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Embodied Zen: Awareness in Motion
AI Suggested Keywords:
The talk explores the intricacies of Zen meditation as it pertains to physical postures and broader relational mindfulness. The discussion intertwines teachings from Gurdjieff and Nietzsche on sustaining awareness in 'intermediate postures' and highlights the importance of embodying Zen principles, such as the precepts of non-killing and non-stealing, in both formal meditation and everyday relationships. The emphasis is on the dynamic interplay between self-expression and relational experiences, proposing that true self-expression in varying contexts—whether relationships or meditation practices—leads to enlightenment.
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Gurdjieff's Movement Exercises: The teaching emphasizes mindfulness of physical postures, even those without formal structure, highlighting their connection to self-awareness.
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Nietzsche's Eternal Recurrence: This philosophical concept is related to mindfulness practice, suggesting that actions should be performed wholeheartedly as they are repeated infinitely.
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Zen Meditation Teachings: includes concepts of meditation on interdependence, emphasizing mindfulness of thought processes and relationships as part of meditation.
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Examples of Practical Meditation Application: Discusses how to incorporate Zen precepts, such as non-killing and non-stealing, into sitting meditation and relational dynamics.
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Personal Stories and Teaching Anecdotes: Used to illustrate the application of Zen principles in everyday interactions, emphasizing the alignment of self-expression with enlightenment practices.
AI Suggested Title: Embodied Zen: Awareness in Motion
Side: A
Speaker: Tenshin Reb Anderson
Location: The Yoga Room
Possible Title: Week 2
Additional text: Copy
@AI-Vision_v003
Well, this is a physical side of the meditation. But of course, all the postures which you go through to go from sitting to standing to walking to reclining, all the intermediate postures also hopefully, although they don't have form, like a formal traditional form necessarily, it is maybe a good idea to see if you can be as mindful of the intermediate postures as you are in the classical postures, which means it's harder. Some of you may have heard about, I think it's something that Gurdjieff thought of, and actually Nietzsche thought of it too, is that whatever posture you're in, Sometimes I think when they would be moving, they would be moving exercises in the Gojike movement and they would just stop.
[01:02]
Everybody would stop. And then you stay in that posture, whatever posture you're in, you stay in that posture for a while. So these people learned not to get in any postures that they didn't want to stay in for a while. So maybe they moved from sitting to standing very fast. Or every intermediate step would be a posture that had some sustainability. So the dignity and structural integrity or durability of the intermediate postures would also be considered or learned by trial and error. And I say Nietzsche thought this too in his teaching called Eternal Recurrence. Which means whatever is happening now is going to happen many, many more times. So, you know, don't do it half-heartedly because you're going to have to do it over and over this way.
[02:05]
You know what I mean? Like you have a relationship with somebody and you think, well, this isn't a very pleasant relationship, so I'm not going to put much effort into it. And I think it's going to end pretty soon, too, hopefully. So I'm not going to, like, devote myself to it. But they just come back. So, you know, think with your postures. So this is a kind of meditation instruction. Do they seem like meditation instruction? Good. But I guess what maybe wasn't apparent to people was that last week was meditation instruction, too. In other words, Zen meditation is not just to be aware of your posture and your breathing, and also not just even to be aware of your thinking, but it is to be aware of your thinking in a way that appreciates how your thinking happens.
[03:11]
Or to put it the other way, to be aware of how your thinking happens is meditation. Zen meditation is to be aware of your relationships with every person or animal or plant or inanimate object you meet, to be aware of that relationship. That's meditation. And it's a type of meditation called meditation on relationship, meditation on interdependence. Being aware of your body being aware of your breath, however, naturally can move into being aware of how your body happens. Just like being aware of your hands in this mudra, You'll be aware of how this mudra happens.
[04:15]
You'll be aware of how, when it happens this way, you have sore shoulders. When it happens another way, you have a sore back. When it happens another way, you have sore hips. When it happens another way, you don't have sore anything. So all these relationships are in some sense the ultimate type of meditation. It's a meditation where you're actually not just observing your body, your feelings, your thoughts, emotions. You're not just seeing colors and smelling smells and touching touches. you are also seeing how all these things come to be and the relationship between the phenomena you're aware of and the basic reality of interconnectedness. So the topic of this course is actually the meditation on this certain type of relationship is
[05:19]
discussions of this type of relationship are meditations and the kind of composure you have when you're meditating on your body and breath in a simple situation like seated meditation or walking meditation that composure then hopefully would extend itself to your relationships. But also, hopefully your relationships, what you learn from relationships will help you while you're sitting. So your sitting won't be like sleeping. In fact, it takes a long time for people to extend the composure of their sitting into their relationships and to bring the dynamism of the relationships into their sitting. That's why What usually happens with people is they get overly excited in relationships or they get sleepy in meditation because they don't notice all the relationships that are going on in meditation because they don't bring the dynamic, the dynamism of their relationships into their sitting and they don't bring the composure and stability of their sitting into their relationships.
[06:32]
So, for example, last week we talked about not killing, the precept of not killing. And so how do you bring the precept of not killing into your sitting? Well, one way you bring it into it is that maybe you don't feel like you're killing anything while you're sitting. But is there some other way to bring the precept of not killing into the sitting, the classical sitting meditation? And is there some way to bring the way you are in sitting meditation into your relationships with other beings such that there would be no killing? And so this week I'd like you to think about, is there some way to bring not stealing into your sitting meditation? and bring your sitting into the practice of not stealing. So how do you bring...has anybody been able to bring their meditation into the practice of not killing?
[08:00]
Has anybody been able to bring the practice of not killing into their meditation? into the sitting and walking meditation. Yes? I had a spider in my sink, and it couldn't get out of the sink. Yes. And the next day it was still there. So I tried it outside very carefully. Did you feel like your sitting came into that act by any chance? In our discussion, yes. In our discussion? Yes. You said again? Inserting what? So what kind of thought is a killing thought?
[09:07]
When you inject force against yourself? Uh-huh. Like how? Uh-huh. To force yourself to sit straighter rather than... It's kind of like killing, yeah. Closure? What do you mean by closure? A lack of presence or openness is a kind of killing? Mm-hmm. What else? But I'm not going to do that.
[10:07]
I don't think. Not yet. So I'm trying to kill my relationship with him so that I don't have to go kill him. There are no terms without no help from the military. That sounds good. Okay. So before we go into that further detail, since I think we have some new people in class, you remind me that we have some people who weren't here last week. So let's do the names. Diep? Diep. Is it Diem? Diem. Diem. Laura. Laura. Laura. Basha. Basha. Salvi. Salvi. Linda. Linda. Jack. Jack. Marsha. Marsha. Deborah. Deborah. Paula. Paula. Renee. Renee.
[11:07]
Judith. Judith. Jane. Jane. Jane. Jackie. Jackie. Joanne. Joanne. Cindy. Cindy. Gene. Gene. Dennis. Dennis. Helene. Vicky. Kate. Nancy. Diana. Pat. Carol. Norma. Heather. Donald. George. Naomi. Sarah. Barbara. Steve. Trina, Lita, Barbara, Linda, Marjorie. OK, Joanne. So you want to kill a relationship.
[12:08]
What do you mean you want to kill a relationship? Well, I think the problem is Mm-hmm. You want to close your heart to him. Okay. So you said you want to kill a relationship, but another way to rephrase what you said is you'd like to change your relationship. And one of the things you like to change is not be invested in what he thinks of you. I think that's a good thing to do with everybody, including people who you maybe have an easier time with being invested in what they think of you. As a matter of fact, now that we're on the topic, I think that's one of the characteristics of
[13:11]
an enlightened relationship, is that you're not working on trying to get the other person to think a certain way about you. Well, does anybody else want to go downstairs now and kill those dogs, or watch Joanne kill the dogs? You missed last week, so I think actually I would be willing to let you try to kill the dogs. Isn't that interesting? Yeah. I think they stopped when I said I was going to let you do it. Now, actually, I wouldn't let you. What I'd do would be I would suggest you try to kill the dogs, and I would be on the dog side. If that wasn't enough, I'd get Salvi to help me. And if you really wanted to kill the dog, I'd let you express that fully, and I'd work with you on it. And see if you really wanted to kill the dogs.
[14:15]
The dogs probably would stop right away and stop watching us fight. No, they don't. Actually, we hire them, actually. Part of this class, they come in at various points in class to demonstrate certain things. So I think it would be a really good idea for you to withdraw investment in what he thinks of you. And don't put any energy in doing something to try to influence or manipulate what he thinks of you. And I think part of what you've demonstrated here tonight is you have spoken without much concern for what we think of you, right? I mostly don't really care what people think of me. Right. I can't remember why I keep having this head-butting relationship with this person. So I was expressing to a friend on the way up with it, maybe it's because I am caring about what this person thinks of me. Yeah, maybe. But I think that was at the core of it for me, and I just figured it out tonight.
[15:17]
And now I have less of an urge to kill him, but I really have a great urge to kill this girl. Yeah, well, again, you say kill it, but it really sounds like you're changing the way you are. changing your motivation and you're having a more enlightened approach. Again, part of what we talked about last week, part of what I'm proposing is that to fully express yourself is these precepts. In other words, my proposal is that not killing is a fuller expression than killing. And not stealing is a fuller expression of yourself than stealing. That's my proposal. So it sounds like, you know, with these precepts of praise, like not stealing, not killing,
[16:25]
Right? So it sounds like you're restraining yourself, but actually I'm saying that although it sounds like not doing something, what it really means, what it is code for is to fully express yourself. That these things that are, these things you're not doing are things which diminish your self-expression because the only way to fully express yourself is when you get resistance. So like a salvi wants to push me he has the impulse to push me, and he pushes me and I just fall over, well, that's something for solving. But if he pushes me and I don't move, then he can feel how much he wants to push me. Like he might want to push me enough so that if I fall over, that's enough for him. But if I don't move, if he pushes a little harder and I don't move, you might say, well, that's about as hard as I want to push. He might not want to spend his whole life trying to push me.
[17:31]
He might find out. But he won't find out unless I resist him so he can feel how much he really wants to push me. And to have a relationship with somebody who's there to resist you as their self-expression, and they're using you as a resistance for their self-expression to resist you. So there's something good here about the relationship between you two. There's some real opportunity because, you know, how much do you want to get him to think a certain way about you? Well, some. but not maybe too much, because he's resisting you. If, in fact, you could do certain things and he would have recognized and felt a certain way about you, then you could have manipulated him by being certain ways, and then he would do what you want him to do.
[18:40]
He would die? He might die, yeah. If that's the way you want him to think of you in a way such that he dies, but originally it seems like when we mean we want someone to think well of us, we don't necessarily mean we want them to think well of us and to show us that they think well of us by kicking us. We usually mean we want them to think well of us and as part of them thinking well of us, they would be friendly to us and supportive of us and that they would tell other people how nice we are and they would spread goodwill about us and be our supporter and, you know, be a benefit to us because that they really care about us. Now, some people, we behave in such a way, we present ourselves to them in such a way that, in fact, we are somewhat successful in getting them to like us.
[19:44]
But some of those people still don't, like, follow through on that and get everybody else to like us. But sometimes they do. There is some success on that. Sometimes we try to be a certain way, and we get somebody to like us, and... And we are sometimes successful. It does sometimes happen. When I was, I maybe told you this, my classic story, when I was eight years old, I noticed that there was a vacancy in the presidency of my class. My class had a president. But the post was vacant, so I decided to campaign for the position. So what I did was, I did what I thought the teacher would like. So I sat. My name's Anderson. I'm in the front row. I sat there. I crossed my, I put my hands like this on the desk, which was the most respectful way. Put your hands in sight. Boy's hands are in sight.
[20:47]
And they're doing something constructive or they're neutral. And then I looked at the teacher with rapt attention, adoringly. What a wonderful teacher. Within one day, I was made president of the club. However, although I was successful, I got bored being successful and started fidgeting and looking at other things, and I was removed from the position. So even when we're successful, which does happen sometimes for some people, some people are really good at it, of being the way, you know, guessing what the person wants and putting on that face, putting on that posture, putting on that voice. I made a reservation for dinner at a restaurant a while ago in St.
[21:51]
Helena. And a woman called me to firm the reservation. And I said, yes, we are coming. And this woman was so enthusiastic about this dinner. She said, it's going to be a great dinner. And the way she talked about it, I mean, it was like... She was incredibly, almost unbelievably enthusiastic about what a wonderful evening it was going to be. And I thought, now, is she that way all the time? Do they pay her to be like that? Do they hire her because she can talk like that? I mean, unless she's manic, she's not like that all the time. I mean, it was thrilling for me to hear what a wonderful evening it was. But more than that, I was deeply impressed by her enthusiasm about the dinner. Some people can do that, and actually that was kind of nice.
[22:55]
Actually, I kind of liked it. So some people get very good at putting on something for people, and some other people are not so good at it. But sometimes the people who are very good at it still aren't successful, and sometimes when they are successful, you know, that gets boring. In this case, it doesn't sound like you're successful. No. No. But basically success or failure, the main thing is not so much that you stop that, but that you be aware that you are being a way to get the person to feel a certain way about you and see if that's really your full self-expression. It might sometimes be your full self-expression. You might fully express yourself while trying to get somebody to like you. That might be possible.
[23:55]
And it might be more likely that you'd be able to do it if they don't, if you fail, to see if that's really what you want to do. And you could... I can imagine a Shakespearean play where somebody like puts tremendous effort into trying to get someone to like her or him and gets busted and tried all these different ways and they put the whole being into that. And what I'm proposing is that when you reach the place where you actually finally put yourself entirely into that selfish activity, you reach a place of selflessness because in the process you realize love. Because in order to fully exhaust your capability of getting this person to manipulate them and giving yourself entirely to it, in other words, fully expressing yourself,
[24:58]
they must push back. And you will realize that the only way you can fully express yourself is through the relationship. And you didn't fully express yourself by yourself. In other words, only with another can you fully express yourself. And this person, this so-and-so, is somebody who is drawing quite a bit of your energy, but I don't feel like you've given all of it yet. Well, you know, we got trapped in an elevator after I called him an asshole. And I thought Ruru was trying to tell us something. And I said that to him. I said, you know, I don't think there's any accident. I think maybe we're supposed to be in this elevator together. When I did not know it didn't move across the floor, they almost packed out on me. So after calling him a funding asshole, I had to sit there and be empathetic and try to stop him from passing out because I didn't want to do CPR on him.
[26:00]
And there were 30 minutes. I could imagine that he really, really was deeply hurt by you not wanting to do CPR on him. Oh, well, you say he doesn't know. I think maybe he could feel that she didn't want to do it. I was thinking when we were talking there that I should really make something like... Oh, it's getting really hot in here. Do you think there's enough oxygen for two of us? A lot of you have turned green and packed up. But, you know, I didn't want to do that. Would that have been full expression? Would it have been? I don't know. I think maybe. It might have been closer to full expression than what you did.
[27:01]
I don't know. It doesn't sound like full self-expression. I think you can do better than that. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Huh? You don't know? You don't know. This is just my opinion. This is just my opinion. I think you can do better than what you've done so far with this person. Okay? So we got this person who you tend to think of, thought occurs in your mind, flaming, right? This thought arises in your mind. This is a, you know, this is part of what you are. You have a thought like that. Okay? Okay? So there you've just used part of who you are. You're a being who can think a thought like that. Okay? That's part of who you are. But you have more going for you than that. For example, some of you have children, I guess, right?
[28:02]
You have children? Well, some people do, right? I have some children. It's possible for a parent to think of their child as a flaming whatever. But that's not the fullness of the person. They can possibly also be totally devoted to this person who they feel almost identical in terms of their behavior as you feel about this other person. But they have this other capacity called being able to love them while they're totally enraged about behavior X. Now, I don't know what your capacity is, but I think you've got more going for you than just I mean, anybody can think flaming asshole. And a few people can think, can say it. So you not only can think it, but you can have the courage to say it. But part of it, you've got courage, too, as part of who you are. You've got more than just the ability to think somebody's an asshole and to say so. You've got more going for you than that. Everybody does. I don't know what you've got going. But you have the ability, for example, to do something kind of accidental, something kind of surprising.
[29:09]
like something totally unexpected, something out of character, something that you would never be able to do if you were still self-concerned. There are certain things which we can't do as long as we're concerned for ourselves, but we can do them when we're not concerned for ourselves. That's part of our ability is to do these things. And these things which we do when we are no longer self-concerned, these are good things. Good things. Things that make us happy and make other people happy. Now, I don't know what that good thing is, because the goodness is not the thing. The goodness is that it's this fullness of your selflessness. or it's the selflessness of your fullness.
[30:13]
I don't know what that would be. It doesn't really matter what the thing is, but the thing will be not killing, not stealing, and so on. That's what it will be. It will satisfy those precepts, but it will be more than just not killing, not stealing, and so on. It will be loving and generous and so on. How does that happen? It happens through full self-expression. So you're, I think, you're setting an example and working towards that by saying what you feel to him. But, you know, you might be able to say something just as strong as calling him blah, blah. Just as strong, but in some ways even stronger, even fuller than that. When I was a kid, again, some of you heard this story before, I was playing tag or something with some boys.
[31:17]
How many people heard that story? Not that they don't recognize it yet? And as sometimes happens when boys are playing rough games, girls watch. And as we were running around, this one girl who was watching, actually there was more than one girl watching. One of the girls that was watching I really liked. Her name was Sandy Singer. But her father wouldn't let her be my girlfriend because I wasn't Jewish. But we were good friends with their family, but I wanted her to be my girlfriend, but she couldn't be my girlfriend because I wasn't Jewish. And anyway, but this other girl who I didn't particularly care for was sitting next to her, and every time I sort of ran by her, she'd go, I don't know how many times she did that, but eventually I kind of like got angry at her and ran after her to punch her or something.
[32:30]
She was, as they say, asking for it. I mean, why stick your tongue out at a boy who's playing tag with boys, right? So anyway, so I ran after her and she got up and ran away. And we lived in the country and she ran away and ran away and I ran after her and she ran and she ran way out into a cornfield that had been mostly harvested I caught up with her. I grabbed her. I pushed her on the ground. I sat on her chest. I raised the hand. But she resisted me. And I wish I could be there to remember how she resisted me. Now, you know, I had her totally pinned, so she wasn't, like, physically resisting, like, pushing me away. She had arms, my legs were on her arms. So she couldn't, like, put her hands in front of her face anyway.
[33:40]
All the way there was her face, unobstructed, ready to receive the punch to punish her for sticking her tongue out at me. But I looked in that face, and I put my hand down and kissed her. And then every day, from then on for the rest of the summer, we went out into the golf course near our house, into the drain sheds, and we kissed all afternoon. Eight-year-old kids kissing like for hours. It was really draining, tiring. And then she moved away. So we didn't get married. I hadn't lived happily ever after. But there was a moment there when she looked up at me, and I don't know what she did, but she resisted me. She didn't say, don't hit me. I don't know if she winked. I don't know if she said, this isn't really the point of what I was getting at.
[34:44]
Or I don't know what her signal was, but I just realized that that was not really the point. The full expression was to kiss her, and actually that was A full expression. And it was selfless. And it was good. You know? And I wasn't doing it to impress her or anything, you know? So I'm not saying anything, okay? That's little children, you know? Something else. But the point is that It was totally surprising. And I didn't understand what really was going on until that radiant moment. And it was a big effort there. And this thing happened. So, you know, hitting her would not have, I wouldn't be telling you this story if I hit her.
[35:51]
It would not be a memorable story if I hit her. It wouldn't have been a memorable story. Although I never beat a girl up before, I beat a lot of boys up. And that, you know, pretty much the same story over and over. But when it switches like that, that's memorable. When something, you know, she did something that the boys didn't do. She met me in a way that stopped me and transformed our relationship. Now, one fault of the relationship, I think, might have been that although there was not stealing and there was not killing, and I don't think there was sexual misconduct either, I think there was a little bit of lying because we didn't kiss in front of our parents.
[36:54]
That was maybe the dark side of the relationship. Um, it's a... In Joanne's case, I heard her say the same thing in Carmel. Same guy, probably. Same guy. And is it healthy, in your opinion, to be in sort of that type of relationship where she has a supervisor that she obviously can't get along with? Is it healthy for her to stay in that destructive, day-to-day, painful environment? Not necessarily. Would you not suggest for her to try to leave this first step? Not necessarily. I wouldn't say she should stay necessarily or leave necessarily. In Buddhist practice, in some kind of training situations which I get into with people where they sign up for a rigorous training experience which will push them
[38:07]
sometimes to the limits of... I don't know what they're familiar with, I might say. They sometimes come and say, well, I want to quit. I'm going to leave here. Sometimes in the monastery they want to get out. Get out of the confinement of the schedule and get out of the confinement of the valley or whatever. And I say usually, knowing that they came, willfully came into the situation, I say, well... I said, are you completely settled here and you want to leave? Or you want to leave because you're not settled? This is a different situation, but anyway. I'd say if you're completely settled here, completely at peace here, and you want to leave, then I'll support you. But if you leave before you're settled, I think when you get over the mountain, the next place you're in, if that's not comfortable after a while, you're going to want to leave there and always keep leaving.
[39:09]
Usually when I say that to them, they don't come back after they get settled and say they want to leave. Usually they want to leave because they're not settled, because they aren't at peace with being in that monastic training situation. And out of that lack of peace, they want to run away from the lack of peace. They want to go someplace where it's peaceful. They want to go into some kind of relationship situation where their relationship to their environment is more peaceful. So here they are, and it's kind of funny because here they are, like, you know, they're in one of the most beautiful places on the planet with loving people and a demand, a rigorous schedule, but one that they wanted to do and it's good for your health and a very nice diet. Not too many of them really are dying for a hamburger, but they're not getting there. But they're getting pushed up against facing who they are. And a lot of times that is like hell.
[40:16]
And they're going to meet that person wherever they go. That's usually what they're running away from is just their own feeling of what it's like to be aware of who they are. That's what it usually is there. And in some sense, you know, that's one kind of situation. And if they're settled, though, and you say, hey, they come back and look me in the eye and say, I'm completely settled here. I can stay here forever, but I want to leave. Then I say, fine. You have my blessing. Now, if they were actually being harmed, like if somebody's sitting in meditation and they're harming their sciatic nerve or something, they're doing damage to their body, Again, same thing. Are you settled with that damage? Are you settled with that pain? And you want to move now into a more reasonable posture? Yes. As a matter of fact, to ascertain that something's wrong with your physical posture in your yoga practice, you'll best do it when you patiently assess the situation.
[41:23]
And then as a result of that assessment, perhaps with help, you decide to change your posture or to alter your discipline or to give it up for a while. So the answer about whether it would be better to get a different job would come most clearly if there's subtleness in the situation so that you can see, I just simply want to go someplace else. It's not because I'm running away from the pain. I just want a different job. But Joanne has not yet come to the position yet, she hasn't yet seen she wants to get a different job yet, right? You haven't come to that place, right? Yeah, you want to get a different job. Yeah, so, but my advice to her would be, my advice to you would be, would be good if you could see that employment from the position of being able to be patient with the situation now sometimes you can't you do not have the ability to be patient with the situation so then you just can't do what i'm saying like let's say for example i don't know what let's say we're talking about water that's 110 degrees we have like for example we have a
[42:34]
bathtub at Tassajara, the monastery, that sometimes gets up to 110, sometimes 112, sometimes even higher. Anyway, for most people, 110 is not going to hurt their body. 112 is not going to scald you. I don't think, most people. But some people cannot go into 110 degree water and, like, feel what it's like as they go in. Also, cold water, unless you stay in it a long time, It's not going to hurt your skin, but put you in hypothermia too fast. But let's say it's in a safe situation, but where it's a shock to the system. It's not damaging you. Then can you stay present with what it's like to be you under those circumstances? And I would recommend why don't you try and see if you can settle before you leave it. And it's not going to hurt you.
[43:37]
This is not hurting you, as far as I can tell. But it would be useful if you could, like, seem to stay frozen in the situation. And then when you're in the situation and you're settled, then you want to leave. And again, usually when you get to that place, you don't, unless it's actually harmful. But I'm just setting up the example of where it's not harmful, but where it's a shock to your system, where it's a big change. A lot of changes are not harmful. So... The decision comes, again, the most enlightened decisions come from a situation where you're being challenged, where you're being resisted, or you experience resistance, because those are situations where it's pretty easy to tell, easier anyway, to tell whether you're running away or not. Whereas when you're fairly comfortable, it's hard to tell whether you're running away. And it's not even an issue usually. So we waste a lot of time in our life because we're in situations where we don't notice that we're not there.
[44:41]
You usually want to get out. And if it's a pleasurable situation and you're not present, you usually want to clink. So very pleasurable situations and very painful situations, the good thing about them is you often notice that you're not present. In the very pleasant situations, you notice it because you feel the pain of grasping and the fear of losing and you feel the greed. In the painful situations, you feel the anger or the fear or the wanting to run away. Anger, a fear of anger, painful situations do not have to give rise to anger and fear and wanting to run away. And pleasant situations do not have to give rise to attachment and the obnoxious feelings of greed.
[45:45]
They don't have to. And they don't when you are totally expressing yourself in those situations. If you're in a pleasant situation and you're completely there, you won't attach to it I propose that to you. For example, if you're in a pleasant situation, it doesn't enhance your keeping it pleasant to fully express how pleasant it is. Like, a lot of guys know this. If you're with somebody and you really are having a good time being with him or her, Sometimes if you say how wonderful it is and how enthusiastic you are about being there, sometimes they get turned off by that. Even though you're not telling them as an act of grasping, you're just telling them as an act of expressing how wonderful it is to be with them, they might construe it as greed and run away from you because they think you're attaching to them.
[46:55]
So if you want to keep them, it better not really be yourself. because you might lose him. Look cool. And then they think, he doesn't seem to be too possessive or, you know, it's not like trying to own me. You know, it's okay to be with you, but, I mean, you know, you've got your own life, you know, I'm not going to, like, close in on you and take over and get a hold of you and totally control you and own you. That's not my style. I just appreciate being with you and, you know, But actually, he's really not there. He's strategizing. And strategizing is not full expression. Full expression is to be stupid and say, you know, I'm totally nuts about you. And, you know, I'm so nuts about you that I'm even telling you. I can't believe it. I've never told anybody. I've never acted like just a fool with anybody before. And you're probably going to leave any minute now because I'm acting so weird with you.
[47:59]
But that's how I feel. And she very well will leave, or he very well will leave, because in fact you are acting like a fool. But the thing is, when you're acting like that, you don't care. This is not a strategy. This is selfless. And although they leave you because you're such a fool, you know, you're okay because you're not worried about the fact that you lost them. Matter of fact, you're totally... happy that you met somebody like that and knew them for a few minutes before you scared them away by being who you are. And you had a moment there where you were Buddha. And the fact that they were there for you to be that way and even that they ran away, their running away was their resistance to you that showed you, in fact, that you were still willing to be yourself completely without trying to get anything.
[48:59]
totally there non manipulative and in fact it also wasn't a way to impress them favorably or possess them or anything because that's not what you're into you're into enlightenment and being free of self concern and also showing it to somebody else who didn't like it even the Buddha was not approved by everybody some people didn't like the Buddha the way he was kind of like being himself. A few people. A lot of people did. But some people didn't. But the way that he was, although some people liked it and some people didn't, the way he was was he showed people how to be Buddhas. That's a difference. And everybody who is completely themselves shows people how to be a Buddha. Namely, this is who I am. This is why I came into the world. The world has brought me here. The universe has created me to be what I am.
[50:08]
And that's it. And I'm happy. And I'm ready to die or live whatever it would be. And you don't know what it will be in the next moment. You don't know the next thing you will do. Because you're not strategizing the next moment. You're just there, and by God, I'm happy. By God, I'm miserable. And it might be also that the person, you know, here I am being myself with you, and, you know, next week, nobody comes back to this class. Like, you notice, there's a lot of people where I thought, you know, Donald thought last week's class was really good. And I come here this week, you know, and nobody's here. I thought, you know, great class, but nobody liked it, Donald, except you, and you came back. But did you notice, not very many people here at the beginning. I thought it did cross my mind. Great class, but they didn't like us, so... So what? You know, I really don't care. But even though I really don't care, I also might feel like, gee, I really miss all those people.
[51:10]
I hate it when they don't come. You see the difference? You can hate that they're not coming at the same time. It's okay that they didn't come, too. Both. And I'm not going to change the way I do these classes to get more people. And in fact, if I don't, things might not work very well in terms of attendance. But I don't care because that's what I'm here to show you is full self-expression. And you're there, each one of you resisting me. You're resisting me so that I can express myself. Yes? What's your name again? Sarah? Okay. And Sarah's resisting me too. Yeah, okay, go ahead. Be attached to what I'm saying. So I have this Buddha and my experiences on wonderful occasions, but I almost immediately put them to the parchment grasping clothes.
[52:14]
I had made a complete fool of myself and scared somebody away, yet worked out the whole idea of noticing whether they can That's part of full self-expression, too, is to notice what happens, is to notice that they cringe or that they smile or that they run away. That's part of who you are as somebody who can notice the response that you get from being who you are. That's part of who I was, was to notice that, you know, there were only about 10 people here at the beginning of class. That's part of who I am. Now, some people don't notice. That's part of who they are. But I happen to notice. So who I am is to notice certain things. That's part of my full self-expression. That part of what full self-expression is, is to notice what's coming up. But another part of our capacity, as human beings, we have the capacity not only to notice what comes up, but we have this wonderful, you know,
[53:16]
wise wisdom that we can notice not only what comes up, but how it comes up. And the way it comes up has something to do with us. Everything that comes up has something to do with us. And the us that comes up has something to do with everything. We can not only notice what we are, what he is, but how they're interdependent. We have this ability. This is our wisdom that we have. We have to activate it by thinking, by training ourself to think about how, not just what's happening and do I like it or not, but how does it happen that I don't like it and do like it? In other words, don't miss an opportunity. Even though you meet a monster, don't miss an opportunity to study with monsters. Even though you meet an angel, don't just say, oh, angel, okay, and go to sleep. Say, angel, well, how did this happen that an angel came in? How come I feel like this with angels and like this with devils? It's so interesting. Not even so interesting. How is it? How is it happening that I feel so glowing with this person and so tight and ready to kill with that person?
[54:23]
Study, study, study. That's part of full self-expression. When you do a yoga posture or when you dance, part of full self-expression is to be aware of where your feet are and how, what it means, you know, to jump a certain distance rather than another distance. It's not just that you do things. You have the ability to be aware of what you're doing and to notice how it happens. This is the kind of relationships that are enlightenment and enlightening. And I, unfortunately, didn't stop the class in time for the more quiet type of meditation, but this has been meditation. Take my word for it. And please, you know, If you can, come on time next time, you know, on time by 7.30 so that we can start sitting together rather than dribbling in effect because maybe somebody could oil the door or something.
[55:27]
Try to come on time. Use the time as another resistance factor for your self-expression. Please. But still, better late than never.
[55:41]
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