There were a couple things that were brought up in last week's meeting that I wanted to speak to a little more. One was kind of a comment by this GIF And the other was kind of a question raised by Christian, but Christian's not here, I'm sorry. And when Jeff brought up something like, maybe I was talking about sitting at the center of all beings, listening to the cries of all beings.

[01:08]

Does that sound familiar? And then, when the listening is wholehearted, and the cries are things like, cries of sounds, but also thoughts are cries. Fear is a cry. You might not say anything, like you might feel fear in your consciousness. You might look at someone else's face and see fear in it. Or they may actually say they're afraid. or they may act in such a way that you hear the call of their fear, or the call of their anger, or their sadness, or their confusion, or their joy, or their opinions, or their judgments.

[02:16]

These are things you hear from other people, you see in other people, and also things you can be aware of in your own mind, right? So I was proposing that if we can listen to and observe these cries, these phenomena which are calling for compassion, which are calling for listening, which are calling for observing with compassion, if we can observe wholeheartedly and listen wholeheartedly, in that wholeheartedness, we will enter into practicing wisdom in relationship to all those calls. So we start by observing phenomena, observing the calls, listening to them, and as our listening becomes wholehearted, our listening becomes the deep practice of wisdom. And, yes? A different word from wholeheartedly.

[03:27]

She said could I talk about this listening in some other way than wholeheartedly. Another word. Completely. Undistractedly. Openly. Relaxed. calmly, generously, carefully, diligently, all that would be involved in wholeheartedly observing someone or listening to someone. Also, as you become more wholehearted, you don't think about how long you've been listening to them. You don't, you let go of, like you might be thinking, I've been listening to him a long time, but that's another cry. I've been listening to you so long. And when you say that, listen to that. Or they may say, I've been suffering so long.

[04:33]

But we can listen to that, I've been suffering so long, without thinking about how long we've been listening to that. Or how much longer we or the other person are going to say this thing and have this problem. Patience is meeting a discomfort without thinking about how much longer it's going to last or how long it's been going on. Feeling a pain in the present without thinking about the past and future of it is a more wholehearted way to listen to the pain. I'm talking about wholehearted compassion.

[05:50]

So compassion is what we're being wholehearted about. So they're together. They're together. Well, they're not always together. I mean, we don't realize that they're together all the time because we have habits of distraction. Even though we're practicing compassion, we sometimes think, like, how much longer is this person going to be suffering like this? Or, you know, I think they suffered long enough. It's enough. Get over it. Get over it is just another call. It's not... But you might get distracted from listening when you say, get over it, rather than say, oh, now I'm listening to get over it. So we can practice compassion half-heartedly. Another aspect of practicing compassion half-heartedly, which is the way people start practicing compassion, is as much as they can, but they're not yet full. You have to train to be wholehearted. So you start, when you start practicing compassion, it's like the compassionate one and the thing that's being the object of compassion.

[06:58]

So when you start practicing compassion, usually there's an object, another person or your own suffering. There's the awareness of the suffering. There's a feeling of compassion for the suffering. that's still not wholehearted. When it's wholehearted, the suffering isn't an object. The compassion and the suffering are in solidarity, inseparable. Of course, compassion's nothing other than being with the suffering. But when we first start practicing compassion, it seems like I feel compassion for you and your suffering is other than my feeling of compassion. That's a beginning. When the compassion is wholehearted, the compassion becomes purified of the duality of subject, compassionate subject, and object of compassion. Including compassion when I realize my own state of mind is, get over it, get a life, I've heard too much of this.

[08:04]

Compassion for my own state of mind, in the midst of trying to keep up the compassion for the other situation. Or anyway, in the midst of trying to be compassionate towards your own get-over-it, you start to learn to be generous towards get-over-it. You start to be careful and gentle and tender with get-over-it. You start to be patient with get-over-it. You start to be diligent with get-over-it. You calm down with get-over-it. this is like you're getting more wholehearted about listening. To get over it, or don't get over it, or help me, or don't help me. Whatever is going on, whatever people are doing, and whatever's going on in your head, it's all calling for compassion. But again, it sometimes doesn't sound like that. But I'm saying it always is. Everything's talking, everything's calling, everything's saying, please give me compassion.

[09:12]

And by the way, please give me compassion. And it's not just for me that I'm asking you to give me compassion. It would be good for you if you gave me compassion. All that's there in everything, all the time. And so we're training at being wholehearted, but without training we're a little half-hearted, so there's still some duality when we start. And then as we become more wholehearted, we start to see the elements involved in the process of the calls. And at that point we start to loosen up a little bit around our gripping the idea of what the call is and what compassion is. And again, as the listening or the observing becomes more wholehearted, there's no objects, there's just suffering. And in that wholeheartedness, and this is where This is where the leaping happens, and the leaping from the graspability of the suffering to realizing that the suffering cannot be grasped, that the suffering is free of itself, because it is actually not itself.

[10:34]

And that's when the wisdom is really functioning. And that's when the liberation comes. And that's when Jeff said, that's a leap there for me. So what I want to say is that the Buddha way is basically leaping. That's what it is. It's how we're actually leaping, how suffering is leaping free of itself. That's basically what it is. But the leaping, or the transcendence, is based on being grounded. When you're wholeheartedly grounded in the cries of the world, you realize the Buddha way is that the cries of the world are leaping free of themselves. That's what they're already doing. But if we don't completely accept them looking like they're trapped, then we postpone the leaping, which is already there. we're not willing to be there because there hurts or there is stressful.

[11:36]

Either inwardly or outwardly there's stress and there's some habits of shrinking away and being half-hearted about looking at it, listening to it, you know, embracing it. So there is a leap from pain and fear and joy There is a what did those things? Huh? There's a leap. But the leap comes from being completely grounded in them. And being grounded in them is the hard work. The leaping is spontaneous. The diving to the bottom of everything is spontaneous when you're fully there. Yes? I'm not sure if Fred would like me to say this, but Fred practiced wholeheartedly, and there was always a leap of joy in his practice as I watched him.

[12:42]

Yeah, Fred was good at... Fred, who used to come to our classes, but he's now on sabbatical or something, He was really good at plunging into his suffering. He was like, I'm suffering, you know, I'm not happy. He was really good at like being there in his suffering and in his problems. He was really good at it. He was like, and he was also good at saying, and I don't want to be here. I'd like to get away from here." But he was like right there, noticing he was trying to get away. So that was the leaping thing. The leaping that happens, the freedom that arises from love. From fully loving things, you leap free of them. Fully loving poverty, fully loving wealth.

[13:50]

beyond poverty and wealth. Fully loving delusion, fully loving enlightenment, you leap beyond both. So there is leaping, so if you notice I'm leaping, that's part of the deal. When you realize that things lack any way to grasp them, when you realize that everything, or anyway something, is completely free of your ideas about it, then they're spontaneously leaping free of your ideas, of the thing, Yeah. The leaping happens when you realize the nature of the phenomena is that it is otherwise from what you think it is. And that seeing that it's otherwise comes from being settled in the way it seems.

[14:56]

And then you're open to how it's otherwise. And the same with yourself. When you completely are settled in being yourself, which is really hard work, when you're wholehearted about being with yourself, which is wholehearted compassion, then you realize that you're otherwise. And then there's freedom from suffering. The suffering comes from being trapped in what we think we are, and what we think other people are, and what we think the situation is. It's not that we should stop thinking that things are this way or that way. We should actually think that things are this way or that way more fully. So I think this is a mess, I think this is a trap, I think this is heaven, whatever. Thinking that this is heaven and being stuck in it is stress. You can have pain and suffering in heaven if you hold on to heaven. Now there's no regular pain in heaven, there's no negative sensation, but holding on to no negative sensation is stressful.

[16:03]

And there are situations where there's no negative sensation, and people are terrified. No, because they're holding on to no negative sensation. And holding on to it, they're afraid of losing it. They think they can hold on to it, and they go right ahead and give it a try. They think they're successful. And when you're successful, they're holding on to positive sensation, which is also called no-negative sensation, but actually, not-negative could be neutral too, I guess. Anyway, it's the attachment to the state that's that's going against reality, because the state actually, there's no way to grasp it, because the state is the entire universe in the form of the state. And when you completely accept this state, you open to how the state is everything in this form.

[17:06]

And of course you can't grasp the whole universe, so you can't grasp the whole universe as this. But if you don't accept this, then you don't realize what this is. And accepting this is our challenge. I mean, accepting fully. Yes. the impediments for being open and receptive? Specifically receptive, that is in the sense of maybe like a guitar string will vibrate at a resonant frequency that is capable of receiving.

[18:20]

But if it's not capable of receiving, a lot of it will just go by. That's not quite what I mean, but some kind of So you want to talk about being receptive? Sure. Do you want to practice it while I talk to you? Sure. There are no obstacles to being receptive. If there's an obstacle of being receptive, it's actually saying, the obstacle is saying, please receive me.

[19:25]

But you can't see that that's the obstacle, and you can't receive it, right? You can't see it for what it is. You don't have to see it for what it is. You can just treat it for what it is. Okay, so you got, either you got not, you could say not receptive. So one, he talked about obstacles to being receptive. So what some people think is an obstacle of being receptive is not being receptive. They think that's an obstacle to being receptive, but actually it's just another thing to be receptive to. So when you say, well, not being able to remember that an obstacle related to receptive is calling for receptivity, not being able to do that is an obstacle, but it's not really an obstacle, it's another opportunity. Not being receptive is calling for receptivity.

[20:29]

If I don't remember to listen to not being receptive, then I miss the opportunity. But that thing isn't an obstacle, that thing is my opportunity. What's the opportunity? Not being receptive. Being receptive is also an opportunity for being receptive. But some people, when they're receptive, they don't notice that the receptivity, that the being receptive is also calling for compassion. and then they abide in it. And then a more familiar cry of pain comes. So really, they're just opportunities. Everything. Obstacles to receptivity, not being receptive, those are both cries calling for you and me to listen to them with compassion. But they're kind of tricky.

[21:34]

It's a tricky call. It's not receptive. Don't want to be receptive. There's an obstacle to being receptive. Hey, I'm going to God. There's an obstacle to being receptive. And I go, oh, I can listen to that. If you listen to, there is an obstacle to being receptive. If you listen to that wholeheartedly, that phenomena called there is an obstacle to being receptive, that phenomena takes its mask off and shows you its true face, whereupon all suffering and distress drops away. But what was the mask? The mask was this is an obstacle to listening. But I listened to it wholeheartedly, and then it took the mask off and said, now you get the joke, don't you? I'd like to just, again, just go back to the thing about, and I'll try to call Christiane about this, she talks about if you like to have a teenage child,

[22:49]

and they are into various coping mechanisms. Like Zazen? Like what? Like Zazen. I cautiously mention a generalization. I'm going to say this very cautiously, and that is, everything, all the phenomena of egocentric consciousness, everything that appears there is basically a coping mechanism for the suffering of egocentric consciousness. And all these coping mechanisms are calling for compassion so that one would not abide in the coping mechanism. But it's all coping mechanisms. Did I tell you the story about my daughter and the pacifier last week?

[23:51]

I didn't? So she was talking about teenagers, and teenagers have various kinds of coping mechanisms. Like I knew this one teenager, when she got... somehow she... in school she couldn't... she didn't have much freedom about what kind of coping mechanisms she would do in the classes. But after school there was no... there were no structured coping mechanisms. So if you're in a class, one way to cope is listen to the teacher and do the work in the class. That's a coping mechanism, which some kids don't want to do. But after school's out, there's more freedom in what coping mechanisms you give, but a lot of kids don't. There's not much hints about what coping mechanisms to do. So it's kind of a... a free-for-all. So some kids go after teenage sex, some go after drugs.

[24:57]

This one girl I knew, she just went to the swimming pool and she swam for three and a half hours every day after school as a coping mechanism. Coping with what? Coping with what's coming up in her teenage karmic consciousness. In school you got all the other kids and the teacher, and it's really tough, but you got a lot of support to figure out which coping mechanism you use. It doesn't work to try drugs and sex in the classroom, usually. And you can't swim either. But after class, she found this thing called swimming and she just swam through high school and she got through those. And then there's dinner, and then there's homework. But between out of school and dinner, there was like three and a half hours and she just swam. That was a coping mechanism. And my daughter, a lot of kids have coping mechanisms that they use when they're going to sleep at night or in the day.

[26:00]

Coping with what? Their fear. Children are afraid. And they're often afraid around sleeping time because they're going through various forms of emotional meltdown. and they need to be guided so they can calmly accept this new world called going to sleep, which is unknown. And when they actually go to sleep, their mom's going to disappear and all that. It's kind of scary. So their mom and dad are there to say, we're here, and when you go to sleep, we're not going to evaporate. When you wake up, we'll still be here, probably. So they help the child dare to let go of the world and go to sleep. But even so, they need like various soft things to touch with their hands, and they need maybe carbohydrates in their stomach, and entertaining stories, all coping mechanisms to do this thing called fall asleep.

[27:07]

And so, when my daughter was three and a half, my wife, had a plan to go to France for two months approximately, and I was going to go with my daughter to Esalen Institute. She was going to be with me while I went there to teach Zen. And before we left, my wife said that she thought it would be good for our daughter to get off the pacifier. during this time, to give up that coping mechanism that she used during challenging phases of the going to sleep. Like a lot of nights, at this point, at three and a half, we read stories, and while reading the story, listening to the story, would, you could say, get her attention so that

[28:14]

the fear of going to sleep wasn't that active. The story was interesting enough so she was focused on that and the fear would sort of like just calm down and kunk in the middle of the story. But sometimes after the story was over she was still awake and then she wanted to use her pacifier, which she called ii, and then I would give it to her. Sometimes she would want it before then and have it in her mouth while she was listening to the story, but sometimes she wouldn't be using it until the story was unsuccessful. So we went to Esalen Institute, she and I, and I told her that her mother thought it would be a good idea for her to get over it. You know, get over the anxiety, you're a big girl now, you don't need that pacifier anymore. Get over it, sweetheart."

[29:19]

And she said to me, is that your daughter calling? Anyway, so she said to me, but Daddy, it helps me go to sleep. I don't want to stop using it, it helps me go to sleep." And I thought, okay, that's reasonable. You know, I don't know if I thought, you know, what do adults go through to go to sleep? What do they do? So relatively speaking, a little piece of soft plastic in your mouth, you know, it seems like okay. Can I finish the story, please? Thank you. So I said, okay. I still read her stories and sometimes she fell asleep before she... got the pacifier, but then sometimes she would get it.

[30:23]

And one night, somebody else was babysitting for me, or for her, I couldn't tell who, and I was teaching her class, a nighttime class, and when I came home from the class, she was still in the throes of, what's the word? Great sorrow, great sadness. She had bitten through her pacifier. And she only had one. So she could still speak and she could say, you know, I want to go buy me another one. And I said to her, OK, but, you know, it's late at night and, you know, we're far, far from any city. it would take a long time to get to a place where I could buy it for you, and, you know, you'd have to get in the car and drive a long way, so it's not going to happen tonight.

[31:27]

But if you remind me tomorrow, either I or somebody will go to the store and get a pacifier. And... She forgot to remind me, and I forgot. I did forget. She forgot. She definitely forgot. I forgot too. And nighttime came and she said, where's my pacifier? I said, oh, you forgot to remind me. But I'm not going to go in the middle of the night. If you remind me tomorrow, I'll go get you one. And then tomorrow came, and she forgot, and I forgot. And then nighttime came, and she said, where's my pacifier? And I said, you've forgotten, I forgot, if you remind me tomorrow, I will go and get it. And then the next day, she didn't remind me, and that night she didn't ask for it, and that was the end. So the basic principle here is,

[32:30]

wholeheartedly listen to the coping mechanisms, support them, give them your love as much as you can, and you or the other person will become free of them. It's by wholeheartedly supporting the coping mechanism You know, I was there with her coping mechanism, I was there, I was like doing my best within, you know, wholeheartedness means you aren't extreme about it, you know, like you don't go driving in the dark on a coastal road in the fog to go get this thing. Of course, she'd sleep long before we got any place. I think I was wholehearted with her about it, and she was wholehearted, and we got over it. Not by trying to talk her into it. And then there's things which are not such pleasant coping mechanisms.

[33:34]

Like drugs! And so you can disagree with teenagers using drugs, in the spirit of wholeheartedly being there and listening to their cry for drugs. And in that wholehearted support of them, while they're trying to use these coping mechanisms, they will learn that, and they will become free. But of course, it's very difficult to support people with more and more unwholesome coping mechanisms. but that's the principle by which they will become free, is letting them wholeheartedly listen to their coping mechanism. They will see it for what it is, and when they see it, they will be free of it. But that's really tough to be there wholeheartedly.

[34:37]

You've already awakened to the, you know, you don't need that particular coping mechanism anymore, you've got other ones. And then the same would apply to you. So that's a particularly dangerous coping mechanism. And all coping mechanisms could be seen as dangerous, but actually all coping mechanisms are calling for compassion. They're not calling for somebody to stop them. They're calling for someone to listen to them so that they can listen to them rather than themselves trying to stop it. If they try to stop it, then they often get more into it, right? You don't have to stop it if you don't want to do it anymore. So. I could see that that was a difficult teaching, but I'm here to help you and help me try it on.

[35:43]

It's through supporting the coping mechanisms. It's through compassionately supporting them. And supporting doesn't mean I agree with it, it means you listen to it. It means you're generous with it. It means you're calm with it. and you're also calm with your pain of observing it. This calm needs to be transmitted to you, if you've got the problem with it, or to the other. They need to learn how to be calm with it. They need to learn how to be generous with it. If we can't be generous with our coping mechanisms, dash, addictions, addictions are coping mechanisms, work to produce freedom from suffering. They work to keep suffering going.

[36:46]

They work that way. Yes? Can you go a little more vividly into supporting wholeheartedly an unwholesome coping mechanism, when the person, whether it's me or somebody I'm with, doesn't, you know, conveniently bite through it and render it unusable, or they just keep, let's say, taking the drug, how would you... Well, let's say she didn't bite through it. Okay, that was just an unnecessary tweak. Right. So, they're continuing with an unwholesome mechanism, and I would like to follow your advice. At the same time, I see them continue to put drugs in them. Can I support?

[37:50]

You're not supporting them putting the drugs in. You're supporting them to listen. Well, you're supporting them to learn to listen by you listening and demonstrating listening. And you're hopefully listening wholeheartedly. And so you're also not just teaching them listening, you're teaching them wholehearted listening. You're not listening to get them to stop this particular addiction or unwholesome coping mechanism. You're not doing it just to get them to stop that because If you get him to stop that one, they'll just get another one that's probably worse. So, like that story about the guy who came into the psychiatrist and he had a tick, and the psychiatrist hypnotized him and said, you don't have a tick anymore. And then the guy came out of the trance and didn't have a tick.

[38:51]

And then he came back to see a psychiatrist and he had a worse problem. I forgot what it was, but anyway. The psychiatrist said, okay, and hypnotized him and took that away, and it was gone. Then he came back a third time, or tenth time, and he came into the office and sat down. The psychiatrist says, how are you? And he started to walk slowly towards the psychiatrist and started to put his hands on the psychiatrist's neck and started to squeeze. The psychiatrist quickly put him into a trance and gave him back the tick. The problem we've got now is the problem to deal with. But if we didn't want to deal with that one, like try to suppress it, okay, fine. Then it's just going to get a bigger one that's going to come. It's going to get louder and louder until we listen. Now, it doesn't necessarily spike right up into louder. It's a bit more complex than that, but basically any cry,

[39:52]

any cry that we don't listen to is just going to get louder until it's listened to. And eventually all these cries are going to be listened to. That's the process, that's the optimistic process of this teaching, is that there's just going to be cries until they're listened to. And for individual cry patterns, they'll get stronger until they're listened to, like in a lot of addiction recovery stuff, people come and they're a little bit aware of their problem, but they're not listening to it enough to get into the program. So you're not listening to it enough. You're not ready for this treatment. So, for ourselves and others, the thing to teach is teach how to listen by doing it. And if they learn to listen, then they can find the way to become free Could they become free prior to giving the thing up?

[40:56]

Or at the same time? The giving it up and the understanding it are kind of simultaneous. But the understanding it doesn't come unless you completely accept it. You can have a little bit of understanding with partial acceptance. That's why I said there are three levels of insight. First is, it's out there, it's not me or it's separate. I'm trying to be kind to it. That's a start. Then as you get into it, but not yet wholehearted, you start to loosen up a little bit. When you fully understand it, then there's liberation. But it doesn't come from trying to reduce it or make it better. However, if somebody wants to make something better, that's just another cry to listen to. And you can say to somebody various things about something they're concerned, some addiction you see them involved in, you can talk to them.

[42:05]

But when you're talking to them, I'm recommending the practice of listening to yourself while you talk to them. Don't stop practicing compassion when you're talking to them. Of course, don't stop practicing compassion when you're listening to them. But then when you talk to them and say, may I tell you something? And you might feel like this message is coming to them from listening to them. I'm listening to them, and this message is coming up from there, and here's the message. And I say it to them, and when I say it, do I see that as a call, and am I also listening when I say it? If I'm not listening, I think that wasn't the best message. The messages I send without listening to myself while I send it are not as good as listening while I send the message. So they can see, I don't just listen and then take a break from listening and then send messages. Because that's what we usually do.

[43:07]

And when we take a break from the listening, then the messages are unattended by compassion, so then The opportunity for freedom is temporarily missed. But it's temporary. If the next moment we fully listen, wholeheartedly listen, the doors of wisdom open. This practice is also not like it's one time, and then there's not going to be more opportunities to continue the same practice. This practice is joyful. It's joyful to listen to pain. There's various kinds of joys, but the greatest joy is the joy of listening to pain, of those you love. How do I figure it? What do you call it?

[44:12]

What should I mention first? Experience or the Sutras? The greatest joy is to feel pain of those who you love. What greater joy is there? Tell me about it. Is it the joy of somebody you love not having pain anymore? That's the greatest one? Well, that's like, excuse me for saying so, that's very common, isn't it? Almost everybody knows that one. Anybody who loves somebody and they have some pain and they get over it, that's very pleasant, isn't it? You all know that one, don't you? So, but is there no other?

[45:16]

Do people who are highly evolved have no other joys than the ones we already have? Well, they do have other joys. They have the joy of being able to go into that realm of pain where people they love are suffering and feel with them and be joyful. That joy is the joy of those who are saving people. The joy of this person's free of suffering and I feel good about that, that's nice, but that doesn't save them. They're suffering away and they already know that one. And then when they're over their own suffering, they feel, that's nice. But what about the going into the suffering, entering it willingly?

[46:18]

You think that you go in there... I shouldn't say it. I'll say it. Do you think you go into the realm of the suffering of all beings and you get depressed? Well, you can, but that's not recommended, because then you'll quit. Then you'll withdraw from the realm of suffering and start looking for the realm of where the suffering isn't there. That's the usual thing that people are doing, and that's suffering. If it's not, and it's gotta be, the joy of happiness when somebody who you love gets over an illness, that joy, it's not strong enough. It's not strong enough to take you into hell. Hell. Basically, you're in heaven, and you're in the heaven of somebody I love who is suffering, is not suffering anymore. That's almost like heaven. It's a joy, isn't it? But that joy isn't intense enough, isn't deep enough, isn't strong enough to go with you.

[47:28]

It can evaporate as soon as they get sick again. Does that make sense? You know that, right? Oh, you feel great, fine. You don't have to stop that one. It's just, it's not as deep and as intense as the one that you won't lose when you go into the fire. and you will lose that other one, because it came when the suffering seemed to go away. It came and then the suffering comes back and it might evaporate. It often does just evaporate. It was nice, yeah, congratulations, but it's not going to do you much good if it's gone and it goes away as soon as the suffering comes back, because you're not happy about that. The person who's sitting in the middle of the fires is not happy about people suffering. They're happy that they feel pain when they see the suffering.

[48:32]

They're happy that other people's suffering isn't comfortable for them. They're very happy about it. Getting some feeling for this? It's a stronger, and it can go anywhere. And it lifts you up, lifts you up when you're at the bottom of the worst. It buoys you up so you can keep working in hell. It's the best. It's the best kind of joy. And in that sense, it's the greatest. And of course, if you imagine If somebody who you love was suffering, you can imagine that you would feel really bad if it didn't hurt you, right? Wouldn't you feel kind of numb? That happens sometimes, right? You feel, well, I'm numb, which is nice, but I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I'm numb. I don't want to be numb when I see you're suffering.

[49:36]

And I'm kind of embarrassed or sorry that I'm not. And then you see the pain that's just there because you love them. Not the pain because you want them to be different. It's the pain because you love them. And that love will work, that love in the form of caring that they're feeling pain for them, that you can take with you wherever they need to go, and you can show them that you're gonna go with them. You may forget, you may get distracted, you may try to suppress it. What, your pain over their pain? You may. But when you're on the beam, you have something to give them, which they need, because they also need to be in that place where they are. And somebody needs to show them that it's a joy to be where you are, because that's where you're going to become free.

[50:40]

But can we say, I had an experience of this, and it was you? That's exactly what you did with me. Yeah, and it was a joy. You know, part of the joy is you said it was amazing, but... It's the joy to go there and be there with people and yourself. That's where it's at. But this teaching also sometimes parenthetically mentions, this is strange, this is a strange, unorthodox, unconventional bodhisattva joy. This is the joy that the bodhisattvas need. Along with all the other ones, you can have all the other ones, well, all of them. Eric and then Linda? I think one of my coping mechanisms is that when I try to listen to a friend's pain,

[51:55]

And so I think that I can... Here's a cry.

[53:55]

I'm afraid that I won't be able to respond in a helpful way. That's a cry. And the helpful response is to listen to the cry. I'm afraid I might not be able to respond helpfully. Or, I'm afraid that I'll be overwhelmed. That's another cry to listen to. The fear of being overwhelmed is another opportunity to listen wholeheartedly I'm afraid, I'm afraid I'm going to be overwhelmed. And to use the fear of being overwhelmed as the opportunity for awakening and liberation. It's a perfectly good opportunity.

[55:00]

Could it be difficult? Could it be challenging to listen to, I'm afraid I'm going to be overwhelmed? Yeah. You have to train to be able to listen to that. As a matter of fact, when you hear that, it's probably because you have been training for a while. that now you hear that. You won't be afraid of being overwhelmed if you're not even listening at all. When you start to listen and it starts to open up, this might be the end of me. Right. This might be the end of me is another really great opportunity for listening. And we can be free of, this may be the end of me. by wholeheartedly listening to that and realizing that this might be the end of me is not the end of me. But I want people to realize that. I can hear it, but I won't be able to realize it unless I fully listen to this might be the end of me or I might be, what's my word, I might be annihilated if I would really open to all the sufferings of the world.

[56:06]

People who start opening often think, well, I might be annihilated, overwhelmed, evaporated, whatever. That's a natural thing to think of, many people. But that's the people who start to open to the possibility of listening. That's a natural arising, I've heard it many times. But it's another opportunity. And yeah, and you're listening to that, that's great. And you're listening to me now. And what I'm saying to you is calling for compassion. Linda? Did you want to say...? It was back? We can go back. Well, it was just when you were talking about the greatest joy, and what was striking me was, or happiness, it's maybe joy, and it's also just love. Isn't it also It's not being separate.

[57:12]

You could also say, Love is the greatest joy. Yeah, that was all I was thinking. Okay. All right? Okay. I see Tyler, and I see EJ. You guys had your hand raised. What do you want to say? You know, I can't stop my mind from thinking of grandchildren when people bring this stuff up. I'm sorry. And I feel like I should honor what comes into my mind.

[58:15]

So my grandson, one of his coping mechanisms was that when he was walking around the world, one of the ways he wanted to cope was by doing things that were unskillful. unskillful. Here he is, he's a little guy, he's like, he's so sweet, but he's also, he's suffering, this little guy is suffering, and he's trying to cope with his suffering of being a little guy, and sometimes what he wants to do is something that's really unskillful. And for example, he wants to walk off the sidewalk into Stockton in Chinatown. Do you know Chinatown? They have a street there called Stockton. It's one of the heaviest travel streets. They got lots of trucks in it. So the way he wants to cope with his life is he wants to go into the street. Okay? Now, I don't want him, that would be really unskillful for him to go in the street.

[59:24]

That would be unwholesome. It would be harmful. It would be a harmful, he's not addicted to going in the street. He is kind of addicted, that kind of stuff. So I kind of want him not to do it. But at the same time, I don't want to try to control him. I'm thinking, I want to be respectful of his coping mechanisms. Little kids have pacifiers, dollies, mommies, daddies, stories, toys. They have all this stuff. And they also have streets with trucks in them. These are things that they can use to cope with their suffering. Little kids are suffering. Their mothers don't like that, but they just go right ahead and suffer. Their mothers try to stop them, but they can't. Not all their mothers try to stop them. Some of their mothers don't try to stop them. Some of their mothers just listen to them and teach them how to listen.

[60:26]

Little kids can learn to listen to their suffering, but somebody has to teach them usually. So here he is, he's suffering, he wants to go into the street as a way to deal with his suffering, and his grandfather listens to him, but his grandfather still a little bit wants to control him and stop him from going in the street. But his grandfather also doesn't want to overpower him. He wants to show him that he's listening to him. Your grandfather loves you. He isn't just trying to control you. He wants to respect your coping mechanisms. So I tried to stop him from going in the street in a kind of gentle, loving way. But really I was being sneaky. Just trying to find kind of like a look like, you know, not oppressive, cruel granddaddy stopping him from going in the street, you know.

[61:28]

and he didn't go in the street and he didn't break down into tears because I was so harsh with him to try to control him and stop him. My sleazy approach worked pretty well in a way that he didn't feel disrespected and oppressed and overburdened with my energy and my strength of being a bigger person. So then what did he do? After I cured him of that one by my by my hypnotism. I kind of hypnotized him out of not going into the street. So what did he do? Then he turned in the other direction, tried to cope in the other direction, and the other direction from the street is the stores. So instead of going into the street where the trucks are, he went into the stores, and then I had to protect the people in the stores from him. Basically, here's another outrageous statement. If you try to control people's coping, the coping is going to get more and more aggressive.

[62:36]

Now, if you kill them, they'll be temporarily not aggressive anymore. don't put people in danger, and some do. And the same thing with addiction. It's like, you might have a different coping mechanism. I'm not saying they're all the same. It might not be something self-destructive. Because your example of your grandchild was kind of, well, one thing or another, but they're all that hungry. I think there's a difference. Coping mechanisms are not self-destructive. They're harmful. They're self-promoting. Coping mechanisms are how to cope with having a self. If you don't have a self, if the self's been destroyed, you don't have any coping mechanisms. Coping mechanisms are people with a self. It's how to cope with having a self. That's what they're about. You don't destroy the self. You destroy your arms and legs. You destroy your health. You destroy your family.

[63:38]

That's what you do with coping mechanisms if they're unskillful. But they're basically all unskillful. And they're, you know, in different ways. Heroin is different from sugar. Sugar is different from caffeine. Caffeine is different from a pacifier. Pacifiers are different from swimming. They're all different. But they're all unwholesome in the sense that basically you're not destroying yourself, you're choking your life. Coping means you're trying to cope with your life. What's your life? You got a self and you got suffering. What I'm talking about is how to, through listening, open up to your life. And I'm saying, if I try to stop people or myself from doing these harmful things,

[64:39]

from doing these coping mechanisms, which are harmful, I'm saying that what seem to be more severe coping mechanisms will be invited. I'm saying the more I don't listen to coping mechanism X, the more I invite coping mechanism enlarged X. And if I don't deal with that one, it gets bigger and bigger. So the more harmful and painful coping mechanisms are usually the ones that come to people who didn't listen to the quieter ones. If I try to crush the quiet ones, if the person keeps living, it'll get a bigger one. If you chop that one, it just keeps getting bigger. That's what I'm saying, it gets bigger and bigger. And I'm not saying the big ones are like the little ones. I'm not saying that taking poison is the same as sucking on a pacifier.

[65:41]

I'm just saying, if you let children have their pacifiers, not just ignore them and let them do it, but be with them and show them how to listen while they have a pacifier, they may get over the pacifier and don't have to go on to bigger and bigger things. I'm not saying they're all the same, but they're not self-destructive. they're not self-destructive, they cause other kinds of basically confinements of our life. I'm talking about how to open to our life and stop using coping mechanisms as a way to deal with it. But when there are coping mechanisms, how to open to the coping mechanism, because the coping mechanism is life. It's a living thing. It's calling for love. And some coping mechanisms are really, really loud and some are quiet. But they're all calling for love. And if they get the love, they'll learn how to practice it, and they'll become free of the coping mechanism.

[66:47]

That's what I'm saying. Yes? I didn't finish the story, by the way. I tried to stop him from doing that and he did something else. And somehow we got out of the store without causing too much damage in the store. But again I was like, I missed my chance and later I saw what I should have done with him. What I should have done with him is listen to what he wanted to do and go with him. You could say enabling him, I wasn't enabling him. He knows how to go in the street. I didn't enable him. If you don't stop him, you're enabling him. I don't agree. I think you enable people to do the thing that they're doing to hurt themselves. One of the ways you enable them is to try to stop them.

[67:51]

That fuels them. So what I should have done is I should have taken his hand and gone into the street with him. And then he would have been able to see what the street was. And he could have been able to see that it's not a place to play. It's not fun in the street. It's a dangerous, rough neighborhood. It doesn't look as neat when you're out there in the street. And granddaddy's with you, and I think, for me, he would be approximately as safe in the street with me as he would be on the sidewalk with me, or in the store with me. All three places are dangerous. One, I didn't want him to go in by himself, but if I'd gone with him, he would have learned. And I'm basically saying that if people want to go into tough situations, if you go with them with wholeheartedness, they will learn what they can learn about that. If nobody goes with them and shows them how to be there and listen and embrace the situation, how are they going to learn?

[68:54]

I didn't do that, but after that with him, I have basically followed that pattern of going with him into dangerous things rather than try to stop him. And I did another example with my daughter one time, another time with my wife. When my wife left town, things happened. So another time she left town and my daughter and I were taking a bath together and she said, Let's go in the kitchen and get the dishes and put them in mommy's bed and break them. That's a coping mechanism. To deal with what? You know, what is that about? It's part of the way she was trying to cope. She had that idea that that would be a good thing to do. Coping with what? With the suffering of a little girl. So what did I do? What did I do? I said, yes. I said, okay. And what did she do? Exactly.

[69:57]

She said, no. She said, no. But she needed me to go with her to see that that's not what she wants. That's not what she wants. We don't want to hurt. But if nobody goes with us and shows us how to listen to that we still think we maybe want to do these various things. We have to wholeheartedly embrace them in order to be free of them. E.J.? You said before that with suffering there is always compassion. Always. That's the good news. And you said with compassion there is always suffering. Always. The Buddha is completely receptive to the non-stop, omnipresence of suffering.

[71:00]

And the rest of us are working on it. We're trying to really accept that it's always here. It's never going to not be here. But we're trying to learn that and accept it. It's called Buddha, which, by the way, is boundless joy and peace and ease and energy to help people see this. Is Buddha reliant on protection and suffering? Buddha is. Not exactly, yeah, well, I would say dependent. Buddha is dependent on suffering. Buddha is dependent on delusion. Enlightenment is dependent on delusion. And delusion is dependent on enlightenment.

[72:04]

You don't have any delusion going around without this partner of enlightenment with it. You don't have any suffering beings without Buddha there practicing with them. But oftentimes people can't see the Buddha, even though there's no other job Buddha has other than be with people. If there's no people suffering, there's no Buddha. Buddha arises in relationship to the cries of the world. And so there's teachings which are being brought up about how to join the Buddhas who are sitting in the middle of all the suffering. They're not squashing it down, they're interacting with it in this inconceivably wonderful way.

[73:11]

If the total suffering of the world did go down a little bit, they would accept that. But they desire for it to... They desire to respond to it, not necessarily... I'm not saying they desire it to go away or to cease, but they desire to respond to it. they wish to respond to it and they also wish to respond to it in such a way that the suffering beings will have wisdom. They're not just supporting and comforting suffering beings and being there with them, they're being with them in a way that the beings can wake up and have wisdom and then be free and then also help other people do the same. They're trying to get people to look at things differently. So, like tonight, I said some things and, you know, and they were different. Some of the things I said were different in the way you looked at it.

[74:14]

But you listened to me and you kind of like, you gave it a try, looking at them a little different. It's necessary to look at things differently. And Buddhas, it's our business to get us to look at things differently. People are crying to us. If you listen to them, that will help you look at things differently. It's time for you guys to stop using your pacifiers. Your mom would like you to stop. And then you tell me, well, it helps me go to sleep. Well, you help me look at it differently. My daughter helped me look at this pacifier differently. It helps me go to sleep. Okay. That little Buddha there. helping me not be like, you're gonna stop using this. No, I listened to her, I respected her. It was reasonable. And then she listened to me when it broke. She was reasonable, I was reasonable. It's not like, no, I'm not gonna get you a pacifier.

[75:17]

It's more like, well, just not tonight. But I didn't control her. She decided to go along with me. You know, I really appreciate that some of you would like to go all night. I kind of would, too. But some of you want to go, so I'm going to end the class, even though some of you want to keep going. And I really appreciate, and I don't want to make you tardy for all the people you want to take care of tonight. Thank you very much.

[75:51]

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