1996-07_05 Vipassana Retreat, Part 5 of 8 - Q&A 6

Talk: 19960705-Larry_Rosenberg-UNK-vipassana_retreat_part_5_of_8-43309 Start_time: 01:01:49 Display_question: Are clarity and attentiveness related to the desire to pay attention? Keyword_search: sitting, sit, life, death, breath, desire, attention, breath, thought, flow, attentiveness, clarity, spontaneous, individual, community, professor, Asia, refine, form, deep, quality, life, daughter, wife, partner, parent, mundane, clear, confused, ocean, space, Newsweek, Time, mind, human race, Earth Question_content: Questioner: At the last sitting you said… Larry: The last sitting? Questioner: The last sitting you said, “We have five more minutes to go.” Larry: Yeah. Questioner: And spontaneously, it arose up in me talking about this is a matter of life and death, paying attention to the breath. It arose a real strong desire to pay attention to the breath. And seemingly, as a result of that, I was able to be with almost every breath. It was preceded by desire. I really wanted to do this. This was really important. And also, I saw that the thoughts flowed by and sort of more vividly than normally. And, you know, it was thoroughly a terrific experience… Larry: Yes. Questioner: And it seemed clear that attentiveness and clarity were in some way related to the wanting to pay attention. Larry: Right. Questioner: That just kind of spontaneously popped up when you said five more minutes. And that wanting, wanting to pay attention, wanting to do this practice is very rarely that powerful. Larry: I understand. Questioner: After it was all over, I had this thought, “If I could want it that much all the time, I’d be enlightened in a… ” Larry: I think you'd be exhausted in about half an hour, but I get your drift. Questioner: I don’t really have a question, but I’m just sharing. Larry: Yes. Questioner: I guess I would really like it if I could want it that much more. My life is rare that I want to be mindful that powerfully or that frequently. Larry: I understand. That's why we're here together. In other words, as individuals, it's harder to do. Gathered together as a community of practitioners, we're all giving each other energy. So, we're here alone in one sense and we're also here together and sometimes things are done. There are particular meditations to enhance that. For example, there is a death awareness meditation where literally you're helping people understand they don't have forever, assuming they're already on this path and they already care about it. It's not something I would do with beginners because people would just perhaps become morbid about… What happens is the preciousness of life comes up. But, you know, that can come to anyone from any kind of thing. It can happen as a result of the death of someone. It can happen out of one good sitting, where you realize what you're playing with with meditation, and you fall in love with meditation. Break_line: For example, you wanted me to be a little bit more personal. I was a college professor for ten years, and I thought I was happy. I mean, I was happy being a college professor. For whatever reason, and I don't know—how can I explain it to you? There came a point when I discovered this practice where I just fell in love with it. So then people said it must have taken tremendous courage to give up a career in the university with all the security it's entailed to step out of that and start wandering through Asia and all that other stuff. I had some fear as to how I'd feed myself, for sure, but I don't think, it didn't take that much courage because to not follow through on that I would have felt like an idiot because I found what I really loved to do for me. I'm not saying that it is for you. Break_line: So that's how it, now, that doesn't mean that every day I feel that way. I don't. It goes in and out and up and down. But, by and large, I'm really interested. I don't get tired of refining this stuff, even teaching of it, especially if the form is correct. And I've gotten help every step along the way by teachers who were even much more inspired than I was because they had gone dramatically deeper than I had and just spending time with them was very, very helpful. And then it didn't last. I'd come back from Asia and then a month later I would get caught up in the mundane problems of paying my rent and telephone bills and all that and then, oh, then I'd wake up and get back on. So that the journey is not like a superhighway to this ride or, it's not a Hollywood ending. It's not like that at all. And it's different for each person. Break_line: But there's no question that interest, urgency. For example, if you understood, it is life and death. That is, the degree to which you are clear and the degree to which you're confused makes an enormous difference for the quality of your life, your daughter—I know you have a daughter—and all the people in your life, your patients. Same for me, same for everyone. So, if we realize what was this, we're not aware of the price that we're paying because of ignorance. Break_line: For example, now we only have a minute, so I can get on a soapbox. A few months ago, I saw in one of, it’s either Newsweek or Time, “The Last Unexplored Realm” or “The Last Frontier.” It was the ocean. Somehow, okay, outer space. We've got people on the moon. That's okay. Planet Earth, we have that all mapped out. But the ocean, we now have equipment. Let's go down there. There’re all kinds of incredible things that we can find. It's an amazing, unexplored frontier. And I just felt like, what about the mind? Whatever happened? Here we are, we find a little something or other and we say, this is a sign that there's intelligent life on Mars, some little rock. There's intelligent life and everyone's getting all excited. My question is, is there any intelligent life on Earth? Break_line: Okay, now, what is being said, of course, is there is. Human beings have immense potential. Scientists know the brain is hardly being used, just to look at it physically. Look at the world. Is all the suffering that we do to each other, is that really the best we can do after thousands of years? So, we have amazing computers and technology and life is still a battlefield? We're just much better at it than the cave men and women were. It should be a source of immense shame that we have squandered the endowment that we have, which is extraordinary, and human beings have it. Some of us get very damaged at birth, physically and otherwise. Everyone in this room has it, of course, you couldn't possibly be here. So, if you can start to see that… The danger is you can become messianic and try to get everyone to practice. And you do that sometimes. So why do you do that? Trying to convince yourself, trying to rope people in so they don't convince you that you should do it. Questioner: I was just amazing, practicing hours of meditation every day. Larry: Okay, yeah. So forgetting about brand names like Insight Meditation, Zen, and so forth, it's more basic than that. It's self-understanding. In other words, the degree to which we understand ourselves, life, the quality of life can be different. The degree to which we're confused and don't understand ourselves is suffering. It's as simple as that, in a way. So shouldn't a very high priority be, I know it's great to go down into the ocean. I'm not down on that. But what if the values changed? And maybe they are. Places like Omega are helping. So that part of education is not just absorbing knowledge of what previous people learned, as valuable as that is, but that self-understanding is not some luxury item for mystics, that it could be part of just a general education of all human beings. Krishnamurti, if any of you have heard of him, was my first teacher. That's what he said for sixty years. That's what he was saying. He tried to put it in the framework of education and make it accessible for children and everyone. I don't think he had a lot of success, but certainly, do you see what I'm getting at? Break_line: So, I don't know. But we try everything we can, practicing together, different forms, chanting, reading books that are inspiring, go off and work with teachers, go off to Asia, go in a monastery. But finally, when your experience starts to yield the fruit of meditation, then you won't need people like myself. I mean, if you want, you can hang out with me, we can be friends, but you won't need to be with someone like me because you know that what you're doing is intrinsically really worthwhile and, perhaps, if not the most important thing for you to do, certainly, one of the most important things to do. I think it's the most. Obviously, I have a bias. Because, sometimes people say, “Well, isn't this very selfish?” We get that question a lot, especially from beginners. And maybe some of you are thinking that just sitting there for hour after hour, just concern with yourself. Well, that would be a misuse of meditation, that's self-preoccupation which we already know how to do. Break_line: But the degree to which you, in your work on yourself, let go of greed, of hatred and all that stupidity and all that stuff, that's all you have to offer the people in your life. I mean, you don't offer them any more than who you are. That's who you have to offer: your children, your husbands, wives, partners, business associates, parents, everyone. So, when you're sitting here, if you're really doing the practice, you're doing it on behalf of the human race. I know that sounds pretty inflated and pompous, but in a certain sense it's true. At least the portion of the human race that you're in touch with. Break_line: Can we have a moment of silence, please? May we see things exactly as they are. And may such clear, direct seeing free us from all forms of limitation. Okay, thank you. End_time: 01:13:08