Dharma As Relationship

What we pay attention to impacts what we perceive, which means attention is not always neutral. The relationship to what is unfolding in the experience can affect our actual experience. How do we take these truths into account as we attempt to live our lives authentically?

Transcript

So here we are.

Almost made it through the first day.

Woohoo!

Yeah,

I just want to acknowledge their commitment that it takes to be here.

Some people,

Some of us maybe there's a sense of more ease or more flow,

But for most of us,

Most of the time it's an interesting journey.

And there's plenty of moments that are not useful,

That may be challenging.

Taking time to acknowledge that and to appreciate that,

Appreciate that which is present to allow us to keep going,

To persevere in ourselves and also between us.

Very much the sense of community and people were touching today a little bit,

Sharing a little bit on just moments of feeling that connection or the love or the compassion flowing,

You know,

One direction or the other,

Almost doesn't matter.

And how much of a support that is.

The support of this place,

The grounds of the,

You know,

All the people that have looked after,

Are looking after the gardens here over the years,

From the nuns that used to live here,

To various volunteers and coordinators that carry on.

And then to the non-human beings that are here that are such a support,

You know,

The trees and the birds and the rabbits.

It's amazing,

You know,

When we simplify,

You know,

We see,

You know,

We meet our own edges,

Certainly,

But we also meet really seemingly very simple things that can have a profound impact when we just are kind of just simple enough and quiet enough to notice how close the birds come to us,

The kind of house,

And what a sense of privilege that is,

You know,

The gift of fearlessness,

You know,

That these creatures that are usually afraid of us are not afraid.

What an impact that has.

So,

Yeah,

Very much taking time to appreciate that,

You know,

Everything internally and externally,

That's here to support us,

And the sense of community.

And as we kind of go deeper into the retreat,

A real sense of,

Can we prioritize that respect and that support that we're receiving and that we're also offering without knowing?

This is also one of the magic beauties of being on retreat.

You know,

We're receiving support and we're offering support just by being here and just by kind of following the kind of simple guidelines.

So we've been joined by some of the long-term yogis,

The hermits,

We call them here.

And I always love it when they come into the hall because it's an opportunity to kind of feel that mutuality,

That people who are here for longer and are part of the silence that is supporting us.

And then we in turn come in and practice and we nourish the feeling of practice in the house.

You know,

Kind of this really this flow that is worth naming.

So with that deepening of silence,

You know,

Really deepening into that.

So,

You know,

Maybe,

You know,

We found ourselves leaving notes to other yogis and maybe we can just let go of that,

Of respect,

You know.

We,

You know,

We have a book somewhere that's a little bit,

You know,

In other people's sight and maybe we can put it away just as a real,

That real act of support and generosity,

Of deepening into the silence together.

And it's an invitation,

Invitation.

So I want to,

I told you yesterday that I like to ask questions.

So I want to ask you a question and there's no,

There's not even going to be an opportunity for everyone to answer.

You can relax if there's kind of like,

And also if no one wants to answer,

That's fine.

But I wanted to ask if anyone noticed anything that felt interesting to you in the meditation we just did and the ones that we did earlier today around either relaxing tension or kind of opening to,

Or tuning into what feels pleasant or okay or good enough.

Was there anything interesting that you noticed?

And there's no right answer,

Just to say that.

Yes.

Yeah,

So I'll repeat because people might not hear the back that there was relaxing tension so much that you got sleepy and you nodded off.

Yeah,

Almost fell asleep and that was the first time it ever happened in meditation.

Great.

Yes.

The first time in the meditation I really said something nice.

It was quite a trigger for me.

It felt like,

Nice,

This is nice,

And this time I took the nice answer and the thing was that feels okay.

And for me that was my theme.

That was my favourite reference and there wasn't a judgment on the words so much this time.

So that felt incredibly nice.

Yeah,

And noticing that whole process.

So initially when the invitation is to notice something nice there can be a sense of,

Whoa,

Nice.

I love the way you did it.

I don't think I can do it as well.

Nice,

What's that?

And then the second time there's just a little bit more groundedness with that and then we can hear a little bit more,

We can see a little bit more.

That's kind of what you're describing.

It doesn't have to be nice,

It can just be okay.

And then finding that place and then that sense of the feet feeling okay.

Having a sense of something positive in that.

Yeah.

Anything else?

Yes.

I did that for a long time,

Trying to resolve negative feelings.

And just being given permission to do something else.

Yeah,

Great.

Once I started feeling nice things,

I kind of grew into the bits.

Okay,

Yeah.

So noticing that when the invitation was to notice something pleasant,

What arose,

What kind of the insight was,

Oh,

Actually most of the time I'm focusing on the unpleasant and trying to dissolve the unpleasant.

But with the permission to notice the pleasant,

The pleasant things grow in the way,

And this is I'm adding that on,

But in the way that we usually think only unpleasant things grow.

Yeah.

So interesting.

So with the permission,

Unpleasant can suddenly appear more and kind of be more present and be more palpable,

More noticeable.

Anything else?

You're going to make me talk,

Aren't you?

This is my kind of secret strategy to let you give the talk instead of me.

Okay.

Last chance.

Okay,

Great.

So as we can see,

Kind of a lot of different kind of insights that can come when we open to look at experience in a certain way.

So just this kind of paying attention in a particular way and then being interested in what happens as a result kind of reveals,

Can reveal quite a lot to us about the nature of experience and about the nature of our minds.

And it's,

You know,

It's not like I said,

There's no right answer.

It's not like that.

We're looking for one specific thing.

What we're interested in is this diversity.

Yeah.

I look at a certain way and I kind of then see things that are interesting.

Yeah.

So I can see that I can relax the body so much that I fall asleep.

That's interesting.

Yeah.

Something interesting to learn there about calmness.

Yeah.

Or I look,

I notice how I habitually look at something,

You know,

That I habitually think that looking for something nice is maybe,

You know,

Wrong or that the nice isn't there or that I tend to be more focused on the unpleasant.

That's easier to find.

Yeah.

So it's like we look at a certain way and we see other things and that reveals a lot actually.

It reveals a lot about our experience and about the nature of the mind,

The nature of the mind,

Nature of the experience.

I'm saying it separately,

But,

You know,

Those two are very related to each other.

And I'd like to touch on some of the things that are revealed to us through the practices that we're doing here.

I'm going to touch on some,

Definitely not on everything.

And the first thing that I'd really like to pull out is kind of really key to what we're doing is that one thing is that's revealed is that there is a relationship unfolding.

Every moment of our experience,

There's a relationship unfolding.

So we are always relating to what is arising,

Either internally,

Yeah,

In our internal experience,

Our thoughts,

Our emotions,

Our physical sensations or externally,

Yeah,

To others,

To the environment.

There's always a relationship going on and you don't need to believe me.

Yeah.

Hopefully that's something that we can see through the talk in our own experience.

And how we relate the nature of that relationship has an impact.

Yeah,

It has an impact on how the experience unfolds.

Yeah,

How the experience itself unfolds also has an impact on our own well-being.

So I'm going to say a little bit more about this and unpack it.

If we reflect and we've been able to see this many times in the last 24 hours,

I'm sure if we reflect on how we habitually experience life,

We kind of experience that as an event happening and that event being perceived.

Yeah,

Or known.

Yeah.

So something happens.

And then that is perceived,

Yeah,

Two separate,

Almost disconnected things.

Yeah.

So,

For example,

The body aches.

Yeah.

So there's an ache in the body.

And then there's a perception.

There's a knowing of that ache.

Yeah.

Or the mind wanders off.

That's an event.

The mind wanders off.

And then eventually I know that that's what's happened.

Yes,

There's an event in the perception on the knowing of the event.

Or someone does something.

Yeah,

Someone does something.

Doesn't matter.

Good,

Bad,

Neutral.

Someone does something.

And then there's the knowing of that,

The response to that.

Does this make sense?

That's the habitual way that we experience life.

And yet when we look more closely,

We can start to see how that is a way of seeing life,

But it's not actually that accurate or real in the way that we take it to be,

Because there's a relationship,

There are threads flowing between the seeming event and the seeming perception.

There's some relationship there.

And starting to see this relationship and understanding it is infinite in its profoundness and how profound it is.

I'm not sure profoundness is a word,

But whatever.

You get what I mean.

So it's infinite in how profound it is,

And it's also infinite in the possibilities that it opens up for us.

So this understanding about the relationship,

The threads that flow between any seemingly two separate events.

So two important things to kind of pull out and highlight here.

One is that what we pay attention to impacts what we perceive.

So attention is not random,

Or it is random.

It's not neutral.

Sometimes it's not random.

What we pay attention to impacts what we perceive,

And I'll give some examples in a moment.

Kind of bear with me.

And the relationship to what is unfolding in experience can affect how we experience that thing,

Whatever that is.

So two important points can seem,

I told you they were profound.

They can seem a bit like,

Ooh,

What you talking about?

I'm going to get to examples.

I'm just going to repeat them again.

What we pay attention to impacts what we perceive.

And the relationship,

How we're relating to the unfolding momentum of life affects what we experience,

Or how it's experienced,

Or both.

And this is something my partner came up with recently.

He said we kind of have this game of giving a talk and then kind of giving one line there and saying,

Just remember this.

If you just remember this.

So if this is his,

Not mine.

But I steal his stuff all the time.

So we can look at the teachings of Buddha,

Dharma,

The teachings of the Buddha,

And think what he was actually doing was he was giving us relationship advice.

Yeah.

So what we're doing here,

The teachings,

The practices,

They're about relationship.

The fact that there is relationship and the fact that that relationship is something changeable,

Pliable,

Workable.

Yeah.

So some good advice for relationship.

And here come the examples.

So one really common experience,

And there may be a few lucky people here that haven't experienced any discomfort in the body today.

Very rare.

So if we think of our own experience,

When there's discomfort in the body,

What's the habit?

What do we normally pay attention to when there is discomfort in the body?

Any guesses?

The discomfort.

Yeah.

And so one thing that happens is we kind of zone in on the discomfort or the unpleasant.

Like that.

And then in the discomfort,

Yeah,

Uncomfortable experience in the body.

What do we particular zone?

This is this might be a bit difficult.

So let's try.

What is it particularly that we zone in on?

It's uncomfortable,

Which is?

Negative.

Yeah.

Unpleasant.

Yeah.

So we zone in.

We kind of kind of keep making this with my hand because that's kind of what happens.

So there's a discomfort in the body somewhere and a general attention goes in on to that zones in on the discomfort.

And then within the actual uncomfortable sensation,

We zone in on the unpleasant nature of it.

That's what we that's a habit of attention.

Yeah.

Remember,

I said what we pay attention to.

Yeah.

What we pay attention to impacts what we perceive.

So if there's a uncomfortable sensation in the body and the habit is to notice the uncomfortable and the unpleasant.

Then if that's the habit,

If that's what happens automatically.

Yeah.

What we'll perceive is discomfort and unpleasant.

Yeah.

And yet today we've just gently been touching on other possibilities.

So there can be discomfort in the body and we can notice things about that discomfort,

Which aren't necessarily the discomfort or the unpleasantness.

Yeah.

So,

For example,

We can notice the layers of tension in the discomfort and then invite relaxation.

But in order to invite the relaxation,

We actually need to make contact with the tension itself,

Which is a little bit different,

Subtly different from uncomfortable or unpleasant.

Does that make sense to people?

Yeah.

Or we can notice.

I don't think we mentioned this today,

But we can pay attention to the aspect of the discomfort,

Which is changing.

So nothing is the same all of the time.

So even within an uncomfortable sensation,

There will be changeability.

And Constancy's won't all the time be the same,

Even if it just fluctuates in degrees of discomfort,

It's changing.

Yeah.

And we can train the mind or we can develop the interest to look at that impermanence and that.

Yeah.

And again,

Don't believe me.

Try it for yourself.

It can shift the perception or decrease the sense of problematic in that experience of physical discomfort.

And another thing that we've been doing today is we can intentionally open to see what else is present in experience,

Because it's never the only thing.

It's never the only thing.

So there can be discomfort in the body,

But somewhere else in the body,

There will be something that feels OK.

It's the feet.

Yeah.

The hands.

There may be something else somewhere else.

So we kind of intentionally open out the awareness to notice what else is present.

So this is all these are all things we can learn to do.

You can train the mind to do this habit.

But that habit was also created with repetition.

Right.

That's how habits are formed.

So this you see that this,

You know,

We have habits of attention.

We pay attention to something.

Because that's the habit.

And then that affects what the perception is.

It builds up a trajectory in a certain direction.

And so what we're playing with here,

What we can play with is the sense of the problematic around experience and the sense of overwhelm.

Right.

So physical discomfort is a really good example of this.

And particularly for kind of start to think about not the biggest pains and aches that we have,

But actually relatively small things,

You know,

Foot falling asleep and itch or tickle,

You know,

Relatively mild things.

And what happens?

We get really overwhelmed by them.

It's a little bit embarrassing sometimes.

You know,

People have one of the kind of things.

I wonder why I still have long hair because,

You know,

So often when you're meditating,

It's like tickles all over the place.

And you can feel really overwhelming,

You know,

Wanting to just brush it away.

Such a strong habit.

Such a strong habit.

So shifting,

Learning to shift the habits of attention,

Learning to shift where we place the attention can really reduce that sense of overwhelm and also open up more possibilities of attending to experience.

That is really important.

Open up more possibilities of attending and responding to what is arising.

So like we've spoken about with attention,

If I'm noticing the tension within the discomfort,

Then I can bring some relaxation to that or invite that to some degree.

It's not a magic formula,

But to some degree I can bring that in.

So the sense of the problematic can be reduced and sometimes it can even disappear.

Sometimes it can even disappear.

So this is,

You know,

Hopefully I'm explaining this in a way that it feels pretty down to earth and simple,

But it's also radical,

Radical,

Radical.

And as I said,

Allows a lot of possibility and was one of the great gifts that the Buddha and teachers like him offered to us.

You have understanding,

Our experience.

The Buddha had a wonderful simile that he used to describe this process of both of the habitual ways we pay attention,

What we pay attention to,

And then the way we build up experience from there.

So that's kind of the layer of relationship that I was speaking of.

So with again,

We use the example of an ache in the body,

The habitual response,

The habitual reaction would be resistance,

Pushing it away,

Not wanting it.

And it happens on a physical level and it happens on a mental level.

And I may go into it a little bit more.

So the simile the Buddha used was,

You know,

Appropriate for his time,

But still easy to understand in our times,

Which was a simile of the two arrows.

And so he used the simile of saying the way we relate to our experience is similar to a person who would get hit by an arrow.

Yeah.

And that obviously would cause some discomfort.

And then the response to being hit by that first arrow is to shoot a second arrow at it,

Which is the relationship,

The habitual relationship,

The resistance,

The pushing away.

And I think the words he uses was quite dramatic.

You know,

It's like lamenting.

Oh,

You know,

Been hit by an arrow.

This is so terrible.

This is so awful.

This is so,

You know,

Unfair.

And why me?

Or,

You know,

It's my fault.

Whatever your personal flavor of arrows is.

Why did I walk this way?

Made myself a sitting duck for these arrows,

You know,

Whatever.

Yeah.

A personal kind of habit is.

But that real sense that there is that there is what arises.

Yeah.

Having a human body,

There will be discomfort.

Yeah.

There will be pain.

It's inevitable.

It's inescapable.

Yeah.

Just through being born into a human body.

You can't escape that.

But then how we how we respond,

How we relate,

That relationship is workable.

Yeah.

There's strong habits there.

It's not necessarily easy,

But it's workable.

And I remember reading a few years ago and I give this example many times because it just blows my mind.

Reading about some research that was done about about chronic pain and the pain mechanism in the body and in some types of chronic pain.

Really important to say in some types of chronic pain,

70 percent of the pain that people are perceiving is the body contracting around the area of pain.

Yeah.

So it's these are the second arrows.

You know,

The body's doing its habit of trying to contain the pain and protect us.

But it's actually causing more pain.

And we know that also from our mental life.

You know,

Ways that we try to respond,

But we're actually just reacting,

Contracting,

Resisting and adding more layers of suffering to the experience.

So one important thing that comes out of this simile and really,

Really want to emphasize here,

Not this is not about whatever pain I have,

I'm responsible for.

And it's my fault that I'm experiencing it.

Yeah.

This is one of the habits of mind that we have that shoot a lot of arrows.

And this is really about understanding that there is a relationship and that relationship has an effect.

Yes.

If we learn to to relax,

If we learn to respond in different ways,

We can reduce suffering and increase well-being in our lives.

So there's a relationship between,

You know,

Something that seems so clear,

You know,

Body experience,

Pain in the body.

So relationship between that and the mind and the other way around,

As you I was was talking about earlier today.

Yeah,

It's a relationship.

The body and the mind mutually relate,

Mutually impact each other.

So what's going on in the body impacts the mind.

What's going on in the mind impacts the body.

I'll give you a really simple example.

You see someone walking down the street,

Their heads down,

They're slumped,

They're walking slowly,

They're shuffling their feet.

Are they happy?

If you imagine that you see someone walking down the street,

Head is down,

Slumped,

Shuffling their feet,

Going slowly,

Tension in the body.

Are they happy?

Not very likely.

You can try it sometime and see.

It's quite difficult to maintain happiness in that body shape.

There's a relationship.

There's a relationship between the body and mind and we can play with that relationship.

That's why we keep emphasizing that sense of relaxed uprightness.

It impacts the mind.

It brings alertness.

So there's a relationship there.

The body and the mind in relationship.

They're mutually dependent and I'm just going to throw in two terms here.

If they don't land,

Don't worry.

But in the teachings,

This is called fabrication,

The way experience is built up from these different conditions,

From these different aspects.

The physical experience,

The mental experience with its different layers.

Experience is fabricated,

Made up of different components,

Not made up as an imagined.

Made up as created out of different elements.

And everything arises dependent on other things.

So the mind and the body dependent on each other.

So another example,

To hopefully kind of look at this from a different angle and kind of get more juice there.

Someone moves during the meditation here in the hall.

Someone moves.

And they're sitting on one of the squeaky chairs.

You notice there's lots of squeaky chairs in Guy House.

It's intentional.

It's not a mistake.

It's intentional.

Put a lot of chairs in the meditation hall that squeak.

You just need to breathe when you're sitting on it and going,

Eh,

Eh.

So that happens.

We're sitting here,

We're meditating,

It's going quite well,

We feel quite calm.

And someone moves and the chair squeaks.

Does the mood,

Does the mental state of our mind affect how that will be perceived?

Hmm.

Interesting,

Isn't it?

So if the mind,

Yeah,

If there's already some aversion in the mind,

Yeah,

Say there's a lot of physical discomfort,

And so there's aversion,

And the mind is aversive already,

Or we didn't like lunch,

Whatever.

Mind is aversive.

And then there's the squeak.

Most likely,

Yeah,

The aversive mind state will then impact how that is perceived.

Oh,

That again.

You know.

Who the hell puts squeaky chairs in the meditation hall?

You know,

And then it goes.

Yeah,

It goes,

It goes,

It goes.

And if we're feeling quite relaxed and open and spacious,

And that squeak goes,

Sometimes we won't even notice it,

Yeah.

It won't even be noticed,

Yeah,

Because there's enough space,

Enough ease in the being that that can just arise and pass just like the sounds of the rooks.

Another sound.

If there's curiosity,

Yeah,

This is kind of,

Yeah,

One of the ingredients we've been working with today,

Right.

So say there is some aversion in the mind state,

And the response is aversive,

But then there's curiosity.

What does that do?

You know,

They can be like,

Ah,

This is interesting.

There was a sound,

There was a mind state,

And those two together,

Second arrow.

You know,

Sometimes the chair only squeaks for like a millisecond,

But we spend the next 20 minutes of the meditation in that squeaky experience.

Right,

It keeps going in the mind,

Yeah.

But if there's curiosity,

If there's interest,

Or if there's kindness,

Those can shift the experience completely.

You know,

Sometimes,

And I've certainly heard it from plenty of people here in the hall,

You know,

Someone quite close to you happens to have a squeaky chair,

And that becomes like the love of your retreat,

That squeak,

Because it becomes like a reminder to come back.

It's like,

Ah,

I hear that squeak and whew,

I'm back here.

Forgot about that,

You know,

Daydream or not lost in that memory.

I'm right here.

Yes,

I can start loving it.

Do you see the relationship?

Yeah,

There's a relationship,

And that relationship is impacted by the mind.

And this is true of everything,

You know,

I'm giving kind of,

I'm giving hopefully examples that we can really kind of resonate with,

But this is true of everything.

Yeah,

It just gets more complex or more simple.

There's always a relationship.

You know,

And the same thing with the squeaky chair could be towards,

You know,

Some internal habit,

Yeah,

Some mind,

Kind of particular mind chatter that arises.

If there's spaciousness,

If there's openness,

It's not going to register.

If there's aversiveness already there,

It might kind of start off a whole storm.

So it's the same relationship externally and internally.

So there's always a relationship.

And that relationship is flavored,

Impacted by the mind state that is present.

And that mind state is also a made up thing.

Remember that word fabricated,

Dependently arising.

It does not have an existence of its own.

It's conditioned by other causes and conditions,

And that's just important to remember.

Yes,

The body will impact the mind.

Previous experience that we've had will impact our mind states,

Expectations,

Views,

Whatever.

The weather,

Huge one.

Yeah.

So so many conditions.

And we don't need to kind of go around and try to figure out,

Oh,

What are all the conditions that are impacting my mind state right now?

That's not what we're.

.

.

We're just remembering this too is a conditioned arising.

It's also dependent.

It's also coming together out of conditions that are arising.

And we just remember that somewhere in the background.

So there's always a relationship.

There's always a way of looking is another way that we can say this,

A way of looking or a way of relating to experience.

And for most of us,

Most of these will be habitual ones.

Yeah,

There'll be more of a tendency to certain habitual ones that are at play.

And one of the things that we do in practice,

And I touched on it earlier today,

Is that we increase sensitivity.

Through practice,

We're increasing our sensitivity.

And one thing that we do is we increase the sensitivity to be aware of,

Okay,

What is the way of looking?

What is the way of relating that's present right now?

Am I pushing away experience?

Yeah,

Am I trying to stay safe from it?

Am I reaching out for something?

What's the way of relating that's present right now?

Am I zoning out,

Spacing out?

These are all ways of relating to our experience.

So we start to be sensitive.

What is the way of looking that's present and how is it impacting,

How is it feeding the experience?

So that's one thing that we're really cultivating through practice.

And another thing that we are cultivating through our practice is an increased flexibility of the mind.

An increased ability to move between different ways of relating to experience.

So the first,

Recognizing the mind state and understanding how it's affecting experience.

And the second is an increased flexibility within the mind.

So we can kind of,

The image I always have is like unhook,

Yeah?

Like mind states or ways of relating,

They're like,

We get hooked into them.

And we kind of get the flexibility to unhook that,

To just remove that hook from what is unhelpful and unwholesome.

And then to kind of invite the wholesome a little bit more.

And over time,

The wholesome,

The helpful ways of looking,

They become more of the automatic setting.

They become more of the habit.

Because we repeat them.

So every time,

And I'm sure you're already fed up even just after 24 hours when we say in the meditation,

Where are you now?

Come back to the object of meditation.

I'm finding it hard not to laugh at myself.

Come back to the object of meditation with patience and kindness and curiosity.

So every time we say that in the meditation,

Every time we do that,

That's a nourishment,

That's strengthening,

Yeah?

This habit of kindness,

This habit of patience,

This habit of curiosity.

That's the way the mind works.

It's a dynamic thing.

Just like the muscles in the body.

If I exercise a certain muscle enough,

It will get stronger.

The same thing with the mind.

If I kind of nourish a certain way of looking,

A certain way of relating to life,

That will get stronger.

So I had a wonderful experience of that last week.

I taught a retreat in Spain,

And I was on my way back on the train.

It was a very long train journey from Barcelona back to Dorset.

And on the train,

One of the parts of that train journey,

I was really tired,

So I was falling asleep,

As you do,

As I do,

Travelling.

I was asleep.

And at some point,

Someone woke me up by kind of going like that on my leg.

Yeah?

And I found myself,

This is really interesting,

I found myself waking up with a smile on my face.

This is not my conditioned habit.

You know,

I don't wake up with a smile on my face,

Too,

Like,

You know,

Beautiful music,

Let alone someone going like that on my leg.

I found myself waking up with a smile.

And part of it was that I was aware that most of the people in the compartment,

In the carriage,

My part of the carriage,

On the train were really little people.

Yeah?

There were a lot of children there,

And that had somehow been there,

Yeah?

So,

You know,

Someone did that,

And I woke up with a smile on my face,

And I opened my eyes,

And there was this,

You know,

Two-year-old there.

And there was such gratitude,

Yeah,

That I didn't wake up going,

Brr!

You know,

And that's kind of,

That's the reconditioning of the mind,

Yeah?

There's the habit,

Yeah?

It comes from genetics,

It comes from family conditioning.

Everyone in my family is like that.

Nobody wakes up smiling,

You know?

Comes,

Yeah?

And then there's the reconditioning,

Yeah?

Like something different can arise which is appropriate to the situation.

There's a lot of gratitude to that.

So,

You know,

The ways of looking we've been cultivating here,

The curiosity,

The patience,

The kindness,

Relaxing the tension,

Just opening to feel what is okay in experience,

You know?

All of those,

Yeah,

We've been doing them,

We've been kind of highlighting them because they can create that change over time in us.

And it can be really interesting as well as,

You know,

Just coming back to them to just notice because there can be small moments when we can see,

How is that affecting my experience right now?

Yeah,

Not just over time,

It's also over time,

But also right now.

What happens when I bring that in as an intentional way of looking?

I say,

Okay,

Right now I'm feeling,

You know,

Kind of,

Mm.

What happens if I bring patience or kindness in?

How does that affect experience?

And to be interested in that as much as we can.

So experience arises dependent on countless conditions,

And the way of looking,

The way of relating is one of those,

Yeah?

It's one of those conditions.

But it's one that's very close to home,

Yeah?

Yeah,

We can't go back and change human history so that we don't have a survival mechanism which makes us notice the negative.

Yeah,

So we can't go back and do that,

But we can train our minds to notice the positive.

We can do that.

So the ways of looking,

They are something that is accessible to us,

A condition that we can work with,

We can attend to.

And it can really support us,

It can really help us to remember,

When we make this intention to tune in,

To tune in to what is supportive,

Tune in to the wonderful,

What fills us with wonder.

We are rewiring our brain,

And we are changing the habits,

Not only of our own lifetime,

But sometimes we are changing the habits that have passed down to us through families,

Through society,

Through biology.

That's a pretty amazing thing to do with the human life.

And remembering also that every moment is significant.

We tend to kind of think,

Oh,

You know,

That meditation,

Yeah,

I was out of it most of the time.

But that moment when we weren't,

Yeah.

Wow.

That can create incredible change over time.

You know,

That's the way change happens,

Mostly.

Small shifts over longer periods of time.

So noticing the change that arises in the moment and allowing ourselves to enjoy that and appreciate that,

And also remembering we're growing roots into ways of being,

Ways of looking,

Ways of relating that support more wellbeing for ourselves and more wellbeing for others.

So every shift matters.

Every moment matters.

And I want to close with a story that kind of highlights that not in the arena of the personal practice that we're doing here,

But in the arena of the relationships between us as human beings.

And it's a story from a Jesuit priest called Gregory Boyle.

So he's worked with gang members in LA for decades,

And he has a lot of wonderful stories about them.

And this is a story about someone called Speedy.

And Speedy was called Speedy because he was very speedy.

He could run very fast.

And he kind of,

One of the things that Gregory Boyle says about a lot of the gang members is that they have no value for their own lives.

They come from often such difficult backgrounds that they really don't have a sense of any kind of worth to themselves or to their lives.

And so Speedy's always taking risks.

And in this case he goes into a part of the neighborhood which belongs to a rival gang.

And then when people from that gang see him,

They start attacking him and chasing him.

And he's running away.

So he's almost like he's running and he's very fast.

He's getting away from them.

And he's almost out like he's on the last street before his neighborhood where he'll be safe.

And he bumps into a woman that he knows from church.

Her name is Yolanda.

And she knows enough to know that he's on the wrong side of the street.

She knows that he's in danger.

But she calls him over.

She calls him over to her.

And she says to him,

Hey son,

What are you doing here?

What are you doing here?

And he's so out of breath he can't really respond.

So he's just standing there because he's been running really fast.

He's out of breath.

And then she says to him,

I need to tell you something.

If anything happened to you,

It would break my heart in two.

If anything happened to you,

It would break my heart in two.

And this is someone he barely knows.

They've just seen each other in church.

And she says to him,

If something happened to you,

It would break my heart in two.

And then she says to him,

I've seen you in the park playing with your nephew.

What a good uncle you are.

And she says to him,

I've seen you in the church giving food to the homeless.

What a generous person you are.

And then she repeats again,

If anything happened to you,

It would break my heart in two.

And they each walk off.

But what is she mirroring to him?

That he matters.

And that someone can see the goodness in him.

And this is a guy,

Speedy is someone who,

You know,

Gregory Boyle had countless conversations with trying to support him to move out of the gang life and never succeeded.

After this conversation,

He turns up in his office and says,

I'm ready to change.

And he ends up getting a job,

Moving out of that neighborhood,

Getting married,

Having children and tells a lot more stories about him.

I would just leave it at that.

But,

You know,

Those kind of moments when we mirror the goodness to somebody else,

Including ourselves,

And we say you matter,

That has an impact.

And we can never know what that impact will be.

How transformative that can be.

So every moment matters.

Every moment matters.

Every moment of presence,

Of patience,

Of kindness.

It's never too little.

So let's just have a moment of silence together to bring this to a close.

So may our practice together continue to nourish our care and our wisdom towards ourselves and towards all beings.

And may our practice together be a momentum of nourishment and of the welfare and for the benefit of all beings everywhere.

So thank you for your practice and thank you for your listening.

And we have about just over 20 minutes for,

I would recommend,

Some time outside,

Whether you do walking practice or any kind of other practice.

And then we'll meet back here for the last half hour meditation of the day.

Thank you for listening.

To learn how you can support the teachers and Dharma Seed,

Please visit dharmaseed.

Org.

Reviews

Such a lovely talk, once again 🙏 I feel grateful for all those gentle and mindful reminders 🌻

Lovely pace and insights. Thank you. 🙏❤

A really valuable talk, thank you so much, Zohar. I did actually put into practice what you are teaching here. During the talk, a little girl was crying loudly and, of course, my habitual reaction was irritation at the interruption. But then this, almost instantaneously, changed to "Perhaps the poor thing fell over, I hope she's ok". I clearly learned something today. Thanks again.