Sometimes we say that the realization of a bodhisattva is emptiness, or that the bodhisattva's wisdom, the object of the bodhisattva's wisdom is emptiness, which is the word we use for ultimate reality, the way things actually are. Another way to say this is that For a compassionate person, their understanding is about an ultimate truth. Another way to say it is that the point of the path is that the compassionate person and the wisdom be joined, or simply that compassion and wisdom are joined. And part of compassion is giving, and part of compassion is practicing the precepts, and part of compassion is practicing patience, and part of compassion is practicing diligence, and part of compassion is practicing samadhi.

[01:29]

and we've been emphasizing samadhi or the realization of the one-pointedness of mind which is calming or which is calm. The one-pointedness of mind is also the calmness of mind. It is also the flexibility of mind It is also the stability and balancedness of mind. It is the brightness of mind and the lightness of mind and the readiness, basically the readiness of mind to practice giving, precepts, patience, diligence, and the readiness of mind to practice wisdom. And I've been almost using synonymously playfulness or play as samadhi.

[02:44]

And that I would characterize play the same way I would characterize samadhi. That it's realizing mental one-pointedness, that it's calm. that it's buoyant, that it's ready, that it's flexible. And one other thing about samadhi and play or playfulness is that they're dynamic and very vital, lots of energy. And the practice of diligence is also sometimes called energy, so in order to practice samadhi or in order to practice concentration, there has to be diligence or energy or enthusiasm. But also you could say that actual, you know, the full realization of samadhi is that there's plenty of energy there.

[03:55]

The word concentration is also used for samadhi and can also be used as a synonym for playfulness or play. But one of the problems with the word concentration is that I think some of its meanings are not balanced. not balanced between what you might call centripetal and centrifugal aspects of the mind. So generally speaking, people have in daily life experienced the centrifugal side of mind quite a bit, and maybe they think of concentration as going emphasizing more the centripetal.

[05:05]

And centrifugal means to fly away, to fugue from the center. So being dispersed and distracted is a familiar thing to a lot of people. So they think of concentration as a balance to that. And centripetal means to walk to the center. So part of concentration practice for people seems to be an antidote to the dispersed experience in life and turning around and walking back to the center. And that is true, I think that is part of it. And if we have this dispersed feeling when we meet objects, we feel agitated, somewhat tense, we lose energy in relationship to the objects, We don't feel ready and so on. It's harder to be playful when you're dispersed. But the concentration really isn't the centripetal side either.

[06:16]

It isn't the going to the center. It's just that in order to find the concentration, you may have to go to the center to go the reverse direction of this dispersed way. Concentration really is a balance between the centripetal in the centrifugal so you're not going towards the center or away from the center in other words you're upright and balanced and you're ready to go to be centripetal or centrifugal if that would be helpful you're ready to do whatever is helpful a little centrifugal fine a little centripetal fine but basically the balance is doing the work rather than the going out and going in. So once again, the definition of samadhi is the definition... Again, the etymology is to gather together or collect,

[07:28]

which again sort of emphasizes that centripetal side, but the definition is mental one-pointedness. And in mental one-pointedness, again, you don't feel dispersed. There's one-pointedness. But also you're not pushing yourself, you're just realizing that you're one-pointed. And there's a one-pointedness in play also. There's an absorption of the awareness on the object of play. That's why I'm using the word is that we're not really playing when we're not paying attention to the play to the play and the objects that are involved in the play. So one-pointedness of object with one-pointedness of mind and object characterize play and samadhi or concentration. So the reason why I like this word play is that sort of play emphasizes the activity of concentration, or the activity of samadhi.

[08:47]

And in this activity, which is flexible and one-pointed, we're ready to enter into creativity, the creativity which is the source of understanding, enter into dependent core rising. And again, I think samadhi, the meanings of samadhi and concentration help us understand the kind of play, help us understand the qualities of the playfulness. So the playfulness will be calm. It will be bright. It will be flexible. It will be vulnerable. It will be spontaneous. Subject and object, according to many aspects of Buddhist teaching, are taught to be not separate.

[10:13]

I just thought of a quote I heard by Albert Einstein, which I may not have it right, but he said something like, the basic affliction of human beings... is the delusion that subject and object are separated. Buddhism teaches that too. Subject and object are not separated, but they can be distinguished. Player and play are not separate. but they can be distinguished. Suffering and sufferer are not separate but they can be distinguished. Realizing the one-pointedness of sufferer and suffering, one is

[11:30]

ready to play. But generally speaking, in the subject of the suffering, in the midst of the suffering, is not compassionate enough to be ready to see that sufferer and suffering are one point, not separate. If the sufferer can be ready to see that his suffering and himself are one point, he will be ready to enter into the creativity of suffering and sufferer, the understanding of it, and the freedom from suffering.

[12:35]

But again, generally, sufferers are not compassionate enough to be ready to see the one-pointedness of sufferer and suffering. And to say not compassionate enough could be translated as not giving enough, not patient enough, not practicing the precepts thoroughly enough, and finally, not diligent enough and not in samadhi enough. So if we're suffering but not practicing compassion, in other words, suffering but not practicing samadhi, we won't be ready to see the one-pointedness of our suffering in ourselves and therefore in that one-pointedness we can see the demonstration of the Dependent Core arising of self and suffering and freedoms there. Now if the sufferer is practicing

[13:43]

with samadhi with playfulness then with that playfulness and again playfulness in the midst of suffering so there can be suffering without playfulness and then we're not ready for revelation of the creativity of our life of suffering where we will understand but in the same realm of in the same realm in the midst of suffering if we're playing In the playing, there is immense energy and immense vitality. And the vitality comes from... Where does it come from? Yes, open heart. That's part of the compassion, is open heart. and giving, and practicing the precepts, and diligence, and samadhi.

[14:51]

What about the samadhi? What about the play? What's part of what? How come it's so energetic? You realize the one-pointedness? How come the one-pointedness is so energetic? Huh? Because you're playful. And how is the playfulness energetic? Because you're not afraid that you're going to die or not, or you're not thinking about the past. The lack of fear, that does help. That helps you be with the play. But what is it about the play that creates the dynamism, that's kind of like the dynamo? Huh? What? What? They're not separate. They're not separate, yes. Right? That's part of it. They're not separate. And what else? Huh? The relaxation is how you enter the space. And so the not separate and the vulnerable are starting to fill in the dynamism of the situation.

[15:56]

Vulnerable to what? Yes, but in particular. Got the not separate and the vulnerable, what else? To whatever comes up. Yes, but also the separateness. You've got the not-separateness, but you've also got the separateness. That creates the dynamism of the situation. And in play, you're vulnerable to losing the balance between separateness and not-separateness. Again, as I was talking last week, this samadhi occurs or the playfulness occurs not in the realm of inner psychic reality and not in the realm of external shared reality, but in between.

[17:01]

But the balance between these two and not going to one side or the other, is very unstable and precarious. So because of the impermanence and instability there, if we can relax into it, it's very dynamic and lots of energy flow in there. And that same energy is the energy of creativity. So if we can relax with and be open to the energy of playfulness, because playfulness is always in danger of being lost. How do you lose it? Hmm? Yeah, not be patient. Yeah, and how do you stop practicing samadhi? What happens then? Huh? You get distracted. No, no.

[18:04]

You can suffer. Suffering doesn't distract you from samadhi. Huh? Separated. Separated. Yeah. Yeah, you sort of go off, you sort of go over to your side or their side. It's very... Huh? What? You start picking and choosing, right. Very dynamic, very fragile, and... And if you don't fall one way or the other, if you're actually in the middle, there's tremendous energy there without you falling over. When you move out, when you get unbalanced, there's still a lot of energy, but then it tends to, what do you call it, it runs down a little bit, plus you're not ready for the other side because you're just taking one side. In the middle, you're ready for both sides and neither, which is what the wisdom is. So if you can be in the middle here with all that energy, that's what it's like to be ready for wisdom.

[19:12]

And we have to be calmly in the middle with all this energy and all this precariousness and all this vulnerability. So we would like to be in a less vulnerable spot because then it would be easier to be calm. So a less vulnerable spot is to retreat inward to our... well, I shouldn't say retreat, but anyway, overemphasize our inner version of reality or conform to outer reality, those ways we're not so vulnerable. But they don't have as much energy and we need to... I shouldn't say they don't have as much energy, but they're not in touch with the energy of creation. So if we give up those two extremes where we feel less vulnerable, and move to the place where we're more vulnerable. It's harder to be calm, but if you can be calm there, you're calm in a place where the full complement of information about the causes and conditions of the moment are coming to you. So, yeah, so it's... there's a great vitality in interplay, at the place of interplay between

[20:25]

So just now when I'm talking to you, I have some idea about what I want to talk to you about, and I ask you questions, and you say things, and when you say things, then my mind jumps to the shared reality of what I hear you saying, what you might be saying. And then I have some more ideas to talk to you about. So I go back to the other side. So the side you're going on all the time. So where's the play? Where's the balance between, you know, my version of what's going on, your version of what's going on, our shared version of what's going on? That's where the play is. That's where the readiness calm presence in that space between is the readiness for wisdom. Do you have some feedback for me?

[22:26]

Good. It's not clear. I'm so unclear, I don't even know what to ask. Pardon? I'm so unclear, I'm not even sure what to ask. Well, I asked for feedback, not questions, so you gave me some feedback. In other words, I think you gave me feedback. Do you think you gave me feedback? I follow it. When you talk about the space between external, when I think about balancing between external reality and internal reality, that keeping yourself balanced there is a good place to understand how things are.

[24:09]

So I can sort of follow with their goals, different ways of saying it. But the space between, when it gets into play, which sometimes sounds interpersonal, and then you say what's happening in between, the external reality of the period, it's all in my mind, that's what I can understand. that what's the, what's, it plays into personal or not. And to me that's very different than a balance of balancing yourself in between what goes on in your mind, you know, the deletion, and what it's kind of not, not actual or not. I don't know if that's helpful, but that's where it gets somehow play, play, and then interpersonal life.

[25:12]

So if analytical thinking is play, I should get it. But if it's interpersonal, it's play. I don't get it. So I guess we're doing interpersonal. The play that's going on now, part of it's maybe each of us with nobody else in the room inner reality and a sense of external reality. Like, you know, we have inner reality about this room and maybe a shared reality that it's the yoga room. We have inner sense of this room and then we have, you know, actual objects like the good old cushion. Okay? But then we're in a room with other people, so then part of the... we have inner sense like when you were talking,

[26:17]

There was my inner sense while you were talking, and then there was a shared reality that you were talking. But none of you had my inner sense while she was talking, but I did. And I can sort of spend more time over here, relatively speaking, and more weight over here, If I put a lot of weight over there, I lose track of here. I lose track of how I can be creative while you're talking, with what you're talking about, how I can be creative with your words. I lose track of it if I put too much emphasis over there. If I keep in touch with my inner reality, I realize lots of, for example, wisecracks come up while she's talking. You know? Rejoiners, commentaries are coming up while you're talking.

[27:20]

I'm not just sitting here, over here. My mind's doing all kinds of stuff which none of you are doing with what she's saying, and you're doing things with what she's saying that I'm not doing. How to keep in touch with my thing while she's talking and yet still listen to her That's kind of like you got both sides there, and the playfulness is not either. But if I'm too much leaning over on my response to her, and now I'm talking, so if I'm too much over on my side of my talking and too little over onto my sense of shared reality about how it is for you, then I'm not ready to move in the middle. Or if I'm too much out into what's going on with you, then I want a touch of my creative contribution. I can't think of what to say because I'm not paying attention to where my thinking comes from or my comments come from. So each of us has to balance between, like right now, you have to balance between listening to me

[28:25]

and, you know, having a sense of whether you're kind of paying attention to me, but also listening to yourself and what you're doing with what I'm saying. Because you are doing something. It's just a question of whether you're in touch with it or not. But if you're too in touch with it, then probably if you checked, you'd probably find out that you weren't... I wouldn't agree with what you think I'm saying. Does that make sense? If you're too much inside, you're being too creative with what I'm saying so that I won't agree that's what I said. And sometimes... What you're coming up with inwardly about what I'm saying is better than what I'm saying. But it's still not a shared reality. You could agree with me about what I'm saying. You could say, you said this, and I say yes. At the same time, you could have a whole bunch of comments or feelings about what I said. To be in touch with both, step by step, then you're like, you're home. This is your whole mind. You have both. Now, the playfulness is actually going on between the two.

[29:31]

And if you relax with those and the dynamism there and the precariousness, if you can relax, you start to participate in the place between, which is neither of those. But that's where the creativity is. Does that make more sense? So you have to set up the situation for yourself. If you're not in touch with both sides, if I'm not in touch with both sides and I'm and in a balanced way, then I'm sort of like not balanced, so I'm not as much in the middle. I'm not in the one-pointedness. Because again, one-pointedness, I have my version of one-pointedness, and then there's a shared reality of one-pointedness. So some students come to see the teacher, and maybe they come in with an inner psychic reality that they realize mental one-pointedness, and they talk to the teacher, And maybe as soon as they start talking to the teacher, suddenly, boom, the external reality flies up and they realize they weren't mentally one-pointed in an external sense.

[30:34]

They only had this inner fantasy. And they did have an inner fantasy that they were mentally one-pointed, which is fine. But they don't have the external. But if you just have the external, like the teacher says, you are mentally one-pointed. You say, great. But if you don't feel it inwardly, if the inner voice doesn't say, hey, I'm mentally one-pointed, I feel like... If you're not dealing with it that way, then you don't... It doesn't count. But really the mental one-pointedness is those two versions giving up both in the middle of them. So even if you did have a version that you're not mentally one-pointed and the shared reality... And you could share it somehow. You could agree, yes, I guess I am mentally one-pointed. You could still find the playfulness and the samadhi in between those two versions of reality. Neither one's right. Neither one's wrong.

[31:35]

They're just a normal situation of a human being, an adult human being. And they're related and they're separate. I mean, they're different. And we keep them distinguished. The actual mental unpointedness is between the two. But we have to give them up to verify that we're balanced between them in the play space, in the samadhi space. Yes? Isn't it true that then, when we do that, then it's quiet, you know? That there is no way to communicate in verbal communication in that place? The place actually is quiet, but it's not without speech. It's quiet, it's still, and it's quiet, but it can talk. But it's not talking. Talking is using these two facilities, which is the field you're in, of your inner and outer.

[32:44]

There's plenty of words there. So in the balanced place, The words can come out through these things, and the words can come out in such a way that inwardly and outwardly it makes sense because you're balanced. But it is quiet there. That's right. There's no words in the middle. There's only words on the periphery. And there's plenty of words on the periphery, inwardly and outwardly. There's inner stories and outer stories. which are fine. But in the middle is a place where the stories will change, are changing, can change, where changing of the story is not a problem. So your stories of reality and my stories of reality and our shared stories of reality, our shared stories, they can evolve when we're playing. But again, when we're not playful, stories are stuck.

[33:49]

But again, just to go inwardly and inside let your stories roll, that's pretty good. Like if you have a story that you're a jerk or that you're a prince, to let that story move is pretty good. And if outwardly you have stories and those stories can move, that's pretty good. But if both of them can move, I would say that's even more realization of wisdom. So we have a lot of terrible stories going on in this world right now, right? And it's not that we disregard those stories, but we need these stories to be able to move. And we need to get people to participate in the movement of the stories so that new possibilities can occur. So people can do things which they couldn't do because their stories wouldn't allow them to, which will allow Israelis and Palestinians to play STORIES HAVE TO MOVE, AND IT'S REALLY HARD TO MOVE THESE STORIES WITH SUCH EXTREME PAIN.

[34:57]

THAT'S WHY THESE STORIES WON'T BE ABLE TO MOVE UNLESS WE CAN PRACTICE PATIENCE, PRECEPTS, AND SO ON, AND BE PLAYFUL WITH THEM AND LISTEN TO THE OTHER SIDE, BUT WITHOUT LOSING TRACK OF OURSELVES. BECAUSE IF YOU LISTEN TO THE OTHER SIDE AND LOSE TRACK OF YOURSELF, THEN EITHER YOU'RE GOING TO GET SICK OR THEN YOU'RE JUST GOING TO FLIP BACK TO THE OTHER SIDE AND YOU'RE GOING TO OVER-ASSERT YOUR OWN POSITION LATER. because you just temporarily submitted. So you don't acquiesce. You don't just conform and comply. You really, like, arrive at an agreement. But you also keep in touch with... It was an agreement, but you have all kinds of creative opinions about that agreement. Like that story... Did I tell you a story about my daughter at the gymnastics class? So she goes, when she was like pretty young, like three or something, she went to gymnastics.

[35:59]

And she wasn't actually too interested in gymnastics, unlike my grandson. He likes to do stuff. She didn't like to do anything. She didn't like to copy anything, imitate anything. She just liked to relate. So she was a troublesome kid in the gymnastic class because while the other kids were waiting to do their various things, she was talking to them. And then when it came to her turn to do it, she wasn't very concentrated because she basically hadn't been concentrating on the things. She was more just talking to the kids in line. So the teacher complained to her parents, and we told her about it. And then the next day, picking her up at gymnastics, the teacher said that she was much better. And then I said to her, either I said to her or Mother said to her, the teacher said you were much better. In other words, that she conformed and didn't talk in line.

[37:06]

She said, yeah, but I'm still bad. In other words, the bad thing is this girl who wants to, like, talk instead of do gymnastics, right? So she didn't lose track of the fact that really she's just sitting there saying, I'd rather talk to these people than just to stand in line quietly. See, you know, it is possible to go along without overly, being overly compliant and losing track of your inner reality, which is like, this is not that much fun compared to, like, talking to these people. So you got to keep touch with both sides and then relax in that dynamic situation. And then if you can relax in it, you opened all the energy which is like in their interplay. But if part of being playful is really engaging the other person, understanding the other person, or really giving that situation a chance and working with it.

[38:10]

Yes, that is part of it. If that's part of it, but Rather, that's the potential of it, that the relationship can evolve in a positive direction because of being playful. So it includes what you said. Okay. I'm just thinking, you know, it's difficult to keep track of how much do you throw yourself into the situation, say it wasn't the three-year-old, how much do you... say it was somebody older trying to figure out if they really like gymnastics. Yes. How much do you really surrender that part of yourself and figure out if you're really going to enjoy this thing and how much do you hold on to this thing of talking to the person next to me and concentrating on this thing? You know, because then it seems like you're in a position of you're not really present in what it is that you're participating in to really play with it because you're... folding back, or... Well, like, let's make it whatever age you want to.

[39:15]

You're in a gymnastics class, and if your inner thing is you'd rather talk to the people in the class than do the things, but you understand that most of the other people, including the teacher, think it's... they're trying to make a case for, like, doing, you know, paying attention to these forms. and they're less interested in promoting the social side of your life. But for you, it may be that the social side in this particular situation is more important than learning this thing. And you don't have to shift over and change your own personal feeling about what's most important to you. The shared reality could be the teacher wants you to put more emphasis on paying attention, and the shared reality could also be that you tell the teacher that you're not that interested in paying attention, but you still like to be in the class because you like the social life in the class.

[40:28]

And then the teacher might say to you, well, I don't want you in the class then. because, you know, I want to set this thing up where people are putting, who are more interested in learning these things than talking to each other. But during this whole conversation, there could be both the shared reality. The shared reality is not that you, you know, the shared reality could include that you're not that interested in learning gymnastics, but you still like being in the situation because you like the social life there. But the teacher might say, well, actually, I don't want you. I'd rather have you be someplace else. And that could all be done in the spirit of play. If both of you, well, not even both, but if you, the gymnast is also really interested in social interactions rather than personal physical skill. Actually, personal interactions are also a physical skill.

[41:34]

But anyway, you're interested in that. the verbal side more than the physical interaction side. That's your reality. But you could also share that with somebody, a fellow member of the class and the teacher, and you could playfully work out whether you stay in the class or not. How would you do that? By being aware of how you feel moment by moment about what's going on and what your take on the situation is. At the same time, keeping in touch with what their understanding is, and whether you have it or not. And it is difficult to do that. It's difficult to be balanced in an interaction. But still, this is not the playfulness. The playfulness is ungraspable. you know these other two sides are graspable you can get in touch with your what your feelings are and the way you feel about the class and what you think about the class and you can also get in touch with what the teacher wants and you can conform to it to some extent and you can also while you're conforming you can have your own sense of what's going on there you can be aware of those and that's fine that's part of your life now playfulness is neither of those but the playfulness

[42:52]

is facing the dynamism of keeping track of both sides. Keeping track of the inner and outer. Keeping track of whether it's okay for you to talk now or not. Keeping track of how you're moving, how you feel about it, and actually what you're doing. Actually the bar you have and your posture and all that the actuality, the fact, and the way you relate to it. Like, you know, Donald teaches yoga, and there's these sort of like so-called facts of the postures and so on, but he's always like changing, he's always in his mind changing the way he talks about yoga or thinks about yoga or teaches yoga. So he has his inner version of it, which is constantly working, and the outer version. But the playfulness is how both sides don't stick together. And that's going on all the time.

[43:54]

But we have to, like, be in the... If we go to one side or the other, then one side sticks and we lose track of the other. Or we go to the other side, that side sticks and we lose track of the other. So we lose the dynamism when we're not balanced. But the balance is hard to grasp. And so dynamic and energetic, it's very hard to be there. So it's a real... It's a great art and a great skill to be able to find this place. But this is our developing the readiness for the tremendous energy of creation, tremendous energy of wisdom. This is how we train ourselves into that space and prepare the ground for living in the place of wisdom. So samadhi and playfulness are the way we get ready for wisdom. Does that make some sense? And then while I'm talking to you, I'm kind of like keeping track of how playful the conversation is.

[45:00]

Keeping track of whether I'm balanced between the two and whether I'm living between the two while I'm talking to you. Giving myself little grades on how playful and how balanced and unbalanced I am. And I notice I get off one way or the other a little bit now and then. Does the calm come from practice? Because I've sensed that there have been times when I've touched that area, but because it was so new, it was not calm. I was not calm. So does that aspect ever come from practice of entering the playful and realizing you don't die? When you enter the playfulness, you enter calm. Okay? In other words, it's not a calm like, you know, it's not a tense calm.

[46:05]

It's a flexible calm. So we usually think, you know, sometimes we think calm like... It's not that kind of calm. It's a flexible calm. So the calm which is squash it is not a real calm. You know, it's just a, I don't know, what do you want to call it? It's not the kind of, it's not the soft, relaxed, living calm. It's not the tranquil, at ease, relaxed calm. Samadhi and playfulness are calm and they can operate while you're quite active. That's why I'm putting these words together so that you understand that So when you are actually playing, it's calm. And if you're not calm, you're not really playing. You're over on one side or the other. You're judging the playing, or you're somewhat concerned about whether you're calm or not, or how you're doing at the playing, or how you're doing at whatever.

[47:13]

But whatever we're doing, part of us is concerned with how what we're doing relates to other people's version of reality. That's part of our life. If you're not concerned at all about the way you're sitting right now in terms of shared reality, about whether we agree you're sitting in a chair or not, if you're not keeping track of that side of things, you're just not paying attention to the fact that you are involved You do live in a world that your mind has created where there's a chair and a body in a chair. That's part of your life right now. And your elbow's on another chair, and your fist is in your cheek, and it's on your left cheek. And that's your world, you know? That's part of your world. The other part of your world is your inner world. This is your life, Patty Hawes, you know? You got all this stuff going on. If you're not taking care of all that, then you're not there.

[48:16]

But when you're taking care of that, you're pretty much there. And now if you relax with that, then you're not just in your inner version and the external version, you're in the middle between the two, and there is a middle. There's a place which is neither, which is more dynamic than either. And you're there too. And that's where you're already calm right now. That's your mental one-pointedness right now. It's right there. But somehow we have to recognize if we don't take care of both sides, then we don't feel calm. Actually, both sides are there, and between those two sides right now there is calm. But if you don't keep track of both calms, then you're shying away from the dynamism of your life, so then you can't partake of the calm. So you ask, does the calm come with practice? Well, in a sense, yes. But another sense is the calm is the practice. And the practice somehow, as you practice more and more, somehow you trip into the practice, which is the calm.

[49:25]

Partly by, as I often have mentioned, by repeatedly confessing that you're on this side or that side, that you've lost track or I've lost track of my inner sense of what's going on now in this conversation, or I've lost track of our shared experience. You know, what I, in some sense, would imagine is our shared experience, which I mentioned to you, is that, you know, you're sitting in a chair and you just change your posture a little bit, and you seem to agree. And then each of us has our inner version of what's going on, too. And our inner way of... You're working on... I'm verbalizing this over here, but that doesn't fully account for my inner sense of our conversation. There's some uncertainty over... Inwardly, there's some uncertainty about how it's going. And probably on your side, you have all kinds of things going on over there that I don't know about.

[50:30]

Yeah? And I didn't know that. And so we've got this between us, you know, we're both working this way, and there's a dynamic here, and if we can relax, we can move to the middle. And that's where the play is, and you just saw a little example of it. Something quite surprising, right? Yes, Gloria? Okay. Yeah. The things that you've said over the past couple of weeks have been immensely helpful to... The sitting each time was really different, really intense. And I don't know that everybody would... contained in a family but well without some of this information played with it.

[51:40]

Because one week, last week, it was about pain. And on one hand, I had sort of the shared idea of what pain means, something small, something bad, and blah, blah, blah. And then my fear of the pain, the need to control the pain, to get away from the pain, whatever it meant. the idea of who lay. And so just being able, at some point, because it wasn't, I went back and forth for a good while, to begin to, I found myself exploring the painting, as opposed to getting caught up in here and being fascinated at one point. And then I start worrying again about, is there something wrong? What does that mean? But what eventually happened with that was just, Pain is not the same. I don't really care one way or the other, but that's what I know. And then this week it came up with thoughts and perceptions that I really had no orientation for.

[52:43]

But again, not needing to hold on to them, push them away, just let them be. It was really useful. Like that. And then in the real, because this is like a special, this is like a special space to enjoy these things or to explore them. But in the real world, yesterday, I left this on the beauty train. On the beauty train. You left your purse on the train? Yeah, the purse of the train. And I didn't realize it until five minutes away from the train. That train was gone. So I could have just felt followed to everything. It felt like my life was in there, which isn't true, but it felt like it. And I was able to just let that be a medication. It ended up two hours later with no purse and every reassurance of any kind you need drivers there. I probably wouldn't get it back, but they tried so hard. One guy gave me two bucks. I made things I would have never expected, and I had kind of a good time.

[53:44]

I lost my purse. And even though it wasn't coming back, I was like, I can live with this. I shut everything down. In the afternoon, something said, P.T., go home. And I did, and there was a message there from a woman saying, Lori, I have written this for you. My students turned to person at a college at the other end of town. So I would say, forget it. And it's not like that means anything, but just being able to stay open about it. really fun experiences that I could have missed. And so, I think there was a lot of play there. That's what this is about. Yeah, right. So the relaxation allowed you to enter into the playfulness and the creativity of the situation. You didn't tense up and get stuck into the simple story of lost my life in my purse. That was one of the stories. But, you know, that wasn't the only one that could happen because you relax and things could evolve.

[54:51]

And sometimes it has a happy ending in terms of the thing, too. But sometimes it's a better ending when you don't get the thing back. But it's okay. Thanks. We have a shared reality. Lots of people are smiling now for some reason. I had this idea that they liked that you got your purse back. I'm just identifying because I go through that same anxiety about every hour when I think of my cell phone. So it's a constant thing to deal with. Where is it? Do you have a headset for your cell phone? No. I worry about it. Would you please get a headset? I'll consider it. Thank you. Carmen?

[56:05]

A couple weeks ago you were talking about play. engaging with someone else who will play with you. Yeah. That side of you. Right. And this is all very new to me. I've had a hard enough time with this concept of space. Too good. Too good. It seems infinitely harder to... Do it with someone else as well. I don't know if infinite, but it is harder. It's more complex. It's more complex. And if that person doesn't play with you, then it's harder for you to be in that play space by yourself. Right. Well, I don't know. Anyways a challenge and but it the thing is that the challenging people give your check, you know, let the Samadhi evolve and as a Samadhi evolves You in some sense you become ready for deeper and deeper wisdoms, too So there's a good side to these challenging situations and one of the special things that make that's that playing with somebody else involves is that when you learn how to play by yourself in your meditation

[57:20]

in simple situations, then next phase is you go and you meet this other person and then you be alone in the presence of another person who may or may not be able to play. But Gloria talked about a special situation at the beginning. If the person can play, that's good. But the more important that they can play is that you have confidence that you can respect them. In other words, that they'll be there even if you respect them. And I'm playing with the word respect. In other words, they'll be there and they'll be available And they won't abandon you even if you forget them while they're there.

[58:22]

Part of play is to respect the other person and part of respecting the other person is to forget them. So partly you need to trust the person and trust yourself that you won't kill them if you forget about them. Because, again, respect means look again. But in order to look again, you have to forget what you saw to some extent, let go of what you saw. But if you think you're going to lose the person or it's going to hurt the person if you, like, forget who they are, then you don't, in some sense, you don't respect them. In other words, you see them and you hold them the way they appear. You're not being playful. So part of being playful is to test the playfulness with somebody else to see if you can meet them and let go of the meeting, let go of what you see. So part of what you have to have confidence in in order to do that is that it won't be the end of the game. It won't be the end of playfulness if you forget the person while you're with them and then remember them in the next moment or two.

[59:36]

But I like to say it that way that you have confidence that you can trust the person, that they'll still be there if you forget them, and then when you remember them again. That doesn't seem like it's being playful. If you're forgetting them, it's like you've retreated into your own reality or your own sense of like you've lost. Maybe not retreated, but just recognized your inner reality of them, you know, that you feel that you can feel your inner reality of them when you're with them. But if it is a retreating, then it isn't really... Or even if it is a retreating, I think you need to know that you can make that mistake with the person.

[60:46]

You need to know that it's allowed to go to one extreme or the other, because otherwise you get tense. So, again, part of the flexibility is you check both sides. And in checking both sides, you might lose track of something on the other side. you know, in a big way. But you need to be able to, you need to be able to do that. And in fact you do do it, but you need to be open to doing it. We do make those mistakes, we do go to those extremes, and we need to be able to, we need to do that with somebody. with somebody who we really want to have be there. Which is like part of the danger of the situation. What's a selfish thing?

[61:55]

Well, kind of to allow yourself that freedom to... not feel like you need to keep contact with that other person. It could be seen as selfish, but that's why I like the word respect. But it seems like you're not respecting them. You're just forgetting what you think they are. You're not forgetting them. They're still there alive, you know. You're just dying to your version of them. When we meet someone, the first thing we do is we have... it's our take on them. We always have that. We don't have the shared reality necessarily right off the bat, like, you know, I meet you and I have a take on you immediately, but I may feel like you're upset or happy or whatever. It takes a while to find out what the shared reality about you or what the actuality of your inner state is.

[63:01]

Or I may think you look good, and you may think you look bad. And I may say, you look good, and you may say, what do you mean? I don't look terrible today. I checked just a second ago. And then they might think that you're overly concerned with your looks, and you might say, no, I'm not, or whatever. But whatever part of it. If you don't engage with that, if you let go of that totally. No, but we can engage in that. I can engage in that, but still, moment by moment, I might stop for a moment and forget my impression of you. Not retreat over here, but forget my version of you. But not forget it and get out of touch with it, but know that I forgot it. Dare to forget. Not you. It's not contact with you. It's that I dare to let go of my version of you. Which is also, selfishness could be here and there and everywhere through this whole process.

[64:07]

There could be plenty of selfishness pervading the whole situation. We're talking about how to move in a place where we understand how the self is in relationship to the other, how the subject is in relationship to the pain, how the subject is in relationship to the play. This is part of what we're trying to find out. So, yeah, so this is all really trying to find out what our true relationship is. Not exactly trying to find out what the other person is, because there really is no other person or any self. We're really more, we're in this interplay, and we're trying to access that. And to some extent, there might be some selfishness, like, I would like to, like, access wisdom, you know. I could have that attitude about it. But there's something unselfish about wanting to understand this too, because it really would be good for other people if we could understand this. It would be good for everybody we know and meet. It would be a boon to the world and for any of us to realize this wisdom of interdependence.

[65:15]

But in order to do this, there's some dangers, like letting go of this and letting go of that. There's some dangers. People might sense what's going on with us and be frightened themselves or feel various things. A lot of things are possible here. That's part of why we hesitate to get into this, because there's danger to the self. These misunderstandings of the self are in danger now. So the selves we're carrying around, holding on to, these selves are going to start moving and changing. This is dangerous. Was there a hand? Jenny? So if someone charged you, I think, for example, a week ago, for example, someone talking kindly about her. So in your conversation with that young woman's now, are you suggesting that if you meet that person again, if that's quote, unquote, charged you, that you would just start to pressure that person?

[66:24]

Oh, here's this person. I don't have anything to speak to you about this person. No, no. To say you don't have any preconceived notions of the person is your sense of the person. You think, I have no preconceived notions of you. That's my sense of you. But in Doreen's example, she had a lot of preconceived notions. She felt anger. My interpretation of the story is that she felt hurt and her slander and her anger. And so she had a feeling of distrust toward that person. So the next time she sees that person, that is going to arise in her, perhaps? Yeah, perhaps it will. So let's say it does, that she has this sense of, here's that person who said these bad things about me. So she has that feeling. That's part of what's going on for her. Okay? Then the other side is, well, who is that person?

[67:26]

Really. I mean, the person isn't just my ideas about them. Some other people might have quite different ideas. For example, if that person said nice things about that person, the other person, then those people might think she's really a nice person. So they have a difference. So we know that we have a sense, perhaps we have a sense, that our version of this person as kind of a cruel, slanderous person or something, our version of them, we have a sense that that's our version. And it's not an objective, that's not an actual fact. If we think it's an actual fact, then we're not, we're a little out of balance. Okay? A little out of balance. If we then sort of force other people to agree with our version, then we're way out of balance. Like if we say, this person's a blah, blah, blah, and people say, well, gee, I didn't, I don't think that, and we pressure them, then we're becoming more in trouble. But, of course, often we're over on the side of our inner version of some person, and we, with the factual side of them, we're a lot out of touch with.

[68:35]

And we can get in touch with the other side by work. We can work at it to try to get in touch with the factual side. We can talk to other people. We can check with the person. We can verify. We can do a lot of work with other people to establish what is the external reality that people share. We can work on that. Now, it may be difficult to work on it if we're still holding on to our inner version and the inner version is very negative, then our information gathering may be hindered. But part of information gathering is is to develop empathy for other people to try to find out what's going on with them and then check to see you know now you just said this this is what i thought you said is that what you said and they say yes so you you kind of like back and forth your reality check with somebody even somebody you're having problems with that's that's that you're developing empathy you're starting to understand their point of view now you may have your still your inner point of view which is kind of saying i really don't want to be doing this work because i hate this person but

[69:47]

then you're still staying too much inwardly with your inner reality. But you can still hold on to some little grievances and stuff inside while you're trying to develop empathy for somebody else at the same time. They can still wind up to be different, even though you understand the person and they even say to you, you're really empathic. You can still have an inner version that they're untrustworthy, that they've hurt you in the past deeply and stuff like that. But they might actually be able to agree with some of your inner things about that they've hurt you. But that they've hurt you is different than that they're a rat, which you have a lot of trouble establishing, actually. But it's not so difficult to establish that they've hurt you and that you're afraid of them or whatever. But then what do you know about them? So then you find out that stuff. And then the next time you meet them, after doing that kind of work, you have a more balanced attitude. You have a feeling like, I have this version, and then the other side.

[70:51]

A lot of times people say, well, that's just, you know, you say this and you say that, and you say, well, that's just so-and-so. But when you find out it's just so-and-so, it's not exactly that so-and-so is just what you think, because you still have your inner version of it. It's just that you have a shared reality now, and that creates a little lightness in the situation. And then the next step is find balance between those two. And then the more balance you get, the more you let go of them, the more you let go of them, then the playfulness comes into the situation and the relationship starts to become... we start entering into the vitality of the relationship, the immense vitality of your relationship, even with somebody who is very challenging. And not... I should say even, but... with people who aren't so challenging, they also can be... they aren't necessarily worthless. If you enter into the dynamism between your pleasant version of them and the shared reality of them being pleasant, still there's playfulness available there too.

[71:54]

But then we're afraid to enter that sometimes because this is a nice relationship and we don't want to enter that space between where we're going to lose that nice relationship. It's going to change. It's not going to be so nice anymore. So we tend to stay away from it because things are very surprising in that space between. And, you know, they might turn into a demon. Who knows? The story's going to change, right? What's it going to change to? What's the surprise going to be? That's why we have to learn how to be relaxed so we can stand the surprise. And some people are having difficulties. The surprise could be that it's more difficult. And some people know difficulty could be that it's going to be more difficult. But this is the price of entering into wisdom, is being vulnerable to surprising things. Not spending so much time controlling the situation so then we can get more information about what's going on. Okay?

[72:58]

Rana? In this situation, we are risking to harm someone, or ourselves, or others. Yeah, you're risking... Yeah, but you're also... If you don't enter that space, you're not exactly risking harming people, you are harming people. You're harming yourself. If you exclude yourself from this dynamic part of your relationships, you're hurting yourself already. Because you're missing out on your life. And it may or may not hurt other people. But it hurts other people some. It hurts other people who are trying to practice this way. Because it hurts them that you're not taking care of yourself. They care about you. And it hurts them. But the thing is that staying away from the dynamic situation where you can get hurt or where you can hurt others, you'll never be free. But in the dynamic situation, also you can still get hurt, but you're going to learn there.

[74:02]

You learn, you understand in that space, and then you can become free with others. But it's not that there's no risk or no danger in samadhi. It's just that you relax with the danger rather than tense about it. If you're tense in the danger, you move to the outskirts and to the extremes. If you relax with it, you move to the center where there's creativity and wisdom. But both situations are danger, different types of danger, but there's danger in both cases. You could hurt yourself in either place. But one place, even if you're getting hurt, you'll be free. We're all going to get hurt at least once more before we die. And probably we'll get hurt several times. But the question is, can we... Can we relax into this dynamic space of samadhi with our... Can we bring samadhi to our illness? Can we bring giving and patience and precepts and diligence and samadhi to the pain?

[75:04]

And then if we can bring enough compassion to the suffering, we'll understand the one-pointedness of suffering and sufferer. And in that one-pointedness, then we'll start to see the interdependence of suffering and sufferer, of self and other. up playing and playing. Then we start to understand and become free, even though we still may have some physical problems or mental problems, or live in a world where there's tough stories to meet, you know, where there's stories, you know, people's, you know, again, we have these stories and we have people's versions of the story, and then the factual versions of the story, and we're struggling, the world's struggling with what's so-and-so's version and what's the facts, right? It's a big argument. These people think this is reasonable. These people think it's atrocity. Right? Where is the healing? Healing is in wisdom. So that once we have the wisdom, then we can develop and realize... When you have wisdom, you understand our true relationship, and we can then use that understanding to help other people join our true relationship.

[76:15]

But there is danger throughout, because we're always... in danger of becoming unbalanced, of losing track of one side or the other, and then, you know, we're getting off. And some harm and injury can occur when we get one side or the other. Get to this side, you know, and then you're going to, like, lay your trip of what's going on on people. Get to the other side, you're getting along with this group of people that's right here anyway, but you're out of touch with your own life. and you're just going along with some group and then switch to another group but no matter what group you're with if you're too much unsighted getting along with the group that particular thing like you know what is that it's tuesday night if you're sort of with that group rather than the you know japanese or into wednesday morning if you're too much with it you're losing track of the fact that you don't know what time it is and a matter of fact you're just

[77:19]

you know, you're doing something quite different about the day right now. But, again, that's not the point either. The point is that both of what it is to be alive is to do both of those, and the healing is in between. But the danger is danger there. The danger is you'll get out of a healing space and get into the extremes again. I'm not sure if that's... I'm not sure if I was clear about what I wanted to say. Someone sent you an email, and you read the email, and the compulsion of the anger is like, boom. You want to write something very strong back to them. You need an assistant. You need an assistant to read your emails for you. I don't have an assistant. So I Send me your emails.

[78:21]

I'll throw them away for you. You don't want to play? Okay. But the playing you want to do, you want to finish. Is that right? Right, but that's not playful to make sure you're going to get help. It's reasonable that you... I mean, it's a perfectly reasonable thing that you want to make sure you're going to get help. You know? Come to this class and make sure you get help. That's fine. That's a reasonable thing. I have nothing against that. But what we're trying to learn here is you come to the class and you give up. You let go of that. You don't hold on to that. But don't throw it in the garbage either. And then when you pick up your email, practice the same thing. So... Maybe there's some expectation I want to get a nice email someday. So how do you, when you, when you read the email, how do you practice this?

[79:30]

You read the words and the pain starts coming, okay? It starts to get painful. How do you, huh? I wait. I wait. You wait? Well, how about feeling the pain? That's, that's... Yeah. It takes time. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe, again, that's why it's good to have a secretary. Or just be a slow reader. Or read your mail not so often. But anyway, somehow, you've got to feel. If you don't feel while you're reading, then you get out of touch with your feeling and get too much into the words, and then the pain builds up before you have a chance to even notice that you're in pain, and then you get angry. Because, you know, you don't feel it step by step. If you can feel it step by step, which is practicing patience with it, feel the pain word by word, then you can bring compassion. The compassion is coming to this letter, you know, to this pain.

[80:37]

And then you can start playing with it, get into the playfulness. But you have to bring compassion to yourself feeling the pain while you're reading the e-mail. If you don't, you won't be able to play. You'll just flip into anger or whatever, or self-righteousness. You just go over to one extreme to protect yourself from the pain. You've got to feel it in order to realize the playfulness of sufferer and suffering. It doesn't mean the letter still may hurt you. It may still be painful to hear someone being unkind to you or someone else. That still may hurt. If we're not ready to practice patience with our emails, we're not ready for wisdom.

[81:41]

If you, if when you pick a phone up, we talked about that before, you know, picking up the phone, you know, who is it going to be? Is it going to be a telemarketer? You know? Good night. You got to, what did you say? I said nine times out of ten. Yeah, right. So are you ready to practice patience? And if not, I guess just sit down and get ready to practice patience. Maybe you don't answer that telephone call. But then each time the telephone rings, you're just like, check. Patience? No. Patience? No. Patience? No. But that's the practice of patience. In other words, patience. Confess that you're not practicing patience. I'm not ready for samadhi. I'm not ready for wisdom. Because I'm not ready to practice patience.

[82:44]

But you're not hurting anybody. You're getting ready, and you're finding you're not ready, and you confess you're not ready. You just keep doing that, and someday you'll be ready to pick up the phone and meet the pain. Like my assistant. You know? My assistant answered. Remember that call that he took? Did you hear about that story, Ronna, from my assistant? Well, he picked the phone up one time, and it was a telemarketer. And he was ready. He was ready to have her do her thing. And she did her thing, and then he said to her, Because he was facing whatever discomfort it is having somebody talk to you about selling you something like that, he was thinking, you know, because in the session we were in, that same day I talked about thinking about when you meet someone, think about what good question could I ask them?

[83:54]

What question could I have that would help people? But if somebody calls you and is irritating you and hurting you, first of all, you have to deal with the pain, maybe. Once you deal with the pain, then you can think, well, I'd like to ask them a question. So then he says, can I ask you a question? And she says, yes. And he said, now, do you have to make a certain amount of money to have this car you're trying to sell me? And she said, yes, you have to make this amount. And he said, well, I don't make that much. She said, you don't? How much do you make? And then he told her, and she says... Where are you? Says, well, I'm living in a Buddhist temple. I don't really get much money. They just give me a little stipend and room and board. She says, oh, what's it like there? And he told her, and she said, can I come there? So, you know, but he didn't get angry at her, even though it's kind of irritating on your break. during a meditation retreat to have a telemarketer to call you.

[84:57]

It might be my best time. Well, it was, in this case, because he was, like, he was, like, into, like, trying to accept what comes, you know? And so, I don't know how irritated he was, but anyway, he didn't get angry at her. And then he asked her this nice question. which turned the conversation away from what wasn't applicable to him anyway because he couldn't get the card that she was selling him because he didn't make enough money anyway. And then she found out, you know, about Green Gulch because she asked him because it was so strange. But he was also nice, you know, so she wanted to ask him some questions. So maybe you could... Pardon? Pardon? Would it be terrible if we all started telling non-marketers we live at Green Gulch? You can tell them that you live at Green Gulch if you're really nice to them.

[86:09]

Maybe sometimes a little lie for a good cause is...

[86:12]

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