So the transformation we call Buddha's enlightenment requires that we understand the processes of illness and healing. So we'll explore the Buddha's teachings on the source and nature of illness and the source and nature of healing, or the source and nature of wholing. of illness. The source and nature of unhealthiness. The source and nature of illness.

[01:02]

The source is Ignorance. The source is blindness. The source is holding. That's the source of illness. That's the source of evil. That's the source of unhelping, unwholeness. The nature, and what's the nature of unhealthiness? The nature of unhealthiness is that it dependently co-arises the nature. And co-arising nature is what we call empty.

[02:06]

Okay? Okay? It's a lot, but you got it. And I'll write it on the board and it helps you. So, the nature of the source illness is ignoring or not knowing the nature of illness. The nature of illness, it arises because of certain conditions. It depends on many things.

[03:06]

The fact that it depends on many things means that it's not a thing all by itself. The fact that it's not by itself is the reason why we can be free of it. It's not actually something all by itself out there ready to get us. It's an interdependent thing, therefore we can be free. When we ignore its interdependence, also ignore the interdependence of other phenomena in our life that's the source of the arising of our illness so one way to put the way illness arises is one way to put it is we resist illness arises from resisting the Buddha way. Illness arises from not practicing Zen.

[04:16]

Which means illness arises from not practicing calming your mind. Illness arises from not practicing healing your mind. Wellness arises from not calming your mind and feeling your mind and holding your mind and seeing the real. From not practicing those meditations of calming and healing the mind, from not seeing the real. When we don't see the real, when we ignore the real, we become sick. Without a calm mind, we can't see the real. Not practicing calming mind, not seeing the real, illness arises. Also old age arises and death arises. And I said the source

[05:27]

of illness is ignorance or ignoring the way things happen, and ignoring the way health happens, illness happens, by ignoring it, by not looking at the way things happen, illness arises. By not calming ourselves so that we can look, and then not looking, or even not calming ourselves and looking, but not being able to look because we're too upset. We don't see the way things arise. We don't see the way illness arises. We don't see the way health arises and illness arises. What is the nature of I said the source, but really the source also is not a thing. It also dependently co-arises. The source of illness is ignorance.

[06:33]

The nature of ignorance is that it dependently co-arises. It co-arises and illness dependently co-arises. So illness isn't a thing all by itself, therefore you can become free of it. And ignorance isn't a thing all by itself, therefore you can become free of it. This ignorance, which is called the source of illness, is also something that independently co-arises. So the source is not a thing either. It's called a source, but it's not a thing source. It's an interdependent source. So it's also empty, ungraphable, not really there. So you can become free of the source. You can become free of the ignorance, which is the source. You can become free of the illness. So the source of illness is the dependent core arising. The illness is the dependent core arising. So you can become free of both of the illness and its source. And what's the nature?

[07:36]

of wholeness and health, non-ignorance. The nature of health is enlightenment, is Buddha. The nature of, the source of health, the source of health is non-ignorance. The source of health is seeing, seeing and releasing. The source of health is seeing misconceptions. and also releasing misconception, and when you see misconception and release misconception, reality.

[08:41]

So it's seeing, so enlightenment is not just seeing reality, enlightenment is also seeing misconception and misconception. Enlightenment is not just seeing health, it's also seeing and seeing how illness is an interdependent thing. Seeing how illness is an interdependent thing is releasing the misconception that illness is an independent thing. So the source of health is enlightenment. The source of health is seeing the dependent core arising of health and the dependent core arising of illness and the dependent core arising of everything. That's the source of health. What's the nature of health? nature of health? Do you remember what the nature of illness was? The nature of health?

[09:45]

Somebody thought, remembered it as being ignorant. The nature of health is not ignorance. What is the nature of health? Excuse me. The nature of illness is not ignorance. The nature of illness is not ignorance. What is the nature of illness? What? The nature, the nature, I keep preaching, the source of illness is what? Yeah, the source of illness is ignorance. The source of illness is ignorance, right? The nature of ignorance, the nature of illness, the nature of illness is what? What is dependent co-arising? The nature of co-arising. The source of illness is not seeing the nature of illness. It's ignorance.

[10:48]

The source of illness is not seeing the nature of illness. The nature of illness is that it's interdependent, or that it's dependent co-arising. The nature of illness is that it's empathetic. So what's the nature of health? What? No, the nature of health is not whole. The nature of health, health is wholeness. What's the nature of wholeness? What's the nature of health? What's the nature of healing? What's the nature of seeing? No, seeing is the source of health. Seeing reality is the source of health. What's the nature of health? What? Interdependence. The nature of health, the nature of wholeness is interdependent, namely also emptiness. Notice that the nature of illness and the nature of the health are exactly the same.

[11:53]

Therefore, you can be free of both of them. Now, you know when you're sick, you feel pretty free of health, right? But that's not the full freedom of health. The full freedom of health is that when you're healthy, even when healthy is in your face, even when wholeness is, like, happening, you can be free of it because wholeness, the nature of wholeness, is that it's a dependent core arising. It's an interdependence. It's an interdependent arising. And so is illness. It's free of both illness and sickness. I mean both illness and sickness and health and wholeness. It can be free of everything because everything has the same nature. But not everything has the same source. As a matter of fact, each thing has a different source or different conditions. The conditions for illness are not seeing the source of illness.

[13:07]

The conditions for health are seeing the source of illness and seeing the source of health. The source seeing the source of health or illness or Thursday or Friday or face. Ignoring the way things are happening. That's the source of illness. But the nature of illness and the nature of health are both dependently co-arisen, lack some independent nature. They're empty of that. So this is kind of, in some sense, extremely big dose there. You know, it's in some ways not terribly difficult to get the basic lay of the land. So maybe somebody could tell me if they're having a little trouble with this and we can drill on it a little bit.

[14:16]

Anybody not get that? You didn't? Okay, can I like help you with that? Huh? Maybe could I try? Okay, so according to the Buddha's teaching, as I just brought it up, what is the source of illness? Well, could I ask you some questions before you say what you don't understand? What is the Buddha's teaching about the source of illness? You're not sure? Would you like me to tell you again? What do you want? Well, maybe that would be something you can work on. Try to ask yourself a question. What do you want? Now I'm going to ask you a question.

[15:19]

Can I talk to you some more? Not right now? Was anyone else not clear about what I just brought up? Yes? . You couldn't be free from it. . If your illness was a reality, then it would be there, and realities don't change. Realities don't come and go. If you were sick, and it was a real thing, all by itself, that would be it. You'd just be sick, and there'd be no way to be. If you were not whole, and that was a reality, then you would continue to not be whole. There isn't anything that's all by itself.

[16:27]

Yes, there isn't anything that's a thing, right. And not understanding that there isn't anything. as something all by itself, independent of the rest of the universe. Not understanding that, ignoring that, is the fundamental condition for illness. Exactly. Enlightenment also dependently co-arises. So enlightenment also is not a thing by itself, independent of the rest of the universe. There's no Buddhas like all by themselves sitting someplace in the universe. There's no Buddhas except in relationship to suffering beings and other Buddhas. Living beings, no suffering beings, anywhere in the universe, all by themselves.

[17:45]

All living beings are intimately connected and supported by other living beings, and are intimately connected and supported by Buddhas, and are intimately connected to Buddhas and supporting Buddhas. That's the way all living beings are. All living beings are in the Buddhas and helping each other. And no living being lives without an intimate connection with all other living beings. That's interdependence. Ignoring that, we get sick. Seeing that, if we happen to not be feeling well, we know it's not that way anymore. So most living beings who are intimately connected with all Buddhas, most living beings who are nothing other than the life of Buddha, think that there's something other than Buddhas. And they also think there's something other than here. They think there's something other than George Bush. And I guess in, you know, some parts of Texas, they think there's something other than Al Gore.

[18:53]

And so the people who think they're other than George Bush, which there's quite a few like that around here, think they're doing well. Because this thing that they think is other than them, this thing that they don't feel intimate with, and do not want to be intimate with, is going to be their leader. Maybe. And they feel a little bit less not with Al Gore, so they feel a little bit better about him being their leader, but really they want to go back to Bill Clinton. And if they don't like Bill Clinton, at least how about, can we just have Abraham Lincoln come back? Or George Washington. Or Buddha, could Buddha be separate from me? But then you'd say, oh, but Buddha, then you'd think, oh, but Buddha's separate from me too. So I'd be nervous if I had to go meet Buddha, the president. So anyway, when we don't see how intimate we are with Buddha, and when we don't see how intimate we are with all living beings, that ignorance, that not seeing what's happening is a linchpin of unwholeness.

[20:06]

of illness, of unholiness. And that illness is a dependent co-arising. It arises in dependence on not seeing. But enlightenment also, when you do see it, enlightenment also arises, it arises in dependence on seeing. It's not a thing by itself. It arises in dependence on seeing, and also it arises on dependence of interconnection with everything. Yeah. Well, like shackles. Shackles on your wrist. They're separate from you. Okay? You think they're separate from you. Right? And yet they're binding you. But if you didn't think they were separate from you, they wouldn't be binding.

[21:11]

You'd just be, you know, suchitra with handcuffed suchitra. This is like not bound, she's just like, this is her thing, you know. This is her jewelry. Her jewels are tied together. That's one way. Exactly. If you realize you're not separate from the illness, you're free of it. If you realize also, not just that, but that nobody's separate from your illness, and also you realize that the illness which you're not separate from comes from you not seeing how you were dependent on not seeing that you were separate, then you really become free of the illness. So I thought I might mention that in the story we tell about the historical Buddha, in the myth of the historical Buddha sitting under the bow tree and becoming enlightened, what the Buddha saw under that tree was that he saw the dependent core rising of suffering.

[22:26]

he saw how ignoring dependent core rising of suffering is the dependent core rising of suffering. And seeing the dependent core rising of suffering is the ceasing of suffering. He saw that. And at that time, he was free of suffering. And also, he was in pretty good health by ordinary conventional standards. He became a kind of Buddha. Is your name Michael? Yes, Michael? Yeah, I'll do this in more detail later. I'm going to, I'm pretty soon going to move into the practice that is the dependent core arising of health. And that practice has two parts. Mind holding the mind, and seeing the real. So in the seeing the real department, we're going to be looking at dependent core arising, which is what the Buddha did under the Bodhi tree.

[23:33]

The Buddha calmed down and then looked at how illness arises. He saw the dependent core arising of it. And by seeing the dependent core arising of illness, by seeing the dependent core arising of the mass of ill, he also saw the dependent core arising of the ceasing of the mass of illness. Because when you see how illness happens, you're no longer ignoring how illness happens. And ignoring how illness happens is a source of illness. So when you see how illness happens, the source of health has arisen. Let me tell the next part of the story. At the end of Buddha's life, at the end of Buddha's career of enlightenment, at the end of his life, conventionally speaking, he was sick.

[24:39]

He ate some kind of poison. There's some debate about what it was. but he ate some poisonous food and got really, got apparently dysentery and various kinds of, you know, surfaces of organs started to... However, the Buddha was free of that illness. And while he was ill, He continued to be Buddha. He continued to be the happiest Buddha in the neighborhood. And he delivered some of his greatest teachings, which are benefiting beings at that time and forever. This is a Buddha. The Buddha is always ... illness, but the Buddha understands it and therefore there's this great bliss of Nirvana, even when there is the appearance of a very sick 80-year-old body.

[25:52]

But the 80-year-old body, he saw when he was about ... that that that the 80-year-old body or his 35-year-old body, the body which arises, becomes old, sick, and dies, that body arises depending upon ignorance. He saw that. And he saw how when you understand how it happens, there is a ceasing of that aging, sick, dying body. There is a ceasing of it when the ignorance ceases. Yes. Yes. Yeah, thank you for that question.

[26:59]

I think a lot of it is kind of like transcendent, this methane world of dependent co-arising. But enlightenment and dependent co-arising are also enlightened. Buddhas are empty too. Buddhas are insubstantial. suffering is insubstantial, wholeness is insubstantial, health is insubstantial, people are insubstantial, and Buddhas are insubstantial. Everything is empty. Everything has no, there's nothing, including Buddha, that exists all by itself, independent of the rest of the universe. There isn't anything outside the universe. And is there transcendent? Yes. There is transcendence, but there's transcendence by understanding that nothing is independent. If you think that transcendence is independent, in bondage.

[28:02]

So people think, well isn't Buddha like beyond it all? Buddha is not beyond it all, but Buddha is freedom. Freedom is not something That's why I said at the beginning, retreat. Retreat is just a temporary technique to re-engage more fully. When you're totally engaged with beings, when you're completely embracing and sustaining all beings and being embraced by them, that's freedom. But there's an idea that freedom and isolation is getting away from the neck of interdependence. Getting away from those creepy people. Getting away from George Bush. Not being, you know, having to be intimate with him. That's our idea of happiness, right? Another possibility of happiness is don't even be concerned with politics and then you don't even have to worry about it.

[29:11]

Like, just forget the government. withdraw from the government entirely. And then? Aren't you cool? No, no. It's... You go to retreats to get encouragement to completely engage with all beings and the complete engagement of all beings is what you are. You are something. Every moment that's in everybody. Everybody. Everybody. And every Buddha. That's what you are. Ignoring that, you don't feel well. Seeing that, you transcend the whole thing. You transcend it through your intimate connection with all beings. You are whole. You are healthy. And if you happen to have a disease, which you can go to the doctor, and the doctor can say, you have such and such a disease.

[30:15]

Even though you have that disease, you see how that disease happens. And because you see how that disease happens, you are free of that disease. The Buddha saw how that disease happened, and the Buddha was still Buddha with a serious illness. And he had other illnesses before that one too, like he had back problems. And sometimes he couldn't even give his talks and have his disciples give his talks for him. The Buddha with back problems? I mean, like the top, the big one, the Buddha. Can't even sit up? Yeah, that's what it is. But while the Buddha was lying down, the Buddha understood the dependent core arising of his back situation, and therefore the Buddha was Buddha lying down, and Buddha was teaching while lying down, and Buddha was very happy teaching lying down.

[31:18]

And Buddha could see that this lying down condition and the pain in his back and the problems in his back, how they arose, and he was free of them. And when the Buddha could sit up and stand up, the Buddha could also see the dependent core arising of the sitting up and standing up. And the Buddha was free of being able to stand up. But some people can stand up very nicely. They have no sign of ill health. They can run and walk very nicely, but they ignore the dependent core arising of this splendid and they're feeling ill and unwhole so a Buddha is a way of being with whatever body you have understanding how that body comes to be and therefore seeing that that body is insubstantial and being healthy in the middle of any condition and Buddha manifests in the world in a body which is limited

[32:31]

which will grow old and sick and die. But the Buddha simultaneously understands how that happens and therefore for the Buddha at the same time there is a seething of the body which grows old becomes sick and dies. The Buddha is healthy while inhabiting a body and the Buddha is healthy inhabiting a body which is well. But ordinary people who do not see the pentacle arising, when they're in a healthy body, they're sick. And when they're in a sick body, they're sick. Because they don't see the pentacle arising. They ignore the interdependence of their body and all bodies. Okay? And it's now 8.30pm. And so I just want to mention that I was thinking, but I'm willing to postpone this.

[33:39]

I just want to tell you what I'm going to postpone before I postpone it. I was going to postpone, I'm thinking of postponing or what would be postponed if I wait much longer would be the introduction of the first phase of moving into the heat. The meditation is on healing the mind. Maybe too much to introduce tonight, but I could do it tomorrow morning instead. But that's the next thing I was going to do. So I just want to tell you that, and now call on Patty. The cessation, not too much the cessation of the body, but the cessation of old age, sickness, and death. I said seething, but you can say temptation, it's okay.

[34:48]

The Buddha was free of everything. You name it, the Buddha was... Buddha's vision frees... The vision... The Buddha's vision frees everybody of everything. Huh? You'll buy it? Yeah. The Buddha's vision frees everybody of everything. Matter of fact, the Buddha's vision is everybody is free. But not everybody sees it because they're holding on to some ideas. Okay, and then there's these two. Ceasing doesn't mean like annihilated, though. Ceasing like, you know, Its appearance goes away, you know. But the part of what he saw also is that there's no annihilation of anything. Things cease. Things change, so they're not there anymore, but they're not destroyed utterly. Nothing completely does not exist, and nothing completely exists.

[35:51]

Everything's interdependent. So you can't really get rid of anything entirely. Nothing is annihilated, and nothing lasts. This is the way the interdependent world is, and seeing the world this way is called the middle way, and it's called the ceasing of illness. Okay? Carolyn? Carolyn? Do you say that again louder, please? Just the last part, Suzuki, where she's saying X. yeah and I was around and I saw him when he was sick and to me he was teaching just as well the way he was sick was

[37:10]

was as good at teaching to me as when he was like giving his nice little talks and moving the rocks and sitting zazen and that kind of stuff. That was cool too. He was that way was pretty good. But in some way the way he was sick was the stronger teaching that I saw him give. And his greatest kindness to me was to show me how he died. To show me the way he suffered. And that was in some way the more penetrating teaching he did. So he continued to teach by showing me the way he practiced with his disease. And he continued to practice by teaching me the way he dealt with that disease. Oh, you mean... Well, he farted and said, that's a good sign. And... When he was getting treatments of moxibustion on his back, and when those cones burned down close to his spine, he kind of winked.

[38:24]

And get the idea? Do you want more examples? Huh? What? Did you say not taking seriously the science of bodies? Oh, not taking personally. Yeah, that's another way to put it. That would be an aspect. An aspect being the way your body is actually dependently co-arising is to not take it personally. Because not taking it personally interferes with your vision.

[39:32]

So when you're actually seeing dependent core arising, you also see the dependent core arising of personally. And when you see the dependent core arising of personally, you're also liberated from illness. So personally is one of the main things we see the dependent core arising of. If you see that, then you don't take stuff personally, then personally you're mixed. of things that are, you know, because in fact part of the interdependence is we've got all these personallys all over the place that are connected to all the other personallys. It isn't that we eliminate the personally because eliminating something is like saying that it's really there. You can't get rid of personally, you can't get rid of personally, you have to deal with all of it and it's all interconnected and when you see that then there's still personally and impersonally but it's not, there's no personally like personally. There's only personally-impersonally and impersonally-personally. You see that and then say, don't grab.

[40:37]

Okay, okay, I'm getting the impersonal and you get... You're the ignorant one. I'm the enlightened one. I'll take the impersonal, you take the personal. No. They're all interdependent. You see that, then you don't take it personally or impersonally. You don't take anything. You just are nothing but all your friends and relatives. Yes, what's your name? Susan. Yes, arising is something happening, like with, depending on ignorance, there's the arising, there's the appearance of illness. So, it isn't like depending on ignorance, there is the actual reality, of a substantially existing independent illness. They're just the appearance of illness and the appearance of a person and the appearance of somebody getting old and sick.

[41:39]

They depend on not seeing. With not seeing, various things appear. And with seeing, various other things appear. But both the not seeing and the seeing are also things that appear. So the seeing is not real and the not seeing is not real. in the sense of being independently existing. And the things which arise in dependence on seeing and not seeing, they too arise and appear, but they're dependent, so they don't exist independent of the visions or lack of visions. You can have a glimpse right now, yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[42:41]

How do you have a glimpse when you're upset? She says, how does she sustain a realization when something's happening that's annoying, that you said? When I'm not there in the world, or when I'm in the heat, or when you're mixed in some kind of a interaction, and I'm not sitting quietly, calmly. Well, we have the world. And if you're in the world and you're not calm, then your mind is not whole and so you're sick.

[44:07]

And when your mind is not whole, in other words when you don't see how your mind is whole, you're not seeing that, then So then at that time, you've got to be ill. Now, when I say you've got to be ill, I mean you've got to calm down with being ill. And if you're ill and don't calm down with ill, then you're just going to get more ill. So you can't be upset about being ill and then be able to see. You won't be able to. So in the world, with all this stuff happening, you have to accept it, and not fight it, and calm down with it. And if you say, well, when things are really, really bad, then how am I going to see? Well, then you have to calm down with things really, really bad. And if you feel like, well, I can't accept this situation, but I can accept this situation, and you say,

[45:19]

So maybe I'll go over in a situation that I can accept and calm down. Fine. Please do. And perhaps if you learn how to calm down with this situation, you'll be able to calm down with another situation that you previously said you didn't have a chance to. So we do need to learn how to calm down with experiences that come. Basically, the calming practice, the first phase, holding or healing, the first phase of it is to basically meet whatever comes. fixed perspective.

[46:24]

This is the basic thing. That's the thing I'm on the verge of introducing at some point. The calming part. Now if something comes to meet you, or you are meeting something, and you hold on to what you think it is, then you're going to be more or less. You can release your perspective. You do have a perspective, you know, like, this person is coming to be my president, and my perspective is I do not want that person to be my president. This person is coming to be my wife. I want this person to be my wife. This person's coming to be my husband, and I do not want this person to be my husband. Got that kind of perspective? That's a perspective, right?

[47:29]

Or, this person is coming to be my president, and I want this person to be my president. This person is coming to be my friend, and I want this person to be my friend. That's my perspective. In either case, whether you want it, your perspective is yes, please, or no, thank you. If you hold on to the perspective, that is the condition for the arising of ill because holding on to that perspective means that you don't for how this happens you're just grabbing something without noticing how it happens because if you notice how it happens you wouldn't grab it now you haven't yet been able to see how things happen so what you need to do now is act like you would if you did understand If you did understand how things happen, you'd realize that there's no way to grab them. So as you train yourself in not grabbing what comes, I should say, if you train yourself at not grabbing onto your fixed perspective about what's coming, then you start to calm down and be able to see what the thing is.

[48:43]

And when you see what the thing is, you realize you can't grab it. And that nothing really no perspective on it is really the ultimately true perspective. I really watched my mind. I thought something happened. I heard something from somebody, and I took that very personally. He gave it to me, actually. He really betrayed me, and that's why I was so shocked. I'm very mindful of that. Very good. Yeah. Yeah.

[50:01]

Right. Right. So, that's very good observation. So I'm seeing that the way of calming down and setting up the ability to see how things happen, which is the source of health and wholeness, I'm suggesting the way to calm down and get ready to see happens with no fixed perspective. But in attempting to enter into that practice of meeting whatever comes with no fixed perspective, as you start to do that, you start to notice that when something comes, you do hold to a fixed perspective. notice as heya said you notice how sick that makes you feel so she has actually observed to some extent in the process of trying to calm down and in some cases she doesn't she holds a fixed perspective she notices that and so that to some extent she sees the dependent core arising of illness she hasn't yet calmed down

[51:28]

at that moment because she's holding but she calmed down enough in her meditation to be able to see because sometimes you're calm and sometimes you are letting go of fixed perspective or put it the other way because sometimes you let go of fixed perspective and calm down you can notice that when you do grab on hard how upset you get So that, because of the calm that she got, sometimes she lets go, then she can see that when she holds on, how sick it makes her. So she actually had a little glimpse there of the dependent co-arising of ill by ignoring. So, in her story, somebody betrays her. When you see somebody betraying you, that's a dependent co-arisen appearance. Somebody can even walk up to you and say, I'm going to betray you. And you say, you must be kidding.

[52:33]

They say, no, I'm going to betray you. This is like actually happening. In other words, this is appearing to happen. You see this event called betraying you. This is something that you're meeting, okay? Now this is happening, right? This is appearing. Now what you have to do is not have a fixed perspective on this. Just a period betrayal. I meet it open-mindedly. In other words, all my interpretations of this, all my perspectives, all my values about this are floating around and available, but I'm not grabbing any of them. Then I calm down with this betrayal. But you didn't see the betrayal that way. You grabbed it. You held to your idea of what the betrayal was, and then So, you know, like, I don't know, you're sitting in meditation and you think, oh, the bird's chirping or the incense is burning, so I'm going to let go of my fixed perspective on that bird chirping.

[53:36]

Well, if you do, you're going to calm down. And you have a perspective on that, like this bird should not be chirping. Or, you know, Or, you know, this bird should not be chirping means this bird, this is like this bird should have been chirping last month, but not this month. In other words, this bird is not migrating according to the usual. This is part of like, you know, the ecological, you know, crisis of my time and so on. You get really upset about the bird chirping. You're upset. But other times you say, oh, bird chirping. And, you know, whatever, man, I accept this bird chirping. You calm down. Something happens, you say, this is different. This is not something I'm going to accept. And then, boom, you're sick. There's ill. You're broken into parts. There's you and the betrayer. This is not friendship anymore. This is like, you're over there and I'm over here.

[54:39]

On your own, you're not an interdependent thing with me, and so I'm upset. So you actually saw it. You actually saw what I'm talking about. A little glimpse of it. It wasn't very pleasant to see, but you saw it. And it's possible to get then that moment to let go of that. And to become right in the middle of the upset about the betrayal. Just a snap out of it. And as soon as you let go of that, again you're calm. That's what you need. Oh, Thaddeus. Thaddeus. Preference, yes. Yes. [...] Preferences are not a problem unless you grasp them.

[55:47]

Right. For example, health. You might prefer health over illness. That's okay. It's the grasping the health or grasping the illness or rejecting the illness. So you might prefer health over illness, but you might even prefer illness over health. You might prefer or you might prefer go over a bush. You might have either of those preferences. Neither one is a problem. And neither one of them are ever a problem. They're basically challenges to your meditation. Because if you grasp gore over bush over gore, you're sick. If you grasp bush over gore, you're sick. If you grasp this wife over that wife, you're sick. and so on. It's the grasping. The view is, views are not inherently bad.

[56:55]

Preferences are not inherently bad. Opinions are not inherently bad. Evil is inherently bad. Even evil is not inherently bad because evil is a dependent co-arising. Yes. I would just say, if you're not attached to your wife doing this rather than that, you is a happy husband. And if you're not attached to your wife doing this over that, you is an unhappy husband. I'm not telling you, however, that you shouldn't be attached. It's a wonderful teaching. It is one of the basic teachings.

[57:56]

Attachment teaches you what misery is. Non-attachment teaches you what happiness is. So you got it.

[58:08]

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