Hello all,
Welcome.
In one of Charlotte Jokerbeck's books,
She talked about learning the piano when she was a young woman and she went into the studio and the teacher didn't say a word.
He sat down at his piano,
Said sit there and he played five chords or whatever they called them,
He said play those.
She played them,
He said no,
Do it again,
No,
Play it again.
And she said we did that for five months,
Sorry three months,
Just five chords.
At the end of the three months he said yes,
You've got it,
You've listened.
He wasn't there to please her,
He wasn't there to,
A lot of entertainment,
Oh let's try,
You know,
Auld Lang Syne now and you want to play the piano properly,
This is how you do it.
And it's similar to,
In some respects,
The point she was making,
It's similar to practice.
We don't go around the houses doing lots and lots of different practices.
If you want to learn the piano,
You learn to play the piano,
You listen,
You're here,
You're present.
Another way of looking at it is that she was finally present.
He was teaching her to be present.
Now short reading,
This is from her again,
Let's look at the sitting process itself.
What we need to do is to be with what's actually happening right now.
You could end it there.
It's that simple.
You don't have to believe me,
You can experience it for yourself.
When I am drifting away from the present,
What I do is then listen to the traffic.
We could substitute that,
Feeling the breath,
Listening to the birds,
The refrigerator,
Feeling the hands,
It doesn't matter.
It's that awareness,
That presence that's important,
Not the object.
We think it's the object,
The breath is very special,
It isn't.
It's no more important than the sound of the traffic.
We put the objects on a pedestal.
I make sure there's nothing I miss,
Nothing.
I just really listen,
Just really feel.
And that's as good as a koan,
Because it's happening this very moment.
So as Zen students,
You have a job to do,
An important job to bring your life out of dreamland,
Which is where the suffering is,
And into the real and immense reality that it is.
The job's not easy at first,
It takes a little courage and determination.
But once you get it,
You can play the piano.
That's a point.
And it's the end of the darkness,
So to speak.
I remember someone saying to me,
It was Winston Churchill's secretary,
He said,
Winston,
During the war,
He said,
Winston,
Winston,
He says,
Things aren't going well.
You need to tell,
You need to give people some hope,
You need to give people dreams.
He said,
Dreams are for people who are asleep.
I'm not putting a dream in front of you.
Follow this,
Reach your dreams.
Your dream's already here.
What you're looking for is already here.
And I'm talking to myself,
I'm not talking to,
I'm talking to all of us.
And I'm just passing on what I've learned,
That's all I'm doing.
And I've got,
I'm still doing the same thing you are.
There's no higher practices.
There's no advanced practices.
It's all made up.
It's all made up.
Someone's made it up.
Because the mind gets involved,
See.
So what next?
Listen to the traffic.
Become more and more sensitive to this presence.
And that becomes more and more accessible.
It enters more and more into your present,
Into your everyday life.
But it can't be forced.
It's more of an allowing.
And sit back quietly.
Silence.
A sense of stillness,
But not rigid,
Relaxed.
So we can feel the breath.
Of course it's special because it's here.
Feel around the face.
I can hear sound of birds and traffic.
Any uncomfortable feelings,
Just feel them without the story.
Where are you now?
Are you lost in next?
What's here before next?
Don't answer the question.
Feel it.
Are you resisting anything?
It's okay.
Just take a breath and relax.
Honesty is the way.
Just this breath.
There's no next breath.
No past breath.
It's just this breath.
Become intimate with sensations of the face.
Where's the attention?
Okay.
It's the end of the session.
So thank you.
Have a good day guys.
Bye bye.
See some of you tomorrow.
