This might be the last class we're going to have for a while. Would anyone care to briefly summarize the class? No? Scared to play. Pardon? Scared to play. Scared to play. That's been the class, huh? That's part of the class, the issue of being afraid to play. Afraid to not be serious.

[01:04]

It's funny that serious might seem safer than playfulness. But there's, you know, how many times have you been criticized for being serious? And how many times for being kind of playful? Like in the gymnastics class, did the teacher criticize you for being really serious about doing the various exercises? Or did she criticize you for playing around? Anything else about the class that you would like to mention? Yes? Being relaxed. Being relaxed. And is there some relationship between being relaxed and being playful?

[02:15]

Being relaxed allows you to be playful. That's been my proposal to you. Anything else that you'd like to bring up? Having compassion for oneself helps one to be relaxed. Yes? Meeting things as they come up with grace. Meeting things as they come up with grace. Meeting things without going toward or away from them with grace. Or perhaps as a graceful way to meet things. Does that seem graceful? To meet something like not going towards it or away from it? And grace also means, has to do with being, grace has to do with being given, right?

[03:31]

Doesn't it mean give? Or given? Hmm? You don't pay for grace, right? Or you could pay, I guess, afterwards if you wanted to, you could make a donation. So it has to do with receiving what's given without going towards it, like to get it or trying to avoid it, just receiving. So receiving, accepting and gracefulness Like if you're dancing, it's rather graceful to receive and accept the music, the other dancers. And sometimes the way to receive is to meet them. But it's a receptive thing.

[04:34]

Anything else that you'd like to bring up? If someone thinks that he's a Jesus, should give them some wood so they can make a bookcase. Well, if someone thinks they're a Jesus, you should give them some wood so they can make a bookcase. But first of all, you should recognize that they're a carpenter. In other words, first of all, uh... help them uh... relax with the position of holding on to their own idea about themselves by you know adapt being relaxed yourself and adapting to their situation and as you recognize them some then they can let go of their of their hard holding to where they are in this story of that guy who

[05:39]

who thought of himself as Jesus, he wouldn't relate to anyone that wouldn't recognize him as such. And that's a general characteristic, I think, of someone who is holding very strongly to their position and demanding that people agree with it. Of course, in order to start a relationship, you've got to be the one to bend and say, I'll comply to your inner vision of yourself. For starters, you don't have to go necessarily all the way, but a little might be enough to get them to relax the demand that you agree with their inner fantasy. And you can do the same thing with yourself, too.

[06:42]

If you notice you're holding something, you can say to yourself, you know, you kind of go along with yourself and say, yeah, I know what you mean. You're totally right. You're so right. I mean, you've got it right on there. That's good. That's exactly what you are. And then you'll probably say to yourself in response, well, not really. Were you going to say something? No, I went. No. I thought you raised your hand. This session really helped me to be centered It helped to be centered so far. Great.

[07:46]

You spoke of internal reality and external reality and play kind of arising in between there. Yes. I also learned to enjoy the impermanence of that space. Right. And that space between the two is very impermanent, is very precarious, because then the fantasy changes or the external reality changes. So that space between that old fantasy and that old external reality is gone. So you have to find a new space between the new things that are coming up.

[08:50]

Vulnerable and sweet. Yeah, vulnerable and sweet. Like the breeze. Like the breeze, yeah. That there's energy in that place, in that dynamic? There's a lot of energy in there, you're right. There's energy in having both of them there. And there's energy in the precariousness and in the impermanence. There's energy. Of course, there's energy in the other two, but less. It's less alive on either side. The real creative... But it's hard to be vulnerable to it. That's why the relaxation helps us dare to be vulnerable to this impermanent, dynamic, intense energy of creativity.

[10:04]

Yes? That's the creative space. And technically speaking, again, one of the main teachings of the Buddha is, I don't know which to mention first, but dependent co-arising. that everything that happens, happens as a dependent core arising, depending on other things. And that dependent core arising is also, you know, the way things happen, is also called the middle way. So Buddha's teaching of the middle way and dependent core arising, or creativity,

[11:09]

Same teaching. So the way things really are is that they're not permanent, they don't really last, and they're not annihilated. Impermanent things are not annihilated. things are actually... things actually exist in a middle way. So when they appear, they appear, but then because they depend on things, when those things change, they disappear. But when they disappear, they're not annihilated. For example... When one of us dies, that's not nothing.

[12:13]

It's different to never have had a Gary than to have a Gary and then lose a Gary. Gary's not going to be annihilated, and Gary doesn't last. He's not eternal. he's a middle, he's a middle way kind of thing. He's a dependent core rising. And if we see that dependent core rising, that creativity, we understand the truth, we understand what we actually are. And when we understand what we are, we're free from suffering and, not only that, but life seems quite worthwhile. Even when it's difficult, even though it's difficult, even though it's impermanent, it seems worthwhile when we see the creativity. It's such a joy to see how things happen.

[13:22]

When we see how things happen, everything is basically, I would go so far as to say, equally beautiful. But certainly anyway, everything's beautiful. But it's not just the person or the tree. It's how they happen that's beautiful. Yes. Yes. That feels beautiful. It's not our idea of beauty because our ideas are not how we're supported, but our ideas are supported.

[14:28]

What else? Yes. I know you talked about confession. Yes. But it's not, I don't, I can't quite get it. You know, I know there's a power in confessing something. That's kind of all I got. That's about where I'm at. So what do we have to confess in this process? of discovering how to relax, how to be playful, how to enter creativity. What is there to confess? That we're not being playful. We can confess that we're not being playful. We can confess... That we're not relaxed. We're not relaxed.

[15:36]

What else? Difficult. What? That it's difficult. Well, it's not really a confession that it's difficult. I mean, you don't really confess that it's hot today. You maybe confess that you think it's hot, but that's not a big deal. So difficult is not something to confess. Something to confess is that you tense up in relationship to the difficulty or that you hate the difficulty or that you don't trust the difficulty. You confess. We're talking about confessing what you're up to, not so much confessing the date or whatever. What else can you confess? You can confess that you have the view of a permanent world. You can confess that view, the view of permanence. What else can you confess? Confess to holding, confess to casting away. Confess to holding and confess to casting away.

[16:39]

Yes? Confess to things that you did wrong. Confess to things that you did wrong? Yeah, right. Like what? particularly in relationship to this process, what kind of things are not appropriate to the process of entering creativity? Anger, yeah. Impatience, yeah. In other words, not being compassionate. See, so instead of practicing compassion, and one of the ways of practicing compassion is to be patient, if you've got pain, practice patience with it is compassion, but if you don't practice patience with it, then you can confess, I wasn't compassionate with this pain, either a pain about yourself or a pain in relationship to someone else. And the other aspects of compassion is being diligent, so you can confess that you haven't been diligent.

[17:44]

being generous, giving. You can confess that you haven't been giving, that you've been stingy. You can confess the precepts as part of compassion, being careful of what you do. Confessing that you're not following the precepts, that's another lack of compassion you can confess. That's it. Those are the ones. And then the other one is lack of presence, lack of being centered, lack of relaxation, which is the samadhi part. So samadhi is the fifth of the five main compassion practices, giving, precepts, patience, diligence, and concentration are samadhi. And samadhi is the place where we relax and start getting playful. And as we get playful, we see creativity, and as we see creativity, wisdom arises.

[18:51]

But if we don't practice compassion, it's hard for wisdom to arise, because if we don't practice compassion, we don't feel ready to face the dynamic intensity of the way things actually are. So we're not ready for wisdom. If we're compassionate enough, we get ready for wisdom. We get ready to see how things really happen. What else? Yes? How does separateness come into this? How does separateness come into it? Well, separateness is things... We have... What do you call it? We have the view things appear to be separate. So we have a... What do I say?

[19:53]

It's part of our development process that we come to... We sort of have to go through the stage of... uh... thinking that some things are separate from from me from the self so we sort of have to go through that we have to like um... we have to go through the stage of seeing that some things are not under our control. When we're little, we're mostly dealing with our own imagination about what's going on.

[20:54]

So we look at our mother, for example, or our primary caregiver, and almost 100 percent of what we see It's just our inner version of what he or she is. It doesn't seem to change much at all. I'm noticing that when I view things in life, it's all my story. I thought there's some external, but boy, there's just, it's huge. The internal, hopefully the internal will continue to be huge. It's good that it's huge because that means you have a huge imagination. And most people do have a huge imagination, so it's good that you notice that it's huge.

[21:59]

But when you're little, you have a huge imagination. But you don't know anything about what other people think. And you don't know anything about other people not being under your control. Because you only see people as what your mind creates them to be. That's all you see at first. And actually, again, just like with the psychotic, somebody has to go along with your version of the way things are for a while. Almost 100% for a while. And then gradually show you that sometimes this person doesn't do anything. what you would like them to do or what you're imagining would be good for them to be. They're not that way. They gradually start to frustrate you.

[23:03]

And at the same time, they teach you relaxation techniques to deal with the frustration of them not being under your control. And gradually you come to the conclusion that they actually are out there separate from you. And you can do reality checking to see if what you say is going on is what they say is going on. And that's part of the way we start to talk. So my grandson says, you know, he points to me and he says, my daddy... And his mother says, no, my daddy. And if he says to her, my mommy, she says, yes, your mommy. But when she says, my daddy, he says it over and over again, points to me and says, my daddy. She says, no, my daddy. And we go to the garden at Green Gulch.

[24:12]

And he likes sunflowers. And so we also show him the poppies. So then we go other places, and he says, what's that? And we say, they're dahlias. He said, poppies. We say, no dahlias. And he says, poppies. He knows. But there was a time at which you had to go along with it, sort of. And then we saw some more sunflowers and he said, sing me some sunflower songs. So he sang him some sunflower songs. You are my sunflower, my only sunflower.

[25:17]

You make me happy when skies are gray. You'll never know, dear, how much I love you. Please don't take my sunflower away. Then he says, Poppy, you are my poppy. So then he takes his baseball bat, which he happens to have. at his disposal and starts swinging at some of the plants. And I said, don't hurt the plants. And he kept, he swung at him anyway. And I said, don't hurt the plants. And then he says, plants are crying. I said, yeah, plants are crying. And then he pointed to me and he said, you hit the plants. So I said, sorry. Sorry. And he says, you hit the sunflowers. I said, sorry. You hit the bush.

[26:17]

Sorry. And he went through, walked through the garden and he accused me of hitting everything. Naming the various things and said, you hit this. And I would say, I'm sorry. But he was learning, you know, about external reality by this process. He knew that I didn't hit anything. But he just wanted to like, huh? He didn't go, no. He didn't say, I hit the plant. But he was like doing this thing, you know. He's playing, he's being playful, actually. And I think I was too, you know, because I didn't say, no, I didn't hit anything. And I didn't say, yes, I did hit anything either. I just said, sorry. And he liked me to say sorry. He liked that. I didn't make him say sorry. He knows what sorry meant. I didn't tell him to say he was sorry for hitting the plants. I said sorry.

[27:19]

And he knew that I didn't do it. And that's why it was so fun to get me to admit to hitting everything. So in this way you gradually do establish an external reality until finally you can handle somebody who will say stuff to you like, you know, I didn't hit the plants, you did. And you argue back and forth. But still, you know, you have various versions about what's going on inside, but you can't, and other people are not under your control. Your grandfather is under your control. And you know he's not a normal person, so you play with it. You can't do this. With other kids, he's very tolerant. They take stuff from him. He takes stuff from them carefully. Testing, can he take it? But with me, he just does whatever he wants because he can do whatever he wants.

[28:21]

Because I'm a special person who will basically be whatever he wants. And he knows that that's not usual, and he won't tolerate anything from me. I'm completely under his control. Yes, but also that's the way he can experiment with finding out that I'm not under his control, actually. He can do lots of more experiments of a certain type with me than he can with his friends, because he'll get in trouble with them. And if they take stuff from him, he'll get in trouble if he tries to hold them. But with me, there's nothing of his that I can take unless he wants to give it to me. just because if he doesn't want to give it to me, I won't take it.

[29:26]

So anyway, you do learn about external reality, and external reality is something you can't control. You can only come to an agreement with people on it. And that's part of your life, but that doesn't mean that your inner life supposed to shrink up and shrivel up it's good that it hasn't it's good that it still feels huge now with the external established and the internal still being huge now can you let go of both can you relax with both and it's hard to relax with your inner vision if you don't give it its due Again, if you try to push away your inner vision or try to push away external reality, you're not in the space between. So you need to give them both their due. And if you give them their due, then you can realistically let go of them.

[30:37]

You can practically let go of them. If you know the rules, the external rules, you can relax with them. But if you don't know them, it's harder to relax because you might get in trouble if you relax with them. You don't know. But if you know them, you know, under these circumstances, I can relax with the external. So you, for example, according to the external rules, SOME OF YOU FEEL IT'S OKAY TO COME TO THIS CLASS AND RELAX WHILE YOU'RE IN THIS CLASS, BUT THERE'S SOME SITUATIONS WHERE YOU MIGHT FEEL LIKE YOU ARE NOT PERMITTED BY THE EXTERNAL RULES TO RELAX. SOME PEOPLE HAVE NOT GIVEN YOU PERMISSION TO RELAX. Or some people have not given me permission to come to this class. Like Michael, his son is sick, so each week it was kind of a question of whether he's really permitted to come to this class. Maybe this week he didn't feel like it really worked, that the external reality didn't maybe allow him to come.

[31:38]

So sometimes external reality says, no, you can't relax. But you can test that. and come to an agreement okay now external reality you're telling me I can't relax is that correct yes once that's clear you can relax with that once it's clear that you can't relax you can relax did you not quite get that How does delusion fit in here? Well, delusion is a little bit different from illusion. We do need illusion in order to move from our fantasy realm over to the external reality realm.

[32:47]

We need illusion to do that. We need to have some, like we need the illusion, for example, of somebody who goes along with our inner fantasies. We need that illusion. We need our own toys which belong to us but aren't us or that are us They are ours, and they're not us. This is an illusion that needs to be created in order to make the transition to external reality. Delusion is when you actually think an illusion is true. So delusion is generally unhealthy, but illusion is necessary. is not even an illusion.

[33:51]

But using a fantasy with certain objects, you can create illusions, and illusions are necessary for spiritual and psychological growth. Delusions, in some sense, are necessary because they always happen, but it's when you believe your illusions or when you believe that your fantasies are externally true. But they aren't. Even if they, you know, literally correspond to the external reality, they're still different because no one knows what it is that you're fantasizing. They don't know it, even though you may feel it corresponds to external reality. It's a different phenomenon. And if you confuse them, that's delusion. Anything else?

[34:57]

Are we also talking about avoiding attachment to self-mortification and sense pleasure? I keep thinking about that because I've also been looking at the first discourse lately and they feel very similar in some way. Yeah, there's two versions of the middle way. One version of the middle way is that beings are addicted to sense pleasure, and the other is they're addicted to self-mortification. That's what the Buddha said. But in another fairly early discourse he said beings are generally inclined towards two views. So annihilationism goes with self-mortification and eternalism goes with sense pleasure.

[36:01]

But it isn't just self-mortification or sense pleasure. It's an addiction to sense pleasure, an addiction to self-mortification. A little self-mortification now and then is not a problem as long as it's not an addiction. and also sense pleasure. He didn't say the problem was sense pleasure. It's the addiction to sense pleasure. It's being into sense pleasure in such a way that it takes you off the middle. And it's being into self-mortification in such a way that it takes you off the middle. Self-mortification is sometimes a very good thing. For example, If your grandson's freezing, it's good to take your coat off and give it to him. It's a self-mortification. He'd get cold. But to mortify myself to not wear enough clothes and be uncomfortable in an addictive way, in a way that distracts me from the middle, which is the middle way of meeting the temperature of the room.

[37:17]

The middle way of relating to temperature is not to distract yourself, knock yourself off from the middle way of meeting it, the balanced way. So play arises between those two extremes as well. I mean, we're talking about different views of those extremes. Right. Play between those two extremes, which includes that sometimes you do a little self-mortification. Sometimes it's appropriate, and sometimes... Eating, for example, was one of the things that the Buddha decided to do. For a while there, he wasn't eating hardly anything at all. But he decided, I think, it'd be good to eat. And eating, especially if you don't eat much, eating is a sense pleasure, sometimes. So he actually said, yeah, a little sense pleasure, that's part of the middle way. And a little self-mortification, that's part of the middle way, too.

[38:20]

In other words, sometimes you should actually, you know, feel the cold. Sometimes it's cold. It's appropriate to feel it. So the play is like you're not holding to either, and you can actually work with those two then. Pain and sinning. The pain of sitting or the pain of growing old. But to like indulge in the pain of growing old knocks you off the middle. And as you know, some old people kind of indulge in it. But the other extreme, some other people grow older and they indulge in sense pleasures to distract them from the pain of growing old. It's the distraction from the middle way that's the problem. But sense pleasure and being mortified don't themselves knock you off the middle.

[39:21]

It's just if you relate to them in an addictive way that you get knocked off. That was what he was pointing to. Don't get addicted to either side. recognize both sides when they're arising, and they're usually there, usually there's something to be mortified about, and usually there's some sense pleasure, to relax with both, to recognize, to give them their due, to relax with them, then you can play with them. You can use them in a playful way. But really, it's that you're in the middle between the two. That's the important point. And what is the middle way? It is dependent core rising. It's a dependent core rising of the self-mortification. It's a dependent core rising of sense pleasure. So you sense pleasure and self-mortification are there in the middle.

[40:22]

You see, oh, you see the creativity there. You see the creativity there. This is the path to freedom that he found. In Buddhism, you eat before and after enlightenment. The Buddha tried not eating before enlightenment and didn't get enlightened. And then he started eating. But he didn't have a big feast. He just had I guess some rice with milk. That's all. That was enough. It wasn't a big addiction. But it was probably pretty pleasant because he found self-mortification to be painful and unprofitable. There's a slight difference between self-mortification and the sense, indulgence in sense pleasure.

[41:24]

Indulgence in self-mortification is painful and unprofitable. indulgence in sense pleasure, he said, didn't say painful. He said, it's vulgar and unprofitable. So most people, the common people, they indulge in sense pleasure. And the yogis who don't practice the middle way got indulged in self-mortification. Buddhism is neither. Buddha way is neither. It's the middle way. but it's not a dry middle way where you avoid the excitement of self-mortification, you know, whipping yourself and stuff like that. And it's not, you know, the dryness of avoiding having something good to eat or smelling a lovely flower or seeing a sunflower. It's not avoiding that.

[42:24]

It's seeing something which is more beautiful than anything itself is dependent core rising so it's the middle way is very beautiful it's very true and very beautiful and it's a truth that liberates us but we respect the extremes we just don't hold to them We acknowledge that the possibilities are there. But again, the extremes are not extremes unless you grasp them. They're just possibilities. It's possible. I mean, yeah, it's possible. You know, really, it's not possible, actually. For example, addiction to anything is not really possible. Because we're trying to, like,

[43:26]

We're trying to get away from what's happening, and we really can't, but we're trying. So it's not really possible to get away, but it is possible to try to get away. It's futile, but we can try. And the Buddha tried. He tried one way when he was living in the palace. He did the sense pleasure way. And then when he left he did the other side and neither way worked. Neither way brought him freedom from fear and anxiety. But the middle way he found to be that gave him contentment and freedom from anxiety. Anything else? Bob? You have safety zones in your mind?

[44:36]

Yeah. And that's very comforting at times. And yet now I see this discussion, the futility of that. And yet what you're... Yeah, right. There is. But before we get onto the risk, I just want to say that, again, If we notice that we have little safety zones in our mind or our body, again, we should be compassionate with our safety zones. Don't close down.

[45:38]

Don't crush the safety zones. Crushing safety zones is no better than having them. So be patient with your safety zones, just like you'd be patient with a child who's experimenting with his or her safety zones. Play, you know, relax with those safety zones. But again, as you start to relax with the safety zones, not crush them, not beat yourself up for them, be compassionate with yourself about it, about having a history of needing some safety zones to get through the day. Safe. So safety zones have a function. Be compassionate with yourself. Okay? And then as you are more compassionate with yourself about your safety zones, you start to relax more with them. As you relax more with them, you can sort of give them up, sometimes, for a while anyway. Take a break. You know that you'll let yourself go back to them if it gets too tough.

[46:48]

Say, well, I'm going to just I'm just going to go away from my safety zone for a while. And I go back there. Again, look at a child. They've got their safety zone, but in order to grow, they get to go away from their safety zone, you know? They have to go out away from their safety zone. So they go away from their safety zone, and then they start to basically collapse. Again, I saw this with my grandson. I knew about this, but with him, he just sort of demonstrates it. He'd be with me, you know, someplace. I remember one time we were at San Francisco State, and... He was with me, and then he would walk away from me, out in the grass and start relating to people, and then he would start to lose it, you know? He'd start to just, like... You know, he'd lose it. He'd come back and just touch me for, like, sometimes just for a couple seconds, just come and touch me. And then he'd push me away. He got what he needed and pushed me away and go off again. And he did that repeatedly.

[47:51]

He really wanted to explore, but he couldn't hold it together. His mental and physical tone he couldn't hold together, and he had to come back and just touch my body and get that feeling again, and then he'd go off. And he wanted to be with me as long as he wanted to be with me and no longer, and he was off. When you've had enough of the safety zone, then let go of it and go into the play area. But in the play area, you are vulnerable. It's very precarious. You see? There he was with his little inner version of what the world was. Okay? You know? And then he goes off into the world, and the world is not what he thought it was. You know? I'm watching him. He looks like a kid who's walking off in the grass, and then everything falls apart. But what he was heading into when he went off into the grass was not... you know, the grass that there is for me.

[48:54]

He had his own fantasy about it and he was not getting reinforced by what happened out there. He might have thought that this trip to the grass was going to be a lot more exciting than most of us find a trip to the grass. I mean, it might have been the glory of glories that he was heading for because he was leaving home for this thing. He was leaving a nice safe zone for this fabulous trip out there a few feet under the grass but it didn't work out the way he thought it was and he just couldn't cope with it he starts to deteriorate so he comes back he hadn't even got to external reality yet this is quite a this is like more than a year ago he hadn't even got to the point of like being able to come to an agreement about this is grass you know He still was just making the initial explorations away from his world of fantasy and finding out that you walk away from your mother or your grandfather a few feet and the world becomes horribly out of control.

[50:08]

And you don't know how to deal with it. You don't know how to deal with it. But you do, hopefully, have the sense to go back and touch this body, and this body will be what you want it to be. It's already worked out. And then you come back together and try another one. But then if you go and finally establish external reality, then it's even more dynamic. And you go into that space, and it is precarious, and you are vulnerable there. We're always vulnerable, but we usually hold to these extremes to, again, our safety zones where we don't feel vulnerable. Okay, fine. When you've had enough of that, come into the middle where you start to open to your vulnerability. But opening to vulnerability is the same as opening to creativity, is the same as opening to beauty, is the same as opening to wisdom.

[51:12]

And if you can't stand it, and you need to go back to some safety zone, your grandmother, your grandfather, your mother, your father, your own little things in your mind that you've developed, that you learned from your mother and your grandfather, fine. Go back. Recoup. And then when you have enough, relax and go into the middle again until you can stand more and more to be there in the creative middle where you are feeling vulnerable and where you can easily get frightened because it's so dynamic and precarious. Yes? Could it be also that we feel vulnerable because, as you said, we wish that we exist before we enter a situation?

[52:15]

Just the fact that that separates us from the situation. That's one kind of vulnerability, is a vulnerability that we think we exist before we enter a situation. We think we're already here and now we're going to go someplace. That idea is in danger. up getting contradicted or upturned if we go forth into some situation. That's one kind of vulnerability. We're also vulnerable, we're even more vulnerable, or rather I should say we are more vulnerable, we accept even more our vulnerability when we forget about being there before things happen. So if you remember, yourself all the time and take yourself into situations, there's vulnerability in that situation too, if you're in a playful situation. And the next, and if you can tolerate that, then the next level of vulnerability will be to enter a situation having forgotten to bring yourself along.

[53:26]

And then you're even more vulnerable because you don't have yourself and you don't have yourself to like, you know, you're not even remembering yourself to go back to. So you could really get hurt here. But then you're even more open to creativity. Turns out, almost everybody can remember themselves, so it's not that dangerous, actually. That's not really such a big problem. It seems to me that we probably don't feel as vulnerable when we forget. We are, in fact, more vulnerable when we forget ourselves and enter a situation, but maybe we don't feel as vulnerable as when we break ourselves. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe we can be in accord with it, in accord with the vulnerability, kind of

[54:32]

without really thinking about it so much, but just relaxed with it? Anything else? There is a secret that is ultimately, or not a secret, but it's ultimately safe there if you can relax. with the loaner bill. It seems like holding onto my safety zones actually is sort of unsafe, because I feel like sometimes this is the only place I can be safe. Well, all the safety zones are unreliable, ultimately. And holding onto them makes them even less useful. Safety zones are not reliable, but they're more useful if you don't hold on to them. If you're flexible about them, they're more useful than if you aren't flexible. But they're not ultimately safety zones. The only ultimate safety zone is dependent core rising.

[55:36]

That, there you're safe. But you, the you that's safe there, is the you you really are. It's the interdependent you. The interdependent you never did last, and it won't now. So if you think about a self that lasts, that self's in danger. And the interdependent self never gets annihilated, so that's not a problem. But the interdependent self really doesn't... It's this middle way, you know? The middle way is safe. And there is safety in the middle way. But it's not the safety like safety like you're going to last safety. It's also not the safety like you're going to get annihilated safety. So some people think, you know, okay, when I die, I'm gone. Fine. Turn the lights off, cancel the account, I'm gone. Okay. It ain't like that, according to Buddhism.

[56:42]

It's not like all over. And also you don't last. It's neither. Michael's not here. Now that he's not here, we can talk about incarnation. But when people talk about rebirth, they think, oh, that means we last. No. The Buddha says in the early discourses, if you see how things arise, actually how things arise, you will not take the view of annihilation. And if you see how things cease, you will not take the view of eternalism. If you see dependent co-arising, the way things actually arise and the way they cease, you won't take either one of those views. And when you see that you're the same, you won't take those views and you're safe.

[57:51]

That middle way self is safe. But not safe like, okay, you're safe, you're going to last now. And also safe like, you know, it's all going to be over soon. There's no end to the middle way person. There's no end to the middle way and there's no beginning to it. But on the middle way, things do appear and disappear. We appear and disappear. And that's an illusion. If you think it's true, that's a delusion. But we don't deny the appearance. of all of our experiences and the disappearance of our experiences. They do appear and disappear. We admit that. But no matter what phase they're in, whether they're appearing or disappearing, everything's always in this middle way. If you turn in this middle way, you can meet the arising of things happily.

[58:55]

You can meet the ceasing of things happily. You can meet the arising of good things happily and the arising of bad things happily. They're different, but they're... they both exist in the middle way. So we've got to tune in to this middle way. Then we're... then we have Buddha vision, Buddha wisdom. Yes, Bob? Are we in the middle way when we're hurt? Did you say? Well, you know, I just thought of the Buddha, okay? The Buddha, when the Buddha was around 80 years old, as the story goes, he got served some

[60:02]

some dish which didn't agree with him in a big way. We don't know exactly what it was. Some people say it was rot pork. But anyway, it caused, it poisoned him and caused all kinds of internal problems in his body. The Buddha, the Buddha got hurt. The Buddha's body got hurt. The body which the Buddha lived in got hurt. But the Buddha was still on the middle way while he was hurt. So you're still the Buddha. You've got a sick Buddha here, but anyway, you've got to... It's still Buddha. It's not just any old sick person. It's a person who understands the middle way being sick. So you can still get hurt in that way. Now, did you mean another way? Yes.

[61:07]

So let's see now. If Buddha got criticized, would that be painful for Buddha? Well, I think it's more interesting if the answer is yes. Now, I think sometimes the Buddha might get criticized and it wouldn't be painful at all, just like sometimes you get criticized and it's not painful, right? I mean, if you're into the flow, you know, of being criticized, if you ask for criticism, And the person says, hey, Bob, you want some criticism? And you say, yeah. And then the person gives it to you.

[62:07]

You might feel, oh, thanks. That was really helpful. But some criticism maybe you feel somehow seems painful. Let's say. And so one question is, does that mean you're not in the middle way? It could mean that. But not necessarily. It just might be that somehow the conditions were such that, you know, you dialed in certain conditions and they created a painful sensation. A painful sensation was created when the person criticized you. So a story which some of you have heard me tell many times because I've told it many times and some of you know me for a while, it's a story of a Zen monk. falsely and harshly, falsely and harshly.

[63:12]

And when he was criticized, he said, is that so? Now, my feeling is that when, if somebody criticizes you, you know, harshly, it's, uh, You know, it's words, but it's actually a physical thing that they're talking to you that way. You know, the harsh... If someone spits in your face, you know, or slaps you in the face, it's a physical thing. If they yell at you or call you names, especially if it's not true, it kind of hurts. And it hurts maybe both mentally and physically. But you might actually see, like he said, is that so? you might actually see, oh, oh, this is happening now. Is this, is that so? Here's my life. And maybe he was not pushed out of shape by that at all. That's what my feeling was, that he just said, is that so?

[64:19]

But I kind of felt like it wasn't just a pleasant thing that he said, is that so, too? And then later, he was accused, actually, of having sex with a young girl and she became pregnant so he was accused of having inappropriate relationship with her sexually and then later she told her parents that it was a lie that actually someone else had been the father and then they came to him and then they gave him strong praise and he said is that so And I thought that the situation wouldn't be so interesting to me if in both cases he didn't feel anything. So there are some cases where certain things won't bother you anymore because of your practice of the middle way. I mean, they'll be like ducks off a water's back. Which is fine.

[65:23]

But even when you do get hurt, which might happen even when someone does mentally does do something or something happens that mentally hurts you like you could just think of maybe something you did a long time ago that was really unskillful okay you don't do that anymore but you think of it now and it hurts or someone reminds you hey Bob remember that time you did that thing You go, oh, yeah. And it hurts. It might even hurt more now than before because you're more relaxed. Maybe now you see, oh, my God, that was, I can't, you know, and when you did it, maybe you didn't dare open to how bad it was. So it's possible that you could be quite developed and something could really hurt you mentally. I think that's more interesting, that even when you are hurt, mentally and or physically, you can look at it, relax with it, relax with your inner version of it and the external reality of it, be playful with it, see the creativity of it, and have this painful situation be a moment for the arising of Buddha's wisdom.

[66:52]

and the joy of understanding reality and seeing the beauty of this world, even in pain, mental or physical or both. So the Buddha, anyway, did have physical pain at the end of his life. And he also may have been able to remember, because he could see many past lives, unskillful things he did and they still might have been painful to him if those conditions came up to present him with those images. And I think it also, although Buddhas love all beings, it does hurt Buddhas a little bit that other people are suffering. Being compassionate is a joy but it still hurts to see other people's pain. So the Buddha actually is open to other people's pain.

[67:56]

The Buddha doesn't feel it exactly the same way, I don't think, as other people feel it. But it does hurt the Buddha that we're suffering. But the Buddha is not unhappy. The Buddha is actually happy that our suffering hurts her. She likes that because she would feel funny If she looked at us and saw us suffering and it didn't hurt her at all, if she just totally... Of course she's happy. But also hurting for us, it's not right that... It's not compassion to not have it hurt a little bit that other people are hurting. But it can be... The pain, in some ways, is smaller than the joy of caring about everybody. But there is pain for the enlightened people. It's just that they see the dependent core rising up in pain.

[68:58]

They see the beauty in the pain, truth in the pain. So they're happy in the pain. Make sense? Many? I understand. Like everything else we're talking about, the pain is not grasped nor pushed away. The pain is there and repeated in other people, but the hurt doesn't go away. Yeah. So if we can develop this, first of all, relaxed way of being with the pain, then we can be playful with the pain, then we can see the creativity of the pain, and we can be free of the pain. Pain's still there. This could all happen like that. You still have cancer, or somebody you love still has cancer, and it still hurts.

[69:59]

If you see your own baby with cancer, I think a lot of, particularly mothers would say, it's much more painful to see my baby with cancer than for me to have cancer. I mean, biologically, that's worse for the parent to see the child suffering or dying than for them to die. We're built to not, to find that to be the most painful thing. If I get a scar on my face, It's not such a big deal to me. But if my daughter gets a scar on her face, it's a big deal. And she doesn't have any, so that's nice. But anyway, one time there was a rat in our house. And I just didn't like the idea of that rat coming up and chewing on her little cheeks. I made a big effort to keep that rat away from her. And one time I actually saw the rat come running across the room towards her bed.

[71:03]

I didn't like that. So anyway, the pain, the world may present us with pains, mental and physical pains. We don't know. We're not, we're out of control. But what's possible is to be able to meet whatever comes with happiness. That is, that's a change that can happen. Pretty big change. And we call that the cessation of suffering. So, it means that when we're in pain, we're not... There is pain, but we're not suffering. Now, when there's pain, we're suffering. When there's pleasure, we're suffering. And when it's neither, we're suffering. We're suffering all the time. But cessation of suffering means that when you're in pain, you won't be suffering anymore. But there still will be pain. When you're sick, you'll still be sick.

[72:07]

But that's it. That's all. Nancy? I'm kind of, if you have an upset with somebody, you're upset with somebody, maybe you're the one being harsh with them. Yes? I just want to be there. And the co-rising means that they had something to do with it, too, or that... Yeah, that's true. Whenever you meet someone, they have something to do with the meeting. And if you meet them and criticize them, the fact that they're there has something to do with your criticizing. But your criticism might be a 100%, well, almost 100% fantasy. But, you know, there's... there's almost always some shred of truth to the greatest delusion.

[73:09]

But there is dependent core rising to your criticism of someone. They have something to do with it. But to try to find, like, I don't know, some justification for the criticism is an addiction to sense pleasure. Because then you kind of like, you go away from looking at the dependent core arising of the criticism over to like giving yourself a little pleasure for this thing. You know, like, well, I'm right anyway. Criticizing people is nice, but it is nice to be right. So you give yourself that little lollipop of being right, but it takes you away from looking and relaxing or relaxing and looking at this process of criticism and entering into a playful relationship with it and seeing the creativity of it. And then you're no longer concerned with whether it's true or false because you're free of it.

[74:16]

And then you can say to the person, if you ever want to know, I got this great criticism of you. But, you know, you're not in agony over being this person who thinks badly of this person anymore. Because you saw how it happened. You understood the dependent core rising. You can see the beauty of your critical mind. But you're not caught by it anymore. It's just an option. It's possible to have something critical to say about someone without violating the seventh major bodhisattva precept, which is praising self at the expense of others. Does that make sense? So you can see, again, you can see someone you love make a mistake and you can say, oh, they made a mistake.

[75:23]

You can say that without praising yourself at their expense, without thinking, hey, I don't make that mistake. I'm better than them. It's just like, well, it's a mistake. And in a sense, you have a criticism to make if it's appropriate. But you don't think you're better than them just because you see that or because you don't make that mistake anymore. You have an easy relationship? It's easy. Oh, it's uneasy? Okay, you have uneasy. Yes. Yes. Yes. And you're realizing...

[76:26]

relative to the longevity of that kind of relationship. I just wonder how the, I mean, I, well, you're really good at that. I feel like I have to really consciously thoughtfully work on it, and it's not really just gotten better. I expected more transformation or transcendence. Well, the Buddha's going to want to encourage you, basically, to keep working. And the Buddha's going to encourage you to be grateful for any development. And the Buddha's going to tell you also that sometimes you're coming along, but you don't notice it yourself for a long time. And the Buddha's going to also tell you that even though you've been working on some relationships for a long time, you can never get away from them. So you've got to keep working on them until they're finally resolved because you're going to live with this person indefinitely.

[77:33]

So it may take a really long time to work it out, but you have no choice. So don't complain about how long it takes. But sometimes they do take a long time. Right. But if we're expecting to get it done in this lifetime, that expectation makes it harder for us to work it out. That slows the process down. When we finally realize, okay, what do they say? Fish or cut bait? Let's fish or cut bait. Let's get down to it. Now, they may not be ready. But that's not your problem. It is a problem, but your main problem is, are you ready? And if you're ready, then you're not calculating anymore how long it takes.

[78:38]

They, however, may not be ready. But if you're impatient for when they're going to get ready, if you're not ready, you're not really ready. If you're ready, you can start playing. And so you can already start having a good time. However, you do need them to start playing too, in the big picture. You have to not only learn how to play, you have to learn how to teach them to play. But if you're spending your time wondering how long it's taking, you're not relaxing. Now, you can know that it's been taking a long time, but you can relax with that and say, it's taken a long time to get this far, and I'm ready to play now. So you've done your part for yourself. And the next thing is, and now I have to learn how to teach them to learn.

[79:41]

But we need to be relaxed with this monumental challenge of some of our playmates that have not yet learned how to play and many people come to me and say you know they have one or two people like that in their life that just like they really care about and these people are like really retarded they just like it's like it would take you know probably you should get some other people to come and help you if you want to accomplish much because Some other people might be more relaxed with this person than you. So you may not be the first person to be able to teach this person to play. So sometimes, you know, some people say, I can't talk to this person. Would you? Like a lot of us can talk to our friends' parents with some detachment, but our friends can't talk to their parents. So... Anyway, it's...

[80:46]

I would just encourage you to keep working at it. These are big, big, big projects. And that you made some progress is really great. Yes? I have difficulty to have compassion when I see the image. or the illusion that I think who I am is not really fit with my value system. And when I see that, I have such a hard time to keep being encouraged to the path and practice. So if you might say something about how When you're discouraged about the part of you that is witnessing you and the thing is arriving, you say, oh, wow, there's a judgment about it.

[81:54]

Yeah. So that's an opportunity for what we call compassion in the form of practicing confession. So anyway, we have these habits that have accumulated, and if we reveal them and disclose them in a practice of confession, that's part of the practice of compassion to do that. Well, yeah, that's evil, but that's not the only kind of evil.

[83:05]

That's just one of the worst types. I mean, you can do bad things. You can do unskillful things to people and feel bad about it. And you can do unskillful things to people and feel good about it. Of course, it's more unskillful to feel good about doing unskillful things than to feel bad about doing unskillful things. So some people do unskillful things, but they really think, boy, that was really unskillful and I don't like that. That confession is pretty skillful. Some other people, like I often say, you know, the most cruel, most unskillful people generally speaking, if you ask them, they'll tell you that they don't violate the precepts. That they don't make mistakes. Lisa, you look surprised by that. No, okay. Huh? They're clueless, right. They're doing unskillful things and you say to them, well, did you do anything unskillful today?

[84:11]

And they say, no. No. Did you do anything unskillful last week or two? No. I know somebody who says he never violated any precepts. Now, in his case, you might say, well, he was just taking the absolute position that it's impossible to violate them. But anyway, that's what he says. And I said, you know, the difference between you and me is that, well, what's similar about us is that we're both dangerous people. But you don't seem to think you are. And I know I am. That's what I'm worried about in your case. I'm worried about me, too, because I'm dangerous. But I'm a known danger. You don't know it. That's the problem. That's the difference. That's what really I'm worried about. So, anyway, the most troublesome people are those who don't make any mistakes according to themselves.

[85:12]

Whereas bodhisattvas... very great and kind beings are people who are aware of making mistakes very often. Like you say, have you made any mistakes recently? And they say, uh-huh. And they can tell you what they are. It's not just theoretical. They say, yeah, that was a little off, that was way off, that was [...] off. They notice these... So, of course, people think that they're virtually perfect. Because even when they make a mistake, even when they're unskillful, it becomes skillful, it becomes the dharma, because they say, oh, that was wrong, that was wrong, that was wrong. Now, of course, they can't keep you up to date because otherwise, you know, they'd just be talking nonstop.

[86:20]

But you feel them. You feel it, even though they aren't saying all their little errors. You feel that they're noticing it. And the general thing that's coming off of them is, number one, they don't think they're better than you. Because they don't. Because they're not going around spending their time noticing all the mistakes you make. They're too busy noticing their own. And some people, believe it or not, of course you do believe this, who don't notice any of their own have plenty of time to notice other people's. And then one of the things they do is attack other people's errors. but they don't ever think that they're attacking the other people's faults is a fault in themselves. So they hurt people.

[87:24]

Whereas their vision of the people's mistakes could be useful to the people if the people asked for it, if that person was noticing their own mistakes. Then when the person comes and asks them if they have any critical comments, They would say, well, just a second. I've got to just check a few more of my own errors and I'll be right with you. And then they say, okay, what was it? Do you have any feedback from me? And they say, oh, yeah, well, that was a mistake you just made there. But they're talking to you almost up. They're talking up to you. Or maybe you say, do you have any feedback to say about what? And then you tell them and they say, oh, yeah, that's wrong. You say, two plus two is nineteen. They say, that's incorrect. But they tell it to you, they say it to you from the position of like, you know, I got a lot of problems here I'm working on and you're very beautiful and you just made a mistake.

[88:28]

So we need to learn how to be very familiar with our own shortcomings. then that will make the world a safe place. Because the more we're aware of our own shortcomings in a compassionate way, in a patient way, to be loving towards ourself while we're noticing it, the more we do that, the kinder we become to other people. And the more we make that kind of practice attractive to other people. even if we don't tell them we're doing it, although usually they need to be told. Donald Moyer said at the end of the last class, instead of having the eightfold path, maybe we should have the ninefold path, adding confession to the path as a major practice. Because it is a great practice and it has a bad reputation.

[89:36]

And you know who to blame for that. We need to resurrect that brass practice. It's been crucified. and to resurrect it, because it's very useful. It's got a lot of good potential. Thank you very much for your wholehearted participation in this class, and I could tell by what you said tonight that you learned a lot. Congratulations to us. Please enjoy this beautiful world of creativity. Arrange for the conditions to allow yourself to relax and play in this world and understand Buddha's wisdom.

[90:31]

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