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Talk: 20020209-Larry_Rosenberg-IMSRC-the_bhaddekarrata_sutta_reflections_on_true_solitude_4-8727 Leandra Tejedor.json Start_time: 00:33:32 Display_question: I am confused about the difference between being in the flow, and being mindful? Keyword_search: flow, psychologist, University of Chicago, happiness, gratifying, aware, observation, self-consciousness, ego, mindfulness, dharma, Japanese Zen, Dogen Question_content: Questioner: A couple of years before I started practice, I was very influenced by a book that came out called, Flow, and you may know it. Larry: Slow? Questioner: Flow, F-L-O-W. Larry: Don't know it. Questioner: By a psychologist from University of Chicago, you may know. Csikszentmihalyi, is his name. Anyway, he has made a study of happiness. Larry: Is this going to be about you? Questioner: This is going to be about me. Larry: Okay. Because this is just a half hour show. Questioner: Yeah. Basically, what he was saying is people are happy, when they can be absorbed in what they're doing. Find something that they really enjoy doing. And be absorbed in that. Larry: That's right. Questioner: And find a kind of groove, like if you're a runner, it’s torturous for the first few minutes, and then you work into a groove, you find a flow. That's true with anything that you can do. Larry: I think that’s so. Questioner: And here’s my question, my confusion. I guess I'm fortunate to have some work, that allows me to find that kind of flow. Not all the time, but often enough to be, gratifying. And I find myself going for hours, and hours, applying myself to whatever it is. And then I look up, and I wonder, where was I? And in the meantime, I started doing the practice, and I set my beeper watch, so it goes off every hour. So, I take possession. I become aware… Larry: Maybe the first way was closer to being the practice. Questioner: Well, that's what I… that’s what I… what I'm asking. Because in the hour or two that I'm in the flow, I'm not mindful, in the same way that I'm mindful, when I'm sitting here on the cushion. The way that I'm mindful, have been mindful, in the past few days. And I find a confusion there for me. Larry: Okay. I understand. It's a really important question for all of us. What does it mean to observe anything? Pure observation. We're learning the art of pure observation, only now we're very good at observing the outer world. Science and technology are magnificent. It's come from observation. Okay, at first, our observation is not pure. It's very colored by our psyche. Likes and dislikes. And then if you like something like your work, then you have a much better chance of flowing with it. But then it's time to do the dishes. Or your wife says, take out the garbage, and there's resistance, or long face, and all that, because that's not worthwhile. There's no conviction that that's of any use. Break_line: In the meantime, it's a piece of your life. Okay, with practice the psychological part starts to fall away, wither away, less and less is your biography showing through the seeing. And it gets clearer, you're closer to what your question had in it, of seeing with non-judgmental, unbiased, just not being for, or against, what you're observing. Okay, but there's still something off in it, because there's the self-consciousness, of the observer. And you fell back into that, and then you could… now I'm going to really practice. That’s the ego camouflaged as a yogi. You know now it's saying, I'm practicing mindfulness, aren't I wonderful? And it's the same ego. It's brilliant. You don't want it to be. You don't get off on sex, or being a millionaire. The Dharma is my real love now. The ego says, fine, I'm shameless. I don't care. Whatever you want, I'm with you. Now, I'm going to be the best at that. Break_line: Okay. So, when you are flowing with the dishes, as actually a great Japanese Zen master named Dogen talks about, forgetting the self, as you kind of fully enter into the activity. But it's not mindless. It's just you're fully alive. Now, when the self-consciousness phase starts to weaken, and it does with practice, it starts to wither away too, then there's really clear seeing. There's no separation. There's no observer. The seeing is happening. You may have had glimpses of it, I know some of you have, but you may not know that this is what it was. It's sort of like suddenly awareness is effortless. The mind is so peaceful, and calm, and clear, the breath…and everything is just piece of cake, and it doesn't last too long, and then it's gone. So, I think the flow idea is good, but then how to make cutting broccoli, the flow. Now, find out where there's no flow. Break_line: For example, my mother made my sister and I, we had to do the dishes every night. We would alternate. I do it one night. I hated doing the dishes, for years. Just hated it. So, I took that on. Can I learn how to… because the childhood resistance that was following me around, until a few years ago, a couple of days ago. And so, I took that on as a particular practice. Another person might not need it. They might just very easily enjoy the feel of the warm water, and the satisfaction of… and other people are just… they go on numb. The dishes are immaculate, but they weren't there. They're planning out the movie they're going to, and what they're going to tell their husband, or wife. But I took it on as a practice because I was so weak there. Break_line: And so, you see what I'm getting at. And I actually do enjoy doing the dishes now. I really do. There's something… but it's not in the dishes, just as it wasn't in the broccoli. It's that I'm honoring the fact that, maybe it takes 20 minutes, or half an hour. That's a real 20 minutes of my life. I'm respecting life, is what I'm doing. And it's just the dishes, are the medium, that I'm using. And it keeps being like that, throughout the day. And that's why these ordinary, and simple things of life, can come alive. It's you who have come alive. The world of things, and nature, it's just the way it is. It's not going to change. You change. And then it's a very, very different world. Is that close to what you were getting at? Missed again. Okay. Can't win them all. End_time: 00:40:06
