I have all sorts of stuff here, so let me talk about the stuff before I get to what I really like to talk about. A friend of mine makes these, what she calls ice-ax, little silk pouches filled with flaxseed. And as some of you know, I'm a great fan of the after-lunch 12-minute nap. And eye sacks are very helpful in relaxing enough so you can actually go to sleep rather deeply for a brief period of time. So there are a couple of them on the table back in the library. If any of you are interested, they're $10 for the eye sacks. And they also have pillowcases, if you want a pillowcase, if you're a drippy sort. But there's something about the weight It's not just the darkness that they provide. There's something about the weight of the flaxseed that seems to be conducive to some relaxing of the muscles around the eyeball, which that easing then

[01:16]

All right, I also want to apologize for having announced some retreat dates for this fall and then changed them. And I promise I won't do that again. We'll stick to what we announced the first time around. So we've got the both weekend and half day sittings through December on the sheet and on the table. And there's also a little blurb from Bill with an order form for a new translation of the Middle-Length Discourses of the Buddha that Wisdom Press is supposedly going to have available in December. And reliable resources say that this is a fine translation. And what we've learned the hard way is that Wisdom Press publishes wonderful books and they go out of print and then that's it because they don't have enough money to reprint their most successful books.

[02:33]

So my recommendation is, if you're at all interested in reading the sutras, our experience with the long discourses translated by Maurice Walsh has been really wonderful, very illuminating, because there's been so much important scholarship done in the last several decades and to have some translations of these early sutras that reflect some of that recent scholarship and also done in really shining English is great. So one of the books that Wisdom Let God Print is Ussila Nanda's commentary on the Mindfulness Sutra and Wisdom did give us permission to xerox some copies and I have a box of them back on the bench in the library. If you are interested, it's a wonderful commentary. And I don't know when they'll republish it, so this may be the form in which it's available.

[03:41]

For the last little while, I've been thinking about and considering this theme that comes forth in so many teachings in the Buddhist tradition about the cultivation of our capacity for happiness. The cultivation of our ability to be happy with things as they are and for our ability to know what leads to happiness and what leads to suffering and dissatisfaction. My musing and considering about happiness was quite vividly fanned, if you will. Just a week ago, I did a class at UC Extension, which I do once a semester on an introductory day on Zen and mindfulness.

[04:49]

The group of people who attended the class this time were with the exception of two gardeners, all people in fast-paced professional work. And I was struck by the descriptions that this particular group of people made about their lives and their struggle to survive the lives they have, particularly their work life. Of course, know the issues that come up over and over again. The fast pace, sense of a lot of pressure, a lot of competitiveness, a loss of some of what led people into doing certain kinds of work originally.

[05:51]

to a kind of stripping down to focus on making as much money as possible and letting a lot of other possibilities fade by the side. Or more painfully, to be in a situation where that focus on the bottom line, as we say, is a decision that's made beyond what the individual can impact on, but impacts, of course, on individual people in the workplace quite profoundly. One woman who came to the class had come back from a summer in Italy. She actually took the same class at the same time last year after spending the summer. in Italy and she said both visits she came back with this very clear sense that the people that she met and saw and was around during her months in Italy seemed to her quite happy.

[07:05]

She said even the animals are happy. And they have so much less than we do. I was quite struck by that and was reminded of something that Kadagiri Roshi said some years ago when he decided that he wanted to buy some land and build a Zen meditation center in the country in southeastern Minnesota. And at the time, he kept being asked, you know, why do you want to do this? It's not so easy to raise the money and particularly buying bare land and having to create facilities from scratch. It was a big project. And for a long time, he was really the one that carried the vision for the project. And what he said, this must have been in

[08:10]

maybe the mid-seventies, when his words didn't strike the same kind of chord they struck this week, at least not for me. He said, well, in the world that we live in now, as people's lives become more difficult, as people's suffering increases, as the world becomes increasingly more troubled, people will need and will be very grateful for places where they can go and live according to the old ways. So listening to the woman in the class last week, I remembered those words. And I remembered the first time I went to Japan and went to a tiny farming village right next to another tiny fishing village up on the coast.

[09:19]

I guess it's what the sort of the north western coast of Honshu on the Japan Sea. And I remember the first night I was in this village as I fell asleep hearing the fire watch walking through the village hitting the clappers. So somebody in each of the villages, to this day, walks through the village late in the evening, checking to make sure that all the lanterns are blown out and that there is no fire that's not attended to. Because, of course, when you live in a village where all the houses are basically made of paper, fire is to be paid attention to. So there's one person every night, and villagers would take turns walking through the village, hitting the clackers as they walked, checking on everything, a little bit in the spirit of putting the village to bed for the night.

[10:31]

And I remember feeling very comforted by that sound, which I of course knew from being in Tassajara, where during even not during practice periods, all the time, someone walks through the valley, downtown Tassajara, at night, about a half an hour or 45 minutes after the last evening meditation, hitting the clappers. So that first visit in Japan, I was quite struck by how much of what I had been introduced to as the sort of form and mode and container for Zen practice was really based on old ways of life for these agricultural and fishing communities.

[11:37]

Some years later, when I went to India, I realized that there are certain ceremonies and rituals that are done in various traditions of Buddhism that date back to centuries-old practices of offerings, for example. Offerings of whatever is the wealth of a village, a farming village, which would be grains and grasses Things like that. The water that is used for washing a guest's feet, or a water that's offered to a guest to rinse out his or her mouth, or food, or candlelight, or incense, or music. So these water bowls that are on the altars are a kind of version of those old offerings that were done over centuries are still done in the way a guest is greeted.

[12:44]

The old ways. I remember some years ago reading one of the books, one of two or three books that Holmes Welch has written about Buddhism in China. And in one of them he talks about how in the old days a temple or monastery up in the mountains would be a little bit like modern-day Howard Johnson's and the psychiatric unit at Mount Zion. That would be where you would go when you were burned out or a little crazy or grieving over the death of someone dear to you or just needed to recover from your life. Or if you were a traveler you would always be welcome under the big roof of these temples, to sleep under the roof on the deck on the outside edge of one of the buildings. You'd always be offered some food. And how much, particularly for people who would go and stay in these temples and monasteries, they would be soothed and revived by hearing

[13:56]

the sounds, the bells and the clappers and the drums, all the sounds of the life of the monks in the monastery. You could actually, by hearing the sounds, know what was going on at any time of the day or night. Even though you might not be participating in these activities, you heard the sounds, the rhythm of the day and night, the regularity and the constancy steadiness and the quiet of that life that you could enjoy the benefits of just being in the neighborhood. I've at times, particularly in Japan, been in traditional villages or small cities where to this day the temples hit the bell in the morning when the sun rises and in the evening when the sun sets. doesn't have to do with time.

[14:58]

It has to do with the actual experience of, oh, now the sun is setting and now the sun is rising. The kind of sense of the day and the night from hearing the temple bell mark the beginning and the end of daylight. Some years ago, I know when the Zen Center began to observe ancient, the most, I think it's the oldest continuously practiced ceremony in human life. That is the ceremony that is done in the Buddhist tradition of confession and renewal of vows on the new moon and the full moon. And I remember when the Zen Center first started doing that ceremony, what a wonder it was to me. I was at that time still living in the city. And I realized that even though I didn't notice that the moon was doing what the moon does, the moon continued to do what it does.

[16:05]

And that this ceremony helped me begin to remember to look up in the sky and see where we were in the cycle of the moon. became a kind of centering and anchoring reference that has over the years become a source of great stability and comfort in a certain way. So I think that there is a kind of happiness that arises from being in a situation, even if we only do it occasionally, where we allow ourselves to live a little bit simply, with some quiet, with some sense of connection with the rhythm of the natural world, with some sense of our own inner rhythm. A woman that I know and have been doing some meditation practices with for a while, but who has not, so far, done much in the way of meditation retreats.

[17:22]

She has a daily practice, but she's had very limited experience with retreats beyond a short 9-5 day of practice. And last week, she went to a three-day retreat for the first time. And as she was telling me about what her experience was of being silent for three days, her experience of being with people, everybody kept their eyes dropped. form of the practice of silence. And yet, she said, I felt so connected to everyone there. One lunch day, one day for lunch, she went up to a kind of ledge in the area where people were eating. She took her lunch up there.

[18:23]

And the director of the facility where the retreat was being held was eating her lunch in the same area. It was a place where my friend could sit and see the sunlight on the leaves of the trees. She was sitting there quietly eating her lunch and someone came up with a tray with some dessert, dishes of dessert in the tray. and offered the dessert to my friend and the woman sitting next to her. She said, I felt so touched by the kindness of this person who went out of his way to find us and bring us a little dessert. And she started to cry. And during the conversation as she told me about this three days of being on retreat with 35 other people, eating together in silence and doing sitting meditation and walking and a little bit of studying, mostly just being quiet and limping, limping, living very, very simply.

[19:43]

I suppose if you blend limp, live and simple, you get limp. And during her description of this weekend, she got a little bit teary several times. She said, it was so sweet, such a sweet time. I really enjoyed myself. Behind the stack of eating tables is this painting that Our friend Gensanten painted one freezing cold January some few years ago of the four friends. And our dear friend Patti Schneider just calligraphed this story about the four friends. Picture and the attending story that is about beings living together in harmony.

[20:48]

which seems to me has a lot to do with what leads to happiness. When we feel in harmony with ourselves and with beings and the environment, the circumstances that we're in, something that we might call happiness seems to become possible. I think some of us have a somewhat cynical spin on happiness. Think of happiness as some condition of the mind that is maybe superficial or something like that. But I've learned over the years to pay particular attention to the qualities that are emphasized in the Buddhadharma, because the emphases are the consequence of many centuries of people's actual experience.

[22:05]

It's actually a word that shows up for us in our own history and culture. Some exhortation to pursue, to have the freedom or opportunity to pursue life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Whatever makes us happy. But I wonder these days if an awful lot of us haven't forgotten what it is that makes us happy if we ever knew. So what I want to invite you to consider this morning is what does this word happiness mean to you? What do you know in your own experience about what is conducive to happiness?

[23:20]

What are those moments or circumstances when you have tasted happiness in your life? Are you up for allowing yourself to be happy? One of the very interesting questions that comes up for me is, can I really be happy if what brings me happiness is at the expense of someone else's well-being? I have a friend who was talking to me the other day about her work situation. She is an academic and is the co-chairman for a segment of the department that she teaches in at a university.

[24:27]

And so this is a new position for her. And so she has suddenly on her plate some sense of responsibility for the state of mind, if you will, for the collective group in the department that she's now taking some responsibility for. What she brought up in our conversation was her recognition of how much gossip and third-party information is the way information is communicated in the department. Sometimes extremely important information And how troublesome that is. How troublesome it is. And how this particular group of people have a history of picking someone to be a scapegoat.

[25:30]

And they lost their scapegoat. He was interestingly the dean. I thought, isn't that interesting to have the dean be the scapegoat. Very curious. combination of roles, but anyway, he's no longer there, and so a new scapegoat is emerging. Or as they say in family systems parlance, the identified patient. They have a new IP showing up. So suddenly, my friend, because she feels some responsibility in this situation, it matters to her. What's going on here? I was thrilled that she was so disturbed. And as we talked, what began to show up as a possibility was the possibility of relating to everyone in the department with some bigger point of view, some sense of every single person in that group.

[26:46]

wanting to be happy, wanting not to suffer. Maybe getting caught in some old habits that may not be so wholesome or sound. But is there a way then for my friend to bring forth a different way of being together, a different way of working together that doesn't come from judging, doesn't come from going for a high status position, doesn't come out of a kind of competitiveness, doesn't come out of jealousy, but comes from some perspective that has to do with what will be conducive to the well-being and happiness of this group of us who are together, working together every day. And as we talked, I could feel in her a kind of relief that she could actually see a way to describe for herself a different way of being.

[27:54]

I love this practice of no third party information. It's very troublesome. Very troublesome. And of course what immediately surfaces is how much we enjoy third-party information, how much gossip is just a thrill, how hard it is not to engage in this kind of speaking. As some of you know, I'm working on a book on language practices I've been trying to figure out a good title. I had a really great title about two years ago and then I forgot it. I didn't write it down. And I thought, oh well, it'll come back. Nothing. But it occurred to me this morning, what about speaking like a Buddha? Because of course, in the sutras,

[29:04]

of the description of what we call the precepts on right speech are all presented as descriptions of how a Buddha speaks. And the description of the Buddha's wanting of engaging in third party information is quite wonderful, quite lovely. He does not say here what he has heard there to the detriment of those. and he does not say there what he has heard here to the detriment of these. Pretty nice. And in my experience, that practice does lead to happiness. It's conducive to a cultivation of care and consideration and kindliness with oneself and with others. At the end of the last weekend sitting, we closed with the reading the Discourse on Womankindness.

[30:22]

And I admitted to everybody that the line about being easy to speak to jumped out at me, kind of grabbed me by the throat. I thought, aha, this is for me. What do I need to do to be easy to speak to? Just having the question raised. has been almost enough to pay attention. What are all the little ways in which we can be that make us easy to speak to or scary to speak to? It's nothing to do with my motivation or intention. My intention may be to be a very kind, gentle person, but I know about myself that if I get task-oriented, focused on something, I can be quite brusque and businesslike. And for some people, that's hard. They have a hard time with that tone.

[31:25]

Now, I can't control what someone's response to me is, but I can certainly take into account that sometimes my tendency to be brusque may be troublesome. And I have some choice about that. To the degree that I am interested in the cultivation of harmonious and happy relationship with the people that I spend time with, I want to do that. And certainly when those that we are around are happy, it's easier for us to be happy and vice versa. A part of what I want to invite you to consider is to open up or unpack for yourself

[32:37]

what this word is pointing to. The word happy is, in my experience, a little bit like the word anger. They both cover a rather big continuum of experience and tone. Yeah. I primed Bill's pump. Etymological pump. Well, first of all, I was struck by the phrase you used or quoted from the woman who had been at the retreat. You quoted her saying, I really enjoyed myself. Well, that to me is an expression of genuine happiness. If you think about what's going on there, just in words, No, let me just say something there.

[33:49]

She didn't have the awareness of allowance. It was more like she was struck by joy. Well, I want to contrast that. Okay. And in that phrase, the happiness of pursuit, the root sense of happiness, I think is more apparent. It's a good synonym there would be the chanciness of pursuit.

[34:55]

The stem hap in the word happy or happiness is the same as in perhaps or may have. It references something, some future occurrence, which may or may not have a positive outcome. We don't know. It references possibility. And we put a spin, a positive spin on happiness as an outcome of some future occurrence, which from our point of view is positive. And there's the same element in words in other languages. The German word for happy is glücklich. That which has Glück or a positive outcome in it. But to say good luck to somebody in Germany, you say zum Glück. The Latin word, one of the Latin words that could be translated as happy is fortunatus.

[36:00]

Hmm. Fortunate. Fortunate. But the outcome turns on the way fate smiles. Will Lady Luck be with us tonight? So in this impermanent, intransigent. There's a different metaphor than chance in the Pali words in this department, which the Pali word that gets translated as happiness is sukha, and it's opposed to dukkha. Here the metaphor is that of a ride.

[37:02]

Sukha is a smooth Now these are popular etymologies, not scientifically accurate etymologies, but they're used again and again in the sutras and in the commentarial literature, where ka is thought to be from a word that means wheel, and su is a prefix which means positive, and du is a prefix which means negative. Or in the new town car we see in the television commercials in which you can sit quietly in the back seat with a full glass of mineral water while you're chauffeured over cobblestones and potholes. That's happiness. That's the smooth ride. Now is there not some etymological connection between happy and hail and whole?

[38:04]

And healthy? No. Hail, whole, and healthy in Latin, salus, salutary, salvation, are all in a group. It's unrelated etymologically to happy. So, that's a little... Okay, good. So, maybe before we have some chance to have a discussion together. You would like to stretch your legs for a few minutes and go into the kitchen and help yourselves to some tea. And you're welcome to bring your cup of tea back to your seat. So let's reconvene in about 10 minutes. Carol has a question. Carol had a question. Carol had a question. What was your question? It was about a joy. Enjoy? Joy.

[39:06]

Joy. And the difference between joy and happiness. But it also occurs to me that I... I... I... I like it when I feel joy very much, and I have great delight when I have joy. However, happiness makes me uneasy, and the pursuit of happiness is like, almost like if I pursue happiness, if I might not get it, I mean, that doesn't seem like something that should be done. On the other hand, when I have joy, I certainly feel happy. What am I? So what are we talking about? Exactly. You know, in the four immeasurables, may all beings have happiness. And the causes of happiness. So perhaps joy is the cause of happiness? I kind of hold back when we say that. I mean, you know, I say it. Okay, etymologically, joy comes from the Latin word gaudium.

[40:09]

Ah, yes. Remember the drinking song of the student prince? Let's rejoice therefore because we are now youth with all the implications about eye wrinkles and old age and death. Enjoy the moment. I can relate to that. You've heard me talk about, some of you, about the 12 links of dependent origination. There's another sequence. The 12 links of dependent origination are used to explain why we Remain engaged in the pursuit of happiness, but never catch it. We're motivated to ask, is this it?

[41:35]

Or is there something else? We start looking around. And that leads to some encounter with or exposure to a wisp of promise of the truth or of the teaching. And one pursues that and develops some confidence, some faith, some trust. No, don't stay away from it. That's where it belongs. No, it doesn't. This confidence gives rise to joy. I'm heading for happiness. And as the joy strengthens and ripens, matures, it increases into rapture.

[42:37]

And the rapture, as it develops, or as the practitioner and meditator deepens his and her experience, the rapture becomes, moves into equanimity. One's no longer absorbed with the pulsing of the rapture, but there's some quality of stillness. which gives rise to bliss. Now the word for bliss in Nepali is sukha. It's the same as the word that's translated happiness. These different spiritual qualities intensify in degree as one's practice strengthens and deepens. So one may begin, for example, with some transitory experience of sukha.

[43:45]

But as one persists in the path, those momentary experiences may begin to last a little longer and occur more frequently. That's what I mean by intensifying or deepening. So at this point, in this particular linkage, one is bliss. where it's joy deepened. And bliss is the cause or the condition for concentration. What is bliss? Bliss is the cause for concentration. It's the approximate cause of concentration, of samadhi. Because when we're really, really happy and joyful, the foundation for concentration.

[44:53]

So now we're really cooking. Now we're really cooking. So we're not talking about happiness, we're talking about true happiness. Yes. You got it, Carol. That's right on the mark. That's always been my problem. This is not TV commercial happiness. No, see that's been my problem all this time, all these years. It doesn't depend on a roll of the dice. True happiness. Lady Luck is not serving this man. So where does that happenstance come in? What about that happenstance? That's another word. I don't know how that happens. Just like true bliss and true happiness may or may not happen. As we said, exactly. They may or may not happen, but they are achievable.

[45:55]

They can be cultivated. Of course, but you can't push. You know that's what I'm saying? Okay, so this is the training curriculum, right? Right. Yeah. You can count on it. It's true happiness. It's not happenstance. It's not chancy. Right. Okay. It doesn't depend on fortune or what you have for breakfast. Or what you have for breakfast, maybe. Right. Okay, so concentration then leads to the knowledge and vision of things as they really are. But now we're back to, now we're, now we're down, now, The wisdom. Knowledge and what? The vision is the thing. Three links are withdrawal. Withdrawal. Nibbida. Dispassion.

[46:57]

And freedom. And the culminating step is the knowledge of There are very, very subtle tendencies to still to believe in some notion of self, some impulse for re-becoming. It's very high-level stuff. One of the corruptions which lingers very late in cultivation is the desire for fame.

[48:05]

Does that have a certain ring of truth? Yeah. So anyway, Carol, joy and happiness is positive spiritual quality. Now I understand much better true happiness, happiness. So I think it's useful as we talk to qualify, if not allow, at least memorize that there's happiness, there's this conventional happiness that is really not a satisfactory state at all. And then there's spiritual happiness. Well I think that's why in this inquiry some investigation about what is satisfactory and what is unsatisfactory is very useful. I think that language, that pointing is extremely, extremely useful. In the last few months, I think I've been sort of occupying my mind a lot with a little part of this discussion, and that's kind of

[49:12]

you know, what's conducive to true happiness and what's conducive to the sort of illusory happiness. I mean, we can use all these ways of talking about it, like the TV commercial happiness or something like that. But I think my experience with it is, for some of the qualities, the contrasting qualities of the true and the illusory happiness, would have to do with excitation and calm. that the illusory happiness is characterized by excitation. And there's something of the... the culture is a real booster of that, and a real supporter of that. So that I think that it's very difficult, you know, without some kind of real grounding. Because I feel like I have to continually say, that you should think you could say, you could see that and say once, no.

[50:14]

But it really is an ongoing practice to realize and to realize, you know, I often say, I'm on the wrong road here. This is the excitation path. This is not what's conducive to calm and equanimity and a bunch of other very simple qualities. I was really struck by the story of the woman on the retreat. her feeling of the sweetness and simplicity of the experience. Because that's exactly, to me, what characterizes the true rather than the illusion. Well, you know, one of the experiences that has been coming up for me just in the last few minutes in our talking about this, I remember two or three long retreats back Somebody in the retreat, when we were doing an eight-day retreat, somebody in the retreat, I could tell, really got walking meditation. I mean, talk about bliss.

[51:16]

She was in some state of bliss with placing, lifting, moving, placing. I mean, it was like her whole being was just glowing with walking. And I really was inspired just with her inspiration about walking. And I have ever since then, whenever I walk, especially in here, because this floor is like a baby's bottom, if you want to really get into it. There's a kind of delicious silkiness to the surface of the floor. And it's so simple for just walking. And, you know, how many of us really pay attention to walking? Unless something happens so we can't walk. You know, a gimpy leg or something. And then suddenly we're like, ah, walking was so wonderful. Why didn't I enjoy it while I could walk?

[52:19]

I think what you're saying about excitation is extremely important because So much of what we get bombarded by every day has to do with excitation, has to do with distraction, has to do with altering. Don't like this? Change it. So I don't ever develop that capacity to be present with things as they are, that's sort of underneath whether I like it or I don't like it. Well, I think the culture says, boy, if you're going to be satisfied with that, what a sucker you are. because there's the town car. There's always the alternate experience. The other side of it is, more and more people having done all the things that are supposed to be success, having done all the things that you set out to do when you were young and wanted to do all these things, you know, make a lot of money, marry someone beautiful and intelligent, you know, whatever it is. And, you know, somewhere around 45 or 50 or 55 or 60, you say, this is it?

[53:28]

I've done it all. You know, I remember one time somebody came to see me about wanting to learn how to meditate. And he had actually done everything he had set out to do in his life. He'd gotten, you know, three degrees, he'd started umpteen businesses, he was happily married, he had, you know, everything. He had the world by the tail. And he said, I'm not, I'm unhappy. I'm very unhappy. This is, this is a false promise. And, you know, what this woman was talking about after having spent the summer in Italy, she was talking about You know, the distinction you're making, Carol, between happiness and true happiness. Something about slowing down and simplicity that allow, where we allow ourselves to taste joy in small, ordinary, simple things.

[54:36]

This will also help with joy and success, welfare, happiness of others. Because I think now, more and more, I've been leaning that way. It's like, how do you appreciate someone who has great happiness and you know that this isn't exactly the thing. So now, with firmly in my mind, true happiness, I can put that as a thread. with great, a different, I feel stronger in my capacity to do that now, much clearer. Thank you. At the weekend retreat in October, maybe it was the afternoon of the second day, And the front fence, the shingle fence, comes up against a fence that runs this way, which is higher.

[55:38]

And in that area where the front fence came to the side fence, we have a fox who's been hanging out in the garden. And there was a fox, our fox, my fox, was up there on top of the fence taking a nap. with his nose under his paws. Farther along the fence were some quail. We've had a remarkable abundance of quail in the garden the last few weeks. Quail were all lined up, ready to hop into the garden. Like 15. Yeah, quite a line of quail. So Carol was out there in bliss and came in and went. She was late coming back to meditation. because she was out there looking at this wonderful sight. So the next thing she knew, we all joined her outside. And there was something so marvelous about seeing that fox and the quail hanging out there.

[56:50]

He wasn't hungry. My theory is that each time he gets hungry, and then he goes and takes one and has dinner. But he was not hungry. So he was totally content. But seriously, he was totally content on this post. His eyes were shut. And there were 15 silhouetted on this fence. And he was absolutely calm. Not like us, who are kind of pursuit quail no matter what. It was such a scene. But I think he probably takes a quail, and the quail don't even moan that much. I wonder, how much do they notice? I wonder what moans they suddenly got. Not much. They're dumb. But what has been interesting to me, because I've heard people who were here and enjoyed this little group thrill that we had when we tiptoed out there and tiptoed down the path and got as close as we could to see the napping fox. There's something about those moments that stayed, that lingered with a number of us as this lovely, sweet moment danced.

[58:04]

It was really wonderful. So anybody have stuff come up that you want to bring up with respect to the meditation practices themselves? or anything else. Yes? I think this is a great topic this morning, Agnes. What I've been recently thinking about is just my own karmic patterns. And thinking of the karmic patterns of people who are close to me, I notice in my life that that has not really ever been replenished. I can't speak for them, I'm not saying that there's a longing there that's never been answered. And I'm not really sure why that happens. There's some part of me that wonders karmically how I ended up in that situation for one thing.

[59:10]

I'd love to change it. Whatever karmic circumstances You know, I was listening kind of in the description of happiness, and I would note for me that, you know, I was listening when you were reading your things. There'd have to be, for me, a piece to that longing for me to be happy. Yeah, I think that's right. Because if that longing is not soothed, I don't see how I can be happy. Yeah, I think you're completely right, and I think that what you're bringing up as a kind of ground for the path of training and cultivation is that the place to start is with the cultivation of metta, of loving-kindness and generosity. And that is the ground on which everything else depends, if you will.

[60:12]

And we cannot cultivate a capacity for loving-kindness and generosity with others until we have done that cultivation for ourselves. And one of the things that I love about so many of the practices in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, which are these very complicated practices of visualization and recitation of mantras, they are all Baroque forms of loving-kindness meditations. Because they all reference the heart chakra. And they all have to do with receiving and sending. And the encouragement is, I never do just one or the other. I always must do both. I must always be both cultivating my capacity to receive and extend to others. And I have one student who has been working on this same longing that you're talking about.

[61:17]

And she kept emphasizing the receiving part. And she kept ending up in a place where she felt very stuck. And all the different practices that she was doing had to do with allowing herself to begin to taste, to receive loving kindness. Sour, somehow didn't work. And what happened for her when she realized, oh, I can't just do one I have to do, I have to both receive and send. I have to keep in mind that it's not just me, [...] but it is me and all beings. And when she realized that, it was like some damn broke. Oh. But I think, I think what you're saying is particularly true for people in this culture.

[62:20]

One of the things that is telling us the Dalai Lama has commented on a lot, and I think that we absolutely bring a different quality of longing and underneath that, self-loathing, that has to be turned, transformed, healed, or we won't have any kind of really authentic spiritual life, I don't think. One concern I have, and I want to just check this out with you, sometimes when people use the word karma, there's a certain spin of, I can't do anything about it. I'm stuck with this legacy. And I think that's a misunderstanding. When we talk about, it certainly is true that there are But everything has consequences.

[63:23]

So another way of saying the same thing is that everything has causes and conditions. So there certainly are causes and conditions that lead to some sense of feeling unloved. But that's not a place one has to dwell in forever. Because the whole path is about our capacity to transform literally anything. There is absolutely no quality of mind, no psychological state, no condition which cannot be transformed. to give up on heart to give up you know to become cynical and do it.

[64:32]

It's very harmful. I know it's reducing your life. I think that's unusual and I think that part of the shift that I'm talking about depends upon that shift from looking for other to bring about this change versus discovering, awakening some inner sense of authority and capacity to do that transforming work and cultivation myself. And I don't know how that happens except by inspiration by seeing someone else who is a kind of example of how that can happen.

[65:39]

I think it's very powerful. It's one of the reasons why I think we need each other. It's why practicing with other people has such extraordinary effect because we begin to see shifts and changes in our dharma friends, in our spirit, the people that are on the path with us. And we begin to see, Cultivation and transformation and change really is possible. Because the other thing that is extremely difficult for us in our conditioning as Americans is we want change to happen now. We want it to happen fast. And we simply don't understand. We forget how many times have I practiced self-loathing? How many instances have I rehearsed that pattern of judgment or being unkind towards myself or others. What makes me think that it's going to take any less thousands of times to cultivate a different groove in the mind?

[66:46]

It's slow. This is where I take great encouragement in the notion that there is more than one lifetime. Because some work seems like it's going to take a while. I mean, I have some sense of some changes in my life over the 30 years that I've been practicing. But they're not fantastic. And I believe that maybe some things will turn in a few more lifetimes. but there's some things I know I'll keep bumping up against, I mean I'm pretty sure I'll keep bumping up against until I die. And there are these, I mean this is where Western psychology is extremely helpful because we have some language for talking about certain kinds of patterns that are not only repeating themselves in a single lifetime, but repeating themselves in the lifetime of one generation after another after another.

[67:51]

When we look at my suffering and then look at my mother and father's suffering and their mother and father's suffering, I begin to realize, oh. So you know, I sometimes talk about feeling like I'm trying to turn the Queen Mary with a canoe. I'm in this canoe pushing the Queen Mary. But at some level that's accurate. There's the kind of accumulated energy of some generations of practicing self-loathing. I'm not going to turn that around. And it's one of the reasons I've got this berserk array of the teacher's altars. I keep thinking I'm going to make it small enough so we can put it over in that corner. And it keeps blossoming. I keep thinking, who isn't up there? But I take such inspiration from the people that I see. I look at all the pictures of the teachers that I've been lucky enough to know.

[68:54]

the great practitioners that I can read about who lived many centuries ago and I find myself encouraged to stay with the practices that in little ways I can see have this capacity for turning, for transforming. And I think that that place of cynicism or doubt is extremely dangerous because we think It's a real, guaranteed sync. Energetically and emotionally, in every way. It's just, you just sync. So, from my standpoint, this whole great tradition is about the cultivation of loving-kindness. And you know, some years ago, I heard a lecture that the Vali Lama gave in Los Angeles. around the time he was doing the Kala Chakra in Santa Monica.

[69:55]

And I was really struck. He said, the world is such that we can no longer afford the cultivation of wisdom as our goal. We are desperately in need of the cultivation of compassion, of loving kindness. And we cannot wait. That has to be our goal, and it is the universal goal, no matter what religious tradition you follow, no matter what path you're on, this is the universal practice. And, you know, just read the morning paper. He's dead right, unfortunately. So, I very much hope and pray that you will just note the arising of cynicism and doubt and keep coming back to whatever inspires you to the possibility of little small moments of tenderness and kindness and loving kindness.

[71:00]

Because it's the ground. There isn't any other quality in all these lists that can arise except from that ground. It was totally what my friend was talking about with the sweetness of this retreat that she was on, that she was so touched by the kindness of the other people in the retreat, the people who were supportive of the retreat, the farmer who planted the wheat that led to the bread for the sandwich. I mean, all of a sudden, she got it. In fact, you might be surrounded by loving kindness without recognizing it. Yes. and the moment you receive it. Yes. So, you know, this is, I think, what Tartulhu meant when he said to me some years ago, it may not be that the world is imperfect, it may be that your perception of the world is imperfect. And I think that's exactly what Diana just said, is what he was pointing to.

[72:03]

My fear and longing blinds me to see the very qualities that I most yearn for in myself, And in others. True perfection. Yeah. Pretty soon you're going to have to unpack true, Carol. Not yet. Yeah? This word karma, it's cognate with the It's action. It's the cause side. It's a cause and effect relationship. So, you're saying that it's just noticing. That's karmic activity. Karmic activity is a redundancy. That's activity-activity, or that's karma-karma.

[73:06]

The past actions. That's kala. The pala. It's been helpful for me to understand karma as not a result, as not implacable fate. Karma is in the realm of something where I have a choice. I can choose to be reactive or I can choose to be responsive. And the day any of us gets that is the step on the path to liberation. When we actually experience our ability to choose between reaction and response, we at that point get something that is really critical. I actually have a choice. And of course what's so interesting is that we use language that reinforces the notion that The driver is somewhere else than here, and is anybody but me.

[74:16]

We just keep rehearsing that view, and it isn't accurate. He makes me so mad. That way of speaking is totally letting him be the driver, without any recognition that he's just doing what he does, and that over here is my response. And that's what I have to say about it. If you want a smooth ride, you've got to drive your own car. Sitting at the back with the... That's the illusory seat belt. Aha! Aha! Aha! Slipped right from the back seat to the front seat. your own responsibility.

[75:23]

But to take your own responsibility means you have to turn toward the suffering, like you were talking about a few minutes ago. Then turning toward the suffering that the practice starts and the confidence arises. So it's all, it's like there's a little circle here. But also, true confidence doesn't arise if I'm constantly looking for authority outside of myself. This gets at what you were talking about. So much of what Dharma practice requires is coming back to what is my experience and am I willing to hold the experience I have even if everybody else in the room says you're wrong. The bottom line is This is the experience I have in this moment. To the best of my ability, this is how I can describe what I'm aware of. But I think confidence is extremely important, and it's one of the reasons why I think that for any of us who takes on a daily practice that is overreaching, that's too much, that's too ambitious, we sink ourselves by setting ourselves up to do something and then not do it.

[76:40]

Every time we promise ourselves to do something and then we don't do it, we erode our confidence and we don't build it. So I think this quality of confidence in ourselves is extremely important. And sometimes I feel like a major piece of what I do sitting in a teacher's seat is to hold the place as a witness of confidence until the practitioner can find that confidence and pick it up for himself or herself. It's not that I can't give another person that sense of confidence, but I can, by being confident in your ability to develop confidence, hold that quality until you figure out how to do it for yourself. And that's one of the places where spiritual friendship is, I think, really critical. Because so often we can see in another person certain qualities that they have not yet come to be able to see.

[77:42]

The shining and sweetness that is there in all of us. So this same group that I had for the workshop at UC Extension last Saturday, you know, 43 hot shotters, after lunch, all lay down for a 12 minute nap. all lay down on the floor, 44 of us lying down on the floor, taking our 12-minute nap. And at the end of 12 minutes, I got up and looked around, and I was so touched. And as I woke everybody up, I said, you know, isn't this sort of like nap time when we were all in kindergarten? And they were so dear. And it was like we all got it. We didn't have our blankies, but we had our jackets or whatever. It was so sweet. So, well, I hope that you will pick up this little inquiry here.

[78:49]

I think it's actually quite useful and quite important. I'd like to thank you all for braving the rain, the road, the map, the directions. It's nice to see you all. Thank you for coming. And those of you who'd like to brought a lunch, you're certainly welcome. We can have lunch together. What I'd like to do is have us begin a period of silence at one. Some of us participate in a seminar study group that we'll meet this afternoon. And having a little bit of a silent time and a time to take a nap after lunch before we start our seminar study group is very helpful. But until then, let's buzz away, eat and enjoy each other's company.

[79:49]

Thank you very much.

[79:50]

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