Zen By Mistake

Hold us welcome Josh to pull here again,

That's what it says on the screen.

Probably right.

Um,

Today's event is called Zen by mistake.

And here is the description,

Kerfuffles,

Mishaps,

Blunders,

Brouhahas.

How are you when things don't go your way?

How do you view success and failure and can they be reinvented?

Running this 15 minute or so event on various views and responses to folly will only be messed up air if you want it to be,

Will only be a messed up air if you want it to be.

So welcome everyone.

Welcome.

Is it Shalaya,

Sheila from Georgia,

USA,

Everyone else here will be listening.

So what does it mean to mess up?

You know,

What does it mean to have errors?

Everybody experiences things in life that don't go their way from time to time or another.

So this huge important spiritual question,

How are you when things don't go your way?

So I think while a few people are still getting here,

Let's just stop and reflect on this and we can take some deep breaths or some,

Just some conscious breaths.

Let's take three conscious breaths there for every second.

Every moment of the out-breath,

The pause,

Every moment of the in-breath,

Pause at the top of the in-breath,

All the way through the out-breath again.

Okay.

So first off,

This is an open exchange here too,

Not as much as a straightforward talk by me.

So what does it mean for failure?

You know,

This,

This thing,

Some of us I know that are more perfectionist,

We define things by not making errors,

Doing things perfectly,

But of course there is no absolute perfect way to do anything all the time.

Eventually there's going to be something that we don't do to the degree that we want to do it to,

Right?

So we're going to mess up,

Either we'll do it or something will come in the way and we can't maintain the exact a hundred percent quality that we want or the way that we want.

Also how we're perceived by others,

We can't control that either,

Right?

We have an intention,

How we want things to go with others,

And I am a hundred percent responsible for that,

But I'm only about half way responsible for how others perceive what I bring forward,

Right?

So I can't control how they understand me.

So that takes a little bit of the pressure and burden off of being misperceived,

Being misunderstood by others.

Because again,

That to me,

That's not possible to have everyone understand us the way we want to be understood.

People bring their own things.

People hear what they want to hear sometimes too.

But what about when things just go really wrong,

You know,

Like one of those days where we just,

It's just one thing after the other that goes,

It just seems like the world's out to get us,

You know,

Or we're like starring in a comedy show,

Some kind of situational comedy,

Or there's a lot of miscommunication,

Misunderstandings.

I mean,

Can we laugh at it?

Do we get upset by it?

You know,

What determines these two things and other ways that we do?

It's a really good question.

I don't know how to answer it.

I think it's,

It's dependent on who we are,

Kind of the history we have,

Depending on who we're around and what kind of errors go happen when,

Then we might have a conditioned patterned response when things go wrong around certain people,

But be in a better mind state and mood and emotions around people that we don't have a long history around.

Or we just might have a bad day and we don't care who we're around and we can take it out on or just not be as mindful and considerate around others too.

So I think it all depends on a lot of causes and conditions when just one thing after the other happens in those days.

So when that stuff happens,

How are we no matter where we're around and what do we do?

I think one of the things that helps a lot when it comes to this is patience and this allows for more time to choose a response.

And I was talking about this the other day,

A lot of times when we're in these situations where there's a high emotional charge,

Just being able to be with unpleasantness longer than knowing that it's not going to be like that forever.

But if I'm able to be with it feeling unpleasant,

Then I can realize and let it feel it in my body and then it will eventually pass and dissipate through the body instead of just being reactionary.

And sometimes it's okay.

Sometimes we're just going to have a reaction,

No response,

Just immediate reaction.

And then we feel bad about it later.

So how can we cut ourselves some slack all the time instead of constantly beating ourselves up for doing things wrong?

Lorraine says,

How do you not go down the rabbit hole in the first place?

Now Lorraine,

Do you mean by that?

Do you mean like,

You have to tell me more what you mean by down the rabbit hole in the first place.

Do you mean like with the reactions and constantly seeing failure and,

And whatever you mean by that?

Or you have to go a little bit more in detail,

I feel.

Now this,

This view of success and failure,

I think this perception of success and failure is really important to kind of dive into and explain or,

Or suss out and explore because a lot of us are just going on other people's ideas of success and failure,

Right?

So how do we define success and failure?

It's easy just to,

To turn on the TV,

Look at other people,

Okay,

They're successful.

This is what they're telling you success is,

Right?

This is what's going wrong.

This is,

You've done it wrong when this happens,

Or you model your success and failure and lifestyle after others.

Now I'm not saying don't have role models.

I'm saying that,

You know,

We don't have to go with the default definition of success and failure that society hands us all the time,

Right?

We can redefine what success and failure means to us.

So like,

Uh,

For me,

You know,

I've kind of opted out of a lot of the base programs,

Base program,

Regular day to day things.

So my version of success is not climbing a corporate ladder anymore.

Not that there's anything wrong per se about that.

If that's a good fit in your,

Your,

Um,

Successful,

However you define success in your,

In your roles.

Um,

For me that doesn't apply anymore.

So what does,

Um,

Having deep,

Meaningful connections is one thing.

Um,

Treating people with honor and respect the way I want to be treated.

Um,

Realizing that I don't always 100% successful with this,

You know,

Um,

Learning,

Uh,

New things,

You know,

Managing money,

Not having too much or too little,

Or not spending too much time with it.

Um,

Knowing that my needs are always going to be met,

Um,

Maybe not my wants.

So there's many ways to define success and failure.

Again,

The classic cliche saying is there is no failure as long as you learn from your mistakes.

So are we learning from these things that we've perceived as going wrong?

And are we constantly repeating when we find things repeating in our lives?

Then,

You know,

What do we do to,

I mean,

How do we view that?

One way is that the things repeat over and over again in life until we learn what we need to learn from them.

But then it's like,

Okay,

Well I have to learn my lesson,

You know?

Um,

But what if,

What if we,

We want to learn?

We want to master things.

So one of the metaphors I've used before from another teacher is every time it repeats instead of like a hamster wheel,

It's a spiral staircase where we're getting a higher,

More expanded perspective on what keeps happening until we can,

Um,

See what needs to be seen,

Learn what needs to be learned from it,

Master what needs to be mastered.

Some of the challenges that we're still going through when we come out the other end of them,

They more be like a,

Uh,

A master for those,

Uh,

And a role model and a hero for those still going through the same challenges.

So Lorraine clarifies here for,

She asked,

How do we not go down the rabbit hole in the first place?

And she says,

Sorry,

Meant to say is how do you not have an event and then let it take you over the whole day?

Like you said,

The whole day will be ruined becomes huge.

Yeah,

It really depends,

Right?

There's some of us where just the littlest thing can throw us off and ruin the whole day.

Um,

But on another day when we have enough self-care,

Self-nurturing,

You know,

In a really good space,

The same thing might not affect us as long,

You know,

I,

I think,

You know,

So let's say it does ruin our whole day,

You know,

Okay,

Well sometimes that happens,

You know,

How does it really resonate in the heart?

How can I take this into an opportunity that this really went deep?

You know,

When can I get to a space where I can really be with myself,

My heart or a friend or a loved one and explore it and do what I need to do to find out,

Um,

To find out about it,

To,

To feel it and offer myself what I need,

You know,

What's needed in this situation.

Okay.

Uh,

If it's already devastated us enough,

You know,

Devastation can actually bring out deep truths when within us,

You know,

When we're,

When we're devastated,

If we look deeper,

It's not pleasant.

We don't have to like it.

It can,

Uh,

Bring out deep truths within it.

I say,

Don't go out of your way to get devastated just to,

To get truths,

You know,

Again,

The classic thing is meditation though,

Meditation,

Meditation,

Meditation,

People probably get sick of hearing that,

But the more we're able to be with unpleasantness,

Uh,

Within our own body,

Within our own mind,

Uh,

Facing the pain we have,

Even in good conditions,

The more resiliency we're going to have built up,

The more inner skills we'll have to be able to face the challenges of life,

You know,

And then the mindfulness we'll have to see the mind spinning out,

The emotion spinning out.

You know,

Once we take the foot off the gas,

Then,

Uh,

Of the thinking process and the emotional process,

We can see where we're spinning out,

Come back to the heart and we don't have to fuel that.

We can,

And eventually it will run out of steam if we don't keep fueling it,

Right?

Getting what we need,

What's needed in the situation.

Sometimes we just need,

You know,

It's okay,

Beloved,

We did this,

This is,

We've got this,

This is okay.

You know,

Um,

I can take time out for myself.

So there's all kinds of strategies,

But I think the best thing is to ask what the heart needs and then the answer will usually come from within when we have a moment of quiet and go inward.

Then,

You know,

All the answers are within Lorraine says,

I'm not asking from a place of judgment,

More from a place of,

Of new meditation and this whole idea being in the moment.

Yeah.

So the things that I,

And I've said,

I wonder if any of those are helpful and you know,

Even judgment,

Um,

Yes,

We don't want to be judgmental,

Right?

Because judgmentalism is me feeling better about myself for judging another.

That's to me,

That's judgment,

That's judgmentalism.

But if I see what someone else is doing and I say,

Uh,

Yeah,

Wait a second,

I shouldn't judge them.

You don't know,

But they're,

They know I'm judging.

I shouldn't judge.

And then I ended up judging myself for judging another.

But the silver lining in that is I don't get satisfaction from doing that.

So in a way I don't look at it as a judgment.

I look at it as,

Okay,

I see and honor your Buddha nature,

Your divinity,

And that behavior is just not for me right now.

You know,

It's,

It's,

It's just not for me.

That's okay for you.

But for me,

It's just a,

It's just a signal that whatever I feel I'm being,

Uh,

Judging about,

It's just,

It's just not the best thing for me right now.

Well,

Thanks Lorraine.

Yeah.

And being in the moment to one of the thing that are having present moment awareness is that usually the mind tends to,

To spin out in rehashing old things or projecting into the future.

Right.

And so we're not able to give the resources to being there to actually feeling what's going on in the body too.

But it's,

It's understandable because sometimes we escape from kind of the pain of the moment sometimes and sometimes that's one strategy for dealing with it too.

But once we're able to be there and be present in the moment and trust that our inner resources will come through and,

And guide and help in the moment,

I feel is helpful.

Because even when we're thinking about the future,

Strategizing the future,

Rehashing the past,

You know,

Remembering things in the past,

Their,

Their thoughts and mental activities and feelings happening right now,

Right here and right now.

So once we realize that in one perception,

There is no really,

The future is uncertain and all the things we think about the future happening now,

Thoughts and feelings now are in the past,

They're happening now.

So once we kind of orient to that way of perception,

Then that's all there ever is,

Is the here and now and the activity,

What we're thinking or feeling about the past and the future.

So then that opens up more capacity to how things really are and gives more resources to being with things the way we can best meet them for our own welfare and happiness and that of others.

Okay,

So went into some strategies there and it's 15 minutes already,

Guys,

It's been cool being here and thanks Lorraine for the questions and thank you everyone for joining.

There's no more questions.

I think I'll skedaddle out of here and let you guys enjoy your Friday and whatnot.

So be well and may you all be blessed in defining your own successes and failure and may you come to know the best way to be in the world and facing things for how they are and may your wisdom grow and your heart expand in all the best possible ways.

Bye now.