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Talk: 19830724-Larry_Rosenberg-UNK-awakening_intelligence-1556 Leandra Tejedor Start_time: 0:47:54 Display_question: What is the connection between watching my breath and personal transformation? Keyword_search: breath, attention, discursive thinking, dialogue, chronic introspection, concentration, personal transformation, Buddha, concept, thought, mind, ambition, training, sensitive, ego, roadmap, present moment, process, awareness, allow, meditation, fear, Western, intellectual, emotional Question_content: Questioner: All right, this may sound stupid. Larry: Uh oh. Questioner: No, I'm serious. Larry: Okay. Questioner: How do you think watching the breath builds attention? Why not discursive thinking? Larry: Why not what? Questioner: A kind of dialogue, with oneself. Larry: You mean we use that to uh… Questioner: That to…you know examine our condition. Larry: Sure. That's also, in other words, to a dialogue with oneself. Questioner: Yes. Larry: Okay, but you've been doing that all your life. It's called chronic introspection. Questioner: Right. It’s called what? Larry: Chronic introspection. Questioner: Yes. Absolutely. Larry: Yeah. And that has developed a certain concentration for you. Questioner: Yeah. Larry: The breath isn't the only thing, you can develop concentration, on making pizza. In other words, the Buddha listed 40, let's say, official objects to develop concentration, but I'm sure they're 40 million. In particular individuals may develop concentration, on something. The breath is a very beautiful one. But what prompts your question? In other words… Questioner: I guess because I'm terribly concrete, and I still haven't been able to make the connection, between watching my breath, the concept of no thought, which is a difficult one for me to understand, and… personal transformation. Larry: The concept of no thought, is a concept. What we're talking about is, no thought. Questioner: Okay. I can't get there. Larry: Okay, but how would you… where would it be that you're trying to get? In other words, the breath is not concrete. Okay, if it's not concrete is that what you're saying? Not concrete enough for you? Questioner: No, the breath is concrete, but after a point, your mind moves to standing up straight, equals people challenging me, equals so forth… or I want to be pleasing to other people. In other words, the mind leaves. Larry: Yeah. Okay. If your mind didn't leave the breath, you wouldn't need to be here. In other words, the reason you're here is, because your mind, keeps leaving the breath. Questioner: Right. Larry: And so you have to… the training is the coming back. In one sense. I mean, it's more open. We're really taking in a lot. But let's say you're developing that ability to stay with the particular expressions of the breath, in the body, and you're not always doing it. Questioner: Absolutely. Larry: Okay, I understand. But sometimes you're doing it. Questioner: Right. Larry: Sometimes…and you're beginning to notice when you're not doing it, and then suddenly it's happening again. Questioner: Right. Larry: Okay, that's the training. Now, unfortunately, many people take that as a sign. In other words, ambition is the problem. Questioner: Yes. Larry: Right. Okay. Questioner: Correct. Larry: Okay. All that we're doing is, becoming more familiar with our breathing. In other words, we're already breathing. Before you ever heard of meditation, you were doing that. And that all we're doing, is we're learning, becoming more familiar with it, more sensitive to it. But then the mind now finds out, that this is a valuable activity. The ego finds that out. There's some cash value in it. Questioner: Right. Larry: It's not just breathing. It's… anapanasati or shamata. It will lead to enlightenment, it will lead to very absorbed states of absorption. And now of course, it wants to get somewhere with it. Big problem. Questioner: Right. Larry: It was just, okay, you're just breathing. You already know how to do that. And we're just becoming more familiar with the breath. So then I would look at that. In other words, you have to see how you've only been here a short while, and you're already way ahead of the breath, into what you think the breath will lead to. Imagining what the breath will lead to. Questioner: Yeah, I'm looking for a clear roadmap. Larry: Okay. Roadmap, is not the road. The breath is the road, here. You may get what you want, but I think you'll get it, not by trying to get there, because that's your imagination, and that's blocking your ability to be with the breath, in the present moment. See, it's a lot simpler. It's something like this. Questioner: I understand what you're saying, Larry. I’m sorry for interrupting. I'm trying to also understand the process. In other words, if you were to ask me how does somebody get better by talking, I could give you an explanation of how I think it happens. I'm asking you the same question. How does somebody change, by thinking about the breath? Larry: We're not thinking about the breath. We're just being aware of the breath. Questioner: Okay. Larry: In other words, it sounds like your awareness, is accompanied by, a lot of thinking. So, the essence of what we're learning, is not any thoughts about the breath. If that comes up, then you're aware of that, as another happening in the mind. But it's just… I won't even put a word on it. It's just stirrings in the body. Okay, now of what value is that? Questioner: What's the process? How do you think that leads to transformation? Larry: In other words, you want a whole storyline as to what it leads to? That's what it sounds like. I'm trying to… Questioner: It sounds like I'm not getting the question answered. Larry: Okay, let me just give a hint, at a few things that can come out of the breath, out of watching the breath. One was already mentioned. We're learning how to allow the breath, to just be the breath. In other words, to follow its own nature. This is a skill that you may not value yet. Questioner: Right. Larry: But it's one that is being suggested is enormously valuable. Questioner: Right. Larry: Okay, so let's say you allow the breath in, and you allow the breath out, and finally you stop trying to control it, and you just listen to it. And then it suddenly becomes… able more and more, to transfer that openness, and that ability to allow, to your emotional life. And let's say a deep-seated fear now comes out. Okay, and so then you get to know fear. Because unless you can say hello to it, you can't say goodbye to it. Questioner: Okay. Larry: And we all want to skip that step, of hello. And so, the breath, in a way, is a model for the whole journey. Questioner: Okay. Larry: Okay, that's one kind of… Questioner: That’s an explanation. Larry: Okay, I understand. Questioner: I’m not trying to be… Larry: Yeah. There are a couple of ways to teach this. The more traditional way, very often, would not give many explanations. They would just say, do it, and then see what you learn. Questioner: I’d have a hard time with that. Larry: Well, it's okay. I mean, Western, particularly Western intellectual people. In my own case, I had the exact same kind of mind. I still have remnants of it. We won't budge, unless somebody gives us a long explanation, of where it's going to take us to. Unless you give me… I just want to see exactly where I'm going, before I waste my brainwaves on this one. It's a very weird school that we have here. We're trying to learn... in other words, so much of our education has been learning trying to learn how to get from A to B, and then from B to C, and then from C to D. And we're trying to learn how to get from A to A. Yeah. Questioner: Thank you. End_time: 00:55:41
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