The practice of the true mind of faith, of the true body of faith. At a time like this, when there's so much violence, it seems all the more that we find peace. In order to find peace this year, particularly, there's a commitment to study the wisdom teachings of the Buddha and to meditate on these teachings. For example, the teaching that if we can find the middle way, the middle way that things really are existing, that that will bring peace and enlightenment. and freedom.

[01:03]

Some of you have already been into these teachings for a few months, and some of you are new to this meditation hall. So I want to again mention that the wisdom teachings emphasize a different type of meditation from compassion teachings. And we should all continue to do our compassion meditations alongside the wisdom meditations. but I will be emphasizing the wisdom path more today. But still I want to mention that some of you are, I know from talking, a form of meditation which is more on the compassion side of practice.

[02:26]

For example, meditating in a way that gives rise to tranquility that gives rise to physical and mental flexibility and buoyancy and energy and ease and calm is more the tranquility and some of you are are working on that type, and it's fine with me if you continue that during this talk and throughout the day. But I'm still going to be offering teachings of meditations which are on the wisdom side of things. And as I've mentioned before, the type of training of attention, or training of mental attention, which give rise to tranquility, which come to fruit as tranquility, are basically

[03:57]

while giving up discursive thought. Giving up discursive thought comes to fruit as tranquility. So many people, for example, pay attention to their breath. And paying attention to the breath is fine, but what brings tranquility is paying attention to the breath and giving up the thought while paying attention to the breath. In other words, giving up thinking about the breath and talking about the breath, or give up all kinds of wandering thoughts

[05:04]

around the breath. And just look at the breath or the posture or the sound of the airplane. Of course, it's possible to hear the sound of the airplane and then have quite a few of one, quite a few one airplanes. But giving up the wandering thoughts about airplanes and breath and posture and other things is actually a kind of compassion practice. So on the side of developing tranquility meditation, we give up discursive thought. On the side of wisdom, we use discursive thought in a certain way of the nature of existence. This morning you chanted what's called the Fukanzazengi.

[06:14]

And in that text, Fukanzazengi, general admonitions on the ceremony of seated meditation, in part of that text it gives instructions about tranquility. It says, cast aside all affairs, cease or give up the movements of the conscious mind, be engaging in pros and cons. In other words, give up discursive thought is recommended in the text. So an instruction on tranquility is given in the text. It says, Something like, learn the backward step that turns the light around and shines it inward or shines it back. And then body and mind of themselves will drop away.

[07:19]

You know, face will manifest. Remember that part? This turning the light around in such a way that the body and mind drop away is a wisdom instruction. And then later in the text, it says again, a little bit later, it gives more detailed practical instructions about how to assume the physical posture of sitting. And then I think it says something like, settle into a steady immobile sitting position. And again, one way to understand settling into a steady immobile sitting position is that you develop this way of sitting still, but also that you sit still

[08:24]

in the sense that you don't wander away from, you give up wandering thoughts in relationship to this posture. When you experience your sitting posture, you give up wandering about, wandering away from and back to the sitting posture. or as the different moments of postural experience arise, your mind doesn't move from one moment. Your mind doesn't move from object to object. Your mind doesn't move from this posture to the next posture, or this posture to a better posture, or this posture to a worse posture, or this posture to the sound of an airplane in back. This is a steady immobile sitting position. The mind doesn't move.

[09:28]

You train your mind to not move among the different objects. So that's a kind of calming instruction. Settle into a steady immobile sitting position. Actually, not even then. He just says, I think, settle into a steady, immobile sitting position. Think of not thinking. How do you think of not thinking? Or what kind of thinking is thinking about not thinking? And then he says, non-thinking. This is the essential art of satsang. So we settle into a steady immobile sitting position and then we do a kind of thinking. Getting into a steady immobile sitting position, in a sense, is to give up discursive thought. Give up thinking. Settle into a sitting position where you give up thinking.

[10:34]

And you can do that for a moment or all day long. Sit. and give up thinking. Sit and give up discursive thinking. And suddenly somebody says, think of not thinking. A wisdom teaching has now come. Now we're being told to think. How do you think? That question is thinking more. How do you think of not thinking? The answer is, this is the essential art of zazen. In other words, thinking about this teaching is the essential art of zazen. Or essential in the sense that it's a wisdom teaching.

[11:38]

It's the wisdom aspect of meditation. or it's essential in the sense that it is the teaching about realizing the essential of our sitting practice, or the essential of Buddhism. We will realize the essential when we can think of not thinking. But in order to think of not thinking, we have to learn non-thinking. So we have to learn thinking, which we've been doing quite a while already. We must continue to learn to think And we now have to learn how to practice non-thinking. And if we can practice non-thinking, to think of not thinking, or to think of unthinking. All this together, this dynamic, is the essential art of the sitting meditation of the Buddhas and ancestors. And we begin the meditation on the wisdom practice and the wisdom teachings, how to contemplate non-thinking.

[13:03]

Now, for those of you who are also hearing the teachings from the Sambhinirmacana Sutra, the teachings of the characters of all phenomena, and the three types of lack of own being, this meditation on non-thinking, which the Zen teacher Dogen is recommending as the beginning of the essential art of Zazen, is the same, I feel, as meditating on the other dependent character of phenomena. It's the same as meditating on the way everything you experience is actually in terms of producing itself. In other words, everything you meet, every experience you have doesn't produce itself.

[14:13]

And the way it doesn't produce itself is the beginning of the process. Meditating on the way it doesn't produce itself Meditating on the way what you see, what you feel, what you think, what you taste, what you hear. Meditating on how all these experiences do not produce themselves, have no essence, makes them happen. Meditating on that is the beginning of the meditation of the essential art of zazen. You may be doing this today, which is fine. And if you don't, you perhaps may just want to sit and give up thinking, give up discursive thought. And that's a wonderful, compassionate way to spend the day.

[15:16]

And it's not just compassion towards yourself. It reaches everywhere. It would be very good if we all just sat today and practiced tranquility. But I am offering this wisdom teaching for the time when you feel ready and wanting to do it. So you'll be educated about how to practice wisdom when you feel it's the right time. Non-thinking has sometimes also been translated as beyond thinking. So one way to learn how to practice non-thinking is to learn how to practice meditating on and contemplating what is beyond thinking.

[16:37]

So one way to approach this is every event that comes to you, everything you meet, every person you meet, every behavior of every person you meet, the way it appears to you, the teaching of non-thinking to that experience. You bring the teaching that or that, or of, what is beyond what you can think about this? What is beyond your thinking about? The way this thing appears to you right now is your thinking. Generally speaking, what you think is happening now is what you think is happening now. What's happening now is not what you or I think is happening now.

[17:45]

But also what's happening now is not nothing at all. It's something that's beyond what you think is happening and what I think is happening. And it's also beyond me thinking that it's beyond what's happening. It's totally Like, it's beyond what I think is happening. However, what you think is happening, although it's not what's happening, is based on what's happening. What you think is happening is not based on nothing at all. It's based on what's actually happening and it's based on how what's happening is happening. It's got a base. And we're trying to learn how to meditate on the base of what we think is happening. But the way you do that, or a way to do that is to remember, oh, what's happening, who this person is I'm looking at, has a quality, has a nature, has a character that is beyond what I'm thinking.

[19:08]

However, I'm not getting into that right now, but it's also true that everything you meet also has a quality of being what you think it is. I mean, it has that quality. In other words, the way things are for us, it does have that aspect of appearing to be just what we think it is. And we actually don't know anything more than that about it. That's all we actually see is like, what do you think? Like, I think this person is sweet. Or I think this person is sweet and I don't think they're any other way right now. And I hope they continue to be that way so I can keep thinking that they're sweet. We get into this kind of stuff, right? Being rude So I wouldn't have to think they're rude. But if they're not actually rude, there's not actually a rudeness there.

[20:10]

They're actually something beyond your idea of their being rude. The idea that they're difficult or easy, challenging or complimentary. they're totally beyond what you think they are. The way they are, by the way, even though you can't see it, because the way they are is beyond your thinking, the way they are Things don't make themselves. The person you see, the rudeness you experience, that rudeness doesn't make itself.

[21:12]

The rudeness isn't trying to be rude. The rudeness, maybe, there might be a wish to be rude, but that wish to be rude doesn't make itself. All that stuff depends on things other than itself. Everything that appears to you is actually a puppet of things other than itself. Plus, you don't see that. And what you see, though, is your idea of this this little chunk of essencelessness that's being given to you and not taken away because the things that gave it to you changed, and so it did too. Now, stories can be told about the wonderful things that will happen if you learn to meditate on non-thinking, if you learn to remember and be mindful of the practice of non-thinking, the practice of non-thinking, the practice of remembering that what you're looking is beyond your thinking of what you're looking at.

[22:38]

Lots of good things, wonderful things will come forth from this meditation. But rather than get into those today, I thought I might get into how difficult it is to meditate on non-thinking or practice non-thinking. How difficult it is to remember when you're looking at your own behavior and looking at your own thoughts and plans and wishes, to remember this teaching applies to all this stuff. When an intention to do to your awareness, when you feel an impulse, that impulse has this other-dependent quality, has this, the way this thing is, is beyond your thinking. So learn to practice non-thinking with everything that you experience, everything you feel, everything you think.

[23:43]

everything you perceive, which is really not a perception so much, but as your conception of what it is and your conception as you're thinking about it. I say learn to do this. I don't mean to give you an order. I mean learning to do the essential art of zazen is the first step in the wisdom essence of zazen. I can't remember exactly how I heard this, but it's English that I heard, and of course it's not a course, and it is a translation of something in Japanese that a Zen teacher said.

[24:48]

He said something like, I think it was, gain is delusion, loss is enlightenment. And so that, or something like that. Gain is illusion, or gaining is illusion, and losing is enlightenment. I don't know which is a better way to put it, but... And so I've been thinking about this quite a bit in relationship to meditating on what's beyond our thinking, or meditating on how things depend on things other than themselves for their existence. And the way I feel now to put it is, it seems like when you see a loss, when you see a loss, when a loss appears to you, that phenomena of loss, that appearance,

[25:59]

has another dependent character, just like the appearance of gain. In other words, when you feel like, oh, there's a loss, like a loss of something that you feel you lost, or something that someone you care about lost, When you see that loss, really what's happening there is that this thing has this other dependent nature, which is that what it really is, loss, is actually beyond what you think it is. It's beyond, for example, that it's a loss. There's something there that this sense of loss is based on, but what it actually is is beyond the loss. If I, and usually when I think I've got a loss on my hands or a loss on my body, at that time usually I, do I like it?

[27:16]

Usually not. Now I could say, well, if you lost sickness, well, that's, and they say, well, I like that because that's a gain of health. I'm talking about you lose something basically that you like, like your life or something like that, or your good looks. Now really what's happening here is beyond your thinking that it's a loss. Again, usually I think that what's happening is what I think is happening. I don't like it. But if, I'm not saying to like it, but if I would open to the teaching that loss is enlightenment, what does that mean? It means that if I open to the loss, I open to what's beyond my thinking about the loss.

[28:27]

If I just experience the loss without shrinking back, that means I'm experiencing the loss without believing that it's what I think it is, or I'm giving up a little bit on my belief that what's happening is what I think it is. Opening to the loss rather than shrinking back from it and trying to avoid it opens my eyes. I'm enlightened by the opening to the loss. Opening to loss is a door to the way things are. What happens to me when I lose? Do I tighten? Do I become unhappy? or, and, or, me, or, and, do I like say, oh, here's an opening, here's a door.

[29:46]

Now when I gain, and I, you say, well then do you open to the gain, would that be the same? Opening to the gain is that you don't shrink back from thinking that it's a gain. You grab it. Yes, it's a gain. So then that's like closing your eyes. It's delusion. And isn't that common that we grasp and hold and welcome when we think it's a gain, that's delusion. If you reject and fight back when there's a loss, that's delusion too. But if you just lose, if you can just lose,

[30:53]

you have just opened to that things might be beyond what you... In other words, maybe this isn't really what I think it is. Maybe this isn't really a loss. And you can practice on little things before you do it on, like, the big ones. There's lots of little ones to practice it on. and to notice how hard it is. the opening to the meditation called non-thinking means opening to loss.

[32:09]

And opening to loss is like being afraid. Open is kind of like opening to what you're afraid of. Opening to what we're afraid of means opening to losing your life, opening to losing your health, opening to losing your sanity, opening to losing your children, opening to losing your parents, your spouse. Open to that. Not like... opening to something that's not going to happen, opening to something that's happening all the time. It's kind of like opening to fear because we're afraid of those things, aren't we? Sometimes, a little bit. But this opening is not the... It's a little bit different than opening to these specific fears which we sometimes feel.

[33:26]

It's a deeper... It's like being afraid of something which is beyond all that stuff. Meditating on what's beyond our thinking, learning to practice non-thinking, is really, really full of awe. So I'm not saying, well, fill yourself with awe or fill yourself with fear. I'm more saying open to what's beyond your thinking. And if you start to feel full of awe, that's like, ...this type of meditation, which you may not be up for today.

[34:27]

And I may not be up for it either. Or you might want to just take a little peek at it. This is using your discursive thought not to think about how you can avoid losing anything today, but using your discursive thought to be mindful that everything that you experience all day long, every day, is beyond your thinking. And if we do that, and even apply it to situations where we're losing something, we start to to the other dependent character phenomena, and we start to feel a deep, deep shudder.

[35:53]

And shudder means but it also has that meaning of opening up. Like shutters on a window, they open. Without some shuttering, they are already closed. They're closed in the sense of what's happening is what I think it is. Now, you're not going to say that out loud, but deep inside, there's a shutter that's closed and says, what I think is happening is what's happening. Opening this teaching, it doesn't even stay open. It flickers back and forth. Because you keep getting new installments of what you think is happening, which look like what's happening. You think it's what's happening. But then you have a teaching which comes to meet that and says, open to the possibility.

[37:01]

0.25%. This is a variable rate account. The maximum APR for this account can never exceed 18%. Although it might happen, don't use it as a sign, because using it as a sign, then you're going to think, you see, that that what's happening is what you should be doing, then you get caught by it again. You're caught by your thinking again. Just more like, if you do become really, really afraid, this is like, this can happen.

[38:03]

I don't want to say exactly par for the course. I'll just say it's part of how difficult it is to open to another world. It's part of what's difficult about waking up and, like, staying awake after you wake up and not saying, oh, that's enough of that. I'm going back to sleep. I don't need this awe. How am I going to eat my lunch with awe? You know, oh, God, oh, gee, oh. No, none of this is lunch good. Let's see, we have... Take a little break from that. When I was a kid, my little family went through some rough times financially in the sense that we didn't have much money.

[39:04]

It wasn't that we had too much. And, you know, we're like hoarding it and afraid we're going to get robbed all the time. We had a little bit of money, but we tended to When we had it, we spent it on food right away. And sort of at the beginning of the month when we got our money, we had quite a bit to eat. But then towards the end of the month, there was not much left in the house to eat. And so when I went to school some days, I didn't bring a... you know, a lunch in my little lunchbox. And also, I didn't have any money to buy anything at the cafeteria. So at lunchtime, I didn't want to, like, go to the cafeteria and beg. I hadn't yet learned. You know, you, like, sit there and, you know, have other kids say, what's the matter with you?

[40:09]

Why aren't you eating? So I went home. Some kids went home for lunch. So I went home, and there was no food, but what I used to do is watch TV during lunch. There was a show on TV. It was called Casey Jones. It was about the guy who ran the show was like a guy who was impersonating the famous American, what do you call it, train engineer? And so that was his thing. And on that lunch at that noontime show, which showed cartoons, he actually would lay out a lunch. He would put out a sandwich and soup. and a glass of milk. And I remember the glass of milk was in one of these tumblers that they had in the, this is the 50s, right? This is the 50s, or late 40s or 50s, and these tumblers with the clear and colored alternating.

[41:17]

They'd pour milk in there, and then there was also hostess cupcakes for dessert. So he'd lay out the lunch there, and sometimes carrots and celery. I watched him eat his lunch on TV, and then I'd go back to school. But it's nice to have lunch set out there like that. So today at lunch, you put these little bowls out there, and you can have lunch. That's nice, huh? You don't have to meditate on how each one of these bowls is actually like way beyond what you think it is. You don't have to actually there in front of you is like totally beyond, totally beyond what you think it is. You don't have to do that. Just have lunch. But if you want to, you can do it right then at lunch. You can like do that like You can do it all day long if you're up for it.

[42:23]

And if you get scared, that's an understatement of what you might feel. It's not wrong that you would feel that way. Again, it's not par for the course, but it's one of the... You sort of have to be up for that. That's why you might want to practice tranquility a lot so that you'd be up for it. so that you feel calm enough to stand the awesomeness of the way things are. The awesomeness of the essential art of sitting meditation. And this is the ground meditation, the basic meditation of non-thinking. Then following from that we meditate on thinking of not thinking. Then we turn to our thinking and study our thinking and learn what is not that, which is different from what is beyond that.

[43:36]

So first we start studying what's beyond that, and then when we're well-based in that, we will start turning towards and learning what is not the thinking. That's another, that's the next step. Anything that will happen, that could happen when you start opening to this other dependent character, again, this may sound nicer, is that opening to the practice of non-thinking is that you start to feel an urgency. When I think that what's happening is what I think, when I think that what I think, when I believe that what I think is what's happening, then I take care of some things but not others.

[44:57]

Then I am stinting. Then I'm stinting. Stinting in some cases. and unstinting or over-generous in others. When you do this practice, things start to become more equal because everything is an equal opportunity employer of this meditation. Every person the ones you find sweet and adorable, and the ones you find repulsive are equal opportunities. I realize that this repulsive person and this really attractive person are actually the basis of my thoughts about them being repulsive and lovely. is totally beyond these thoughts I have about them.

[46:08]

And the more I open to that, the more I'm willing to give them both my whole heart. Not give one heart and a half. You can have my heart. Here, take it. And here, have some more. But just my whole heart. not too much. And the other one, not half my heart or none of my heart, a thimbleful of my heart, a speck of my heart. You can have a speck. I guess you're human, you can have a speck. That means when I feel that way, that means Hey, I'm human. I'm thinking that this person, this repulsive person, is actually what I think they are, which is repulsive. That's what I think.

[47:08]

I can't help it. I'm not in control of my thoughts. My thoughts are other dependent phenomena. I'm just a puppet of various conditions. And that's true. You can't help thinking that some people are, like, not worthy of your whole heart. But that's not what they are, really. But that is what you think they are. And that's important too. Because we'll have to know what we think they are in order to later move on to find out what it means to think of not that. But for starters, again... See if you can maybe that you don't, that you are stinting, that you are stinting, that you do hold yourself back in some cases because of what you think and overdo it in other cases because of what you think.

[48:16]

Notice that. That will be maybe a way to find what it would be like again to go back to the meditation of whatever's happening today, moment by moment, is beyond thinking. And then notice how that, does it have any effect? You're starting to equalize your energy and make you, you know, unstinting. Moment by moment. There are other aspects in the challenging course of transformation that occurs in this mind training. This training of our mind to be mindful of a teaching which will transform our way of seeing.

[49:19]

But maybe that's enough for today. Just to tell you that mind training mind transformation or like priest training or whatever, it's an awesome reorientation. Reorientation that makes cracks in the walls of our prison. And when those cracks in the prison walls occur, sometimes lots of stuff comes flowing in. As the energy starts flowing, it can be really, really surprising and shocking. That's not the whole point. It's sort of the basic practice, the basic meditation. So maybe some of you already are feeling kind of like, what do you call it, reoriented? And again, reorientation can feel like disorientation because you're disorientated. So I encourage you to, again, practice compassion alongside of this difficult transformational process that you might be starting to go through.

[50:40]

And sometimes the way to do it is just take a break and have lunch with everything set out in a nice orderly fashion and the bowls and stuff aren't jumping beyond your thinking. But then take a break from that maybe and practice non-thinking for a little while. Did you have a question? Is that a question? Yes? How to hold? Okay, so there's this war situation and I can tell you I want myself to, I want to live in such a way as to promote peace under these circumstances, so how do I relate to the war?

[51:55]

Fundamentally, I try to meditate on the wall, thinking about it in the hopes that this meditation will allow this body and mind to relate appropriately under these circumstances. I don't know what my behavior will be. I can't predict it really, but I'm actually making a commitment in terms of how to train my attention and my mind. I'm making a commitment to this teaching to see how this teaching, if I meditate, gives rise to my influences and gives rise to my responses and watch my responses and see for my life, does it contribute to a peaceful way of living. The awesomeness of this recognition, even before... The awesomeness of what?

[53:02]

You spoke about awe and fear, seeing the dependent nature. Yes. Even before you see that, you have this awe and fear. You've got awe and fear before, right? Yeah. This is... The difference... If you are meditating on something that you're afraid of, like that someone will get hurt, You feel some fear that someone's going to get hurt, that someone's going to be harmed, that someone's going to be really injured, and you're afraid of that.

[54:04]

That's a certain kind of fear you can feel. Now, if you're open to the fact that the fear you feel and the injury you imagine, that what both of those things are, beyond your thinking about them right now, that'll be a different kind of fear. an additional fear on top of the ones you have or beyond the ones you have now. And it's more inward. It's inside you, that other fear. It's not out there. This isn't that fear. What you feel in the face of what's happening is not what you're thinking. It's beyond what you're thinking. Again, I'm not saying it's not what you're thinking because what's happening is closely related to what you're thinking. because what you're thinking is based on what's happening. What we think the war is based on what's happening. As you know, some people, the way they think about this war, they think it's a good idea.

[55:08]

They think, you know, terrible but good. That's the way they think about it. No matter how we think about it. This is the hard part for a lot of people. Well, either way, no matter what we think about it, it's not... what we think about it. Actually, it's beyond what we think about it. What we think about is based on it, but it actually has an aspect, a fundamental aspect that's beyond our thinking. When you open to that, you'll be afraid. An inner sense of loss, of control. An inner sense of loss and confidence in your own thinking. It's not out there that somebody's going to get hurt by this, out there. Now you may translate this into, well, if I feel this way, will I be able to take care of my children? But really it starts inside, it's not outside.

[56:11]

And it starts inside because you're letting things change inside. It's a deeper, actually, change. are going to happen in the world, like that this child is going to change from a healthy, happy child into a maimed or diseased or murdered child. You're afraid of that. That's terrible. This inner fear is harder to face than that. Are you giving it up? Are you giving it up? Yes. Because you're giving up believing what is happening is actually what's happening. You're giving it up for a while. This is part of the dangerous process.

[57:12]

And if you would give up that and then switch into by giving up that, not giving up those things, then you shouldn't do this meditation. This shouldn't flip over to, well, it doesn't matter if I kill people. Then this meditation isn't appropriate for you. This meditation actually should start to promote your caring for more beings than before. It may not instantly give you that feeling, but it should fairly soon start evening your concern for beings and making you less, what do you call it, what's the word, partial to the people who agree with you. It should make you actually, can you imagine, open, somewhat open, more open to the people who you disagree with about this present situation.

[58:14]

and less sort of close to your little group of like-minded people. Less close to? No, not less close to. More close to, actually, which means less sure that your group is right, is closer to your group. You're actually closer to the way your group really is when you're less sure that you think they are. But that's a scary transition. So this is a dangerous situation. When we feel in danger, we don't necessarily want to open to more danger. But I guess what I'm proposing is that the path to liberation from this dangerous situation involves opening to more dangers than a previous, a new set of dangers. So in addition to the dangers of living at the level of believing that the world's what we think it is, there's dangers in that world, now we're going to open to a whole new set of dangers.

[59:23]

Yes. In addition to the dangers that would happen if you just continue believing the way things are is the way you have been believing that things are. Continuing that road, there will be dangers. But also, one of the dangers of that path is that you will just stay in that pattern and you won't get out. The dangers of retraining your mind is that you get a whole new set of dangers on top of that. However, some of the dangers of the previous ones are still there because you can always flip back into the previous ones and have all the problems you used to have. But it might not happen. You might not have the old problems. But actually it sounds good to have the old problems too to me. So I think it's better to have all the old problems than a whole new set of problems. But taking on the whole new set of problems, although it doesn't eliminate the old problems, it sets up a new possibility.

[60:34]

It sets up a possibility of liberation. That's its selling point. But it sounds awfully expensive. And it is. It's really expensive. It's kind of like awesomely expensive. Personally, it feels good to be dealing with something so expensive, something that requires total payment, not holding back anything. Can I explain what's more? Well, just that, you know, like, he got something here and he says, what's the problem with everything?

[61:41]

What do you got? Hand it over. Doesn't that sound expensive? And so I'm saying, yeah, wow, this is awfully expensive, but it also feels good that somebody required me to hand over everything. And then I'd be finally like, wouldn't have to worry about carrying all this stuff around anymore. It'd be like, hey, you got it all. What a relief. Finally, I paid everything. And I'm not anymore being The thing which I like to do, but I'm free of that now. How can we be free if we're holding on? And yet when it comes time to pay off, we get scared. So how can we pay it all? Is that enough further explanation?

[62:46]

Or do you want more? It's good? That was easy. Wasn't very expensive. Let's see, we have Steven and Joe. I just want to check my idea of this kind of very basic practice of suggestion. Well, it's not so much correct or incorrect. It sounds good, though. But I actually sometimes say that to myself. And I'm pretty happy with the way I am when I'm actually thinking that. I'm never going to... I shouldn't say never, but it makes me not want to hurt anybody just because I think they deserve to be hurt.

[63:53]

Get the picture? I think this person deserves punishment. But they're actually beyond what they actually are. It's beyond my idea that they deserve punishment, so I'm not going to punish them. And I say, well, maybe I'll punish them a little. Nope, they're beyond. They're actually beyond your idea that this person deserves punishment and you're the nearest person, so you should be the one to do it. So you don't punish them. How about, this person deserves my reward. They're beyond that, too, so you won't reward them. So you don't reward them or punish them. You say, well, shouldn't I be rewarding them? Hey, you reward them when you don't reward them or punish them. You're with them moment after moment, moment after moment. You're there, boom, [...] boom. Each moment you're there, paying attention to the person, looking at them, watching what you think, and not going for that, remembering this is a big reward to that person.

[64:58]

They get to be with you. Awestruck, unstinting, and I'll tell you more later. Joe, scared and unstinting. You know, it's kind of like being with God. Mystery that's like, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, whatever you want. How about you? Okay, here. This is a big reward to whatever that is. You are like now this person's total... You're a gift to everybody when you're in this mode. But you're not trying to reward or punish people. You're actually in the mode of meditating on them in terms of the teaching and making yourself in that way a gift to all beings. But you don't know who to reward or punish.

[66:02]

You just know who you think you should reward and punish, and you're not into what you think anymore, at least for the moment. I shouldn't say anymore. At the moment, you're not into what you think people are. So right now, you're not into what you think I am. And when you do that, you open up to like, what's he going to ask of me now? And how would I be able to resist? Because if he asks for something that I think I should resist, he's actually beyond that resist-deserving guy, resistance-deserving creature. Joe? He's smiling back there for some reason. Yeah. Correct.

[67:15]

Correct is not just one payment. It is on the installment plan, but you pay the whole thing and then pay the whole thing and then pay the whole thing. It's not just one time pay the whole thing. And it's not just one time. Liberation is reenacted then each moment. The liberation is also impermanent. The liberation is... A dependently co-arisen thing, too. It's an other-dependent thing. The liberation is beyond your thinking, too. It's impermanent. It arises when we relate properly to other impermanent things. And then it's all over, and here's another thing happening. And then pay it totally, and there's another liberation. And that's gone, and here's another thing. Always going beyond, beyond, beyond. Non-stop, non-start. To the other part of the question I have, I would like to just maybe think in terms of maybe thinking that I'm wrong when things are beyond.

[68:27]

I mean, what is the difference, actually, between thinking that I'm wrong when things are beyond what I believe them to be and then beyond what I do? You know, a couple of times I said things are not what you think they are. But I think when you're learning to meditate on dependent core arising, when you're learning to meditate in a way that we call non-thinking, it may be more correct or more helpful to say it's not that things are not what you think they are. Things are beyond the way you think they are because what you think things are are related. They're based on, you're thinking about things are based on what the things actually are.

[69:29]

They're related. It's not like they're not related. They're related. They're together and yet They're beyond. Beyond I think is better than not. So it's not exactly that you're wrong about the way things are. The wrong part, if there's a wrong, it's that you're wrong to think that the way you think things are is the way they are. That's wrong. But the way you think about them is not exactly wrong. So, for example, that you think that there's a self to yourself, to your person, to your being, that's a misconception. But if you know it's a misconception, you're not wrong. But if you believe it, then you're wrong. You know, then you're in trouble. So it just... And if you... Yeah. Yeah.

[70:31]

So going around saying you're wrong all the time might be helpful, but it might be also just saying, if I believe that what I think is the way things are, then I'm wrong. But just that I think things are a certain way is not necessarily wrong. It's just that they aren't that way. You say, okay, then that's wrong. Okay, if that's what you mean by wrong, then I guess we're wrong. Is that enough? No? You have some other point on that? No? So when the Zen teacher was settled into a steady, immobile sitting position, his students said to him, what kind of thinking is going on there when you're sitting still like that?

[71:56]

And he said, thinking of not thinking. That's the kind of thinking he was doing. And the monk says, what is thinking of not thinking? And he said, non-thinking. But you could also say, What is thinking not thinking, you could say? So that's another way to approach everything. Everything you look at, it's a mystery. But if you think that if you do that, that that would mean that if And now, if you saw some harm being done to someone, and then you would say, this is a mystery, and that you would convert that into, well, let the harm be done, no problem, then this is not appropriate for you.

[73:01]

If you see yourself about to do something cruel to someone, And then you think, oh, well, this cruelty I'm planning is really beyond my thoughts that it's cruel, so I guess it doesn't matter if I do it. And then you would think of going ahead and doing it based on this meditation. That's not appropriate for you or for me. This meditation shouldn't make you less careful of protecting beings. It should actually make you equally careful. I shouldn't say equally careful. Again, it might make you a little less careful than you are about yourself now. Because generally speaking, we're too careful about ourself. We're too worried about ourselves. We're overly concerned with protecting ourselves and not enough concerned about protecting some other people. So it should actually, if you do this meditation, it should not remove your concern to protect beings. It should make you more evenly concerned with protecting beings.

[74:06]

so that you'd want to protect beings that are rude to you as much as you'd want to protect beings that are sweet to you. Rather than you say, hey, this person's a mystery, so I can punch him in the face. You know, this punch isn't really what I think it is. This meditation that makes me more frightened of the awesomeness of reality, of beings, should actually soften me and make me more gentle. If not instantly, fairly short order. So watch out for that. That's another danger of wisdom meditations is that you could think, hey, nothing matters because everything's beyond what I think it is. No, that's a mistake. Does that make sense? So I'm thinking again, and my thinking is to watch, for me to watch, where I'm stinting, who I care more about than somebody else, or who I care less about than somebody else, and then look to see when I care more or less, am I doing that meditation at that moment?

[75:53]

I think maybe that I'll find I'm not in a position when I care more about this person than that person. Maybe. You can check it out. See. Practice of the true mind.

[76:11]

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