Engaging Mindfulness For Rest Of Life

Clear awareness is possible when the attitude of mind is clear and light. If our minds are full of grasping and aversion, what we see is distorted. We tend not to notice distortion because we look through our attitudes instead of at them. By observing tightness in body and thought, we can discover the mind's distortion.

Transcript

The whole business with mindfulness is actually distortion.

I've done this model before.

Steve Armstrong also used it.

So there's clear awareness and there's what we're looking at and we look through the attitudes in the mind.

So if the mind is clear and light,

Generous,

Open,

Etc.

,

Then you tend to see what's there.

If there's grasping,

Aversion,

You know,

Whole shtick stuff going on,

Then what you see is distorted.

And we tend not to see that because we're looking through the attitudes in the mind rather than at them.

So the easiest way you can tell if the mind has distortions in it is just check and see if there's any tension or tightness.

So you're sitting there,

You know,

And if you're pushing hard you feel that tightness.

It's really,

Really wise to relax it.

Buddha said a lot about that actually.

Translations are difficult but it's all through the suitors.

What do you mean by tightness?

Is that the word you used?

Yeah.

Tension,

Tightness,

Thickness.

Yeah.

So make a fist,

Relax it.

You notice the difference?

Yeah.

That's what it is.

It's really that simple.

And it can be mental tightness too.

I mean you all know when it's like.

In fact,

When there's mental tightness it can easily lead to headaches or pressure,

You know,

Particularly up through here,

Back of the head.

You know,

I can see the physical sensation but I'm not quite sure there's a deeper meaning to it that I'm not getting somehow.

There is no deeper meaning.

You're getting it.

It's really,

Really simple.

It's not metaphysical.

So if I listen to music when I'm cleaning,

For example,

And I'm joyful in that presence,

Even though the music has words and,

You know,

Is that sensual?

You know what I mean,

There's a difference when I'm sitting in front of a computer and I'm working.

I don't get the tension.

You never feel that.

But if I turn on music it actually helps to relax.

So,

You know,

That distraction or,

I mean.

I am a great one for empirical trials.

You know,

If you do that and it actually leads to more clarity and lightness then I think it's skillful.

If it leads to more tension and distraction then it's not.

And I find that there are some things with music there are times when it's really helpful and there's times when it's a distraction.

And so you just have to try it on and see.

Also in case you didn't notice on this,

There's nothing about drugs and alcohol.

Did you notice that?

So you're off the hook.

So what happened is the first four precepts,

The language in it,

Preceded the Buddha by a long time.

The Jains use exactly the same wording,

The first four.

And somewhere the ninth or tenth year of the Buddha's ministry he was visiting Kosambi,

Which is a city in India,

A small city.

And as they approached the outer gate there was a monk who was passed out cold drunk,

Beside the road,

A drunk monk,

Say that four times.

And within a couple of months after that the fifth precept was added.

It was really bad for the Sangha,

You know.

Okay so let me,

I just want to dig into the first precept one about killing for a little bit.

And some of the questions that you're raising I think will come out from that.

So what I would say,

And it gets to the music and it gets to all these other things,

That in the relative world in which we live there are no absolutes.

There simply are no absolutes.

So the precepts are not a behavioral code that we're supposed to stick with at all costs.

In the suttas is it say killing?

I mean,

I kind of like that.

Striking.

The word is actually striking.

Yeah,

That's closer to doing no harm.

That's right.

Doing no harm better than that.

I mean,

You know,

You can wound somebody pretty badly without killing them.

Well and the other thing when the Buddha took these on,

He took on a lot of practices he used elsewhere and he always,

Not always,

But often times he gave it his own twist.

And his twist on this was he was saying the intention is actually more important than the action.

So if you take non-striking and the intention is more important,

Then it sounds like it's saying not acting out of ill will.

And you notice in this it's number nine or something in the list actually says that explicitly.

But the word is striking in Pali,

But it's almost universally translated as non-killing.

So let's talk about that one for a little bit.

I had a,

The first little creature that was given to me and to my care was a tabby cat boy named Susie.

I was about eight years old at the time.

And we became very close.

She slept on my bed,

Sometimes at my pillow.

I actually helped her deliver kittens.

I felt really,

She kind of convulsed and pushed them out of her body and then kind of licked them to life.

And I felt very close to her.

When I was,

I think it was about 11,

I was walking out of the backyard as my father was backing our Chevy station wagon out of the garage.

And just as I came around the corner I saw Susie go under the wheel.

And she was lying there on her side.

My father felt the unnatural bump and got up and she was lying on her side,

Seemingly unable to get her feet underneath her.

And she was thrashing so violently that her body was being tossed.

It must have been five,

Six inches up in the air.

My father said something about a knife and throat and rushed into the kitchen.

I didn't think I could watch that.

And I looked over and there was this yellow wastebasket,

A big kitchen plastic wastebasket that had been washed out and was sitting by the back door.

So I put the hose in there and filled it up.

And as carefully as I could,

Lifted her as she was thrashing and lowered her head first into the water.

And as soon as I went under water,

Her movements became surprisingly coordinated.

And so I just held on a little more firmly.

And after a few moments she stopped struggling.

And I slowly drew my hands out of the water and left her sitting there.

And I looked up and my father was standing on the back steps at that time.

He had a long carving knife in his hand watching me.

He didn't say anything.

He was very much like my father.

So I got up and I walked into the backyard to be by myself.

And about a half an hour later I looked down and I noticed there were these long,

Deep scratches up and down both of my forearms.

I still couldn't feel them.

I could feel them.

I biked a lot.

And I've lost everything in my former life.

And I imagine diving under a car with my bike and how good it would be because it's suicidal.

Now I would suppose that would be ill will as well.

You know?

Wouldn't it?

Suicidal things?

Yeah.

We all have to figure this out ourselves.

In terms of a general principle,

I think people have a right to do what they will with their life.

I think that emotionally driven suicide is always tragic.

I had a woman who came to me whose 10 year old son had just died of leukemia after a long gory time.

And she was quite suicidal.

And she believed in reincarnation.

So I told her if she killed herself she would lose her body but everything else would be there.

That little maneuver.

I pretty much believed it at the time.

I wasn't sure.

And that was enough to keep her alive for three or four months.

She was no longer suicidal.

And she was just seriously depressed.

And she said to me,

Well I guess I'm cured.

And I said,

No,

No,

No,

No.

It's a lot better than this.

So we worked together for another,

I was a psychotherapist.

I worked with her for another couple of years.

And she went on and had actually a very rich life since then.

We've done a lot of work with kids and it's very full.

And so I've been down that road with a lot of people.

And I think when there's emotionally based suicide that we've just kind of lost vision of what's possible.

What I'm planning to do is become a special ed teacher after my other kind of teaching.

What I usually say is that there's something in that impulse that is actually wise.

There's something that needs to die.

Just,

Just don't take it too literally.

That's when the problem comes in.

Just don't take it what?

Too literally.

The old self wants to die.

What other kind of suicide is there than emotional suicide?

Oh,

You know,

If Susie,

Look,

She wasn't trying to commit suicide.

No,

It wasn't.

But,

You know,

There are people who have irreversible pain.

And if they have a lot of,

A tremendous amount of clarity and can see that with an undistorted mind,

I think there's a tremendous depth that can happen out of it.

But if there's somebody that's just sucked in and lost in that and their quality of life is shot and medically,

You know,

It's really been confirmed that there's no,

You know,

Medical science really has no answer for what's going on.

I don't see that as much as an emotionally based suicide.

And it's real tricky and people come out in different places,

But I don't want to be in a position of saying that somebody else.

I have,

I've had cats all my life.

Billy was 19,

Which is very old for a cat.

And he began to,

He became lame and a little bit confused and disoriented.

And sometimes he would sit beside our bed for a half an hour and just cry.

But I would look at him very carefully and sort of openly.

And he would spend most of the day sleeping on the bed or sleeping out in various places in the garden.

And,

You know,

My deepest sense was that,

You know,

Despite all that,

He still wanted to be here.

And then one day,

Erica,

My wife,

Called me and went out there and there was Billy lying on his side in the garden and there were ants crawling over him,

Including across his eyelids.

He wasn't able to blink anymore and he was still breathing.

And you know,

Erica and I looked at him and it was just clear to us that he didn't want to be here.

You know,

He was done.

He was done inside himself.

And I thought about drowning him in a hot tub that was right there,

But I remembered Susie.

And so we picked him up and there was a vat about four or five blocks from us and took him there and got him a lethal injection as we were patting him.

And secondly,

This first precept that's usually translated as non-killing,

And there are places where the Buddha says that to break this precept you have to do four things.

You have to know a being who you wish harm or want to die to,

Second thing.

Third thing is you have to do something that four results in their death.

So my killing of Susie and Billy meets all those criteria.

And I deeply grieved their death,

But I lost my notes.

I deeply grieved their passing,

But I really feel at peace with what I did.

Kindness and alleviating a friend's suffering to me took precedence over all that.

And if I accumulated some bad karma out of that,

To not do it felt like selfish,

What should be accumulated bad karma to.

And I'm not really sure I accumulated bad karma.

I would do it again.

I would do it again,

Yeah,

Under those circumstances.

And what's really important for me is checking as deep as I can about where they are inside.

That for me is the most important thing.

Yeah,

Well,

And I,

Yeah,

That's actually part of it.

But for me,

You know,

With a creature I love,

What's going on for them and whether they want to be here or not and the pain,

That's actually more important.

I have more time to work my stuff out.

But you know,

People come in different places with this.

But isn't it compassion?

I think so.

Yeah.

I mean,

Go to the void.

Yeah,

Compassion,

Kindness.

Let me just throw another thing in here.

Despite my willingness,

You know,

To kill loved ones in some circumstances,

I think there are some ways that the Buddhist precept about non-killing doesn't go far enough.

Buying hamburger doesn't meet the Buddhist criteria.

I don't know that specific animal.

I don't wish a particular one any harm and not doing anything that directly results in their death.

Animal did die.

But in order,

And this is,

I'm just talking traditionally,

Within the tradition to break the precept,

All four of those things have to happen.

So from the Buddhist tradition,

Eating hamburger does not break precept against killing.

It doesn't.

Buddha was not vegetarian.

He took whatever was offered.

But for me,

Living in a world of supply and demand,

I know when I eat meat,

It creates a little more demand for cow meat,

Which has a little influence on the death of an animal.

And so that just leaves me with some qualms about all that.

So I was purely vegetarian for a number of years,

Ate eggs and milk products,

But I didn't,

As I tell my wincing friends,

I wouldn't eat any flesh.

But that was my line.

And then an acupuncturist convinced me that my blood protein was really way too low.

And she said,

You know,

I ought to be eating some fish or something.

And she reminded me that we evolved in these bodies that had meat as part of the diet.

And her reassurances weren't really comforting for me because I knew I could get all the protein I needed from vegetables.

It just took a lot more work that I wanted to put into it.

And as I reflected further,

You know,

None of us can survive without eating something that was once alive.

I had a friend once who would not eat plants that had to be killed,

Would not eat anything that had to be killed.

So he would eat lettuce or spinach,

But wouldn't eat celery because you have to kill the whole plant,

Or fruit or nuts,

But nothing that would kill the whole plant.

To me,

It just seemed like philosophical hair splitting.

There are many Native Americans that say that what's really important is to be humble and mindful and grateful to the animal or organism that died so that we could survive.

So today,

I still don't eat any flesh,

Except occasionally some fish.

And as I was pulling all this stuff together and writing this out,

It just,

To me,

Where I come to this sounds like sort of a convenient rationalizing,

A sort of a self-centered,

You know,

Feels good,

Do it.

And I don't know,

Maybe that's true.

But I'm not suggesting,

I'm not suggesting in any way that you deal with this the way I have.

What I am really saying is that in the relative world,

There are no absolutes.

And we all have to wrestle with this and have to wrestle with the consequences of our actions.

And I think the way that we engage these precepts and engage the beings around us is in the long run,

In the long run,

Is vastly more important than any particular conclusion.

So let's look at this a little more deeply,

Okay,

Because I don't think the Buddha intended the precepts to be used quite literally.

So what was it all about?

The goal of spirituality is not to rigidly adhere to any code of conduct.

That's not what it's about.

It's about cultivating a mind heart,

As I was saying before,

That is free of distortion.

A mind heart that is free of distortion can see clearly and heartfully and is present.

It can see how the mind operates,

How the mind's attention moves.

And when we can see that clearly enough,

Clearly enough,

We wake up.

If we were fully enlightened beings,

If we were,

You know,

We've gone the whole distance,

Then if it feels good,

It's okay,

Would be a very good criteria.

I think that would work.

As Thich Nhat Hanh said,

When we're mindful,

We know what to do and what not to do.

Sounds really simplistic,

But I just love it because it's very,

When we are mindful,

We know what to do.

We don't have to figure it out.

And the awareness is strong enough,

We know what to do and what not to do.

The problem is,

Is that this side of enlightenment,

None of us are actually clear enough.

Our perceptions,

Our feelings,

Our actions,

Our thinking,

The stuff we do get deeply distorted.

So if it feels good,

There are lots of things that we do that in the moment feel good,

Right?

And later we think,

Oh,

I can't believe I did that.

Are there things that we feel bad about or feel guilty about and we don't do it then later and say,

You know,

That was hard.

I wish I'd follow through on it.

So because of this propensity that we have for confusion,

I think it helps to have some tools to navigate the world.

And I think this is the context in which the Buddha presented these precepts as tools to help us navigate.

So I think what he was seeing is that there is a relationship between certain qualities of mind,

Qualities of awareness,

And certain behaviors and certain actions of relationship.

He considered some qualities to be unwholesome.

You know,

When high on his list were things like desire,

Grasping,

Aversion,

Confusion,

Willful ignorance,

Collectively those are called?

Indrances?

Those particular ones are tana.

Yes,

They are hindrances and the hindrances expand out from that,

Right.

Time is most likely to arise in everyday life when we have unwholesome qualities.

So there are some behaviors that the Buddha generally considered were unskillful and high on his list were killing,

Stealing,

Sexual misconduct,

Lying,

Intoxicants,

Etc.

Gossiping,

Idle chatter,

Rumors,

All that stuff we like to do,

Right.

So what happens is that as we are going through our life,

If we are in those unwholesome qualities,

It is much easier to spot behaviors,

Killing,

Harming,

Hitting,

Than it is the ill will inside.

So what the precepts say is that these are behaviors that when they arise,

It is like whoa,

You may want to take a minute and just see what is going on inside.

There are things that we do that may require a little more mindfulness or when we are tempted to just actually step back and see what is going on.

So as you can see from this perspective,

Killing Susie and Billy,

Billy wasn't a problem.

As Terry was saying,

It was kindness and compassion that was the motivation there.

I like this idea of intention.

I don't think your dad should have had bad karma because he didn't see your first cat.

If you had seen her,

He wouldn't have run over.

That's right.

He didn't have the intention to do it.

Right.

I think that intention thing.

The Tibetans have a little more nuanced way of looking at it,

Which I think is really true that the intention is the most important thing.

But how many of you have driven down the road and had an animal jump in front of you?

Maybe you tried to swerve to avoid it and you hit it anyway.

You can feel the adrenaline.

You can feel all that stuff that comes back through your system.

I think the act itself does have some effect,

But it's the intention.

What the Tibetans say is there's the act,

There is the state of mind and heart you were in when you committed the act,

And it's how you felt afterwards.

If you did something and feel a lot of remorse,

It's really a quite different situation than if you kill something afterwards.

Not my problem.

I always hear intention related to the first precept,

But I wonder if it applies to all the other precepts.

Absolutely.

So speaking ill will,

If you don't intend it.

And if it causes damage,

Then there's a little bit,

It's less.

Because oftentimes,

I only look in the viral moment,

There's a lot of things we've,

A lot of people have done with all the best intentions that as the science evolves,

They say,

Whoops,

That was a bad idea.

So there is some collective karma that happens back from that.

But the intentions were okay,

So you can have a mind heart that's relatively relaxed,

As long as you're not callous to the facts.

I had a woman came to me who was part of the Gay Straight Alliance in her high school.

And there was a guy who,

It just sounds classic,

He was a football star in high school.

And he was secretly gay.

And so he was talking to them about it.

And they encouraged him to come out.

And he did.

And his parents took it very poorly.

They were fundamentalist Christian.

And a couple weeks later,

Committed suicide.

And so she came in to me,

Because people kept on saying what her intentions were.

You know,

Her intentions were good.

And they were.

And they were.

And I saw that,

And I looked at her,

And I said,

You will never know.

You will never know what the effect of your encouragement had on that.

And that's what it means to be an adult.

You know,

That you make a call based on the best information on the clearest intentions you have.

And then you actually live with the results.

And I could see there was someone who was just relaxed.

It was like,

Okay.

So actually got a place where she could work with it.

So it's really very complicated stuff.

My current practice revolves around the not killing precept,

And prior military and prior law enforcement.

And that's a hard struggle.

You know,

When you load a 2,

000 pound bomb,

And you know where it's going.

Oh,

Yeah.

Or you have firearms pointed at people trying to live.

Or you see a sheriff's firm with a sniper out on the skid,

And the threat to kill two officers or whatever.

And how can we judge that on what?

We can't.

And the judging mind is not,

I want to say it's not appropriate.

It happens sometimes.

So it's really important to understand how comma works.

Comma is tension.

That's all it is.

It's tension.

So there's a place inside that says,

Oh my goodness.

Look what happened.

And so that reverberates back through your system,

And it has an effect.

But it's not magical.

And so if you work with it,

And see where the tension is,

And gradually release that.

And sometimes that can release all kinds of grieving and regret and remorse and all that.

And so you just keep on,

Well,

You know,

I have this thing called the six R's.

Just recognizing what's going on,

Releasing it,

Letting it be what it is,

Relaxing,

Bring some lighter mind to that.

You know,

If there are deep things that you have a lot of regret for,

That'll come up a lot.

But gradually you work the tension out of it,

And then the karma is gone.

So none of this is preordination.

Not preordained.

It's not ordination.

You know what I mean.

Predetermined.

Yeah.

All of this is workable.

It's not workable if you shut it down.

Then it just remains locked underneath there.

And so that's part of the deal,

Is finding skillful ways to bring up the stuff that you have.

And it's like this woman I was talking about,

It's like sort of acknowledging that she may have well have had some role in this guy's death.

And to have somebody who was willing to say that actually gave her a place where she could start to work with that.

As long as everybody was tonight,

Say,

You're fine,

You're fine,

You're fine,

You're fine.

She knew inside she wasn't.

So she can work with that.

But it takes,

You know,

Awareness.

Awareness is magic.

But it takes that clear,

Open awareness to be with what is.

And wise view,

All wise view means is that we're not trying to distort it.

We try to see it as clearly just what is.

Wise view is not a particular perspective.

It's like seeing what's going on as clearly as we can.

And it is really magical because you go deeply enough and clearly enough and things will release.

Okay.

Ginger.

Ginger?

Yeah,

Well I've had this issue for a long time but it's hard to let go of something you keep running into all the time.

I was saying with right speech it's better to speak to the person.

But when you have to speak to the person it's hard not speaking to others is all issued as he.

The thing that's most important in all that is your inner,

Is the inner state.

What are the qualities of the mind heart?

And in the relative world there are no absolutes.

I might agree with you in general,

Talking to the person is generally better than not talking to the person but not always.

And it's these empirical trials.

If you do something two or three times and it blows back at you,

It's like whoa.

So the most important thing about empirical trials is that you pay attention to the data.

I know this will work.

But it's 170 times,

171 maybe it's the word.

But you don't want war.

You think he's trying to have war with you and more problems create more problems.

You want peace.

There's got to be some resolution just like countries that keep fighting it.

They don't want to come to some agreement.

There's never peace.

So the first ennobling truth is that in this world everything breaks.

We all die.

It doesn't mean we can't have a lot of joy,

Etc.

,

Etc.

But if we get locked into a model.

I think about the old farmers a couple hundred years ago,

Tree falls on the barn.

Well,

That happens.

Let's see what we can do.

Now,

Tree falls on my house.

What did I do wrong?

I created a bad car.

Bad stuff happens.

Bad stuff happens.

Our culture has done us incredible disservice by telling us that we are in charge of the lives,

We are the masters of our faith.

We got influence.

But by golly,

Bad things happen to good people all the time.

They really do.

And so what we're after is how to be at peace with this.

The bad things happen.

And if there's grasping for some result,

I want to have a peaceful relationship with you,

Dammit.

It doesn't really work.

It doesn't really work.

So I would say no situation there is forgiveness.

You can forgive the person.

There may not be reconciliation.

Reconciliation takes two people agreeing and working it out.

Forgiveness only requires one person.

It's just you let go of the rope.

You're not playing tug of war anymore.

Just say stay at peace in the turmoil.

Just feel it,

All the stuff falling apart.

Feel like you're in a hurricane.

You have to,

It works if you can feel it with a mind that is relatively clear.

If your mind is a hurricane,

Then you're looking through a lot of distortions and that's not going to help.

It really isn't.

So if there's a hurricane going on,

Maybe you need to go off and watch some Laurel Horror movies and Hardy movies.

Laurel Horror movies,

Never mind.

Anything that actually gets the mind,

Heart relaxed a little bit and get it to unwind a little bit.

And then from that place you can come back and look at it.

But if you're there all time and stuff like that,

You're actually just creating more karma.

It's all that tension that's just building up inside.

So you have to find some peacefulness.

And if your peacefulness is dependent on what somebody else's does,

Then boy you are trapped.

You are trapped.

Okay.

Got more stuff or should I go on a little bit?

What if someone just breaks all of these,

You know,

Guy goes off and gets drunk and angry and kills someone and then has wrongful sex or whatever.

Is this karma just going to get so wrecked in that one day that there's no way back?

No.

No.

No.

Whoa.

Did you think that was a mind full of everything?

You know the Jataka tales?

The tales of the Buddha in previous lives.

And there's a Jataka tale where he was on a ship with 500 people.

And the captain,

You heard this one?

And the captain was going to sink the ship and kill everybody.

So the Buddha to be killed pirate captain.

Number one,

Because,

You know,

One death as opposed to 500,

But also to spare the guy all the karma of killing 500 people.

In the absolute,

You know,

In the relative world there are no absolutes.

You can always come back for it.

But you have to be really careful.

The precepts are tools for mindfulness to looking at your life.

If you want to go out and judge people,

That's not what they're meant for.

I know we do it all the time,

But that's not what they're about.

The judging mind is better to have compassion for their suffering.

You know,

They're hurting.

Anybody who does that is hurting.

You may want to take all the sharp objects out of their hands.

So I used to say back to Dick Cheney,

He can believe whatever he wants.

I just want to take all the sharp objects out of his hands.

How are we doing here for time?

Okay,

We've got a little bit more.

The times when we are most likely to kill are actually when we're dealing with the things like mosquitoes,

Bugs,

Cockroaches,

All those sorts of things.

And what happens inside is that we say,

You know,

The inconvenience this creature is bringing me is more important than his life or death.

And so with that,

That becomes a rationale for killing him.

And the tension that that creates may be small enough that we can ignore it.

But then what happens inevitably,

If you're really on this path,

Is that sometimes in deep meditation that comes back to you.

And it may not come back as a specific memory.

It may come back as a kind of a restlessness.

So this devaluing of life is the root cause of war.

And it's the root cause of the ecological crisis we're in.

So that it's really,

Really important that we figure out how to live more and more harmoniously with the creatures around us.

But it ain't easy.

I came,

When I first moved to Sacramento in 2000,

I was living in this little apartment.

And I walked into the apartment one afternoon and there was a stream of ants going across the kitchen and up the cupboard and down into the sink.

And true confession,

The first thought that went through my mind was,

Oh my God,

I hope nobody sees this.

They'll think I'm a poor housekeeper.

And so I flipped on the garbage disposal.

And these ant carcasses just splayed all over the kitchen.

And I was like really horrified.

And so I vowed right then and there.

I was going to figure out a better way to do this.

And it took a lot of time.

A lot of it was figuring out what they like and what they don't like and what would cause them and just making sure I cleaned up the food.

And today there are still lots of ants in our house.

But they have these little tiny Argentinian ones that you don't see.

But if I look around very,

Very carefully,

You can always see one or two of them around.

But if they don't find any food they like,

They don't send for their buddies.

And it's actually kind of a neat feeling for me to know that I actually live in the house with these and there are not so many that it's a problem.

I haven't had as good luck with rats.

How about mosquitoes?

You have rats alive.

We live down near the American River.

Oh,

You know what's a good thing for rats?

The nice thing is that many years ago I had money at Filby Ranch.

All you do is have peanut butter ants.

Let me tell you,

I spent years on this.

I spent years with this.

So our property backs up to the greenway.

So there's trees and fields and coyotes and turkeys and rats.

You know,

They live along the river.

And mostly they like to keep to themselves.

So I actually didn't mind them having them in the house.

And so I went around that house with steel wool and,

You know,

Sealing up all those little cracks and all that stuff.

And I had to have a heart trap and I tried,

You know,

Peanut butter.

And I caught some and released them and we sealed food in containers.

And after three or four years,

There was still squeaking on the walls in the attic at night.

There were still little holes being chewed through the macaroni boxes and the cereal boxes.

And there were still little droppings in the frying pans in the cupboard.

And then one day we were sitting in the family room and these rats ran across our feet.

I don't know.

It was just a couple.

It wasn't a whole troop.

But I called an exterminator the next day.

And he put little traps around the foundation in the attic.

And on my behalf,

He caught and killed about a half dozen.

And then there were no more.

So we ended the contract.

And I think that,

You know,

Rats,

They can get through the tiniest.

I think what really happened was that we had a shake roof on the house.

And I think they were going between the shingles and the shake roof finally wore out and we had to replace it.

And so it cleared out.

So now we're okay with rats.

Is that his car or your car,

Mon?

It's Mon's.

Does he kill them?

No.

I knew of creatures.

Maybe not a specific one,

But not for me.

I knew there were creatures there.

I did something that,

You know,

I wish them harm.

And I did something that resulted in their death.

So that meets all four classical criteria.

Put out a hit on them.

That's right.

I put out a hit on them.

Can you,

As far as the crime is concerned,

Forgive yourself and release the carmel?

Yeah.

It's really tricky,

You know,

Because like the more you know about this,

The less you can do that.

Okay,

I'm going to forgive myself.

Okay,

I forgive myself.

You know,

You have to be really honest with yourself about this.

Couldn't you say that because rats carry diseases and things like that,

That you could get so in a way that's like getting them non-harming to yourself and people around you.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

They'd have rats leaving their droppings in the frying pans,

You know.

So it is true,

But at what point,

And I don't have an answer to this.

Well,

The rats were taking what they were like doing.

They weren't running around in rows either,

Believe me.

All I'm saying is this is stuff that we just really have to engage.

You know,

The place that I still get caught is what to do with termites.

You know,

So he had a sturm area and he puts these chemical barriers to keep them out,

But every four or five years they break through the ramparts and start going through the studs and you know,

I just kind of sort it.

You know.

That's basically a sign that says not here.

You can go somewhere else.

But I like what my son does.

What happens is I say every four or five years they have to get into the house and start chewing through the.

Well,

They've forgotten.

But anyway,

My friend Judy came up with a great solution.

We were sitting around talking about this the other day.

When you kill a fly,

You say go to heaven.

And then it's all a day.

Doesn't work for me.

Doesn't work for me.

Yeah,

There's a friend of mine that does them.

Go to God.

Go to God.

And,

So let me,

I'm working around time.

I want to just move into the steel one and just give you one more scenario and then we'll open back up again.

So well,

Let me see the stuff to finish up on that.

Yeah,

I'll just say about the coon.

Maybe I won't get to the steel one.

But that what I've learned over the years,

You know,

I haven't come to a solution.

I'm not going to propose a solution to anybody.

And I,

And what happens in Dharma circles is when you talk about this stuff,

Everybody starts coming up with their solution to that particular problem.

And that's great to hear.

But I'm saying no matter what happens,

There's going to be someplace where it just doesn't work.

And sooner or later we have to,

You know,

Deal with this one way or another.

And I would say that over the years that I have become a lot,

Lot more sensitive to what's going on inside me when I go to do these things.

And that really guides me.

And I do catch and release bugs and spiders and all that stuff.

And I actually feel pretty good about it.

It used to be just an annoying little thing.

But I actually feel pretty good about it.

It's like,

Because what's really clear to me is that we are the most,

The most destructive species that has ever walked on this planet.

We just are.

You know,

We,

You know,

Wince at velociraptors in the movies or wolves or stuff like that.

But boy,

You know,

We are taking out creatures and entire species at this incredible rate.

And most of us don't feel like,

You know,

We're doing much damage.

But you know,

We really are.

So I think that it's really important to take these precepts seriously.

And again,

What that means is really investigating what's going on inside when we go to break them.

And then you just have to cull it.

And we're never going to,

We're never going to get free.

So there's this,

I'll do two things real quickly.

Stealing.

Anybody know Lawrence Kolberg?

He did a lot of study of moral development back in the 50s and 60s,

Particularly in children how it develops.

And so one of his tests,

He had this question,

Which is a great question.

You have a child who is sick and is actually going to die.

And there is a drug that can cure the child.

And there's a pharmacist that has it,

But he's charging it at an unreasonable price for it.

And you don't have enough money.

So what do you do?

Do you steal it?

Or do you let the child die?

I hope you steal it.

You're appropriated.

I hope you steal it.

I hope that you don't whitewash yourself with it.

I mean,

I appreciate that.

But just to be really clear.

So there's this principle in situation ethics,

You're familiar with that,

That says if you have one rule,

You're fine.

You just follow that rule,

You're golden.

You have two rules.

Be kind,

Don't kill.

Protect your children,

Don't steal.

You have two rules.

Sometimes they're going to conflict,

And then you need a third rule to actually sort that out.

Now you have three rules.

And so it's just full of other phrase.

So we could sit here.

This is part of the thing about trying to figure out all these solutions and all these problems.

They are endless.

In the relative world,

We can't anticipate all the things that might come up.

The best we can do is actually be really clear,

Honest with ourselves.

See where our mind,

Heart is.

Understand what your motives are.

Killing kindness.

I was really going for the kindness of Susie.

When you go to stop a mosquito,

Go to God.

Oh,

I'm sending them off to the afterlife.

Really be clear about what your motive is.

Did you just find a way to talk yourself out of it?

Pardon?

What do you do?

Kill.

So just be really clear,

Because you can hear it in your voice,

Right?

And what I'm suggesting with all this is that my experience in dealing with this is I am a lot more ethical and a lot more sensitive than I was.

That it comes from engaging these mindfully and heartfully.

That the.

.

.

I just want to read this last stuff.

For a precept of work must be taken seriously.

If you're willing to just simply dismiss it because it's emotionally inconvenient,

Then it's not very helpful.

We're really likely to get caught in unbalanced feelings.

On the other hand,

On the other hand,

Mechanical adherence to precepts creates a mind heart that is what?

It's rigid and righteous when you stay within the precept,

And it's rigid and guilty when you don't.

And I'm sorry,

But rigidity,

Righteousness,

And guilt are not going to get us lightened.

They are not wholesome qualities.

On the other hand,

Kindness,

Clarity,

They really are.

So for me,

What it always comes down to,

And it's.

.

.

I'll go back to situation ethics,

What's the one principle I hold most deeply behind all that?

It's actually kindness.

It's actually kindness.

And how that plays out is going to be different in different situations.

Isn't there a difference between insects and animals?

I love animals.

I love fish.

I love dogs,

Cats,

Horses,

And all that.

But insects,

I mean.

.

.

Oh yes,

Insects.

They are less than us.

Can you hear that?

You know,

Like I saw it in our house,

Because we have these cats that would be outside and they catch a bird.

And everybody runs outside to rescue the bird.

Cats catch a lizard.

Nobody does anything.

So what the Buddha was talking about was actually sentient beings.

And those mosquitoes,

At their core,

You know,

They don't have a terribly sophisticated neural network,

So I doubt that they can really reflect on their life.

But at the core,

They just want to live out their life.

And so who are we to say that we can off them because it's just more convenient for us?

I have.

And sometimes I do.

Those termites,

You know,

Destroy my house.

Pardon?

Didn't the Buddha say something along the lines that all life on earth is sacred?

Yeah.

I mean,

That doesn't mean that I judge somebody that kills a mosquito or anything like that.

Right.

But I can live with all life is sacred.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And to just reiterate it,

That there is no way to put together a set of rules that we can live within and be safe.

I'll tell you one last story.

It's in my book.

There is this zendo in North Dakota.

Do you guys know this story?

And they got cockroaches.

They were running over people.

They were getting them a flower and all that stuff.

And they did all the things you're supposed to do.

You were going to lift everything.

And they couldn't get them out of there.

And so they were wondering,

Maybe this is a place where it really is okay to kill,

Given the collective harm they're doing and everything else.

So they went to their zen master to say if this was okay to put some poison out for those.

So what do you think the zen master said?

He said,

I'm not going to tell you.

Because from his perspective,

For them to be wrestling with the value of this life against our convenience is much more important than anything else.

So we really have to engage these.

And again,

If we're willing to dismiss them,

You know,

When it's emotionally inconvenient,

That doesn't work.

If we try to follow them literally,

We get into a lot of trouble on all kinds of levels.

We really have to engage these heartfully and mindfully.

And I don't think there's any,

As long as we're living in the relative world,

That's all we've got.

You have to decide for yourself.

That's where I come out with it.

So it's ten after.

So let's take just a few moments.

So I invite you as you sit here to just feel your own energy,

Just to be with yourself.

Just open your awareness in your heart to yourself.

And then let that awareness spread out and just feel the people around you in this room.

Just sense them.

And then imagine your field of awareness spreading out beyond this room,

Out around the town,

Out around the planet.

We live in this sea of relationships.

So squirrels and birds outside my window have the intelligence of a small child,

And very complex relationships of a small child.

We live in this vast sea of relationships where everything we do in a large or small way affects everything else.

And right now as a Sangha,

Let's send out through all those connections this simple wish.

May all beings know kindness.

May all beings have ease and well-being as they go through their day.

May all beings know their true nature.

May all beings be deeply happy.

May all beings be free.

May it be so.

Thank you for your practice.

Thank you for engaging and being here.

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