Italie 2011-10_L'art et la science de l'immobilité

that had wanted to say at some point today that um that if for all those of you here that want to develop in this way and the way we've been speaking about jury industry it's important that you make time to do what we've been doing here every day even though I said it's not that important and for the two reasons the one was that it was that was it something else you wanted to ask no that was okay thank you so the the so the two reasons are one is so you can uh discover and ReDiscover and ReDiscover yet again that the deepest nature of your own self is Freedom itself the nature of the deepest part of yourself it's never been born and ever done to the stream of time is freedom itself so that's why you want to be doing this very regularly that's number one and the other reason is so you can discover ReDiscover and ReDiscover again and again and again and again and again and again and again that the mind is a mechanical process that has no self-nature now we can't know those two truths well enough can we if we aspire to be a liberated human being we can't aspire to though those two truths enough isn't that right so the one is that the deepest nature of our own being is inherent Freedom the deepest nature of your own self the deepest nature of my own self is inherent Freedom so we can't know that truth deeply enough can we right I can't hear you one more time one more time thank you very much because it's true isn't it because you have to remember we're all here now this is all very obvious but remember it's not always so obvious to us that's the problem you see why do we need to do this all because we want these deepest truths that we've been sharing together and talk about to remain self-evident obvious right and it's important that these deepest truths remain self-evident and obvious to us so that's why we want to put some time into this every day do you want to become pretty good at this and the other is to really to know that the mind has no self nature that it's a mechanical process we can't know that we we can't know that deeply enough so that's why you want to do this as a form of spiritual self-discipline because you know life is very challenging for all of us it's just very challenging and the mind is the mechanism through which we relate to self and world right isn't that right mind is the mechanism through we through which we relate to self and world so we want to be able to do with the greatest skill and appropriateness nobody's perfect but we want to try and we want to strive for a much higher level of Engagement with the world with this with self and Other Self other and world and so the way to do that is is to really is is being aware with what we're actually working with what's actually going on here you follow so we can't we can't be informed enough that the mind has no self-nature and it's a mechanical process because the minute you forget that we get we get all in all kinds of trouble so we want so in in order to cultivate a real facility with this Awakening to enlightened awareness you want to try and do this as much as you can so uh so I know everybody's very busy but you want to if you can do an hour and in the morning every day that would be just incredible even though an hour is not much is a lot better than nothing and what you want to try and do is at least one day a week to put some real time into it and also you have to remember that doing spiritual practice in Earnest if you're Earnest if you're Earnest not if you're not Earnest it doesn't matter but if you're Earnest it means your intention is earnest which is different than the quality of your experience which is a whole other thing it has Merit does inherent Merit have you heard of the whole notion of Merit spiritual Merit it means it's a good thing to do it's good it's inherently good it's spiritual Merit so when you do spiritual practice in Earnest when your motivation is earnest motivation it had there's Merit in the doing of the practice itself not because of any particular result so for example if you do a spiritual practice and it has a marvelous result you say wow that was fantastic I want to do that again it really works okay so then you want to appreciate the value because it gave a certain result but there's a there's a much deeper Dimension to all this which is the practice done in Earnest has inherent Merit or value in and of itself the egos is really I can't believe it how can sitting here going crazy have Merit he's got to be nuts there's much more important things like it I could actually be getting something done I'm just here torturing myself for no reason I'm not getting anything out of this I you know it's horrible you know it hurts my body it's it's emotionally frustrating it's psychologically exasperating this he's got to be kidding you know he must be insane but but who's doing but that's your ego is drawing the conclusions so why is it for example if you see somebody doing spiritual practice in Earnest it's very moving so for example I remember Gaia in Northern India which is a small village which is the pilgrimage site which is the seated side of the Bodhi Tree which is the the Buddha's um where the Buddha had his famous Awakening experience I remember being there and in the winter and seeing these very old Tibetan women old and you know hobbled hobbled over doing these prostrations on these on on these on on the uh in the dirt and on the stone uh and on the stones prostrating all around this stupa old women you know old women who probably were in their 70s looked like it to me and I was like wow I just couldn't believe it I mean the the devotion and the commitment in those simple uh acts of devotion sorry anyway you get the idea just actually I just couldn't believe it I mean it really stunned me just to see that and also if you see somebody for example uh being very if you see somebody being very still you know just absolutely still with total presence and if you just if you just bear Witnesses it's inherently beautiful that regardless of whatever the internal or subjective experience or whoever that person may be I'm just saying there's something happening that's very beautiful inherently beautiful it has inherent significance and even if you see if you learn about prayer and there's a as prayer gets more sophisticated more about it's not about getting anything for yourself it's not you know please Daddy give me this and give me that there's there's it's a profound kind of opening to reality and something very beautiful you can see in people's physical form something very beautiful begins to emanate through people through their physical form and their posture because of because of what the position they're taking in relationship to reality so these all have inherent when it when all of these things are done in Earnest there's inherent Merit in other words it's good for you no matter what your internal experience may be when these practices are done in Earnest if they're not done in Earnest if your ego's saying oh come on you know then it's what you're what you are wasting your time if your ego's the one who's doing it you're wasting your time and there's no merit at all you're just making a fool out of yourself really so I know everybody's busy and life is you know very busy but I just want everybody to keep this in mind because it is very important that there is inherent inherent Merit in spiritual practice that's approached with um the correct motivation and um and the issue here is whatever you're doing you know I mean here we're we're we've been looking at this through the Arts what I call the Art and Science of Stillness but it's important to take out time in order to develop so however you're going to do it you know do we need to all need to take time out to develop you will not develop if you don't take time out to do it very simple so it's just that simple and I want to encourage everybody to make sure that you take time and make time for your own actual development because that's the most important thing in an evolutionary context that's the most important thing