Learning To Fly Without Wings The Essential Steps To Take

If you are a mind-centered person and you're clouded with anxiety and depression then this is a good lecture to help motivate and also give you a clear path towards Buddhahood. Embedded with stories from my life you will gain clarity as to why you should make the jump.

Transcript

Every single one of you,

Every person in this world,

Has the ability to one day become a Buddha.

To one day soar through the sky and fly like never before.

You all have wings.

Some of you don't know that you have wings,

But every single one of you has wings.

You may have never used them before,

But you've got them.

The reason most of you have wings and you don't know is that you've been living in the wrong center.

You've been living out of the mind.

You've been letting the mind be the master because you don't know anything else,

No other way to live.

You've been taught that thinking is everything and thinking helps you survive and thinking helps you to grow and be a better person.

But there's more to life than just thinking.

This thinking that we do,

This functioning out of the mind center,

It's the equivalent of basically looking at your reflection in a lake.

And the mind is the lake.

And all you have to do is disturb the lake a little bit and there's ripples everywhere.

The mind becomes disturbed and it doesn't take much to disturb somebody.

You just touch the lake gently and ripples flow everywhere.

On a cool serene night,

The moon reflects in the lake.

The reflection of the moon,

Especially a whole moon night,

The lake is so clear and beautiful if nobody touches it and there's not a ripple in it,

You have this perfect reflection of the moon.

But what you need to do when you switch centers,

When you switch from the mind center to the heart center,

Then you become closer.

You leave the periphery of your life.

You leave the outside of the circle where your mind exists and travel to the center.

And that centering means that basically you turn and watch the moon directly instead of using the reflection of the moon to give you advice on what the moon looks like and what the moon could actually be.

So a shift is needed.

A shift from the mind center,

Which is reflecting everything.

It's like a prism that white light goes into the prism and out the other end it gets divided into six or seven colors.

And that's how the mind works.

It divides everything.

It analyzes everything.

But if you turn and look at the white light,

You can see the true nature of the light,

Of what it really is without the mind's interpretation.

And don't get me wrong,

You definitely need the mind for certain things to think,

To make a living,

To do a lot of things.

You need the mind.

The mind is a beautiful thing.

So when you hear people,

Spiritual people,

Talk about you have to shift from the mind to the heart center,

The heart just so happens to be at the same center,

The same place.

Your physical beating heart is close to the same center where the Japanese people believe that your whole psyche functions from.

They call it the hara.

And the hara means the center.

It's also where we believe intuition comes from,

Is from that centering.

This shifting from the mind center to the center of awareness,

The center of your being,

Your consciousness vibrates from that center.

The shift is scary for mind center people because it feels like,

You know,

Hey,

I'm not a lovey-dovey,

Feely-touchy type of person.

I function from logic and logic is all I believe and understand.

But when we focus on spirituality and growing spiritually,

We kind of have to leave that center,

The mind center,

And leave it on the periphery and travel back towards,

Inwards towards your real center.

This shift is very subtle,

But yet it's the biggest shift.

It's the difference between,

Let's say like you're falling into a well,

Into a deep dark well and you're falling downwards and it's just dark and you don't see nothing but darkness in front of you.

But if you turn around and face the other direction,

You'll see light and you'll see,

You know,

You're falling away from the light,

But you'll see light.

And that's just basically what it means to be a Buddha,

To turn around,

Leave the mind center,

And make that 180 and function from awareness and centering.

I recently had a conversation with a young man who said that his belief that when you die basically that is the end,

Nothing else can happen because you won't have a brain anymore.

And in a way he's right.

You won't have a brain anymore,

So will you still be able to think?

And I told him that what you need to do is first become a Buddha and then you can answer that question because right now in your sleep,

Functioning from your mind center basically is the same thing as being asleep in a way,

But in your sleep you can't conduct a scientific study.

Who could trust,

Like if you were dreaming right now and you're dreaming that you're even listening to me,

Who could trust that this is just not a dream or is it a dream?

You have to ask yourself that question.

And if you're functioning from your awareness then you'll understand that it can't stay into a dream state for very long.

You will awaken very soon.

If you go into a dream,

Let's say tonight you go into sleep and you dream,

And in that dream if you sit down and meditate you'll pass through all your stages of sleepiness and dream states or whatever,

And you will awaken within your dream if you meditate in your dream.

I know I've done this one time and it's quite interesting.

So it's totally your decision,

Your choice.

If there is anything such as free will then this is it.

The ability to either stay asleep and live that way,

Live out of the mind center,

Or move to awareness and function from the real center.

You'll find that if you function from awareness that your mind becomes your servant and you become the master.

And that's the way it should be rather than your mind being the master and your consciousness giving into whatever the mind says.

How many times have you trusted a decision you made and made the wrong one and regretted it?

Whereas if you trusted intuition,

If you found your center and focused out of awareness and made that decision from awareness,

Then everything could turn out quite different.

A short story I'd like to share with you is that when I began skydiving,

When I was still a student skydiver,

The instructors basically were telling me that you have to be able to use your mind in a pinch.

You have to be able to think to get yourself out of certain situations.

If something up in the sky happens wrong,

Your parachute doesn't open right or doesn't open at all,

You've got to be able to think to get through that.

And they are 100% right and I'm not dodging that bullet at all.

But what happened to me was when I got into the sky and I was totally concentrating on just using my mind and focusing with my mind up in the sky,

It was like I had blinders on.

I wasn't able to focus out to my peripheral vision.

I basically could only see like right in front of me.

I had blinders on is the only way to explain it.

But I did what they said and anytime I had an incident,

I was able to think and get through it.

But the skydive was still very scary at that point.

There was something missing in that skydive,

Something that I didn't quite comprehend.

I was doing what they said.

I was doing what they told me.

So a point come to my life,

You know,

Very,

Very quickly that I was missing awareness.

I wasn't functioning from awareness.

I was functioning from my mind center while I was skydiving.

And when I got up in the air the next jump and I told myself,

Hey,

You know,

You do this surfing,

You do this snowboarding,

You do all these this mind awareness at work,

You incorporate in your whole life.

Don't exclude it from your skydiving.

Make it a part of that skydive.

Use your mind,

But let your mind be the servant and you be the master.

And what happened when I did that was the blinders were taken off.

I could see and focus and enjoy the skydive so much better when I function from awareness.

Your awareness will tell you,

Hey,

Hey,

Check to the right,

Make sure you know there's no buddy in your way before you make a turn or check to your left,

You know,

Clear the ground above you,

Clear the ground below you,

You know,

Make sure that whatever you do is going to be a safe move and you function from awareness.

And it's like taking the blinders off.

And what happened one time a few years after that was I had my first incident where I had to cut away a parachute.

I was demoing a parachute.

It wasn't even my own parachute.

I was demoing one that I wanted to buy.

It sounded quite cool and quite interesting.

And I was all excited to to demo a parachute.

So I let them put the parachute on my rig.

Everything was cool and fine,

Everything and went up to altitude.

And I had an uneventful jump.

The jump went fine,

But I wanted to pull high so that I could practice playing with this parachute.

But anyway,

What happened was about 5000 feet,

I pulled the parachute and parachute comes out and it's a big mess.

I mean,

It's spinning me in circles.

And I watched a video like a week or two before that where this exact same thing happened to another lady spinning in circles and she took way too long to cut it away.

Because when you have a line over and you're spinning in circles and you have a line twist too,

You have a double malfunction,

Almost a triple malfunction.

I mean,

This is not flyable and it's a dangerous situation you can get yourself into.

So what I did was,

You know,

Within four seconds,

I knew this is no good.

So I thought I'll use my awareness and I cut away my main parachute.

And then I pulled my reserve,

You know,

And it wasn't that scary.

I mean,

What the scary part came in is when the reserve opened up and had line twists,

Like 10 line twists all the way up.

Shoe was open,

But it was not flyable.

So you can't cut away your reserve.

You've got to fly it.

I couldn't quit on that one.

So I kicked and twisted and kicked and twisted until all the line twists came out.

And by the time all the line twists came out,

I looked at my altimeter and I still had 2000 feet.

Plenty of time to make it back to the drop zone.

And I did.

I made it back to the drop zone.

Everybody's like,

Hey,

What happened to you?

And I said,

Oh,

Man,

I had a line over and a line twist.

I couldn't fix it.

But that's just an example of using your awareness.

You can use your mind as a tool.

It doesn't mean you have to be lovely,

Touchy,

Feely,

Wheely type people.

Spiritual people can be very smart and intelligent people,

Too.

So anyway,

That's just an example of something that happened in my life.

But the reality is that it has to start small.

You have to start somewhere.

You can't just start skydiving and practice awareness.

It probably won't happen very well and it can be very dangerous.

So what I suggest is that you learn awareness,

Practice awareness on a daily basis.

Start off with little things at home or little things at work that you just do,

Like washing the dishes or sweeping the floor,

Gardening,

Whatever you'd like to do,

Mow the yard,

Whatever you'd like to do.

But if you dive into what you're doing 100% and be fully aware and watching yourself while you're doing it,

So you're 100% in the present moment for one,

And then you're practicing this awareness,

This keenness,

And that awareness will pierce time.

It will actually pierce time.

And before you know it,

The dishes are done.

You don't even realize how fast you did them or why it took so long.

You weren't in the functioning of time at that present moment.

You were in what we call living in eternity.

And that's the way a Buddha lives.

And that's why they say practicing awareness is like being a Buddha.

So this leap,

This splitting of time through the center in the present moment,

Being 100% awareness focused in the present moment,

Like I said,

It pierces time.

It takes you into eternity.

It takes you into Buddhahood.

I made this jump many years ago,

Many,

Many moons ago.

And I've never regretted one moment of my life since then.

In fact,

You really don't start living until you make that jump and to have the courage to take the jump to tell the mind,

Hey,

Be quiet and listen up because there's a lot to learn.

This fellow that I was telling you about earlier who believed that death was the end,

I was like,

You know,

That may be true and may not be true.

But if you're in your sleep and you're having this discussion in your sleep and while you're dreaming,

Then there's really no way of knowing whether it's true or not because how can you trust any scientific result that you had in a dream?

So I told the fellow,

It's best that you try to be awakened first.

Of course,

His answer to me was,

I only trust logic.

I don't trust this woo-woo stuff.

But Buddhahood,

Becoming a Buddha,

Is what they call the ultimate death.

They believe,

The mystics say that it's the last time that you'll be on this planet.

Maybe you've had several lives before and this is,

You know,

Once you attain,

Once you become a Buddha,

Then you know,

You don't have to come back anymore.

As a surfer and someone who's aware and practicing awareness,

I take that into my surfing,

Of course.

I take it into everything I do.

But that's what makes it so beautiful.

And to me,

Life is just,

You know,

The ultimate pinnacle.

I mean,

We're able to do so many wonderful and beautiful things.

And yeah,

Sure,

There's going to be suffering along the way.

There's going to be pitfalls,

There's going to be downfalls.

But if you focus on climbing the mountain all the time,

Then the ditches and pitfalls will be far behind you,

Especially when you make it to the top of the mountain.

When you've made it to the top of the mountain,

When you've become a Buddha,

And when you get to the top of the mountain,

You'll be able to see,

Like I said,

All the other mountains.

It's not until then that you can realize who else is enlightened.

It takes one to know one and that goes and says true for just about everything in life.

Every aspect of life,

It takes one to know one.

And like I said before,

It's totally your choice.

Nobody's forcing you.

You can stay asleep and dream all you want.

That is definitely your choice and your prerogative.

But if you want to dive into knowing more than just logic,

Because spirituality is both logic and illogical.

It's both.

You can't have one without the other.

And I think that makes it beautiful,

That life is both logical and illogical.

I mean,

We live in the middle on a planet close to a burning sun that could melt the whole earth if we were just a little bit closer,

And we're able to survive because we live right in the middle.

And I think that's why Buddha called his path the middle path.

He realized that it's a fine,

Delicate line and we're all just existing in just the middle.

And what's super interesting about that is that we're all born strangers.

Nobody knows anybody when you're born.

You don't know anything.

You don't know nothing.

I mean,

You're absolutely pure,

Innocent,

And you're full of wonder.

You're completely innocent and full of wonder.

It's so beautiful to be young and not know anything.

But the same happens with becoming a Buddha.

That innocence,

That wonder comes back into your life.

When you shift out of the mind center and focus from awareness,

If you do it enough,

If you put in enough time into it and enough effort into it,

And I try to not use the word effort too much in my talks because then it sounds like duty,

And duty is an ugly word.

But if you make an effort and practice your awareness,

Meditate at least once a day.

I like to meditate around seven in the evening.

For some reason that seven o'clock hour is just magical to me.

I have more happen to me when I meditate right at seven than any other hour of the day.

And I like meditating in the mornings and things like that.

I don't really do that much anymore.

But I still like to meditate at about seven in the evenings.

And it's just like taking a bath for your soul.

It totally cleanses your soul.

In fact,

If you think of yourself as a mirror,

When you go into meditation,

You wipe away and clean that mirror completely and then nothing is reflected.

You're completely free and pure.

And then when you face the next day,

That pureness goes into that day and you start fresh and you can perceive things a lot more beautifully if you are not clouded,

If your mirror is not dirty.

So anyway,

All this Buddhist talk,

I just love to do it.

I love to share it because it became a part of my life back since 1996.

And I've never looked back.

And it's enhanced my life so beautifully.

And I don't have to ask the question,

What happens to you when you die?

In fact,

I think what happens really is when you become enlightened,

All the questions drop.

You realize so many things when you become enlightened.

You realize,

And it doesn't all happen at one time,

It's like a flowering,

A continual flowering.

And I think that's why Buddha called the lotus the symbol of Buddhism that he called it the thousand-petaled lotus.

It just keeps flowering and keeps flowering.

And you keep growing and life becomes very beautiful.

And I know that for a lot of people,

That's kind of hard to even think about getting into because their lives are so hectic.

You may have kids that are driving you crazy.

You may have all these other things going on.

But you'll get your time.

And you'll know when you realize it that you got to dedicate a little time to yourself.

And if you start using awareness in your daily practice,

Then things happen a lot faster.

Things move along a lot faster.

Enlightenment comes almost in an instant.

There are basically two types of thoughts when it comes to enlightenment.

One school of thought is that it's instantaneous.

The instantaneous school of thought came around with people basically in Zen.

Heihai Kujo was a famous Zen master quite a few years back,

But he believed in instantaneous enlightenment.

And other schools of enlightenment thought that it happened gradually.

And it just depends on the person.

Some mind-centered people have to have that gradual move.

It's hard to make a sudden jump for them.

But then there are heart-centered people who don't function from the mind.

They function from their hearts.

The journey is not as far as from the brain all the way to your hara,

To your real center.

So if you dig what I've been talking about,

If you can get into this awareness,

This practicing awareness,

Then hit me up with a like or become a follower of mine.

One cool thing about everybody that's become a follower of mine so far on Insight Timer,

I have basically responded to all their questions.

And I'm definitely opening,

Or open,

Excuse me,

To respond to anybody's questions or inquiries if they have a question.

I mean,

Even more of the questions you may not think is very substantial or significant could be the talk I give the next session.

It has happened before,

And I guess it sure as well probably will happen again.

But anyway,

Thanks again for joining me.

Y'all take care now.

Bye!