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.

You recognize: oh okay!
So you become resilient

to your own kind of judgment, you understand?

That's resilience. So you don't try to get rid of it.

But you kind of befriend it and it can actually be the

condition to have the "aha, that's why

I keep thinking like that, that's my mum!"

You know, "I can see it now!, you know like "That's

why I always want to jump in, to be the first one to share

because in my family no one listens to me" you know.

You have insight like that, it's the goal of why

we do all of this. And when you have that insight it's

Nobody can take it away from you.

and that is uh a real spiritual hapiness.

That's uh, you know, that's uh what

outside they don't teach and they don't have places to train and that.

And...

So this a kind of these things that we train in to be a mountain

to be fresh right? And these things have

to be trained. It's not the training that we got in the

last 30, 40, 50, 60 years.

Is in our family, in society, is kind of like a bit

imbalanced or kind of lit. I became very selfish

through my education and

professional, you know? Watching their budget,

my budget, our project, you know? And so you get

trained very differently. So you get kind of depleted

our spiritual, uh, our wholeness

our kindness, and so

and clarity, seeing things

and the nature of things. So when we come here we get to this

Look at him and to hopefully these other being

resilient, stopping having freshness and mountain

It kind of goes together that you begin to see clearly

things. Things more clearly.

Meaning, you recognize what's going on. "Oh this is craving.

Cool, I like it. I'm taking more then I need"

That's insight, you know? Or like "this is avoidance".

"Okay, this is judgement". So you begin to know

how to call things out as it is.

That is freedom. We don't

delude ourselves. And say "I'm a nice person" but actually you're very

selfish. You're like "whoa, actually I'm just kind of

greedy, because I want to be the nice person, the nicest person in the room"

And you call it out. He was like "that's greed actually, that's not nice"

You know? So anyway, these are all my experience right? So I'm, you know,
you find your own thing

But I have I have many realizations about myself and it makes me

happy. It's not like I become a better person. It's just now I'm kind of like

"Okay, I do that". And you, then, you become more

hopefully, more humorous about it. And that's where the resilience

come in. You don't judge yourself. You don't beat yourself up.

Well at first I beat myself up. I tried real hard and then I suffered really

bad... dug a hole, and then eventually had to climb up.

So I'll tell you, it's not always nice and dandy, like this.

It's progress and there's regress and then you go again, so

I don't want to promise you anything, because it doesn't work like that.

Each one of us would need to go through our ups and downs

I hope that's a, kind of like a disclaimer right? so don't blame us,

don't blame me. If you hit it this week, you know, you're supposed

to hit it.

And it's great to hit it while you're in a monastery, you know? because, you know

it's a, it's a good place to find out something about yourself.

That's hard. And I have to be honest

that, you know, I was so glad to be in community,

when you know. I hit my kind of like wall.

Yeah when you realize a lot of things all together

So here, we learn how to, you know, transform suffering

pain, whatever trauma, the different words for suffering.

Into lotuses or to recognize how they need each other

So we're not afraid of suffering, we're not afraid of irritation, not

afraid of judgment, not afraid of self-sabotage.

All of this stuff we call mud. Don't, the attitude is not to get

rid of it.

Attitude is to understand it.

And why is like that. The cause, you see.

So that uh-uh, then you become kind of like

not free from it but you kind of, kind of, you know, you found out the joker

you know, ahah "I know you've beein hiding out". An then you become

friend with it. And then you learn to have tea with it.

And then it doesn't bother you anymore. So it's not to get rid of it

to push it down, repress it and all that

but to learn to befriend or like our teacher would say

to cuddle it.

To learn and understand why

the baby cries and keeps asking for attention.

And when we're solid enough, we're fresh enough,

we have clear mind, we're free from being

like dominated by it, then that's an opportunity

to understand. So that's the basic

training we do here. And it's not easy. Things will come up because

you know we have to give ouselves some time, you know, there's 30, 40

50 years of training differently from our parents, from our

siblings, from our society, from our education, so

give yourself at least 50 years.

Yeah, come on. I was like, but it is all possible.

If anything requires some effort, some training, some

patience, some time, so that's something yeah

I hate to say this because, you know, it makes us want to achieve something

so that's where it's like, you know, there's a practice, there is a way

of being in the day that contributes to it.

Day by day. It's not like, I don't... we don't create an agenda

then okay after three months you get this, a year you get that.

So our practice is very organic and

some, yeah, sometimes, you get, you know, kind of surprises

which is wonderful.

So here we have hmmm

many practices to

create that condition for us

to return and to check in. Basically what is is, what I just share with you

that is the essence of why we do everything here.

Whether it's working, sitting, walking, eating, talking

interacting, avoiding, you know, hiding, whatever you do

is fine. As long you have those elements, okay?

I know I'm hiding. I don't like people, okay.

I know I don't like people, I'm going to my room.

You know mindfulness is not judgmental in that sense. It's like, okay

I'm going to run. I'm going to moutain. These people I had

enough. But outside is just a habit.

Here? okay?

Now and when you understand where it's coming from

and you're not disturbed by it, then you go okay, I'm gonna choose to

train to be there, right?

And so that's the choice and that's where the

retraining happens. And I had to do all of that. It's great.

I mean if you like it. If you... if you... I imagine that's why you're here

it's to check out who we are, some of our habits and to

see what is helpful and what is not. And so, when

we eat, we eat in silence.

Is to recognize the food and to enjoy

the meal. Because outside will rush to eat so the

habit of seeing meal is a, you know, just

to feel our stomachs so we can do our thing.

Here we recognize the food is a gift of those people

who cooked it, people picked it. So we learned to actually

it's a way of communicating with people who put energy.

The farmers, mother earth, the season, the sun.

So we retrain again to nourish our gratitude.

So each meal will begin with five contemplation to remind us,

to retrain ourselves, our attitude

and our approach to food that sustain us

water that we drink.

So when we eat, when we drink. It has that same atittude.

Like hmmm, cherish.

These things that keep us alive, that helps

and give us opportunity to practice okay?

So that's eating and we'll each will, will

serve in silence as well, you know, so it has

little bit of that contemplation and in the

monastery, the monks, the novices... we train

actually how to stand in line and mental thought

that we have, like "no, my stomach is empty"

I have a plate, a bowl and I'm about to get food.

So we conjure up all that gratitude and how

lucky we are to have a meal, to be standing in line.

So that's why we do things in silence. And when we serve

it's also nourishing. So we bring a new relationship to food.

Because it's such a prominent thing, activity, in our lives

so that's meditation as well.

And when we, we sit down, find a place to sit
and we'll wait and we'll begin

together and you'll see, just here

I shared the orientation stuff. You're not going to remember it.

But one thing you should remember is watch.

So you also learn to be in community.

We're always like, so like, in our little book, you know, we're always

you know in our little thing but, so we're also trained to

be aware what is going on in the room, what people are doing and

you just follow it, copy it. And why is that useful?

And when the kind of awareness, the mindfulness, that's also meditation.

You're aware of you're surrounding and that is

the most amazing thing to training in. You walk in the room

you sense the energy. When you go home, you have that

awareness. It's gonna help you with your relationship,
your children

your partner, your parents, your relatives.

You adjust, you see, it's pretty cool, so

when you're here trying to like

when you ask "What should I be doing?"
Don't wait for someone to tell you.

Try, intuitively, to figure it out.

That is the way to train in zen, you know?

Because we're so used to instruction and schedule and like what is it?

Procedures? Which is great! Yeah, we should be told, you know, what

to do, or not to do. But I just want to let you know, that the

underneath all that is - pay attention - where are people gathering.
There's a lot

of gathering in the monastery. When you hear the bell it's usually 15 minutes

before the gathering. Like "Where are people going? oh okay"

And then you go and you check it out. So that's a cool training.

I had to learn that, you know. And don't even look at your watch.

Listen to the bell. Hopefully the monks are invited on time.

But that's also I remember learning that not look at your watch