-
...Right? Be aware of that.
-
So when you're doing it,
-
when you're not conscious about it,
-
what you're doing is you're grasping it.
-
Your deep insides are saying,
"I hate this."
-
Very quietly, but "I hate."
-
But if you're conscious of it,
in that moment,
-
you look at a famous person,
-
you look at them from a place
of openness.
-
You have to look at the image,
-
because the image is where you're storing
that information and emotion.
-
You look, but you're trying to look
from a different place
-
You're reprogramming it
you're restructuring it.
-
You are healing the relationship.
-
So if you look with that openness
to that same image,
-
At some point that image will
have different meaning for you.
-
It will not carry the same meaning.
-
If you look at it in your own body,
-
if you look at it in your health,
probably the same thing
-
You know, wherever the cells are in
your body
-
producing a kind of disease,
like a cancerous cell,
-
if you look at that, if you're being
aware of that in your body
-
aware of yourself, the whole aspect of
yourself,
-
it will begin to give different
information to the rest of your body.
-
And therefore, that information
helps begin to restructure
-
your biological conditions.
-
It is what we believe, how to understand it's going to happen to the body.
-
Reproduction of cells, like cancerous
cells, the same principle.
-
That's how the cancerous cell knows how
to reproduce the cancerous cell.
-
It will do wonderful thing if it
forgets one day.
-
And it's producing some new cell.
-
Probably that's what happens
if the deep pattern of identity
-
it shifts something inside you
-
It shifts what it brings in the body.
-
So the principle here is
-
the power of openness and awareness
is able to change things
-
in our body, able to change the way
we identify ourselves,
-
it's able to change the way we relate
to the world,
-
it's able to change everything.
-
That's why it's called vision, it's able to
cut those things.
-
So that's a bit of explanation.
-
Any questions?
-
I'm happy to see that many European
people are staying up really late.
-
They are participating with us.
-
So any questions?
-
Do you think that in openness, there's a
possibility to maintain curiosity?
-
Curiosity? Yeah, and there is some degree
of curiosity in ourselves.
-
And there's also curiosity on some
survival level, you know
-
I'm curious to know what I need, and
so on.
-
Curiosity has a lot of playfulness,
-
and you cannot have playfulness
-
if you're not open to it.
-
What we use, what we say,
we are serious.
-
That's what happens in a relationship,
when people are very serious
-
in a relationship, that is the beginning
of divorce.
-
[laughs]
-
They are curious about each other? Yes.
Too curious about each other.
-
They are not that curious, they are very
open to each other,
-
that doesn't mean
loyalty and things like that.
-
There's some sort of sense of openness
-
and that brings a lot of playfulness.
-
I was in a place in a country
where people are usually serious,
-
and I was making a little joke, saying,
-
"How are you going to be a little more
playful here?"
-
So how are you going to be a little
more playful? Of course,
-
first thing, you kind of have to go
inside yourself, wherever this
-
seriousness is stuck. You have to go
to that place inside and loosen that up.
-
You have to feel some confidence.
-
I think that confidence is clearly a key
to be playful.
-
So if you're confident that you can be a
bit more playful, if you're playful you
-
can have humor, and you can have
curiosity in a good way.
-
If whatever you're curious about is
not showing up, you're curious
-
why it's not showing up!
-
Rather than feeling pain that it's not
showing up.
-
You're open to every direction.
-
So yes, I don't think openness prevents
anything.
-
Openness makes life richer not poorer.
-
Openness is the source of knowledge, more
than the knowledge we conceptually know.
-
There was a study in Netherlands about these
-
executive people making big
decisions about a big company.
-
The research was based on, did they make a
better decision when they're taught alot?
-
Or did they make a better decision when
they didn't think much?
-
The conclusion was, they made a much
better decision when
-
they didn't think much.
-
So of course, people who think a lot,
-
they believe we have to think.
-
we have to think to not to think.
-
But, some sense of these practices call
for a direct path.
-
Direct path means you don't have
to think about it.
-
You can just be aware of it.
-
Any other questions?
-
We have a group of people in Brazil
who we've met with before,
-
they're asking, "Please, what do you mean
by the essence of sky?"
-
[laughs]
-
[he repeats the question.]
-
First, when I say essence, the sense
or meaning of essence is "the truth"
-
the truth of the sky, the truth of the
phenomena, the truth of the mind.
-
So in some sense, the essence of sky I
mean, the truth of the sky.
-
So what is the truth of the sky?
-
It's that boundlessness. When I'm gazing
the sky and I'm aware
-
of that boundlessness, because the sky
is boundless.
-
When I'm aware of that, it's something
deep.
-
Psychologically it does something to me
inside.
-
I feel that boundlessness.
-
But when I'm looking at the sky I have
to be aware that that's what I'm feeling.
-
That's what I'm seeing, that's what I'm
experiencing, that's what I'm aware of.
-
Very often people will not be aware
of it.
-
I gave one example where people were
doing a sky gazing practice in New Mexico.
-
Everybody was having this wonderful
experience!
-
But one guy was getting really agitated
about it. He looked around,
-
and it seemed like everyone seems
like they were having a good time.
-
He's wondering why they're having a good
time and he's looking up at the empty sky
-
And he said, "What am I supposed to see?"
-
[laughs]
-
Well, he's not seeing the essence of the
sky.
-
He's not seeing the boundlessness of
the sky.
-
He's expecting some stuff to show up
right in front of him,
-
what he would desire.
-
So that's what I mean.
-
I saw a cartoon in New York Times
one time,
-
there was this wall street person,
and he's in Tibet with all the
-
hiking shoes and all those things, and
really getting up in the mountain.
-
And on top of the mountain he sees
a clear vision of himself;
-
Not with the hiking shoes. He sees
himself with the suit and tie
-
and breathless with this pure vision.
-
So, no matter where you go, you might
see your impure visions
-
you're not even able to see what you're
seeing.
-
You're only seeing what you're wanting
to see.
-
Yeah.
-
[asking question] This is somewhat
related.
-
Kelly is in Vietnam right now, and she's
watching the broadcast.
-
She says, "Here in Vietnam I'm more
lonely than I was even in the dark retreat
-
Everything truly appears to be illusion.
-
How can I keep myself connected when
there are so few supports?"
-
It seems like she's in a place where she's
lacking support.
-
Sure. Well, you know,
-
the opportunity for you to be
completely open to the
-
lonely person in you.
-
So that basically means what we were
saying earlier when we said,
-
"It really hurts me. I really feel lonely,
I really feel lonely."
-
And probably that sense of loneliness,
probably everybody feels it.
-
At some times we have to go so
far away to feel it really strong.
-
So when you feel it really strong,
you have the opportunity to
-
to know that.
-
And to know that will be fully open
to that
-
and when you're fully open to that,
it will go away.
-
When it goes away, the voice saying,
"I'm lonely," and the energy
-
bringing a sense of loneliness, and the
one who's thinking, "I'm far away,"
-
or "I'm thinking maybe to move away,"
-
Out of all those voices and cards and the
way you relate to yourself,
-
all those somehow are like a cloud.
-
The way you let them go away is by being
fully aware and connect.
-
Connect with them, so it's like a loving
mother sending this love to this
-
napping child. So radiate the love and
attention with your open awareness
-
to that lonely experience in yourself.
-
That awareness, when you open to that,
it will help.
-
It will dissolve. And when it dissolves,
-
you come to a place where you don't
feel that loneliness.
-
So you need to become familiar with that
place where you don't feel familiar.
-
The question is, how do you get to that
place where you can feel
-
"it's okay." So that's what I was saying
earlier that pain body.
-
The principle is the same.
-
And we all, right now with the internet,
you're not lonely, you know?
-
Everybody's together. Yes?
-
[questioner:] Could you comment on the
role of medical diagnosis
-
when one experiences certain aches
and pains? Does seeking that
-
diagnostic action from a Western medical
practitioner, is that a way of
-
staying attached to the story of the pain
rather than being with it
-
and allowing it to disappear?
-
Well I think that....
-
Well, I think in the West, all the doctors
are trained to tell some sense of truth.
-
So people say, "Okay you only have five
months to live," or something like that.
-
So if somebody has 5 months to live,
do they really need to know that?
-
I mean, how important is it for a doctor
to tell you you have 5 months to live?
-
From my point of view, I don't think it's
that important.
-
If you have some suggestion about what
you can do to do something,
-
so somehow the way people...
-
bring this kind of energy, there's a sense
of harshness. Maybe not a lack of
-
compassion, but maybe it feels like
a lack of compassion and attention
-
because there's so much time pressure
of so many patients he needs to see
-
So, the point is, when somebody labels
themselves as something,
-
or "now I am this," I think it's terrible
for sure.
-
So how you don't do that? Again,
You have to try to be open.
-
If you're not identifying with being
something else,
-
why do you have to identify with being
sick?
-
You're sick maybe, but you don't have to
identify with that.
-
You know, last moment of breath for a woman,
-
you can live with full sense of joy,
no matter how sick you are
-
or how much pain you have, that awareness,
that joy, that openness,
-
it doesn't take away. But again, the point
is how we can feel confidence
-
to know that is the case. To even attempt
to try,
-
that have glimpse of experience.
-
It's true, and people do have those trusts
in themselves to not be influenced
-
by those labels. For sure it's a challenge
-
The question is practice.
-
Angel from Paris, Texas is asking,
"Can we access emptiness through
-
the experience of the boundless space?"
-
Well, I mean, the word emptiness in
Buddhism is used a lot.
-
And sometimes in the West I think that
people... When we were in the
-
monastery growing up for 15-30 years,
-
we were studying about emptiness,
we never felt emptiness was something
-
wrong, that there's something wrong with
emptiness, but here,
-
when we use the word emptiness, it's
like, "Oh.." So it doesn't look so good.
-
[laughs]
-
So, in a way the word emptiness, the word
emptiness and fulness no differences.
-
Because in order to be full, it has to be
empty. If it is not empty, then it
-
cannot be full of the right things.
-
So, we were talking about finishing our
5 day retreat,
-
And one of the things we were talking,
is that there's a concept in tradition
-
the great perfection tradition,
that means that everything
-
is spontaneously perfected. It basically
means that everything is perfected
-
in us. So for example, that means joy,
it's not going to hinder itself
-
in light and quality.
-
Let's go down to one simple quality like
joy and happiness that we all know
-
about it, right? So, joy, is it perfected
in us?
-
Yes. The only way you're going to
truly experience your true joy -
-
true joy means joy of being -
-
is to experience yourself clear from who
you are NOT.
-
Probably right now, the way you feel
who you are is occupying
-
so much of space, that it's not
allowing you to feel who you are.
-
Therefore, probably you don't have
so much of joy,
-
or joy of that being. But you maybe do
have some joy of becoming, having,
-
of being something which is not
necessarily who you are, but it's being
-
better than who you think you can be.
-
It's still in your mind. Or, "I'm better
because I just finished a project!"
-
So finishing a project is better than
someone who hasn't finished the project.
-
Right? So, I'm happy.
-
Today is a Friday afternoon so I'm happy,
so Monday I will be sad.
-
So, all those conditions you create
to yourself are simply a condition.
-
Through that you can have little joys, but
true sense of joy is joy of being.
-
So what do you need to have joy of being?
-
You don't need to have anything to have
a joy of being, you simply must be aware.
-
If you simply look this very moment,
close your eyes, feel the stillness
-
in your body, draw attention inward, do
you feel the joy?
-
Of course you feel the joy!
-
It's there.
-
Especially when you're open to it.
The power of openness.
-
When you're open to yourself, you
feel that openness in you.
-
In that openness, everything is perfected.
That means joy is perfected
-
Can you be aware? Yes, if you're trying
to be aware, it's there.
-
That means it's perfected there.
Is that joy equally valuable then
-
to possessing a new car? Far better.
-
I guarantee far better.
-
Do you trust that? For sure we will
not trust that much.
-
[laughs] I want to have that joy but also
want the joy of a new car!
-
But at some point you need to have
confidence enough to know that it's truly
-
better. This is better than the car.
-
That confidence you got to have one day.
One day, we have to look for
-
that confidence. When that
confidence comes, it's life changing.
-
So basically the question about emptiness,
it's basically a fulness.
-
It's a perfection that's spontaneously
perfected.
-
What kind of perfected? All the qualities
of perfection like joy.
-
In order to feel that joy, one has to feel
that empty or clear or open
-
otherwise that joy of being is hard
to feel.
-
For example, in that space, talking
about the loneliness.
-
In that space, if you're open to it
and look inside there,
-
you feel one important quality. You feel
connectedness.
-
Because you are connected to that essence
of mind, to that openness in yourself.
-
You are connected to yourself.
-
When you feel that connection to yourself,
you feel that connectedness.
-
When you feel that, you don't feel
very lonely.
-
But when you don't feel connectedness
yourself, you're seeking a connection
-
from elsewhere that's not inside yourself.
-
Therefore, elsewhere means all the
familiar places when you're out in
-
the country where you don't know people,
then you feel disconnected.
-
You'll feel very lonely.
-
Loneliness is a magic experience, same as
connectedness.
-
You can be middle of the family,
you can live with somebody,
-
but for a lifetime you'll feel
disconnected!
-
Or you could be alone and connected
with everybody!
-
The way you look, the way you experience
the world
-
has nothing to do with your
circumstances so much.
-
That's the beauty. The true realization
has nothing to do with the
-
circumstances. I think that's beautiful
news. Very good news.
-
Has nothing to do with anybody,
therefore you have a chance.
-
If we have to fix the world to make you
happy, forget about it.
-
[laughs]
-
If every family member has to agree with
you for you to be happy, forget about it.
-
First, probably, it's never possible that
every family member will agree with you.
-
Second, if it's possible, the day they
will agree with you,
-
you'll disagree with them.
-
[laughs]
-
Yeah.
-
[questioner:] I just wanted to share
what Susan in Vietnam said.
-
She says, "Thank you. I do feel connected
now. My life and meditation is very rich.
-
I guess I'm just missing you all.
Thank you."
-
And then, later, as you were talking,
she says, "Perfect medicine this morning!
-
This is so great! Love to all."
-
And then, just to mention, in Monterrey,
Mexico, there are 12 people in the cafe
-
there I believe. I don't know if this is a
little off point, but often what they ask
-
is "where can we get further information
about walking meditation?"
-
But anyways, I just wanted you to know
that they are there.
-
Thank you. I think we've finished, so
thank you.