So I want to begin this talk by recounting a famous psychology experiment, some of you have probably heard of it. And so being told, again, is maybe not so interesting, you know it, but the implications of it are interesting, and I think important to consider. And this was an experiment done at the Princeton Theological Seminary in 1970. With and the subjects you are going to go through unwittingly go through this experiment, where theology students of Christian Christian being trained to be Christian ministers. And, and who supposedly were quite familiar with their scriptures and stories and their scriptures. And the experiment was at one of these these different different times, that theology student was told that they were late, but they would, you know, and they really need to go across campus to give a talk on the story of the Good Samaritan, the Good Samaritan story, if you don't know how to do with a man who was sick on the side of the road, I think he'd been robbed and beaten up and was very sick. And, you know, and maybe the danger of dying. And, and a variety of people coming down the road just ignored him. Until this man who was a belong to the people of this cold summit cemetery and Samaritans stopped and helped him and then supported him took him to it in left, and so made it possible for the person to not die didn't save the person's life. So the Good Samaritan was a stranger who stops to care for someone. And, and so I told my wife this morning that I was going to give this talk on this kind of story and, and she's well, on the way to IMC, someone needs you, you better stop.
And then I thought, I better I better I should have left earlier then. So, so they did this experiment. So the theology students had to go give this talk about the Good Samaritan. But they were given very little time, they're like, late for giving the talk. So they were told to go across campus to give the talk on the way there unbeknownst to them, actor was there, disheveled and dirty. And, you know, sitting propped up against the wall kind of slumped over kind of hidden their hands or something, and their knees. And as the person who walked by the doctor was moaning and groaning. And, and this study was to see who would stop. And after all, that, what was this the subject of their talk was the that very thing. And a great majority of the seminary students did not stop, but just kept going. And the idea being that somehow, in being in a hurry, people don't have time to help. The hurt their hurried mindset, maybe you don't even notice maybe what's there, because you're so you're in a hurry to get something. And maybe there's high pressure, maybe they're being graded on that giving this talk maybe and so the pressure, all kinds of things contributed to, you know, not stopping to take care of someone. And so it's kind of heartbreaking. That's how it how it works. But so, the implications of this story for us is that certainly when simple one is that maybe is that if we want to be live in the world, in a way to help people to help society help this world of ours. Don't be in a hurry. Don't even be a hurry to help, maybe don't be in a hurry. Give yourself time, live a different life, then, because there's certain ways of living life, where you're not you don't have in the mindset and the heart set, to be able to notice and stop and care and come from that caring place for the world. This world of ours for some of us has so many temptations, so many things to do so many demands. The more there's been time saving devices kind of invented over the last 150 years or so. The more gives us a chance to do more more things and more things and more things. And so it's kind of epidemic in our kind of circles for some of us. How much little time there is to do all the things that we can do and fill our time with How does that affect us? How does it I think one of the ways is that it makes make it causes us sometimes to be out of touch with important, healthy, valuable places within us. Because we're so distracted, we're so caught up in our hurry, we're preoccupied, we're doing things, rather than feeling things and being present. So in in, in Buddhism, there's a discussion of a lot of discussion in and of, kind of opposites. Like there's, there's greed, and there's generosity, there's hatred, and there's love, there's delusion, and there's wisdom. And this idea that we've talked about the the unwholesome and the wholesome. And when we present it that kind of simple way, this kind of divided between these two, it could almost seem like they're kind of not exactly of equal value, but have some equality to them. It's like a, like a seesaw, or something or a spectrum. And it's one side and the other side, and they kind of have equal weight, or in that spectrum or something. But they're radically different. The wholesome and the unwholesome, the, the, this healthy place we can come from, where we can may be the place that might help others. And the other place which is unwholesome, the place where we're not just simply not helpful, but maybe worse work, maybe even cruel or unkind to people.
There they are, there, they're kind of very different than in a number of ways. Take. It's not either or, first of all, the wholesome side has a different source inside of us than the unwholesome side. And there's different sources in place, the origin for where they're born, is so different, that if we're interested in one more than the other, live in that source, live in that place, where they arise from. The other is, it's not either or, it's in some ways possible to have both coexisting. And this is actually very important for our healing. It's very important for the path of practice that's trying to, in a healthy way, find freedom from some of the unwholesome motivations and, and ways of being in the world that we have. So there's the idea of having different sources within the so the preoccupied mind, the mind that spinning and ruminating caught up in its concerns, its worries, its conceits, its problems, all kinds of things, it's kind of, we can get lost in the labyrinth of our concerns and preoccupations that there's so much energy there and so many kind of certain kinds of emotions that go into it. Anxiety is a common one desires wanting wanting is another one. The you know, Ill Will aversion not wanting is another one, there's a lot of kind of energy that goes into that kind of preoccupied caught up mind state. That comes with insistence, sometimes it comes with despair comes with undermining us comes with, kind of keeping us in touch with a part of ourselves with if we're, if we're are in touch with ourselves, that hurts, it's difficult. And in the pain of it all. It tends to we can recoil from it in such a way that we put more energy into that kind of mindset. And we're more spinning out and more angry. And there's anger and hate that just just cultivates more of the same. There's greed that cultivates more of the same. There's fear that cultivates more of the same. If we stay in this kind of reactive, kind of, I think of it as kind of a I think of it as in spatially as kind of higher up in the head in where we are going to head spinning. There's another source. And there's a source that I think spatially is deeper within us, maybe in the heart or maybe in the belly. When we're settled on ourselves. We're we're not caught in the rumination and preoccupations of our lives. We're not caught in this spinning of emotions that are pushing us and driving us and and like reinforcing it themselves in us. If those can become quiet enough and still enough, soften, you know and more in the background or not even there, and we can become settled here, then there is a places of love of care. There's a places of generosity, there is places of wisdom and of patience. That, really they need time to exist. They need space to exist. I like to think of these parties really healthy parts of ourselves, often in ways people live their lives, I like to think of them as shy. And so, you know, they're shy, they need to be given time and space and to feel safe to come forward and be there. And if we have lost and self criticism and self hate lost in, in, you know, blaming the world, for all our problems lost in our fear and preoccupations, didn't the healthy parts of us are kind of shy, they're shy, right, there may be a little appeal tender, tender and tentative about showing up. But if we could give time, and quiet their openness, and enough time to let these shy places come forward, enough time to give ourselves a real, real opportunity to feel or sense.
The generosity, the love, the care, the the generosity, all these healthy parts that exist in us, then those can condition us, those can affect us, they have an impact to live in those close to those, if we are just kind of they also are self reinforcing. And so but we have to give time for them to be able to be self reinforcing, support and change us and open us and develop us. And, you know, it's not like you check it off generous done that, you know, now, let's go out and get the ice cream. And you know, I deserve it. And we can just rush around the time and either town trying all the different ice creams until we find the right one, it's going to do it for us, because checked off the generosity thing because you smiled at someone. And that's done. You know, the idea is, you know, to live a different way to come from this place to make time to feel the generosity to feel this different source. And that's one of the possibilities that come from something like meditation is not the only way to do this. But that's one of the purposes of meditation is to give time to settle and feel an open, entered feeling what's this deeper place. And let in live in that source. Let that be the source. In case you're, you know, interested in the pursuit of wealth over everything else. The Buddha had a response to that. He said, what comes from this source is the greatest wealth. greatest wealth is not the money and goods and material things. It's really your loving kindness, your compassion that comes that lives within you. They're your integrity. And so that's how you become wealthy. And it's a wonderful wealth because it feels you from the inside out that external wealth can never do. It's not uncommon for me to hear stories about people who are phenomenally wealthy, who are empty inside who are, you know, don't don't have any doubt in touch with this inner wealth. And some years ago, I had there was a person, my circle of friends, people I knew who was probably the poorest person I knew. And the way that he lived his life. I saw him as the wealthiest material he was poor, but this in terms of how he lived his life, not just how he felt his love life was just like the feeling of abundance and it was quite inspiring to me. So this, it takes so to really appreciate this different source of what motivates our life, what animates our life. And I would like to suggest that there is no one but you who take can take responsibility for that where you come from, where it what motivates you and deep down inside. There's no pill that can do it for you, I think. I hope not. You know, there's no one else who could do it for you. It isn't that you wait until you find the person who's And you can be around that's, then you can do it. It's up to you to do. And it's really a choice, man, it's a choice choice point. And don't think it's an all or nothing like I have to not have to choose to be all good. And choose to avoid all bad. It's not it's not like that kind of all or nothing. But it's a choice about where you lean choice of where you want to come back to what you want to be reminded of what you want to inspire you, what you want to be reminded of what you want to try to do that come from the best you can. And this brings us to the topic, a second topic around this and that these things can coexist. Luckily, they can coexist. And they can coexist in a variety of ways. But the most important way for a practitioner is that that part of us that's a healthy part, can hold and care for the part that is unhealthy. That part which is full of greed, hatred, delusion fear, we don't want to dismiss it, because then it'll come back and bite us I think. But rather, we don't want it then to kind of think, oh, that I can't do that I have to not have to feel good. And then have set up a
resistance or a wall between these parts of ourselves. But rather, this as we get more and more aware of the steep replace to come from, then we want to have that deeper place holder be present for the part that's difficult. Because otherwise, the deep dive part is difficult if it's ignored or repressed, will fester and come back in all kinds of unhealthy ways. So pretending you're good doesn't work. And one of the simplest ways I know of simple, maybe I should be careful the language I use. But I'll say it again. But maybe I can. You can reinterpret it for yourself. The simplest way of doing this is not to come from places of generosity and love and wisdom that like like as easy to find. But bring mindfulness attention to what's happening there, mindfulness is considered to be healthy part of the healthy part of who we are. And so if we can bring attention, attentiveness, and hold the difficult parts of ourselves and learn how to hold it, without adding more hatred to our hate, without adding more greed, wanting something so desperately, you know, if only I can get rid of my greed, then I can really have that good stuff. You know, or feel like I'm the bad person because I'm have the illusion I'm supposed to be wise, I better get more books and read, you know, then I can practice. But rather, these are parts of other difficulties almost like you, it's useful to think of them, they need to be healed. There are parts of us that are kind of wounded or broken or hurt or or undeveloped. And so, to hold them in awareness, to hold them in our goodwill to hold them in friendliness, to be present for them make room for them, not so they can motivate us not so that they drive us anymore. The driving force hopefully is this more healthy place, as as whatever degree that you can access it, whenever a small degree and from that place to hold what is unhealthy, unhealthy or that needs to be resolved or settled or healed. And some of us have a lot of pain, a tremendous amount of psychological, emotional, even physical pain sometimes that comes from that's associated one way or the other, with how we live from this different source. And some of it is because the deeper source the deeper parts, the tender part, the shy parts have been hurt, had been betrayed to society, people do all kinds of terrible things to each other. And, and so all kinds of things make it difficult even to be in that deeper place because of the pain. And so part of this be we can do both means we will learn how to be present for the pain Difficulty. We don't dismiss anything. But we allow it to settle to open. And slowly we begin to more and more at home in this place of a deeper source, this deeper Wellspring for the emotions the motivations, that according to this psychology experiment I discussed are were considered, I think they're considered more the helping dispositions to helping, and the world needs more helpers. So isn't it? I think there's there's not enough. But there's a lot. There's plenty. So some of you probably heard the famous story that Mr. Rogers, told of his childhood, when he was young, if the kid and there was some catastrophe in the world, terrible things happen in the world. I think he grew up there, probably World War Two. And, and his mother would say, remember the helpers? In many situations, there are more people helping and the people who did the terrible things. Remember that remember the helpers? So what about the helper in you? What about you living from a place of care in of this world, not because it's an obligation, not because you should do it.
Because you will do that in your own personal way. If you can find that deeper source, within, if you can rest there come from there. And learn to be very careful to recognize the difference between these these two different sources for your behavior, your speech, and even how you think the source from which you would live comes is a crucial to who you are. And many people don't don't know that there's these two sources. Most people think that the spinning, ruminating, difficult, challenging, preoccupied, reactive kind of mind is what there is, it's all they've ever known. And it's a radical thing. To begin, discovering, slowly, maybe at first is just trusting as possible, to begin finding your way to this other source within. And thinking that it's shine. That if you want to receive the benefits of it, you have to spend time there close to it. So for example, when you maybe if you get in touch with this little bit, at the end, during met something like meditation, or the things you do in your life, when the meditation or the whatever thing is over, don't live the checklist, approach to life, get done that pop out of your meditation and rush off to the, you know, you know, to kind of figure out what the best Netflix is to watch, you know, for you to be watching on your commute to work while you're checking emails, and, and the news has to be, you know, you know, and like, don't do that right after meditation. Because I mean, you could but but you but then you're not giving it opportunity, a chance for this deeper source. To condition you to affect you to, to benefit you to reinforce something really great. We have to live a different life. If you want to be have a different life. If you want to have a different life, but not change anything. It can't be a different life. So
and maybe just maybe you're more likely today to be the Good Samaritan. If the need arises, that would be nice. Or this week, this year, this life. So thank you all very much. And as I said earlier, those of you would like to come in now and meet outside. We need to have the folding chairs which they're in the cabinet. Some people know where they are just the other hole. And then we carry them out there and I'll come out as soon as I can and join you and we'll spend about half an hour together, just chatting about this. Thank
