Dharma Talk: Living in the World with Your Heart Undisturbed | Dr. Larry Ward

(Bell sounds twice)

How wonderful to be together. Gesundheit.

That was Larry, with a sneeze.

Lets start out by getting here.

How was your day, huh?

Find your place on your chair right now.

Let's start out with a little bit
of vagal nerve connecting with

so maybe we can just
warm up our hands as we settle in

and how was our day?

Hello body.

I am here, and giving some heat.

And we're just going to rub our ears
and make little circles towards the top.

We're going to go both directions
but not pressing

but just breathing
and making a slow general circle.

Breathing, settling down.

Make sure you go both directions.

Feet on the ground for many of us,
and bum on the chair.

And then if you can pull your ears,

just not hurting them,

but just kinda a
general tug out to the side.

And all the while
just kinda rubbing the ears.

My mother had auspicious signed ears.

One of the signs of a Buddha
is these really long lobes.

The Vietnamese community loved my mum.

She didn't have to do anything
except have her ears,

so I always think of her ears
when I do this.

I didn't get the
full auspicious sign myself.

Yeah, so just rubbing those ears.

And let's go back
and rub our hands a little bit.

We're going to put our hands over our eyes
and do at least three breaths.

And then moving your hands over your jaw,
same thing, at least three breaths.

Kids I work with
call this the "oh my position".

But for us,
really feel the warmth on our jaw.

Then moving our hands to our heart.

Let's move one hand to the belly
and one stays on the heart,

with a tilting posture.

We're going to do that again.

At least three breaths over the eyes.

And just notice, what you might notice,
is your body settles.

And we can talk to our vagus nerve:
"Hello vagus nerve".

And then the jaw,
back to the "oh my".

And then the heart.

And then one hand on the belly
and one on the heart.

And then one more time,
hands over the eyes.

Just sending the energy of light,
of loving kindness,

giving your eyes a rest.

And then the jaw.

And the heart.

And then the heart and belly.

Then you might decide
you want to keep your hands there,

or just take them away just slowly.

I'm going to keep mine here.

And then we're just going to
do some more grounding, as we begin.

Aware of the vertical energy
that runs through our body, Earth to sky.

Aware of the mid-line of the body.

And just feeling like your your full height,
even if your seated,

like your head can touch the clouds.

Our hearts lift just a little bit.

Sometimes our shoulders
get reminded to drop.

And then aware of the horizontal energy,
the side-seams of our body,

the sides of our feet,
our hips, our shoulders,

and as you're breathing and tuning in,

this is what connects us
energetically with each other,

as we build a beautiful container,

connects us with people,
animals, plants and minerals,

and the miraculous beloved community
that came together in this moment.

And then aware of the depth of our body.

Helps me just to
tip a little back into my pelvis

and really connect
with the whole back side of my body.

Shoulders, spine, bum.

And now tune in to the whole body,
and the shape of the body,

the space you take in the room.

And then asking yourself three questions:

Do I feel safe?

And if you don't,
just softly open your eyes and turning a little,

so you can gaze in every direction.

Aware of the space you're in and safety.

Do I feel comfortable?

Your body will tell you.

Am I present?

And that's said again with objectivity,

not a judgement,
but am I here, right here?

And then invite your body to relax
and settle even more.

There's nothing you need to do,
no place to go.

(Bell sounds twice)

My pleasure to be with you
for the first time or more.

I hope you are doing well on this day.

I want to begin with a poem for you.

Stardust is falling,

falling on both the wise and the unwise,
the hopeful and the despondent,

and yet the forest
outside my door is smiling.

I remember now, how deep
the ocean of forgetfulness can be.

I keep being pulled away
from the present moment,

by my experience
of melancholy about the past,

or anxiety about the future.

I realize myself and my journey
to the bottom of this ocean,

forgetfulness becomes
a holy veil, removed.

I find the cave of the blue dragon.

I enter my feelings
of wonder and uncertainty,

that are there with me.

I advance in fearlessness.

Fearlessness, fearlessness,
on the Bodhisattva path.

This talk this evening
is inspired by the discourse on love

in the Plum Village chant book.

There are other versions of this discourse
throughout Buddhism,

but this is the one
in the Plum Village chant book,

which I will read to you now.

Anyone who wants to attain peace

should practice being upright, humble,
and capable of using loving speech.

They will know how to live
simply and happily,

with senses calmed,

without being covetous or carried away
by the emotions of the majority.

Let them not do anything
that would be disapproved of

by the wise ones.

And this is what they contemplate:

may everyone be happy and safe,

may their hearts be filled with joy,

may all beings live
in security and in peace,

beings who are frail or strong,
tall or short, big or small,

visible or not visible,
near or far away,

already born or yet to be born.

May all of them dwell
in perfect tranquility.

Let no one do harm to anyone.

Let no one
put the life of anyone in danger.

Let no one out of anger or ill will
wish anyone any harm.

Just as a parent
loves and protects their children

at the risk of their own life,

we should cultivate boundless love
to offer to all living beings,

in the entire cosmos.

We should let our boundless love
pervade the whole universe:

above, below, and across.

Our love will know no obstacles.

Our heart will be absolutely free
from hatred and enmity,

whether standing or walking,
sitting or lying down,

as long as we are awake

we should maintain
this mindfulness of love

in our own heart.

This is the noblest way of living.

Free from wrong views,
greed, and sensual desires,

living in beauty,
and realizing perfect understanding.

Those who practice boundless love
will certainly transcend birth and death.

So this talk, each talk organizes itself,
however it wants,

the same as like writing a poem.

So I just kind of
follow what's happening,

and this talk organized itself
in to twelve points,

so that was interesting to me.

And so I'll just get right to it,
with one overarching statement of context.

The kind of capacity to live in the world
with one's heart undisturbed by the world

is not a capacity of hiding,
it is a capacity of embracing.

Not only is the whole word a stage
as has been said before

but so is our own mind.

It's a whole stage:
that's the first point to remember,

and that I'm learning over and over again
to practice with.

When I encounter any form of media,
information, text, book,

any incoming data stream
in to my consciousness and in to my body,

which we need to remember

that our data streams
don't just impact our thoughts,

they impact our neurology,
our hormones, our chemical balances,

but what I have learned,
after realizing that

the information I receive
comes from a character on a stage

in that person's mind,
or that institution's mind,

and it's important that I remember

it is my mind meeting that mind,
and that mind meeting my mind.

Theater.

If you want to look in to
the deep teachings on this

you can look at
Thích Nhất Hạnh's master degree

on Yogachara Buddhism,

but it is, in summary it is,

nothing can happen
without our mind being involved

(Laughter)

in the process,

of what goes out or what comes in.

It's impossible.

It's also impossible to attain
some kind of purity in data.

When I was studying and learning
Sanskrit and Pali to translate sutras,

I learned that everything
that you're translating

has already been translated seven times
at least before you get it to translate.

And so many of us
look at words as if they're solid.

Our words are full of the universe
and can contain all kinds of energy.

The second point I want to make

about how I interact
with data, news, media

—and I watch the news, every day—

and it's a discipline for me
to listen to the world.

Part of my vow to myself has always been,

before I knew it was a vow,
not to hide from suffering.

Not mine, and not yours.

So every day
I take a journey around the planet

with the news I can find

and what I've been learning is

when I am observing someone else's voice

someone else's pain, celebration,
break through, breakdown,

presented to me in data form

it is a chance for me to experience
more knowledge about Larry.

So I know we've all be conditioned
to think we're listening to the other

but actually (Laughter)
we're listening to ourselves.

And so the first thing
about understanding

how to be undisturbed
with the world and it's nature

—of a moment of thicketed views,
cacophony of opinion in which we live—

is to understand it's all mind.

There's nothing solid there,
unless we think it is.

It is information: it is a flow of life.

And the third thing I've been learning
in light of that

is to be aware of my own agenda.

When I watch a news program,
or an update on there, or a documentary,

I have learned how to pay attention
to where that impacts my nervous system.

The music, the sounds,
the drama, the choreography,

whether it's a news cast
or a movie or a TV show.

I pay attention to how it impacts my body.

That gives me a lot of information,
and what I mean is:

is my aggression activated

when I read or hear
or see this information?

Is my immobilization,
is my collapse encouraged?

My body wants to just stop and freeze
when I hear this, read this or see this.

Do I want to fight?
Do I get aggressive,

when I encounter this flow of information
coming in to my frame of reference?

Do I experience peacefulness
when I receive this data?

—in my body that is.

My nervous system remains calm,
remains even, remains solid as a mountain,

even in the midst
of horrifying information.

So, to learn to be aware,

where what I see or hear
is actually my own voice,

my own pain,
my own suffering, my own confusion.

So in a question and answer session
with a Hindu master many years ago,

at the end one student asked
"what do we do about the others?"

And the master said: "what others?"

This is how we have to learn to listen,

not that
there's something out there,

disconnected from me,
that I have nothing to do with,

that I'm here to judge,
I'm here to evaluate,

I'm here to debate,
I'm here to argue with.

I was asked many years ago

—'cause my wife sitting here,

she may have
a different story about this—

but I was asked years ago

"why didn't we fight
as often as some couples?"

and I said because early
we realized we were both wrong!

(Laughter)

And we have trouble
coming to terms with our minds,

and by mind
I mean to include our heart energy.

In the Buddhist tradition
mind and heart are the same symbols,

at least in the Chinese version.

So this is called—for sutra reference—
practicing with the body, in the body.

Learning to practice mindfully
with our nervous system:

how it gets activated,
how we can soothe ourselves,

how we can calm ourselves,

how we can uplift ourselves
without harming ourselves.

It's just a set of skills.

Our ancestors had them,
they're already in our bodies.

We just need to remember

and to retrain ourselves
in our own genius.

Be aware of your own agenda
when you are listening to others.

No blame, no judgement, just awareness.

Be aware of what would be called
"the mind in the mind".

When you get this information,

whether it's watching
the January 6th Committee report,

or any other piece of information
following this year

in the US politically
and the years before it,

pay attention to

what seeds or impulses
in your consciousness

get activated when you listen.

I haven't got to a point
—where I tell you the truth—

I could not see Donald Trump's face
without getting activated,

but I knew I was being activated,

and so I decided

I wasn't going to
let that clown activate me.

(Laughter)

So we can master our bodies and our minds
if we decide to take charge,

and not just operate
out of our conditioning or reactivity.

Every piece of news,
every word or smile, or look, or sound,

can activate seeds of wholesomeness in us
as well as seeds of unwholesomeness in us,

as well as neutral seeds,
as well as memory capsules can open,

and sometimes they are beautiful
and blessed when they open,

and sometimes we remember pain and agony,
in our bodies and in our minds.

So understand when you—

when I'm listening, I am reading, I'm studying,
I am interacting with my own mind.

Third

—this is number six
if you're keeping a list—

is something I call society in society.

We have got to learn
—or I'm trying to learn—

how to look at society
from the inside out,

and for me that means learning to recognize
the patterns of our conditioning:

learning to recognize the assumptions
that we've been taught about how to live,

how to date, how to love, how to work,
how to pray, how to celebrate,

and be aware of those assumptions,

and then you can make a choice
about those assumptions.

But we are so wired for reaction,
we seldom, or not often, reflect.

I find myself learning to reflect,
to pause, to wait a minute

and not be in a rush
to come up with a response.

That's very important.

This is true
in your relationships as well,

'cause a relationship
is constant communication,

and communication's not just what's said.

This is the other thing to
—number 6 on sociality—keep in mind,

when you hear news
about your society,

societies of the world,

pay attention to what is said

but especially pay attention
to what's not said.

Pay attention to whose voice you hear

and pay attention
to whose voices you do not hear.

I saw a—

I had a memory capsule open this morning
thinking about a friend of mine.

We were working together in India
when the Peter projection map came out,

that actually showed
the true size of Africa and for

(Laughter)

hundreds of years people thought
Africa was the size of, you know, Connecticut.

(Laughter)

and that's information

that conditioned thousands of minds
about Africa and its value.

Don't mis-under estimate
any of these things.

That's why it's used in advertising

and people pay millions of dollars
to have people interact with our minds,

with their own intent.

So always have your agenda,
is what I've learned, and I keep learning,

always have your agenda.

I don't mean a fixed rigid thing,
I mean have an intention.

I decided to spend some time

listening to the interviews of people
who were just at the Wallmart shooting,

and I spend sever hours just listening
to this woman's agony and pain and tears,

and I could feel her experience
of not knowing how to be human again.

That lived the shock of what she saw

—she was in the break room—
hiding under the table.

The shock of what she witnessed
discombobulated her nervous system.

She could barely speak.

Her face was contorted,

and I could feel that contortion
inside of myself.

It was not unfamiliar to me.

So the more we can practice
media interactions,

whether that's a game
or a conversation or a movie

—all of which I enjoy—

or a book
—for god's sake I have too many—

I am learning over and over again
too about Larry's mind.

I'm learning what ideas I'm attached to

(Laughter)

and what ideas I never thought of.

I'm learning to pay attention
to the mind of the author

whose sending me this.

And as a person who likes to study
—it's just, I'm neurotic that way, but—

I learn the author's mind,
not just their words,

and so they become friends for me.

They become mentors,
they become companions.

And you have books or poems
or people in your mind space and memories

who do that for you too I know.

Remember them.

You know our brain is wired such,
is really hard wired such,

that we can have
a wonderful day for 12 hours

—wonderful day—

and one person, in one car,
with one gesture can ruin it.

Our brain is wired
to hold on to negativity,

and it's wired that way
as a safety precaution

(Laughter)

in case you meet that car again

(Laughter)

So, it's important
—in neuroscience we've discovered that

it takes, for every negative
unwholesome encounter a person has,

moment by moment,

it takes five wholesome encounters
to re-balance the brain

in terms of what it remembers
and how it's wired to respond to life.

So we've been taught
we shouldn't be happy, really,

we should strive to win, regret losing,
and not find joy in our lives.

If we do, there's something wrong with us.

So you must watch out for the context
of the information that is being given.

Whats the story behind this?

Think of every piece of information
as a visit to the Wizard of Oz,

(Laughter)

and you want to look behind the curtain.

We live in a world in which

spell-casters and magicians and goblins
all work on the Internet.

Hello!

You can make up anything
and get a group next week to believe it.

This is how disoriented
our minds have become

in terms of not being trained
how to handle information,

in what ever media form
that information may come.

You know society

—I heard a great quote
from Caroline Myss, a few weeks ago—

society used to change
at the pace of literature,

society used to change
at the pace of philosophy,

of theology,
of a new scientific breakthrough,

and now society is changing
by millions of opinions

gathered in a neural space online.

That's a big shift,

and we don't have a collective mechanism
for functioning this way.

This is why we experience
things being fragmented.

We don't—we're at a place
we've never been as a human race—

and part of this is just beautiful

because people around the world
are standing up for Iran

and they're not Iranian,

people are standing up
for the women and men in the streets

with blood and tears.

People are standing up
for the protesters in China,

around the world

and holding up blank sheets of paper
representing the desire for free speech.

So also

when you receive information and news
don't get sensationalized about it,

'cause that's a gimmick.

You know, it's like somebody says
"there'll be a train wreck at 12 o'clock"

(Laughter)

"on this corner"

and at 12 o'clock
there'll be hundreds of people there,

waiting to watch the train wreck,

whether a train comes or not.

We don't have time for that.

Remember to look at society
from the inside out.

What are the archetypes
that are operative in that society?

And if the rivers don't rise,
my grandmother would say,

I hope to next year

do some work and retreats
on the four core archetypes of Carl Jung

and relate those to
the hidden forces of social change.

The anima—animus.

Oh boy, we've got to miss

(Laughter)

we've got miss there.

It sounds funny until you see
young men everywhere killing people...

then you begin to recognize
the imbalance of that archetype.

We have destroyed the capacity
of some of these young men

to recognize their own
feminine energy inside

—if I can use that word—

their own soft energy,
their own kind energy,

and no training in how to handle
anger, or frustration, or fear.

Also we have to
take a look at the persona

(Laughter)

which really has,
in the last 25 years, become a business.

Now Hollywood left Hollywood
and came in to the house

and so now all of us are on TV,
all of us are on a screen.

We're all in the world
of flat screen consciousness,

and that means

everything on the flat screen
appears of equal value,

and it's not.

This is why discernment
is an important part of spiritual practice.

Not everything is worthy of
your time, you energy, your thought.

Use that for your own agenda,
for your own sense of purpose,

for your own sense of destiny,

for your own sense of healing,
and justice, and a better world.

Don't just waste your energy.

So I do look at
a lot of different news reports, on purpose,

but I make a conscious choice
I'm going to do that,

and some news reports
I'll only look at for certain reasons,

to get certain kinds of information.

Be selective in what you decide
to invite in to your mind:

the content
that will come flooding in,

the emotional energy
that comes flooding in to your mind.

And if you want to look deeply
in to a topic or an issue

because it's aligned with your vocation,
or your sense of work in the world,

or your purpose in life,
do so,

but look deep.

Look in to
the causes and conditions of these things.

You know, if one is to look at,
for example,

the reaction going on
in the streets of China,

the reactions going on in Iran

—and these are just two big things
we keep track of—

but this is going on around the world,
it's going on in Mexico,

and what is it
that's going on around the world?

People are rejecting patriarchal ideology.

That's what's happening.

If you want to know why men are upset,
that's why.

They're loosing their mind hold
over the planet; loosing a sense of power.

This is archetypal energy,
it's not just personal,

and so we have to work
at deeper and deeper levels

in order to reach places
where we can and are ready to heal.

A shadow, oh boy.

(Laughter)

That's a life of work.

That's my biggest critique of the world
based on my own experiences,

the most difficult thing is to admit
that we are not perfect, in a healthy way.

We have this,

what in Buddhism Thích Nhất Hạnh
liked to call the Self Esteem Complex,

where I am better than you
or you are better than me

or we are equal

or I'm up and you're down
or I'm down and you're up.

None of that is an adequate description
of the miracle of being a human being

so we have to just
stop being stupid about it,

if we are to understand our own wholeness,

at least in part enough to create
the nuance of wholeness our planet needs,

and then that journey will continue
through generations of course.

We're not the penultimate

(Laughter)

solution to things,

we're not saviors, we are adventurers,
learning how to navigate our inner worlds,

because I'm convinced learning to navigate
our inner worlds is the work of the future.

It's certainly the work now,

but is the work of the future,
we just don't know it yet.

We are creatures of 10,000 capacities,

and many of us live our whole lives,

if we're lucky enough
to live long in this world,

operating as if
we only have 10 capacities.

We get trapped in to thinking
everything is material,

and we forget it is not just material.

The universe is not just material,
it's also energetic—it is also energy.

Don't get trapped
in to the Newtonian paradigm

that everything is separate

and nothing really affects anything else
unless it's in direct physics.

Everything affects everything.

This is part of what
we're experiencing in the world.

That's why it's crazy.

(Laughter)

That's why it is
—we don't have a story to hold this.

We're in a place
we never imagined as a species,

over the last 200,000 years,

but because of the 200,000 years

we have within ourselves what we need
to take the next stage of evolution,

with courage,
which is what this is, people.

We are in a metamorphosis journey,
we're in the cocoon

(Laughter)

and trying to figure out
the next shape we are becoming

with no instructions that appear clear,

but there are instructions.

The first one is to, if you see some news
and it's not beneficial to you, ignore it.

That's what I do.

(Laughter)

If you see something,
hear something, read something,

that is beneficial to you,
take it to heart.

Make it a part of your practice,
or your journaling,

or your music, or your dance, or your art.

Make it a part of your life,

so that you continue
to be nourished by the good,

because we live in a world
of tabloid media as an art form,

we are presented
constantly, and daily,

no matter what we're talking about,
as extremes.

Just look at our language.

Later turn on the television,
and look at our language

across networks, across countries:

it is doom, it is savage, it is—

I'm talking about words used today
to introduce clips in the news,

and so learning how that word,
savage, doesn't get stuck on me.

It just goes straight through.

Learn what to hold on to
and what not to hold to,

when it comes to you.

So many of us actually have been
living our lives in extreme exhaustion

because we have been
carrying other people's anxieties.

You know it's like
the old joke about Atlas,

who's holding the world,
runs by you and says "hold this",

(Laughter)

and without thinking
you hold it and he's gone.

Literally many of us are just exhausted
holding other people's fears and anxieties,

and what we need to be holding
is each other's broken hearts,

and brilliant minds.

If we want to hold each other accountable
lets hold each other accountable

for a higher calling in this world.

There's discipline involved in how we, how I,
learn to read, interpret, reflect on, the news,

but I just don't ever
watch the news by itself.

When I get up in the morning,

before I even get out of bed,
I have a meditation I do.

It's about aging.

(Laughter)

So, before I put
my feet on the floor,

I don't forget who's
putting their feet on the floor,

and then I,
I have options,

I spend some time
just in listening to birds,

watering plants,
walking slowly on the Earth,

saying to myself
"Mother Earth, here I am".

Greeting this blue sky,
letting it fall on me,

'till I can feel myself
standing on the blue sky,

and standing under the blue sky
at the same time.

I study other people's insights,
teachings and learnings,

so I try to keep my mind as
—life long learner is a popular phrase—

across disciplines:
evolutionary psychologies, astrophysics,

Buddhist psychology, sociology,
anthropology, mythology.

All these things are of interest to me,
what can I say.

And it keeps my mind from getting fixated,

'cause at least once a week I read something
or I study something from someone else,

and it can be from long ago.

It can be Plato and his allegory of the cave
which I think everybody should read again,

because that's what we are experiencing
right now,

We've been conditioned so well

that we don't even know
we've been conditioned,

now that is skill.

And I don't mean somebody sat down
and planned this out.

I'm talking about a natural occurrence

that happens in society,
in any organization, in any group.

It's fine.

We just have to be mindful

that our minds and our bodies
are not separate from our social existence.

So many of us have been conditioned

to believe when someone
walks in to a grocery store

and starts shooting people

there's something wrong with them.

And there is.

But in order for something to be wrong
with them like that,

there is something wrong
with the rest of us too.

There's something wrong with our minds,

and how we condition ourselves
to be violent, how we glorify it,

how we worship it,

We're not much further from really just

(Laughter)

primitives,

unless we do the spiritual work
to learn to live without doing harm,

as our first response
to frustration, to fear, to being alive.

There's a word from
—I learned from my research training—

it's called, you may have heard,
it's called titration.

So whatever input you're going to get,
whether it's a book, a movie, a TV show,

a friend, a conversation,
take little bits at a time.

It's the old phrase:

"How do you eat an elephant?
One spoonful at a time."

When your looking,

especially some place
that your curiosity has been piqued,

don't give up your curiosity,
it's a very important quality of you,

but take a little piece at a time.

And the same if you want to look in to

the causes and conditions
that created suffering.

Know what you can handle emotionally
without getting re-traumatized yourself.

Okay. Take care of yourself.

Take things a little bit at a time
but take them deeply:

that's the difference in consumption,
in transformation with information.

Recognize your own heart and mind
in what you hear, in what you see,

and the more I work with this,

I realize this is how I'm learning
to practice with all phenomenon.

The bee, the bird, the tree, the fox:

I am learning to recognize what is there,
in a non-judgemental way: it's just there.

I had a great professor in my PhD work,
the name of Dr Lawki (?).

He passed away by now
but he was a stickler on methodology

and the one word he used in every class

—he wrote it really big on the blackboard—

was evidence

(Laughter)

and he says:

"don't turn a paper in to me
with no evidence"

(Laughter)

"I don't care what you believe,

I don't care what your teacher
told you to believe,

I want evidence for your thought,

and why you reached
the conclusion you reached."

Why you reached that view,
why you appreciated that practice,

explain, understand how you are interacting
and changing with all the phenomena of life.

So everything

—I met four small,
almost baby, doves today—

they were sitting on our fence
watching us

and I appreciated
their communication of safety.

They felt safe enough to rest here,

and so I was able to ask myself
"How's my safety meter today, Larry?"

and not being disturbed by a disturbing world
is the essence of the practice,

and it does not mean being indifferent.

It does not mean turning your head aside,
it does not mean hiding from anything.

It means fearlessly looking
at the whole of life,

and understanding that you
are at the center of it.

There's some great comments years ago
by Stephen Covey, coming to my mind,

to know the difference between

your circle of concern
and your circle of influence.

Those are two different things in his thinking
—and I heard about this a long time ago—

and the thing I want to remind myself
and you of:

that you're not just a circle of concern,
though you are;

not just a circle of influence,
though you are;

but you are a circle of energy
that can go in either direction.

Understand this about yourself:

You're not just a clump of matter

with the visitation from a train of thoughts
from time to time,

you're cosmic being,

and boy oh boy what would happen
if we started to act that way?

Think that way?
Care that way?

Approach justice that way,

and wellness that way,
and community that way?

We are cosmic beings.

We are manifestations of a reality
we don't understand.

We cannot even get our mind around,
and we don't have to.

All we have to do
is to learn how to be present.

Peggy and I had
the luxury of having breakfast

with Thích Nhất Hạnh one time
when he received difficult news.

This was a time he was still exiled
from Vietnam and could not return.

He had a family member pass away

and he could not go back
for the funeral ceremonies.

And we were with him
when the phone call came

and the information was passed on
to his ear,

and we watched his energy change.

He slowly got up, bowed to us,
and went out and did walking meditation,

slowing everything down,
calming everything down.

Stepping in the wonders of noble silence.

He came back in thirty minutes or so
a different person;

face different, energy different,

and Peggy leaned over to me and said
"that would have taken me six years."

(Laughter)

This is the benefit of practice.

This is why I do it every day.

It's not that I don't get disturbed,
but this being disturbed never becomes me.

You understand what I'm saying?

We were just in Minneapolis
a few weeks ago,

working with Zen centers
and Buddhist dharma communities there,

and went to the places of the riots
and George Floyd square,

and I cannot even think about that
without being activated,

but my activation
now moves me even more

in the direction of
'what does it mean to have a well society?'

Most of our language about everything
is prescriptive

and analytical and we're sick,

(Laughter)

and we have very little feedback
from our media,

from what we read and what we write
—most of us—that affirms our existence,

that affirms our right to be here
on this precious planet.

So when you interact with the media,

and when you interact with the news,
don't be taken at the flood.

The flood of opinion,
the flood of misperception.

You know it's like the women in Iran

and the people in the streets of China
and Colombia and France,

and you can go around the world,
are like they're waking up from a trance.

It's like one morning people woke up

and went "Hey, wait a minute,
this doesn't make any sense,

to live this way, to be treated this way,
to be harmed this way"

and so what is happening
is the world stands up

and people from everywhere
stand up for one another,

like we belong here together.

Places that think they're in power
are shaking.

It's like deer in the forest

that can tell a new wind
is already in the air.

So please my friends
put your energy in to the new wind.

I had what I thought
was an ear infection here

and a friend of mine took me
to one of his ear specialists

—a very funny Cuban physician—

who did all the tests,
cleaned my ears and everything,

and he said "you don't have an ear infection,
that's the good news,

the bad news is
you have something worse"

(Laughter)

and he started laughing
and so did I

and what he said was "you have, you know,

there's a bone in your ear
that's connected to your balance,

it's disintegrating."

So I thought, well,
that goes along with the rest of me

(Laughter)

so I don't have a problem with disintegrating,
that's why I'm here.

The question is, what do we emit?

One of the things
in the Yogachara tradition

is they talk about our energy,
and our words, and our thinking,

and our behavior perfumes the world.

The question is:
what are we perfuming the world with?

And more and more people
around the world are stating to realize

"You know, we don't like this smell,
this death, this violence, this horror,

this oppression, this rape,
this casual murder, this brutality.

We don't like it,
we don't need it, to be fully human."

We've somehow been convinced

that we have to guarded by giant gorillas
not to become giant gorillas ourselves.

That doesn't make any sense.

A new sensibility is in fact emerging,

and so when you receive information
hold on to yourself,

hold on to your precious soul and heart,

don't lose yourself,

because whatever the information is

—this is probably

the most uncomfortable thing
I realized about learning something—

whatever it is I learn
I will one day forget, permanently.

And that helps me from getting
too wired about stuff,

to uptight about things,
too fixed about things,

too extreme and certain about things.

The other wonderful thing
that I've been practicing with

as I go through the world we live in,

which the Buddha sometimes called
the world of a thicket of views.

We live in a world
of billions of opinions.

Now we have 8.9 billion people

and (?) most of us have difficulty
sorting the opinions in our own head.

To imagine that we can together
sort our way in to the future,

lead each other in to the future,
for me, is why were here.

It's why we were born.

This is our great work.

We will not finish it,
and we are not supposed to.

We're supposed to be the bridge,

so that our future ancestors

and past ancestors,
who are always along for the ride,

(Laughter)

can finish it too.

There's a discipline involved
in not being disturbed by a disturbing world.

And the most important part
of this discipline for me is silence.

I start the day by silence.

I start the day by listening
to the sounds of the world.

So I don't think I'm isolated,

so I'm in touch
with the wonders of life,

and then noble silence throughout the day,
just here or there,

taking time to stop running around
for whatever reason, and pause,

and as this happens

we become more and more
stilled in ourselves,

and that stillness in ourselves, that solidity
like mount Fuji within ourselves,

it's what we need
to transform our world.

It's what protects us
from falling in to hate,

as a motivator for changing our world.

Equanimity guards us

from using the energy of jealousy
in the hopes of changing our world,

or the energy of greed,

though all of these things
are in our own consciousness.

It is our skillfulness
in learning to recognize ourselves

that will free ourselves from ourselves,

and as we free ourselves from ourselves

we become more capable
of freeing each other.

In neuroscientific terms we become capable
of profound coregulation,

which is the ground of co-creativity,
which we are wired for,

we have just been convinced
that we are not, that we are only shadow.

I'm talking about the fourth archetype now,
the soul, wholeness.

We're not just this,
we're not just that,

we're the whole of life
in the present moment.

The tears I cried watching the women
march in the streets of Iran

were my tears and their tears.

And as I realized that
I went beyond cause,

I went beyond politics,
I went in to depth humanity,

and it's from this depth

—which we all...
it's a well we can all fall in—

is available,

but you have to develop a discipline

—and many of you have I know—

of nourishing this,
nourishing this, nourishing this,

but nourishing yourself

please minimize your judgement
upon yourself.

So many of us—there's a friend of mine
who wrote a book many years ago.

His name was Marty Selman.

It was on communication
—he was a super-salesman kind of guy—

and his research showed
that the average person

speaks to themselves
over two thousand times a day.

You talk mostly to yourself.

I talk mostly to myself,

so it's very important to know
who we invite to have a conversation with,

who we invite in,

and how we receive our guest
—in thinking of Rumi—

how we be the host.

And sometimes being the host
means to let things be.

You know this.

(Laughter)

Sometimes being the host
means to let things go,

and sometimes being the host
means simply to let things flow.

So we don't have to grasp
after information, images,

as the definition of our lives.

We endure our experiences, of our senses,
our sights and sounds, and movements,

of our body and our mind,
but we don't intend to be lead astray.

I want to end with a favorite poem of mine
that is connected

to what I think is the core practice

of not being carried away
by the world, suffering and craziness.

Pablo Neruda

It's called 'keeping quiet'

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still

for once on the face of the earth,
let us not speak any language;

let's stop for a second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines;

we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.

Fishermen in the cold sea
would not harm whales

and the man gathering salt
would not look at his hurt hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,

victories with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes

and walk about with their brothers and sisters
in the shade, doing nothing.

If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,

and for once could do nothing,

perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness

of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.

Now I'll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.

(Bell sounds four times)