I wanted to talk more about sati, or this, you know, yesterday I was talking about returning to the source, how in a way dukkha can be thought of, the build-up, you know, from experience, that in a way practice, one aspect of practice is unwinding. or deconstructing or more exactly seeing through at what's built up one way we could say this unwinding is about release the seeing through is about insight we could say that the unwinding is released from being caught up in the self-creation, the creations of the self, even the notion of self.

[01:52]

And then the seeing through the insight, it's seeing how what happens, what's going on for me, how me comes into being, and how to be skillful in practicing with the conditioned kind of life. These two elements, you know, find in Buddhism, they're represented as, you know, on one side, the absolute, and then on one side, the relative. And then I gave you a couple of handouts, one who took that hand, where he takes this proposition, and then he offers a skillful way to work with it. And in a way, he's offering quite a work with the human condition. And you notice what emotions, notice, you know, he talks about them in terms of nutrients or nourishment, you know.

[02:57]

Well, if you eat this, you create the consequence of eating this. And then in the excerpt I gave you from the book on Sakipatana, he's holding up a more classic description, a more dispassionate aspiration. of the non-self. So I'd like to offer some thoughts in relationship to that. Like how both of those, how we can think about both of those. One way we could say, well, practice is about direct experiencing Is there any point in adding more ideas to our mind? And in the Zen School in particular, this has been a port of controversy.

[04:10]

If you think about it, the Sixth Patriarch, does everybody know the significance of who the Sixth Patriarch is? Bodhidharma was the first patriarch. He brought the practice of Buddhism to Chaka and established the Zen school. And then his successor was the sixth patriarch. And what was notable about the sixth patriarch was that he was, how the story goes, is that he was illiterate. That he grew up and modest circumstances. He was a woodcutter. He made a living, supported himself with his mother by chopping wood. And had this intuitive knowledge, aspiration for practice.

[05:16]

Went to the monastery. And in those days, there was a kind of a distinction between As far as we can tell, some distinction between scholar mugs and work mugs. It evolved more so as time went on. So he worked in the kitchen for several years. So he wasn't, as the story goes, it wasn't like he gained a whole lot of academic scholarly knowledge of Buddhism. And then when the time came to find a successor from the fifth patriarch, it was like an open contest. He won. But the point I wanted to make was, he didn't win because of his scholarship. He didn't win because that he had been thoroughly educated in the concepts of Buddhism. It was the expression of what you might call the regularization.

[06:20]

He might have his own experiencing, or you could say, and you could say from his own intuitive wisdom. To me it's significant as an archetype. In contrast to his competitor in being a technologist, a sixth paper. So he's very well educated in Buddhism, and also very interestingly, very well trained. and the monastic system. There were six people at Camelot like the natural. This kid doesn't know anything about Buddhism, hasn't had a whole lot of training. Guess what? He mails it. The other guys know a whole lot about Buddhism. He's done all of his training. He's a very senior monk. But the new kid mails it better than he does. It's a kind of interesting notion to hold up as a fairly significant teaching in Zen.

[07:28]

So that's all a long-winded way of saying that in Zen, accumulating knowledge and details about Buddhism goes back and forth. And then there were other teachers yesterday that was quoted Guishan, of Guishan's responsibility. Guishan was a great proponent of being knowledge of the basics of Buddhism. I would put it this way. We have our worldview. We have our notion about who we are and what makes the world the way it is, how it functions. And there's a usefulness in hearing the system like the one I'm presenting in that it offers us way to reframe our experience. Quite naturally, we have an experience and we understand it and we frame it and we relate it into some sense of the way the world is that has accumulated around our education, our direct experience, our culture, all sorts of things.

[08:47]

And if nothing else, just having an alternative can loosen that up a little bit. If we can sit and think, oh, okay, I could think about that, or I could think about contacting the experience, then that gives rise to some kind of formulation, and then that formulation comes to fruition, and then that fruition is grasped and give it some absolute value, and all that creates the involvement of dukkha, of suffering. I would imagine for most of us, that's quite different from what you think was on for us. It's kind of an interesting alternative. Reframing our experience.

[09:49]

So I'd like to offer you a couple of more thoughts on that. A little bit more on this notion of the absolute and about. I hope by now you've all had a chance to read that handout by Anna Leo, the direct path of Realization. The one on Sati. The one on Sati. Page 49. Started on page 49. The role and position of Sati. So using the class of Buddhist texts and a lot of those early texts they were not attempting to

[10:51]

And they'd be very useful for us. They were not attempting to relate to the complex psychological and cognitive issues that were in contact for what arose for people at those times. They were trying to look at the process, at the building blocks, a kind of dispassionate, Impersonal look. Here's what happens. Here's the process of how Dukov becomes the established and bell-reached grasp. There's contact that's moving towards holding it, called grasping, and then there's holding onto it and not letting go. the universal working of the mind.

[11:54]

It doesn't matter who you are, what country you were born in, what particular content it is that you're grasping. And then related to that, in the going backwards, it's like, you go from what is called the fruition of the concept, how it turns into an established view of reality. Reality is this. When you step back, that came about because of these kinds of notions, these kinds of fordulations. And that came about from this kind of experience. experience through the six senses. And then with their pay close attention to, their experience beyond concept, something more on primary.

[13:10]

And that primary experience becomes energy. And then when you look at the Huda's text and it talks, it's about moving from my ideas and opinions about the experience, what's probably not arising to the experience, and then becoming absorbed in the experience. And if that absorption happens, the ideas about it fall away, even to the idea of itself separate from it, even to the idea of it happening in time and space. And then, alternatively, we study

[14:17]

As Doga says, we study the arising of the self. Yesterday, I was reading this poem. He said, I can find it. We can go in the same stance isn't enough. Just addressing, just being aware of the world according to me, that's a fixed solid thing. You need more and more evidence of who it is that wakes up in that skin. But what evidence? Real reality is unreliable. The world when it does, that appears and disappears every day. Your thirst stretches out its white doings.

[15:21]

This dependent core writing. Art thirst creates a thirsty world or a dry world. Every day in the dust you distinguish not islands, but their darkness heaped on the polished mirror of the sea. Not doors, but their shadows. land in the house of the wind. So as we bring awareness, what do we see? We see the formulations of our climate impulses. We see where we are, where we are holding. You know, in a way we could say zaza in the practice of awareness, you know, whether seated or in any other point.

[16:27]

First of all, we're just lost in those dreamlike constructions that squirrels arrive. And then every now and then we come into land. It was... coming in through the sense door right here. And then as we kind of like here more, we'll start to see how this is being experienced, what it is that's being experienced. We start to see the adjectives. We're so creatively attributed to it. We're starting to see the pattern of emotion and thought that we tend to bring to We study this up. And what she's pointing at, how I interpret what she's pointing at here, a very significant point of practice, is that we see the grasping.

[17:49]

We see the clinic. That's what's experienced. attention and skillful awareness is brought to that, we see both, then we start to see both the consequence and then the process. So she says, you know, her way of putting it is, you don't see that I look If you don't see the liberation, you see the lack of it. You don't see the dharma gate. You don't see the place of opening. You see the place of stuckness. In a way,

[18:56]

You see suffering. And then, of course, this brings up a very human response. Who the heck wants to see suffering? We're already experiencing it. Well, rub our nose in it. Aren't things bad enough? And here's the stillness of taking out Adam's proposition, where he says, yeah, look at it and then think about it. Do I want to keep feeding it or do I not? Do I want to perpetuate it or not? And how do you feed it? How do you feed mental suffering? How do you feed emotional suffering? How do you feed physical suffering? And if you think back when I was talking about creating a context for practice, traditionally in Buddhism called silo, conduct and behavior, and then, as Buddhism developed, environment.

[20:21]

What's the conduct, the behavior, and the environment that's conducive, that's supportive to not feeling suffering of body, mind, our heart, emotion. Which brings me to something, gives me a good excuse to say something I wanted to say, which is this. I would strongly encourage, and I think this may be in a formulation we should have presented at the beginning, but to try to observe silence, you know, We observe silence up until lunch. And then we have some combination of functional talking. What would you say?

[21:23]

Light social engagement. After dinner, we go back. into quiet. And the reason is pretty straightforward. Because when we were talking about the contact, you know, this making direct contact, and how associated with his columnists are settled, So limiting our social engagement and making the mind active helps that calm. That calm helps making contact, direct experiencing. And then as Thich Nhat Hanh and his writing, he added another quality.

[22:31]

He added this quality of... residing. It's almost like discovering how to take a break from yourself. Discovering how to initiate deep in the practice from the point of view of yourself. What we're trying to do is enable healing. We're trying to unwind both the gross and the more subtle ways that we educate our sense of being. Whether it's through anxiety, possibility, fear, doubt, remorse, whatever it is.

[23:36]

our practice bring about something that settles, that brings a soothing quality to that. You know, the nature of our psychological differences in a more subtle way is that it's only when the environment is there. The soothing, trusting environment is there that we that they start to release. They become so much part of this that they can be invisible. And then when we create something more settled, there's permission to release. And it's not at all a cognitive process. But sometimes you might notice it as combination of relief and a kind of sadness.

[24:45]

That's quite a common way to have an experience. So something about creating that environment. So collectively letting ourselves settle. Collectively creating a less socially active environment. give this kind of permission to our being, which is not that easy to get in touch with in the more usual socialization. So I'd like to encourage you to kind of bring that sort of independent vote. Staying quiet through lunch, staying quiet after dinner. In Buddhist texts, and this is more in my cut and dry way to talk about what I just talked about, you know, the dispassionate and karmic.

[26:12]

In Buddhist texts, in the early texts, it just says, arriving experience with detachment, arriving experience without detachment. And what you have is experience, then there is a movement towards it, then there is a clinging to it, and then there's the fruition of the reputation, the consequences of it. Now when there's not attachment, it's more something like this. There's experience, contact, touch, and then there is engagement, and that engagement illustrates the nature of what's happening in the moment.

[27:16]

The moment is activated, and then without attachment, that's clearly seen, that's actualized, that's real. So to help us realize that it's about how the moment is engaged, it's not about making the moment a certain way. Having this special moment. And in the Zen School, we sort of condense this, that notion, into one simple phrase. Ordinary mind is the one. It's not about having special experiences, it's about how we relate to the experiences that are already happening. And this is a guide to how we make our effort.

[28:20]

This is asking us to be willing, to be fully present for what's happening, but not the part of it. is , that is just sitting. And that is sati. That's the fundamental characteristic of sati, the teaching of Buddhism, the teaching of the fati-batana-sutta. Just to be present, as I In a more involved sense in our work, we can work with this like this. We can say, you know, yesterday I was introducing the notion of pause. You know, I was saying, well, often it's called stopping.

[29:25]

It's like this flow of the nourishment is stopped. But then the tricky thing is, it's like up to a day you're doing something, aren't you? Yeah. The request is that you're not perpetuating attachment. So here's one formulation. And I take that on. It says, well, look at the context. Create a conducive environment where attachment isn't being fed. This is an environment where attachment isn't being fed. And then we have this wonderful phrase called riding the robber's horse to catch the robber which means using active mind to see what's going on in active mind.

[30:29]

What's happening? What is it to practice with it? And then letting that direct engagement. And what happens when it's practiced? If the mind is quite active, that might be a cognitive process. If the mind starts to become quieter, that can shift into an experiential process. You know, maybe you notice what's, you ask what's happening, and the response is a sensation of tightness in some part of the body. What is it to practice with it? Just not add it, not add it to it.

[31:34]

And what it, it sort of, more like an energetic, physical involvement. So there may be no cognitive version of that going on. It all may be a worthless process. So that too. Or it may be an emotional process. What's happening? There's a strong sense of fear. Okay. What is it to practice with? To feel it. To experience it. To not push it away and not embellish it. So not necessarily, even though it sounds like this is to have your discursive mind, think of more ideas. Not necessarily so. So sometimes pause at what's happening can be very simple.

[32:38]

And it's sometimes not. Every state of mind offers an opportunity of practice. It offers itself up as a teaching of that state of mind. Sometimes very agitated states of mind. Sometimes making contact with our own hostility or anger is a very profound teaching. or our own fear, or our own sadness, or our own yinig. Sometimes when it has an intensity, when it has a strong conviction, it teaches in a way that when it's more subdued and redeeming with it a little bit more empathetically or abstractly, we don't get the visceral urgency and compelling request of it.

[33:40]

So please don't think you have to do all this when you're in a state of serenity. That's a wonderful time to do it. There's minutia and subtle detail that can be revealed. But there's powerful forces that can be revealed when we're in a more developed state line. I meant there's something very helpful in terms of supporting my life, in terms of taking on this onerous task of turning towards suffering rather than trying to escape from it.

[34:47]

Why are we surprised? Why do we distract? Why do we set up psychological practices? Because we don't want to suffer. Pretty simple question. And asking us to turn us towards it, it's really, you know, that's a very problematic proposition. And not only that, to turn towards it and open to it and experience it can be engaged with the inquiring mind, that it can be engaged with the spirit of sati, what's happened. Then the notion that it can become a teaching, it can become an opportunity for liberation. an opportunity to know about the self and to know about the collective self.

[36:01]

How amazing is that? I can actually have insights in how I restrict my life, how I diminish my relationships, how I bring forth suffering instead of joy. This is supported by acquiring life. And when will we trust it? When will we entrust it with our one precious life? When will we engage it and experience it directly? Hypothetically, we can say, sounds good. The process of engaging it and experiencing that it works is much more compelling.

[37:15]

Something in the deeper workings of our VA will go, hmm, okay. So this is... And I'd like to pause there and see if you have any questions, comments. Yes. On the broadly, say, three steps that they talked about earlier with Sati, the recognizing your feeling or thought and then looking for a root of it and then coming back to direct experience. It seems like they're in the middle that sometimes is not really promoted in lectures and things.

[38:27]

And I remember in particular from introduction to meditation coming here a few years ago. It's just notice it, let it go, and come back to the present. Is this something that we should incorporate more? It's engaging. You're asking about that central part that's searching, investigating the root. Quick question. It really is. I was saying something a little different. I was saying contact. What's happening? Experiencing it. Letting the experiencing of it.

[39:33]

You know, in a way you can say Well, I'm busy asserting the word according to me. But then as I experience the moment, it's like letting that be the primary force or activity of the moment. It's like there's a shift. And then, does that make sense? That's like when I use the example of an emotion. Hey, I'm angry. Well, I'm angry at you. You're a bad person. At that. Interesting, but we're going to keep putting this right. How are you going, Kate? I'm not sure. I'm scared. And letting it register.

[40:35]

Letting it be experienced. It may be I experience the conviction of anger. One of the pointers of anger is it knows what's right and what's wrong. It really does. It's got it all figured out. and having light in your world. And you notice the fixity of mind. What is it to practice with it? It's like you have the experience You release into it. That it kind of opens. It sounds like saying, well, this is all about me.

[41:42]

And to open it up to something bigger. It's like when you're sitting with pain in your knees. My knees are hurting. I don't like it. I want the boundary. Right. Experiencing that whole dynamic. I mean, the experiencing of it, rather than perpetuating with attachment, releasing it into just letting it be what it is. Success. bigger, something more spacious. Like the analogy I like to use, because I think it applies well in Hatha Yoga, you know, you stretch into the pose as you meet the point of contraction.

[42:49]

And then you pause and you release into it. You don't run away from it. You don't overcome it, I will overpower it. You let something open. And how much further you stretch, doesn't matter. What happens, it's not about, I'm releasing for this goal to get to the, it's like the process of releasing the contraction of the world according to me, fixed of the world according to me. It's like something's being released alive but open. It's like the world turns me rather than me putting my energy into turning the world. So what I was saying, Ryan, is when my mind's in a more active state,

[43:59]

feel me more discursive. The lines close here to just experiencing. Don't make it more busy. Don't. Don't stay busy with a whole bunch of ideas. So how does I apply besides them? I would say As much as possible, keep it as simple as possible. If you're obsessing on something, if you're sitting here turning it around, turning it around, well then look at it. Maybe a little discursive thinking will help to release that. adding a whole lot more discursive thinking to your life. It's like more important, direct experience.

[45:07]

Does that help? Yeah. So if you're not, sorry, I'm not teasing the creators. I could actually just start talking in a couple of ways that could be. One is, as the gatekeeper says to yours, and he talks about the town which has energy as troops, wisdom as fortification, and Saudi gatekeeper. The town, he described it as the gatekeeper, is that the Lord? Yeah. And he would like to say that it's like a town which has energy as the troops, wisdom as fortification, and Saudi gatekeeper to recognize real citizen faults. And then he talks about... Well, let's stop right now. So we can't distinguish between when we're adding attachment or not until there's some awareness of the moment.

[46:17]

So the gatekeeper at the sense door, okay, here's a writing experience. gatekeepers say, okay, come with detachment or not? And that's what the gatekeeper does. You come in the gate, the gatekeeper, do you bring any baggage with you? Now, it takes a lot of energy to carry that baggage. The heavier the bags, the more energy it takes. The less baggage you're bringing, the more light. The more that energy just flows in the moment. The less attachment, the less agitation the less is being stirred up.

[47:23]

And the more the moment is just seen for itself. is what it is. It's clearly seen. This moment is this. So just to put it in a little mnemonic by giving it a kind of picture. Does that help? I guess it just, it still sounds For me, it still sort of sounds like there's this, the society has some kind of role in discrimination. And because he also talks about it as knowing the proper capture and the Cal River's, you know, the proper capture and the peace will avoid, say, the country.

[48:35]

Let me talk about that. That's similar to saying create the right context. It's similar to me saying, well, let's be quiet in the morning and the evening. Let's create a calm pasture for us guys to roam it. That's whatever. while the dogs run around snapping at our cow boot. It's just to... You know, sometimes when we attach an idea to an image, or give it a sequence as a story, it sticks with us there. It's so spiritual. Well, I gave a more complex notion.

[49:40]

What I said was the expression of sake can vary dependent upon the condition of consciousness. When the mind is busy, psychic can be busy. The challenge is when you don't hold too tightly to all those great thoughts that start up. But how exactly when you're at three, that's giving rise to this particular strong emotion that you're having. You know, when the mind gets busy, it'll conjure up thoughts like that. And that might be a very thoughtful thought. You know, that may be a way to help you accept your experience right now.

[50:50]

Show the things against it. That might help you be open to it. So, depending on the state of consciousness, society can express itself. And they're not the same. and saty can become worthless. And then when consciousness becomes deeply settled, it can not only go beyond formulated thoughts, it can go beyond even subtle thoughts. Does that help? What did the seeing of what you think about pregnant and non-cognitive experience, did you mean non-intellectual work as first? I was saying it can be non-cognitive.

[51:59]

What I was trying to make clear was that this is not just something you think through. but there are a lot of very significant experiences we feel for. That's what I was trying to say. I was trying to say you can have them in different modalities. And that's just how it is. The idea that the ordinary mind is the way, I really like that aspect that It's burning, the light of truth is always shining from every moment. But I've also, I think I remember this as a quote of Dogen's, every day you must pray to believe my... Is that right? I mean, I don't know exactly where that comes from, but it certainly signs, you know, what...

[53:07]

One of Dogen's, one of the points that he emphasized a lot was raising way-seeking mind or body-mind or whatever you want to call it. So how would you contrast those two statements? Contrast them? The ordinary mind is the way, and every day you must pray for body-mind. I prefer the translation of way-seeking mind. You know, the Bodhi mind? Because Bodhi mind seems like there's this communist state of being that you should have, create, attain every day. Whereas the way of thinking mind is more, in my way of thinking, is more in what I was saying earlier. It's like, what is it to practice with this? Here's what's happening. What is it to practice with that? Give me that's way sick of mine.

[54:07]

Okay, I wake up in the morning, I don't want to go to the Zendo. What is it to practice with that? Maybe you're too sick and tired, and then going to the Zendo, or college you call it. Maybe you're just kind of resisting at your own issues when you'd rather run away from them. Well, given that's what you should do. What do you think in life has this wonderful quality that can apply to whatever the heck comes up for us? Maybe you're filled with gratitude and appreciation for the Dharma and the people you're practicing with and even that part of you but very sincerely is committed to it. What is it to practice with that?

[55:11]

To me, that's ways it came up. And then what I was saying, that's, of course, a human part. Because in a way, it's sort of saying, everything can be practiced with. Relax. [...] Don't hold your breath and say, I must never think or feel that. It can be practiced with. Bring it on. You know, it's not saying, if that happens, then my life is, you know, crushed, you know, a disaster. I must never, ever feel or think that. or internalizing, that part of me must be kind of held up. It's not going to work anyway. You're viewing it with so much authority and power.

[56:19]

For sure it's going to want to exercise that authority and power. Just maybe going back a little bit what Ryan said. So I'm sitting zazen and have aches and pains. I'm not really liking or disliking them. I'm not screaming at the person to ring the bell. I have just random thoughts arising. There's nothing to do with the aches and pains that I'm experiencing physically. So when I have a, when I see sometimes some of the thoughts have really kind of No emotional weight to them. Like what's for dinner or that and easy to let go of those. No shenpa, as Kema Chodron talks about. So in some ways it's harder for me to see what causes those thoughts to rise. They just arise. Whereas ones with more emotion or that when the thought arises and I attach emotion to it, I'm like, I really, really hate pees or something, I guess.

[57:29]

I hate peas, I hate peas, I hate peas. I hope we don't have peas or, you know, I slid and broke my foot on a pea or something, right? I could see where, I could see, I see that emotion arising and I see how I'm attaching it to the story. But the other ones, I don't really see, I mean, they just seem to be arising without, I mean, they're arising without any emotion. They're just sort of showing up. And so it's hard for me to see, since it's not about my aches and pains, it's hard for me to see what's causing that to arise, like that middle place, what's causing... those random thoughts to arise, just the looted mind? No, the vast complex net of interconnected being. Oh, that's it? Okay. And sometimes out of that, part of the causality might be quite evident to us, you know, when you start to explore your own habit formations, After a while, you become really familiar with them.

[58:30]

It's like, oh yeah, that again. But then, we also have, you know, things that just pop up. And darn it if we could think, why in that moment, that thought, that image, that memory popped up. But it's not like, well then if you can't, something's failed. You stay here You stay present in this time and space, and whatever comes here, be aware of it. It's not like chasing after it, tracking down its source. It's more like letting it unfold, and it unfolds as much as it unfolds. We just bring the clear, calm light of awareness to it, and whatever is revealed is revealed. Sometimes something arises and it's just amazing.

[59:36]

How did that happen? Where did it come from? Why in this moment while I'm washing the dishes did I suddenly get an image of myself as a four-year-old? It's just what happened, you know? You know, there's no necessity, you know, from practice to say, well, then you have to get all that sort of like... Okay, because when it says, notice where it rises, it's sort of, there's that middle part, like, well, okay, well, if it's just in rising from the interconnectedness of interbeing, then I don't have to worry about it. Yes, that's correct. Okay, I know, I know, I know. You don't have to worry about it if you see some causal connection and you don't have to worry about it if you don't see some causal connection. Either way, you don't have to worry about it. Great, that's great. Exactly.

[60:46]

When there is detachment, it's a very easy practice. Yeah, yeah, I guess so, yeah. You know? Like when the teacher says, when the student says to the teacher, well, how do you practice? And he says, I eat when I'm hungry and I sleep when I touch. That's a pretty easy thing to do when there's no attachment. When there is attachment. Yeah, so looking for causal connections is attachment? It can be. And that's a very good question because it's more like letting something reveal. rather than figuring it out. Gotcha. Yeah. So the energy is more like alert and observant as opposed to aggressive and... Yeah. I have to figure this out. Aggressive and analytical, maybe, for me. That's what I would... Yeah. It's more like letting what's fair be revealed. In whatever way it's revealed.

[61:49]

You know? And if it's revealed as not knowing, I mean, I would say, to endorse not knowing, sometimes it's helpful to not put a cognitive overlay on our experience. Sometimes it's a nice relief for us. It's actually a helpful training. Why does it have to make sense? Who says? Sometimes that's a helpful permission to give our experience in the moment. It's also very helpful in the realm of emotions. A lot of our emotional responses are not reasonable. That's very sure. And we confuse ourselves by trying to work out the reason.

[62:52]

And that just sort of gets, at least gets me stuck in a small line, like trying to figure out the why. Yeah. Yeah. It sounds really naive, but I was thinking about how do you suffer? How do you suffer? You. Me personally? Yeah. How do I suffer? Yeah, how do you... We have to ask him again.

[63:59]

No, let's pause for a minute. When you're ready, ask me. Trying to create experiences. My eyes aching. How do you suffer? Saddle and saddledness. How do you suffer? It's a different thing to answer something abstractly or hypothetically to taking the same into the stream of experience and letting the stream of experience answer.

[65:17]

So that's what I would say, Heather. It's not like Okay, give me your abstract, but in a stream of experience, what's stimulated it. Yeah, put me. I think I know on some level how to balance this, but I'd like to hear your thoughts on the handout from the first day on Zika. He seems to say basically what you've been saying up to a point where he starts and it seems to me like he's suggesting that in the course of meditating it seems like he's encouraging that we do add something and that we lean into joy

[66:20]

versus hatred. And I sort of felt, it felt a little bit to me the way he was presenting that. And I'm curious, because I actually feel some responsibility sometimes to leave away from anger and to help insert compassion. I'm just curious. Certainly in terms of out your anger and making other people and yourself suffer. To move away from that. To having moved away from reactiveness to just being present with. You could say creating a context conducive for practice. Well, Isn't that a contradiction of just practice with whatever happens?

[67:27]

In a way, yes. So then why bother to be silent in the morning or the evening? Why not just being fully present with active mind? Because it's difficult. Because active mind is much harder to get in touch with. It's jumping all over the place. It's hard to make contact at the moment. So, strictness speaking, you could say, yeah, there's dualism there. But then there's what you might call skillful response to the situation. So we do try to create a conducive environment. I mean, why have I ever come here at all? Why don't you speak for the present? For every moment in your life. Quite rather than do something. Extremely speaking, it's a valid proposition.

[68:31]

But practically speaking, you discover, well, the reason I do is because this helps. This brings me to a more connected place. And I... So trying to distinguish between those two, where we're bringing a skillful response, distinguishing between that and some kind of re-application of creating some good in that. Being silent is good, talking is bad. Staying silent is success, speaking is failure. Then we kind of, we've added an overlay. It loses the flavor of practice. And we're turning all that on ourselves in whatever way we want to turn it on ourselves. That's part of the challenge of practice, you know, how to be skillful.

[69:33]

Turning it into another way to have fixed ideas, fixed definitions of good and bad, and success and failure. Well, this was, back there, something that Heather was saying, I think, about, you know, feelings with grassier comes with perversion, kind of, you know, wait, it becomes hard, but it actually starts. And it works first. I remember reading somewhere about neutral people, kind of, and that there's, There's a danger that we have to use for granted, and that they can feel that they have some permits. Looking at those two more difficult, because they're not jumping up on our face, that's helpful to see those arise and fall away as well.

[70:48]

Yes, they are difficult to notice because they don't have such a distinct feature. But the good news is that they are much more likely to trigger our So to that extent, they're good teachers. And when we energize them, they become pretty out of that. It is true. Neutral sensations. Teachers. They have their offering, too.

[71:52]

And as consciousness settles, it includes more of that. It's akin to this calm vibe. It's not being special. Spring comes. The grass grows. Just like being like nothing. to get worried about nothing, to get excited about it. Yeah. So that too, and then practically speaking, usually the mind needs to be a little bit more quiet than it can. So then we'll have more silence than you'll experience nothing. Nothing special.

[72:56]

Which has its own kind of human, you know. But usually we are around this often. Most of the time we'll find a single run. From what we like to what we don't like. Wearing something unwanted. As thoroughly as possible. A lovely little palm in here, which I probably won't give up on. Let me tell you the rest of it. It says, When the shoe fits perfectly, it disappears.

[74:00]

In fact, when we're in harmony with being, there's no problem. Nothing special. But in another way, how exquisite. The being did hardly. There's nothing to be grasping. and nothing to be pushed away. So yeah, it's an important point. The beauty is that if we can appreciate or work with our grasping at birth, it's what you might call buried treasure. and what do you call it?

[75:17]

Okay, thank you.

[75:21]

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