So the central theme of the practice period is, was, the wish to realize complete enlightenment for the welfare of others. A pain, complete awakening before oneself. Which this morning came to me as it's all about how we get back together. I think I should put it in there. And I was getting back together.

[01:17]

I was getting back. I was getting back. You know? I'm getting back together again, [...] getting back together with ourselves and getting back together with each other.

[02:31]

And this issue of getting back together would not come to me, I don't think, except that I think that we're separate. It's because I think and believe that we're separate that it becomes a crucial issue for me that we come back together. The fundamental delusion that I suffer from is thinking that I'm separate from others and from myself. This will be the fundamental cause of suffering.

[03:45]

As you may have heard, basic definition of suffering, the etymology of the word suffering that is used in Buddhism is zhukta. It means a wheel out of round. The root of the word zhukta is a wheel out of round. Listen. It's the circle that hasn't been completed that causes this pain. Like human beings, it is our destiny to perceive others as separate. Therefore, it is our destiny to suffer this incomplete picture.

[05:09]

It wouldn't be painful to be separated from others. It wouldn't be painful to think that we're separated from others, except that we're not. Therefore, when we think we are, we feel off to meet a little. And this little bit off goes round and then round. Stoops, stoops, stoops, stoops, and gradually comes big. Acting out of this solution that we're just acting from this complete circle, of course, we can do it. Major damage to ourselves and others. But even before we pass, we are in pain from the incompletion and the non-conpletion of our thinking.

[06:12]

We're not taking our thinking back to the source of where it comes. But we will not perceive ourselves as separate from others. where we live through complete support of all beings, and where we support all beings without discrimination or respect. This is our actual life. So when we feel otherwise, it hurts. And we feel anxious about the other. is that we see us separate and believe us separate. We feel anxiety in the face of what we don't think is possible and believe it's not us.

[07:13]

We feel anxiety. We feel anxiety. We feel shock. Anxiety needs to be choked and strangled by what we think is not us, but what is actually living us like. Anxiety needs torment. Tormant needs to be quickly. We feel anguish. Anguish means at room. To be narrowed. To be straightened. To be narrowed. To be narrowed. To be narrowed for our life. To narrow our life down to this self. We can't be big enough to be clean and be cold.

[08:17]

what gives us life. Because we see ourselves as not what gives us life. Therefore, we feel anguish, we feel anxiety. This is our destiny as human beings. It's not optional. All human beings are anxious. But if we can completely accept and settle into this destiny, we will be liberated. The job, the work of coming back together requires that we settle into the situation of feeling separate. From this vision and belief in separateness, a world arises.

[09:39]

The world was born of our vision and our attitude and the actions which come from our vision and attitude. born of the world of believing that we're separate, we have this world where there is war. When my daughter was first born, one of the first ways to relate to me.

[10:42]

She didn't talk to me. She didn't wave at me. She didn't wink at me. She didn't smile at me. What she did was, she made a beautiful heart in the air of vomit, which beautifully arched out of her face into mine. They directly related. And when it hit my face and my nose, I was very surprised. But I was most surprised that I had not the latest bit of disgust. It was so cute. Mr. Vama did not seem like others to me. He's related to me that way several times after that.

[11:47]

And every time, every time I was amazed how much I didn't mind, I would have thought beforehand that there's no problem. Now I don't know how it is, if it happened. At that time, there was no problem. As she grew up, she kept relating to me in a rather thoughtful way. And at a certain age, she spoke to me, you might say harshly or critical, calling it a profane name. And I would always laugh because it was like, you know, it just seemed like love to me in this poem, this cocaine, harsh poem.

[12:50]

And when I laughed, I'd get very angry and try harder. And then it would seem funnier to me. But that would frustrate her more. And finally, she would just storm off. I didn't realize that she didn't want it to be funny. But she had to, she wanted to please her because she couldn't have a boom pack. Finally, not intentionally, I was hurt by what she said. It got to you. And then she wasn't frustrated anymore. And was selfish. I have heard her. She had to do that as a human being. She had to do that. And I sort of had to get to me. That's our destiny. It was my destiny to finally let it get to me.

[13:51]

To accept. For whom? My wife read an article about somebody who really wasn't hard to maybe sit on the radio about this woman who studied dogs. She hung out with this one dog and went with them everywhere. And she concluded by spending quite a long time with this male dog that his only purpose in life was to go around the world marking territory. All he seemed to be concerned about was just taking out new territory to reproduce. There's a...

[15:03]

a modern movie I've now called Before the Rain. It's a modern kind of rum-willing-dil-yet story about children of warring families who love each other. But because the world is the way it is, their love is frustrating and their attempts to bring the world together, to their love, was killed. And again and again, throughout the story, we see how people try to get together, but don't know how. Or, the environment, they don't know how to get the environment into portions, and it doesn't change the world. There must be a transformation of vision before reunion is possible.

[16:09]

There must be a liberation on the basis of losing before liberation is possible, before even 19, the split world can really be realized. As a result of this vision of separateness and this belief in separateness, this heart, this spirit, even of those who have seen it, even of those who have glimpsed, the spirit of wanting to get back together with ourselves and with others, the spirit becomes obstructed, hindered, and obscured. And we speak of three kinds of obstruction of this basic spirit. Obstruction due to action.

[17:18]

Obstruction due to defilement or afflictions. And destruction due to knowing. And for each of these kinds of obstructions, we have practices, which oftentimes they say practices to remove these obstructions from our hearts, to remove the obstructions from our vision of our oneness, to remove these obstructions from our wish to work for the welfare of our community. But I think it's not so much to remove them, but to keep all of them. Depends on it or not. They're not there. If they were really there, we wouldn't be able to remove them. Their only obstructions and operations that arise from are conduced up by the basic police force.

[18:27]

By seeing through these three kinds of instructions, we can complete the circle, for the circle is completed. The instruction of karma, action, the instruction of quatia, the violence, the instruction of kaneya, the knowable, or just by the fact that you see objects. And here's the practices. We had two, well, what basic practicing then is called just sitting.

[19:47]

That means to get back together with yourself. Another basic practice advantage is go talk to somebody else. Which is a practice of getting back together with somebody else. In order to understand these practices, we also have, if you've been concentrating on doing this practice, 16 teachings for Bodhisattva, 16 Bodhisattva Precepts, which explain how to just sit, which illuminates what it means to get back together with yourself.

[20:52]

and also eliminate, also eliminate what it means to get back together with somebody else. Fifteen Bodhisattva precepts, the first three are to regenerate, to get back together and wish to enlighten you, to get back together with the truth, and to get back together with the community of being. Those are the three returns, the three references. Those are the first three teachings of a body softball. Those are the first three ways to get back together with yourself. Get back to yourself by getting back together and awakening. Get back to awakening by getting together with yourself. The next three precepts are not doing bad things, not doing unwholesome things, doing wholesome things or good things, and clarifying your mind, or moving for the welfare of others.

[22:21]

The last ten are not killing, not fooling, not missing the sexuality, not lying, Not mislead. Not squandering others, not praising yourself at the expense of others, not being possessed, not harboring your will, and not abusing. Awakening, the truth of awakening, and the community of awakening. Those are the 15 Bonacarte precepts. How do you get back together with yourself? By not killing. If you practice not killing, you get back together with yourself. How do you get back together with others? By not killing. How do you get back together with yourself?

[23:22]

By not just using intoxicants. It actually doesn't stay. You cannot use them often. It's not committed. Because sometimes they should be used, and the way they should be used is to pick them up and put them someplace where they'll be safe. If you just don't touch them, they can hurt somebody. Sometimes you can take intolerance and put them on you also. That's the only place they'll be safe. then the medicine cabinet is safe. Everything in the world, everything in the world has to be used, has to be handled and dealt with. Sexuality has to be dealt with, has to be used. You can't just leave it alone. You have to handle it skillfully and virtuously.

[24:23]

Anger cannot be denied and left alone. It has to be handled skillfully, virtuously, beneficially. These materials in the world are dangerous materials, and they're also opportunities to learn how to skillfully handle them. And if you can skillfully handle these things, light, speech, sexual energy, intoxicants, criticism, possessions, aggressive energy. If you can handle these things skillfully, this is how to get back together with yourself. And this is how to get back together with others. These sixteen bodhisattva precepts explain how to get back together with yourself and how to get back together with others.

[25:37]

They explain how to just sit and how to go talk to your teacher. There are three levels of dealing with these bodhisattva precepts which address these three levels of obscuration. first level of obscuration is obscuration due to, it's called karmic obscuration, a karmic obstruction. In other words, obstruction due to action of body, speech, and mind. The antidote or the way to see through that obstruction is through what we call the elite in cause and effect. It's a belief.

[26:40]

And I would distinguish the word belief from the word faith. I would use the word faith for the spirit of enlightenment. In other words, my faith is what I am most concerned with in life. It's not something I believe in, it's not something I think is likely, relatively likely, It's what I care about the most. What I care about the most as a bodhisattva is the welfare of others and for myself. That's my faith. It's not something I think is likely or unlikely. Actually, in some sense, it's fairly unlikely that I will actually feel that way. But I feel that way once in a while, and when I feel that way, I say, this is what my life is about. This is my faith. This is the most important thing in my life. When it comes down to it, that will be it. When I'm pressed to the wall of death, that will be it.

[27:41]

That's my faith. It's not a belief. It is the basis for me becoming free of my beliefs. I have two kinds of belief. One belief is very strong. I need two beliefs. I have one already. I believe I'm separate from others. I believe I have separate existence. I believe I'm an independent being. That's my belief. It's a strong one. I understand that some other people have this belief very strongly too. As a result of this strong belief, I have strong anxiety. Strong fear. strong torment strong pain i need another faith another belief to go with that it is the belief in causing a threat that is a weak belief in me and i sense that it's a weak belief in some others too that belief must get stronger to match this other belief

[28:54]

If that belief is strong that we remove the obscuration due to action. The belief in cause and effect means that you believe. You do not yet see. Only an enlightened person can see that good actions always lead to good results. All enlightened people have said this. If you're not enlightened, you may not be able to see this clearly yet. You may have seen it a little, but it's very subtle how it works. But there's an absolute rule. Good leads to good. And the other thing is bad or non-virtue leads to unfortunate results. Good will always lead will eventually always have positive fruits, bad will always eventually have bad fruits, particularly for the actor.

[30:01]

First of all, for the one who instigates it. And it never, ever failed. Second teaching for rule of cause and effect is that the results of the actions occur in three times. They occur in this life, in the next life, and in lives after that. In other words, one life away up to infinite lives away. We need these two things together to understand it. Because if you look at the life of some people, you will see some people who are quite good and yet still have a hard time. You'll see some other people who are not very virtuous, particularly you might see that a lot. I'll just speak to myself. I'm not very virtuous, but I have a pretty good time.

[31:01]

I don't have a real hard time, and I'm not that virtuous. The law of cause and effect would say the reason why I, who am not very virtuous, I don't have a lot of affliction and pain and sickness, and people aren't mean to me all the time, and so on and so forth. And I have a lot of friends, and everybody's pretty kind to me. The reason for that is not because of my non-virtue in this lifetime, which I'm quite aware of, and other people are too, but in the past, you know, people are aware of my non-virtue in this life. People know that about me. They're a little bit surprised how well I'm doing considering how non-virtuous I am. And I'm the most surprised because I know more about how bad I am than any of them do. And one of my non-virtuses is that even though I know how non-virtuous I am, I'm still surprised when you notice it.

[32:10]

The only explanation, not the only explanation, the explanation that's available to me just comes right out of the Buddhist mouth. Namely, in a past life, for many past lives, somebody did something good. That's why I'm so lucky in this life, so fortunate. And I've seen other people who are very good in this life who have a really hard time. The explanation of that is in a past life, they did something, maybe some tiny thing. non-virtuous and now they're suffering great suffering as a result of it they're experiencing great suffering perhaps a small thing and i'm experiencing great good fortune because of perhaps a small thing well we'll see So there are stories about women, which will take you to another cultural system, and may have to be difficult for you, but from the playroom stories, and I hope that they're useful.

[33:32]

If they're not, I'm sorry. basically what is good my understanding my understanding of what is good basically what is good is what seems to indicate or comes from a sense that we're not separated when i treat others as though they were me that's good in other words when i treat others as well as I would like to treat myself, I consider that good. And when I treat others as though they weren't me, in other words, as I do things for them that I would not like to have happen to me, I consider that non-good. So here's an example of something that happened that has results in this life.

[34:34]

It's an old story, okay? It's a story about a woodcutter who was out in the woods and it started to get cold and snowing and he got very cold. He almost froze to death and a bear found him. And the bear picked him up and took him to his cave and warmed him up. I call that good, a good bear. The bear treated the man as though he were his own child. As though he were his own life. I consider that kind. I consider that good. I love that. I want to be like that bear. That's my aspirations. By doing that, although the story doesn't mention it, by doing that kindness for that woodcutter, the bear did something very good, which definitely would lead to good results for the bear.

[35:41]

But perhaps not in this life, as you will soon see. Then, after taking care of the woodcutter for six days and feeding him, He fed him bear food, like nuts and berries. The man had trouble digesting it, so he couldn't warm up very well, and the bear just kept him warm. Finally, the weather broke, and the man could go home. And he got down on his knees to the bear and, with tears of joy, expressed his gratitude to the bear and said, I can never repay your kindness, but if there's anything I can do, please tell me. And the bear said, yeah, please just protect me from hunters. So the man said, no, I will. And he went, and he left, and he went home, and as soon as he got back to where there's other people who just happened to run in to see hunters, the hunter said, have you seen any wild animals? And the man, the hood woodcutter, said, yes, I saw a bear.

[36:46]

And he said, I'll tell you where the bear is if you can give me two-thirds of the meat. I consider that bad. I consider that not treating the bear as though he were himself. Acting like he was separate from the bear. That's what I call bad. That's what I call evil. Just tentatively, I'll call it that. It's just a conventional thing, I believe. That's an example of what the Bodhisattva priest says, don't do that. If I think that's bad, then I'm not supposed to do that. That's a way for me to get back together with myself. That's a way for me to get back together with all beings, is to not have that kind of attitude towards bears, like, let's go get him and I'll take two thirds of the meat. So they went and the hunters killed the bear, and after they slaughtered it, they offered the man two thirds of the meat. When the man reached out to the bear,

[37:54]

his arms instantly fell off this is called recubition of mislaw the hunters were awestruck and asked him what was up did he know anything about what had just happened And the woodcutter did know. He said, yes, I think I know what had just happened. This bear was very kind to me and saved my life. And now I have done this, so that's why my arms fell off. The woodcutter said, well, considering what you did, you're lucky your whole body didn't evaporate. That was horrible. And they didn't use the neap. They took the neap. and took it to a Buddhist monastery, because they didn't know what to do with it, and they didn't know what this bear was. Now, they thought it was a bear before, but now they weren't so sure.

[38:54]

So they took the meat to the monastery, gave it to the monks, and the senior monk of the monastery entered into meditation to try to find out who the bear was. And he perceived that this bear was a great Bodhisattva, taking the form of a bear in order to help with meat. where they didn't eat the meat or give it to somebody else's meat, rather they premeditated it, which is the way what we do for our saints in Buddhism, and they made a stupa, they made a shrine to commemorate this great compassionate being. This is an example of retribution in this life. And I think some of us have done something which we've got immediate retribution for. They tend to be bigger things, like this, like killing something. You don't have to wait till the next light to get results for them sometimes, but sometimes you do. Now, someone asked about what about next life.

[39:58]

Well, here's a story about next life. Actually, this is a story about later lives. It's the story of a woman who lived at the town of the Buddha. And when the Buddha came to town, she gave the Buddha some sweets made of sesame seeds. And the Buddha received it, and the Buddha said that as a result of this donation, she would actually become, in a later life, would be reborn as a Buddha, as a fully enlightened being. And her name would be Suspaki. This woman's husband said, but irreverently to the Buddha, please Buddha, do not say this about my wife. It wasn't that he was jealous, he just couldn't believe such an outrageous statement. And the Buddha said, well, it's like the peepal tree. The peepal tree is a thing tree. It's called a ficus religioso. It's also called a poultry.

[41:00]

It's a tree, type of tree under which Buddha sat. said it's like the peepal tree from a tiny seed beside of a mustard seed grows a huge tree which has shade enough shade to cover 500 church areas it's like that one small act of generosity to the Buddha can produce unsurpassed enlightenment in later lives you think it doesn't do it in this life But it is the practice of enlightenment immediately. Giving is immediately the practice of enlightenment. But sometimes it's fruit of complete enlightenment. It takes several lifelines. There's another story about two men. Again, I don't know. There are two men, two kind of idealized men. Anyway, with this story, they do this to you.

[42:02]

One always did bad. The other one always did good. The one who always did good, through his whole lifetime, when he came to dine, as the vision of his next birth started to appear before him, he could see that his destiny was hell. And he thought, hmm, I've been good my whole life, never not good. I was kind of expecting to go to a divine destiny. And yet this seems to be pretty clear that I'm going to an infernal realm of cormorant. And he meditated on this for a while and he came to the conclusion that the reason for this was not because of the good things he had done in his life, but because of non-virtuous, selfish things he did in a past life.

[43:06]

He also then thought about, a little bit more, about the good things he had done during his life. And he got very happy about the fact that he had done some good. And that although he was going to hell, he had done good in his life and that the good, the goodness, the good results of his good would eventually take effect. Maybe not in hell, but he would eventually get out. With those thoughts of joy over his good and understanding of why hell was manifesting in front of him due to his own action, in other words, by his belief in causing effect, The destiny of hell disappeared, and the destiny of divine abode appeared, and he went to the divine abode, pretty quickly. The other man, who was always bad as he approached death, the destiny appeared to him of heaven, of divine destiny.

[44:22]

And he thought, hmm, this is a surprise. I didn't think it would work this way. So then he thought about it. And he concluded, well, I guess this thing about cause and effect, I guess this thing about good actions leading to good is not true. And bad actions leading to bad is not true. I guess either it's random or, you know, what do you call it? It's random or actually bad leads to good. And he also thought about all the bad he did during his life. And he didn't, like, say, well, I guess it was really bad and I'm really sorry. As a result of such a meditation, the divine abode that was manifesting before him as his regular disappeared, and the abode of hellish torment manifested, and he was reborn in one. However, if he had thought, well, I did bad my whole life, good birth comes.

[45:26]

Not because of the evil, I agree. If he had done that, he would have got to go where he was going to go. This is a belief. And if you believe in this, then as a result, if you believe in it strongly, you'll be very careful of what you do. Because you realize that a small, trivial goodness will produce, eventually, great benefit. And a small error will produce eventually great problems. In the short run, it may produce small problems. Like if you tell a lie. In a short term, in this life, you may get in some trouble for it. Or even a lot of trouble. But you may also get in big trouble for it later. There are stories, many stories, about slight infractions. Like, for example, there was a monk. who was teaching in the other months.

[46:29]

And someone asked him if an enlightened person is still subject to cause and effect, and he said, no. And he was reborn 500 times as a fox, which he might not think is that bad, but he didn't appreciate it that much. I mean, once, you know, once, foxes are beautiful, once, but 500, anyway, There's another story about a man, about another monk, who called people, you know. He saw various people. Maybe they were monks. He called them dogs. Not in a complimentary way. Dogs, you know, monkeys and stuff like that. You monkey, you dog. We talked to him like that. And then he experienced 500 rebirths in each one of these things. So, you know, the other day, we have a cat here at Green Gulch. And I'm not going to say any more about the cat than that. But I'll tell you what I said. I heard things about this cat. And as a result of what I heard about this cat, I said something.

[47:33]

I'm not saying this about the cat. I'm just telling you what I said about the cat. I heard things about this cat. And as a result of what I heard, I saw this cat one time. Just recently, I saw this cat. And I was with some other people. And they were looking at the cat. And I said, I said, I'm sorry. I said, well, there's the killer cat. I said that about the cat, you know, and it could be that someone as a result of hearing me would think less of that cat, you know, would not be so kind to that cat. And I heard actually somebody around Green Gulch kicked that cat one time. So, anyway, I said that about the cat, and later I thought, that was not very careful of me to speak of that cat in that way. That's nothing compared to other things I've done, but I just thought, That's an example of a small thing I did, which could cause me big problems. But anyway, part of this belief in cause and effect is that if you believe in it, when I get the stuff that's coming to me, for the non-virtue I've done in this life, I don't know about past life, but for the non-virtue I've done in this life, I have some trouble coming to me.

[48:53]

I hope that when it comes, I will say, hmm, okay, here it is. Now, I don't know what I did, but this has something to do with what I did. This is not, you know, some kind of a mistake. Then I can be free of this thing, but if I say no, This is a result of the good things I did. I'm getting now, bad things happened to me because I was a good person. No. The good things happened because of the good I've done or has been done. The bad things are because of the bad things I did. This is called belief in cause effect. And if you really believe in it, you will stop. doing things that you think are bad, and you will stop doing things that you think, and you will continue to do things that you think are good, even tiny things.

[50:05]

Now, my faith isn't strong enough for me to really stop yet, like I said, look at that path, but I'm going to be more careful about talking about gas, and I'm going to be more careful about talking about people, because my faith in causing the gas is getting stronger. This is a faith, though. I don't quite see this yet. I can't quite see this. It's a faith. It's a belief. That removes the first obscuration. There's two more. And it did not time today for me to explain all the practices related to the next two. I'll just tell you what they are. The next one, the next obscuration, is the obscuration which which comes from our defilement or our afflictions, from all of our, you know, afflictive emotions, conflicting emotions that trouble us. And, you know, like when someone comes up to us and does something, we have some kind of emotional reaction.

[51:07]

It's not that we're doing something unvirtuous at that time. We have a conflicting, difficult emotion like that. This makes it hard for us to see and appreciate that this person is nothing other than our life. It makes it hard for us to have nothing more important in our life than this person's welfare when they're spitting in our face, when they're calling us, you know, very, very angrily talking to you, very hard for us to understand at that point. Right? That's called the obscuration of defilements. We have defilements that we can't see in this person is us. He's our life. We don't particularly want to get back together with this person.

[52:12]

And that emotion, if I don't want to get back together with the person, I do not want to get back together with this person. Or another possibility, someone comes up to you and you do want to get back together with the person, but you want to get back together with the person in a way that the person doesn't want you to get back together with them. Like you want to own them. You think owning them will get you back together with them. This is also an obscuring. It kind of confuses what it means to get back together with them. Or you want to tell them what to do. That's the way you want to get back together with them and so on. It isn't always that you want to get away from them. Sometimes you want to manipulate them and control them. That's the way you feel. That's a problem kind of emotion. That's an obscuration of what it means to get back together with a person. The thing that removes that, that helps us see through that obscuration is not a belief.

[53:16]

but a vision and it is the vision of the selflessness of the person here it is the vision of the emptiness of yourself or the fact that yourself lacks independent existence it is that vision when you have that vision all these obscuring emotions all these conflicting troublesome afflictions drop away and you can relate to this person or any situation free of them because of the vision that your separate existence is unsubstantiated and just an illusion Now, as I said, I can't go into real detail about the practice that you do in order to have that vision, but I can say a little.

[54:20]

It's a little different from the other one. The other one is you're aware that what you do is extremely important. Everything you do is extremely important. That's more in terms of your action. This is more in terms of Being able to accept and settle into and own up to the fact that you have a belief in your independent existence. Aside from your action, the actions which you do from the point of view of having independent existence are taken care of by the previous faith in cause and effect. Now, it's not so much that you're dealing with your action, but you're dealing with your attitude. And your attitude is, I'm self-existent. I'm by myself and you're other than me. own up to you confess that belief you confess it moment by moment it happens every moment and you confess it you confess it not at a distance but right in the middle of it you feel it you sense that you have this belief and when you sense that you have that belief you feel the essential dukkha dukkha dukkha you feel the pain of that separate existence you start to tune into

[55:39]

pain and anxiety of believing that you're separate and that everybody out there isn't you so this practice is the practice of gently settling into the experience of isolation separation and independence and feeling that anxiety and not running away from it facing it And if you face it long enough, you get to see that the self and the other are not two. And the anxiety drops. And you see through the second obscuration. And all the afflictive emotions drop. you see through back to the heart which is so happy to be together with what you were previously anxious about without reaching over and manipulating or pushing away you come to be in perfect peace with the other because you no longer believe it's really not you the price of that is to feel the pain of believing that others are not you

[57:02]

That's a quick presentation, but all I have time for today. The next level is a more fundamental one. It's the root one. And that is the practice of seeing, again, it's a vision thing, seeing not only that you yourself have no inherent existence, no independent status among all other beings, not only seeing that the separation between self and other is insubstantial and ungraspable and unverifiable and there's no evidence for it but only pain when you believe it beyond that you also see that the separation itself I mean the emptiness of the separation or you might even say the liberation from the pain it also There's nothing to do. And all the things that come, and all the beings that are you that come to give you your life, none of them, all either, have independent existence.

[58:18]

I have no independent existence, and all the things that give me life have no independent existence. And my liberation from affliction, my liberation from belief in self, that also... is selfless and has no independence. This is called, now I am, and then, and then, I am released from my belief. I have relief from belief. Then you are released from the belief that you had at the beginning. You are released from the belief in cause and effect. And because you're released in the belief in cause and effect, you can go back and believe in cause and effect more thoroughly. And now you're released from belief in cause and effect because you no longer believe in it because you see it. Now you can see cause and effect.

[59:21]

You can see the way the world works. You can see for yourself. You no longer have to believe in it. You can see that this unkindness would cause big trouble. This kindness will cause big good. So easy for you not to do the slightest unkindness because you can see that it's no good. And it's easy for you to do the slightest good because you can see that it would be very good. Not to mention big unkindness and big good. You can see now. So you go right back and do the same thing you did based on belief, but now based on vision. So as a result of being released from release and released from belief, you die back into the world again with more energy and more firmness than before. So I thought this image, you know, being a selfish person, you know, if somebody sometimes, I have relatively strong hands and arms relative to some other beings who I live with, and they sometimes ask me to open jars for them, like jam jars.

[60:36]

And I noticed that as a selfish person, I like to, you know, I like to do that service. But there's this thing about loosening, sometimes somebody loosens the jar for you, you know, and somebody else tries it and you sort of get it going and somebody else can open it. And as a selfish person, sometimes you feel like the one, you know, you really got started and somebody else is the one who actually got it all. And you wish that you were the one who got it all. Anyway, I confess that selfishness. This practice here, these three practices are like the first one is the first one of belief in cause and effect is what just barely gets it going a little bit. It makes that first break with being stuck, being stuck in selfishness. Then seeing through to the selflessness of the person turns the lid.

[61:39]

And seeing the selflessness of liberation from selfishness takes the lid off. You need to eat. This is the hard work that's necessary to realize the wish for us to get back together with ourselves and with each other. It means believing in cause and effect and practicing according to and adjusting your behavior to that belief. It means to settle into your experience totally and feel all that's happening until the cause of the pain, which is your belief, strong belief in self-existence, drops away. And then even turn around and look at that liberation and see the emptiness and insubstantiality of liberation. so that you can re-enter the world, this time with vision, and be completely ordinary, again.

[62:44]

Yikes. I'm really sorry I taught so long. But you know, it was that thing about the problem with the microphone at the beginning. But I do want to say one more thing which I think is very interesting and important. Two weeks ago when I spoke, it was Martin Luther King Day or the day before Martin Luther King Day. And I talked about him and his work and the great vision he came and the great dream he came to have. And I don't think I have to tell you that he was an ordinary human being like us, but he came to have a great dream. And, you know, in the civil rights movement, there's a song, We Shall Overcome, you know that song? We Shall Overcome. I don't like, I never did like that tune, We Shall Overcome. I like better, We Shall Be Overcome.

[63:53]

Not by, you know, oppression, you know, but by a new point of view. And I propose to you that Martin Luther King was overcome by something. that he was overcome by the Spirit that wants us all to get back together. And I was tipped off to this by a book about his years, the King years as they're sometimes called, a book which ends, and at the end of the book, a person says something that tipped me off. And then someone sent me a letter after I talked about Martin Luther King, and he told me in this letter, and I don't know if this is true, But in the New York Times it said that Martin Luther King would later admit that when the boycott began, he was not yet firmly committed to the Gandhian principles of nonviolence.

[65:00]

Although he had been exposed to those techniques in college, he had remained skeptical. quote, I thought the only way we could resolve our problem with segregation was an armed revolt. I felt that the Christian ethic of love was confined to individual relationships. Unquote. Then one of his friends said only after his home was bombed did he reconsider his views on violence. At the time his home was bombed, he had applied for a gun permit. He had applied for a gun permit and he walked around with an armed bodyguard. After his house was bombed, he reconsidered.

[66:09]

Another friend visited his house and said that his house was an arsenal. His basement was an arsenal. I think I can admit, too, that taking out a gun permit or not really being so sure that nonviolence was the way. But Martin Luther King came to be overcome by nonviolence. How can we let ourselves be overcome by nonviolence? So again, the book says, nonviolence had come over him for a purpose that far transcended segregation. It touched evil beyond color and addressed needs more human than status or possessions.

[67:25]

Nonviolence, having lifted him up and placed him among the kings and leaders of the world, it would drive him back down among garbage workers who died in Memphis King had crossed over as a leader like Moses into a land less bounded by race to keep going he became a pillar of fire so if we have not been overtaken yet by the spirit of non-violence by meditating on the consequences of the opposite we may open ourselves up be visited by this great spirit and then be willing to do the work

[68:43]

You realize it. We are intentional. A fundraising announcement, and that is the children of Green Gulch are trying to raise money for a friend in need. And they're selling various precious works of art to raise funds, and they're in front of the office.

[69:49]

So if you'd like to either make a donation or encourage them in their efforts in fundraising, which is kind of the same thing, you'll see a little table over there in front of the office with young people trying to get people's money from them. And they have little pieces of jewelry to sell, too. But you don't have to take the jewelry if you don't want to. You can just make a donation. Or not. The seats up in the front, you know, up closer seats, too, on the tons here and up in front here. Well, I want to tell you about a rare event that just happened after the talk.

[70:57]

And my jisha disagreed with me. My attendant disagreed with me about something. She's very agreeable. And so it was kind of a wonderful event that she said, you know, I don't agree with something you said. And... So basically, I guess, I won't represent, I can't represent exactly, she's not here, what she said, but it was something like she doesn't believe that if something bad happens for her, that it's because of what she's done in the past. And I think she said, I think she said, I think she gave the example. She said, if you hit me, and I said, wait, just a minute. Now, if I hit you and you liked it, couldn't you see that that has something to do with you, if you would like it? In other words, if you would interpret that as something nice, wouldn't that have to do with you?

[72:02]

And you said, oh, I see what you mean. So, in other words, the idea here is that when you enter hell, it's not that hell's an objective thing. Like for some people... To be touched is hell. For other people to be touched is heaven. When some people touch you, it's heavenly. When other people touch you or the same person on another occasion, you consider it to be torment. And so they sometimes use the example of water, you know. A human being looks at water, like in a stream, like a flowing river. We look at the water and we say, it's flowing water. That's what it looks like to us. But to a fish, it's a hotel. Or a parking lot. Or downtown Fishburg. They think it's crazy to say, this is flowing water. It's their house. To a person in another realm, it's like fire and torment.

[73:06]

Not a person, but to a being who sees it that way, they feel that they're in hell. To another being, it's a celestial palace and it's full of jewels. To another being, it's pus and blood. In other words, the way you interpret things is the world you live in. Each of us lives in a world... So someone says to me, I'm in heaven, standing up in the deck... After the question and answer, I'm in heaven. Next person, I'm in permanent. Next person, I'm in water. So my attendant could see that if I touched her or if I hit her, if she considered that to be encouraging or nice, that would have something to do with her past, her attitudes in life. And if she considered it to be cruel, that would have something to do with her attitudes. Now it's true that I might I might have a cruel intention or a kind intention, but I sometimes might touch someone with a kind intention and they would interpret it as harassment.

[74:09]

Or I might touch someone with a cruel intention and might interpret it as very helpful. My intention's important for me because my intention will determine the world I live in. But it doesn't mean the other person will be, if I'm coming from heaven, it doesn't mean the other person will feel a heavenly touch. What we feel has to do with what we think and what we experience has to do with what we've thought in the past. How we interpret the situation has to do with our past interpretations of situations. So if our interpretation is, I want to do this little good thing for this person, That way of seeing the world tends to lead to feeling that other people are treating you well. And if you don't feel like other people are treating you well, that's not because that you have thought of other people treating you well. That's because you have thought other people are not treating you well in the past.

[75:13]

That's what I'm saying. In other words, the way you think has effects. But you think many ways, and you might spend a long time being very grateful and very appreciative, and then suddenly something happens and you say, I am not grateful. But that feeling of not grateful is not because of all the moments that you felt grateful. It's from feeling angry and ungrateful for something beyond maybe your awareness, or maybe even in your awareness. When people steal things from me, I usually feel like that's my interpretation. of what it was. They may not see it that way. But my interpretation of people stealing from me has to do with I feel like I've stolen. That's the way I saw the world. I didn't really make the world a place that definitely was giving me whatever I received. I have felt like I've taken something in the past without really having it truly, completely given. And therefore, I feel now that people take things from me without me truly, completely giving it.

[76:17]

This is the law of cause and effect as I understand it now. See the difference? Yes? It's important where other people's interpretation is because we care about them. So if I see someone who feels like they're in hell, I'm concerned that they are. My first work is to figure out what I'm feeling and watch how that works and to try to only act from this positive intention. Well, you mean if I do something with a positive intention and you take it and you don't like it, how does that affect my karma?

[77:21]

Well, you know, if I consciously, to the extent that I was consciously intending it to be kind and helpful, that's good for me. If I had some unconscious motivation to try to hurt you, that would be bad. But if consciously and unconsciously I was trying to be good and trying to be helpful and you didn't like it, then that would be something I would have to deal with. You know, you didn't like it. And if I sensed that you didn't like it and you were unhappy with it, that would probably bother me, that you didn't like it. But the fact that you don't like it was not coming from my positive intention at that time. It was coming from, in the past, within my knowledge, it's either coming from an unconscious thing in the present or in the past, I actually did have a negative feeling towards someone, and I did act on it.

[78:32]

In fact, in this lifetime, you can see that. If you have negative feelings towards people day after day after day after day, and you express them, then part of that is that people start having a hard time with you, probably. From that thing, if you're cruel to people, gradually, they, you know, not they, but the negative effects start coming to you. Just let me finish. But if you then, after many years of being cruel, were suddenly to do something kind, it's fairly likely that people would interpret your kindness as some kind of a trick. right they would think oh here he is he's been lying to us and cheating us all these years and finally you actually sincerely do something kind it's fairly likely that as a result of all that cruelty they probably wouldn't think that that was kind so you'd be experiencing right after you did a kind thing a lot of trouble from these long time or anyway past things that's the way it would work

[79:41]

Yes, right, right. This is not saying that there's inherent good. This is conventional, okay? But within the conventional world, within my conventional understanding of what would be good, it's not inherently good. Buddhism does not propose any inherent anything, but rather that there are conventional setups such that we set up a conventional world that is experienced by us as hell and torment. We live in that world and we have conventional ways of experiencing it. And it is possible to be free of that world and to return to a world where we're all in peace and harmony. But that world also doesn't have an inherent existence. And I can see that kind of like heartbeat I get at this point.

[81:02]

And so, like I saw six hands, and I'm just going to roll forward now and respond to this stuff, but it's going to be, you know, this is very thick-going material, so try to keep present with this, because it's going to be real heavy, I think. You're next. Good. Good. Good. Something decides, uh-huh. Yeah, I don't say something's deciding. What decides the rebirth is the attitude, is the habit of thinking a certain way. In other words, certain habits of thought lead to the repetition of that thought. It's the habit that keeps going. It's not something outside that's deciding, oh, this person has a habit, so this is going to happen to them.

[82:08]

The habit itself has its own momentum. Yes. There is no judgment. There is no good. There is no bad. There is only conventional good. I don't get that weak thing. I don't understand that this man behavior is what caused him to come back as a thought spot. And she decided he wasn't likely enough to... Yeah. Okay. First of all, it is a dream that we are separate.

[83:11]

We dream that we're separate. Okay, that's a dream. Yes? Did you want to say something? Well, she said it seems like everything is a dream in that sense. Do you have some other examples of other things that would be dreams besides what I said? What? Well, if I look to my left and I see that you are me and I am you. Yeah. Or that love and pain are one thing. Yes. And then I look to the right and I see that you're separate from me and that I've been pained. It may be true. I think it's not that one is delusion or not delusion or that one is true or that one is not true. Yeah. Well, what she just gave, she said, it seems like everything's a dream in that sense. Is that what she said? And then she gave some examples of some dreams. And what she gave examples of, I agree, those are dreams.

[84:13]

But not everything is a dream. For example, it is not a dream that a dream is a dream. Pardon? Pardon? Not everything is a dream. For example, it's not a dream that a dream is a dream. That's not a dream. What else isn't a dream? I don't know of anything else that isn't a dream. Because all things, the way we experience things is we experience things.

[85:24]

In other words, we don't know what's happening. I don't know what's happening, actually. But in order to know something, I convert whatever might be happening. If anything is happening, we convert it into things. In order to have an experience, we make whatever might be happening, which we don't know, into a thing. And we make it into a thing, that's our dream. So we're constantly creating dreams out of whatever our life is. We do not know what our life is. What our life is cannot be known. but we convert what is unknown and unknowable into something knowable. As soon as we convert what's unknowable into something known, we have a dream. You could say it's a dream about what's happening, but, you know, that's another dream. Basically, though, we do know it's a dream, and we can verify that it's a dream.

[86:29]

And the fact that it's a dream is correct. And if we can see that our dreams are dreams, we wake up. And when we wake up, it isn't that then we know what's happening. No. It's that we're released from thinking our dreams are what's happening. Well, yeah, I guess reality is unknowable. Reality is not something that you can cognize. It's not something that your mind can get a hold of. Reality. Pardon? Well, I would say it's not experienceable either because in order to have an experience of something, you have to put it into experience packages. Okay? Although reality isn't something we can experience as an object, we can realize reality. We can realize the truth. And the way we realize the truth is we don't have to make the truth.

[87:34]

All we have to do is realize it. How do we realize it? By waking up from our dream about what it is. How do we wake up from our dream about what it is? Admit that we're dreaming. How do we admit that we're dreaming? Look at the dream. See how it feels. Notice that we don't just dream. We dream and we think it's true. And notice how the dream coupled with thinking it's true is painful. Okay? That's that being out of round. We dream we're separate. That's the basic painful thing. But we dream a bunch of other stuff which we think is true and it causes disturbance. If you watch how it is that we hold to our dreams... and how it is that it's painful to hold to them, you'll notice that the part that's painful about the dreaming is the holding to the dream is real. And if you would drop the holding to the dream as real and have it just be a dream, the pain would drop away too.

[88:35]

No, I wouldn't say life is just a dream. I would say my experience of life is just a dream. My take on life is just a dream. For example, to me, not always, but sometimes life seems to be like something that would end and start for me. That's a dream. Life is, I would say, I don't know where I get this from, but I would say life is infinite. I would say life doesn't have a beginning or end, but we don't experience that way. In the world of liberation, you have no limits on no beginning or end to life. So you're relaxed. And you're... Pardon? 500 lifetimes of the fox is not a bad thing to be. 500 lifetimes of the fox is not a bad thing to be, no. But... Did I? I think I said that guy thought it was a bad thing.

[89:46]

I think that guy said it was bad. He was upset about it. In the story, he came and told the story about himself. He said, I've been born 500 times as a fox. Please give me some teaching to liberate me, he asked the teacher, to give him some teaching about cause and effect that would liberate him, because he had gotten sick of being a fox 500 times. The thing about being a fox, what it means is, okay, what it means to be a fox 500 times is that 500 times, and I'm sorry I didn't make this point in the lecture, that 500 lifetimes you would be born and not believe in cause and effect. And a life where you live where you don't believe in cause and effect is a very unhappy life because you're fighting the way your mind works. And the way your mind works is that if you think of other people as separate and you don't care about them because you think they're not connected to you, if you think that way, and if you think you can think that way and that's not gonna be a problem for you, and you go ahead and act that way, and you don't notice how that works, and you don't care how it works, and you don't think there's any rule for how it works, there's just lots of disharmony, lots of pain, and lots of trouble.

[91:03]

So 500 times as a fox would mean 500 lives like that. Before you could even hear the teaching, that things don't work that way and believe it. So after 500 lifetimes like that, he got the teaching from that teacher and he could hear it after 500 lifetimes. Then he was not a fox anymore. So a fox refers to a being who won't hear the teaching. 500 lifetimes of not hearing the teaching of how to be happy, that's what's meant there. How's that? What do you think? Where's the judge? Where's the judge? Where's the judge? You're the one who feels it. Where is it? Where is it?

[92:05]

Am I the judge? Are you the judge? Where's the judge? Yeah, I don't see a judge. I see a value that I have. I have a value. The value is that I don't like to have pain. I don't like to feel cramped and tormented. I don't like to be squeezed and strangled. I like to be able to breathe. I don't like to have a muzzle on my mouth. I don't like to have my arms tied together. I don't like to not be able to talk to people. I don't like not being able to touch people. I don't like that stuff. I don't like being afraid of people. I don't like feeling harassed by people. I don't like being suspicious of people. I don't like hating people. I don't like that stuff. That's my value. Is that a judge? If that's a judge, then that's a judge. That's where I'm at. I don't like those things. What? But you said there is a judge, okay?

[93:08]

But the judge is... I don't see it as a judge. I see it as if you tweet and you put all your thoughts towards someone, okay, that that will have an effect, namely it will feel bad afterwards. And if you say something against someone and you don't like them, that will lead to you feeling like people don't like you. And people are harassing you. That's the law. That's not a judge. That's just understanding. That's the way it works. But there's many, what do you call it, a Jew. There's no connection to people. But there's so many here in the U.S. I can only accept God's story. There's life back in that. These are the story. You know it's worth it. Now, I believe in karma. And I think it's a long-term thing that you can watch the channel.

[94:08]

And it's a beautiful thing. But to get away a little bit in the narrative and get into the practical karma, the thing is, you know, I swear in front of another car. Let's say I don't want to show the next thing. So I pull over and make this one and cut somebody off. Yeah. Yeah. Right. [...]

[94:46]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_89.56