And the very highest bodhisattvas can stay conscious through the whole process. So just think about how hard it is to stay conscious when you have, what do you call it, you have self-vision, you split into two of you, then two of you split into four of you, then four of you split into sixteen of you. Imagine how hard it would be to stay conscious at that time. Where am I? Which one am I? Am I all of these or part of these? At conception, you know, at conception, you know, there's just like the egg, the little sperm and the egg go together, and the sperm comes over and the egg goes, and the egg goes, and then there's life, you know.

[01:07]

That's pretty hard to not get shaken by that, but again, when it splits, that's really hard. And then you're like this little fetus in there. It's your little girl, little boy. You've got to go down the tube. Very hard to stay conscious. Like, what did I come here for again? To save beings? Oh, yeah, sure. And you don't even have any language, right? Can't speak English or Chinese anymore. It's like, how can you remember your intention without even like any words or sutras, you know, because you're just a little guy or a little girl, you know. You can't like say, you know, I take refuge in Buddha. But actually that's part, that's the point, is that why you can speak English, you say, I take refuge in Buddha, or why you can speak Chinese or Japanese, you say it in English and Japanese, or say it in as many languages as you can, actually, just in case, depending on what kind of a mother you get.

[02:12]

Because, you know, actually somehow, what is it, sometimes you can do the sacrament even though you, like your brain did. If you learn the sacrament when you have a brain, You hear the sacrament, you hear the words of the sacrament, and you learn how to do it, and you can do it even when your brain's dead, possibly. So you can do it through, from one life to the next, through the embryonic phase, you can still practice the meditation right through that process if it's really strong. That's the idea. So for me, you know, I started wondering, how will I practice if I get Alzheimer's? I can't remember the thumbnail much on the sutra anymore, right? How many types of phenomena are there? How many types of lack of own being are there? How do those go together again?

[03:18]

I heard this story about this guy, you know, in one of Oliver Sacks' books. He's a guy who was an alcoholic, and as a result of his alcoholism, his, what are they called, mammillary glands at the base of the brain were destroyed. Huh? I think they're called mammillary. They affect your memory. If they go, you can't remember. You lose your short-term memory. So he had lost his short-term memory when he was 19. He was in the Navy. He remembered everything before 19. And so he thought he was 19 and in the Navy. But he was at the time that Oliver Sacks met him, he was 49. And he was living in a convent. Yeah, a convent. Catholic nuns, I think. Roman Catholic nuns. And they had him in there.

[04:26]

Huh? Huh? He thought he was 19, right, but somehow he... Well, you'll see that. Anyway, he worked, he was like a handyman for them, and he did typing for them. And he could remember for a few seconds. So if you met him, and you'd say, you know, if you met him, he'd say, he was pretty friendly, and he'd say, hi, my name's Bill, what's your name? And you'd say, oh, hi, Lillian. And then he'd go, what's your name? And he'd say, hi, Catherine. And then he'd look at him and say, oh, hi, how are you? What's your name? And he'd say, oh, nice to meet you. And he'd say, what's your name? And he couldn't remember that long. And then if... And he could type short sentences. If you're too long, you would lose the being's track of the beginning. But he could take short sentences. And one time, Oliver Sacks kept telling me, he said, you're not 19 anymore, you're not in the Navy, you're 49 years old.

[05:32]

And he said, what? You're crazy. I just couldn't understand it. So then Oliver Sacks took a mirror and held it up to his face, and he saw this 49-year-old man in the mirror. And he was really, really, really upset to see that. But mercifully, in a few seconds he forgot what he saw. And the sisters said, you know, when he does the communion, he does it with an unusually profound presence. When he goes up there, he receives the body and blood. He does it with more presence than most people do. He really fully does it. And so, I think that part of a religious practice is to do a practice so that as you go through all the changes that we go through, you have a practice.

[06:40]

The practice is not... More and more, you get more and more skillful, and it's not done by you. It goes on, and you go with it. As you shift from you doing the practice to the practice happening through you with the support of all beings, when you lose some of your facilities, it's not a tremendously big change. And particularly when you lose your facility to think, I do the practice. That's a rather advanced illusion, actually. If you're brain dead, you can't think that way. The voluntary stuff goes away. That's why you want to make practice involuntary. So it's like so deep in your nervous system that if you become whatever, practice goes on. That no matter how upset you are, you're still in samadhi.

[07:40]

You're still calm, even though you're like, Ranting and raving. Hey, I'm not going to say anything about that. All I'm saying is that that's what I want. I want to practice so that if I fall off a cliff and do brain damage, that I have a practice that doesn't depend on what my brain does. I want my practice to be the practice that new people are doing with me. So that's why when I sit here and see you all lined up there, 100% attendance, I can lose my mind, but my practice is right there, 18 people sitting.

[08:46]

And if you people die, there'll be 18 to replace you. So that way, That's really my practice. My practice is not what I do, it's what we do together. So if I get shot in one way or another, if my practice is not what I do by my own power, my practice goes on. It's not really my practice, it's the practice of all beings. Right intention. That's freedom from karma consciousness. If we can make that shift. Does that make sense? It's a big change, but that's sort of what I'm shooting for, because that will serve me through Alzheimer's, etc. That will serve me through all the changes that can happen.

[09:50]

You name it, this will work. And it's not just immortality. It's immortality of the practice. It's not just that I keep living, because I won't. It's that the practice goes on. How can that go on? That's my concern. And the more I think that way, the more this person, while he's alive, is happy. That's what I said earlier in the last period. Buddha's activity and Buddha's activity is your meditation, and his meditation, and her meditation, and her meditation, and his meditation.

[10:57]

Buddhist activity is not just your meditation, but it is your meditation. It's everyone, every individual person's meditation, that's Buddhist activity. It's not yours. But you have the great joy of knowing that Buddhist activity is your life. And if you don't notice that, then you don't miss that joy. So why don't you notice it? Why don't you accept it? Hmm? Why not? Why worry about your activity? You switch over to Buddhist activity as being your life. And you ask for feedback. Just to make sure people don't think you're getting too off track. You say, hey, it's Buddhist activities, so I'm not responsible.

[12:01]

Wait a second, that's not what Red said. I heard you changed your name, is that true? I heard that you changed your name. From Cone to Woodman. It was changed. It got changed. You didn't change it. You didn't do it. It was done by all sentient beings. Before it got changed, it used to be Cone. And Louise told me it used to be Cone. And she said, do you know who the other Lenin colony is? And I said, yeah. And I said, did you know he's a Zen priest? Yeah, he's a Zen priest. He's not a Zen priest anymore.

[13:02]

He switched religions again. What did he know? I don't know. He's got an Indian guru. No, Dr. Roshi doesn't have a dharma successor. When did you hear that? I don't think I said that in there, did I? I don't think I said it. I think he's withholding, which is something which if you'd like to comment on that, Dave would be happy to do it. Anyway, it's a very nice picture. But Leonard is no longer with the old boy. The big opening. The big opening, yeah. So Dave told me that some people were requesting a Dharma talk tonight.

[14:31]

Who requested it? Who? Who are those people? How many people requested? Four or five. Was it all right that we had one? Okay. You can voice it and it can happen. However, voicing it does not necessarily make it happen. Huh? With your support, yes. With the support of all of you, I can refuse. For example, I can stop now and go to sleep, and so can you. Want me to? It was a nice treat. You're welcome. So I should listen to how they don't.

[15:58]

exist independently. I should listen to the teaching of how they are dependent. And the more I listen to that teaching, the more I'll be ready to sort of say, well, my imagination that they're independent doesn't really reach the way they are. You start to learn this trick of meditating on emptiness by first listening to dependent co-arising teachings. Then you start to imagine how things could be free of your imagination, that they inherently exist. And then that understanding will help you understand that dependent co-arising, that teaching also is free of your imagination about it. Okay? I don't know who was next, but did you have a question this morning?

[17:22]

Yes. Good and bad are empty. Yep. In other words, good and bad are empty of your ideas of good and bad. Doesn't mean it's not good and bad. Again, watch out for that one. Good and bad are empty. Now, if you hear that teaching that good and bad are empty, because all dharmas are empty, and the phenomena of good and bad are like other phenomena. They're empty of your idea of them. If you hear that teaching, then you say, well, I guess it doesn't matter. Why should I be committed to practicing good? If you think that, then you have to put aside that thinking for a while and go back and say, okay, I vow to learn to practice good and to give up what's bad. I really mean that, even though I don't really know what they are, because I'm, you know, caught up in my ideas of them. But this helps you practice good and good less self-righteously quite quickly.

[18:24]

Okay, so back to your thing. Good and bad are empty of your ideas of good and bad. I think you would realize that what you're doing is you're... Well, we have the word experiment, right? Experiment is related to the word experience. So if you choose a candidate, you're doing an experiment. You're seeing someone, you're seeing an image of the person, and... And if you remember that what you're seeing there is your image of the person, then you're going to be less sure that this person really is what you imagine them to be. So when you choose a candidate, you realize you're taking a risk, which is the case. Now, if you actually understood any of this,

[19:29]

You know, you realize that you do have a function that can be called voting, you know, there is such a function, but that function of voting is also free of your ideas of what voting is. And your voting activity would be enlightened activity. Okay? you still may only get one vote. I mean, we might say, well, let's give Buddha more than one vote. But let's just say, Buddha, we just say, I think it's actually cooler just to give Buddha one vote. And just watch how Buddha goes into the polling area and walking on and says, you know, hello, my name's Buddha. And now, here's your card, Buddha. And how does Buddha vote? Watch how Buddha votes. And the way Buddha votes, it's still just one vote.

[20:32]

But the way they're voting is an expression of this enlightened activity. So the various places that the Buddha votes are just one more vote for those things, but what's actually going on there is free of your idea of what the Buddha's doing. And what everybody's doing there is free of your idea. To be tuned into that channel is the channel of where you're liberated from suffering while you're voting. You're sharing that with the people in the Poland area, which they may or may not be picking up on consciously. But in fact, you are with them, and you are giving them life, and they're giving you life, and that's the dimension you're in. That's the dimension of enlightenment that you're procreating together with everybody. And somebody, I guess, people have different imaginations of who got elected and so on and so forth. And I don't know if the Buddha would go to vote or not.

[21:41]

We have to see. We have to see, do we have anybody, do we have any beings who do understand emptiness? And if they understand emptiness, they're supposed to be able to show it and demonstrate it. And they demonstrate it by having unhindered, beneficent activity. But again, I never heard of a story so far of any Buddha going to the polling booth and voting in such a way that everybody in the universe really became completely free at that moment. But that's what they want. But it hasn't happened yet. So what's it like to look at certain people in our government and to remember that what they are actually has this character called emptiness, but they are empty of your ideas about them, and that they're doing things that you maybe have problems with,

[22:57]

But what they actually are, and those problems are actually free of your ideas about that. And to meditate, to do this wisdom training, at the same time that you hold the vow to live for the welfare of all beings. You live for the welfare of all beings, you want to promote kindness and protection of beings' welfare, and you see activities which your mind imagines as harmful. and you remember that what's actually going on there is free of your ideas of harmful, but there's something which is the basis. There is a harmful activity in a sense, which is the basis of your imagination of harmful. It doesn't say there's no harmful activity, it just says that your version of harmful activity, what you call harmful activity, what you're seeing is imaginary, but there's something that's the basis of it, which you call harmful. You have to call that harmful.

[24:00]

But what it actually is is a spray of your idea. So then what do you do? If you think that, to put it negatively, if you think that what you imagine is actually what that thing is, then you will be less affected, then you will not release suffering. If you understand that the basis of this thing is free of your idea of, quote, harmful, you will be able to release suffering in that occasion. Similarly, if you thought something was beneficial and you believed that it was beneficial, I mean, you think something's beneficial and you think that the way you imagine it is the way it really is, then you will be suffering and your activity will be less skillful. If you understand that even when you see beneficial things, That's what your mind imagines. And there is something in the basis of that idea, beneficial.

[25:02]

And you understand that, and you understand that things free of your ideas, then you will release suffering when there's benefit. There can be harm when there's benefit, and there can be harm when there's harm. There can be suffering in both cases, or there can be freedom in both cases. So again, when you do this meditation, or when I do this meditation, I have to keep watching and make sure, do I withdraw from these situations, and if I do, then the medication's not being properly applied, because you should apply it to things like voting. When you go to the campaign situation, and you go to whether or not you're going to work for a candidate, are you doing this meditation at the same time? This meditation should make you more effective in working in a political situation. And if you notice that you're losing your concern for the political world, then you might be getting too much over on the side of not emptying it, but imagining, again, that nothing matters because what you're seeing is just your imagination.

[26:11]

So things do matter. Every living being's ultimate, you know, infinitely important. Every living being is infinitely important. And can you hold that the same time that you realize that this infinitely important being is free of my ideas of this person, including their infinite importance, without undermining your devotion to the being? The political process is something that deserves our devotion. Can you be devoted to it without being self-righteous? Self-righteous means what I think is going on is right, rather than what I think going on is imaginary. But it's based on this thing which I'm devoted to, namely the political process. And I want to make a good contribution. I very much want to make a good contribution to everything in this world, including the political process that's in my face.

[27:12]

You have to watch that so you don't like to lose interest in it because it's mediated by your fantasy. The Buddha also would look at the political process and have a an imaginary version of it. But the Buddha would say, well, that's my imaginary version. And then the Buddha would also see the way the political process is in absence of his imagination. And then based on that, the Buddha would come back to the imaginary world and be beneficial. So we need to develop both sides in order to help beings in the situation. on-the-job training, you know, because we have to learn these meditations while we're actually in the world today. We can't wait until we're completely enlightened to start applying it. But you can start noticing yourself, you know, when you think of certain political candidates or current officeholders, you can notice you have views of them, and you think things are harmful, and there is harm in the world, it's just that it's not

[28:26]

It's just that it's also free of your ideas of what it is. And that should make you more effective in dealing with the current situation. That's supposed to help you be more, a more beneficent and helpful being. That's the whole point of it. Okay? Yes? What's your name? Vanessa. Vanessa? How did the life, let's say, for example, so many murders going on? Yes? And when the individual provides black compassion and acceptance for the other person in recognition that they are of black, of ethnic, of the same thing with which they are allowed to be racial, for the individual, Well, like if you take their example, you know, perhaps even someone who appears to have who appears to be a murderer, who appears to have done something very harmful to other beings, you see that, it appears to you, that's what you see.

[30:01]

There's a reason why you see that. The idea here is that, the idea that the Sutra's bringing forth is that if you can see this aggregate, this aggregate coming together to form the appearance of a murderer, and you understand that this aggregation which is appearing to you is empty, is actually empty of the aggregation, that the murderer is actually empty of your ideas and images of the murder, you could see that and understand that, then you could interact with this dependently colorism murderer in a skillful way, in a helpful way. The way you, in a sense, the way you interact based on this understanding is not really human, it's Buddha. You're really Buddha at that time when you interact with someone who in your human way appears to you as a murderer.

[31:02]

If you can relieve yourself of believing that this person is the way you imagine them, then you will become free of suffering and in your freedom from suffering and in your purification of your of your compassion, you will be able to be more helpful to this person, to yourself, and to everybody in the environment. That's the idea. It's not so much the he, she, or it in the lack, but he, she, or it lacks. The murderer doesn't really reach the person. The image of the murderer doesn't really reach the person who we imagine to be the murderer. Then you can be helpful. If you really think that when you see a murderer that actually the murderer which you imagine is really what's there, then you suffer.

[32:09]

And in your suffering and confusion, you don't necessarily help. You might just murder them. In other words, you might be a murderer to the murderer. And then that doesn't necessarily enlighten anybody. If it did, that would be wonderful, but usually it doesn't. So, in closing, to consider the human experience of the pain in which the individual will feel, the loss of a child, and the number of symptoms. Would it be true that individuals could use a better place on their experiences of loss of audiovisual lung function? They could use himself or herself to be different in the loss of a child. Or basically, that sounds good to me. And then it's possible once this horrible thing has happened, you know, this person has some skillfulness, this cruelty, this terrible thing that's happened in the world, now the question is, that's happened, now what good thing can happen?

[33:29]

If you can meditate this way and relieve yourself of the suffering related to that, then maybe you can also help others become free of the suffering related to that. Once the terrible things happen, we have enough problems, right? So now that something terrible has happened, now can it be something beneficial in response to the terrible thing? So there can be, right? Terrible things can happen and people can have beneficial responses. But also terrible things can happen and people can latch on to their version of the story and then they can do something other terrible and relate to it. Generally speaking, when people are attached to what's going on, they act less skillful than they will be if they're not. Generally speaking, when you believe your imagination of what's going on, you suffer, you're confused, and your skillfulness is undermined. That's a general principle. If you can relieve yourself of the way you think things are happening, get a break from it, then you can come back and be more helpful.

[34:40]

That's the basic idea of this. What time is lunch? 1230. 1230. One more question? I think you were next. A lady with glasses. Yes? Well, another word for this imagination is that when we see things, whatever appears to us appears as a self. But you look at me and what you see over here, what you imagine is over here, is a self. It's something that's self-existent. You don't see how... You see this self-existent thing rather than all the conditions making you.

[35:47]

So that's the way we generally take things. We see things as selves. And when we see ourselves, when we see our personhood, when we see who we are, we see ourselves as a self. That's another synonym for the projection of independent existence is the projection of a self onto everything we see.

[36:14]

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