Good morning. There's some verse, which I can't quite remember, about the craziness of going out in the sun. I worked in the heat in San Rafael yesterday and had what I suppose is some kind of mild form of sunstroke. So, in the interest of supporting the carpooling effort here and not driving unnecessarily since I live a short walk from here, we walked up this morning, sunshade and all. By the time I got here I thought, I'm going to pass out. So, please forgive me for being a little out of it this morning.

[01:04]

I think those of us who live here on the coast are weekies when it comes to the sun. I am anyway. There's a verse which I use as a dedication verse at the end of any time of doing various practices. It is a form of reciting or citing what are called the four immeasurables. Immeasurable because these are the qualities which are boundless, are limitless, both in effect for oneself and for the benefit to boundless numbers of beings. And the verse is, by the truth and virtue of this practice or these practices, may all beings have happiness and the causes of happiness.

[02:10]

So, this is the first immeasurable known as metta or loving-kindness. May all beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering. So, this is the immeasurable known as karuna or compassion. May all never be separate from that sacred happiness which is devoid of suffering. So, this is the quality known as upekka or, excuse me, mudita or joy. And the fourth line goes, may all never be separate. Excuse me, I said that one. May all live in equanimity without too much attachment or too much aversion. Equanimity, upekka. These are the qualities which are essential, are critical in the cultivation of bodhicitta,

[03:18]

that is, this capacity that we aspire to seeking enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. Every time we here at Green Gulch recite the Four Vows, we are restating our commitment to the bodhisattva vow, to the cultivation of bodhicitta. I would this morning like to talk about the cultivation of equanimity, but in doing that I want to actually reference the specific influence, if you will, in cultivating loving-kindness, compassion and joy as leading to equanimity. A few weeks ago, maybe a month ago, a friend of mine who is a dharma teacher in Vipassana tradition

[04:33]

sent me four letters which had come to him, I'm not sure how, but they were written by a young man who had been a practitioner at a big Zen center in the East and who, when one of the senior teachers in that center left to form another center, he went with her. So he was writing these two letters out of his experience in two different but overlapping and related sanghas or practice communities. Very interesting letters and provocative and relevant to what I want to bring up for us to consider this morning. He spoke quite interestingly and in my experience powerfully in that he was speaking from his own experience

[05:37]

and not afraid to describe specific situations with specific people. Hard to do in Buddhist communities, maybe hard to do in all kinds of human communities, to name names and cite instances which have led to some difficulty in one's practice. But what he brought up for consideration was the tendency to idealize a practice center, a community of practitioners, one's teacher. And how when we do that, how when we do that kind of idealizing so that it blocks us from being able to see things as they are, we begin editing ourselves, we begin editing particularly with reference to what arises, especially in our meditation practices, which may be unpleasant or unhappy material.

[06:39]

I don't do that, I don't do greed, or I don't do envy, I don't do fear. And how the minute we begin editing whatever arises, that process of editing, which is one of the potential hazards of over-idealizing a situation, can lead to a kind of obstacle in our practice because we then begin to do what we think we ought to be doing and not doing what we need to do in the moment. And I think that this line about cultivating equanimity without too much aversion or too much attachment is a very useful instance of what I want to bring up for our consideration this morning. Because it is, of course, what we are possessive about, what we are attached to,

[07:41]

what we cling to, that is usually very troublesome, leads to a lot of suffering. And also that which we respond to with aversion, yuck, go away. Both out in the world and what arises within us in our own mind stream. The curious thing about the four letters is that the person who was the author of these letters complaining about this tendency towards idealization was arguing that there is a place in the way Buddhism is being practiced in the United States for some healthy and wholesome regard for therapeutic work, psychological work, as a way of working with some of the dark, unhappy stuff that arises in the mind stream.

[08:44]

And ironically, the author idealizes psychology in very much the way he is complaining about people idealizing Buddhism. But we all have our blind sides, and I found the letters provocative anyway. I would like to tell you the story of someone that I know quite well, a dear friend, someone that I've been practicing with for a few years. As an example of what I think the cultivation of the four immeasurables can lead to. This is for me a story about liberation from suffering. But where the external forms of the path that this person has followed

[09:49]

don't necessarily look like what we call having a practice. My friend has had for most of her life the obstacles in the cultivation of loving-kindness and compassion and joy and equanimity. They're almost lifetime habits of self-loathing, judgment about just about everything, but particularly about herself. Very practiced at editing, and for something like 27 years of very intense pattern of eating disorders, among other things. So about a year and a half or two years ago,

[10:58]

she began to work with noticing instances of judgment, which was initially, I think, frightening and appalling to her. She then began to practice the cultivation of loving-kindness, specifically with herself, and took on the practice of speaking kindly to herself and to others. And she just stayed with that for about a year and a half, all the while saying, but I'm not really practicing because I'm not doing a sitting practice very much. What I'm doing doesn't count. As she began to have some access to some of the underbelly of her acting harmfully to herself,

[12:03]

sitting meditation became not only difficult but inappropriate for her to do. So she has done a lot of walking meditation, but somehow that's not quite as legitimate in her mind. Real practice is cross-legged sitting at five in the morning with everybody else. So part of our ongoing conversation has been a little argument about whether what she does is what we call practice, or just some lazy, almost heretical side event. And she's had, of course, fundamentally great doubt about, is this really following the Buddha's way? But, of course, the consequences of the cultivation of loving-kindness and kind speaking was very quickly so apparent to her

[13:10]

that she was willing to stay with honing and attending to those qualities of response as much as possible. And slowly, over the last year and a half or so, there has been a softening and a lessening of judging and self-loathing. And she has been able to do increasingly more attending to physical body sensation and breath as she understands it from having been doing zazen for a while. Even though she hasn't been sitting very much for a couple of years, she understood that the specific detail of body sensation and breath was a place she could always return to. So she gradually began to be able to practice mindful awareness

[14:15]

in many different situations. I saw my friend for the first time since January, a little while ago. Although we speak every week, I haven't seen her for these months. And as I listened to her the other day and saw her, looking very well. Looking very well. She's gained some weight and she has some color and she has some softness and sweetness, which I know is her deepest capacity. But what was most wonderful was that she also can see that her sweetness is her deepest capacity. And she no longer doubts that what she is doing is so-called real practice. And that one day she will be able to do cross-legged sitting meditation again,

[15:24]

but not for a while. One of the things she described to me, which was really the impetus for me in what I wanted to talk about this morning, was her ability to stay present no matter what she is doing, even in the midst of self-destructive behavior around eating. She said, you know, I've started doing prayers. I do prayers before I start to go on one of these binging episodes and I even do them in the midst of the activity. So I know that there is a way in which I don't quite abandon myself the way I used to. I'm actually able to stay present even in the midst of this behavior which frightens me and is so destructive.

[16:26]

And so I know that something is changing. It just isn't changing very quickly. I was amazed to listen to her description of this cultivating capacity to be present in the midst of what has historically been behavior where her response has been aversion and its particular display called checking out. For this person to be able to calmly and quietly and calmly tell me about what is so with her meant that among other things she was beginning to find a ground for trusting herself and trusting me to listen to her without judging her.

[17:32]

Something she couldn't imagine until she could begin to stop judging herself. She's told me periodically over the last year about how specifically as a consequence of practicing loving-kindness and compassion with herself she's had these flashes of joy arise. An upwelling of a kind of joyful mind very brief, but a quality of mind which she noticed and was unable to forget having a kind of taste of joy. So what I find interesting in considering the four immeasurables

[18:36]

is how if we can begin with loving-kindness loving-kindness leads to compassion. Sometimes I think when we look at these endless lists which are so characteristic of Buddhism we think, oh, well, I'm going to do step one and then I'm going to master step one and then I'm going to go to step two. And I think what's happening much more accurately is something more like the ooze effect. That if we can begin with the cultivation of loving-kindness, for example we discover, we come to a kind of allowing of the upwelling of a capacity for compassion which we can intentionally cultivate but which we can also allow to arise. We as Americans have such a compulsion for doing

[19:49]

so this area of cultivation that has to do with allowing certain qualities of mind to arise especially if the surround is appropriate is sometimes hard for us to imagine, much less allow. To begin to meet whatever pattern of the mind-stream each of us has that we respond to with uch with kindness and with compassion is a critical, critical step. And of course, in my experience anyway what I've discovered is that when I can replace aversion with a more neutral response when I can allow the possibility of loving-kindness

[20:51]

kind of sympathetic quality then gradually but very, very palpably a kind of fear begins to fade because what I discover is that I don't need to be afraid of whatever arises I have some capacity to be present with whatever it is. If I'm editing, if I'm trying to be perfect I'm trying to be perfect if I'm trying to look good, whatever that means whatever idea I have about what does a good Zen student look like I'm going to be that. I'm inevitably going to be leaving some part of myself outside the door. I've been spending a lot of time with compost this last week.

[21:59]

We've been turning some enormous compost piles in the garden. We have three little dogs, black dogs. They're barge dogs. They are by breeding and inclination hunters especially for rats and mice and wolves and dead-smelling, rotten, anything they can find. Turning the compost pile is a time of enormous joy for them. And they present a mouthful of the most foul-smelling matter stuff I didn't even know we had in the garden. Right now we are in the second round of baby barn swallows. This is the second. The second sitting has hatched. And, as often happens, there are one or two more birds

[23:04]

than the nest quite will hold, especially after they begin to grow. So, of course, one of the dogs presented me yesterday with a particularly fetid, rotting baby barn swallow. Of course, for the dog, the dog's response is not aversion at all. The dog's response is, Oh, goody, look what I found. Let me roll around in it so you can smell it on me for a few days. Here, let me stick it in your nose so you too can enjoy it. Just try and take it away from me. I'm going to clamp my teeth down here. Anyway, we have these fights with these little dogs trying to extract this, whatever it is they've found. I think the compost pile is a very good place to study aversion. Because, of course, what goes in doesn't look so terrific, does it?

[24:10]

But what comes out is just sweet-smelling gold, gardener's gold. It's entirely the demonstration about transformation. Which is, of course, what I'm describing having seen, having had this glimpse of with my friend. What I notice with my friend is that she is no longer afraid of what may surface in her mind stream. She's no longer afraid of what she may remember. She's not even any longer afraid of what may come up in terms of a kind of response to something that happens. And as she has developed this ability to be present with whatever arises,

[25:18]

just noticing, staying with the breath, being as kindly and soft as possible. Kindly not in the way of clutching or commiserating, just tenderly present. What she has discovered is a kind of stability of mind. And I think that for any of us who are practicing sitting and walking meditation on any kind of regular basis, we come to appreciate how important stability of mind is. Jung has given us the language of the shadow. So what I'm talking about is all that stuff that comes up.

[26:19]

Yesterday I saw a bumper sticker that said, shit happens. Maybe we could say shit arises in the mind. But it also fades. How often am I afraid? How often am I disturbed? How often am I argumentative because I forget, oh, well, if it's risen, it'll also fade. Even the line, may all know equanimity without too much aversion and too much attachment, is itself a statement with great kindness in it. It doesn't say with no aversion and no attachment. There's a little room there for a little bit. We kind of ease our way into gradually smaller and smaller containers

[27:20]

of attachments and aversions, if you will. As we cultivate these four qualities of the mind stream, we can then slowly be grateful for life as it is, for whatever arises in any moment. And it seems to me that in the midst of that increasing capacity to be present with things as they are, we can begin to experience the perfection of the world. There's an ancient text, meditation manual, if you will, called the Vasudhimagga.

[28:20]

And it's big. It makes the Manhattan phone book look like a relative. And I'm continually swiping the copy from my husband's desk, so he, in his kindness, got me my own copy. I'm sure there's a certain amount of self-care there involved. It depends. Chapter 9 in the Vasudhimagga has a lot of text and commentary on the four immeasurables, or abodes, as they're called. The section on loving-kindness is vast, and the language is very careful and very particular. And what I realized early this morning as I was looking at

[29:27]

some of the sections on loving-kindness in the Vasudhimagga, there's no way one can cultivate these qualities quickly. We must be patient and willing to work slowly and thoroughly over a long period of time. So here's another place where we as Americans may run into ourselves, because most of us, especially these days, are very practiced at going fast, doing a lot and going fast. So here's an opportunity to be with ourselves a little differently than we may be used to, slowly, taking as much time as we need to take in the cultivation of our inner life. A gardener friend of mine came to look at some trees

[30:32]

that had lost branches and looked like they were in some trouble. And we sat in the backyard in the early morning light, on a Friday morning, talking and visiting. And he said, you know, what I've discovered is the more stupid I am, the better off I am. He said, you know, when I'm working in somebody's garden and I don't know what's going on, and I just say, I just don't know what's happening here, this big space opens up. In a way, what Sasaki Roshi talks about when he talks about beginner's mind. Of course, what makes my friend so good at working with trees,

[31:34]

especially trees that are in trouble, is that he spends a long time looking at the particular tree, and he asks whoever happens to be living with the tree to do the same thing. And he resists vehemently generalizations about what you do with trees. All crabapple trees should never have any water on their trunks. He said, well, that's true for some crabapple trees, but it's not true for others. So here it was again. His telling me about letting me see his willingness to be present in each situation with what is so. And telling me a little bit about the consequence of working that way in terms of his own interior life, life of the spirit. Exactly the quality of mind that my friend was telling me about

[32:43]

when I saw her earlier in the week. Being able to, in the midst of very self-destructive eating behavior, to stay present in a way that allows her to begin to be interested in. Now, when did the first inclination come about? When did the first inclination begin? What do I notice in terms of emotion as this behavior is beginning to take on a life of its own? And already, barely into this way of being present with herself in the midst of this most difficult time in her life, she has a certain confidence that she will, in time, discover whatever she needs to discover that allows her to gradually and slowly stop hurting herself

[33:45]

and increase her capacity to take care of herself. Which is completely what is the foundation for her saying, I now have the confidence that what I'm doing, the kinds of mindfulness practices in little tiny details throughout the day, is real practice. And that I will, in time, be able to join you again, you and my friends, in sitting and in doing retreats. I know that that time will come. It just isn't now. So that she no longer is describing herself as a bad student, a bad practitioner, but sees herself as being on this path with limitless numbers of people who have gone before us

[34:50]

and who are on the path with us now and hopefully will come after us. In the Buddhist dictionary, the four immeasurables are called the Brahma-vihara. And one of the translations for this term may be sublime or divine. The cultivation of the four immeasurables of qualities that are sublime or divine. How many of us think that the cultivation of sublime or divine is for someone else? That's not on the screen for me. I think that Shakyamuni Buddha's great teaching

[36:07]

is that the qualities, the capacity for the sublime, the divine, are indeed possible for each of us. That's his teaching by example. A human being who lived at a particular time and followed a particular path, cultivating what he came to describe, came to be described after him as the Middle Way, having explored and tried all of the practices in vogue in North India at the time of his life, being an ascetic, which he plumbed deeply and carefully for a long time. And then after a while saw that he kept having to go back to eating and resting and taking care of himself to have the life that allowed him to do practices.

[37:07]

So that this pendulum swing between taking care of himself and asceticism to the point of near death was maybe swinging too wide. Some great wisdom in being in balance. Not too much or too little on either side. He showed us a path to realization, to full awakeness, that is a possibility for every one of us. Seems perhaps more remote in the world that we live in and also perhaps more necessary. So I would commend to you

[38:20]

the cultivation of the four immeasurables to let yourself be who you are and how you are in each moment so that you can come to know your mind stream very well. It is out of that deep and accurate knowing that we can begin to see exactly what leads to suffering and what does not lead to suffering, what leads to happiness, what leads to joy, what leads to equanimity. My experience is that that seeing, that capacity for seeing things as they are, seeing my own mind stream as it is, not as I have a press release about how it is, depends on my doing the looking with kindness.

[39:24]

The last couple of months, a group of people that I have some pretty close connection with have been doing traditional loving-kindness meditation, specifically one on forgiveness and one on loving-kindness. And during a recent retreat, which lasted for eight days, we spent the entire retreat focusing on forgiveness and loving-kindness as a ground for awareness of the breath. This is all we're going to do for a week? This and be silent? So, you know, the first three days is a certain amount of flopping around. Let me out of here. You mean I paid to be here? Can't I find something to distract myself?

[40:31]

And then, as we settled, came kind of what I call depth charges. At the end of the week, I felt so moved by people's willingness to see themselves accurately. Even when, in a certain way, they weren't thrilled with what they were seeing. For most people, there was also some realization that I have to see what is so if I'm going to change what I need to change. And, of course, I think for any of us who are really committed to waking up, one of the first things we discover is how little we need to do, how much happens simply from seeing clearly.

[41:40]

I realize that this has been a kind of theme every time I've spoken in the last six months or a year, but I continually feel a kind of amazement at how little I need to do, in the usual sense, as long as I can be present, that the being present is where my work is. Not going for editing or pretending something isn't a certain way. A friend of mine has some houses that she rents, and two of the people that she rents her houses for are on welfare. And there was a whole series of miscommunications

[42:45]

between this woman and her tenants, one tenant in particular, who registered all of her complaints through the housing authority and not directly to her landlord. And after about six weeks of real agony and acrimony and you have to move and all sorts of stuff, they sat down together and talked. My friend called and said, mostly what we had was a communication problem. What I was saying, she wasn't hearing, and what she was saying, I wasn't hearing. And once we could sit down and talk and listen, we didn't have much difficulty. How often is that true for us in our conversation with ourselves, where one part of the mind is like the landlord

[43:47]

and one part of the mind is like the tenant, afraid of being evicted? The great practitioner and translator and commentator, Nyanamuli, talks about how trying to get rid of some voice in our own mind stream is a kind of violence. How often all we have to do is just listen. That might be one of the first opportunities for the cultivation of loving-kindness. So I would commend to you the Four Immeasurables as a path for the cultivation of being awake.

[44:54]

So if you would please join me, I'll do this dedication in dedicating our sitting together, considering these practices and whatever practices we've done earlier this morning, sitting and walking meditation, cultivation of mindfulness in whatever way each of you may have been doing. May the truth and virtue of these practices, by the truth and virtue of these practices, may all beings have happiness and the causes of happiness. May all be free from suffering and the causes of suffering. May all never be separate from that sacred happiness which is devoid of suffering. May all know equanimity without too much attachment or too much aversion. And may all live believing in the equality of all that lives.

[46:04]

Thank you. Thank you. Did she share with you the prayers that she used when she's in the middle of a habit that's hurtful to her? Most of her prayers were prayers of intention, having to do with being as kindly with herself no matter what, speaking kindly, very specific and focused. She's also used various emanations of protection,

[47:48]

in particular there's a quite fierce form of compassion called upon as a protector in the female form in the Tibetan Buddhist sacred art tradition. She's classically the Dalai Lama's protectress, called an Lama. She's as fierce as they come. I sometimes say she makes Bruegel look like a Sunday picnic. She's really scary. And so that's one of the practices that's been very helpful for this woman is to actually have this form of compassion in that function as a protectress. And she's done lots of altars including food cartons and containers. So a lot of stuff around transformation. Taking what has been harmful and turning it to something wholesome or protective.

[48:52]

She said sort of laughingly, maybe I'll write about this someday, and I think it would be, I mean it's way too soon, but her journey is really inspiring, really inspiring. When I was listening to you, I sort of related whatever is about food to say drugs and alcohol. The same kind of destructiveness. I guess I just wonder if you could talk a little bit about that because there's also a component to that judgmentalness of the self that's really obsessive and really so deeply ingrained. I mean I know from my own experience, it has a lot to do, say, with my parents who were very destructive in their own way. Just more on what the process is of dealing with that

[50:00]

in this, it sounds like very incremental but cumulative way. Some while ago, my husband actually went through some of the early sutras and pulled out all the sections where the Buddha talks about intoxicants. Intoxicants, intoxication. Because particularly as the precepts come to us through the Japanese Zen source, the way we've been used to interpreting the precepts has been, what's the right word? Subject to interpretation which can end up being a kind of waffling and opportunity for self-deception about what one is and isn't doing.

[51:03]

So I think the way we use the precept is a disciple of Buddha does not intoxicate mind or body of self or others. Well, if you stop and think about it, there are all kinds of things that may be mind-altering, not just drugs and alcohol, sugar and chocolate and caffeine, I mean, endless sex, etc. So it's really interesting to see the passages in the early sutras where the Buddha talks about intoxication and what intoxicates. When I first looked at this compilation, I thought, wow, this guy has been hanging out at 12-step meetings. This is a very contemporary, sophisticated list which says something about human nature over many centuries, actually. But also the bottom line is that the Buddha is very clear,

[52:06]

no intoxicants. And I think for us, in our culture, how we work with what is habitual in this territory of intoxicants, where there is some addictive connection, is really up for us, not just individually but as a society. And there are two things that I notice. One is that it's real news to a lot of people, that what we're really talking about is a habit. What is habitual? And that anything that's habitual tends to be very deeply set and ingrained, consequently not so easy to change. We have to be very patient if we're going to transform or replace habitual behavior that's unwholesome

[53:09]

with behavior that's wholesome. And the second feature, I think, is understanding the nature of change. The change that's really going to hold doesn't tend to happen very quickly. One may have a big insight about something, but the actual work of changing happens very, very slowly. And so to be satisfied with these almost cellular levels of change, which is what I was hearing from my friend, was her recognition. If you looked at her behavior, you could say that there hadn't been much change. And yet the change is from binging and purging every day to binging and purging almost every day. Well, for most of us, we wouldn't be thrilled with that distinction. But that's a change.

[54:10]

Every day to most days is heading towards sometimes, which is then heading towards infrequently. There is this continuum, and something's opened up there. Now, it doesn't do any good for me as the witness to see that. What's critical is for my friend, from the inside of her life, to say, oh, I see something's loosened, something's opened up. I'm actually more present, more of the time, in the midst of this behavior than has ever been true in my life. Oh, cause for some celebration. So, my experience is that that's the way we change our wholesome habits. And that the critical thing is to even see what habits we have. How being self-critical, or having a habit of judging about oneself and others,

[55:15]

is a form of habit. It's a mental habit. That we may have learned as a child, and practiced for so long, that the process of changing, loosening, not acting on, maybe even the habit arises as thoughts, but not expressing it, is the work of many, many, many years. And then, you know, two weeks of really focusing on, okay, I'm not going to express this critical mind. Two weeks go by, and we think, hurry up, why hasn't this gotten better? His Holiness the Dalai Lama suggests, don't look at your behavior today, and then compare it with earlier behavior with too short a span. Don't compare less than two year gaps, maybe longer. What is my life today, and what do I notice about my life two years ago?

[56:18]

Maybe you'll have some accurate read about what's going on. You know, we want it today. So, I think that what I understand about addictions, has a lot to do with habit, and has a lot to do with view. Has a lot to do with very confused, inaccurate picture of what is so, around what I can control, and what I can't control. What kind of help I need, and what kind of help I don't want. Dependence and independence. Deification of will. Well, also from what you're saying, it becomes less about the food, or less about the drugs they have on them, and more about internal noticing. Well, I would actually say it has more to do with noticing patterns.

[57:21]

And what I understand about addictions, is that people who have an addiction, say to drugs and alcohol, may be able to stop abusing drugs and alcohol, but then the addictive pattern will show up with something else, not quite so dramatic. And that sex, for example, will show up later, and can be absolutely as or more harmful. Addictive pattern, the addictive patterning is itself, what you want to begin to be able to see. So, you know, you're not using drugs and alcohol, but you are using caffeine and sugar. Or nicotine. Or sex. Or work. You know, we've got a thing about being workaholics, and you get lots of support and rewards for working in this kind of obsessive way.

[58:26]

So I think it's looking for patterns and qualities of the mind. Being able to be pretty accurate in what one's observing about patterns and qualities. That's the level at which noticing, the level at which the cultivation of the capacity for mindful awareness is really effective. And this is where, you know, in Vietnam, the way Zen is practiced in Vietnam, in a Zen monastery you would have practitioners doing both Zen and Insight or Vipassana practice. I think one of the reasons Thich Nhat Hanh's teaching has had a really big effect on a lot of people in this country is because he's coming from a tradition which uses both Zen and Vipassana or Insight meditation. And basically what you've got is, in Zen,

[59:27]

focusing on posture and breath, and basically ignoring whatever the mind is doing. Just letting it just go by. And that for a lot of us, we have a very hard time ignoring what the mind is wandering off to if we don't understand what the mind is doing. So to the degree that we maybe do for some period of time more Insight practice, where we're actually noting what the mind is doing when the mind is not placed on posture and breath, means at some point we can more easily ignore or just let it go by because it's territory I've studied and understood. And they're two very different meditations, but I think they complement each other in a way that's quite useful. And in Vipassana practice, you learn how to distinguish qualities and patterns when the mind wanders off from the object of meditation,

[60:29]

if it's breath, which is usually in this part of the world, usually posture and breath. You begin to have some tools for observing. You begin to have some language for observing what the mind is doing, is going to. Now for some people, being able to sit down and just ignore the mind is a great relief. It's just yap, [...] yap. Just ignoring it is a great relief. And so what happens is a kind of stabilizing and settling. At some point, I think it's for most of us extremely useful to actually begin to study what our mind stream is doing when it's bebopping around town. Because it's, you know, each of us has different tendencies. You know, I think I must have been an architect in a previous life, constantly remodeling everything. Other people do lots of reviewing, endless reviewing.

[61:35]

Other people do endless dress rehearsals. It's very useful to know what your particular pattern of choice is as a distraction. Because then after a while you just say, Oh, planning. And you much more easily just let it go and go back to the breath because I visited that territory. I don't need to plan the future again for the next 20 years. I've already done it for 50. Or, you know, 47 or whatever. So specifically what I'm suggesting has to do with noticing pattern. Actually pretty specific. You know, sometimes 12-step work is described as American Zen practice. But actually I think my experience with people doing a serious 12-step program

[62:38]

is that there's a kind of yoga to the meditation traditions in Buddhism that are very complementary and very useful for people who are doing any kind of work around addictive patterns. First step is to spot what is an addiction. So I don't know if that opens it up in terms of what you were wondering about. What's the difference between an addiction and an attachment? Well, I think it has to do with degrees of blindness. And I think that with addictions there tends to be as a constant obsessing. I actually think that the language of possessiveness, that is a clinging, holding,

[63:53]

is more useful in talking about attachments. So, you know, maybe one way, one thing to say is it's a matter of degree. Some of the same qualities hold. I was really struck in one passage that I looked at briefly this morning in the Vasudhi Maga was a description of a monk doing a meditation noticing the tone of his practice, the tone of his mind. What's the tone of the behavior I'm noticing? There's a kind of checking out or a sleepiness, often even dissociating with addictions, a way of numbing or just of checking out, blocking.

[64:54]

And very often, if you go under the behavior, you begin to see how that's actually part of the motivation. I don't want to feel this. I don't want to be here for this. It's what makes recovery so difficult because you get to show up for what you've been so accustomed to leaving. So the recovery period, especially initially in the first maybe couple of years, can be extremely painful. That's where, you know, I think this first of the immeasurables, this first abode of loving kindness is really critical. Quality of tenderness, of nurturing, of kind of caring for oneself, really important. My friend, one of the first things she did was to, I remember she had a big insight one day,

[66:03]

this happened maybe close to two years ago, that she could actually be kind towards the judging voice. Just blew her mind, just even to imagine that that might be a possibility. Yes, I was going to ask you about that judging voice. I think when you say that you must have been an architect in your life, that is not a judging voice. That is, the architect who's doing all this remodeling is different than this judgmental voice. I've noticed, and because my life has changed dramatically the last few months, I was a workaholic and I lost my job. So I have this mind to contend with now. And the thing that I've noticed about it, that I'm very surprised at, is this, it's very judgmental, very harsh,

[67:06]

and it's like I must have been a police officer in a horrible life, because it's on me all the time. And it surprises me, because I thought of myself as a person who accomplished a lot and appreciated that about myself, but that's not the case at all. It just took losing my job for me to get into this. And I think years ago I had that thing going until I started getting very busy working. And so I guess my question to you is, what do you suggest about that? And I notice even if I'm by myself for a little bit of time, or if I'm doing housework or washing dishes, it is on me continuously. And it's like I was thinking maybe affirmations or something to stop it, because it's very bothersome for me.

[68:09]

I would consider that a major understatement. I would say you're killing yourself with that voice. And you have a lot of company. You have an enormous amount of company. I think it's the major obstacle to being present and being alive. And it's a habit. I mean, you have my utmost sympathy. I have a similar habituation. And I've done a whole lot of different practices. Some of them have been stunningly effective. But part of it has to do with timing, maybe. The fact that you are aware of that voice is probably 98% of your work.

[69:15]

You're kind of on the road to recovery. To be able to notice, oh, look at this internal dialogue. One of my questions is, to what degree was work a way for you to distract yourself? Totally. Totally. And I loved the distraction, because I didn't have to contend with my head. But, you know, there still is 2 o'clock in the morning. Well, but that was very small now. But it's not so small when you're dying. It's not so small when you get hit with a major life-threatening disease, and you're just hanging out with yourself. Or you lose your job. Life gives us all these different variations. So one of the major practices, as an antidote, if you will, is called bare noting.

[70:18]

That is noting without any commentary, without getting caught in the content. You just note, judging. Go back to the breath. Go back to some simple, neutral body sensation, and then the breath. And then proceed. Natalie Goldberg, in her book, Writing Down the Bones, talks about writing practice. Where you write, keep the hand moving. She calls it writing. You know, it's a yoga. You keep the hand moving. You don't worry about spelling or punctuation. You don't cross out words. You just keep writing. Write out the dialogue. I know someone who describes herself very similarly to the description that you're presenting. This woman only knew there were all of us listening to her. Unfortunately, we can't see her face. She did this process of writing out the dialogue.

[71:25]

The next week, she came back to talk to me about it. She said, I wouldn't talk this way to my worst enemy. It was complete news to her. She suddenly got, this is self-loathing. This is really violent behavior. I want to stop this. I actually think that there's trouble in wanting to stop the voice. Nyanamuli, the commentator that I mentioned during the lecture, talks in one of his commentaries on Buddhist psychology text, talks about getting rid of any voice in the mind as an act of violence. It's not getting rid of that judging voice. It's changing my response to the voice. Natalie talks about it in terms of the editor, the editor as the judge,

[72:30]

that if when you're writing, she argues in any kind of creative work, which I would agree with, but I would also say in any kind of meditative practice, the same is true, that if the voice suddenly says, you're writing shit, this is the most boring writing I've ever, what makes you think you can write, and you stop writing, that judge is then in the driver's seat, is then the boss. If you just ignore the voice and you keep writing, Natalie's description, she's got this one section on the editor, it's two-thirds of a page long chapter, it's great. She says, listen to the voice as laundry flapping in the wind. It's a free dryer. But just listen to it as laundry flapping in the wind, and eventually maybe someone else will take it in. What she's describing is not getting rid of the laundry on the line,

[73:33]

but what is my response to it? I'm not doing laundry. I'm not taking the laundry in. I'm writing, or I'm following the breath, or I'm washing the dishes. Hi. Back to the dishes. I remember one day walking up from where I live to come to a meeting here. I walk through the fields and I see 55 of these cups that are called Marley Mugs. Heaps of tools left out in the fog and getting rusty. Piles of garbage. By the time I get here, I've got lists longer than my arm of what's wrong between Pacific Way and downtown Green Gulch. A complete thrill to be in a meeting like this. And I just, I got sick of my own company.

[74:35]

So I decided, okay, next time I do this walk, I am only going to focus on what's right. I'm only going to focus on what I appreciate. Which didn't mean I didn't see all those cups and tools and piles of trash, but it's not where I placed my attention and my energy. And I had this absolutely profound experience. It was like some light switch had turned on. And I thought, this is the same world I've been walking through for all these years? So I took on as a practice, what do I appreciate? And then after a couple of months of that, I went to what's possible. And both those practices were really helpful in cultivating a place to bring my mind that was fundamentally different in tone than what's wrong.

[75:38]

Always going for what's wrong. And to this day, I walk into a room and I notice the dead flower in the bouquet or the stain on the rug. It's like I've got this long pointed nose. It goes for it. But I don't give it a whole lot of energy. But I've been working on that tendency in my mind stream for a long, long time. And I suspect I'll be working on it until I take my last breath. I had a really good trainer. A really good trainer. So I wish you luck. You have a great opportunity. There's a little book. It's a little funny, but it's also quite useful. By a psychologist named Richard Carson, called Taming Your Gremlin. And he actually gives you a whole series of exercises.

[76:41]

It's like a workbook. And he gets you to draw pictures and write out the dialogue. It's all in service of getting to know the landscape of this state of mind. If you need some convincing about what the detail is, it's one way of getting to know the landscape. But then at a certain point, you just pin it up on the wall and just wave. Sometimes it helps to ask yourself, is this voice masculine or feminine? Old or young? Is it my mother or my father? Or am I an amalgam of my mother and father and first grade teacher? Or whatever. One time I was in a long retreat up in Oregon. And I met a young woman who had a really intense voice. An intense inner critic. And for her it was definitely an old man who was tall and skinny.

[77:43]

So I got her to elaborate on her imaging this judge. And then suggested that she... She said he was dressed rather formally. So I suggested she dress him in full morning coat, tails, the whole bit. With a very tall hat. Top hat. And very short canes. So we walked around all stooped over. She just got hysterical. Every time she visualized this judge wearing these little short canes, she just started to crack up. Somebody else I know described her inner critic as this huge, huge 500 pound baby. And up on a wall. And she said he'd jump on her. He'd land on her and just obliterate her. Regularly. And I said, does he have a name? She said, yep, Huey. And you know, this is somebody who lived with us for a little while.

[78:48]

And when the voice was really going, she would leave a trail behind her. It was just, you know, you could just tell she's somewhere, she isn't here. Because there's this trail of debris dribbled by her. And I'd say, is baby Huey here today? But there was something about oh, it's baby Huey time. That helped her begin to have a slightly different relationship to that voice. And of course in time, if you're not paying attention to the voice, the voice goes through sort of death throes. You feel like it's sort of got you by the throat. But in time, that voice does begin to subside. So, you know, the other place to go when that voice arises is kindness. May I speak to myself and others with as much kindness in my speaking as I can.

[79:50]

And the more specific you are, the more focused you are in describing the voice you hear that you're aware of this morning. Not generalize it, but just stay with what's arising in each situation where your awareness of that inner critic is coming out. And I would encourage you to imagine that your awareness of this inner pattern in your mind stream is actually a very important insight. Very important. You've already begun your work. That kind of waking up, it's exactly what I'm talking about when I say, can we wake up to what is so not be edited? Oh, this is what's so this morning. Thank you.

[81:00]

It can be painful work. It can be painful work. And very rewarding. I found myself feeling critical this morning in the recitation that we do at the end where we talk about I vow to save them. Well, there's another place where I meditate where they say I vow to awaken with them. It's an incorrect translation. It probably is. No, I'm telling you a piece of information. We used to do that vow here as I vow to awaken with them. And the word that's being translated doesn't mean awaken, it means save. It's just going back to a correct translation of the vow. Well, it seems so grandiose, I guess,

[82:06]

to think that I can save anybody. It is. Well, you're going to start with yourself, I hope. Well, that was what I was thinking. How can that be said then, if you know to save yourself? Well, but the vow, which is, it's really a shortened form of the bodhisattva vow which you have to unpack. I mean, this is code. We're all chanting. We're doing a code recitation. And the whole path of the bodhisattva vow is the only place we can begin is with ourselves. But the motivation, my motivation to seek enlightenment for the benefit of others is a very different motivation than the motivation to seek enlightenment in order to save myself. And in some traditions in Buddhism, there's actually a very clear distinction about these different motivations. But you're absolutely right, it is grand. There are some people who describe it

[83:09]

as the messianic impulse in Buddhism. It is absolutely grand. And I think very hard to get unless you are exposed to someone who has some fairly extensive degree of realization so you begin to get a feeling for what that vow produces, if you will. I know for myself for years, saying that, I felt like I was talking about either ancient history, certainly not me. This isn't a vow about me. And at a certain point when I had the experience of practicing with a teacher who, as I came to know him, I realized this is a person of great cultivation and realization. This is a person who embodies in the details of his life what this vow is saying. I got, this is actually a vow I can take on

[84:12]

as a possibility in my lifetime. Maybe unlikely, but possible. And the vow came alive for me at that point in a way that it, I was just going through some motions for many, many years before that. And as you were saying that, what I just got is that I don't want the responsibility. I'm too lazy to take that on. So, that's another... Oh! No judging, just note. Very useful insight. Oh, this one's dealing with maybe feeling overwhelmed at what that would be. Kartuku said that at the end of the last retreat I did with him before he died, do as much as you can and take it easy. Very troublesome combination. And I think that taking

[85:13]

the Bodhisattva vow seriously requires just that combination. Because of course if we wipe ourselves out, efforting away, and we're not able to be present and awake vividly the next day, I mean... A friend of mine some years ago got on my case for getting too tired. He said, you know, you burn yourself out on the first thousand people that show up, what about the next ten thousand? You've got to go for constancy and longevity here. So, you know, a kind way underneath that I'm too lazy, is that coming from some fear of, oh, I'm right on the... teetering on the edge of feeling a little overwhelmed with what this might be hinting at? I think it's maybe feeling unprepared. That might be accurate. But then if I recognize, oh, maybe I feel unprepared, then the question that comes up is,

[86:14]

well, what are the kinds of things that might lead to something called feeling a little more prepared? Maybe I can look at some examples in the stories of great enlightened beings. What were their lives like? What did they look like? What did they do? Can I look around and see some suggestions of that in people that I know have been practicing for a long time who might lend me some suggestions and insight? So, you know, always when those questions come up, if I don't turn away from them, if I take them seriously, if I don't edit them away as, oh, that's silly, or that's not an important question, or... Yeah, and it's the following the vine, like it started out with my being critical of the vow, and now I'm feeling critical about myself, and now you're helping me try to dig my way out of this mess. But what I'm suggesting is

[87:15]

that there's a way of just taking each thing you've said and turning it, and turning it, and turning it, until you begin to see, oh, there's a jewel here in this question. Maybe I feel unprepared. Oh. But what if you just, maybe I feel unprepared, and you just sit with that. Maybe I feel unprepared. Oh. I don't have, I don't know, how would I prepare for this? That's actually a very serious and important question. And you see how judgment deflects my energy away from seeing that. Sends me over here to someone's description of what it ought to look like, what my spiritual life ought to look like, like instead of listening to myself with some kindness and trust, I know what I need, where I need to put my step next. I don't know how to prepare for this or that. Oh. That's exactly what I was driving at

[88:18]

in my talk this morning. We turn away. Someone else has the answer. Someone else has the description of how it should be, so that I'm taking their description instead of including my own. It's not either or. I, of course, can benefit from the advice and counsel and suggestions and teachings of more experienced practitioners, but can I also include my own inner voice that says, well, maybe I feel unprepared? How is that a statement in my mind stream that I can actually hold with some attention? And, of course, the judge, that judging voice, moves my awareness away from that statement instead of towards it. Thank you. That was a perfect example

[89:22]

of exactly what I'm trying to find a way to talk about. Yeah. Good morning. Good morning. First, I want to say what you're wearing is just beautiful. I couldn't face my heavy, dark robes given what I went through yesterday. I thought I'll definitely have a heat stroke again if I wear my heavy robes, but I'm also interested in having us dress in the way we walk around in the world that's conducive to taking care of our breath, not too much constriction around the waist, etc. So, thank you. Yeah. One thing that I've noticed in the example you gave with your friend, which I thought it was very powerful, and also in the comments that have happened here, that it's been,

[90:23]

if I'm not mistaking, all women who have shared the concern or the practice of the inner critic, the judge. And my question is, in your experience, have you had male practitioners who also have that voice, and what does that voice sound like? Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. Are there any men in this room who have ever had any experience with this inner critic? This is not gender specific. I knew that was the answer to that question. I guess, for me, what I'd like to know, perhaps I should ask the men if they will be willing to share with their experiences. It would be useful for me. Then I'll talk about it. Please. Thank you. This is interesting, because the last time you talked, you talked about dyslexia too. And actually, some things you said were very useful for me. You also spoke the last time.

[91:25]

Where have they gone? People earlier talked about, you said in the past that you were an architect. Somebody else said she was a police officer. Well, I was Jack the Ripper earlier. And that's what my inner critic is like. It's like a slasher. I traditionally have responded to it by keeping the abuse back on it. And trying to kill it. Because I feel it's trying to kill me. And what you said was very interesting. You said again today that trying to kill this inner voice is an act of violence. Not to mention it's also counterproductive. It doesn't work. Since then, I've actually engaged in dialogue with this inner voice, where I try not to see it as a demon. Because as long as I do that, then it's going to act like a demon. So, if I do something

[92:29]

and it says, you're a stupid asshole, you're a jerk or something, then I'll say, I'll turn around and say, well, why do you think I was a stupid jerk for doing that? And then, you get involved in dialogue and I say, what I did, and your reaction, it doesn't have anything to do with what I did earlier, so why do you, what is the source of this hostility you have towards me? And it was really interesting. I've done that a number of times, and, you know, two years haven't gone by, so I don't know what the change is, but... Just be patient. But there is a difference in this attitude. At the time that it happened, the number of times that it happened, it has softened the critters. Now, let me suggest something else. You may be right for also asking, what's right about this voice? There's a way in which this voice has arisen in my mind stream

[93:32]

to help me in some way, maybe not today, but at some point. That possibility begins to be present. And what happens out of that kind of dialogue is, I begin to see, well, I have more in my repertoire at age 30 or 40 or 50 or 60 than I did at 2 or 5 or 7 or 10. And I'm using the tools I had as a kid, but today I have a lot more in my toolbox. But that kind of insight doesn't arise until I begin to say, okay, now, if not currently, at least historically, this response pattern served me well somewhere, somehow, as a kind of extension, if you will, of a more kindly mind towards this expression of judgment. I also want to just underscore

[94:38]

the last thing you said, which is, the voice has somehow softened. Without doing anything other than just bringing some kindliness, the voice has softened. Very important. I mean, it's still very lacerating. I mean, it's softened for the moment, but then it went right back to its old self again. But how long have you been doing this? How much practice have you got? How many years do you have on your belt? Well, I'm probably over four decades now doing it. And how long have you been doing this breath? How long, for all this, there's no-one out? How long have you been doing this breath? doing this breath?

[95:20]

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