This will be the fourth talk on the topic of delusion. And it certainly builds on the first three. And the topic that kind of the title of it is, is composting delusion. I think of this as a kind of an advanced practice, because it does involve involves allowing delusion to be present. And delusion is one of the primary sources of causing harm in the world or harm for ourselves. So, that's why it's an advanced practice to allow for it. But to do it without getting entangled with it without getting caught in it, and certainly without being motivated by the delusion. And so it's an alternative to the attitude or the approach, that when there's something undesirable, maybe even unwholesome going on in the mind that it's an alternative to trying to fix it, trying to make it better make it go away, letting go of it. And which in and of itself, sometimes, is the operation of delusion. So for example, it could be the idea that I will only be a good meditator or a good person, if I get rid of this delusion. So I have to do something to get rid of it. And there's a lot of baggage and some of it perhaps delusive around me myself in mind about who I have to be operating in the movement to get rid of something, or to stop it or fix it. Of course, sometimes it's really healthy to fix something or let go of it. So I don't want to say it's always that case. But the problem, there's more delusion in that movement than most people realize. And so the alternative is to not try to fix anything or make anything go away. But without being caught in it. And this is where having a stable strong capacity of being still are present, especially in meditation, where you're kind of committed to not moving or not saying anything during that time. And that it's safer to just allow things to be there. And so, we if we are present enough to recognize something as through delusion, then so for example, it could be there's fantasies that involve delusion of grander delusions of how great it will be if I could do X, Y, and Z. And, and, and you've done this so much it you see it clearly Oh, this is kind of a fantasy world that I'm living in. And so we see it clearly. But we don't try to judge it or judge ourselves for it, we don't try to get rid of it. But we do, we allow it in a certain kind of way. We allow it. While we know it is illusion. And that does a number of things. One thing that's very important is that it allows us to become more familiar with this tendency, more we get to recognize and feel and sense what this delusion is. And one of the one thing when principle is that it's the things, you only let go of things in a healthy way, when we really understood it. If we let go of things before we really understand it, it might not really be letting go. We don't really, we may be let go, just a surface symptoms of it and not really what's happening. And there's, there's a lot of wisdom that comes from familiarity. And you're seeing something over and over and over again, to a little bit of a bad news, this idea because it's made me uncomfortable to see something, some things over and over again. But in fact, to see it with a nonreactive mind to see it with without being entangled or caught and without trying to get rid of it allows a deep, something deep to begin happening within us. And one of the things that that can arise with that is a very healthy, kind of enough already a healthy feeling that, you know, I'm not really I don't really value this anymore. I don't but I'm not behind it. I'm not motivated by it, I don't care for it. I see that this is actually this particular delusion I'm having is not really healthy for me or for the world. And and that insight that real clear seeing Like that there's not a version. It's not,
you know, any kind of hostility or, but it is just a clear seeing, Oh, look at that, as, like, if you put your hand on a hot stove, if you do it long enough and become familiar enough with it, you want to pull your hand away like this, enough of this, I don't want to do this anymore. And for most of us that we don't need a lot of time on the on the stove, on the hot stove, I mean, just, you know, milliseconds, we we know that, that we don't want to do that, that that's not wise. But some of the illusions of the mind, it takes longer for us to see, oh, the healthy movement, oh, this is not for me. And, and, and building on that, especially if that illusion continues and we don't necessarily doesn't, doesn't necessarily stop, it can be a source, a wonderful source, to be motivated to practice and feeling. You know, I don't really want to live this way anymore. I think that the only way I know to really get to the bottom of it or work through it is to practice is to meditate. And so a person might dedicate themselves to meditation, or a contemplative life for a while, so that they can really tap into something deeper than the surface mind of delusion, preoccupations that maybe we've been living in. So this allowing of delusion to be there to become familiar with it can produce a healthy feeling attitude of enough already in a healthy motivation. Okay, I'm going to get serious about my practice, daily practice more. The other thing about allowing delusion to be there, this composting, loose digesting of it is that I think it's often useful to think of things like delusion, as being a symptom of something deeper. And if we allow it to be there, and just without reactions without being for or against it, it allows something deeper to manifest or allow something that maybe metaphorically is a seed within the delusion, that's healthy is beautiful to sprout. And, and, and maybe it's the opposite of some of the some of the conditions for the illusion be there. Maybe what some of the conditions for delusion is anxiety, or loneliness, or insecurity, or very strong desire. And but as we sit quietly and allow that delusion to be there, knowing it's delusion, then we begin recognizing over time that something inside begins to morph and change and settle. And the opposite of those unhealthy movements are there there's, we can recognize this piece there that's growing within it, we recognize there's some feeling of security, some feeling of well being at ease, that's kind of growing there and beginning to show itself, that has a lot to do with the ability to sit still and not be engaged and reactive to it. So and this is very respectful, this attitude, this idea of composting or digesting or allowing things to be so something can be transformed and changed and deep, healthy way. I like to think of it as being very respectful of life, everything can be respected. Everything, nothing has to be seen as a problem. Nothing needs to be seen as even an innocence may be unnecessary. It's all the it's all to be respected as a deep unfolding and working of our humanity. And, and we have this amazingly fantastic, wonderous potential to move towards healing to help to wisdom to freedom, that doesn't have to be intentionally worked on due to luck, we have to be the Douro that as much as as getting out of the way for this deeper potential to kind of really show itself where mindfulness awareness, this unmoving consciousness that's really present for things is the field or the soil out of this transformation can happen. And so this composting of greed, hatred and delusion that I've been talking over this last week on Thursdays, I think of it as adult ed also helps us discover this deep respect for everything and respect that doesn't celebrate everything. It doesn't condone everything, but it's a respect that doesn't condemn anything. It doesn't,
you know, disrespect or treat as being just wrong, whatever is happening for us, in that field in that container, have a clear awareness of what's happening without being entangled with and without being motivated by what's unhealthy. And that's why I think meditation is such a powerful laboratory place for this, too. So the composting practices I've been teaching these last Thursday's, please be very careful with them. Think of them as kind of advanced practices and little bit dangerous practice. Because it's so easy to fall into, to believe we're doing nonreactive. And then believe that whatever is arising from within, is somehow wonderful or important or wise, and we should just make room to allow things to just, you know, then some some kind of inner intuition or inner deep knowing can flow as we get out of the way. That attitude can be a kind of delusion as well. And, and so it'd be very careful with this that we don't know kind of way or giving into something that's going to cause harm to ourselves, harm to others harm to everyone. And anything that perpetuates other delusions like delusions of self and self grantor and things like that. So, and with a composting practice, I've been talking about these last weeks, it's probably if you really find it valuable or something that's meaningful, it's probably good to check in with a meditation teacher a little bit to make sure that you're on the right track, because it is possible to go a little bit off track doing this kind of practice. So thank you very much. And I look forward to our last talk on this topic. delusion tomorrow.
