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Talk: 19880716-Larry_Rosenberg-UNK-questions_and_answers-1554 Leandra Tejedor Start_time: 01:35:50 Display_question: I’ve learned on retreat how empowering it will be simplify my life outside of retreat. Keyword_search: daily life, empowered, simplify, retreat, meditation Question_content: Questioner: I think part of the difficulty, of moving from here, to daily life, is that we feel that we have to adjust to daily life. I think we're more empowered than that. I think we can actually change daily life. We can look at the way we live our lives, and see what activities are actually necessary, and what aren't. What speech is, what people are. To simplify life to the point where the storm isn't so strong. And I think if that's done, in an intentional way, the difference between here and there... in other words, we can change the conditions. We don't have to simply respond. Larry: Yes. Eric, do you mean something like this? There seems to be kind of a trend, let's say at the beginning, and I don't know how long the beginning is. One stage you come home from retreats, and let's say you're enthusiastic. You find that this is valuable here, or somewhere else. And then you try to fit meditation in, around your already existing schedule. And as the practice gets deeper, something quite different goes on. It's no longer you trying to squeeze a few minutes here, and a few minutes there, but suddenly the practice itself, becomes a very high priority, perhaps the highest. At which point you start to reorganize your life, and you start to see, let's say, old habits, things that you've done for many, many years, that used to be fulfilling, but aren't anymore. And yet we've been the momentum. We've been rolling on, doing it and doing it. And because of your interest, that comes from the growing, interest in the practice, you start to reorganize your life, in order to protect your... I'm just talking about sitting practice now. And you do that? Is that what you mean? Questioner: But it's not simply a question of protecting the sitting practice. Actually, every circumstance in our life. What’s valuable and what isn’t. Clearing it up. Larry: Yes, exactly. It's not limited to the sitting. Some people, for example, return from retreats like this and realize, that they're working incredibly hard, to make lots of money, to buy lots of things, and because there's an unexamined assumption, even though they may not say that, because they have, say, the right things we've all read the right books, an enormous backbreaking burden of work, to pay all of those bills, so that our life is fulfilling. And the simplicity of living here, sometimes has resulted in people realizing, they don't need a good deal of the things that they think they need, or that have kind of crept up on them, inadvertently, and suddenly start to simplify their life. In the extreme, it could be voluntary simplicity, but where certain things are dropped, and therefore, you don't need as much money, and therefore you suddenly find life becomes a little bit more pleasant. It's not unusual. It does happen, is it? Something like that. Questioner: Yes End_time: 01:39:11
