So,
I've called this series of talks this week,
The Power of Now.
Many of you probably have that book on your bookshelf,
The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle.
I haven't read the book in many years,
But I picked it up to remind myself of the importance of its title,
The Power of Now.
And what I really appreciate about some of these earlier teachings to the Western mind is the focus isn't subject-oriented.
These are non-dual teachings,
And it's kind of nice to take a deep dive.
I think that we all like to dive into a particular subject every now and then.
A series on the Four Noble Truths,
The Brahma-Viharas,
Not-self,
Looking at emotions.
All of those subjects,
They're important.
They're important to explore and practice with.
But the time period when Buddhism was first introduced to the United States,
The Western mind,
And also probably in England,
It was kind of introduced as a counter-cultural movement around the 1940s and 50s,
Really.
That's the area in which I've been sort of exploring.
And these earlier teachings in that time frame were very much focused on dropping your thoughts and arriving again and again to here and to now.
And I spoke a little bit on Tuesday about the Zen practice of no gaining idea.
So many of us came to practice with a gaining idea,
To get something out of it,
Even if it's just to suffer less.
There's this idea,
This gaining idea,
That if we practice,
We'll gain ability to suffer less.
And a lot of what we're learning and continue to learn,
It's not really about getting something out of practice.
It's about releasing.
It's not about picking up.
It's about putting down.
So our focus today,
And as we really continually train,
Is on this power,
This ability to be present,
To occupy your life more fully.
We're training in awareness.
And I know that some of you have trained for events in your life,
Training for a sporting event,
For example.
And if you've ever trained for anything,
Even if it's as a musician,
Training in a musical performance,
There's a program.
For a runner,
Maybe the protocol is to do sprints and then to run long distances and then some strength training.
And all of these protocols,
These exercises,
Are in an effort to run a race.
And what happens with training,
Training in anything really,
Is that it starts to become effortless.
At some point in running,
For example,
You get into the flow of running.
You may be expending a lot of energy,
But in the beginning of training as a runner,
It was hard.
Like your body hurt,
You had to really apply yourself,
And there was some mental resistance even just to get out the door.
And so it's the same thing with our training in awareness.
At first,
We have to apply ourselves.
And there's resistance because we have habituated our tendency is to really become captivated by our thoughts.
So we're resisting putting them down as sound,
Putting them down as just the movement of the mind.
Training in awareness has a lot to do with recognition of what you're aware of.
And so this week we've been playing with recognizing sound in our meditation.
The easiest way to introduce practice to people,
To practice meditation,
Is really to begin by listening.
And we're not trying to identify the sounds that we hear.
We don't need to name them.
That may come up,
But we're just allowing sound to play with our eardrums and then let it go.
Let it be sort of the object of attention.
And why this is so,
Why this is helpful,
Is because it supports recognition growing.
And then we start to play with,
Oh,
There's sounds inside too.
Our thoughts are sounds.
And we don't try to repress those thoughts or force them out of our mind.
That doesn't work.
Instead,
As you hear sounds coming up in your head,
Your thoughts,
We learn to listen to them as part of the general sound of what's going on.
Like there's a bird outside the window or construction down the street.
It's just sound.
And sometimes as you get captivated by the sound of your thoughts,
You get pulled into the thinking.
Something outside,
Like the construction or the bird or something's dropped in another room,
That will snap you back.
And then you see,
Oh,
My thoughts are also just arising and passing,
Just like that sound.
And awareness starts to develop in this way.
And sometimes awareness is just sort of like momentary,
And then you get captivated by your thinking again.
Sometimes it stays for a few minutes,
And then sometimes for a few hours and longer.
And then awareness,
Eventually,
Through practicing it,
Penetrates your daily life.
We begin to include more and more and more into our awareness.
So then we go into the realm of sensation,
You know,
You start to really feel life happening too.
Somebody cuts you off in traffic,
Anger arises,
And then fear and you can feel it as something in the pit of your stomach.
Sensation,
You're aware of sensation.
Or maybe you're fully engaged in a conversation,
Like actively listening to somebody in front of you.
And also aware of the sensations in your body.
Maybe there's a judgment that comes up in what they're saying,
Or a sensitivity and taking personally what they're saying.
Like all this can be happening,
And you're fully present,
Engaged with listening,
And aware of sensations happening,
And sound in your head happening.
It gets like that.
And these are just all in the background of your awareness.
Because what you're doing,
Your activity,
Is listening.
One of my teachers said,
It's like your whole house is dirty,
But the living room is clean.
And 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 stay in the clean living room.
There's no need to go into the other rooms and get upset by what you see in the other rooms.
You know,
In time,
You'll go there,
And you'll clean up those rooms.
You'll take care of it.
And you know how to do this,
Because we have this awareness.
What occurs with really being with our experience,
Really allowing for it,
And we'll get more into allowing.
First,
We just want to recognize it,
Right?
We kind of relax.
We kind of relax around our habit patterns,
And maybe what could be called our shortcomings.
We don't indulge in them so much,
You know?
We have shortcomings,
And a lot of times we're trying to push them away and barrel ahead.
So relaxing with what is,
The sounds in our mind that keep captivating us,
We don't criticize ourselves for it.
We don't get upset around it.
We don't have to be burdened by our shattering mind.
Of course we have shortcomings in our life.
Of course there are desires and attachments.
That's what we're working with.
Working with,
Not against.
Not to push away.
We're just training and developing more and more capacity just to be with it,
To be here now,
With whatever's arising.
And as awareness gets stronger,
The felt experience of it,
It becomes really clear that awareness is just a really good alternative to buying into the storyline that's going on inside.
Being aware of what's going on inside and outside tends to shift everything else in a healthy way.
It makes room for healthy mindsets,
Like mind states to occur actually.
When we're aware and open and relaxed and we know what's happening,
We're being captivated by negativity or some story or some sensitivity or some judgment,
We're aware of it.
We can just rest in the felt sense,
Going back to the sensations of it over time and not follow through on whatever that message is.
This is a practice for our lifetime.
There's no end to it.
We're always,
You know,
Working with awareness.
And at some point,
It doesn't feel like it's work.
It just becomes more and more our natural state.
And you may be noticing that in your body and mind.
It becomes who we are,
This awareness.
We can trust it more than anything else.
Believing and being present for our experiences,
Being present is truly a power.
So thank you for your consideration this morning and your attention.
