Is it the Ocean or the Traffic?

Welcome to In the Deep.

I'm your host,

Catherine Ingram.

The following is excerpted from Dharma dialogues held in April 2017 in Lennox Head,

Australia.

It's called,

Is it the Ocean or the Traffic?

Many years ago,

When I first started having sessions in Los Angeles in the something like 1994,

I was using a place in Malibu.

It was high on a cliff,

Not far from the ocean.

And underneath the cliff was Pacific Coast Highway,

Which is a busy highway.

So sometimes when you're sitting up in the hall that we used,

You could hear the ocean,

Depending on the wind.

And sometimes you would hear the traffic.

But it was very hard to tell which was which.

And I would notice that if I thought it was the traffic,

It would be a little agitated.

But if I thought it was the ocean,

It was like,

Ah.

And it was so ironic,

And I saw the irony at the time,

That it just depended on my interpretation as to whether it was agitating or not.

And it's like that with so many things.

From one vantage point,

You can tell a story and it can be annoying.

From another perspective,

It can be fine.

It could even be beautiful.

Now there are circumstances,

There are times when it's just hard.

It's hard.

And we have to give it its due.

We have to not try to have some sort of Pollyannish interpretation unnecessarily.

But there are a lot of things.

There are a lot of things throughout our day.

For instance,

Here's an example I sometimes reflect on.

You're waiting for a plane.

You're waiting to board a plane.

And they tell you that there's a mechanical problem and you can't board yet.

They're working on it.

Now you can be all frustrated and maybe you're going to miss your connection.

But it just takes half a second to think about,

Wouldn't you rather be on the ground rather than in an unworthy plane in the air?

And so many things through life.

It's like what we are doing with your attention is giving you the experience that you're having in any given moment.

You can make,

I often say,

You can make a heaven of hell and a hell of heaven.

And people do it all the time.

People get all frustrated in circumstances that are really heavenly.

How are we using our attention?

What is the story you're telling about any given moment?

And is it possible even to come to a point where you're not really telling any story?

Where you're flowing on in a kind of openness in the mystery of this existence.

And you're not needing to interpret and comment.

A lot of this,

A lot of the commentary swirls around the concept of I,

The big story starring me.

So that everything that's going on through the day,

You're driving just simply to the grocery store,

But there's a backstory that's running.

And a lot of these subtext of the I story is I want and I don't like.

Those are the two,

The two themes,

The overarching drama.

When there is a lack of interest in that story,

Suddenly you're,

I like to say it's like life at last.

You're popped into the beauty and the reality that you're actually experiencing.

So when you're driving to the store or you're walking to the store,

You're actually seeing what's there to be seen.

You're hearing,

Right?

You're smelling.

I love to talk about being alive in your senses.

You're actually in your senses,

Which are rich and which are a privilege to experience.

Marianne and I went to a memorial celebration of life on Friday of a friend who had ALS,

Died of ALS a few weeks ago.

And there was a movie,

A retrospective of her life done in photographs and some short pieces of video.

So you see her from the time she's a little toddler and growing up through the years and through her career and through her Dharma search and through her falling in love with the man that she ended up living with her beloved until she died and who cared for her in the last two years.

And also through the process of the illness such that it came to the point as her husband described it,

She had no more means of communication.

It was coming down to just blinking,

Blinking for yes or no.

Yet there were pictures of her and a couple of video clips during that last phase even when she seemed incredibly joyous and so grateful for the people caring for her.

And so here we are all mobile,

Our senses working.

What a privilege.

And isn't it amazing the way that we can make things kind of nightmarish when they're not?

All with our interpretation,

All with our story,

All with what's missing or what should be,

What might have been or what could happen.

What if you gave up your interest in the story?

Now the story might drift on out of habit.

In the background you can give up your interest,

Give up your interest in the story,

Fall in love with reality,

Be grateful in your senses and in your love that you share with the ones in your life.

Be,

As I am,

Kind of awestruck by our moment in time,

Our moment in history here,

Which may be some of the last in human history possibly.

Pretty amazing.

And like that,

The personal story just fades into the background,

Kind of becomes really irrelevant.

And it's not that you don't have creativity or you don't have things you'd like to do or you don't have plans.

It's none of that.

That's all a kind of overly transcendent,

Disconnected view.

But it's that it has its proper place.

You're not just a slave to the I want and I don't like and what if and you know,

You're not living in obsession.

I noticed when you began to speak,

You said something about this could be,

These could be the last days of human beings and I have a really strong sense of that myself.

But I also don't want to subscribe to some kind of paranoid story about that.

And it seems to me that the answer to that is just to live in the moment,

You know,

Just to be here and be loving and be present.

But it is actually extraordinary that to even contemplate that this could be the last days of human beings.

It's actually shocking.

And yet it's on the table as a possibility.

You know,

But you're absolutely right.

Our perspective remains the same either way.

And in each of our cases,

Our time is limited.

No,

In any case,

Right.

So yeah,

It's a profound recognition to see that and to consider it in terms of the moment in time moment in history we're sharing here on this planet.

And who knows how it'll play out.

But but it's that's certainly in the realm of possibilities.

Yeah.

Just just grateful to have the opportunity to be in this kind of situation where you have a first it's a beautiful day,

Which is really nice,

Which is just so happened today.

But um,

But I'm fortunate in a way because I don't think I have many of the struggles that others of you may have.

Although we're not struggle free.

We life is never easy.

But um,

Yeah,

No,

Just I just enjoyed the opportunity of being in a situation where people are trying to improve their lives,

You know,

By by healing themselves or by by increasing their awareness.

And I think situations like this are incredibly helpful because you can go home,

You can read a self help book and you can meditate yourself.

But um,

But it's this is always like a booster.

If you come to something like this,

I find and particularly the words you said this morning,

It's,

It just gives you that it reminds you that other people are doing the same thing.

And,

And you're not alone.

And,

And it reinforces the truth that you know,

You know,

Within yourself.

Yeah,

That's great.

So that's,

That's,

That's what I'm finding.

So yeah,

Thank you.

How lovely.

Yes.

Yeah,

That is the that is the function,

If you will,

Of a gathering like this is to.

Yes.

And it's,

It's to there's an osmotic effect when you're sitting in a group,

No matter what it is,

If it's even if it's a group hearing a lecture or coming to a concert or going to a movie even,

You know,

There's a certain osmosis you feel in the room because we're very feeling animals,

You know,

We're very sensitive animals.

So when you come to a room where the the osmosis is on a particular frequency of Dharma,

Of,

Of,

You know,

Deep,

Quiet awareness that's transmitting loud and clear because of the gathering because of the the the people in the room.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah.

Exactly.

Exactly what I feel.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Lovely.

Yeah,

One of the things that just came up from what both of you are saying there was the idea of of work and of having to work at something for the change for the change in in yourself or in your relations.

But and and I've had for the first time in the last little while,

The experience of things that I've really been wanting to change and trying to do work on to change and then suddenly something just,

You know,

Shifts and it just changed and I can't pinpoint what it was or,

You know,

What but it and it was such a I guess a realization that it was this that the effortlessness that went into it and that's similarly what you were talking about with that just the opening in that moment and I haven't ever been able to identify the moment and unfortunately for me as well.

I've also been slipping like back out of it.

You know,

I've noticed it happens and then I,

You know,

It lasts for a certain amount of time and I noticed I'm going back but just going so maybe you know,

Maybe it's not the working at it that needs to happen more and the working at it feels like such a a burden.

Yes.

Whereas the allowing and the allowing it to just happen feels I don't know much more expansive and just going of relief,

I guess like a burden has been lifted and going I don't have to work at this,

You know,

I can I can allow it which has been major I guess.

Yeah,

You know,

That's the great news is that the working at it is actually taking you away from it,

You know,

That that working at it is,

First of all,

It's it's based on the premise that something's wrong,

Right,

That something needs to be adjusted and changed.

And when that is given up when that thought is given up,

Then you start relaxing.

And it's in the relaxation.

It's in the total relaxation,

The total whispering of yes,

Just as I was just describing.

Even in my own case,

After all these years,

I'm still called upon to have to whisper yes in a deeper place.

Right.

And okay,

This too.

So,

So it is,

I will not fight with this.

Right.

And so it's that that is the that is the,

You know,

That's the real journey through is is in the relaxation.

And as you're pointing to the mystery of how it has happened for you.

And there can be a sense of like,

Okay,

What was that?

What was the key in that lock that got that open?

But in fact,

It's it's not really that it's you don't have to go back and figure out what opened in that moment.

It's just a complete relaxation in this moment that's that's required.

Good to be back.

And nice to see you sweetheart.

I'm preoccupied with death at present.

And would appreciate some words around that.

So a friend died this week.

And my ex my son's father is dying in Melbourne with a few days to go.

And I thought I had developed this idea around death.

Being of Jewish background and did a lot of Buddhist learning and meditation and yeah,

There's reincarnation.

It's kind of all fine.

Someone will go and then this all will be reincarnated.

I had some story some theory,

Like a little box I could put this all into.

And that's all gone.

And just watching my friend die.

Well,

She's been really dying for she was dying for three years,

But seeing her two days before she died,

And the soul is already half gone.

Like the person is not the person anymore.

Right.

I'm stuck with the futility of life like you're born,

You struggle,

You die.

I mean,

I know it's not like that.

And you know,

I've attended Ram Dass who talks a lot about death.

And I guess I was kind of expecting that I would come much more into life after experiencing death.

You know,

With more gratitude for every moment and you know,

In the beauty and how lucky I am that I'm mobile and I can see and all that stuff.

So yeah,

There's there's some unease inside in putting it together.

Well,

Let me ask you this.

I mean,

I'm trying to feel into it.

If it were me who had just lost a friend,

And also the dying of your ex partner and who was the father of your children.

That wouldn't be necessarily a time where I would be feeling great mirth,

You know about life,

I would be feeling grief.

And that might have a dampening effect.

Is that the case for you?

Interestingly,

I'm not really feeling the grief.

I've gone a bit numb.

But also that might be a protection.

You know,

So I guess my,

My impulse is to say to you,

This may be phase specific,

Phase specific to a moment in time when there is a lot of feeling a lot of sorrowful feelings swirling around or potentially swirling around.

And that this may not it may be too much to expect that you would then be looking out and,

You know,

Singing What a Wonderful World.

You know,

That maybe it's just this phase that needs to be allowed.

And that the the gratitude and the delight may sneak up on you in time,

In appropriate time in its season,

You know.

Yeah,

As you're speaking,

I'm realising that I'm not just allowing what is and whether it's numbing or whatever.

Yes.

Yes.

Yeah,

I've stopped the busyness.

That's,

That's cool.

But somewhere I'm not,

You know,

It's like,

I should somewhere that I'm putting a story of I should have a not even a theory,

But an understanding of life and death,

You know,

Like I'm already an older woman,

I should know what's I mean,

What if what if you you're beginning to realise what a mystery the whole thing is,

You know?

Yeah,

Absolutely.

And so and that's just a deepening in that insight,

You know,

But you're absolutely right to have any expectation that these events should have triggered some big,

You know,

Explosion into insight and wonder and fabulousness.

You know,

That could be let go of that expectation,

Especially as it didn't come to be.

And and yet also to not have a story that says,

This is the new permanent,

Right?

This is this is the new permanent,

This this particular phase of feeling,

This is now the permanent condition of my awareness.

That's also extra.

That's also probably incorrect.

Do you know what I mean?

No,

I don't.

Okay,

So you're so to to not assume that your dampened or neutral feelings that you're experiencing right now are a steady state,

That's not going to change.

It may be that you that it opens into something you can't at the moment,

Imagine born of this process born of this insight born of this surrender into this happened and I expected to feel one way I don't I feel this way and so be it also that deep deep surrender and then you're just not ever quarreling with the rollout.

And I love what you said about the leaving the assumptions about what happens.

Having that leave you.

Yeah.

Well,

I didn't choose that.

Right,

Right.

Just happened.

Yes,

Yes.

I know exactly.

Yeah,

Thank you.

That's that's helpful.

Just the allowing.

And if I wanted to ask you what are your views around death?

Is that okay?

Sure.

Especially having been a Buddhist.

Yeah,

I the beliefs that I was indoctrinated with in with in Buddhism fell away for me a long time ago,

Really long time ago.

In the face of there not being any credible evidence as far as I could tell.

And I haven't heard any since I've been I would be very interested to hear but I haven't heard any that I found plausible.

So I sit in this mystery also and I have no idea what if anything happens.

I don't sense anything particularly.

So and it's very different when you're saying goodbye to someone as opposed to saying see you later.

You know,

It's a whole different level of loss,

You know.

And I notice for me in the saying goodbye at in death to someone.

I feel like I'm really saying goodbye.

And you know,

It's Jack Kerouac,

One of our American heroes,

One of the great beat poets and I don't know if you've heard of him.

But anyway,

Um,

He has a line,

Except loss forever,

Right?

Some losses are forever.

And that's incredibly profound to let into your heart.

And I feel like as I go along in this life,

That's,

That's what's happening.

It's a lot of loss forever.

Right?

And a lot of what is called upon as we age is this,

You know,

Is this facility to let go.

You know,

You're just letting go.

And it's beautiful.

And for myself,

It has morphed into an incredible appreciation for what is still remaining.

You know,

I,

I do feel that a lot.

And you know,

It's not just the sadness of the loss.

It's,

It's also the reminder of,

Of what is left of the beauty and of,

And I see that the more I let allow all these feelings,

Um,

The more simply tender I feel.

Right.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

This has been in the deep.

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Till next time.