Let's see, now it's September. Since our last sitting here, it was our last sitting in August, right? Like August 8th or something? Since that time I went to Sweden and did a sasheen, and then I came back to Gringold and did another sasheen. And the Gringold sasheen was kind of an unusually no-abode type of, no-abode kind of sasheen because Many of you here today were there, and other people, a lot of no-boat people came. It was like mostly no-boat people. Very nice. Thanks for coming to you. Wasn't that nice? Anyway, there's things I have been talking about, and there's things which I am going to continue to talk about, which I want to remind you of. And it's kind of like, every time I give a talk, it's kind of like setting a table.

[01:13]

Setting a table for our discussion. So part of the table setting would be to tell you that this... In about a month, we're going to start a practice period at Green Gulch. And this practice period has, I noticed, two kinds of announcements about it. One announcement was that the focus of the practice period is focusing on the bodhisattva path. Another announcement for the practice period was... Zazen, for the welfare of the world. And then a colon, the pivotal activity of all Buddhas. So I have been and I will continue to talk about a pivotal activity of all Buddhas, which is for the welfare of

[02:31]

of the world. And in the Zen temples, we call this pivotal activity of Buddhas for the welfare of the world, we call it sometimes Zaza. Focusing on the Bodhisattva path is focusing on the path of Buddhahood. It's the path to realize Buddhahood. And the Bodhisattva path focuses on the activity of Buddhas realizing Buddhas and going beyond realizing Buddhas. So now I'd like to offer you a little summary of the bodhisattva path.

[03:46]

The bodhisattva path is to live by deeds of compassion for all living beings. I'll just stop there for a second and just check with you. Is that somewhat familiar to you? To live a life of offering deeds of compassion to all beings. That's one way to describe it. Period in the sentence? Is that it? Say again? Could that be the entire definition? Or is there not? Will we just stop there? I think we just stopped there. And then after we stopped, I mean, we stopped, I stopped talking and you listened to me when I said that, right?

[04:58]

So I talked and you were listening. And even though I stopped, I did kind of stop, didn't I? And I checked to see if that was like somewhat familiar. And then after I had stopped and I checked with you, somebody asked a question. Somebody was by the name Kriya. Okay? In other words, what I said is pretty much it. But then you asked a question. Partly because I asked you a question. Or actually, I said it, that's pretty much it, and then I asked a question. So all of that's pretty much it. Then after that, then the questions come. which are part of it. So my question, after I said that, my question, which was something like, is that somewhat familiar to you? That was my question, right? That was an act, I meant that as an act of compassion.

[06:00]

So I gave, first of all, I gave this definition of the Bodhisattva path, this picture, this story of the Bodhisattva path, I gave that as an act of compassion. That's what I wanted it to be. I thought that might help you get oriented, set the table, right? Then after that, I asked a question. Another act of generosity. Then you asked a question. Another act of generosity. So after I gave the definition, I practiced. While I was giving the definition, I was practicing what I was defining. I wanted to anyway. Then I asked the question. to continue the practice, then you ask the question to continue the practice. So that's it, and now we practice it. Okay? And then there's another question that comes up. But what if you forget? Or what if while you're trying to act

[07:09]

compassionately towards all beings. What if he gets scared? What we're talking about is kind of pretty simple. I just said it. But then fear comes up sometimes. And the fear often makes it somewhat difficult to... to do the practice, which we're pretty clear what the practice is, but now what would be compassionate when I'm afraid? So here's a person, here's a living being, a human maybe, or a grizzly bear. I was just up where they have a lot of signs saying grizzly bear, grizzly country. And they give you instructions, you know. So a grizzly bear shows up and you, okay, now time for a deed of compassion, but I'm scared.

[08:18]

So once again, going back to that simple definition, is that okay? That definition, everybody like clear about that? Could you say it one more time? Just to live. by deeds of compassion for all beings. That's basically it. And then, stuff comes up. Like, what big one is fear. Fear of what's going on in myself, which is a being. Fear of how I am. Fear of my old age, sickness and death. Fear of my... Yeah. Fear that my welfare might be in danger. Fear that I might get hurt. So then the bodhisattva path is to practice compassion towards my fear when I'm afraid for myself.

[09:27]

But sometimes I see other people or other beings like grizzly bears. And then again, I'm afraid for myself. I'm afraid about my own personal pain. And then it makes it perhaps hard to remember that I'm here to be compassionate to grizzly bears when I'm afraid of the grizzly bear hurting me. Does this make sense? It could also be a human, a big or small human who seems to be aggressive or... I don't know what, prejudiced against me or whatever. I might be afraid of them. And then again, have difficulty remembering that my job is to be... practice compassion towards this person, towards whom I feel afraid, I'm afraid that I might have personal pain in relationship to them.

[10:49]

So this is, this comes up. So in that sense, it's almost like an extension of the jobs description that in addition to, along with doing, compassionate deeds to all beings, humans and non-humans, I also need to give up being afraid of personal suffering. It doesn't mean I have to not be afraid. It just means I have to let go of it in order to do my job. Because if I'm holding on to fear, of personal pain, I might kill the grizzly bear. Unnecessarily. So when I was walking up in the mountains recently, I was thinking, now if the grizzly bear comes, can I speak to him and say, darling, I don't want to hurt you, but I also don't want you to hurt me.

[11:59]

So please just realize I'm just standing here and You can go away. Wherever you are going, you can continue that way. I'm not going to interfere with you. And also, I'm not going to run away from you because I've heard that that is not a good idea because it kind of stimulates something in you that means attack. So I'm just going to stand here and talk to you and try to be compassionate to you, hoping that the Bodhisattva path will be living in me now And I was wondering, would I be able to do that if the grizzly comes? Especially if it comes fast. Like not from 100 yards away, but like suddenly come running towards me. Can I just stand there and talk to him, give him kindness or her kindness? Her is often like maybe defending her cubs. And that's a really difficult situation.

[13:03]

So anyway... I was wondering, would I be able to let go of my fear when the grizzly comes? And I didn't have a lot of confidence like, yeah, sure. But my understanding is that that's the body self about, is when a grizzly comes to be compassionate to the grizzly. But I have to practice giving up fear of my pain. And I don't have to wait to meet a grizzly bear To practice that. I have pains now that I can be afraid of. So I can work with them now. There's people right now that I could be afraid of. That are afraid that they're going to cause me pain. So the key thing then, the next step in order to facilitate these bodhisattva deeds is to see... that the existence of grizzly bears and human beings, other human beings, other human beings, other human beings, that their existence is our own existence.

[14:21]

Not even the same. Their existence is our existence. The grizzly bear's existence is our existence. all living beings, all other living beings are my existence. To see that, to hear about it, but to see it, that facilitates letting go of fear about my suffering. And seeing that and letting go of the fear by seeing it That's the pivotal activity of the Buddhist. That sets the activity of compassion rolling without getting stuck on what's coming. Yes?

[15:25]

Can I share a very quick story about a spider that showed compassion towards me? A spider that showed compassion towards you? Yeah, it was like... Let's hear about the compassionate spider. I picked up some stuff on the floor and there was a huge spider. Really huge. And I actually thought about you and I still went to get my vacuum cleaner. And when I came back... When I came back, the spider had disappeared. So every day I would go in or often into this room, knowing that the spider was there. And one day I went into the room, and it's such a huge spider that it had died, but it had emerged and died where I could see it. So I didn't kill it, but it also died where I could see that it was gone. I mean, that was...

[16:29]

Thank you. Fear has no object. When fear sort of arises and you can't quite sort of point to the grizzly bear. When does fear arise and you can't point to the grizzly bear? It's just there is a web and you just You don't know what it is. It's just paralyzing it. There's no reason there. So that's the being that I want to be compassionate to now, is that fear. I can be compassionate to the fear. I don't have to know what it's about. I'm just feeling, I'm tensing up, I'm afraid. I do feel that. So I have that being to be compassionate to. So the Bodhisattva is included in the compassion.

[17:34]

Once again, the Bodhisattva is included in the compassion. When the Bodhisattvas came for all beings, all beings includes the Bodhisattva. All beings include the Bodhisattva? Yes. And seeing that, you can let go of the fear. But if you don't If I don't take care of the fear in such a way as to let go of it, or I should say, if I'm not kind to the fear, it's hard for me to see that I'm included in everything, that everything is including me, is pervading me. When I see that, then the fear is abandoned. I'll be right with you, Karen.

[18:40]

I think Cuomo had her hand raised a while ago. Yes? Actually, that's gone. But the new question is, the letting go. So when you are saying letting go as an act of compassion, does that mean just allowing fear to be versus... So when you say let go... Yes, basically it starts with letting it be. And letting it be... is the beginning of the path of seeing that all other beings are what we are. When we see that, then the fear will be abandoned, and then we can do our job. So, letting the fear be is the beginning of seeing something more than just the fear, The fear comes because we don't understand that every other being is what we are.

[19:46]

I am nothing but every other being. I'm not something in addition to all things other than me. I am just the center of everything that's not me. I'm the center of it. When I realize how I'm the center of everything that's not me, fear drops away and the bodhisattva path is unhindered. We can try to practice the bodhisattva before we have this insight and many of our efforts to do so will promote this insight. We can listen to the teaching and ask questions about it even before we understand it. So we can hear the teaching of what the bodhisattva path is.

[20:48]

We can hear that letting go of fear of personal pain is part of it. We can hear that there's a possible vision of how everybody other than us is what is our life. We can hear that. And by going through these processes and these instructions over and over... We will someday see this. And then we'll just continue. But we'll continue what we've been doing all along. We've been practicing. We're not going to see this. We're not going to have this vision if we haven't been trying to practice deeds of compassion with everybody. If I try to practice deeds of compassion, deeds of compassion and seeds of compassion with everybody, then I will naturally notice, oops, I wonder if I can do it now. So like I said, I wondered, can I do it with the grizzly bears?

[21:53]

I already had the teaching that I'm supposed to do with grizzly bears. I already had that teaching. So now I say, I'm going to go out with those grizzly bears. Can I do it out there? I wondered. I'm not sure. because I still have a little bit of fear of personal gain, of being ripped apart by those, I heard, four-inch claws. Those claws are not primarily made to be chopping people up. They're for digging. They're mostly for digging in the ground. where there's stuff to eat. And then they don't, they don't slash the things with their claws. They pick them up and put them in their mouth. They're, they're, they're not primarily for killing humans.

[22:57]

But they have these things for digging in the ground, which if they're, you know, if somebody scares them, they can use these things on that somebody. So it is a good idea not to scare them. Because when they get scared, then they can get angry and, you know, aggressive, like us. So that would be, why would it be a good idea? Generally speaking, to talk compassionately to the grizzly bear. But also don't scare it by running away. Like you are, they might be afraid that they're missing out on something fun that you're going to. So just stand there and just try to tell them, you know, I'm not bragging. I'm not bragging, you know. I'm just here. I really want to have a nice, calm, not harmful relationship with you. I don't want to hurt you. I don't want you to hurt me, honestly speaking. I just want to have a peaceful afternoon with you. You know, that's really where I'm at.

[23:59]

And that's the way I want to talk to grizzly bears. And I understand that they like that, too. But I'm not sure I can be. So I keep checking. And also with some people, I also feel like, yeah, they have long fingernails. I'm afraid of them. So the same would be with them. But. Yes. I just wanted to say that I met a woman who was another Buddhist nun. And where she was a nun, she was walking in India with a tour group. And a bear came out and actually grabbed her head and ate her, you know, turned to eat her head. And she had never ever meditated or anything, and then the sound of Aum came to her, and the bear jumped off of her. The bear let go? Yeah, let go. You know, just kind of almost like very quickly just kind of fell back and cried to her. And so, you know, of course she was able to get away. And then she became a nun with a smell.

[25:01]

And she showed me the scar. And it was a huge scar on her head. amazing you know i would like i would like to if the bear did knock me it also says if they come and they get close um you know you can't get they're not going to go away then fall on your stomach and put your hands on top behind your head and it's good to have your pack on leave your pack on that also protect you If you lay flat, then sometimes they realize you're not a danger, and sometimes they leave you alone. You just want to make sure that you're just going to lie there. And I would hope that if I did that, that while I was lying there, I could say, you know, I vow from this life on throughout countless lives to hear the true Dharma. May all beings be at peace. I hope that I could keep being compassionate.

[26:02]

At that moment. And Om's kind of a short version of that, maybe. Maybe Om's faster. But anyway. And that's what I would hope to do, too. To just be there and wishing welfare to beings when I'm being checked out or in a very kind of aggressive way like that. But it's also possible... That if it kept munching, and even though I was wishing it well, I thought, maybe I should turn over and fight. Maybe that would make things clearer. It's possible for compassion to express itself by pushing away with your hands and feet. That's possible, too. But the question is, is it coming from really, like, turning over now and kicking the bear? I think this is being called for. It's possible. And I don't want to, and I don't have the will towards the bear.

[27:04]

I just would like the bear to go away and let me live so I can practice some more. That's what I would want. But I wouldn't start by kicking in this case. And with people, too, I don't start by kicking. Eric, and then Charlie. I covered it. I was just saying that I've offered her suggestion to shout at Eric. Shout? Yeah. Yeah, the instruction that I read up in Glacier was not to yell at them, but to talk, you know. They have really good ears and not good vision. They can hear. So as you go through the forest, make sounds, but not super loud ones. And when they come, talk calmly and unaggressively and also undefensibly. And the same, when we do retreats at Mount Madonna, they say they have mountain lions up there.

[28:08]

And it says, talk to them, don't yell at them, but definitely talk to them, you know, maybe make sure that they can hear you. But not shouting, don't be too aggressive, don't frighten them. It's really interesting, because I think maybe at like, some of you are maybe more highly traffic areas that they do. They say, like, get as big as you can, kind of, like, get as aggressive and shout and make as much noise. And it almost seems like there's not trusting the bear. Yeah, it's a different kind of bear. It's a different kind of bear, too. These are grizzlies. And I guess they also have black bears or brown bears up there. And they have a difference. And they don't have the long claws. They're not diggers. And they actually... the brown bears can climb trees. And part of the reason they climb trees is to get away from danger. Grizzlies don't climb. So they have other modes.

[29:11]

So this is for grizzlies. But whatever type of being it is, whether it's a grizzly bear, a brown bear, or a human bear, it's the same assignment. Deeds of compassion. And again, If I become afraid, I might say, no, I'm not going to be compassionate now. I'm going to try. I'm going to be aggressive and cruel because this person's frightened me. And voice office want to give that up. They want to learn how to give that up. Charlie? I have a question about the generosity component of this compassion. When... There are things that we want, like I want the bear to have a peaceful afternoon, and trying not to get those to happen, but to make them gifts.

[30:12]

Yes. Where's the difference there when I want the bear to go away, but I'm not going to try to get the bear to go away, or I want something, but I'm not trying to make it. I'm not trying to control it. Yeah, well, so in this case, it seems to me that if a bear shows up, and if I want the bear to go away, that's the wish I have, but that wish of wanting the bear to go away, that's not necessarily a deed of compassion towards the bear. I want to be compassionate towards my wish that the bear would go away. It's okay to wish that bears would go away when they get too close. A lot of people are really so happy. I went to the park and I saw a grizzly. They're so happy. And it was like 100 yards away. And it's so beautiful to see them at a safe distance.

[31:13]

Now I want the bear to go away. That wish, that the bear would go away, is a being towards which bodhisattvas vow to be compassionate. That's about me now. to be compassionate. That's not necessarily compassionate to the bear. So I want, I feel compassion for the bear, I want the bear to be happy, healthy, and I also, as this human being, would like them to go away. It could even be like I would like to go up this path, and they're blocking the path. I often have that thing with less dangerous animals, like cows. Sometimes they're on the path. And you can't go around. But they're just standing there. And I kind of would like them to go away. Well, I'm a sentient being too. I can be compassionate towards this hiker who would like this cow to get out of the way. I can be kind to myself with that thought. And then I can also just let the cow take its time as an act of compassion and let the bear be there.

[32:20]

And so I don't know exactly how This compassion works in terms of getting the bear to go this way or that way. I don't know how that would work. This practice is not about... It's not a bear-herding practice. It's not a human-herding practice. It's a practice of making Buddhas. And to stand there and to... let me wish the bear would go away, and let the bear not go away. And to let the bear not go away as an act of generosity towards the bear, and to let me wish the bear would go away as an act of generosity to me, that's what makes Buddhas. And again, in both cases, this example, it's challenging to remember generosity

[33:26]

when I'm afraid, but not impossible. And if I can remember, that's the Bodhi Tala's job, is to remember these practices when we're afraid and when we're not afraid. That's the proposal. It's really amazing, but that's the proposal. Yes, honey? I've heard that sometimes fear is covered up first by anger. Exactly. Often, instead of being generous to the fear, we flip into anger, dash aggression. So the same thing, you have to wish well. If you did slip into the anger, you mean? Yes. Yeah, same, be generous with the anger. And then you might be able to realize, oh, I'm afraid. A lot of times people get angry at someone for doing something The person frightens them, and then they get angry that the person frightened them.

[34:27]

But that's because they didn't address the fright. They skipped over the fright and went into the anger. But if you can be compassionate to the anger, then you can go back and realize, well, actually, I was afraid, and I didn't take care of that. And because I didn't take care of my fear, I went into this aggression mode. Yes. It just struck me, as Charlie asked this question, you were talking that perhaps the difference between the wish and trying to control it is the precepts. You know, that, you know, you have a wish, and then there's a way that you could react. In that situation, you could run, you know, that's not smart. And the other option would be to try and, you know, harm it. would be not a logical option, but, you know. It is not a non-precept response. It's a non-precept response, so that's the gauge, you know, between the wish and the response.

[35:35]

Which wish? The wish not to harm, or the wish for the bear to leave you alone, the one, but also the wish not to harm, the wish to be generous. It's like if you stop somebody or some animal, whatever, or a person doing something that's harmful, there's an act of generosity to that, to the karma. It could be, you could, again, you could fight a bear or fight a person as an act of generosity. Sometimes it's helpful to say to someone, I really would like you to stop that. You know, you could say... Please stop that. Or you could just say, stop that. You could say, don't do that.

[36:38]

As a gift, not trying to control them. And again, with certain beings, if you say, stop that, you don't think that you're saying stop that is going to control them. They might, they're not under control, but they might say, okay. Like, so you say to somebody, you can say, stop that, and they say, all right. But it wasn't because you were in control of them. It's because you said that, and they did that. But how that worked is not just that you asked for it. It was many other factors that led to them to sort of go along with your request. Sometimes you can say to somebody, would you give me that money? And they don't give it to you, and sometimes they do. But it's not that you're saying, would you give me the money, control them into giving it to you. And if you're generous, you didn't mean it that way. You just gave them the gift of, would you give me that money?

[37:40]

You gave them the gift of, would you please stop that? You gave them the gift of, would you get back a little farther away from me? If you're giving it as a gift, you're not trying to control them. Now, if you are trying to control them, then... you can practice generosity with your wish to control them. Like I told this story, I think, in the book Being Upright, of these people who are driving down a highway and the highway was covered with frogs. And these people were Native American people. And one was a grandpa and one was a grandson, I think. And the grandpa said to the... to the driver of the car, stop the car. We don't want to run over the frogs. And the grandson says, yeah, but if we stop the car, these frogs are going to be crossing this road all night, you know?

[38:51]

And the grandfather says, yeah. They're going to be crossing the road all night and we're going to be sitting here all night. So sometimes being compassionate could be kind of like meaning that you have to give up where you're going. Like you can't go down this... You have to wait until all the frogs cross the road. That does happen. If you have a road next to a river and it's raining, there's often a lot of tremendous frog traffic. The road's covered with frogs and you cannot... You could walk, but you couldn't drive a car, probably. Because there's so many, you know, there's not a space for the type. So you had to wait, probably, in most cases. Unless you have a jumping car, and you can jump over the frogs. The point is, our job is to be compassionate to frogs. to do deeds of compassion towards frogs.

[39:55]

And sometimes we might be afraid that if we do this, we'll never get down the road. Personal pain, you know, not of spending the rest of our life on this road. Being afraid of that. But the frogs, their life is our life. Those frogs are our life. When we see that, then we're not afraid of spending the night sitting on the road. even though it may be kind of troublesome and uncomfortable to some extent to be sitting there on the road all night with the frogs. That's what bodhisattvas aspire to. And if they don't do it, they confess it. They say, I did not wait for the frogs to cross. I kept driving and I think I ran over quite a few frogs and I'm really sorry. I'm sorry.

[40:56]

I do not ever want to do that again. And, you know, maybe next time I'm not going to go driving down that road when it's raining, because it probably will be frogs. But I can walk down the road if everybody walked to me. But that night, I did not wait for the frogs because they weren't going to stop, and I just could not be inconvenienced. So I just kept going, and I'm really sorry. And what we chant at the beginning here is by revealing and disclosing our lack of patience and generosity towards frogs, by confessing it and saying we're sorry, we mount away the root of transgressing against frogs, of not being kind towards frogs. And some people, we're also... sometimes not trying to, or we just can't be inconvenienced anymore about them.

[41:58]

We have to move on. We come to the end of our patience with them. And at that point, we're sorry. And in this way, we will someday have no end of patience. But of course, this is an ongoing challenge. And the key factor, which I'll keep going into more detail, is to practice these generosity, ethics, patience, diligence, and concentration, but also keep looking at the teaching that everybody is who you are. And look at the practice, which is the practice of this pivoting between self and other, to keep studying that. And watching that until you can see, that then will make all these practices natural.

[43:01]

Until then, we have to remember to do them and remember to listen to these teachings. Did you have another comment? No, it's okay. It's okay? Yes. When you're talking about the frog and the grandfather, for this, for not to go further, it's like a mind that is totally present, which doesn't need to go anywhere. But what about our minds that constantly wants to go somewhere? Yeah. Also, in this story, we got the grandfather who's willing to stay there all night. Yeah. And we got the grandson who is not mature enough. He wants to go someplace. But he has his grandfather. I don't know what the conclusion of that story was. I don't know if the grandfather says, oh, is there something else I can do for you while we're waiting? You know, would you, my dear grandson, be willing to do me the favor of sitting in a car with me? Or maybe the grandfather could say, if you want to, you can go ahead.

[44:07]

You know, I'll stay with the car. And you can go ahead and carefully step over the car over the frogs, you can go ahead. If you've got to get someplace, go ahead. I'll stay here and keep this car from running over the vehicles. So you go ahead. And Suzuki Rishi said that one time, you know that famous story? If I'm walking too slowly, please go ahead. So sometimes we let the people who've got to get somewhere go there. But we also show them an example of, well, I'm walking slowly and carefully, but if I run into a huge number of frogs, I'm going to even slow down more. If you need to go ahead, go ahead. But then the person does go ahead, but they know that their grandmother or their grandfather is back there walking slowly and carefully.

[45:12]

And maybe later they will be able to do that practice themselves. Because we are trying to get somewhere, but the place we're trying to get is where we already truly are. We already truly are the center of the universe. We already are the person who is really everybody else. We're already there. We do want to realize that. And we practice stillness in order to realize it. I think... What I'd like to warn you about is that, and I'll do it again before I do this, but there is this practice of looking at the situation of the pivotal activity, to look at the situation of how we're pivoting with all other beings, to meditate on this and discuss the situation, the situation in which we will see and become free of fear.

[46:15]

I'm telling you that Before I get into that, the reason for doing this is so you can do bodhisattva work, which is very simple. Don't run over frogs just to get someplace on time. You know, that kind of stuff. It's very simple. But in order to do that, we sometimes need wisdom. And the wisdom is to look at this strange situation of how we... think other people are separate from us, how we think they're not us, whereas actually they are us. So looking at that is not just an intellectual exercise, it is an intellectual exercise to free us from fear or personal pain so that we can not kill frogs and grizzly bears and people when they're inconvenient. Okay? And before I get into this, I'll remind you of this again, that this is not just a... intellectual exercise, it's an intellectual exercise to realize Buddha's essential or pivotal activity to realize Buddha's wisdom.

[47:25]

We need that wisdom to do this simple bodhisattva practices in unhindered, unsticking way. So I'll get into some of the stickiness and try to point out, and when I say I get into it, I mean, this is what I'm going to be working on with you. to get into the places where we stick and to see what the stickiness is doing, how the stickiness is related to our view of others. But this isn't just to do that, it's to do that so that we can make Buddhas. Yeah. So, until I have that vision of self-love or feeling, if a grizzly shows up, fear is going to show up. Yeah. Yeah. And on my face, listen to this, oh, fear bad. Yeah, but I'm just telling you, I told you already, when fear comes, that's a being to be compassionate to. And that one, and I think, although you might not yet be ready to meet certain beings without being afraid, you might be able to meet your fear.

[48:36]

Because fear, in some ways, Sometimes you think, well, yeah, I can't not be afraid of that, but I can be kind to my fear. To say fear, it's a human response. Yeah, it's a human response. And I feel compassion towards this human response. And because of this human response, I'm having a little trouble being compassionate towards what I think caused it. That's the next step. So I don't have to control the fear. I might think I need to control myself. Yeah, you say you don't have to control the fear, and I'm suggesting, well, you can't control it. And I'm also suggesting you can't control yourself. And you can't control yourself into being someone who doesn't want to control herself. So here I am, someone who wants to control himself, and I can't stop myself from being that way. We have so many opportunities to be kind.

[49:46]

It's amazing. So when I try to control myself, I can say, hello, sweetheart, you're trying to control yourself. Great. Great, not good or bad, it's just great. Yes? It's just, Don, you know, with all this talk about the bear, we haven't really talked about the fact that bears are slightly afraid to, you know, in one way... You didn't hear me say it, but I did say the bear. I did talk about the bear being afraid. I'm saying to you that grizzly bears, where humans are not normally, they don't have much background of eating humans. They mostly attack humans when they're afraid. And if you see a grizzly bear and you run at him, You'll frighten them. And also, if you get between a mature grizzly bear and their cubs, they're afraid you're going to hurt their cubs.

[50:51]

That's very difficult for them not to be afraid of that, no matter what you do. I didn't hear you say that. Huh? I didn't hear you say that. Grizzlies... There are some grizzlies who are, you know, like there's a movie called The Grizzly Man, and... The grizzlies were hungry, and just somehow he hung out with them for a long time, for years. He hung out close to the grizzly bears, and they didn't bother him. But then it just occurred, one of them thought, well, maybe actually, maybe he would be food. But that was like an evolutionary breakthrough. The grizzly bear realized, oh, humans could be eaten. But usually when they attack, I think it's because they're afraid. Those grizzly bears actually ate the people. But these other cases, they kill them, but they often leave the body. They're not eating them for food. They're eating them out of fear.

[51:52]

Bears are not human eaters so far. If we found out there were bears like that, that would be a really difficult situation. But when they're afraid, they don't become human eaters, they become human killers. And they may or may not, after they kill the human, they may or may not eat them. Depends on other conditions. But we're afraid of them, most of us, and we have that to work with. And we're afraid of each other, most of us, so we have that to work with. If we work with the opportunities we have with each other, more thoroughly, we'll be more ready to meet grizzly pairs. If we don't notice that we're afraid of each other, we're missing out on a great opportunity. Because we are afraid of each other. Until we have perfect wisdom, we are afraid of each other. Because until we have perfect wisdom, we think other people are not us.

[53:03]

Which is incorrect, according to the Dharma. that I'm offering you. You are me. I am you. You pervade me. I pervade you. And that's difficult to understand that, but that's what I will be trying to talk to you about until everybody understands, including me. But it's for a good cause, so please be patient.

[53:32]

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