with one
he weren't morning
before i begin with from my
focus for the morning
i want to just say a few words for those of you who are not familiar with the eight pieces of brocade treat kong sequence which some of us have been doing i either in addition of walking meditation or instead of walking meditation particularly in the content
stone retreats
it's a practice which if you do it slowly is about building energy and if you do it more quickly it's about balancing energy
and there are certain healing aspects to each of the sequences
but what i've noticed in my own experience and with the the people i practice with particularly in the context of retreats is that whatever tendency we have for what i call a kind of jamming in different parts of the body constricting a particular
early in the neck and shoulders as an area which is a place of constriction for a lot of people if they're doing a lot of sitting meditation and particular that the eight pieces are very
the real antidotes for that virtual constricting
anda can be quite beneficial and supportive of formal meditation practice in particular and of course becomes a practice
in and of itself for the cultivation of more direct experience of energy
but also for the cultivation of limb vernis and suppleness in the body and of course what we develop in the body we are also of the mania in the mind
and mental pliant say is one of the quality switches much show celebrated in meditation permission so
that's what that's about
am
when i'd like to talk about this morning is really young
inspired by
some teachings that i received a number of years ago from my first teacher shinrykio mississippi
ah
who some of you may know from his book concerned mind beginner's mind
and i there's a new book of lectures just out that and round emitted in of the several lectures i've read i would say he did a superb job
i think the title is something like not necessarily so
and it sounds like an old tomb doesn't
this particular teaching that i remember both from suzuki roshi erosions formal lecture but also from my experience ah
having a quite close relationship with him
ah is the is resting on are referring to a co on called son faced buddhists moon faced with it is
and son faced buddha is described as living for a thousand eight hundred years
and moon faced buddha is said to live for a night and day
and of course awesome as get caught with
preferring one to the other
suzuki roshi was not given to bellow him but he went every once in a while especially when we'd be sitting in meditation hall and test to her in the summer
where would go up over one hundred a hundred and five hundred and seven hundred and nine and you'd also have flies have lifting your lift or crawling around the edge of your eyelid for a drink
he
not exactly bellow but something close to it about if you're hot be hot
an aggressive the freezing cold if you're cold be cold
so the not very subtle subtext here has to do with a preferences
the pitfall of preferences particularly preferences liking disliking want this don't want that that in so familiar that we don't even notice the mind
going on and on and on about i like this item prayer
so what i would like to invite you to consider with me this morning is the consequences of preferences
of i'm taking want don't want like don't like too seriously

another around entry point might be to just pay attention to the arising in the mind of i want to get rid of i don't like this site
and of course particularly when we sit down and sit still for twenty five or thirty minutes
what manifest is some detail in our experience of sitting still for someone extended period of time are we have some physical experience which were not thrilled with
pain and the neck pain and the need and they give pain in the back
fein and the mind
and the possibility of not only studying what arises in the mind reactively for example with discomfort physical discomfort but to begin to explore
or possibilities relationally
other them
a trip attraction and aversion
of course we we get pulled between attraction and a version over and over and over and over again
in one of the dedication vs that i appreciate very much there's a line may all beings not have too much attraction or too much version
may all beings living with acronym money
so right here under our noses in this practice of sitting down and being as still as we can be without being rigid or feeding habits of constricting

do we all see the invitation the opportunity to first of all study my reaction to discomfort for example
and to then began to explore other possibilities
what happens if i began to cultivate my capacity for curiosity and interest
with respect to what i'm experiencing physically
and what i'm experiencing with the reactive mental and emotional pattern that arises in the mud
one of the great term consequences of extended retreats is that
we cook up some pain and the body that we can get rid of we can't get go get to go away
i remember one time having what i call a kind of bridge cable
experience with a muscle under my left shoulder blade that did this twist and spasm
which i could not argue or into going away couldn't get right now
didn't know how to soften
and after five or six days felt brought to my knees
i ended up
paying quite a lot of attention to that particular muscle
for six months after that retreat
and
came to be quite grateful to the experience in the retreat of quite a cute and sustained physical discomfort
because of course said got my attention
and when i finally realized was oh this is my responsibility muscle
and when i get to overextended
not a
correlation on a had observed before
but of course then what happened was that muscle got to be like a red oil light
you change the oil
stop

why i recommend is that we work with
somewhat less challenging physical discomfort and explore what happens when we bring curiosity and interest just some area of physical discomfort
an out of the series of inquiring questions about the nature of the experience
i've discomfort to begin to notice the difference in the direct experience when i'm not meeting the physical discomfort with a version
with constricting
we may know intellectually that if i constrictor round pain the pain tends to intensify
but as long as i only know that in fought in thinking
until i bring that understanding into my actual experience
it's a a bit like having a book on a shelf that i never take down an actual read

there is another practice which is a rather around
standard meditation practice and of with his bath
of 'em
taking a walk around the garden for example and just observe like dislike him from whatever one's reactions
and then a half an hour an hour later go back and take exactly the same walk observing what arises in the mind like don't like which one
and see what happens
on the second or third or fourth round you may be surprised that a lot of the don't like suddenly slipped into neutral or oh kind of interesting

so then we begin to have the experience of the fickleness of like don't like
i can be quite useful

why
made a couple of notes here things like that i wanted mount to forget

oh

another area that i would call your attention to has to do with the habitual messages we give ourselves about ourselves and about the world
that have to do with like don't like good bad
and particularly the messages that are so familiar that we are not particularly in tune with the take if you will and are believing those thoughts

oh last weekend some of us were doing a retreat working with anger and fear
and we did a at time writing exercise where people had a chance to write out
some of the voice of the habitual critic
quintessentially about don't like

and what so often happens in doing that practice is that
we bring up into the light we bring up into attention
but the messages that are going on all the time doing this kind of sorting about good and mad like don't like
that become a kind of gov
in our lives and the ground for a lot of suffer

oh this one time that i remember a particular when suzuki roshi was talking about this co-owner son face buddha moon faced buddha he'd been sick and
no
so what he was really talking about one some well when i
sick i'm in bed and i'm sick

any yet been on the receiving end from a number of his students about which are a zen master and have been practicing for all these decades and you're not supposed to get sick
he said well maybe i'm not supposed to get sick but i'm sick
so kind of disguised in like don't like i liked my zen master to never get sick or a la mama ariana whoever
we've put into some perfection post
and one of the most extraordinary things about being with a suzuki roshi in the last months of his life when he was actively dying metastasized gallbladder cancer was how thoroughly fully
holding back he was present moment by moment with being sick
not feeding being sick but not fighting not trying to get rid of

his ability to laugh over the fact that he'd become quite yellow
and i kind of double layer of laughter and poignant so people since he was also japanese
and he certainly knew about being in the category of what we have this country called the yellow peril
m
his ability when he was finally correctly diagnosed as having cancer to say oh come sit on the bed next to me now we can share
to lunch together and he took a bite of food and on his fork and fed it to me because of chris before that we thought that he had hepatitis and
you know he was heavily quarantined around feeding me or anybody else a bite of his lunch
big grin on his face now we can eat together again

i think you many of you have heard me tell the story about the dalai lama
having heard a rumor that he was being awarded the nobel peace prize
listen to the evening news nothing on the evening news
next day get the official call and when someone at berkeley was interviewing him at him about oh how was it for you he said well nobel peace prize chinese think i am game and same thing

would that be true for each of us
what arises when now we become unpopular or someone or some group of people have something
critical to say about us
we don't like them
unless we've been practicing
giving up
too much concern about what people say about house
but of course to not be ruled by like dislike
want don't want good bad
take some first a wall observing how all that manifests in this particular minds tree
each of us doing that for ourselves
and to then cultivate what is called training the mind
and believe it or not one can train the mind so that like dislike ceases to be so much of a big thing
there's still room for a slight preference
there's still room for
noticing the actual reactions i have but not necessarily having to act on
big difference

so i'm not advocating that if we have some discomfort in the body when we're meditating and the discomfort takes our attention away from posture and breath i'm not advocating that we just barreled through
what i call the samurai's schools and practice
if that's the case if the discomfort is that strong then noticed the discomfort take a few moments to ring interesting curiosity to the discomfort but then adjust your posture
otherwise what you're doing is getting used to grin and bear it or don't grin and bear it

what i've noticed is that when people can begin to take on the authority for when to move and when not to move and formal meditation
when that authority comes from the inside out rather than the outside em
people begin to develop their compute capacity to sit still without constricting to sit still and in alignment with ease that capacity than grows and builds it's not inflicted
and there's a huge difference
huge difference
if we don't do whatever practices were doing with the quality of ease
we are very likely to be doing what we're doing some element of reactivity in it
cushing
trying to hard getting caught by some expectation commonly about becoming enlightened

i can remember when my
t teacher yeah hikaru nakamura was still living and was teaching
at green auch
and we'd have a sunny day and everybody would be very cheerful and then we have a lot of foggy days and everybody would get more and more glue man she would talk about
the weakness we have as human beings a little foggy and we crash
two months of from three months of fog and we get very room
and then along comes a sunny day and everybody feels one
she would start a waggle her finger and laugh because of course she was as much
affected by weeks and weeks and weeks of foggy days she'd go outside and smile brennan and say aren't we big weekends

so a part of what i'm bringing up this morning is an invitation to notice this territory of our experience where what arises without our even noticing it is i like this
i don't want that picking and choosing

and of course when we have give up or well i don't like that sound but i liked the sound of the woodpeckers
airplanes know woodpeckers yes
then i keep myself from the experience of sound
and of the silence in which sound arises
and i keep myself locked into
the quality of mind where what i'm really cultivating is my sense of separation
from all beings and things

so
maybe that's enough to get the idea i'm sure you've all heard about what i'm talking
j if i i would like to talk a little bit about the too much a version with not too much interaction guess concept
mexico last week and on the former i am with a friend out to have a cue to georgia kid country and we decided for watch the sunset at and que lake with the pattern all that she had painted so many times on the left and than the
sunset in front of us in the rising falling behind us over hernandez as an aunt's ads
and when the when the sun had finally slipped away and the sky was just as extraordinary on
ah
color i turned to my friend and on cinder us in judo at the moment of my death i would like to
have this sunset come up in my mind stream because i felt the most overwhelming and exquisite sense of peace i could have died right then and then completely happy and
the
the thing about not being like some people can have that
that joy of having that experience over by a car or some other object
but on
and i was really attracted to it and i was really like drawn into it and it gave me so much personal satisfaction
it can you talk a little bit about
that is too much attraction as opposed to be having aversion to something
and where that fits in kind of in a i don't want to be attached to something but i i don't want to restrict myself from feeling this just ah
extraordinary elation
from an experience
well i think that there are a variety of ways of considering such an experience and one of the possibilities is on
that there's a way in which the heart mind is cracked open if you will find those experiences
and to keep an eye on i want this to last i don't want this to go away oh resistance to the mark of impermanence even of this so i began to have a chance to observe where are the sticky
places that lead actors serve open attention
i'm where you
bring your attention to some
object to our plan to war
sore for example one just the patch of floor in front of you and let your attention rest on that point and then gradually allow
field awareness to come up so that you have this open attention not just on that point you've chosen to focus on but literally every being and thing in the room a whole wrong all the way around
home
someone recently described to me doing this particular practice amp all they were in the xin in the main center their the floor is really funky floor is the linoleum it might be really oh
oh you know it's an old boy scout camp in
i guess against swept occasionally but it's really in my ordinary everyday mind i would say you
the
so that's what she was doing this practice with
and what a rose with this patch of funky dirty old tattered and torn aluminum
i'm linoleum aluminum for
and all the people in her view when the maths in the window and alive and everything
was the experience of
infinite perfection and meaningless
into perfection and meaning less means
didn't have any innate importance or meaning
and a high degree of relationality
that is the quintessence what i sometimes referred to as those experiences of seamlessness where i have the experience of no separation
no sense of me and the other
and of course
too much attraction and too much aversion keeps me in that realm of separateness it's the it's the hazard if you will have dualistic thinking
and
you know it's why we think well we should be meditating in a beautiful place and one of the reasons i am deeply grateful for the fact that highway one does is for sure around us and you know we have increasingly more and more traffic and
boom booming music is the cars go by on a hundred and some motorcycles and ten of aid every sunday morning in
caltrans out there marking out the trench for three days a very high i etc
because you know inside the walls this places pretty nice air we get to think well i should oh i can only practice where the it's a beautiful place
but you know i cut my teeth on meditating and meditation hall right on the back side of it was an alley where there were a bunch of he'd be folk high on this and that repairing their cars every afternoon when where are meditating and their big bang bang bang shin
it kind of okay you know the whole works and hit that thumbs or miss or whatever and there would be this whole thing going on out the alien there we go are you know meditating on our breath scrape
because this should be don't think know what are meditating what's up with him somebody should go out there and tell them to shut up
i'm just waiting for the neighborhood run mauer mourinho is grass now it's right in there
doesn't he know a whole lot of us are in here the other night at the yoga room you know they were couple of people out on a deck i don't know if they were rehearsing a saner having a big discussion but you know their thirty of us eavesdropping only conversation or just of distract
action come back to asked her
so that the hazard he is that we have categories of those transcendent moments and dough and keep ourselves cut off from that quality of experience with that's possible with literally every being and thing
on into helmet
so let the the taste in form once possible
and watch out for this for grasping for grabbing for wanting to recreate that moment
that will be a way of living in the past and not in the present

i think experiences like that that kind of crack as open to what's possible experientially should be treasured but not held onto
trump
start by seven james and to erupt on which grew by river okay to dine at that point the death has been
so did don't worry
in number but respects
what is as a result in some of the work done in the certainly and then turn to degrade death is always been you out there were something new happens other people working for comes with no pain minimum amount first one
not me out and tell me about it were yeah it's a ounce of our one guy comes on you know something to remember my favorite patterns
huh
oh one good laugh at last and last one's gonna cry you know anything else
oh
true reality i i'm trying to bring to mind that i'm going die and i don't know when they don't know how to i'm going to work and driving
you know and m has done some work recently with gs a bereavement group that she works with news the number of people arrogance husband's lincoln's husband's job when and twenty students
the diaper attempts had just got because
totally unexpected and just recently my ex-wife's husband just diagnosed with brain cancer
friend diagnosed with lung cancer
put a person minus the and death is not always it's there and is an oasis new glorious sunsets and type of them it's very ordinary than respects
and not to be like this or not to be know to to claim it just to realize in a way to get that license day in day out with all
everything's just so happens in one
and of death row in a way come and comes
they know what i think we often miss is that
whenever qualities of the mind that we are cultivating in our lives will be the qualities of the mind at the time of death
so we may wish to have a calm and happy mind at the moment of jeff
but if we're not cultivating that calm and happy mind and the meantime
am
so i'm going to have them
and i think the peace in there that we can often miss is i can actually cultivate those qualities of mind i can actually train for a calm and happy mood
but a lot of picking and choosing is gonna keep me away from the possibilities of a calm and happy
bio experience i certainly see my car features are times i don't use of thank you know
and sometimes are not to like when i'm working parts of my job will look on my project online there isn't a good that he can our our sometimes and but i just do it added some yeah knows after the fact that for
the but the conversation the violently engage in the conversation about
the bumper sticker don't believe everything you think you're proposal that the crypto the it minimizes and the loses the suffering the angsty that that's sure absolutely yeah absolutely
gareth you were talking about the pay touch to pay
morning i was
and i was starting to so
the second session because i want to to kill him put his hands on my shoulder as he was very white very what yes you can be brought attention to it so later on i'm sitting here and my next trip for
and
so i asked the question why is this
as
before i asked the question but is this i said
if i ask that question it will go away
because it has happened before right items identify page and asked the question into ship
that is you were talking to people you know that's that's one of these buddhist trips know onions
and then i thought well you know gary navy it's a trick if you don't ask to january
some perhaps you ought to think about truly think of how the questions you're asking what is this
they may i make a suggestion yes don't focus on the question focus on the motivation are asking your question
if the motivation is to get rid of the pain
maybe it'll go away and maybe it or will be a welcome and track but you know the anything that comes up for me listening to you is what i think is a is a
track for a of us which is this notion that we live in a repeatable universe
and we don't we live in a non repeatable
similar may be but
and of course one of the things that one of the fruit silva ongoing meditation practices that we began to have more and more access more and more capacity for noticing subtle
differences
so you know that's a trap well in the past asking this question main aimco and i have to have to look at that
well i'd look at motivation
over and over again i'm just impressed by the consequences of motivation and if the motivation is aversion
and probably and so trouble
if the motivation is attraction
i could be in from
just but for starters just be interested in what's so don't clamp too much of the what it would be like if i was the perfect buddhist and i'm yourself
hey
and you know if my next starts to hurt where's my chin
do
as so this is my first time here and i came early in was repressed by the garden where are the things i have happened to me when i meditate is my mind
gets way out into the future planning and plotting just you know sometimes hours or weeks ahead and today my legs were hurting consists of slaughter that usually said billy
i woke with realized how great it wasn't my legs were hurting because the pain was actually right now expanded if i just kind of scan my body and it looked at the pain i convergence of back from this huge your the was your weekend
and of course i think come for many of us particularly the untrained aspect of the mine
resides primarily in the past and future
so to be present
be here now like hum
for the except for those moments you know like your experience watching the sunset and the at quality and color of the sky in that part of the world after the service dropped
so yes i think the physical discomfort can be a vehicle for showing up and being present and to then
explore the details so what does it mean to be present with
a fairly strong physical discomfort
and what discomfort can i do something of that depending on how i have my legs array and shown sitting cetera
and one is some
the discomfort that is the opportunity to cultivate some responsiveness and interest rather than reaction of version
and of course you know this is the opportunity to work with minor discomfort
which can be enormously useful for those discomforts that present themselves as our lives
seemingly unbidden and big
dress rehearsal

nothing
from the i'm in canada gail and then painted gail hundred number is will quiet a summary and have you covered slight preference serves going to go to to and your general discussion as routes for tricking us of preferences yeah we're sometimes there are occasions when you advocate have it
kind preference the swiper well i do think that one of the hazards of i've seen this and myself but i've seen it in other people who come to buddhist meditation practice which is ah
not having enough of a healthy sense of self to have any preferences may want something whoa
so
that's it a different but related issue
and it's not that we don't have preferences is that we don't allow ourselves to notice that we have them in somehow
not on the screen through see usually significantly through conditioning so that language of slight preference oh what has been for me and kind of entry point into the territory of picking and choosing as a way of beginning to have more
awareness about picking and choosing that it's off my attention span
actually have some fun working
would you like to speak of it yeah kurt fence
barely the quiet
africa
i've been listening to you and making a relationship between
contraction and aversion and self clinging
yeah oh
and my immediate a aversion issued a handsome do with lack of kindness in the midst of a remodel and i came home rather late last night and around
my dear partner was fussing with the paint job and it had went around sanding him touching up for about five hours so we are things have finally gotten a little bit
complaining were now little bits of
of paint dust or yeah
and i didn't like it i could hear myself and watch myself as we went to get a after i was more than a little irritable
with i want it quickly i like a tiny i don't buy the dust i don't like dust particles in bed with me i i'd ha
but there's an awful lot of what i want and what i don't want in this all business of attractions version yeah
against so good the watching also my own challenge
staying with the observation
i want i don't want
when you're also describing the collision of two i don't want
jim didn't want whatever was going on paint job and you don't want the consequences of dusting the sanding et cetera
and you know on our individual lives but also if we look at the state of the world how much of of what is going on as some manifestation of i want i don't want in coalition with someone else's one ergo
yeah
okay
nice to see long
aching legs and on
somebody brought these tulips yesterday and told me that the tulips and have little roughly edges that's the result of a virus
that was discovered during the dutch tulip mania so they now inject the virus into a certain number of their tulips in order to have the ruffle effect
frilly proof well it's called i like somebody likes frilly
so interesting yeah
better
have to take care of yourselves nice to see you will have another sitting on the twenty second and then will be closed down for
our through it for tree
so i'll resume again in august
take care of yourselves i would like to speak briefly with carolyn cape and show
is your website up it's not but it's dangers like to sit i
tourists like i'm and great agus no no no it'll be up i think it'll be up this when
we even heaven forbid got a picture of me that everybody said it'll it'll do where i can pay your doctor or i can choose
and thirty y que
he more pathetic were on at and packing then cracking answer
cheerful
and i guess it gets thirty for me as i think
to stationary and nature be growing up in that the billy time is of your way i'm not a good and inspiring
it is a some ambition guess i get on the time yes
yes i actually
we have been working for a bit with someone who grew up in the south who has described a very similar sense about ah
changing the subject batting her eyelashes all don't want to know about that
et cetera
charming her way out of answering in a straightforward way
so i do think that
part of our conditioning maybe not just familial may be cultural and there are certain culture groups were there are certain ways of negotiating that are agreed on and share
it just so often to see through on that
well this is used that way i might have consciously find that more
softer passion
and direct
but notice you said the truth what about the not lie
hang out with that distinction and see what shows up
okay yes he earned and if you really have to consider that the person that's come question too
you know like a good thing they asked me a superficial though i do it or do they really want to know so you live
we are you trying to see them
yes i think i think you you're like it
ah
you know the older we get the more would go into all a long list of the things that are wrong with us as somebody says how are you and resubmit
i think i have to go now and they'll often the i mean this is where there's a judgment call when someone says how are you is it a form of breeding or is it a question which the person is actually an escape i'm inquiring about your well-being and how our you are you healthy
the are you
in of these days people come up mania are you sleeping
a
the constantly changing it's
so i guess i think that part of
communication has to do with hearing accurately what the person were speaking with is saying whether it's in the form of a question or not
and
weekend but we can also check out what we think is going on
if we don't know
they week and i think that how are you is
if somebody really wants to know how i am they may ask two or three times
right so this omission business seems like it's a somewhat to did you learn something and i was just trying to say something about self help section oh please
hello as her panties teasing as the way as havilland for anger and not be letting myself
and i plan on grin
yep
and i would say that the form of wine that is probably the most harmful in most people's lives is self perception
and very very hard to begin to see if one is not in some kind of feedback system
people get caught in self deception when they are in a feedback system and have not and get isolated and get out of feedback
i'm already could just to run through a few more categories which will talk about more next week
i'm lying which is exaggeration or understatement
flattering
maybe on it
one time i came home all full of enthusiasm for of group i was working with where we we worked with line for about a year have
in one week of exaggeration came up bill said well what about the form of exaggeration that's an understatement
i'm felt immediately nailed because i have for much of my life had him tendency to understatement
and that go
very rich to begin to open up a pattern like that which once not been aware of and just begin to track and
so what i'd like you to do this next week is to take one of these focuses
and just sit with it observe other people were observed herself
so keeping silent a lie of omission a white lie
exaggeration or undersea
pick one
flattered thank you yes new sample of life
up
hummus and there's nothing
maybe you can help me
an example of a lie of understatement
so much part of my robot where i can't think of an exam
watch much
when we have a totally fair tax return the most part of the depends on the side note
ah
that's it varies in certain snitch
food was circumstantial would be taught
there's an epidemic in zen circles of ibm's okay

i think that there is a crucial shift that happens when i stop expressing out loud habitual judgment
the shift to working with thoughts is
that's a more difficult more difficult