Enjoying The Ride Of Life

We have been talking about our Buddha nature,

Our true nature,

Our true self,

Soul,

Spirit,

Consciousness,

God with a little g,

You know,

All of these different words that we use to point to something that is permanent.

Because as we discussed a couple weeks ago,

We live in a world of impermanence.

Everything has its opposite.

And if everything is impermanent,

Something must be permanent in order to even see that everything is impermanent.

And if it's permanent,

We know that it is unconditioned.

It is not dependent upon causes and conditions.

So when we experience,

When we're in touch with our true nature,

We feel the qualities of love and peace and joy and feeling complete and whole and accepted and safe.

And these,

It's not conditioned for us to experience these qualities.

Anytime that we're able to connect to our true nature,

This is our experience independent of what's happening around us.

So we have this permanent part of us,

Our Buddha nature.

And then the opposite is the world of impermanence.

And that includes everything around us,

Our thoughts,

Our feelings,

Our emotions,

All the material objects that we see,

All of our experiences,

They are all impermanent.

And they all arise through causes and conditions.

They don't spontaneously arise and stay.

They are dependent upon causes and conditions to come into being.

That's also the definition of impermanence.

It's dependent.

It's conditioned.

And the best example,

And I use this a lot because I think we can so easily see this,

Is the rainbow.

We know the rainbow is an illusion.

It's not that it's not real,

But we know it's an illusion.

We know it's dependent upon causes and conditions.

It needs a certain amount of light,

A certain amount of water,

And it has to hit at a certain angle in order for us to perceive the rainbow.

But we know that the rainbow is impermanent.

We know it won't last.

This is also one of the reasons we get so excited when we see a rainbow,

Right?

You know,

We lose ourselves like,

Oh my God,

It's a rainbow.

Look how exciting.

Look,

Look at the rainbow.

We're all excited by the rainbow.

We understand its nature is impermanent,

And so we're more excited when we see it.

But this is the nature of everything that's impermanent,

That's subject to causes and conditions.

It comes into being through causes and conditions,

And it goes out of being through causes and conditions.

So everything's coming into being and going out of being,

Coming into being and going out of being.

It's a ride.

We're on a ride.

And to experience the ride,

We need the ups and the downs.

If we were to go to the amusement park and we pay a lot of money,

We wait in line for a long,

Long time,

We finally get to the front of the line and we get in the cart and we're like,

Yay,

We're on the ride,

But it doesn't move.

We're like,

This ride sucks.

I don't want to be on this ride.

It's not doing anything.

I want to go.

I want to move,

Right?

So the conductor says,

Oh,

You want that ride?

Well then you have to experience some ups and downs.

Let's go.

So then you kind of start going up the hill,

A little excitement,

A little fear,

Butterflies in the stomach,

Right?

A little bit of an anticipation.

And then it's thrilling.

It's coming down,

But it's also a little,

Maybe a little more nausea coming up.

We're going up and down.

It's thrilling.

It's exciting.

It's fun.

It's not so fun.

We're ready for it to be over.

This is the ride.

This is the ride that we're on.

And if we want to enjoy the ride,

We can't forget that it's a ride.

And in order to not forget it's a ride,

We can't forget who we really are.

We can't forget our Buddha nature.

If we remember the permanent part of us,

Then we can remember it's a ride.

And this is what all of the great sages tell us,

The great masters.

It's a ride.

Enjoy the ride.

Don't take it so seriously.

This is Krishnamurti.

I brought him up last year,

The great Indian sage,

When he had all of his followers in front of him and he said,

He kind of just stopped his talk and he said,

Do you really want to know my secret?

I don't mind what happens.

He's enjoying the ride.

He's going with the ride.

But just try and tell your boss that when you've lost the report,

Or it's not ready on time,

Or you've lost a big client,

Or something's gotten screwed up,

Or when your partner is having a meltdown because you taped over something or you forgot to do something that you said you would do,

And you go,

I don't mind what happens.

I'm chill,

Man.

It's all okay.

Right?

That's not going to work too well.

And so there's a middle ground here.

We don't go from one extreme to the other.

And I think it's important for us to also remember we don't live in a cave.

We don't live in a monastery or an ashram where everyone's taking care of all the practical matters for us.

Right?

That's not,

You know,

We live a householder's life,

A layperson life.

And you know,

Just kind of a,

Hey,

Maybe I'll be there.

Maybe I'll be here at nine o'clock.

Maybe I won't.

You know,

Hey man,

We'll just see what happens.

After a while,

No one's showing up at 9am.

It's not very effective.

So this doesn't mean that we're not responsible,

That we're not reliable,

That we don't understand that when we've made a commitment that we want to follow through with that commitment.

It's a mindset.

This is what we have to remember.

It is a mindset of not minding what happens.

If you're running late,

Start to move quickly.

Text the person and let them know you're going to be late.

But in your mind,

Don't spin out of control and think it's the worst thing in the world.

And oh my God,

They must think I'm horrible and I can't believe this happened.

And who can I blame for this?

Right?

Don't go to that extreme either.

Don't get lost in it.

It's an experience.

You're late.

Eckhart Tolle uses this example of two men running for a train.

They're late for the train.

One man's running for the train and he's enjoying the run.

He's enjoying the movement.

Right?

He's in the moment.

He knows he needs to run to catch the train.

The other man is running frantically.

You know,

Oh my God,

Out of his mind,

What's going to happen if I miss the train?

Who's more likely to catch the train?

The one that's enjoying the movement,

The one that's kind of in it.

And if he doesn't catch the train,

That's okay too.

All right,

Let's figure this out.

It's not the end of the world.

Don't take it so seriously.

And even when we get some disappointing news,

And maybe we'll just touch on the material side of disappointing news,

Right?

I'm trying to close on this land up here.

I've had so many delays,

Right?

I can't get upset every time we get another delay.

It's Mexico,

Right?

It's one of the reasons I love being down here as well.

They definitely have an I don't mind what happens attitude and I need to get on board with that.

But to understand the disappointment,

And there is a little disappointment,

You know,

Like,

Oh,

Okay,

It's a little late again.

All right.

But I had to remember in that moment,

If I didn't know what disappointment felt like,

If I didn't know,

Sorry,

If I didn't know what losing felt like,

What setback felt like,

I wouldn't know what gaining feels like,

Wouldn't know what winning feels like.

It would have no meaning to me.

And so in those moments of disappointment,

Or setbacks or perceived setbacks,

We come back to our practice and remember,

Oh,

Yeah,

I have to understand this experience to understand its opposite.

I don't have to get lost in it.

I don't have to tell myself a story about why this is the worst thing in the world and complain about it and try and find someone to blame.

That's getting lost in the world.

It's impermanent.

It won't last.

And even if we're in a situation where maybe we're on hold with customer service,

And it has been three hours,

Four hours,

Let's say,

You know,

And we've been patient,

And we've been kind and we're kind of,

Hey,

I don't mind what happens.

But there's a point to where we don't have all day to spend on the phone with customer service.

And there is a point to where we can be more assertive with our voice.

But it's an act.

We're not believing it.

But we understand to move the needle a little bit right now,

I need to change my demeanor.

I do find,

By the way,

Patience and kindness almost always works.

But every now and then,

It doesn't work.

And what I'll always say is,

Look,

Please don't take this personally.

I'm not upset with you,

But I'm kind of at the end of my tether.

I've been on hold for three hours now.

And I really need for this to start happening.

Can I speak with a manager?

And be a little bit more assertive,

Probably more assertive than I'm sounding right now.

But you know,

I can say those words,

But not be at the end of my tether inside.

To know that I need to do this in order to move the needle.

But inside,

It's still my mindset that,

Okay,

This is what's happening.

Respond appropriately.

Respond skillfully,

Wisely,

With compassion.

Don't scream at the other person.

Don't be rude.

We don't need to move the needle that way.

Stay within my practice,

But I can be assertive without really being at the end of my tether.

But maybe needing to say that in order to move the needle forward.

And so we start with little things,

Right?

Just the little things.

The little disappointments.

The little,

Oh,

I'm late.

The little bit of criticism or blame,

Right?

The little losses,

Right?

We start with those and we work with those.

And we remember,

Oh yeah,

It's a ride.

This is what's going on right now.

Like we are late.

We're all going to be late within the next week.

For something,

We'll be late,

Right?

Oh,

Here it goes.

Okay,

I'm going to rush.

I'm moving.

I'm moving.

But my mind's not,

My mind's not,

You know,

10 steps ahead of me.

I'm staying with what I'm doing.

I'm in the moment.

I'm moving with it.

I'm going fast.

I'm not making this more than it is.

I'm just late.

I've let the person know it's okay.

So start with little things and then we move up to bigger things,

Right?

That's our practice.

Start with the small things and then move up to the bigger things.

And the way that we keep doing this,

To keep seeing impermanence,

To keep remembering who we really are,

We need a daily practice to keep coming back to know this.

We've spent most of our lives lost in the world believing things are more permanent than they are,

Believing there's more meaning in these things than there really is.

And to really pull back the veil,

To really know this to be true,

We need to have a daily practice.

And you can journal about this every day.

You could contemplate about it every day.

You could chant about it every day.

You could pray about it every day.

You could meditate about it every day.

You could do all of those things.

But if we want to enjoy the ride,

We have to do something to keep remembering it's a ride.

Thank you.

Namaste.