We'll start just by transitioning from where you have been to where we are now by just doing breathing meditation briefly to bring ourselves where we are.
And then I will set a motivation,
Explain this topic a little bit,
And then we'll do a meditation on that.
So let's start with just a minute of observing our breath to bring ourselves to this place and to a mental space to receive and to meditate.
So,
By way of motivation,
We want to expand our minds to a vast motivation of expanding our potential to its fullest.
So let's contemplate as our motivation two verses from the Dhammapada that relate to our meditation tonight.
All of our experience is preceded by the mind,
Governed by the mind.
If one acts,
Speaks,
Or thinks with an unwholesome mind,
Then suffering will follow just as the wheel of the cart follows the foot of the ox that's pulling it.
All of our experience is preceded by mind,
Governed by mind.
If one acts or speaks or thinks with a wholesome mind,
Then happiness will follow just as one's shadow always follows one wherever one goes.
These are the words of the Buddha.
This meditation we're going to do tonight is one that we teach here at our Abbey very often.
This is often the first meditation we do when we lead a retreat and when I go into prisons I often lead this meditation.
And the reason for this is because I think it's one way for us to understand how to work with our mind and see the power of our mind to understand more about our perceptions which we may think are reliable but actually are often times not reliable.
You can prove that to yourself quite simply.
We often think that the experiences that we have are due to external circumstances but that isn't what the Buddha taught.
So we're identifying tonight two ways to look at why we experience happiness and why we experience suffering.
One of these is that we interpret our environment.
We take in information and we work it around and we actually have an interpretation about what's going on and we carry attitudes about these things.
The other is related to our karma,
Things we've done previously.
Today we're going to focus on the first of those.
How our attitudes and our perceptions affect our experience.
So you can imagine if you were say going to maybe a job interview or going to a grocery store or I don't know maybe going to a party or something.
And so let's take the example of going to a party.
And if you are,
Before you enter the party let's say you really don't know hardly anyone.
The state of mind you come to that is going to have a big impact on what your experience is when you go there.
So if you're nervous and withdrawn and this and that,
Your behaviors will probably reflect that and then your experience will reflect that as well.
Whereas if you go in kind of open minded like wow I'm going to meet a lot of new people,
We have a lot in common,
You can imagine how your state of mind will be and then what you might,
How you might perceive things and what your attitude is going in.
And so in that way you won't be holding back so much.
So in this sense how we,
Our attitudes sometimes become self-fulfilling prophecies in a sense.
So we want to be aware of that.
We want to be aware that how we describe situations to ourself influence how we experience them.
So,
That's something that where I learned this quite vividly was I would get a message on my answering machine before I lived here.
And if I was in a really bad mood,
Even how I heard the words would be filtered through the mood I was in and I would think wow what's with that person.
And then that mood would clear and I'd listen to that same message again and I wouldn't hear that tone of voice in there.
You know that was my interpretation affecting even what I saw,
Felt as my perception.
So as long as we are seeing or thinking that our experience of happiness comes from the outside then we're in some sense kind of victims.
But when we understand that we are the creators of our experience in these two ways,
One our perceptions and attitude and the other our karma,
Our actions in the past actually ripen in this feeling of pleasant,
Unpleasant and neutral.
So that also affects our experience.
So what we want to do tonight is thinking about,
Try to find this in our own lives.
We can't,
It's not going to work if I just tell you these words.
You have to see this for yourself.
So this guided meditation we're going to do tonight,
The purpose of it is to help us to find the experience in our own lives and learn about ourselves and our own mind and our heart.
And one other thing I want to say about this meditation is I use this often times when my mind is disturbed and especially when it's in,
Maybe I'm in a relationship with another person and something disturbing happens and my mind is disturbed.
There's not,
It's not the only meditation I would do for that but it's one that I have used many times,
It's one of a few.
And I've learned a lot by doing this in that there's,
This meditation has three or four points and then a conclusion.
And when my mind can't match this conclusion,
This wholesome conclusion that I'm supposed to get to,
That's when I really learn a lot.
So don't think if your experience tonight isn't like by the book,
That's not a problem.
Actually I've learned the most by the times I couldn't get my mind to this wholesome place by actually understanding what was going on or within myself.
So I think that's one thing I wanted to share.
The other thing is that if you do this meditation regularly,
On a superficial level it might help you see some things about your relationships with others and how you interpret situations.
But I think on a deeper level it helps us to actually understand the functioning of our mind and maybe even something about the nature of reality.
So I think it has some very broad implications.
But we're going to start with something that's more day to day life.
So let's return now to doing some breathing meditation for a minute to bring ourselves from a listening or to a contemplative mode.
So you're going to just hear the words come in and experience your own inner voice,
What comes up within you and explore these questions in your own life experience.
So this is how we take the Dharma into our lives to help us to transform our minds and our hearts.
Okay we'll start with some breathing.
Okay,
You guys,
Nigel.
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So now to remember a disturbing situation in your life.
Bring something to mind and recall what you were thinking and feeling.
Don't think about what the other person was saying and doing.
So bring something to mind.
It could be recent.
Try not to pick out something really big,
Your biggest life problem.
Just something more moderate or minor.
Okay,
So maybe you have the situation.
So forget about what the other person was doing or saying.
And just recall what you were thinking and feeling.
And now ask yourself,
How did the way you describe the situation to yourself influence how you experienced it?
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Examine how your attitude affected what you said and did in the situation.
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Think about how your words and actions affected the situation.
And think about how they affected,
How the other person responded to your actions,
To your words.
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If you find yourself getting stirred up at all,
Try to calm that and stay with everything from your side,
From your experience.
Drop anything that stirs up your mind about what they did or didn't do.
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So having looked at how your attitude affected what you said and did,
Ask yourself now,
Was I viewing this situation correctly?
Was it realistic?
Was I seeing all sides of the situation?
Or was I seeing things through the eyes of I,
Me,
Mine,
My?
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Now let's move a little farther in this.
And just imagine how you could have viewed this situation differently if your mind had been broad and open.
If you had been free of any self-centeredness,
Not thinking,
What are they doing to me?
What's going to happen to me?
Imagine if you had a broad mind.
And how would that have changed your experience of this difficult or disturbing situation?
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Make that determination in your mind.
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