[135] Finding Inspiration and Progress on the Spiritual Path with Jeffrey Stevens – with Jeffrey Stevens

1:03AM Nov 7, 2023

Speakers:

Alyssa

Jeffrey Stevens

Keywords:

people

rinpoche

path

practice

call

teacher

meditation

retreat

inspiration

feel

life

awakening

fear

practitioner

friends

sign

guess

good

connect

spent

Just sort of checking you all out. Is anyone here? New to me? Anyone here like never seen this guy before? I'm just curious. Okay, um, I don't even see myself on this. But maybe I have the self view turned off, but that would be the sign of good practice. Oh, I do. Oh, there I am. All right. Well, everybody. Okay, I'm just looking at you again. And then I'm gonna stop it. And I'm gonna let go Hello, everybody. Hello. You guys look great. What are you doing with your ears? obviously something's working. God look at your look at your skin. Wow.

I have been doing a lot of practice here. My wife and I have been both on retreat and leading a retreat. And we're getting ready to do another retreat with our teacher. And man, it's just like God, there's so much opportunity to practice. There's just so much opportunity to practice. Once you hook in to some kind of ongoing practice world. You really don't have to look very far for support. And that isn't the way a lot of people see it. I think I talk to people, probably the thing that people mostly talk about at least when I used to have a meditation center before COVID. His people just said that they it was so hard to find support. It was hard to find a teacher it was hard to find a community. And we were we worked hard to build a community back then. And we did that was good thing to do. And I'm just wondering if things have changed, or if it's a matter of knowing, knowing where to go because I really don't know I know that there are so many, so many Dharma opportunities, practice opportunities, learning opportunities that are all consistent with one another, not random, you know, buffet style, like I'm going to learn a little this tradition and then a little of that I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about vast opportunity within a given tradition. There's so much available that you don't have time to do it all. You have to learn even if you're just doing one thing like say you're just doing Mahamudra practice. You have so much opportunity to train with qualified teachers and hang out with long term students like yourself short term student or new students like yourself that it's just seems endless. And that's amazing because this is a day and age where we all wonder what happened to our friends what happened to our community. Of course, most of these things are at least partially online. But hey, look who look who I'm talking to. None of you are in this room with me and I'm not in the room with you. We're all people who are willing to do this online. How many people resisted doing Dharma online when it was when the world turned that way? I did. I'm raising my hand because I was no you all were like, Oh, good. It's on the computer. You like that? It was on the computer. Hmm. Oh, really? That's fantastic. Is it? Because it makes it possible when it wasn't possible before? Or is it that okay? Thumbs up there, or it's just, it's just so much more restful to be able to be in your own environment or whatever. Okay. Yeah, I see some of that too. I'm coming around. I'm coming around. I used to orient my entire year around the summer because from late May until early August, I would be away on retreat with teachers. My wife too, and we would just pack everything up and we dropped the pets off with friends. And off we would go and be around people all summer long. And that was the thing, the thing and yeah, hundreds of people would be at these programs and those of those are all done those don't exist anymore. There's just not even not even think you can do things like that. At least in the US. It's hard. You could go to Nepal. But now that I see what's possible online, very optimistic, because meditators need community and they need instruction and they need continuity of both of those factors. But it doesn't have to be something that you traveled to. I guess that's just the facts. I was on a retreat with who was on retreat with I guess I was on a retreat with Sony Rinpoche a month ago and at the end, he's he's, he just said, so I want to say goodbye to all 800 of you. 800 people on the Zoom call studying really advanced meditation 800 people that's amazing to me. Amos, you're in India zooming in to the US. That is funny. That is funny. Well, we haven't good. We we don't have to chase learning opportunities. We might have to spend a little while browsing around the internet to find him, which is funny. But honestly, what a person's path needs can be gathered in a very folksy way just through conversation. Dialogue, following and instruct instructions that are shared. You know, you don't want to think you know this, but you come to realize at some point, you don't want some proprietary instructions that only this teacher teaches that so suspect, you want something that's worked for 1000s or millions of people. And so all of the best teachers have always prided themselves on handing you a thing that has a tradition that has a track record. But then what makes great teachers great is the way that they can bring it alive. And the only thing you need for that is to invest your time in getting those instructions and I think we're starting to do it online. And I'm amazed, frankly, I'm amazed. So everyone who decides to practice has to make a decision. They have to make a decision on what practice means. And I always find it interesting how different types of people show up at meditation retreats. So if you've ever been to an open meditation retreat, some sometimes that would be online, often these are you know, I'm just thinking of in person events where like 150 or 250 people show up. It's an open, learn to meditate weekend. You find people from so many different life circumstances with so many hopes and expectations about meditation. And some of them come to find that they actually don't want meditation they kind of thought meditation was was something but then when they saw what it was they realized, oh, maybe it's not this and so they don't stick around. Other people aren't, aren't quite sure, but they stick around and then eventually they make their decision and other people feel like yeah, this is what I was looking for. And then they have to learn more about it. But what I notice over the years I've shared this with with this group before, you know I started practicing in like 1993 1992 I think and I've had a lot of friends who are practitioners, you know, studying a lot alongside these people and we would go to study certain things with certain teachers over the years and I've maintained my friendship with lots of those people. Half of those people don't practice anymore. One of them is getting his PhD in Buddhist studies and he reads Tibetan beautifully and he's going to I mean, he's he's a professional, Buddhist. I guess I am too but he's a professional but he hasn't practiced anymore. And academics just beat it out of him I guess. And other people who just they just decided it was too hard or it was too much and all their friends are practitioners so they're still they still hang out with us. But they went on. Usually the story is they went on to make more money, which you know, it's kind of understandable. And then there are those people who kept practicing and, and I should also say there are those people who go away from practice 10 years, 15 years, maybe less, but maybe that long, and then they come back, boom, and they land and they're so glad and what I have observed observed is that people

are more inclined to maintain practice, when they maintain a connection. To their original inspiration to practice. When we move toward the path, we're moving towards something which doesn't make a lot of sense from many perspectives that were used to. The path is not quick. It is deep and it definitely transforms us It does exactly what it says it will do. But it does it over your lifetime. Not over the summer or over your retreat. You know, we spend however many years before we encounter the path moving in a direction that isn't leading to awakening. And then when we find a path that is that can lead to awakening we have to understand that well. You know, I've spent X number of decades wandering in one direction and I guess I have to be realistic that this is going to be a lifetime making a life decision. And what's amazing is that people do that's encouraging because when you meet people and if you haven't met people just take my word for it. I mean, you probably will meet them eventually but when you meet people who have been meditating for 60 years, and if your man if you can meet people who came from families that have all been meditators, however many generations back I mean, that's not going to be people born in you know, English speaking countries are probably not gonna you know, we're not going to meet many of those people. But when you meet people who come from families that are that hold meditation traditions, you see what meditation does to people. It makes people into these absolutely beautiful, courageous sources of wisdom, that are joyful and free of any type of fear. They're very hard to trick. They're very hard to co OPT. Even if you try to trick them, they don't really seem to get angry, but they definitely know what you're up to. And it's just they're their team, but they're so deep. It's like being around like a friendly tiger or a friendly lion. You know, it has power but it's your friend. And we become like that. If we practice and because most of us live in this world where nobody practices Nobody has anything even resembling an inner world like this. Their inner world, the inner world that is promoted by the world we live in is a fantasy world. It isn't an inner journey to reality. It's anything but the path of meditations the opposite of that. In just a little bit of experience of that is said to mark us. A practitioner is said to develop marks and science even early on. The marks begin to develop when we begin to relax because we don't have as much fear as we had a month ago. Just even intangible fear, just existential fear. We start to lose fear, we start to lose complication. And there's just something more present about us something more potent, and other people can somehow pick up on that. That's called one of the signs. It's an early sign. And when we walk the path, other people they gain something from that. It's nice to have a friend who isn't crazy. Especially if something happens that you feel all alone about or you feel frightened by. Maybe you get sick or maybe maybe you are alone and didn't think that you would be alone. You don't know what to do. But you have a friend who doesn't seem to turn away from you. They have the courage to look at the situation with you. That's amazing. It's an amazing thing to have. And you don't have to practice the path to be like that. People are just good, but when you practice the path you do become like that. You give the gift said that the greatest gift that you can give another person's a gift. Well the greatest gift is that you can show them the way to awakening. But within that is the gift of fearlessness. Or freedom from fear. Practitioners offer that so even when the going gets rough for us if we turn away from the path because the going gets rough that's gonna suck for our friends. Because we were becoming the person that they wanted to lean on at some point. They haven't told us that yet. They haven't told us that whatever we're doing is kind of encouraging them. They're keeping it to themselves, but they've started to watch us a little more closely. They will definitely come to your party if you throw on though. So what keeps us on the path or keeps us on the path is the recognition or the intuition that we have that pulls us toward the path to begin with? The reality of what is available to us through the path speaks to us even before we've discovered it. We feel it there's this longing there's this we know somehow there's something more there's something there's something to do there is something that we're not remembering, and we're getting older and losing the time that it that we would have to remember it. We're all in that position. Every human being is in that position. Some are in that position. And they can connect up with others who have made an important step. They've discovered that that is calling them that inner reality. The Buddhists call that bodhichitta the heart, the mind, the core of your being which is calling you to awaken and when you connect to it, and try to sustain it or stabilize it that's called then it's called bodhichitta the mind that has turned toward awakening most of our most of our moments in life are spent with a mind turned away from Awakening. Not because not because there's anything that we've done wrong. But we're not quite clear. on just how swiftly this life is passing and how high the stakes might be. So every so often, I think it's very worthwhile to reconnect with what called you. And I don't mean like what book you read, or what teacher you saw. But what did you feel when you read that book? Or saw that teacher? Or had that dream or whatever it was your original inspiration called and you move toward it? Maybe it wasn't the first time that it called that you move toward it. Maybe it had to call you many times. Maybe it disrupted your life a few times. It haunted you. But now you're still doing it. You're still in the saddle so you must have turned and faced it and said all right, what do you want? Or whatever however you did it. And that was the beginning of the path. At first, there's a call to adventure we're in our ordinary world, making ordinary decisions, assuming that we're going to live forever. And if we're Americans, probably imagining that everything will have a happy ending because that's the religion of our culture. They say that's what I've read. Our true religion is that every everything has a happy ending. We learned that from Hollywood.

If you really want to understand an American use understand that they believe that every story has a happy ending. That's why they become spectators. When things start going bad and they don't know what to do, they're waiting for the plot twist

what happens when you let Hollywood educate us I guess. Anyway. There we were. Not really making any progress in any direction, but not even knowing that or maybe we were unhappy. Maybe we were unsettled, restless. And then boom, boom. We felt that what is maybe we just had to hear it once. Or maybe it was so powerful, or it came at such a vulnerable time. That we had to take it seriously. But that's pretty rare. I think usually. The call comes many many times and we like I don't know. Seems inconvenient. I don't know not not now, not now. But at some point we are the people who heard it enough. That we we faced that's answering the call answering the call. And then we go on the adventure. And that's where we really learn about what kind of mess we've cut ourselves into, that we now have to get out of. But we want to do it not because we don't want to be in a mess. It's because we want what's on the other side of that mess and we're willing to deal with whatever we have to deal with to get to that. So, awakening, freedom from fear freedom from confusion isn't a mess that we have to sort out but we might have to sort out a bit of a mess on our way there. And that is inconvenient from one perspective, and that can be enough that can be enough to prevent us. And we can begin practice. We can begin walking the path. We can even make progress on the path we can even display some of the signs and marks. But then we can just kind of enter into a fog. It's just our karma or it's just the way the world is unfolding. And we can be almost spooked and disoriented and we can step off the path and start walking in a different direction and not even know that we did. And then what happens after that. While we walk in, we walk and we walk and we walk and then on Boom. That's the sound of the call. That was like when we were beginning but I'm on the past so it wouldn't sound distant like that. So that must not be the call. So then we just keep moving it's hard when you lose connection to your original inspiration. You can mistake it when it passes you in the mists. When you're off the path and it reaches out you can not even know what it is. So rather than letting that happen, we should contemplate what was that original inspiration? Can we feel it again?

I mean for me my original inspiration of practice didn't even come from the Buddhist tradition. It came from the Hindu tradition. Just the stories that I read in graduate school. I just stumbled upon some books. Oh my god. I heard about these amazing Indian practitioner they didn't even know what a practitioner was. I had no idea what any of this stuff was. These people were like, look like you're wearing diapers. That's just what they were their duties or whatever they're called. I mean, they were just so bizarre to me, but I would read their poetry or I would read little stories about them. And I felt like that's what I want to do. I didn't want to dress like them. But I wanted to somehow have that experience. And I began to put all of my time and effort into learning about them, which was not at all what I was I was on a scholarship to study classics. And I stopped studying classics and just started reading about all this stuff and started to try to learn Sanskrit and anyway it was very inconvenient because the call often is been any time I get frustrated or anytime I get burned out or depressed. Or I just get I just wonder why it's every Why is the world doing all this stuff? Why why are there all these wars? I I just remember my original inspiration. I also can do that with like some of the Buddhist masters that are available these days. Sony Rinpoche Mingyur Rinpoche chokyi Nyima Rinpoche Trungpa Rinpoche who just died. I mean, I've met these people and when I'm around them, I am feeling that it's not them. I mean, they certainly help but I'm, I feel that original inspiration. I'm starting fresh again. I'm a young practitioner at heart. And I will face the challenges of life. I will I will continue to walk this journey even if I lose it all. That's how I feel then. But when I talk to friends who have stopped practicing, they lost that. They don't even know why they were interested in it. When you ask them what's going on. Why aren't you practicing? They just there's just this confused. They don't want to talk about it.

Lot of time can pass. A lot of time can pass. And if you don't even want to talk about it. I mean, maybe maybe that'll change. But it's like you're closing the door. You're not going to hear the call. You're insulating your walls and windows so that when the call comes you don't even hear it so this is a contemplation so I would invite you to get yourself in your contemplation posture. And I think that, you know, we all probably know different types of meditation. There's the obvious type where we have an object of meditation, usually a physical one, like the breath. nostrils are in the abdomen, and we place our attention on that. Some of us may know how to rest our mind even without an object of attention. shamatha without support is it's called. Some of us may have trained in resting in the meaning of the view. So maybe we rest in non self or we're able to rest in something even deeper than that emptiness. Then there's contemplative meditation. And contemplative meditation nourishes all those other types of meditation because it brings meaning into our path and our path has to have meaning. I mean, yes. At the deepest levels, most of what we consider meaning in our daily life is a mental construct. And we see through all of that in the deepest levels of our practice, but we also need to put fuel on the fire. So we have this other part of our practice that we have to care for. It's not as profound, but boy does it feel good. It feels right. We have to remind ourselves of who we are and what we value. Why are we doing this? I mean, there must be, there must be a reason and it must be a really noble one. They must have somehow at some point in our life, something really touched us and we valued it more than just going out and making a bundle. So we we've been walking this path. Not many people are walking this path. What did we see? How did we feel? We can contemplate that just let yourself go back. What brought you to the path How did you feel when you made the decision? I'm gonna go toward that

was it 10 years ago, five years ago, three years ago, 20 years ago

what was happening in your life? My wife was once talking about this. And she was asking what was going on in your life? When you found the path and felt it

what was the feeling of finding the path

what was the hope? Did it have hope?

It must have been powerful because I bet you sacrificed a few things in your life because of your interest in spiritual things. Didn't you know?

There are probably some things that you had to say no to. So that you could say yes to this. We can all say that.

For some people, the path or the reality of awakening the possibility feels like a path out of pain, of suffering of something dark. We feel like maybe we found a way out. And then we read and there's confirmation that that's exactly precisely something you can count on. Is that what it was

because for some people it's it's something a little different. It's an adventure. They're finally connecting to an adventure. to something that they knew was here. But they hadn't found it. I was getting so frustrating. So many things that are so mundane are valued by so many. And we don't connect we don't want what everyone else wants but we're not depressed or are we depressed? Maybe we start wondering what's wrong with me? I don't want a corporate life. What's wrong with me? I'm not fitting in in my church group. Like I like I probably should but I don't want to I want to grow my hair long. And where Patchouli I want to listen to different music. I want to write poetry. I don't want to work. At the firm. Whatever it is, we finally encounter something that looks like oh my word. What is this that is opening before me. Maybe that? Maybe that is our original inspiration

but I think we're most lucky. When we have both of those. They might alternate a little bit. We might start out looking for a way out of pain and fear. But we find some years down the road that we inadvertently signed up for the greatest adventure and now we're on it. How are we so fortunate? Maybe it was the other way around? Maybe. Wow, we're so inspired. We read Autobiography of a Yogi or we read some book like that and it's like oh my god, I'm gonna do this stuff. And it's great. We love it. We're on our path. And we're very excited for a little while, you know, maybe a few years just so much momentum and then we see the side of life that people don't like so much. They want to avoid it. We realize that there's real suffering here and it's coming from me and the ones that I love. It's coming from my pets and my children and future generations and wow I'm really getting sad and afraid. I'm not as excited as I used to be. And then we realize well maybe this path is going to help me and he up

I'll only say this because I am almost certain that no one here would be like this would have come from this perspective. I'll take a risk those who take up the path of practice because it sounds interesting. Don't progress if it's a curio if it's something that sounds interesting, it's being perceived incorrectly. It's being perceived as another activity within the mind in the world. That kind of path won't take us anywhere. And so people who do approach it that way. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's just it's not gonna work. They disappear. Maybe you went to a retreat, and we're really excited and you made a friend there. You really liked that friend, and you were looking forward to seeing them again but they didn't come back. Now they may not have been answering the call. They may have just been browsing for interesting things. To do. Probably wasn't what you did

so how do we know let's look within again. I'll try to keep the talking down a little bit. How do we know when we're contacting that? Our thoughts quiet and something swells within us. Maybe we get tingles. Maybe there's a tear that forms in our eye

if we can start over from there, knowing what we know now we will be in the best position possible.

Other words all of our knowledge is just baggage we have to drag around. But that inspired heart within us can shoulder anything lifetime after lifetime

so when in doubt, and even just from time to time finding that original heart of practice. That'll bump us forward on the path that could even be our practice.

Pour heart accompanied by a very simple mind and a sparkling awareness

that's the most fortunate type of practice. That's taking the ground as the path and the fruition will not be far but we won't even care. When we connect to that original inspiration, we don't care about enlightenment coming in the future. We are overwhelmed with just what we are feeling. It's so wholesome. It's directing us with courage and clarity. We don't need anything more but we will get more because it will open it isn't static. It's just like a step on a staircase. You don't just do one

we feel that it's all ready. Opening but we don't even care. We don't need it to open any further but it will.

Well, we have a little bit of time left. Thank you for joining me in this tonight. I think it's important and that's why I took your time which you generously handed me by showing up and not signing off. So there's stuff to learn and stuff to know. And there's some striving that's good for us. Not too much but some but then there's also the completion that is within us. Already in there's no reason why we can't experience it. And there's every reason why we should. It gives us confirmation it increases our confidence and it moves us further on the path. When we do the right things, for the right reasons. Things go well. So love to hear from you. I can't believe it is that from time where have you been?

Just just lost in the wilderness. As usual in delusion, aggression and craving.

Think I saw you there. Yeah.

Excellent presentation on intention. And my question was about something I may have. You may have mentioned at the very beginning of the lecture on time that you did last time and then you said you were going to do a subsequent more deeper dive is as our has that already happened or not? It hasn't

happened. We we had to bump it because of a teacher of one of our teachers came into town. And just it was a circus around here. So we decided that rather than me teaching, I would. I would student rather than teach it's probably good for me and probably good for anyone who's going to be there. So we went to a bunch of stuff, spent a week burning the oil at both then I'm sorry to mix my metaphors doing that. So we're still going to do it. We're trying to figure out when the whole Dharma talk series is going to begin again. It is going to thank you for asking

was, was that rubbed gem Rinpoche that you were? Yes, it was.

Yes, it was.

Why don't you say a few words about that. About how that was for you.

Well, you know, Rob John Rinpoche is not a teacher who I know as a person, but as a lineage figure. I totally know him. He's the heir of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche and it was very important to me and he was coming to bestow what are called empowerments or Avi shake because of a number of practices that are critical to the path that I've been on all these years and are not easy to come by. So there are just tons of people like me, or Andrew Andrew already has these he got in early who are waiting or waiting. These are practices that we kind of stepped on the path to do you know, it takes like 10 years to do each one of them. And then this is the final one that I needed. And I just couldn't believe that was just coming through and giving it but to get teachings like that is it's like I mean, there's so much learning that goes on. So much stuff this is not something that anyone has to do. This is stuff that if you're into vaad Rihanna, Buddhism, you do which, you know, that's kind of those are the decisions I made in life sometimes I can't believe it because of how much is involved but so he came in he he gave, I don't know half dozen of these empowerments I only went to one I don't there's one very important one. And he is the person to get it from because his grandfather Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche was the sole lineage heir or one of the main lineage figures of this practice, and was also very close to Tulku urgyen, who is the father of Sonia Rinpoche and chokyi Nyima and minger, Bucha who are our main teachers. And all of these teachings are circulated among them. And so anyway, it's connected to sub Gen. It's a zoek Gen teaching cycle. And, anyway, so what's your environment

was it was logic,

logic Helia Okay. Thank you. You bet. Hey, I hope to see you around. For sure. All right. No more hands up. Did I offend? Did I the offend? I was just gonna say is it something I said, but obviously it was something I said.

You know, if I could just beam light out to everyone. I would trust me. I would do that for you all. Someday. Someday. You'll just sign in and all this. And then you'll feel like Oh, awesome. And then you can go on. But I'm not that guy yet. I'm not that guy. I don't actually even know anyone like that. I've heard about people like that. I think Ramana Maharshi. Was like that Karmapa may have been like that. But even the Buddha talked let me look in the chats

I gotta read remember to look at these comments. This is where the internet gets

what are some of the signs that you are making progress in meditation? Patrick, are you still here? Or Patrick?

Yes, well um what are some of the signs that you're progressing in meditation? Well, there are types of signs. The most important sign is that you feel relaxed within yourself, and can perceive the ordinary everyday world without it causing tension or complications. That's a real sign. I think becoming more patient patients in Buddhist terminology, means that you it may be the same thing in English, I don't really know. But patience means the willingness to bear discomfort. So you can as Sonia Rinpoche says, you're willing to willing to suffer I will suffer. So that takes a change. A change of something for someone to be relaxed around that. The one that we all want which will come does come it comes gradually. It doesn't come all at once is freedom from the fear of death. And that could come quickly, I suppose if you're a very intense practitioner doing the pasha in retreat, I guess. But I think that it wears away when you begin to see impermanence or Matok BA in Tibetan or Nithya in Pali, in seeing impermanence leads you to see selflessness, which eventually could lead you even deeper. But seeing any of them. When you see impermanence, and you face that fact, experientially you there's a total reversal. You now know that parts of your thinking are completely incorrect. about reality. They still go they still think that things are lasting in space and solid that you have seen otherwise. And it takes however long it takes for each individual to join that in a change of heart. And that change of heart always is towards simplicity and relaxation, lightness. There are lots of other types of science of meditation, going well, but those are the ones that most of us want. And they come inspiration to keep living even in a world that seems to be challenging. Recognizing the value of life even if you're depressed. Even if you are depressed, or in pain, you still want to live because you see what life is an opportunity for. That's an amazing thing. There was a teacher named Powell. Renta chair power of the chair think, who had his spine had just like, degenerated completely couldn't sit up, couldn't walk, couldn't do anything, but he was healthy otherwise. And he was an important teacher to a lot of people. He had a lot of responsibilities. And I knew it. I knew a Tibetan who would go study with him. And they would go and they would see Paulo Rinpoche which is funny because Paulo means like warrior. So they'll go see Paulo Rinpoche and he would be laying in his bed, completely flat. And as soon as people would come in, he would say Oh, hello, how are you? This is what they said, always cheerful. But he was spent the last part of his life just laying down and in pain but it was a painful condition but he was so cheerful and so realized. So I remember I don't know anything more about him ah I'm just gonna keep talking to him. My time's up

inspiration

You're welcome

it's funny. All these AI bots in the chats are so funny. They're they're taking over aren't they?

Think that there's going to be a new type of inspiration to enter the path from a very young generation. That's you know, probably like 18 now or 16 Now, it will be the same basic inspiration but it will the fears and they will be recoiling from something and there won't be much in the history books that they can relate to. I think it's important for all of us to understand that there are new types of struggles. But still human beings who are going to be looking for a way out and you know, a lot of us just looking from it. You know, I think a lot of you are probably in your 30s.

Ish. But we didn't grow up online. We grew up with people and newspapers and library cards. And that kind of thing. Or dinosaurs or antiques, that's what choking EMR says I love it. He says it's important that people learn to appreciate antiques, everybody, every young person should have something old, that they take care of and love not a person I mean that too but like No, an original pressing of the White Album or something like that. Or I don't know like a doll from the 20s but antiques convey that there was once something good sound like everything was terrible and you know, but we are outdated because the generation that came after my generation Gen X are essentially divided from the cross generational transmission of knowledge and they began to only look at one another. They only take advice from people who are their age. That's a strange thing. It's not really their fault. But that happened. And they don't want to know. They just want to be angry that the boomers are angry. I mean not they're not all the same. But this happens a lot. And there's going to come a point where they need a helping hand and they're not going to find it within their ranks. They're going to look to you all so understanding what kind of challenges people have and what kind of original inspirations people are having right now where will they look it's so confusing

Oh, I did an intensive study for a month over the summer and then I felt like I needed a break our breaks normal. Yeah, I would think so. Sharon, I would think so. You know, it's good to keep a little connection, like a little daily connection to whatever it was that you were involved with. But really, yes, you don't want to burn out. You got to take care of your practice and not burn out. Sometimes teachers will just tell you just to relax. Just take some time and just relax. I have students who push. I have some students who really want to like develop Samadhi and that's an area that I take people on and want to do that and then they push and push and push and they make progress but then they are so burned out. And it's just like you got to stop for awards. Take two weeks do anything and don't worry. Will your practice decline? Yes, a little bit but you'll be able to get it right back. You got to you got your heart has to be in it. So yes, take a break. Take a break. You're not doing anything wrong by taking a break.

All right. Well, everybody, thank you so much. There was some question tonight about who was leading who was leading the method this evening. And I found out the last minute that I was but I wasn't sure. So anyway, I'm glad to see so many people. Hope you all are well. If you would like to know about the talks that I'll be giving, not here but on my platform. You can go to my website and sign up for the Dharma talks and you'll get an email when that's there. Anybody is looking to do a retreat. My wife and I lead retreats and we're going to be leading one December 9 and 10th. That will be a weekend. Very supported. Lots of teachings, a lot of meditation. That is the homepage of my website if you're interested in that right now. It says October 28. And or something because that's the last retreat but we're going to update that probably after dinner tonight. Speaking of dinner, I heard someone just come home. She came home it sounded like someone walked in the door with a bunch of tuna melts. So so I'm serving making sure that I'm not missing anyone.

Everybody it is terrific to see you. I've wish you the very best thanksgiving. I don't think I'll see you before then. Yes, I know that I know that dolphins die in tuna nets. I'm aware of that. It's very sad. And all kinds of grisly stuff happens because we're alive. You know, I also drive a car and I'm doing terrible there. So thank you for pointing that out. I'm sure that you found solutions to these things. I don't know where you all are. But I hope that the weather is beautiful for you as it has been for us here in Colorado. It's autumn, Thanksgiving is coming and hopefully that you can spend some time with friends and family and fellow practitioners. So I bid you a very happy November. After practice is incredibly strong. See you early in December by recording stopped