Learning to Love Ourselves: An Orientation by Brother Phap Dung | #9

(bell)

How many of you have meditated before? Most of you

that's why you're here

So this activity of stopping and reflecting

is part of the human journey

right? it is an evolution of our species

we've come to a point now

where we're kind of conscious.
homo conscious

homo sapien. we're kind of

aware of our situation

so we're very blessed to have an
opportunity

to kind of stop and look at ourselves

and reflect

look at our situation

So hopefully this week stuff will come up

things will be revealed and you'll have some insights

that's what's wonderful about being human

that you're going to have
some moments of, aha!

Ok! (laughs)

so that's our hope for people

and our society

Find relief, is one thing,
finding de-stressing

is one thing

finding calm and peace is nice too

but the best is when you realize something

you have insight

so it's not just to stay calm and peaceful

because sometimes it won't be like that

in fact, it won't be like that forever

but the thing that is the most rewarding
and doesn't leave you

is when you have an insight

about yourself and about your journey

so that's what we do here in the monastery

the place for us to understand
our situation, our lives

our relationship, ourselves

as well as what's happening with the world

and so on. our relationships

So it's just a little kind of sharing
about what we do here

and my brother and I both we do it full time

so we're like professional
basketball players

you guys are visiting and
you're learning the game

but we do this as our lives

and we're not better than you

it's just that we've done it
a little bit longer

so let's sit comfortably, we'll listen
to the sound of the bell

just to take a moment

we've been on the road,
we've been on the plane

now we're sitting and just take a moment

and do a check in. My brother will invite
3 sounds of the bell

and you'll hear a lot of this

and every time you hear the
sound of the bell, it's just a check in

it's just to stop and check in

and one bodily sensation that you can
immediately return to is our breath

so right away you check in with
this in breath and this out breath

so you check in the quality of that breath

then you check in with your body

the breath helps us bring awareness
back to our body

so every time you hear a bell
or the clock chiming in the dining hall

or on your own even

remember it's to stop and just check in

with our breath, with our body

and if you stay long enough you can check in with your feelings

the sensation of your mind

how do you feel? if you're anxious,
if you're a little anxiety

you feel calm, so we train to
get used to that

so your week here

you should try to have more time
of this checking in

so my brother will invite the bell

and when you hear the bell

let the reverberation connect
with that reverberation

so we can close our eyes

and each one of us we have an energy

we also have a rhythm from
our bodily function

our heart especially
So we also have a rhythm

and our breath is a rhythm

so when you hear the sound of the bell
think of synchronizing

Ok? So our bodies sometime have tension

so with each in and out breath

we synchronize. and the out breath
you let go

out breath you relax, let go

so your body can help guide your mind

feel more at ease in your body

and with each sound.
my brother will invite 3 sounds

with each sound, the check in

checking in, we can feel the
quality of our breath

the quality of our bodily presence

embodying as well as our awareness
of our feelings, sensations

and just recognize it, whatever that is

breathing in, I enjoy my in breath

breathing out I enjoy my out breath

(bell)

we're gonna open our eyes just to check out there.

Anybody have a aha moment?

do you see, recognize something?

can someone... can share it? did you noticed anything?

I noticed my feeling yeah, anxiety and tension

yeah

where was it? around.. oh

wonderful... that's a... that's great

that's a aha. okay

why am I holding this fisk? anyone else?

recognize? anything?

yeah you see.. you recognize something?

just a situation that I can't control it

ahhh wonderful, yeah feeling uh

is it let it be? let it be, haha

thank you for practicing

so that's the, basically what we do here in the monastery is to stop and learn to

check-in with ourselves, society and the way it's structured out there

it doesn't really... it's not very conducive to uh you know moments like that

so it's not very productive. It's uh... we...

so you come to the monastery, you become less productive and more

I don't know what's the inverse of productive

is to...

can come back and stop and take care of ourselves

and recognize the wonderful things that are happening as well

so in a practice is to have pain, to have suffering, to have stress, to be overloaded

to be... burnt out. this is uh

you know that, that happens and to all of us. Even to us in the monastery.

But because we have community and we know how to practice

and we can also have recognized

that there are beautiful things happening as well and they can coexist

so you don't have to like, you know, heal or

have less suffering and then all of it gone

in order for you to enjoy being alive

enjoy being with... whatever you're having

so this, that's the

the practice... eventually you see that things are always dynamic, moving

and we become more uh, more

resilient, more able to hold it

so that's a quality what we have when we

become more stabçe. I call it being solid

like a mountain. So practitioner, one who learns to

stop and come back with themselves, they become at ease

with who they are. So they are not disturbed by when challenges

happen to them or when things don't go the way they it does

within their family, within themselves, expectation in society,

the way we react, our attitude is much more solid.

Much more stable.

And the more we give time to recognize the impermanence

the changes and the challenges and that the human drama

of being alive is there, it's part of it

so this is a way of

meditation and this practice here of stopping

of mindfulness helps us become more resilient.

We're not disturbed, we're more stable, more solid

so that's a quality that we can develop actually

so in meditation, in recognizing our breath, our mirror

in and out, we train ourselves

to be in constant awareness that things are always shifting.

You see the advantage why we're professional basketball players?

and then people outside don't train like that.

They think everything is permanent and things don't change

my loved one why are you different today?

How come you're so different? you're not the same person

I met before. Like what happened? You know you're not the same

person as 20 years ago. You know... so we are the

habit, you know, things are like that.

Because we don't have time to really reflect

on the nature of things

and our breath, moment to moment,

one feeling you have now, is not there anymore.

Just because you attend, you pay attention to other things.

So this is what we train in

to direct our attention and pay attention to

things.

And to also, hopefully your week here

you find time to pay attention to what is going well.

There's a lot in the news now, a lot of media about everything

going wrong and as a human species is a

weird mind. I don't think we're meant to be aware.

And specially, now with the internet, our mind is

not supposed to be aware of so many things

that are going wrong.

It's just like, you know every day you know

morning, afternoon, who listens to NPR here? yeah

oh gosh I had that habit every time I drive to work

in the morning, drive in the afternoon, it's the same news.

Do you remember that?

And it's constantly ah and then you're basically feeding

yourself.

Like this energy, this attention

to what is going wrong.

So our week here is to refortify ourselves

with freshness.

So the flower in us, we have a mountain,

but we also have a flower

right? So, freshness.

So wake up,

have a fresh thought, you know? Our habit

of grumpy and slamming the alarm is because

we have to work nine to five on a job that is tough

but we still have to do it but we don't allow

that kind of attitude to overwhelm us.

So we train to have, uh how these are

fresh thoughts and as a young monk, a novice monk

we learn these poems you know? When we open the door,

when we you get off the bed, you know our first gatha

we learn poem, four line poems that help guide our mind

to think fresh thoughts, wholesome thoughts

nourishing thoughts, joyfull miraculous thoughts.

Waking up this morning, I smile. I have 24

brand new hours before me

and I will enjoy it, yeah?

Something like that right? So you actually repeat that

right? When you wake up this is the training I used to hang

a leaf over my bed just to remember to do that.

There's one for stepping today. I will step and

if I inadvertently step on a bug

you know may it

be born in a place of peace

and so you raise compassion that

Today I will walk and I will create less suffering.

When you open the window there's another gatha.

When you turn on water so to retrain our mind to

recognize. It's like wow it's a gift to be born.

Our parents gave us this life and

eventually we have to return it back to the earth where

we, you know, we all came from right? Mother Earth gave birth to us.

And this awareness that you're listening to me, you understand what I'm going on

You have memories, things, it's like amazing

you know? as a human being like you understand

and I'm trasmitting ideas and you processing it and you're like

You know whatever, you know... you know, you're having your own conscious thought.

That's homo... sapien right?

Our ability to like wow, you know?

not only did we straighten our back and walk straight and feel a little proud

that we're better than the apes, maybe too proud?

Now we've destroyed everything but hopefully we become more conscious

meaning we also know what's right and wrong and what is helpful

and not helpful and what is more suffering and less suffering.

Hopefully that's where we're evolving. It seems like we are.

And we're being made to evolve that way in the last year or two.

And this a part of our evolution

to not see ourselves separate.

So freshness okay? Waking up and then creat that habit.

So mountain. So these are habits that we

training besides sitting still, touching peace,

feeling calm. These kind of typical things that we normally

associate with meditation, but those things are also impermanent

and can create a lot of suffering if you strive just for that.

So this is something you have to be careful about.

There's a lot of bad rep(utation) about meditation. It's because people are

seeing as technique to de-stress, to find peace, to find

happiness... so it becomes like a tool

like uhh, to to how to do a startup. It's like this

is how you get to peace and it doesn't work like that.

So here, yeah, we.. the way we approach meditation is

a whole way of being. A way of life. So that

happens right? When you wake up. So it's not in the meditation hall.

But it's an attitude, it's a whole way of looking at our place

as a human being. So it's a little more broad

than just the human drama, like when things don't go our way right?

So that's why kind of meditation fails. Because it's like in the

box of using it to get something and

we're in the zen tradition you know? And we say if you got it you

got to let it go. That's terrible. Like you

get it, you find peace and then you have to let it go.

Come on!

You know, Zen tradition is like that. As soon as you get it, yeah you

you know the saying? You find the Buddha?

Chop the head off. That's the tradition of zen.

And it means, uh, you know, even the object

of peace and happiness, and peace and calmness and

transformation, healing, all that. If you make that an object

to grasp, then you would just become

you know, uh, you're applying the same

thing, the habit, outside to meditation.

So freshness, mountain.

Qualities of how you move through the day okay?

And then, another quality that

pay attention to is, uh, our little uh, freedom, a little lightness.

Okay, are we free? So these are things that we can recognize

And then the fourth one is a kind of clarity.

These are qualities that we begin to

train and cultivate as a meditator, as a

basketball players dribble, shoot, they train in that and they

how many times they do it? like millions of times, right?

And here we train to be a moutain, that means, we don't get moved

by our emotions and by our paths and so on.

We recognize a whole, we become more resilient.

We're not afraid of suffering, we're not afraid of uneasiness

we're not afraid of someone irritating us

hmm boy I wish you could be a little bit more hmmm less you know?

Talk less talkative