Q2-19990908-Larry_Rosenberg-UNK-shining_the_light_of_death_on_life_part_10-43032 Leandra Tejedor

Talk: 19990908-Larry_Rosenberg-UNK-shining_the_light_of_death_on_life_part_10-43032 Leandra Tejedor.json Start_time: 01:17:09 Display_question: Can you speak about these practices in reference to addiction or mental illness? Keyword_search: addiction, aging, sickness, death, suffering, Buddha, selfing, delusion, ignorance, ego, racism, Harvard, schizophrenia, mental illness, wisdom, compassion, India, calming, concentration, Alzheimer's, Holocaust, Vietnam, meditation, mindfulness, fear, anxiety Question_content: Questioner: It seems like primarily we have been learning about someone’s physical illness, and I am interested in how these practices apply to mental addictions or mental illness. Larry: To what? No, you see what this is about, there is…I’m limiting… life is much broader than aging, sickness, and death. They're quite crucial. There's no way to escape them. Death, and life, are walking hand in hand. We have an illusion that it's way ahead. But if you're talking about addiction, all other forms of suffering, the same principles would be used, the same practices used, to help you break your addiction. Finally, what the Buddha is saying is the supreme addiction, is addiction to selfing. The addiction to an egocentric life. That's what delusion, or ignorance is. That is the notion that, the way to get happy, and we all want to get happy, is through the fulfillment of the ego. And that is what we're all doing. And we've created a nightmare, as a result. It seems obvious that we should do that. But can you say, can you relate what you're saying, to what, a narrower theme? Because I don't want to stray. Do you see what I'm getting at? Questioner: The first I'm thinking about how often we can be most forgiving (inaudible) to not take things personally Larry: Not to take who's? Questioner: (inaudible) Your own, to forgive others, can be really extreme mental illness, that it's not inevitable for everyone, but there is…it’s part of the natural scheme of things that there are Larry: Yes. Okay, but can we be more concrete? Because this is not about a global statement of that sort. It's sort of like, let's say it's me, and it's my schizophrenia. Of course, we all are. But you mean, let's say in in a clinical sense. Questioner: Yes. Larry: Yeah. Now, I mean, you probably all know racism. One Harvard psychiatrist is suggesting, that that's a form of, mental illness. Well, the Buddha is, in effect, saying that the whole human existence, is mental illness, unless there's some wisdom, and compassion in it, which there are to some degrees. If I am the person who has some schizophrenic tendencies, or that energy is in me, deeply, Break_line: Step number one is, I don't know if I'd be able to make use of this practice. I don't know. I have tried personally. Not everyone can make use of this. This requires a quality of attention that may be beyond the capacity, of the person, at that time. What I have seen is, it's being done in India, in certain mental hospitals. Some of the calming, concentration practices of meditation, apparently can be used in a limited way, to help calm people down. But that presupposes the person would have to be able to hear the instructions, understand them, be able to sit still long enough to do them. Do you see what I'm getting at? Break_line: I'm not saying that this is some blanket cure for anything. It's only useful if you can use it, and do it. If it's your reaction to somebody else's schizophrenia, which is affecting you, well, then the principles of practice are identical with what I was saying earlier. Now, what's troubling you is not your mother's dying, or your father's Alzheimer's, or your mother in law's state of mind, but your reactions to the fact that a dear friend, or a loved one, has a serious mental illness. And so, it's imperative that you work on yourself. Otherwise, there are two casualties in the world, the person with a mental illness, and now you. And that's an important distinction, because often we think compassion is when we get sucked into it too, and we become miserable, because someone we love is miserable. And that's a sign of how we love them. And there are people who are from the Holocaust, from Vietnam, who carry things for 50 years, because they feel that to let go of it would be to not be showing love, to those who weren't as fortunate as to live, survive. Do you see what I'm getting at? Questioner: Yes. Larry: Do you have a meditation practice? Do you practice this? I'm not the truant officer. We're not going to give you a pointed hat. No, I just need to know who I'm talking to. It's kind of hard for me. Questioner: I have a sporadic movement practice. Larry: Okay. I'm all for movement, but is it a mindfulness… that is, whether it's you or someone else? What we're learning here, even sitting, is really an invention to help the mind become still. It's not really the body, is not the point, although most of us need to still the body in order to help the mind get still. But the point is for the mind to become still so that you can be doing whatever you're doing, including being in a busy world, but for the mind to be still, that's the direction this goes in. Sitting is an invaluable for most of us. Essential way of helping bring about that tremendous change, in the quality of mind. That's what I meant. If you don't have a practice, I don't see how you could do some of the things I'm talking about. It's not that it's elitist, or I'm antidemocratic, nothing's for everyone. If you're not willing to, let's say, train to help train the mind so that it has some steadiness, you won't be able to look at fear. Good chance of it. Probably not. Do you see what I'm getting there? Questioner: I think so. Break_line: Okay. But I would say, let's say with people who are called schizophrenic, if we throw away that category, and take it a person at a time, some people who are labeled that way, may be able to benefit. Someone from our community. A man in his 70s developed Alzheimer's. This is not exactly what you're saying, but it's on the way. He's a good friend of mine. I've known him for 25 years and he was teaching these things. And one day the deterioration was starting, with memory. And one day he was in front of a group of students, and he didn't know who they were, or what he was doing there. It was extremely humiliating. And then it started to deteriorate pretty rapidly, from then on in. With the help of his wife, and some good dharma friends. And, of course, the fact that he had had 20 years of training, one of the things he learned how to do was because he was sometimes coherent, a fair amount of the time. Break_line: And then suddenly he wouldn't know who he was, where he was. He wouldn't remember anything, who he was talking to. He wouldn’t know who I was, and he's known me a long time. And then that would freak him out. What he learned was I just saw him about a month ago, and I asked him, how is it now? And he said, “Well, I wake up in the morning and the first thing is I look around. I don't know what I'm doing here. I don't know where I am, what I'm supposed to do next. But then I know that fear comes in panic. And then I just sit there. But what I do remember to do, is to practice with that.” So that he's able to… and of course, his wife and I've been with him socially, when it's happened, in the middle of it. And I've waited for the right moment to just say, how's the breathing going right now? Because he would get very upset, the fact that he couldn't speak coherently with me. And then sometimes he could look at the fear. If he couldn't, he could look at his breath, or both at the same time. Break_line: But here was someone who had a practice, but was able to the mind severely damaged, engendering a lot of fear, and despair. He learned how to…the mind is still deteriorating. That's a physical process, but he learned how to take a lot of the torment out of it. And that's a lot of what we're talking about, all of us. Your body will get sick, old, and die, no matter how much meditation you do, or how much bread and circus you funnel down your throat. It's inevitable, but it's how you take what happens to you. It's a different relationship to your experience. And that's what the revolution is, because we're not brought up, to face the way it is. We're brought up to escape anything that's unpleasant, and to be very concerned with what should be, what used to be, but not so much with what is. Break_line: The practice is over, and over, and over again, bringing you back to what is. That's all I really do in trying to teach this stuff, people's minds are always going to what should be, or what used to be. And I'm always saying, but what's happening right now? You try to say it in many different ways, so you don't bore everyone, including yourself, to death. But that's really what it amounts to. And it's not so easy to relearn that, or to learn it. It's the best I can do. Yeah. But, you know, if it's not applicable, just drop it. Questioner: (inaudible) Perhaps in the that old age. Larry: I think you're right. Yeah. Now, in terms of addiction of any kind, you can definitely use this to help you with it, whether it's smoking, or coffee, or chocolate, or relatively manageable ones. But what I'm saying is, a supreme addiction, is to selfing. There are all little expressions of that, probably. And see, as long as you have the ability to observe, to pay attention, if something's observable, then it's workable. End_time: 01:27:58