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Talk: 19890501-Larry_Rosenberg-UNK-anapanasati_full_awareness_of_breath_series_tape_12-33815 Leandra Tejedor Start_time: 00:07:34 Display_question: The awareness of breathing, while you're going around the world, seems a lot more natural, and just happening a lot more. And sometimes it can used to tune out the world. Keyword_search: breath, daily life, Bread & Circus, awareness, fabrication, restaurant, Richie Havens, refugees, IMS, Himalayas, meditation, pleasant/unpleasant, equanimity, reaction, Anapanasati, energy Question_content: Questioner: Well, I think being… doing this while you're sitting carries over a lot, in your daily life. The awareness of breathing, while you're going around the world, seems a lot more natural and just happening a lot more. Larry: Is it helping you to stay awake and in touch with the moment? Questioner: Yeah. Larry: Great. Questioner: And I'm aware I'm breathing, the way you said, most of the time. The only odd thing is that it makes me see that, before a lot of the time when I was with the breath in daily life, it was a really subtle form. Although I did feel this sort of suppressing life. So, you'd be looking out, you'd be thinking, I'm looking at Bread & Circus, I am aware, I am with the breath, but in fact, it would be a way to shut out the world, and to be aware of it in sitting really has broken that down. Larry: Can you tell me how that happened? What do you mean by how being aware of it in sitting has broken that down? Questioner: I don't know, it just seems that now I happen to know that gosh I'm actually breathing, and I'm not sort of Larry: Okay. I think I understand. Let me make up… Questioner: Looser, I guess. Larry: You're looser? Questioner: Well, I think you can use being with the breath, in a weird way the way, it's sort of shutting out everything. Yeah. Larry: No, you're absolutely right. Let me make up an example, because this actually happened, let's say a number of us went… I'm adding onto it for teaching purposes, three quarters of it happened, and one quarter is total fabrication, so that we can learn something. I don't think the people who are there that night will care, frankly. A group of us go to a restaurant to also hear a concert. I've forgotten who it was now, it was a while back, Richie Havens, and so it's like a restaurant where he's going to perform. And we came to hear him. They were all refugees from the 60’s and we want to hear him again. So, we go into this restaurant but what we didn't count on, it was packed, full of smoke, crowded, loud, and we were all very precious meditators, coming from IMS, towards the at the end of a retreat, so we didn't count on that. So, there were a number of… we’re sitting there, and the concert… he wasn't going to do what he was going to do, for easily an hour and a half to two hours. So, in the meantime, ordering a meal, and just being in this inferno… so there are a number of options. One is to leave, no one took that one. Break_line: Another one, which a few people took, is to just do what you're suggesting, is just tune everything out. That's one choice. You can clearly use the breath that way, you're just sitting there, and tune everything out, just be with the breath, and get nice and calm, and happy inside. And that's one thing to do. Of course, it also tuned us out. In other words, the person who was, we disappeared along with the rest of the restaurant. So, the person might have well been in the Himalayas. That's one solution. Obviously, I don't favor that one, because we need practice in making the practice real. In other words, to making it of one peace with life, because we're not always in retreat centers. Break_line: The other option, which is a little bit different, you're still using the breath, to help keep you… it can have a very soothing balancing effect. But while you're doing it, you're listening to the people that you're with, you're talking to them. So, it's helping you. It's an unpleasant situation, but the breath is helping you stay awake in it. And what you're learning is how to maintain your composure, in a situation that is not of your liking, to maintain equanimity, even though you'd rather not be there too. So, you can leave. You can disappear into a disappearing act, using meditation. You can immerse yourself in the situation, using meditation, taking it on. The very negative features, become desirable, because that's the way you train yourself to be at home, in the world. The world is always going to be a pain. So often it's just not going to be the way we want it to be. Have you learned that yet? Break_line: At a certain point you have to understand the world doesn't care. It just doesn't care. It just keeps rolling on, the way it wants to roll on. And you can either get flattened out by it, as it rolls over you, or you can't change the world. I mean, in that sense. But what you can do is, learn how to use the practice, so that in effect, it's a different world. But the only way is you're changing yourself, you're changing how you take the world. The world is the same world, but you work with all these reactions, always trying to get away from unpleasantness, always trying to get to pleasantness. Sure, when we can do it, but often we don't have that choice. Break_line: Okay now, let's say using the breath, in daily life, I don't want to legislate, it's really, for you to learn. Let's say you're waiting for an elevator, or you're sitting on the T. In the T, and if you want, close your eyes, and be with the breath. And for many people, that's how they're doing it. In other words, they’re using the breath, only in very protected situations, social situations, waiting for a bus, waiting for an elevator, sitting on the T. So, there's no real challenge there. You might as well be here, because you can do that. No one's going to care. And that's good too. And sometimes you get your energy back, if you need that. But there's another use of this, of Anapanasati in life, and that is, I think what you're saying. And that is you bring it with you into ordinary life, just as it is. But again, the main thing there is the breath is not being used to tune out things, but actually to see things more clearly. If there’s ugliness fine. Questioner: That's what I'm saying. And I think the tuning out can be pretty strong. I don't think it felt very good. I'm not going to be in the T. Larry: I understand. Actually, we need it's nice if we can do both. In other words, if you want to drop out, and it seems like a good time to do that, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, but it's also, of course, helpful if this practice doesn't make us more of a misfit than we were before we ever heard of the practice. I don't think that's the goal, is to become even more of a square peg, in a round hole, and call it spiritual. End_time: 00:14:26
