Getting Lost Is Part Of The Path

On moha (delusion/confusion), getting lost, and remembering that the map of the heart's freedom simply shows the way, but doesn't necessarily show where you are. While dukkha is a part of the path, this is ultimately a path of happiness and joy. From the Nature of Awakening retreat, New Hampshire, October 4-10 2025.

Transcript

It's just so nice to feel the shift in the room,

Isn't it?

Well we are at part of the retreat where I personally am tired of talking about Dukkha.

I know it's taken a while,

I know it's taken a bit.

Is anybody else tired of the Dukkha?

Dukkha Convo?

Dukkha,

Dukkha,

Dukkha.

I feel like so many rich,

Good sharings today.

So many really cool observations and just discoveries along the way and reinforcements and all kinds of stuff that you're sharing.

And it's so lovely to see you finding your voice a little bit more and feeling confident and expressing what's happening.

For me that's a really challenging thing.

I said it to at least one group but those group meetings were very terrifying for me for a long time.

I'd rehearse and I'd write stuff down and I'd have these vivid imagination things of what I thought maybe would mean that I was progressing on the path or progressing in my practice.

And I would just show up and share it and see what the response would be and it was always like,

Okay.

You know,

It's wild.

I don't know.

It's just so hard.

It's really hard to let anybody see this mind as it really is.

It's terrifying in a lot of ways.

So I wanted to share.

I often share this and because it's a very significant sutta but I think it's very evocative as well.

So this is called the jata sutta,

Otherwise known as the tangle.

Tangled within,

Tangled without.

These people are tangled in tangles.

I ask you this,

Gotama,

Which is another name for the Buddha.

Who can untangle this tangle?

He replied,

A wise person grounded in ethics,

Developing the mind and wisdom,

A keen and alert practitioner.

They can untangle this tangle.

Those in whom greed,

Hatred and ignorance have faded away.

The perfected ones with defilements ended.

They have untangled the tangle.

And so the Buddha's phrase,

Right?

I teach suffering.

I teach dukkha and the end of dukkha or the cessation of dukkha.

It's like,

What does it really mean?

This untangling of the tangle.

But another one-liner,

A good one-liner that the Buddha threw out,

I always put him in my notes as BD,

The BD.

So another good liner is like,

I wouldn't teach this if it wasn't possible.

And that one lands a lot more for me,

You know?

I wouldn't teach it if it wasn't possible.

So it is now also the time in the retreat where I get to give you a hard time.

And here's what I'm going to give you a hard time about.

And I know this is going to come across as a defense,

But this is a Google map.

We didn't draw this map.

We didn't,

Yeah,

We didn't make the map.

We just highlighted.

We just highlighted it.

Highlighted some of the roads on it and told you how long those roads were.

Specifically how long.

Specifically how long.

So,

You know,

I know we've personally received a lot of flack about the maps.

A lot of feedback about the maps.

And here's the thing.

Yeah.

When we're wandering,

When we feel lost,

We often assume that the map is wrong.

But the thing about a map is that it doesn't show you where you are.

It shows you the landscape that you are currently standing in.

It doesn't actually show you where you are standing in it.

There's a whole Friends episode about this.

Joey,

Like,

Jumping into the map.

In London.

Do you remember that?

In London,

Yeah.

You know,

It's so,

It's so,

So easy to just assume,

Like,

To get disoriented and then to assume that we're on the wrong path or that we're on the wrong road in this instance.

That we're facing the wrong way because we're unsure.

And that doubt,

That inner voice that's,

Like,

Not convinced.

That doesn't believe in what we've already seen and where we've already been.

And our natural capability of doing this thing is louder than the confidence that we've developed that,

Like,

We've just taken steps forward.

You know,

That,

Like,

The thing that we're looking at,

The landscape that we're looking at and the path that's ahead of us is,

Has been well worn,

Right?

People have walked it many times before and they have made their way around the loop.

By either taking only right turns or only left turns as,

As happens with a loop.

The blue loop,

Specifically.

The blue loop,

Specifically.

You know,

So the confusion and the struggle that we might feel,

It's,

It's not a sign that the path,

That your path is wrong.

Like,

You are on your path.

And,

Like,

Stumbling around and being,

Like,

Oh no.

And,

Like,

Course correcting and,

Like,

Finding those little touch points.

Like,

That's a part of it.

And that confusion that we feel is,

Underlies really pretty much everything.

It underlies these,

What are known as the defilements,

Right?

It's greed,

Hatred,

And delusion.

It is the delusion.

It's the confusion.

Moha is the word for it.

Yeah,

Moha is the word for it.

It's like this cloudiness of mind.

So if greed and aversion are arising,

Those are like flavors of moha,

Right?

Greed and aversion are almost two sides of the same coin.

It's like,

We either want something,

So we reach out for it and grab it.

Or we don't want something,

But it feels like it's stuck to our hand as we're trying to push it away,

You know?

And the confusion or the ignorance,

The other word for it that's other,

Also used in different traditions,

Avidya,

Not knowledge,

Is the belief that by either of those actions,

We'll get what we want,

Which is to feel comfortable again,

Right?

But it's actually in seeing through,

It's in seeing through the story of that,

That we find ease,

We find peace,

We find the ability to let go.

So it's important to pay attention to those moments of confusion,

Because those are also a part of this,

Too.

Now,

We tend to focus on like,

Oh,

Craving and aversion.

But like,

Actually,

Delusion is fascinating to pay attention to.

And we can see it playing out all over the place as well.

I mean,

Man,

Wow,

Deluded,

Deluded situation we're in right now,

Isn't it?

So much everywhere.

But tonight,

I'd like to talk about another sign that you are on your path.

And that is joy.

Not dukkha.

But joy,

Joy.

You know,

I think it's very,

Very easy.

It's very common.

And I certainly did this,

Too.

When I first started practicing,

It's like,

I've been so trained into,

I mean,

The ballet story aside,

But like,

Also growing up and like,

Learning the piano and like,

Having to get up on that stage and like,

Play those recitals.

And yeah,

That,

You know,

Going to swim practice,

Like everything in my family,

And this isn't just in my family,

But it is a cultural thing,

Too,

Is like,

Everything had to be super intense.

You had to be great.

Like,

We're a family of excellence.

And like,

Not only are we a family of excellence,

We're a culture of excellence.

Like,

We are biggest and we are strongest and we are the gladiators.

Yeah.

So like,

Even going down,

Like getting this image right now of like,

Going skiing.

Oh,

Let's enjoy skiing.

Okay,

Great.

How many runs are you getting in every day?

Did you get those 14 runs on your half-day ticket on Wednesday afternoon?

Did you get those 14 runs?

Because that's kind of the standard.

Like,

If you're not getting 14,

Then you're kind of slacking.

It's like,

Oh,

That's a lot.

So then you spend your time and you're like,

Bombing,

Right?

I'm like,

In a full tuck.

Laura can attest to this.

Full tuck.

From the top to the bottom.

And like,

How enjoyable.

It's kind of enjoyable.

But how enjoyable is it to do that exclusively,

You know,

The whole time?

So it's like,

This is our practice.

You know,

We'll spend some time like,

Alternating between some real delusional confidence that like,

You can tuck your way down that hill and you're going to make it down just fine every time.

And that you're going to go faster,

You're going to go farther,

And you're going to get there before you get there.

You know,

That you have some kind of control of when you get there.

The only control you actually have is like,

How much are you paying attention right now?

And then we waver between that.

So that idea that we can get there faster by pushing harder,

By doing more,

By whatever.

We're like,

Oh,

I've already got this,

So I don't need to do anything.

And then maybe some crippling doubt.

Or just like,

Feeling really lost.

You know,

You might have started off,

Just to use the loop as an example,

Like,

You start off strong.

You're in your walking mode.

And you're like,

Oh yeah,

Oh yeah,

I'm walking.

You're feeling confident.

You got those legs swinging,

Your arms are swinging.

Look at these beautiful leaves.

And then all of a sudden,

You come across a driveway and you're like.

.

.

Well,

Maybe that driveway is the path I'm supposed to take.

I don't know.

Oh my God.

And it's just that little seed of doubt that comes in.

Maybe I'm supposed to take that.

I don't know.

And now you're at a crossroads,

Right?

So now your walk is more like,

Okay.

I'm walking.

I'm walking along.

Okay.

I'm going to keep track of how far back that driveway was,

Because I don't know.

I might need to turn around.

And you keep going.

And you just keep going.

And you're like,

Okay,

Well,

Maybe I got to turn around.

I don't know.

Oh,

Now I'm coming to an intersection.

Oh no.

Oh,

Was I supposed to take only lefts?

Or was I supposed to take only rights?

Okay,

I guess I'll just turn here.

Or maybe I won't turn here.

I don't know.

It's just like,

Oh,

We're going along.

We're so confident.

And then all of a sudden,

We're encountered with choice.

And that choice becomes crippling,

Because we doubt what we already know to be true,

Right?

The simplicity of it just turns,

Right?

Just turns.

And if you get lost,

Of course,

You can double back.

Of course,

You can revisit.

I had so much urgency.

So much what I thought was urgency.

It's a different,

There's different flavors of it that come through in time.

But in the beginning,

There's a phrase like,

Practicing like your hair's on fire.

So if you just imagine that,

You're like,

You know,

Really,

You're looking,

You're looking around.

You're looking for wherever to put that,

Put that fire out.

And there's a little bit of a like,

Desperation,

A little bit of a,

Yeah,

There's just a lot of energy behind it.

And eventually,

That sense kind of settles in a little bit more as like,

A glowing ember that you can continue to return to.

And that ember strengthens over time.

But you don't have the panic about it.

It's like,

There's an understanding that you're going to get as far as you get based on what you put in right now.

You know,

And like,

Actually,

There's nowhere else to go.

Because the future is a fantasy.

So yeah,

The place,

The thing that we're looking for is actually the thing that's happening right now.

It's showing everything that you need to know.

But I was on a very different path than this.

I mean,

I had started practicing like,

Very early.

But I started practicing like,

A lot of people.

Like,

I came in with a,

Maybe not an agenda,

But with like,

A goal of being,

Truly at the time,

Like a better swimmer.

I would,

I would get in the water and like,

I was super,

Super dedicated.

I loved showing up to swim practice.

I loved being there with my friends.

And I really would,

You know,

Work very hard.

And I showed up,

I did two-a-day practices,

All the stuff for years.

Like,

It's a grueling sport in that way.

It's kind of like hockey in that way.

It's really grueling.

And especially for the 90s,

Before sports,

Youth sports really got crazy.

But yeah,

So I met with a sports psychologist.

And he was helping me kind of overcome the block of belief.

Like,

The block of self-belief.

So everything in swimming,

Because it's an individual sport,

Is based on time standards.

And so like,

Whatever your events are,

You are going to different levels of swimming and different levels of competition based on time standards that you hit.

And the nice thing about that is that it's impersonal.

You either hit it or you don't.

But the hard thing about it is that those numbers kind of get stuck in your head.

So there was one for me.

Two minutes,

13 seconds,

59 hundredths.

Is that the right way to say that?

Two-thirteen-fifty-nine.

Two-thirteen-fifty-nine.

And that was the 200-yard breaststroke,

Like zone qualifying time.

And I would go out and I was so dedicated.

I would do all this stuff and I would go to the meet and I would race.

And then I would finish and look up at the clock.

Two-thirteen-sixty.

Two-thirteen-sixty-one.

Two-thirteen-sixty,

Like for a year.

It was so much,

You know.

I was like,

I just couldn't quite get over that hump.

And I brought that same intensity.

I did eventually qualify.

But just to point that,

Just to put it out there.

But I actually had to qualify in like a special thing.

Like I had to request a special event with other people.

It was the meet right before this particular time qualified meet zones.

And it was the last meet of the season.

And I had to request to be able to do like a time trial.

And so it was like the very end of the meet.

These meets go on forever.

They're like a full three days.

You're there from 6 a.

M.

To like 6 p.

M.

You're eating Olive Garden,

Fettuccine Alfredo.

Like,

Oh,

I just feel terrible afterwards.

Again,

90s,

Early 2000s.

And yeah,

So it's at the end of the meet.

I finally,

Finally got it.

213.

58,

Finally qualified.

But I brought that same thing into everything that I did,

Right?

Everything.

So like I go to college,

I go to graduate school,

Start my career in design.

It's like everything.

I'm freelancing.

I'm doing all this stuff.

And I was just pushing so hard and finding quite a bit of success,

Really.

Like I had,

Yeah,

I was doing well.

And it felt like,

Who cares?

I met with a company in Seattle.

And this would have been like such a big thing.

They held,

This is a big design company.

I had an in for it.

And they had all of these accounts,

Like Starbucks and like,

I don't know.

All just big,

Big accounts like that.

And that's a,

It's like Mad Men.

It's like a big thing to get in with a company like that.

And I'm just looking around this office and this informational interview.

Probably just could have asked for a job because some connection my sister had.

And instead,

I'm like,

Feeling like,

What,

Who cares?

Who cares if you're making the packaging for Starbucks,

New,

Whatever,

Look nice?

Ah,

I don't know.

I was just like,

What are you guys doing?

Like,

What are you doing about the climate crisis?

What are you,

You know,

What,

How are you treating your employees?

Like,

What is the,

What kind of stuff are you doing to encourage employee wellness and health and their continued education and like their well-being?

And all of those questions were just like,

Ah,

I don't know.

I don't even know who the person was that I was interviewing with.

But she was just like,

Ah,

I don't know.

You know,

So I feel like that was a real turning point for me of starting to see like where my values actually were and what was actually really important to me.

And that's not to say that like beautiful things or functional design or ergonomics,

Those are all great.

Like architecture,

Cool.

I hope you're all appreciating this place because this place is amazing.

And it's all good.

It's all good.

And like,

It also just wasn't a fit for me.

But to turn around and to be like,

Well,

I just invested so much of my life into doing that.

And by the way,

Thanks parents for your support and your encouragement on that path.

But I'm actually going to start doing this now instead.

It was like,

What are you doing?

Why?

Why are you giving all of this up to do this thing that actually doesn't have like any clarity around it?

They're like,

Well,

What are the career opportunities?

I'm like,

I don't know.

I'm going to teach.

Yeah,

I'll continue to teach.

I'm going to teach.

I'm going to study.

Those two things.

And I'll just continue to do those two things.

They're like,

Well,

What is that?

What does that mean?

So is there a group that you could do?

I'm like,

Maybe.

I don't know.

I don't really know how it works.

It's all cloaked in mystery.

You know,

So I really,

I had to give up a lot of stuff that felt like me.

That felt really like I had spent so much time building all of this in order to give myself the time and space to wander.

And actually,

At this moment,

I was reflecting on all of that and realizing that here I am again in that same state,

Same space,

Where for those of you who don't know,

Laura and I are just about to go on a period of wandering.

And that means that we have left our yoga studio that we started our yoga school.

It means that we are stepping away from the sangha that we co-founded a couple of years ago and that we spent so much time in energy building.

You know,

It means that we're not going to be in Providence for a little bit,

At least regularly,

Because we no longer have a home to go to because our friends are going to be living in it.

And yeah,

We are really facing a lot of just like,

I don't know.

I don't know.

We really don't have much of a plan.

But that doesn't feel scary anymore.

It feels not even like exciting.

It feels right.

It feels necessary to be able to have the time and space to just see what unfolds and to trust whatever kind of path is going to clear its way for us individually and together.

You know,

It's like,

We don't know.

We're on our own individual journeys too.

So just to see kind of what arises in that way.

So it took quite a while to start to approach the dhamma,

To start to approach practice as a path of happiness and not as a path of just continually driving myself into more discovery of suffering and more discovery of dukkha and trying to untangle all of those threads for myself.

But to kind of start to trust that actually those threads untangle on their own,

Just with time and space.

My only job is to give time and space and attention to it.

You know,

There's so many things that we have to live through,

So much that we have to encounter,

So much stress and discomfort and dis-ease that we have to learn how to meet well.

That it is easy to forget that this is ultimately a path of happiness.

It's a path of learning how to live well.

And it's a path of learning how to love well.

So I like to just remind us that there is a lot of lightness in this too,

And that joy is not only possible,

But it's something that you are also experiencing.

Any moment,

You may not recognize it as such,

Because it's a different kind of like,

Than like the birthday party,

Everybody's looking at you and singing you happy birthday and there's a big cake with your name on it kind of joy.

It's like a much quieter,

A much quieter,

More relaxed type of joy.

It's a different flavor.

And it's so life-giving,

It's so energy-giving to touch into that too.

In any moment where there's not struggle or where struggle is being met with awareness,

Where we can feel the fruit of our practice,

Where we can feel the momentum that it's taking and that it's,

That is building,

We can maybe even reflect on how far we've already come,

Even if we're not sure we're still pointed in the same,

In the right direction or in the same direction that we were.

Like those are all real sources of joy.

Your life is,

Your life is here to be lived.

Isn't that nice?

So I think a lot about the Buddhist journey,

Right?

Going from this life of being wealthy,

Having status,

Being totally protected from everything that is uncomfortable in life,

Aging,

Illness,

And death.

You know,

And when relationships end,

When people fade out of your life,

When things change in ways that we don't want or loved ones,

People who we deeply care about pass away,

It can really feel like it's not a part of the plan.

It's not a part of what should be happening.

And so even though he had a lot of pleasures to indulge in,

There was something tugging,

And I referenced this last night or the night before too,

There's something tugging at him to go and see for himself.

Ehipassiko,

Right?

Go and see for yourself.

Maybe there's something more valuable than getting all of the things that we want,

That we think we want,

That we believe we want.

And we can see like in this culture and in our own experience maybe that like we can get everything that we think we want.

And yet there is still loneliness underneath it.

There's still a sense maybe of not quite fitting in or not quite being right,

That somehow it's just not exactly how we wanted it to happen.

So he went on a quest,

Right?

He went on a quest to learn and to figure out what this is all really about.

And to ask like what really matters when it comes down to it.

And I love that question.

And it comes up for me a lot,

Particularly because I seem to feel more and more poignant,

Maybe as time goes on,

That the recognition that this is never going to happen exactly this way again is real.

So we reflect,

Right?

Like when there's all these accounts of when people pass,

And I know some of you work with people who are passing on,

Of what people reflect on.

And it's like how well have we lived a life?

We look at how well we've lived,

We look at how well we've loved.

And that starts to point to how deeply precious this life really is.

And how deeply precious these moments are,

Right?

I know it seems like this is going to go on forever because we've been sitting in this room and everybody's in their same spots,

But we have two nights left together.

That's it.

Just two nights.

And even if we all,

Even if every single person here came back on the exact same week next year,

It would be different because your lives are going to be different.

And your experiences are going to be different.

And the mind state that you're bringing in is going to be different.

And that's okay,

Like,

It's okay,

You know,

That's what happens.

But it's also like,

Oh,

How beautiful just this moment is.

Like,

Isn't this perfect?

Just as it is right now.

There's so much joy in that.

So much happiness in that.

So the Buddha was like practicing at a time.

I went on a whole tangent this afternoon on like the history of Buddhism moving through Southeast Asia and like all of it.

I felt like I was,

You know,

Really recounting from college,

Honestly,

The movement of the Silk Road and the evolution of Buddhism.

But he was practicing at a time when like austerity practices were very popular.

And I think that that is also human nature a bit to think like we have to go super hard in order to get anywhere.

The swimming example.

So he was like,

At this point,

He had been working with all these master teachers and stuff.

And he had gotten to this point where he was eating like one grain of rice a day.

And there was no space between his abdomen and his spine.

Like he's starving himself because that was the belief at the time that to transcend the ego,

That to transcend the body would open to a different spiritual reality,

A level of truth that could not be found otherwise.

And so he's,

You know,

Dying.

He's actively dying.

And the legend goes,

The story goes that one of his friends,

Female,

Was like,

I don't think this is a good idea.

Like,

You need to eat.

And please have this bowl of rice.

And please eat.

And feeling his energy start to come up and start to return,

He started reflecting on that.

And he was like,

Oh,

Wow.

You know,

What if this isn't the right way to do this?

And this is the blossoming of what's known as the middle way or the middle path of Buddhism.

So we have this idea,

Right,

That something isn't enough,

Something isn't quite right in any given moment.

And what's attracted to me,

What attracted me to this practice,

And particularly just to the teachers that I bumped into at the right place at the right time,

Is that the Dhamma is an invitation to be exactly who you are in any moment.

And an invitation to be exactly how you are.

And that that's not a problem.

There's not a problem with that.

You can be super neurotic,

And that's fine.

You can be very anxious.

You can be filled with doubt.

You can be super skeptical and cynical.

Not a problem,

Right?

There's nothing wrong with you.

And like,

Opening to that,

That kind of way of seeing was just so life-changing to me from having to try and correct myself all the time,

Trying to fit into what I thought a yoga person should look like.

I would love to show you a photo.

I really would love to show you photos of mid-20s me.

I had boho.

It was like a walking free people catalog before free people was a thing.

Just like,

Oh,

All the dripping.

I got hair wraps in,

Like all the stuff.

I'd always have these different things going on and like lots of fringe everywhere.

Big hats.

Flowy pants.

And like,

Again,

Nothing's wrong with that.

But it's like,

Can you imagine?

Can you imagine that?

Yeah,

Just so funny.

Just like putting on these different clothes of identity.

Oh,

So great.

So the Buddha was like,

Well,

What if this isn't the right way?

And he remembered a time of sitting under a rose apple tree on his parents' property and how peaceful and how easy he felt.

He was a child.

And so this is like a little flashback memory for him.

So he's in this moment of like really struggling,

Really suffering,

Just putting himself through it,

Not eating,

On the verge of starvation.

And he remembers this moment of ease and of tranquility and of feeling nourished and feeling peaceful and how those states of mind and those states of being naturally gave way to this lovely and beautiful mind state that opened for him.

Yeah,

Otherwise known as samadhi and all of the different extrapolations of samadhi.

And in that,

Right,

He kind of had this realization,

Like what if this,

Like what if that experience is actually pointing the way for me?

What if that is a marker of something that I can revisit and figure out and re-explore in a new way with this different mind that I have?

And that was how he began to develop his path,

Right?

He hadn't developed the path yet.

He hadn't named the path as it was.

But those qualities that arise when we ask the question of like,

Oh,

This is arising right now,

This thing that's uncomfortable or this thing that's beautiful or this thing that feels confusing.

And instead of getting wrapped around the thing,

We ask,

How is it being met?

It's this receive,

Relax,

Allow,

And feel.

How is it being received?

How is it being met?

These are the qualities of the heart that are naturally occurring.

They're already there.

But they strengthen with that kind of receptivity,

Just those soft kid gloves of just,

Let me just catch that anxiety.

Let me just hold that anxiety for just a moment really softly.

Just settle back with it.

And those brahma viharas,

I've mentioned them before,

But they're metta,

It's like friendliness,

Just that kind of goodwill.

We meet it with friendliness.

And karuna,

Compassion,

Right?

Compassion for ourselves.

A simple definition of compassion is love in the face of dukkha,

Love in the face of suffering.

Mudita or sympathetic joy,

So this is the joy we were talking about earlier where like somebody's happy and you see that they're happy and it doesn't matter why they're happy,

But you're happy that they're happy.

It's like,

Wow,

I'm so happy that you seem to be doing well.

Because it's not about,

I mean,

It is about them,

Like for them,

But for you,

It's the ability to be happy rather than to be jealous or envious or to want what they have.

But just that simple love of like,

I'm happy,

You're happy.

And then equanimity,

You know,

Love in the face of the unknown,

Love in the face of not having control over life,

Over the outcome,

Over other people's lives,

Over the other people's paths and the choices that they're making.

Equanimity,

We're still meeting it,

We're still holding it softly,

We're still catching it with those kid gloves,

But we're not attached to the outcome.

We let people and we let ourselves unfold the way we're gonna unfold.

And we understand,

Maybe over time,

That everything we encounter is for us.

You know,

Everything we encounter,

The right people come into our lives at the right time.

And the right people who have to leave our time or have to leave our lives before we think they should,

They leave at the right time too.

So all of this,

Right?

It's okay to allow ourselves a sense of contentment.

It's enough.

There's three qualities of a life really well lived and really like of this path that has been developed well.

Sila,

Samadhi,

And Panya.

Sila is the ethical attunement that gives us the ground.

It gives us the container through which we walk through life.

There was a really beautiful reflections in one of the groups today about safety and how feeling safe is so important.

Like what a gift we have given each other on this retreat to be in this container where we're safe.

And you don't even have to think about it.

You don't have to gauge it.

You're safe.

Hopefully that's been your experience.

But Samadhi,

This quality that we're developing via mindfulness,

Via developing that,

Those qualities of awareness that allows the mind to rest.

It allows us to be in that state of allowing and receiving.

And then Panya or wisdom,

Right?

This experiential learning that helps to guide us through,

Helps us to connect the dots,

To see that when we not only take refuge in something that we believe in and in a way of being that we resonate with,

We also become a refuge for ourselves and others,

Right?

So we end up being that lamp,

Being that lighthouse for other people too.

So cool.

So nice.

As we start to get familiar with the terrain of where we are,

We start to see that the Dhamma isn't just one thread.

It's not just one thing.

It's an invitation into our whole life and that our whole life serves as like this fabric and so any thread you pull,

Starts to untangle the whole tangle.

It does,

Starts to just pull it apart and we start to see more clearly.

Another way that this path or another phrasing for this path of awakening is the purification of the heart.

And I feel like purification for me kind of sounds like a water filter or like a detoxification tincture that you take.

Like it's going to be some kind of cleanse.

And I don't know if you've ever tried to do a cleanse.

I tried to do a weird saltwater cleanse probably about 15 years ago.

I've never looked back.

It was not great.

But like cleanses can be really rough.

And another way to look at it and I will be forever,

Forever thankful for like having a period of like getting to be involved in a Chinese medical office to have developed this understanding and really see it happen is that the body is always cleansing itself.

The body is always detoxifying itself because that's its job.

So you just have to let it do its thing and not be adding more to it.

And it's like,

Oh,

I don't have to clean house.

I can just stop adding the stuff that doesn't work for me and it will do it on its own.

Incredible.

That's kind of like what this is,

Right?

These balancing factors of what make awareness happen.

We add in a little bit of faith.

We recognize the wisdom that's there.

We add just a little energy when we need to or we let the tranquility come up when we need to.

And it's all balanced by awareness.

So we just add awareness in and things start to balance out a little bit more.

So what is underneath?

What is underneath?

What happens with this purification of the heart?

And that phrase in particular,

Of course,

Points to like the same thing said,

What is awakening?

It is the freedom of the heart from greed,

Hatred,

And delusion.

And so what happens when those things are no longer there?

What is in emptiness?

What's emptiness?

What is that?

There is never nothing,

Right?

So what's underneath all of it?

And it's this current,

At least what I've seen,

This current where without those things clouding,

All of those qualities of heart,

Those abodes of the heart,

Right?

The Brahma Paharas,

This friendliness,

This compassion,

Which is natural.

It's not forced.

It's not trying to see the other person's perspective.

It's just like,

I just care about you.

Even if that doesn't mean anything to you,

I still care about you.

And Mudita,

Really being able to delight in people and their happiness,

And then the ability to let go of the control of how I think people should,

Some people,

Not everybody,

But like the people close to me in my life,

How they should be doing the thing,

Whatever the thing is,

The ability to let that go and just see.

It's not perfect.

It's not complete by any means.

But to see that starting to come up and the other thing starting to come down,

It's like,

Oh,

That's what's there.

That's what's there underneath this stuff.

Nice.

Yeah,

That's a nice way to live.

So it's equally,

I know we've talked about the hindrances a lot.

It's equally important to notice when they aren't arising,

You know?

And this,

Like awareness is,

Like awareness and interest and energy,

Joy is a critical,

A critical condition for samadhi to arise.

In the factors of awakening,

There's like the energizing factors.

So like mindfulness is the first one.

Sorry to break it to you.

You can't get away from it.

It's everywhere.

It's in every list.

Pay attention.

That's what it says.

Just pay attention.

You know,

Interest and energy and joy precede the development of samadhi and tranquility and these different qualities of mind that develop that allow us to like see things clearly,

You know,

To see through the mist of avidya or moha,

The mist of delusion.

So I thought we would just sit for a couple of minutes and just reflect,

Right?

Reflect.

This is a good practice.

It's a good thing to do at the end of the night as well.

I know I've given a lot of different little homework assignments for people throughout the week that mostly have to do with you laying in bed.

But this is a nice one to do.

It's a nice one to do at night.

Now,

So maybe reflecting on a moment today,

Not all of these will be relevant for everybody,

But reflecting on a moment today when you were generous,

When that was just a natural movement of the heart,

Or reflecting on a moment today when you held the container of safety by your actions certainly,

But maybe also by your presence.

One that might be a little more obvious in this particular environment,

The joy of simplicity,

The joy of not having all the things around to have to manage just our belongings and maybe touching into a moment of friendliness that you may have felt towards another yogi,

Or a moment where you delighted in somebody's obvious happiness or comfort,

A moment where you held yourself when you knew that something hard was happening or coming up,

And maybe instead of chastising or letting it become a story,

Just being like,

It's all right,

That's okay.

Good job,

Me,

For getting through that.

And maybe touching on a moment when your heart wanted to reach out or when you felt moved,

Moved by the care that's around,

Moved by the intention of the people around you,

Moved by the energy and the willingness and the courage,

Not just your heart,

But the people who are doing this with you.

We can reflect on a day well-spent,

Even if imperfect,

Even if it had a few surprises,

And just a day well-spent developing the path and realizing that it's all worth it.

So,

Thank you so much for listening to the Dhamma.

Thank you so much for your practice.

Remember,

We still have over,

We still have over a full day.

We have a day and a half left,

So keep going and use your time well.

Have a lovely dinner.