So we've been reading a little bit from Comfortable with Uncertainty by Pema Chökung.
And tonight we're going to read a little excerpt called Weather and the Four Noble Truths.
So I invite you to just settle into your seat,
Make sure you feel steady and tall.
And if you'd like you might even close the eyes already so that you can practice mindful listening,
Just tuning into the sounds,
The words,
And how things land for you tonight.
Weather and the Four Noble Truths.
In the Buddha's first teaching,
Called The Four Noble Truths,
He talked about suffering.
The first Noble Truth says that it's part of being human to feel discomfort.
Nothing in its essence is one way or the other.
All around us,
The wind,
The fire,
The earth,
The water,
Are always taking on different qualities.
They're like magicians.
We also change like the weather.
We ebb and flow like the tides.
We wax and wane like the moon.
We fail to see that like the weather,
We are fluid,
Not solid,
And so we suffer.
The second Noble Truth says that resistance is the fundamental operating mechanism of what we call ego.
That resisting life is what causes suffering.
Traditionally,
It's said that the cause of suffering is clinging to our narrow view,
Which is to say that we are addicted to me.
We resist that we change and flow like the weather,
That we have the same energy as all living things.
And when we resist,
When we dig our heels in,
When we make ourselves really solid,
Resisting is what is called ego.
The third Noble Truth says that suffering ceases when we let go of trying to maintain that huge me at any cost.
This is what we practice in meditation.
When we let go of this thinking and this storyline,
We are left just sitting with the quality and the energy of whatever particular weather we've been trying to resist.
The essence of the fourth Noble Truth is that we can use everything we do to help us realize that we are not separate from the energy that creates everything.
If we learn to sit still,
Like a mountain in a hurricane,
Unprotected from the truth and vividness and the immediacy of simply being part of life,
Then we are not this separate being who has to have things turn out our way.
When we stop resisting and let the weather simply flow through us,
We can live our lives completely.
So just letting those words land.
Remoting what phrases really stood out for you,
Something that struck you in a particular way,
Resonated with you in some way.
And then dropping it.
Attending your attention into your body.
You can start this evening just by noticing the feeling of the body making contact with the ground and with the support underneath you.
And the tops of your feet,
The shin bones,
The weight of the legs.
Feeling the weight of the pelvis resting without tension around it.
Feeling the weight of the spine just sinking down into the pelvis.
The weight of the shoulders sliding down into the back.
The weight of the hands just resting quietly over the knees.
With all of this downward,
Grounding energy,
Feeling a sense of steadiness in the body.
Steady enough to allow the breathing to move freely in and out of the body.
Steady enough to allow all sensations,
Thoughts to move freely in and out of the body.
Without attaching to or resisting away from any of it.
Steady,
Tall,
And paying attention.
You can anchor the attention firstly to the sensation of breathing in the body.
Letting your full awareness encompass just the feeling of breathing in and breathing out.
You're either grabbing hold of the breath,
Or pushing it,
Or persuading it in some way.
Just watching it as it is.
Allergies.
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