I'd like to begin by looking at some basic instructions for sitting meditation in terms of practicing compassion. In the universal encouragements for the ceremony of sitting meditation. We were instructed to put out some thick matting on top of it, and then various instructions about posture, to sit upright and so on. put our hands in this meditation mudra to again sit upright, which means not leaning forward or backwards, right or left, and settle into a steady sitting posture.

[01:22]

To me this seems like an act of compassion, an act of expressing loving-kindness, wishing all beings well by taking this posture. And this posture as an offering to the ...of protecting all beings, to sit upright protecting all beings who are suffering in the prison of samsara. Then after the posture is offered to the practice of protecting all beings, and for the liberation of all beings, said in that text is, think not thinking.

[02:48]

How do you think? Not thinking. Non-thinking. Any of you unfamiliar with that statement? You've all heard it? So this is an excerpt from a conversation between one of the ancestors in our lineage, whose name is Yaoshan, Wanyi. Yaoshan means medicine mountain. So he was an ancestor and there's a number of stories about him sitting.

[03:53]

So one of the stories is he's sitting upright, offering himself for the sake of protecting all beings who are suffering, offering his upright sitting for the welfare of this world. medicine novel. And a monk comes up to him and says sitting like this immovable what kind of thinking is there?

[04:54]

And Yashan says, think not thinking. And the monk says, how? Think not thinking. Or how is think not thinking? Or how can I practice think not thinking? And Yashin said, non-thinking. So this is an instruction about what kind of thinking is going on in a bodhisattva's life, in a bodhisattva's sitting. I'm going to bring up, this is a Zen story, and also I'm going to bring up some, what's called Abhidharma, some wisdom teachings about the nature of thinking, the nature of consciousness, consciousness.

[06:41]

ordinary consciousness, like probably most of us have karmic consciousness right now, where we feel like we're here in this room. Each of us feels like we're in a certain position in this room, and there's other people in the room, and they appear to be other than us. And in karmic consciousness there's many, many afflictions normally. Inexhaustible cries for compassion arise and cease in this consciousness. Yeah, and because there's a sense of self in this consciousness, the self is always accompanied, the bodhisattva Vasubandhu taught, the self is always accompanied by force.

[08:00]

But especially for the self, there's other afflictions there too, like greed, hatred and delusion, fear, and so on. But there's three, four particular things that come up with the sense of self. The first one is self-confusion. The second one is self-pride. The third one is self-esteem. And the fourth one is self-love. These are not the self, but they are afflictions that come up with it. And these four calling for compassion, they're stressful and painful.

[09:05]

The self-confusion is like, it's a confusion to... It's a confusion, it's a phenomenon, it's a thought that this is the self, and that's not the self. This is mine, this is the self, and this is mine, and this is not mine. And the situation is quite confused. There's a lot of confusion around the self. There's also the confusion or the affliction, which takes the form of an idea. So you've got a self and there's an idea that the self owns things that are in the consciousness.

[10:13]

So you've got the self, it's things in the consciousness, and then you have this afflictive thought that this self owns some of the things. But that's a thought, that's not true, that the self owns these things in the consciousness. There's a sense of self, then there's the idea that this self owns some of those things. And some of those things are like your robes, your shoes, your house, your car. Those things can appear. And the self owns those things. But also there's the idea that the self owns the greed, the hatred, and the fear that are in the consciousness. But the self doesn't own these emotions.

[11:18]

It lives with them, but it doesn't own them. So the consciousness arises with a sense of self and, for example, fear. They arise together. They're brothers and sisters. With practice they can become friends. Whose friends? The self and the fear. But it's going to be hard for them to be friends because we have an idea that the self owns the fear. Another reflection is much less common, but it's possible. And actually, since we would put it in the consciousness for the purpose of meditation, here's another idea, which is the fear owns the self. I'm the fear itself.

[12:22]

We say, the fear is mine. It's my fear. But it should be reversible, because they arise together in the environment of consciousness. It's an affliction to think that the self, the affliction owns the faith, the samadhi, the wholesome thought, but the self, this is an affliction. It's a falsehood. And if we don't believe it at all, it's not an affliction anymore. It's just, if you don't believe it at all, it means, oh, here there's a self and there's a delusion that the self owns stuff in this consciousness. But that's why we want to work with this situation with compassion, that the self doesn't own anything in the consciousness, and nothing in the consciousness owns anything in the consciousness, including nothing in the consciousness owns the self.

[13:36]

The self doesn't own the beliefs that are in the consciousness and the self. They co-arise and co-cease. But again, for most of us, there's the idea the self owns stuff. Then there's another affliction, which is the idea, another false idea, that the self is operating the consciousness. That the activities of consciousness, the self is, they're the self's activities, the self's doing what appears in consciousness, or not doing it. That's, again, delusion, a falsehood, and if we believe it, we suffer. And other afflictions, like there's an idea the self, again, is

[14:39]

Better than other things. It's really wonderful. And it's better than other objects and other selves. That's another affliction. Now, the definition of karma given by the Buddha is in Sanskrit, chetana, which can be translated as intention, volition, and the Chinese character that's used to translate this phenomenon in consciousness, which is the definition of karma, is translated with the word that means thinking. What is this, Chaitanya, what is this thing that's the definition of karma?

[15:49]

What's karma? Karma translated as action. But what's the definition of karma? The definition of karma is thinking. Thinking defines what the action is. The action and what's thinking. Thinking is the momentary overall pattern of a moment of self-consciousness. So we're talking about self-consciousness, there's other kinds of... But this is self-consciousness. And there's a pattern, like there's some greed, there's some fear, Maybe there's some diligence. There's usually not, in the moment, fear, greed, and hate. Usually it doesn't work that way. Fear, greed, or greed, fear.

[16:50]

Another moment there might be fear and hatred. And then there might be a wish to do something when you have fear and hate. And the wish to do something harmful is another phenomenon in this space of consciousness. Or there might be the thought to not do something harmful, even though there's fear and hate. There might be a wish or an intention to not harm. Lots of possibilities, and we can talk about all the possibilities forever. There's infinite possibilities of combinations of these different phenomena in consciousness. But in a given moment of experience, there is a pattern there. And the pattern is called, in Sanskrit, cetana, in English we can call it thinking,

[17:59]

the overall pattern. And in this consciousness, or these consciousnesses, where there's an overall pattern, there's also the affliction that this self, which is operating the thinking. I'm thinking. I'm doing the thinking. I'm doing the... I made the landscape. In other words, I'm acting. I'm doing this karma, which means I'm thinking this way. So you combine the sense of self with the overall pattern and the delusion that the self is operating the overall pattern, which is just a false conception. And it looks... allures us into thinking that it's real.

[19:07]

And it's not. Again, if you just see it as a funny story, suddenly it's not an affliction anymore. But we have a long history of thinking that this pattern, and we can learn to see the pattern, the self owns it and is operating it and in control of it. This consciousness is the headquarters of our life. We have other forms of consciousness, we have other forms of awareness, like our unconscious, but this is the headquarters. This is the command center, etc. And we have these models on this delusion. Particularly these personal computers, cell phones, they have a command center, right?

[20:10]

The overall pattern is not itself necessarily an affliction, only if you believe it is. But in the overall, there can be many afflictions. These overall patterns are also defined as wholesome, unwholesome, and neutral. So individual things are not called wholesome. Like, greed is not called wholesome. And it's also not... It's an affliction. It's a delusion. It's a defilement. But the overall pattern of all the different... that overall pattern is defined as three ways, wholesome, unwholesome, and can't tell whether this is a wholesome or unwholesome overall pattern.

[21:26]

So thinking is wholesome, unwholesome, and neutral from the point of view of looking at the overall quality of the consciousness, and does it seem to be leading to benefit or harm? Or is it kind of unclear? And it always is either going towards benefit, harm, or unclear. That's overall pattern. And again, in that overall pattern, there is often the affliction of thinking that I make it wholly neutral. It's the teacher. When you're sitting, teacher, what kind of overall pattern is there in your consciousness?

[22:31]

What kind of thinking is going on? Is your thinking afflicted? In your thinking, is there like the belief that you're in control of your thinking? Do you have that kind of thinking, like most people? Do you have wholesome thought? When you're sitting, is it wholesome thinking or unwholesome thinking? Is it skillful or unskillful? What kind of thinking is going on in the bodhisattva's sitting, in the bodhisattva's zazen? Is it wholesome, unwholesome, or neutral? That's what he's asking. The teacher doesn't say it's wholesome, unwholesome, or neutral. He doesn't say that. He says, thinking, not thinking.

[23:37]

Some people translate it much, but some people translate it, thinking is not thinking. But that's not a good translation. It doesn't really say thinking is not thinking. It says thinking, not thinking. You can go thinking, not thinking, not thinking. Not thinking, thinking. Not thinking, thinking. Thinking, but for short, thinking, not thinking. That's the kind of thinking that's going on in the bodhisattva's mind. In other words, in the bodhisattva's mind, there's an understanding that this thinking really is not thinking. That's not what it is. Well, what is it? Well, for example, it is the light shining from every pore of the Buddha's body.

[24:44]

That's what it is. And every aspect of it is like that, too. But for short, it's not what you think it is. Thinking of consciousness is not really how it looks. How you're thinking is not how you think you're thinking. How you're thinking is not how it appears. How it appears is an illusory representation of how it is. So it's not. A is not A. Thinking is not thinking. So in the sitting of the bodhisattva, thinking is not thinking. Which means all these afflictions are not all these afflictions. And also, not all these afflictions is all these afflictions.

[25:49]

And this way that thinking is not thinking is the way thinking and not thinking are pivoting on each other. Some people might think that Zen meditation, or certainly some Buddhist meditations, is meditating and there's no thinking. That would be the same as there's no consciousness. And there are times when there's no consciousness. That is a possible situation for living beings. When? When you're asleep and there's no dreams. There's cognitive activity, but it's the cognitive activity of your unconscious cognition working with your body. If the unconscious cognition was stopped, you would die.

[26:59]

The body is warm and keeps the unconscious cognitive processes going when you're asleep and there's no dreaming, no conscious activity, no consciousness where there's a self. When there's dreaming, it's different from when there's a self there, and there's also the idea that the self is doing stuff. So dreaming consciousness is also deluded consciousness, karmic consciousness. And karma is being created when we're dreaming. But sometimes there's no dreaming. That happens to us, some of us, on a regular basis. But at that moment, we are alive and we don't have self-consciousness. Another time it happens is in comas or other kinds of... Another time it happens is in special yogic trances, where consciousness is highly... is really attenuated to be almost non-existent in that samadhi, in that... So there are states where there's no consciousness.

[28:23]

But that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about the Zen teacher is sitting, there is consciousness, And the monk's asking, what kind of thinking is going on in the consciousness? And he says, the thinking that's going on is not thinking. And also the not thinking that's going on is thinking. That's what's going on for me. I don't just have no thinking. I have thinking, which is not. And I have not thinking, which is different from no thinking. There's a character for not, and there's a character for no, like there isn't any. Like the famous moon means there isn't any. But he doesn't say, when a monk says, what kind of thinking he says, he doesn't say thinking where there's no thinking, just not thinking. So each of us is not each of us.

[29:27]

It's not that each of us is nothing. We are completely not what we are. And that's part of the story. But also, in not being what we are is how we really are. In not being how we are is how we really are. What's going on for the bodhisattva is this pivotal activity of thinking, not thinking, of karmic consciousness, not karmic consciousness. Not abandoning karmic consciousness, because what's going on is the pivotal activity where we're not stuck in thinking or not thinking.

[30:29]

This is the Ishvara. This is the self-existent liberation of the bodhisattva mind, which, by the way, is contemplating all beings while this pivoting is going on. Liberated bodhisattva, what kind of thinking? thinking, not thinking. Now, this does not mean, I don't think, that the holosophist mind never has wholesome thoughts or unwholesome thoughts. They might. But if they have a consciousness where the thinking is wholesome, that wholesome thought is not that wholesome thought. that wholesome thinking is not wholesome thinking. If they have unwholesome thought, which is not that nice, but anyway, if they have unwholesome thought,

[31:37]

That unwholesome thought is not unwholesome thought. So in the case of if there's any unwholesome thought, there is liberation. In the midst of thinking, there's active liberation and saving beings. There is the bodhisattva vow. It's working, even in unwholesomeness. Because unwholesomeness is not unwholesomeness, and not unwholesomeness is not unwholesomeness. Unwholesomeness is pivoting with not unwholesomeness, and wholesomeness is pivoting with not wholesomeness. Whatever kind of consciousness the bodhisattva has, it's pivoting with not that, not that. It's always free, and it's bringing everybody along with that. It's bringing everybody else's consciousnesses, which are wholesome or unwholesome.

[32:39]

They are also included in this thinking-not-thinking. This is the Buddha. This is Zaza of the Buddhas. This is the pivotal activity of the Buddhas. And as I've mentioned before many places, the character which I'm translating as pivotal means pivotal. But it also means necessary, and it also means essential. This pivoting of thinking and not thinking is essential to the Buddha activity. It is necessary for Buddha activity. Buddha activity is not just a wholesome state of consciousness. It is a wholesome state of consciousness.

[33:42]

Buddha activity is the wholesome state of consciousness, is not a wholesome state of consciousness. The Buddha activity is not stuck in a full-fledged, wonderful, wholesome state of consciousness. Even if that's what's happening. And of course it's not stuck. That's the kind of thinking that's going on in the consciousness of the bodhisattva Zen master. I could go on like this, pivoting like this. I will. But I also could shift to another dimension, if you're ready. Are you ready? You are? Are you ready? You look uncertain. OK, here we go. How? How?

[34:42]

Think not thinking. I don't know what you're talking about, but anyway, whatever you're doing, ha! I would like to try this on, this thinking not thinking. How can that happen? How can that be? Well, it's already the case. That's the way things already are. But most people are just thinking and they don't know that the thinking is not thinking. They don't know that. They think the thinking is what they think it is. They think of thinking on top. And some people told me during this retreat, I'm always thinking. And I say, that's reality of your consciousness. You are always thinking. Now, how can we be always thinking, not thinking? And Yaoshan didn't sit when the monk said, what kind of thinking is going on? He didn't say, I'm always thinking, not thinking.

[35:49]

That would be bragging. He said, right now, thinking, not thinking. And the monk says, how? And Yaoshan, non-thinking. So for this retreat, I've been emphasizing non-thinking. I haven't been so much emphasizing that thinking, not thinking. But now I'm bringing it up. I've been emphasizing non-thinking. Non-thinking is how not thinking, which is wisdom. So a little clue I got from the great ancestor Dogen, the amazing person named Dogen, whatever that was, It's got this image of Asian monks, they have these big hats, you know, and they often... Excuse me, but this is just an example of something funny I just thought of.

[36:58]

So they have these hats on and then they have their chin rest, like this, to hold their hat on, on their chin. See, it's kind of like Doggy Nose had a little mask on when he was on pilgrimage. Anyway, whoever... I think he must have been a wonderful person to meet. And he has this teaching he's telling us about. He thinks this teaching is really, really the best description of Zazen, he said. There's a lot of them. This is his favorite, which he gives us in Phukan Satsangi, Universal Admissions. But there's another text called The 37 Wings of Enlightenment, where he goes through the truth, the Eightfold Path, the Seven Limbs of Enlightenment, and so on.

[38:06]

And up in the 37 wings, part of the 37 wings is, of course, the Eightfold Path. And then he goes through the Eightfold Path first. In other words, wisdom. In other words, think, not thinking. That's the first thing. That's right view. Right view is think, not thinking. Or thinking, that's right view. The next one is called sometimes right intention, but again, intention is thinking. The intention of your consciousness in a given moment is your thinking. So sometimes translated as right intention, but also translated as right thinking. What's right thinking? Right thinking is also coming from understanding that thinking is not thinking.

[39:14]

So right view is number one. Number two is the thinking that you do when you understand that. And Dogen says, talking about right thinking, he says, that's non-thinking. So he connects in that fascicle the second of the Eightfold Path to the human's non-thinking. He didn't say right thinking is not thinking. He said it's non-thinking. So I'm proposing to you very simply that non-thinking is practicing compassion. whatever the thinking is, whatever aspect of it you're looking at, practicing compassion with that overall pattern, the thinking, or any individual part of it, like fear, pride, self-righteousness, confusion, pain, pleasure, in other words, feeling,

[40:30]

all the different elements and the overall pattern, to practice compassion with all these things. That's non-thinking. Which is also translated as beyond thinking. So this way of relating to the thinking is beyond the thinking. It is Buddha's compassion. hovering above the field of confused thinking, hovering above it and embracing it, listening to it, witnessing it. All these different elements are calling for compassion. All these different opinions and views and thoughts, they're all calling for compassion. When the compassion embraces them, This is non-thinking's work. And that embrace gives rise to thinking not thinking.

[41:35]

That's how we enter into the pivotal act where our karmic consciousness is not our karmic consciousness and not our karmic consciousness is our karmic consciousness. We're free of our karmic consciousness without getting rid of it. We embrace all aspects of our karmic conflictions. They are embraced by compassion, and when they are embraced by compassion, thinking becomes not. Thinking is revealed as not thinking. There's nothing in the moment that's not calling for compassion. Everything. Nothing and nothing. Even the thought, I want to get out of here. I've had it. I don't want to live anymore. That's just another thing that's calling for compassion.

[42:36]

Forever, that's also calling for compassion. Or I'm not sure whether I do or not, that's calling for compassion. You name it, it wants compassion. It does not want to be destroyed. It's not saying, please destroy me. Even if it says, please destroy me, it really means, please love me. Like when a teenager goes in her bedroom and slams the door and says, I don't want to ever talk to you again. That's their way of saying, I love me. It's also their way of saying, I love you. I see friends shaking hands and saying, how do you do? They're really saying, I love you. That's what they say in New Orleans, right? That's what we're really saying. And when you see things, you realize everything's saying, I love you and please love me.

[43:45]

Don't destroy me. Don't eliminate me. Don't disrespect me. Respect me. Listen to me. Don't interrupt me. Protect me. Honor me. And also, everything's listening to us when we cry for the same compassion. Please respect me. And everything's listening to us say, please respect me. Please take care of me. And I'm listening to you tell me that you want me to take care of you. That's non-thinking, is to do that work. And there I'm emphasizing what is usually not emphasized, is that non-thinking is compassion.

[44:50]

And compassion gives birth to this wonderful wisdom of the Zen ancestor, thinking, not thinking. And Dogen tells us. Here it is. Think not thinking. How? Non-thinking. But he didn't... And also, if you look in the Buddha's description of right thinking, what is it? It's let go of hatred, let go of greed, and let go of harming. In other words, be compassionate. Be compassionate. Think that way. So again, I'm giving you a view of the Zen instruction of how to think in Zazen, coming from Yaoshan and through Dogen, that includes practicing compassion with the thinking to realize the true nature of thinking, and the true nature of not thinking, thinking.

[46:03]

Is that clear? Kind of clear. The hard part is people can't believe that this current example of compassion should be given compassion. Because the elements in the field of thinking, they do say to us, you know, I hate you. I don't respect you. It doesn't sound like they're saying, I'm suffering, please, please listen to me. Please respect me. I don't respect you. It doesn't sound like, please respect me. But then, of course, that's what everybody wants. Because that's reality. Really, we do respect each other. But it doesn't sound like that. It doesn't look like that. And also, as I've talked to several of you, we're in a situation now where some people respect those people and they're happy about that.

[47:12]

People who respect people are happy when they're respecting people. And if you respect people, they usually think you're quite intelligent. And you are. That's a good way to use your mind is to respect people. So I know some people who respect some people and some respect those people. And my friends who respect those people don't respect the people who don't respect those people. But we have to respect the people who don't respect because they want respect too. Who don't respect us or don't respect our friends. We have a hard time with that. You know? There's certain people we're just really having a hard time respecting them. But I just, you know, one of the advantages of being old is that, especially if I get much older, you know, people in their 70s are going to be like my grandchildren.

[48:19]

And when I see 70-year-olds acting like children, you know, maybe I'll be like, oh, that's like my granddaughter or my grandson. They're so deluded and they're so frightened. Even though they're 70 years old or 80 years old, they're still frightened. My precious grandchild. And I respect them. Do I trust them to make a good decision? No. Would I make them a leader of a group? No. frightened, confused children, or crying out in pain. And if you get old enough, everybody looks like that. That's how we all look to Buddha. Precious grandchildren, or great-great children of all generations. Buddha loved beings. You know, I could say, Buddha loves so-and-so.

[49:26]

Buddha loves people who are not kind to other people. But also Buddha says, you're not my disciple. If you hate people, you're not my student, but, you know, I'm devoted to you and I'll give my life for you, but you're not doing the practice. By the way, if you want to know, you're not doing it. Yesterday you were my disciple. You were being kind. Yesterday you were my disciple, and I loved you. And today you're not being kind, and you're not my disciple, and I still love you. And I'll love you even if you never... You will eventually. I love you even when you're not doing the practice. Buddha loves beings who are fighting the practice. In other words, not being kind to others, or being kind to some but not others. And again, I find the people I know who are devoted to being kind to all people, they have a hard time being kind to people who are not kind to some people.

[50:44]

That's the world we live in. And I want to be compassionate to the people, you know. Like my granddaughter, she says, I hate so-and-so. And her mother doesn't... And I love these people who hate people. And I don't... And her mother knows a disciple of Buddha does not hate. Her mother knows that. And she can say it, you know. Right after she says, I hate so-and-so, she can say, a disciple of Buddha does not hate. I don't have to say it. I don't. Even though I just said it. So yeah, I'm working at perceptions for whatever is in our current consciousness. And so sitting is a nice time because you're not talking to people.

[51:49]

They're not insulting you, you know, and so on. They're not being mean to anybody else. You're just working with your own mind. And one of you brought up this issue of you have judgments in your mind, right? Have you seen any judgments in your consciousness? And sometimes people call it judgmental. So the distribution of the use of the word judgmental, 20th century and 19th and 20th century, they had like the frequencies going like this down close to the bottom, like close to zero, the word judgmental. And then in the 1950s, it went way up. It's become a very popular... Judgments, not judgment, judgment also probably is more flat. I'll check that out. But judgmental was pretty flat through the 19th and early 20th century.

[52:52]

And then in the 50s, it went way up, and it's kind of leveled off now. Judgmental originally means being able to judge. But it's not become judging negatively. So judgmental has become a negative word. And a lot of Zen students have this thing in their mind called being judgmental. In other words, they're looking down on. And they're... And they hate it. Or at least they're embarrassed and in pain because they do not like to look down on people. We're not supposed to be looking down on anybody. from our superior position. But they notice it's in there. I'm better than that person. They notice this negative judgment of other people. And that's a popular thing going on now.

[53:55]

Especially again... It's a special problem for Zen students. And I've seen that for decades. If I was practicing in 1920, I probably wouldn't have seen it so much. And then I say to the person, that judgmental, that is calling for compassion. When you notice a judgmental thought in your mind, listen to it, look at it with compassion. It wants compassion and the suffering that comes with it. Don't try to get rid of this thing called this terrible thing. Don't try to get rid of it. It's a terrible thing that's calling for love and support. It wants to be liberated. This is a housecleaning thing. Siddhartha wanted to say something on his head, but I almost never heard him being judgmental of people, and in particular of other teachers.

[55:07]

He almost never talked down about other teachers. That was a good example. Maybe he was thinking, well, that person is not nearly as good as me. I don't know. He didn't say anything like that. He respected people who teachers, he respected teachers, who I thought, you know, what an arrogant priest that is. He treated that arrogant priest with respect. Wow. Good job, Roshi. Thank you. Everything in your consciousness is calling for compassion.

[56:09]

So, you know, whisk away the cobwebs of resisting to be compassionate towards it, and thinking, we should get the judgmentalness out of this consciousness. Also, if you thought, I need more judgmentalness, then that should be treated with compassion too. I'm not judgmental enough. That's another thing which I haven't heard about much. I think I should be more judgmental. Maybe I'm brain-dead. You have to be kind of smart to be judgmental, right? It's an operation. Judge and then put yourself above it. So, okay, maybe that's enough for the rest of our lives.

[57:11]

Anything else that you want to bring up before we have lunch? Yes? You say several times, to protect. Wait a second, let me put my aids on. Yes. Can you say something about protect? It feels like something, protecting from something else. What is this protection? It's like protection from harm, protection from harm. let's say a judgmental thought arises, and instead of trying to get rid of it, which would be harmful, it's harmful to try to get rid of stuff that's in your mind.

[58:30]

It's disrespectful, I suppose. So rather than trying to get rid of this obnoxious thought, this pain, listen to it. I hear you, sweetheart. I'm listening. I'm here for you. And so if you treat it that way, you protect it from harm. You protect your own pain. You can harm your pain. And you can harm the causes of your pain. Like being judgmental is a cause of pain for you. So being kind to the judgmentalist protects the judgmentalness, and helps it evolve to be the light of Buddha's body. And it also will protect you from the pain that would happen if you're not kind to it. Now, if you do that with your own mind, that just happens to protect other beings who have other problems, or that same problem.

[59:36]

That protects them... And it also protects them when they come and talk to you and they tell you about this. You say, oh, I have that problem too, and this is what I do with it, and really it doesn't harm me. It doesn't harm me to be kind to my own delusions. In fact, it protects me and it protects my delusions, not so that they can grow bigger and more terrible, it protects them from getting bigger. It protects them from becoming more harmful. It converts them into . It protects them from delusion. But protecting without pushing anything away. Protecting without reinforcing duality. That's the kind of protection we're talking about here.

[60:44]

Especially in acceptance, rather than push it away, accepting. I think acceptance is an element in the process, but it's a little bit more active than just accepting. Like, you can accept something. You might say something to me and I accept it, but then I don't keep listening to you. I accept it, but then maybe I accept you and look away. Or I accept you, but I don't realize that my acceptance is my offering to you, and I accept you, and I care about you. So yes, I accept you, and I do that because I care about you, and because you're important, and because I want to practice generosity, and I want to be generous too, and I appreciate you helping me learn how to do it too.

[61:46]

But acceptance is part of that. It's not the whole thing, but it's like a lubrication that helps the whole thing work. But it doesn't necessarily capture the active and carefulness and patience and so on. But it's part of all of them. So we have to sort of... And acceptance is also part of starting to accept that we have done something, that we have something unskillful in our mind. I accept that my consciousness is unskillful. And now I can say I'm sorry. I can acknowledge it and say I'm sorry. But I first start by accepting it. Now I could also confess that I don't accept it. Start there. And confessing it may help me accept it. So acceptance is a definite ingredient. Not accepting is also a common thing. So both of those are important things to keep an eye out for.

[62:48]

Yes? Can you help me understand the distinction between unwholesome and afflictive? Yeah. You know, in the usual Buddhist way, abusing the word unwholesome is a more general term for consciousness. Afflictions are more... Specific. So afflictions are inexhaustible, but we don't say, you know, but wholesome, unwholesome, and neutral, there's just three. There's three basic meditation categories to put on the overall consciousness. And there's afflictive elements in most consciousness. But they're specific, like pride, disrespect, fear, hatred, pain, attachment, hate, you know, and so on, turning towards something, turning away from something.

[63:59]

So all these things, and also everything's tainted by misunderstanding the relationship of the self to these things. So everything becomes afflicted because of the afflictions around the self. But they're individual things, and different consciousnesses have different elements. unwholesomeness is usually used for the overall view. Where does this moment of thinking seem to be going? Does it seem to be going in a beneficial direction? or unbeneficial. And we don't really know because beneficial has to do with its consequence. We can't see the consequence right now until we're really, really, really, really awakened. Then Buddha can see, oh, that's going to be an unfortunate, painful consequence. The wholesome has to do with the effects it will have.

[65:03]

Afflicted more has to do with the pain right now. That's another difference. Right now I feel pain and discomfort for what's going on, but you could feel that in a wholesome state of consciousness. And being aware of this grand pain contributes to it being a wholesome state of consciousness. And vice versa, you could have quite a pleasant state of consciousness, Yeah, and maybe no greed or hate, but some confusion, so you're not paying attention to it, and that might be quite unwholesome. having a truck or something, you're not attempting to what's going on with you, that could be very unwholesome, even though there's no greed or hate. And also there could be greed or hate, but a sincere embarrassment about it, and wishing to be really kind to it so it doesn't cause any trouble.

[66:08]

And that can be quite a wholesome state, even though it has these afflictions in it. So a mind that has afflictions, full of afflictions even, and has been kind to it, it's a pretty wholesome state. A mind that has nothing wrong with it, but where there's no care, is very unwholesome. Like, it's a little bit more difficult to define what's wholesome. But generally, if you care, that doesn't guarantee it. But if you don't care, like if you don't care whether you do wholesome or unwholesome, then for sure it's unwholesome. So there's two dharmas where you don't care what you do and you don't care what people think of you. Those are two attitudes. And if you have one or both of those, you have definitely... Basically you don't care about karma. But if you care about karma, even if there's tons of greed and hate, it still might not be wholesome.

[67:13]

But it's not definitely unwholesome because it's a good sign that you do care. And you do care what people feel about what you're doing. So that's not always present in every wholesome state, but the lack of that is never present in a wholesome state. You can't practice if you don't care about your body and mind and the consequences for other people. That's what it says. That is the most unwholesome state is when you don't have those two dharmas of being concerned about basically self-respect and decorum. If you don't care, then that's the worst. which is related to the worst view, is to think that karma doesn't have consequence. The worst wrong view is to think that your thinking doesn't have consequence, and therefore you don't have to pay attention to it. That's the worst. But even if you don't have that terrible wrong view, you still might have an unwholesome state.

[68:23]

So, but we have, we generally do have views of, you know, like people tell me about wholesome tastes of consciousness, and I say, that sounds good. You know, I don't know for sure. Seems good to me. Probably have a good consequence that you appreciate all these people like you appreciate everybody. Sounds good. And you want to benefit all beings. Sounds like a good state of consciousness to me. I don't know for sure, but I think it's going to bring benefit, this consciousness. And when people tell me some other stuff, if you want to know, I think that's pretty unwholesome, that thought. But we have to practice compassion to that. They'd have to, all Bodhisattvas vowed to. So they vow to, we say, literally, the center says delusions are inexhaustible. Delusions is an abbreviation of greed, hate, and delusion, and all the other afflictions.

[69:29]

So really, the original Chinese says afflictions are inexhaustible. They are. But you can have afflictions in the consciousness, and the consciousness can be also... And it would be, I think it would be, if there was a sincere feeling and intention to be compassionate no matter how much afflictions are present. Like right now, I just feel so much compassion and I want to continue to feel all these afflictions. That sounds like a wholesome thing, even though it's jam-packed full of afflictions. But as I say again, there could be not very many, and I could just have one affliction, which is I don't want to pay attention to them. And that sounds pretty bad to me. Probably going to have a really bad effect. This is early Buddhist teaching, examine your consciousness, check it out, meditate on it, and I didn't hear the Buddha say, examine it with compassion.

[70:40]

But of course, that's the way the Buddha examines consciousnesses, right? Her own, her other people's. Oh, let me look in your consciousness, tell me about it. I have just so much appreciation for your consciousness. There's all these afflictions in here. I know, I know, I know. It's really wonderful. Still. It's still precious, even though it's full of afflictions. Which reminds me of a story about you know, Padla Kasal's He was a cellist and he was giving a class to other cellists and the guy who wrote... I read this in a book written by a cellist about his interactions with The cellist. So the old Pablo Casals, this just got in the hold, this person, maybe he was in his 30s or 40s, and Pablo Casals was in his 90s, and he was studying Pablo Casals and telling us about this old master.

[72:02]

And after he was done, Pablo Casals just expressed great appreciation for his playing of the cello. And afterwards the guy thought, you know, he wasn't being sincere, he was just noticing what I did good and acted like all I did was good. And later they talked and he said, you know, I feel uncomfortable about what you said in praising my playing because I did these things which weren't so good. And Pablo Casals said, didn't you do this? really well? He said, yeah, didn't you do that really well? Didn't you do that really well? Didn't you do that? The guy said, oh yeah, I don't know. Well, that's what I noted, what you did well. And other people can tell you what you didn't do well. I'm just going to tell you what you did well.

[73:05]

But Pabla Casals saw those, he saw those too. But he didn't. He told the guy how to be appreciative and also notice your mistakes, but be kind to your mistakes. We're going to make mistakes, right? Bodhisattvas make mistakes. And also, if it's anybody who's not a bodhisattva, they make mistakes too. But we can learn from our mistakes if we're kind to them. And part of being kind to them is to say, I think I made a mistake, and I'm sorry. That's kind, and that turns the Dharma wheel. The Buddha said that in the early teachings, in the middle teachings, and in the final teaching. Yes. What time is it, by the way? It is 11.45. Okay, yes.

[74:05]

Could you explain what you mean by the Buddha's body? At the point of the Apatamsaka, there's like three bodies. Early Buddhism had two, which was the appearance of the Buddha as, for example, a person, Or could they appear otherwise, too? But anyway, the transformation of Buddha in a way that you can... Like a magical created version of a Buddha called the transformation body, which looks like a man in India. And then there's a true body, which is the Dharmakaya, which is perfect wisdom, which is the actual reality realized of the nature of the universe.

[75:15]

That's a Buddha body. It's reality embodied as the Buddha. It's the realization of how we're actually related and support each other throughout the universe, those two bodies. And then later there came a third body, which is the bliss that comes with understanding the relationship between the form of Buddha and the reality So that light is like, seeing the light coming from the body is like the bliss body. It's the enjoyment of this body which is unconstructed and invisible, but is the true nature of all things. So that the bliss body or the reward body for practicing the moral health system is called bodhisattva social club.

[76:31]

which is how we work together, studying the way Buddha appears and the way Buddha is beyond an appearance. And how the way is beyond appearance is how all the appearances are working together. That understanding is not an appearance. It's the reality of our life, with not just my life, but interrelating. That's a Dharmakaya. That's perfect wisdom. And then there's an enjoyment of that sometimes, like hearing a teaching telling us that everybody is the light of this invisible Dharmapati Buddha. Arjuna is the Dharmapati Buddha. But we can see the light of Dharmapati Buddha by looking at people

[77:35]

and looking at our afflictions. So that's, oh yeah, there's the Dhammakaya in that affliction. And seeing that and telling our friends about it, that's our Bodhisattva Social Club. And it's blissful. It's blissful to see the invisible shun. Without getting rid of the visible ordinary person, you see the light, the transcendent Buddha. Pretty good, huh? Also, I just want to parenthetically mention that I was talking to somebody and they were telling me about the way Jesus' face looked. I would say maybe the way Jesus' face looked after he died, you know, Because on the cross, actually, I think he grimaced a little bit.

[78:39]

but after he died, when he was lying on his mother's arms, the look of his face. And I said, you know, I heard the novelist Mary McCarthy said, if you look at the paintings of Jesus' face, after he's dead, before he actually, but after he was dead, he looks like a man who just post-orgasmed. very relaxed, post-bliss. But we don't so much have pictures of Buddha that way, because Buddha has resurrected from that, from that bliss, and is now eyes are open and ready to teach. And Jesus also, I guess, resurrected from that, and then said, continue the work. But there was a little moment of bliss before that, maybe, in certain people's pictures of Jesus.

[79:48]

That's the bliss body that comes when you, I guess, you give up all your attachments and open to, like, yeah, everybody is okay, I'm not resisting, I accept that, I'm enjoying that. And it's a reward for me contemplating the teachings of the Aptoms like a sutra, or whatever sutra. Is that enough for today?

[80:22]

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