Lost Coin Notes    February 26, 2008

Administrative:

When Daniel teaches at the Zen Center on Monday nights, we can, for now, say that we are his guests and not pay the event fee.

The retreat is coming up From April 10-13.  Be sure to register soon.  E-mail a confirmation to Patricia and Rebecca, who will coordinate.  Also, call the Boulder Lodge to book a room soon, and announce that you will be staying as part of the retreat.

The zafus and zabutons that were ordered should be in and at Joan on Thursday.

Daniel will be going to Dusseldorf in May, and we are invited to join him.

Teaching / Discussion:

Daniel has been receiving e-mail questions from us.  He intends to answer them but encourages us to raise questions in the group, as it is helpful for everyone.  He recalled that in his youth a teacher whose group he attended would not say anything until a student asked something.

Knowledge and Being?  A concept from Gurdjieff, representing the difference between what you know (knowledge from reading, hearing, repeating, etc.) and what you are.    G noted when traveling that he met folks whose 'being' felt different.

Being comes out of practice, training, who you associate with.   A key of spiritual practice is the development of being.  By being comfortable with your mind and the world as it is? with practice one can become more comfortable.  As opposed to when all our energy goes in to changing our situation, trying to be something different? this is not being one, agitating.

The more you live and be where you are, the more your being grows.  None of us has spent enough time being where we are, happy in our minds, happy in our life.

Being in your life from moment to moment is realization, is enlightenment.  The rest is just theory.  Your enlightenment is your life.

Discussion from Questions:

Q:  Is it like acceptance?
A:  It is more than acceptance, more intimate.  More an appreciation.  For example just looking at something vs thinking about it to decide if you like it?  Remain in the no-self experience, not judging.

Q: Is it suspending judgement and experience?
A:  We all have capacity to develop being.  We won't be able to understand fully someone with a higher level of being.  Do we ever go for a walk on the beach and say, 'That boat is too far. '  No, we just enjoy or are the experience. Words cannot capture the experience, but just point the way.

Q:  This seems much harder to do with people?
A:  With people it is different in that you still must stay in touch with intuition, it is more active.  This is reflected in the Heart Sutra.  There are two sides here:  intimacy and intuition.  It takes years to work on this balance.  In some spiritual traditions, one will spend up to 5 years working on deep realixation and the next 5 to 15 on the balance between intimate being and intuition (as used with say people or when driving).

Yourself, accept all of your reality.  The part that does this is the real part.  The rest is mirage, operating without observation.  Watch self as you do, not intellectually.

Think of someone who acts in a way you don't like.  Imagine if that person could could see how you see them act.  Once a negative pattern or action is seen it can begin to dissolve.   Observing the self is the same process.  Just see? back off?   One way of helping people stop drinking is to show them movies of themselves.  Or to lose weight, just stand in front of the mirror for a few minutes naked every morning.

(My notes get vague for the following portion of the the Q and A ' my apologies for cutting out details')

? It is difficult to respond to a question in which something is suggested as being more 'real' than something else.  Mind is the space in which things happen.  We are the mind and not the things.

? See fear.  If you discover you are afraid all the time, you may find you need to solve the problem.

? Positive emotional center develops after years of work and practice.  Effort is needed.

?Looking at things changes things.  We experience similar things.  Lack of intimacy with oneself is fear.  Lack of intimacy with others is fear.

?  Q: Are we not to repress the negative?  A:  If we are immediately critical, then we are no longer observing.  Look at the mind as a treasure, not something to run from.

?  Q:  ? Are we all alone or are we all one?  Daniel notes his mother is still part of his mind even though she has passed.  Notes questioner may be substituting the 'directing of actions' for feeling, which contradicts the closeness desired.  Speaking of things you are working on brings closeness.  We are all waves on the same ocean.  Same in the no-self? not worth talking about? sit and see.  Another way of looking at it is in story of Diamond Net of Indra which suggests that the world is made up of an infinite web of diamonds where each diamond reflects all of the other diamonds.  As being develops, we become more intimate.

?  Love and positive emotions take energy, attention.  Negative emotions come up when not paying attention.  That's why in The Fourth Way it is called The Work.  The wish to wake up is a special quality.

In Closing

Daniel encourages us to do retreats, and asks us to ask him about setting up for a solitary one.

Remember that we are passing through, free, and can do whatever.  There is no time to be afraid, hateful , petty.  There is no time to do what we do not want to do.

Enjoy and appreciate life.

This Week's Focus

Focus on the difference between knowledge and being.
