2023-10-10-Gil-Ten Protectors (7 of 10) Letting Go and Picking Up

3:12PM Oct 10, 2023

Speakers:

Gil Fronsdal

Keywords:

protector

dharma

mindfulness

unhelpful

dharma practice

helpful

greed

deepest

abandon

wholesome

world

harm

love

compost

lasting

attitude

healthy

protects

distinction

stand

So warm greetings from IMC and, and to this series on the 10, protectors. And yesterday that the protector, what protects us is a love of the dharma. And that, of course can have different meanings depending what you mean by dharma. And different people do have different reference points for this wonderful word. And what I offered was that the core aspect of dharma is non harming. And, and then they that's pretty powerful in itself. But the companion to that is to do what's beneficial to do that, which is the opposite of harm. And this protects us, this protects the world around us. Now with this idea, with an operating idea of love, I think is fantastic. So, to do this, with love, to have love for this, so that the way we approached where we meet the world, is something healthy and nourishing for us and for others. So now we come to the next protector, which is sometimes and when I first did it, for first many years I was introduced to this, it just seemed too technical. And it seemed a little bit too technique focused or saññā felt very different than for me than just having open mindfulness and presence for whatever is here. And it seemed little bit judgmental, it seems a little more difficult. But I've come to really appreciate that the this what's coming next here is really again, also very fundamental to the dharma. And the traditional way of translating into English is to, to abandon what is unwholesome and arouse to awake, awaken what is wholesome. And sometimes it's said to be abandoned, what's unskillful and awaken, arouse what is skillful. And, and this, I like to think of this as to let go of what is unhelpful? And pick up what is helpful, do what is helpful. And sometimes I like to say, put down what is unhealthy that we our mind, and speech and body can be doing, and and pick up what is healthy, that we would where we can pick it up. And so this distinction makes a huge difference. If we don't see this choice we have in any kind of situation in our life between what is unhelpful? And what is helpful? Why would we kind of stopped doing the unhelpful if, if you have a thorn in your foot, and you don't see that, that's, you know, that it's helpful or serves you to take the thorn out and use keep walking on the thorn, then, then, you know, you'll eventually you can get infected and might cause lasting damage. So the idea is to, you know, we constantly make this distinction in our life, we sit in the chair, and we feel what it's a nice way of sitting, that helps us to relax, and what maybe is not life nice, maybe there's a kind of some painful pressure against part of our body in a certain way of sitting in the chair. So we make an adjustment. So this constant adjustment that we make is pretty much human nature. And but when we apply it in dharma practice, is we're learning how we relate to our experience. And the things that we do that come out of us is, so as opposed to looking about the world and changing the world. dharma practice has a very central thing of taking responsibility for what comes out of us. And if what comes out of us is a not helpful for the world or not helpful to us, then there's the Art of Letting go of it. If it is helpful, or if we awaken what is helpful, then please continue doing that with enthusiasm. And so making this choice so and one of the things that for mindfulness practitioners is it's always helpful, always wholesome, to be mindful. If the mindfulness is clean, if the mindfulness is not, does not come along with unhelpful attitudes of judgment or criticism or Our read greed or expectation, the simple mindfulness. And so to, to track this for ourselves, is a way of being our own protector. Because the deepest harm that we can do to our deepest harm that we can experience, as adults is harm that we do to ourselves. Even if there's horrendous things that happen to us outside, in our, in our deepest heart, it's how we relate to that, that really counts in the end, and really has lasting language and lasting effect on us. So if we react with resistance aversion deep in the heart, if we react with hostility and hate, if we react with greed and desire, in some deep way, that, that you that greed has a kind of tension and suffering and in and of itself, then we can create lasting harm. But if we can, the deepest places within, if we can meet with love, with care with generosity, with the non conceit, with non shutting down, then there can be lasting benefit to us. And this is, of course, very difficult to appreciate when knowing the horrible things happen to us. But the dharma practice, when we really get into it, really understand it well, is we understand that we are becoming the custodians of our own hearts. And that whatever happens around us, we begin developing the strength to really stay close to that heart of ours, and keep it free to keep it clean, keep it nonreactive in such a way, that we're actually compounding the challenges by adding second arrows to ourselves. And, and so this ability, this choice, seeing where we don't add the second arrows, and, and stay close to that is a way of protecting ourselves. So So then, what I love and what I find fascinating and just delightful, is that in this, you know, standing standing there and just choosing what goes into the compost, or we don't want to put don't need, it's unhelpful. By calling a compost, we don't have to think of it as abandoning it is just kind of another form of aversion. Everything has of use, some things are just useful for compost. And so when when I have, if I have anger, if I have greed, if I have these things that I don't think they're useful, if I kind of let go them and, and drop into my body, feel it all my body, the body has a way of composting it, I don't have to reject it exactly, or take it have an attitude that that it's awful or bad or wrong. It has a use, that somehow if I can let go of in such a way by letting go of it into the body, where it gets kind of transmuted or settled or supportive for something beautiful to happen. And then picking Awakening was beautiful, breaking what's helpful. So the way to do this, to abandon to let go of, and to awaken and maintain is that is done skillfully that's done in a helpful way. That's done in a way that's nourishing and supportive, that feels wholesome. So rather than making this distinction and navigating this distinction, one more difficult, exhausting thing to do. It's the attitude approach, the way we relate to that is supported by the love of the dharma, that we just love doing this practice. We love doing something that avoids further harm, and creates more benefit. But how lucky we are that we can do this. If we don't have the some kind of healthy attitude for how we make these distinctions and navigate this kind of natural distinction between what's healthy and not healthy. Then it's hard to sustain it. It can be exhausting, it can be debilitating. It can be feel like a burden. And but if we can find a healthy way to do this distinction, to navigate this, it can be at the light that joy kind of like the joy of maybe paddling down the current of a river and just kind of enjoying just staying in the current as we go. And, and just that the it'll choice we make stay in that healthy career. Read stay here be here, this is delightful. So, so I love it. I love it that the this idea of

abandoning the unwholesome awakening, the wholesome follows in this list, love of the dharma. And maybe that's a guide for how to do this very fundamental practice of usually called In Buddhism, right effort. And it's one of the pieces of the eightfold path. So it's pretty central to it all. And in doing this, we become our own protector. And that is one of the I think, really significant stepping stones in dharma practice, is learning how we can be our own protector. We protect ourselves from ourselves. As we do this, we also will become a protector for others, and we're protecting them from us. We become a safe person. And maybe this seems, a trifling thing. In a world that's full of horrendous suffering and challenges as we, as we're kind of very sensitive, many of us right now what's happening in the world. But someone has to be this kind of person. Someone has to be able to enter into the world so that we're safe for others. And who is better than this than ourselves? If it doesn't start with us? Can we does it make sense to continue to only expected from others that other people will make the world a better place? But if we can do it, if we can be a safe person for the world if we can then maybe we have a a stance upon which to stand back can begin encouraging other people to do it and, and speak up about let's let's let's meet with let's meet each other, peacefully, kindly, and let's try to stand in actively stand in an opposition exactly, but stand convincing people that violence doesn't work, that hate doesn't work. Greed doesn't work. Let's speak up about that, but only if we can be know how to be a safe for all people, including the people we disagree with. So and then we'll continue on these 10 protectors tomorrow. Thank you