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good morning

there's some my verse but i can't quite remember that a craziness of going out and the sun
i worked in the heat in summer shale yesterday and had their what i suppose as some kind of mild form of sunstroke sell
in the interests of supporting the car pooling effort here and not driving unnecessarily since i live a short walk from here and we walked up this morning sun shade and all the time i got here i that i can
pass out
so i
please forgive me for being a little laugh at i met this morning
i think are those of us who live here and the coast our weekends when it comes to the sand
i am anyway
there's a verse where shall i use as a dedication worse at the end of any time of doing various practices
and it is a form of reciting er citing what are called the for a loss
a measurable because these are the qualities which are boundless are limitless
both in effect for oneself and for the benefit to bangladesh less numbers of things
and the verse is the truth and virtue of this practice or these practices may all beings have happiness and the cause s of happiness so this is the first immeasurable known as matter or loving kindness
may all beings
be free from suffering and the causes of suffering so this is the immeasurable known as corona or compassion
may all never be separate from that sacred happiness which is devoid of suffering so this is the quality known as a pecker or at next case me moody top or joy
and the fourth line goes may all never be separate excuse me i said that one may all live in equanimity
without too much attachment or a too much version
equinor many opa
these are the qualities which are essential are critical
and the cultivation of bodhicitta at is this capacity that we aspire to seeking enlightenment for the benefit of all things
every time we here at green gulch or site before about we are re stating our commitment to the bodhisattva vow
bodhicitta
i would this morning like to talk about the cultivation of equanimity but
and doing that i want to actually reference the specific
influence if you will and cultivating loving kindness compassion and joy as leading to equanimity

few weeks ago maybe a month ago a friend of mine who is a dharma teacher
in a pot of upasana
tradition
sent me four letters which had come to him i'm not sure how but they were written by a young man who had been a practitioner at a big send center in the east
and who when one of the senior
teachers in that center left to form another center he went with her
so he was writing these two letters out of his experience in two different but overlapping and related sagas or practice communities
very interesting letters and provocative and relevant to what i want to bring up for us to consider this morning
he spoke quite interestingly and in my experience powerfully in that he was speaking from his own experience and not afraid to describe specific situations with specific people
hard to do in buddhist communities may be hard to do on all kinds of human communities
to name names and site instances which have led to some difficulty in one's practice
but what he brought up for consideration was the tendency to idealize a practice center a community of practitioners ones teacher
and how when we do that how when we do that kind of idealizing so that it blocks us from being able to see things as they are we begin editing ourselves we begin editing
particularly with reference to what arises especially in our meditation practices
which may be unpleasant or unhappy material i don't do that i don't do greed or i don't do envy
i don't do fear
and how the minute we begin editing whatever arises that process of editing which is one of the potential hazards of over idealizing a situation
can lead to a kind of obstacle in our practice because we then begin to do what we think we ought to be doing and not doing what we need to do in the moment and i think that this line about cultivating equanimity without too much version or too much attachment is very here
useful instance of what i want to bring up for our consideration this morning
because it is of course what we are possessive about what we are attached to what we cling to that to is usually very troublesome leads to a lot of suffering
and also that which we respond to with a version
yeah go away
both out in the world and what arises within us and our own mind stream

the curious thing about the four letters is that the a person who was the author of these letters complaining about this tendency towards idealization was arguing that there is a place in the way buddhism is being practiced in the united states for some healthy and wholesome regard for
our therapeutic work psychological work as a way of working with some of the
dark unhappy stuff that arises in line string
and ironically the author idealized in psychology and very much the way he's complaining about people idealizing
buddhism
but down
we all have our blind sides and i found the letters provocative anyway
i would like to tell you the story of someone that i know quite well a dear friend someone that i've been practicing with for a few years as an example of what i think
the cultivation of the for measurables can lead to
this is for me a story about liberation from suffering
but where the external forms of the path at this person has followed
don't necessarily look like what we call having a practice
my friend has hand for most of her life
the obstacles in the cultivation of
loving kindness and compassion and joy and equanimity
a bare almost lifetime habits of
self loathing
judgment about just about everything but particularly about herself
fairy practiced at editing
and for something like twenty seven years are very
intense
pattern of eating disorders among other things
so about
a year and a half or two years ago
she began to work with noticing instances of judgment
which was initially i think frightening and appalling to her
she then began to practice the cultivation of of loving kindness specifically with herself
and took on the practice of speaking kindly to herself and to others
and she just stayed with that for about a year and a half
all the while saying but i'm not really practicing because i'm not doing sitting practice very much but i'm doing doesn't count
as she began to have some access to some of the underbelly of her acting harmfully to herself sitting meditation became
not only difficult but inappropriate for her to do so she has done a lot of walking meditation but somehow that's not quite as legitimate in her mind real practice is cross legged sitting at five in the morning with everybody else
so part of our on ongoing conversation has been a little argument about whether what she does is what we call practice or just some lazy
almost heretical side event
and she's had of course fundamentally great doubt about
is this really following the buddhist way
but of course the consequences of the cultivation of loving kindness in kind speaking
was very quickly so apparent to her that she was willing to stay with
honing and attending to those qualities of response as much as possible
and slowly over the last year and a half or so
there has been a softening and a lessening of judging and self loathing
and she has been able to do increasingly more attending to physical body sensation and breath as she understands it from having been doing zazen for a while even though she hasn't been sitting very much for a couple of yeah
they understood that
the specific detail of body sensation and breath was a place she could always return to
so she gradually began to be able to practice mindful awareness in many different situations
i saw my friend for the first time since january a little while ago
although we speak every week i haven't seen her for these months
and as i listened to her the other day and saw her looking very well
looking very well
she's gained some weight and she has some color and she has some softness and sweetness which i know his her deepest capacity
but what was most wonderful was that she also can see that her sweetness is her deepest capacity
and she no longer doubts that what she is doing is so called real practice
and that one day she will be able to do cross like it's sitting meditation again but not for a while
one of the things she described to me which was really the impetus for me in
but i wanted to talk about this morning was her ability to stay present no matter what she is doing even in the midst of
self destructive behavior around eating
she said you know i've started doing prayers
i do prayers before i start to go on one of these benching episodes and i even do them in the midst of the activity
so i know that there is a way and which i don't quite abandoned myself away i used to
i'm actually able to stay present even in the midst of this behavior which frightens me and is so destructive
and so i know that something is changing it just isn't changing very quickly
i was amazed to listen to her description of this cultivating capacity to be present in the midst of what has historically been behavior where her response has been
an aversion and
it's particular display called checking out

for this person to be able to calmly and quietly and calmly tell me about what is so with her
meant that among other things she was beginning to find a ground for trusting herself
interesting me to listen to her without judging her
something she couldn't imagine until she could begin to stop judging herself
she's told me periodically over the last year about how specifically as a consequence of practicing loving kindness and compassion with herself she's had these flashes of joy arrive
eyes
an upwelling of a kind of joyful mind
very brief but quality of mind which she noticed and was unable to forget having a kind of taste of joy
do

so what i find interesting and considering for and measurables
is how if we can began with loving kindness
loving kindness leads to compassion
sometimes i think when we look at these endless lists but are so characteristic of buddhism
we think oh well i'm going to step one and then i'm going to master step one and then i wouldn't go to step two
and i think what's happening much more accurately is something more like the eu's effect
that if we can begin with the cultivation of loving kindness for example
we discover we come to a kind of allowing of the upwelling of a capacity for compassion which we can intentionally cultivate but which we can also allow to arise
we as americans have such a
compulsion for doing
so this area of cultivation that has to do with allowing certain qualities of mind to arise especially if the surround is appropriate
is sometimes hard for us to imagine much less allow
to begin to meet whatever pattern of the mind stream each of us has that we respond to with
with kindness and with compassion
is a critical critical step
and of course in my experience anyway what i've discovered is that when i can replace a version with a more neutral response
when i can allow the possibility of loving kindness kind of sympathetic quality
then gradually but very very palpably
a kind of fear begins to fade
because what i discover is that i don't need to be afraid of whatever arises i have some capacity to be present with whatever it is
if i'm editing if i'm trying to be perfect
i'm trying to be perfect if i'm trying to look good whatever that means whatever idea i have about what does a goods to sense to look like i'm going to be that
i'm inevitably going to be leaving some part of myself outside the door
i've been spending a lot of time with compost this last week we've been turning some enormous compost piles in the garden
we have three little dogs black dogs they're barge dogs and they are by breeding and inclination
hunters specially for rats and mice and walls and dead smelling rotten anything they can find so turning the com point post pile is a time of enormous joy for them
and they present a mouthful of the most
the foul smelling matter
stuff i didn't even know we have a garden
right now where in the second round of baby barn swallows with this is the second the second sitting has hatched
and as often happens there are one or two more birds than the nest quite will hold especially after they begin to grow
so of course one of the dogs presented me yesterday with a particularly fetid rotting baby barn swallow
chris for the dog the dogs response is not a version at all
the dogs responses oh goody look what i found let me roll around in it so you can smell it on me for a few days here let me stick it in your nose so you too can enjoy it about just try and take it away from me i'm going to quiet on teeth down here so
anyway we have these fights with these law dog's trying to extract this whatever it is they found
i think the compost pile is a very good place to study version
the
because of course what goes in doesn't look so terrific desert but what comes out is just sweet smelling gold gardeners gold
it's entirely the demonstration amount transformation

which is of course what i'm describing having seen having had this glimpse up with my friend
what i noticed with my friend is that she is no longer afraid of what may surface in her mind stream
she's no longer afraid of what she may remember
she's not even any longer afraid of what may come up in terms of a kind of response to something that happens

and as she has developed this ability to be present with whatever arises just noticing
staying with the breath
being as kindly and soft as posner
kindly not in the way of clutching or commiserating just tenderly present
what she has described discovered is a kind of stability of mind
and i think that for any of us who are practicing sitting and walking meditation on any kind of regular basis we come to appreciate how important stability of mind is

young has given us the language of the shadow so what i'm talking about is all that stuff that comes up yesterday i saw a bumper sticker says shit happens
maybe we could say shit arises in the mind
but it all it also fades
how often am i afraid how often am i disturb how often am i argumentative because i forget oh well if it's risen it'll also fade
even the line may all know equanimity without too much aversion and too much attachment is itself a statement with great kindness in it it doesn't say with no aversion and no attachment
there's a little room there for a little bit
when kind of ease our way into gradually smaller and smaller containers of attachments and versions hit well

as we cultivate these for qualities of the mind stream
we can then slowly be grateful for life as it is for whatever arises in any moment
and it seems to me that in the midst of that increasing capacity to be present with things as they are we can begin to experience the perfection of the world
there's an ancient text
meditation manual if you will call the facility maga
and to big like
makes the manhattan phone book look like kept up a relative
and i'm continually swiping the copy for my husband's desk so he and his kindness got me my own copy
i'm sure there's a certain around of self care they are around japan
chapter nine in the vicinity maga has a lot of commentary and tech text and commentary on the for measurables
our abodes as they're called
the section on loving kindness is vast
and the language is very careful and very particular

and when i realized early this morning as i was looking at some of the sections on loving kindness in the city maga
there's no way one can cultivate these qualities quickly
we must be patient and willing to work slowly and thoroughly for a long period of time
so here's another a place where we as americans may run into ourselves because most of us especially these days are very practice to going fast doing a lot and going fast
so here's an opportunity to be with ourselves a little differently than we may be used to
slowly
taking as much time as we need to take in the cultivation of our inner life
a gardener friend of mine came to look at some trees that have lost branches and look like they were in some trouble and we sat in the backyard and the
early morning light friday morning talking and visiting
and he said you know
what i've discovered is the more stupid i am a better off i am
is it you know when i'm working in somebody's garden and i don't know what's going on and i just say i just don't know what's happening here this big space opens up

in a way what security talks about when he talks about begin respond
chris what makes my friends so good at working with trees especially trees that are in trouble is that he spends a long time looking at the particular tree
and he asks whoever happens to be living with the tray to do the same thing
and he resists vehemently generalizations about what you do with trees
all crab apple trees should never have any water on their trunks
he said well that's true for some crab apple trees but it's not true for others
so here was again his telling me about letting me see his willingness to be present in each situation with what is so
and telling me a little bit about the consequence of working that way in terms of his own interior by life of the spirit
exactly the quality of mine that my friend was telling me about when i saw her
earlier in the week
being able to in the midst of very self destructive eating behavior to stay present in a way that allows her to begin to be interested in and when did the first inclination began
what do i notice in terms of emotion
as this behavior is beginning to take on a life of its own
and already barely into this way of being present with herself in the midst of this most difficult time in her life
she is a certain confidence that she will in time discover whatever she needs to discover that allows her to gradually and slowly
stop hurting herself and increase her capacity to take care of herself
which is completely what is
the foundation for her saying i now have the confidence that what i'm doing the kinds of mindfulness practices in little tiny details throughout the day israel practice and that i will in time be able to
in my friends and sitting and enjoying retreats i know that that time will come it just isn't now
so that she no longer is describing herself as a bad student a bad practitioner
but sees herself as being on this path with
limitless numbers of people who have gone before us and who are on the path with us now
and hopefully will come after us

and the buddhist dictionary the for and measurables are called the brahma vihara
and one of the translations for this term may be sublime or divine
the cultivation of qualities that are sublime or divine
how many of us think that the cultivation of sublime or divine is for someone else
that's not on the screen for me

i think that shakyamuni buddha's great teaching is that the equalities the capacity for the sublime the divine or indeed possible for each of us that his his teaching by example
a human being who lived at a particular time
and followed a particular path
cultivating what he came to describe came to be described after him as the middle way
having explored and tried all of the practices in vogue in north india the time of his life being an aesthetic which he plumbed deeply and carefully for a long time
and then after a while saw that he kept having to go back to eating and resting and taking care of himself to have the life that allowed him to do practices so that this pendulum swing between taking care of himself and asceticism to the point of near death was
this may be swinging too wide
some great wisdom in being imbalance
not too much or too little on either side

he showed us a path to realization to full or weakness that is a possibility for every one of us
seems perhaps more remote in the world that we live in
and also perhaps more necessary

so i would commend to you the cultivation of before a measurables
to let yourself
be who you are and how you are in each moment so that you can come to know your mind strain very well
it is out of that deep and accurate knowing that we can begin to see exactly what leads to suffering and what does not lead to suffering what leads to happiness what leads to joy what leads to equanimity
my experience is that that seeing at capacity for seeing things as they are seeing my own mind stream as it is not as i have a press release about how it is
depends on my doing the looking with current kindness

the last couple of months so
group of people that i have some pretty close connection with have been doing a traditional loving kindness meditation specifically one on forgiveness and one on loving kindness and during a recent retreat which lasted for eight days we spent the and
tire retreat focusing on forgiveness and loving kindness as a ground for awareness of a breath
this is all we're going to do for a week
this and be silent
so you know the first three days as a certain amount of flopping around
let me out of here you mean i paid to be here
can i find something to distract myself
and then as we settled came kind of but i called depth charges

at the end of the week i felt so moved by people's willingness to see themselves accurately
even when in a certain way they weren't thrilled with what they were saying
for most people there was also some realization that i have to see what is so if i'm going to change what i need to change
and of course i think for any of us who are really committed to waking up
one of the first things we discover is how little we need to do how much happens simply from saying clearly
i realized that this has been a kind of theme every time i've spoken in the last six months or a year
but i continually feel a kind of amazement
at how little i need to do in the usual sense
as long as i can be present that the being present is where my work is
not going for editing or pretending something isn't a certain way

a friend of mine has
some houses that she rents and now to the people that she rents her houses for are on welfare
and there was a whole series of this communications between this woman in her tenants one ten and in particular who registered all of her complaints through the housing authority and not directly to her landlord
and after about six weeks real agony and acrimony and
you have to move and you know all sorts of stuff they sat down together and talked
my friend called and said
mostly what we had was a communication problem
what i was saying she wasn't hearing and what she was saying i wasn't hearing and once we could sit down and talk and listen we didn't have much difficulty
how often is that true for us in our conversation with ourselves
where one part of the mind is like a landlord and one part of the mind is like the tenant afraid of being evicted
the great toe practitioner and translator and commentator yeah and really talks about how trying to get rid of some voice in our own mind string is a kind of violence

how often all we have to do is just lesson
that might be one of the first step
opportunities for the cultivation of loving kindness

so i would commend to you
the for a measurables
as
a path for the cultivation of being awake
so if you would please join me i'll do this dedication in dedicating are sitting together
considering these practices and whatever practices we have an earlier this morning sitting and walking meditation
home cultivation of mindfulness and whatever way each of you may have been doing
may the truth and virtue of these practices by the truth and virtue of these practices
may all beings have happiness in the causes of happiness
may all be free from suffering and the causes of suffering
may all never be separate from that sacred happiness would just avoid of suffering
may all know equanimity without too much attachment or to mature version
and may may all live believing in the equality of all at lamps

rude
please turn these trails for

true
of the qualities
places
that was completely the feeling when i got from listening to my friend was the sense that from can be found
mine where she cruised of i with some congress that a mine of loving kindness for hospital
so i think fact that notion of these been about
literally
did she share with the prayers that she used when she's in
i have it
the most popular prayers were for years of intention
having to do with being as kindly was herself no matter what speaking kind very specific and focused
she's also used various emanations of protection
in particular there's a fight fears for of compassion called upon as of protector in the female form in in the tibetan buddhist sacred our tradition she's classically the dalai lama's protect
hold in along
she's as fierce as they come by so fast say get it makes will look like a sunday picnic and really scary and so that's one of the practices it's been very helpful for this woman is to actually have this form of compassion in that funk
ocean answer
for tetris
and she's and of all leaders including
food cartons and containers
so a lot of stuff around transformation taking one them harmful and turning it to
something old a wholesome of are protected
she said sort of laughingly may be all right right about this sunday and i think it would be made it's way too soon but for journey is really inspiring really answer
when i was listening to you i sort of related whatever is about through to say drugs and alcohol right the same kind of
destructiveness i ages i guess i just wonder if you could talk a little bit about that because
there's also a component to that judge mental illness of the south it's really obsessive really
so deeply ingrained i mean i know from my own experience because a lot to do so if my parents who were very destructs their own way
and i what i guess
just more i want to processes are like doing that that in this sounds like very incremental but cumulative way
so while ago my husband actually went through some of the early sutures and pulled out all the sections where the buddha talks about in accidents
intoxicants intoxication
because particularly as the precepts come to us through the japanese sin source
the way we've been used to interpreting the precepts as been on
what's the right

subject to interpretation
which can end up being a kind of walk alone is an opportunity for self deception about what one is in this and doing
so i think the way we use the way we must precept is a disciple of courage just not have the does not intoxicate mind or body of self or others
well if you stop and think about it you know they're all kinds of things that may be mind altering not just drugs and alcohol sugar and chocolate cafe birmingham ala sex sentence
so it's really interesting to see the passages in the early sutures where the buddha trucks about intoxication and one intoxicates you know when i'd first to the lunge at this compilation i thought wow this guy has been painting and a twelve step meetings and confronted very contemporary and this sophisticated this
says something about human nature over many centuries actual
but also the bottom line is that the boot is very clear no in consequence
and i think for us and our culture
our how we work with what is the virtual in this church where are you
intoxicants where there is some addictive connection is is really up for us not just individually but as the society
and
there are two things that i know this one is that
it's real news to a lot of people that what we're really talking about is a habit what is the mutual and than anything that's a virtual tends to be very deeply set in green consequently not so easy to change we have to be very patient and for line
to transform or replace
habitual behavior that's unwholesome with behavior in this holster
in the second
feature i think is understanding the nature of change the change that's really going to hold doesn't tend to happen very quickly one may have a big insight about something that the actual work of change
happens very very slow
and so to be satisfied with these almost
cellular levels of change which is what i was hearing from my friend was for recognition if you looked at her behavior you could say that there hadn't been much change in yeah to change is from
beijing encouraging every day to binging and purging almost every game well you know for most of us we wouldn't be thrilled the fact distinction but that's a change every day to most days is heading towards sometimes
which is then heading towards in frequently you know there is this continuum and that you know something's opened up there
has the witness to see that what's critical is for my friend from the inside of her life to say oh i see things loosen something's opened up i'm actually more president more of the time in the midst of this behavior that has ever been true my life oh
cause for some celebration
so and i've at my experiences backs the way we change and awesome habits
and that the critical thing is to even see what what happens we have how being self-critical
we're having a habit of judging about oneself and others is a form of habit it's a man will happen
that we may have learned as a child and practiced for so long that the process of change and loosening
i'm not acting on they've even a habit rise his thoughts that not expressing it is is the work of of many many many years
and the you know two weeks of really focusing on okay i'm not going to express this critical mine two weeks go by we think
hurry up why isn't this gotten better
his willingness to down your armor suggests don't look at your remain here today and then compare it with earlier behavior with to shortest finger don't compare less than a to to year gaps maybe longer
what is my life today and what do i noticed that my life two years ago maybe you'll have some accurate read about what's wrong
you know we want today
so i think that the what i understand about addictions is
has a lot to do with habit and has a lot to do with you as a lot to do with very confused an accurate picture of what is so around one i can control the one i can't control
what kind of help i need and what kind of health i don't want dependence and independence deification of will
who will also from what you're saying it becomes less about the food or less about the drugs the apple
internal
noticing and and a more up i would actually say it has more to do was noticing patterns and wise understand of allegations is that people who have an addiction stated drugs and alcohol may be able to stop abusing drugs and alcohol than the addictive cat
iron will show up with something else not quite so dramatic
and that sex for example will show up later
and be you know can be absolutely as or more harmful addictive pattern of the addictive patterning is itself what you want to begin to be of see
so you know you're not using drugs and alcohol but you are using caffeine and sugar
or nicotine
or sex or work
you know where began to think about being workaholics and you get wants of support and and rewards for
working in this kind of obsessive were so i think it's looking for patterns and qualities life
being able to be pretty accurate in what ones observing of our patterns and qualities
that's the level at which noticing at the level at which the cultivation of the capacity for mindful awareness is really
effective and this is where you know in in vietnam
the way is practiced in vietnam in a zen monastery you would have practitioners doing both zan and inside of will pass of practice i think one of the reasons checked their hands teacher has a
had a really big effect on a lot of people in this country is because he's coming from a tradition which uses both sin and the boston on insight meditation and basically what you got his in zam focusing on posture and breath and basically ignoring whatever the mine to
do i'm just letting it just go why and that for a lot of us we have a very hard time ignoring what the mind is wandering off to
if we don't understand what a mind is doing such as a degree that we may maybe due for some period of time more insight practice where we are actually noting what the mind is doing on the mind is not placed on pasture and breath means at some point we can more easily ignore
or or just let it go by because it's it's a territory i've studied and understood it and they're two very different
meditations but i think they compliment each other and one of it's quite useful and in proportion of practice you learn how to distinguish qualities and habits when the mind wanders off from the object of meditation if it's breath which is usually
this this part of the world usually of foster and breath
you begin to have some tools for observing you begin their some language for observing what the mind is doing is go onto now for some people being able to sit down and just ignore the mind is a great relief just yap yap yap yap just ignore again is a great relief and
so what happens is a kind of stabilize and so on
at some point i think it's for most of us extremely useful to actually began to study what online streaming still only it's be bought in around town
because it's real each of us has different tendencies in i think i must have been an architect is a previous life constantly remodelling every
the other people do lots of review and endless review what other people to endless dress rehearsals
it's very useful to know what your particular pattern of choices as a distraction
is it after a while you just say up
planning and you much more easily just let it go and go back to their breath because i visited that territory i don't need to plan the future again to handle them
forty years i've already done it for fifty mm
a and forty seven
so specifically what i'm suggesting has to do with notice a pattern actually pretty are pretty specific
ah
you know sometimes twelve step work is described as americans and practice but actually i think my experience with with the people doing a serious twelve step program instance there's a kind of yoga to the meditation traditions in buddhism that are very complimentary and very useful for people who are doing it
and work around addictive patterns
first step is to spot what is an addiction
i know that new opens it up a new to thank you were wondering american
what's the dream dictionary touch
you can well i think it has to do with degrees of whiteness
and i think that was addictions there tends to be a as a constant
obsess obsessive

ah

i actually think that the yeah we m the language of possessiveness that is a clinging holding is more useful from talking about attachments
so you know maybe one way one thing to say is it's it's a matter of degree
some of the same qualities all
i was really struck in one passage that i looked at briefly this morning in the vicinity lotta was a description of a monk doing a meditation noticing the town of his practice the tone of his mind
what's the tone when i'm on behavior i'm noticing
there's a kind of checking out or a sleekness often even dissociating with addictions
the wave la main roar a just of checking out blocking
and am very often that if you get go under the behavior we begin to see how that's that's actually part of the motivation i don't want to feel this i don't want to be here for this
it's what makes recovery so difficult because you get to show up for what if it's so accustomed to
really
so the recovery period especially initially in the first maggie couple of years can be extremely painful
that's where you know i think this first of the and measurables his first bout of loving kindness is really critical
quality of tenderness and nurturing of kind caring for oneself
really important
my friend one of the first thing she did was to i never she had a big inside one day sample may be close to two years ago and she could actually be kind towards the judging voice
just blew her mind just even to imagine that that might be a possibility
yeah yes i i was going to ask you about that judging voice and think i you say that he must have been an architect i that is not a judging the voice that is the architect doing all this remodeling is different
that has judgmental voice i've noticed because my life has changed dramatically the last few months
i was a workaholic and i lost my job so i have just mind contentment now and the thing that i've noticed valid that get a very surprised that in fist it's very judgmental very harsh on and it's like i must have been enough
police officer and a hardware has he has been it's on me all the time and it surprises me is i found myself with that person oh accomplished a lot and appreciate that about myself that that's like the case at all it just took losing my job
me to get into this and i think confused ago i had that been going until i started
getting very busy working and so i guess my question to years
what do you suggest about and i noticed even if i'm by myself for a little bit of time or if i'm doing housework or washing dishes it it's on me
and it's like i was thinking maybe affirmation for something to stop it because ah
it's very bothersome from the
i would consider that a major understatement
how could i would say you're killing yourself yeah in village voice yeah
and you have a lot company
who's have an enormous enough
i think it's is the major
obstacle to being present and being more
and it's to have it
i mean you have my utmost sympathy i have
a similar
habituation
and i've got a whole lot of different practices some of them have been
stunningly effective
but part of it has to do with tiny baby
the fact that you are aware of that voice is probably and ninety eight percent of your work
we're kind of on the road to recovery to be able to to notice oh look at this internal dialogue
you know one of my questions as to what degree was work away for you to distract yourself totaling and
and i love i love to distress
because i didn't have any kind of shirt my head
but you know there's still as two o'clock in the morning
well the doubtless very small now and then to for interests but it's not so small when you're done it's not so small when you get hit with a major life threatening disease in you're just hanging out with your are you lose your job at another life gives us all these different area
asian so we keep the one of the major practices as an antidote if you will is called bear noting that is noting without any commentary without getting caught in the content you just know judging go back to the work
go back to some simple neutral body sensation and then the breath and then proceed
natalie goldberg in the book writing down the bones talks about writing practice where you write keep the hand most moving she calls it right you know the yoga keep the hand move it you don't worry about spelling or punctuation you don't cross out word you just keep ryan
right out the dialogue
i know someone who describes herself very similarly to the description that your paragraph fact that you're after say
this woman only knew there were all of us making
that didn't know unfortunately it would appear to see early days
keegan this process of writing out the dialogue in the next week should emacs to talk to me about it she said i wouldn't talk this way and my worst enemy and it was complete news jabber
and she said when we got this is this is of loving this is really violent behavior
i want to stop this now i actually think that that part there's trouble in wanting to stop the voice
yeah muhly the commentator that i mentioned during lecture charts in one of his of
commentaries on and buddhist psychology chest talks about getting rid of any voice in the mine as an act of violence
it's not getting rid of that judging voice it's changing my response to the woods
it's natalie talks about it in terms of the editor the editor as the judge that if when you're writing she argues for any kind of creative work which i would agree with but i would also say in any kind of meditative practice of the same is true that if the voice suddenly says year writing shit
this is the most boring writing i've ever met what makes you think you can run and you start writing
that judges then in the driver's seat is then the boss
if you just say you just ignore the voice and you keep writing
whatever and nellie's description she's got this one section on the anniversary two thirds of the page long chapter it's great she says listen to the voice as as laundry flapping illusion i can
every dry or
but just listen listen to it as laundry flapping in the when and eventually maybe someone else will take it you know
but you know when she's describing is not getting rid of the laundry on the line well what is my response to it i'm not doing laundry i'm not taking the laundry i'm riding or i'm following the breath or i'm washing the dishes
hi back to the editions

i remember one day walking up from where i live to come to a meeting here yeah i walk through the fields and i see
fifty five these cuffs and her fallen modeling mugs
heaps of tools left out in the fog getting rusty piles of garbage but the job i get here i've that list longer than my arm of what's wrong between you know specific way and downtown green gulch
a complete swirled vienna a like
not enough
as you just hope that doesn't even from i know the earth
so i decided okay next time i do this was i am only going to focus on what's right i'm only gonna focus on what i appreciate which didn't mean i didn't see all those cuffs and tools and piles of trash but it's not where i placed my attention and my energy
absolutely profound experience it was like some light switch is turned on and i thought this is the same way up and walking through your number of years
so i took on as a practice what do i appreciate and then after a couple of months of and i went to what's possible
and both those practices were really
help from and cultivating of a place to bring my mind that was fundamentally different in tone than what's wrong
always going for what's wrong and you know to this day i walked into a room and i noticed you know the dead flower in of okay or the staying on the rug is get his long pointed nose was a hub for girls and like you know i don't give it a whole lot of nutrients just you know
but i've been working on back tendency in my mind string for a long long time
i suspect i'll be working on a traumatic my last breath
i have really good trainer
if you
really
and so i wish you luck you a great opportunity there's a little book it's a little funny but it's also quite useful by a psychologist named richard carson containing your friend what would count and he actually gives you a whole series
exercise to six like a workbook
and he gets you to draw pictures and write the dialogue and it's all in service of getting to know the landscape of this state of mind if you need some convincing about what the detail is it's one way of getting to know the landscape but then it is
or can we just painted up on the wall and way you know from
sometimes it helps to ask yourself is this voice masculine or feminine older young is it my mother or my father on and algoma you know my mother and father in first grade teacher yeah whatever
one timers and a longer true yep and origin if met a young woman who had a really ah
intense in our verdict
and for her it was definitely an old man who was tall and skinny
so i got or to elaborate on her a imaging
this judge
and then suggested that she she said he was dressed rather formally so i suggested she dressed in an now so
morning coat tails the whole bit with a very tall can hack top hat and very short keynes so he walked her animals stooped over she just got hysterical who co-founded the most asian allies
who's been released for a kids you just started to cramp an existent pick somebody else i know described her inner critic as a huge huge five hundred pound baby
on any up on the wall and she said he'd jump on a landmark
nice some literary a regular and i said does he have a name she said yep huey
in you know i picked this is somebody lit up with this rather wife and it when is the voice was really going she would leave a trail behind your that was just you know you could just tell she's somewhere she is near this is his trail of debris dribble by
and i'd say maybe huey are here to happen
but there was something that
how to speak you know each other and i don't know what about the time symptoms
a help or began to have a slightly different relationship to that voice and of course in time if you're know paying attention to the voice the voice goes through sort of death row if you feel understood a guy you find the throat when he in time that voice does begin to subside
so you know the other place to go when that voice arises is kindness
may i speak to myself and others with this kind of as much kindness in my speaking as i can
and the more specific you are the more focused you are in describing the voice you hear that you're aware of this morning not generalize it would just stay with less arising in each situation where your awareness of that inner critic is criminal
and and i would encourage you to imagine that your awareness of this inner pattern in your mind stream is actually a very important
outside
very for you
you already begun your work
that kind of waking up to exactly what i'm talking about when i say can we wake up to what is so not be edited
oh this is what so this morning

if pain can be painful we're gonna be painful work and
very rewarding
yeah i i found myself feeling critical this morning and the
recitation that we do it again where we talk about
i vow to save them well there's another place where i i meditate where they say i vowed to awaken
as an incorrect translation bring practically as know i'm telling which one a piece of information and we used to do that vow here as i've added will wake up with them from and the word it's being translated doesn't mean awaken and means and say it's just it just going by
back to are correct translation of the van is there
well it's is so i just seems so
grandiose idea is think that city i can say anybody it is well you're going to start with yourself i know well that was what i was thinking how can that feasting and how if you know to save yourself well but the vow which is it's really a shortened form of the body staff of their way
which you have to unpack i mean this is code for all chanting were doing a code recitation and the whole path of the body that that is is the basis of the bodhisattva vow is the only place we can begin as with themselves but the motivation
my motivation to seek enlightenment for the benefit of others is a very different motivation than the motivation to seek enlightenment and order to save myself and a some traditions in buddhism there's actually a very clear distinction of different motivations
but you're absolutely not it is green and it's causing you know
there's some people who describe it as the messianic impulse in in buddhism and he's absolutely graham and i think very hard to guess unless you are exposed to someone who have some fairly
extensive degree of realization so you begin to get a feeling for what that valve produces if you will
i know for myself for years saying that i felt like i was talking about either a yeah ancient history certainly not mean this isn't a vow about me and it is certain point where i had the experience of practicing with the teacher who as i came to know him i realized this is a person of
right combination and realization this is a person who embodies in the details of his life what this i was saying i got this is actually a vow i can take on as a possibility that my life maybe unlikely but possible
and the vow came alive for me at that point in a way that a l i was just going through some motions for many many years before that
and i'm issues were saying that i just got is that i don't want the responsibility and to list
so
oh
the no judging just a note very useful
with may be feeling overwhelmed and want that repeal
the car to go said that the end of the lives of treat and get rid of with i do as much as you can and take it easy
very troublesome from the interesting
that i think that they are taking the ot second a vast seriously requires just that college because a person who's white wipe ourselves out everything away and why are unable to be present in awake vividly the next day i mean
a friend of mine and years ago that on my case for getting too tired he a you know you burn yourself out on the first thousand and equal that show off what about the next ten thousand you gotta go for constancy and longevity here
so you know kind of way underneath that i'm too lazy to be that coming from some senior of oh i'm right in the teetering on the edge of feeling a little overwhelmed with what this might be hinting
i think it's maybe a feeling unprepared that might be accurate but then if i recognized oh maybe i feel unprepared then the question that comes up as well what are the kinds of things that might lead to something called feel a little more prepared maybe i can look at some
examples in the stories of very enlightened beings what were their lives like when did they look like what did they do can i look around and see some suggestions of that and people that are an elephant practicing law who might lend me some suggestions and answer
so you know always when those questions come up if i don't turn away from them if i take them seriously by not edit them away as of that silly or that's not important question or
yeah and they're perfect for following the vine like it started out with i've being critical of of the bow and now i'm feeling critical about my salary and now you're that you're helping me try to take my way out of business
but what i'm suggesting is that there's a way of just taking each thing you've said and turning and turning and turning until you begin to see oh there's a jewel here in this question maybe i feel unprepared oh
what if you just maybe i feel i'm prepared and we just sit there maybe i feel unprepared
oh i don't have i don't know how would i prepare for this that's actually a very serious any important question
and you see how judgment deflects my energy away from seeing that sends me over here just someone's description of what it on a look like what my spiritual life life on wildlife like instead of listening to myself with some kindness and trust i know i mean wearing
need to put my stamp next i don't know how to prepare for this map oh
that's exactly what i was driving at my office now we turn away someone else is the answer someone else's description of how it should be so that i'm taking their description instead of including lying on it's not either or
i have orders can benefit from the advice and counsel on suggestions and teachings of more experienced practitioners but can i also include my own inner voice that says well maybe i i feel unprepared
how is that a statement in my my stream that i can actually hold with some attention
and of course the judge and judging voice moves my awareness away from that statement
instead of towards it
thank you there was a perfect example of exactly what i'm
trying to find a way to talk about
yeah himself one
first i want to say what you're wearing just as life is intrinsically i couldn't face my head the door
given what i went through yesterday not but i'll definitely have the heat stir up again if i know where my mcafee grows but i'm also interested in the lab
having us dress in the way we walk around the world that's conducive to taking care of our breath
not too much construction or the waist center
thank you know one thing that i've noticed up and didn't example you're looking found
i put it was very powerful and also in the comments that have happened here that are this has been i'm just taking on all women who have it's shared that concern are the the practice of them in a credit the job and my question is to your experience that you
pak mail practitioners who also have that paris that works because you have seen as

are there any baby this room who i've ever had any experience with this inner critic
this is not changes know that i knew those answer that question i guess for me what i like to know perhaps i should ask the man if they help you willing to share their experiences it would be useful for me
we don't talk about this then please of a vendor specific research as the last time you talked before about computer actually
to better serve rouge report you also spoke well understood doctor
we ever been going to
a
people early october and you can cause of your answered so well as issues a police officer well on a type of river and now
this women's reproductive what this is slashing and a
our tradition her correspondence with by
yeah she'd been accused by trying to children is a close run
a which it was very very interesting urges that should give it a try to kill us and our voices of there's an act of violence
not much is awesome
oh since then a russian engaged in dialogue with
your voice were try to see year as a new business has also do they are things going to a point of view so that i do something as yours grass or nurture
are also other serve as to why you think of us to protect the get involved with elegance or what a true because what i do
the yeah it doesn't do what is of early years of do you what what is what is the source of this hostility and towards me and it was really interesting i've done a number of times and two years have gone by so no changes
has anyone got an expectation pepper
nick for a difference with this earth
every time the times they have to have softened the cruise now let me suggest something else
you may be right for also asking
what's right about this voice there's a way in which this voice has arisen in my mind stream
to help me in some way maybe not today it's something that possibility begins to be present
and what happens out of that kind of shylock is i began to see well i have mourned my repertoire and age thirty or forty or fifty or sixty that i did it two or five or seven or check and i'm using the tools i am as a kid but
today i have a lot more and my tool box
but that kind of the inside doesn't arise until i begin to say okay now if not currently at least historically this response pattern served me well somewhere somehow
as a kind of extension if you will have more kindly mind towards this expression of judgment
i also want to just underscore the last thing you said which is the voice has somehow soften
that doing anything other than just bringing some kind of loneliness the voice is so
very important
i i it's still very last
resulted from the moment work that involves through that how how long have you been doing this how much practice him go
your belt well however for tickets now
and how long have you been doing this fact although this or