So this is from the poet Rilke.
He writes,
Be patient towards all that is unresolved in your heart,
And try to love the questions themselves,
Like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a foreign tongue.
Do not now seek the answers which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them.
And the point is to live everything.
Live the questions now.
Perhaps you will then gradually,
Without noticing it,
Live along some distant day into the answer.
So we've been exploring how to establish a mindfulness practice.
It's like asking the question,
Who am I now?
What am I aware of now?
Like Rilke said,
The point is to live everything.
Live the questions now.
Life is a creative process.
We live into the answer to the question of who I am moment by moment.
Who am I now?
And without even noticing it,
We create a whole story that is the answer.
There was this amazing monk who came to the United States in 1972 from Korea.
And his intent was to teach to Americans because he said they seem to have forgotten to ask the most important question.
So he settled near Brown University,
But he couldn't get a teaching job because his English was not fluent enough.
So he got a job as a repairman at a laundromat in Providence,
Rhode Island.
Yet his first students,
They arrived through the university.
The professors would recommend that some of their students go and talk with this laundromat,
This Zen master.
And what he would do is he would simply ask these students the question,
Who am I?
And so you have to kind of imagine in the mind's eye,
Sort of this portly Zen master.
He's bald and he wore round glasses,
And he had a really sweet smile with poor English.
And he would say,
Who am I?
Who am I?
Who am I?
And he would answer his own question.
Don't know.
Don't know.
That's his whole teaching.
Sasaning is his name.
We don't know.
We don't know who we are.
I was listening to a teaching by the other pretty well-known teacher,
Adi Ashanti.
He's a wonderful teacher.
And he started his path through Zen,
But he dropped all religious affiliation.
He says,
The truth that I point to is not confined within any religious point of view,
Belief system,
Or doctrine.
I really,
I really appreciate that.
He teaches through his direct experience.
So in this series of talks,
He was exploring within his community,
The question of what is the most important thing?
And when asking the question,
Kind of being mindful that the answer is coming from within,
Not from the conditioning,
Not from some inherited belief about what the most important thing is,
But from your depth.
What is the most important thing to you?
And to ask that question and to keep asking that question.
We create our world.
What are we creating?
Some of you know that I was teaching at the senior community in our town in Carbondale.
It's called Sopris Lodge.
And I was hired by this wonderful woman who just supported the community of elders to get what they needed.
After all,
They were paying really good money to live in this lovely community where meals are prepared and there is art and there's music.
So they should get whatever they need.
This was the position of this woman who hired me.
So our little group was small and as they often are,
You know,
When you begin a meditation group,
It starts out pretty small.
But these,
The value of these teachings was even in the small group was quite amazing.
For me,
It was just a joy to see the recognition of the teachings come alive on these women's faces who came to learn about mindfulness.
The felt experience in my body was just generosity and simply adding value to these elders as they are in the last chapters of their life.
Every time I sat with these women,
Just gratitude and generosity.
Well,
As corporate budgets do,
They look to see where profits can be bigger.
And oftentimes it's by cutting programs or putting parameters around programs requirements.
So a minimum of like eight people would be an example of that.
Well,
The lovely lady who hired me found another position closer to her home and she turned the program over to the executive director who had to report to the corporation.
So I was told that at least eight people needed to show up to continue offering mindfulness.
And these lovely women who were practicing,
They got nine people to sign up.
They went around and asked people to sign up for this.
But on the day that the practice group would meet,
Only two people came to practice.
So I get this call from the assistant to the executive director to let me know because the numbers aren't substantial.
I won't be teaching mindfulness there.
So who am I now?
Who am I now?
You know,
I look at my schedule.
I look at the capacity of what I can do.
Can I just offer it as a volunteer?
You know,
I just,
I can't imagine approaching the end of my life without mindfulness,
Without practices that support paying attention.
I want this for everyone.
What a gift.
You know,
Focused attention is a gift.
So my practice,
Who am I now?
My practice in this situation is to let go.
My practice in this situation is to let go.
But before I do,
I just want to say that if any of you want to take your practice into the world,
I invite you to come talk to me because I have a place you can bring your practice.
And I share this story as an advocate for meditation and mindfulness practice,
But also because it answers the question of what the most important thing is for me.
For me,
It might not be your most important thing.
And there is absolutely no judgment with that.
But I want to encourage you to ask the question for yourself.
What is the most important thing for your spiritual life?
Is it based on attainment?
Like you're in it for enlightenment or bust?
Do you practice just to be a kinder person?
Easier to live with?
What's the most important thing for you?
So I'll leave you with this question.
And we'll come back on Thursday and we'll continue.
What's the most important thing for me?
Ask the question and keep asking and see what appears.
