Day 7 - Seven Days at St Francis: The Final Chapter

So I'm going to keep it short today. And there isn't much I have to say to you guys. Everything I've had to say I've said in the last few days. I'll just do a quick recap, which is essentially understanding that the path is actually very quite simple and it requires very few ingredients, namely the seven enlightenment factors. The basis of all of it is mindfulness.

Mindfulness is remembering to observe how mind's attention moves from one object to the other. In other words, having present moment awareness and understanding in reference to what that present moment is doing in the mind. Then from there you need discernment, the ability to discern what states of mind are present, wholesome or unwholesome. From there you need energy, the right balance of effort. How much do you bring in, whatever it is that you bring in.

Joy, an often overlooked element to this practice. So essential, so important. You can see over there, it's so important, there's a smiley face right next to joy. And so that's indicating what? To put a smile on your face when you meditate. From this joy, there's tranquility. What is tranquility? Tranquility is the ability to relax and let go, to stabilize the mind. And once the mind is stabilized, it experiences collectedness.

And from that collectedness, you're able to see things as they are with equanimity. Equanimity is basically tranquility in terms of its experience, or the other, without getting affected one way or the other. It's the ability to just see things as they are without getting affected one way or the other. And these enlightenment factors are interwoven through the transcendental links of dependent origination.

And so we're just using these basic ingredients for our practice. And they lead us step by step towards awakening. And then we looked at how we cause ourselves suffering through the lens of dependent origination, and then explored what karma really is and how karma begins in the mind in terms of intention. And finally, we kind of closed on looking at what the Tathata is, right? Suchness, thatness. The Nibbana Dhatu. That is the underlying basis for everything.

And that we really cannot discern it and see it with the small I, the small me, mine, or myself. But rather when we let go of that, when we disengage from it, when we relax the tension around the small me, mine, myself, there is an opening, which is accessible here and now. So that is the whole purpose of this practice: to learn how to navigate through the vicissitudes of life and come to a space which is balanced, and in that balance is Nibbana.

We can have all kinds of ideas about what Nibbana is. We can create all sorts of stories about how Nibbana is the uncreated, the unformed, it's dimensionless, it's spaceless, it's outside of time, it's the deathless, it's this and that and the other, it's auspicious, it's the refuge, it's the other shore, it's the far shore, it's the beyond. All the different 33 names for Nibbana, we can just keep describing over and over and over and over.

But it's all within the territory of the conditioned mind to describe these things. How do you describe that which is indescribable? By showing what is adjacent to it. So once you get to the edge and then finally let go even that, then you take a dip into Nibbana. There's often that analogy of the finger pointing to the moon.

and mistaking the finger for the moon. So it's not the words. It's not the concepts. It's not the ideas. It's what's behind them. As J.A. Krishnamurti would say, the word is not the thing. The word points to it. And we have to let the mind catch itself in that whirlpool of concepts, trying to qualify everything into digestible experiences.

Nibbana is raw and unformatted. It can't be digested. We have to let go of that desire to make it something. All of this is highfalutin talk about this, that, and the other. When it comes to practice, when it comes to the real stuff, it's really about how do you show up every day, every moment. How do you decide to deal with your stuff?

Because once you learn how to deal with that stuff and integrate it, you also learn how to integrate Nibbana. And this practice of the 6R's of relax, of experiencing these states of mind in the meditation, learning how to deal with the hindrances and utilizing this practice for the difficult situations. That's all you need. Everything else is just fluff. To every moment, it is about what do you choose?

Where do your intentions lie? Do your intentions come from trying to make sense of things because you want stability? Or do your intentions come from letting go of even the desire to make sense of things, because you know there is nothing stable in this world? It's all false stability, and it's stable for a little while, and letting go of that.

The ability to navigate through the instability in such a way that you become fluid. You become like water. That's the idea. Life is unpredictable and yet we structure life in so many different ways. We've been doing it from the moment time began. Trying to make sense of the seasons, make sense of days, make sense of months, make sense of routines.

Nobody's saying to throw those away. They have their place. They are the rafters, they are the scaffolding. But we have gotten ourselves into a rut where everything becomes routine. Even Nibbana. Oh, it's 6 a.m., it's time for Nibbana. Meditate for an hour and then go about your day, have breakfast, and do whatever else you need to do.

But the idea is that, why? Why must we follow routine? We are fooling ourselves into a comfortable kind of freedom. A freedom that matches our desires, that matches the desires of society, matches the desires of people around us. Why? For what? Because we don't want to make trouble? Because we want to be liked? Because we want to be validated?

For what? Look at your intentions. Look at your motivations. See those motivations. Don't judge them. Look without judging. And go behind the motivations. Look at each motivation as ultimately a desire to experience something that is stable, secure, permanent, and what we can call as self. That's all it is. That's all it is. But we're just looking in the wrong places.

Or we're trying to fit the jigsaw puzzle, but it's just not fitting, and we force ourselves to fit into that. So this life is this samsara, this matrix, this consensus reality that we experience. It beats us down in many different ways. And it gives us this very soft kind of gentle opium of small desires which become larger: those desires, and then we feel happy.

We're just having all of these different hamster wheels. Hamster wheel of love, hamster wheel of relationships, hamster wheel of career, hamster wheel of retreats. I'll come to retreat and I'll do seven to ten days of practice and then I'll go back. I'll come back six months later. I'll do the same thing. I'll come back a year later. I'll do the same thing.

Not for any reason, but for stability. That's it. Something to look forward to. Freedom, true liberation, is not giving a damn about anything. Doesn't mean you become callous and you have lack of compassion. It just means you look at what the truth of the moment is, and you follow that. And that is being in alignment with intuition.

I'm going to keep it short. All I'll say is, reflect on your own lives. Reflect on every moment. Does this moment really serve you? Does this moment actually provide you truth? For you to experience some level of stability. Can you be courageous enough in the moment to let go and allow something greater than the small sense of self to take over and ride that wave?

Because that's nirvana. There are some resources that I would recommend if anyone were to ask for further reading. And one book would be Progressive Stages of Meditation on Emptiness. This is a very practical book. It goes through the different, let's say, schools of Buddhism, starting with Theravada all the way up to Dzogchen. And it looks at the different layers of emptiness, the different levels, so-called levels of emptiness.

And it gives wonderful guided practice that you can utilize. I use this book as my manual before anything, back in 2013, Dzogchen. And this book was wonderful because I spent more than a year with it, and I took each section and studied it for about two to three months and really just did the practice. Another book that I really recommend is what in Pali, or I should say Sanskrit, is the Madhyamaka Karika by Nagarjuna. And there is a translation of this book called The Sun of Wisdom.

And it's wonderful because he really goes to each link of dependent origination. And he goes beyond dependent origination. He sees the five aggregates, the four noble truths, the four foundations of mindfulness, all the different lists that we Buddhists love. He sees the emptiness through each of these things. Radical emptiness. And by the end of that you will see for yourself what it means to have nibbana. Then there is a book that is non-Buddhist. This is chapter 26 from something known as the Ribhu Gita, R-I-B-H-U, recommended by a wonderful sage named Ramana Maharishi.

And if you read it, there's a certain cadence to it and it will make you go into very deep levels of samadhi. Chapter 26 of the Ribhu Gita, R-I-B-H-U, G-I-T-A. These are the main books that I would recommend. And read it in your own time. Read it in a very casual way, and whatever seems timely for you. But don't forget that, again, that is just the finger pointing to the moon, another concept. Don't make these things into ideas.

Allow them to liberate you from ideas, liberate you from concepts. So I'll stop there. There's nothing else I need to tell you guys. I'll take a couple of questions and then we'll go have some fun. It's been really great meeting with this, as I said a week ago. I thought this was gonna be fun, and this is fun, and some of the talks were just always a reminder of why I do this, why this is the most important thing. And so who's the guy and all the Google biking interviews and what's the reality? It was just a very pleasant surprise, and not in the way that I expected.

My question is, I really appreciated what you kind of finished your talk with prior to the book stuff. I turned 30 this year. And I've, well, I don't know what I'm a guy. People keep saying that plenty of time and that's all bullshit because nobody knows that. Exactly. Yeah. I feel for me, I don't have the most, I'm not in the most financially secure situation in my life. And I've had, I see myself moving towards more and more of a solid career. And I fear being trapped by that. And like much of the millennials, I don't really have much of a luxury to look forward to even buying a home. Especially in this country.

But I do look at the, we could say, the fixed view of the future. And I feel very stifled around that. And my heart always pulls me to things like this. And it's just always just like when you want to do transcendental depended illusionation, just like the hairs on my arms stand up. And when I'm doing inquiry, I can just, my every hair on my body is just like, what is this? Yeah. Who am I now?

And I feel very scared moving my life in more of that direction. The bargain, the enlightenment is free and it has a cost financially and literally. The cost is me. And there's a direction in this path that doesn't, sorry, doesn't give a fuck about me. And... Yeah. That's true. And I'm around... I guess my question is around... I'm not asking, obviously, to...

What should I do? You can't give an answer to that. But around this, I feel I don't want to be spiritual. I don't care about that. For me, it's truth. At the end of the day. Love, kindness, whatever, all that's great, but what's real? And I'm, I'm exalted by just, you kind of lived out, you're only a few years older than me, which is kind of what my interests are, exploring all these kind of things, but I feel very limited in my capacity to explore these things.

And I'm just curious, I've always heard, light, reality supports, in pursuit of awareness. And it seems true to some degree. But I'm just curious, and you're a few years older than me, and I appreciate that you're actually a millennial. I can relate to perhaps some millennial issues. What would you say about that? Because for me, part of liberation is I want to be free to live. I don't want to be some student forever. Like you said, every six months, it just becomes some routine. I want to live. So what I will say about that first for practical purposes, make as much money as you can and enjoy the hell out of it.

Because you need that. Everybody needs that. Any spiritual person that tells you money is evil, go away from them. Get that resolved. Because if the thirst, if the passion, if the desire for spirituality is there, it will always be there, no matter what. So focus, as you say, on building a solid career. And I don't have hope for American capitalism. So I wouldn't really put a lot of hope in trying to find a better life here. Yeah. Better to make as much money as you can and live a life that suits you. Live a life that suits your desires and suits your goals. And don't be attached to one place. Don't be attached to one place in terms of city, state, country.

But that's coming from me. That's my life. I'm a nomad. I travel all the time, most of the time. And it's difficult to continue to do that if you don't have proper financial stability. So get all that done first. And a path will be made forward for you when you do that. Your practice, you continue speaking with different teachers, consulting with them and so on, but do it in such a way that you don't do it for the sake of, and I'm not saying you're doing it, but don't do it for the sake of trying to find somebody who you can put on a pedestal and things like that. It's more about: does this person actually take me closer to a space where I feel like I can think for myself, or are they looking for Yes.

So many years ago, at a closing talk, Jack Kornfield said something that I thought was quite interesting, and it really has impacted me whenever I'm in a transaction with a bus driver. Because he said, You never know when you're going to meet someone enlightened. Yeah. And it could be the bus driver. Right. And John has done such a beautiful job of introducing kindness. Yeah. So when I see a bus driver or out there in the world and you see kindness.

Yeah. There's a brilliance there. Absolutely. Absolutely. Which is quite important in all the chaos that exists in ways, right? Yeah. Beautiful. And that kindness should be natural. It should come naturally, come from the heart. It should not be a performance. Yes? So when I read about the Buddha and about his six years of agonizing ascetic practice, I hear and read nothing about kindness.

Compassion, nothing. Just an absolute commitment and determination and obsession to understand where does this end, this suffering. And I was thinking about it today and I wanted to ask you, when he had that kindness offered to him with the milk rice, it wasn't because she thought he was a Buddha, or he wasn't a Buddha then, but just this beautiful food, this experience. And I guess my question is, does the great ocean of compassion flow naturally out of the realization of nirvana? As it seemed to me, it happened with the Buddha. I don't see that he set out on a path to develop compassion. That's right. Does truth just break all of that open and that becomes your natural state?

No. No, because you think about what happened after he became enlightened. He kept it to himself. And then somebody came to him and said, there is so much you have to offer. And he said, this is a very difficult understanding. Anybody will be able to actually learn this and only upon another individual asking and saying but there are those with little dust in their eyes, consider them, and then out of compassion he said okay, let me see what I can do. In my mind, and this is just me, so take it with a grain of salt, the Buddha was just your average Joe. You have to take away all of the fantasies and mythologizing of being a king or a prince and devas and all of these things.

And that he was just on a search for: there is suffering in this world. How do I get out of this suffering? He didn't do it for anybody else. Just for himself. And then it was because of somebody who recognized and said, can you teach for others? And therein was his choice. And we were all given that choice at some point.

But not one choice is better than the other. Because people will judge one way or the other anyway. It's up to you. It's up to you personally, what you choose to do. Is it okay to have a desire to realize Nibbana? Or is this like something that we have to draw? Desire is what makes the world run. Desire is what created this universe.

But desire is not implicitly good or bad. Desire is just energy. Our intention for Nibbana, our intention to be free of suffering, is in our human minds a noble cause, a noble desire. But desire itself is not the issue. Craving, which may be desire, seen as desire, but it's an obsession. It's a desire to control how things should be rather than just being with the flow, rather than just observing things and keeping the rudder in such a way are heading towards nirvana. As soon as we try to control how that has to be and how it needs to be, that's craving.

There's nothing wrong with desire. Yes? You can elaborate on it, but when you say that, I think the flow of how the aggregates keep rolling and arising, body, the mind, the senses, the this. It's just these five things just keep bubbling. And I kind of see it as, when John spoke the other day about why we take the precepts, that I remember that I consider them like a protection almost. It's like you make this sort of intentional force field that as those aggregates are rolling on, as they become in various shades of purity and toxicity, that the job is to recognize that and recognize when they become unwholesome and then be able to...

Yeah. Yeah, I would say that the important thing to see here, when you talk about seeing the flow of the aggregates and then seeing the unwholesome and the wholesome, there can be in the mind an aversion to the unwholesome to such an extent that it wants to push it away. The reason I bring this up is because going back to Majjhima Nikaya 148, the six sets of six, the Buddha says these six sets of six are not me, not mine, not my self, including craving, but our relationship to craving, our relationship to the unwholesome as such, that it's a toxic codependency. It's like, I don't like it, stay away from me.

But it's just, if we treat it like anything else, like the aggregate says, it's just this, then it loses its gunk, it loses its intensity, and it's easy for us to kind of gently let that go. Is it just a tainted aggregate as opposed to an untainted aggregate? go. We let go of the aggregate itself. Yeah. And the experience of that is, when we say in the flow, is to observe the aggregates coming and going. But not like a conscious way. Not like I'm going to do it in such a way that it's going to be like I'm just going to watch it. But more like being in the flow of that. So the sense of the witness, the sense of the observer, flows in tandem.

with the aggregates coming and going. So it's, well, you're saying in it, or in it, but not being of it. Yeah. So the observation, the attention there, this is like a macro kind of reclaiming, the macro position, the macro observer, rather than getting into the micro of, like, the psychology, right? Just pure observation. Yeah. Yeah.

An explicit distinction or development here, I'm asking for. You're talking about dispassion and calming them on creating this observer, the self connection. And remaining, do nothing. Now, if you extrapolate that, there's nobody left to run into a burning building to rescue people. And that's where I want to see how far you take this: this pause and breathe and create a cocoon of space, to stop the immediate aggressive behavior.

That can be very destructive. On the other hand, also using the intellectual development to try and cut the imprint of those emotions so that they're free. How do you find a place where you can still interact with the world in a meaningful way and still need emergency? Nothing changes except the artificiality goes away. There's a naturalness to everything, and that's what we're going through. When we let go of the sense of self, the sense of self that we're talking about here, is this conceptualized idea that I have to behave a certain way, and it's related to my conditioning, the conditioning of society and so on and so forth. But if I remain in that intuitive space, then I'm functioning as per what is required in that moment.

So if I need to go into that burning building, I'll do that based on my intuition. Can I just add to that? I think that was a great question. I would point to, he's done two great talks. Yeah, that's right. That's right. That you could listen to as someone who's integrated these two things. Yeah, that's a good point, yeah.

There's no, yes. Joseph, would you repeat the name of the first book that you said you read? Progressive Stages of Meditation on Emptiness. No idea. I want to say it's Kenpo Sultrim, but maybe not, I don't know. No, no. No, this is a real practical sort of guide through understanding emptiness. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, sure, I can send you the names. I'm tired, so let's share some merit. Oh, yes, sir. It's about sharing merit. Yeah. It puzzles me. Yeah.

My understanding of comedy is you can't share merit. Yeah. So sharing merit in practice is sort of delusional, isn't it? That's why I don't do it. I don't do it nowadays. We do it every day. I know, because everybody else wants to do it. But let me tell you what I look at sharing merit as. When you think about sharing merit, it's less to do with trying to make the world a better place and may all beings be happy and all of this other stuff. Kumbaya.

And it's more about the realization that my happiness is dependent on the world and vice versa. There is an exchange. It reminds me that my life is dependent on others and vice versa. And so can I share my happiness with others? That's the core of it. It's a function of loving kindness. Can I see my own happiness in the happiness of others and vice versa? And that's why that line over here, where is it?

May all beings share this merit that we have thus acquired for the acquisition of all kinds of happiness. It's reminding us, may suffering ones be suffering free. Can we help those who are suffering? May the fear-struck be fearless. Can we give one or two words or support so people can have courage? May the grieving shed all grief. Can we be a shoulder for people to cry on?

May they long protect the Buddhist dispensation. We can share it with hungry ghosts? We can share it with anyone, but we can share it with hungry ghosts as well. But that's for the sake of monks getting their food. The idea is when I give food to a monk, or if I give whatever it is to a monk, then the merit of that I transfer to hungry ghosts. In Southeast Asia, there are festivals, like in Cambodia, where it's called Chonbon. Chonbon? Yeah. Where families will go to the monasteries and they will offer food and other things that the monks require.

And they will share that merit and they will offer all the blessings from that for any relatives who may still be hungry ghosts. Yeah. That's the specific thing. So that's the attitude to have. A sharing merit. A reminder for all of us. Anybody want to do that? Sure, I do. Yeah, okay. Or do you have a special one that you do? I don't do anything. That's a lot.

Because it's not a performance for me. It was a recent edition. It was, huh? Basically, yeah. It happened kind of around 2000. Yeah. I see. Yeah, it's just a closing. Yeah. But I also see some value in reminding us about the four brahmaviharas, compassion, loving-kindness, empathetic joy. When I was reading those lines, that's what they're reminders of. Well, maybe you'll come up with something.

But this is a translation of a Pali, I think, somewhere. Oh, it is? Yeah, yeah. And also, do you think the devas are listening? Could devas be listening? And what is a naga? I'm not sure. Yeah. But devas, would they be listening to this talk? They enjoy listening to dharma. Yes. Why can't devas and nagas and brahmins and all of them be people as well? Or are they? grasp this teaching, so why don't you go and teach them? That was a Brahma who actually came to the Buddha in human form and asked him.

And the snake that covered the Buddha in the seven days of enlightenment was a naga as well, and he turned into a human. Yeah. Muchalinda, also known as very beautiful. In Spanish. The point is that we transform, so that's one of the things that can transform. Yeah. Okay. That was so funny. May suffering ones be suffering free and the fear-struck be fearless. May the grieving shed all grief and may all beings find relief. May all beings share this merit that we have thus acquired for the acquisition of all kinds of happiness. May beings inhabit. May they long protect the Buddha's dispensation. Sadhu, sadhu, sadhu.