Speaker 3
I sometimes think of it this way. We allow all things to be as they are, but some of the things we need to allow are the fact that sometimes we're called upon to take certain action. Like if a child is drowning, we might be called upon to jump in and save the child. It's something we need to allow and accept just as well. So I don't think that allowing everything to be as it is precludes taking action. Action that we're called upon to take is another thing to be allowed. Yes,
Speaker 1
exactly. Yes, people think the Buddha just sat there and did nothing. The Buddha was very attached to his experience. He was very identified with his body. If the Buddha wasn't identified with his mind, then what would he do? What would he do? What would he do at all? There's a lot of misconceptions that I see is that people think, I need to stop identifying with my thoughts. I need to stop identifying with my body and my mind and I can't be attached. On the contrary, if we weren't identified with a body and a mind, I wouldn't be getting into my car, putting on my clothes, right? We need to develop this intelligence that says that I know the me on the level of the body and the mind is the me on the level of the body and the mind. You know what i mean you might have seen that your yourselves with with um the kind of in the kind of paradigm of non-duality do you as part of your teachings uh
Speaker 2
suggest specific things that people can do to uh either forgive themselves or to uh or to let go of anxiety? I know that you say anxiety and depression was a problem for you. Do you do practices for yourself now or do you suggest those? The
Speaker 1
one thing I suggest is an all-embracive, all-giving to our entire experience. People try to fixate on an emotion in order to feel it, process it, let it go. But the only reason we would ever focus individually on an emotion or a feeling is if we're trying to get rid of it. And if we're trying to get rid of it, as you both know, it just causes more resistance. So the most effective approach that I've found is to give complete freedom to everything and to be always that freedom, be always that forgivingness that gives all things the freedom to exist. sounds that appear right now in your experience they are being experienced and let go instantaneously there's no resistance to them the sensations that we call anxiety or emotions they're exactly the same the sensation of your bum on the chair is no different to the sensation of anxiety the only difference is that anxiety is a sensation in combination with a belief that we should not be experiencing it. You see? If we thought the sensation of our bum on the chair was a problem, we would suffer that. We would suffer that like we would anxiety. So the role is just like we are always in a perpetual state of letting experience be continue letting experience be with the feelings that happen in our chest or our stomach or or or wherever they are it
Speaker 3
reminds me what what you've been saying just now reminds me one of your videos where you had a metaphor, which I thought was really wonderful. It was the metaphor of the spider web for emotions that's made up of sensation and belief. I was wondering if you could go into that metaphor a little bit, because I think it's germane to what we're just talking about.
Speaker 1
so like like i mentioned about um the difference between the sensation of our bum on the chair and anxiety is that one sensation is in combination with a thought that believes it shouldn't be there and although that we shouldn't experience it um all all sensation that we find uncomfortable so basically the the analogy is that an emotion is the combination of two things uh a feeling or a sensation just like any other sensation and a thought and when we have a thought about it usually that's fine if we have what two thoughts about it it gets a little more sticky three thoughts a little stickier and then all of a sudden we have a web of thoughts that are attached to the sensation and we only we only seem to the more thoughts we add emotions that we don't have a problem with we don't add many thoughts to happiness this we don't add any thoughts to that we don't add any thoughts to joy there's just pure causeless happiness we don't give reasons to it these more sticky emotions they usually come from a time we've resisted our experience and learned that resisting this emotion will be effective again so we attach i shouldn't feel this because of that this i don't deserve to feel and these are like webs so these beliefs are like a spider's web that trap the sensation so in order for us to fully um be with these emotions without suffering them we have to we have to essentially disentangle it from the web of beliefs that that bind it right
Speaker 2
thank you I like that and I
Speaker 2
will try to come up with phrases to help point me in this direction, because I forget it. So the phrase I'm using now when I have what could be called uncomfortable feelings is, it's all good. know i'm sitting here with anxiety that's all good you know and and that helps me to not resist and to surrender to the moment of what is and um i'm wondering uh if you have tricks like that or if it just is more automatic for you.
Speaker 1
For me, it's completely automatic, but I would suggest if there is a thought, if the emotion continues to cause suffering, we have to see the truth in the belief that is binding it because the reason it's causing suffering is because we don't want it to be there we the source of existence do not want something to exist how magical is that and because we're so compassionate and loving we will still allow it to be there but we will just suffer through it so so all we do is seek the truth of the thought that is binding that emotion and the questions can be creative we can we can create our own it really does depend on what the feeling what the emotion is saying or what we're saying to the emotion so for example anxiety we can ask questions like what is and I suggest going all the way because why would we go halfway if the anxiety is related to death which it always usually is some form of identity then we need to inquire into the one that is feeling the anxiety and we need to see its reality that's what i would do that you can do there's more there's there's less progressive paths which is what therapy is for therapy your therapist won't say on whose behalf is this anxiety being felt because most people at that stage have a lot stickier emotions there's a lot more to go through i'm talking specifically now uh to to us guys um and to to probably the majority of the listeners we need to see on whose behalf is that anxiety being felt if the anxiety is being felt on behalf of what which where is that that entity that it's being felt by we'll always find that there is no specific embodied entity that that is having anxiety and that then will be seen as well then if no one is having the anxiety then why do i feel like i am having anxiety? What is the I that feels like I'm having the anxiety? And then we see that, oh, I have temporarily lost myself in the emotion or the thought or the belief, then subsequently the feeling. So we just drop it. It's so simple. It's so gentle. We just drop it. And that doesn't mean that the feeling will instantly disappear but it means the feeling is no longer a problem so then we go then into this all-embracive forgivingness to our entire experience which is like we are already accepting all sensations sights sounds smells touches tastes we then continue accepting the emotion we don't need to focus on it the only time i would suggest in my experience that has been necessary to focus on an emotion is if we're trying to befriend it so there's the difference between um it's like if we're being genuinely friendly with it right like like like a the who's been in our apartment for 10 years and we've never introduced ourselves. We're introducing ourselves as a friend. We're not introducing ourselves because the lease is up in a month and we need to kick him out, right? We're not doing it. We're not doing that. We're introducing ourselves genuinely as a friend to get to know it. If I thought it was so uncomfortable to live with it for so long why don't i try the one thing i've never tried see what's so uncomfortable about it and then we find it's there's never any discomfort we'd be very good friends in fact if we got to know each other that's that's the kind of attitude to have i think yeah
Speaker 3
i think that's so so great There's a lot of the emotions we see as an enemy, you know, particularly, let's say, fear. Let's say you have a fear of doing what you need to do in order to succeed in your career or whatever that fear might be. And you see that as an obstacle and as an enemy. But when I first realized that it wasn't an enemy it was installed at a very early age and it was there to protect me and why would it want to protect me because it loved me and when i saw that as i mean maybe it's youthfulness it had outgrown but when i when I loved it, when I said, oh, you love me. Wow. All right. I love you. I love you, too. Yeah.
Speaker 1
Yeah. I feel game
Speaker 1
exactly. And we find that if you think about it on an ultimate level. We want to protect and preserve life that's nature nature wants to ultimately protect and preserve life yes nature is also killing things all the time but the human experience is where like we've mentioned where intelligence love and wisdom is imbued into that process so therefore we can continue to be um and express that that love in a different way and when you when you look at it like that when you said about the emotion um it cares for you it's a part of experience where the same the same love that wants to protect other people right the body and the minds that if we believe that if for example when you when you believe for example that that emotion believe that your body and mind were integral for your survival as that which is alive but obviously that which is alive is not limited to the body and the mind but at the time it didn't know that but however with the resources you had it protected what it thought it needed to protect you know which is kind of what i'm seeing you say but it's the same it's beautiful because it's the same love that that would still protect our children our body if we were being held at gunpoint or whatever we would do you see what i mean it's the same love, just slightly misguided, with limited resources doing the best it could. Right, right. Well, it's all love,
Speaker 3
ultimately. That's
Speaker 2
another good phrase. Instead of it's all good, it's all love. Sometimes disguised, or we don't see through the disguise so easily, or we interpret it in a different way. But to see that it's all love is a definite paradigm shift in how we view what's happening.
Speaker 1
Yes, it's absolutely true.