Talk: River Of Life

The journey of tantra connects us to the river of Life that goes beyond the small confines of ego. In this talk, Reggie offers guidance for how to develop trust in the magic of reality and discusses how the practice of meditation dismantles our doubt in the sacredness of the "nameless force" that is our inherent nature.

Transcript

Tantra means thread or continuity.

And it refers to the fact that there are two things going on in our life always.

One is the apparent drama of our day-to-day existence,

The struggle to maintain ourselves in the face of life,

The hopes,

The fears,

The successes,

The failures,

The pleasure,

The pain.

We are rabid on a certain level to maintain ourselves and to feel good and not feel bad.

And sometimes when you look at the world,

That's all you see is all of us just running around trying to make everything work and not really succeeding very well.

And then on top of that we layer our story about who we are and what our life is and what our life should have been but wasn't or could have been but can't be.

Drama,

All that drama,

Drama,

Drama,

Ego,

Ego,

Me,

Me,

Me,

Me,

How is it going to work for me today?

How am I going to get what I need?

How am I going to get my needs met?

How am I going to be safe?

But there's something else going on at the same time which is the thread.

And the thread is this other,

You could say force,

Maybe,

This other presence that pops up at certain times and cuts through at certain times.

You know,

People we meet that somehow there's something there that has nothing to do with my ego or dreams that suddenly show us,

You know,

We're full of shit or we're lost on some endless sea.

And if we're a certain kind of person,

That's what catches our attention,

This other thing that happens from time to time.

And we realize that there is,

You know,

Always I think when we have those experiences of something happening to us or in our life that's not our ego,

Something else is going on,

That we,

Our ego begins to seem more questionable.

And our story begins to,

You know,

Meantime we're cranking it out but on some other level we don't really believe it but at the same time what else are we going to do?

It's all we've really got.

You know,

It's like being in a fight with somebody and you're going through your logic and it's just really like,

It just really is like empty.

Like why am I doing this?

Why am I going through this logic and defending my position?

It's ridiculous.

And we start to feel,

But on the other hand what are we going to do?

Because this other thing isn't us,

It's coming from somewhere else and you can't make it happen no matter what you do.

Tantra is called magic – the continuity of this other thing.

There's a magical quality to it because somehow it brings us back when it happens.

It brings us back to something,

Our real self maybe.

And suddenly at that moment our personal storyline,

Our personal traumas and dramas and all of it don't mean anything,

Meaningless,

And we realize there's something else,

This other thing.

That's the particular tantric inspiration is being curious about that and feeling called you know always to something in our life that isn't our personal storyline.

It may be that there's some people in the world that they really think their story is all there is to it and there may not be.

Maybe nobody actually believes it,

We don't really know,

But what we do know is we don't believe it,

We don't believe our own BS,

Our own glorious version of ourselves.

There's some part of us that doesn't really believe it,

Always.

And we want to find out about it,

We want to,

I want to know more about that.

What is that?

What is this thing in my life?

What is this force?

What is it?

And that leads us to the practice of meditation.

There are a lot of ego reasons for meditating and they're not invalid.

You know wanting to feel better,

You know not wanting to be in so much pain.

I know feeling so much pain in our relationships and thinking well maybe meditation will help me just like kind of work with people a little bit better and not be so confused and aggressive and whatever it may be.

There's a little bit of ego in these various reasons because we're basically trying to make things better for ourselves.

But there's another deeper inspiration behind meditation and you know my personal feeling is that when people come to the Vajrayana which is this lineage and as I said yesterday always has been whatever we say,

This is just basic meditation,

Maybe,

Maybe not.

You know well we're just being good Mahayana's and trying to help other people,

That's true.

But there's more to it always in this lineage no matter what you're talking about,

No matter what you're doing,

It's always about the sacred world and the sacredness of the human person,

It's always about that and that's what Vajrayana is.

So we,

My sense is when we come to a lineage like this and we're drawn to it and we want to study in it and we're attracted to a community that practices in this way or a teacher that teaches in this way,

We may think what we want is just more of an ego thing and I think you know we may come up with that rationale because we don't really know what it is,

That this nameless gravity,

This maneless force that is pulling us to it,

We don't know how to name it and so we think in kind of small terms maybe a little bit about meditation.

But what's really going on is we are,

We're drawn to this force,

Whatever it is,

Whatever is behind our dreams,

Whatever is behind the people we meet where it's all of a sudden our mind is blown by this person or this situation and or even something really difficult happens and all of a sudden we find out we're going to die or we find out our relationship that we've been counting on has fallen apart.

Any of those kind of situations and all of a sudden we're just here and there's a sense of being to it and we realize that what just happened,

There was some magic in that and it brought us to some place that we want to be but we don't know how to get there by ourselves.

And the practice of meditation is the practice of learning how to be with that force and what we discover over time is that force is actually ourselves strangely enough.

That force that had seemed to come from the outside is actually who we really are.

And it's what we've always longed for,

It's what we've always known we were,

To live in that river.

There's a river flowing and it's a river that's mighty and vast and that river is our life.

And when we are the river and even in normal life sometimes we are the river,

We discover ourselves as the river.

Not only is there no room for the petty,

Pettiness of our usual story in dramas,

We don't even care.

In fact we don't even think of it,

It doesn't even come up.

So we have come here because we sense the river is our life and we want so much to let go of everything else that isn't us.

Sometimes it seems so far away,

This deeper being,

Beingness that is us.

Sometimes it seems like such a remote possibility that even we don't think it exists.

And the truth is it is so close to us.

The more we practice,

The more we begin to feel it all the time actually in our life.

And the little departures,

You know,

The little thing that we get wrapped up in our little story about my life and me and I was born and I had a bad birth and my shoulder got caught on the way out and so my life is fucked up and I had a mother who reinforced all these bad things and then I've been told I'm traumatized and I'm never going to be okay and I have to learn to live as a psychological cripple.

All of that,

No matter who you are,

Is total bullshit.

And it's part of the culture's way of keeping us trapped.

And it's in the service of the status quo,

It's in the service of the dominant culture.

Well,

That's a very interesting point of view because there's a whole world of interpretation that comes out of the schools of psychology and even if the founders of them were not doing that,

The schools have largely become that.

It basically says we're a big mess,

We're a mess and we're very limited,

We can work a little bit,

Make a little bit of progress.

It's not like that.

There is within each one of us this river that flows and is true not only of every person but of everything that is.

And the river can't be touched by what happens to us,

Ever.

And the discipline of Vajrayana is to dismantle our doubt about ourselves.

We have so much doubt about ourselves on all levels.

And it goes all the way from fundamental doubt in our freedom and the possibility of our genuinely being able to love and be loved,

Doubt that we could ever feel,

Completely selfless joy,

To doubting what even comes out of our mouth.

I just said something and I doubt it.

I just had a thought and I doubt it.

Doubt rules the world.

And the tragedy is that all of our life is already this river.

But we're distracted by our doubt.

We're just distracted.

It's that easy.

It's not a matter of us having to work through our problems,

Dig our way through all our traumas and resolve them.

That is not how it is.

Many of us take,

I'm in therapy,

I'm into it,

My therapist told me I'll be doing this for the rest of my life,

I'm going to go every week,

I'm focused,

I'm stoked.

It's not like that.

I mean you can be in therapy if you want to,

Or you cannot be in therapy if you want to,

You can do anything you want to.

But our river is already the abundance of life.

The universe and all of its power expresses itself in every form of being there is,

Completely.

It's a mystery.

But the universe expresses itself completely in us.

And everything that our life is,

Is an expression of the boundless,

All the boundless realms of being there are.

And all the freedom there is.

To explore more Somatic teachings with Regi Ray,

Please visit his Insight Timer profile or the DharmaOcean website at dharmaocean.

Org.

Reviews

🙏

🙏🏼

Loved this. The River of Life. Reminded me deeply of Christ. I see Christ as the ultimate consciousness.

🙏

Very calming voice. Thank you 🙏🏽

I found this track very interesting and would like to add that there is a model of therapy (Internal Family Systems) which is is very much aligned with this philosophy. Although it uses different terms, it looks at people in just this way. It is non-pathologizing because it views what is referred to here as “ego” as “parts” which, due to various factors in our lives, have taken on extreme roles (anxiety, depression, addiction, suicidality, etc.) in order to protect and keep hidden more vulnerable parts (shame, worthlessness, loneliness, etc.). These parts all have good intentions, just not the most helpful means. We also all have a “Self” which is the “river” which can never be altered or destroyed and holds qualities such as compassion, connection, caring, and is non-judgemental with no agenda. It is the essence we share with all other beings (our non-duality). It is not just a model of therapy, but a paradigm shift in how to view people, groups, communities, etc.
This is a very rudimentary explanation, so for more detail or info look it up on a search engine or podcasts.

Wonderful reflection on the boundlessness and freedom that are available when we turn towards the sacred flow of life.

I just love this, and the timing of it is perfect.
Thank you ❤️

Thank you! Thanks for addressing the doubt and for reminding me that everything is already happening 🙏

Profound and simple at the same time! Thank you for the reminder the river of life is always there.

namaste,

Alan

Thank you for sharing your wisdom.
This is where I am being led to explore more deeply on my spiritual journey. Namaste.

Overcoming Doubt is truly the Key. Thank You

Absolutely love this talk, I listen to it most nights before bed so well put together thank you 🙏

Good wake up! 🙏

Thank you. Great talk. 🙏🏼🌷🍁🐾🦋

Hit a spot - very down to earth & sensible!

Excellent discussion and perspective on this practice. I will certainly explore these teachings further. Thank you. Namaste

Wonderful thank you 🙏🏻🌸

Very Thought Provoking... Really Enjoyed It. Thanks 🙏🏾

Deep talk, good info