when my ears just kind of like got stuffed up. Summertime and the livin' is easy Fish are jumping, and the cotton is hot. Your daddy's rich, and your mama's good looking. So hush, little. No, excuse me. So rest little baby, even while you cry.

[01:03]

So rest little baby, even while you cry. One of these mornings, You're gonna rise up singing, you're gonna spread your wings, and you'll take to the sky. Until the day there ain't nothing can harm you. With daddy and mammy standing by. Could you hear the truth?

[02:20]

I don't say, hush little baby. I say, rest little baby. Rest little baby, even while you cry. And of course, there's plenty to cry about. But still, I want you to rest. The nurse wants you to rest. And... Daddy and Mammy are actually supporting you right now to live and to cry or laugh and sing and dance when to rest. Then when you're resting, we can tell you some stories. And while we're telling you the stories, or while we're listening to stories, we can maybe hear the true Dharma. Now, one story is that consciousness, cognition of all of us, the cognition of all living beings, arises or is born as the interaction between sense organs of a living being

[03:59]

and the physical world. That when the physical body, the physical sensitive body interacts with the physical universe, within the physical universe includes living beings and non-living beings. As our body interacts with other living and non-living bodies that surround us, that interaction, you could say, is cognition, or you could say, arises as that interaction. And from the start I'd like to emphasize that the cognition or the consciousness that arises from our bodies and all other bodies, that consciousness is just that interaction.

[05:08]

Our knowing is not something in addition to our relationship with all beings. But when that cognition arises, too many other abilities arise with knowing. One of them is intention. And another thing that arises is the ability to construct things. Mental construction, the ability for mental construction. So as we arise with the world, with cognition, or as cognition arises with our bodies interacting with the world, we also come right away with the ability to imagine things.

[06:12]

And one of the things we can imagine is that there's somebody in addition to the knowing, that there's a knower. or that there's an intender who intends or a vower who vows. This idea that there's somebody who intends in addition to the intention is a mental construction which to experience such mental constructions. And it's another mental construction to say or imagine that we, a person like me or you, is something in addition to the mental construction. That we, I, can make mental constructions whereas actually I am just a person who has mental constructions and who has consciousness and who has intentions.

[07:14]

So once again Consciousness arises from physical bodies interacting with physical bodies, living physical bodies and non-living physical bodies, mountain bodies, river bodies, sky bodies, earth bodies, female bodies, male bodies with each other, and cognition arises or can arise. So the world and the person together give rise to consciousness. And once consciousness has arisen, it comes with intention. And intention is what we call action or karma. So coming with cognition, which is born of relationship, is the ability to imagine that the person or the knowing is separate ...knowing which is separate from a knower.

[08:23]

That there's a knower in addition to knowing. And most humans have this idea that there's a knower in addition to knowing. And then again cognition comes with intention. And again there's a mental construction that there's somebody who does the willing or does the intending. rather than the intender is just the intending and the actor is just the action and the knowing is just the knowing. From this intending which arises from interacting with the world Then there arises the world. So the world, the physical world that we should be in, is the results of the intentions of innumerable living beings.

[09:25]

So the world contains bodies which interact with each other and give rise to cognition. Cognition comes with intention, which is basic meaning of action and this action then creates the world. So the world creates conscious beings and conscious beings have intentions and their intentions create the world. So there's this mutuality between the world and living beings. So when a living being arises, the world arises. together with the living being. With each person, the world is born at the same time as each person. The world is formed and transformed through karma. The world is formed and transformed through intentions and vows.

[10:34]

So the world we live in together with other humans and the world we share with non-humans who see a different world from us for various reasons which we can go into someday. But fish, basically, they live in the same world as us. We see them, they see us, but they live in a somewhat different world than we do. They view this world differently than we do. but we share it with them anyway even though we have different views. And this world we share that we live in with the fish is the result of arises the karma of all humans and fish all living beings accumulated karma makes the world The world is formed of our vows and intentions.

[11:38]

Formed by our vows and intentions. So if our intentions, the intentions we have right now and have had from beginningless time, we individually and all together have created this world. We are all responsible for it today. And the world can be transformed through the transformation of our intention, of our vow. We just read a vow of a Zen master named Dogen. He vowed together with us from this life on throughout countless lives to hear the true Dharma. That was his vow, and his vow contributed to this world we live in. and he proposed that if he could hear we can hear the true dharma then we will be able to maintain the true dharma and then there's a possibility that if we can hear and maintain the true dharma that all beings will become enlightened now as we see that doesn't seem to have happened

[12:59]

But this is the long-standing vow of many millions of people, is to vow that humans, and other beings too maybe, but humans could hear the true Dharma and thereby maintain it. Together we could realize Buddha. Together. that's a vow which is intended to transform the world into a world of enlightened beings. And then he goes on to say something like, however ...greatly accumulated, indeed being the cause and conditions of obstacles in practicing the way of enlightenment.

[14:08]

So karma creates a world, and then also it creates a world where there's obstacles, where there's situations which we find difficult, what our vow is, or we find it difficult to remember that we wish to hear the true dharma. because of our past karma of being concerned with our life as a life where I am something in addition to my knowing and I am something in addition to my friends and I am something in addition to the mountains because of having that view and having it from that view. Now there's obstructions to having the correct view of what's going on and there's even obstructions sometimes to wishing that all beings would be free of karmic obstructions.

[15:19]

Even get distracted sometimes from wishing that all beings would hear the true Dharma because of past intentions which are distorted which are based on misconception for example that I am practicing Zen meditation by myself that I have a practice of doing good myself that I am something in addition to my good actions or unskillful actions. Having that misconception leads to continuing to have that misconception and even then having that misconception and wishing to do something else. ...helpful, wishing to do something harmful.

[16:23]

Because that misconception creates stress. And in the stress, we sometimes can barely remember that we want to be beneficial. ...story about karmic obstruction. We're spinning around and you can pick various points to start talking about where we are in the cycle. But someone might ask, well, okay, I've heard that the world's formed out of the intentions of all living beings. And how is it transformed? It would be transformed

[17:25]

by the intention of all living beings. And it is being transformed out of the intention. How could it be transformed in a positive direction? Well, if the intentions of living beings were in a positive mode, then that contributes to a positive transformation. Well, what if the intentions aren't so positive? Then what? How are the intentions of karma purified? Well, if you find a distorted or impure intention, then what is recommended is to not recommended but what starts the process of transformation of an impure intention or a faulty or distorted intention faulty in terms of falling away from what is beneficial falling away from transforming the world towards enlightenment if one discovers such an intention in oneself then the first step usually is

[18:50]

to honestly admit it to yourself, for starters. Confess it. And then rest, little baby, even while you cry. You don't have to cry, but if you notice that you're going in a direction which you do not think is helpful to yourself or others, if your intention is going in a way that you don't think is conducive to people waking up to the true Dharma, confess it, and then how do you feel? If you want your intention to contribute to the transformation of the world towards enlightenment, peace and harmony, if you want that, then you will feel some stress, some lack of rest, some pain, some sorrow, perhaps.

[20:08]

And feeling this sorrow of being off the track, off the path which you want the world to be transformed into, feeling that sorrow, learning how to feel that sorrow, brings you back, transforms you back onto the intention you want. I'm in a position where people sometimes come to me and say, what should I do? They don't usually say, what should I intend? Or what should my motivation be? But they say, what should I do? What should my action be? But again, action is primarily intention, is essentially intention. So people could come to me and say, what should my vow be? And I do not tell people what their vow should be. I do not say, your vow should be from this life on throughout countless lives to hear the true Dharma.

[21:14]

That should be your vow. I don't say that to people. I said it to people just now, but I usually don't say it, what their vow should be. I don't say your vow should be to maintain the true Dharma and thereby help all beings attain enlightenment. I don't say that they should do that. I ask them what their intention is. What's your intention, what's your motivation, what's your vow? And then, once we get that clarified, then the next step is check it out. I'm not telling you what your vow should be, what your motivation should be. I more say, well, what is it? And then if it's clarified, then how's it going? Is it alive or dead, this intention?

[22:14]

If it's dead or off track, then you can practice intra-psychically confession and repentance, and then intra-psychically perhaps find your way back to the intention, to the karma which you want, which you think might transform the world in a positive way. And then reinitiate yourself into the process of making the vow, the vow of committing to the intentions which you wish to commit to. And then again, check it out. Is it happening? If not, admit it. See how it feels. And it doesn't feel good, probably, to not follow the thing.

[23:19]

And if it does feel good to follow the thing, then what's going on? Maybe you got the wrong intention. Maybe you should try changing the intention if it feels good doing your intention. Make a new intention and see if you can follow that one. And then if you do follow that one, how do you feel? And if you don't follow it, how do you feel? Intra-psychically one can do this. But also, the Zen teacher said, by revealing and disclosing your lack of faith, your lack of following through on your intention, of being faithful to your intentions, before the Buddhas, it melts away the root of transgressing from your intention. So there's another dimension of purifying besides the intra-psychic checkup, and that is

[24:24]

the interpersonal, which mirrors the way your consciousness arose in the first place. That an interpsychic cognition arose in an interpersonal relationship between your body and yourself. So one part of it is you interpsychically check yourself out, check your karma out, check your intention out. Do you have one? What's the most important one? What is it? What is the intention or intention that you think would transform this world, could transform this world, if you and others had such a vow? Do you agree with the Zen teacher that the vow to hear the true Dharma, that that would be a vow that would be helpful to you and to the world, too? Whatever it is, what is it?

[25:26]

What's the vow that you think would be helpful? And then again, are you following it? Then go tell somebody what it is. tell a Buddha statue or go see a teacher and tell the teacher this is my vow this is my vow this is my intention this is the kind of karma I want to do in this life this is the kind of karma I want to commit to and would you please help me check it out and keep track of it and then show your intention and how you're following through on it, show it to another. Show it to yourself and show it to another person. Our cognition arises interpersonally.

[26:34]

Our awareness, our life, arises interpersonally. between our person and other persons, between our body and other bodies. That's how our awareness, that's how our life arises. And our intentions come with that awareness. And we get an intention which arises as an aspect of our intra-psychic life. But our intra-psychic life arises from an interpersonal relationship. So the intentions that arise are both in our interpersonal relationships and in our intra-psychic relationships. So we should check out our intentions and how we're following through by looking inward and we should check out

[27:39]

by expressing them to another and interacting around our intentions. This is how to purify our intentions to learn by trial and error what we want them to be how we're following through and how when we do follow through things work and how when we don't follow through things work. And watch to see, can you see, intrapsychically and interpersonally, that this process is transforming the world. This is the pure and simple color of true practice, the true mind of faith, the true body of faith.

[29:37]

This is the pure and simple color of true practice, the true body of intention, the true body of vow, the true mind of vow. The simple practice of what is your intention? Do you have intention? What is my intention? Do I have an intention which I think, which I've heard, and which I agree has a chance to transform the world? Have I had intentions in the past that I know about that have transformed the world in a way I do not like?

[30:47]

Can I see that I had intentions which I do not want to ever have again, really? And they did have negative consequences. They didn't encourage babies to rest even while they cry. Did I have an intention to tell a baby to shut up or I would harm it. And do I like that intention? Or do I want to give it up? And how do I give it up? Becoming aware of it, confessing it, seeing how I feel, and turning in the direction I really want to live.

[31:52]

And also, did I tell others tell the Buddhas and together find the truth but first of all find the truth of what is my intention what is my vow every moment of consciousness is endowed with an intention. It's there. What is it? Can you find it? Are you happy with it? Is it in line with what you think is most helpful? If not, okay. Even the Buddha before being Buddha, as I said here,

[32:58]

Buddha, they were just the same as us. And Buddha had intentions which were off the mark for being Buddha. But Buddha noticed they were off and got back on track and realized Buddha and told us that if we would do the same, we would be the same as Buddha It seems like it has to be done over and over. We have to re-initiate, we have to re-enter, re-commit. Sometimes we re-commit doing, sometimes we get off track and we commit to what we want to do rather than what we just did.

[34:07]

Do you really want to live this way? No. This is not the way I want to live. What way do you want to live? You get to say. And the Buddha doesn't tell you to hush. The Buddha says, rest. Once you discover your intention, rest. See how you feel about it. And if you start crying about some intention you have in your heart or mind, keep resting and you will find another intention. Through the process of being unhappy with the intention you have, you will be transformed into having an intention which you really do want.

[35:12]

the pain of not track with the way we want to be awakens the longing for the way we want to be and finding the way we want to be. But if we don't look at what we're doing, look at what we're doing now, we may miss discovering our intention and in some cases discovering that our intention is not really the one that's right in the center of our life, the center of our vow. So we have to be relaxed to find this balanced place where we see the real vow, the real intention. And then when we see it, okay, you can confess that too.

[36:18]

As you confess it, do you feel good confessing it? Does it feel like, yes, this is what I want in life. This is the way, right now, I want to be. Nobody else told me. The whole world made me into what I am who wants this right now. Okay? Now how do you feel about that? Good. Okay. Want to commit again? Yes. How do you feel about it? Not so good. You're on track and you don't feel good? No. Hmm. Now do you want to have the same intention now that you don't feel good about it? I don't know. Maybe I think I'd like to get a change a little bit. Okay. What do you want to be? Do you want to try that now for a while?

[37:22]

Yeah. How's that going? It's not a final, permanent expression. It changes all the time. But maybe eventually it gets kind of that you really don't want to hurt other people. But maybe once in a while you do and you think, that felt good to hurt people. I actually liked that. That was fun. I know some people who have experimented like killing small insects and other small animals. You kind of get a kick out of it. But by attention to it, they have come to not like hurting small animals anymore and actually want to protect them. The thing is like, pay attention to what you're doing and how you feel about it. We have to find that thing in there that wants really the happiness of all beings.

[38:29]

It's in us. But we have to look carefully to find it. And even then, it can be lost again. So we have to come back again, come back again, and check it out. We actually do have intentions and we're actually right there with them. It's kind of a matter of paying attention to what we're doing anyway. We are intending. We are intending. It is happening. It's just a question of do we understand how important it is and are we taking care of it? And when we don't, do we understand how important it is to know how important it is? For all I know, you understand me perfectly well."

[39:53]

That in a way, what I'm saying is kind of simple. But it may be kind of clear what I've been saying. So in a way, you know, it's like every moment we're a little baby that's just been born. And the baby has an intention. But also every moment we're like, I don't know what, like not exactly the big mama, but we are like also the parent or the mother or the father of the world. So we're born of the world. of the interaction with our body in the world, and we're born with an intention, is particularly important in giving birth to the next world.

[41:06]

So we're born with this, we get this little baby intention to take care of, and if we take care of it, it's proposed to you today that taking care of it, it's always fresh and new actually, even though it may be caused by past intentions. You have a fresh intention. Is this what you want? And it isn't that you throw this baby out. It's the intention you find. But that you look at it and see if it's a healthy, skillful intention. And if it is, good. You feel good? That's enough. The next moment. How do you feel? Your feeling then transforms the intention into another one.

[42:12]

Feeling good about it maintains it. Feeling pain about it transforms it. feel the intention and feel the happiness or sorrow around it. Be tuned into this feedback system. Intra-psychically. Which means you can do it any time of day or night. So interpersonally. And you can do that any time of day or night. Because the Buddhas and bodhisattvas are with you all day and all night. So you can also check out with them. Say, I've got an intention here. It seems pretty good to me. What do you guys think? Now, if you don't get an answer, you might talk to a human person. But really, you can interpsychically and interpersonally check out your intentions all day long and all night long. And I've heard from the Buddha, they do this, that they're checking out their intention all day and all night.

[43:24]

But checking out the intention is just simply that you meet somebody and you do have an intention in the meeting. It's right there. You do. You want to have a certain kind of meeting and you're doing it or you're not. If you're not, you have a feeling about that. It's there. And if you look at it, that feeling that, guide you onto the way you want to meet and be with each person you meet. Find it interpersonally, find it intra-psychically, find it and take care of it. This is the way, or a way, of transforming the world. But of course the difficult thing is you have to be on the ball in the moment And if you're off the ball, you can slip off, the intention can slip off without noticing it. The intention can also slip off if you are noticing it.

[44:28]

It doesn't mean that you're paying attention that the force of habit doesn't make you somehow feel like, I wish that person was dead. I wish my competitor was dead. Or at least, you know, losing all their abilities. They can be around, but not be able to be a competitor anymore. Where'd that come from? How many millions of generations led to me being an animal that thinks that way? Okay. No matter how terrible your intention is, if you pay attention to it, the attention which arises interpersonally with all beings, it's the way you're being supported in the way you support beings, that intention, which arises interdependently, will correct any kind of unskillfulness. But if you don't notice the unskillfulness, it will basically just reproduce itself in the dark.

[45:36]

It can be transformed in the light and the dark. So, I think I'm just kind of repeating myself now, so maybe I'll stop. We are in intention I have a question regarding the intention, and body, and thoughts, and all of that. What I notice is, I can speak clearly what my intention is, but when I interact with the action, My thoughts are aligned with my intentions.

[46:46]

However, I find my body resisting. So my question is, does the body have its own intention thought? Or is there misalignment in the intention that the body resists? Or what's this? So you're saying that sometimes you're aware of an intention, sort of a mental intention, but somehow it has trouble being enacted with the body? I'm working with this person, and when I interact, I feel my body resisting, and I feel like I want to stay out of it. However, I feel I want to good for that person, wish them well so they will be happy, but my body is not aligned with my thoughts and my intention.

[47:49]

My body wants to get away and leave me and not be there. So you feel the intention to care for this person, but there's a body feeling of wanting to... I think that... Some problem over there? Did you drop something? You're looking for your glasses and you can't find them? Yeah, I just got this feeling of tremendous... Are you okay? Well, I could envision it that you have a mental intention but the body has another agenda. But I think it's more like you have an intention and then you have another intention. And that other intention maybe finds an expression in the body. And that other intention might come from some bodily information.

[48:57]

So like the person's not in the room and your awareness is arising in relationship to what is in the room. Cognition arises with the world. Somebody comes in the room and another cognition arises. Now the one that was there before came in the room, maybe with a really nice cognition, with a really nice intention, like, I want to benefit all beings, including this person who's coming to see me. The person comes in and a new cognition arises in response to this person's body. Your body and their body give rise to a certain state which has a certain intention called, I want to get out of here. I would say it's a new intention arising at that moment with this person. And that new intention is that you would like to get away from them. For some reason you have that intention. When your body wants to do something, it's because you're enacting an intention which arose with the body.

[50:12]

But getting away from the person maybe contradicts your other intention of caring for the person. So you have to study both of them. One is what you'd like, the other is sort of what's happening now. If this state of mind has arisen and has this other intention, this other direction. Again, if you don't feel good about that, and you look at it and admit it, don't feel good about it, then you're that will transform the intention which arises when you're with this person. And it doesn't mean, yeah, so some other difficulties may arise as you study the situation. Okay? Yes? Thank you for repeating intention and tension. Part of my intention would be that the message of how important it is to pay attention to great people.

[51:24]

And it's such a kind of It's hard to penetrate sometimes when we have the habit of not paying attention to an intention. So thank you for the encouragement. And for everyone else that was easily, you know, let that in right away, please excuse me. But we have to get all the slow people too, right? Yes? So global warming and intention? Yes, global warming and intention. Right.

[52:25]

Well, yeah, so... Begin with your intention, you know, that you would like to do something. that you would like to... What would you like? What intention can you find so far in yourself? I just want people to wake up and to realize that this is an incredible situation that Gordon is facing. So you have a desire... You wish that people would wake up. You wish that people would listen and pay attention. And that wish is kind of an intention. And then what other intentions can you identify in yourself, moment by moment, in terms of your daily life? What other intentions are there? Every moment of how I perceive with that thought, with the thought of the woman and the concern, so that everything starts to line up with that in front of me.

[53:31]

Yeah. So like, you know, when it comes time for you to interact with a car, With electric illumination or TVs, how do you attend to that in such a way that you feel kind of like pretty good about the attention you're giving to your vow and then that you would do that? that you feel good about, that you feel good to have the intention, that it feels skillful the way you're thinking about this. You feel like, well, it's basically a good intention, I think, but the way I'm thinking about it today is a little off, like maybe I'm thinking about it in an isolated way, you know. Like I think I'm going to wake people up or something.

[54:35]

Maybe I could change the language a little bit and feel more comfortable. So there's an art of ongoing adjustment of the form of the vow. Because you're not making it all by yourself. Everybody's creating you to be a person who cares in a certain way. And you're a person every day. So your vow could also, the language of your vow and the feeling of your vow could change a little bit. and your attention to it will also cause it to evolve in a positive way. More attention to it will wake you up to imperfections in the design of the intention. Kind of like testing an airplane in a wind tunnel to redesign it so it creates as little stress as possible.

[55:37]

and talking to people that I know that really work well for everybody concerned, and really encourage people to meditate on what's going on, to listen. I feel I'm so unscathed in how I'm speaking it, how I'm embodying it. Right. So the question is, do you have the intention to be skillful? And if you do right now, then in the next moment, do you again have the intention to be skillful? In other words, act in a way that has positive consequences for all concerned? And so you just keep watching that moment by moment and judge it by consequences.

[56:47]

But there's no final judgment. There's ongoing attention, ongoing evolution. It's a way of life called being aware of our mind, which has intentions in it moment by moment. If we don't attend to it, it isn't... positive, transformative possibilities are reduced. The possibilities aren't reduced, but the realization of the opportunities are reduced Yeah, it gets mired in right and wrong and it gets mired in pain and reaction and, you know, avoiding certain difficulties, which is part of the reason why people maybe don't want to pay attention to motivation because it raises all kinds of other issues.

[58:01]

It can get quite difficult and messy, so they want to, like, get out of there, you know, go someplace where there's no difficulty. But then they're leaving the transformation of their own life with other beings to basically habit. It's not just chance, but you just rather than bringing awareness into the habit area. And watching the difficulty around all these habits and reactions and, you know, So it's quite a big deal to commit to pay attention. Yes? I couldn't quite follow that. How do you get from the state of having attention to having Are you saying attention or intention?

[59:06]

I wasn't... Well, intention, you have intention every moment. Well, according to my understanding... Pardon? What? I couldn't hear you. I'm having trouble following you. Yes. There's no dust to remove from the mind. Yeah, I remember that, yeah. Thank you. There's no dust to... He also says there's no dust, is that what she said? Yeah. There's actually a state of non... You know, you're not doing it for the rest of your life.

[60:17]

Right. So is your question, how do we find... Yes, so we... I'm recommending you get to the place of... no intention by studying the intention and action which is now dominating your life. In other words, you practice. Well, either you say you can click over, but also you will finally see that you can't actually find any intention or any... you can't actually find it. But until you have actually looked at it carefully, you think you have found it. And if you haven't brought it out to even look at it, then you really are sure it's back there. And it's also, you're unconsciously being driven by it, because you think it's there.

[61:37]

Yeah? Right. Well, thinking is another definition, another word for intention, that we think. Every moment we think. And again, if we think unconsciously, we're driven by our thinking. So I think that you're my enemy, and if I'm unconscious of that, I start acting towards you as though you're my enemy, and I don't even necessarily know that I think that. If I would be aware that I think you're my enemy, and then I would look at that, I would actually be able to find out that I wouldn't be able to find that thing. And then there would be no action either. Right. There's no duality between them.

[62:39]

There's no duality between us. And also, there appears to be duality. So the thing is how to be not caught by the appearance. And the way to not be caught by appearance, one way is suggested is study the appearance. Get the appearance and study them thoroughly. If you study them thoroughly, you won't be able to find them. So then you start to not really believe the appearances. And then when they appear, you can play with them without attachment. And also without attachment to the appearance that you're the one who's playing with them rather than they're playing with you. Either way, you don't attach and then you're participating in what we call... It's a wild universe.

[63:49]

It's a wild universe. I don't know who was first, whether it was Karin or Ugo. One, two, three, Karin, Ugo. I wasn't clear what you got stuck on, or where you got stuck? Oh, I think that... there's the idea that, you know, like I know Karin right now, okay, I say I know Karin, but me knowing Karin is nothing in addition to the knowing of Karin, but there's an idea that I know Karin rather than just knowing Karin, which is basically what I am as a knowing Karin person right now.

[65:09]

Or that I'm talking to you, okay, there's talking to you and there's a me who's doing the talking to you rather than the talking and that's me. So you and our conversation come forth and realize me rather than I'm here and then I'm going to have a conversation with you. So one, you've got the self in addition to everything. The other, you have everything with self. Self's not an additional thing. or knowing. You have a knowing which is in addition. You have a knower which is in addition to the knowing. Rather than the knower is the knowing, the knowing is the knower. So you can call knowing a knower. And that's okay. Don't say, well, the knower then knows. There's really just a knower, which is knowing. There's really just an actor, which is the action. There's not an actor in addition to the acting. or an intender in addition to the intention.

[66:14]

But we think there is. We have a mental construction that there's something in addition, something that has a cognition. And that's a thought construction which is very powerful and so we're totally addicted to it. Because you can take over the world with it, which we have done pretty successfully. And now we're suffering as a result of of imagining somebody who does her life. Now, is that clear? Well, you say we give a label to separate persons, okay? Right, but I think you've already set up this thing already that I'm a separate person. Right? So before you label me, you already made me separate.

[67:19]

You have a thought construction that I'm separate from you. And one of the reasons why you do that to me, poor little me, is so you can label me. Because it's hard to label something that you don't think is separate from you. It's practical in the real world, yeah. It's practical in the conventional world because in the conventional world we have conventional speech. And conventional speech is that you have to have something that exists there. We feel funny putting names on things that don't exist independently. So we imagine that things exist independently and then we put names on them. So in order to use language we sort of have this imaginary thing to the world. because language is so powerful. And again, it's hard to reproduce, if you're a human, if you can't speak the language. Like, want to go on a date? Or, will you marry me? No, I won't.

[68:21]

I want to marry him. So in order to play that game, you have to play the delusion game too, to some extent. So it's quite practical. Yes, it is. But it has certain problems. Fear. Because once you make these things separate from yourself, you become afraid of them, anxious about them, stressed by them. Because the mind has created a stress by constructing something called the separate existence from other beings. We do not have any kind of existence like that. But we imagine we do, and then we feel scared of these separate existences that are going to like us or not like us. Yes? Yes, non-separate ego?

[69:24]

You're welcome. in relation to this idea of studying your intention and getting a sense of whether you feel good about it or not. And it seems as though sometimes a good intention, a worthwhile intention, doesn't necessarily feel good. Could you give me an example of a good intention that doesn't feel good? Okay, he said an example of a good intention that doesn't feel good is the intention of a daughter about a difficult topic. Right. Well the topic, the difficulty of the topic and the dangers around talking to a daughter

[70:30]

around a difficult topic, like the dangers of talking to a daughter about something that the daughter doesn't want to talk about, the dangers of talking to the daughter in such a way that she will be angry at you or confused or reactive, all those dangers, they don't exactly feel good. But do you feel good about going into this dangerous place for the welfare of your daughter? Do you feel good about that? You can say whether you do. And also, well, ultimately, I'm talking about at some point in the present, do you feel good? And also, would you feel bad if you stayed away from the difficult conversation? Would you feel because of the dangers surrounding it? Would you feel bad about that? You would. Yeah, so would I. But to go into a really dangerous situation, and generally speaking, to talk to one's daughter is always a dangerous situation.

[71:40]

To talk to one's son is a dangerous situation. To talk to one's spouse is a dangerous situation. Always. To talk to anybody is dangerous. But if someone needs you to have a conversation with them or you need to have a conversation with them because you have a job to do there, to avoid it because it's dangerous, we would probably regret that and feel bad about it later. Right now, of course, we feel good about avoiding it, but then a little bit later we feel really bad. It was our job. It was actually our true job. And then once in a while you go into that dangerous place and you do your job and you feel like, I can die now. I did in my life. I was there.

[72:43]

Yeah. It was dangerous, but I was there and yeah. It was good. That's the way I wanted to live. And I did one moment. Now I'm still alive. But it doesn't mean that this stuff will be easy and that there won't be danger all around. It's not easy necessarily. Sometimes it's easy to be in danger, actually. But there's never a time when there's not danger. But sometimes it's easy, like, if you're really, like, in danger, in danger, in danger, after a while you get into it enough, and you're kind of, like, kind of comfortable there for a while, until you take a break, and then it's hard to reinitiate. But generally it doesn't feel... When you're first opening up to danger, generally people do not feel comfortable with the awareness of danger all around if they're not used to it.

[73:48]

And usually people become afraid first. And when the fear subsides, it's not exactly easy to keep facing it. It's very challenging, you know, like ping-pong with somebody who's really, really a better player than you. It's not easy to play with them unless you're trying to lose. Easy to lose to somebody who's better than you. But to actually play, to be as present as you can with somebody who really pushes you and shows you, you've got to really be present. We call it hard or challenging. But that's where you grow. And to avoid these challenging situations, we will regret avoiding challenging situations at some point later. I mean, situations that were actually offered. Here's a challenging situation. You say, no, thank you. Or you can say that, but I mean, that you really feel that way, like, this is not a gift I'm going to receive. But there's a way of seeing it so you don't avoid the, you don't, you really do not avoid the gift.

[74:56]

You actually do receive it. Yes? Yeah. Yeah. Yes? Yes, still your intention. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, still, a skill would be involved in living in a way that's in accord with your intention.

[76:04]

That would be what you would call skillful. And so you have the intention to live for the benefit of beings, and then somebody comes in who is physically, perhaps, in such a way that you feel really uncomfortable. You know, like they're swinging their arms around or something like that. They look like they're going to slap you in the face or knock the furniture around or something like that. You know, and the physical presence of the person, you feel uncomfortable with it. And you haven't necessarily lost sight of your intention to live for the welfare of all beings, including the two people we're talking about, you and this person. So the skill would be how now, what would facilitate that? Yeah, we don't know.

[77:05]

Yeah, it might be, you might say, hey man, I'm scared of your arms flying around the room. You know? Or, you know, Could I ask you to move back about six feet? Or could I move back six feet? Would you please sit down? I'm feeling uncomfortable with your arms moving the way they are. I would like to ask you to like, could you, you know, and maybe the person just can't, you know, so then you have to like practice martial arts. Work with this body for the benefit of everyone concerned. But you may not have the skill yet to do that. So you may slip into fear or something like that. But that's not what you wanted. So then you confess later, you know, when you were in a room like that or when you were moving in that way, I wanted to interact, my vow was to interact with you in a skillful, beautiful way, but I slipped into fear that you were going to hit me or cause damage to yourself or the room.

[78:14]

No, I don't think the fear causes it. The fear comes from believing that there's a separation. If we get over this feeling of separation from beings and don't believe it anymore, we will not be afraid. As we say, without any hindrance, no fears exist. without the hindrance of feeling like you and other beings or things even are separate from each other, without believing that anymore, these obstructions drop away, there's no fear. And you can see actually now, in the meantime before this removal of these obstructions occurs, these obstructions due to seeing separate existence and things, then we can still work with it by confessing the fear and other things that arise from this belief, from this mischief. And by admitting our unskillfulness, we start getting closer and closer to the root cause, the root condition, the root awkwardness, is that we're from beings that we're interdependent with.

[79:42]

And we work more and more closely with that until we verify that it's an illusion. And then there's no fear. And also then there's clear vision of what's skillful. And eventually the ability to get your whole being to cooperate with it. How does that work for you? Okay. Really? Okay. Yes. . You put it quite simply, let's say you're bonding two bells, and you want to hook them later, and then everybody says, well, I'll hook you later.

[80:52]

They go to the right, and they go to the left. They can't go to the middle, and then you just wait. You have to do a lot of stretches, and then you can't get the bell, so I stretch it to make it go to the left. you might be familiar with anybody but that's my other point is yeah we talked about feeling pain which makes us allow intention your pain when you realize it's not something that's good what i've learned about is like We both grew up with deaf people that we had to be divided. We started off to be service. And now, later, I love to speak with them and support them. And I didn't feel the same then. And now I do. I don't even feel the same.

[81:55]

I guess my question is, why does everybody feel the same with them? Well, one answer would be because of addictions. Yeah. addictions distract us from our actual relationship with beings. Of course, some addictions are literally devised in order to cause people to numb, to numb them from pain, to actually hurt other people or be hurt themselves and say they didn't hurt. And there's a fundamental addiction which almost everybody's vulnerable to, which is the addiction to, you know, that things exist or don't exist.

[82:59]

Another addiction is addiction to sense pleasure or self-mortification. You know, being concerned with, you know, getting some pleasure, you sometimes don't notice that this might hurt someone if you got the pleasure. So you're using your addiction to sense pleasure, or I should say the addiction to sense pleasure distracts you from noticing how you're related to everything. ...to the other side, that can also distract you. It's not so common. But sometimes, you know, it's not so common in terms of ascetic self-mortification practices. But a lot of people, actually, the way they practice self-mortification is by criticizing others. They feel uncomfortable all the time by negative judgments that are going on.

[84:07]

But it takes them away from a much more intense feeling of discomfort at the center. where you will feel fear until you enter a relationship with this. So basically I would say it's addictions that take us away from the place where we can feel how difficult it is to live together if we're not enlightened. But when we find that place we will get over the sense of separation and we will be at peace and it will be comfortable once we understand. But to be in the middle and not distracting ourselves without being enlightened is uncomfortable. To live without distraction in an unenlightened state is painful. is frightening.

[85:15]

I mean, we're afraid in that state. So women and adults run away from that by various means. And then they do things which are causing more pain even than the basic pain, but they're checked out so they don't notice. But then sometimes they do this and then they feel, I can't believe what they did. when they grow up and can stand to feel more pain, when they develop more patience and tolerance for what it's like to be an unenlightened person. And then they see how hard they believe that they could do such a thing. As sport? Yeah, or some people have boats, huge boats, you know, in their yard, and then they put the boat up on a trailer and then pull it with a large vehicle to a lake and put the boat in the lake and ride around the lake and then they shoot some things from the lake and get back to the trailer and drive it home.

[86:42]

and tremendous amount of fuels necessary in order to do this afternoon recreation. And you watch a person, you know, out in the boat, it seems perfectly nice, you know, they're just like out in the water, you know, driving a nice boat, and it's getting, you know, the mountains, it's just beautiful. What's the problem? It's so pleasant to be out there, especially with some drugs, you know, on the boat, you know. And, you know, and then you go back home and it was a nice day maybe, and then, you know, or maybe you run over someone on the way home, which makes it nuts. But if you get home without killing anybody, you know, then you can watch TV. And it doesn't seem that bad, you know, but basically the person is, it's called recreation, but really it's avoiding recreation. It's blinding yourself to your creative relationship.

[87:49]

I went with my cousin one time. He had the gun. And he shot at a deer and missed. And then he shot a chipmunk. And I was... I really felt bad about this tiny little chipmunk being shot by this big rifle. I thought it was really disgusting. One of my hunting was I attended him. But I really thought it was stupid for these two pretty big boys having a gun to gang up on the chipmunk. It didn't really, you know, appeal to my heroic sense much. What I thought would be more appropriate would be like to wrestle a bear. Like Davy Crockett or something. Remember Davy Crockett? Yeah. But I think some people hunt, you know, more courageously, like some people do with a bow.

[88:59]

And they go out in the cold and sit out there in the woods for hours and hours until a deer comes close. It seems a little bit, you know, more dramatic and I don't know. Not so horrible. Yes? I was curious if you could say more about true recreation. True recreation? Chopping wood. I think true recreation is to open your eyes to the creation you're involved in right now without moving a particle. Now, you are doing this tremendous thing with all beings and they're supporting you. That's the recreation that's happening right now. To move at all from where you are, thinking that over there you will find recreation, you're missing the recreation right here. So basically, unmoving stillness right now is our true recreation.

[90:05]

it's always available. And in the arena of true recreation, there is always an intention in that true recreation. And when you see the true recreation, the vow, the wish, is that everyone would be able to appreciate this. Now that would entail then, probably not too many people would go boating anymore, except maybe if they needed to get food for people or something. They wouldn't do it just to find recreation. They would do it to feed people or something like that or to go to the other side of the lake because it was really beneficial for everybody to go to the other side of the lake. It's possible, I think, to have a creative relationship with a tree. and realize how the tree actually wants you to cut it down sometimes and make it into a boat.

[91:11]

It's possible. And make it into a boat with your hands and use the earth, stone and metal, use it in wood And use these materials to make things with your hands and with the land. And use these things to cut the wood and shape the wood and make the boat. And carry it with your own hands, with your own friends. It's possible we can do a lot of the things which we're doing, but not use them as finding our lives over there. but use them as expressions of finding our life here. So then cutting wood or building a boat can come from our recreation rather than go to them to find our recreation.

[92:13]

Going away now? What did you say? Someone's waiting. Oh, who's waiting? A friend of yours? Your sister? Say hi to her for me, please. Yes. Yes. the arising of the vow is exactly the creation. It's the same thing. And if the creation involves beings who are created with us, who do not see it, then it is natural for us to wish them to see it because we feel the pain of them not seeing it.

[93:28]

And we are happy that we're not comfortable with them not seeing it. But we aren't comfortable with anybody who's enjoying this. And we wish that they would. And we wish to do anything to help them to awaken to what we're doing together, which they are distracted from. Yes. Yes. Well, actually, I'm not saying there's nothing to be done. I'm just saying... that while we are doing things, you said doing occurs, okay? Action occurs. I'm saying if we don't pay attention to the action which is occurring, that then the positive transformation of the world will be hindered if we don't appreciate the doing that is happening.

[94:50]

Because every moment Every moment of awareness has doing in it. Because every moment of awareness and intention is the definition of doing. So there's not exactly something to do or not to do, but rather there is doing every single moment of consciousness. Okay? It's already there. And I'm just saying, if we don't notice that, our lack of attention to the doing that's hinders positive evolution of our world situation. And I'm saying that ignorance of or ignoring the intentions that are present each moment, not noticing those things, tends to produce harm. Huh? I didn't mean to. Yeah, I think I want an answer, but I'm not saying to succumb to the desire for an answer.

[96:05]

If I did succumb to the desire for an answer, that would be something for me to confess. That I was so drawn to have an answer that I checked out of observing activity. But now that I have confessed that, now I feel more committed to go back and just be present with the illusion of activity, with the moment-by-moment intentions that are arising here. Usually I say I don't answer why questions, but this year, starting at my birthday, from July 10, 2006 to July 10, 2007, instead of saying I don't answer why questions, I'm going to say, what are you actually driving? See? He didn't want me to see.

[97:07]

Now, can you resist getting an answer which may take you away from not knowing? I hope you can. I hope I can. And I will be with you and not know what you were actually up to at that moment. So that's what I'm doing this year. Instead of saying, no, I won't answer why questions. I didn't say you can't ask why questions. I didn't say you can't say why, I just say I don't answer, but this year I'm going to say, I'm going to try to get the person actually driving that when they put up why. What do you really want? You have a question? You're not trying to get an answer, are you? The doing... And the being, the alive, there's this life. So maybe there, instead of changing like I do something, it's experiencing this.

[98:14]

Excuse me, can I say something? You said there is life. Yeah, that's true. Now, when we say there is life, can you say that without saying that there is life in a way that's opposite from there isn't life? Because I don't agree that there is life in a way that's the opposite. There is life, but life exists in a middle way between that there is life and there isn't life. And there is where we find is in that life which avoids the extreme of there is life and there isn't life. And if we're talking about conscious life, conscious life, even in this middle way, still has an intention, has a vow.

[99:17]

And the vow is to help everyone awaken to this middle way, avoiding the addiction to extremes. It's okay to try out an extreme like it exists or doesn't exist, but just don't use them in an addictive way to take you away from the middle way. It's past the time that I'm supposed to stop. Please excuse me.

[99:56]

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