Facing The Pandemic With The Support Of The Dharma 9/26

How to deal with uncertainty and fear around us and also within us. How can Dharma teachings support us? How can we deepen understanding and love for life in the midst of chaos? This talk invites us to reflect on how to nourish what really matters to us and and what could be cultivated to achieve this.

Transcript

So this is the beginning of our second section, Second week. And. . . So, On Thursday there will be time for the feedback and. . . It will be lovely to hear a little bit how this seminar is going for you, How it keeps going. And in this session, It will be. . . I'm gonna introduce another topic and another practice that goes with that topic. So, Here I'm not in my house, I'm in a guest house, Because I don't have enough connection in my house. And the person from this guest house, She's very nice, And we were speaking the other day and she said like, . . . She said like, She's very interested in psychoanalysis and she would love to do some meditation, But at the same time she can't divide in so many ways. And she said, And anyway, I have my ways to center, To get centered. And I hear often that, Like people saying, Or I have my ways to get centered, Or I have my ways to come back to the present moment, Or, And I think it's really great. But what I want to speak today about is like, . . . Is meditation only about getting centered? Is it only about the present moment? Is it only about mindfulness? Yeah, So, And. . . Of course you already know that I implied that, That no it's not. Yeah, So that's what I'm gonna speak about, About opening a little bit more the ideas that we have, . . . That we may have about meditation. Especially because these days there's a big mainstream around mindfulness practice which I really find fantastic. And sometimes it gives the idea or the feeling that this is meditation, Kind of it, Puts it in a box a little bit. So, I think it's important that we maintain the understanding that meditation is something that we can develop, Explore, And open up to, Through our whole life. It's not gonna be easy to say, Oh meditation is this, Or yeah, And as so many things, It doesn't benefit from being reduced into something. So, I will start with an example that I read a book a few years ago, From Victor Frankl. So, You will, There's an Austrian team here among us, And I'm sure you know him, Yeah. He's a, He's an Austrian psychotherapist, I think. I don't exactly know in English the difference between these terms, But. . . And he was sent to concentration camp, I think in his thirties, And he's one, What I read, He's one of the first person who wrote a book coming out of that, Of the concentration camps. And interesting in his book is like, He was writing from his psychologic understanding, And it was almost like looking and noticing what happens to the people who are placed in such position of being prisoners, Of being mistreated, Or being given powers, Guardians, Or all the people in the positions, They were, Everything was extreme. And he was like making research on what happens to the human mind when we're put into this kind of a position. And it's been very inspiring to read this book, And one thing that struck me, He said, Is like, The people who survived concentration camp are the people who had a reason to survive, An aim, A view, A goal. So I think that's something that is. . . I feel, So let me read a quote that he said. So one thing he says is, Instead of wondering if life has a meaning, It was our duty to give a meaning to life. And this I find extremely inspiring in a way. So instead of wondering what is the meaning of life, We had to find a meaning to life. And so I think this speaks very much about something that we often find in meditation. There's this display between, Like we find this for instance with a reality. We could say like this is reality, Or we could say, OK, Give me a minute, Because I'm getting lost here. Tea break. So I'll take another way around. He was, What he was doing when he was sent for work during his time in the concentration camp, Is that he was imagining himself, And envisioning, And projecting that he was going to write that book, After he wrote and published, And that he was going to give talks on his understanding of what happens to a mind when placed. So he was looking at everything happening with this idea, This direction, This aim, That he was going to write a book. And he said, Because he had this, That was his meaning for staying alive. And the people who didn't find any meaning, Any reason to stay alive, They didn't. But what I find interesting is that he's been creating a frame, A story, And living in that story. He created himself a meaning to what he was living. And that's what I find interesting. It's like it's not searching for something that is there as if there was a meaning that is ultimately true. But it seems to say that we have to create a meaning to life. And that I find very inspiring. We have to create a meaning to life. And I think it is very important, Especially in this time that we're living, I think it's always important, But in this time we're living, It can very easily lose meaning. Life can very easily lose meaning in this time of difficult times that we're going through. And if we don't see a meaning to keep going, Yeah, And a meaning that is inspiring, Not just something that helps us keep going, But that really inspires us. If we don't find that, Then we won't find beauty in life. So another thing, Another quote from him is, When a person is not able to find a deep meaning to life, Then that person will be in search of distractions, Pleasures. And that also is very important to understand, Because I think there's a big difference between longing to something and the search for pleasure. So it seems to me that it's maybe because there's a loss of meaning in our time that we live, That there is so much seeking distractions and pleasure. It became a whole industry, The industry of distractions, Of pleasures. It wasn't such an industry hundreds of years ago. It really became something very big. And more and more distractions are invented. Sometimes I wonder what from do we want to be distracted at that cost? This so much before it was most of the money we earned hundreds of years ago was for food. I think, I don't remember the numbers, But huge amount, Big proportion of the money earned was just for eating. And now it's only a small number of this amount that is for eating and a lot is for other things all around. And they seem to have in this consumerism society that we are in, And I think it was a good idea to try consumerism because we're looking for happiness now, For satisfaction. It seems to me that humans are looking for satisfaction, The sense of contentment. So it was abused that we're going to try to get it from buying stuff, Having stuff, Doing stuff. Okay, It was good to try, But we know now in our generation where we are at, We know it doesn't work. It doesn't bring full satisfaction to buy stuff, To own stuff, And to do stuff. We won't find full satisfaction through these ways of doing things or being someone or becoming someone or having positions. All of this may be important, Depends what, But this is not from that only that we will derive a sense of deep contentment. But we've tried with this society, We've tried very much to distract ourselves and to find contentment through ownership and buying and consuming, But we see it doesn't work. And I'm sure we all agree here. I'm sure of this. We see there's an ease, There's a restriction in this society that it brings all these, Some people having so much money and some people can't even eat between in the same country and the East and the West and all of this and the planet and all of this is because of this belief that contentment will come from owning, Consuming or being someone, Becoming someone, Doing some things. So, I think at some point in our lives and probably many, Many times in our life we need to question ourselves about what we want in life. What is our real aim? What is our real direction? It's not obvious. If we don't have clarity about what we really want, We'll be the toys of what's happening in the day, We'll be the toys of our emotions, We'll be the toys of advertisement and a society who wants us to think like this, To consume like this, To buy like this. If we have no clarity about which kind of being we want to be on this planet, We'll just be a product of the outer. We won't have, We won't follow anything from our deep sense. We have, We do have deep longings. But how much time do we give to acknowledging these longings and getting to know them? Our deep values, What are they? If we don't know, If it's not on the front page of our mind, If we leave so many things come in the front page of our mind, Because from the outer a lot is coming. If we don't have the clarity and if we don't maintain a clear direction of who we want to be in this life, Meaning not becoming in terms of a roles or opposition, But human qualities, Which human qualities are really important for us to nurture? And what is a human quality? And what is, What are the deepest understanding we can reach? It's very important to spend time with these questions. And if you ask, I'm doing meditation and philosophy with children in schools. And if you ask eight years, 10 years, So what, What do you really want in life or something like this, Then he's going to, Many will say, Or the latest computer game or something like this, You know, Which is fair. This is what they, This is their understanding at that time. Or I want to become very good at cycle or, You know, Cross country cycle or something, Anything football, Maybe someone will say, Oh, I would like, I want that my, My parents and family are safe. That's beautiful. And then if you go a bit further, Uh, To, To the teenage 16, 18, They will say, Oh, I would love, I would love to have a good work, Or I would love to be, To be safe in life. I would love to find a, Uh, A nice partner, You know? So this is the direction. This is where the important is at that time. And if we remember what, What, What it was important at that time, But then we keep growing. It can't stay the same. We have to move with this. We have to evolve. What do we want? What is really important that we accomplish or that we become before we die? I think this is very important question because if we're not clear with that, We'll go left and right, Left and right. And according to our desire and what suffered on the outer and in, In, In search for pleasures, But we won't give the chance to very deep human qualities to emerge within ourselves and to take place. And if we don't let these inner qualities to take place, And if we don't create, Uh, To support so that they flourish all the deep, Beautiful human qualities, Then we're, I think we're in danger. We're going to lose ourselves. We are in danger of not finding satisfaction anymore. So, I would suggest that we make this a goal in life. That is a direction, A star that we follow that every, Not, I'm not going to say, Oh, This quality and that quality and being like this and being like that. But that everybody tunes it deep enough and often enough, Because you can't do that in one time. It's a practice to tune in and until you can know and feel and be able to articulate clearly in the mind, What are my important goals in this life? And it can be done at all levels. It can be also jobs and, And house and, And, And family wise and in the society, But not only for it can be there, But it has to be on a human quality level. I feel I have to question ourselves, How much of a beautiful soul can I become? And what is it to be a beautiful human, A beautifully realized human? What is it? What does that mean? What would, What would it be for you? A beautiful soul, Someone you could, You, You would call a beautiful person. I've met a beautiful person, You know, Really something like what comes to my mind would be now really someone serene really. And really like openhearted. And I know someone, He seems to live with a fearless heart, You know, You know, It's kind of deep quality is not only about jobs and, And, And what I'm going to do next, But nurturing the possibilities of human beings that can be a meaning in our life that can be, That's my aim. And with these kinds of aims, Then they're not in themselves. They don't exist in themselves, They exist in situation. So what is it to be serene when the situation is challenging, For instance, It's nice to be serene when nothing happens, But when the situation is challenging, Then can I embody a peace of mind? Can I embody a generosity? Can I live and be in situation without overbuilding a sense of ego, Me, Me, Me all the time? Can I reduce this acquiring whatever happens to my own good? You see, So if we take this as a meaning, As a direction, I think we, We're safe. We're safe in the sense that whatever happened, We will find how to stand in the storm. Whatever difficulty we will go through, We will learn to stay true to ourselves. And I think we will also, Our friends will like us very much because it's nice to have someone who, Who really develops beautiful qualities. And I think this is a way also to transform and to answer the complexity of the situation we're in with this in terms of society. So this question of meaning, Of sense, Of direction will not be answered with mindfulness practice. Going back to the step by step, Moment to moment awareness, Bare attention. It won't be answered by that. It won't be answered in the present moment. You know in Buddhism there's these eight pillars of Buddhism. I'm sure you heard about that. And so in this eight, The Eightfold Path, As they call it, And the first one that comes in the list of eight, So the eight pillars of Buddhism, Yeah? Which are the eight points that we need to take care of in life so that life flourishes. And the first one is right, It's sometimes translated as right understanding or right view. So what is a right view? According to Frankl, Victor, I always forget his name, Sorry Victor, Sorry. So according to Victor Frankl, There is not a meaning to life that we find and the one who finds he has found the real meaning to life, The existing meaning to life. It's between existing and creating. You create yourself a meaning to life. So in this sense, What would mean right view or right understanding? Is it a view that is the same view for everybody? Is it one of understanding about life? Gandhi said, I like this quote, He said, On the planet everybody have different understanding of life, Everybody have a different one. And I'm not even sure that one is true or one is correct. So here we're not so much when we say right view or right understanding, It's not speaking about something that is fixed and exists in itself. It's speaking about a view that we develop of the world, Of life, Which is so complex, You know, Developing a view of life. We can't have a right view of life, But the right view of life would be the one that works for us, Which means, That's my understanding, You check if you're happy with that one, Which means that you develop a view, A story around life, Around the situation we're in, Around the COVID-19, Around this society, You develop a story that helps you finding a healthy, Beautiful place. Like Frankel did in the concentration camp. So a view that would work for me is a view that helps us being more open to ourself and to others, Less judgmental to ourselves and to others, More able to be involved in transformation, Not being stuck, Not being rigid. A view that works is a view that allows us to move on within and outside, To transform. A view that works of any situation is a view that helps this situation to go towards more beauty. A view that doesn't work would be a view that creates tension, That is very fixed and rigid, That is very exclusive of other views and that brings us into a disconnection with ourself and others. For instance, There are so many ways to say it. What I just want to express is that we have to create an understanding of life that opens our mind and heart, Not one that closes it. So it's different than a belief. A belief is we get an idea that God is like this and like that and we're ready to fight for that belief. Or a belief is I'm like this and I'm like that and so I can only be like this and like that, I'm nothing else. This is very small and rigid and creates tension and arguments and despair. What I'm introducing is the idea, The possibility of having ways of seeing that are freeing us, That makes us more free. Ways of seeing ourself. How do we view ourself? How do we see ourself? What is our narrative about who we are? What is our story that we made? You know, Much of ourself is a story that we made. It's not the ultimate truth of what we are. So what is our story? Is it a good one? Is it a story that helps me being open to the others? Loving? What is it? Is it a story that helps me love life? Or is it a story that makes me feel small and in a box? That's not a nice story, You should change that one. Find yourself a story that really helps the evolution and the growth. So I'm thinking about again the Buddha when he left his family. Maybe I'm not sure everybody knows the story but very quickly he decided to leave his kingdom, He was son of a king, He decided to leave his kingdom because he wanted to find the end of suffering. He wanted to find if there's a way to end suffering in life, I'm going to find it. And although he was, Because he was very compassionate, Wasn't for himself, It was because he felt this is the only way to help humanity. Although he was the son of a king and he could have been very helpful to so many people in his kingdom. But he decided that that was not the best way. The best way was to leave all richness behind, Take just his walking steed and two cloths and wander. And so he had a wife and a Yasodhara and a son, Rahula, That was just quite still a baby I think or quite a very young son when he left the Buddha. And he stayed away for many years before he saw them again, His wife and his son. And he went through crazy stuff like almost died from not eating because he was trying to find again, To fight against the eternal seeking for pleasure and you know. And so after he went and came to like beautiful realization that I can't even imagine what it is. Like when we practice and when we really looked into life we see that it's possible to have deeper and deeper understanding and realization. When we have this kind of interest but he went to a level of realization. When I read texts and understandings from discourses of the Buddha I can't believe how deep he went. And then from there he shared that to many people, Created many monasteries, Many monks, Hundreds and hundreds. And in the beginning this was just for him and the whole way through it was a vision. You know it was a star, It was a dream. He was dreaming life like that. He was dreaming the possibility to find the end of suffering and he went for it. When we have these kinds of dreams and it's dream and longing, It's kind of a feeling of something that is possible, That is real and something like one creates oneself again in this between existing and creating. All life I find is between created and existing, Existing in itself and created by ourselves. But it worked. It's a crazy story living your wife and your child and not helping the people if you have compassion and not even helping the people and you're going to be the king. How much can you help if you're the king? You know it was a big kingdom and still he didn't believe that was enough. So he had this vision and he followed his vision. You know he wouldn't have this vision if it was only practicing mindfulness of the present moment. It's more than that, It's cultivating the understanding and the thinking mind also. Beautiful thoughts he was cultivating. And it worked because he's been helping so many people, Much more people in India at that time than he could have had if he was a king on a more, On a deeper level. But till now it's still serving seekers, People who seek the, What is the depth of freedom are still inspired by his, What he found and shared. So how precious is that? And his story is beautiful because his wife and his son were so interested that they also became monk and also start following what he, The way he had open. So I think we, In our practice of meditation we need some time to include tuning in and seeing where we're at with our vision, Which kind of life we want to create. How do we see what's the narrative, What's the story that we create? We live life through a story. Not again, Not so much through reality. Difficult to know what's the difference between story and reality. Because this man that I like very much his understanding is Nils Bohr. He was a Nobel Prize in physics and he was one of the founders of the quantum physics. And he said the universe is not made of matter, It's made of stories. So you see, Even at that level in physics, It's said that it's not clear that things exist like this as we perceive them. There's also a creating part of in what in perceiving, A creation part. So we need to have clarity on our aims and what we want. We need to be able to express it in words. It's longing, It's kind of diffused. But if we don't take the time to feel it, To feel the beauty of these longings and to understand them, Then it will never be an actuality in our life. We'll always be here and there doing this and that and not taking care of these deep longings that we kind of even don't know they're there sometime. More clarity. And the practice that I'm going to present is just to take the time to wonder and to dive in and to question and to feel what would be really important. What are my real deep values? If we don't care ourselves for values, The society will care for us and will tell us which values are our values. That's what's going to happen. That's what is, It is happening. So maybe I want to say a bit more about how this practice works and then we will do it. So, We'll sit in the posture and then for a moment before we come to the breath, It's a practice that is, I never do that myself for a full sit. I just start for instance with that. So before we go to the breath and presence as we did before, We will take the time to reflect, It's a contemplative practice, We will take the time to reflect on what is really important and there are different ways to do that. One way for instance would be to think of what are the qualities that I really admire into a figure like Nelson Mandela or Gandhi or the Buddha or Jesus or maybe your neighbor that you really feel there's a quality there that is beautiful. You feel the beauty of that quality and then when you feel that quality, Then maybe just with this feeling, It's not so easy but sometimes we feel it and then it's wishing ourself that we become like that or that this becomes real in our life, That this becomes more true in our life. It may take, We may kind of pray for that to the inner or the outer, It doesn't matter, To life, To God, To whatever. You may be humbleness for instance and like you sense how beautiful it is to be humble for instance or you know someone who is so humble all the time and you sense that it's fully honest and then you can wish yourself with the feeling, You wish yourself to think more about humbleness, To remember humbleness, To remember the feeling of it or you may pray so that humbleness become part of your reality more and more. You really attest that this is really important, This is really what I want. I want humbleness to be part of my life, I want to be humble, This is how I view me. And then it puts also in perspective how not humble we are most of the time or many times, Yeah? And then not to judge or whatever, It's just longing, Awakening, Blowing on the fire of the longing for humbleness or for being more empathic and well wishing towards other. You know? For being able to drop competition, Comparison and all this game and to be more able to relate to the other one with a loving quality. Whoever, Even people who have difficulties, Whatever, Maybe we can awaken the desire, The inner deep desire to be more loving towards life or to be more, We can maybe awaken the longing for being more grateful. There's so many things we can be grateful of and we step on them without seeing them most of the time because we're busy with stuff. We know this, It's not about guilt, It's just, Oh, We know there's so much beauty just there, Just in the very fact of breathing, But also in nature, In people around us, Within us, In the fact of having food. There's so many reasons to experience gratitude all the time, But we don't and we know. So it's not that we develop guilt, But just the feeling of, I would so much love to feel gratitude every day. We have reasons every day. I would so much love to feel that. So we awaken that in our practice. And if we do that regularly, Then for sure it becomes, We will remember that in our days, Food will come, Humbleness will come because we have now put it in our front aims, Our front goals of main importance. Maybe it's freedom for the very core seekers, Spiritual seekers. Freedom is kind of a big name. Freedom is, And the understanding of what it means, Freedom also changes with time. But the ultimate freedom, Freedom of being identified with anything that moves. Now I'm, I know I becoming maybe a very complex, But ultimate freedom, Whatever it means for you, Freedom from my neuroses ways of living, Freedom from my identification with what has been built in time. You know, These are, I'm just giving possible feelings and aims, But whatever resonates as beautiful, Whatever resonates of, Oh, These, The people who embody these qualities are beautiful people. This is the quality I want to embody. And if we can feel it even better, But if we can't, We can still go, But if we can feel it even better and then wishing ourself that this quality takes place in my life or praying so that this quality takes place in my life. And with the repetition of it, It becomes preeminent. It becomes more important. We're giving space in our life for these things that we pray or wish. If we don't think about, We just go about every day here and there, Here and there, And that's it. Nothing will come, Not much. We have to give importance to this. So that's the essence of this practice. So I hope I said enough so that this is clear, This approach is clear. You see that it's very different. It includes thinking, Cultivating the thoughts, Tuned into the feeling, You know, Vision, Dream, It's dream. If there was only mindfulness, We would all die. We need dream. We need a daydream. You know, A lot of creativity comes from there, You know, And we need to encourage quality visions and thoughts. That's what we're going to do now or try. So you can take your posture for the meditation.