One Zen teacher said that enlightenment is the tacit bond between all beings. Enlightenment is the silent bond between all beings. That's it. And the Buddha way is not that enlightenment, but not excluding that enlightenment. It's leaping from a world or a view where all beings are not, of not living in the bond between all beings, to leap from that world

[01:16]

that view into the bond, the silent bond of all beings, and then again to leap free of enlightenment and continually leap beyond enlightenment. Leap from the tacit bond into another tacit bond So the person who taught that delusion is carrying the self forward and practicing with all things, and enlightenment is when all things come forward, and realize the self. And acting from there, this person also said that the true path of enlightenment is to sit upright, practicing in the midst of the awareness of this tacit bond among all beings.

[02:29]

And he called this awareness the self-fulfilling awareness. or the self-fulfilling samadhi, which is a concentrated, one-pointed awareness of this tacit bond, of the way in which all beings support each other. That sitting upright and being consistently, concentratedly aware of this imperceptible mutual assistance is the true path of enlightenment." And then he says, in this tradition, from the first time, oh no, he says, oh, when even for a moment you express the Buddha's seal in the three actions by sitting upright in this awareness.

[03:34]

The whole phenomenal world becomes the Buddha's seal and the entire sky turns into enlightenment. The Buddha's seal is this tacit bond among all beings. So when you think or speak or make a posture And you express the Buddha's seal when you're thinking. That means that your thinking is a representation or, yeah, is a picture of this tacit bond among all beings. It's a picture of enlightenment. and that your speaking also expresses this tacit bond and that your postures express the tacit bond.

[04:39]

This is the Buddha's seal, also called the Buddha's mudra, the Buddha mudra. Mudra means ring or seal or circle. So the Buddha's seal or the Buddha's circle is this this imperceptible mutual assistance, and when that is expressed by all your actions of thought, speech, and so on, the whole world becomes this Buddhist seal. And everything is impressed by this. But he connects this awareness to your action so that you can still be thinking, you know, I'd like to take a walk or climb a mountain or eat lunch. But that action, that thought or that saying, I want to have lunch, it expresses

[05:43]

the bond among all beings. While you say, I want to have lunch, you're expressing, I want to have lunch, you're expressing the bond among all beings. When people say, I want to take a walk, and you say, no, that no expresses the bond among all beings. Or yes, that yes expresses the bond among all beings. Or you think, I'm not sure I want to go for a walk. That thought, that mental action, expresses the Buddha's seal. You express the Buddha mudra with that thought. And being focused on that is a true path of enlightenment, he says. Another way to say this is Every action is a ritual or every action is a ceremony to enact the Buddha way.

[06:55]

Every act is a ritual celebrating the bond among all of us. So Jeannie raises her hand and I see, the act of seeing her raise her hand, that seeing is now dedicated to, devoted to the ceremony of seeing her as expressing, while I see her, the bond among all beings. including the bond between her and me. But it's not just the bond between her and me. In seeing her, I want to celebrate the bond between all of us. And then I say, what is it? And make that a ceremony too. What is it? What if you dedicated your life to act in this way?

[08:03]

very sincerely and do it to the best of your ability and you find yourself, while you are having this intent and you are trying to embody this, you also have anger, you have, you know, naughty, nasty thoughts. Uh-huh. What do you do? Did you say, what do you do? Well, I know what you do. Well, what do you do? You observe, look at, practice, study what's coming up at the same time. It's sort of like... Yeah, right. So I thought you said... Did you have a question? I said, what do you do? Yeah, and then you said you knew what to do. I said that's not my question. Oh, okay. I agree with your question and your answer. I feel very sad when I notice that... I guess you'd call it just a judgment and then a feeling.

[09:29]

It's just... You feel sad when you notice what? The dichotomy between my delusion and my enlightenment. Everybody feels sad when they see a dichotomy between delusion and enlightenment. Buddhas do not see a dichotomy between delusion and enlightenment. They don't say delusion is the same as enlightenment. They just don't see them as a dichotomy. But if you do see them as a dichotomy, to see delusion and enlightenment dualistically is more or less painful. I didn't know that sometimes you didn't. Thanks for telling me. Anyway, that is very normal that people who

[10:32]

Persons who see delusion and enlightenment dichotomously suffer. Buddhists do not see them as dichotomous. And they also don't see them as the same. They see them as non-dual. And they also see those who are enlightened and those who are not as non-dual. So one of the kind of key points of the source of our practice in this tradition is that Buddhas and non-Buddhas, Buddhas and living beings, are not two. That's the spiritual source. If they were two, the unenlightened wouldn't have much of a chance. But fortunately, Maybe they aren't two. According to this tradition, one of the central things that's transmitted is unenlightened and enlightened are not two, are not separate.

[11:38]

And when you look inside and you see your mind and it looks like your mind is shaped in not the way of the bodhisattva vow, then and you see it's not shaped the way of the Bodhisattva vow, you don't have to think of that as separate from the Bodhisattva vow. But if you do think of it separate, you will notice discomfort. But studying that, you will get over that. So again, if you notice that the shape of your consciousness, in other words, a karma of your mental karma at the moment, does not seem to be in accord with great vows of compassion for all beings, if you look at that and learn about that and confess and repent that, you will become free of that.

[12:45]

You will become free of them being a dichotomy. So actually the difference between a selfish pattern and an unselfish pattern could appear within your consciousness. You could see a selfish pattern and an unselfish pattern. The unselfish pattern might be a theory, but you see the theory juxtaposed with the empirical shape of your mind, which has a theory attached next to it. And without changing anything, this consciousness can be a representation of the bond between all beings. Because you don't have to change anything for the thing to go from dualistic to non-dualistic. Because you have the same elements, it's just they're not seen as separate.

[13:48]

But you have to look at it, if there seems to be separation, you have to confess. And if you confess, you may feel some, you said sadness or sorrow, and if the sorrow is the right kind of sorrow, it's called repentance, which causes the transformation without changing anything. From a dualistic situation, where enlightenment and delusion are dual, and Buddhas and sentient beings are dual, and birth and death are dual, and practice and enlightenment are dual, the duality drops away. So you don't have to change anything, you just wake up to non-duality. However, you must study in order for this awakening to occur. Without studying it, this non-duality is just writing or talk or theory. Studying your consciousness is the way to put the theory into practice, to test it.

[14:51]

If you put it into practice and it doesn't seem to be working, let the Buddhas know. They may have some comment like, I hope you do it a different way so you'll be more successful. Did I address the issue that you brought up? Great. You're welcome. Patrick? Do you hear a comment on rebirth now? Oh yeah, rebirth. From life to life or leaping from delusion to enlightenment and death. Okay, you've got rebirth. What's the deal about rebirth? Well, let's see. Rebirth. The epistemological model, which I mentioned earlier, is that when you have these three conditions, you have the arising of a cognition, of a consciousness, of an awareness.

[16:17]

Three conditions are? What are they? Divine. Huh? Divine grace. No. Oh, no, not sensory. Not the sensory. Huh? Sensory body. A sensory body. And objects such as electromagnetic radiation from an object, so you see it, your eye. Yeah, you have an object and electromagnetic radiation, for example, bouncing off it, touching the body. In your mind. And a previous consciousness. A previous consciousness, because we're talking about the conditions for present consciousness. The previous consciousness, a sensory body, and an environment, and the sensory body and the environment interacting enough to turn the sensory body on. Because sometimes your sensory body interacts with the world and it doesn't turn it on. But when it's sufficiently strong, when the stimulus is sufficiently strong to get the body to respond, to get the body to move, and there's a previous cognition, then there can be a cognition.

[17:34]

That's the birth of a moment of experience for a living being. I hate to… You hate to what? The pain, but like the previous cognition. Yes, the previous cognition. I get confused with because it would seem like if you saw something new and you didn't have a previous cognition of that, that this process of creating a cognition wouldn't happen. I don't understand the need for previous cognition as opposed to a mind that could conceivably react to these two, the sense organ and the object. If that makes any sense. The previousness of it is confusing me. The condition of a previous cognition confuses you? Yeah. As opposed to the capacity for cognition, just period, in itself. The capacity for cognition?

[18:35]

Yeah, like that. If you have the object and you have the sense organ, and you have this something that can create like an electric jolt from that, that is the cognition. I didn't follow that. I don't understand what the previousness, why there's something that had to be there before. I ... well, let's see. This is relevant to rebirth, this thing about before, okay? Right. Yeah, I don't want to be pained because it's a real headache, I know. Well, let's say we have now ... it is not necessarily a headache because the body is involved here. Okay. So, in some sense you could say bodies have the capacity for cognition. But in order for the capacity of cognition to be realized, the body needs a previous cognition and the body needs to be stimulated.

[19:38]

So you don't seem to have a problem with the body needing to be stimulated in order for the capacity that the body has for cognition to be realized. But the body's capacity doesn't just depend on the body. it depends on being stimulated. But not just that, it depends on a previous cognition. So right now you have a cognition. So we're saying to you, you couldn't have the cognitions you're having right now if you hadn't had one in the past. Any old cognition? Any old cognition, right. So it's like the storm house? Don't get into that yet, okay? I'm just saying right now you have a cognition. And in a sense, this cognition you're having now is a rebirth. You have a new life right now. It's a rebirth. What's it a rebirth of? In a sense, it's a rebirth of cognition. So I'm talking about rebirth now. So in that way, I didn't bring in this thing about previous cognition just because of rebirth.

[20:39]

I brought it in because I thought that teaching might relate to rebirth. Because right now the cognitions you're having are a rebirth of cognition. and now you have a rebirth of cognition. And it's rebirth in the sense that you... Didn't you have some cognitions earlier in this retreat? Yes. Didn't you have a cognition just a moment ago? Yeah. You did, right? Right. It seems that way, doesn't it? Yeah. The fact that it seems that way is part of the reason why you think you can have a cognition now. The kind of cognitions you have are such that you think you've had past cognitions, don't you? Yeah. That's the kind of cognitions you have. But also we're saying, yeah, you did have, actually there were other cognitions before this for you and me. In that sense, right now, you're experiencing a rebirth. You're having a new cognition, but it didn't come from nowhere. You had cognitions before, right?

[21:41]

The fact that you feel that you've had them before goes along with the Buddha teaching you that you have had cognitions before this one. And when you had cognitions, you were a living being at that time. You were a conscious, a living being, and you had cognition. Now you're a conscious living being, a new one. And for this present cognition you're having, you need a past one, which you kind of feel you have. But without that past one, you wouldn't be able to have this one. That's where you're having a problem. Right, yeah. But, I don't know, maybe one just have a problem with that a little while longer, and we'll get back to you. So that's the basic epistemological presentation, is that's what it takes to know something. That's what it takes for our cognition to exist, is those three. Other things too, but basically those things.

[22:43]

That part of the environment is intense enough in your neighborhood to relate to your sensory tissue such that such that a cognition arises, but you also need not just a previous cognition, but you need the one that just happened, just before this. The just-deceased cognition. You can also say the just-deceased cognition, the cognition which has just ceased, is a condition for this one. In that sense, there's rebirth. Now at a certain point in our process, we so-called die. At that time, the sensory situation becomes dispersed. And part of the Buddhist story, which, you know, you can check out when you have a chance, which is coming quite soon, there will be an awareness that your energy is withdrawing from your senses.

[23:46]

You may have noticed that already in yourself. You can also notice it in people that you see dying. You can notice that your energy is receding from your senses. Older people, several years before dying, notice that the energy is receding from their senses. They notice that the ears are turning off. They notice the tongue is turning off. They notice the eyes are turning off. Older people lose their, their muscles get such that they lose some of the ability often to pull and tug on the lens. So their eyes tend to become more and more focused on infinity. In order to see up close, you need muscles. But if you don't pull on the lens, the lens focuses very far away.

[24:52]

So old people start to look farther and farther away and have trouble seeing up close. And also they can remember far and far away, but not up close. Pardon? I said that it's such a gift, that interpretation. I work with seniors, I work with people in their 80s and 90s. I love that. I'm going to carry that with me. That's so beautiful. Yeah. And, you know, your nose. Most older people are not blind. You know, like you have people like an 80, 90-year-old. It's not like 90% of them are blind, right? Quite a few go blind, but it's not 90%. But it's almost 100% of people over 80 don't have any sense of smell. Which is another reason why in old folks' homes they do not have, you know, high-paid chefs. Because older people are mostly going by taste. And taste is much simpler than smell.

[25:56]

There's six tastes, right? There's infinite smells. Without smell, it's very difficult to tell the difference between coffee and milk, except by texture. Coffee is mostly smell. It's got a taste, but you take away the smell and people can't tell the difference between coffee and something that's not coffee. But as you know, most people who have smell can smell coffee miles away. Old people's noses dry up, and when the nose dries up, the mucus around the nose, those nerves die. So it's quite common. Most old people do not have a sense of smell. Most. Almost all men, as you may have heard, over 80, have prostate cancer. But they have other problems, so they don't all die of prostate cancer. But they almost all get it. The energy in the prostate is withdrawing in the old guys.

[27:04]

And in the withdrawing energy, people move in. Hey, nobody's here. Let's go in and live it up. As you get older, your energy recedes from your ears, from your eyes, from your nose, from your tongue, from your skin. The skin, actually, is probably one of them that recedes least. The nose the most, probably. The tongue less. The eyes quite a bit and the ears quite a bit. Now, if you're a young person and you still have a lot of energy out in your sense organs, but you go into shock. As you go into shock, your energy quickly recedes from your sense organs. If you're an older person, it's already started to recede, but as you approach death, it recedes more. And if you look at the older person, they say it's getting dark, they say it's getting quiet. It's already been getting darker and quieter over the years, but now it starts to get darker and quieter faster.

[28:10]

And pretty soon it's like really dark, really quiet, no smells, because all the energy comes away from the senses into the center of the body. The inhabitation of the sensory body, which is the origins of consciousness, starts to be uninhabited. The organs start to be uninhabited. They come to a point and then the conscious inhabitation of the sensory body, the sensory areas, goes away and the consciousness no longer can arise. That's the last consciousness. Because there isn't a way to stimulate the senses to give rise to another consciousness. The conditions for cognition are no longer there because the body cannot be stimulated by the world, which is still there, knocking on the door.

[29:13]

But the body's going, so no cognition. However, there was the last, there's always a last one. There's a previous one. Then something happens. What happens? another body is put together. A body, a sensitive body comes to be. Sometimes in a womb of a woman, a little body that kind of like, you touch it and it goes... When you have a sensitive body and something touches a sensitive body and the sensitive body goes, yippee, then if there's a previous cognition, you have a new cognition, which is a rebirth.

[30:17]

That's how it happens. That's how rebirth happens. That's how it happens right now. And then after there's death, that's how it will happen. So in the Buddha Dharma we're very concerned for what the last cognition of this life will be. Because that's the previous one for the next one. Now we don't say there always will be rebirth, but there sometimes is rebirth. And actually the Buddha doesn't get reborn. They don't do that anymore. they finish their job in the enlightenment process and they will not do that again. But bodhisattvas willingly do that again and certain consciousnesses of a person just before they die are undeveloped enough so that they will compulsively be a condition for a rebirth. And the rebirth will happen at a physical situation that has sense organs that are, like, ready to be turned on.

[31:29]

And at the point that the sense organs are ready to be turned on, the previous cognition is there, you have rebirth. And part of the debate about, you know, this kind of like abortion and stuff is around this issue which the Buddhists have not been particularly, as far as I know, precise about when in the embryological process this conception occurs. Because it's not clear that the zygote, the fertilized egg, it's not clear that that zygote has sense organs which can be turned on. So conception in the human being, for example, is not clear to me or from the Buddhist tradition. I can't see and I haven't heard that I can reason somewhat about this, but I'm not sure at what point in this process the rebirth occurs. At a certain point it looks like it's occurred. When you look at the baby inside and you can see it's like you know, dancing with the music, you know, that their mother's, you know, holding under their tummy, and they're kind of like grooving with it.

[32:37]

At that point, I think we got a little guy or a little girl. But that's like, at that point, there are billions of cells, billions, you know. A baby, I think, as far as I know, a baby that's like two inches long is a billion cells there, I believe, I would guess. Because the brain of a fly has hundreds of thousands of cells. So that's part of the debate. But the Buddhists, I don't know, unless you have a really enlightened person, I don't know if they can tell you at what point conception actually occurs in the normal situation. Or they would come and look at each person for each abortion case and see if there's an intentional being in there. Because as soon as cognition arises, there's intention, even in an embryo. But anyway, that's the story that I would give you on rebirth, is that consciousness, the condition of consciousness,

[33:49]

is there. Now some people would say that the consciousness actually, and that the first one, the first consciousness is called the apprehending consciousness. And that's the same as the alaya. It's a consciousness which comes and lives in the organs. It lays itself down in the organs. But at first it's called, the first one is called the apprehending consciousness because that's the first consciousness that arises at this rebirth stage. But that first consciousness depends on a previous consciousness. But the previous consciousness could be days or weeks in the past, usually not too long. Rebirths usually don't take a long time to happen according to the tradition. But there's a variation in how long it takes. And the bodhisattvas, some bodhisattvas, in the moments leading to their death, as the organs are being abandoned and the consciousness is decamping, as they do that, they also maybe have already settled their vows, like, I am going to be reborn.

[35:08]

And sometimes they even say where, you know, stuff like that. I am going to be reborn. I do want to be reborn. I want to continue this work. And they usually do have that kind of intention. And depending on their level of concentration and so on, that intention is clearer, and therefore at the rebirth they are relatively clear. And the Buddha, Shakyamuni said, I think he said there's like three or four types of people, of beings, or to say people. One are the ones who at the moment of conception are aware. One are the ones who at the moment of conception are not aware that conceiving is happening. Next are ones that are aware at the moment of conception that conception has happened, like, this is what I meant, here we are, this is what I wanted, here I am again, so to speak, or now there's rebirth.

[36:10]

Next is those who actually are aware at conception and aware during the embryological process. Next is those who are aware of conception, aware of the embryological process, and aware during the delivery. And so the ones who are aware through the whole process are the bodhisattvas and so on. And then the ones who are aware for part of the process are other kinds of enlightened beings, enlightening beings. And ordinary people aren't even aware at the moment of rebirth. The Buddha Shakyamuni taught that. So that's a story, that's a story, okay? And this should be taken in a middle way. Now, don't substantialize this. This is just a story. Nothing can be grasped here. You couldn't find this. There's no self to this process. But this is the story. This is the epistemological rendition of how rebirth happens during your life with this body and how rebirth happens after your sense organs are abandoned in this body.

[37:18]

And death is... Death isn't... isn't exactly synonymous with the withdrawal of the energy from the sense organs. It's synonymous with withdrawal and then the complete abandonment of the body. Because in some bodies the sense consciousness sits there in the middle of it for quite a while after there's a decamping from the senses. And the heart turns off, the breathing stops, the brain waves stop, all that gets turned off. In some cases it gets turned back on because the consciousness is sitting there. And some people, as you may have heard, the body stays warm for quite a while afterwards because somebody stays there for a while. Some people like to show off. They do. Maybe for unselfish reasons they think, I think it would encourage people to practice if I kept the body warm for a week. And I think sometimes it does.

[38:20]

They don't do it just to sort of like set a record and get famous. They do it because they think, you know, usually people expect things to, you know, cool down and smell up. So I'm going to make a nice smelling, warm body for a week. And then after a week I'm going to split and then have instructions that they burn me before I start smelling bad. Because bad smelling corpses are, you know, hard for some people to have faith in. You know, people say, how can such a great mattress smell so bad? Some people don't like, but some other masters think, I think it would really help people if I really, like, cooled off fast and smelled bad fast. Like, really challenged their understanding of non-duality. That different teachers have different styles. What did you say? Yeah, right. Obviously, right. Yes? What's your name again?

[39:21]

Annie? Annie? Yeah, right, two questions about the story. Can I say something about stories? The important thing about this story, I told, is to understand it. Don't believe it, understand it. Yes? There is no beginning. I don't know if it presupposes, but that is the Buddhist teaching that there's not beginnings. Beginnings are mental constructions. Right, I mean, there couldn't be a beginning if there's always a predecessor concept. Yeah, right. So then the second question in this, and maybe this is a detail that's left to be fascinated, is what attracts the

[40:23]

cognition, the pre-existing cognition, to which conception? So what is the attracting factor to one body over another? Let's see. Well, again, just one way to approach it is what attracts a previous cognition to your body right now? What? Go ahead. No, no. The previous cognition of this... You have a cognition now, right? Okay. So what attracted that previous cognition to your body? How come that previous cognition got associated with your body right now? The trajectory of habit.

[41:25]

The trajectory of habit. You could say that, or you could say the trajectory of causation. In my life, it's probably habit. Well, you can say either way you want, but isn't habit part of causation? Yeah. So you have a cognition now, and you have a sense of what your previous cognition was, right? Yeah. But you're saying, what attracted that previous cognition to this present body? Right? What attracts your past to your present? That's kind of an unusual question, isn't it? But that seems like the parallel question to your question of what attracts the previous cognition from a past life to this present body in a different place. Right? Another way, because as you explained it, in one situation, the senses have always seeded, so there's no, well, at least how I see it, there's no interruption.

[42:34]

The interruption's different between the presence of the senses in the one body when you go to revert into a different body, as we experience bodies, you said there's an interruption of time. I don't think I said there was... I didn't say it was an interruption. You could say that, but I didn't say it. But there is a difference between this body, which is hanging together, pretty much, it's inhabited, the senses are inhabited in this moment, And now we've got a body where the senses are not very well inhabited. Now we have a body where the senses are really uninhabited. Now we have a dead body. And now we have a body which is like being cremated or whatever. Okay? So we don't say the body, there's not continuity of this body and bodies from previous life. But there is a continuity in this body and the body you had when you were a girl.

[43:40]

When I say, you were a girl. So there's a connection between these bodies. But your next body, in some sense, won't be connected to this body. Yeah, right. I think that's right. But your next body will be connected to, not so much to this body, but will be connected to this consciousness. All the consciousnesses you've had during this life, and particularly the last one you have, will be connected to the rebirth. And it isn't really the rebirth of you, it's a rebirth, just like the rebirth you have now is not really the rebirth of you, it's just a new consciousness, a new birth. We say rebirth because it's causally connected in a special way to your present cognitions. Okay, so you want to work with this a little bit more? No, go ahead, Annie. Well, I guess that's my question. What is that causal connection between the consciousness or the cognition that inhabited the body to end it?

[44:50]

Yeah, so there is a causal connection because Because the cognition that arises depends on a previous cognition, so there is a causal connection. But your thing was, how come that past cognition gets connected to some body? There's lots of bodies available. How come it connects to this one? And that's similar to how does your past cognitions connect to this one right now? How does the previous cognition a moment ago connect to this one? And it's pretty hard to see, isn't it? It's harder to see one situation than Yes, and if you can see now I would say that actually this kind of working, and this is a tough point I know, but this kind of question I really do not have a clear vision of or even a certainty due to my reasoning about this to tell you what it is about the previous cognition before a rebirth that somehow connects it causally to this new consciousness.

[45:55]

But again, I do not see what connects your previous cognition to this one. I do not see how they connected. I'm just saying that somehow I do understand that my cognition right now depends on a previous cognition. But how that works, the subtleties of how that works right now, I don't know. I just know the requirements. But how they get connected, that's something which I think we need somebody more enlightened to answer. And you feel like you can kind of see how they're connected better now than you would across bodies. But again, that's just your view. And I don't know if you really can see better one or the other. Maybe the one where you can't see very well is closer to the truth than the one you think you do see more clearly. I don't know. But... What does make sense to me and encourages me to practice is that it seems to me that the consciousness that arises now, being of good quality, depends on a previous consciousness of good quality.

[47:00]

That does seem to make sense. A consciousness which arises from study of consciousness tends to be a condition which leads to the arising of another consciousness which is supported by lots of previous understanding and study of consciousness. So that seems to be something I see in this world and experience in myself. So in rebirth, too, the idea is that if you can't get complete understanding of mind during this life, if you can make considerable progress, that can be a basis for further progress in another lifetime. And at a certain time, you might want a body that's not kind of like pooping out in the sense department. Because it's easier to learn texts and read texts when your eyes work and your ears work really well. But at a certain point, you can't pump enough energy out into your ears and eyes. It's just, it's a limit. And even Buddhas don't choose to keep a body going indefinitely.

[48:04]

They don't think it's a good idea. And great bodhisattvas don't either. So trading in this body at a certain point is a good idea for study of Dharma. But it's good to use it for a long time too, though, because it's nice for people to see how wise a person can get with one body. And they can watch and see how it gets more and more wise as they get older and older. And then the person says before they leave, you think I'm wise, huh? Well, if you think I'm wise, let me tell you something. I'm going to trade this body in and get another one. So keep an eye out for me because There's people like me who are getting reborn and we're going to keep practicing, so please practice with us. That's what some of those wise people say. This isn't the end of the story. I'm going to be around with you forever until we work this out. That's what some wise people say. And if you think they're wise, you say, wow. And the important part, don't believe that, understand it. That's a story they're telling you just before they go, these wise ones. They say, look for me at the base of the hill, I'll be a water buffalo.

[49:09]

Look for me at the base of the hill, I'll be a water buffalo. So then a couple of days later, you'll see, which water buffalo is it? You're looking for your master. What's your name? Chris. Chris. So you just said waterbuckle. That's my question. So there is rebirth, obviously, in other animals. Yes. So it's not just human to human, waterbuckle to waterbuckle, fish to fish. Right. Right. And again, look at the stories of the Buddha. He tells various stories of when he was monkeys, cuckoos, swans, sheep. He was tigers. But also, he was many people. He had many forms of past life. And Dogen said one time, because Buddhists can appear as humans, we know that they can appear in other forms.

[50:12]

So the Buddha can take any form. Bodhisattvas can take any forms that help people. So there's consciousness then. That's saying there's consciousness in all the other animals. We are saying there's consciousness in all the other animals. Well, some of them are working on it a little bit, yeah. Actually, some of them are like great bodhisattvas who are... Because one of the things nice about these other animals is sometimes they don't live very long. So it's possible that a great bodhisattva could, you know, take birth as a fly to test another bodhisattva. So, like, you know, here's this one bodhisattva, another bodhisattva, and this bodhisattva, you know, hasn't been killing any flies, you know. No matter how much they hassle this bodhisattva, she never hurts a fly.

[51:17]

She always loves them and looks for their welfare and treasures them. And this bodhisattva says, Oh, yeah? Yeah. See you later, and go, whoop. Takes a fly rebreath and comes in. You're not going to kill me? Not going to kill me? You're not going to kill me? No. Just checking. See you later. Whoop. Then they come back, you know. Hi, Daddy. And then they grow up and they say, remember that fly that was bothering you a few years ago? That was me. You did really well. I really gave you a hard time and you didn't fall for it. You're the greatest dad. And the guy who's saying you're the greatest dad used to be the dad of the other guy in the previous life, or the mom. So how does the population explosion work in the olden days? Gurdjieff said the reason why this is happening is because this planet, this area of the universe, requires a certain level of consciousness, and the average consciousness is going down, so we need more people.

[52:28]

Gurdjieff said that. Huh? Gurdjieff said that. Yeah. Well, Gurdjieff, you know, Gurdjieff grew... Yeah. So anyway, that's what he said. Another thing you could say was that actually that there's positive evolution and more beings in this area are becoming humans so they have a chance to hear, more people are having a chance to hear the Dharma. Because humans have this special ability because of language to hear the Buddha's teaching. So you can see it positively too. But then you could say, But we don't have the social education system to take care of all these people. So it's too bad because if we had better education, all these people could be learning how to study themselves better. So it's really a tragedy when you have a human being who's not getting education because almost every human being with sufficient love can become a great student of the truth.

[53:30]

But you have to put a lot of energy into them. I mean, even kids who are mothers of alcoholics, I mean, children of alcoholics who have fetal alcohol syndrome, in order for them to grow up long enough to become criminals, even they need a lot of assistance. If you don't give fetal alcohol syndrome children some attention, they can't grow up to be criminals. Because they'll just give up. It's difficult. You need a lot of encouragement to continue. Life is hard for kids, but they're willing to hang in there because a lot of people love them because they're so cute. And then they have all kinds of learning difficulties because their parents have bad diet and bad exercise and all that stuff, or they're too young to feel responsible, so they don't pay attention to them. So they're really having a hard time because a lot of kids are not getting...

[54:32]

education and therefore in some ways we got a problem, a real big problem is that people do not value educating these children enough. So then you have kids who like not only aren't educated but aren't loved enough so then they have all kinds of neurological problems because you need a lot of love for your neurology to develop. That's a story. That is one of my stories, okay? Rick, before we leave, revert. I also want to ask one of you guys. Goodbye. Are you leaving? No. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. This, I think it's transmission of either the lamp or the light. And this one ancient teacher who all this shit happened to him. I mean, all this horrible stuff. And the book says, well, all this stuff is really... very mild stuff and it all happened because of previous reincarnation.

[55:38]

He's getting, you know, fulfilling the karmic fruits. And I kind of want to believe that because it explains all sorts of things like, you know, why bad things happen to good people and all. But without rebirth that really doesn't work. And so I wonder, you know, and so if it's just your own karmic action, that produces the fruits of your own karma. Then you can say there's all these people... Excuse me. I wanted to say something about this before I forget. And that is, it's a very important text. It's called Saivaka or something like that. And it's about this guy who comes to talk to the Buddha and... And he comes to the Buddha and he says, just before I read this to you, I want to tell you that this is a text about how karma is not the only reason for what happens.

[56:43]

The experiences you happen are not just due to past karma. Past karma is one of the reasons for the way things are for you. It's not the only reason. It's just one. So there's chance in the universe? There's chance, yes, there is chance in the universe. Like, for example, severe illness. Someone could get a severe illness because of genetics or whatever, and that that's not karma, that's just shit happening. That's right. It's just that Buddha put so much emphasis on studying karma And karma does have consequence. And Buddha put so much emphasis on studying karmic causation because paying attention to karmic causation has positive evolutionary effect. But paying attention to other kinds of causation does not have as powerful evolutionary effect. So he was talking all the time about pay attention to karma, pay attention to karmic causation, because that is the type of study which clarifies your vision and improves your karmic causation.

[57:52]

But he did not say that that's the only kind of causation which leads to your experience. As a matter of fact, here's a text where he makes that point. And so on one occasion, the Blessed One was dwelling in Raja Graha in the bamboo grove in the squirrel sanctuary. A wanderer named Moliya Sivaka, or for short, Sivaka, approached the Blessed One, exchanged greetings, and then when they had concluded their greetings and cordial talk, he sat down to one side and said to the Blessed One, Master Gautama, there are some ascetics and Brahmins who hold such a doctrine and view as this. Whatever a person experiences, whether it be pleasant, unpleasant, painful or pleasant, unpleasant, neither pleasant nor unpleasant, no matter what illness you have or happiness you have, all these are caused by what has been done in the past.

[58:58]

Okay? Clear? Somebody's asking the Buddha. Some people say this. Some teachers in India at this time say that. What does Master Gautama say about this? And basically Gautama says, some feelings, Saivaka, arise here originating from bile disorders. That some feelings arise here originating from bile disorders one can know by oneself and what is considered true in the world. Does that make sense? Some feelings you have arise from vile disorders. Okay? That's what the Buddha says. And you can know this yourself directly, for yourself, you can see it, or you can know it by what people say in the world. People say in the world that some discomforts arise from bowel disorders.

[60:00]

Some feelings arise from bowel disorders. Some pleasant feelings arise from bowel disorders because bowel disorders sometimes cause pain and then sometimes they change a little bit and then you have pleasure because the pain goes away. So some feelings of pain and pleasure come from bowel disorders. That you feel good sometimes, really good because of a bowel disorder, you know, it shoots you up like, hey, wow, I'm great. And then sometimes you feel real bad. And you can observe this yourself, in yourself and in others, and it's also true in the world. Okay? And anyway, I'll make it short. He says, then some also arise from phlegm disorders and some arise from wind disorders and some arise from imbalance between these three and some arise from climate disorders and some arise from carelessness, and some arise from assault, and some arise from past karma.

[61:02]

Past karma is one of eight different conditions giving rise to your present feeling of pain, pleasure, or neither. And he said, anybody who says that all your present feelings come from past karma, they do not know this directly, and they do not know it through the world. Therefore they're wrong. If you don't know from direct experience, direct experience is best, but if you don't know from direct experience or through the conventional wisdom of the world, and you say something, not knowing directly or through society, you're wrong. And nobody knows directly, he says, that all suffering comes from what you've done in the past. Some suffering comes from what you've done in the past. However, he always put the emphasis, he doesn't say, he did not teach, study biocausation, study climate change.

[62:04]

He's not saying it's not important, it's just that you can study climate change without your consciousness and your behavior changing significantly. Some meteorologists are really undeveloped morally. It's possible. And after a while they're not even good meteorologists. They get fired because they don't pay attention to their moral conduct. And they become alcoholics and show up late for the weather show and stuff like that. But if you study your karma That's moral causation. But moral causation doesn't just lead to positive, negative, and neutral sensations, although it does. It's not the only factor. It's very important to understand that. But some, and that's part of the confusion of the transmission of the dharma of karma from the East, is that there has been the transmission by some of these teachers who say that everything you feel is from past karma.

[63:09]

In other words, you are responsible for this problem you've got. Just you, not everybody. If you study karma, you will see everybody and everything is responsible for every ill, including the lack of understanding of this process is a key ingredient. But still the Buddha himself got sick at the end of his life. But his sickness was not due just to past karma. His sickness was due to eating poisonous food. And he could have died some other way. Anyway, that's important to remember. Because what some people do is they blame that understanding of karma onto Buddhists. But it's not a Buddhist understanding that your past karma is responsible for your present problems. So it wouldn't be so much karma as cause and effect in the sense of natural science that would explain... Cause and effect, yes.

[64:18]

...which is different from karma. No, karma is cause and effect, but some kinds of cause and effect are not karmic. Exactly. Like I said, you know, growing your fingernail is cause and effect, but it's not karmic cause and effect in the Buddhist sense. Knee reflexes are cause and effect. Salivation is cause and effect, but it's not moral cause and effect. Right, so like people living on the seacoast in Indonesia could have been killed in the tsunami, not because of their past karma or their own karma, but simply because of cause and effect living on the seacoast in a seismically active area. That was their thing. That's what they did. And that's not karma. That's cause and effect in a natural world. Are you leaving, Susan? Hi. Thanks for your questions. If you live someplace, I guess you were involved in some activity of moving to that place.

[65:20]

Hi. You're welcome. Bye-bye. Hope you don't get lost again. Thank you. So if you get in a car, you are responsible for getting in the car. But the way you feel when you sit down in the seat is not just due to your past karma. I mean, this physical illness. That one I don't follow. You get in the car. That's an act. You get into a car. That's a physical action. You have some intention there. Your intention is the karma. Okay. You intend to get in the car. Right. Okay? That's karma. Cool. Then you sit down in the seat and you intend to sit down in the seat. Right. And you're sitting in the seat and you feel pleasure. Right. You feel happy. Yeah. That happiness is not just due to your past action. No.

[66:21]

No. It couldn't... Your past action... Could contribute to that happiness. Could contribute to it, but it might be due to other reasons. Other reasons might be causing you to feel pleasure when you sit in the car seat. That's what this scripture is saying. It's interesting because I'm much more alive to it with feeling bad. What did you say? I'm much more alive to it in terms of feeling bad than feeling good. I'll say it with bad. You sit in the car and you feel pain. And that pain is not due just to your past karma. It might be, it could be, but not necessarily. It might be due to the fact that the weather changed. you know, somehow the weather changed a little bit and suddenly you feel this autumnal melancholy. You know? That's the serotonin level in the brain. Bile. Bile, yeah. Exactly. But bile is related to serotonin.

[67:23]

Right, yeah. And serotonin is related to climate. So climate change, chemistry changes, chemical changes are also contributing. In those days they called this Instead of saying serotonin, they said bile, wind, phlegm. Exactly. So these things affect the way you feel. It's not just your past karma. It's just that studying past karma is the key to liberation rather than studying fluctuations in serotonin. Although being aware of serotonin is perfectly reasonable to be aware of, but the important thing is how do you see yourself in relationship to your serotonin level? That's your intention. That's the moral issue. Some people, you turn their serotonin level down and they feel kind of like, not so good. And they practice with it. They say, wow, serotonin level is dropping. I don't feel good, but everybody's cooperating with me here.

[68:25]

And I'm very happy. I love everybody. Somebody else, you turn their serotonin level up and they say, I'm the king of the world. I'm going to you know, blah, blah. I can do anything. And it's very unwholesome. So the pattern of relationship with the different levels of serotonin is what you should be paying attention to. And if you study that, you enter the Buddha way. If you overlook that, You don't. But we're not saying your serotonin level is just due to past karma. And therefore, your feeling of well-being or pain or pleasure in relationship to hormones is not due to past karma. Only. It could be, though. And also, past karma matures Even though the feeling you have right now may not be due just to past karma, the feelings you're having are one way to pay off your past karma. Your past karma can mature in feeling states that it did not cause.

[69:30]

So feelings are the maturing zone of past karma. That's why when you feel pain, it's good not to get angry about it, because your past karma is maturing. But it might not be. It might be unrelated to karma. It might be unrelated, but still, if you accept the feeling, you allow your karma to mature. If you fight it, you crave more karma, and not good karma either. If you say thank you... Well, yeah. If you say thank you, then that's good karma and all that, and it helps you mature. It's not just good karma. It's studying karma. Because the reason why you say thank you is because you see that this way of relating to your pain is karma. You're studying. Of course. But it's like, so it's going to mature you and be studying the Dharma to say thank you to this pain, in some sense to accept it, to work with it, to study it.

[70:42]

Yes. But that doesn't necessarily imply that pain is the fruition or maturing of the karma. That's right. That's right. It might or it might not be, but in any case, it's best to... Yes, it's not that it's caused by the past karma, but it can be the maturing of past karma. Now, what's the difference between the causing, caused by past karma and maturing of past karma? Well, like, you might not cause yourself to get put in jail, but if you go to jail and accept it, past karmic and mature in your accepting of your jail term? Well, I could be unjustly put in jail. Exactly. You could be unjustly put in jail or justly put in jail. Either way, whatever the causes and conditions of people putting you in jail are, when you arrive there and you experience it, and you accept the experience, past karmic matures, and you want past karmic to mature.

[71:43]

as soon as possible. Right. Because when it matures... You're done with it? Huh? You're done with it? You're done with it, yeah. You're done with that one. But this is, I think, we only have 15 more minutes and we have to do something kind of like to wake people up so they can walk out the door. So I think I would like some suggestions about how to spend the next 15 minutes together. Sitting? Shall we sit for 15 minutes quietly together? And sing. Okay, so part of the time sitting and part of the time singing. Come and sit. By our side if you love us Do not hasten to bid us adieu But remember the St.

[72:48]

Barbara Valley And the cowboys who loved you so true Now they say you are leaving this valley We will miss your bright eyes and sweet smiles For they say you are taking the sunshine That has brightened our path for a while Rabbi, I'd like to say a couple of thanks, if I could. You have many choices of what to do, and I'm happy to stand with you and appreciate what you've done, as you said, Barbara. And I know that probably everybody in this room has comfort from the ideas that he put into us. I say thanks for that. And also, I think we should say thanks to Alice, Donna, and Elizabeth who did their efforts to keep the price of this down.

[73:58]

Lots of work. We should thank them for helping this crew, others who brought the route. We appreciate it. We also could use a little bit of help cleaning up here if anybody has any extra time. And we think about doing it next year. Yes. We have to mop, vacuum this room, and mop, and clean the floors, and carry out the trash. It would be wonderful if there were three or four people who are going to stay. Thank you. And also, many thanks to Joe, and to Greg, and Judith, who brought the avocados, and the wonderful soup, and . Thank you. Alice, I wonder if we could have a moment for representing the local sitting groups. of the time and days in which, because I know there's several .

[74:59]

Certainly. The Open Door Summit sits on Monday nights at the Natural History Museum, 7.15 to 8, and Thursday evenings from 5.30 to 6.15. And the Zen City group sits on Sunday mornings. 9 to 10.30. 9 to 10.30 on Sunday mornings at Tony's house. And if you're interested in sitting with them, you could come and get the address. We also have... We have three sanghas here. We have the Olive Branch Sangha, which sits on Sunday mornings also at 10 o'clock, and on Wednesday evenings from 7 to 9. Come and see Judith if you're interested in that sitting group. Lots of opportunities. Both the Zen and the F2 are kapatsana, but you can sit however you want. Do whatever you want while you sit. Thank you very much again. Thank you so much. And I also want to mention that Elizabeth made copies of a one-page summary of some basic teachings.

[76:11]

You can help yourself if you'd like.

[76:13]

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