So in wisdom teaching, compassion teachings aren't so much that way. Usually when you're compassionate, you feel good about it and you don't feel like, well, now I want to be mean. Not usually. But usually when you're are patient, you think, that was good. Usually when you practice the precepts or you're generous and you enjoy being generous, you just think, that was nice. Usually when you practice tranquility and you feel calm and at ease, you think, yeah, that was nice. Yikes, get me back to being hysterical and selfish and mean. But wisdom is different because wisdom, you're changing your whole world. And you feel the freedom, but then you feel like, well, you're not used to not being able to like... If you're grasping things, it's nice, right?

[01:04]

But then you're not free. If you're not grasping things, you're free, but yikes. I can't grasp anything in this realm of freedom. We're not used to that. And also, when you don't grasp things so strongly, your grasping lightens a little bit, not to mention completely goes away. But as I said, as I suggested to you, as you open to this teaching and you feel the impact of it, and you see the dawning of freedom around you, you start to see that the people you know and yourself are unstable and not really worthy of confidence that things aren't going to give you happiness anymore. I shouldn't say that things aren't going to give you happiness anymore, but rather you see now that things are not what give you happiness.

[02:07]

That what gives you happiness is actually to practice compassion towards things. And you can practice compassion towards things even if you're not enchanted in regard to them. And you do practice virtuously with beings when this teaching impacts you. And that's good, and you like that. But sometimes in some relationships when the enchantment lifts and you start acting more appropriately, you may feel, you know, your emotions are less excessive. Like some people who you used to care too much about, you don't care too much about them anymore.

[03:12]

You care the right amount. But when you go from caring too much to caring that change from excessive to like appropriate may feel like not caring. When you feel excessively about someone and you go to feeling appropriately about them, it may feel like uncaring. So again, that's kind of like, am I still human? And in a way, you're not. Because the realm of dependent core rising is not really the human realm. It's not really the human realm. There aren't really like humans there. There's just dependent core rising. There's no humans, there's not really any humans, there's not really time, and there's no money there either. It's just life bubbling away blissfully.

[04:18]

You don't need any money. And coming from that place, you do care for beings, but you don't have to try. Concern and caring is given to you every moment you're like made into a being, which sometimes people call human, but anyway, you're made into a being which is not really yet human. who cares about all beings and who all beings care about. You are that. You truly are. This is who you truly are, moment by moment. You're this other-dependent person. You're this dependently co-arisen person. Every moment, you're always that way. And when you open to that, the feelings of that person are feelings of concern for all beings, excessive concerns for anybody. But if you're used to excessive concerns, you may feel like you don't have any feelings.

[05:29]

So that's kind of scary. You may feel cold when you just care about your mother rather than being hysterical about your mother. You know, when she's about to do something that you don't think is maybe good for her health, instead of freaking out you just say, Excuse me, miss. Our sense of humor about your mother, can you believe that? Our sense of humor about your delinquent teenager, or about your spouse, or about your brother and sister, who you generally care too much about, or, flip side, you care too little about. Like, I don't care about you at all. You're out of my life. You don't say that to strangers. I mean, most people don't.

[06:31]

You say that to people who you care too much about. You say it to people you care too much about. You flipped it too little. But that's not really appropriate to talk to people like that usually. Once in a while, you know, Zen masters can say that kind of stuff. But it's a joke, you know. It's to shock the student, you know, like, you're not my student anymore. Get out of here. Guy who played that trick with the bow, you know. Get out of here. You can never come back here again. That's for his benefit, to show him that you can't trick reality. Don't try to trick it. So sometimes teachers will talk like that, but they don't really mean it. But sometimes we really mean it, we really mean it, you know. I'm done with you. You're out of my life. We're like finished. But there's no way to finish.

[07:34]

You don't finish anything with people. You're connected to everybody. You can't get away. When you listen to this teaching, you remember that, you understand you've got to work it out with everybody. And each person's, the way you're going to work it out is different in each case, but you have to work it out with everybody. There's nobody that you're not going to work it out with. People who you live in the same house with for many years, you work it out with them in a different way than you do with people who live thousands of miles away, of course. but you're working it out appropriately with everybody. I mean, that's what we want. But the transition is difficult. Another way to put it is we've been guilty so long, you know, of our relationships. We've been guilty so long in our relationships that when we become innocent, we feel guilty.

[08:36]

And I often use the example of in Japan they have the expression that when people in the mountains see fresh fish they think they're rotten. Do you understand? In the mountains, they're used to seeing fish, because it used to take a long time to get the fish up to the mountains. So that's what they think fish are, you know, like three-day-old fish or whatever, or even a week old, maybe. So if they ever come down to the coast and see a fresh fish, they think, my God, it looks rotten. Got all these strange colors and stuff. It's not, you know, the eyes are bulging out. So when you move more intimately into the actual cauldron of creativity, rather than thinking that it's life, you might think it's death.

[09:43]

It might look deadly to you because it's not all jazzed up with fantasies. even though it's like really what life is like, it's not all pumped up with fantasies. And so you're not having these extreme highs and lows in relationship to the way we really are together, which might seem like, oh, am I human anymore? Well, again, maybe not. You're getting closer to freedom from being human. You are human, but you're becoming free of the human realm. The human realm is the realm of language. The realm of language is the realm which is based on imposing fantasies upon the realm of dependence. So I've seen, in some sense, what I've seen so far in this retreat, I've seen signs that the teaching is actually impacting you, because some of you are actually .

[11:01]

And it's quite normal that that would happen in wisdom teachings, because wisdom teachings challenge our deluded approach to what's happening. We're used to our deluded approach. So another expression I've heard is that she feels confused, but actually it's that you're so used to being confused that when you stop being confused, you think that's confusion. You're used to believing your misconceptions, so as you start to loosen your belief in your misconceptions, feel kind of awkward, because you're not depending on them. So the realm of misconception is a realm, as Buddha taught, you know, ignorance, karmic formations, da-da-da-da, craving, clinging, misery. That is miserable, but it's familiar. You kind of know, you kind of like, you know your way around there.

[12:07]

You know how to bang your head on the wall. So you're like a pro in the realm of misery. I mean, you are a pro in the realm of misery. You know that realm. But in the realm of freedom, we're like not pros. As a matter of fact, we'll always be amateurs. As soon as you're a pro, you exile yourself from that realm because it's always a surprise there. There, you're up for surprise. In the human realm, you're trying to reduce surprise. Other people surprise other people, but you don't want to be surprised. And another sort of way to think about this is, which I was talking to someone, I think that this might be helpful to think about this way.

[13:15]

This is just a way to think as an antidote to the way you think. I think that maybe when we go to sleep at night, actually, we actually go into, we settle down into our other dependent nature. Now when I say, I said when we go to sleep, but I mean actually when you get to dreamless sleep, I think you have just settled into the other dependent. And that's restful. Related to tranquility practice, because in tranquility practice you're sitting there in this dependently co-arising way as usual and all your concepts and thinking about what's going on here, you're letting go of.

[14:19]

And as you get more and more in the swing of letting go of your thinking about this dependent co-arising, the more calm you feel. So the thinking is still going on. And sometimes actually when people are actually sitting up and awake, sometimes the thinking almost stops. It's so much you hardly, it's hardly, it's really quiet sometimes. But sometimes even when it's still going on, you feel the quiet at the center of all the chatter. Another way it can be experienced. But that's restful because you kind of like letting go of the, Conceptual activity, which is arising in relationship to this actual creative process, which is your life. When you go to sleep at night, as I was also saying to someone, usually when you first start going to sleep, I mean, you're imagining you're in a room, you actually are in a room, it's true, and your body's there, it's true, but you have this concept of the room, and your concept of the body, and your concept of the time of day, you know, and so on, your concept of whether it's okay to go to sleep, like, so I guess I'd be all right, I'm in my bed, nobody's arguing with me, I guess I can go to sleep.

[15:46]

So there you are, and this is your world, right? And you start to, you know, relax a little bit, and you go into this place where, or some people go into this state called, they call it hypnagogic state. It's a state where you still can kind of, you sort of remember the room, you know? and you're starting to have other versions of the room, other images of the room, you know what I mean? It's like you're in a room in a retreat house in Pittsburgh, and then you're also like maybe, you're like someplace else too, maybe like you're in Spain or something. and it's raining on the plane, you know? And you notice, and you can kind of mix in there, you know? You know what I mean? It's like, it isn't just like you're in the room and like going to sleep. It's like you're in the room and you're halfway someplace else, but you're not really quite there yet, and you still kind of, and you notice that strange juxtaposition of like, or like, you know, if someone's in the bed next to you, you know?

[16:58]

it's sort of like it's your spouse maybe, but it's also like a dog. And you kind of go, how weird, you know? My spouse is a dog, my dog is a spouse. And then pretty soon it flips over and it's just a dog, and you're asleep. back and say, hey spouse, guess what? I just thought you were a dog. Or hey spouse, I thought you were my girlfriend. What? I'm going back to sleep. You know what I mean? That's called... You're transitioning from concepts you're making from the wakeful state and concepts that you're making in the dreaming state. But they're both really dreams. It's just that they're made sort of under two slightly different physiological states. But there's a place of transition there, which I really... ...space... Then the dreams sometimes just stop and you go into a dreamless sleep.

[18:09]

You're alive still, you're still happening, but no dreaming, no ideas, no time, no people, no Spain, no Pittsburgh, just you're alive and it's restful. And if you don't go into that kind of sleep, it's not as restful as if you stay asleep the whole time. But part of dreaming sleep is probably necessary in order to let you go into the non-dreaming sleep, just like the dreaming that you're doing before you go into dreaming sleep. the wakeful dreaming you're doing and it's still like nighttime and it's you in your bed, that dream, that dream is necessary for you to allow yourself to go into a dream that you're floating in a river, you know, on a warm summer day looking at the sky.

[19:23]

When somebody else will look at you and think, she's in her bed, and she seems to be dreaming of something. And those two dreams might be necessary if you feel like, okay, I'm ready, and let go of being in the river and enter into no dream. Then you're in the pinnacle of rising. Of course, you always were there, and you put dreams on top of it. But we're always down there, and the more we listen to the teaching about that, the better, I would say. I haven't heard of anybody doing that too much, although it's possible. We're always down there, it's a question of like listening to teachings to bring us It's actually a very nice place. It's really where we live. It's really our life.

[20:26]

Our life is actually going on, rising and ceasing, moment by moment, regardless of any kind of concepts of how that's happening. However, in order to carry on an ordinary human life, we need to impute concepts to it and particularly a concept that this thing that's going on interdependently is actually not going on interdependently, it's going on independently. Words on it and we have a conventional world where there's humans, where there's separate, where there's time. In other words, we have to ignore our basic creative life in order to get this chunky, grasped, salaried world where we can, like I said, you know, like get a date in high school.

[21:29]

Because we, you know, we're humans. It's our deal. So part of what dependently co-arises moment by moment The person who's asleep, who's in deep sleep, that person still is a person who can imagine things that don't exist. But sometimes that person, although they have the capacity to imagine, sometimes that person does not imagine anything that doesn't exist. In deep sleep, you do not use your imagination equipment, and the fact that you do not use the imagination equipment when you're asleep is a dependent core rising. The various causes and conditions make you into the person that you are lying in the bed who's not imagining anything. That happens to you every night that you have dreamless sleep. And then you dependently co-arise to be a person who is imaginative.

[22:40]

So then you start having dreams. And you imagine and [...] pretty soon you imagine, I have to go to the bathroom. And then you think, oh. I mean, I actually do have to go to the bathroom. I mean, not that I have to, I want to. And then, matter of fact, I think I will. Where will I go? And then pretty soon you're not awake, and you're awake, so to speak. You're in the realm where there actually is a bathroom down the hall. And then you get up and go to the bathroom. That dependently co-arises that you start imagining things differently. in this realm in terms of images. And if you do it actively enough, you come out of the sleep. And then you switch from this realm of dreaming into another realm of dreaming. Usually. Now it is also possible to come up out of the sleep and go rising into the realm of imaging, imagining, in a dream, and then go from there

[23:49]

into waking up into the pinnacle rising. That also can happen. It's uncommon, but it can happen. So all these different movements are possible, but we are actually dependently co-produced to be a person who can imagine that things are not dependently co-produced. We are made moment by moment. We can imagine impossible ways of existing. We can imagine ourselves existing in a way that's impossible for us to exist. And nigh that, but we are dependently co-arisen to be a person who can believe an impossible scenario about how... And we do. I mean, we do fall for that. And then we're back in the human world And the human world is one of ignorance because we are ignoring the way we actually exist in a way we do not.

[25:02]

And then because of that, we suffer. That's the human world, which is more or less suffering. As you know, your suffering varies. So like during this retreat sometimes quite a bit actually, I've had some strong suffering. And other times the very person who's been telling me, who's telling me about the suffering that they had, at the moment they're telling me they're not suffering so much. They're reporting to me some suffering that they experienced earlier. the day or the day before. So some of you have told me about that you've had some considerable suffering during this retreat that's not there anymore. And the suffering, I'm suggesting to you that generally reported, is suffering that's coming in the human realm. It's a realm of time. So it's not a characteristic of the human world, it's a realm of time.

[26:06]

And that time thing has something to do with the suffering that's been reported, that the suffering has been going on for quite a bit of time. And part of patience, actually, is to address the suffering in such a way that you start focusing in on smaller and smaller temporal issues. delivery programs, that you experience the discomfort in shorter periods of time, that you focus on what you're seeing right now. This is a way to practice patience. While you're still in the realm where there is time, you're still in the human realm where there is time, and therefore when you're in the realm of time you're in the realm of severe suffering. you actually antidote that time nature of the human realm by dealing with the time in the smallest possible increments, which means now. Now is the smallest

[27:10]

way you can experience something, rather than then and then, rather than a little while ago and the pain that might be coming. You can actually experience a pain that you have right now in the future. You can think about, what if this lasts another five minutes? You know what I mean? And if you think about a pain lasting another five minutes, you feel worse. If somebody says, this is going to hurt a little bit, and it's going to last for two hours. If they say, this is going to hurt for a little, this is going to hurt for, now that, they're more kind, my doctors anywhere, nurses are more kind than they used to be. They say, this is going to hurt a little bit, and it's going to last for about three seconds. They tell you how long, too. So you don't say, this is going to hurt a little bit for a while. How long is it going to hurt? So patience is to, you don't, patience is, you do not have to get into, patience is to tell yourself you do not have to be into the pain you used to have.

[28:18]

You don't have to. It's necessary. We do by habit, but you don't have to. The human realm, because it's a realm of time, we often start thinking about how long we've been feeling this. And if you think again, the actual pain that you feel right now is not so bad. I feel some discomfort right now. If I imagine that I've been feeling this discomfort for a half an hour, it's considerably worse. And if I think it's going to go on for another half an hour, I also feel more uncomfortable. If you handle pain in that way and get away from past and future, you almost enter the realm of dependent co-arising. In that way, being patient, bringing your awareness of pain into that point of where it's arising, it starts to open up, that compassion starts to open into wisdom, because you start to open into the realm where there's no time, which is the realm of dependent core arising.

[29:29]

There's not any time there. If you use the expression, there's eternity there. because you're dealing with an eternal way. You are eternally dependently co-arising. You are eternally dependently co-arising. You are impermanent and eternal. There's no duration to you and there's no annihilation of you. It does not mean duration. You do not last and you are not annihilated. That's the middle way. You are, I am, we are existing in the middle way. That is the Buddhist teaching. We are existing. He found the middle way, and he's saying, actually is in this middle way. You are eternally dependently co-arising. Dependently co-arising doesn't mean you last, though.

[30:30]

It means you're impermanent and not lasting, not lasting. You have no duration other than just existence. You don't have duration, you don't last, but you're not annihilated. You are eternal because you are dependent co-arising at the place called you. So anyway, patience with the pain is a support for wisdom about the pain. Dealing with the present moment of the pain opens you to the way that pain is beyond time. So I'm talking speaking to you, and then you hear what I say and you can think about what I say, and thinking about what I'm saying may be helpful for you to meditate on dependent core arising. I'm just trying to encourage the meditation on dependent core arising.

[31:35]

So I gave you the classical way of talking about it is that all experience depends for its existence on things other than itself. Now I'm talking about other ways. and partly to give you confidence, not in things, teaching dependent co-arising. Things are not reliable, but meditating on their dependent co-arisen nature is reliable to bring you into a life of virtue and to a life of wisdom. Another way I mentioned that Therese reminded me is another way to be mindful of this teaching of dependent core rising, which she likes, is to, whenever you look or also when you look at yourself in the mirror, or when you look at your hand or your foot or your arm,

[33:29]

Anyway, let's say when you look at a person, one way to remember this teaching is to say to yourself, this person has a nature, a basic nature, which is far beyond what I'm thinking about her right now, or far beyond what I'm thinking of him right now. Is that clear? And, you know, I think he's a great guy or something like that. But actually he has a nature which is far beyond my thoughts, that he's a young man, who's wonderful, and wears glasses, and is holding his left foot. Are you holding your left foot? Just touching, just touching. He's touching his left foot. And he's got a... And with his right hand, he's holding his notebook.

[34:33]

And that's what I think of Eric right now. And tomorrow I might think something different. But anyway, whatever I think of by moment, and when I'm looking at Eric, usually my mind doesn't just sit there and let him just be there. I'm thinking about him. I don't just like be with Eric. I think about him. And then I've got an Eric that I can talk about too. I think about him, and that's part of the deal of our life. But simultaneously, always, what I'm thinking about is based on an Eric, same guy, who just happens to be far beyond all the things I think about him. And not only that, but the basis of all and the referent of all the things I'm thinking about him, even though none of the things I think about him actually reach him. But they're useful in order for me to say, you know, Eric, are you touching your foot or holding it?

[35:39]

How are you feeling, Eric? Can I help you? So we have this world where we relate to each other and we're This is part of our life. But in order to make this life be a life of virtue and wisdom, we need to remember that everybody we meet has a basic nature, which is far beyond what you think about them right now. So you think this person's really beautiful. You think this person's really kind. That's nice. That's nice. But they have a nature, which is the basis of this thought that they're really beautiful and kind. They have a nature which is far beyond those ideas. Now, that person might say, no, I'm not. I'm really that way. Don't give up on that one. It's true. It's really true. Hold on to that.

[36:41]

Hold that thought. But then, you know, actually, eventually they probably say, well, I think actually it would be good if you let go of it. I actually would rather have you get to know me than just deal with me as that I'm this perfect, wonderful, beautiful person. I mean, I'm sorry to see that go, but I'd actually like you to open up to who I actually am. I'm not actually just that. I'm actually an ocean, not a lovely little pond. So I'm sorry to see the pond go, if it has to go. I'm also welcoming you into the ocean of who I am. So that's another way you deal with people. Dogen gives the teaching, right? When you look at somebody, what you're seeing is you're actually looking at an ocean. Everybody's an ocean. There's a little circle of water. I mean, in terms of your thinking, your thinking is all just a little circle of water about the person.

[37:50]

But really the person's an ocean. They're not round or square or rough. Even the ocean isn't really like rough. Even if there's a tidal wave, still, that doesn't really characterize the ocean. It's a big deal, true, and sometimes the little circle's a big deal. like it's really a gorgeous circle sometimes, but it really doesn't even, it just doesn't even know what the person is. And you can remember, every time you look at somebody, all you're seeing is a little circle of water, and really they're an ocean. That's the same, another way to meditate on dependent core rising. People want you to relate to them as a circle of water because in some ways they like to relate to you as a circle of water and they want you to grab their circle of water, them as a circle of water. Because again, that's where you make money. But really, people want you to relate to their oceanic nature.

[38:58]

In other words, they want... And when you are relating to people's oceanic nature, you really respect them. You're opening to how awesome everybody is. Everyone's really, really... You can't even say big. Because big doesn't really... Big's another circle of water that we put on the ocean. Go out in the ocean and say big, you know. It doesn't really make it. It's like, ah! Get out there. Get out a ways, you know. Like, not even in a boat. Just go out there. More like, you know, just join your palms and like, well, it's up to you, I guess. Whether I live or die, it's like, you're in charge. I hope you do your best with me. Take me away, that's going to happen.

[40:02]

If you want to put me back on the beach, that's going to happen. And my comments about you, you know, are just my comments about you. You can feel that, you know. And that's really there all the time. And every is really an ocean. But we make it into a little circle of water. That's part of our nature, too, that we make things into circles of water. So we are compassionate with ourselves and other people, too. We meet people who are oceans who also think that they're circles of water. So we understand that the ocean sponsors this kind of illusion. So we watch them worried about the circle that they're in, and we watch ourselves worry about the circle that we think we are, and we worry about the circle that we think they are.

[41:07]

We watch that, and we notice that that involves fear, craving, time. So again, keep in touch with the ocean. And then that will help us start looking at the circle of water. You still have to look at the circle of water, but now we want to be grounded in the ocean while we meditate on the circle of water. Because the more we're grounded in the ocean, the more we're getting ready to not believe it anymore. We're putting more confidence in the oceanic. And then noticing we still kind of look like they really are a circle though. You cannot see the ocean. The ocean, in a sense, is invisible even though you're looking at it through the circle of water. Just like right now, if I tell you that I've heard that all the Buddhas in the universe are practicing together with each one of you, all the Buddhas in the universe practicing with you,

[42:23]

But some enlightened people say that that's the way it is. But they don't say that they can see that, because you can't see all the Buddhas in the universe with your eyes. You can only see all the Buddhas in the universe with the wisdom that's not believing in images anymore. Because in images you can only see like 86 Buddhas or 4000 Buddhas. You can't see infinite Buddhas practicing with each person. The mind just can't conceive of that. But people are telling us that that's so. We can't see how everybody's helping us right now. But people are telling us that that's so and the people are telling us are the Buddhas. The Buddhists did not appear in the world to say, you're all by yourself, you're ignorant, and nobody cares about you, and you've got to make it all happen on your own.

[43:25]

They didn't come and say that. They did come and say, when you think that way, that's called ignorance, and based on that, you're going to suffer. They did say that, and that you can check out and find out it's true, right? You can find that out. You can see that when you feel isolated, that you feel scared, and you want somebody to hold hands with, and if they go along with it, it's fine, and if they don't, you feel upset, and blah, blah. You can tell that world. So they told us about the human world, but they're telling us about another world which we can't see yet. But we will potentially, we have the potential to see it through wisdom, to open to it. We do every night, actually, when we're resting. When we're deeply sleeping, we're open to it. But we're not conscious.

[44:27]

So when we come out of that realm, back into the realm of images, we kind of forget that realm, and we believe the realm of images. We enter the ocean every night, it's very restful, and we float around there. We're ready to come back into the world of images again, and make it through a few more hours of that, and then go back again. So we're trying to bring that world actually into more and more consciousness by remembering the teaching. Okay? Remember the teaching. So I'm on the verge of... I'm going to continue to give you ways to think about this teaching of dependent core rising for the rest of the retreat. And... doing that, but I'm also going to start talking to you about the realm of conception, the realm of imputation too, which I'm starting to do.

[45:32]

So you can not only keep meditating on dependent core rising, but also start looking at the realm of time and the realm of where we imagine individual personalities and so on. Start to do that. Because eventually we want to be able to look at the circle and just say, well, it appears there, but I don't believe it. I don't believe it. I mean, why? You don't have to tell yourself you don't believe it. You just won't. So you look at somebody and you see the circle, but you don't believe it. First of all, you tell yourself the person's an ocean, and that starts to disenchant you. It starts to disenchant you about the person. You disenchant yourself by remembering the ocean when you meet a person. And then as you're disenchanted, you're getting ready to actually not even believe or agree with the image of the independent persons who are independent, who are out there separate from you.

[46:42]

This is a long process of integrating, remembering, meditating on these teachings. And again, as I said, there's some awkwardness as you transition. But that awkwardness is showing that it's kind of good because it's a good sign because it shows that teaching is actually impacting you some. Because again, we're really kind of like skillful in terms of delusion. We're kind of good at it. We're used to it, even though it's got its drawbacks. Anything you want to bring up? Yes? Yeah. You want to have that experience of Buddha.

[47:52]

Did you say one has an experience of Buddha? Right. Uh-huh. So, this is an example just leaving a retreat with a friend that was some distance away. It was like a 10-day retreat. Yes. We both left and we were both just in this life is life space. Uh-huh. And it just seemed coming home was like totally arbitrary. Uh-huh. We both had that. Yeah. So, it's like It seems like you're saying humans are humans, and if a human isn't even a human, how can it have needs when it doesn't even exist? What doesn't exist? Well, the human exists, but the basic way the human exists is, strictly speaking, not the human world. The human world... You know, like humans and animals, all right?

[48:56]

So we have two animals here. We have like a bear, human, female. We could even have a female bear and a female human, okay? They're sitting next to each other, but one is able to inhabit a realm the other one is not able to inhabit. They're both inhabiting an animal realm. but one of them also in a world called the human realm, which the other one doesn't know about as far as I know. As far as I know, berries do not have language and they do not have time. The human woman, the human female, can be in this animal realm and she can also enter the human realm. And so the human realm is different from, you know, being a human being. Human beings have the potential to enter and leave the human realm. And sometimes in retreat, you take a break from the human realm. Partly by doing tranquility meditation.

[49:58]

Take a little break from the human realm. A little bit. Yeah, right. Like one time, and sometimes, and when you suspend it through tranquility meditation, which means you let go of your conceptual activity, it's still going on, but you let go of it. And sometimes in letting go of it, it becomes actually attenuated also. Like some people, when they try to do, this is a big parenthesis here, some people, when they try to do tranquility meditation, they think they're supposed to eliminate the conceptual activity. And because they have that attitude, they sometimes inflame the conceptual activity by trying to get rid of the conceptual activity. But some other people just let go of the conceptual activity, and actually by just letting go of it, it almost actually stops. But even if it keeps all of it, it doesn't really matter that much whether it's going on or not because you're not involved.

[51:05]

It's just like your thoughts about people are actually the same as the thought, a bird in the tree. Most people, especially if it's a nice bird, if you think it's a nice bird, you don't get that involved in it. Some people meditating, they really get involved in the bird sounds. But when you're practicing tranquility you basically let go of your conceptual activity so that your thoughts about somebody are similar to your thoughts like bird in the tree. And in that situation sometimes a certain kind of wisdom can arise in relationship to that, which is that when the thoughts come back again, like your home or your spouse, you can see how that's kind of arbitrary. You don't want to tell your spouse that, but you can see how... Huh? That's part of the question. Right. You might have to have your meditation teacher there when you tell your spouse that to explain that it's nothing personal about your spouse.

[52:17]

It's nothing personal about your spouse. The realm of dependent co-arising is impersonal. The human realm is personal. And when you enter the impersonal realm, of dependent co-arising, and then you come back into the personal realm called the human realm, you can notice how arbitrary it is. In a sense, arbitrary. It's actually dependent co-arises, but you can see how arbitrary it is that it's personal. And that's a kind of awkward transition. But actually, I would suggest this to you, that although you're a little bit shocked if you told him that you felt it was arbitrary that you came back to him rather than some other guy, if you told it to him, as a way of showing him what's going on in your mind, it'd actually be a very intimate thing to do. Although it's kind of scary, you would be letting him into, you know, really who you really are.

[53:25]

But you'd maybe have to be careful of that. You might actually say, you might actually invite him into the impersonal realm for a little while to visit you there. And then you could come up together, you know. So you could say, one, two, three, now let's leave the impersonal realm of dependent core arising and go back to our human realm of being married. And you can both simultaneously look at each other and be surprised, you know, at how arbitrary it was that you two were together. There's some kind of voice that's saying like, well, isn't it just arbitrary, the whole concept of staying together? Because once you're out of here, it's like intimate when you buy it. Yeah, exactly. It is kind of arbitrary in the sense that it's just, there's no core to it. ...according to causes and conditions, which is also means, it's also the implication of this, is that your husband might die any time, or you might die any time.

[54:30]

That's also, in a sense, arbitrary. But it's not really arbitrary. It's that it's depending on conditions. Therefore, you have this impermanent stable relationship. And it's not worthy of confidence. Your relationship, your husband, your wife, your marriage is not worthy of confidence. It's unstable, just like your grandchildren. And it just causes and conditions that live with somebody for 70 years. It just causes and conditions that make you able to be devoted and kind and honest and intimate with them for a few minutes of the 70 years. It's actually, you know, but that's not exactly... It's conditional, it's contingent on conditions. If you understand that, then you can have wisdom in your relationship. But of course you can't understand that unless you also have compassion.

[55:33]

If you have enough compassion for your spouse, then you can practice compassion for your spouse. I feel like there's something that's trying to make an argument that you don't need a spouse. or a grandson, or a father, or as much as you're supported by everyone, that doesn't have to be focused uniquely. The experience I'm having is it seems like it does. It's part of being human. Exactly. Well, it's not just part of being human. Any animal, look at other animals, too. They relate somewhat differently to their own offspring than they do to other offspring. Like, what is it? When salmon are going down, you know, the salmon in the Pacific, you know, they go clockwise. They come out of the rivers in California and Oregon and maybe Washington, but mostly California and Oregon.

[56:35]

They come out of those rivers out of the mountains, okay, and they turn left. Poop! and they go around the ocean clockwise, you know, and they go over to Hawaii, and not Hawaii, they go over to China, and they come up the coast, you know, by Korea, and then they go around by Alaska, and then they come down by Canada, and then they come zipping by California again, and they turn left. Left because of causes and conditions, like A little molecule of water from the stream that they're born in hits their nose and they turn left. Now, of course, there's billions of molecules, trillions of molecules coming out of that out of that stream, some of them which have a character that's only found up at that lake at the top of that river where they were born, where they respond. Those chemicals tell them to turn left at that stream and they go back up the same river where they were born to give birth to their babies.

[57:43]

This is cause and condition. It's kind of arbitrary. However, it's arbitrary but they turn left. Because they are uniquely, they were made in that lake. And you were made, you know, on this planet. You were born in this way. And you, various conditions arose so you got married to a certain person. And those conditions are part of what make you live with somebody rather than everybody. Although you're connected to everybody, not everybody is your spouse. That's characteristic of all phenomena. All animals, all plants have that same dependently co-arisen nature. Now, if you think about this, then one implication of this is that you're determined to be You know, married to a certain person for a certain number of years, to get divorced from them, and so on. This is all determined by causes and conditions. But it's not really deterministic because the determinism happens up in the realm of time and language.

[58:52]

Actually, down in the actual soup, there's freedom. It's not deterministic. It's causal but not deterministic. The Buddha is teaching us that in the realm of dependent co-arising there's freedom. Even though everything does happen independent on conditions, it does not mean that things are determined and you're just sort of like powerless. In a sense you're powerless actually to be unfree. And you can only, through your fantasies, be unfree. But in fact, in that way, through fantasy, we imagine things in a way that they're not. And we have songs about this, like, I will be with you forever. But that's not true exactly, that you'll be with this person forever. But it also is true that you'll be with this person forever.

[59:55]

In dependent co-arising, you'll always be together, but you'll be together. You won't always be together with this person as your spouse. That won't always be the case. However, you will always be together with this person. You will always be actually inhaling and exhaling this person. But you're going to be inhaling and exhaling everybody else, too. But right now, you have a husband, a wife, a grandchild, and these are the people who are happening now who you can be devoted to. But you're going to be more effective in being devoted to them if you remember, actually, that this is not so personal. Therefore, when they slam the door on you and say, go away, it's like, You can see the humor in it and you can just stand at the door forever or lay down on the ground and take a nap or suck your thumb. You can do all kinds of things. You're free because you understand the nature of reality.

[60:57]

But part of reality is which is kind of a good deal because as humans you get to hear the teaching about reality. But also part of being human is you're born into this world of time and misery. But animals also have their misery. They just don't have time and language misery. That's our human destiny. But the language, the positive side of being able to hear the teachings which tell us about our nature. Whereas other animals, it's more difficult for them to understand their nature. Even though they don't have the kind of suffering we have, they have another kind of suffering as animals that we don't have. We have animal suffering, they have animal suffering. But we have a special suffering that they don't have, human suffering. But it's worth it, I would say, because in the human realm we also get teaching which can liberate us from both human suffering and animal suffering. And we can also then help and be compassionate to animals and teach animals compassion.

[62:05]

Not just teaching compassion, but teaching compassion joined with wisdom. They can pick it up from us, even though they can't get it through language. They can get it in other ways. So it's actually a good deal. And I was just thinking when you first had this experience one time, I was driving up from the monastery called Tassajara, and my attendant was reading me an article from the Smithsonian Magazine about the structure of galaxies, about how they're actually not just at random out there, they're actually organized in this way. The theory was, anyway, about how they're arranged geometrically. And we're just, you know, I'm just thinking about these galaxies being all organized and so on and so forth. And then we drove into this parking lot next to this, like, did you say 7-Eleven? Yeah. I don't know if it was 7-Eleven, but you drive into a parking lot at some place like 7-Eleven and park.

[63:11]

And then, like, I thought, well, what are you going to do? Are you going to get out of the car now and go into that store? And I saw these people coming out, you know, like with popsicles. You know? People do that kind of thing. On this planet, in this solar system, in this galaxy, which is like organized in relationship to this other galaxy, it's like people are going in the stores. And I have... It's like... You know, it's just... It's amazing that we do that, you know? We come out of this intergalactic causal situation and go... And then we actually take it and like pull the paper off and put it in our mouth and go... And now it's like... And you can do that while remembering where you are, you know?

[64:17]

And see how amazing... is that we do stuff like that. It's just totally astounding when you remember not even the big picture, the inconceivable way we really are, that we kind of know, but it justifies the projects we get into. And so, like, if somebody comes up to you and says, you know, somebody comes up to you and says, can I have your Popsicle? You kind of go, you want one? Sure. Go ahead, live it up. Rather than, what, you want my Popsicle? You know? It's like, sure, yeah. What else do you want? My arm? My thumb? What do you want? You know, it's like... You see it, you know, and then also you say, actually, I would like your husband. Hey, that's a novel idea. What do you think of that, Tim?

[65:18]

In other words, you're free, and you're manifesting the freedom in the realm of husbands and popsicles. It actually can manifest there, which is wonderful because you're connected to all these people who are living in these little puddles, holding on to dear life, to their popsicles. That's because they're forgetting something, which we know it's there. That's why people like to think about the universe, because it gives you some relief. You know, because you know, well, this earth is forever, and I'm not going to be here forever. However, the Earth's going to be here for a long time and something about me is going to go on and pretty soon you're all going to be breathing my, or not you, but somebody's going to be like breathing in my body. My body's going to break up and my carbon atoms are going to be pretty soon, you know.

[66:22]

And then I'm going to be like, you know, something related to me is going to happen again, as a human probably, maybe. It's all like just, you know, going on really nicely in a spectacular, not even spectacular, it's not even spectacular. You can't see it in this invisible. a real way we're actually living. So we're trying to think, remember the teachings about how it's actually going in this inconceivable, perfectly free, interdependent way, which makes things like coming home to a little house on the and going and knocking on the door and opening the door and going and saying, Hi, hubby. It makes it kind of like amazing. And you can tell your husband, that you're just amazed to see him again, you know, and you're amazed that you came back, and yet here you are, and like, wow, it's again here, wow, it's just amazing, it's just astounding, because of your meditation, you know, because you remember that there's an ocean here in this little marriage, there's an oceanic aspect to it, and this should not undermine your kind

[67:39]

person who you called your spouse, it shouldn't undermine it. It should actually facilitate it because you're not so attached to them because you know that they can disappear in a moment when the conditions change. But that makes it all the more wonderful to take care of them for a little while. Touch them with kindness and wisdom, knowing that it might be the last time. It's so dear. all these wonderful things. But in a sense it's kind of arbitrary. In a sense. Is that enough for this morning? Would you remind me this afternoon, I'd like to talk to you about the practice of confession?

[68:58]

May our intention equally penetrate every being and place with the true merit of Buddha, Things are noxious. I am just a saintly man. Delusions are very susceptible. Why, I hope to end them. Darkness will give me some really helpless. I'll get by, I hope to turn to them. But this way is not surpassable, I will take command.

[69:48]

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