It's the mind that sees clearly that meets experience with cordial intent because it remains steady, and thus unconfused it's able to correctly assess the situation. Assess the situations it meets. If there's enough equanimity in the mind to fend off confusion, wisdom can prevail. This correct assessment brings with it what the texts call clear comprehension of purpose, the sure knowledge of what response is required, and what is possible. clear comprehension creates a response, sometimes inaction, sometimes just in thought. And because we are humans and have empathy, built into our brain structure, when we are touched by what we encounter, and when our minds are balanced. We respond with benevolence with friendliness, or compassion or appreciation. It's a beautiful truth about the potential of human beings. Here's how it works. I'll explain it using Buddhist psychology. And I'll include examples of how this works in my life. As you hear this, see if these century old postulates about the natural responses of the mind are true for you as well. There are three possible Valence is of emotional response to every experience. pleasant, unpleasant and neutral. Here, you might think for a moment about how many times in a day or even in an hour you think, Oh, good. Oh, great, or, Oh, phooey. I don't even have a boring day not much happening. My life's not much good, blah, blah. The Buddha taught that these different flavors of experience are normal, just the facts of life and that they aren't by themselves problematic. They do, however, have the potential to create unhappiness. If they're not recognized and acknowledged, they create thoughts then that carry an imperative for change. I need more of this, I must get rid of that I can't stand this. The imperative agitates the mind into confusion. And of course, as we go off into a narrative, whatever it is, we get stuck. And I think we all have that experience of somebody's done us a harm. And we carry it. Oh, we don't just carry it for half an hour? Or an hour or two hours or No, no, we go to bed with it. We dream about it. We get up in the morning. And we're still annoyed and and we say to us, oh, no, no, no, no problem. I'll forget about that. And then up, it comes again. So we stick stick stick to these negative mind states. If, on the other hand, there's enough equanimity in the mind to fend off confusion, which is that's making a choice really, you know, it's, um, do you go there? I think practice helps us to not go there, you know, to turn away when maybe earlier, we might have gone there. We decide. I'm not going I'm not doing that. I remember when my granddaughter, she loved to play school. And I would got really into it and started turning the pages and giving her more and more. And then I got to a math thing. She was only three. And she said, she looked at me. She said, Grandma, we're not doing that. And I said, No, we're not. And I think we all those of us who are blessed with grandchildren know that the truth comes clearly out of small people. And it often comes out the truth often comes out in anger, you know, when we're really pissed off about something, we can actually say things that yeah, that are true for us at that moment. If, on the other hand is enough equanimity, defend off confusion, wisdom can prevail, then the mind can respond to ordinary situations with goodwill, to frightening situations with compassion, and to Pleasant situations with relaxed appreciation. There are three examples that come from my living in France for several months each year, and traveling back and forth between San Francisco and Paris frequently. The first is about ordinary goodwill friendliness. What is that, which is what the Pali word metta means? Perhaps I understated by calling it ordinary friendliness. It's closer to intentional, omnipresent, devout friendliness, based on the awareness that everyone including oneself, because life is complicated, and bodies and minds are often uncomfortable, needs to be working hard all the time just to keep things Okay. Here's an example. The overnight flight from San Francisco to Paris takes more than 10 hours and in the time between midnight and morning, the hours seem longer, and the space between the seats and the coach section seems shorter. When I get up to stretch, and perhaps walk down an aisle I see men and women, old and young, large and small, all unknown to me, some traveling with small children, or trying to figure out how to be comfortable. I see them wrapped up in airplane blankets scrunched up into whatever position of repose they can organize, leaning on each other if they're traveling together, or trying not to lean on each other if they aren't. Often a man or a woman is patrolling the aisle from me holding an infant against his or her chest and moving in the rocking gate that often soothes the baby's distress. I feel a pleasant intimacy with them. I too, I'm trying to stay comfortable. I'm not frightened for them or for me because I'm relaxed about flying and I assume we will land successfully but I wish them well. The moment of easy impartial benevolent content connection metta boys up my mind, I feel better as I sit down back on my seat. Compassion is a variation of metta. It's different from relaxed friendliness, because it's hard for the mind to stay relaxed and friendly when it encounters a painful, unpleasant situation. In fact, it's normal and often helpful for human beings to startle the awareness of distress. The startle is an instinctive response a single to a signal to the mind up Oh, something is wrong, and you might need to do something. Yeah, in terms of what actually happens in the brain is there's a release of cortisol when we're in danger, and that's part of our more primitive brain. And at that point, the thinking brain shuts down, because there's to be no interference with me getting out of here immediately. And what if I need to do that, that's all that needs to happen. And so my thinking mind shuts down, which is why people will panic, because they can't actually rationally think things through. And this cortisol has an enormous effect on our lives, which is subject for another, another talk some other time. But we do start off at at at fear we get frayed. And sometimes when the struggle is strong enough to frighten the mind into confusion as a period of unease, as the mind tries to cope. It contrasts when the mind is able to stay steady, it moves immediately to act in thought or indeed, in consultation, traditional Buddhist texts say the heart quivers in response. And this is where we see people acting in unbelievable ways to save a life or to jump into a moving scream to to rescue somebody who's, who's obviously drowning or in trouble. This is our heart quivering in response. This is the compassion the moving, moving us to action, because compassion without action is not compassion. And the other side of compassion, the near enemy of it would be pity Oh, I'm so sorry. Oh, God, I'm sorry, you. Sorry, you lost your whatever. But hey, I'm busy. I'm, I'd like to help people next time maybe. In fact, we could all think of an occasion when we've done that. Maybe in the past week, even there been a time when you arrive turned away. You felt it. We were moved. Too busy. Too much risk. too frightening.