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20130428GRNLETB08

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BUDDHA RECOMMENDS UNLIMITED LOVE AND COMPASSION

Good morning to you and welcome to today’s Sunday talk. I am talking to you from the meeting hall of JH NL. And our Dutch JH members send their best wishes to all of you.

To continue the talk today, we’ve been talking about the Essence of Tibetan Buddhism and also earlier, we’re still at the early part. It’s the motivation we are talking about. The motivation, as Buddha recommended, is the bodhimind which is unconditioned, unlimited love and compassion. Also, the expression that the earlier Indian and Tibetan masters used was, that this is a precious. Precious because it is about considering the needs of others as more important than the needs of self and considering, really truly, sacrificing self for benefitting others. This is the easy way, that I can talk to you, or anybody can say it easily, but when you have to do it, it becomes extremely difficult. That’s why it’s precious, in one way.

In another way, if one develops this very attitude, or this very thought, as our regular mental way of living, that fully develops - it fulfills - the accumulation of merit by itself. As well, purification is also done by itself. As a matter of fact, teachings that we are doing here in Holland is the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life. It’s the first day today and it is the first chapter, which is the benefits. Although we have only read one or two lines, even then, it is talking about the benefits.

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It is tremendous benefit. So that’s why it is precious. But we have to develop this very mind which is ultimate unlimited unconditioned love and compassion. It is gradual process. It is not quick or it is not instant. It is not - well let’s say, it’s not a hamburger, flip flop – that you can just turn over and change it. You can pretend to be but it won’t be. So it is really a gradual process. It is a process because considering others needs as more important than mine is not going to be agreed to by my mind. It is not going to be agreed to by any mind, because we have so much addiction of self-cherishing. Cherishing myself and self’s needs. Therefore, cherishing others or considering others are more important is almost impossible.

But it is not impossible because it can develop. The Buddhas have developed, and great many Buddhist teachers, Buddhist practitioners, and our role models, our lineage masters, earlier. Actually, millions of them have developed, so if they could develop, why not us? And we should also realize, once it’s developed, it is so useful - almost like Shantideva himself had said. Since then, whether you are going to sleep or do nothing, as long as you are not engaged in a non-virtuous act, by spending time almost doing nothing, will also become such a huge benefit. So it is one of the mustsolutions for us to make ourselves perfect.

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So it begins with equanimity, equality. In order to consider others’ needs more important, before that we have to see how equal we are. We don’t see that yet. We talk about it. It’s a principle of democracy.  It is the principle of modern society and all that. However, in our own mind we have huge different gaps between you and others - between self and others - we have a huge gap. Between the self needs and others’ needs, there is like a day and night differences there which has to be gradually developed. So the first process is equality. So equal - your need, my need, you and me - has to be equal. And that we accept in theory, but in reality we don’t. That has to be really developed, and I spoke so long on this – a number of Sundays on that equality part - so I think I’m not going to repeat.

So let’s say we have some kind of equality, though may not one hundred percent equal, but somehow in theory we’ll be able to accept that you and me are equal, self and others are equal. Not only in their right but also, the wishes of other ,wishes of self, have to be entertained and fulfilled equally - so that much equality.

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And when you look at the equality, then it is almost your wish and my wish, and self-wish and other’s wish are, joy and happiness. Wishes of self and others are not to be engaged in misery. Misery of poverty, misery of loneliness, misery of all kinds of sicknesses, all kinds of disease, all kinds of death, dying and old age. All of those are - old age is natural, it will naturally process, naturally happen however, we don’t want it. No one would like to welcome that and everyone tries to be young and youthful and active and beat your body up in order to keep it up. How much people engage in what we call exercise. It is a great thing that people do and all of that, but you beat your body up to try to keep it up. So that’s what people do. It clearly shows how you don’t want the suffering of old age. No one wants. And no one what’s death. No one wants sickness. No one wants aging. So that’s what – it’s equal – the self’s wish and other’s wish. It’s equal. That’s what it is.

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But, when you look at it, most of us do not really know what really brings joy and happiness to us. We presume, we imagine, we presume if we pray we may get some joy and happiness. Yes, pray is true. Prayer can answer. But it is simply asking for a second person and third person to help. But you can do it yourself. We can do it ourself. We are human beings - human beings with a human mind. Our capacity is really unlimited, unlimited. There is no such thing that human beings cannot achieve.

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JOY AND HAPPINESS ARE FACTUAL INTERNAL MATTERS

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When you look at it, most of us do not really know what really brings joy and happiness to us. We presume, we imagine, we presume if we pray we may get some joy and happiness. Yes, pray is true. Prayer can answer. But it is simply asking for a second person and third person to help. But you can do it yourself. We can do it ourself. We are human beings - human beings with a human mind. Our capacity is really unlimited, unlimited. There is no such thing that human beings cannot achieve.

12:10

If you look back in our previous history at the Stone Age, how much we can do, what capacity we have. What do we have today in the 21st century? What capacity do we have – physically. What capacity we have medically. All these are human beings’ achievements. Even knowledge, you don’t have to look very far. Look at technology of communication. We can communicate thousands of miles within the matter of a second. Even you go deeper than that, we all know, people know exactly what you do you do, where you live, though we would like to protect our privacy. But no matter, whatever we want, those who want to, they know where you live and even what you are thinking. What you are planning in your own little room. So if they want they can look, if they want to they can listen without any difficulty. This is what we have established today. It is not a technology alone achievement. It is human beings achievement. Almost like, when you used to talk about God’s capacity, so we can even see that it is available with the human beings through technology. So that’s what human beings can do – materially. Because we pay attention on materially.

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We don’t pay attention to mentally. This is our problem. This is our mistake. Our mistake is this because we only see what we saw it. We only see what we look at it. We will simply look outwardly, materially. So we have tremendous material development and we have tremendous capability of weapons and destruction - because of unlimited capability.

So we used to talk about the atomic bomb and we just saw it during the World War II, right. So we saw it and talk about it as huge.  Today if you look at the weapon’s capacity it will be that those bombs we used in Hiroshima and Nagasaki area is a joke today. Honestly. It is like a little kid’s toy – almost that point, the weapons capacity, we have reached to that point. Those who know, you know. So honestly.  So that is because we look in that, we spent time, we spent money, we spent energy, we did research, so that the human capacity has achieved all of those.

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Yet that doesn’t really fulfill our needs. Our needs are joy and happiness. These weapons, all of this - actually we are shouting and screaming about guns which is really true and which we should, which is really true - however, if you really look in the weapons, those files and automatic guns and all of those are virtually nothing compared with those destructive powerful weapons. I don’t even know what you call them. So really that’s what we have achieved. Yet we also realize we cannot develop our joy and happiness and wishes cannot be fulfilled by the barrel of guns.

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We also need to know that we cannot buy it by spending money or whatever. We cannot buy the joy and happiness. It isvery well demonstrated by the Iraq war. It is very well demonstrated by the war in Afghanistan. It is very well demonstrated by every day different instances in the world have shown that you can neither get that joy, neither can you get that happiness. Neither can you buy them. Neither you can get them by guns nor can you get by them by money, because it is not an external thing.

 It is an internal thing. So what we lack for the last century or more. What we lack is that we did not look internally. We thought joy and happiness is something externally arranged. Yes, it is true. It is dependent origination, but the conditions are internal - not external. Happiness is not some toy that you can buy, something like maybe a Samsung Galaxy 3 or a convertible VW or something. It is not a thing you can buy because it is not external. It is dependent origination however; conditions are internal rather than external.

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So you know, the people who followed a spiritual tradition and who followed material facts. They went separate ways as you know. Separately the material people follow factual material events. Spiritual people followed almost a faith oriented type of thing. But now what is happening is that actual material followers are making a 180 degree turn and following - because facts are leading them. The problem with spiritual practitioners, we look and it almost looks like its faith, so we don’t have to establish the truthness. But the materialistics would like to establish it right – I am talking about scientists, not talking about material or money stance. The scientists follow the scientific pushes. That leads to now when we are coming together, coming on the same path again. Because truth is truth. And when you follow the truth path, you get to this. So now truly, it is the time that people are looking internally now, looking at the mind, looking at the mental state. You know it was almost like a crime to talk about the mind. It is the factual, literally, chemically, or mathematically way of dealing with people’s well-being and people’s health and everything.

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Now, it is almost the other way around. It is a natural thing. It’s not so much the chemical thing. We begin to dislike –though we may call it, saying it is so much sugar, sugar, sugar and salt, salt - but really it is that we are disliking the chemical things. We are looking for the natural things. Natural also brings closer to the internal.

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Truly joy and happiness is an internal matter. It is a mental thing, not the material thing. That’s why we cannot buy; that’s why we cannot bring by the power of gun.

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So you cannot buy by the power of money, by the power of the gun. So it is internal things. So at least, we all now begin to see that. We all now begin to know. If we put your energy to look internally, facing within our self, looking in, sort of with inside-looking, no doubt you’re going to find it. Because it’s factual; spiritual development is factual. Joy/happiness is symptom of spiritual development. This is factual therefore it is going to be found through all ways of means - through the spiritual means, through the scientific means, through any means it can be found because it is factual.

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SYMPTOMS OF SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT – JOY AND HAPPINESS

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Truly joy and happiness is an internal matter. It is a mental thing, not the material thing. That’s why we cannot buy; that’s why we cannot bring by the power of gun.

23:45

So you cannot buy by the power of money, by the power of the gun. So it is internal things. So at least, we all now begin to see that. We all now begin to know. If we put your energy to look internally, facing within our self, looking in, sort of with inside-looking, no doubt you’re going to find it. Because it’s factual; spiritual development is factual. Joy/happiness is symptom of spiritual development. This is factual therefore it is going to be found through all ways of means - through the spiritual means, through the scientific means, through any means it can be found because it is factual.

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Besides, if it cannot be found, then it is not truth. Then it is a totally false invention - misleading people, misguiding. So it is not. It is the experience of those great beings, such as Buddha, or the great Buddhist masters or, for that matter such as great founders of great traditions, and earlier and even today. Even today there are wonderful people who don’t blow their own trumpet and quietly are keeping their lives together and being very happy, being helpful. We have hundreds of thousands people available today. They are not blowing their own trumpet. So they knew. They found it.

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It doesn’t have to be only Buddhist. I am talking here today in Holland too about being a Buddha.  I talked to you on the last Sunday before last about what does enlightened mean. What does it mean to be Buddha. To me, it is the ultimate gain of ultimate learning, because a number of Tibetan teachings describe this Buddhahood as no more learning. So when you look at our own life, we have this constant learning and more, day by day, hour by hour, our knowledge is built more. We know, through experience, through knowledge, through understanding, through analyzing, through critical looking. We learn more and more all the time. But there will be a time when there will be no more that we can learn, because we have learned all of it. There will definitely be a time. That is referred to as Buddhahood. It doesn’t really mean some kind of holy spiritual state. It doesn’t mean that. So therefore it is factual. When it is factual it can be found from both means - from the means of scientific way, from the means of spiritual way. But it is known for us so far as the spiritual way. The scientific way is yet to be examined, yet to be discovered, yet to developed, though the scientists have reached so much knowing about the mind today. We sort of begin to be shocked and surprised when the scientists tell you “Meditate. Meditate to get yourself better”. You go to hospitals today and they teach you how to meditate. You go to cardiologists and what they tell you, “Eat right. Meditate.” and you say what is going on?

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The factual is this. It is joy and happiness is internal. So you have to look internally. It is achieving. Buddhahood – whatever we call it, it is a name we give – but it is a state that is common for all, for everybody, for whoever is seeking joy and happiness. For me, they are seeking buddhahood. They don’t want to become Buddhist. I am not saying they want to become Buddhist. No – they just want to be happy. They want to be the best they could. That’s what we do, physically – I told you earlier, you beat up your (dead body completely – not dead body but - old body to make it look and function better.  We do, and also we paint them as much as you could. Whatever is suitable white, red, whatever. All colors we paint. That’s clearly an indication that we want better. We want to be happy. It is also an indication of the dissatisfaction of life. That’s why we like to change – we sit in front of the mirror and change all those. We do. Why do we do that - because we are dissatisfied. We are not happy with what we are, with what you are. That’s why we are seeking change. Change is seeking for joy. We are not seeking change for misery. Sometimes people think they are seeking joy and hop into the misery. Not just sometimes, most of the time. Most of the time. Sometimes it’s obvious. Sometimes it’s not obvious. We are caught into it. Knowingly or unknowingly, all our misery and our problems, we drove ourself. We are driven in there.

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Anyway, I am losing my point and I don’t want to lose it so I am going to bring it back to the point. So the point is, the equality, equanimity, equal of you and me, self and other, and ours and theirs, are equal - which is like a ground as I said earlier. It is establishing spiritual ground.  It is really ground. If you want to grow fruit of happiness, the ground is this equality. Then you need the moisture, of love. Then you need the seed, of compassion. Without love, the ground will be absolutely dry, cracked, dusty and useless.

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TRUE LOVE BEGINS WITH APPRECIATION

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We sort of begin to be shocked and surprised when the scientists tell you “Meditate. Meditate to get yourself better”. You go to hospitals today and they teach you how to meditate. You go to cardiologists and what they tell you, “Eat right. Meditate.” and you say what is going on ?

29:17

The factual is this. It is joy and happiness is internal. So you have to look internally. It is achieving. Buddhahood – whatever we call it, it is a name we give – but it is a state that is common for all, for everybody, for whoever is seeking joy and happiness. For me, they are seeking buddhahood. They don’t want to become Buddhist.  I am not saying they want to become Buddhist. No – they just want to be happy. They want to be the best they could. That’s what we do, physically – I told you earlier, you beat up your (dead body completely – not dead body but - old body to make it look and function better.  We do, and also we paint them as much as you could. Whatever is suitable white, red, whatever. All colors we paint. That’s clearly an indication that we want better. We want to be happy. It is also an indication of the dissatisfaction of life. That’s why we like to change – we sit in front of the mirror and change all those. We do. Why do we do that - because we are dissatisfied. We are not happy with what we are, with what you are. That’s why we are seeking change. Change is seeking for joy. We are not seeking change for misery. Sometimes people think they are seeking joy and hop into the misery. Not just sometimes, most of the time. Most of the time. Sometimes it’s obvious. Sometimes it’s not obvious. We are caught into it. Knowingly or unknowingly, all our misery and our problems, we drove ourself. We are driven in there.

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Anyway, I am losing my point and I don’t want to lose it so I am going to bring it back to the point. So the point is, the equality, equanimity, equal of you and me, self and other, and ours and theirs, are equal - which is like a ground as I said earlier. It is establishing spiritual ground.  It is really ground. If you want to grow fruit of happiness, the ground is this equality. Then you need the moisture, of love. Then you need the seed, of compassion. Without love, the ground will be absolutely dry, cracked, dusty and useless.

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We know how much we look at the moon and other galaxies to see whether there is water or not water, moisture or no moisture. So we know, without moisture we can do nothing.  Even our physical body which has alot moisture inside will also begin to crack. We know that it cracks.

So it cracks. So without love, the ground will be like a strange galaxy where there is no moisture or something,  and it is not suitable, nothing can grow. So you need love.

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Love is not attachment. Love is not attachment. Love is satisfaction. Probably you wonder what does he mean? What do you mean by satisfaction? Love is also appreciation. Appreciate the individual or article or things. When you appreciate, that is the basis of love. Dissatisfaction and not appreciating is not love. Even though people will say, if you are a close friend, “Point it out your faults”. It is true. But if you do point out the truth, nobody likes it. Nobody will appreciate it. So love is appreciation. If there is no appreciation, there is no love. So love is something that we all like. We all love it. We all want it. We are all happy with it.

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But true love, we don’t know. Not only we don’t know true love, we just don’t know the love truly. When we don’t know the true love, then we will measure the love with our own desire. So we bring our own desire to try to measure with the other person. So when it’s not matching, then you want to change it. You want it changed. So we say I love you, you are wonderful, but I wish your hair was a little longer. I wish your hair was a little shorter. It looks better on you. For me it doesn’t matter, but it looks better on you. We say, right, but for you. Or I wish, I love you, you are great but I wish you’d fix your tooth, you shouldn’t look that way. While all these are coming, the critiques/criticism is coming in. Although we think as a friend we should truly criticize in order to improve. Yes, it is true in one way, but it is not true in another way because the moment you see the faults, you begin to have dislike. It is anti-love.

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So good old western saying – like,” I love you as you are, I love you what you are”. These are at least giving you an idea of what love is all about. So again, love you have to develop on a slow process. You can’t be loving for everybody else, which will be almost impossible. That also has to be developed on the basis of one individual even. So first, develop love within your family, spouses. Then try to develop with other people that you are not necessarily connected. When you are doing well with that, then you can think of the mother-in-law. So if you think of the mother-in-law right from the beginning, you are going to shut your door completely. So it begins, love begins at home with the family, spouses, husband, wife, children. Children are the easiest way to develop love because they are cute, they are sweet, they are wonderful. They are kind. l So it is really…. and they are innocent. So it is very easy to develop love on the basis of the children.

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PURE LOVE IS FREE OF SELF-INTEREST

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Love is not attachment. Love is not attachment. Love is satisfaction. Probably you wonder what does he mean? What do you mean by satisfaction? Love is also appreciation. Appreciate the individual or article or things. When you appreciate, that is the basis of love. Dissatisfaction and not appreciating is not love. Even though people will say, if you are a close friend, “Point it out your faults”. It is true. But if you do point out the truth, nobody likes it. Nobody will appreciate it. So love is appreciation. If there is no appreciation, there is no love. So love is something that we all like. We all love it. We all want it. We are all happy with it.

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But true love, we don’t know. Not only we don’t know true love, we just don’t know the love truly. When we don’t know the true love, then we will measure the love with our own desire. So we bring our own desire to try to measure with the other person. So when it’s not matching, then you want to change it. You want it changed. So we say I love you, you are wonderful, but I wish your hair was a little longer. I wish your hair was a little shorter. It looks better on you. For me it doesn’t matter, but it looks better on you. We say, right, but for you. Or I wish, I love you, you are great but I wish you’d fix your tooth, you shouldn’t look that way. While all these are coming, the critiques/criticism is coming in. Although we think as a friend we should truly criticize in order to improve. Yes, it is true in one way, but it is not true in another way because the moment you see the faults, you begin to have dislike. It is anti-love.

38:57

So good old western saying – like,” I love you as you are, I love you what you are”. These are at least giving you an idea of what love is all about. So again, love you have to develop on a slow process. You can’t be loving for everybody else, which will be almost impossible. That also has to be developed on the basis of one individual even. So first, develop love within your family, spouses. Then try to develop with other people that you are not necessarily connected. When you are doing well with that, then you can think of the mother-in-law. So if you think of the mother-in-law right from the beginning, you are going to shut your door completely. So it begins, love begins at home with the family, spouses, husband, wife, children. Children are the easiest way to develop love because they are cute, they are sweet, they are wonderful. They are kind. l So it is really…. and they are innocent. So it is very easy to develop love on the basis of the children.

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So, then the moment the person becomes judgmental it is very difficult to develop love because the person becomes judgmental, very judgmental. Right?  So, all of those.

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So we all know about love. We live in love. We enjoy love. But again, love/attachment . Love without attachment. Pure love. All these are love but in different categories and what the spiritual path is looking at is pure love – true, genuine, appreciating – not only appreciating but even desiring to seek that quality for me. Not only I appreciate you - looking at you, but I would like to act myself in that manner.

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When you see somebody dressed very well, then you’d like to copy that. When you really like it, you try to copy it - color combination, matching shape, or design, everything; you try to copy that, right? Because you like it. That’s why you want to copy. You don’t want to copy because you dislike it. So nobody does that.

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So the true genuine love, not only appreciates, but you would like to be that one. You yourself…. And we do have that very much within our system. And that’s why those commercials will exploit everything, the clothes, the dress shops will put out the beautiful, young, or old but beautiful. Now, not only the beautiful things, but also the beautiful heavy, all of them dressed beautifully, dressed attractively, and all those young and old, thin and people with a little bit of weight. They put on the beautiful dresses and do fashion shows or whatever. So you are doing that and you also have the models that are not only young and thin but also mature and dignified. So you are having all of those today because of how the desire of people is. To fulfill, to satisfy the desire of the people, that’s what they chose. So we are very much known about this love.

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Love is not a strange thing. Love is great. Love is perfect. Love is smooth. Love is wonderful - but desire or attachment may not necessarily be. Because pure love brings joy and happiness; attachment brings suffering -because attachment is selfish-oriented. Pure love is pure appreciation. No self-interest. The moment we bring self-interest, the good old Western saying – “Don’t put your dirty nose in these clean affairs.” That’s what we are doing. We put our dirty nose in it. Making that pure impure.

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To make pure impure is very easy. To make impure pure is difficult – needs a lot of processing. Pure making impure is so easy. Put your dirty nose in there and it becomes impure. Have mud on your finger and put it in your pure glass of water. There you are. It is impure. So becoming impure is very easy. But pure will be, then you have to throw that water out, wash the glass, filled up anew – or then if you use the same old water, then you have to do a lot of filtering processing. So many things, right? So many things.

So just like that pure love makes a lot easier for life, for joy, for happiness. When Buddha is talking about love, Buddha is talking about pure love. When we are looking at love and compassion, the basis of the compassion is love. Love is based on equality. If you don’t feel equal, how can you feel love equally? If there is rough ground you cannot have smooth at all. Sort of the pure ground of equality has to be moisturized by love and then we can put the seed of compassion.

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And I’ll talk to you about compassion next week. Again I’ll be talking you from Holland. Thank you so much and so long.