I also asked for questions, and I got some in the mail. And if you send some to Donald, he left town with them, so. Did anybody send any to Donald? No, okay. Two people asked, well, one question that appeared twice was sort of how to continue this, what you've got started on here, that having a weekly session where you get together with a group to sit And then if the group doesn't keep meeting, some people are concerned that would they be able to continue their practice. And I have some comments about that. Am I speaking loudly enough? No. I have some comments about how to continue what you started here. So now you have this class and... you may sense some commitment to come here, and so you did.

[01:03]

Now the class is over, no definite commitment has been made by you that I know of. So since there isn't a program being offered to you, I suggest you, as soon as possible, maybe even tonight or tomorrow, you think about how much sitting and walking and standing meditation you want to do. How much do you want to do? A week. And it should be how much you want to do, not so much how much you should do. Because you know you should do a certain amount, right? But how much do you want to do? It should be based on your you know, your love of the practice rather than some sense of obligation, I think. And then once you think of how much you like to, then you might think of how much is practical.

[02:06]

Sometimes you might like to do more than is practical. And think about what time of day is practical. You might even like to do it at some time it's impractical. So with a combination of practicality and your desire for sitting, try to figure out a reasonable... Then think about making a commitment. You might just say, well, I'm going to sit Tuesday nights at 7 o'clock for half an hour. That's fine. Then every day you'll have to remember whether it's Tuesday or not. And probably every night at 7 o'clock you'll think of meditation. So just pick a time. And then I would also suggest you decide how long you want to sit and where you're going to sit. Since there's no definite structure, you should make a definite structure to support you in a world that's not sending you a notification of when you should sit.

[03:21]

You have to set it up for yourself. And I would also suggest that you make a commitment for a limited period of time. Don't just say, well, I'm going to sit twice a week indefinitely, say I'm going to sit twice a week for half an hour or ten minutes or whatever it is or five times a week for twenty minutes or whatever it is at 7.30 in the morning Monday through Friday and I'm going to do that for two months I would say make it a maximum make a program a maximum of three months it's good to do things in seasons rather than sort of like just off into the future indefinitely. Because then things change and your practice will change and you'll kind of dribble off into oblivion. You won't even notice it necessarily. But if you make it a definite amount of time, even if it dribbles off during that time, at the end of the time you'll probably remember

[04:25]

The three months is up, and I didn't follow through, or I did follow through. Then after the end of the three months, or two months, whatever you say, I would suggest make it more than a month, a month or more, and less than three, somewhere in there. Then at the end of that time, stop. Consider what happened. Were you able to do what you set out to do, pretty much? If so, do you want to do it again? Maybe so. Do you want to change it? Make it more rigorous? Easier? What? And then make another commitment for another period of time. And just keep doing that as long as you want to. But that's one way to give yourself support, by recognizing that in a swirling, changing world, again, society is not set up to remind you to do this. And so you have to do that, unless you have made some commitment, like to a class. or moved into a community or something for a certain period of training.

[05:28]

Do you have any questions about that? Yes. It's something that brought to mind. During the first class, you said you had a different kind of walking that could be done on the street. I wonder if before the end of class it could be done. OK. Yeah. If you travel, well then I would say, so you say you're going to meditate a certain time and you're traveling so you can't. So when you see the traveling come, think about what kind of commitment you'd make on your traveling. Decide beforehand if you can. And then even if you don't follow through, it's still useful. to see how you decide to do something and what happens. Yes.

[06:40]

Yes. That's another question that people asked, in a sense. People asked about, what about a teacher in Zen? There's lots of different ways to have a teacher. One way to have a teacher is just a person that you tell what your intention is. You could have someone who you keep informed about your meditation practice. So if you wanted to tell me, to drop me a letter or tell me verbally that you're going to do such and such, I'll listen to that and you know that I heard that. So you made a commitment to someone else, or not to me, but I heard you say it," and that'll probably make it, it'll probably be helpful. Or to some other friend that you just tell you're going to do that. And it usually is helpful. So that's fine, yes. Quite a few people actually around the country who are far away from Zen Center do that with me.

[07:43]

They send me letters telling me what they're doing at their practice. And I also brought some information about Green Gulch, about the kind of weekly schedule of events that you can come to any of those events on this white piece of paper, basically without any reservation or anything. And there's also information about how to stay at Green Gulch overnight or things like that. And there's also a brochure that comes out every quarter which tells you all kinds of other events. But right now is sort of the end of a quarter, so I didn't bring the old ones. The new ones will be out pretty soon, so you can just contact Green Gulch if you want to find out what's going on there. Then there's also the City Center in San Francisco. You can just call there. They'll send you information. And, of course, there's a Berkeley Zen Center, too. So all these places have programs that you can participate in whenever you want.

[08:47]

on a drop-in basis. And then they have also programs that you can sort of sign up for and stay overnight for and things like that. Yes? If I use my practice in my own network, Would you say that again please? Well, that's actually what, in a sense, Yes, it's fine, but what I recommend, if it's going to be Zen meditation, which is maybe a little bit different from some other forms of therapy, is that rather than sitting down and like saying, well, I'm going to think about this, I'm going to think about my relationship with my uncle during this period, it's okay to do that, but what I recommend is even

[10:07]

not better necessarily, but as a complement to that approach, is just sit and see if your relationship with your uncle comes up. So the thing I maybe, the quote I mentioned to you is Thoreau says, all you have to do is sit long enough in an attractive spot in the forest for all the inhabitants to present themselves to you in turn. So if you sit there, all your worms will crawl in front of you. But if you just sit there and let them come in front of you, then you don't have to worry about the fact that you select it. Because if you select, you'll tend to select what you'd like to look at. Whereas if you just sit and pay attention to what's happening to you, what your body and mind wants you to look at will be presented to you. In other words, if you just sit still, you'll have revelation. If you actually direct yourself towards something on your own, that's okay, but it's very limited.

[11:17]

Like if you go to see a therapist and you sit down and you say, I want to talk about this, they let you do it. But then they often say something which you didn't expect them to say because they have another point of view, which part of the reason why you go there is to see what is, you know, to get some reflection. which is still good to do. So I'm not discouraging you from sitting down and opening a can of worms, but I would recommend that you have a space where you sit down and you just sit there and you see what kind of worms come up. Well, that's fine, sort of half and half. Halfway through the session? What does suck it up mean?

[12:43]

Back where? DBZ? Oh. I... By loose doing, I find there's some purpose behind meditation as well. I mean, I always remember the expression that I kept receiving was, you're supposed to, ideally, keep your mind blank. No. I would not say you should keep your mind blank. To keep your mind blank is not right, and to just intentionally think is not right. In some sense, if you just sit there and some problem comes up, in some sense you can trust that there's something, there's a reason why this problem's coming up. Okay? So meditation is not that you're supposed to be programming yourself for blankness or programming yourself for worms.

[13:51]

Okay? You just sit there and you trust that to some extent, you know, again, you don't have to be rigid about this either, try to control yourself. But there's music, you know, there's music playing, so unless this drives you nuts, just let us sit there and listen to it. Now there's a telephone ringing. Okay? Some places you go, there's no telephones or music ringing. Okay? If thoughts of anger come up, basically, what I said at the beginning of this class is, practice friendliness. Practice friendliness with the worms. Practice friendliness with the anger. Practice friendliness with the greed. But friendliness with greed doesn't mean that you necessarily indulge in it. You just basically be friendly. Kind of like, well, how are you today? With greed, hate, and delusion. Or whatever kind of worm or rat comes. And simultaneously be friendly with your experience of your body.

[14:58]

And friendliness, you know, I read this thing a couple of times called Lysis, a dialogue with Socrates. The topic of the dialogue was to try to find out what friendliness was or what friendship was. And then somebody says, well, maybe this is friendship. And they talk about that. It turns out that that didn't make sense, that that was friendship. And then they talk about, well, maybe this is friendship. And every possible thing that they brought up about what friendship was, as they discussed it, Nothing really held up. And then I was looking at a book recently, which was about love, and the author says that one of the interesting things about love is that the people who are considered to be experts, like poets, the things that they say about love are extremely diametrically opposed. Some people say love is excruciating misery. Some people say love is great bliss.

[16:02]

People say all these things about love, which maybe gives you some idea that really, maybe you can't really put it in a box and say what it is. So friendliness, I say be friendly, but I'm also not saying what friendliness is. You have many ideas of what friendliness is. It has something to do probably with paying attention to the thing you're being friendly with. but not necessarily breathing down its throat, so to speak. Friendliness has something to do with being concerned, but not necessarily suffocating the friend, the thing you're being friendly towards. Something to do with keeping in touch without being too oppressive. Something in that range of respecting the person. I'm not saying, I'm not jumping to, respect, by the way, means to look again. So respect is part of friendship, maybe. So you can say a lot of things about friendship, but I would say basically be friendly to what comes up to you while you're sitting. And what comes up to you is your body, your breath, and your thoughts and emotions. So I would say while you sit, try to be still and quiet, and then be friendly to whatever comes up.

[17:11]

I think I hear what you're saying here. Okay. Yes. Yeah. So in some sense, be friendly to the person named Howard who wants to do that. Howard wants to use his sitting time to work on something. Be friendly to him. Let him do it. That's what he wants to do? I'll be friendly to you. I'll let you do it. You can let yourself do it too. If that's all you ever do, then I wouldn't say you're missing the point.

[18:14]

If you're climbing a mountain, you're not necessarily missing the point that you haven't got to the top yet. But that doesn't mean you've learned all you can about the mountain. Even if you got to the top, it doesn't mean you've missed the point. But it still doesn't mean you've learned all about the mountain because you can approach the top from many directions. So I would just say, I don't feel like you've missed the point of meditation. I just think that there's more you can learn, and particularly you can learn more about what it's like when you sit with no agenda. when you sit with no gaining idea. You can maybe learn more about that. But it doesn't mean what you're doing is a waste of time or you're missing the point. And in particular, like I told you last time, do the practice of, you know... The meditation practice isn't so much that you should be thinking about this or that, but that whatever you're thinking about, you should be thorough. that somehow you should learn how to think really thoroughly or you could say to not be lazy the way you think or to not be lazy about the way you experience things well

[19:35]

For example, if I look at Betsy, okay, and I say I look at Betsy, but if I look over there and what I think is really happening in this world is Betsy, it's a kind of laziness that I sort of like, or I sit here and I think that I'm what's happening. That's another kind of laziness. I mean, a lot's going on here, folks, as you may know. A lot's happening. A lot. And to sort of like shortchange what's happening and call it me or you is a kind of laziness. It's not really being thorough. If you look more carefully and think about it more thoroughly, you won't be able to figure out who that is or who this is. Just like if you look at anger or you look at friendliness, if you really study it and discuss it with yourself or others, you'll never really get a hold of what it is. So in that story, in that case of Socrates, his dialogue and his discussion about what friendliness was, was a demonstration of his unlaziness.

[20:40]

And after I read it, I didn't know anything more about what friendship was, but I really felt like Socrates loved those boys. And he was just totally friendly and enthusiastic in his conversation, having a good time, really enjoying interacting with people about this issue. it was an example of being unlazy in his thought. And generally speaking, when you're unlazy about what's going on, you don't come up with anything. As you're unlazy, you enter into the total dynamic situation. So, when you're sitting and you hear or see or smell or touch or think, whatever, to be fully engaged and fully mindful of all that's going on is possible. And whatever's going on is a, what he called, a reasonable thing to be studying. I say enlightenment is an equal opportunity employer.

[21:45]

Any event could be an awakening experience if you thoroughly study it. And also even the most wonderful opportunity, the most beautiful sunrise or sunset, the most devastating piece of pain or frustration or shock, all these things are not any better or worse than just some ordinary experience if it's thoroughly engaged in, thoroughly studied. The thing that's important is the thoroughness. Thoroughness can convert any experience into liberation. So your thoroughness with whatever is happening to you when you're sitting will be the point, not the content. Now, this takes me to answer a question that was asked by somebody, and I'll read this, okay? It relates to this. So he's kind of like saying, he's kind of rephrasing what I said in a way.

[22:53]

He said, when I realize that my thought process supports the illusion, and in parentheses, delusion, that we're separate, although I cannot escape from this thought process, I can realize it's delusional. Okay? So there I would make a slight comment. He said, When I realize that my thought process supports illusion or creates illusion, that we're all separate, the illusion that we're separate is an illusion. It's an illusion that we're separate. It's a delusion when you think that's true. So the delusion is not just... I mean, just like, for example, you can close your eyes and press on your eyelids and create an illusion. You can also maybe take some drugs and have an illusion. But while you're having the illusion and the room's spinning around, you can realize, well, that's just an illusion.

[23:55]

And then when it stops spinning around and seems to be like this again, you can say, well, this is an illusion too. You can look at people and feel like they're separate, and sometimes you can look at people and realize that they're not separate. You could even have an illusion that they're not separate. But to believe in that separation, or even to believe in the union to make our unitedness into unity, Something that's fixed. That's delusion. Delusion is when you hold the thing, hold the illusion. In the swirling world of illusions, you're sort of like, that's Linda and that's it. And I really think that's true. That's delusion. So he said, although I cannot escape this process, I can realize it's delusional. You can realize both. You can realize that it's illusional. Part of it's illusional. Like if you go to the movies and you watch some illusion, you can say, that's an illusion.

[25:01]

If you think it's real, like when you go to the movies, sometimes for a little while you think it's real, right? And sometimes you say, it's just a movie. And sometimes, I've talked to people, I had a conversation with somebody one time and I said, if I believed what I was thinking of you right now, it would be very bad. mean she was doing something and i was thinking she was something but i was telling myself don't believe this what you're thinking of her because if i believed i was on the verge of believing if i was going to believe this i would have got really angry at her because i thought she was a monster i thought she was like a heavy duty witch i mean i was really and i said to her if If I believed what I thought you were right now, boy, I would really freak out. But I don't believe it. I'm just thinking this about you. And now you're jumping up and down more to make me think this more, I suppose.

[26:06]

But anyway, I'm just thinking this. I don't believe it. I do not believe it. Like I just heard, I was talking to somebody earlier today. This person is a food critic, sort of. He writes a food column for certain people. certain magazines. He's a noted author. And he told me he was at Tassajara recently, and he and his partner were looking at the spread of food which is being served to the students, and he's looking at it, they're both looking at it, thinking, how delicious it looked. I mean, and he went and told me some detail about all these delicious vegetarian goodies that were laid out for the students. And then one of the people who's there for the summer came up and said something like, this food is so disgusting. They should feed these kids better food. It's really crappy, leftover this, leftover that. And the other person said, yeah, but it tastes good, smells good. I eat leftovers at home, don't you? What's the reality?

[27:10]

One person looks at this thing, says it's a feast. The other person thinks it's hogwash. I'm not saying which is real. I'm just saying both people saw two different things. If you just had certain kinds of illnesses and you look at food too, you feel really sick or really happy, depending, you know. Some people look at the river and think it's a flowing body of water. Other people think it's a palace. Other people think it's an ocean of pus and blood. Other people think it's fire. Other people think it's a jeweled field. It's not that one's right. It's just that that's the way it looks to different people. Some people look at certain people and think that they're just like they want to gobble them up. Other people feel really sick. Some people watch some people embrace each other and say, how can she touch him? Other people say, how could she reject him?

[28:13]

What we see is just illusion. Now, to believe that is delusion. So, you can't escape from the process as it's happening, but if you study it, you can realize what it is. And when you realize what it is, I'll read the rest of this. Okay, so this is where my question comes up, he says. Are you saying that the thought process itself is delusional? The thought process itself is at least illusional, creates illusions. It doesn't necessarily have to be delusional. The illusional part is one part. That's one part. But there's another part, which is the part which says that what's happening is real. Those are two different aspects of the thought process. Those are separate thought processes. As long as you keep them separate, you can go right ahead and dream up a world. Have a ball. See people. Look at them smiling. Look at them crying. Look at people being born and dying. This is a thought process. The other part is to say that this stuff inherently exists.

[29:17]

When those are separate, this is called release from suffering and bliss. When they overlap or get confused, it's unmitigated misery. because you put this inherently exist, this independent existence onto the illusions. You choke them. If you watch deer, as I maybe mentioned, look at deer behave. You know, the males run after the females, the females run away from the males, the males run into each other. They got horns, especially built so they can run into each other. Boom, boom, and push back and forth. They do that with each other. But they don't think, that guy inherently exists separate from me. When we, however, think that, we look at them and we think they're thinking that. We project them believing that they're separate. They don't think that way. If somebody who doesn't believe it tells us what they see, we'll project our belief in it on them, and we'll say that they will make their realization that this doesn't hold into another special thing.

[30:21]

And then he says, sir, are you saying that thought process itself is delusional? No. It's illusional, and the belief in the reality of the thought process is delusional. Or that it leads to delusion? It sometimes does, it sometimes doesn't. There's always the delusion side and the illusion side. They coexist, and they're separate. I won't say they're separate. I'll say when they're separate, you're happy. When they're overlapping, you're sad. It's up to you which world you're going to live in. Because if the thought process itself is delusional, then observation seems meaningless unless the observation is not of thought. Now, aside from whether observation is not of thought, If you observe this process of delusion and or illusion, if you observe it, you will be able to realize, not see, because you have to totally join it, you will be able to see that they're separate.

[31:29]

Observation of the process of illusion will show you that when illusion is completely illusion, it transcends illusion. And therefore, delusion won't hold to that. Delusion can only exist in lazy thinking about illusion. If you watch illusion to the end of it, it jumps off itself into vast, unhindered freedom. And even delusion will also, if thoroughly studied, transcend itself. Everything by nature transcends itself ultimately. Observing at first is you observing it, but as the observation becomes more and more intense, you're not separate from what you're watching and you join the process of things becoming liberated.

[32:34]

Illusion becomes liberated from illusion. Delusion becomes liberated from delusion. So observation doesn't even need to be meaningful. It just is liberating. And so the content of the Buddha's subtle discriminating wisdom, the content of wisdom, is delusion. There's no need of being wise except to cope with life. Wisdom is the way of coping with life that makes it possible to embrace it in whatever form it appears. In other words, illusion is the vision that allows you to be compassionate to yourself and others. You no longer have to, like, not hug sewer rats. Doesn't mean you have to hug them either. You can do whatever you want with them. So this guy, I was just listening to this guy today who was the only surgeon in, what's the name of that town in Rwanda, the main big city?

[33:38]

Yeah, he was the only surgeon in Kigali. And, you know, this guy was a pretty good bodhisattva. Pretty matter of fact, he said, well, we had to draw some limits. You know, had to, for example, for a while there we were operating at night. like into 3 in the morning, but then the next day 50 more people would come, so we'd be totally out of it. So if you work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, after a little while you'll collapse and they'll ship you back to America. Maybe that's not so bad, but you might get killed in the process, and also you might hurt somebody anyway. So they decided to draw a limit and not operate at night. That's the limit they drew. But, you know, when you're volunteering your time in a situation like that, you can be kind of cold-hearted. So he said, rather than think about all the people we weren't saving, we concentrated on the people we were saving.

[34:47]

Now, you can look over in the corner and see the kid who's been injured so badly that you cannot help her. Anyway, or the chances of helping her are very small. And spend all your time maybe not being able to help her. Or you can help somebody that you have a fairly good chance of helping. You have to decide. Deciding is delusion. Being sure that this is the right thing or that's the wrong thing, that's more delusion. You just have to make a decision of who you're going to operate on. And he had to make those decisions. If you think there's some reality in a situation of your perceptions, it's just going to make it all the harder to make your decision. And you'll probably be paralyzed in a situation like that because, I mean, if it's really better one way or another, then you're pretty much done for.

[35:57]

if that's really the case. But there is no such thing as that. It's always just making human decisions and living with them and being willing to continue living with them. So... Now, do you have more questions, Ron? Did I address your question or do you understand now? Pretty well? I don't think I quite understand. The part that perceives the world is subject to being misguided. believing that it's real by the other part that observes... Right. One part is perceiving the world coming up with illusion after illusion.

[37:01]

The other part is the part which says this exists or doesn't exist. That other part, the substantiating aspect of the mind. And that capacity of our mind... to think that way is also basically intact and always be there. What you have to do is, if you want to be happy, you have to realize that these two sides of the mind are actually separate. Not actually separate. Again, I don't want to say they're actually separate because it's not unreal when they overlap. It's just that when they overlap, That's misery. That's birth and death forever. And the other one is liberation from birth and death. I won't say that one's real and the other one's not real, because that would be more substantiation. I'll just say that when they overlap, you're miserable. And when they don't overlap, that's bliss.

[38:02]

the process of perception, which is creating illusions of what's going on, is going on all the time. You can't really stop that once you get in a human body that doesn't have brain damage. And the other thing also basically comes with being a human being too, the substantiating side. But when they're separate, or the separateness of them is liberation. That's mastery of the mind. And it isn't that you get in there and surgically separate the two. It's just that, in fact, They can be seen as separate, they can be realized as separate, and as liberation from the world where they're overlapping. See, it's merely the recognition that nothing is fixed, nothing is like a rock. That is liberation, understanding that in every aspect of life. I'm not saying that, but that's another way to put it, is that if you observe your perceptual process without overlaying on it that things exist, if you could somehow put that aside, or that could be put aside, then if you do look at things, you will notice that things are all sort of like helping each other, and that nothing does exist by itself.

[39:15]

You'll notice, for example, that everybody's helping you live, and that everybody else is helping everybody else live. You start seeing things that way, and pretty soon you realize that the infinity of your context so that you yourself again the only way you can come up with you yourself into you know is by being devised by being lazy and not noticing how everything's supporting you one more point of clarity we said that everything It transcends itself. Did you mean everything eventually transcends itself? Do you mean everything eventually changes the form that it is? No. That's true, too, that everything changes. That's one thing, that things change. But even while they're temporarily existing, they transcend themselves in their... For example, I said ultimately that everything transcends or is liberated, but that in the ultimateness of their context, things are on the spot, spontaneously liberated. Things changing is another matter.

[40:17]

That's also important, to see that things change. But seeing that things change is not enough. Seeing things change is the mind which wants to liberate all beings from suffering because change is suffering from the human point of view. But to enter into and experience the change, to throw yourself into the change, is quite nice we want to do that that's going back to the river somehow i feel like i need to get into some practical example which is not exactly an example of this necessarily it's an example of something and i think it's practical so here's these two kinds of examples one is abortions Another one is like, what do you call it, assisted death, right? Two current topics that are hot in America. So the way I feel is if somebody comes to me and asks me, if some pregnant person comes to me and says, what should I do?

[41:29]

I think maybe I'm thinking of having an abortion. I usually say, so far I've said every time, I've said, We'll just have the baby, and if you don't want it when you're done, give it to me. I'll take care of it. And if later you want it back, I'll give it to you. I've said that every time they've come to ask. Now, some people say, and I take a different approach, they say, people who want to have abortions should not be allowed to do so. Now, I say... I don't say don't have the abortion exactly. I sort of say don't have the abortion. I say don't have the abortion, have the baby, and give it to me. But what I do not say is I do not think that there should be legislation which stops somebody from doing that, because when you make legislation, then the person's far away from you. I feel if you're going to stop somebody from doing that, then you should... Now, if you're going to stop them, in other words, you're going to stop them, and then they're going to have the baby, then I think the thing that would follow from that would be that you would take care of the baby.

[42:37]

But a lot of the people I've seen who want to stop people from having babies, they also don't want to help the person after they have the baby. It's funny those two things go together. Or as I say, if you want them to not have the baby, then you should be willing to take care of the baby, not by yourself, not by yourself. But you should be willing to take responsibility for the baby. Now, if I'm willing to take responsibility for the baby, the reason why I'm willing to do that is because I know that I won't have to take care of the baby by myself. Just like this person who I'm telling that I'll take care of the baby, then she knows she does not take care of the baby by herself because I said I would if she doesn't want to. But once she knows that I'll help her, then she maybe realizes that she wants to and she has more resources than she thought because now I'm willing to do all of it for her. But I'm not really willing to do it all of it for her because I know I won't have to because I know people will come and help me when they see me fumbling with this baby. They'll say, no, no, not like that, like this. And I say, oh, really? And help will come. But I have to take, I have to say, I will take care of it.

[43:40]

Give it to me. I'll take responsibility. The reason why I dare to say that is... The reason why I want to say it is because usually the people come to see me, if they're going to have a baby, I like their baby. One couple came to see me, a very healthy couple. They were pregnant. But they were doing humanitarian work. And they were, like, totally up to their eyeballs in taking care of... Guess what? Protecting life. That's what their business was, protecting life, protecting beings from harm. And they were becoming very successful and it was overwhelmingly successful and busy. They felt like it just wasn't the right time to have a baby. I said, okay, give me the baby. You know, you're great people. This is going to be a great baby. Give it to me. And if you want it back when you're not so busy, I'll give it to you. So they went out and they decided to have the baby, but they had an abortion. I mean, they had a miscarriage. And then as soon as they had a miscarriage, they got pregnant again and had the baby.

[44:42]

They wanted the baby. All they needed me to do is say, I'll take it. Give it to me. And then the next baby they had, it was just as great as the first one would probably have been, just a wonderful kid. And so there it is. But anyway, I feel the same with assisted death. I say, don't kill yourself. I mean, don't kill yourself means don't do something to yourself so that you'll die. If you want, I say to anybody, including you people, if you people want to die, fine. That's your business. I'll let you. Just stop breathing if you really want to die. I'm not going to stop you. But if you do something to yourself to mutilate yourself so that you can die, I say don't do that. But if I, again, if I say to somebody that they can't kill themselves, then I should be willing to stay with the person and suffer with them. Again, to separate myself and tell them, go suffer by yourself. you know with aids in some room if I say don't kill yourself then I should be able to sit there with them and suffer with them day after day that's why legislation I think is no good because then you can set you can have a person at a distance you can say they're over there by themselves all cut off then you can't tell them to suffer but if you hold their hand and you let your life potentially be changed

[46:04]

by their suffering, then I think you can say, hang in there. But you only need legislation when the people are way far away. If they're up close, you can tell them face to face, I do not want you to kill yourself. But I actually tell, I would tell somebody, I don't want you to kill yourself, but I don't tell anybody to keep breathing. If anybody really just doesn't want to breathe anymore, it's okay, unless I want to get something special out of them. And then I have just an attachment to them doing something more with their lives. But it's not that I feel like they don't have the right to decide to stop breathing. What I don't like is, like, mutilate yourself, put yourself in a more extreme situation so that then you'll decide to die. I wouldn't go for that. But especially... No, anyway, the thing is, if you're willing to stay with the person, that shows that you understand... that life is valuable over there, but it's also so valuable that you're willing to suffer, and you have the resources to support you to suffer with them.

[47:08]

When you have wisdom, you can embrace situations like that, because you realize that right now you are being supported. For whatever way you live, you're being supported. And no matter how you decide to live, no matter how many people, how many babies you're taking care of, you will continue to be supported. And in fact, you might not have to take care of any babies or stop anybody from dying. In fact, you won't have to do anything necessarily if you just understand that. Because as soon as you tell it to somebody, they go decide, they feel, oh, suddenly they feel connected with that vision. of being supported, and they don't feel cut off anymore, and then they go ahead and have the baby very nicely. Now, it turns out in some cases I did have to bring quite a few breakfasts to certain people who had babies under these circumstances. I actually did have to do some work, and my daughter helped me, and my wife didn't. She said, it's okay for me to say this to people, but she said, you have to take care of them. I'm not taking care of them. But again, I know what would happen if they actually did move in.

[48:18]

She would eventually start snooping around. And she'd say, you should bathe that baby more often. You forgot to wipe that place over there. At least, I would recall it like, she'd at least be an advisor. And then I'd say, well, if you're going to keep giving me all this advice, you do it. Then she could shut up or put up. This is, this is, but this is not compassion like doing somebody some favor. You know, this is just simply, you feel, you feel supported by all things when you see another being Naturally, they support you too. And you also see them supported. So if somebody feels like they can't go on, you don't fall for that because you see how everybody isn't anything by themselves.

[49:24]

Because nobody really is there, if you're not lazy thinking, everybody has tremendous support. And because you have tremendous support is exactly the same as why you're not anything at all. Huh? The fact that the infinity of your context is why you're not anything at all. The fact that you have so much support that there's nothing there. Does that make sense to you? Yeah. Just like before, if I think about, okay, now I already have quite a bit of responsibility. That's who I am, right? I'm this thing. called so-and-so that has a certain capacity. That's what I am. I'm not something else. That's what I am. I'm that thing. That thing is what I am, and I'm that thing. That's a thing. It has limits, and those are real limits. Therefore, I can take care of six kids, and that's it. And also, when I say I can take care of six kids, I mean six kids, and I already know how I'm going to take care of the six kids.

[50:28]

So I add it up, and sure enough, I can only take care of six or one or a half. But as I start to meditate on how much comes to support me and make me, I realize that I'm not this thing which I thought I was. It's not that I have no limits. It's that my limits collapse in all that supports me. And then I have no limit on the number of kids I can take care of. And also, I can't take care of any kids. Because I don't do it by myself because I'm not even here. Because I'm not here, there's no limit to the number of kids I can say, give it to me. But if I'm a limited thing, then I can't take care of any kids, and certainly I can only take care of a limited number because a person by himself doesn't do anything. That's just, again, that's an illusion we have. And if you believe that, then it's a delusion. And then you're stuck in that limited person. And then when somebody wants to kill something, you say, I don't like it, but what can I say?

[51:31]

You want them to deal with it, and you can't participate because of the way you see is, I'm this, you're that, and that's it. Now you're my this and you're that. But I'm just this little thing, and I can only do a certain amount. How well does this hold up under torture, mutilation, and slaughter? Right? Just thinking, you mentioned Rwanda, then I was the thought of when the Chinese went in and emptied the monasteries in Tibet. Well, you know, this is big talk, but it holds up very well under torture. I'm on my mask? That's, that's, that is that you, you can be tortured and feel supported while you're being tortured and not get angry at the torturers. And that often converts the torturers. There's many stories of these people who were tortured and were able to, who had this vision and compassion while they were being tortured. And sometimes the torturers stopped and were converted. Sometimes they didn't notice. They were so drunk that they were chopping people's heads off. And they didn't even notice that some of the people who, while their heads were being chopped off, were just going, were letting it happen. Like, you know, this story's happened many, many times, you know, of the Buddhist monk and the soldier comes up and says, you know,

[52:38]

Do you realize that I have the authority and skill to cut you up in little pieces? And the monk says, do you realize I have the ability to let you cut me up in little pieces? And I mean sincere. And usually, oftentimes, guys in that situation sort of say, hmm, okay. They feel the authority of that. If you're just kidding, well, then you probably shouldn't say that. You probably should just say, well, I'm scared to death that you're going to cut me up in little pieces. That's who I am. That sometimes works, too. I'm totally scared you're going to cut me up in little pieces. And if you're actually, I say, if you're scared enough, if you're scared all the way to the end, then you'll be okay. Because everything in the universe supports you to be scared at that time, if that's really who you are. And that is the proposal, is that when you do this practice all the way to the end, you can be cut up in little pieces and not get angry at the person.

[53:41]

This is very advanced. This is a very deep wisdom. But this kind of wisdom makes it possible to love the person who is attacking you because you realize that what they're doing is actually demonstrating their connection to you. So if you're having a baby and you can't, and things don't work out, You accept that as the world supporting you, just in a rather unpleasant way. Exactly. Well, what's the difference between that? So that just then saves you from the agony, or it's a way of sort of bypassing... That's right. All it does is, it doesn't bypass, it liberates you. It just does it. It's just that you're in a miserable situation, and... And people whose ends do meet, who live in nice houses, they're also suffering. They suffer too. But if they do this practice, it also liberates them. It liberates whoever practices under whatever circumstances. There's absolutely no limit. It works for everybody under all circumstances.

[54:44]

Does Zen take this into, so to speak, transcendent realms? I think, for instance... This is a transcendent realm. Well, in specific terms. If you get in a transcendent realm, then you have to get transcended from that. So there's things called Zen sickness, which are a special kind of sickness which only happen to meditators, not just Zen meditators, meditators of any school. When you get good at meditation, you tend to camp out in your attainments. Like I was talking about before, you know, you get stuck in bliss. So there's special teachings for those who have gotten transcended certain kinds of misery and are now in basically a situation where all the problems they used to have are gone. Now they have a new problem. Now the problem they have is they're camping out in a sense of radiant bliss. But camping there is a spiritual illness. And that situation is impermanent. It's going to change. And if you camp out there and then they take away your campsite, you might not only go back to your old problems but be worse than you were before and start ranting and raving and storming around, being very furious, and go right to hell.

[55:57]

So it's very dangerous when you get into states of bliss if you hold them. If you're in a state like ordinary garden-variety human misery, People, you know, hold to that a little bit. But you put them in a higher state, they hold even tighter. Plus, these people have more concentration power, so they can hold tighter than an ordinary person with more energy. You're kind of living in an ordinary situation, like, you know, Well, maybe I'm not right. But you get yourself in a state of bliss by concentration. You can hold that tighter and it can really throw you. So you have to then have additional special training for people that get into states of liberation that are partial. And basically any state of liberation where you're holding in the slightest is not liberation.

[57:01]

And again, you have special teachings for those people. for people in transcended realms, not just people in high-quality realms, but in transcended realms. Because they have this... when you hold to it, it's called Zen sickness or meditation sickness. There's a scripture called the Surangama Sutra, which has fifty varieties of holding to liberation under certain different circumstances. But that's just, you know, like, actually just... really there's only five. and you can multiply infinitely. Yes? Yes? Yes? Yes.

[58:10]

Can you hear her? Could you hear what Pam said? Right. I'm not sure I can actually see you. Well, if you can't say it in a minute, then don't say it. Fine. And sometimes you might say it to a person. The main thing you want to do is you want to demonstrate, if you feel, I do feel a lot of support. I have a lot of support. And because I have a lot of support, I can dare to say it. Because I have it, because I know I'm supported by many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many people, I know that if I get a baby, people will help me. I know that. And if I'm wrong, sorry anyway now when you meet somebody who's coming to you saying i'm pregnant what should i do this is somebody who doesn't feel enough support

[59:19]

Okay? If she's got 19 nannies, you know, and three palaces, she's not going to be worried about having a baby unless she thinks there's something wrong with having a baby. Some people think one more person is too many. Other people think this baby, no matter who's taking care of this baby, this baby will be miserable. It'll be a miserable life for this baby. So in that case, even if you show her that as support, she may still think, even if I have support, I still don't want this baby to suffer. Again, I say that's like assisted death. Let the baby decide. When the baby comes in, starts to develop, if his lungs are bad and all that stuff, if it really feels that bad, it can check out any time it wants. The baby can decide, babies decide to die when things get rough, but some don't. And we know this little boy who was born with multiple, he wasn't like one of the regular syndromes, like Down syndrome or something, but he had all these birth defects, right, Jonathan. This baby had a really, really hard time.

[60:25]

The lungs didn't work, but nothing worked really, except he somehow stayed alive. And the reason why he stayed alive is because People loved him so much. That's the only reason. He couldn't even really eat, but he got so much love, I think he said, well, this is not that bad, actually. So he's decided to live now for eight years. But the trouble he's gone through, I mean, most kids would not put up with a hundredth of what he's gone through and would have checked out. Except kids that have that much love, he's gotten a tremendous amount of love Like he's gotten more love in these seven years than most kids get in now, most people get in several lifetimes. But he needs, that's how much you have to give a kid who's really sick in order for them to be willing to, it's a trade-off, it's a trade-off. Some people are sick but get a lot of love and they hang in there. Other people get a little bit sick and they say, I'm sick, nobody loves me, this is no fun.

[61:29]

They check out. It's basically how much fun you're having. And if it's, if it's, if everybody has a hard time, but there's not, and love's the thing that mainly, mainly keeps us going. And love is a support. If you don't feel support, then, you know, if you don't feel support and you're, and you're, you know, sitting in a green field and the winds just change that temperature like this, it was hot in here and the wood breeze was slightly cooler coming. At moments like that, even if nobody loves me, okay, you know. But it isn't like that all the time. For some people, a little bit of irritation is just enough to put them over the edge because they feel no support. If you feel support, share it with the person. And then if somebody says, this baby's going to have Down syndrome or whatever, you can say, look, let the baby decide. Let's give it as much love as we can and see if the baby doesn't want to live. But Down syndrome babies are very loving, aren't they? And usually they do want to keep living, and they live sometimes to be 40 years old or whatever, right?

[62:34]

Even though they have all these problems, they decide to keep going because since they're so loving, they often get love. Now, if Down syndrome kids were, you know, had character disorders or were psychopathic on top of everything else, then they might not get a love, and they probably wouldn't live very long. And there are probably creatures who, you know, who have that combination. But then they probably don't, you know, they don't live very long because they don't get enough support. And if they have hassles and not much support, then they decide to check out and try to get another body or another personality or whatever. Yeah. Yeah, so realistic. So I went and asked my wife.

[63:36]

And she said, yes, if I take care of it. Like I say, I do know that she would sort of start helping later, but anyway. And so far, I haven't actually had the babies delivered to me like, here, you take it. But I have had to help quite a bit with some of these babies. But so far, it's been, she hasn't had to do much of anything with the babies. It's been, whatever she's done, it's been volunteering. She hasn't done much. I've done the same thing with dogs, too. Somehow she's willing to take care of dogs. Dogs are easier on her. So you should check out with your roommate, you know. Before you give away your family fortune, you should check out with your family. Because you can't take from them and give to another without their permission. There was a famous, you know, Zen sage who kept selling his family in China. Kept selling his family and then taking the money he got from selling them to buy food for the poor. But then if people always bought back his family right away, so he'd sell his family to these people, and this guy would buy them back.

[64:44]

And they were okay with them. They never had to actually move out or anything. This stuff is flowing around, you know. The resources are infinite. Life is infinite. It's placing rigid things on it. Life is infinite and it's producing illusions constantly. These illusions do not exist inherently. They just temporarily show it's happening. It's not going to stop as far as we can tell. There's no problem with it unless you try to fix it. And the fixing quality is part of the deal for us because we do have the ability to think of a self separate from others. So we keep plopping that down all the time. We need to keep track of that and not let that push us around too much and study how that causes trouble. The more you study how it causes trouble and how it causes pain, the more it's going to get separated from the process and the more the process will just flow.

[65:49]

You can jump in there. And then the resources of life are available. but you have to work hard to keep up with it, because if you don't keep up with it, then this rigidifying or reifying tendency of the mind comes down and clumps down on things, and you get stuck in these boxes, and you're sunk. So next time somebody comes to talk to you, say, just a second, call up Eugene, see what he has to say. Maybe he'll be supportive, maybe he won't. Maybe say, well... I asked Eugene, so he said he doesn't even want me to offer, even if I do all the work myself. So just like I'm going to call somebody else. You just keep trying, you know. And as you're trying, maybe you keep failing, but as you're trying, he starts to say, hmm, she's thinking some good ideas. Maybe I can make a few other telephone calls. And you say, call Rev. Anderson. Yeah. I'm not advertising.

[66:50]

But, you know, you just have to start bringing the resources available. What is that thing of the miracle of the loaves and the fishes? Isn't that it? That's one of the few miracles of Jesus that I can relate to. The other ones I couldn't figure out how to walk on water and stuff. I still don't know how to walk on water. But I do know how to get resources. You just meditate on how things are coming. The more you think about it, the more you realize that you are getting support. That one I can get. Yes? This is kind of leading me, so the question is, what are some ways you can know or examine whether or not you are doing the right thing? What are the ways you can find out? Well, I guess I would just for starters assume I was. For example, if you think in terms of that you do something by yourself,

[68:04]

Like if I think, well, I picked this piece of paper up by myself. Or if you think that you can do good by yourself, that you can do a good thing. If you think that way, I would say, if I think that way, I would count that in myself an example of me doing lazy thinking. That way of thinking is what we call karmic consciousness, or thinking in terms of karma. that I individually can do something rather than by the support of all beings I can do things. And I notice that when I think in terms of in the realm where I think I can do something by myself, that's the realm where I have very limited capacity. I can lift paper up, I can drive a car, but I can't take care of a baby that's going to be killed. I can do a few piddly things, but when somebody comes to me and says, help me, I say, well, I can't because, you know, I got to go to work.

[69:13]

And I got to go to work because if I don't go to work, I'll get fired, and if I get fired, I won't get fed. Because I think that the reason why I'm getting fed is because I go to work. That's not why I'm getting fed. In other words, that's lazy thinking, to think that the reason why you're getting fed is because you go to work. People don't, that's not why you get fed. You get fed for much more complicated reasons than that. Like, for example, when you're kids, you don't get fed when you're a kid for working. When you're old, you don't get fed for, because you're working. You get fed because the world loves you. Some people work their buns off and don't get fed. Why? Because the world loves them in the way that they're not giving them food. So obviously, some people work really hard and don't get food. Other people don't do any work and get tons of food. It's not, if you think about it more carefully, you realize it's not your personal effort that gets you your food. Sometimes you have a whole bunch of people who aren't working and a whole bunch of people are working and none of them are getting food because there's no food.

[70:21]

Because that's the way it worked out. So everybody's starving. However, as long as they're alive, they're still getting support until they die. Lazy thinking is to think... I just gave you some examples. I consider that lazy thinking in myself. Maybe that's lazy thinking in you. Now, if you want to argue with me about it, then you're going to start being not so lazy. And as you argue more and more, you're going to get less and less lazy, maybe. And as you get less and less lazy, then pretty soon you'll be doing non-lazy thinking. And pretty soon, I say, when you're really not lazy... Most people in the world, whether they're Buddhists or physicists or poets, when they're not lazy, everything just sort of like is perforated, you know? When poets really concentrate on what they're doing, they fall right through the page. And if you read them, you fall through too. Most art, science, and religion done by the people who are really energetic, the whole thing liberates itself.

[71:26]

and you can go to the art and you can be liberated with them. You go to the music, you can be liberated with them. You study the science and you can be liberated with them. I don't know of any heavy-duty, unlazy thinking people that have come up with anything. Most of the people, as you may notice, you check it out too. People really think deeply. What they come up with is everything's ungraspable. Isn't that what we're finding out in all sciences now? It's because they're getting more energetic. They're thinking and becoming less and less lazy. So it's ironic or paradoxical that by thinking that you can do things by yourself, you really limit yourself. When you realize that you can't do anything by yourself, it's not that you're it's not that you have no resources, but because you realize how much resources you have, you realize you don't do anything by yourself, and therefore you realize how much resources you have, and not that you can do anything, but anything can happen.

[72:37]

Because you're nothing, anything's possible. If you're something, then only what's possible comes, I mean, whatever's possible comes by your limited definition. And limited definition only holds up by limited study. A limited definition can hold up, but if you study it thoroughly, you realize that definition doesn't define anything. So what we have to do, basically, is study ourself. That's basically it. Study, study, study, until you get really good at it. And then pretty soon you realize that you have a lot of support and It isn't that you can do anything or that I can do anything because I can only do a little bit. I can only carry one tray in a half an hour or so or 15 minutes to one mother. And I can do another one in another half an hour. But then I have other things to do that people want me to do.

[73:39]

But then somebody else can carry the next tray. If they want me to do something else, then would you want me to do that? If you want me to drive the car, then would you take the tray? But even that conversation of, you want me to drive the car, would you take the tray, that conversation is something they want me to do, too. They want me to talk to them. And I can do it. In the process of switching jobs, I can have a conversation with somebody, which is what they really want. And then in the middle of driving the car, if they stop me and they want me to give Zaza an instruction instead of driving the car, I can say, okay, would somebody else drive the car while I get in the backseat and give Zaza an instruction? And they may say, we don't want you to give Zaza instruction anymore. We want you to be a chauffeur. Okay, fine. We don't want you to be a chauffeur anymore. We want you to be a midwife. Okay, I don't know how, but would you teach me? We want you to do without education. Well, what do you mean? You have to tell me more. What do you mean? I'm going to be your friend. What do you mean? Let's get in there and find out what's going on.

[74:41]

We're not in a hurry. It's an urgent situation, but we have the resources to take care of things thoroughly right now. But it's tough to be thorough. It takes a lot of courage to go all the way to the end of something. That's what's required. And at that point is a place you realize you have infinite support. And because you have infinite support, You can't do anything. And because you realize that, anything's possible. This is a kind of dynamic. Okay. Want to stand up for a little while? Go ahead. You can talk while you stand up. I have a very general question. What is and is the only...

[75:46]

Religion from India, there have been many, that has had an impact outside of India. I wonder if you have any thoughts on why that is. Did you hear the question? He's wondering why Buddhism has such a big impact outside of India. When there have been so many other... There's many others. ...strong religions. Right. I think it's because of what I just said, that Buddhism says... The same thing that applies to me applies to Buddhism. Buddhism is nothing, therefore it can be anything. There's no inherent thing called Buddhism. The main thing about Buddhism, which typifies it so much, is that it's willing to drop itself. Like, didn't I tell you last week about this thing about the four winds? Did I tell you about that when I got back from that conference of the four winds? The Buddhist direction, the Esalen direction, the Native American direction, the Christian direction. And then I said, we'll put the wind bell in the middle of those four winds. Okay? And the wind bell's the thing which drops any particular, you know... The wind bell is when the Buddhists drop being a Buddhist, then they go to the center.

[76:53]

The Christians drop being Christians, then they go to the center. The Native Americans forget about being Native Americans, then they go to the center. The people of all the different disciplines and therapies of Esalen, they drop them, then they're in the center. You still have that background, but you drop it. You drop whatever your background is, then you're just in the middle, like everybody else. And then something comes. So Buddhism, and then I told you the Christians say, well, it's particularly easy for Buddhism. And it's true. People think that about Buddhism, that Buddhism's well set up to drop itself because there's no such thing as Buddha. There's no such thing as Buddhism. There's no such thing as me. There's no such thing as you. There is me and you in Buddhism. But the more thoroughly you study it, you realize there's nothing to it. And because there's nothing to it, everything's workable. If there's something to things, then first of all, if there's something to things, there wouldn't be any suffering. If things were really the way they are, there wouldn't be suffering with it.

[77:57]

Because it would be. That's the way things would be. There would be no disturbance or resistance to it. Everything would be right what it is. But, you know, things lack inherent existence so they can be suffering. Why? Because we resist that. But, anyway, it is totally because things lack inherent existence we can work this out. Buddhism can give up being Buddhism. That's why I can leave India and go to Tibet, Central Asia, China, Southeast Asia, Korea, Japan, Mongolia, United States. It can go anywhere because there's nothing to it. Nothing to it also means that it's a teaching of nothing to you. It's a teaching of you drop yourself. Your problem is yourself. My problem is myself.

[78:58]

myself as something separate myself which i believe is separate from others that's my problem buddhism says you can drop it it's okay after you drop it you'll be much happier just drop it but don't drop it like taking it throwing it down study it if you study it it naturally drops So Buddhism recommends that to its practitioners, and it recommends it to itself. Therefore, Buddhism can... Indian Buddhism dies. Chinese Buddhism comes alive. Chinese Buddhism dies. Japanese Buddhism comes alive. Japanese Buddhism dies. American Buddhism comes... It's again a lotus. The lotus goes... The lotus blooms. and it drops its flowers, and then the fruit is exposed. You know what a lotus pod looks like? It's shaped like that, and it's got little holes in it. It's got little nuts inside. That's the fruit that's inside the flower.

[80:05]

Then the stem goes limp. The fruit goes down in the water. Those berries swell up. And when they swell up enough, they cause the pod to explode. The pod blows out of the water and scatters the seeds all over. They sink down in the mud. They come up, another sprout comes up. Flower opens, exposes the fruit. Petals drop back down. So that's what we should do too. We sprout, we go limp, we swell up, we explode, we spread our seeds, they grow again. This is our life. This is the way flowers act. This is the way we act. This is the way spiritual life blooms, fruits, dies, regenerates. Drink tea and go.

[81:08]

Dr. Drink tea and go. Botanically, spiritually, the same process. This is a universal process. The question is, can you drink the tea of having this life, and when it's time, let it go? Well, yes, you can do it. And Buddhism itself does it. It let itself be wiped out in India. The Muslims came in and killed it. But then after they slaughtered the Buddhists, 600 years later, Buddhism popped out in Islam as Sufism. The Muslims ate the Buddhists and turned into Sufis. OK. So should we have our final sitting?

[82:07]

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