Meditation and dharma talk at Mountain Cloud Zen Center:
Reaching awareness is about the realization that you will always be missing a perspective.
The ocean may look round from the boat and like a jewel from the shore.
The realization that we are foolish. How silly are our minds, our concepts, our worldview.
How we choose what we believe based on if it will fit into our worldview. Ex. rebirth
Follow what makes your heart expand. Its liberating to realize how foolish our minds are, racing around. Sometimes we end up thinking we are lacking, so we end up doing more and more to make up for this feeling of lack.
Developing a heart that can be ready for anything.
What we’re talking about whenever we engage in this practice…
The middle way between self- indulgence and self-denial.
Our suffering comes from:
— Grasping/clinging to pleasant experiences
— Resisting what is unpleasant
— When we believe we are separate
Its how we relate to what’s happening
– allowing the unpleasant to be unpleasant, take away the grasping, clinging, resisting
Sickness is part of our condition. If we can accept the fact that painful things happen, it allows the ability of being present, impactful, and supportive to those suffering.
So often, pain is the opportunity for the connection and the enhancement of perception.
We can develop equanimity through pain. When we are touched at the core, our perception can shift and we can see what’s really there. Its pain + resistance that causes suffering. Simply observe – to see it, to see it, to see it, to see it, to hold the pain. Then the mind gets tired and can’t be so aware and then the resistance comes back.
How can you be present, supportive, compassionate, empathetic in your own heart so you can show up for those who are suffering?
The quality of equanimity – this non-reactive heart.
Simply being with what is without the reactive quality – this is a great state of awareness to be in. It’s neither grasping nor resisting. It knows what’s happening without reacting to what’s happening.
Stability.
The ability to be with what is whatever that reality is. That quality is an expression of our freedom.
Let it be.
Seeing it all float by without reacting, this is the heart that is ready for anything. This is what we are cultivating.
Working toward:
— Being open to all forms of happiness, to have a rapturous response to pleasure then let it pass away.
— To see the goodness in ourselves and others, to treat strangers as if they are good friends.
— How do we relate skillfully to painful experiences? To really focus on this state of equanimity and non-reactivity, being conscious enough to not react, to say: these are just conditions.
You can’t force wisdom; it only comes at its own pace in its own time.
“Suffering there is, but no one suffers” – Buddha
This week: Pay attention to how you’re relating to what is pleasurable and to what is painful. Let the flow of events flow without entangling.