April 20th, 2002, Serial No. 03948

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and
because i was here last week so you ever to people in a row in a week now i'm not supposed to be here
but i am so as to be here because here i am right
so i'm to persevere
this is the truth of what we call acknowledging the present moment okay in here ridiculous if i kept saying i'm not supposed to be here and actually thought that that was the case that that was real i'm really not the real truth of it is i'm not supposed to be here
you see how ridiculous that is if i held onto that i did it would cause me set to profound suffering
i'm not about to be here and i'm right i really am not supposed to be somebody else or the most of the here this is wrong
that's true you know in one way that course that's true but the truth is i am supposed to be here of course here i am right so bear in it
and i used my name is tier still right as it was last week right
but i am not the same person
i'm not
i am a front of a week closer presumably if my death is going to be any time when it's you know and who knows when they have going to me but not like tomorrow
whatever it is i'm a week cause and kid
so anyway
completely distracting especially with it a baby of the breastfeeding
in total bliss when we just holding babies and second
why not
so let's see i was going home about something serious how could that be but you know luckily i have art at the end so i'll leave you with something really pretty will cause them some of rail cars writings on it says on and a nephew
ah
yeah mine
but in the middle will talk about a little bit about the four noble truths because i couldn't think of any thing to think about this weekend this weekend had a miserable week we can have this type bill a bit more personal
every so often eight i have this kind of energy that really is dangerous energy and i really know about it and i in a certain kind of way you know i i i don't exactly like it when it's there but it's an old habit pattern and i it's a very kind of angular energy and it's kind of i i am
i used to i don't even know if i used to enjoy it exactly but i i i i am a yea
so i used to let's see if i used to anyway it's easy for me let me put it this way it's easy for me to hurt people when i had this kind of energy it's kind of as a slightly aggressive and a little bit speedy and it's kind of dismissive and it's air again to somewhat arrogant
and i just hate it when it in this way but it's like it like and this morning i woke up and that's how i felt something just came together in and that's how it was and so
i go around usually when i'm feeling like this i do end up hurting people in so i spend a week sweeping up my karma
i do so i apologize to paypal and i feel bad and i'm embarrassed and people say you know mean things about me and i hate them for it

so i've been doing it this last week that this last
week and a little bit i've been doing it so if i've heard anybody during this time or acted like it i can like i described
i'm sorry
what was a good time at what time is it we almost done probably
yeah because i didn't say something i was really heartfelt to last week and still even this week as i'm still kind of involved with it and i i thought actually they would be fewer of you here today because there is at peace march happening today i think today's a twentieth
there's peace walks all over united states today a hope a really big one in washington and this one walking from dolores park to the civic center today and i hope it is like i said last week you know not divisive but neutral in its presentation i really really hope that and so i
thought maybe we i can't go until one thirty nine time to walk on and see if anything's left that time anyway
ah
so
huh what does this person's name i'm having a relationship with him her name's mary flannery flannery call him when he called an efficient plenary can a quick to save can plenary qaeda's little say hello the she year we help oh another one
the
when am i the first one in the month sent me oh heavens i shouldn't say something
hey
to the parents oh pam
enjoy your baby's has that
enjoy it as long as you can and innocent and plane had hit something for the parents okay please take the love that you feel okay for your kids and please don't make it exclusive try to really be contact with that feeling and see if you think you can incur
blue totally other kids you know and then if he can't get it to adults have a be great and animals and then ultimately because you guys really are in touch so you should you know if you make it exclusive in it's that old dualistic thing it doesn't help right but if you make it have try to make it nonetheless
thick and it actually we need lots to love in the world
that's my dharma talk for today
oh that's it now goes live go to the dining room
and she's great

oh we have a daddy to
daddy the same thing goes for you
the
the
what's the date today twentieth and the first of the che and when
oh because it's the third saturday of the month that's right
for this time it was given me the third set a month and next time in a minute first and i think that's it
is that right up another day
meditation for children starting early okay
right
hands
time is it
can aid earth day
oh then i have to say this anything
parents forgive me okay this is the other side how i feel about parenting
this is earth day to day and in my opinion is just my opinion so you can take it with a grain of salt but in my opinion a lot of the problems that we have in every way about what's happening to the earth and how people are
relating with people in and so forth and not enough whatever it is anyway whatever your pet problem is i really do feel that a lot of it has to do with how many just plain old numbers you know how many people we have on earth so
for the earth and for all the be little beings and a big beings and us on the earth people would consider
carefully when they you know please if you want to have a child really want to have that child and if you have one than really consider the millions of children already here who don't have love okay you don't have any by a teacher and i think if we can connect somehow
how many people are already here with all of those kids already who need help and connect that and i think that will be really helpful
that's my two cents about that said this is my talk today when i'm i'm trying i'm dana

i was going to
kind of get into this smoothly but i'm losing time here and maybe i just conquered into the middle of it

where start
i'll start with a story
last night i have a foster son in law on someone of their faces going to come to my talk
and
last night he went out last night and he looked really good and he is wearing these gray pants and a kind of a nice can a cream colored sweater and he put on this coat that it got from the good will it zen center which was a big long white kind of cream colored actually coat the inside as red lining has a really red lining is very one
on
and the thing it made the off it was that he put on these enormous boots with you know like seven buckles on each boot big thick boots and he was ready to go out you know it was excited by a little money got to the door and then could we take off our shoes when we come into the house and so he had to pay
course i guess everybody takes her
does everybody know
say we take up my shoes and walk around the house so he had to put on his boots and of course he was like halfway out to his friends and i stood there were they say goodbye to him of course and i stood there watching him put on his boots and because he was just massively frustrating
in and know getting more and more right because they're he was wanting to go out and still you know one buckle and of to buckles three of and so i was watching somebody who
instead of really being present and enjoying the process of putting on his boots and being there for his life he was completely frustrated because actually he was three quarters out the door
so for me he teaches me all the time like if he embodies you know if the other day we were in the half i get mad at him
i don't remember what it was for anyway and when i got mad at him he he doesn't respond when i get mad and it was terrific for me because my family yes to respond and there we were
so that is one
so he was there and it was kind of and in my my frustrated kind of voice energetic voice and he was standing by his desk and angus to his side over here and then very quietly said you know doesn't work getting angry very quiet really quiet and i really i heard it in here everything is is i thought
yeah you're right doesn't work at all so i left
he does get on with energy paid for me
our it so let's kick it into his talk
some interesting it is as you know what i wanted to do okay let me tell you what what i wanted to do i wanted to tell you first of all that meditation is really important i tell you that all the time i told him to last week and mentality and has week volatility if i time again and you can't do that how many people who are completely new and don't
meditate you know
okay
okay and for those of you who do meditate please feel encouraged by my saying this you can't really understand anything if you don't sit and sitting the reason is because sittings is the only way that's easiest to actually stop the
what can i be a usual involvement that we have with conceptual what conceptual a karmic mind it's the easiest way to actually stop and watch what's happening in the mind rather than being caught by it
so i was gonna give you this morning the three
people i talked about last time a little bit bush arafat and sharon and the interesting part of these three people to me lately is i've been watching them recreate their selves and because they are you know because it's delusive and how they're doing it and because they have power
our their delusion is just exactly the same as our delusion i'm not making a comment saying that they are worse than we are we join them in their madness right and we are dangerously mad rush that dive
and
but they have power they have power and they are actually acting out
on the backs they're not daily anyway let me just say it this way for starts we can see how they constantly self and other and hold onto those ideas confirm those ideas over and over again and because they're in leadership positions helped to have certainly exacerbate the situation
so in meditation if we sit there and not hold to the content of our mind of our karmic mind we can actually give these conditioned thoughts a chance to actually release their energy their karmic energy and their gas
maps and begin to appear and you can begin to see if i may suggest the emptiness or the transparency or the on grasp ability of what we can call emotion thought
so because this is such an important thing and because i talked last week i thought this week i would just go over them basic
the basics with you basically the point in a certain kind of way of all spiritual practice is to you can say either deconstruct or dissolve the sense of separation or you can call it expanding their self to include everything either way what we're doing is we're try
trying to see through our habit way of recreating self and other
and it's a very very clear process and and buddhism happens to be as up as a tall gray clearly about it so i thought i would just kind of go over the basics
so course the first thing that happens is we believe the emotion sites that happen in us that's the way and usually everybody walking around his living their life basically unconscious and asleep just reacting from the habit energy of thought emotion thought
something happens it comes in if a registered it in a certain kind of way before or you find something in your path your mind is it's really quickly and your past that fits with a little bit it comes out with the idea of what's happening or you know or an energetic response to what's happening and
little right away there's a constellation other and a constantly and you and then you just go blah whatever it is
the first step and spiritual practice is to take responsibility instead of blaming which is a very powerless place to be in and a place that create create and recreate conflict in the world and up this was happening in the middle ages everybody else's fault
why they can't stop bombing each other back and forth
blaming in our personal relationships is a very powerless position because you have nothing to do somebody else is doing everything in your the victim or your the what it recipient anyway
so the first step in spiritual practice is to actually get that how you respond is totally your responsibility
completely or responsibly i don't want to go into the details but
if you haven't gotten this far that's what you need to look at right away how you respond to anything is your responsibility
that's the first part
the second part is if you take responsibility and you're committed to staying present what happens is it began to say that you don't have to grab onto these habit karmic reactive emotions thoughts that come up in you and then what happens then begins to be a little space between you and
that automatic response and you can begin to shape patterns of behavior and patterns of thought and you begin to say especially it is a very is what meditation is really good for because nothing is happening around you and all of sudden know there you are thinking the same kind of habitual habit pattern hundred
hundreds of times you know it gets really boring and boring as a good moment when you finally are tired of listening to them over and over and over again and you just kind of bored stiff with them and he just finally let them go by instead of grabbing on niches and real step boredom is a good step in the process of spiritual
development
i wanna say that this process of really looking at your patterns is kind of it glos really level this whole thing but it takes really a long time to work through because we have a lot of resistance letting go of the first level of defense of the ego
which this is a lot of trouble with it first of all because in the first stages of it you believe it it's real hard not to believe your basic fall back pattern of survival and that's what this stuff is and then after you do it for a while another difficulty comes in when you say
say you know i've built yourself it took me a really long time it really has helped me survive i am not letting it go that's a real moment to real moment when you finally understand that the whole thing is changing there's nothing to grasp it's useless and painful when you do it in my
might as well let it go and then this little boy's comes up and you and says absolutely not
and so is can interesting to hear yourself say that even though it causes and you know it by this time last of suffering
but at some point we really do see through
the this kind of level of ego building rebuilding and creating
and i suppose at that level you can say that this is an experience of no so because you see clearly that there is nobody in their running the show this was just patterns and habit patterns that come up
so that's kind of interesting because then you spend the time you're resting now and the awareness of this stuff rather than the content of your emotion thought but you know that that's what you're doing so who's that
right is that one has the knower of other stuff
cause the watcher of all this stuff
am i losing some of you know we want to sell as well as you said after it
is this washer person back there or the knower of all this stuff and that to we identify with quit and we we say that me to thought okay awareness is me
and of course ultimately it is not you can have awareness without identifying that as you period it's just awareness happening nothing you don't have to identify with him so very important step
i think eventually although it's not my experience that there is such a thing because i've read it in in the sutures and still and but the buddha says that the pin or whatever of the creation of the sense of self really eventually does break away and then people walk around with truly with no feeling of separate
national though the form world definitely as here and distinctions or discriminations are still there but then what happens is and i spend all of this stuff can happen you know all along it's not like it's bung bung bung bung bung but what happens is you begin then to not so much identify
with me as the center of the universe anymore
whenever this is what we do whenever you're walking through the world and everything that happens in relate to you
something happens and it's about you you're always we're always self referencing how does that relate to me how does it affect me who am i in this situation had a people think about me you do some kind of neutral activity and right away you're creating a story about it so you can tell somebody what happened to you
right
so usually what happens is everything is like pointing to me me me me me me but this as you begin to loosen up this this image of self then you no longer have to have this me as a reference for for whatever you do you're just walking around participating and in life
with everybody else and so very naturally at that stage what happens is you want to bet live to benefit all beings you want to be there to help people because you're not so preoccupied with yourself all the time
three obviously freeing
kind of there's space there there's a lot of its space and joy ultimately because out when when you you can you can't we can experiences like when you're creating that's why i bought go with me oh darn now i'm really getting into when you creating something there is not self there
when you're truly creating there is not so
and there's joy
there's space for joy to come up with a national part of all of us

so i think i think we really have a chance as people who are kind of interested in the must be at the ways you wouldn't bear to doing this kind of work and it's work you have to kind of slog through it you have to pay your dues on the cushion you have to actually do the work it doesn't happen
by itself you have to first understand the don't the teachings
you have to kind of really want to understand the teachings and then yeah this is the important part you have to want to practice it you have to want to put them in your life
you have to want to be present you have to want to renounce barriers between whenever a barrier comes up arrogance i'm better than that other person i'm smarter than and and i'm prettier than the other person i know more than that of the person whatever it is or you know i'm less than the other person i met as good as the other party
i'm uglier than the other person like whatever it is and whatever barrier comes up between you and even a flower any concept as a barrier okay you renounce over and over and over again that's that's the commitment to practice
and you have to on your own find whatever motivation you can muster to keep to simply keep going and keep doing that
and then out of that being present and continually
digesting and embodying as best as we can our understanding all along the way there are little realizations and hopefully some big realizations that also get put back into your practice and embodied in your understanding and in your behavior of how you live your daily life this is a spiritual life
and said it means to have to be committed to spirituality and to now that this is how you're going to live
so i brought i want to meet this free

so a really good motivation for doing this is to is to completely pay attention to when you suffer
and i don't mean just
you know regular old regular kind of suffering like owl you know my arm is broken or i just lost a relationship or whatever not having just not having what you want is suffering or having what you don't want is suffering but i mean really the kind i sail out when you go to bed just before
for night you can allowing there and kind of drifting off and then the thought comes up like you know
just not quite enough life just not quite enough i have everything i wanted to have my list is kind of happening or done
you know i'm not distracted right now by my new relationship or kinsey manner you know whatever your latest job is but just my life all by itself is it enough just the way it is just the way it is well buddhist
he says if you're really listened carefully enough and category cause it's thirsting desire there's it and it's a natural thing because of separation
we have just a little feeling of it's not why
good enough not quite enough it's just slightly dissatisfied this is pervasive this is the suffering that that
the boot is addressing so paying attention to your suffering is a terrific motivation because if you're really face to face with it all the time and you're tired of it you will do these you will practice
and buddha
sidharth the gautama just a regular guy you know
a religious genius but a regular guy in all other respects a regular guy he must have been great to know anna
basically what he studied was suffering and what he taught when he awoke was what suffering is and the end of it how to get to the end of suffering turns out the way you do that is to dissolve the ego the sense of separation k but that's what he taught suffering
and the end of suffering and this is his first
this is the first
talk
the first part of the talk is about
not holding two extremes but we can just say not holding to any ideas not holding two points of view that's the first part and the second part he presents the four noble truths so i will read them

monks or i can consider us on lungs right now okay your air monks your own monks sitting in a hall listening to the dharma listening to his words sidharth his words it's hot here in india it's really hot kind of
humid you're wearing few close the air as can you can feel the air sweet on your skin is a very fragrant
ha situation with lots of tropical like you know human type flowers around
and here comes this guy who just woke up
just woke up and he's full of light and ah presence
and joy
and he wants to go tell his friends were just happened to him
is it cause he saw the suffering in the world he wants to teach hasn't have to take it just enjoy his state and he wanted to but it doesn't he comes back into the world to look for him he looked he walked a hundred and fifty miles to find
five of his friends that he started out studying with
hey
at first they thought they didn't like the guy because he had left him before but when they saw his countenance they thought and or something happened here let's listen
and this is what he said
monks there is this noble truth about dissatisfaction
aging is hard dying is also hard to bear sorrow lamentation pain grief and despair or all painful
association with what you dislike is unpleasant being apart from what a like is unpleasant not getting what you want is unpleasant in brief the five grasped aggregates are unsatisfactory
monks there is this noble truth of the origin of suffering it is grasping which gives rise to fresh birth bound up with relish and passion running here and they're delighting in this and that in other words since desire
desire for existing and desire for extinction or merging
but monks there is the noble truth of the cessation of suffering is the complete fading away and cessation of grasping
it's abandonment and relinquishment
the freedom from and discarding of grasping
monks there is the noble truth of the way leading to the cessation of suffering it is the noble eightfold path namely right view
right intention
right speech
right action
right livelihood right effort right mindfulness
and right samadhi

thus spoke the blessed one and the group of five of his friends were gladdened and they approved of his words now well this discourse was being delivered the untarnished and clear insight into dama arose in the venerable
ladonna thus
whatever has the nature to arise has the nature to cease therefore you might as well not grasp it because it'll be suffering

when said hearts a saw that cardona understood
the bless had one uttered the great exclamation
truly it is the good container who has understood it is the good gun donna who has understood
he was happy it made him happy script
this it was that the name of the venerable condone it became on a container can donna who understands and of course i skipped around but the whole thing is only like a page and a half so if you're interested in reading the whole thing there's plenty places you can find it and also the eightfold path is
is
you know lots of come to i think the dalai lama just came out with a book on four noble truths so if you're interested in going into it more deeply he can do that
but i wanted to take some time to read little bit from rocha
because you know just like i was noticing when juan was
hurrying to tie his boot buckles
he was grasping after the future
and just as the buddha recommend not grasping future or past
the place of a growth spiritual world is in the present moment
completely in the present moment which kind of is the truth anyway it's just now now now now now all the time and this is where art is created from so i thought i'd reach a little bit about what it's like to be present from the point of view of an extraordinary poet
and eventually talking about am an extraordinary artist
this is just how he experiences
never have i been so touched and almost gripped by the sight of heather as the other day when i found these three branches in your deere letter
since then they are lying in my book of images penetrating it with their strong and serious smell which is really adjust the fragrance of autumn earth
but how glorious it is this fragrance
at no other time it seems to me does the earth let itself be inhaled in one smell the ripe earth and a smell that is in no way inferior to the smell of the see bitter where it borders on taste and more than honey sweet where you feel it is close to touching the first
sounds
containing depth within itself darkness something of the grave almost and yet again wind tar and turpentine and on say
serious and poor like a smell of a begging monk and yet again hardy
and so in sunshine chopper
i'm gonna raise you three short parts

the good conscious of these reds is talking about suzanne these blues they're simple truthfulness it educates you and if you stand beneath them as accepting the as possible it's as if they were doing something for you you'll notice a little more clearly each time how now
necessary it was to go beyond love also it's natural after all to love each of these things as one makes it but if one shows this one makes it less well one judges it instead of saying it one ceases to be impart
show and the very best love stays outside the work and does not enter it it is left aside untranslated
that's how the painting of sentiments came about
they'd paint i love this instead of painting here it is
jonathan it's great this it'll last one

we compute the years and divide them here and there and stop and begin and hesitate between both but how of one piece is everything we encounter how related one thing is to the next how it gives birth to itself and grows up and as educated in its own name
your and all we basically have to do is be but simply earnestly the way they earth simply is and gives her consent to the seasons bright and dark and hole in space not asking to rest upon
anything other than the net of influences and forces in which the stars feel secure
so this is our lives as interconnectedness
and this presents this is day to day eternal now
and it's in that that we can touch a little taste of the mystery that has beyond conceptualisation we can't thank god we can't know it
you know it said we are by nature concepts and by by their nature are limiting they cut things that so it's simply beyond concepts that we can know this and all of us do
it's just a matter of paying attention to it
preferring it over misery

so that's my talk today and i hope you guys go out and enjoy the earth day and also maybe the peace march and you know the ocean view know
whatever it is the intuited a that you just let yourself give yourself the gift you know
just for a while really
i'm saying yes
to this