Q1-19990324-Larry_Rosenberg-UNK-shining_the_light_of_death_on_life_part_7-43039 Leandra Tejedor

Talk: 19990324-Larry_Rosenberg-UNK-shining_the_light_of_death_on_life_part_7-43039 Leandra Tejedor.json Start_time: 00:56:20 Display_question: Can you speak about insight, reflection, and the connection to thoughts or thinking. Keyword_search: insight meditation, equanimity, awareness, mindfulness, fear, death, meditation, vipassana, five reflections, ego, breathing, mind, attention, sensations, body, thoughts, insight, understanding, wisdom, clear seeing, clear mirror Question_content: Questioner: (inaudible) I mean. Larry: Well, but you see, those are just words. Think about the essence of our practice, of insight meditation. There are a number of skills involved, but let's say the most basic one, is to be aware of your experience, with equanimity. That means it's not thinking, it's to be aware. Let's say this brings up some fear. Death is inevitable. I must die. I must die. Death is inevitable. And suddenly you can feel the heart start to beat. Your pulse changes. There's fear, it comes up. The heart of our practice would be awareness, with equanimity. And equanimity means that you're not judging what's come up. You're not for or against it, you're not grasping onto it, nor are you pushing it away. But rather you're just observing the actual energy, of fear, in the body. Or it could be in the mind. But to begin with, that's hard for most people. So, the heart of the vipassana practice, is what is sometimes called mindfulness. I prefer awareness to mindfulness. That seems to imply you're in your head, you're in your mind, whereas awareness is a more general thing. But does that make any... is that a new idea or do you have some sense? Questioner: (inaudible) Break_line: Yeah. Now the reflections that I'm referring to are a little bit different. They're kind of hybrid. They're bringing a little of both together. That it is a skillful use of thought. That's what I've been saying. You're reflecting. You use your thinking mind, in a reflective way. You take it inside; you turn it over, and you extract some significance from it. You've already done that, countless times in your life. Just you'd be doing it with this, and it's about you. But then it's bound to bring something up, if you keep doing it. And then when it comes up, then you practice with it, the way you'd practice with whatever comes up, in your meditation. I can't give you a thumbnail Vipassana course, but is that enough to help you understand? Break_line: Yeah, but finally it's not thinking at all. Let me point out, it includes thinking, but in this way. When you start to examine, let's say, fear of dying, which can come up. It's not unusual, of course it can come up naturally. It can come up by invitation. When you look carefully at it. And our practice is the careful looking at our experience, listening to our experience, examining our experience, not thinking about, examining. What you see is, that it isn't in that moment, it's not death that you're afraid of, it's the idea of your future death, that you're afraid of. Because in that moment you're fine. You can be very safe, and feel healthy, and you can be quite young, and there's nothing around that. Of course, you can die as soon as you leave here, it's uncertain. So, what the fear of is, that the mind has made up a future, which we do know will come. But the ground out of which that fear has grown, the soil out of which it's grown, has been thinking. It's not that in that moment, you're actually dying. Break_line: Now the time will come where you will actually be dying, unless it happens abruptly. And then that will be a moment, just like this moment. Where you're in a hospital, or you're at home, or wherever it happens, and you're breathing, in a certain way, and your mind is a certain way, and the body feels a certain way, and there are people around, or they're not around and it's hot, or it's not hot. It's a real piece of life, and you are in the process of dying. But a lot of the fear is not, of the actual dying. It's the idea that we're going to die. And of course, it's the ego that is terrified of not being around anymore. So, by paying attention to the sensations in the body, of fear, and seeing them come, and go, it becomes easier to see how much they were aroused by thoughts. And that once you see that, it falls away, and so does the fear. And suddenly you feel some of the strength is taken out of the fear, as you understand it. Insight means understanding, wisdom. But the tool, the main tool for wisdom is clear seeing, attention. Break_line: If I could leave you with an image, it's like a clear mirror, that just reflects what's there. Equanimity is that. It's not for, or against, what it sees, or listens to. It's just right there, and attentive, that's the foundation of our practice. If you don't learn how to do that, then it's all just going to be just in our heads. We're just going to just keep reading, and thinking, and talking, and it's of limited value. End_time: 01:01:22