last summer we had a series of meetings in many of you came to those meetings
at last summer there was there seem to be great suffering in our world
and now we start another series
and there is see still seems to be a new fresh world of suffering
we don't know about tomorrow but today there's
there's pain and suffering and
fear and discomfort him
anxiety and greed hate and delusion
so yeah i'm
and last summer we we studied own compassion we just just studied different types of compassion
as presented in a
ancient indian text
and
this fall
i i want to continue
to study compassion
and i want to emphasize
but more emphasis on the study
and i want to call as a kind of
playful thing i wanna call our study scientific study
so the the agenda i wanted to offer
for you
is the agenda of
scientifically exploring
examining
experimenting with
observing
questioning
wondering about suffering
and the nature of suffering
and also wondering and observing and exploring
compassion
wondering about what compassion is

i mentioned
a few weeks couple of weeks ago
i know about chalk that socrates said
a life and unexamined life is not worth living
and again that's her brother strong statement but he might have also said
a life of unexamined suffering is not worth living or a life of unexamined compassion is not worth living i'm not saying that
but i say more positively is that by examining compassion
we may discover what it really is
and also what suffering is and also
who we really are
i propose that without practicing compassion
in the form
of observing ourselves
and exploring ourselves
wondering about
what we are experimenting with what we are
we will not realize who we are
and this will postpone the realization
of great compassion and great awakening
so the word agenda
the root of the word agenda the root of it is to agree
in latin
get to agree is the root of the word now the definition is is to is an item
for discussion in a meeting
so can we are can we agree
ah on just on the our meetings discussing and examining compassion which means involves examining and questioning suffering can we agree on that and we can we agreed to use
the spirit
of exploration
and questioning as a way to understand
compassion can we agree on that
perhaps we can since you came to this meeting maybe maybe have already agreed on that

so i'm for do you say you should we agree on that agenda make that our agenda
i shouldn't do this but i'm set i want to say that i don't think the root of agenda means to agree or duchess to i just look it up in a dictionary and it just said that the latin word the latin root was meant to agree but you can look up in a different deck
granary and tell tell us where to find
my source says it means to do which is what i thought it meant and therefore in canada that's a later meeting the original mint the earlier route is to agree the later latin is something to do i should know better than to not agree with you
so anyway the the earlier route is a good edge the later meaning the later route latin root is something to do so i'm proposing that we agree on what we're going to be doing
it's that okay can we start with that at least
well i i have to say i think agree actually comes from gray for which comes from gratis which is pleasing i'd i didn't grade we can bring out into a joke maybe it'll be pleasing that we agree on or studying together
fundamentally
put pleasing that were studying together
yuki
in in your description you use the word science and i wondered if you're asking if you're suggesting a particular way of looking at compassion
mm so now i'll give you a definition some definitions of science so there's more than one science
so one a simple definition of science is
study
an activity of studying
through experimentation and observation
that's a simplest one our offer
another one is
intellectual and practical activity of studying
the nature and behavior of phenomena
in an organized and systematic way through
experimentation and observation
so some definitions of sides embrace the systematic organized approach but many scientists did
like the buddha
the buddha
i'm observed and investigated and experimented but the buddha did not present a system i systematically organized way of science
however
the buddha's disciples made three collections of teachings
and they call these three collections the three baskets
tropica the first basket is the buddhist discourses the buddhist sharing the discoveries that buddha made
by compassionate
ah
research and compassionate observing and compassionate experimentation
through this means the buddha discovered this thing we call dharma
i'm proposing that
we to through compassionate
investigation
an observation of phenomena we can discovered the dharma and we can discover the true nature of compassion which is the dharma
but in the tropica we have first the buddha sharing the revelations that came through kinda that came from the agenda of compassion through the practice of deep open minded
thorough dispassionate
trial and error experiment observation and ah inquiry and questioning that led to this discovery which the buddha shared and when the buddha shared the discovery the buddhist sometimes also told the story of the
research which led to the discover and i wish to share with you some of the buddha's
sharing of the process that he went through to discover the dharma
and i want to say now and i'll try to remind you i invite you to look into the teachings of the the early teachings
which we haven't poly translated from poly and english look in the early teachings look in the my yana teachings look in the zen teachings and see if you can find examples of where ancient practitioners the buddha and and the buddha's disciples were they
in there in their compassionate wish
to benefit all beings and realize awakening
fine examples of how they experimented and observed and discovered
so the the buddhist discourses
share the revelations shared the discoveries but some of them also share the process of inquiry that the buddha went through the process of experiment that the buddha went through and also the process of the buddha giving others experiments to try and watching how they
did the experiment and got the same revelation as the first aspect of buddhist teaching called the sutras or the discourses the next aspect the next basket of buddha's teachings is called the rb dharma in sanskrit or rb dharma in pilot
and that collection is actually a systematic organized presentation or buddhist scientific methods and scientific discoveries
and then the third basket is called the veneer peterka the vinegar the the basket of ethical discipline
and we need to practice ethical precepts
in order to make it possible for us to effectively
and successfully
study observe experiment with phenomena in order to discover who we are
so there's unlimited numbers of experiments that we can do and under the unlimited ways of wondering and exploring because we're exploring
yeah
admitting that
we don't really know what the buddha dharma is we don't really know what the truth is but we can discover it by humbly exploring
oh so today you know each of us had a day up till now and today did it
i don't knit one here for you right now but i'd give you the question to look back at the day and see if you practice compassion with your own
discomforts and your own suffering and did you practice observing your own suffering and your own discomforts
did you doing experiments with your own suffering and your own anxiety and your own
yeah suffering and did you observe other people's suffering and did you do so with compassion and did you do any experiment with other people's suffering did you make any ah
inquiries with this observation of their suffering did you try any experiments with other people's suffering this is free to look back for today
and i also suggest that we do it tomorrow
now i myself
have you know i have the
the gift that this morning i unexpectedly woke up and got on a bed and i got this huge slap in the body of pain
i will i i've been feeling pretty good coming along in my recovery from the surgery and i got this huge pain in my knee on this morning unexpectedly i've been getting out of bed and it hasn't been painful and this morning was very painful and i
i observed it and then i have been trying to be compassionate towards and it has been easy to remember that i have the pain i've been i've been trying to be kind to it but i'm also did lots of experiments with it
and i have all kinds of exercises and ice packs and i have hands
yeah and i've been experimenting with dealing with the pain in my knee all day long
non-stop because i've also met some people today ah and i had a chance to practice with them and do experiments with them
so
again i'm i'm i'm offering an an assignment for me and for you is to
pay attempt to observe
your personal suffering of your body and your conscious mind and observe the suffering of others
and
observe your practice of compassion with that now observing is already compassion but observed that competitive but recognize that observing as an act of compassion and then start x investigating and experimenting and for me
also i i guess i trust experimenting without trying to get something
so when i must i found this pet i thought when the pain first came this morning i didn't even hardly knew where was coming from it was so big and then i finally found out where it was located the part the part of my leg or is located and then i could touch those places and find it some places
were much more painful than other places and i didn't touch them roughly i just i touched them just a little to find out where it hurt the most and then i experimented massaging the places where the inside of my left knee hurt most and i just did that a lot today and i put
ice packs on it and also i walked
so i walked i did some exercises i massaged i used ice packs i did all that experimenting with this pain in my inside of my left knee
and again i also did some experiments with some people i met today some in person and some
ah on zoom
but i recommend that each of you do that in a starting now and tomorrow and for the rest of the week and maybe even like try to remember which days do practice to did you did you remember every day to do it i will try to do it every day
i'm again i have this advantage of this me which is calling loudly to me tomorrow it may be quiet and it may be harder for me but remember it
oh
and also i'm i'm asking you to look and in what you read of buddhism in the ancient texts in the zen tax and also in your own history of times when you
observed come observed you're suffering
questioned him
experimented with it
of course sometimes you may be also tried to get rid of it and i've i know that happens sometimes but i'm not talking about getting rid of pain i'm talking about
observing it experimenting with it exploring it
getting rid of it i'm i'm not prohibiting getting rid of pain i'm just talking about different practice a scientific investigation of pain
as part of compassionate embrace and also a scientific engagement in studying compassion itself

also i wanted i don't know if i want to bring it up right now but i want to tell you some of you were not in the last class but so have you were most of you were
but i want to apply the scientific observation and experimentation to the three types of compassion which we discussed in our previous series of meetings so i don't want to bring it up right now
i wanted her to my get practical now
and then maybe next time i want i ran to relate scientific investigation to those three kinds of compassion we discussed
is it okay to wait
as i i can't see if it's okay
well i see some thumbs up yeah so ah i've just tried to give you some work to do and did you did you get some work to do
did you get you know the agenda is what to do right written with great we can we agree on what to do
i make it our agenda and also i also want to mention that the inquiry doesn't set the agenda
we set the agenda our compassion such the agenda
and then we use the inquiry to probe and understand what our agenda is
so we're all at sea yeah we
actually i think we have quite a bit a timeless i'm gonna i'm gonna do what i said i wasn't gonna do and that is relate the three tuck the three types of compassion to this to science
so the first type of compassion which and many of you remember we called a sentimental compassion the second is compassion in accord with dharma and the third was called great compassion
so i would like to start off by saying
that by in but the first type of compassion is a type of compassion where we do not really observe it
and we do not really experiment with it we do not really questioned it
it's like ah it's like practicing compassion with no examination of it
it's unexamined compassion as the first type of compassion
it's still compassion but being unexamined it's true nature will not be revealed
unexamined means we think this is compassion and we don't question what we think
we think this compassion we don't experiment to test what we think
we don't question it
that's the first type of compassion we're we're practicing compassion were practicing compassion kindness were practicing generosity but not examining it taking it
as being what we think it is with not without being called into question and here is a place where
you know nowadays some scientists wanted wanted you scientific research and they do not want to share their discoveries with other people but yeah i would say that the kind of the scientific study that i'm hoping we will do his community scientific study will help each other and
call each other ideas of compassion into question colleges his idea into the nature of suffering into question but in the first type of compassion we do not question what is suffering we do not question what is compassion
and that kind of
compassion is called sentimental and it leads to burn out and it leads to giving up that type of compassion in second type of comparison is where we start scientifically studying
what we're what we're compassionate towards
and what we think compassion is we we we start to realize that we're basically ignorant about what suffering is
and what our practice of compassion is
we realize that we're practicing illusory compassion towards the louver illusory suffering an illusory beings
but by questioning and experimenting with these illusions we discover the third type of compassion which is great compassion
where in we no longer at here to anything including any idea of what suffering is any idea of what beings are any idea of what compassion is
in other words we realize
unsurpassed complete perfect enlightenment
so again the first half of compassion is compassion without scientific inquiry without the humility of realized of of of recognizing that we are
ignorant
and that we need to explore and observe and investigate in order to penetrate our ignorance
not getting rid of our ignorance but compassionately studying it
that's the second type of compassion
and the third type of compassion is where we actually understand the nature of the other two types and the nature of suffering and the nature of life and death
so now i think i could
ask again why one more thing i want to mention is just tonight's example of the buddha
doing inquiry doing experiments okay so this is the fourth
scripture the fourth ceuta and the
collection of sutures called the middle leg searchers so the first basket of teaching which is the sutra basket
one of the scriptures they're one of the sets one of the collections within the big basket is some baskets which and one of them has called the middling sayings is also long sayings and associated sayings and so on but in the middle length sayings which are the me
deluxe ones number four is called fear and dread
them in that scripture a brahmin
lehmann comes to the buddha and says to the buddha
oh are you like another teacher of this of this great assembly
and the buddha says who i am and are you like the role model and the exemplar of how to practice for these people he said yes
he said and then the teacher says but why do you go out and why did you use to go out into the dangerous wild forests to practice because aren't those forest places where it's it's very dangerous and frightening and very difficult to have peace of mind
in practice meditation
and the buddha said well before i
understood what was going on it was disturbing to me to god into the wild dangerous for us but after i understood it was no longer a problem to me
narrow fact i found those dangerous wild forests very lovely places to meditative practice
and he said i was out in the forest one time and i thought to myself why do you always get so upset out here in the forest
when you hear the sound of dangerous animal or something why do you get anxious all the time out here in the forest maybe you should investigate the situation
maybe she do a little experiment here
so he observed himself he noticed that he was frightened and dreading being order in the forest
but then if here every observers have maybe i'll do an experiment and the experiment i'll do will be
when the pain or not the pitch when the fear and dread comes
whatever posture i'm in
i will remain in that posture until i'm able to come
to come to peace with the fear and dread
and he picked for postures he could have picked one hundred but he picked for main posture
so again he's he's out there in the forehead before he had understood was going on
before he met this lay person to sleep
brahmin name's whose name is john sony before he met him he was out in the forest and the forest were frightening to him and he crushed any observed that he said let's do an experiment
whenever the fear and dread come do not move from whatever posture area
until you find peace with the fear so if he was walking he would just keep walk
until he found peace
with the fear and an android if he was sitting
he would just continues sitting
until the peace
with the dread and fear was realized if he was reclining in the forest he would get and the fear and dread came he would continue to recline and if he was standing he would just continue stand
and he said when i did this when i did these experiments in these different postures with the fear and dread i did find peace and ease in the forest
i was able to settle down in the dangerous frightening forest
and yeah and i found basic i found nirvana there
so this is an example of the buddha observing himself noticing that he was anxious
and then deciding to investigate it by an experiment i wonder what happened if i just stay where i am
and i'm gonna watch to see can i come dot come down with it
so he observed and then he decided to experiment and he watched the experiment and he in this is a successful gets a scientific experiment that he did
at the end of the scripture i'm after he tells the story above his awakening
through this experimentation
he says someone might think
that because i still go out in the forest so again he went out in the forest and did this experiment to become free of greed hate and delusion
that's what the experiment was for
they become free of the anxiety and dread that comes from greed hate and delusion he found peace with as with these fears and dreads and also the greed hate and delusion dropped away so at the end of the scripture he says someone might think
if i still go out in the forest maybe i'm not free of greed hate and delusion but he said that would not be so i am free of greed hate and delusion i no longer go out in the forest to become free of great a delusion
i'm already free i discovered freedom
from fear and dread greed hate and delusion in the forest in the midst of this suffering by doing this experiment
with it
the reason i continue to go in the forest is because i enjoy it
for me it's a lovely place to meditate
and the second reason i got there is to encourage and guide future generations
and the second reason is now being realised right now in this group
the is experiment is now guiding us
to try similar experiments with our greed hate delusion fear and dread
can you see how the buddha was observing questioning he observed and then he questioned himself in any experiment
and he observed and experiment and observed an experiment over and over until he realized nirvana in this particular scripture and there's i'll bring more later and i invite you to look for them see if you can find some to will you find a buddha observing human suffering observing suffered
and sentient beings and asking himself questions and asking others questions and doing experiments to find out the truth

for these are some assignments are given you any questions about the assignments or comments

do we call on ourselves are you calling on us while i'm at let me just say first
where these assignments first for
where my suggestions clear and because start by asking questions about the assignment that i had given to us so we can go to work so we can have so we can work on this agenda to first of all blue ask you what is what i'm suggesting is multiple study projects that i've offered are they clear
sure you want to ask questions about the the work again the practical work of observing and and investigating
charlie
hello
alone oh
this i thank you for bringing up this topic of science and then
ah this is a hot button topic for me how i rebelled against my
physics studies in college because i thought they were asking the right questions and that's what drove me to there because i feel like xanax questions in the right way
oh
and and actually there was a book called and in the art of motorcycle maintenance it was very rebellious against science and academia an analytic file because it leaves out so much to
she would experience in other ways of knowing our
so one of the foundations of science scientific
thought and the scientific method is the hypothesis tom and that's a prerequisite for an experiment in my understanding is is you need to formulate a hypothesis in order to be actually testing something and actually experimenting with something if
that makes a bunch of things together and say let's see what will happen that's not technically called an experiment ah that's just a bad playing around on and i one of the challenges the core challenged to me as was made if i went into graduate study this was gonna be my day
dissertation is the origin of hypothesis how do you come up with the question of what are we trying to test you know like fruit for the buddha to thing to himself well what if i just maintain poor postures and see what happens like i was brilliant that was the strobe of of any
lighten it to me even before the experiment was run so my question for you about the work we're supposed to do is oh i guess what the hypothesis
i could i hold the question question was to hypothesis for a second yes
okay so i forgot i i said that that science was the intellectual and practical activity of studying phenomena
through observation and experimentation
okay
but but scientists also i didn't say it besides his awesome a body of knowledge which is which comes through this ah observation and experimentation
and when usually when we go to high school physics classes wrong even college physics classes we are not doing science usually we're learning the results of scientific discoveries we don't discover ah force equals mass times accelerate
asian we don't discover that
and we are you also we aren't usually question it and asked somebody to prove it in the class so a lot of what we call physics class is actually learning newton's and other people's discoveries which came to them through experimentation
so if you want to say that ah if we if we're going to be observing and experiment and if you want to open up the experiment and say that experimenting
could involve
a hypothesis
yeah and hypothesis and then doing something to test the hypothesis
so in the case of the buddhist story he observed himself
that he would that he did become frightened in the forest
and he so
why do i wide why just keep doing this what would happen if i
if i experimented in this way
now the hypothesis might have bet might have been maybe i would i become free
when i become at peace with this and what is he didn't exactly say my hypothesis is that if i do not change my posture
that i'm in when the fear comes my hypothesis is i will find peace with it but he almost said it yeah
i will just remain in this until so he's he's testing to see if this practice of being still finding the stillness in the middle of the suffering if that will pacify and com the suffering or find a calm place with the suffering so there was a kind of hyper
offices in there
yeah and i have other i have other examples which are given future classes of where the buddha says try this and if you try this when you actually realize this and this will happen so try this experiment and i'm predicting that if you
do this then you'll find this
so so in this case there was kind of a hypothesis even though he didn't status it was be as embedded in
i'm gonna do this until maybe maybe how calm down with this
there's a possibility of peace in the middle of suffering let's try this experiment and see if we can find peace in the middle and suffering in this way
so i think there was a hypothesis there and away yeah and happily the he for himself he verified it and
the person who's question again than the brahmin john sony he doesn't hear he hasn't seen that yet he thinks as crazy as that buddhist still doing them
and that the and buddha says i'm doing that for you that you could try this to now
you could test to do and that's another part of modern science is welcoming people to do the experiment and verify it and i think that spirit also i find really compatible with the buddha's teaching
i did this experiment i got this results aren't you try it
and if you don't let's look at the height and expand many did that he tried a different way it'll work for you and that often happens doing science they try to verify this sub nothing and and they don't don't verify it that doesn't prove it's wrong and then they tried try to do it another if it if they're interested in it they tried another way and so
times a second time they prove it and sometimes second time they don't but you can read disprove the hypothesis you can only then you can disprove it you could say if this happens then i would throw this hypothesis
and i think the spirit of a buddhism is if this doesn't work we should throw it out and make another hypothesis
and sometimes scientists are people who are professional scientists are not questioning themselves anymore
they're not like you know again in a high school science class ah
force equals mass times acceleration the teachers and say okay allow us try to find out where how to noon come up with this
or that this the strength of the light is inversely proportional to the distance how did he come up with that
let's go back and go through his study of where what what he observed and then the mathematics he did to come up with this principle that the strength of the light is inversely proportional to the distance it is where
and again that that that would be a great science class but most schools ah maybe won't let people do that because it requires an interested student body that they actually wouldn't find that interesting rather than just memorizing the the the equations
okay yeah i i would always be asked you i was the one who was always asking those questions yeah i'm like sometimes you don't have the divergence in fact that is they thank you sometimes when the buddha says i'm gonna try these poor posture as i say that sounds like a fun experiment but wait a minute
where'd you come up a bad idea you know where's that where's the common from and and i think maybe
newton would get the same answer the you always give when somebody asks you how which is well generously patiently ethically compassionately mean pick like being stolen and opening
mysteriously hypotheses arise that's that's the best i've been able to come up with yeah he was practicing his best author in the forest and then he thought oh why or why do i keep doing this little maybe i could do something different
and hi why do you think of that will because i had these for postures and those are the poster's i mean when i'm afraid so i thought check visa
if i was doing something different i'm a it would have been a different experiment
if i was feeling other than other kinds of suffering then i would question nose and make peace with those
thank you for that contribution thank you
any other questions but the to about the practical side of studying compassion
yes
tracy
thank you
and a do first one is say read that i can't start the series with year without just letting you know how enormously grateful i am i think we all lie that you are teaching us and that you have been teaching us ah
particularly now i guess particularly in these times but maybe not particularly maybe just in general and
i'm and
i don't know i'm just
almost overwhelmed with gratitude at your continued teaching of us till i wanna i wanted to say that
thank you for inspiring me to teach
have
now this isn't the first or second or even third time this has happened where you bring us a topic and it's like you just designed it for me you you reached into my life and this whole examining of
the science of ugh
pretty examining compassion
is it just have an example of this retroactive for two days ago it's just right here in my face big time on twenty three years ago to the day i was leading a trip to tibet with ten women
for some reason this group just became we just made from all over the united states but we bonded and for the last twenty three years we have stayed in touch every single one of the ten of us and every two years we get together and have an in-person reunion in the east coast to the west coast or my house in summer it's like it's just
nobody can understand it but it's magic okay deep love and compassion for one another
we were supposed to meet last weekend and my house here in orinda
and in planning it it turned out to the women were not vaccinated and when that came up in the pup call half the group or more said whoa whoa wait a minute no no no no no i don't wanna be with you no no no gamed game over we're not doing it and i mean these are people like we gave each other
either or contacts so that when we die will reach out to her our brothers and sisters to know that the solos like brakes on and then three said nano will i'm coming anyway but basically the group said if you're not vaccinated we don't want you to come and and that was just so unheard of
up for the group to act that way with itself anyway so three came to my house for this weekend we had an amazing wonderful time yes they're accented unvaccinated and we decided to meet with the rest of the group by zoom on sunday which we get
and one of the non vaccinated people was on the call
and we started by like hi how are you we can have your weekend and she said i weekend was so great i just spend it with seven hundred people live in an i don't remember the name of some convention of all unvaccinated people all unmasked altogether
talking about how right they are and she was she was glowing she was so happy and and i'm with the to berkeley radicals here in my own house and while she's sharing like this they're like yeah that's fine as long as you don't mind killing everybody with great free afraid of us anyway it was like
wait wait what what's happening and i was kind of giving them the silent elbow late late late just let her talk but now here's here's the examination so i saw they have no compassion for that the to people who are
deeply personally against vaccinations
but then i noticed i was starting to lose compassion for these two people whose politics i basically agree with but wait that doesn't work either and so now i don't really
i'm confused but i'm examining i'll say that but i don't and so then that the anti vax are sent me at a long
as a video today of one her of of one of her favorite anti vax doctors and i don't listen any that stuff but i did as a m as an experiment in openness i decided to try to listen to the world from her from the point of view of this person i love and so i did listen
do the same okay
i don't have any conclusions but i wanted to say i feel like i'm doing homework
yeah
so observing you're doing the observing
and you're also doing some experiment
and i think again
the hypothesis is
that if we learn to listen to all sentient beings we will be off lucky touch for
have luggage
doesn't agree with all sentient beings
like a some say two plus two as for is simply said to close to his ten of lucky jennifer for doesn't agree with maybe either one of the who knows what have a lucky test for our listened to all of them
and would give her life
all of them
and would talk to and question all of them even the people who say two plus two is for might say where'd you get that my question that even people who say force is mass times acceleration so where'd you get them he said
well i got in high school physics words were vigilant so
i think your hypothesis is in his ear hypothesis is the buddha dharma
and you're you're trying to see how does it apply to these amazing situations where people are so have such different views
how can we get
people have different views to join the program of practice
how can we get people anti vaccine people to start observing
an practicing compassion and questioning themselves
and allowing themselves to be questioned
how can we get people who love to be with a lot of people who agree with him how can we get those people to spend some time being with people but
they don't agree with well maybe if we listen to people who don't agree with that will help them and some the people who don't agree with
wanna be will only with people they agree with
somebody needs to help them
so if you're willing to be with love people you don't agree with you can help some of these people who you agree with and don't agree with who only want to be with people that agree with what you know so i thought i was being this nice little buddha by listening to the n a backs your friend with an open heart but
then i noticed i started to vilify that people who couldn't do that and who weren't doing that so i was just repeating the lack of compassion i just change the focus to people who without compassion so then i stopped having compassion for them so that that's part of the thing i'm i feel like damn good one tighter for many years ago one time there was a super bowl
game on the one of those superbowl sundays and the two teams were both teams which i could consider my home team
it was my home my my home team from minnesota where i grew up with
actually didn't even have a professional football team as a kid anyway is from my hometown and the other team was from oakland which is kind of my hometown so oakland and minnesota were plane so i observed the situation and i observe i could i could root for either side i observed that and
i thought hey i could do an experiment here
so and my ipod might be a hypothesis was i bet that depending on how i how i what side i take my view of the world will change that was my hypothesis
and so i started out by viewing ah by taking the side of the people who i was in the room with i was in a room with a bunch of people from the bay area so i started out by taking their point of view and
i thought they were fine
rooting for their home team the raiders
so then after the why i switched and started to join root for the vikings i didn't say anything but i started to root for the vikings and i noticed that i thought i'd that these raider that the law oakland fans i started to seek they started to seem quite obnoxious
but i was experimenting
with what would happen if i took these different views and sure enough and then i switched back the other way and it flipped back the other way
so my hypothesis is when you start rooting for one side over the other
something happens to you
and i anna i did that experiment

usually it's pretty hard to actually switched from one side of the other but if if you're able to you can observe this amazing thing
and that would be an experiment to verify the hypothesis that how is the world we see depends on our projections and earn our investments
that's the hypothesis and the other hypothesis aspect of that is if we become free of that
will be free of everything
but in the meantime we may slip and slide is in just go from one side of the other
which is part of the observation is more data to be in to experiment with
thank you so much thank you so much wonderful example

sarah
i
so i've been thinking about my own on observations that i'm making about myself and am
so i'm observing that it's really difficult for me to
on
sort of be in the moment as it is happening like whether it's an unpleasant moment or a very lovely moment i watch myself jump to somewhere else forward or backward or anywhere on
but being now
and i watch myself do that and i do it all day long and that's my life
my observation
and i don't see it changing at all i just
see arm that that's what i do
okay so this is up
this is a good here's this is a good example of something you can study
i like again when i got up in the morning and this big pain came i was not able to actually be really be there i just went i just screamed
so in a way i was with the sky was i was i was with the scream pretty much because being with the screen was not so hard
but i couldn't like just be with that without making a sound
one really is it was more like a grown on a scream my oh
and but i wasn't like it took me awhile to like be more and more with the pain and actually than settled down into where was located so i could address it and experiment with it
oh so you you might if you can't you might try to find some examples like ib example i often try it myself also is going into cold water
so a lot of people who like when they go into the bay or into the ocean they just run in screaming
they feel a cold but they don't feel it more by moment it just a big flurry of activity i try to go in and see if i can feel the water as it comes up my body little by little a little just feel every cause it's kind of an incremental thing to go in deeper into the water
or and if the water's not really rough like in the bay when as him in the bay i can feel it coming on my skin and it is difficult to stay right there with every like half inch as it rises on my bud
but the more i do it
the you know the more i can be there
so you might try to find something
that you notice your your kind of jumping away from
and ticket and go there and work with it and try to experience it
in a little by little
so like a arena where i can tolerate the present moment yeah and generally speaking the press the practice of patience
is to learn how to experience the discomfort in the smallest moment of time
and if you can do that with
are you know level two pain and be there with that then you can do it with level two and a half family but still it wouldn't be like
go from moment of level to to a minute of level three
just a tiny tiny little taste of two and a half and then a tiny taste so pick some things that are difficult i don't know what the sound of somebody's voice find something that you can actually
be with
i look for a little bit of time and see if you can like really be there for that and locate the discomfort and bidder in that place in that time
just for just for the moment
okay that's helpful thank you yeah and you may and you may and you also said you do that all day long but i think what you meant by do it all day long i'm guessing is you jump all day long he don't observe all day long
through you miss a few jumps yeah
but it would be good to start observing the jumping observing the jumping will help you find yourself just before the jump
which is the place
right after maybe you took two big bite a pain
and as too big a jump
but like i like their said this morning was he was too big i couldn't i couldn't even i couldn't focus on it it was to just came in is a huge a huge package
i couldn't i couldn't really be there for it
but ah
but i can not and i've i've found it and i'm working with it
and i you know
i'm finding my way with this pain and getting to the the small location or so smaller locations and feeling it in bite-size
doses of pain is helping me find my way with it
i'm i'm got a little better today and at working with this particular pain and i started out not i wasn't too good
thank you sir

hello
sorry you heard so much pain with this
i wish it was easier
and it's interesting to hear how you work with it
now if it was easier you wouldn't be able to hear about it
so i a question and going you know on maybe a little bit with what totally said
about working with a hypothesis
i guess my observation is that quite often you know at the observer has to be neutral and there's there's an observer bias that gets him to this process sometimes so how to work with that so that it's just simple curiosity i'm not trying to
proved a particular result
well if if you weren't of if you are observing and you know if you were observing then you would ask no have the opportunity to perhaps observe if there are some bias in your observation
and if so you let like again in my example watching these two teams i was playing with with biases and i was observing what happened with the biases you could do that with yourself in some whatever the arena is is you can start playing with the bias
noticing it and you know relaxing with it and playing with it
and that will have that done is salford bill a wonderful observation and experiment
then could lead you to go back to the earlier observation with more flexibility and again the flexibility goes with
exploring wondering questioning yeah
i think though
the difficulty that comes up the you know is wanting to
we wanting to be ready or wanting to be a winner in this or you know you know how of as again nuts wanting to be right as one of the main yeah thanks to observe
if throughout our day if we notice
when that wanting to be right
one he raise a great thing to observe and then once we say all i wanted to be right now
does to an experiment with it
and what kind of experiment we wanna do with this
wish to be right which i observed him myself and we could also or maybe notice the wish to be right and others at that you know we might
like one time
i was playing some game with my grandson and he was cheating on us a why you cheating and he says
cause i i want to win
sides i observed in him
that he kind of had a bias
and i but i i didn't get angry at him i just asked more how come but if i noticed that i was trying to win
i might ask myself or if i'm playing with a child and they're cheating i might ask myself
why don't i want to go along with it which was the problem just letting them cheat and i might come up with them some some reasons like well i think maybe that's a good for medical lime of you're cheating may be rather than just go along with that i could talk to them about her but what's going on
not because i'm trying to win but because i'm trying to wonder why they why the cheating
i'm i'm inquiring
but i could do the same myself why are you trying to win this game which is more important to win the game or two
you know our earn or to love your her playmates
would you rather win the game or love your playmates
and something's there were no place
yeah i think that's the truth of our lives trade off that you're right you wanna be right or do you wanna be friends which is most important that observe that and and x near the question that
explore that
these are the opportunities for exploration and daily life
thank you thank you

linda rab greetings
so i'd like that ask you about a possible experiment that i can do our observation inspired by the example you gave of the buddha going into the wild into wilderness and maybe he did have some dress
said that he otherwise he wouldn't have had anything to observe and so at first maybe had some dread and he did what you described so i was thinking what could i observe and a
this is what i thought of i i have a
oh
a compulsive action that i do you know i'm no matter what's going on i will do this you know and then else then i'll look at my email and then i'll
if it's something else even when i'm engaged in a really important conversation and are behind that is some anxiety that i'm covering up like i'm afraid to not do it we won't know it
there will aren't any wild animals here but maybe there's some wild animals in my mind
so i was thinking okay a buddha decided not to move when he felt the dread coming up i can feel dread coming up if i don't do that
but then
see some kind of superman that he could just decided to to not reacted to that to not give into that cause if i try not to do it
i'm just gonna be using willpower for five minutes or something like that
it's like holding my breath you know
how to observe when you're
the see what i'm saying i'm not sure i see well as during that way it's you're you're getting into it that's good yeah so what that swimmer vice versa we're talking about the phone and ah so i sounds like you can observe it sounds like you have been observing yourself and that's
that's fundamental is to observe
next you would you have observed is some anxiety
about if you do not do something to that device if you just let it sit there
out you're afraid of what will happen if you just let it sit there
well yeah i just i have a habit in my body there's some dread that builds up and then i wanna do that too yeah something else if if but
the funny thing about them but the devices that if you're using a device and the dread comes up i think the buddha we would say i will continue to use the device until i make peace with the dread i won't stop using it until i make peace with the drill now let's say i'm not using it let's say i'm having an important conversation
and the dread comes up and i wanna just interrupt the or something like serious question yeah you want to you wanted
if you have your conversation where i'll do you say it's an important conversation i'm doing zazen you know optical my phone so now the the you're not then you have another conversation in which is a conversation innocence between you and your dread
you're having this conversation and you don't want to have it anymore
and you don't force yourself to keep doing the conversation you don't have to force yourself just don't do anything else from what you're doing
because maybe you realize if i do something else that will be disturbed that will disperse that confrontation
maybe
so there's some gift that would allow me to pause and
not and observe rather than compulsively act it out well your you are i think you are doing the observing that but what you don't seem to be doing is is saying okay i'm an experiment with this rather than i'm leave
i will read your you are observing and then you stop to skirt to sir observing and do something so now we have the agenda is the thing to do is to continue to observe that's the thing to do that's the agenda then
but and not do anything else you've you've got a job you're which is not stopping yourself from doing something else
it's just observing what you're doing if you do something else that's that's your business but you're not doing something else is not the name of the game the name is a game is just continued to observe in the situation you're in
with these calls have you should you should move you should stand up you should you should lie down
the buddha heard those calls to but the briton i'm not going to heed those and i'm not going to i'm not going to try to sit on the contrary stand it just a if i am standing what i'm gonna do is a not gonna do anything but what i'm doing
and i'm a continue observing and i and he observed and he saw that he found peace with this anxiety
and that that is the that is the agenda that is the conversation
it's a convert it's a peacemaking conversation you're not trying to get rid of the anxiety he didn't try to get rid of it
he stayed with it and and peace came
wish me luck
i wish you good fortune on this great adventure
so this this is a great scientific adventure of here he is if we can observe and do the experiment of staying with the painful thing being with it
that we have a chance to finding peace with it
including that if we can't we observed that too
you know i can't go i can't stand this moment by moment increase of the cold water i gotta go faster okay
try it again next time to a little slower it's the same water going in fast and slow is just said if you go in slowly you feel it inch by inch of your body rather than just one big splash in it's over
and you're worth some people jumping the water and they're not very person they cannot
then they cannot tell you what happened there just a big splash but if you go into the same water moment by moment you say yes it actually felt different had my stomach than at my chest and at my neck and it does feel different at the ankles and the calf and the thigh and the stomach and that it feels do
different the different parts of the skin and you could be therefore it and it's hard and of course the colder the water the harder it is
so start maybe
if you can't do it with with sixty two your water star with seventy yoga was even seventy two your water is quite different from ninety eight point six
yes i i i wish you well i fare thee well on this great adventure
so please everyone have a wonderful week experimenting with compassion observing
experimenting investigating questioning compassion and suffering
moment by moment all week please
may this intention equally extend to every being and place
and may reach together with all beings realize great compassion
beings are numberless we vowed to save them
afflictions are inexhaustible we while move out to walk through them moment by moment
dharma gates are boundless we vow to enter them
put away is unsurpassable
we've out to become
thank you very much good night
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