Station Me: Who Is The Broadcast Talking To?

This recording is from a Live event.

In this Q&A from the Station Me Dharma talk, we explore what happens when we look more closely at the voice that seems to be constantly reporting back to “me.” Who is actually listening? Is there really someone at the center of experience?

Transcript

Is just like an endless commercial. But the commercial, What makes it so, Why we keep giving it our attention, It's like, Oh, It's about me. It's about me. Oh, It's about me. It's like when we're in a, Maybe you're at a party and you overhear someone talking about you, You hear your name. And you simply cannot pay attention to the conversation that you're having with the group that you're talking with in that moment. Everything is like, Oh my God, I need to know what are they saying about me? What's happening? They could be saying something nice. They could be talking about. A different Todd, A different Meredith, A different Ruth, But it could be about me. I need to know. And so we give it all of our attention. I mean, The moment the thoughts appear, The moment the broadcast is happening, It's like we step inside this world of like, Oh, Well, This is reality. You know, This, How I'm interpreting everything and, And. You know, Narrating everything that's happening right now, You know, That all of this must be about me. And the reality is None of it's about you. None of it! Because there is, You know. . . On a conventional level, 99 times out of 100. It has nothing to do with you. And even on that 1%, Where it's like, No, But they did. They were upset with me. They were angry. And so the broadcast was maybe giving you some useful information. And it does. Occasionally, It does, Right? And so in those moments when we get the useful information, While it might go, Oh, I think I might have upset someone, Like, OK, That's good to know, Because maybe I do need to do something. But then think how the story starts shifting and shifting to, I'm a bad person, I can't believe I did that, And I should never have done that, And why did I do this, And just how quickly we We. Beat ourselves up. About something, Really feeling down about ourselves, I'm unworthy, I'm unlovable. I'm just a bad person, I'm a fraud, I doubt myself, Right? How quickly we go down that path, Whereas there was maybe something useful there, But then we quickly turn it into, Oh, What does this say about me? What does this mean about me? And it's like, Oh, Maybe it just meant that I had a bad day. Maybe I was a little stressed. Maybe I wasn't my best version of me, Right? Okay. Maybe I need to go and apologize. Okay, No problem. But not from a standpoint of I need you to make me feel better now, Because I can't stand the thought of me being this person, So please tell me I'm a good person, Which is a really, Poor example of an apology, But instead it's like, Wow, Yeah, I can see how that hurt that person. I'm going to go and apologize because I hurt them, Not because I can't stand the way this makes me think about myself. So even when there is a little bit of useful information in there, It gets distorted and exaggerated in a way that inflates the sense of self, The solidity of me. The solidity of a me, Of a sense of me. And to your point, Todd, Where you'd said, Well, Is this the ego? Mean yes, Yes. If we're calling ego, Just the Latin word ego means self. So we tend to have this idea of ego as, Well, It's just the greedy part of me. It's the narcissistic part of me. It's kind of all the unpleasant qualities of me. And yet over here is my spiritual me. And here's my more compassionate me and my kind me, Right? Any sense of me, Of creating an image out of it, Even when it's doing something like we're being kind, Right? And yeah, I think it's great. Be kind, Right? Kindness happening, The conditions are arising, Kindness is happening. If we turn around then and go, Oh, I'm such a kind person. I'm a good person, Right? The moment we turn that into an identity, There's a solidity, There's a sense of separateness, There's a sense of specialness about me. And now I have to try and live up to this image of being this. And eventually, The conditions are going to change. And then it's like, Oh, I'm not a kind person. I didn't hold the door open for that person, Or I didn't pick up that piece of trash. I didn't stop and do something, Right? All of a sudden, It's like, Oh, I'm unworthy again. Because now there's something, You know, The image has to rest on something. The image has to be somewhere. I'm either good or I'm bad. I'm worthy or I'm unworthy. I'm successful or I'm a failure. You know, I'm smart or I'm dumb, Right? It lives in polarity. And so. . . Any, Even attaching to the good image. And people, Again, This is very, Very common on the spiritual path, Where people even say, Oh, My ego, Right? It's like me, And then I have me, Solid, Independent me, Has an ego. And I want to get rid of the ego. That's the ego. Right? If we're saying it just from a sense of self, It's still the ego. So any sense of self. Is going to eventually backfire on you. It's going to eventually, It might feel good for a little bit, The broadcast feels good for a few moments but if it's, If you're telling yourself you're a good person because you did something It's seemingly reporting back to something, A character. Right about what's happening to it you're a good character and you're reinforcing the belief that that is reality. There is a character that I'm reporting back to, That this voice, This broadcast is reporting back to. And yet, When we investigate, There is? No character there. No solid, Stable, Independent character. Conditions arising, The conditions arise, You go home, You're with your family, You have the, You know, You're a little bit different. You're around your family, You're a daughter, You're a sister, You're a brother, You're a mother. You know, You're a grandmother, Right? And you're a little bit different. And then you're at the office and the conditions are a little bit different. You're an executive or you're an employee or, You know, Whatever those conditions are that's arising, Right? And so there's always this little bit of shifting. There's nothing solid and independent here. It's just always shifting a little bit. Depending upon the conditions that are arising, Depending upon what's happening in that moment. But we keep taking it back to me, But no, But there's a little solid, Almost like there's this little homunculus inside of us. And everything we feel is happening to me, The little homunculus. And so I've always got to be on the lookout. What does that mean about me? What's that happening over there? How can I get over there? Uh what's how's that going to affect me even though it has nothing to do with me right we make everything about me And then we wonder, Why am I so unhappy? Because the world isn't revolving around us. It's not about me. Each of us is a part of this. Connected, Interdependent, Interconnected. Not separate. And so it is our entire view. Is wrong. We're not trying to become something. We're not trying to become spiritual, Trying to become awakened, Right? That's the ego's idea of what this is. It's simply to notice, Oh, That broadcast. That thinks it's reporting back to something. About it and reinforcing it. It's to see, To investigate for yourselves and this is why I'm constantly talking about self-inquiry because it's such a direct path into seeing for yourself, Exposing, Like pushing, Pulling the curtain back each time to whom do these thoughts belong? Thoughts happening, I can't find an owner. I can't find the thinker. Right? Feelings happening. I can't find the center of the feelings. The feeler. You look for it you can't see it and you keep looking enough and then and then the center that you imagined yourself to be the center of experience the center of universe There's no longer a believing in it because it doesn't exist. It is an illusion. It's not real. You see it. You see it for yourself. The broadcast still happens. But there's a. . . No longer mistaking the broadcast as being about you. It's not who you are. And life still continues. And thinking will still continue. And feelings still continue. And emotions still continue. Doing still continues. Activity still continues. But it's much easier. Because we're no longer spending all our time trying to get the character at the center to get somewhere and stay and land because there's nowhere to land if nothing is solid and independent and nothing is Not only, You know, The Buddha wouldn't just tell you this. Any physicist would tell you this. Any neuroscientist would tell you as well. The self. Is just simply a conjuring up of the brain. But they can't find it either. They're saying it doesn't exist. Right? It's just, It's an illusion, Thinking and kind of we imagine ourselves. And to some degree, It's helpful when we can, We're planning and we can kind of think about, Okay, I need to do this and that and that. And then it's like, Okay, That was useful. I don't have to keep the VR headset on all day looking in the simulation. Right? That was useful. Okay, Now let's see how that works out. Maybe it works out that way, Maybe it doesn't. Because we're not controlling this. We have a plan. A lot of the times it works the way we expect. And then. . . Something comes along and you're like, Oh, Different plan. And it's not a problem because, Like, OK, Well, It's a different plan. It looks like we're heading in this direction now. Okay. What's happening here? What's happening now? Right? We're not fighting it. Why is this happening like this? I wanted it to happen this way. It's all this suffering. Is happening because we're so believing in the me and the me, The solid independent me, Separate me, Always needs to get somewhere to be happy, Right? I can only be happy in the future. One side get all my ducks in a row once I get this project done once I get this relationship resolved once I get a certain amount of money in the bank. And then we get there, And what happens? For a moment. For a moment. Ah, Okay. For a moment, Ah, I got there. The sense of the separateness goes away. Sense of separateness goes away. Ah, There's a sense of breathing for a moment. Ah. And then the broadcast starts up again. And it's moved the goalpost. Actually, Now you need to get over there. Oh, God, I thought I was, I thought that was enough. No, Because. It can't. It can't sustain itself in contentment. With being okay with what is, There's really not a lot to broadcast. About everything's okay. You're safe. You have some food, You have a little money, You have some friends, Right? You kind of have your basic survival needs met, Right? It needs to conjure something up, But, Oh, But, You know, Let's think about that relationship over there. Maybe there's something wrong there, Right? It just, It's so used to look, It's so used to, Creating problems, Imagining that you need to be somewhere else in order to be happy. The pattern is just so ingrained and also ingrained through our media as well, Constantly being given these messages of, Oh, Look, If you just were driving this car, You'd be so happy. Oh, Look, If you just lost those extra 10 pounds, You'd be so happy. Oh, Look, If you were able to redo your kitchen, You'd be so happy, Right? Kind of feeding in. Of I need something else outside of me to be happy and so of course that gives that gives a lot of content for the broadcast you got to get over there oh no you're not getting there something's getting in the way right there's a lot of content there but without that um When you stop even just from that point, Even saying like, My God, Every time I get there somewhere, You move the goalpost. You know, The goalpost gets moved. Even in seeing that, And you start listening to it. Right? You can hear it. You don't have to listen to it. You don't have to be driven by it. You don't have to be directed by it. And even that, You're starting to see like, Oh. The broadcast and the believing that there is a character of me at the center of that broadcast is what's preventing the contentment, Not the situation. And so the broadcast can be saying what it wants to say. It loses a lot of its fuel, Because it's our attention to it that gives it more fuel, Gives it more oxygen. So it just kind of comes, And you'll hear it in the background. But if you're not listening to it, You're not buying into the story. It does tend to drop off, And it'll come back up again, And yeah, Okay. And then, You know, It happens to me, Too, And I got a little caught up in it for a few moments, And it's like, Oh, Yeah, I forgot. You know, I just got lost in it. Like, No problem. Don't beat yourself up about it. That's more, It wants to, Oh, Now let's beat ourselves up. I wasn't mindful enough. I didn't do the self-inquiry, Right? Don't, You know, That's just another trick to sustain itself. It's just you notice, You know, Oh, I got a little lost. Okay, No problem. There's no story behind it, It's just those were the conditions. Not only are we not controlling any of this, We're not controlling the awakening process, We're not There's no driver. There's no one in the driver's seat. No one. Trillions of conditions for each of us to be arising and changing in each moment. We are never the same from moment to moment. And that's also why there is nowhere to land. There's nowhere that we could get to. And then say, Ah. Okay I finally have X number of dollars in the bank, I finally have X number of followers or X number of clients or X number of you know toys or whatever it is right it's like you get there you know and because everything's always changing it's like it just and the pattern is there though and the belief of the character that's at the center it just keeps moving the mark But there is nowhere to land. There is nowhere to land in a universe that is continuously changing. And everything arising interdependently, Interconnectedly. Nothing in this universe is arising on its own. Nothing, Not the trees, Not the plants, Not the buildings, Not the mountains, Not the people, None of this arising on its own, Right? Nothing is its own little silo, It's all conditions coming together, Things arising, They appear for a while, Change, And then they disappear. There's nothing solid and independent here, Nothing arising on its own. So where could we possibly land? And yet, That's what the broadcast is saying. If you can just get there, You'll finally land. And then I'll stop, You know. Stop cracking the whip, But it won't. It'll just go, No, Now you've got to get over there. Because there is nowhere to land. There's not something for you to become here. There is. What we can do here. Is see what we're not. And in no longer identifying with the character at the center of the broadcast. Or if you want to call it the ego, The self, The separate self, Whatever you want to call it, The little me, In no longer identifying with that. There's B. Direct experience. The mystery. Of all of this. Not trying to know it because you can't know it. That's what the self wants. I want to know what it is. It can't know what this is. Because reality isn't an experience. It's a falling away of the mistake, You know, Of the misidentification and revealing what has always been. Being. Directly experiencing the world. Hearing, Feeling, Smelling, Seeing. Tasting, Thinking, No thinker, Doing, No doer, Decisioning, No decision maker, Just it's all happening. And that's the fluidity of the flow. That it's all happening and there's the spaciousness of it's happening, You're not trying to hold on to any one experience, Just the conditions are good, Yay, Enjoy it, Yay, It's fun when the conditions are good, Yay. And then they change and there's just a little not too much going on, No problem. Don't need to make any meaning into this because that's part of the, You know, Just conditions are pleasant, They're unpleasant, Or they're neither pleasant nor unpleasant. They're neutral. That's everyone's experience. Right? And there's not a problem because there's nothing going on. It's just, Huh, Nothing going on. Guess I can just stare at the trees for a while. Play with the puppy dogs. Read a book. Clean out the closet, Right? Whatever, Right? Whatever it is. And when the conditions are unpleasant, And we all experience unpleasant conditions as well. It's not the despair, It's not the, Oh my god, My life is over. There's still room, There's still spaciousness, It's not pleasant, But you're not pushing it back. There's the unpleasantness of the, Maybe the discomfort on the long plane ride or the, You know, The difficult situation with some family members or a relationship. Like, Yep, Don't deny, Don't use this to deny what's happening either. There's a feeling it, There's allowing it to be, Yep, They're just feelings, They're coming and going, And that can be much more helpful in in directing what needs to happen in those situations. Because if it's, Again, If the broadcast is directing, I got to push back on this, I've got to defend myself, I've got to get this out of the way as quickly as possible. And often, Often cutting off our own nose to spite our face. Responding to the unanswered text. How dare you not respond to me? This is so rude. You've done this before, Only to get the call later that they lost their phone and go, Oh, God. Yikes, I wish I hadn't done that, Right? Or fired off that email and you're like, Oh, Maybe I shouldn't have done that when I was all wound up. Because the broadcast needs a resolution right away. And it's directing you. But in the absence of feeling like there's a me at the center of that broadcast of just allowing the unpleasant feelings, There's a difficult situation. Breathing, Feeling, And allowing just, Oh yeah, Just those feelings are kind of moving around a little bit. They're not as intense when you're there with them. And now because the grasping starts to fall away the wisdom and compassion is arising still conditioned but still it's arising i'd rather take direction from the wisdom and compassion than the grasping me And so it helps us navigate our lives in a much a much kinder way, A much softer way, A much more open way, A much more reasonable way. Way. And now we're. . . In tune and in harmony. With reality. We're not fighting it anymore. It's like, Yeah, The good conditions, The unpleasant conditions, The neutral conditions, They come and they go. Everyone experiences them. No one is immune from it. And it's just no longer a problem. So you can hear the broadcast. You don't have to listen to it. Alice, Very astute. We're going to give you, By the way, For all of these, We should put these in the group. First of all, How you've renamed the station, And absolutely 100%. There is no DJ at the radio station. There is no DJ at the radio station. But that's what's being implied, And that's what we think. But there is no DJ there. Sandy acts like the drunk uncle at the wedding. Hi Rob, Good to see you. Oh, I'll have to look up that George Harrison song, Alison. I May Mine. I don't know that one. Oh, And Mari, Yeah, So just, You know, Is there a slipping up here and forgetting? For sure, For sure. No one slipping up and forgetting, But the conditioning, For sure, Yeah. It, Um. . . It happens fortunately less and less and less frequently and there's a gratefulness for that because there's nothing It's truly been, And I've shared this before, Truly it was the the seeing you know it is all related no separate self but that there is no one in control no one in the driver's seat and i think there was a big relaxation here around that that i'm not controlling the awakening process either there's nothing here controlling it There was a lot of, A lot of. . . Grasping around that, Didn't even realize it. I didn't even realize it. And oh, And I need to be awake. I mean, It's really quite funny when I look back at it now. I mean, It is. It's hilarious. I need to be awake. The ego, The self, The separate self, Is not waking up. It's not there for it. It's not there for us. And it can't make it happen. It can't make it happen. What I have found is that practice, When used wisely, When we don't get attached to our practices, When our practices don't own us, They can be very helpful at loosening it up. The Dharma talks can be very helpful at loosening things up. Because the message really isn't for the separate self. It's going past the separate self. The separate self is like, Oh, I heard something. You hear something in a dharma talk. I think I mentioned this in a dharma talk a few weeks back. Like there's something you hear, You hear something. In a dharma talk you read a book and there's this opening and it's like all of a sudden the self just went away not because the self heard it wasn't it didn't exist but because The message isn't for the self, But something else was open enough that it got heard. Reality was open enough it got heard. And the cell fell away. Himself just comes right back up and goes, What was that thing they said? I better hit the replay button on that and go back. I got to get back to it. It wasn't there for it. It wasn't there for it. Yeah, And there is no, So no one's driving the bus. What we could maybe kind of call as a bus seemingly is the appearance of Meredith, The appearance of Sandy, The appearance of Philippa, Of Alice, Right? That there, Because I'm not saying there's nothing. I mean, On an absolute level, We do come and go eventually completely. But there's something here. But there's nothing inside that is independent and solid that's directing this. Each of us is simply arising due to trillions of different causes and conditions. And because of the variations of all these conditions, All of us having a little bit of a different trajectory, You know, A slightly different trajectory where there's a lot of things that we do have in common, Things that we don't have in common. Our preferences, None of us decides what our preferences are, What things we like to do. It's just, Why do you like that? I don't know, I just do. Why did I stop liking that? I don't know. I just don't. Right? You know, But we're always thought the self, You know, Always wants to come and say, This is the reason why. And maybe there's maybe some of that reason is true. But there's just too many conditions to know. So. There is something here. If I slap my face, I'm going to feel there's going to be pain felt, Right? Now, The broadcast would say, Let's say someone else does it, Someone hits me. There would be pain that would be felt. That would be, Yep, Pain being felt. A feeling of pain arising. The broadcast would say, How dare they do that to me? That was so rude. I'm never talking to them again. What can I do to put them in their place? Like the broadcast would say that this was personal, It was against me. Now maybe someone. Maybe they didn't slap me. Maybe someone accidentally fell. You know, We were kind of in a busy airport and someone tripped and fell. And my immediate broadcast is, How dare they do this? They're so rude. They're so inconsiderate. But then maybe in a looking back, You're like, Oh, Someone fell into them, And they fell into me, And I fell into them. And so you can see kind of how all this is almost domino effects all happening all over the place. And giving the appearance just like the tree, Just like the mountain, Right, The mountain. I point to the mountains back there all the time and say, Yeah, It looks so solid. It looks so independent. But it's changing all the time. The wind is changing the dirt. Some trees are falling over. A little squirrel's burrowing in or a bunny. Right? It's changing all the time. Right, So. It's the same with us. The mountain isn't arising on its own, But just all the conditions, The wind and maybe some earthquakes many years ago or however, You know, Different conditions arising and so we have the appearance of a mountain. Now eventually that mountain won't be there. Eventually, The conditions will change enough and the mountain will no longer be there. And eventually the conditions will change that there will no longer be a Meredith. So each of us. Is arising and changing, Interdependent, Interconnected, Based on the trillions of conditions that are happening, That are kind of Um. . . Shaping us almost like a piece of clay we're shaped and then another something else comes along and pulls a little piece off right or something and another piece and just continuously shaping us and which is why even when let's say you've done something and it's like oh you did something and you get a lot of praise for it you got a big degree or you did a big project. Like, None of us did anything on our own. If you had the intelligence to be able to solve some great math problem, Okay, That was your genes, Your DNA from maybe your parents and then some good teachers that helped you along the way. Your parents that encouraged you to study and that made the meals so that you could stay up late studying and didn't have to do your laundry and didn't have to go and make meals and go grocery shopping and helped you. So you think, Or the people that made your clothing so that you didn't have to make all your clothing. At the same time, The resources could be dedicated towards solving this big math problem or something. We always tend to think, Oh, I did that. None of us did anything on our own. I do find there can be like, Oh, Gratitude that I'm grateful that for whatever conditions were coming through, That there was something that was beneficial. Yeah, Great. But nothing here, Me, Right? Nothing solid, Separate here, Me. Each one of us, The bus, You know, In quotes. Is the bus itself. Think about the bus, All the parts that go into the bus, Right? All the plastic, And the steel, And the different parts of the engine, And the tires, And the steering wheel, And the radio, And the sunroof, And all the seats, And the material for the seats, And the flooring, Right? All of these things that then we look at it and we say, That's a bus. It's the accumulation of all these different things coming together. And then we go, That's a bus. Now the bus itself. Doesn't inherently exist as a bus. Right? It's. . . You know, A certain amount of things come together and we all go bus, Bus. But if that bus were dropped somewhere, Say in the Amazon, Where no one had ever seen a vehicle before. They may not see bus, They may see house, New hut, Something to pull apart for the pieces. They might see it as something completely different. We call it a house. A bus, And it's got the usefulness of a bus, Also has the usefulness of a house. Or a meditation hall, Or just a place for weekly meetings, Or whatever it is, Right? Not one thing. Right? This is the teaching of emptiness. That nothing inherently exists on its own, It's just different parts come together and it gives the appearance of something. But whatever that appearance is that we're giving, It's not, It doesn't inherently exist as that thing. But it's useful. It's useful to say that's a bus. We all know we can catch a bus. It has the right number on it where we want to go. Useful. So we can even say, Like, I know it's a bus, But we don't really know what it is. This is the mystery part again. This is the mystery that the broadcast wants to know. I know it's a bust. It's like, It's a bust, It's useful, But really. I mean, Really, We don't know what any of this is. And that's the mystery. Don't try and get past the mystery. Don't try to understand the mystery. You can't understand it. And it's not required. In fact, The needing to know. Is also an impediment. Who is it that needs to know? The character at the center of the broadcast. Not knowing is. . . Because this isn't something that the mind could. Grasp. Reality isn't an experience. We can point to it as best we can. Words will always fall short of it. But we can point, And it's also why I don't teach in the affirmative. I teach from the standpoint of negation. See what you're not. Because you don't need to, You don't need, There's nothing here that needs to trick itself into becoming reality. It's just we've misperceived who it is that we think we are. And in seeing that there is no solid independent me. It's It's truly indescribable. Because you can't, As soon as the mind wants to come in, As soon as the broadcast comes back in. There's already a layer of separation there again, Right? And yet, We do our best. We try to use words as best we can. Probably, Yeah, And I would say here, Like the fastest way, The fastest way is see what you're not. I think it's a very long trek to try and become something that you already are. What an enormous trek to take. To try and become something that you already are. And yet we sign up every day. I used to sign up for those things. I'm going to become my true self, My higher self. Right? Oh, What a trick. Just see what you're not. Just see what you're not. And, You know, It's going to come and go. You'll get a little lost in the broadcast. No problem. Don't make it a problem. It's just, It happens, Right? It's happening. Oh, And Chris, Just what you were saying as well, That you're, You know, With your mom with dementia. Yeah, It's good to remember, You know, Many of us are in this situation where we are helping people go through a really challenging time. Situation, A challenging event, And the more that we can take ourselves out of it and just be there for them, I find the better. Just really is the best way we can kind of handle these. These moments in life. You know, Not to make it about us that I'm so uncomfortable when they say this or when this is happening, But just to really respond to what's happening, You know, And respond with an open heart and compassion like you're saying. And to remember that we're, You know, If like Mari and I know you've been caregiving for your husband for several years or at least since I've known you. Uh. . . And to remember that you're not alone. You're not alone. And in the caring for others, Especially when it can be in a really scary situation with what it is that's happening. You know, It's again, It's not one thing. That situation has some fear in it, It has some pain in it, It has some discomfort, But also there's also compassion and kindness and love and caring and there's a lot of things in there. And just to remember, It's not one thing. You know, The broadcast will want to zero in on the one thing. The heart will be open to all of it. Oh, You did a waymo? Is that what they're called, Alice? Yeah. I have a good kind of visual for that. Years ago, Not years, Maybe nine or ten, Nine years ago when I was teaching, When I first started teaching down here in Mexico. And there was this couple from Canada that was coming to my classes every Sunday. And they had to go back. One of them had had a health problem. They needed to go back to Canada. But they said they wanted to dial in. Now, We were doing this down on the campground. This is when I used to come down in my RV. So we didn't have, There wasn't any internet access. But what I would do, Actually, What I did was I said, Oh, Well, I'll just call you on my phone, And I'll put a headset in. And that way, Kind of the speaker's there, And you can be listening in on the whole talk. So we'd give the talk. And every now and then, Because everyone kind of knew, We all knew each other. It was a pretty close group. Someone would say something in the background, And I would kind of make a little joke to Heather. I'm like, Oh, Adam just made a funny joke, Or Craig just said this, You know, And I would kind of whisper in. And I remember a couple times after doing this, There were a couple people that were new, That hadn't been there before. And I realized, I thought, They didn't hear my explanation when I said I was going to do this at Heather and Dawn would still be on the class. Just, You know, I'd be talking to them through here. And I said, You know, I am talking to someone, Really. There is someone on the other end of this line. Like, I'm not nuts up here. And that was also just kind of a good analogy, Because it's almost like we're walking around. With the earpiece in and the little microphone there, But it's not connected to anything. It's not connected to anything. And yet, It's reinforcing the belief that it is. And we're trying to say that it's not connected to anything. Or else, Use your analogy again, There's no DJ at the radio station. Oh, Tadja, Do or do not. There is no try, Yoda. Yeah. Okay, I think we've, I think I've covered everything. That's a great attitude, Sandy. Stop worrying if people think you're nuts. You agree with them. We're all a little nuts. Yeah. You know, It's. . . You know, In a fun kind of playful way, I think we all have just kind of silly, There's a silliness to all of this. And it's good to laugh at ourselves. It's really it's, It's, It's good to laugh at ourselves to not take ourselves so seriously. Right? We don't, We're not trying to be perfect here. We're not trying to be to be anything. We're not trying to become anything. That really probably is one of the biggest mistakes on a spiritual path. Is the seeking to try and become something. The seeking itself even reinforcing the sense of separateness. I mean, The self, The separate self, The selfing, It will take anything and reinforce itself with it. And so there's a lot of what's being taught here is really. . . Of warning signs too, Like, Hey, Don't get, You know, If you're meditating, Great. I think meditation is a wonderful practice. No meditator. Don't try to meditate. Anyone trying to meditate, You know, Is that I've got to concentrate my mind, I've got to be rigid, I've got to try to do something in the meditation. That's not meditation. That's not meditation. That's making an identity and a destination out of meditation. So if you're meditating, And I encourage meditation, I encourage meditating. It's an activity. And as long as when you sit, OK, Meditating happening. No one meditating. Let's see. Let's see what happens. Notice how that even just kind of relaxes the mind. Because there's nowhere to get to. There's nowhere to get to. But meditation often feels like there's a destination. I'm not doing it well enough. They're doing it better than me. I need to learn this next level of meditation. You know, I need to meditate three hours a day instead of two hours, Whatever it is. That even that is simply, OK, Now meditation, Just reinforcing. The sense of separateness. That's all. That's what it's doing then. And what is so. . . Wonderful about this path is that sometimes that just needs to get pointed out and notice how it changes. It's no longer, Oh, I've got to go meditate. I've got to get rid of this feeling. I'm going to meditate to get rid of this, Or whatever it is, Or to get somewhere. It's just meditating happening. OK, Great. Those are the conditions, Meditating happening. You know, Chanting happening, Okay, No problem. Nowhere to get to with it, No destination. Mindfulness happening, Okay, Just a condition also. No one did it? Okay. There's, There's, It does, Like again, And I feel, And definitely was happening here for a long, Long time. And I didn't, I was just so unaware of the rigidity around my practice and needing to be. Needing to be peaceful, Needing to be a certain way, Because I'm spiritual now. And then it was just kind of just being pointed, You know, Having that pointed out. Because it's almost like you have to see how the separate self, The broadcasting, How it just keeps shifting on us and it starts to run out of disguises after a while. And so it just kind of, It's like, Oh, It was hiding there. I didn't even realize it. You know, I thought I'd left the material world and the corporate world and I'd left all that behind. But, You know, The self had just reinvented itself into a spiritual self. And just kind of goes under the radar. So all it needs then is a little pointing out of that and you notice that you go to sit and meditate. And you notice, Oh, I want something out of this. And there's a, Oh god, I didn't even know it was there. Right, And then you, Oh. And you feel the contraction, Who's the meditator? Oh, Who is the meditator? Meditating happening, Okay. And there's just a relaxing around that, Okay? Right, Notice how. . . How much lighter activity is when we're not trying to get something out of it, When we're not trying to create some identity out of it. It's just, It's what's happening. The broadcasting and the separate self, The ego, The little me, It's always talking about what's not happening. And missing, So we're missing what is happening. And what is happening is far more interesting. Then, Than the story of me. And how does everything affect me? And we've played that story out just a million times. It's never brought us. The contentment, The feeling OK. It's never brought the sense of wholeness or completeness. That's only through the absence of it. Yeah, And it is, Todd, It's exhausting. And and sometimes when we get exhausted there's a falling away of it because we're exhausted but it'll just work its way back up again because we just got exhausted from it so to your question you know what is it again see what you're not that's what it is to see what you're not who's exhausted Who's exhausted? If we're not questioning the underlying mechanism. The structure of it. We will get exhausted from it from times, We'll distract ourselves, Something will be happening, But the underlying belief that that broadcast is reporting back to a real solid independent character will remain in force. And eventually the conditions will change and it'll come back up again. Oh, That's interesting, Angie. I've never questioned what is it, A male or a female voice. But it is, Yeah, As long as it's just to see. Who's the thinker behind the thinking? I mean, If you truly were the thinker of your thoughts, Don't you think you would know what your next thought is? I don't know what my next thought's going to be. How can they be mine? But this is what happened. The thought appears because of conditions. If in conditions something gets triggered, A thought appears and then immediately There's a claiming of it, My thought. I thought that. And it's just an assumption, Oh, Well, There must be something here that's claiming it. So we're questioning that. So you're saying, So the self makes it exhausting when it was just happening. It was the experience. Well, The exhaustion happening, Yes. The selfing activity can be exhausting, Particularly, Yes, When you're believing it's real. It's very exhausting. But all it takes is one little kind of point back, One little shift back, One step back. Who is it that's exhausted? All that wound up energy of being exhausted is freed up. Now, You might still need to go take a nap, But there's no longer the me that's exhausted, Just exhausting happening. Yeah, You wound up in it for a while. And then. . . And then there was a scene that there was nothing at the center that was trying to wind all this up. Just the broadcast, Just the broadcast. Hi Rita, Good to see you. Thanks, Chris. I appreciate it. Okay, So I think with that. We will come to an end. I'll put a few contemplation questions up in the group tomorrow, Just to give a little more food for thought on this, And just to create those conditions, Right? Because this, This is conditioning as well. Right each of these are little seeds of conditioning that that will ripen you know and uh and hopefully points you to see that that this is all just happening and it is it is a mystery We can label things, We can name things, We can have kind of some conventional sense of what things are, But don't forget, Don't try to take out the mystery of all of this, Because that's more of the self, You know, Wanting to know, Wanting to understand, And it can't know this. It's not there for the party. It wasn't invited. And to see for yourself. It's always to see for yourself. This isn't an intellectual exercise. So if you're not asking the questions outside of our sangha, Outside of these dharma talks, Uh, You know, It's, It's, The mistaken identity will remain in force. So I just encourage, You know, Suggest. To question what it is that you think is at the center of experience. See for yourself if there's something there or not. Because in seeing then and questioning it, What you're not, What you are is revealed. Took no time at all. No time at all. In seeing what you're not, What's revealed. Is what you are. You