But at the time, you know, they actually did start saying, you kind of were there, but not really. You played in the right place, you were meant to do it, but you hardly remember doing it. One of the first stories that turned me to Zen was about a monk who had trained for a number of years in Zen. And then he came to visit his teacher one night. It was a rainy night, and he came into his teacher's temple, and he took off his raincoat and his rainy shoes and left. When you see a teacher, and the teacher said, which side of the entryway did you put your raincoat, and which side of the entryway did you put your shoes? And he couldn't remember. So then he stayed with his teacher for six more years instead of it. So when we put our raincoat down, that's an important act.

[01:05]

Was there karma there? Did I do it? Did I mean to do it? How did I do it? And if you should happen to kill something, you would be there when you did it. It isn't good. But it's better if you're there than if you're not. When you have lunch, you say, well, it isn't necessarily good or bad to have lunch. Kind of neutral, maybe, a lot of the time. But it is good to be there when you did have lunch. And to what extent when you did that, it's good to know that you were there. It's a not wholesome act. It's better if you're more conscious. It's worse if you're not. And sometimes they say... Oh. Yes. Jim. Well, at one point, I was just getting a lot of questions I have to get out there, but it's been a good time I've been able to come back.

[02:09]

But it's usually been a good time. Instead of killing a few flies in my head, instead of stopping killing a few birds in my head, I'm not killing them. I'm just removing their feathers. This act is kind of automatic. Karmic or not karmic? Oh, I see. I would say karmic, but not very conscious. Unconscious, wholesome.

[03:15]

I think we can do a lot of wholesome things unconsciously. Unconscious. means there is the impulse, there was the impulse, now it's become fairly automatic. How do you think about it? A lot of things we do, a lot of us drive successfully, uncomfortably. We get to one place, we have any turn of gear shift or anything, and then we make the trip, all services properly and kindly. You don't get in an accident or hurt anything, and we're very little there. and still fairly wholesome. Now, would it be more wholesome if we were watching it? I would say, yeah. And not only that, but because we're paying more attention to it, and it's more wholesome, it goes with the opportunity to pay more attention to it. So paying more attention to it is more wholesome, plus also it offers the opportunity to pay attention to it, and paying attention to it is not even wholesome.

[04:20]

It's awareness. but that awareness may increase the quality of the wholesome karma, which then feeds more awareness. More awareness, so the awareness and wholesomeness feed on each other. And similarly, the unwholesomeness, the unwholesomeness doesn't feed the awareness, but the awareness tends to help you become free of the unwholesomeness. So awareness of wholesome karma tends to make the wholesome karma more wholesome. And awareness of unwholesome karma doesn't make the unwholesome karma more wholesome. But missing the opportunity to be aware of unwholesome karma makes the unwholesome karma, in a sense, worse. Not really, but you're not learning anything from it. At least in the other case, you might be learning something. So like you, there was a time in the past, I understand, when you used to kill flies.

[05:24]

But because you were aware that you were killing them, you learned that it might be good to abandon that habit. But if you hadn't been aware that you were killing them, it might have been difficult for you to abandon the habit. But yeah, I think so. But because you were aware, because you had the good karma other things that you had from not killing meat, you were able to be aware that you are still killing flies. So then you may devour. Then if you did the practice, you didn't continue your mindfulness, so you're not learning as much as you could from that experience of not killing flies. Could you? Yes, that's called enlightenment. Awareness of non-karmic situation. In other words, enlightenment is awareness of how everybody is cooperating to create our activity.

[06:29]

It's awareness of how you are not the determiner, the sole determiner of your action. But everybody is here to nod your head. So now I'm getting confused, but I understand that it's historical, that when you're aware of it, then it helps you understand, like be more aware, always be more aware. Earlier you mentioned this thing that if you change your mind and think and decide that it's bad just after you do it or something, then it becomes worse. It's actually... You know, if it's kind of neutral karma or autoimmune conscious karma, then it's not that bad in effect. But it can suddenly realize that it's bad. You suddenly call it bad. Yeah, or call it bad. Then it becomes bad.

[07:32]

It becomes worse. It becomes worse. It becomes worse? Um... Can it be worse? It might. Well, I don't know. That's how I thought it would be. Yeah, I mean, if you think you're doing bad karma, you're right. So, like... Because you're running your mind through that track. I did that kind of thing. So, it's a judgment. It's a judgment, and it's based on something. And when you use your mind, when you do things that cause you to think that it's... then that's probably... that there's something to that. No, then you watch and see. Then you watch and see. Here's what I think is bad that lead to unwholesome result. And sometimes you might see...

[08:34]

that the fact that you think it's bad leads to some unwholesome results. Some other times you might think it's bad, and it leads to even more severe unwholesome results, and you might see the difference between the two. So in Linnea's example, she originally was moving with the intention to take care of her health so she could hurt herself and not be able to sit at all. Then she said this. Maybe I'm like, maybe I did something bad. Maybe I'd be lazy or tricking myself or something. So then she watches and sees. She says, well, I moved and I didn't hurt myself. But then I also felt kind of lousy and didn't want to sit down anymore because I get into this, you know, judgmental trip on myself. So that's kind of like that. So she might see that it was kind of good because I'm not wrecked. But that judgment on myself, that wasn't so skillful because, you know, if I had moved and just let it go like that, I would have getting ready for the next period, but now I got this kind of ghosty, yucky feeling about it, which wasn't really necessary.

[09:36]

So maybe next time I won't badmouth myself. Pretty reasonable. Something like that. This is like, you know, your own mental chemistry. You can poison yourself unnecessarily. On the other hand, you can tell the story the other way, that she saw something which might be unhealthy, to say, well, there's an unhealthy thing, and I'm going to do it, and it is unhealthy, then that judgment of it might have been all the clearer for the experiment, you know, if she's aware. I think it's unhealthy, and now I'm going to condemn it as unhealthy, and then watch and say, sure enough, when I do that, it really is bad. It works. Bad, you know, as bad is, as bad does, what do they say to that? There's some expression like that, good is what good does. Pretty is what pretty does. Bad is what bad does. So watch how it works. This is all, this is the relative world, you know. This is how the relative world works.

[10:38]

Try to understand how it works. So, the Neo story could have been broken up into two parts, but it wasn't. It's kind of complicated. There's all these complexities. You need to learn how it all works. Okay? It can get kind of confusing, but The more you study, the better it gets. Well, when I'm studying, like what I always say, she finds herself becoming terribly uncomfortable and she can't just ignore it. Maybe she's really stretching something. My biggest problem with moving is not so much that I'm in pain, but I'm very conscious that I'm going to disturb people. And so I may decide I have to move my foot because it's killing me and I'm going to start screaming. But then I might see out of the corner of my eyes briefly that people around me did more or less perhaps it bothered them and that makes me think maybe it was bad to distort them. So it was good for me to move my foot.

[11:39]

Right. It's their negative reaction to my move of my karma or their... Their negative reaction to your movement is their karma. So I should drop the guilt, right? Well, I'm not sure you'd like that. People's negative thoughts, you know, negative karmic thoughts about what we do, that's their responsibility, okay? But still, if you're in a meditation hall where the sort of the quorum of the room is not to move, I think it is part of wholesome action, is to consider that if you do things in a certain group, that part of the way to conduct yourself is in the world, in a way that actually will promote your awareness of what you're doing, to take that into account. So, to move in the Zen belt with a sense of that decorum, if you thought, first of all, it's good for my health, and these people probably, some of them anyway, would probably like me to move so as to not hurt myself.

[12:49]

But also, they probably would also appreciate if I moved in such a way that signaled them that I was respecting in the corner. If someone comes in late or leaves early, there's a way of doing that that signals the other people, I'm moving at an unusual time, but I respect the decorum of the room. And you can change it in a way that says, I'm moving, but I'm not doing this irrespective of its effect on you. So in that case, you might move very slowly. And so slowly that they might not even notice. It's not so much that you're hiding, ...in a way that says, I understand that the quality of the room is to be still, so I'm moving very slowly. This is an act of respect to you, Zendo, and to you. So you move very slowly.

[13:52]

So that could be half sneaky, and half respecting the other people. Respecting the other people, and not at all being trying to hide it, but just saying, I need to move, I'm deciding I'm going to move, but I respect the requirement, I don't want to bother you. They're watching you like a hawk. Now, is this a respectful? Yeah, it's pretty good. I just remember once a guy sitting next to me in meditation, popping his knuckle. And it was when we were sitting upstairs in the Cloud Hall. It was one of your lectures years ago. I was so proud of this guy. It was just, I don't know if he's silent, except he popped, popped. What was he doing? Oh, my God, he popped. But he just kept doing it. Yeah, so you move in the spirit of not knowing. So people feel, and like I say, if you have to leave, you come late, you move to the hall, you get very quietly.

[15:43]

Now what some people do is because they're late, they think, oh, I'm late and I'm going to bother people, so they rush to their seat. And you can feel they're rushing because they don't want to bother people, but actually they bother them more. So you gradually learn that you can convey the sense, okay, I'm late, or I'm coming in late, but I don't want to bother you. But I'm also not going to rush to shorten the amount of pain I feel going through this very highly conscious space. I'm not going to rush through it just to end my pain. And the people feel that, and they respect it, and again, they hardly notice it. Once they feel you're worried about it, they don't have to worry about it. If you come in their room, and you're not paying attention to how you move, then everybody else is going to move. Not everybody, but a lot of the other people are self-worrying. Who is this that's coming in here not knowing that we're all going to move? They all get nervous. But if you're kind of like, okay, I'm going to move into this space.

[16:46]

I'm going to take responsibility for every step so I don't bother these people. I'm going to make the least possible noise. They can feel your concern by the movement of your body, by the sound you make, they can feel your concern. Say, okay, this person's taking care of their practice, they're not bothering me. And that's the example of you are aware of them, and you're taking care of yourself. If you're sick, and you then don't need to leave, Sometimes you make, if you're up to vomit or something, you have to move up fast, but then you convey this thing, you've got this message of, I'm going to vomit. So that's why I'm moving faster than usual. I can't go slowly, otherwise I won't make it. So you have this way of conveying, you know, that it's vomit time. Then they realize, oh, this person's not just fooling around. They're trying to protect us from

[17:47]

the uncontrollable thing. They go, good, good, please. You can rush in this case. We don't want you to stay there. And there's also the cough. The kind of cough everybody else in the Xeno can feel. And they want you to leave. Because, you know, they can feel you holding back the cough. And everybody in the Xeno goes, cough, cough. So they can feel you trying to stop, and then they can feel you sort of saying, I'm getting out of here. The point is that people can feel when you're aware and concerned for them, and they appreciate that. But they also want you to take care of yourself, which they sometimes don't know about. So the pain in your knees, pain in your back, people don't know about that necessarily, so you have to take care of that. meditation into something so difficult that you can't stand. Take care of yourself. Take care of yourself.

[18:52]

Do the right thing for your body and also do it in a way that takes care of everybody else. That's called good karma. Balance these two and take care of both of them at the same time. All wholesome states have these two qualities. taking care of yourself, being respectful of your needs, and being concerned for others. They have those two qualities. And all unwholesome states are missing those. But some states which are indeterminate have, no states that are indeterminate are missing those. If you're missing self-respect and decorum, if you're not taking care of yourself and don't care what you do, don't care what happens to you, and have no standards for yourself, and don't care what other people think of you, don't care what happens to them, but those are missing, it definitely, automatically, that's defying the unwholesome state. In other words, you're saying, basically you're saying, karma doesn't have effects.

[19:54]

I don't care about karma causing effects, that's what you're saying. But if you do have them, you're going to be in the wholesome state. Because you can have these qualities, and then not take care of yourself. Like you can say, well, you know, here I am, you know, I kind of got this problem, you know, and maybe I should know, and then you don't do it. Or you say, well, yeah, I kind of care what they say, and then you just act in a way that looks like you don't. It's not just that you have these qualities, but that you manage to act in accord with them. But you can have them and violate them while you can have them and not accord with them. So an indeterminate state could happen. And wholesome states can have them. And wholesome states usually don't. But if you don't have them at all, you can be sure it's a wholesome state. Because they're two of the main factors that you use to guide yourself in whatever you think is wholesome. They're the things you use to do whatever you think is wholesome to the best of your ability.

[21:00]

Well, I said earlier, you know, that Wholesome karma is not the same as right action. I said that earlier. And strictly speaking, I still can say what I said, namely that wholesome action is not necessarily right action. Because you can do wholesome things without renunciation. That's why I said vote with intention. I missed what you said.

[22:04]

That's why I completely vote with intention and action. That's guiding one to the whole scenario. I understand what you mean by action guiding you towards an action. What do you mean by action? But the intention can get really important now. Yeah, I can certainly see that. You were describing instead of guidelines or prescriptions, it sounded to me very much like you just followed what intention, what your action was. Your actions would be wholesome, but in a sense, I'm saying, they might not be wholesome. Because in right action, you have not only loving-kindness and harmlessness.

[23:10]

Take it back. I wouldn't even say you can do wholesome-kindness without loving-kindness. Wholesome action without loving-kindness. You could do things for yourself, to benefit yourself, where loving-kindness might not be operating. I think it would be fairly unlikely that you'd do a wholesome thing which was cruel. Usually that's not wholesome. It's right that you do cruel things. But you might do something that wasn't particularly loving-kindness. It might not be an ill will. but there might be some attachment or self-concern that you do something which is good for you. So that would be a good karma, but it wouldn't necessarily have loving kindness, calmlessness, and it wouldn't necessarily have renunciation. Now, if you practice right action, right action might look, under some circumstance, like unholy.

[24:19]

It's possible that someone would see right action and say, That looks unwholesome. It's pretty unlikely that you would think it was unwholesome. It's very unlikely that you would think it was unwholesome if you had loving-kindness, harmlessness. The shape of your mind is loving-kindness, harmlessness, and detachment. I don't think if you were going to evaluate the kind of quality you would say is unwholesome. I think you would say, it's good, but it wouldn't necessarily be karmic. And I thought, really, it wouldn't be karmic. Because if it really was a well-developed renunciation, you would have renounced yourself, too. Yeah, or even the first time you met it, you could have done it for the time being, but it's down deeper. So I think it's possible, anyway, to do failure.

[25:20]

that hasn't quite reached the state of right action. Whereas right action might even look, under some circumstances, to somebody as harmless and kind. I don't know how far you can go on that, but there are some extreme examples. There's many Zen stories that do these rough things, but the point is that they're acting out of loving-kindness, harmlessness, and attachment. and attacking in a way that's extremely beneficial to the recipient of that kind of rough action. In case I found you were asked, you might ask the teacher to look into her heart and see if it was that right action. And then you might have another one of these stories following that question. Well, yes, I checked, and I found that that was okay.

[26:26]

And we could have now the interaction, which will be more conventional. And that gets books. So how are you doing? So anyway, we're talking about karma and so on and so forth, and this talking about karma is hopefully part of what helps us in our meditation upon karma. I hope this helps you meditate upon it. And maybe now, we have a little time before we go to meditation, maybe now, instead of I might ask you a little bit about how, you know, what is the... what are the conditions for the arising of karma?

[27:32]

Now, we've been talking about what karma is, right? How does karma happen? In other words, what the dependent core arising of karma? You can keep it moving. Have control. Part of what is necessary for karma is delusion, some delusion. What else? Usually, part of the fact is getting rise to karma. Ignorance. Ignorance and delusion. That's one of the prime examples of Illusion we need here. What?

[28:38]

They could be there, but... But we don't need it. I mean, we don't need the card. We don't need unwholesome mental state for card because those wholesome mental state, wholesome card needs wholesome or unwholesome as a requirement for card. Yes? I think that what we need for the victim is, are you hopefully handling the problem? Is it the only prerequisite? No. When you say that something is the only prerequisite for something, Is what you mean there that it's a necessary and sufficient condition for it to meet?

[29:50]

Because, you know, you said there's more things there, right? You have to have some situation. Situation in which this occurs, right? So it's not the only thing you need. But you could have a situation in which there's not karma. Now, the situation where there's not karma could still have the belief in a self there. Like, you could be sitting there right now with perfectly healthy, a deeply entrenched belief in your independent existence of yourself, right? And have it not be karma. Like, you could hear a bird chirp. It's got to be what? Right, so it takes more than just a belief in self, okay?

[30:53]

You've got a living creature, you've got a belief in self, okay? And also the creature can respond to that stimulation too, okay? You've got a living creature who's got a belief in self, and it's stimulated, they respond to the stimulation, but they don't necessarily see it as an action. Okay? So, first of all, you have a living creature with a belief in self, an ignorant living being, belief in self, they're stimulated, and the stimulation Lead response, that's not karmic. Okay? Other situations are stimulated, and there's a response. Grace, watch this one. Ooh!

[31:53]

You know that wasn't good. And there's a response. That response was not karmic. Grace, you okay? Yeah. What's the matter? Yeah, that's not karma, that response. So first of all, again, number one, who's got all the equipment for karma ready to go, they hear something, that's not karma. They're stimulated, no response, that's not kind. Then you have the same situation. They're stimulated, and there's a response, but the response has no volition in it, it's not kind. So, it takes more than just the belief in independent self. It takes belief in independent self plus volition. Now, what about volition without the independent self? Okay?

[32:56]

No. You need a person, you need some stimulation, you need belief in self, and you need volitional response to make calm. And the volitional response is unconscious. It's conscious, it's like you're not going to calm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Conscious. Well, what I did say is that we didn't have to go into a karmic act. What do you mean? If it's conscious. If it's a conscious, if it's a living being, in relation, response, response is volitional, and belief in karma, belief in the self, you've got karmic being. If it's conscious, and if it's unconscious, you also have it.

[33:59]

They've come. But if you have living being, belief in self, stimulus, can response, but the response is volitional, it's not coming. And if you have living being, stimulus, response, volitional response, but no self, it's not coming. And the volition, in that case, the volition is a volition in a field of dependent co-arising. So at the same time, there's this shape of the consciousness. The shape is a shape of attachment, wisdom, loving kindness, harmlessness, and understanding dependent co-arising. No karma. Awareness, which allows action in the being. You also have some concept of cooling that. You have to have some concept.

[35:07]

You don't have to have that on wholesome coming. You don't have to. You don't have to get into, like, you know, in order to want to hurt somebody without the concept of, you know, that it's that bad. You can do it when it counts. Or, you know, that it would... Oh, I see. The idea that this would do damage to them. You'd need that in order to... of a chronic type, yeah. want to refrain from it, you'd have to understand if there was even some option to that, and take that option. Greg? For example, with unconscious things like jump sparks. If you're drowning, you know, you fight to save. Unconscious life force drives that you don't know you have, that are going on all the time, they're based on

[36:13]

on a misunderstanding of your nature. They're still based on a kind of animal independence understanding, this primitive idea of independent existence. And we don't know about that a lot of times, but that's driving us a good share of the time, unconsciously. So if you were in a crisis situation, you unconsciously acted the same yourself. and even more so if you're able to see yourself and have a negative effect on someone else. That would be a cautious, original, and healthy. I think that's great. I was just wondering if we need to put a nail out along this kind of gap? Like, you know, where to put it? Do I say how? Well, you know, from exploration. I don't think I said how. Oh, oh. And that's because gas kind of stopped right then. Was that chronic?

[37:14]

What, the gas? Uh-huh. Uh... It's possible that it wasn't. Linda? I didn't know each engine was on the front. I've got five things now that have to be present in front of me. And I think about the sick, really, um, harm, knowing, and having no network. I don't know. Yeah, I think for neutral karma you wouldn't need it. So maybe, maybe for wholesome, non-wholesome karma you'd need that, but not for neutral karma. So certain kind of functions of our life are not necessarily wholesome or unwholesome. And for those, you wouldn't need good and bad to operate that way. But, you know, anyway, you can think of examples of young children.

[38:19]

They're not really wholesome or unwholesome. They don't yet have those concepts. And yet they're still operating, you might say, communically. I don't know if they can do that, but... Then I would say that the evolutionary capacity of karma is no longer, is not functioning at that time. In other words, the evolutionary power of your action, you take away some of the elements, drops away. In other words, whatever state of evolution you're at, it maintains. So if you are ignorant of your true nature, then you are suffering. And you're functioning at a level where there's no volition. Then your actions leave you sort of in status quo. If you have some understanding, your understanding pretty much stays the same.

[39:24]

If you have a lot of understanding, you understand pretty well how things go. Nothing much happens when you do these non-karmic activities. If you do unwholesome karma, you devolve. You become merged in belief in self as an independent being. If you do wholesome karma, you evolve. You become a little bit more awake. You're still, however, entrenching yourself in that bad habit But you're increasing your overcoming by doing . You're getting a spiritual bonus from that kind of . But you can cash in a meditation practice, which would eventually liberate you from this delusion. So for example, There's a kind of karma you can do, which is actually very excellent karma, which can project you into a very high, very high scope of worldly experience.

[40:38]

There's certain very high trances you can get into. And to get in those trances is, in some sense, the best, is the fruit of some of the highest quality karma. It's very pleasant up there. It's like... But when you're in that state, you don't evolve at all. Even though that state is like a really nice state at the end. And it's a result of very good... Among karmic... The karmic gets you into this very lofty state of bliss. and it's a bliss like beyond bliss, but it doesn't address your basic confusion and ignorance. And if you're ignorant when you go into that trance, when you come out, you're just as ignorant as when you're a little older.

[41:42]

Not a lot older, because it's so restful. Do you think you're... Um, you get in, you get in thinking that you got in the trance, and when you come out, you think you are in the trance. Work on your delusion in the trance. Just like, you know, I would even say this, you know, I mean, this is a little bit tricky, but when you hear a bird, and you just receive the sound of the bird, I mean, you It's kind of horrible to say, but it's hard to do spiritual work just when you're hearing the bird. Because you miss a chance to meditate on karma because you're not doing it. So it's a little vacation in the swamp of karma when you hear the bird. That's the way it goes, folks. We can't, in some sense, evolve spiritually all the time.

[42:45]

But often you can't devolve all the time either. So there's these spaces in evolution and decay. There's spaces in spiritual elevation and descent, which I just added to work on. The place you do your work is when you're doing karma. That's where you work, and where you can work. And if you don't work when you're doing karma, You get more entrenched in karma when you're doing karma. You get more awake. So karma is the time when we get in trouble. Karma is the time when we work towards being free. It's right when our delusion is activated that we have a chance to get worse a bit. Delusion is activated. That's swell, you know. And, you know, I'm not criticizing you for not being deluded for a second, but, you know, it's just on hold.

[43:50]

So, yeah, like Linda was talking about, you know, after the koan class, she's like non-deluded for like... Well, fine, you know. Hey, what am I to say? Enjoy non-delusion for a little while. It's okay. But on the other side, too bad. Just ten minutes of suffering when you could have been... You could have been really meditating all day. Oh my God, look what I'm doing. Anyway, that's the way it is. In some sense, we can't be working all the time because we're not really acting out our delusions all the time. That's it. So anyway, these are the conditions for karma, right? These are the dependent core arising for karma. Stimulation, basic delusion, and motivation. And motivation without basic delusion is not karma.

[44:56]

It is enlightened activity. Did I just say it? Yeah. So when there's not delusion, and you have motivation, what's your motivation? Loving kindness, harmlessness, compassion, working incessantly and wholeheartedly for the welfare of all beings, every occasion, totally giving all your love and detachment and wisdom. That's the kind of motivation that's there when there's no delusion. That's not karmic. And again, it might look like karma. You might be sweating away there, you know. But it's, you know, inside, you know, the Buddha calculator, there's no karma. Huh? The Buddha-meter, it's like... Oh, it's enlightening.

[45:59]

lights spreading out to beings from this kind of activity. So there is activity. Enlightenment does have activity. Just that enlightenment activity is not karma. We have to study karma in order for the activity of our life to turn into enlightened activity. But it's hard to study karma, isn't it? It's hard because it's got all this delusion in it. This delusion... delusion, you know, soaked, delusion-based, it's not that easy to look at this deluded process. But if we understand that's what a Buddha is. A Buddha is someone who understands delusion, therefore, and karma. Buddhas, that's what they study, that's what they understand. And then when you understand delusion and karma, then the activity of your life is this enlightened activity. So now we've studied something about the nature of karma, and you've had some experience with that, and I hope you just continue through the week and for the rest of your life to practice right view, which is you not only accept that there is such a thing as karma,

[47:19]

It has results, but you watch it and you see its results. You study karma. And what else? You study its results. And what else? And you study who gets the results. It's at the beginning. It's the nature of karma, the retribution, and who gets it. Who gets it is the core of the delusion. The one that generates it and the one that receives it, that's where the self-delusion is. So maybe tonight we can start looking at the results. And then later we'll look at What gets them?

[48:22]

Where gets them? How gets them? When gets them? Okay. Now, anything else? We have about, there's about 25 minutes before meditation. We can stop now if you'd like, or if there's some burning questions. Yes? You said that when we're dreaming, that that's karmic action. When I say my dream is karmic action? Mm-hmm. Not necessarily. Not necessarily. But, because you can dream that something's happening to you. If you could dream that someone brings you a big pink vase, and that wouldn't necessarily, that wouldn't necessarily be karmic vision. But I think your unconscious delusions could act out in a dream.

[49:29]

But again, even if it is common in a dream, the nice thing about dreams is sometimes the dream is showing you this karmic activity. So it's not intentional? What? It's not intentional? You know, it could be non-intentional, but I mean, the dream could be showing intentional or non-intentional. It could be revealing to you some of the workings of your karma, which you usually don't see. And that actually is driving you, but you haven't recognized it. I want to help you study your karma. Exactly. It very much helps you study it. Dreams are very helpful in learning about your karma. But not everything that's revealed in a dream is karma. Some of what's revealed in a dream is telling you something that you want. Wanting something is not karma. Karma is you want something and your mind is inclined towards getting it or acting upon that desire. The desire is not the same as karma.

[50:33]

But sometimes you have a desire and your dream shows it to you, which is sometimes very helpful. The dreams can show you about karma, and they can show you about other ingredients in your consciousness which you're having trouble paying attention to. But I think it is possible to do karma in your dream. Think about that some more. But it's also possible to meditate on your karma, which you ordinarily don't meditate on. Now sometimes the karma you're meditating on is symbolic, like you have a dream where you're killing somebody, but the killing is not really that you want to kill somebody, it's telling you something else about yourself. But sometimes in a dream, you find out that you haven't been able to admit it in your daily life. So sometimes it does show you your karma, but sometimes it uses karma as a symbol for something else that's not karma. And sometimes it tells you things you want, it tells you things you're afraid of,

[51:36]

Anyway, dreams are great because you're sitting there watching, right? You're not actually acting upon this stuff. You're studying. So dreams are part of right view when you start to see karma in the dream. And you really see karma rather than a symbol of karma. Anything else before we stop? Okay, so let's start. What time do you want to start after dinner? 7.30? Okay. And then we'll talk about, we'll get into the fruits of karma. In order to understand the fruits of karma, we bring up the big ugly rebrick thing. That's the big one. Exhaustion starts at 5.15.

[52:41]

It's a 35-minute period. The next item here on this first sheet is that it actually produces a proof or result or retribution, either in this life or in future life. So a basic, perhaps the most basic principle of this point here is that virtuous actions, virtuous karma lead to good results and non-virtuous actions lead to bad.

[53:59]

Or action has the ability to produce results corresponding to the ethical quality of the action. And the law connecting action to results is that unwholesome actions ripen in suffering, and wholesome actions . That's the basic printable of the connection between action and result. And...

[55:05]

It is not a deterministic one. The situation is more complicated than that. Isn't one's sense of happiness based on delusion? Yes. Right. Expense? It could. Right. Mm-hmm. That's great. And, yes? Mm-hmm.

[56:34]

Yes, it could lead to them thinking that their happiness is a delusion. Yes, they might see that their happiness is based on delusion of truth. They very well might see that. I understand. Right. So, one way to say this in a bigger context would be that given a person's level of understanding, what that person considers to be happiness is connected to what that person considers to be virtuous.

[58:12]

Or you might say, virtuous is what leads to happiness. That level of understanding of happiness, or vice versa, at that level of understanding of virtuous That leads to what is, for them, at that time, ethics. Now, you said if they would examine more deeply, they might find that that virtue, that understanding of virtue, is based on some delusion. Is that what you said? Yes. They might find that. They might also find But actually, while they're feeling, there is at the same time some subtle anxiety. For example, they may have a nice home and good health and healthy family and good job.

[59:18]

But they might sense that some people or actually want to rob them, or some people are jealous of them, or some people want their job, or some people hate them for past actions, or that any moment their children might get sick, so they might get some anxiety. And their anxiety might be based on their understanding, the root of their anxiety might be based, and usually is based, on their sense of independence from some other being. Until they're free of that sense of independence, they probably will be, at least subtly, afflicted and nagged by a sense of anxiety.

[60:25]

and the sense of anxiety can drive them to become drug addicts and alcoholics, even though everything else is going fine. And if they think they're going worse, they might think that they should work harder or get more education. They've already got good education maybe, and they're already working hard, and they're getting all the results that they would expect from working hard. And they kept still bothering. So now they can't get anxiety. Maybe they try to get richer and they notice they're still kind of anxious. As a matter of fact, they even feel more anxious when they got richer because they're more likely to get robbed. And the other side, now we've moved into a security zone. We have lots of guards and so on. But still, having guards all around your house, you do feel some anxiety. So then the only thing you've left maybe is to numb that anxiety with some kind of drugs or something like that.

[61:35]

Or you can get busier and move faster so that you don't have a chance to notice. Was something there? Huh? But make more bombs, get more security. Yeah, that's right. That's why good karma is not ultimately liberating. However, it is better than bad karma because when you have good karma, you not only get these , these beneficial, somewhat beneficial material advantages. As I said, you get some clarity of chance of seeing this more subtle anxiety and perhaps even have the opportunity to hear that this subtle anxiety is a pervasive phenomenon among the beings, and that there is a condition for it, and that there is this.

[62:44]

And studying karma helps you hear that teaching and address the more fundamental problem, the good reason, which is at the source of the time, good or bad. Still, within the world of karma, there's something about virtuous actions which are connected to the normal relative human happiness. And to understand that, and to understand what the wholesome and unwholesome are, and to understand the primary types of pulsing and unpolsing, and to study them. And of the pulsing and unpolsing, that understanding is the beginning of the eightfold path.

[63:51]

how can problems happen if you're separating them. There are several points, but one of them was with regard to problems, the pain for the bad karma could cause bad deeds, and therefore they feel limited. And the other one was that other people are stuck in, or it kind of connects you with them. It makes you more compassionate. I can't remember a whole lot of points that it made, but it's part of the relationship. Yes.

[65:04]

And even if you aren't hooked into karma, If you're hooked into the delusion, which is at the base of karma, you need to take a break from karma. Like I said, even if you went into some state where you couldn't do any karma for a while, even if you go long term, like just listening, I feel like you've got some kind of, like, things worked out so that you have this considerable stretch of time where you're just experiencing and not doing any calm.

[66:08]

Still, you have this delusion that just makes it kind of impossible to be anxious. So, um, just by my side, We have a good time. It's been a while. [...] Well, with my experience, I'm quite young, still 11. So, what he, I mean, he was a family of his own. He was a lousy, lousy leader.

[67:23]

I mean... He was... He was a... He was a... Yes, that would be good. And... Oh, I know why. They do the study with anxiety and see how it happens. Someone said to me recently, what about Louis Pasteur? He wanted to get rid of some kind of disease. Was he kind of like, was he kind of like that he wanted to get rid of the disease?

[68:24]

And I said. Not necessarily. It's OK to want to get rid of disease. It's OK to want to get rid of anxiety, too. But how did he get rid of the disease? He didn't actually get rid of the disease. What he did was he studied the disease. And he found out the conditions for the disease. And he found out the organisms that interact with the human being. And he studied the organisms. So when he was studying these organisms, and he saw how they behaved, when he looked and saw how they behaved, he didn't say, I don't think these organisms won't behave like this. Because if you're watching something function, and you wish it was behaving that way, that interferes with your seeing how it's behaving. If you watch yourself or watch other people and you say, I wish I wasn't behaving this way, that might distract you from some of the possibilities of how you're behaving. So I don't know exactly, but I think that Louis Pasteur or something like that watched the view of microbes, saw how they worked, and didn't spend much time wishing that they weren't functioning the way they were functioning.

[69:36]

He wanted to know how they were functioning. He was curious about how they wanted to function. Of course, he wanted to cure people of the disease they were causing, but he also wanted to understand the new critters. And a lot of people would like certain microbes to stop causing people sickness, but they aren't interested in the microbes. They just sit there and wish that the microbes weren't, you know, weren't doing what they're doing, or wishing that people weren't sick, which is fine, just like Louis Pasteur. But the difference between them and him is that he actually found out how they work. Because he found out how they work, he could find a way out to get rid of them. He didn't get rid of those things. He found a way to interact with them so that people wouldn't get sick. So same way with your karma. It isn't that you can get rid of the karma, exactly, or destroy it, but rather, if you understand how it works, you'll see a way such that it doesn't cause us problems, and the same with deluding, and the same with anxiety.

[70:46]

If you understand it, anxiety, delusion, and karma, you can find a way to work with it, such that it's not a problem. Well, then wouldn't that be the end of it? Well, I don't know. I don't think so. Not for a while, anyway. Not until everybody's free. So, wholesome karma, part of wholesome karma is, as Vinaya said, relaxation. Another way to put it is, one of the results of wholesome karma is leisure. So some people get in prison, and they get leisure. So there's something wholesome about being in prison and getting leisure. Some people in prison don't have any leisure. They're harassed by other prisoners, and they have the TV on all the time, and they're getting harassed by the guards, and so on and so forth.

[71:48]

But some prisoners have leisure, and leisure is a result of, let's say, a wholesome family, wherever you are. The need to have a chance to look at what you're doing, to be curious about something rather than just sort of surviving the next minute, to be able to be curious and to study how things work. In this particular case, to be curious about how your mind works, how your body works, how your voice works, how karma works, how karma works. what delusion is, what anxiety is, until you understand it. And if your karma is really bad, you get situations where you're living in such a way that you don't have time to study. But if you do really non-virtuous deeds in some system, you wind up getting beaten up all the time, and you might not be able to study when you're getting beat up all the time.

[72:56]

On the other hand, some very advanced religious practitioners do get beat up all the time, and it's kind of a talent of their practice that they do this. And some other people. Joseph Smith, quite a person. But he had quite a few quite a few opportunities prior to that to study, study, study, study. So if you had a chance to study, study, study kindly. Yes? When you say kind of, I have a big impression that you Yes. Yes. And what other form might I apply it to?

[74:34]

Yeah, but not exactly opposed, it's just that I don't know, I have no karma occurring to non-unity. But the Buddha didn't talk about such a case of non-human karma. The Buddha was primarily concerned that humans about liberating humans. And I think the idea was that if you can liberate humans, humans then, liberated humans can help other kinds of living beings too. Like they can help animals and plants once they liberate.

[75:38]

But the Buddha's teaching on what's verbal and is primarily directed at humans, the Buddha kind of said Looks like the Buddha was kind of suggesting that it was only human that could become Buddhists. And in some ways you might say only human needed the Buddhists. Other animals don't necessarily need it. But once you're a Buddha, you're beneficial to other animals and animals. But they don't seem to have the problems that we have. Other animals don't seem to be quite as deceptive and deluded as we are. Humans what? Non-karmic oil? Well, it could be.

[76:52]

That's what I'm asking. We wouldn't call it, we wouldn't call it that. I don't know. It's, you know, opposite the word. Amen. Our Buddha did talk about other forms of existence, non-being in forms of existence. But it's opposite. Yes. Right. Right. Starting at that point. Yeah, I would say it was starting. Right. I would say it did not before that time.

[77:52]

On this planet, I would say, before humans were able to know things objectively, there was a time when there perhaps weren't any animals on the planet that knew things objectively, and therefore there would be no sense of self as separate from other beings. I think it would be a kind of activity, but it wouldn't be the type of karma we're referring to here, which is a karma which is based on a particular type of delusion, which is... It wouldn't be that type of karma. It would be a different kind of action. And it could be evolutionary also. I think it was. But it didn't require the kind of insight that produced in this .

[79:02]

But I think it might be possible to have a Buddha for a previous level of evolution. But there may have been a Buddha for that level of evolution, too, that liberated beings from that is something that had been. But in this particular cycle, we have a Buddha for humans who have this idea of self, and for the karma based on the idea of self. And the teaching of Buddhism for this particular cycle is addressed particularly to people who have on the idea of self. And that's the key issue in defining human suffering. It's the key condition for human suffering, and it's the key condition for human country.

[80:08]

The key division. And it is the... It is the... the locus of generating karma, it is the locus of generating rebirth, and it is the site of retribution of rebirth. Yes. And Dan's question at the beginning is, how can it be that if we teach that this is empty, that it can be the place where the action is accomplished is the place where the retribution occurs?

[81:10]

How can that happen? And that's a problem for Buddhism, and that's part of which we hopefully had a chance to address this week, how that can happen. How does something that doesn't really exist, how is it able to be the genetrix of karma and the receiver of karma? And this is important. In terms of understanding, it's also important in terms of our suffering. It's important to us that we're suffering and that we're anxious. And it's important to us what we did in response to our subject and anybody. Yes? I don't know if the book is supposed to say it up, but it would be reasonable for them to say it.

[82:18]

Okay. All right. At least at a glance, there seems to be almost a righteousness. That's back at Kona, wouldn't it? You make a good life, you make good things, you make a bad life, you make bad things. Unless you're in a land of capital, like you're living now, you could get whacked by Kona. It seems to be just... that children suffer in their innocent point of acts. But this is one of the opportunities to get the point of acts in the same way. It seems unfair. Okay.

[83:31]

Let's take a video of a fence. Yes. So, let's say that the world is So, um, I have a question about human beings. We have, like, rocks. How are they exalted from them? Yeah. The entire universe is exalted from them. The whole universe is exalted from them? Mm-hmm. Without him there'd be no world. Without him there'd be no world. That's right. There'd be no universe.

[84:34]

Without him. Without him there'd be no world. Just that we're here, just that the human is there, is the reason why... That we call it a universe. Huh? That we call it a universe. Yeah, that we call it a universe. So since we call it a universe, there's a universe. Right. If we didn't call it a universe, we don't know it would be there. What the, uh, the such that they call rock... that would not be an objective conflict. Would you say that again? I think you just said the thing we call rocks. The substance that we call rocks. Are you saying that there's a substance there and then you come along and call the rocks?

[85:38]

Right, and also you have this idea that there's something there and then you come along and call it a ride. But that's your idea. So you have this world where there's things there and you're calling it on the moon. So that's a world, right? A lot of people think that there's a world and then you come along. And that's the way you think. And that's the world that we think is there. but the world we think is there just happens to be, lo and behold, the one that we think is there. We don't think there's another world besides the one we think is there, right? Isn't that right? And the one we think is there just happens to be the one we think is there now, when we used to think there was a different one. And at that time we thought that was the actual one, remember? Remember the one you used to think was there? Remember that one? You thought it was it, right?

[86:41]

And now you think there's another one, and now you think this one's it. And later, and so on. And this seems to be, and it seems to be, what I think, what I think, is that there's a story that it's been that way for a while. Now, do I believe that? If I believe it, then that's my world. that really my world, if I think it's been that way for a while. Now some other people think it hasn't been that way for a while, and people used to think that the world they thought of wasn't the world, but I never heard of that one. Have you? I never heard of one like that, but somebody could make up like, Jorge Borges could make up a world like that. All the people in the world thought that the world that they thought of was not really the world. But I never, I never heard of the world. Okay?

[87:43]

A while ago, they thought the world was square. Square, but flat. And now we think very simple. How come? How come? You know, it's the result of Google. It's the result of the way we think. From the world. From the world. From the rock. From the rock. Well, it's not so much from the rocks. It's from the belief that the rock. A kind person feels unfree.

[88:49]

A kind person feels unfree. A kind person's... A kind person's anxious. About the rock. Huh? About the rock. About the rock, right. You don't get that. You don't need to ask me. I'm not talking to you. [...] No problems. I'm glad you dropped that.

[89:51]

Well, usually people who have problems with one thing have problems with other things, if they look properly. If people don't have problems, don't have problems. Anyway, all right. if they're going along, rocks and people, if they're going along with the way we want, we expect them to be, we want them to be, we feel not too anxious. Our mind is actually somewhat disturbed by everything. So if you think the rock's not you, you're disturbed by the rock. It causes you anxiety and uneasiness. If you think you're the same as the rock, you're disturbed. Any relationship you have of duality disturbs your mind. That's it. And you may not notice that a lot bother you just by their duality.

[90:53]

You may not notice the trees and thought signs bother you, even if you suppose that they do. And it's hard to know how things bother you unless you calm down quite a bit. and get to a place where you can feel the disturbance that the slightest bit of externality causes you to be. And that externality and that anxiety is basically the genetrix of our sense that something's wrong. And then if we have a self, we think we can do something to fix it. And it may be very subtle or very slight at first, but it gradually builds into major maneuvers to fix them. And how it is that duality is actually kind of not making us really feel OK about life.

[92:35]

That until you're fairly settled, you may not know that you're unsettled by the slightest bit of duality. If you're tremendously upset, we think that you're upset about oftentimes the top level of your upset. If you're less upset than that, you might feel somewhat relieved. If you're less upset than that, you know you feel more relieved. If you sit at that level for a while, you may notice something underneath. If you address that, you settle with that, you may notice something underneath, and so on. I'm proposing that The slightest bit of dualistic thinking is annoying and anxiety provoking. And you cannot completely settle until you're free of that. And that in optimal human evolution at this point is driving to settle that problem.

[93:51]

And some of us are driving hard to settle that problem. And some of us are driving hard to settle that problem, and we have no idea what we're driving to settle that problem. We think we're trying to win a car race, or we think we're trying to become president of the United States, or we think we're trying to become a drug lord, or we think we're trying to become the smartest professor, or we think we're trying to get in control of our kids. We don't notice that actually we're being driven by this fundamental desire to overcome duality. But all of us, all of us humans are driving this. And we will not rest until we settle it. We will always be driven to settle this, I say. Karma is a mistake we make in the process of trying to deal with this.

[94:53]

So we have to deal with that mistake in order to bring ourselves back to address the problem. It's a gross diversion from the actual work we need to do. But almost all of us are involved in this gross diversion, which has consequences. And the consequences will help us to think that we have to deal with the consequences with more karma. And the more we think that these consequences require more karma, the more the consequences tempt us to deal with the consequences. If we do a little karma, and we have a little consequence, we might think, well, I'm not sure if I need to do something about it.

[95:58]

Maybe I don't. Maybe I do. Don't? Fine. Then you've got a consequence that's hard to deal with, but you're not going to act on karma. So there you are. What? What? What? Pain. Anxiety. What? Something's off. You're not slipping into, I'm going to do something about it yet. You're just sitting there kind of like paralyzed, you know, with the awareness that you've got a problem. Kind of impotent. Not powerful. Just kind of like, I've got a problem, I've got a problem, I've got a problem, I've got a problem. How long can you be patient with this problem? Well, maybe I could study it. Maybe that would be something I could do. No, that wouldn't get me doing something. How about just studying? Without any sense of studying, like, fix it.

[97:03]

Maybe studying might set you free. In the meantime, none of you are not going to do anything. But then you get bored, and you can't stand it, you can't 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, you know, actually I could have just sat there and watched this one. I've got to act on this one. The last one 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 see this one. Because I did act in the last one, now I have to act on this one. It's like gambling, right? You go to Las Vegas, or you go to Reno, and you look kind of silly, and you don't have to gamble. You think, oh, maybe I will gamble a dollar. And you lose it.

[98:07]

You say, well, before I didn't have to gamble, but now I have to get my dollar back. Are you saying the more you play that game, the deeper it goes? The more you play the game, the more interest you get. Right. And the more you think you have to play the game. Yeah. Yeah. At some point, however, you might say, okay, I've noticed that the more I play it, the more I think I have to play it. I see that. 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, and maybe I don't. Even though I really feel like I have to, but I do notice that I think more, I more and more think I have to. I notice that tendency. And I even more convinced that I have to. But 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 to and just stay.

[99:13]

Now, when you start turning it around and things Then you get to a place where you start to realize that that little thing, that little bug there is pushing you into, like, something's wrong and do something about it. That little bug actually has to be settled and that you cannot stand that indefinitely. You have to work on it. Otherwise, you're going to flip into karma, which is then going to take you farther away from it and postpone the time of dealing with it longer. And you always come back to it. So you have to work there, and you run away from it, get in all kinds of trouble, and you finally realize, oh, okay, and you come back, deal with it. So now that we're getting fairly close to the problem, now is the time to gradually not run away from it. go down there and find a way to stay with it.

[100:23]

And for now, if you've got any karma going on still, find a way to continuously study karma. And then if you can do that, continuously study delusion, and actually continually study the duality at the base of the . gradually, plan and vow to gradually settle completely into the problem. No matter what. Yes? I disagree. I think we need to be comfortable with our lives and treat them as our family. So what action do you propose?

[101:35]

What action do you think we should do? Oh, I don't know. I think about Tim. Excuse me, what action do you think you should do? Just tell me what it is and then you can go do it. What is it that you want to do? Are you writing letters? If you think that's the right thing for you to do, why don't you do it then? I'm kind of mesmerized by what you're talking about. Do you think you should do something like that? Well, I am studying it. You're studying it? I thought you should. No, wait a second. Just a second. Do you think you should? Then are you going to do it? Yeah?

[102:37]

Are you going to do as much as you think you should do? I have a normal question. How much do you think you should No, no, no, no. I'm going to talk about that. You said you need to do something. So then if you think you should do something, then I would like you to tell me what you think you should do, and then tell me if you're going to do 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. All right? So are you going to talk to a nurse and tell me what you think you should do and when you're going to do it? You said you think you have to do something.

[103:38]

I asked you what you think. And then if you tell me what you think I can do, then I will ask you if you're going to do. Well, I think the first thing I have to do is... I feel like... What? Social action. Yes, but what? Be specific. Just to say generally... Just to say generally, I have a problem with you just saying generally. You know, I have a problem with being genuine. I just don't see what you're talking about. I can just say, I got to do something, and you won't say what it is. Well, if I do that work, I'll do it. Most people are still involved in commerce.

[105:06]

If you involve in commerce, the question is, is it wholesome or unwholesome? If something needs to be done, you see something needs to be done, and it's unwholesome enough to do it, is it wholesome enough overlooking doing it, or are you wholesome enough that it needs to be done? That's the question. If you see something that needs to be done, so there it is. This is part of what's involved in meditating on karma. It's to observe what you're doing and what type you're doing. My question to you is, are you going to do that?

[106:16]

Are you going to look at what you're doing and see what you're up to or not? 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 that you disagreed and that 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... This Nameless Retreat is you have to do something. And that's what Nameless Retreat is. Nameless Retreat is... What are you doing? Are you aware of what you're doing? That's the Nameless Retreat. 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?

[107:18]

You can tell me. Who is that person? And 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, well, how come? Don't you want to? 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're misunderstanding. I'm not telling you what to do and not to do. I'm asking you, what are you doing? Now, if you disagree with that, I'm not telling you what to do. I'm asking you, what are you doing? And if you think you need to do something helpful, then I would say, well, what are you doing? Then you can tell me. But it's hard to tell me, isn't it, what you're doing?

[108:20]

It's hard to tell me 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. And even if you look, it's hard to see. It's hard to see. 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 to 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 of it. And then a lot so that you can become free of the source of karma. And then there won't be any more karma, and you'll act like the action you've become. In the meantime, Until you understand that you need to do karma, all of us will continue to do karma, I say, until we understand that karma is an illusion based on a delusion.

[109:31]

In the meantime, again, I'm not telling you what to do, I'm just saying, if you do wholesome karma, it will be easier for you to study the karma. If you do unwholesome karma, it'll 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. This course is about karma and studying karma. 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. It's important to be alive. Either. I just think we are alive and we should take care of it. I think we are human. We should take care of it. I think we do do karma. 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.

[110:38]

So, I'm not telling you what to do. I'm telling you but I think it would be good if you watched what you did and understood it. And no matter what I tell you to do, you won't do it anyway, so I would be wasting my time. But maybe if I didn't encourage you to watch what you do, you could do that. You could practice better. I mean, you get to decide all the 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 for you to consider whether you actually would like to start and maybe commit yourself to the awareness of what you're doing. and be consistent with it until you understand.

[111:46]

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're up to to come and sort of make a case and see it. I think you have to look at this stuff in order to be free. Because otherwise, I think this activity dominates and it chains us. That's why I entitled the class the way I did, because that way people who came here would know that they were taught to be caring about that kind of stuff. And they have, haven't you? Stan, you had a question for two EMs. Oh, I'm thinking about .

[112:53]

I think you would like to understand how you have to be clean and . I can't explain the way that they could play, but that was supposed to happen. I thought that was all right, and we did it. You think of people, but it's why. Is fairness related to justice? Are they related to justice? Well, I think that what we're dealing with here, about studying karma, I think is the way to realize justice.

[114:13]

And so rather than... I would say justice is, for me, justice is what's happening, the way it's actually happening. That's what I think it feels like. Justice is the way things have actually happened. How would I communicate to you? Do we have somebody here who's going to walk like that? I think you have to show me the person to see how I would try to communicate that. First of all, would that person be asking me what justice is? As I'm saying, it's a hypothetical situation. If you've got this person and you're asking me what justice is, is that what they're doing?

[115:19]

Okay. Pardon? Tell me more about the story. Tell me more of the story. I know, but tell me more. First of all, you've got the question. The people are coming to talk to you, right? So they're asking you a question, right? Okay, so you lost your child in the daycare center. What's your question? Okay. Now I would say, do you really want me to answer you?

[116:20]

Huh? Okay. You really want to hear my answer? Really? Okay, number one, I don't answer a lot of questions. You still want to talk to me? Okay, now ask me the question without... I do. Pardon? Okay. I wasn't there. How come you're asking so I don't know how it happened? Okay. So if you don't know how it happened, I don't know how it happened, then where are we going to go with this? We're doing pretty well.

[117:43]

I mean, I can imagine the parents saying, I don't know how it happened. I can imagine them saying they don't know how. And, uh, yes? I'm wondering if that would help them. I don't know. Well, it sounds like what he's saying is that in what we're studying here, that offers someone a software that would actually be of some use. Uh-huh. I understand. Right. It's not, it may be that actually what you're saying is a use, but it's not clear to me, and it's not clear to you, that if you told a parent, what just happened, and you say, I don't know, the youth see it and they say, no, they say, well, why, you know, not a lot of people know it, and here we are, we don't know. How is that a use in dealing with self-doubt? Well, what would be useful for people to help endure the suffering? They do? Would that help them?

[118:44]

I know, but would it help? Would that, pardon? No, that would seem, I think so. Right, but what would help? Being what? Studying this, I think studying this art would be good. Pardon? Yeah. So, and that might... ...sorrow. This is not about fairness yet. This is about that they're suffering, that they have sorrow, that they have loss, that they don't like that they lost their child. That we've got so far, right? We're not into fairness yet. They may be into fairness, but I don't particularly think they're getting into the... ...and help myself. I don't... It might, but I don't see it. Yeah.

[120:14]

When I was last flying back from Arkansas, and I got to the airport, what should have been a line of tickets, tickets of maybe 20 or 30 people, but it was maybe 150 people. And the events that followed were that airline connecting to all of the United States. And the hour, hour and a half that we The people at the talent are trying to connect people with airplanes over the next day or two. The people standing in line were very upset and very angry. And probably half the people in the line were very vocal about this. The talent were having a lot of trouble just trying to figure out how to make these connections, let alone deal with all the input. coming in from the people. So if I work my way through the line, I'm one that is sending questions.

[121:15]

What's their view? What's violence? What's the situation here? And I actually, I didn't know. I just stood there and listened to what people had to say. Some people, I was a little amazed at how vocal and how what seemed to be unkind it was. People who were post-training, standing there doing their best. And the same thing, and I never came up with an answer. Do you wonder what thing? The same thing. How did it help the person behind the counter? It didn't seem to me to say, well, listen, if you look at it very closely, if you can see that this is connected to the circumstances, the rise of out-of-school. They didn't want to hear anything. They had a promo plan to figure out how to get there. Right. But what am I saying is the helpful thing 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?

[122:16]

Well, during this workshop, what am I saying to do in the line? study karma. Of course, that involves, also involves pain. But I'm talking about more than feeling your pain, folks. That's, of course, you have to do that because your consciousness has pain in it. If you're not, if you won't pay attention to 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, you're waiting in line, yelling, you know, that's what you can do to help. 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, they're doing their job.

[123:21]

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 not doing karma being in the line. If somebody's coming to see me, I am or I am not doing the karma of talking to them. What do they do? Are they doing their job of meditating on their karma of being the parents of a lost child and doing whatever they're doing? Hmm? Are they? Huh? Probably not. Yeah, probably not. And in cases like that, again, you see, cases like that, in those cases, we think the situation's 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.

[124:26]

I should only practice when I don't have to. But now, when I'm on the verge of committing mayhem, now I should not practice because it's so bad now. I should go out and find somebody to blame for my child's death or somebody to blame for this storm. It's gotten bad enough, so forget about that. Isn't that what happens? That's the way karma works. When you do karma, then you get results, and the results are painful. and disorient me, and then you think, I'm un-overwhelmed, so I don't have to practice. But I'll do something, though, about it. I'll punch this person in front of me in the morning who's screaming at those poor workers back there, or I'll punch the workers. I'm going to punch some... Well, not just that. 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.

[125:31]

The whole thing is based on cop-out. The fundamental thing is we cop-up. What do we cop-out on? Well, yeah, we cop-out on not practicing. We fundamentally cop-out on what's happening. Right. And when 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, right? And then... Just 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, 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? Am I 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?

[126:31]

Because things aren't that bad. Or, for some people, they are that bad. So either it's too bad, this workshop's too overwhelmingly bad. You can't practice, or it hasn't got bad enough so you can wait until it gets worse to talk about it. Well, somebody else is waiting so bad that it's more appropriate for us to be a lot of time for that person to do all of that. Right. So what can I do for that person as opposed to what I could do? So I'll do some karma practice. 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 when I do karma. But I can't watch myself while I do karma because that's too luxurious. And thinking that is a result of bad karma. And so we have plenty of bad karma stored up for which we can use at any time we want to tell ourselves that we can't practice karma. So because of bad karma, we say, I'm too busy, the situation is too hectic, Too many people are suffering from need of practice, so I have to, I can't practice.

[127:36]

Rather than, I need to practice. And I need to practice. And that's always the case. And I'm living a hard time doing my job, but at least I'm not confused about the fact that I shall always be practicing. No matter what's happening. I'm not confused about that. I just sometimes forget. I'm not clear in it. There's no situation that's not worthy of practice. And all day long, I've got to be responsible for myself wherever I am. And does that help other people? I don't know. But if I don't do that, I will definitely harm other people. Definitely. I can also set a bad example, which is the worst harm. Whether I'll be able to help them or not, It's not clear. If I were to become enlightened, I'd definitely do it to help him, but, you know, we don't know how long it's going to take. And people come at me, or come at me with all kinds of stuff.

[128:39]

They want justice. They want freedom. They want money. They want fame. They want recognition. They want all this stuff. What's your job? Watch what you're doing. It's very difficult, though. You talked about what it's going to do for other people before you talked about what it's going to do for you.

[129:47]

Because what it does for you is that you and I are not just unhelpful, we're actually negative influences in the world if we don't take care of ourselves. And if we do take care of ourselves, we protect other people and ourselves from ourselves. Plus also, we set an example. Don't overlook the fact that your behavior unattended is creating problems. To double help or double kindness. If you don't meditate, if I don't meditate on what I'm doing and understand what I'm doing. And we have very little encouragement to pay attention to ourselves in this way of studying, very little encouragement to do so. I never heard of it myself all the way through school.

[130:57]

Did you ever hear? I never heard anything about this school, junior high, high school, college. I never heard anything about this. All this stuff I got taught, and you didn't tell me, but now it seems to me the most important thing for anybody to do. Isn't that funny? Okay. Yeah. American culture. Are there other upbringings where they aren't taught this? Where we're coming from? I don't want to say no, there never was such a culture because the people stayed in the world. Buddhist society? Buddhist society? I don't know about the Buddhist societies. I would say Tibet is virtually a Buddhist society.

[132:00]

I took the point of history. So maybe it was. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe there was. But all I know is that right now, it's really hard for us to do this. Isn't it? Are we having a hard time doing this? So there were societies where people were taught to do it. But I'm just saying, we're having a hard time doing it. And the reason why we're having a hard time doing it is because we haven't had very much practice at it. So even though we're middle-aged and so on, except for Charlie, Dana, we're beginners at meditating on karma. We haven't had that many thousand hours of meditation on our karma.

[133:06]

But we have had many thousands of hours doing karma, fairly, you know, unattended by reflection as to how it was karma, what karma was, and what the results were, and the result to continue this meditation. I guess, I guess that's my little circle. Was your hand making soda? Yeah. I don't know. [...] I think they're stating it that you're all tired is a good indication that maybe that would be kind of a quick thing to take on by tomorrow.

[134:29]

Maybe live from 9 to 9.30, wait five minutes, rest for five minutes, and then do it from 1 to 1.30. You're kidding. Just kidding. What I'm yet to say. What I'm yet to say is 9.30 to 10. Do you think it works? The schedule is good to have that with medication? We'd be glad to start with discussion and then have meditation and then have discussion. What do you think? Is it a good way of doing it? Yeah. So we'll start with meditation and then talk about communication. And tomorrow I'll address that question about psychology and also how to get into that. Okay, yeah. a very difficult topic of how the effects happen, how that all works.

[135:34]

Well, This is just the first day. Seems like... Huh? Yes. Things are moving here. So, congratulations to you on making this thing... You know, it's happening. Something's happening. I hope you get a good night's rest. And... I hope you'll be able to be awake for the day. Thank you very much. May I read and show you this book? May I get to know you? [...] Dealing with the suffering of all of us, I am invited to say again, the mission of the Sacrament of the Insights of Hope.

[136:59]

I am part of what you are doing. [...] I'm going to go ahead and turn it off, see what happens.

[137:19]

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