Transcription
Let's come into the present moment. Accept what is. Whether it's sunny or snowing or rainy or bright or dark, hot or cold. It is as it is. And entering the meditative state, which is a state of presence. All you have to do is not even doing is to become aware of yourself. What now?
Now, there are different levels to let that witness. So, what does it mean becoming aware of yourself, and what are the levels of awareness? Well, first, you're aware of your body, the external body. That's yourself, one level of yourself. But then you'll notice you may already have an opinion about your body, like it or dislike it. And that's already the next level of awareness, which is awareness of your thoughts. So you have certain thoughts that tell you something about your body. So there's already an interpretation which is in the mind, and that level of thought very often complicates what essentially is very simple out here in external reality. It interprets, it objects, it likes or dislikes. It says, "I want," "I should," "You should," "You should not have," "I should not have," and many other things. An entire sense of identity builds up around your thought patterns, habitual thoughts, reactions, and so on, leading to another level of awareness, which is the emotional level, which is linked to the level of thinking. There's an enormous difference whether you're aware of your thoughts and emotions, or whether the thoughts and emotions just appear and take you over so completely. And that's all there is of you.
So, to become self-aware first of all means to become aware of, yes, your self as the physical body, of yourself as habitual or whatever thinking, emotions. And that's already a great gain to become aware of those things rather than to completely be those things. And then, at the deepest level, you are aware of your own awareness. You're aware of yourself as a presence with no particular form. And that really is the essence of meditation. You can be aware of yourself as I speak and as you listen. Be aware of yourself as the presence that makes the visual and auditory perception possible. There is a presence there. You may be dreaming up this whole thing, and yet, even if you're dreaming right now, what's happening right now, there is still, there would, there has to be a consciousness, a presence in which the dream, in the light of which the dream appears. So it doesn't really make any difference whether it's all a dream or whether it's all real or something in between. What matters is that you are aware of the essence of yourself. Otherwise, you mistake many things that are not the essence of yourself, which is who you really are. You mistake those things for who you are. And then you're totally in the grip of whatever arises in your mind, your mental and emotional field. Of course, that's the, that's what ego means, to be totally in grip, totally identified with whatever arises in your mental, emotional field. That's the ego. A misperception of who you are that needs to defend itself and enhance itself and protect itself continuously. Reaffirm its identity through continuous thinking, very often dysfunctional, very often unpleasant and negative. And yet, you're stuck with it, defending your mental positions all the time, fighting for your life, your psychological survival, survival of the ego entity which is made out of thought. And just being wrong in an argument is a terrible defeat. It's an injury to your sense of self. So, living like that, we can call unconscious, not knowing who you are. We could even say it's being deluded, and it leads to an enormous amount of problems that are generated by the egoic entity. An enormous amount of misery and unhappiness, drama. It's all unnecessary. Life is challenging enough as it is without adding all that unnecessary toward every challenge that life presents you with, and it does that. You get challenged through situations or through people. Get challenged the moment you are born. And not only humans, every life form gets challenged, and survival of the physical forms always precarious. But you amplify the life challenges ensly through unconscious thinking and reactivity. A small challenge becomes a huge thing. And it creates additional your the way in which you respond or react to a situation determines subsequent events. So if you amplify through your reactivity, you amplify a challenge that leads to further challenges. So one small thing can then grow and proliferate into something big.
So your degree of awareness, you can easily measure it. Get a sense of where you are at by becoming aware how you react to everyday situations, especially challenging ones, small challenges. Mostly it's small challenges, occasionally a big one. Small talk does mean challenge means something doesn't go the way you would have expected or wanted it to go. Somebody doesn't do what you expected him or her to do or say should have said, omitted this or that. You're waiting too long on the phone trying to talk to your bank. All little challenges. People are not people who are supposed to do work for you don't do it the way they should be doing it. Uh, they're unreliable. Uh, hundreds of the little things continuously arise. So the question is, can you deal with a situation in a way that is free of reactivity, so you remain peaceful and can still deal with it? If there's something to do, something, something, there's nothing to do, it just isn't, nothing you can do about it. Any reactivity or complaining mentally or out aloud, this unnecessary baggage that you carry around. So, as you know, continuously people don't do or say what you suppose they are supposed to do and say according to your mind, and then the complaining starts in your mind, and then it goes, might become verbal complaining. All that is unconscious living. Awareness becomes obscured the moment you get challenged. That can happen to people who are meditators too. Meditate for half an hour a day or whatever. And yet, the moment you get challenged by life, awareness completely is completely obscured.
So the question is, in daily life, not just here, but this is a kind of training ground for daily life. Where do you sense your identity? Who you are? Where do you sense that? Do you sense that on the level of thinking and opinions, likes and dislikes, and memories and expectations, as most people still do? Or do you sense a deeper identity, a deeper sense of who you are, deeper than anything that arises in the field of thought? A presence. That presence is not threatened by all those things that the ego self is threatened by. So the practice, the spiritual practice, is really a continuous one. And the greatest practice is daily life. The greatest spiritual practice is not when you sit in meditation. One could almost say it's a preparation for your spiritual practice.
>> [bell] >> So our entire retreat is about deepening for most of you and discovering for some of you the ability to live from a deeper state of consciousness. A, we could call it transcendent state of consciousness instead of the thinking state where the person resides. The movement of thought that gives rise to the personality, the person, what most people identify with as themselves. Me, me and my story, me and my history. My opinions, they are very important. My likes and dislikes, desires, fears, experiences, accumulated experiences, knowledge, possessions, sufferings, bad things people have done to me, bad things I did to other people. All those things that make up the personality, and that's fine. You're not, this is not going to disappear while you just like that, just because you're in a retreat center, suddenly you're free of yourself. No, because as you know, wherever you go, there you are. And you can leave behind many things, your home, your usual environment, the people you live with, your work situation. But what you cannot easily leave behind is your mind. It travels with you. And then you're in a new place and you arrive, let's say, here, the retreat center. And if your mind is all there is to you, you will very quickly find a discrepancy, a gap, a conflict between the expectations of your mind and what you're encountering. You will also find old patterns quickly reassert themselves that you thought you had left behind. Reactive patterns, old repetitive thoughts, habits, mental habits, uh, complaining, for example, favorite one for the ego. Oh, I imagined the retreat center to be different. It wasn't supposed to be like that. First of all, it wasn't supposed to rain. And then it's too big. I'd imagine something more intimate. Uh, it's impersonal. I don't like it. Uh, let's see what else I can find that's wrong with it. [clears throat] There are too many people. Oh, wait. I, how can I be, how can I be on retreat with all these people? They're all talking. Why are they all talking? And the food that's not what I expected. And my place, is it's not, it's too small. The, the bed isn't com, um, the shower doesn't work properly. Um, uh, and I had expected, uh, to be at peace, and I'm not at peace. I suppose it's supposed to be a retreat. Why am I not at peace? Well, because yes, you, you are on the level of the person, and you can't expect much change there. You can rearrange the furniture a little bit. >> [clears throat] >> Must think positive. Must think positive. It's actually very nice here. It's nice. [laughter] I like it here. I like it. I like [laughter] it. I should [snorts] be feeling peaceful. I should be feeling peaceful. So that's the thing that travels with you, your mind. I'm sure I haven't exhausted all the possible things that it can say to you. [clears throat] So if you remain stuck in that dimension while you're here, [snorts] it's not going to be a terribly satisfying experience. And you might even be longing to get back home, and then you can look, might look on your smartphone on the weather forecast at home. It's so much better than here.
So, but we are here in order to experience a deeper level to who we are, rather than we, you are here to experience a deeper level to who you are. Deeper than the person or the personality, which is not going to go away completely. No, it's, it's there. But there is an unconditioned state of consciousness underneath all that, much vaster than the conditioned. The analogy applies that I often use. The unconditioned is the ocean. The conditioned is the ripples on the surface of the ocean. And that's you. You are the ripple. You're also the ocean. And to live more from the, the level of depth, the unconditioned consciousness, is why we're here. [clears throat] So, in order not to get trapped in the repetitive activity of your mind, we need to invite the unconditioned consciousness. You need to invite the unconditioned consciousness into your life at every moment. Use this opportunity here to do that. And we already did it when we started just now, when I said, listen to the silence in the room, and you went, that is the, something that's deeper than the personality that emerged for a moment when you went, your, your degree of attention rose a little, and and you. And now, the strange thing is, when you're listening to silence like now, there's nothing to listen to. So what are you listening to? And I say, listen to the silence. I'm basically saying listen to nothing, because there's no sound except my voice. But when I'm not speaking, it just goes. Unless your hearing is better than mine, and there is some sound that I can't hear, but I can't hear it. So listen to the silence. A seemingly very simple thing, a seemingly very insignificant thing. But all the things, all the practice that we do, our retreat here, is really [clears throat] this is only one version of of the same practice, which is the step from the thinking mode into the presence mode or awareness mode, whatever you want to call it, the unconditioned conscious, and experience yourself as not only the person, which is the thinking mode, experience yourself as the depths of awareness. So you, the transcendent you [cough] [clears throat] emerges more as you're here. So listen to the silence, and you go, and you're not really listening to anything, because there's nothing to listen to. But something happened. It's, it goes far beyond listening. That was only the entry point. And we use the auditory perception as an entry point into a different state of consciousness. Now, the wonderful thing is, when you're listening to silence, when you're listening to sound, there's something there that [clears throat] you can be aware of whatever sound you're listening to. A musical sound, a bird song, any sound, the rain, my voice. When you listen to a sound, you listen to your, you are conscious of something. That's the normal state. But when you're listening to no sound, what are you conscious of? You're not conscious of anything, because there's nothing there. You are just conscious. And when you're just conscious, the historical you has for a moment subsided. Because when you're just conscious and listening to the silence, you don't even remember your name, nor do you remember your date of birth, nor do you remember whether your life up to this point has been a big success or a huge failure. [panting] It becomes irrelevant. If you listen to the silence, it's irrelevant whether your life up to this point has been great or miserable. Well, for most of you, it's a mixture. [laughter] For some of you, one predominates, and for some others, the other predominates. But the moment you access that deeper consciousness, you are that deeper consciousness, that becomes irrelevant for that moment. You are still there, but not the historical you. The historical you, for a moment, has subsided, and you go. So you're not listening to anything. You're not conscious of anything. You are just conscious. You're not aware of anything. You're just aware. So you are the, the object has been removed when you listen to the silence, because silence is nothing there. And so, another way of putting it, when you listen to silence, you can become easily aware that you are aware. Usually, you have a ray of, let's [clears throat] say, a ray of sunlight is looking for stuff, and it goes, "Oh, there," and there, and there, and there, and there. And then suddenly, there's nothing to look at. Uh, and only then the ray of sunlight suddenly becomes aware of itself. And it may even become aware that it's connected to something vast, the sun in our analogy. And that's a moment of transcendence of the self, which is kind of Buddhist terminology, or we could call it self-realization of, do you realize it, the transcendent self, rather than being stuck in the personal self. The transcendent self is what the Buddhists call, just to confuse you, what the Buddhists call the no-self. [panting] There is no self. The Buddha says, in some Indian teachers, "Yes, there is the great self." The transcendence of, no, you're wrong. There is no self. I'm telling you there is a self. They're talking about the same thing.
>> [bell] >> Welcome. Down. Here we are again in the present moment on the surface of life. Time has passed since last time. But at a deeper level, it's still one moment present. So usually our live meditation lasts around 40 minutes or so. That's the average time passes. So I can say we're going to be here for 40 minutes. And yet, you don't really experience the 40 minutes. You only ever experience this moment. So time is memory and anticipation. And of course, it's necessary for this world to arise. Even understand what I'm saying. We need the memory of what I've just said. To complete a sentence or even word, even to utter a word takes time. I say time takes about 2 seconds or 1 second. Time. Just just say the word. So you need to remember the beginning of the word to understand it. You need to remember the beginning of the sentence. That's already memory. Or music. We need to remember the preceding sounds, and then it forms a whole. And yet, the actual experience is of just this moment. The secondary experience is your memory. So you bring together the immediate experience of this moment, is only this, with the secondary dimension of memory. And then the world around us, things make sense. [clears throat] Now, there's a tendency for the secondary dimension of reality, which is memory, to obscure, distort the experience, the immediate experience, the aliveness of the present moment. You can no longer perceive the present moment clearly. You see nothing as it is. You perceive nothing as it is because you are overwhelmed by the memory dimension. So, in actual, in your daily life, in a person's daily life, that manifests as a narrative in their mind through which they interpret everything, all sense perceptions, reality. The narrative in their mind, which is memory, which is the conditioned mind, colors, distorts everything they perceive in the present, and that manifests in Cers. ways. It's the essence, for example, of what we call prejudice. If you have a narrative in your mind about a certain group of people, a certain race, a certain political belief system, a certain religion, a certain social class, a certain gender, a certain culture, you have a narrative in your mind. And then whenever you meet a human being who belongs to that, on the level of form, belongs to that race or that culture or that gender or subscribe to that certain belief system, you, you cannot actually experience this human being as a human being. You see that passing through the narrative. And then you do it to yourself. You have some set of opinions, thoughts of who you are. And that becomes the foundation for your sense of identity. And perhaps you subscribe to a particular belief system, political, religious, whatever it may be. It's a collective identity, and then it gets combined with a personal sense of self. Certain things that happened in your past, or you interpret things in a certain way that happened in the past, or maybe never happened, or it's a distorted version of what happened. But all that becomes the narrative. Me as the victim, for example, is a very favorite one for the ego, collective ego, personal ego. You can be a collective victim, you can be a personal victim. So, enormously satisfying sense of identity. It's dangerous because there's this movement in the collective at the moment of emphasizing the victimhood of groups of people, and then so satisfying to the ego, you can make others wrong, you don't like, see who they are, see them through the narrative. Of course, groups of people have been victimized in the past. Perhaps you, as a personal entity, has experienced victimization on a personal level through other unconscious humans, whether it be your parents or at school or discriminated against for personal reasons or whatever. Of course, all this happens. There's a big difference between seeing that this is, this is what happened in the past, and deriving a sense of self from that. It's a huge trap. Because then the memory continuously obscures the present, the presence in you, which is all your potential. The conditioned mind, your far identity is. And what gives you your sense of self? And there's always a sense of superiority in it, concealed, sometimes obvious, sometimes concealed. You can have a form identity that is, you are better than most people in whatever way. Better looking, have more money, better social class, more intelligent, more knowledgeable, more physically, physically stronger. Many, many ways in which you can derive your identity from a sense of superiority. And even if it's a victim identity, which seems to be the opposite of believing that you are better than most, it's still a sense of superiority towards others. You're superior in your victimhood. Morally severe, dangerous trap. So you get people get trapped in their conditioned mind, that becomes their personality. And then the most essential thing is missing from their lives, and that is the dimension of depth. I sometimes call it the transcendent dimension. With the personality, the conditioned mind that makes up the personality, is transcended. Which means you become aware of something that is more essential, more real than the personality. Conditioned mind. Our meditation here, the purpose of it is to make you aware of that dimension, want to deepen it. You're already aware of it. Right now, in the conceptual mind, we're not even understanding what I'm saying. All that happens is a, the arising of a sense of depth in you, and this space in the stream of thinking that otherwise is continuous. Space arises in the stream of thinking, and you're conscious but not thinking, and you know that you're conscious. And yet, there's no sense of self, no concept. You just, you know you're. It is possible that the mind may come in and say, "Oh, I'm not thinking." God, yes, that can happen. And then you acknowledge that, and then that thought goes, and then again, it's just the presence. Doesn't matter for how long, just something arises that is inner spaciousness, but there's an alertness that goes with it. And that's also very peaceful. It's an alive sense of peace in you that has nothing to do with what's going on in your life. You could realize that dimension whether you're in a prison cell or in a mansion, or whether you're sitting on a bus or you're sitting in your Rolls-Royce, doesn't matter. It's the same thing. And then that is so liberating because then many things that before were so terribly important to have to achieve, to keep, yes, they may still have some importance, but not absolute importance anymore. Now, the self, the full identity, of course, is still there. You still have a physical body with certain characteristics, and you have a psychological self. There's still you as a psychological entity based on the past, of course, still there, and you acknowledge that it's there, and you even become comfortable with it bothering it. But at the same time, knowing directly, experientially, that that is not who you essentially are. And one way of putting it is that that means you are rooted in being. And yet, you acknowledge and honor the human part of you, the human dimension. Because you are a human being. Most people only know themselves as human. They don't know themselves as the being without which there could be no human. Human is form. Being is essence. Human is the ripple wave from the surface of the ocean. Being is the ocean.
>> [bell] >> Welcome to our meditation. An interesting question to ask yourself and, uh, [sighs] you can find out the answer right now is [sighs] whether you're able to stop thinking for a few seconds or, oh, or whether it's impossible to find any gap in the stream of thinking. And you don't stop thinking by exercising willpower. That would not be helpful. For example, holding your breath. I don't recommend that because you, yes, you could stop thinking by holding your breath and getting very tense, and then you're feeling you're holding thought at bay like this. But the moment you start breathing again, thought will rush back in even more strongly than before. So it's holding your breath. I don't recommend. But if you're not able to just stop thinking, not, not that many people can do that, you may want to use something to help you to not think. And that is, for example, not holding your breath, but being aware that you're breathing. Observing that you're breathing. Observing the in-breath, feeling it, sensing it, and the out-breath, and even being aware of a short gap at the end of each in and out breath. You breathe in, hold for two seconds or so, but don't even have to do that, and out. And there's a sensation at the end of the out-breath, a natural sensation. And then you breathe in again. And you continue to be aware of your breathing. And when you do that, you're not thinking. That's why breath awareness is an ancient meditation method. It's also very pleasant. And then after a while, you may notice there's a sense of aliveness, uh, behind the breath, so to speak. So if you're looking for a very simple meditation technique, observing your breath is a good one. Just as inner body awareness that I've written and spoken about, they are related. If you're observing your breath, you're also becoming aware of the energy field inside your body. It's [clears throat] all very pleasant. [sighs] Very simple, peaceful. Sometimes thinking may come back in, and if that happens, you just return your attention to your breathing. And in daily life, when you want a moment of no-thought, which is [sighs] extremely important to get into the habit of cultivating the state of not thinking when you don't actually need to think. So that when you do need to think, your thinking is actually more effective, more powerful, more intelligent. When you are connected with a deeper realm of not thinking, which is the unconditioned consciousness. So in daily life, you cultivate as much as possible just finding brief moments of no-thought throughout your daily life. You could associate it with a breath. I call it the briefest one is one conscious breath, as I call it, which is you breathe in, you breathe out, and while you breathe in and out, just one in-breath, one out-breath, and while you do that, you're just very much aware of the air flowing into the body, the air flowing out of the body. Conscious, unconscious breath means you're not thinking during that brief moment, and that's very significant when you're not thinking without losing consciousness. In fact, being more alert than if when you are thinking, that is finding a new dimension of consciousness within yourself.
Well, it's true that, uh, the most important things that a human being needs, needs to know to lead a life that is conscious and does not create unnecessary suffering. Uh, those things are generally speaking not taught at school or university. There are some exceptions. There are certain, uh, alternative schools where some of these things, I believe, are being introduced or are being taught. And there are individual teachers also who bring in, uh, these important teachings into their classroom, although they're not part of the official curriculum. But on the whole, I believe it is true that, uh, all those essential things for a human being to know how to live skillfully and consciously, uh, these things are not yet being taught on a large scale. So, what's wis, what's lacking is wisdom in our contemporary world, and wisdom, of course, uh, uh, should not be confused with, uh, intelligence or information or even education. You can be highly educated and completely lacking in wisdom, or you may have little education but be connected to that inner realm where wisdom arises, which is the dimension of awareness or presence. So the most vital thing to learn is to be in touch with this inner dimension of presence or awareness, and, uh, that, um, certain things you can teach, uh, that are purely conceptual. Uh, we can teach mathematics or historical information, um, facts. Those things you can teach, um, easily. All it is required is that the teacher has, uh, sufficient knowledge to be able to teach these facts. Then there's another type of teaching which would apply to, um, uh, subjects such as music or dance. Uh, anything creative, even, even cooking, uh, those things, uh, require more than conceptual knowledge. So there's something that you need to absorb that goes beyond conceptual knowledge. And so you wouldn't go to a teacher to, uh, taking music lessons, uh, and the teacher does not know how to play music, um, might only have conceptual information about music. So that would not be a good music teacher. The teacher needs to have absorbed the, uh, practice of playing music on a deep level before he or she can teach it. And that applies to other subjects, even as I said, even cooking. You wouldn't want to take a cooking lesson from somebody who has only read, uh, 500 recipe books but never done any cooking themselves. So a teacher, uh, in order to teach awareness to students, the teacher needs to have some access at least within to that dimension to even know what, what he or she is talking about. And so that's, it's vitally important then to, uh, realize that this is not an academic subject that is added to the other subjects that you learn at school, but it's something that should underly all, all teaching at school, something of a foundation for everything that is taught and done at school should be that everything arises out of that. So it's not an added on, not, it's not even, it's not a separate subject that can be taught, but something more vital. And so that also then applies to adults who are beginning to learn what really matters in life, or already, um, practicing it. So, uh, the question being asked was to, um, perhaps isolate three areas that are of vital importance that we don't learn at school, but that every human being needs to know and practice. And I would like to start with, uh, the fact that many humans alive nowadays seem to be disconnected from nature. And this is especially important for children who live in big cities, inner cities. Uh, it is a huge, uh, handicap for children not to be in touch with the natural world, and that of course not only applies to children, but also applies to every, every human being. So, the, I'd like to talk for a while about the importance of connecting with the natural world, of bringing awareness to the, to the way in which you experience the world of nature, and how important it is to make that connection. How nature can keep you, not only keep you sane in this almost increasingly insane world. How going back into nature periodically and connecting with nature can keep you sane and can help you to stay present. So, uh, I would recommend as a, not as a spiritual practice, but as a normal way of being, to, as much as you can, to go out into nature, and whether it is, um, a city park, whether it is actual nature outside of the city, the seashore, the forest, the open fields, it's the desert. Uh, whatever it may be, whatever may be closest to you, go out there and, uh, spend time as much as you can, uh, regularly in the natural world. And if, uh, you might even just be your backyard, if you can't get out. There may be something, uh, in your, the little garden that you have, if you have one. Um, it doesn't matter if you can't get out into wide open nature. Nature is everywhere around you. Um, important thing to realize is when you look at the world around you, uh, it can easily be, this fact can easily be overlooked. You can, it's divided into the, the things that humans have made that surrounds you, and then another part of reality is the things that humans have not made, that came into being, and all that is nature. There, and even where you are sitting, where I'm sitting, or you are sitting there, is part, part of what surrounds you is human-made, and another part, what surrounds you, unless it's nighttime, you might not, but wherever you are, uh, is, uh, the natural world. For example, where I'm sitting here, I'm sitting in a room, and I see the furniture in the room and whatever is here, and then I'm looking outside, and there's the sky, and there are trees. Very fundamental, two different, other different realities, the human-made world and the natural world. And whenever you go outside of your house, immediately you go into, you realize there's on the one hand, you have this, there's the street. It's paved, probably, or unless you live in the country, and then there you have cars and you have buildings, and but then also there's trees, perhaps there's a tree, and then there's always the sky, and you can always look up at the sky. Even if there's no particular nature around you, you can look at the sky. There's nature. The ever-changing sky is incredible. Just awareness of the weather. I, I'm always, I love weather. I love different kinds of weather, no matter what it is. And that changes. Well, sometimes it doesn't change for several days. Here in the winter, it rains a lot. Not today. But, but that's fine, too. I love the rain. I love the sunshine. I love the sky. It's just, it's a, whenever you look at the sky, it's a, it's a, it's a new painting. Every, every day, sometimes every hour, there's a new painting that appears. It's all this is a non-human-made world. So become more aware of all those things that have not been made by humans, but the natural things. And so, the, so even just that little awareness that whenever you're outside, even in a city, there will be things, or in a city, the major, most of the things that you see in the city will be human-made, but there's always the sky, and there may be some trees or some green patches of grass. Um, uh, so there's always this, there, there's always something there that is not human-made. And then, of course, you may be able to get out of the city or go into a city park where they, you have more, you become aware, aware that of more things that are natural than those that are, uh, human-made. So you become aware of those. And now you are out in nature, whether it's a park, let's say you're in a park or out in actual nature, then the question arises, are you actually there, or is only your body there and your mind is still somewhere else because you're thinking about your problems or some mental dialogue or monologue is going on in your head, and you're peripherally aware of nature. You say, "Oh, how nice." And then again, you go, and you, and you're walking on, and you're not, you're not you're not present in nature. So you're not really there. So that doesn't help you that much. It might be give you a little bit of relief, but you're not really connecting with nature. There's another thing that people do, and there's nothing wrong with that. U, you, they go into nature with a specific purpose. They have a specific purpose in mind, and the purpose might be, they go jogging on the forest trail or out in the fields or on the beach. They go jogging. And so they have their, their, they have their watch on, and then they, they go, "Uh, yes, that's great." There's nothing wrong with jogging. It's good for the body, your breathing. Um, but, uh, are you really there connecting with nature? No. Because the purpose of what you're doing is more important than connecting with with the ocean. If you go, let's say on your, on the beach, you're jogging, the, your main thing is that the, the timing and the jogging, that can be exhilarating. There's nothing wrong with that. There is a place for that. But, but there's something else. So if it's not jogging, it could be, um, you go into nature in order to, uh, achieve some, some other purpose. You go with a specific purpose. You go bird watching or something, and then you can identify birds, and that's, there's nothing wrong with that either. But this, so you can, this is all you can, you can bring doing into nature, and there's nothing wrong with it. There's a place for it. Uh, climb a mountain, fine. But so that there's a doing element that you can bring in, and modern humans, uh, are more obsessed with doing. They are obsessed with doing and not connected with the being dimension. They've lost the being dimension because they're always doing, and they bring that into nature. They, they're always doing something, then so then they're doing nature. The important thing then to more deeply connect with nature is to bring in the being dimension. You could call it, if you like, yin and yang. So if you go into, in a yang state, into nature, you, there's some, there's a doing element, or in, you bring in the being, which is the simple fact of awareness. Now, you can be aware even while you're walking, perhaps you can even be aware even while you're jogging, but, um, I would recommend that that you bring in this element of quiet perception of nature. So that sometimes you walk, you walk slowly, or you stand, or you sit, and then, uh, uh, an alertness arises in you. An alertness, and this alertness is the arising of presence, and then you begin to see whatever it is that surrounds you that is there. And so this alertness then becomes the background to your sense perceptions. And this is a different way of being in nature. This is the beginning of connecting with nature at a deeper level. So you bring in that element of, could call [clears throat] it awareness. So you, you begin to look at something, and you see a tree. Sometimes you see, you may find that your attention, uh, uh, focuses on a single object that you see in nature. Occasionally, you look at one tree, or you look at a branch, or even the leaf of one tree, or you look at a fern in the forest here, or go for walks. Lots of ferns, they thrive even in the winter because the winters are not very terribly cold here. So the ferns continue to survive. They, the ferns have been here, very early plants have been here for 100 million years. They've been the same, and they're still, they're, they're there in their, be, their quiet beauty. So you, and you look at, sometimes you look at single things in nature, and sometimes you look at the totality of whatever it is, the forest, you take in the totality, but you become still, you become present, and then you're fully there, and then you, and then you connect with that. There's a field in nature, there is a field of aliveness or presence that underlies whatever it is you perceive with your senses. And the moment, I'm only talking about the visual sense, but there's also the other senses can come in and should come in when you're out in nature. There's the auditory perceptions. What is it? What are the sounds of nature? And so there may be occasional birds. There may be the, the wind in the trees. You can hear, or you can, uh, there might be a brook of water trickling. Water is an amazing sound. The sound of water, if you pay attention to the, whether it's rain or a brook or river or the ocean. The sound of water in any form, if you give it attention, it's a wonderful way of just connecting there. There's something incredibly soothing and and and healing just by directing your attention to the sound of water. And, and I'm just taking water as one example. It could also be the sound of birds. It could be the sound of, uh, the wind. Uh, whatever it may be. So you can be aware simultaneously of what you see and what you hear. And then there may be, of course, your breathing. There may be certain smells of nature. So say it's the ocean. The ocean has a particular smell, or here, the forest. Go into the forest. It has a, you smell the, the moisture and the aliveness of the, of the soil where there's decaying matter, but out of the decaying matter, new life continuously arises, and you can smell it's all vitally, it's so alive, everything is alive. And but when you're not really there, when you're in your mind, you don't, you, you have no idea, you don't know, you don't know you're not there. So when you're there, you, you can sense this, this aliveness of what surrounds you. And so nature, whatever it could, even if it's a city park, you might still hear noises of traffic and so on, and yet there you are, there's grass, there's trees, there's the sky. Uh, that's beautiful. For I lived for many years in in London, for example. And so the, the great redeeming feature about London, which otherwise can, I mean, is a great city, can really grind you down, having to go to work on the in the underground, the subway, the tube, and every day, and all can really grind you down. But London has these open spaces, the parks, Regent's Park, Hyde Park, and a little bit in the north, my favorite, Hampstead, would go out there almost every day, and be immediately stillness, descends, and you go, and then there's a, The appreciation of nature then grows in you, and this is not connected with knowledge about nature. That has its place too. You don't need particular knowledge of what these trees are, what how they grow, and what they do. That's another way of, but there's a deeper, this is a knowing that is not conceptual. You know nature in a, there is unitive knowing, that's you know nature, but not conceptually. You have a deep relationship with nature, and nature can help you to not get lost in your mind. But you, you have to take the initial steps always. The initial steps is your choice to be present, to direct your attention to your sense perceptions in nature. What, that's how, how you could begin to connect with it, and then you may sense an underlying energy field that is goes beyond that which you perceive with your senses. Uh, and people have used different words to describe what that is. U, but there's a, there is a sacredness. That's the most appropriate word that occurs to me. There's a sacred, sacred presence there. And I'm not romanticizing nature by saying that. I know very well that nature can kill you. Just like everything else, the water is a wonderful thing. Water, physically, you are like 75% water, but water can kill you, too. The heat of the sun is, is the same heat that's in your body. But of course, the heat of the sun can also kill you. That's the, there's enormously powerful energy there. It's not a romantic view. It goes beyond that. And if you cannot go out, you might be just at home. And maybe you have a plant at home, a potted plant. I have quite a few. And even that, it's how, but how after you've had a plant, do you, do you really give it attention? By the way, there have been books written. I don't want to go into that, about if you give attention to a plant, it thrives more than another plant that is not given attention. And that's actually is a fact because the attention that you give is an outflow of energy towards the plant. But not only that, something comes back at you to it. There's a connection there. Here I have one, for example, that's a jade plant in a pot, and, uh, I have several jade plants. Uh, now again, you look at a plant, you're not only looking, you have to give it attention and become still, and then you can sense its aliveness. You can sense, it's kind of, one could almost say it's surrounded by a field of stillness. And sometimes I like to touch it. You touch the leaves, they are firm and very alive, and they're shiny. It means the, the plant is happy. When the leaves are shiny, the plant is happy. I have lived with jade plants for many years and observed them very closely. Not only as potted plants here in California, they grow outside in the garden here, they would not survive in the winter, just, it's, and in the garden, they grow quite tall, taller than me, some of the jade plants with trunks that are like massive trunks, like, uh, little like bonsai tree trunks. Some jade plants grow in the sun. They are exposed to several hours of sunlight, and the leaves are very small and light green. Those who are exposed to a lot of sun. Other jade plants out in the open in California, they grow under the, the oak trees, and the leaves are much bigger and dark green, but they adjust, they any climate, they adjust to, and there, I mean, any temperature except when it gets too low. But these are, this is just, uh, what, what I've observed. So the, each plant is, uh, is like an individual being. The important thing is to connect without labeling it. Although I'm talking about it now, but these are just pointers. I want to point to the possibility of connecting without mental labels. So just look and give it attention, the fullness, the aliveness of it, and, uh, it is still, there's no doubt about it that everything, plant is very, very still, very, it's rooted. I say it's rooted in being, and the more attention you give it, the more rooted in being you become. It teaches you, one could say, the plant teaches you to be more rooted in being and teaches you to be free of unnecessary conceptualization. And here I have the forest, and I often sit here and just look at the forest. This is a, we've got that some transparent blind here because otherwise the light doesn't work. But, um, and that's a wonderful meditation, just to, just to sit, and every day I spend a period of time looking at the trees. It sounds, um, it's deeply, uh, peaceful. And so again, if you go out into nature, bring in other senses. It's not just the visual. There's also the auditory, and there's also the, what is the word, all factory, smelling, and there is the, your skin, you can sense the air on your skin when you, this might be a slight breeze. So you come, you're, you're in your, you become, you come to your senses, and this is a spiritual practice then to go into any natural environment and, uh, direct your awareness to your sense perceptions of nature. And if it's, as I said, if it's only the sky, that's wonderful. Give attention to this, to look at the sky. I don't think about it. You just, you just look, and it's like a, people go into art galleries to look at paintings. If you look at the sky, it's a painting every, and it changes constantly. It's an, it's an incredible artist seems to be doing it. Uh, it's the abstract paintings. Every time you look in the sky, it's a new abstract painting. Now, the most important thing about this is the realization that you do not live in a world that is dead, but vitally alive. Humans are so disconnected from nature that nature is not perceived as intensely alive, let alone sacred. Because humans are trapped in the conceptualized mind, and this deadens everything. You cannot even sense your own aliveness because you have a mental concept of who you are, and that gives you your sense of identity. That's a terrible disconnection. The disconnection from nature is cannot be separate from the disconnection with with your own deeper nature. So humans are disconnected from nature because they're disconnected from their own nature, the, the, who they are, who or what they are in their essence. They come together. So to give more attention to nature can also help you to awaken the connectedness with your own nature, with because everything is pervaded with, as I see it, pervaded with spirit. There's only the one, the one, the one consciousness that's manifesting this world, manifesting as life forms in this world. And so, uh, especially at the present time, it's vitally important for you to connect with nature and deepen your connectedness with nature and use, use these little practices, if you want to call it that, until these practices become second nature to you, so to speak. These are no longer practiced. They're a natural way of being in nature. You do not need your conceptualizing mind when you are in nature. Let go of that. Use this opportunity to be present, and, uh, then nature will, uh, can heal you on every level. Even if you have an animal in your home, that's also nature. And we know that how healing it is to have an animal presence in your home, a dog or a cat. Uh, and even mainstream science have figured out that it's not only, uh, soothing and healing to have an animal, it's even good for you physically. It, it helps people. It, they've, they've done studies that people who have an animal have a have better health and and live longer. You can, you can, but that was no surprise to me. Yes. An animal is nature. When you, and you have to again give it, give attention to, give attention to the animal, look into the eyes of the animal, and realize what the animal that you love, what you ultimately love in the animal is invisible. Everything else is lovely to touch. Yes, to look at, but there, there is a presence there, and that presence in the cat, in the dog, there is a presence, and that presence is what you love. And there's also a presence in the tree and in the flower that is you cannot see, but you can sense that presence, and that [clears throat] presence is the sacredness of every life form. It's the essence of every life form, and it's inseparable from the essence of who you are. So vitally important, go as much as possible into nature, and let's say, if you are in prison, well, there are some people who are virtually in prison these days. If you are in prison, and some are actually in prison. If you are in prison and you can hardly see the sky, you cannot even see the sky. In extreme case, you still have your body, your own body, and you become aware of the aliveness in your body, and that's also nature. So that is always there, and, and again, that's a vital thing that on the spiritual path is to sense the aliveness within, which is the in, that is a beginning of the invisible presence that you are, that is inseparable from who you are. Look how still the trees are. I'm get, I should be getting out of the way and just let the trees speak. And this is Kai, too.