1999.07.24-serial.00048
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remember and i said
ha ha ha ha family to try to taverns
hey
huh
huh
indeed
hey
who you think
where what we see
is
salad
well
professor will hold on terrible
we think so
we think we win game
please friends
hell things
where we don't
where a bunch of chemical
the stuff
that has feelings
of that thoughts but has emotions
henry feel the sensations
we are those sensation present
and unpleasant
and if we win way
hold to any of that we create
what we call myself
and we have
happiness and sadness and so on
we also have happiness and sadness without a self put out naming the fluid changing
on separated scuff that we are
herself
so the idea is we have a life
henna death anyway
it's really funny
hey
through a a joke the joke is case you don't get it
doesn't sound like better for me
the joke is that we think we can control the entire universe i mean think about it
what we are is actually
oh of everything that's going on we are that
we're not this little separate thing happened good i not every time i change my head
the
i'm alive i'm an ally
would you like to eat
i'm carrie this notice
what do you like
who knew what i want to
oh it's just just amazing
when someone is dying you know this thing about what what what will
you know somebody who have been to my talks before that i forget sometimes when i say
reveal what we forget the only manager
the
the joke is that we are
we are this whole and to not lie that lie
okay
anyway the joke is that we actually
think that were separate from this whole huge event this fluid wonderful
sometimes we think not so wonderful but just you know miscarry this mystery is huge thing that in no way can we actually conceptually put into your head we can't it's just too big that's what we really are and we think in all you know husband
the essence of whisper rethink that we can control that i mean it's just bizarre
just totally bizarre so we think we can control our emotions and our thoughts and our sensations how we feel no i don't think i'm gonna die today i'll die awake from next tuesday i have something ago i'm not going to get a cold i think i won't get a cold are weighed i'm going to be happy all the time
we don't can't do that doesn't happen that way we're not in control of any of it and of course we're not because what that is is this enormous logan would say this total dynamic working
it's huge just huge
i read something recently about the universe with somebody knows his maybe they could get it right because i don't think right now and thing i'm going to get right but anyway somebody said that the new over
really i remember they used to think that there was a big bang know what i mean by big bang in the universe began already is no i haven't so the universe begins and then it it was moving away from wherever this big bang happened i'm
yeah it's a kind of an odd idea that wherever his big bang happened had so it's moving away from wherever the big bang happened
and then what they saw it was at some point there would be the weight of the mass of everything would contract it again and we would end up in this very condensed something or another that but listen now they don't think that now what they
think is it had a big bang whatever we are here we banged and now we we are expanding
and now they think it's just going to expand forever
well talk about big
it's really big
and it's all connected
and we think that we can control is huge thing
anyway it's amazing to me i think it's a very funny thing the point is if you let go and stop trying to control it you actually have a chance of being in your life as it's happening
do the rife that is blooming as you right then if you just don't try to control everything
that makes sense then
ryan said that can i say do you like
well you cannot hold on to try that try not holding on that better
i'm asking
okay
true
true renunciation i think is when you
allow the world to come forward which is your life which is our life like for example on i asked the question and i got to respond to honor that was my life at that moment
that's it
it almost doesn't even matter what we say just to meet whatever that is they came forward
so it's not so difficult
if we just let go of whatever ideas that kind of exchange ought to have been or or anything about it
i'm upon
i'm i'm going to read a poem now
close to death
always now i feel it a steady even pressure all over my body as if i were held in a flower press
i am waiting for the phone to ring they will say it and i will not be ready
i do not have a place prepared i do not know what will happen to him are aware he will go
i always thought i had a salvation for him hidden even from myself in my chest
but when the phone rings i don't know who he will be than or aware i have nothing for him no net no heaven to catch him he taught me only the earth night sleep beauty and fearsome this
he set up that landscape for me to go to him in and i will go to him and give to him what he gave me i will give him the earth night sleep beauty fearlessness
it's a poem by sharon olds
when
there is death or loss or change
we have a chance a real chance then to see what it's like not to hold on to anything
when there is this
yeah around the death of a pet a plant a person
ross have a job or whatever it is written kind of see change we can see there in front of you
especially death it's really good because it's really clear that there really is nothing that is that you can count on that you can possess that you can have
so you make a date in your calendar yes meet someone so at such and such a time
hey
do this isn't this next week
but if you're waiting for that call
we know that at any moment the your calendar is just tossed up into the air
but the calendar is tossed up into the air all the time
we just imagine the solid life we imagine and we hold onto it and we think it's real
in a week or so we're going to have and i think i'm going to participate in
something called an intensive
it's a three week period where re follow a schedule that brings us back to the zendo four times a day for to period
and it's kind of extraordinary opportunity
the day itself is not so hard but over a period of two weeks and then it says shane a deepening and clarifying of where you are happens because
in the morning when you get up you go to the zendo
and watch who you are
and then you get to do something in your day and then just before lunch for two periods you go back to the zendo and then you watch what happened that day in the morning
and then you go again and you do there's some of your life and so on and then just before service in the evening you go back to descend over to period and they are you are there at the afternoon comes up by in front of you and you can see
who you are what you hell to what self you recreated over over again for those few hours you weren't an agenda
and then you have some more time and then in the evening again you come back you spend two periods in the zonda so all day long over the day you return again and again and again with the zendo you return again and again and again to look at your self
and you can see their the fluidity we can see their the connectedness
you can see yourself as separate and contracted for some time as simply awareness one with this huge event that we actually are
so when you do that over and over and over again for a period of time although the day is pretty simple by the end of the three weeks we've pretty much settled
we've pretty settled
and you can take a really nice look
so i invite any of you
people who live here people who don't live here doesn't matter if you have time during those three weeks when we're going to do that come to the xander
come to the demo and sit and watch and see who you are
there are two things that almost everybody mentions when you ask them about their deepest desire
the either say they want to be enlightened or awake
or they say they want to be compassionate they want to be lab
that's pretty much people's deepest request please help me wake up count may be awake
her please help me grow helped me be able to love help me be love
so during the intensive last year we studied vasa bonded that's a like
psychological approach to how we create this how how we hold onto this sense of separation i was last year
this year we're going to study no separation from the point of view of compassion and friend the point of view of wisdom
because non separation or non-duality is the key to our life
feeling separate
fundamentally as the cause of are suffering out of which grasping and hatred
come
so we're going to look at non-duality from the point of view of compassion and from the point of view of wisdom from the point of view of wisdom we're going to study the game joe cohen bogans transcendent pro plan
and from the point of view of compassion we're going to study three we're going to study
the brahma vihara is one of which is matter or loving kindness or do that
when routine practice where tongue land comes from sending and receiving and then for the n one i think will do i there
you know my navy for we could either do the precepts are the parameters are durban's for prices for a bodhisattva
but concentration practices i mean no cousin compassion practices we think develop in us an open heart it doesn't really
her heart already is open all the time but what happens is we have barrier we make was in front of it so that you do when the a compassion bragg was the first thing that happens as you see the why you can't let down with love you see the world for said okay difficult
but these three practice they're very good very good way to work
at non-duality no separation between self and other
and then of course when we study wisdom that's exactly what we're going to look at
directly
this is that one of my favorite come on
when zen master dao we have nine uae first went to meet my name he said winning said who is it that does come
and nine ua didn't understand the question it's interesting to me that he didn't just answer manually or something
but he understood that the teacher was after him and deeper question
something like who are you
who is it that just comes who are we
that is like about anyway
so he went away and he thought about it they say for eight years some of us have been thinking about longer
but it only took him a years i think it's a good
so he came back at one point after eight years he came back
to a nang and he said i understand now and his teacher said well what do you understand
and then he said speaking about it won't hit the mark
no there's a very interesting statement
he didn't actually say anything
he said speaking about it won't hit the mark
who am i
saying something wrong hit the mark my neck
what can you say that hits the mark
speaking about it won't hit the mark
he tastes non-duality he won't separate anything out
the story could have ended right then
but the teacher said
does it rest on practice and realization
he wanted to kind of poker a little bit to see that he was really
just this
and they are way said it is not that there is no practice and realization
it's just that they can't be the file
he did it again he very good student
it's just that they can't be
the filed in the filed in this case names they can't be separated
we didn't go to dualistic
grace
he said they can't be separated and this is the core teaching i think of dogan
that our life is
awakening
complete
thorough oneness with your life with your activity
this realization
and realization is impossible without
activity complete activity
so then he said
i am like this new i like this and all ancestors were also just like this
and this is what we are all the time or all the time
it's just that we fight with herself
we don't give up we try to control try to grasp try to bring to or something pleasant push away something that's unpleasant and in doing that recreate separation
now
the tricky part is you can actually be one with separation if you just aware awake to that and leave it alone so even there is no
duality
so when death comes and we lose something
we're reminded
we have a choice
at every moment at every moment on every day
it's not a mystery we have a choice at that moment to be awake or to be asleep
every time we feel a sense of separation every time we blame somebody every time we
every time we hold to the contraction that we feel when we feel myself
we choose death
we choose to kill our life at that moment
and every time when we feel contracted you can feel that it feels painful
are we hold to a judgement or we push somebody away
when we don't do that when we let go that sense of separation would choose life
so close your eyes her now
and feel in the space around your heart
feel that area
allow that area to relax
allow warmth
to spread all around the area of the heart
if you need to think of something that you're fond of
a plant
the night sky
the sound of the ocean
a pet
and allow that fraud
to loosen
feelings of tightness around the heart
and let the heart be there
in its vast openness
and then say to yourself
may i be happy
may i really be happy
may i be free of suffering
may i be peace
may i be filled with love
he may i be happy
may i be free of suffering
may i feel connected with everything
may i find peace
may i be filled with ramp
and then without opening your eyes just since the person to your left
and allowing your heart to remain open
filled with warmth
filled with caring for yourself
say to yourself
may the person sitting to my left be happy
may they be free from suffering
may they find peace
may they be filled with love
and then allowing yourself to feel everyone in the room
allow yourself to ride and fill the whole room
again understanding that you yourself run to be happy
and free from suffering
send out that feeling everyone in the room
may everyone here be happy because they want to
may everyone here be free from suffering
when everyone here fine pace
hello joy
may everyone here be filled to overflowing
with love
and then if you can
more open still
as ride as you can possibly be
to the city of san francisco and california are all of the united states
of north america and then south america
to the entire world
everywhere
may all beings be happy
may all beings be free of suffering
may all beings fine piece
may all beings be
filled with love
and then give yourself a moment to come back to yourself
and again
may i be happy
please may i be happy
may i be free of suffering
may i be phil
well
and then
compassion practice is a concentration practice you have to really concentrate because there's a tendency to kind of throw the rain
and also mostly we knew if you are if if you're honest with yourself it's really difficult
but anyway i don't know how people
what they're what your experience of that rise but for me when i first started doing these practices the only thing you brought up a name was fury
so if anybody has their early i am very sympathetic
i was really mad
i just want to read your one poem and in stop because as a favorite of mine and it's about and make me making objects and a taste of the vastness of are rife
this is rocha
it's the eighth lg
with all its eyes the natural world looks out into the open he means open the vastness
only our eyes human eyes are turned backward and surround plant animal child like traps as they emerge into their freedom
we know what is really out there only from the animals gazed for we take the very young child and force it around so that it sees objects not they open which is so deep and animals faces
free from death we only can see death the free animal has its decline in back of it forever and god in front and when it moves it moves already an eternity like a fountain
never not for a single day do we have before us that pure space into which flowers endlessly open
always there is world and never nowhere
without the know that pure on separated element which one breathes without desire and endlessly knows
a child may wander there for hours through the timeless stillness may get lost in it and be shaken act
for someone dies and is it for nearing death one doesn't see death but stairs beyond perhaps with an animal's vast games robbers is the beloved we're not there blocking the view or close to it and marvel as if by some mistake
make it opens for them behind each other but neither can move past the other and it changes back to world
for ever turned toward objects we see in them the mirror reflection of the realm of freedom which we have dimmed
when some analog mutely serenely looks us through and through
that is what faith means to be opposite to be opposite and nothing else forever
with the animal moving toward us so securely in a different direction had our kind of consciousness it would ranch us around and drag us along its path but it feels it's life as boundless and fashionable and without regard to its own condition pure
reich it's outward gays
and where we see the future it sees all time and itself within all time forever
healed
there's more of it i think it's enough
so
began joe on we get it touch that vastness that non-duality
and from either side whether it's non dual from the side of wisdom or whether it's non door from the side of compassion that is where we want to live
why our true self
the rest of it is
stale
burdensome
heard from
so i hope with you we can practice together during the intensive for those of you who are wanting and can without adding too much already know you already filled lives i understand
but if you want to come to the zendo
because it's their way say we can see most clearly easiest grace we can really look at both of these things
me