Q3-19990616-Larry_Rosenberg-UNK-shining_the_light_of_death_on_life_part_8-43040 Leandra Tejedor

Talk: 19990616-Larry_Rosenberg-UNK-shining_the_light_of_death_on_life_part_8-43040 Leandra Tejedor.json Start_time: 01:02:14 Display_question: With study or meditation on death, is the purpose to remove the fear of death, or is there something broader than fear of death? Keyword_search: boundaries, meditation, aging, sickness, death, fear, Buddha, attachment, adolescence, Serbs, Kosovos, unborn, deathless, mosque, cathedral, culture, sacred, ego, suffering, enlightenment, peace, resentment, obituary, Buddhism, equanimous, non-judgmental, Tibetan, emptiness, acceptance Question_content: Questioner: (inaudible) You referred earlier to living in the moment. I don’t know if you have some Buddhist words for a moment of clarity which leads to thought with whatever is going on. Larry: That's right. Questioner (inaudible) Being boundaries by one. My question is, study, or meditation on death, simply to remove the fear of death from the ability to get to part, or is there something broader than fear of death? Larry: You're going to have to help me with that again. Can we move slowly with that one more time, please? Questioner: Sure. Larry: It's a complex idea. You're trying to communicate. I want to make sure I understand it. Okay. Questioner: Two things. One is, living in the moment. Clarity of thought. Larry: Now, that's just a general notion in practice. Nothing special. Questioner:(inaudible) Okay. Yeah, I guess the question to focus on the death part. Is getting rid of the fear. Studying, and contemplating aging, sickness, and death. And coveting that as a useful form… Larry: Do you have a practice? Questioner: No Larry: Yeah. You see, your words make sense, but if, and when you decide to do a practice, it drops to a level that's beyond the words. It's not a question of deciding to or not deciding to. Let me see if I'm directing it to what you're saying. All that's been mentioned tonight is useful. Let's go back to the teachings. What the Buddha says, more than once, is that all he's teaching is suffering, and the end of suffering. That's what the teaching is about. If you have not come to terms with the way things are, that is, to get old, sick and die. Do you know how many people have already gone through that? Yet we behave as if we've gotten singled out, or our friend got singled out. We probably can't count that high. Or people who've already gone through adolescence, puberty… it's a boyfriend. The same things we go through, they're gone. And then a new batch comes. All of the Serbs, and the Kosovo’s, they'll all be gone. Everyone in this room will be gone. No problem. They won't be here. The suffering comes in when we attach to wanting things to be a certain way. Break_line: Now, it's talked about differently, in different schools of Buddhism. It amounts, in my opinion, to the same thing. Sometimes it'll be talked about as coming to your original nature. That's what the unborn, or the deathless is. Is there anything that is truly sacred in life? And I don't mean a great cathedral, or a great mosque, or whatever. Those are created by human beings. Those are cultivated. I mean, is there anything intrinsically, untouched by culture, totally untouched, that is obviously sacred? It's not an idea. Now, the answer would be yes. If you don't like the word sacred, come up with another one. Whether you call it awakening, or enlightenment, or the deathless, or the unborn, if you're suffering, you're suffering because you're attached to something called me. The ego is suffering. And the ego is terrified of getting old, and sick, and dying. I think I've gone into that quite a bit before this. Break_line: So, any of these teachings are useful in that they help us, if they help us, to clear the mind of that, so that the mind is at peace. Now, it's not that that reward is somewhere in the future. It's in that moment. For example, if you don't mind my using your example, let's say suddenly you think about that obituary again, and it brings up some resentment. And if you're able to bring your awareness, to that resentment, not the idea, but you can feel it in your body. It's energy, real energy. And the attention is non-judgmental. Equanimous, and you watch it, and the energy peaks, and then it starts to get weaker, and then it dissolves, and then falls away. And then there's a moment of clarity, and peace. In that moment, you've released yourself from the suffering caused by, wanting things to be other than the way they are. Your friend shouldn't have died. Do you see what I'm getting at? Questioner: I do. Larry: Good. Questioner (inaudible) My only confusion was wondering whether there some greater reasons that we gain from the subject of death…. Larry: Okay. Now, what I'm talking about, on the level of words, can be easily misunderstood. For example, in the Tibetan tradition, they'll sometimes say that, it's in all the Buddhist teachings, the highest teaching is emptiness. What? All this work, and you haven't done retreats, but if you do, your knees hurt, and your back hurts, and it's boring. And you want to go home, and you have to wait online for showers, and the food isn't what you want, and you do it for years, and months, and travel, go to Asia, and you get sick, and mosquitoes, and you get malaria. Why do people do that? Empty. So, everything you see that everything is empty. Empty. Oh, for God's sakes. What a colossal waste of time. The place that the practice goes to is, beyond measure. It's inconceivable. That is, at a certain point, words are helpless, concepts. You have a good intellect. Sorry, you have to check it at the door. At a certain point, it's helpless. It can't go there. It can take you to the threshold. There's a room for good intellect, to take these teachings. They're verbal, and hopefully reasonable, to take you there, but finally to open the door. Break_line: Now, that place, I don't think for thousands of years, people in all the great traditions, would have cared. There's always been a small number. Most people don't want it. Well, they approve of it, but you do it. Obviously, there's some things extraordinary which could perhaps, I don't know, perhaps is the ultimate fulfillment in life, and may even be the reason we're here. So, don't underplay what this can help you. But no, the end is not just the acceptance. That part is helping you to get free, to be a free human being, to flower as a human being. If it helps you, great. It's just one method. It really is. There are so many, and not everyone uses it or needs to. End_time: 01:09:10