Practicing the Heart of Healing part 2_2

0:00 In this offering in our series concerning exploring the heart of healing, we meet with Jack Kornfield, Ajahn Sumedho, and Ajahn Ananda. Report an error in the passage at 0:00

0:22 Ajahn Sumedho and Ajahn Ananda are both Theravadan Buddhist monks. They are both Americans. Ajahn Sumedho came East, as did Jack Kornfield initially through the Peace Corps. Report an error in the passage at 0:22

0:41 And both of them ended up in monasteries. Ajahn Sumedho stayed on as a monk, while Jack, after some period as a monk, left that path and has since become a householder with a wife and child. Report an error in the passage at 0:41

1:00 Ajahn Ananda was a Vietnam veteran. Following that, following, as he says, the hippie trail, found his way east and again was drawn to monastic life. Report an error in the passage at 1:00

1:23 In this presentation, these men present examples of the way in which they have worked with suffering. For example, Ajahn Sumedho talks about malaria, really extreme sickness, and how it became a teaching for him rather than merely a suffering to be born, but a vehicle for growth. Report an error in the passage at 1:23

2:03 And then he discusses what is really one of the most incredible teachings that I have heard, which involves the nature of the relationship to his teacher. Report an error in the passage at 2:03

2:18 Imagine having a teacher whom you revere, who speaks such great wisdom, who has guided you and cultivated in you all these qualities, and you feel such gratitude. Report an error in the passage at 2:18

2:32 And then the teacher has a stroke. And loses faculties, movement, faculties of mind, so that he's no longer that being anymore. Report an error in the passage at 2:32

2:49 And yet he is. And a teacher who at one point you just touch his feet or just honor him, suddenly your wiping is behind and taking care of him. Report an error in the passage at 2:49

3:05 What changes does that take you through? Where does the wisdom lie? Was the teacher less because he lost it? Report an error in the passage at 3:05

3:19 Or was that just another teaching? And Report an error in the passage at 3:19

3:25 Ajahn Sumedho and Jack and Ajahn Ananda all have dealt with great pain and great attention and great growth to this experience when Ajahn Chah, their teacher, had a stroke in 80 or 81. In Report an error in the passage at 3:25

3:58 this tape you also get a further understanding about the Way in which one can deal with limitations or suffering in such a way as to grow from it. Report an error in the passage at 3:58

4:15 Jack refers to Daniel Barnes. Daniel is the person who created this entire series. It came out of his mind and heart. And he spends his waking hours in a wheelchair. And Report an error in the passage at 4:15

4:44 I have noticed that He has heard these teachings because the people around him experience the light of his being and his infirmity and disability has just strengthened the truth of his spirit. And Report an error in the passage at 4:44

5:28 it's the experience that Daniel has had in learning how to use his disability to his own advantage from a spiritual point of view. That has motivated him to want to share these teachings with you. Report an error in the passage at 5:28

5:50 Because when you look at another person that's suffering, you think, what can I do? What gift can I give? What can I offer? Report an error in the passage at 5:50

6:02 And what more can you offer than that kind of understanding that ultimately when an individual has it, they become free of suffering no matter what their condition. Report an error in the passage at 6:02

6:26 For the Access Group and for me, it feels like incredible grace to have the opportunity to share the teachings of this series with you. Report an error in the passage at 6:26

6:43 It's a gift that we have received and that we share. Report an error in the passage at 6:43

6:53 And through the network of human hearts, we just pass it on from heart to heart. Report an error in the passage at 6:53

7:07 I'd like to begin this day by introducing Ajahn Sumedho and Ajahn Anandho and myself, Jack Kornfield. Some of you I know from previous retreats or practice, some not. Report an error in the passage at 7:07

7:29 Daniel Barnes, who many of you know, who is somewhere here sitting, where's Daniel in the back, the man in the wheelchair, has been the inspiration for setting up this series of events through the Access Group. And Daniel has been a counselor on the AIDS ward in San Francisco for four or five years and been very much involved in healing work and working with people with AIDS and also to some extent with Buddhist practice through various retreats and working with Stephen Levine and Ram Dass and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 7:29

8:12 Recently, Daniel went to Europe to a conference in France on AIDS and stopped in England to meet and visit Tanajan Sumedho and Ajahn Anandho. Report an error in the passage at 8:12

8:25 And while he was there, felt both inspired somehow by the teachings and I think saw some connection between the situation of his own life in a wheelchair and the lives of the... People that he'd been working with who were either disabled or ill with AIDS or some AIDS-related condition. And the monks. Report an error in the passage at 8:25

8:50 Daniel, as far as I understand, can't get out of his chair and lie down to go to sleep without someone helping him. Is that right, Daniel? Report an error in the passage at 8:50

8:59 And by the monk's discipline, one is not allowed to eat any food. You can't keep food overnight or prepare it. And you can't eat anything unless it's placed in your hands, in your bowl. If someone offers it to you in the right time of day, before noon, when you have your bowl out, and generally these monks eat once a day, then you can eat. Report an error in the passage at 8:59

9:22 And if it's not, then you wait for the next day. Report an error in the passage at 9:22

9:28 Also, the monk's life is celibate and obviously chosen so and part of that way of simplicity, monks and nuns as well. And somehow Daniel had a sense in being there that the limitations of his own life and of the life of many of the people with AIDS or people with difficulty that he'd work with and the life of the monks was actually not so far apart and that perhaps there would be some useful kind of dialogue that was possible especially seeing that the monks had chosen those limitations to not have sexual life or to live in a very simple way or to not be able to even eat unless something was put in their hands. Report an error in the passage at 9:28

10:19 And so that was part of the inspiration for setting up this series of events. Another piece, equally important, is just the recognition of how many of us are touched, really all of us are touched, by what's been happening with AIDS over these years. And at first it's, you know, one person or two people or you hear about it over some years ago and it felt like it was somehow a little bit distant. Report an error in the passage at 10:19

10:53 And then I think for anyone who knows very many people, especially living in the Bay Area, it gets closer and closer until it becomes obvious that it's not someone else's issue. And it's not someone else's concern or problem, but it really is the fabric of all of our bodies and our minds and our hearts and our lives. Report an error in the passage at 10:53

11:16 And I know for myself, coming today and this morning, I don't have some big program or plan. I want to listen as much as to share the things that I've learned in my own spiritual practice and teaching and so forth. Because I do feel that we share this all together somehow. And it seems important to acknowledge and to make a place to... Report an error in the passage at 11:16

11:47 To be silent with and to speak with and to share and to look at the kinds of healings that can come from the depth of Buddhist practice and its tradition and see if there's anything that's of use or nurturance out of that for this that we share together. Report an error in the passage at 11:47

12:09 Also, Daniel Report an error in the passage at 12:09

12:15 was saying that in some ways the community of People with AIDS and AIDS counselors and so forth is a somewhat insular and isolated community and has been over some years, partly out of necessity, out of self-defense because the society at large around has been so terrified and so fearful and so angry and so blaming. Report an error in the passage at 12:15

12:42 And in some ways it was Daniel's hope and mine too that that cocoon And that isolation not remain so much, that somehow it all be shared among us all as it truly is. And that to bring together people from a mixture of backgrounds and communities today would in itself have some intrinsic value. Report an error in the passage at 12:42

13:10 I guess I just want to repeat both my happiness at being here and introducing Ajahn Sumedho, Ajahn Ananda. And that sensibility that we all, just as we all share birth together in life and sunlight and air, that for whatever reason at this time we also share a coming to terms with and a process of understanding and healing about AIDS that is true for each one of us. Report an error in the passage at 13:10

13:49 That we are all connected through this rather than separated by it. And that's what I see our business in coming together is really to try to understand this in ourselves. So thank you. How Report an error in the passage at 13:49

14:11 I like to teach, if you call it teaching, is through reflecting on life. And so anything I say here is merely a reflection. I don't... I have any intention of trying to kind of tell you what you should do or straighten out your life or tell you what the score is on any issue so that merely these are reflections from my own mind which I share with you. Report an error in the passage at 14:11

14:44 Now I'm just painting a picture really for you to reflect on of what life is for any of us whether you're Report an error in the passage at 14:44

15:05 you're alive are, I'm trying to paint the whole, to kind of give you a perspective on what being born as a human being really means, at least to me Report an error in the passage at 15:05

15:21 culture we live in, of course in America, it's a very Life-affirming country and culture. And it reinforces the sense of being an individual and a personality, very much so. So sometimes we lose our perspective on life. We no longer feel that we really belong to a universal system or to God or to the whole of anything. Report an error in the passage at 15:21

15:51 We feel isolated and separate by our identities with our body. With our perceptions of life, with our feelings, with the things that happen to us. So we fix, we identify with the body, for example. How many of you really believe that because your body is masculine or feminine that you are a man or a woman? Report an error in the passage at 15:51

16:21 To even question that seems stupid, doesn't it? In American terms, to say that Because our bodies, they're either one or the other, male or female, then, of course, we identify with that. And all the perceptions around, cultural perceptions that we have around masculinity, femininity. Report an error in the passage at 16:21

16:46 When we reflect on this, then we begin to see that the body is as it is, having been born. It grows up, gets old and dies. That's the way for all, all bodies, all beings. That the condition of masculinity, femininity is present. Report an error in the passage at 16:46

17:08 But when seen as it is, it no longer becomes an identity. We begin to free ourselves from the blind attachment and the reactions we have to grasping masculinity and femininity. Now apply that to every other. Perception you have of yourself. Whatever you feel you are or should or should not be or whatever. If you begin to examine that very feeling, that perception, you begin to see it only as something separate from you rather than what you really are. Report an error in the passage at 17:08

17:48 Now the being born as a sensual being means that we are very much involved with a continuous impingement. ...on us for a lifetime. Having a body like this with sense organs in it, having eyes, ears, nose, tongue, a sensitive body, the whole thing is sensitive. Life is all sensitivity. Having a form like this being separate from each other, like in this room, we all appear separate from each other, and we're all being subjected with... Report an error in the passage at 17:48

18:29 Impingement on, right now, you're being subjected to sound impingement from my voice. We all feel heat or cold with the body, or we see, we look, and there's a subject object. Like right now, I'm sitting high on this throne. it's a drone. Report an error in the passage at 18:29

19:00 Jack feels more like a precious vase on his plate. I feel more like a sitting duck. Report an error in the passage at 19:00

19:10 That's Report an error in the passage at 19:10

19:22 only a relative perception. Now Report an error in the passage at 19:22

19:37 the sensory experience is one of continuous irritation. Interception Report an error in the passage at 19:37

19:45 That we have through a lifetime. The sensory consciousness and this whole experience of existence as a human being is a continuous irritation. Now this is a reflection. And when you contemplate it, you realize that we are always under irritation of some sort. Meaning some kind of agitation, some kind of impingement on our senses unless we're unconscious. Report an error in the passage at 19:45

20:13 But in being conscious beings, being awake and being conscious like this, we are always going to be impinged on by something or other. When the impingement becomes minimal, we feel very calm and peaceful, like on a meditation retreat. One tries to establish conditions where the impingement on the people participating in the retreat is minimal. Report an error in the passage at 20:13

20:39 Or more subtle, less strong. If you go into, say, a battlefield of war, well, then impingement is maybe at its worst, where the sounds are explosions, horrendous explosions, and what you see is blood and guts being splattered all over the place, and horrors that one is experiencing through the senses. Report an error in the passage at 20:39

21:04 And, say, that's an example of sensory impingement at its Most gross, most coarse, most violent way. Ultimately, refined sensory impingement in Buddhist terms is the state of neither perception nor non-perception, which is so subtle, a consciousness on so subtle a plane that most people aren't aware if that ever happens to them, they don't realize it. Report an error in the passage at 21:04

21:35 Most of our life is just... impingement that we find now just kind of ordinary experiences of daily life most of our lives they hopefully for most of us will be just on this plane of ordinary neither extreme on on either end but just this way Report an error in the passage at 21:35

21:58 painting this picture the human condition, what we have to put up with and bear with. Report an error in the passage at 21:58

22:11 In American terms, we are encouraged, conditioned from birth. Suggestions are made to us all the time that we are, that everything that happens to us is personal. Everything is taken personally, is made into a personal achievement or personal failure. I've noticed with even like Americans who become Buddhist monks, which is a very kind of Report an error in the passage at 22:11

22:42 Fine thing to do. I mean, they're obviously not kind of selfish, gross sensualists to become a Buddhist monk. But even then, Americans tend to feel very guilty just about feeling hunger for food. Report an error in the passage at 22:42

22:59 They take hunger as a kind of personal ugly trait they have. So sometimes I've seen American and Europeans Americans and Europeans trying to conquer hunger, fasting and trying to stop this terrible greed and this attraction towards, sometimes they bring beautiful meals to us. You know, people have prepared lovely food. Thai people love to eat. They love their food and they're very good at cooking. So they make everything very beautiful, very tasty. Report an error in the passage at 22:59

23:34 And then they present it to you and then you feel this attraction to it. Report an error in the passage at 23:34

23:42 And so you take it personally. I'm a greedy person. I'm a hopeless monk. Report an error in the passage at 23:42

23:53 We're reflecting on it. What is it? It's a natural force, isn't it, of being of a sensual experience. What is attractive is the body's hungry and the eye sees and the odor of good cooking and so forth. All this is the attractive force. One is attracted. Now that is a reflection on just kind of the ordinary experience of seeing food when you're hungry, when the body's hungry. Now one can make a personal problem about it, saying, I shouldn't be greedy for food. Report an error in the passage at 23:53

24:25 I've been a monk 20 years now. There should be absolutely total indifference. Absolutely, you look at it, it's just nothing. You see it as muck. Report an error in the passage at 24:25

24:40 But when there's real mindfulness, it is what it is. It's still attractive. The odor is, the fragrance is still there, the aroma, and the inclination towards it. This is just the way things are. With sexual desire, what do celibate monks do? Report an error in the passage at 24:40

25:05 What are their practices? Some people have the strangest views about us. We're doing all kinds of unusual things. But this also is like sexual desire is a very physical, instinctual desire. So it's to do with the body, on the plane of just instinctual desire. Then we can make a personal problem about it. Report an error in the passage at 25:05

25:34 It becomes like sexuality in America. To me, anyway, this is how I see it, tends to be taken very, very personally, magnified, exaggerated in every possible way into something very, very personal. And so it becomes a problem and complicated because it's never seen clearly for what it is. It's always out of perspective. Report an error in the passage at 25:34

26:04 When a monk reflects on the sexual nature of the body, you're actually admitting. That there is this. This is a natural feeling, a natural drive, energy within the human experience. But it's seen as a reflection. We're looking at it as something that, because of our vows of celibacy, we can in no way act on. But it is admitted, it is acknowledged, and it is accepted in consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 26:04

26:37 So that the instinctual drives of human existence are seen. As natural rather than as personal. You see what I'm doing? We're trying to put things in their proper place so that we have a perspective. If sexual desire is always personal, if hunger for food or attraction to the beautiful or repulsion towards the ugly and all this is taken and constantly reaffirmed in a personal way, life becomes very, very complicated for us. Report an error in the passage at 26:37

27:08 Life can never be simple for us. Everything tends to be distracting or upsetting or personally irritating or threatening to us. And so because of this, you see in affluent Western countries, I've lived in England now for 10 years, and you see in a country like that where people have identified for so long with material values and with strong cultural views and personality. Report an error in the passage at 27:08

27:39 And personality problems are so much so common there. So many neurotic personality problems. So much suffering. The amount of suffering you see in affluent western world is enormous in countries where the standard of living is so high. Where people have so many options, so many opportunities, so many alternatives, so many rights. Report an error in the passage at 27:39

28:08 The amount of emotional suffering, despair, depression, suicide, drug addiction, all these are the symptoms or the signs of this personality view that has taken us totally out of context so that we become isolated, lonely, lost individual people rather than Buddhists seeing things as they are. The whole, the nature, the natural way. Now in the Thai language, the Thai culture is a culture that grew, actually developed from its contact with Buddhism. Report an error in the passage at 28:08

28:52 So just ordinary Thai words are very Buddhist, very Buddhist words. So their word for nature is dharma, or dharma as it's generally called here. Dharma is a Buddhist word meaning the natural way, the way things actually are. Report an error in the passage at 28:52

29:15 And so in Buddhist meditation, we are opening our mind in this reflective way to observe the natural way, the way things are naturally, rather than the way we are conditioned to perceive them. Like you are conditioned to perceive yourself as a personality. Report an error in the passage at 29:15

29:37 If there's AIDS, then you perceive yourself as a person who has this AIDS, or perceive yourself as gay, or perceive yourself as whatever. These are conditioned into the mind. These are from a cultural setting, suggestions, values, attitudes that are conditioned into us. Then when we attach to these perceptions, These perceptions are, and of course they're always unsatisfying to us. Whatever you say, even if you think you are the best, you're the purest, the most righteous, the most gifted person in the world, you'll still find that a totally unsatisfactory experience. Report an error in the passage at 29:37

30:28 Arrogance is suffering, in other words. And if you think the opposite, you are scum, worthless, useless failure. Suffering too, isn't it? Any position you take, any perception you attach to is going to take you to a feeling of discontentment, despair, depression, because that's the way it is. Any attachment to something that is not really yourself, that is something only conditioned and dependent upon other conditions, that is always subject to change, as long as you are... Report an error in the passage at 30:28

31:10 Unawakened, unenlightened to the dharma, or to the way things actually are, your life will always be a kind of suffering. Always be some kind of suffering. You'll always be threatened by life. To have a personality means you'll always have to be, that can always be damaged, isn't it? If I'm identified with being a certain person, I have to think about it. Even identifying with being a Buddhist monk, Or being an abbot of a monastery, being a teacher, being whatever. Any attachment to those perceptions always brings me the experience of suffering. Report an error in the passage at 31:10

31:55 For example, if I attach to being a head monk, abbot, and I start holding on to that perception, I begin to feel threatened. Report an error in the passage at 31:55

32:08 I have a natural kind of feeling of... I'm an abbot and people expect a lot of me and they've got to live up to their expectations and I'm responsible for these monks and I've got to see that everything goes right and make sure that this happens and that happens and my duties and myself and of course they write nice things about you and I think that's nice but they don't know how hard it is to run a monastery. Report an error in the passage at 32:08

32:35 They already, I'm suffering. Report an error in the passage at 32:35

32:41 One heedless grasp of that perception already, the abbot is a suffering being. Report an error in the passage at 32:41

32:50 But then some of the monks see the abbot as the privileged one. They say, I can hardly wait till I can be an abbot, so I can sit on the high seat and talk to all the people and ooze out words of wisdom all the time. Report an error in the passage at 32:50

33:11 Get invited to important functions. On the television. So the attachment to being an abbot or being a disciple, attachment to being a man or a woman, attachment to anything is the experience of suffering. Report an error in the passage at 33:11

33:32 So today, it would really be, what I would encourage you to do is to really reflect on your own attachments, what this really is an experience. Now in the Now we're faced with a changing time where we have to maybe come to terms with life more profoundly than we've ever had to before. Report an error in the passage at 33:32

34:01 That the AIDS scare we can see either as a blight and something that is a great tragedy and a misfortune and just regard it only in a very negative way. We can take it personally. If one has a disease, it becomes a very personal kind of failure or threat, life threat. Or we can actually, by changing our attitude towards it, begin to learn from it, observe it, observe the way we think, what we're attached to, so that the quality of our life begins to change from a frightened, miserable, threatened human being To a wise one. I was invited to give a talk last October in London. They had a British Holistic Medicine medical conference. Report an error in the passage at 34:01

35:00 British Holistic Medical Association had a weekend conference in London. There were about over 400 people. And of course this drew from all different groups. From all the kind of alternative medicines. Traditional medicine to faith healing, psychic healing, the whole range. Every possible healer, I think, was there. Report an error in the passage at 35:00

35:31 And both on the allopathic and the homeopathic and alternative medicines and so forth. And the thing that I was most impressed with Well, the general attitude that seemed to reign at this conference was the fact that the lifespan of a human being, it's not terribly important how long that is, whether one lives a long life in terms of years. Report an error in the passage at 35:31

36:04 But it's the quality of life that we need to emphasize. The quality is the important thing. How we live, how wisely we live, what we learn from... The lifespan we have, the experiences that we have in life, how wisely we learn from them, how we relate to them and respond to life as it impinges on us. Report an error in the passage at 36:04

36:31 And that was the emphasis. Where, say, medicine, the medical field before has been very much kind of obsessed with extending the lifespan of your body. Report an error in the passage at 36:31

36:44 Almost an absurdum, isn't it? Where you just, you know, to keep a body pumping away even though it doesn't seem to be conscious. They do. One of the nuns in Amrabati, Swiss woman, was a nurse, professional nurse in Switzerland. And she was telling me about in Switzerland how they try to keep bodies, human bodies, just pumping even though they know they're never going to become conscious again. Report an error in the passage at 36:44

37:19 It's because the doctors have this sense of this fear of failure, that somehow death is a failure to them. This was what she saw from her experience. And now we can start reflecting or considering maybe that whether one lives a long time is not terribly important, not important at all really. It's how well, how wisely one lives and how one responds to the experiences one is having. Report an error in the passage at 37:19

37:55 This is, I see, is most important as far as I'm concerned. I don't really care how long I live. And this body lasts for 50 more years or dies tomorrow. It doesn't seem to me to be terribly important. I'm not asking for a long life. But the quality of it, as a Buddhist monk, I can say the quality of it is very good. Report an error in the passage at 37:55

38:20 It's a life that one has opened me up to life, allowed me to examine and look at it and learn from it, to investigate, to contemplate it, to open to the mystery of life, the mystery of the universe, to have a truly sense of oneness and wholeness with that mystery, to feel that life is worthy. It's not just a bad joke or a cosmic accident, like I used to think. Report an error in the passage at 38:20

38:59 In one way, it's wonderful. And even the most tragic experiences or painful experiences that a human being can have can be transformed into enlightenment, if you're willing to do so. Can be the very experiences that awaken you to the truth. Rather than destroy your happiness, make you a failure and ruin your life. And I've seen this with people. Report an error in the passage at 38:59

39:29 Last year we had a nun die from cancer at Amaravati in England. And she was only about 43 years old, Thai woman, Thai lady, and she had terminal cancer. Report an error in the passage at 39:29

39:52 But the quality of the last days of her life, the quality of it was amazing. It was so amazing, the way she died, that when her Thai friends would come to Amaravati, and they were all upset, terribly upset, the fact that she was dying of cancer, and they'd say, how is she? How is she? If I had just been to see her, I'd say, oh, she's wonderful. Oh, she's getting better. Report an error in the passage at 39:52

40:22 It's going away. No, no, she's dying. Then they look confused because getting better and wonderful do not apply to dying in most people's minds. Dying is horrible. Death is terrible. It's frightening. It's like a personal failure, a tragedy. These are how we regard that experience, which we all have to face, no matter if it's Today or 50, 100 years from now. So the quality is the important thing. Report an error in the passage at 40:22

41:00 And this, I think, would be a good thing for you to contemplate and to reflect on. This strange experience of human birth and what that involves and what being sensitive really means. Like all of you. are involved in a lifetime of sensitivity. We create suffering, in other words. That life is always going to be sensitive in this form, because it's a sensitive form. The human being is a sensitive form, and we have consciousness and sensitivity for the span, in this separate way, for our lifetime. Report an error in the passage at 41:00

41:55 However long or short that might be. And that an enlightened being is not one who's becoming sensitive. Not trying to stop being sensitive, but being fully sensitive. And so meditation, as I regard this in Buddhist meditation, as the way of being truly sensitive, rather than trying to desensitize yourself. Report an error in the passage at 41:55

42:23 Because life tends to seem so painful sometimes, doesn't it? It can be so painful, so threatening, so saddening, so full of anguish and despair. Even in the best of lives, you meet people, very successful people in London, who have so much despair, even though there's nothing really wrong in any kind of external ways. Report an error in the passage at 42:23

42:50 But just the experience of This whole sensitive experience from birth to death, if we take it in the wrong way, we make it into the experience of suffering. Everything is suffering then for us. Now when we open ourselves to the suffering that we create, we begin to let go. We begin to no longer create suffering. So then there is the sensitivity, the openness, the joy. Report an error in the passage at 42:50

43:24 The compassion that flow from that openness. And that is the fulfillment to me of a human lifetime. That is the perfection of a human lifetime. That has nothing to do with worldly values. But it is the potential. I want to suggest this. Put this into your minds today. This wonderful potential we all have for the perfection. Report an error in the passage at 43:24

43:52 And perfection doesn't mean becoming something perfect, but in seeing things clearly, understanding life as it really is. I Report an error in the passage at 43:52

44:05 think I'd like to stop there. At Report an error in the passage at 44:05

44:12 this point, rather than adding a lot more words, what I'd like to do is to move into doing a bit of meditation practice. Report an error in the passage at 44:12

44:23 This is a little bit from the poet, the Indian poet Kabir, who is a... Wonderful teacher and poet Report an error in the passage at 44:23

44:37 and saint. He says, I laugh to hear that the fish in the water is thirsty. You don't grasp the fact that what is most alive of all is inside your own house. And so you walk from one holy city to the next, from Calcutta to Tibet, with a confused look. He goes on. If you don't break the ropes while you're alive, do you think ghosts will do it after? The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic just because the body is rotten, that is all fantasy. Report an error in the passage at 44:37

45:15 What is found now is found then. If you find nothing now, you will simply end up with an empty apartment in the city of death. Report an error in the passage at 45:15

45:25 But if you learn to make love with life and the divine now, In the next life you will have the face of satisfied desire. Now that's not exactly Buddhist, but the monastic tradition is not one for making love, so to speak. But the first element in any of the trainings in a monastery or an ashram or for anyone undertaking a spiritual practice in the East is simply to learn to quiet oneself. Report an error in the passage at 45:25

46:02 To take some time in our life to reflect as Ajahn Sumedho has been saying and to listen a little bit if Report an error in the passage at 46:02

46:13 we want to come to terms with the world of the sense input or if we want to pay attention to our own bodies to what needs healing, what needs accepting, what places we fear, what needs nourishment. Report an error in the passage at 46:13

46:34 Or if we want to learn about the heart and the places where we get attached or where we put up barriers, where we've been wounded and closed ourselves, we Report an error in the passage at 46:34

46:47 want to connect with the life around us, with the sunlight or the sounds, the sense impingements that make up this earth that we're born into, the first thing necessary is just to live a little bit more in the present. Report an error in the passage at 46:47

47:05 It's that sign I talked about to those who know me from the casino in Las Vegas that someone took down and put in their therapy room. It says on it, you must be present to win. Report an error in the passage at 47:05

47:22 And it's true in Las Vegas and it's true in therapy and it's true in our spiritual life. And so the very first obvious piece of practice and really It's what can bring us together, what can connect our hearts and our minds as well, is just to stop waving our arms so much and just let ourselves sit quiet. Report an error in the passage at 47:22

47:48 So if you would sit in a posture which is comfortable for yourself and find a way to sit comfortably and yet relatively stable where the body is straight so the breath can be open and free with a minimum of movement. Report an error in the passage at 47:48

48:09 Just so that the physical body itself is allowed to get still. And Report an error in the passage at 48:09

48:18 then when you're ready, if you would, let your eyes close. And let's let the meditation, allow the meditation to be very simple today. Report an error in the passage at 48:18

48:36 First of all, before even engaging in any reflection, just to sense what's present, to feel the fact of having this body. Sitting on the floor or the earth, to Report an error in the passage at 48:36

48:59 feel the movement of breath in and out of the body, to Report an error in the passage at 48:59

49:08 be aware of places of tightness or holding, the shoulders, the eyes and face, the hands, and Report an error in the passage at 49:08

49:25 to begin to practice letting go, to relax and soften, which Report an error in the passage at 49:25

49:34 is to allow ourselves to be present. Report an error in the passage at 49:34

49:47 Then to bring your attention To stay for a bit with the breath. There may be other things, there'll be sounds in the background or thoughts and memories, various sensations that arise. Report an error in the passage at 49:47

50:06 But as the first part of the meditation, just to feel our life's breath, like fish in water, we live in this sea of air. Report an error in the passage at 50:06

50:18 To feel the coolness, the tingling, the movement of the belly and chest. Report an error in the passage at 50:18

50:28 Without interfering, just to listen to that movement and Report an error in the passage at 50:28

50:35 let go of the past and future, a way of settling and stabilizing the mind and the heart, of bringing ourselves into the present. Report an error in the passage at 50:35

50:53 Let the breath do what it likes. It can be fast or slow, even or shallow. Simply to notice and use that awareness to come to rest in the present moment. Report an error in the passage at 50:53

51:33 Of course the mind will wander off to various places and sounds and images. When you notice that be aware of it and for now gently come back again bringing the mind and the heart and the body together again for a few moments with the breath. Report an error in the passage at 51:33

· · · silence, 1 minute

52:33 Use the breath as a place to concentrate and stabilize the mind to bring the mind and body together. And each time you get pulled off or away by pleasant things or unpleasant, just let them go for now. A Report an error in the passage at 52:33

52:57 place to practice letting go and come back simply to the experience of the breath and the body. Report an error in the passage at 52:57

53:27 Sounds come and go in the background or thoughts arise and pass and various sensations. Report an error in the passage at 53:27

53:37 Let yourself come back again and again. To the simple knowing in this moment, the breath, the sensations in the body. And Report an error in the passage at 53:37

54:07 as we sit and get more silent, we become able to listen more carefully, become Report an error in the passage at 54:07

54:21 able to reflect and observe in the stillness. Report an error in the passage at 54:21

54:30 Let yourself be aware of your whole body seated here. Report an error in the passage at 54:30

54:45 What are the places of tension or tightness that you find? Report an error in the passage at 54:45

54:54 And what is there to learn from them? Report an error in the passage at 54:54

55:13 What are the places of pain or discomfort or holding? Report an error in the passage at 55:13

55:24 And what do they have to teach? Report an error in the passage at 55:24

55:39 What is it in the body that has not been accepted that needs, that calls for our loving acceptance? Report an error in the passage at 55:39

56:16 What is it in the body that calls for our greater care and compassion? Report an error in the passage at 56:16