If you have a positive sensation and you grasp it, or you have a negative sensation and you are revolted by it, That would be quite similar. But I'm suggesting that you take an ordinary person and they have a negative sensation, which they may have an old habit of being revolted by, trying to avoid getting angry about, Take a person like that. You know anybody like that? Somebody who tends to get unhappy when something negative happens? Take a person like that and then have a moment where that person fully experiences that negative sensation. So fully that they just experienced a negative sensation.

[01:17]

All there is is a negative sensation. And they don't get unhappy about it at that moment. They don't get unhappy. And then the person realizes this wonderful thing called being happy. Not because they have a negative sensation, but because they're free of that ancient pattern, that habitual pattern of getting jacked up or pushed down by sensation. That's the one particular end of an outflow at that point. Plus, the person could see that and say, wow, this is called karmic obstructions starting to loosen. And also, from what we chanted at the beginning, The ancestor Dogen, Zenji, who wrote that verse, he's saying, you know, we have these habits that have been built up for a long time, which now obstruct the realization of truth.

[02:25]

So as you start to look at these outflows, or start to look at these, to experience how you have these habitual ways of experiencing things, such as these outflows are created, By noticing that you are getting happy when something positive happens, and getting unhappy when something negative happens, by confessing that, by admitting that you have this habit, over and over, admitting these habits of these karmic obstructions, you actually, through this process of admitting, and then it actually says confessing and repenting. So confessing means you confess this pattern that you see. A positive thing happens, I get all worked up over that. A negative thing happens, I get all worked up over that. Confessing that. And then noticing that you can distinguish between... You don't necessarily... Actually, you don't feel bad about... You don't have to feel...

[03:34]

bad about having a painful sensation. You don't feel bad about, you know, if somebody hits you with a bat on your thigh and it hurts, you don't have to feel bad about that pain. But you probably do feel bad about hating the person who hit you. And you notice that you do. even though they did it by accident, even though it was your grandson who did it just out of his undisciplined, childish activity. So you don't feel good about hating your loved ones just because you have pain in the relationship. But you confess that you do, and then you feel bad about that, and feeling bad about way you are, when you're not the way you really want to be, that motivates you to be transformed.

[04:42]

And it actually transforms you. So you actually melt away the root of this deep karmic habit by admitting that you have this deep karmic habit, seeing how that feels, and, you know, re-enlisting in the path of becoming free. So, it doesn't mean that when you hear this teaching, you immediately, just by hearing the teaching, you're going to necessarily... Some people do, however, sometimes hear the teaching and immediately get enlightened. But most people hear the teaching and notice that, well, they seem to be doing what the teaching says is the way that causes suffering. But that's good. When you notice that you're making that mistake, you can learn. You're starting to learn. So, this is... This discussion relates to all three of those basic methods. Anything else you want to bring up right now?

[05:49]

The noticing, confessing, and repenting. And it says, actually, to confess to the Buddhas, bodhisattvas, And so, you know, where are the Buddhas and bodhisattvas? So what we sometimes do is we have to confess before a picture of a Buddha or a bodhisattva. You confess before a statue of a Buddha or a bodhisattva. And of course, if you were ever fortunate to actually meet a Buddha or a bodhisattva, you can actually confess to a Buddha or a bodhisattva. find someone who will act, a normal human being who will act on behalf of the bodhisattvas and you can actually look at their face and tell them about your karmic patterns that you've noticed. You can also tell them that you wish that you feel not so good about these karma kingdoms, and you wish to, you know, give them up.

[07:03]

So actually, confession is part of the practice of compassion for yourself and for others, which is part of the thing about talking to each other on this path, listening to each other's stories. And confession can be done, again, to a statue, But there are certain things that happen when you're talking to a human who actually understands your language, which facilitate and supplement or augment the confession process. Because sometimes if you confess to a person, the way they respond makes you realize that you didn't confess fully. You realize, well, you left something out, or you held back or something. And then you say it more fully, and you feel more... You feel worse about what you did, and then because you feel worse, you feel more motivated, more deeply motivated to give it up.

[08:11]

Even noticing it yourself and not saying it out loud is somewhat valuable. Sometimes when we notice things in our head, just like in a dream, sometimes you have a shorthand version of what you did and you don't realize the full magnitude of how unfortunate the behavior is. Sometimes it helps to read a journal to help me elaborate or write a novel. or something like Dostoevsky wrote his novels about to try to get his mind off their own page so he could become free of his own comic hindrances. Nobody knows it this time. It's a small point. I was very aware of it. I've worked with a lot of international people in the language barrier. I have to translate sometimes. And it's very hard on the phone, particularly, having a translator, because you can't see the face or the gestures. But when we were talking, one of my friends was saying, Esperanto.

[09:17]

He said, there's not many people speak it, but I think Gandhi had tried to get that working after the... the Second World War, people started getting international. And he thought it would be remarkable if people would speak one language. It would bring us all together, as well as having one calendar. We're all on the same day. So it's just a point that they could all get on the internet and learn Esperanto. That's a good idea. Yes. Given that we're just like myself, Um, basically, I can't think of describes it so well, but it's very important to actually talk to your partner, or, um, like, help with the situation. Um, if you think about what interaction experience that happens, or what happens, but it has a lot to do with what you have.

[10:26]

Sure. Yes, definitely. Definitely. So she's saying she experiences a positive sensation, and she gets happy about it. And so is it okay to experience the sensation? Do you follow that? Is that what you're talking about, right? She experiences a positive sensation and knows she gets happy about that? Right. So is it valid then to... Although you... Is it valid then to... fully experience that happiness that you felt over this positive sensation. So yes, definitely. And if you do experience that happiness fully, that will help you realize, I think, that that came in association with this positive sensation. And then you'll also be more able to say, yeah, and that happens quite regularly. And you can see the connection because you vividly experience the happiness that came from the positive sensation.

[11:35]

So you can clearly see the connection between the two. And then from that full experience of the happiness, you can notice that also you feel a little silly, getting jacked around by positive sensations. You feel a little like a puppet or a robot And then you feel... And you don't necessarily have to get unhappy about that. You can just say, I don't want to be that way. I don't want to be, like, pushed around by my nervous system. Just be a machine, a combination. So, it is... It's quite different, then, you see, than having a positive sensation, feeling that happiness somewhat, and then... trying to do something to facilitate more happy sensations. I mean, more pleasant sensations. Because you think pleasant sensations are going to make you happy.

[12:37]

Because you do feel happy when you have pleasant sensations, right? So, since I do feel happy when I have pleasant sensations, it doesn't make sense then to try to promote pleasant sensations. So then you try to do that, but that actually is really trying to promote pleasant sensations Generally speaking, it does not promote getting present sensations. It's when you get yourself into trouble because of that body. Thank you. I could say a bit more about the place of hand-brake therapy, yes. What I hear you saying is to experience fully whatever comes to you without attachment, without attachment. No. Part of experiencing what comes to you in every moment is attaching a value to it. Your nervous system always attaches a value to every single experience.

[13:40]

So that's not optional. Part of full experience is projecting value onto experience. That's a normal experience. A human Buddha, a living Buddha, projects value onto every experience. You see a blue color? There's a positive sensation, a negative sensation, or a negative sensation. I thought that helped. There's a salty taste, there's a positive sensation about the salt, or a negative sensation about the salt, or a neutral sensation about the salt. Someone touches your skin, there's a positive sensation, a neutral sensation. You think of what day it is, like Saturday. Sometimes you think of Saturday, you just feel really good about Saturday. Sometimes you feel neutral about Saturday, and sometimes you feel bad about Saturday. There's various conditions which contribute to that. But you always evaluate, so you do evaluate.

[14:41]

And that's part of full living, is to have evaluations. And not be attached to them. And learn how to not be attached to them, exactly. When you're attached to them, then you get jacked up by the positive ones, usually, pushed down by the negative ones, and you get kind of seasick from the neutral ones, get nauseated by the neutral ones. So then you get greedy about the positive ones, angry about the negative ones, confused about the neutral ones. And then the actions which arise from the greed, hate, and confusion reinforce that pattern of getting jacked up by the positive ones and pushed down by the negative ones. And then, although feeling is a part of being fully alive, these reactions start to squelch and suffocate our lives.

[15:57]

Aliveness, our living, our life, And it not only suffocates your personal life, it suffocates your life with everybody. It hinders your relationships with everybody. Because again, you start to shrink back from certain people and try to grab and control other people. All this strange stuff starts happening when you get into this pattern. Yes? Did you? Yes, I was wondering about Yes, that's right, in a way. So just at every moment of your experience, your mind evaluates what's going on, and that's part of what a full experience involves. Another part of what goes on in every experience, really,

[16:59]

is what we call thinking. And thinking is sort of the overall pattern of your consciousness in the moment. So thinking will be part of the reason, will be a contributing factor to what feeling you have about things. Like, certain patterns of thought, certain patterns of consciousness in a given moment, will be a contributing factor to the dependent core arising of positive sensations. For example, some days on some Saturdays, or some moments on some Saturdays, or some moments on some Fridays, when the thought Saturday arises, given a certain structure of your consciousness, when the thought Saturday arises, positive sensation arises, because the way you're thinking about Saturday. In a different way of thinking about Saturday, you feel bad about Saturday. Right? So, some people think of Saturday, well, today I can go buy some shoelaces, because they feel good.

[18:02]

We think, well, today I have to, you know, wash all these dirty clothes, like your dad, or whatever. The way you think about Saturday is always there in every moment. In the next moment, you think about Saturday in a different way. And so, one moment you think about Saturday in a certain way, and a positive sensation arises. Another moment, a negative sensation arises. Another way to put it is, you think about Saturday and a positive sensation arises, and you notice that it affects your thinking. So the thinking you create determines the shape of your consciousness, and the shape of your consciousness determines... Your feeling determines the shape of your consciousness. Your feeling determines your thinking. Your thinking determines your feeling. And this is constantly going on, every moment. You are thinking. Every moment, your mind has a certain pattern or shape. And again, the pattern or shape is also part of your karmic... accumulations. You tend to think about things in a certain way because of the way you've thought in the past. So the feelings and thinking are constantly interacting with each other.

[19:05]

And understanding that they do may be helpful to liberate the process. Understanding how thinking and feeling and emotions, depending on how they arise, for a lot of people, and this is something that quite maybe particularly for certain kinds of Americans who are kind of psychologically oriented, this aspect of the teaching, how the mind works, may be very helpful to help people achieve the basic motive. Like I tell the story of my daughter, I had a girlfriend staying over, and they were very chummy, very close while the girl was visiting. When the girl's mother came to visit, the girl ran to her mother and jumped on her mother's lap.

[20:12]

And then the girl and her mother went off, and after they left, my daughter said to her mother and me, she did that just to make me mad. She expressed that affection to her mother just to make me mad. In other words, she felt left out by her friend going over and being affectionate with her mother after they had been close all night. And then a few minutes later, my daughter got on my lap and my wife said, are you doing that just to make me mad? or put it another way. So that's one way to tell the story. Here's another way to tell the story. The girl gets on her mother's lap and then leaves and my daughter says, she did that just to hurt my feelings. And then my daughter gets in my lap and my wife said, are you doing that just to hurt my feelings? And then my daughter says, okay, I'll give her another chance. I'll watch her at school tomorrow.

[21:16]

So then she watches her at school And she probably sees her do things like be friends with other kids, be affectionate, friendly with other kids. And when she comes home, we say, how did it go? And she said, I noticed that I was getting mad at her for what I was thinking about. So the way you think about people then if you believe the way you think, then you get angry or attached. You think they're this way, you're attracted to them. You think they're that way, you want to get away from them. So noticing that what you think of people, if you believe it, has a big influence on you. But if what you think of people you don't believe in, which doesn't mean you switch to the other side and say the opposite is true. You just don't grasp, strongly adhere to what you think about people. We notice then that what you think about people is not very influential. So that if you think these are the good people and these are the not good people, but you don't believe either of those thoughts, you can be friendly with both types of people.

[22:28]

But actually, if you believe that these are the good people and you attach to it, you might think you can be friendly to them, but actually, that will interfere with your friendship, too. It will. Because you're going to have up-flows and kind of kindred-nesses. Also, if they change a little bit, you flip them over into the other camp. And of course, looking at people being bad and attaching to them, that won't help friendship either. So whether you think people are wonderful, very attractive or unattractive, if you believe either of those ways of thinking about them, it hinders this peace and harmony. And we do think things like that about people. We think positive and negative things about them. We feel positive and negative things about them. And if we get caught by those thoughts and feelings, then that hinders working for peace and harmony.

[23:33]

hinders the realization of peaceful relationships. Since we do that, a big part of the practice is to confess and repent. But those ways of seeing things, and the karmic hindrances that have arisen from those ways of seeing those things, will prepare us for the possibility of still our mind thinks things about people, Still our mind imagines things about people. Still we have feelings about people. The more we get intimate with this process, the less we're hindered by what our body and mind are creating moment by moment. And again, this is to help our body and mind live fully and harmoniously. It's not to squelch us. It's not to suppress these processes. It's to become more intimate with them so that they become more full Yes?

[24:36]

What's the difference between confess? Confess basically means just that you report the behavior or the thought. And confession is body, speech, and mind, right? When we say karma or action in Buddhism, we mean thinking, speaking, and physical postures. So you can report a thought you have about someone, you can admit a thought you have about someone, You can admit something you say about yourself or someone else. You can admit something you do with your body. So that's three types. You just report the fact. That's it. That's the confession part. The repentance part, repentance, I think the first definition of repentance in the English dictionary is a feeling of sorrow over some action you've done. And or a feeling of sorrow over actions you have done which motivates or stimulates a reformation of your behavior.

[25:43]

So repentance is not just the sorrow over actions which you don't feel good about. It's that type of sorrow which then motivates a reformation of that behavior So, repentance is related to, for example, remorse. Remorse means taste again. You re-manja something. You taste again something you did, and it feels not good. But repentance is a little bit more. It means not just that feeling of remorse or the sorrow over what you've done, but that type of sorrow which stimulates the transformation of your behavior So this translation that you're... This is the text you read this morning. It was originally written in classical Japanese.

[26:46]

In this translation, there's a place in the original where it says, It's two Chinese characters. And sometimes people translate them as confession, and sometimes people translate it as repentance. But... And I, myself, I translated it as confession, and I translated it as repentance, and I translated it as... So now I translate it as confession and repentance. That's the way it is now, isn't it? It's both confession and repentance. Because those two characters, one character... Both characters have the meaning of confession. But one character just has the meaning of confession, and the other character has the meaning of sorrow. So it's actually like it's carrying, not just reporting... the activity, but it's also the carrying the meaning of that you feel bad about it, you feel not quite on the mark about it, and you wish to do things differently. So that's why I think somehow I had to translate that one, it's actually one word, sangha, as two words in English.

[27:54]

Because if you look at the Chinese, you see one has the confession part, the other one has the sorrow part. Or you could almost say sorrowfully confess no way to do it. The sorrow leaf confess and transform. The word repent in repent, penitentiary, penance, you know, I think it has, it has for me anyway, the association of punishment. But penitence is what you do in order to recover from wrong deeds. It's not to punish you. If punishing you will help you recover from wrong deeds, well, maybe okay. But there is a kind of punishment in the way you feel about certain things you've done in your life. or outdoing, which you don't feel good about. There's some kind of punishment there for you.

[28:56]

But I think the positive side of it is, does it transform you and improve your life to think about it? This is a practice to make you freer, not to make you feel worse. But if you already do feel bad, you don't have to make it worse, but to recognize that bad feeling and now use it for a positive reason. Make something good out of something bad. Make me something good out of something painful. That's like learning from your mistakes. I've experienced that this works. It has that feeling of... That it can create transformation. But I don't understand, in terms of the Dharma, why it works. What is the Dharma explanation of why? Why is that what is like a magical thing, that when you do that, then... Well, let's see.

[30:05]

This is kind of a big topic, but let's see if I can approach it. I was sitting last night and I thought this basic motive of peace and harmony with all beings and basic method, for example, a basic method of Intimacy. We don't just, in this practice of Zen, we don't just think about intimacy.

[31:11]

Think about in what ways aren't we intimate with ourselves and others. We actually sit and experience with our body ways that we are somewhat hindered We experience ways that we are somewhat not intimate with our own body. So you notice, in some sense by sitting and noticing what's going on with your body, your consent, you're confessing that you have karmic hindrances in just sitting here, that you feel some obstruction of your energy, that there's a certain flow with your own body and also a certain flow between your body and other bodies, you notice there's some hindrance. You feel that there's some fear towards other people or some sense of greed or aversion with regard to other people. You notice that when you're sitting.

[32:14]

And of course you can notice when you're walking too. But we have to use our body to test, to see if our body is really relaxed and open and flowing. We notice it isn't sometimes. We confess it. And by confessing, we become more intimate with it. It's kind of just physical difficulty when you're just sitting. Okay? So the sitting is a kind of, it's a form of confession, in a way, and repentance. That we confess our obstructions when we're sitting, and we feel kind of bad about them. They're actually painful. And we Actually, by just sitting that way, you modify your behavior to sit in a way that allows more flow. And how does it work? Well, you could say it works slowly.

[33:18]

For example, I often use the example, in the first few years I was practicing at Zen Center, for a while there we had sessions every month, every other month. And I sat all of them because of my job. And in daily practice, we didn't sit so much, like four or five periods a day. During Sashin, with lots of periods, after about a day or so, I got this pain sort of under my shoulder blade on the left side. This pain would come. And if I put my hands on my knees, it would go away. But if I put my hands in this meditation mudra, it would come back pretty fast. So I kept working with that, sitting with my hands in the meditation mudra, and when the pain came and got pretty bad, I put my hands on my knees, and when the pain went away, I put my hands back in the meditation mudra. And when it got bad again, and I did that, for two and a half years, I had that problem.

[34:30]

of this pain coming when I sat for long periods of time. And two and a half years I just coped with it in that way of going to the place which I thought was the way to sit, approximately, and then this pain would come and then I would just be with the pain, and I would be confessing and repenting the pain. In other words, I was not feeling good about the way I was sitting, I wasn't feeling like a bad person or something, but my body was saying, this is a painful way to sit. And yet my body, my mind, wasn't necessarily saying, you should get totally away from this. Some part of me thought it would be good to figure out what this problem is. So when it got, I didn't go push too hard, so when it got to a certain point, I just put my hands on my knees, and then I would get a little break from it. And then when I felt relaxed again, I'd go back. And when I sat for a little while, it was okay, but then as I sat longer, the pain would come back.

[35:37]

So I kept going back to this problem, confessing and feeling bad about it, and actually wanting to find the way to sit that would be comfortable. I had the feeling that I wasn't sitting that... There must be some way that my body could do this. I just kept going to that place. And in a sense, my body was doing this. I wasn't even thinking this exactly. It was like really my body was confessing and repenting. And my body found a way to sit. And now 34 years later, all the time between actually, I haven't had a problem with that particular problem, that particular pain. My body found the way to sit that worked for itself. where the energy was flowing in such a way that it wasn't getting all jammed up at that particular spot and creating the pain. How did that work? It worked by getting in the position, the pain coming, and then being with it for a little while, and then giving it a rest, and coming back, being with it for a little while, giving it a rest, coming back.

[36:43]

And finally, the posture changed. I don't know what happened, but I think the posture changed, body learned by repeated experiments. It found a way to do it in such a way that it felt good about the way it was positioning itself. You have a conversation with a person, you know, and you talk to them, you know, on a daily basis, and things will go okay, and you start getting kind of into something with them, and every time you get into this thing with this person, you get to this place where you kind of like, it starts to hurt, you know, and it's like... It's really painful and you keep working on it and pretty soon you just can't stand it anymore and you take a break. But you kind of know that here's this thing again, here's this kind of obstruction coming and I feel bad about it and I'm not quite saying, I'm not being so skillful in this conversation. It's not working so well. You try this, you try that, nothing works, you take a break. You come back, you try this, you try that, nothing works, you take a break. Try this, try that, and suddenly you try this, try that, try this, try that, try this, and somehow it clears.

[37:53]

But you went back to that difficult point with that person in that conversation over and over and over. But you didn't just go back there and push yourself harder and harder and harder and harder. The pain's getting right back. Maybe take a break. It doesn't mean take a break and never come back. Because you have some confidence that it would be good to talk to this person. It would be good to learn how to sit up straight. It's not that strange a thing to do, actually, to be able to sit. It's not a problem with just sitting up straight. It's not a problem. It's a good thing that we have a body. It can be in this posture, but it's kind of hard to find a way to be in this posture for long periods of time. And, you know, you have to get really, get true posture. And the same in a conversation with certain people that you're getting eaten with. It takes a while to find the true way of being in that conversation. But you want to talk to this person. So you come back again and again.

[38:57]

You feel like it is possible to have upright conversation. But you notice that there's something about the way you're talking to them that keeps hurting. But you keep coming back. But you don't push too hard. So you don't push too hard, but you don't run away. You don't push too hard, you don't run away. Keep coming back, but not too much. Go away, but not too long. Back and forth, back and forth. Gradually, over time, things start loosening up. What was the problem again? I kind of remember what it was, but anyway, you're past that now. got through it. Behavior got reformed through confession and repentance in the process. You confess something unskillful here. Something's caught, some kind of clinging here to gain and loss in this conversation. Some kind of clinging to I'm right or I'm wrong or she's right or she's wrong. Something's sticking. I hardly know what it is. But even when you find out what it is, you still think, yes, you are wrong.

[39:59]

You're wrong. What can I do? You're wrong. You're wrong. You're wrong. And that hurts for me to think you're wrong. I don't like to think you're wrong. That makes things not go very well in our conversation. Or I'm right, I'm right, I'm right. That doesn't help the conversation. And yet I can't let go of it. But it hurts to be right, too. So body, keep body, mind, give. So this hurts, this hurts, this hurts. Please get off this trip. You don't know how, but keep going back, keep going back somehow. Keep going back, but also keep resting. Remember, resting is important too. Take a break. Don't work too hard at things. Stay with it, but not too much. Take a break, but not too long. So you learn the right pattern of work on these things, and that in a sense could be considered repentance. First of all, confession of the problem. Repentance is Work with that sorrow to motivate you to work this out.

[41:00]

And go back to the situation, not necessarily going back to the situation where you're going to do something wrong that you're going to confess about. Put yourself in situations where you notice your unskillfulness. I'm not saying go do unskillful things. I'm saying put yourself in situations where you notice your unskillfulness. See the difference? Like, there's some areas where most of you are probably pretty skillful. That's fine. But sometimes you have to do things you're skillful at. That's okay. It's all right. Like somebody, you're a skillful driver and somebody needs you to give them a ride. Give them a ride. No problem. Hey, teacher, they want a ride. Should I give some other people a ride again? Yeah, go ahead. You're our best driver. Go ahead. Take them all if you take a huge bust. Take them all. But after you finish that, come back here, I have something for you to work on. What?

[42:02]

You know that thing you don't know how to do very well? I'd like you to do that again. I'd like you to write another one of those letters to your mother. I'd like you to call your brother who's got cancer. Remember how you don't want to do that because you're so unskillful when you talk to him? It's not that I'm telling you to be unskillful talking to your brother. who you haven't talked to for 30 years. It's not that I'm... It's not that I want you to be unskillful. I want you to face your brother. This person is your brother. I want you to talk to him. I want you to call him and talk to him. Even though you're unskillful, I want you to face what happens when you call your brother. Because he's sick, and you haven't talked to him. And you wanted to, and you loved him. Remember how nice he was to you when you were a little boy? Your big brother? How loving he was, and now you don't talk to him anymore? Call him. I mean, I'm so unskilled when I talk to myself.

[43:03]

Okay, relax. When you're ready, please call him. Are you ready? No, I'm not. Okay. Are you ready? I think I can do it. I'm talking about somebody that told me this story recently. About this brother he has who he loves. and who's always very kind to him, but he's afraid to call his brother because of some, you know, because of things that have happened in the past, unskillfulnesses, and likelihood of unskillful, potential unskillful. If he extends himself, the brother might snap back at him, it might be very painful, you know, it's very difficult. So I'm not, I'm not saying, yeah, go be unskillful, I'm saying, go meet this person who you have a deep karmic relationship with. When you think there's some possibility of face the relationship. So, like, you know, I just got a message a couple of days ago, and this person said, an email, this person said, he said, Dear Reb, in quotation marks, in parentheses, a tangent version, this person said, I'm taking a gamble here, but I think you're my cousin.

[44:19]

And various thoughts came to my mind. She went on and said stuff that sounded pretty reasonable, but I couldn't figure out who this person was. I just didn't get it. And then I saw at the bottom, it had a name, and it was in the dim lighting of my interview room. It looked like a Japanese name. I guess so, or something. It was really strange. Somebody who has a Japanese name was writing me, saying he was my cousin. And then somebody looked at it more closely and said, Kissy, not Kesso. And I had this cousin named Kissy, who I hadn't seen for 45 years, who lives in Washington. And I was just so happy to hear from her, because I always liked her, you know. No karmic hindrance with her. So it was very easy for me to reach out to this cousin and now I'm going to be able to talk to my dear cousin from 45 years ago and find out, you know, it's great, you know.

[45:28]

But some other people who are your brothers and sisters and cousins were afraid of because of unskillfulness, because of karmic hindrances they've developed. So we go back there to this path. In the meantime, Remember, in your actual sitting practice, you're doing the same thing, basically. How does it work? Get your feeling for how it works? And you can also bring in, if you want to, the other dimension which is said in this thing you're trying to do, and that is when you confess... before the Buddhas, you cannot avoid getting imperceptible assistance from them. They inconceivably assist you. When you confess to the Buddhas, they help you become free of these forces. Because there, you know, the Buddhas are the beings which are always with you, which want to help you, but they can't help you as fully until you tell them what your problem is.

[46:33]

If I'm ignoring my problems, it's hard for the enlightened beings to help me. As soon as I admit them, in the sense that they're already helping me, or they have helped me in the form of me being able to admit it, then when I become more conscious of it, they help me more. And they and me are not really separate, actually, one thing. But if I don't do my part of admitting my karmic hindrances, the other aspect of myself, which I don't usually understand, can't help me this fully. And how does that work? Basically the same interdependent way. So actually, another dimension to this is that when you're sitting, and sitting in meditation, you're not doing it by yourself. Now, if you think you're doing it by yourself, okay, fine. It's a free country. You can think you're sitting by yourself. Okay?

[47:38]

And some people do, right? Just like you can think positive, negative, and neutral sensation. Same thing. Your mind can imagine that you're sitting by yourself. And if you think that way, and you believe that, then you will experience karmic hindrances, will arise, karmic actions will arise, and hindrances will arise, because you think that and believe that, you will get in trouble. But if you're sitting and thinking that you're sitting by yourself, and you notice and confess that you think that way, and notice that it's uncomfortable to think that way, your behavior gets transformed, and you stop believing that you're sitting by yourself after a while. You get transformed by noticing how uncomfortable it is to think you're sitting by yourself, by your own power. You start to notice that. And the more you sit, the more you notice. If you do think you're sitting by your own power, the more you sit, the more you'll notice that that's uncomfortable. You'll get a pain in your body from that attitude.

[48:43]

Pain in your body and mind from the attitude that you're sitting by yourself. And if you confess... to the Buddhas, that you're sitting by yourself, not depending on their power, even though you're enacting their posture. Say, I'm sitting here, but I don't need you. But I confess to you that I don't need you. And I confess to you that I feel uncomfortable saying I don't need you. The more I confess to you that I don't need you, and the more I confess that I don't need you, the more I'm aware that I'm uncomfortable thinking that I don't need you. And the more I confess that, the more I realize I do need you, and you are helping me, and I get over it. And I get over the idea that I'm sitting by myself, by my own power, all alone. I get over that. And I'm open to how I'm actually practicing with everybody. And I even get over my idea of what it is to practice with everybody. Now I have the thought that I'm practicing with everybody, but my idea of how I'm practicing with everybody is not how I'm practicing with everybody.

[49:50]

It's just my idea. And I noticed that even my idea that I'm practicing by myself, if I hold to that, it's painful. And my idea that I'm practicing with everyone, if I hold to that, that will also be painful. But opening to the fact that I am practicing with everyone, and also opening to the way I am is beyond my idea. That's not painful. It's still scary when you first think about it. When you don't necessarily even think about it, but just open to it, it's actually called being a Buddha. That's what Buddhists think. It's that the Buddhists think in such a way called they don't believe they're thinking about the way they're practicing with everybody. But if you ask them if they are, they say, yeah, right, I'm practicing. But they don't think that the way they're practicing with everyone is the way that they think they're practicing. Did you get that?

[50:52]

I didn't get that. The way... You know, as a... What do you call it? If I'm converted to the Buddha's teachings, and I've realized the Buddha's teaching, then I understand that I'm practicing together with everyone. I get that. And when I get that I'm practicing together with everyone, I'm like a happy person, because I'm not afraid of people anymore, because I'm practicing with everyone. That's good. But I also understand, at the time, that my idea of how I'm practicing with everyone is not how I'm practicing with everyone. For example, my idea of how I'm practicing with you is not how you think you're practicing with me. For example. But also how you think you're practicing with me is not how you're practicing with me. How we're practicing together is beyond your ideas of it and my ideas of it. But obviously I can't imagine all the ways that you're actually practicing.

[51:56]

I mean, I can imagine how you're practicing, but you've got lots of stuff happening for you in your practice with me that I don't know anything about. I simply do not know all the ways you're practicing. And you don't even know all the ways you're practicing. But you have ways that you do know you're practicing with me that I don't know about, but you do know about. However, those ways do not actually embrace the totality of your practice with me. So when we're practicing together, we actually kind of give up thinking. We give up thinking. We do think, but we give it up. So we think, oh, I'm practicing nicely with these people, but I give up thinking that that's really the way I'm practicing. That's also part of it. confession and repentance. I confess that I think we're practicing together in such and such a way. I confess it. And I feel bad, actually, to some extent.

[53:05]

I feel some pain about... Well, I don't feel pain about imagining that we're practicing together in a certain way. I feel pain over my past, at least my past tendency... When I used to think about the way we practiced and I believed my thoughts about the way we practiced, I feel bad about the times when I believed that the way I thought we were practicing was the way we were practicing. And today I'm thinking about how I'm practicing, but I'm not believing it. I'm not attaching to it. I'm not adhering to it. And I feel better now. Well, we've been going out for a while. The kitchen staff has left, so maybe we could do some walking meditation.

[54:13]

You're in the kitchen staff too? The kitchen staff is leaving. We usually end our dhamma discussions with a chant. Our intention equally betrays we begin place with the right way. Gains are not bliss, I vowed to save them. Commissions of inexhaustible. I vowed to let them. Darn your babies, I know how it works. I vowed to let them.

[55:17]

Will's way is unsurpassable. I got up to the point. Let's put our questions on this position.

[55:36]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_73.9