Day 70 Morning Meditation - The Zen Master And The Teaspoon

PLEASE NOTE: These are unedited recordings from live sessions held each weekday morning online. Please keep in mind the context when listening.

During this session, a 3- to 4-minute teaching is followed by a spacious guided meditation. The meditations are spacious intentionally so that you can feel into your own experience rather than me talking through the whole 20 minutes.

Transcript

Morning, Good afternoon, Good evening. This man goes to a Zen master. And Zen Master says, How can I help you? And the man says, Well, You know. Got a few illnesses. Got this bad back. Keep getting headache. Nothing seems to go right in my life. I'm hanging with my wife. Fruit and veg won't. I always get eaten by the insects and my business is not doing very well. He says, Oh dear, So how can you help me? He says, Well, Hmm. Tricky. So he says, One moment. So he pulls out a little bottle of olive oil. Night of one. Pocket in his robe. And pours out a teaspoon in the other. What the hell is that? The spoon up and he gives the man The spoon says, Hold that. So what I want you to do, I want you to walk. Down that lane, Round the forest, Through the forest, Into the marketplace, Round the village, And then back again, The same way. But I want you not to spill a drop. If you don't spill anything, I can help you. And mind says, Oh. Weird but okay this is headmaster this is what you get you get weirdness So you don't get what you expect. From Zen Master. And so off he goes, Walks through the forest. Crosses the road, Walks through the marketplace. Back around the, Across the, Through the forest again, Back, Back, Back, Back, Back. To the Zen master. He says, Look, I didn't spill a drop. Oh, Shame. He says, Shame, Huh? He says, When you're walking through the forest, Did you notice the sound of the birds and the smell of the lush grasses? And the sound of the wind in a tree said, No, No, No. I was too focused on this. Did you notice the sound of the children playing and the dogs barking? And the people doing their businesses in the marketplaces, No, No, No, Not at all. You notice the sky or anything at all? No, Just concentrating on this. He said, Well, There's your problem. He says, You're overly focused on your problems, Your illnesses, Your problems, What's not going right, Obsessed with the future. Problem, Learn to spill the oil. Throw away the spoon. See what we do, What he's saying is we dwell so much on what could go wrong, On my problems. So we stop enjoying life. And we all do to some degree, Don't get what I'm not saying. Have to think about things, But it's so easy just to get caught up. And that's how we think about. That becomes an obsession. The mind's a problem factory. That's where it is. It's not just a problem, It's a wonderful instrument, But if we're caught up, If we see it, Or if we're caught up with it, It's a problem factory. We don't know its true nature. As my teacher once said to me, Sailor Bob Adamson. He wants that, Well, Not just to me, But to a group of us. You know, He once said that a thought is not the actual thing itself. And I was stopped by it, Because I always thought it was. See, We don't say, We don't look at the most obvious things. And the human problem is what I started to see from him and Joe Corbeck was that The problem with the human being is we take what thoughts are saying to be reality. That was the Buddha's message. To 1, 500 years ago, It's the same thing. See, Buddhism is what we call a universal religion. It's applicable to all times, All people. Because he just looks at the source of suffering. It is always belief thoughts. But the problem is we get so attached to our work. Belief system that he had bought. You know, This is true. And then there's got to be a crack in the armor. For the light to get in. Okay let's take a look at that crack shall we. So you're settling. So don't need to go far, There's no path to presence. Drop into the body. Feel the breath if you wish. You've knew the mantra we've used in the past. I want you to notice when you are obsessing about the olive oil and the spoon. Being, The past, The future. What's next? What's going to happen? Planning, Anything. And just drop those thoughts and return back to the hearing of the birds or the traffic. Feeling the bodily sensation. These are really happening. They are not thoughts. Where is the attention right now? You are obsessing. If you are, You'll feel a tightness in the body. Contraction. Are you listening to life? The real thing. Which is very simple. Uncomplicated. Where are you right now? Just checking that you're not tensed up. Striving ahead. To reach some idea. Just take a deep breath and relax. There's really no destination here. The tending towards here. That's all you have to do, Just feel what you find. The world the mind is creating for you, Telling you about, Isn't the real world. It's not what's really happening. What's really happening? Feeling the breath. Sound of the pigeons on the roof The smell of incense. Feeling of hands resting together. Both going by the window. Okay, That brings us to the end. You know, Movement or a stretch. That's it. Coffee time.

Reviews

I love the story of the olive oil in the spoon. and learning to spill the olive oil 🥰🥰🥰