The first sermon by the Buddha is called, Dharma Chaka Pavatthana Sutta, which means Dharma Chaka means Dharma wheel and Pavatthana means setting it rolling, or turning it. So it's a scripture of setting the dharma wheel, the wheel of the truth, in motion. It's the first talk, apparently. Most people agree, I guess, that that was the first talk. So he was heard to have said this. So this sutra starts out, thus I have heard. And I like to mention that to you, that these teachings usually start with thus I have heard.

[01:04]

We don't know if the Buddha really said this, but this is what somebody heard Buddha say. Or in some cases, this is what somebody heard secondhand, Buddha said. Buddha had one disciple named Ananda, who was his attendant and also his cousin, younger cousin. And Ananda had a very good memory, so he could remember everything the Buddha said, everything he heard the Buddha say he could remember. And also he could remember anything that anybody else told him the Buddha said. So the speaker in most of these scriptures is Ananda. But still I'd like to emphasize that even when Ananda heard the talks, that was just what he heard. He remembered everything he heard, but what he heard may not have been what the Buddha said. Sometimes when people say things, we hear things that other people didn't hear. Sometimes what we hear is better than what they said. But anyway, this is a tradition where we're dependent on disciples of the Buddha hearing something and then they say what they heard.

[02:22]

So this is what Ananda heard. And I think he heard it indirectly. I'm pretty sure he did. Because at the first talk that Buddha gave, I think there were just five people there. And Ananda was not one of them. So he heard about this later, and now you're hearing about it later. The Blessed One was once living at the Deer Park at Isipatthana, near Bharanasi. There he addressed a group of five monks, bhikshus. Monks These two extremes ought not to be practiced by one who has gone forth from the household life. What are the two? There is devotion to indulgence of sense pleasures, which is low, common, the way of ordinary people, unworthy,

[03:40]

unprofitable. And the second view is devotion to self-mortification, which is painful, unworthy, and unprofitable. Avoiding these extremes, the Tathagata has realized the middle path, the middle way. It gives vision, it gives knowledge, and it leads to calm, insight, enlightenment, and nibbana. And what is the middle path? It is simply the eightfold path, namely right view, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration. This middle path realized by the tathagata, which gives vision, which gives knowledge, which leads to calm, to insight, to enlightenment, to nibbana.

[04:55]

So I'll stop there. And I'll just mention that he went on then to talk about the four noble truths. The truth of suffering, the truth of the origin of suffering, the truth of the cessation of suffering, and the truth of the path leading to the cessation of suffering. This was his first talk and we'll get you a copy of that so you can have your own copy to read. So sitting here with you today approximately 2500 years, more than 2500 years after he gave this talk, I'm impressed by the proposal, I don't want to say fact, but the proposal that he said this

[06:48]

that when he first taught, in terms of a formal teaching, what he talked about was, first thing he talked about was two extremes. And then he went on to say that not getting into those extremes is the middle path, and that this middle path is peace and calm and, he didn't say it, but freedom from suffering. And also enlightenment, in other words, understanding how things actually come to be. This is the middle way that he first taught, and this is sometimes called the practical middle way.

[08:12]

There is another way he presented the middle way, which is sometimes called the philosophical middle way. And I will... present those teachings too later. And part of the reason why I'll do it later is because he started with this one. And also I think it's easier to start with this one because it is a more practical way to start. And also the other one's a little bit more difficult. It's more difficult to get started on even. The The next thing I'd like to mention is that, and I didn't find the Sanskrit, I mean the Pali of this text, but I noticed that in both cases they're talking about devotion. There is devotion to indulgence in sense pleasures, and there's devotion to self-mortification.

[09:27]

Those are two extremes. And I wondered, do any of you feel that you are devoted to indulgence in sensual pleasures? You do, huh? Absolutely devoted? Or just absolutely you are devoted? Absolutely. Well, thank you. At least we have one person like that here to represent that extreme. Is anybody here devoted to self-mortification? Yeah? Great. Anybody devoted to both? Off and on? Well, that was an arousing response, so maybe just a couple of you got this problem, and the rest of you are kind of like

[10:53]

practicing the middle way. And you just thought you'd drop by here just to help us out. That's very nice of you to come. Thank you. It's really great. So those two of you, you've got a lot of help here. We all can show you the middle, show you the path, which is nirvana and enlightenment. Yes? It is. I notice that's a strong word. You tend to lean a little bit. Yeah, if I said, do any of you have any kind of leanings in those directions, then probably more would be able to say yes. Yes. Pardon?

[11:57]

How about ignorance? What about it? Well, last night you were talking about not facing up to reality. Yes. So maybe that's why there's less numbers of hands. Uh-huh, right. In other words, one could be devoted to these, to these, these biased ways without necessarily noticing it. One could be not aware of that. Sometimes when you're devoted to something, you learn by trial and error. Even though you're devoted, you learn that you've got to be kind of sneaky about your devotion. Like when we're kids, sometimes we're really devoted to sensual pleasure. But we learn to do stuff like wait in line, you know, say please, you know, share, these kinds of things.

[13:02]

So we gradually start, maybe don't notice that we're devoted to, for example, sensual pleasure. Sometimes it gets too painful to notice how devoted we are because then we also notice how frustrated we are in our devotion. So we sometimes dampen our devotion to something. We're still devoted, but we modify it as a coping mechanism. Yeah. Is devotion in that sense similar to attachment? Is devotion similar to attachment? Well, I think devotion arises out of attachment. I think this kind of devotion arises out of attachment. I think in the background of these extremes is attachment and ignorance.

[14:06]

And then when these devotions arise, then attachment and ignorance are just sort of there in state. They're kind of like the given And the Buddha could say, you know, the first thing he could have said was, I see you guys are attached and ignorant, ignorant and attached. Because of ignorance we have attachments. It isn't that we have attachments and then ignorance. First of all we have ignorance. And ignorance is active ignorance of turning away from how things actually are happening. And then when we turn away from how things actually are happening, we come up with another version of what's happening. And the other version we come up with is something we can get attached to. And then once we have attachments, then we have suffering. So you'll probably also see

[15:20]

in this sutra, but even more so in the next sutra, the one that presents the philosophical middle path, that the beginning is ignorance, the beginning of our suffering is ignorance, and then ignorance develops into various kinds of dispositions and attachments, and these attachments then give rise to birth and death and misery. So you have fundamental ignorance, And then, as these sufferings develop, we develop derivative ignorances to try to get away from the pain that arises from ignorance. So there's the root ignorance of turning away from non-dual reality. Then there's attachments and actions arising out of that ignorance. Then there's suffering arising out of those activities based on ignorance. And then there's various ways to you know, distract ourselves from the pain.

[16:35]

And there's two main ways of distracting yourself, self-mortification and sensual desire. Those are ways to distract ourselves from the pain which arises from ignorance. So, self-mortification, is that a referral to What do some people do, right? Like someone said, I heard on the radio the other day, somebody was interviewing somebody. Oh. Actually, somebody was interviewing this woman who was in a retreat that I did in England, and they were asking, and they also interviewed this guy named Robert Wright, who is a science writer about evolutionary psychology, and they're asking him, what's the adaptive value in people, like, you know, mortifying themselves, like now kids doing various kinds of sticking stuff into themselves and cutting their, you know, why would that be adaptive if people are trying to be happy?

[18:01]

To distract from pain. It distracts from emotional pain. So anything that's distracting from pain that is also painful is sort of a counter-irritant. Yeah. Or that might be like sitting in a strange lotus position. Right. Right. So, you know, sometimes the... Sometimes they translate these as indulgence in self-indulgence, devotion to self-indulgence, and sometimes they translate the other one as self-mortification. Self-mortification is a literal translation of the second extreme. The first one doesn't say self-indulgence. It literally says, you know, sensual indulgence. And the word for sensual actually is kama, which means sex, you know, at the Kama Sutra. So the primary, fundamental thing is sensuality, sexuality. So it's primarily to indulge in that and in all kinds of derivative sensualities.

[19:05]

The majority, the predominance of our sensuality is related to sexuality. So sexuality is the thing that we most use to distract ourselves from pain. And then being hard on ourselves in various ways, are ways we also use to distract ourselves from our fundamental pain. And in practice, in actual doing Buddhist practices, sometimes people get into, you know, trying too hard or practicing really, getting really strict with themselves as a way of practicing, which is the derivative of some deeper habit that they have or longer standing habit before they're practicing of using pain and hardship to distract themselves from a much more difficult kind of pain to face.

[20:09]

And sensual pleasure is another way to do it. And Zen students, you know, you can see them doing both in the practice, both types of distractions. Even though they're trying to learn the middle way, it takes a while. Yes? Irene? Well, can it also be sort of paradoxical that you can be devoted to self-mortification as actually that can lead to self-indulgence of sexual pleasure. Yes. As a means to lead to that. Sure. The other thing I want to say is that... Can you give an example of that? For instance, if you have a relationship with someone and there's really a point where that person has hurt you very much, and then you start feeling, you know, really going into some kind of a grief about it, or then self-notifying yourself by feeling that you're going to somehow detach yourself, but to an extreme, to an extreme.

[21:27]

But behind all that, it could be that you really are hoping that in the end, it will bring you together with this person again, which would be a form of devotion to the sensual pleasure of life. I'm not really articulating it that well. I understand what you're saying, but getting together with the person... You're doing both at the same time. Okay, you could do both at the same time, I suppose. I mean, I'm not saying you're doing one, but it's actually leading to another. You might be hoping, even if not consciously, that it will lead to another. Right. Say you're fasting, and then at the end of the fast, you're having this fabulous meal. Yes. Well, you're enjoying it even more sensually because of the fasting. So these things are so intertwined. Yeah, they are. And also I just wanted to say that at first I agree when this gentleman said something about devotion being such a strong word. So when you asked, like, is anybody devoted to either of these things?

[22:30]

No, I'm not devoted, but as soon as I got that from him, it felt like I was devoted to both. Okay, so now one other person's got this situation. Bad. Well, bad, yeah, okay, bad. Really a bad. Intense, yeah. Well, good. I'm so glad you came. Yeah, so some people fast because, you know, it's hard for them to fast, and while they're fasting Although it's painful, they kind of like it because it distracts them from other pains. Plus the reason why they're fasting is to be healthier so that they'll feel better or so they'll look different so that they can have people's affection maybe or something like that. So they really are devoted to getting this positive stuff and they're willing to suffer some negative stuff to get the positive stuff.

[23:35]

They get that sensuality. They're willing to go through some pain. Plus the pain keeps them distracted from what they're trying to run away from, from the other thing anyway. So they work very well together. To have both extremes available to distract yourself is probably best. Isn't that something? That some people don't know that? So there's ignorance and then there's ignorance of what we do to avoid the pain of ignorance. There's basic ignorance and all the attachments and stuff that arise from that and seeking that arises from that. And then there's this derivative ignorance of what we do to avoid experiencing the consequences of our ignorance. So the Buddha's starting, the first thing he's saying in a way is, let's try to find a way to stop ignoring our pain. He's happy for us to stop ignoring fundamental reality, too.

[24:43]

That would be fine, too, if we could do that. But in a way, first we have to stop running away from our pain. That's what it looks like he's suggesting. Before we try to like turn away, turn from our ignorant habit and turn back to face ultimate truth, we first of all have to stop running away from the pain of our life. Which also, by the way, includes not running away from the pleasure of our life. So running away from the pleasure is one of the ways to avoid awareness of pain. Running away from pleasure is one of the ways to avoid facing our deep pain.

[25:46]

Example? Well, let's say somebody offered you a good meal, and you turn away from it or go away from it as a way to distract yourself from the pain you feel. The pain you feel from being ignorant. The pain you feel, in other words, the anxiety you feel about your life, about what kind of person you are, about whether you're doing the right thing all the time, about whether everybody loves you or not. This kind of basic pain. So here's a super, here's a, somebody offers you something very nice and you turn away from it and that hurts a little bit. Or you actually start running, you know, away from the pain. And while you're running, you don't feel the pain. You run from the pleasure. And while you're running from the pleasure, you don't feel the pain. Or you become afraid of the pleasure.

[26:58]

Pardon? Or you feel prideful. Yeah, that's another way to do it. Yeah. And the pride gives you a kind of little buffer from the pain you felt before this pleasure even arose, this opportunity of pleasure even rose. Or the pleasure could have arisen and you could have felt it a little bit and then run away from it. Like you could have smelled, maybe smelled the food. Or... So... it's complicated, but you can catch on to yourself doing it. This is related to what I was saying last night about

[28:00]

taking our seat, which just happens to be right here, and not shrinking away from what's happening. Greg? Greg? It just sort of seems like self-mortification, where you just sink into a sea of pain. What's supposed to happen then? Yeah, so not running away from the pain could seem like self-mortification, right? Because if you're in a lot of pain, or even if you're doing something which will be painful...

[29:09]

then you feel like, oh, I'm not running away from my pain. Right? So, there I am. I've accomplished that. I'm not running away from my pain. What's the difference between not running away from the pain and self-mortification? That's your question, right? Yeah. Really identifying being of it and in it. And really being completely engaged in it without any perspective, without any witnessing. It seems like there's some clarification about the aesthetic of some kind of strategy to try to set it.

[30:13]

or sometimes just not running away is not strategic. Or anyway, in the moment, I think that's right, in both your cases, in the moment there's a difference. So if I take those two points, it does say the literal meaning of the one extreme is self-mortification, literally. And so there is some kind of identification going on there. And... I think there's probably some strategy there. But one of the key elements in facing our pain in a way that's not self-mortification is called patience, the virtue of patience. Patience is not going to look for some painful situation in order to make sure that you're not running away from your pain.

[31:20]

So you're just, like I say, you're already sitting on your seat. You're where you should be right now. You don't have to do anything so that you'll have pain. For example, you don't have to miss lunch today so that you can sort of run away from the possibility, in order to avoid the possibility of indulging in self, in sensual pleasures. You don't have to avoid lunch for that purpose. And you also don't have to avoid lunch so that you'll feel pain so that you can tell yourself, I'm not running away from pain. That's not the way. The way is to be still, to be where you are, and then if you notice any pain, I wouldn't even say look for your pain. Don't even go looking for it because the pain you find will not be the best one. Okay? the best pain to work with, the pain you find will probably tend to be this self-mortification thing.

[32:28]

In other words, self-mortification is the pain you would choose to inflict on yourself or expose yourself. That's an extreme. You shouldn't go looking for trouble, in other words, because you will... That's self-mortification, to look for trouble. And the Buddha... went and looked for trouble. And he found out, you know, as he said, the way of looking for trouble or looking for pain is painful, unworthy, and unprofitable. He didn't say it's low and common in the way of ordinary people. In those days, it wasn't. Nowadays, I think, actually, it's... self-mortification has become more popular among ordinary people. Actually. I think so.

[33:29]

Do you know what I mean? No? No, I mean like people doing things to hurt themselves. Huh? Oh, uh, Okay, if you do low self-esteem as a way to hurt yourself, then I think that'd be fine. Yes. But I think in the old days people didn't do that so much. And I think they weren't so sophisticated in some ways as we are now. But anyway, he said that indulgence in sense pleasures was low and common, but he didn't say that indulgence in self-mortification was low and common. It's not so, in some ways, it's higher in a sense. I'm not saying it is, but it was considered higher in those days because that was one of the paths that some people did. They left home and they went off into the woods and they had no possessions and no clothes and they really were hard on themselves as a spiritual practice.

[34:37]

It was not common and people would respect them for doing the painful thing. Everybody else was just trying to get good housing and good food and good clothes for themselves, so that was quite common. But a few people gave that up, and they were trying to attain spiritual liberation by being real hard on themselves. So that was not called low and common, but it is painful, unworthy, which also could be translated as unholy, and unprofitable, unhelpful. So this is when you go select your difficulty. Your real pain is not selected by you consciously. Your real pain comes to you, delivered to you, moment by moment, exactly in the right place, you know, perfect delivery. And it's sponsored not by you but by ignorance. Ignorance delivers you the exact perfect pain, the exact perfect pain.

[35:41]

That's the one to face. You don't go looking for it, because again, the one you look for, you won't get that one. You'll get what you'd like to face. And that one you practice patience with. And patience is that you sit in the middle of that pain, in time and space, with no strategy. Now you understand when you hear the practice of patience, you hear this is a virtue, you hear this is beneficial, but when you actually practice it, you don't do it to try to manipulate the pain. You don't do it to make the pain go away. You don't use it as another technique to get the pain to go up to distract yourself or get the pain to go down. You just sit in the middle of it and stop fighting it, either by by any kind of negotiation.

[36:45]

Yes, both. Both. But Emotional pain is, I would say, more or less non-stop. And physical pain, it may go up and down too, but basically it's pretty steady. Whereas physical pain comes and goes. But anyway, both types, practicing patience with both types. And this patience with this pain is also the place where compassion is born. And also pain is actually compassion. Pain is also an aspect of loving-kindness. So another practice to do, you don't go looking for pain, but when it comes you practice loving-kindness toward yourself and gradually towards all other beings. This is Loving kindness is not looking for trouble.

[37:57]

It's a healthy response to our pain. Loving kindness helps us settle into the seat of enlightenment. Okay. Do you have any other questions about that? Let's see, I heard, okay, so boom, boom, boom. Yes? What about if you put yourself in a situation where you're not necessarily looking for pain, but you maybe are getting away from some of the things that you go through and you want to feel better, so crutches and stuff, like going off in the woods and being alone. So you go off in the woods to be alone, yes, and your motivation is what? You also see that as like, oh, I'm going to challenge myself. Okay, let's say you want to do a challenging thing.

[38:59]

Do you want to look at that? Well, you know, let's say you want to go out in the woods. What is your motivation for going out in the woods? You want to what again? I don't know, to know that it's going to be a challenge and that you're going to So you'd like to go off in the woods because you'd like to be challenged, right? Is that what you're saying? Or like going to another country by yourself, knowing that you're probably going to be suffering a lot of the time. Right. And you'd like to do that, you're partly motivated to do that because you think it would probably be good for you to suffer. Yeah. Or to be away from comforts. You've got some comforts and you want to go away from the comforts. And then you really see your suffering because when you're in the comfort you have trouble seeing it. Yeah. And you kind of would like to see your suffering so you think if you go over there you'd be able to see it.

[40:02]

Or you're pretty sure you will be able to. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, it is. You're in a comfort situation and you can't see your suffering. Right? That's what you're saying, right? So you think if you go over there, you will be able to see it. And it's true. When you get over there, you would be able to see it. No matter where you are, you can see your suffering. It is possible. Don't worry. You can see it, but you don't have to leave the place you are to go see it. Now, it is true. that if you're sitting like, you know, if you don't have any diseases and nobody's beating up on you and you're sitting in your house and it's not too cold or hot, you're not starving, it's true, you're pretty comfortable. And you know that if you go outside and drive a nail through your hand, you know for sure that'll hurt. So if you're sitting in your house and you can't feel your pain, you know certain things you can do and you definitely will feel pain if you do those things, right?

[41:06]

So then you maybe want to do some of those things because then your pain will be so clear and you can work with that pain. And so you're right that probably that would be painful if you were able to actually go do that to yourself. That would be painful. And he said, that's self-mortification, that he said, yes, that is painful. But that's an extreme. So that's an extreme, to go someplace else to get some pain. It's actually painful. And yes, I want that, so yes, that's right. It's unprofitable and unholy. And holy, you know, in the sense of... in the sense of... This is also translated as worthy. Holy in the sense... The word holy means whole. Okay? It's ignoring the whole to go away from where you are to practice. It's always best to practice where you are, I'm saying.

[42:10]

Always best to practice where you are. No matter what's happening, it's best to practice now. Like last week, I mentioned that... I heard about this California Native American shaman, and people came to study native plants with him, and then he would say, find me five native plants, and if they took a step, he would say, I won't teach you. You're supposed to just look down and find five plants right there. Now he usually had interviews with them, not in like, you know, cement parking lots. So there were five native plants where they were standing, at least five native plants. But that they walked away, he realized, you're not ready to study. So it's okay to go someplace. It's okay to walk across the room.

[43:17]

But what's your motivation? One of my favorite lines from Walden is, all you have to do is sit long enough in an attractive spot in the forest. Sophia, are you here still? Huh? You here? All you have to do is sit long enough in an attractive spot in the forest and all the inhabitants will exhibit themselves to you in turn. If you sit here, everything will come to you. All your problems will come to you. I don't know if Brazil will come to you if you sit in Bolinas. I don't know if it will. But when it's time for you, suddenly there'll be Brazil. But not because you dial it in. Okay, now it's time to struggle.

[44:19]

Now it's going to be Brazil. Now it's going to be raccoon. Now it's going to be bear. Now it's going to be Zen. Now it's going to be cancer. Now it's going to be crucifixion. Now it's going to be... It will all come to you. Everything will come to you if you stay at your place. But sometimes the way it comes to you is your legs start going like this and you walk over there. But you don't go over there to practice. You practice each step of the way. And each step of the way, if you're ignorant, your suffering is with you. But it's not the suffering you choose. It's the suffering that's given to you because of who you are. This is not self-indulgence. This is not self-mortification. This is just dealing with what's happening, and patience is the way to deal with the pain. But it's okay to walk out in the forest.

[45:20]

The question is, what are you going there for? So let's hear some reasons to go to the forest. Could I just ask you, would it be true to say that patience is the way to deal with pleasure? Patience is the way to deal with pleasure? Yes, you said patience is the way to deal with pain. Is the other side of that in this dialogue, that patience is also the way to deal with pleasure? Well, sort of. When there's pleasure, okay, there is pain. The pain is non-stop. The pleasure that we call pleasure is a pleasure that seems to come and go.

[46:23]

The pain comes and goes too, but it always comes. Because as long as there is ignorance, there's some anxiety. And even when there's pleasure, if there's some ignorance, there's anxiety about how long that pleasure will last. And, you know, will it come again? So if there's any self-clinging, then even in pleasure there's pain. So you're not really practicing patience with pleasure. You're practicing patience with pain associated with the pleasure. But to stay present with the pleasure and not mess with it, but just feel it, that way of being with the pleasure is very similar to the way that you would be with pain. And if you're with your pleasure in the same way you're with the pain, then you stop closing your eyes to the pain. Because some people just, they don't, they don't... Pleasure, pain with pleasure?

[47:32]

I mean, some people actually don't notice that. But I know, I know, you know, little kids that know, that have very clear senses of pain with pleasure. They notice it. Like I, this kid I know, he's not a kid anymore. He's an old man. But when he was a kid... He cried in the shower because he loved warm showers. But as soon as he got in, he knew that his mother would tell him to get out. So he'd go and get in the shower and love the shower and be crying because he knew it was going to end soon. Five minute max, you know. So he's somewhat of an aware kid to see that there is pain in pleasure if there's ignorance. And he was ignorant, so there was pain. Now sometimes there's also pain in the middle of pain. Like, you know, when the water is really hot and your mother's making you stay in the water, then there's pain, physical pain, and there's also pain at the pain.

[48:43]

How long is it going to last? Why did this happen to me? That kind of thing. If there's no ignorance, If there's no ignorance, is it pleasure? Well, we say that there is a pleasure when there's no ignorance. It's called nirvana pleasure. It's the pleasure, it's this pleasure, it's a pleasure that doesn't even happen. So, yeah, so like big deal. It's like beyond even happening. That's how big it is. So that means also it doesn't stop. It's that kind of pleasure. It's an unshakable, it's, you know, irrefutable peace and pleasure and freedom from a fear. And it's full of love for all beings. So it is a super pleasure, but it's like really inconceivable from the point of view of

[49:47]

ignorance, that kind of pleasure. It's not like any pleasure we know, even though we know great pleasure, but it's a greater pleasure. It's dependable, and it's helpful, and you don't mind giving it up. You don't have to be attached to this particular pleasure. And as a matter of fact, that's how you work with it, just like the other pleasures, except this pleasure, even more so, you practice giving it up. So they're still practicing patience even with that one. Okay, so let's see. It was Wendy, Lon, and what's her name again? And Ann. Was that right? Is that what the people had their hands raised? I've gotten a little distracted, particularly by the Walden Pond, because I think it's important to note that when Thoreau's laundry got dirty, a source of pains, I bring that out, he would take it to his mother's, and she would wash the laundry, and then he'd come back to the place where everything would appear.

[51:11]

That's very important, yeah. I think. But another way to see that is, you sit there. The dirty laundry. No, he's sitting there and the dirty laundry is, you know, somewhere in the neighborhood. Okay? All right? And eventually that comes to his attention. The dirty laundry comes to him. Let's say, let's hope it does come to him. Then he has to deal with that by taking it to his mother. Right, I suppose, which keeps the bond up with his mother, but it's not like he deals with it himself. Well, if he takes it to his mother and doesn't deal with it, then he's not practicing at that time. Then there's a break in his practice, right? But it's okay to take your laundry to your mother as long as every step of the way you're not taking the laundry to your mother to avoid pain. Right, which sort of was my question, I think, having to do with the necessity. If it's ignorance and attachment that lead to suffering, that lead to the development of loving-kindness and compassion, then ignorance... Excuse me.

[52:25]

That part isn't necessary. That the suffering leads to the development of loving-kindness. Well, how are you going to develop loving-kindness, though, and compassion for others without ignorance and attachment? No, no, you do need them, but they don't necessarily make you do the practices, that's all I'm saying. It doesn't necessarily follow. Sometimes it stops. Sometimes it just goes, ignorance, suffering, ignorance, suffering, ignorance, suffering. It doesn't go always ignorance, suffering, middle way, end of suffering. Okay? But is there a way to compassion and to loving-kindness? that doesn't go through ignorance and attachment and suffering? No. No. So, the middle way then depends on ignorance continually.

[53:32]

The middle way is a middle way of dealing with ignorance. And suffering that comes of it. It's the middle way of dealing with ignorance and suffering that comes from ignorance. It's a middle way of dealing with it, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it really wouldn't... It wouldn't quite do, would it, to extinguish ignorance? I mean, even were it possible for a human being. It wouldn't do to extinguish ignorance? Well, because then you would be cut off from the possible consequences of ignorance, which would be loving-kindness and compassion. It wouldn't do to extinguish ignorance. That's right. It wouldn't do to extinguish ignorance because if you extinguished ignorance, you would just be memorializing ignorance.

[54:38]

That I don't get. You would just be celebrating and reaffirming and reifying ignorance if you extinguished it. I was just thinking of its use value, that it's useful, that it's valuable. I understand that. So you think it's useful, okay? Well, it sounds like the sine qua non of the whole system. I mean, in other words, to hope to not be ignorant. Well, no, the sine qua non, I think what you think of the sine qua non is the loving kindness, isn't it? Isn't that what you like? Yeah. So is it the loving kindness that's the sine qua non, or is it the ignorance that's the sine qua non? it's hard to say in a way well it sounds like I guess it sounds like they're all dependent upon each other these concepts as you really can't get somewhere and throw everything throw anything else out right can't throw anything out can't throw anything out right I mean you can't transcend any of these moments not the ignorance can we stop there for a second just stop there for a second you can't throw anything out let's work with that for a while can't throw anything out

[56:17]

You can't throw anything out. You can't throw anything out. You can't throw anything out. That's a meditation practice. Then you can say the next part too, which will be another meditation practice. But just remember that practice. You can't throw anything out. That's quite similar to you can't bring anything in. You can't bring anything in. Okay? Okay? Okay, there's two more. Is that enough for now, Wendy? Thanks. Okay. And then Lon. Are these episodes of recognizing and willing to accept the pain and deal with it equivalent to the Dharmagate or Dharmagates that are numberless? Yes. Yes, it's equivalent. The Bodhisattva vowed, Dharma gates are boundless.

[57:19]

I vow to enter them. That's the same as saying, well, I say it's the same. It doesn't sound the same, but the same as saying, everything that happens is a Dharma gate. Everything that happens is a door of truth. Therefore, you can't throw anything out. Whatever happens, that's what you work with. You don't have to go someplace else to another door. This is the door right now. Don't throw this out. This is the one to use. This is the teaching right now. What in the world is this about? Enter. Always enter here. Don't throw anything out. Don't ask for, could I have another? This may be a mistake, but it's a mistake which is the door to the truth. And? I think that I understand that there's pain with the little people and pain with the big people.

[58:22]

And the pain that springs from ignorance. Is that the underlying pain that is because we have finite minds? Yeah. We cannot understand the influence. So there's pain there all the time. Right. Finite mind means mind that makes things finite. The mind that makes things finite, we've got a mind that can present it with infinity. We don't just sit, there we go, make it into little chunks. So we have a mind that converts the unknown or the infinite into little packages that we can manipulate and we feel suffering. We feel that's ignorance. We ignore the big picture because the big picture is not useful to us. So we make little pictures that are useful by ignoring the whole story and then we get pain with the little picture. And then we want to look away from that pain, so we go from there.

[59:27]

This first sutra is saying, trying to get us back to the pain that results from ignorance. Well, we aren't necessarily afraid, but we usually are afraid because we'd rather be afraid than feel that pain because the pain is much bigger than anything we can fear. So we like to make... So first of all, we turn away from the vast reality of our interconnectedness We make a little world, we feel anxiety about that, but it's a big anxiety because the little world is totally surrounded by what has been cut off. So it's a big anxiety. The anxiety is almost the same size as the universe minus the little thing we made. So it's a big anxiety, and we'd rather not face the big anxiety. So we take some little aspect out there again. We take a little chunk of the anxiety, and then we can be afraid of it.

[60:30]

And then you can like, I'm strong. And then that feels good. Rather than just sit there and kind of like... Yeah. So the practice of patience is to try to find some way to become more skillful at facing this, you know, really big scale situation which we have, which our mind has created by making things small scale and insulting the big scale. So the big scale says, oh yeah? And really our mind says, We made a little thing, and that means there's a big thing that is not being noticed. So I'm in trouble. Ming? How do you know we are in doubt? How do we know we are in doubt in something? One glass of wine, two glasses of wine.

[61:36]

Well, I guess if I feel like I'm facing my suffering, if I feel like I am, then I have a feeling for that. Like, well, this hurts. This is difficult. Like I'm talking to somebody, this is difficult. This is a difficult conversation. I'm having a hard time here. I'm kind of uncomfortable. This person doesn't look very happy with what I'm saying. And I kind of... I wish she did feel happy with what I'm saying, I guess. And she doesn't look happy, so I'm kind of uncomfortable. Maybe I'll talk to her about it, and maybe she'll tell me that she's really not unhappy with me, and then I'll feel more comfortable. But before I talk to her, I think I'll just stay here for just a second and notice that I feel kind of uncomfortable, and I would like to get out of here. And I would like her to get out of here, or her to smile... But before I do anything to get her to smile, I think I'll just sort of sit here and feel kind of lousy.

[62:43]

I feel kind of uncomfortable. Right around here and around in here. Kind of uncomfortable. And I notice I kind of like would veer away. I'd like to veer away and make this a smaller scale, something I could be afraid of. So I notice all these impulses to get away from this pain. And the more impulses I notice about to get away from the pain, the more impulses to get away from the pain I can confess. And when I confess the impulse to get away from the pain, they don't work so well anymore and I'm back here in pain land. And then maybe I feel like, oh, okay, here we are again. And I feel not an impulse to do something to get away. And then I notice that and I admit it and I come back. And I run away and come back, run away and come back, run away. Pretty soon you feel like, well, I guess I'm kind of here now. And then maybe some tears run down my cheeks. But I don't follow them, you know, in a way to distract myself from my pain. I just say, oh, it's here. And I stay with the pain.

[63:45]

And then I lose that pain and get another one. And I smell my dirty laundry and I have another one. And I go see my mother and I have another one. So I'm constantly working with pain. And I can tell, this act here is that I'm trying to get away from my pain. You get better at catching yourself at trying to go away. So it's not so much how many glasses of wine, but when you reach for the wine before you even drink it, what are you reaching for? Are you distracting yourself by moving your arm here? You can feel that. You can feel, I'm running away. I'm running away from my life. So you say, okay, I can't reach for this wine because it's a distraction. I can feel myself leaving my seat. I'm sitting here, you know, with the Buddhas. We're suffering together here. And now I watch myself distract myself by what I say, by what I think, by what I plan, by what my body does.

[64:56]

I watch myself go away from my seat. I leave my seat and go off to do some more exciting practice or just simply to be a bum. I've had enough of this Buddhism crap. I'll just go do that. Or if you don't want to do that, then just slug yourself a few times. That'll distract you. But you can say, oh, yeah, this is just distracting me. I don't want to just be here, helpless, powerless, suffering. That's another little thing you say to yourself, helpless, powerful. That doesn't sound good, does it? So, okay, let's go. I'm not going to be helpless and powerless. But practicing patience, it turns out, isn't helpless and powerless. It is a great virtue. It is the Buddha's practice. It's a very active thing to do. It's called not running away. It's called sitting like a Buddha and not running away. It's an action. The pain is passive.

[65:57]

Feeling pain is passive. You receive the pain. You receive the pain. That's the passive aspect. The positive aspect is do you run away or do you sit? Buddha doesn't run away. Even when Buddha walks, Buddha's not running away from each step. So before you get into trying to figure out whether something's a distraction or not, you've got to be undistracted. Because if you're already distracted, you can't tell what's distraction, because you're already distracted. You can hardly tell what keeps you being distracted. But when you're present, you can tell that you're running away. You say, oh, I blew it. I was there, and then I ran away. Then if you confess and you come back, then again, from presence, you can tell running away. Now, you can also run away without noticing, but you have a chance to be honest. And if you're present, you can feel, I betrayed myself. I betrayed my practice. I betrayed the middle way. I ran away from my suffering. And don't beat yourself up for running away.

[67:01]

Be kind to yourself and say, okay, did anybody run away? Raise your hand. What are you going to do now? Are you going to go back or keep running away? I'll go back. Okay. This is called taking refuge in Buddha. I'll go back and sit on my seat. This is the first Buddhist precept. It's called go back to Buddha. Go back and sit where you are. And kindly, lovingly go back and practice patience with the Buddhas in this world that's created by ignorance. And this is not a bad situation. This is a situation just simply the world and the Buddha comes and sits in the world in this middle way. Just sits there without distracting herself by indulgence in sensuality, without distracting herself by intensifying

[68:03]

the pain in some way to distract yourself from the world of suffering, the world of ignorance. Sit here. Don't throw anything out. Don't take anything in. Just sit here, practicing Buddha. Carol, Lynn? I have two questions. One is kind of an extension of your conversation with Wayne. When you're in times when really, or at least when I'm in touch, when I really just, I can't tell. I don't want to be here. And I don't know why. I'm not aware of feeling pain. It's just like I'll have these little moments and I'll be gone for a very long span. It feels that way. How do you practice with that without getting all, I get all, you know, Effortful? What effortful? What kind of effortful? I try to get myself here. And if I make myself be here.

[69:05]

Well, that's not so bad. Well, I don't think it works very well. Yeah, well, it's making yourself be here is a little heavy-handed, but, you know, just the basic idea is kind of good. How about, you know, again, you know, patience is... The bodhisattva practices of giving... the precepts. And again, the precepts, the first precept is taking refuge in Buddha, patience, enthusiasm and concentration. These are all dimensions of compassion. They're all dimensions of working to free beings from suffering. Okay? But they're also called skill and means. They're also called virtues. So they are compassion And they're virtues which bring Buddha into reality in your life. But they're also called sometimes attractions. They're ways of attracting yourself and others to the practice. When you practice them, you've attracted yourself. And when you practice them, you attract others to the very same practice.

[70:09]

So you have to attract yourself to being here. If you're pushing yourself back to your seat, well, you just say, okay, you got me back here, and you just wait until the pressure gets off, and you fly off again. You got to attract yourself. Attract yourself. Kind of like, oh, that would be really neat to actually be here. Hey, Carolyn, this is really nice here. Do you know that there's a children's poem called How to Paint the Portrait of a Bird? It's originally in French by Jacques Prévert. How many people know that poem? So, do you know it in French, Liliane? Oh, well. You know it in French? Ah, the oiseau. Yeah, right. Okay, so here's the poem. This is in English, okay? If you want to paint the portrait of a bird,

[71:13]

find a quiet place in the forest, attract a spot in the forest, and put the canvas against the tree and paint something, paint the cage. And then paint something pretty, something useful, something beautiful, and something X for the bird. And then paint the door open. And then just sit and wait. So that's the part of the poem I'd like to say for now. So you should paint something beautiful, something useful, something, these kinds of things to attract the bird, to attract yourself into your place.

[72:19]

But it's going to be a cage, because your seat is going to be a cage for a while. Because we are in a cage. We're in a cage of our limited idea of what's going on. But we don't want to face our limited idea. We want to fly around everywhere else but get in and face the consequences of our limited idea. We have to be kindly and lovingly attract ourselves into this place. The cage is the pain. The cage is our ignorant mind. Hmm? When you face the pain, you also turn out you face the ignorance. It's hard to find our ignorance. It's hard to find our delusions. But you can find the pain. That's kind of like... That's... The key is that we evolve to a point where we're not... We were going along, I guess, and then we were able to imagine some really strange ideas about the universe.

[73:27]

But they were so powerful and useful, these ideas, they made us masters of the planet gradually. We're the most powerful beings in the world because we can think dualistically, more so than any other animals here. So we're in charge. It's very powerful to be able to think dualistically. But fortunately, we also developed pain about that view. There are certain kinds of pain which are very helpful, like when you sprain your ankle, the pain in your ankle is very helpful because it tells you you shouldn't be walking anymore. And when a bug's biting, it's very painful, so you can invite the bug to go someplace else. Go away now, please. Those are useful pains. And the other, they tell you something's off. But the pain of ignorance is also useful. That tells you something's off. But what's off? So we develop the pain for that. But we also then develop ways to get away from that.

[74:29]

So now we have to get ourselves back into the cage of that pain so we can face it. And then the later part of the story is when the bird comes into the cage, when the meditator enters the seat, then you paint the door shut. or you push the door shut with your brush, and then paint the bars away. But if you paint the bars away before you get in the cage, you're in the cage and you don't even know it. But if you get in the cage, then you can paint the bars away. And then you paint a branch under the bird. And then you paint the rest of the tree with the leaves. And then you paint the insects and the sun. But now you have a bird that is really free. But we have to get in the cage before we can become free. We have to voluntarily enter into what's happening here. Because otherwise our bondage is hidden from us to some extent.

[75:33]

And so this first teaching is showing us the ways we distract ourselves. So let's see, who's next? Jackie, Salvi, anybody else? Can you elaborate or talk about what you said earlier about we get our problems at the perfect doses at the perfect time? Let's see, more about that? It's created by, depending on ignorance, we have various kinds of dispositions. And then depending on those dispositions, we cling. And then based on that clinging, we suffer. Or another way to tell a story is, depending on ignorance and the dispositions of ignorance, we develop the ability to imagine things are out there, and then when they're out there, we feel a certain way about it, and then we crave, and then we cling, and then all kinds of suffering follow from that.

[76:52]

But the way the suffering works with the ignorance, it's perfectly matched. So if you study the suffering, you've got the suffering that arises from your ignorance. When you study that suffering, which you didn't go look for but just comes up moment by moment, the one that's right under your nose right now, that's the one that relates most directly in the most un-derivative way to your basic ignorance. So when you study that suffering, that's the door to the truth of how the suffering arose, and it arose from ignorance. So you can see that ignorance. So if something's happening to, medically or something going on with a family member, it points to my ignorance? Yes. Everything that's happening medically or a family member is an opportunity for you to understand your ignorance. I understand it's an opportunity, but I guess I have a larger question about that.

[78:02]

Okay, what's the question? How does it manifest? How does the universe manifest? Well, yes, it's through karma, but to talk about how that happens is something which, I want to say, it's kind of a somewhat different realm of study is to look at how karma works and discuss that. If we get off into talking about how karma works, I think we're we're moving in a different direction from simply facing whether or not we are distracting ourselves from what's going on by these two extremes. Now, the Buddha said in his first talk that if you avoid these two extremes, this will be the middle path. And the middle path is, among other things, enlightenment. So you will be able to actually see enlightenment.

[79:05]

or yourself how the universe is created, how it happens. You'll be able to see that. And we can talk about it a little bit before you're enlightened, but we don't want to talk about it too much because it's a distraction from you doing the work which will be your enlightenment. So rather than tell you what you would see later, We try to emphasize the practice so that you'll be able to see it rather than just to hear about it. Yes. Yes. The Buddha is saying, work with what you've got. Start with what you've got. Don't skip over this. So like, when I'm here during practice periods at Tassajara, sometimes the monks, they voluntarily come here for training.

[80:14]

We have three-month practice periods. And sometimes in those training periods, a monk will come to me and say, I'm leaving. I've had enough of this stuff. I'm going out of here. And I say, well, okay, but are you running away from anything? I say, if you want to leave, if you really want to leave, if you think it's better to go do something else than be here in this practice period, then go ahead. That's, you know, I'll support you doing what you think is best. But if you're running away, I don't know if that's so good because for all I know, as soon as you get away, you'll try to run away from there too and run away from there. That's what people usually do. So I'd just like to ask, can you tell me that you're completely settled here and you can patiently sit in the middle of what's ever happening and that based on that patience, you would like to leave?

[81:18]

And they never say yes. So far, no one has ever said yes. And I say, well, why don't you just go and look and see if you actually can say that you actually can say, I can sit here forever. I can deal with my difficulty. And I'm not running away from it. I can face it. But even though I can face it and I'm patient with it, I would like to leave. But I'm leaving from patience rather than running away from my pain. And twice they've come back to me and said, yes, I'm completely settled here. I'm not trying to run away. I can face this pain. And I'm not wiggling. I'm not fighting. I'm right here with it. And I'm open to my life. Twice they've come back. And in one case, I asked further questions and then the person went back and looked again, because they weren't so sure after I asked them a few questions.

[82:30]

And then that person never came back again and just did the practice period. I don't know if that person ever got settled, but I don't remember. But the other case, the woman said, I'm perfectly happy being here. Of course, I'm suffering, but I'm not running away. I could stay here. I can handle this, and I feel good. I'm happy to be here. But I want to leave. I want to do something other than this practice period." And she just, nice and strong, she just walked out of here, you know? And then... She wasn't looking for anything? She wanted to do something, and she didn't know what it was, but she didn't feel, she did not want to do the practice period. But she wasn't running away. But she just knew it wasn't appropriate to stay here. And it was towards the beginning of the practice period. She had just finished the initiatory sitting period, which is five days of real hard sitting. She just finished that and came to talk to me about it afterwards. But she just felt like she didn't want to do the practice period anymore, even though she was really here.

[83:39]

And then we got word just a couple of days later that she was pregnant. And so she had the baby. That's what she wanted to do. That's not the practice period, you know? And she's just really, yeah, that was her work that she did. So you don't have to make your life one act of running away after another. And if you don't, it doesn't mean you can't do things. It's just that activity can arise from patience. As a matter of fact, in the order of practices, Right after patience comes enthusiasm, which is the working, kind of the work side of the practice, is that you worked. You want to do stuff. And you're enthusiastic about, well, practicing patience, but you're enthusiastic about many kinds of practices. But they're coming from enthusiasm, from seeing that it's wonderful to do good things rather than you're doing good things to run away from your pain. So this act can be a good thing, you know.

[84:42]

But the question is, is it running away? It can be a bad thing also and be running away. But even wholesome things can be done as a way of running away. And in that sense, they're less wholesome than if you would come back and do the same act from patience. And I used the example last week, I think, of going to the toilet. When you feel the urge to go to the toilet, most adults can hold it for a while. But some, as soon as they feel it, might just, if you're outdoors or something, as soon as you felt it, you just might go. Just feel it and let it go. Which is perfectly fine. I feel. If you're not standing too close to a stream or something, just let it go.

[85:47]

It's fine. But you might have your clothes on and be in a social gathering like this and feel like, I really don't want to do it now. But you feel that urge. Nature's call, so to speak. And it feels, some people feel that when that comes, they feel a mixture of pleasure and pain. Jenny, you ever feel a mixture of the two? Like particularly like if you're constipated or something, you might feel, oh, good. Something's developing here. I haven't felt that urge for a while. You feel good, you know. But you also feel a little uncomfortable because you have to hold it, you know. And you have complex feelings around these things, right? So maybe you feel some discomfort, but you can practice patience with that discomfort and be settled with that discomfort and not go to the toilet and be perfectly settled with it.

[86:56]

And you keep having the discomfort. Or even the discomfort of the anticipation of being able to go later, but not going. All these kinds of mixed feelings you can have and just be completely settled with it and not have to go and not feel bad about holding yourself back or feel a little bit pain about holding yourself back, but be patient with that pain. and be completely settled and feel like, although it probably wouldn't be good to never go, I could stand this feeling for the rest of my life. If I had to feel like this for the rest of my life, which some people maybe do, just by some neurological abnormality, they might feel like they have to go to the toilet all the time. And they just have to live with it. Some other people, by some neurological abnormality, never feel it. So they have to wear, you know, diapers or something because they never get the signal, right? This is, I guess, anxiety incontinence, an aspect of incontinence. You might lose the sense of when you have to go. So they have to live with the fact of not getting that signal anymore.

[87:59]

Somebody else might be getting the signal all the time. Both people could practice patience with that. But normal people can practice patience with it. And then when they wish to go to the toilet, they go to the toilet. But a lot of normal people, to have normal information like this, they don't practice patience with it. They're always running to the bathroom, scared and impatient, and they can't settle with that pain. And so as soon as that feeling comes, they're distracted and not present. And sometimes they don't even know that they're distracted by it. They barely know it. And so they're even more distracted. Does that make sense? Like, sometimes when I'm talking to somebody and I get that feeling, you know, you're in the middle of a conversation and it's starting to come on, and you maybe would like to continue the conversation, or at least the other person would like to continue the conversation, but you don't necessarily want to tell them this thing has come, especially if you don't know them very well, you know?

[89:09]

Like maybe if you're applying for a job or something, it's coming to a certain point, you know, where they're asking you to explain something, you know, and it's kind of like, well, should I bring this up now? You know, I wonder how maybe in a couple of sentences there'll be a natural pause and I could say something about, could we have a break? So you're kind of thinking about this, but you're trying to have this conversation, but you're kind of having trouble concentrating on the conversation because You have this other thing and you don't know if you should bring it up or not. But if you actually say, or if I should say, if I actually say, you know, I have to go to the bathroom, I have to go to the toilet, I would like, I feel an urge to go to the toilet, I can sometimes just continue the conversation then for a while because I've noted it, you know. I've established that as one of the elements in the conversation is that one of us needs to go to the toilet eventually and it's me. And so then at any time I need to go, I can say, it's time. I don't have to work up to it at that point on short notice.

[90:21]

But now I can feel like it's 15 minutes away. At the minimum, I could make at least 15 minutes. So I know I've got 15 minutes for the conversation before I'm going to have a problem. But I bring it up maybe right away. Actually, sometimes. And then I can relax with it. But if I don't bring it up, then that whole time, I'm not really paying attention to them anyway. And I'm not going to the toilet either. So I'm not present. Because I'm kind of like ambivalent about paying attention. I don't know what to pay attention to and so on. And I'm kind of confused and so on and so forth. So this is like, what is that? You know. So where's the extreme there? Do you see an extreme there?

[91:25]

I think there's self-mortification there potentially, trying to control the situations, stay in the conversation, so I do a little self-mortification. But I didn't bring it on on purpose. But I think actually I'm kind of indulging in trying to keep the conversation going a certain way. I think I want to have a certain kind of conversation rather than just simply face the very straightforward physical discomfort of being a civilized human with this basic animal need and just not facing it. Yeah, it depends on that too. Pardon? Maybe he's getting

[92:32]

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