Lost Coin Notes August 28, 2007

Homework:

      Read Meetings with Remarkable Men

      Continue with the I Am - being awake, say "I am" and just be there.  This will create a feeling and perception.

Meditation

All should be meditating for 30 minutes each morning. This will set the tone for the day and give you an opportunity to see the mind jumping around.

Sit, stay awake and let what happens happen, not in a dreamy way.

Side benefits: If awake enough, you'll get a good view of what your mind is doing. Otherwise, you don't know that you are day dreaming and it's kind of shocking when you realize what you are doing all the time. People see what we do.  So, see yourself as others see you.

Different members discussed their experiences with meditation.

Joan discussed the Three Pillars book - studies with a Japanese Master.

The answer of Moo is the 1st Koan, seeing moo you see oneness, this is an experience.  Make the sound moo and ask - what is it?

Work with the Group:

      Mechanical-ness - 1st being there with awareness, then kensho, so you are more mature and can embody the experience more.

      Traditional Zen approach to enlightenment.  1st monastic, hard training to create opening experience, then refinement of character and consciousness.

Kensho:

   -  to see your true nature

   -  spiritual experience

   -  who you are and who you are in relationship to the world

   -  the ability to embody that experience is difficult

   -  Enlightenment but not conscious, many have open days and experience moo but you are not conscious of your consciousness.  We need to be aware of cause and effect

Meditation

   - the mind learns to slow down

Being - to embody

Example of enlightenment but not conscious: Close and clear identification with Jesus Christ, may have a personal vision but didn't embody it.  They may not be a nice person...

Realization vs. Embodiment - Just Be Jesus Christ

When its embodied, people around you have a sense.  The cause and effect of embodiment

Techniques: working in a group, people have a clear sense of you

1st - When your mind is quiet enough, you can see that everything is one and your mind holds the one thing, you witness the one thing even though you can't understand it or grasp it.  Like trying to bite your own mouth.

2nd - Then, you see clearly that you are not the one.  You are ordinary.

3rd Integrate these two experiences: You are the one absolute and You are the ordinary.

You can't observe the experience, if you are experiencing Being.

Goal - quiet mine, then opening experience, and then deepen that experience.

Simply, come to that place of observing again and again.  Experience emptiness.  It's not a technique. It's a way to sense and feel things in a different way.  It's not a particular instruction.  It's a difference in State.

For example:  There are no instructions when you drink.  When you drink whiskey you just start telling people your life story and may be obnoxious, your chemistry changes.  Being makes you more sensitive to others. It's the opposite of drinking.

When we live life normally we see it as a story - job, boyfriend, married, etc.  When you see life vertically - you see deep in to the moment of life. You have a KenSho experience and see a moment of existence as enlightenment.  That's a drink....

Fourth Way includes Buddhist and Esoteric Christian

Last Supper - 'this is my body' is this world and everything in it is my body

This very moment is your story.  Experience of this as the body; as the one.  Some of you are Buddhist and others are Christian.  Embodiment of the understanding of one, not a moralistic, not a moral teaching.

Precepts: what you would be like if you completely understood and it makes a big difference in your life, good cause and effect.

   - affirm life

   - don't steal

   - don't elevate yourself by speaking ill of others

   - don't have borish sex where the partner feels diminishes
