That's the opportunity of fear. The other is the incredible danger. Fear is extremely dangerous if you don't interact with it and face it. If you turn away from it, it just climbs on your back and runs your life. You've got to turn around and gradually open up to it. And I have these hawk talons, which I'm going to bring down I found a hawk skeleton up in the hills. I saved the talons. You've got to have hawk talons or eagle talons and you've got to get a hold of that fear. You've got to have eagle, eagle, eagle spirit. You've got to go and face that fear all by yourself and you've got to keep breathing. If you stop breathing, the fear is going to get you. You've got to breathe into the fear. Not to give it life, but to interact with it. Okay, that's the good thing about spirit.

[01:03]

Next, yes. What's your name again? Wendy. Wendy. We talked earlier about how sometimes when we let love in, we feel like crying. I just talked before. Yes. And I don't quite understand why. I think you said something about that you're giving up control. Did I say that? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, I think I said we have fear. We also have fear of love, of receiving love. Yeah, you said that, and you said, like, time. Yeah, it's like, why? Why what? Because you're so happy. You know? You're so happy. It's like, sometimes I cry at times like that, and I also cry when I see people do their thing. When I see somebody, when somebody comes in front of me, and does their thing, I usually cry. Person being a person. There's nothing more beautiful than a person being totally, completely herself.

[02:05]

Nothing. That is it. Nothing more beautiful than a tree being a tree, and a temple being a temple, and a mountain being a mountain. When I see a mountain being a mountain, I cry. But I'm not in control of my crying. It's embarrassing. You know? Now, I can try to get control of it, but... If I feel not only am I getting to see someone who's really being herself and transcending herself thereby, and am I moved to tears by that beauty and that truth and that freedom and that courage and all that, and that honesty and that integrity, then maybe I can also have enough integrity to cry the way I'm crying rather than the way I should cry. But then I'm also losing... I'm losing control. I'm not any longer worried about, like, how much I should cry, how little I should cry. So then I might become afraid, you know, maybe I'll cry forever. Maybe I'll get... You know? So then fear can come up, like, what are the implications of these tears, you know?

[03:07]

Will I become dehydrated? Then fear comes in. But before that, I just let go of my control in response to love, you know, in response. I felt safe, you know, I felt like if she can be herself, I can be myself. And it's so beautiful that what I'm going to do is cry now. Well, I think I understand in terms of it being more personal. In other words, if you feel the acceptance, then that might make me feel like crying. That too. Because it's a release or a recognition. Yeah. You get to see the face that looks at your face and tells you that this face says, you can be you. As a matter of fact, even the face that says, you are you. And that's beyond, you know, good and bad. That's just pure virtue. And I'm seeing it and I'm very happy to see it.

[04:10]

And you see me seeing it and so... And you know what I'm looking at. And you know you didn't do any special tricks. You just told me the truth, for example. And you even told me about a bad thing you did. But you said it truthfully. And it's not that I'm sad you did the bad thing. It's I'm touched that you told me the truth. That you dared to be yourself. You cared enough to send the very best. And you dared, you dared to send the very best, which just simply happens to be you. And the best thing that you can ever give this world is yourself. And that's the most scary thing to give and or the most anxiety-producing thing to give to the world. And that's all the world wants from you. And the world will also tell you, if you give what we want from you and what only you can give and what we all need, if you give that to us, we'll marginalize you. They'll tell you that. you know, they'll marginalize you, like, into sainthood or something.

[05:14]

You know, and then they'll pile you up and, you know, put you on an altar and you'll have a terrible life. You need your personal experience? Yeah, you know, if some people were plopped into my life right now, they'd say, this is hell. Just plain hell. But it's not hell, really. It just wouldn't be that. ...without deciding to be there. Okay? Whatever that was. Janet hasn't spoken yet in the group. I think I have an example of not knowing how to find beer. It might be shot. I was driving with my brother on the street. My brother took a little of that and attacked him out of the driveway. There's what he called when somebody goes, you know, like that, you know, can you remember?

[06:19]

There's that kind of thing. It's not really anticipatory. Yeah, I think the startle reaction is not really fear. It's more like, you know, almost like a reflex. So I don't, in some ways I wouldn't call. Well, then once you go through situations, you know, and they go through the situation and they're totally there, and then they think about, after it's over, they think about what could have happened. So they do this anticipatory thing, even though they know it's not going to happen, they still do it. And it's just like they are anticipating it, and they start sweating and shaking after the fact's over. at least not to mention if it also can be adrenaline fueled then you have adrenaline plus anticipating what could have happened and then people go into shock afterwards even though they got through fine they often faint afterwards when after thinking just a short time about what could have happened even have heart attacks afterwards

[07:58]

in the mind. Yeah, good, great, great, yeah. Because you then sat down and went into shock. That's very reasonable of you. And also educational. You learned about how your psyche operates. Because you know that to go into fear response while you're driving a car is very dangerous. So you wait till you get home. That's much better. But at the moment of just like, just like, just truck coming at you, before you even think of truck, implications of truck coming at you, just the truck coming at you, there you could get anxiety. Before you think about what's going to happen, just like tiger in the face. Just me and tiger. That's, you know, that's then you're really there, you know. When you look at a tiger, you know who you are.

[09:03]

Just think about that. Having a tiger in your face. That's who you are when you're in a situation like that. That's who you are. That's what it's like to be you. and you can and can you stand that you're you know when you meet a tiger you're not like kind of like well so what you know you don't really this is a tiger i respect this tiger and also i'm here too you know you're both there and there's a tiger that this is very intense this is what it's like imagine a person like a tiger You respected everyone that much and at the same time didn't collapse. But you stay there and be yourself in the face of this. This is who you are. You are capable of being such a person. You are such a person. And so our meditation practice is to develop the skill to be present in such a person as you are.

[10:09]

And to develop a way to live in the midst of these kinds of meetings. And not veer into running away or grabbing. Not killing the tiger, not running away from the tiger. Just meet it. And slow down enough so that at least in one moment you're there with the tiger. And for one moment you're there. And you're completely not running away or moving. You're present with that tiger. Yes, one more time for Janet. You remind me of one thing that I learned from that incident. And that was that I didn't have to stop and let the driver know how scared I was. I would just go on. I didn't have to. Okay, you didn't have to.

[11:13]

Now, what did you learn from that? You learned that, and that contains another lesson. What's the next lesson? That I don't have control of the way he feels towards me, and then I'm just changing the way he feels, all the way he behaves. Yes, there's that, and there's some... I don't have control. Yes, uh-huh, and what else? That I'm... I want to make a decision about how to express or not reflect my image. Uh-huh, yeah. Uh-huh. And that's, if I may say so, that last answer was warmer to what I'm, to the lesson I'm hoping you'll get out of this.

[12:17]

Can you see the direction of that last answer? So where is this going? Where am I, where do you think? Well, it's going to where I was. Yeah. Yeah. It's going towards... You could give up... In other words, you can give up everything else. You can give up teaching people stuff, making sure they learn their lesson, all that stuff. You give up all that stuff because the most important thing is your authentic self. And you got close to it, and that is... That's what you're here for. Turns out that will be the best teaching you can give anybody because what you want them to learn is the same thing. No. So they're ready to receive the teaching from somebody who is like that. And that's what they want.

[13:17]

That's what people want to have. That's what they want. And they'll come eventually. Like I said, they will come and dance with you. They will come. Every single one of them will come on their schedule, not on yours. The truck driver may not come right after the accident. He may come quite a while later. You drive home and the truck driver is the one who should get the lesson from you. You don't think too much about that because you're so absorbed in this thing about being you. You drive home and the truck driver is the one who should get the lesson from you. Because they got so close. But in fact, although they're the one who should get the lesson in a way because they were so careless, in fact, the truck driver gave you the lesson. If he hadn't been so uncareful, you wouldn't have got the lesson. So the truck driver is your benefactor. So that's why you want the truck driver to share in your benefits. You want to share your experience of your life with the one who carelessly, unknowingly gave it to you. Because you know he doesn't know.

[14:18]

So you want to give it to him. But you know he's not ready, so you just drive home. And on the way home, you stop at the stop sign. And you look at the car next to you, and you give it to that person who you didn't expect to give it to. And they look in your eyes, and they get it. And they drive on. And then they carry on the tradition, not of being Janet, but of Janet being . So they get to be Ralph, who drives home as Ralph. And Ralph opens the door and looks at his wife, and he gives it to her. So the way this is transmitted face to face is not under your control also. And eventually, the truck driver drives up, and his neighbor's wife looks up, and he gets the message so that when he gets back in the truck next time, he'll be more careful. That's how you wake the truck driver up. In these kind of inconceivable ways, it's the transmission of the vision of what it's like to be a human being and be willing to be present and appreciate.

[15:19]

There's a story, you know, there's a movie called, I think it's called The Hit. And I think it's starring John Hurt. You know John Hurt? And I think the story is about this guy who wheels on the mob, turns the mob in after a bank robbery, and then they catch all the mobsters, and he gets what he called protective custody in Spain. But he kind of knows, he's somewhat anxious, because he kind of knows they're going to come and get him. He's anxious. So while he's waiting for the mob to come and get him, the way he works with it is he gets ready, he's going to let them kill him when they come. He said, they'll come, and when they come, I'll just let them kill me. That was his plan. So when they got out of prison, they sent John Hurt, the hitman, to get him. And John Hurt's a very good hitman.

[16:26]

He goes and finds a guy, drags him out of his house, and takes him away. Kills a bunch of people in order to do it. And he has an assistant. Anyway, they abduct this stool pigeon. and take him back. But they notice as they abduct him that he's very relaxed and doesn't run away. He runs a little bit, like to the other room or something. But basically he goes along quite peaceably and tries to relax. And they're impressed. Especially John Hurt's assistant is impressed. And we're impressed. Relaxation at being hit. So the idea is he's going to be taken from... Spain across the French border and back to Paris where the mobsters are waiting for them. And so there's this trail of as the abducted, as this person under protective custody is being brought across Spain and the people are protecting him and trying to get him back from this gangster.

[17:32]

And they abduct a girl, a lovely young Spanish girl. They pick her up as a hostage on the way. Anyway, to make a long story short, at the border, the French-Spanish border, the hitman says, I changed my mind. I'm not going to take you back to Paris. I'm going to kill you here. And the guy says, oh, wait a minute. No, no. That's not the plan. There's even also this one to escape, and he didn't. He just walked a few miles away and looked at a waterfall. Anyway, he said, no, no, that's not the place. I'm not going to get killed here. You can take me back, and I'm going to be killed in Paris. He said, no, I'm going to kill you here. And the guy totally freaked out. He became terrified. He tried to run away, and the guy shot him. So then the hitman, you know, he kills his assistant. And he's going to kill the girl, you know, he's going to kill the girl, but instead he whacks her, knocks her out.

[18:41]

Doesn't kill her. And I forgot exactly what happened, but anyway. You know, in terms of how he fought the interaction when he hit her, I think he just whacked her one and knocked her out. And he changed his clothes into hiking outfit. She happened to have and he hiked across the border where the French police are waiting for him. What's happening? She's uncontrollably being herself. What's happening? It was so funny. It just happened to him. So then he walks across the border and I think... And in the meantime, the police found the girl and the guy and the murdered people. They found the girl. So then they drove to the French border. Then they got the girl at the border. So the guy comes trotting across the border. He knows who he is. And the girl sees him and said, there he is.

[19:43]

So then the police go after him. And he goes into this little souvenir store at the border, you know, where they have lots of, like, teddy bears and other kinds of, you know, things you can buy at the border. He goes in there and the police come in with their automatic weapons and they start shooting at him. So then he, you know, eventually he gets kind of worn out from all the bullets in him. And sits down among your teddy bears. You know, now, my friend, who I went to the movie with, the way he understood it is, they know how to take a picture of this guy's face, you know. He's sitting there in the teddy bears, and this guy, this guy has this look on his face like the look that the other guy wanted to have on his face when he died. But he's got it. This guy is, he's there. And he's being, this is called anxiety.

[20:49]

He's got anxiety. Lead anxiety. All this stuff. Tortured and tormented, he's being suffocated with bullets. But he's there. He's totally there. He never flinched or tried to not be there. He was completely there. There he is. This guy's completely sitting there. He's going to die pretty soon, but anyway. He's alive, and he's himself. He expressed himself, and he got some feedback. And at this time in his life, he wasn't hurting anybody. he was not hurting anybody to see his face the girl walks in and looks in his face and he looked back at her and then you see her face now she's got it except she doesn't get shot this is face to face transmission you know

[22:05]

And it can appear, and when it was on his face, he was not shooting anybody. He was not shooting anybody. It wasn't on his face when he shot those people. It was a little bit on his face when he hit the girl rather than killing her. It was on his face when it finally came down to how are you going to die. There it was. He died the way this guy wanted to die, that he killed. He got the idea and he embodied the presence of dying with dignity and courage and not trying to... It was in his face. The girl came in and saw it and she got it. This is how stuff happens sometimes. You know, the most unlikely people wind up with the most wonderful things if they're willing to take the teaching. And then they're saved from all the... You get killed, too. That's part of it. But for that moment, anyway, that's what it takes.

[23:06]

But it's not easy to be present when this happens, I guess. I mean, I would imagine. But he was, and the other guy wasn't, even at the thought of being killed in the wrong spot. But in fact, the thing about non-being is we don't get to choose when we die. It isn't when we're in the mood. Generally speaking, it's not when we're ready for it. We just have to be ready, period, all the time. That's the thing. And there's a possibility that we will be able to. That's why it's good to warm up, though, for it. And to start practicing beforehand. So, Martin and Rafael. Yeah, when I was working from the case council here, I was feeling pretty good.

[24:11]

It was a beautiful day. And also, I felt a pinch of a... And I couldn't figure out where it was coming from. So, I thought it was something... Something broke. And I thought, maybe I should fall. Maybe you should what? Fall home. And then I thought, no. I always do, you know, I am making it into a fear. Now I know I have to take some action that would make me feel better. I'm not going to do anything. I'm just going to let it go. And I did. Actually, no. Maybe because you're happy. Maybe because you're in the presence of beauty. Because you really were alive. The more alive you are, you know, like you being you, the more alive I am as me, the more susceptible, the more vulnerable, the more at risk am I to anxiety.

[25:39]

And then if I notice that I want to run away from it by making it into object, think it's my family's in trouble or something like that, distract myself from it, Maybe because you're happy in the presence of beauty. Maybe because you really were alive. The more alive you are, you know, like you being you, the more alive I am as me, the more susceptible, the more vulnerable, the more at risk am I to anxiety. And then if I notice that I want to run away from it by making it an object, think it's my family's in trouble or something like that, distract myself from it, then I get it. But if I just stay here, it goes away, but then it comes back again.

[26:47]

Every time then you express yourself again, it comes back. It can be released innumerable times, but every time it gets released, you get another sample of what it's like to be you. You get another lesson. Another lesson is studying yourself and seeing what you really are. Yes? Oh, no, excuse me. Martin and interesting. Yeah, I had an incident that happened around a month ago. I was driving my car down 580 going east on some 101. I mean, going north. And there was a light rain falling and the ground was a little wet. And I thought... This is the kind of water people get into accidents. The ground became a little oily. There was no cars behind me, and I was probably going around 50 miles an hour. And all of a sudden, I look from my rear of the mirror, and this car was coming right for me at the rocket.

[27:52]

And it smashes right into my rear on the left side, and I go against it, and I stop. And this woman comes running out of the car. She says, are you all right? She said, I lost control. I couldn't stop the car. And I was in shock. And the amazing thing for me was, hey, look at my face. I didn't even feel any anger. I thought in that moment, God, I'm She lost control of the car. A tow truck came and the police came. And my car was towed to a garage. I rented a car that night.

[28:57]

A few days before that, I noticed an insignia on the back of the car. I said, oh, I wonder what kind of car that is. That you rented? You know, I was just looking at this car in the street. It was an insignia on the back. I didn't know what kind of car it was. It would represent the name of the car. And the car I rented was a Toyota with that insignia. And it was the last car on the lot. And just because the rental place just because it waited for me to get a car. And after that, I got anxious. I tried particularly in the evening. It was raining. I didn't want to get in my car. So my car is still being repaired. It's been three weeks already. And my driving habits have changed. I'm more cautious. I keep on looking in the rearview mirror. see if there's any car on top.

[30:02]

It was quite shocking. I could have been killed right there. That could have been it. I had no control. I came out of nowhere. Yeah. That's the way it is. And being cautious is highly recommended, not in order to avoid accidents, because that's not what avoids accidents, but in order to settle into being the person in the car. And that doesn't avoid accidents either, but that's that you're free in this life. Get into the car carefully. Check it out. That's how you get to feel what it's like to be you in the car. Christina? I have a question about anxiety and Happen while one is expressing oneself or actually right afterwards when one becomes conscious of expressing oneself?

[31:16]

It happens while... Simultaneous. But when one becomes conscious a little bit after? Well, again, there's two ways of expressing yourself. One way of expressing yourself is like, here I am. Another way of expressing yourself is, how are you? So when I'm into the how are you, when I ask you how are you, but I realize that that isn't self-expression, then I'm really here. And it's easier for me to feel anxiety of being myself, being a person who actually is asking... You have a question, and that's really who I am at that moment. I'm not going through the motions. I actually wonder. Actual anxiety then. Now, when I'm expressing myself in the sense of asserting my position and asking you to recognize me, or I see you recognize me, at that time it may be a little harder for some people to...

[32:19]

in that side of it, emphasize in that side for a moment, to feel the anxiety. But it is, I propose to you that it's simultaneous. If it's afterwards, what you have then is you're expressing yourself as someone who is remembering something. And you can remember. Maybe we're not so aware of. Maybe you can see in retrospect more easily than you could at the time. But what if you're fully doing that, you feel anxiety at that moment too. New, fresh anxiety. Fresh. And that's the anxiety that comes with being yourself. That's the situation in which you get to see how you really are and get liberated from yourself. This work is done in the present. The actual liberation happens in the present. It happens in one moment. Okay, now it's... I feel like it'd be good to either... I think at this point, either have a period of meditation or something else.

[33:29]

Would you like a period of meditation? Huh? Yeah. Okay. Now just let me check to see if that's a problem with anybody else here. How about walking in... If you'd like to do walking meditation again, that's okay. Now, it says here 3 o'clock Dharma talk. Does that mean they're having a Dharma talk in the Zendo? Well, what we can do is we can go, you can go check and we can go over to the Zendo. And you can either, if we can sit in the Zendo, let's go in the Zendo. And Christina will be over in the Zendo to tell us if we can. Okay? And if we can't, then I would suggest that you sit around outdoors. If we can go into zendo, let's go into zendo. If we can't, let's just sit outdoors. And those who would like to do walking meditation can do that. And I will ring a railroad bell at the end of that time, and then please come back here.

[34:35]

Okay, it'll be about a half an hour. It'll be about a quarter to four or so. the overall course on Buddhism. And the basic vision that Buddhism kind of was founded on, according to certain stories, is that the Buddha at a certain point saw

[35:38]

Things are by nature Buddha, but because of fixed ideas and attachments, are unable to realize. And sometimes we talk in terms, I, a couple of weeks ago, when I gave a talk here, I talked of like three kinds of coverings, kind of coverings over our enlightened, three kinds of obstructions to our enlightened being. And one is the covering due to action. Another one is the covering due to defilement or affliction.

[36:55]

And the third one is covering due to, you might say, knowing. But the three, three coverings, okay? Remember that? So what happened? You don't remember, no? Could you tell me, please? Fortune, 500, order, which is an M, no? I just had a fear of sin. The eccentric, this is called karma.

[38:27]

Karma is action. Karma avarana. This is called the kvesha avarana. This is called yaya avarana. thing is practice is to like see So the way you see through the first one, the way you see through or drop the obstruction due to action is by

[39:42]

Believing, what are you going to say? Not reacting. Not reacting to what? The action. Not reacting to the action. Is by belief, basically by belief that action is important. By believing that your actions are important. Which I guess probably some of you anyway already believe that. This is the way to see through it. This is the way to see through the first one, is by developing the belief that your actions are, that what you do is important. Very important. So this is, these are the actions done by an individual person, right? You, the individual, your actions. What other people do is important too, but that's not your main concern. Your concern is about what you do.

[40:53]

And there is a teaching about how important your actions are. And the basic teaching is doing good, which means doing what you think is good, which is the best you can do it in terms of what you think is good. You can also consult with other people. That's part of it. In other words, you might think it's good to consult with people about what's good. That might be your opinion. Generally speaking, it is. Anyway, doing what you think is good, whether you're right or not, just trying to do your best and then maybe finding out that it wasn't and then changing your attitude and then trying again. Doing what's good leads to wholesome results. This is a uh-huh side of it is that doing what's you know unwholesome or cruel evil things lead to unfortunate results yes even bad karma always tell us is that yeah bad karma bad karma me well sometimes they say bad karma in terms of bad

[41:59]

The person's experiencing the results of their bad actions. That's sometimes called, I have bad karma. It means I'm experiencing the results of wrong actions that I've done in the past. You have to change the course of your actions. That's the next part of it. The first part is that you believe that what you do is very important and that good actions lead to good and wrong action leads to trouble. And then you would align your action with that law. It isn't just that you believe that if you do good, it will lead to . If you do bad, it will lead to bad things. It isn't just that. It's in addition that you actually decide that it would be good also, and that you will align your actions as best you can with that policy, with that program. Just to accept it and to continue to go ahead not to do what you think is wholesome and to go ahead and do what you don't think is wholesome.

[43:01]

You won't be able to remove this covering due to your action. You'll continue to have this wall blocking your wisdom and compassion and profound understanding of what life's about. You'll be blocked by not... changing your behavior in accordance with that, with that law. In other words, unless you, you must actually, like, intend to practice good and intend to refrain from doing what is evil. And the law is always, always true and and nigh that, but there's some other aspects of it that are also good to believe. And that, for example, that karma accrues interest continuously. So a small evil can become an enormous good over time.

[44:02]

And a small evil can become an enormous evil over time. And another part of the teaching is that there's a lot of time. And that this karma accumulates across over many lifetimes. So that's part of it. Another part is that the results of karma did not happen all in one lifetime. So part of the theory, part of the teaching is that human beings basically, all of us, not we have done, but there has been done in the past enormous amount of wholesome things in order to be born a human being. Everyone in this room is the latest evolutionary manifestation of a tremendous amount of good. Or actually, some good that has become a tremendous amount of good.

[45:07]

Or a tremendous amount of good that has become even more tremendous. But all you people, according to this law, are here because of enormous... amount of wholesome energy and merit. The afflictions that we experience in this life, even great afflictions or small afflictions, are due to unwholesome behavior in the past. That's the rule. So as a result, one could experience considerable anxiety because the slightest small thing can lead to big misfortune. Soon and also sometime later. So if one takes this teaching on, which I could elaborate on more, but basically if one takes this teaching on, one becomes very careful and conscientious.

[46:12]

What about people who are destroyed like no one? You mean someone who's killed in, like, in a war? Um, well, um... Let's just take one person at a time, okay? Let's say now, I don't know what, that someone come in this room and shoot me, okay? A shot is not necessarily misfortune. But if someone comes in with a gun and I go into a state of fear and I'm not present for that, and I can't look at the person in the face and be present as the bullet is shot towards me, then that's unfortunate because I won't be present. And my inability to be present with this difficulty

[47:19]

is due to my past action. But if I can be present with that, if I can be present with, for example, if I were being shot, if I can be present with that, that being shot is not in itself a misfortune. The misfortune is primarily by the way I am. I'm not sure, but I think, at least in the movie, when Gandhi was shot, he said, bless you. I heard he said it. He said, oh, God. He said, oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. He said wrong. Huh? He said wrong. He said wrong. He said his mantra. Which, so, you know, the bullet was not exactly a misfortune to Gandhi, because he just continued his practice, which he would have done if somebody had given him a kiss, too, maybe. The reason why some people, when they're being attacked by bullets or swords, that they can say, you know, I feel fortunate to have lived.

[48:28]

And this good fortune to have lived is due to, I believe, is due to my good action in the past. To meet difficulty with that. result of having thought like that before and believed that this thing, believing that that's how things work, plus also believing that a good response to some negative thing like that will also be evolutionarily beneficial for myself and others. So if you multiply times lots of people, then from this point of view, this is like the point of view of the person whose own wisdom and compassion is obstructed, okay? So if you multiply it times lots of people, then you have lots of people who have the opportunity either to see through the obstruction due to past action or not. And it turns out that past action is partly... If you're not careful of how you think and talk, when it comes time to dealing with certain difficult situations, the way you'll talk is, you know, you'll talk in a nasty, unappreciative, selfish, frightened way.

[49:35]

And then... not only will that be an example of karma covering, but you'll then generate more karma coverings for later. Okay? So if it's lots of people, then it's lots of people who, in a large group of people, you know, it may be like 3% or something, are using it well, 3% are using it kind of neutrally, and maybe 70% are using it badly. But Difficult situations are not necessarily used worse than positive situations. Sometimes people use positive situations in a really bad way too, like something good happens to them and they immediately think, oh, you know, I'm glad I got this instead of you. That would be an unfortunate way to receive a gift. But to receive a gift and say, I'm receiving this gift and I must be receiving this gift because of some good I did in the past rather than I'm better than somebody else, it's not because of my... Something about me, it's just that I did some good thing in the past.

[50:37]

That's a good way to receive a gift. So, in fact, sometimes people, when they run into some difficulty, it's their finest hour sometimes, when their dignity and virtue comes out most strongly sometimes when they're being harassed. Joyce? Joyce? Do you believe a person's situation in his life is so innate on karmic action in the past? Do I believe that a person's situation? I believe that the way the person sees a situation is the way they see the situation is totally the result of the way they see the situation. But if you look at the person, the way you see the person is due to your past karma. It's so, like I've mentioned, if I touch Jackie, she might be insulted, complimented, or whatever.

[51:38]

How she takes my that's her interpretation of it. What I meant by it is my interpretation of it. But she could be harassed by what I do to her or feel grateful. The fact that, you know, I could touch her and she could say, don't touch me anymore. It's all fine about it. Did you ever hear Henry? What you're talking about, the action, the defilements and the knowledge, you're talking as the person, as an individual or...? Yes. I'm talking about individual person because it's individual. The Buddha looks at all of you and sees you as Buddha, okay? You may or may not get that. But the Buddha sees you as Buddha. So the Buddha thinks you're fine. You fully possess all you need to be a Buddha, to be a Buddha.

[52:40]

Because of your attitudes, your coverings, for example, and because of the way you have thought in the past, there's an obstruction due to the way you've thought in the past blocking you from seeing your Buddha nature. That's for you. So that these things really are for oneself, not how one perceives others. Not how one perceives others, you mean? No, one perceives oneself. Pardon? They're for oneself, not what? When you're talking about the karma, when I first heard you say this, my interpretation was that was how other people view one. How other people view me? No, well, anyone. How each person views themselves? Views themselves. And so when you go into, you needed these karmas, it is other people's reactions to pure action or to found in and out. No. It's the out of the out.

[53:41]

These are the three kinds of ways, these are the three coverings on our own mind that block us from realizing our... true nature. Our true nature is already set. We're fine. We're basically good. That's what the Buddha saw. The Buddha was happy to see that people... Buddha. That's what Buddha saw. But Buddha also saw they can't believe it because of these kinds of coverings. So the practice is to address these three kinds of coverings so you can see. Now, you begin by re-examining yourself. Well, before examining oneself, you have to remove this first level of covering because this covering even covers yourself. You can't even see yourself clearly until you remove the first covering. If you don't, if we're not careful of our actions, if we don't, first of all, people, generally speaking, will not see what they do unless they realize that it's very significant because it's easier not to be careful.

[54:45]

You know, it's easy just to sort of like do whatever you feel, just act on every impulse. That's easy. Except if you think that that will have some negative results. Or unless you're careful about how you act, it will have some positive results. But even if you think it will have negative results, if you aren't careful, that isn't sufficient. to stop people from not being careful unless they hear the teaching that the negative results that you get from doing unwholesome things are extremely negative. It's like little tiny things make huge trouble. Big, big bad things make huge trouble right now, but also huge trouble over long periods of time. When we realize the full impact of this teaching, then we start to be careful.

[55:47]

But just hearing, of course we all know that you slap someone in the face, you might get in trouble for it. They might not, if you slap a Buddha in the face, the Buddha won't eat you back. But you'll get in a tremendous amount of trouble. So you won't immediately get, if you hit a Buddha in the face right now, you will not get in immediate trouble. The Buddha won't hurt you, plus the Buddha will protect you from anybody else hurting you for doing that. But the disrespect of a Buddha, you know, slap the Buddha or spit on the Buddha or, you know, be kind to the Buddha, that disrespect, no one can protect you from the results of that over the long term. The Buddha will be long gone when the when the interest on that comes to you. So when you realize how severe this law is, then you start being really careful. And also you start feeling fear and anxiety around this.

[56:48]

That's why you have to be... In order to accept this teaching, you have to be able to experience anxiety and not run away. Because if you run away from the anxiety, either by getting... or by kind of like denying it, then you'll create more karmic hindrance. And you won't even be able to begin to study yourself because these huge walls, you know, people will keep beating on you and stuff like that. And when they're beating on you, you can't really like turn around and like look at the subtlety of your self-concept. Yes? Yes, right. Right. Body, speech and thought. Primarily, first of all, is thought. Thought is always before verbal and physical manifestations. Again, being able to be present with your anxiety is very important in order to be careful of your actions. However, removing the first one is not sufficient to attain complete enlightenment because you still have these other two coverings.

[57:54]

The next covering is the covering due to defilement or afflictions, emotional afflictions like greed, hate and delusion. They also cover up, you know, greed and hate cover up your compassionate mind. They kind of cloud your penetrating perfect wisdom. So in order to remove those, gross emotions and troubling, disturbing feelings and so on, in order to remove those, what they're removed by is to see the lack of self of your personhood. When you see that your person really doesn't hold together as an independent unit, then you get freed from the second kind of covering. But again, now even more intensely, more intensely, you have to bring the self into view which again means you feel lots of anxiety all around that self. But in order for the self to be seen through, you have to see the self that you've got. So again, being able to face anxiety and fear, to engage the fear and vanquish it and come back to the present and experience the anxiety all around yourself is what you need to do in order to clearly see yourself.

[59:09]

When you can clearly see yourself, the pearl, the self, rolls on itself and reveals itself as not an independent thing, which immediately addresses the karmic thing, because you no longer even have the basis for karma anymore at that point, because you don't have a dependent actor. So it also protects you from future karmic accumulations and hindrances, even though you can still do good. Yes, Joyce. Quick question. Vision has to do with seeing yourself as being separate, right? Yes. So if you don't see yourself... Separate, independent self. Sorry? Separate, independent self. Right, okay. So therefore, if you don't see yourself as separate, if you don't see yourself as separate, then you aren't experiencing this greedy pain. At this point, when you realize this, these afflictions drop away, your vision gets even clearer, Or your vision gets clearer and the afflictions drop away, either way you want to put it.

[60:13]

Anyway, you see what you are. Because you still have an ego still there. Like I said before, the ego is there, but now you see it was created by everything else. You know, my ego is all you people make my ego by not being me. That's how I keep track of myself, is by all of you and many other things. So when I see it, And you're liberated. You're basically free. And at that point, you're definitely in the enlightenment truck. And you will not veer off. It will take no more than seven lifetimes to go. You are on a track. Things are looking good.

[61:14]

Now, however, what you have to do now is the next covering is the covering just due to the fact it's a very solid cover. So when you become liberated, you have some knowledge of it at this point. You feel it. You feel some liberation. You have some sense of how it happened. You know it. You know what? You can make an object of your liberation, too. That's still a little bit of a coloring over what liberation really is. You still have some limitations and categorizing of your liberation. Or sometimes we say the light of your liberation is not really circulating. And then you have to meditate on this. of your freedom, or that selfhood, you know, the separation between your liberation and what you think is not your liberation, and meditate on that until you realize that you're liberated, and to kind of co-arise with your bondage, and your ignorance, and so on.

[62:19]

The free thought of your liberation, or the self, of... At the top of all things, get ready to see your light. Plus, see all other things are selfless. And then, from that point on, and then, quickly back to the beginning, you no longer have to believe the wild problems that you could not see. You no longer have to remind yourself, you know, that hopefully that's the best thing, and hopefully that's the best thing. You can see it right away. Then you don't have any belief anymore, so you're liberated even from belief. But you have to start with belief. Technically, you want to believe. You already do believe in yourself. You have to examine your belief in yourself. What does it mean to say you have to believe in yourself for you to say that you have to identify as self that you believe in? You already believe in yourself. And you have to bring that self you believe in into you and examine it until you become free of it.

[63:26]

And there are many, many ways to do that. This weekend is one attempt to bring ourselves into view. Identify the anxiety that keeps petting you, even despite that anxiety. Notice how we veer off into fear and distract ourselves from the anxiety, and how fear takes us away from directly experiencing our self. If I use this self, like the courageous self, to engage in fear, and then come back, experience your fear. You need to arrive in a relationship to the fear and come back home and be an anxious person. You can't just sit there until you understand this stuff and then the anxiety drops away from that first level of the brain. And at that point, you're definitely going to have your blue eyes open, but you still have a lot to have it.

[64:27]

which have to be transcended, have to categorize and think that independent of what's going on is applying your new vision of selflessness to yourself, to the self of all this. So that, you see, on all these different levels, there's anxiety. There's anxiety in terms of, if you don't have any anxiety about your action, then... There are good people. Or what do you call them now? What's the other word for them? Sociopaths. In other words, they so much don't believe in the consequences of their actions. They're living on such a rough level that they don't even experience guilt or anything. They don't experience guilt. They don't experience shame. They're basically, you know, in such extreme denial of their humanness.

[65:32]

So they don't care about their action, they don't care about what happens to them, hit them over the head with a shovel, they say, ah, so what? They don't care about their head, they don't care about the shovel, they don't care about the person who hit them, you know. So when we're sitting... We're not supposed to think of anything. Not supposed to think of what? You're not supposed to be thinking of something. You're not supposed to be thinking, but you do. I don't tell you that you're supposed to think of things. I don't say, go in the zendo and think of things, but you did anyway, didn't you? I also didn't tell you not to, although maybe I'll try that just for fun. Don't think of it. Again. To not think of something or to think of something is unnecessary. People are always telling themselves to think and not think things. You can do that. Nobody has to help you with that. That's not Zen, to tell you or not tell you to do that.

[66:33]

But I can't analyze. I can't sit around and... You can, too, sit around. This. Huh? This what? What we're talking about the past 24 hours. You can analyze it. You're a very creative person. You can analyze anything. Well, I guess I'm saying I've hit the point of confusion. Yeah, you can analyze the confusion. Saying that you've hit confusion is an analysis. You just analyze your experience and you said, okay, given these categories of experience, I call this confusion. That's an analysis. Which is fine. Go right ahead and do that. That's fine. And perhaps your analysis is correct because most people are confused, so probably you're... And you may have correctly analyzed your state as confusion. Some other people might say, I see some confusion and I also see some anger. That's another analytic statement that can analyze your experience in terms of confusion and anger.

[67:37]

Or some people say, I'm not angry, but I'm kind of lustful. So that. Lust or anger, but I am confused. These are analytical insights. Okay? You can do that. You don't have to, but you can. The thing about this, what we're trying to work towards is a state of meditation which lets all that analysis go on, lets it operate, but feels the anxiety all around the person who is having these experiences and doing this analysis. And it's not so much that I'm proposing to you that you should do analysis or shouldn't do analysis. I'm saying to be the person that you are. And it turns out that to the extent that there's elements of your personhood, to the extent that there's multiplicity in your experience, you have to face all the different elements and experience them all.

[68:38]

That means there's some analytical experience already, so you just have to honor that. You don't have to make yourself be all these different parts and complexities. You just need to honor that all. And it turns out it is possible for you to do it because it's happening. So that's why we practice mindfulness. Mindfulness is you just are aware of what's happening. That's basically your work. Your work is not so much to make things happening at the level of meditation. However, prior to that kind of meditation is the practice of believing in cause and effect so that in terms of your actions, you're very careful. And if you're very careful of what you do, the good results of being careful will be that you'll be able to be aware of what you're doing. You can't really practice mindfulness very well if you're doing unwholesome things all the time. Now, they're doing certain unwholesome things, and they're also mindful.

[69:44]

But the reason, according to the law, the reason why they can be mindful while they're doing unwholesome things is because in the past they did some very wholesome things. Therefore, as a result of that, now they can be mindful even while they're doing unwholesome things. But still, it's better to be mindful while you're doing unwholesome things than to not be mindful while you're doing unwholesome things. You mean enjoy it? No. No. Not enjoy. The thing is, the proposal is you do not enjoy unwholesome things. You do not. That's the proposal. But you are mindful. But if you are mindful, in Buddhism, Buddhism is the reverse of what he called the Western system. Premeditated murder is considered to be worse than I guess, than unconscious murder, right? Which is either manslaughter or a temporary impulse, right? But in Buddhism, it's slightly better that you be aware when you're doing a bad thing.

[70:45]

Doing a bad thing in the dark, not even knowing it, you know, like you really are angry at somebody and you really do try to hurt them and you're not aware. I am not angrily, violently hurting somebody. you're doing it is better because then you'll see I was angry I did this I feel terrible and now look at it and now I feel terrible now and watch all this other stuff here it come watch it boom [...] sure enough that's better okay similarly it's slightly better to do a wholesome thing and not how wholesome it was slightly better. It's okay to be aware of it, but slightly better if you're not thinking of how wholesome it is, but just watching it without judging it that way. Trying to do something wholesome and being successful without congratulating yourself is somewhat better. Non-judgmental means, again, that if you're being judgmental, you're willing to be that person who is judgmental.

[71:46]

Zen is a non-judgmental meditation, which means that Zen is non-judgmental of people who are being judgmental, particularly including yourself. Judgmental, you say, there I go again being judgmental. But on that level, you don't say, you know, get angry at yourself about being judgmental. You just, in a friendly way, say, well, there she goes again. Did it again. Oh, there again. Do it again. Basically, we are judgmental creatures. We're constantly judging. This is good, this is not good. This is pain, this is pleasure. We're doing it all day long. It's an omnipresent function of our minds to judge. Being nonjudgmental means that you're always studying your processes of judgment. You don't say, okay, I'll pay attention when I'm being... positive but I won't pay attention to judging negative. In other words, I won't look at pain and I will look at pleasure. Non-judgmental means whatever is happening you study.

[72:49]

A person who studies whatever is happening is a non-judgmental person, at least at that moment. If they study whatever is happening. But again, if you study what's ever happening, That means you're aware of what's ever happening. That means you're aware of being a person. That means you feel anxiety. So again, this wonderful nonjudgmental being has trouble staying there in that wonderful state because that person feels anxiety. That's another aspect of being nonjudgmental is you don't run away from anxiety. Is it possible not to feel suffering? Yes, it is possible. Even while you believe that you are. Even while having the fundamental belief. But the way we feel not separate is just you say some things yourself. That's one basic way to do it. Like with your children, you know? You feel like your children are you.

[73:55]

But they're still separate. They're still separate. You can flip over into them being separate, but you can also feel like they're not separate. You can act like that, too. You can act like, okay, I want my blood here. I want my money here. I want my car. I want my milk. Just like that. It's like you act like you actually thought they were you. And you feel like that, too. That's not a problem. The problem is when you also think that they're separate. And when they behave in certain ways, you think that's not you. And then you... Then the problem starts. But you can also flip into not feeling that people aren't separate. But basically, we bring them over into ourself. Including your enemies? You can kill your enemies. You can do that with your enemy, too. Yes. But the other thing is that even the things where you do feel the person or enemy is separate, even in those cases, that without taking the separation away, you can see how this separation is insubstantial.

[75:07]

That's what happens here, in the second one, in the third one. Either you study the separation, and it isn't that you incorporate the thing into yourself. Right while feeling the anxiety, you pause, and it turns, and without the separation going away, you see the emptiness in the substantiality of the separation. And then your eyes open, and you see. Sometimes the sense of separation is gone, which is fine, but that's just, you know, transposition of boundaries. You move your boundary out and incorporate the other person. Not necessarily possessively, just as you identify with them. And then you don't feel separate. And then a moment later you can switch and suddenly they're outside your terms of the way you interpret it and then you do feel separate and then you've got a problem. And the separateness we feel from other people is a ramification of the separateness which we all feel from the big not us, even beyond our ability to.

[76:19]

If you can deal with that, you take a step back here, and then all people naturally are very intimate with us. And simultaneously, like I said, I don't think I can stick my finger in your ear without your permission. I know that, you know, I've learned that most people want... So even though I feel like, you know, you're like my own body, not only like my own body, but you are the fulfillment of my body. Like my little body is just non-stop. That's my body. It's just anxiety, anxiety, anxiety, my body. But caring about other people is bliss, bliss, bliss. You know. But that doesn't mean, okay, since I'm in so much bliss because I care about you more than me, and since I realize that you really are who I really am and you complete my own being, and instead of threatening me, now I understand that we dependently co-arise and therefore I can do whatever I want with you.

[77:33]

No. No. You still get to be, even though now I'm totally devoted to you because I see that you're me, and I'll do it, which is kind of your game too, right? Still, you maintain all your property rights. And I'm not going to move in on you. Unless you come into the room and tell me that you don't want me to move in. And even then I won't move in. I just say, why did you come in here and tell me that? Do you want me to move in?

[78:11]

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