You can't even pick the water up with a leaf. But if you get down there with a straw, you can sip up a little bit of water. And that can keep you going for a while. So he's saying everybody can find something, some little good thing there to save yourself from hating them. He really doesn't hate people. He's trying to find something to save yourself from this terrible mistake of hating a person. anything. Find something. And then the next example he gives contradicts the previous one. He says, some people don't have any virtues. Some people, even the Buddha can't find any virtues because their speech, their action, and even in their mind, if you look in their mind, is totally filled with obnoxious stuff. So in that case, you switch You don't try to find anything good about them.

[01:04]

You don't even look away from all the irritating things. There you remember that this person is in big, big trouble. You switch to compassion. You realize nobody's going to be finding anything good about this person. This person must be in trouble. Because everything they do with their body, speech, and mind is terrible. They're in terrible situations. And then you really take good care of the person. You do compassion. And that protects you from the anger. And the next type of person is a person whose voice, their posture is nice, their mind, everything about them is good. And that person you just enjoy how beautiful they are. So that's another way to overcome resentment. And then he says after that, now, if after this comes the resentment, then they have this thing you should do.

[02:05]

And he says, if after that the resentment still hasn't subsided, then they have this thing to do. And if after that the resentment still hasn't subsided, then you have this thing to do. And there's a big section... The last big section about this is what you do is you review the behavior of the Buddha. And then they have all these stories of what the Buddha did to just inspire you to do this incredibly difficult thing. And then reading all those stories about the Buddha and being inspired by the Buddha, your resentment still hasn't subsided. And the last one is giving. And then they're done. Because giving is going to work at the end. And then he says, and this is the great virtue of giving. You say, why not give at the beginning? That would have been fine. But anyway.

[03:06]

Huh? Well, I think because in some ways, if you've done all these other ones and finally you do giving, it probably would work after. If you did it at the beginning... then your giving might still be infected by the resentment. Probably after doing all this other stuff, it's gotten pretty weak, but hasn't really gone away. So then polish it off with giving. So anyway, this is a big section on resentment here. So those people that we're irritated by, the ones that are hard to give love to, they're important. You cannot have these little holdouts in your heart And the same when you're working on yourself. Those parts of yourself that you don't want to love, it's not going to work. You have to let go of those two. They're making a big effort here anyway to really get rid of all the resentment and not have holdouts, because the holdouts can grow, take over again.

[04:11]

So this is in the Path of Purification by Buddha Gosha, a big section on this resentment. both towards people that irritate us, plus also towards people that hurt us to situations and assault us. But I think now maybe you want to go to breakfast, right? So please do. And we'll start again at 10.30. And I think we'll end at 10.30 with a period of sitting, and then the... Excuse me, at 10, start at 10 with sitting for half an hour, and then Brajesh is going to come and say goodbye to you. And then we'll have the rest of our program. So come back at 10 and sit for half an hour. Brajesh, and then we'll go on. I wanted to, again, that the four aspects of love, as taught by the Buddha, to always practice them together.

[05:31]

So if you're practicing loving-kindness and joy and equanimity, And if you're practicing equanimity, is there loving-kindness, compassion and joy? If you're practicing joy, is there loving-kindness, compassion and equanimity? If you're practicing compassion, is there loving-kindness, joy and equanimity? So whenever you're working on any one of them, the other three will help you balance that particular practice. And you might see in your mind, can you imagine doing one of them there, how that would be off. So there's four practices, and in practicing each of the four, there's four ways it could be off.

[06:36]

You could be unsuccessful at doing the practice literally, plus any of the other three could be off, even if the one you were doing seemed to be right. In other words, it wouldn't be right if the other three weren't there, even though it might seem by itself to be satisfactory. And another basic thing is, so for example, the practicing loving kindness, you start with whom? Yourself. And in practicing loving kindness, when you're able to practice, what would be the problem if you didn't have equanimity? Pardon? You do it on some and not others. Or you do it on some aspects of yourself and not others. Huh?

[07:38]

You create separateness within yourself so you wouldn't apply loving kindness to the wholeness of yourself. So then, without equanimity, your loving kindness wouldn't be in conjunction with awareness of the wholeness of your life and the wholeness of life. And what if there wasn't joy in your practicing loving-kindness? What would be the problem in that? Pardon? You might be doing it because of duty? Yeah. But anyway, it isn't really loving-kindness if it isn't... Loving-kindness should open you up, remove the constrictions that are blocking the joy. Okay? And similarly, if there's not compassion when you're practicing loving kindness, what would be the problem in that? Mm-hmm.

[08:46]

Well, yeah, that would be part of it, is that you'd have trouble, you know, really wanting love for yourself, and you'd have trouble meeting and facing those beings who are in suffering, actually looking at them and wishing them well if you had trouble practicing compassion. In other words, if you were, you know, not able to be there with people that are suffering, you wouldn't be able to actually give them this gift. And similarly, what about if you're practicing compassion and you're not practicing loving kindness? What would be the problem? Pardon? It might look more like sympathy. Yes. What other problem might there be? Less active. Less active. less happiness, but one of the main problems is that you might get angry, feel hostility towards the person.

[09:52]

You can't practice compassion when you're feeling hostile towards the person. So you need to practice loving kindness and overcome your resentment in order to practice compassion. Yes? Loving kindness is the first part of love where you're actually bestowing. You're actually bestowing. peace, peacefulness, happiness, and lightness to body and mind. You're wishing them to be safe, free from injury. You're wishing them to be free, and yourself too, to be free of anger, affliction, and anxiety and fear. This is the loving-kindness aspect of love. Mm-hmm. Yes? All four. That's right.

[10:59]

All four. Compassion is really all four. And joy is really all four. And equanimity is all four. These are actually four aspects of love. But it's the Buddha thought maybe it would be helpful to break up love into four parts so you can work on these different dimensions of love. But when you work on the different dimensions, you actually need the other three to be there. So you specialize in one aspect, but if the other aspects aren't there, the love is incomplete. So I find it useful, if I was practicing any one of these, to check if the other three are there. And if they're not, then I need to bring them back. If they're not, there's some faultiness in that one. So each one will be not, you can see something wrong with each one of them if the others aren't there. What would be wrong with equanimity without the other three? Huh? You'd be indifferent. Indifferent is another problem.

[12:07]

Indifferent... What's the other problem? Well, you could be... You could treat everything the same. And you could see everything the same. I guess, uh-huh. I guess indifference would be the one if you were somewhat successful. But actually, if the other ones weren't there, you actually could get into... You might be trying to practice equanimity, but without the other three, you actually could be resentful. You think you're practicing... Huh? Uniquely resentful. Yeah. Uniquely greedy. And the other problem... Well, I won't mention that right now. Now, another thing which I want to mention was that in the description of practicing joy, it doesn't mention to start with yourself. That's an exception to the instruction. And also in the practice of compassion, it doesn't say to start with yourself.

[13:12]

Loving kindness, you start with yourself. Equanimity, you start with yourself. But joy, you start with... What would you start with for joy, you think? I already told you, it's not with yourself. That eliminates one of the possibilities. Huh? What? The person you like? You're getting warm. You're getting colder. The person you dearly love, you start with that person. That's an exception. You don't start loving-kindness with the person you dearly love. You slip into lust. Loving-kindness, you start with yourself. You have to start with yourself in that case. And then you work to like neutral. Like's easy to move into.

[14:17]

Neutral's then easy to move in after that. When you like or love a lot, which is somewhat dangerous, because what they call the near enemy of loving kindness is greed. So the second most difficult person to do it with after yourself is the one you love dearly, and then the most difficult after yourself is the one you despise. With compassion you start with somebody, you start with somebody, the easiest way to get started is to start with somebody who's really suffering. Now if that happens to be you, you can start with yourself, but it's good to start with somebody that's really having a hard time. And of course, somebody who has a hard time, the nearer The near danger is despondency or depression. And the far danger is resentment or cruelty. So if you start getting resentful towards this person you're trying to help who is really a wreck, and you apply this compassion in a way that doesn't have equanimity,

[15:32]

then you start getting drained. And you start feeling drained by being compassionate, you start getting angry. So then you have to go back to loving-kindness. You start being resentful for the person you're practicing compassion towards. When you go back to loving-kindness to overcome the resentment, they come back. That's for the cruelty or resentment. For the despondency. or grief that you start to feel when you're working with compassion, go to joy and loving-kindness again. To lift yourself up, because you've got to be happy to practice compassion to be successful. Because you're wishing this person, may you be free from sorrow and pain. if they feel like you're unhappy about this wish, it doesn't help them. So you've got to not get too depressed when you're practicing compassion.

[16:35]

Okay? So the order, who you practice in what order, varies from case to case. Is that clear? Yes? Joy, well, you start with this person. This person is called the boon companion. The boon companion. In other words, it's really nice if you have somebody that you really think is great because that helps you get started on joy. Basically, you just try to work yourself into a state of, you know, use the joy to open your heart up. to gently, lovingly encounter all your resistances. But again, accompany that with equanimity. The danger in joy is the near danger, the subtly kind of close danger.

[17:46]

danger that's quite similar to it, which is rather subtle, is the near danger of practicing joy is joy. But it's joy based on . So it's very subtle if you practice joy and you feel your heart growing and you feel your limitations dropping away and you feel your constrictions dropping away. If that becomes a gain to you, then it becomes a hindrance to the joy. The joy is not because you're gaining something. It's the joy of loving, not the joy of gaining freedom for yourself. Although it does give you freedom, you're more appreciating and being glad about the person and being glad about what you're getting, even though you do get a lot. But it's a little bit tricky and a little dangerous there. The other danger of joy, the other far danger is aversion or boredom?

[18:49]

Why would you run into aversion or boredom in practicing joy? Yes, what else? Pardon, because you're attached to non-joy, yes. What else? What? If you're doing joy for gain... No, let's say you're not. You haven't fallen... Then the next one is... There's no more there. It's not on your hand. What's next? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. But in the practice of joy, what you're doing is you're trying to be... You're trying to, like, see what's good about them. and you are seeing what's good about them. So if you're not able to see what's good about them, then you're bored with them.

[19:54]

I'm not talking about hostility. If you feel hostility towards them, that's such a common thing to have run into, but if you did, you have to go back to practice loving-kindness. But let's say you're not feeling hostility, okay? If you feel hostility, go back, practice loving-kindness, and come back. That make sense? So you're not feeling hostility, and you're not feeling the joy of it. So you're bored, you get bored. And you get bored sort of when you're working with the person who like is going to most, you know, is most difficult for you to see and appreciate. You're not feeling hostile. It isn't that, it isn't, it's more like bored. Like, no, I'm totally getting air, you know. That's one of the dangers in practicing joy. What the tough one looks like.

[20:58]

You what? You don't quite get it. Well, of course, because, you know, the reason why you don't get it is because it's the most difficult one. Because you're practicing joy, and this is like the... This is like... This is the distant... This is the distant... This is the, what do you call it, distant enemy or distant... Not because it's so far away, but because it's so different. But actually, it seems like it's quite common that you meet someone and you don't find them that interesting. You're not fascinated. You're not, like, very glad to see them. This is a lot of people you feel that for. The heart isn't like so wide open that you're just really feeling love for the person and feeling joy at the love. It's a happy love. You don't feel a happy love looking at this person or thinking about this person. You don't feel aversion. That's like not even in the ballpark. So you go and take care of it.

[22:01]

It's called loving kindness. So now you're not into aversion. You're into practicing joy, but you're not getting it together. You're not feeling joy. You're not really happy to see this face. This is the difficulty because it doesn't feel good. You're not really irritated. It's more effective than irritation in a way. Irritation is totally incompatible, but the boredom is not. The boredom is not, you know, it's different from the joy, but it's kind of like a very familiar factor of realizing this. Isn't it kind of common? So it actually is. The other kind of joy is fairly common too, the joy of gaining something out of this. They're both fairly common hindrances around the practice of joy. Yes? With the compassion you what?

[23:08]

Yeah, I actually haven't found anything in the books about some kind of like mantram, you say, that you wish something. It's not so much you're wishing something on the person in the practice of joy. It's more like you're a person and you're glad to see them. So it's more just working on yourselves. And of course they feel the joy, but it's not so much that you're... You could, of course, give that joy in the other practices. But this is more emphasizing, kind of like, it has to do with your feelings. Equanimity, too, you don't, they can feel the equanimity and feel the joy, but equanimity is more like that you're developing balance in your attitude towards them.

[24:09]

The other two, you're actually, like, wishing to, wishing to, wishing something for them. The first two are more like, have a big, strong aspiration or wish element. in terms of balancing your attitude, making your energy big and wide and buoyant, and the other is balancing it. And one other thing I just want to mention, and that I didn't mention before, is after going through the Loving-Kindness presentation and after the big section on overcoming resentment, there's a small section called Breaking Down the Barriers. And this means the different objects of loving-kindness. So when you first start practicing loving-kindness, you start with yourself, go to somebody that you like, go to somebody that you're fairly neutral about, go to somebody you really love already, and then go to somebody that you have difficulty with.

[25:16]

When you're successful overcoming any resentment, or the fifth kind. Then what you do is you work on breaking down the barriers between these. So that after a while you feel the same. You feel the same. They're homogenized. You feel the same in the four groups. Can you get that one? You feel the same about the one you dearly love and the one you used to feel hostile towards. Huh? That shows the equanimity of being brought into the loving-kindness meditation. When you first approach this practice, you take into account the being who has discriminations, and you don't fight that, you go along with it. You take into account and you plan your course given your prejudices and your proclivities and your off-balanceness. But once you successfully get through that,

[26:19]

and overcome your off-balances to some extent by being able to be loving towards someone you have problems with, then you go back and try to homogenize the situation so that the barriers break down. And so the Buddha gives the example. So let's say that someone that you Let's say this is like the Buddha's talking about monks, right? This instruction is to monks, but anyway. So you're together with these other types of people. There's you, the one you use neutral blood, the one you love dearly, and the one you have some difficulty with. All five of you are together in a little circle and a gang of bandits comes over and they say, okay, monks, we want one of you. A bandit thief. And then you say, well, what are you going to do with one of us?

[27:22]

And they say, well, we're going to kill him and drain the blood from the throat to make an offering to our gods. And then so I said, so which one are you going to give us? Now, if you've broken down the barriers, you can't figure out which one to give. Now, of course, you think, well, if you're selfless, you should give yourself first. Well, that's true in a sense, but you can't tell the difference between yourself and the other people, so sorry. You actually say, I don't know which one to give, I can't choose. I can't choose, so I'm sorry, I can't give you any of us. Too bad. You say, well, we're going to take you all then. You say, well... Volunteers? You can't even, like, choose yourself to go first in a way. That's a certain perspective here. ...volunteers and the... Sounds good.

[28:41]

I think I'll join. And so I think that maybe that's kind of like, without getting into the new territory, the real new territory, that's kind of like rounds it out for me in terms of presenting. I think you got most of it now. And like you say, if you want to read the kind of like classical presentation, it's in the Visuddhi Magga. It's a little bit difficult to read because it's an old translation. But the difficulty maybe is good to slow your way down, give you a chance to practice loving-kindness and patience with the text. You have to be kind of concentrated to read it. It's not like light reading. partly because the translation is so bad that it makes it really heavy.

[29:45]

Are there some questions? Yes, Judith? If you're practicing... Notice that you're like getting into gaining something, you have some gaining thing, that the joy of, let's say you do feel like you gained something and you have this kind of joy which is from gain, okay? You just notice that that's off, you're being hindered by that kind of joy. So what would you do then? Practice equanimity. Which means you won't, you don't hate that joy. So, you know, it's just a hindrance, that's all. It's slightly off track. And for boredom? For boredom, equanimity. Equanimity also. Yeah. Equanimity and maybe even patience. Now, usually we apply patience to, like, painful situations, but I think boredom can be quite painful.

[30:50]

And I appreciate the comment by... What's his name? Baudelaire. At the beginning of the novel, he says, you know, basically what he means is that, I think, is that, you know, once you've overcome greed and hatred and so on, and you're on the verge of having some kind of understanding, then delusion sends in the big gun. Ennui. Boredom's really a powerful demon that they send in when you're like, you've overcome the gross, more gross kinds of demons. And when you're doing really subtle work, boredom comes in there and challenges you. You're a little off track, but it's like, it keeps you from like, you know, really opening up all the way. So boredom can be quite painful but the trick thing about boredom is it's not that painful so you can't get that upset about it. It kind of like makes it easy for you to like give up and, you know, lose your energy.

[31:54]

It's a very powerful hindrance. Well, you would treat boredom the same as joy. You wouldn't prefer the joy which you're practicing. You wouldn't prefer being successful at practicing joy than being faced with boredom. Equanimity, you don't prefer joy over depression. Of course, you know, as soon as you don't prefer joy over depression, you're coming out of your depression. It's hard when you're depressed to sort of like actually really like, when you still have any energy left anyway, to actually say, okay, this is happening. Loving kindness towards yourself when you're bored, that's okay too.

[32:55]

In other words, to protect yourself from getting angry at the boredom. So loving kindness goes with boredom, that's good. But let's say you're not getting irritated yet, you're just bored, you're just losing interest. You're not overjoyed at seeing this person. You're not really appreciating this person. And yet you're not hostile yet, so you don't have to practice loving kindness now. You might even wish this boring person, you know, I wish you well. I hope you're, you know, what? I hope you're, you know, I hope you're okay. But I'm not that excited to see you. You know, you're not like opening me up with the joy I feel. I'm not opening myself up with the joy I feel towards you. But I wish you well. I really, you know... I love you, but I don't love you to the extent that I feel joy loving you. Huh? No, I'm not saying that I'm looking at the person in order to gain something from my interaction.

[33:57]

I'm saying that when I look at that person... Loving kindness, okay? If I'm practicing loving kindness really, I will feel joy wishing them well. If I'm practicing loving kindness towards somebody and I'm doing it the authentic way, I will feel joy. I will feel joy. That's just the right way to do it. It's not that I'm practicing loving kindness to get the joy, because then that would contradict equanimity. I'm not trying to get anything. Before, the danger in practicing, in developing joy, one of the dangers is the joy which is from gaining something. So you're practicing loving kindness, like, you know, I truly wish you Happiness. I want you to be happy.

[34:59]

I want you to be pure. I want you to be light and buoyant in body and mind. I want you to be free of anger and affliction, fear and hostility, I mean fear and anxiety. I really do want that. But it's not a warm wanting. It's not really the joy that me wanting you. That's not really the way to do it. Or to do it for myself and not really be, Jesus, it's really great to give me this present. How come I haven't done this before? Why have I been waiting so long? This is terrific to give me this gift. I love wishing this for you. This is great. If you don't have that feeling, really loving kindness. Now, if you do loving kindness to get that feeling, and then you get that feeling, and you do it to get a gain, then the loving kindness is off and the joy is off. Does that make sense? That's sort of what you said, right? But if you're practicing loving kindness in this bland way without the joy, it's not really... I'm sorry, but when you practice loving kindness the right way, you can't help but be joyful.

[36:08]

And if you're not joyful, you're holding back. You're kind of saying, I really want the best for you, but you know, it doesn't, you know, have a nice time. You know, you're more vulnerable and you're more joyful, and you don't prefer anything in the process. It's not a preference, it's reality. Loving kindness is a reality. Compassion is reality. Joy is reality. Equanimity is reality. And you don't prefer reality over delusion. That's reality. Reality doesn't have a preference for enlightenment over delusion. Have you noticed? Have you noticed the deluded people? Reality lets us be as deluded as we want. Reality is letting this wonderful dramatic situation occur of these enlightened people being deluded.

[37:12]

So we have all these nice stories. Elizabeth? said that boredom was a very, very high state because when you finally got to boredom, something very, very exciting was about to happen next. Yeah, I think, yeah, and that's what boredom, I agree. It's like, When the gross demons have been overcome, boredom is like guarding the more subtle insights. So Dostoevsky said that? I'd like to see where. And I think that's Baudelaire saying too. And some people say in Zen practice too, when you really get to boredom, you're getting close to the truth. That's the last barrier. And it won't be so intense that you get angry about it. Because if you get angry about it, then you've got the anger demon. So then boredom can go sit on the bench again. They bring boredom into the game when nobody else has been able to stop you.

[38:15]

You've overcome everybody, so now they bring in the big one. That can stop almost everything. So in one sense, it's super powerful to stop us because it's so subtle. Ennui, you know, all these French people like laying around in these bars and coffee houses, all these great philosophers, you know, they're just almost understanding something and boredom comes in. It's just a whole culture just laid to waste. It stops them all, you know. None of the French people ever got past ennui. They got close, you know. But it managed, it overcame them all. And Dostoevsky was kind of French too, right? That's where he lived for a while. They loved him in Paris. Yes? You're hearing that practice has...

[39:19]

this whole practice starts in your mind working with you're not actually like talking to these people you're looking at an image of them in your mind you're not actually first you're working with your mind yes your concepts in your mind yes wrong thoughts like what a preference, okay, which means when you don't have equanimity. Yes? Well, there's various approaches. One approach is you go back to loving-kindness, and can you actually practice loving-kindness on somebody who irritates you, who, you know, who drives Can you? If you can, good. Then your loving kindness has reached the point of being able to do it with that person.

[40:30]

Can you do it with all the other people that are easier and yourself? Okay, so that's the first time through loving kindness, all right? Now, do you notice that there's still some kind of imbalance, some preference? Well, one of the things you can do is keep working on it until you kind of break down the boundaries between the people. Is there still some preference, even maybe not between the people now, but maybe between being successful and unsuccessful. Okay? Go to compassion. Go to joy. If you feel enough joy, when you feel enough joy, that helps you be able to practice non-preference. And you might say, well, yeah, I can see if I felt enough joy, I wouldn't have a preference. That would sustain me. You say, well, so what's the big deal about that? When you have real joy, you really don't prefer anymore. So one of the qualities of real joy is that you don't have preferences. You're not caught by your preferences. A joy that's so thorough that you don't prefer what you've got, including the joy, to not the joy.

[41:37]

When you are holding on to this joy, you really feel insecure. Well, in some ways, it is possible to clarify the practice. It's not that complicated, actually, but it is hard to practice it continuously. It's not hard to practice it if you, like, get together, look at the teaching, get it straight, and then want to do it and try it. It works. It's good. The hard part is continuity. And this is a practice that's all about continuity. Because, you know, a break in this practice, you can do a lot of damage during the break, and then that could cause a lot of trouble and set you back. So, it is a hard practice to be able to do continuously.

[42:37]

But I think we've done it some this weekend. Okay? I don't know who is next. So, maybe you're next. Are you next? No. Go ahead. Yes. Yes. What do you mean by judgment? Because, what do you mean by judgment? Judgment's just making decisions about... Yes.

[43:56]

So by judgment, you don't mean just that you judged that the blinker was still on. You mean you judged that it would be better if they turned it off? The judging capacity is part of the human mind, and it doesn't stop functioning, basically, even in an enlightened person. Pardon? when judgment in an enlightened person is a wonderful thing. It's very, very helpful. All the functions of mind become helpful. In this case, to be able to tell that there's a left turn signal on, and that goes with them taking a right turn, to notice that and to see that there's something going on there, to notice that there's a left turn signal and turn left, to notice these kinds of things,

[45:18]

a wonderful opportunity if you have the right attitude. If your attitude's off, then this wonderful opportunity becomes an opportunity to enact your off attitude. And if you didn't notice your attitude was off before, judgment will now show you. So all of your equipment of your mind are ways to reveal to you if you're off or to blossom your being on. So judgment in the hands of a balanced loving is a way for them to convey to others their love, to teach children how to set the table in a certain way. Not the right way, but just a way. And have that way be clear. And say, no, the knife goes the other way. The fork goes over there. Turn the dish this way. To show them that in a loving way is a blossoming of love.

[46:24]

It's an opportunity for them to feel love that's inside you. You can get it out in the world where they can interact with you. But if your attitude's off, then the same dishes are a torture chamber for yourself and your children or whoever you're educating. They sit at the table, but basically they remember it painfully, and then they grow up and don't have any dishes in their house because it's so painful to think of how their mother tortured them or their aunt tortured them. Now, my aunt taught me how to, I didn't get trained at home how to use my fork and stuff like that. And I went over to her house, and she trained me nicely, and I appreciated it. And my teacher taught me the forms of Zen. But whenever he was teaching me, I always felt like, oh, goody, another lesson from him. He loves me enough to teach me these things. Like I tell the story about him teaching me how to count people in Japanese. What's a Zen master doing, spending his time teaching some

[47:29]

American kid how to count people in Japanese well he knew how to count them in Japanese he wanted me to know how because I was going to go to Japan so he spent his time teaching me this you know I felt I just I sort of wondered why how come he's spending his time doing this doesn't he have something better to do how and so on but aside from that I appreciated it because I always felt like it was love I never felt like what he was giving me wasn't love so it was always and there's judgment there There was judgment. Like, you know, he taught me to count, and then we were on an airplane, he was teaching me how to count, and then he fell asleep and I stopped counting, so he woke up and said, got me counting again. And then he fell asleep and I stopped and he woke up again and had me counting again. He was right with me and his critical capacity was there to notice and to come out of his sleep to keep me on the job, but it was all a loving process. So the judgment isn't the problem, it's the background attitude that's the problem.

[48:35]

The judgment's a facility of delusion if you're deluded, enlightenment if you're enlightened, it's a facility of hate if you're hating, and it's a facility of love if you're loving. So, again, you work on yourself until finally you really feel love, compassion, joy and equanimity in your heart. That's the way you are now. Then you get on the car and you drive your car, you set the table, you do various things with people to convey this. So when the person turns the corner, This is an opportunity, if you accomplish this practice, to see how it works on that case. The judgment is now a way for you to see, oh my god, the practice is working. Now I think it's delightful, simply delightful, that they kept their signal line.

[49:38]

you might then turn with them, drive up alongside with them, and say, thank you so much for keeping your signal on. And they say, oh, I still have it on? Oh my gosh. Thank you so much. You're not criticizing them, you're telling them you actually appreciate them. She appreciates me, but actually I want it off now. that people often do that with me, you know, they tell me things, stupid things I'm doing, and I, but lovingly, I'd say, oh, thank you. You know, like several times during this retreat, people say, they go, you know, you've got something on your chin. I go, yeah, you got it. But I don't feel like, kind of like going, you know. they're judging but lovingly and then I feel the love and then I'm okay let's wipe it off so judge judgment is not the problem it's the hate that goes with it or the lack of appreciation the lack of equanimity the lack of joy in seeing people drive the way they drive

[50:55]

practices loving kindness then your judgment will be a will be what you call a channel of love and some people don't have such strong judgment channels so that's just not they can't convey their love to the channel because they just don't notice some stuff like some people just don't notice the light the level of lighting in a room they just don't so that's not one of the ways they can convey their love but they notice other things some people don't notice smells so they can't convey this but judgment is a very beautiful thing in an integrated person very beautiful and the funny thing about speaking generally speaking men are more comfortable being critical than women In the society, men are somehow allowed to exercise their critical function. They get more social permission to do that than women. So as a result, women are sometimes not as good at working with men as men.

[52:01]

So my experience is women are more oppressed, more upset about their judgment than men are. But if the person who is not so sophisticated at judging then gets loving kindness behind it, So a lot of people think not striking back is foolish. That's because they don't understand the roots of anger in themselves and in the other. So, practicing loving-kindness towards yourself is the context in which you look deeply into yourself and see the roots of anger. When you see the roots of anger, you will be the peaceful, happy, joyful person you want to be. So first you wish yourself to be happy.

[53:03]

You wish others to be happy. When that feeling is really working in you and you really feel soothed by those good wishes, then you can do the work of looking deeply to see what's going on. When you see what's going on, you will be happy. So being happy makes you somewhat happy, makes you somewhat comfortable. But not only do you have to wish to be happy, but you have to look inside and examine deeply your mind. When you see what's going on, you will be happy. And also, wishing others to be happy also helps you do your work. When you really want other people to be happy and you know you really do, that again helps you do your work. If you don't really want, if you want yourself to be happy, and you don't want others to be happy, you don't really want yourself to be happy enough. If you really give to yourself fully, you don't give to others. When you give to yourself and to others, when you really want to be happy, you really let yourself be happy, you're really willing for yourself to be happy, and you're really willing for others to be happy.

[54:13]

When you know you really want others to be happy, you know you can do your work. Because you know you're not doing your work You know you're doing your work because you want them to be happy. And for them to be happy, you have to do your work. You have to look into your situation, see the roots of your anger, your affliction, your anxiety. That's what you're doing in order for them, in order to help them. fulfill what you want them to have, namely peace, happiness, lightness, and so on. Does that make sense? This is kind of repetitive, but I... Okay. So these are two famous... You know, the basic principle is no matter what they do to you, if you get angry, you're not my student. Or he didn't say, you're not doing my practice. You can still be my student, but you're not doing what I'm teaching you.

[55:16]

I'm teaching you actually to not get angry. Now the Buddha, there are times when getting angry is appropriate, but not when you're getting tortured. Isn't that funny? When you're being tortured, you're not supposed to get angry. When is it appropriate to get angry when it's helpful? When is it helpful to get angry? It's helpful to get angry when somebody else is getting harmed. It's appropriate to get angry when there's harm to be done to other people. Because that's not real. You know, that's in the context of you not getting angry at the person for yourself. It's appropriate to get angry when people aren't practicing the practice they should do. You get angry at them harming themselves. So somebody said to the Buddha, do you teach not to kill, right?

[56:19]

He said, right. Anything that you approve of killing? He said, yes. What? Anger. I approve of killing anger. So the Buddha could get angry at anger, although he doesn't. But you don't get angry at anger in yourself. But not when it comes towards you, but because it's hurting them. But you don't hurt the person. You kill the anger. But how do you kill the anger in the person? By loving them. By loving them, that kills the anger. Love the person, kill the anger. Teach the person how to meditate on their anger and see the roots of it, that kills the anger. So you want to kill the anger. You hate the anger. That's okay. But if you really want to get rid of it, you do it by love. In your self-awareness, you've got to love it.

[57:21]

in the sense of giving it your full attention. And when you understand and pay attention to it lovingly, that's how you find the root of it and it ends. Yeah? I'm having a problem with this. Yeah, I know. To allow someone to torture me is to... I didn't say you should allow them to torture you. He didn't mention that part. If somebody's going to try to torture you, you shouldn't let them do it. He didn't say let people torture you. He said if the person's sawing you in a situation, you shouldn't let them do that, though. You should say, please don't do this. It's really, like, it's not worth your time. It's not going to make you happy. You know, try to talk them out of it if possible. It doesn't say you should let someone torture you. Do not let... If they start torturing you, say, excuse me, I've got to leave.

[58:24]

But if you are being tortured, have you noticed you can't stop people from torturing you? They can torture you anyway. But when you are being tortured, this is about when you are being tortured. I'm not saying, Buddha's not saying, let people torture you. When I'm tortured, that's good, that helps me a bit. However, when I'm tortured... I feel, now maybe I'm the biggest fool of them all, but I feel angry at their actions. Maybe not at the person, but I'm very angry at the behavior. Yeah, he said, don't get angry at the person. But behavior, I can be very angry about. Yeah, it's okay to be... I'm letting them... You're not letting them. Well, if they're torturing me, then it seems in love and kindness to hurt themselves by hurting me. That's right, you wouldn't. So that's why you get angry at the anger. You try to get them to stop hurting themselves.

[59:29]

That's your point of view. Because you love them. So if someone is being cruel to you... you want to help them stop harming you because it's really harming them. Your point of view is you love them and you want to help them somehow get free of hurting you. So you kind of hate the anger because it's hurting them. It's not hurting them. someone else, you can say, oh, we've got to go to work on this. This is a dangerous situation. I hate that anger. You know, I want to kill it. That's a loving use of... That's a loving conjunction of aggression and love. And then you have, hopefully, the skill to back it up because you've been practicing it on yourself.

[60:33]

That you aggressively have pursued meditation on... on your anger and have chewed it up, chewed away the roots of your anger. Does that make more sense now? Thank you for your question. So then the Buddha says, now here's another thing which, another suggestion, okay? He said there's seven things that are gratifying and helpful to your enemies. Your enemies like to see you angry. So if somebody strikes at you and you get angry, they're happy. They basically, they wanted to hurt you, but not only did they hurt you, but they got this extra benefit of you got angry. They don't like to hurt you and have you, like, smile. Like with my daughter, right? If you want to, like, reward your enemies when they hurt you, and you reward people

[61:40]

Seven things you can do to make them happy. Basically all coming from getting angry at them. So if you get angry at them, you reward them in these seven different ways the Buddha mentions. One is you become ugly. They like to see you ugly. When you're angry, you're ugly. Like in the movies, you know, the guy says, you're so beautiful when you're angry. It's not true. So, the... He says, let her be ugly, let him be ugly. Oh, great, she's angry, let him be ugly. Another thing is, let them lie in pain. When you're angry, you're in pain. Let them have no good fortune. Let them not be wealthy. famous, let them have no friends, let them, upon the breakup of the body at death, let them have a bad rebirth.

[62:51]

All those things come to someone who's angry. So the enemy is very happy. The enemy says, oh, I hurt them, now they're angry, now they're friends. Oh, I hurt them, they're angry now, great. Now everybody's afraid to be near them. You know how angry people are? People all the time say, the main thing they say about the person is that they're angry. They forget about everything else because people were so afraid of people who are angry. Our enemies are very happy that they have contributed to us becoming a pariah. So the best revenge to your enemies is to live well. Like that ad, you know, the best revenge is living well. The best revenge on your enemies is to be famous and have everybody talk about, you know, how loving and sweet you are. That really bothers your enemies. That's another thing the Buddha taught.

[63:55]

Should I... Yes? I had a question, now I have two. I had a question with... Is acceptance of feeling anger or hate towards anger? And philosophical... Well, I would say, you know, don't think about it. I'm kidding, actually. But, you know... But the Buddha, somebody did say to the Buddha, is there anything that you would kill? And he said, yeah, anger. So it's okay to apply aggressive energy to the anger itself. He just said, don't get angry at the person. Just like it's okay to apply penetrating energy to the examination of the roots of your own anger and chew it up. But you don't want to actually get into a negative state. about the anger toward it. It might spill over to yourself or others.

[65:01]

So it's really just that laser beam of aggressive penetrating energy towards the root, towards the anger, the examination of understanding its root and letting it drop away when you understand it. That's the reason why you're doing it. If you hate somebody, you wouldn't, you know, hate their anger. You'd like their anger. Can you say, oh, I hate them and they're angry. Great. Because now, I mean, I've given them the poison. They've got, my hate thing has penetrated them. Now it's taking over their life. I'm a success. I've transmitted hate. But if you want, if you see someone and you really want them to become free of their anger, that's because you love them. You want them to live well. You want them to be well. You want them to be happy. So you want that anger to be Dropped. Right?

[66:03]

You want them to be free of it. Intensely, intensely, burningly you want them to be free of that anger. So there's like, there's what, sometimes people say that the Buddha has no desires, you know. Well, the Buddha doesn't attach to desires, but desires do flow through the Buddhas, and desires do make the Buddhas appear in the world. The desires the Buddha have, they desire, they warmly desire that beings will come up to and see and understand and enter into Buddha's wisdom. Buddhas desire that. So, of course, the desire that beings, we know, would drop anger, that would be part of the path to wisdom. That Buddha's out. Do you have another question?

[67:06]

I have a corollary of the first, but soon I'm talking. If your enemy wants to see you in that position, put your anchor in the seventh one. If not... I would think, again, that sounds like kind of a similar religion. For me, I would think the career is joy and happiness, and I would feel it would be for them to feel joy and happiness. For me, it feels joy and happiness, and well, that's expression, regardless of what I put in it. You know, if those things that I had quietly were not keeping with the seven things that they were looking for, I'd be overjoyed. That seems like a greater happiness. Yeah, I agree. It is a greater happiness. That's revenge. Okay? If you want to take revenge on them, those are the best ways of revenge. If you wanted revenge, that would be the good revenge.

[68:09]

But if you don't want it to be revenge, then it might be part of your happiness. Did any of you ever, ever, anybody ever, if you ever fight with people like, you know, an actual fight, like I used to be a boxer, if you're boxing with somebody, you know, and you can get them angry, they're not as effective in fighting you as if they're not angry. And you sometimes see the fights with a person, you know, but that anger is actually draining their energy. They're less accurate being angry. The good boxers are not angry. They're cool. And they love their opponents. And they want to free their opponents from gaining ideas. No, no, just put him into a nice rest. Anger drains you. Drains you.

[69:12]

It's overkill. So the Buddha kills anger, but the Buddha isn't draining anger and killing the anger. It's the clear, loving insight that kills the anger. So there's many, many more examples here. Yes? I was going to say something about the roots of anger, but I think I know it's probably the greed, hate, and delusion, but where did that all come from in each of us? Greed, hate, and delusion? No, that's the same thing. Anger is one of the... Greed, hate, and delusion, that's anger. Attachment to a separate self. It's attachment to a separate self. That's the root of anger. Attachment to... in your separate existence. That's the root of anger. That's the root of greed. That is delusion. So the root is the delusion.

[70:13]

Delusion is the root... And it's the delusion that I live, I'm separate from you. That's the basic delusion. And that can bloom into anger and attachment. So this loving, this kind of loving meditation addresses the anger. And it addresses Because this love is a love that doesn't have attachment. And love that doesn't have attachment addresses the delusion. Because when you love someone without attachment, you're realizing interdependence. But when you attach to someone, it's as though they're separate from you. When you feel separate from someone and independent of them and you like them, then you attach to them. If you feel independent of somebody you don't like, then you hate them.

[71:18]

So when you love people, even people who irritate you, and you don't attach to people you're attracted to and that you feel love towards, then you realize interdependence. So that removes the delusion. Or it takes you to the delusion and starts to erode it. Then you look at this basic belief, which you can now do because you're not getting whipped around by attachment and you're not getting whipped around by anger. So now you can look at the basic problem, which is that you think you're separate, independent of other beings. That's the root of greed, hate, and delusion. So there are... I just wanted to tell you the extent of this. I can't go into all these, but it says, after these ones I just told you about, then it says, it says, after these, okay, after the going over and over, going into trance, coming back, trying it again, blah, blah, blah,

[72:23]

and then hearing these strong messages from Buddha and then thinking of the seven things that your enemies like and all that, then he says, if her resentment subsides when she strives and makes this kind of effort, it's good. If it's not, then she should remove her remembering She should remove the irritation. She should remove the irritation by remembering some of the controlled and purified states in that person which inspire confidence when remembered. So then he goes into these five ways of looking at somebody that's irritating you to prevent yourself from getting angry. Okay? Do you want to hear about them or should I just... Okay. Five basic ways are... And I must say, I feel this is a little bit... You know, and this is like, this message was, this was delivered by Shariputra on behalf of the Buddha to the monks.

[73:30]

So here's one of the greatest Buddhist saints of all time who says, you know, there are some people who, if you, like, look at them and see what they're doing physically, you cannot see it. It just, you know, it just makes you sick to look at them. The great saint said that, you know. There are some people who, if you look at the way they walk, just the way they stand, the way they open a door, the way they drink their tea, the way they eat, you know. In college, you know. And He did this really neat thing, you know, that just drove me nuts. He would, like, go to the store and he'd buy himself some Oreo cookies and a quart of milk. And he'd come home and he'd sit down. Oreo cookies down and pour himself a glass of milk and then he would take a little bite of the cookie and take a little sip of milk. And it was like, this is like a really sweet thing to do, right? And just to drive me crazy to see him there having this little dainty Oreo milk feast.

[74:39]

They had this show on TV which was called The Honeymooners with Jackie Gleason and Art Carney and Audrey Meadows, was it? At various times, I don't know what, but various times, Jackie Gleason had Art Carney write something out. Write a letter or sign a document or something. And Art Carney, whenever he would, you know, whenever he'd get ready to sign something, he would go... ...you know, to get into it, to get relaxed, you know. He'd do these various motions, you know. And then finally, Jack Peterson would... And then he would... So people do these things which just drive us nuts, you know. Even things that aren't that... ...get us for some reason, you know.

[75:42]

You know about that? I mean, and more disgusting things than that, too, sometimes. But anyway, it gets us. It gets us. For some reason, it gets us, you know. It just climbs the walls, you know. Right? So then, but these same people, sometimes when they talk, they have a really nice voice. Same person. And when they talk, they say really good stuff, but their voice sounds very nice. So the Buddha says... Just ignore their body. Don't look at their body. Just listen. Close your eyes. Look the other way and listen to their voice. And you listen to their voice, you start to feel... And then the resentment starts to go in and you can practice loving kindness towards them. Now, some people are the other way around. Some people, their voice... My wife is very sensitive to these beautiful women, you know, walking around at restaurants, you know, and they sit down and they go... You know? They're so beautiful. Terrible voices, you know, they just drive my wife crazy.

[76:43]

Well, what do you do? You just look at their body, you know. But, you know, concentrate on that beautiful face. Or some people actually, like, they have these terrible voices. Bad karma is, like, coming out in their voice. But they're actually, like, what they do with their body is really helpful and skillful and encouraging. Look at their body. Look what they're doing with their body. their voice, a terrible voice, but they're really helpful. Just look at that. Okay? That's the second case. What's the third case? Well, the third case is the person's voice is not too good. Okay? Pretty irritating voice. And also, if you look at the way they walk, and the way they eat, the way they open doors, what they're doing with their body, it's kind of like you can't, you know, you're basically, everywhere you look, you're irritated. And the Buddha says, but everybody, the Buddha says, everybody has some virtues.

[77:54]

He says everybody has some virtues. So try to find, if you're traveling along and you're starving, you're dying of thirst, and there's no water around, and then you see like the footprint of a water buffalo in the ground, and there's a little water in the footprint. You can't even pick it up with the water up. But if you get down there with a straw, you can sip up a little bit of water. And that can keep you going for a while. So he's saying everybody can find something, some little good thing.

[78:34]

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