So.
Just to share a little bit about what I've been thinking about,
Reflecting on.
Um,
And kind of what we're doing in our Tuesday,
Thursday group also.
Um.
.
.
I noticed,
Especially in the Q&A,
We had a Q&A last week and kind of explored the with people with questions came up for people in practice and I think that what is a common theme that runs through practice for folks is They want,
They come to practice kind of looking for relief.
Like this is the intention to come to meditation for some sort of relief.
Life has become overwhelming in a way.
The mind is restless.
The heart is hurting.
And we discover.
Meditation and mindfulness and the Dharma.
And in that discovery,
We find tools to meet the needs.
To kind of address the dukkha,
The pain that we're experiencing in our life.
Um.
.
.
We learn to steady ourselves.
I think that that's the first thing that we learn,
To be still in the body.
And then we learn to meet pain with a little bit more compassion.
Self-forgiveness is a big part of what we learn.
Rather than resisting.
Over time,
We become less reactive.
Reactivity may return,
But we're aware of reactivity when it happens.
We become aware of it,
And then we stop reacting to it as frequently.
And really,
A lot of the practice for a lot of practitioners is we learned to begin to suffer,
Have dukkha in our life better.
We learn to suffer better.
And I want to say something really important about suffering better.
There is nothing wrong with suffering better,
Okay?
There's nothing wrong with it.
It's actually kind of beautiful to learn how to be present,
To remain present when there is difficulty in our life.
To be present in the midst of loss,
To be able to resource ourselves.
In our breath,
In our body,
When anxiety is really the primary experience.
And to soften rather than harden in response to life's happenings.
To soften,
To relax.
And this practice,
Particularly in watching and hearing from people in the practice discussion and in the questions and answers that we had last week,
This practice has changed people's lives.
I get to hear from people regularly in practice discussion about how the practice has changed people's lives.
And it changes families.
Amazing how that happens.
I also want to offer that the Buddha.
.
.
Held out another possibility for all of us.
Not simply that we could suffer more skillfully,
But that we could awaken to freedom that exists in the midst of whatever life is throwing us.
We can be free.
In the midst of whatever is happening.
That is the intention of the Buddha's teaching.
Not to just suffer better.
That's good.
It's beautiful.
It's necessary.
And the path is onward leading to.
.
.
Liberation.
And as I said,
We're exploring awakening liberation in our Tuesday Thursday group.
So I don't really want to talk much about that today.
I want to talk about something related that feels closer to my own direct experience.
Um.
.
.
And that's wonder.
That's wonder.
Or maybe even a better word,
That's the mystery.
That feels closer to my direct experience.
Not mystery in a hidden way.
Not at all.
Not mystery and like a mystical experience,
Like something that happens in a cave for monks or saints.
No,
The mystery that happens every day when we are available for it.
The mystery that reveals itself in like our,
Kind of the quiet moments of our being.
When the habit patterns.
The habit pattern of holding on releases.
That's a mystery when that release is no longer there.
That is amazing when that happens.
The mind loosens its grip.
That's powerful.
That's a mystery.
So the conditioned mind,
The mind that we are most familiar with,
The mind that we live with most of the time.
Is extremely efficient.
Have you noticed that we can name things quickly?
We can categorize,
We can make decisions,
We have opinions,
We can compare,
We make conclusions about situations all within seconds.
You know,
Within moments of awakening every morning.
The mind tells us what kind of day it's going to be.
It knows who we are,
The sufficient mind.
It knows who everybody else is.
It knows what's wrong with the world.
It knows what needs to change.
It knows what all of these experiences mean.
And the problem is not that the mind thinks,
That's not the problem.
The problem is that we are believing the conclusions of the mind.
We stop seeing life as just this unfolding.
And we attune to our ideas about life and what our practice does for us and what our practice doesn't do for us.
So the conditioned mind.
The conditioned mind.
Interrupts the flow of what's happening with its ideas,
Its beliefs,
Its judgments,
Its conclusions.
This is what the mind does.
This is how we've all been conditioned.
There's nothing wrong with that.
But what we're practicing.
What we're doing here.
Is we're seeing the conditioned mind.
We're practicing seeing the conditioned mind.
Every time that we sit down,
We collect our attention.
We settle in the body.
And then we have a view.
Something comes into the mind like,
I've got to do this,
This,
Whatever this is.
Or I don't feel like this,
Or I don't like this happening,
Or I've got to fix this happening.
What our practice is doing is like,
Oh.
Look what's arising.
Look what's arising.
Not getting entangled in the story that's arising,
But look,
Aha.
What's arising is my planning.
What's arising is my fixing.
What's arising is my not liking.
What's arising is my pain.
What's arising is my loss.
And it's really.
.
.
Remarkable when this starts happening more rapidly in our awareness.
To see what's arising.
It demonstrates.
A very subtle and very significant shift in perception.
To what's arising is something for me to do and who I am.
To what's arising is just unfolding.
Just showing up.
Nothing has to change with whatever is arising.
It's conditioned.
It will have its movement.
It will pass like clouds,
Like a storm.
We don't have to figure everything out when something arises in the mind.
It's not urgent,
Although we have habituated urgency too.
Have you noticed how urgency has become really habituated?
Our practice is to start to notice what's arising,
Whether it be preference,
Which I think is a really good place to start because when I,
You know,
Hearing a lot in the questions and discussion we had last week.
Boy,
People are really just still very hooked in there.
In their preferences.
Again,
This is not wrong.
It's not bad.
It's not like it's a problem.
It's just.
.
.
It's all of us.
Unless we can see that we're hooked into our preferences,
We're just going to be led around by them.
It was so funny on Monday night,
I was sharing this a little bit,
I think yesterday.
After I taught,
Monday night was hot in Carbondale.
It was a warm night.
The room was stuffy.
And as soon as the meditation was over,
We got up.
And declared it was hot and went to the door and tried to change the conditions immediately because of the heat.
We tried to make it more pleasant for us to be with it.
Instead of just naming,
This is hot,
This is what's happening.
I can be with this.
" It was like,
Nope,
We got to fix the conditions to make it more comfortable.
Practice is about noting.
Oh,
It's hot.
And noting,
And I prefer that it wouldn't be.
And here I am,
In the heat,
Sweating my ass off.
Okay,
That's what's happening.
So this practice that we're doing,
The sitting and bringing the mind back,
The sitting and bringing the mind back,
Bringing the mind back,
Breath,
Body,
Back to the breath,
Back to the body.
Breathing,
Relaxing,
Relaxing,
Getting lost in thought,
Coming back,
Relaxing,
That repetitive on repeat practice that,
Where is this?
And then the doubt that comes in,
Why am I doing this?
Why am I doing this?
Why am I doing this?
All of that.
All this leads,
If you want to know where it leads,
If you need to have a goal,
It leads to awareness.
It leads to awareness.
Look at what's going on in this body,
In this mind.
Look at this.
Raising making machine that is occupying this bag of bones and skin.
Whoa.
Can you?
Have a little bit of distance.
One practitioner said to me,
He's like,
I just want to watch from the 50 yard line what's going on in my life.
And I'm like,
Well,
Maybe just get a little closer,
Go to the 10.
Like,
You don't have to get so removed from what's happening in this bag of bones.
Stay close.
But don't be so identified with what's happening in it.
I have a story that I think really will illustrate what I'm kind of talking about.
So last Wednesday,
We were all here last Wednesday.
It was wonderful to be with you.
I had a little bit of a back pain happening last Wednesday,
So I taught and then I went to the grocery store.
And I saw Dave at the grocery store and I was using my grocery cart kind of as a walker because my back was starting to really not feel very good.
And I had been pushing it all weekend and it was like starting to not feel good.
So by the time I got home and put the heavy grocery bags on the counter,
My back seized at the counter.
I'm like,
So all of a sudden I can't move.
Seth!
I yell out his name.
Seth!
Seth comes downstairs,
And I am literally unable to move.
And so he becomes my walker.
And so he's walking in front of me,
And I'm holding on to his waist.
And he's walking me to the bed where I'm going to tip over and fall into the bed.
And meanwhile,
He's scurrying around.
He has got the ice packs working,
And he's going to find the heating pad.
So we do the ice and the keep,
Looking for the Advil,
Getting the water with the straws have to bend over,
So I am literally lying on my bed leg.
And all of this activity is happening for my benefit.
Really,
He was just a saint to come and help me.
And.
.
.
What happened as the pain in my body was starting to subside.
And I was lying there and I was completely helpless,
Completely,
Utterly helpless,
Unable to do the simplest thing for myself.
The simplest thing.
Something completely unexpected happened.
So I'm lying there,
Seth shows up like loaded down with like ice pack and water with the straw.
And I start laughing.
And the laughter was like shooting pain,
Shooting pain,
The laughter.
But I couldn't stop.
I was cracking up like when we were little kids and we couldn't control the laughter,
Like literally like silent heaving of laughter.
And then so Seth is looking at me and I was like,
Look at this.
And he was like,
I know.
And he starts laughing.
So then I have a companion.
And then we're cracking up.
And he's not really sure what to do.
Like,
Is she losing her mind?
And it was kind of a little bit like that.
And with every hysterical burst of laughter,
And it was like,
Literally,
I was like,
I would feel the pain.
With every burst.
I could feel the shooting pain expand in my back with the laughter.
Like there was space.
In the pain for the laughter.
It was wild.
It was wild.
And I think what I was aware of was the absurdity of this whole human body falling apart and how I had pushed it to its limit,
Pushed it to its limit.
And then it just stopped working entirely.
And here I was watching the body not work.
And out.
And who was watching?
Awareness was watching.
That's who was watching.
And it was hilarious,
Not because the pain wasn't real.
There was some shooting pain.
It was real pain.
But what was so funny was that I wasn't arguing with reality.
I wasn't in argument with it.
It was what was happening.
And yeah,
I caused part of it.
I didn't stop.
And then it stopped me.
Like,
Haha,
Look at you.
There wasn't a story that it shouldn't be happening.
There wasn't blame that it was happening.
There wasn't an identity wrapped up into,
This is me,
I am helpless.
I am helpless.
There was no I there.
It was just this very simple.
Extraordinary.
Beautiful and ridiculous happening in the body.
And this human being.
And nothing changed,
Like I was still in pain.
So the laughter.
.
.
I think it subsided in about 10 minutes,
But I really could,
I was just,
And then Seth walked out of the room to like get me something else and he walked back in and I was just like.
That's crazy!
And he was just kind of like smiling and nodding and trying to be with like,
Oh my God,
My wife is losing her mind.
This is wild.
And I did lose my mind.
I did.
And what a relief.
So after it subsided.
I experience such ease with the pain.
Like the experience was just like.
.
.
This is how it is to be a human being.
That has a body that will break.
Um.
.
.
Everything about my relationship to my body in that moment changed.
There was such freedom to live in this body that will age and get sick and die.
It was just all of a sudden,
It was just like,
Oh,
This is exactly what is supposed to happen.
I wasn't trying to make the pain easier by laughing.
It wasn't forced.
It arose out of me.
I wasn't practicing a particular technique.
None of that was happening.
I wasn't thinking positive thoughts.
The laughter arose because of the practice that I do of not identifying with this.
This body that is aging and changing and will fall apart.
I'm not identifying,
I'm identifying less with this.
And in identifying less with it,
It's funny.
It's joyful.
It's unnecessary to care so deeply about this.
Because who we are is not this.
Just like the quote that I read from Sri Nisargadatta.
I'm going to read it again.
Pain and difficulty may arise.
Even in patience and irritation,
But these have nothing to do with me.
I was not born and will never die.
Though this body and mine are limited according to conditions,
My life is an eternal unfolding in the timeless.
When the laughter arose in me,
This experience,
Laughter is timeless.
It's timeless.
It's only in the moment.
The moment is timeless.
So think about this in your own life,
Like there's nothing,
The conditions don't have to change.
The pain may not disappear.
My back certainly wasn't healed.
I can feel it right now.
I was helpless for a solid 24 hours.
And what the practice gave me.
Was freedom in the middle of suffering.
In the right,
In the heart of it,
In the heart of it,
Freedom.
That is a mystery because I am NOT somebody special.
I am NOT enlightened.
I haven't had a mountaintop experience.
I haven't transcended suffering.
I still have lots of that.
But.
.
.
What a mystery to be free in the middle of the night.
Shooting pain.
And that's available.
That's why I'm.
.
.
Offering it.
It's a teaching.
I just got schooled,
And so I'm sharing what I got schooled with.
That's it.
Nothing special.
But so extraordinary.
That's the mystery.
You know,
The mystery,
The freedom is what appears when.
Our familiar interpretations of what's happening fall away.
Our familiar interpretations,
Our preferences,
Back to preferences.
Liking,
Not liking.
And it's a very important distinction.
The mystery isn't another experience.
It's what's happening when we're no longer filtering what's happening.
Okay,
Does that make sense?
It's what happens when we're no longer filtering what's happening through our preferences.
Through our judgments,
Through our opinions,
Through our.
Interpretations,
Through our habit patterns,
Through our belief system.
The mystery.
Is so close to wonder and curiosity.
And I would argue that that is.
That's awakening.
There are no,
Suzuki Roshi said there are no.
Enlightened people.
There are only enlightened experiences and enlightened moments.
Let me see if I can find that because that was actually really valuable.
He says,
Strictly speaking,
There are no enlightened people.
There is only enlightened activity.
If there is a self who claims enlightenment,
That is not it.
Instead,
He went on,
What we are speaking about is moment to moment enlightenment,
One enlightenment after another.
And I feel confident that each of us in this room have had.
Moment-to-moment enlightenment I don't think we would be here together if we hadn't experienced that at some point in our practice.
Or maybe you're still waiting for it.
Maybe you think it's supposed to look a particular way.
Stop looking.
And look at what's happening now in this moment in your life.
I really feel like,
Um,
This teaching that happened in this body that I'm occupying this old body that's moving towards its demise in its own sweet time.
Illuminates our human experience.
Something happens to us.
Each one of us has something happening in our lives.
Be it big,
Be it small.
Maybe it hasn't happened yet,
But don't worry,
It will.
It will.
And the mind has a script that it follows.
I think we all know a little bit about the script,
But I'm going to offer it to you anyway.
So the mind has a script that says.
This is terrible.
Oh.
This is terrible.
This shouldn't be happening.
This shouldn't be happening.
I am so sorry.
This is happening to you.
I can't believe this is happening.
I can't believe this is happening.
And I'm not trying to be dismissive in my tone.
Maybe it sounds that way,
So I apologize if that's how it's coming across.
But we know the script,
Right?
We know this script.
I'm exaggerating the script because I really want you to get that this is a script that we play.
When the body fails in the way that we don't want it to fail.
Even that,
When the body fails,
When the body's actually moving in the direction that it's actually intended.
Towards death.
But when we can see the script.
We can see the script.
Oh,
Poor me.
What's happening to me?
I have said this,
I've watched my grandmother say this at 96.
Why is this happening to me?
And I said to her,
You're 96.
This is supposed to be happening to you.
She didn't want to hear that.
And I was not a very skilled practitioner at that point.
I was still young in my practice.
Now I say it and I feel like,
Okay,
I've got a little experience here.
But what happens with.
.
.
With being able to see the script.
They just see it.
And it's kind of like.
.
.
There it is.
And this is,
It's not true.
It's not terrible.
It should not be happening.
You don't have to feel sorry for me.
I don't need to feel sorry for myself.
I'm part of a mystery and how I relate to what's happening,
That's the only thing that matters.
That's the only thing that matters.
We can't manufacture letting go.
But when we can truly come from this place of seeing the script.
From hearing and seeing and being aware of our process.
All of it lets go of us.
We don't,
We're not in control of letting go.
But when we can just.
Truly.
Open to the wonder,
To the mystery.
To wow the curious nature of being a human being on this planet.
Nothing changes and everything changes.
Nothing changes and everything changes.
Pain can still be pain.
Helplessness can still be helplessness.
But maybe.
Whatever you're experiencing.
Can be.
Comically funny.
Cosmically funny.
Here I am.
Here is this body.
And the appropriate response is to laugh and be grateful.
That's possible.
So.
That's what I offer today.
Thank you.
