today our dear friend
passed away
he was eighty four and a half
i last saw him on tuesday evening
hand and
he said since the last time i saw you have gone
ellie
he he didn't say down but he had his hand and aridi he brought it down
can i said you seem much weaker
and i asked him what was most important
now and he said to die right
that was tuesday

and i said
i wish to join you in that practice and he said how can you and i said
iraq live right

i've out to live right

some of you don't know fred
but friends
almost all almost every ah one day city we had here fred came
and he often came in the morning peak v any halls came in the morning and sometimes you just stayed till noon so i will usually see fred in the morning
and fred when he usually ask a question
and
he has really good questions
he also he also would often confess
on his lack of faith and practice
before his teacher
who he let me be
and so he would confess his lack of faith and practice before me
over and over and he would ask questions and often i would come in sure is questions with
the group
he loves this group will have this community loved going out community

fortunately
as you can see right up till the last time i song every time i visited him
he asked for instructions about how to practice and i would give them to him and he
ah he said that he would practice them
his as fully as he could
and sometimes he was he would say that he's having trouble concentrating on the practice
but he still wanted to
focus on the practice of
freezing in without dwelling and body and mind breathing out without abiding
in the elements of consciousness

just like
i instructed you to do he was trying to practice that way
he had trouble concentrating
just like we do

what's an iguana
they members
of the sanga was with him
support him along with his wife
hum his name is meal you and he helped for his wife landing get through the night and he stayed with fred
after he died and atlanta had to leave the room but she came back and she said he was very relaxed and peaceful
the china the heart sutra hinder his room
huh
so are are sung along not be the same without fred
but
hum
speaking for me i'm so happy that he practice with us
for about twenty five years
when he fed was very honest with me
but
higher was formed to practice

whenever i suggested a way to practice with how hard it was he always
he always said i will try can thank you very much
and then as i said he'd come back
and tell me that
he failed
can i would tell them again and he would say i will try and thank you very much
and i said to his wife elena
at last on tuesday i said you have been very devoted to fred
and you can you are very devoted right now and you seem fine
and she said yes i am right now
but what will i do and he's gone
i said you need to find other beings to be devoted to
and this morning when i talked to her she said you told me that i've been devoted to fred
and i need to find new beings to be devoted to
and i want to do that please help me find
who would be devoted to now
so let's help refine who would be devoted to know because
she realizes it
that's her hotness that's healthy life for her is to be devoted
two human beings
when
she also asked me she said i can't stand to bring friends ashes home to the house may bring them
do you and i said yes she may
so she will bring me a fresh ashes after the cremation
she also thought that friend loved green gulch would want to be
i put into the earth at green gulch and i said we can do that the preferred
we don't do ever everybody but fred did many many are in january intensive that green god's i think he qualifies
so if you want to qualify
you know what to do
when it's not a public cemetery green gulch it's for practitioners
it's they must not open so if you want to be green gosh come in practice there
intensively

have people are saying to me on
sympathizing with me forever have so many sick friends now
and
i feel grateful that you're all supporting me to take care of my sick friends
and you have so i don't know how many more years you'll support me to be with my sick friends but
i'm up for it
more precious years of supporting people to practice
through sickness and health how wonderful
so help me
help me help people
let me help you help people
we're doing it less continue

and in order to help people in the best way
i feel we need to take care and pay attention to our body
we help people best when we're aware of our our body posture
and are breathing this is a this is a basic mindfulness for us to take care of
which is the path of wisdom and the path of being skillful supporter of other people's practice
and be
to train to give up to being distracted from from our mindfulness in a bar body can are breathing
and to give up distraction from listening to the teaching and remember the teaching
and listened to the teaching and remember the teaching
so that we can be good
supporters and servants
while living beings

i frequently ask
human beings
what is most important in life
this question comes from this question arises in consciousness
and and then it gets expressed in words which i give to people and they hear me
and then they hear me in in
they hear me
unconsciously
and they hear me consciously
and an eight maybe they see an answer to that question
and then they'd tell me
when they see the answer that question they can see the answer to the question in consciousness
the questions answered the question the question appears in consciousness and the answer doesn't always appear but when it appears it appears and consciousness
it it appears in consciousness consciousness is where things appear
part of our life
it's not about appearances
well we're alive and
where functioning but there's no appearances and not unconscious mind supports the conscious mind and in a conscious mind there's an appearance of the question what's most important in life an aunt
you may appear there too and that answer then we can use to guide our practice
so just recently i said what's most important as someone said
to be present people often say to be present
and then they i say to be present in the moment
where to be present
here
i offer you the teaching that the moment is something that appears moments appear
and they appear in consciousness
here appears in consciousness
so you in consciousness we can be present with sheer
and
this moment
and then we can
also
we can do something called study the self
in this consciousness
that there's simple there seem to be somebody here there
there is a subject here in this consciousness
and we can study that subject
when when we understand that subject
thoroughly will be free of misunderstanding it had been free of misunderstanding this subject this self which lives in consciousness
we will be wise and are wish to be compassionate will be unhindered
by distraction
and confusion about what the selfies
we have the opportunity
the study consciousness
the study what appears there
to learn to be undistracted era study and to study the self there
and become free
of consciousness
and when were free of consciousness we can use it to benefit beings
to help paste
join the same practice and the same enlightenment as all beings and all buddhas and bodhisattvas

consciousness is where all of our problems arise
have consciousness is also where we learn to practice
and will we learn to practice it transforms our unconscious and body and mind and are unconscious are transformed unconscious body and mind supports a new consciousness which is again who now more
ready to practice and study itself
because consciousness can know itself and i can no itself
it can no itself and it can know it's self
it has a self
many people tell me before and after they tell me what's most important they tell me that
that
the kind of would like to get rid of the self
the kind of wish the self which is connected to self concern and fear etc
they kind of wish that maybe they can like get a glimpse of having not having not having a self around like just
not there and i would say to you that nobody's gonna get a glimpse of a self not being around
can you see how that's impossible
first of all if the self wasn't around there be nobody to see that
second of all there's not a self around there's no consciousness
third of all and i can this number can be increased quite a bit third of all whenever you're in dreamless sleep there's no self
every time you go into dreamless sleep you get a break from having itself which is fine it's quite restful
it's a vacation from self concerned and all that comes with it it's fine
it's good his a restful enjoy it
and when i say enjoy it i mean unconsciously enjoy it
can you do
and then when you had enough dreamless sleep then you get dream sleep and in dream safe the self comes back
in consciousness we have the outrageous fortune outras largest slings and arrows of fortune or in consciousness
but then you can die
which is basically the same insight in a lot of ways conscious conscious wise dying is like dreamless sleep
to die to sleep dreamless sleep
perhaps to dream
ah there's the rub
when you've rested enough
consciousness arises again with a new set of dreams and in greenville there's a self
and then when you've had enough of that you wake up from sleeping and then you have awake dreams with a self and this is where we are our trouble
but it's also will be here that teaching and sometimes think yes i want to practice
i really do
and i like to learn how and i've heard that this is a place to learn the place where i hear the teaching and think i want a practices that's where you learn to practice it
i learned the practice it in a place where there's problems
where there's birth and death where they're sick friends that's where you learn there's a self there
when i tried to get rid of it were trying to practice compassion towards the self and the sick friends and say thank you to the teaching and put it into practice learn how to do it and if they get distracted
revealing disclosed a distraction before the buddhas and ancestors and go back to work go back to play that wonderful work of learning the path of enlightenment which is the work of learning how to study the self in consciousness
this the study the consciousness which has a self and has perhaps some need
are quite a bit of misunderstanding of the self and with them misunderstanding comes stress distress
nausea
and turbulence
giddiness and some on this is normal that's why we have to even before we understand itself we need we need to learn practice compassion
as best we can before were wise and wiki in some people are actually quite good i practicing compassion even though they still don't understand the self is totally process and not at all anything you can be
concerned about because there's nobody outside the self process all the cells are inside self process
there's no self outside of sell process but they're in there is self process there really is a cell process and nobody can get a hold of it but partners our processes that it's a think you can get a hold of a process
so that's part of a deal
but you can see through the illusion of that if you study it
and you can study it if you want to
and you can want to if you look inside and find out that you do
and if you look inside you don't find out that you do it's gonna be hard to do it
because it's not necessarily fun
but if you look inside you say i've heard that studying the self is the boot away i've heard that is going to really be helpful to everybody if i would find understand myself so i do wanna do it then you have a chance
then we have a chance
but yet check and find out that you want this because it's hard work
the tide works is so much going on and consciousness right it's so
well
it's it's it's really alive
and it's not sitting still
and it's got so many interesting things other than studying the self going on
so he had to really say i really do want to study and i wanna actually
be kind all is going on so i can calm down as understand the self
yes i really do
maybe
check it out see if you do if you do as a lot of resources to support you're doing that because a lot of people want you to do it and think it really would be good and they want you to learn us so you can help them learn it we can help each other become various very skillful and
more and more undistracted in the work of studying the thing that's in consciousness called self
the study the process that lives in consciousness to study the process that gives consciousness life
this life life
of consciousness includes the self life is the mean consciousness is the place where the self lives
and self lives in consciousness
and we can study it
we can

and friend studied himself and he told me
what he saw
and i was happy to hear that he could see something about the self
and it was a wonderful practice we had together
and the merit of this is going to help us and elena
and ah
his stepson and his grandchildren
they have been benefited and they will continue to be benefited by the effort he made
in the painful work studying the self of fred broth

he could see his resistance
and tell me about it which you did over and over

week also could look inside we can look in consciousness we can be aware and notice any resistance and we can be kind to it and we can understand it and we can become free of it
and then again

well
many of us were really miss fred
our community what will be different now
but i think perhaps you could join me and being encouraged
by the way practiced
and be encouraged by his life
by the way he practiced and that we will carry on the work which he wanted to practice and did his best practice

huh

lead us in a song for free
i'd be happy to any suggestions
sally
okay
as long as i haven't sung a song for a while so i'm
i might get the words off but for something like this
calm and said i are sigh if you love us do not hasten to bid us do
but remember the green gulch valley and the cow people that love you so true
now they say you are leaving this valley we will miss your bright eyes and three smile
for they say you are taking the sunshine that has bright and our path for a while
how's that fred
pardon
i was asked that earlier and i do not remember
but i can find it
and that feature ceremonies we will use it but i i don't remember what it was it was something
ah amazingly wonderful though

yes when time i've said so she is next to her friend
because we will sit in chairs
next to each other and we took the meals to you and after her accident at the end of the sushi told me that
he indicated that i caused him from the
and the reason was that i sat still
i never forgotten
just just so amazing for him to share that wouldn't have to her tonight
you can cause trouble
anyway
have a picture for anyway

at last practices
thank you for bringing it
huh

yeah

well i'm
it is there anything else if the that you wish to say at this time anybody
yes
one of the time
software and using the first race and sex
the stairs because somebody was coughing
i think that something
so i say of course because
any setting where many oceans between us close and after that and when he said he kept confessing
it was hard for
i decided i confess

and also how wonderful it was that he could come coming in and still be serious and practice have been devoted to so i take them live
today
oh responsiveness of things that don't need to be responded to
can be overcome
ellis you can try
thank you
yes
many of us were there for his to
so proud of it absolutely
the who
yes
really where the sweetest
remember once on the balcony he was tired one time here and
henderson one of to lie down on his are the somber tones and taking a breath and he said
it was like i had given him a gift in congested saying that and i felt his gave me a great gift
sandwich
no excuse me i have a p s to my common based on the aegis of customers
please pick up louis identified as planned
yes to my comment and that is the observation that i made with you the perfection of wisdom is not just following the rules and seven expand into them whatever rules they on and somehow be flexible on less
i mean why shouldn't we clap why shouldn't i caught why shouldn't i you know that's not the issue is not to be disrespectful to anybody but it's to enlarge from within and to use use what we have the
become what we are given and what we keep some
indicating the can lead a movement made us and some this narrow view of mine
in that regard as
the
huh
we can do us
a server for you this morning i get how far we can do a service for him and a few minutes if you like
may i can be
a and to ever the and plays
say
the south
nice to say than the other is our exhaust to know
as to end the down
and
as
as you enter on the best way to surpass the hello hi to the camera and if you
i think we can remember to put on the website for know about that announcements about services for fred
you can check if you want to see and the next week or so
he food you can check and find out
other than