The Light of Buddha's Wisdom - Precepts of Compassion
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Buddha sheds the light of wisdom on the true nature of suffering, liberation, and the human mind, on the teachings of compassion, moral causation, and the whole phenomenal universe. This retreat offered an opportunity to receive, study, and contemplate Buddha's teachings on mind, precepts of compassion, and moral cause and effect. The discussions and contemplations were framed in the light of wisdom which is far beyond all discussion. Wonderful teachings were offered together with ways of not clinging to those teachings. There were periods of quiet sitting, walking meditation, oral teachings, and group discussions, with opportunities for individual interviews as time allowed.
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do walking meditation
i'd like to
relate this some
the the light of the light of wisdom to
precepts are instructions on compassion
and i already did that last night when i was talking to your bag practicing giving
and again practicing giving me to practice
what it is what is already
what is hardly the case
giving is already happening
and the way giving hap is already happening
is radiant
the way we're giving to each other right now
it is brilliant
when we when we see how we're giving to each other
we see this light
and when you see this light
of how we're giving to each other
you're happy and you know what to do
another unfoldment
of
the precepts of compassion so one precept of compassion
which is not often called a precept of compassion is the practice of giving
and once again
giving this this is a preceptor a practice about to realize what's already happening
and another precept of compassion is what is often called the precepts of compassion
or ethical precepts
and
in the in this particular tradition
we have sixteen precepts of compassion
the first three are to return to
enlightenment
it's an that's an instruction in compassion it's a compassionate instruction
and it's an instruction to return to compassion return to did i say enlightenment
return to and rely on enlightenment
now usually say
i'm going for going for refuge in buddha
going for refuge in buddha
that's that's the first precept
to fly back to buddha
re fouquet fly back to buddha as the first instruction in a way
next one is to fly back to the truth to take refuge in the truth
her next one has take refuge in a community
those are the first three precepts of compassion
once again to return to buddha means
and to rely on buddha means relying on first of all
this light to rely on the way we are supporting each other to return
it to be mindful and remember and return
two what
to the ungraspable radiance of how you are supporting me and i am support to you how you are supporting everyone and how everyone's everyone to you the way where
supporting each other in both directions all the time that he is buddha that is enlightenment
and that enlightenment is jet is behind us
he's actually what's motivating us
to realize that so enlightenment is pushing us to realize enlightenment
the lights pushing us to realize the light
and and yeah so that's
feeling that encouragement and returning to the light is going for refuge in buddha
the truth of that the truth of that light and that life as truth
is the dharma
which we return to
and part of the truth
of that light the truth of how we're supporting each other the truth of enlightenment
is that
this enlightenment and will call it has no that there's not a particle of dust in it
and that means there's not a particle of separation in it
that's the truth of it it's not something out there are in here
and the community
is the harmony among beings who returned to this
wisdom return to this light
returning to this enlightenment is the same as returning to compassion is the same as returning to giving
to keep going back and remember all the time
that we're living in a generous
universe
the universe is generous and we are generous together all of you are generous beings as the same as saying all of you have light
your light is your generosity and your generosity is something has given to you
everyone's support you to be generous
and you are however if you don't remember to practice generosity you can get distracted from this light
i can get distracted from this light and when were distracted from the light were afraid and we were afraid were distracted from the light
we were distracted from giving were afraid
and we were afraid we get distracted from giving
of course if you are afraid i say of course or enough it's of course when you are afraid when i am afraid if i try to practice giving i start to return to giving
when i if i'm afraid and i start to practice giving i start to return to fearlessness
the way to get from fear to fearlessness is through giving
when you're practicing giving wholeheartedly you're not afraid
when you practice giving wholeheartedly you realize everyone's been given to you
if you don't see that everyone's generous to you
practice generosity towards those
who you don't think i've been generous with you and you will open your eyes to their generosity
okay
then moving on and these precepts
another another sort of the first three are returning to enlightenment the truth of enlightenment and the community of enlightenment
the next three are
in this tradition are
ah actually they're called
to embrace and sustain
the forms and ceremonies
to embrace and sustain all good activities and to embrace and sustain all being so to the next three
the related to another
no way of talking which is to avoid evil
the practice good and to
ha
save all beings or you can say to embrace and sustain avoiding evil to embrace and sustain all good and to embrace a sustainable beings so there's interesting juxtaposition between avoiding evil
and practicing forms and ceremonies
sounds different but they're really the same
so here's a big story
big story is
enlightenment is the way
that we're all working together harmoniously the way we're supporting each other enlightenment the way you give me life and i give you life that's enlightenment
and that enlightenment actually is
a mind it's a it's a consciousness
which are all included in
all of our minds are included in the mind which is the way all of our minds support each other
that's the that's the enlightened mind
the mind and includes all enlightened minds all unenlightened minds
and everything
ah also all things that aren't minds like bells and
steel and
trees i should say treason
sand and fire and all that's all those things the way they're supporting each other
that's actually mind
and this mind for various reasons and as theories about this and scientific research about this this mind
can manifest
as individual minds and individual minds can manifest as minds which are poisoned poisoned minds
so enlightenment allows enlightenment generously allows individual poisoned minds
some people say why does god allow ignorant people why does god make ignorant people some people have said why does god allow ignorant people to to become frightened and as
and cruel to each other anyway we do have this phenomenon of ignorant people
people whose minds are poisoned by greed hatred and delusion
this one mind this enlightenment actually generously allows ignorant children to exist in a world
and these ignorant children
are objects of the compassion of this one mind
and this one mind gives teachings to ignorant children
children whose minds are poisoned by greed hate and delusion
and these poisoned minds
had the ability to i should say happy built they come with the activity of imagining their relationship with the world
individual minds can imagine their relationship can construct
a picture or represented to a representation of their relationship with the world
i'm i'm not getting in to talking about the teachers are mind but i'm i'm an i'm not going to go to find that direction
that's what i mentioned that
these mines all these individual minds which are supporting each other generously
they can be affected by a great hate and delusion and while still affected by greed hate and delusion they can construct these minds can construct they have a constructive capacity to construct a representation of their relationship with the rest of the world
okay so each of us cause the ability to construct a representation of our relationship with each other
and we do that every moment every moment my mind constructs
a representation of my relationship with you a picture of it a story of it
and that story i have my my relationship with you
is called intention or will and is the definition of karma it's the basic action
basic action mine is to construct
a story about our relationship with the universe and we do that every moment
every moment your mind constructs that like right now i my mine is constructing that i'm related to the universe and in particular i'm in a room with you
and you're all being generous with me and i'm being generous with you my mind's constructing that kind of relationship and it's a happy construction it's a happy story that i have
ah it's an it's it i would say it's a skillful story
and also my mind which is affected by greed hate and delusion can also construct other kinds of stories about my relationship with you i could construct a story that only some of your being generous
with me
i my mine could give rise to such a story
or i could even make a story that almost none of you are being generous with me
i could make a story that you aren't be none of your being genuine me and i'm not been charged with any of you i could have a story like that
i can also a story that none of your being generous with me and i'm been generous with you that's like the mothers general store
i'm supporting these kids they're not supporting me
i'm giving my life to them they're not giving back to me so our stories like that
those stories are you nuts not so skillful
but in both cases
those stories are not the relationship
if i tell a story that you're all supporting me and i'm deporting all of you that stories skillful and actually it's true it's a true story in a way it means it's right but the story is not the way you're supporting me and the story i have the
you're supporting me
is not the way you're supporting me is just my mental version of how you're supporting me and it's a nice mental version of how your supported me because it saying yes you are supporting me but it's not the way you're doing it and similarly the my story that i'm supporting you i do have that supper
story i'm supporting you i got that story actually right now i think i'm supporting you but the way i think i'm supporting he was not the way i'm supporting your the way we're supporting each other is inconceivable radiance
it cannot be grasped my word do not reach it
however it is illuminating my words
this attitude towards my stories or this way of talking about my stories is against a way of talking about my stories but
if i have a story that
that we're supporting each other i would say that's a story which goes with
what they call it avoiding evil
if i have a story that i'm supporting you and i were in and sporty you means i want to
help you live i want to yeah i want to help you live i want to avoid anything which will harm you in any way i want to support your not harm you
that story that way of seeing my relationship with you and wanting wanting it to be that way
seeing it that way and wanting it to be that way that's what i would call in the long lines of avoiding evil avoiding harm
but if i think that my story about how i want to help you he is actually what's going on if i tighten around this good intention
if i'd taken around it i will miss i will blind myself to the light
of how i'm actually
mutually supporting
you
similarly if i have a not such a happy story of my relationship with the universe
and i think that story is my relationship with the universe and other words i tighten and stiffen around that story
i also blind myself by that tightening to the light of wisdom
so just recently someone told me kind of a story like this which i thought points out how are way subtle this is
the person was telling me about how she was observing certain people
caring for her mother
and she saw them and she had a story that there were being skillful in the way they were caring for her mother
that was her story her mind constructed this story in that where i think it's kind of a skillful story called seeing that other people are being skillful and in her case and she she thought they were skillful
maybe they were i don't know but anyway she thought so and so she said thank you to them
seeing someone is skillful
actually is generous seeing someone as not skillful is also generous
but in both cases you can miss the generosity
no matter how you see me no matter how you see people you're actually being generous in that seeing you're seeing is a gift and also they're supporting you and be generous with you to make it possible for you to see them
who generously to be able to see any part of the universe
but you can miss it i can miss it
so take the example again of you see something and you construct that you would you're seeing as skillfulness and you say thank you
generosity is going on
but you can miss the generosity
if you've tightened around your view
of what they're doing
which in this case again as a nice story they're being gender being skillful
based on thinking that the skillful you say thank you
where's the giving it's not in the story yet
the giving is that when you see someone
even while you have an opinion about them
or even before you have an opinion about them almost
you practice giving with them you let them be
what they are
you you give them to themselves
you see someone you think your skillful yes but do you give them to themselves at that moment
the answer is maybe not you see them you think your skillful you're happy at that thought you say thank you but you missed the giving
he missed it
it was there and you missed it
and
you by missing the giving by missing the giving you tighten around your story that they were skillful
you missed the giving you you blind yourself to the light because you missed the giving
by not joining the giving that was going on why you doing this kind of nice thing called thinking they're skillful and same thank you i missing the giving you missed the light
and although you're kind of happy because what you're seeing is somebody be skillful in your same thank you
you're kind of not happy to because you're missing out on the giving
you're missing the light and on some level because you're missing the light you're afraid right why you're seeing someone being skillful towards your mother
and saint thank you you're afraid why are you afraid because you don't see the light why don't you see the light because you don't see the giving why don't you see them giving because you're not practicing giving
miss it
you are giving but you're not practicing it you don't realize the giving because you're not we have to practice the giving in order to realize to give him we have to practice what's going on in order to realize what's going on sorry
not really sorry but
i apologize for talk telling you this
we have to join what's going on we have to get with the program otherwise we will miss the program
we have to give ourselves to what's going on and are to realize
that we are giving
to what's going on
now you shift to another story
namely the people are not being skillful will take they're not taking care of my mother's skillfully get that story now
so maybe you don't feel i saying thank you
fine
but seeing people not be skillful they're still the opportunity to practice giving
to let the people who
who you think are not a skillful to let them be to give them to themselves
it isn't that you like this skillfulness and as and you also don't hate their skillfulness
you just think they're being unskillful
did i say governess it isn't that you liked to skillfulness and isn't that your hate the skillfulness it isn't that you like their on skillfulness or hate to and skillfulness in both cases no matter what you think of people you give the people regardless of what you think of them you give the people to the people
you give the person to the person no matter what you think of them
if you think they're terrible on skillful you still give them to themselves
you're still compassionate with them more fact those are the people you're supposed to be compassionate towards and if you think they're skillful you give them to themselves to
those are the people if they're not enlightened skillful people those are the people we practice compassion towards first of all as giving first of all give
things to themselves give people to themselves
that's first
that's first that's a practice now having opinions about people isn't actually practice necessarily is just that our mind constantly is doing that it just it just what we're doing it's our action or always having opinions about people
that just happens every moment you've got a story about the situation comes with opinions comes with criticisms
that's not actually practice that's just our activity the practice is being generous
with your activity and be generous towards
those who you're relating to through your activity
so if you see someone being unskillful like the example in this case was a caregiver was going to care for someone without gloves on
so
if you're practising if you're entering into generosity with this situation you let the person you give the person to themselves who doesn't have gloves on you give that to them you're practicing generosity towards them
and you say
would you please put gloves on i would like you to put gloves on hello love time you say that to them
after practicing giving or in the context of in giving
and while years and why you're practicing giving you can see the light
and practicing seen the light you say would you put gloves on and that those that speech you see as a gift you see as light
and you're showing this person the light and they may be able to sense it they may not be able to but you actually are speed the buddha's words are coming onto your mouth
because they're coming in this light in this giving
similarly
you could say the same thing please put gloves on having not given them to themselves
not seeing the light
and being unhappy and afraid
and then same words the same gift
literally but you're also now giving fear an attempt to control them
and maybe even worse things you're giving to your still giving but because you don't realize the giving you give
give a lot of negativity also
you give fear
experience fear and you give it but you don't realize
that you're giving a gift when you give the fear you know you're you're you're off euro you're distracted yourself from the light you say the same thing that you said when you said it were in the light same words and
there's unhappiness and fear
because we're distracted from the light
because we weren't generous with the person who we thought was unskillful
but again go to the person who you think skillful
and don't be generous with that skillfulness and you also have he also all that you're saying thank you for being skillful you're actually also giving giving fear and unhappiness to the person who you're saying thank you to
and you're missing that you're giving fear and unhappiness
maybe but you don't see yourself as a gift because you don't notice the giving
and you say thank you to them for being skillful and you say you'd be yours so skillful and as i think you're so skilful and i'm so happy that i think you're so skillful
but i didn't just that i'm happy i think your skillful it's that i think your skillful and i think that's true
rather than i'm being generous with myself
and letting myself be somebody who thinks somebody skillful and i'm letting you be who you are i'm missing out on the giving so i say thank you
for be skillful
but i don't say thank you for showing me the light
i don't see the light
but you could even say
i see you a skillful and i thank you why would i thank you for how i see you
i see you a skillful and i think myself for thinking you skillful
the most of all i thank you for being good for giving me my life
or i thank you for being i thank you because i think your skillful i think your skillful and i thank myself for thinking that
and also i want to confess to you that i don't see the light
in the situation i don't see i don't see you're giving to me i don't see myself giving to you
i'm blind and the person papacy i have a job to do please excuse me
now if the person who you're thanking is a what he called
a zen master they don't say that necessarily they say thank you i hear you i hear you telling me that you're not in touch with how you're being generous with me and you don't and because you're not in touch with how you being generous with me you're not in touch with on generous with you and you're confessing that to me and you're afraid
and you're unhappy and i understand
and thank you for that gift and do you see that you gave me a gift and the person may be say
now i see
once again you see someone you have the opinion there skillful
do you see that you're giving them to themselves at that time or you just going here skillful your skillful your unskillful your skillful
rather than hope
i'm good i'm i'm letting you be you i'm letting you i'm giving you to yourself
then it's not like to thank you very much for being that way it's like a totally
opening the relationship up
to the vastness of what's going on
and again it can be practiced when the mind is constructing the opinion you're not skillful
i let you be who you are and i have opinions about you
isn't that i let you be what i think you are because you're not what i think you are i let you be who you are and i think you're unskillful
and my thought that your unskillful is a gift i have for you
but before i give you my gift of my opinions about you i already am letting you be who you are
and the subtle nuance between that was good
when to say to someone that was really good
and realize that you're giving to them and they're giving to you
since a big difference
this is a way to practice avoiding evil
in such a way that you're not caught by the discrimination between evil and good
if you're not generous towards evil your be caught by the discrimination between it and good
if you're not caught by the discrimination between good and evil and your generous towards good and generous towards evil you will avoid evil
your your by following this light you will avoid evil
it is possible to avoid evil
tighten around it but then you missed the light
it is possible to do good tighten around it and mr light
if you do good and don't tighten around it and generous with it you opened you open to how the good is not separate from evil
but if you tighten around evil you say i'm not the you keep the you you think it's dangerous to not keep the good the evil separate from the good
you're not generously giving the evil to evil
is the same as keeping the evil separate from good
keep an evil separate from good you blind yourself
be generous with evil and be generous with good you give up the separation between them and you see the light
and then when you see evil you can be generous with it in that light
and you can buy seeing the evil as generous way the evil has no function
in other words you avoid it it's avoided
but i think people often feel
like they should not be generous towards evil otherwise
the evil my flourish
here's my words
being generous towards evil neutralizes it
doesn't destroy it
it just makes it
he just you know
doesn't hurt anybody anymore
because it lives and because it lives in the light of generosity
good tightening around good doesn't destroy the good
it just doesn't let the good flourish
the good flourishing means that none of these are good but there is no fear and there's happiness
but if we're not generous towards good which means giving it away
which means letting go of it if we're not generous towards if we clinked is a good
go blind
we've got good yeah i got the good you me ask rate but i'm afraid and that and i'm at risk of doing something very bad because i'm afraid i'm afraid and i'm unhappy i got a lot of good here
so right now we're here we have a lot of good we have been here together is that all of us are experiencing the results of wholesome action that's why we in this nice place
not only that but that's we are experiencing the results of wholesome action we have the resources now the good resources now we have something to not hold onto
got something good to not hold onto
if we don't hold onto the good if we give away all the good rehab and we also give away everybody owns his goodness
and we let everybody be with they are
then we won't hold to the good which we have here now and if we don't hold to it will will see the light and we will be fearless and happy and seeing this light and seeing the truth
samir
of this record this exhortation
and
yes karen
you could do in person is not necessarily metaphor
yes it's not entirely a metaphor what it's you're seeing a spiritual light
a ordinary light if you look for it you can find it this light if you look for it if you look for the light okay you're not being generous
this light is a light of generosity it's the light of how we're being generous with each other if you look for it you're overlooking it
where's ordinary like you could look for physical light which is immaterial you can look for
and you can find it but this light
which is the light of physical light and physical darkness and it's a light of everything this light if you look for it you've just distract yourself
and when you
our generous to with what's happening suddenly you see a light you see a glow
in things when you look at someone and you give them to themselves you see a light
you feel the light you feel a warmth you feel you feel a fire
when you give yourself to someone who has given who you see in practice giving them to themselves
i give you to you and i give me to you and i really realize that you give yourself to me that a light a light turns on when i enter that room
it's a it's a spiritual light and i and and in that light you will find joy when it gets turned on you feel joy it can be turned on its there are ready but you had to get into it for the joy to come on and the fearlessness to come on
and the happiness to be revealed
so it's a light but it's not a the depends on your
eyes being open it depends on you having eyes however because you do have eyes
so it depends on all this
but even when you have eyes you can miss this light and again you miss this light when you skip over the basic thing we're doing together
giving to each other if you miss that practice
if we missed their practice if we miss what's going on if we miss what's going on we miss light
yes
suchitra
excuse me cry it could i ask you to come up and sit here by these flowers
is criminal and if you can't hear her collect this
our hands so when they go like this i'm going like this okay
is karma not create win-win
is there karma when we missed the line
use your mind could be creating karma why you see the light
so i can be seen the light and also have an opinion about you
i could be seen the light and also think oh this is my friend and i could be practicing generosity towards myself thinking oh this my friend
thinking that you're my friend had my mind constructing this friendly relationship
this friendly picture of our relationship that's karma and that can be going on and i can still see the light the way you don't have to stop imagining your relationship with the world in order to see the light
you can also then say oh this is my friend who seems to be like doing something without gloves and i think of be good if she wore gloves i had that karma i have this mental version of of my relationship with you and your relationship with the world gay
so i can go on
but i can also be practicing giving it the same time and see the light at the same time so i can be talking to you while remembering that we're in this generous relationship with each other i can be talking to you and out of out of a picture of our relationship the words can come up out of that
so it's not necessarily karma free see the light
you know it is karma free you're free of karma right wired what right well as being generated just like again from a certain the perspective of generosity you can look at other people like again i used example of a grandchild you look at the grandchild and you're just
totally tuned in to generosity you're giving to him he's given to you and you can see it and you're enjoying the radiance of this mutual generosity and i that would you feel like everything the trees and the mountains are all joining in you're giving to this child and the trees and mountains are joining in the child given to you your
in the mode of the light
you and you're totally engaged in the generosity which is the same as delight
and you think this kids about to fall down the stairs
which maybe is right name is wrong but if you had this imagination the story about the situation
however your your karma which is too high you picture your relationship
and how you imagine this person's being unskillful you're free of it it's not it's not it's not causing you any hindrance to seeing the light usually yeah i'm i'm telling you this story about this light but denial i didn't say is so strong are now however because of karmic accumulate
patients we don't see the light
when you see the light the karmic
accumulation is dropped and even even though your the past karmas not not hinder you and your present com is not hindering your the results of your past stories are not blocking you any can see the light and you're even able to imagine a present story right while you're in the midst of
this light and you can speak from the present story like please stop throwing rocks at me
and the child may not be able to see that the person who's talking to him is totally engaged in and appreciating how generous he is to throw the rocks
you totally feel the generosity of the rocks flying towards you and also the the center of the rocks you're totally into that totally unafraid totally happy and you're happy to say please don't throw rocks at your grandfather
hey and there's karma there you're not hindered by it you can enter the realm of karma you can enter the realm of action
totally
and so totally that you're free of it
that's my proposal
and i would like to invite everybody to come up here and to talk to me
please yes
and you don't have even wait and wait in line to come up here you can just come up here if you want to talk
katie
so raise your hands if you can hear okay
i'm finding myself making a story
that's good and evil or in conjunction
hey i have that same story
that they're in conjunction they're never separate
actually nothing's ever separate from anything but doesn't a good example is a very important example good and evil are in conjunction they're inseparable
so it's a story
every moment is an opportunity to
turn
towards good i turned towards evil
yeah you know they're worth every moment is an opportunity for you to construct a evil
i'm afraid the mind to give rise to an evil story of what about your relationship with the world
or a good story of your relationship with the world every moment there is that opportunity and every moment we avail ourselves of that
hmm
can we fit theory yes you can fit for your fear and story and would you like to fit it in grad how would you fit it in
it if i'm fearful
more turn towards evil she said if i'm fearful i tend to turn more towards evil not necessarily that's my story not necessarily however if you're fearful you're at risk
turning towards evil your risk towards harming life
but not everybody is afraid is imagining harmful senate stories of their relationship with the with the world
but even if you're not doing that right now if you're afraid if you're thinking about being kind of people because you're afraid of what will happen to if you're not
for example although you say i really want to be kind of this person because i'm afraid of what will happen
that doesn't make you more vulnerable to slipping into being unkind to them
then if you're like or thinking i really want to be kind of his person and i'm not afraid of what will happen if i'm not
because the key thing is the reason why i'm not afraid is because while i'm thinking i want to be kind to them i'm also practicing giving
play i wanna be kind to them but i'm not tight around my wanting to be kind
but if i'm already feeling fear if you're already feeling fear yes that i want to be and you want to be kind i want to be kind yes want to not feel yes and you want to be free of fear okay then practice generosity towards the person you are who wants to be kind
i was feeling fear be generous towards your fear
give your fear to your fear and not just kind of okay i'm afraid but
give your fear to your fear until you feel joy have given your fear to fear until you find a dimension where you let the flower be a flower and it's a spark of joy comes up
let the fear be fear until you find a way of letting the fair be fear
basically the teardrops then you're then you're tuned into the light he turned into giving towards the fear
and then
if anybody else is afraid to let the let their fear be feared give their fear to their fear and show them even though you don't say so and they may not be able to see it but still show them that you're giving their fear to their fear that your generously joyfully in a relationship with them were you let them
be afraid
let people who are afraid be afraid and people say i don't want to let people who are afraid to be afraid
i generously let you not be generous with this person if you don't want people to be jet to be afraid
if you do on people regenerates to if you do want people to be afraid if you don't want people to be afraid be generous towards yourself with those feelings if somebody afraid buddha completely gives them to themselves who are afraid
and but it shows them how to become free of their fear if they would do the same with themselves in their fear they would become unafraid so if you're afraid be generous towards yourself
and you will came your fear
i would say and i said to fear will go away but really it just it just loses its function doesn't have to go wave and
it just doesn't bother you anymore it's like
you see the light of fear you look at the fear has light you look at the fear generously and the light comes on and their you're feeling fear but you're feeling his warmth a buddhist wisdom now
if you're not feeling so afraid and you heard that if if you're given a fear of greater fears and you have now but you'd also be given the access to the light of the fear and be able to see buddha's wisdom would you be willing to be afraid
i would say
okay
so wisdom could be turned on at a moment of looking at fear
generously it didn't actually look at to fear in your tensely you look at the fear and then your generously give the fear to the fear one hundred percent and feel how the fear gives your life because when you're afraid fear gives you life
enter that flight
even in fear means you enter generosity and the fear loses its
unhelpful are harming power
okay
he can both come up and then and then one and you want when we bury you will be one will be on deck
i was shocked
look nice and all black leon got black socks black pants black sweater
if i'm generous
with evil and
that neutralizes
then if i'm generous with good i would think if i follow that logic but that would neutralize good know
doesn't
doesn't work that way if you're generous with evil you neutralize it but your inches neutralize it
you open to light at the moment of evil so you don't just neutralize the evil some great great good a good it that's beyond
good and evil comes to you when you sit when your generous with evil
harvest your generous with good than good sort of comes to fruit has seen the light
so
so good is actually what is it either things which actually promote you
in your practice of giving
an evil or those things which make it harder in practice giving but i'm still saying practice giving with evil
so good flourishes
and goes beyond itself
in generosity evil however doesn't exactly flourish but it doesn't go beyond itself
so it's neutralized
that makes any sense
in both cases you go beyond by generosity you go beyond good and you go beyond evil
but going to on good is more good and going on beyond evil is not more evil
going beyond harm is not more harm
it's been free of harm going beyond good is more good because good naturally is better when it doesn't hold to itself because holding to evil or called into good he is creates fear
that makes sense now
story i was making up
so are you practicing generous generosity towards the story you are making up
well i'm gonna try
because i'd like to say okay
i was thinking that
to neutralizing evil
i could also neutralize good
and then i would be opened a what happened next was the absence of these two
and that that might include in age
yeah
but that's the maturing of the good
that's the flourishing of the good is opening to the buddha nature
guess what what good's would promotes opening to spiritual opportunities like that we don't call evil opening to spiritual opportunity we can't evil that which is distracting us from that
or seem to hinder that but if your generous with evil it doesn't hinder you anymore because you're you're practicing
so let the evil be evil as an act of generosity and it loses its harmful power and i'm thinking that if i could be alone but loses its
know yeah well good good doesn't really have harmful pilots were you called good it's the cleaning to good that's harm it's not practicing generosity with good that's what's harmful not being generous is evil that hurts people that hurts everything so being generous towards good has been good towards
good being generous towards evil has been good towards evil
and then they both go beyond themselves which is what we're doing all day robbed all day long we're going beyond ourselves the generosity promotes this going beyond ourselves
so in a sense again going beyond evil neutralizes will be on going beyond good for it flourishes
it flourishes in be in an opening us to buddha nature
yes
you will see you want to come up
huh
when you talk about
generosity
my understanding is that generosity is in itself at practice it doesn't matter towards what it is
if good and evil are
time and are inseparable then
they're not even existed
that's right they don't well it's not a don't exist insisted they don't exist independently good doesn't exist by itself it depends on evil so they exist but they exist depending on each other that's the way they exist but they do not exist independently you cannot ever actually find good by its
self but that doesn't mean it's not there just it's just that you can't get it without bring evil along that's all there's no and i can't you can't give me without bringing you along we can't get anything without bringing it all that supports it so in that sense things don't exist by themselves
elves
so evil evil doesn't that isn't an axis of evil all by itself
okay
what i thought yeah that's right they're not existing they they're like inseparable the their interdependent and it is separable and interdependent
so that brings and if your generous with evil and or good you open to that in separability and that in separability is light the way good and evil support each other is radiant
but then i cannot be
practicing
generosity to evil because of the same time
i was so practice generosity towards good an inline when i look at things
i can find good in everything better
even the worse than what we call play things bring a lot of courage and opportunity for other to emphasize extremely
compassion and are
that's right you'll actually the practice is really generosity yeah when you're generous with evil you realize there's lots of good opportunities
when you're tight with evil you can't see all the good possibilities
yes that's right and if you're if you're tight with good you can't see the good possibilities either
you closing down on the good i got the good i'm going to keep it
if you're jealous with good you see if you open to the evil he said i don't want to be judged with good and open the evil but if you don't open the evil you won't see all the pot further possibilities of good with the evil see you're right
open to the generous with good means jennifer e evil being generous with evil major-general with good
but then it means the christian
what is good and what is evil is find as the question and is good to keep asking the question
just don't just understand beforehand that you're going to be generous and asking that question which means you're not going to try to get the answer to the question
because it's good to say well what is good and was evil than you find some good and then your question it and then you're not a and the you practice generosity questioning and generosity are closely related
answering what evil is is not a generous answering what good is not so generous
it's okay to answer it though if your generous with the answer which means you don't cling to the answer which means you go back to the question
so having the question what is good and evil is very compatible with being generous
handy
when asked if
some people would call with we're talking about as the lane of some people
what some people grow a god yes
are we
i know sometimes i'm afraid of but some people some people will say no as my god because as it's to mutual to be god
two mutual the light
enlightenment and and the light of enlightenment or how we're working together how we're supporting each other it some people with like god as what supports us not too much how we support god so that's a more that i don't know what to call up that more it's more like power centered view of this process
but this the teaching of them
this teaching is not so much about power centered
but more like mutual pot empowering of all things so some people will call that god is people would of my god more centralized and have em all this support coming from one place out to everything rather than seeing how everything goes back to support this place and as places everywhere
are we afraid sometimes to use that that turn because of what it means where are we afraid as
when we're practicing generosity were not afraid of the term
and we will use the term we think or what is got anyway
we're not afraid to do not know what it is
in other words were generous towards the term god if we're generous we're not afraid of the word and when the word country practice generosity with the word so people say oh this is guy and we
we get the we let them be somebody who is telling us what god is in somebody else's no that's my god this is guide and which bugged his generosity towards them so we we start again showing the people who are taking one side about what god is we show them how to practice generosity so they can be fearless because again people who have
titan views of what god is they're afraid
and if they're afraid their risk of being violent
and so we had the case of people have a tight view of god who are afraid we're being violent this is really right up there on the top of the agenda of world problems is people who aren't ungenerous with god
they're not practicing generosity they don't realize the generosity that's actually circulating around god
they're closing in on that and then they're afraid and then at any moment they can become violent out of their fear
so we had to be generous towards those who are not being generous towards god and who are at risk of being violent would be generous with them to teach them
to overwhelm them with the gift of love overwhelm them with the gifted with the teaching of generosity because that's what they want to find because people want to be happy and they want to see the truth and the truth is revealed in generosity the truth is not revealed in tight stingy attitude towards the world as does
don't get revealed there
it's going on but we're trying night of much i want is not all that
and were afraid and we think and when our fear we think it will be open to think what then things have really good bad if i were practice generosity towards this frightening horrible world oh no actually not so somebody has to show them that opening up will actually be really great and lovely
and they'll see just exactly what they want to see the truth
and god wants them to see the true to god's on our side
but if you if you hold tightly to god
then you miss god
suppose i'm afraid of mine
that i don't want to
yeah
he said he says suppose i'm afraid that if i don't hold tightly to god i'll get in trouble okay then i would say practice generosity towards being afraid of being or what will happen if you don't hold tightly and then you won't be afraid anymore not only tightly generous people walk around people who are really
holding tightly they're not only tightly they're letting go of everything all time that's actually the way we all are all letting go all the time but if we don't practice generosity we don't notice it and if we don't practice generosity were afraid and then we think food if we practice generosity we would something bad would happen
so not practicing generosity were afraid being afraid we're afraid to be generous
okay somehow we have to stop start being generous even while still afraid if we get into it we won't be afraid anymore
and we will not be afraid
that we have to hold on to god because we will be cool we will be enthusiastic you know will we filled enthusiastic means in full of god
those yeah stick and fearless
and we realize i don't have to hold onto it i'm totally
it's totally taken me over
how to hold onto it anymore
but before that before we really get into generosity we're going to be somewhat afraid
what would happen if we weren't so tight
and and difficult painful things might happen if you're not tight
and difficult things what might happen if you are tight
so in both cases difficult things may be coming like we have these bodies were to been taken care for a while right difficulties for this body may be coming for most of us unless we died now
you know we might break our leg
we might get sick lot of trouble may coming for a body
if we tighten around it the troubles will come or not but would be afraid
don't tighten the troubles will come or not but we won't be afraid and will be happy and generous
with what is given to us
so not say no difficulties are coming i'm just saying how to get in a position so when they come you see it as ongoing process of giving
so the buddha got sick would have back problems
even you know and sometimes the buddha you know couldn't get couldn't give the dharma talks we had to lie down
and have his senior students give the dharma talk to the community
he had paid and because he had has so much pain he couldn't sit up the great buddha couldn't sit up because he had back pain but he wasn't afraid
he was lying there he wasn't afraid he wasn't afraid of more pain coming or less been coming he wasn't afraid of having lousy students
he wasn't afraid he was generous towards his students towards his pain he was just a glowing generous happy buddha buddha
buddha is the enlightened one buddha is the tamer of those who need to be tamed buddha is a teacher of gods and divines buddha is the happy one buddha's happy why has put a happy because buddha sees the light
why does put a seal life because boot is generous towards everything
including fear
which comes from not being generous enough
course the buddha doesn't have fear because a buddhist generous enough but the buddhist sees all his children who are not generous enough and you are afraid but then boot is generous towards these frightened children and he shows them see this see how i am with you if your this way with yourself and others you will not be afraid anymore
see how i'm letting you be afraid really i'm not trying to fix you up i'm really like totally happy that you're the way you are and i want you to get over it by you being happy with the way you are
please be generous with the way you are and you will be come free of fear
and you will see the light and then you will really be of the show everybody else and this will be very happy
god god god
also i wanted to
just mentioned the word feedback to you i did little i'd looked it up in the dictionary
and
so i invite you to give me feedback
and so i can say
you can give you i can say to you have any feedback for me and you can also i call city of new feedback about me either way but i invite you to give me feedback either for me or about me and feedback is the dictionary i looked up in it's the return of a pool
portion of the output of a process
or a system to the input
so this group of us is is putting out something and the feedback is a part of it we put out goes back into
goes back to the input to our process
and the second meaning
the that's that one in the sadness in his second of their first meeting is that portion which is return is also the feedback
then second meaning of or feedback is what he called its return of information
about the result of a process or activity
when he called evaluative response it's not a meeting i walk in both of those types of feedback throughout this weekend
and forever
i welcome feedback
i welcome your evaluative response but i also welcome just some part of what's happening here to come back into the process
welcome
it's going on but i i've tried you know you're invited to do that
and the vow is to receive whatever you give
generously to generously receive your gifts to let your gifts be your gifts
that would be the vow here
people
who are not necessarily see themselves as religious or spiritual
sometimes try to practice avoiding evil and doing good
morality doesn't necessarily need to be religious although morality is one of the places where religion is practiced
the generous towards morality is a very good field to realize
generosity
when we are practicing avoiding evil and
doing good
but not generously in a sense it's not a spiritual practice is an ethical practice but not yet spiritual
but bringing generosity and compassion to ethical exercise
opens the practice to the light so there can be a practice of ethics without generosity
this is bad this is good i'm in avoid bad and do the good it still that's still a good exercise
those who wish to realize enlightenment have to that's one an exercise programs for them is to deal with the minds working with that stuff we had but the thing that makes a spiritual is what opens the process to light which is giving
and then we have teachers about the precepts are about ethics
and we study them
and it's a very good type of study in order to realize
wisdom
do you bring compassion to the situation and realize wisdom
huh
huh
huh
bruce josten feedback yes i do
i am might be bad as i am i called my wife last night that and this is the story i told her that i'm sticking to it
a
you're not going you're not going to be generous with his story
well you're going to be generous that of visitors then you don't stick to it okay okay
amen she i was furious they know so i i told her congress and my feedback as i say that i'm i'm really enjoying the experience tremendously when it comes at it and at a time windows for for my wife and myself that our daughter said admire
my experience was is that rare that feels to me that that he seems to be like m
his firing arrows more a powerful bow and they're they're getting between the eyes set their arrows of compassion of enlightenment you know they go right to the point and the message from coalesces much of what a been struggling with them my life it's simple
suffice it clarifies it and it's it's a very certain
embodiment of a light
that's why thank you
huh
huh
huh
faraday
could you come a little closer places
he had some one
in such a beautiful surroundings
she said her first question is such a beautiful surrounding how can we have your spirit this the curtains closed
close the curtains because people were facing that way and this morning light is kind of hard on some people's eyes
but if i think if if you open them now maybe it was like an open some of them
because the money somewhere it comes ha
yeah yeah so i do i close it because of the glare of the light coming in that was a reason
also i don't want you to see any trees
he passed out
i gave you a joke
the
i've been practicing thank you for accusing me of not being generous
it's one of my favorite jokes i sometimes don't get it right away
i've been practicing to be president
one of the ways of doing that to judge evening
well so let's go back because she say she she said something about not judging anything okay i keep my mind lindsay
keeping your mind busy i try
he trying to give up be having a busy mind jacket
okay trying not to be busy is more busy
then just letting go of being busy right exactly just not been mean for it says where when i meet someone i'd make any judgment
if you meet someone don't make a judgment that's fine however that's not generosity
generosity would be if you meet someone and don't make a judgment you give yourself and let yourself be somebody who has not been making a judgment
as well yeah because you could cause if you did make a judgment he could also practice generosity
so the practice is not to make judgements and is not not to make judgements
the practices if you're making judgments be generous and if you're not making judgments be generous
so it's okay with me if you don't make any judgments that's fine with me
i'll be generous to you and let you be somebody who's not making any judgments and i hope you are also generous with yourself when you're not making judgments but if you do make judgments i also packed his generosity
and you i hope you also practice generosity toward yourself why you're making judgments
so that even why you're making judgments even while you're busy making judgments
k which is related to who i spoke to teacher asked can we be free of karma making judgments when your mind makes judgments
your mind is busy that's busy means
your mind is active
making up stories about your relationship with people
hey if you're generous towards that
you'll be free of it
if you're not doing it which can happen and your generous towards not doing you can be free of not doing judgments
but if you're not doing judgments and you're not being generous towards your judgement you're caught by not making judgments you're trapped in her frayed while you're not making judgments
so i don't really recommend that you make judgments and i don't recommend you not make judgments but if you'd tell me the jury they're not making judgments i say beautiful
if you tell me you're really into making judgments like you're like as your profession you know you're doing a lot i say fine
i say for you
i'm just trying to keep my mind
nothing
that's fine that's fine but that's not giving trying to trying to trying to keep your mind a certain way is not generous
even if the way you trying to keep your mind is to keep your mind good
okay so if you're trying to keep your mind good that's like practicing good i want to practice good i want to keep my mind good okay
wanting to practice good is not i we say not quite as good as
one into practice good i say is a little bit better i would say than wanting to keep practicing good
but they're both pretty good
gay
but if you hold to that hold to good
you will blind yourself to the light
but it's okay go right ahead and wish to practice good even wish to hold practicing good however if you practice generosity towards holding the practice a good you'll stop holding the practicing good and you'll just practice good and be generous towards your practice
in good but holding to it distract you from me giving
hey yeah
so what will be a boss can come you both can come
yes we have homer and roma
you know roma roma
i'm just wondering why something so clear and so obvious
that lily i could see i can
see it but then i don't see it i mean it's so obvious put the in england i knew i really do something so
hindrance
comic obstruction that's the that's the story about
why we keep losing it because the who are mind creates are always creating stories about the light
the light is the light of our relationship supports us to be a person who imagines who make stories about her relationship with the world
that's the kind of creatures we are and the consequence of making stories about the world our religion to put the world the consequence of that is that it's hard for us to see the light because we made a story about the light which is not the late so we can tell people about the light say you know i saw
this great thing i saw this wonderful thing without a story it's hard to tell people about the light you saw so anyway we do tells we met our mind makes up stories
makes up versions of our relationship with the world and the consequence of that is that some obstruction to the actual radiance occurs
so then we but if we practice generosity towards the obstruction
the light starts flooding in
still still confused
when there is right there is actually no
it is just like it's all ages it's his life like see the good and evil it really doesn't exist it's not so much that it's it's kind of like there isn't good and evil but it's more like that the good has a light and the evil has light there is still
will there still is evil it's just you see the light in the evil
hmm i don't see any sometimes well that's okay sometimes you don't see it but it's also possible to see the light of the evil and still be able to see the evil that's possible but it's true once you're looking at the light in subsection if you're looking at the light of good in light of evil in some sense you
don't see the one that's true yeah
and even if you do see good and you see the light of good at the point at the have seen the light the light kind of in some sense
you know it's like if you look at fabric and the life starts coming through to why it's hard to see the fabric or when you're looking at water like when the sun setting on the water you know sometimes is reflecting so much light you can't really see the water anymore that can happen
and be generous towards yourself in that condition of just being a being blinded by the light
being blinded to things because of light just like are usually blinded to light because of things
so yeah that's part of part of what you need to learn is how to surf in the ocean when it's just so brilliant you can see where the waves are
but people can you can learn how do that
when more
visitor before breakfast
yes
accepting fears
hmm
i i'm i'm i'm saying no okay but this is a gift i accept that you what you just said
where do i heard you say was fear is not a reality reality okay but my
yeah it's your express yeah okay so so now you feel fear okay you need to speak up
but so
you don't have to accept their illusions of starters the first start by accepting that you feel fear
and be generous towards the fear don't discount it at all before your generous with it so
asking you
she wants to know about practical ways to embrace fear okay so when i
okay
pilot
fear of abandonment
fear of loneliness okay so if i feel fear but i can feel fear of abandonment by they think about the abandonment again i'll get there their deserves the fear okay
now i give the fear to the fear i give that to itself
you surrender surrender to it but but not just surrender but be bloated perkins like proactive surrender i surrender
i surrender i give myself to the fear i give the fear to the fear i give the fear to me i totally enter into the the mutual generous relationship with this fear and the more i get into that
i'm trying to get rid of the fear the more i get into it i will realize that fear is light
and in that sense fear is an illusion because it seems to be not light fear doesn't seem to be light
but the more your generous with fear and letting the fear be fear so surrender to the fear but also let the fear be fair so you know you surrender to me but also give me to me so aren't just be surrendered be a surrendering generous surrender
i packed
no no no
it could you could do that but i'm not going to saying he said she said if i have fear of loneliness and i practice being lonely myself i just said
i'm saying no not necessarily because fear being lonely you have even when you're not like right now with all these people around you loving you and supporting you you can be afraid of being alone so you like to be alone to be afraid of being alone
you can be afraid of being lawn when you're surrounded by people who you love and who you feel love you you can be afraid that they'll go away even though they're still here
so you can practice with the fear of being alone or the fear that the people will abandon you can practice with it whether or not abandoning you
the way practice with it is not basing taught not to talk yourself out of it like say oh no there really supporting means to fight that
that's okay you can do that that's another trip
but before you move on to like they're really they're not going abandoned me they might
but it might look like that got story might occur
but the thing is right now you've got something to take care of called your fear and if your generous towards your fear
you'll become free of it and then if abandonment ever comes up on the horizon like everybody can do to six guests what sima
is the same our shima
i see my semen sima i'm gonna abandon you today
i'm gonna abandon you today and you his generosity towards me while i'm talking to that way and you feel the light of our relationship and you're not afraid
every time i go away from you you know i don't mean to abandon you but everytime i go with me you can say you abandoned me and i could say
yes
i totally agree with you i abandoned you here i am with you abandoned you that's me and you together and then you see it's an illusion but you have to see have to be generous towards it and i need to show you generosity and you need to show me generosity why we feel like we're abandoning each other
so generous people can manifest the story of mutual abandonment
you know and be free of it right at the moment or generous people can manifest the story of abandonment and not appreciate their being generous and then they believe it in a are afraid
so we need to practice generosity with our fears
and our order to practice so again the worst thing is to ignore them
next thing is to try to control and i get rid of the fear but the good thing about that at least you've noticed it trying to get rid of at least you've noticed it okay no drop that one and now move on to give the fear big generous field let it be and it will turn into light
and then you won't be afraid anymore
first face it face it is like the face it is after ignoring it then face it now you can go directly from facing it to generosity or you can try to control it for a while after your face and for first space and try and get to control but but you know that song there may be trouble
but while there is music can moonlight and love and romance let's face the fear and dan
dance with the fear don't try to control it but controlling it's better than ignoring it
because when we're controlling it then we can come up to you would say relax with your partner don't try to control you're not supposed to be leading
can control know that's not dancing dancing is being generous with your partner dance with the fear be generous with the fear but first of all you have to find it
it's there unless you've already mastered generosity and see the light there's some fear
unless you really realize that everybody is your close friend and you're close friend everybody unless you fully realized that there's a little fear
and little fear can get big and then you can be a you know
ready to kill
because you're afraid
but if the fear comes as soon as possible practice generosity towards it let it be to let it be what it is but not just like okay but i generously give you do yourself mister fear
k
so would you like to have breakfast now
all right so we'll reconvene here for sitting at eleven or right