Lost Coin Class Notes 1-6-09

Business items:

-Pay tuition for year with one payment if possible.
-Let Rebecca know if you are going to attend retreat in San Fran. on Feb. 21st.
-New Lost Coin website and blog should be fully functioning.

Class:

-We have two practices in Lost Coin: sitting and self-observation.

-Self-observation is the process of becoming objective in looking at ourselves.

-With many years as a student and  teacher, D witnessed those who had deep insight/kensho/enlightenment experiences but still behaved horribly in many ways (treated others poorly, etc.). Insight didn't necessarily change or improve behavior on a day-to-day basis.

-This led to the importance of self-observation for D. These people that D knew and observed as students and teachers behaved poorly because they lacked self-objectivity--they couldn't see themselves as they really were (regardless of their personal enlightenment experiences), as they behaved in the world and treated others.

-In a traditional monastic setting, people like this were dealt with by never attaining positions of power. In the Fourth Way, they were excluded from participating in "higher level" meetings.

-Self-observation is how we become object with ourselves. We wish everyone around us were objective with themselves, while we are generally not objective about ourselves.

-People don't wake up and choose to be mean and nasty; they are that way because they behave mechanically, and they are unable to see themselves objectively. If they could see themselves objectively, they wouldn't behave horribly.

-When we can see ourselves objectively, we have more power over our daily lives, and we are less reactive--less mechanical.

-We are identified with whatever we are doing in the moment, but we are not awake or objective when we are so identified. We are acting unconsciously. Through sitting we become identified with consciousness, and when we are identified with consciousness, we can choose to "play into" whatever we are doing; we can choose what we want to identify with, rather than mechanically identifying with, and reacting to, external situations and circumstances.

-Two stages here:
1) Self-observation
2) Being able to choose what we want to play into

-This practice of self-observation leads to freedom.

-Seeing ourselves objectively entails being able to take objective "snap shots" of ourselves--as though someone else might see us in a given situation.

-Realization that can result from this practice is that we aren't who we think we are, and that we don't have to identify with who wet think we are.

-When viewing these snapshots of ourselves, it is important to be neither critical of or enamored by who we see in the snapshots--just witness ourselves without judgement.

-This takes a long time to learn, and even when most of us think we're seeing ourselves objectively, we're not really. We must apply ourselves to this practice.

-Koan practice and sitting takes us to where we see we are not anybody, we are everybody.

-We are a vessel that can hold anything. We don't have to be identified with the contents of our vessels.

-Our two practices--sitting (Zen) and self-observation (Fourth Way)--fit together perfectly. We are the only group using both practices.

-D is not teaching us to be normal people. One of the purposes of our practice is that we live powerful, extraordinary lives with deep insight and compassion. To do this, we need see ourselves objectively. This is not normal.
