Intimacy, Practice, and the Many Faces of Awakening

*transcript generated by AI

I’m getting a big pop-up, what’s that pop-up say?

Would you like to use Microsoft AI?

Hey, I’m back on the other side.

Yeah, I did click that one.

All is right in the world.

Well, good evening, everybody.

Glad to be with you.

We had a couple weeks off, which was hopefully nice.

Also, of course, missed you, missed the practice.

And a little bit of a regularity as we go forward, too, and we transition to Sunday.

So we’ll have this practice.

We’ll have the next practice on the 14th.

And then we won’t practice on the 21st, but we’ll convene on the 24th from 10 to noon.

Before we met from 8 to 10 on Sundays, which was a little bit rough.

So hopefully 10 to noon proves more sustainable and makes it able for more people to be consistent.

And yeah, so that’s the housekeeping item that needed to be put out there.

Otherwise, so I’ll have to see what weekend that is.

If I have my dad’s statement.

Yeah, it’s every other week.

So I did not because I’m Robin and Matt earlier I did not prepare more longer guitar section.

I figured that if we chose to do that, which is totally fine would be a great project to keep working on.

I’d wait until you’re kind of into our Sunday grew to get back into the, you know, really chugging through the content.

I figured we had like a lot of longer than our study without really pausing for integration, or to kind of just check in with how our life practices are unfolding.

So for the next couple weeks, or for this discussion next, and maybe our first one on a Sunday.

We’ll just have it be more open forum.

So, a chance to just kind of talk about what is it whatever is a live person or practice.

Of course I can take prompt and riff on it and then we can have a discussion, or anyone has a specific inquiry.

This is really just a place to understand how to live this way.

Right, the time of discussion.

Whether we’re doing a lot of guitar or another text or not is all period about investigating how to be live this.

What does this mean.

So yeah.

Where we at.

What’s the line.

Okay Matt checking in.

Yeah.

So, I took the, the inquiry of.

Is there something some ideal state, propping up and waiting for, or.

Yeah.

And I really couldn’t find that there was something I, like, specifically was nailing down on like this as an ideal state.

But what I, what I was realizing is that I wasn’t, you know, allowing, like the present moment to be that ideal state.

And that little revelation there kind of said a lot like that, even if, even if there’s not something specific that I’m still waiting, you know, or still feel that like that is yet to yet to come, you know, and so I’m creating a little bit of distance.

You know, and just in, in being opposed by doing that.

So, so anyway that that has been present this past week, for sure.

Rock on.

You passed the call.

Thanks for sharing.

So what does that mean to you.

It means I’m really not even like permitting myself to like fully inhabit reality, thinking that like there’s still more to do or still more to realize or still more to like, you know, I don’t know, like for peak experience to be like more regular or something.

I can’t.

Like I said, it’s really difficult to put my finger on like what that is that I’m creating that space for but like, but yeah it’s like it’s, it feels like a bit of a distance, you know, in just being who I really am.

So, so yeah it’s like it’s an inhibition is an additional veil that I’ve dropped, you know, over my own view, and I don’t know I think that’s a little bit of like, or it feels like it’s a bit of.

Maybe a very subtle level of like persistence like due to like some form of Western shame or something like that, you know, like, you know, identifying with consciousness, you know, and.

And yeah, I don’t know.

It’s something that I still I’m disengaged but.

But yeah, it’s, it’s an inhibition.

And it’s unnecessary the fabrication, it’s an idea, you know, doesn’t exist.

I mean, this is a form of, you know, my thought expression, you know, but, but that’s not me, you know, and part of what what’s closely related to that.

Is kind of like trying to spend more and more time, reminding myself that I’m not this body.

And so that they, they’re, they’re a bit, you know, they’re more than a bit related.

But, but they’re, but they’re still separated in their own ways, but.

But that’s kind of built through that if the first one was one day like the second one wouldn’t be as far as, like, what has been most present and what I’ve been like playing with, I guess the most.

And, and actually kind of dovetails that thing I mentioned before I’ve got that like community circle thing that I participate in as well.

And mostly it’s been like in a like support and participation role.

But we’ve got some questions that will be tossed directly towards us this week and that first question was something like, if there was some idea you could let go of what would that be, and if so, if you did like what, what would that show you or something that takes me right back to the same thing like I like what the idea of like, I am this body, you know, like that’s like, and body mind is like maybe a bit of a closer way of describing that but, but, but, you know, starting at the basic start with the body I suppose.

But anyway, I found that even that’s that’s like my honest truth to that answer.

But I find myself in this circle.

different, you know, ideas and degrees of woo.

I’m not really sure how much, you know, like, I think how comfortable I feel like just getting the real like that with this group and kind of opening that door or kind of like announcing, you know, like look how sophisticated this answer is, you know, or something like that.

So there’s a bit of resistance, you know, and being truthful in that space which to navigate.

I, you know, I ultimately just leave up until, you know, the game time decision like.

Anyway, that’s a lot of going on here.

Thank you.

Ryan or Robin have something that you’d like.

Let’s go, let’s just go around we’ll go around the horn first let’s do opening comments, opening comments.

So, Robin, do you have any opening comments either tying off to Matt, or on your own in terms of opening comments.

And I’m going to ask you a question if you don’t have any comments.

Yeah.

I’m leaning into what Matt had to say and and recognizing that voice in myself that has gotten much quieter that I’m not getting.

It’s not enough.

Something’s missing.

Recognizing for myself how much that voice is really quieted and I’m sure increase sitting over over the winter doing the Janice training, and also the the recognizing on a very visceral but just on a almost comical level.

How much all of our attempts to try to fix that.

That doesn’t work.

I’m not sure what else to say about that.

I love it.

Yeah, that’s beautiful.

Thank you for sharing that and, you know, you’ve been training hard, even trying to really hard for the last 12 months, 13 months, you know, and so to be able to sit here and take a meta perspective and to recognize some of those very self constructed barriers to your own awakening and liberation like they’re getting thinner.

Some of them have fallen away, they’re less presence, you know, so I think that that’s such a beautiful thing to just step into and name and Matt this, you know, kind of bringing this up to this, to, to be a place that is not filled with that false humility Westerners, you know, this is like, Oh, the training works, you know, and we get more awake, and we get more liberated.

And if we didn’t.

What are we doing here.

Practicing a very strict form of numbness.

Yeah, that’s exactly if that’s all it is I probably probably wouldn’t still be here.

There are more interesting ways to make my legs go asleep.

Thank you.

So, Ryan, opening opening statements from you.

Oh, my practice lately has been kind of an interestingly mixed bag of kind of making sure that I’m still very consistent in my practice you would care I’m going to sit, and it’s going to be strictly sitting, and, you know, breath counting whole nine yards at the same time.

Also, branching that out into the rest of my day.

So like being a dad of a young kid, also being musician that I’ve been kind of neglecting for a while I cracked a couple guitars back out.

And I’ve just been playing with the, the similarity between like improvisational playing and just that whole like musicians call it like flow state, or what you know whatever the same thing in martial arts.

Just kind of playing with the similarities and the differences between the two were, you know, every once in a while you’re playing you have moments where you just check out.

And then a minute, 30, whatever it is.

Okay, I don’t know what happened.

Then you record the whole thing you’re like, Oh, hey, that’s great.

Okay, that was.

But it’s an interesting, the, the, the conscious state between the two, it’s a very interesting entry play to kind of have that very present mindset between the two without actively like, Hey, what am I going to do next.

I’m going to do this.

What am I well in three bars I do this, you just moment after moment after moment.

And then I find that after I do that.

After I do that, you know, I’ll either sit before I’ll sit after.

And just, I don’t know, it’s been an interesting comparison between the two, between like very strict practice versus taking that kind of same idea out into other aspects of my day.

So, I mean it’s not exactly the strictest of Zen practices, but I think it’s still.

Or maybe not related between the two.

What’s the.

Was it.

I can’t remember what it is.

I can’t remember, there’s an acronym, basically means it’s like breaks down to like Zen and then it’s the Japanese word for like sword, and the Japanese word for like Zen can show think like all of them being connected.

As far as like the state of mind that you’re in while doing all three.

Yeah, it’s very Japanese.

Yeah.

And it’s like, I’d like to invite you and everyone to really be careful about what we call practice and what we call meditation.

Because meditation is one of the aspects of practice, practice and meditation are not the same thing.

That’s really a big, that’s a drum that I’m beating these days.

Yeah, it’s not a new drum for me to be on, but it’s to be very alive lately, right so like these two hours here are not our practice.

These two hours here are a gathering of like minded individuals where we get to come back to the well to appreciate the fact that we are not alone on our path.

And to have community in a period of time doing activities that we enjoy that are otherwise hard to do in community because the people around us don’t certainly enjoy them.

Right.

That’s what we’re doing here.

Right.

This is a community space to share in our, in our love for the Dharma.

The way that that’s expressed in Qigong and meditation and discussion is, is really relevant.

It’s embodied, it’s intellectual, and it’s still in silent.

Just like the rest of our life right so it’s a microcosm.

Practice is going out and being intimate with life.

That’s practice, the practice of Zen is being intimate with life.

So, when you are playing music, and you’re intimate with life, you’re practicing Zen.

When you’re in a discussion with your partner about something challenging that’s deeply unpleasant.

And you’re really locked in and right here and aware of your judgments and your, and your projections and all this stuff.

And you’re navigating it with the most skillful means you possess, including owning your failure for skillful means.

When you’re being intimate with life.

That’s practice.

Your kids being a horrible little demon, and you just want to choke them, not to death.

But until they stop being a horrible demon.

And you choose not to.

But you’re honoring the fact that that’s the dynamic that’s present.

You’re practicing Zen.

Intimacy with life.

Meditation is one of the greatest intimacies of life because we aren’t doing anything else except for being alive.

Right so meditation is just a flow state on not dying.

That’s really what meditation is.

And that’s why we get so many insights into life when we meditate, sit, don’t die.

Just flow state not die.

Great.

Now get up and do that in a more complicated way of like opening a door.

Okay, can you be flow state opening door not die.

Well, now, now you’re really advanced.

Now can you be flow state, having difficult discussion not die.

Now you’re in this.

I always thought it was a flow state dying.

That’s an interesting idea.

Interesting idea.

Same thing.

Yeah.

Depends on depends on our relationship to the ego.

And that and that circles right back around the map, you know, when when you think that this moment.

Isn’t it.

This moment isn’t your awakening this moment isn’t your liberation this moment isn’t complete as it is.

Well then you’re not with flow state with life, you know you’re not as intimate as you can be with life, you’re separating yourself from it through conditionality and should has and what isn’t good isn’t ifs and only buts, and all of these other processes.

This is the trick.

Okay, this is the thing that makes it so fucking hard is that you take just one step further back, you can have all of those should have could have would have only if buts being present in your mind and radically accepting them as part of the intimacy you’re having with life.

And you’re, you’re right here.

Even our deepest miseries are completely sublime.

That’s where it gets hard.

Or that’s where it gets easy to buy into.

Juicy.

Yeah.

So, I was reading an interesting article on, like, especially like lay practitioners as far as like, very strictly practice rather than the whole idea of like, especially when you’re first starting more you put you know like yeah I haven’t been practicing for a decade the idea of chasing can show chasing it you’re going to find it, you’re actively looking.

It’s not a thing.

Like, you’re like no you’re gonna have a moment of awakening.

Sometime.

Maybe.

Maybe you already got.

Maybe there is no.

And like it’s just this whole.

There’s just this whole article on like, you know, starting out like hey you’re potential trying too hard at this whole thing.

And I just an interesting read.

Yeah, especially for someone who’s never really like I’ve never sat and have like a. Oh, like there’s no clouds there’s no little big wings trumpets, whatever.

Yeah.

Okay.

Sit until something happens, or doesn’t happen, or just going to keep on keeping on.

But it’s, yeah, it’s an interesting, interesting topic to me, as far as like my personal practice goes like I’m just going to keep sitting.

Yeah, because I get a benefit.

Absolutely.

But as far as like some like the rooted getting experience.

Couldn’t say that it’s happened personal.

No.

But yeah, that’s a little necessarily where I’m going.

Outside of like the kind of nice of the day.

Yeah, like, we go to check that box off.

Yeah, outside of an intellectual understanding of the whole thing.

You know, but our intellectual understanding of the whole thing is what either enables or inhibits the thing from happening.

You know, the mind, only perceive, but it’s prepared to proceed.

And that ends up being really tricky.

And so, it’s worth, you know, it’s worth discussing because we are a branch of were founded from a rinzai perspective.

Right.

I run this from a rinzai perspective because that’s the Zen training that I received.

Although we’ve, in a lot of ways.

We’re kind of post lineage, because we don’t do a lot of like the rinzai form, because the awakening isn’t in the form I think the awakening is inhibited by the form for lay practitioners, you know being go be in the monastery and you can be in a really tight clean container for a really extended period of time the form really holds you, but our life is not structured that way.

So to try and think that we have to hold a strict form, when we come to the Zen though.

I think that anyway it just doesn’t appear beneficial.

But regardless, it’s still like we are here to see our true nature.

Each set is a set to see true nature.

And that’s a Kensho.

Okay, a Kensho is seeing nature.

What’s interesting is that’s different than a Satori, which is an awakening.

And you get different schools of thought on this but a Kensho is kind of like flash like a glimpse like a like lightning strikes.

There’s a, Oh, kind of a moment about it.

Whereas a Satori is when it’s like dawn has broken, and the space is just lighter, you just see it more clearly all the time, because it’s more illuminated.

Right.

You’re not drowsy or death.

No one here is dead asleep.

I know for a fact no one here is dead asleep, but we’ve all got crusties in our eyes to a certain extent.

And so the sun is rising.

So I think it’s important to feel that difference and then it’s important to recognize like what exactly that is because it’s really confusing.

If you investigate this topic in literature, you will find so many descriptions of Kensho that are contradictory and unclear and vague that you could be left thinking that is it, it’s a peak state of oneness.

Right.

A lot of Kensho experiences are peak states of oneness, which is actually not really what our true nature is.

Okay.

Asterisk.

Okay.

Oneness is a big part of that.

But more importantly it’s emptiness.

But then it’s like well oneness arises through emptiness.

That’s a much deeper form of Kensho than just feeling a unification experience.

There’s a whole group of people who think that cessation and blanking out completely is Kensho.

And you see your true nature once you’ve had a cessation experience and you realize that you just don’t exist.

of theology and a whole bunch of different metaphysics and cosmologies if that’s what you take as your true nature.

Right.

So what you are identifying as the intellectual construct of true nature greatly informs the type of meditation that one should be doing, and what you’re because you might have had many times what I would call a Kensho experience.

But if you were thinking a Kensho experience was this moment of like spiritual orgasmical oneness, which is not my definition of Kensho, then you would have missed my Kenshos.

Right.

So what’s a Kensho?

Definitely had some aha moments in there.

Right.

I mean that’s, it’s much easier to have it like, aha, no, that absolutely makes sense.

From an intellectual standpoint.

Well, what’s the difference?

Intellectual versus experiential.

Yeah, but if you’re going, aha, then you had an experience that you could intellectualize.

What are you, what are you intellectualizing that you haven’t experienced?

Fair enough.

I don’t have an argument for that at all.

Fair enough.

These dichotomies become really interesting.

And that’s what it is.

It’s a very interesting, like the more that you read into it, you’re like, somebody come up with a definition.

Like the point of a definition is that there’s one of them, not 75 of them that are all just slightly different.

And then it becomes this whole like, well, in my experience, well, in my experience, well, in this, I just have a meeting, agree on one of them.

Robin, do I see you getting ready?

It’s impossible.

And that’s the word of the problem.

It’s ineffable.

We just have our best, best attempts.

Oh, man.

I don’t know if anybody else watches.

What was that?

How I met your mother.

Ineffable.

Could you just call me?

I’m the only person that got that.

Never mind.

Moving on.

Robin, did I see you leaning in to say something?

Yes, I’m not sure what it was anymore.

But just kind of what our experience is, is what our experience is.

And that experience continually shifts and shifts and shifts and shifts.

I know I am guilty of wanting to block off the intellectual part of it.

And I have my reasons for that.

I always go back to if I can, if I can’t play in the dirt, if I can’t work in my garden and be completely present with whatever it is, what’s going on, then what the fuck am I doing?

The garden test is the ultimate test in my little world.

And so it doesn’t matter what fucking definition I have.

Can I be fully present?

That’s a description of attention.

Yeah.

Or even rather probably measure of awakening.

And I, and this, this is a context where Robin has found, like, a place to, like your music, right?

I’m sure you have a place like this too, where you can feel yourself drop away into a direct experience of what you’re doing.

And whether or not you have intellectual activity during that process is not the deciding factor.

It’s, are you able to witness the interpenetrating rawness of reality that’s happening right now.

That is the, that’s, that’s the meat of it.

All of the koan that are meant to deconstruct your conceptualization, all of the anti intellectual rhetoric is all based on stripping us away so that we can be fully engaged with what we’re doing.

And what we’re doing includes really radically intense intellectualization.

And that’s okay.

That still works.

That’s, that’s still an intimacy with life.

The only time it becomes seated.

Yeah, the only time it becomes a problem is when that’s inappropriate for the context that we’re in.

And that’s it.

It’s about this appropriateness and intimacy with the moment, and what the moment calls for.

And so, like for me it’s fight.

What set me on the spiritual path was fighting as a young man, and having out of body experiences where I was watching myself fight in third person and then having all these really trippy things happen.

And just being able to drop it to a close date and just fight for felt like for forever.

And that context, starting to think about my girlfriend was a problem.

That was not an appropriate time to engage in that form of intellectual activity, and it resulted in pain.

And I learned very quickly how to stay very present in the fight no matter what distractions are going on in my life.

Right.

But that doesn’t mean that when I was with her.

Thinking about her fully and completely was an inappropriate form of intimacy with the moment, right, it’s contextual appropriate.

And it’s arbitrary.

That’s the other thing there is no fixed way that skillful means happens there is no fixed form of appropriateness.

We have to be in tune, we have to be intimate with life to understand what is appropriate for the situation.

And now I feel like I’m getting ready to sell my book.

So, you can look for that leading the way it’s in the editing process.

Amazing.

Fingers crossed.

2020.

Yeah, little plug for that too.

I mean, like the cheerleader over here.

Now weaving the way is.

If you haven’t spent time with it.

Do.

Admittedly, prefer to read the passage without any of the introduction or commentary.

Just feel around with that.

And then pleasantly surprised usually like oh this is where this was going.

To get that internal resin.

Resonation is that the word I’m looking for.

With with that text.

It’s like a it’s a practice in itself to, you know, where, where is the juice here, where, where does it where does it the words cause you to align it right there.

To those who me Shambhala publication would be fantastic.

Oh my god.

Thank you.

Because basically, thou, thou is the, like the dynamic unfolding of life, we would call it the target of Garba, right, just like the dynamic presence of this is this suchness that was that’s the data generative force.

Right.

And it’s just our, it’s translated as integrity and the book, and it’s just the alignment to that.

And sometimes, and that’s what’s so radical about our way of life is that nothing is outside of the possibilities of what is required to be an integrity with the generative force of life.

So there is no morality, there is no violence is always bad there is no, you can’t yell at anybody that you know there’s none of that, there are definitely lots of, you know, checkpoints like hey, most of the time that’s going to create some damage.

So be sure that it’s worth the ripples you’re going to create.

But you may be the one who’s called to put the hammer down.

That might be your role in the harmony of the moment.

So be open to that possibility because that’s the only way you can be an integrity.

That’s the appropriate thing in that moment right and so there’s the text is this beautiful unfolding over 81 verses of stepping us into endow is cosmic unfolding as being a receptive container for all that is that also generates all that is, and then walks us through almost 40 verses of, like, what does that look like to be a human being that that is in touch with that in any given moment.

Yeah.

I love it.

And it’s remarkably relevant to this conversation.

I’m noticing that we’re already at time.

So let’s go ahead and do a closing check in.

Right.

And let’s just as a as a practice, see if you can somehow tie your closing check in to what you opened your check in with what what from the conversation loops back into what you came with to to iterate it.

Just, even if it’s just a small increment, like what’s, what’s maybe one little shift that happened in the same topic that you’re checking in.

tie a couple.

Okay.

Right.

You want to go first right and then we’ll go over to Robin and then Matt.

Right.

A couple of moments there.

You know, Robin’s comment on, you know, everyone’s experience of a given moment is their own experience and so there is not a single definition there.

That’s a great.

That’s a great little aha.

And that maybe there is no answer.

Your experience is the answer.

Your personal experience, because no one else is going to be able to define that outside of there’s, yeah.

I could tie a couple things in there.

I’m going to turn that for a while, which sounds incredibly fun.

Always grateful to be here, and I always leave with another fun.

Sometimes frustrating sometimes not so frustrating nugget that you want for the coming week so as always, I’m grateful for everybody.

Thank you so much for sharing the space.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I guess I touched on the the lessening of the, the doubting voice.

I think maybe what’s there right now with that is the importance of also embracing that voice.

Not necessarily listening to it, but honoring that it’s there.

Letting it set aside.

Thank you.

Yeah, for what you talked about a little bit earlier, about Ken Cho and Tori.

My personal experience has been, it’s not so black and white.

It’s this total gradient, you know, of sudden flash of something that sustains for a moment, something that sustains for minutes, something that sustains for hours, something that sticks around for days.

And, and so the part that’s been, you know, a bit puzzling for me is having a sustained moment of clarity, where everything becomes so obvious, you know, and so like, I’ve done this before.

I’ve gone here before.

And something that is so intimate, for it to go away, you know, over the course of, you know, like, days or weeks, it just kind of recedes and fades away.

It’s been puzzling.

But, but yeah, part of what I think is going on in the mechanics of that, which is leading to my experience is that as intimate as something could have been, I still have this, I have these residual impressions, I have this, you know, my, my repository consciousness is still holding on to some of these ideas.

And it’s not, there’s no, there seems to be no rhyme or reason.

But when the conditions are right, the thought pops up in some subtle form.

And then I start reinforcing that previous, you know, idea of who I am, what I am, and what I’m not.

And like, it’s below the surface.

And so I think what’s happening, like, as like, you know, okay, I have a type of understanding or whatever you want to call it.

And then yeah, there’s little opportunities to, you know, to dissipate that karma.

And, and there’s subtle, subtle things.

It’s not something overt, it’s not some blatant thought that happens, you know, just, it’s so, and it’s so wispy.

Like, you can’t even touch it, but like, but the reinforcement of that, and like recycling of that karma, it’s like, okay, that went back in, it’s going to pop up again.

opportunity to see through it, and just watch it and recognize this is my, that idea is my, I’m not the thought, I’m not this mind, I’m not this body, like, you know, and so I think I’m missing those little subtle opportunities.

And I got to be a little bit more consistent, you know, with, you know, in that case, with meditating on something, as opposed to just, you know, to being.

So yeah, I’m seeing, there is that, like, yes, like, I have been trying to, like, be more, I’m certainly not, you know, right, what you were talking about earlier about people who are like, squeezing it, trying so hard and meditating so much.

I’m like, I like slacking off here.

And kind of, yeah, like, I do need to, like, work on a little bit more concentration as I kind of hold that, like, what am I trying to change?

There is no one thing, you know, it’s not this destination.

But I’m not like, as present, you know, or reinforcing something, you know, that’s enough of that.

But I think you guys get the gist of what’s going on.

Oh, with that.

Thank you.

That was a very yoga Charan check in.

It’s like a little discourse on the lump.

When we check in with joy and delight, this practice comes at a good time.

For me, as I just, I just had a day where it’s just sick of everybody’s shit, you know, and I like I could feel, I could feel the sublimeness of just being sick of everybody’s shit, you know, and by and large, I’m pretty okay with the skillful means I employed, you know, patient voice in the patient time, like a more assertive voice at an appropriate time, like, by and large, I give myself like a B for the day.

If my kid bring home as a B on a school project, I’m not going to be yelling at them.

So like, I’ll give myself a little grace for this.

But it was a great conversation to have today and take back into the final weeks before school starts.

And there’s all the crazy and everyone wants everything all the time and all of the all of the stay at home dad stressors are kind of that max level.

And yeah, a real a real reminder for that intimacy doesn’t mean that it’s gonna be nice.

Doesn’t mean it’s gonna be pleasant.

Sure is going to be life.

I can, I can be intimate with it, whether I like it or not.

So those perfectly time for me.

Thank you all very, very much.

I look forward to seeing you next week.

Night everyone.