2022-09-07 The Dharma, pt 2 (3 of 5) In the Looking

3:07PM Sep 7, 2022

Speakers:

Gil Fronsdal

Keywords:

simplicity

aware

awareness

dharma

mindfulness

stress

equanimity

mindful

buddha

attention

simplistic

shedding

discover

wonderful

inviting

self consciousness

awakening

simple

tension

understanding

So I find myself happy to be here with you this morning. And for this third talk on the qualities of the dharma. And today, you know, so I've the simplest way, they're kind of very kind of simplistic, maybe a way of understanding these five qualities is that they are, it's about here, dharma is here, the dharma is now the dharma is looking, the dharma is flowing along. And the dharma is to be experienced. So, today, the topic you know, in a simplistic way is the dharma is looking though the literal Pali word. As I said, last week, a hit pasito is a very common, ordinary expression. That suggests this kind of simplicity, that I'm talking about a simplistic way of saying it is, because it literally means Come, look, come see. Some people say inviting inspection, they translated it. Some people say, there's one wonderful Chinese Buddha saying that says, awakening beckons us, within everything. And awakening invites us within everything. So everything that we see, and touch is inviting us come, be awake, wake up, what a great idea that that's how it is. And it is that way, in a certain way, that I'll maybe I'll try to explain that. And, but come and look, and look. And, and what we find that in this five characteristics of the dharma, the first one is son, dt, co dE dt, it does mean to come, come see, it means visible. So it's visible. Some people say visible here, some people say it's in this very life that we can see and live here. Some people will translate it as to see here to visible here and now. But I think you say it's visible here. The third one now is to come look. So here we both of them have, you know, seeing and in the meaning of it. And then the fifth one on Friday, is to know, to experience to know those the word it means both things to know, to say, of seeing and knowing is really steep in the dharma, and you'll find the Buddha throughout his teachings, he keeps emphasizing, seeing and knowing, seeing and knowing. And, and so cultivating or developing our capacity to integrate a lot to settle into here and now to discover a way of being here. And now, that is not in conflict, not fighting, not running away, escaping. Not afraid of here now, not putting layers of interpretation and, and, and wishes expectations on here are now coming into a simplicity of being with here now. So a lot of what we're discovering in this meditation practice here, and now here and now. And, and that gives us an opportunity then for the looking the seeing to be relatively simple to be uncomplicated. Not a lot of baggage comes along with it. And it's all too easy to have baggage come along. One of them is to look and be mindful with kind of a self consciousness, performance anxiety or measuring oneself, how am I doing and you know, I'm not doing well enough I should be further along or, you know, it's too difficult for me. All these kinds of kind of forms of self consciousness. Take us out of the simplicity of here and now. And also out of the simplicity of this seeing what's here, just this looking, just being mindful, just aware here. And one of the challenges for some, some people will be that this simplicity of here and now and simplicity to use mindfulness here is boring, that it's that has an unpromising it is not going to provide us with their rich things, the special things the wonderful things that and

and, but maybe that's the price of coming into a wonderful state of being is a willing This to be very simple without expectation without wanting anything. So that we can put down the activity of boredom, put down the activity of, of selfing. And wanting something and building self up, just very simple. So and then to be able to look from that point of view, to see, to be mindful to be aware, in a way is very respectful of whatever is happening in the present moment, that each thing in the present moment is allowed to be itself without our interference and our desires. The kind of pristine primordial kind of appearance of whatever is happening in the moment. Okay, this is allowed to be here. So all our emotions, there's an art to allowing them all to be there, here, without being entangled, reactive, and without being pushed around by them, without being influenced by them. And so this simplicity of being might not seem so interesting, in the in some ways, but it's a radical alternative to being influenced by our inner life and some, you know, desires, wishes and emotions and all that, something different can happen. But as we begin to look more, at some point, what becomes interesting and fascinating, is not what we see, not that we can see clearly. But we can the it's the looking itself, we begin appreciating more and more, that the mindfulness itself, the way we are aware awareness, it itself, the inner perception, the perception, we have itself, that maybe that's where the treasure is, maybe there is where we find a freedom, awakening that this wonderful to turn around and look awareness, look at perception, receiving perception, perceiving itself, looking the inner eye, looking and seeing itself, awareness aware of itself. In such a way that we begin shedding all the extra baggage that comes along with it. All the extra attachments, clinging stress levels that come along with being aware of being mindful. And this is one of the kind of ways in which mindfulness really opens up to a deep equanimity is as the mindfulness as the awareness begins shedding the complexities we add on top of it just becomes simpler and simpler. Awareness simpler, simpler, looking at the simplicity of it becomes the guide. Oh, there's were non clinging errs, there's, there's a little bit of stress there and harm aware. Oh, and as I become aware of that stress, something opens something relaxes. As it become aware, as I come aware of the stress in mindfulness, I noticed there that that awareness has no stress in it. So we're stepping back, we're going kind of these layers and layers and to finding that place where awareness has no stress, no tension associated with it. And then kind of staying close to that. Letting the how we're aware of the world come from that place of no tension, no stress, no pushing, no straining, no resisting. No pulling away, no leaning forward. So that's why sometimes it's powerful to to realize that we're trying to have this attitude or understanding that what we're looking for, is in the looking that attention we can in being attentive, where we're being attentive to how we're attending, attention and attending us together. In in having attention. We're attending to the attending itself. In the mindfulness, we're being mindful of the how we're being mindful.

In looking remindful of how we're looking and attending to anything, we're paying attention to how we're attempting and And that is where we begin you can understand something a lot about what's going on in our life and begin shedding all the different activities within. Associated with attention with a practice that involves stress, strain, tension, involves some kind of discomfort dukkha until we find this equanimity of simplicity, the simplicity of equanimity. So this idea of the Buddha says, Come and look, here and now in the here and now, with the here and now come and look, come and look. So, today, as you go about your day, you might take some time, you know, maybe set a timer or be reminded periodically, sit nifty whenever you have a chance, but spent making an assignment that today, I start becoming more aware of the characteristics, the quality of your awareness itself of your attention itself of your mindfulness, turn around and see how much extra that might be there along and see how simple you can allow your your attention to be. And if there's no any kind of extended period of time, this simplicity of awareness, I suspect that you'll discover that your breathing shifts and changes. It might become more useful. So I hope that it's a wonderful day of exploration. And I look forward to our time tomorrow. Thank you.