Lost Coin Notes for November 5, 2007

Housekeeping:  Please don't make Patricia pursue you for payment, its unnecessary work for her.  Even if you have special arrangements for payment, please contribute what you can.

Daniel will be speaking Monday, Nov 19 at the Zen Center.  He encourages Lost Coin members to go, and the topic will be relevant to us.

Daniel asked if there are any particular topics we would like to address in class?

Requests included:

Carlos Castaneda books, in comparison and contrast to Daniel's teachings.

Another reading list would be nice.

Knowing love, joy, happiness from within rather than seeking fulfillment in relationship.

Dave Daniel's teachings about sex.

How to be *present* in a relationship rather than being in your own mind.

Regarding the Orage article on Conscious love, how do the biological, instinctual, etc. fit together?

Daniel's comments:  most of us have no idea how sex and love fit together.  Orage says love is a choice, and that is tricky to understand.  Biologically, you can't be attracted to or romantic with someone you're not attracted to.  This biological/chemistry brings with it a choice, the option to love consciously.  Most people let the biological/chemical rise and fall away, but at the peak of this you can choose to love.  All love has a romantic component, but conscious love is choice beyond that.

Daniel talked about sex:

Our culture objectifies sex, more now than ever, even the people we watch in TV and film are cut and pasted body doubles.  Dave Daniels would say that if you need to objectify, do it and get past it.  To clarify with an example, a male might objectify by only wanting to date women who look a certain way.  Daniels would say to do it and work through it, only that way can you develop and change.  *Just be where you are*.

Sexual energy is easy to transform into other energy.  As an exercise, next time you feel physical pain, raise some sexual energy and notice how it supersedes that pain.

Comments about last week's homework watching Monkey Mind:

The image of a monkey sitting still on a branch, doing something that required focus, meditation before a stressful situation, minimizing external stimuli, listening to music helped stop monkey mind.

Daniel commented that only when the mind moves do we suffer.  He noted that our culture does not support having feelings.  As an example, he talked about the previews before a film in Paris.  Which were filled with dialogue and humorous situations (and not loud, scary violence).  We lack a cultural matrix to think about sex and love.  Nudity was not sexually targeted, but linked to humanity.

Please read what Don Juan says about personal power and the warrior way.

Daniel asked each of us, if personal power were not a bad thing, and we could choose, what would we choose?  Answers:  happiness, peace, productivity, efficiency, decision making skills, accomplishing aims, maintaining awareness/staying awake, freedom from being controlled by emotions, recognizing and trusting intuition, absolute independence, being clear about wants and maintaining clarity to get those things.

Daniel's comments:  this is a very good list.  Consider from the Buddhist point of view, once you realize Buddha nature, you are completely empowered over everything.  What if you are the center of the world?  Being empowered to get what you want is Personal Power.  We think of ourselves as bad, and if we believe in our personal power we might do bad things.  But trusting your personal power makes you impeccable, no matter what you do.

Homework this week:  Really trust your personal power, empower yourself.  If you do not trust your inner voice, what are you listening to?  We neither listen to this entirely, nor anyone else's voice.  It's a mix.  We can start to trust ourselves completely, and follow that path, making adjustments when needed.

We do not embrace our personal power entirely, and we are also afraid to lose it.  Being receptive an open is another important part of learning.  In general, people who are in their personal power are also good at submitting entirely?they are good at both.  When you are in empowered, you make different decisions and feel different.  Take a few minutes of morning meditation to focus your intention on empowerment.  Trust your own voice as it comes through you. Trust what you want and feel as much as possible.  Do more sitting if you can, sitting and empowerment work nicely together.
