So when you're ready, start by letting this come back to students. I invite you to reestablish yourself in the sitting posture once again. If it's hard to be on the cushions, take a chair. noticing how you even dip down on the chair and the cushion, and then putting all the welding materials or anything else aside, and establishing yourself in a posture that embodies dignity. And let's see if we can simply drop into this moment as it is.

[01:21]

This moment as it is has a huge richness to it. Multiple dimensions. Very, very visible. Now let's continue to become the breath itself. Just starting with the awareness feature, I never asked about just the breath, everything in the Bible, but it's difficult to do in this moment. Because it's supposed to, And without pushing or pulling your breath or having any kind of ideas about it, some of you can just set it into what I like to call wilding the world's everywhere in the building. At your belly, at your nostrils, near your breath sensations, the breath sensations that visit. It's a simple rescue when you do a word of success.

[02:30]

So that rather than doing the draft alone, they're really going to be appending it on it, resolving with that. So you can just really be appending it itself. So that there's simply blue bone. And we don't have to fabricate a blue border in the object. So the subject and the object just letting them do habits of mind, and right now we're going to rest in the present participle, breathing, which is what's actually going on, breathing. So being breathing and the knowing of breathing. And as best you can, never look down on the attention on the breath, or localizing the attention on the breath, but sustaining, letting the attention sustain itself as best you can on the breath, moment by moment by moment.

[03:51]

And then, of course, if the mind does go off, which is certainly the world, then that is noticed. But in a world where this was already back in the middle of the world, you notice him. And you can feature once in a while the breath, some kind of storage, if you like, in the field of the wind, and right up with the nurses in the room. In the sense that when we're in the hospital, we breathe in and out, we breathe in.

[05:31]

as opposed to kind of commentary about the meditation practice comes through and judging or assessing what we're doing. Let's let a lot of that be kind of like coming from the wounds. I mean, we're simply preaching the well-being of the black, the well-being of the blue. So I've bestowed a lot of what I do on UK Friday I curse and I'm truly effortless because bruising has happened over time only. You know, just the bruising and the loving come together. When you feel like it, if you feel like it, when you can almost just start with breathing.

[10:15]

But if you feel like it, we can call it expanding the field of awareness around the breath, to include a sense of the body as a whole, of sitting or breathing. Just the awareness just gets bigger, and now it includes the entire spectrum of sensations associated with the body, sitting and breathing, the entire envelope of the skin, the carriage of the body and throat, the elements associated with breathing, all held in awareness. And with this resting in I've already missed a cell. as to how to control it clearly, because it's here and there.

[11:37]

And if you're able to control it perfectly clearly, through anything, and if you're able to control it clearly in the sense of the notion that it's because that's who you are too. So awareness just gets very, very big. And you can hold the arousing, the lingering, and the person where I live. And you love it. And I love it. But at the best you can, you can't really do it. I'm distracted. I'm a saboteur. Not another cowboy. Open-minded. Mind at my moment.

[12:46]

Woke from this. Back over Pembroke. In our lane. independent of any objects arising. For a world not seen, felt, known, moment by moment by moment, a world pursuing nothing without pushing them away, without judging. without allowing the awareness to be so big, so sky-like, so vast. The learning plan and everything within the body, around the body, within the mind, around the mind, down the mind, is instantaneously seen, felt, known, and learned.

[14:06]

I think the awareness itself has a quite a lot of meaning. Willingness. Spacious. Empty. And utterly, utterly perfect. Perfect. Nothing. moves in the field of awareness without being recognized instinctively, and without thinking, without discursive thought, you know, without clinging, without cloven, without pursuing, and without rejecting. First floor. Closet.

[15:08]

Little films. Just sitting. Nothing more. Moment by moment. By moment. By moment. By moment. And, of course, with my experience in marriage turbulence and strife and straddling, I'm pleased to remember that one feature of the practice of a royal burden is kindness and self-compassion.

[16:47]

And awareness is not something you have to seek. As far as you already have a focus, unfamiliar and unstable, and you find yourself with a very turbulent mind or a very uncomfortable body, you can feature the black center stage in a field of awareness, and a lot of you can ask, you know, Daniel Williams, and lost in the awareness of breathing. I felt an intentionality and an open-hearted presence. And I'll continue opening when I'm back to the battle or to an astral plane or when it's up.

[17:57]

When it's captured or hijacked, by some stroke poet or early World War II in your mind. I have a rather simple question. What do Chinese people like to call the silent illumination? It's the awareness. or original mind essence. Nothing missing. Nothing extra. Nothing personal. Just divinity. the emptiness into us instead, allows for the arousing of anything and everything.

[19:38]

Just as the sky allows for light and darkness Yes. I don't really know if you know what it's like to sit down.

[24:19]

It's all distracting on the back. And also how close though and instantaneous that condition can be. Because the awareness is one of seamless continuity and seamless hope. I'm just feeling whatever I'm not feeling. Feeling what I'm not feeling. couple of girls before lunch when we never have a break for lunch.

[26:06]

We're just going to eat. So don't think of it as a break. Don't think of it as Just the next aspect of your lifetime program, you can bring the same quality of attention that we've been cultivating here to the seeding of the food, to the actual serving of the food to yourself, of the choices that are made in those instances, and the placing of the food and meat. And, in fact, if this winds up doing, essentially, if the first 10 minutes are silent, and then you move up to talking, is that how it really would work? Okay, so the first 10 minutes of the meal will be silent, and then you'll be talking. You know, if talking comes, that's what we call advanced training. Not stop going, but really, you know, training to actually eat and talk, and not miss the meal.

[27:08]

Okay. So, and then to take some time to work on the diabetes, if you like, we're all about to talk about reacting to medication, but let me just give you a little nutshell. Do your body work? And what if you kiss the ground? So it clears the ground. So you're really, really your body walking. You're not in some kind of stylized, subconscious world, but just walking. And the body that is in there is how to walk. So can you get out of your world and just be walking in the same world that we were living, of course, believing what was happening? And that can lead to a very fairy tale. And then you'll have, continually after a year, you'll practice and you'll sort of really bring in a conversation. And this will be amazing how fast the time goes by and the practice and the working that we're doing.

[28:11]

So my suggestion is that You think if we stop at 12.15 and then we can do another one before you do, but that's enough time for us to go all the way down and still have some time to go in the bottom? Because I want to have as much time at the deputy as possible, given that 4 o'clock is going to be low in the room before we do 12. That's the whole symptom of it. I don't know. You have to be diligent. You have to be able to do an infinite number of moments between now and 4 o'clock. An infinite number of moments between now and 4 o'clock. So any number of moments says you have to be loud, no matter how much, how long you're going to be loud. So see if you can do it for a few of them without beating yourself up every once in a while. Because there'll be plenty. So here's the fairy tale. This is long ago, in ancient time, in a kingdom where the king has a very, very beloved only daughter, a princess.

[29:28]

And the queen is never mentioned. The mother is never mentioned in the story, so I apologize in advance. Have you done all that or not? So the two are probably doing the same thing. The parent wanted to please his daughter in other things. And one day, when the daughter was going down the path to bathe in the pond with her attendants, she stubbed her toe on a root that was protruding out of the ground on the path. And she became very vexed. Not quite apoptotic, but the real disease is vexed, which I love. I love this word, vexation and struggling. So you can imagine how much vexation I've seen in my life. When we feel forwarded, things don't go our way. We start to tell. So she got very upset.

[30:30]

And she went through the... king and demanded that he pave the entire kingdom in rubber so that she would no longer have to, in leather, I'm sorry, in leather, so that she would no longer have to, from her tail, she's walking along anywhere. And the king, of course, wants well enough to prove his daughter and everything, and he's about to sort of decree that they're not going to pave over the entire kingdom in leather when the Prime Minister, who's been medicaring your kingdom for a very long time, makes kind of a suggestion, diplomatic interjection. Your Highness, perhaps it might serve our party's better You know, if RAB of N-card, or H-zone, you know, kind of came from RAB, which would have certain significant, significant liabilities associated with RAB, the RAB sort of could cut out some

[31:48]

pieces of leather in the form of the princess's stoop and attached them with adequate thongs to their feet. And then wherever she went, she would have the benefit of leather between herself and the ground, and the rest of us could go about our business. And that is said to be the origin of shoes. And everybody agreed that this was a significant step in the right direction for many reasons. And so the growth was served by the brief insight of the prime minister, who recognized the value of acquiring the remedy at the point of contact. So the toe stabs the ground, and the vexation arises with the stubbornness of the Pope.

[32:53]

So that's where you're going to apply the remedy, rather than the whole kingdom. Apply the remedy to the feet, and then there is protection. When you're so low, you're being mindfulness to the point of contact with the rising of anger, frustration, sadness, grief, sorrow, smiles, taste, touch. You're being mindfulness right there. And then the compaction of vexation, distraction, fabrication is arrested right there, which is always here. We can chop the T off that word. Right here. And then it does not create a continuing stream of stuff that we're going to have to recover from downstream, down the road. Okay? Got it? Okay, so then the practice becomes, when you move around, that the body diverts in a ceiling or in a bassoon.

[34:04]

Why a bassoon can have the ceiling give rise to the senior is free of the intersection of awareness. Otherwise, we won't see. In fact, we won't post that book. We may go into the garden, and we'll be thinking about this, that, and the other thing. Well, you can chat and see when you're in the garden if you are in the garden. Chances are you may not be in the garden. Or you may have a very group of people in there with you, and you learn that you're already in there. mindful as a child, living up as a moment, at the point of contact, with a large open heart of missing generosity. Not forcing, not straining, not fighting, not avoiding yourself, but simply notice the touch. A moment, a moment, a moment, a moment. Not talking about the evening, although that will certainly arrive, but just the evening. As a lot of people like to say, when walking, just walk.

[35:08]

When sitting, just sit. Turns out that the just is a significant indicator. So I'll leave you with a little poem about real times, which I'll conclude that I won't. because of one line that I think is very refreshing. You know, think about, like, Ryokan was like, I guess, 17th century, no, 18th century Japan. And I don't know who knows anything about 18th century Japan. All of the stuff that preoccupied people in 18th century Japan was probably even what they learned of a few Japanese scholars, certainly none less so than Yuno. But everybody knows Ryokan, who was like a hermit who lived in the mountain. And it was really a different method than what we did with Paul at the church, and I don't know, took criticism from everybody.

[36:10]

You can't even remember 200 years later, 300 years later, all that other stuff. And the line in the poem is, we only use it for the goals of men. I don't want that. We only use it for the goals of men. The women, I'm sure, love that too, you know what I'm saying? It was a lot of trouble. My heart lies in the middle of a dense forest. Over here, the green ivy grows longer. Many leaves have been thrown out of the mountain, and every location is soiled with a woodcutter. The sun shines, and I learn my road. When the moon comes out, I will do this promise. I have nothing to regret, my friends. If you want to find the meaning, stop chasing after so many things. I love that. I have not been able to report nothing. If you want to find the meaning, stop chasing after something. Elimination is not simple as that.

[37:14]

Your eyes are already... Your ears are already... And just recall, how many of you chatted the Heart Sutra in the morning, or used to it? Okay, we'll do it here, right, for the time? What are you using? Or just, just one, okay, the Heart Sutra. We'll talk about this more in the afternoon. But, you know, this is like, we're not having a practice. No eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no Bible, no mind. And then it just goes on. Suffering. Suffering. Stopping the path. Stopping the path. Suffering, you know, cessation. Stopping the purpose to the throne of the truth, I believe that. So we're not getting caught up in any of this.

[38:25]

We're resting as best we can right through until we come back around global warming, or warming itself. And we can have lovely conversations You know, that's part of it. So the food there, if you haven't been here before, tends to be quite wonderful. And so see if you can be in touch with it and allow it to help you. And I'm just going to say I'm delighted to be here with you folks. It's really wonderful to be exploring this territory together. And it's also really wonderful because at least we know the data combination here and then some other combination here. And I would love to see what's happening with the generations. So welcome one and welcome all. And so remember, this is not a break.

[39:28]

This is just much more complex practice than just sitting on the back. Okay? Thank you. since we're really talking about an experience that's beyond time and beyond space. What we're doing here, and now, and what could be anywhere, everywhere, in others. You're kind of accustomed to really just dropping in at that time of hour. So you don't think, well, I'll just rev up and get my momentum going in 20 minutes, and that's where I'll show up.

[40:39]

So this meditation will be about three minutes long. We're on the infinite number of minutes in three minutes by the clock. Let's see if you can drop in on yourself. Can you rest in awareness of anything? Can you repeat the melody? Outside of time, outside of space, and even outside of thought. This very real function of the devil is to trap into silence itself a very, very powerful shaper of aloneness, of the quality of your attention.

[41:44]

Don't have a lot of minutes, but I'll clock in a minute. I'll train up my means. Could you handle it? Open in space, just so I know this. and pain, space, and thought. You know, whatever allows us, whatever lingers, whatever persists. And it allows them to learn the language. And then it does the hard thing. I believe it. And I believe that we have to do it. If we want to do it, then we have to do it. If we want to do it, then we have to do it. I can't believe it. I don't believe it.

[45:30]

I don't believe it. [...] as we've been talking about this for 10,000 years. I don't know for which dimensions of this kind of protocol we'll start We are in silence for a time or two. The Mellon Department, we are in the wake of many judging and unfolding of our experience. And when we are talking and listening, we can also collectively be present when we find that there is at least a veil of any ways in which we are being wiped of the judgmental.

[46:30]

So it's possible to have a conversation with a large group of people. And that's the outer counterpart of the meditation, which is you could so a lot of the time just have a conversation with yourself until you drop into your listening and then there's nobody either talking or hearing. It's just, it's just hearing. But that's not only a battle I've pushed and really talked a lot about it. The reason is to mindfully be with other people in the conversation without judging, without condemning. So deep listening, so to speak. And that's very different from the way we usually have conversations. We'll call them discussions, actually. So, okay, now we're going to discuss the meditation practice. I don't think so. Discussion comes from the same root as the words percussion and concussion, which means, actually, if you look it up, to shake environmentally until it comes apart.

[47:46]

That's what discussion means. So let's have a bio lab. I am curious, before we go any further into the afternoon, whether there are any questions or observations about what was at reason this morning that are relevant to the reason for being here in the first place. And I'm also interested in the reason for being here in the first place, if you know what it is. and could still learn from the characters and from the dialogue, because that will help us in some way to shape what we're doing. And also, by giving voice to what's going on with you, you're actually giving us all the opportunity to learn from you. And this is, as I said last night, when we were with you, out of our or at the medical center and the medicine is, you know, we see our patients' miraculous feelings when they walk in the door.

[48:52]

They have miraculous feelings around. It was geniuses. And we have a tendency to ask the most of them rather than the least of them, on the assumption that if you ask a lot of people, you'll get a lot, given if it's not as much as you ask. If you ask a little of people, the most you're going to get is the little that you ask. I mean, what kinds of anguish that bring most of the people we see to the stress reduction clinic really, really require a willingness to just be completely encountering and re-invoicing of what it is that they are carrying and what to suffer and what it is to carry. And we are all carrying a good deal. And I'm also interested in, you know, because I had conversations with a number of people at lunch and it all turned out to be physicians.

[49:55]

How many of you in this room are physicians? Just raise your hands if you don't mind. How many of you work in health professions? Wonderful, wonderful. You're probably aware that mindfulness is moving more and more and more into virtually every aspect of medicine, health care, even surgery, which has its own mindfulness tradition, of course. It's helpful if the surgery is there and, you know, if a cooperation is actually happening and it's your pattern. So anybody have anything that they'd like to share, observe, ask about worse? And again, we're reminded to speak as loud as possible. And how's the time here? Are you having any trouble hearing me? No, okay. So, well, and if you aren't, you can stand up so we'll keep those projects going.

[50:57]

And if you don't, don't. I'm aware that it's very, very... fragile. It's something that can move very quickly in a lot of different directions. So my question is... Awareness. How do you protect it? Same way. How does awareness... How can you sustain awareness under challenging situations? Well, let me ask you a question in return. Challenging situations. And the question is, how can you sustain awareness in challenging situations? What happens in challenging situations as if you don't system awareness? It narrows.

[51:59]

I get caught up in something. And it outcomes. Then the outcomes are narrower. Yeah, my options are few. Okay, so your options are few. So in a sense, that's motivation enough. If you have spent any time with living, what happens when we are less than fully awake in our lives is a very strong motivator for being not fully awake. Now, if you get really a high level of resolution in your awareness so that you can see when what the Tibetans like to call unhearsome factors arise, like anger, hatred, greed, tripping out into some kind of delirious state, bubbles contract the neural which is described. When you begin to watch often enough what that gives rise to in terms of its consequences, unversed actions usually devise the unversed amount of consequences, after that you just get tired of that.

[53:14]

It's actually easier to rest in awareness. or to recover it fast. And you get good at it. Just the way when you go off balance, you recover it fast. I mean, we are actually quite scared of that, even though we don't practice it that much. The older you get, the more your balance can be compromised. I was talking to somebody at lunch about machines that actually help other people or anybody to recover balance more quickly. So this is the, if you will, the right complement to that. You know, it's the more you're thrown off balance, the better, because you'll enjoy the practice. So, in a sense, you don't need to protect the venus. A venus is always available for protecting you. In a certain way, very often when you first start meditating, there's a sense, and it's inevitable, about your meditating. We're doing the practice.

[54:18]

We like to celebrate. I'm doing the practice, you know. After a while, it feels more like the practice is doing you. And then you get no less of a wrap on what you give up, so brushing your teeth. You know, it's that simple. We're only doing a little bit of some helpful thing. It's just like, things go better. Not true. It becomes second nature, but never automatic. It's a way of being, and that's the way I like to put it. Meditation is not a technique, or a collection of techniques. It's a way of being. And it's a way of being about how qualities of transparency, so that we don't take things personally, and we're not caught by a meaning of the mind, know about philosophical ideas of emptiness or nihilism, but we see we're intertwined between form and emptiness, and to navigate in ways that are skillful, and that rather than feature a nervous, evil person, which is a normal part of our human repertoire, it's not just those bad, evil people,

[55:33]

But actually, we can read about it. It took my whole life to use the image of water in the seeds of wholesome-ness. And if you go out on the river and do this, that thing is clever. But I go out on the river and it goes. And what are the consequences of anger, bitterness, resentment, and despotism? And that's like our choice. We can blame the whole world on you. Why we are the way we are. And I sometimes like to say, do you remember when we were younger, those of you who are older? Because I know some of you are too young to remember when you were younger because you were already young. But for those of you who are over, do you remember when you had some idea of how it was going to turn out for you? Remember the efforts that you made to make it happen so that it would turn out? Well, that means for you, it's already turned out. This is it. We've already turned out.

[56:39]

That's a sobering thought. But we often don't realize how deep the dimensionality of our being is, or our genius. We don't recognize it. We don't inhabit it. We don't live in some way. The word rehabilitation is not to re-enable. It's from Abitur in French, which means to inhabit. It's to live inside, learn to live inside again. It's rehabilitation. It's to learn to live inside again. Most of us, for that matter, live inside again. It's very unkind of us. Even if we're totally healthy, we just have that. I want to try to have a warrior in half of the body, have a warrior in half of the senses, have to be free from the minds of what we're going to be trapped in its national notions and fabrications. So that's a role to practice.

[57:46]

It's a lifetime's work. But it's also about, from my point of view, what else is there to do? That also still exists. And in a sense, if you want to live a long life, why would one want to inhabit the longer life with me? the real moments just go by and notice the less reaction in the insomniacal, the shorter our operable. In fact, we measure time as the space between significant or mass non-events. So it seems like, how many of you have experienced every day that time seems to be running faster and faster? Why? Why? Because there are fewer right-hand about events. If you're a milestone event, so it seems like, God, it's been a long time since fill in the blank. But when you're a child, when you're a baby, the milestone events, I mean, you know, just sit and watch a runner roll for a day.

[58:52]

The milestone events are happening moment by moment. Every single runner will move. You think that's any different for you? I don't think so. Except they've been missing them. So if you can now begin to see how many milestone events you have in a story, like a rock in the garden, or the caress of the oil in the skin, or the sound of the birds that are coming to you, and you're really, really full of work, then time expands. And it becomes virtually timeless, like in childhood. It's just that story seems endless. Summer vacation seems endless. For us, some of our patients, we felt, we're not even going, but by the time we get there, we'll have to come back. We started with my brain. So, you know, we were so caught up in thought that the milestone events, like, they're not noticed, and so it seems like, oh, my God, time is going very quickly, because nothing's happened.

[59:57]

about the mirror, what you see. Have you ever gone away to some exotic place for a week and it came back and it sees what you've done for three months? Really? Really? Yeah, why? Because everything is blue. So you can think about, when you go out walking, it's not about sightseeing, okay, and going on location. A lot of times it is about sightseeing. But really, what is sightseeing? It's seeing sights. So instead of sightseeing, if you were to see sights and let them register in you, you'd have like nothing but milestone events. You have a relationship to your body, to nature, to other people. It's like a little grand adventure where we sleep through constantly. Oh, I want something better, so this is not a milestone, a enough of an event. I want a better event. Other comments, questions?

[60:59]

Yes. I grew up in New York City in the 1950s also. And it just so happens that I'm a particularly passionate person at times. How do you like that? I take things personally. OK. And particularly when people make comments about New York, because I for one know that if you put my family in jail before I could plan, I would certainly have to quit. Yeah, there's a genetic complement here, isn't there? It's unfair about the smile. How did that go? Not too relaxing. You can pitch your vote. I'm not doing much of it, but I also know that at the end of a yoga class, or let's say a physical workout, where you get into your body, and you don't have to think very much, because the teacher is leading you, and you're just feeling your body.

[62:30]

At those moments at the end of the yoga class, there's a course called the Kivasana, are incredibly relaxing. And I don't have to worry about the thoughts in my head occasionally, but it's because I'm just so glad that my body pulls. So I'm wondering if there's a difference between relaxation and relaxation. Yes. The way I like to put it is, meditation is not relaxation, but a different one. Okay. So relaxation is a particular state that we consider to be desirable, moving, And that if we don't get there, we are very often frustrated by Matt telling me about some things when I'm trying to do it with the cloud. It's on the table, and it's either something with the tape, or with me, or with the method. So when we get there, it feels great and wonderful. And when we don't get there, it's pleasant. And so we're still at the mercy of causes and conditions.

[63:30]

I mean, when we go the road, well, when we don't go the road, that's the thing. Meditation is about beyond causes and conditions, just matter that's happening, and you do with it as it is. That's the ultimate relaxation. When people come to the stress reduction clinic and they say, I need for me to relax, I say to them, Julie, we're going to teach you how to be so relaxed that it will be okay to be tense. Well, it's just a much, much bigger field. And it's a very ethereal, misunderstood meditation of being some kind of special state. I went into the meditative state, and then my mind is a complete blank. And it's just really completely wrong. I mean, there's not one meditative state. Every mind state is a meditative state if it's having awareness. And every mind state is a higher realm basically, because it's going to eventually lead to suffering. Very, very proximal.

[64:33]

Because if it's a pleasant union, it's going to go. And if it's unpleasant, it's already unpleasant. So... Now, about yoga. Well, at the end of yoga class, you just feel fantastic, and the rain falls away, the body falls away. You saw the tradition of doing the quips pose, right? So why do they play with the quips? Because you're dying. You die. You die to the past. You die to the future. You die to I'm your mind. You could do the quick pose at the beginning of the yoga class. It's not like the yoga is set you up for this great transcendent experience. It's like if you really dive, it's okay. You know, it's like what dives is the attachment to everything and then we're here in the proper moment. So it's not like you have to do a two-hour yoga class to kind of jump there.

[65:38]

It's always right beneath your nose. It's infinitely lower. So I like to say, why not? Why not? Go the way. Seriously. Die to the voice inside you that's never satisfied. By die, it means recognize it and then don't cling to it. As we said, not so easily done, but can you see that that kind of dying is actually being done in a way? It's allowing the present moment to continue to be fresh and new. So then that's really relaxed. because nothing has to happen next. Another cartoon in Hepta Serum was Serum, because it's an America cartoon of Zen Ronks sitting, and one is, well, they're on cushions, of course, and one is a little bit elevated over the other, and that's the older one, and it was the one that I was nervous when just starting out. And the younger one's looking up at the older one, and the older one's obviously talking, and the caption is, nothing happens next, this is it.

[66:45]

So whenever you come to the present moment, whatever you get, you get this. Well, I don't like this. So finally, I need to rearrange the causes and conditions of my life. So I have to write this. That's relaxation. That's what relaxation is trying to do. And usually what happens is relaxation carries with it no systematic sustained awareness or the insight that follows in it. So you can be very relaxed and happy that you're relaxed, but it doesn't carry with it insight. And so when we're in a state of pain or grief or agitation, We may want to be relaxed, but we have no way of dealing with what's actually happening because relaxation is not available to us. But if you embrace the mind states and body states as they are, that you experience right here, you'll be relaxed with grief. You'll be relaxed with anger. It doesn't always feel good, but then if you ask yourself the question, is the awareness actually in a pain?

[67:52]

Did anybody do that since I posed the question? Anybody notice anything about that? In any of the infinite number of moments since I posed it, no? Okay, just off of it again. So it is possible. So does that answer your question adequately? If I were interested in this lifetime, in penetrating to the absolute core of what it meant to be human, I wouldn't be particularly interested in relaxation, but I would be very, very interested in mindfulness. And that doesn't mean that I would be immune to relaxation. I think that there would be a huge, you know, sort of, by the way, relaxation is kind of like a byproduct. When you're so relaxed that it doesn't matter what the causes or conditions are coming after the process, you're being mindfulness to the point of contact where it's pleasant and pleasant and neutral. And right there, the chain doesn't go any further with the ocean. But if it's, like, pleasant, or I love this, and I'm trying to wait for the bacteria, or I don't know how long it's going to last, or if it's unpleasant, oh, my God, how long is this sitting going to last?

[69:05]

Do you know those things? Like, why would I come here? I could be in a happy global class. Or if it's neutral, have I noticed the experience at all? The air around the body? Never noticed it. The tone of my own face? Never noticed it. The genetic, something that we were talking about, that only we know that the particular varieties are a rare family that we could even do in transit and still have all that education. We're particularly known for our development. And everybody's got their own. where there'd be no awareness of that, no awareness of those people. Anything else is like wishful thinking or grasping for some other state, but when you get there, all of a sudden they're all being told, you can only do that happily until you get rid of those. So there is a, and we love the quote on this, because re-Arabism is a complete, incredibly arrogant lapse of what I'm learning from it.

[70:12]

I want to live because I wish to live deliberately to affront all the essential facts of life and see if I could not learn what I've got to teach and not learn how to bow, discover that I have not lived. So that's why it's good to practice the corpse pose, or the mass, you know, a lot. And just to say, I'm a big advocate of lying down meditation. There are four classes of passages for practicing meditation. Third class of postures for practicing meditation in Buddhist tradition were sitting, standing, walking, and lying down. And you'll see statues of them reclining below. So there's an awful lot of practice that can be done in your bed, lying down. And since you usually wind up in your bed every 24 hours, the time between going into deep sleep and the time coming out of deep sleep before your feet touch the floor, you can extend out a little so I don't have time to meditate. No sense. How about being in your body just for those moments? And just as they are.

[71:14]

We're very often, we're in the bathroom before we know that we got out of bed. And we're already anxious. Thinking about the body. When you're in the shower, you can check and see if you're in the shower, because usually you might be. Or you'll have your very morning o'clock meeting in the room with you. When we've missed the water and the storm, we've missed the whole experience. So it doesn't have to be sitting, you know. But by now, you know, we're in the rush. There's something in the symposium that's very important. Okay? My brother died a few months ago

[72:15]

Right. [...] Can anybody else relate to this? Oh, there will be times like that. And if it's not one thing, it's another. So, to me, it's yours. Have you ever taken care of anybody close to you who has Alzheimer's or dementia?

[73:25]

Do you ever do the math of somebody dying? Do you realize we all die? And someone's going to do it back to me? Every single one of us. So what you're going through is just part of the human condition, and it's like, well, if you don't want to do what someone else will be doing, then we'll do it without us because it's yours to do. And so you can notice how much you'd like it to be over. And now, well, then finally comes, I mean, how could you have done it without what you brought home, since you are what we're going through now? And just, it's never convenient. It's always just the way it is. But, so there's a certain resistance to, well, the variables. And we've ended up through it and over it. And there's nothing wrong with that, so just be aware that that's part of the landscape, is that those thoughts, that aversive feeling, like I want to go on with my life, I'll be through it and looking up.

[74:30]

And in that instance, you still have to deal with it. Just drop into, when it's over, it will be over. And if you don't know it, else is going to appear. Because every moment, something else could appear. You say, well, I've had it before. Now I'd just like it to be the way it used to be. Because I didn't count on this. I wanted something else. Have you had that experience? And if two or three of those things happen, then you'll be able to think that God has a thing to do. And we will never be happy again. And the real challenge of this practice is to consider the possibility that happiness isn't some other time in some other place. Well, it just isn't. That's one of the fictions, one of the that we tell ourselves. But this is it, and can we actually be happy doing this, or not forget the full dimensionality of our being?

[75:39]

And probably some of you already know that when the Vietnam War was going on and Thich Nhat Hanh was responsible for various monstroses in Vietnam, he used to remind the monks when they were carrying their bodies to the China grounds or the cemetery to be sure to seeing the flowers of the new side of the world. And not just really, because, well, we're in the old degree. Don't miss the flowers. Don't forget the grief, but don't miss the flowers. It's like that now, I'm sure. Well, we tend to just see, well, I've got a problem, and when this problem's over, then everything will be okay. But the problem is the fabrication. It's just what is in the aftermath of what happened. You know, you put one foot in front of the other, and that adds up throughout. The challenge was, can you do that for it? And then, well, what's going to be here for it?

[76:41]

Because there is no doubt. Now, we said this is what we had. The other day, well, in the interest of full disclosure, you know, when you go to see the doctor, you have to sign an informed consent. I apologize. It's very irresponsible of me. But the informed consent lawyers are the most foolish folk. This is the hardest work in the world. To be awake, to come to your senses, It's simple, but it's not easy. It's the hardest work in the world. Why? Because there's so many conditions, like I'm not a pilot and obsessed about the future or the past or just the difficulties of seeing things when there's a certain constraint in front of me. So when you see the shadow and you don't see the light. So the train, everything, everything, everything, every moment becomes an opportunity for me. And the mind will tell you this is going to go on forever.

[77:43]

It may not. It will do everything before you know it. So the challenge is to actually be in it and let it do you. Let it learn from it. Let it shape you. And let the grief shape you. Do you know this plan by Antonio Machado, the great Spanish poet of the turn of the 21st century? It will really be a grief poem called, well it doesn't have any, it's just one of our first lines, it goes like this. But very little time, very little time, called him I saw with the mirror of jasmine. In exchange for the order of Melchizedek, I would like all the order of your elders. I believe it is in this condition for us to pass up.

[78:44]

It's not some exchange. It's asking from exchange. In exchange for the order of Melchizedek, I would like the order of your elders. I have no elders. All the flowers and makeup and blood. Well, why not take the wooded petals and the well-oiled leaves and the waddles and the fountains? And he really laughed, and I laughed, and I said to myself, what have you done with the government that was entrusted to you? Now, being a mindfulness practitioner, let's put it in the present tense, not the past tense. And so it would be, what are you going to do with the governments that are entrusted to us? So, name a few. What are some of the gardens that are entrusted to you? Body. Yeah. Anybody disagree with that?

[79:45]

I mean, that's a pretty amazing garden out there, right? You think an eclipse is this? This is an amazing universe for it. So are the body. What else? Okay. Consciousness. That's all. We need to be pandered like a garden. Nourish the mind. Mind. Our children. Our children. So like we didn't have the word kindergarten. Kinder means children. Kindergarten. What did you say back there? Our community. Our community. Yeah. It's a garden that can be nourished and fertilized and pandered. Yeah. Hurt feelings, yeah. We are a very particular species of plant, flowers in the garden. Why hurt feelings? Why are we here in this bed? We're a special bed for hurt feelings, a various bed, you know.

[80:47]

And we should embrace them. Why? Because they're already here. So, because they're already here, we'll just welcome them. Yes, but I see some other things, gardens, yeah. Yeah, capacity for listening and for giving birth. Yeah. Those are tremendous gardens to be nurtured. Yeah. I work, yes. I'm going to be courageous enough to say it. If you're not completely, utterly alienated from your work, yeah, you're a blessing. We have something... that allows us to transmit our energy to the outer world in ways that may be beneficial to other people or contributes to something larger than ourselves. I do. Yeah.

[81:49]

The planet, yeah. The ultimate carbon. The ultimate carbon. Ah. Yeah. So we're all a unicorn. We're a rebel. and to recognize that and that not everybody has that opportunity. So to honor. And you know, even the word blessing, just to point this out, because I think language and words are very important, the word blessing comes from the French word blessure, which means moved. So blessings are not entirely just while the dog happy. Sometimes there is an element of unity associated with the person. How do I get this person? But we'll be wicked. Any other comments or questions about what's come this morning or what brought you here that needs clarifying?

[82:55]

Yes. I feel embarrassed to expose myself. Um... When I first came in here today, I was extremely motivated, had gone through a lot of trouble to come here, sat there, was doing well with, I think, settling into meditation, I slowly became aware of feeling pain. And perhaps this is a question for the physicians and the audience, but it didn't go away. And so I went back and again, and that didn't happen.

[83:58]

But I mean, the main thing is that I was really wanting to do the experience, but it seemed like somehow my body was rejecting it. Well, first of all, thank you for sharing that with us. And is this your first experience of another plume and another potion, frankly? No, I've done more than that. You know, it's an interpretation that your body was saying, you know, well, so to speak. Who knows what that is from? It's just, you know, you did the right thing on the right moment, changed your posture, and as you say, it passed. So that's how you write most moments. Okay?

[85:00]

So these things happen all the time. Well, it's not like a patient is going to come and have some great thing happen, and we rearrange your life to make it happen. And some great thing doesn't happen. All right? That's great. The experience that you get is the experience that you get. It's not about, like, if you only believe it right. But it helps some kind of epiphany. And the scares would fall from your eyes and yours, and everything would just be like, wow, knock your socks off. This meditation stuff is really... It's not about any kind of experience. It's about being awake to experience, and there's a huge difference. So in that sense, there's no problem that, you know, you fall faint. We'll need to do all sorts of explanations for that, none of which you need to go into, but it arose, you noticed it, you responded to it, you embraced it, it passed, and you don't have to give yourself a hard time about it or interpret it like, oh, this isn't for me.

[86:02]

or anything like that. It's just like, oh, something arose, lingered past the world, and you appear for it, and actually act appropriately. Rather than tough it out, and I just, you know, rearrange my life to come here, and I'm going to just faint in my chair, but I'm not going to lie down. You know, sort of a macho meditator. Not necessarily. This is like... So, our deep penalty, both for the courage to say that, and, you know, actually, I don't think that's in my book. I wouldn't call that exposing myself. You know, it's just sharing one moment of what unfolded. I mean, it's really not even personal. I mean, it's just what happened. You can take it personally, but it's just, that's what happens when you have a body. and you have a mind, or sometimes they're at cross-purposes. That's all. The easiest way to exert that is to reach all of the nexus.

[87:12]

There you go. Do you want a second opinion? They're available. Thank you. Thank you. That's fantastic. This is like community, you know, like something that you could, you know, you could go home and tell yourself a big story. I almost got to meditate, but this happened, you know. So that was like it. Contact, at the point of contact, where the room is to it, it's now over, and you don't need to create any story about it. And now we're here, in this moment. And we'll still have that afternoon in front of us. Infinite number of new moments. Fresh. Completely fresh. Yes. One of the reasons I came today is the title of God and Christ is a kind of an analogy. It was hoping to find The way to access a branch, to find mindfulness as a living practice and a concept, or the absolute joy I feel, and you're indulging in the joyfulness of getting experiences and the aversion I have to sitting meditation, your idea of Zen and the austerity of the walls and turning inward,

[88:55]

I feel much added to my pregnancy.

[88:59]

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