What? What? Pain. Anxiety. What? Something's off. Something's off. You're not lifting into, I'm going to do something about it. You're just sitting there kind of like paralyzed, you know, with the awareness that you've got a problem. Look at it. Not talk. Just kind of like, I've got a problem. [...] How long can you be patient with this problem? Well, maybe I could study it. That, maybe that would be something I could do. You know, I could study it. I could just study it. Without any sense, studying is kind of like, excellent. Maybe that's, maybe studying might set you free. You need to kind of none of your, none of your, none of your doing. But then you get forward.

[01:02]

You can't stand to be there with it, so you act. Then when you act, you get a result. Now this result won't be so easy to say, well, gosh, what? This is going to be like, that last one actually was kind of like. Could have just sat there and watched this. I got to act on this one. I mean, the last time I sat there for a long time before I realized, before I thought I needed to act, and now that I've acted, I realize I really didn't have to act. But now I do this one. Because I did act in the last one, now I have to act again. It's like gambling, right? You go to Las Vegas, you go to the ring, and you look at these people gambling, and you look kind of silly. You don't have to gamble. You think, well, maybe I will get the dollar. He's losing. Well, before I didn't have to gamble, but now I have to keep my dollar back.

[02:03]

The more you play the game, the more entrenched you get. Right. And the more you think you have to play the game. Yeah. At some point, however, you might notice The more I play it, the more I think I have to play it. So I'm going to keep, I'll probably keep thinking that I have to play it, but maybe my thought that I have to play it is just part of the system. Yeah, I don't know. Even though I really feel like I have to, I think more, I more and more think I have to. Every time I fall for that, I'm even more convinced that I have to. Maybe this is not going to work out, so maybe I should actually change my technique and just be like I was back when I almost didn't think I had. Now, when you start turning it around and things start calming down, then...

[03:07]

get to a place where you start to realize that that little thing, that little bug there that's pushing you, like, something's wrong, I'm going to do something about it. That little bug is actually, has to be settled. And that's not standard in depth. You have to work on it. You have to confront it, otherwise you're going to flip through to farming. And you're going to take it farther away from it, postpone the time of dealing it longer. You always come back to it. So you have to work there. run away from it, get in all kinds of trouble. Finally, we're like, oh, OK, come back, deal with it. So sudden and so difficult, I said. Oh, well, that's good. That's good. Now I've got this exactly what we were looking for over and over. So now that we're getting fairly close to home, we're actually not going to run away from it. This time, Go down there and find a way to stay with it.

[04:07]

And for now, if you've got any karma going on still, find a way to continuously study karma. Continuous study of illusion, basically. See if you can gradually continue to study the loop with the non-duality of the basic of illusion. Just gradually. Plan involved. Gradually so. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So what action do you propose?

[05:19]

You know, I don't know. I think about him. No, but I mean, what action do you think he should do? Tell me what he did. What do you think he should do? Are you writing letters? Well, if you think that's right in here too, why don't you look? Okay, let's go. Thank you. Good morning. Where are you? I'm studying. You're studying? I don't know. This is like, anything you share. Then I can do it. I didn't do what I should do.

[06:22]

One more question. How much do you think you should do? Well, I really don't know. I think I should study. No, no, no, no. You said you need to do something. Then you think you should do something. I would like you to tell me what you think you should do, and then tell me what you think you should do. And then after that's settled, then you will do what you said, right? Or you will fail at what you think you should do. Alright? So, are you going to follow through and tell me what you think you should do, and whether you're going to do it or not? You said you think I asked you what you think you'd have to do.

[07:23]

And then if you tell me what you think you have to do, then I'll ask you if you don't want to. Well, I think the first thing I have to do is... I feel like... What? What? What? Be specific. Just to say generally, I have a problem with this thing generally. You know why I have a problem with this thing generally? It seems like I don't know what you're talking about. If I could do something, you know what I'm saying? I do like that, I feel.

[08:39]

Um... I'm still involved in a crime. I'm involved in a crime. What? Is it false? If something needs to be done, you see something needs to be done, and it's un-pulsing now. Un-pulsing for the level you're doing, while you're pulsing it up and down. You see something needs to be done. That's it.

[09:40]

My question to you is, are you going to do that? Are you going to look and see what you're up to? You said you disagreed. You said we have to do something. But the point is that most of us are doing things all day long. So to say you disagreed with me, you think we have to do something. I'm not saying we don't have to do something. I'm not saying we don't have to do something. I'm not saying we do have to do something. This retreat is not about if the name is retreated, we have to do something. That's not the name of the retreat. The name of the retreat is doing it. What are you doing?

[10:46]

Are you aware of what you're doing? Do you know what you're doing? Are you studying what you're doing? And if you say yes, then I can ask you, well, what are you doing? You can tell me. You're a person. You can tell me, maybe. And if you say you don't know, then I say, well, please find out whether it's wholesome. And if it's unwholesome, then how come? If you're not doing something that's beneficial, how come that you want it? I'd like you to find out what you're doing. So, if you hear me saying that I'm telling you not to do anything, you misunderstand. I'm not telling you what to do or not to do. I'm asking you, what are you doing? Now, I can disagree with that. I'm not telling you what to do. I'm asking you, what do you do? And if you think you need to do something helpful, then I would say, well, what are you doing?

[11:52]

And you can tell. But it's hard to tell me, isn't it, what you're doing. What you're doing because it's hard for me to see what you're doing because it's hard to look at what you're doing. Even if you look, it's hard to see. It's hard to see if it falls in line with what you're doing. Isn't it hard? It's hard to do a little, and it's harder to do a lot. I'm asking you, I'm suggesting you consider that it's time to do it a lot. It's time to do it so much that you'll be able to see the source, and then it's time to look at the source a lot so that you can become free of the source of it all. And then, there won't be any more karma. And you'll act like you actually have karma.

[12:54]

In the meantime, until you understand that, you will continue to do karma. All of us will continue to do karma. I say, you will all continue to do karma until you understand that karma is an illusion based on delusion. In the meantime, Again, I'm not telling you what to do. I'm just saying, I'm just saying, I'm proposing to you, I'm not saying, I'm just saying, if you do wholesome karma, it will be easier for you to study karma. If you find wholesome karma, it will be harder for you to study karma. I am saying, I think it's good for you to study karma. I am saying that. I'm not exactly telling you to study karma. I'm just saying, this week is a course on studying karma. It's about karma, to study karma, okay? That's what I'm here to talk about, how to do that. And I offered the class because I think it's really important to study karma. You know, I don't really think it's important to do karma.

[13:58]

And I don't think it's really important to be alive either. I just think we are, right? We should take care of it. I think we are human. take care of it. I think we do do crap, but I think we should take care of it. The reason why I think so is because I think it would be great if we all woke up and were happy. So I'm not telling you what to do. I'm telling you that I think it would be good to watch what you did and there's good. And no matter what I tell you to do, you won't do it anyway, so I would probably be losing my time. But maybe if I encourage you to do that, you could do that, practice that. And you get to decide all things you do. And you also get to decide whether you watch yourself. And I just get some credit for encouraging you to do that. But still, I come to for you to consider

[15:04]

whether you actually would like to start and maybe commit yourself to awareness of what you're doing. Try to develop that awareness and be consistent. I'll tell you what I'm saying. And also, I guess I'd like anybody who... has the view that you can be happy and enlightened and free without studying what you want to do. I don't see it. I think you have to look at this stuff to be free. Otherwise, I think you're dominated by the changes. That's what I think. That's why I tied the glass the way I did, because that way people would be hearing about that kind of stuff.

[16:13]

And you have had to. Stan? You have got to be honest. Oh. Oh, please. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I can't believe it. I just, that was supposed to happen. I don't know. [...]

[17:15]

I don't know. It's fairness related to justice. Well, I think that what we're dealing with here, of studying karma, I think is the way to realize justice And so rather than... I would say justice is... Justice is what's happening. The way it's actually happening. That's what I think.

[18:15]

To me, justice is the way things are actually happening. How would that communicate to me? Do we have anybody? Do we have somebody here who's going to walk like that? Sorry, I didn't have to show my person. Let's go with that person you're asking me for justice, please. Well, if I say, if I could tell you the situation, if you've got this person you're asking me for justice, please. That's it? It's out there to me? Yeah. Pardon? Right, so then tell me more about the story. Tell me more about the story. I know, but tell me more about the story.

[19:21]

People are coming to talk to me, right? Okay, so they're asking you a question. Okay, so you lost your child in the daycare center. What's your question? Okay, now I'd say, do you really want me to answer your question? Huh? Okay, you really want to hear my answer? Really? Okay, number one, I don't answer a live question. Okay, want to talk to me? Okay, now ask me the question about why. I do. Pardon?

[20:21]

Okay. I wasn't there. So I don't know how. Okay. You want to tell me how it happened? So if you don't know how it happened, I don't know how it happened, then we're going to go with this. You're doing pretty well. I mean, I can imagine your parents saying, I don't know how I... I can imagine them saying, I don't know how.

[21:25]

And, yes? I wonder if that would help me. I don't know. So it sounds like what you're saying is... I understand. How is that? What are you acting tough for? Nah, I'm not acting tough enough. I'll work for it. Well, who do you expect to pick up the hot and gentle stuff?

[22:29]

They did? Would that help? I know, but would it? Would that help? No, that's... I don't think so. Right, but what would help? I think studying the soil... Party? Yeah. So, and that might help them study their sorrow. This is not about fairness yet. This is about if they're suffering, if they have sorrow, if they have loss, if they don't like that they've lost their child. That's what we've got so far, right? They're not into fairness yet. They're into fairness, but I don't particularly think they're getting into that yet. Help yourself. I don't, you might, but I don't see it.

[23:37]

large form. And when I got to the airport, I went to the airport and got a long ticket. I was in the U.S. and that's the fall of the United States. I was out in the U.S. I was out in the U.S. The people standing in lines were very upset, very mad. And probably half of the people in the lines were very vocal about it. The people standing on the counter were a lot more than just trying to pick out a big section for the loan. So this had worked my way through the line. I wondered and touched, what's there? What's wrong? And I actually, I didn't know what I was going to do.

[24:59]

But I was amazed at how vocal and how what's going to be a kind of people with full strength that you're going to hear that. And I thought it was the same thing that I'm going to be able to have. You wonder what the same thing was for how that, how that helped me respond. Right. But what am I saying is to help them to do in a situation like that? What am I saying? What am I saying to do, folks, in a situation like that? What? What? One person at a time. What? Well, during this workshop, what am I saying to do in the line? Study karma.

[26:04]

Of course, that involves feeling your pain. But I'm talking about more than feeling your pain. Of course, you have to do that because your consciousness has pain in it. your pain, you're not going to be able to see your karma. So you study your pain, and you study your karma. That's what you can do in the line, when you're waiting in line, people are yelling. That's how you can do that. I don't know what it'll do, but that's your job. Their job is to be behind the counter, and hopefully they're studying their karma. while they're doing their job. Your job is to be in the line. That's your job. Unless you get out of the line. Then your job is to be out of the line. But if you're in the line, you are or you are not doing karma of being in the line. If somebody's coming to see me, I am or I am not doing the karma of talking to them.

[27:08]

What are they doing? Are they doing their job of meditating on their karma of being a parent who lost a child and doing whatever they're doing? E- Yeah, probably not. And in cases like that, again, you see, cases like that, in those cases, we think the situation is so bad, I don't have to practice. That's what I said. Because you're overwhelmed, you think, since I'm overwhelmed, now I shouldn't practice. I should only practice when I don't have to. But now, when I'm on the verge of committing maiming, now I should not practice because the situation is so bad now, I should go out and find somebody to blame for my child's death or somebody to blame for this storm.

[28:17]

It's gotten bad enough, so forget it. Isn't that what happens? That's the way karma works. You do karma, and you get results, and the results are painful and disorienting. And then you think, I'm overwhelmed, so I don't have to practice. But I'll do something about it. I'll punch this person in front of me who's screaming at those poor workers back there, or I'll punch the workers. I'm going to find some suffering. Well, not just add to the suffering. I'm going to do something about it, and I'm going to fix it, and I'm going to take revenge or whatever on the situation. It's a cop-out. The whole thing is based on cop-out. The fundamental thing is cop-out. What do we cop-out on? Well, yeah, we cop-out on not practicing. We fundamentally cop-out on what's happening. If we don't need to practice, well, then we don't need much of any schemes not to practice, because it doesn't matter much.

[29:27]

And then when we don't practice, when it isn't necessary, then we get into situations where we're, like, you know, I'm overwhelmed, and then, of course, we can't practice it, right? So when things aren't so bad, we don't have to, and so then we don't. So then things get really bad, so then we can't. So basically, we never have to, right? Because things either aren't bad enough to practice or too bad to practice. They're never just right. They're never just right. Including right now. Right now is not a good time to practice. Right? Bad. Or for some people, they are that bad. Either it's too bad, this workshop's too overwhelmingly bad, and you can't practice. Or it hasn't got bad enough. So you can wait until it gets worse. So I'll do some karma for that person and later I'll practice.

[30:29]

Rather than I'll do some karma for that person, which is of course I'll do karma no matter what, but I'll watch myself while I do karma. But I can't watch myself while I do karma because that's too luxurious. Making mad is a result of bad karma. And so we have plenty of bad karma, so we have plenty of bad karma stored up, which we can use at any time we want to, to tell ourselves, we can't practice now. So because of bad karma, we say, I'm too busy, the situation is too hectic, I need to practice, so I have to, I can't practice, rather than, people need me to practice. I need to practice. That's always the case. And I really have a hard time doing my job. At least I'm not confused about the fact that I do. What's happening? I'm not confused about that. I just sometimes forget, but that's clear. There's no situation. It's not really a practice.

[31:30]

And all day long, I've got to be responsible for myself wherever I am. And does that help other people? But if I don't do that, I will definitely harm other people. Definitely harm them, and also set a bad example, which is the worst harm. Whether I'll be able to help them or not, it's not clear. But we don't know how long it's going to take. And people come at me, they'll come at me with all kinds of stuff. They want justice. They want freedom. They want money. They want fame. They want recognition. They want all this stuff. What's your job? What's your job? It's very difficult, though. Especially when... I think you skipped a step.

[32:53]

That's all right. You talked about what it's going to do for other people before you talked about what it's going to do for you. Because what it does for you is that you and I are not just unhelpful, negative influences in the world, you know, we want to take care of ourselves. We do take care of ourselves, we protect other people and ourselves from ourselves. Let's also look at other examples. Don't overlook the fact that you're, that you, that your attendant is creating problems. Double help. Double help or double hint. If you don't meditate, if I don't meditate, what do I do?

[34:02]

And we have very little encouraged to pay attention to ourselves in this way. I never heard it all the way through school. I never heard anything about this. Grade school, junior high, high school, college, I never heard anything about this. All this stuff I got popped, and you didn't tell me, but now it seems to be the most important thing for me to do. Fuck me. Fuck you. I don't want to say [...]

[35:27]

Does that mean nobody can? No, but what makes you think you can't do it? By citing case 37, what do you mean? You can't look at the mind that's looking for me. No, I didn't say look at the mind that's looking at the mind. I said, can you see the quality of your consciousness? You can't see the awareness. But your awareness can be aware of the quality of your consciousness. Because the qualities of your consciousness can be objects of awareness. So I'm wondering if your lack of response meant that nobody knows how to do that.

[36:40]

I wonder, isn't that kind of relative? Like you say, you're maybe more so than you were, or I don't think that's completely... Do you have some sense of quality of the consciousness? And what are you aware of as quality of the consciousness? I'm aware of certain reactions that I have to it. So, for example, right now can you see the quality of your consciousness? Right now you can. Can you see quality of your consciousness right now?

[37:48]

Can you do that? Can you see a little bit of the quality of your consciousness right now? You can see the preceding moment? How could you see the quality of your conscious preceding moment is gone? But how could it be there if it's gone? Reflection. Yeah. Yeah, what? Reflection. So, you can see a reflection of preceding consciousness in the present? Have you seen? And where is that reflection? It's part of the present. Yeah, so you can see the present. It's not really the present.

[38:55]

It's a reflection of the past. Interesting. Yeah. So what you're looking at right now is a reflection of something that happened before. Interesting. However, This is theory that you're talking about. You actually see it. You call it a reflection, but don't you see something here now? So what do you see? When you look at the state of consciousness, what do you see? Reflection. I know, but what reflection do you see? In my state of mind. I know, but... The beginning of this conversation is about your state of mind, okay? We got that now. We're talking about states of mind. So I'm not asking you to tell me over and over again that we're talking about your state of mind, okay? I'm asking you to tell me about what is your state of mind.

[39:58]

And I'll tell you that. Like action? Like, I don't know, think about it, or action, or... Yeah, and things not... Yeah, not... Need to speak, like that. Not so much what you said, but what you're thinking of right now. For example, a person can think, right? I would like to eat this grape. A person can think a thought like that. I want to eat a grape. That's a thought. That's a kind of thinking. That's a pattern of thought. I have a grape in my hand. And I want to eat the grape. The grape looks good. I want to eat the grape. That's an example of a pattern of thought. Is it that you like grapes? I'm holding a grape, I like the grape, and I want to eat the grape.

[41:05]

That's an example of something I could be aware of in myself. I'm actually telling you what's going on right now. I see the grape. I'm holding the grape. I see the grape. I like the grape. That's actually going on with me. I'm telling you actually what's going on with me. I also think it's okay that I'm holding the grape. Okay that I want to eat the grape. And okay that I haven't eaten the grape. All that's also going on with me. Actually, I'm telling you actually. I also think I'm telling you about what's going on. And I want to tell you what's going on, and that's going on. I'm actually observing my mind right now and telling you about it. And I would say that what I'm doing is, if I want to judge the quality of wholesomeness or unwholesomeness, I would say it's fairly wholesome.

[42:08]

I haven't done that yet. I haven't put in that I'm not so hungry. But now that you want me to check, I am kind of hungry. And part of the pattern in my mind is, I think it'd be all right if I ate this thing in terms of my diet, too. I have part of what's in my mind .. Now I have it in my mind that grapes are very good for me. I don't feel like I'm overweight. I haven't eaten that much today. I think it would be OK to eat this grape. And I want to, which is also part of the reason why I think, aside from my awareness of what's going on, which I think is quite wholesome, but wanting to eat is fine. That's what I'm telling you about. That's my opinion. And it's changing all the time. Stan? Just give me a second. When you say, it's up to me, that nuance of language sounds a little bit like I get to decide all by myself.

[43:32]

And I would say that I wouldn't go that far, because the way I figure out it has something to do with the consequences that will occur. And the consequences are internal and external. So internally, I get to decide whether what I'm contemplating doing according to who I am and what I think is appropriate for me. Externally, I'm concerned with whether the behavior will be approved of or punished by society or by nature. So both ways, I use those two considerations to guide my behavior. Okay? So it's not just up to me, but it is up to my, not up to, but my sense of how things will work for me among other creatures, my sense of that.

[44:39]

think is appropriate. That's what I'm using to evaluate whether action X would work out well or not. So it's not that each of us gets to decide unilaterally about everything we do, but rather that in terms of evaluating and getting works in your own mind, you can go by what you think. And if you have some questions about it, you can discuss it with people. But basically, Nobody else can really check inside on what your motivation is. They can ask you, but basically you're the one who looks and sees and tells the man. You may lie to them, but basically you're the one who looks inside and sees, I want to do this or I don't want to do that. And you do or you do not want to do certain things. You do or you do not want to stay in this room. You do or you do not want to wake up. to wake up, I would say, if I had that motivation, I would say that that would be a wholesome motivation.

[45:48]

That would be my judgment. In fact, that is my judgment. But whether I have it or not, I have it or not, and I'm the one who can see whether I have it or not. And then whether I judge it to be, understand it to be beneficial, permanently beneficial or not, then I'm, according to my present understanding, I would have that sense. But also, I'm not clear about it. And so what I do is I act out various impulses and watch what happens. Or I review in my mind histories of the world that I have available to me and check to see how I might remember, oh yeah, last time I did that, actually last 15 times I did that, this happened. So I think that is beneficial because it worked that way all those other times.

[46:54]

Even though it's a somewhat different situation, generally speaking, I've observed that when I do this kind of thing, so maybe this time it will again. So I think I'll try it. and I try it, and I watch. In fact, to some extent, many of us may already be involved in this meditation, and I'm trying to be more involved in it, more aware of it, and maybe practice it in some situations where we sometimes don't. to make this kind of meditation more fluid, more fluent, become more fluent with this kind of observation. Grace, would that answer your question somewhat? So would part of meditating on the whole thing is to, like, Checking out whether the great boy is organic before you ate it.

[48:01]

Well, for you, that's part of it, right? That's part of what you feel helps your sense of doing a wholesome eating practice is to check out the source of your food. So that's what you feel, given your background. Someone else doesn't even know about organic. So for them, it's not a consideration. So for the best of their knowledge, since they don't even know about it, they try to figure out, given what they know, what will be the wholesome, skillful way to go. What if they know, but they don't? They know some of the stuff, but... How much do we have to check out about the positive effects of our actions in order to do what's awesome? Is that what you mean? Yes, I do. Well, it's like, again, like in any kind of, this is kind of like a kind of scientific experiment, right?

[49:03]

You have some feeling to do something. Like, you know, I think of reaching over to get the grape for an example. Okay? And I stop just to get my motivation here to get this grape. Well, my motivation to get this grape is the discussion of meditation on karma. Okay? Now, is that sufficient for me to pull this grape off here to get into that? And also, am I going to get into me doing it? Maybe I'll just for the sake of study, I'm going to get into me doing it. So now I've got the grape. Now comes time to consider whether to eat the grape. The grape's already here, so consider the experiment of eating the grape. As in most scientific experiments, you bring a certain amount of information. So

[50:07]

If you bring a certain amount of information to bear on the experiment, and with that information you think this is a wholesome act, then you might say, well, for the sake of studying karma, I think it would be good to try this experiment, because this will lead to beneficial results, according to my understanding, plus increase the likelihood of me continuing to meditate on karma. So I have the thought of doing that, and I entertain that thought, and I have not yet eaten the grape, but I entertain the thought of doing it. And actually, I don't know if you can, are people following this? I'm entertaining a thought, a thought is supposedly a wholesome thought, but the point of this thought is that it's wholesome. I'm putting that emphasis on the wholesomeness of the thought is determined by the fact of me being able to meditate.

[51:14]

So the kind of thinking I'm doing promoting awareness of my thinking. The kind of thinking I'm doing promoting awareness of thinking. For me. And for you. Now, I'm talking and you're thinking. Is the kind of thinking you're doing right now, listening to me talk, is the kind of thinking you're doing promoting your awareness of your thinking? Yes. Well, I was just asking myself this. When you first started with the question of what is the state of our consciousness, I then, from then until now, would go in and out of watching what And what I realized was that I could only be even out with what you were seeing.

[52:20]

A lot of my attention and focus was being with where my compass was. So I hear you say that when I ask you the question, you kind of turn around and look at your state of consciousness, but that in some way it's harder to watch your state of consciousness while you're listening to me. Yeah, that sometimes I would, and maybe I'll mislabel my state of consciousness. maybe both of my states of consciousness, but there was one state of consciousness that was focusing on my internal process, and then there was another which was listening to what we had to say. Right. And obviously I couldn't do both at once. So it sort of means to me that when I focused on what you were saying, I left behind... I would say you couldn't do both at once and what I thought you were saying was you couldn't listen to me and at the same time observe your I would say you can do both at the same time however

[53:45]

The internal process of listening to me is different from the internal process of not listening to you. But both, the internal process is going on in both cases, and in both cases you can observe it, I would say to you. But they're different. One, the karmic, and the other, it's not actually karmic necessarily to be receiving information. Hearing, strictly speaking, hearing and seeing, listening, is not, is not karmic. It can or cannot be. So, if you feel like you're not particularly listening to somebody, and you feel like you're looking inside to see if there's any kind of impulses, a certain kind of awareness, then when you hear you notice that you're more like listening now and looking to see if you have some motivation or impulse to do something.

[54:47]

Okay? But in both cases, you're watching your internal process. Receiving information is not necessarily a volitional path, except in a sense of you feeling like you're turning your attention to that But the actual listening, the actual reception is not karma. Not everything that's happening with us is karma. A good share of our existence is just receiving information. When we think, I am going to do this, in other words, you have a thought of an action. You have a thought of an action. In other words, your mind, the thinking of your mind has a kind of inclination That thinking, the pattern of your mind, but receiving data is not the pattern of your mind. But the act of going in to observe my state of consciousness, that beginning impotence, was coming, in that it was a try, it was an attempt, it was...

[55:58]

It was a foolish to draw it into you. It played that but turned off on you. So, watch this. She's telling us that the trope, the move, the gesture of looking at her karma, of looking at her mind, she said, she's confessing to us that that for her was karma. In other words, she watched herself turn to look And she says, and we can believe her or not, anyway, she's telling us, in all honesty or whatever, she's telling us that she felt that when she turned to look at karma, she was turning with her karma. It didn't have to be. It could have been like the boy when you say, hey, you. Like it could be that at some point in this retreat, I could say, karma. And your mind could turn and look at karma. without you feeling like you did it. But you're telling us that that wasn't the way it was for you.

[57:03]

That you intentionally said, I'm going to turn and look at the karma. So your turning to look at the karma was karma too. But you see, she watched, she saw the karma of her action and she was doing it. Okay? So if you say that, I agree, that's karma for you. You might say now, I might ask you, do you think that was wholesome or unwholesome? I would say so too. And it didn't seem like it was not karma for a period of, I don't know what, when it stops being intentional, it stops being me doing it. When it stops being intentional, then it stops being karma. And once you're now watching your karma, the watching doesn't have to be karmic anymore. But the turning toward the meditation, at the beginning of the meditation, you might feel like, I don't know how to start it without it being karma. But after a while, it might be able to happen, say, karma, and suddenly she just goes, boop, she's watching it.

[58:03]

But she's not watching it like she does the watching. And then the watching itself is not karma, plus the starting, the initiation of the watching might not be karma. But she might be able to watch the karma. So again, that was a really nice example. She heard the instruction. she decided to do something about it. What she did was she looked at her karma and she noticed that while she was doing that, that was another karmic act. But then after she started just watching, the watching itself wasn't necessarily karma. Then she noticed that if I talk, she starts listening to me. And that listening seemed to take her away from watching her karma, which is right. in a sense, because when you're listening, you're not watching karma at that time, but you are watching your internal state. And your internal state is now, you know, in terms of what you're looking at, you're not looking at karma, you're looking at just reception. Receiving data is not karma.

[59:05]

Feeling pain is not karma. Feeling pleasure is not karma. Tasting a grape, the taste of the grape, as you're aware of it, that's not karma. that you don't like the taste, and wanting to spit the grape out, that impulse to spit the grape out, that's mental karma, that's the pattern of your mind, you know, given, you know, you calculate all these factors now, okay? So now you got a state of consciousness, and that consciousness is a certain, registering a certain taste, certain values about that taste, And also, there is a sense of self-respect here, and there's a sense of decorum. Like, for example, in Israel it is not to spit grapes. They should be carefully taken out of the mouth or whatever. Or, you know, for me, I don't care about spitting grapes, but I know these people...

[60:09]

They don't like spitting grapes, so I've got to realize that I think it's okay to spit grapes. I don't feel like that's beneath me, but these are kind of highly refined, and they don't like it, so I have to take that into account. But I still have this impulse to want to spit this grape out, so maybe what I should do is come up with just carefully taking it out, and so on. So you have the agni states in mind, you observe them in response to the taste, but the taste itself rotten taste, that taste itself was not karma. And you can learn the difference between that and the impulse to do something about it. And then, when the impulse to do something about it, you can tell what kind of context is that in. Is there a promotion and an encouragement of that act, such that it seems beneficial? Or is there a promotion and a permission for the state even though it's harmful.

[61:12]

And when you have a harmful impulse and there's support for it, then you've got a state of unwholesome karma, at least mental. Then are you going to act on it? If so, you act on it, physically or verbally, and you watch and you say, now it looks like we've got unwholesome verbal karma here. Now we have unwholesome physical karma. And then hopefully you keep watching and see how it works. And again, you don't have to put this heavy thing on there. You can do this in a very light way of just being aware. And all this data, all this intelligence, tremendous intelligence you have about all the experiences you have. And without running around and trying to heavily categorize things and analyze, your mind naturally analyzes. You just need to sort of... Sometimes, like, just relax in the space and let all the information start coming to you.

[62:16]

Like when you try to remember your telephone number sometimes. You try to remember, where is my telephone number? It won't come, you know. But just relax. And similar with this situation, if you can relax in the middle of the situation, somehow you'll learn how to, like, get the information in a sense. Oh, it seems wholesome. Now, it doesn't mean it is. It just means it still remains to be tested. At least you've got an example, and you can write it down on a piece of paper and check it out later if it's a mental thing, or if it's physical or verbal, it happens, and you can see how it worked for people. You can say to people, did that seem wholesome or unwholesome? Was that skillful or unskillful? They can give you time yourself. Because there's an internal, external aspect of it. Internally you can say, that worked well for me, how did it work for you? This isn't, these are not final truths, these are constant experiments in how things work.

[63:19]

This karma thing works. I'm not sure, but I think the original term, or the term he used when he originally posed the question after break was, can we observe or stay at mind? Is that right? For quality of consciousness. One thing is quality of consciousness, namely all the different qualities, the sum total of the qualities, okay? So, part of what I'd like to know is if you can see the qualities of your mind. Like, is there pain there? Is there anger? Is there lust? Is there confusion? Is there faith?

[64:21]

Is there diligence? Is there honesty? Is there concentration? Is there flexibility? Is there rigidity? Is there hypocrisy? Is there deception? Just check out, is there dullness? Is there restlessness? Is there worry? Is there ill will? What do you got going on? And then, when you get all the ingredients on it, then what's the shape? So, you might say, what's the shape? And then fill in the details of the landscape, or what are the details, and then what kind of landscape does that make? Either way. But the shape is the dullness. Elements, they have various elements, and in relationship they make a shape. So both the ingredients and the shape, qualities and the shape of a given consciousness. It's there, in a sense, it appears, or it doesn't appear. If anybody has some other questions, please tell us about it. But most people, most of us, we have a lot in common, and most of us seem to have a lot going on in every moment of experience,

[65:30]

mentally, physically, and it has a shape or not. And the shape is the definition of the mental karma at that time. When you initially asked the question, and you tore it back and forth, I was thinking more in terms of And how can you report on this, what is for me a steady narrative of sometimes coherent, sometimes gibberish stuff that just kind of runs and runs and runs, of mental formations and the emotional formations, or was it what you were just describing as being shaped, the consciousness, or the larger ingredients? Blessed, greed, envy, honesty, happiness, unhappiness, and so on. I didn't quite understand your question. Maybe could you make it a little shorter?

[66:32]

Do you want to try another time to make it a little shorter? Okay. Do you want to now? No? No? When you said no, did you check your state of consciousness before you said no? Several times. What did you see? Did you think no would be wholesome? Initially, I felt kind of squelched. I felt like the question wasn't that germane anymore. It was more to the emotional reaction to it, more than evaluation. I didn't really want to ask the question again. And you thought, no. And you said no. And between when I asked you and when you said no, you checked several times?

[67:36]

Yeah. Fast. Caffeinated tea on the screen. Ah! Maybe that's the trick, Linnea. Lots of caffeine. This is called introspection. And some scientists would say that introspection can't be scientific because, you know, You have to be able to get the thing out where it can be seen and measured. And that's part of this process. We can get out and it can be seen and measured. Our body and our voice, our body posture and our voice can be measured and seen by others.

[68:37]

So it can be somewhat objective. But the funny thing about this kind of study is that it's partly subjective, which no one else can see, and yet I still think there's a science there that you can experiment with in the sense of that that kind of stuff precedes this verbal and physical action which can be objectively witnessed. And so I... I'm asking you if you have a sense now of how to look at the shape of your mind, how to observe your thinking. Sometimes I wonder if there's a danger of my killing myself or, you know, like how I'm cured. Don't wonder. Just say yes. There's a danger of killing yourself. Okay, so what do you mean if you wonder if there's a danger? Well, then I feel confused.

[69:43]

You feel confused if there's a danger of killing yourself? I sense that, for instance, a knee-jerk kind of reaction. Okay, you're confused. So what do you do about the confusion? You can express the confusion. If you feel confused, you can tell someone else that you're confused. And if you're confused, usually people will not talk you out of it. So sometimes you might be confused. You tell people about it and they say, no, you're not confused. You say, oh, wow. But usually when you tell people you're confused, people will say, OK. In other words, that you can verify that you are confused. In other words, you're not confused about your confusion. Okay? So, there you go. You can be clear about confusion. In other words, you can clearly observe if you're confused a lot of the times. A lot of the times when people think they're confused, they're right.

[70:46]

As I say, very seldom do people tell me they're confused and I feel like, no, you're not. And they tell me, but that is confusion. However, their observation of it is not. and they're being able to tell me about it, quite accurately sometimes, that ability is coming from the clarity of the observation of the confusion. So you can be both clear and confused simultaneously. Now if you're confused and you think it's clarity, then you have confusion on top of confusion. And that often also happens too, that people tell me how clear they are, when actually it's confusion. So they're confused and they think they're clear. If they can get it out, we can discuss this clarity and sometimes they can say, oh, I'm confused.

[71:48]

So some people are confused and think they're clear so that they're kidding themselves. Other people are confused and think they're confused. They're not kidding themselves. They're right. And in fact, a lot of unwholesome actions are contemplated in a state of confusion. Like, for example, we think, I love this person and I want to be cruel to them. So, I'm going to do this. Or, I think it would be good to do this cruel thing to them because I love them. And the person might say, well, that's kind of confused, isn't it? The answer is, that's right, that is kind of confused. Think about it some more. I mean, study that thinking some more. Is it really good to do cruel things to people you love? Think about it. Now, if you think it has enough confusion, that's clear, that makes sense. You want to be kind, and so it will cause pain. That make sense?

[72:51]

Okay, so tell somebody about that. And then the person will say, no, no, that's quite confused. If you hate someone, then it would make sense. Both two would go together quite nicely. However, do you hate yourself too? Yes. Well, then that would also go well together. If you hate yourself, then doing cruel things to other people would go with hating yourself. This makes sense. But if we go a little further, do you really And I think to go further, we find out that the person doesn't want to suffer, actually. They're just, you know, overwhelmed by ill will spreading all over their system. And they forget that actually the ill will comes from self-concern and comes from wanting to be happy and protect yourself. I trigger confusion, and then the person can see, oh, I'm confused. Actually, I do want to be happy, and I don't like pain, and I do want to be free, and I'm feeling frustrated about that, so I'm angry, and I'm lashing out, and yeah, so that anger and lashing out is kind of inconsistent with what I'm really... Yeah, I see, I'm confused.

[74:03]

Okay, and the things I was thinking of doing are based on that confusion. Oh, I see, okay, yeah. Hopefully this all happens in the realm of discussing and meditating rather than acting out. But sometimes it doesn't, of course. So this kind of introspective observation and also observation of how we wind up talking and how we wind up acting This is part of what will make this study of karma grounded in the experience. And this skill is very important so that this isn't just theoretical. So I noticed that I'm caught in something that you said earlier, and I keep going back to that point and bringing it into the present.

[75:17]

And that was the example of the Eddie Murphy movie or whatever. It's like looking at something quickly and then closing your eyes. And then a lot comes in. And seeing what you can remember. And seeing what you can remember, yeah. And seeing what you saw. Mm-hmm. And... Maybe it was something after that that Linnea asked. I thought, if you looked at something, if I look at something a little longer than just a flash, then all this other stuff comes in behind it, like how I feel about it, the story, the... In fact, it seems like if you look quick and then not look, it's almost clearer. Or maybe the mind keeps going, and if you keep pace with it, it's clearer. And if you slow down, then there's like baggage that comes in, and maybe that's the shape. What I began to wonder is if that's kind of... that the mind is watching a baggage that arrives.

[76:24]

That's the word I'm using now, but... the stories... Yeah, so if you have a small sensory, a brief sensory experience, you know, like just a, for example, just a pleasure, just something pleasurable, a taste, and then it senses a pleasurable taste. It's very brief. And a lot of those experiences, there hasn't yet arisen this scenario. So if you're receiving information, at the moment of receiving the information, that reception of information is not karma. If you then receive some more information, that also is not karma. But usually we don't just receive, [...] receive. Usually we receive, receive, and after a little while we say, wait a minute, I'm going to do something here.

[77:27]

Sometimes because we've accumulated enough information so that some pattern is appearing and the habit of thinking comes back. The habit of thinking might or might not come up for us to see. It might lead to... It might arise without us observing it. But anyway, then a thinking moment can come up. And it's true that the likelihood of thinking increases forever. If it doesn't happen, it's more likely that it will. Because we don't usually think too long without thinking. We don't spend long stretches without thinking, usually. Unless the sensory experience is extremely intense. Then sometimes we stop thinking for quite a while sometimes. In states of extreme pain, we don't even have time to think what we should do in response.

[78:34]

And what can happen sometimes is special... special moments of our life, there can be some pain, and just at the moment when we would ordinarily think, geez, this is a big pain, I should do something about it, just at that very moment, just before we have a chance to think, the pain gets turned up. And just then, of course, the more likely now we're going to think of thinking, just at the time when it gets turned up again. And that keeps happening for a while. For example, perhaps childbirth is like that. A lot of women might ordinarily think during pain time like this, but since the pain is increasing, that pain just overwhelms them and they can't think. It keeps going up and up. Then after it goes down, you might think, geez, what if this happens again, blah, blah. But anyway, it does sometimes happen that pain gets so intense or pleasure gets so intense that you actually can't, the force of your life is such that you can't

[79:38]

away from the sensation. And you just are there with it. And karma is not an issue for a while. That does sometimes happen. But still, the longer it happens, the more likely it is that karma is going to break back into the sea. Because we don't like, we're built to not spend time without thinking. We are built to not spend too long without thinking. That has certain adaptive value to us. to interject thinking into this process without waiting too long. Some people, it's like, well, especially when the stimulation is fairly neutral, some kind of thinking can completely take over. For example, like some college professors, they're doing mathematics, and the sensory input is practically zilch. It's like they can hardly remember that they're in the classroom. feet are on the ground or that students are looking at them their concentration is totally in the mental realm and they're just purely thinking and they're driving they're driving their thinking through these abstract realms with very little check on whether there's an earthquake going on or not and in some of these cases earthquakes do not notice they're just the thought the thinking is totally the thought karma

[81:09]

is so powerful, which can accomplish amazing things. Like Albert Einstein's, you know, thought experiments. He could just like, just take off. He would start with some physical sensation and then and just think it right through. Tremendous, with tremendous concentration. Totally cut off from further input. Because the thought, the thought process has become so intense. So, these kinds of patterns can occur. So if you have a short burst of sensation, if it's short, then it's more likely that that could happen without being interfered with by thinking. If it happens another time, and another time, more baggage comes in, and then baggage then, as more baggage comes in, then you get more of a shape, and then thinking becomes more vivid. then it gets to be a point of a real impulse and so on, so you're not just receiving the data.

[82:15]

But there's another factor, and that is that a little burst of information gives you a certain amount, and you get another burst of information, another burst of information, you get more sensory experience sometimes without the baggage interfering. So sometimes you can get a bigger picture with a few more bursts before the baggage comes in. So that some people, for whatever reason, give them a little piece of data, they will bring their baggage in really fast, and they would understand better if you asked them about it before they had a chance to bring their baggage in. That's your example. Other people can concentrate on sensory events longer, and the longer they get, the better the picture they get, because somehow they can concentrate on sensory fields without their baggage coming in, maybe like painters or musicians. they can stay with it, the sensory thing, longer than most people without the baggage coming in. Other people, without the concentration of the sensory field, if you give them a short thing, they give them a long thing.

[83:21]

So there's different patterns and we can train ourselves as sensory things, as thinking things and so on. There's all kinds of patterns. The point is, what's going on with you and which kind of a creature are you today or in general? Are you someone who can stay with sensory input without bringing thinking in for a long time? get a more and more vivid picture without interfering with your impulses to act? Or are you the type, actually, that you almost always strongly interject thinking? You know, you pepper your sensory input with lots of thinking. There's different styles. And some people just pepper their thinking with sensory input. You know, that's a thinker, right? Some people, they're sensation types, right? I mean, they're mostly sensation, and occasionally they think or feel. Other people are like, occasionally they think. Other people are mostly thinking, and occasionally they feel, and so on.

[84:27]

Different patterns. Which one are you? And how does your karma work in all this? This is to check out, because this thing is what's driving our life. So each of us has to look and check, not has to look, This is about looking and checking, and that crate's been sitting there a long time. It's been only bothering me that you put it there and just abandoned it. Well, I didn't abandon it. I've been taking care of it. I feel desirous of it. You do? Yeah. What kind of desire? Is that a wholesome desire? Yeah. What's wholesome about it? I'm hungry. And you think it would be good for your health and promote your dharma practice? I hope so. The hope is nice. Do you think that eating this bread would promote your dharma practice? Check it out. Yes. Now watch your dharma practice.

[85:35]

See if it's promoted. Good to me. That's great. Yeah. Great. This is an example of, you see, wasn't that a nice moment for all of us to eat crepes like that? Now, I kind of like that, to eat crepes with that kind of presence, concentration, and also careful consideration of whether eating promotes dharma practice. Problems with that? We have lunch coming up in just a minute. So here you have the opportunity to consider, carefully consider, whether every bite is for understanding. So when you eat your lunch, check your motivation. See if you can, between each, every bite you take, or every spoon or forkful you take, before you take it, check out your motivation. Is this actually a wholesome thing to do?

[86:36]

What do you think? It's for you to Is it good to eat without checking that? What do you think? Look at, consider it. Is eating without considering whether the eating is for the welfare of all beings and increases your understanding of what's happening, is eating that way helpful to all beings or not? What do you think? How do you see it? How will you understand as you eat? First of all, before you reach, in your mind, what's going on there, check it out. And also check out, if you are able to get from your room to the lunchroom and remember this assignment, remember it during the meal. And so, in order to promote this meditation, I wondered how you feel about having a silent meal, silent lunch. Does anybody have a problem with that? I'll put it this way.

[87:38]

Eat in a small room. How's that? And you can just concentrate on the thinking that you're involved in while you're eating. And see if you can notice. Think. Shut up. Think. Shut up. Think. What kind of... Is this going to be a wholesome intention? And if so, I would say experiment with if wholesome, act. If wholesome, if wholesome thought, then wholesome arm movement. And biting, is it chewing? You know, for welfare, for enlightenment, is that the kind of thing? Or what? Or have you forgotten about the assignment and just drifting off into whatever? So please, you know, check it out during this lunch meal. See if you can observe the quality of your while you're eating, or while you're actually sitting there.

[88:45]

Maybe you should not get too much to eat. Maybe you should just have maybe two trips of the thing, because you might not be able to finish your lunch if you take too much, because you might, I don't know, just think because you might not be able to finish today. I would offer to eat all the leftovers, but then I'd be too much. Does someone have their hand raised? Yes. I was remembering when you said that receiving data is non-karmic. And that seemed to... I don't know how to explain, but there's this phenomenon that happens sometimes after like a pro-on class where I'll leave the class and I'll feel, this is what I want to ask, really buoyant and light. Like I go up to the hill and I can barely feel the stairs at all. It's like just total lightness.

[89:50]

And I kind of wondered about that because it's usually late and it's 9 o'clock and sometimes I really drag up to get those legs. So, if there is this sort of long period or, you know, hour or so of non-karmic, you know, just receiving, receiving non-karmic activity, would Is that phenomena connected? I've often wondered, right in a buoyant lightness energy, how that manifests. Yeah. Well, maybe so. Maybe if you spend some time where you're really, for whatever reason, very receptive and just receiving, and in some sense there's a break, a little hiatus in karma, then it might be possible that certain activities could occur, like walking, which are temporarily, these don't slip back into the karmic movement.

[90:59]

And it's where the walking happens without you doing it for a little while. And you experience the lightness of a life of action that isn't done by you. It's possible that you got a little break from karma even while you're walking. I think that can happen. And at the end of a class, you don't need to have to, except for me maybe, nobody has to decide even to end the class. It just ends. And you don't even decide to leave. The body naturally starts moving with the rest of the herd. And to some extent, you know, for me doing classes and things like this, if I think about, you know, can I teach the Dharma by somewhere before going into the room?

[92:08]

But when I realize that the event just occurs when we all get together, not by me, but we each play our role, then it's quite light. and it's a little, it's an event that occurs, but I'm not responsible for it, and everybody makes it happen, and it's, so it is this thing that happens from this different point of view. So let's say you notice, you know, I know maybe I'm kind of has more sensory experience with the things you've taught. Mm-hmm. So is that, are there better ways to realize what they want to, if you're a particular type?

[93:11]

Well, that's kind of a complicated question, but my first response was that whatever type of kind of inclination you have, it seems like the main thing, the first thing that comes to my mind is to say that the main thing is to observe what your patterns are. That's the first thing that helps to realize emptiness, or in other words, to realize how the main thing is the meditation of what's happening. whatever your experience pattern is. The next thing is that I would say that part of what happens as you observe is you might notice your pattern is somewhat imbalanced or has a certain tendency. And that tendency might encourage you, you might feel some encouragement to open up other dimensions that you don't usually pay attention to. because you might be limiting yourself by your habits.

[94:19]

And opening up these other dimensions might be part of what would help you understand how things are happening and become free of the pattern. But the main thing, anyways, is the observation of what you're doing, or not doing. ...the karma, to see if you can see karma. Another suggestion we'll experiment is that when we sort of end this session, that everybody just sit here for a little while and observe the impulse to leave the room, observe the impulse to leave the room, observe the impulse to leave the room. Just watch that impulse. See what, you know, again, what kind of impulse that is. Is it just kind of like social habit that usually when a session ends, I mean, you leave because if you sit there, someone might say to you, what are you doing sitting there?

[95:37]

Are you okay? In this case anyway, I'm asking you not to rush out of the room unless you really want to. But if you do rush out of the room right away to look and see, What's that about? Because I'm kind of like saying, can we put a moratorium on the normal way of ending a session? The normal way of ending a session is it ends and people leave the room, especially if there's a meal following. That's the usual way. But let's just put a moratorium on the usual way and not worry about the fact that they're going to eat eventually. and they don't want us to come in there at 1 o'clock for our meal. Just forget about that for a while, okay? I'll take responsibility for causing trouble. I don't think you'll stay here for too long. You might. Just sit here. Don't worry about it.

[96:37]

You don't have to leave right away. At least, truthfully speaking, we'll all permit you to stay if you want. Is that right? Everybody okay with somebody staying for a while? No one will tease you if you stay for 10, 15 minutes. I should leave right away. People might tease you if you leave right away. Let's say it's okay to leave right away. The first person to leave will not be considered the weakest, will not be considered the least concentrated, will not be considered the most impatient or mindless one. Okay? Okay. But one of them. But one of them? No, we'll consider none of those. Or you might be considering that, but we'll try not to judge you for being the first one. What? Yes. Yeah. So the first is going to be the real body software.

[97:39]

It's going to be the real body software. So just let yourself stay as long as you want and meditate on the impulse to leave and what that's about. So my main suggestion is please tune in and see if you can get a sense of your impulse. And is that karma? And is it something you're doing? And what is the quality of that? And then see if you can stay with the impulse a stay with observing your impulse to see how you get yourself to wherever you're going to the bathroom to the dining room for a walk wherever you go see if you keep in touch with the fact whether you are whether you are impulsing yourself along or being or being driven along by impulses and what kind of impulses are these and see if you can carry it through lunch

[98:48]

And then, if you actually are able to do it at lunch, see if you can carry it through the break after lunch. And then, see how the impulse gets you into the meditation hall after lunch at 2.30. And then see what happens with these impulses when you sit in meditation at 2.30. Watch the impulses. Watch the thinking. Study it. See if you can stay in touch with it. See how long you go before you lose it. And then if you lose it, see if you it again and meditate on it again and see how long you stay with it before you lose it. So check it out. And if you don't want to do this, this assignment which I've given you, if you don't want to do it and you resist it, then what is your impulse there? Some of you want to do it and will forget and some of you don't like the assignment and will resist it. And what's that impulse there?

[99:51]

What's the mental concomitance of resisting this assignment? What's the shape of not liking this assignment? What's that? And can you stay with that? And so on. Okay? Any questions about the assignment? Well, I just want to tell you something about myself, if you don't mind. Impulse to say what I said. And I thought, when I saw the impulse to speak the words I spoke to you, I thought those were good impulses when I spoke to you. So I'm doing an experiment.

[100:55]

I've been doing this myself while I've been talking to you about doing this assignment. See my mind create. this thought of this exercise. I thought it would be good for you, so I let it come on into my speech. Now I will be watching to see if it was good for you, if it was helpful. So I'd like feedback from you to help you see whether or not it was good that I spoke. I'm having fun doing this meditation. So I just took a couple minutes of a journal, and then the next phase of our study is here. So far we've been talking about trying to get a feeling for what karmic is.

[102:45]

Any more questions about what karmic is? Do you have what? The first one has to do with when you came into the Army. How about, how about, how about like, you know, with the pilot, trying to deal with the class. Something like that. That's not good or bad. Like, you know, it's not... And I, you know, hung with it, whether it was an individual or a group of humanity or whatever kind of crowd I was about.

[103:56]

But you know, I think that that needs to take place against the way I felt. So is this an individual chance that you're doing? Depends on how you understand this teaching at Greenwood, but the usual way it's been understood by most Buddhists in history is that you're confessing karma over eons. And the person, you're not confessing other people's karma. And you're not confessing other people's karma.

[105:01]

Although, of course, you live with other people. And that's probably the best part. That's probably the context in which karma is arriving. You're not strictly speaking in response to what other people do. I have a question. With all these works that have been written in the States, I don't know if you want to talk about them. I'm hesitating very much because I feel like It's hard enough to read books to concentrate on what we're studying right now.

[106:13]

If I get into that at this point, it might be too much. Just, you know, people get caught up in that. Especially since, I think what I would say would be somewhat theoretical, historical, and philosophical. And not everybody could stir with it. I didn't want to talk about it later, but I did want to talk about it. I'm trying not to really look at what calm is, how it arises, what happens with it, you know, that kind of thing. It's actually, we've all heard a lot of theories So far, very few people are actually meditating on how it works, which is really the liberating process that I'll be talking about later.

[107:17]

So the slang, the way crime is used in slang, it actually has an effect on him. He had good crime. That means, you know, he's rich and healthy. A lot of people like him. So that's not the proper way of using the term in Buddhism to say you've got good karma, even though some Buddhists and some Zen teachers even say so-and-so has good karma. What they mean is you are a manifestation of the results of good karma. So human life is a result of good karma. and being able to hear Dharma is the result of good karma. But it's not good karma itself. It's the fruit of good karma.

[108:27]

It's not karma. Being helpless is not karma. Being sick is not karma. It's looking at karma. One way of looking at karma is two-fold. Namely, no, that's a letter. You can have the other one. And you can have this one. That pile right there is my... There's Pastor C. Charlie. So you can look at karma two-fold or three-fold. Looking at karma twofold is that karma is volition. That's its definition. And volition is what we've been talking about, the landscape, the watershed.

[109:29]

You notice I said landscape, but it's not the landscape. It's the watershed aspect of the landscape. It's the watershed. of a consciousness, that's the volition. And that's karma. That's the karma that's of your mind. Then the other kind of karma is karma after that. There's an original volition, and then another kind of karma is karma which is based on that volition. And that could be more thought, or it could be physical postures, or it could be vocalization based on that will. Or the other way to do it would be to say common threefold, and you just get the thinking, the voice, and the body.

[110:32]

The voice and the body are the second category of action after having done willed. Is it possible to have a tension or a relation without believing and accept itself? Yes. Would that be karma? Huh? I don't think you can have karma when you don't believe and you can isolate an individual. Isolate an independent self. I don't think we have karma then. there'll be volitional action for a really good time. Or just be like, you know, if you just took the top of an enlightened person's head off by their consciousness, you might just see sort of the shape of their mind. Like there would be an inclination of the dispositions of the consciousness going somewhere, right? But it doesn't go anywhere.

[111:35]

It's just a kind of like shape of the mind. but such a mind does not apprehend that as a reality. It's just a shape. And that shape can have something to do with what happens in terms of body and speech. But the self is not interjected. Actually, you're not based by this independent self, so then it doesn't become common, it doesn't accumulate habits around that, you see what I mean? but still might, the mind might still have a shape. What would the shape be? The shape would be what we call, the volition would be what we call, the thinking would be what we call, right thinking, right intention, right volition, which means the shape of the mind, if you look at the shape, it would look like it was going

[112:42]

in a non-cleaning way. Look at their mind and say, oh, look real non-cleaning here. The tendency of this mind is towards non-cleaning. So, if there was like a picture of them going into a store or working in a kitchen, or decorating a Christmas tree, or meeting an old friend, whatever the picture was in the mind, it would look like a little kind of story about detachment. It would look like loving kindness. It would look like gentleness and non-harm. That's what it would look like. But it wouldn't have this person who's doing it. So it would accord with, it would look like a nice person. It would look like a story of the action of a nice person, but the person wouldn't be there driving it anymore.

[113:46]

It would just be, you know, bodies, you know, bodies interacting in a certain way, or minds interacting in a certain way. And it wouldn't be karma. Therefore, these beneficent actions could occur without accumulating bondage. Whereas if a person does these good things, loving-kindness, gentleness, and detachment, does them with the self there, they're wholesome actions, they're in karma because they're one more example of something done which is celebrating delusion. Another act, another event celebrating the belief in the individual self, which makes that belief a little stronger. And in a way, you know, good karma, the self had it too. Because actually, and kind of successfully celebrating, saying, see, here I'm getting by with being a self.

[114:50]

I'm being a nice self, and everybody's letting me be a nice self. Things are going quite well. It's not so bad to have a self and believe in it. The other way, Say, well, I'm not getting by very well at having a self, but I'm going to take revenge on all these people who are giving me a hard time for being myself. That's an unskillful way of believing in a self and acting out. Ever hear of that one? Well, there are two ways. They're both, though, reinforcing and making another example of self-does, independent self-does things. Yes. Would you say it again, please? Well, say it the same way. You know how to do that. You did that once I read it. I have always thought of taking responsibility as being related to a self that's taking responsibility for action.

[116:09]

Yeah, that's right. Taking responsibility that there is no self. Well, if there's no self, what is responsibility in the first place? Well, I guess that's the question, isn't it? When you're taking responsibility, you take responsibility for what you think you did. And since you think you did it, you think there is a self. If you really... It's not only you think there is a self, but you think there is an existent self. And you do things on that basis. You literally think One literally thinks, and you might be one of those ones, one literally thinks that one is actually existing as an independent person, and one actually acts like that under some circumstances when pushed. Other times you can sometimes act as though you didn't think you were a self, a self-independent self. Like sometimes you give your possessions away to people as though you didn't even think they belonged to you.

[117:11]

So at that time, You still might think, I gave them away, but you wouldn't necessarily look like you were giving them away. Inside, you might feel that way. So in that case, someone said, who is responsible for giving this gift? You might say, did you give that gift? You might say, well, yeah. Now, if you didn't believe in itself, you still might say, yeah, because you know what they need. Did you give it? Not necessarily because you might be making up a hypothetical example for the sake of the other people in the class. But you wouldn't feel responsible for things that happened that you didn't think you did. And when you think somebody else does something, you don't think you did it.

[118:19]

Now, sometimes, as you know, children sometimes feel responsible when their parents are having problems. You know that one? You've heard that story? They think there's something wrong with them that their parents are getting divorced. But they think that they did something to make their parents get divorced. They don't think they're responsible for what their parents are doing and that makes their parents do that. And they don't know what it is exactly. Maybe it's that they weren't nice to their mother, so now their parents are getting divorced. Or maybe if the mother has another kid, they might think it's because they're not nice kids and the mother doesn't love them. Children think that kind of stuff. But if you didn't think you were responsible for something, then you wouldn't think you did it. And if you actually understood that all things come together to create events, you wouldn't feel responsible. But you wouldn't be afraid to say, if someone asked you, you know, did you lift that cup up?

[119:33]

You might say, well, what do you mean? And it wouldn't be that you're trying to avoid responsibility for lifting the cup up. It would be that you'd be actually interested in trying to find out what they're talking about. And you might say, do you mean, did I think in terms of me personally being the causal agent in this event occurring? You could say, actually, I don't. You might say. But I'm not going to deny that, you know, the cup in my hand were in contact or something like that. Yes? You know, I was wondering over the kind of experiments about going to lunch and finding that one looked the appropriate time to go to lunch, one looked the appropriate time to get up. You also did the impulse and various impulses, right?

[120:36]

Impulse. There were various impulses. Right. I saw a lot of, I think, of karmic activity and it seemed that it was involved with looking for signs. I was waiting to find the impulse, and I looked out the window, and I saw a person pass by, and that came up, or is that a sign? Maybe there's a general movement of people that bring up going to the dining room. You mean they're not seeing real force? Looking for the sign? Yeah. Yeah, I would think there would be. There would be. There would be. Look for omens. Talk to some people. They look for omens. as a way to figure out what's appropriate. Well, when I found out about the bell, the oomph on it, I thought, well, it would be appropriate to come when the oomph on said it. But that's not an oomph. That's part of it. That's kind of different. I mean, that's different from looking outside and seeing the... It'd be like sort of new about that. I mean, that seemed to be part of the schedule.

[121:39]

But it didn't work. Because then... Suddenly it sounded like someone was practicing. I was hearing these roll downs. I got confused. I thought, well, that's too weak to be the oompa. And then finally I decided to do the oompa. And then I got up, went outside, and then I heard the oompa when I got out there. And it felt very karmic, the whole process. You know, I heard that sound too before the oompa. It was kind of a funny sound. Yeah, of course. Yeah, there were various phantom sounds occurring. But going to Wu-Pang when it was quite clear, wasn't it? Wu-Pang was a little later than usual, wasn't it? But anyway, you were talking about looking for omens, and... If I might say, you know, that that's kind of a superstitious approach to karma, is to, you know, be trying to figure out what would be a wholesome act, and look for omens which are going to cue you about what's wholesome.

[122:54]

I think, actually, what I suggest is that you look for what is wholesome, for what you think is beneficial. Not that that's right, but that you do have a sense of that, and work with your own sense. And that's not superstitious, that's just your sense. It's not right or wrong. But superstition is like looking for some signal which would be right beyond your understanding. I would say. Like, ooh, I'm going to go off. And that would be the right thing because Jesus told you so, or because of the schedule or something. A Zen monk could make the schedule into a superstitious thing. He could think, oh, if I follow the schedule, Rather than, it might be a good comment to follow the schedule. Well, like the schedule's out there, and that's the sign that the omen of this, or the indication of you doing the right thing, is when the schedule's off.

[124:02]

And that's just that bit, you know, it's out there. Rather than, it's probably... a healthy thing to do for me to follow the schedule. My actions would be healthy if I just sort of like did that experiment of not spending a lot of time trying to figure out what we played along, but just decide this seems fairly wholesome. Slightly different twist. Anyway, work with what you think is right as the experiment because you have a sense of that. And you have a sense of your of how to get along with people and how to get along with yourself. Try that one. And you don't have to wait around for omens then, because you have an ongoing sense of what might be wholesome. And you have an ongoing sense of not knowing what is wholesome too. You have an ongoing sense of what's unwholesome. Kind of connected with... There's a difference between wholesome karma...

[125:05]

And, obviously, and, like, right action. Or you might say Zen action. There's a difference. Now please go on. I'll talk about that later. The quality. I'm wondering about how karmic action and how they mesh or if the moment is like completely karmic or non-karmic or is there a gray area between karmic and non-karmic but it can switch No, it doesn't fluctuate. I don't think it fluctuates that way.

[126:07]

I think that if you're aware, if you don't understand karma, and your lack of understanding, like you'd like to, what do you call it? This is a soundbite. Your lack of understanding of karma blocks your realization of non-karma. Non-karma is always going on. Non-karma is the actual nature of karma. The actual nature of karma doesn't start when karma starts and end when karma ends. Karma and non-karma are simultaneous?

[127:14]

Karma and non-karma are always simultaneous. And non-karma can happen when there's no karma. But when there is karma, non-karma is there. However, if you don't understand karma, you can't understand non-karma. If you don't understand karma and you think of non-karma, you're just imagining non-karma. You don't understand it. You just think, oh, non-karma. That's cool. But if you understand karma, you will actually realize and correctly understand what you mean by non-karma, action beyond karma. So they don't really fluctuate. But if you have karma and you don't understand it, then it will seem like non-karma or non-karmic action is not there.

[128:16]

And then if you understood your karma, then non-karmic action is not there. So in that sense, you might think they're fluctuating. But that fluctuation is not an actual fluctuation. That's due to your understanding. Just like, you know, you look at me, and you look away, and you look back at me, you think I'm fluctuating. I'm not fluctuating. Your vision of me is. Just again, like children think, if I stop thinking of my mother, she'll evaporate. So if she dies, it's my fault. Because I stopped concentrating on it, so she disappeared. That's not quite right. I said, when you understand karma... I don't know what I said.

[129:22]

Check the tape, but anyway... Understanding karma is freedom from karma. Freedom from karma could be called non-karma. Understanding thinking is non-thinking. But isn't something that needs thinking to happen, because the nature of non-thinking is the same nature as the nature of non-karma. They're all basically interdependence. When you understand anything, all liberated dharmas are manifest. You said not understanding karma. What did you say? Not understanding karma blocks the understanding of non-karma. Yeah. Not understanding karma blocks the understanding of freedom from karma. So we must understand karma in order to be free of karma.

[130:28]

But freedom of karma doesn't start when we realize it. It's there before and after our realization, waiting for us to come and realize it. Dharma doesn't die when we don't realize it. Even though it wants us to realize it, it's there all the time. So if we study our delusion, we will understand the workings of delusion, we will understand dharma. We will understand the workings of karma, we will understand dharma. Karma, in order to be involved in karma, you kind of have to, you know, not see the Dharma.

[131:30]

It's pretty hard to, like, actually get involved in karma, like, to understand Dharma. That's one of the drawbacks of understanding Dharma. It's a problem that we have with practicing Dharma, is we have to give up. the world of delusion. It's kind of like this. The self, its belief in self, is essential, belief in self is essential, and work is important. In other words, it's based on that delusion. Thank you. In that case, I don't know if it's necessary at all, but anyway, at the moment, there's not the point of having a beautiful corporate life.

[132:39]

Three is God and one is sin. Three is the creation of God. Well, that's a good question. Now, someone who heard me say the answer to that question earlier in this workshop, or any other time in history, please tell Beverly. Um, it's because it also can be a normal thing to stay panicked, to stay without trying to keep hoping panicked. It can be like that. So we don't have to worry about the way to practice because the children might have other types of difficulties. Does that make sense? Yes, that makes sense. One question was a story about a man with a thousand fingers.

[133:43]

One thousand. One thousand fingers. And, um... Well, actually, 999. That's one of the stories. But, um, so you could perhaps be a Buddhist and not necessarily, you know, and be still, but unfold some activities. And... Yes. [...] This person, you know, this Agulimala, Agulimala means, mala means rosary, I think. Aguli is finger. He had a rosary of fingers, right, around his neck. So this person, Agulimala, this person had tremendous wholesome karma in his background. He had already done a lot of good karma.

[134:50]

First of all, all humans have good karma in the background. positive bad karma too a lot of good karma he had a lot of good karma but he kind of he got he also ran into some real difficult situations to freaked out it's a really mala guy but he had a tremendous good karma because he had a mother who asked the Buddha to go protect him and gave him personal attention to help him. That's called, you know, the result of good karma. So he had a lot of good karma, and the Buddha came and taught him. We all have a lot of good karma to be human, and we all have enough good karma to have something done. Now, even though some of us have done quite a bit of not good karma, Even so, we're still exposed to Dharma.

[135:54]

And if we have enough good comments so that we're not only exposed, but listen, even though we've done these actions based on greed and hate and delusion, we still might hear the Dharma and change our attitude. Now, aside from hearing Dharma in this workshop, You look at your karma. Okay? If you look at your karma, that is, that is, that meditation could be an opportunity for you to see the Dharma and receive the Dharma as you're watching your karma. And so you can see the Dharma in the very situation in which the Dharma liberates you. Right there. And again, if you have trouble seeing or meditating on your karma, you're seeing it clearly, to whatever extent you can see your karma, try to do good karma.

[137:10]

And that will help your vision of your karma get clearer. And if your vision of your karma gets clearer, you'll see a way to do more good karma. And then it'll get clearer. And the more clearer it gets, the more you'll see how good it is to do good karma, and what a waste of time it is to do bad karma. You'll also see your bad karma more clearly. Seeing your bad karma more clearly, seeing your good karma more clearly, doing more good karma, you see more clearly, seeing more clearly, you do more good karma, seeing more clearly, until finally you start to see so clearly that you see actually at the basis of the whole thing, it's dependent co-arising and you create the whole situation. So if you've done, if we've done unwholesome things, and then see the dharma, not karma. Seeing the dharma will liberate us from the results of these own wholesome things.

[138:16]

And again, we're very genuine in the results section. So we're still talking about the nature of karma, and maybe pretty soon we can start shifting over into how karma happens. So we're talking about what karma is, then we're talking about how karma happens, and then talk about fruits. Judy? Well, I'm frustrated that the place that I have to believe I should be able to observe my karma the easiest is a place that I'm not difficult enough in. I feel that when I am... whether it's called acted in life, and I'm catching myself, but I'll say it anyway, when I'm engaged, if I'm sitting here, if I'm acting, I can see myself, I can see my crown of it.

[139:23]

And when I sit in satsang, I don't see my crown. Maybe you need to sit longer. If you sit longer, you'll start to see your karma more easily. The karma you see in Zazen is more subtle than the karma you see in daily life. If you, like, walk across the street, that's a pretty gross thing, pretty easy to see. And if you walk partway across the street and stop in the middle of the street with the cars coming, it's pretty easy to see that you want to get yourself. Not that difficult to see. But if you're sitting in meditation and you're comfortable, you don't have much impulses at that time. Yourself is, you know, unthreatening maybe, comfortable, doesn't see a big need to change. After a long time, the impulse to move might really get stronger.

[140:25]

And then you can see this gradually, as this impulse starts to develop, you can see the beginning of the impulse. And watch the impulse, the move, come up. But it's rather subtle. There are impulses . For example, there's the impulse to stay on your cushion, which may be too subtle for you to see, since you're just staying on your cushion and you don't see much effect of it. But when you stay on the cushion, that's the result of you having the impulse to stay there. Can you see the impulse to stay in your seat? Can you? Not that easy to see. Not that many people. I shouldn't say not that many people, but a lot of people sit through a period of Zazen and they don't notice that they have an impulse. They had innumerable impulses this day in their sleep. Yeah, the impulse to sit up, [...] to stay up. Innumerable impulses to fulfill that posture and to stay at that place.

[141:26]

But they're pretty subtle. But they're there. And if they're hard to see, subtle things are harder to see than gross things. And I get the thought of those things That is what I'm supposed to be doing in thought then, so I don't even question that it's an impulse. You don't have to question that it's an impulse. You don't have to question it is an impulse. You just need to observe it, become aware of it. That when you sit at the next period of meditation, every moment that you're sitting there could be, not necessarily, but there could be many impulses to sit there and to sit up and to stay awake. and to maintain the aspects of the posture. There could be many, many impulses to do that, plus you act on those. Maybe. So there it is, you know, the next period. Maybe now from having difficulty to observe it, you might now have an easy time to observe it.

[142:30]

But it's hard to be that concentrated, to be that present, actually watching yourself live your life in a concentration. and to watch the cause and effect, to watch how the fact that you're sitting on the cushion has something to do with the fact that you sit there and decide to sit there again. The fact that the period's 40 minutes long has something to do with the fact that you stayed there for 40 minutes. Various conditions are contributing to this. Various concerns to this decision to stay in that cushion, to sit that way. The landscape of your mind keeps being shaped towards continuing to sit. during that whole period. Not every moment, because when you're listening to the birds at that moment, that's not the impulse to sit there. That's not the impulse to leave either. That's just hearing the birds. When you see the wall or the floor, that's not the impulse to stay there. That's not the impulse to sit up. That's just experience. But that experience is part of what reminds you that you're in a zendo and that it's enjoyable to sit there because the birds

[143:40]

when you're concentrating on staying on your cushion. So you say, this is a good deal. I want to keep sitting here. I want to finish this period and hear that bird chirp about six more times. It's worth it. It's worth it to hear that bird chirp, just to sit here, just stay here, moment after moment. And also I know that when I feel really good, I don't feel so good now, but I know I won't regret just staying here and sitting straight. So I intend to stay here and sit up straight. And I do it again. And I'm doing it again. And I'm doing it again. And I'm acting on it. [...] I'm acting on it more and more. I'm really doing this karma. I'm really good at it. So if you're going to do karma, it's recommended that you do it completely and thoroughly. And the more thoroughly you do karma, the closer you get to being free. At the The limit of doing karma, you doing karma, that's the place you realize that you're not doing it, and it's not happening.

[144:48]

That's karma. It's an event, but not a karmic event. Karmic activity is always kind of a holding back. Is that right? Yeah. Right. Karmic activity is always a holding back. And what are we holding back for? You get the answer to this one, Paul. What karma? Preserve our sense of self. Preserve our sense of self, right. We're holding back because if we gave everything to the karma of whatever it is, we might forget something. And we're not sure that that will be okay It's not that easy to hold back. Did I say it's not that easy to hold back? It's not that hard to hold back.

[145:51]

Easy to hold back. Yes? So you're thinking about wanting to stop yourself. No, that's not why, necessarily. That could be... You could say... That's what you said you saw. Okay. That's what you thought. Okay. It could have been, yeah. And if I had been there, it would have been excellent.

[147:21]

I think it's so valuable. Isn't it valuable? I mean, is it valuable to do that or can't you go part of it if it's a good point or what? OK. You asked a multi-pronged question. Do you want me to answer them all at once, or separately? The first point that came up there was, if you are sitting in the meditation hall, like a formal situation, and let's say you're deciding to sit still, and you think that's a wholesome thing to sit still, but then in the process of that effort, you feel like you might be hurting yourself. So then you think, oh, maybe I should move anyway because it's not good to hurt myself. You might think that.

[148:23]

Then to move because you think it might be good for your health, in some sense, I would say, my view might be, well, that's a wholesome act. Or if you move and say, still, even though for a second there you're moving because you thought it would be good for your health, it's still a good thing to do. and say yourself, it's a bad thing that I moved, then that thought that it's bad counts. It counts against you because you felt it was bad. Now I might think, oh good, if I could read your mind and I'd say, oh she thinks me harmful, so probably she should move. She should go with that. She shouldn't be sitting in a way that she thinks is harmful. So she thinks it's harmful. I'm glad that she moved. And then if she said, after she moved, she told herself, oh, that was bad karma, then I would say, that's too bad she did that, because in fact now she says it is, to some extent. That isn't the same bad karma as if you did something, for example, that I also thought was bad.

[149:29]

It would be different. If you did something which would harm you physically, plus you would also call it bad. When you call something bad, that has an effect on you. Especially if you call yourself bad because of your misinterpretation of some rule that you think people are going to punish you for or something like that. That counts. That's a factor in your judgment. It's a kind of unskilled thing to say to yourself after you just made a pretty good effort to do, you're trying to do something good, and then you sort of laugh and you're called it back. When maybe it wasn't necessary. You could have done the first experiment, but that would have taken effect. Now, your second question was, is it good to maybe do wholeheartedly? Let's see. It is worse to do bad karma half-heartedly or half-heartedly.

[150:31]

But it is worse karma to do, in some sense, it's worse karma to do bad karma wholeheartedly. It's better bad karma to do bad karma wholeheartedly. Like if you kill something and then you say, and you're happy you did it, it makes it more of a killing than to kill something and be sorry. But before you talk about how you feel about it, let's talk about taking responsibility for the act. Okay? But the funny thing is that when you take complete responsibility for a bad act, in some ways, the only way you can do that is to be somewhat conscious. And to be conscious while you do it, when you're actually willing to do it, to be conscious while you do that, it makes it... And not exactly a better thing, but it makes it a better opportunity for learning. The act is still bad, but the good karma that you have in your background is helping you be aware that you're doing a bad thing.

[151:37]

So you could learn it. It's part of the excitement issue of doing a bad act. Because of all the good karma you've built up in your meditation practice to be aware that you're doing a bad thing. And like you could say, was a bad thing. Or like this example that Beverly was bringing up. Bukuli Mala did all this bad stuff. The Buddha comes to teach him. The Buddha comes to teach him, but he wants to kill the Buddha because he needs one more murder to complete his contract. And he's going to try to kill the Buddha. And he starts running after the Buddha. And although he runs after the Buddha, and the Buddha is walking slowly, he doesn't gain on the Buddha. Then he runs faster, and he still doesn't gain on the Buddha. And he says to the Buddha, how come I can't catch you?

[152:39]

He said, because you're moving. And he understands. He was trying to do a bad thing, wholeheartedly. But he was also somewhat aware of what he was doing, and he was aware, you know, that he was being unsuccessful and something funny was happening, and so he asked a question. He started having a conversation with his victim, and the victim told him that he understood. He dropped his murderous career at that point. So I would say that awareness in conjunction with... an unwholesome act is a good thing, the awareness. Now, if you do some harmful thing unconsciously, in other words, you're not intending to, it doesn't really count as an unconscious thing. If you act on an ant, and you're really unconscious, it's not from an unconscious motive to step on it, to step on it.

[153:48]

Really, you don't know about it. It's not karmic. Now, if you know that someone tells you that whole driveway is covered with ants and you still walk through it, involuntary manslaughter, right? You didn't mean to do it, but you also didn't care enough not to walk through that area. But if you're walking along and you kind of look at the driveway and you think, well, it doesn't seem to be covered with ants. It seems fairly safe. And you walk through, but an ant does come across and you step on it. And you really didn't know it was there. You couldn't even avoid it. that killing of that, that death of the ant would not be considered murder. So that, that wouldn't, that wouldn't be considered murder anyway. But if you, if you, like, knew that the ant was there, and stepped, and didn't even, and weren't even aware that you, I mean, you did, you didn't care, you did step on it, but with very little awareness,

[154:48]

Like, can you believe it? We do that? We kill things without even being aware we're doing it? Like this? I mean, we are. We bite this and we squash it. We kind of know we kill it, but we give hardly...

[155:04]

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