Attachment

A talk on attachment. We suffer become we hold onto the way we want things to be, and resist change and growth, and sometimes forget to simply be thankful for life and for the process that we are living. Sometimes true happiness comes from letting go and letting be.

Transcript

I'm gonna start my talk before we get too emotional.

Too attached.

Yeah,

So it's interesting because it sounds like the theme of attachment has come up now and then in a few different people,

In a few different ways.

Right?

So,

I think that attachment,

It also has,

I think,

Like a physiological or biochemical kind of,

Right?

There's people that,

Right,

If you stop taking sugar,

Or people that stop taking drugs or stop smoking,

Or even if you stop maybe having a relationship with somebody,

That you're not getting the kind of whatever,

Oxytocin,

Whatever would be released,

That there is actually also like a physiological aspect to attachment,

And to not feeling having something that you used to have in a way,

Like an addiction,

Like a withdrawal kind of thing.

The Buddha talked about attachment as,

I don't even think he used the word attachment,

I think that kind of is what we call it.

He talked about tanha,

Which is desire,

Or kind of like wanting something,

And there's different levels of that.

There's like lust,

And there's different kinds of things that you desire,

That you want to be here that aren't here,

Or that,

You know,

He did talk about loss,

And kind of he said,

You know,

A foolish person is one who when they lose something,

They beat their breast,

And they scream,

And they cry,

And why me,

You know,

Versus,

You know,

The wise person understands that things are coming and going,

And it's okay,

And that maybe they feel sadness,

And that's okay,

But they just keep it there,

That there's a lot about learning how to kind of just be present with what's here,

And to accept.

I gave a talk actually last night,

The one I gave last night was about death,

And things changing,

And ending,

And kind of if you look deeply enough into this world,

You see that it is just a process of change.

The Hindus actually,

Even before Buddhism,

Well I guess before even this thing called Hinduism,

Like we call it now,

If you go into,

It was called ancient Indian mythologies,

Like the Ramayana,

Or the Vedas,

Or something,

But they talk about having,

You know,

Three main god heads,

And one of them is Brahma,

And one of them is Vishnu,

And one of them is Shiva,

And one of my friends,

Chandan,

He's the one I'm leading this trip to India with,

He's like the India tour guide,

You know,

He said,

He goes,

Yeah,

You know,

God,

G-O-D,

He said,

So G,

Brahma,

It's the generator,

He creates things,

O,

Vishnu,

He's the overseer,

And Shiva,

He's D,

He's the destroyer,

So G-O-D,

It's generator,

Overseer,

Destroyer,

But this kind of,

Again,

Mythology that they have,

That there's this guy called Brahma who creates and generates and arises everything,

The creator of all this,

And then there's Vishnu who manages things while they're here now,

And then there's Shiva who destroys things,

And one of the things that I realized over time was,

In Buddhism when they talk about following the breath,

The Buddha talks about finding the beginning,

The middle,

And the end of the breath,

Or talking about a person's life from their,

You know,

Early life to the mid-life to the late life,

That oftentimes in Buddhism there's processes described as like a beginning,

A kind of like a flower,

Right,

It starts to bud,

And then there's the blossoming,

And then it kind of fades away,

And those three parts,

If you look closely at anything that's here,

You'll see that there's an origin,

There's kind of a manifestation,

And then there's a fading away.

That's for every one of your breaths,

As for your entire being,

As for the sun,

It goes up and it's in the middle of the sky and it goes down,

Or right flowers blooming,

Or whatever there is,

That there are these kind of three parts,

Beginning,

Middle,

And end,

And that the ancient Indian mythologies,

They saw that process and they deified it.

They turned this process of things arising,

Sustaining,

And ending into gods,

That there's the god for the arising,

The god for the sustaining,

And the god for the ending.

And so,

Kind of just realizing that that process,

How we are constantly in that process,

Is just a good backdrop for everything that we do,

For whether you're getting in an accident,

For whether you have a loss,

For just whatever happens that I come in and there's a choir upstairs and a kid making noises in that room,

And usually this place is really quiet,

That things are different than I'm used to,

Things have changed,

Something happens.

I feel that the more that we practice,

The more that we understand that that's the backdrop,

This uncertainty of things,

The more we kind of become easier going with whatever happens,

Things don't surprise us as much.

And we see what's happening,

And oh,

Is there anything I can do about it?

No?

Okay.

And then we just let it go.

And I think that's something that comes through time,

Through training.

Through the kind of practice of meditation,

Learning to be present,

Learning to feel good just being here,

Learning to find our contentment in this moment,

To drink the nectar of just this,

Right?

That this is enough,

This is nourishing,

We don't need other stuff.

And when I became a monk,

We had monk rules.

And coming right out of college where I was partying and hanging out with friends and smoking pot and playing music and seeing girls and all this,

Then you go to a monastery,

And it's kind of like no sex,

No drugs,

No rock and roll,

No hair.

It just cuts everything down.

If you want to talk about being confronted with your attachments,

Like my god,

I'm a 20-year-old kid suddenly,

Celibate,

Has to eat tofu and live in this,

It was crazy,

Right?

It's a struggle to just sit and watch everything.

It's like a lion that comes up and it's like,

I want to get out of here.

And to watch that stuff kind of arise in these habitual ways of finding happiness,

Of getting pleasure,

Of finding contentment,

Of feeling safe,

And realizing that ultimately that stuff,

It's like an entrapment.

It feels like it's my friend.

It says,

But Seth,

You like these things,

Go do these things,

This will make you happy.

Ultimately,

It's like,

Well,

Anything that says to me you need this to be happy is a liar.

Anything in my head that's saying,

Any urge that's saying this moment's not good enough,

You need this other thing to then feel happy,

That's actually the problem.

It's us that's the problem.

It's that,

Yeah,

The attachment,

The grasping,

The desire,

The thing that feels like completion comes later,

That whole if-then mentality.

And man,

I'll tell you,

I've eaten the best meals in the world.

I've lived in some amazing places in this world.

I was with the high-end business people in Germany,

And we went on these retreats to Switzerland,

Up in the mountains,

In these huge mansion places.

And every time I sit down to an amazing meal,

I'm like,

Whoa,

This is amazing.

I've never even seen some of these foods.

What is this?

And I'm eating it.

It's so amazing and delicious.

And then the next thing I know,

It's just over.

That was it.

And I have this feeling almost every time I go out to eat.

I'm so excited.

I'm looking through the menu,

And it takes me like a while to really find,

What is the perfect thing that I want to eat tonight?

And then the food comes,

And I'm so happy that the food's here.

And probably within three minutes,

I've eaten it.

I'm a quick eater.

And I usually just look down,

And the waitress,

By that second pass where she comes to say if everything's all right,

I'm usually already finished.

And she's like,

Oh,

So I guess you enjoyed your meal.

And I said,

I think you forgot to bring it.

It's like a joke.

But this thing that I've been craving and desiring and wanting,

And then it's just gone in a second.

And then where did that thing go?

It's already gone.

And the Buddha compared it.

He said,

If there was a dog in an alleyway,

And the dog was hungry or starving,

And this butcher,

He just had cleaned a bone.

He took a bone and he cleaned it thoroughly with his knife,

And he cut off all of the meat and all of the sinews and everything.

And it's a thoroughly cleaned,

Bloody bone.

And he tossed it into the alleyway,

And the dog grabbed that bone and started gnawing on it and licking it.

He said,

Would that dog find satiation?

Would that dog's hunger be satiated?

And the monk said,

Well,

No.

And he said,

Well,

Why?

And they're like,

Because it's just a bone.

It's smeared in blood,

So it's stimulating for that dog.

It's like an approximation to food,

But it's not food.

He can never get,

No matter how many bloody bones that butcher threw,

That dog's not going to fill up on that.

He needs meat.

He needs some substance.

And the Buddha kind of used that as an example that said,

Yeah,

Kind of all of the sensory pleasures that we pursue,

That's what it is.

It's insubstantial.

There's nothing really there to it.

It kind of comes and goes.

And I think that was clearer for me when I was a monk than it is now,

Right,

Because I was really focusing on that.

These days,

I'm kind of like whatever.

So,

You know,

I'm chasing things as much as the next person,

Right?

But on some level,

I feel like I still,

I see that and I know,

And I don't invest as much as I used to.

And,

You know,

This feeling of desire,

Of craving,

Of attachment,

Of wanting something that's not here,

Or the opposite,

It's,

You know,

Wanting something that is here to be gone,

Right?

Because if I'm sitting here right now and you guys said you're not doing sugar,

Right,

And you're suddenly craving like,

There's some Girl Scout cookies there,

You know,

And you're suddenly craving one of those Girl Scout cookies,

You know,

What do you really want in that moment?

Is it that you want that cookie or is it that you want that cookie because then this feeling will go away?

So what's actually the point?

Is the point that you want that object or is the point that you want this feeling to not be here?

And that's when things get interesting is when you really start owning that stuff on a deeper level and you say,

Wow,

Actually,

It's not that I really want anything.

I just want the feeling of wanting to be gone.

There's,

I don't know,

Did I tell you guys the story of the Wishing Game?

It's a story from my teacher,

Acham Brom,

He told this story.

You guys know this one?

So I'll tell it again,

The story of the Wishing Game from Acham Brom.

He said his kind of introduction to this story was to say he was a theoretical physicist from Cambridge before he became a monk,

So smart dude.

And he said,

I think it was,

I don't know if it was John Nash,

The guy from Beautiful Minds that said this or if it was,

I don't know,

Somebody.

I said it's John Nash.

So he said,

You don't really know your field of expertise.

You don't really know what you're talking about until you can explain it to the girl serving you drinks behind the bar.

So these days,

That's a little bit sexist to say that.

But what he was saying is that if you can't explain something in very simple terms that just the average person can understand it,

You don't really understand it yourself.

And he said,

So I thought about enlightenment.

I thought about what is this path we're on.

And he said,

So I made up a story for everyone to understand and it's called the Wishing Game.

So he said there's five kids that sat down in a circle and they said we're going to play a game.

It's called the Wishing Game.

Whoever can come up with the best wish wins the game.

So the first boy goes and he says,

You know,

I want the new PlayStation,

You know,

With all the games on it so I can sit home and play all these games.

Everyone's like,

Oh yeah,

It's a good PlayStation.

Okay.

And then the next girl goes and she says,

Well,

The PlayStation's a good one,

But I'm going to wish for the whole video game store.

That way I can have the PlayStation and also the Xbox and then also whatever else comes and all the new things that come and I can just have everything,

All the games all the time.

And then the third boy listens to that and he says,

Wow,

That's really good.

And he said,

I'm going to wish for a hundred billion dollars.

So I'm going to actually buy the entire mall so I can have the video game store,

But also the food court.

And then I'm going to buy myself a diploma from a university.

I'll just buy the university,

Get myself a diploma so I don't have to go to school.

I can just live at the mall all day and I have everything I need.

And then I have all this extra money just to do whatever I want.

Hundred billion dollars.

So all the money one could ever need.

Yeah.

Try beating that.

So then it was time for this,

The fourth kid,

This girl,

And she said some things and maybe she'd seen like Aladdin before or something.

She said,

I'm going to wish for three wishes for my first wish.

I'm going to wish for a hundred billion dollars for my second wish.

I'm going to own the mall and everything in it.

And for my third wish,

I'm going to wish for three more wishes.

That way I can keep on wishing forever.

Try to beat that.

So then it came down to the fourth kid,

Fourth boy,

And he sat and he looked at that and he goes,

Huh,

What is a wish that's better than getting an infinity of wishes fulfilled?

And that boy's name was the Buddha.

And that boy looked at it and he thought,

And finally he said,

OK,

I'm going to wish to be so content that I never need to get a wish fulfilled again.

And he's the one that won the wishing game.

Because ultimately all that we're searching for is that contentment.

I remember I was a huge TV fanatic when I was a kid.

I would watch a lot of like 10 hour.

I watched a lot of TV when I was a kid.

And I remember that day that we got the new cable boxes and it went up to channel like 500.

And I was,

Wow,

500,

Oh my,

So many channels.

And I remember sitting there and I look at them and I flip and I flip and I'd see what's on and I'd see what's on.

I'd just be flipping and flipping and flipping and flipping and probably about 20 minutes later,

Still flipping and flipping and flipping.

And there is nothing on that I wanted to watch.

So I kept flipping and I go,

Well,

Maybe by the time I get back to the earlier channels,

Now there's something on because it's been like a half an hour now and the next program to start.

And I started to get kind of like this mixture between anxious and depressed.

I was trying to satisfy myself with something,

But there was nothing there.

And it was like that feeling.

I have like an infinity of wishes.

I can get whatever I want right now.

And it was miserable.

It became miserable that I had so many options.

It's like you go to the supermarket and there's like 50 kinds of ketchup,

You know,

And you're like,

Just give me one.

That what we think we want is often not what we want.

It's often actually not the thing.

Often we're searching in life for a state.

I was actually driving with a friend today in the car.

And and I said,

You know,

I've noticed,

Like in my relationship right now with my girlfriend that I build my life from a logical standpoint.

And then through that logic develops my emotions to things.

Whereas I feel like my girlfriend's life,

She starts from an emotional standpoint and then builds logic around the emotions to validate or justify the emotions.

And he said,

I think that's like the difference between men and women.

And I said,

I think that's probably not true.

But I think there's two different ways that people do things.

I think there's some people that start with the logic and then go into the emotions.

Some people that do the emotions and go into the logic.

And sometimes all of us do a little both or whatever.

And I used to think that my way was right,

That it's the right ways to start with logic and then do emotions.

But the more that I've been looking at it,

I said,

You know,

I sometimes,

You know,

She'll say something to me and I'll say,

Wow,

That was really important for me to hear.

That was really insightful.

I would never have come to that by myself because you're seeing it from such a different perspective than I am.

I was just taught something important.

And I said that I feel like I'm starting to come to a place where it's equally valid.

It's equally valid if you start if your world is logic centered,

If your world is emotional centered.

I've started saying I think they're equally valid.

And even though I always get frustrated at people that are emotional and they don't think about what they're doing or saying,

Maybe they get frustrated at me that like I'm not feeling enough.

Right.

You're why don't you aren't you out right.

Don't you feel like I don't feel anything.

Right.

But then I sat and I said and I really looked deeply at it and I said to my friend,

You know,

But if I was really honest,

Why do I build my world out of logical perspective from a logical point of view?

Because when I'm using my logic,

It makes me feel safe.

I feel like I have an orientation.

I feel like I've reference points.

I feel like I know what I'm doing.

So I feel confident in what I'm saying.

Right.

I feel stronger.

I feel empowered.

So if I was really honest,

Even those people who build their life from a logical point of view,

The glue that's holding those bricks of logic together is their emotions.

They're they want to feel safe.

They want to feel in control.

They want to feel like they know where they are and what they're doing and what's okay.

And what's not okay.

And what's good and what's bad that if I was really honest,

I also run my life from an emotional grounds and it just takes on a different shape.

It takes on a logical shape.

I had heard some years back that one of Supreme Court justices when asked,

You know,

Is it more like like the emotional response you get from making decisions and more logical.

They said if I had to be really honest,

It's 80 percent emotional response and then 20 percent trying to back up that emotion with logic,

With reason that the emotional responses.

That's really kind of what runs us a lot.

And that's kind of crazy if you think about it,

Because how much of what we're doing and saying and trying to be and try to,

You know,

I was at the gym and there's this guy and he's a personal trainer.

He's like,

Yeah,

You know,

People come in and they say,

You know,

I want to get personal training.

He's like,

OK,

Great.

You know,

What do you want?

What's your goal?

And they say,

You know,

I want to get a six pack.

I want to get some nice apps.

And he said,

Oh,

Why do you want apps?

And they're like,

Yeah,

You know,

I want to look good on the beach.

I feel good.

He's like,

Oh,

So you want to look good and feel good.

So you want to be confident.

Yeah,

I want to be confident.

He goes,

Oh,

So are you coming here for a six pack or are you coming here for confidence?

And then the guy,

Oh,

Yeah,

I guess you're right.

I'm here because I want to feel more confident.

OK,

Let's start from there,

Because I don't know if you're going to get that six pack,

But I'll definitely help you with your confidence.

And so really breaking things down to the more kind of emotional side,

What is it that we're doing and why?

What's the background behind that?

What are the emotional states that we're trying to compensate for?

Right.

Or satiate how meditation for me specifically ties into this.

My first real I want to say my real deep meditation,

My first meditation were like my mind unified,

I guess I could say.

Right.

My first meditation were where the me disappeared,

Where everything just collapsed in on itself in this beautiful,

Blissful kind of state that I've described before.

When I was feeling that stator coming out of that,

One of the first things I almost wanted to cry because I said,

First of all,

Is just this feeling,

Oh,

My God,

I wish other people could feel this.

I wish that other people could know what this feels like because I could see that all of my problems,

Everything that I've ever wanted in my life and everything that's ever gone wrong was immediately resolved by feeling that by getting into that state of total unity of the mind,

Feeling that completeness,

That wholeness.

That was everything I'd ever wanted and anything that I'd ever tried to do.

It was always actually just trying to feel whole and complete and like enough and that that feeling of completeness.

I don't know how else to say it.

And I know that that's what everybody is looking for because our minds are fractured.

We are fractured.

So we're always trying to put those pieces together or get external things and stick them in there to make us feel better.

One of the Buddha's disciples,

Ananda,

He was walking in India.

There was the caste systems,

The lowest caste or the untouchables that they do like sewage stuff,

Like trash cleanup on the ground.

They're called untouchables because you're not allowed to touch them.

And if even like a Brahmin who's like the highest caste,

If an untouchable even goes in his shadow,

If his shadow even comes in contact with them or his,

The Brahmin has to go on like a fast for like a month.

And it's this whole kind of caste system.

And the Buddha was,

He came in and he totally ripped down the whole caste system.

He was like the untouchables can ordain as monks if they want.

You know,

He really said,

I'm not playing that game.

He's like your worth depends on who you are and what you do,

Not how you are,

What family you were born into.

You know,

You are a product of your actions,

Not your birth.

But his Ananda,

He was walking and he passed this woman and he said,

And she was an untouchable and he was really thirsty,

He was hot,

Indian,

It's very hot.

And he asked her for water and water is the only thing monks can ask for.

We can't ask for food.

We have the begging bowls,

But you can't like,

You just kind of have to stand there with the bowl and people can put stuff in or not.

But water you can like ask directly.

And he said,

Can I have some water?

And she saw him and she goes,

Oh,

I can't,

I'm an untouchable.

And he said,

I did not ask for a caste,

I asked for water.

And so she gave him water and he took it and said thank you.

And he drank and he gave it back.

And suddenly she,

Wow,

What's this?

What's your name?

Ananda.

Thank you so much.

And he walked away and she said,

Wow,

Ananda.

And then she heard where the Buddha was and she ran to find the Buddha and she dropped the Buddha's feet and she said,

Oh,

Blessed one.

And she said,

I have to confess something.

I am in love with Ananda.

I love Ananda.

And the Buddha kind of just looked at her and he's like,

Oh,

You know,

She's like,

Yes.

And she relayed the whole story and she's like,

I'm in love with him.

I love him.

And the Buddha looked at her and he said,

You do not love Ananda.

You love the kindness that Ananda showed you.

You love the fact that Ananda made you feel like a normal,

Valuable person again.

You love that respect that you felt from Ananda.

You don't love Ananda.

You love these feelings that you got.

And he said to her,

Come ordain.

Let's work on these feelings.

Forget the six pack.

Let's help you with your confidence.

And she actually practiced the Buddha and became enlightened herself,

I believe she became enlightened too.

So that she followed in this path and she using this,

You know,

Training regained her sense of self-worth,

Her confidence,

Her realization of her own power and her own mind.

And that she got this thing that she wanted,

This thing that made her fall in love with someone,

That this person is the most important person in the world.

All she wanted was that feeling that she was getting from them.

And the Buddha was kind of saying,

And that feeling is nothing to do with that person.

That feeling is that you felt that feeling in yourself.

That's where you feel it.

That's where you want to feel it.

That's the point.

Yeah.

And it's hard.

It takes discipline.

It takes retraining.

We have to retrain ourselves.

We're very impulsive,

Right?

It was hard to be in the monastery.

And especially there was times where we would only eat two meals,

Breakfast and lunch,

No dinner.

And I did that for like nine months there and just did this whole thing where it was like,

No,

You know.

And just watching this,

I want to eat.

I'm so hungry.

But then,

You know,

Well,

Am I going to die if I don't eat?

Well,

No.

I mean,

Will it be okay?

Well,

Yeah,

I guess it'll be okay.

So,

You know,

The Buddha taught this thing called the middle way,

The middle way,

Because he was a prince and he got everything he wanted.

He got food,

He got music,

He had,

You know,

Ladies,

He had everything that a prince could want was given to him.

And then he realized that people die and people get sick and that life is temporary.

And he said,

What is this?

So he left the palace and he pursued this path that he was on and eventually,

You know,

Enlightenment.

And he said,

Look,

Like,

There's this middle way and this middle way.

It's saying like,

You only need just enough.

You don't need to pursue excess and luxury and stuff because that's empty.

But also,

He said,

You don't have to live in denial either.

That there's a lot of monks at that time and the Buddha tried practicing like this where he would only eat like a grain of rice a day or something.

Or he would really,

To the extreme of asceticism,

He,

In detail and kind of gruesome detail,

Talks about,

You know,

That his body and all the bones sticking out and that,

You know,

Like he'd rub his arm and all the hairs fell out because everything was like rotted in his arm.

And he would touch his belly and he could feel his spine through his belly.

And like he talks in detail about all the practices he tried and what it was doing to his body.

And then he would go,

He went to try to take a bath in the river and he fell and he almost drowned.

He couldn't get out of the river because he had no strength in his body.

And that's when he just realized this is stupid.

He's like,

I have done this.

There's a teaching,

A sutta,

It's called the lion's roar.

And it's because these ascetics,

They come and they say,

Oh,

Buddha,

You know,

What would you know?

And he's like,

Oh,

What would I know?

Let me tell you what I know.

And he in detail just described all of these practices.

I tried dressing myself in the bark of trees.

I tried eating cow dung.

I tried everything you could imagine.

I tried that,

Tried living like that.

And you know where it led me?

Nowhere.

It led me to pain and it led me to almost dying before I realized anything.

I almost died as stupid as I am now.

And then so he started taking food again.

Someone brought him milk and he started drinking milk and recovering his strength.

And all the ascetics were like,

Oh,

The Buddha,

He's given up.

He's gone soft and they abandoned him.

And he said,

I know exactly what I'm doing,

You know.

And he did.

And he reached this place that he was looking for,

You know.

And his kind of takeaway,

He said,

There's this thing called the middle way and that's you just need enough.

And as a monk,

That was really easy because that's already laid out for you.

You've got your robe,

You've got your bowl,

You have your two meals.

Here's all the things you can do.

Here's all the things you can't do.

Here's all you need.

You know,

It's all laid out for you.

So you can live that middle way in a very,

It's all kind of defined.

It's harder for us in the daily life when you have a fridge,

You know,

That you wake up in the middle of the night and you're hungry.

You know,

You can just go and grab something if you want,

You know.

You feel like you should go to the gym today,

But you don't necessarily have to.

You know,

You can decide to come to meditation tonight or not,

Right?

That it takes so much more willpower.

It's actually in some ways much harder to not be a monk and to try to practice,

Right?

Because this world is not necessarily conducive to you being in a good place.

It's conducive to profiting off of you,

Right?

And that's really this path that we have to figure out ourselves is what is my personal middle way?

How do I live in a way that's just enough?

That I'm not going into excess and I'm not depriving myself and kind of suffering unnecessarily.

What is my kind of place in that?

Not letting myself get controlled by my desires and my emotions and going into excess,

But then also not letting myself get controlled by my thought patterns and my dogmas,

Right?

Going in the other direction.

So one could even say that the middle way,

It's that middle spot between too much like intellectual dogmas,

If here's what you should do,

Or too much like emotional excess,

Like I'm going to just do whatever feels good.

And he's kind of like,

It's neither one of those things,

Right?

It's right in the middle.

It's just enough.

As long as you have enough,

That's fine.

Everything else is extra.

And that's how you see your grasping.

If you ever go on one of these 10-day Vipassana retreats that they have,

They're free.

There's one in Shelburne Falls,

Mass.

You have to book like a couple months ahead.

Ten days,

Ten hours of meditation a day,

Completely free.

They feed you.

And you just sit there for ten hours meditating.

And you see everything.

You see everything in your mind.

Because everything after a hundred hours of meditation in ten days,

Everything comes up at some point.

And you see I'm fed well.

I'm in a safe,

Supportive environment.

I have a place to sleep.

I'm just sitting here.

There's nothing actually going on.

There's nothing wrong.

In fact,

This is a pretty sweet situation.

Ten-day meditation retreat for free,

Food for free,

A place to stay for free,

Teachings for free.

It's a pretty good deal.

But every single possible.

.

.

When I was on.

.

.

I did one in India.

The one I did was in India,

Dharamsala.

And by the end of my retreat,

And there was like a hundred people in it or something,

Like fifty men,

Fifty women.

By the end of the retreat,

There was like twenty men and twenty women.

Yeah,

That over time people just started dropping out.

They started giving up.

It became too much,

Right?

They were having breakdowns.

It was too hard.

They just started dropping out,

Dropping out,

Dropping out.

All the people around me dropped out.

I thought I smelled or something.

They started to be around me after day three or four.

I was like,

What the heck?

But if you really look at that situation,

That's a pretty favorable situation to be in.

There's nothing wrong.

There's nothing happening.

If there's any problem in that situation,

It's the problem that you're bringing to the table.

Yeah,

It's like Achencha said.

He's like,

You know,

There's some monks that go monastery to monastery complaining about the monastery.

He's like,

You know what I see?

I see somebody who walks around with shit in their bag and they say everywhere they go stinks.

Yeah,

But they're the ones bringing the shit around.

And that's really when you start getting into it is when you start living in a way that's a little bit more organized or disciplined or you're in like a retreat or something.

Anything that comes up,

It's yours because there's nothing.

There's nothing wrong.

It's really easy for us in our daily lives to believe the stories,

Right?

To read the news,

To say,

Oh,

These people,

Oh,

There's these horrible things.

Oh,

I'm living at the,

You know,

Mark.

What did Mark Twain say,

Like,

My life is filled with many great injustices,

Most of which never happened.

Yeah.

That kind of,

You know,

That there's all these horrible things that are happening.

But you're just sitting there in your kitchen with your breakfast and your beautiful house.

And it's like you're living,

You know,

Go to,

I just watched a documentary on Liberia,

Right?

I think it's Liberia,

A vice documentary on it.

It's hell on earth.

They have no food,

No money and a lot of guns.

And there's just militant little army packs of people.

They're going shooting.

They're eating each other.

They're cannibals.

It's crazy.

It's literally hell on earth.

You watch that and you just,

You cannot believe what you're seeing.

And then,

You know,

I look around and then I see everyone living really nice,

Posh,

Easy,

Good lives.

And we're miserable.

Our minds and our hearts are filled with so much garbage.

So much garbage and unsatisfactoriness.

And we're not grateful and we don't see the blessing that we're in because we're in it,

You know?

That's why I love going back to India.

You go back to India for a little bit.

You come to America,

You're like,

Thank God,

You know,

Whoa.

Every time I come back from India,

I'm like,

Wow,

I survived and thank God I'm back and wow,

Okay.

You know,

I'll,

You know,

I will never be not thankful again for what I have.

And then,

You know,

I forget after two more weeks because like we acclimatize,

Like lottery winners,

Right?

It's like 80% of lottery winners say that their lives went back to normal like within a year.

I can't imagine how that would happen.

But,

You know,

That we get back to that weird base state of just not really appreciating,

Not knowing,

Being controlled by things again.

So I think when we kind of just bring all that stuff together with this topic of grasping or attachment or,

You know,

Desire or whatever,

It kind of,

It flies directly in the face of meditation.

You know,

It flies directly in the face of beingness,

Human being,

Just being here.

That this desire,

This attachment,

Right,

Wanting something to be here,

Being afraid that something's going to leave.

There's just these,

All of these projections,

Projections,

Right?

These feelings,

These emotional stories that we attach to everything,

That we react to and we try to control and we want and we don't want and all these feelings that we're fighting and I want this feeling,

I don't want this feeling,

You know.

And the Buddha had a name for this place and it's called Samsara.

And it's called Samsara because he also,

The night of his enlightenment,

He saw people's past lives,

He saw his own past lives,

He saw the rebirth cycle.

And he said,

We're just wandering.

We're just aimlessly wandering around.

And that's what Samsara means.

It means like this wandering.

Because he really imagined,

You just look and you see everybody and everyone's just,

No one knows what the hell they're doing.

They don't know what they want.

They think they know what they want.

They're chasing things.

They're fighting each other.

They're miserable.

They're getting nowhere.

When I first came out of the monastery,

I remember a night after practicing so hard and staying up all night and doing these meditations and diligently every moment,

You know,

Working on my mind.

And I remember I went on Facebook for the first time.

You know,

I turned on Facebook and I see people posting like pictures of like their cats,

You know.

I posted a picture of my dog this morning,

By the way,

Right?

So seeing people posting pictures of,

Not even their cats,

Just cats,

Just cats and videos of cats doing things,

Right?

And you know,

Just whatever,

Writing posts about whatever.

And I just remember looking at that.

And I said,

I get it.

I get what Samsara means.

I looked around me and I saw it was like everybody was sitting in a sailboat in the middle of the ocean and just getting pushed this way and that by the wind.

And nobody was really going anywhere.

And you know,

After coming from a community of monks and teachers and you're all at these books and you're focused and you're going towards this goal together and you're striving and you're getting better and you see yourself getting happier and you're breaking through these really deep belief systems and mental things.

And oh my God,

And this is so important and all this stuff.

And then my mind is collapsing.

Whoa.

Reality is changing and all these things.

And then you look around,

You know,

Finally pull my hat to see what's everyone else up to and I see,

You know,

Pictures of my friends from high school,

Going to the bar and getting drunk and I see people like what is everyone doing?

Do they not know that there's work to be done here?

Do they not know that there's something to do that you can change and develop and grow and transform and get happier and that this life is an amazing thing?

And like I was struggling every day to get through it and I don't think,

You know,

My life is not long enough to do this all in one lifetime maybe,

You know,

But I'm going to give it my best.

And I see people that don't even know that there's something to do.

You know,

They're just completely externally focused,

Just wandering on whims,

Feelings,

What feels good,

What I want,

What I don't want.

And yeah,

It was very sobering to kind of look at that.

I just remember the shock of that kind of seeing that.

And I was like,

Wow,

You know,

And that's the world that I've been a part of,

That I've always been a part of,

That I never saw it clearly because I was just in it.

I didn't get it.

You know,

I was never outside of it.

And,

You know,

And that's just all stuff that we have to look at and work with and do our best.

And,

You know,

I know that we all live normal lives and we have jobs and,

You know,

I'm lucky that my job is to teach meditation,

To give healing.

The work that I do,

It involves like talking about spiritual stuff and doing this stuff.

But,

You know,

That's like two hours of my day,

You know,

A couple times a week.

But then the rest of my week,

It's also just being in the world like everyone else,

Like,

Well,

What do I want to do today?

You know,

It feels good.

Go for a walk.

You want to go out to dinner.

What's going on?

You know?

And really just looking at all that stuff and trying our best to bridge all that together and to see it clearly and to realize,

You know,

We're not in a monastery.

I'm not a monk anymore,

Right?

We're just in this world and I'm not teaching monks.

I'm teaching like other people like me.

They're just kind of like living,

You know,

And how do we want to bring all that stuff together and bridge it together?

And kind of like the easiest way,

It's just let life be your master.

Let life be your teacher.

You know,

Let every situation that happens to you teach you something.

Always ask,

What can I learn from this?

What's going on?

Look at everything.

You know,

That's how I've been doing it.

And like I said,

I walked in here and I saw there was music going on and I just watched my mind.

My first impulse was,

Oh,

Gosh,

No.

And then I came down and I heard that kid and I was like,

Oh,

No,

You know.

And I just watched my mind right away saying,

This isn't how I wanted it to be.

This is an ideal for me,

For my,

You know,

And I just watched that voice come in and defiantly say,

This isn't what I want.

And then I kind of look at that voice and I look at the reality and I kind of say,

Shut up.

What are you talking about?

This is everything's fine.

The only problem here is you coming in here like,

Wait a minute,

I want things to be different.

Nothing's there's nothing wrong.

So there's noise upstairs.

So what?

Like my meditation is that good that,

You know,

That noise is going to make or break anything,

You know,

And really just that's all we can do,

You know.

And and that's it is we just have to we have to let life be our teacher and we have to use these tools of changing our lenses,

Looking at things in new ways,

Using each situation that happens like a car accident,

Like a loss,

Like things that happen.

And just every new situation,

What is that bringing up in me?

Why?

What's going on?

What do I want to do about that?

Are those voices legitimate?

Is that not?

Are those old stories?

Is that helping me?

Is that not helping me?

Sometimes you just have to feel stuff,

Right?

Sometimes you you have been wronged in this life and you just have to sit and say,

I've been wronged and that sucks.

But now what?

You know,

Now how do I want to move forward with my life,

Right?

That we have to we have to really just be proactive in every moment in each situation and see how to use this for my growth and development and practice as much as we can and as much as we want to.

And we have to also allow ourselves to not always want that.

Right.

We also have to dissolve our ideal,

Our idealistic selves to not judge ourselves either to say today I'm going to sit on the couch and watch Netflix and eat ice cream,

Watch the special bachelor two night live event happening next week.

And that's fine.

If that's what I want.

Cool.

Go for it.

You know,

If I notice somehow that that's harmful to me or then I'll then I'll talk about it again.

I'll look at it.

But if it's OK for now,

It's fine.

Right.

That really what is my middle way right now for my life situation.

What feels good.

What's my balance that I feel like I'm living in balance and I'm moving forward.

That's enough.

Could I be moving more forward?

Sure.

Always.

But would I then maybe get exhausted or yeah,

Maybe.

Right.

So that's kind of like the balance that I want everyone to look for is that how do I find a way to in each moment find a harmony or a balance in each new moment in situation.

And simultaneously in a way that's kind of growth oriented that I'm learning and I'm moving forward.

If I can navigate a situation in a healthier way,

I've just learned something.

And that thing that I've learned,

I can now apply to the next situation.

Right.

So to bring those two elements together.

Right.

How do I feel good?

And also how do I continue growing?

And if you can feel good and keep growing,

Then that's all that you've done enough.

Yeah.

And you can grow a little more.

You go on these retreats or the healings,

Read books,

And you can push that a little bit.

And sometimes you can kind of back off a little bit and you can play in that space.

But that's just the sweet spot.

If you're always growing and learning and you're always keeping like a relative balance for where you are right now,

That's all there is to it.

That's your vessel.

If you can stay in that sweet spot,

The Buddha said it's like if you throw a stick in the river and it doesn't get caught up on either of the banks,

It'll float all the way to the ocean.

You know,

It's that if you can just keep yourself in that sweet spot where I'm balanced and I'm aware and I feel that I'm still learning and growing all the time,

What else can you really ask for?

That's it.

And then you'll go at your own pace with your own conditions,

With your own karma.

You know,

And then you can really just let nature take its course because you've set yourself in a good path.

And I think that's kind of the most realistic way we can talk about this.

So with that,

We will have our meditation,

Which I've talked so much will only be about 15,

20 minutes.

And we will also completely make peace with all of the noises around us.

That is called real life,

Real worlds.

And any problem we have is our problem.

So let's just work on being here and seeing how in this moment I could feel the most at peace possible.

What is the most peaceful that I can become?

So sitting in a way that's comfortable,

Stable,

Feet on the ground.

Whenever you're ready,

You can close your eyes.

Reviews

Amazing perspective with insightful direction to understand attachment and the middle way. I will definitely listen to this again and share with others.

Just a talk how it should be. Something that you can listen to multiple times and it will always be just as it should be. Enough. Full.

Always wonderful to listen to your presentations. What a soothing voice.
2 comments come to my mind :
- One can decide to grow and have children at the sake time. Children are such an incredible way to learn, explore and grow.
- Finding balance, feeling good and growing are amazing life goals....I would add : What do I want to give or share with the world ( my family, friends, colleagues, community ) ?
What can I bring to the table as a legacy ?
What have my caregivers, parents and teachers have taught me ( skills, values....) that I wish to pass on ?
Thank you🌸

Thank you! I appreciated all the insights you shared. Valuable information for living a simpler life.

I listen to this dude just about every morning before my meditation. He is so real and down to earth, totally relatable, and his talks contain some of the best nuggets of spiritual advice put in a very easy, everyday way. Thanks Seth! 🙏🏼

Really interesting and thought provoking talk. Thank you Seth 💜x