See someone else, you can say, oh, we've got to go to work on this. This is a dangerous situation. I hate that anger. You know, I want to kill it. That's a loving use of... That's a loving conjunction of aggression and love. And then you have hopefully the skill to back it up because you've been practicing it on yourself. That you aggressively have pursued meditation on your... on your anger and have chewed it up, chewed away the roots of your anger. Make more sense now? Thank you for your question. So then the Buddha says, now here's another thing which, another suggestion, okay? He said there's seven things that are gratifying and helpful to your enemies. Your enemies like to see you angry. So if somebody strikes at you and you get angry, they're happy.

[01:02]

They basically, they wanted to hurt you, and they did hurt you, but not only did they hurt you, but they got this extra benefit of you got angry. They don't like to hurt you and have you, like, smile. Like with my daughter, right? If you want to, like, reward your enemies when they hurt you, and you reward people who hurt you, then there's seven things you can do to make them happy, basically all coming from getting angry at them. So if you get angry at them, you reward them in these seven different ways the Buddha mentions. One is you become ugly. They like to see you ugly. When you're angry, you're ugly. Like in the movies, you know, the guy says, you're so beautiful when you're angry. It's not true. So, the enemy says, let her be ugly, let him be ugly.

[02:10]

Oh great, she's angry, let him be ugly. Another thing is, let them lie in pain. When you're angry, you're in pain. Let them have no good fortune. Let them not be wealthy. Let them not be famous. Let them have no friends. Let them, upon the breakup of the body at death, let them have a bad rebirth. All those things come to someone who's angry. So the enemy is very happy. The enemy says, oh, I hurt them. Now they're angry. Now they're losing all their friends. Oh, I hurt them. They're angry now. Great. Now everybody's afraid to be near them. You know how angry people are? People all the time say, the main thing they say about the person is that they're angry. They forget about everything else because people were so afraid of people who are angry. So it becomes a big issue. Our enemies are very happy that they have contributed to us becoming a pariah.

[03:13]

So the best revenge to your enemies is to live well, like that ad, you know, the best revenge is living well. The best revenge on your enemies is to be happy and loving and be famous and have everybody talk about, you know, how loving and sweet you are. That really bothers your enemies. That's another thing the Buddha taught. Should I go on or do you have some questions? Well, I would say, you know, don't think about it too much. It's just, I'm just kidding, actually. But, you know. But the Buddha, somebody did say to the Buddha, is there anything that you would kill? And he said, yeah, anger. So...

[04:16]

It's okay to apply aggressive energy to the anger itself. He just said, don't get angry at the person. Just like it's okay to apply aggressive penetrating energy to the examination of the roots of your own anger and chew it up. But you don't want to like, hm? You don't want to like actually get into a negative state. about the anger toward, it might spill over towards anger toward yourself or others. So it's really just that laser beam of aggressive penetrating energy towards the root, towards the anger, the examination of understanding its root and letting it drop away when you understand it. That's the reason why you're doing it, because again, if you hate somebody, you wouldn't, you know, hate their anger. You'd like their anger. Can you say, oh, I hate them and they're angry. Great. Because now, I mean, I've given them the poison.

[05:18]

They've got my hate thing has penetrated them. Now it's taking over their life. I'm a success. I've transmitted hate. But if you want, if you see someone and you really want them to become free of their anger, that's because you love them and you want them to live well. You want them to be well. You want them to be happy. So you want that anger to be dropped. Right? You want them to be free of it. Intensely, intensely, burningly, you want them to be free of that anger. So there's like, there's what, sometimes people say that the Buddha has no desires, you know. Well, the Buddha doesn't attach to desires, but desires do flow through the Buddhas, and desires do make the Buddhas appear in the world. The desires the Buddha have, they desire, they warmly desire that beings will, you know, open up to and see and understand and enter into Buddha's wisdom.

[06:31]

Buddhas desire that. So, of course, they desire that beings, you know, would drop anger. They'll be part of the path of wisdom. It's a desire that put us out. Do you have another question? I'd like to assume I'm talking If your enemies want to see the manifestations of your own self, it's not, when you were discussing about religion, how would you know? I would think, again, that sounds like kind of a similar religion. For me, I would think... the greatest joy and happiness that I could feel would be for them to feel joy and happiness. For me, it feels more like happiness than wealth and the best of the rich, regardless of wealth and things.

[07:32]

You know, if those things that I had acquired later were not in keeping with the seven things that they were looking for... Yes. ...then they were joyful, and that's the best. That seems like a greater happiness. Yeah, I agree, it is a greater happiness. I said the best revenge. Okay? If you want to take revenge on them, those are the best way to revenge. If you wanted revenge, that would be the good revenge. But if you don't want it to be revenge, then it might be part of your happiness. Did any of you ever... Anybody ever... If you ever fight with people, like, you know, an actual fight, like I used to be a boxer, if you're boxing with somebody, you know, and you can get him angry... They're not as effective in fighting you as if they're not angry. You sometimes see the fights where the person gets really angry, you know, but that anger is actually draining their energy. They're less accurate being angry. The good boxers are not angry.

[08:34]

They're cool, and they love their opponents, and they want to free their opponents from gaining ideas. You know? No, no, just put him into a nice rest. Anger drains you. Drains you. It's overkill. So the Buddha kills anger, but the Buddha isn't draining, isn't really angry, killing the anger. It's the clear, loving insight that kills the anger. So there's many, many more examples here. Yes? The roots of anger are what? No, that's the same thing. Anger is greed, hate, and delusion. That's anger. It's attachment to a separate self. That's the root of anger. attachment to belief in your separate existence.

[09:50]

That's the root of anger. That's the root of greed. That is delusion. So the root is the delusion. Delusion is the root. And it's the delusion that I'm separate from you. That's the basic delusion. And that can bloom into anger and attachment. So this kind of loving meditation addresses the anger and it addresses the attachment because this love is a love that doesn't have attachment. And love that doesn't have attachment addresses the delusion. Because when you love someone without attachment, you're realizing interdependence. But when you attach to someone, it's as though they're separate from you.

[10:55]

When you feel separate from someone and independent of them, and you like them, then you attach to them. If you feel independent of somebody you don't like, then you hate them. So when you love people, even people who irritate you, and you don't attach to people you're attracted to and that you feel love towards, then you realize interdependence. So that removes the delusion. Or it takes you to the delusion and starts to erode it. Then you look at the delusion, you look at this basic belief, which you can now do because you're not getting whipped around by attachment and you're not getting whipped around by anger. So now you can look at the basic problem, which is that you think you're separate independent of other beings. That's the root of greed, hate, and delusion. So, there are... I just wanted to tell you the extent of this.

[11:57]

I can't go into all these, but it says, after these ones I just told you about, then it says, It says, after these, okay, after the going over and over again into loving kindness, going into trance, coming back, trying it again, blah, blah, blah, and then hearing these strong messages from Buddha and then thinking of the seven things that your enemies like and all that, then he says, if her resentment subsides when she strives and makes this kind of effort, it's good. If not, then she should remove her her remembering, she should remove the irritation, she should remove the irritation by remembering some of the controlled and purified states in that person which inspire confidence when remembered. So then he goes into these five different ways of looking at somebody that's irritating you to prevent yourself from getting angry. Okay?

[12:58]

Do you want to hear about them or should I just... Okay, five basic ways are... And I must say, I feel this is a little bit fussy, but anyway. And this is like, this message was, this was delivered by Shariputra on behalf of the Buddha to the monks. So here's one of the greatest Buddhist saints of all time who says, you know, there are some people who if you, like, look at them and see what they're doing physically, you cannot stand to see it. It just, you know, it just makes you sick to look at them. The great saint said that, you know. There are some people who, if you look at the way they walk, just the way they stand, the way they open a door, the way they drink their tea, the way they eat, you know. Like I had this roommate in college, you know. And he did this really neat thing that just drove me nuts.

[13:59]

He would like go to the store and he'd buy himself some Oreo cookies and a quart of milk and he'd come home And he'd sit down, he'd set the Oreo cookies down and pour himself a glass of milk and then he would take a little bite of the cookie and take a little sip of milk. And it was like, this is like a really sweet thing to do, right? And just used to drive me crazy to see him there having this little dainty Oreo milk feast, you know? And when I was a kid, they had this show on TV which was called The Honeymooners with Jackie Gleason and Art Carney and Audrey Meadows, was it? At various times, I don't know what, but various times, Jackie Gleason had Art Carney write something out, write a letter or sign a document or something. And Art Carney, whenever he would get ready to sign something, he would go... You know, to get into it, to get relaxed, you know.

[15:13]

He'd do these various motions, you know. And then finally Jackie Payson would, would you be silent already? And then he would. So people do these things which just drive us nuts, you know. Even things that aren't that bad, somehow they just get us for some reason, you know. You know about that? Yeah. I mean, and more disgusting things than that, too, sometimes. But anyway, it gets us. It gets us. For some reason, it gets us, you know. Just climb the walls, you know. Right? So then, but these same people, sometimes when they talk, they have a really nice voice. Same person. And when they talk, they say really good stuff, or their voice sounds very nice. So the Buddha says... just ignore their body, don't look at their body, and just listen, close your eyes, look the other way and listen to their voice. And you listen to their voice, you start to feel, oh, that's really a nice voice, and then the resentment starts to go in, and you can practice loving kindness towards them.

[16:15]

Now, some people are the other way around. Some people, their voice... My wife is very sensitive to these beautiful women, you know, walking around at restaurants, you know, and they sit down and they go... You know... They're so beautiful, but they have these terrible voices, you know, they just drive my wife crazy. Well, what do you do? you just look at their body, you know, but, you know, concentrate on that beautiful face. Or some people actually, like, they have these terrible voices, you know, all their bad karma is, like, coming out in their voice, but they're actually, like, what they do with their body is really helpful and skillful and encouraging. Look at their body. Look what they're doing with their body. Their voice, a terrible voice, but they're really helpful. Just look at that. Okay? That's the second case. The third case is, what's the third case? Well, the third case is the person's voice is not too good.

[17:19]

Okay? Pretty irritating voice. And also, if you look at the way they walk and the way they eat, the way they open doors, what they're doing with their body, it's kind of like pretty bad. You can't, you know, you're basically, everywhere you look, you're irritated. And the Buddha says, but everybody, the Buddha says, everybody has some virtues. He says everybody has some virtues. So try to find it. He said it's like if you're traveling along and you're starving, you're dying of thirst and there's no water around and then you see like the footprint of a water buffalo in the ground and there's a little water in the ground in the footprint. You can't even pick it up with the water up with a leaf. But if you get down there with a straw, you can sip up a little bit of water. And that can keep you going for a while.

[18:20]

So he's saying everybody can find something, some little good thing there to save yourself from hating them. He really wants us not to hate people. He's trying to find something to save yourself from this terrible mistake of hating a person. Anything. Find something. And then the next example he gives contradicts the previous one. He says, some people don't have any virtues. Some people, even the Buddha can't find any virtues because their speech, their action, and even in their mind, if you look in their mind, is totally filled with obnoxious stuff. So in that case, you switch gears. You don't try to find anything good about them. You don't even look away from all the irritating things. There you remember that this person is in big, big trouble.

[19:22]

You switch to compassion. you realize nobody's going to be finding good about this person. This person must be in terrible pain because everything they do with their body, speech, and mind is terrible. They're in terrible situations. And then you really take good care of the person. You do compassion. And that protects you from the anger. And the next type of person is a person whose voice is nice, their posture is nice, their mind, everything about them is good. And that person, you just enjoy how beautiful they are. So that's another way to overcome resentment. And then he says after that, now, if after this you still haven't overcome the resentment, then they have this thing you should do. And he says, if after that the resentment still hasn't subsided, then you have this thing to do. And if after that the resentment still hasn't subsided, then you have this thing to do.

[20:27]

And there's a big section that comes up here. The last big section about this is what you do is you review the behavior of the Buddha. And then you have all these stories of what the Buddha did. to just inspire you to do this incredibly difficult thing. And then after reading all those stories about the Buddha and being inspired by the Buddha, your resentment still hasn't subsided. And the last one is giving. And then they're done. Because giving is going to work at the end. And then he says, and this is the great virtue of giving. You say, why not give at the beginning? That would have been fine. But anyway. Huh? Well, I think because in some ways, if you've done all these other ones and finally you do giving, it probably would work after all the other ones.

[21:30]

But if you did it at the beginning... then your giving might still be infected by the resentment. Probably after doing all this other stuff, it's gotten pretty weak, but hasn't really gone away. So then polish it off with giving. So anyway, this is a big section on resentment here. So that last person, those people that we're irritated by, the ones that are hard to give love to, they're important. You cannot have these little holdouts in your heart And the same when you're working on yourself. Those parts of yourself that you don't want to love, it's not going to work. You have to go there and address those too. They're making a big effort here anyway to really get rid of all the resentment and not have holdouts because the holdouts can grow, take over again. So this is in the Path of Purification by Buddha Gosha, a big section on these ways to let go of resentment.

[22:31]

both towards people that irritate us, plus also towards people that hurt us to situations and insult us. But I think now maybe you want to go to breakfast, right? So please do. And we'll start again at 10.30. And I think I'd like to start at 10.30 with a period of sitting and then the... Excuse me, at 10? Start at 10 with sitting for half an hour and then Brajesh is going to come and say goodbye to you and then we'll have the rest of our program. So come back at 10 and sit for half an hour and then we'll talk to Brajesh and then we'll go on. I wanted to again reiterate the that the four aspects of love as taught by the Buddha, to always practice them together.

[23:42]

So if you're practicing loving-kindness, is there compassion and joy and equanimity? And if you're practicing equanimity, is there loving-kindness, compassion and joy? If you're practicing joy, is there loving-kindness, compassion and equanimity? And if you're practicing compassion, is there loving-kindness, joy and equanimity? So whenever you're working on any one of them, the other three will help you balance that particular practice. And you might see in your mind, can you imagine doing one of them, and if the other ones weren't there, how that would be off. So there's four practices, and in practicing each of the four, there's four ways it could be off.

[24:47]

You could be unsuccessful at doing the practice itself straight, literally, plus any of the other three could be off, even if the one you were doing seemed to be right. In other words, it wouldn't be right if the other three weren't there, even though it might seem by itself to be satisfactory. And another basic thing is, so for example, practicing loving-kindness, you start with whom? Yourself. And in practicing loving-kindness, when you're able to practice with yourself and others, what would be the problem if you didn't have equanimity? Pardon? You do it on some and not others. Or you do it on some aspects of yourself and not others. Huh?

[25:49]

You create separateness within yourself so you wouldn't apply loving-kindness to the wholeness of yourself. So then, without equanimity, your loving-kindness wouldn't be in conjunction with awareness of the wholeness of your life and the wholeness of life. And what if there wasn't joy in your practicing loving-kindness? What would be the problem in that? Pardon? You might be doing it because of duty? Yeah. But anyway, it isn't really loving-kindness if it isn't joyful. Loving-kindness should open you up, remove the constrictions that are blocking the joy. Okay? And similarly, if there's not compassion when you're practicing loving kindness, what would be the problem in that? Hmm?

[26:58]

Well, yeah, that would be part of it, is that you'd have trouble, you know, really wanting love for yourself and you'd have trouble meeting and facing those beings who are in suffering and actually looking at them and wishing them well if you had trouble practicing compassion. In other words, if you were, you know, not able to be there with people that are in suffering, you wouldn't be able to actually give them this gift. And similarly, what about if you're practicing compassion and you're not practicing loving kindness? What would be the problem in that? Pardon? It might look more like sympathy. Yes. What other problem might there be? Less active. Less active. but one of the main problems is that you might get angry, feel hostility towards the person.

[28:04]

You can't practice compassion when you're feeling hostile towards a person. So you need to practice loving kindness and overcome your resentment in order to practice compassion. Yes? Loving kindness is the first part of love where you're actually bestowing and wishing to bestow peace, peacefulness, happiness, and lightness to body and mind. You're wishing them to be safe, free from injury. You're wishing them to be free, and yourself too, to be free of anger, affliction, and anxiety and fear. This is the loving kindness aspect of love. Mm-hmm. Yes? All four.

[29:09]

That's right. Loving-kindness really is all four. And compassion is really all four. And joy is really all four. And equanimity is all four. These are actually four aspects of love, but the Buddha thought maybe it would be helpful to break up love into four parts so you can work on these different dimensions of love. But when you work on the different dimensions, you actually need the other three to be there. So you specialize in one aspect, but if the other aspects aren't there, the love is incomplete. So I find it useful, if I was practicing any one of these, to check if the other three are there. And if they're not, then I need to bring them in. And if they're not, there's some faultiness in that one. So each one will be not, you can see something wrong with each one of them if the others aren't there. What would be wrong with equanimity without the other three? Huh? You'd be indifferent. Indifferent is another problem.

[30:20]

Indifferent, what's the other problem? Well, you could treat everything the same. And you could see everything the same, I guess, uh-huh. I guess indifference would be the one if you were somewhat successful. But actually, if the other ones weren't there, you actually could get into... You might be trying to practice equanimity, but without the other three, you actually could be resentful. You think you're practi... huh? Uniformly resentful. Yeah. Or uniformly greedy. And the other problem, well, I won't mention that right now. Now, another thing which I wanted to mention was that in the description of practicing joy, it doesn't mention to start with yourself. That's an exception to the instruction. And also in the practice of compassion, it doesn't say to start with yourself.

[31:25]

Loving kindness, you start with yourself. Equanimity, you start with yourself. But joy, you start with... What would you start with joy, you think? I already told you, it's now with yourself. That eliminates one of the possibilities. Huh? What? The person you like? You're getting warm. The neutral person. You're getting colder. The person you dearly love, you start with that person. That's an exception. You don't start loving-kindness with the person you dearly love, because it's too easy for it to slip into lust. Loving-kindness, you start with yourself. You have to start with yourself in that case, and then you work to like neutral, Like's easy to move into.

[32:30]

Neutral's easy to move in after that. And then loving the one you like will love a lot, which is somewhat dangerous, because what they call the near enemy of loving kindness is greed. So the second most difficult person to do it with, after yourself, IS THE ONE YOU LOVE DEARLY AND THEN THE MOST DIFFICULT AFTER YOURSELF IS THE ONE YOU DESPISE OR FIND IRRITATED. WITH COMPASSION YOU START WITH SOMEBODY, YOU START WITH SOMEBODY, THE EASIEST WAY TO GET STARTED IS TO START WITH SOMEBODY WHO'S REALLY SUFFERING. NOW IF THAT HAPPENS TO BE YOU, YOU CAN START WITH YOURSELF, BUT IT'S GOOD TO START WITH SOMEBODY THAT'S REALLY HAVING A HARD TIME. AND OF COURSE, WHEN YOU'RE DEALING WITH SOMEBODY WHO HAS A HARD TIME, THE NEAR DANGER is despondency or depression, and the far danger is resentment or cruelty. So if you start getting resentful towards this person you're trying to help who is really a wreck, and you apply this compassion in a way that doesn't have equanimity,

[33:45]

then you start getting drained. When you start feeling drained by being compassionate, you start getting angry, for example. So then you have to go back to loving-kindness. You start being resentful for the person you're practicing compassion towards. When you go back to loving-kindness to overcome the resentment, then come back. That's for the cruelty or resentment. for the despondency or depression or grief that you start to feel when you're working in compassion, go to joy and love and kindness again. To lift yourself up, because you've got to be happy to practice compassion to be successful. Because you're trying to work to help this person. You're wishing this person, may you be free from sorrow and pain. if they feel like you're unhappy about this wish, it doesn't help them. So you've got to not get too depressed when you're practicing compassion.

[34:48]

Okay? So the order, who you practice in what order varies from case to case. Is that clear? Yes? Joy, well, you start with this person that you like a lot. That person is called the boon companion. The boon companion. In other words, it's really nice if you have somebody that you really think is great because that helps you get started on joy. Basically, you just try to work yourself into a state of, you know, use the joy to open up, open your heart up. to gently, lovingly encounter all your resistances. But again, accompany that with equanimity. The danger in joy is the near danger, the subtly kind of close danger. danger that's quite similar to it, which is rather subtle, is the near danger of practicing joy is joy.

[36:09]

But it's joy based on gaining something. So it's very subtle if you practice joy and you feel your heart growing and you feel your limitations dropping away and you feel your constrictions dropping away. If that becomes a gain to you, then it becomes a hindrance to the joy. The joy is not because you're gaining something. The joy is the joy of loving, not the joy of gaining freedom for yourself. Although it does give you freedom, you're more appreciating and being glad about the person than being glad about what you're getting, even though you do get a lot. But it's a little bit tricky and a little dangerous there. The other danger of joy, the other... the far danger is aversion or boredom? Why would you run into aversion or boredom in practicing joy? You could satiate it, yes.

[37:14]

What else? Pardon? Because you're attached to non-joy, yes. What else? What? If you're doing joy for gain. No, let's say you're not. You haven't fallen into that trap. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. But in the practice of joy, what you're doing is you're trying to appreciate people. You're trying to see what's good about them. and you are seeing what's good about them. So if you're not able to see what's good about them, then you're bored with them. I'm not talking about hostility. If you feel hostility towards them, that's not such a common thing to run into, but if you did, you have to go back to practice loving-kindness.

[38:18]

But let's say you're not feeling hostility, okay? If you feel hostility, go back, practice loving-kindness, and come back. That make sense? So you're not feeling hostility, And you're not feeling the joy of like getting something out of it. So you're bored. You get bored. And you get bored sort of when you're working with the person who like is going to most, you know, is most difficult for you to see and appreciate. You're not feeling hostile. It isn't that you feel negative. It's more like bored. Like not at all getting air, you know. That's one of the dangers in practicing joy. What the tough one looks like. You what? You don't quite get it. Well, of course, because the reason why you don't get it is because it's the most difficult one.

[39:21]

Because you're practicing joy and this is like the, this is the distant, this is the distant, this is the, what do you call it, distant enemy or distant opposition. Not because it's so far away, but because it's so different. But actually it seems like it's quite common that you meet someone and you don't find them that interesting. You're not fascinated, you're not like very glad to see them. This is a lot of people you feel that for. Somehow your heart isn't like so wide open that you're just really feeling love for the person and feeling joy at the love. It's a happy love. You don't feel a happy love looking at this person or thinking about this person. You don't feel aversion. That's like not even in the ballpark. So you go and take care of the aversion with the other practice called loving kindness. So now you're not into aversion. You're into practicing joy, but you're not getting it together. You're not feeling joy. You're not really happy to see this face.

[40:25]

This is the difficulty because it doesn't feel good. You're not really irritated quite. It's more effective than irritation in a way. Irritation is totally incompatible, but the boredom is not. Boredom is different from the joy, but it's kind of like a very familiar factor or hindrance to realizing this. Isn't it kind of common? So it actually is. The other kind of joy is fairly common too, the joy of gaining something out of this. They're both fairly common hindrances around the practice of joy. yes with the compassion you what? yeah I actually haven't found anything in the books about the some kind of like mantra you say

[41:30]

that you wish something. It's not so much you're wishing something on the person in the practice of joy. It's more like you're appreciating, you're glad to see them. So, it's more just working on yourself. It's not, and of course they feel the joy, but it's not so much that you're, you could of course give that joy in the other practices, but this is more emphasizing kind of like, has to do with your feeling. And equanimity too, you don't, they can feel the equanimity and feel the joy, but equanimity is more like that you're developing balance in your attitude towards them. The other two, you're actually wishing something for them. The first two are more like have a big, strong aspiration or wish element. The second two are more meditative in terms of balancing your attitude, making your energy big and wide and buoyant, and the other is balancing it. And one other thing I just want to mention and that I didn't mention before, and that is after going through the loving-kindness presentation and after the big section on overcoming resentment, there's a small section called Breaking Down the Barriers.

[43:10]

And this means the barriers between these different objects of loving-kindness So when you first start practicing loving kindness, you start with yourself, go to somebody that you like, go to somebody that you're fairly neutral about, go to somebody you really love already, and then go to somebody that you have difficulty with. When you're successful overcoming any resentment to the fourth kind, or the fifth kind, then what you do is you work on breaking down the barriers between these So that after a while, you feel the same. You feel the same. They're homogenized. You feel the same in the four groups. Can you get that one? After a while, you feel the same about the one you dearly love and the one you used to feel hostile towards. That shows the equanimity is being brought into the loving-kindness meditation. When you first approach this practice you take into account that you're a human being who has discriminations and you don't fight that, you go along with it.

[44:20]

You take into account and you plan your course given your prejudices and your proclivities and your off-balancedness. But once you successfully get through the course and overcome your off-balances to some extent by being able to be loving towards someone you have problems with, then you go back and try to homogenize the situation so that the barriers break down. And so the Buddha gives the examples of... So let's say... that someone, that there's a bunch, that you, let's say this is like the Buddha's talking about monks, right? This instruction is to monks, but anyway, so you're together with these other types of people. There's you, the one you like, the one you're neutral about, the one you love dearly, and the one you have some difficulty with. All five of you are together in a little circle and a gang of bandits comes over and they say, okay, monks, we want one of you.

[45:26]

a bandit thief. And you say, you're the meditator, you say, well, what are you going to do with one of us? They say, well, we're going to kill them and drain the blood from their throat to make an offering to our gods. And then so I said, so which one are you going to give us? Now, if you've broken down the barriers, you can't figure out which one to give. Now, of course, You think, well, if you're selfless, you should give yourself first. Well, that's true in a sense, but you can't tell the difference between yourself and the other people, so sorry. You actually say, I don't know which one to give, I can't choose. I can't choose, so I'm sorry, I can't give you any of us. Too bad. You say, well, we're going to take you all then. You say, well... Volunteers? You can't even, like, choose yourself to go first in a way.

[46:31]

That's a certain perspective here.

[46:32]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_86.73