2022-12-30-Gil-Ready to Change (5 of 5) Clear, Happy, and Trusting

6:51PM Jan 1, 2023

Speakers:

Gil Fronsdal

Keywords:

trust

mind

suffering

arising

buddha

clarity

teaching

word

profound

experience

settle

contribute

softness

clear

dharma

profound teachings

open

nature

goings

greed

We come to the last of the talks that are titled, ready, ready to change could also be titled ready for change. But I think that first we want to think about read for ourselves ready to be to be ready to change ready to be changed for the better. And as we that happens to us, then we're more ready for change in the world. We're able to receive and be part of that change, without unhealthy resistance and unhealthy fear and projections and desires and despair and, and you know, all kinds of things that contribute to our, our sense of discomfort in this world, they contribute to a deep distrust in this world. That the things have to be different things shouldn't be this way. And maybe trusting anger, trusting greed, trusting fear, trusting mistrust. So the Buddha, when he was teaching, was orienting his teachings towards cultivating these really wholesome states of mind and people. So they'd be ready to hear profound teachings that could liberate them, or what would their language of it was, it opened their dharma eye, that they would see in a new way. And that's a powerful teaching the idea that we're not looking for a new experience, like a better experience, we're looking to see our experience in a new way, that's liberating. And some people are so focused on change, making some change, fixing something, solving something, but rather to open and see it in a new way. So if so, the Buddha would be giving these talks that will inspire people, and in that inspiration, he would, their minds would become receptive, ready to hear something deep. Their minds would become malleable and soft. Their resistance, for example, their stubbornness, and their, you know, laziness and their greed and whatever it was, which soften would which settle, and they'd be really right there. And so there's kind of softness and willingness to hear and take it in and kind of lower their guard in a healthy way, appropriate way perhaps. And then their minds would be free of hindrances. For the time to giving those talks, they'd be so connected to it, that they wouldn't be caught up in greed and anger and delusion, they would be inspired. And they would the last thing that would happen past saññā was a Pali word. And this is a wonderful word that we don't have a particular meaning in English for it. And the different meanings of it, that we can make out of it is a range that we have different very different English words for it. And so the, I think, that delightful task, is to consider how they all are one thing that somehow in that ancient Indian world, they saw this as as kind of like mates own thing, maybe like they had a different emotion than we have, because they divide up the human experience in a different way, or hold it together in a different way than we do in English. So you have to use your imagination a little bit to hold these different meanings together into one. Maybe you'll come up with a, you know, I mean, thinking about an English word that might hold them all, but so far haven't maybe some of you will. Or maybe even a non English language. So the the first meaning is clear or bright, so luminosity, a clarity, like the turn on the light and there's this wonderful clarity, the fog as the smog is cleared, and it's clear and it's there's a brightness and clarity to the mind to the heart. The second meaning is that it's a heart that is happy has just delighted and happy. And the third meaning is that it's a mind that's has trust in it. That is reconciled with all things See, that is pleased or satisfied with what's here here. But that we're trust is one, that's what people often fall foul on, or confidence. So clarity, happiness and trust. Is there a single English word that captures all three of those? Or can you somehow fold them in? To somehow recognize maybe all of them? I mean, they are, you know, a sense, if we have different qualities at the same time? Are they different qualities? Or is there a gestalt, a hole that they're part of in the presence? So this idea of receptivity readiness, softness, malleability, free of hindrances, inspired elated, clear, happy, trusting. And for now we'll settle on the word Trust. And it's a fascinating kind of concept to or state to kind of orient to ourselves, the kind of the exercise of what is my mind doing right now? does it express some kind of trust or mistrust? If it's trust? What am I trusting? am I trusting anger? am I trusting fear? By trusting mistrust? Where do I put my trust? In a sense, whatever the mind is doing most, there is a kind of trust there. And sometimes what we're trusting is not healthy for us. To trust something healthy, to trust, the wholesome, not the unwholesome to trust trust more than mistrust, to trust really being here. Fine. And what does that do for us to settle us relax us the confidence of faith, something about really being here. So the Buddha prepared people with a mind like that. And then he would offer his deepest teachings, and it would open people's dharma i. And it said that when people's dharma I opened, they would exclaim, they would say particular thing. They would say, whatever. And it might not seem very interesting or very profound, just hearing it, but it's really a significant. You know, this is this comes with experience of awakening. So it's, it's not to be treated lightly dismissed, because it sounds like that's not much. The buddho words that people would say, oh, whatever has the nature of arising, has a nature of seizing, ending, they would see something that dharma I would show them something very profound, about the comings and goings, the arising and passing a phenomenon. And what's it possible, we see that what's possible, is to see how much the mind does not allow us to stay and be there. Because we glom on we grab, we hold on, we have thoughts. And so when the Buddha was very specific, when he gave his profound teaching, he was saying that suffering has a nature of arising and passing. And to understand that, we have to understand that it's the experience of suffering. So if we've had a profound loss, the loss is not coming and going, it's, it's, it's permanent now. Or if we have some kind of permanent medical condition that debilitates us, that's there or you know, that's not going to change. What did he mean, right, coming and going. It's the psychological experience of suffering. That is how we relate to that has a nature of coming and going, it's not permanent, it's not solid, it's not. And if we trust the present moment, enough trust is being present for the river of comings and goings, we discover that place where all our psychological suffering belongs to that river belongs to the comings and goings up phenomenon. And when we see that when we wake up to that, then we realize it's possible to let it just be the river of change. If we don't have to cling to it and hold on to it. Whatever has the nature to appear, has a nature of disappearing.

Let's allow it to come and go. Let's not stop the disappearing let's not log on to it. Cotton it. Let's not think about it in such a way that it becomes kind of continuous. Just let the thoughts arise and go. It's like someone might protest and say What do you mean, my body is not coming and going, my body's just here. The body is constantly coming and going, the experience of it, the psychological experience of the body, the thoughts, the concepts of feelings, sensations, the body doesn't come and go, but it's a gent general thing, when we're into the direct experience is what we're talking about here. That's where the dharma eye opens to the direct experience here and now. And here, our suffering comes and goes, psychological suffering. So this idea of, you know, the Buddha has of teaching people to create the context of a heart and mind that's ready for teaching is not to kind of be pollyannish, about life, and to just make it all kind of nice and sweet. It's really to prepare us for the existential difficulties of this life of ours, the places of suffering and stress and challenges that we have. And what a wonderful thing, what a wonderful thing to cultivate the wholesome, to cultivate these wonderful capacities of our mind for wholesome states. Not to be blind to what's going on in this world. But to be able to see it and be present, present for it in a way that we are able to bring the best of ourselves out, we're able to stay awake and present and nonreactive. So that the best of us can meet and respond to the world. And I hope that this practice we've done over this last year, that it really does make us better able to contribute to the welfare and happiness of this world. May we really do this practice not only for our own sake, but even more than for our own sake, let's do it for the sake of the world. After all, as we settle and have this open attention, this ability to be free and aware that in that openness and awareness, maybe it doesn't matter so much. You yourself and me, myself and mine. What's important is what that awareness beats and encounters and how we care for it. May we care for this world. And let's care for it better, because we've gotten to the bottom of our suffering and learn not to cling to anything. So thank you all for this year, for this week, for this day. And very glad to have shared with you this time and this teaching and this practice. And I certainly look forward to doing it again starting in the future in the far future, next year. 2023. So when that time comes, then I look forward to being with you next Monday. Thank you