Many of you know that we have been for most of this year, in these meetings and other meetings, receiving compassion and giving compassion. We have been praising compassion. And again, I praise compassion as the most excellent cause of Buddhahood. Buddhahood, which has the nature of thoroughly protecting vulnerable sentient beings who are bound in the prison of birth and death. of all kinds of suffering.

[01:05]

This is what Buddhahood thoroughly protects and liberates, all these sentient beings. And its most excellent cause is great compassion. Also recently, I've offered a kind of, in a sense, a sequence of events, starting with Buddhahood, wonderful Buddhahood, which protects vulnerable living beings in the suffering of birth and death. Buddhahood is caused by the aspiration, also called Bodhi mind or a mind of awakening.

[02:19]

The aspiration to attain Buddhahood is the cause of Buddhahood. Not just to attain Buddhahood, but in order to exercise the virtues of Buddhahood to protect all beings. and liberate them and help them become Buddhas. And the cause of this aspiration to realize Buddhahood is compassion, great compassion. And the condition for great compassion is great loving-kindness. And the condition for great loving-kindness is to have a sincere and gentle feeling of fondness and cherishing of all life and as a condition for realizing this vast loving-kindness we need to be practicing impartiality and equanimity

[03:33]

towards comfort and discomfort, towards our own comfort and discomfort, and towards beings with whom we feel uncomfortable and comfortable with. To be impartial means we become free of hating discomfort, hating pain, and hating beings with whom we feel discomfort. We need to let go of that in order to move on in the practice. And we also need to stop being attached, give up being attached. It's okay to have great pleasure in our own body and mind. We need to learn to give up being attached to it.

[04:35]

It's okay to feel comfortable with living beings who we dearly love. We feel so happy to be with them, like I feel so happy to be with you today. But I know I need to not be attached to you. You are not under my control. I cannot hold on to you. I cannot possess you. I can love being with you. I can enjoy being with you, but I do not want to be attached to you. And if I can be not attached to you, that promotes equanimity, that promotes impartiality towards you. Now, if by any chance any of you would give me a hard time and I would be uncomfortable with you, or in pain with you, then I also do not want to hate you for the pain I feel when you are with me, for the irritation and hard time you give me when we are close.

[05:51]

I do not wish to hate you. I wish to be equanimous and impartial towards everything I experience when I'm with you and everything I experience in myself. Again, this is the foundation for moving on to now find a way to find a way to feel a gentle fondness and cherishing for every living being. This then makes possible great love and kindness. And this moistens our body and mind so that we can plant the seeds of compassion and they can sink into the fertile earth of loving kindness and sprout into the unshakable commitment to realize Buddhahood so that we can join in the protection and liberation of all beings.

[06:56]

That's an overall picture of the program that we've been looking at for this year. And recently, I've been emphasizing and bringing up a kind of scientific approach to this wonderful, to all these things I've just talked about. A scientific approach to compassion. And today I'd like to emphasize a scientific approach to our own body and mind, which our own body and mind is calling for compassion. And our own body and mind is listening and observing with compassion to

[08:03]

scientifically study that. And again, a short version of what I've been suggesting is scientific study is to study by observing and experimenting. Now I'm talking about observing and experimenting with our own body and mind. The study of our own body and mind is an essential activity of compassion. Studying our own body and mind, observing our own body and mind, and experimenting with our own body and mind facilitates the fulfillment of great compassion and promotes the realization of Buddhahood. And I, yeah, I would just kind of like generously propose that Zen meditation is to study our body and mind.

[09:25]

What we sometimes call Zazen or sitting meditation is to study our body and mind. And we also study our body and mind in conversation with other bodies and minds. Like right now, I'm talking to you about my body and mind, and I'm talking about your body and mind. I'm studying my body and mind right now. I'm observing it right now, and I'm experimenting with it right now. I invite you to enjoy and join me in studying your body and mind, observing your body and mind, and experimenting with your body and mind. The Buddha gave teachings, and these teachings are collected in what we call the scriptures or the sutras.

[10:39]

discourses of the Buddha. And then there was another collection of teachings which are called the Abhidharma. But sometimes these collections of teachings which systematically arrange Buddha's teachings and examine them, and question them, and explore them, and experiment with them. This Abhidharma is sometimes called higher science of Buddhism, where we take the teachings of Buddha and we explore them, we observe them in our own body and mind. So now I start with a teaching of the Buddha.

[11:43]

The Buddha taught about karma, which is also, it's translated, karma is translated often as action. And karma, action, is defined by the Buddha in Sanskrit as chaitanya. And Chaitanya is a word which refers to the overall landscape of a moment of consciousness. This is in a sense a theory, a teaching of the Buddha, which is a theory, which we can study this theory. observe this theory and we can experiment with this theory and test this theory.

[12:44]

What's the theory? The theory is that the definition of action, and action comes in three forms, mind, posture, and speech. Sometimes we say mind, body, and speech. but speech is actually also physical. So it refers, like right now, the movement of my hands, this is karma. And my speech is karma. But also, which is present and is fundamental, is my thinking, the overall shape of my consciousness. moment by moment. Right now, in this moment, the consciousness which I have, which I'm living in, where there's a sense of me, that consciousness has an overall pattern.

[13:57]

Part of the pattern of this overall pattern of this moment of consciousness is actually to see your faces. Your faces are in this consciousness. Also bamboo outside this room are in this consciousness. Pictures of you, images of you, and images of bamboo and so on are appearing in this consciousness, in this consciousness, and so on. Also there's, in this consciousness, there are feelings of pain, pleasure, and neutral feelings are arising in this consciousness right now. And again, feelings. And there's an overall pattern which involves the thought that maybe I'll talk some more.

[15:01]

maybe it would be good to continue to discuss this mind, the current activity of this mind. And the current activity of this mind, right now, there is the observation of the current activity of this mind, which has a shape, which has a landscape, which has an overall pattern. And that overall pattern of this moment of consciousness and this moment of consciousness, that overall pattern is the definition of the current karma. Now translating that overall pattern, I described the overall pattern, but some other words for it are intention.

[16:04]

And another word for it is thinking. So every moment of consciousness, and when I say consciousness, I mean a consciousness that has a self in it. where there's a sense of I am here, I am this, this is mine. This kind of consciousness, which is also called self-consciousness, but also called karmic consciousness. Because in this kind of awareness, this kind of consciousness is where karma is living. And what's karma again? It's the shape of this moment of awareness where I am. And every moment of this type of consciousness, every moment of this karmic consciousness has consequence.

[17:11]

Every moment of karmic consciousness has action in it. And that action, moment by moment, has consequence. Now, once again, before I get too much further into this, the study of this karmic consciousness, the observation of it, the experiments with it in the Buddha way are not just done as an academic or intellectual exercise, they are done, they are performed as an opportunity to practice compassion. And this study is for the sake of developing great compassion.

[18:19]

So we receive compassion in order to practice studying our mind, and studying our mind with compassion, develops and purifies compassion. Looking at your faces, there's a sense of self here.

[19:33]

What else is present here? By here I mean, where there's a sense of self, there's also an awareness of you. This is a consciousness. there's an awareness of the presence of a self and there's an awareness of the presence of you in the form of how you're appearing in my consciousness. Also in this consciousness there is the teaching which as the appearance of you is a representation, is an icon of you. I don't actually see you, I see an image of you on a screen. And if you were here in the room with me, I would see an image of you in my mind, in my consciousness. So I'm studying consciousness, and I'm also applying teachings of consciousness.

[20:42]

And I'm also speaking them to you. And you, if you wish, can apply these teachings to your current consciousness now. You can look to see what kind of mind is present. Is there somebody in there who is called I or me? And are others appearing in this consciousness? And is there rooms and landscapes appearing in this consciousness. If you look at this, you are now studying body and mind. You are studying your thinking. People often say to me, I'm always thinking. And they say that sometimes with some discomfort as though they're somewhat, what's the word? Uncomfortable. with this thinking, and this thinking is always going on.

[21:44]

Did you get that? People report to me that they're always thinking, or some people might say they're sometimes thinking. And the thinking is sometimes quite an irritating thing to be aware of. The good news is that people are aware they're aware of their consciousness, where the thinking is. I'll say it again. This is good news if people are aware that they're thinking, because if they're aware that they're thinking, they are aware of their karma. And in order to develop compassion, we need to study our karma, which is our thinking. And we need to see if we can learn to practice observing our thinking compassionately.

[22:51]

And some of us may need to have conversations with others so we can report how we're looking at our thinking and get feedback on the level of compassion that's present in the observation of our thinking. Sometimes our thinking is quite unskillful. Sometimes our thinking appears to be not compassionate. In a moment of consciousness the thinking could be an uncompassionate form of thinking. But if we're studying our body and mind, and we notice, oh, the pattern of this consciousness is rather unkind. And even there's anger, or not anger, hatred here. Or there's real, severe attachment here.

[23:57]

We could notice such things in the pattern of our thinking. Perhaps you've noticed that sometimes. Now, we're going to study this, I hope, I pray that we study this pattern of an unwholesome moment of consciousness. And we notice it and noticing it with compassion means noticing with compassion means we acknowledge it. We acknowledge it and whole, you know, you can acknowledge it just to yourself. You can also acknowledge it to the Buddhas and bodhisattvas. That was this moment of consciousness is not kind. It appears to be not skillful. It's an unwholesome state of consciousness. And I confess it. And I'm sorry. And this noticing, just noticing it, and calling it what it is.

[25:00]

or calling it how it seems and saying we're sorry, this is a compassionate way of observing. I had an unkind thought towards somebody and I'm sorry. That is an observation. That is a compassionate observation. And it's also an experiment. It's an experiment. on practicing compassion with our unwholesome states of mind and seeing how that experiment goes. Now, we could also notice, it could happen, we could be thinking, because as people say, we're always thinking. Whether you think so or not, you're always thinking. This karmic consciousness is always thinking. It's always thinking because it always has a pattern. it never doesn't have a pattern. And that pattern is the thinking.

[26:03]

So in consciousness, when consciousness is functioning, which is not all the time, but so much of the time, when this karmic consciousness is functioning, there is thinking, there is karma. And it's wholesome, it's unwholesome, or you can't tell which it is. If it's wholesome, we should be compassionate to that too. But in that case, we don't have to confess that it's unwholesome, because it's wholesome. We can just say, thank you for coming. I'm so grateful that there's a wholesome state of consciousness here. And I'm not sorry. I'm not sorry that this is a wholesome state of consciousness. I'm actually feeling pretty good about it. And feeling good about wholesome states of consciousness often goes with wholesome states of consciousness. You don't have to feel good about it. You can just feel neutral about it. and also feeling unhappy about unskillful, unwholesome states, that's repentance, that's compassion because we want to have wholesome states because wholesome states promote protecting beings.

[27:14]

I'm giving you a picture of how to study and hopefully compassionately study your thinking moment by moment, which means studying your karmic consciousness moment by moment. So I'm giving you both a teaching about consciousness and I'm giving you a teaching about how to study it, how to observe consciousness observe his qualities, and to observe whether there's kindness in the observation process. Now, I'm, I'm going to

[28:24]

kind of take a leap here of trying to, because, you know, we only have a couple hours here, I'm gonna take a leap here and try to, what's the word? Reflect on this teaching about studying consciousness to a description of what we call Zen meditation. A description of what the Bodhisattvas in the Zen school do when they're sitting. And one of the descriptions that I often bring up, and many of you have heard before, in the description of the sitting is first, you know, first of all, of course, in the description of sitting, we describe sitting. So in our consciousness, there's a body and it's sitting like right now. Is there a body in this consciousness?

[29:28]

Is it sitting? And again, if we're gonna really do the meditation, there's also further encouragement, which is, if you're sitting, and it looks like everybody is, if you're sitting, sit upright. Sit upright. Be aware of this body and check out and try to have an upright posture. And have your eyes open. And now, to make the instruction go to the next phase, now we go to the instruction, which goes like this. Now that you've settled into an immobile sitting position, that you've compassionately adjusted your posture and you're aware of it. You're aware of it and you're being compassionate to your body.

[30:30]

You're letting your body be the way it is and settle into where it is. And then the instruction is, think, not thinking. How do you think not thinking? Non-thinking. So I'd like to look at this statement. Think not thinking? How do you think not thinking? So this is an excerpt from a story of one of the ancestors of this lineage whose name, Chinese ancestor, whose name was Yao Shan of Wanyi. lived in the Tang dynasty. And he was sitting, like right now, he was sitting like us, upright and still. He received stillness and silence and settled into it.

[31:36]

And a monk came to him and observed him sitting and said, when you're sitting like this, what kind of thinking is going on? In a sense, the monk was asking him to look into consciousness and tell him what kind of thinking was going on in the consciousness. Does that make sense? Here's a person sitting, and the monk wants to know what kind of thinking is going on in there, in this sitting. And the great teacher, the great Bodhisattva, did not say, I'm not thinking.

[32:40]

The great teacher said, thinking, not thinking. Now some people translate that as, I'm thinking, not thinking. But it doesn't really say, I'm. Although there's an I'm there in the room, there's an I in the room. He didn't say I'm thinking and the monk didn't also didn't say, what kind of thinking are you doing? He just says, what kind of thinking is there in the mind of the great teacher, the Bodhisattva? What kind of thinking is in there? He didn't say, what kind of thinking are you doing? I'll come back to that. this thing about how he didn't say, what kind of thinking are you doing? He did not say that. And yeah, Sean said, thinking not thinking. So I don't think that he was saying that he was thinking not thinking.

[33:43]

I think that he was telling us that in this sitting, thinking is not thinking. And not thinking is thinking. The thinking that's going on in the mind of the Bodhisattva is thinking which does not abide in thinking. It's thinking which is free of thinking. And we call it not thinking. It's thinking which is 100% not that. And also 100% not that is 100% that. The thinking we do is not what we think it is. The thinking we're doing is not just this confined karmic activity. The definition of karma is not confined to the definition of karma, which it is.

[34:48]

Karma is not stuck in karma. Karma is not karma. Therefore, we can become free. Thinking is not thinking. Therefore, we can be free. And in fact, we are already free, but we have to study the realm of thinking to realize that thinking is not thinking in order to realize that thinking is free of thinking. this this great teacher for for this great teacher thinking was not thinking and not thinking was thinking or is thinking then the monk says how how can it be like that how can your thinking which is again the definition of karma how can our karma be not karma how can karma be not karma

[35:55]

How can thinking be not thinking? How can it be that way? How can we be free? How can we be Avalokiteshvara? And Yawashan says, non-thinking. So they're playing on this word thinking. Again, what's thinking? I'm saying to you, thinking is the current pattern of your karmic consciousness. What kind of pattern of karmic consciousness is there? The teacher says, not the pattern of karmic consciousness. And the Chinese characters, the first character is thinking. Then the next character has a character before it, meaning not. So there's thinking, and then there's not thinking.

[36:56]

And then how do you think? How do you think not thinking? And the answer is non-thinking. And a different character for non from the character for not. Non-thinking is often translated as beyond thinking. So the way that thinking is not thinking is beyond thinking, but also beyond thinking is the way of working with thinking and not thinking. And to make a long story short, I'll say for now, non-thinking is great compassion. We have a karmic consciousness every moment, thinking, thinking, Thinking, thinking, karma, thinking. If we study this thinking, study this thinking, study this thinking, in the room of great compassion, if we make this consciousness a room of great compassion, studying, studying, what?

[38:17]

Studying thinking. which we can observe, you can observe your thinking. I should say, your thinking can be observed, and not even your thinking, the thinking where you are can be observed. And when it's observed again and again, and things are noticed, like, this is wholesome thinking, this is unwholesome thinking, this is unclear whether it's wholesome, this kind of study in a compassionate way reveals the freedom of our thinking and our freedom of karma, and the realization of Buddhahood. Now, one other major thing I want to tell you today, just in case we never meet again, is that in consciousness, there is, in karmic consciousness,

[39:22]

There's other types of awareness. For example, wisdom awareness and unconscious awareness. But there's no self in the wisdom awareness. And there's no not-self in the wisdom awareness. Wisdom awareness is just understanding what's going on. There's nothing in or not in that understanding. And the unconscious also doesn't... I'm not in my unconscious. My unconsciousness isn't even mine. However, there is an unconscious process which supports my conscious process. I'm talking about consciousness. And in consciousness, there's a sense of self. There's a sense of other. There's a sense of all kinds of emotions and feelings. And again, there is an overall pattern, and that's the thinking. So, karmic consciousness. We've got thinking, we've got a sense of self. And now I want to say, this sense of self is accompanied by afflictions.

[40:30]

There's many kinds of afflictions which could be in our consciousness. And some of them are there sometimes, and not there other times. For example, hatred is an affliction. which sometimes is in our consciousness. And it's a terrible affliction to hate anything. To hate ourselves is an affliction. To hate others is an affliction. To hate anything, to hate the trees, to hate the rabbits, to hate the gophers. To hate anything is a terrible affliction. and to be attached to myself or others is an affliction. And to be confused is an affliction. And some of these afflictions, especially confusion, are often present in our mind. We're not always having the affliction of attachment. Like, I don't know, if you go into a beautiful

[41:36]

temple someplace and you walk in and you think it's fabulous. You might think this is just a great place, you know, but you don't necessarily attach to it. You don't think it's yours. You just feel grateful to be in such a beautiful building. Or if you're out in the woods, you may feel, oh, it's so wonderful here, but not be attached to it and just keep walking. But when you're walking through the forest, it is an affliction to grab onto one redwood tree and, you know, you know, hold on to it and don't not let go. It's an affliction. It doesn't help you protect it. So these afflictions are basically things that interfere with us protecting what we're attached to or what we hate, but also they interfere with us teaching compassion and practicing compassion. So they are present, but not always. But what is always present until we have some kind of breakthrough with the sense of self is four afflictions. And they're there all the time.

[42:38]

First one is self-confusion. There's a confusion about the self. The confusion is not the self, it's a delusion about what the self is. Next is self-view. Self-view is not the self, but it is an idea that the self is looking at what's going on. So we got a lot of stuff going on moment by moment, moment by moment. A lot is going on. Have you noticed? And there's a sense of self. Have you noticed? Please notice there's a lot going on and there's a sense that somebody's here. And also there's a sense that some of these things are mine. There is a me, there's a myself, and there's an I, and there's mine. This is normal in karmic consciousness. Okay, once again, There's an affliction that comes with that sense of self, of self-confusion.

[43:41]

There's affliction that comes of the idea that the observations that's going on here is the self-observing. It's not the self-observing, that's just an idea, that's an affliction. It makes life in karmic consciousness more complicated and tricky and confusing. It's an affliction to think that the self, for example, right now, to think that myself is observing you, There is observing you, and there's the idea that I'm observing you, but that idea that I'm observing you, I don't believe in, and therefore, if I don't believe in it, it's not an affliction. But there is that sense of I am observing, that the self is doing the viewing, rather than the whole consciousness is doing the viewing. which is more true. The whole consciousness is viewing the whole consciousness. The whole consciousness is aware of the pattern of the whole consciousness.

[44:45]

The whole consciousness is aware of the thinking, not the self. But there's an idea that the self is aware of the thinking. And there's a confusion about whether the self is the thinking or not the thinking. again, confusion about, is it my thinking or not my thinking? Confusion. The next, those are both afflictions that come with sense of self. The next one is self-pride. And self-pride is the pride that we are controlling the thinking, that the self is in charge of the activity of the moment. The self is in charge of and directing the consciousness. That's an affliction. That's not true. That's a delusion which afflicts us. And the last one is self-esteem. Even though a lot of people say, I wish I could, I just, I wish I didn't have a self.

[45:52]

It's such an affliction. And that's not self-esteem. Self-esteem is, I wish I had a self and I might say, well, do you want to get another one? No, I want this one. Even though this is a bummer, it's our favorite. And that's an affliction, that we aren't willing to trade, you know, have a different self. Or if we're not willing, that's an affliction. So this afflictive situation is normal karmic consciousness, and it has a pattern, and we have the opportunity, which we have been practicing with now for a long time in our conversations, to study this karmic consciousness. which involves confession and repentance, but also it involves discussion of our confession, because we can also confess wholesome states and discuss them.

[46:59]

We can discuss unwholesome, we can discuss wholesome. We can also invite others to question our consciousness, ask us what's going on there, ask us how we're working with it, and we also can tell them what's going on and how we're working on it, and we do that here. Now I'm just saying that this conversation about our karmic consciousness is done, hopefully, with great compassion. Great compassion means no matter what's going on, we study it with compassion. Even if it's hatred, we study it with compassion. By studying the hatred for discomfort and so on, it can be dropped off. By studying attachment, it can be dropped off. In other words, by studying thinking, it can be realized as what it really is, which is not thinking.

[48:01]

And if we have not thinking, by studying it, we realize what it really is. Not thinking is thinking. Thus, we realize what the Buddha realized. And we realize it by practicing compassion with whatever is appearing in the consciousness. And again, I don't want to tell you that I'm telling you to do this. I'm just telling you what I think the Buddha does. The Buddha studies karmic consciousness. Well, I've been going on for a whole hour now. I've introduced quite a bit, and I hope this conversation can be the basis for many more. And it may involve, in order to be used again and again, we may have to review it again and again, so that we become familiar with how to study our consciousness, how to help each other.

[49:03]

I'm trying to help you study your consciousness, and you're helping me study mine. Before this talk happened, I was studying my consciousness, about how I was studying patterns of the consciousness as a way to discuss with you how to study consciousness. You were with me, helping me study my consciousness so that I could talk to you about how to study consciousness. So again, I've been going for more than an hour, so I will now welcome your conversation. Our first offering is from Darren. Thank you for this teaching. I think I followed along for at least part of it. Um, and then the word that kept coming to my mind, I'm trying, uh, the word that came to my mind that I would take to describe what you're talking about is from the eightfold path.

[50:07]

And I would say it was, you're talking about right mindfulness. but I did not hear you say the word mindfulness, and I'm wondering if that was a choice. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Okay, so right mindfulness is part of compassion. But actually, on the Eightfold Path, the part that most directly applies here is the second link in the Eightfold Path, which is sometimes called right intention, but also sometimes called right thinking. Right thinking follows right view. Right thinking is to contemplate beings internally and externally free of hatred, attachment, and violence. So the way of studying, of course, mindfulness will be part of that. But in particular, the way of studying will be this right thinking.

[51:10]

the Buddhist teaching Eightfold Path, the second one is most immediately involved here. Now the following other ones will also facilitate this, but this is the start, is to look at this consciousness, look at this thinking in a way that the thinking about the thinking, which is another pattern, that that thinking is free of hatred and attachment. Even if we're looking at hatred, we now need to study the hatred without hatred, to be compassionate to the hatred, and to be compassionate to the attachment, and to be compassionate with the confusion. This is right thinking. And when Dogen Zenji our ancestor who wrote the Ehe Koso Hotsukamon. Dogen, do you know Dogen, Darren?

[52:12]

So Dogen, he wrote, one of his fascicles is about the 37 wings of enlightenment. First is Four Noble Truths. Second is Eightfold Path. And when he's talking about the Eightfold Path, when he gets to the second one, which is right thinking, which is right intention, he says, this is non-thinking. So when he's writing that fascicle, he connects the Buddha's Eightfold Path. Number two, he connects that with the basic teaching of the Zen master. The way you realize what thinking is, the way you realize freedom from thinking is by non-thinking. What's non-thinking? It's Buddha's right thinking, which again, is a compassionate way of studying. But right mindfulness is also included in that. But we could spend quite a while talking about why did he put right mindfulness after right livelihood, right speech, right action?

[53:22]

Why did he put it after that? It's kind of an interesting question. But I would say that right thinking, in order for right thinking to really be right thinking, it needs right mindfulness. So studying what right mindfulness is totally in accord with compassionately studying our consciousness, our thinking. So what would be an example of right mindfulness as a practice then? It requires a foundation of what you're talking about. Yeah, so right mindfulness would be that you're aware of your feelings. First of all, you're aware of your body. So right mindfulness would be... It has foundations, right? The first foundation of right mindfulness is awareness, mindfulness of the body. So we start, awareness of the body. Here's the body. It's sitting. It's upright or whatever. It's still.

[54:24]

Okay. Then we're aware of feelings. This is pleasurable. This is uncomfortable. This is comfortable. This is uncomfortable. I can't tell if it's comfortable or uncomfortable. This is mindfulness of feelings. Then mindfulness of overall consciousness. Again, mindfulness of consciousness. So mindfulness, the foundation of right mindfulness. It's the foundation. This is the curriculum of right mindfulness, right? What's the next thing? It's consciousness, which I just been talking about. The third foundation for right mindfulness is consciousness. Then the fourth foundation is to the contents of the consciousness, which again, I've been encouraging us to look at what's the consciousness of this conscious, of this consciousness? What's the content? Greed, hate, delusion, and so on. Enthusiasm, faith, lack of faith. So those are the foundations. So what's my mindfulness? It's to look at this, is to look at your feelings, to look at your body, to look at your,

[55:29]

your overall consciousness, to look at the particulars of your consciousness. These are the foundations. This is what you're looking at in right mindfulness. How? I'm saying right mindfulness is compassionate mindfulness. It means you look at your posture and you welcome it. You're generous towards it. You let it be. Like you sit up straight, as a gift, not to control yourself, just as a gift. Then you look at your posture and you observe, it's not straight, it's not upright. And you're compassionate to that not upright posture. But you have the posture there to look at, to observe, to be mindful of. And how mindful? Generous towards your posture. How careful of your posture? How patient with your posture? How diligent with your posture? How? Focused on your posture. This is mindfulness of posture.

[56:34]

Then with your feelings, the same. Then with the overall state of consciousness, like a disturbed consciousness, an agitated consciousness, a calm consciousness, a happy consciousness. This is like kind of getting the overall view of the consciousness, the thinking, the overall thinking. Now we get, and again, you would observe that with mindfulness, means observe it with compassion. Of course, mindfulness is observing, and the later teachings are emphasizing that the observation of right mindfulness is compassionate observation. It's not right mindfulness not to let what's happening be happening. It's not right mindfulness to be impatient with what's happening. However, if you're impatient, it's right mindfulness to let your impatience be impatient. And then you're practicing patience, you're practicing mindfulness. So thank you for bringing that up. What I'm talking about is the four foundations of mindfulness.

[57:39]

As the content of our of our compassionate, non thinking, which is our compassionate, right thinking. Okay, the second link of Buddhist Eightfold Path is what Dogen calls and what what Yashan called non-thinking. And it's beyond thinking because it's thinking's loving friend. It's great compassion, which is beyond the thinking. Whatever the thinking is, it's there. If the thinking comes and goes, the compassion doesn't come or go. The compassion's always there with this constantly changing thinking. Isn't that wonderful? Thank you. Thank you. Our next offering is from Gil. Gil? Gil. Hello, Reb.

[58:42]

Hello, Gil. Thank you so much. Thank you for your talk and for being there as ever. I wanted to confess and repent because it felt like it fitted initially with my question. And I have some doubt about that. I've just spent the weekend... Are you confessing that you have some doubts? No. I thought I heard you confess that you had some doubts. I'm also confessing that I have some doubts. I have just spent three days with my mother, which I found unbelievably difficult. I just found it almost impossible and I hated her.

[59:47]

And I knew that I wasn't being cruel to her, but I wasn't doing exactly what she wanted. And I wasn't being ever so kind because in order to cope, I got more focused on doing things that she needs doing. Because she's 92 and she lives alone and she won't move anywhere. She won't really take into account anything about the impact on anybody else. And so I was kind of in this terribly wound up state, trying to do things. But the thought that I had in my head was, it was really, okay, this is the state that you're in. And really, you can't help it. You can't really help this thought. You can't really help these feelings. They're just doing what they're doing.

[60:50]

And actually that felt very compassionate towards me because what I would normally have done in the past, you know, is feel very, very bad about that. But actually on behalf of my mother, who is 92, you know, and really decrepit and really failing on every level. She's failing, she can't hear, she can't see properly. It's uncomfortable to move. She's got masses of things wrong with her internally. And I would like to be patient and tolerant and kind, but the best I could do was think, you know what, I can't help this. And I wondered whether that was a kind of compassionate observation, really.

[61:53]

I wonder too. It sounds like, when you say I can't help this, it's almost like It's almost like, it's kind of like compassion. Another way to put it is, you let it be. Yeah, I let it be, yeah. I wasn't wound up about it, I was just like... You realize you're not in control of what you feel, and then you sort of acknowledge that, and then how you feel actually quietly said, thank you, Jill, for realizing that you're not in control of us coming and going. We're just coming to visit you, because we want your compassion. So thanks for letting us be. Yeah. And you said that you can't help them. But I think what you meant was, you can't control them. You can't make them come and go. But you can't help them. You can help them, you can't control them, but you can help them.

[62:57]

And you kind of did help them by saying, I can't control you. appreciate that. They're not coming to you to be have you control them. They're coming to you for you to recognize them and let them be and you did pretty much. And you help them. And you help them. And you help them. You help them by being compassionate to them, which involves recognizing, hey, guys, I'm not in control of you. And they're saying to you, correct. You are not. We didn't come here for you to control us. We came here for you to listen to us. We came here for you to witness us. And you said, okay, I witnessed you. I'm not your boss. I am your witness. I'm your compassionate witness. I want to help you, not by fixing you, but by being your witnessing friend. And they say, thank you very much. Go tell Reb that. And not only does that help them, if you treat them with compassion, which you did, by recognizing they are not something that you can control, and not something you do control.

[64:11]

By being compassionate to them, you help them, you help yourself, and you help your mother. And if you can be whole, if you can develop great compassion, which means with all of these things that come to you, that you can receive them generously and say, you know, thanks for coming, guys. Thanks for coming, pain, which I'm not in control of. I'm your witness. I'm your friend. If you can do that with them, you can do this with this unbelievable difficulty that you feel in regard to your mother. which is basically the same thing we're just talking about. The unbelievable difficulty that you're not in control of. You can't make that get bigger or smaller. It's already enormous, but you can't make it get bigger than that at the moment, and you can't make it get smaller, but you can put your hands together and say, I witness you.

[65:14]

I'm your friend. This is incredibly difficult. That helps that. And you did it, you got a good start on that. And that helps them, helps them, helps the incredible difficulty become free. It helps the incredible difficulty be not the incredible difficulty. Not by changing it, but by realizing what it really is. Which is, it's not what it appears to be. But if we're not compassionate to it, We close the door on this awakening. And please continue your practice of compassion with this incredible difficulty. Also including that you do some things to distract yourself from it. Like, you know, being busy. Same with that. Be compassionate to that. Because you can't control that either. You can't stop yourself from trying to do stuff.

[66:16]

But you can witness it. There's also the recognition, I think, that there are limits to what I can do. You know, there's a balance around... There's limits. And you can be compassionate to the limits. And it isn't that when you're compassionate to the limits, you try to spread the limits wider. It's you become free of the limits if you really respect them. You overlook them, you become enslaved by them. So we have to be really respectful of our limits in order to realize freedom of our limits. And your mother's got some limits too. And if you can become compassionate to your limits and thereby becoming free of yours, that will be transmitted to your mother to be compassionate to her limits. That would be great.

[67:19]

It would be great. That's what we're into here. Something great. Thank you, Jill. Thank you so much, Reb. Thank you. So lovely to see you. Lovely to see you. The next offering is from Samir. Hello, Reb. Hello, Samir. And hello to everyone. Bonsoir. Just at this moment in my life, I'm concerned by death, by my death. I can see the decay of this body and I'm, in a certain way, preparing myself. And how to prepare myself, I don't really know exactly.

[68:23]

Because in our tradition, we don't have any pattern or way to follow. Like, for example, the Tibetan Buddhist practitioner. Okay. We do have a way. It's just that it's not fixed. We don't have a fixed way. We have a flexible way. So, in your consciousness there appears appearances of the coming of death. And also there appears ideas of preparing for death. These are things in your consciousness. These are patterns, these are contributions to the pattern of your mind. Okay? Now, in our tradition, our Zen tradition, we have a flexible way of dealing with the appearance of death, and we have a flexible way of dealing with any attempts to prepare for death.

[69:32]

We don't push away the appearances. We don't push away the attempts to prepare. We deal with the appearances with compassion. We deal with the preparations with compassion. This is our way, and it's very subtle and flexible. So all these things you're telling me about, plus many other things, our way is non-thinking, is right thinking. So for example, you could say the preparation for death learn to not be attached to health or hate these appearances of impermanence. Because many people do kind of hate the appearances of impermanence. And if they do, well, we practice compassion towards that hatred.

[70:35]

But I don't see you, I don't hear that you're hating these appearances, and that's fine. But they are appearances, and these appearances of death are calling for compassion and the compassion's coming and you can join it. Compassion towards these appearances of death. That's our practice. And that's our freedom from these appearances of death. Yes, okay. Okay, thank you. Yeah, thank you. How can I know about this mind facing the moment of death, facing maybe this mind being attacked by a lot of afflictions, and those afflictions may be continuing after the passing away of this body. Who knows?

[71:37]

Maybe so. Sorry? I said, who knows? Maybe so. If you know the expression, do you know the expression, don't put the cart before the horse? Yes. So I would say don't put the cart before the horse. Right now you have this question which you just raised. Yeah. What if this? What if that? That's right now. That's right now what you have to deal with. If you learn how to deal with these questions or these appearances or these Specter, you know the word specter? Some kind of like... Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's probably the same in French, I suppose. Yeah. So these specters of death are going to keep appearing. And as they appear, if you can be compassionate to them, you will be fine if these specters come to you again.

[72:41]

And they will keep coming. And if you keep practicing with them, you will be more and more happy that you're practicing with them. But one of the, not exactly specter, but one of the things that comes along with this is the question, how can I be certain that I will be able to handle that? A lot of people, how will I be certain that I'll be able to handle tremendous afflictions which will come? And that's another thing to be kind to. I'm not certain I will be free. And I'm not certain I will do well when the onslaught, the army of death comes to me. I'm not sure I will do well. But I will work with what I have now so that I have a chance. But how do you know? I don't know. I don't know. But there is no certainty that at the moment of death, you can be able to connect with... I don't know.

[73:44]

I don't know. I don't know. And I don't know. And also, I don't know. But people want to know. And the people who want to know, I want to practice, if it's me, I want to practice compassion with the one who wants to be certain. Yeah. If I require certainty, then I'm compassionate to the person who requires certainty. So it's not a matter of so much certainty, it's more a matter of confidence and faith. that practicing with what we've got now is the best way to practice with the army of afflictions that may come to us. And I tolerate that I don't really know. So please join me in not being certain. And from that not certainty, let's practice compassion towards our not certainty. and also frightened to not be able to remember the Dharma, not being able to remember the teacher, not being able to remember the Sangha.

[74:51]

Wouldn't that be difficult? It's awful. It's terrible. It's terrible, yeah. But again, being compassionate to this terrible idea of not being able to remember the practice, the teaching, the teacher, How horrible would that be if I can be compassionate to that? My faith is that if that happens, the practice will go on. One time I was trying to put my robe on, and I was in a state of mind where I didn't know what my body was or what my robe was. I didn't know. I had no idea how to put my robe on, and I put my robe on. because I put my robe on so many times. If you do this practice, and you don't know who Samir is, or who Reb is, or what the Buddha is, or what the Dharma is, if you do this practice, the practice will go on, even though you do not know anything. But because you practice, the practice will go on.

[75:55]

That's my faith. It's my faith also. Pardon? It's my faith too. So keep doing the practice. The practice will go on after you don't even know what practice is. And then people say, Samir doesn't know who I am anymore, and he doesn't know who Samir is, but he still practices. It's so beautiful. He has no mind, and the practice goes on. How could that be? That's what we want. We want a practice which doesn't, again, a practice which is beyond thinking. So we do a practice now, which is beyond thinking. So if the thinking turns into an atomic bomb, the thinking, the practice goes on. It's beyond this unreliable thinking, this unreliable certainty. That's not the point. The point is this practice of dealing with certainty and also dealing with uncertainty or vice versa.

[76:56]

dealing with uncertainty. If anybody is certain, be compassionate to them too. So when the certainty goes away, the compassion goes on. When the uncertainty comes, compassion goes on. And if certainty comes, no matter what, we want the compassion to be there. So train with what you've got now, and if you train that, that will go on and deal with further situations, which I don't know what they'll be. I don't know what the future afflictions will be, but we chant. Afflictions are inexhaustible. I vow to continue to practice with them. See you in Stockholm. Is that Daniela? Yes. Your hair looks different. A little bit shorter. Maybe it will be as short as yours someday. I don't know. Now I can see you. Thank you.

[77:57]

The next offering is from Homa. Good morning, everybody. As I was listening to your conversation this morning, At the beginning, I was listening. I was really totally with what you were speaking. And at some point, which I realized I even raised my hand, is that from my experience, all this listening was taken, and then it started to become, you know, it's like, making, what is it, mandalas. Some of the beautiful Buddhists with sands, they do it and they brush it off. That was my total experience. It was like totally painted and then brushed it off. Good. Yes. And actually- Glad you weren't attached to the paintings.

[79:03]

Yes. And then when it was brushed off, my experience was like, What happened to all that clarity? Where did it all go? Because it was very clear. My mind was very clear at the first, as you were speaking from before I raised my hand. Then I realized so many times that how the patterns, the images, the concepts, the ideas that comes into consciousness or that is consciousness, and the no mind, which goes beyond all of that images, ideas, concepts, beliefs, feelings, emotions. And that being, I heard that you saying, because my question was, what is compassion? What is compassion? And then I realized again, that no mind, that no thought is what you refer to as compassion. Then,

[80:05]

I looked into all the patterns and the patterns became interested to me and I realized anytime I see that pattern and me not as that pattern, so I see two patterns or three patterns or four patterns, in that thought of seeing several patterns, then automatically I go into me, I, them, that. So I realized that. And then also I realized a pattern which I called in my looking was the pattern of fear, which I did not hear you mention the word fear at all through your conversation. Sorry. I brought it up. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. So in the consciousness, there's fear too. Yes. And then I, I looked here because of all these exactly, exactly. Exactly. So I saw all that is that I see is because of fear.

[81:11]

I mean, all this, me, I, mine, you name it underneath it is that fear. Then what the question rose in me. Yes. What you said is important for me to tell you that I would change the priorities. You said it's all because of fear. But I say the fear is because of all of these misunderstandings of the consciousness. Because of these afflictions, because we think we're in charge, we feel fear. So it's more like delusions come first, then the fear. Ah, okay. Okay. So that is where I need to... Thank you. I think that was the piece I was missing. So I don't know where to go with that. Just keep studying. I like to study it. Exactly. Because I like to study and the reason I like to study because I go in it, I go deep in it and I really see it.

[82:17]

So the seeing what makes the difference, not the reading it. So thank you. Yes. Thank you. Keep it up. Excellent. So keep working these mandalas. Thank you. The next offering is from Kim. Hi, Rob. I think I've kind of Well, you've given me a lot of food for thought. And yes. And but something that occurred to me as you were speaking is what to do when or well, I read in the third turning of the wheel that you talked about in one place, ghosts are kind of experiences that we haven't fully experienced. And, and at night, like around four o'clock in the morning, usually I'll wake up

[83:23]

And there'll be something that I guess I haven't fully experienced, you know, and it's a recent thing. It's not like a great specter or something, but it will be something that I need to kind of, or that I feel compelled to work out. But it's disturbing to me because it's like four o'clock in the morning and I don't want to be awake thinking about this thing. But I guess my answer to myself, given what you're talking about, is to be open to that and to be compassionate with it. And very often I actually do work out whatever it is. My thinking is productive. I always like to be productive. But there is a part of me that just sometimes wants to wrestle something right down to the ground and figure it all out. And that is disturbing to my sleep pattern. So, yeah, so I guess it's not really a question.

[84:24]

It's more of an observation, I suppose. But I wonder if you have any comments about maybe how to get a bit better sleep, given that. Well, to me, it seems like these things are coming to you to receive the hearing that they didn't get during the day. And if you give them the hearing that they are asking for, that makes it a good night, although you're not asleep. And if an impulse to figure it out comes, maybe they didn't come earlier, but right now that's asking also for you to observe that, it might be new. This thing comes up, and maybe instead of listening to it, which it wants, you respond by trying to figure it out. But now this is a new thing, this trying to figure it out, and that wants to be witnessed with compassion.

[85:28]

Now, I don't know if this will help you go back to sleep and rest well, but still, if you do this thing, that would be part of a good night is that you give your life the compassion it wanted and the compassion it wants. So you may not be able to sleep very well because you're so busy offering compassion through the night. But even though you don't sleep well, the world really appreciates your compassion, which it happened to come and ask for it at night, sorry. And that's what it wants. Should I sit up and meet it or should I like wrestle around in bed and try to get comfortable and go back to sleep? You know, I had, maybe you heard me say this before, but in the last couple of months, since this operation I had, you know, total knee replacement, some nights this pain would come, wake me up and it would be kind of strong.

[86:37]

And I would listen to it. But I would do more than listen to it. I would maybe try to massage it. Lying down. And that seemed fine to do that. But mostly it came and it called for my attention and it woke me up. And it got my attention and there was no sleeping with this pain. But then I found that if I got up and walked, it would clear away temporarily. That just getting moving would start circulating the energy and these fluids, these fluids which are causing inflammation also have acid in them. They have something like lactic acid, so the inflammation The pressure is uncomfortable, but there's also chemicals in the inflammation, which can be very painful.

[87:45]

So lying in bed and massaging didn't work. So finally, after several really difficult nights where I just couldn't sleep, it was so painful, I just started, I got up and walked. And the walking kind of got the fluids flowing and the pain cleared in the walking. So sometimes sitting up helps get the energy flowing. But again, do it as an act to help you compassionately witness this business. And if sitting doesn't help, you might try walking. Now, some people, you know, I don't know what, go to do some work on the computer or whatever. I think it'd be nice for you to just give this thing you're witnessing. And sometimes the witnessing is better if you're sitting up or walking and lying down. So again, we're talking about, huh? I can experiment. Experiment, exactly.

[88:46]

You got this consciousness, it's hurting, it's calling for compassion. Experiment with it, try stuff with it. The theory is observing and experimenting is the path to discovery. But not necessarily a good night's sleep, sorry. Thank you. Although, you know, it might be like you might go to sleep really deeply right after that. Who knows? Hopefully. Yeah, that would be nice. Yeah, because we do need rest. Thank you. Thank you. The next offering is from Leslie. Hi, Rev. Thank you. I have a question followed up from an answer you gave a couple people back.

[89:52]

I have felt trapped in confusion for about five years by something specific in my life. And you said something about By giving that, whatever that is, compassion, I think this is what you were saying, it helps release it, or let go of it. I'm wondering if I misunderstood that, if you could say more, because I want to let go of it, because my confusion's causing me so much pain, and other people pain, and I wanna be clear, not confused, but I can't seem to let go of it. Like I can hold it in my body and just thank you. I said at the beginning that we praise great compassion because it is the most excellent cause of Buddhahood and Buddhahood

[91:07]

has the nature to protect vulnerable living beings who are trapped. Like you said, you've been trapped for five years. That was when you started to wake up. When you noticed you were trapped, that was an awakening. That was a moment of realizing the human condition. is we're in prison. What's the prison? It's our karmic consciousness. And the nature of Buddhahood is that it protects us who are in this, who are caught. It protects us, and it protects us by showing us compassion. So practicing compassion towards all, into the situation of entrapment, which is, again, The situation of entrapment is our karmic consciousness.

[92:12]

We're all in this trap. Together, though. And we're helping each other become free of the trap, but not by getting rid of it. And in the trap, we wish to get rid of the trap. That's a normal thing to have in the trap. But that's just another thing to be kind to. If I want to get out of this trap, I want, wish to get out of the trap is witnessed with compassion. That wish to get out of the trap calms down and makes room for more compassion. So compassion for this trap situation will help you realize the nature of this situation and you will be free. You will be free of it without getting rid of it. Just like What we're describing here, what you told me about, is thinking. And this thinking is entrapped.

[93:18]

It's enclosed. And it's full of affliction. And one of the afflictions is we want to get out of the affliction. Fine. That's another thing to be kind to. By thoroughly investigating with compassion this entrapment, we will realize that this entrapment is not entrapment. And freedom from entrapment is this entrapment. They're non-dual. They're the same thing. And we will realize that. But we have to keep being compassionate to being trapped. Keep being compassionate to being trapped. Keep being compassionate to our limits. Leslie, yes. How is entrapment not entrapment? How is it? How is entrapment not entrapment?

[94:19]

Well, you know, I can explain it to you a little bit. But just before I explain, I want to tell you that better than my explanation of how entrapment is not entrapment, better than my explanation is for you to see it for yourself. But I'll explain. Entrapment is something that depends on many causes and conditions. Many things come together to make a human consciousness. And human consciousnesses are enclosures. And the evolution of our biological species, and other animals too, have created this wonderful enclosed consciousness, which is also called the headquarters our life. It's the command center of our life. It took a long time to evolve beings who had this enclosure, this powerful enclosure of self-consciousness.

[95:23]

Many conditions give rise to it, moment by moment, for its arising. It arises from our unconscious evolutionary history. It arises from our body. And because of all these causes and conditions, this consciousness has no inherent existence of itself. It is basically just the causes and conditions that make it. It's not how it appears. It lacks inherent existence. So it's basically not how it appears. It's everything but how it appears. How it appears is a highly reduced representation of it. And therefore it's not what it appears, therefore it's free of how it appears. But we have to be kind to how it appears to become free of how it appears.

[96:25]

Because not only does it appear that way, but it comes with a little subtitle which says, this is not an appearance, this is reality. And we don't even see that subtitle. But we fall for it over and over. And if we do, we practice compassion to our, if you use the expression, our fallen state. Our life has fallen into karmic consciousness. And the way to be free of it is to talk, for example, with me about it and your friends about it by conversation. by studying your karmic consciousness, which you have been studying, so you can report to us that you feel trapped. You have seen karmic consciousness when you see that you're entrapped. Now, as you're doing, let's keep studying it. Please keep studying it.

[97:27]

Studying it with compassion. Please keep studying it. And converse with me and other people about how to study it. And I'm saying to you, if you study this with thorough compassion, you will realize freedom. And the greatest freedom from something is a freedom which doesn't get rid of the thing. That's my view. If we eliminate karmic consciousness, we would eliminate living beings. But if we practice compassion with karmic consciousness, we will liberate living beings, who then can help other living beings, which is the great joy. Thank you. I've been wondering if we have time for one more. Yes, one more.

[98:28]

Next offering will be from Maggie. Thank you for your teaching. Welcome. I would like to ask for more clarification around the pattern you were talking about. So, you used a synonym with the pattern, which is thinking. My question is... Well, could I mention something to you? Since you know Chinese characters, The Chinese character that's used in this case for thinking in Buddhism, for this overall pattern of consciousness, it's the character which has the rice field on the top and mind on the bottom.

[99:32]

So in the character, it has a pattern. So thinking is the pattern of consciousness. My question is, thank you for that, is as we are practicing compassion or non-thinking, as we are applying non-thinking to the thinking and not thinking, in that arena or in that room as you described, will this pattern get transformed in a way that... It will be transformed into awakening. then it's not a pattern anymore. That's right. Again, if you practice non-thinking with thinking, which is the pattern, thinking is the pattern, right? If you practice non-thinking, compassion, towards the pattern, you will see that the pattern is not the pattern.

[100:39]

And not the pattern, by the way, is light. It's awakening. But it isn't just not the pattern, Excuse me, I take it back. You will see that the not-the-pattern is the pattern, and is-the-pattern is not-the-pattern. So in that way, the pattern will be transformed into awakening, where you see pattern is not pattern. Thinking is not thinking. By practicing non-thinking with thinking, you'll realize that thinking is not thinking. So the thinking will be transformed into Thinking, not thinking, not thinking, thinking, not thinking, thinking. So this fixed pattern will be transformed into this awakened pivoting between pattern and not pattern. Although the content of thinking could be changing, could be... Yeah, it could. Well, it's changing all the time anyway.

[101:44]

Not exactly changing. What's in my mind is, I'm imagining with this compassion practice, what gets transformed in the content of thinking could be that there will be more and more wholesome thinking generated. It's possible, but the main thing is there's more compassion. Yeah, that was what I was... Even if it's unwholesome, if the compassion is there, you'll realize thinking is not thinking. But when the thinking consciousness receives the teaching of compassion, and the teaching of compassion appears in consciousness, in a sense the content of the pattern has changed. Because now there's there's this compassion in there. But that's not really, that's the content, but that's not really the compassion.

[102:48]

That's a picture of the compassion. But the picture of the compassion is there because the compassion's there. The content may change, which is fine, but the freedom is not dependent. Once again, here's a bumper sticker. Freedom from karmic consciousness is not dependent on the content of karmic consciousness. The worst karmic consciousness could be the one that turns into not karmic consciousness. We could realize complete awakening with a really bad state of consciousness. It's possible. If we could be followed by Buddhahood, which is totally, Buddhahood is totally wholesome And the totally wholesome Buddhahood embraces all unwholesome consciousnesses. It's not separate. So it is more like, even if the content of the thinking or the pattern changes,

[103:57]

let's say from negative to positive, but that's not the point. That could be a kind of side effect, even if it's positive, but the point is the practice, right? As you were talking to Samuel, the practice goes on. Whatever the content is, regardless of what the content is. And part of the practice is to hear the teaching, practice wholesomeness. So we do. But it's not wholesome to practice wholesomeness to get something. We practice wholesomeness as compassion, not to get something. Right. That's my confession point. I realized, I thought practicing will help us to get more and more wholesome thinking. That's not the point. That's not the point. But the confession of it is compassion. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay, well what a wonderful event this was, and you know, I'm not attached to this event.

[105:04]

I'm going to give it up now. I'm not attached to all this great feeling I have for you all, but I do have a great feeling, and I really feel gratitude to your great Buddha mind that you brought to this meeting, and that you shared with all your friends. Congratulations to everybody. May the merit of our meeting extend to every being in place. And may we together with all beings realize Buddha's way. Beings are numberless. I vow to save them. Afflictions are inexhaustible. I vow to liberate them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. Buddha way is unsurpassable. I vow to become it. Thank you, everybody.

[106:04]

Thank you so much. Bye-bye. Thank you so much, dear teacher.

[106:09]

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