The Realm Of The Mind

Meditation is the art of stopping, calming and looking deeply. This talk gives an overview of this art which can lead to better choices and transformation of longstanding habit energies.

The Realm of the Mind is mine I can choose.
I can choose where I want to be.
Both heaven and hell I know equally well
The choice is up to me! - Eveline Buemkes

Please Note: This track was recorded live and may contain background noises.

Transcript

Dear friends,

I titled this series of talks,

The Miracle of Mindfulness.

It's not that I'm going to be speaking from Thich Nhat Hanh's classic book,

It's just that I think mindfulness can help perform miracles.

It certainly has.

It certainly has in my life.

So I want to begin with a song.

If you turn to page two.

And it's the third one down.

It's called The Realm of the Mind.

And that's what I titled this talk.

I think David saw me taking notes because he was singing this song this morning.

Or else we're just on the same vibe.

This is a song by Sister Evelyn,

The Dutch sister that wrote Happiness is Here and Now.

And just join in.

We'll sing it three times.

Some of you may,

I know David knows it,

But you'll catch the two,

Hopefully you'll catch right on.

The realm of the mind is mine,

I can choose.

Let's do it line by line just in case.

So the realm of the mind is mine,

I can choose.

I can choose where I want to be.

I can choose where I want to be.

Both heaven and hell I know equally well.

Both heaven and hell I know equally well.

The choice is up to me.

The choice is up to me.

Now let's try it all together.

The realm of the mind is mine,

I can choose.

I can choose where I want to be.

Both heaven and hell I know equally well.

The choice is up to me.

The realm of the mind is mine,

I can choose.

I can choose where I want to be.

Both heaven and hell I know equally well.

The choice is up to me.

And I have a story about heaven and hell I know equally well.

The choice is up to me.

And this happened not too long ago.

Some of you might remember I had laryngitis a few weeks ago and could hardly speak.

And it was a few days after my voice had started to improve and probably about ten days into not feeling all that well.

And it was a cold and damp day and I just woke up and said,

You know,

I was doing well earlier in the week but now I just am getting tired of this cold and I feel tired.

And I said,

Yeah,

But I want to ride my bike to work anyway.

And a lot of you know I ride my bike to work most days.

Not today.

It was too icy and cold.

And so I get my bike out and I don't even get a block away and it is damp and it is cold and my inner self is going,

You're tired.

And I said,

Yeah,

I am.

I really don't want to do this.

So I turned the bike around and go back in and garage it.

I am like,

It's ok.

I am tired.

I am going to honor myself.

There might have been another time where I would have said,

You know,

You're already going.

Just push through it.

And I decided not to.

So I garage my bike which is right next to the car.

I hop into the car and head down the road to my first errand.

It was Friday and Friday I would always have a few errands before I go to the office.

And I get out of the car and realize I don't have a hat on.

And I have a cold.

And anyway on cold damp days I always want to have a hat on.

And so I stop and I breathe and I hear in the back of my mind,

You know,

A little bit of frustration and I say,

Oh no,

I don't want to go down that road of frustration.

I said,

We're just going to go back.

We're just going to go back and get that,

Go back home and get that hat.

And there's a little debate back and forth.

Should I,

Should I?

No.

You're going to feel better.

You have a few more errands to run.

You're going to feel better with a hat on.

So I'm only at 63rd and Cherry and I live at 74th,

Terrace and Cherry.

So I head back home.

David hears somebody come in.

It was me.

And I go grab my hat.

And then I finish my errands and I'm just about ready to,

I'm slowing down to turn into the office and bing,

Bing,

Bing,

You know,

Oh,

It's the gas tank.

I need gas.

And again,

It's one of those moments of choice because,

You know,

I can hear this little voice in my head saying,

You really intended to be to work by now.

You know,

You really,

You've got lots to do.

And then another said,

Wow,

What an opportunity.

I've got errands to do after work and I'll have a full tank of gas.

And look,

There's a gas station just across from the office.

And so I turned into the gas station,

Honored that little voice and said,

It's going to be all right.

You know,

I'm choosing to be grateful for the fact that that gas tank chimed just when I was in front of a gas station filled with gas,

Went on,

Had,

And went on and really did enjoy the rest of my day.

But I can't,

But I can certainly say that in the past,

This would have,

I would,

This would have been a disjointed morning that had me so discombobulated and frustrated with myself.

But heaven and hell I know equally well the choice is up to me.

So,

You know,

I consider a progress that I wasn't spreading the energy of irritation and frustration to the people I work with or to David or just continuing that and taking that throughout my day.

Instead I had,

Actually,

Like I said,

I felt really pretty grateful.

That's what I call a miracle of mindfulness right there.

So I thought it was a good time to talk about how did I get there?

And it's not just how I get there.

How does Thich Nhat Hanh,

How did the Buddha teach us to get to this point?

Now please,

Don't think I'm some enlightened person that never gets irritated.

It's just I had this one good situation,

Okay?

I do get irritated and frustrated.

And so how,

So how do we get to this point where the choice is up to you?

Okay.

Well first it's the practice of mindfulness meditation.

The art of stopping,

Calming,

And looking deeply.

So the way I like to describe it without getting into,

Like Bruce at the retreat was getting into different mental formations and things like that.

But I think a mental formation to me,

I just classify it or I notice it's a disturbance.

It can be a pleasant disturbance.

It can be an unpleasant disturbance.

Or it can be kind of a disturbance but it's kind of like,

Oh,

It's okay,

It's kind of a neutral disturbance.

Okay?

And those little ripples in the water to me are an invitation to stop and return to my breath.

And we call it a conscious breath.

So of course we're breathing all the time,

We know that.

But it's do you know that you're breathing?

And in our meditation instructions we say we use our conscious breath as our anchor to the present moment.

And so,

So just stop and be aware of that breathing.

And I said stopping,

Calming,

Looking deeply.

Calming is an effect of stopping.

And so these two practices are really powerful because if you're in a difficult situation and you're able to stop and calm,

You can prevent that situation from becoming even more difficult either through your actions or inactions.

And when we calm,

We just breathe and we watch this ripple in the water without judgment.

Just watch it.

And it's,

I find it's very common people come to me and say,

Oh,

I can't meditate because I can't clear my mind.

And the thing is that's not the purpose of meditation.

It's not to clear your mind.

It's to know your mind.

And one thing it's really makes it far easier to know your mind is if you have a method of knowing your mind.

And the Buddha gave us this method to stop,

Return to our breathing and watch what's happening in our mind.

Some people say,

And let the thoughts go like clouds moving through a blue sky.

And that's definitely useful,

Especially if all you're really trying to do is calm yourself down.

However,

If you want to begin the practice of looking deeply,

You have to start taking inventory of those thoughts.

Because if you just,

Oh,

It's a thought,

It's gone and you don't really make note of it for then it's just proof it's gone.

And I've been talking with one of my mentors,

Dennis Bone,

And he said,

And what he's realizing is a lot of people are stopping the process of meditation at stopping and calming.

They're not going into looking deeply.

And,

Or else it just happens by accident.

They're actually not setting up the conditions for actually doing that.

So,

So one option of course then when you're calm is to just let the,

Note the thought and let it pass and allow yourself to restore calm.

Bruce talked about at the retreat changing the peg.

But you have to,

When you change the peg,

I,

What we talk about changing the peg is that if a difficult thought,

Feeling,

Perception,

Mind state comes up and it's really difficult to handle,

Say you're breathing with it and it's just still really disturbing with you,

Then what you can do is you can turn your attention to something else that helps you restore calm.

And they call that,

There's a tradition of making furniture without nails they use pegs.

And if the peg was rotten you would hammer it out and put it in a new peg.

But I think of changing the peg as,

You don't just change the peg and let the,

Throw the rotten one out and never go back to it.

You're putting it on the back burner but the burner's on.

And so if you don't tend to it you're gonna burn the house down.

So I think that to me is more proper use of changing the peg.

Is setting it aside so you can calm and then when you have enough strength and stability you can go back and revisit whatever that ripple in the water is.

And then another option is you're gonna decide this is the,

I have this time right now to look deeply into it.

And so in that case of the situation I'm talking about irritation and frustration is just hold that,

Hold that in your awareness.

Ty says hold it like a baby,

The baby Buddha.

And note,

Ty says what would you do with a baby?

Well you don't get mad at it,

You don't judge it.

You look and see if it's,

Does it need,

It's diaper changed,

Is it hungry,

Is it cold,

Is it hot?

And note the,

That's,

And I like to just say note the feelings that are coming up,

Note the stories that are coming up.

And continue to breathe and hold,

And just hold that to the best of your ability.

And what that does is just holding that,

It can change,

It can begin to change while you're,

While you're holding,

While you're just holding that into your awareness.

But it also sets an intention and starts seeing your subconscious,

Your subconscious.

And insight may occur on the cushion,

But it also for me a lot of times happens sometimes when I'm doing something that I can pretty much do with my brain unplugged,

Like cooking.

I have,

Most of my insights come in the kitchen.

They do,

They come in the kitchen while I'm cooking.

I'm doing something that I know very,

Very well.

And so it's like my brain just settles,

My conscious brain settles back and my subconscious starts coming to the surface.

I've sometimes had insights in the times between sleep and wake,

Or wake and sleep.

And that little twat,

Another,

That nether zone.

Or sometimes I dream an insight.

And if you can get in the practice of doing this on a consistent basis,

You're going to begin to understand how your own mind works.

And yeah,

Yeah.

Another thing that assists us in looking deeply is some other things that the Buddha taught.

He taught about how our mind or our consciousness,

How our consciousness,

How our mind works.

And he also talked about ethics.

And that's like where the mindfulness trainings come in.

And a lot of that also really helps us,

Gives us a foundation,

Some principles for looking deeply.

And I thought I was going to have a TV tonight and I don't.

I was going to show an image.

So I guess I get to just maybe draw it on the back of one of these song sheets.

I'll draw it on this one that's on the back.

What I wanted to talk about is practicing right diligence.

It's one of the,

It's one of the,

It's part of the eightfold path.

And David,

Is there a big marker in there?

Could you look and see if there's a marker?

Because I'll draw it on here.

Because we're a smaller group.

If I draw it on here,

Everybody can see it.

I feel like a magic marker in there.

Oh,

Awesome.

Good.

I always like to say sorry for the smell.

This is your consciousness on Buddhism.

So,

There it is.

You have what's called your conscious mind here.

This is what you're aware of.

But down here it's called the store.

And what these dots are in the store are every possible state of mind you could possibly imagine.

The Buddha taught 51 of them and Bruce talked about I think 10 of them at the retreat.

I'm not going to go into that.

Just say there's all the possible states of mind.

And depending on the conditions of your life,

We use kind of a farming analogy or an agro gardening analogy.

This is your garden of your mind or the garden of your heart mind,

The garden of your heart.

And what'll happen is if we have the conditions,

When conditions are right,

Just like in a garden,

Certain seeds will sprout.

So it gets enough water,

Gets enough sunshine,

It gets,

It gets good compost.

Or maybe for a human,

You know,

Do we have good friends?

And do we have love?

Do we feel safe?

And so,

What the four diligence are,

It's about how we maintain this garden of our heart,

This garden of our mind.

And what they say,

Say one of these seeds is an unwholesome one and it's frustration like I'm talking about and it gets watered a lot.

And it sprouts.

There's frustration.

Okay.

I could have made it look weedier but I didn't.

That's frustration.

And so when we notice a seed,

An unwholesome seed like frustration,

Now frustration isn't always unwholesome.

Frustration is just a trigger that maybe something needs to change.

But it can also just make you kind of a not fun person to be around if you're frustrated all the time.

So you need to act to calm and transform this.

Okay.

Take,

You know,

Take away its water,

Take away its sunshine so that it goes back.

But another thing you could do is,

Say you got another seed here,

Gratitude.

Gratitude's a great big flower and it shades this from the sunshine.

And it'll go back down.

Okay.

So when an unwholesome seed arises,

We want to act to calm it in some way.

Okay.

But when wholesome seeds arise,

We want to act to nourish it so that it sticks around.

Granted,

They're even wholesome,

All of our seeds are impermanent,

Even wholesome ones.

But we want to nourish them.

And then what we want to do is we want to take care of our consciousness so that wholesome seeds are nourished.

So we get more wholesome seeds blooming in our garden.

And fewer unwholesome seeds blooming.

Okay.

And so again,

It goes back to if an unwholesome seeds arise,

We want to practice stopping,

Calming and looking deeply so that we see what the conditions are.

Why is that coming up all the time?

Or it's wholesome,

Stopping,

Calming,

Looking deeply so that we can say,

I want to figure out what the conditions are so that we can nourish this and have more of these good things that make us happy in our lives.

And so,

Let's see what else.

And then as far as taking care of our consciousness,

You know,

That's where understanding how the mind works is so important.

And I'm not going to go into it today in detail,

But there's a sutra on the taints.

And I think the taints are a craving for sensual desire,

A craving for being.

And the third taint is I'm going to tell you what the taints,

All the taints are.

Ignorance.

Ignorance.

Those are the taints.

And that's a subject for another talk.

But knowing how our mind works in respect for that,

You know,

It's like where are we putting our attention?

We don't want to put our attention in things that make us crave those things.

And we also want to be aware of what's going on in our consciousness as well as well as the world.

And there's also,

I think of the four nutriments that are talked several times in our mindfulness trainings about edible food,

Sense impressions,

Volition,

And consciousness.

And again,

Those are subjects for another talk.

But between having a deeper understanding about how our mind and our consciousness works and having ethics is that we can have a really healthy garden in our heart.

So what I'd like to propose for Dharma sharing is one,

If you have any questions,

Of course,

I think we can kind of bend Dharma sharing a little bit.

If you have a question,

I'll be happy to answer it.

But I'm curious,

How do you practice these four diligence's?

And what's your practice of stopping,

Calming,

And looking deeply like?

If this is new to you,

It's fine.

You know,

It's totally fine.

I'd be just interested in what your meditation practice is like and how it works for you.

So that's what I share today.

Thank you for listening.

Reviews

Thanks for the dharma talk on realm of mind! Namaste.