Insights To Live By

Inviting us to take a look at our lives, this talk asks the question of whether or not what we have support us to attune to what really matters to us. Does our current habits align to the depth of our internal sense of integrity, to how we wish to live our lives?

Transcript

I wanted to begin with something,

An experience that somebody shared on this retreat after we did the practice of unselfish joy,

Just noticing someone else moving their body and having this sense of complete resonance with the joy of the other.

Complete resonance with the joy of the other.

So I want to go really slowly here and for us to all savor that experience.

That experience of the space and ease in the being.

That experience of the dissolving of these boundaries that can seem so real to us.

The boundaries between me and you seem so real to us and yet they can just disappear.

And part of what makes that possible,

One thing that contributes to that possibility,

Is the cultivation of an intentional attentiveness to something.

In this case that cultivation of the receptivity to joy.

That means we can suddenly see it,

Feel it.

And we can see it,

We can feel it,

Not just when it happens here,

Whatever the here is.

We had a wonderful exploration of that last night and this morning.

Not just when it happens in this body,

In this mind,

In this heart,

But we can actually experience it when it happens somewhere else.

And I want to go slow with this because this is all,

You know,

That moment when there is no boundary between the joy I'm feeling and the joy someone else is feeling.

No boundary,

No separation.

And when we look deeper,

Seeing,

You know,

That there's no boundary.

Can I actually tell where I end and someone else begins?

Where is that?

Where is that?

So it's really possible for us,

And so many people have been reporting these kind of moments,

Glimpses,

It's really possible for us to have these glimpses,

To have these moments,

To have these experiences.

Sometimes they are so ordinary that we don't even realize what it is that's actually happening there.

And that's why kind of taking time with that.

Because that is an experiential,

It's an experiential understanding of these concepts that sometimes feel so difficult to grasp.

Emptiness,

Not self.

Right there in that moment when we resonate in that way.

We can see how we lean on each other,

Depend on each other.

Co-exist,

Mutually arise.

My experience,

So dependent on the other,

On what else is here in this life.

So dependent on so many conditions including how I incline the mind and what I incline the mind to.

How I incline the mind and what I incline it to.

So dependent on that.

And the amazing,

One of the amazing things with this is,

Is that it keeps going.

So we've had this experience in the groups many times,

You know,

Someone says something and that changes the experience of everybody else.

Or when I shared this experience of the joy here in the hall,

Other people could feel it.

So it keeps kind of unfolding,

Keeps appearing,

Keeps being available to us.

Right now this delicious feeling in the hall,

Maybe it's just me,

I don't think so.

This delicious feeling in the hall.

Made up of this resonance that's kind of just flowing,

Available.

So this,

This moment of shared joy reminded me of another experience that I had quite a while ago,

Which is very different and yet very,

Very similar.

And this was in the Leprosy community that we spent time with,

Spent time in every year for the last 15 years I think.

And we go with a group of volunteers,

We practice together and work together in the community and particularly in the home for the elderly.

So one memory from that kind of really came up today of one of the old ladies in the process of dying and she was in her bed breathing,

The kind of breathing that happens before death.

Some of you may be familiar with it.

And myself and a couple of the other people in our group,

We spent quite a lot of time sitting with her and doing a practice that I learnt from Stephen Levine,

An American teacher,

Of breathing with another.

So tuning into the breath of the other and just breathing as she was breathing,

Breathing with her.

And she was already in a place beyond verbal communication.

And this place,

The home for the elderly and the Leprosy community,

Particularly the women's part,

Is usually,

How to put it,

Pretty intense.

There's a lot of noise,

A lot of life,

A lot of conflict,

A lot of laughter,

A lot of tears.

And yet in this time when she was dying,

It was a couple of days,

Her room was completely silent,

Completely silent.

It had this sense of sanctity,

Of holiness in it.

And it's about 20 women there.

And the other women would just come in every once in a while and stand by her bed,

Silent.

And then would go away and maybe come back again later.

But that sense of resonance that does not need words and that goes so deeply beyond life and death,

Beyond self and other,

Beyond joy and sorrow.

So powerful.

And again,

Right now,

So present,

So present to us.

So in these moments when they arise,

We tune in to a love that is unconditional and also not personal.

Unconditional and also not personal.

Does not depend on there being me here,

Loving you there.

It just flows through and impossible to say what the source is,

Where it comes from.

It's just there.

And it's a matter that's imbued with wisdom.

And at the same time,

It's a wisdom that's imbued with metta,

With love.

Coming together.

We could say it's emptiness.

Not emptiness as a space or a state,

But emptiness as this tuning in to the coming together of life.

This tuning in to the fact that nothing,

No thing exists separately,

Alone or independent of other conditions.

No thing.

And we have these experiences,

We have these moments when we feel it.

So just like the elderly ladies in Anandawan,

In the leprosy community,

With their joys and sorrows and intensity,

Our lives too are full,

Usually,

Of chaos and activity and busyness,

Of joy and sorrow.

And yet can we remember that we have the capacity to sink into that sanctity where the silence speaks.

We've all had insights on this retreat.

We've all had insights on this retreat.

I can tell you that,

You know,

When Nathan and I have a time to talk to each other once in a while,

We say,

Wow.

And those insights need to be lived.

They need to be lived.

And that's something we can do.

That's something we can do.

As we've been doing through the days,

Reflecting on our experience,

Reflecting on the practice,

And what can we see,

What can we learn,

And how can we apply it,

How can we bring it into being in our lives.

So the insights,

The moments of silence,

Of depth,

Of seeing,

Of feeling.

They can be a guiding light for our lives and they can also be something that we apply with intentionality.

That we remember,

Ah,

I did this.

What would happen if I tried it out?

So remembering that insights are an invitation,

Asking to be lived,

Without letting our love of perfection and getting it right get in the way.

We keep that same interest.

What happens when I bring this to this situation and see what happens?

That same interest.

What happens if I remind myself to apply those wisdom views that Nathan spoke about yesterday?

And I'll repeat them,

Don't worry.

But what happens when we apply them?

How do they affect the habits,

The patterns that we have?

Can they support us to attune to what really matters to us?

To the depth,

To how we wish to live our life,

To our internal sense of integrity.

So those wisdom views that everything arises and passes.

Remember that one?

Everything arises and passes.

It's inconstant and it's changing.

That understanding that holding on to things that are changing,

Arising and passing,

With the expectation that they can give us lasting satisfaction.

That does not lead to happiness.

And that no thing has a fixed essence or nature,

Which is independent and separate from other things.

You can keep bringing those in,

Enough to just do one.

You may find that you have a favourite.

So everything dependent on something else.

Some things actually,

More than one.

And also,

And this is the thing I think I love most about emptiness,

Is that everything is also a condition for other things.

I tend to forget that.

So everything is dependent on other things.

But anything is also a condition that other things are dependent on.

I got your minds in a twist.

I'll give an example of how we can see that.

So yesterday Nathan,

I'm not going to be able to be as funny as he is.

Probably figured that out already.

But he used the cushion example.

So I'll stick to that one.

Remember the cushion,

The cover and the filling.

So the cushion is dependent on the cover and the filling.

They are conditions from which a cushion arises.

They're not the only conditions from which a cushion arises.

Just to say that.

So we are also a condition from which a cushion arises.

Because if we did not know what a cushion was,

Would it be a cushion?

It's a good question.

Or would it just be a round kind of fluffy thing?

And so one way we can look at it is that also the cushion cover and the filling are dependent on other things.

That's not the end of the journey.

For example,

On whoever made them or grew the materials that they're made of.

So you kind of get a sense of how you can just keep going.

Let's say in this direction,

You can keep going,

Keep going,

Keep going.

But the cushion is also a condition on which other things are dependent.

If we go in this direction.

For example,

A meditation hall needs cushions.

And a meditator needs a cushion.

And dust really appreciates having something to gather in.

And dust mites like to make their homes in dusty places,

Including cushions.

So the cushion is also a condition for other things.

And again,

It can just keep going on and on and on.

There's no end to that either.

So Thich Nhat Hanh,

The Zen Master,

Would say we could find the whole world in the cushion.

The whole world in the cushion.

Something to ponder.

And we can equally see,

We can equally say that this talk is dependent on your listening.

I probably said that before in this hall to you guys.

I like saying that.

That a talk is dependent on the listening.

And the listening is dependent on the state of your body.

The listening is also dependent on the state of your mind.

And the habits of your mind.

And the state of your mind is dependent on what you incline the mind towards.

And again,

I could go on and on,

But that's as far as I wanted to go.

So if everything is in constant,

Changing,

Mutually arising,

Arising dependent on other things.

And our minds play a part in the arising of our experience.

Does it not make sense to incline the mind,

To cultivate the mind that is peaceful,

That is joyful,

That is wise?

Does anything else make sense?

Both for our own well-being and happiness.

And for the well-being and happiness of all the beings that we share this life with.

They're all here on our cushion.

It's one of my favourite images.

I didn't realise until I said that to you guys.

One of my favourite images when I practice.

The whole world here on the cushion with me.

That's what we practice for.

So everything we practice here,

In these conditions on the retreat.

Everything we practice here,

We're practicing in the world already.

Because this whole,

This retreat centre,

In each of us,

We're not separate.

There's no boundaries.

Everything we practice here,

We're practicing in the world already.

And yet,

Tomorrow conditions will change.

And we will also be leaving most of us.

And so the question arises,

What next?

We keep living the insights.

We keep applying the insights.

We keep bringing,

Accessing the Metta and bringing it into the world.

And the more natural estate it becomes to us through our practice,

The more effortlessly it will flow and be known.

It will manifest.

And we can see that when we look through the lens of emptiness.

That the stronger the movement of Metta is in here,

The more it manifests,

Not just here.

We can see that through the lens of emptiness.

Does that make sense to people?

Because there is no real boundary.

There is no real boundary.

And the more we remember the wisdom views,

The more we apply them,

The more we look through the lens of emptiness,

The more Metta arises naturally for us,

Both as a resource and as an expression.

And I want to give another example here.

This is from,

I don't even know how many years ago,

A long time ago,

When I was doing living care work.

And I was working with an elderly man with pretty severe dementia that would cause these paranoid hallucinations.

So it was a two carer position,

There were two of us there 24 hours a day.

Because he would have these paranoid hallucinations where he would think he was living in,

He was in a concentration camp essentially.

And everyone around him was the SS.

So his wife and the carers,

Anyone else who was around.

So really very,

Very horrific kind of hallucinations that were completely real to him.

And this is,

For me,

Has been a real teaching on many levels.

One is to see the power of the mind.

So the mental fabrication in this case completely overlaying reality,

What we call reality.

So he's in his house where he's lived for more than 40 years.

But what he sees,

And what he hears,

And what he smells is completely different thing.

And the body,

Which was already very frail,

Would also during these hallucinations change.

And when he was not with hallucination,

He needed a zimmer frame to walk around.

But when he was in these hallucinations,

He was young.

And he could walk around for hours and walk up the stairs and down the stairs.

Real teaching in the connection between mind and body.

And one interesting aspect of this experience was that for us,

The carers,

As well as his wife,

Even though we knew that of course he's having a hallucination,

It's not personal.

How he hates us is not about us.

And yet so difficult to stop that reactivity comes up so strongly.

So strongly.

Again,

A real teaching.

So what we learned was that the best way was not to aggravate.

And so to kind of stay out of sight as much as possible while still maintaining his safety.

Staying out of sight,

He would walk around.

I would walk somewhere behind where he couldn't see me.

And yet there were certain situations where needed to interfere.

For example,

This one that I'm about to share,

When he walked into a room and tried to close the door.

That was something that for his safety,

Couldn't let happen in case he had a fall and the door was blocked.

And so I had to approach.

And so I stood in the doorway so he couldn't close the door.

And he walked really close to me and came up really close to his face,

Really close to my face.

And he said,

I hate you.

And I'm going to kill you.

And in that moment,

That's where the practice and the capacity comes in.

To be grounded and to hold the space.

And to not act from that reactivity,

Which arises even when logically we know.

It doesn't mean it.

And instead to look him in the eye back and say,

No,

You're not going to hurt me because I know you.

You're a good father.

You're a loving husband.

You're a gentle,

Generous man.

I know you.

And that somehow,

For some moments,

Could get through.

And we stood there looking at each other in the eye,

In silence.

And then it came back.

Then it came back.

But the preciousness of that gap and that pause and that reminder,

It's the same thing as that resonance with the joy.

It's the same sanctity as being with someone who's dying at peace.

And that sense of the gift within that nightmare of the hallucination to have some moments of reprieve for him and me.

Again,

There's not much me and him in that space.

So I know this is quite a dramatic story.

But the point I want to make is that this is possible for us.

And it doesn't need to be in dramatic circumstances.

We can embody this in so many moments of our lives.

In so many moments of our lives.

We can embody this.

Grounding in the body,

Grounding in the breath.

Bringing in the attitude of matter.

Remembering the wisdom views.

At the checkout on the bus in a traffic jam,

When we're brushing our teeth in the shower,

When our child will not get up on time.

So many opportunities.

And of course we'll miss many of them.

But every time we bring that,

We remember that something shifts in the world.

Every single time.

The mind is pliable and flexible.

It's not fixed.

And through practice it becomes even more pliable and flexible.

Even more adaptable and changeable.

It's not fixed.

The more we remember that and the more we bring that intentionality of practice.

Bring a meta way of looking into how we view another.

Right now you're really annoying me.

Can I look at it another way?

Not as a way of suppressing ourselves,

But as a way of opening out the possibilities.

So the more we remember that we can do that,

The more we're both working with that capacity of flexibility and making,

Creating more flexibility in the mind.

And equally in our self view.

Can I remember to bring in the meta when I'm acting,

Thinking,

Speaking in a way I thought for sure five days on retreat would kill me forever.

Can I bring the meta and the compassion to that?

Can I bring the joy to everyday things?

The morning cup of tea,

The blessedness of having a hot shower,

The way a tree looks when we walk out the front door.

We bring that in everyday moments.

Can we see each other and ourselves with a wider view?

Whatever is present right now is an appearance.

It's only part of the picture.

It's not the entirety.

And it's not fixed.

Can we look at ourselves and see the child and see the old person we will become?

Can we look at ourselves and see the kindness?

Can we look at ourselves and see the entirety of who we are and the same with another?

Can we do all this and remember that it doesn't make us passive?

It doesn't mean that opening to this bigger view,

This bigger picture,

Makes us passive or dormant.

Actually the opposite.

It builds our strength to stand up and to live with integrity and to do what needs to be done and to speak against injustice.

It builds on that integrity.

So can we remember that our actions,

Our speech,

Our choices,

They matter.

They matter an incredible deal because they impact our mind.

They impact our mind and they impact the world because the world is not separate from us.

We're part of that web of conditions that are at play.

So what would it be to prioritise non-harming in our lives?

What would that mean?

What would it be to prioritise sharing in our lives?

What would that mean?

What would it mean to prioritise the attitudes and qualities that nourish our capacity to look with love,

That nourish our capacity to look with emptiness,

Through emptiness?

Qualities again,

Attitudes that we all know.

Patience,

Equanimity,

Generosity,

Gratitude,

Clarity.

I can go on and on and on and again.

Don't worry,

I went today.

Can we continue to walk this path?

Continue to walk this path of emptiness and of love,

One step at a time,

Making mistakes and learning and continuing.

So I think we'll end here for tonight and just have a quiet moment to close.

May we remember that the whole world is here with us on our cushion or our seat and that equally,

The whole world is our cushion,

Is our arena of practice and of engagement.

May our practice together be a light of wisdom,

Of compassion and of care for all beings,

Towards all beings,

Through all beings,

Including ourselves.

Thank you for listening.

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Reviews

Thank you for sharing the knowledge
I greatly appreciate it

Clear, insightful, helpful. Thank you.

Very nice thank you and Namaste

Very low key and very informative.