2008.10.26-serial.00191
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he said i tell my students prince yourself and the time before buddha appeared in the world
the if you get my meaning
i'd like to suggest as diverse simple understanding here if it's been for buddhists appeared in the world who is going to give you the instructions
if we're trying to be buddhists
so for tonight anyway you could set aside i'm trying to be buddhist
ten steady about being yourself steady what it's like for you to be you
and how to
sit with this person that you find yourself to be up after moment it will probably be somebody else and if you think about it was new city with has not yet appeared in the world
but will be appearing throughout the evening
since we're headed into the future
ten we're not quite sure who is going to show up next for who you might be in the next moment so this is an important study
do you wanna make sure you know what you're like the next moment and how you're going to be and tell yourself ahead of time how you should be in the next moment or you just want to meet somebody are you doing
nice to see you guys i'm not sure i've met you before he
i use somebody i know
so there's a possibility that you get them in a meet somebody that you have never met before you yourself
in this practice and before buddha appeared in the world
and there's a few things sooner than help with this to go ahead and mention knows
tis code tentative possible
guidelines for sitting one is of course to take a few moments to
bring your awareness into your body and and find your seat find your stability
sense of ground or support
because asked him
master wedding at the way
i am charger and neutrons said everyday mind
is the way
a jojo as how do i obtain that
a non-chinese said when you try to
attain it you lose it
when you try to attain it you lose it
so i just wanna suggest some other things that you may notice
our with this everyday mind
everyday mind is likely to be associated with
sensation
at fads
judgments
planning remembering emotions
all these things are likely to appear
along with everyday mind
so let's study
i said it's often
when i usually if you do i know whatever you're doing you notice how was that
i find after i do at checkout you know it feels easier for me to be in my body
i do feel at home and my body that's called ease
and some days i find it really challenging to do even just what we did when if i do
sure makes it easier
so sometimes i call that she gone out of self defense
and it gets kind of amazing to me in romania you know it's something so simple that you can do for yourself self or remedy you don't have to pay anybody
and it's free
there are a bit of time but it's free
and light from above
can watch the
i can see a really impressed and let's go on at the target
am
salem it sounds a little bit more about everyday mind is the way and then onto some other things
see guys and then i'm hoping to leave a little time if you have any questions or comments and then we're gonna save for your time or do some questions and comments and emma sit for a few minutes again quietly say you can wash out your years after all is said and done
i can
so i'm going to bring up very stories for you that occurred to me when i think about everyday mind is the way this of course is when it does
you misread the enigmatic perhaps as and stories or expressions
i'm rich you know it's a kind of expression like what is that about or why would anybody say it
first arrived i'd like to
well excuse me for doing this but confuse you may be just a little bit by bringing up
a short adjust course the suzuki roshi my zen teacher once gave
this is actually changing the language which is why it might be a little bit confusing for you and then we'll see if we can change it back okay so in this case is ago she said what is ordinary
here's the to look for some extraordinary or special experience to have they will make all the difference in your life this is an ordinary thing did this is a very ordinary thing for you to be doing
what's true the extraordinary espresso it would be that you settle down in the ordinary and make yourself at home there
said this sir what's his accuracy called extraordinary is what
ninety-one card everyday mind i just did you follow them i can so everyday mind is where to settle down
in in the everyday world and make yourself at home
and if you've tried you know many to the extensive tried meditating you know how challenging this is
to just be at home or with everyday experience which is what what else you're gonna be having right you're sitting there
and that somehow this is extremely challenging
i too have ordinary our experience
i want to suggest some of the reasons for this i now use some stories to do this
as many of you know i sometimes do cooking classes
so sometimes including vs i say that taste this
sometimes we were tasting is canned tomatoes running to add things to the canned tomatoes
you're like chili powders of various kinds and other ingredients and so before we start adding things you want to taste for what's it like before we add anything
i'd almost invariably
one or more people will say what should we be tasting
because rather than just having
apparently rather than just have a your experience some people your own experience some people would like to have the right experience
perhaps some of you when you go to meditate would like to have the right experience
to be sure that you actually meditating
and you know this comes up a lot people say
am i can't meditate i really i can't quiet my mind
i can't call my mind i can't stop thinking i feel agitated
so people apparently has no apparent it's fairly easy to have standards about the right way to meditate and try to do it right rather than have you experienced and tasted tomatoes
the kind of ordinary they're just canned tomatoes
okay
what's it like an hour to just tastes and canned tomatoes
and in or it's not real interesting probably when you made changes to sit there and be tasting canned tomatoes otherwise known as you know your breath some sensations and frogs and feeling some memory some judgment this is
working as isn't working i like this i don't like this i don't know why this can be better than as i wish it was different than theirs i'd you know and so forth and why can't i have a more extraordinary experience in as back all the books that i read
it's amazing how rights people believe the books they read me and like that must be what meditation is
so anyway that's one example right have the right experience
and i probably them have you heard me talk about trying to make biscuits bed
we know when i started cooking in the sixties i tried making biscuits and i wouldn't they didn't come out right
and and i tried making biscuits four five times they didn't come out right i tried them with me going with water and with eggs and without eggs with butter and with crisco and in a different things and they never came out right
and then finally one day that right according to compared to what
i started thinking about it and i realized when i grew up we made this great biscuits and pillsbury biscuits and goes by biscuits and that i was trying to make my biscuits taste like pillsbury canned biscuits
we heard the clan on the counter twisted open
well at the biscuits put them on the plan bake them those are biscuits
and my biscuits didn't taste like that
isn't that what you know your life should look like some canned biscuits
it's a good start thinking about this this is amazing the kind of things were trying to deal with their lives and make them look right but i finally decided like one and i taste the biscuits that i made today and see what they taste like
and i trusted my biscuits and they were
they kind of melted in your mouth they were weedy and flaky and buttery
and they this nothing him as quantity like a cereal
they were earthy sunny
there was so good and then add whole wheat flour is the next it tasted like we'd like the earth
and then i thought these biscuits are just amazing this an inner so
the i'd spent all that time trying to turn my biscuits into said they would compare favorably with the kind of memory i had of what biscuits taste like
so what should is human being be like when she ju be like
and is there any way to let go of that
and see what who you are
when you stop trying to make yourself into a canned biscuit
i may be i'm excuse me if i'm exaggerating here but
i only mention this because i've spent a good deal of my life turned to turn myself into a campus get i just noticed that i think i couldn't brings back out now that i've been finished with chicken
hmm
and it's very curious to me for instance that
men had been a med student invitation people say how did you live at the cents or for twenty years
it wasn't that didn't that take a lot of discipline know i was just been the kind of person who are supposed to be aren't you supposed to be peaceful and quiet and compassionate and and not get argumentative and i do it you're told and fit in
and and and help out and be rather good that a boy or girl and make everything work for everybody and isn't that what you learn the new were growing up and it's what i learned when i was growing up and then i just kept doing it
isn't that spiritual
are you know
i was born premature and spent the first month of my life
i'm on my arm after few days i was there and i think in eighteen forty eight they weren't hugging babies alive
so i spent the first in a month of my life during a meditation retreat
harry's in my own little cubicle
don't talk to anybody or interactive anybody nobody touches you you don't touch them so
it's spiritual to do that that's no problem read spirits life you don't talk to anybody not relate to anybody don't connect to take care beyond and a space your cigarette yourself as what you're doing this right
right so i don't know if i was twenty years that's twenty years of post-traumatic re-enactment
i just spent the first month in my life getting ready for my future destiny as a zen teacher
starting early
we don't know but this is interesting you know how we can get a dominion or diverted from everyday
q how i should be you a prisoner should be and we start out with some after they're sort of useful ideas you know and directives and standards for ourselves and the kind of person they with in on one hand in or be basically in
assembly that the big people in arrive with approve of
good boy good girl
and you can drag or how do you need to behave to get approval
and then can you get yourself to behave in that way moment after moment while you're meditating
and to be the kids little boy ago that you should be
and would you like to just followed the meditation instructions and get it right and get approval or
do you want to or is it possible to taste the biscuits and today taste the canned tomatoes taste the biscuits are today and see you actually are
and then you know my get in a right it might be like you're out in the fields you know what about if you go out in the fields and instead of getting a tomato from the grocery store if you'd pick it to me off the vine and then you suddenly with a lot of in a bugs and creatures and there's bees buzzing around
there is sunlight and there's rain and there's a in or dirt and this is all happening in your consciousness yes
i just not just about a beautiful big tomato that wins the prize but we're more people with a lot of fecundity and you know all kinds of things going on and to racing i make ourselves at home with you know the wildness that they are with the creature
sure that we find yourselves to be and in the world that we find ourselves
and this is a little more you know at you know in a certain sense daring or adventuresome
rather than and you could actually taste and experience something or what it is rather than wondering why i the biscuit i know the pillsbury can biscuit when am i supposed to be tasting when i experience him as how am i supposed to be and can i make myself like that you can make sure that i
i'm like that
i understanding this year okay
santa ana bring up another story
just forgot what it was
ready to come back home
excuse me
oh so what i'm gonna to mention his or something that same as duncan says about our enlightenment or what he cause complete supreme realization
this is what is that like
and he says a one thing he says is it's like being unstained to know unstained unstained is like something happens and it doesn't stain your consciousness
something unpleasant happens and it doesn't stay in your consciousness it's a moment of unpleasant
and then you can go into another moment and the unpleasant stay in your consciousness and you say what's wrong with me when i experience something unpleasant like and i meditate better this is so challenging for me and i still haven't gotten his down i didn't know what i'm doing here and i said
master to spend i've been meditating for forty years or whatever ten years five years three months and but it gets harder after you've been meditating for thirty years thirty five years and have any way you can get stained by something happens or something's disappointing sometimes
in as somebody's upset with you are where you know something happens things happen and read in a certain area is your consciousness stand her answer in order to remain unstained and drogon says supreme court perfect enlightenment is that been unstained
okay got there and then he says what is it like to be unstained
and then he says been and stained is like meeting someone for the first time i'm not thinking about whether you like them or not
meeting someone for the first time not thinking about whether you like them or not
and this is also then meeting yourself
each moment in meditation is it somebody who likes and you don't like either doing okay the not going again or you want to assess them or could you just need the person you are this moment i met that person bigger they are and not think about whether you liked them or you don't like them or how well or poorly they're doing and just a
i'll stand
are you with me here about just been unstated meeting is set for the first time i'm not assessing that judging
mad fixing not changing at criticizing not evaluating
and there is happiness there's joy there so there's disappointment there's anger there's frustration there's dinner downstairs feelings his physical sensations
i ne
no human being
this is a science and sometimes called a person of no rank
jenny standing now rank in there they rank you have to evaluate yourself and check and have finally gotten
say this person have no end everyday mind is the way
have you don't mind is the way
so another as and you said as something a very similar this i just wanna added and to say that
you know in a way that this one's and teachers in the only one same things like this
the apparently i mentioned this because i was just at a at a conference of such as and british tutors of america and i'm i'm now one of them
it's just a little hard for me to believe in that little edie from san francisco california and sentence samo you know and as seventy years orphanage you know as sleepy hollow what said school at they'd be her grammar school brookside brookside
and then friend of my it turns out i was ever visiting a woman who works for my next door neighbor i would we rather has an insulated them at her mom's
and dad and mom and i figured out the we were in the same fifth grade class at brookside and she said i think i can have the photos she went to and couldn't find it we're going as safely could find yourself from the same fifth grade photo and brookside school so it's really surprising to me that little edie would be one of the zen teachers of america
socially recognized as you know before i went to this event i thought
do i want to be one of them
right a neighbor said i said you know i'm not sure i want to be one of them and she said egg you know i got a dental conventions you're lucky you're going to him
same to choosing my guess is that they will be very earnest and very sweet
and that was about right that was so good she just got it without you know having all always you know fifty sixties and teachers earnest and sweet
and have one of the concerns you know a vein as and teacher is and we had this a wonderful keynote speech by a professor from birthday robert sharpe possessor packs and greatest and robert said you know you people really set yourselves up
if i may say so
there's little anxious about time as these things but he said you people if you really set yourself up you know if you're a jewish rabbi or a catholic priest and you mess up who cares you know the institution is okay and keep it on expect their priests in their rabbis you know to be paragons of virtue but
instant people answer enlightened
dense you have complete supreme realization
and then look at your lives and that looks to me like you might stand the risk of being a kind of an authentic
sarah and then he told us this long stories about various things which i'm not going to try to gone with you but the fact is that you know on the one hand we do have visions are pictures of how we ought to be
and partly you know to gain approval but partly because he know were all inspired from above or from someplace you know of in our a picture or a sense of you know who is the person i'd like to be
and then how do i get myself to do that in the fact is that we're working on that and we're standing how to translate our vision or picture into everyday life and and this is a big thing with people and meditate and does you have a sense of your a picture or your image or year
know your ideal
and then can you actually manifests that in everyday sense in sometimes you can and sometimes you can sometimes use successful raid ah interact with somebody that seems to work and other times you interact assembly i mean i like them i'm not the
it's not who i thought i was so who i wanna be
in the zen sense now we understand this as syndication said you know we're trying to live a greener live i express and manifest our true nature not are confused nature or you know i'm just being a getting it right nature and
you know looking for a group of nature but our true nature that is compassionate it's kind is loving and how do you actually to new than you'd actually just do that in some way when it turns out that's not so simple is it so we're all excited bundles of so again so i got up and the you know in front of these people and i i
told them you know because nobody does this i don't understand like why does rag is a are so few people willing to reveal anything
there's a whole good percentage is now talking about well professor started when you mention the listener i don't know i don't know the to place to talk about collins now and i think we are the ones you gotta be talking about collins and europe professor you know we are the zen teachers read ever
so i finally get up after about twenty minutes of i say i just like to mention you know that i know i know there these standards and interact cases there's this picture you know there's these precepts and how you know we ought to be and riata be perfectly enlightened and frankly you know i've never been able to do that
you know i could never sit still regularly and meditation i i not an involuntary movements i've never been able to be emotionally calm and stable in or i've i've been most of my life have been a drama queen and emotionally intense and moody and you know if people worry about what's happening with little
eddie and
how do we stay out of his way i created my classified or modify him and handle him and and so i never could do any of this so i finally decided that that was being authentic
in been who i was was authentic and end and then they all laughed the whole room laughed
and then i said and then eventually now i called that's then
and i got that
yeah and then the how rude in the room chance to i nobody gets off revealing there was a little more emotional body and new things that they were selling very key is to me and so this is in line with you know in every so often i read same stories and like oh i'm in the right school i guess
so this is a sensory to says dress am i sen edward year in the right girl here's the story for you so this is another entity named a discern and addition said
i don't know if i can tell you this but you know this is then people sometimes kind of or to call that you know when they and you'd tear things down or you know i kind of clastic seventies vintage sentences a kind of plastic and he's taking of those twelve the twelfth in a buddhist canon it's nothing but tissue
paper for wiping infected skin boils
to send a lot of other in a derogatory things about bird and buddhism in meditation practice by when he says and realizing the mystery is nothing but breaking through to grasp an ordinary person's life
realizing the mystery is nothing by breaking through to grasp an ordinary person's life
mistakes and grasping
the to to have your ordinary life
because otherwise you're going to juergen a m has been trying to make know the biscuits come out the way they should wonder like what they began to manage should taste like how you can have the right experience rather than just having your experience
can you have your experience this is breaking through they have an ordinary person's life
sometimes it doesn't look so pretty i can already hear you in the room saying like but if i just did that and i had no new prisons life you know oh
where people like me will i be okay will i be accepted i just got into the same teachers of america
for this is isn't this a little reassuring for you
oh maybe you like lou doesn't it is unstained with the past
i don't know
sarah i'm i have one last time for you
and this is now coming back you know what you try to do in talks he starts embracing then you go somewhere and then you come back to the air but it's coming back the beginning with a little shift my day started out with jojo as not to run red is the way nine chances every everyday mind is the way and judges is how can i attach
mean that judges as if you try to attain it you'll lose it you've lost it
trying to attain something special is losing your everyday mind as will having your experience you know and and finding out what that experiences you try to have a different experience
okay so you lose your everyday mind when you try to get it right be dead seek approval the no dead accepted
i so sometime later after jojo had become a zen teacher himself one day as didn't came to georgia and said
master how can i get to the summit of domestic peak
doesn't that sound like a good thing to do
how can i get to the salmon and mr and judges said i won't tell you
the students said and
why won't you tell me and judges said if i said anything about this you will go right i'm thinking that now you are on level ground
the sun is you tried to attain it where did you think you are
you said you on some rebel grounded winner was missing what
what we're looking for that wasn't already away were you thinking what were you thinking about where we are and what we is noticing that it was latin and why did you think that
and are you with me here
if i told you how to get to the summit you would think you are now on level ground where are you
where are any of us
so it's easy and other words to and know in with your everyday mind and being caught up or perhaps stained by everyday experiences
it's easy to think that there's something missing there
and why can't i have that and how do i get there from here
stare the suggestion here is that
rather than thinking that those things are simply as to see if there's some way to find them here
and a lot of this has day with their habits of perception
sell some are you know at one of our habits a perception if i can you know perhaps over generalize
ah is to notice like what's wrong
what's wrong in my experience and then with sometimes we say to other people what's wrong
because we have the idea that you get to live by noticing what's wrong and fixing it and making it better and then you could find the next thing that's wrong and whether you can do about that one of the next thing that's wrong and how do you fix that one
this working
so when do you when do you
is that all you're going to notice is just what's wrong
how about noticing what's right or once
what swayed are precious
our sacred or bless it or what there is to be grateful for
i want you appreciate what you value and i look for it when i find it
is it somewhere else
or is it in a been in everyday ordinary person grasping breaking through the grasp an ordinary person
an ordinary people i know where each like this will really
you know at some level in a very sweet people
just like this and people in our earnest and sweet
we'll forget sometimes we get so caught up in
i haven't taken care of this nad and in on it stolen and
am
so part of a you know what we said part of this is a habit of perception what to read notice what do we perceive
where do we look for
so for instance and
no and buddhist that the only one who get involved with this but am
ah i really enjoyed a book by one and becky bailey it's called easy to love difficult to discipline so bad how to raise kids
and been one you know thought i could study this broken find out something about raising myself because i seem to have missed out on a fair amount of parenting along the way
i'm becky bailey says what you look for you will get more of it
where to look for a unified you're gonna say it
so if you look at your kids and you look from this behavior you were seen as behavior you will find it
what are you doing
don't do that
and if she says if you look for a good intention
instead of written from his behavior if you look for good intention usa good intention
you have to look for it
it doesn't mean you overlooked misbehavior it means you're also looking for a good intention
so whenever examples examples is before you do any correcting she says acknowledge always acknowledge to as much as we can acknowledge good intention prefer used our correcting
so whenever simple examples and one of this great things about this book is so simple and clear about you know the times and sometimes in iraq when she wasn't able to do this
and the kind of problem it was without being judgmental and critical and happy about it nino and oh i'm such a bad mom or whatever you know such as they will say and i'm not always able to do this but one of his simple examples is
you know if you send hits his little sister you might have noticed
i
johnny you
it seems to me you hit your little sister that she wanted to let her know you are unhappy about her taking your toy
you might want to let somebody know something this is a positive intention
that's not the way to do it
rather than don't hit your sister and then you hit johnny
johnny don't get your little sister
so see success same you know what you look for you'll get more of so if you look for an acknowledged good intention
you really appreciate and then you you want to work with somebody on how to manifest the been intention that's not the way to express your intention of letting your sister know you're unhappy
i like to try out his telenor and you know i'm unhappy about you're taking my toy me i have it back and she says kids do not purposely in our kids do not behave well because they don't have the tools they don't purposely misbehave
they've in order to pass your push your buttons that's not what they're doing
they only have certain skills and if you want to you can teach their scales and party way you teach the skills is by noticing a good intention and how to act on your good intention in a moist go away and teach that
this is not so complicated but sometimes the change you know how we do things know it takes some focus and some reminders and may have to work on it for while read you can also start with you know in your own meditation can you see you aren't getting intense
from their own positive bad intention for yourself and for others in your life
in even though you can meditate as well so called as well as perfectly as you like you see your good intention and how can you better afternoon in a more clearly carefully acting with the intention
so where are we you know
and that in know just to say everyday mind is the way sometimes we don't realize how extraordinary everyday mind can be
i know much a good intention is there and good heartedness
and in or wishing to benefit and wishing to be of service wishing to connect reason to be intimate
i'm and widodo is notice every episode that which is fine thought and criticize herself another their heads trying to get to the senate and as i say but the summit domestic the weeds grow in profusion some of them you may not have got
one is better the summit the with similar my six foot tall some of them are twelve
i need to saturday mister pizza you could get lost in the weeds at the center administered institute
did you think there are
where we've been relegated to this what world do we live in how do you know that
is it possible to open up your perception and says a bit more widely and acknowledge your and others good intention and famous saffron party's
how can you then
so i have about ten to a thinking
so i mean suggest we just sit for two minutes
a monastic leading a retreat that often have you take the monastic and then they get the aid and sometimes on re retreat we encourage people to choose to follow but without there's no demand but just to get something you can do for actually not that
a strenuous or same the and show but defied that we take on every retreat is not not taking life ah only taking that which is freely offered ah
refraining from sexuality and the right speech which young on a masonic retreat is noble silence and then not cladding the mind so as a precept that you can take and your work-life if you are going to a
ply sexuality so how would you apply to their sexuality precepts as a leader or simply as a person and your work environment show the first one would be well i won't abuse my sexuality at work act as adept at that living for you're not on
retreat the or as lay people and you don't let the precepts you take the precept preceptor not abusing sexuality should not use your sexuality to cause suffering for yourself for another
but if you want to check if you wanted to apply this more broadly and the workplace you could say our what is what would be abused and sexuality it would be abusing power and so the question would be how than to live in the workplace rent out of
using power of any kind so it could be a power and sexuality power around getting to choose who gets what a power around status
i just any particular thing so that you that you in fact live a life and your than your work-life for you not abuse power
any kind of power likewise you could take this precept in your home life this way i will not abuse power i will not abuse my power as a parent i will not abuse my power
with my aging parents i won't abuse my power in relation to my significant other
so much different ways to apply that to see that you take our responsibility know as as your own practice so it's not about the other person are not doing this on terms of the other person you're doing this to free your own heart to have your own heart not be
possessed by power to not abuse to gain power in any way to get what you want that would be and a way that would feel as though i've taken advantage show i'm in the workplace you can withhold information to get what you want because you
but you make the other person look bad and therefore you do better because of withholding information you wouldn't do that
and it as if this is your precept you know you'd like you'd like to get your competing for something you'd like to get it you wouldn't abuse your power in order to get what you want even though you're in competition and there's nothing wrong with the competition there's a kind of morality to happen to your competition regardless of whether the other
person was practicing it
or maybe not maybe you say i'm molly if there's so far out of line than it's a whole nother ballgame i'm not telling you what to do i'm telling you about the possibility
so on
yeah i think i'll stop at that when my friend so you just you see how to take a precept
and if any feeling for this about the precept
when we're living our lives our daily lives whether to work lives
for our home lives are trying to cut across all of our lives and were living at when we about something other than the gain and loss for pain and pleasure of it that gives us agency
why cause we we are not controlled by conditions conditions are sometimes going to go against us at times in our lives conditions are gonna be very much as we would rather they not be and they may stay for a long period of time that way
so as we shift from been about that regain regained some co creative ability and our lives and this includes around the dying process itself for more we are willing to make ourselves about
how were gone about something rather than trying to control what happens for more agency we have the more choice for more how creativity for more participation we have in our own lives and all kind of comes back to this in a certain way how do we do that through mindfulness to compact
ocean
through right intention being about what we're about i can't control that this has happened to me i would prefer not back to continue working but i'm going to have to continue working i'm going to work manifesting right intention while i work that i can choose that makes my life my work
lied about something other than just earning the money that i have to have to survive without it the life is as more narrow it's more limited but with this this breeding the dharma into it it's bigger it feels richer it's more interesting small
interesting
any question or comment about this
good cause i'd like us to stand up and