Transcription
Richard Larry has been a Buddhist for over 40 years. She spent six years at Wat Buddha Dharma as part of the L Community, helping to run retreats for many teachers, including Aima. So, Wat Buddha Dharma is just north of Sydney. I think, um, so it was Aima, Fran County Paulo, and Joseph Goldstein who bridged, helped run retreats with. She has been a Zen student for many years and is also a past practitioner. Bridget has an MA in creative writing and is the author of many prize-winning young adult books. Her adult titles are Still Life with Teapot on Zen Writing and Creativity, and A Year of Loving Kindness to Myself and Other Essays. The latter, which is this little book here, which I'll hold up properly in a moment, was chosen by Apple Books to be the best book of the month in April '21. So that's really special. Free Manal Press will publish a new title in February 2026, A Time of Living Graciously: Essays on Aging. Bridget believes in op shops, colored pencils, and floral frocks, and fostering joy and creativity in herself and others. Well, I think they're all fine things: op shops, colored pencils, and floral frocks. There should be more of them. And this is the little book to look for. And now I'll hand it over to Bridget to lead us in a guided meditation, and then we'll flow on to the talk. But please come in close because, um, you know, it's just kinder and warmer for everyone. I need the book. I'm going to read. Yes, I shall read, of course. You need your book. Good. Thanks. Yeah, welcome. Thank you for coming, and thank you, Sandra, for that. And, um, you just, the reason I put in the, you have to write your own blur, the reason I put in that thing about the Apple Books is that they get 30,000 books that they could have, and they chose mine. Free Manal Press nearly died, like they've never chosen a Free Manal Press title before, and then they chose mine. And then they said it was the best book of the month. So I got about three from that, but it was a big deal. All right, so we'll start with a sit, and that's what we will do. And, um, yeah, I think it's good. Not too also, do we ring this? Is this the bell for ringing? Yeah, that's the bell. Begin and end with the, like on the side there. You're good. All right. Gra, there it doesn't play. Good. So I've just got a lovely little quote here that is to begin. It's from Ezra Rider, who's a Zen teacher. He was a, um, one of the Zen teachers in the Joko lineage, and it's just a thing they say there, and I thought it's a lovely way to begin our meditation. Breathing into the heart. No one to be. Breathing into the heart. Nothing to do. Breathing into the heart. Just being. Breathing into the heart. Being aware in this moment, just as it is. So it's going to be a lightly guided meditation, and we'll do it. So to begin, just inviting you to arrive. Arrive here in this hall with these good people, with this beautiful Buddha Rupa, and whatever has come with you is just fine. You might have had a busy day, or a really contented, beautiful day, or a really challenging, difficult day. You might be feeling relaxed and chilled. You might be feeling really fragile. You are welcome. All parts of you are welcome. And just to, to actually get ourselves here, we've had to drive or walk or have our dinner or think about what to have for dinner. And so just let yourself arrive and come into your body. So we'll just start with the body, and we'll do a bit of a little body one thing, just relaxing into the body. Can start at the top of your head. One teacher caught it as imagine someone's pouring honey all over you. Not literally, that would be sticky, but just a gentle, like softness coming right down the body. And you start in the head and the face, and you soften. Might be some tension in the eyes, around the eyes, or the brow. Softening in. And a little light smile in the mouth. Even a smile inside the mouth. Coming down into the shoulders, and just maybe give them a little shrug and a wiggle. Just soften in. Can often hold. Might be holding tension there. Soften into the shoulders. Down the arms, noticing softening, softening the hands. There might be some sensation in the hands, some warmth, some tingling. Just putting the attention into the hand and softening. Then coming down the body, relaxing into the heart area. Just touching in, just seeing what's going on in the heart. Might might feel numb, you might feel tingly, you might feel soft, you might feel contracted. Softening in. Down the body into the belly. Softening the belly. Breathing into the belly. From the shoulders down your back, soft, relaxing, soft, relaxing. Honey vibes coming down. And if you're sitting, or you're going to be sitting, whether you're sitting on a chair or or a stool or or Zazen, just feel the Earth. Feel the pressure in your sit bones. Softening there into the legs, all the way down the legs. And soften into your feet. Might be some sensation in the feet. If you're sitting on a chair, you can really feel that you're earthed. Earthed through your feet, earthed into the ground, the good old solid ground. Now become aware of your breathing. And you don't have to do a thing. The body is just breathing itself. You can notice you feeling it in your nose, or your throat, or your chest, or your tummy. Just relax into your breathing. For, can become aware of the sounds. Sound of my voice, the sound of the air conditioning. Relaxing into the spaciousness of the room. Spaciousness of the, what's even outside the room. And under the starry night. Relaxing into the spaciousness. You can become aware of your thinking. Unless you're fully enlightened, Arun, there might be a little thinking coming. And the thing about thinking is it's just like a butterfly wing. It comes and it goes. And you got to be very gentle with it. There's no percentage in going, "Oh, I'm thinking again. Bad me. Much thinking." Just notice your thinking. Maybe try not to get entangled with it for 20 minutes. Don't necessarily follow the worried thought down a long avenue, but just notice. Lots of thinking, or I'm pretty worried about. Then let it go. Let it be here. Let it be a part of what you're noticing. And be very kind to yourself with your thinking. So for the rest of the meditation, I won't speak. Do your own practice, and you'll know for yourself what's the most grounding thing for you. It might be your breathing. Might be just the whole solid feeling of the body, the body like a mountain. Or it might be your feet. Just sit and be, and include, and be aware of whatever is happening. And if you do feel you're getting really lost, come back to whatever is the best thing for you: your breath, your feet on the ground, or just the, the whole body like a mountain. Here you are.
Just checking in with Sandra. So you talk for 45 minutes, you have a little quarter of an hour Q&A at the end. Is that the usual? Good, good to do. All right, so I'm going to start by just reading you a little poem out of the, that begins my book and it leads into the topic. Prajna. Prajna. I'm not sure if it's what is Prajna? Sanskrit? I have no idea. But it means wisdom. Anyone know what language the word Prajna comes from? Well, let's pretend it's Sanskrit. All your pretty dresses won't save you. You can't wiggle out of it. The suffering of this floating world will continue to present itself. Just keep on being the Buddha. White flowers in your open arms. I'll read it again because it's short. Prajna. All your pretty dresses won't save you. You can't wiggle out of it. The suffering of this floating world will continue to present itself. Just keep be, keep on being the Buddha. White flowers in your open arms. And to make it gender specific, I should have maybe said, or your nice shirt will not save you. So leading into the topic, very loosely, is the Heavenly Messengers. Right, so I'm just going to read, you know, you probably, you've had quite a few talks already, you know what the Heavenly Messengers are, but I'll start with that. And because this is a book by Christina Feldman called The Buddhist Path to Simplicity: Spiritual Practice for Everyday Life. Jack Kornfield calls it a gracious invitation to freedom. So that's what we're after, right? Freedom. And this is just basically the Buddha meeting the Heavenly Messengers. The young Prince Siddhartha lived an idyllic life in the palace. Despite desiring that his son would never stray from his destiny to be king, his father showered the prince with every conceivable pleasure, comfort, and delight. Beautiful sights, sounds, and entertainment and distraction filled his days and nights. Even the wilting flowers and leaves in the Royal Gardens were removed so that Siddhartha would never see a single thing to disturb his mind. His life was filled with the young, the beautiful, and the pleasing. The king made every effort to provide a life so enticing and entrancing that Siddhartha would never want to leave. And then we know what happens, don't we? He goes out. He goes into the world. I'm just going to skip a few bits so we'll still be here at midnight. So he went out in his chariot, unbeknownst to his father. He spotted an elderly man, bowed down with age, his his face wrinkled with years. Shocked, Siddhartha asked his driver, "What is this?" "This is old age." He made further trips into the city. He saw a young woman desperately ill. "What is this?" "This is illness." Illness and death. Well, this also happened to me, said Siddhartha. Yes, he was assured that it would. On the last of his ventures into the city, Siddhartha saw a wandering holy man, simply and poorly dressed, yet with radiance and serenity etched upon his face. On asking for an explanation, he was told this was a man dedicated to living a sacred life. So we know that's what happened, and he set forth, and good things happened. That's why we're here. If he hadn't set forth, it wouldn't have. So that brings us to us being here right now. Our own ill. I've skipped a bit in this writing. Our own illusions are constantly challenged by reality, and we are startled into woeful loss. Death, failure, and separation touch all our lives and directly expose us to the uncertainty and fragility of everything we rely upon. The Heavenly Messengers are never far from us. So most of us probably came to the Dharma when we met, when life became troubling in some way. You don't usually turn to the spiritual and the sacred if you're just in the samsara zone of, "I'm just going to get rich and get beautiful and get a good partner and get a boat." And some people come in that way. They get everything. They get all of that, but it feels empty and hollow, and they go, "Now what?" And they go searching for some kind of sacred path or meaning. But a lot of us have come to the Dharma because, to put it very crudely, the hit the fan in some way or another. And in my own life, we won't go on and on about me, but I had a very, um, dramatic childhood. My parents were highly functioning, intelligent alcoholics. They were very neglectful as parents. By the time I was nine, I'd been in a drunk driving accident with my father, cut my face open. Then my father killed himself. La la la la la. So the way I dealt with this was became a high achiever. I was the best primary school teacher they'd ever had in the first year, blah blah. On the side, I did drugs and alcohol because I didn't want to face the pain of, like, not only had that, my father died, my sister died, my tiny little niece had died, a friend of ours got murdered. There was a lot of suffering. So I was meeting my own, "Ah, okay, life's pretty tricky." And then, um, to cut to the chase, I've been in a community in New Zealand, and the people in the community who were still smoking drugs didn't seem to be getting anywhere. But the people who'd got into meditation, namely basically to bed in meditation, they started the Maham Woodend. I thought, "These guys are getting themselves together." And I remember the exact moment. I was living in, working in Sydney. I was working for Dr. Barnardo's as a child care worker and living the sort of party girl life. And I came out of a movie on Oxford Street. There was a late-night bookshop. I went to the late-night bookshop. I was reading the Earth Garden, and a tiny little writing said, "Meditation Retreat, WBD, bloody blah." I thought, "I could do that." So I went to WBD. I went on my. And it's not only what Sandra said, it's a very isolated place. You go to Wiseman's Ferry, which is west, a little bit west and north, and then you go through a gate. And because A came, I had bought this little property, very beautiful property. It was in the middle of the DK National Park. So you had to go through a gate and up, it took about 20 minutes up a very windy road to this place where they made a meditation center. So I went there, and I was so restless, like couldn't really meditate to save myself. And I, it's there's a funny story. I went to the car park, and there's a guy in the car park. I said, "Look, I'm not really handling it. Can you give me a ride back to Sydney?" He said, "I came in on my bicycle." So no, he was not able to give me a ride back to Sydney. And I stuck out the retreat. And, um, long story short, I married someone who was living there. I went to live there. We had a kid. There was about 30 people. We lived there as a lay community. We built buildings and we ran the retreats. And I got straight into the Dharma. And many people say this, it was like I heard the teachings of the Buddha, they made sense. And then I, when I first came here, I became in the Buddhist Society, and then became a Zen student. So I've had these two parts of sort of Theravada Buddhism. And the beautiful thing about living at Wat Buddha was I got all the basics. Everything that Pannyapalo had learned in the forest monasteries, the same tradition as, um, Venerable Bro, all of that. What it was like to live there, what the 10 precepts and the eight precepts and the three precepts, and and learn to meditate, and just got the whole of the basics. And that was really like got me started in Dharma. However, we can practice, we can sit, we can have good sila, we can try and live a good life. Things will still go wrong, right? And you might think, "Ah, that's an interesting title. A Year of Loving Kindness to Myself and Other Essays." She must be full of loving kindness. Slightly wrong. Pannyapalo gave us all a Dharma name, those of us who were living there, and he gave me the Dharma name of Metta. And I was like, "Oh, loving kindness." He went, "I give you the name of Metta because you have anger." Okay. I didn't know anyone could see that. And he had been given the name of Pannyapalo because he is impatient. It means teacher of patience. And his teacher had called him Pannyapalo because he had to like grow into your name, grow towards this name. And, um, so I wrote a book about A Year of Loving Kindness to Myself and Other Essays because although I've been in the Dharma for actually 45 years, I'm, I wasn't very good at loving kindness. Like, we're our own worst enemy at times. We can be like a good Buddhist and helpful to others, but especially people who've had like a fairly difficult childhood, we're not necessarily that good at loving kindness. So I wrote the book sort of for myself. And it wasn't quite as neat. But if you, this book's in the library, you can get it. Um, the first part of it is January, February, March, April, right through to December, as if I'm working on a different virtue every month. So that's what the book goes on about. And there's chapters on, I'll just read you a few of the titles: Slowing Down, Having Fun, Working with Difficulty, Loving Kindness to Your Feelings, Equanimity, Acceptance, Anxiety, On Wonder, Solitude and Connection, Creativity. And so, in terms of, we know what the Heavenly Messengers are, and you know what yours are. You know what your sufferings have been, what your tragedies, and we've all got them. They say it's a Russian proverb, if you, if you scratch someone on their forehead, you would, and saw their troubles, you would never swap. You think, "Look, I'm suffering because my mother has dementia, my dog got run over, and my husband left me," whatever. But the next person's got a different story. This, no one gets out alive. Like people you love will die. You'll, to even if your own life is going kind of nice, there's the Ukraine, there's Gaza, there's refugees, there's pedophiles, there's like a lot of suffering in this universe. And you can't really turn away. You can, you can sort of say, "Well, I'm okay." And you go, "Yeah, I'm okay." But my neighbor is not. So we're all in the soup together of what the Buddha was talking about. So the three characteristics: impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and no abiding self. So how do we work with that? That's like, that's your path, right? That's your daily practice. How do I work with being in this world which has a lot of trouble as well as a lot of beauty? There's a lot of beauty. There's marbles and little babies and turtles and roses and kind friends and soup and cozy socks and all the good stuff, beautiful, beautiful good stuff. And there's also a lot of difficulty. So that's our thing is how do we work with that? So these are just some, um, I just recently, because the monks are away, it's not only that lay people are asked to come here and talk, but I did two talks for the Armid meditation group online. And these were just some things I wrote down that have helped me in my practice that I offer for, maybe that will help you. Okay. Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself. So that, I think, is is important in the practice. Like, you could sit at the foot of the Buddha, but you have to take the medicine. And it's not a fixed path. Like, you might be with one particular teacher who's just the right teacher for you, and 10 years later, that teacher might die, or they might leave the country, or you might just realize, "My practice is very stale. Like, maybe I I need to do more of a different practice, or maybe I need to read some different books, or listen to different teachers." So like another Buddhist teacher said to me, "You're a big girl now. Own your practice." So that's something that I've found to be important because you can imagine in 45 years, I've been on lots of different retreats with lots of different people, and I've learned a lot of things. But in the end, I figured it's up to me to know which is the right remedy. And like, this is way to information. Here we go. Stiff drink of water. Despite the fact of having been on a lot of retreats, like weekend retreats, but ten-day retreats, I do not have a steady, concentrated mind. I will never ever touch a Jhana. I tried. I have a different sort of a mind. So the sort of practices that I've found useful to me, like I've been on retreats where that is what you do, you know, concentrating on the nostril, and then, and on that retreat, I might get a certain amount of concentration, but basically, no, I have a restless mind. And so practices like loving kindness, or spaciousness, or walking meditation to steady the mind and body, these have been the most useful to me. So a bit of a waste of my life to go, "Oh, I'm just hopeless. You, I can't do the Jhanas. Everyone's the Jhanas, you know, so and so just sits down every morning, they're just in the bliss state, and they just highly concentrated except for, you know, an hour and a half, and not feel any pain in the body. Well, good for them. That's great. But that has not been my experience. I've had to be a bit more exploratory. So if everyone, must, funnily enough, a man in swimming pool and Barry told me this, it's from someone very famous. Everyone must be their own physician. Socrates or someone said that. Maybe it was Hippocrates. I don't know. But everyone must be their own teacher in a way. You have to make the practice your own. And if it is stale, like, what would enliven it? What would bring it back to life? Be where you are and who you are. That's how to cheer yourself up. Cultivate confidence in your own worthiness. You are not guilty of some fundamental mistake. I can never pronounce his name, but Chyam Chödrön said that. And it's about truly knowing, "This is me." This is because we're all a miraculous coming together of atoms with a family history and a cultural history and a social history and an ethnic thing. And then we've got our own sort of vibe going on. And you can also waste a lot of time thinking that you should be someone else. And then you have to go, "No, these are my good qualities." And no one's, you know, you might think, "Oh, I'm having this fear. I shouldn't. I shouldn't still be feeling for my example. I shouldn't still feel fear and anxiety. I'm 71. I've been meditating 45 years. Why are these come to my table?" Because they do, honey. Because they just do. Because, you know, that the way it is. Father's Day, people go, "I'm taking Dad out for lunch." You go, "Well, that's good." My father topped himself when I was nine. Like the, well, be feelings. We are human. We will have feelings, and we have to be very, very kind to ourselves with those feelings. The right attitude is accepting, observing, and learning from your experience, just as it is. So the, the teacher that, who Sandra mentioned, this for me has been like an amazing, sometimes when needed, just go, "This is it for me. This seems to be it." So the teacher is called Alexia Santos. He came to Perth and did a 10-day retreat at Jan Grove through the Perth Insight Meditation Society, pre-COVID. He was invited. He came. He's a lovely man. Happens to be very handsome and charming. That's not really the point. But he was a monk in Burma with Sodor Jania, and that's the practice he teaches. That was taught to him by Sodor Jania. And it's a different practice. Well, I had not come across this practice until I did that retreat. And just in brief, most people probably have learned, um, a practice where you concentrate on an object. Like the object would be the breath, or the posture, or a mantra, or a candle. That's concentration on an object. But what Sodor Jania teaches, you still notice the object. There will still be breath and sound and all of those things. But the concentration is on the knowing of it. So those are different things, right? So, con, an example, if you twist your ankle, the pain in your ankle, and your mind will go to that. That's an object. Pain in my ankle. Oopsy, sprained my ankle. Then there's the mind, the consciousness, and there'll be an attitude of mind. So some people have an attitude of mind which is very gloomy and tragic. Sometimes they go, "Oh, sprained my ankle. I won't be able to go to work. It's all really, really terrible." And some people have a more cheerful attitude, which is, "Oh, well, never mind. Things happen. She'll be right. Get a bandage, put my foot up." And then above all of that, so there's the object, then there's the attitude of mind, and then there's the knowing of it. So that's where Sodor Jania and Alexia Santos, that's the practice. And it's a 24/7. Like, you do your sitting practice, and you go through your day, and you get stuck in your traffic, and you have a lovely meal, and all those things are happening. And this is going to sound radical, it doesn't actually matter as much as you think what is happening. Good day, bad day, sunny day, not sunny day, too hot, too cold, person very nice to me, person very rude to me, praise and blame. What's mattering most is your attitude of mind and your awareness. Jack Kornfield calls it spacious loving awareness. Can we have spacious loving awareness to everything? To our own troubled heart, and to our own situation, and to other beings, and to the world? And just, could, and that sounds really easy, doesn't it? Yes, let's just have a lovely spacious loving awareness all the time. It's a daily practice, and you just have to keep doing it. And in any moment, you go, "Oh, where's my mind? What's my attitude? Am I present to the, the arisings? To the objects? Am I?" So if you call the object what I can hear, what I can see, what I can taste, what I can touch, what I can think, is that am I there, or am I off with the fairies? Most of the time, like when you're walking through a car park, are you walking through a car park? Can you feel your feet on the ground? Are you in your body? Just very simply, am I in my body? Am I here? Mind with the body in the car park? Along? Well, am I thinking, "Must buy some marmalade"? "Shouldn't have said that last Tuesday." Like, so this is a practice you can do. The right attitude is accepting, observing, and learning from your experience, just as it is. And key word there is learning. So part of the job of being a yogi is learning. So we've all got mind paths. The Buddha talked about the, I can't remember exactly in which sutra, don't ask me, but like the mind will go down a certain channel, and if it goes down that channel all the time, it'll keep going there. The more you, the mind follows the mind. And interestingly, science bears this out. So they can actually measure in your brain if you're depressed, like going along there, and you, you try, what they're trying to do is to lift you from your depression is to get the passages going along the other way. So say you're feeling really low, instead of going, "I'm just going to sit here feeling really low and thinking negative thoughts, and I should really kill myself," exaggeration. What if I went in the garden and looked at the flowers? What if I read something uplifting? And they can actually measure this. So it wasn't just the Buddha who said it. So that's, um, the learning part. When you might say to yourself, "Okay, today I'm feeling agitated. What, what sort of thinking am I doing when I'm agitated?" "Oh, is that helpful? Is that wholesome?" "Okay, pull myself back. That's an old, that's an old tape I'm playing. Not wholesome. Not helpful. Not useful. Maybe stop doing that. What else could I do if I'm very agitated that might be of use to me?" "I could make a cup of tea, tick, n hand style, really mindfully, and pour it out, really mindfully, and really sit down in the sun and relax into my body and say some kind things to myself and drink my tea." Or one of my Heaven Messengers, as like, what's a helpful thing is to walk. Is to just go for a walk. You don't have to do walking meditation, although you could. You could walk back and forth quite slowly, or you can just go to the park and walk around and just see things, look at things, feel the sun. You can, you can make some choices to uplift your own mind. And that's part of your Dharma practice. Be at ease with whatever is happening, pleasant or unpleasant, in a relaxed and alert way. And that's something else that Alexia Santos really encourages. Relax. So the very first thing you should do when you sit down to meditate is not go, "Oh, I'm not very good at meditation. Do I have to? How me?" Just relax. Just sit down and relax. Like, "Here I am." If you've decided you're going to do five-minute sitting, or 25 minutes, or whatever, relax into your body. Just go, "Oh, here I am." Look at your shrine, if you've got a little flower, and relax. Relax through the body. Nothing good's going to happen if you're uptight. I'm oversimplifying, but just relax into it. And then if you halfway through your sit, you go, "Oh, I'm off with the fairies, and I'm starting to like blame myself for that." Don't do that. Apply kindfulness. That kindfulness. Come back. Relax. Just soften. Few soft breaths. Relaxing into the practice. Say, "This is good enough." To all that arises, greet and observe. Our most uncomfortable and inconvenient feelings with unconditional friendliness. Be excessively gentle with yourself. Make a conscious effort to include the positive. And here's another nice little reading from a book by Diana Winston called The Little Book of Being. And she's another teacher who teaches in this method, in this mode of, she calls it natural awareness, spacious awareness, where you include everything in a very spacious way. I like this because it's creative. Finding a new address. Don't take up residence on Anxiety Street, Depression Avenue, Comparison Boulevard, or Anger Muse. I recommend moving to Peaceful Street, Equanimity Lane, or Joy Avenue. And when we live on Natural Awareness Boulevard, we have the capacity to handle whatever life life brings us because our baseline is not neurosis, but luminous awareness. So one of the reasons I like to share that is creativity for me has been another lifesaver because life, like life is good, and life has challenges, and it can also be quite a trudge at times. You go, "Yes, I paid my tax, I bought my groceries, I cleaned my bathroom, I've washed the sheets." But what about the, what about the flourishing part? What about the joyous part? And that would be different for everyone. For some people, it's gardening. For some people, it's knitting. For some people, it's, you name it. Anything that's creative. And that is a part of Buddhism too, like the mandalas, the tea ceremony, the Japanese flower arranging, in barley, the offerings to the gods, to bring beauty, to bring the sacred, and the pleasurable, and the creative. And so for me, becoming a writer probably was a lifeline. Was something that I was good at. I'm probably like, I was never that good at being a waitress or various other things. But it brings joy. Just to journal, just to draw a little picture and write down some Buddha sayings and and touch base with yourself. You know, for a lot of people, journaling is really valuable. And for myself, creativity has been such a path. And because I've kept my journals, some of it's like, "This is what I did today." But there's lots of times where I've written down Buddhist, Buddha things, and cut out Buddhas, and been on retreats, and written down the wisdoms. I can, they're like resources in bed. Every morning, having my cup of tea, I read through this books, and there's all the Buddha wisdom, but from different times. And this is going to sound hippie, it's very magical what turns up. I don't know if any of you have found that, but you pick up a book, and you go, "That was just what I needed to know today." Someone's channeling the good vibes to me right at this moment. Somehow, the right, the right thing will come. Um, that's what I found anyway. So, yeah, creativity is something that can just really, really help us. You can, for some people who are a bit more analytical, you can ask yourself questions. This is from a Zen teacher. Three questions: Are you interested in the present moment? Do you want anything? Is the mind relaxed? And you can bring that in during the day. You can just say, "Oh, am I interested in the present moment?" Because if you walk through the car park thinking about next Tuesday, you're not interested in the present moment. And so that's just a very simple, and I wouldn't, it sounds a bit underplayed to call it a life hack, but these things are quite useful. Like a lot of the teachers have them. Gil Frondale, who's another teacher I really like, and I like him a lot. He's very good to listen to for me because he has a very soothing voice, and that's something that I like. I listen to Dharma quite late at night. It helps me relax and get ready for sleep. But his voice is very soothing. Also, he has, he was a Zen student for many years. He lived at Tahara, and he's also in the Insight tradition. So that's of interest to me. Like, "Oh, okay, he can do it. I can do it." But he, he just has words. So you just have a word for the day where you go, "Easy," or "Present," or "Now," or "What?" And you just find a word. You go, "Okay, that's going to be my word of the day. I'm going to go through today, and I'm going to try and relax and keep my mind conscious and with loving awareness." And every time I'm really realize I'm completely been off with the fairies for at least two hours, you just bring in the word "Now." Okay, what's happening now? So these are just little things you can play with. They either work for you, well, they won't work for you. But to keep the practice fresh and alive, because it's not just, "I went on a retreat, the rest of my life I go crazy." But then I go on a retreat, or, you know, I sit every, I sit every morning, but the rest of the day I sort of forget all about it, and I get pretty jagged and watch too much TV, and then I just go, "I should meditate," sort of to bring it all in. Yes. Alan Brown said this: "Wherever you are on the path of meditation, please want to be there. If you want to be somewhere else, that's the end of progress. Don't try for a good sit." This is T. Have a right attitude. Accept, observe, and learn from your experience, just as it is. Okay, so that might be enough from that. So I, I talked about walking meditation, and yeah, to me, that's been one of the like main beautiful helpful things that I find as useful to me. I walk every day because I like walking. I like looking at people's gardens and saying hello to people and seeing the ducks and seeing little children at the park. But it's also because the Buddha said this, and I always found very mysterious, something about it is to be found. I haven't got the wording right. It is to be found in this ten-foot, ten-fathom foot body. But what does that mean? It is to be found in this ten-fathom foot body. What the heck is he talking about? Well, talking about embodiment, like to come right back into the body with the breathing, with the sensations. And so many, many of the like very profound meditation practices, you sit there, you spend the first three days getting concentrated, staying on the breath, anapanasati, and breath. And then you go through the body very methodically, the sensations in the body, and you do that for the next seven days. That's what you're doing. You're noticing sensations in the body. And you might think, "Oh, that sounds a bit crank." Try it. One of the first long and intense retreats I did, I did it actually through the Buddhist Society. There was a really lovely man, he was a Thai man, he was super wealthy, and he offered a retreat in Thailand. And someone from the Buddhist Society could go, and I got to go. And I was like, well, my son was seven then, he's 45 now, so it was a long time ago. And it was all a bit of a strange thing. So I flew to Bangkok. The very morning my son said he had a stomach ache. It's like, "Not sure if I should be getting on the plane to leave the country when my seven-year-old kid's got a stomach ache." And my my partner, my second husband, said, "Go, just go. He'll be fine." So I went. I got there. It was before mobile phones, really. There was a guy running the retreat. It wasn't in Bangkok. It was somewhere in an industrial city near Bangkok where this man had his factory. The rich man started with B. And there was one man with a thing about this big. It was like a, it was like the original mobile phone. And I finally got to ring home, and they said my son was fine, probably anxious about his mother going away, but it was the toughest gig I ever did. There was, I wish I knew the name of this woman. She was a white woman with a Thai husband, and she taught the method that I just told you. We all dressed in white. We did an hour walking in rows up and down, then we did an hour sitting in that method, then we did an hour walking, then we did an hour, an hour, all day. The food had been brought by Dana from Thai ladies, so spicy hot that was almost couldn't eat it. It was beautiful tofu, but was mega chilly. We slept in a compound. I was on the floor near the toilet. You weren't meant to talk, but the Thai ladies were chatting all night, and Thai. And I was right by the toilet. And it was hot. You went out in in a courtyard, it was sort of fenced in because there were mosquitoes. Anyway, survived. But it was like a boot camp. You go, "I just got to stay here." My one out for doing an hour walking, an hour sitting, an hour sitting, doing that method. When I left that retreat, I had a little hotel called Jim's Lodge. It was very nice. It had air conditioning and an orchid on the pillow. And I'd made two friends: a Japanese girl who was on the retreat, and a Thai girl who'd gone there because her boyfriend had dumped her, and she'd never been on a retreat before. None of us knew what we were getting into. But we'd become friends, and we went around Bangkok and went to the temples. Guys, it was like I was on a wonder drug. I have never felt as clear as creative as I just remember thinking, "This is what you're meant to feel like." And it wasn't a manic high. It was just totally present, and everything was like amazing, and I was in myself, and it was brilliant. And it wears off. Like, you get some, most people do a 10-day, they get some kind of benefit in terms of their sitting is better, or they feel happier to be alive. But yeah, that one was a cracker. So, yeah, and my point there, coming back to point, was it was all about just being entirely in the body, body with the sensations in the body as an intense meditation practice. So, yeah, that was a good thing to do. So there's that. So walking, walking for me is a thing. And the other thing is gratitude. So this is something that is in the book. Can't remember which book. Hold on a minute. Oh, yeah. Give me a minute. Okay, so this is a chapter from that book. Oh, no, it's a chapter from the new book that's coming out, the one, Essays on Aging, and it's called "Give Thanks." So it's about gratitude. Gratitude as a practice, as a thing we can do every single day in our lives. Because even on the most horrible day, you're alive. No one ran you over. You have food, medicine, and clothing, and water. We're in the top, like, 1% on this planet that we just have the basic requisites. Like, you've got a lot to be grateful for. So this is what I wrote about it. "If the only prayer you said in your whole life was thank you, that would suffice." Meister Eckhart said that. If the only prayer you said in your whole life was thank you, that would suffice. As you grow older, you can become more fully yourself, or or someone grumpy who you do not like much. That's the task. It doesn't sound that hard, does it? To love the life we have, to be contented, to come to terms with things just as they are, not as we'd prefer them to be, to truly love this life, to accept ourselves just as we are, to be happy just as it is. As someone who gives it her best shot, I can vouch for it. To be challenging, it's simple, but not easy. It's a daily dance of dramas, devils, dilemmas, and doubts. But in the end, it's the only game in town. Luckily, you don't have to figure it all out. Best, in fact, to stop trying to figure it all out. Just meet each moment as wisely and cheerfully as you can. Your ducks are not in a row. They were never in a row. They will never be in a row. One top over, one is peddling too fast, one got eaten by a turtle, and one flew away years ago. Just get through each day with as much presence and ease as you can, fostering a kind acceptance of reality and a sweet surrender to the way things are. We cannot fix our broken moments, but we can have a heart big enough to hold them. We can use our kindest voice, wear our best scarf, and the earrings, saving nothing for later. One chance, one meeting, as the Zen saying goes. Don't hold back, nor be still, waiting to enjoy yourself. Now is the only time you have. One day, your now will run out. This reconciliation with reality involves including sorrow, pain, loss, and all or less palatable stuff. To be okay with it all, to practice what Tara calls radical acceptance, means to truly include everything. As my friend, writer Pearl Bessman, says, "Trying to be present in this, trying to be present in the moment is especially hard when the moment makes unreasonable demands." Yet this too is Buddha. Joyfully, enthusiasm can be cultivated. Friends and gurus can help us, but in the end, we have to do the work ourselves. Appreciate this precious life just as it is. There is no wiser option. How many times have we been told this by how many wise ones? But do we do it? Not always. For me, gratitude is the key. Every day, especially on the hardest day, to be alive is a miracle. Most of my difficulties are first-world problems, which I invent for myself. This is not to diminish the fact that living in an aging body is a challenge, that pain is a challenge, or that melancholy is real. But when I put my arms around my foolishness, my failures, and my fears, it brings ease. It brings freedom. Here it is, my actual life, full of interesting things: a painting of a wonky teacup, roasted tomatoes, dogs at the park, the shadow of a drag, the shadow of a dragonfly, swans picking away on the grass, their peculiar necks. There was a woman's Zen master named Sono, who taught one very simple method of enlightenment. She advised everyone who came to her to adopt an affirmation to be said many times a day, under all conditions. The affirmation was: "Thank you for everything. I have no complaint whatsoever." Ever. "Thank you for everything. I have no complaint whatsoever." So those are most of the things I was going to tell you about. I'll just finish with one little bit out of the book about meditation. I'm preaching to the converted. The fact that you're all here is is proof that we believe in meditation. But there was just a little bit, but I'm probably saying the same thing over again. Spoiler alert: there is suffering. The Buddha described our predicament like this: the suffering of birth, the suffering of old age, the suffering of illness, the suffering of death, the suffering of encountering what is unpleasant, the suffering of separation from what is pleasant, the suffering of not getting what we want. We do not like the truth of this predicament. We secretly hope that if we eat properly, exercise diligently, and play nice, we'll cunningly avoid all that awful stuff. If we just make the right move through a state of trouble, it doesn't work. People we love will die. Our bodies will behave badly. Children get cancer. Human beings kill other human beings. Ecologically, we are looking pretty screwed. However many petitions we sign or acts of kindness we perform, the fire of human suffering cannot be quelled. Knowing that all meetings will end in partings, and that death is our final destination, can make life seem futile and unsatisfying. That doesn't mean that joy and mirth do not come our way, but being humanly is inherently fragile. However furiously we arrange the deck chairs on the Titanic. So why meditate? Why not just continue seeking happiness?
In samsara, turn away from the spiritual. Get as much pleasure for yourself as you can and keep on trucking. That is indeed one option. It is a path many travel.
Others choose a different road. As one Tibetan Sage put it, "We sit to make a difficult situation better." Life contains hardship, but there is something straightforward about coming to terms with reality. By regularly disengaging from the ceaseless demands of the world, we create breathing room. Counterintuitively, by staying still with our feelings, the sensations in our body, and the silence beneath them, we become more able to enjoy the world, not so overwhelmed by the uncertainty of the human condition.
When we slow down, we taste our lives fully. The flavor of happiness, the flavor of grief. We discover reserves of strength, ease, equanimity, and patience we did not know we had, which will serve us well when strong winds blow.
If we do not have the wisdom to foster awareness, our lives can become a tangle of addictive behaviors and avoidant strategies. Excessive alcohol and recreational drugs are what Buddhist teacher Josh Cord calls "failed attempts at happiness," providing a temporary release from difficult feelings but leading to a whole host of other troubles. Compulsive shopping, screen binging, staying very busy, and endlessly trying to control other people are similarly doomed attempts.
It is not only for ourselves that we sit. When we attend to our own life with delicacy and care, there is positive benefit for those around and the wider community. If we stay present in difficult conditions, if we can listen deeply and do our best in every situation, we will indeed shine one corner.
As Suzuki Roshi said, "Meditation does not need to be a scary, difficult, or ambitious project. Start with 5 minutes. Take a relaxed, upright posture and focus on the breath, bodily sensations, or your entire experience. Thinking, breathing, sounds, longing, restless mind, sleepy mind—whatever naturally arises. There's nothing more fancy or complicated than that. Just sitting means just that. No need to transform or improve your experience. Let everything be as it is."
Relaxing into gentle, allowing presence, sitting brings us into our lives, plain and simple, so that we know things as we are, taste their flavor, calmly abiding with changing conditions. Sitting helps us live fully and respond fully in the most appropriate way, not endlessly seeking pleasure nor hiding from suffering. Take pleasure in the breath. Let whatever arises be all right by you. Everything else will take care of itself.
And I've just got a little blessing for you: May you live with presence. May you live with honesty. May you live with inner quiet. May you live with appreciation and kindness.
I will take questions if you have any on anything about your own practice or my practice or what would have D, or if there's anything I could tell you about. Please ask me now. There were two guys when we came in and I said to them, "Think of an interesting question." I'm relying on you guys. If you're still here, there they are. I see them. Okay, where are the two guys in question? There they are, sitting there, trying to pretend it's not them. Oh, I reckon it might be you two. Who would like to ask a question of Bridget? It's up to... I can wander to the other side of the room.
I think the fathom-long quote was, "Everything I've known in this life, everything I've experienced in this life, I've experienced in this fathom-long body." I actually really love that because it reminds us that it really is all about perceptions and those different levels of consciousness. I think I think it calms the farm when I bring that to mind. I wish I knew the exact quote, but I think he must have mentioned the fathom-long body a few times. But I think the one I had was something about it could only be found in this fathom-long body. So, which to me, I didn't really grasp it. It was like, it's not ideas about it. It's you're not going to intellectualize your way out of it. It will be found in Zen. They go, "It always seems a bit peculiar." He goes, "Just this, like nowhere else, but this, like this, like don't be something." It's a bit of a Zen thing, but like, just this. Something about coming back. Anyway, we've all got our own path, but I'm sad there are no interesting questions.
Sure, something just a riff on that. Was it S Bob? S Bob's an Australian Dharma teacher who's hilariously funny, and he's like, "What's wrong with right now? Unless you think about it, there's nothing wrong with right now." Unless you think about it. I often take something to my son who has had this great life, his early life, the first five years at Wat Damariding around, you know, with the kids and getting chocolate from Prah Candy Paro, and it was just a good life for a kid, and no TV, none of that. And he's had his own life. He's a documentary filmmaker, and he was more like, just, I shouldn't say "just a guy," but like a guy who liked a glass of red wine and not particularly Buddhist, but he's he's come to it in his own way. Gave up social drinking, which most men in their 40s seem to like a beer on Friday night, but no, good. Not because I said, "You know, it might be a good idea." No, that's good. And he reads Buddhist books, but he's so wise and together. He's like his dad. If any of you have met John Field, who's one of the caretaker builders at the nuns' monastery, that's my son's dad, right? So he's got, he channels his beautiful father, the steady, quiet, tall, helpful type of a person. And the reason I'm telling this is when I go to him with a problem, sometimes, I don't do that very often, obviously, but when I do, he goes, "I think you're overthinking it, Mom." Always such wise, "Stop overthinking it, Mom." Yes, good on you. I'll try to, um, construct into some kind of logic flow. My question comes in is, um, how do we find peace when we do see a lot of conflicts around us, and there are a lot of discrepancies which we may not agree with? But as you know, quoting what you were mentioning, we need to be, you know, open up our consciousness and accept what's around us. But even though sometimes we accept the facts of what's happening, but I think personally, I struggle to actually get onto that path of finding the peace.
Just to further, do you mean in family problems or world problems or work? In what way do you get knocked off your perch?
Yeah, in the context of, you know, it came in more family, it came more of friends, you know, environment. So it just, yes, discrepancies. People may not see, you know, a person for who they are truly because they don't understand you. They don't bother to, you know, reach out to seek confirmation of what your thoughts are. For example, so there's somewhat, okay, I'll simplify the question. It's more of like, when you, or another individual, may not see eye to eye on certain things because of misunderstanding or different values, and given that you accept, "Okay, that's the case," and you are aware of the situation, but is there any other tools that you find that will be helpful to basically help oneself to stay on a peaceful path?
Right. Oh, that's such a good question. We could still be here for many hours on that one, but that's a really, really good question. So, a few things came to mind. One is, um, how engaged are you in the world? So, um, one teacher I had said, "Don't put it out there 100%." Like, if you're 100% out there and you're like, really in your family and what my friends think about me, you have to sort of have the sturdy core, which is maybe 60% in yourself and 40% out there in the world. And then you just got more of a solid core. Then, like, I myself can get very swamped around, like in a big crowd and everyone's, there's a lot of noise, and I'm sort of out there and in it. And then you go, "Going to come back to this more of a solidness in this," and not put quite so much out there.
And then there's the matter of the eight world wins: like praise and blame, pleasure and pain, fame and fortune, disrepute. That is the name of the game. The Buddha talked of this. It's never going to go right. Like, there'll always be one family member, right, who presses your buttons, or everyone likes you now, but now they, you did the wrong thing at the Christmas dinner, now they don't like you. That's just the eight world wins. So you don't take it so personally. You just go, "This is the way of the world." Sometimes everyone liking me and then not liking me, and it's not even a personal failure, it's just the way of it. That's one thing.
I think it's also important to, like, if you, for myself, I've tried so hard to be like a good Buddhist and in a good space all the while, but sometimes you just have to realize, "This is really tough." Like, if something happens in your family, like, strangely, I've had something happen in my family today, and it's a really weird thing. Like, someone in my family has got themselves into a real mess, and I found out about it today. And so it's like, I can't pretend like, "Oh yes, I am peace, love, and happiness." No, I'm having some strong feelings. And just to go, "That's okay. Can I be okay with this thing that's happened? It's pretty darn weird, and I'm going to have some feelings, and I'm resilient, and I can cope with them. And if I need to, I can talk to a friend, or, you know, I have a therapist, and like, I'm not going to be knocked over." But to have the resilience to go, "Yeah, I'm going to get through this, even though it's, you know, something really tricky." It might be that your friends had a cancer diagnosis or whatever. And then, "Yeah, and right now, I'm really sad about it." Right? I just have to go home and put the kettle on and make a hot chocolate and just put my arms around myself, literally or metaphorically, and go, "That, that was, that's really tough."
And then because the more we go, and I don't want to feel that, you keep on feeling it. But if you can really just go, "This is tricky." When, when my friend's a racist, or not my friend, but when someone where I live in the complex is a racist, like that hits hard. You don't like that person, and you want to change them, and you can't change them. And da da da. And then you go, "Well, right now, just going to pull back into my my own sort of realm, and I'm going to do whatever is the right thing to do to make myself feel better if that's necessary." And yeah, and just like that is the beautifullest thing about, um, "this too will pass." Like, in the big picture, I I put this some one in my books for teenagers, just laugh out loud, because in 300 years, your zits will not matter. But like, when I get stuck in a big trouble and I can feel myself getting very entangled in it, you know, like, "Oh, should I do something? I'm trying to control it or fix it because I don't like what it's making me feel." Or, and then you just go, "Actually, how important will this be next week? How important will it be next year? Will I still even remember this in 10 years' time?" Make the big picture.
Yeah, and knowing, I think also, what's yours to own. Like, if you see someone, for example, at work or in your family who's like, really going down the wrong path, you just have to basically let them get on with it. You have jurisdiction over this. I can make my own decisions about my personal behavior and my values and my, you know, my how much I'm contributing to capitalist nightmare of overconsumption, and I can make certain choices. And the rest, I can do nothing about. Like, yeah, one of my husbands had that phrase. His sisters, he'd go, "Let them get on with it." It's a useful phrase. I hope that was a part, partially helpful.
Okay, so I've got, has anyone else got a question? I can't see your hands. It's now or never. Now or never. Hi, okay. We'll just spice it off a bit. So, what's the difference? I find people get very confused about this. What's the difference between being, "Things are what they are. I can't change the way that person thinks. I can let this go," and spiritual bypassing?
Yes. Well, that is, that is very good. So, everyone, put your hand up if you don't know what spiritual bypassing is. Okay. So, spiritual bypassing is using the Buddha and the Dharma, or it could be God or Christianity. It's, "I'm just not going to, um, I'm going to pretend I never get angry because I'm a good Buddhist." That's called spiritual bypassing. It's, it's going, "I'm going to use the fact that I'm a spiritual person with a spiritual path to just pretend that ain't happening." And you can do it your whole life, like, "Yes, I'm a good Christian. Yes, I'm a good Buddhist. Yes, I'm very nice. Yes, I'm very happy. Yes, I'm always nice." And for example, in my own case, spiritual bypassing would be not really looking at the fact, which I've had to do over the years, that I have depression. It's genetic. My father killed himself. I look around my my family in New Zealand, they're all either this big or high-achieving alcoholics or drug addicts, like addiction guys. And so, and depression, it's like everywhere I look at my family. And so I've had to go, "It's not enough to go, 'Yes, you go on retreats, you're happy.'" No, at times I've had to go to a psychologist and had to take medication. And I actually had a real, when my second marriage, too much information, ended, I ended up like in hospital, very unwell, even though I'd spent all those years cooking for retreats and doing meditation and da da da. Mental illness is a thing, guys. And we all have our turn at suffering. And then you, you know, now I'm actually really well. I've been well for 14 years. I don't have medication. I'm a happy person more of the time. But spiritual bypassing was pretending I don't have to, you know, "Let's just pretend I'm fine. I'm fine. I meditate. I'm fine." I'm actually like deeply grieving and starting to not cope properly, but no, "I'm fine. I'm fine." That's spiritual bypassing.
And so anyone who just ignores things like, "Oh yeah, my father's an alcoholic. He's fine. He's good. It doesn't worry me." You'd probably be good if you went and talked to a counselor about what it's like to have an alcoholic father. So those, that's a very practical way. And I think that, yeah, everything's a dance. Like loving kindness to yourself is a dance. There are some days when the right thing to do is eat chocolate and eat The Big Bang and eat chocolate and watch The Big Bang Theory. That would be the perfect remedy. On a different day, the perfect remedy would be, "Stop stuffing your face and watching junk TV and go for a walk." But there's no right answer there. And it's the same with what's equanimity and what's spiritual bypassing. So I think the a key word might be authenticity. Like, if you really are calm and able to deal with the fact that your friend's coming to you with endless problems and they're not your problems, and you just need to stay quiet and listen, that would be equanimity and a real thing. Like, you really feel you could do it. But spiritual bypassing would be, um, what would it be in that case? It would be pretending you were fine, but you were actually starting to, like, not like being with that friend and just pretending everything was okay, but you're just sort of ignoring the fact that maybe you need to tell the person that you don't want to hear their troubles every single time you meet. Like, it's a dance. It's a, it's a response. That's one of the main things I got from Zen was responding to the moment. And I think we sort of know at a gut level when am I being authentic and when am I just getting muddled and pretending to be something that I'm not, or acting like saying the polite thing when I actually needed to say a more direct thing. Yeah, like that.
Yeah, so we're nearly on time. So nearly on time. So, um, something I've been pondering lately is, um, where do you think courage comes from? Courage? Like the courage to say, "You know, that is not quite right," or "I'm concerned for you."
Yeah, courage is hard. And to know whether it's courage or foolishness. Like the Zen just says a good thing like, "When something goes really wrong, he says, 'It's great. Immediately do nothing. Immediately do nothing.'" Like, bide your time. You'll know when it's like to say when it's time to actually say to someone, "Actually, I'm really unhappy with you saying racist things in the common room." You know, and when it's, they have to kind of judge, "Is this because, didn't the Buddha say that? Is it timely? Is it kind? Is it timely? Is it wise?" And is it some other thing? And is it helpful? Like, is this person ready to hear it? So sometimes you can, you might be feeling like, "Yes, I've got the courage," but you just got to know. But yeah, it's going to go bad. And also courage, like, am I really, this is what I'm working on at the moment. Am I really steady? Am I personally really steady? I just pulled out of a group I was in, nothing to do with Buddhism, and it was really for the wrong reason. It was really because I was a bit annoyed with someone, and I just kind of, what do you call it, did a knee-jerk reaction. I should have waited till I felt really more steady, and I might have stayed in that group. Like, but there was, I just didn't want to, I just didn't need your reaction. Like, "I don't want to be in your group." But then later I thought, "And were you coming from deep sanity, or were you coming from like, 'Oh, just try and get rid of this?'" No, I was coming from, I was a bit annoyed about something. Anyway, that's a good note to to to finish on. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.
Um, it also reminds me of Rashi Jan Hal saying, "Strong back, soft front." That's right. Strong back, soft front. And if any of you did want to come along to Kings Park at 2:00 on Sunday, it's basically afternoon tea with Buddha people. And they try because not many people, people like to have a thing like that. The nun's going to give a talk. But anyway, the thing for this one is, bring a poem. Yes, like everyone bring a poem and read a poem. And there's a lovely afternoon tea, and you sit under a tree with Buddha people. So it's really nice. Yeah, it'll be really lovely. And I believe the weather forecast is good for Sunday. And if you wear aspect, as you know, you come into the car, there's aspects, the gift shop, it's sort of over in the trees to the right. If you were aspects and looked kind of down there, and guys, do come. It's men and ladies. Yeah, all genders. And just look for the red robes. I'll probably have a tent fly up and a Saroda sign. You can't miss us. But in appreciation for you coming to join us, we have a little gift for you. Oh, thank you. Yes. And we would like to just raise our hands and give you a good rousing, "Sa Sa Sa," or as Chokey would say, "Lexo, Lexo, Lexo." Thank you.
I don't know what S. I shall open this in the car. Okay, thank you, everybody. Brilliant. When I did write of things, I had to say to them, "Don't." And for those who'd like to pay their respects to the Triple Gem, you can, um, join us in that. Oh, back down on my knees for.