2022-05-06-Satipatthan (71) Living in Awareness sith Satipatthana

3:20PM May 6, 2022

Speakers:

Gil Fronsdal

Keywords:

awareness

practice

running

training

developing

exercise

freedom

wonderful

feel

buddha

kinds

shortcomings

attachments

clear

suta

awakening

lucid

rooms

upset

talk

Hello. And we come to the final talk. Now over 70 talks on the sati Putana SUTA. And it's a practice this the practice of mindfulness by which we're cultivating and developing a heightened capacity for awareness. I like I like myself with the language of lucid awareness, clear awareness that's available and present for us as we go through our life. The in this text, there are 13 exercises that we've gone through bit by bit. And, and the relationship between the exercises. And the awareness that's being developed is similar to the idea of running. If someone says, I run, I'm running or something, oh, you doesn't tell you much about what, what that's about. It's possible they're running for exercise. It's possible, they're running to catch the bus. It's possible they're running from the police. Just telling them they're running doesn't say much. But if you tell them, if they tell you that they're training they're running. And training is their training program and running, then you'll get a clearer sense of the running now. It's an exercise, that's protocol they're following. They're probably doing sprints and long distance and exercising, strengthening and, you know, all kinds of things you might be doing, if you're training to run, like trying to run for a race or something. And so there's a lot of things you do, but what you're learning is developing your capacity for running until the running becomes, you know, we it fear can feel effortless at some point, if you're really in the flow of running, even though a lot of energy is being expended. And we can feel like you're abiding in the running through running, just kind of like, just like we're being carried along with it. Whereas in the beginning of training, it was hard, and you had to apply yourself and there was resistance to it. So the same thing, the 13 exercises is the training and awareness. And they involve other kinds of, you know, other things, training exercises we do, and areas of practicing. And a lot of that training has to do with knowing recognition of what's there. And, and as the recognition grows, then awareness develops. And that awareness can be stay with you for a while, sometimes it might stay for a few seconds, sometimes it might stay for a few minutes, sometimes a few hours, sometimes longer, you really feel like now there's the awareness is kind of, for a while, ever present, or continuously present for a period of time. And, and that awareness makes a world of difference. You might still be have all kinds of inner challenges. And you might have fear and desire and anger and attachments of all kinds. But the art of awareness is like a now we have like a separate place to abide. And it's like your whole house is is dirty. But the living room is clean. And from living room you can see all the rooms, but you're not disturbed by it because you've learned that you can clean the living living room. And there's no need to dirty the living room by being upset by what's in the other rooms. But with time you'll go there and and clean them up and take care of it. You know how to do it now. So we have this awareness and there's actually a kind of a have a relaxed feeling about our shortcomings. It doesn't mean we indulge in them. It doesn't mean that we celebrate them and just kind of barrel ahead with them. But it means that we don't criticize ourselves or upset or with ourselves or are burdened by our shortcomings. Of course we have shortcomings, quarters their desires and attachments. That's what we're working with. That's where we're training and developing more and more this capacity for awareness. But as the awareness gets stronger,

at some point, this becomes clear that that is the best alternative, that's the better place to be in awareness, and be being aware of everything else, that tends to shift everything else towards health. That tends to shift things in the in skillful, healthy way. It makes room for healthy mind states and motivations and wisdom to occur. When awareness begins to be present in an open, relaxed way, we not to be aware of what's happening. And at some point that satipatthāna doing the practice doing the practice, at some point, during this satipatthāna practice, the awareness becomes so clear that we say it was kind of like an aha moment, oh, now I know what this practice is about. Now, I know kind of something about freedom. Now I know about not getting caught in anything, including my shortcomings, I don't have to be drowned by them or upset with them. It just, that's what the mind is doing. And now I know there's, and there's this place of freedom, this place of open awareness, this place of lucid awareness that we know that they really makes an impression, maybe for the first time like, wow, this is fantastic. The and then that's a confirmation of the practice of sati Putana. That's it all this practice kind of brought this about this clear, lucid awareness, this freedom of awareness. And that's what satipatthāna is about, is to cultivate and develop this strong sense of awareness, this strong awareness. And, and then, after that clarity, tendency is that a person is more ethical, but there's no guarantee. But the tendency is because this field of awareness is so wholesome, it lets us see and feel the impact that our inner behavior has and our external behavior, what we do, and we can feel how we're diminished by unethical behavior, and how we're kind of enhanced by ethical behavior. So there's a tendency to start being more and more interested in being ethical and not causing harm in the world, or any kind of eventually any kind at all. Once this kind of clarity, this aha moment happens. And now I know what the practice is about, now I know something about it, then the practice of satipatthāna doesn't change, it becomes the same practice, we do the same thing. Again, and again, though, now there's a reference point for it. This little, this clarity of awareness, it becomes easier to do, we can fall back into awareness more clearly are some qualities, or characteristics of this lucid awareness might be witnessed all the time, even though it's not always there strongly. And then the practice develops. And then at some point, this experience of a ha and freedom of awareness comes to full maturation, and in this tradition, to talk about full awakening, full enlightenment. And, and, you know, the, I don't, I've never met anyone that I know that had that full awakening full enlightenment, I've been a lot better and a lot of wonderful Buddhist teachers. But I know that that's a possibility. That's a direction we can go once you have enough practice and enough, a Ha, this works, this is what it's about, then you can you have a clearer sense, it just other rooms in the house. And it's possible to clean it all out. Someone can do that for themselves, no doubt about it, and whether, but it's a big task. And so whether there are people in the modern world that you can meet who have done that, it's an open question, it's hard to know. But, but doesn't matter so much for oneself, because one knows, this is the direction we're going, there's no other thing to do. The Buddha said that once you become fully awakened, then the practice of satipatthāna becomes the same. For the Buddha, that's a person who practice who is fully awakened, continues to practice satipatthāna Maybe it isn't so much exercise anymore, but rather it's a kind of way of being but he still exactly the same instructions are given for people who are fully awakened. So whether we're new to practice, and you're developing the practice and knew what it satipatthāna Were there,

we know what the practice is about, which is the web version. becomes called a trainee. Sometimes it's referred to a stream entry. Then after that, it's the same practice. And if you become fully awakened, it's the same practice. Jack Kornfield has this title of a book called, you know, after the ex after the ecstasy, the laundry. The other way, another thing that from this, what I'm teaching here today, from the boot from the Buddha, he said that he would, you know, his title of his book would be before awakening sati Putana, after a partial awakening, sati Putana, after a full awakening, sati Putana. And that, this is the practice for a lifetime, there's no end to it. So always we're doing it and it's not a burden, it's not, doesn't feel like work, it just becomes more and more natural becomes who we are. And it becomes trusting living and awareness, more than anything else, living and being present for experience. And, and the alternative to not be aware, is clearly not as good, not as wonderful, not as enjoyable, and not as helpful for the world. Because to know something about freedom from attachments and clinging, then we know what other people are. What's what's possible for other people what their potential is, and then we can somehow support that. And, and just like, so if you follow this path to the freedom, freedom from clinging to lucid awareness, you're being supported fully, that's the most wonderful thing you can do for yourself. And you become a model a you become a exemplar, and you become someone who can recognize and support that possibility for other people, that other people too can attain more and more freedom in a deep way. Rather than having to accommodate suffering, put up with suffering. assuage suffering with compassion and self care, which is a wonderful thing to do. But to limit the limited by that is to be limited, to open up into this world of freedom, have full awareness. Everybody has that potential. And it's a game changer. But it doesn't change satipatthāna satipatthāna suit SUTA satipatthāna. Practice the training of it before awakening, and after awakening after satipatthāna more satipatthāna. So thank you for this. And I hope that the joy of awareness, the joy of mindfulness becomes your joy, and that it's contagious. And thank you for being part of this series. And then I'll be back here in about two weeks. next two weeks. We have guest teachers I'm going off to teacher retreat at the Insight retreat center. And with Andrea fella, and so for next week, Matthew Brent silver will be back. And the following week, Nikki Mirghafori will be here. The wonderful teachers I've taught here before very much appreciated by by their the YouTube sangha community. And so you'll be in good hands and I'll be back somewhere around the 22nd Monday around and look forward to being together again.