Four Reliances In A World Of Instability

This is a talk on the "four reliances" in the practice of Buddhadharma presented in an accessible and personalized way, bringing the teachings down from the clouds. Specially, Guo Gu relates to how we should relate to teachers, the teachings, wisdom, and ultimate truth.

Transcript

How's everyone doing tonight?

So tonight's talk is.

.

.

What's the title?

Four Reliances in a World of Instability.

Stress,

Instability,

So many things,

Chaos.

I want to suggest that I talk on this topic because of our political situation and recent news of all the sexual scandals happening here.

And so people feel that listening to the news is very stressful.

So a lot of happenings is making people's lives very difficult.

It's also giving people new ways of looking at things.

Some of which are allowing certain people to even feel empowered to speak out,

Particularly the women,

Against sexual scandals or harassment.

But these things are not new.

Since time without beginning.

Since the human civilizations.

It's just that the media is now putting a spotlight on this issue.

And the media is also used to.

.

.

Or media is being used to.

.

.

Advance certain perspectives and views.

Last month I spoke about the smartphone dystopia.

How media,

Social media,

Different technology is utilizing the weaknesses,

Our own fear of missing out.

You can have a word for it.

F-O-M-O,

Fear of missing out.

Using our need to be seen,

To be heard,

To be loved,

Recognized,

Maximizing that,

Driving that to the maximum potential.

Creating a kind of a social world.

So media has done great things,

But also it's used with an agenda.

So all the news that we hear,

All the so-called facts that we see,

They are not really innocent.

They are no innocent data.

Data and facts are always mediated with an agenda.

Everything comes to us already theorized,

Filled with agenda.

So that's what I mean by everything is used,

Media technology is used to advance certain views.

How does that relate to us?

How does that influence us?

Our practice.

.

.

We have always,

As sentient beings,

Engaged in creating,

Creating greed,

Aversion,

Fundamental ignorance from which stems the host of other mental states that we aspire to free ourselves from,

To better ourselves in the world around us.

Added to this layer is the media,

Like a magnifying glass that highlights certain things.

And it's much needed in many circumstances,

But at the same time,

It's not so innocent,

Like a magnifying glass,

Somehow like a neutral instrument,

Just merely revealing facts and data.

There's mediation there.

There's people behind writing up the narratives of the perspectives,

Raising certain questions,

And the answers that we find or things that are revealed are directly the result or limited by the question that's being asked.

And to whom these questions benefit?

Whom does it victimize?

So it's not innocent.

And living in this world now,

Where we have symptoms of FOMO,

Fear of missing out,

Counseling on social media,

News,

We're bombarded by this information.

It's hard to decipher reality if there is such a thing.

You know,

It's hard to understand the reality of the world.

You can have one event,

You have 10,

15,

Neville suggested to me 15 news media that he trusts.

But there are more,

A lot more.

So different perspectives,

Some of them not mainstream,

Some of them from foreign countries looking at the same event that we're looking at here.

You know,

You have different narratives,

Different perspectives.

What do we rely on?

What do we rely on?

On what basis do we make our own choices?

On what grounds do we exert our discrimination over certain people?

These are difficult questions.

They affect our daily life,

Our well-being.

To most people,

It's difficult to sort out with every important event,

Look through 15 different media outlet sources to examine this thing and really think through and come to an educated,

Understanding,

A more nuanced understanding.

So most of the time,

Inadvertently,

We are subscribing to dominant voices in the society,

Maybe NPR,

Or Fox News,

Or CNN,

BBC.

And more importantly,

Not only is the external world,

Or rather worlds,

When all of it is things that it highlights,

Complex,

We ourselves are very complicated.

We tend to gravitate to certain view,

Certain perspectives,

And ignore certain perspectives.

And ignore selectively the news that don't seem to bear importance in our lives.

In the process of selection,

We tend to exaggerate those that are important to us.

Exaggerate it bigger or diminish it.

No stable reality out there.

No stability in here.

Each and every one of us.

Living a world affected by,

Created by,

Different contingencies.

There is no essential narrative to our lives.

Out there or in here.

There are all these different contingencies at play.

And these contingencies can be even biological,

Anatomical.

Like if you feel tired and you encounter a particular news,

You may not feel so happy about that news.

You see?

These contingencies are constantly skewing,

Shaping our experiences.

How this affects practitioners.

The Buddhist has its own way to articulate this Buddhist tradition,

This path of practice.

Many different Buddhist traditions have their own way of saying that.

How to articulate this path.

What strings together this different articulation of the path and how to live in the world?

What strings together all of these different articulations of the path?

To put it in layman's terms or something very simple that we can all understand.

Is that Buddhist practice.

And this doesn't happen from reading books,

You know,

Reading Buddhist books.

Barnes and Noble books on Buddhism.

It doesn't happen.

It only happens from walking the path,

Practicing it.

Then as a natural result,

Simply put,

The practice makes us see nuances and contingencies.

Makes us see subtleties.

Subtle within the subtle.

It makes us better human beings to navigate life,

To navigate through ambiguities.

One student like to put it paradoxes.

In other words,

It makes practice seem less and less black and white.

Black and white.

If you engage in practice more and more and more,

More experiences.

And as a result,

You tend to see things more in clear-cut black and white.

That means something is wrong with the practice.

Probably.

Either you're living more in an ideal world or you're perpetuating something within ourselves.

Particular viewpoints.

So the contra.

.

.

The context.

And constructs.

The walls of views that we put up to demarcate,

Create barriers between self and others,

Inside and outside.

Good versus bad.

Perpetrators versus victims.

Becomes more nuanced.

Not for the sake of,

You know,

There's no more rules anymore.

I don't mean that.

But we are able to appreciate,

Sympathize with both perpetrators and victims.

We'll be able to see things in a more nuanced way.

Why is that?

Why does this practice of Buddhist path lead to this?

Because the practice targets something very fundamental to our being.

And that is self-grasping.

And that is self-grasping.

And this self,

This self,

Its natural tendency is to reify things.

Solidify views.

Create borders and boundaries.

It's the natural tendency to create self and others.

So when we target the self,

In that process,

Not only does it.

.

.

We recognize this tendency within us.

In that course,

We discover our own shortcomings.

Everything that we see out in the world.

Of course,

Buddhism doesn't really recognize an external,

Independent world out there as opposed to self in here.

I'll get to that soon.

Conventionally speaking,

Every flaw that we see out there,

We can find traces within ourselves.

The more we excavate our own shortcomings,

Our own self-grasping,

Our own tendency to reify things,

To reify experiences,

Fluidity into things,

The more we soften that.

In that process,

We recognize all the flaws out there.

It's actually in here.

And we'll be able to sympathize and appreciate.

And as we engage with the world,

Naturally,

A natural extension of the practice is to share this practice.

And co-create this world into a better place.

The words that my teacher used to say is,

Pure Land.

Or in the Judeo-Western tradition,

It would be Heaven on Earth.

It is actually very difficult to not do that.

To not do that.

Because here's my point about division of self and others.

Because from the Buddhist perspective,

This understanding of inside self and outside world is a false construct.

It's just a word.

Everything is interdependent.

All there are are contingencies.

Even linguistically,

I often talk about the Buddhist notion of self as a tripartite.

It's not a dualistic Cartesian.

It actually dates back beyond Descartes,

All the way to Plato,

Thousands of years,

Of this model of self and others.

The Buddhist model,

At the very bare minimum,

Is a tripartite notion of self.

Self-co-dependent,

Co-arising from interacting with the world.

They talk about in terms of sense faculties.

Eye,

Ear,

Nose,

Tongue,

Body,

Mind.

You can substitute mind with brain,

If you like.

Sight,

Sound,

Smell,

Taste,

Touch,

Thought,

Including feeling.

Giving rise to cognitive moments of visual consciousness,

Auditory consciousness.

Old factory,

Tactile,

Mind consciousness.

Six sense faculties,

Six sense objects,

Giving rise to moment-to-moment consciousness.

So our mind consciousness is actually dependent on the world.

It's socially constructed.

It's not purely social because we have our own mental continuum.

So even the Indian notion of self.

First of all,

The notion of self in Buddhism is much more complicated.

It's not a one term from English to a Sanskrit or a Buddhist term.

There's a cluster of terms.

In different contexts,

It means something else.

For example,

Buddhist notion of personhood.

It's a purusha.

But this personhood in the Indian context,

It would have been the Buddhist time.

And earlier,

The notion of purusha or personhood is not here within this husk,

The shell of the body.

It is intimately connected with the social world.

In fact,

The notion of purusha extends out to the world.

And the goal is to ever expansion of this notion until you come to one with Brahma,

Divinity.

It's contingent on the world.

Other aspects of self,

Like the everyday conventional self,

Day to day going through your routines and so on.

They have another term.

Pudgala.

Do you have your Pudgala today?

Pudgala.

It's talking about this everyday convention,

Going through your routine,

Relating to others,

Relating to yourself.

And then on a philosophical level,

There's other words like atma.

But there are special terms for the perceiver in Buddhist epistemology,

The Yogacara tradition,

And that which is perceived.

In other words,

There are words for subjective self.

But even in our English language,

There are multiple uses of what we mean by self.

It's very complicated.

And all of these are contingencies that exist in relationship.

There's no essence to any of these.

In English we speak about,

Like the neuroscientists,

They talk about an autobiographical self.

Some talk about the narrative self,

Subjective self,

Objectified self.

And the sensory self.

These sense of being here,

Being an agent,

A subject,

Actually activates,

According to the neuroscientists,

Different regions of the brain.

You don't have a self.

Different regions are responsible through particular neural pathways,

Producing a sense of specific type of self.

When we talk about ourselves,

Looking at old pictures of us as two years old.

And when we relate to others,

Putting ourselves in our sentence structure,

When we talk about ourselves as an object in time.

Or the tactile,

Impacted by our valumous sensory type of self,

Visual,

Olfactory.

Everything is constructed,

Simulated,

Context dependent.

But we don't live that way.

We live in a world in which it's pretty simple.

I'm here,

And all of you are there.

By extension of this simplified,

Naive kind of self,

The media that we create,

Social media,

The news that we create,

Tend to solidify the simple notion of self and others.

Perpetrated and victim.

Good guys and bad people.

Because that's most intuitive to us.

We're conditioned to understand things this way.

And all of our experiences are grounded in this sense of dualism.

So the more we practice the Dharma,

The more this simplified structure actually tends to break down.

We become better at being able to navigate through ambiguities,

Gray areas.

We begin to be able to appreciate ourselves and appreciate others,

And sympathize the suffering and the difficulties people experience.

Does that make sense so far?

What I'm trying to say is simply,

All of us know this already,

But I'm kind of fleshing it out a little bit.

Things are not what they seem.

Whatever we think the world is,

It's an abstracted,

Simplified version.

Soon as we dig beneath a layer,

We discover something else.

And that happens every time.

This,

Of course,

Is no justification for those people who commit sexual offenses,

Who promote particular racial supremacy,

Who criticize particular gender,

Or look down upon certain people.

Not trying to defend them here,

Of course.

But Dharma practice allows us to see incrementally more and more and more to these things.

Because we see them in ourselves.

We see miniature versions of it,

Maybe.

We may not act on them,

But even when we act on these harmful thoughts,

The extent that we act on is not as strong,

Does not affect other people so destructively.

But the potential is there.

So Dharma practice depends on a kind of vigilance,

Clarity.

From the most coarse to the most refined.

And the Buddha gave us four principles.

So all that is a prelude.

First one is the question of what to depend on.

What is dependable in this world?

Given how things are nuanced,

Multiple perspectives.

First principle,

The easiest.

Rely on the meaning,

Not on the teaching.

Dharma,

Not the person.

Rely on the teaching,

Not the person.

Even when Shakyamuni Buddha is around,

Some people looked at him.

When he was advancing age,

Saw him as an old hag.

Nagging.

Who?

His monastic disciples.

What?

Some of them commented,

When the Buddha passed away,

I'm so glad since Shakyamuni passed away,

Now we can do what we want.

And that's why Mahakasyapa says,

Over heard us.

We've got to collect the monastic regulations now.

And compile even orally all the teachings that he has given,

Institutionalize this.

Rely on the teaching,

Not the person.

The point is,

If we rely on the person,

We will always find flaws.

Because our tendency is to project on the teacher,

The person giving the teachings,

Our own wishes,

Anticipation,

Expectations.

Our own contingencies in our lives that have shaped the way we see things.

That said,

That said,

Every one of Shakyamuni Buddha's disciples left home to become a monk,

Follow him,

Because of him.

You know?

That's only an entry,

Entry into the path.

Once we begin to practice,

We have to take the teachings and integrate it into ourselves.

He has given at this center,

In our group,

Our community,

All kinds of teachings.

The degree that you're able to accept the teachings and integrate the teachings,

Try out the teachings,

Is completely your own.

Each and every one of you come to learn the Dharma.

I have no claim to it.

I take no recognition for it.

So some people thank me and say,

Oh,

Thank you for the teachings,

It's so useful.

It's good for you.

Really,

It's good for you.

I can't claim that from the teacher's perspective.

Even though from the student's perspective,

You may think it comes from the teacher,

After all,

He did say it,

Or she did say this,

I heard it,

But it's because of your practice.

That said,

You can't turn around and say,

Yeah,

It's all my doing.

I'm responsible for my practice.

You said it,

But that's also wrong.

So what should we rely on then?

Teachings.

Not the person.

It doesn't matter if it's the teacher or the student.

Do you understand?

In order to receive teachings,

We have to open ourselves.

Teachers,

No matter who,

Even Shakyamuni Buddha,

Some people will see flaws.

Let alone Gua Gu,

Or some other teacher's flaws.

And Gua Gu sees shortcomings within him.

It's up to him to practice the Dharma.

It's up to him to generate humility,

Practice repentance,

Deepen his practice more.

See?

Teachings are what we all should depend on.

When I was younger,

I met my teacher when I was 11.

He was like a father to me,

Raised by a single parent,

My mom.

She was like the missing piece in my life.

I projected a lot on him.

And expected a lot too.

Personally.

I constructed my own views of him.

And now I'm getting the karmic retribution.

Because I see how students project on me.

Expect a lot from me.

I'm so appreciative of my teacher.

What I put him through.

Now my students are putting me through this.

The thing to remember is,

First one.

Rely on the teaching,

Not on the person.

If I may add one more note about this.

The teaching is contingent.

Dependent on circumstances.

Very much so in Buddhism.

There's no fixed doctrine or dogma.

It's not that I got it all under one cover in this book.

All the teachings.

Now what I have to do is just depend on that.

Practice that.

No.

The things that the teachers say to students.

Dependent on circumstances.

And the person.

So take what we can.

And implement it.

Second.

Dependent on the meaning.

Never depend on the words.

Like the terms or concept.

That's very important.

Actually train ourselves to be able to get the meaning of things.

This is the second step.

That will help us to see things in a more nuanced way.

Not simple black and white.

Learn to navigate through difficult ambiguities.

Understand the meaning.

Then we will be able to apply it in different circumstances.

Because different circumstances.

Because circumstances are always different.

It's not a matching game.

For example,

I may tell someone.

Don't wear shoes in the meditation hall.

Because X1Z.

If you just remember,

Don't wear shoes in the meditation hall.

Or Neville comes here and wears shoes.

Then people project on him.

That's dependent on words.

Didn't get my meaning.

Does that make sense?

Our feet,

Foot has gone through operation.

We need to wear shoes as support.

Put a little shoe sock on it.

Or whatever.

That's just a simple circumstance.

But if we observe our natural instinctual tendency.

We see things black and white.

Not nuanced.

And we reify notions.

Words.

Language.

We use it to measure other people.

Sometimes we measure ourselves too.

So rely on meaning.

Not words.

That's the second one.

Third.

Rely on wisdom.

Not intelligence.

Now we begin to move from the superficial level of things to the more subtle.

Because what is Buddhist wisdom?

Dependent origination.

Everything is contingent.

There is no self.

Even linguistically.

In the Indian context.

The Buddhist context.

Or the Neuroscience context.

They talk about constructiveness of selves.

Of memory.

Of feelings.

That's the latest research on emotions.

Emotions are not like we all share a particular blueprint.

When something happens to us,

We are all triggered.

All of us have trigger points.

We can all be triggered by sadness and fear.

The latest Neuroscience perspective is everything is constructed.

Emotions are learned,

Acquired,

Socially integrated into the building blocks of who we think we are.

Everything is contingent.

Everything is interdependent.

So relying on this means to rely on at least before we ourselves experience wisdom.

Personally.

Directly.

Through awakening,

Seeing our self nature.

There's a lot of terms for it.

Emptiness.

So on.

No self.

Before we experience that.

We borrow the Buddha's wisdom.

The teachings.

Which means we borrow Buddha's perspectives.

The Dharma's perspective on certain things.

To help us to see things in a more nuanced way.

When we find ourselves with a tendency to victimize certain people.

Judge certain people.

We recognize suffering.

Typically the perpetrators themselves are the ones that need the most amount of help.

You know.

Suffering.

And their suffering comes from grasping of self.

We ourselves must be careful of our own reification of them as the other.

Labeling them.

Understand that everything is interdependent.

When I was very young.

One year shy of 50.

When I was early 20s.

Maybe 18.

I don't remember.

Before 20.

I was already doing retreats with my teacher.

I came across something by my teacher's friend.

I didn't know that they were friends at the time.

Very popular Buddhist teacher.

His name is Thich Nhat Hanh.

He says something.

His teachings are very simple.

Very straightforward.

He says.

He was talking about rapists.

He says we have created the rapists.

And I was like no we haven't.

What do you mean?

He was talking about the people.

The perpetrators in Vietnam.

You know.

Those that are suffering are created by us.

Those who are marginalized.

Those who are perpetrated.

Victimized.

Those gangs and killers.

Serial killers.

Created by us.

I couldn't understand that.

And I refused to take that.

I couldn't understand that at that time.

He was talking about something very profound.

Very simple words.

Of course he doesn't really flesh that out.

You know fully.

But through practice.

We can begin to understand little by little.

You know.

Whatever we see out there.

We are part of that process.

Indirectly.

Sometimes directly.

Everything is interdependent.

That is wisdom.

From that perspective.

The natural expression of this wisdom is compassion.

Definitely.

If we see others in pain.

The natural expression.

So compassion is actually an expression of wisdom.

So the Buddha said rely on wisdom.

Not on intelligence.

Or IQ.

Compassion is already included.

In that wisdom.

See things in a more nuanced way.

Interdependent way.

Contingencies.

With that.

Stems compassion to change.

It's not that we just leave the world as it is.

We don't need civil law anymore.

We engage.

So the laws that we institute.

Comes from.

The right place.

That doesn't have unnecessary repercussions.

If it comes out of hate.

Opposition.

Then it will definitely have repercussions.

And backfire.

And we will make those who we designate as perpetrators.

We will deny them a chance to change.

To also be free.

Last one.

Depend on.

Rely on ultimate truth.

Not conventional truth.

Ultimate truth.

And this ultimate truth.

Is.

Actually.

Another way of expressing wisdom.

Wisdom.

One is.

Rely on wisdom,

Not intellect.

This is a kind of ontological.

Explanation.

Rely on ultimate truth,

Not conventional truth.

Now this is back to lived experience.

Phenomenological.

I don't want to get too philosophical.

Because ultimate truth.

Is inseparable.

From conventional truth.

Which means.

The world of suffering.

Is liberation.

Those who are creating suffering.

Those who are.

Experiencing deep suffering.

Are Bodhisattvas.

This is hard.

To understand and accept.

It goes against our intuition.

But you should know that your intuition.

Is completely shaped.

Constructed.

By particular view that come to us.

With agenda.

You just imbibe it as yours.

You should question that.

Question your intuition.

So phenomenologically.

This world from the Buddhist perspective.

This samsara.

The world of suffering.

Craving.

All the problems that we see.

Is the arena of liberation.

With that view.

We demonize those people.

It's like our right hand.

Creating suffering for the left hand.

You just.

Right hand,

Left hand.

Shake,

Shake hands.

Or learn to.

Maybe the right hand always goes into spasm.

And start to hit the left hand.

For no purpose.

Start to heal yourself.

In the process of healing yourself.

The world is healed.

Because self is not separate from the world.

Like the word purusha.

Codependent.

That's why the Buddha said.

When he became a Buddha.

He says.

He didn't actually.

Say that.

He said.

I was poor sentient being.

Now that I have wisdom.

I must save them.

He said.

All beings.

Already liberated.

Yeah.

But there's a but.

But they don't realize it.

So play along with the game.

And just help them to practice.

But actually.

From his perspective.

Liberated.

So this perspective.

As seeing things.

Does not reify,

Solidify polarities.

It's like the Hua Yan teaching.

Some of you have heard me talk about.

First you have to.

Practice,

Cultivate,

Realize.

Non obstruction of phenomenal world.

Then you have to cultivate.

Non obstructing this of principle.

Your ability to understand emptiness.

Then you have to recognize the non obstruction.

Between principle and phenomena.

Nirvana and samsara.

The last one.

Interpenetration.

Non obstructing this.

Of phenomena and phenomena.

Everything.

Mutually liberate themselves.

We have to practice this.

Stage by stage.

We can't say everything liberates themselves.

No need for social justice.

Can't do that.

Whatever traces of resistance.

Whatever traces of attachment.

Of fixation.

Of perspective.

That must be at the last level.

Dissolved.

It doesn't deny the need to better the relationship between phenomena and phenomena.

Still engage,

But in your experience,

It's all good.

IAG.

The very fact that we think it's not IAG.

Reveals something about ourselves.

Something about ourselves.

Some aspect of ourselves.

Somewhere along the line.

We have allowed certain views to be fixated.

Rigidified.

Does that make sense?

So we start by depending on the teaching.

Not the teacher.

Not the person.

I should say not the person.

Because it's both teacher and student.

And in that process of negotiation,

Allowing the teaching to come in,

Practicing it,

Slowly,

Incrementally,

Exposing our own rigidities.

That's what it's been like.

Not relying on the person.

For yourself.

And dissolving expectations of others.

Or teachers.

Begin with this.

And then the next one.

Can we repeat together the four reliances?

First one is depend on,

Or let's say rely on the teaching.

Not the person.

Second,

Rely on meaning,

Not the words.

Third,

Rely on wisdom,

Not intellect.

Rely on ultimate truth.

Not conventional truth.

Conventional worldly truth.

The ultimate truth is the interpenetration of conventional truth.

I should stop here.

Maybe a couple of questions.

So in this process,

Do we deny injustice?

No,

We still stand up.

And we change.

As we change,

The world continues to change.

And there's a natural extension.

Any questions?

Yes.

I was just wondering about what you say about the creation of yourself.

First,

My creation with other people is specifically defined by myself.

So for you.

For example,

I can say that I exist,

But it's only one of the people that I can say that I am myself or I am alive.

I mean I understand that it's necessary to rely on the world to become whatever we are,

But for some reason I'm creating software in another world.

I don't quite understand the question,

So let me try to see if I can paraphrase.

This is an example of relying on meaning,

Not the words by the way.

So you create suffering out of the experience of recognizing that yourself exists independent on the world.

I create suffering from the dependency that I have to create myself with the world.

So in other words,

You suffer from the interaction with others.

For the absence.

For the absence of the other.

So when you think you are alone,

You suffer.

Attachment.

So a need to be recognized by the other.

To exist in the eyes of the other.

Got it?

Okay.

Practice.

And that practice involves our Tuesday night loving kindness meditation.

Yes,

We do exist independent on others,

But you should also realize that dependence also exists when you are alone.

You are never alone.

You may not be able to touch,

But they are there.

Their imprints have shaped you every step of the way.

All the people important in you.

All the people that you love.

All the people that you have yet to meet.

It's out there somewhere,

And it's already here.

So a kind of,

The point of recognizing interdependencies is not to attach to interdependencies.

That must be clear.

The point is to recognize it and begin to have an autonomy,

A freedom,

A choice.

Beyond these contingencies.

And that choice can only come about through the sense of security and groundedness of being in the present moment.

So called alone.

In the present,

It's not absent.

In the present,

Everything is there.

Already there.

The problem is most of the time,

Our sense of groundedness,

Of assurance of ourself,

Is too overly dependent on the external world,

The affirmation,

The recognition.

So we want to be seen,

We want to be heard,

We need to be loved.

But love is already here.

It's already within us.

That need is actually dependent on discursive thinking,

The stories and narratives that we construct,

That we have lived,

We've taught.

More and more as we practice meditation,

We discover the space of peace,

Independent of that,

Then we begin to appreciate the present moment.

The discursive thinking,

The narrative that we construct,

It's like the surface of the ocean.

Unreliable.

Each wave is bigger than the next.

It's like learning how to surf on the ocean.

You can't live that way because it's always up and down.

But once you start to dive deep in the ocean,

You discover peace,

That silence,

That connectedness.

There's no wave.

That exists within each one of us.

If we only live our life surfing on the surface of the ocean,

The waves,

A very difficult life.

Unpredictability.

Completely pushed and pulled by contingencies.

We've got to find peace,

Start diving,

Scuba diving.

And then we discover this peace within.

And then when you look back on the surface of the ocean,

It's all good.

Nature,

The wind blows this way,

The wave rises this way.

The wind blows the other way,

The waves go this way.

Contingencies,

Different directions coming at us.

Causes and conditions like that.

But there's a peace that you can discover inside.

Loving-kindness.

Practice.

That's why in the beginning I say,

This kind of thing that I'm talking about only come about through genuine practice.

You can read about it,

But we can still behave the same way.

Only come about through practice.

I strongly encourage you.

You've been coming to us on and off for so many years.

Have you done a retreat with me?

There's one coming up.

December 26th to the 30th,

You can come for three days or five days.

You can go home at night.

Think of it as a vacation.

You too.

If you're not going out of town.

Okay?

One last question,

Then we have to go.

No?

Is it all okay?

Four reliances.

Have a good night.

Reviews

Brilliant gems in this talk! Well worth the time/patience to soak it in. 🙏☮️❤️

Very good! Thank you.

Very informative and clear instruction from a great teacher.
Thank you

Powerful speech!

Beautiful simple concise

Just great! Thank you 😊