so today and our lovely sand center were having a one day sitting or meditating all day and that starts i'll be call or fall practice period
the idea of practice period goes back to the time of shakyamuni buddha
and so in our own way we are
re living keeping alive a tradition that started over twenty five hundred years ago
it's very much the spirit of zen practice and we're still practicing the practice of shakyamuni even know the conditions are a little different and how we're doing it is a little different
but we're still human beings dislike he was
and we're still obliged whether we like we like it or not to do with that
so
in a way i practices that fundamental what is the human condition and how do you deal with it
what is the intention of life
how is it expressed
so here's my notion of a dime attack this morning
oh
read a coin
a public case
a traditional zan story
and then when i read this case
see what your mind makes of it
zucchini just notice what comes to mind
what understanding what associations or lack of associations
come into being when you hear this

and then i'll start to talk about it and then seeking you're drunk men do throw away your ideas and understandings and take up mine
they say that the same thing
sometimes i think nobody can teach us anything
how will we can do is offer us the encouragement to realize what we already know

it's a tricky proposition
to give a dharma talk or to attend the dharma talk
does it enable that process or does it hinder it
so see what you make this

for over a thousand years ago in a mountainous region in china
and
as a teacher said this to a his students
medicine and disease subdue each other
the whole earth is medicine
what is the self
madison and disease subdue each other the whole earth is medicine
what is the self
to what does that bring up
is some part of that but step that stands forward more than others

how does that relate to why you're here today
maybe it doesn't
what is it the practice with this right well how does this inform your practice
medicine and disease some do each other
the whole world is medicine what is the south
huh
so in buddhism there's a number of foreign relations
and one in the ms sharma tablet pacino
in simple terms it means
becoming available
shama tough and the persona engaging and learning from your experience

so that's what a one day sitting as abide
becoming available
an engaging and learning from your experience
and an each part of that in the in practice in buddhist practice is something we examined carefully
what is it to become available
will you available when i read that corn
how did you get caught up in some side

did it register didn't resonate
when buddhist teachings in the study of availability
and engaging in the study of availability
we look at what is it to become available for our own experience

and it's interesting the formulations that i'm a bite to
describe probably were written know somewhere between two thousand and twenty five hundred years ago and yet anyone who looks at the round state of being can see
still totally relevant
this we haven't changed that much
the first one is habit energy
when we go on automatic
when we drive our car and listen to the radio and think about this or that
have available are way to the driving
when we eat our breakfast and read the newspaper or whatever else we do worry about worker the night before
how available are we
we have this amazing capacity
the sort of do it we're doing and multi task at the same time

so in buddhist practice we say do what you doing
do it completely
a kind of a stark simple
resolution
admonition
twenty one day sitting that's the agenda do what you're doing when you're walking walk where you're sitting sit when you're eating it
but it's not an easy proposition
in buddhism there's a concept called the middle way
so on one hand we can say to ourselves with the way to do that is through discipline
the combination
a certain rigorous determined effort simplify your life
and then the other extreme is the way to do that is to make your life exciting and interesting so that it dries you win with its allure
the buddhism proposes something in the middle
if we really want to confuse ourselves we can say sometimes one sometimes the other
or a mix of them both
but something in the middle in the middle between asceticism and overindulgence
so finding that place of balance in our life
the were not increasing our own suffering either way
can i'd taken on our habit energy is not an easy proposition
it creates its own kind of anxiety
is that when we go with our habits is like going with the flow
it's like of this is me being me
when we start to interject something different
we get stirred up
we get either very anxious or little bit anxious
so as you practice it's helpful to realize the bad can that's one of the possibilities
sometimes we might ask yourself what is this practice willing helper i didn't making things worse
it might be making things worse

but our habits tend to limit and lessen our life
they can to narrow it and restricted
and from the point of view of awareness
they tend to put us to sleep
we're not quite there were not quite here

to the second formulation is numbers
there's a way in which we tend to just space side disconnect
is all night
it's an antidote the suffering
if this is not so pleasant just disconnect
stop feeling

so i think pretty much anyone who's ever meditated
experiences this
the way in which
and dissociate from here and now
the awareness practice is a gentle persistence
connect connect connect
that's what samadhi is constant continuous connection

in the third formulation is a kind of desperation
we have to make this enormous effort to make things okay
we create for ourselves some relenting unrelenting agenda
sometimes it makes it hard to sleep at night
we just feel the buzz of the agenda

sometimes it makes it hard to relax
hard to just be here with this

do these formulations that were drawn up by people who practiced over two thousand years ago
seems to me they still were pretty good
the way we get caught in our habit energy the way we get caught in our disconnecting in the way we get caught in our over striving
sometimes when we meditate and we find ourselves
time to control the mind trying to control the breath control the experience
he'd go to the person in charge of the meditation hall and tell them open the window closed the window
change my seat
change my cushion
so normal in our lives our lives are happening at a pace at level of activity it's hard to see this maybe we'll get glimpses or with me leapt back into action
tushar mehta availability is a bite
discovering how to make connection with what's already going on
usually it has something to do with slowing down
and com die
not always it's not the only way
but often that's a helpful way
becoming available for what stirring us
and the recognize in some ways
we are a little are a lot afraid of what's during us
and to recognize it in some ways once during us is a mystery
it's a mystery tours where a mystery to ourselves
destroys sitting for twenty minutes or thirty minutes and and say
i'm gonna notice and take in everything that i think and feel for this twenty or thirty minutes
it's an amazing thing
so this these three activities that come up so readily and
persistently for it when we look closely we say that they cause
either a very painful immediate discomfort dissatisfaction this is or sometimes just a subtle says there in the background

this is the this ease of our life
so what is the medicine what is the medicine of our life
if that's the disease what's the antidote what's the remedy to cure
so the collins says the whole world is medicine
the whole world is medicine

so what does that mean to you
how do you relate to that statement
the whole world is medicine
how would you meditate with that understanding
how would you engage in your relationships with that understanding
what kind of values would you have direct your life with that understanding
huh
so actually and then the process of zen is just to get us looking and asking
and then the rests up to you
up to me up each one of it
it's your life you're the boss you're the expert
can anyone else do it for you
why
how to live your life
but maybe there's something
some guidance some advice we can glean from the teachings on the dharma
to here's a formulation
with regards
connecting
it's dead
to see it acknowledge it
engage it
for we experience it
and learn from it
see it
engage see it acknowledge engage fully experience and learn from it

so that's the activity of meditation that's the activity of our practice
to be what is to do what's being done
the feel what arising
and with that disposition
whatever comes forth
his medicine

hello my life or experience of being alive is not this than that they interweave
you know our moment of awareness
is then followed by a return to our habit energy to or a returned to our disconnect
i returned to our issues around control and safety
our efforts to read someplace some way of being of satisfaction
i've alleviating our anxiety
some medicine in disease intermingle
and the amazing thing is
we learn from both
we learn from being distracted and we learn from rediscovering awareness

sometimes our deepest learnings are really touching
the passion of our emotions both positive and negative
sometimes i'm learning how to practice is a bite
truly and completely taking responsibility for our own practice
of course when you come to a practice center they're all sorts of foreign relations and regulations and traditions
but they're only quick setting the stage for each of us
the take complete responsibility for wobbly i

so in the formulation
of medicine
in early buddhism all these teachings come from the early in the case of buddhism formulated somewhere
have like two thousand years ago
so the for forms of nourishment
for human being to the first form of nourishment is very simple it's physical nourishment it's our physical body is nourished
it's food and drink

so when we eat and a practice context
we tried to remember that
this food is to nourish this life
and our life
so i practice asked us to notice what we eat and what we drink and how much we eat and how much we drink
pretty simple admonition
the second form of nourishment is how we nourish our mind
what we take him through the senses
what we look at what we smell what we touch
what we think about
to this also nourishes are being
and then there's two more forms of nourishment which are
a little more complex or sophisticated and
one form is
nourishing
our intentionality a purposeful engagement in our life
in religious terms we would say vow
we might also see living our own truth
for this nourishes are being
and not living around wrong truth
separates us from suffering from something it's separate is
from our own quest

recently i've been reading a lot of psychology because i'm actually gonna start teaching a class on it which is one way you get yourself to read something

and it's very interesting when you look at all the different schools of psychology in the west
will intention wow
don't come up so much
is this not so much attention towards our capacity
to cultivate our commitment to something
the engage purposefully and what we're doing
with this is a capacity that we have
in our practice we intentionally when you restore that and cultivate that

i think for most of his way they we realize it or not when we going to design or into the buddha hall or just come in the building or some place in our own home that be set aside the place of practice
it engages our intention
the in buddhist thinking this is the kind of nourishment
nourishing intention
and in the first kind of nourishment
is nourishing a consciousness

you know what we think what we say what we do
creators it when creators

we nourished by it
for those are the for kinds of nourishment simple food and drink
what we take in through the senses
nourishing our own volition
and nourishing a consciousness through what we think and do and say
what makes the medicine or what makes them boys and

and who is it that administers the medicine and who in it is it that administers the poison

so these are the teachings of early buddhism
i didn't hurt is for you but for me they still seem very relevant in my life
when i study or these modern psychological theories
these teachings seem just as relevant and modern and contemporary

so young men said

medicine and disease so do each other
the whole world is medicine
what is the self
so how does the last part fit in
who is the south

me are in tension