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Talk: 2011-06_08 Learning How to Live_ Self Knowing in Action.json Start_time: 00:54:23 Display_question: At what point in meditation, and seeking clarity, is there a place where you can make a decision, that is not based on fear or doubt? Keyword_search: graduate school, fear, doubt, reflection, clarity, decision, emotional trauma, meditation, ambitious, energy, state of consciousness, self-knowing, self-understanding, self-knowledge, truth, Social Security, Medicare, wisdom, transparent, terror, awareness, relationship, humility, courage, investigation, silence, seeing, Buddha, Socrates, University of Chicago, Asia, Prosser on Bills and Notes, professor, Brandeis University, Mount Olympus, English, doctor, honesty, myths, illusions, self-deception Question_content: Questioner: I'm in a graduate program which involves lots of emotional ups and downs. Larry: Lots of emotional ups and downs? Questioner: Yeah. Larry: Of course. Questioner: Fear and doubt. And most of the time that I've been working towards my PhD, I've felt kind of like a lot of doubt, that this is what I should be doing. Larry: You mean whether you should be working on this degree? Questioner: Right. And so, I’ve come to…but I have a lot of fear to quit doing the PhD also, so I've come to this state where I kind of just watch. Okay, today I'm afraid, and what am I going to do about it? And so, okay, I'm afraid of this. So I’m going to ask this… I'm afraid that I don't know how to do this reaction, so I'm going to ask this person to help me. So, I'm trying to constructively deal with each of these emotions that come. But some of the other people in my program, a lot of them have dropped out. And so, I was wondering while you were talking, like for some people these emotions, or something is going on inside their head, that's constructive, that helps them make a decision. Like, I'm going to stop this PhD. I'm going to go to something else. And so…at what point in this reflection, and seeking clarity, is there a place where you can make a decision. Larry: But you see… Questioner: Make a change in life, if need be, or stay. Larry: I understand. It's not about them. It's about you. Forget about those who seem to know what they're doing. Maybe they do and maybe they don't. I've been there, done this, and got the T shirt. In other words, I've been through graduate school, and I was even a teacher, and had to guide people through it. I know the emotional trauma that comes along with it, and most people don't finish. At least at the university I got my PhD from, most people don't finish. And the ones who finished, not necessarily the smartest, they're the ones who you get hit in the face with one pie, you wipe it off, and then another one. They're sort of like the ones who just keep going, and some of the more intelligent ones, are too sensitive for this process. It's a brutal process. Sometimes out of it sometimes comes something good, and sometimes it just means, you're a survivor. And you're very ambitious, extremely ambitious. It seems to me, just based on what you said is, first of all, you're still using the old mind a lot. I assume you want me to say what meditation can do to help you, because otherwise there's no point to the question, because you're just going to do it how you've been doing it, all your life. Break_line: First off, the key question is that you have doubt about being in the program. To begin with, if you don't take care of that, that's the root of everything. For example, supposing that doubt is clarified, and you realize you do want to be in this program, that gives you tremendous strength, through the ups and downs. There have to be ups and downs. You'll bring certain things into your advisor, and they'll say, rewrite this, it's no good. You'll feel disappointed, or you won't feel like working, or you want to do it. But if you know… if you're at one with the purpose, then… now if you're still not sure about the purpose, you're on shaky turf, and everything else that's happening. It's all... do you see what I'm getting at? Now, I'm not saying become obsessed with that, but when… let's say you're sitting, should that doubt come up. Let's say, I don't know, should I be here? Shouldn't I? Throw the word doubt out. Not the word. It's a state of consciousness, which is doubtful. It doesn't know, should I, shouldn't I conflict? And don't try to get a solution. Don't try to figure out whether you should stay or not stay. Let the doubt, and I don't mean the words, the energy. Let it tell its story. Break_line: Now, here's the thing with self-knowing, self-understanding, self-knowledge, whatever language you like, as the mind gets clearer, what it shows you is the truth. Now, the truth may say, you really don't want to do this. And then suddenly you get frightened, if I don't do this, then what else will I do? How will I earn a living? I'll be unemployed. No one's getting a job anyway. But Social Security will go out. There'll be no Medicare, I'll be out on the street. Can you spare some change? Right? Yeah. So often we know… wisdom is transparent. We see what we should do, or shouldn't do, but we don't live it. So let's say… I'm not saying this is true for you, because I have no… the only one who's going to find out is, you. So, you look, and suddenly this doubt looms rather big, and you stay with it. And at that moment, it's pretty convincing, that this isn't for you. And then it follows immediately by terror. And terror begets all these scenarios about… if you can look at that… what awareness does, real awareness, it just shows you the truth. Now, if the truth, if it keeps coming up, and you keep seeing it, you'll start to feel it. You'll start to say, I really don't want to do this. Break_line: Let's say you're convinced that okay, it's obvious what I should do. I should just drop out. And you know that that's the right thing to do. No conflict over it. But you don't live it then. So, it's a kind of…we betray our understanding. Like sometimes the understanding is very, very clear. This is not for me. And it may take a long time before we can admit. See, sometimes couples will come, and they want the meditation. I'm not a couple's counselor or marriage. I'm just saying, look, the practice can help you see the truth. Sometimes it may lead to you realizing that the best thing to do is to go separate ways. And sometimes you find ways of saving the relationship. Are you prepared to go that deeply into it? Break_line: So, self-knowledge takes a certain amount of humility, and courage. So, let's say you know what to do. I'm making this up. I'm not psychic or et cetera, honest. You see that you really should drop out of this program, but you can't do it. You feel frozen. For the reasons that I'm speculating about, you can't do it. So, then you start, then investigation is appropriate. Investigation, sometimes it's like pulling over to the side of the road, and looking, observing carefully. It's still in silence. It may be a bit of thought, at the beginning, later on, less and less thought, till there's no thought at all. It's seeing, why is it that I don't live my understanding? And then fear comes up, and then you shift to fear. Don't stay with the decision, and you see what the fear? And you just move with it. So, it's not that you're a bad person, because you don't live your wisdom. You betrayed your understanding. Whereas wisdom is not just memorizing wise words. The Buddha said, Socrates said, that's menu. That's the menu. It's not a meal you can't live…wisdom works, or it's not wisdom. It's practical, it's real, and it's lived. So that real wisdom, is something you live. It's not something you argue over, and have disputes, and that's just language. Break_line: Okay so that…when…if you can really…let's say you see, you're not living your wisdom, and the whole point of this practice is to help you live, the truth. And the truth is, at many levels, some of it is exactly what you're talking about. There's a lot of suffering going… look, getting a PhD is hard enough without this, isn't it? Okay, add on to it that, you're not even sure you want to be there. I'll tell you, I'm sympathetic. I went to law school, before I got a PhD. And I knew the first day, that it wasn't for me. This is not to put down law. I just knew it wasn't for me. I didn't know what to do, with my life. But I kept going a year and a half. Then there was one day, I'm sitting in this big hall, and the professor's giving a talk. I even remember the book, Prosser on Bills and Notes, and it was an issue of a Swiss bank, and a New York bank, and the assignee, and the assignor. And finally, I was able to live my understanding. I got up, I put the book down. Maybe someone else can have it. I walked out, and this is the University of Chicago, and I went across the street, to the Oriental Institute, and I just saw antiquities, and great art from Asia, all that, and now what? Okay, but I knew that that wasn't for me. But it took me a year and a half, because I was afraid, obviously. Afraid, and then what? I don't know what to do. That's what got me into making the wrong decision in the first place. Break_line: When I was… I was also a professor for ten years, and senior year, people would go crazy. The undergraduates, many, not everyone, and many would come to office hours, and they would say, I don't know what to do. But my parents, if I go to medical school, they'll give me a car. This is Brandeis University, all right? If I drop out, I'll be homeless, whatever it is, and they'd be worrying. Somehow by the end of the senior year, more than 90% oh, yeah, they'd come in and say…everything work out? Yes. What is it? I'm going to be a teacher. I'm going to be a social worker. Everything's fine. Oh, good. A very small number could say, I really don't know what to do, and just take a backpack, and go through Europe, or wherever, and just live that way, to see if something would come their way, and to be patient, so that most people finally settle on something, that's practically necessary, to earn a living. I'm not being on Mount Olympus. We do have to earn a living, and maybe that is for you. And it's not perfect, but what is? Break_line: Do you think I love to hear everything that you ask? You think I just love all your questions? You think I do? I don't. You think a doctor loves every patient that walks in? They still have to do the surgery, and a real doctor does it somehow. So, at this point, it may be that the ups and downs are getting you to doubt, but that overall, maybe you're in the right place. It's just that it's not somehow, not perfect, or for whatever reason. But you have to find that out by paying attention, and especially that interaction, between truth and fear. Fear is… one of the reasons it's so important to come to know fear, because fear limits our potential. We humans, we're so limited by fear. Often, we don't understand how much we don't do, because of fear, how many doors we shut on ourselves. Now, if you conclude, as some people do…I'll give you… Break_line: This is an example. This person, this is actually true… I may not remember all the details. This person didn't have a good use of English. They had just come to this country. They had just graduated high school here, and they were much older. They had four children, a wife, and four children. And we would have interviews. They'd come, you know, come to the center. And the person wanted to be a doctor. They were in their late 30s. They had three or four children. He would have to go to college first, then he would have to get into medical school. Then we have to become an intern, and a resident and so forth, years before...and so we talked about it. At a certain point I realized, can you see that you're not going to be a doctor? And the person said, I've known that for a while. I said, so why are we hammering away here? You're not going to be a doctor. And he said, oh, thank you. I'm not, am I? I said, it's obvious you're not going to be a doctor. Are you going to be a doctor? No. I know you would love to be. So sometimes… life is that way. We don't get everything we want. It's just so obvious, no one does. So now you have to come to terms with, what's next. Maybe you get other training in the medical field. Break_line: I would say a lot of what our practice is, training in honesty. The honesty is with ourselves. And is that easy? Very often it's not. It is frightening, because we have a lot of myths, and illusions, and self-deception, is very potent in humans. And the reason it's called self-deception, because if we knew we were doing it, we wouldn't be deceiving ourselves. We really think that we're being clear. So, for a year and a half, I suffered through law school. I could have walked out the first day. I knew it wasn't for me. So, I don't know what you should do. So, I guess I didn't help at all. End_time: 01:07:41
