Q2-20010706-Larry_Rosenberg-IMSRC-q_a_practice_cant_be_separated_from_living_part_iii-8723 Leandra T

Talk: Talk: 20010706-Larry_Rosenberg-IMSRC-q_a_practice_cant_be_separated_from_living_part_iii-8723 Leandra Tejedor.json Start_time: 00:26:07 Display_question: Can you speak about the practice of noting? Keyword_search: noting, impermanence, arising/passing away, Anapanasati Sutra, empty, resentment, choiceless awareness, self-knowledge, absolute truth, relative, Zen, Gone With the Wind, thought Question_content: Questioner: (inaudible) Larry: And when you say noting, do you mean the technical method known as noting, or you... okay, I'll tell you what little I know that's not been my practice, but I do know a little bit about it. But it's all really… the first part…at the beginning of practice, which can be years, whether we like it or not, we are mainly interested in the content. Now, it can be a dramatic turning point in practice, when the teaching of impermanence finally sinks in, because in order to really see the arising, and passing away of everything, in the Anapanasati Sutra, for example, there are 16 contemplations, one way of interpreting the 13th, which says, seeing all formations, mental and physical, as impermanent. That means all twelve contemplations that preceded it, which basically cover the mind, the body, feelings, and all the mind states, beginning to see that each, and every one of them arises, and passes away. And out of that comes, and it's also empty. Break_line: Now, if you're preoccupied with content, hooked on content, and I think to begin with, we are. So it's very difficult to really do that impermanent stuff because we're too interested in the content. At a certain point, it can be a turning point in practice for some, it was for me, where it shifts more into process, where you become really interested. That independent of what the content is, it all arises and passes away. It's very powerful when you apply it to thinking. Sometime try it. Every thought, no matter how interesting, boring, loving, hating, it's all gone. Whoop gone? To begin with, you could hear the instructions, and understand them. Very difficult to do. Okay, but let's back up now. Can the content be useful, when it's repetitive, particularly? Yes, it can, because sometimes when something is repetitive, not always, but I have found a high proportion of the time, it's pointing to daily life, or something in life, that needs to something that you're doing, that it's time to stop. You're not stopping, you keep doing it, but it's off, and so it keeps pounding away, knocking on the door, stop, stop. We don't. So it's recurrent. It hasn't been resolved, it has not been taken care of, or something that we're not doing that needs to be done, and that's pretty obvious too. And then that is recurrent. Break_line: Because…so, it can be a link, between the cushion, and the daily life. It can be a very sensitive indicator that you can't solve everything, just sitting on the cushion. Some of it is saying, you know, you do have to tell your boss what you think, or else work with all that resentment, and let it go, if you're not going to. But cycling around again, and again, and again, and again, for years, no wonder it comes up in the mind, because it's not resolved, it's not taken care of. Larry: The second part mental note help me… Questioner: (inaudible) Larry: When choiceless awareness... because that's what we've been teaching. That's what I know a little bit about. When that ripens, you're not that interested in what underlies your question? I don't think so, because we're going towards blue sky. We don't have to endlessly catalog cumulonimbus cloud, and then there's this cloud, and that cloud. That's much more interesting, at the beginning. At the beginning, the practice, one way of looking at it, it has a lot to do with the question, who am I? All spiritual life seems to be pointing towards that. Anything that has self-knowledge and of course, who am I? And to begin with, I would say a lot of what we're interested in is, very similar to what most people think of as, self-knowledge. That is, you find out stuff about the self, yourself. And even in action, the self is constantly revealing itself in interaction, human interaction. Break_line: So, in that sense you start seeing some of your fears, really accepting them, or acknowledging that I really have been afraid of this, for quite a while. So that level of self-knowledge, a lot of it is done in psychotherapy, sometimes beautifully, is, I think, quite valuable. So that's finding out who you are. As the practice goes on, and you start to move towards sky, self-knowledge is more finding out who you aren't. It's not so interesting, to endlessly refine, and categorize, an increasingly more subtle, precise, and sophisticated way, who you think you are. It turns out that what's much more fascinating, valuable, and that's what… is to find out that you're none of this stuff, in a profound way. Now we're starting to talk about absolute truth, not relative. Do you see what I'm getting at? Break_line: So, it's not such an easy answer. Because what I have seen is some people, who have disdain for ordinary, self-knowledge. I saw it in the Zen tradition, and that's what I meant. If you're on an express train to the sky, not a train, but you know, the metaphors of it, maybe they'll figure out a way to do that. Amtrak is going broke. I don't know. One possibility, if you break through, at a very deep level, then I think so much stuff is… I don't know that it necessarily matters that much. But for most of us, I don't think you can short circuit, or skip over, some minimal basic understanding of how your mind works, how you treat people. Just very ordinary self-knowledge. Ordinary. I don't mean to diminish it. I mean that most people would accept most people would not accept, would feel it would be strange. I don't mean spiritual practitioners. If you say that none of this, is you, I mean, that would sound crazy. Break_line: So, I think it becomes less interesting. Your stuff, the story of me, and my life, starring me. How much more can we take of that stuff? What a lot? Endless. Keep revising it, and bringing it up to date, and adding new chapters. I saw Gone With The Wind five times. I walked out in the fifth, middle of the fifth. We're still at it, thousands of times. He said, she said. No one talks to me that way. Monday I'll tell him…talking to ourselves in ways that make us feel good, and important, and handsome, and beautiful, and just the mind constantly reassuring itself, that it's okay. It's not okay. It's never going to be okay. We're trying to think our way through, to some kind of sanity, as if thoughts could do it. Thought is the problem. So, it's okay to use it a bit. But so, you see where my answer is. I'm not so thrilled with endlessly more sophisticated thinking about what's happening to us. End_time: 00:34:07