Awakening To Our True Nature

Though we live our lives through our work and in our relationships, in any moment of stillness, we can open to the discovery of who we truly are. We don't have to go searching for our true nature because it is always right here and available at any moment if we simply pause.
This track contains ambient sounds in the background

Transcript

So this is usually called insight meditation. And insight meditation I think is often identified strictly with these practices, This kind of taste that you get in meditation, An experience, A different sort of experience than we normally have, And at the same time I think a very important element of insight meditation is you might say the wisdom component, Which is what do we learn about how our mind works from meditating or from other meditative practice, Not just sitting meditation. And there's a very interesting sort of feedback loop that happens as you engage in meditative practice and then you start to observe your mind and see how it works. And then you can return to the meditative practice and that meditative practice is then pretty much enriched by what you've learned or the wisdom element of that. The question which I'd like to pose tonight is for these practices, What is the true nature or what really is at the essence of who we are, This meditator that's engaging in these practices. I think that one thing that happens in the meditation itself is that we get a sense of this vastness, This openness that can be very different from the characteristic experience in our life because often our life is very constricted. We have our list of things to do, We have so many demands that we place on ourselves and our world can get very small and very tight. The meditative practices can expose us to this different sense of living, This kind of spaciousness. It could be just between the thoughts, Just a little micro moment between the thoughts as you focus on your breath or the body or the sounds. But it kind of gives you a clue like, Huh, There's something there, There's something there. At the same time then there is this other identity that we have in the world, Whether it's law student or lawyer or whatever it is. And I think that it's the play between those two things where then the meditation gets really interesting. The play between what is the role or the objective of our life and so forth and then this question of what is this other characteristic of my experience and really who I am. And you know the externals are often in a state of flux. I looked at the Department of Labor and it says that most people will change careers five or seven times during their life and that by the time you're 42 you'll have had about 10 different jobs. I had experience recently of going to my 40th high school reunion. I'd never been to a reunion before and my classmate convinced me to go. And these were all people with the exception of my one friend who I hadn't seen for 40 years. And so I would meet one after another and you would try to get to know each other again and they would say to me, Well, What's up with you? What have you been doing these last 40 years? So I would try to explain. Last time they saw me I was going off to music school. So I went to music school and then I left there and I ended up studying philosophy and then I finished there and I went to work in a homeless shelter for a few years. And then I left there and I entered a Catholic religious order for a few years and then I went to work with refugees in Mexico for a few years. And all that's before I went to law school. And you can see after each thing I would say, They would sort of say, Oh, I kind of get it, Like, Oh, Okay, So you're whatever. And I thought I wouldn't just kind of cut to the chase. I would kind of walk them through it. So it was very interesting for me and then afterwards I was thinking about, You know, It feels almost like different incarnations of me through time. Each thing that I did I loved and I did because I loved and I wanted to do. But then after that it was something different and then something different. And each of those things was me. But at the same time there was something that was bigger than all of those. There was kind of a me that was kind of directing this whole thing, You know, That was kind of leading me in one direction or another. And I think that that's a very important focus because the focus can simply be on whatever the identity is at that time, Lawyer, Law student, Whatever it is. And there is this question of, Well, Who else am I inside of that or motivating that even? And I think we all know people who carry those identities in different ways. You can carry them lightly. I was reminded of this current pope. Apparently, I don't know if he still does this, But when he first became pope he would sneak out at night, Not dressed as a pope, But he would sneak out to give food to homeless people in Rome. But trying not to make people know that he was pope because he just wanted to do it. Also I think that there is an identification with the body. We can think that when we think of like who are we truly, We can think of our body. We can't leave it. It follows us everywhere we go. But it's also changing. And the body does not stay the same. I recall in college I had grown a beard, A big beard, And I was going out one evening and I turned to look myself in the mirror and I was startled because I thought, I look like an adult. I look like an adult. I was very pleased. I was very pleased about that. And then more recently I have the opposite experience where I'll catch a look at myself sometimes in the mirror and I'll think, Who is that old guy? Who is that old guy in the mirror? And my mental age is much, Much lower than what they tell me in my physical ages. So there is this sense too which the body is always changing. So then the question, It can be a very interesting query like, Who is the me that's sort of inside of all of this? Whether it's the changing body or the changing life choices that we have. And I think that one of the things that meditation does is open us up to the sense that there is this larger view. There's something bigger than all of this. And it's always been there. It's not a question that you have to go search for. I think that often when people even just look for leisure time, They're kind of tapping into that sense. Like there's something more. There's something more there than the work, Work, Work, Work, Work. Whether it's just listening to music or taking a walk in the park. Whatever it is or being able to look from the top of a mountain or across a lake, There's a feeling like there's an expansiveness, A feeling like, Yeah, Suddenly connect with something that's much, Much bigger. And then there's also a sense, I think a sense in those moments where there's kind of a fundamental okayness to the experience. That there's not a fight, You're not fighting the experience. That there's just a sense of settledness to who you are. And I think that that feeling, Which is experience in meditation and strength through these practices is also the antidote to this competing feeling that always like there's not enough. Whatever the experience is, And you could be first in your class at Georgetown Law School, But still feel like it's not enough, Like there's always something that's not quite right. I mean it could be a little better because it's the job or it's the partner or it's the way your body looks or maybe it's just what you take from your past and those things that you can't shake. And that that, The antidote to that really is the sense of expansiveness. That inside of yourself there is something bigger, Something grander, There's something vast really and kind of limitless. There's a New Yorker cartoon where there's a guy who's staring into his beer and looking pretty depressed and he says, You know, I'm really nothing and I'm all I can think about, You know. And so that's sort of the churning mind, You know, The mind that just won't let go of the sense of no good. And the mind does that. It proliferates these thoughts, You know, Over and over and over again. It's like a television and for all these channels, You know, There's like the Thinking Channel, There's the Disaster News Channel or something terrible is going to happen to me. And what meditation can do is not turn the channel to one that's really, Really good but actually just turn off the set for a second. I've had this experience in actually sometimes when I'm driving in a car and it's usually NPR so I'll put on NPR because I figure like I haven't heard the news today so I have to catch up on the news, You know, But then there are a lot of commercials on, You know, So maybe I'll think, Well, I'll listen to a song for a second until the commercials are over and I'll go back to the news but it's a story I've already heard so then I'll check for another channel. And then I find myself kind of sort of like getting a little worked up about trying to find something good on the radio and it'll suddenly occur to me that I can actually just turn it off, You know, Turn it off. And then I turn it off and I think there's at first a feeling that, Gee, I kind of miss the radio, You know. I kind of like I want something to distract this mind. I want something to kind of like activate up there. But then following that it's a sense of like, Ah, Actually, You know what? This moment is okay. There's something okay about this moment without the chatter, You know. In fact, It's kind of nicer without somebody like, You know, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, You know, Just like a little quiet moment, You know, That has a very, Very different character. So this, You know, This process of kind of turning from what are these kind of habitual patterns of thought and kind of opening to this kind of greater vastness, Which is somehow kind of part of who we are, Just naturally are, And that you don't have to kind of look for it. It is just simply stopping to pause and suddenly you can get a glimpse of it. Sometimes this is called awakening, You know, And it is, It's a good term because it really is kind of awakening out of all of this other stuff that's going on. I know one practice that I do right now, Kind of getting a glimpse of this, Is very early in the morning. The first thing actually when I wake up, I had noticed that I had this tendency to, The very first thing, Just like when the brain is booting up in the morning and I'm like realizing like, Oh, Maybe coming out of the dream and realizing where I am, I'm like, Okay, I got it, Okay, I'm here, Got it, Okay. And then thinking to myself, Hmm, Like how am I doing right now? You know, How am I, Is this a, Am I in a good mood, Am I in a bad mood? Trying to remember from yesterday or something, Like what were all the things that were happening yesterday? What are the things that are bad things? Should I be worried about them again? Sort of trying to get oriented in the morning. And when I noticed my mind doing this, I thought, You know, This is so curious, You know, Why? Why bother doing this? It's sort of like, Can't I just actually start afresh every day? Can't you just start and see what is today, What is today? And it's very interesting if you try to do that because then there's actually at the very beginning of the day just this quiet and almost this sense of like possibility, You know, Like nobody's actually, Nobody's started to write the story yet for today. It's actually there's a lot of openness to the possibilities of what could happen. All right, I'm going to do another, I'm going to do another one for you. This will be a little meditation, So I don't know, Steven, If you'll be able to stay for this. Okay. Maybe about five minutes. So this is, Take care. So again, You can just find a posture that works for you and if you feel comfortable closing your eyes and just kind of relaxing again in your body. This is a practice that you could actually try at any time during the day. And you can internally just ask yourself this question and then listen internally for the answer, Not in an intellectual sort of way, But just listen with kind of an openness. So here's the question. What is here right now if there's no problem to solve? Who is here? Who is aware when there's no problem to solve? You can just get a sense of returning to this question, What drops away and what qualities may show up? When you step away from the role of problem solver. If there's nowhere to go and there's nothing to do, There's no one to become, Just feel into what might show up right here now. What's it like when there's no problem to solve? Feel directly into the awareness of what is here, What is most essential. With curiosity you can just ask that question. What's here when there's no problem to solve? When you're ready you can open your eyes. There's a certain sort of paradox I think about the spiritual life and the meditative life in that I think the only reason anyone gets interested is because they get a sense that there's something else to explore, There's something else, There's some other reality that is starting to open to them in some way and once that happens then there's also a sense that you then have to leave to go find it, That it is a journey of some sort, That you have to depart from where you are and you have to be someone else than who you are. This becomes then the fundamental tension of this journey is that to realize actually who you are is right here, There's no discovering it, There's nothing to know that you don't know already. It's the same experience of this awareness, This openness, This spaciousness which is right now calling to you and it's calling to you from directly who you are and directly what you are and from this place. I think that the mind naturally, Like with any project, The mind actually wants to kind of take control of the whole thing so it's almost like if you sit down with your mind and you say I have to stifer an exam or I have to go to the grocery store or whatever it is and your mind helps you, Gets the thing organized, Gets you in the car or gets you to class or whatever it is. And the same way with the spiritual meditative life, I think the mind wants to raise and organize the whole thing for you, Say like okay great, Do you want to be meditative or spiritual, It's like okay I got six things we got to do, First you got to get a book on it and then you got to go to the retreat and you got to meditate really hard, Learn how to meditate really good and really hard for a long time and it's like another list of things to do, You know, Before you get. And in some ways you sort of have to thank the mind, Say thank you very much, I'm so glad that you're always hanging around here trying to help me but you can just sort of sit down, You know, You can sit down and relax. In Zen they call it the backward step, So from experience instead of sort of leaning forward to sort of find, You know, Where this is all taking you, It's actually you kind of take one step back and you kind of rest in where you are and then suddenly, You know, Things look different when you're not pressing forward, You know, You're just leaning back a little bit. It's also Ajahn Buddha Dasa called it everyday nirvana, Sort of like nirvana not being this thing where you have to go to the Himalayas and live in a cave and you know blah blah blah blah, You know, Actually you get direct experiences, Direct glimpses of it at all, At any moment during the day, You know, You can touch into this and that thing that you touch into is no different from the ultimate goal, In fact there's nothing else, Right? And that that being a tremendous piece of good news I think because it also means that this thing, This essence, Whatever we are, Is something that is essentially good, That is entirely good and there's no searching for it, There's just relaxing back to realize that it's always been there. All right, So I think we'll conclude with just one other meditation, I have one other meditation for you and for this one too I encourage you to find a way to be alert, At the same time relaxed, Again you can close your eyes if you're comfortable doing so and just take a moment, Maybe take one or two deep breaths and you can just be aware of these experiences that are right here in the foreground with the stream of sounds from outside the room and sensations in your body and you can just begin with this inquiry of what is listening, What is aware at this moment, You can be aware of the sounds that you're hearing now, My voice, The other sounds and you can just be aware of the awareness of the sounds, Does it have a location or a size, You can just notice that the awareness is free from anything going on in your mind or your sensations in your body, Awareness just receives the sound without doing anything, Just receives the body sensations, You can just rest in the awareness without any thought or effort, Let the thoughts arise and just let them come and let the stream of thoughts join the sounds and the sensations and just ask who's listening, Just sense this unchanging awareness which everything arises and passes away and when you're ready you can open your eyes.