Lost Coin Class Notes Class Notes 12/4/07

*Administrative*

Daniel offers training but won't coordinate additional training and activities, that is up to us.  If interested in another night of sitting & probably Daisan, the best night for Daniel would be Thursdays.

- Plans for new training go through Rebecca.  General group administration goes through Patricia

- If you think of something to help the group go forward, tell Daniel or Rebecca.

- More retreats coming up.  Plan for Spring near April 1.   Might be retreats seasonally.

- Considering Boulder or some place near Moab for retreat.

- Fall there will be a formal retreat.  Could be here or in California at Zen Mountain Center.

- From now on retreats will have at least a 3 month notice.*

Discussion On Last Retreat

*- People feel closer to each other by sitting than by talking.  Daniel's intention is for us to sit more.

- Meditation/Sitting is not so much an absences of thought, but entering into a new area of experience.

*Discussion: How do we combine the elements of sitting practice w/ group practice*

- Theme is how does sitting meditation work with the Fourth Way exercises of personal power & consciousness.

- Sitting makes sure that power from our exercises is not from ego.  It doesn't make the power go away, it changes it.

ASSIGNMENT: Try to keep your mind quiet and simple, and be in the moment. Can do mentally active things.  Quiet, simple mind helps with concentration and focus for really mentally intense activities. Even try to do active things with a quiet mind in the present.

- In the Fourth Way, there is a difference between knowledge and being. Knowledge is everything you know, being is who you are.

- Meditation changes your being.  Practice changes being too, but also your knowledge.

- Meditation changes who you are fundamentally over time.

- Daniel can feel all of our "beings".  Can feel when our being changes during retreat or when practicing.

- We can feel it too, but may not identify it.

- The more you relate to things beyond thought the more it feeds that.

- In a study on psychologists, the best therapist was determined by his being.

- Being is what you have to offer other people.

- The only groups of people that Daniel has encountered that understands the importance of being are Buddhist, Sufi schools, and the LDS (Mormon) Church.  In a discussion with LDS leaders, they expressed how they teach members to have the being of Jesus.

- Meditation stops the story.  When story stops something else starts.

- Daniel is not satisfied with traditional Fourth Way or Zen training with results of being.

- Create personal power to do what you want.  Do what you want and trust yourself.  The more you do it the more you'll trust yourself.

*Discussion: How can we relate the idea of Quiet Mind & Negative Emotions. * - Negative emotion is a product of being mechanical and a quickly moving mind.

- If problems keeping a quiet mind in workplace, don't think of pulling back from the workplace, but entering in a different state.

- Addiction to negative emotions.  Daniel saw a show on S&M.  Interview woman said when she's engaging in it, her partner is really paying attention.  In relationships, some people would like negative attention rather than no attention at all.*

Daniel says this thought is very important:* Something in practice that needs to be cultivated is faith.  Faith in the mind that is not the conceptual mind.  The real believe that the other mind contains answers and solutions.  The more you sit, the more it will spontaneously develop.

- Ideas and thought are hurting, not the solution.

- Put yourself into it.  You can verify it by reaction of people around you.  Life will get a lot better.
