Good morning. Good morning. As I was leaving the zenote to go out to do the eight pieces, I kept waiting for Judisha to leave. I finally realized that she wasn't going anywhere. Those of you who were here for the retreat at the beginning of November, voila! Habitual judgment. She's looking rather sweet this morning. The hand gestures make all the difference in the world. It's because her mother is here. The mother of habitual judgment. It feels like it sometimes. Yeah, I understand. What I want to talk about this morning has to do with this issue that actually comes up periodically, but just flourished on the email, I don't know when, last night or this morning, about woe is me, I'm just a poor old lay person

[01:32]

I'll never be enlightened. And this is of course judicia kicking in, but also I think that this fear about, fear and concern and confusion about what are the fruits of this meditation path actually comes up for people rather often. It may manifest in different ways, but I think it's worth looking at periodically. First of all, I think that we can easily fall into the trap of thinking that we're either enlightened or we're not enlightened. Very dualistic thinking. And after I got this email, what came up for me was remembering Suzuki Roshi's insistence on not talking about whether he was enlightened or not.

[02:52]

He just wouldn't talk about it. Now, partially that's good form. If you're enlightened, you don't talk about it. If you're not enlightened, you do, and it's the indication that you're not enlightened. So there we are about that. Particularly from practicing with him, and then later my experiences with the late Tarjul Kuh and with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, I've appreciated the benefits of being exposed to experientially someone who has some very high degree of realization. There's a way in which you can get the taste free of language, free of talking about it.

[03:56]

because of course language fails, I think. And I want to suggest that we might think about this whole process of enlightenment in terms of the language of what it means to be a Buddha, waking up. And to think of waking up as happening on a continuum of gradual, awakenings, more and more moments of being awake, particularly if we are willing to do the very real kind of trench work of studying the mind and training As some of you know, my husband just two and a half weeks ago had surgery to remove a tumor on his pituitary gland.

[05:12]

And he feels a little bit like he doesn't have any feet. He's kind of a little floaty. But especially if I get him after he's awakened in the morning, we may have a little window there of being able talk about something. When I brought this subject up with him this morning, he said, well, all I know is that 23 years of Buddhist practice bore significant fruit going into this surgery and coming out of And my concern is that if we get too caught on some idea about what the fruit is like, we can miss recognizing the fruiting of our practice.

[06:18]

And that what may be more useful is to not think about enlightenment as a kind of place where we will suddenly discover, oh, now I'm enlightened. But to think more in terms of enlightened moments, of enlightened activity, moments of enlightened or awakened capacity. And of course, another way of talking about being awake is talking about being present. And we all have moments of being present and usually beat up on ourselves for all the time of wandering instead of enjoying the moment of being present. It's the judge again. I can't remember when the Three Pillars of Zen came out.

[07:28]

I think it must have been in the 60s. 65? Yeah, I think that's right. And of course, Kaplow in that book talks a lot about Kensho experiences. Sudden awakening experiences. And that got to be the standard description of what we were going for. And there are certain schools, particularly in Zen, that really push for those breakthrough experiences. But there are other schools that really point to this path of gradual cultivation and capacity. Now, this particular issue comes up historically because as Buddhism has come to the West,

[08:28]

to the United States and to Europe in particular, although I think throughout the Americas. Buddhism is no longer being carried primarily by monastic practitioners. The significant number of us who are practitioners in this tradition are householders, or so-called lay practitioners. So one of the big questions is, can the Buddhist tradition develop real tap roots in the West without a significant cultivation of monasticism? And I think it's a serious question. And is the kind of cultivation that is described in the literature possible for people who are householders?

[09:34]

I think of a woman who was for a while in a study group up in Alaska who has a young child, works full-time, married, works full-time. Not such a young child, No, nine or 10 or 11, something in there. And she was waiting to get word that the plans she and her husband had to adopt a little girl from China meant they would go pick up the child. So she was about to have even more on her plate. And she was very hard on herself about not being able to establish and sustain daily meditation practice And I think she was both relieved and Very sad to Look at her life realistically and say it's not in the cards right now for me to sit every day 30 40 minutes 45 minutes was real consistency

[10:55]

There is some reason why historically, throughout Asia, people who have reached, householders who have reached that point in their lives where their children are gone, the substantial focus on work in the world has begun to quiet. And that's the time, depending on the culture and the lifespan of people in a given culture at a given time would then be the time for turning towards one's inner life. So the challenge, I think, for us as Americans living in the very fast-paced, complicated world that we live in is this cultivation called waking up. Possible. I'm completely convinced that it is.

[12:09]

But I'm also equally convinced that the first thing we have to do is be clear that we can't do it all, whatever the it, it all is. That we have to have very clear priorities if we're going to have the level of practice experience that leads to this gradual awakening. And what I've seen repeatedly is that having a daily practice, some period, a half day or a day, a week, if possible, for a quieter, slower pace and a focus on mindfulness. Something akin to what happens for Orthodox Jews with respect to the Sabbath.

[13:21]

So not a time to leave one's family or home life, but a time to not be drawn into the ordinary world in quite the same way. Having some kind of sustained practice for a weekend a month, and at least two, if possible, four longer retreats a year. And people that I know who have been able to figure out how to put together that combination, find themselves able to sustain various focuses in their meditation practice with real fruitfulness. And in the end, what makes the biggest difference is one's ability to integrate what is happening

[14:27]

in one's meditation practice into one's daily life. Which is why, for example, the focus on the path called the precepts is traditionally thought of as a path for householders. Because one can study and practice with the precepts, it's all about the details of our life of activity. And it's very much about studying the mind. What does it mean in my particular life? How does my capacity for harming show up? My capacity for taking what is not given. Small, medium, or large moments of sexual misconduct Lying Intoxication I Mean that'll keep us going for a few years.

[15:46]

I Meditations on impermanence, which we can do all the time. If we're paying attention, impermanence arises and slaps us in the face regularly. Yesterday evening, I had to go get some medicine for Bill. There was a broadcast as I was driving over the hill to the pharmacy and doing the pharmacy and the market, etc. So I was in and out, but there was a broadcast of a tape that was made the day that Kennedy was assassinated.

[16:57]

of the conversation between the members of his cabinet who were on a plane on their way to Japan when they got the news report that he'd been shot. They were about two hours west of Hawaii. Should they come back? Should they continue on their mission? What had actually happened? Then there was subsequently a tape of Walter Cronkite describing his own experiences and what he was doing, and his then broadcasting the news about Kennedy's assassination. And after these couple of tapes had been played, Angie Corio, who was the local Bay Area traffic reporter was supposed to give a traffic report.

[18:03]

And I was struck that she didn't just, it wasn't just business as usual. She said, my goodness, hearing these tapes brings back that day so vividly. And you could hear kind of catch in her voice. And I was so grateful that she acknowledged the impact of remembrance yesterday, of that day, which was so strong, probably for all of us. So it's not just a dying that happens in the moment, but it's the experience of a big dying that we will periodically remember. So there's certain classical meditations, impermanence being a very important one, which we can do whether we're formally meditating or not.

[19:18]

Recently I was meeting with someone who's been practicing for, I don't know, a year and a half or so, a fairly new practitioner, who has a very big enthusiasm for the Buddha Dharma and a kind of impatience to have one of those big marquee experiences. Completely understandable. But how often that expecting something big to happen means that we're focused on the future and not present. My own experience is that it's only when I can really begin to cultivate the process for a long time of actually removing the obstacles that lead to the possibility of cultivating a capacity for presence that what I call being accident-prone begins to kick in.

[20:55]

And that accident of sudden direct experience of the seamlessness of everything. No separation. We will not stumble into those moments if we're too eager to have them. There is that paradox. Is it not possible to cultivate a good heart, open-heartedness with oneself and with the world off one's meditation seat? I think it is. So much of Buddhist practice is like Bill's first job when he was a teenager, where he had to shovel a pile of gravel from there to there.

[22:16]

And the old man who was working in the yard, watching him stick his shovel in the middle of the gravel pile and lift and carry, said, son, you won't make it till lunchtime that way. Just slide the shovel to the bottom of the pile and let the gravel fall into the shovel, and then you can lift it and carry it. But a lot of the mind training process is moving the gravel pile from here to here. So one of the questions that I would ask of each of you is, what are the specific reactions that come up for you that have the consequence of discouragement?

[23:26]

Have the consequence of, what's the point? I'm just wasting my time. I'll never get there, whatever our definition is of getting there. I think being able to answer that question for oneself is quite important. Because there are some reactive patterns that have more kick to them than others. A friend of mine who runs a small foundation, she says they do a lot of mischief with not very much money.

[24:33]

And she said, you know, I spend much of the day reading some very disturbing material about the environment, about what's happening in terms of our ability to produce food that won't kill us, concerns about energy, those kinds of things. And she admitted to me having a lot of anxiety and dreams, disaster dreams. She has a young child who she's adopted, and the disaster dreams often focus on what could happen in the world we live in these days. If we read and believe everything we read in most newspapers,

[25:44]

We have a lot of fodder for fear and anxiety. And we can then go to real sinking energetically. It's a high competitor with habitual judgment, I think. Even judgment, I think, if we bring our attention deeply enough, we finally get to the fear base. But I think we have to keep in mind that all the news that's fit to print is usually bad news because that's what sells newspapers and magazines. How infrequently good news doesn't make it into the paper. And yet, if we keep our ears open, we'll see positive experiences happening within our own lives and in front of us.

[27:04]

So I'm very interested, not only in my own experience, but in the experience of each of us, about what you run into, what we run into, that leads to our losing confidence in our capacity to wake up. A little bit, a [...] little bit, And then more often, what are the obstacles? How much of the obstacle heap has to do with thinking about how it's not possible and building a case? There's so many awakening or enlightenment stories in the literature, and what I love about them is that they're not, consistently not about somebody who was some kind of Hollywood star from a practicing point.

[28:58]

One of my favorite stories is the stories about story about the monk that some of you know, who was a kind of idiot. So the monks were protected in his monastery, were very protective of him. All he was really capable of was sweeping the porch and the paths. And he would do a little verse, you know, as I sweep this dust from this deck. May I sweep the dust of ignorance from my mind. In the moment. So then when he got tricked by the local monastery, competitive monastery, into going over there and giving a talk, all of the monks in his monastery worried about the kind of shame he would bring to them. But of course,

[30:01]

He gave a wonderful teaching. Sometimes I think we get caught by thinking waking up has to do with being perfect. I don't think so. Every teacher I've ever studied with has emphasized how important it is to just be ourselves, fully and wholeheartedly. But of course, if we think that who we are is identified by our reactive patterns, we're going to have a hard time. Oh, I am someone who always.

[31:04]

So then the question is, well, what does it mean to be myself? Just be yourself. I have some quite marvelous photographs of Katagiri Roshi. on the land in southeastern Minnesota that his center bought for building a monastery, which never really happened. But during Kanagiri Roshi's lifetime, he loved being there. And several of the pictures I have are pictures of him on the tractor in his white T-shirt. with a grin that's about this wide, driving the tractor around doing this and that. His wonderful capacity for enthusiasm and delight is so manifest in those photographs.

[32:18]

Formally, in meditation practice, he was the But Art, you know, very correct, perfect. And there was too sharp a divide for him between what it meant to be a good practitioner formally and how to work with afflicted reactive states of mind in his daily life. His practice never led to him having any clarity about what to do with sexual energy. He'd, on one hand, say to his wife, all right, we're gonna be celibate for the rest of our lives. We'll help each other in our practice, but we'll be celibate.

[33:24]

didn't work. And by not having anyone who could give him some coaching about how to work with that energy, it was an area of his life which was never touched by his incredible energy and commitment to the meditation path. He helped an enormous number of people by his example of enthusiasm and unwaveringness in his practice. And he didn't help his students with what to do with the briar patch reactive patterns of the mind. Because he didn't know what to do with those areas of the mind for himself.

[34:38]

So not only do we think that we should be perfect, we think that our teachers should be perfect. And we miss being taught by everything when we divide the world and the beings in the world into those who are perfect or should be perfect and those who aren't. One of the great Dzogchen masters here in the West just passed last Saturday night. Yeah, Saturday night. One time when he was teaching here, Bill asked him, if he wasn't a teacher, what would he be?

[35:50]

And he said, well, a doctor. And he was trained as a doctor in the Tibetan medical system. And Bill said, but you are already a doctor. So if you weren't a teacher and you weren't a doctor, then what would you be? a general. I remember one time when I was doing a power retreat with him, he just, he wouldn't let us leave the meditation room. I mean, we got barely, I don't know, a few hours sleep, but he just kept us working with this particular practice intensely. And you couldn't leave, the retreat wasn't over until everyone had a little bit of moisture and droplets up here at the crown chakra, which was the indication that you'd finally mastered the practice.

[36:59]

He was just unrelenting and brilliant, extraordinary teacher. A few days before this poem retreat that he wanted to teach, he was having pains in his chest. And some of his senior students, including a woman who was a nurse, was worried about him because he has had very seriously occluded arteries. No, I'm not going to the hospital. I'm going to do this retreat. So he did this polo retreat, which he was determined he would do. And as the retreat ended, he had a heart attack and was gone. And what I find so interesting for his senior students and for those of us who were able to practice with him in some significant way, it actually seemed just right.

[38:04]

And when I went back and read what he'd written in the most recent issue of the newsletter to his students, it was clear that he knew he was not going to live very much longer. Powerful and extraordinary teacher. who was able to transmit to his students, not to any one student, but to this one, [...] different aspects, different pieces of his own lineage and training. He had an incredible gift for helping people uncover and see their true nature and what was essential about them in the way that Kadagiri Roshi meant when he said, just be yourself.

[39:17]

So the edge there has to do with the sense of self that's false and the sense of self that's authentic and true. Anyway, that's enough from me. I wonder if any of you have anything you'd like to bring up. You be quiet. Yes, ma'am. I also heard that broadcast on NPR, and I was struck by Angie Corio's comment. And then last night, we were watching Washington Week in Review, and Gwen Ifill at the very, very end of the program said she had asked all the panelists to give a memory of that day. And they were all children. The oldest one, I think, was a sixth grader. And I was so struck by that they just went right back to, I was in this classroom and my teacher, or, you know, they went right back to the school and exactly where they were in that moment from the child's point of view.

[40:36]

It was just a reminder to me, number one, all these global events happening to stay present with ourselves and also to remember the children. I mean, remember to recognize how this is affecting our children. I think some of you know the writing of W.G. Sebald, but I want to recommend his writing. And also I want to recommend to all of you that you go to the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco and see the Gerhard Richter exhibit. Richter and Sebald are up to very similar things. that have a lot to do with a kind of wondering about dreaming, about memory, about time.

[41:44]

That really strikes me with the kind of resonating that I sense with what we come to in Buddhist practice. It really has to do with what you're bringing up. If we're really present with what's happening and with the impact on those around us, and in particular those who are young, We never know what the consequences will be. I think I told some of you about one time when I was doing a retreat up in Alaska, there was a young woman who came to the retreat, and when I started doing interviews, she came in and she said, the only reason I did this retreat was because I wanted to see you.

[43:01]

You were teaching math when I was in high school. freshman and sophomore at the time that I was on the receiving end of incest behavior from my father. And she said, I always wanted to come and talk to you, but I was too afraid to. But I always knew I could. And she said, you have no idea how much you helped me just being the person that you were as a teacher in the school at that time. I had no direct contact with this young woman. It was a time in my own life where I'd just begun meditation practice.

[44:05]

And my life was in some disarray. My first marriage was coming apart, etc. I had two young children. But every once in a while I think about this young woman because I had no attention or focus or knowing her in an individual way and yet there was some way in which just doing what was under my nose was in some way that I had no idea of a resource for her. So we don't even know the ways in which we can have some beneficial effect in the world. And the very trying to be helpful is so frequently not very helpful.

[45:16]

Just showing up makes a big difference. A lot of what you brought up this morning has been territory I've been stewing in for a while. And one of the questions I've been holding is how to bring my practice into my life in a more conscious and present way. And I'm realizing through what you've been saying this morning that I think that where I can get caught is a confusion between aiming and expectation.

[46:37]

Yeah. Aiming and intention. Yeah. over against expectation. I think that's a very important point. Because when I start leaning more into the side of expectation, that's where the judge starts arising and I feel like I'm not meeting my expectations. And then discouragement can come up. One of the things I'm... there's still a kind of fraying or eroding just by the repeated judgments that keep arising. Well, Chris, every time a judgment arises that I listen to, I'm, without quite realizing it in that moment, re-energizing that pattern.

[47:42]

And the other thing I wanted to bring up and I think it's in the same territory and it has to do with what you just brought up with this young woman and the intention that we make with the Bodhisattva vow. But you know, the Bodhisattva vow looms for practitioners in a way that has more to do with the expectation trap and a kind of keeping it all vague and very general so that we come away with a certain sense of, is this even possible? Well, and then the question I'm wondering with what you just brought up is that a more specific intention has a kind of ripple effect that we aren't even aware of.

[48:57]

Yeah. Yeah. Let me tell you about somebody who came here yesterday who's I think an example of what you just said. This man's name is Sig. And he runs Sig's abatement service. Rats. He and his helper came because we had rats in the house again, or maybe still. And Sig and his sidekick were on the roof, they had investigated everything. Two of the sweetest, kindest men I have met in a long time.

[49:57]

Sig has a t-shirt with a stencil of a rat on his back. And he completely thinks like a rat. He knows rats from inside the rat's body-mind. And when I said to him, you know, one of the troubling signs for me about these rats is I respect rats. I actually like them. I find them quite interesting and remarkably intelligent creatures. He said, absolutely. but you don't want them in your house because they're real health hazards. And we had this very interesting talk. He said, you know, during the time of the plague in the Middle Ages, the only places that were free of the plague were the monasteries. Because the monks kept the monasteries clean,

[51:02]

and they were willing to kill the rats when they came into the monastery. But to the degree that they were able to have a clean, rat-free environment, they were not subject to the plague in the way that much of the population in Europe was. And it was just, I was so interested in talking to him because He was very clear about what to do about the rats, but with a kind of heartfelt connection to these creatures. And as I said, I felt like this guy was a rat in his last life, or is one now, I mean, in the best sense. Kept talking about rat grease.

[52:07]

Look for rat grease. So now you see right there in the furnace room, they were pulling their cute little fat bellies up over the top of that sheet rock. You can just see where they were just loaded. He said the attic is full of food. They've got more food stashed up there than you can believe. Of course they're in the attic. But they have to go out every day in order to get water. And as we talked, it was like the rat world became much more accessible. And I felt like I was working with someone who understands the relational aspect of the world we live in. He wasn't talking about exterminating the rats in a way.

[53:08]

that wasn't very conscious about the consequences. He said absolutely the kindest way to get them out of the attic is with neck snappers. He said it's pretty consistently a quick death and then there isn't, as with poison, something, some creature eats the poisoned rat, and then they die, and then somebody eats that creature, because of course rat poisons have daikon in them, and it's got a very long life. Can go through many, many, many, many creatures eating and dying. But you know, it was so interesting to me was the sweetness these two people had. They just, and so present.

[54:11]

This is how you clean up the rat turds, and I only saw little ones, so I think they're all young. Looks like the adults left. And if you aren't comfortable cleaning it up, I'll be glad to come back and Help you clean it up. Now, if you move everything out of the attic, that'll probably get rid of them because they don't like things to be changed. I said that to my daughter. She said, oh, they're like us. We want the furniture all settled. We don't want a big moving furniture around. So here's somebody whose whole Work life is about helping people get rats out of where they live. Who is patient, sweet-natured, very clear about what's possible and what isn't.

[55:17]

He didn't have a little card that said I'm a practicing Buddhist, but boy he sure had the smell of a cultivated heart. And this big rat stenciled on the back of his shirt, you know, it's just... And this truck, I mean, you just tell what he's up to. He wasn't trying to be a sweetheart. Yeah, that's actually, your story is actually one of, when you ask us to think about where we get discouraged in our practices, when I look at other people, let's assume maybe he doesn't practice, and I then sort of compare, like I'm doing all this practice and, you know, times that you listed out, you know, a daily practice or whatever, but then there's other people who can just be.

[56:31]

and not have to practice, and then I get discouraged thinking, why am I having to work so hard? Well, how do we know what another person's inner life is? How do we know what the causes and conditions have been for that sweet heartedness? I'm completely convinced at this point in my life that I can't possibly know another person's suffering. I may get some glimpses, but the fullness of it, I don't know. And of course, what you're bringing up is that subset of judgment called comparing. And it's a reactive pattern that is guaranteed to lead to sinking energetically.

[57:33]

I mean, to even compare, what do I see in my life? How is my spiritual practice manifesting today over last week? Not skillful. Look at what's my life now and what was my life, what do I remember about my life from, say, five years ago or ten years ago. How often do we get discouraged because we say we're going to do something and then we don't do it? Where my understanding is that often what we've agreed to do is too big. We aren't being skillful and realistic about, okay, what I call the minimum daily requirement. No matter what, I'm gonna do at least five minutes or 10 minutes of meditation practice every day, no matter what.

[58:38]

No matter what. I can then build on that. The success of doing that, I can build on. to say I'm gonna sit for an hour every morning at 4.30. Oh my goodness, what happened? I haven't thought about that for a week or a month. Crash. So I think we have to be very attentive to what we tell ourselves we're going to do. And keep an eye out for that cranky, comparing, judging, fear-based reactivity that it's like sinking that oil tanker, you know, two miles down, energetically really sinking.

[59:40]

And for me, seeing, having the experiences of being with good-hearted people in lots of different situations is very helpful because what I get to see is good-heartedness doesn't require being a practicing Buddhist. There are lots of ways of cultivating a good heart. to be open to the possibility of, you know, the guy that pumps gas over the hill. I'd go out of my way to go and buy gas from this guy because he's just, he and his wife are total sweethearts. And they're part of our village. We call him Papa. Papa and Mama. Let's go get gas at Papa's.

[60:51]

Then if I'm in the car and Bill isn't with me, he sticks his head in the window and says, how's Papa? He's OK? OK. Happy sailing. And out of that, answering that question, what do I appreciate? Always with a view to an answer that's specific. Then to ask the question what's possible becomes possible. I may not get there right away, but I can, this is the prelude. What do I appreciate is the prelude what's possible. Yes.

[61:56]

I guess I'm not totally clear. I haven't heard you talk about this. When you catch yourself in habitual judgment, are you relating what you appreciate to that thing? Let me tell you the story in which this pair of practices came up. I, for a number of years, went to a teacher's meeting at Green Gulch Farm and would walk from the house where I live up through the lower fields to the meeting. And there would be drizzled along the road empty coffee cups, tools, piles of torn cardboard boxes, dreck by my mind stream. And by the time I would arrive at downtown Green Gulch, I would just, you know, I'd have coffee cups hanging off all my fingers, and I would be a grouch.

[63:03]

The resident grouch has arrived for the meeting. And one day, I thought, I do not like my own company. And I just stopped, and I looked around, and of course, you know, all I'm seeing are the drizzled coffee cups and the rusty tools and the syntactics and micros... mutter, mutter, mutter, mutter. And of course, I'm not looking at the beautiful field with the kill deer flying over the field or in the area that's cultivated, the colors of all the different lettuces that are coming up and the mist on the hill. It's, you know, like having blinders on. And so what came up was, what do I appreciate?

[64:06]

And it was easy to look around. and see a lot of things that I appreciated standing there in the middle of the road with the coffee cups and all my fingers, etc. And what I noticed was that shift to what do I appreciate, just look around, what do I appreciate, this beautiful tree outside the window, was this shift in the track that my attention was on. And out of that arose the possibility of what's possible. Oh, what's possible is to focus on what I appreciate, not that I don't continue to pick up the coffee cups and notice the kind of drizzled tools, et cetera, but I'm not just noticing what's wrong, I'm looking at a much bigger picture. That's what's possible on that walk.

[65:08]

what's possible as I go into the meeting. Well, to set my intention for the subject at hand for that afternoon's discussion. Does that give you a better sense of that? And what was so striking to me that particular day was that what's possible was right on the heels of what do I appreciate. I felt such a different state of mind. And again, it was one of those moments where I had the sense of a light switch going on. And I began working that pair, what do I appreciate, what's possible, a lot after that as, again, another way of expanding the territory with respect to this cranky, habitual, grouchy, noticing everything that's wrong because we can always find things that are, you know, cluttered or not tended to or whatever.

[66:19]

And if you train for it, you can get very good at just seeing what's wrong. And the difference when I include what I appreciate along with what could be done differently My view of the world is very different than when I'm just doing this with blinders. Okay, ten minutes, we're going to squall them along here. Yes, please, please, absolutely. This is going back to listening. Several times, many times, I've had the experience of listening to another person who I guess confiding in me because the person trusts me, but also with the expectation of an answer. Now, as you said, you can't get into somebody else's mind and stream, so I'm just wondering if listening, just really listening is always enough when a response may be expected.

[67:36]

Just because a response is expected doesn't mean I'm going to come up with a response. I mean, sometimes somebody asks my advice about something, and the most truthful thing I can say is, I don't really know what to suggest to you. And as I sit with questions that arise within myself, I have more confidence in saying to someone, sit with the question, sit with not knowing what to do and just sit with that not knowing for a while. Now, I couldn't suggest that to somebody until I had worked with that possibility for myself. I don't know about you, my goose would be cooked if I was trying to do what people expect of me.

[68:41]

I mean, it's not often, not possible. Or not a fit. So I think the question you're raising, though, about is listening always sufficient My experience is that listening goes much farther than most of us realize or experience because we haven't yet explored the possibilities of a kind of presence in listening. Maybe you can help me remember. Some years ago, this little piece of paper ended up on my desk. I'm not sure where it came from, but it had three things on it. Tell the truth to the best that I know what the truth is. Do what I say I'll do.

[69:46]

Oh, I just remembered the third thing, and it meant every mistake. I've been trying to think of that for the last couple of days. Where did it start? Well, you know, some little piece of paper that just drizzled across my desk. Someone, some gremlin snuck it in there when I wasn't looking. Tell the truth, do what I say I'll do, and admit every mistake. Okay, now we have here some... Say only what I know directly, not by hearsay.

[70:52]

When I showed Bill the list of things that I wanted to talk about tonight, he wrote down, notice, notice, notice, notice. Make what is habitual and therefore unconscious become conscious. And that process, in my experience, doesn't go so well if the critical voice is getting too much feeding. If I can begin to let the habitual tapes run, but not put a lot of energy, not listen to, not believe, that's what I mean by not energize that particular of mental patterning, what I'm willing to notice begins to increase.

[72:10]

I see a direct correlation between the cultivation of attention and our capacity to be present with what's so, and the disconnecting from listening to, believing that inner tape of criticism and judgment and doubt. Yes. Something like that sort of happened to me this morning. I have a neighbor whose husband is dying of ALS and you know, I'm with a group that does dinners and this and that and she called me last night and I called her back this morning and you know, first what comes up to me before I make the call is sort of saving the whole family, doing all these things that are not possible, really. But it pops up there. But I kind of let go of that. And I think I did a pretty good job of listening.

[73:13]

But what that enabled me to do after I hung up the phone was notice that she didn't ask anything tough at all. I could do all the things that she didn't demand I do anything. anything she talked about were simple, easy tasks. Sitting with him and talking to him, working his little machine, the dinners, things like that. And then I was able to see that, appreciate her, that she made it easy for me to help her husband. And instead of being sort of all about myself and, you know, well, I do want to do this for them. I don't want to do that. I don't want to get swallowed up and all of that. Just noticing that nothing like that was asked or expected. She was perfectly reasonable. And that her attitude towards everything helps me.

[74:15]

I mean, I'm busy worrying about helping them. But in fact, she helped me through the phone conversation. And she does make it easy for me to help her family. Now, as an old ambulance driver, let me make a proposition that the more I'm committed to driving the ambulance, the more I'm likely to get caught with taking on much more than is actually asked. And it is the territory for habitual overextension. And the antidote practice is you go to the toy store, where they sell little English matchbox cars, and you buy a toy ambulance. And you take it home, and you put it on the desk or the windowsill or wherever on blocks.

[75:23]

And if you need to, you might get two ambulances. I think I have five. And every once in a while, I give them away, and then I think, ugh. But that itch between just resting with making the phone call and finding out what your neighbor might find helpful and what fits and what can I do and what can I not do in the context of the actual conversation. All that energy anticipating how it might be. Yeah. I was totally relieved after the conversation. Sure, that makes complete sense to me. It's called bhavana, becoming. going to the future, figuring it all out.

[76:36]

Some of us can spend a lot of time there in the future. All right, so there's a list of some possible practices. I want to thank all of you very much for your attention and participation willingness to talk about what's come up for you and doing the various practices that we've been working with. I think there are a few of you who still have tapes, and I would appreciate if I could have them back by the 10th of July, if that's possible.

[77:18]

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