Speaker 1: 0:14

Hello, my name is Louise and I am a member of the Soshimsa Zen Center in Middlesex, new Jersey. Have you heard our podcast yet? It drops every Friday and it addresses everyday life with a Buddhist perspective. The podcast is hosted by Myung-An Sunim, the abbot of our center, and Dr Ruben Lambert, a licensed psychologist and Buddhist monk. Each week they answer listener questions and tackle issues that pop up and affect our everyday life. I often listen to them more than once. Each time I am left with a little nugget of knowledge that helps me navigate my own life. Myung An Sunim also offers bonus tracks five-minute talks about almost anything that will definitely get you thinking. Nothing highbrow, just everyday talk. To listen, just go to our website, soshimsaorg, and hit the podcast button. You can also find us on Buzzsprout, youtube, apple and Spotify.

Speaker 2: 1:28

We hope you can join us and give us your support. You know I had taken the temporary vow of silence. If you will, the Mugon Suhaeng I was just thinking about that Since Sunday evening, until well, frankly until today.

Speaker 3: 1:45

What's the term in Korean? Say that again.

Speaker 2: 1:48

Mugon, mugon, suhaeng, suhaeng is like a training, like a practice Mugon. It actually is worth unpacking a little bit. But I say this to say that we have not had a conversation or discussion of what we're going to talk about today since I wasn't talking right and challenging to yes, welcome back to this world throughs a nice podcast meander, as it's going to be episode, the opposite of m, the opposite of. Mugon, the opposite of Mugon. Talky talky now yeah.

Speaker 3: 2:29

Do you have that funky story that you told me I wasn't able to make it to the last retreat because my son was born at the time, but you guys did half a day.

Speaker 4: 2:39

I think of that, and then the teacher's response at the end of the movie. That was pretty funny, that was pretty good actually this was good.

Speaker 2: 2:45

I had a phone call prior to the retreat. This was the Taste of Zen retreat. So it's a weekend retreat, away from here, overnight thing. And I get a phone call prior too and the woman says you know, I'm a, a teacher, and so I talk all day. This silence thing is really going to be challenging. I don't know if I could do it. I said well, the atmosphere hopefully will will help you out it'll set you up you know, and uh, the first day, for so they would get the friday night.

Speaker 2: 3:22

There's a little orientation and they say, well, starting tomorrow morning early rising, early morning, bell chant, etc. Etc. And so silence for half a day. They're sort of released from the clutches of of silence and and the finished program. I said, well, look at the time, you are now free to talk. And out of the back of the group the woman goes I made it.

Speaker 2: 3:55

That was like old faithful a geyser erupt it was just building and building, yeah pressure was building and then release yeah, and, and it was just you know it was perfect because everybody just broke out into you know a cackle and a go, fall and laughter, all about uh-huh and um, but you know it's.

Speaker 2: 4:18

There's this uh funny story of a monk who joins a monastery that is renowned for the vow of silence, and so he goes there and has the initial interview with the abbot and the abbot tells him you know, once a year you're able, we will have an interview once a year and you could say two words. So for the rest of the year it's complete silence. And so, year by goes by, it's time for the monks interview. He comes before the abbot as the deep bow sits down and the abbot nods to say what are your towards? And amongst us, robes, rough, the.

Speaker 2: 5:13

The back story of this is nowadays a summer robe in particular, is a Sundaybae. Sunbae is like hemp, and this is the irony of how things flow and ebb and flow, because this is true also with tea sets and tea cups. A tea cup, nowadays more expensive tea cups are the ones that look artisan, that look sort of you know, imperfect, a little crackly. There's a kind of beauty in that that is being sought out prior to that. So it's it. This is true with, with mung's robe and and things generally right. So it was the.

Speaker 2: 6:01

We started off with these rough things like brown rice and cups that are kind of, you know, crooked a little bit, you know, sad in a sense. And then we pursued refinement, so you know thin-walled, kind of china, right, pristine, smooth, smooth, right White rice, right, right, smooth, smooth, right white rice, right right, the, the, the robes and the more sort of silk, and, and silk has untie, antibacterial properties and a number of things, so it was used, but anyway nonetheless kind of smooth and refined things all around. And then we are now returned to the artisan, the handmade, you know the artisan bakery, where the loaf is just a little bit misshapen and, like you know, grandma made it somewhere in the oven and you know we want to be in the oven, and you know.

Speaker 2: 7:09

We want to be able to tell that the human hand touched it right. And teacups, same thing. Teacups, you know, the imperfect ones, the little bit kind of cockeyed ones. Those are the ones that are expensive. Robes too, I believe. I don't know what the current, because I had looked into them. They're supposed to be really fantastic for summer. They're breathable, I mean it's linen, kind of linen-esque, but I can't afford them, which is insane, right.

Speaker 2: 7:45

That monks couldn't afford robes, but anyway. So that's that. So we went from rough robes to refined robes. Back to rough robes.

Speaker 3: 7:58

And back.

Speaker 2: 7:59

And so you know, and that's why the monk after the year in monastery says robes rough, right, because the color you know it's. Even the old school wool used to be sort of itchy, sure. I can see that Now it's refined, and you know, now it's all nice.

Speaker 3: 8:18

I remember seeing those robes what are they called? The ones that are really like almost see-through. Yes, I remember seeing those at Ilbongsa. Yeah, it was a very hot day.

Speaker 3: 8:28

It was like 100 degrees in the shade and the kunsunim there and the, I think, the abbot of the monastery. He was doing a 100 day prayer service for a kunsunim of the Bodhisattva of Compassion and he was doing it outdoors Right there was a statue and my goodness, it was hot, yeah, but when I saw him he was wearing those robes, right, yep, they looked almost like the air can flow in and out of them.

Speaker 2: 8:56

Yeah, they're called Samba and traditionally, a long time ago even thinner than nowadays there was almost like this and nowadays there was almost like this. It's difficult to describe in words, but these things that held on to your forearm and it sort of had almost like scaffolding from very thin bamboo strips so that the clothes does not lay on your skin.

Speaker 4: 9:22

So just you know, you get like wind tunnel. Yeah, so it doesn't stick to you.

Speaker 2: 9:27

Anyway.

Speaker 2: 9:28

So this monk year in and he has his two words with Abbot and he says robes rough. Abbot bows, he bows off, he goes. You know, perhaps the Abbot tended to the needs of the community and maybe got him at least a collar. There's like a thing you put on a collar that makes it softer. Year two, another year goes by. The monk presents himself before the abbot. That's his deep bow. Abbott nods as to say give me your two words. He says bad, hard. Abbott nods Off, he goes. You know to think about it. Really it's probably the bad heart came first, knowing sort of how human beings are.

Speaker 2: 10:29

Year three, so three years in, this monk has been in this monastery practicing. Year three time for the interview. He presents himself before the abbot does the dipao is invited to sit. Abbot nods to say give me your two words, food, cold. The abbot nods, but the monk sort of makes a gesture to say something. He doesn't say anything, something doesn't say it. Year four the monk comes before the abbot prostrates himself. Abbot nods as the monk opens his mouth before he the before words come out of his mouth. The abbot stops him and says get out right. And and shocked now he says what? Why he says all you do is complain.

Speaker 4: 11:35

Boy out of two words a year. He saved those two words just to make a complaint.

Speaker 2: 11:44

It's such a splendid story. Oh, my goodness, you know Mugun practice. The observance of silence is not really simply don't talk. It exposes to you and when we do retreats we see this it exposes to you the constant, incessant murmuring going on inside.

Speaker 3: 12:12

I love that word murmuring.

Speaker 2: 12:14

That is just splendid. You think you're quiet. It's a noise.

Speaker 4: 12:20

Murmur, but it arises almost. You think you're quiet, you think you're quiet, but then there's noise that comes out of that.

Speaker 2: 12:28

It's like your refrigerator when the motor comes in, it hums right.

Speaker 1: 12:32

But you don't think about it.

Speaker 2: 12:34

Murmur. So our minds murmur incessantly and Mugong practice helps us to become more aware of that. It filters. The talking bit is really the most superficial element of Mughun, In fact two times during my silence.

Speaker 2: 13:05

For this week I had a tea with Abbott and obviously we had a conversation, and I'm pretty sure there are people who there was kind of like a spillover. A person was leaving, having had tea with Abbott, while a participant of another program was coming in, and they heard me talk. And then they kind of later look and I had around my neck a thing that says I am observing silence, I'm Mugon Suheng, and I'm sure they've thought to themselves wait a minute, I just heard him talking. Of course, our suheng cannot deprive us from tending to the needs of the community, and so I've suspended the suheng for the needs of people who needed advice and needed to talk to me.

Speaker 2: 14:02

Sure of people who needed advice and needed to talk to me. Yeah, so it's not some weirdo things like. It's not this kind of dogma, run over your karma thing, you're doing that right?

Speaker 3: 14:17

Yeah, this is again a misconception by many people or a how do we say a misconstrued understanding of religious practice. You're undergoing the practice of silence and this becomes a chip chuck. This just becomes a blanket over your whole life, right? And then someone falls and they say call for help, right. And you see, let's say, a police officer across the street that can get an ambulance there in two seconds, and what? You're going to be there all righteous.

Speaker 2: 14:52

Miming or I don't speak.

Speaker 3: 14:54

I don't speak at this moment.

Speaker 2: 14:56

I'm seeking enlightenment.

Speaker 3: 14:58

That is not the true bodhisattva path, right? So I completely understand where you're coming from and I hope our audience can grasp this concept where you know, not for you. You suspended your practice for the benefit of enlightening those who are in need.

Speaker 2: 15:19

Yeah, there's a show, it or IT, it as in computer work I think it's a British show and one of the gentlemen there, these two guys, are cast into the bosom like the basement of this large corporation. They're IT guys and it's a comedy. And a fire breaks out in that little office and one of the guys sits down as he sees the fire beginning to get more and more and he starts writing an email to the fire department Dear Chief, no. And he goes through a number of kind of thing and finally he goes help, help. He types it into the, you know, sends an email, so it's, it's kind of that, that thing, right it yeah it is um well, I think it is a living, breathing philosophy.

Speaker 3: 16:23

right, right, right, robust.

Speaker 2: 16:27

And if you are going to make, you know, a drastic kind of like a vow of a thing or whatever practice, you make it within the context of existence. Right. If you are going to say, take a vow of silence that renders you unable to provide the teaching or advice etc. Etc. Then you position yourself so. Maybe, you can't be the abbot for one, Can't be the abbot.

Speaker 3: 16:58

Maybe you can't be at a. How do you call again the city temple?

Speaker 2: 17:03

Popyodang.

Speaker 3: 17:04

Maybe you can't be at a city temple. You go to the hermitage etc.

Speaker 2: 17:08

Etc. And this is where we have like mumungwan practices, for example. Mumungwan means no gate. The Zen center on Jeju Island, about halfway up the Hala Mountain. The Hala Mountain is a volcanic, a volcano, really, and so this monastery was located about halfway, I think, and there there was an area that was secluded and no trespassing, and the only reason why I was able to see what was there is because I was a henja at the time, so I was practicing, I was a student in training. I was practicing, I was a student in training, so one of our duties was to bring food to the monks who resided at that building, and essentially what it was? It was a building with rooms built into it flanking the four sides, and center there was a large room like for together practice or whatever it is that they did, but essentially what this was kind of were cells of of each individual monk who lived there and there was a mouth reminding you like office cubicles.

Speaker 3: 18:36

It was almost right, but they're closed off, yeah they're closed off room.

Speaker 2: 18:41

So from the center you enter into the building through to a main door. There's the big central room and then on all three sides of it are little cells with the door. The outside of the building has a little trap door for each room. So you open the little door, you slide in a tray of food and then later on in the day we pick it up, and sometimes they would leave a little note to say they're requesting, let's say, honey, they weren't feeling good or whatever. There was a three-year waiting list to be able to live in.

Speaker 2: 19:22

This is a one-year confinement kind of self-confinement type of thing and more drastic, mumungwan things is a thousand-day thing. So they have a room, fenced-off, little walking area, maybe 12 feet by, maybe 20 feet, a little backyard. It's fenced off from three sides. You have the sky and so sometimes they would plant, sometimes they would go out there to exercise or meditate. What have you Same idea food is delivered daily. You Same idea food is delivered daily. So unless you've organized yourself in that way, you have to maintain also that responsibility that you have.

Speaker 3: 20:12

Let me swing the pendulum in that direction. So, if you've decided to commit, have a serious commitment to what's it say in creating a move on practice and you've you know, let's say metaphorically speaking signed the contract, these are the rules in which I'm going to follow. I'm going to do it. For this certain amount of time at this monastery, I've cut myself off from my daily life and daily responsibilities so that there's no negative spillover onto anyone else. None of my responsibilities will have a negative impact on the people in my life. Then you have to adhere and follow to that with rigorous suheng, right Action and purposeful action. And I have a funny story.

Speaker 2: 21:00

So wait, hold on, because the mugon, mugon suheng is that silent one. The silent, that's what I mean, you're talking about silent or silent one.

Speaker 3: 21:07

No, silent, a silent practice, right? So mugon, yeah, mugon, right, because our unsanim, our teacher, told us a funny story about nojangnim, right, he? They would do traditionally an ango, which is a hundred day retreat that dates back to the time of the historical Buddha Sokka Muni Buddha. They do two a year, one in the rainy season, one in the hot, dry season, and the tradition in Korean Zen is that you have to make it to a monastery by the first day, otherwise you can't get in, you register and then you're homeless.

Speaker 2: 21:42

Essentially, Essentially.

Speaker 3: 21:44

And so you know, unsanim was there as a young monk with Nojangnim, his teacher, our grandfather teacher, and there was a monk that joined them for the 100-day retreat, and it was a Mugon retreat, and you could you cannot talk, and it was something that they strictly adhered to, and so one of the things that people do to avoid having the desire right to speak is don't look at the person in the, in the face right, because once you look at a face, you make eye contact. That's almost like non-verbal communication might spark, and this actually in exchange I have a.

Speaker 2: 22:21

I have a sort of funny picture within. Sanimo went to korea. Uh, my son, right, they had they are traditional hats. Yes, right that that cover up just enough of your face. That, if you, you head is kept the way in a natural position, but the head comes down so much in the front that, even if you wanted to, you can't see the person's face until you tilt your head up significantly. So this idea back in the day monks, when they would even travel.

Speaker 2: 22:54

The idea was not to look at the face of the person. You're sort of in a room almost still. You know you see their feet, you see their body and and. But you could just go on about your business, kind of, even though you're traveling, traveling meditation, kind of thing.

Speaker 3: 23:12

You know that kind of thing but so I guess you know our grandfather teacher no jung nim. He was a very eccentric, non-traditional, think outside of the box, constantly kind of Zen master, and I think his point is like, if you're truly engaging in this kind of practice, you should be able to control your inner mind whether you're looking or not looking, because, as the story goes, it seems like there was a monk that wore a type of hat like that, trying to be slick, to wiggle his way around where you're not going to get me to talk. Look at me, I'm not going to look at anyone in the face.

Speaker 2: 23:46

So the reliance on tools versus the reliance on the mind?

Speaker 4: 23:50

Exactly, yeah, and so Nojangne will quickly expose your weakness and your shortcomings.

Speaker 3: 23:57

And so what did he do?

Speaker 2: 23:58

in his genius thinking is he created what seems like clown shoes no, Right, they made at the time they would weave their own sort of shoe from grasses, but he made this huge, you know, let's say size 14, kind of massive like a.

Speaker 3: 24:16

It reminds me almost of, like the scuba diving flip. What are those?

Speaker 2: 24:19

like fins, I think the McDonald's clown or the McDonald's Ronald McDonald. It's a typical shoe. Yeah, humongous shoes.

Speaker 3: 24:29

And so, as you can imagine, there was an encounter. And when that monk looked, he's like Kusinim, what are those? He got trapped.

Speaker 2: 24:41

And then Nojang then responded get out. And it's funny because you see just flap, flap flap.

Speaker 4: 24:46

I can imagine the sound of something like duck feet almost.

Speaker 2: 24:50

Probably he, probably. I mean this is speculation, but I would suspect maybe he walked like Charlie Chaplin just to even make it more impactful, and that's this is. This is old way of teaching, is not to be reproduced as a sort of monkey. See monkey do mm-hmm because he. It's not that he was needlessly sort of entrapment right.

Speaker 3: 25:21

No.

Speaker 2: 25:21

But it's. He knows the ones who, with a little dust in their eyes, who know the minds of others. He knew what the mind was. And this seems cruel maybe to our Western way of thinking and things of that nature, but there's a compassionate-driven. These are compassionate-driven actions, sweeping leaves and dust and just throwing everything onto his shoes and onto his you know, and, and he, the monk, has a rise of emotion, perhaps, maybe, upside the sunim. Goodbye, see, ya, see, ya, right this is.

Speaker 3: 26:14

This is a, for me, a true zen practice. Right, what's that old zen saying? It's a an experience outside of the scripture, a direct pointing to the mind. It's like a finger pointing to the moon. Don't focus on the finger or you'll miss all the heavenly glory. You could read about these things all day long, but this was a true suhang experience. Nojang name exposed to you an area like a crack in your mind a an area in your mind where it needed refinement.

Speaker 3: 26:43

It was a direct highlighting of the weak point in your mind. If those monks had munsasu, if they contemplated the experience and that was a beautiful teaching, a golden opportunity to right. If there's a leak in your roof and you don't know, and then a plumber comes in no, I'm sorry, a roofer comes in and shows you where it's at, like you can put an end to it right. You can now patch that up, it is that I think it was Mike Tyson.

Speaker 2: 27:12

Right Family says that everyone's got a plan until they get punched in the face right, so it's very difficult than a face right so it's very difficult.

Speaker 2: 27:27

I mean we, we to sit on a sideline and imagine what I would do. I mean, I this is modern times. We have to to, to a degree, refine and change the, the mode of operation. But when there is a, there's a time in the student's development where these techniques are absolutely a must, because there's a time when things we need things explained and verbalized, and you know pangpion the way of explaining things, and then there are times when that kind of thing just cuts through. That has to be cut through. I'm sorry that you know the teaching must be non-verbal, almost Wordless.

Speaker 2: 28:17

Experience speaks louder because, you never forget the thing on your skin, and so that kind of thing, yes, and so the practice of silence is not only the not talking bit, is the most superficial and juvenile really. Like I said, there's observation of the murmur and then also the content of the murmur. How much unnecessary stirring of the mind does the mind do? The complaining of the monk about clothes and food and bed and all those things in that story are not only funny.

Speaker 3: 29:01

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 29:02

If your mind is in a complaining mood. That's what it illustrates is a year. So you must imagine that for a year this monk has been brewing up a singular point of complaint of all the things going on in your day-to-day minutiae, because monastic living becomes just living, right, when we romanticize the setting of, ah, when I, you know, in a monastery, ah and this and that I would do such a thing and I would do this and that.

Speaker 3: 29:45

That's the movie fantasy that we create, yeah, how nice, would it be?

Speaker 4: 29:48

You watch the movie, there's background music and you think to yourself, and it's five minutes.

Speaker 2: 29:52

I would be enlightened, you know immediately. Had a not one of our members, but a woman who from time to time came by just to sit and meditate, and she had gone on some retreat and came back and said I'm going to India and I'm going to throw myself into the practice and do you have any advice.

Speaker 2: 30:18

And you know we had a conversation. I asked what sparked it, and so she said, when she went to the retreat, the teacher I don't know if it was a monk or what has been practicing for you know 30 years or whatever it was. And they said that, you know, enlightenment eludes them or something. And this young woman said, oh, I would just kill myself if I had to. You know, sort of really kind of a big, big declaration of an immature practitioner who thinks themselves oh, that's I would. What have they been doing all this time and this and that, this kind of thinking of the simplicity of, ah, post-enlightenment, the expressions of simplicity are that ridiculously simple.

Speaker 2: 31:18

You know the masters would say oh, it's as easy as touching the tip of your nose, and post-enlightenment declarations of such are different than a juvenile practitioner making such grandiose declarations, it is the building blocks and if not already rooted ego of the practitioner who's gone to mind you one retreat? And they think to themselves oh man, if I was, you know it really not right. But it is our. You know human nature, we could say, and modern times are going to produce ways of thinking that are going to need different ways of dealing with.

Speaker 3: 32:09

I do have… Really fast. You also, I know in the past, have done, I think, like half-day retreats here at Soshimsa, yeah, starting early in the morning, where people do engage in the practice of Mugon.

Speaker 2: 32:23

So that is available. We haven't done that in a while. Actually, I don't know if we've done it here at this location.

Speaker 3: 32:32

At the prior location. I know it was done several times.

Speaker 2: 32:35

Yeah, we used to do it every few months, I think.

Speaker 3: 32:39

So it can be done at a retreat setting, which we have done, and we can also do this type of practice here for our members or people that want to engage in that type of practice.

Speaker 2: 32:51

Yeah, it is. You know, the other element of Mughon is I want to sort of just make a little disclaimer of warning of taking up practices on one's own right and what we sometimes have is a person finds that, oh, this thing speaks to me and they just go ahead and kind of mimic the thing. Oh, this thing speaks to me, and they just go ahead and kind of mimic the thing, and let's say, nine times out of ten everything is nice and dandy and whatever, but that one time there is a danger of spiritual practice out of context, or when the practitioner is not primed or trained, or what have you. I remember when we moved from Warren, then we had almost like a two-year hiatus right Before we were in Plainfield.

Speaker 2: 33:55

In that time of inactivity, one of our members was a member at the Warren location and then we were sort of in a dormant state and took precepts at a different temple. When we reconnected, namely when he called me after we reopened, he was in the depths of depression on the account of precepts, on the account of taking the precepts, having no guidance, having no understanding, having not knowing how to, and this is why we say things like not. We say things. Things have been said like. This is said about precepts, but it could be said about any. Really, practice is like a blade of grass held awkwardly, may cut you mm-hmm so to.

Speaker 2: 34:57

Precepts held awkwardly can cut you, and so the the things, the spiritual practices that are meant for good, in a sense, when done awkwardly, meaning not not on the right time and time. Sometimes this means times of the year, sometimes this means time of the practitioner's current state, the journey, time of the journey. Sometimes it's too late, sometimes it's too early, sometimes it's you know. So it there's a caution to be taken that taken why you need guidance.

Speaker 3: 35:32

Right, we cannot highlight or stress enough the importance of having a teacher. And, as that old saying goes, the farmer knows when the soil is ready to receive the seed yeah, it is.

Speaker 2: 35:44

You know, if you have someone who's sort of tour guide, right, or a journey guide, or when you go climbing kilimanjaro, you usually have a guide who's been up the face of kilimanjaro a number of times they could say you know, be careful. Here the ice and the snow tends to be.

Speaker 2: 36:08

You know x, y and z, that kind of thing and here's what you need to bring Right and when we take up a practice. This seems banal and kind of you know, it's just a thing. It's just what wrong or what bad could come out of it. Consider going into an area where you've never been before. The fantasy of it. Like we said, the fantasy of it may seem oh, that's you know, that's going to be x, y and z, and this isn't to say.

Speaker 2: 36:46

what it simply says is that we have imagined a thing before arriving and you know, we've taken a journey to the moon and we were able to calculate the trajectory of the spaceship and the landing and all of this and all of this, and we were able to calculate all the things calculable from here, from Earth, to the location, but no one was able to calculate or foresee just how deeply the boot of the astronauts sank into the lunar dust. And this is a very much similar situation. We take up a practice everything nice and dandy, it will calculate, but we're calculating from where we. Are someone gone and come back and say, hey, I'm interested in going to the moon? I said, well, just so you know mm-hmm such-and-such will go three years four inches deep.

Speaker 3: 37:45

Yeah, the you need to have such-and-such footing.

Speaker 2: 37:49

So that's the similar thing, we do have a fan mail that addresses or asks we've done two episodes of karma and so this came out of it. Maybe a suggestion if there's generational karma, how is that fair? Do we have to pay back karmic debt that our predecessors accumulated? How do we make up for someone else's deed, whether good or bad? Hmm, thank you. Okay, and yeah, the fairness bit is, we have to remember we try to cover as much ground as possible in terms of the karma and the principle of it in the two episodes and the intricacy of that spider web or the web, but you know we could say spider web the intricacy of it must be remembered when thinking of it.

Speaker 2: 39:10

We had so many elements of the hyon in hyongwa, hyon in mungwa, on top of the table, on top of the table, under the table, all those things. Then we had the past and the fruition, the time of the fruition, etc. So, when considering all of those things simultaneously as factors, as playing factors, what we, in shorthand, almost call a relationship that we have to anything, we call that inyon, and inyon is, yeah, we could say, a relationship, a relationship to something, that is to say, you and I have union, right, we've been friends for a thousand years, few of those years in this life, yeah, and but also that chair you're sitting on and the chair I'm sitting in. We have an inion to it too.

Speaker 2: 40:15

I mean there are numbers of them, and this could get so complex, right, but the understanding is simply this we are so intertwined and interwoven into existence that is around us, this microphone I'm speaking into, why this one? Why there were thousands upon thousands of these microphones made, why this one is in front of my face? Why this one? Why not the one you're using Right? So all of those things are really an intricately woven tapestry, and these roots and threads connect the way that rivers, if you will, a flowing water might one water and a little offshoot of it will flow into another river, etc. So this kind of tapestry, interwoven, all things are interwoven in that way, and so the thing to remember when thinking of karma is let me see just want to get the verbiage here.

Speaker 2: 41:28

If there's generational karma, how is that fair? Well, the parents that we are born into as our parents, there's a karmic connection to those two people. Between those two people there's a karmic connection, and that is a two-way street in all directions. That is to say, sometimes we are born there. There's a such thing as a sort of revenge birth, right when we're born on a kind of karmic revenge trip where we, you know, take revenge upon someone that has done it, considered the lifetimes upon lifetimes of interaction between beings, karma and its cause and effect, all of that kind of thing. So we have the parents. That we have is because it's karmically, it's a inyan, it's a karmic relationship. Those parents have us as children because it is also their inyan to us If you have siblings, etc, etc.

Speaker 2: 42:34

So think about you have the mother and the father and then you have the, let's say, a son and a daughter. The son connection of the son to the mother is one. Connection to the son to the father is one connection. Daughter to the son. Daughter to the mother is one Connection. Daughter to the son, daughter to the mother is one. Connection of the daughter to the father is one Connection of the daughter to the brother is one Connection of the brother to the daughter is one Connection of the husband to the wife and the wife to the husband, and I mean just there. That's pretty entangled net Now, mind you, if you consider also the fact of the time of fruition of karma.

Speaker 3: 43:14

So there's also that that's a konop.

Speaker 2: 43:17

We are born in this time period, time period, the location, whether the family is well off or in hardship, etc. All of those things are strings of karmic connection interwoven, whether the family is well off or in hardship, et cetera, et cetera. All of those things are strings of karmic connection interwoven. We must beware of oversimplifying the oh this because of that, and so to think of it as fair and not fair. It is absolutely fair because it is made by us.

Speaker 2: 43:54

These relationships and connections are made, they're forged by us, forged by us not necessarily in the single lifetime as we've talked about, right. So each think about each lifetime. Let's say, five lifetimes ago I and somebody else had a relationship. Let's say we produced offspring. Let's say the next life, you know, there's a another correlation, another connection, and then the next life, and there's this thing, and you know now, five lives later, I am married to or I have a offspring of sorts, and and there are various layers of connections still existing from that time. How is that fair? Cause and effect are just. That's the. It's the fair and unfair is a saying of our ego, mind, of our fair and not fair.

Speaker 3: 44:48

You're imposing your own idea onto the.

Speaker 2: 44:50

Right and fair and not fair simply means we cannot see the causality. If we did, the fair and not fair would be ah, the dots would be connected. Kurokuna, it is so Right, that's what it would be. It would be a declaration, ah, it is so I think I want to just highlight that.

Speaker 3: 45:12

And do you think that the nature of the in the return is impersonal? You made it right, meaning you. So you, you plant pumpkin, pumpkin returns. It's not. That's what returns. The pumpkin is not returning because it hates you or just likes you.

Speaker 3: 45:34

It was the seed that you planted that came to fruition, because I think when you engage in too much of this, it's not fair. There's a lot of comparisons that are taking place where you're trying to collapse the nature to match your idea. Again're saying then that's the ego, right, right, and I don't think you can learn.

Speaker 2: 45:53

I think you're going to really limit your ability to understand and learn and it has, and it has roots in that, in that kind of judy, christian, you know, right, father figure kind of bestowing you know, know you're being punished or you're being rewarded for your action, type of thing. Oh, it's gonna go. I've um, I didn't notice the time random and so, yes, that's the. Don't think of it as fair Think of it as fair.

Speaker 2: 46:32

Think of it as it is cause and effect. And if we saw the causality and the kind of I believe the word of it is amelioration, sort of reorganization, that kind of thing it would make for an acceptance as opposed to for it's fair or unfair.

Speaker 3: 47:02

You won't see the nature of the objects or the interplay, or the union, the connections between the objects. Let me just give an example and see if I can make this a little practical for the audience and this person. It's like if you have a tennis ball in your hand and you're standing in front of a wall. You know the tennis ball has a nature, the nature is to bounce and the wall has a nature to be solid, right. And then you decide to put that tennis ball in motion at a prior time. You enact that On the timeline. It's like I'm going to throw this ball towards the wall and then what comes later in the timeline is when that ball, whose nature is to bounce, when it touches a solid object, it touches a solid object and then it bounces back. It did not bounce back because it goes this person.

Speaker 3: 47:51

I did you just did you just throw me against the wall. You know what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna now no, I'm not gonna go at the angle towards the floor. I'm going to now shift the direction in which I was supposed to go and I'm going to change my trajectory and go right back towards you and hit you in the nose, right and we can, because I hate you calculate, we can mathematically calculate

Speaker 3: 48:14

the trajectory exactly and and it would have to just follow that course. It doesn't change course because of a personal factor, right? So it's not a vendetta.

Speaker 2: 48:24

The. The tennis ball doesn't have a vendetta against you. It's simply responding to a way that was put into action and so then the reaction is appropriate.

Speaker 2: 48:35

Do we have? Uh, so if there's generation karma, how is that fair? There you go. It's a fairness, is our perception and a perspective of things as there are on and a perspective of things as they are unfolding in our lives. And simply fair means I like it or dislike it. Right, ultimately Right, do we have to pay back karmic debt that our predecessors accumulated?

Speaker 2: 49:04

Well, again, there is a negative connotation to this. If you have a generic predisposition to certain disease, you've inherited that You're also going to pass onto your offspring certain things, and so it is to pay back. Again, if we consider that two-way street of the thettering of karmic things, it's almost as if it's one cardiovascular system, like the veins that pump blood. So it's almost as if the karmic flow of life, when we think of another person in generations, like there's a person there and then there's the me here what if we're sort of connected, an intravenous kind of exchange was taking place. We are not separate, so to say. I have to pay back the debt of some other person. Well, we're paying for their doings. As we speak, if you're born into an affluent family and you're afforded the ability to go to an Ivy League school because your parents, you know, had generational wealth that you were enjoying. If you're born into poverty, then of course there's our individual karma, which makes it possible to change these situations, but nonetheless there's that intricate connection there.

Speaker 2: 50:45

How do we make up for someone else's deed, whether good or bad? We're not to make up for someone else's deed, whether good or bad. Um, we're not to make up for other person's deed. This is our doing again. This is flying away from ourselves towards other things. There's a lot of speculation, because then, kind of the question, maybe the Zen kind of answer would be well, what are you doing for you? And that's the thing we work on ourselves, because we have this. This is why the outcome of my actions for myself does not exist in a vacuum. There are many, many other people who are participating in this, whether we like it or not. Nothing that we do is kind of isolated in a vacuum and if you think to yourself, even well, if I punch myself in my face, no one's no, there's no one else is affected. So, on one layer, you.

Speaker 3: 52:00

You have little platelets that are right like firemen sleeping waiting, and you punched yourself, maybe cut yourself. Well, you just woke those guys up and they were relaxing. Now you put them to work. Now they're tortured.

Speaker 2: 52:12

So there's that right and then also, somebody has to deal with the repercussions, and we see this um in in frequently with self-destructive behaviors. Right, oh, I'm not hurting anybody, anybody else, you know, if I'm drunk driving through a desert, I'm not hurting anybody. It is not a correct way to think so we tend to ourselves. As we said in the bonus track. I am not for me. You know what, perhaps this dual and I don't even know if we've talked about this already I Am Not For Me. Anyway, things to think about for the future. Perhaps Our time is up. This was a as, as a as impromptus, uncoupled together and as a meandering an episode, as one could imagine. And this is what we get. Anyway, thank you, I am young and sitting here, withim, here, with Dr Ruben Lambert, take care of yourselves and each other, from my heart to yours.

Speaker 3: 53:36

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