So,
I'm happy to be sharing with you the fourth noble truth,
And that is the path out of clinging,
The path out of aversion and hatred,
The path into awareness from delusion.
It's so extraordinary,
This path,
Because it's always unfolding.
Our understanding and the application of the path factors continues to deepen.
As I was preparing these talks to share with you and reflecting on this first path factor of right view,
Or the cultivation of a wise view in life,
I get to experience again how this lands for me,
You know,
Now.
It changed,
It deepened,
How in some way I'm becoming the person who is living more and more with a perspective,
An understanding that is wiser.
So,
The emphasis is on establishing wisdom,
Because wisdom dissolves suffering,
And the more we can be aware,
The more we nourish wisdom.
So,
In this context,
What does wisdom mean?
Wisdom is understanding the nature of reality.
And what do we know about the nature of reality?
Well,
We know that everything comes and goes,
We know that there is contraction and contention and dissatisfaction that's inherent in life,
And we understand that this is all of us.
It's not a personal attack,
It's every person,
Everywhere.
So,
Practicing wisdom is keeping this understanding close.
This is what it's meant by wise view.
The first path factor is about the perspective from where we're seeing.
We're enlarging our view,
Our seeing,
To include the nature of reality.
The nature of reality is that there is dissatisfaction in this life,
And we see it continuously,
And it changes.
Contracting more,
Contracting less,
Moving from open to close,
And this is all of humanity.
This change and dissatisfaction is happening to all of us to varying degrees.
And by practicing in this way of awareness,
To this natural occurrence,
This natural experience,
We develop wisdom.
The relationship to any experience we have,
The view,
The understanding,
Is far more important just to know the experience than how we actually,
Like,
Like,
Than whatever the experience may be.
Understanding ourselves and the attitudes at play with whatever is happening is more important than what the experience is.
So,
For an example,
The experience of reading the news,
How does that land in the body and mind?
Not the content.
Aware of how it lands through the sense doors.
Those six sense perceptions,
Again,
Are seeing,
Hearing,
Tasting,
Touching,
Smelling,
And thinking.
So,
These are the organs of our perception,
And each time an object,
Reading the news,
Meets the sense door of seeing and hearing,
A thought may arise.
In all of this,
There is a moment of consciousness in which the object of perception is known.
In this case,
The meaning of the content of perception,
You know,
Reading the news.
It's very simple in concept to understand this,
But in practice it takes kind of a conscious turning,
Which becomes more natural over time.
One helpful way of experiencing this turning is to drop in a question,
And that question is simply,
What is being known right now?
What is being seen right now?
What is being heard right now?
Wise view is seeing into our experience as it's happening.
The wanting and craving and clinging,
Like getting what we want,
Has a particular effect on the body.
So,
What is that?
Notice the sense doors.
When we're dissatisfied with something,
That's aversion.
And what is the effort like,
The pushing away of aversion?
What does that feel like in the body?
We often put forward a lot of effort to make unwanted things go away.
Like,
Look at what the federal government is doing.
All that effort,
It's so tiring for us.
So,
The view,
The wise view,
Is a curious understanding.
Given that everything is always changing,
And there is contention with this moment's experience,
There is some level of dissatisfaction.
And that's happening for all of us.
There's some contraction,
Some difficulty that each of us are experiencing.
And what we're doing is we're learning to wait and to watch,
Interested to see what's happening.
Whatever arises,
Noticing how the mind is kind of doing its own work with recognizing,
You know,
Knowing,
Thinking.
And we're just seeing and acknowledging the work of the mind that's already happening.
As I've shared often,
So much of the practice is how we are in relationship to anything.
How we are in relationship to our wanting,
To our aversion.
How we are in relationship to our own self-preoccupation.
How we are in relationship to our partners,
And our friends,
And our children.
How we are in relationship to walking the dog or doing the dishes.
Whatever it is.
When we are aware of how we are,
There is more choice,
At the very least.
A really important part of any practice that you do is becoming aware of the attitude that you have about it.
You know,
What is the attitude you have while you're practicing being in relationship with other people?
What's the attitude you have about doing housework?
Or about being a community member?
So,
As we explore the path of practice,
This is the view,
The understanding.
This is what I'd like to offer you until we meet again.
It's really simple,
But it's not always easy.
You know,
Just being aware,
And knowing what you're aware of.
Remember the nature of reality is a changing process of expansion and contraction,
And it's not personal.
And we,
All of us,
Are part of that flow.
