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The World Through Zen Eyes Podcast
What we do?
Once a week we take a look at the going-ons of the world and say something about ‘em.
The goal?
None, really. Just trying to make heads and tails of the great world roar of Ooommmmmm.
Why?
To try ‘n keep a modicum of personal sanity. And stay off both the meds and the cool aid.
The point?
Points are sharp and therefore violent. We just go around, and round….and round.
Disclaimer:
The views, perspectives, and humor of the speakers and guests of this podcast do not necessarily represent the those of any associated organizations, businesses, or groups, social, religious,cultural or otherwise. The entirety of the podcast is for entertainment purposes only. Topics discussed and views expressed do not constitute medical advice. As the saying goes “Opinions are like bellybuttons, everybody’s got one”.
The World Through Zen Eyes Podcast
Bonus Track #6: Pornographic Birds of the Mind
FAN MAIL - Send us a comment or a topic suggestion
The statement "everything is created by the mind" might seem deceptively simple, but as explored in this thought-provoking bonus track, it contains profound implications about how we perceive and interact with reality. Drawing from a personal experience teaching a meditation workshop, we witness the stark contrast between someone who immediately grasps this concept and another who actively resists it—highlighting how differently the same wisdom lands depending on who receives it.
Through vivid examples and unexpected humor, we challenge our romantic notions about nature, like how we anthropomorphize birdsong as beautiful melodies when birds are actually communicating about survival, territory, and mating. This pattern of mental projection extends to everything we encounter, revealing how our minds constantly construct the reality we experience, often without our awareness.
Yet this teaching carries a powerful duality. While it empowers us with the knowledge that we create our experience, it also humbles us by revealing our susceptibility to external influences. From the documented effects of full moons on hospital admissions and crime rates to the impact of physical conditions on mental clarity, we're continually shaped by forces beyond our conscious control. This paradox sits at the heart of Zen practice—recognizing both our creative power and our vulnerability.
The path forward isn't about immediate enlightenment but patient cultivation. Like traditional practices of swordsmanship and calligraphy that begin with simply holding position, meditation success comes not from achieving special states but from the consistent practice itself. Our realizations, like shy woodland creatures, don't appear when frantically pursued but arrive naturally when we create the proper conditions. Ready to explore how your mind creates your reality? Listen now and discover the profound freedom in this ancient wisdom.
Dr. Ruben Lambert can be found at wisdomspring.com
Ven. MyongAhn Sunim can be found at soshimsa.org
Welcome to the place where you long. It Come A-way. Welcome back to another bonus track. As it is with the bonus track, it is unpredictable. Sometimes the bonus track is specifically recorded as the bonus track for the bonus track for the World Through Zen Eye's podcast. In other cases, the bonus track is simply snippets and clips of various talks, lectures, whether it be from retreats, or bits and pieces of meditation, class talks what have you of meditation class talks what have you. And so today's bonus track is one of those flashback clips, if you will, I hope you enjoy it Without further ado. A bonus track.
Speaker 1:I had given a meditation workshop to a group of women who a recovery group, and I had said the first line of the Bopgugyeong says, which means everything's created by the mind, and, as I said that, on one side of the room a woman's face lit up and, like that old microwave ding sound that, just you know, makes the hungry person so joyous about the thing that they're about to pounce right, because she immediately understood what the phrase meant. Simultaneously, on the other side of the room, to borrow a phrase from Steinbeck, I saw a woman fighting with her face, or wrestling with her face, however he puts it, and it didn't hit. There was no ding. There was a lot of sort of mumbling and grumbling going on and gnashing of teeth and finally she mustered up enough energy to say I take pride in thinking certain things, et cetera, et cetera. And then we had a conversation. I bring it up to illustrate well a number of things, as always. One is that even though one mouth speaketh, a multitude of ears hears it and a multitude of minds takes it and does a thing with it. That's a new. I am flawless and blameless Because I have an intention to express something, but the words fall short. You know, some of them just plop, sadly, right out of my mouth and so they fail to convey the thing to be conveyed, fail to convey the thing to be conveyed. The implications and the breadth of that statement, il cheshim jo, everything's created by the mind is. We must be cautious not to minimize it to just very simple things. There's a lot of unpacking to be had in that.
Speaker 1:One part of this speaking is how the thing is received and not whether it's understood. It's how it's received also and you could tell oh, armstrong's got that song, what a Wonderful World Is it, and you don't even have to watch it. But you know the one. He's got the trumpet in one hand, he's got a hanky in the other and then he is singing it and you could tell his smiling from just hearing it. He's got this huge smile right as he's singing and you could tell his smiling, and so we accept it as such. On the other hand, zach De La Rocha said Rage Against the Machine. Rage Against the Machine's got what a A Beautiful World. I think it's the song and there's a version of it. He plays it on acoustic guitar and it's so kind of.
Speaker 1:The verses are very similar in a sense. What a Beautiful World. You know, people are so nice and so kind. What a beautiful world. People are something, how they comb their hair right, and so you're lulled really into the sort of state of sort of security and oh yeah, it is indeed right. So beautiful world. Ah, yes, and a beautiful world. And then he finishes you with a katana, right, and he goes for you. It's a beautiful world For you, for you, for you, for you, for you. And you know, there's something that language does when repeated a number of times, and then finally he says not for me, right, and even though, if you just look at the lyrics. Up until that point we could almost sort of echo of Armstrong's. You know, oh, it's a beautiful world indeed. Trees are green and whatever, whatever. And the La Rocha kind of puts, like I said, this sort of jujitsu move on, you right, because you're involved, into a state of security, and it says, yeah, it depends where you are right, how it's received, and so our mind does in fact, create the reality.
Speaker 1:If you think of a bird song, that's a splendid little thing, isn't it? There's an aww, usually aww. Look at them, they're singing Really. Are they really singing? Oh, they're talking to each other, oh, yeah, and there's always a sort of intonation of the voice that suggests they're talking. Aw, a rainbow appears as the birds are talking. Right, what do you think they are in fact talking about? You know, yesterday I went out with Janice. We went to the new techno club. This is what they're talking about. It's a converted psychiatric institution. She's like I heard about it, it's the cuckoo's nest and she's like, yeah, I wouldn't be meaning to go there, but I've only flown over it, if you don't get that one.
Speaker 1:So this is not the conversation that they're having.
Speaker 1:They're not discussing the happenings of last night. It's much more sort of pornographic is what it is. They're not talking about the leaves are turning. No, they're saying, oh, look at Janet's tail, feathers are looking very plump today. That's what they're talking about, right? Or you know? Or sort of self-preservation, right, you know cheery, cheery, and we're like no, cheery, cheery, and if you speak Finch, this is going to be great. If you speak Finch, you know cheery means cat, right, right, so what they're saying is watch out, frank, run, there is a cat going for you, right? That's what they're talking about. It's not, it's not. They're not singing right, while while splashing themselves in the raindrops of morning dew.
Speaker 1:No it, we create that for them, we deprive them of the conversation and we impose a thing upon them. But the point being is, our mind creates the things that we interact with the world, whether the things we hear, see, taste, smell, taste and touch, etc. If there was ever an empowering statement, I don't know if there's one better than this. So, depending how you've received it, you might have said well, you just ruined birds for me. That's on you. As I said, that's on you.
Speaker 1:You know, if you're birdwatching and you're like that bearded wanker, you know You'll never look at birds, the same birdwatch, and you're like that bearded wanker you know it is. You'll never look at birds the same. They'll look at you the same, though, don't worry about it. Right, there are cultures, still to this day, right, when you know, it used to be where kids, some of us, we were kids and we were outside and we were told to come home when, when the lights came on, when the lights came on, right. But if you're somewhere where there is no streetlights, when the bats are out, the bats are out, get home. Right. But there are cultures who kids play, and they don't have a watch, they don't have a cell phone, they don't have the things, but they learn to hear the call of a certain bird that announces a certain time of day, like, oh, okay, time to go home because mama's got the stick ready if you don't make it on time, that kind of thing.
Speaker 1:So there's the reality and what we do with it and this, like I said, if there was ever an empowering statement, this one really does it. But we have to have a sort of honesty about it because it does go more than two ways, but let's just say two ways, because how much of the mind creating is willful, how much of my creating of the world before me is intended by me to be so and how much of it is actually me being mauled and twisted into sort of yogic positions by the world around me. So this is, as all things, a knife, or a knife and a knife, and if you have a proclivity of your mind to say, yeah, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, right, then that's that kind of knife. But if you're a chef, a knife ah, a splendid sandwich. So all things, in a sense, have that built into. Well, not into them, right, but built into us. We are so stained and soaked in the dualities and dichotomies of the world that there's always a thing, has always possibilities of two major trajectories. We can take that statement il che io sim gio everything's created by your mind, right and take it to mean a positive or a negative. Take it to mean as it sort of steals power from you, right? Because if you really think about it, on one hand, you know and we talked about this, I think, recently the Christmas carol, right?
Speaker 1:Scrooge goes home and his ratchety self and the apparition of Jacob, his old partner, is there, right. And what is the first kind of mindset that Scrooge meets the apparition with, he doesn't go. Oh dear Lord, no, he dismisses him. And until Jacob Marley sits down, he says why do you doubt your senses? So? And he says, well, because they're so finicky, they're so changeable.
Speaker 1:You could be a piece of undercooked potato. You could be a piece of beef, you could be a. You know what is it? A blot of mustard or whatever he calls it. And then there's that splendid little line. There's more gravy about you than there is of grave, whatever you are. So he kind of you know, eh, right, shoes him off on the account of in fact, we are so governed by the multitudinous that we are right. How much of our perspective and viewpoint and thing is twisted and warped by the world around us, even unbeknownst to us. Maybe I am an undercooked potato. You have no way of knowing. We haven't even shaken hands. I could be in operation right now. It's your nightmare.
Speaker 1:We just had the full moon. But we had the full moon when the moon and the sun were waving at each other out at the same time. That's a thing If you look at the same time. Right, which, again? So you know, that's a thing. Right If you look at the hospital records. If you've worked in a school, you know firsthand, right, the effects of the full moon. I mean we think ourselves so special and so immune to the world around us. No, not me. If you know that is the case, you could do something to ameliorate its effect. You could do something to control yourself and govern yourself, if you know that these things are affecting us. But we largely don't. But we largely don't. I mean trees, right. The circulation of sap governed by the full moon and the new moon right, and the quarter moon and the mix, even the tree right. We too, right, we are animals. Like I said, if you look at police records and accidental pregnancies and fights and full moon, you look at the records. There's a clear spike.
Speaker 1:We are that flaky, as Zen Master Scrooge put it. You know, maybe you're taking a big load of medications, or maybe you're heavy drinking, or maybe, for whatever reasons, your liver is tired, meaning overworked. The liver doesn't go like, oh man, I've got to play a video game and unwind. It's been a long day, right, but it does do things, right, and it does. Liver is viewed in oriental medicine as the general of the body, right, and it's the large. I mean, we just, you know, forget about the little plastic silhouette you got in school. Know, in school it's huge, right, and it has effects on us as our heart and circulation, and you name it, you know. So we are in fact that to a large degree susceptible to be a dancing puppet to the strings of the world around us, and so now we could all go home.
Speaker 1:Now, if we finish this right now, everybody goes home, bombs out, we'll be giving out psychotropic medication on your way out, or we could take that and sort of say you know what, in the midst of all of this, still, I have this great, great power of governing myself. My mind, in fact, does create the reality before me. You could own up to it, use it. So, and I'm not talking about the extremes so, in order to be able to govern the mind, to do something and anything with it, as you know, in traditional swordsmanship, what's the first practice? As you know, you hold the sword. There's no swinging around. You're not a ninja, this is not movies. You hold the sword with the tip, just steady there. That's your first practice.
Speaker 1:My teacher used to come and hang a shoe on the tip of it and you're kneeling down and sometimes you're kneeling down on a stick. These are old educational techniques, today dubbed as torture, cancelled probably. You're kneeling down, shin on stick right, arms straight right and you have a shoe. So you know it's a postcard. I was practicing sword right. And then if you take a side view of the silhouette and there's a shoe dangling on the other side, it's not very, you know, enticing, but that is the practice. This is the practice of traditional calligraphy. It's not very enticing, but that is the practice, as is the practice of traditional calligraphy, and we've talked about this, or I've mentioned it. I say that a lot. We've talked about it.
Speaker 1:You're all quiet, but you hold the brush. No ink, you don't even get paper, really, you just hold the brush. There's a certain way to hold it. You rest your hand, certain fingers blah right, the teacher comes and flicks it and should the brush fall out of your hand, those prior practices are made available, right? So the point I'm making is that the initial thing of wielding the mind to say il chyeo, sim jo, the mind creates the reality before me. Where is it? The mind that is, how do you hold it? Where's the handle? The tea ceremony cups are round. Western cups have handles because we're so egotistical about it, or they handle anywhere in a sense. So where is the handle of the mind? So, in meditation practice trains us to sort of at first familiarize ourselves with the world, of that inner world out of which we are ever so constantly, by choice or by force, pulled out of.
Speaker 1:And so many people have the experience. They come from meditation class, they sit down. Oh I can't meditate, my mind's too busy. All right, throw out the men's health magazine please, where it said when you meditate, you clear your mind and you become one with the universe. I tossed that. It's good for you know, I don't know, recycle it. I'm sorry, recycle it. But the point is, if you've come in and you thought I'm going to lock this in, and you know, there's that funny song of the guy says I went to a meditation retreat and the teacher said we're going to do meditation for an hour and act it out in 15 minutes. Right, if you're that proficient, you know.
Speaker 1:The idea is don't look for success in your meditation practice. The success of your meditation practice is that you're practicing. That is the only success to look for. Everything else is greed. Yeah right, everything else is greed. Everything else is a setup for failure. If I started shaving my head with my left hand, I'd look a lawn mower and it would just run me over Because I haven't practiced doing so.
Speaker 1:Who expects to sit down? Butt touches? Meditation, cushion, bum, enlightened there are stories of people who have been enlightened. One naked guy running through the streets of Syracuse screaming Eureka because he took a bath. That's a fantastic story too, but we mustn't think that that was the first time he arrived at a certain state of mind. He's been cultivating it the way that Einstein used to sort of ride his bicycle in figure eight or play the piano and scream, ha and scream and run over and scribble, scribble, scribble. Right, there's a cultivation and work that is done and then nothing comes. But if you wait for it, it ain't ever coming because it's like a bunny. Your meditation and your realizations are like a bunny they skid, they't look for them, let them be, they'll come to you. Thanks for watching.