Lost Coin September 23, 2008

Next week we will talk about the Enneagram.  Please remember to use it to help yourself.

We are taking about self observation today.  Your understanding of self observation will change overtime, it is very hard to put into words, it must be experienced.

Marcis Nicol (?), one of Jung?s top students, observed states of being awake.  In the end he decided not to study w. Jung but Gurdjieff and Ouspensky.  Nicol described different stages of being awake/asleep.

*The first stage is being asleep where we are literally asleep and have little control over what we do and we do not influence ourselves or our environment.

*The next state is to be awake, walking around but not looking at self.  In this stage we are mechanical.  We always react to our environment the same way because of our conditioning.  We are conditioned by our parents, the country we grew up in, the religion/s we are exposed to and our socio-economic class.  Why are people who ride motorcycles overweight?  If we just look at socio-economic status then we find that people who ride motorcycles are less affluent and those who are less affluent tend to eat less fattening foods.  Some studies show that one can measure financial and social status by observing the number and kind of sweets in the kitchen. At Lost Coin we do not judge what people say or how present problems because here are questioning not just acting out of cultural conditioning.  Another example is when D was young he went to a bar in Scranton, PA.  He had on boots, long hair and a flowery shirt (probably).  When he walked into the bar, the people in the bar and the bartender looked at him like they wanted to kill him, so he bought his beer and left.  Everyone?s reaction, including his was because of their conditioning.

*The next stage is self observation.  Do not observe self (or others) in terms of right or wrong, just observe self.  Remember to get what you want ? that you do not have to be right.  Think about how often you are right and how often you get what you want.  This is called external considering in the Fourth Way.

*The next stage is called Vipassana.  You observe things that happen. When you go on retreat you observe and notice I am moving my right foot.

*Lost Coin works one level above this.  We try to observe self in the role of a writer or director of a movie.  D is a fan of Johnny Deep ? different writers or directors can present Johnny Deep in different light.  What he wears, the lighting etc can all affect how the audience looks at him.  The person missing in our play is us.  With self observation we see ourselves as we would in a movie.  Very hard to do because the minute we see ourselves or others we have a judgment.  The goal is to simply see what is.  Since it is so hard our goal right now is to just see snap shots not a full length moving picture.  A snap shot is seeing our tone of voice, a body posture, hearing the words we use, seeing how we look and feel.  If we really did this, we would not act the way we do ? we would change the way we act.  If we heard ourselves when we were angry or judging we would not say or do things the way we do. If we saw ourselves reacting and acting mechanically we would not react the same way.  We trying to really bring consciousness to what really is

If we take snap shots, eventually we will have a photo album or a film and then we will become conscious and we will live our life differently even if only for a moment.

*this idea is the same idea as the Forth Ox Herding picture: a person is taming the Ox.  It is hard to pull away from/out of thinking in terms of right and wrong.  This is true in Buddhism and esp in Christianity.  It is not as true w Zen.  You can pull out of right and wrong thinking in Buddhism and Christianity but you need advanced understanding and you have to move away from judgment.

If you work on self observation then you will change/alter your energy and the energy of a room.  Consciousness is like a chemical, something happens that is different than when one acts mechanically.  D has found in his 40 years of study that some people can study for 20-40 years and still be jerks because they have not mastered the idea of self observation. One can decrease embarrassing angry and aggressive behaviors if one has perspective on ones self. Just because you sit does not mean you have perspective on yourself.

D believes there are teachers who some believe to be excellent but he does not necessarily agree because they have not mastered self observation. Trumpa Rimpoche for example was very very talented but he drank his talent away.  D believe that anyone who drinks that much is not a good teacher. Someone is not a good teacher if he has AIDS and sleeps with his students because he does not believe he will give them AIDS.  Rashnish (?) took over a town in OR w a machine gun ? not a good teacher.  D 4th way teacher was American Dutch and was the inventor of Latex paint.  D likes Suzuki Roshi because he was plain and ordinary as was Dido Roshi .  Genpo does not drink and do crazy things.  Dido Roshi was diagnosed w terrible lung cancer but it looks like he is in remission and although he is probably still smoking he just got married.   Some spiritual teachers can seem crazy and that is OK as long as they do not destroy the spiritual teaching ? an excellent teacher cannot be an alcoholic, or angry or inconsiderate sexually.  This is not being said from a moralistic point of view but from the idea that self mastery is of extreme importance before one becomes a teacher.  Self observation is key for self mastery.  To practice being consciousness one cannot live in a monastery.  One has to start by observing yourself.  To really understand this, think about how happy you would be if your mom observed herself.  D mom?s was very nice one minute and then she was not so nice the next.  This temperament was justified because she was an artist, a great musician.

As you observe yourself there is a plurality ? think of self as a plurality: there is a difference between physical, emotional, intellectual in certain circumstances.  I is the person who observes but I is not the person who experiences all the different parts/states.  If you ask someone on a date you go into mechanical behavior ? nervous, silly, w.drawn, push away.  This is not you, this is mechanical.  Some people often get mad because people not respect you.  This is mechanical, this is not you.  If you think ?I want respect? you will never get it.  You need to do something to get respect, this is esp true if you are easily hurt.  D said he would sometimes call his mom after having not called for awhile and she would say ?You have not called me, I thought you were dead.?  D would say in return ?If you thought I was dead you would have called me.? Or she would say ?I want to tell you something but don?t get mad.? D would then say ?Then don?t say anything nasty.? We sometimes have lots of perspective on others.  D?s Dad had lots of perspective on his mom ? if he heard D?s mom say something nasty he would just say ?what? over and over again.

We always carry judgment on others.  We often judge people long before we get to know them.  We always judge people according to where we are in our space, according to our mechanical actions, from where we sit.  It is very hard to suspend ourselves to see others.  It is very hard to know others because we are too busy judging.  The idea of not judging others is all throughout the Bible:  the Golden Rule etc.  This is really difficult to implement.  When we took the precepts D asked us not to elevate ourselves by cutting down others.  D asked us this three times, will we really maintain this, will we really maintain this?  You can also think about maintaining this precept as protecting others from yourself.  What people really need protection from is you and your judgments.  This is the other ? of the practice.

If we had been raised in Tibet in a Buddhist Culture then we would have learned this before we began practicing.  We would have also learned relationships to each other.  How do we enter into a loving relationship w. teacher, each other or anyone if we are competing, trying to get ahead and hurting others.  What kind of teaching is that?

Do not worry about being wrong, get what you want.  Observe yourself.  Get what you want, don?t be right.  Want to be in a loving relationship then observe yourself and don?t be controlling, don?t beat people up.  Practice self observation for others, for human kind. If you practice Koans  you will eventually see deeply into who you are.  People like the Lost Coin members. Some places where we people can practice make you feel like an idiot ? they are not welcoming.  Some people follow the spiritual path because they are not good at other things.  D does not want these sorts of students.

Consciousness is a light, it?s like the Holy Spirit.  Consciousness will purify you.  You are the purest thing around.  If you go deep and see your mind w/o objects, you will be conscious.  You will experience Kensho.

We went around the circle and people talked about their experience w self observation:

*projection ? put own stuff onto others.  thru this practice literally not seeing the other person because putting  a filter of me onto them.  Real problem because often assume the worse and lots of judgment which is fear based.

* Saw self as being controlling, not  nice or considerate person that I thought I was.  D said not to judge self just watch

*Id w being right and thinking that is what I wanted.  At retreat realized how subtle this desire to be right really is, ie it is not just in debates or conversation but it is everywhere.  It is hard to be aware.

*Biggest AH HA moment was seeing my anger and seeing that I was making it about others.  As I started to own it realized my anger was about expectations that I made up.  Choose one precept to practice ?See the perfection in others.?

D suggested reading The Conference of the Birds, a SUFI book where the birds seek enlightenment and they find it.  The stage before enlightenment is uniuty.  See how close our nature?s really are to each other.  Our stuff is not so different so we should be able to feel good and relaxed w each other. We are all equally as stupid (ha ha).

It is very hard to observe self.  When do it, time stops and can see yourself clearly.  Time is suspended.

When you run into people you do not like, try to give them the benefit of the doubt.  Try to be peaceful w. them.

Try to see that your mechanical patterns are based in fear.  Try to see how much fear we have in life.  Often because we have so much fear the practice is not pleasant all the time, esp right now or in the beginning.

D thinks fear is it ? imagine how beneficial life would be if we were able to eliminate fear.  What would life be like if we were not afraid.  When we are sad or scared we often tell people what to do.  All afraid.  Slow down your thoughts to feel better.

Hard to observe thoughts at first because we  ?teenage? it.  Eventually it will become a beautiful practice because we can observe how we feel while doing activities and we can be less negative and happier and do things that make us happy not aggravated.  Meditate then unite.

Another person was not ready to talk about retreat w people becase she could not shape her experience into words.

Another person talked about always playing a role.  Upset w self about it. Lost sleep.  D said don?t worry or be upset.  Just observe when you play a role. Only way develop if not critical of self and you just observe self, just see.  Then see who is observing, it is you.

Another person realized always saying should have done this or that ? want to learn to accept this and that each day is a new day.  D said to be nice to self.

Another person said he started practicing because he realized he treated his patients differently and he wanted to know why.  He watched this for awhile. He realized he was pre-conditined to judge certain people from things like a handshake.  Also realized he was pre-conditioned to have beliefs about how people should treat him because he is a doctor.  Wants to improve this judgement by observing himself.

Milton Erikson is the modern father of hypnotherapy or hypnosis.  Went into a ward and interviewed a guy who would only participate in salad talk.  So Milotn had a conversation w him:

Mil: How are you:

Salad guy: Carrots, beets, cukecumbers

Mil: String beansm Cabbage

Salad guy: beets, corn, squash

Mil: turnips, tomatoes

Salad guy: Who are you?

Milton did not  belive he had to take a superior position but rather worked to meet the person and all people from where they stood, he tried to meet them on their own terms.

In the history of the spiritual path people have had nice thoughts ?Love thy neighbor, Great Compassion? but HOW? The how is missing.  We have a method ? to embody a spitual teaching.  Problem is if we leave it to our own mechanical devise then life is a nightmere.  How to pull out of the nighymere is to have a little bit of consciousness.  Some spirutal paths have lost this and found it again.  With this spiritual path we start to see anger and fear and start to gain consciousness. We try to move up a level in the computer game.

If we put our practices together we will realize life is really is a lot more benevolent than what?s  going on in our heads and we will wake up to who we are and realize we are much much more.
