Connecting with Our Inner Community | Part One: Overview | Dr. Larry Ward

[Connecting with our inner community]
[Part One: Overview]

Greetings dear friends. We want

to begin a series that is

honoring of our nature in

the practice of meditation,
in the practice of stopping,

and looking deeply. And

this series is about a unique way

of looking deeply at our inner life.

And what I mean by inner life is

first that we have society

inside of us. We

refer to this and as our
land ancestors, our

blood ancestors, our spiritual ancestors.

I like to also say our ecological ancestors and

millions of ancestors we do not know personally.

Many years ago, I ran across a book written

by Joan Halifax called voices

of our ancestors,
and in this she was talking

about the the power

of stillness and stopping and slowing

down enough
to be able to hear what's inside of

us because what's inside of us is

always on and running. And

so we're not talking about anything
that has a entity

here. We're not talking about anything
that has an essence here

we're talking about
the flow of life within us,

and part of that flow is:
we were born already

with society and it's in our genes,

and in all that has been transmitted to

us since we've been alive.
Wherever we've been

in the world,
whatever our family situation

was like and whatever
has happened in our lives

as our lives have unfolded. So

this is really to enhance

our skillfulness in practicing with

ourselves. and some research

many years ago on a category called

self-talk, how often
we talk to ourselves in

the healthy way, and we

talked most to ourselves
more than we talk to other people.

And so it's important to know
and understand our own dialogue

with ourselves,
because it influences how we think,

and influences how we speak,
and it influences

how we behave. Another way

to say what this series is about:
it is about our

store consciousness, an

important teaching in Buddhism
and Thay has emphasized

a lot in his teaching. I want

to just read a couple of paragraphs
from the 50

verses on unconsciousness.

Thay's translation. In us

are infinite varieties of seeds, seeds

of Samsara and Nirvana, delusion,

Enlightenment, seeds of suffering, and

seeds of happiness; seeds

of perceptions, names and words;

seeds that manifest as body and mind, as

realms of being, stages and worlds, are

all stored in our consciousness. That

is why it is called store.

Some seeds are innate,
handed down by our ancestors,

some were sown while we were
still in the womb, others

were sown when we were children.

Whether transmitted by family, or friends,

or society, or education, all

of our seeds are by nature both individual

and collective. The quality of

our life depends
on the quality of the seeds

that lie deed in our consciousness.

So another way to describe
what this series is about is

just taking a pause and checking in on how

we're handling the seeds
in our conscience.

I try to do that every week

and just see what habit patterns,

what habit energies, what thought patterns

do I have to practice with as

life goes on, as I hear the news

as I see the news,
as I look in the streets of

where I live and around the world. What

happens inside of me? Because I

think it's important to understand that

- which we all have experienced -
whenever something externally

happens to us, something

internally happens to us also. And

learning how to navigate that,
especially in these

times of great pessimism

and doubt and fear and

concern for our planet

and for us all
it's important to be able to

bring the best of ourselves to

our appointment with life
and our appointment

with one another. We have no time

to lose in trying to be perfect.

We have all the time in the world
in the present moment

to practice. So this is about

that. Yes, we

have a solitary life, but

our solitary life can never escape the

society within. There's

people who talked for many years about
going on, going somewhere

to get away, get away from things
and discover that things

were with them when they got there.

It's the wherever you go there you are, and

that can be overwhelming. And so learning

how to be mindful and
practicing with whatever

seeds are rising in us
because of the stress in the world, or the

stress in our life, or the
shifts on our planet, all of

which are interconnected. It is important

to pay attention to.
So there's four stages

to the process.
We're going to introduce the verse

one is a stage of recognizing
and naming your

awareness of your current circle

of influence inside of you. These

can be family, blood

ancestors, land ancestors, spiritual

ancestors, mentors, friends,

and even sometimes strangers. These

can be human and non-human that

we can have benefited from an

encounter with their presence in

our lives. And in everywhere

I've ever lived, I found a tree that

could begin to have a relationship with
no matter what was

happening in my life.
And there I'd be grounding

the sit down and there I'd lie
down or stretch back, I'd

wrap my arms around [it].
That grounding that

is just there for me,
and I know how to do that

and so I'm just talking about
simple things that

we can do to empower ourselves
on our spiritual journey.

So the first stage is naming, getting

getting some sense of
the circle of energies

in people and beings and teachings that

are influential in us as individuals,

and observing how that
impacts our nervous system.

It's very - we already know [that]
what we think impacts us,

what we say impacts us,
what we hear impacts

us, and how we behave
impacts us as well, inside

as well as outside. And then

we will - next session will be
on the outer dialogue

with these energies and

the way I've been doing it is ask myself:

"What energy is most been most

present in me the last 30 days? What

push toward anything or what pull

toward anything has been most influential

in my pattern of living?"

And and then the next question is to

name that pattern, and then

next is to ask yourself:
"Is that pattern wholesome

or unwholesome or mixed?" And

what do you need?

What is the conversation you really
need to have with yourself that's

worth your precious time
and energy, that you can

give mindful attention to. And we have

these conversations with
ourselves all the time.

And that's only natural as

a part of the human journey
and then we'll look at what are the

characteristics and qualities of

what's been transmitted to us by the seeds

we've been paying attention to. And

this is really another way of
talking about what

Thay called "selective watering", right

effort, right diligence,
meaning: what do we

pay attention to?
Where do we place our mind? On

what do we place our mind

and our heart? And so we will scan

our circle, maybe pick the top three

that have been most present
in our energy pattern

over the last 30 days, and then

that will set us up for
the next session, which

is to discern. It's the session
on discrimination,

discrimination in the wise sense.

Wise attention to what

positive presence do

you need right now in your life?

It's like I know I can call on

the Buddha, I can call for a Thay.

I can call on Dr, Martin Luther King,

I can call on Gandhi.
I've had concrete experiences

with all these people
in one way or another.

And Gandhi staying in one of his huts
and then being in India

two years and his energy
was just about everywhere

because I was working in villages.

I made sure I paid attention
to that. And one

of my favorite trips:
to enter to the Village

I was on a bicycle, [there] was a statue

of Martin Luther King and
a statue of Gandhi side by

side. And that - that's

what I'm talking about. What will keep you

alive and thriving in this very

difficult external time. In

this very depressing external time. You

have to find a way which is

what for me the practice
is really important

right now about, is to find
the way to touch joy

and be touched by joy. And so one of the

ways I look at my own energy,

and my own energy patterns,
and my own inner conversation

or dialogue with what might

represent that dialogue, is:

is it bringing me joy?

Or is it only bringing me
judgment?

That's an a very important
distinction because

the transformation we require
in the world right now can

only be sourced from this experience of

the wisdom of joy. Joy

in the present moment and
throughout our lives...

Here together on this planet with

all these co-beings. And lastly we

will... I've

been trying to think about
how to describe this.

so it doesn't sound like a western model

of the Knights of the Round Table, but this is your

inner Sangha. You go through this process

and you want to choose
who you want to be on your inner

sangha. My

grandmother is on my inner sangha, my

mother's on my inner sangha, my father

is - but not so much - but he's there, and

Thay is of course and
I've mentioned others... one

of my early teachers in Christianity is

on - is in my inner sangha.

And for me, that means I can hear them

from time to time, things they said

that I remember. And it becomes

what - we call it
resilience - when a positive

memory comes. And

so if I want to have a
conversation with Thay,

or any other teacher or friend,

or Mentor, I can sit myself down

in meditation and in
five minutes visualize myself

with them, in dialogue,

in conversation, in silence,
and experience

the nourishment of
being in touch with positive

healing, transformational energy.

And so the inner sangha
is not a committee.

It's not permanent. Not like

nothing - like nothing is permanent. But

it is a peek into the moment

of what might be helpful in

recognizing your inner life as

a living thing, as vital,
as of importance.

Because whatever goes on
in our inner life spills

out into our outer life.

Thank you.