SPEAKER_00 0:39

Welcome back to another World Crusader Night Podcast bonus track.

What Actually Drives Our Days

Seasons, Cycles, And Climate Change

Meditation As Cause And Effect

Hangry, Caffeine, Dreams, And Hormones

SPEAKER_01 0:47

We'll see what the what the attendance is like today. Good good weather that means nobody wants to meditate. Nobody wants to meditate on watching the birds and flowers bloom. Um and if they are meditating on those things then yes. Uh yeah, we need the recognition of the drives in our life. Right? What is responsible for certain prop proportions movement if you Kevin's the tongue dexterity to pronounce words um what gives a push in our life, in our day-to-day life? And uh I frequently talk about seasons and uh weather and and by seasons sometimes I mean the 24, the small seasons, sometimes I mean the big four. Um because they are one of the elements that exert power upon us in our day-to-day lives, which we can then very easily misunderstand for the power or the intention of our own will. Right. This is when we think of you know that that philosophical slogan know thyself. Um of course it's it's the idea is very uh know thyself uh directly you, right? But how we organize our thinking frequently we've talked about as is the microcosm, so is the macrocosm so uh understand myself it automatically at some point in time becomes understand the great self. We are a miniature version of this world and as such are therefore uh attuned to the cycles of this world, attuned to uh the energies of this world. We are attuned to without knowing we are attuned to, uh and we are governed frequently without knowing we are governed. So our egocentric perspective will have us believe that we are an island unto itself, uh completely devoid and separate and aloof from all existence because that's the ego does this ego it's very, very concerned with self and in a process of concern with self it isolates. So understanding ourselves, we have to understand ourselves in a context of the world as well. Right now we are in a season of change normally, under normal conditions, which we are not under normal conditions by any means, because we are change on top of change, right? When you look at the twenty four Chalgi that the twenty-four seasons um in the lunar calendar, according to the lunar calendar, right a season would say a thing like uh the first frost. And you look outside and there may or may not be first frost. Likelihood of the first frost being on the first frost day nowadays is not the case. Um because there's the small change, like the seasonal change. Right now we're in a change where the nature is changing into a very lively state of existence. Everything's coming to being. Ergo Easter or Eshther or Ishvara or whatever chung um on the on the Korean calendar, right? The season of activity, the season of pumping energy into life. Right? You get stung by a bee now, it stings much more than it does at other seasons. The sting also hurts more in the fall coming into winter when they're guarding their you know their colony, etc. So why does it you what they they don't bite, first of all, right? But why? You think they got some vengeance that really uh sink it in? No. Their body automatically produces a it's a explosion of all the nutrients in the body. So the poison is more poisonous. Um the highest qualities of uh or depending on what you like, but tea is right when they're sprouting the baby little things. Why? Because they are packed with life. We just say nutrient, but they are packed with life. They're uh you know a little grenade of multi-nutrients. Everything now is a grenade exploding. I don't care, I don't have a garden, I'm not a beekeeper, blah blah blah. One should. Because if the out there is exploding, how about me? Am I not also that popping like popcorn? Right? So recognizing the energetic shifts in ourselves and recognizing what wind is pushing me in this day, this direction, or that direction. To which degree eventually becomes, not only that, but eventually becomes, to which degree am I affected by what? And this is where the meditation benefits are the benefits of organization. You organize. Right now it's just one clump of a thing we call a self, and then it just does a thing, and we're just okay, we eat uh the outcome of our actions, um bemoan the outcome of our actions without noticing the causality element. What perpetu what pushed me in that direction, right? And then when we get there we have to be very cautious and uh and not uh these aren't to absolve ourselves of the responsibilities, right? If you're possessed and you go do a thing, you go to jail. Not the ghost, right? That kind of thing. So this is not uh by any means kind of uh absolving oneself of responsibilities, right? What it is, it's understanding um this sort of self-autonomy. That am I being taken for a ride and then am I going to then suffer the repercussions of that ride? And if I could avoid it, if I could if I could discern that I am being motivated by let's let's say kind of external force, right? Then I when I recognize that that sort of quality of it, then I could say, no no no no no no. No, no, no, I'm not doing that, buddy. Uh uh. I know the flavor of the full moon. Yes? I know the flavor of, if you are uh carnivorous, yeah, I know the flavor of the stake and its impact on my action. If I know the flavor of seasonal change, right? Babies cry frequently when they are cranky. Why are they cranky? Mothers overtired. Overtired. Tired, hungry, and dirty diapers. Tired meaning sleepy, right? Hungry hangry. Hangry. Right. So between those three, the behavior of the child then is to be understood as what is the motivating element. Not just the fact that it's crying or may or or or just misbehaving or because this doesn't stop when you when you graduate to the potty, right? It doesn't go away with the diapers. It stays with us till you're 99 years old. The same thing, right? So am I hangry? Right? Different people respond and react differently to hunger. Some people need uh more frequent small meals, etc. etc. You know, so it's a person-to-person situation. Some people literally get hangry. Have I had 17 cups of coffee? Well, that might have to do something with that, right? Did I not sleep well this season because the body's changing, and this season we are uh perhaps you're not whatever, we are a little uncomfortable. Why? Too many dreams. Too many dreams interrupt sleep. Interrupted sleep, you're not rested well. Right. The sexist remark of the woman is having her she's PMSing, right? There's some element of truth in that, right? Of course, men don't think they're PMSing. News flash, fellas. Y'all PMSing. We are PMSing too. Did you ever consider that? Yes.

SPEAKER_05 13:14

Yeah. Um I still have very good dreams.

SPEAKER_01 13:36

Uh all year round or do you're talking about you're talking about seasons?

SPEAKER_05 13:40

I feel like this time of year in particular.

SPEAKER_01 13:44

Yeah. It is. It is the it is the and the mechanism behind it is that internal organ functions, the nutritional requirements uh differ from season to season and much more so in the in the shoulder seasons, springtime, the spring changeover, and the fall changeover. Winter, for for for just simplicity's sake, um metabolism changes, right? As it does with bees. Bees you know, and hybriding animals, etc. etc. Right. Why? Naturally, winter time, uh there isn't much in terms of food, naturally. So the body function uh adjusts. We're we're still, you know, you you'll y'all think you came here from your house, you might as well have come here from your cave, right? We're still operating with the with a very similar mode of operation. And so um the body changing its mode of operation, this is the season for it, right? That means when our conscious mind uh goes to sleep, or or whether it does or it doesn't, but uh there's a lot of construction and reorganization going on internally speaking. So we think we are asleep, right? But night shift crew is very, very busy at work, happy that we are out of the way, because we're so clever, we always get in the way, uh, you know, um with our cleverness. But um there is a necessary change in terms of how the body is going to operate with in the upcoming season. Of course, if you have any kind of pet, uh you see how much hair now they're shedding, right? Why? They're changing their clothes, right? They're putting away their winter clothes on your carpet, on your kitchen floor, right, on your bed, right? They're putting away their winter clothes and you know, getting short sleeves is what they're doing. Um think about how they're doing it.

SPEAKER_02 16:15

They don't even know they're doing it.

SPEAKER_01 16:17

Well, but there's a there isn't a zipper, they unzip and then you know when you're not watching your cats all of a sudden got his winter winter get up on, right? So internally, inside the body, there's some kind of a chemical, we could say, change that causes the hair to be released, right? That causes the either growth. The same thing with the trees. Trees, when they're changing, right, in uh in uh fall time it's easy to say, right? They're dehydrated, and so the leaves turn and then they fall, right? Some internal change, it's not an external, it's external cue, but the internal change taking place. So we are the same thing. We think we're clever because we got externally made close, but internally speaking, we are also changing in preparation for uh the next season. And so this kind of busy busyness on the on the uh on the part of uh what we call or or you're we could say unconscious, we could say more closer to your true self, uh that thing, it somebody's gotta orchestrate this thing. And there's an intelligence to it, right? Um we are asleep, it is doing a lot of the work, and so um we see this with the kind of seasonal grogginess and sleepiness and people dragging themselves around fall time and springtime. Also, in terms of of course, if the physical change is taking place, hormonal changes to taking place, springtime, generally speaking, these are generalizations, right? Um generally speaking, uh springtime women are more prone to, full time men are more prone to uh kind of uh we could say melancholy, right? Not the sea not the sad, not the seasonal affective disorder, not that it's kind of winter depression, but similar kind of thing, right? A lot of sighing going on, those things. Right? Um yeah, and and so you know think about it. You have a you have a a day as we do now. So this these are natural changes, right? And then now we have the greater change of the climate change, so that's a bigger change on top of the already existing change, throwing everything uh a little bit awry. A little bit is a euphemism. Um wind patterns are changing, right? Which is why we get the weather that we never had here is now here. Why? Because some corridors and some uh boundaries of of separation and and and uh regions of weather are shifting into where they weren't. And this is a news, right? Sahara was an ocean at one point in time, or or a sea or whatever. So it's it it is that kind of a so we have the small change, we have the larger change, we have a in you know, in-between change, right? So if you're having a day, right, you look at look at all those things. Think it up, right? Is it simply that I've decided or or that it's uh you know, on what to what degree, to what percentage, to what degree am I making this conscious effort to uh be happy or unhappy, or whatever you want to call it, grampy, joyous, elated, excited, anxious, depressed, whatever it may be, right? To what degree which part of this great, great thing is responsible for it? It's the season of change, okay. I didn't sleep well because I had too many dreams, okay? So I caffeinated more. Okay. So I'm PMSing, okay? For for the man who still haven't got the the concept of it, right? Uh without getting vulgar, right? Um there's a collection of sperm that occurs, right? And if not used up, the body has to what?

SPEAKER_06 21:04

Digest it back up, absorb reabsorb it into the system. Right?

Ego Stories And Constant Stress

SPEAKER_01 21:12

So in the the time, the day of the reabsorption of that, men, we could say is PMSing. They're tired. They don't feel normal. But do they know they don't feel normal? That's the question, right? And so what we do is because we only have the conscious mind, and the conscious mind is pointed outwards, it then seeks out reasons. And we've talked about this. It seeks out reasons usually only externally and and and by means of sort of some kind of a blame. I was fine until I saw you. I was happy until you ate the last cookie. Right. Etcetera etcetera. So this is only available to us, only accessible to us through meditation practice. Because it the requirement is uh on the grosser uh s simple levels, the requirement is for a moment suspend the selfishness, the egonessness, right, to to set it aside for a moment so that all those other things which the ego obstructs and obscures can become somewhat visible. The audacity of the person to think that the person who is rude to me in the supermarket is simply not well. A revolutionary thought to have. That jerk is woke up today, and when they woke up, uh they wrote down in their in their journal, when I go to such and such uh so shop, right, I'm gonna find the bold and bearded one wearing his pajamas, and I'm gonna say a thing. Right? And he clutched it and carried it until evening time when they went shopping and they said, Ha ha, there he is, and then barraged that. Right? This is this is how m the ego would have us believe it, right? That this person's was born and their their sole purpose on earth is to find me in a supermarket and to ram their stupid cart into my cart, clearly knowing that I have eggs that will shatter upon impact and right. It is think about the delusional state of that logic progression.

SPEAKER_04 24:10

It was obviously their plan the whole day. I mean probably a week in advance.

SPEAKER_01 24:15

I would say, you know, I would say a lifetime ago or two, you know. They were like, aha, I'm gonna get you, and if not this time, then the next. It is. And so this is our interpretation of reality through the lens of ego. Right? Because everything's about it. It only interprets it and the world and responds to it, and the world aimed at it. The worm is either aimed at it or wanting to take something away from it, right? And so we live in a uh some unconscious state of uh almost kind of existential angst and and crisis of uh stress, essentially. It's a it's a it's a a continuous hum of stress that happens in life. Which we could silence. That's a little bit of a lofty lofty skip, but we can.

SPEAKER_02 25:25

Do you think a lot of that stems from being angry at the world? Like, you know, the world doesn't mean a living kind of anger.

SPEAKER_01 25:31

Mm-hmm. Yeah, i if it's if the motivation or or if the mechanism is that kind of the angry at the world, right? Again, it's uh behind it, right, there's some laziness.

unknown 25:47

Yes.

Change Yourself To Change Outcomes

SPEAKER_01 25:48

Right. Because then comparison, the angry at the world, the old world owes me something, right? There's a laziness behind it. Um to be owed, usually it's to be owed without putting the effort to get. Right? So it's outside of the cause out the cause and effect uh uh mechanism of life. Right? Um this kind of pattern we see in in um uh not all the time, again, these are you know, but it's common in like uh um drug addiction thing there's there's a counter counter to the establishment, counter to the system, counter to the uh you know the world. You know, and and and and this is you see now the Buddhist psychology is really mmm just brilliant. Because one we could say as an example, right? This is not everybody, again, these are you know but you see a a a kid walking down the street and lying there is a bottle, an empty bottle, and they'll pick the bottle up and throw it against the wall to break it, right? Of course, uh not always and not only, but what is the motivating factor? What kind of a personality is developing in that child? Why do that? If we l if we approach it from the Western psychology perspective, if you ask why, uh you know, they like the boom, they like the explosion, they like the shatter of it, right? It's like a firework. Um coincidentally, perhaps, uh, why we have fireworks? Some blow something up. It's a discharge of a compact, oppressed state. And so uh it's the same reason why people shout and yell. There's the same people while the same reason why people fight and whatever. There's a there's an oppressed state uh within them and it's an explosion externally, right? And and so we have, you know, hollow uh holidays uh that are you know some of the holidays that we have are are uh kind of um I mean there's a hot dog day and uh and a Chihuahu day and uh you know whatever day. Yeah, I'm sure you know there's there's every day is a something, right? But then we have the big ones that are that coincide with usually within a constructive society, you're given a day off or two, right? Um you're given a sort of license to watch an explosion of firework, right? You're given license to um let go of you know any self-control and eat 17 hot dogs and fourteen hamburgers, right? Or to get, you know, drunk, or to to to get uh you know, these are all uh controlled detonations of of a um for lack of what we can say, oppressed self or or a or a kind of compacted, impacted uh thing where we need to discharge the energy. Anyway, digress a little bit. Any other questions? That's why that's why uh recognizing, like I like I'm saying, recognizing the impetus. What is the governing uh energy driving me in that direction? And like I said, the thing is between the ego, right, and between our intelligence or our cleverness, and I don't mean that uh uh in a in a positive sense. I mean the the the kind of intelligence uh that will uh disregard entirely and completely, blatantly a fact to support a want or an idea that it had conjured up uh snow tires on a bi on a motorcycle. Right? Yeah. I if I want a motorcycle, right, and somebody says, well, you know, this is we're in like a s our our uh location, you know, we get winters and stuff, so you know you only limit it to good weather thing. But I could get snow tires and put it on. You could put an umbrella thing, you could build a house eventually build the car, right? That kind of thing. But it is that kind of thing. The mind will contort itself, although it thinks this is the craziest part, it thinks it's it thinks it is stable, right? Um and it thinks it contorts reality, but actually it contorts itself right because it cannot, in truth, contort reality, right? You cannot change um the world around you in in a in a in a more simplest way. You cannot change the world around you, but you could change the world in you, and by changing the world in you, you act in the world around you in a ways that then affects the change. But it's not it's not changing of the thing out there. One does nothing out there without the internal motivation or the internal change, right? So that's a it's the internal change that governs the external change and that that that perpetuates or inspires external change. But we forget that mechanism, we forget the fact that we have this amazing ability to change, to alter, to we are by we we are by deep nature very pliable and soft and and malleable, and we could adjust and and otherwise we would all be dead. If we didn't have the malleability to adjust, we wouldn't survive, right? The reason why we've survived this long is because we're able to adapt. The adaptation is the ability to change oneself in response to the external circumstances, right? And so we have this as an innate, deeply innate, not the superficial one. The superficial one is you know this rig mortis of egos where not doing it. But it the crazy part is that even though it claims, it stands its ground and declares, I am not changing. And then it will change, if questioned, it will change itself to adapt to that position it took up. So it's this almost like this contradiction, uh ironic thing where it says it doesn't change, but it changes because it molds itself to support its position and it disregards reality in the process.

SPEAKER_03 33:52

These kind of it's like it's it is like the the the achievement before thinking. You know, before we had all this stuff. Mm-hmm. You know, it is what it is, and what we do is try to go around it.

SPEAKER_01 34:07

Yeah. And that's that is a that is a tall task.

unknown 34:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:12

Right. I mean the the the Buddhist teaching is we c we call dharma or pop, meaning it is what it is. This is like the there's a dustness, a truth to the thing, understanding the nature of the thing as it is. Right. Um otherwise we get upset at everything.

SPEAKER_06 34:35

I think well I don't remember when I was somewhere. Uh anyway.

The Past Informs Not Deforms

SPEAKER_01 34:44

Uh the lady was getting up yes.

SPEAKER_05 34:49

Sorry, Andrew. I just wanted to say thank you for bringing us topic on the something I had. But I seem to uh memory uh other people. And uh kind of wish I have their ability to just kind of act like a pass that happened so that you don't have to feel guilty about it. Um but I was starting to be like does it even does the passing really good? And when you said that they don't just for reality, they just sort of themselves that just really help me. Um I won't go out of my butt that was uh that was hard.

SPEAKER_01 35:54

Of course, thank you, thank you for sharing.

SPEAKER_05 35:57

Um, I wanted to say also it helped me because while it's still hard for me to understand at scale the people do, I noticed in my practice obviously, you know, the thing comes in and overrides. Uh me. So yeah. Uh I you know, obviously have that potential, even if it's not as extreme.

Lotus Lessons And Closing

SPEAKER_01 36:32

It it is innately our potential, and and the the past is not it, you know, we have uh these principles of the present moment being the only real moment, the past being gone, the future isn't here yet, etc. etcetera. Uh every tool within the Buddhist philosophy has to be used at appropriate times. Right? There's a laziness that we develop, um we we grab onto a principle, right, and and it sort of dies in our hands. So past is critically important, right? But what part of the past is critically important, right? Not the guilt of it, right? Not the guilt of one's doing that it it doesn't the guilt will then s drown the present moment. What is critically important is the lesson of the past. Right? It this is not dwelling in the past, but simply knowing but because we this is again, this is uh we have this m uh there's a uh necessary I think I talked about this yesterday. Um there's a necessary function to this, right? If you uh if your grandpa died by snake bite, right, you you you necessarily need to hold on to the memory of that snake because that snake equals you die, right? And so it's a very survivalist mechanism that that the experiences of the past inform the present moment, right, but inform the present moment, not deform the present moment, right? They are the lessons are to to be here for, so you don't die by snake by the same snake bite, right? But there if you're if you dwell in it, then what you get is a paralysis. You get a paralysis of now and paralysis of any next moment coming. There's a there's a strangulation of will, there's a strangulation of uh uh confidence. Right? That kind of thing strangulates the present moment. So uh it's it's meant to inform but not to deform. And so so long as you know we we organize our mind and know that the lesson is uh that that situation uh was valuable uh for its lesson, right? Now uh next time avoid the snake. Or uh you know if I did something next time I don't do something. Nobody can we don't come into this world all enlightened, equipped. Well, scratch that. We come into this world enlightened and then we dust over with trash from the world, right? But the idea is we don't come uh fully formed in a sense. Uh and we are here in this world for this very reason, right? The curriculum that universe provides us with is brilliant. Because only through the hardships and the difficulties and the things that we overcome can we reach enlightenment. Can we, this is a this is a training ground so that we learn how to unbind ourselves from suffering. So all the all the hardships and difficulties and challenges of life, ultimately speaking, have that function. So they're valuable in that sense. Because they inform, uh they are the you know the muck and the mud that nourishes the lotus flower to bloom, as lotus flower being the symbol of Buddhism, right? It's because its roots are in this filthy stinky mud and muck of the bottom of the lake, right? But it rises above not only the mud, not only the water, it rises above all of its conditions, um and then blooms wonderfully. But it blooms wonderfully and it couldn't bloom in clinically uh pure water. It couldn't bloom in in a sand that was completely devoid of shit, for the lack of a better word, right? It did the minutiae of life is the nutrient that makes uh us open up as a as a lotus, that makes possible enlightenment. Um so so it it's nutritional value is necessary. But yeah, like I said, the past is meant to inform, not deform. All right, shall we do some meditation? No? Nobody wants to do meditation? I have to put playing the radio. Think about it. I've been talking for the 40 minutes. How much of it is that.