June 23, 2025 • 24 mins
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The statement "everything is created by the mind" might seem deceptively simple, but as explored in this thought-provoking bonus track, it contains profound implications about how we perceive and interact with reality. Drawing from a personal experience teaching a meditation workshop, we witness the stark contrast between someone who immediately grasps this concept and another who actively resists it—highlighting how differently the same wisdom lands depending on who receives it.
Through vivid examples and unexpected humor, we challenge our romantic notions about nature, like how we anthropomorphize birdsong as beautiful melodies when birds are actually communicating about survival, territory, and mating. This pattern of mental projection extends to everything we encounter, revealing how our minds constantly construct the reality we experience, often without our awareness.
Yet this teaching carries a powerful duality. While it empowers us with the knowledge that we create our experience, it also humbles us by revealing our susceptibility to external influences. From the documented effects of full moons on hospital admissions and crime rates to the impact of physical conditions on mental clarity, we're continually shaped by forces beyond our conscious control. This paradox sits at the heart of Zen practice—recognizing both our creative power and our vulnerability.
The path forward isn't about immediate enlightenment but patient cultivation. Like traditional practices of swordsmanship and calligraphy that begin with simply holding position, meditation success comes not from achieving special states but from the consistent practice itself. Our realizations, like shy woodland creatures, don't appear when frantically pursued but arrive naturally when we create the proper conditions. Ready to explore how your mind creates your reality? Listen now and discover the profound freedom in this ancient wisdom.
Dr. Ruben Lambert can be found at wisdomspring.com
Ven. MyongAhn Sunim can be found at soshimsa.org
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Welcome to the place where you long.
It Come A-way.
Welcome back to another bonustrack.
(00:42):
As it is with the bonus track,it is unpredictable.
Sometimes the bonus track isspecifically recorded as the
bonus track for the bonus trackfor the World Through Zen Eye's
(01:04):
podcast.
In other cases, the bonus trackis simply snippets and clips of
various talks, lectures,whether it be from retreats, or
bits and pieces of meditation,class talks what have you of
(01:24):
meditation class talks what haveyou.
And so today's bonus track isone of those flashback clips, if
you will, I hope you enjoy itWithout further ado.
(01:54):
A bonus track.
I had given a meditationworkshop to a group of women who
a recovery group, and I hadsaid the first line of the
Bopgugyeong says, which meanseverything's created by the mind
, and, as I said that, on oneside of the room a woman's face
(02:21):
lit up and, like that oldmicrowave ding sound that, just
you know, makes the hungryperson so joyous about the thing
that they're about to pounceright, because she immediately
understood what the phrase meant.
Simultaneously, on the otherside of the room, to borrow a
(02:49):
phrase from Steinbeck, I saw awoman fighting with her face, or
wrestling with her face,however he puts it, and it
didn't hit.
There was no ding.
There was a lot of sort ofmumbling and grumbling going on
and gnashing of teeth andfinally she mustered up enough
(03:14):
energy to say I take pride inthinking certain things, et
cetera, et cetera.
And then we had a conversation.
I bring it up to illustratewell a number of things, as
always.
One is that even though onemouth speaketh, a multitude of
(03:36):
ears hears it and a multitude ofminds takes it and does a thing
with it.
That's a new.
I am flawless and blamelessBecause I have an intention to
express something, but the wordsfall short.
(03:59):
You know, some of them justplop, sadly, right out of my
mouth and so they fail to conveythe thing to be conveyed, fail
to convey the thing to beconveyed.
The implications and thebreadth of that statement, il
cheshim jo, everything's createdby the mind is.
We must be cautious not tominimize it to just very simple
(04:27):
things.
There's a lot of unpacking tobe had in that.
One part of this speaking is howthe thing is received and not
whether it's understood.
It's how it's received also andyou could tell oh, armstrong's
(04:51):
got that song, what a WonderfulWorld Is it, and you don't even
have to watch it.
But you know the one.
He's got the trumpet in onehand, he's got a hanky in the
other and then he is singing itand you could tell his smiling
from just hearing it.
He's got this huge smile rightas he's singing and you could
tell his smiling, and so weaccept it as such.
(05:15):
On the other hand, zach De LaRocha said Rage Against the
Machine.
Rage Against the Machine's gotwhat a A Beautiful World.
I think it's the song andthere's a version of it.
(05:36):
He plays it on acoustic guitarand it's so kind of.
The verses are very similar in asense.
What a Beautiful World.
You know, people are so niceand so kind.
What a beautiful world.
People are something, how theycomb their hair right, and so
you're lulled really into thesort of state of sort of
(05:56):
security and oh yeah, it isindeed right.
So beautiful world.
Ah, yes, and a beautiful world.
And then he finishes you with akatana, right, and he goes for
you.
It's a beautiful world For you,for you, for you, for you, for
you.
And you know, there's somethingthat language does when
repeated a number of times, andthen finally he says not for me,
(06:20):
right, and even though, if youjust look at the lyrics.
Up until that point we couldalmost sort of echo of
Armstrong's.
You know, oh, it's a beautifulworld indeed.
Trees are green and whatever,whatever.
And the La Rocha kind of puts,like I said, this sort of
jujitsu move on, you right,because you're involved, into a
(06:42):
state of security, and it says,yeah, it depends where you are
right, how it's received, and soour mind does in fact, create
the reality.
(07:10):
If you think of a bird song,that's a splendid little thing,
isn't it?
There's an aww, usually aww.
Look at them, they're singingReally.
Are they really singing?
Oh, they're talking to eachother, oh, yeah, and there's
(07:32):
always a sort of intonation ofthe voice that suggests they're
talking.
Aw, a rainbow appears as thebirds are talking.
Right, what do you think theyare in fact talking about?
You know, yesterday I went outwith Janice.
We went to the new techno club.
(07:54):
This is what they're talkingabout.
It's a converted psychiatricinstitution.
She's like I heard about it,it's the cuckoo's nest and she's
like, yeah, I wouldn't bemeaning to go there, but I've
only flown over it, if you don'tget that one.
(08:15):
So this is not the conversationthat they're having.
They're not discussing thehappenings of last night.
It's much more sort ofpornographic is what it is.
They're not talking about theleaves are turning.
(08:37):
No, they're saying, oh, look atJanet's tail, feathers are
looking very plump today.
That's what they're talkingabout, right?
Or you know?
Or sort of self-preservation,right, you know cheery, cheery,
and we're like no, cheery,cheery, and if you speak Finch,
(09:01):
this is going to be great.
If you speak Finch, you knowcheery means cat, right, right,
so what they're saying is watchout, frank, run, there is a cat
going for you, right?
That's what they're talkingabout.
It's not, it's not.
They're not singing right,while while splashing themselves
in the raindrops of morning dew.
No it, we create that for them,we deprive them of the
(09:28):
conversation and we impose athing upon them.
But the point being is, ourmind creates the things that we
interact with the world, whetherthe things we hear, see, taste,
smell, taste and touch, etc.
If there was ever an empoweringstatement, I don't know if
(09:53):
there's one better than this.
So, depending how you'vereceived it, you might have said
well, you just ruined birds forme.
That's on you.
As I said, that's on you.
You know, if you're birdwatchingand you're like that bearded
wanker, you know You'll neverlook at birds, the same
(10:15):
birdwatch, and you're like thatbearded wanker you know it is.
You'll never look at birds thesame.
They'll look at you the same,though, don't worry about it.
Right, there are cultures,still to this day, right, when
you know, it used to be wherekids, some of us, we were kids
and we were outside and we weretold to come home when, when the
(10:37):
lights came on, when the lightscame on, right.
But if you're somewhere wherethere is no streetlights, when
the bats are out, the bats areout, get home.
Right.
But there are cultures who kidsplay, and they don't have a
watch, they don't have a cellphone, they don't have the
things, but they learn to hearthe call of a certain bird that
announces a certain time of day,like, oh, okay, time to go home
(11:01):
because mama's got the stickready if you don't make it on
time, that kind of thing.
So there's the reality and whatwe do with it and this, like I
said, if there was ever anempowering statement, this one
(11:22):
really does it.
But we have to have a sort ofhonesty about it because it does
go more than two ways, butlet's just say two ways, because
how much of the mind creatingis willful, how much of my
(11:51):
creating of the world before meis intended by me to be so and
how much of it is actually mebeing mauled and twisted into
sort of yogic positions by theworld around me.
So this is, as all things, aknife, or a knife and a knife,
(12:15):
and if you have a proclivity ofyour mind to say, yeah, stab,
stab, stab, stab, stab, stab,stab, right, then that's that
kind of knife.
But if you're a chef, a knifeah, a splendid sandwich.
So all things, in a sense, havethat built into.
Well, not into them, right, butbuilt into us.
(12:38):
We are so stained and soaked inthe dualities and dichotomies
of the world that there's alwaysa thing, has always
possibilities of two majortrajectories.
We can take that statement ilche io sim gio everything's
(13:01):
created by your mind, right andtake it to mean a positive or a
negative.
Take it to mean as it sort ofsteals power from you, right?
Because if you really thinkabout it, on one hand, you know
(13:23):
and we talked about this, Ithink, recently the Christmas
carol, right?
Scrooge goes home and hisratchety self and the apparition
of Jacob, his old partner, isthere, right.
(13:46):
And what is the first kind ofmindset that Scrooge meets the
apparition with, he doesn't go.
Oh dear Lord, no, he dismisseshim.
And until Jacob Marley sitsdown, he says why do you doubt
your senses?
So?
(14:07):
And he says, well, becausethey're so finicky, they're so
changeable.
You could be a piece ofundercooked potato.
You could be a piece of beef,you could be a.
You know what is it?
A blot of mustard or whateverhe calls it.
And then there's that splendidlittle line.
(14:30):
There's more gravy about youthan there is of grave, whatever
you are.
So he kind of you know, eh,right, shoes him off on the
account of in fact, we are sogoverned by the multitudinous
that we are right.
How much of our perspective andviewpoint and thing is twisted
(14:57):
and warped by the world aroundus, even unbeknownst to us.
Maybe I am an undercookedpotato.
You have no way of knowing.
We haven't even shaken hands.
I could be in operation rightnow.
It's your nightmare.
We just had the full moon.
(15:25):
But we had the full moon whenthe moon and the sun were waving
at each other out at the sametime.
That's a thing If you look atthe same time.
Right, which, again?
So you know, that's a thing.
Right If you look at thehospital records.
If you've worked in a school,you know firsthand, right, the
effects of the full moon.
(15:46):
I mean we think ourselves sospecial and so immune to the
world around us.
No, not me.
If you know that is the case,you could do something to
ameliorate its effect.
You could do something tocontrol yourself and govern
yourself, if you know that thesethings are affecting us.
(16:08):
But we largely don't.
But we largely don't.
I mean trees, right.
The circulation of sap governedby the full moon and the new
moon right, and the quarter moonand the mix, even the tree
right.
We too, right, we are animals.
Like I said, if you look atpolice records and accidental
(16:33):
pregnancies and fights and fullmoon, you look at the records.
There's a clear spike.
We are that flaky, as Zen MasterScrooge put it.
You know, maybe you're taking abig load of medications, or
(17:04):
maybe you're heavy drinking, ormaybe, for whatever reasons,
your liver is tired, meaningoverworked.
The liver doesn't go like, ohman, I've got to play a video
game and unwind.
It's been a long day, right,but it does do things, right,
and it does.
Liver is viewed in orientalmedicine as the general of the
(17:27):
body, right, and it's the large.
I mean, we just, you know,forget about the little plastic
silhouette you got in school.
Know, in school it's huge,right, and it has effects on us
as our heart and circulation,and you name it, you know.
So we are in fact that to alarge degree susceptible to be a
(17:51):
dancing puppet to the stringsof the world around us, and so
now we could all go home.
Now, if we finish this right now, everybody goes home, bombs out
, we'll be giving outpsychotropic medication on your
way out, or we could take thatand sort of say you know what,
(18:11):
in the midst of all of this,still, I have this great, great
power of governing myself.
My mind, in fact, does createthe reality before me.
You could own up to it, use it.
So, and I'm not talking aboutthe extremes so, in order to be
(18:51):
able to govern the mind, to dosomething and anything with it,
as you know, in traditionalswordsmanship, what's the first
practice?
As you know, you hold the sword.
There's no swinging around.
You're not a ninja, this is notmovies.
You hold the sword with the tip, just steady there.
(19:12):
That's your first practice.
My teacher used to come and hanga shoe on the tip of it and
you're kneeling down andsometimes you're kneeling down
on a stick.
These are old educationaltechniques, today dubbed as
torture, cancelled probably.
You're kneeling down, shin onstick right, arms straight right
(19:33):
and you have a shoe.
So you know it's a postcard.
I was practicing sword right.
And then if you take a sideview of the silhouette and
there's a shoe dangling on theother side, it's not very, you
know, enticing, but that is thepractice.
This is the practice oftraditional calligraphy.
It's not very enticing, butthat is the practice, as is the
practice of traditionalcalligraphy, and we've talked
about this, or I've mentioned it.
(19:54):
I say that a lot.
We've talked about it.
You're all quiet, but you holdthe brush.
No ink, you don't even getpaper, really, you just hold the
brush.
There's a certain way to holdit.
You rest your hand, certainfingers blah right, the teacher
comes and flicks it and shouldthe brush fall out of your hand,
(20:15):
those prior practices are madeavailable, right?
So the point I'm making is thatthe initial thing of wielding
the mind to say il chyeo, sim jo, the mind creates the reality
before me.
Where is it?
The mind that is, how do youhold it?
Where's the handle?
(20:36):
The tea ceremony cups are round.
Western cups have handlesbecause we're so egotistical
about it, or they handleanywhere in a sense.
So where is the handle of themind?
(20:57):
So, in meditation practicetrains us to sort of at first
familiarize ourselves with theworld, of that inner world out
of which we are ever soconstantly, by choice or by
force, pulled out of.
(21:17):
And so many people have theexperience.
They come from meditation class, they sit down.
Oh I can't meditate, my mind'stoo busy.
All right, throw out the men'shealth magazine please, where it
said when you meditate, youclear your mind and you become
one with the universe.
I tossed that.
It's good for you know, I don'tknow, recycle it.
I'm sorry, recycle it.
(21:38):
But the point is, if you'vecome in and you thought I'm
going to lock this in, and youknow, there's that funny song of
the guy says I went to ameditation retreat and the
teacher said we're going to domeditation for an hour and act
it out in 15 minutes.
Right, if you're thatproficient, you know.
(21:59):
The idea is don't look forsuccess in your meditation
practice.
The success of your meditationpractice is that you're
practicing.
That is the only success tolook for.
Everything else is greed.
Yeah right, everything else isgreed.
(22:21):
Everything else is a setup forfailure.
If I started shaving my headwith my left hand, I'd look a
lawn mower and it would just runme over Because I haven't
practiced doing so.
Who expects to sit down?
Butt touches?
Meditation, cushion, bum,enlightened there are stories of
(22:46):
people who have beenenlightened.
One naked guy running throughthe streets of Syracuse
screaming Eureka because he tooka bath.
That's a fantastic story too,but we mustn't think that that
was the first time he arrived ata certain state of mind.
He's been cultivating it theway that Einstein used to sort
(23:06):
of ride his bicycle in figureeight or play the piano and
scream, ha and scream and runover and scribble, scribble,
scribble.
Right, there's a cultivationand work that is done and then
nothing comes.
But if you wait for it, itain't ever coming because it's
like a bunny.
Your meditation and yourrealizations are like a bunny
(23:30):
they skid, they't look for them,let them be, they'll come to
(23:55):
you.
Thanks for watching.
Welcome to the place where you long.
It Come A-way.
Welcome back to another bonustrack.
(00:42):
As it is with the bonus track,it is unpredictable.
Sometimes the bonus track isspecifically recorded as the
bonus track for the bonus trackfor the World Through Zen Eye's
(01:04):
podcast.
In other cases, the bonus trackis simply snippets and clips of
various talks, lectures,whether it be from retreats, or
bits and pieces of meditation,class talks what have you of
(01:24):
meditation class talks what haveyou.
And so today's bonus track isone of those flashback clips, if
you will, I hope you enjoy itWithout further ado.
(01:54):
A bonus track.
I had given a meditationworkshop to a group of women who
a recovery group, and I hadsaid the first line of the
Bopgugyeong says, which meanseverything's created by the mind
, and, as I said that, on oneside of the room a woman's face
(02:21):
lit up and, like that oldmicrowave ding sound that, just
you know, makes the hungryperson so joyous about the thing
that they're about to pounceright, because she immediately
understood what the phrase meant.
Simultaneously, on the otherside of the room, to borrow a
(02:49):
phrase from Steinbeck, I saw awoman fighting with her face, or
wrestling with her face,however he puts it, and it
didn't hit.
There was no ding.
There was a lot of sort ofmumbling and grumbling going on
and gnashing of teeth andfinally she mustered up enough
(03:14):
energy to say I take pride inthinking certain things, et
cetera, et cetera.
And then we had a conversation.
I bring it up to illustratewell a number of things, as
always.
One is that even though onemouth speaketh, a multitude of
(03:36):
ears hears it and a multitude ofminds takes it and does a thing
with it.
That's a new.
I am flawless and blamelessBecause I have an intention to
express something, but the wordsfall short.
(03:59):
You know, some of them justplop, sadly, right out of my
mouth and so they fail to conveythe thing to be conveyed, fail
to convey the thing to beconveyed.
The implications and thebreadth of that statement, il
cheshim jo, everything's createdby the mind is.
We must be cautious not tominimize it to just very simple
(04:27):
things.
There's a lot of unpacking tobe had in that.
One part of this speaking is howthe thing is received and not
whether it's understood.
It's how it's received also andyou could tell oh, armstrong's
(04:51):
got that song, what a WonderfulWorld Is it, and you don't even
have to watch it.
But you know the one.
He's got the trumpet in onehand, he's got a hanky in the
other and then he is singing itand you could tell his smiling
from just hearing it.
He's got this huge smile rightas he's singing and you could
tell his smiling, and so weaccept it as such.
(05:15):
On the other hand, zach De LaRocha said Rage Against the
Machine.
Rage Against the Machine's gotwhat a A Beautiful World.
I think it's the song andthere's a version of it.
(05:36):
He plays it on acoustic guitarand it's so kind of.
The verses are very similar in asense.
What a Beautiful World.
You know, people are so niceand so kind.
What a beautiful world.
People are something, how theycomb their hair right, and so
you're lulled really into thesort of state of sort of
(05:56):
security and oh yeah, it isindeed right.
So beautiful world.
Ah, yes, and a beautiful world.
And then he finishes you with akatana, right, and he goes for
you.
It's a beautiful world For you,for you, for you, for you, for
you.
And you know, there's somethingthat language does when
repeated a number of times, andthen finally he says not for me,
(06:20):
right, and even though, if youjust look at the lyrics.
Up until that point we couldalmost sort of echo of
Armstrong's.
You know, oh, it's a beautifulworld indeed.
Trees are green and whatever,whatever.
And the La Rocha kind of puts,like I said, this sort of
jujitsu move on, you right,because you're involved, into a
(06:42):
state of security, and it says,yeah, it depends where you are
right, how it's received, and soour mind does in fact, create
the reality.
(07:10):
If you think of a bird song,that's a splendid little thing,
isn't it?
There's an aww, usually aww.
Look at them, they're singingReally.
Are they really singing?
Oh, they're talking to eachother, oh, yeah, and there's
(07:32):
always a sort of intonation ofthe voice that suggests they're
talking.
Aw, a rainbow appears as thebirds are talking.
Right, what do you think theyare in fact talking about?
You know, yesterday I went outwith Janice.
We went to the new techno club.
(07:54):
This is what they're talkingabout.
It's a converted psychiatricinstitution.
She's like I heard about it,it's the cuckoo's nest and she's
like, yeah, I wouldn't bemeaning to go there, but I've
only flown over it, if you don'tget that one.
(08:15):
So this is not the conversationthat they're having.
They're not discussing thehappenings of last night.
It's much more sort ofpornographic is what it is.
They're not talking about theleaves are turning.
(08:37):
No, they're saying, oh, look atJanet's tail, feathers are
looking very plump today.
That's what they're talkingabout, right?
Or you know?
Or sort of self-preservation,right, you know cheery, cheery,
and we're like no, cheery,cheery, and if you speak Finch,
(09:01):
this is going to be great.
If you speak Finch, you knowcheery means cat, right, right,
so what they're saying is watchout, frank, run, there is a cat
going for you, right?
That's what they're talkingabout.
It's not, it's not.
They're not singing right,while while splashing themselves
in the raindrops of morning dew.
No it, we create that for them,we deprive them of the
(09:28):
conversation and we impose athing upon them.
But the point being is, ourmind creates the things that we
interact with the world, whetherthe things we hear, see, taste,
smell, taste and touch, etc.
If there was ever an empoweringstatement, I don't know if
(09:53):
there's one better than this.
So, depending how you'vereceived it, you might have said
well, you just ruined birds forme.
That's on you.
As I said, that's on you.
You know, if you're birdwatchingand you're like that bearded
wanker, you know You'll neverlook at birds, the same
(10:15):
birdwatch, and you're like thatbearded wanker you know it is.
You'll never look at birds thesame.
They'll look at you the same,though, don't worry about it.
Right, there are cultures,still to this day, right, when
you know, it used to be wherekids, some of us, we were kids
and we were outside and we weretold to come home when, when the
(10:37):
lights came on, when the lightscame on, right.
But if you're somewhere wherethere is no streetlights, when
the bats are out, the bats areout, get home.
Right.
But there are cultures who kidsplay, and they don't have a
watch, they don't have a cellphone, they don't have the
things, but they learn to hearthe call of a certain bird that
announces a certain time of day,like, oh, okay, time to go home
(11:01):
because mama's got the stickready if you don't make it on
time, that kind of thing.
So there's the reality and whatwe do with it and this, like I
said, if there was ever anempowering statement, this one
(11:22):
really does it.
But we have to have a sort ofhonesty about it because it does
go more than two ways, butlet's just say two ways, because
how much of the mind creatingis willful, how much of my
(11:51):
creating of the world before meis intended by me to be so and
how much of it is actually mebeing mauled and twisted into
sort of yogic positions by theworld around me.
So this is, as all things, aknife, or a knife and a knife,
(12:15):
and if you have a proclivity ofyour mind to say, yeah, stab,
stab, stab, stab, stab, stab,stab, right, then that's that
kind of knife.
But if you're a chef, a knifeah, a splendid sandwich.
So all things, in a sense, havethat built into.
Well, not into them, right, butbuilt into us.
(12:38):
We are so stained and soaked inthe dualities and dichotomies
of the world that there's alwaysa thing, has always
possibilities of two majortrajectories.
We can take that statement ilche io sim gio everything's
(13:01):
created by your mind, right andtake it to mean a positive or a
negative.
Take it to mean as it sort ofsteals power from you, right?
Because if you really thinkabout it, on one hand, you know
(13:23):
and we talked about this, Ithink, recently the Christmas
carol, right?
Scrooge goes home and hisratchety self and the apparition
of Jacob, his old partner, isthere, right.
(13:46):
And what is the first kind ofmindset that Scrooge meets the
apparition with, he doesn't go.
Oh dear Lord, no, he dismisseshim.
And until Jacob Marley sitsdown, he says why do you doubt
your senses?
So?
(14:07):
And he says, well, becausethey're so finicky, they're so
changeable.
You could be a piece ofundercooked potato.
You could be a piece of beef,you could be a.
You know what is it?
A blot of mustard or whateverhe calls it.
And then there's that splendidlittle line.
(14:30):
There's more gravy about youthan there is of grave, whatever
you are.
So he kind of you know, eh,right, shoes him off on the
account of in fact, we are sogoverned by the multitudinous
that we are right.
How much of our perspective andviewpoint and thing is twisted
(14:57):
and warped by the world aroundus, even unbeknownst to us.
Maybe I am an undercookedpotato.
You have no way of knowing.
We haven't even shaken hands.
I could be in operation rightnow.
It's your nightmare.
We just had the full moon.
(15:25):
But we had the full moon whenthe moon and the sun were waving
at each other out at the sametime.
That's a thing If you look atthe same time.
Right, which, again?
So you know, that's a thing.
Right If you look at thehospital records.
If you've worked in a school,you know firsthand, right, the
effects of the full moon.
(15:46):
I mean we think ourselves sospecial and so immune to the
world around us.
No, not me.
If you know that is the case,you could do something to
ameliorate its effect.
You could do something tocontrol yourself and govern
yourself, if you know that thesethings are affecting us.
(16:08):
But we largely don't.
But we largely don't.
I mean trees, right.
The circulation of sap governedby the full moon and the new
moon right, and the quarter moonand the mix, even the tree
right.
We too, right, we are animals.
Like I said, if you look atpolice records and accidental
(16:33):
pregnancies and fights and fullmoon, you look at the records.
There's a clear spike.
We are that flaky, as Zen MasterScrooge put it.
You know, maybe you're taking abig load of medications, or
(17:04):
maybe you're heavy drinking, ormaybe, for whatever reasons,
your liver is tired, meaningoverworked.
The liver doesn't go like, ohman, I've got to play a video
game and unwind.
It's been a long day, right,but it does do things, right,
and it does.
Liver is viewed in orientalmedicine as the general of the
(17:27):
body, right, and it's the large.
I mean, we just, you know,forget about the little plastic
silhouette you got in school.
Know, in school it's huge,right, and it has effects on us
as our heart and circulation,and you name it, you know.
So we are in fact that to alarge degree susceptible to be a
(17:51):
dancing puppet to the stringsof the world around us, and so
now we could all go home.
Now, if we finish this right now, everybody goes home, bombs out
, we'll be giving outpsychotropic medication on your
way out, or we could take thatand sort of say you know what,
(18:11):
in the midst of all of this,still, I have this great, great
power of governing myself.
My mind, in fact, does createthe reality before me.
You could own up to it, use it.
So, and I'm not talking aboutthe extremes so, in order to be
(18:51):
able to govern the mind, to dosomething and anything with it,
as you know, in traditionalswordsmanship, what's the first
practice?
As you know, you hold the sword.
There's no swinging around.
You're not a ninja, this is notmovies.
You hold the sword with the tip, just steady there.
(19:12):
That's your first practice.
My teacher used to come and hanga shoe on the tip of it and
you're kneeling down andsometimes you're kneeling down
on a stick.
These are old educationaltechniques, today dubbed as
torture, cancelled probably.
You're kneeling down, shin onstick right, arms straight right
(19:33):
and you have a shoe.
So you know it's a postcard.
I was practicing sword right.
And then if you take a sideview of the silhouette and
there's a shoe dangling on theother side, it's not very, you
know, enticing, but that is thepractice.
This is the practice oftraditional calligraphy.
It's not very enticing, butthat is the practice, as is the
practice of traditionalcalligraphy, and we've talked
about this, or I've mentioned it.
(19:54):
I say that a lot.
We've talked about it.
You're all quiet, but you holdthe brush.
No ink, you don't even getpaper, really, you just hold the
brush.
There's a certain way to holdit.
You rest your hand, certainfingers blah right, the teacher
comes and flicks it and shouldthe brush fall out of your hand,
(20:15):
those prior practices are madeavailable, right?
So the point I'm making is thatthe initial thing of wielding
the mind to say il chyeo, sim jo, the mind creates the reality
before me.
Where is it?
The mind that is, how do youhold it?
Where's the handle?
(20:36):
The tea ceremony cups are round.
Western cups have handlesbecause we're so egotistical
about it, or they handleanywhere in a sense.
So where is the handle of themind?
(20:57):
So, in meditation practicetrains us to sort of at first
familiarize ourselves with theworld, of that inner world out
of which we are ever soconstantly, by choice or by
force, pulled out of.
(21:17):
And so many people have theexperience.
They come from meditation class, they sit down.
Oh I can't meditate, my mind'stoo busy.
All right, throw out the men'shealth magazine please, where it
said when you meditate, youclear your mind and you become
one with the universe.
I tossed that.
It's good for you know, I don'tknow, recycle it.
I'm sorry, recycle it.
(21:38):
But the point is, if you'vecome in and you thought I'm
going to lock this in, and youknow, there's that funny song of
the guy says I went to ameditation retreat and the
teacher said we're going to domeditation for an hour and act
it out in 15 minutes.
Right, if you're thatproficient, you know.
(21:59):
The idea is don't look forsuccess in your meditation
practice.
The success of your meditationpractice is that you're
practicing.
That is the only success tolook for.
Everything else is greed.
Yeah right, everything else isgreed.
(22:21):
Everything else is a setup forfailure.
If I started shaving my headwith my left hand, I'd look a
lawn mower and it would just runme over Because I haven't
practiced doing so.
Who expects to sit down?
Butt touches?
Meditation, cushion, bum,enlightened there are stories of
(22:46):
people who have beenenlightened.
One naked guy running throughthe streets of Syracuse
screaming Eureka because he tooka bath.
That's a fantastic story too,but we mustn't think that that
was the first time he arrived ata certain state of mind.
He's been cultivating it theway that Einstein used to sort
(23:06):
of ride his bicycle in figureeight or play the piano and
scream, ha and scream and runover and scribble, scribble,
scribble.
Right, there's a cultivationand work that is done and then
nothing comes.
But if you wait for it, itain't ever coming because it's
like a bunny.
Your meditation and yourrealizations are like a bunny
(23:30):
they skid, they't look for them,let them be, they'll come to
(23:55):
you.
Thanks for watching.
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