Lost Coin Notes for April 29, 2008

A lost coin website is in the making.  Daniel will be taking on students afar and will be able to communicate with them via skype and videocam.  More students will be added to the Lost Coin group.

D suggests that we mix up who we sit next, to integrate the group better, and not always with the folks you know from outside the group.

As an example which could raise possible beliefs, D discusses how the couch is usually filled with females only, that with all men there could be a proximity that might be uncomfortable in our culture.  Why?  Also, it would be different with male and female.  What are the possible beliefs behind this different energy and/or sexual tension?  What is the fear?  That we think attraction is bad?  That we could turn gay or be perceived as such?  That we could be making another comfortable?

Reality is better than belief.  D wants to relieve us of beliefs.  Try to find the evidence for what we believe.

D encourages us to meet when he is away.  Suggests one week to do peer sharing.  Go around the group, give everyone the chance to speak, without commentary during or after so all can feel free to speak.  And listen to others as they speak as opposed to preparing what you will say.  The other session while D is away to be on the Enneagram.

Next week?s class to be at Cindy?s office (on May 6th). 175W 200S, #1004.

D then had some comments on privacy ? reminding us to respect privacy related to what individuals may say at Lost Coin, especially if we also know folks in another context than Lost Coin.  D then said that the our discussions do not seem to go into very private topics.

?

Can divide the Lost Coin stuff into 2.

First has to do with Transcendence, that which goes beyond, that which has been termed realization or enlightenment.  When you discover what you really are.  This is the what we work on when sitting or with Koans.  D mentions he is teaching koans differently than while at Zen Center, encouraging insight and not just passing koans.

Second area has to do with how we function in every day life.  How we integrate the work into every day life, while not living in a monastery.  Through this we can find a reason for going to work, for taking care of self, for making money, for being in this life.  In part these things are worthy as practice, but also D emphasizes because they can be fun, a game, an exploration.  As the traveler, we are just passing through.  Most of what we are told is nonsense.  The game is not flippant, kind of serious? but the idea is that it should be enjoyable.

Buddhist monasticism doesn?t really deal with the sedond area described above.  4th way gets into this.  D reminds that reading ?in Search of the Miraculous? by Ouspensky describes 4th Way / Gurdjieff.

D suggests it is okay seek money, power, a good relationship.  D mentions that nothing is going to make us happy.  Thinking we can be happy is a belief, and so much is based upon this ?someday we are going to be happy??.  Try instead seeing things as magical, unknowable, we are passing through, always an interesting trip? happy or sad no difference.   D?s program is not a belief system.  Go deep in sitting and see that sadness, rain, all things can be equally beautiful.  Learn to be one with life.

Discussion occurs about money and power.  Big belief topics.  D challenge the idea that money corrupts.  Suggests that a lot of this idea that money is bad comes from religion.  Points out that those with money are better able to give and support.

D suggests tha outsiders may see our group as a bunch of losers, winers, ineffectual, unable to face life, dependent, spineless, accomplishing nothing.  We may see those outside the group as crass materialistic, uncaring, deluded, insensitive.  Both views are lies.  Both represent beliefs.

Don?t be angry.  Don?t be right.  Don?t believe things.

If you believe that making money corrupts, test it.  Make a lot and see what happens.  This may just be something convenient to believe about others.

Not having money does not help others.  Evolve compassion.

D reminds us to be personal in our questions.

Money, sex, power are big things that must be addressed in our practice.

D wants us to not only do things well, but superiorly.  To have others look at us such they will want to know what we have been learning.

D brings up Castaneda. Two concepts similar to what we are looking at - the first ?Nagual? being the realm of the unknown, the part you really are, and the second the Tonal or part that is everyday life.  Working in the Tonal will not make you happy, but set the ground for practice.

Practicing noticing our own beliefs, increases how we can see others beliefs.  Folks without strong beliefs are more interesting.  The deeper we get into seeing how we are, the easier it will be to drop beliefs.

D suggests setting up a workshop on beliefs.

When back, D is going to switch back to  work on No Mind.
