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Talk: 20040306-Larry_Rosenberg-IMSRC-studying_the_teaching_studying_ourselves_examples_from_the_anapanasati_sutta_part_4-6093 Leandra Tejedor.json Start_time: 00:32:26 Display_question: How do you skillfully manage your emotions, in the middle of a interaction, when you feel like there is a volcano inside of you? Keyword_search: precepts, restraint, ethical refinement, sila, concentration, samadhi, discernment, panna, wisdom, metta, awareness, suffering, reflection, dharma, unskillful, remorse, sports injury, renunciation Question_content: Questioner: What is it in your daily life, something is said that sets off this incredible volcano inside of you. But you have to continue on with what you are doing. You can’t say excuse me I have to sit on my cushion for twenty seconds… Larry: Absolutely Questioner: To observe this thing. So how do you handle that kind of situation? Larry: Yes. That's often it's not it's not infrequent. First of all, one thing, I should say, the reason we have the precepts to begin with, we need outer restraint, outer guidelines. Don't lie, don't steal, et cetera. Because our tendency is to do those very things steal, lie, sleep with our… mess up, lie, we do them. Otherwise, there'd be no need for the precepts. So sometimes that means your tendency is to want to do something else. And sometimes you have to restrain yourself. It's not just all surrender to, I don't know what. As the practice unfolds. Now, some people have less of that if they've, let's say, had been brought up. However, they've gotten to be that way. The three legs of the practice are: ethical refinement, sila. The precepts means, the bare minimum of civilized living together. Second one, concentration, samadhi the third one, discernment, panna, wisdom. Those are the three legs of the whole thing. Break_line: Okay, so now you're in whatever it is, a child, a husband, a boss, whatever it is, and suddenly your tremendous whatever comes up. And you're right, you can't just say, pardon me, I'm going to go to my little meditation cushion. You just stay frozen there. I'll be back in ten minutes, and then we'll continue where we left off. So sometimes what you have to do the best you can. For example, let's say you're a surgeon, this is not a hypothetical, and you're sleepy and you've already had a whole bunch of patients, and you're irritable. And the patient that you're doing surgery on, there is something, you're repelled by them. You still have to do the surgery. You can't say, excuse me while I do a half hour of metta. Now what you can do is, this is what I was getting at, while you're doing the surgery, with practice, while you're with that person, or I assume it's a person. Questioner: Yes, it is. Larry: Yeah, of course, okay, you can stay in touch with it, but then it will…it might require some restraint. Restraint has a bad press in our culture. It's sort of like the skies the limit, just follow my heart, whatever you want to do. But restraint is not only bad. For example, if you're a loving parent, and you're walking along the highway, and your child wants to run out on the highway, and they're very small, you restrain them. Not because you're dictatorial, because you love them. So sometimes you have to use restraint on yourself, to prevent destructive behavior. And awareness can… you do the best you can, in that situation? And awareness can help a little bit, as you get into… firstly, you start to acknowledge that, I am furious. And sometimes you can head off. That almost sort of like lightning, like where we strike out at another verbally, or in other ways. And that's a little bit of improvement because we can do a lot of damage. And then there's all this damage control, that goes on, and on. Break_line: Now, it's not perfect. You're suffering. After the event is over, you can sort of pull over to the side of the road, and reflect on it, because you may still feel it. And sometimes in the reflection, you can see that your part in it. And you might see where there's something be learned from it, and you have remorse. Or let's say you do finally, you do strike out, and it's over. It's too late. You didn't. But you weren't… forget Dharma's out the window. Then after it's over, aside from apologizing, you can have... review it and see this was unskillful. And look at the result. Learn from it. And there may be remorse. It's not a guilt trip. The remorse is good. I did something cruel, stupid. I hurt my child, I hurt my wife, whatever it is, lover, whatever it is. And then learn from it. And then move on. Drop it. And then you may go back to the person, and either talk about it, or not. But we can't wait until we're perfect. Do you see what I'm getting at? Questioner: Yes Larry: Okay good. Or the surgeon? You have to do your best. And of course, you don't always feel like doing what you have to do. Look, I love to teach. I really do love this stuff. Otherwise, I wouldn't be doing it. But this retreat, a few days before the retreat, an old sports injury went out. It's often connected with my lower back. Excruciatingly painful. I'd roll out of bed here in the morning. It took me a couple of minutes because if I just get out naturally, and I had no voice, and my question is at the beginning of the retreat was, how do I survive? Will I get through this? Break_line: Well, we're at the finish line, and there were times when I wished that I didn't have to give the Dharma talk at night, because I had barely any voice, et cetera, et cetera. Okay, but I did, and it was fine. You know so, I’m not…it's not I’m particularly heroic. Any parent does that all day long. You all know that there's a lot of talk about renunciation. You're always putting a child ahead. You're a good parent. You're putting a child ahead of yourself. Very often. You're doing what's good for them and it may not be what you want to do. And yet there's a deeper love that makes it not damaging, not destructive. End_time: 00:41:18
