Good evening, everyone. Good to be with you all again for our weekly practice sessions. And I appreciate you joining together in this way so we can together really settle into a deeper sense of being who we are and allowing kind of the accumulation of agitation and kind of a sense of disruption and anything else that we might be feeling at this time to allow it to, as we sit ourselves in together, just kind of settle and quiet and allow our natural state of mind, our clear state of mind, to be able to be fully experienced and known. So I welcome you all. And I'm not sure how many people are here for the first time. It's wonderful that you're joining.

[01:35]

And if you are new, I'll just give you a very brief overview of what we'll do together during this time. So we'll start with about 25 minutes of Zazen, or silent meditation. And what I usually do is begin the period with some guided meditation and then tapering off into silence. So it's a little different than our usual Zazen, which is completely silent, but I find it beneficial for people who are new to practice to have some guidance entering into the period of sitting together. And then after our zazen, I'll offer what I call a dharmet, a brief dharma encouragement. And these are just some things that I would offer as a way of... encouraging your practice, supporting your practice, bringing some things forward for you to consider and turn over and try on. And I also, before I forget, I want to mention that now on Thursdays, we have a variety of Zen Center-related teachers who are taking up leading the Thursday sessions.

[02:42]

And this Thursday, we will have Mark Lesser. He'll be guiding the session. And some of you may remember, Mark, he led the four-week intensive of Zen and Work with Susan O'Connell. So he was kind of joined several of the sessions at the very beginning when we started offering these online practice sessions. So he'll be back. And he has a wonderful experience. He actually helped with developing the Search Inside Yourself Institute at Google. So he has a very strong background in supporting mindfulness, particularly in a Buddhist perspective, but also in a secular context. So, okay. So, and then I forgot to mention after the Durham Met, we'll have some time for further sharing for all of you to bring anything forward that you'd like to bring forward in terms of what came up for you this evening during your practice. or during the week or any questions or anything else you'd like to share.

[03:43]

And then our aim is to end around 6.30. So that's the overview for what we'll do during this time. So why don't we go ahead and get started with our meditation practice. So I want to encourage you to go ahead and find a comfortable seated position. Most of you are already in that position. And the main thing is really focusing on a sense of uprightness and open-heartedness. So find a posture that allows you to be upright, attentive, alert. So whether you're sitting on a zaffa or cushion, you're sitting on a chair, maybe you're lying down on the floor, you're in a wheelchair, whatever position you're in, allow it to have a sense of elongating your spine as much as possible and having an open chest. And particularly if you're taking a seated position, you might want to consider resting your hands in your lap. Often in Zen, we use the cosmic muja. So placing the left hand in the right palm and creating kind of this oval with the thumb tips lightly touching.

[04:47]

And then just have that rest in your hands, rest in your lap in that way. Draw your chin in, tuck in a little bit, lengthening the back of your spine. And the crown of your head is kind of touching the sky. It's helpful to rest the tongue at the roof of your mouth. Maybe your lips just gently relaxed. And then taking in a deep breath through the nose. And you may wish to, in Zaza, we usually have our eyes open and with the gaze softly focused down in front of us. feet, but if you're sitting in front of a screen or something that's distracting, you can close your eyes. As I always encourage, do not fall asleep. Zelson is not a sleeping practice. And then what I'm going to do is ring the bell in a moment. And as I do so, I encourage you to attend to the sound of the bell as much as Zoom allows you to be able to follow when I first stream.

[05:55]

sound the bell, its duration at the sound, and then as it fades away. Notice what is it that remains in that open space. So, lean the bell three times to the general meditation, and then one time to end the period of meditation. Here we go. So with that same directed awareness or attention that you gave to the sound of the bell, direct that awareness now to the sensation of your body just sitting here, everywhere you are.

[07:00]

Becoming aware of the body's contact to the environment. Sensation of where your body meets your cushion or the chair or the floor. Just allow your awareness to come to rest in the felt sense of being right here in this embodied presence, the sense of immediacy and aliveness right here and now. Allow yourself to settle into the body. So there's nothing you need to do during this time. Meditation is not a doing, it's a non-doing. It's an utter resting into simply open awareness and allowing. So just allow the body to say, oh, sometimes I find it helpful in order to do that, to connect the awareness of the body to awareness of the breath, to take in three deep breaths.

[08:14]

Breathing in on the count of four. And then when you exhale, extending the exhale twice as long to a count of eight. And then doing that three times, breathing in, taking a full deep breath, feeling the breath fully enter the body. Focus on the sensation if you can, or you can also focus on the sound, whichever is easier for you. Allowing the breath to be a touchstone. Then as you exhale, extending the exhale to a count of eight, twice as long. And as you do, that sense of releasing, releasing the air, releasing any tension that you might feel in the body, settling a little bit more deeply into your seat and where you are. This process of releasing and letting go, not just the breath, but also tension in the body and tension in the mind at the same time.

[09:17]

And doing this a third time, moving in, fully taking in a fresh, whole breath, this feeling I'm taking into the chest, all the way down to the abdomen, And then when you exhale, extending that exhale twice as long, letting go, releasing, releasing, exhaling it. And then after the third breath, allowing the breath to return to its natural flow and rhythm, but no longer needing to control or manipulate it, just now observe the breath. Become awareness, just feeling the sensation, awareness of the sensation of the breath, awareness of the sound of the breath, wherever it's most interesting for you. As we do this, bringing awareness to the breath, we help our mind to become grounded in the present, to settle into the present moment experience.

[10:20]

And the breath can be a touchstone throughout the meditation. Wherever the mind wanders, away from this present moment, simply notice that it's happened, and then with intention, redirect mind's awareness back once more to the breath as a touchstone, or to awareness of the body, anything that helps you ground once again into the direct experience of here and now. We sometimes talk about awareness as an aperture. So initially when we sit down, we want to focus and have kind of a narrow focus of your aperture to help the mind settle, sort of a touch point, just the breath itself. And once the mind settles a little bit, you can widen that aperture, become aware of the breath throughout the whole body. And without becoming aware of any experiences in the body, particularly sensations throughout the body,

[11:33]

We might also go to waves of emotion or feelings. And some of the experiences might be pleasant or unpleasant. In most cases, there's a variety. Just observing them, including the best effort not to push them away, not to judge them, not to grab onto ones that are pleasant. It's this sense of resting as awareness, observing these experiences as they could buy. It's just feeling the sense of the body, stable, wherever you're sitting, you're laying down, the stability of a mountain, grounded. And the breath is just like a breeze, kind of flowing through our being. flowing through the mind.

[12:37]

And the mind itself is open, receptive, like the sky. It's openness, receptivity, allowing quality. Everything can pass through, unobstructed. is continuing it, settling into this present moment experience, allowing ourselves to receive it, observe it the way it is, allowing it to be just what it is, noticing we actually don't need to do anything with the experience, simply observing it. And when we notice that there's nothing we need to do, we can relax, relaxing into just a being. Presence. Presencing, open presence of whatever it is.

[13:45]

We're resting in open awareness, resting in presence. Being receptive to the experience. If you notice any tendency to get distracted or agitated in some way, it's okay, just noticing that's arising. And then in that moment, in that space of noticing, is a moment of choice. In that moment, you might wish to choose to redirect mind's attention back once more to something that helps mind to settle, such as the ground, the groundedness of the body, You're widening the aperture, narrowing it down to focus on the breath, and then slowly widening and begin to awareness throughout the experience, throughout the body, and then towards widest, pathetic, boundless, open awareness.

[15:00]

Then now settling into silence, bitterness, open-hearted, knowing of this present moment. Nothing we need to do but simply rest right here. And where is your mind?

[20:28]

Is it here in this present moment experience, the direct experience of what is right here and now? Or has it wandered as it often has the tendency to do into the past or the future in some way? Not just some old story about self or other. Just noticing. That's what's happening. And in that space of noticing is freedom, because then you can choose to redirect mind's attention back to where you wish it to be. open inquiry at what's happening now.

[21:35]

That's the immediate experience before any interpretation, any stirring arises. It's a direct felt sense of being. Allow your abdomen to relax. Allow your heart to relax. And so you move more deeply into it. Just be resting as being Thank you, everyone, for sitting together.

[30:14]

I hope you can all hear me clearly enough. So for this evening's Darnettes, I thought I would talk a little bit about the practice and process of Zazen, but do it in a little bit of a lighthearted way. Sometimes when I do this, particularly for workshops about transforming depression and anxiety, I like to use a particular prop for a visual aid and analogy. So this evening I have my prop and I'm going to put it right here. I don't know if you can see it. It's a Gouda in a snow globe. You can see it? It's a transparent Gouda in a snow globe. I'm going to put it there. So... The reason I like to do this is I think it's a wonderful analogy and can be playful, and I think it really helps us get a better sense of, well, what's happening in this process?

[31:17]

So you can imagine the snow globe, right? This is being the environment of our mind. And Buddhism, as I was kind of saying throughout the meditation, Buddhism tells us that our natural state of mind is clear, spacious, luminous, right? open color sky so you have to kind of forgive the convention of the globe in this case but just imagine that's not there you know but our natural environment is boundless mind and this is the natural state of the mind when we're our mind is at rest right when we're still the mind's still silent and peaceful and we're able to see clearly you could say in all directions we're able to perceive reality just as it is and uh Our natural state of mind or consciousness, we could call it Buddha mind or Buddha nature, is originally pure, unstained, unobstructed, and without any distortion in any way.

[32:18]

So this is how we experience when we're able to just rest, rest with reality, rest with the way things are. Sitting like a Buddha, peacefully in whatever environment we find ourselves. Simply being still. and observing ourselves as we kind of course or flow in samadhi or deep concentration. For the sake of this analogy, imagine that the snowflakes, you know, you've shaken up snow globes before and there's just some kind of snowflake in them, of this mind globe are our thoughts and emotions. And as you probably realize the first time you sat down for meditation, observed your inward environment of the mind, There's a lot going on in our minds. There's all kinds of weather that we might identify as thoughts or emotions or images or perceptions, perceptions such as sounds, sights, tastes, and other experiences.

[33:20]

So this ever-changing weather-related expression is simply a natural part of the environment. It's the natural scenery of our lives and what it is to be human. And these aspects of experience, you know, they have a function. They have a usefulness. They have a beauty. Our snowflake-like thoughts can bring us both delight and benefit. It's not a bad thing to have thoughts and emotions. And we can, you know, spend a lot of time observing the snow swirling around in our snow globe minds and just as we're observing the thoughts in our mind. And I don't know how many of you grew up in areas where there is snow. I grew up in Pennsylvania, so we had lots of snow there. And one of the favorite things I like to do is when I first started the snow, to run outside and try to catch the snowflakes in my mouth, right? To eat the snowflakes as they came down, right? And so it's fun to also kind of try to catch thoughts and have fun with them and savor them and examine them and turn them over and just enjoy them for what they are, the emotion thoughts, whatever they might be.

[34:31]

However, what happens when we shake the snow globe? You notice? Aha. Just as you know, the scenery in the snow globe gets obscured by the snowstorm. So just like when the snow globe is agitated and the Buddha within becomes obscured, so too does our inherent Buddha nature become obscured when our minds and the weather in our minds becomes agitated. And, as you know, when we stop agitating the snow globe, what happens? The environment within, again, becomes clear. All the thoughts and emotions and that begin to settle, and our natural state of mind becomes evident again. So the analogy that we can make here is this is what happens in the practice of zazen.

[35:42]

This is how zazen supports us. I like to think of zazen as the practice of not shaking the snow glow. Don't shake the snow glow of your mind. Not allowing the mind to become disturbed in the first place, if it's possible. And failing that, then not doing anything that would perpetuate the agitation. in mind, you know, that would keep shaking you. So remember, one of the fundamental instructions for zazen is to sit and do nothing. Simply be still, settled, quiet. Come to rest as awareness itself. Zazen isn't about, you know, doing something with your mind, grabbing onto anything, forcing it in any way. Simply open, restful awareness. So if thoughts or emotions arise and begin to fall through the environment of our mind like snow, then simply observe them without chasing after them.

[36:43]

We're trying to collect them in some way. So if we don't engage the thoughts, if we don't engage the experience by trying to grab onto it in some way, then the experience will begin to, after a period of time, kind of settle down. And eventually, the thoughts and the emotions and the other sensations melt away. They dissolve. So by pausing before and not grasping onto our emotional thoughts, there's a chance for the weather of our mind to more quickly settle down and become clear again. So we can really see things as it is, face things as they are. And then once we gain some clarity of mind, we can then ascertain what an appropriate response might be to the particular situation that's arising. Rather than reacting from a clouded state of mind, from old clouded habit patterns, what is it to respond? To choose with intention how we're going to engage the experience.

[37:46]

One of the things that I like to recommend sometimes as a meditation practice is to focus our attention on the space between each thought. between each thought. You could think of it as sometimes if you just try to observe the space between the snowflakes. This is the same thing. Can you sit in Zazen and try to observe the mind in such a way that you notice when the next thought arises? You're kind of like a cat out of a mouse hole, just sitting there observing. When's the next thought going to come up? Or like a train, you see trains, you know, you could think of the train of thinking going by, but like all trains, there's a space, a gap between each of the trains, each of the thoughts. Can you focus your attention on that gap as a way to kind of not grab onto the object of thought, but also rest in the open space between?

[38:49]

And then when we do this, certainly the density, of the thoughts, the density of the storm in the mind, the density of the snowstorm, becomes less opaque. And we begin to see that there's an opening, that things, including our emotional thoughts, aren't as solid or as real or as frozen as they initially appear. And when we notice the space between each emotional thought, Then there's, again, a space for us to choose how to relate to the particular experience that we're having in the moment. But most of the time, what we end up doing unconsciously is chase after our thoughts, chase after our experiences, our emotions, like children chasing after snowflakes, right? And then we compound the problem by trying to hold on to them or to fix our thoughts and emotions in some way.

[39:52]

And not only do we hold on them, but we have a tendency to kind of gather them up and roll them up into kind of a particular shape, right? Imagine we can make them kind of stable and permanent in some way so they don't kind of disappear or fade. In other words, what I like what I'm trying to kind of say is we kind of roll up these emotional thoughts and make a snowman or a snow self out of them. And then we have this kind of hard, fixed, contracted state of thought pattern or emotion pattern. And then we dress it up and we adorn it in some way. We give it a name or personality and say, this is, you know, Frosty David, right? And this snow person is this particular way, right? And we try to kind of reify and, you know, firm it up, the sense of self. embellishing it, polishing it, cherishing it, defending it, defending this compacted, contracted sense of the self.

[40:56]

Now, the sad thing is, is that we live, when we do this, we actually live in a perpetual state of fear because we know deep down how fragile this frozen state of being is, how vulnerable our inner snow person is. to anything that brings a sense of warmth, of light, of release. So in order to protect this fragile snow being, our fragile sense of the self, we often freeze and contract even more. We freeze because we're afraid, and our fear makes us rigid and fixed and hard. We might even develop icicle-like sharp points or edges as part of our defense mechanism to protect us. But this being frozen and hard actually hurts. It hurts us. And it hurts others. When we bump into them, for example, with our jagged, frozen edges, icy edges.

[42:02]

And the more contracted and compacted we are, the more brittle and ultimately vulnerable our inner snowperson becomes. The more isolated and lonely we feel. And I think the truth is, what we really want in those moments is to simply melt. We want to be Apollo again. We want to flow again to our natural state. And this is what practice is supporting us to do. It's helping us to melt again. Learn how to not be this frozen, hard, contracted sense of self. And I think that sometimes we're afraid of love because just like sunlight and warmth melt snow, real love, the warmth of real love melts us. Love makes us less contracted and less frozen.

[43:08]

It undoes us in some way. It helps us to flow again, the natural slower beingness. So awareness, I think of awareness as this kind of warm sunlight, shining the warm sunlight, letting the sun of awareness illuminate and warm our whole being, and particularly noticing those contracted places in our being, those places that are hard, tight, holding on, afraid, shut away from the light, dark in some way, writing in the dark corners. So all of our being actually yearns for light. It yearns to be illuminated because our whole being, our true being, is nothing but light.

[44:14]

You can say light and awareness. So as we practice meditation and we sit here and we simply bring awareness to our whole being and we begin to kind of allow ourselves to melt. We become mushy Buddhas, you could say. You can just see this. You can see this people as they practice over a period of time. They become softer in some way. Their faces become a lot more relaxed and soft. Their way of being becomes more relaxed. Their actions and demeanor seem to have more of a flow to it. Not so kind of edgy or hard. And it's a wonderful thing to allow ourselves to melt in this way. Because when we begin to melt, we release a certain light, and that light also encourages others to melt, to soften. And in time, both of us, all of us, melting together, we flow together into, you could say, a sea of love, all this water of the natural state of being.

[45:26]

blowing together as one life together rather than these contracted little icebergs. And speaking of iceberg, sometimes it feels like I'm not just a frozen snowman. I feel like my whole being is an iceberg. There's a whole part of me that's just submerged beneath the surface that's frozen and has been that way for a long time. And as we begin to practice and begin this effort of shining the light on this frozen basement of self, it can be uncomfortable. Because what happens is these layers of conditioning, as we practice, that begin to be surfaced. They come up to the surface. As the top layer melts, a new layer is exposed. maybe an old layer, years old, maybe from even a time when you were a child.

[46:27]

And in those layers, what we notice, there's certain memories, certain experiences, certain narratives and beliefs that have been frozen and trapped in for a long time that haven't been allowed to flow and be released. And many people, when they start practicing Zahazin after a period of time, come to this period of time where these old layers of conditioning come to the surface and are exposed again, to be seen, to be acknowledged, to let flow and be released. Old memories, feelings, traumas, things that got trapped long ago in the eyes of a self, a separate self. And so, just like, you know, when we're sitting in Zaza, sometimes our leg becomes numb, It gets frozen, if you will. We can't feel it. And then after the period, we try to move our leg, and we can't feel it at first, but if we pause and wait for it, the blood begins to flow back.

[47:28]

And this can feel the same, too, sometimes, when old emotions and feeling states that we haven't been in touch with for a long time begin to flow again. It can be really uncomfortable, but we have to treat that time with tenderness and care. You know? be very compassionate and gentle with ourselves. Maybe get support of a friend, or a therapist, or a teacher, someone to help us kind of, you know, be with that sensation of coming back to life again, of having those old parts that were frozen, cut off, be able to be seen and acknowledged and released in time. And the thing to do when we go through these periods is not to focus on the old stories about them. It could be interesting to explore. What is the story? What's the old narrative there? But the main thing is actually focus on the sensation aspect of your experience. What's the felt sense?

[48:30]

That's what... needs to be released. The felt sense in the body, the contracted sense in the body, is what needs to be released. Sometimes we know the narrative and we can let go of the old story, but the hard part is that it's been wired in our body, it's been frozen in our body. And we need to come back to that felt sense, that sensation sense, and allow that to be known and softened and relaxed and released. Literally, the energy begins to flow again. There's more I could probably say about this process, but I think I'll end there. And kind of open up and see, does any of that resonate for you? And what's maybe your own experience with this process of practicing Zazen, illuminating the sense of a separate self, of a contracted self?

[49:36]

you know, illuminating all your experience, how it feels to melt over time through this practice of Zazen, if that's your experience. So I'll stop there and see if you have anything you'd like to share. I'm going to ask Matt to help with identifying people, and he's going to tell you how to raise your hand and You know, in the participant list at the bottom, so we'll put instructions in the chat field. And let me know what's alive for you right now. Are you melting at this time? What wants to melt? What wants to be released? What contracted sense of being do you want to let go of? Matt put in instructions, so I see Debbie Cohen.

[50:47]

Matt's going to help me find you and then unmute you so you can speak. So Debbie Cohen. Hi. Hello. I'm trying to find your image on the screen. There you are. Okay, great. Thank you. Your talk was very helpful. And I'd like to hear you say more, if you're willing, about how to access that felt sense, release it, and a little more about what you mean by the felt sense. Well, for example, emotions. Emotions, you know, there might be a thought related to emotions, but if you actually go to the feeling sense, how do you, for example, anger or fear? How do you know you're feeling anger or fear? There's usually a sensation in the body somewhere.

[51:48]

So look for that sensation, that felt sense in the body. Not the idea of, I'm angry about this. How dare they? That's the narrative. Go out of the mind into the body and look for the sensation that tells you, oh, that's what anger feels like. In the body. And all of us may carry different emotions of that felt sense of a particular emotion in different parts of our body. Some of us carry anger in our stomach. Some of us in our fist or jaw, in the chest. Sadness can also be located in different places. So we kind of look for what's the felt sense that tells me this emotion is present. So then when you locate that felt sense in the body, bring awareness to it. So I think awareness is a spotlight, that warm, just spotlight on that location in the body where you have that sensation. Just allow that light to shine there. So it's not to change it.

[52:51]

You're not trying to fix it or do something different with it. You're just illuminating it, right? Breathing with it. You can also breathe into the space, bring a sense of spaciousness, airing out, acknowledging kind of almost, you know, befriending the felt sense, whatever it might be, with breath, with the warm sunlight of awareness. And then over time, notice what happens as you do that. Again, you're not trying to make it go away. You're just observing it. You're just sunlight being with the experience. My experience over time is that something shifts. It may happen immediately. You turn awareness to it and suddenly it relaxes. And it may be for a period of time. You may sit the whole period of silence and it doesn't change at all. And maybe you do it over several weeks and in time you notice, well, something's releasing here. Some energy, some trapped energy is releasing. So staying with the felt sense is so important in this process.

[53:58]

It's not a mental activity. There's an aspect of studying the story and the narrative. But we have to let go of that, and we have to get to the root of it. Every narrative has at its root a felt sense that's frozen and wired in the body. Does that help? Does that make sense? Yes, that's very helpful. Thank you very much. You're welcome, Daddy. And I see Mei. Mei Zhu. Hello, Mei. Thank you so much, David. For some reason, because I... I haven't logged in for a while. For some reason, I just, I don't know. Non-meditation is also meditation. So I just, but then I just, when I heard you talk about melting, and then I guess I was melting for the past several weeks after the long-term training. I don't know why. It's, this is the first time I actually, I truly feel it's,

[55:01]

You know, because everything is really intellectual, I think my mind used to be really engaged in this, but this is truly a body. Oh, my God. I just, I think everything you, you just saw TQC, everything that, you know, my cell, everything I want to see, I can't describe, but... it is such a transformation inside. It's not comfortable, you know, not that pleasant. But then I think there's a, there's a tiny little bit of like a sense of a light, you know, you just feel like a lightness. But then I'm not like, oh, wow. So there's a lot of hard work, you know. But anyway, I think, I think my, my tape of this is still very tiny. And then very tiny, but thank you for affirmation and give me the confidence.

[56:08]

Thank you so much. Yeah. And confidence gets developed every time. The more you do it, you realize, oh, this does have efficacy. Even though it's uncomfortable, I know it's liberating. And I do it because I know it's liberating. And in time, what sometimes happens is you begin to get really curious. I kind of look, where's there contraction in my body today? And I get curious because I'm like, oh, there's some holding going on there. I wonder what that's about. Can I explore that? Can I shine a light on it? Can I see it in some way that I can acknowledge and release and relax with it? And then it becomes this kind of, there's more of a sense of delight and curiosity in the process. And again, You know, it may not be comfortable. It's true. You know, it's like, it may not be comfortable, but it's ultimately liberating. And we do this practice not to be comfortable.

[57:10]

Zazen, Zen practice is not about being comfortable, right? It's about release. Yeah. And I definitely believe this is a, it was many, many little steps such that we can take more and more. especially some major like sufferings, but it is a tiny, tiny little step matters. Thank you so much. It took us decades to get this frozen into ourself, right? It's going to take a lot to get unfrozen, you know, as well. So we have to have patience with the process. Thank you, Meg. I see Niall Bourne. I wonder if you could help to clarify some of the things that you said. At first you were talking about that crystal ball metaphor. It sounded like that was you were kind of describing the function of attention, I think, in Zazen while practicing that you're not kind of following thoughts or

[58:26]

or associating with them or gripping them or running away from them or anything like that. They're just kind of those snow particles are floating around, so they ultimately settle and get clarity of mind. And then you were discussing what sounded like active means to me, like that I was trying to translate any way that I could look for feelings or look for bodily sensations, or I could watch for the next thought, or watch for the train to come, or what it's going to be like. I was unable to understand how I could do that without imposing a more, without imposing, I would suppose I could say, like mental functioning, not pure observational functioning, but like, hey, I'm looking for this, and now all that. When you talked about that, was that during Zazen or were you thinking of like the post-Zazen kind of?

[59:31]

That could be during Zazen. So that's a technique of, you could say, skillful means. So you might do that if you find your mind is somewhat agitated and the mind wants to grab onto thoughts more. And when that's happening and it's harder just to let the thought go by... So the skillful means might be, you know, the first thing that's taught as a skillful mean is come back to the breath. Allow a sensation, a present moment sensation to ground you in this present moment. So again, out of the mind, into the sensation, into the body, direct experience of this moment as a body, a felt sense, right, through the breath. And then if that's somewhat subtle, but the mind's still kind of, you know, doing its thing, but you have somewhat of a sense of groundedness in the body, you could... and this, again, is actively working with awareness directed to thought objects passing by, is then rather than focus on the thought objects and, you know, having tendency to, you know, we so often get caught in the content of the thought, you know, in the content of the cloud, rather than actually noticing that it's just this experience that's passing by.

[60:44]

So if we focus not on the cloud itself, but the space between, You know, what happens then is we actually, we can kind of step back a little bit and allow more spaciousness in the thought process. So the same thing as you, if you're ever, you know, in front of a train, you watch a train, if you focus on the cars of a train, you're just going to see, you know, solid cars. But if you look for the space between the cars, as you're looking straight ahead, it's a softening of the gaze. And instead, there's some way that you can just see, your mind begins to turn to looking for the gaps, minding the gaps, rather than looking for the objects. And that creates a spaciousness. I think I understand that. I think maybe it's just a matter of practice in order for me to get it, but when I try to imagine myself kind of doing melting type of things,

[61:48]

I find that as I sit here, I find that I can't do it without building a mental framework. I can't create mental images without doing it. But maybe it's just a matter, I don't know, that I've never tried that before. So, yeah. So experiment for yourself. Try it on. See what works for you. If you find yourself too caught up in the mind, go to the body. So I mentioned during Zazen, focus on the horror. Focus on the center of your body, the energy source we say in Zen, a couple inches below your belly button. Center yourself literally by bringing your awareness there and just be with the felt sense of that space, the space within, breathing into that space. So allow that to be the focus of the meditation for a while. So experiment, see what works for you. And sometimes, you know, different techniques work for us at different times, depending on what our mind, body state is in the moment, depending on how agitated it is or how settled it is.

[62:58]

I like that notion of the skillful means and using the specific techniques. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Thank you now. And I see Joshua. I see Joshua's mane. I'm not sure I see Joshua. Hi, Joshua. Hey, thank you so much, David, for the talk. I really appreciate it. What was I going to say? I've found the entire snow person metaphor very useful for me in the situation that I'm currently going for. And I found the idea of this kind of constructed self with the sharp edges sticking out and poking people around you who you want to bring closer to you, a very effective metaphor as well. And especially in the context of my own life, where my snow person has been subjected to some very serious changes, and my entire perception of consciousness has been pretty drastically altered.

[64:01]

I was diagnosed with a very rare, very unfortunate brain disease six months ago. And I spent most of March and April in a coma and sort of emerged... from that experience into this new space where most of my sense of self and most of my kind of core memories had been kind of either mixed up or completely erased. So I'm kind of in this process of reconstructing an experience that I don't remember through the accounts of people who were closest to me and people who love me and people who... my family basically and people who i've spent a lot of time kind of alienating and pushing away through that kind of hardened solidified i guess snow self and um i just found it a very helpful and clarifying talk and i found the idea of the snow globe with those billowing um thoughts or feelings or impressions um

[65:11]

very pertinent to me as well. So I just wanted to thank you very much for that. And I think I'll leave it there for a minute, but thank you for letting me speak. And you know, this is in some ways the opportunity to do your experience to let go, you know, of the former sense of self, you know, whatever happened cognitively, physiologically in your mind, in your brain during this coma, Oftentimes it would come out with less of a contracted sense of self. So while you might be curious what happened, don't collect those narratives, those stories from other people and try to make a new self out of it. Actually explore what it is to have this open, this mind state now, this less contracted, less hardened, less fixed sense of the self. It's actually, you know, in some ways there's a gift there. You know, and I've heard this before when people have had, you know, accidents or gone into comments and so on.

[66:15]

They come out and their sense of self isn't as fixed as it used to be, you know. And, you know, to start from that more open sense of self and to question, you know, do I need to pick up that old self again? Do I really need to kind of refreeze that, you know, into place? Can I just rest as open awareness and curiosity about what it is that comes up into my experience right now? Thank you, Joshua. Okay, my friends, it's past the time. It's been a joy again to be with you all. Thank you for your practice, for your presence. I wish you all well in this journey of melting. into the softening of being, you know, and in the end, just being this, you know, luminous liquid flowing states, right?

[67:15]

It's this open ocean of being. We're all that same ocean of being. We're all the same lights, you know, just illuminating experience. So our fixed sense of a separate self is a delusion. It doesn't really exist the way that we think it is. So study for yourself. Where am I frozen? What parts of me feel contracted and fixed? And kind of just, you know, to illuminate them and see if they can allow them to soften just a little bit more. Just not to fix you. There's nothing broken about you. This isn't that we're broken in some way. It's just that a habit pattern has developed in our consciousness, which we then kind of a fixed state. that we've embodied that hardness, that fixedness. Everything's impermanent, says, you know, the Buddha Dharma. Everything's impermanent. There's no fixed self here. So to allow that truth of impermanence to be felt and known and relax into that can be a gift.

[68:24]

Okay, my friends, thank you again. Just another reminder, Mark Lesser will be leading the Thursday session. choose to join. Otherwise, I'll see you next Tuesday if you choose to join. So be well, friends. Take good care. Matt, you can unmute everyone if you'd like. You're welcome. Good to see you, Fred. Thank you. You're welcome. Catherine, good to see you. Thank you. Bye. You're welcome. Be well. Thank you, David. Thank you so much. You're welcome. I like your two analogies from recent lectures of melting into mush. Yes. Yes. The chrysalis, the snow globe. They're very powerful images.

[69:27]

Thank you. They will stay with me. You're welcome. Take good care. Mush. Playful mush. Joyful mush. Take good care, everybody. Thank you. Thank you, Matt. You're welcome. Thank you, Abba David. Take care.

[69:51]

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