What this means is... I'm gonna get it. And without this, well, this character I just do, basically, is how we make language, or how we tell a story. This happened in a lab. You start here, you go there. So we have no way to describe this, except using this. So this is non-linear. This you could say is thy prime. Two times. This time and that time. So is there a this time and a that time? Nope. But somehow, in order for us to try to understand, how did we make a practice period? How did this happen? Can you see it right now?

[01:01]

It's happening? Okay. Yeah. Right? Maybe? Yeah, sure. So, we can't see how it happens, but we kind of suspect that somehow it happened, and we have lots of words we've used to make it happen. And, you know, it hits the sweet chain, and then we'll end it. Hit the sweet chain. Practice three words. So we slice pieces out of this and create a few stories. For our benefit or not, you can make armies and all kinds of things out of stories. So, we can't really study reality. It's what we are. It's too late. We're too late. By the time we think about it, it's the next one. We're already there. We can study thinking. And that's what the Buddha did. You study thinking. And this is the relative... These are two different truths about... This is the truth about two different things, rather.

[02:16]

This is the truth about this thing. And we use this method to try and deal with this thing. We have no other way to deal with it. We've made this up. This is narrative. It's storytelling, narrative being storytelling, and it's total fabrication. And right in here is the key to both our bondage and to our treat. And this is the map. That's how it works. And it's actually quite wonderful and quite simple to pull on one sheet literally, right? If you learn it, if you actually study this, which I keep coming back to, you know, once I found this wheel and began to look at the parts of it and began to appreciate it, I thought, this is good. This is very good.

[03:17]

This is a very good merit. And it happens to be what the Buddha taught. It also happens to be what he saw just prior to his awakening. He saw this. It's that causality. So this that is also called causality. Causing effect. Causing effect. This is the wheel of breaking death for causing effect. How can it come to be? You go one way, you can never get off. You just get reborn again and again, around and around. And Buddha, so he saw that. He was like, oh my gosh. How amazing. And then he did it backwards. And he got free. So, this is kind of the raw material before any verbal elaboration.

[04:23]

So, he studied the wheel, you know, going around. And then he studied what happens when he goes to the right. So one Zen Matthew said, you're turned by the 24 hours. I turn the 24 hours. There's a subtle difference, but it's the difference between bondage and liberation. So, I want to start with a poem. Long way. In my middle years, I've grown very fond of the way. When the spirit moves me, I leave my solitary hut and go to the places that only I can see. I follow the stream to the source. I sit and watch the clouds piling up. Or, by chance, I meet a woodsman and laugh and sing with never a thought going on.

[05:24]

This is the same thing. I go to heaven. I follow the stream practice things to the source, and sit and watch the place where the clouds pile up, and that place is right here. This is the main piece of the story for our freedom and liberation. This is the place where the clouds pile up, called the samsara, or the impulses, and the Vaisana is called the impulses. Formation, fabrication. This step, this is where we make things. This is the part of making little parts. Also known as intention or impulses. Things that you think that then compel you to take actions which inevitably end in dissolve, gone, over, done.

[06:27]

Let's try the end. Maybe this time it'll work better. Can we keep doing the same heaven thinking? So there was a period of time in world history when many millions of people believed that this pattern, this map of reality was literally true. And I'd say from maybe 2,000 years, from Afghanistan to eventually to Japan, this was just literally true. This was how they understood the world. And so all of the authority came from texts written by the Buddha or attributed to Buddha. All the icons, the imagery were Buddhist imagery. And the things that people considered important to talk about and think about were Buddhist teachings.

[07:29]

Imagine, like, all along the Silk Route, you know, as we're learning all these ships that travel back and forth, the trade routes, we're carrying these duty. And wherever they went, people were pretty impressed and began to, you know, assimilate this way of thinking into their art in poetry of its own. Some of the most beautiful poetry in Japan is written during this book called the Medieval Period, when this teaching was literally believed to be true. And it includes, and this is Token. It's very fun. Token has written two facts called on cause and effect. One of them is faith and cause and effect. And the other one is cause and effect and re-carms. So, you know, Token taught to be a creation or reaper. And the understanding was that your karma, the outcome of your actions, Then they just lose it through and die.

[08:31]

You're going to come back. And you're going to come back over and over again. And these centerpieces, these six realms that we, our meals, we can't have all the games in the six realms. Right here, easy to say. And these are destinations that you go to again and again and again, depending on your behavior. That's why this is related to the preset. If you behave well, it's a very simple formula. If you behave well, you end up in these top rounds. And if you behave hotly, you end up being a top round. It's easy to explain. Children can understand that. If you don't eat chicken, you turn into a carrot. So, and that's kind of literally the way they thought it. There was an equivalency of each historic called the Mellon Man, which is Anyway, so... Here's... Karmic Retribution in Three Stages of Time.

[09:41]

This is a classical from the Shogunanthro. I'm just going to read you the last part. The Buddha said, even though 100,000 kalpas of time elapsed, karma will not disappear. You must inevitably receive the material effects of your actions, whether good or bad. You should realize that if you do only good, you will receive only good and sure effects. If you do only bad, the opposite is true. On the other hand, if you do both good and bad, you will receive a mixture of like results. Therefore, you should stop feeling bad, or a mixture of good and bad, and do good alone. These some monks, hearing the Buddha's words, were overjoyed and took them to heart. So then Dogen says, The Buddha has shown that once good or bad karma has been produced, it will not disappear even in the course of 100,000 health at a time. We once inevitably receive the result of our action, good or bad repentance, however, lessens the effects, bringing release and purity.

[10:43]

When we rejoice in the good opposite others, our own karma also increases. This is what is meant by the statement, karma does not disappear. There is no doubt for such rejoicing it will produce its own good effect. So, You know, as simple and easy as this mapping wants to understand, I mean, the byproduct of it was sheared care. Because, I mean, how many of you guys only do good? Yeah, see, there's one. And the rest of you, so he gets to live up here, but the rest of you are kind of cycling around. All these, oh, couple more, only good, oh no, only questions. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Doing good, teach young, yeah. That's correct. We're not getting off the wheel yet. We're just arriving at the better destination. These are the high-class users. Yeah. It's kind of similar. So, in this period of time, Muslim isn't able to liberate yourself to eat ha-ha and eating David.

[11:54]

No, no, no. You're right. No, we're not there yet. We're not getting liberated yet. We're still on the wheel. This is the story of how human life circulates. The Buddha did discover, as I said, how to shut this down. And then we have Bhajan on the Fox. What happens if you shut it down and ignore it? Karmagana? Apparently not. So there's some understanding by the Buddhists internally that you don't get out of it. But you can be in a good relationship with this. In fact, all along here, There are a new belief of singing in each of these realms. Because they vowed to come down here and play music for people in hell or whatever. So they're all showing up. Because that's their vow. Not to leave you. I'm not trying to get out of here. But the way to not be attached to it, like that it doesn't turn your life. The 24 hours of turn by Leo. is quite different than you're turning it 24 hours.

[12:58]

You're with it, but you're not, you know, under its spell. You're awake. And you see what's happening. And you see this. This is what's happening. And you're very willing to participate in the next narrative. And saying things like, well, this is the way it works, you know. As a narrator, your job is to please help, but it's to keep the guard. It's a skill for me. using this causality to create the opportunity for creation. Okay. So, the simplest formulation, so the Buddha gets awakened, the way he gets awakened is called the three knowledges. Very interesting. So, just before he wakes up, he has This experience, and it's very interesting to read, there's a book called Life of His Buddha, which is a chronological excerpt from the Paul Patton.

[14:03]

And in there you can see all the steps that went from his birth all the way through his sentencing, and through the time that he sat under the tree, and what happened while he was under the tree, and then what happened at the time that he was away. And then after all, his disciples went on to his step. It's a wonderful book, Deep in Mount Monomoli. So, three knowledges. The first one was the knowledge of past lives. So, this one is, you know, it's common to all shamanic traditions. So, any shaman or leader or teacher who worked their salt had knowledge of their past lives. And, you know, usually when they tell you what they were, they were a king, they were a plumber. You know, so most people remember their past lives in rather exalted ways. as did the Buddha. So we know he was, who was he? Himera. And he's done many papas, doing different animal forms, different incarnations, he was a king, he was a monkey king, he was an elephant, he was all kinds of things, a deer, but he was always the leader of people, taking them to say, orisato.

[15:16]

So Buddha remembered his cat's lives. And then the next thing he remembered was what he saw was karma. Good leads to good, bad leads to bad. And he saw it by seeing this and all the ways that people incarnate on this wheel and how this works, that if they do bad things, they end up in hell. It's retribution for bad actions. And if they do good things, they end up in the entire realm. So this was the second knowledge he had. And then the third knowledge was this and that causality. Which he extrapolated from his vision of karmic outcomes. He went, huh, there's something going on here, and I think it's a fundamental truth, and I think I'll call it the poor noble truth.

[16:19]

which is basically two sets of cultural relations. There is suffering, caused by desired ignorance. Well, I've got it right here. Ignorance and craving. So, yeah, that's Homer. Donuts. So that's suffering. We know that about donuts. Okay, so that's, there's a result, suffering, and there's a cause, craving, basically ignorance, thinking you don't, you can't have dauntless all the time, you're just not a dauntless, but you suffer too dauntless, okay? So, you crave something that you think is outside of yourself. So that's suffering. So then the second step is liberation. Again, two cause of liberation. the sensation of suffering, and the cause, which is that.

[17:30]

This and that causality. And again, as you guys were asking, aren't these still on the wheel? Aren't these still conditional understanding? Yeah, we're not actually off the wheel yet. We're still on the wheel here. Because these are seen as separate. Samsara and Nirvana. were believed for a long time to be two separate places, but, you know, the back of the hill. So, it took a while for the understanding, the first understanding, to come back to what, pretty much, if you read the Buddha's teaching clearly, you can see he didn't separate these two quite the same way with the room, you can see how they're actually not two different places, two different ways of seeing. Um... Costumes so far. Anyway.

[18:31]

Come on. Come on. Actions are based on this and that, on narratives. So you fabricate an idea about something. I want a donut. So you have this mood. You're still sitting in the gym. One day you're done. Then at midnight you go to the kitchen. So that's action. And then you don't come to them, catch them. And you are Dino, and then you're non-duality. Right there. So happy ever after. It's different terms. Well, you know, karma's just a word, but this is the karmic circle, this one right here, which has a lot of...

[19:47]

So when we start talking about karma, we'll talk about the outcomes of this whole process is chronic. It means that you're going to get a little higher action. What tools you take will have to scare you. That's how you do it. There's no future, as we know. But if you think that way, then that's how you suffer. No, it's because of the dichromic thinking. Look at this effect. This is an illusion. This is the mind of a human being creating this way of thinking. The Buddha understood the mind of a human being. That's why he said, are you human? He said, no, I'm awake. I'm awake to the mind of human beings. I understand how the human mind works. It works like this.

[20:51]

Is that what it went up? And then she told me that, and then I said, my freaking feelings were hurting. And it's all we say, all they learn. On and on and on. So we live in this background area, fabricated, made up. That's it. It's very hard and painful for us to learn that because, you know, basically it's like, wait a minute, we're going to meet. We're going to meet. The Lord was not very richling. You know? He said, actually, that's an application. One of the biggest applications you've got from me is yourself. So then what happens to all your self's problems? And you don't have yourself to hang on. That part. But it's people. Because we are very fond of ourselves. Self-love is our primary thing. It comes with birth. We love ourselves. we cherish ourselves above all of us. We are concerned about ourselves and we protect ourselves.

[21:55]

And that's as far as something. It comes from that way of being. This is the way of the fantasy of how we think This is a, this is a nipple. Yeah. [...] I wouldn't be standing here talking about this. Because, that would just be all true. What I think is true. Don't make my life happy. It's just true. There's no, why are we talking? And most of the world talks like it's just true.

[22:58]

There's no synchronic reality. There's just this. Vote for me and you'll all be safer. People are talking like this and believing it and voting for people. We're talking about the worst possible ways. And in this whole year. So we have to be careful about who we listen to. Who are we listening to? Because it's still talk. Who is talking? He came over here. He kind of went, whoa. He says, come on. And he was very quiet and depressed and in awe of what he saw. Then he realized what was going on and how he was fabricating his suffering. Oh, I'm doing this. I'm compelled by this fabrication that I just made up. An elaboration on the dots. I just put another dot after that dot and connected the dots. And now, that's why I did that very well. Why don't I put a few more into your paragraph?

[23:59]

Like a novel. You know, but it's just what we do. It's not... It's not bad. It's not good. It's a tool that we use. I'm using it right now. I'm narrating. So, it's, uh... No, no, this is a subset. We just arranged, we're arranging rocks in Avalanche here.

[25:00]

Did you notice? Yep, you just cleaned that sink. We are constantly, you know, trying to organize everything as it's falling apart. That's just, we have to, you know, we're kind of fond of the thing for some reason. So we have to keep, you know, clearing the gates and cooking, pricing rules, and, you know, we keep very busy fighting chaos. You can just sit, you know, just sit next time until we die. We have to eat. What's the hell on us? Why do we keep doing all this stuff? How do we have survived this long by falling into this guy? That's the thing. He won't go to Sarah anymore because he sees me and he goes. So he just broke a lot with her. He learned when I cut down.

[26:02]

He ain't got too into it. Everything's just into it. He's got an urge to live. Go toward the light. So it's not a bad thing. This isn't bad. It's just a strategy for survival. But we go too far. We become violent. And our survival is at the expense of public living things. So the Buddha saw that. That this is like, these are your brothers and sisters growing there in the field. These are relatives. Relatives. They won't let you later. So how do we do this thing we need to do? I mean, we do, well, the question about plants and killing plants is honestly a really important question, but, you know, you're not going to do better in the kitchen. If you're in the garden, you've just already been cut. And I'm just going to chop them up and put them in boiling water. So we are eating life. Life eats it.

[27:02]

Our life could have been eaten. So we have to own it, you have to own the karma of our existence, and you also have to study it, and you have to be grateful, and also, it's not just like, there's one version of the real chant that some people do, it's like, we give thanks to the work of many people, and the sharing of a little swipe, and I'm like, really? I've never seen anything jump in my mouth, you know, I don't think there's a lot of sharing of our lives. You know, maybe... Maybe. But anyway, it'd be nice to avoid the fact that we have to kill or do kill. Makes me sad. May I go on a little bit longer? If I don't cover your clip, try to remember what you wanted to ask. That's right.

[28:15]

That's right. I will tell you a little more about how that works. Okay. It works in two... Well, okay, there's the, you know, one, two, three, four sequence. So, let me go to, I'm going to get to that one. So let me just finish this part here. But we got the three knowledges. So the Buddha, just before he woke up, sees this. It's like, that's what's happening. That's how I'm doing it. That's how I'm doing it. And then he basically leaps clear of the many and the one. happy man. And he doesn't leave the earth, stays on the earth. And then eventually he starts talking. He comes over here to talk, willing to talk and to describe best way he could what he saw.

[29:19]

So, you know, he starts with this, this and that causality. You all are suffering and you're suffering because there's a reason you're suffering. You're doing something. It's optional. The good news is your suffering is optional. It's not necessary. You are mistaking. And because of that, you're trying to get a hold of things that cannot be gotten. And you are frustrated and you're in a lot of pain about that. So I'm going to give you some ways of behaving. They're going to work a lot better and you're going to get more relaxed and feel better and have more friends. And little by little, you're going to start to not be so worried and you're not going to feel like you have to make your life happen under your own power. And you're going to be so grateful for how many people are helping you and how much is helping you and how the rain and the sunshine and everything is creating your life that you'll just cry with gratitude. And you'll want to help everybody. That's it. That's the bodhisattva teaching.

[30:22]

That this will actually benefit you personally and will benefit everyone around you. So... How do we get there from here? Well, you know, you guys are doing pretty good so far. You are in a monastery. Studying Buddha Dharma. I mean, how close can you get, you know? It's pretty good. Okay, so... What else did I want to tell you? This is the map of salvation. Oh, I did mention to you that there's terror that comes along with this because, although, except for Nathan, none of you are only good. So the next Dharma event, which is in about a week or 10 days from now, I'm going to actually bring all the strategies for escaping from this wheel that were invented, fabricated, mainly in Japan in response to this thousand-year belief in the inevitability of you're going to pay for those things.

[31:26]

You're overcharging those people for those melons. You're going to pay for that. You're going to come back as a melon, you know, whatever. These consequences are going to come back to you. So unless you're really good, which most people don't seem to be able to be, I'm sorry, but there's going to be bad stuff up ahead, and you can't avoid it. So there were numerous strategies for avoiding bad consequences. It was really great. So I'm going to tell you about all those, including the Bodhisattva Path. In fact, all of these strategies, once you hear them, you'll recognize because we do them all in service. All of them. But I don't want to jump ahead to the good news yet. One of the messages is that it's an individual's responsibility. I don't know how many of you remember, but when the Buddha...

[32:27]

After he was enlightened, he was walking down the road. One of the first stories in the Pali Canon is that he meets this person. I forget his name. Upali, maybe? And the man says, gee, you look interesting. Who are you? And Buddha says, I'm Buddha. And the man says, that's nice and keeps walking. And we never hear of this guy ever again. He walks out of the Pali Canon. So it's a choice. And it's an individual choice. You do not have to pay attention to the Buddha Dharma. You do not have to study the Buddha Dharma. You can walk away. It doesn't say anything bad happened to him. It's an option. So that's one message. And it's up to you as an individual to find out the pathway out. It's here. It's actually laid out for you. It's right here. But you have to not only understand the workings of karma, of the wheel, but you have to... Embody it and bring it into your volitional system so that your actions aren't just coming from your old habit patterns, but you've created new habit patterns so that when you act, you're coming from actual conviction about that this is so.

[33:41]

You don't do that thing that's so easy to do because no one's looking. Because you're looking. And you've installed this way of seeing the world. So that's the long process. Seeing the truth doesn't take that long. A lot of people have major insights pretty quickly about the mind, and they jump off, and they get all happy, and it's wonderful. But you have to bring your whole life into accord with that insight. And that's the 20-year process, or forever, rest of your life. Okay, three knowledges. We got that. Oh, so someone asked about how, yeah. Sean was asking. So I get one too, but I don't get, you know, after that it's like whatever. Kaddish, she's hurricane. Yeah. So this is in the present. And it's direct perception of a link to

[34:49]

So it's kind of a fat present moment that has this and that appearance of this and that. So when you're sitting, you might notice that there's some feeling you might have in kind of a fat present moment that something led to something else. And... Somebody was telling me that they noticed they just reached up and scratched without really... They didn't really think about doing that. So there's an itch, there's a scratch. Something leads to something. There's a link. So seeing the link is the first step. After that, the rest of it is based on inference. See, that leads to that. Well, then that'll probably lead to that, which would probably lead to that. So we can actually move into some kind of future narrative by inferring what's going to be next.

[35:57]

In fact, they do this. There's this game we play sometimes in groups, not recently, but where somebody starts a story and the next person takes the next piece of the story. And pretty soon you've got this really long story that kind of makes sense, although it's a weird story. But we do know how to keep the narrative going. when an and comes into place, when we need a noun, and when we need an adjective, and so on, when we need it to reign. We will get a narrative out of a storytelling. So this is how we infer the next steps. So we've got ignorance leads to this. So the way the Buddha did it, he went this way. He started with death, suffering, old age, sickness, and death. He said, what is it, on what condition is there... that death is based on what condition? Let me think. What do you think he came up with? Birth. So it's not so hard. And then like, well, what led to birth?

[36:59]

So he basically backed his way around conception. Pretty good, huh? Yeah. There's a little mitosis, little salamanders mating. This is Green Gulch as a... Told you so. Lots of salamanders mating at Gringold. Try to hide them from the children, but we can't. And then there's, you know, grasping and craving. Well, that's where mating comes from. Of course, we know that. And that's because of feelings about something you're attracted to. And that's because you had contact with something that was attractive. This is a hot tub. And... And you just keep backing your way up until you get to the fantasy of separation. I feel separate. I better find somebody to be connected with. So this whole wheel turns on very easily recognized processes that we all have. We do them all the time. So he watched how these links, each one was conditioned by the one before it.

[38:02]

That one conditions that one. That one conditions that one. Until you get back to the fact that you actually thought you were separate. That's the first step. Believing you're separate. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I will. Actually, I will go through the whole thing. I will. I promise. Yeah, well, this is basically now you're in the individual karmic. You know, up here, we're starting to... At this point, the six senses are the objects of the senses. So over here, we've made a person. The baby has influences from its past life. So it's this kind of a baby. And the kind of parents it has influences, how it's going to be, what kind of person it is, and so on. So there's all those influences. And then there's a consciousness that's very influenced. loves itself, concerned for itself. That all comes as a package.

[39:04]

You keep moving down here, name and form, that's the five skandhas. So now you've got a person with sensory apparatus and feelings, and so you've got this whole set all ready to roll. And then this one, the six sense objects, are what this person then is met with when it's born is what we think of as the objective world. So the eye, light, the ear, sound. So these six sense fields are what the person enters into at birth. So now you've got an individual in the world right here. And then that individual, it's like a little castle with legs, walks around and sees another castle with legs. And they look at each other and they have contact. So then we already saw what happens then. So now if that contact is wholesome and considerate and perceptual, there's no lying, no intoxication, there's no praising oneself at the other's expense and so on and so forth.

[40:19]

If you're actually in a field of precepts in this hatta, then when your feelings will be wholesome about each other, you'll be telling the truth. There'll be genuine love between you and so on. So, you know, this makes a softer kind of landing for you. When time comes for you to land in a, you know, when the wheel's spinning, when, so this is how you end up in these six realms. This is the mechanism of incarnation. So you get here to birth. So death is later, the end of your life. At birth, you're born one of these. This is your future lives. So let's say all of those good things were happening. Well, you're born as the king and queen of England. Okay, okay. What do you want? Dino. Congratulations.

[41:20]

Oh, yeah, well. Yeah. So anyway, you're born in heaven, and it's really wonderful, and you're very proud of yourself. The gods are characterized by pride. And they're also characterized by not being interested in practice. Why would they? They've got it made. So they are kind of indolent and they just kind of got around and, you know. So people think that this is a desirable outcome. I mean, everybody in America thinks they should be here. This is where you want to go, you know. And because they think this is where you should go, they incarnate as fighting demons trying to get into heaven. And guess who's over here? Isn't that fun? This is Donald Trump. Now, this was actually made many years ago, like four years ago or something. This is Donald Trump. So this is prescient, you know?

[42:23]

And in the other depiction of the fighting gods, so we've got, you know, There's some kind of hero guy. We've got fighter planes. We've got assassins and all kinds of bad stuff going on over here and Donald Trump. And they're trying to get their way into heaven. They want to be respected. They want to be loved. They want all the goodies. And they're going to get it no matter what. So they're characterized by greed. Oh, no, not greed. Something else. Worse. Jealousy. Jealousy. No, anger is here. Hell. So each one of these has an emotional quality. So the gods is pride. The jealous gods are jealous. Or Asherah is the fighting gods. Humans desire is our thing. So let's say that this thing down here that happened was not wholesome.

[43:28]

There was a lot of precept violation going on. And they weren't nice to each other. And you have a rebirth in one of these lower realms as a result of that. So the three lower realms are... These are cats. This is the animal realm. And the animals are characterized by ignorance. They just eat. They just mate. They just eat. And they mate. And that's kind of it. And then... Over here are the hungry ghosts, and the hungry ghosts are characterized by greed. They can never get enough. Their necks are really small, their abdomens are huge, and no matter how much they try to take in, it's never enough, never enough, never enough. It's very painful. And then the worst of them all is hell, which is characterized by anger. That's how you go to hell, anger. Okay, so... Desire.

[44:28]

This one. Yeah, I said it's desire. Yeah, yeah. Farming. Sitting Zazen. Gringo farm. Yeah. Dharma talks. Children's programs. Fresh baked bread on Sunday. Nice. There's the ocean. Surfers. Kim? think i said that but it probably is because the motivation is higher you don't want to be here so if you hear the buddha dharma and you're in hell and there are bodhisattvas in there singing chanting for your benefit you're going to have a lot more motives these guys are not so motivated so it is very hard to practice here it's hard to practice here they're so ambitious they haven't got what they want yet so they can't let go of their ambition

[45:32]

Easiest place to practice is the human realm because there's choices here. You're not so satisfied that you don't want something else and you're not in so much pain that you can't even think of anything else. So this is the recommended realm for practice is human. All of them. But they're in little circles, little independent circles. They didn't do that on here, but the one I have, they have these little circles and their bodhisattvas inside them playing instruments. So they incarnate into these realms to teach the Dharma. But they're not being stabbed or punished. They didn't get there. They get to hell because of their vow to save all beings. They asked to go there. They took a tour of duty in hell. Do you have more?

[46:34]

No, they're playing the lute. They're not of hell. They're there to help. It's like nurses, doctors, firemen. They don't go in the fire. They try to put it out and try to help. They take place right here. Just this way you're feeling. Jealous? Angry? fighting. These are mental states, psychological states. But as I said, for a very, very long time, these were considered to be literal. So if your eyes were like the melon man, so the melon man, the story, one of these old medieval tales, this one monk collected all of these stories from villages where some kind of anomaly happened, where maybe a child was born with two heads or, you know, things that we know about now are genetic.

[47:57]

things that have happened with babies. So these became like mystery stories or miracles or something. So he interpreted all of them. He gathered these stories in relation to this. So each one of them was a consequence of either good behavior or bad behavior. So the melon man would overload his cart with melons. So you make a most profit and he would whip the horse, this poor old horse, and the horse would cry. from carrying so much weight. And so then after he'd get there to the market, he would kill the horse and buy another horse. So then one day the melon man is standing making his pot of tea and his eyes fall into the boiling water. So that's an example from the medieval literature of what happens, literally, that these are the explanations for these things that happen to people, which in the modern era has become a real problem because it's like... Oh, you have cancer. Well, therefore, it's your fault.

[48:58]

You did something in the past life. So we've got some problems having that carry over as though that's really a literal explanation of what is going on with physical events for people. And we know that's not so. I hope we know that's not so. There are people who believe that. Just like, you know, I mean, it's kind of amazing all the different narratives. Like one of my favorite narratives... Because humans have been trying to figure out what's going on here, as we know, as long as we have written records. And I think one of the most amazing ones that I know of was the Egyptians who... They had a very protected environment. They were in a... river valleys. There weren't any armies coming in after them. They had a long, long period of time relatively free of violence and kind of like island people, you know, that they're kind of protected. The Japanese have had some of that.

[49:58]

The English have had some of that. So the Egyptians were watching the sky. A lot of desert nights. And what did they see? What do we see? Stars. And did they see patterns? So we make up all these patterns. Oh, there's a horse. There's a cooking pot. So we've named all these patterns. Are they actually there? Well, you could say no, but some people actually believe they're there and that they influence your life. I mean, I'm a Pisces, right? Because I was born when the Pisces star constellation was over my mother's head. So I like that. I'm happy to be a Pisces. Okay. So these folks are watching the stars, and what did they see that was particularly interesting? Huh? No. There's one star that's different than all the others.

[51:02]

No, not the morning star. The north star. Why is that? It doesn't move. So they're like, that must be eternity. course so these pyramids and this is true well I saw it on BBC I assume it's true yeah I have a lot of faith in those people so the chamber where the pharaoh's body was placed from that chamber to the outside of the pyramid is a hollow tube pointed where to the north star and why What's it for? To shoot the pharaoh. It's a cannon. They're shooting the pharaoh's soul to eternity. And all the builders go with him. That's your benefit. Workers' benefit is you built the pyramids and you get to go with the pharaoh when he goes to eternity.

[52:03]

It's not early retirement, no. You did. You did. Some of them did, yeah. the wives and the pigs and the dogs. So, I mean, this is how humans have tried to figure this out. They've come up with these amazing theories, and that's pretty good. I mean, it's, you know. So what's the big theory nowadays? What is our operating system primarily nowadays? Although these are all still all working. We've still got astrologers out there making money. We've got all kinds of people, you know, religious leaders telling about, you know, There's all this stuff going on still. We haven't exactly turned ourselves completely over to the modern form of worship, but what is it? Science. We are scientists. Capitalism is science. We are scientists. The science of making money.

[53:06]

This is our current belief system. That is actually what eroded the Japanese, both the influence of Christianity coming in, what they call the Portuguese religion and the Portuguese philosophical teachings. So Western philosophy came into Japan and so did science. And so then it was kind of, Buddhism was no longer the only understanding. It's still around. In fact, we're kind of picking it up ourselves. All right. So we did that, we did that. So the two types, okay, inference. So we've got inference and we've got direct perception. And so inference was how the Buddha understood the 12-folds. He saw a link.

[54:11]

If you all focus on one link, you can infer the others. And we kind of did that. by going through them, by connecting them. There's a kind of logic to our storytelling. Okay, so he inferred the whole wheel, you know, link by link, and made this story about what's going on and how we think. So... All right. Like I said in the beginning... The most important link in many, many ways, although the easiest places, I've said in the past, easiest places to break out of this cycle is in terms of, you know, really, is right after feelings. You have a feeling, don't move. It'll go. Impermanence is the law. Mujo is a Japanese term for impermanence. It will not last.

[55:12]

So whatever feeling you've got, don't move. Wait. Stop. Wait. Wait. Wait. Calm down. Okay, so that's a technique, you know? Meditation technique. It's also a technique when you're going around through the day and you get frustrated. Just take a little time out. Go to your cabin for a few minutes and come back before you have that conversation. It's a different world. And we all know that. We've all seen that. And it is a different outcome. If you act out of this one, you kind of look like that. And the person you're doing it to looks like that. So you want to kind of wait until you have a feeling that's a little more up here. Now maybe you make your case. You're like a lawyer all of a sudden. But at least you're not down here in these lower realms. So... Ignorance is the other one, but that's a hard one to break.

[56:15]

That's basically getting enlightened when you no longer believe that you and the world are separate. But that's the Buddha's insight. That's certainly the primary method of detaching from the wheel. Yeah, that's advised. Yeah, slow down. You're still on the wheel. You're still on the wheel. Until you break this one, you're on the wheel. Yeah. You've just changed the outcome. Instead of ending up enraged with somebody, you might just be irritated. Yeah, you offer them a ride.

[57:20]

sense doors and sort of breaking a chain between six senses and contact? So those feelings weren't arriving? See, when you read a lot of... These aren't the sense doors. These are the fields. So you've already gotten a body. You've already kind of come into being here. Yeah, I think that's a little bit of the same thing. guarding the sense door is like you're having a feeling about something, right? So your sensory apparatus is engaged with an object. I mean, you wouldn't have to guard your sense of smell against the apple pie if you weren't smelling the apple pie. So you've already got contact with an object in order to have any craving. No, you're going to stand there and look at the apple pie. Well, yeah, that was a strategy.

[58:40]

Their strategy was get rid of donuts. No more donuts in your life. No women in your life. Anything you might be attracted to. Don't look at women. Look at skeletons of women. Because that's the cure. You put salt in the donuts. Make everything repulsive that you're attracted to. It's like Clockwork Orange. Remember how they broke him up his habits? They... glued his eyes open and made him watch horrible stuff and made him sick every time he saw something. So that's a reprogramming method. And it kind of works, kind of, although there were criticisms of that technique because some of the monks just felt bad. I mean, they weren't actually feeling all that liberated, but some of them got free of the compulsions to go after those things, which probably was a good thing for them. Yes, it was a good thing for them. I really can't testify. I'm compulsive. But I feel like the approach that Mahayana took was more toward recognizing there's no self to want anything.

[59:46]

Who are you kidding? It's like, who is that reaching out there for whatever that is? Look again. Keep studying this impulse to action. Study your compulsions. Keep close to you. Be intimate with... your reactions with how things work. Study this working of the mind. And before you act, wait. There's also, but I've been reading about the history of ancient India. They also talk about, like historically, when the Buddha was around, there was this obsession with purity, you know, purifying, not only consciousness, but purifying, keeping the body pure. Like there was an obsession with that. So that's part of what we also taught was, I mean, self will just grow all the senses. And that's in the context of purifying purity. Yeah. Well, and there are many traditions that that is the approach that people are taking. There are a lot of religious traditions which hold that purifying your thoughts, having negative thoughts is a sin, that you should whip yourself every time you have a thought.

[60:50]

So, I mean, we know that these are activated systems of training for humans. People will try anything, right, to try and stop being in pain. And even including making more pain. So you've got to figure out for yourself what works. And I have friends who've actually been into that kind of behavior and were really convinced that it was benefiting them for a long time. I don't know. I sit in a lot of pain. Who are we to talk? Anyway, is it purifying? I don't know. I will not make any claims about the virtue of pain. When Suzuki Rishi was asked about pain, he said, pain, it's very tedious. I said, yeah, I got that. Very tedious. When a student asked him why do people suffer, he said, no reason. No reason.

[61:51]

Why do people suffer? No reason. Well, there is a reason. The no reason. It is optional, apparently. One way to understand how this mechanism works is to see it as this and that. This link leads to this link, this link leads to this link, and this would be this narrative style, this and that causality, this leads to that, this leads to that. Another way, which I really thought was clever of me, is to take these links and Put them all together, synchronous. So everything on here is happening at the synchronous. And you can, but you can do like, you know how, do you ever have one of those invisible men kits when you're a kid, like the plastic thing? You could see the lungs and you could see then you could take that open and then you could take the lungs out and you could see the skeleton. Very, very cool. But it's kind of like that. So if you, in the context of everything, you can flip to the 12 cent stores.

[62:57]

and focus on them, but they're still in the context of everything. You're not thinking of them as being separate. So this is one way to put these two patterns of thinking together, which is what the Buddha was doing. He was taking the synchronous pattern of reality and combining it with the linear pattern. So there's the not linear and the linear, and he put them together to get the non-linear. So you can basically explore... Because we do know by inference that within that nonlinear pattern, things do happen. We got this practice period out of that nonlinear pattern. And it has a pattern. And, you know, we've been following the pattern. And then it's going to dissolve, you know, with the hit of the sweet chain. So we do know that things do come out of this synchronous pattern. And we can basically... not just say, well, we've got to do one or the other.

[64:00]

We can basically choose to use the linear to help us to understand the probability that certain things are going to happen. We don't know when or how they happen, really. But there's a kind of probability that if you behave yourself, it's probably better for you. It's not exactly like a billiard ball hitting another billiard ball. You know, you do something good and right away you get a prize. It's not like that. It's more like within the swarm of the good things that there are to do, you're doing them. Some goodness will come. So it's really, I think this is a better, I like this kind of synchronous understanding of the 12-fold chain. Myself. that's people producing some bad facts in theory.

[65:01]

I actually feel bad right then, so that to me is like the karma. Do you think you're done before you do the action? What do you think? Go ahead. Do you want to say it again? She's saying instant karma. I do something bad, I already feel bad, so that in a way it's already happened. So then I was saying, then you don't have to do the action to have the consequences later, and you said, I don't know. I'm saying probably. Probably both. You feel bad and you're going to feel worse. Because it didn't go away. It's like, oh man, I thought I took care of that by saying I'm sorry. But actually I'm still feeling bad. Or I'm still thinking about it. Because it's your mind. And if you, instant karma gets it, you know, if you basically don't have any more thoughts about it after that, like, well, congratulations. Somehow you've managed to figure out how to not... have this consequence occur to you. But most people, and probably you too, it's me that comes up with the consequence.

[66:04]

I don't like it. I don't like how I feel when I do something that's bad. Intentionally bad. Not accidentally bad. Oh yeah. But I'm not outside. So I might be looking at you like, why'd you do that to me? And you're thinking it's me, but you know it's you. Just looking like me. Looks so much like me. Looks like me anyway. All right. We'll go just another. Yes? You sure may. What to do?

[67:17]

And so you run on the knife? No. No. What do you do? What do you do? No, but what do you do? Really? You made up the story, so what do you do in that vision you're just having now? Do you escape? The guy with the knife? Okay, not a knife. Just a big guy who's being rude. Okay, so you do something. So you threaten him back. Okay, well, this face meets that face. That's common. That's what we do, you know. Who are you looking at me like that? I mean, we do that. That's a very common response. And it's a hell realm response. It's an anger. That's how people live in hell. They fight with each other all the time.

[68:23]

Well, the Tartoku said when the Chinese were invading Tibet, someone asked him, Rinpoche, what did you do when the Chinese were invading Tibet? And he said, I ran. So, you know, that might be a better response. Or I called 911. Or I yelled help. I was mugged at Zen Center by two young teenage boys on their way home from high school. And it took me a while to think, help. And then I yelled, help. And like about 50 black-robed people came running out of the building. It was like, boy, that worked. It was the magic, you know. And they caught them. And sadly, they were just kids. And they were, you know, being stupid. And they got in a lot of trouble. So it's not a happy story. Any way you slice it, these are not happy stories. People threatening you is not happy.

[69:32]

You running away is not happy. I wish people wouldn't do that to each other. We would like that not to be happening. We would like to be living together peacefully, not threatening each other. So we do live in a world where we have to make choices. That's why the human world, not this one, is not recommended. Human world, run. Call 911. Yell help. The guy with the knife? Yeah. It's appropriate. And also, I think the Buddha said, if someone's killing a bunch of people, killing that person is not killing. But still, it doesn't matter if we have excuses. Like Amy's saying, how I feel about having killed somebody is not going to wash off of me, no matter what my reasons were. So I'm going to be responsible karmically for my actions, no matter how valid I thought they were.

[70:34]

So we want to kind of have a plan. Like, what will I do when that situation happens? Am I interpreting it right? Do I really have the right call here? Am I being careful? Am I stopping at feelings and really making sure? I got in front of this guy. At a movie theater, there was these two very big men and their fellows, friends. They were all dressed in kind of street wear. And they started facing off. And I'm being a new Buddhist and everything. I stepped in between them and I said, oh, don't fight. And my friend grabbed me and pulled me back in line. He said, are you crazy? And I saw for just a moment... on the face of this rather large young man, there was nobody home. He was enraged, and he was about ready to go at it with this other guy who looked the same way.

[71:35]

And I'm standing there in the middle going, oh, don't fight. So that's called stupid. You know? And it would have been really foolish for me to have gotten hurt doing that. But I really wish they... I could have yelled it from the side. I didn't have to, you know. So you have to use judgment. You have to understand humans pretty well. Buddha understood humans pretty well. What drives us. And most of it is fear. And most of it is fear of this guy. This is Lord Yama. Lord Yama was the first human, so he was the first to die. And therefore he's the king of the underworld. The king of death. And he's got the wheel in his grip. He's holding it with four limbs, and the four limbs represent birth, aging, sickness, and death. And we're terrified, really, of that, more than we are of this stuff. So we keep ourselves distracted with all this kind of stuff.

[72:39]

But, you know, we have all heard, and Buddhism's pretty famous, for not leaving out the fact of our death. And a lot of what we're... trying to understand is how to live knowing we're going to die. You know? Very soon. It's amazing, you know? You guys are young-ish. Very soon. Like the end of practice period, you know? state of the hungry ghost is greed. Desire and greed are sometimes used as synonymous terms. Can you talk a little bit about how you would distinguish them? Well, what do you think based on what you see here? What would the distinguishing likely distinction be? One has a tremendous amount of suffering.

[73:39]

So what's the nature of that kind of greed? What kind of greed would that be? More intense? Yeah. This is desire. I wish I had a cheese sandwich for lunch. Do we have a cheese sandwich? Cheese dreams? Are they coming? Oh, did he? See? I'm channeling. Cheese sandwiches. We call them cheese dreams, but Paul should know that. He was around in the old days. Yeah, so this is intense insatiability. And we know people like that. No matter what happens, they are just miserable. They can't get enough love. They can't get enough food. They can't get enough anything, you know, enough money. These folks are kind of like they're on a stipend. They're, you know. That's right. Yeah. I used to go shopping and I'd go buy a pen, you know.

[74:43]

I was like, ooh, I got a new pen. Okay, I think we need to stop. I'm so sad. There's so much to tell you. I haven't even started telling you about the legs. The legs. The limbs. Well, soon. It's... I'm the abbess. I know. She makes this announcement like, nobody go to the bowels except blah, blah, blah. And I'm like... oh, God, but I really like to go to the bathroom. And then I asked the tanto, and he said, you can do whatever you want. I was like, really? Cheese dreams? Donuts? Cheese? Whoa, delivered? By the tanto? Okay. Okay, okay, okay. I told Leslie not to do something... I told her not to come back in to go out again.

[75:44]

I thought it was hard on her to have to come in and go out again. And she said, no, I'm not going to do that. I said, wait a minute, I'm the abbess. So it doesn't work on everybody at all. Okay. So, samskara, this really is... Okay, I have to tell you this. So, when the Buddha... The Buddha got enlightened. Do you remember how he got enlightened? Those three knowledges he had? What was the third knowledge? Okay. You're looking at it? So he had the third knowledge. It's liberated. I'm free. I understand how the workings of the clockwork of the mind, and so I'm free of it. I no longer am subject to this. So he's, you know, he's free. And then he explains it to us. And his first thoughts after his enlightenment were... Seeking but not finding the house builder. Seeking but not finding the house builder. I traveled through the countless rounds of birth.

[76:46]

Oh, painful is birth ever and ever again. House builder, you have been seen. You shall not build your house again. Your rafters have been broken down. Your ridge pole demolished. My mind has now attained the unformed. Unformed. This is formations. Fabrications. Making things up. Storytelling. The unformed, the non-fabricated nirvana has now been attained and reached the end of every kind of craving. So this is the step. Samskara. It's one of the five skandhas. Form, feeling, perception, impulses, consciousness. So all of those, you watch your mind. I was kind of focusing on samskara this morning. I thought, this is very cool. So I'm watching my mind at the place where the clouds pile up. That's in the poem I read you. I sit at the place where the clouds pile up, watching the clouds forming.

[77:49]

Thoughts. Have you noticed when you're sitting there how the clouds pile up? Maybe I'll ask you one of these mornings, you know, how are the clouds piling up for you guys right now? I know they are because that's what I'm doing. I'm watching the clouds pile up. So this is really, I think this is really key. So then he says, having reviewed Dependent Core Rising origination, this and that causality, he said very simply, and this is carved, this is this saying I mentioned to you is carved into these stone walls. carvings from the really oldest levels of Buddhist culture. He said, that comes to be when there is this. So it's a link. That arises from this. So he's basically saying, that came to be when there is this. That came to be when there is this. That came to be when there is this.

[78:51]

So this is origination. How things come to be. Dependent. Dependent co-arising. Depending on this, this happens. Depending on this, this happens. Depending on this, this happens. All the way around. Guaranteed. So that's his first statement. Then he said, first spoken words of the Buddha were, when things are carefully, things, phenomena, things you can see or taste or touch or think, are fully manifest to the ardent meditator, that's us, his or her doubts all vanish, for she or he knows that each thing... has to have a course. It's on a wheel. It's got a reason. It's caused. Each thing has a cause. That's his first statement. Then he reviews the wheel the other way. His first statement was about origination. And then he says, that does not come to be when there is not this. That does not come to be when there is not this.

[79:54]

So he went this way. With the cessation of that, this ceases. So on. And in his second verse that he spoke, when things are fully manifest to the ardent meditator, he or she doubts, all their doubts come to an end, for they perceive how conditions come to an end. So this is cessation. Third and fourth noble truth. Third noble truth. Caused by understanding the wheel. What are the first two steps of the Eightfold Path? What's the first one? Right view. This is it. Four Noble Truths. Causation. That's right view. What's the second? Intention. The very cause of our problems is the very intention that we need to have to undo it. Samskara is the second of the...

[80:57]

Eightfold paths. Isn't that cool? So this is key. It's the clouds. Okay. So next time, I will talk about... I will go through the 12 links because they're very interesting, I think. And say a little bit more about this. This is the karma wheel in here, by the way. And inside the karma wheel... Is what? The three biggies. Okay. Greed, hate, and delusion. Represented by a skunk, a hummingbird, and a raccoon. Green gulch. These are our pests. They're cute, though. They're really cute. Well, you know, if they were bigger, they'd be really deadly. Apparently. They're very aggressive. So... Based on your behavior, you either go up.

[82:02]

So these are people doing nice things, making beds, cooking, hitting the Han, building, gardening, sitting Zazen. So they go up, and then these are the people sleeping in, lying on the tank and pad. Ooh, nobody would do that. So this is the karma wheel, and this is what the elevator, up and down elevator, for going into these different realms. So I'm going to go through these next time, and then I'm going to tell you about escape plans, how we can free ourselves from all of that. Okay? Yeah. Mary, yeah. Sarah.

[83:06]

Yeah. Yeah. That's a good shift. That's still, again, on the wheel. Right? But you're basically doing this good behavior. You're in the precept realm. Doing good, avoiding evil. Do good, avoid evil, save all beings. It's hard because look at this guy. What's his head in the clouds? This is a priest sitting with his or her head in the clouds. This is ignorance. So when the clouds are piling up, that's really challenging for us to remember, to slow down. This is how we get in trouble is because the clouds have piled up and we haven't noticed, we haven't kind of stepped outside or below the cloud layer.

[84:13]

So you have to basically study the nature of delusion if you can see the clouds. Yeah. When you see that you're in a cloud, you recognize the nature of being in a cloud. I must be in a cloud right now. You know, I don't feel good. When you feel good, you know, and you're not in the God realm, like just giddy, but you're feeling good, that's a good sign that, you know, that the clouds are visible. You can keep an eye on things. When you're really under the clouds or when you're, you know, like really under the ground, it's very hard to maneuver. Yeah. Yeah, and slowing down is very good. You know, I think one reason we... kind of take our time and we're careful. He says, help us to get a taste for that. Yeah? All righty. I have some TOEFL chains that are not colored.

[85:25]

I colored mine. And so if anyone would like one, just let Aaron know if you'd like one. Or maybe we'll put a little sign-up sheet or something like that. And I'll make some copies if you would like to have one of your very own to color. Because it's really a good way to learn. Okay.

[85:49]

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