So thank you for your practice.
So we started this week out talking about training and awareness.
And I'd like to use the analogy of training and running.
So maybe you get a sense of what it means to train in a sport.
It doesn't have to be running,
But you just get that sense of what it means to train.
There's usually a training program.
Maybe the protocol is doing sprints or running long distances,
Doing strength training.
All the things that might be done to train for like a race.
And there's a lot of things you do as you train when you're learning to develop your capacity for running.
Until what happens is the running becomes effortless.
You can feel effortless at some point when you're really in the flow of running.
Even though there's a lot of energy being expended.
In a sense you're kind of abiding in or in the flow,
Living in the running.
It's like you're being carried along with it.
But in the beginning of the training,
It was really hard.
You had to apply yourself and there was resistance to it,
Most likely.
And it's the same training when we train in awareness.
A lot of that training has to do with knowing and recognizing what's there.
As that recognition grows,
Awareness develops.
And the awareness,
It can stay with you for a while.
Sometimes it's just for a few seconds.
Sometimes a few minutes,
Sometimes a few hours,
Sometimes longer.
And then there comes a point when awareness is for a while like ever present.
Continuously present for a period of time.
It's not to say that you might still have all kinds of challenges,
Inner challenges.
You might have fear or some desire.
Maybe there's some anger or there's an attachment to some outcome.
But with the practice of awareness,
Now there's a separate place to live in,
To abide in.
It's kind of like if your whole house is dirty,
But the living room is clean.
From the living room,
You can see all the other rooms,
But you're not disturbed by it because you've learned that you can clean the living room.
You're in the clean living room.
There's no need to dirty the living room or be upset by what the other rooms look like.
In time,
You'll go there and you'll clean them up and take care of it.
You know how to do it.
It's kind of like that.
You can rest in the living room.
So we have this awareness and kind of what happens is that we can relax around our shortcomings.
It doesn't mean we indulge in them or we get caught up in them or barrel ahead with them,
But we just don't get upset or criticize them.
We don't get upset with ourselves around our shortcomings.
We're not burdened by them.
Of course we have them.
Of course we have desires and attachments.
That's what we're working with in this practice.
And what we're doing here in this training that we do together is develop more and more capacity to be aware of those shortcomings and more and more aware of what goes on in this body and mind.
Without judgment,
Awareness doesn't have preference.
As awareness becomes stronger,
At some point it becomes clear that it's really the best alternative.
Being aware of everything that happens in this body and mind tends to shift everything else towards health.
It tends to shift things in a healthy way.
It makes room for healthy mind states and wisdom.
When awareness begins to be present in all that we're doing in a relaxed way,
It just makes space.
We know how to be aware of what's happening.
And this practice,
Just the simplicity of it sitting together,
At the end of practice you may notice,
You know,
In a very subtle way how clear you are and how the awareness is a little bit more refined.
That's what the mindfulness practice is really about,
To cultivate and develop a strong sense of awareness.
And what this kind of leads to,
This onward leading,
There's a tendency,
This clarity provides a tendency for a person to become more ethical.
Now there's no guarantee of that happening.
But because the field of awareness is generally wholesome,
It lets us see and feel the impact of our inner behavior and our external behavior,
What we do.
And we can start to really feel how we're diminished in some way when we're unethical and how we're enhanced by being more ethical in our behavior.
The Buddha once said that you can fully awaken by practicing the four foundations of mindfulness,
Known as the Satipatthana.
But the person who wakes up that's fully awakened,
It's still the same practice.
You know,
The Buddha himself practiced these four foundations of mindfulness.
Maybe it wasn't so much an exercise anymore,
But it was a way of being.
But it's exactly the same instructions for those who are fully awake or those that are new to practice and developing the practice.
You know,
Whether you know the practice well or not,
Whether you feel that you've awakened,
It's the same practice.
Mindfulness of the breath,
Mindfulness of the body,
Mindfulness of sensations and thought formations.
Jack Kornfield has a book called After the Ecstasy,
The Laundry.
And the premise of it is really that this is a practice for our lifetime.
There's no end.
So always we're just doing it,
You know,
We're coming back.
It's not a burden.
It doesn't have to feel like work.
It's just more and more natural.
And in a sense,
We become more of who we are by just the simplicity of sitting together and breathing in and breathing out.
We start to really trust living in awareness more than anything else.
Living and being present for life and its experiences.
I think the alternative,
Not being aware,
Is not as enjoyable,
Not as helpful to the world.
Because we know something about this freedom from attachment,
This freedom that's possible,
We know something a little bit about what's possible for other people,
What their potential is.
And we can support that.
So in some ways,
Our practice allows us to become kind of a model for others.
We become an exemplar.
And in this way,
We become someone who can recognize and support the possibility for other people.
So thank you for your kind attention this morning.
This topic of awareness.
