Things Are As They Are

Excerpted from Dharma Dialogues with Catherine Ingram. Recorded in Lennox Head, Australia in March 2019. From the opening talk: “A zen haiku: ‘The sparrow had no intention to cast its reflection, the water had no mind to receive it, and yet the reflection of the sparrow is there in the water.’”

Transcript

Welcome to In the Deep.

I'm your host,

Katherine Ingram.

The following is excerpted from a session of Dharma Dialogues held in Lennox Head,

Australia in March of 2019.

It's called Things Are as They Are.

A Zen haiku.

The sparrow had no intention to cast its reflection.

The water had no mind to receive it.

And yet,

The reflection is there in the water of the sparrow.

So,

The phrase that kept coming through to say,

Even though it's incredibly cliched,

Things are as they are,

Right?

We humans like to tinker.

We like to tinker with us,

Ourselves.

We like to mess around with the program,

Try to fix it,

Try to make it better,

Try to make it cooler,

Try to make it whatever.

And we like to tinker around with everything else.

We've done a lot of tinkering with our world.

It's a great force of habit,

Great evolutionary force,

Actually.

And it's such an irony,

Such a poignant irony that the less tinkering would have been better in all ways.

The kind of way that we are whipping post to our own selves with trying to change ourselves,

Trying to undo things that are deeply conditioned.

And,

Of course,

What we've done to our world is too impossible to even address.

All this tinkering.

And,

You know,

We hear a haiku,

The sparrow had no intention to cast its reflection.

And it kind of goes up in one ear and out the other.

We understand it.

But if you really take it in,

And if you could live more and more in that place of just being,

Just like any other animal,

Right?

Just simple inside.

That you don't have to build up some big gigantic thing.

In my way of saying you don't even have to worry about legacy.

You don't have to try so hard.

You don't have to keep presenting somebody to the world.

You don't have to be embarrassed by you as yourself as you are.

And if you're ever in the company of people who don't seem to groove on how you are,

Then it's probably better to find other company or enjoy your own company.

So like this,

You keep falling deeper into into the simplicity.

Like any creature,

You start really appreciating how it is to just be a creature.

Right?

You don't have to gussy it up.

It doesn't have to be a spiritual creature.

My way of seeing that the more one comes into close touch with that simplicity of being,

The greater a spiritual creature so called you would be.

But that wouldn't be the reason.

No intention.

It's just that I've spoken many times and this is certainly not a unique insight,

But just how we relax around animals,

Pets.

I was at breakfast the other day with an eight month old baby and his mother.

And first of all,

For me,

It was like sitting with a burning bush.

I couldn't take my eyes off of him.

Everything he did made me laugh.

He made a massive mess on the floor at this restaurant.

I went up to pay and I said,

Sorry about the mess.

And I went blame it on him.

But point being that we,

When we're with a creature like that,

Right,

When he's so free that he's just throwing his food on the floor and making the most incredible noises,

Putting it in his mouth.

I mean,

Really loud noises.

Just being in the company of a creature like that,

Who's so free,

Who's so innocent,

Who's not doing it,

Who has no intention to impress.

It throws you into your own innocence.

It throws you into your own sweetness of being and you forget about having to present as somebody.

Right?

You're freed up from the ego material because that creature isn't operating on that channel.

And that's why we love dogs and cats and birds and all the other beings who are not operating on that channel.

Right?

And babies and toddlers,

Right?

And we notice,

We notice the developmental phase when the ego starts to come to the fore.

You know,

Like teenagers typically get really difficult,

Right?

Because,

You know,

Because they're,

The ego has been forming,

Obviously,

For years before that.

But,

You know,

It starts to get into its real power.

Right?

They start to sense of power.

And often one parents often describe having to bump up against them in that phase where the ego is.

And it's an important developmental phase,

But not exactly relaxing.

So can we be,

Can we live a lot of our lives in that kind of innocence,

In that kind of freshness?

Not childish,

But childlike.

Right?

And it's relaxing for you.

And it's relaxing for everyone around you.

Because we're such sensitive creatures,

That if somebody is presenting with a strong ego,

What it may do,

Unless one is pretty stable inside,

It triggers your own.

Right?

If somebody's got a big,

Somebody important ego,

And you're in their company,

You might feel a nervousness,

You might feel some fluttering,

Or you might feel some sort of like assertiveness.

Like I'm somebody too.

Right?

And you're with,

If you're with somebody who's just hanging out,

Nothing special.

Everything's fine.

Don't have to prove anything.

What happens for you?

You relax.

Back a long time ago,

I used to interview all kinds of very well known and legends,

Especially in the world of consciousness and activism.

And because their psychological,

Emotional,

Spiritual development was so mature,

What I always felt in the company of those people was calm and calm.

Like sometimes people have asked me,

I've interviewed the Dalai Lama a couple of times,

Long ago.

And sometimes people have asked me over the years,

Were you nervous in his company?

And it's laughable because you're the least nervous in his company.

And in the company of many people of that ilk.

You're not at all nervous with those people.

I always say it's like being with your grandmother.

Right?

Nothing to prove,

Not even that,

Like a sense,

They're not even trying to make sure you're okay.

Which would also be a kind of pressure,

Wouldn't it?

If you're with someone who's falling all over themselves trying to make you feel comfortable,

Even that would be too much.

So like the water,

No mind to receive the reflection,

Yet the reflection happens.

I struggle with this concept of just being and just accepting me as me with the aspect that is so deeply conditioned around constantly having to improve or to be better or to be calmer or be more connected or be more grounded or be more whatever.

And sometimes when I get into just being,

I get this existential kind of experience of what's it all for?

Like what gives my life meaning and then why am I as I am and why do I want to keep living?

And not that I want to kill myself,

But what is the purpose of living in this state of being because I can feel that deep conditioning,

Which is you have a purposeful life when you are doing,

When you are contributing,

When you are making something,

Building something,

Being more of myself,

Whatever that means.

And so it's a struggle I have with that constant obsession of wanting to go and do something and improve myself.

I just wonder if you want to comment on that.

I mean,

It's a huge conditioning and it's cultural as well.

We live in type A societies that are very busy doing.

Everybody's busy,

Busy beavers,

And they're proving.

And it's all the things you talked about,

Purpose and meaning and all of that.

Right.

So what if you could release the belief that those are valid questions?

Hence they're invalid questions.

Let's just stay with release the belief that they're valid questions.

Let's just put them aside.

You don't even have to fight with them if they arise,

But just because why presume there's a purpose or that your life has to have some kind of meaning?

Why presume that?

Now it may be certain lives have a particular purpose because of the way that the creature naturally evolutionarily expressed itself.

Right.

That we can easily say.

Sometimes you can see it in hindsight.

But to put the demand on yourself to have that specific purpose or meaning I think is extra.

I'm going to go back to the birds and the cat and the dog.

Right.

And also an analogy I use a lot.

You've probably heard me use it.

If you were to adopt a dog from the pound and the dog,

The people at the pound say,

We think this dog's been very badly treated and this dog's a nervous dog.

You get the dog home.

Are you going to have some demand on the dog that the dog's nature be changed or that the dog behave differently or the dog stop being nervous or stop manifesting nervous traits?

Would you do that?

I think the temptation would be to do that in the context of training,

You know,

Training the dog.

Well,

But I think the temptation is to then train that dog out of the nervousness or to do different things.

But wouldn't the so-called training in that regard,

Other than the basics of don't pee and poop in the house,

But wouldn't the training be making that animal feel safe by your acceptance and love of the animal?

Wouldn't that be if you were to redirect the habit of nervousness?

And,

You know,

Some creatures,

No matter how much one loves them and is calming to them,

They still have a nervousness.

They still might react to certain people.

Some might react to men,

Some to women.

Who knows?

You know,

But so wouldn't it make sense that you that the deep,

Profound acceptance is what calms the creature?

Yes.

So in your own case,

Could that not be possible?

That if you really said yes to you and in this deep and profound acceptance,

You know,

Just you didn't do you,

You didn't grow you,

You're not your fault.

If you really saw that,

If you really got that,

And then in that relaxation,

You could imagine a lot of freeing up of energy,

Right?

Because we do spend a lot of energy if we think that something's wrong with the creature,

We have to reform it,

Rework it,

And furthermore,

We have to get it out there and have it fulfill its purpose.

Right?

A lot of work,

A lot of mental strain.

So if that were off the table,

If that project were done,

Or you saw through it,

You might imagine that a different kind of creativity would flow.

I like to say,

The doing that flows from being has a kind of beauty to it,

Right?

And we know when we're around someone like that,

You know,

We know when we're with somebody,

Whether it's an artist or a writer,

Whoever it is,

You know,

That we can feel it,

That they're kind of a channel,

You know.

I'm now remembering another person I might talk about just to make a point.

So I interviewed Joan Baez a couple of times,

Do you know who she is?

And she talked about how people always honored her for having a gift,

That being a singer songwriter,

Having a gift.

But what was ironic for her is that she was the recipient of a gift.

For her,

She's just experiencing a gift.

Right?

So it's like it's rolling through and the clearer your channel of ease,

The clearer your own creative genius flows through without being burdened by ideas of purpose and meaning and having to give some kind of story that makes,

You know,

It's kind of back to the tinkering.

So you're not the only one afflicted with this,

We sort of all are.

And it's I think one of the powerful components of tuning to Dharma,

To a Dharmic perspective.

It starts to unravel that knot,

That knot of conditioning that we are,

Especially in our societies,

Afflicted with.

You know,

There's a lot of,

There's a way in which whether it's parental or cultural or your peer group or whoever it is,

People misplace the values on to,

You know,

What are you producing?

What are you doing?

What's your,

You know?

And it takes a kind of steadiness and a kind of,

You know,

Clarity to challenge that.

It doesn't mean that you're going to just end up laying about.

You know,

It's not going to be that unless it's really your nature,

By the way.

For some people it is,

Right?

Some people actually can be fine doing nothing much at all.

Now,

Very few people have the financial wherewithal to do that,

But some do.

And I've met all kinds of people over the many years of having these kinds of conversations who finally came more in touch with their own actual nature,

Their own authenticity.

And sometimes that meant that they did a lot less.

And other times with people,

Some switch that occurred in them,

In terms of their coming into their own authentic nature,

Actually had them rev up a bit in a creative way.

So another component of this is that the more you're off the hook of having to present something,

Having to manifest,

Having to find your purpose or your meaning,

The more likely any of those things actually might happen,

If they're to be.

And if not,

So what?

Because ultimately it's going to be you who gives you self-worth.

It's all about how you're using your attention and how it feels,

Where it feels a great expansion is that you're living in your senses a lot.

You're this kind of clearing house for insight to come through if it wants.

And that becomes very enjoyable.

And that gives you a sense of worth because you're experiencing the gift of life.

Just like Joan Baez was experiencing the gift of that talent.

Right?

That's about it.

After all of that,

That,

That,

That,

That,

That,

That,

That,

That,

That,

That,

That,

That.

Yeah,

I know.

So it's kind of almost hard to believe actually,

Isn't it?

When you've tried so hard for so long on so many different avenues,

Especially people who are sort of searching or seeking,

You know,

And then to kind of find out or realize or have the insight or the aha that,

You know,

It's like Poonjaji used to say,

It's like looking for your glasses while wearing them,

You know,

Is that,

Oh,

It was pretty simple all along.

Yes,

Right.

You know,

Yes.

Those kind of things.

Yeah.

It's,

I've had a lot of people pulling away from me lately.

And I'm,

I've not been what they were comfortable,

They weren't comfortable with the way I was being.

And I haven't been comfortable with the way I've been.

And the gift in that has been the reflection of them being my reflection,

Them pulling away.

It's like,

And this is for me,

Pull away from this busyness that is not me.

And I just came here and the tears have flowed and I was trying to think of very clever things to say to sound very enlightened when I picked up the mic.

I don't have to do a darn thing.

I can just sit here and cry.

And it's,

Yeah,

Doing is so prickly.

Yeah,

Yeah.

And also the,

Like I said,

The ego material is so burdensome,

You know,

And it's not to make it wrong that it arises or that we all have it.

But it's,

As one becomes more sensitive to it,

You know,

We see when it's causing trouble,

We see when it's bumping up against another ego,

Right?

We see all of that very,

Very clearly.

And of course,

Tears are a very appropriate response sometimes to that seeing and to that understanding that it causes separation and all those feelings that are difficult.

But no matter how free of it you might be at times or even a lot,

It doesn't protect you from other people's agitation about you.

You can't please everybody.

And some of the greatest beings that have ever walked the earth have been crucified and shot and burned and every other thing,

You know.

And so it's not that you can assume that if you come to a quite clear place in yourself that you'll float through the world and not be a trouble to anyone.

It might be there are certain types of people,

Certain types of personalities with whom you just don't jive.

They don't get you and you don't particularly get them.

And,

You know,

It's a chemistry that doesn't quite blend in a harmonious way.

So be it,

Right?

It doesn't mean that either of you are wrong.

It just might mean that it's just not a fit.

And as I said earlier,

If the situation is such that you don't easily find calm in a lot of people's company,

If that's the case,

Then also that's just the truth of it.

So as I said before,

Either find the ones with whom you do feel quite a lot of calm,

No matter how small a group that might be,

Or groove on your own company.

And maybe in the dance hall,

We sit some dancers out.

Yeah.

And we dance alone.

Yes.

And we dance in a group.

Yes.

And we dance intimately.

Yes,

Exactly.

And whatever.

Beautiful.

Great analogy.

Yes,

Yes.

It's just a dance hall.

Yeah,

Yeah.

Thank you.

I once heard Poonjaji say,

If no one comes to satsang,

I'll have satsang with the breeze.

Sometimes he would say the birds,

But he said both.

I'll have satsang with the breeze.

Yeah.

This may be ego-based.

I don't know.

I've just moved to Lennox.

You did?

Yeah.

Well,

Welcome.

Yeah,

Finally.

And I go up boulders up onto the headland with my dog in the morning,

And poetry flows through.

And a poem I got the other day I could never repeat because I can't.

But it was about a stone.

A stone?

A stone.

Yeah.

I'm just a stone but not alone.

And then it went into the story of how the stone is part of Mother Gaia.

Yes,

Yes.

And we all find our own path,

And we all fit with the whole.

Yeah,

Beautiful.

And,

You know,

When you talk about sitting in satsang with the breeze.

Yeah,

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yes.

Very good.

For me,

It's just to allow the space to hear that.

Yes.

Yes,

Lovely.

Yeah,

And sometimes it takes gentle reminders to oneself,

You know,

That the mind can start going down dark alleys any moment.

And,

You know,

So sometimes it does require just a little nudge to your own self.

Just remember what you already know.

And very precious friend to have the courage to speak the reflection.

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I think an idea talking about… Purpose and meaning.

Yeah,

Like this obsession with doing more,

At least for me,

Seems to be founded on an incorrect premise that the fulfilment that I'm looking for lives on the yonder side of thinking up a great idea,

Going into proactive action and executing a result.

And then my mind imagines that upon the execution of that result,

There'll be some utopia.

But the utopia,

It just never comes.

Right.

And so it's,

I guess I'm moving more into the idea that the fulfilment,

The bliss,

Whatever you want to call it,

Is only ever found in one place and one time.

And that's here and now.

And then echoing what you were saying earlier,

That doesn't mean that I stop creating and doing things.

But I'm working on the premise of bringing the beingness into the doing.

Yes.

Yeah.

And then you can just enjoy the process of whatever it is,

Whether it's a creative offering or whatever it happens to be,

Even just a journey that you take.

But it's not about the final landing whatsoever.

Poonjaji also has another great analogy,

Which is,

He said,

Often when you have been going after an object of desire,

You have a momentary satisfaction in the acquiring of the thing,

Because you have a momentary break from the desiring.

So you have a cessation of desire because you got the object.

But often if you have misplaced the very understanding that you've just said,

Then the desiring starts up again for the next thing.

Right.

And so all you're ever getting are these little momentary sensations of desire until the next desire replaces it.

And it's interesting to watch.

I mean,

It is really interesting.

I still experience this,

By the way,

Like I'll decide I need something,

You know,

And I'll then manage to acquire it some of the time.

And I'll notice how within seconds of having it,

It's like,

You know,

The satisfaction about it is gone.

It's not like an innate continual satisfaction.

You know,

It's like I have experienced it momentarily,

And then I barely ever think about it again.

Or sometimes if it's something that I use in an ongoing way,

Of course,

Then I appreciate it when I'm using it.

But I do see it in my own case,

You know,

I don't struggle with this situation greatly.

I just see the conditioning,

You know.

One of my friends tells a great story actually,

To illustrate the point,

Very well known Buddhist teacher,

Great,

Great guy,

Longtime friend.

He tells the story,

He's sitting in his house in Berkeley.

And he gets the idea that he needs to get an ice cream cone.

And he thinks,

Okay,

What's open?

It's like 11 o'clock.

He realizes his nearby stores aren't open.

So he has to go way further afield to another store way far across town.

He does that.

He drives out in the night.

He goes,

He gets the ice cream,

He still walks through the aisles decides,

You know,

What he finds the aisle,

He figures out what he's gonna get.

He brings it home.

You know,

It's now an hour and a half later or something.

And he's eating the ice cream and he's spaced out,

Like he's really thinking about something else and he's mindful enough to notice that moment of like,

After all that,

I'm not even tasting the ice cream.

You know,

And so it's like that,

You know,

And it's,

Again,

It's kind of just a funny aspect about us.

But there is a way to not entirely decondition that,

But to be watchful of it so that you're very selective about which desires you chase,

Knowing the process,

You know.

Or even if you are momentarily,

It's not going to last that long.

So you don't want to really put yourself out too much,

You know.

And I think people make this miscalculation all the time,

The things they go through to get something that isn't going to necessarily inherently be satisfactory for them,

You know.

And the blood,

Sweat and tears they're willing to spend for it.

It's incredible.

You know,

So And that the wellspring of fulfillment satisfaction lives within.

Yeah.

Yes.

So we can almost circumvent the acquisition and then go directly to the source.

Absolutely.

Right.

Right.

You can let go of a host of things that will not require another phrase.

I loved his some quoting him a lot today.

Poonjaji said,

You know,

In this chasing of desires,

It's as though you're a beast of burden driven by a madman.

Right.

A beast of burden.

You go out there and get that now go out there and get that and you're just being whipped along by this burning desire.

And,

You know,

And and you come into much more contentment for what you're talking about.

The innate satisfaction one can experience,

Literally experiencing the gift of life,

The gift of your senses,

The gift of your aliveness,

Your being able to dance while others are dying,

You know,

All of that,

The freebies of the world,

Where it's really you start to live in a lot more contentment,

And then you're quite judicious about what you're going to go chasing.

And that could also apply to relationships,

Objects,

All kinds of things.

You're,

You know,

It's like,

You know,

Desires costly,

Whatever it is you get,

You're gonna have to maintain whether it's a,

You know,

Car or house or,

You know,

Whatever,

A relationship,

Whatever it is,

You know,

It takes energy.

And so you,

You,

Some of them,

Some of the situations you're willing to spend the energy.

But a lot of times you can forego.

As you know.

I've got another question.

I've been reflecting on Paramahansa Yogananda's book,

Ora Bhagavati Yogi,

And there's something about the stories and the way he communicates that,

And I can feel that in some spiritual books,

That there's like an energy,

It feels like a divine energy.

And then these teachers make claims about what happens once we drop our bodies or after we,

After we die.

And I'm playing with the idea of kind of just living in the mystery,

Rather than creating a belief system.

And I've had lots of,

Been exposed to lots of belief systems about what happens when my body dies.

So I'm trying to work with this idea of there's something palpable,

Tangibly,

It feels to be divine from some of these people that makes me think that perhaps they have an insight into a knowing that perhaps I'm not able to capture myself.

I'm not even sure what the question is.

No,

But I like where you're going.

It's like,

Are they a credible source?

Because they seem to be radiating such divinity.

And talking about stories that are quite magical and thinking but feel true in some occasions.

Is it fair to,

How much weight can we give to their claims of an afterlife?

What are your thoughts on that?

Well,

Something that I have looked at deeply long ago.

So what I came to in this assessment,

And it has to do with a type of critical thinking,

Right?

That both,

It can be the case that someone has a very lovely fragrance,

A very,

Very lovely,

Lovely,

Loving vibe and being and be incorrect.

Yes.

Innocently incorrect.

Having a subjective experience or an entrained experience based on a belief system,

Which then encourages them to see reality through filters that fit their belief system or their tautology,

If you know that word.

It's like a closed system of belief so that no matter what forces it,

Or no matter what,

Like even if ultimately,

Like if you see the tragedies that go on in the world,

And people will say,

Well,

How could a loving God do this?

The tautology would say,

God's ways are mysterious.

God has a plan.

God,

There's a purpose to it.

We can't see it.

That's a tautology,

Where you basically,

You leave aside reason.

And you're just within the closed loop where there's no exit.

Okay,

So people can be living in a tautology and be very conditioned in it.

And thereby everything they see,

They interpret through the tautology that they've been trained in since little,

Being little kids.

And they could themselves be a very,

Very extraordinary soul of a great human being,

But still live within.

So being inaccurate.

Yes.

That's what I came to a long time ago based on my dear Buddhist teachers,

Who I loved and who I trusted and who were very,

Very highly ethical.

But I began to realize they were saying things that they had no direct experience of because they were living in a tautology.

So correct me if I'm wrong,

But isn't it the understanding within the Buddhist tradition that the Dalai Lama is an incarnation of a.

.

.

That is the understanding,

Yes.

.

.

.

Lama.

But interestingly in his case,

And I don't know what he said lately,

But the current Dalai Lama is supposed to sort of predict where his incarnation is going to be born and how and what the signs are and all of that.

And he's been reticent to do that because it's not happening for him.

So it's a very honest position to take on his part.

Now,

I don't know if that's changed in the last,

Say,

Decade or something.

Don't think so,

But I think it's a very.

.

.

He even told me in an interview that he might be the last Dalai Lama.

And that may be based on him thinking,

I don't sense anything out there and I don't sense what I'm supposed to be saying.

And that's a very brave thing to do within that tradition.

But he's been exposed to a lot of scientists and a lot of people who are very trained in critical thinking.

And he would have a different kind of rigor and not live under the same pressure that perhaps his predecessors did when you've got an entire huge community of people depending on you to believe a certain way and to keep remaining within the belief system.

So it doesn't have to be a contradiction,

Actually.

It can be,

In other words,

It doesn't have to be a contradiction that someone like Yogananda could have such a beautiful fragrance and yet be immersed in all this magical thinking and miracles and all of that stuff and saying it as though it were true.

So do you feel it's.

.

.

Sorry to hog the mic if anyone else wants to talk.

So is it fair to conclude that since what happens when we die is a mystery,

That anyone claiming other than that is deluded?

Deluded is the most benign way to see it.

Sometimes they're deceptive,

But deluded or deceptive is how I would play it in terms of how I see it.

It's like that quote I gave you the other day.

The Boogie Street Leonard Cohen quote,

Though all the maps of blood and flesh are posted on the door,

There's no one who has told us yet what Boogie Street is for.

And it's life,

Right?

Life is Boogie Street.

Though all the maps of blood and flesh are posted on the door,

They're in the bookstores,

They're everywhere.

You trip over them.

There's no one who has told us yet.

Right?

And that makes sense to me.

The mystery,

We live in a huge mystery.

And I really,

As you know,

I like the scientific explorations in this regard.

I consider everything we do in this room based on the scientific method,

Which is that we're making experiments that are replicable in different places by different people.

And that has to do with how you're using your attention.

And that there are certain things that we can expect based on many,

Many,

Many experiments by many,

Many people that are consistent,

Having to do with what happens when you use your attention in certain ways.

But we don't need to enter the realm of magic or anything like that for these experiments.

And we don't need to be talking about things we can't know and that we don't know in order to make these experiments.

Right?

So it's really living.

People make,

I hear a lot of people talk about living in the mystery.

And then I hear them say things that is clearly assumptions.

They have no way of knowing.

And,

You know,

So this is really is living in the mystery as just any other creature,

Right?

Having been made of gas and stardust.

And now we're talking to each other and considering where we once we came.

And I'm just talking about things like string theory and,

You know,

Multiverses and many dimensions.

And,

You know,

We were pretty amazing at these kinds of conceptual realms that I think science might get us closer to understanding.

But for our purposes to live and have a happy life and dance to our music and be content and show up in a simple way and get off the whipping post of our having to perform,

Present,

Be somebody.

We don't need to know a lot.

Hardly anything.

And I like to say that as you get quieter in that,

Like just that becomes more the default position.

I like to say that sometimes the mystery winks at you.

What I mean by that and you're probably into it.

What I mean by that is that every now and again,

You get this amazing insight.

You don't really even know if it's true or not,

But it might seem really true and really unique and like really original.

A little tiny free sample,

A little wink and then off it goes,

You know.

You can't really capture it and make a book out of it.

But you get used to that a lot more.

You know,

When you don't have a lot of preconceived ideas,

Then what happens is there's a big ground of the winks from the mystery.

There's a lot more space for that to occur.

You start feeling like you realise you've been living within your own tautologies,

Your own conditioned tautologies.

Further to that,

In what appears to be an objective reality,

When I'm around people around Dharma or wisdom,

Including yourself,

There appears to be a quality of love and compassion that radiates from you,

From teachers that are communicating around what feels to be true.

So would it be incorrect to presuppose that one of the universe's agendas is to be more compassionate,

Kind,

Loving,

Happy,

These things.

It's very rare I hear someone talking about espousing wisdom and also being a hateful person or an angry and hostile person at the same time.

So on this blank canvas of the mystery,

Would it be incorrect to conclude that there's a leaning toward love?

By the universe?

Or since we're emanations of this one life,

This one universe?

Well I think it's a conceptual leap to attribute intentionality.

Again,

I think that's a leap.

So can we just stay with,

I think it's the case that the more quiet one is just in the heart,

Just in beingness.

What happens when that occurs?

What happens is you're much more available for empathy,

Right?

Your empathy arises because there's a sensitivity to the beings around you.

You notice suffering,

Right?

You notice joy,

You notice the babies having fun slurping its noodles,

Right?

All of those things are signaling in the heart to you the tender,

Tenderizing.

And therefore your own impulses do become more loving,

As you say,

Because they're just simply more empathic.

Because you're feeling the life on the web so clearly.

So I can't attribute intentionality because one could make the counter argument that if we were to look at the species at the hole,

We're killing everything in sight,

Right?

Then from that vantage you could say it's a hateful intentionality because it's killing everything,

Right?

So you can't really make an,

I don't think intention comes into play here.

I think we don't need to worry about what the universe is intending.

We only have to worry about how we're experiencing and showing up.

And that it's a huge spectrum going on here.

We can feel the spectrum in ourselves.

On one end there's mercy and kindness and love and compassion and wisdom,

Right?

On the other end is a lot of cruelty and hatefulness and all those things.

And some people unfortunately live mostly at that end of the spectrum.

I'm sure the prisons are kind of full of people who for whatever reason or other,

Often conditioning,

Are just living in a burning hatred,

Right?

And others who live at this other end of the spectrum,

A lot of people live kind of swinging both ways and in the middle.

To just really see it in this kind of almost clinical way,

I know it's not as romantic,

But I propose to you Will that seeing it that way does put you more in a mysterious wonder of things in which it can still be quite juicy and romantic.

It's just not the old stories of the old-time religion.

It's a different,

It's like you start to sense your own kind of relationship to the mystery.

And then it lets you off the hook about a lot of things.

In my experience through the instrumentality of my physical body,

That if I,

And we touched on this a little bit yesterday,

If I feel there's that line that anger and resentment is the poison that I drink,

Hoping it will contaminate someone else.

So I'm the first beneficiary of hatred or any suboptimal emotion.

And it feels,

It doesn't feel comfortable in my physical being,

In my instrument.

And yet kindness,

Compassion,

Love does.

So if my physical body is like a universal antenna for one of a better expression,

One would think if it was the universe's agenda to hate,

Then I would feel positive energy when I hate.

But I think that this,

But that's you.

I don't think you can say that you're a universal antenna because there are people who thrive on negativity and on hatred and even live a very long life actually.

Yeah.

And I once saw this incredible,

Well-known in America,

Neuroscientist and biologist from Stanford named Robert Sapolsky.

His work is incredible.

And there are studies that show that animals who are being picked on,

If they then pick on like primates in particular,

If they then go pick on,

Beat up somebody else in the,

In the what is it called troop,

Then they don't get an ulcer.

But if they're just being constantly picked on,

They start developing stress diseases.

The way that they relieve their stress is they pick on somebody lower down on the line.

So we cannot make assumptions about universal antennas.

You happen to be someone who feels better being loving and being kind.

So do I.

And I would propose that people who come into this kind of quiet using their attention that way,

That does pretty consistently happen.

But not everybody is inclined to use their attention like that.

And we,

Again,

It's back to don't fall into a tautology that says there's,

That the universe is benevolent.

It's creative and destructive.

So one other.

Okay.

If we interviewed everyone,

Even the Fidel Castro,

The people that,

That or the Hitlers and whatever,

And they agreed with the proposition that when they feel hate that they experience discomfort and a contraction and something that we would deem bad in their physiology.

And we interviewed everyone and they,

Everyone confirmed that indeed,

Yes,

We feel better when we choose love and compassion.

Could it be then fair to conclude that the universe's agenda has expressed through us is benevolent and loving and kind?

Well,

I'd have to say yes if that was the,

But I don't know that it would go that way.

I just don't know that it would go that way.

That's an unknown and it's not one we can make an experiment of,

But.

We could.

We could ask Hitler.

But in theory,

Some of the studies,

Correct me if I'm wrong,

When I'll take a huge sample size of people,

But it's still a relatively small percentage to the number,

Say the population of the United States,

320 million,

But they'll interview a view a hundred thousand people and extrapolate that what's true for the hundred thousand is most likely true for the 321 million.

Yeah,

I just don't know that the specific kind of test that you proposed has been done in any way like that.

All we can really do is look at the data we have,

You know,

And I mean,

I see a lot of people who like to go to World Wrestling Federation events,

You know,

And football like American style football,

Where people actually get brain damage,

You know,

And boxing matches and,

You know,

And we look at what people are doing to this earth system,

To consistently making short term decisions and with long term harm.

You know,

If we look at the actual data and even then,

I wouldn't be willing to say it's there's an intention of destruction.

It's like I started the whole the whole day today with that colon,

Right?

About the sparrow and the water.

It's just is this is things are as they are.

That's what we can say.

Things are that as they are.

This has been In the Deep.

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Reviews

These talks are always enlightening and reassuring. There is a sense of relief and “all is okay” after I hear Catherine share with her audience. Thank you.

Another interesting discussion and viewpoints, Thank you for sharing! 😊