There are times in our lives when we feel all this pressure and stress
from daily life in the American way. The pressures of society, of
doing more, getting more, buying more, having more… it's quite
exhausting, really. They don't tell you that in the commercials of
course. But it's quite exhausting.
And so when we come together in this context to just stop and to
breathe, the first thing we might notice is it not necessarily the
peace of this present moment. What we might notice at first is how
much stress is in our body. How wired our minds and our thoughts
are. And that's ok, because that is the first step of stopping. It's
just to stop. And when you have all this momentum in your mind and in
your body, when you stop… it's still going on. And so by
stopping to notice that is the first thing we notice, that there's all
this energy and stress in our bodies. There's all these thoughts
flowing through our mind. We can just watch them like a waterfall.
And if we can just simply stop and watch these energies, these
thoughts, sooner or later watching them becomes… has the same
effect that watching a waterfall does... just a stream of the energies
and the thoughts going by. We're not attached to them. We just let
them be. Let them be like a waterfall. Let them be like the floating
clouds. For some of us we might feel like they are swirling storms of
clouds; maybe a hurricane or a tornado. But just let it be. And the
miracle of stopping and letting things be is that, without doing
anything except, except just observing and watching and being with
things as they are… they begin to slow down. They begin to
become more peaceful. They begin to transform.
That's the miracle of our practice. It's a very
Yin
practice. "Yin" is a Chinese word for that way of being which is just
resting, being. It's sort of the compliment to
Yang energy,
which is doing and kind of being direct about things. But Yin is about
receiving, about letting things be; the indirect way of
transformation. So in our society I think we really need to
reemphasize the practice of Yin energy. Not that Yang is bad, we need
both. But in our society we have become way too Yang. So much so that
we really do need to come back to Yin… come back to just being,
just resting, just stopping; allowing the transformation of the world
to take place by simply sitting and breathing, and allowing our mind
to just slowly rest — like a pebble dropped into the stream of
water and just slowly coming down and just resting at the bottom.
So during the first fifteen minutes of our sitting meditation you
might be… kind of feeling like it's like this pebble going down
and wobbling. But if you just trust yourself to this moment, entrust
yourself to who you really are here and now… eventually, maybe
at the twenty minute mark, you'll feel a glimpse of that sense of
stillness.
It is so imperative in our practice that we not only come together
once a week, regularly, and not only that we practice at home every
day, but that we from time to time come together for weekend or
weeklong retreats. It is so imperative because of the way we live our
lives in this society. We need those longer periods of time because it
takes that much time to let go of all of the stuff that we accumulate
from our western American way of life. So please if you… if you
have the ability to go to a retreat, to give yourself that treat;
please do so.
I'm going to be going on a retreat next week so I won't be here next
Sunday. But Michael Gott and members from the Center for Spiritual
Living will be here with us, to offer their support in the
practice. So I will be with you in spirit next week. And I am not just
going on this retreat for myself alone. I do it for your sake as
well. And you know over the last several months I've been noticing
that the stress level is accumulating a little bit in my body, a
little bit more than, than usual and it's time to see my teacher once
again; and to go to a weeklong retreat with him.
I went on a weekend retreat with brothers and sisters in the Order of
Interbeing which I am a part of in January, and it was such a
wonderful practice together with my brothers and sisters. My heart
just opened. And I shared that story several months ago. Maybe I'll
share it again some other time. It was at that retreat that I met a
wonderful younger Dharma brother named Jared from Los Angeles, who is
sitting here with me today. He's visiting me this week. I don't think
I've ever met a young adult that is so mindful and so caring. And that
makes me smile because I know there is a great hope in our world
today, in our generation today. And that you know in my generation
which I guess we call it generation X, you know, we were kind of,
rebellious and kind of confused. And I don't know maybe the next
generation which you are maybe part of called generation Y… you
know, can question the way things have been going and create the
change that is necessary.
Sangha member: "It's nice to know we baby boomers have it together though."
So whatever generation we are, we are always coming back to the same
thing, aren't we? Anyway I just remember the closing of the retreat I
stayed for an extra day so that I could just be in the retreat center
without a lot of people and just be quiet without a schedule. And
Jared was my roommate and so we woke up and we didn't say a word. We
just stayed in silence and we just did sort of miming to each other,
it's like you know… bow to each other. And then, I kind of made
the sign for like… you know let's walk over to the meditation
hall, so we can sit and then eat breakfast after… So we just,
wanted to just stay in that beautiful, noble silence together and just
practice. And so we sat and then we had water and then we had mindful
breakfast, and we shared afterwards with words coming from a place of
deep peace.
I also had a wonderful experience of just drinking that cup of water
with Jared; just seeing Jared drinking it so mindfully. I wanted to
drink that mindfully, too. So I did, I drank. I drank that one cup for
just fifteen minutes. And I had such an opening of my heart from that
drinking of that water. Just realizing that all the water in that cup
is one with the water in my blood, which is one with the water in the
oceans and the rivers and the clouds and the rain and… just
feeling, tangibly feeling, that oneness. Not just in my intellectual
small little ego mind which most of us operate in but feeling it in my
entire being, my body, the great mind of the universe that is
expressing as us.
Just having a Dharma brother so mindful is of such encouragement and
support. That's why we need to be here for each other, that's why we
can't just sit at home alone but that we come together to practice
together and offer ourselves to one another. Even if we don't know
each other by name or, or even talk to each other necessarily each
week. But our whole being is there for one another. And you don't even
know… someone might be sitting next to you and is receiving
your mindfulness and your loving kindness. And because of that,
there's an opening that occurs for them. Maybe when they get home. You
know, the practice… it… the result doesn't always get
felt right away in the retreat setting or in the evening
setting. Sometimes it's like a tree that bares fruit. There's
something going on that's growing, and then suddenly afterward
sometime it blossoms, or it grows, the fruit comes through. I think
that's what I experienced at the retreat. You know after all this
practice, and then after the retreat was over I spent this extra day
and then this cup of water was that moment where all the fruition of
the whole practice, not just of that one weekend, but of my entire
life coming together in that moment. Just a small little glimpse and
it was just so very beautiful.
So I want to say thank you to Jared, as my Dharma brother for being
there. And I'd love to ask you to share any of your own joys,
challenges, insights in the practice with us that you would like.
