evening
i'm happy to and beer this morning
imam and kind of curious as as you might be i'm kind of wondering what the speakers gonna say
and and then you know
i'm very curious about this and you know i'm looking forward to receiving
you know the teaching

and the other day somebody and
sent me an email about how she was confused and lost in various things and i wrote back and they sent me too
and then she said here let me share you share with in this email that i got from this ed brown person around back and
maybe a little healthier
so i got this email bag that i had sent to her about six months ago and is pretty nice
so kind of curious about any of the undiscovered you know under a secret see what comes at an end maybe know the health and for me

sometimes you know we need to this a little more careful into our simple the second scott meditation
ah

so now that you have gotten that pipe and run anyway i actually have this idea and i know what i want to talk about somebody tell you what that is here to start
you know the talk and whether it's add that's actually what the talk is about and it and you might think it's about something else and so forth so we don't quite know
i'm going to tell you one more thing before i mean it's quit before i tell you what i'm going to talk about going to tell you when my thing which is when i give a tug
i am
you know i try to just give you the tug and then like you can do with the talk what you want
i get you because you know it's like if you know if you when you cook out meals and people like it and some people don't know where's the pancakes
and other people like this is great i love oatmeal
so my talk you know we don't know you know and i'm not aiming with my dog in other words to control your experience or make you have any particular experience i kind of have a slight preference that you might enjoy yourself and in appreciate the tug but if you're done okay you know happens
my aim our intention is to speak to you
and to speak my my interest you know and i decided this a number of years ago i got tired of listening to people talk to my head and i notice sometimes when paper tag they check into my body so i decided i want to talk from my body to your body i don't want to just talk
from my head to your head and gave you some kind of intellectual information
i want in to be talking from inside of you i wanna be that close to you and like i'm you know a voice inside of you as my interest so you may or may not appreciate having a voice inside view
that doesn't seem to be yours
or you might like a nice person to have around
thank you for talking to me so we'll see you know
i am
and that sense also a part of why i feel like i can do this are part of my understanding them doing this is you know i'm not trying to tell you anything were trying to change you are fix you or you know i'm just were just visiting
and we're kind of hanging out together and my interested in my interest in that senses i want to awaken you know the teacher and you or help you meet you know what is the teacher in your life
what what gives you some in your life what gives you some guidance
know what gives you some support where it is your companionship come from your true companionship
so you know my interest is to give you you know just a little help there they'd be maybe help maybe not you know so anyway
i get up and talk and something happens and mostly i have no idea what it is and maybe you do for you add something about what happened maybe you don't and again
and then maybe we see each other again i maybe went on
no

and of course partly than this as to has to do then how do you listen
is it someone outside of you how do you understand another person or another voice
and which voice is your friend
our companion in which voices criticizing you are attacking you or belittling you are shaming knew whose voice is that
and if you feel you know i because i'm not intending to embarrass you or same euro criticize you with anything i say but it might happen
you know cause i don't know you know where each year we are right
so my wishes to be a good friend

and you can tell you know sometimes i stop
and i'm not saying anything and then sometimes you to say what are you doing
i'm and you know i'm listening
i'm listening to the room
and i'm listening you know as much as i can do what
notary see the room and everyone in the room and the spirit and heart
and to have that touch me
and to do my best to respond and speak to them
so this means it takes me a little while to feel that and i have to stop every so often end
since it freshly so i can stay on track can be speaking to you to this room and not just given you some information that you might find useful
okay

and so when i want to one idea of the subject to have to talk with you about
is the difference between love and approval
and most diverse for a lot of our lives have a confusion between what is love and what would that look like and what is approval and what would that look like
and mostly if i may say so and suggests bed it's very tempting and very easy to spend most of your life looking for approval trying to avoid behaving trying to behave in a way that you avoid i will not encounter disapproval
rather than living in love
does this sound like a good choice
i mean is there except a real choice here and say well damn i i want to live in love of course
oh so you just so what about approval and we want people to criticize your do
so how much of your energy and intention in mind and focus and implicitly is i want approval i don't want people to criticize me for and how much of your attention your focus or commitment is i want to live in love i want to receive love and share live and
that love flow through me and from others and to others and from the world and out to the world
and i'm suggesting there's a big difference between these two

and by the way
again if i may suggest and without in spending the whole lecture talking about it you know we make this choice for approval on the most part in a we're very little and we didn't understand that choice you're making that since we all make it it's kind of part of the plan
and it's what we do as very small people to
are you can you know when visit because approval is something you can actually do with your behavior you can behave in a way that will get you approval
and you can behave in ways that get your disapproval
depending on who you're hanging out with
but when we start out were hanging out huge then and particular family and were studying how to get approval in that situation that's very healthy that's the way i do pretty much reaper don't do that we call them psychopaths
who cares where the approve of me
if you make that decision very young this is is is very problematic very difficult
it's almost impossible received
so for most of us to make this decision to work for and make effort to have no recognition approval know
is very powerful very strong and very appropriate very healthy
the and then at some point becomes is this still a good decision just don't want to stick to that early unconscious decision you made or would you like to make a new conscious choice to live in love
that be like

so a minute i wouldn't tell you a story first
before i talk more about this okay
because it it will give us a little bits and pieces of context and some specific to talk about and surge just speaking abstractly
so when i was in my you know as a teenager about fifteen years old i started smoking
in a certain crowd you get approval for that i wanted approval in that crowd
i was one of the smartest kids in my high school i didn't want approval from this my kids
i wanted to walk a block off campus and get approval from those kids
where they were smoking
so if you want to put my block off campus you smoke
you know
i went to high school i graduated in sixty three
so it turns out nineteen sixty four my friends at tam high were smoking dope so i just missed it
are you know how they would have been a dope robot smoking you know i got around to
i'm so then little by little you know i found that i didn't know is like smoking
and sometimes they have a car offer my lungs would hurt
and an enjoyable as it is it same leg
why this just doesn't really seem to be healthy in how do i stop and so the first way that i decided to stop is what you do real power
i have decided i will not smoke
you that part of myself who is smoking you will no longer do this
because i said so
and i am the boss here
so how you know we've all tried this how well does it work
once in awhile okay but then pretty soon the boss gets tired or the boss gets a little kind of fatigue and a worn out little stress little anxious and is not able to anymore to boss things to keep up that bussing thing so then the part of that once this month says
at last my chance grade
then when the bus shows up again the boss says
you are so bad just you know just if i'm not here to tell you what to do you just you know in in just go ahead and smoke i mean what kind of person are you what an idiot you know it's not good for your health you're getting sick you've got a cough you're smoking anyway how can you do this
and then the other part of you says excuse me but i need a cigarette because
because there's somebody talking to me and came a bossy
no at all kind of fashion and who thinks they're sunset as spiritually advanced or something i see me i need a break i'm take anything go have a cigarette
and of course then when they boss comes back
damn you really don't know and then you know you can humiliate yourself and intact yourself and shame yourself and belittle yourself and all the my reason you need a break to go smoke
so this is the way some of my addiction is working on
so i would manage to sometimes i managed to and then i did another one by the way you know i would start smoking for a day and reward myself by smoking
if you can if you can create for a day and then you can have a cigarette
and then and then i would do if you can quit for two days yogananda cigarette and i did one day two days four days a week a month
there's amazing that we keep track when the next cigarette could be you know
and one time at tassajara
i had stopped smoking for about four months
and i was getting i was kind of depressed
so i went to visit curb and china who was the resident teacher there it doesn't hurt you know japanese monk priest and coben lived in you know what is now the abbot's cabin and i knocked down the during he answers the door and i said in a coven chino i am i am just so depressed i feel so
terrible
and carbon chino held out his box and balkans a brown and gold tipped in own cigarettes since they have a cigarette

so you never know who's going to be your you know help or here

who are your friends
is that a friend or is it's a bit
so
and then no one point i stopped smoking i decided
if i have their wish to smoke why don't i just do something else instead
apparently you know i'm not exactly comfortable like what i'm doing but so why don't i if they wish to smoke comes out i will i will devote my i will get my attention is something else devote my energy to something else do something else know some different behavior
so i tried to up for well in one day i noticed you know what i'm i'm feeling really anxious oh this means i want a cigarette
i hadn't noticed that before
that you don't really notice what's happening until you stab
because before i'm going along and then and then there's they thought i want a cigarette and there's not even notice seen like with there's anxiety without even noticing that there's anxiety i want a cigarette
so a lot of the times where and behaviors that actually are covering up the emotion
it is moving as to do something so the anxiety we want wanted we don't want to have anxiety and we don't want to have it enough that we go right to the behavior that was rabid without even noticing it
okay are you getting this event it

so how how close are going to be you know to say you are not going to smoke
it's you know and then what about this anxiety
oh
i would guess you know if you're anything like me when i feel that kind of anxiety i feel like i don't like that anxiety i don't like that feeling i don't like me
i couldn't like somebody who's that anxious and you know i don't think anybody else could either i'd better have a cigarette
so that people will like me
so that i won't have this objectionable anxiety that nobody could possibly like are approve of or respect me for having this feeling that i find so afflicted
better not have it better not even notice it in myself better just do something to get rid of it sometimes the way that you think to get rid of this is you know if somebody says something you and you feel heard
when you get defensive you want to detect them back because but he didn't notice that you felt hurt you just know that you're angry
but you want to let them know not to ever say that to you again
because you know it
and actually what happened when she felt hurt but what happens is without even noticing you feel heard attack
and then don't know not to hurt you again
but you didn't notice you feel to it
if you've noticed you felt hurt than you might
oh i feel so heard which is sad
i didn't know i didn't ask for this this list and this just happened i just now have you heard oh gosh
how can i be with somebody who is feels heard and you start to notice pretty quickly that if i attack the only person who consciously or unconsciously or knowingly or unknowingly hurt me if i attack them
you know as second and alleviate my feeling hurt
now now i'm just going to be remorse and regret about being angry at someone and and are ruining their day and mind because you know the proverbial british thing is in order to put mud on somebody else you have to having your own hand first
anyway you know angers that's unpleasant accepting i didn't get your whole period in my life where i thought it's the thing to do
don't let those people get away with anything
huh okay
so you notice now i'm also bringing up that one of the things then about approval and looking for approval is probably going to involve men at manipulating and controlling your emotions in such a way that the ones that are painful to you don't show up
because you couldn't approve of that and nobody else could either
so you better actually a focus in your behavior and how you manifest yourself and not having any of those things and then you can get some approval
i thank god how well as it work
i remember you but getting approval is very unsatisfying a way of life from my point of view
i mean i spent in of years aiming to do i can know
i mean one of the places you can do that come to send center
and see how much improvement you can get
and when your behavior is finally good enough data bases ah thank you your behavior is so wonderful i really appreciate you
we just aren't going there
your behavior is never good enough
where's sort of like the you know the schizophrenia mom
schizophrenia mother who says you need to behave better that's not good enough yet
i don't know if that's true or not i'm just trying to be funny
only little bits of shreds of truth in there
okay so i'm feeling anxious oh this means i want a cigarette
so what am i feeling anxious about

you know if again if you're anything like me you know
my anxiety is not usually about anything particular
something bad is about to happen
they are about to turn on me
they are about to criticize me if i'm not behaving well enough and if anything you know emotionally afflicted is going on they're going to spotted and they're going to want to tell me about it and what i need to do about it and how to fix myself and they're going to want to explain how this
to me and i am
not going to like that and you know i'm i kind of need to she went to i need to do so they don't get attacked
an criticised and judged
for my behavior from my emotion
sometimes reserve like and you can get anxious certainly am in lot of his ranges about the election
they're going to be cancelled
for national security reasons
the republicans control the ballot boxes and all of the computers in america
this is scary
so i can i had some of that
i'm at some point
you know those kind of things that some point you can say like richest wait and see what happens okay i mean that's just not keep on that if you tell yourself give it a rest or see what happens
nobody can know the future
right just wait and see
so most of my anxiety though is this kind of general why are you anxious
you know i can feel this kind of anxiety just by myself i don't need all of you here too
they mind me that you're out there
you know this these are not real people they they
then those people they are going to turn on me they are going to attack me if i'm not good enough of i'm not careful enough and my behavior and if i have the wrong feeling if i started to feel sad or don't feel sad i love you
oh don't be anxious i love you are we all have you add
so don't feel like that now is that love or is that just a kind of coercion to change your behavior and so that you get some approval
love does not alter where alteration finds rhames shakespeare
okay so i'm feeling anxious when does is about it's about whether or not i'm good enough whether or not i will get approval
okay so when you're gonna do about this anxiety
so one of the things i was there at the time i was cooking tears i saw was working really hard and it was very boring to me that everybody likes the food
this is already challenged because the third of the people there is and macrobiotic they called themselves and it should be eating brown rice and shown it fifty two hundred times and no raw foods no salads this is a whole different era you know to raw foods begun you know this is batting a brown rice cooked vegetables and
probably no proved you know and there was a small contingent the people in the mucus who wanted to be on the mucus this diet you know basically all fruit and so forth you know and they believed in the there was a little book by arnold aaron or something who who said that v vi
italian and your vitality inc was product p pronto the power of the universe minus obstruction so
so that has to do with you know your bows and know the obstruction is and your intestine and if you had more fruit you know that when we made you
the obstruction and new would have more of the power of the universe flowing through you and coming into your vitality
so anyway this is a challenge to have
to be cooking and then how is it but i want to cook and i want people to like my cooking and i am going to work with hard to it to like my cooking
because it that important
set in and then sometimes they weren't days off because there was nobody else to do it
it's working going to most of the appearance of meditation and then working ten twelve hours a day or more and
and then sometimes they weren't days off because there was nobody else to do it
and you know somebody asked me recently and were you ever a gas cook at tassajara
this is somebody who was born after i was the head cook and i said
as a matter of fact i was the guess code how and when i was one of the to gas cooks i was also the head coach at ten zero i was also the assistant kenzo and the baker
and i know we had fewer guests and as to his bed you know
nonetheless you know i had a number of positions

so i work very hard and then every so often i would collapse and
and i just couldn't move for a couple days and so one of the times i was in my cabin not moving for a couple days i started thinking about all this here i am anxious and i won't be able to like my cooking why do i want them to like my cooking who cares
well if they like my cooking that would mean a light me
is that true
what i noticed if i thought about that i think now they just like the cooking they don't even know me they don't care about me they just want that food
how many of them ever come in to say thank you for your average appreciate your work
yeah mostly paper communication disabled
you served raisins in the oatmeal
how could you be poisoning people like this
or whatever it is you know you've got too much cheese you know we can't eat all this cheese and dairy were getting clogged up and our sinuses

so i started thinking that you know they don't care about me
it's just they just want in the food that they want mean that's what's important
i said well but you know if i could have gotten the people to like me by liking my cooking and by making all this effort to get people to like the food so they would like me and if they did like me who cares what difference would that make well if if enough people like me maybe we convince me that it would be
all right for me to like me
is that true
hey that well you know if and as and then you know all of a sudden and say oh i guess i don't like myself

and then if you don't like yourself you know you can easily be anxious
about how other people are going to see you
and you might want to be careful how you behave
to see if you can get some approval from them
and but whatever amount of approval you get i is that going to be enough that you like yourself some people are predicated getting approval you may or may not have been somebody pretty good at that
but as far as i can tell
it doesn't translate into loving yourself were like in yourself all the approval in the world you can get and i thought at that time at that you know what
at this is a little roundabout don't you think i mean if anybody if i'm going to start liking myself i wouldn't have to start loving my phone if i'm going to love myself i may have to start doing it and all this business of like trying to cook and get these people to like the food to like me so that i could like me it's a little around about
and it doesn't actually seem to have weren't
okay so i decided at that time you know what i think i need to work on run myself
so how are you gonna do that
and if i had if i could let myself a little bit better you know i wouldn't be so anxious
i wouldn't be making this crazy kind of effort
i'm so tired all the time
and by the way you could like somebody who is so tired all the time
and who could like anybody in love anybody who is so you know needy for approval
i mean you see somebody is nearly as can like you
and because you know you can't give them enough

so i embarked on this new projects and this is this is a big shift in any of our lives and we'd say okay aiming for approval is not worked i'm gonna live in love
what does that look like how do you do that
and when you first decide to do this there's no way to do it
in other words i love is not something you can do or not do so you've gotta change your whole mode because you can make an effort you can do something but you can't do love
so i want to explain this a bit to you if i may from my point of view you can see if it relates about to your point of view

so by the way when people ask me well how do you love yourself i say how they pretty awkwardly at first
because we really don't know so much about how they do it and it's something that you know we need to be known as st study but again it's not about doing
and because i'm in love love is something that just in the air
love is something in her heart and you know it's in other hearts and it flows and it's our bodies
you know when it's it's everywhere
but it's not quite enough to say that is it
for you to feel it
or even feel it it's everywhere and it's for the and it's not doesn't depend on your performance
and whether you're anxious or you're not anxious or your greedy or you're not greedy or you're angry or not anglia doesn't depend on anything

as suzuki or as a one time in
you know suzuki or is your one time said you know we practice meditation to purify our love
as two separate life from approval from performance when you could have love without without any particular performance or any particular characteristics there can be love and another word for this you know what we used
call it in buddhism or in zannino his presence of mind and a good hearted presence of mind and it's not abandoned in yourself
it's showing up showing up and being there with yourself no matter what happens
so we use to call it something like this
but another time as as a girl she said am
don't move during meditation said don't move
just guy
nothing will help you now this is your last moment
not even enlightenment will help you now because you have no more moments
and you sit there and said he you can feel it then
this is the last moment
and you feel
sweetness
it was there all the time
and then he said so
be true to yourself express yourself fully

if you're going to be true to yourself an express yourself fully mrs beyond approval
this is not this is something you do to express your hard to express your love to express who you are which is love can do you do it and some people will like it and some people want
some people are busy
given out approval and disapproval okay so that's
right there up to write down their lives are right so
doesn't work for them they're busy with their approval disapproval step okay
and other people will be touched
when you share yourself
when you're true to yourself

as a poet or rummy
says in one of his poems don't move
read things a damn i've heard this before
and but his next line is there is a sublime generosity coming towards you
don't move
let it wash three you

in unleaded resonate inside your body
if you're looking for approval and while you're busy doing approval seeking behaviors you will not be able to experience this
this is a shifting the focus of your mind of your attention i am going to let the sublime generosity coming towards me large syringe
i am not gonna be busy right now with
because everybody in the room like me are they about to turn on me
them to lay off me and if you're busy doing all of that you will not be
reading the sublime generosity flow through you it's coming towards you
and you like into you can sometimes you do this to start with rather awkwardly and you don't know how to do it but the good news is even if you don't do it very well it's happening

there's a lot of a buddhist traditions and included in zannino zen master haku and was one of them he
at one point was i'm very ill with what's called the and sickness
we're not gonna talk about all that i'm running out of time here
am but you know he was tied to visualize a duck egg of better so soft butter the size of a duck egg on his forehead it was filled with love and compassion and faith and generosity and kindness and let it wash down melt and dissolved
down through his body
and there are many various traditions like this and other traditions like this and if you imagine
scuse me if this isn't san sometimes i mentioned this designed people they said but ed
it's not said
we don't care if haggling did that that was his and it's not our then i said the way we do them then is just what is
and you don't get to go just making it up
just how with what is
excuse me if i experience what is is
being follows a sublime generosity
but you're not gonna get this sublime generosity of your busy limiting your idea of what just what is to staff and things and phenomena that are at a gross level you're going to have to allow your cousins to become a little more subtle and noticed that little more subtle levels of in a
reality and just what is
so get a little more subtle you
bribes i'm sorry if i'm speaking to anyone business around but
this happened to me up with the in new design group in another town
that i was talking about this and they told me that it's not then
again you know how we're going to get it right
i were going to get it right do it right and get some approval for doing it right i'm doing sam
i'm doing so i'm getting the right you gotta be approved oh good for you yeah i'm saying and you know if you need to endure that worried about it and in concerned about it you know people will notice that you're that worried and concerned about it and by doing that and i get it
okay
busy getting it right getting approval know getting recognition you know what you're doing cool okay spiritual person i got it
but you know you could also been noticing you know at a more subtle level
the sublime generosity
now i do need to finish up now so i'm gonna try to finish this happened then we have a question and answer time you can come back and we can talk more about stuff but

the mysterious thing again here is that you can't just do love you can't just do sublime generosity
it's something that you perceive and allowed to move through you and be in you
and you can't make it up
you can make up all kinds of things and behavior patterns and you can do something differently and you can so there are some things that you can do okay and i want to remind you about what some of these things are that may at some point turn into his sublime generosity one of them is don't move

i just bay with things don't keep trying to go here and get that and avoid their send you know try setting
and when you're sitting don't worry about you know whether you know it's the good kind of meditation or the bad kind
right now you're getting it right and you're not getting a and during a good job or you're not going to and good job whatever your experiences let it let it come through you that's good love
but you but you will experience it as i'm so sad i'm so scared i'm so angry
answer stuff washing through you
i'm basically what happens is you know you need to have that happened because your body for the for the in a spiritual energy i'll call it now switch like love spiritual energy sensing right okay so when you sit still and you shut up we're not moving you're not talking the energy starts to build up inside and then it start
to move through your body and otherwise their energy is going like you calm down straight up relax be nice to me know you want to give some directives out to the world and you want to tell it how to behave to make you happy
and somehow most the world isn't interested in making you happy i don't know and then some people they want to make you happy and going out of their way to make you happy and it's such a boon
i don't know you probably have some of those people in your life to they want to help you
sometimes that can be quite a burden sometimes that works the you know some some people are able to help and you know we find ways to help one another without helping or without
without the person having to said you excuse me but is this helpful enough am i being helpful you know because they're wanting recognition for being helpful and then you have to serve help them or something and so like how does that help me in how do i make sure that you feel like a good alperin
excuse me need to finish out keeps
but the energy is moving to you and what happens it gets the places where it can't move we all have all this residual feelings where do you think they are the ones that he has been you know not expressing are not allowing because you wouldn't get approval if they showed up and you wouldn't improve yourself and you couldn't like yours
self because they might show up so were you know they're you're here you know you and you have to know where they are or you might accidentally go there
so you have to know the parts of your body and the places inside not to go with your consciousness you have to so when you start to cynthia you started to breathe and follow your breath and pretty soon years starting with your awareness to inhabit places in your body rather staff stored and when you encounter the places where there's stuff stewart
when it comes to the service and becomes conscious and you have
sad angry
depressed fearful of scared
and there's something to be said at some point for a year a whether it
and the but most of us we go like oh god this is gonna go on forever
i must be such a gentle person i still haven't gotten over this i still don't know how to control this i still don't know how to manage it and what's wrong with me in beginning we're going back into our approval but if you want to just live in you're going to have to accept it and allow it to surface and pretty soon they energy junior about it moves you know it's surface you let go of
it and so you're practicing what we call you know in buddhism mine from this you're aware of it without judging good bad right wrong and you allowed to surface and it's gone and pretty soon the energy and that price is running clear energy just flowing scarred love this energy
of further energy
and you have a greater capacity to show up and say good morning how are you nice to meet you
and to dig in the garden and to wash the dishes and you have energy for that and your energy can go into doing that and you don't worry so much about and mine are they looking at me do they like me am i doing this right and my doing a good job is this sin
and you're just sharing your vitality and a lovely vitality and human being you know with the world
so this is not easy but anyway thank you for
awaken in this wish
in been love rather then and to express yourself fully to share you know you're good heartedness your tenderness with the world and new diversion you know
and not worry so much about am i getting it right and i am i've been the kind of person that we get approval
when it doesn't work i wrote a test or a bedbug
does that help
the best selling book
give you the oh thank you thank you it's been like family companion for twenty nine years
i mean is that going to give me all eleven approval that i missed out on when i was going all the attention and you know for years in the orphanage and all the attention and approval and acceptance and infection that i missed out on as a child i don't think so you're gonna have to i'm going to have to i decided i'm going to have to be the most
mother and father that i never had that i always wanted and i'm going to have to be that person steady up
start practicing it's never too late
start being that person and probably when you start being that person you won't be very good at it
right you can get started and then once you've started your continue
san if you can be the person you always the mother and father yours wanted to be and as you get older becomes more and more important right
you're not going to be in two thousand and thirty forever
i thank you