He's just chanting a verse about a lousy vow. written by Eihei Dogen Daisho. And the logic, he makes a vow, but in the vow there's a logic of vowing to hear the true Dharma.

[01:00]

And then the logic is that when you do hear the true Dharma, you will be able to renounce worldly affairs. And then if you can renounce worldly affairs, then you can maintain the Buddha Dharma. You can actually be on the Buddha Dharma maintenance crew. And then in this maintenance work, the whole earth and all living beings together will attain the Buddha way. So that's the proposal. Any questions about that? The logic of that? Pardon? What about the no doubt or no doubt will arrive and that's all we left can be? Does it say that after you hear the two dharma, you will have no doubt?

[02:01]

Upon hearing it? Yeah. I think that, yeah, that when you hear it, actually, when you actually hear the dharma, you won't have doubt anymore. Like, you know, and particularly you won't have doubt about whether it would be okay to be not distracted from practice, you know. Or if you go to the... Yeah, you would have no doubt about that you heard the true dharma once you hear it, right? It clarifies your mind so that you actually, you're sure that you've heard it. When you hear it, you're sure you heard it. And, yeah, so it's a big deal to hear the true dharma. Like, if Shakyamuni Buddha was in the room right now talking to you, it doesn't mean you would hear the true dharma. So a lot of times he was giving, he was talking to quite a few people, but only one person heard the true Dharma in the whole group, even though he wasn't lying, but he never said that what he was saying was the true Dharma.

[03:12]

What he's saying is to help people hear the true Dharma for themselves. So the true Dharma is something sort of inward. But the Buddhas can help you hear this dharma, this true dharma that you hear inwardly. And once you hear it, then you don't have doubt anymore. And then you can, and then when you need it, you'll be able to renounce worldly affairs. And then if you renounce worldly affairs, then it's easy to, like, be on the side of the law. And then... the Buddha way will be realized. The re-announcing worldly affairs sounds so difficult to me. Can you explain what you mean by re-announcing worldly affairs? Worldly affairs, I think the basic way I understand it is renounce everything that distracts you.

[04:19]

from meditating on what is helpful for you to meditate on at a particular point in your practice. Like, not everybody's doing the ultimate meditation on the path, but a lot of people are actually correctly working on something that would be good to work on. And then it's pretty clear that they are, like, you know, I don't know, Like yesterday, some doctor was stitching up Tindra's lip, right? And it was pretty clear that what that doctor should be paying attention to is the lip. And that's pretty clear what the job was. I mean, nobody wanted to be distracted from that, right? Everybody wanted her to pay attention to what she was doing. If the doctor was distracted, that would be a worldly affair from what is obviously an appropriate thing to do.

[05:23]

And if you're like, I don't know what, like you're meditating on sitting with no gaining idea, perhaps, like trying to see if you can sit just to sit without trying to get something out of it for yourself, That could be your meditation practice. But then can you imagine getting distracted from that? And start saying, well, maybe I... I wonder if I'll get something out of this after all, or how are these other people doing, or whatever. You could get distracted from that, which nobody really wants you to do, and you don't want to either. It's a distraction. It's not... it's not really appropriate to the Buddha way. So renouncing those things would be renouncing worldly affairs. Does that make sense to you? But it's hard to renounce worldly affairs until you hear the true Dharma. Because you think, well... I mean, it's just not clear that gain and loss are

[06:33]

really ungraspable. But when you hear the two dharma, then you see, oh, there's just really no such... you can't get at it anyway, so I don't have to worry about it anymore. Yes? By the same logic, if we still have doubts, is this to say we have not yet heard the three dharmas? Yeah, uh-huh. Doesn't mean, well, you have questions. It means like, it's like, you know, kind of like, well, it could be this and it could be that and it could be that. I wonder which one it is. That kind of thing. You haven't, like, actually come down to certainty about that really things, that really, for example, you are impermanent. You know... Like I recently have been making the distinction between not being able to find something and seeing that it can't be found.

[07:37]

It's a difference. Yes? What mental state would you have to be in to hear the Pudharma? What mental state? You have to be in a mental state of having those karmic obstructions that are referred to in the next paragraph removed. That's the next paragraph. I haven't got to that one yet. That's the sort of like, however, right? After this logic is put out, then the next paragraph says, but... It's a little hard to hear that you've done it because there's karmic obstructions, karmic accumulations. Karmic accumulations make it hard to hear that you've done it. So that's the next part of the thing.

[08:37]

But I'll stop there on the logic of that first guy. Yeah. Can you explain? You just mentioned there's a difference between not being able to find something and what was the... The camera was the second thing you said that I didn't have to go by my myself. Well, like, not seeing something is not the same as seeing that it can't be seen, or not finding something is not the same as seeing that it cannot be found. Can you explain that? Can I explain it? Well, I often think of this Fermat's Last Theorem. It's like, what is it?

[09:38]

y plus x equals z. So y to the n plus x to the n equals z to the n. And there's no solutions to this equation when x is greater than 2, I think. Is that right? So integer solution. I mean, n is greater than 2. Is that right? Is that right? When n is 2, we have solutions to this. Following this? y squared plus squared equals v squared. Yeah, right. That's the Pythagorean theorem. Right? So when it's 2, we have a solution. If O1 is 3 or 4, you can't plug any numbers in here and get a solution.

[11:01]

Try it. And you'll see that you won't be able to find it. Okay? But that's not the same as seeing that it can't be found, because you could just keep going indefinitely and maybe you'd find it tomorrow. Is that too hard for you? So, like, again, you know, let's see, where's Janus? Okay, so I found them. Anyway. If you're looking for somebody and you couldn't find them, that wouldn't be the same as seeing that they can't be found. If you look for somebody and don't find them, then you just don't find them.

[12:09]

But you don't see that you can't find them. because the next minute they could show up. And then you see, well, you didn't actually see that you couldn't find them, or you were incorrect. Not finding them wasn't incorrect, but seeing that they couldn't be found, that would be incorrect as soon as they were found. Yes. It seems to me that's... I don't know about most of us, but that's the position that I'm in all the time. So I see that I can't find, for example, myself. No, no. You've got it wrong. You don't see that you can't find yourself. You can't find yourself. That's what I mean. I can't find myself, but I still thrive. But you said, I see that I can't find myself. You don't see that. That's right. Yeah, so when you hear that you're dharman, you will see. A new form of vision will open and you will see that you cannot be found, rather than just another time of looking and not really for sure finding it.

[13:19]

So that would be the difference. Right? Was there something more about that? Yeah. Yes. So maybe that it It's being able to see that, like, if there was a black politician, and they could look at that, and they would actually understand the principles of why there could actually not be any other member of the two, and then they would actually see without looking for the other. They would see. And the person who saw this, I saw him when you talked about when you finally saw it, and suddenly after he was about 40, And he'd been working since he was 10 years old on this. And when he was 40, he just saw one moment. And that was the great moment in his life. He saw. It's like he eliminated all the other possibilities in his mind after many, many years of work.

[14:21]

And he could see. And this particular theorem, that Fermat wrote that when he wrote this out, he said that there was no solutions to this when n is greater than 2 or 3 or whatever it is, greater than 2. And he says, I have a proof, he said. But he didn't say what the proof was. And he said that a number of other times for other theorems. And then people said, well, what's the proof? And he said, and he told them. And he never said he had a proof and somebody could back him into a corner where he couldn't come up with it. But this one, they never asked him. And after about 100 years, 150 years after his death, with the best mathematicians in Europe working on this, they proved that for n equals 3, there's no solutions. Not just kept trying and trying, because you could easily find out that

[15:28]

It's not true for some particular set of numbers you pick. And then you can do it for another one. But that isn't proving that some other set of numbers wouldn't work. You could easily not find a solution to this. So it took a long time of great minds to prove it for three. And then they proved it for four after another 100 years. And then by that time there were computers. So they got computers trying up numbers. Computers were just, you know... Because the computers could find a solution possibly, right? And that would... that would refute this. But to prove that nobody ever will find it, that was what they were trying to do. So either find a solution, or prove that no solution can be found. So the mathematicians were trying to find, prove that no solution could be found, while the computers were trying to find a solution.

[16:30]

But before the computers found the solution, the mathematician proved that the computer will never be successful, and he turned the computer off. Okay, I don't know if they turned it off. But this point actually is a little bit ahead of the game, because although... I can see there's somebody interested. More questions about this particular point? Yes? Well, I was just wondering if you were suggesting that the Buddha Dharma is essentially trying to remove a negative position, that something can't be found. So, like, the Buddha Dharma, does that prove it once you see it? Is it trying to prove that something can't be found? Buddha Chakra is trying to help you see that something can't be found, yes. That's not the whole point of it, but that's one of the key ingredients, is to help you see that no, actually see, not just look for an independent self, but see that that independent self cannot be found.

[17:39]

You've all heard about this, I think. If there isn't one, Even though you, and if you look sort of superficially, you kind of see that there is one, but you know that that's not really true, but you act like it is. So part of the teaching is to help you actually be certain, by hearing it through Dharma, be certain that it cannot be found. So your body kind of goes, the tumblers of your body and mind sort of fall into place, and boom, you get it, that it can't be found. And it's just like as clear as the doors over there. And before that, you can sort of feel like actually the door, it's not as clear as the door being over there. You sort of kind of get it, but you notice some wavering there. And you can feel the wavering, and then suddenly it falls into place. And then there's a big transformation in your certainty. But anyway, I'm sorry, I said that point.

[18:43]

because that's just getting into what it would be like if you heard the true Dharma. The next paragraph says that there's karmic obstructions. It doesn't say that these obstructions make it difficult to hear the true Dharma, but that is a proposal to you because of those. And then it says, may all Buddhas Ancestors who have attained the Buddha way be compassionate to us and free us from karmic effects, right? Well, it isn't exactly like they can take our karmic effects away, but one of the main ways that they free us from karmic effects is by encouraging us to study karma. So from this Ehe Kosoho Tsegaman, I come away with the key ingredient in the text for practice is to study karma.

[19:52]

And then by studying karma and quietly exploring the farthest reaches of the causes and conditions of karma, that process opens us to receiving help to create the state of mind for hearing the true Dharma. the revealing and disclosing the karma. So I thought it might be good to start with two Zen texts that we're quite familiar with in this valley, the Ehe Koso Hotsugaman and the Genjo Koan. and start with those texts so you can see that these Zen texts, so to speak, or these texts from this particular lineage are focused, actually, on the issue of karma, which, as you probably know, the Buddha was focused on, too.

[21:13]

And so the combination of looking at the traditional early Buddhist, the historical Buddhist teachings on karma, and then Mahayana teachings on karma, and tying them into some of the Zen texts. Again, I shouldn't say Zen texts, just some of the texts of our lineage in Japan and China. So you can see that the Zen people are actually working on karma. Well, they don't say karma that much. But I would say, actually, that Maybe the Zen school is really, really highly focused on studying karma as sort of the main point of the practice to help remove the karmic hindrances so we can hear the true Dharma and then the practice flows very nicely. What do you mean by studying part?

[22:25]

Yeah, right. Or learning part. I'll say this, and I'll just say this. Actually, I'll wait for a minute on your question and say that another way that I wanted to approach this is that there's the Buddha way. And as part of practicing the Buddha way, it's good to hear the true Dharma. And so one way that sometimes people talk about practicing the Buddha way in order to hear the true Dharma is to settle the self on the self.

[23:46]

and then forget the self. Have you heard that description? Settle the self on the self and forget the self. So that's like settle the self on the self, and forget the self is like see that the self can't be found. That's just a short two-part course on the Buddhadharma, on the Buddha way, I should say. Another slightly more elaborate presentation is settle the self on the self, learn the self, and forget the self. Yes? Is the self the entity that carries karma forward? Is that the self? Is the self the entity that carries forth the karma? No. There is no self that carries forth the karma, but

[24:49]

karma usually entails a belief in an independent self. And then the pattern of relationship which includes a belief in self has a consequence of leading to another pattern of relationship where the appearance and the belief in the appearance of an individual self arises again. So karma actually carries forth the self. The self doesn't really carry forth anything, but the karma carries forth the image or the imaginary pattern of a self carrying things forward. So karma is a way, as we'll see, to study the self.

[25:52]

So studying the self, one of the main ways that I'm pointing to at the beginning to study the self is to study karma. To learn the self is to learn karma. Settle the self in the self, learn the self, forget the self. Settle the self in the self, learn karma, and forget the self. As you learn karma, the karmic obstructions which make it difficult to see the self are removed. And then you see the self, and you see that the self can't be found, and you forget the self. And when you forget the self, then everything enlightens you. But there's this big thing, well, there's a big thing of settling, and there's a big thing of learning.

[26:55]

And so I'm going to be focusing on karma as a way of learning the self. Yes? When you're enlightened, is there no more karma? Well, I would say, you know, we sometimes say that there isn't any more karma for enlightened people, but I would actually say that there still is karma, but it's a different pattern. It's a different pattern of karma than the earlier pattern. It's not any longer a pattern of the self. And the genja koan talks about this. It's no longer a pattern of the self acting on the world. It's not that pattern of action. It's the world coming forth, realizing the self pattern. That's the pattern of the awakened mind. So there's still karma, but it's a really different pattern. So let's see now, back to... What was it that you asked about studying?

[28:01]

Karma. Yeah. So, karma... Karma is a Sanskrit word, in Pali it's kama, I guess, with two m's, is that right? And the usual translation is action. OK? Action. So action accumulations block our vision of reality, removing action hindrance, we can hear the tridharma. So action was the big thing to study in Buddhadharma. And the definition of action that the Buddha gave, which in Sanskrit is chetana.

[29:04]

And I think Pali is also chetana. And that can be translated as intention. It's going to be translated as intention, volition, motivation. Judgment. Judgment. I don't agree. Goho says judgment. Story. It's starting to go pretty far, though. So learning or studying karma is to study intention. And this is surprising to people to hear that action is intention.

[30:08]

And in this case we don't mean that all activity or all actions are intentions. So the activity of a rock rolling down a hill, is not the type of action that we're trying to learn about. We're trying to learn about intentional activity, or intentional, intentional, not intentional activity, activity which is intention, I mean, activity which is intention. That's rolling down the hill is still karma? No, it's action. There's an action of the rock rolling down the hill, but it doesn't have intention, because intention is a pattern of relationship within consciousness. And so every moment of consciousness has within it a pattern of relationship.

[31:18]

And that pattern of relationship is the activity of the consciousness. And that activity, that pattern of relationship, has consequence. So the basic thing to study in this thing is Action. And the way to study action is... The basic thing to study is intentional action, and so the basic thing to study is intention. Yes? So if the rock rolls over you, you wouldn't call that karma? If the rock hits me? Yeah. I wouldn't call that karma, no. Okay. But if somebody hits, and even if somebody hits you, it's not your karma, but his karma to hit you.

[32:22]

Yeah, the karma sometimes is used, people sometimes use karma as referring to the consequences of karma. So there are karmic consequences, but karmic consequences are not the same as karma. Studying consequences is part of studying karma. Well, seeing the consequences is part of it. But the consequences are not intention. Well, actually, one of the consequences of karma is another state of consciousness which has a certain pattern of intention. So the intention is partly the consequence of past intentions. But getting hit by a rock is not an intention. And the way you feel about hitting the rock, the way the rock feels when it hits you, is not an intention, but it's a consequence of intention. But not just a consequence of intention, it's also the consequence of other things.

[33:26]

See? The things you feel are conditioned by past intentions. The way you feel are conditioned by past intentions. Past intentions are only one of eight varieties of things that condition your present feeling. But among the different things that condition your present feeling, the one that's recommended to focus on is your intention. So the way you feel now is due to many factors, many factors in eight varieties, which I'll go into some other time. One of them is past intentions. But the intention is the one among the eight that's recommended to study, because that's the one which, when you study it, the results of it will be removed.

[34:27]

And that's the one, if you don't study, the results of it will not be removed and will obscure you. Or if not studying the other things, doesn't clarify or obscure, and it doesn't obscure your vision. Yes? If I settle on myself and something arises, for example, I am aware that I have broken the precept. Okay. And I see, I then have awareness that that has resulted in suffering. Okay. Is that what That's kind of looking at, in other words, I had intentional action to break a precept at some point, for many points, but at some point. And then I see, this is what this is meant, this is what this is about, this is what the consequences of the intentional action were.

[35:30]

Right. That's an example of learning about karma. that she saw an intention and then she saw a consequence. However, it isn't exactly that you saw the consequence, it's that you saw a consequence. But in that story you told, I would say you are studying, you are learning about karma in that study. But it doesn't mean that... I'm not saying that I agree that you can see an intention and then see the consequence. I'm not saying you can see that yet. But just seeing that there was an intention to... But seeing... But looking at intention, even if you don't see it completely clearly, looking at it is what I mean. And then also looking for its consequences is what I mean. When you first start looking at your intentions,

[36:31]

The way they're going to look to you is not the same way they're going to look to you later in your study. The more you look, the more penetrating and refined your vision will become. Yes? To settle on the Self, not to study the Self? No. So that's an important point. The Genjo koan, I would propose the Genjo koan is basically a text on learning about the self. And it's basically a text about studying karma. That's what I would say it's about. The Genjo koan is not basically a text on settling yourself on the self. That's a different type of practice, which I would say is basically tranquility practice. So I think you need to practice tranquility in order to be able to turn to study and learn about the self.

[37:41]

I just don't understand the term settling the self. Well, like be aware of how you see yourself at a given moment. and just settle there without any interpretation. What's an awareness? That's an awareness where you're basically giving up interpreting what you're aware of, at least temporarily, or reducing, strongly attenuating interpretation of your awareness. So your awareness of a color, a smell, a touch, a taste, and so on, and you're attenuating you're giving up discursive thought in relationship to the moment-by-moment objects of awareness. So like, you're aware of your breath, period. You're aware of your breath, period. You're aware of your posture, period.

[38:43]

You're aware of a sensation in your body someplace, period. You're aware of a sensation, period. Sight, period. You're aware of a sound, period. And you're aware of a taste, period. That kind of training, I think, is settling on the self. Settling on behavior? Well, if you're looking at a behavior, then it would be settling on that behavior with no interpretation. but it's not really studying. I think there's a first phase where you're not actually studying and examining and learning about your breath, your posture, your sensations. First of all, you're settling down. And the mind, which is usually elaborating on everything and having conversations about everything and daydreaming about everything and playing with everything, that mind is giving up for a while.

[39:53]

So you just settle with the self. Now, once you settle with the self, It might be that you spontaneously hear the true Dharma. That maybe in the process of settling all kinds of karmic hindrances, the seeing what the self is and seeing that it can't actually be grasped would be removed and you would see and forget the self. Usually then, for most people, then you start turning to look and examine what you're up to. So like you watch... you know, you start moving, but you've also noticed that there's some intention there in the movement. Yes? So is the idea of a self what is generating karma? Is the idea of self generating karma? Yeah, it's like the thought of a self. Is that what's, you know, where karma comes from, the source? No. But the idea of self is part of what karma is.

[41:01]

So your intention, what your karma is in a given moment, your activity in a given moment, your intention in a given moment, okay? The idea of self is usually in the pattern of your consciousness at that moment. How can there be intention without self? How can karma be generated without a self? It's not that there isn't a self, it's just that there's no self independent of the rest of the world. It's not that there's no yuan, it's just there's no independent yuan. So every moment you are created with the consciousness And that consciousness has a pattern of relationship in it which can be observed. And in that pattern of relationship there's a relationship between you and the rest of the world in your mind.

[42:07]

And a certain pattern of relationship is one where it looks like your self is separate from the rest of the world. But the self And the idea of self isn't what made that pattern. Although past ideas of self are part of what made them. A lot of things make you and make your consciousness, to say the least. But the pattern that's made by many things looks like something was made that wasn't made by anything. in usual unenlightened consciousness. So the image of a separate self is in the pattern, but the image didn't make the pattern, even though the pattern looks like it has something in it that could make something by itself. So an independent thing isn't what made the idea of an independent thing. And the idea of an independent thing isn't what made the idea of an independent thing.

[43:19]

A lot of factors have come together to create an image of something that doesn't exist. Now that that image is there, that is part of most people's intention. It's true. But that image never was what made that in the first place. So the image of something that can act upon the world by itself is an illusion. And it wasn't another illusion that made that illusion. But previous illusions like that have the consequence of this present illusion. So moments of dilute of karma, where we imagine ourselves separate from others, are conditions for the present sense that we're separate from others and that we're acting separate from others. But that idea of separation didn't itself make this happen.

[44:26]

It's just a condition for it. Yes? When you talk about studying the intention, are you talking about conscious or conscious and unconscious? I'm talking about studying the intention that you can presently see. And I'm suggesting that if you study the intention you can presently see, what you can see will evolve. And there will be revelation of more and more information about what's involved in creating intention, which is, and again, intention in the consciousness is, the definition of intention is the pattern of relationship within the consciousness.

[45:27]

So every consciousness is basically the awareness of the existence of something. For example, the awareness of the existence of a sound. Okay? But that consciousness, that awareness of a sound, comes with a pattern of relationship with it, where there's a sense of the relationship between the person who is experiencing the color or the sound and the rest of the world. And there's a feeling with it, too, that comes with it, like it's positive or negative or neutral. And there's an image available, and there's various emotions that could be like greed, hate, and delusion could be like, and there's more or less confusion in the state of consciousness. And this pattern of relationship is constantly changing. So you could hear many, many sounds.

[46:32]

And they could be basically the same sound, like hearing a bell over and over. And each moment of awareness of that sound of that bell would be accompanied by a different pattern of relationship. And that pattern of relationship is action. And studying that action is being recommended. Pattern of relationship is the intention. Every moment of consciousness has intention, which means every moment has action. Studying the action, studying the intention. And speech that is infused with intention is also karma. Study, pay attention to what you speak and notice the intention in what you speak. Postures are also, the type that are being studied are postures which are infused with intention. study, the intention that's involved in every physical posture. And the more we study these intentions, the more the intentions evolve in such a way as the intentions evolve, the patterns of relationship evolve,

[47:43]

the actions involved to support further study. The more you study, the more the intention supports further study. And also, the more you study, the clearer the study in consciousness becomes. You say the more you study, the more is revealed? The more you study, the more is revealed. And also, what more is revealed is more and more skillful states of consciousness are revealed, And more and more skillful states of consciousness, which are more revealed, lead to more skillful states and also clearer vision. So the psychological side is the activity side, and the philosophical or epistemological side is the vision. And the epistemological side develops with the psychological side. But we're basically studying, now I'm emphasizing studying the psychological side, which is your action.

[48:48]

And again, every moment of consciousness, whether you're speaking or intending, to make a posture that is an action. So you and I are non-stop active beings. There's no passive beings. A passive being is an actively passive being. We're always active. But we're not always observing our actions. every moment we have an intention, every moment we have motivation, which is the activity of our consciousness. But we're not always watching. We're often watching something other than our intention.

[49:55]

So again, Genjo Kahan gives lots of examples like this, but the one I wanted to bring up was when you go out in a boat, when someone goes out in a boat, if they look at the shore, they might think the shore is moving. But when they pay attention to the boat, they realize that the boat's moving. Similarly, if you examine your own body and mind, or if you examine things with a confused body and mind, you may assume that you have a permanent self. But when you look closely at yourself, and the key thing here is that I think it says, but when you practice intimately returning where you are, it will be clear that nothing has an abiding self.

[51:13]

But that's a nice, that's a lovely translation, but another translation which is actually more literal is when you give close attention to all your actions. So practicing intimately and returning to where you are is an instruction for giving close attention to all your actions. So again, when you're riding in a boat and you look at the shore, If you look at the world, you see the world's changing. But you could be assuming you're not. When you look at yourself, you'll find out that you are changing, and that there's no self. Then when you look back at the world, you'll see, yes, the world is changing. But the way that you see the world changing now is not the way the world looks like it's changing when you think you're not changing.

[52:18]

It's a different thing. But most people are looking at the shore most of the day. They're looking at the shore, and they think the shore is moving. It's not really moving the way it looks to you. It's moving another way. It's changing, of course. When you look at yourself, it means look at your action. When you look at your action, that will remove karmic obstruction and you'll be able to see that the self cannot be found. Yes? When you look at the self, it sounds a little bit like that Barrett tension you were talking about earlier when you were discussing the subtle of the self on the self. Is there a distinction between how you study the self or study your intention?

[53:21]

Are you just noticing it or are you actively applying some sort of discourse? If you're settled already, Then I would suggest that you could start then, in the same way that you settled, start looking at your intention in a non-discursive way at first, maybe. And then if you can settle with that, then be discursive with it. Are there any particular ways to be discursive with it? There are a number of ways to be discursive with it. For example, the basic way to be discursive with it is to confess it and repent it.

[54:26]

That's the basic way. But there's innumerable ways to confess and repent. Part of the reason why they say confess and repent is because what you're going to be confessing and repenting, probably, is a pattern of relationship that's diluted. So it's kind of a confession. And again, the pattern of relationship that you're probably going to find is, again, one that you'll see in the Genjo koan. which is you're going to see an a priori self, a self that's already here, that's being brought forth and acting upon the world. When you look at your intention you'll probably discover that kind of pattern. So in that sense it's a confession. And then also you're going to have some feelings about that or not. But when you feel some little bit of problem, just the right amount of problem with that,

[55:31]

just the right amount of sorrow about that. This is the process by which this thing gets transformed. And when you forget this pattern, when you see that this pattern cannot be found, the pattern of you acting on the world, you already here, or you always here, always carrying around this independent self and acting upon the world and practicing with everybody, when you see that pattern, understand that pattern, you will see that that pattern cannot be found if you study it more and more. And then the pattern will be forgotten and you'll see another pattern. So that's the discursive part. So the discourse is, in some sense, one way to talk about the discourse is pay close attention to all your actions, and be settled with them and calm with them and relaxed with them and buoyant with them and enthusiastic about being aware of them and flexible about how to stay with them, and then confess and repent them.

[56:36]

And don't just confess and repent them by yourself. Confess and repent them before the Buddha, in the face of the Buddha's ancestors. So there's quite a lively little discourse there. And the stories of these conversations, of these discourses between practitioners and Buddhas, there's many stories about that. All those Zen stories are, in a sense, a conversation about that, in which somebody heard the true Dharma. Because in the conversation, the karmic hindrances were removed, and the person heard the true Dharma. Does that make sense? Yes. You said a few seconds earlier practice confession with patterns. Yeah. Can you say more about that? Well, like, so one day, the person comes. This person, actually, one moment, you're confessing this pattern.

[57:39]

So the way of confessing would be different for each different thing you confess. That's one way it's enumerable, OK? So it's a slightly different style for confessing different styles or different patterns of relationship. The feeling of sorrow in relationship to this pattern will be different from the feeling of sorrow in that one. Also then, who you talk to and how you talk and how they respond to you, that pattern will change, will be different. If you look at Zen stories or also conversations between Buddha in his students, each of those conversations often can be seen as a conversation of confession and repentance. When the Buddha's talking, it's not so much a confession or repentance. The Buddha's talking, and then as a result of the Buddha talking,

[58:44]

the person suddenly starts to see themselves and has something to confess and repent. So, like, one story like that, which I've told you many times, is the story of Pukasati, who goes to see the Buddha, and this person, Pukasati, who actually is already a well-known sage in India, but he wants to go see the Buddha, and he's traveling a long distance to see the Buddha, and he actually winds up spending the night with the Buddha in a potter's shed. But he doesn't know it's the Buddha. He's going to see the Buddha, but he doesn't know that the person he's going to see is the person who happened to be sharing the shed with him for the night. So they spend the night together in the shed, And then at some point in the night, early in the morning, the Buddhist says to this guy, under whom are you studying?

[59:48]

And Pukasati said, I'm studying with Shakyamuni Buddha, Gautama. And Gautama says to him, have you ever met him? And Pukasati said, no. So if you met him, would you know what he looks like? He said, no. And the Buddha says, oh, okay. But maybe you'd like to hear a little Dharma discourse. And the guy says, okay, lay it on, man. So then Buddha starts talking to him. And it's quite an interesting little talk he has, which you can find there in the scriptures. It's about six pages. And after talking to this guy for quite a while, the guy starts to realize who it is he's talking to him. He doesn't, Buddha doesn't say, I'm Buddha. He's just talking to him, talking to him, talking to him. And the guy thought, oh my God, this is my teacher.

[60:55]

I don't know exactly what point in the thing he saw that, but by the time the Buddha stops, he says, my teacher has come. One time I was driving home to Green Gulp, and I heard some people talking on the radio. And it was so beautiful. The language was so beautiful. And I wondered, now, who could have written this? And I thought, it must be Shakespeare. It didn't sound like Shakespeare, but it was so beautiful, I thought it must be Shakespeare. It was. It was just so, the only indication I had that it was Shakespeare was that it was incredibly beautiful English coming to me. I just couldn't imagine anybody that could make such beautiful English. There probably is some other parts of English that are that beautiful, but It was like that, you know. So then he says to Buddha, you know, sorry, you know, I was talking to you like, I mean, I wasn't disrespectful in terms of talking to another yogi, but I was disrespectful in terms of talking to my master the way I was talking to you.

[62:11]

And, in other words, I'm ashamed. I didn't understand my relationship with you. And not only that, but I thought I was independent of you before I met you." And so he confesses this to the Buddha, and the Buddha says, yeah, you did make a mistake. But the fact that you notice it and confess it and feel bad about it, this is the Dharma. So that's one example of the process of becoming aware of himself, what he was doing, how he saw himself in relationship to this person, how it was a little bit off. Because here was the person he was making this big effort to come to see, and he didn't understand that. He had this kind of erroneous understanding of his relationship with this person. But then he saw, in this case, And then he confessed. But this is confession, in a sense, after he saw, by being aware.

[63:12]

So that's one pattern. So if you look in the scriptures in the New Zen stories, you'll see these many, many varieties of people disclosing their intention, their awareness of their intention, their study of their intention. And there's also stories, not so famous ones, of people who come and talk, but they're not aware of what's going on in themselves. And they're being instructed to look inward and come back later after they've learned how to look inward. So there's many, many ways to do it. And each of us could have these innumerable conversations in relationship to our awareness of our intention. Does that make sense? I don't know. Some people haven't asked questions yet. Yes? I was wondering how pattern of relationship had to do with habit energy.

[64:18]

Has to do with habit energy? Habit energy. So the question is, the word habit energy and pattern of relationship, these patterns of relationship, the habit energy, is manifested in the pattern, and the way the pattern is formed has to do with past patterns of relationship. So if you have a habit of seeing yourself, if you do see yourself as separate from the world you're interacting with, independent of it, existing before it, or it before you, whatever, But anyway, some independence. And then one of the consequences of that would be to see that way again. Then that would be the habit energy there. That would be a functioning of the habit energy.

[65:20]

The consequences of your intention are habit energy. But that changes also. That can be carved also. And the habit energy transforms, and then new habit energy. Habit energy observed changes. One of the strange kind of things that I would propose to you is that actually habit energy is an illusion. you really can't find habit energy. Habit energy is what energy looks like when it's not studied carefully. So most people, because they don't look at their energy, it looks like habit energy. Now, they're not looking at it so they can't see it that way, but they feel like that. They feel like what you feel like when you're acting habitually.

[66:22]

But really you're actually changing all the time, and I'm changing all the time with you, But if I don't look really carefully, I can fall into this pattern of imagining that I'm not changing, and that I do have these habits which are maintaining themselves. And they seem really strong in proportion to how little I look at them. But when I look at them and see how strong they are, I start to realize that they're not so strong. Not so much that they get weaker, but I realize they aren't as strong as I thought they were as I start to study them more. The more I study these rock-solid patterns, the more I realize, or the more that there's awareness that they are changing. So one sense is you can say they change when you look at them. Another way is to say you realize more and more that they are changing when you look at them. But not only do you realize that they change,

[67:26]

But as you realize that they're changing, they seem to change in a positive way. And the other way is that when you don't look at them, they also change, but you don't notice that they're changing. But the way that they change, they do change. They are changing, but they change in a worse way. They degenerate. Whatever kind of pattern it is, it's changing. If you notice it's changing, it changes in a positive way. If you don't look at it, how it's changing, it changes in a negative way. It's changing anyway, though. But not looking, you don't think it's changing, and not thinking that it's changing, it changes in your thinking it's not changing in a way you won't like. But when you see that it is changing, it'll change in a way you do like.

[68:30]

Not in the short run, maybe, but in the long run. So the habit energy really is an illusion. But it's an illusion which, if you study, you will realize it's an illusion. Or it's an illusion which, if you don't think it's an illusion and you study, you will realize it's an illusion. We're really not entrapped into, you know, frozen positions. We actually, you know, we feel like we are, which is not pleasant, and it seems like we're not doing ourselves a favor. We don't like being all stiff and tight and stuck and rigidified and habitualized. We don't like that. Well, we're not that way. That's not the way we are. The way we don't like is not the way we are. The way we are is we're actually flowing. We actually are changing. And it's because I can't stand this changeable world that I imagine it to be not changing.

[69:40]

I'm afraid of the changeable world, so I imagine it's not changing, and then I go uncomfortable with this not changing world. But it really is changing, and there really aren't habit patterns. Energy. There's energy. There aren't relationship patterns either. There are relationship patterns, it's just you can't get a hold of them. And they're changing all the time. But anyway, to me this is so striking that we don't like being all stuck, and we're not. But we make ourselves stuck because we can't stand to be not stuck. But we're not stuck. So part of studying, part of the process is to realize, to study how stuck we think we are. Yes, Jean? When you say pattern of relationships, are you mainly referring to seeing the self as separate from everything else, or do you mean more than that in terms of pattern of relationship?

[71:01]

By pattern of relationship, I also mean just in every moment of consciousness, there's various mental factors. that coexist at that time, which shape the quality of the consciousness. Including that there's a sense of yourself in relationship to the world in there. But also, sometimes there's like, you're alert or you're tired, you're in pain or you're in pleasure, you're concentrated or you're distracted, you're diligent or you're non-diligent. you're tense or you're relaxed, your body's buoyant or it's depressed, all these mental factors shape your consciousness. And then in that field there's also a sense of how you're related to the world and how you're related to this field. So intention is the overall structure of your consciousness.

[72:03]

Would it also include so-called external conditions? It totally includes external conditions because the consciousness cognition itself arises For example, cognition of color arises from our bodies, particularly not so much our fingernails, but the nerves behind our fingernails, our sensuous, nervous, sensory body. You know, something, what do they call it? Sensory motor, our sensory motor body, which means the senses connected to nerves, connected to muscles. So this sensory body, but also it's a motor body, the sensory motor body in the world, the world stimulating it, and in the interaction between the sensory motor body and the environment, cognition arises.

[73:17]

Or I think even a nice way to say is that cognition is the way your body's interacting with the world in a given moment. So the way you're knowing is actually the way you're interacting with the world. So how you know and what you know is not something that you make. It's actually your relationship with the world, particularly with your body's relationship with the world. and that cognition comes up with a pattern of relationship. So of course the pattern of relationship also includes the world which gave rise to the consciousness in the first place. So the world actually supports you to have your own particular intention at this moment. You don't make your intention. So in that way the whole world is responsible for the intention you have right now. But you are also. Because you offered the body.

[74:20]

Your body and the world make a consciousness which has an intention. Your intention is something you make together with the whole world. However, to see that requires quite a bit of study. And seeing that, you realize impermanence, selflessness and independence. In the laboratory, the empirical laboratory of your consciousness, which you can actually study and which you can actually not study. And almost everybody you know doesn't. But it is possible to study this. And that's what's called, when you turn the light around and shine it back and study all your actions, the truth that nothing possesses itself will become clear. The ultimate truth will become clear if you study all your actions.

[75:25]

That's what the proposal is. And if you don't study your actions, then the result of not studying your actions will cause karmic hindrance and you won't be able to hear the true dharma. If you study karma, you will be able to hear the true dharma. If you don't study it, you probably will not be able to, except by some special kind of like bribery or something. Yes? I still didn't get the connection then between the karma and the intention. To what I understood, you include in intention also what we call external factors which make up yourself or support yourself. That would happen when the rock hits you. That's part of yourself, and it makes up you. So it would be part of your consciousness and intention, so also karma or not. So he's saying, going back to his rock example, if a rock touches your skin and you feel it, and through this interaction between your body and the rock, a cognition arises.

[76:38]

I said through the interaction between your body and the rock, But really, the way your body's interacting with the rock, and not just the rock, the whole world, but the way your body's interacting with the rock is a state of knowing. And so the state of knowing has an intention. So the rock is contributing to your state of intention. So the rock, in some sense, is born together with your action. I just don't imagine myself that the rock itself has a sensuous body so that it's also having its, what do you call it, its way of knowing the relationship. Whereas like this, my head and your head, I imagine that you are having, that a cognition has arisen in you and me. But I don't think the cognition has arisen in the rock. but the rock has contributed to my cognition as much as your head did, touching mine, in a way.

[77:42]

So I'm born together with all the rocks, but I don't imagine that the rocks have intentions. But their being supports my intentions, and I also, being a cognitive being, create rocks. But the rocks that I'm creating so far... And so you're in on this too. The rocks that you and I are creating are the only kind of rocks that there are. So rocks are intersubjective phenomena, I would suggest, I offer you that. That sensuous bodies interacting with rocks give rise to cognitions, and cognitions intersubjectively And cognitions create rocks. So the rocks are included in the process, but I don't think that they themselves have intention.

[78:52]

And therefore, I don't think rocks are evolving positively or negatively due to studying or not studying their karma. I think we living beings are the focus of moral evolution. And we bring the whole earth along with us because moral beings are the beings that create rocks. Living beings are moral beings. And they're the ones who create rocks. Together we do it. And we also create our intentions together. My intentions are created by you and me together. And the rocks are created by you and me together. But I don't see that they have any way, any moral responsibility to study their intention. I see no way that they can study their intention. However, their existence is totally tied in with our intentions and our level of moral development.

[79:58]

If we don't study our intentions, their existence is created by people who are not studying their intentions. If we are studying our intentions, then their existence arises with beings who are studying their intentions. So our moral effort and our moral study affects the physical world, and our lack of moral study affects the physical world. But I don't see the physical world as a presence or lack of moral study. I don't see that. However, even though they don't, they contribute to our existence, too. The rocks create us, we create the rocks, And I think people maybe don't have so much trouble seeing the rocks create us. They know we're made from, you know, minerals and stuff. But the rocks, the mountains, the sky, the sun, the plants, everything creates us.

[81:02]

But it's hard for people to see that they create the things. Yes? Sorry, how are rocks impacted by people who are creating them or studying their intention in them? Well, let's say the person has studied his intention really thoroughly and become a Buddha. Then he goes over to a rock and he relates to the rock in a certain way. So the rock will be affected by this Buddha relating to it. When the Buddha walks away, the rock will be different. the rock's chemical structure will be changed by meeting the Buddha. But, I mean... Let's say, for example, you know, if the Buddha comes to the rock and goes, Hi, sweetheart, and then walks by, and you come by the rock, you know, after the Buddha went, Hi, sweetheart, the rock will kind of go, ooh, ooh, ooh, and you'll have... You know?

[82:12]

Oh. Hey, I'm, like, happy. How am I happy? The rock will change the structure of your intention in a very nice way if you walk by it shortly after a beetle walks by it. So that's in the self-fulfilling samadhi. You've got the Buddhas. Watch like this. The Buddhas study their intention thoroughly. Their intention is how the whole universe makes them. They understand how their consciousness is made by all the rocks. their understanding of how they're made by all the rocks then goes back to all the rocks. Then it comes off the rocks over to the people, the enlightened or unenlightened people. So all beings are engaged in Buddha activity. The Buddhas are those who see how all beings are engaged in Buddha activity. They see how all the rocks are engaged in Buddha activity. They see how all the rocks are supporting all the people.

[83:12]

They see that. When they see that, that vision, that goes back and helps the rocks wake up, in a sense, to perform their activity even more thoroughly than they did before. Even though they were before they were engaging in Buddha activity, which is the rocks were supporting all beings. But somebody seeing that, And understanding that, together with the rocks, seeing that they're understanding it with the rocks' support, they valorize the rocks. Because the rocks couldn't realize that they were helping people until people realized the rocks were helping them. Now they do realize it. Not consciously, but in a way that the world now more appreciates how rocks and people are working together. And there are structural changes in the people. And when there are structural changes in the people, there are structural changes in the rocks, because what the people realize at this point is that there's no actual boundary between the rocks and the people.

[84:14]

The rocks are not separate from the living beings, and the living beings can realize that. But that realization doesn't come from the rocks practicing Zen for us. We have to practice Zen. by paying attention to our actions. Yeah? It just seems to me, based on what you said before about rocks not being sensing or cognitively, that if a Buddha interacts with a rock and then I walk by the rock later and the rock is changed in some way, then sort of the we're not affecting the rock so much as we're affecting ourselves, because we're kind of using the rock as a conduit to... You said you're not affecting the rock so much as you're affecting yourself, okay? So the realization of the Buddha is that you and the rocks are not separate. You're not separate from other beings and you're not separate from the ox.

[85:20]

When you understand that, that affects your actual physical existence. which was always interpenetrating the rock's physical existence. So the rocks are transformed too. Now you can make other examples too, like the rocks will be made into walls like this. The rocks will be made into temples. The rocks will be made into altars. The rocks will be appreciated by people because people have become more conscious. People will be more respectful to rocks. If you're real little, you know, if you're real little and you, like, take a little ride through a Buddha's body, through a manifestation of a Buddha, if you ride through and then you ride out the other side into a rock, you know, you won't feel so much like, you know, the Buddha started here and ended there and the rock started there.

[86:26]

You won't feel like that. But you will be very happy when you move through the Buddha's body. You will feel the illumination as you go through. And then when you go out the other side, you'll feel, you'll continue to feel it, and you'll feel it when you go inside the rock. The Dharma, if you open to the Dharma as you go into the Buddha's body, you will also feel the Dharma when you go into the rock's body. You have to be really small to take this ride. But you won't feel like, oh, the body of the one who realizes that this body has no limit has now been, has now, I've reached the limit of the body that doesn't have a limit. Buddha realizes this realization body. When you enter it, you realize there's no separation between this body and this living body and the body of the rock. The illumination goes right through the rock.

[87:31]

However, the rock doesn't have the job of looking at its intention. But the illumination doesn't... The illumination, when it reaches a human being, does not even necessarily cause the human being to start meditating on its intention. However, the illumination is trying to get the human being to meditate on his intention. So when it says, may all Buddhas and ancestors free us from karmic effects, the way I'm understanding it this morning is, may they help us study our intention. The way they help us is to get us to study our intention, then we will be able to... They help us hear the true Dharma. They don't give us the true Dharma. They get us to study. And when we study this way, we will hear it. But they aren't trying to get the rocks to do that. The rocks aren't saying, please, the rocks aren't writing Chinese and English and stuff and saying, may the Buddha free us from karmic effects.

[88:37]

But when you're free of karmic effects, you realize the cooperation between your rocks. And when you realize, if you don't realize the cooperation between you and rocks, your lack of realization becomes a condition for you and the rocks to change together. You and the rocks are always changing together. Always. Reciprocally. You're helping the rocks change, they're helping you change. You're always working with the rocks. When you wake up to how you're always working with the rocks, that affects your relationship with the rocks, because you're a different guy. You're a wake guy. So the rocks who always have been working together with you, they get transformed too. And again, when somebody meets a rock that's been transformed by this new relationship with you, they feel it. They feel it.

[89:42]

This is like far out, right? But that's what it says in the Self-fulfilling Samadhi. That when the Buddhas are like with the rocks and the trees and stuff, the relationship they have with the rocks and stuff is that they illuminate, they resonate with these things, and these things resonate back to us. And then we resonate to some other rock. And when you wake up to this, the resonance is a little bit different. Somehow it's being appreciated in a way that it wasn't before. And all kinds of new things happen, you know, like Like I say, people, like, start treating rocks differently. And so, I mean, you know, people at Tassajara are trying to, like, not pollute the ground here. They're building, you know, solar panels and stuff. This is part of, you know, the result of transformation of consciousness through studying of karma.

[90:45]

This is karma. Using this, using that, it's karma, right? There's intention there. Check it out. Teach it. Next. I'll bear with you. I need some clarification. So when you're talking about intention, I think you're saying that our actions, our body, mind, and speech, all those actions are intended. No, no. I'm not saying that. No, no. Okay. I'm not saying that. I'm saying the ones that do have intention, those are the ones which are highly recommended to be attended to. But not so much, for example, the growing of your fingernail is an action of your body, but it's not intentional as far as I know. And the growing of your hair and salivation and various kinds of, what do you call it?

[91:46]

Physiological. Well, no, no. Various, there's certain involuntary, involuntary. Yeah, so we don't study those. And so in intention, where does that come from? In intention, where does it come from? Yeah, where does that arrive? Okay. Is that a thought? Is that created? It's a structure? How does that come from? It'll take a while to get this. I already said it. I know you said it. But it'll take a while to get this. The technical Buddhist epistemological presentation, in other words, the explanation of the source of way knowledge occurs is you have an organ, an object, and a previous consciousness.

[92:46]

So it's the epistemological. This is an epistemological presentation. So when you have an organ, means like an eye organ, electromagnetic radiation bouncing off something, electromagnetic radiation just shining straight into your eye will not give rise to the phenomena, for example, of color. It has to bounce off something. But when electromagnetic radiation bounces off some material back into your retina, that sensory tissue there, connected to your nervous, your sensory motor system, that interaction, that dance, gives rise to a cognition of color. And cognitions come with intentions. cognitions aren't just like, it isn't just that I know you, it's that I also feel something for you. I also have opinions about you. I have opinions about myself in relationship to you. I see you in relationship to other people. All that can occur as I know you.

[93:46]

That whole pattern is my intention. Like, you know, you're my daughter, or you're my mother, or you're my sister, or you're my student, or you're my teacher. I see all that. And that determines the And that is my action in relationship to you, which could then animate me to speak to you, to take a walk with you or whatever. But that speaking would be animated by the relationship in which I see myself having with you. That relationship with you and also the relationship of my mind, like I'm feeling tired, I'm angry, blah, blah, blah, that's also part of my intention. I don't want to see anybody, including you. You know, I want to get away from everybody. That's how I feel. That's my intention. I don't want to talk to anybody. Because my mind is shaped in a certain way, there's pain and fear and confusion and lack of appreciation and blah, blah, blah is in my mind. That makes my mind a certain shape, which is kind of what we call unskillful shape.

[94:48]

But that's my intention at the moment. And if I speak from that, then my speech is affected by that shape, by that intention. And if I make a gesture, it's that kind of gesture that's infused by that intention. So what I'm saying is study those intentions. As you study those intentions, you'll see, oh, what a yucky intention. I hate everybody, everybody gives me a headache, I'm afraid, blah, blah, blah. And now if you ask me where does that come from, I would say it comes from past intentions, but also it comes from the present universe which is giving rise to this cognition. So really we think we make our own intentions, a lot of us do anyway, but you don't make your own intentions. You do not make your own intentions. Your body is a condition for your intentions. Because you can't have intentions without a body. Because you can't have a consciousness without a body.

[95:51]

So your body is a condition for your intentions. Your cognitions are a condition for your intentions. Your past cognitions and past intentions are conditions for your... innumerable past cognitions are conditions for your intentions. But also the universe, which is giving rise... with which you're interacting, is creating the basic... event of cognition in the first place. So everybody's involved in the formation. Everybody's involved and especially important is your past cognitions and past intentions are involved. And the emphasis is studying those and also understand that although you're studying those because studying those clarifies your vision so that you can see how everybody else is cooperating with you. If you don't study those, if you just study how everybody else is contributing without studying your own intentional patterns, you can't see clearly. I'm suggesting that every moment of cognition is really your interaction with everybody.

[96:57]

And usually some highly concentrated or intense part of everybody, like electromagnetic radiation or something, But really the whole world is giving rise to your cognition and also your body. That comes with an intention. If you haven't been studying intentions, you won't be able to see how everything's contributing to the arising of your intentions. The more you study intention, the more you'll see how grand is the causal support to your moment of intention. If we don't study our intentions, we usually think, you know, I make this intention. I'm intending to do this. And we think we do it by ourselves. That's because we don't study our intentions. If you study your intentions, you more and more realize that your intentions and your whole life are arising together with everyone, and that their life is arising with yours. That comes from studying karma, intentions, actions.

[98:01]

Not studying karma causes karmic obstruction, so you can't see We're talking about how to see dependent origination by studying karmas. Yes? I didn't want to ask you before because it's a challenging question, but I felt compelled to speak for rocks and rolling paths. I don't feel compelled, but... You know, we're always speaking for rocks. I'm wondering if that is... Excuse me. I want to call on Tim because he's catching kind of... So every morning when you confess or repent, are you seeing the same drama based on the greed, hate, and delusion? Yes. Is that greed, hate, and delusion our intention that we are seeing?

[99:02]

Is that intention? Greed, hate, and delusion are... are mental factors which occur within cognition, and when they occur there they're contributing to the shape of the consciousness. So if you look inside and you find, you know, confusion and greed, you'll see how that causes your mind to be a certain shape and have a certain intention. And you'll notice usually there's not greed and hate simultaneously. This kind of stuff you notice when you look at your intentions. And so, yeah, that's an example. Greed, hate and delusion are key ingredients in the pattern of consciousness, which is your relationship with the world. Why should it say it's your relationship with your world? It's your cognitive version of your relationship with your world. And by studying the cognitive version,

[100:04]

of your relationship with the world, your vision improves, and also your relationship with the world improves. But if we don't study the cognitive version of our relationship with the world, the cognitive version of our relationship with the world gets more and more problematic, and our vision also deteriorates. So vision develops by being when you apply it to intention, and intention develops positively when intended to. And when intention evolves positively, that supports deeper vision, and deeper vision supports elevation of intention, and so on. So then the vision and the intention grow up together in that way. And part of the pattern of intention is that there's greed, hate, and delusion, they're in different patterns, different strengths, different pairings, different relationships to different things.

[101:12]

This is part of what we actually get to see. You can actually see this if you look. And if you don't, you don't. You know, it's not for other people to tell you that you're a greedy. It's for you to look and see. And don't tell other people they are either. so much until you have looked inside to see how you are. But usually people are looking at the shore rather than the boat. What time is it? 11. It's almost 11? I thought it was about 3. Yeah? Yes? Ray Ring? I have a question. Is there skillful action possible before you wake up? Yes, there is skillful action before you wake up. Is that called luck?

[102:13]

It's actually, you can call it luck if you want to, but it's that the world has made you, the world has supported you, and you have supported the world in a relationship that's given rise to a cognition. And the world and you and your history have given rise to a pattern of consciousness which has the intention to do something beneficial and helpful. And everything seems to be lined up with that and it seems to be, from what you can tell, and what other people can tell, it looks like a pretty wholesome state of consciousness. But in that pattern, there could still be the sense of you separate from the people that you're acting with a beneficial, kind intention towards.

[103:19]

You could still see yourself as independent of them. So this is a deluded consciousness, but it has positive intention. and there may be very little greed or hate in it. There's still some confusion, though, because there's a basic confusion of yourself being separate from the world which has created you. And I said there's delusion, but there's only delusion because there's not penetrating vision in this consciousness. Because if the consciousness could see, it would see. Yeah, there's delusion. There's a person there who exists separate from the world But that cannot be found. This image cannot be found except as an image. There's no such thing. So delusion means that the state of consciousness in which this thing which doesn't exist is appearing has not been studied thoroughly enough so that the vision can see this image.

[104:28]

There's no empirical reference to this independently existing person. it cannot be found. And when it cannot be found, it's basically forgotten. And then a new stage occurs. And there, there can be wholesome karma, too. It's just that there, the wholesome karma isn't done by the independent person. Yeah, I'm interested in, before it happens, is it possible for people who don't hear the Dharma to do good things, to have good intentions? It is possible for people who have not yet heard the Shraddha Dharma to look inward, see their intention, and basically looking inward to see intention is very, very skillful and wholesome.

[105:28]

To look inward and see an unwholesome intention is very wholesome. It's more important, I would say, here's another shocking thing, it's more important and more to the point of practice for a person to be looking at her unwholesome karma than for someone who has wholesome karma to not be looking at it. But if you look at your karma, you look at your intention, and it looks pretty wholesome to you, And then you actually go tell Leslie, you know, say, Leslie, I looked at my intention. Here's what I saw. How does that seem to you? I thought it was wholesome. What do you think? And Leslie says, looks pretty wholesome to me. OK? But then Leslie says, however, even though it looks wholesome, we can't be completely sure that it's wholesome. But it does look pretty wholesome. We have to see what the consequences will be.

[106:34]

Because although it looks wholesome if it has negative consequences, then that changes retroactively how wholesome it was. Okay? So you start by looking and saying, oh, that looks wholesome. Then you watch to see what the consequences are, and what the consequences are. And as you watch, it isn't that you really truly find out what the consequences are, but that you watch to see how what you think the consequences are affect the quality of what you thought your intention was. So then you start to realize more and more what intention really is. Namely, it doesn't have a self. But if you don't study intention, you're going to think it has a self. Probably, because you think everything does. Another way to say this is, intention or karma is one of the best things to study to realize that there isn't a self.

[107:37]

Partly because the quality of an intention or an action isn't established by itself. It has to do with its consequences. So its basic definition as to its quality, is dependent on other things. So right away you can see that it isn't something by itself. It's dependent on its consequences. If you want to benefit someone, that's a wholesome thought. Yes? However, if it doesn't benefit them, you maybe see, well, I intended it to be beneficial, but it wasn't so, maybe it wasn't so beneficial. But, you know, that I was intending it to be. So there was an intention to be beneficial, but that didn't have of itself the true, graspable beneficial, because the consequences can affect it. So this type of meditation, you see, will lead you to see

[108:44]

that things do not have a self. Yes? As far as consequences, how do we know what the consequences are? This is another big question, and I won't get into it too much now. I'll just say, when the Dharma does not fill your body and mind, you think it's already sufficient. When the Dharma does fill your body and mind, you realize something's missing. if you were studying your action, your intentions, and then you saw a consequence, if the Dharma didn't fill your body and mind, you would think you actually sufficiently understand the consequence. But when Dharma does fill your body and mind, you notice that I did this and then there seem to be these consequences, but there's something missing. So your question shows the Dharma's filling you somewhat. Because you can see that although you're watching action and consequence, the cause and effect of intention and result, still you can see that you never really are going to be able to see completely, because then there's another consequence after that one, and after that one.

[110:00]

Okay? Part of being filled with dharma is that you realize that you have a limited access to the understanding of what the consequences are. That will be part of it. So you wouldn't finish off. That's the famous story of the guy has a horse and the horse runs away. And people say, oh, poor guy. He says, maybe so. And then the horse comes back with a herd of wild horses. And people say, oh, you're so lucky you got your horse back plus a herd. And he says, maybe so. It's not so much that you're going to be able to tell, actually, that something in action really was wholesome. or really was unwholesome because they depend on consequence. Let me finish this. The important thing is not that you can find out what good is and what evil is, but that you commit to practice good and avoid evil because in order to practice good you have to pay attention to your intention.

[111:14]

And in order to avoid evil, you have to pay attention to your intention. So avoiding evil and practicing good, you never will ever really be able to find them. However, trying to practice them will lead you to realize that you can't find them. You'll see that they can't be found, that there's no self to good and evil. But if you don't try to practice good and you practice evil, you don't have to pay attention to practice evil. As I say, you can practice evil blindfolded. But to practice good, you have to pay attention to your intention, and to avoid evil, you have to pay attention to your intention. But it's not so that you will finally be practicing good and never practice evil. it's so that you will realize the Buddha way.

[112:16]

And practicing good and avoiding evil is another way to say study your intention. You try to practice good, but you never will find it. But if you don't try to practice it, you'll think you could find it. As you know, a lot of people who don't look at their intention, they think they know what good is, and they think they know what evil is, because they never look. You know those people? If I wanted to, say, help somebody by taking this, they're sick and I'm willing to take them to the doctor. Yeah, right. And on the way there's a car accident and they end up in even worse condition. Yes. So what I might have looked at as a good or kind intention turns out to have this negative consequence. So what do I learn from that or that I could apply next time?

[113:21]

I'm not sure what my question is. Something to do with, I think it has something to do with what you're talking about, but I can't ever really be sure or it has so much to do with so much else, but I can't ever clearly have. And it's my own intention from now. But what do I learn when that happens? In the story you just told, I'm not sure what you learned, but the One of the things that's being proposed to you that you will learn is that by giving close attention to your intention, moment by moment, it will become clear that intention, good, evil, car accidents, health and sickness, all things are impermanent and lack self.

[114:35]

That will become clear to you. In other words, you will hear the true Dharma. You will hear the true Dharma. And when you hear the true Dharma, you will be able to maintain the Buddha way. So studying through this scenario you told, studying through that scenario, the study will lead to a learning. And the learning will be you'll be able to hear the true Dharma. That will be the result. And so some of us will have to give people rides to the hospital and get in accidents on the way to the hospital and then spend time in the hospital and be released from the hospital and then go through rehab and then go back to a Zen monastery and then trip on a rock and so on. We'll go through these various things. if we study intention through these processes of injury and recovery, injury and recovery, injury and recovery, or injury and no recovery, and more injury and no recovery, whatever the pattern is, if you're studying the intention, you will hear the true Dharma.

[115:51]

Because studying the intention removes the karmic hindrances to hearing the true Dharma. Once you hear the two dharma and you're maintaining the Buddha way, then all kinds of understandings will come pouring in about these various things. But even before you understand what is really good karma, how could anything be determined as good karma? There is no such thing as a karma which has a self called good karma. It's just that doing what you think is good and inviting other people in on what you think is good to increase the intelligence applied to the observation of good, this study removes the hindrance which comes from acting without paying attention.

[116:53]

So we've already been acting non-stop for a long time We've been acting nonstop. We've been paying attention somewhat. When we didn't pay attention, which was quite frequent, that created obstructions. The removal of these obstructions comes from now paying attention to moment by moment action. Action, action, action. You're always active. Pay attention to it. Yes? I just want to say that this is kind of... I'm going to start by these two texts and particularly look at how the issue of studying karma is kin in Eastern texts and to discuss.

[118:10]

So please pay attention to your intention. Thank you.

[118:24]

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