So embarrassing. But I got to admit that's what I'm doing. And I'm loving myself enough to be able to admit I'm really, I'm really deluded. I really got a strange view of this whole thing. I mean, I think I'm doing Buddhism all by myself, basically. The Buddhas are out there, you know, they're not really helping me that much. I've got to do it all by myself. And it's really, you know, I appreciate a little bit that they told me to do the practice, but basically I'm doing it on my own. They're not really, like, helping me. Not really. Now, if I can't do the practice, then they're... No. No. No. So it gets more and more embarrassing until finally you see, it ain't that way. It ain't that way. And when you see that it ain't that way, you see how it is, or you see a different truth. And the truth of seeing that you're not doing it by yourself is the truth of happiness. The truth of doing it by yourself is the truth of misery.

[01:01]

We believe that we can do things by ourselves, so we're unhappy. When we see that we're doing things together with everyone, we're happy. But still, there could still be that subtle belief that those who are helping us are the things that support us. So we have to even see that there's not even substantial support, that our supports aren't substantial either. What's supported is not substantial, and what's supporting it is not substantial. And the results of realizing insubstantiality, enlightenment, are substantial. There is not actually something there. Any other? Oh, then, yes. Yeah, number one and number two. You have so many questions. It wasn't a woman who lived in a shoe.

[02:06]

She had so many children, she knew what to do. Yeah, right. Mm-hmm. I know what I have tried to do is to play another one. But the reality is that they're there for you to...

[03:12]

Right. Right. Right. So if you feel abandoned, if you feel isolated, if you feel cut off, you feel anxious, you feel afraid, okay? So you practice loving-kindness towards yourself. And the more you practice loving-kindness towards yourself, the more you're going to want to practice towards others. the more thoroughly you actually wish yourself happiness, joy, and peace, freedom from the very anxiety which you're feeling, the more you let yourself hope well for yourself, hope for God, even while you're having trouble, the more you do that in the context of having these troubles, the more you're willing to do it for others. Even though you've got these problems, you still wish yourself to be free of them. You know they're there.

[04:35]

Because if you don't... Again, you start with where you are. Allow yourself to feel your anxiety. That's not very loving. And the more you allow yourself to feel okay about wishing that you'd be free of anxiety, the more you'll be able to feel it. And the more you feel it and continue to let yourself... the more you'll feel it. Until finally you let yourself be fully as anxious as you are. The more you love yourself, the more you give love to yourself and wish well for yourself, the more you can feel your anxiety. And the more you can dare to wish for other people to be free and face how unhappy they are. Sometimes it's difficult to even look how miserable somebody is, but the more you want, the more you love them, the more you can face their pain. The more you give love to yourself, the more you can face your pain. The more you give love to others, you can face their pain.

[05:38]

So it's possible. And they're really, really in tremendous pain that you can be right there with them and smile. So the Buddha can be right next to us when we're in our most extreme pain and be smiling. It's not like, oh, I'm so glad you're suffering. It's that I'm happy to love you. I'm happy to be with you in your suffering. And the more you can love yourself in your suffering and wish yourself well in your suffering, the more you can help others. And the more you can help others, the more you realize that they're helping you. The more you can love, the more you realize they're loving you. So the more you can give out love, the more you feel it coming back. And if you can't give it out, it's hard for you to believe it's coming back. So again, with our children, sometimes they're so unable to give out love towards us, they can't believe how much we love them.

[06:43]

We say, I love you. And they say, yeah, sure. I mean, I know. I understand. I understand. But when you really love someone, you can believe that they love you. And when you love everybody, you can believe that they love you. When you love yourself fully, you can dare to love others. When you love everybody, you feel everybody's loving you back. Everybody. Everybody. Like when I was a kid, my parents were loving parents But I couldn't realize it because I didn't love them enough. I didn't have the concept of loving them, really. I loved them a little. But not enough to realize how much they loved me. And I remember they used to say to me, I'd say, oh yeah, okay, that makes sense.

[07:44]

You act like it, you know. But when I saw my daughter being born, as soon as I saw her come out, I thought, now I understand what my parents meant when they said I loved her. Because it was an entirely different species of love. Whole other dimensions came in that I never felt before. And that's one of the great advantages of being a parent, is to feel that kind of love. And you can feel that kind of love towards not just your own kids, but everybody's kids and everybody. And then you can feel more love. So in some sense, a kid can't feel the parent's love until they're a parent. which is one of the nice things about growing up, is that you can understand love more fully. And when you understand love fully, you understand everybody, everybody is loving you. Actually, what's going on is that love is flowing in and out of us all the time.

[08:45]

It's running through all of us. It doesn't stop someplace. But if you don't get with the program and do the part of where it's coming out of you and do the part where it's coming from yourself back to yourself, if you believe in things where you're kind of like there, you're there to give yourself love or not. You are giving yourself love, so get with it. If you don't love yourself in all these ways, you're missing out on what's going on. When you get to reality, then you can also start putting it out towards others. And when you can really put it out towards others and towards yourself, you realize they're putting it out towards you. Even if they say something different. Even if they don't agree. Even if they're not with the program that's happening to them. No, I don't love you. Well, you just don't fall for that.

[09:51]

You see the love coming right through. They say, no, I don't love you. You see little Buddhas coming out of their mouth. But, you know, it's interesting. I've told this story over and over, but this person who was born, and I saw her born, and who I loved, as she started to grow up, she started calling me So here's this person who's sending out these insulting names to me. You are, I forgot what you said, but anyway, you are the worst, you are the whatever, you are blah, blah, blah, bad, bad, you know. So these words are coming out. And this is the same, these words are coming out and this is the same person who used to like send fluids, you know, out of her mouth into my face.

[10:55]

And when those fluids came out of her mouth into my mouth, I thought, geez, we have vomit in my face, and I don't mind. Amazing. I'm so surprised. I don't mind. So now these words are coming out, I didn't mind. This person was trying to get to and have some effect upon God. You know? Her father, this great, this great whatever this is, you know, she was trying to, like, see if she could have an effect, hurt this great being. And the great being looked back and said, no, you can't hurt me because you love me. That's the way it was. And then she got even more frustrated and tried hard. to get to me which was something about reality it wasn't I hate you it wasn't I love you either that she was saying she was saying dad you got this problem instead of saying you're a bad dad or something she said you didn't do this

[12:15]

You weren't there for me at that time. You didn't answer this, you know, with presence. You didn't say the truth at this time. You weren't paying attention at this time. And then she said these things, and she saw the effect. She saw the big daddy was nailed to the floor. And the big daddy, fortunately, because he loved her, didn't run away and sat. You got me. She couldn't get me before she got me. And she got me. And when she got me, it was love then, too. But she actually got to the place where she could dance with her dad, where she could, like, get him, where she could say something, where she could see the effect, she could see that she was right. And the earlier times when she was trying to get to me, by saying, I hate you and so and so, that wasn't working. And I'm sorry, maybe I should have been different, but it wasn't working, it wasn't getting to me. I didn't understand that this was real hate.

[13:18]

And when she got to me, it really hurt. I really felt ashamed at what she was telling me. But fortunately, I didn't run away so she could see she got me. I didn't disguise it. I let her do it, she was successful. And it was love then too. Earlier it was love saying, I don't love you, and it didn't hurt. This was love which hurt. This was love which helped me wake up and realize something about our relationship that I didn't understand. She really helped me. It was painful to listen to, but I accepted it. So, because I loved her so much, I can take her love in lots of different ways. So if you love yourself, then you'll be able to love others, and then you'll realize gradually that everybody, in different ways, is sending you love all the time.

[14:24]

The Buddha sees everybody loving the Buddha. The Buddha loves everybody and is loved by everybody. Nonstop. Never different, really. Love, love, love. Compassion, compassion. Joy, joy, joy. Everything's the same. This is the vision that opens us to reality, that we are never cut off from each other. We're always supporting each other. Never different. We just ignore that sometimes, or all the time. It's pretty close to ten, yes. It is. Do you want to wait some other time? I'll go ahead. I think there are people that practice misunderstanding what love is.

[15:31]

Practice at misunderstanding what love is, yes. So I'm finding that as you use the word love, I don't... When I use the word love, you don't know what it means, but I already told you something about what it is. Tell me what I told you. Loving-kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity. Those are four, that is four dimensions of love. and then there's even a dimension beyond that which is understanding that i am your life and you are mine and wanting me to understand that and everybody to understand that processes which result in, or are you saying they are?

[16:47]

Look, is there no difference? Well, the beginning of these practices is you intend. You intend. to give yourself, you intend that you would be happy, you aspire to your happiness, you intend that others will be happy, you aspire to their happiness, you wish them happiness. Okay? But that's the beginning. That's the intellectual part and the feeling part. The other part is the skill part, which you actually have the capacity to be successful at giving yourself love. at giving yourself compassion, of actually being joyful and actually feeling the same about all your states. You actually have the capacity to do that. You realize that besides just hoping for it. And the same with others. You not only hope that they will be happy, but you're able to actually to realize their happiness together with them.

[17:53]

That is love. That is love. it also is a condition for it to happen again. But it can also happen for a first time, apparently. Did I answer your question? And you think the feeling you have is different from the feeling of satisfaction, right? So you have a feeling now, and there's another feeling called satisfaction. Right? Right? You know the feeling that you have now? And there's another feeling called satisfied feeling. Okay? Equanimity. That you feel, that some part of you feels the same about this dissatisfied feeling as you would about the satisfied feeling. If satisfied feeling comes, fine, thank you. Thank you.

[18:58]

Satisfied feeling? Thank you. Dissatisfied feeling? Dissatisfied feeling? Thank you. Really? Yeah. Thank you? Thank you. Dissatisfaction? Thank you? Yeah. Satisfied feeling come? Joy? Mm-hmm. Fine. Dissatisfied feeling come? Joy? Yeah. Joy? Joy? About dissatisfaction? It's not about dissatisfaction. It's not about satisfaction. It's a practice you do no matter what's happening. Buddha doesn't, like, practice joy on Saturday and not on Sunday. You practice joy in the morning, the evening. You practice joy when you're feeling satisfied, feeling dissatisfied. That's the practice. The feeling satisfied and feeling dissatisfied is not the practice. Saturday's not the practice, Sunday's not the practice. Being a man's not the practice, being a woman's not the practice. The practice is, on Saturday, it's Saturday. On Sunday, it's Sunday. When you're a man, you're a woman.

[20:01]

That's the practice. That's it. It's thank you. Thank you for Saturday. Thank you for Saturday morning. Thank you for breakfast. Thank you for lunch. Thank you for this. Thank you for this. Thank you for this. This is happening. What's the practice? Joy. This is happening. What's the practice? Joy. This is happening. What's the practice? Joy. Misery is happening. What's the practice? Joy. Anxiety is happening. What's the practice? Joy. Equanimity. No matter what's happening, it's the same. Now, of course, it's different, too. We know about that. That's not the practice. That's just your mindset. I can tell. This is different from that. This vomit smells different from yesterday's vomit. I can tell. Yeah. You know. I can smell the difference. That's fine. But some other part of you says, I wouldn't trade this vomit in for anybody else's vomit. No, it's fine.

[21:01]

This is the vomit I have in my face. Okay. I'm joyful, and I wish you well. in your next vomit. And if you don't vomit, I wish you well too. I hope you'll be free from suffering. I hope I'll be free from suffering. So clarify is your intention and your ability and it's practiced in this full universe of all these phenomena called satisfaction and dissatisfaction. Okay? So maybe you want to go to breakfast. So when we come back from breakfast, we can chant this sutra on love. Come back at ten, please. Come back at five after ten. God bless you.

[22:04]

God bless you. I want to take part in some personal decisions. I want to stress the security of my home. I want to be advised about the top. I want to desire great possessions. I want to have a great family. I want to have a great family. I want to have a great family. And we're all beginning to be happy. And we all need to close our ears and see if they're all making it so that they look strong. We had to learn to love around the students. We all learned to be able to make it accessible. We learned to be born.

[23:06]

They all behaved happy. You see, no matter what the size, no matter what the state, That was done by a girl. She had dressed up. She was shown out there. And that's what I read. It was very white. I just wanted to look at it. I just wanted to look at it. I just wanted to look at it. Thank you. Does everybody have a copy of this now By the way, if I'm talking and you're kind of like saturated or almost on being overwhelmed by what's coming to you, I can stop for a while.

[25:05]

So you have a little pause to let it all settle. Okay? Just do one, okay? Try one. See how that works. Does that work? Want the other one too? OK. I want to repeat something I said before.

[26:11]

May I? Being self-concerned or clinging to your individual self is not the same as practicing loving-kindness toward yourself. Being self-concerned is not the same as practicing loving-kindness towards yourself. Being self-concerned is the source of anxiety. Practicing loving-kindness towards yourself is the source of freedom from anxiety. Being self-concerned, you're concerned for your happiness as a separate being from others. Being self-concerned, you're concerned about your happiness separate from others.

[27:13]

Even to be concerned with your happiness sometimes to the exclusion of others, that's self-concern. And if I want happiness for myself separate from or to the exclusion of you, then I'm anxious and I'm threatened. You don't like me wanting to be happy separate from you, do you? You don't get me for that. So it's not really paranoia that you feel threatened when you want your own happiness separate from others. But to want your own happiness not separate from others, but just want your own happiness, when you do that fully, you naturally end up wanting happiness for others. So loving-kindness meditation toward yourself is not the same as being concerned for your independent self. It is the antidote for it.

[28:15]

And I want to also say again what I said this morning, and that is, before you open to loving in certain ways, you may not be able to understand or experience that you are being loved in those ways so before you're able to love someone that you're irritated by you may not understand that those who are irritated by you are loving you they also if they can't love you while they're being irritated by you, they can't understand that you love them while you're irritated with them. But even though we're irritated with each other, we are actually loving each other. When you start being able to love someone even while you're irritated, you come to understand that they're loving you when they're irritated too.

[29:32]

When you open to a dimension of love, that you weren't able to see before, you see it coming back in ways you weren't able to see before. Like the example of when you have children you understand how your parents loved you in ways you never understood before. So if you want to feel loved by the whole universe you have to love the whole universe. If there's any part of the universe you do not love, if there's any being in the universe that you do not wish happiness and peace and lightness and freedom from anxiety, if it's anybody you don't, if there's any part of the universe you won't feel loves you back. We all not unrealistically, want the entire world and everybody in it to love us.

[30:36]

It's not unrealistic. It's only unrealistic perhaps to be able to understand that before the next break. It may take you a while to understand that the entire universe is loving you, is holding you, is supporting you. But you're not going to get that before you love and hold the whole universe. And it's going to take a while to start loving every living being. So it's going to take a while for you to understand every living being is loving you. But when you work at that intensively for a long time, you can actually open up entirely to everything. And then you'll see everything is loving you and supporting you. That's interdependence. The world you live in is the world which is born from your wishes.

[32:12]

It's because you wished harm to others or to yourself. and you're really held to that, then you create a world called hell for yourself. Pardon? What about what? Well, we don't know if they're in hell. You know, like they do these experiments with, they do it with monkeys, and they're not good experiments, but anyway, they give them shocks and they run for their mother.

[33:32]

And if they get a shock while they're holding on to their mother, they'll hold on even tighter to their mother because they feel like their mother is a source of love. if you feel like you're getting love even if you're sick even if you have a fever or like when I was a little boy I had polio but all the time I had polio I was you know I was uncomfortable I couldn't walk but I got lots of love during that whole period particularly from the nurses so I felt love during that whole time I didn't feel like I was in hell but I couldn't walk And my mother used to do these exercises with me after I could walk again. I had to do exercise for many years and she would cry while we did these exercises because she felt my pain at doing these stretches. But I didn't feel like I was in hell because I could feel my mother loving me and being compassionate for me while I was suffering.

[34:36]

So I think if the baby loves the mother, maybe the baby can feel the love coming from the mother. If the baby has a limit on the sense of how much they can love, then they have a limit on the sense of what love they can receive. And I think that's the key point. And babies can. They have different abilities to love for different abilities to feel love. And like I say, even a fairly healthy baby doesn't necessarily understand the full extent of her mother or father's love. Therefore, they're missing out on something. But children can go through physical kinds of pain but still feel love coming towards them. And I'm saying the love that they have coming towards them is partly because they themselves are able to see and understand it. In other words, they can give it back. If the child has no ability to give love, then I think they block their own receiving.

[35:39]

For a child, for, you know, all the way through our life, if we can't give love, that blocking our own giving towards ourself and towards others. Now, there are stories of children who have parents who are mean to them, but are very good at loving themselves. They're really good at loving themselves, and they can see, my parents are like, you know, There's a movie recently called, I think, called Matilda. Did you see it? It was about this girl who had these real mean parents, real selfish parents. They loved her too, a little bit. They gave her, you know, certain things. They gave her a kitchen, for example, and when they left her alone, she made herself breakfast. Really nice, you know, she read, she liked to read. She mostly entertained herself by reading, so she'd read the instructions on these things and she'd cook herself these really nice breakfasts. She knew how to love herself, so she could even see some ways that her parents were kind of mean to her, too.

[36:43]

It isn't that you're blind to somebody punching you in the nose. You realize, gee, that punching wasn't very nice. You hit me real hard. That hurt. But if you love them, you can still see love coming back and forth. That inability to love yourself blocks your feeling love from others. That's what I'm saying. Some babies live in homes with selfish parents, but they're good at loving themselves, and they see their parents' problems, but they still say, well, he's got problems, but they still love me a little bit, and I can see, you know. And some babies live in homes that have, you know, as far as you can tell, the parents are very loving. The environment's nice. The kid's healthy. But the kid can't love himself. And somehow the parents can't teach the kid to love himself. And so he doesn't see his parents. He doesn't think anybody loves him. And, of course, he's terribly miserable.

[37:45]

So I think, yes, people at various stages of development, depending on how much they can love themselves and how much they can love others, they put themselves in a situation where they maybe feel like they're being loved. Although they maybe could see that, although I'm being very well loved, I wish other people would understand how much they're loving me, because I can see they don't. Or they can feel very unloved. That's what I would say. So the thing to do is really well, and then you'll learn how to teach others how to love themselves. Become, you know, really good at it. You know, Buddha was an unselfish person, but he said, I visited all the quarters of the world and I found no one dearer than myself. the Buddha. Can you imagine the Buddha liking himself that much?

[38:48]

But although he said, no, I didn't find anybody dearer than myself, I was thinking, he said, also, I didn't find anybody less dear than myself. Buddha really loved. Buddha really does. And he said, likewise to every other dear. In other words, I didn't find anyone dearer than me and every other finds herself dear also. Who loves herself will never harm another. And also it isn't that if you like have one moment of, you know, of lack of loving yourself into a hell state. You have to kind of like get into it pretty strongly to get into a really bad situation, but that's the source, that way of thinking I'm saying is the source of what we call living in hell.

[39:54]

If you disagree, we can talk about it. But the point is to start loving yourself so thoroughly that you start overflowing in that love to all other beings. And then you won't harm others and you'll be in heaven. You like that cartoon, you know? What's heaven like? Or what's hell like? Hell is like being at a big banquet with very delicious things and you're really, really hungry and you have to eat with chopsticks that are 11 feet long. You have to take. I was intending to stop at one. But I stopped at 12, right?

[41:07]

So there appears to be this practice of love, but there's also this thing called aggressive energy in the world. Aggressive energy in human beings anyway, and looks like maybe in other animals also. And sometimes there's this thing also called ruthlessness. I mentioned to Ruth that the name Ruth is related to being careful and being ethical. And the Bible Ruth was kind of a symbol or a metaphor or a conveyor of

[42:39]

So ruthlessness is some kind of... to now have rules or precepts in some ways. And sometimes ruthlessness is what seems to be happening. Ruthlessness about helping people might be appropriate. But anyway, aggression or ruthlessness, if it's not connected with love, Aggressive energy that's not connected to love, that's separate from love, can be dispersed. But aggressive energy can be coupled with love. One example that comes to mind was in the Battle of Waterloo.

[43:47]

There was a French officer, cavalry person, who was in retreat from the English line, stopped to pick up a wounded comrade, and an English rifleman was aiming at him to shoot him. and the English officer stopped him from shooting the French officer. And he's stopping him with a kind of aggressive act, but it was connected to love. He said, don't shoot that man, that man's stopping, he's in a retreat anyway, and he's stopping to help a comrade. Don't shoot such an enemy. Even though he's an enemy, don't shoot him. He's not harming us. He's in retreat. He's helping someone else. You don't have to kill him. To kill him actually, to shoot him would be, would just be cruel.

[44:55]

It's not necessarily part of the battle to be cruel. In fact, picking up your comrade who's out of action anyway isn't part of the battle either. It's just a kindness. And stopping a marksman from shooting a kind person is also a kindness. So right in the middle of this aggressive energy, both those officers had aggressive activity with love. Another example I heard was of bringing aggressive energy together with love was in a dream someone had where she was with her sister and she yelled at her sister, I hate you. And then her sister, and after saying, I hate you, the two of them became one deeper into the process of the dream.

[46:03]

Sometimes you have to fight with somebody to get closer. But in the background is that you're working to get closer. And you have the energy and the commitment to not give up to follow through, even though there needs to be sometimes be some yelling or screaming. But it's not intended to hurt. It's just energy, an aggressive, sometimes form. And it may be difficult to deal with.

[47:29]

It may touch one or both parties deeply. And in the process, one or both parties may need to take a break for a while to recover from what was touched. But the aggressiveness can be contained by the love. and move the process forward to deeper and deeper levels of understanding and who each other are, really. Like that story I told you about my daughter, she tried And when she finally did get to me, it was kind of an aggressive act. She kind of shot an arrow into me.

[48:31]

But it didn't harm me at all. It didn't harm me at all. As a matter of fact, it was good for me to learn and it was good for me to be able to stay there and be hurt and listen or to listen and be hurt. And to show her that I would listen to her and I would stay there and to show her that she could hurt me and not lose me. That she could tell me the truth, finally get a real deep truth and not lose me. She had enough love to do that and stay there after she did it. I had enough love to listen and stay there after it was done to me. And my daughter was watching, and she had enough love to let it happen too. To let her daughter talk to me like that, to let me hear it, and to praise us both. To praise her for being on, and to praise me for not running away or crushing her.

[49:37]

But there was a lot of love there, and it had a definite impact. but there was no harm now if there hadn't been enough love around it then on both sides there could have been harm like I could have like struck back to hurt because I'd been hurt but I didn't Giving kindness and compassion and joy and equanimity do not mean that the fullness of our life cannot function in our relationships. It doesn't mean that we can't have hormones flowing like testosterone and estrogen.

[50:44]

It's just that we have to have a strong container. So like, what's your name again? This example. And what's your name in the back? John's example. He gave an example of being a lifeguard, being on the beach and various exciting, dramatic events occur there. And in the case of an emergency, if you're not already practicing loving-kindness, it's pretty hard to start when you see the emergency. If you're not already loving everybody, then when somebody jumps up and does something violent or surprising, potentially dangerous, if you're not already loving, it's at the time. you kind of have to love before you arrive on the scene.

[51:50]

So when the thing happens, you're already loving the participants. And then you can come forward with a loving response. Another story like this, I think maybe you've heard before, is a story about this, told by an American Aikido teacher. Do you know what Aikido means? Aikido means love. I believe ki means energy or opportunity. And do means a pack. It's a pack of loving energy. It's using the energy in a loving way. Aikido. So this guy was a western person, American, who stayed in Japan for a while. And he was on the He was on a train, I think, in Japan, and the big Japanese guy gets on the train, and he's maybe drunk, somewhat drunk, and very aggressive, you know, just coming over with aggressive energy and threatening everybody on the train.

[53:04]

And this person who practiced loving energy is sitting in the back of the train waiting for him to come to him, and he's going to teach this guy a thing or two But before the guy gets to him, the train stops and lets an old man and his wife get on the train. And the old man gets on the train and when he sees this big aggressive guy, you know, lumbering around the train, he immediately says, Hi! As though he would like seen his long lost son or something. very lovingly related to him. And it disarmed the guy. And the guy told him that, you know, the guy broke into tears and told him that he had just lost his wife. His wife had just died. And in that pain,

[54:06]

he, you know, he reacted, you know, aggressively to try to, like, get drunk and blame somebody or whatever. And he was going around trying to see who he could, you know, blame or hurt or off with. But this old man was actually practicing loving energy. He used his energy in a loving way and again cut through that negativity. Now what about when somebody's already hurt us and we didn't feel and we didn't have the container of love? What about if someone betrays us How do we, how do we work with that betrayal?

[55:09]

How do we, if someone like Reed hurts us, betrays us, or hurts us in some way, Practice loving kindness towards them. How about yourself? You said include yourself, but actually start with yourself. Just try to start with the person who's been hostile to you, is not recommended. Because what if they strike at you again? Turn the cheek. What if they cut the other cheek? Turn again. So the Buddha's recommending that you take practice on yourself first. The ability to turn your other cheek might be based on the fact that you're already practicing loving-kindness towards yourself.

[56:31]

Why should you give loving-kindness to somebody who's been hostile to you before yourself? Where's your ground, you know? Where's your footing? Where's your wealth? Where's your wealth if you haven't been giving to yourself all along? You should already be rich in love yourself so that if someone hurts you, you're not reduced to nothing. But still, you might feel some resentment. even if you've been practicing loving kindness to yourself. This is really tough. Yes? Love the resentment? How would you love the resentment? Recognize your own resentment and not pass judgment on it? Sounds good. And if you recognize the resentment and don't pat judgment on it, then what might happen at that point?

[57:49]

The resentment dissipates. And when the resentment dissipates, then what might happen? More love, and then if more love, then what might happen? More resentment, but why more resentment? Because you weren't loving yourself enough. Because you weren't loving yourself enough, yeah? What about the pain? Is there some pain? That's Patty, or I think that's Patty, or I perceive that's Patty. Isn't that enough? So I said to somebody, you don't have to be sure. You don't have to say, they're definitely that way. They say, well, some things you have to do that with. And I said, well, like what? They said, well, like you have to be sure that it's wrong to kill. Do you really have to be sure? Can't you just be convinced? Can't you just say, I think I'm convinced that it's bad.

[58:58]

I can kill. I'm convinced that killing is no good. Isn't that enough? Do you have to have that be a reality? If you do, then a perfectly good perception, a perfectly good value will kick you in the face. And really it's because you're not convinced of something that you have to make it so. Now if I think that's patty, And I'm fairly well convinced I don't have to make a big deal out of it. That's okay with me. But if I can't stand to not be sure, then I'd like to say it's definitely so. Then if she tries to change into somebody else, I would say, you can't change your name on me. You're lying to me. I can really get upset. And harm somebody from not being what I think they are.

[60:05]

You know, resisting from resisting being what I think they are. Yes? Yes. [...] Okay, can you hear her example? She's in the grocery store. She perceives that a child is being abused. Okay?

[61:06]

That's your perception. Okay. And then you're saying, do you have to believe that's true? I'm saying you don't have to. You're thinking that you do have to. Is that what you're saying? Okay. Uh-huh. Okay. So, you have a perception, abuse. Okay? That's your perception. Right. And if you have a perception of abuse, for you it follows that it would be good to protect beings from abuse. That's what you feel, right? You see some instances you don't feel like you should protect beings from abuse? I didn't mean to bring this up, but you know. Yeah, I mean, this is all about, this is about, this whole weekend is about protecting beings from abuse, from non-love.

[62:21]

Right? So if you see some, if you have perception of abuse, it would make sense, I think in general, actually always, to protect the being from the abuse. Okay, well, you could have some perceptions of compassion for the mother there too, right? I feel compassion for the mother. Do you feel loving kindness towards the mother? Well, so I'm suggesting loving kindness towards the mother goes with, goes with not being so sure, you know, that your perception is reality. But you still have a perception to take care of.

[63:24]

And you have loving-kindness towards yourself and towards your perceptions. Loving-kindness towards your perception of abuse doesn't mean you reject your perception. You just say, I've got a perception here. So you go over there. This is like the ideal. You go over there and you feel loving kindness towards yourself. You want yourself to be happy, peaceful, and light. You want yourself to be safe, free of injury, free of anxiety, free of fear, free of anger, free of... You want this mother. And you do that so fully with yourself that you're not going to harm anybody else. So then you go over to this mother. You're not going to harm her now. You want her to be happy. You don't just want her kid to be happy. You want her to be happy. Why? Because you want yourself to be happy and you want everybody to be happy. You want this mother to be happy. You want her to be free.

[64:26]

You want her to be light. You love this mother. And when you go over there, you love her. You want her to be happy. You love the baby. You love the child. You want the child to be with you. You come with love. You come with love. You come with a body of love. You come with teeth of love. You come with arms of love. You come with legs of love. You go over there and you express love to the mother and to the baby. They feel that love. Now, if they themselves are not loving, they may not be aware that they're feeling the love. But you're bringing love. You actually respect the mother and the baby. You don't think the mother's better than the baby or worse than the baby or the baby's worse or better than the mother. You respect both. No matter how this thing goes, moment after moment, you're practicing love.

[65:28]

You feel connected to these people. and in that space you go in there and you protect the baby and you protect the mother and you protect yourself and you make them all safe. You don't harm. You don't need to interject into the space that you're right. You have a perception of harm. it draws you closer to the situation. Aid the situation to make sure for you as best you can that the situation is harmless, that beings are protected. Even if the mother isn't intentionally trying to hurt the baby, like even if a mother was like slipping on the floor and about to fall on the baby, okay, to try to protect the baby from being crushed by the mother's body as she falls. But to bring into it that you're right, that's overdoing it.

[66:32]

You're bringing, suddenly the mother's falling and here comes, you know, what is like the righteous is coming, you know. Rather than a body which is going to stop my fall, I've got this like, the one who's right coming towards me who's the one who's wrong. Or where's... Where's that coming from? So then she feels like the person who's coming, all of a sudden she's falling and she's in trouble. Now somebody else, a dangerous person is coming. Like her. Somebody who thinks she's a... Whatever, you know. Why add that? It just throws attachment and self-righteousness and actually something which is quite contradictory to love. Self-concern, self-righteousness, and not trusting love to work it out. You're bringing power and control into the situation rather than love. So the mother who is like, whatever her problems are, I don't know, maybe she's trying to control herself and control the baby.

[67:41]

Maybe her abuse of the baby is trying to control the baby. I mean, that's usually what it is. When you see these mothers beating up their kids, they're usually trying to control their kids. But as you may have noticed, kids cannot be controlled. If you think you can control kids, you don't know love. Children cannot be controlled. They cannot be controlled. The only way you can control them is if you are deluded. You can't control children. You can only hate them. And control is a nice expression of hate. If you love them completely... And they're walking down the stairs, and the stair collapses under their foot, and they fall down the stairs. You can try with your whole heart to protect them from being hurt, but you can't necessarily protect them from being hurt. You can't.

[68:41]

But when they feel that love, even if they do get hurt, they're okay. Children get hurt a lot. But they don't need to be hurt by a lack of love. Love doesn't come from control. Love comes from letting go of control and hoping for yourself and others. Not trying to control people into being this way or that way, but trusting love, not control. So in that very same situation, you could have... full of love and created a miracle, a wonder, a magical event of love without ever knowing that you were right, but just using this perception as an opportunity to do the outrageous thing of loving somebody you don't know in a supermarket. Just like Michael Wise, because of that situation of the perception of him, person being attacking him, because he felt attacked, he could go over to the house

[69:50]

of a Ku Klux Klan member and have dinner with him and love him. He could love him because the person gave him a chance, because that person hated him. He could practice love. He had to. Try it. Dive into love right there in the supermarket. You will protect beings. You will protect beings. You will protect the child. You will protect yourself. You will protect the mother. You will generate the kind of friendship and love that the mother needs probably. You will become another ally to the mother. You can help the mother. You can say, hey, you need a break? I'll take care of the kid for a while. I can get her under control. Right. Well, that's the thing.

[70:51]

You've got to have all four to really be on the mark. Okay? You could wish the best for the person, be compassionate, and yet kind of have an expectation of how it goes that's better than, you know, than other ones. So you're still rigid in terms of how, you know, or you might prefer the mother over the child or the child over the mother. That kind of thing throws it off. Or you might have the other three but not feel joyful about it. It should actually feel joyful at the opportunity of helping out. Not like, oh God, I got to save another kid in the grocery store. I get sick of this, you know. No, it's like, oh, a wonderful, this is like, this is a time to help, you know. It's like I do funeral ceremonies for people, right? And then after the funeral ceremony, sometimes the friends or the relatives say, you know, it was really great meeting you. I'm sorry it had to be under these circumstances. And I think, well, I don't say it, but I say, well, you know, we'd never meet if it wasn't for this.

[71:56]

I mean, it's not a sad thing that you lose your loved one, but this is my time to meet you. So there's a lot of rough situations, but those are times, you know, those are opportunities. Aren't they? Well, let's have a little bit of quiet, shall we, before we take a break? Don't go away yet. Don't go away. Just sit facing me for a little bit.

[73:03]

I just want to be quiet for a little bit, and then we can have a break. And this will be a long break. We're going to have a big break now. Hours and hours of free time. So you could actually practice love for the next two and a half years unhindered by my voice. So during the next two and a half hours whatever you do wherever you are see if you can actually give love to yourself give compassion give joy to yourself and treat your states that you go through with equanimity see if you can actually accept each moment of what it feels like to be you without wishing for something else

[74:19]

Something else. Just let yourself wish for something else and realize that somebody doesn't. Somebody's not wishing for something else. There's a Buddha inside you that's accepting you. See if you can do that with yourself for the next two, an hour and a half. Two and a half hours. Two and a half hours. Right? Yeah, 2.30. You have two and a half hours to practice. And if you can do it with yourself, see if you can do it with somebody else if you meet somebody. Thank you for your questions and I appreciate you expressing any resistance you have to this teaching.

[75:34]

It's helpful to all of us. Thank you. Does saying, may I be free of anger, affliction, fear and anxiety, does that help you be more intimate with those phenomena?

[76:48]

It helps you not resist him so much. I find myself, but I get confused sometimes when I say it, in that I'm Did you hear what she said? So that's the traditional way of doing the meditation.

[78:08]

May I, may you, may he, may she be free of anger, affliction, anxiety. But maybe you might also try, at least for a little while, Changing it to, may I be intimate with fear, emotion, anger, and anxiety.

[78:48]

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