The story of me is the most boring dribble in the world,
And it's painful.
And we've been telling this story our whole lives,
From,
I don't know,
Sometime,
You know,
Some point we're on the playground,
We're having fun,
We're playing with everyone,
Everything seems great,
You know,
And then,
You know,
One day,
All of a sudden,
We're self-conscious on the playground.
Oh,
Do they like me?
Am I wearing the right clothes?
You know,
What do they think of me?
Will I get picked today?
Right?
At some point,
Very early on,
We develop the story about ourselves.
And that story is not true.
But it is who we think we are.
That story is so compelling.
And it is just dribble.
It is just monotonous,
You know,
Rehashing the same stories over and over,
The characters,
The names change,
The plot slightly changes.
But it is the same stuff over and over.
And at the center of every one of those stories is a little me that's lacking,
A little me that's not getting what it wants,
A little me that's unhappy,
And a little me that's pointing outside of me.
But if you just get over there,
Then you'll be happy.
If you could just somehow magically make that thing that just happened not happen,
Then you'd be happy.
And it just keeps us trapped in this story of suffering.
Right?
The thoughts that created the problem,
And now we use our thoughts to try and come up with solutions to solve the problem,
The thought-created problem,
Right?
Just keeping us lost in our thoughts and the stories,
Not present,
Not here.
Most of us,
If you are here on this call right now,
You have a computer,
You have internet,
Right?
Not everyone in the world has that.
You have the inclination to be on this spiritual path.
Not everyone in the world has that.
You have good conditions.
You are okay.
It is the story of you,
The story of me that is so painful and such a lie.
And we've got to start seeing that.
Get out of the story of you.
Quit imagining that this path means that you will never be criticized again,
That your car will never break down,
That you will never be lied to again,
Right?
Because I think we set this path up in some kind of idealistic way.
So if I just follow this,
Everything on the external world is just going to be great for me going forward.
So we're so disappointed.
We're so shocked.
We're so utterly shocked when something goes wrong,
When someone criticizes us.
I mean,
I'm a meditator.
I'm a spiritual teacher.
No one should be unkind to me,
Right?
Wrong,
Right?
Someone's going to be,
Right?
So to have this realistic expectation,
You're not changing,
You know,
Coming on this path doesn't mean that things aren't going to happen.
You're just going to stop telling yourself a story about it.
You're going to stop suffering about all of this stuff,
Exaggerating the bad things that are happening that are usually never happening in this moment.
Just imagining what might happen in the future or what did happen in the past,
Right?
Not what's happening now,
Right?
But instead being present,
Right?
Really experiencing our lives,
The ups and the downs.
We're on a ride.
We are on a ride.
If you waited in line for ages and you get up to the front of the line and the ride went nowhere or just went straight across,
You'd be bored out of your mind.
You want the ride.
You want the praise.
You want the criticism.
You want the game.
You want the loss.
You want the comfort.
You want the discomfort.
Because if you were only ever praised,
It would mean nothing after a while.
If you only ever won,
It would mean nothing after a while.
We cannot experience the world if we don't experience both sides of it.
But the suffering that we layer on is totally optional.
We don't need to suffer through any of this.
It's the story.
I'm getting what I don't want.
I'm not getting what I want.
Fear,
Desire,
Wanting,
Not wanting.
That's the whole mind movement of these stories.
I want to be over there.
I don't want to be here.
I want those good conditions.
I don't want these bad conditions.
And as long as you believe that story,
And there's a big,
Huge story that's wrapped around that every single time.
As long as you believe that story,
You will always believe your happiness is somewhere other than where you are now.
When in fact,
The only place your happiness is,
Is now.
So it prevents you from knowing the peace and happiness that is here now.
Not that,
And when I say happiness,
By the way,
Because there's all sorts of kinds of happiness,
I actually mean peace as the highest form of happiness.
Because even in difficult conditions,
If you are not pushing back on it,
If you are not resisting it,
There is still a sense of equanimity and balance and peace,
As long as we're not pushing back.
And then on the other side,
As long as we're not imagining,
I'll be so happy when I get that book published.
I'll be so happy when I get that promotion.
I'll be so happy when I meet the man of my dreams.
Not that you won't have some temporary happiness there,
But it's temporary.
Temporarily,
The thoughts of wanting go away because you got the object.
But then it doesn't take long before they start up again.
Well,
Now I want this.
Now I want that.
Nothing wrong with having any of those things.
Nothing wrong with it.
But if you think any of those things are going to bring you lasting happiness,
Then you're just deluding yourself.
And I think everyone here is on this call because you know it's a lie.
It's nice to have good conditions.
If you have a great partner,
Fantastic.
If you have a nice home,
Fantastic.
If you just got promoted today,
Fantastic.
Enjoy it.
The rides,
Enjoy that part of the ride.
It's good.
But don't think it can stop the roller coaster from going back down again.
Right?
We had this mentality that once I get this,
Everything's going to be set for life.
No,
It's not.
It's only set for life when you recognize it's a ride.
It goes up and down.
It never stays the same.
Everyone experiences the ups and downs of it.
You're not different.
You're not unique in any way.
It's always changing.
It is how I am relating to what's happening.
When you are very clear,
The story is the suffering.
The story of me is always suffering.
When you are clear on that,
You will eventually let go of the story.
