The wondrous, flowering Dharma. The wondrous, blooming universe. So there is a proposal that the universe is wondrous and mysterious and inconceivable and that this universe is blossoming and blooming right now, or that there is a wondrous blossoming truth, or a wondrous blossoming teaching.

[01:05]

There's a sutra by that name, the wondrous Dharma flower, the wondrous flowering Dharma, the wondrous Dharma, the wondrous flower universe, the wondrous universal flowering. I think you could also say that there is a wondrous, mysterious, moral universe. That part of the way the universe works, or the way nature works, is morally. I think the Buddha has actually proposed that there is an actual moral working in this universe.

[02:21]

That intention has consequence. And that within the universe there are worlds. The universe is many worlds and all the different worlds are due to intention and aspiration of living beings and Buddhas. Living beings and Buddhas make worlds within the universe. And this is happening in a wondrous, mysterious, inconceivable, flower-like blossoming. So, we're coming towards the end of this dream of a year.

[03:27]

And I promised this year to focus on causation, last January. And I wish to continue. But I'm also kind of making, I would say, in a sense, I'm making a causation on Lotus Sutra sandwich. I'd like to surround the study of causation by the Lotus Sutra. But also, if you study causation, you will discover in the middle of causation the lotus universe. You will discover the blossoming of the truth in the middle of the study of causation. And in particular, in the middle of the study of moral causation,

[04:31]

which could also be said that we will discover the truth in the study of karmic cause and effect. In other words, by studying our karmic consciousness, which we have, we have karmic consciousness, by studying this skillfully, we will discover the supreme, good, blossoming reality. And so I'm intending for next year to, at least at the beginning of the year, to work with the Lotus Sutra more in relationship to the ongoing work

[05:33]

of developing and acting from deep faith in the study of karmic consciousness. So, for short, we say deep faith in cause and effect. That's an abbreviation for deep faith that if you study karmic cause and effect, the truth will be revealed. If you study it, the truth will be revealed. When you start out studying it, you may not be too skillful, but if you continue to study it, you will become more skillful. Matter of fact, you will become Buddha. The Buddhas clarify karmic cause and effect. They study it thoroughly and clarify its workings,

[06:37]

and realize the supreme truth through this study of karmic cause and effect. That's what I've heard, and based on that, I'm inviting and encouraging us to do as the Buddhas do, of studying karmic consciousness. Look at your own mental activity. Look at the story in your mind now. Look at the story in your mind now. Look at the story in your mind now. Look at the universe that your mind is constructing. And the universe that the mind constructs is a world within the universe. I've heard teachings which I've shared with you,

[07:47]

and I will continue to share with you, about how to study karmic consciousness. Just to check to see if you have by any chance heard me, how do I suggest studying karmic consciousness? What? By what? And once you're looking at your mind, how do I suggest you study this mind? Not just the mind, but the activity of the mind. Study the activity of the mind, and how do I suggest, how have I been suggesting, how do the Buddhas suggest studying the activity of the mind? Become aware of the stories. Become aware of the stories. And how do the Buddhas study their stories? Looking at cause and effect.

[08:49]

And how do they study cause and effect of the stories? Practicing the Buddha way. Yeah, that's the same thing. Practicing the Buddha way is to study your stories. Studying your stories is to study the cause and effect of your stories. When you're... Yes, what? What did you say? Be silent and still with your story. Be relaxed with your story. What? Be generous with your story. Welcome your stories. Be loving to your stories. Love your stories. Play with your stories. Play with your stories. Not judgmental. Don't be judgmental about your stories, even if your stories are about being judgmental. Yeah. This is how to study our stories. This is how the Buddhas study their stories and our stories.

[09:54]

How about seeing patterns? Well, if you see an intention, you're seeing a pattern. So when you look in your mind and you see a pattern, that pattern, the overall pattern that you see of your mind, that is your intention. Not just your mind, but in your relationships. Well, I'm suggesting now the study of your version of your relationships. Yeah. My version of my relationships is my mind. I'm not saying don't study your relationships. Go ahead, study your relationships. But before you do them, I would suggest you study your version of your relationships. In other words, study the mental activity of constructing a story about your relationships. Study those patterns.

[10:57]

May I say something? When you say stories, it makes some fiction. And sometimes you see a very objective pattern happening in your relationship. That's not just a story. That's not just a fiction. You see a common denominator. And that doesn't have to be fiction. And then you study why you draw that to yourself. Okay, so now you just told me a story just now, didn't you? Yeah. Okay, so I would suggest... It's a reality for me. So you just told me a story, and you have a story that your story is a reality. Well, I have trouble with the word story because it makes everything fiction. Everything fiction. It's not that everything is fiction. It's just everything that I think, everything I think, is a fiction. Not everything is a fiction. Just everything I think is a fiction.

[11:59]

But isn't interpretation a better word than fiction? That everything is an interpretation rather than a fiction. You can say interpretation, but then if you say the interpretation is a reality, then I would say you're not really being kind to what you call interpretation, if you say it's a reality. So how could you say you're kind to consciousness if everything you think is a fabrication? How could you study karmic consciousness if what? If everything is a total fabrication. It's not to say again that everything is a total fabrication. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that what we have in our minds, our mental activity, is mental fabrication.

[13:01]

That's what we can see. And I'm suggesting studying that mental fabrication. But I'm not saying everything is mental fabrication. But I'm saying if you got any mental fabrication, anybody got any mental fabrication? For example, storytelling, interpretations, intentions. An intention is a thought construction. Like you see, okay, this is a good situation. I don't need to do anything. Somebody else sitting next to you saying this is a bad situation, I need to do something. Those are two different thought constructions. Those are two different interpretations. What I'm saying is, if those two people would study their intentions, they would discover something that's not just a mental fabrication. They would realize reality. If they would study their thought constructions about reality.

[14:06]

There is a reality to... If you have a fiction, there is a reality to the fiction. Fictions have as much reality as a frog or the color blue. Everything has reality. Everything is part of the blooming of the truth. The wondrous blooming of the truth. Everything, including a story in your mind. If I make up a fiction, and some people do intentionally make up fictions and write them down so that people can study their mind. That's what they use the fiction for, it's a way to study the mind. And the point of studying the mind is not just to tell more fictions, but to realize, to enter and know, to know reality.

[15:14]

Because knowing reality is something which some people value. Namely the Buddhas, and you might say also, excuse the expression, scientists. Scientific knowledge, I believe, at least the way some people understand science, is close to Buddha's knowledge. Because scientific knowledge is intending to bear on reality. However, human beings are enclosed in their stories about what's going on. And if we study these stories, the Buddhas say, and some scientists also say, if you study the stories you have about what's going on, you will discover reality in the midst of the story,

[16:20]

or you will realize the reality of karmic consciousness. The reality of karmic consciousness is that it's insubstantial. It's that it cannot be grasped. That's the ultimate reality of it. Another reality of it is that it dependently co-arises. And karmic consciousness, the Buddha says, karmic consciousness has consequence. In other words, the Buddha sees, has been observing karmic consciousness, has been observing the storytelling that's going on in the mind,

[17:20]

and sees how that does, and how it does have consequence, and how it creates worlds, and how it is, for human beings, the main problem of human life is karmic consciousness. Because it creates enclosure, and in the enclosure it creates discomfort, and other unfortunate things happen within karmic consciousness. Excuse me. Enclosure, do you mean like separation? Yes, separation would be kind of an enclosure, yes. But also just that you have your own version of what's going on, and you actually live there, like you have your own version of what Italians are, and that's how you deal with Italians,

[18:21]

in terms of your own version of them, rather than opening up to what they're actually like. So, most people live in a world where they do not see Buddhas, for example. They have a story about what Buddhas are, but they don't see them, right now. And we got a word in the Lotus Sutra that the Buddhas are actually present with us right now, but we can't see them because we're attached to our story. We're attached to our version of reality. We think it's substantial. And because of that, we can't see the Buddhas. Another story is, actually, this is kind of a little bit of a There's two cases in the Book of Serenity.

[19:26]

One case is Case 37, which is called Active Consciousness or Karmic Consciousness. And then there's Case 67, which is called the Flower Adornment Scripture. So, in Case 37, two Zen practitioners, two disciples of the Buddha, who are so-called famous Zen masters, they're having a conversation about the statement that all living beings, and that includes Bodhisattvas, just have Karmic Consciousness. That's all they've got. Boundless and unclear with no fundamental to rely on. Most people who have Karmic Consciousness think that there's some fundamental to rely on. That's part of their Karmic Consciousness, is they think there's some fundamental here that you can rely on in your story about what's going on. There is no fundamental to rely on,

[20:31]

but people think there is. But the Buddhists see living beings just have Karmic Consciousness, and it's boundless, and it's unclear, and there's no fundamental to rely on. However, Buddhists can also look at Karmic Consciousness and see that it's boundless, but for them it's clear, and there's no fundamental to rely on. Case 67 says the Buddha looks at all sentient beings and says all these sentient beings fully possess the wisdom and virtues of the Buddhas. However, because of misconceptions and attachments, they don't see it, they don't realize it. So, the Buddha sees all these living beings just have Karmic Consciousness, and while they just have Karmic Consciousness,

[21:33]

they simultaneously fully possess the wisdom and the virtues of the Buddha, but they don't get it because they don't understand their Karmic Consciousness. So, the Buddha says, maybe I'll teach them. What am I going to teach them? I'm going to teach them about Karmic Consciousness. For example, I'll teach them that good karma has the result of benefit in lifting beings up. Unskillful karma has the consequence of causing beings to fall down and be miserable. This is a law. This is the way Buddha saw things working. This way of seeing things bears on reality. It's knowledge of reality. However, when knowledge bears on reality,

[22:37]

there's no strict criterion for the knowledge. There's indeterminacies in the knowledge. So, although the Buddha said, good karma has good results, bad karma has bad results, there's lots of indeterminacy in this knowledge of reality. But the Buddha is saying, it's a moral universe, that's the reality which I know. I know this reality, but there's indeterminacy. For example, there's indeterminacy in the content of this knowledge. For example, because you say, good karma leads to good results, but the good karma depends on the good result, so it's kind of indeterminate how that would work, because you might think it's good, you might have a story that it's good,

[23:39]

a happy story that you're doing good, but that good depends on its result, and you can't see its result yet, so it's not that clear what good really is. And also the result, it isn't just the next thing that happens, or the thing that happens in two weeks, but there's a series of possible results, all of which determine whether it's actually good or not. Yes? How do you define moral? How do I define it? Having to do with intention. So, for example, if you do something unintentionally, then it's not really a moral action. Now, if you do something intentionally, but don't notice that you did it, that's not the same. So if you're rude to somebody, or if you don't think it's important to pay attention

[24:42]

to where you put your feet, and then because you don't think it's important to pay attention to where you put your feet, you step on something and kill it. You didn't intend to kill it, but you did intend to not pay attention to where your feet were. You had the story of, I don't have to be careful where I walk. Based on that story, you didn't pay attention to where you walked, and you stepped on a newt. And you didn't want to kill the newt, but you didn't want to pay attention to where the newts were. But if you actually, like if I accidentally, let's say somebody hit me, and I fell backwards and bumped into you, and then you fell over and hurt your shoulder on the wall, I wouldn't call that what you did a moral action. So it's like a karmic action.

[25:43]

Moral is the same as volitional. Yeah, the definition in the Buddhas, the kind of cause and effect that Buddha wants us to look at is called karmic, but karmic for Buddha in this context means intentional. It means that your mind has constructed this. So when our action, I should say our action, when it has intention in it, that's moral action. When you think of a story about your relationship with someone, that story is intentional. It isn't that you are in control of making it, but that story is your intention in relationship to that other person. You want to be their friend, you want to help them, you think maybe you can, that's a story you have in your mind, and you are responsible for that story. Namely, you can pay attention to it or not.

[26:48]

If you don't, you are kind of not accepting your responsibility. So moment by moment we have, our mind is active, we have active consciousness. Moment by moment we have active consciousness, and the statement is living beings all just have this active consciousness. If we don't attend to it, we are not accepting the responsibility for this karmic consciousness, and this karmic consciousness is responsible for all the problems, you know, the real solvable problems in the world. So, and we can be responsible, we can accept the responsibility of watching our own mental construction of what's going on, and we can watch and observe how we speak from those mental karmas,

[27:52]

those intentions, and how we posture and gesture. So when we speak from an intention or with an intention, that also is a moral speaking. If somebody just chokes me and I go, that is not coming from my intention. Yes? Intention and attention, I always do see the intention higher, and then the attention somehow doesn't quite match the intention. How could the attention and the intention be equally meeting together, so that there would be no... That's an interesting question. So you could have a very lofty intention, but be very unskillful paying attention to whatever.

[28:53]

Like you could have a lofty intention, for example, of making every intention you could have the lofty intention of every moment having the intention to live for the welfare of all beings. So right now I wish to live for the welfare of all beings, and I wish, I would like to have this intention to live for the welfare of all beings every moment. That would be a lofty intention. And my attention is not so strong, though. I keep forgetting that I would like that intention. So you could have a lofty intention, but not very well supported by your skills at attention. And you can also have, it's also possible to have a low intention, and a quite well developed attention, so that you notice your low intentions, that you actually notice all your low intentions.

[29:57]

If you have low intentions, but you actually pay attention to them, the Buddha teaches that you will realize truth. If you pay attention to your low intentions, you will realize the truth. And also your intentions will also evolve into more and more lofty intentions, as you pay attention to your low intentions. But the most important thing is that you realize the truth, because once you realize the truth, you will have lofty intentions. Yes? My habitual thinking and action seems to have neither attention nor intention. Excuse me. What you just said, I think, depended on you having some attention. My statement was not habitual. Pardon? My statement was not habitual.

[31:00]

Oh, this wasn't your habitual one. No. This is your rare and wonderful one. Which one is that? The rare and wonderful one is that you notice the habit of not paying attention. That's right. But when you notice it, you're not paying attention. Now you're doing Buddha's work. When you notice that usually you don't do Buddha's work, you're doing Buddha's work. And Buddhas are looking at all beings with love, with total love, and they're noticing, quite a few of these living beings are not doing my work. I wish they would. I'd like to teach them how. If they would, they would realize that they fully possess the wisdom and virtues of the Buddhas. They would realize they are Buddha's children, but they have to do Buddha's work to realize it. And to notice that you're not doing Buddha's work, if somebody is not doing Buddha's work, Buddha does the work of noticing that person is not paying attention to themselves. And Buddha wants to help them pay attention to themselves,

[32:02]

because then they will realize the wondrous, blooming universe. And if you notice that rarely do I pay attention, at the same time, when you notice that, Buddha is noticing it with you. However, Buddha is also loving you and loving your habit of rarely noticing what you're doing. So if you pay attention and you love this tendency to almost never pay attention, you're just like the Buddhas. Except, I would say again, just remember that they love so fully they do not dwell in the thing they're loving. So if you notice the habit of inattention and you pay attention to it and love it completely and don't dwell in it, that's exactly the same as Buddha. And this is possible. According to the Buddhas,

[33:04]

we have this ability. This is another way to say deep faith in cause and effect. Another way to say deep faith in studying yourself. What is yourself? Karmic consciousness. Deep faith in studying karmic consciousness. Deep faith in studying self-causation. We need this. Buddhas have it and they practice according to it. One more thing. Just want to mention that well, the world, the universe, the universe, not the little world within the universe, but the universe is always studying itself. The universe is studying itself. The universe is studying moral causation. And one of the ways it studies moral causation

[34:04]

is through Buddhas. And Bodhisattvas. However, in the world, usually people are encouraging us to look away from ourselves, to look at almost anything but ourselves. Sometimes they say, look at yourself. When they say that, actually, they're giving us good advice. What they mean by look at yourself is look at yourself the way I'm looking at you. What they mean is look at yourself how I see you now when I'm studying myself. But when they say look at yourself, actually, that's a rare but wonderful instruction. The world is, generally speaking, saying, look at him, look at her, look at society, look at his problems, look at her problems, look how well she's doing, look how well he's doing, look, look, look, anywhere but back here. This is the normal flow of worlds.

[35:06]

And most of us are going with that habitually. We're habitually going with look outward. Now, somebody would say, kind of, I don't know what the word is, but someone would say, the world is trying to make it easy on us by saying, look outward. Cast your vision outward. It's much easier that way. You'll suffer and stuff, but it's easy. But the path to truth is to turn the light around and shine it back on yourself. And that is, in the words of Michel de Montaigne, that is a painful movement. It's hard to turn and spend your time looking at yourself, to give your life to studying yourself. It's a painful change of direction, and what you see when you look will be stuff like, not pleasant stuff to see necessarily,

[36:10]

but just generally the change of direction is disorienting, because we're usually looking outward, and people are telling us to look outward. To turn around and look back at karmic consciousness is difficult, is painful, is frightening, is despairing, is nauseating, is discouraging. However, I'm saying to you, this is what the Buddhas do. Except they're not so much turning around, it's just, you know, they're like steadily oriented towards studying themselves, and encouraging others to study themselves. And when they see others who are not studying themselves, they're studying themselves simultaneously. This is Buddha's work, so even though it's hard, I hope that we can be like, this is hard work, but it is the work. It is the work.

[37:12]

It's the work of the Buddhas, to study yourself. If you say that wholeheartedly, you have kind of deep faith in cause and effect. You have deep faith in that the Buddha way is to study myself. I can notice that other people are not studying themselves because they come and tell me that they aren't. Like Johnny just said, habitually I don't. So I hear him, but when I hear him, I also have a job of studying myself, who's listening to him. And maybe I think, I have trouble too, Johnny. Or maybe I think, I used to have trouble too, Johnny. Or I don't have trouble now, and now I'm studying myself okay, but tomorrow I may forget too. Etc. I'm studying myself, while I hear other people tell me about their self-study, or their lack of it. Or their lack of it,

[38:12]

and they tell me about their lack of it by saying, I'm not doing it, or they tell me about their lack of it by talking about other people, without demonstrating that they're studying themselves when they talk about others. Yes? I tend to analyze what I see when I'm looking inwards. Okay. Can I say something? Yes. Really? Is it okay? Yes. If you would just take a word, for just a moment, take away the word tend, and say, I analyze what I see when I look back at myself. Just say that. Buddhas analyze Karmic Consciousness. So if you're analyzing Karmic Consciousness, the Buddhas do that too. If you're looking to see, well, what story is there? What kind of story is this? Examining the story in your mind right now

[39:13]

is the work of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Having a tendency to do that is not as good as just doing it. To just do it, to just study, is good. Having a tendency, I think, probably means that the study will not be as good, will not be as kind, as if you just analyze. If you're really wholehearted in your analysis of your story, there won't be a tendency to do it anymore. Does that make sense? You're not leaning into analyzing, in other words. So, you could say, I uprightly analyze my stories. I don't tend to. Because if you tend to, then you tend to do it the way you did it last time. Yes. So this is partly good. This is partly good, this story. I would say. I had that story. It may seem that way.

[40:23]

It may seem like the ego is analyzing itself. And if that's the way it seems, then that's the story you have. You have a story of ego analyzing itself. That's a perfectly good story. But it's a story. So this effort to to try to see the story as it is, as it is, without interpreting, oh, this is because... Yes. The story, as Tracy was saying, you could call the story an interpretation. So you could just have an interpretation or a story. And what do you do with it? You love it. You wholeheartedly attend to it. And you so wholeheartedly

[41:26]

attend to it that you arrive at no abode. That's why this place is called no abode. No abode is where you arrive when you wholeheartedly study yourself, which includes being totally engaged with self. In total engagement with self, in total engagement with karmic consciousness, you come to no abode. And if you're not totally engaged in the study of yourself, you're still allowed to come to no abode and learn how to totally engage in studying the self. And it sounds like people are doing some turning the light around and shining it back in the self and studying the self. And we can all get better

[42:27]

at this study. We can all get more skillful at this study. So staying away from... Because it seems like it's a useless imaginary interpretation of what the story is. You just told me a story. The story was it seems like a useless imaginary blah blah. You just looked at yourself and saw... But did you see... When you reported that, did you see you were telling me the story in your mind at the time? Did you? Yes. Well, good. So people do sometimes have stories. This is useless. What we're doing here is useless. Talking to you

[43:27]

is useless. Listening to you is useless. Trying to help you is useless. You're trying to help me. It's useless. These are stories which occur in people's minds. I'm not talking about your story anymore. I'm just saying you could have a story. This is useless. It's useless to practice... It's useless to be silent and still. It's useless. You could have that story. However, being silent and still might be the way you noticed that you had a story that was useless. And if you can continue to be silent and still with the story, it's useless to be silent and still. Now you're starting to open up to the truth. Which lives in the story of this is useless. Well, I have to say

[44:31]

it as a story first. Which is that I find it excruciating to ask questions here. But I will identify it as a story. But I just want to say it. Is that OK? It just always seems like it's embarrassing to be so ignorant. And that you've probably already talked about whatever my question is. I really have a lot of questions but I am always afraid of looking like a total idiot. And it hampers my asking questions and I just want to confess that. I heard somebody say I'm afraid of looking not good, not intelligent. I have that story that I'm afraid. And I am somewhat aware that I have that story. And then

[45:34]

Rev's saying to me if I would study that story that I'm afraid to speak because of how I would look that I will discover the truth. Without necessarily ever asking a question possibly. Or with asking a question. Here's where the ignorance is. I tend to lump what I think Zen is is about discovering that things just are if they're not good or bad. And when you put the word like supreme good I get this little flutter of hope and yearning and oh good

[46:34]

it's all going to turn out happily ever after. When I thought what I've been learning all these years is that it isn't that it's just how things are. Well the way things the way things are is happily ever after. That's the way they are actually happily ever after. That's what we always we didn't mean Zen that's what Hollywood Pardon? is that. That's what Hollywood is pretending and I thought what we're learning here is no that's not I'm confused. It's dependent colonizing happily ever after That's what she's asking. Dependent colonizing is basically happy happy ever after happiness forever. That's basically what it is. But we can't. Pardon? But we can't. We're not aware of that. But we're not aware of that. I think that's the most

[47:36]

joyful thing to even have that happily ever after means in spite of everything this continues. Yeah. But happily ever after includes that we feel compassion for all those who do not realize it. And that compassion means we actually feel pain but it's a happy pain. We feel pain at all those who do not realize this and who are living in fear of for example what people think of them. But you know we're happily we're happily ever after with everybody. In reality that's the way things actually are. In the morality of the universe in the moral universe everything is blossoming all the time into beautiful flowers. Everything is a beautiful flower. That's the way Buddha sees. But the beautiful flower is a flower sometimes that thinks it's ugly or thinks it's better than other flowers and is afraid that

[48:37]

not such good looking flowers will come and you know defile it or something. So the Buddha sees these flowers need help to realize that they're flowers and that nothing is going to defile them. They need help to realize that they're flowers. Undefilable flowers. But they are actually undefilable flowers. But these beings some of these flowers have karmic consciousness and they have not studied their karmic consciousness wholeheartedly enough. For example I'm concerned about what other people think about me. I'm worried that they don't like me or that they might stop liking me if they do like me. I'm worried about that. I'm afraid that they'll stop loving me and supporting me. And I don't love that thought wholeheartedly enough. Wholeheartedly. I don't love the thought

[49:37]

I'm afraid of people. I'm afraid of this person. I'm afraid this person doesn't love me. I don't love that thought in my mind wholeheartedly. Therefore I dwell in it. And when I dwell in it I don't see the happy ever after in all my relationships. So what do you do? What? If you dwell on it what do you do? If I dwell on it? If you don't. If I don't dwell on it well then I observe how things are. And the way they are is this is a wondrously blossoming universe. This is a wonderfully blooming reality. And I am very happy and I love all beings and anybody who doesn't get it I'm very happy to try to help them have this knowledge. This is the knowledge of the Buddhas. And I wish them to have this knowledge. And I see the way things are

[50:43]

when I don't dwell on them and I don't dwell on them when I love them one hundred percent. So if I have a karmic consciousness which is worried about what will happen to me what will happen to me when I lose everything I've got what will happen to me when I'm a total wreck and I will be a total wreck if I hang around much longer if I'm worried about that if I love that worry of what will happen to me when I get into wreckness if I love it completely I won't dwell on it. And then right while I'm right in that worrying about what's going to happen to me the truth is realized and then I want to transmit this wonderful knowledge to other beings. This is the story of the Lotus Sutra. The Buddha sees how wonderful it is. The Buddha wants everybody to know this wonderful world. But inside the Lotus Sutra

[51:43]

I'm just mentioning we have to study karmic consciousness. If we don't study karmic consciousness then we read the Lotus Sutra but we sometimes will not love it. But if we love our own karmic consciousness we can love the Lotus Sutra and when we love the Lotus Sutra we won't dwell on the Lotus Sutra either. And when we don't dwell on the Lotus Sutra we realize the truth of the Lotus Sutra. But it's the same if you love your own karmic consciousness you won't dwell on it and you realize the Lotus Sutra. So the Buddha says when you love your own karmic consciousness in other words when you work with whatever karmic consciousness is coming and you're upright honest gentle and harmonious you will see the Buddha right now teaching the Dharma. Does that say? I have a concern about this definition of compassion about more evolved beings have compassion

[52:43]

for others who are not so evolved and I'm just wondering... Or more evolved beings might have compassion for other evolved beings who still are not completely evolved. Yes. Well I'm wondering you introduced this idea of indeterminacy Yes. which it strikes me that even if you are evolved in terms of intention to live for the welfare of other beings all beings are evolved highly in your intention as well because of indeterminacy there's still the knowledge that no matter what your action you can't predict where it's going to go and it seems to me that there's a basis of compassion right there that knowing as you act no matter what your intention no matter how good it is toward what good karma that just in that indeterminacy there's great compassion for your own action just like everyone else's actions in this karmic enclosure you're all

[53:44]

you've entered into to interact it just struck me that maybe that's the basis of skillful means is having that compassion there as you are acting even when you have this great knowledge about reality and that being a basis of common compassion with others no matter what their level of evolutionary understanding is so are you saying that if you if you felt that someone was not attending to their own self in a fully loving way that if you if you wanted to help them become more skillful at attending to their own their own karmic consciousness in a more skillful way so that they could become discoverers of reality too that you would realize that there's some there's some indeterminacy

[54:46]

in the working of what you offer to them yeah and I and then I would propose that part of a knowledge which bears on reality is that you do know that there's some indeterminacy in the at the basis of knowledge that bears on reality if you have knowledge that doesn't have any indeterminacy that doesn't have any indeterminacy in it then that knowledge doesn't bear on reality and there's some there's some debate here you know, some people have a knowledge some people propose a knowledge which has strict criteria I am now

[55:48]

suggesting to you that the knowledge of the Buddhas in my understanding is a knowledge which has indeterminate content indeterminate characteristics and even indeterminate knowing that that's the that's the kind of knowledge which bears on reality has indeterminacy in it so there can be confidence in the knowledge here's an example two examples one is there was this person who we call Copernicus in the west and he did some calculations and he through these calculations he came to have a an understanding a knowledge dawned upon him that the earth was rotating

[56:50]

around the sun rather than the sun rotating around the earth and that other planets too were also rotating around the sun sort of with the earth at different distances from the sun this was a reality which he discovered now he I don't know I'm not so sure I don't know enough about him to know how much he was in touch how much his how much his understanding of his knowledge of the rotation of the planets around the sun I don't know how much he knew that there was indeterminacy there but in fact now if we look we can see there was indeterminacy for example he thought that the planets were going in circles around the sun now again

[57:52]

he may have thought that there was some indeterminacy in those circles but I don't know that he did but in fact we now know there is indeterminacy in the circles of the planets going around the sun and indeterminacy is sometimes called the indeterminacy of the circles of the orbit is sometimes called an ellipse in other words another person came along named Kepler and he received as though it were a fact the knowledge of Copernicus and based on the knowledge of Copernicus which he took as a fact he developed three laws and one of them was that the planets are moving in elliptical orbits around the sun so one person discovers a reality called planetary rotation around the sun and he discovers

[58:54]

something else he thinks actually he didn't discover this he imagined that they go in circles but based on what he did discover somebody else discovered another law which he wasn't expecting so this shows the indeterminacy of the law he found and I will now say something which I was quite surprised to read which was said by the person named Michael Polnyeni he said whenever we believe in the reality of a thing we expect that the thing will manifest itself in yet unknown ways in the future and when I first thought that I thought don't sometimes people believe in the reality of something and think that the thing is going to be the same in the future so one way I would read that is when we

[59:55]

actually believe in the reality of the thing not the appearance of the thing but the reality of it that we will expect that this thing will manifest in unknown ways in the future so if you believe in the reality of this hand not just the appearance of this hand but the reality of this hand you would expect that this hand could do something unknown to you in the future same with a person if you if you believe in the reality of the person rather than the way the person appears you would expect that they could do something which you cannot imagine or don't know anything about in the future but we often don't do that with people we often believe in their appearance not their reality in their appearance we expect perhaps to go on and another thing I would say is another example

[60:55]

of indeterminacy is Dr. Watson you know Sherlock Holmes partner Dr. Watson everybody know that so Dr. Watson makes an observation which Sherlock Holmes agrees on for example Dr. Watson might say the earth is moving around the sun and Sherlock Holmes agrees agrees with that reality and he says what does he say when this happens he says elementary no but before he said elementary he says blah blah he said oh that now I see that so and so killed him and Watson goes

[61:56]

what but Watson often offers the thing which Holmes agrees with offers the reality but then Holmes sees the indeterminacy not even see it but Holmes sees something which which Watson didn't realize when he was offering this observation which was correct like or Watson says better example is Watson says the milk was delivered on Tuesday which Holmes agrees with but he didn't but now he sees oh ah now I see and then he says and Watson goes whoa whoa elementary and then he explains so they are observing the same reality but there is an unexpected variability in the contents of that reality Watson was not talking about the case they are trying to solve

[62:57]

he was just mentioning that the milk was delivered on Tuesday and Holmes sees that this is the solution to the case they have been studying what and loves what Dr. Watson said yeah in some ways in some ways Holmes is better at loving what Dr. Watson says than Dr. Watson is Dr. Watson you know says the milk was delivered but he doesn't love it completely so he just stops there he is kind of proud little Dr. Watson but Holmes loved Dr. Watson so much that he knows Dr. Watson will manifest in unknown ways in the future so in some ways I would say the way the book is written is it makes Holmes is a more wholehearted lover than Dr. Watson is even though Dr. Watson is a really nice guy he doesn't love things as wholeheartedly

[63:58]

as Holmes does so Holmes keeps breaking free of his usual sense of reality by his love of well pretty much everything yes so if you keep trying to make the future deterministic yes and that creates a lot of anxiety yes yeah and it takes you and turns you inside out yeah but you desperately to have this outcome yeah yes and you know that there is a lot of extra energy being spent yeah it's pointless and useless yeah but you have your survival at stake yeah it's your life at stake right

[64:58]

so so so what do you do you love more wholeheartedly in that situation you love more you love more not like you don't like this thing or if you you know you don't have to like it more or dislike it more you need to love it more if you love this situation how do you love a fear yeah how do you love a fear well I'm suggesting how do you how do you love repulsive things I'm not asking you to like repulsive things I'm not asking you to like fear I'm asking you I'm begging you to love fear I beg you to love fear which is the same as I beg you to study yourself when fear comes I beg you to give it your wholehearted attention I beg you to be patient with it I beg you to welcome it I beg you to welcome all obnoxious things all obnoxious

[66:01]

things but particularly all obnoxious things inwardly all obnoxious things in your mind and if you can do it with inwardly then you can do it outwardly if we can't do it inwardly it'll trip us out trip us up outwardly I'm asking you to welcome fear to learn to welcome fear have any fear anybody ah so one person does two people three four okay so I'm begging you to welcome the fear and you may say oh I can't I beg you to welcome your inability to welcome now if you tell me your fear and you feel that I'm welcoming it you may say well yeah you welcome but it's easier for you to welcome my fear than me I say well maybe so but still I do welcome your fear it's my job security after all it's not just my job security

[67:02]

to welcome your fear but my job security to encourage you and as a favor to me do me a favor and welcome your fear please welcome your fear please I can't be patient with your inability please I can't and then can I be patient with myself with my story that you're not being patient with your impatience with your ingratitude your unwelcoming of your fear can I if I can I'm doing my job and then I from that place again I can say please be welcoming please love your fear not like not dislike love like you'd love a frightened child like you'd you know like you'd love a frightened child like you'd love a child

[68:03]

who thinks she's worthless like you'd love a child who's proud like you'd love a child who's ignorant and confused and arrogant like a child who says I'm right you're wrong humans are not animals you're wrong you're mean to love that person not like not like that they're talking like that not dislike that they're talking like that loving them and you can do that if you can see all the difficult stuff turn around look back here and deal with and love all this this self all this karmic consciousness here then you then you can realize non-abiding and then you can realize the inconceivably wondrous blossoming dharma

[69:04]

in all things yes you went to the movie called where the wild ones are where the wild things are yeah yeah is it in 3D I went to a 3D movie with my grandson it was about dogs and what's it called it's about this guy who puts balloons on his house it's called Up yeah I think that's a movie also about something

[70:04]

one of the best things about the movie is it has these dogs who wear these collars because they wear these collars you can hear what they're thinking I'm a dog I love you they're talking dogs yeah, their thoughts get vocalized through these collars I don't know if they move their mouths I don't remember but they wear these collars so that what they're thinking all the dog thoughts come out do they study their intentions what do they study their intentions I don't remember if they were studying their intentions I don't remember if there was a sign that they were looking inward but actually this one example I gave the dog was aware that

[71:09]

because they're dogs they love you know well they love their masters anyway so in that case the dog was studying their consciousness and then but sometimes when we're studying our consciousness we don't have a collar that amplifies and puts out in the world that we're aware that we're afraid that we're tensing up around our fear but sometimes people do sit there and say I'm afraid and I'm tensing around my fear people do sometimes say that and I applaud that because not just because they're aware but because they're on the path of the Buddhas they're actively practicing the work of the Buddhas now the Lotus Sutra says even if you're not aware right now of yourself even if you're not studying yourself even if you're not wholeheartedly loving your karmic consciousness you still will start doing that work eventually

[72:12]

the Buddha says you're going to be Buddhas in other words we are going to start doing this hard work and we're going to get really good at it we're going to all get really good at studying ourself the Lotus Sutra says that and so let's please get really good at studying yourself the world needs us to do this and please help me study myself pardon? I just wish love would come and set us all free the Lotus Sutra the Lotus Sutra says love is going to come love is going to come and set us all free it is coming we will let it in eventually and become Buddha it's going to happen that's the message of the Lotus Sutra we're going to eventually stop resisting and let Buddha's love come in here

[73:14]

and take over and really love everything about ourselves but actually Buddha's love is going to come into us first of all and encourage us to study ourselves come on, study yourself and then love ourselves and then then we're done we're done in other words we start really practicing like Buddhas so that's all we've got is karmic consciousness and we fully possess the wisdom and virtues of the Buddhas and the Buddhas say study karmic consciousness please because if you don't karma will keep you stuck in the realm of not realizing what you really are may I

[74:21]

end

[74:21]

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