Lost Coin notes	September 13, 2010
San Francisco

D. discusses “mindfulness”. In our tradition, one meaning is “going ‘meta’ to yourself”. You have a perspective of yourself; your teacher has a perspective of you outside of you. A perspective from outside yourself is more useful.

To the extent we don’t see ourselves, the more we are victims of our cause and effect, and we also repeat our patterns. This is what we call “being unconscious”.

Part of the practice is seeing yourself as others see you. Even slight efforts in this direction can bring positive change. To believe that you have the control to be objective to yourself is the essence of consciousness.

D. says about cause and effect: “I don’t care what people do when they’re working with Lost Coin, I care about the outcome”. I am the person that can become conscious of myself, the one who can create what happens.

Group review of exercise on cause and effect:
D. says we have a problem of thinking we’re smart, but thinking we’re smart doesn’t get anything accomplished.
The enneagram helps us to see ourselves without judgment.

Next steps and the assignment:
See what you do that stops you, then when you see it, don’t beat yourself up. Often simply seeing it will fix it—consciousness is the healing tool. See yourself as an other would, without judgment.

To D., science and spirituality are the same things: can you see what’s real about yourself (science) and then be nice to yourself (spirituality)?

There is a difference between thinking and doing. We want to claim results with results, not by what we’ve done to get the results. The subtext is to use your will and effort. That is, really be on your outside—be one with yourself.

From a reading from Enlightenment Unfolds: the Teachings of Zen Master Dogen: understanding enlightenment is not understanding anything at all. Everything is enlightenment—we just need to get ourselves out of the way.
