Speaker 1: 0:01

Look at that. Pa-da-boom, pa-da-bang, done, wasn't it Difficult? Who says difficult? Raise your hand. Difficult or challenging? Challenging Don't say difficult. Difficult, don't say difficult.

Speaker 1: 0:31

I was talking to someone a little earlier today who had a challenging time at work and that it did a fantastic job, recognizing the fact that, despite being pinched between coworkers and supervisory power trip, they were able to change their mind and view the situation from a different angle, which then unbound them to a significant degree, perhaps, of their negativity of the experience. Why, pray tell, are we born here in this life if it didn't provide the fantastic opportunities of difficulty? How are we to grow in a leisure, in a leisure floating on the ocean? This life, every iota of it, every moment of it, there is a meaning, if you will, or a purpose, if you will, or a function, if you will. This life is a school. We are here for school and, just like in school, when you first show up the first day of class, what do you do? You cry your eyes out. And when we show up for the first day of school, we cry our eyes out. And when we show up for first day of school, we cry our eyes out, hoping, wishing, wanting, clutching to the you know sleeve of mama. Mama loves you, but you gotta go to school, right. So every opportunity, but you gotta go to school, right. So every opportunity or every situation can be viewed as an opportunity to learn something. Otherwise one finds themselves late. Otherwise one finds themselves late at the tail end of life. And when we inspect our life, where was the learning process? Where did it dwindle out? I don't know who, john, what's his name? Pesci, pesci, the actor, pesci, I think.

Speaker 1: 3:58

He's in a movie with honors. Y'all seen that. It's about a Harvard student With Honors. Y'all seen that. It's about a Harvard student and he's writing his dissertation and Joe Pesci plays a bum and it's called With Honors, because I don't recall the details. But there's a kind of monologue by Joe Pesci, who's a bum, right, but a Harvard bum. That's what he says. And he says to the fella, or about the fella, something to the tune of May it graduate life with honors. That's just a splendid little line. May it graduate life with honors. Mmm, mmm, I keep talking, okay. Does anybody have a question? Alright, alright, we left the family. The Jodes. We haven't touched base the Jodes. We haven't touched base with the Jodes. The Grapes of Wrath, the Jodes.

Speaker 1: 5:31

The Jodes are at a wheat patch camp and when Winfield was brought into the toilets by his sister who wanted to show off the toilet, flushable toilet First time in their life they've seen a flushable toilet. And as she was demonstrating the toilet she flushed accidentally and they stood in paralysis of fear because they thought they broke it. And then they broke it and then they ran off. So the camp is cool, the best they've been. All of the Whovilles, as they were called, were shabby, and this was one of the better ran camps and they liked it. Were shabby and this was one of the better-ran camps and they liked it.

Speaker 1: 6:29

And so one evening, as the sun is setting, the family is having dinner and just as they're coming to the end, ma hesitates before collecting the plates to wash them, and then she says. And then she says look at Winfield. All eyes gravitate to the little boy who's now obviously in flames of shame for a dozen or what she says. Look at his color, his twisting and kicking him asleep. The boy ain't got enough food. We only got but 12 potatoes, three days worth of flour and five days of grease. Now, mind you, they've been eating, as you know, fried dough, side meats, money spent long enough. No side meat, just fried dough. You make it like a dumpling thing and you just deep fry it, just anything to fill a stomach. No really nutritional spectrum there, just plugging up the hunger.

Speaker 1: 7:52

And so she says, though none of you stand up, we've got to figure it out. None of you had a job since a month gone by. None of you had a job since the month gone by. Of course, as you know, they're trying and you're all scared to talk about it. So none of you get up until we figure it out. And Tom pulls his lip off his teeth and says but Ma, we've been looking. We can't even now drive further to look for jobs because we ain't got gas. But we've been looking. We knocked on every door, we asked everybody that we could. And weighs a man down when he go looking for something that he knows he ain't gonna get. And Ma with her Zen master thing, as you know she does, you ain't got the right. There is Ma with the Zen katana. You ain't got the right to feel down.

Speaker 1: 9:09

This family is going under. We got to figure her out. Twelve potatoes, four days of grease, three days of flour. We got to figure her out. Pa chimes in. He's picking up his big fat, heavy thumbnail with the knife, picking the dirt out of it. He chimes in it's a good camp, ma, and the bathroom's good and the toilets? They got toilets, ma ain't having them. Heaven, you can't eat toilets. It is the applicability of a single minded point. Don't you try and distract me with all the good, shiny things like a toilet. There's a more pressing thing that I tending to. This family's going under Rose of Sharon's due Soon. She's going to be laid up and so they get into the planning of where they can go, where they could try, and money. Short. Distance is long and somebody heard, or somebody's going to have a job. You know when the next crop comes in but can't wait. So it's the mage shark of the family.

Speaker 1: 10:44

She stays quiet until time to get everybody lined up and in line. She says you're just scared to talk about it, you just eat and then you disappear into the darkness. Every night you do the same thing. You're scared to talk about it, and so she forces obviously upon them some confrontation of a fear. Appear into the darkness Every night. You do the same thing. You're scared to talk about it, and so she forces obviously upon them some confrontation of a fear, facing of a thing, when the Buddha was practicing in the forest. He gives advice to fear.

Speaker 1: 11:24

Now, we might not be meditating in a forest or living in a forest, there might not be a tiger. Well, your boss is a tiger, but other than that there might not be, other than that there might not be. And so he said there are three methods of meditation in general Sitting down meditation we call chason, lying down meditation, we call wason, and hengson is meditation in action, usually walking meditation. So they would have a lot of path and they would walk, turn around and walk just sort of. Not you walk off into the scenery, it's a meditation. You're not, you know, sniffing roses, you're focusing on the sensation of the feet, etc.

Speaker 1: 12:18

So walking meditation, sitting meditation, lying down meditation. And he said sometimes he would sit in the forest now, forest, and dark forest at that. And he said when he would sit, a fear would come over him on account of a branch broken or on account of a sound. And he says, as I sat there and fear came over me, I brought to my mind the determination to not walk or not lay down. Now there's so much more there because the idea is. He doesn't say run away. Right, it says because the idea is, he doesn't say run away, it says because, see, you have to the Houdini fantastic ability of the mind to wiggle itself out under the pretext. So I'm sitting meditating, a fear comes over me.

Speaker 1: 13:29

Now it's time for walking meditation. It wasn't time for walking meditation, but you might and you could sort of reason with yourself, as we frequently do. You tell yourself this is the right thing. Well, you know, walking meditation. Now one time for walking meditation. Why are you walking? Right? But the mind will do a lot of Houdini and, you know, will write a great dissertation and a paper on why you should switch the walking meditation. And so he said, if I were sitting, I would keep sitting until the fear subsided. If I was walking and while walking, a sound or a thought came and struck fear into my heart, I kept walking. I didn't sit down because, again, I was walking. But now I'm going to do sitting meditation. It's escaping right. Going to do sitting meditation. It's escaping right. Just like the family sitting after dinner. They eat and then the second opportunity, because they're all hungry. The second opportunity comes out. They scamper off into the dark of the night, in a sense Escaping. So this is no news. Mean, you know, we face your fear kind of thing.

Speaker 1: 14:52

Do you recall when you were children, just a moment ago? How, just a moment ago, how wonderful was the imagination of a child's mind, unencumbered, unbridled, just this wafting as it wanted to, wasn't it beautiful? It's good, right, right, you sure? You sure it's good? Yes, why then, sometimes, as a child, we stay frozen because the place I want to go, the room I want to go into, is dark. And now I'm frozen in paralysis.

Speaker 1: 15:44

On what account in the young child mind, what experience, what data, if you will, suggests that there in fact is a monster there? The same imagination, so the same beautiful imagination that could conjure up these gorgeous, beautiful, whatevers, you know, beauty and awe and all these things. It's the same tool that imagines the horrible end at the claws of the. You know chupacabra that's in there. And so what is that? Polarity of good and not good, without context, without good in relationship to what it begins to sort of dissolve, in a sense. So our fantastic ability to imagine is beautiful, lest you imagine the horrible. And so this is what the minds are capable of doing, untrained. They will go as they please and do as they please. They will plunge us into darkness, they will cripple and inhibit.

Speaker 1: 17:25

It's fantastic and horrible simultaneously To have innately within such grand, grand power. It is a power, after all, because it even though we have the ability to view things logically. How much do we really view things logically? How much of our views are illogical, ill-informed, or simply just I'm groundless, completely groundless. But I would just conjure up a thing in our mind that happens, don't it? And so it's the same author. There's this splendid little saying A painter once a picture painted so horrible that he fainted.

Speaker 1: 18:49

Have you heard that? No, a picture once. A picture painted so horrible that he fainted. That's where we're at. Who's the painter? And so I make, with the brush of the mind, whatever right. And the irony is that he made it so horrible that he fainted himself. He convinced himself to the point of, you know, just striking horror and terror, and fainting on account of the thing that he himself made. Isn't that insane, isn't that? Could you call that worry? Sorry, could you call that worry? Yes, could you call that worry? Yes, you could call that worry. And so, for those of you who don't know because I, but worry is a must.

Speaker 1: 19:39

We've talked about worry a number of times. If we inspect worry We've talked about worry a number of times If we inspect worry, not just take it at face value, because the face value the representative hired by the worry industry trying to sell you their stock in their company, comes to your house and says well, you know, worry simply means you care, and he sells you that junk and they try to put it to work and it malfunctions every single time Because he's a crook. That salesman is a crook to say that worry means care. Folks, worry does not mean care. Worry means spinning the wheels, going nowhere.

Speaker 1: 20:29

Think about if you had long, long time ago, when phones had minutes, right, you used to have a cell phone and then it had minutes, and when you ran out of minutes, you don't got a cell phone right now. Or if that's too far for the young folk, okay, you have no battery and you haven't the battery pack, battery bank. And now you're somewhere and you could use your phone to catch up on Twitter feed. Or you could use your phone to catch up on Twitter feed. Or you could use your phone to call emergency services because you're in the middle of a desert with hyenas and you're covered in honey and bacon I don't know what hyenas eat and the hyenas are like whoo-hoo, because that's how they talk, right, whoo-hoo. And so you work out your phone and you have okay, I have like one minute of battery life, right, and now you have a choice, right, how do you spend said battery? How do you spend that energy? How do you utilize this last few moments of your phone's battery life?

Speaker 1: 21:57

Clearly, surely you wouldn't find it so important to catch up on your Twitter thing or Instagram or the baffling longevity of LinkedIn, right, so you wouldn't be scrolling through Twitter. You would call emergency services. Yes, and in time there was voice. Everybody said yes, and I don't care if you have a microphone on up there on the TV screen, certainly you said yes. Please say yes. I hope you said yes, and I don't care if you have a microphone on up there on the TV screen, certainly you said yes. Please say yes. I hope you said yes, for crying out loud. Everybody said yes. Right, please, unless you want to take the last thing as a selfie with the hyena that you're posting, maybe. So you would utilize that energy, of that remaining energy, right to spend it on calling the emergency services. You wouldn't utilize it or squander that last bit on social media. And I'm not knocking social media, it's just an easy low-hanging fruit. This is the sutra of the hyena in the social media. If you want to look that up 84,000 sutras, 85 now.

Speaker 1: 23:28

Worry is the same thing you have. On one hand, you have a limited energy. Let's say you're there in the desert, or you're there and you have just this much energy in you, and the economy of this is what we're talking about. So now you have only this much energy left and now you could worry, aka scroll through twitter, because it's an absolute squander of energy, or you could utilize that last bit of energy to solution seeking or solution applying. Worry has never in the history of worry found the solution to anything that the worry was worried about. It's an utter and complete waste of resources. But because that fantastic advertisement campaign from the worry industry that made us believe that worry equates care, I care, that's why I worry. No, yes, I think there actually is a commercial. It's 10 am. Do you know where your kids are? There you go 10 pm, 10 pm. They better be in school. Yes, right, so yes, that works.

Speaker 1: 25:00

So the painter in this. There once was a painter, a picture painted so horrible that he fainted or something. It's the same brush. It's the same brush that paints the horrible, that paints the beautiful. It's the same brush with which we could paint the calmness and peace into our hearts, or the horror and the terrifying honey and bacon heinous, I don't know if you are so moved by my own words as I am.

Speaker 1: 25:49

The power, this thing that is right here, right in front of us, within us, this thing that we use every single day, unbeknownst to us in a sense, because we are so caught up in this shadow play and this kind of puppetry, work of a thought arises and I'm worrying. And we just glance over the fact that worry does not in fact equal care, but we've been conditioned to think that way, so I care. That's why I worry. We never take a pause there and say wait a darn minute, does it? And it don't, it doesn't, it's a squander of resources. And so this ability that we have to create, and it's boundless, bound temporarily only by our fixations, by our attachments, by our fears, by our this and that the canvas hasn't actually any borders. The canvas is infinite and we could paint infinitely.

Speaker 1: 27:13

So Thus is the nature of the mind, and so why do we do meditation? It's a kind of a skip and a jump and a long way away from maybe counting in your meditation practice. And then, ah, the gorgeous Picasso. I don't know, maybe not Picasso. I don't know, maybe you like Picasso. I'm just talking smack about people. So counting may seem like a has nothing to do with what I'm talking about. If counting is the meditation that let's say we're doing, or breathing, frankly, anything unless, because this is our thing, our mind then wants to, or tends to not everybody, but perhaps wants to be like, well then, why don't we sit in meditation and visualize, you know, bright, splendid sunsets? You can. That's not meditation, but you can. That is relaxation or visualization, and it has its place, if that's what you want to do, in, really, we could say in meditation.

Speaker 1: 28:47

The ability to hold the brush Is it an important ability? Yes, of course it's an important ability. Hold the brush Is it an important ability? Yes, yes, of course it's an important ability. Hold the brush, and we've talked about this, the traditional way of learning calligraphy. There's a certain way you hold the brush right. An instructor comes traditionally and flicks it, and if the brush falls out of your hand, you're punished those of you who remember those times of school punished. Or when you practice kumdo sword, right, the first thing is to hold the sword and the tip of the sword to remain steady. Don't think it's like first day of sword class and you're like you know, like in the movies. No, actually, first thing you even get a sword, you get a stick, but nonetheless you hold the tip of the stick steady. That's your practice, as here, holding the brush is the practice.

Speaker 1: 29:44

Holding the brush means holding the mind, and so the meditation practice of holding the mind. Don't think about the brush. Got no paint. He gave me a crappy brush. He made me count. No, the brush itself is not Holding. It is important. If you're breathing, holding that. If you're counting, breathing, holding that. If you're counting, holding that. If I gave you another meditation method, holding that.

Speaker 1: 30:17

That is holding the mind and not letting the mind go off here and go off there. Why? What does it do when it does go off? It's not so worrying. Yeah, what would you call that? Does go off More than you. It's not so far from you. Yeah, what would you call that? A renegade artist? Yeah, right, my mind, my hand, my brush, and then somehow, all of a sudden, magically, the brush just does its own thing. Regurgitations of yesterdays and worries of tomorrows and such and such.

Speaker 1: 30:52

Where am I in this transaction, when my life is being painted for me? That's as a hostage situation. Somebody decided no, you know what, you get a frowny face. I'm going to paint you a frowny face and you're going to like it. Just give me my brush back. You whack them upside the head. I don't condone violence, it's an imaginary goal they deserve upside and you take back your brush with which to paint the colors of your life.

Speaker 1: 31:24

What do you want to see? What do you want it to be? How do you want to feel? Don't be sold by the multitude of industries that deprive you of the power that is yours. Ah, but that thing made me feel something. Dang it. That thing made me feel that. That thing made me. That thing forced upon me a mural that I never ordered. I have the power, I have the ability. I feel upset, I feel angry, I feel the thing. Was it Bob Ross? I'm never going to put a little bit of a tree here and there are no mistakes. Ah, I'll make that into a bush. Happy accidents, happy accidents. There are no mistakes, only happy accidents. That means the possibility to paint over a mistake is available to me.

Speaker 1: 32:36

I am the artist of my life, but sometimes, by an unknown entity, I'm smothered with a canvas of another painting, just holding like a pillow in the night, just cackles as it, just, you know, murderous. Don't you paint the life you want. You paint the feeling that you want. You paint the feeling that you want. You paint the thing that you want we have, because Prior to, let's say, getting angry or frustrated or sad or worried, or happy, for that matter, and joyous and whatever, prior to that, what was I? Something else? Right, I am now joyous. Prior to that I was furious. I am now furious. Prior to that I was joyous.

Speaker 1: 33:47

And so this magically just applies to the past, then apply to the future. If I was a thing and I changed to another thing, it only follows that I could then change to yet another thing. Such is the nature, the impermanence of existence, of all existence. And so if I'm going to change, as change goes, I have a say how I want to change, if I want to change or don't want to change, or refuse, I'm going to stand my ground. I'm feeling pretty chill. Don't bring your high-octane attitude to me. I'm going to stand my ground. I'm feeling pretty chill. Don't bring your high-octane attitude to me. I'm going to remain to be chill.

Speaker 1: 34:33

Aha, yes, aren't we supposed to let the changes just pass through us and be more attuned to the awareness that doesn't change. Do you want to be a backseat driver of your life? Do I want to be a taxi driver? Backseat driver, backseat driver, sorry, yeah, no, yeah, that's why each one of those. So it is a valid thing, right, when to apply that philosophy.

Speaker 1: 35:11

So, even in the allowing of the changes, the things sort of pass through us in a sense, right. How much of it do we hold on to? How much of it? As they pass through, they take a part of me on their way out. It's the same ability to allow a passing through without part of me getting washed out. It's the same powerful ability of management of how that happens.

Speaker 1: 35:47

So, yes, of course, we have no choice. Life is going to change. Every cell of the body is changing. Everything constantly, is in constant flux. What does that mean? To allow the thing to pass? Don't hold the thing. How do you hold the thing? With your hand or with your mind or, in this example, with your brush, you nail the thing down as it passes.

Speaker 1: 36:20

So the ability to allow the thing to flow through is a power, because how, like I said, how frequently the things flow and we hold on to the things that ought to be let go of and burning the flesh of my hands, holding on to some coals and so we need the other element, always paired with these things, is wisdom. Let's say you see this ball and it's red hot, do you touch it? No, but let's say you see this ball and it's white, do you touch it? It's white hot, more hotter than red hot. So what things we're going to hold, what things we're not going to hold? That is the power of movement, of the power to let go. So it's the same thing utilization or creation of the power that's going to direct, and then, in that case, direct the flow.

Speaker 1: 37:44

So, when you practice your meditation, acknowledge that what you are working with, a nuclear bomb, is powerful, right, who made it? The brush made it. Somebody's brush made it, somebody's mind made it. It was born of the mind, somebody's mind made it. It was born of the mind, or born, yeah, I'm not going to get technical. It was born of observation of the world around us and you realization that which is, in a way, but this is kind of the same thing. We are, we have this capacity and how do we utilize it? It's the same thing. What do you do with your brush? What?