Lost Coin Class Notes - 9-22-09

-We need to see ourselves and our negative emotions.

-Negative emotions--fear, boredom, etc.--take a lot of energy to maintain.

-Don Juan told Castenada that the best advisor that a person can have is death. Put death on your shoulder as an advisor; run your decisions past death before you make them. Ask death if you should get mad before you get mad. Death can bring the perspective that what we get mad and anxious about is usually quite irrelevant and means very little, so why waste our time and energy getting upset? 

-We act as though death is something outside of us, but death is inside of us and is as much a part of us as life. We are born with death, but we often act as though death isn't something that happens to us.

-As a "warrior," we realize that everything is transitory, and that we are just passing through this world. And as travelers, we realize that we don't have time for negative emotion.

-Negative emotions happen automatically; we need to start recognizing them in ourselves.

-We can think of ourselves as in a strainer, just let the negative emotions run through us as they arise, like water through a strainer.

-We can fight life and be "right," or we can go with life and be a warrior.

-Accept death. When we accept death, we "lighten up." We're not so heavy to ourselves and those around us. Lighten up. Things aren't that serious; things are just life. 

-When we really know that we're passing through, we know with all three centers--the intellectual, emotional, and body.

-Just see negative emotion. Simply in noticing neg. emotion, it will change, you don't have to try to change it.

-Can we stop being angry? Anger is thinking that something is wrong, and it's somebody else's fault.  So, we spend our lives as angry victims.

-Anger is not functional. Don't blame anyone else. Take responsibility for your life.

-No one chooses to be angry. Negative emotion is unconscious. Let's be aware of our emotions; start seeing them. 

-No one will ever profit from making someone else wrong.

-Psychological are good for writing about but not good for personal development. Let's not look at the Lost Coin teachings through a psychological lens. Work with consciousness not psychology. 

-Life is tough enough without deflating ourselves. We aren't bad, we're just asleep/mechanical/unconscious. 

-The warrior takes every "problem" as a challenge, and she/he moves into action when presented with a challenge. If we have the choice between thinking about doing something to work on/solve a challenge and moving into action, choose to move into action. Just thinking about it does nothing but cultivate negative emotion.

-We make ourselves crazy, or we make ourselves strong. Let's make ourselves strong.

-We are conditioned, and we sleep walk. Relationships are a good place to see this. People will like us more when we're awake.   

-Let's support each other, as a community, to awaken.
