Actually, Kent is the one. Okay, this is Dan Leighton. It's October 3rd, 1999. Back in Koyasan Temple. So, the topic that's, I guess, on the newsletter for tonight is practice for tough times or how to practice in tough times, or teachings for tough times, and my thinking about this comes out of this event that's going to happen to all of us in a few months, when all the nines roll over and become zeroes. The end of the millennium. So, excuse me. You'll have to bear with me. I've had a bit of a cold this past week.

[01:01]

So, if you can't hear me, please let me know. Can you hear me now? Everyone? So, this business about the end of the millennium, it's kind of funny. It's sort of artificial, this number 2,000. In other calendars, I think it's the year 5760 in the Jewish calendar, and it's the year, I forget, in the Chinese calendar, it's also in the 5,000s, and in the various Buddhist calendars that are in the 2,500s. Actually, Jesus was born somewhere in the year 6 BC or 4 BC. So, anyway, it's kind of arbitrary. And yet, it seems to have some effect on us. So, we know that there are

[02:02]

difficult things happening in the world. There's ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, and political cleansing in East Timor, and lots of horrors and atrocities in various places, and children killing each other with assault weapons, and school yards. And so, if we look at the newspapers, we know that there's a lot of difficulties and a lot of tensions in the world. And I don't know that this has anything to do with this event on December 31st, but maybe just our thinking about that has created some difficulty. I don't know. There's also hurricanes and earthquakes and strange climatic things happening. So, on a social, on a global, on a cultural level, these are stressful, difficult times. And thinking about this, I've also noticed that at least people I know

[03:02]

or people who I meet, a lot of them are having a difficult time. And I don't know if this is just something that's happening down in the Bay Area and life is easier up here in Sacramento. At least a few people are shaking their heads no. So, I've been thinking about how do we face the millennium? How do we face a period where somehow there's some extra stress or difficulty or tension? How do we practice with that? How do we, what are the teachings in Buddhism that can help us to see how to work in, how to be present in, how to support our own and each other's spiritual practice and each other's lives in such a time? So, the day-long sitting and workshop I did here

[04:04]

a few weeks ago, we talked about the different Bodhisattva figures. Including Samantabhadra and Miriam's statue. It was wonderful of the activist, visionary Bodhisattva tending her elephant. It's a wonderful example of the Dharma, the versions of the Bodhisattva in America. So, I appreciate it very much. Thank you, Miriam. Tonight, I was gonna talk, though, about another of the Bodhisattvas who I think has, in some ways, to me, gives some guidance about what to do or how to practice or how to be in the face of this funny number that's coming up. And that's the Bodhisattva Maitreya. So, I talked a little bit about this at the workshop. And I just happened to see the Dharmagate newsletter of the group down in Benicia has a picture, this was back on your table there, of Maitreya Bodhisattva, the Bodhisattva of, who is predicted to be the next future Buddha.

[05:06]

So, I wanted to talk a little bit about Maitreya Bodhisattva tonight in terms of the practices suggested by this figure because this is the next future Buddha, predicted to be the next future Buddha. So, Ivan and I were at a seminar this morning about the Lotus Sutra, and the very fine scholar who was talking about the Lotus Sutras pointed out that Maitreya is, in some of the Mahayana teachings, is kind of considered a lower-class Bodhisattva, not to be followed so much. And Maitreya goes back to early Buddhism, Mettaya and Pali, and in some ways is not such a, the story about Maitreya is that this was a disciple of the Buddha, and the Buddha predicted that this would be the next future Buddha in the Buddha field and the Buddha age after Shakyamuni.

[06:08]

And this was kind of surprising to many of the other Bodhisattvas and disciples because this was not a particularly good practitioner, not a particularly, you know, not particularly a good meditator, or particularly wise or scholarly. In fact, the story this morning about Manjushri, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom, pointed out that in a previous lifetime, this Bodhisattva Maitreya had been known called Fame Seeker Bodhisattva because of obvious reasons. And yet, there's something about this Bodhisattva that allowed him to be chosen as the Buddha, selected, predicted by the Buddha as the next future Bodhisattva. So I wanted to talk about four aspects of this Bodhisattva that I think are relevant to the situation of practicing during difficult times. And then I hope we'll have time to have some discussion about these four aspects of practice

[07:12]

and what they mean to us and to talk about this together. So the first thing is just that we don't really know when Maitreya will arrive. So I think one of the scriptural references predicts, and this is the one that Jen mentioned this morning, that he's supposed to be the next Buddha 5,600,000,000 years after Shakyamuni Buddha. But apparently, there's another scriptural reference that says that he'll be the Buddha sometime around 4,000 or 4,500 CE. So that's not so far. Only a couple more millennia. And the other thing, though, is that when I think about the millennia, I thought about Maitreya in terms of the millennia because there's a kind of history of cult activity

[08:14]

around Maitreya for the last 2,000 years in China and Japan and Korea that looked to Maitreya as the next Buddha of the next future age. And maybe that was coming soon. And actually, there were rulers in China and rebels also who considered themselves to be incarnations of Maitreya and said Maitreya was coming or avatars preparing the way for Maitreya because when Maitreya comes, there'll be this wonderful golden enlightened age and we'll all be able to hear the Buddha's teaching and it'll be wonderful. But right now, we know that Maitreya is not here yet and things are getting worse. And this is part of the, one of the main views of time and history in Buddhism is that things get kind of worse after the Buddha appears and then eventually there'll be another Buddha. So throughout the history of Buddhism in Asia, there have been these kind of calls for Maitreya to appear

[09:15]

and these predictions of Maitreya and there is graffiti on rocks in the Himalayas saying, come Maitreya, come. So there's this yearning for Maitreya just as there may be in the Western religion some yearning for the Messiah or for some future age. And I think this all, when these numbers, these zeros come up, maybe that's part of what's going on. There's this feeling of things are not right as they are and we need something new. And so there's great hope and great fear at the same time and there's a sense of great change. So part of what Maitreya is about is just that things, the realization that things aren't as they might be now. The acceptance, acknowledgement, awareness of the unfulfilled nature of our life as it is now. And this applies to the social realm and also for ourselves, individually, personally, interpersonally.

[10:18]

I should mention that this sense of Maitreya coming soon is happening, continues to happen. In fact, there's somebody who claims to be Maitreya now who's in London, I think, or I'm not sure, maybe he's in California. Anyway, have any of you heard of him? There really is somebody who's calling himself Maitreya and I don't know, maybe he is, I don't know. So this is, the first thing about Maitreya is that we don't know. Maitreya, the story is that Maitreya, in this image of Maitreya, I don't know if you can see it back there, it's a very famous statue that's in Kyoto. Maitreya is currently sitting up in the meditation heavens contemplating how to save all beings, how to free all beings, how to become the next Buddha, what will happen. And all that Maitreya knows is that he is predicted to be the next Buddha and we don't really know when that's gonna be. It might be 5 billion, 600 and some million years

[11:24]

or who knows. So I think the first thing that we have to face when we're in some stressful time, when some change is happening in the world is just that we don't know. Just to acknowledge that we don't know if all of the lights are gonna go out when the computers flip over to zero or probably that's not gonna happen, but there's this great unknown. And of course, our life is always like this. We don't really know. Our life is not what we expected it to be. So I've been here a few times before and spoken in this room. A couple of times and really enjoy coming here. But of course, I could not have known exactly what this event would be, nor could any of you, even those of you who come every week, don't know what I'm gonna say and I don't know what I'm gonna say. So it's not what I expected. And it's probably not what you expected

[12:28]

and it never is. And so how can we face the fact of not knowing? So I would suggest this is an actual practice that we can take on, that Maitreya suggests and encourages us to do, to be with, that we don't know what will happen in January 2000 or actually next week. Of course, there are things we do know that we've been preparing ourselves for and that we have our lives and places we live and work in relationships. And there are lots of things that we've established with our very skillful egos and we know how to move in the world and we all managed to get here tonight. So there are lots of things we sort of know, but what is this aspect of not knowing? Can we face that we don't really know what's going on in the world, that we don't know how things will go in the year 2000,

[13:32]

that we don't know what is the meaning of all this change and stress that seems to be happening, at least in some places in the world and for some of us individually. So there are a number of Zen stories about this. One is the monk who went to visit his teacher to say goodbye because he was going to go out on pilgrimage. And so he came to his teacher to say goodbye and he says, I'm going out on pilgrimage. And the teacher said, what is the purpose of your pilgrimage? And the monk said, I don't know. And the teacher said, not knowing is nearest or not knowing is most intimate. When we can really face our life without our idea of what it is, without all the things we think we know about the world and ourselves and how that is, we're really open to what we don't yet know.

[14:35]

We're really open to the reality in front of us. So how can we bear to not know who we are? How can we bear to not know what's going to happen next year? How can we bear to face the world without imposing our ideas of what we think the world should be? Of course, we do have ideas of who we are and what the world is. And it's not that we should kind of get rid of all of our ideas, but also to recognize that those are just our ideas. Those are just what we think the world is and who we think we are. And there's something to that, but there's also this unknown. And that is stressful and that is difficult. And yet, that's really where we're at. Can we bear to come and sit and not know how to meditate, not know whether this will be,

[15:39]

whether we'll have pains in our knees this time or whether we'll be restless and want the bell to ring or just to come and sit and be upright in the middle of our lives. And not know what that is. So I think Maitreya suggests to us that maybe this is a helpful kind of practice to have the courage to not know, to have the courage to be open to whatever reality brings to us, whoever it is that comes to us, whatever is in front of us, to meet our life as it is without our ideas about it. So that's one practice of Maitreya and we can say a lot more about it even without knowing what it is. But part of that not knowing is also the practice of patience. So let's say the second practice is just to be willing to sit and wait

[16:43]

and to not know what's coming and that patience is actually an active practice. To be willing to not know, to have the tolerance, another word for patience is tolerance or acceptance, to tolerate our not knowing things, to actively engage in the world without needing it to become what we think it should be. So this practice of patience, Maitreya's sitting there waiting to become the next Buddha is a kind of image of this and our meditation practice too. We sit and in some sense we're, what are we waiting for? We're waiting for the bell to ring, we're waiting for, one of my teachers used to say that enlightenment is an accident and practice makes us accident prone. But actually the practice of patience itself

[17:50]

is a very active practice. It's not about just kind of passively letting things happen to you. It's about being there and deciding to take on, not making the world into something you think it should be. And of course that doesn't mean passivity. Sometimes there is an opportunity to help, an opportunity to do something positive, an opportunity to change the world, an opportunity to change ourselves or our friends in a positive way or to try and do that together. So part of patience is being ready. To be ready and willing to do something when there is something to do. And sometimes there's not. So this is difficult. This is a difficult practice. This is one of the transcendent practices of all awakening beings, this practice of patience or tolerance. And we need to fortify ourselves

[18:53]

with energy and enthusiasm and with meditative stability. So part of our meditation practice is just to sit upright in the middle of not knowing and patiently be present and to listen and to hear the sounds of the world, the sounds of our own mind, the thoughts and feelings that come up, to not have to jump up and act on every impulse that we have, but just to be settled in this patient way. And part of the activity of that is this third practice that Maitreya suggests, which has to do with observing. So Maitreya is also associated with the Yogacara School of Buddhism, the school of Buddhism that studies consciousness, that studies how the mind works, that studies what is happening, not in terms of our ideas about it,

[19:56]

but kind of yogically, the yogic study of the phenomenology of consciousness, the yogic study of who am I? What is this event that's happening? And that's happening right here. So part of our meditation is the study of the self. As Zen Master Dogen says, to study the way is to study the self. Then to study the self is to forget the self and to be awakened by all things. But before we can let go of ourself, before we can actually meet the world, we have to be familiar, we have to be intimate with this self that we don't really know, that we can't control and put in a box. So it's not about defining ourselves or kind of explaining it all

[20:57]

or having a name or a label for ourselves, but actually what does it feel like, how does it feel to be here in this body? And mind, you know, sitting still for 40 minutes or babbling here for 40 minutes or listening to my babbling for 40 minutes, whatever it is that's happening, how do we actually observe, clearly observe this event? So in this particular school of Yogacara philosophy of Buddhism, there are all kinds of ways of discussing what the mind is and how it works and what's happening. And so maybe I'll say a little bit about some of those teachings. And for those of you who were at the workshop, maybe this is, you've heard some of this before, so please be patient and we can talk about it together. But anyway, there's eight levels of consciousness that are discussed in Yogacara. So first is just I,

[21:58]

I object, I consciousness, just awareness of the floor in front of us, faces in front of us, colors, shapes. Second is sounds, the hum of the machinery here, the chair squeaking. So just to listen to sound, just to listen to sound, there's a consciousness that is there. And also smell and taste and touch. And then the sixth consciousness is consciousness of mind objects. This is very interesting. This is kind of a sixth sense, which is just the thoughts that go by. So this way of thinking about mind is that when we are sitting

[23:00]

and thoughts and feelings come up there, we see that there are thoughts and feelings and that there's some awareness of them. And I think that a lot of the time before we start meditating or maybe after we've been meditating or anyway, we tend to think that we are our thoughts or our thoughts belong to us or that somehow our thoughts have, we control our thoughts. I think if you meditate enough, you see that it's very difficult to control your thoughts. Lots of thoughts come up and go through and it can be kind of distressing to see all the thoughts that come up and the feelings that come up and where'd that come from and they're going by so fast sometimes. And anyway, this aspect of consciousness is just that the thoughts themselves are just happening and we are aware of them. And that's a sixth kind of sense like sight and like sound and smell and so forth. So Uchiha Moroshi,

[24:03]

one of the modern Japanese Sotosan teacher says that when we sit naturally, our stomach continues to secrete digestive juices in the same way our brain continues to secrete thoughts. We don't try and stop the digestive juices and we don't try and stop the thoughts, but we don't try and do anything with them either. And we can see that those thoughts are just mental objects, just the way a sound might be a sound object. So this is one aspect of consciousness. And then again, this is all part of the system of the study of consciousness that the Yoko Chara School talks about. The seventh is that we tend to, we have this possibility, this capacity for separating ourselves from everything out there. We see the world, we think of the world, our thoughts and our whole orientation is to seeing ourself and other. And this is something that we're very well equipped to do.

[25:06]

And we imagine that the other is very separate from us. So Buddhism in many ways is about seeing how everything is interconnected, how everything is empty of self, empty of substantial essential selfness. So who we are here is the function and product of many, many beings. Each one of us here represents many, many thoughts and feelings and people we've known and so forth. Each one of us is a complicated event and we each have very complicated interrelationships with each other, which we may not be aware of, but this is part of what's actually happening. So there is this way in which we're each distinct, but we're all part of a world in which we're all very dynamically and intimately interconnected as well. But we imagine that we're separate, we imagine that we're isolated, we imagine that we're alone and alienated.

[26:08]

And I think this is, maybe this function becomes heightened in times of stress. So to turn the light of meditation back on ourselves and see how we are connected with our breathing together, with the sounds around us, with the thoughts floating by, how we're not isolated actually, is a very important aspect of this study of consciousness that Maitreya suggests. So this is a very complicated system and the point of the system is really, the point that I wanna make tonight is just to say, that there are ways of studying and observing what it is that's happening to us yogically as we are present. Just to finish this system in the eighth, this consciousness in that system is called the alaya-vijnana, the storehouse of all of everything

[27:10]

that's ever happened to us. All of our tendencies and spiritual directions and spiritual dispositions in Buddhism we say for many lifetimes. And who we are here as we sit here or as we go out from here and go through our week and our relationships and our work and everything that we do, we have a certain range of possibility of responding based on everything that's ever happened to us and everything we've ever done and we can reinforce the positive or the negative. We have a choice as to how we respond but we do have a limited range and this is based on everything that's ever happened, not just us to the world too. So there's this kind of complicated interrelationship between our own personal history and then the history of this world around us where we have earthquakes and hurricanes and ethnic cleansing and all kinds of things going on. So the point is, when we are patiently waiting,

[28:17]

not knowing what's going to happen, we are not doing this passively kind of with this numb, dead heart and mind but actually paying attention to what is happening in the world around us and paying attention to how is it that we are that I'm seeing that and paying attention to who am I here and paying attention to how am I responding to these different things going on around me. So this attention to what's happening in our minds, in our hearts is very important. This is kind of the main support for our patients and for having the courage to not know what's going to happen. And then the fourth practice of Maitreya that is really fundamental and maybe I should have mentioned first but it underlies all of it is related to Maitreya's name

[29:21]

which is derived from the practice of metta or loving kindness, Maitri in Sanskrit, metta and Pali. So Maitreya, I said before, was kind of a symbol of this foolish, in the previous life, fame seeker, not such a skilled practitioner but he was very kind and all of the lore about Maitreya enforces this loving kindness. So this is very simple. This is not complicated or some complicated psychology or philosophy just to be kind, just to care about all beings so I was thinking of starting with a chant and maybe we'll chant this before we start discussion but I don't have enough copies for everyone

[30:21]

but maybe we can share. There's a sutra called the Metta Sutra which is about this intention of loving kindness of, oops, maybe there's a different, is that a, maybe that's not a, no, that's the one that I wanted to pass out. That's something else that got in there. Oh, no, this was mine. Oh, I'm sorry, okay, good. Anyway, this practice of loving kindness, Maitreya has been, is considered kind of foolish, you know but he was very kind and there have been over the centuries in Asia various beings who have been considered incarnations of Maitreya. One of them is Hotai who you've all seen in Chinese restaurants. It's the fat laughing Buddha, you know and he was based on an historical 10th century Chinese monk

[31:26]

who wandered around the streets of. So in addition to not knowing and practicing patience and paying attention and really observing what is happening in this situation I'm in right now, underlying all of that in terms of a practice that we can do to face difficult times is this intention may all beings be happy. Very simple. Just to come back to the wish that not just, you know the people I like but everyone, you know that the Serbs and the Albanians and the Taiwanese and the Chinese and you know all, that everyone, that everyone be happy. Now this seems very foolish, idealistic, impossible but if we are actually doing the practice of patience

[32:28]

and doing the practice of not knowing and doing the practice of watching what's happening to ourselves with this intention of helping to support this idea may all beings be happy then we're willing to see the world around us and ourselves differently. So people that we have a hard time with, even them, you know, if they were happy maybe they wouldn't give us such a hard time, you know. And then there's also the people, you know, the beings, we have many beings within each of us, you know and some of them are happy and joyful and satisfied and some of them are frustrated and angry and some of them are greedy and petty or whatever, you know. All of them too, may they be all happy. So this is not about, you know, being, this is not the opposite of selfishness. This is not about kind of sacrificing yourself, you know so that everybody else can be happy and not you. This is about everyone. This is about how can we all awaken together?

[33:29]

How can we all find the way to the path to awakening together? And so part of the study of consciousness is to see what it is that we do intend. To see what is important to me? What is the most important thing? And then with that, to just have this, you know you could even use it as a mantra, may all beings be happy. To see that as a wish and then to see what it is that you actually do wish for. And that doesn't mean that you should wish for may all beings be happy and if you don't wish that that that's, that you're bad and you shouldn't be happy. No, may all beings be happy including the specific wishes you have. You may have some intention to want to, I don't know what to have a better job or to have, you know to, Yvonne, what is this?

[34:31]

What is something that you wish for? Actually for my daughter to feel better about herself. Good, yes, so specific beings too. For our children to feel better about themselves. For our friends to feel better about themselves. Maybe for your daughter to get, you know I don't know what it would be to find some vehicle for her expressing herself or to, I don't know. It could be very specific, limited things too. To actually pay attention to what our intentions are. What is important to me? What is the most important thing? And with that, to hold this wish, may all beings be happy and see how your wishes and your intentions actually can be part of may all beings be happy. So this is this basic loving kindness practice of Maitreya. May all beings be happy. And when we hold this intention, then all of our other struggles with all of the difficult things

[35:33]

that are coming into our lives, we have a balance. We have some anchor. So this is not an answer. May all beings be happy. This is part of the question. How do we see what is the most important thing? Suzuki Roshi said, the most important thing is to find out what the most important thing is. So to keep studying, what is it that I really do care about? And this changes and how does that relate to what's happening in the world? And how do I sit patiently with that? But then with that, Maitreya encourages us to hold this, this wish, may all beings be happy. So maybe I've said enough, so let's chant this and then we can have some discussion. So I'll introduce it. Metta Sutta, this is what should be accomplished by the one who is wise, who seeks the good

[36:35]

and has obtained peace. Let one be strenuous, upright and sincere without pride, easily contented and joyous. Let one not be submerged by the things of the world. Let one not take upon oneself the burden of riches. Let one's senses be controlled. Let one be wise but not puffed up and let one not desire great possessions even for one's family. Let one do nothing that is mean or that the wise would reprove. May all beings be happy. May they be joyous and live in safety. All living beings, whether weak or strong in high or middle or low realms of existence, small or great, visible or invisible, near or far, born or to be born, may all beings be happy.

[37:36]

Let no one deceive another nor despise any being in any state. Let none by anger or hatred wish harm to another even as mother at the risk of her life watches over and protects her only child. So with a boundless mind should one cherish all living beings, suffusing love over the entire world, above, below, and all around without limit. So let one cultivate an infinite goodwill toward the whole world, standing or walking, sitting or lying down during all one's waking hours. Let one cherish the thought that this way of living is the best in the world, abandoning vague discussions, having a clear vision freed from sense appetites. One who is made perfect will never again know rebirth in the cycle of creation of suffering

[38:38]

for ourselves or others. So thank you very much. May all beings be happy. I'd love to hear your comments, questions, reflections, responses. Yes. I see method as a practice that brings out, I see people whether Buddhist or other religions, where it's so easy for human beings to descend into bickering and pettiness and sort of name-calling behind people's backs. I see method as kind of a thing that pulls away all the nonsense and says this is the important thing, this is what, whether it's Buddhism or other religions, this is the central thing.

[39:38]

It's always a reminder to me when I read the mythos that this is where it's at, you know, it's very easy in the world to, if one is not mindful, to get caught up in resentment, anger, whatever, and see other people involved in it, even whether it's Buddhist or other religions, but it's, this is the central truth. And when people are practicing it, the world's benefited, and when they're not, no matter what they're claiming to do, that's a destructive path. Yeah, I think so. If we really wish happiness for all beings, then it helps us not get caught up in seeing some other as the problem. You made me get angry, or, you know, these people over there are evil, or these people are being bad, or if we only got rid of those people, then everything would be, you know, all of that division and separation and

[40:41]

harm that comes to the world, if we can just remember kindness, then I think it helps. Thank you. Yes? Talk about the relationship between openness and kindness. Yeah, so the, another way of talking about the practice of patience is openness. To be patient means to be open to what's happening, to be willing to face what's happening. So when we get impatient, we're not willing to, we're not gonna take it anymore. We're gonna get up and do something, because it has to be, you know, the way we think it should be, or it can't be this way, or. So, again, this doesn't mean that, so openness might include being, taking on something, doing something, but we're meeting the thing without trying to

[41:44]

make it something that it's not. The hard part, when I think about kindness, I think of it in terms of, a lot of times, what can I do to help the situation? Sometimes a situation's a person, or a situation. then I don't know, you know, the hard part is to know when to act and when not to act. Because sometimes you can try to help a situation. I guess if your intentions are good, that's probably the important thing, but you can really blow it. Yes, absolutely. So this is the first practice of not knowing, to know, if you think you know what to do, if you think you're right, that can be dangerous. Yes, I've got to go in and do this, and then you might do something that's actually harmful. So whenever you feel sure of yourself and right that this is the thing to do, take another breath, and it still may be that you should do it, but if you realize that,

[42:47]

well, I don't really know, this is what I feel I have to do, and so you may do it, but if you're in the middle of doing it if you're willing to hear that maybe this, maybe you don't know everything that's going on, it might help mitigate some of the harm you might do. So even in the middle of acting and responding, to be open to not knowing, to be studying, again, what's going on, to be seeing, is this really helpful? Is this really making all beings happy? It doesn't, again, you can kind of be fearful and paralyzed by feeling like, well, I don't know, so I can't do anything, and that's not the practice of not knowing either. We have to respond. So it's very tricky. What's kind to me may be unkind to the recipient. As you were saying, that my idea of kindness,

[43:51]

if I think of my granddaughters, my idea of kindness is something that would be beneficial to them, it's not a fair idea. And one of the protections is to know that this is just your idea of kindness, and to be kind anyway, but realize it's just your idea, and of course, it may be kind to them. So think of it the other way, too. Somebody who maybe is giving us a hard time might be being very kind to us. It might be a kindness to us to get some negative feedback or to have somebody give us a hard time. We might learn from that, and it might be very beneficial, and it might hurt at the time. So it's very subtle, and we have to be open to not being so sure we know what's going on, and yet still acting from, may all beings be happy, or what is it that's important for me right now? This is very simple, and it's not easy. And we have to keep watching.

[44:54]

What's, how is this going? If you say it's easy, then it's difficult. Yeah. Yes? I've been learning, since my involvement with Buddhism, actually, how much patience and listening. Because I've spent most of my life reacting to and not listening to people, and making assumptions about what you're saying. Or at least listen, really listen, and be patient. So, you know, but it's the hardest thing I've ever done. Yeah, yeah. And we have to be patient with ourselves, too. We have to be willing to make mistakes. Susanne, did you have a?

[45:55]

All these years, I've been thinking about the end of the heart suture. Gone, gone, gone beyond. Gone together, and perfectly beyond. Gone together, and perfectly beyond. That... If I start to get, to feel too individual, I do too much of myself, like, you know, that's helping me. That it's not about who I think I am, I'm not really. Every time I get a handle, I have to see everyone in the room as having names for another part of myself. And that, but not, you know, you don't belong to me, but we're all part of you. But that gone, gone. Gone together. Yeah, to see how we're all in it together, actually.

[47:01]

When there's an earthquake or a hurricane or some terrible thing happens, it's, we see how our ideas of our separateness are pretty secondary to what's, you know, this powerful event in the world. And also, we see always that there are times that people try and help each other. There's this impulse. Yes? I was just going to say, one of the things that I always, I don't know, marvel at or stumble over when I'm meditating is the idea of, like, trying to get beyond your ego. And when you're meditating, you're kind of using, you're paying attention to your senses as they're coming in. And it seems like, I mean, I've had the thought many times that my senses are basically there to separate me from other things and to define my ego in the most clear-cut, direct, gut-level way they possibly can.

[48:07]

And so then it becomes kind of an intellectual exercise to sort of say, well, now, what I'm seeing, what I'm hearing, what I'm feeling, all these things aren't really true because things are connected, because there aren't the kind of separations that my senses are insisting there are. And that's a very tough, I mean, it's a subtle, weird thing when you're trying to get a handle on where your ego is. I don't even know how to say it. Well, it's very subtle, yes. Our senses are what, you know, separate us from the world, is what you said. Actually, though, they're our interfaces with the world. So the things that separate us from the world are also exactly the things that connect us with the world. And it's very, you know, a small difference between seeing them as separations and seeing them as connections. But seeing is basically saying thinking, right?

[49:10]

When you say the word seeing, you mean thinking. I would suggest that there's another way of thinking about that. LAUGHTER That when we're present with ourselves, when we're... It's hard to talk about this, and the only way I can talk about it right now anyway is in terms of meditation. When we're sitting upright, present, we can hear a sound, and yet we don't have to, you know, think air-conditioner and start, you know, defining the history of air-conditioning in the Western world or, you know. We can just feel cool, you know. And it's something that we know, we feel. There's a deeper way of knowing than kind of thinking about it. So to be present in our body and mind

[50:10]

and be willing to be open to what's happening in our body and mind is a kind of awareness that is already happening. So when I say seeing, I'm also referring to that. So how do we see our own impulse towards loving-kindness? Without thinking, oh, we should be kind because that's a good thing because the Buddhist teachers say you should be or something like that. But actually to feel our own wanting happiness for ourselves and seeing how other people are like us and also want happiness and have problems and, you know, how we're really in it together. We breathe the same air. Yes. There's another way, in a deeper sense,

[51:21]

we really experience that we all are connected. That's totally different. Yes. I'm saying that we are not able to feel, I mean, emotionally experience that because we are not present with whatever happens around us. Why we don't experience the world as beautiful and perfect and all interconnected and dynamically interpenetrating and all that, many causes and conditions. So part of it is sometimes that our thinking mind gets in the way. But there could be many obstructions or obstacles

[52:21]

that prevent us from just recognizing our own Buddha nature, our own possibility of openness and awakeness and each other's. So the practice then is just to pay attention. How do I... Do I feel connected? Not even do I feel connected. Just to, you know, try just saying to yourself, may all beings be happy. Try that as a mantra. Try it this week. See what happens. When you remember. Maybe it'll be a couple of times during the day. May all beings be happy. Yeah. So I'm suggesting that there are many practices which might help and their practices are different for different people. But there are actually practices that we can do, ways of reminding ourselves of coming back to what's important,

[53:26]

of coming back to just being settled and upright and connecting with our deeper, deepening inner dignity to be aware of the possibility of just being present, just being aware. And it doesn't mean that we should get rid of our intellectual thinking and all of that. That's part of who we are too. But that does get in the way sometimes because we want to try to figure everything out and put everything in a little box. And there's something deeper than that. So we can understand that intellectually too. But know that that's not our intellectual understanding. It's actually this deeper presence and awareness, which is so close to us that we can't see it. It's like trying to see your own eyeballs. So how do we breathe into just being willing to wish that all beings may be happy, including all these beings, and forgiving yourself for not seeing that you're Buddha?

[54:30]

So this is what practice is about. It's not about getting something somewhere else. It's not about becoming some other person. It's about actually being willing to just be this person here fully. So I'm not sure what time we have to stop. Any time? Does that mean we can keep talking until... No, anytime soon. Soon. Okay, one more question or comment. I think you had your hand up. Yeah, something that's really... I wanted to kind of share this, and I want to get your take on it, and see if maybe you can add to it. I recognize what you just said about loving-kindness. The other night I was watching these poets on TV, and something really stuck, and it's really helped me a lot. And what stuck was kind of like, it's nowhere that I have to go,

[55:33]

it's nothing that I have to do. And that's really rammed my mind really hard, because that's basically what my whole life is, is going somewhere, I've got to do something. I've been holding on to that for maybe two weeks whenever I saw that program. I'm wondering, is there maybe something else that you could add to that? It's nowhere that I have to go, it's nothing that I have to do. And yet, how are you going to do that? So we each have to find a way of expressing that. Good luck. LAUGHTER

[56:17]

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