After decades of practice and teaching, what inspires me are those moments when I can see the habitual as if it were for the first time. If such moments occur while I'm giving a talk, then the teacher in me can hear its own words imbued with the freshness imparted by those who truly listen -- the multiple aspects of myself being part of the audience as well. Thanks for your participation in the process.
Arisings that occur "out there" trigger their match in the screen of our mind. In the arising of experiences—like with the experience of community life and of individual life—there is also the opportunity to experience awareness itself.
Dualism can be described as a polarity project. We polarize our options as desirable or undesirable, and lose interest in that which does not fall into either extreme. This duality provides a footing for clinging and for the birth of the I. Seeing through this charade helps us unlearn it.
This talk starts with an introduction on the futility of amassing knowledge. It then examines the genesis of our implicit belief in the permanence of things, and explores ways to unlearn it.
As the Buddha showed, clinging gives birth to the I. The I, in turn, keeps puffing itself up by further clinging. When we understand that this generates nothing but suffering, we are ready to unlearn the I, that is the "Me."
This talk explores what the Buddha meant when he said that the end of the world cannot be reached by walking, but can only be found in this fathom-long body.
The Buddha said that he taught the Middle Way. His Middle Way should not be understood as a compromise between extremes. Rather, he offers us a radical new way of dealing with the perceived polarities.
As we come to the end of the old and begin anew, is this "new beginning" just a gambit to circumvent a situation, or are we embarking in a genuine process of transformation? The practice provides invaluable support for the latter choice.
Free from identity fabrications, we learn to cultivate a direct relationship to the circumstances of our personal and social lives and to the vast web of things.
