So we've been talking about the three pure precepts. In early form they are to refrain from evil, to refrain from all evil, to practice all good, and to purify the mind, your mind. So last week we talked a little bit about the first one, refraining from evil. And I talked about approaching this first precept in some sense from your ordinary conceptual

[01:03]

Mind. In ordinary conceptual mind, most people is like, I'm this person, and you're that person, and I put my glasses on, or I put these glasses on, and I take them off, I breathe, I'm born, I die, I eat, I sleep, I refrain from evil, or I commit evil. This is the normal way of thinking that most people are into, right? Anybody have any problems with that? That that seems kind of an ordinary conceptual approach to life? So then you have this precept called refraining from evil, so then you think, well, If you want to do that practice, or if you want to study that, you think about how to refrain from evil.

[02:08]

We talked about that a little bit, or actually a lot, last week. I'd like to start, which I think I said something when I was leading up to this, and that is with the idea, the principle, that if you... If you approach this first precept of avoiding evil, if you approach the precept, the teaching of the Buddha, which is to not do anything evil, that is the teaching of the Buddha. Don't do anything evil. Do not do any evil thing. All Buddhas teach that. And if you don't have that teaching, then it's not Buddhist.

[03:13]

It's not Buddhist teaching. Buddhist teaching always is to not do anything evil. So you hear that teaching, or I hear that teaching, and then I have to start doing that teaching from the point of view of my thinking or my understanding as it stands now, my dualistic, conventional, conceptual approach. I have to start that way. If I try to start some other way, that will just be another conceptual way to approach it non-conceptually. So basically, we will approach it conceptually probably at the beginning. But if you are thorough and you follow this conceptual approach all the way to the end of that approach, you come to a place where the conceptual approach leaps out of itself into a non-conceptual, non-dualistic, inconceivable actuality of this precept.

[04:22]

Ultimately, this precept is not about something in the realm of karma. But when we hear this precept at the beginning, we understand it in terms of karma because it says don't do anything. In other words, make your karma into not doing evil. But basically, any kind of karma is evil. Anything you do, anything that you do by yourself, independent of other beings, violates this precept. But in attempting to practice this precept, when you first start trying to practice this precept, in fact, you're still violating it. And as I said last week, if you start to realize that while trying to practice the precept, while trying to practice not doing any evil, if you start to realize that you continue to do evil, you're starting to wake up.

[05:28]

If you think, even if you don't try to practice this precept, even if you never heard this precept, even without hearing this precept, if you think, I actually don't do any evil, such a thought is evil, if you believe that. To think that you never commit evil is just simply self-righteousness. If you think that way, you are one of the more dangerous people on the planet. You get to be classed among the top layer of dangerous people. you will find there, when you get put in the group, when you get invited to the convention of these people, you will notice that everybody else in the room is a terrible criminal, except you. I think most of you would be able to spot that.

[06:31]

Some of them would not be able to spot it. But I think you people would be able to tell right away that everybody else in the room was a criminal. And you know, you would be right. These would be the world... leading criminals. And you would be one of them. Although being a Zen student or whatever, you look better. You've got membership to various clubs which are dedicated to the welfare of beings. But your attitude that you don't break any precepts and never, well, maybe you did a while ago, but you don't do it anymore. This is the attitude of the most dangerous criminals. Now, there's another group of criminals who are less dangerous who think that they do some precept breaking. These are less dangerous. And then so on, until you finally get in a group of people who realize that they violate the precepts constantly, and then you have people who are on the verge of Buddhahood in that group. If you try to not do any evil, as you get more and more into it, you'll notice that your approach is faulty.

[07:47]

There's something haywire in the way you're approaching it. Because all your delusion will come to bear on your attempt to avoid doing things based on delusion. Well, your ignorance will function through your attempt to avoid doing things based on ignorance, which, generally speaking, tend towards evil. And the basic ignorance being that you think you're an independent operator. So, since we have that tendency within us to think we're independent of other beings, if we act from that place, that is a basic error. But if you start to wake up to that, and then start to wake up to it more, and start to wake up to it more, gradually you realize you become more and more awake until finally the attempt to practice not doing evil, in a sense, from that approach, will completely collapse.

[08:56]

And you finally realize that you are absolutely... incapable of avoiding evil as long as you're approaching it from the point of view of your own personal egocentric point of view, which you have just applied assiduously to the end. And when you get to that point, you're ready to give up practicing from that point of view and start practicing from the point of view Well, from no point of view. From the point of view of all beings. You're ready to start practicing these. You're ready to start getting this little help from the Buddhas. You're more in the position of, well, I have actually made a few mistakes for quite a while. More or less for countless eons I've been making mistakes. I'm still prone to them. As a matter of fact, the way I'm talking right now is quite erroneous.

[09:59]

And I beg for some help. Please help me. Please help me, you know, not cause any more trouble by thinking that I can practice these precepts on my own. But we have to do this kind of, we have to do it sort of the wrong way, all the way to the end of the wrong way to realize that the wrong way doesn't work. So we have to do it that way. And you can't skip over this way. So, how do you do it this way? Here's how you do it this way. This won't work if this is how to do it. This is how to find out that it won't work. This is one way to find out that it won't work. There's many ways to find out that it won't work. I can't go into them all, but you have to go into them all. So here's one way. This is a good way, I think. When you think, when you're about to do something, if you think that it's not good, don't do it.

[11:01]

Ever. Simple, but difficult. You're capable in some cases of thinking about what you're going to do and thinking that it's not good. I think most of you are. If you think it's not good, then I would suggest as a way of trying to practice this first precept, that One way to avoid evil is that if you think something is evil or not good, don't do it. Now, if you think something is good, and you're about to do something you think is good, then, as a basic principle, I would suggest that you do it as soon as possible. Now, I would also suggest that if you think something's bad or harmful that you're about to do, this only has to do with your own actions, by the way, in case that's not clear.

[12:10]

Only talking about yourself. Don't think about what other people are doing and stop them from doing evil and get them to do good. This is about yourself. If you think something is evil or you're about to do something evil, don't do it. But also, when you don't do it, when you try not to do it anyway, Also see if you cannot do it without thinking that you're right in your opinion that it's wrong. Try to do that too. In other words, try to be un-self-righteous when you don't do the thing you think is evil. That may not be possible, and if not, I understand, then just go right ahead and think it's right, and think you're right about it being right, I mean, think it's wrong, and think you're right about it being wrong, and then don't do that. But if possible, realize that you only think it's wrong and it might not be wrong. But if you think it is, don't do it.

[13:15]

Don't think, I'm suggesting you don't think, well, I think this is wrong, but I might not be wrong, so I'm going to do it. No. If you think it's wrong, don't. And also, if possible, be a little open to that you might be wrong about it being wrong. Because sometimes you don't do something that you think is wrong, and then people tell you that actually it would have been good to do it. And you might be a little bit more open to learning if you were a little bit more open to your opinion being incorrect. On the other hand, if you think something's bad and you try to stop from doing it and you successfully don't do it, and you think also that you're correct in your opinion that it's bad... then if you get feedback that other people thought it wasn't so bad and it might have been good if you did it, your reaction to that will be so strong and negative and arrogant and hostile and so on that you'll learn from that too. You'll learn that holding to the righteousness of your opinion, you'll learn how that works.

[14:19]

So it's not that bad to be self-righteous because usually you will learn that that is bad. That is evil. So, in other words, you can learn by your mistakes. Now, if you're just a little bit more sophisticated and you notice that something seems to be bad and you don't do it, and then it seems to work out pretty well that you didn't do it, That's pretty nice and that's the way I suggest you go. However, if you look more carefully and you get more and more skillful at not doing what you think is evil, you know, stopping yourself from doing what is evil and not being self-righteous about your opinions, you'll gradually start to wake up to more subtle forms of evil. Namely, the evil you're doing through the whole process even while you're avoiding doing evil. you start to notice that there's something arrogant about your whole approach.

[15:27]

And the more sincerely you try to avoid the things which you already think are wrong, the more you open up to the more deeper and deeper levels of evil. Refraining from doing evil will start to make you conscious of other evils which you're doing that you're not conscious of. Practicing, I should say not refraining from evil, but refraining from evil and also attempting to refrain from evil, attempting to practice refraining from evil will... help you become conscious of evil that you're doing, that you aren't conscious of. For example, if you attempt to refrain from things you think are evil, you'll notice that sometimes you can't. Even in the gross way, you sometimes can't.

[16:29]

When you start to open up to the fact that even the things you know are wrong, not wrong, the things you think are wrong, and you don't want to do, and you're committed to practice not doing them, even those things you do, when you start opening up to that, do you understand? If you open up to seeing, here I am, trying to refrain from evil, and yet I'm going right ahead and doing it, feeling bad about it too, but anyway, still doing it, confessing it, and getting up off the floor and trying again to practice not doing it, but still, if you can open to that failure, you can open to the failure of things which you have not even been able to notice. things which you don't even see that you're about to do. Like, for example, most of us do not notice that we're about to think that we're separate from others. And you just went ahead and did it. But if you don't try to refrain from evil, you won't notice that you're unsuccessful. I shouldn't say you won't, but you would be less likely to notice that you're unsuccessful if you don't try, because if you don't try, you could say, well, I'm not trying, but if I tried, I'd be able to

[17:36]

I'm actually not trying to refrain from evil, but if I decided I wanted to, I could stop. If you try, you'll find out that you can't. And if you find out you can't in one realm, you'll start to find out you can't in realms you didn't even know about before. And the sense of your inability to personally fulfill this precept will become pervasive. Do you ever get to the point where you don't even want to get out of bed anymore? You get to the point where you don't want to go to bed at night. Oh my God! You get to the point where you don't want to go to bed and you don't want to get out of bed. You get to the point where you don't want to do anything. In other words, you become Buddha. Buddhas don't want to do anything. They don't want to go to bed, they don't want to get up. All they want to do is just like, save beings. And going to bed doesn't save beings and getting out of bed doesn't save beings.

[18:38]

You just save them on the spot. How do you save them? Don't do evil. That's one of the main ways. So you forget about going to bed, getting up, stuff like that, and you just like beam not doing evil all day long when you get to that point. Wow. Total, radiant, safe salvation. That's it. The only business you're into at that point. If you happen to fall in bed, you may never get up. So you'll beam from bed. Doesn't matter. You have no, you have no, when you get to the point of realizing how thoroughly evil human beings are, when you get to the limit of feeling the pervasive, totally pervasive evil of human nature, you leap free of it and save all beings. But who has got to that point? Everybody's kind of a little squeamish about that, aren't they?

[19:42]

Don't you think that you're just a little bit evil? You're a little bit evil, and some people are a little bit more evil than you, and there's a few people that are really evil, but certainly you're not one of them. But not even really evil. I'm talking about 100 total, completely all-pervasive. Evil completely covers everything. It's all-inclusive. There's no limit to it. It doesn't put on the brakes. I saw this movie. It's not a movie, but a runner. It says, one of the greatest accomplishments of the devil is that he has convinced people that he doesn't exist. Especially, he's convinced him that it doesn't exist, you know, where? Where doesn't it exist? Huh? In them. Where? In them. It doesn't exist in them? Who's them? It doesn't exist in me is what the devil's convinced me.

[20:43]

The devil's convinced you that you is the Holy One. That's a successful devil for you. And hasn't the devil been fairly successful? Well, yeah, I have some problems, but basically... I was talking to somebody after he just created a major problem in the universe. And he said, well, you've got to admit, Rev, basically I'm a good guy. And I said, yeah, I agree. But also, basically you're one of the most destructive people I know. And you really worry me because you don't think you are. I said, I think I'm destructive and I'm kind of like, you know, you're bigger than me. It frightens me that you don't, that basically you think you're a good guy. That's basically what's happening rather than also, by the way, basically, fundamentally, all pervasively, you are good. All of us are good. And it wasn't the devil that convinced us of that, because the devil actually, that's not the devil's message.

[21:48]

The devil's message more is that you're not the devil. Because good is all-pervasive, but the devil wants you to think that you've got the good. Good is all-pervasive, evil is all-pervasive, and compassion is all-pervasive. So when you get to the point of realizing the all-pervasiveness of evil and you're not squeamish about that anymore, then you're ready to practice refraining from evil, which is not something you can do. It's not a personal trip. Buddha's practice is not a personal trip that people do. It's something you do with everybody. Refraining from evil is not a personal trip. So again, as we try, and we must try, we must try and try and try with our whole heart to not do anything evil, because it's by trying sincerely not to do any evil that you realize that evil is all-pervasive.

[23:03]

And when you get to that point, you're ready to really realize the practice of not doing evil, of refraining from evil. Refraining from evil is the practice which is actually the practice of the way things actually are. Refraining from evil is not something you need to sort of like establish in the world. It is the way things are. This person, wherever this person is, this person, precisely this person, at precisely this time, and precisely this place, is refraining from evil. Now, I don't mean that this person is refraining from evil. I mean this person, being this person, is what we mean by refraining from evil. You, you being precisely you, precisely at this time and place, is refraining

[24:17]

At that place and at that time, evil is not created. This is where you leap to when you've tried to practice refraining from evil from your personal karmic point of view with your whole heart. You, being precisely who you are, is Buddha and Buddha is refraining from evil. Buddha is the refraining from evil. This is inconceivable and yet I'm talking to you. These are the words about Buddha and this is the speaking of Buddha. And this is refraining from evil, but not the refraining of evil which you do.

[25:21]

Evil arises from causes and conditions. And if you understand that evil arises from causes and conditions, not to mention that you understand some of the causes and conditions by which evil arises, I think some of you know some of the causes and conditions by which evil arises. Do you know some of them? I can mention some later. But anyway, I've seen some causes and conditions by which evil arises. If you can see and understand that evil arises by causes and conditions, is born of causes and conditions, if you can see that or understand that, and yet you don't understand that the causes and conditions of evil are refraining from evil, this is a very unfortunate slip. The Buddha... understood that evil is born of causes and conditions and the Buddha saw that the causes and conditions of evil are refrained from all evil.

[26:45]

And that's why you have to try to refrain from evil because if you try to refrain from evil you will be able to see the causes and conditions of evil. If you don't try to refrain from evil, you might not have much of a chance to see the causes and conditions of evil. In other words, if you don't try to refrain from evil, you might just go ahead and do evil like everybody else. Everybody's doing it. But to do it unconsciously is the problem. We have to start doing our evil consciously. Or... we have to start being conscious of the evil we're doing. If you're conscious of it, you can see it. If you can see it, you have a chance to see its causes. If you have a chance to see its causes, you understand that it is caused. That's the first step. If you can understand that it's caused, you can understand that its causes are refraining from it.

[27:51]

But if you're checked out from the realm of where evil is being committed by you and me, but for me, for me, and for you, for you, if you're checked out from that space, you can't actually see the causes. And if you can't see the causes, you can't see the refraining from. When you see the refraining from, by seeing the causes, evil does not invade you anymore. But also, You do not invade evil. The causes and conditions that make evil appear in the world may go on for quite a while. I don't know how long it will go on. But the Buddha does not destroy the appearance of evil. The Buddha doesn't say destroy evil. It says refrain from it. The Buddha doesn't destroy evil, doesn't eliminate evil. Because, one of the reasons why the Buddha doesn't do that is because the Buddha understands evil is all pervasive.

[28:58]

The Buddha can't knock it out. Also, good is all pervasive. The Buddha can't get it in. The Buddha sees how evil happens. And how evil happens, ladies and gentlemen, is avoiding evil. How it happens is the avoidance of it. But you have to get in there, get intimate with it, and be conscious of the evil you're doing in order to witness its birth, its function, its causes. And if you can see its causes, it loses its effect. Then evil does not express itself as evil anymore. It loses its teeth. Evil does not exist. It's not that evil does not exist. It's not that evil does exist. Evil is all-pervasive, but the way it's all-pervasive, it doesn't fall into the category of existence or non-existence.

[30:03]

If it did, it wouldn't be all-pervasive. It's not existent, and it's not non-existent. It's all-pervasive. But, the Buddha way is to avoid it. avoid what is all-pervasive. And when it comes to good, to practice the good that is all-pervasive. So I'm speaking now from the point of view of the practice, the actual realization of the practice, which is beyond, even though I'm talking to you and you're hearing me, it's beyond Conception. And also within conception. So, there it is. And I'm glad you were able to sit through that.

[31:05]

I know it was perhaps a little bit unusual to be exposed to this, but... And several people had their hands raised. I see Linda and Sylvia and Lorraine said it. Did you have your hand raised, miss, miss, ma'am? Yes. Senora. I would appreciate if you could give an example, even though it's inconceivable, of how the cosmic conditions... are refraining from evil. I mean, if you get into the causes and conditions of evil, how it looks that they're refraining from. Okay. If we could get a glimpse of that through a kind of everyday event. All righty. May I get some other questions on that thing before we... Sylvia? My question is, how is it that we are Buddhas? Don't we have a responsibility to not participate in evil since we have a mind and an awareness? Do we have a responsibility to not participate in evil since we're Buddhas?

[32:10]

No, I'm saying, how can it be that we're Buddhas since it seems we have a responsibility to not participate in evil, and yet we do? How can we be Buddhas and still participate in evil? When we participate in evil, we're not Buddhas. That's how. Buddhas don't participate in evil. But yet, Buddhahood encompasses evil. Buddhahood encompasses everything. Buddhahood encompasses evil, yes. But Buddhahood does not get involved in anything, including evil, especially... As a matter of fact, Buddhahood is, Buddha is, refraining from all evil. That's what Buddha is. But refraining from evil does not mean that Buddhas run and hide when evil comes in the door. When evil comes in the door, Buddhas watch it, see how it walks, see how it talks, and so on.

[33:15]

And Linda wants to know, how do you watch and see it? But by understanding the formation of evil, You refrain from it. And that's what he asks the Buddha. A Buddha is refraining from evil. That's their teaching. Want to be a Buddha? Ask the Buddha how to be a Buddha. The Buddha says, refrain from evil. That's what you want. Number two is practice all good. Number three is purify your mind. But number one is, first is, refrain from evil. And then they teach you how to refrain from evil. Namely, watch how evil happens. If you see how it happens, that's refraining. Not see how it happened. How it happens is refraining. You're not even outside the seeing of it. Lorraine? My question was similar to Liz. I think you said that refraining from evil isn't that you must see people through the process of trying to refrain from it. Yeah. So what extent is that?

[34:18]

What extent is that? problem with saying something is evil and our association of what evil is? I didn't follow your question, but I am saying that we should try to practice evil whatever way we can. I mean, practice of refraining from evil whatever way we can. Okay? And if we try to refrain from evil, we will more and more notice that we're unable to do so. The more we're able to notice that, the more awake we are to the fact that we are committing evil. Great saints notice that they commit evil all the time. The more you notice that you're committing evil, the more awake you're getting. When you finally realize that you commit evil all the time, you have only one place further to go, and that is into the realization of what evil is. And the realization of what evil is will show you how evil is caused. When you understand how evil is caused, you never violate evil anymore.

[35:24]

So, yes. Is evil caused only by being separate? I mean, is that... Is it caused by being separate? Is that... Yeah, that's a very fundamental one. That's a fundamental cause of evil, being separate, yes. If you see that... If you see that... See what? If you could see that... See that that's a cause? Yes. Yes. And you're not refraining from evil, but... If you can see... If you can see that cause, you're getting close to realizing the precept of refraining from evil. But that's not the only cause. There's a whole bunch of other ones. Because each occasion, although that one's there, in almost all cases of evil, there's a sense of separateness. There's a sense of independence. There's a separate self. That's there almost all the time.

[36:29]

There's almost no example of evil actions committed by someone who is not enamored with the idea of an individual self. That's a fundamental one. But then there's lots of other special causes that make this evil appear. Okay? So, it isn't, and I think maybe I'm now getting into, speaking of how to do this, in a particular case, in a particular case of feeling separation from other beings, in every particular case, coming along with that sense of separateness, as far as I know, in every case, there is discomfort with that. There is anxiety with that. Unless, unless you have perfectly, you know, unless you've completely dropped any clinging in the midst of that separation.

[37:40]

if you're the slightest bit off, slightest bit unbalanced in the sense of separation between yourself and others, it isn't that you eliminate the separation and then there's no pain or no discomfort. But if you can be completely balanced and present in that separation, and balanced and present means you don't lean into saying the separation is true. That's a little bit off. That's too much. That's attributing too much reality to it. You also don't deny the separation and say, well, I've heard this is a delusion, therefore it must not be true. You don't lean away that way. You don't think about what's going to happen to you next. That causes fear. The pain is saying, you're not balanced in this basic situation of separation. You've balanced yourself. But in order to balance yourself, you not only have to balance yourself with this extremely dynamic situation. Separations, you know, I say separation, that just, you know, just split.

[38:49]

That's one way to talk about it. But it's not just a split, the separation between us and other beings. Our separation between us and other people, our separation between us and our past, our separation between us and our future, our separation between us and the mountains, our separation between us and the sky and the earth, it's all those separations. But also, every one of those separations is also, only makes sense as a separation because we're joined to those things. We wouldn't talk about separation if we weren't connected. So it's not just a separation. It's a separation in the face of connection. Or it also then turns around and becomes a connection in the face of separation. That's why, if you're the least bit off, you get thrown for a loop, which you will experience as a little bit painful or very painful. It's such a dynamic situation that if you're not balanced and upright in that situation, you will... experience a little or a lot of anxiety.

[39:52]

The more awake you get, the more anxiety you start to open up to as a kind of ongoing thing. If you can be upright not with the anxiety, not just see the split, but be upright with the anxiety which is indicating to you that you're unbalanced, then the anxiety starts to subside and you start to open up to this awesome dynamic of self-other, mutual creation, because you're created by the other. That's how you're connected to the other. All beings create you. Evil is not only... Evil is not the pain, exactly. Although that's a little bit evil because you're a little off. The pain is not the evil. The pain is reminding you that you're a little off. Now, if you should happen to feel the pain which is telling you that you're off and guiding you into the place where you should balance, if you then turn away from the pain or do something to turn away from the pain, then you're getting farther and more and more unconscious of the place where your unbalancing has come from and the evil starts to accumulate.

[41:08]

And you still feel restless and your body is still writhing and you're still responding to this anxiety in the sense of suffocation and choking that occurs from this misapprehension and imbalanced relationship with this dynamic. And then other people start to notice that. And they tell you to cool it. Usually. Because you remind them of what they're doing. So then, what are you gonna do? Well then, the thing to do is to start hiding the fact that you're having a little trouble with your trying to escape from facing your problems. So then a deeper level of denial and avoidance starts to seep in. And when you finally get really out of touch with it, then people pretty much leave you alone and give you a promotion. The cowards reward you for your cowardness by giving you more power, which is your trade-off for, you know, forsaking the place of your liberation, which is yourself.

[42:16]

Yourself is the place you're going to be liberated because yourself is the place where your suffering is, and your suffering is the place where yourself is not quite situated properly. However, the processes of liberation don't rest. And they keep saying, you know, you did something wrong here. I don't know what it is. And then somebody comes walking along that's kind of like, you can see in them, you can't see it in yourself, but you can see in them exactly what you did, which you are denying. So then you flare up at them and attack them and try to hurt them, which then of course causes more problems for you. And then if you cover that up, you get more power so you can do it to more people, and then less people will have a chance to fight back until finally you've got a lot of power causing tremendous damage, not violating any precepts, and again you're back in the state of being a major criminal. That's how it can go.

[43:23]

Now, the job that we need to do in everyday experience is we need to be just this person. We need to be this person at this place where the pain is and the anxiety and the vulnerability. Because we are vulnerable to all beings because all beings give us life. All the beings we're cut off from are exactly all beings that we're connected to. If we could just be cut off, it wouldn't be so dynamic and we'd have an easier time balancing. If we were just connected... Also, there would be no problem because we wouldn't have a self. In order to have a self, which we've got, if we're normal, healthy Buddha candidates, you have to have separation. So, we've got this dynamic situation where we have to be very skillful to be upright in such a dynamic.

[44:24]

And, generally speaking, we're not upright. Most of the time we're not, and therefore most of the time there's some pain and anxiety. So to keep turning towards the pain, which is constantly indicating to us that we're off, that is the job, moment by moment, to be just this person. As soon as you're just this person, you're balanced. When you're balanced, evil is refrained from Balanced means that all that's happening is the causes and conditions of evil. And when there's just the causes and conditions of evil, there is refraining from evil, and when there's refraining from evil, there's the Buddha way, and there is the practice of good. But if there's the slightest deviation from being present with this dynamic being, which is our true self, which is a thing which is separate from other people and is identical to other people.

[45:32]

That's our self. Our self is separate from other beings and identical in a completely contradictory way. That's the kind of things we are. By what it isn't. Who can face that? Who can face that dynamic reality? It's called Buddha. How do you have to be to face that dynamic reality? To be completely untouched. How do you get to be completely unattached? Open up to your attachment. What does it take to open up to your attachment? Face your attachment. What's one of the things you have to face in addition to your attachment? The pain of attachment. Not only that, but sometimes the pain of attachment and the pain of, you know, and attachment leads to imbalance. Not only the pain of that, but more elaborated forms of denial too. cowardice that accumulated by which we are now way out of touch with that basic thing.

[46:35]

That subtle form of, that subtle and all-pervasive form of basic imbalance. So in a daily life situation, do you feel any anxiety? If you're feeling anxiety, you got the makings of a Buddha. Shakyamuni Buddha was an anxious person. But he had tremendous courage. And his courage, the courage he had didn't just come from him. He got everybody to help him. And everybody is helping you have the courage to be yourself. Even though they often say to you, don't be yourself, we can't stand it. But they're helping you because they're challenging you. They're saying, can you be yourself even though we're telling you to buckle under and not cause any trouble and don't make me nervous? Can you hear that that's what they're really saying? Well, it's hard to hear. How do you hear it?

[47:37]

You listen to your pain. If you can hear what your pain is saying, you can hear that other people are really saying, be yourself before it's too late. That's what you're here for, is to be yourself so completely that that you completely drop yourself. And that's refraining from evil. And you drop yourself when you're just yourself. And just yourself at all levels, including the most basic and most dynamic level, where you're actually in touch with the place where every living being gives you life. And at that place also, that full life where everybody's contributing to you is perfectly, harmoniously touching death. The full life is close to death. The half-life, death is far away. Death coexists with the fullest life.

[48:41]

And it coexists harmoniously, peacefully. Death and life are not in opposition. They completely... aid each other. And life is completely itself when death is completely itself. Life is completely itself when death is not pushed away or eroded or diminished. And when death is not eroded or diminished, life is fully itself. But who can stand to be there? Buddha. or you, yourself, just as you are in this moment, with your anxiety. But if you close your ears to your anxiety, you close your ears to the dynamic of your support from all beings, and your pain comes up, but you close your ear to it, so, basically, it just gets stronger.

[49:47]

And then do you hear it then? Or do you close your ears tighter? Do you close your ears tighter? It gets stronger. And then what do you do? Do you listen to it then or close your ears more? Close your heart more. Close your heart more. It gets stronger. And then it'll shift into someone, you know, it'll try to come at you from another angle. Pain is not the message. Pain is to get your attention. When people come up to you and tell you that you're a jerk, they hate you and they're going to kill you, that's not what they mean. They mean, wake up. Remember what you came here for? If people come up to you and tell you that you're a Buddha, that's not what they mean. They mean, wake up. Flattery and insults are all not true about you. They're all telling you the same thing. Be yourself. Flattery is saying, you're so great, will that distract you? Well, if you're open to what's happening, you won't be fooled by flattery or by insults.

[50:57]

You'll always understand they're all saying the same thing. And if you interrogate the insulters and interrogate the flatterers, they'll actually tell you that they really do mean what they're flattering you about and that they really do mean what they're insulting you about. The drama is actually well set up to make you have to really penetrate deeply. I don't know if that answered your question or not, did it? No. Didn't? What more do you want? But it was wonderful. What more do you want? I was picturing something like someone about to break into a jewelry store, you know, and then practicing, looking at the causes and conditions of this. and seeing that the causes and conditions, how they refrain from evil, that they have... You mean, what I'm going to break into to the... Did you already start? That's me? Not when you're going to break, not when I'm watching you break into it, but when I'm going to... Right, when you yourself are here.

[52:00]

Right. So how do you do it then? Yeah. Oh, you didn't want... You want to know how I do it in the dualistic way, that's me? Well, I felt that there might be, by taking an example like that, some glimpse, even though I know it's inconceivable, what you're talking about, some, like, a glimpse. No, the first approach is you get the glimpse maybe by the conceivable approach. So, like, what comes to my mind is... And this is not a very good one, but anyway, start with this one. This is the first one. Um... One time my daughter had a friend staying over at the house, and when her mother came to visit, she, my daughter, oh, the girl jumped on her mother's lap and, you know, hugged her mother and kissed her mother and stuff like that. And after she left, my daughter said, she did that just to make me upset, just to make me jealous.

[53:01]

And then a little while later, my daughter got on my lap and hugged me. And my wife said, did you do that just to make me upset? My daughter says, what do you mean? I said, well, you said when your friend did that, that she was trying to do it to make you jealous. Were you trying to make me jealous? And my daughter said, hmm, okay, well, I'll give her another chance. She could have seen maybe some little error in her ways, perhaps. So she said, I'll give her another chance. I'll watch her at school tomorrow. So then she watched her school the next day, and she came home and she said, I saw that I was getting angry at her for what I was thinking about her. So that's an example. And she didn't see her friend, actually, which wasn't really what she should be looking at. She was seeing how the way she thought about her friend made her angry at her friend. So the way we think about situations... is evil.

[54:06]

Because it makes us angry or attached. Because if we believe what we're thinking. So you notice that if I think things about you, like if I think you're a good person, you know, or whatever, then, and if I believe that, that will cause certain things to happen. You know? Like, if I think you're a really good person and I believe that, then I probably want to, like, possess you. Or if I think you're a bad person and I believe that, then I'm going to want to, like, Well, you know what we do with people that are actually bad? What do we do with them? Well, basically we get rid of them. We reform them. They can't just be like walking around bad, really. So we do things that... And if we can't get rid of them, we get away from them, and so on. Now, if I watch myself think of you as bad, but I notice I don't believe it, One time someone was angry at me and I looked at her and I said, oh, you actually believe what you're thinking about me, don't you?

[55:12]

Like some people look at me and they think I'm a, you know, what, monster or something? And some people that look at me and think I'm a monster, they actually think that's true. Can you believe it? I mean, I know you can believe that people think I'm a monster, but do you believe that some people believe that I'm a monster, that what they think about me is correct? And those people that not only think I'm a monster, but then believe that that's correct, these people are... If I talk to them and they tell me the truth about what's going on with them, these people tell me that they're puppets, that they're totally uncontrollably drawn into, completely driven by their belief in their opinion of me. So if you start to see... how your opinion affects you certain ways when you just have an opinion has some effect. But then when you believe it, how it has another effect, and you start to see the causes and conditions of evil. Namely, an opinion plus it's true.

[56:17]

Those two are sufficient. And underneath, though, are a whole bunch of other ones that you don't even get to most of the time. Like my daughter, she saw opinion... my friend is blah blah, plus it's true, anger. Okay? That's how it works. That's the causes and conditions of evil. But there's ones underneath that, namely, you wouldn't be able to get into thinking it's true unless you thought something underneath was true too. Namely, this fundamental thing that your friend is not you. And that that's true. So as you catch this top one of, I looked at my friend at the playground, I noticed I had these opinions about the way she was playing, how she related to other people and me. I saw that. I thought it was true. I got upset. You see that. You start to see the causes and conditions of evil. Once you admit that one, then maybe since you can admit that one, and also now admit that you're angry, but even get on, maybe start to see that anger is actually pretty bad stuff and could lead to bigger problems, especially if you

[57:20]

told your friend or your teacher saw that you were angry and your teacher told you to shut up and not be angry and then you had to like pretend like you weren't angry and that you weren't that kind of girl then you then you'd even get more angry and that would even be more and if you're unconscious of it would even be more horrible you start to see if you start opening up for that stuff then you start to work yourself open up to more and more subtle stuff So as you open up a little bit of causes and conditions, if you can open your heart to a little bit of noticing your faults, you can open your heart to more, until finally, when you open yourself to the totality, you avoid evil. And in order to open yourself to the totality of the causes and conditions of evil, you have to be perfectly balanced, because you can't be outside even a little bit looking in at evil. So you have to really be yourself completely, throw yourself into it. And that's why Zazen is the way to ascertain the causes and conditions.

[58:24]

Ascertain means completely understand or be under, be in the causes and conditions with them in perfect balance, and that is the avoidance of evils. So... Unfortunately, there are some cases where we do pretty well, not unfortunate, but there are some cases where we do pretty well, and those cases are not the cases which will open us up to this deeper understanding. So I can tell some stories, you know, some nice stories about where I had opinions and I wasn't particularly self-righteous, which is fine, but those ones didn't open me up. It's through your anxiety, it's through the ones where you're not being successful and where you're being anxious that you start opening up to the causes and conditions. And actually, pretty much anxiety is present all the time.

[59:26]

So even though you might be doing quite well, like I told this kind of nice story about me and my daughter this morning, this afternoon to some people about where I was getting off her pacifier, and I did pretty well, I was pretty respectful of her, but I didn't, it was not a story about where I learned It's a story, in many ways, the way I told it, it was a story of respect. It wasn't a story of revelation of my own evil. But it was a nice father-daughter story. Where I was trying to get her to do something, she made a reasonable request of me to not follow my instructions. She made a reasonable request about how she didn't want to follow my instructions. I wanted her to stop using the pacifier. And she said, Dad, I'd rather keep using it. It helps me sleep. I thought that was reasonable. So I listened to her and I let her keep using it. And the story went on, but basically that was... I had a little anxiety about forcing this project on her, and I kind of gave it up because she was quite reasonable.

[60:32]

But that was not a story, although it was a story more about listening to the reasonableness of the child. Maybe the reason why I could hear the reasonableness of the child was that I was somewhat aware of the unreasonableness of adults. and how we get on trips. And actually one of the things that ran through my mind was having a pacifier to help go to sleep is not as bad as some of the things some of us do to go to sleep. So it seems reasonable. But I think the stories of developing, the stories of avoiding evil are the stories of actually getting intimate with it and being able to actually pick it up and set it down. does anybody have any other so you want me to do another example or I'm getting a feeling for you you want another example yeah that was your daughter's example I want to hear one of yours well again this is not the one you want to hear but this is the one that comes to mind I was watching a football game one time

[61:49]

And it was two local teams playing each other for the Super Bowl. It was two local teams to me, because I'm from Minnesota. It was Minnesota playing Oakland. And I was sitting in a group of people from Oakland. And so I thought, you know, I could root for either team, right? So I don't forget what I did, but anyway, what I did was, at a certain point, I decided to want Oakland to win. And I watched... how that went. And that was pretty good for a couple of reasons. One is I was with Oakland people. So I was like, you know, they were passing me various, you know, goodies to eat. And also Oakland was winning. So it was, you know, very comfortable choice. But then I thought, you know, since I knew before the game started, I could be on either team. I could choose either team. I decided to switch sides. So I actually switched sides in my mind and actually started rooting for my Minnesota team.

[62:52]

Oh, yeah. Well, I didn't throw up. I didn't get thrown out. But I started to actually feel differently about the game. I started to not like that Oakland was winning. And I started to think that the other people in the room were really obnoxious. I mean... Not only were they rooting for this other team, but they were like, you know, being happy that this nice team from Minnesota was getting beaten. So cruel, you know, and obnoxious. So not only was I, you know, by changing my position, creating this separation, but I actually started to believe that these people were really jerks, even though I just did this experiment to see what would happen to me, I still fell into it. So then I switched back Oakland and I noticed quite quickly that I stopped thinking that they were so obnoxious in you know their attitude towards the game now if you go to some of you if you go to a football game whether you care even what maybe maybe you don't care about which team wins you might some of you might feel like the people who are watching the game are another team from you

[64:04]

Just, you know, you have one team called these people who watch football games, and then you. And the way they watch football games, regardless of who's winning, it's a style of behavior that is, you know, it's not you. And you can get into believing that that's a style of behavior which is not you. That actually these people, you know, they're acting that way, whatever way you want to describe that, that that is not you. You can think that, and you can believe that. And as you start to believe it, you start to notice that they're really obnoxious. Or that they're really virtuous, and you're a jerk. Either way, you've got troubles. Either way, you've got pain. Now, what are you going to do with that pain? Are you just going to sit there with the pain? Huh? Well, that's a good idea if you can, but You might start trying to adjust things so it goes away, or just try to, like, get out of the room or whatever.

[65:08]

And you go in the other room, and you say, whew, no pain in this room. You know, no pain in this room. This is, hey, this is nice, you know. This is a nice room. And you see all those trees out the window and the birds chirping, you know. In other words, you don't think that you think the birds are separate yet. You don't notice it. It's more subtle. But the separation you feel there, which is more subtle, is the basis from the separation that you're going to put into action when you go back in the room again. Just that, in some ways, you don't feel it in this room. But what if those birds start behaving in a certain way? You know, what if they suddenly turn from robins into blue jays? Then what, does that have any difference? Do you feel a little bit more separate then? And they start, or what if they start, I don't know what, doing something that you really don't like the birds to do. And then you start really feeling that this is not me. You can get just as upset about the birds and think the birds are really obnoxious.

[66:11]

This basic thing is the source and, do you want more examples? No, that's, that's. Getting it? So what do you do when you notice the same thing? What do you do with it? Basically, you don't do anything with it, you just face it. But you don't face it, you know, and you face it by just being upright with it. That's what you basically do with the anxiety. The Buddha, as I said, I proposed to you, the Buddha was an anxious person, and the Buddha, in the face of the anxiety, the Buddha sat still. Don't you remember the story of Buddha? He was... That Mara thing that happened, you know, with the getting attacked and stuff, Mara was not totally ineffectual with him. He got a little upset. He got anxious when Mara did his final assault. But before Mara did that, he had been excited, he had been nervous, he had been a nervous wreck for a long time. How do you know?

[67:14]

How do I know? How do I know what? Well, how do you know that he was anxious then? He told me. He said, Buddha said, for example, even before he was like real heavy duty into his practice, he said, you know, I look at old people, I look at sick people, you know, I look at these old people with their, you know, the skin drooping and losing their faculties or stumbling around, you know, I look at them and you know what I think? I feel kind of disgusted. The Buddha said that, can you believe it? Our boy, our hero our founder talked like that thought like that of course that was prior to the big you know you know what he did that and then he said to himself not only am I disgusted with these people which is not and it's disgusting but you know like the ordinary schmo on the street is also disgusted with them so not only am I disgusted but I'm just like those other crumb bums in the street who have no development

[68:18]

and are just selfish creeps. Buddha said, basically, you know, folks, I'm embarrassed. This is embarrassing. Embarrassment is a fundamental expression of anxiety. Embarrassment is when having trouble being yourself. Anxiety is having trouble being yourself. Namely, you're here, and it's kind of like, you're embarrassed. He was embarrassed. Now, when Mara came, Mara came after he had, you know, got into the practice and he was actually like saying, okay, I'm embarrassed, but I'm going to like face this embarrassment. I'm going to sit still and face it all the way until I finally drop all this self-concern or whatever. And Mara said, oh yeah, okay, then we'll just test you right now. And one of the most insulting things that Mara said to him, the thing that almost got him was, You are one arrogant guy to think that you could pull this off. You scared him with all this stuff and all these temptations, but the one that got him most is you're selfish.

[69:22]

That's the one that really got scared of him. He said, I need help. And in fact, Mara that said that to him was really his own self-centeredness. Because even towards the very end there, the Buddha thought that the Buddha... I'm going to sit still and I'm not going to move no matter what demons come. He still a little bit thought he was going to be able to do that. So he said, okay, I give up. Help me. He touched the earth and the earth said, okay, we'll help you. Now you understand you can't do this by yourself. You've got to do this practice with everybody. And then he did the practice with everybody and he could sit still and Mara left him alone. So that's the uprightness that realizes the balanced way of relating to this anxiety. And if you relate to the anxiety in a balanced way, then the causes and conditions of the anxiety reveal themselves.

[70:25]

You know, Kafka was another anxious guy. You know about him? A real anxious person. Real anxious. But pretty awake. Unfortunately, he didn't ask for help, as far as I know, with sufficient energy to give off the idea that he was going to figure this out by himself. So he was anxious right up to the end, I think. But still he understood the principle of Buddha's practice. He said, you don't have to leave your seat. Just remain there. And wait. Don't even wait. Just be quiet and listen. Don't even be quiet and listen. Just be still. And the world will unmask itself. It has no choice.

[71:30]

It will roll at your feet in ecstasy. So if you can just be still with your anxiety, the anxiety that Kafka had, the anxiety that Buddha had, the anxiety that all the great ancestors had, the anxiety that all you have, if you can just sit there with it, it will unmask itself and it will reveal itself and it will roll at your feet and tell you what the world's about. It will show you how evil's created. And then you don't destroy evil, and evil doesn't destroy you. The anxiety is helping you realize you're off, you're unbalanced in your attitude. As long as there's a self, you're going to be harassed. As long as there's a self all by itself, and you don't feel the support of all beings, then the support of all beings will be interpreted as strangulation. That's the root of the word. Anxiety means to choke or strangle or torment, but literally choke.

[72:38]

So all around us, all around our body, all beings are there. If you're close to them helping you, then they attack you. If you're close to your connection and your separation simultaneously, if you're close and invulnerable to that dynamic relationship, then you feel anxious. What do you do with the anxiety? Just be this person. Be exactly the way you're anxious. If you're exactly the way you're anxious, you'll open up to the causes and conditions of the cause of the anxiety. You'll open up to the causes and conditions of, you know, turning away from the anxiety. You'll develop unawareness of the causes and conditions of actions which come from turning away from the anxiety. causes and conditions of actions which come from avoiding, you know, what you do from fear, and so on.

[73:44]

I read this book one time about this guy in prison called The Belly of the Beast, and he said, if you're afraid of pain, those people can get you to do absolutely anything. So, if you come and face your anxiety, you're not afraid. Fear is telling you, come back to the present and face your anxiety. Anxiety is telling you, you're not upright. And when you're upright, you still can see the causes and conditions of self-thinking, but the more you totally face them, the sooner you're closer to getting for them to drop off. What I'm saying is, It's very difficult, though. The price is attentiveness, constant attentiveness, which will yield either uprightness or constant awareness that you're off.

[74:48]

And also uprightness, you can't know, because when you're upright, you're not leaning into knowing that you're upright. So when you know something, you know you're off. So that's the confession part. Yes. But if you're full of anxiety, you're not afraid. Those two aren't consistent. You haven't yet arrived at uprightness if you're full of anxiety. Right. So actually, do you have particular ways that you feel sort of lead you back into being upright? Because in my experience with anxiety, it can be often silly. That's good that you can feel that. So when you feel all kinds of anxiety, then what do you do? You notice... Yeah, back to our greatness ever since. Yeah. Well, you try... You do your best to face the anxiety. You face it. And when you first face it, you're the loft.

[75:51]

But facing it, there's something there you can face. And you start to face it, If you notice you're off a little bit and you're facing, when you notice you're off a little bit and you're facing, that uprightness is implied. If not realized, it's implied. You understand? But when you notice you're balanced, when you notice you're off, there's balance, you're balanced, your understanding of balance is manifested, even though you're still off. You follow that? Yeah, I'm following it in concept. Yeah, that's how you follow it now, in constant. Can you follow it in practice? Do you feel like you're leaning to the left right now? I feel like I'm leaning to the right. Do you feel like you're leaning to the right? Do you? Well, literally, yes. I'm talking about literally. Literally leaning to the right, physically. You can also literally lean into the future. Can you feel that? If you're literally leaning into the future, you can literally feel afraid.

[76:54]

And then if you come back to the present, you can feel anxiety more directly. And if you can not run away from the anxiety a little bit, you get closer to it. The closer you get to it, the closer you get to it not being overwhelming. And the reward may be that if you can face it more, you may get more anxiety. The overwhelming goes. Pardon? The overwhelming goes. The overwhelming goes away? Grows. Grows. That's good. The more overwhelming the anxiety that you can sit with, the better. Until finally, you're afraid, you face the totality of anxiety. And when you face the totality of anxiety, the biggest, most overwhelming anxiety, guess what you can face then?

[77:56]

the more subtle anxiety. The one that's really deep down there, which you long time ago were told to get away from that one. So you have to face the big gross ones first. They're the easy ones to face because they're big and gross. You think, God, how can I ever face these big gross ones? Well, you can. It is possible. Buddha, that's the story. Buddha said, you know, But also remember you don't do this by yourself because actually this whole thing is based on thinking that you can do things by yourself. So you can start getting help before you even get to the place where you realize that you're getting help before this whole thing started you were getting help but you just didn't want to look at it that way because it was so wonderful that you couldn't figure out how to have a self So when you got a self, you couldn't figure out how to have a self and see how wonderful it was. But once you got a self, it got so turbulent that you decided to look away from it.

[79:03]

So our thing is how to, without tossing our self out the window, to face the real way the self exists. And the real way the self exists is that the things which are actually overwhelming us and assaulting us and tormenting us and choking us are actually giving us life. And to the extent that we don't understand that, these things are purifying our incorrect understanding of how all things support us. All things, including those world-class criminals. They also are supporting us. Everything, unconditionally, is helping us. Good is all-pervasive. But if your attitude gets off a little bit, evil is all-pervasive. Understanding

[80:05]

If you understand this one point, you understand the entire universe. But isn't it difficult to understand that everything that happens to you is supporting you? Isn't that difficult? Isn't it difficult to understand that death is supporting you? Don't we have a problem with that? And isn't there lots of reasons why we have a problem for that? Don't we have lots of excuses for why we have trouble accepting that everything's helping us? Yes, there are. If you understand the reasons why you have trouble accepting that everything helps you, you're starting to see the causes and conditions of evil. The causes and conditions of evil are partly the reasons by which you don't believe that things are helping you. It doesn't mean you should start thinking, what do you call it, I said this to you, Marshall, but it doesn't mean you should start going around and trying to trick yourself and say, well, I really think all this stuff's helping me. If you don't think it's helping you, then you should admit that you don't. Then you're seeing the causes of evil.

[81:06]

If you don't see that they're helpful, then that, if you see that, you're seeing the causes of evil. That will lead you to understand that these things are actually helping you. You have to admit the way you see it. Don't try to kid yourself into thinking that you're not thinking the way you're thinking. Admit the way you're thinking. And right now, maybe you can understand that you think a lot of things are hassling you and bugging you. And maybe it's bugging you that I'm telling you that everything's helping you. But that's the Buddha's vision. The Buddha's vision is, everything's helping me. Thanks, folks. That's what the Buddha felt. Everybody was helping Buddha. Everybody was Buddha. But Buddha could also see that many of the beings that were helping him were beings who didn't think, who thought other beings weren't helping them. He saw that too. They think that everybody's hassling them, but they're helping me. They're all splendid Buddhas.

[82:10]

They have the wisdom in Buddha and the compassion in Buddha, but They don't realize it because they believe what they're thinking. And he also knew that he used to be that way too. How you doing? I miss what the most subtle anxiety was. The most subtle? The most subtle anxiety is at the birth of the self. It's not different from separation. Separation is what creates a self. You can't have a self without separation. But in some sense, as you know so well, the mind creates an external object and then a sense of self is born with that. So you have to put death... outside yourself in order to have a self-life, a life of a self. And human beings commonly are able to see death as external to themselves.

[83:14]

Even though it's not external, they can do that. And because you can make death separate, then you can have a life that's separate from the death. And if it's a life that's separate from the death, then isn't this a precious life? And it is. And then let's make this a unique individual entity, because it's a precious thing. and then somehow let's forget about the fact that everything made this precious thing because this thing is so precious it's almost like it's so brilliant you can almost forget that it's due to everything else it's so wonderful you kind of get into it rather than everything that isn't it which is entirely accounts for it so we have trouble you know but once you see how brilliant this wonderful self is remembering its causation and that's our downfall we have to go back there and see that self again in all its radiance, all its radiant non-existence as an independent entity. It exists, but not independent of everything. We have to go back there and see that.

[84:16]

And uprightness takes us back there. And uprightness is really a drag because it's totally useless, doesn't do anything for us, We have nothing to do with it. And basically even practicing uprightness, you basically have to give up your old idea of self too. So it's really tough, tough practice. Really hard. The Buddhas and ancestors did some hard stuff. Shakyamuni Buddha did some hard stuff. I mean, some of these guys did some really hard stuff. But they all said, you know, compared to facing the fundamental issue, that hard stuff is not hard. They broke their bones. You know, they starved themselves. They froze themselves. But compared to facing reality, that stuff is not hard. What's hard is something that's very subtle and requires total dedication and presence. And that is the work of going and facing your pain, just as it is, and your anxiety, and yourself. And that's called avoiding evil. That's called Buddha.

[85:19]

And all Buddhas do this practice. They all do it. Avoid evil. So next week, we can practice all good. Yeah, well, my ashram was the... I wouldn't even come to Marshall about leaning into the future and say, well, you live in the future, you have fear, so then you come back into the present and face the anxiety of the present. Maybe I'm in total denial, but what happens to me is when I discover that my fear about the future is leaning into the future, and I come back to the present, I find that I'm sitting here in this room and it's quite pleasant, and here I am in the present, and I don't really feel anxious. So... You don't feel anxious?

[86:27]

Aren't you starting to feel a little anxious now? Yeah. That's enough. I can make you feel more anxious. Very easily. Very easily. Okay? Thank you. It's there. And if you need help, if anybody needs any help getting in touch with their anxiety, come see me. I'll get you to feel anxious. If anybody's out of touch with it, I'll help you. I might not be successful because some of you guys are real tough. You're like Kirk. I don't know if I can make Kirk anxious. Because I've been practicing martial arts so long, I probably can avoid anything I do. But most of you I can probably scare a little bit. And then when you get scared, then you know you're leading in the future. Then if you come back from there, you feel the anxiety. We do it, we are anxious, and we are... It's not just you. You have some courage to admit that, but we all are, to some extent, in denial of this pain.

[87:38]

The Buddha was in denial, too. He had to practice really sincerely to open up to this. I used to say we should have this flag, this yellow flag over Zen Center that says, Denial. Because this is a place of awareness and honesty and admission to our problems, right? But actually, it's a haven of denial. Other places are too. Even in places where there's lots of suffering, you think, boy, those people are really suffering. But they're in denial too. It's hard to face it all. So I'm in denial, you're in denial. But let's, you know, let's take what little, tiny little anxiety we have and face it. If you can face that, your reward is more. If you can face that, your reward is more. You don't get more than you can handle. If it was more than you handle, you'd have less. You may think you're doing very poorly with it.

[88:41]

We do poorly with it, true. but we get what we need, and we don't get what we don't need. I say that. It's not true, but I say it. For some reason, I'm being forced to say this. You don't have to. By the way, you don't have to agree with what I'm saying, in case you didn't know that.

[89:01]

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