certain lightness a certain illumination might be very helpful to them that's right but what is this person doesn't want to see it once again I say this person is just

[70:36]

some people are really really tough I mean tough like tough like a leather one but what will get them is something very very simple finally but what will get them the tougher they are excuse expression the harder they'll fall but some people are really tough they do not want they do not everyone actually everybody that's not converted doesn't want to be converted that's the point And then some people are more into not being converted or resisting the other or resisting some non-personal world. Some people are really into that, extremely strongly. And they've got tremendous intellectual systems. Intellectuals, I think, are the worst. The stiffest people are intellectual people, right? College professors and stuff, some of them. They're just like, you know, they're rocks.

[71:41]

They're physically, they're rocks. Their backs are rocks. Their arms are rocks. Their heads are rock. And they're just buzzing away and they don't hear anything from you. So those people, but they can be gotten at it. And for those people, it's often a very tiny little thing that'll get them too. Because they're so mentally tuned that there's a little bit of a twitch And their system may domino through the whole system and the whole thing may go flop. So the tougher they are, the easier they've fallen away. But there are some people who are really tough. And boy, well, you know some of these people, don't you? Haven't you met some of these people? They just, they're really tough. They're a tough egg to crack. They got systems upon systems and counter systems to crack. And boy. You could break it. I mean, you can break it. It could be dangerous.

[72:45]

That's why we don't usually do it. You could go in the office and just give them a bear hug. But they'd probably just die. That's all. And what good would that do? So kind of they have to do it. And as I say, the funny thing is that generally speaking, With such people, the high-pressure technique doesn't work. The harder the front, the littleer the thing. But that doesn't apply that the bigger the front, the smaller the front, the bigger the back has to be. Because a little front is no front at all, in this case. But in fact, that little thing, It's still up to them. They always choose when to do it. It's always up to the individual. Nobody pushes them. You can lead the horse to water, but you can't make him drink. And to knock out people's personal systems of defense is not... Bodhisattvas don't do that, generally speaking.

[73:51]

And it's kind of nice that we have asked and things like that to do that, because what that does is it makes them... It sort of wipes them out and gives them a worse system. They grab another one. It doesn't do them any good, but it makes them more susceptible to doing it on their own. So pressure techniques don't do any good, really, except that by making it worse in some ways, the person becomes more vulnerable, possibly, to something real. But these bodhisattvas could. They have the power to wipe people out, but they don't do it. Now I'd like to go back to what you brought up, okay? You have this person, you have one person here who takes an opportunity to be released from resistance, who's converted, who has a miracle occurs to some person.

[74:53]

This person sees something that they need to see in order to let go. They choose to do that, and the bodhisattva is the occasion the bodhisattva doesn't do anything which will interfere with them having an experience. Bodhisattvas, however, sometimes might interfere with them having an experience to make them, you know, develop people. Sometimes when a person's almost ready to do it, the bodhisattva might up the ante a little bit and make them work a little harder. That sometimes happens too. Because they may be ready to have a minor miracle, but they also can have a more a deeper miracle. So bodhisattva may say, you know, do something so that they can't do it on this occasion. But that would be because they feel like another occasion they would be able to. So anyway, whatever the case, the bodhisattva either doesn't interfere with them or postpones it and doesn't interfere with them later.

[75:56]

Now another person's there, okay? Does this other person see that same thing? right and this number of things that could happen one is they could see it happens to the other person you can see it happen to people i mean something very well might happen to them they might cry they might shake hands with somebody they might clap their hands they might relax many things might happen on an occasion but this other person could see them do that and say bah humbug or this other person could see them and take and themselves have another kind of experience, which is on a much lesser scale. In other words, one person sees something spectacular, like something on this list, sees rays emitting or the earth shaking. The other person doesn't see rays emitting or earth shaking. Nothing like that.

[77:02]

But they're also converted by the occasion. They're converted by the teardrop on the person's face and sees the rays. that's what i said is that in some sense the bodhisattva might postpone a cheap one there's a lot of people uh what they what they want like some people go to the pentecostal church i don't mean to put them down but anyway they go there and they know these people will keep the pressure on so what they can do is they can resist and they can resist and they can resist and they can resist but there's enough pressure so that finally it'll get to them and if you give in right away it's no big thrill you know if you just if somebody says you know Dogen Zanji says if you want to practice

[78:17]

suchness you should do it right out right now you can just do it just do it right now but that's no big thrill because you're just practicing and nobody claps nobody cries nobody has an orgasm there's no blood no money no music but if you go to some other places if you resist The more you resist, the more they put pressure on them, and it builds to crescendo until finally you have this tremendous release. Hundreds of people watching, people scream. It's fantastic. And you can do it more than once. And you can do it to others. So some people like to do it that way. So there's churches for them to do that. But in some ways, Buddhist way may be not to let them do that, because they don't need to.

[79:25]

The least way is the best, probably, because really nothing happens. So if the person can tolerate less happening, then let them have less. But the point is, bodhisattvas are willing to have these big shocking events, apparently. They're willing to convert everybody, even people who need these big, hairy, shocking events. They'll do that. But they'll also do lesser than this, of course. understood I think that that certainly these bodhisattvas are willing to emit you know bad breath or ordinary word or hand signal like this of course they do those things too which could be the opportunity for conversion right like Shakyamuni Buddha held up a flower he himself never never seemed in mind doing the whole variety of stuff here listed here he didn't mind giving off rays but he also did very simple things too he said things like he said we mean what we mean by Marx is no Marx that's why we say Marx and Sabuti cries it's no big deal it's not it's not this big horrendous thing you could all say that right now but Sabuti had

[80:48]

conversion experience, you could say, or insight, was very moved by the Thayagata's teaching. There was no big thing. And then you hear all the sutras, so-and-so did this. It's not always these fantastic events, and yet 8,000 laymen retained such and such. 20,000 bodhisattvas did this. 150 sons and daughters of good family did that. So it doesn't have to be these. But it's okay to do these, too. And it's okay for people that have these other kinds of experiences, too. But generally speaking, Buddhists go away from them because basically they require too much attention. It's just too much work to put a lot of pressure on people. But everybody will crack if enough pressure is placed.

[81:51]

Everybody's got their price. Every unconverted person has that price. After you're converted, I'm not so sure if you have your price. Okay, so then the other ones are... Any questions on this? You can't see it? Can you see how they'd be converted by good breath? Well, I can. You can be converted by anything. Anything you want, you can use for that opportunity. You could say, you could say, well, I expected Zen teachers to have nice, healthy breath, because I assumed that they would, even though they don't brush your teeth, that they digest food in such a way that their breath would smell nice.

[83:10]

And then you meet this Zen master who's got bad breath, and you just sort of say, yeah, that's it. That's it. I understand now. anything whatever you want but probably for you apparently for you that wouldn't work So then the next one is, that's what we could do is memory of past lives. Purva Nivasanath.

[84:23]

Purva Nivasanath. So you already have that so I won't write it again, okay? So what about this one? Guess where you start to do this, to learn how to do this one? Yeah, well, so where do you start? Right now, you start now. And where do you go? Go backwards, but where's backwards? Where is it? that's right it's over here i sometimes get mixed up where it is i have to look i used to do this thing what

[85:53]

thing I used to do. I think it was built something of my idea, a map of America and Europe or something. Anyway, I had this thing. This is an arm, okay? And this is 1943. And this is 1900. And this is 2000. This is the future, something like that. And then 1899, 11 starts turning around like this.

[87:13]

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 6, 5, 4, 3. Something like in modern history, I used to put them around like this, and then as the idea of history goes back mostly through England, and then France and the Roman Empire. It sort of goes back sort of like this, like I'd go toward Italy or something. The Roman Empire, Greece, it's on. And then as it goes before that, it wraps around over here at that sort of to prehistoric times. And so it gets all involuted in itself as you get 10,000 BC. But anyway, I used to think of the past like this. But where did I think about this? I thought about it in the present, when I thought about this. Now I have a more abhidarmic way of looking at it. I put this, I no longer just see this time thing, but I have this little box, which I change the labels on, out of interest.

[88:24]

Out here I have things like anger, which never been right next door, things like that. I don't see this anymore as something aside from other things that are going on. And I also learned that I can put anger in here. And also I can take this part here called the future and put that over here all by itself. And I can put anger over there too. And that you can manipulate these little maps in such a way that you can get fear and other things. You go back into this little box, whichever, wherever you put it. That's what Howard did when I was a kid. That time was probably eight or so on. And in the past area, you look. And another way to look at the past is to make it clear how we do this.

[89:29]

See, you're here. And in the present, in the present, well, let's call this time beauty. This is time. This is space. This is, that's future, this is past. And this is where you are now. The intensity of your meditation will be what you call history. History according to this, using some of Charles Olson's ideas, history is not in the past. So you say something out, either something, you can do it in your life like this, see.

[90:43]

You can go back along your life, and you just say stuff happened. Along here. But you can also go out here and go down here and say stuff happened. You can fill in this whole quadrant, this whole quadrant, and also out here and see what you want. It's a little bit different out here than it is here. You feel differently about it. So you can fill in these two spaces as you wish. What's real in this place? Like right now, you remember. Can you remember the twilight? Can anybody hear now? Right now. Do it right now if you want to do it.

[92:03]

Just think of something from when you're 12. Okay. Is that real or not real? What did you just imagine? What did you just think of? I thought of being in school. What did you just thought of the real thing? What sense is it real? I think of it. Is it what you thought of actually what happened? Not exactly. Well, it could be. I don't know. Well, yeah, you don't know. Well, does anybody here know? No. I mean, does anybody here know that something they were thinking about when they were twelve, it's actually what it was? Is what because of that? I was asking, is what he thought of when he was 12 a real thing?

[93:04]

He said it's real because I thought of it. In other words, it's a real thought. I don't know what you're going to ask him, but I think what he means is that he had a real thought, but it's not what happened when he was 12. He's not sure about that. The thing I thought about had nothing to do with what I was when I was 12, but what I thought of was just an image which I said was when I was 12. I thought of my duck tails. I thought of DuckTales, and I thought of actually from the back of my head. And I thought of DuckTales in a certain hallway in my school too.

[94:09]

Is that when I was 12? I say it is. I say, okay, you say 12, okay, so I got this frame called 12. 12 years. And I looked for something that's reasonable to put in there, so I put ducktails in there. But maybe I didn't have ducktails until I was 13, but I put them in there when I was 12. And maybe the ducktails I see are not the ducktails I had. Maybe there's a lot more hair in these ducktails I'm looking at now than I actually have. And actually maybe the ducktails I had were not so neatly combed as the one I'm looking at now either. But I never had an experience like the one I just saw. There's never an experience like your image of an experience.

[95:18]

Image is only part of an experience. Actually, I'm an adult, bald guy, thinking of a duct tape into a frame called 12 years. And actually, I can't even do that, but a bunch of events make up such a picture. In a sense, I'm trying to show you what the only possible trust that can be of memory is. In other words, I don't trust memory the way other people think about memory. What most people think memory is an illusion. It's not that I trust that or don't trust that. It's just an illusion. I'm trying to talk about what is memory actually about. You say, what if you don't trust memory as real? Memory is a real thing, but what is it? That's what I'm trying to find out. What it is, I trust, because there's no other way. It is what it is. But what a lot of people think memory is, I don't trust it, but actually I do trust. I trust what they think it is. I trust that what they think it is is an illusion.

[96:20]

A lot of people think that their memory of what they were doing when they were 12 has something to do with what they were doing when they were 12, you know. to do with it more than just like what they say it does. And the name of the picture is called 12. But really it doesn't have anything more to do with it when you're 12. And another exercise you can do to find that out is now to take 12 years old and think of something that happened when you were 12 and now make it the opposite of what happened. If you want to do it, you can do it. You can say, see, when you were 12 and you went to the dance, remember? That Friday night on your birthday, you went to the dance. And you went with so-and-so. Now how real is that? It's so-and-so, but it's such and such amount of real that you've got. But how real is it? It's a real image. Now put somebody else on a date with you and don't go to the dance that night.

[97:23]

Is that less real than the other one? Is it less accurate? I'll get out my diary. My diary says I wrote so-and-so and I just imaged that I drowned with somebody else. So, the one is more accurate than the other. But what if the diary was written wrong? Or what if somebody came in and scribbled out it and changed your diary? Where does the reality rest? What if you can't find your diary? Who proves what? Historians run around trying to find diaries to prove this quadrant. But meditators can fill this whole quadrant in completely for themselves, completely. Not only their own line, but everybody else's line, by the intensity of their presence. And historians, some of them learn the tools of finding about, of going through diaries and where diaries are found and get permission to go into the place where they keep the diaries.

[98:29]

The great historians are the ones who have a lot of intensity right here on the spot. And they work with the equipment that historians work with, but basically they can fill this in in a way that is vivid to them, in which they understand what they're doing. And other people understand what they're doing, too, and believe it, because they're dealing with how things actually happen here. That's the only place if anything happens. when meditator remembers past his own past lives he just says 12 years old and he remembers 12 years old he puts something in at 12 years old whatever he wants if he thinks he's kidding himself then he thinks he's hitting himself but even if he thinks if he thinks he's kidding himself and he's putting something in at 12 years old that he thinks didn't happen He's still at 12 because he thinks he knows what did happen, even though he's not putting it in there.

[99:36]

You see? If you go to the dance when you're 12, and you put somebody else as your date, then you feel even more confident that you know what happened when you're 12, and you really are when you're at 12. Go to your 11. Go to five. Can you remember five? Can you remember four? Say, no, I can't. Why not? Can you remember five? How do you remember five? How do you do it? Five years old, I can remember five years old. I don't even show off because I remember one at school. I remember when they asked me what my name was and I told them a name I never heard before. I remember my kindergarten teacher. always dressed up and wore big brooches.

[100:36]

Mrs. Calvin. I can remember before that, too. I can remember when I had polio when I was a little kid. I was in the hospital. Now, sometimes you say, you get into that when you're your parents tell you how you were when you were two and you must start remembering how you were from two by what your parents told you about when you were two and you were four. I had certain experiences when I was two that I'm pretty sure I couldn't have made up when I was in the hospital. And I remember, I was only in the hospital one time and it was a very, you know, tremendous event because I suddenly had no parents. I had polio and I remember the nurses saying stuff to me and I can remember what they said and I can remember being alone in the hospital. And I can remember them talking to me and what they said, but I don't remember the pain. I remember them saying to me, now don't cry, it's all right, you're a big boy.

[101:48]

I remember them putting me through these exercises and I'm pretty sure that I didn't make it up because I can't see how I would do it. But anyway, whether I made it up or not, anyway, they're in my way too. Getting close. There's two more years to go. What you said before, according to what you said before, actually, when you talk about these kinds of supermanage, it's like making that life more than living. saying yeah you make it up I'm saying memory is something you make up because there is no other time because the way in the present that you imagine the past is your karma

[102:59]

way you see how the past works the way you understand history is your habitual way of thinking that's and that is karma that's due to your karma in the past the way the way you've been trained to and the way you've decided to go along with your training about understanding past present future that's your karma so the way you see history the way i used to see history when i was a kid this is nobody told me to do this people told me about 1600 and 1700 and george washington and the middle ages and 1066 and the magna charter they told me all that stuff but i'm the one who put it in like that i'm the one who took that and superimposed it on a map of europe and bent it around back towards greece and so on and that everybody else has their own you know way of doing it that's karma right there kid that's me my thought pattern that's my habits think that way anymore.

[104:07]

Now I have a new way of seeing it. Which hopefully isn't quite as a carbon laden. It's a little bit more flexible. And so I have a new carbon now. That's the point of memorizing, of learning these past lives is you become free of your concepts of past, present, and future. And bodhisattvas can do this. But you always make it up. You always give rise, you always produce, you create an image. Whenever you see a past, it's because you imagine something, and you categorize it such a way. You do the thing of that image, and you do the thing of labeling that image at a certain date. That's the way the mind works. You know that, don't you? According to Abu Dhabi, there's no other way things work. We don't have a special category of mental equipment that comes into play when we start thinking of past lives.

[105:12]

We use our regular equipment to do it. But in fact, you make it. You make, every time you think of the past, you make it. Every day, every moment you think of the past, Every moment you think of the history, that is a creation of the moment. And the way you do it is the way your karma shapes your body and mind at that moment. Or the way you free yourself from karma at that moment. And what I'm trying to do by this kind of talk is show you another way, which I don't think is the way a lot of people's karma does look at it, which says we put the whole thing on. And if you learn how, if you can see that you're putting it on, then you can put it on. Okay? And that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to put it on.

[106:13]

I'll show you how you put it on. Now I'm back to two with what I've already got, you know. But because I don't take this back to two so seriously, because I know it's not really, as I say, I see those nurses saying to me, now you're a big boy, it doesn't hurt. But I don't see the pain. Why are they telling me it doesn't hurt? Why? Because I had pain. My muscles were stiff and they were pushing my head down to my knees and I was crying. That's why they were telling me that I was a big boy and that it's not so bad. In other words, what I construct is not what happened, but an image of it. And you say, well, yeah, but that sounds like it's real because I mean, it really sounds effective, doesn't it? But now I go back before that. I can use pictures of myself. I can use my understanding of my mother, but anyway, I can get back earlier.

[107:16]

How do I do it? I just say, I'm one year old, and I see myself there. Now I go back to the moment of my birth. And I can say I can use what my mother told me, about how she almost died. I can use my knowledge of where I was, but anyway, somehow, I create an image of myself at that age. Now, I jump into another life. But actually I don't, because I decide to follow the Sarvastavadan Abhidharma system. I have other systems which I could follow, okay? If I want to follow a different system, I can do a different thing. But I decide to say that there is an antarabhava in the last 49 days. So now I'm an antarabhava. And how do I imagine myself there?

[108:20]

Well, according to certain principles, I know that I'd be a miniature version of what I am now. I'm now the purva kalabhava of what the antarabhava I was then. And I was projected by karma from the past. What kind of karma? I imagine now, what kind of person projected this kind of person? And where did he live? Or where did she live? You can change, you know, in the future above it. Who, who was in charge, you know, getting out and getting into it? a little bit trickier business you know who's in charge who knows whether you're making it up or not at that point who knows say well somebody else knows somebody else knows better about your past lives than you do but when you're actually back there thinking about it verifying it for yourself exploring yourself who knows better who else is doing it say well actually buddha knows everybody's past lives and so on so forth okay but i where's buddha saying that you're not doing it right

[109:35]

See if you can find a Buddha that would disagree with you, or a Bodhisattva that's doing this same practice, that's actually working on your past life that would disagree with you. Talk to him about it. See if he says you're wrong. And if he says you're wrong, then say, well, what was I doing? And he can tell you. And he can say, oh, yeah, right. I see, yeah, I slipped a little bit there. Uh-huh, okay. Now you see how you do that. And now you go back. You were actually in Chicago, not in Milwaukee. So now you've got that straightened out because this guy's pretty good. Why is he good? Because he's better at being here. That's why. Because he's better at shaking off his karma about the way he thinks. He's freer. He's more intense. He can tell you more about where you were in your past life than you can. But already you're back there. Enough so you're thinking about what you're doing and putting a hypothesis out there and having somebody else say no to you. but you see you're coming right along, actually.

[110:45]

And you can just keep going. And that's the only way you can do it. That's the way that the bodhisattvas, that's the way that one develops this, develops it. And you have to be very concentrated to do this because you can't just sort of flip-flop out there. You have to look, go right back. And the more concentrated you are, the more sure you are that there's no other way that you can go back and there's no other way you can know it And actually that's what it is to know past lives. And there is a consistency. The consistency is what? That it's all made up. And you know that nobody else can know anything better than that. So you know past lives, a million past lives back, as well as anybody else knows yesterday. Because yesterday is made up exactly the same way that you make up 10,000 past lives for yourself. and yesterday, my understanding of your yesterday, the way I can get to make your yesterday

[111:47]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_70.61