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Talk: 19990623-Larry_Rosenberg-UNK-shining_the_light_of_death_on_life_part_9-43041 Leandra Tejedor.json Start_time: 01:10:08 Display_question: I’ve been reflecting on trauma stored in the body and how in death there is a relaxing and letting go of that. And I was also thinking, is it possible to watch the death of an attitude? Keyword_search: trauma, muscular system, relaxing, death, unwavering mind, memory, death, ego, Buddha, anger, regret, attitude, freedom Question_content: Questioner: While you were talking about the roads, I was thinking in my mind a similar thing. It was that saying that when you die, your life flashes before your eyes. I thought to myself that there's a language, that says we hold certain traumas, in certain muscular systems in the body, and that it struck me thinking having to totally relax, as you die. We develop traumas from… Larry: But you see you're speculating as to what might happen when you die, let's say, or one might die. The hard part about the practice is to let go of all of that. Questioner: Yeah. Larry: And to just be ready for whatever turns up. The truth is, you don't know what's going to happen, when your time comes, and neither do I. But what we're training, the training is, for the mind to be unwavering, in its ability to pay attention, and for it to become stronger than anything that comes in front of it. So that, let's say, a frightening old terrifying memory from the past, a wound you had, or it comes up, but the awareness, because it's been fashioned, trained. In other words, you've been doing it, is strong enough and it can see it for what it is. It sees it arise and pass away just as we're doing now, let's say in the prime of life. So, we could talk about that. And I'm not saying it's necessarily easy to practice, during those last days, or hours, or minutes. But I would say it would vary depending on who the person is, the quality of their practice, and what they face. So, what you say is apparently true. That's what I hear. But for me, I don't know. I'm comfortable with not knowing. Questioner: (inaudible) What occurred to me was that time spent now letting go of potentially stored traumas would be part of the process of relaxing… Larry: Yes, I agree. Yes. I mean, an ongoing practice can accomplish something like that so that you have a realistic possibility of being able to have a good death, if you want to call it that. Or an easy death or a harmonious death. Not one marked by chaos, and confusion, and torment, and denial, and so forth. Desperation. Yeah, that sounds like a useful thing to do. But in any case, it's a useful thing to do, because your present life will be better, if you can let go of any of these sources of tension. Questioner: It seems like in the last three weeks or couple of years I’ve been dealing with self-anger. Larry: You're angry at yourself? Questioner: Yeah. And I was thinking in my mind, is it possible to watch the death of an attitude. Larry: Yes. That’s the great death. That's the real… for example, I don't know what you're angry at, but let's say you behaved a certain way, and now in hindsight, you were such an idiot. So that was the ego as idiot. And then you see it and you can't stand it. It's proven to be idiotic. And now, of course, we learn, many of us learn, as we grow older, as we have experiences. And now you're a wiser person. So, the ego says, great, I'll be that one now. And jumps in, puts on the meditator's yogi outfit, and now is pointing to how awful that one was, that egomaniac who did stupid things, with men, and women, and drank too much, whatever it was. And this… as if that's some different thing altogether, where it's the exact same process. So, you have to begin to see that you haven't stepped, you're in the same home range. It's like the doggie is tethered to a tree, and it's running here, it's running there, it's still caught. Now, how to step out of that, is to give up the struggle. Break_line: For example, you can't stop having some regret, as to how you were. Let's say earlier on, I think probably all of us could share that with you. But what you can do, and do you mind if I use this, because this is an important point I feel, throughout. Often when we have what we think of as a problem, then there's a hunger to solve the problem. And in our haste to solve the problem, we never get to see the problem very clearly, because we're so goal oriented, and motivated to solve it. What's radical about these instructions, is that of course we want to solve the problem, but the emphasis is put on the approach to the problem. It's not that you have to keep… it's not the problem, so much as how we're approaching it. So, your mind is exactly the way it is. But can you approach it in a radically different way, which is without judgment, without evaluation, to see that civil war going on, but to not take sides. To see one mind that has regrets, and the other mind that is chiding it, or however it comes up, in a given moment, that's radically different. And the way we approach our experience is what frees us. So that we all must age, we all must get sick, we all must die. Break_line: What the Buddha is talking about here is a radically different way to approach that fact. The fact doesn't change. The body must go through what it goes through. What we're asked to change, is how we look at it. And the training is to equip us to look at it in a radically different way. Is everyone clear on that. Okay good. End_time: 01:16:05
