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Foreign [Applause] Taking your seat as if you're very life Dependent on it so we're not kidding Around You know and yet of course we're kidding Around Uh it should it has to be play Are you too serious not it's just not Real practice It's actually tuning your instrument of Attending of learning of apprehending of Sensing of being And then as I said quoting from the Heart Sutra there's no place to go Nothing to do nothing to attain that's Important to know from the very Beginning not from like after you've Been practicing for 30 years and then You discover that there's no place to go No because you could spend 30 years Trying to get to some special effect And they're not recognize that you are The special effect And you were special on day one Your mind wandering wasn't a problem it Was special It was you that misapprehended it as Like Um a bad meditator And a lot of those things that uh how Many of you heard Dan Harris's talk Dan Harris is talking about a relatively Small kind of
Um Group of concerns about a particular Perspective on meditation And it's beautiful But you know the sort of first question Is am I doing it right So or one question is at least am I Doing it right I don't remember the First question but the answer is as long As you're doing it you're doing it right Okay if you're willing to be with Whatever arises you're doing it right If you're lost in thought all the time And you're aware some of the time that You're lost and thought you're doing it Right keep practicing So be as generous as possible because in The first 20 or 30 years of meditation Practice you kind of say to yourself at Least my experience that I'm doing them I'm meditating now I'm doing the meditation Anybody else ever say that to yourself That I'm gonna I'm gonna sit now I'm Gonna do the meditation raise your hands Up high so I can feel that everybody So but after a while it's like not quite True it's more like the meditation is Doing me When I give myself over to the domain of Being The world is actually Collaborating In revealing
The actuality of things Instead of the stories That imprison us So let's take a few moments to Simply Drop right in No place to go nothing to do nothing no Special something we're trying to it's Good feeling we're trying to attain But to just be aware of how it is in the Body right now How is it in the heart right now How is it in the mind right now the And whether you want to focus on an Object Those of you who are in the first like Five or ten years of this practice may Be focusing on an object like the breath Sensations in the belly and just stay With it the mind wanders bring it back My wonders bring it back my wonders when You recognize it notice what's on your Mind then in the noticing bring it back And you'll have to do that about a Hundred billion times Each time for the first time and without Beating yourself up over it because That's the ebb and flow of the tides It's the rising and falling of the Waves It's just the nature of mind but we're Embracing the nature of our own minds And dropping down in some sense beneath The surface of appearances thoughts Narratives Emotion
Into being and That's really been here all along anyway Which is why we can't get better at Being aware we just need to become more Intimate with our capacity for being Aware The awareness You can't improve on It's good enough And it always has been And besides it's not wounded either It's not wounded it's not carrying the Wounds they may be carried in the body They may be carried in the heart but This is big enough to hold the wounds Does that take a lot of Courage yeah in The same way as it takes a lot of Courage for someone to come up on the Stage in front of 700 people and go Through a process like we saw this Morning And is there benefit from taking that Kind of a stance Obvious So once again befriending wakefulness If you're choosing an object to attend To Fabulous or you can choose what might Be called objectless attending just Choice this awareness we call it where We're just aware In the space of awareness And whatever arises thought sensation Feeling memory anticipation Reaction sound it's all like the
Curriculum it's just the curriculum the Unfolding And our assignment if you choose to Accept it Is to Simply attend To the play of it all And not get caught with your personal Pronouns Overexposed Just this Justice Foreign So let me ask you a few questions in This moment A being Is there an experience of wholeness In this Timeless moment of Sitting here Is there an experience of Being at home in your own skin In this Timeless moment of sitting here Is there an experience of Wakefulness Foreign Is there an experience of Completion Can you simply rest in Awareness itself Take up residency here so to speak In the knowing and the none not knowing That your awareness always Is and always has been And in the boundless spaciousness of it So here's the opportunity for you to see
Whether you can locate a centered In the field of awareness or whether you Can locate the boundary or periphery or Circumference of your own awareness And just allowing everything to unfold As it unfolds whether the breath is Serving as your primary anchor or your Breath In the body As the primary object of attending Or whether you're resting in the wide Boundless spaciousness of awareness Itself Outside of time Underneath thinking Just this Justice Foreign Okay Foreign Um Thank you Foreign Foreign Foreign Foreign Foreign Foreign Foreign Foreign Foreign Hmm Foreign Foreign
Foreign Foreign Thank you So how is it in the body right in this Moment Even with the carriage of the body has The body collapsed or is it as a Erect and dignified and alert uh Inattentive as In the first breath Because there is only this path And only this moment I always sit in the Heart Right In This Moment Just checking in not through thought but Through pure awareness How is it in the body How is it in the heart How is it in the mind Foreign Foreign [Music] Foreign So again the Bells Don't really signal the end of anything They signal a transition
