At the end of the last class, one of the Jeffs said to me, could you say something about action in the world? Something like that? So, in the Course description I said that living by acts or actions of compassion for the boundless ocean of living beings within the insight that their existence is not separate from our own, Thus we walk the path of awakening for the benefit of all beings. During the first three classes, maybe I put a lot of emphasis on insight.

[01:06]

The insight that my life that my existence is your existence and your existence is my existence. That insight is part of the walking the path of awakening, but the other part is you're acting all the time within that insight. So you're in the world with everybody, and then you're also living in the insight that everybody's existence is yours, and then you act there. So, Jeff said, can we talk about the actions? Okay, so, let's talk about actions. And, by the way, the title of this class is Awakened Life. So, the awakened life I propose is acting compassionately with all beings, with insight.

[02:10]

You can also act with compassion without insight, and that's good too. However, the awakened life is to act compassionately with insight that the actions that you're bestowing on beings are within the context that the beings you're bestowing your compassion on are not separate from you. But again, I'm talking about how we include each other and so on. So what kind of actions? And then the other part of the title of the class is, first part is Awakened Life, the other one is Right Here and Now. Now, I request was action, maybe he said in the world, he might have even said You might have even said the real world.

[03:12]

No, you didn't. Okay. People often say that, the real world. Anyway, this class is about here and now. And that's like, here is the yoga room in Berkeley on planet Earth. Yeah, that's the here. The title of the class is not about awakened life, some other place. That's not the title. We could have another class called Awaken Life Someplace Else From Here. Awaken Life Not Here. And also Not Now. I think a lot of people are into that. Awaken Life, yeah, but not now. So right now, here, at this time, in this room, how about some acts of compassion? Okay? How about some acts of compassion? Please, Now, was that what I just said, an act of compassion?

[04:18]

Was that words, was that speech compassionate? Does anybody know, by the way, whether it was compassionate or not? The Buddhists know. Huh? The Buddhists know. The Buddhists know. I think it was. You think it was. You got one vote for it was, and one undecided. But although he's undecided, he thinks the Buddhas know, and if they were voting, we'd have their vote. So I got one, yes, my words were compassionate acts. I'll go for two. What? I'll second that. Okay, right. We could maybe have an election right now. How many people thought that my speech before was compassionate? That's quite a few. And then someone decided, that's fine. Anybody think I wasn't compassionate the way I was talking? Huh?

[05:21]

Undecided, yeah. Looking at it closely, I can't remember what compassion is, when you look at it this closely. When you look at, well, when you look at what, my actions? This exact second. I can't see what compassion would be. Yeah. Yeah. It might be compassionate to devote your energies to wondering about what compassion is. That might be compassionate. That would be like a mental activity that you might say, well, maybe it would... I actually took this class because I was interested in acting compassionately. And there's three basic modes of action, thinking, or your mental activity, physical postures, and physical, vocal. The three domains of action.

[06:23]

So I was talking, so I brought that one up. But also, is it a... Compassionate acts are often related to wishing, thinking, I would like to be compassionate. Here in the yoga room tonight, I'm thinking that I would like to be compassionate, at least from about now until the end of the class. I was actually wanting to be before that, but I'm not, you know, we've already dealt with that, how I was before. From now on, for the rest of the class, I want to be compassionate from all my speech and all my postures and all my thinking to be acts of compassion. And there are teachings about compassion, so... compassion, one of the forms of compassion is giving. So I wish for my speaking to you to be giving. I wish to give my verbal action to you as a gift.

[07:27]

And I also wish to listen to you when you talk. And I wish to listen as an act of compassion and I wish to be a gift. And so now I'm talking and I wish these words to be kindness to you and generosity to you and to me. And I wish to speak carefully. Being careful of how I speak is also trying to speak in a compassionate way. Here with you, I am trying to speak carefully and gently, and I'm also wishing, as part of the carefulness, I'm wishing to say the truth.

[08:35]

And the truth is, I wish to say the truth. I do wish to say the truth. I don't know if I am saying the truth, but I wish to. I wish also to speak in a way that doesn't disparage anybody. In the yoga room it's oftentimes really easy to speak to you folks in a way that I don't feel any impulse to be disparaging of you. You're not challenging me too much so far. Now, if you all voted that I was not being kind, then that might be a little harder for me to really respect your voting against me as a compassionate actor. But I want to, if people are all saying, you're not being compassionate, I want to respect that.

[09:43]

And I want to be honest about maybe I don't agree with you or whatever. and also I want to be patient with this evening. Right now, this evening, I want to practice patience. Which means I want to be in the present with any difficulties that arise in this group. With me, from my own experience, any difficult experiences, any hardships I'm having, Which again, being patient means being in the present. It emphasizes the present aspect, the being present aspect of compassion. Are you listening now? Are you listening in the present? And are you listening to me as an act?

[10:46]

Do you wish you're listening to be an act of compassion for all of us? me and everybody else. Do you wish that? Yeah. And you just spoke? What you just said, do you wish that was an act of compassion? Yeah. So the wishing part is probably the key? Well, the wishing part is kind of the source. The wish to be compassionate is where the practice of compassion comes from. The wish to live the awakened life is fundamental. The people who are living the awakened life, they're sustained by their vow to live the awakened life. That sustains them and carries them forward on the path. Part of being compassionate tonight is also for me to be talking about how to be compassionate.

[11:50]

and that I want to. And if I keep remembering that I want to, that makes me more and more enthusiastic about it. I remember a story you told us about the Chinese peasant or somebody who saw a fish by the pond. He said, oh, I'm compassionate. I'm going to throw that poor fish back in the pond and then fish-aid all the other little fishes so that they don't starve. And not only that, not only did the fish... ...all the other fish, but the fish farmer, when he came back and found what the man had done, he beat the man up. So... I think he was definitely trying to be kind to that big fish. Sorry for the big fish. He wanted to help the big fish, but he didn't know that the big fish were going to eat all the other fish. And he didn't know why the fish farmer had taken the fish out.

[12:53]

He acted, I think he wanted to be generous and kind to the fish. And you might say, well, it was an emergency. He didn't have time. Maybe so, but in the story it doesn't even mention that he kind of thought, I wonder why this fish is lying. Fish are not usually lying on the ground next to ponds. Did it flip out by itself? He might have thought, well, I think somebody put it here and they didn't even kill it. It's still alive. He might have been more careful. And if he had been more careful, then he could have said, if he said, hey, why is this fish here? The guy said, because it's eating the other fish. He said, well, could we put it in water and take it where it could be with other big fish? And the farmer might have said, fine. But anyway, being generous and kind also involves being careful. But we don't really know the results of our actions, right?

[13:54]

Pardon? We don't really know the results of our actions. You don't. You do not know. You do think that the results, in some cases, might be beneficial or probably would be beneficial. So when you think something's beneficial, it's often a good time to consult with a friend who's also into practicing beneficial action. So people often come to me. They don't too often come to me and tell me bad things they're thinking of doing. Not very often. Because they, you know, they don't do a harmful thing. What do you think? They could. I welcome you to tell me evil things you're thinking of doing. I'm happy to talk about that. But you can just not do those evil things. Now, we don't know if they're evil, but generally speaking, the recommendation is if you think something's unkind, well, after you don't do a bunch of unkind things like maybe

[15:05]

a few things today that might have been unkind you didn't do, you could tell me about it and I could see if I think, well, that would have been great. So occasionally maybe people say, I thought of an unkind thing and I didn't do it. Do you think I missed a good chance? I don't hear that too much. Yes? I don't think you mean to imply that we ever could be successfully, perfectly careful and make no mistakes, right? I mean, it's always... No, you think I don't... I'm pretty sure that's not what you... You couldn't be saying that. I don't think I have said it, but now that you bring it up, I would say, yes, it is possible. But it's called Buddhahood. And actually, we are perfect. What we're doing already is perfect, but we don't understand it yet. And the way to understand it, I'll just stop there for a second.

[16:12]

Did you hear what I said? I heard what you said. What we're already doing is what a Buddha would do. But we don't understand it. And because we don't understand it, we have problems. And we suffer, and we even do things... Because we don't understand that what we're doing is perfect, we do things which we think are really bad. And we feel bad about it, and other people do too. So maybe that guy made a perfect mistake. He received a perfect beating from the fish farmer. And none of that was actually... And he didn't understand it. And he didn't understand it. And the fish probably didn't understand it. And the farmer didn't understand it. And that's an example of trying to be compassionate, but not understand it. But if we do understand what we're doing, then we will realize that we are practicing compassion, but we don't yet get it, do we?

[17:13]

So what you do is you try to do good, and you do come to me quite often and say, I think this would be good, or I think it might be good. What do you think? They talk to me about good things that they're thinking of doing or things they're not sure about what is good. But they do have the idea that I totally want to support them doing good and try to find out what that is. So, for example, we have these precepts like not lying and not killing and so on. That precept, not killing. So someone's trying to practice the precept of not killing and then they feel like they killed. So they feel like they did not practice that precept. And then they say they're sorry. If you wish to practice the precept of not killing, if you wish to realize not killing is reality, that's why we try to practice not killing.

[18:25]

Because that's awakened life. Awakened life is not killing. So then I try to act in a way that's not killing. But if I think it is killing... I confess I think I did kill, and I maybe also confess I'm sorry, because I very well might be. And if I would confess to a Dharma friend, the Dharma friend might say, I witness your confession. The Dharma friend might not say, yes, you really did kill. They might not say that. And they might also not say, you didn't kill. They said, I witness your confession. The practice is, if you wish to do good, if you wish to be compassionate, and you think you're not being compassionate, and then you confess that you weren't compassionate, even though you want to be compassionate and you're sorry, that process will lead you to be compassionate, will lead you to be perfect.

[19:34]

But it's not because you're performing some great feat of making your . It's that you're performing the feat of waking up. When you're waking up to the wonderful reality that not killing is the wonderful reality of our life. But we don't quite get that. But we still commit to that. And so I want The teaching, the precept of not killing has been transmitted to me and you by the awakened ones. They have transmitted not killing. They do not transmit killing. They do not transmit stealing. And they also, in this tradition, they don't transmit don't kill. they transmit reality, which is not killing. That's Buddha's wisdom, not killing. So they give us the precept and then we say, okay, I want to receive that precept. And it's given to us and we receive it.

[20:38]

And then we aspire to... even though we're not exactly sure what it is. But we still have some idea. I think that, you know, like I think to hit you really hard to such a point that it would hurt you, you know, maybe even give you a concussion, maybe even kill you. I do not want to do. What if we're practicing martial arts? I would like to practice martial arts in such a way that we both wake up together. And if I get scared, you know... Just thought of a funny story, but I'll finish. If I get scared, if you're like... do something that I think was not part of the program and it really hurts and I get scared, at that moment I might forget why I'm practicing. And I act in a way that was not respectful of you.

[21:41]

Even though really the reality is you do respect me and I do respect you, I act in a way that I think was not respectful of you. I look down on you as a breaker of the tradition or something. And I notice he did that thing, and that's not what we're supposed to be doing in this class, and he's bad, and I'm better than him. And I notice that, and I say, oh, that's one of our precepts, is don't think you're better than other people. Don't put yourself up, I'm a better martial artist than you. That's one of our precepts. That's reality. But just now, I think I was not in accord with that reality. I thought I was better than you, or even I wanted to kill you. But by confessing that I had this thought, which I think is not the precepts, this process will lead me to realize the reality of the precepts.

[22:45]

So the principle is these teachings are given to us. The Buddhas give us the teaching of not killing, not stealing, not lying, not misusing sexual energy, not intoxicating, not putting people down, not putting ourselves above them, not hating, and so on. They give us these precepts. and we say, thank you, and we aspire to them, and then we kind of feel like we fail sometimes. And then we say, I think I failed, I'm sorry, to receiving them again, aspiring to them again, and the same thing, receiving them again, and aspiring to them again, and eventually not failing anymore. In other words, coming into accord with reality. by confessing all the times we felt out of accord. Again, here we are talking, are we practicing compassion right now?

[23:55]

Are we acting right now? We're acting, we're sitting here, we're talking, we're listening, These are our actions. Are they actions of compassion? Let's just stop for a second there and just look. I don't know. But maybe I ask you, how am I doing? Do you feel like I'm being kind? Yes. Yeah, you do. I know that I am. I don't. I didn't ask you if you knew if I was being kind. I just asked you, do you feel like I'm, do you think I am? And some of you said, yes. Do I think I am? You know, I don't really think I am. I try to be kind. I really do. I try to be gentle. I try to be respectful. I try to listen. But someone might say, you know, you're not listening to me. Now, when someone tells me that I'm not listening to them,

[24:59]

Practicing compassion is listen to them and not argue yet, not for a while anyway, don't argue. Just listen. Oh, you feel like I'm not listening to you. And then I might say, for example, would you like to hear about my intention? And the person might say, what? And I may say, well, I intend to listen to you. Maybe I wasn't listening to you, but I want you to know I do want to. And I want to listen to you with my whole being. And I also want you to tell me what's going on for you. I want you to give me feedback. So I'll not only listen to you, but I want your feedback and I want to listen to your feedback. And if you feel unheard, I want to hear that. I want to listen to it and hear it. Listen to it so fully that I hear your feedback that I'm not listening well and I listen to that so fully that I hear the truth at the same time I hear your feedback.

[26:16]

So, is Barry and Justin, anybody else? and King. Barry? I wish to say that these classes have led me to wish genuinely to be compassionate and beneficial to all beings. Well, I pray that that's so. That's what I want them to do. I want them to encourage me and you to have such aspiration. My aspiration is that our time together refuels our aspiration. You come here to reignite the flame of compassion and that's why I come here is to reignite the flame of compassion in myself and in you. by listening to you and talking to you and sitting with you and walking with you. I'm trying to be mindful of my actions, my bodily actions, my speech and my thinking and then paying attention to my actions

[27:39]

devote my actions to compassion. In this class and then when we walk outside, the same. And when we're walking up and then we walk into the room and we're doing it outside and we come in the room and we go out of the room. So hopefully in the class which is trying to encourage the practice of compassion it works and we go out and try and then when we come in from outside we bring our efforts from outside into the class. So that finally the encouragement is going on when we're in the class and outside the class all day long, hopefully. Like I got an email from one of the people is not here tonight telling me that she wouldn't be here, which I feel like that was an act of compassion on her part.

[28:48]

I asked people to tell me and she did. And then she told me about how she's applying the teachings in this class in her daily life. That was very kind of her to tell me how she's doing her homework. she's taking these teachings and trying them out. So that, I felt like she was making an effort to practice compassion by applying these teachings in her life, practice compassion by telling me that she was practicing them, which encourages me to keep practicing them myself. But don't worry too much. Even if you don't do your homework, that also encourages me to do mine. If you don't do your homework and you don't send me an email telling me that you're not doing your homework, okay, that still helps me.

[29:55]

Now, if you do send me an email saying I'm not doing my homework, It also helps me. I think how wonderful this person wrote me an email saying, I'm not applying these teachings in my daily life. Again, that's like confession. Now they may say at the end of telling me all the occasions where they did not apply the teachings, that they're sorry, then it's confession. And I feel like, this is really great. if you do your homework and tell me it's generous and kind that you did your homework and that you told me. If you don't do it and you notice it, noticing that you're not practicing compassion is an act of compassion. Noticing that you didn't practice the compassion which you want to practice, the confession, is an act of compassion. Even though I don't know what I'm talking about. And is not writing to you at all also an act of confession?

[30:59]

Is not writing to you at all also an act of confession? Just a second. I'm going to put these hearing aids on. I heard that not something... Is not writing to you at all also an act of confession? Not writing? Yeah, not sending you an email saying we did our work or didn't do our work. Not sending you an act of confession. I don't know. What do you know about the other two? Well, I felt like they were acts of compassion, but I don't know in those cases either. They inspired me to practice compassion, so I say, well, that proves they're acts of compassion. People can be doing things that the people think are cruel, like the person can throw the fish in, Well, no, the person can beat up the person who threw the fish in. And if you say, was that an act of compassion on your part? He said, no, I'm just really angry at him and I don't have any compassion for him.

[31:59]

But that might inspire me to see what a mess he made of the situation. So, then, is it helpful? Well, yeah. And that's a sad thing in this world. If someone can be cruel to you, they inspire you to practice compassion towards them, and then you feel like, oh, great that you did this for me. I'm sorry that you have to, like, get in such big trouble from doing what you did to help me. So the person's doing a really bad thing, and they're... terrible about it and they're suffering because of it but it helped you. It's kind of, it's part of the tragic mix of our life that some people are hurting themselves and giving us a chance to be kind. Like they're abusing themselves and we feel just so much compassion to help them. But they're hurting themselves.

[33:05]

So all this is part of the deal And I want to, I really do want to be able to have the compassionate response toward being unskillful with their life. Because I feel that that will help them wake up to their life and realize that their life really is these precepts. But they're probably going to have to notice a lot of not doing those precepts before they're going to And if I transmit kindness to them, then they can dare to notice how bad they feel about what they did. But if I go, am I mean to them, then it may be more difficult for them to even notice what they're doing. So if I can notice what they're doing and really feel grief for being in my life and feel sorrow at their pain of what they're doing, then maybe they can look at it.

[34:08]

If I hate them for doing stupid things, then it makes it harder for them to notice that they're doing stupid things. And Justin and Charlie? Tracy said a while ago, can we ever know the results of our actions? And you said, no. I'm confused by that because it seems like you can't know some of the results of your actions. You've got to be a witness. Yeah, this is a... This is like a tremendously profound issue. Causation is not an appearance. In the Buddhist tradition and also in the Western tradition, Hume pointed out that causation is not sequence. So if you're, I don't know what, nice to me and I say thank you you might think that you're saying being nice to me and me saying caused me to say thank you because it happened right after you were nice to me.

[35:17]

That's not causation, that's just the sequence of events. Causation is much more complicated than what you do makes the next thing happen. And it also doesn't say that what you do isn't part of it. What you do definitely has consequences. So the teaching of the Buddhas is that everything you do has consequences, but how it works, the Buddha said, from the point of view of non-Buddhas, is inconceivable. It's too complex. And there's that story that you've all heard over and over. I'll just tell part of it. Or maybe I'll tell the whole thing. We'll see. Once upon a time in China, there was a man who got a horse. You know that one? Yeah. And everybody said, that's a nice horse.

[36:21]

That's great. And he said, maybe so. So he did something and got a horse. That was the consequence which everybody could see. And so that's a nice thing to have a horse. So then the horse runs away and the people say, That's too bad. So you could say, well, I don't know, getting a horse was the cause of losing the horse. Or getting a horse that could run was the cause of the horse running away. And he said, maybe so. So if you say what I did is the cause of that, well, maybe so. Maybe not. And then the horse comes back with a herd of wild horses with it. And the people in the village say, wow, you got your horse back, plus a bunch of other horses. This is really wonderful. And he said, maybe so. And his son gets up on the horse, wild horses, and falls off and breaks his leg.

[37:23]

And everybody says, how terrible. And he says, maybe so. You know, it wasn't skillful that his son got on the horse, the wild horse. Well, maybe so. But then the girls, the young boys, all the young men out of the village put him in the army. But they didn't take the son because he had a broken leg. So maybe his getting on the horse and falling off was skillful because they didn't take him. Well, maybe so. We can go on. A tree fell on the boy. If he hadn't have broken his leg, he would have gotten to go in the army, and then he wouldn't have got crushed by the tree. That's a story about causation. Causation is not comprehended by any story we make about it. And in science, people make stories about causation, but they don't say, they say this story about causation they call a theory or a hypothesis.

[38:38]

And then they with experiments. And if the experiments reasonably follow from the hypothesis of the theory and get certain results, which they say beforehand what results should happen, then they say that the experiment confirmed the theory, but it doesn't stop being a theory. It's about reality. And then if somebody does this experiment in a certain way, then they disprove the theory, so then the story is debunked. But it keeps being a story. It's not reality. It's a story that stimulates research. So if you think something's good, something's skillful, I would say, if you talk to me about it, I would say, hmm, let's try it. And let's see how it goes if you try it. But it's not so much how it goes, it's partly what's

[39:39]

But it's also looking at what happens next is a lot of things. So you might say, I did this and the next day I felt kind of depressed. And I might say, did anything else happen that day? And then you mentioned a bunch of other things that happened. You say, yeah, I was kind of depressed, but all these other things happened, which were great, which I didn't notice at first. So I'm not so sure whether that was good or not. But did you want to do something that was good? Yes. Did you think it would be good? Yes. And now today, do you want to do something good? Yes. And are you doing things good? And you say, well, actually I think I did a bad thing. And I'm sorry. And the path of aspiring to do good and failing and confessing it and repenting it leads you to awakening.

[40:50]

How do you know if you failed? Well, you think you failed. Like you say, I wanted to be patient with my son. You probably do, right? Oh, yeah. I want to be patient with my son pretty much from now on, right? Moment after moment, all those little moments that he provides you. It's intense, right? Never stopping testing daddy. How can we do it? It's amazing. Well, actually, we do it by a lot of times not doing it. We lose our patience. So you want to be patient and sometimes you feel like, well, I think I was. And you may feel like when you think you are patient, you may feel... At the moment you do say, I wanted to be patient and I was. But how do we know that that's good? Well, you say, well, if your son grows up to be a very happy boy, that would seem... But then he's a happy boy, and the next day he's a depressed boy.

[41:58]

So how do we... We don't. But we keep trying to be patient with our son. And when we're not, when we are, we think, I tried, and I think maybe I was, but I'm not sure. I tried to do something which would be beneficial to him, but I'm not sure. But I'm going to keep trying to do what's beneficial to him. I'm going to try forever to do what's beneficial for him, but I don't know what it is. So, by the way, you can say to him, son, I want to do something beneficial for you. I want to give you a little talk about something. And he might say, I don't want to have this beneficial thing. I don't want to live. but I want to do this act of compassion for you. And he says, I don't want your compassion, Dad. Leave me alone. This is my room. Get out. And you might say, do you want me to be patient with you? And he might say, yeah. Get out of here, stupid Dad. And you go, and he maybe says, pretty good, Dad.

[43:05]

You're being quite patient with me. That's great. Or maybe you actually, you can give me that talk now. A lot of parents or teachers want to give their students little pieces of wisdom. They think it would be good. But if they're really wise, they don't know if it's good for sure. They just think it would be good. So when the recipient of this boon says, you know, I really don't want any more wisdom from you, you can kind of say, okay. you don't really know if it was good anyway. You just thought it was. I thought it would be helpful. And you say, well, maybe it would be, but I don't want it anyway. Even if it is good, leave me alone. And you kind of go, okay. And you feel like, well, that was an act of generosity. I feel good about that too. Well, if it was good. but I'm going to keep trying to be generous with him when he rejects me, be patient with him when he tells me to get out of his face.

[44:11]

That's what I want to do. I don't know really what those are, but I want to practice them anyway. I want to practice compassion toward myself. I don't know what it is, but I do think this would be compassionate, so I'm going to try. And just now, I did what I don't think is compassionate. I lost my patience with him, and I was disrespectful of him. I did not respect him. And I'm really sorry because I do not want him to think his father doesn't respect him. And I don't know if he noticed, but I didn't respect him at that time. And that's a terrible thing for a son to feel like his father doesn't respect him. and you don't want that, right? But sometimes you can do things where you feel like, I think I just was. I hope he didn't notice it. I don't want to do it, but if I ever do, I hope he doesn't notice it.

[45:12]

If I try to hit him in the face, I hope I miss. But still, even though I miss, I still feel bad that I tried to hurt him. because I don't want to hurt him. So I confess, I tried to hurt him and I'm sorry. That will lead you to realize what not hurting is. That will wake you up eventually. You're not going to get to awakening by being self-righteous about what you're doing. I'll be right with you. Charlie's next. Do you still have it? I guess I have a... Clarifying question. If someone does something cruel. Cool? Cruel. Yeah. To someone. If someone does something that you think is cruel? Hmm? Yeah. Like the fish farmer beating the fish thrower. But it inspires compassion.

[46:16]

or it arouses compassion in reality, does that make that an act of compassion, the cruel act? I don't think so. I don't think so either. But I think it makes it a beneficial act for the person in whom the inspiration arose. But it's not good for the person who did that and even he was being cruel and he wanted to be cruel. And that actually is also, there's stories about that too. Somebody tries to be mean to somebody, and they see the person just becomes totally inspired to compassion, and then they wake up, oh my God, here I was trying to be cruel to them. They received it, and they knew I was trying to be cruel to them, and they just came back with this amazing compassion. Wow! Maybe I'll give that a try next time. So that story in the, what is it, Les Miserables, this guy gets, he sneaks into, I think, the priest's house and intending to steal some bread and get some stuff.

[47:29]

The priest finds him and takes him in and gives him a place to stay. And then when the priest goes away, he steals the silver and the police That's kind of cruel. Now, I don't know if he thought he was being cruel. Maybe he did a little bit because he is a human being. And he didn't understand this person took him in. So he kind of probably knew that this was not a very kind thing I'm doing for this priest. And then the police came back and said, well, we caught this guy. He's the one who stole your silver. And the priest said, no, he didn't steal it. I gave it to him. As a matter of fact, here, here's some more silver for you. So what he did, he was being cruel to somebody who helped him. He was being selfish. Without that cruelty, this priest wouldn't have been able to do this cruel thing in response to a cruel thing.

[48:29]

So that's what turned me to Zen. Cool responses to cruelty. And then the cool, the neat, Compassionate response to cruelty enriches the compassion of the one who gives it, and that's beneficial to him or her. And then sometimes the person who sees it goes, wait a minute, there's another possibility in this world, I guess. Emerald? Two things now. First one is, you know, let's just say the son just continues doing things that are, you know, they lose respect. You don't want to be a father and not have respect for your son, but at a certain point, you know, do you respect somebody who is not in the same respect?

[49:33]

I think you might have been at Noam Boy where I gave a talk called Respect No Exceptions. Were you there for that talk? So, I really like the story or the scenario that you just gave, because somebody is beating you, and it's like, oh, okay, well, I will just do something generous and kind back, but then they just keep beating you, and then they keep beating you, and then at a certain point, they don't get the whole generosity thing. Well, they don't get it maybe during the story you're telling. So they beat you and you're generous and you're kind. So how do they get it if they're not getting it from you being kind and generous? Well, here's the story. Your future and the future of this person you're talking about is Buddha. You're going to get it.

[50:35]

But sometimes you may have to beat me up for quite a bit where you're going to get it. Eventually you'll kind of like go, oh, there's something funny about the way he's taking this beating. But I don't know how much you have to beat me up before you start to say, hmm, what's going on here? So, I'll be right back. So there is a story of the Buddha being beaten by somebody, and he just keeps giving the person patience back, and the guy keeps pushing him to see how much he can take, and he can take it, and he does more. And one more story, it's also in Being Upright. This Jewish family moved from Chicago to Lincoln, Nebraska, to raise their children in a less anti-Semitic environment than when they lived in Chicago.

[51:37]

But they didn't realize that the headquarters of the Klan was in Lincoln, Nebraska. And when they moved in, the head of the Klan attacked them. And at first, they fought back. And then they said, oh, let's practice our religion of loving our enemies. So they started to love him and he kept attacking them. And they kept loving him and he kept attacking them. But after a while he couldn't keep it up anymore. He was overwhelmed by the love. He melted into kind of a Buddha. And he stopped being mean to them and apologized to many people for all the cruelty he had done. And he moved in with them and converted to Judaism and died in their home. It's a beautiful story, but they don't always end up that beautiful. What? It's a beautiful story, but they don't always end up that beautiful. Well, this part of what I'm suggesting to you is they're all beautiful.

[52:41]

It's just that you have a different end up than me. I have a long-term end up, and you have... I can definitely see long-term end ups. Yeah, I'm talking about long-term. And sometimes long-term is ten minutes, like in the case of the thief stealing from the priest. Sometimes it's a few months, in the case of the clan member and the rabbi, the cantor, actually. Sometimes it's... Yeah, and there are many stories of the Buddha. People attack the Buddha, the Buddha... Sometimes the Buddha was super fast. Sometimes in a few minutes he could convert a murderer into a peaceful person. I don't feel that it's addressing the thoughts. You don't feel what? I don't feel like it's addressing... Well, I... Okay, but I would like to address the issue.

[53:45]

What is the issue that's not being addressed? Okay, so that's one way to say it. If you're kind, they will get it. Another way to say it is there's no way that they're going to get it unless somebody shows them how to be kind. Right, but being kind to them doesn't show them that that's being kind. But how to be kind is so it's like... No, it doesn't always work the first time or the second time or the tenth time. Sometimes, actually sometimes... You just feel taken advantage of at a certain point. They could be. Pardon? You would just let, you know, be everybody and nobody ever pitched in, then, you know... Would I feel taken advantage of?

[54:49]

I'm just saying that, like, if they did that, then everybody was totally okay with doing that. And that's why you're asking for help. I'm not sure who we're talking about now, so... ...this issue, but you have to maybe slow down for me. So what was the example? Well, I mean, you can use any example you want, but let's just say... Well, let's use your example. It's like beating you, you know? Somebody's beating you. Can you use that same example? Yeah. So a person is beating you, and then you decide that, like, this isn't really that great, but you're giving them compassion, going, hey, I realize that you probably weren't treated all that well, but, you know, you can, like, create compassion. So, you know, if they don't... and you don't see that change happening, you see that it might take like 10 times, 20 times, but sometimes it doesn't happen.

[55:49]

So what I'm trying to figure out is you're trying to say that doing kind things to somebody who's not going to think that you will alleviate it. I don't know if that's the case, and I'm trying to figure out how... it actually relates. I mean, maybe it never would have been in this scenario or in this conversation. Well, I also will say again, I don't know how it works. I don't know how it is that... You put it the other way around. One time I'm unkind to somebody, And then they are kind to me and I get it right away. I don't know why I get it fast. And other times I'm unkind to somebody and they're kind to me and I don't see it. And then I'm unkind to them again. I don't know how that works that I sometimes get it and sometimes don't. I don't know how it works. I'm just saying that

[56:50]

it does work. And that's the only way it's going to work. There's no other way other than somebody teaching it to them. So I see lots of hands. Yes? That makes sense. the same issue. To find somebody saying unkind things to me or doing something minimally harmful to me or something else, I reaction. But at what point, in terms of physical harm to yourself, or someone else, is that not the only reaction? Maybe you've been trying to feel compassion for a person, feel compassion, but at some point, they have to be... Are you saying they shouldn't be stopped from doing what they're doing? No, I'm not saying that at all. I think maybe part of the problem with that, I think maybe you have to stop somebody, even in some cases, even not you personally necessarily, or whoever it is. But I'm not saying don't stop, and I'm not saying stop. But I am saying respond.

[57:56]

Okay, but... And the respond... Beating a child or beating a spouse, okay? I'm not just going to feel compassion for them. There is a right or... So you're saying you're not going to, okay? So I got that. I may, on some level, say, hey, they're really a screwed-up person. But saying they're a screwed-up person is not... Not really compassionate to be judging the person, right? So what would be... you can be compassionate to someone and touch them. You know? And you can touch them like that. And you can, like, put them back like this and around like this and be compassionate. If somebody's hurting somebody, you can compassionately stand between them. And the stories of the Buddha and other compassionate ancestors who, when somebody's getting hurt, somebody just walks over and gets kind of in. They're not stopping the person.

[59:03]

They're now just involved with them. And then sometimes the person might seem to be stopped, but it's not so much to stop, but just that the Buddha's there, and they're kind of, at least temporarily, not following through on this. The story of the Buddha's people getting attacked by an army and they said, would you please stop them? And the Buddha says, well, you know. And he just goes up and sits in the road. And when they come and see the Buddha, they stop. But he didn't stop them. They just, it worked out that way. But the Buddha is not controlling people. The Buddha is practicing compassion. So he went there and he was kind to them. If he had gone there and gone, they just would have run over him. But he didn't. He put his body in the way and they saw his compassion. He didn't stop them. And they came back another time and he did the same thing.

[60:05]

And they came back a third time and he said, This time they will, this time they're just going to run over me. So no point. So he did, he was compassionate and take the form that you go and you stand in front of somebody to protect somebody else. But you're still not in control of them. They might run over you and go ahead and hurt the person, but The thing is you did something compassionate in the mix. Here's this aggressive energy which could hurt people. You give your compassionate body to the mix. They may go right ahead and run over you and attack the people, but you did an act of compassion. And they may not get it the first time that they see it. They may not even notice that you are compassionate, but that's... But sometimes they do. There are stories where they snap out of it right away.

[61:07]

But we're not in control of that. Yes. I think something you said last week or the week before about self-reflection. If we could bring that there. If we could take this... consideration to self-reflection and that is if someone is hurting me or I'm uncomfortable and I go back because I feel like I'm being passionate if I look at my behavior where I'm repeating I'm repeatedly putting myself in a situation where the other person is hurting me They keep beating me, I keep showing up. They keep beating me, I keep showing up. If I then begin to understand that I'm in the way of them not hitting me because I keep showing up, then I begin to understand and my compassionate move or approach

[62:28]

may be to not show up and let them hit me. Yeah, right. And so I just wanted to review... And it might not look to them... They think you're abandoning them, maybe. Yes, and that's what I want to... I'm not talking about how things look. I'm talking about where you're coming from. And if you're coming from the insight that this person Their life is your life. You sometimes hang in there with them and you sometimes say bye-bye. So one of the acts of compassion that we can give is called limits or boundaries. But if you self-reflect, you can tell the difference between giving and trying to control the person. You can respect somebody and give a boundary. But if you give a boundary to control them, that means what you're giving them is disrespect.

[63:37]

And then you realize, well, I'm not being compassionate. I'm being disrespectful. And since I'm being disrespectful, I probably should go away too, because I'm no good here. I'm disqualified temporarily as a compassionate person. I'm a disrespectful person. And I'm disrespectful for good reason, because they're being... They deserve disrespect. But you can disrespect, you can respect somebody and walk away from them. Again, the story of the Buddha is, this guy was going to kill his own mother, and the Buddha just happened to be there. So the Buddha walks between this person and his mother. So then the person's going to kill the Buddha. And the Buddha tries to explain to the guy that the Buddha is his friend. This guy won't buy it. He won't believe it. The Buddha is giving him too. Can you imagine? The Buddha's friendship inundating you and you say, no.

[64:39]

So he said, okay. And he starts walking, he walks away. I'm not saying he's not going to let the guy kill him. I'm just saying he tried to show him friendship. The guy couldn't get it. First of all, he showed him that he was protecting his mother. Then he showed him he didn't get either one of those. So then he starts walking. Is he walking to get away from being harmed? I don't know. But anyway, he's walking. But he's walking kind of in a funny way, because the way he's walking is just kind of like this, and this guy is kind of a superhero murderer, or a super demon murderer, and he starts running after the Buddha to kill him, and he can't catch him. The Buddha's walking like this, and he's going, and he stops, and he says, what's going on? Why can't I catch you? The Buddha says, because I stopped. And the guy wakes up. The Buddha did not disrespect him.

[65:47]

And he walked away. You can walk away from somebody respectfully. And you can walk away from somebody disrespectfully. And whoever... They do not need any more disrespect. They need respect. Otherwise they're just going to get more cruel. We are cruel because we don't feel sufficiently respected or respectful. Somebody has to teach us to be respectful. Somebody has to show us how being respectful is as cool as you name it. You know, as cool as being a movie star or whatever. As cool as screaming and hollering. And if people see how cool it is to be respectful, they'll practice it. I mean, they'll aspire to practice it. Ah, let's see.

[66:51]

There was a bunch of other hands. King? I have a question, but I'm following up on this. Is it possible to very respectfully have a great someone's nose? Yeah. Yeah. Well, doctors do that all the time. Then somebody comes to see them and they go, and they break the nose, you know. Some of you can also break it. But, you know, you can also knock people, you can take people's teeth out of their mouth respectfully. You can do anything to anybody basically respectfully. Anything. And you can also do... Yeah. Being respectful is medicinal. And then if you're really good at being respectful, you're a doctor of medicine.

[67:53]

And the Buddha was a master of... And so he was also a great doctor. He cured disease by respect. How can he be so respectful of me? Because I'm a human being. And so then I can be respectful of me and others. Yes? . Of course. . Yeah.

[69:04]

You really can't do a very good job of being respectful to others if you're not respectful of yourself. And again, in the story I just told you, the Buddha did not get hurt, even though the person was trying. In an earlier story of a past life, he did get hurt, but sometimes people get hurt, and that's how they help people. by receiving the blow. But a lot of times to help the person by receiving the blow in such a way that they don't get hurt wakes people up. There's a lot of stories about somebody trying to hurt somebody and waking up while they're trying to hurt them and the person doesn't get hurt, they just wake up. There's those stories too. Yes. How much pain do you let someone else or the world or how many people do they kill before you do something more than walk away and be compassionate or whatever?

[70:14]

It seems to me it's a point. Do you say how? You have to be stopped at kind of situations where you can hurt people. Again, you don't have to wait for more than 10 seconds to do what you just said if you do it respectfully. You don't have to take a lot of abuse before you tell somebody that you don't want them to do it anymore and ask them to stop. You can take just a tiny bit of abuse and do it right away. You don't have to take a lot of abuse and then finally don't take it anymore. Whenever anybody is slightly disrespectful of you, you can immediately practice respect towards them and immediately say, you know, do you want to hear about it? And they might say, what? You say, well, do you want to hear it, really? They say, what do you mean? I'm just wondering if you'd like to hear anything from me.

[71:17]

And you keep saying it to them until maybe they say, I felt like you were kind of being disrespectful of me. And maybe they go, maybe they get it. Maybe they say, so what? Or maybe they say, oh. But you can do it right away. The slightest irritation you have with people, you can share it with them. Especially if you're from Berkeley. See, it isn't so much a matter of when you give feedback, how long you have to put up with it before you do it. I would think you could do it as soon as possible. And don't wait at all to give the person the feedback that you feel uncomfortable or whatever. The question is, are you doing it respectfully? If you're not, basically you're doing whatever you think that you say they're doing. If you're hurting them, you're definitely hurting yourself.

[72:25]

And if you hurt yourself, you're hurting other people. Because they're you. If you don't take care of yourself, that hurts other people. If you're not respectful, that hurts other people. So respect yourself all day long, and respect others all day long, And in that situation where people are giving you a hard time, because you can be respecting people when they give you a hard time. Like my granddaughter, you know. I respect her a lot. And she like slaps me in the face, you know, right while I'm being respectful of her. And she gives me, you know, detailed instructions, you know, very high, very rapidly and at a high frequency. I don't know if she respects her. And I still sometimes maybe say, I'm feeling uncomfortable or you hit me kind of hard.

[73:28]

I give her that feedback and I try to do it gently and respectfully. How long should I put up with it before I tell her? Well, I don't put it up for very long. I tell her pretty quickly. I had this little boy at Green Gulch who... You know he's very aggressive to his family members. How much should they put up with this? You know and actually they called me up the other day, and I went over there, and I said hey Hey, Frank you want to want to wrestle with me? And we wrestled and you know and I engaged that energy How much should how much should they put up with before they call me to come and help I? Don't know, but they're going to keep living with this boy for quite a while and So, I don't think you have to put up with at all. You should find a way to engage it. There is a way to engage it, but it takes skill. Because you might get afraid of how it will affect you.

[74:31]

But you shouldn't let it go. It should be attended to as soon as possible. Engage that. But it is... you're going to be more successful at engaging it if you understand that this other person is your life. great skill will come if you self-reflect in that way. And as soon as we think that person's not me, they're separate from me, even if you're like talking in a very sweet tone of voice, and they are too, we're missing the awakening. We're just reinforcing the delusion that we have. which doesn't seem that harmful sometimes, but it's, anyway, we're missing out on compassion right here, right now, in an awakened way.

[75:32]

Yes? So if they're respectfully saying that they don't agree with you, will life continue? How do you, how do you, like, if they just disagree with you and they're not getting it, So if someone tells me they disagree with me, you're wondering... They respectfully disagree, and you feel that they're respectfully disagreeing with you, and... Oh, this sounds really good, what you just said. That they're respectfully disagreeing with me. That sounds really good. Yeah, that sounds really good. And if I could respectfully listen to them tell me that they're being respectful, And they disagree with me? No. Do you see alleviation of the difference of view? I do not want to alleviate that.

[76:35]

I do not want to alleviate. I don't want everybody to agree. And that's not going to happen. You lost me. I thought you were talking about they don't agree with me. What do you mean? I'm getting confused. I'm getting confused. And I'm giving you the feedback that I'm getting confused. And it's partly because... Yeah, and you're jumping from disagreeing to beating me. I don't know if you're talking about beating or disagreeing, because people do disagree with me, and I want to be totally open to that. And I want people to see that they can disagree with me, and they can go right ahead and do that. They don't have to start agreeing with me.

[77:37]

It's allowed. And not to mention if they respectfully disagree with me. But some people don't respectfully disagree with me, and that's allowed too by me. I allow people to disrespect me. That's my aspiration. Respect might be to hit me, but some people can hit me respectfully. And I can feel like that was a respectful hit, like we're talking about. Wow. But maybe I feel like, well, that was a disrespectful hit. So now would you try to hit me respectfully? So maybe, again, my granddaughter says, OK. And then she hits me again. I say, well, did you feel that that was more respectful? And she might say, no. So we'll try it again. And then she hit me again, and I feel like... I really felt like you respectfully hit me.

[78:44]

And it wouldn't necessarily be more gentle, but she was more like taking me into account when she hit me. And now I feel like... Now we're together. What's most important is that we're together. If I had to give my life... so that we could be together, I would like to do that, if I thought that would help. How are you feeling now? Not what? Did you say, not any better? Are you trying to feel better? Huh? You're not? I can't hear you. I would say no. You would say no, you're not trying to feel better?

[79:45]

Clearly not, no. I can't seem to get the issue. I can't seem to approach it anymore. I kind of seem to be going around. Yeah, we were going around. Well, with a conversation like this, I can't get to what it feels like. The issue, it feels like... You're not clear what issue you're trying to get to? Something relatable that has a lot of variation of being able to let it create... I heard you say something about alleviation and ease. Is that your issue? That you want alleviation and ease? Yes. I don't know if I can help, but it sounds like maybe you're asking to understand that if you're being hit, it can be what Rick said at one point.

[81:08]

It can be okay. It can be showing compassion sometimes to walk away. That's okay. Yeah. I mean, it's not a valid way that specifically So that's the part that's difficult. It's not about having to take it to an epitome of something that people have to say, like, that's probably not the best thing to be doing. But if it's something that's not that strong of an escalation, but still you come to an issue of where something is happening. You're the person that's not comfortable. you're uncomfortable, but being there in that comfort, which in the Buddhist way, I guess, is something that you're supposed to be okay with, but at the same time, it still doesn't allow you to persist there. Yeah, right. That might be the case. For example, you could be very sick. And you do all these Buddhist practices with it, and it doesn't alleviate the sickness.

[82:17]

However, even though your sickness is still there, this thing's going on simultaneously with it, without tampering with the painful situation at all, just being compassionate to it. In this image of the lotus growing in muddy water, It isn't that when the lotus starts growing, the mud stops being mud. It's still mud. It's still painful. It's still not ease. But by being compassionate to the not ease, this thing starts growing. And it grows, and eventually this flower blossoms. And this flower is... peace and ease and fearlessness and unhindered compassion. And it's totally connected to a situation which has not been relieved, perhaps.

[83:24]

The way that the lotus of wisdom is that the roots go down respectfully into the affliction, And that respectful engagement with the pain, the violence, the hostility, the fear, whatever it is, that respectful engagement leads to the growth of this miraculous thing called enlightenment. The mud may change, but it may basically continue to be mud. It may get more polluted, less polluted, We can grow this compassion in extremely polluted situations or not-so-polluted situations. The key thing is, are we addressing it with compassion? And we sometimes feel like, no, I'm not being compassionate, I'm pushing it away.

[84:31]

I'm trying to get rid of the mud. Compassion does not try to get rid of the mud. However, and it's going to take for the roots to go down and the sprout to start coming up. So part of the compassion is respect. Another part is being patient with the rooting process. And, yeah. And can I ask you a kind of personal question? Have I been respectful to you? Hmm? Yeah, great. I feel like you've been respectful to me, too. And I think we're growing compassion here, even though we still have... I noticed the quality of such compassionate listening in the room, particularly when everyone was speaking. It was almost powerful. That was... Well, may that be so forever that we keep listening to each other in ways of compassion.

[85:41]

And I'm sorry the class went over, but I appreciate you guys staying here up till now.

[85:53]

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