dharma talk, Eric Kolvic:

The development of Wisdom:

Wisdom – Knowing what is true and knowing what is not true. Having that perspective. Helps reduce greed, anger, hatred, grief.

Buddah gave 84,000 talks in his lifetime.

Right understanding – wisdom
Right Mindfulness
…effort, concentration, speech, action, livlihood

Cultivating ethical conduct. Developing concentration through meditation. Ethical conduct is necessary for concentration. Once concentration is established, wisdom can arise. The mind infused with wisdom is liberated. Everything arises because of a cause. Everything is impermanent. Everything is unsatisfactory because it is impermanent. Everything is not self. You are nothing. But being nothing, you are everything. We often live an illusion. There is no separate self here. There is a lot of happiness that comes from wisdom. The happiness of a concentrated mind, of equanimity.

The experience of a-ha, an insight of understanding something in a deep and intuitive way. Deepening sense of a-ha – insight meditation.

Nirvana – experiencing unconditional reality, profound, peaceful, free from all trouble, bliss, uncreated. Permanent, stable, ageless, deathless, shelter, unassailable safety.

To get there, we have to pass through some insecurity, suffering. Its a passage. In every spiritual journey, there is a descent.

Dante died at age 56. Inferno.

Go through darkness before you go up. Destroys our world. Practice is insult after insult. The search for reality is the most dangerous undertaking. Its not an easy process. It destroys the world you know.

I don’t want to keep living an illusion.

Swallowing the River Ganges – book

Progress of insight takes us to high ranges of happiness. We come to experience equanimity, being at one. We also open to suffering and also to universal suffering. And it can be hard. Classic stages, progress of wisdom.
Denial
Disorganization
Acceptance, coming to terms with reality

Takes a certain amount of courage.
Build great strength of mind.

We come to experience impermanence. We see the momentary arising and passing of things. All of the security begins to fall apart. The world is out of control. Where do we turn to get the usual comfort? Creation and destruction continuously, everything vanishing.

There isn’t enough continuity for there to be a self.

The stage of terror. Even the ground doesn’t seem to be holding me up.

The stage of surrender. Deep acceptance. No longer resisting what is unpleasant. You’ll come through the hard stages. Its not depression at all. Its opening to world conditions.

Starting every morning by looking in the mirror and vigilantly saying, “Don’t be fooled today.”

Let’s not be fooled into believing we can avoid unpleasant experiences. Allow the unpleasant to be there and to pass when it passes.

Let’s not be fooled into believing that our actions don’t count. (even when people aren’t looking, they do). Because actions affect conscience and condition us to repeat those actions, to “steal” again or not. No one is exempt from Karma. Every action, word…maintaining integrity and self-respect.

Let’s not be fooled into believing our suffering comes from outside ourselves. It doesn’t come from money, houses, jobs, our happiness comes from how we relate.

What is the thing you fear the most? Do you have a heart that is ready for it?

Let’s not be fooled into believing our thoughts are real. Is it possible not to believe the judging, shaming thoughts (toward ourselves and others)? Then the thoughts can dissolve, lose their power when we choose not to believe them. The future does not exist. Obsessing with the future takes us out of the present moment. The past doesn’t exist – it is a construct of the past. Period.

Not to be fooled into believing that things are permanent. We have a sense of stability and permanence that simply doesn’t exist.

Opening to impermanence and change. Eric Kolvic marries people… “here’s a wish for you in your marriage, may you take refuge in your sanga of two. I hope you will never take for granted what can never be taken for granted. One day you will lose eachother. Perhaps this knowing will help you live together more fully in the present. Separation is only an illusion. No loss is possible.”