Lost Coin Class Notes Class notes for 4/08/08

The Retreat:

   People can still come.   Don't come too late on Thursday because going over the mountain in Torrey is best done with daylight.  Temperature in the high 50's, no snow on ground.  7:30pm dinner on Thursday.  4:30 to 5-hour drive.  It is a nice drive.  Doen will wait till the last minute to make schedule, but it will include lots of sitting, but you can always walk by yourself if in pain.  Just walk by self, no talking.  There will be Daisan, formal talks, and can do Shoken (becoming a formal student), just talk to Rebecca.  Very intimate to just sit quietly together.  More casual atmosphere can allow one to go deeper.  Doen wants to combine the magic of 4th way with the adventurous spirit of Zen.    Bring loose clothing and mornings will start around 8:30am.    By next winter, Doen Sensei will offer a more formal Zen retreat.

Subject for the night:

   Inner considering is becoming the slave of other people's opinion and thoughts.   Connect the Traveler, Orphan, and sense of 'I.'   No sense of being in inner consideration as Traveler because just passing through and only have a limited amount of time.

The Orphan knows nobody really cares about you, some people do care about you, but they really are the exception.  Even if people gossip about you, they are just doing it for their own entertainment.  Nobody really cares about you, you are Free.  People give advice, but doesn't mean they care.

'I am' feeling comes from being the Orphan.

In 'inner considering,' other people possess us like body snatchers.

HOMEWORK:
   If I didn't believe or care about what anyone thought, what would I do?
   If you really do this, there will be a deep sense of personal power.
   This can only be dangerous if enter into Egohood.
   In Egohood, ego thinks everything it does is OK.
   In Egohood, one owns one's power, but doesn't consider others.
   This is one of the reasons for having a teacher, because he/she will help you out of egohood.
   Work towards self-power plus harmony with others.

Don't try to change into different persons.  Come back into yourself.  When come back into yourself, can forget self, and enter into universal 'I.'

Being conscious will modify your worst inclinations.

Doing what you want is a real discipline.  Two ways of Buddhism:
   Monastic: do what you don't want.
   Tantric:  Find out what you like.    Skip step of being right, just do what you like, what your intuition says.

Mantras:
   1.  Stop making sense
   2.  Stop being afraid

First step = Don't do what other's want.

Second step = Do what you want to do.

Thomas Merton and Jack Nickelson do what they want, very deep sense of 'I.'

I have to be clean and clear with my actions in order to like myself?

Wherever Daffodils come from that is where you come from.

Only have five years to live, what are one or two things you would do or do differently or stop doing?
