Rather than, oh, you mean like we're really serious and fierce about being alive here? You mean you people are actually up for me? You're going to like tell me when you don't like me rather than asking me to withhold and pretend like I'm somebody else? And you want to know how I feel? Wow. Would you have your hand up, Richard? feeling misunderstood is closely related to feeling disrespected sometimes we feel misunderstood and we don't feel too upset like for example I told somebody the other day that somebody quoted the Dalai Lama to me I didn't get that angry.

[01:03]

Now if they quote me and attribute it to the Dalai Lama, Well, it would compliment me a little bit, but how about, you know... So I think being misunderstood, being misquoted, being disrespected are very hard for some of us to take. It strikes at a deep, kind of like, actually biological... It's very important for us to be understood the way we intend to be understood. It's very hard for us. So... So what do you do when you're misunderstood and you feel hurt by that? If you are loving yourself and you're loving the other person, you can say, hey, you want to hear something interesting?

[02:13]

I feel misunderstood and it really hurts. And that can be given fierceness, But the point is you're not trying to hurt the other person. But you want them to know that they're hurt and also that you feel misunderstood. In the case, for example, of my daughter, I did not feel misunderstood. I felt understood. I felt she was hurt. But that's not as difficult as being misunderstood. Misunderstood is really hard. So what if you have some anger that's... and you don't have enough love around it? And what do you do with that kind of anger? What if you've got anger but you don't feel love around it?

[03:19]

If you do it, yeah, you get in trouble. You are in trouble. You're in trouble. You're in trouble because you've got anger but there's not love. So how are we going to get love around when we have anger? Where are we going to get it from? Yeah. Take time out. Disqualify yourself from human society for a while. You've still got the problem. Maybe it'll pass. That's okay. Pardon? Yes? Yes? Yeah.

[04:25]

And then you find out that you've got so many difficult feelings. like you got a churn, a tightness in your throat or your chest, you've got churning in your stomach, you've got hurt feelings, somebody said something to you that really hurt you, someone did something that really embarrassed you, about it, someone betrayed you, you feel, what do you feel when you feel betrayed? Someone abandoned you, what do you feel when you feel abandoned? Feeling those things is harder for most people than being angry. either to be angry or to assume your anger and pretend like you're angry. So in some sense you could say a lot of anger maybe is pretending to be something other than a wounded beast.

[05:46]

And rather than just sort of like be wounded and disabled and sort of overwhelmed by pain, we might want to pretend like we're okay. There's a way to cover it. Right? Nobody knows. So then they won't strike us again because we look okay. But if we show them that we're wounded, they might strike again. So it's... maybe we're not really... Maybe it's just a fake thing. Maybe all there is really is happiness and pain. And then all this stuff we do is just like a big show from what's going on. And maybe we could actually operate not from distracting ourselves from our pain and our pleasure, but from actually being intimate with it.

[06:55]

Maybe we still could live our life without spacing out and moving on. Would that be possible? Could you actually live from direct feeling? Why don't we now do some meditation? Okay? Let's do some walking meditation and then some sitting meditation. The Buddha said, one who will never harm another.

[08:23]

Well, I should say, I heard that Buddha said that. I heard that. I don't know if Buddha actually said that. What do you think? Is that true? And do you love yourself? I don't. So I should be careful of you, huh? You're saying you do. Do you believe it?

[09:25]

My body doesn't. So, can you say that? And may I be peaceful in light and body and spirit? Can you say that to yourself? And then, can you say it again and again? Yeah. This has been so good for me. So helpful. Have you been doing it today? Yeah, and it works. But you don't quite... as far as to say that you love yourself yet? no what do you mean by it works well i was out front in the recycling garbage can and i noticed there was all this that wasn't recyclable and it made me really mad so i started

[10:46]

being mad and taking garbage out of there. And then while I was doing it, I was saying, we had to be happy, joyous, peaceful. But then I noticed I didn't feel very bad anymore. And it was almost kind of fun to take the garbage out of there. And then later when I was talking to someone who was saying something that made me afraid and uncomfortable, I started doing that. So I think the knee works. stop being angry and because you love them you maybe can find skillful ways and also because you love yourself you find skillful ways to live with your anger i'm catholic yeah it does probably

[12:19]

Would you like to do some walking meditation now? I know you would, Lucetta. Walking meditation for Lucetta. So slow. Oh, good. It's so hard for her to walk slow. Go on the outside lane. This is the high compression, you know, really slow lane in here. Go to the outside lane. They're going fast out there. And if that lane isn't fast enough, go around the building. So in some comfortable lane? The fast lane or the slow lane? How's it going?

[14:28]

Some of you haven't... Would you like to say something? Some of you that haven't spoken? Light? Well, like not, you know, not heavy, burdened, squashed down, oppressed, buoyant. Like, not this big heavy thing, but something that you actually are up for. that you could, like, you know, feel light about the next moment.

[15:38]

Like, yes. I want to have a body. Not I want to have a body, but I got one and I'm willing to work with it. Kind of lightness. I'm in a joyous and sad spot, it says. Joyous and sad? Mm-hmm. Spending so many years not being loving for me, but for myself and for others. And I'm way behind. Mm-hmm. I feel like I need to catch up for it. It's so difficult for me to kind of be in touch with being loving, kind, as well as thinking about everybody.

[16:43]

So put me in an inflected mood. I'm glad to have that thought. We've had a relationship with that. It's really difficult. I feel like I should catch up. Might want to get there quickly. Well, I think a sense of urgency is usually considered to be helpful. But rushing is not. So the urgency is good, that urgent feeling.

[17:48]

And there's some other people told me that they feel some grief over many years of not doing something which to do so grieving is part of the practice too in other words letting go of the past and grieving can be done simultaneously with loving kindness meditation simultaneously with compassion you can even be joyful while grieving Grieving is a medicine for attachment to the past. This year I turned 65. I do feel like I'm on a...

[18:50]

And you don't want to wait till tomorrow. Start tonight. Otherwise you might forget. What was it again I was going to do? Because we don't have much time, we should not rush. We should enjoy every moment fully. If we think we've got a long time ahead of us, we think, well, you know, I don't have to enjoy tonight or the next 10 seconds.

[19:59]

But it's a bad habit, that attitude. It seems to me as though without asking ourselves when Michael was going to go, that was it. You have to practice loving-kindness and compassion and joy and equanimity in order to be upright.

[21:15]

And also being upright, I think, includes those practices, but it's good to articulate them to make sure So when you're really balanced, you actually are at peace. You actually are happy. You actually are light. When you're balanced, you're the most light. It's your most light posture. It's the lightest way to be with gravity, is to be balanced. Every other position besides balance is heavy. You're holding yourself up. So she's referring to calling Mary, you know, Jesus' mother, and she stood.

[22:21]

She stood there, supposedly. Stabat mater. Mother stood. She just stood there. Somehow she took care of herself in her standing practice. So if you want to stand there and work for the world in a sustained and beneficial way, you have to take care of yourself to do that work. Otherwise you can do it for a few minutes, but pretty soon you'll collapse. If you say a few words, how one can, in the course of, say, their duty, perhaps their duty, say their capital, has inflicted pain or economic hardship on someone else because of what the other person has done. How to do that in a loving manner. I say to an IRS agent, Mr. Baker,

[23:25]

Deeply interested in the practice. But she, for 20 years, has acted in the proper returns and took money from people. That's exactly the law. You know, she positions, well, we have to take a course of action, which is going to be bitterly resented by somebody else because, well, come on, because it is due then. And they're not going to like this. Lose their freedom, or lose some money, or lose prestige, or whatever. How would you tell a person like this that they could do this in a loving manner? To maintain their love and kindness? You mean, how would I advise a person? Well, let's go right over here. If the livelihood results in perceived pain or diminution of the economic well-being or any other thing in the person... Well, if the person wants to practice the Buddhist path, if they are involved in some livelihood, then the livelihood should be harmless to other beings.

[24:51]

That's one of the main criteria of livelihoods, they have to be harmless. But that's not, you know, that can go on from there. But I mean, in the case of this IRS, I think, what she does is not harmless to the being that she hires, because they usually end up paying that. Well, if she thinks it's harmless, and you want to debate her, No, I'm just saying, but if she feels it's harmless, in other words, I don't think it's necessarily harmful to someone for them to give money to the government, not necessarily harmful for them to give up some of their money. Matter of fact, if they give their money away joyfully, it's very beneficial to them. But if they give their money away and they hate while they give their money away, then if you're part of that, then you might say, well, maybe I don't want to do that anymore.

[25:55]

The Roman Empire failed. One of the main causes for the collapse of the Roman Empire was that the tax collectors didn't want to do their job anymore. Being a tax collector became an untenable form of livelihood. So maybe the American empire will fall because the taxpayers will all, the tax collectors will all become and they won't be able to collect the money anymore because they don't feel that is right livelihood. I mean, you could say the same about somebody who could say a prosecutor. It's not, it's not for me to say about other people. I don't think one could say. No, I mean, it's not, it's not about one to say something. Right livelihood is about your own livelihood. It's not about other people's. So you and I look at our livelihood, and we have instructions about how to look at it to tell whether it's right livelihood. So we just have a set of criteria to check.

[26:56]

So just look at the list and check it. It's not harming any beings. If so, it's not right livelihood. That's it. If there's any deception, that's it. And what are the things that harm people? Well, then the usual list is killing people as a livelihood to kill people. That's not right livelihood. To sell weapons that kill people is not right livelihood. To make weapons that kill people is not right livelihood. To sell poisons or to make money into administering poison and things like that. that's not right livelihood. To sell people, you know, to sell people like slaves is not right livelihood. You know, these are examples of not right livelihood.

[27:58]

You see, you have a list that you check out for yourself, and then if you have, for yourself, if you don't satisfy those criteria, then you know you're not practicing right livelihood, according to those definitions. So then you have to decide whether you're going to change your livelihood based on finding that you don't think you're doing right livelihood. I don't know if I was addressing your question. Well, because, for example, people will suffer from what you do, but it's a just suffering. That is, they have brought it upon themselves by either cheating the government or cheating somebody else. So they're brought to justice, but they're going to suffer anyway. Well, suffering is not... Like for example, if somebody is a heroin addict, and maybe you help people detox, and they come to you and they go through pain in your presence, you support them through their painful experience. That pain isn't necessarily harmful. It's just a normal part of the process of detoxification.

[29:04]

But to give somebody something that makes them experience temporary pleasure, may be harmful like to give them alcohol to sell them alcohol or other kinds of drugs which they want because they expect for you to make a profit on them intoxicating themselves or poisoning themselves even though they are begging you to give it to them at a low price and they they really want it and they say thank you and they really and they feel pleasure from it for a while that might be right wrong livelihood because actually you're contributing to harming them by are literally supporting them to kill themselves. So it's not just that they're suffering that necessarily means they're harmed. Suffering sometimes is not... Some kinds of pains are not necessarily harmful. The question is, are you making a profit out of harming people? And if you think it's harmful, then if you think... It's not for me to tell you you're doing harm. Does it harm the person's happiness?

[30:08]

And sometimes... If I would lie and then somebody makes me pay more money later, I may feel uncomfortable about that, but that doesn't necessarily harm me. I'll feel better after it. Say, well, I've got that over with. Now I'm not, you know, I don't have to worry anymore. I don't have to hide this anymore. It's all over. I'm glad, you know. Like some people go to jail and They're glad to get it over with, and then they can get out and start over. So it depends on whether you're harming the person or not. If you feel you are, and you're making a living from it, then it's not right livelihood. But even Buddhist monks, traditionally, who, they just beg, you know, if people give them freely, supposedly freely give them their support, still there are tricks that they can do to get more donations. like they can appear to be very holy. Like one of the tricks is you go to ask for a donation and the person offers you a donation and you say, oh, I'm sorry, I'm not worthy of such a fine donation.

[31:17]

Please, I don't need it. And they say, wow, we'll give you more. So there's various ways to trick. And another way is to say, somebody gives you a small donation and you say, oh, that was quite a donation you made me. I wonder if the neighbors would like to hear about this. I think I'll go tell the neighbors about the big donation you gave me. You're going to be very... People are going to think you're so generous. Oh, here, take more. Anyway, the monks, the Buddhist monks apparently thought of various tricks to get people to give them more. For the monks, those are considered wrong livelihood. Various kinds of trickery and deception and pressure and harassment to get bigger donations. Apparently they did this because it's in the you know It's actually in that book the Vissuti Magga the path of purifications all kinds of tricks that the monks did to get more donations That's not right livelihood Any other people that haven't spoken and like to tell us how it's going I

[32:30]

Are you tired? Been a hard day? All that love? Tiring to love? Yes. Okay. All right. Well, there's a lot of them, but I'll talk about some of them, yeah. Maybe tomorrow, okay? Anything else you want to bring up tonight? Yes. I've had a question before. It was in the context of loving the body.

[33:37]

Yes, loving the body. I had read somewhere where a person with cancer loved the cancer. And the outcome was very good. So it seems you are environmentally fluid loving cancer. It's possible. Maybe different kinds of cancers respond differently. I don't know. Well, it's not so much that you love some particular part of the body, like I love you. It's that part of the body to be happy, to be, you know, peaceful, to be light. So if you can wish the cancer to be happy, why not? There's no, you know, in the Buddhist thing, there's no exceptions to what you don't, there's no being to be happy.

[34:41]

You don't say, okay, I wish everybody in America to be happy, but not Canadians. Everybody in America except the people in Las Vegas or something. No, you wish your entire body and the bodies of all beings, the entire body of the entire universe, you wish happiness to. You wish happiness to the parasites and to the hosts. And this love, supposedly, is going to make things work out for the best for everybody. So maybe the cancer is a happy cancer land and maybe the person did better too. This love is supposed to make everything work out best for everybody. Because you're bringing things into alignment with reality and bringing happiness and health. If that can work out well for the person, best for the cancer, great. Two people are fighting.

[35:46]

You wish them both well. and then hopefully they're both happy. Somehow. They were fighting before, and now they're both happy and not fighting anymore. Is that possible? What brings that? Love. Love can also be in the form of asking them what they're fighting about, and ask them to look at themselves while they're fighting. That can be part of the love. helping each one, having them each looking within themselves and try to understand what's going on and what's in themselves. That could be part of the love too. So I think it is possible that you would wish the whole person, every part of them, wish their bacteria well, you know. Wish their digestive well. Wish everything in the person well. and maybe that would make everybody happy.

[36:47]

I don't know. You say I not be fresh Am I worried about my mind not being fresh that you're asking me I I wouldn't say I'm worried, but I do have that question. Is my mind fresh? I also sometimes wonder, is my mind too fresh? I'm wondering about myself.

[37:54]

I wonder about myself, don't you? So my wondering about myself is spreading. But I'm also wondering about you. And I'm wondering if you're fresh. But I'm not coming to any conclusions, I just wonder. And I'm not really worrying about it. But I wonder. I wonder about myself and I wonder about you. I do. but I don't know. I often mention, I don't know often, but anyway, I sometimes mention it's important, after you've been practicing for a long time, to not lose track of being an amateur.

[39:28]

So, like I'm, in a sense, a professional meditator. It's my, you know, Zen meditation is my profession and my avocation and my hobby. everything all in one. But originally it was, it was a hobby, you know, it was my, it was my, it was a love thing. I didn't start practicing the obligation. I was, it was a kind of a love thing and I, my reputation and my status or anything like that didn't depend on it. I just did it because I wanted to. And a lot of meditators lose track of doing the meditation as a love thing. And they start forcing themselves to meditate, or pushing on, or disciplining themselves in a way that's not loving, and then gradually squeezing the life out of their practice.

[40:37]

So the joy factor needs to be there. I heard two stories about being torn between two parents. You know, like we now have this common thing of children having parents get to So either they get taken away from one of the parents or they spend time with both parents. And I remember I knew this young girl. She was a year younger than my daughter. I knew her mother and her father. And so she, at a certain point in her life, her father lived in Berkeley.

[41:53]

After they separated, her father lived in Berkeley, her mother lived in Boston. So she went back and forth between spending time with her mother and her father and her father and her mother. And... I guess she told the story how it was to be with her parents, and then she used this very interesting image. I think she said when she comes to visit her father, she's with him for a while, but then towards the end of the visit, she's not with him anymore. Because she's thinking about going back to her mother. And she's so excited about being with her mother that she doesn't even notice that she's with her father. And also when she's with her mother, coming to see her father, she doesn't even notice her mother.

[43:00]

Even though she's not with her father, she's with her mother. So she isn't with either one of them a lot of the time. Even though she's always with one of them. So it's understandable that it's difficult to be with one when there's a... You can understand why she'd have that problem. It's a real challenge to not do that. And she used the example, she said, it's like It's like if you get a Cabbage Patch doll for Christmas. Do you remember the Cabbage Patch dolls? These very expensive dolls that you had to sign up for, right? And they had a life story and so on, right? Anyway, to get a Cabbage Patch doll at her age was when they were really hard to get. And so she says, like getting a cabbage patch doll, in other words, a really special present, a really special present for Christmas. And then you're unwrapping your presents, right?

[44:04]

And then you have all the wrapping paper and the presents and stuff like that. So somebody throws out the wrapping paper, right, but accidentally throws out the cabbage patch doll by mistake. The cabbage patch doll gets thrown out. with the paper. And in Boston, when the garbage people find teddy bears and dolls in the garbage, they put them up on top of the garbage truck. It's kind of a thing they do. So it's like getting a cabbage patch doll, having it thrown away by mistake, and then realizing it's been thrown out and running to the window and seeing the garbage truck go away with your doll on top of it. See, that's what it's like being with my parents. I keep feeling like I'm losing one of them. I love them very much, but I keep losing them. And then somebody else told me a story about how her parents separating and she had to kind of like, she not had to, but she kind of chose one of them.

[45:08]

She really loved her father. and felt close to her father. But when they split up, she felt sorry for him and wanted to not abandon her mother and take care of her mother. But then she lost her father, who she loved very much. So somehow, when we're children, we can't figure out what to do other than to choose. And when we choose, we always lose. If she had chosen her father instead, that would have been fun, you know? Oedipal victor and all that. I got dad after all. I thought I always would, and I did. You know, dad's fun and all that. Be close to dad. But then what about mom? Same way you stay with mom and lose dad. Well, then what about dad? And, you know, did I give up dad for mom? Isn't it? And I don't know how to resolve this because, you know, as soon as you choose, it seems like you're done for.

[46:15]

So somehow we have to start here again, choosing. Like there's no alternative. You've got to work with your whole self. You can't choose. If you start choosing with yourself, which you think you can do, then you're going to choose in other situations, which you think you can do, and you're going to not be happy. Now, some cases that you really feel unhappy choosing, other cases you may not feel so unhappy, but basically start here and see if you can not choose here and then maybe you can not choose there. That's the equanimity part, right? There's no choice. And it's not that you do nothing. It isn't that you just sit there passively and let somebody else decide. That's a decision too. Somehow you have to be engaged without choosing, I think. Or not, you know, be fooled by the apparent choice.

[47:19]

Another verse about developing love from the path of purification is, may I learn to look at myself with eyes of understanding and compassion, with eyes of understanding, compassion, and love. And then, of course, may she learn to look at herself with eyes of understanding and compassion. May he learn to look at himself with eyes of understanding and compassion. May they learn to look at themselves with eyes of understanding and compassion and love. May I be able to recognize and touch or be intimate with the seeds of joy and happiness in myself and may she recognize and touch and be intimate with the seeds of joy and happiness in herself and may he and may they

[48:50]

be able to recognize and touch the seeds of joy and happiness in themselves. May I learn to identify and clearly see the sources of anger, greed, and delusion. in myself. May she learn to identify and see the source of greed and delusion in herself and so on. Yes.

[49:58]

Well, I was... It's a little out of order, but I guess it's okay. Okay. I think it's better to do it in order. I'll briefly talk about the first one, okay? First is, may I learn to understand, to look at myself, to look at myself with eyes of understanding and compassion. So if I look at myself with eyes of understanding and compassion, with eyes of love, Again, I don't look at just part of myself. And looking at myself, I see my... you know, my body.

[51:03]

I see my feelings. I see my... perceptions, I see many mental formations in emotions, attitudes, and I can't see my consciousness that I'm aware. And, yes? Regarding the last one, the source, does that sometimes involve going back to the Bible? I didn't understand the question. On the last one regarding the sources, does that involve going back to the Bible? Sure. Sometimes. See whatever, whatever comes up. Whatever childhood you got available to you, let's check it out. Okay. Learning to look with, you know, into myself

[52:08]

to look at myself with eyes of understanding and compassion. So I look at my mind, look at the... Rather than, oh, you mean like we're really serious and fierce about being alive here? You mean you people are actually up for me? You're going to like tell me when you don't like me rather than asking me to withhold and pretend like I'm somebody else? You want me to tell you how I feel? Wow. Would you have your hand up, Richard? Feeling misunderstood is closely related to feeling disrespected. Sometimes we feel misunderstood and we don't feel too upset.

[53:12]

Like, for example, I told somebody the other day that somebody quoted me and attributed it to me. I didn't get that angry. Now if they quote me and attribute it to the Dalai Lama, Well, it would compliment me a little bit, but how about, you know. So I think being misunderstood, being misquoted, being disrespected are very hard for some of us to take. It strikes at a deep, kind of like, actually biologic narrative there. It's very important for us to be understood the way we intend to be understood. It's very hard for us. So what do you do when you're misunderstood and you feel hurt by that?

[54:15]

If you are loving yourself and you're loving the other person, you can say, hey, you want to hear something interesting? I feel misunderstood and it really hurts. And that can be given with a fierceness but the point is you're not trying to hurt the other person. But you want them to know that it hurt and also that you feel misunderstood. In the case, for example, of my daughter, I did not feel misunderstood. I felt understood and it hurt. But that's not how difficult it is being misunderstood. Misunderstood is really hard. So what if you have some anger that's... and you don't have enough love around it?

[55:27]

Then what do you do with that kind of anger? What if you've got anger but you don't feel love around it? If you do it, yeah, you get in trouble. You are in trouble. You're in trouble. You're in trouble because you've got anger but there's not love. So how are we going to get love around when we have anger? Where are we going to get it from? Yeah. Take time out. Disqualify yourself from human society for a while. You've still got the problem. Maybe it'll pass. That's okay. Pardon? in a journal well yes And then you find out that you've got some of these difficult feelings.

[57:10]

like you've got a tightness in your throat or your chest, you've got churning in your stomach, you've got hurt feelings. Somebody said something to you that really hurt you. Someone did something that really embarrassed you. You feel uncomfortable about it. Someone betrayed you. What do you feel when you feel betrayed? Someone abandoned you. What do you feel when you feel abandoned? Feeling those things is harder for most people than being angry. either to be angry or to assume your anger. So in some sense you could say a lot of anger maybe is pretending to be something other than a wounded beast. And rather than just sort of like be wounded and disabled and sort of overwhelmed by pain, we might want to pretend like we're okay. And anger is a way to cover it. Right? Nobody knows. So then they won't strike us again because we look okay.

[58:31]

But if we show them that we're wounded, they might strike again. So it's angry. Maybe it's just a fake thing. Maybe all there is really is happiness and pain. And then all this stuff we do is just like a big show to distract ourselves from what's going on. And maybe we could actually operate not from distracting ourselves from our pain and our pleasure, but from actually being intimate with it. Maybe we still could live our life without spacing out and realizing what's going on. Would that be possible? Could you actually live from direct feeling?

[59:32]

Why don't we now do some meditation? Let's do some walking meditation and then some sitting meditation. The Buddha said, one who hurts herself will never harm another. Well, I should say, I heard that Buddha said that.

[60:54]

I heard that. I don't know if Buddha actually said that. What do you think? Is that true? And do you love yourself? I don't. So I should be careful of you, huh? Do I love you? I'm saying you do. Do you believe it? My body doesn't. So, can I be happy? Can you say that? And may I be peaceful in light and body and spirit.

[62:10]

Can you say that to yourself? Yeah. And then can you say it again and again? Yeah. This is so awful. Have you been doing it today? Yeah, and it works. But you don't go so far as to say that you love yourself yet? No. No. What do you mean by it works? out front in the recycling garbage can and I noticed there that wasn't recyclable and it made me really mad so I started being mad and taking garbage out of there.

[63:10]

And then while I was doing it, I was saying, you have to be happy, joyless, peaceful. And I noticed I didn't feel very bad anymore. And it was almost kind of fun to take the garbage out of there. And then later when I was talking to someone who was saying something that made me afraid and uncomfortable, I started talking again. So I think that for me it works. Stop being angry.

[64:22]

And because you love them, you maybe can find skillful ways. And also because you love yourself, you find skillful ways to live with your anger. I'm a Catholic. Yeah, it does probably. Would you like to do some walking meditation now? I know you would, Lucetta. Walking meditation for Lucetta. So slow. Oh, good. It's so hard for her. You can go on the outside lane. This is the high compression, you know, really slow lane. Go to the outside lane. They're going fast out there. and if that lane isn't fast enough, go around the building walking meditation in some comfortable lane the fast lane or the slow lane

[65:28]

How's it going? Some of you haven't spoken yet. Would you like to say something? Some of you that haven't spoken? What do you mean by light? Light? Well, like not, you know, not heavy, burdened, squashed down, oppressed, buoyant. Light could be like not this big heavy thing, but something that you actually are up for. That you could like

[67:53]

you know, feel light about the next moment. Like, yes, I want to live. I want to have a body. Not I want to have a body, but I got one and I'm willing to work with it. Kind of lightness. Joyous and sad. That's what it says. Joyous and sad? Uh-huh. Spending so many years not being loving for me, but for myself and for all the others. And I feel like I'm way behind. It's almost like I need to catch up to solve it right now. I mean, that's... It's so difficult.

[68:57]

I mean, being in touch with, being with yourself, as well as thinking about everybody. So, couldn't you have inflicted me? I'm glad that you have that thought. It's a little bit... We've settled our talk. We've had a long relationship. In fact, it's a very difficult thing. I feel like I should catch up. I guess I would be in a bad place. Mightily, we did get there quickly. Well, I think a sense of urgency is usually considered to be helpful, but rushing.

[69:58]

So the urgency is good, the urgent feeling. And there's some other people told me that they feel some grief over many years of not think it would be good to do. So grieving is part of the practice too. In other words, letting go of the past. And grieving can be done simultaneously with loving-kindness meditation. It can be done simultaneously with compassion. You can even be joyful while grieving. Grieving is a medicine for attachment to the past. For me, maybe different than some of you.

[71:03]

This year I turned 65. And I do feel like I'm on a... And you don't want to wait till tomorrow. Start tonight. But don't rush. Otherwise you might forget. What was it again I was going to do? Because we don't rush, we should not rush. We should enjoy every moment fully.

[72:07]

If we think we've got a long time ahead of us, we think, well, you know, I don't have to enjoy tonight or the next 10 seconds. But it's a bad habit, that attitude. Thank you. ourselves as a high school adult, that is not enough for us to get along with.

[73:21]

You have to practice loving-kindness and compassion and joy and equanimity in order to be upright. And also being upright, I think, includes those practices, but it's good to articulate them to make sure. So when you're really balanced, you actually are at peace. You actually are happy. You actually are light. When you're balanced, you're the most light. It's your most light posture. It's the lightest way to be with gravity, is to be balanced. Every other position besides balance is heavy. You're holding yourself up.

[74:28]

So she's referring to, calling Mary, you know, Jesus at the cross, and she stood. She stood there, supposedly. Stabat Mater. Mother stood. She just stood there. Somehow she took care of herself in her standing practice. So if you want to stand there, the suffering of the world, in a sustained and you know, beneficial way, you have to take care of yourself to do that work. Otherwise you can do it for a few minutes, but pretty soon you'll collapse. Can you say a few words about how one can, in the course of, say, their duty, perhaps their duty, say their capital, is inflicted pain or economic hardship, with someone else because of what the other person is doing. I had to do that in an IRS group.

[75:45]

Deeply interested in the practice. But she, for 20 years, The proper returns and the money can be... ...the positions where we have to take a course of action, which is going to be bitterly resented by somebody else because... ...it's due to them. And they're not going to like this. They could lose their freedom, or lose some money, or lose prestige, or whatever. How would you tell a person like this that they could do this in a loving manner? To maintain their love and kindness? You mean, how would I invite them to join my movement? Well, if that's the way you want it, yeah. If their livelihood results in perceived pain or diminution of economic well-being or any other thing within the person... Well, if the person wants to practice the Buddhist path, if they are involved in some livelihood, then the livelihood should be harmless to other beings.

[77:12]

That's one of the main criteria of livelihood, is to be harmless. But that's not one requirement. You can go on from there. But in the case of this IRS, I think, what she does is not harmless to the being that she likes, because they usually adapt to him. Well, if she thinks it's harmless, and you want to debate her, No, I'm just saying, but if she feels it's harmless, in other words, I don't think it's necessarily harmful to someone for them to give money to the government, not necessarily harmful for them to give up some of their money. When someone gives their money away joyfully, it's very beneficial to them. But if they give their money away, and they hate while they give their money away, then if you're part of that, then you might say, well, maybe I don't want to do that anymore.

[78:15]

The Roman Empire failed. One of the main causes for the collection was that the taxpayer, the tax collector, didn't want to do their job anymore. Being a tax collector was really, you know, became an untenable form of livelihood. So maybe the American Empire will fall because the taxpayers will, the tax collectors will And they won't be able to collect the money anymore because they don't feel that is right livelihood. I mean, you could say the same about somebody who could say a prosecutor. It's not for me to say about other people. I don't think one could say. No, I mean, it's not about one or other people. Right livelihood is about your own livelihood. It's not about other people's. So you and I look at our livelihood And we have instructions about how to look at it to tell whether it's right livelihood. So we just have a set of criteria to check.

[79:17]

So just look at the list. Is it harming any beings? If so, it's not right livelihood. That's it. If there's any deception, that's it. And what are the things that harm people? Well, then the usual list is selling, killing people for, you know, to give as a livelihood to kill people. That's not right livelihood. To sell weapons that kill people is not right livelihood. To make weapons that kill people is not right livelihood. To sell poisons or to make money administering poison and things like that to you know that's not right livelihood to sell people you know to sell to sell people like slaves is not right livelihood you know these are examples of not right livelihood so you see you have a list that you check out for yourself and then if you if you have

[80:24]

For yourself, if you don't satisfy those criteria, then you know you're not practicing right livelihood, according to those definitions. So then you have to decide whether you're going to change your livelihood based on finding that you don't think you're doing right livelihood. I don't know if I was addressing your question. Well, because, for example, people will suffer from what you do, but it's a just suffering. That is, they have brought it upon themselves by either cheating the government or cheating somebody else. So they're brought to justice, but they're going to suffer anyway. Well, suffering is not necessarily harm. Like, for example, if somebody is a heroin addict and... And maybe you help people detox, and they come to you and they go through pain in your presence. You support them through their painful experience. That pain is normal. It's just a normal part of the process of detoxification. But to give somebody something that makes them experience temporary pleasure may be harmful.

[81:32]

Like to give them alcohol, to sell them alcohol or other kinds of drugs, which they want, pleasure for you to make a profit on them intoxicating themselves or poison themselves even though they are begging you to give it to them at a low price and they they really want it and they say thank you and they really and they feel pleasure from it for a while that might be right wrong livelihood because actually you're contributing to harming them but addiction are literally supporting them to kill themselves so it's not just that they're suffering not necessarily means they're harmed. Suffering sometimes is not, some kinds of pains are not necessarily harmful. The question is, are you making a profit out of harming people? And if you think it's harmful, then you stop. It's not for me to tell you you're doing harm. Does it harm the person's happiness? And sometimes, if I would lie, and then somebody makes me pay more money later,

[82:36]

I may feel uncomfortable about that, but that isn't necessarily hard. Maybe I'll feel better after it. Say, well, I've got that over with. Now I'm not, you know, I don't have to worry anymore. I don't have to hide this anymore. It's all over. I'm glad, you know. Like some people go to jail and they're glad to get it over with. And then they can get out and start over. So are you harming the person or not? If you feel you are and you're making a living from it, that's not right livelihood. But even Buddhist monks, traditionally, who, they just beg, you know, people give them freely, supposedly freely give them their support. There's various tricks that they can do to get more donations. Like they can appear to be very holy Like one of the tricks is you go to ask for a donation and the person offers you a donation and you say, oh, I'm sorry, I'm not worthy of such a fine donation.

[83:37]

Please, I don't need it. Holy man, they give you more. So there's various ways to trick. And another way is to say, somebody gives you a small donation and you say, oh, that was quite a donation you made me. I wonder if the neighbors would like to hear about this. I think I'll go tell the neighbors about the big donation you gave me. People are going to think you're so generous. Oh, here, take more. Anyway, the monks, the Buddhist monks apparently thought of various tricks to get people to give them more. For the monks, those are considered wrong livelihood. Various kinds of trickery and deception and pressure and harassment to get bigger donations. Apparently they did this because it's in the, you know, it's actually in that book, the Visuddhimagga, the path of purifications, all kinds of tricks that the monks did to get more donations. That's not right livelihood. Any other people that haven't spoken and would like to tell us how it's going?

[84:51]

Are you tired? Been a hard day? All that love? Tiring to love? Yes. It's too late, but would you talk to us if you could talk about resentment and what practice is to clear resentment? Okay. All right. Well, there's a lot of them, but I'll talk about some of them now. Maybe tomorrow, okay? Anything else you want to bring up tonight? Yes. Yes. I've had a question before. It was in the context of loving the body.

[85:58]

Yes, loving the body. I had read somewhere where a person with cancer loved the cancer. And the outcome was pretty good. So it seems that loving the body really fluids loving the cancer. Well, it's possible. Maybe different kinds of cancers respond differently. I don't know. Well, it's not so much that you love some particular part of the body, like I wish that part of the body to be happy, to be, you know, peaceful, to be light. So if you can wish the cancer to be happy, why not? In the Buddhist thing, there's no exceptions to what you don't wish to be happy.

[87:02]

You don't say, okay, I wish everybody in America to be happy, but not Canadians. You know, everybody in America except the people in Las Vegas or something. No, you wish your entire body and the bodies of the entire body of the entire universe you wish happiness to. You wish happiness to the parasites and to the hosts. And this love, supposedly, is going to make things work out for the best for everybody. So maybe they went to happy cancer land and maybe the person did better too. This love is supposed to make everything work out best for everybody. Because you're bringing things into alignment with reality and bringing happiness and health. If that can work out well for the person, while you're hoping the best for the cancer, great. Two people are fighting.

[88:07]

You wish them both well. And then hopefully they're both happy. Somehow. They were fighting before, and now they're both happy and not fighting anymore. What brings that? Love. Love can also be in the form of asking them what they're fighting about and asking them to look at themselves while they're fighting. That can be part of the love. Having each looking within themselves and trying to understand what's going on. So it's a conflict in themselves. That could be part of the love too. So I think it is possible that you would wish the whole person, every part of them, Wish their bacteria well, you know. Wish their digestive bugs well. Wish everything in the person well. And maybe that would make everybody happy.

[89:08]

I don't know. Seems like it. You're saying you're worried about my mind not being fresh? Am I worried about my mind not being fresh? Is that what you're asking me? I wouldn't say I'm worried. But I do have that question. Is my mind fresh? I also sometimes wonder, is my mind too fresh? I'm wondering about myself.

[90:15]

I wonder about myself, don't you? So my wondering about myself is spreading. But I'm also wondering about you. And I'm wondering if you're fresh. But I'm not coming to any conclusions, I just wonder. And I'm not really worrying about it. But I wonder. I wonder about myself and I wonder about you. I do. But I don't know. I often mention, I don't know how often, but anyway, that it's important, after you've been practicing for a long time, to not lose track of being an amateur.

[91:49]

So, like I'm, in a sense, a professional meditator. It's my, you know, Zen meditation is my vocation, my profession, and my avocation, or my hobby. everything all in one. But originally it was, it was a hobby, you know, it was my, it was my, it was a love thing. I didn't start practicing out of any obligation. I was, it was a kind of a love thing and I, my reputation and my status or anything like that didn't depend on me. I just did it because I wanted to. And a lot of meditators lose track of meditation as a love thing, and they start forcing themselves to meditate, or pushing on, or disciplining themselves in a way that's not loving, and then gradually squeezing the life out of their practice.

[92:58]

So the joy factor needs to be there. I heard two stories about being torn between two parents. You know, like we now have this common thing of children having parents separate. So they get, either they get taken away from one of the parents or they spend time with both parents. And I remember, I knew this young girl. She was a year younger than my daughter. I knew her both. And so she, at a certain point in her life, her father lived in Berkeley.

[94:13]

After they separated, her father lived in Berkeley and her mother lived in Boston. So she went back in Berkeley, spending time with her mother and her father and her father and her mother. I guess she told her telling how it was to be with her parents, and then she used this very interesting image. I think she said when she comes to visit her father, she's with him for a while, but then towards the end of the visit she's not with him anymore because she's thinking about going back to her mother and she's so excited about being with her mother that she doesn't even notice that she's with her father and also when she's with her mother coming to see her father she doesn't even even though she's not with her father she's with her mother so she like isn't with either one of them a lot of the time even though she's always with one of them

[95:31]

So it's understandable that it's difficult to be with one when you're... You can understand why she'd have that problem. It's a real challenge to not do that. And she used the example, she said, it's like if you get a Cabbage Patch doll for Christmas. Do you remember the Cabbage Patch? They were these very expensive dolls that you had to sign up for, right? And they had a life story and so on, right? Anyway, to get a Cabbage Patch doll at her age was when they were really hard to get. And so she says, like getting a Cabbage Patch doll, in other words, a really special present for Christmas, and then you're unwrapping your presents, right? And then you have all the wrapping paper and the presents and stuff like that. So somebody throws out the wrapping paper, right, but accidentally throws out the cabbage patch doll by mistake.

[96:38]

The cabbage patch doll throws out the cabbage with the paper. And in Boston, when the garbage people find, like, teddy bears and dolls in the garbage, they put them up on top of the garbage truck. It's kind of a thing they do. She said, so it's like getting a cabbage patch doll and having it thrown away by mistake and then realizing it's been thrown out and running to the window and seeing the garbage truck go away with your doll on top of it. She said, that's what it's like being with my parents. I keep feeling like I'm losing one of them. I love them very much, but I keep losing them. And then somebody else told me a story about how her parents separating and she had to kind of like, she not had to, but she kind of chose one of them. She really loved her father and felt close to her father. But, you know, when they split up, she and wanted to, you know, not abandon her mother and take care of her mother.

[97:44]

But then she lost her father, who she loved very much. So somehow, when we're children, we can't figure out what to do other than to choose. And when we choose, we always lose. If she had chosen her father instead, that would have been fun, you know. Oedipal Victor and all that. I got dad after all. I thought I always would, and I did. You know, dad's fun and all that. Be close to dad. But then what about mom? The same way you stay with mom and lose dad. Well, then what about dad? And, you know, did I give up dad for mom? And I don't know how to resolve this because, you know, as soon as you choose, it seems like you're done for. So somehow we have to start here again, ourselves, not choosing. Like there's no alternative.

[98:47]

You've got to work with your whole self. You can't choose. If you start choosing with yourself, which you think you can do, then you're going to choose in other situations, which you think you can do, and you're going to not choose. In some cases... you really feel unhappy choosing. Other cases you may not feel so unhappy, but basically start here and see if you can not choose here and then maybe you can not choose there. That's the equanimity part. There's no choice. And it's not that you do nothing. It isn't that you just sit there passively and let somebody else decide. That's a decision too. Somehow you have to be engaged without choosing. I think or not be fooled by the apparent choice. Another verse about developing love from the path of purification is, May I learn to look at myself with eyes of understanding and compassion.

[100:05]

with eyes of understanding, compassion, and love. And then, of course, may she learn to look at herself with eyes of understanding and compassion. May he learn to look at himself with eyes of understanding and compassion. May they learn to look at themselves with eyes of understanding and compassion and love. may I be able to recognize and touch or be intimate with the seeds of joy and happiness in myself and to recognize and touch and be intimate with the seeds of joy and happiness in herself and may he and may they

[101:10]

be able to recognize and touch with the seeds of joy and happiness in themselves. May I learn to identify and clearly see the sources of anger, greed, and delusion in myself. May she learn to identify anger, greed, and delusion in herself, and so on. Yes Well I was It's a little out of order, but I guess it's okay

[102:31]

I think it's better to do it in order. I'll briefly talk about the first one, okay? First is, may I learn to understand, to look at myself, to look at myself with eyes of understanding and compassion. So, if I look at myself with eyes of understanding and compassion, with eyes of love, Again, I don't look at just part of myself. And looking at myself, you know, my body, I see my feelings, I see my... perceptions, I see many mental formations in emotions, attitudes, and I can't seem to understand that I'm aware.

[103:42]

And, yes? I didn't understand the question. Sometimes. Sure. Sometimes. See whatever comes up. Whatever childhood you got available to you, let's check it out. So, learning to look with, you know, into myself to look at myself with eyes of understanding and compassion. So I look at my mind,

[104:35]

@Transcribed_v005
@Text_v005
@Score_82.04