34 years ago, on July 4th, there was an opening ceremony for this temple. And then after that, there was a period of practice called the practice period. The first one, Calvary, was valid. by Zen practitioners. There were some other kinds of practices here hundreds of years before. We don't know. Anyway, we do know that we started here 34 years ago. and all these objects and I didn't dare to get myself to visit for the first time.

[01:11]

And since that time, it didn't come often on over the years. For some reason, I spent thousands and thousands of hours sitting in this valley quietly. listening to the stream and the crickets and the rain and the wind and the birds and silence. And tonight, too, I'll sit with you and listen to... ...on the stream.

[03:03]

34 years ago, the average age of our community here was probably somewhere between 22 and 26. We had a teacher who was about 63, but the rest of us were not And some, they're using some, maybe some, maybe some few in the 40s. So, of course, now 40-year-olds are 70s and so on. And a number of us have died who are practicing nature. I remember the reasons why people came.

[04:37]

I didn't hear the reasons why for that first summer. But often the reason people want to come is to deepen their meditation practice, to deepen their concentration and wisdom practices. to deepen their understanding of how they want to live this precious human life. to clarify what they want to pass away.

[05:41]

After people arrive here, they sometimes wonder if being in these mountains, devoting their energies to meditation, helps the whole world or not. Sometimes I think they're being selfish to be Living in this peaceful valley. With nice vegetarian meals being served to me. I'm freezing cold posing.

[07:08]

in the winter and it hotels in the summer. I would like to say that for the type of meditation which this place was founded for, you need to understand that skillful at meditation. We must be also skillful activists or political activists even. I believe politics is related to the word polis. Which means a city, doesn't it?

[08:23]

It's a place where people live. And people are practicing meditation yoga, they sometimes wonder if the political activist side of their life, they worry that they're neglecting it. And that's fine to consider that. And it's sometimes true that people who are working in political activities wonder if they're not overlooking their meditation practice. And I would again say that's fine to wonder about that because I don't think we can release spiritual activists unless we're also spiritual yogis.

[09:25]

So those who are devoting themselves to practicing yoga, meditation, studying the teachings of meditation in the mountains, in order to really understand those teachings, they also have to understand political activity, how to work with people. And I also would say that the people working in political activity outside the monastery need to understand how their minds work in meditation. They need to learn how to take care of their body and mind so that they can see what is actually true. Otherwise, although they wish to work for the welfare of all the people and all other beings,

[10:34]

They may simply be acting out the workings of their confused and deluded minds, and not only cause trouble, but even get cooked out and quit causing trouble, get burned out, which is probably a good thing if they're causing trouble. But it's an unhappy thing for them to quit. And then when they recover, if they ever do, and they resume their work, unless they find out what it was that was causing the burnout, they just resume the troublemaking of whatever. Hating George W. Bush or hating Al Gore or hating... a Ralph Nader, or hating right-wing, hating left-wing, or, if not hating, looking down on as inferior, feeling superior to those who don't understand what you understand.

[11:42]

In order to bring harmony, we'd have to, like, overcome looking down on people who we think are causing evil in the world. We somehow have to have compassion for the people who in an extreme way disagree with what we think is helpful to the politics, to the people, to the city. We need to take care of our minds so we don't cause more dishonor. But also just taking care of our minds isn't enough, because we can't understand our minds properly unless we're active, unless we work together with other people.

[12:50]

Because it's possible that you think that you have a good meditation practice and you're taking good care of yourself, But actually, it won't show up unless you actually go to work in some politically active way. And if you're fairly calm, you might hesitate to go to work in a politically active way because you might not feel so good to be shown the limits of your meditation. You might want to stay in the country with the trees, who don't bother you that much. And there's a lot of people who come to Zen Center and they do actually like trees a lot more than they like people. And some other people like dolls more than they like people. To such an extent that they're actually devoted to dolls but aren't devoted to people.

[13:57]

You learn how to take care of the mind so you don't have to build trees over humans. Build humans over trees. When you're noise whipping properly, you don't, you know, you don't value one form of light over another. All light, highly. And you find a way to work it out. And if we think we value our lives highly, then we need to be really good at it to see if we really do. Because we may think we do until we stop working and then realize that the present is us. So Casa Har is a place for people to come and look at their minds and see how they're working. Understand how they're taking care of their heart and their body.

[15:02]

To learn about how instillful we are so that we can admit that and let go of instillfulness. And the summer is hard. in a lot of ways, resident practitioners, because, in fact, they're pretty active politically in some way. They're actually interacting live with the people, and it's hard for them to manage their body and mind and interact with so many people, residents and guests, and still can find a balance between attending to the quality of their cousins and doing the work of relating with each other and with the guests and with the trees and with the water and with the crickets and the mountains and the dogs and the sheep and so on.

[16:14]

But Luckily we've been doing this for 34 years and we'll see how it goes from here. And how it goes from here has to do with what each of us wants to work on in this life? Do we want to help this place thrive as a practice place so it can help other places? And do we want to help other places so this place can thrive? Did we do something to help each other today?

[17:28]

Did I do something to help one person today? Did I intend to help one person today? If I did, I could maybe ask that person how I did. So I could ask a few people right now in front of you all how I did. They might say I was helpful, but it would look like I was showing off, so I'm not going to ask them. But maybe I'd better ask if there's anybody who I harmed today Anybody that I discouraged today, maybe you could say it.

[18:31]

And I could hear it. But maybe I wasn't helpful to you. Maybe you could tell me that. Yep, right now I'm not discouraging you. Is there anything you'd like to bring up? Yeah. You were mentioning earlier about not valuing one way or the other.

[19:32]

Yes, not valuing one life or another. Relating with the... So... Um... Well, the picture that's in my mouth right now is one that was in the paper the other day of our president with a bunch of American suits in Kosovo. And, um... I have a very hard time with the amount of energy that's put into, like, sending people somewhere with guns and all this sort of thing. But I don't... As you say, I don't want to put myself superior to them because I choose not to send people with guns or go somewhere with guns. And I don't want to .

[20:37]

So that's what I want to give you. Could everyone hear him? You have a hard time with lots of energy going towards armies and then sending them to those places. And you also don't want to look down and disappear here to the people who are in the army or who are sending them. So I feel that way too.

[21:45]

I think there's probably several people I don't feel that way. And in question, it may well as well, how are we going to put that problem, that pain, that conflict, that conflict, Well, one thing is, I don't think I have to, like, switch, I don't think I have to, like, start looking down on those people. If I wanted to somehow get involved in bringing a lot of attention and devoting my attention and then getting other people's attention to look at whether it's necessary for these armies. I think I could do that. I think I could do that without looking down on anybody.

[22:48]

Now, some people, I think, they get a little juice out of looking down at people, because that lifts you up, and if you didn't lift it up, you wouldn't feel good for a little while. So there's that side of being lifted up about these things. So how can we work to bring attention to situations where we feel in disagreement with events, the way some day they might help me bring attention to that, without, again, putting myself up in front of somebody else's time. And are there any situations right in your hand, not right nearby now, Is there any situations where you actually know of some way to bring attention to what's going on?

[23:59]

And attention to what's going on might include bringing attention to some places where what is going on you disagree with. But you could also work at bringing attention to things not necessarily that you disagree with. Because I, all day long, I have situations that I need to bring my attention to. It isn't a disagreement situation. It's just that I need to work at bringing my attention to the situation. picking up a little kid and walking down a stone stair with him. It isn't that I necessarily disagree with this situation. It's just that I need to bring my attention to it. And also sometimes I talk to people and maybe I feed them. I'm not sure if they are paying attention to what's happening right now between us, around us.

[25:09]

and then I can, like, bring my attention to asking questions about their attention. All this, of course, you can't be thinking, I'm superior, my attention is superior to yours, and I'm going to teach you how to pay attention to what's going on. And that often would go, I think that easily goes with that I disagree with the way you're paying attention or with what you're doing. More like, just bringing attention doesn't mean that I think I'm superior to you. As a matter of fact, I bring my attention to not so much prove that I'm superior to you, but to actually pay attention and understand. and to do it in a way that helps me understand how you're paying attention. Everybody's paying attention, the question is how? How are you paying attention?

[26:11]

So one of the ways maybe we can help in situations where we really disagree with the way it can be handled, given what we know so far, we don't think it's appropriate. One of the ways we can help is by trying to understand, bring our attention to it and try to understand better what's going on. And if we understand in deepens, we can share that on anybody who we can interest in paying attention. All this can be done, but most efficiently, if we're not thinking that we're superior to other attenders. And also, if we don't think we're superior, we might be able to actually find them interesting, to be actually interested in what do they see there, how you see it. And if you act with that attitude, if you ask with that attitude, they might feel your respect and they might follow you.

[27:14]

And if they tell you what they're doing, in the process of telling you what they're doing, it's to some extent by reporting what they're doing. that increases their awareness of what they're doing. And that's basically what I'm hoping for, is that their awareness will develop. Otherwise, it will force them to change, and that's to understand better. And better means better awareness, better use of their mind. That means I'm working on trying to use mine, too. It's also possible, it's also possible, it's also possible that as you find out more, you might say, oh, I see what you're doing. See, that could happen. And that's one of the good ways to take care of my mind, is to have it be open to the possibility that the people I disagree with, what's actually happening there is that if I understood differently, I might actually find something to appreciate that.

[28:25]

and maybe they're more aware than I think. I think I should be open to the possibility that people who are doing what I disagree with are actually more federated rather than... Well, that's impossible. You know, these people are just totally off to lunch. They're just not aware. They're like unconscious and not just for sure. That's, again, breaking the precept of appreciation. It's to be sure that there's appreciation, which sometimes maybe some of us do, right? We just come in the scene with all this side with people at all, rather than arrive at the scene and try to find out what's going on. That's really hard. That's really hard. That's why we, you know, that's why we have these, this culture has a heart that has to help.

[29:29]

It's because it's really hard to do that, and it needs a lot of, a lot of encouragement to shift our editing approach to things. It's really hard to change that way. Thank you. Anything else you'd like to bring up? Any thoughts? Do you change? Well, sometimes it seems like the people that these are sort of disembodied. there is some sort of negative giant multinational corporation or some such.

[30:31]

Yes, it doesn't really have accountability to us as people. I'm sort of wondering about how you interact with it. Well, how do you interact with something that doesn't have a face? How do you interact with it? How did you just interact with it? Ready? I'm sorry, I don't get that. First I asked you, how do you interact with it? And then I asked you, actually, how did you just interact with it? It's as though you just interacted with something that you said has a notion of the faith. You just interacted with it just now. You spoke with it. So that's what you did just now, right? Is there any other way you can interact with it? Some of my colleagues on the left believe that property destruction is the way to go.

[31:32]

And I wonder if... So he said some of his colleagues on the left believe that property destruction is the way to go. So go with that which is faceless by property destruction. How about going with that which is faceless by property enhancement? Did they ever try that? Was that what the white lady did? Some argue that Fairbrook's door-front windows in New Seattle are better stocked. I don't really have an opinion. Thank God, that's an advance. Some people argue that Fairbrook's door-front windows is a way to interact. It is a way to interact. That's for sure. And so, yeah, so there it is.

[32:41]

So I guess what I would need to do is study window breaking to find out if it actually is helpful. Not to decide beforehand. It's definitely not helping to protect beings and promote love among all people to break windows. Maybe it does help. I mean, maybe it helps. I mean, it doesn't necessarily hurt anybody to break a window, necessarily. I mean, I'd actually give, you know, work to the window. It's possible that the people who break the window break the windows without the They're really thinking, you know, the glass business is good, you know. They've done research and they find, you know, all these glasses are made out of silicon. There's plenty of sand in the world to make glass. And I always break the windows, you know, to... And then you say, well, you know, consider the example you're setting to... and so forth.

[33:41]

So it's possible that that is a good way to go, that they're going to... Um, but to, but to, like, spit in a policeman's face, I mean, I, you know, is there some, what is, you know, that's, what word is that? Do they have to look at that? Do you think there's something good about that? It would read snow. Huh? It would read snow because... Because those are, those are individuals. Those are individuals, right. People feel disempowered from dealing with that, which is basically, but police, you know. So it's been fine. So police, we don't spit in their face. They can't clear their face, so we're not talking about that, okay? But I would also say, we have this, in this short light, where is the most likely place to have a meaningful function, a meaningful and beneficial function. Is it... That was a mouse.

[34:47]

Is it to rail against the faceless, which means that their face maybe doesn't have any function in it? Or is it to go and find a face? So I guess what... I'm open to the possibility that the way to relate to the faceless is by a faceless gesture. I'm willing to consider that's one way to do it. But my question is, I guess my proposal would be that the key place that things happen for human beings is when we bring our face to another face. So rather than spending our time on the faceless, which also means our face doesn't count. How about the face counts, and our face counts amount in situations of meeting other faces. Other faces are moved by our face, with our face present and loving.

[35:55]

Other faces are moved by such faces. In situations where there's no face, you need to find some way to... I should say you need to, but I'm proposing you consider finding a way to find a face and bring your face to that face. And until you find a face, I think you're just looking for that meeting. You're feeling your way to the faceless. labyrinth until you meet this face. And you gotta bring your face to that face, not bring your, I don't know what, big pile of paper necessarily. You can bring the paper, but the face should be on top of the paper. I think that's where the mis-education happens, with the face-to-face thing that happens. And I think our re-education will happen face-to-face. So your question is nice because faceless things, I think, basically, I don't think there's going to be much change in facelessly meeting the faceless.

[37:09]

I think it's like there's going to be these big faceless things clumping into each other, and they're going to do that faceless thing, you know, which had been gone. There are humans, you know, stars that can facelessly interact in very dynamic ways. The problems of humans seem to be mostly what is a lack of face-to-face meeting. And even with others who have faces, we even then have trouble dealing with that. It's intense. and we don't deal with it then I think we start we start losing our attention and our minds start to be mismanaged when we don't find a way to face the face because we're we're built to look at faces not to this not to look away too we're built to look at them and look away but with attention and to consciously say okay now

[38:19]

and a few words that I can look away. And then I've had enough of that, I'll look back again. So we have a meditation hall where we face the wall. We don't look at each other's faces during the meditation periods that I proposed at the point of the Zen meditation hall of looking at the wall. is to learn how to manage and care for your mind so that you can turn around and look at and be able to stay awake and attentive when you look at those faces. Because it's in those face-to-face interchanges where you really can help each other. where we are really helped.

[39:30]

When we meet someone and you don't pay attention to them, you don't look at them, you don't look at them, and not looking at them goes with not paying attention to them, not looking at them, not seeing what's on their face. When you interact without seeing what's on their face, you don't necessarily know, you probably don't know, So if you tell someone, I don't know what, and you don't look at them, you may not see the tears running down the cheek, and you don't know that you hurt them. But if you look at them and you say, blah, blah, and they cry or wince or whatever, then you can see and you can say, oh, what happened? Yes? Pardon? She said, how much can you really see and how much is it good?

[40:52]

Um, well, if it, at the level, let's say it's a lot, let's say it's mostly pictures, okay? And I would even say, let's even say that not only mostly pictures, but 95% can't even see. And when you look at somebody's face, 95%, of the pictures that are being made that you're not even conscious of. Let's say that. So let's say you have all these pictures. You have a hundred pictures and five . I have a hundred pictures of you and a hundred calculations that my mind is doing about you, the types of calculations that my mind is making about what you might be. She's not a bear. She's not a dog. She's not a refrigerator. and all that stuff is going on, 5% of that I'm conscious of.

[42:04]

And then there's a tendency to think, well, that 5% of those pictures, that's what you really are. Because there's a tendency for me to think that. And that's why, if I do think that, I am basically, well, I don't know what to say. I'm... In a sense, I'm not bringing my face to meet your face. I'm forgetting about my face. And my face has a lot to do with what I think you are. Because what you are is basically in my face. My face makes what I think you are. If I bring my face, and I know my own face, and I know how my face looks, and I even know that the way my face works is that my face keeps 95% of it working away from And when I come beneath you, I'll have some kind of like, I don't know what, I'm kind of like wondering what's going on.

[43:09]

I don't think in that case that what I think is really so. If I'm not talking to you, rather than I'm not doing anything, you're over there on your own. But rather than what you are for me is... to a great extent, to a very great extent, what I'm bringing you for a meeting. So it's not that you're not there. It's just that I come to the meeting with a whole bunch of stuff about what I think you are. And I'm hearing a lot of that, and only a small part of it do I even know about. So, I'm kind of like, I don't know what's going on. And if I meet you with, I don't know what's going on, although I know a lot's going on there, and I don't know what it is, then I'll go. I don't really know what you are, it's possible that I don't get to be in charge of what's going on, because I don't know. And we don't like to not be in charge, or we don't mind not being in charge if the other person would be in charge, and they can tell us what's going on, because they can know.

[44:19]

What they think is really what's happening. But in fact, if both people meet, And even when they have no idea what's going on, there's a possibility of meeting. Somebody said that. The meaning is ungraspable. What? In some of the work that we do here, there's so many interactions at once with the different parts of the work and with the different people we're interacting with. Yes. How do we stay present in that moment when it feels like there are so many other moments

[45:29]

We've got to be present to do the work and to do the interactions. She said, she said, some of the situations during her, there's so many, you know, going on simultaneously. She said, how you stayed present in such a highly dynamic, she said, simultaneously. And what I thought of was autism. I don't know what you figured the other day, but it surprised me how high the percentage of people in this country are autistic. And autistic people, to some extent, could be described as people who cannot cope with all that's going on in our human interactions. They just sit there and they just can't understand how they can figure out what's going on. They're overwhelmed by the information. just talking to one person.

[46:30]

There's virtually an inconceivable amount of information coming to you. And not just coming to you, the information gets to you. Your mind is reworking the information to produce all kinds of new statistics and new probabilities about what might be going on. It is just, you know, totally awesome what's going on moment by moment. So how can we be present with such a complex thing? And I would say, well, just the way we are. And if we try to get control of this and grasp it, then I would say that will make it harder because it keeps throwing us off. So what autistic kids do is they say, okay, they just draw from some of it and they sort of like, you know, memorize Shakespeare or something.

[47:34]

Something simple like that. Just a Coke, you know. You know, or they get an A in math. They do something that they can do, something simple to get control. Other kids, you know, they get to control a more complicated situation. but they can't even. So I think one of the main things that we have to do in order to be present in such a complex world is we have to stop grasping. So, in my interaction with you, or with Shoho, I left with not knowing anything. And that hippocampus feels like, oh, geez, you know. You want to get a hold of how to do this. You want to get a hold. The ego wants to get a hold of how to be present.

[48:36]

To get a hold of how to be present, the actuality of a meeting will throw you through a loop. If you ignore and walk through what's going on, you could think that you could stay with it by the mode of grasping. Sorry. There's no way to do this. There's no way to get pregnant. And yet, it's brought up as a good idea. Pay attention. And the quality of that, or the way that makes that possible, is to give up time to control what's happening. and to even give up control of trying to be present with what's happening that you're not trying to control.

[49:52]

With the proposal that that way of being is to be with the way things actually are, because the way things actually are is that they're not under anybody's control. No one of us, no three of us is in control of what's happening, but we're all in the midst of it. So the question is how to get in harmony with it, and particularly how to bring our face into this situation of what's happening to meet other faces without trying to grasp and control how this goes. and expressing ourselves all along about how it is, about how it seems. If we could somehow enter into that way of being, we would have a chance to go and meet someone who has a totally really different way of seeing the world and find a harmony with such a person.

[51:27]

Together, not you find it, and that person then be told by you. So they're partners with you, this person you disagree with. So you both win, so to speak. You share together the harmony which comes from both of you giving up, trying to control. I can't even myself say this. It goes across my mind. Gee, this seems really hard. But it's more than hard. It's just like it's not a realm of, you know, this is easy, this is harder, and that's really hard.

[52:37]

This is easy for me to do. This is harder for me to do. This is really hard for me to do. It's not in that realm. So if I compare this kind of meditation, this way of caring for my mind to various things in the realm of me doing stuff by my own control, then it would seem really hard to give up control. It's not actually in the realm of hard and easy. It's actually in the realm of things are actually working that way already and nobody has to like push anything around. But I feel like... I feel an open-mindedness in the room. I feel an open-mindedness to this leap beyond our controlling mind into the actual path of karmic... I feel openness to the...

[53:43]

And then, if there's an openness to it, is there an interest in it? And if there's an interest in it, is there an intention in or for it? And if there's an intention, is there a commitment to it? And if there's a commitment, well, let's go. If not, Can you identify where you are in respect to this path of interdependent hominid? That's called the Buddha way. Where do you stand? Are you open to it? Are you intending it, intending to enter it? Where do you stand in relationship to such a practice? Or do you think there's some other kind of practice? And if you do, you're welcome to bring it up.

[55:01]

Open this to you, to what you bring up. Yes? Yes. I had an experience yesterday that I can't very subject in that when we arrived, was confronted with confusion. There was all sorts of stuff happening in the office. Yes. And she was totally present and gave up her attention. What's that person's name? Just kidding, just kidding. We give prizes to the most... Not the day. Yes? It was a really good example of being calm in the presence of confusion and giving good attention and accomplishing what... Yeah, yeah.

[56:02]

And I don't really know who that was or anything, but it may be the case that that person was... used to being confused. So, when the confusion happened, it wasn't just walking along all kind of like, when confused, and then suddenly, wham, confusion gets them and knocks them for a loop. They might be sort of in touch with their confusion, and then when confusing things happen, they just, they can ride it, you know? So it's like we need to be open to confusion, rather than, okay, I know what's going on here, the guests are supposed to be like this, the residents are supposed to be like this, and then fine. I'm not sure exactly what's supposed to happen now when these people come in here. And it's very confusing when somebody comes in this room. It's very confusing. Here's another confusing situation.

[57:07]

And this is my job, is to be here in this confusion. And okay, I'm doing my job, I'm here. And they're happy that I'm here too. They look happy that I'm sort of like staying here with them in this confusion. Yeah, it's... And maybe they'll even ask me, do you feel helped by me being here with you? Yes, I think that's... And that's also part of the meditation, is that you get to sit in meditation when not much is happening really. You're sitting in a room looking at a wall and you're confused. Like, for example, am I doing this, am I looking at the wall right? You know, am I wasting my time? Who's this period? Should I be worried about that kind of thing? Now, if I've listed all that, I sound pretty confused. And yet somebody else is just sitting here on there, and somebody's not afraid of all this confusion.

[58:14]

I think I'm ready to go work in the office. So I'm very happy to hear that that person was able to be present with you and all that confusion. I think that's the point, you know. But they're not like more certain of what's going on than you. I mean, they're like, if you're confused, they're confused. And if you're certain, you know, they're kind of confused how you could be so certain. And then you see, you know, that there is, in all this confusion, maybe you're joining rather than holding on to your certainty. And then we're confused somehow. We don't have to hold on to our confusion, right? We find the right thing for all of us together. But it's hard to take care of yourself in those circumstances.

[59:16]

You've got to be relaxed. Otherwise, you've got to leave. You've got to go, you know, you've got to leave. We met and talked earlier today, and you noted that I have some confusion about love. So hearing you talk now, in the past you said Buddha is what happens in the space in between us, in this confusing space. And I've been wondering a lot since we met about what is this Buddha's love? You were saying Buddha Buddha loves me. Buddha loves everybody. Everything is contained in Buddha's love. This dynamic, uncontrollable, ungraspable space in between all of this is the pinnacle arising itself of Buddha's love. That looks pretty confusing sometimes.

[60:41]

Well, you know, the way Buddha's love operates between this glass's case and this cup is the dependent co-arising of the relationship between those things. It turns, you know, it becomes love. The issue of love arises when you have a living being as part of the picture. So... And there is a living being who uses glasses, cases, and glasses, because these don't exist independently of living beings. So living beings have sensations, they're sensitive, they can feel pain, So the pinnacle of rising interdependence naturally includes that nobody's suffering is separate from anybody else's.

[61:57]

And so in this relationship, You want all beings to be free of that suffering, with no exceptions, because there's nothing wrong with that. And judgment is just part of the mix. Judgment about this person needs more help than that person. This is part of the mix. It's 9.44, usually the bed, I mean, the exhalation usually ends by 9, right?

[63:11]

So, I see one more hand. Should we go to bed now, or should I call one more person? Okay, call one more person? Okay, one more person. The concept of the word love has been very confusing to me for years. And recently I read the definition of love, the absence of fear, or often fearlessness. And I wonder what you think about that, and the definition of that. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, it sounds useful. Huh? It's not inaccurate, it's just that I think that I think that the dependent core rising interdependence would include the realization that the reality of interdependence includes fearlessness.

[64:30]

But there's more going on than just fearlessness. There's also a lack of anxiety. It includes also fear. So fear is an absence in your independence. It's just that when you understand your independence, fear loses its function. It doesn't work in that context, even though it's still appearing. So it's just not hurting anymore. So the spirit of interdependence overwhelms the fear without eliminating it. And in it, there's relationship between beings. But there's a relationship between beings, and the beings aren't exactly the same, but they're equal and inseparable. So there are beings, there are multiple beings, infinite beings, and if their relationship isn't realized, then there's anxiety and fear.

[65:45]

And that's the pinnacle of rising too. And so the realization of the relationship of independence would include that you understand how fear arises from feeling separate. Realization... overwhelms the separateness. Separateness is just an illusion. But there is the arising of this illusion. So we don't have to get rid of the illusion, which is the basis of the fear, or the fear which arises from the illusion. The understanding of the whole picture is compassion for the whole picture and overcoming the whole picture. So fear would be overcome in life. can in fact in love, there is overcoming of fear. But it's also being able to work for all these beings that you're not afraid of anymore.

[66:48]

You're no longer afraid of these beings to come into your life and change everything. And you're also not afraid of the fact that you're coming into their life and changing everything. people not understanding their relationship. So when we don't understand our relationship, then our relationship disturbs our understanding. When we do understand our relationship, we don't disturb each other anymore. So we're not afraid that people are going to live and move and talk and shit. We're up for it. We're up for it. So, like, at dinner tonight, my grandson is making quite a... So, how do I negotiate? You know, I had my rose on. It was covered with all kinds of food and cake. And he looks at me and he goes, huh, keep on eating.

[67:52]

He wants me to hold him, you know, and then... How does that not disturb me to have this little angel fall over me? What overwhelms the fear of getting dirty? Well, it's that intimacy with that relationship. You still might not want your world to get dirty, but it's not really like that. But without understanding our relationship, then some little thing like that can kind of make you feel kind of scared. My clothes. Dirt on my face. Peanut butter and dirt mixed into my ear. And when we understand interdependence, we naturally give up control, turn to control. and things work very nicely. We can see how they're working.

[68:53]

So, it's not that somebody's in control, it's just that things are working nicely. This is what Buddha sees, and then Buddha sees this, and actually sees everybody's cooperating with this, and says, but they don't get it. They're totally working with this nice, harmonious interdependence, but they don't see it because they're clean, and fixing in their views. So the Buddha wants to teach people to let go of their views so they can enter this human dependence, which is, its essence is love, or inner dependence is the true nature of love. So how can we take care of ourselves so we can enter into this this realm of harmony that Buddha saw. And how can Tassa Haravita help us do that?

[69:56]

And then how can we take care of the rest of the world to demonstrate this understanding to people? This is our great challenge in our life. So I've gone and took you up to the lake. Thank you very much.

[70:16]

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