Realizing Our Lives Are The Greatest Treasure

We're so lost in our thought-created world that we've forgotten how to live. To see the beauty that is happening in each moment. How everything in this universe, including us, is changing moment by moment - coming together by a million different causes and conditions, each moment fleeting and never to be repeated. Our lives are the treasure, and we've forgotten this. Please note: This track may include some explicit language.

Transcript

There was a mischievous deity that wanted to play a prank on humans,

And so he decided he was going to steal their greatest treasure.

And after stealing it,

He was trying to figure out where he was going to hide the treasure.

So he thinks to himself,

I'll put it way up high on a mountaintop.

Yeah,

That's a good place.

And then after a while he thinks,

No,

No,

No,

That's no good.

They'll look there.

And then he thinks,

I'll put it,

I'll put it deep in the ocean.

He thinks,

Yeah,

That's good.

And a few minutes later,

No,

No,

No,

They'll look there.

So then he thinks to himself,

I know,

I'll put it in their minds.

They'll never look there.

So this is why we come to spirituality,

To look in our minds,

To see what is going on,

To see what's happening in here,

To see how we are distracting ourselves from the greatest treasure that we have.

And we do this because we are so obsessively looking outside of ourselves for happiness,

Looking outside of ourselves for validation,

Looking outside of ourselves,

Imagining that we have to have all of our ducks in a row,

That we can't have any relationships that are disturbed.

We can't be disappointed in anyone.

We can't have anyone disappointed in us.

We can't feel any discomfort.

We can't have any backaches.

We can't have anything that's broken.

And we're desperately always trying to just get these good conditions to just stay.

If I can just,

If I can just manage to get all of these things in order and to stay,

Then I can be eternally happy.

But all we are doing is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

Because every time we get the deck chairs in order,

All of a sudden all of our relationships are okay.

No one's upset with me.

I'm not upset with anyone else.

And everything seems to be working.

And there's no physical pains.

I'm healthy.

Everything seems to be good.

And we take this deep sigh of relief as though,

Wow,

Finally,

Okay,

Everything's good.

And it's going to stay this way,

Right?

Of course,

It doesn't.

The boat tilts,

All the chairs go tumbling down.

And we go running after them,

Panicking,

Worrying,

And fretting,

And trying to get them back in order.

Oh,

No.

Oh,

No,

I said something wrong.

Oh,

No,

I can't be happy now.

They must think I'm so stupid.

I'm so embarrassed.

What do they think of me?

And this kind of frantic in our thoughts,

Spinning around,

Trying to get the deck chairs back in order again,

Only to get them there and have the boat pitch again.

And all the deck chairs go flying in the other direction.

And this is how it just always is.

The deck chairs keep moving,

They keep moving.

And we keep desperately trying to get them to stay.

And when one day we finally realize the boat's sinking,

And I never fully appreciated the luxury liner that I was on,

All the good amenities,

All the good food,

All the entertainment,

High speed internet,

The comfortable bed,

The clothes,

The relationships,

The laughter,

I never fully appreciated it.

Because I was so focused on the damn chairs.

And this is what we do.

We spend our whole lives imagining problems,

Creating problems that do not exist,

That are not happening.

But in our minds,

We are believing is a problem.

And therefore,

If I have this problem,

And I can't be happy because I have this problem,

I better start thinking about a solution.

So now we feverishly start thinking about a solution,

An imaginary solution to our imaginary problem,

To try and appease this little imaginary self inside.

And so somehow we're going to finally make it happy.

We present the solution,

Here you go,

It's all good.

They're not upset with me,

They just texted,

Everything's okay.

And it goes,

Okay,

But did you see what's happening over here?

We go rushing over to try and adjust the deck chairs again.

So we keep going back and forth doing this.

Until one day we realize,

Oh,

The boat that we're on here,

This life is sinking.

And we didn't live.

We were so focused on the deck chairs,

Getting the deck chairs to stay.

And it's all this mental activity,

The complaining,

And judging,

And comparing,

And worrying,

And doubting,

And fretting,

And controlling,

And grasping,

And trying to manipulate.

All this mental activity that is always telling us,

The solution to our problems is out there.

If you could just get all of these things to fix and to stay,

Then you could be eternally happy.

And we are constantly lost in this mental activity and missing the treasure that is right here.

So for the last few years,

Actually last probably seven,

Eight years,

I have watched a lot of near-death experience reports and read a lot of books on it.

I've been fascinated by this topic.

And whether you believe in near-death experiences or not,

There is a clue that they offer us that when they come back,

That when people who have clinically died,

Their brain dead,

Their hearts dead,

All indications show that they are actually dead.

That many of them,

When they come back,

Report leaving their bodies and really hovering above their bodies,

Seeing their bodies lying on the hospital table and all the doctors and nurses frantically trying to bring them back to life.

And this sudden realization of how fleeting this life was,

That one minute you're down here having this experience,

Having this tactile,

Visceral experience of life,

And in an instant it's gone.

And then this realization that hits you,

Oh,

The treasure was my life.

I was the treasure,

The experience of Meredith,

The experience of Mary,

Of Terry,

That was the treasure.

And this is why so many people that do come back from near-death experiences,

And again,

Whether you believe it or not,

They are changed after these experiences.

They really do get it.

This is fleeting.

It's not going to last.

And this is what,

This is the treasure that we keep overlooking when we're lost trying to rearrange the deck chairs,

That our lives,

We're missing our lives.

As Thomas Carlyle,

The Scottish philosopher says,

It's not just that we're what we're,

It's not just that we're suffering,

It's what we are missing.

And of course,

We are suffering a lot.

There's a lot of suffering in trying to control and manipulate and always second-guess and rehash the same thoughts over and over and over.

What do they think about me?

What do I think about me?

It's a lot of suffering in that.

But it is also,

What are we missing?

We're missing our lives.

Because we go about our lives.

We go to school and maybe college and get jobs and get married and have kids and maybe grandkids and different experiences along the way,

Maybe retire.

And the whole time we're just sleepwalking through our lives,

Not really there.

Still always so focused on the deck chairs up here.

Are they shifting again?

And then missing all these beautiful moments.

We're walking through our house and we're so lost in our thoughts about the deck chairs,

Something shifting,

Trying to fix it.

You missed just a beautiful moment with one of your puppy dogs,

Your cat,

Your child,

Your partner,

Because we're just lost up in our thoughts or we're going for a walk and we're so lost in our thoughts.

We don't see the butterflies and the birds and feel the wind on us or the beautiful colors all around us.

We don't see any of it.

We don't appreciate any of it.

All these little moments of joy that we miss because we are so lost in our heads rearranging the deck chairs.

We don't see how fleeting any of this is,

How precious this is,

How every moment it's changing.

No two moments are the same because the nature of the universe,

The nature of the world,

The nature of us and everything in it is impermanence,

Transient,

Fleeting,

Changing.

Everything is always changing and everything is interdependent and interconnected.

Everything is in relationship to each other.

That's how it is.

We're rising in relationship to each other.

We are on this call right now,

All in relationship to each other.

If none of you turned up,

I would have turned off by now and gone and done something else.

It wouldn't be taking place.

Each of you participated in making this call happen.

Everything is interdependent,

Interconnected,

Changing,

Fluid.

Nothing is standing still.

That is the beauty of what we are trying to see,

Of how we are arising in each moment,

How we are in relationship to everything.

A million,

Billion,

Trillion causes and conditions coming together and changing moment by moment by moment.

No two moments the same,

Always changing.

And it doesn't mean that we don't experience unpleasant moments.

Of course we do.

It's the world that we live in.

We can't have up without down,

Gain without loss,

Praise without criticism,

Cold without warm,

Light without dark.

We can't,

We live in a world of opposites.

The only way to experience it is to have both sides.

But when we experience something unpleasant that's really happening,

Not just not the deck chairs being rearranged in our mind,

There's this understanding,

Ah,

It won't last.

I've got this project,

I've got to do it,

I'm on a deadline,

I've got to get it done,

Okay,

I've got to push myself a little bit,

I'm a little tired,

Kind of want to go home and take a nap,

But I've got to just push myself a little bit more,

Okay,

It's not going to last,

It's not going to last,

It's okay,

I can push myself,

It's not always going to be like this,

Right?

But for all the self-created suffering,

Most of the unpleasant conditions that we experience is self-created suffering,

Is just shuffling the deck chairs back around,

Of things that are not even happening and we miss what is here every time we do that.

Even if it is something unpleasant that really is happening in this moment and we start pushing back on it,

Again,

We're missing it.

But if we're experiencing something unpleasant and we're seeing the world the way it really is,

Ah,

Okay,

Of course I should still experience unpleasant things,

I'm having a human experience,

I can't experience the world any other way,

So we're not pushing back on it that way,

We're not pushing back on it telling ourselves a story about why this is such a nightmare and so unfair and why my internet is too slow or this page isn't loading and it's driving me nuts,

We're not telling ourselves a story about it either,

It's just ah,

This is what's happening right now,

I guess I'm going to take a little break,

Guess I'm going to take a few breaths,

Pause,

Wait to see what happens,

Reboot the computer,

See what happens,

Right?

Because every time we do that,

Every time we get lost,

Even if it is something that's happening but we're pushing back on it thinking it shouldn't be happening,

We're missing what we're seeing,

Or excuse me,

We're missing what's here,

We are missing seeing what's here.

And as John O'Donohue,

The Irish poet and priest says,

I would love to live as a river flows,

Carried by the surprise of its own unfolding.

We're the river,

We are the river,

Flowing,

Never standing still because we are rising on each moment based on all the conditions,

All the things that are happening around us,

The weather,

The other people around us,

The bugs,

The scorpions,

Snakes,

Whether they're coming in the house or they're not coming in the house,

Right?

All these different conditions,

Our biology,

Just what's happening inside,

Whether we're feeling sick or we're not feeling sick,

All of these different things coming together and arising in each moment and we are this river that just continues to flow based on that,

Right?

We imagine that we know what's going to happen next,

We don't know what's going to happen next.

We have an idea,

We think,

Oh,

I'll be on this call for a while and then I'll get off the call and then I'll do such and such,

But maybe you get a text halfway through and someone needs your help and all of a sudden you're off doing something else or the internet goes down,

Okay,

Call ended early or it starts starting to rain outside,

Oh,

I better go outside and get all the things and bring them in.

We have this idea like that we're always projecting because we're always simulating our reality and then we think,

I know exactly what's going to happen,

But we really don't know what's going to happen and when we come into the present moment and we see how fluid all of this is,

How changing all of this is moment by moment,

How interconnected,

How interdependent it is,

We are carried by the surprise of our own unfolding.

It's a mystery and that's the beauty,

I wonder what's going to happen next,

Let's see what happens.

Sure,

I have an idea,

We'll see if it happens,

Maybe it doesn't,

Maybe there's a little change of plans and in that change of plans instead of this,

Oh,

I changed my mind,

I'm going over here,

Ah,

Why did all of a sudden I make this change to go over here?

Well,

Someone texted me and gave me this idea or all of a sudden I felt hungry and I realized I didn't have something in the fridge and really kind of taking it back to go,

Why did this happen?

Because I feel like it's so sure,

I'm so sure I'm making all of this happen.

Instead of pausing and looking at all of the conditions,

All of the causes and going,

Ah,

I see how this is arising in each moment,

It's not me independent in here making all of this happen,

I am arising as the river,

I am flowing,

I am the river carried by the surprise of my own unfolding that is dependent upon everything around me,

Arising based on everything around me.

But as long as we stay lost in the dream of thought of musical deck chairs complaining and judging and worrying what everyone thinks,

We won't see it,

We won't see it,

It's not just the suffering,

It's what we are missing,

The connection,

The beauty,

The awe,

The wonder,

It's all changing,

Never to be repeated again.

And this is why we come here each week on Sunday,

Sunday Sangha,

To learn how to pay attention,

To learn how to see what is really going on,

To take off our glasses that keep us in this delusion of separateness,

To see what is really going on,

Not to become something else,

Not to become something more holy,

More spiritual,

Because that's just another trap,

That's becoming something,

We are not something,

We are not a thing,

We are a process,

We are an activity,

A verb,

And that's what we are trying to see,

What is really happening,

Not trying to be something different,

But to see what is already here.

And it's only when we see our true nature and the true nature of the world,

The universe that we live in,

That we're finally free.

In order to let go,

In order to really trust the present moment,

We have to see what is going on,

We have to see how everything is arising,

Interconnected,

Interdependent,

And changing moment by moment,

We have to see there is nothing to hold on to,

There is nothing to grasp at,

Because we will keep grasping otherwise,

We'll have moments where we'll let go,

But that tendency will still be there because we think there is something to grasp at,

We think there is something that's grasping,

Instead of just our thoughts giving this illusion,

This very compelling,

Very convincing illusion.

And it's only in the truly letting go where we do live more in appreciation and gratitude for the lives that we have,

Where we live a little more gently and more softly,

More simply,

Because we appreciate what we have,

That there's an understanding that there's nothing outside of me that could possibly complete me,

There's nothing in the next moment that could possibly be,

That it is there that isn't in this moment,

That we can see that there really isn't a next moment that's in our heads,

There's only ever this moment,

This is the only moment we can live in.

Everything else is a fantasy,

A delusion,

A delusion where we feel separate and small and limited.

So it's not easy,

This is not an easy task.

Everything in our society,

In our culture,

In our media,

In our books,

In our movies,

In all the people around us are always trying to pull us back into this false view of reality,

This view where everyone is separate and independent and lacking and small and helpless.

We keep getting pulled back into that so it is not an easy task by any stretch to see what's going on and we can stay,

We can say well yeah it's just too hard okay,

It's too hard,

Do you want to stay with with what the alternative is?

Just to stay like this?

To suffer?

Because that is the option then,

Just to stay on the path that we're on in this delusion of separateness,

Of seeing ourselves as a small limited being,

A fragile little being that's desperate for everyone's validation and horrified at the thought of someone disapproving of us,

Of criticizing us,

Of thinking less of us,

It's so easily irritated or frustrated simply because the internet went down or a web page took too long to upload,

You know the slightest thing disturbing us because every time we do that,

Every time we get irritated,

Every time we compare ourselves to someone else,

Every time we judge ourselves negatively,

Every time we imagine other people judging us,

All we are doing is perpetuating this cycle of suffering,

It just continues on and on and on,

It doesn't end,

It doesn't lead to the end of it because the moment everything gets settled,

The moment all the deck chairs stay in one place for a moment,

They just shift again a few moments later,

They're always shifting,

These things are never going to stop shifting but most of this,

Most of this suffering to be clear is not even happening,

We're just imagining,

We're just making up problems in our head,

So this path,

The path that most people have been on,

The path of suffering that led most of us to spirituality,

It doesn't lead to the end of suffering,

It's just more suffering and then a spiritual path is a path where we learn how to see,

We learn how to pull ourselves back from the delusion,

Where it does take time and it takes effort to meditate and to come on to dharma talks,

It takes time but it's really a net gain because for every minute that we spend being pointed in the direction of reality and every moment that we're,

When we're meditating and we're pulling ourselves out of our thoughts,

Bringing our attention back to the present moment,

We are living more in the present moment,

All of that time that could have been spent rearranging the deck chairs,

So it's really a net gain if you meditate for 20 minutes,

30 minutes in the morning,

You've probably saved yourself a couple of hours of suffering,

That's a good return on your investment,

If you're practicing,

When we are practicing mindfulness which requires effort,

It's in the beginning,

It definitely requires a lot of effort,

We're not used to it,

We forget,

We simply forget,

We simply forget and that's one of the the translations of the Pali word sati,

S-a-t-i which is translated into mindfulness but one of the other translations is remember,

We simply forget,

So it's remember,

Remember,

Keep coming back,

Remember to pay attention to what's happening in your experience,

Notice when you're lost in your thoughts and you're worried about something and you're so convinced that it's outside of me,

I've got to fix something outside of me and then I can be at ease and you notice it and you go oh no no no,

The problem isn't out there,

I'm lost in my thoughts,

I'm rearranging the deck chairs,

Let me come back into the present moment,

Let me breathe,

Let me look around,

Hear the sounds,

Feel,

Taste if you're eating your food,

Smell,

Come back into the present moment and go oh wow,

For a moment I believed that I had this big huge problem but now the problem's gone because I'm back in the present moment and yes that requires effort to do that,

To pull ourselves away from those thoughts,

To pull ourselves away is not easy especially if it's a sticky thought and we've initiated the stress response,

Stress meant to keep us laser focused on the threat,

If it's a thought that started the stress,

It's very hard to pull our attention away from it,

So it does require a lot of effort and it requires no effort whatsoever to stay lost in the dream,

To judge ourselves,

To judge other people,

To compare,

To doubt,

To worry,

Belittle,

No effort whatsoever,

It's a lot more painful and one path,

This path,

A spiritual path,

Leads to the end of suffering,

Every moment of in meditation pulling our attention back away from the thoughts,

Back to the breath,

Is a moment of deprogramming,

Every moment of mindfulness is a moment of deprogramming,

A moment of gratitude,

Appreciation for what you have,

Where you are,

Is another moment of deprogramming and we just keep deprogramming a little bit by a little bit by a little bit by a little bit because this is a gradual path,

Barring having the near-death experience or some catastrophic event,

We are gradually doing this,

We are gradually pulling the veil back and seeing each moment by moment by moment deprogramming from the illusion,

So there's a story of a great zen master,

Bokuhu,

And Bokuhu lives in a cave and he does have many disciples that live around him in the surrounding caves and they provide the food for him and every now and then he gives a talk to the disciples and the disciples would often hear Bokuhu calling out his name Bokuhu and then a few moments later he'd say yes I'm here and a little later Bokuhu then he'd say yes I'm here and after a while one of the disciples built up the courage and when asked Bokuhu he said what's going on when you're calling out your name we're all kind of curious and Bokuhu says ah whenever I'm lost in a thought I'm worrying I'm fretful I'm believing the delusion of separateness I call out my name Bokuhu and it wakes me up because I look around I remember where I am and then I say yes I'm here and goes ah okay so then a few years go by and they no longer hear Bokuhu calling out his name so the same disciple he goes up and asks Bokuhu he says what's going on we don't hear you calling out your name anymore and he says because Bokuhu is always here now so we we use the practices as long as we need to use the practices for but the practices are a tool to help us see reality we are not getting or we should not be getting lost in the practices trying to become good meditators impressing our friends with how many hours we meditate a day or what type of practice we do who our teacher is oh this llama that llama right we want to be really careful not getting lost in the practices and and to remember that every practice that we are using is meant to wake us up to reality to see what is going on that's what they should be doing if if our practice is not waking us up even if not even if just in that moment then we need to look at the practice and say what's going on why are you not seeing reality even in this moment we need the practices until we start to see and even then we still need the practices but eventually you no longer need them the buddha uses the analogy when you when you need a you need a raft to cross the river but once you've crossed the river you no longer need the raft and i do think it's important that we remember this with our practices they are tools to help us see reality do not get attached to them make sure that you're not just going through the motions of them sitting down and meditating for 20 minutes but just lost in the fantasy and never pulling yourself back and saying oh i meditated or when people say and especially be careful oh i wake up and i i just set my timer my insight timer while lying in bed you're probably just dozing for an extra 20 minutes that's what you feel good right you woke up oh i got an extra 20 minutes snoozing right our practice should be waking us up helping us to see reality and so this is what we are doing each week right we are just we are trying in the dharma talks the dharma talks are the instructions on how to see reality and pointing the way and saying this is what reality looks like pay attention and then doing the practices that help you see if you're trying to bake a cake you don't just watch videos on how to bake the cake and never go and get the ingredients and bake the cake the dharma talks are pointing us and then you go and you practice you meditate you practice mindfulness heart opening practice content practices contemplation prayer all of these practices all of them helping to deprogram us to see what is really going on we don't have all the time in the world we don't have as much time as we think and why would we put off living our lives why would we wait do we think this is a dress rehearsal and that it's really going to happen next year the year after that that may not come it's about seeing we don't have this unlimited amount of time that we think we have not meant to scare you with that meant to wake you up into the present moment stop worrying about all of this shit that doesn't matter whenever we lose someone whenever someone passes all of the stuff that we were thinking about fretting about worrying about all of the little deck chairs we were moving around all of a sudden we go oh my god none of it matters it wakes us up for a moment it always happens when someone passes or someone we know gets diagnosed with something oh man all this stuff doesn't matter but it's not based in wisdom it's not based in wisdom because eventually those conditions change and then we slowly start going back and rearranging the deck chairs again so the path that we are on is a path of wisdom wisdom and compassion because real compassion comes out of wisdom and real wisdom comes out of compassion the two are interdependent interconnected related and so this is what we're doing is to try and come and see the treasure is our lives this is the treasure not our lives next week next year next month not when everyone likes me and no one's upset with me and everything works it's just now it's this moment and every time we bring ourselves back it's this moment again ah i'm here and appreciating these good conditions that we have not everyone has good conditions on this planet we have good conditions we do not know how long they will last people in ukraine a few years ago thought they had all the time in the world and look at what their conditions have changed into israel gaza places all over the world that are experiencing really horrible conditions that at one point they weren't experiencing don't they had all the time in the world we have the good conditions now it's time for us to look at this to stop rearranging the deck chairs to be here now appreciate the treasure the beauty the fleeting nature of each moment it's here it's only here it's only here in this moment that's what we have to keep seeing keep coming back to to deprogram out of the illusion of separateness back into reality

Reviews

Just what I needed to hear. So powerful, thank you!

I will listen to this Dharma Talk often thank you Meredith your talks have changed my life 🙏💞🙏