February 22nd, 2003, Serial No. 00182, Side A

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BZ-00182A
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Side A #starts-short

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we're initiating a remote broadcast of of our talks to that community room i don't know if there's anybody actually in the community room if there is they can hear a so alone there and
how to in radio land
we have five
inviting kids to come to talk a month they think and this is the day when they are in our clutches
right
so be good
and
you too
i sort of
can i use this as an excuse to sing a song and talk to them a little and maybe talk to you a little and then will proceed on to ah ha
and the broader points but maybe you don't actually don't ever really need an excuse to sing a song but ah sometimes it feels like that and in here we don't do it so much you know usually we saying like one note which which i just invited because flat
that i was devastated at the song for the kids lecture ah
it's a song written by
the woman it was lisa cereals some view they know of and know her great singing in are great songs and this is one that she wrote
i think when she was
dealing with her kids as they were young
the song is called i'm gonna tell didn't even notice all
have you know the song
this issue today
and it's about
yes you'll see and i invite you to the same
course cause agnes
the town
the town
hello
did you in trouble
we say you do
i'm gonna
you can be kind of capable as
american foreign policy towards iraq
try some
the town
avatar and
no trouble
we say you do
you
the term
the plane
hotel about bananas
have you want
two

the town

you in trouble
do you
the
the have japan
utah bad still suck
mama cat and the
the

the travel
you do
you
you have the
so you wouldn't have to clean up you
mmmm finds out chess with
at you
the matter
and i'm gone
the
travel trouble you do
well that's odd you
how you punched me and of bit me
i used to me the
back of the right
i did too
there's gotta tell you
the
the day
tell you in trouble with a view
you
hello
this the non peacekeepers and then to this with your own children
hello
the bad and as good as mash you rather than
when he turns to have daddy to
you
jan
and
did you travel
every day

i was not attempted to go on and a singer spots that complexion see
so viewed as a pupil toll on your brother or your sister
the pounding at my school a toll on who i am planning new internal and what do you think they do that
yeah but you have some idea how do you feel it when they do that
you like it
how come

you don't know why you don't like it you just don't like it
have you ever told and malcolm
and why do you do that terrible thing
he has terrible content
so you're just you're getting back at him and does it feel good when you do that
forget
the wrong answer
what's that
malcolm how does it feel good she tells on you
the
and then like
whoever tell analyse
no could you such a good boy
abs do you ever turn handsome you know the answer to that
the would this is a public confession
yes
and what he did
him
this example
me me she doesn't budge you some time and what do you do when she punches you
and i'm cow until i his mom do
what are you
today what did you do to her and wish that oaks such a good answer
she gets the strokes
and on
does it feel better when you tell her
yeah
okay are getting something basic here
the in keiko do you ever had this experience
you know maybe it has a new and you don't tell anybody
because it making it does it feel good because our
when you kind of feel above the other person

yes
the how do you think that makes the other person feel
that met
so
do you want that person to feel bad
come come come carries out here
what about in school
is it ever happened school
no easily now it's it's a problem custom bill when you want some feel bad and you make them feel bad but then their responses often to act to you and want to make you feel bad right
ha
just as the know i am
you just ignore it
you can you just kind of let it go by
oh that's that's pretty good that's good not to get caught in the candidates cycle of nutella on me and i tell on you and i tailback neutral back on me this is this has actually the way worse start
not necessarily your family
but actually sometimes in your family you know ah
things that can happen in a family between brothers and sisters said ah hang on for a lot of years
so this is why we take care and what we say about
how about each other because that makes some sense yeah
how can you had a back next scary
the
the
a

my son a bedding therapists
what's true
i did have that experience but that actually feels for is worse to me was bad when i was a kid sometimes i will do that to my brothers and sisters or or others and they had a bad experience and that's that's kind of worse because my own bed experience i can i can
sort of fix i can take responsibility for i can do like you're saying and just kind of medical by
if if
if i've heard somebody else's feelings ah i can't undo that you know what i mean
he said me since you guys you know you can apologize but once you've said this
sort of the the hood is already done
so that's why we be very careful about on sometimes people are doing dangerous things and we need to inform somebody else which is not the same as telling off but ah
telling on when it's when the
the film is you want to hurt them that's something you should be the watching yourself okay
anyhow i think we're going to let you guys go off and play
i'd like to thank you for listening and for singing the song okay
the eggs i'm dad us when the time he said i wanna take you in trouble for everything you do
yeah i made a mistake seen and zone he returned all these people that i made a mistake sending the song
i'm gonna get you need it
you watch have you better get outta here now
guys taking

that that song on
it doesn't exactly fit what i wanted to talk with but it's it's pretty constant connected
i said i had this experience in real hot so sixteen ah
where i had a conversation with surgeon and now we're not supposed to talk about dogs on but sometimes the general features of it it's okay
i believe you
we had a discussion about impatience my impatience which is
a hindrance and a difficulty for me
and it was
you know it was kind of painful to
how that reflected back but it also felt
ah i deserve i did so sit with it and not and try not to push it away and in that day
in the that same day i was that i'd gotten incredibly
irritated and impatient
on to four five separate occasions with things that are happening in the xander things that are happening this was actually know there's no distinction in a way between what happens and an externally with people and what happens internally
my irritation i can't quite remember all the details right now but my irritation was with others and with myself and there is no as the time goes on i can't quite make the distinction so easily but ah
the gist of it is
why are they doing that to me
how and when one would look at one would find ah in here almost everything that happens that everything that happens it's not done in relation to you or to me you know it's not like with this person is breathing too hard or this
person is being you know as what have listened how the ringing the bell or something like that that's not to you know that's just what they're doing and ah
the park the impatience part was a my resistance to ah
to taking that has just that person's action and my personalizing it my self centredness ah and so i've really been been looking at at that and also at the
the kind of habitual behavior of than wanting to blame them
ah you know blame them for their shortcomings or blame them for their rudeness or on mindfulness or or they're noisy this or whatever
and
so directing
the pain that i was feeling outward
there's a buddhist teacher and the i'd probably have said this before our men money with ken mcleod who
the for a long time to get and practitioner and he's been kind of reshaping dharma ah in terms that westerners can can work with that are that it really accessible and
he's
he's rendering of the second noble truths that the seven noble truths for several choices
that there is suffering and the second noble truth is the truth of the cause of suffering and what he identifies as the cause of suffering
really resonates with me at least of
it's not the entirety of suffering but one principal thing that we have to deal with and that's relevant here what i was talking about is that the cause of suffering its emotional reactivity
ah it's a kind of self centered
we activity it's not the emotion itself
ah because that's not necessarily something that we can control that just emotions come up you know and they drift through like clouds are they you know they linger like a big storm over the ocean
but i reactivity to it what it leads us to do in reaction to that suffering
to that pain is that's what he was identified as the cause of suffering
so i was reading in
i guess in december after sixteen i got a newsletter from ah the human kindness foundation which is an organization in north carolina run by bow and sita laws off who for thirty years have been taking ah
basically a hindu practice into the american prison systems and their definitely people i know them and and your work is very close to ah
what that we've been trying to do it buddhist peace fellowship and we we learn a lot from there really are teachers ah and in that newsletter rose
the piece on a practice and
just made a lot of sense to me i'm going to let to read it to you and actually
i made a bunch of copies and if anyone wants when i'll leave it out on the
the bulletin board brac afterwards
ah
and this is about the practice of abandoning blame
let me read this to you
when they'll say a little worn than we can talk about it
a bed and blame this practice can be a powerful tool for letting go of fast beliefs about who or what controls our moods
we recommend that you try this vow for at least one month and repeated allowed at the beginning of each day
if possible
let a few friends know about your practice so that they can help me mind you if you seem to be slipping
and the practices these two sentences
i pledged to stop blaming others for my negative states of mind
i pledged to stop blaming circumstances for my negative states of mind
it's again i pledge to stop blaming others for my negative states of mind
and i pledged to stop blaming circumstances for my negative states of mind
throughout the period of your practice notice any irritability anger depression bitterness that may arise in you and look honestly at what you claim to be the source of it
which is usually some someone else or something happening around you or to you
remember your pledge and discard your first belief that such and such is bumming you out
such and such does not have the power to bum you out
we take one hundred percent responsibility for your negativity
and if you continue to be sad or mad after letting others off the hook that's okay
at least you know it belongs to you not to them
it's okay to have a down day just know that it is your own personal thing than anyone else's
and strongly resist the temptation to make any important or dramatic decisions on that sort of date
the local changed tremendously if you sincerely work with this wow for a while
stop yourself in mid-sentence if need be stop blaming anyone or anything for whatever may be going on inside of you
you'll be amazed by how much peace in power are gained by abandoning all blame
i just said this was wrong nuts and bolts stuff and i've been trying to do it and i recommend it
the context is important also it's powerful that this is a teaching job in a newsletter that directed to prisoners
ah any of you who have been in the prison system more have encountered the prison system where the criminal justice system
know that this is a very it's a very difficult spiritual position to maintain in those circumstances
ha
and i've been so began a discussion i made a group in the women's prison in in dublin federal prison and we're beginning to talk about this and ah was a on which they understand and accept it and take it in and level which they are
this want to say well yes but
this is a radical spiritual position
ah
and it's important to i think to to hear it and reflect on it and try it and use it
it's very close to ah
there's a quotation i found from the sixth ancestor william
he who tread the path in earnest sees not the mistakes of the world if we find fault with others we ourselves are also in the wrong when i when people are in the wrong we should ignore it
it is wrong for us to find fault
by reading by getting rid of this habit of fault finding cut off a source of defilement
when neither hatred or love disturb our mind serenely we sleep
in the dhamma pada the buddha says
it's easy to see the errors of others but hard to see your own
you carefully collect the errors of others but conceal your own
if you focus on the eyes of others constantly finding fault your saas will flourish
you at far from their ending
so this blaming his of this is a difficult and very subtle
habit for us to come on pack for ourselves
how it also it makes me think of story that you probably heard
start the man was rowing his boat downstream
ah
and kind of foggy
foggy evening on the river
and
he sees just timley another boat headed towards him
and he started yelling at this other boat because it's going to gonna crash into him ah you know to turn away de veer off and there's no response
and finally has bowed his head and this you know infuriates me
ah and he just this shouting and railing ah
at the boat that the other boat that's run into him when he discovers there's nobody in it
it's just you know it's cut loose from its mooring and it's just kind of floating about so who is there to be angry at
now i believe magazine well who left this untied
you know bad
it's really just an empty boat and the
had the spiritual position
is it actually all of us are empty boats
ah you know we're just ah
a constantly changing
correction of
physical and mental states
that's always capable of change and transformation and the miracle is that we actually have the power ourselves to make that change although we often don't see that
so
this is a very difficult spiritual practice
to see that each is actually an empty boat and not to blame
one the point sort of the ball makes in this piece
that i wanted to just also focusing on his
who essentially what the act of not blaming is not blaming another are not playing in circumstances for one state of mind
so there's a distinction made
between states of mind states of mind are things that we can clearly
and essentially take responsibility for
ah it's not
not blaming anyone for anything or not holding anyone responsible for anything serious a responsibility that's right
ha
you know that's why we have laws
ah
you know the lawyers here can excuse my
the simplistic
i hope they'll seize by simplistic view but i i see the wall as a set of socially agreed upon on
a mutually agreed upon rules
for assigning responsibility for making a in applying the laws so that we can
in an imperfect way attain some kind of balance
ha
that's what what what justice is is trying to find this balance is trying to see where responsibility for for actual
material act in the world where that were that lies and trying to make some correction making a judgment about that finding a balance and that's a worldly approach ah
it's also not apart from the spiritual approach because as you've probably heard many times yeah this practice is about not wand and not too so we don't just exist in this absolute realm we also exist in the realm where
air
we do things
i'm may be done
it has to be addressed in one way or other and these are you know and we
sort of collectively make agreements that's what's going on ah
you know that's what's being sort of hashed out at the united nations right now they're trying to figure out what agreements
but wrong has been done saying the situation of iraq and what agreements do we want to make about that and what what enforcement to we want to have you know it's not a spiritual position
but it said
it's necessary perhaps in the world
oh and some of the problem comes not with the separation of these two but sometimes with the confusion of them whether conflated ah
hell is it's just maybe a digression but what troubles me is when
religion is used
for the assignment of blame
ah where
people and nations are
a designated as evil
ah you know this is not about
finding balance this is about ah
invoking the absolute you know in support of one's view and frankly that's what i see our leaders doing i mean i think it's it's really what scary to me is that i think we have a
we have a government
that's really been run on fundamentalist christian principles which is
it doesn't work north to my mind does a jewish state work nor to my mind does an islamic state work that you know national states been founded on religious principles is the most destructive thing to those religions
and it also is destructive to
ah all the peoples within them and maybe that's maybe a digression
but
you know what's what's wonderful about there is a place where ah this worldly process in this virtual process intersect for example ah
and i don't want to romanticize this said the truth and reconciliation process in south africa this was not a flawless brought process and it was not universally satisfying and it wasn't complete because nothing's complete in our in our world our lives are a they just end
kill and that's it
but ah rod process was an attempt to surface
ah
basically deduced storytelling and acts of
confession and repentance were possible ah and you know the incomplete parties even an apology he's not going to bring somebody back from the dead
but the mysterious thing is that
that kind of balance which is actually often called restorative justice can set a process and internal process in motion for for people who have experienced harm that can allow non blaming and forgiveness to unfold
ah it's a mysterious process because it is exactly where the world and spirit intersect
so ah but you can't do it
he may be can't do one with that the other
he can just to come back
what i'm suggesting we look at in our relationships with each other in our relationships with ourselves because i blaming and there's no distinction they're often i find that i blame myself for something
state of mind you know i mean a certain state of mind i'm i'm irritable or i'm depressed or or angry and i will blame myself for that which essentially just
what kind of continues the sparrow
ah
instead of essentially just saying
he i don't i don't feel good now what should i do not to get rid of it but to experience it and maybe not too well
not to let it leak on my and lower your i my kids are the people in working with and people i'm sitting with but just to to all that is this is how i feel right now and ah i can apply the practice of rather than the practice of impatience the practice of pay
patience and endure it
with some faith that
it will move it will change will not stay locked down in this place
hey i just want a region
when we do this pledge once more i invite you to pick up copies of this shoot if you like outside on the bottom right in our and then open up for questions so that varies i pledged to stop blaming others
for my negative states of mind
and i pledge to stop blaming circumstances for my negative states of mind
and so good to thank you and and open up for questions
thank you very much
the experience than i have a bad not projecting the play outside of myself is
feeling almost impossible hey inside myself and that's part of the organization from projecting them out than when i realized my own subway
so while i hear the common lot more commentary the correct just on it it i agree with principle but it's not that or time to just on your own feeling so rationally i can not understand and i can cry
this is especially when i'm cool but when i implore you know on it in so it's very difficult and that there needs to be it seems to me and my experience is a process that i can go to to not just sit with it which i ingredients but you don't have a to
ah slurry is that this one i can you tolerate the over sometimes overwhelming amount of emotion that's trigger your or the thoughts or have been killed so whatever combination of things and it feels to me like if i could take this in okay at a time he steps or something
things that i recognize that can i am reintegrate bad feeling into my shop and that settled
just to me
i'm not easily intelligible you know get rid of it right and one of use on circumstance circumstantial the government of traffic and people with my skin or other
time again and he thought i was at thoughts but i don't have any real advice because you have to do the work in each of us here has a different
you said each choice as a different pain threshold are and some less or more fiery and you know son was are cooler and but the framing for me is in
the parameter the bodhisattva
practice of ashanti of patience and patience really means the translation of the work shanties it's really
we use it is patients but it's really like endurance or forbearance
what
collins cowards you have a tolerance has a different as a different flavor culture it's really enduring it's being able to bear in fact was he was on bible or seemingly unbearable
and so one thing that one can do is keep that practice in mind and then figuring out how do i do that practice how do i each of us as a different way of doing it you know how do you do it but when
you know when it comes up in the heat of it you know to use the heat as a reminder all i have a practice for meeting the heat reminds me of having a baby a feeling that and hundred was hang tight for lab but you know somewhere just gonna stop
and it's going to as possible have come most likely and so the very thing anything to change is possible seem to be opened in you had to be open to you have to remember in the process of patients it's important to remember
the
the availability of change that it's there's going to change
janet thank you very much
i think of course not landings precious to i had half the current is over and over and over again pursuit
the question that comes up for me as i listened to i noticed that way that
states you were going to hear you talking about states of mind
sounds to me very individualistic and privatized and so i have a question about systems you know yet journal sociologist and and and i have for two examples come to mind what is i've has recent experience of being in a in
byron that in a kind of a group culture that really triggered for me a lot of feelings of shame them self hatred and machines itself ancient and i then put myself an environment that tends to encourage me to feel some confidence and
and he's and
and i think about for example you know recent brain reach some of us has discovered that our olympic range controls our emotions actually regulate you know we break the back on another like limbic lee and one another biologically elliptically you know so i wonder you know about regard
the states line has been completely it's sort of individual and prioritized any other example that comes to mind is racism get institutionalized systems that repeatedly humiliate and invisible eyes and denigrate great people it is you know it seems a little glib say well don't blame anybody else for your state of time when you operate
when you're living in that kind of system so that's what comes up for me that's why it's difficult spiritual practice you know i'm not saying that
it's only your individual state of mind because there's no you
you know there's us
at which each of us is functionally and fluidly a piece
so anyway taking responsibility for one's own state of mind he is also taking responsibility for the whole system and taking responsibility for the system is also the way of taking responsibility for your own state of mind and we had been very careful because that can be distortions in in any direction
you know of course i agree with you are and i do not for a moment ah
think that there aren't oppressive systems ah and and the notion of this kind of limbic resonance is that what really makes sense to me ah and it's true as well that these systems
has to be changed and each individual within it each are
know temporarily constructed individual has to take responsibility for that whole for that whole system so it works this is why i actually believe
in
this is i think the the essence of say socially engaged buddhism which which leaves it the same time to the interpenetration of systemic suffering and individual suffering and responsibility but you know sometimes you work on one sometimes you work on the other there's no cut dry
wow
have tree
hi thank you very much and i just want to say
i was a few weeks maybe months or so ago i was interested in this idea of you know we talked with that cell and it's not real and all that and yet we all know we get every day overwhelmed with feelings of irritation
from somebody else and i find that coming up he were a lot and i just stumbled across the following which was very useful for me when somebody would do something irritating and it's little things like sniffing
he wrote a lot
yeah i've noticed and i didn't get myself and the i also have become very aware that the things that most trigger my irritation if i really noticed i'm doing on my big shot myself anyway we didn't have side time what i didn't feel like that when that powerful irritation when accountable for me i would just say
i would pretend that that other person was late and that may sound crazy thing it's very easy to do i just pretending me and i suddenly feel much time to show them and kind of understand why we reclaimed and i just did as a yet weren't going to put the you know so i just suggest that that you know as
little way to kind of pass through the the powerful
yeah yeah i think that's a helpful technique but why to just something you said he answer preface the buddha never would say when the south was he never said the self was not real nobody say it was real hot so
now i had way to caught on on that song an idea and but
what what i found was that this was useful or not be a fire rice powerful feeling of the other and me and they're wrong they're irritating me that you know relevant
pushing that are brightening reassignment getting caught up in sizes would say you know pretend it was zero the me was very nice quick thank you boss
it president you put your presentation with the children really nice natural teaching going on there was like waiting to be here for that
your time
a legit reciting the pledge as reminded me of the go on about to someone who felt as are quite person does that subject to constant conditions and were people are many times which is sort of the other extreme and i'm wondering how you work with these prisoners were a little way of not really been cars
in conditions where people for their suffering as the same time not ignore that and how they kind of work with that a spot right well i'm pretty honest with them but what i think
you know ah and you know in a general way we've we've had conversations about this you know i think their cotton or screwed up system you know and they're caught they're usually because they've done something some
some people and they're actually for reasons that i admire which is one of the kind of more remarkable things about that particular prison the political prisoners in there you know who took position that was woman in in their last the women in there a couple months ago who was arrested by the federal government because she was
was supplying marana to to medical medical patients and she didn't this as a political and personal act there's another woman who was in there because she was a of cheered don't civil disobedience against the school of the americas and then a lot of people who now
for drug charges you know some of them because they had the wrong boyfriend or some of them because they were trying to make money and some of them because they weren't doing stock swindle sits you know so there are there for different reasons and the system itself
even the chaplain this as you know this is a screwed up system you know and he apologizes for what he can't do
that this is a system catherine and even the inlets pretty remarkable the instead we have this meditation class in there you know and it's a great
ah it's a great value to them and and there's a way to look
oh you know i've got this meditation class which is something that in my life outside i may not have encountered so
the you look at the systemic stuff and at the personal stuff although i never i never ask anybody i don't know what most of these people are in for you don't ask about their pretty conviction although sometimes comes out with you they see some effect on the rotation practice where they can see hello
played out and maybe the blame is not as intense of the societal stuff here via they really they really do have but the test of course be what happens when when they go back
when more to come me that kind of dynamic tension is how when something happens i have my own reactions and and i can separate when i'm in good shape separate from that the think activity and assignments cause the back and
in my goal of it on the other hand sometimes i can do to get a job of that and then not make changes that need to be a and so there's there's
like there's stuff out there it really does need to be fair you know right done right when i when i i feel like the real tension the real challenge is being able to separate enough from your own on emotional reactions to kind of address those things and kind of a matter of fact centered way from
index and then it becomes more powerful to to try to change so this separation and they're splitting off yeah you know spreading off that's a good
because then what we're really experiencing is hidden from us
separation the separation of talking about it's just like seen practices a kind of wedge that can be lightly tapped in place so that there's a gap between your experience your inner experience and your reaction you know your experiences pics
xperience yes
and you can't control that your reaction is where the words can apply
anyhow this is a glorious day and god said to have key can enjoy it thank you
be