Daniel reminded us to start class quietly to set the tone.  D. will greet
new visitors or students he hasn't seen for awhile, but please don't join
in.

*Recap From Last Week - Knowledge & Being*
Some messages from Daniel during discussion:

Life is not delightful.  Maybe if it was in reverse where you start out old
and grow younger, healthier, better looking, it might be delightful.
However, the transient nature of life doesn't mean we should be unhappy.

Feeling "flat" means that perhaps we don't realize how bad life can be,
because otherwise we'd be happy that we don't have it so bad.

Practice isn't to cultivate positivity.

Sitting is different kind of happiness.  You feel good because you're not
hooked into normal ups & downs.

Sitting is a model for practice.  Being aware of mechanical patterns is a
model too.

Cultural message is that everything bad that happens to us is our fault. But
D. says we don't die because we're bad.  And dying isn't that bad.

What is our fault is what we believe.

D. says one thing that is helpful being old is that he notices the behavior
of young people can be annoying.  Being young has it's own set of problems
and being old has a different set of problems.  You can't solve all of these
problems.  When you get older that problems are not worse, they're just
different.

The historical Buddah's "Big Solve" was not through solving, but seeing how
one-sided we see things.

If you have an ideal, it's probably a good idea to live it.  But it's just
for you.  It is not a mission so your obituary looks better.  Only reason is
for a level of being.  You do it because that's how you see it.  No one
cares if your level of being gets higher.

says that group is maturing, which he likes.

*Relationships:
*No such thing as having a loving relationship if you're not a loving
person.

Answer is so simple.  Love is the factor.

If  2 people here have a relationship and love each other, they do fine.
We've contrived 50 other remedies for relationships because we're not
willing to look at if we really love, and look into what love really is.

All films & books deal w/ romantic chemical aspect of relationships rather
than love.

If you want good friends, tolerate differences, have loving feelings towards
them.

Start with liking people.  If it's manipulative or political it doesn't
work.

Your being, level of consideration, kindness and love towards humans
completely determine how your relationships will be.  Empathy.

Your level of being, not what you think or know, but who you are that will
determine your experience.

State of being at work. At high level of being you can be effective in ways
that cannot happen no matter how hard you try without that level of being.

When people from any religion rejects others from any other religion, those
types have the same level of being.  Liberals that reject faiths that don't
match theirs have same level of being as any other person who rejects other
faiths.

Religious interpretation of practicing: Rodney Collin of Gurdjieff
Foundation interprets New Testament sharing body of Christ as sharing is
being with them (rather than sharing knowledge).

Foundation taught different things depending on level of being.  A level 5
could not understand the same things a level 7 could.

At certain levels of being you can't understand what a more evolved person
can.

Point: Level of being determines fate, experience on this planet.

When you work on being you're doing something significant for yourself and
others.

When someone hurts dogs, they have a lower level of being.  Doesn't mean
that they're bad.

After practicing for awhile, you'll see the "Circle".  The way not to judge
others will be seeing that they are mechanical, their actions are
intentional.

*Assignment: See where your being is.  See what level you actually function
at.
*
Being functional on emotional, physical, & intellectual levels.

Enlightenment/Kensho is not a change in emotion.  It is a change in
perception.  Some say that change in perception also changes emotion to be
more compassionate. D's experience from decades of Zen practice is that
emotional change doesn't always happen so he's training us to develop it
from early in practice.

When you get up, how do you feel?  Who are you?  Being is who you are.

Reminder: Retreat at Kim's on Dec. 7th.
