Time's nearly up guys,
Nearly back home.
120 hours seems like a lot,
10 days,
12 hours a day,
But it's not actually that much.
And now we've just got a little bit of time left to meditate.
Just a tiny bit of time to be able to put that condensed effort in before we go back to our own spaces and continue to practice.
So obviously this isn't the end of the practice,
It's the beginning of the practice for some of us,
The continuation for others,
But it is close to the end of this retreat.
So I would advise everyone here to use it wisely.
And after tonight we won't have any more evening discourses,
And tonight I'll just say a few words on what we can do to make sure we're really focusing and really making the best use of this time.
One is to know what is meditating and what's not meditating.
And that one's super simple,
I'm sure everyone could answer that for now.
If we're focusing on the breath,
If we're focusing on the sensations,
We're meditating.
If we're not,
Then we're not meditating.
Whatever it is,
Whatever magical experience that we're going through,
Whatever's happening to us,
We're always anchoring ourselves in the breath or the sensations.
And to make sure that we're aware of those sensations regardless of how they change in the body.
Whether it's pain,
Whether it's bliss,
Whether it's these states approaching the immaterial states,
Whether it's energy,
It's still all just sensation.
And so if we're focusing on it and we're staying anchored in it,
Then we're meditating.
If we're not and we're off somewhere else,
Then we're not.
And some beautiful insights and experiences can come along with these other states,
But they will continue and they will give us their fruits if we continue to focus on the sensation and they won't if we don't.
So we want to stay anchored in the sensation to be able to continue the process.
Next point is pain and bliss.
Pain is something that a lot of people are afraid to face when they come and sit long meditation courses.
But actually by now,
Maybe we start to get this sense that pain actually helps our meditation.
Pain can be a friend in the meditation,
An ally.
Because as soon as we become non-reactive to this basic level of pain,
It's actually an anchor for our awareness and an entrance into the body.
It gives us a ballast to be able to hold us down and allowed us to be able to sink into meditation.
It's easy to get distracted when there are a million and one different things pulling us in a million and one different directions.
Whereas if there's sensation,
Breath and pain,
It's pretty easy to see when we're meditating,
When we're not meditating.
And it's also pretty easy just to drop in when you sit down.
Okay,
The pain's there.
It's inevitable.
I'm going to have to face it.
Time to become non-reactive to it.
Stop looking for ways around it and time to go through it,
Go to it.
And then we'll start to realize it's just another flavor.
And once we realize that,
It takes away this huge obstacle that's been in our way within our meditation and within our lives.
Where there's consistently this intense sensation waiting for us at the end of a lot of different choices we can make that stop us from being able to face it freely.
Because if we can face it,
Then we have already attained a certain level of liberation to be able to not be restricted by this intensity.
Risk-taking no longer feels like a risk because we're not afraid of the outcome.
If we're not afraid of the outcome,
Then what if we got to fear with anything?
So even if we just get that,
That's a massive change.
That's the benefit of the pain.
Another thing is pain is like our bodies cracking open.
It leaves cracks for us to be able to feel and go in.
So if we can't feel sensation anywhere else and we can feel pain,
Pain is an easy way for us to come in touch with the body.
What is our body communicating with us through this?
Bliss is exactly the same on the other hand.
They're both intense experiences of sensation.
One that we have an aversion to,
The other that we generally have a craving for.
We deal with them exactly the same.
We feel them deeply,
We don't react to them and we use them as an entrance into our meditation,
An entrance into our body.
So whatever we may be experiencing blissfully,
Painfully in the body,
Use it wisely,
Use it to go in,
Use it to go in deeply.
The other thing,
Next thing is to do with self-sufficiency of our practice.
Now we have these long evening sits and it's good for everybody to start guiding their own practice.
Now you know the techniques,
You know how to use them,
You know which situations to use them in.
So start guiding your own practice,
Start using this time to be able to focus,
Gather your awareness,
Go through your body when you're feeling a deep sense of love,
Focus on meta,
Extend it outwards.
When you want to go deeper,
Use single stream to go into the body.
And then when we collectively practice transfiguration,
When you get up to do it yourself,
Open the eyes.
You know how to use all these techniques now.
So start to step by step guide yourself through them and know when it's appropriate to use them,
When it's not appropriate to use them.
We want to always be at cause,
Always be at cause not at effect.
We want to be consciousness generators not consciousness seekers.
We don't want to look for anything,
Whether it's a sensation or a person or a scenario to be able to produce our state.
Now we want our state to generate our circumstances not the other way round.
So let's get used to being at cause,
Choosing our state and carrying it into our world.
The Hagakure,
The book I mentioned earlier,
The Way of the Samurai,
Has a quote in it that I love,
A passage in it I love that I think is very relevant here.
And it's to do with the steps we're talking about.
And it talks about the different layers of learning that you go through throughout life.
And at the end it says the final layer of learning is realizing that there's nothing more than today being a little bit more skillful than yesterday and tomorrow being a little bit more skillful than today.
And that's all we're doing.
This is like an internal martial art.
And we're all dealing with a completely different opponent,
Completely different dance partner,
Completely different situation.
And so what we can do is we can make sure that every single day we're taking a step towards being more skillful with ourselves,
More skillful meeting ourselves,
More skillful communicating with ourselves and more skillful applying this practice every single day.
And that's a victory.
Today more skillful than yesterday,
Tomorrow more skillful than today until eventually we're approaching that freedom.
As I approached the gate that would lead to my freedom,
I knew that if I did not leave bitterness and hatred behind,
When I walked out that gate,
I would still be in prison.
I just wanted to say it one more time,
Just because I love the quote.
Now we should all know we're approaching that gate where we're going to leave this prison.
We're doing it all the time as we go into our practice,
We have an opportunity to let go of all the things.
They may not be bitterness or hatred,
But all the things that are holding us back from being free.
And every day it gets better and better and better.
So let's use this as a practice today and let's use these evening sessions from now as a chance to be able to start guiding our practice,
Getting deeper into it,
Becoming more independent with our practice and self-sufficient.
If you need to ask any questions about the technique you know where I am at question time,
Otherwise let's start applying this and gain the confidence that we can do this ourselves.
We can do this ourselves,
We can only do this ourselves,
No one can do this for us,
Not even the Buddha.
And as we step by step get better at this,
It starts to make a lot more sense and become easier.
So let's do it tonight,
Pick your best posture,
Get yourself ready and let's continue our practice.
