Let Go Of The Image Of Being Peaceful To Be At Peace

So there was a Zen monk that his master had asked him to go live in a cave for many years to practice,

To meditate,

To pay attention,

To see how things were arising and passing away,

To understand the nature of reality.

And after 10 years or so of being in the cave and practicing really disciplined,

The monk started to see how everything was arising and passing away,

How interconnected,

How interdependent it all was,

That he saw how he was interconnected and interdependent and arising in each moment and passing away and changing.

So he decides he'll go down to the monastery to let his master know.

And he goes into the big hall,

The master is sitting there at the altar,

And the monk walks up to the master and he bows and sits before him.

And he lets the master know,

He says,

Well,

I've been meditating,

I've been paying attention,

And I see,

I really see how all this is arising and passing away,

Changing moment by moment by moment,

Based on millions and billions of different causes and conditions.

That there is nothing here solid and independent,

There is nothing to grasp at.

And there is a deep sense of peace and serenity in seeing this,

Of letting go.

So the master looks at him,

Kind of with a scrutinizing,

Trying to see,

And he goes,

I believe you have had some deep insights,

But there is one final test before we really know if there is enlightenment there or not.

And the monk thinks,

What more could I possibly do?

I've been in this cold cave for 10 years on my own meditating.

And the master hands him an envelope,

And he says,

In this envelope is a plane ticket.

I want you to go home to your family for the holidays.

In after a week of being home with your family,

You still see how everything is just arising and passing away,

That there is nothing here to grasp at.

Then I will believe that you have truly awakened.

So we can spend a lot of time meditating,

Being in the cave,

And while all that is good,

It doesn't give us that interaction with other people to really see how stable our insights are.

Of course,

The family table over the holidays is really a good gauge for us to see that,

Can we still see everything is arising and passing away when politics start getting discussed or when some disagreements are arising or someone's giving us some advice on how we should be living our lives or maybe being disparaging about some of our life choices?

Can we still see that it is all just arising and passing away,

Changing moment by moment by moment?

So all the caves,

The monasteries,

The retreats that we go on,

All the meditation,

All the hours that we spend meditating on our cushion,

That is simply prep for the family holiday table to see if we are really getting it or not.

Because our family,

They don't care that we are meditators or that you've just done this 30-day vipassana retreat or that maybe you're some big monk or some big teacher.

They don't care.

They are always going to see us the way they've always seen us.

So because it's Christmas Eve,

We're going to have two stories today.

So a little old Jewish mother goes into a travel agency in New York and she says to the travel agent that she wants to go to this little town in Tibet.

And the travel agent is looking at where this town is and he's like,

Wow,

This is really going to be a tough trip.

Like it's going to be like four flights,

Probably 35 hours of flying.

And then even when you get to Lhasa,

There's going to be,

You're going to have to take little bus trips,

Something like 20-hour bus trips and not on like the Greyhound buses that we have here,

On these little rickety buses.

You're going to have to be on two of those buses for probably about 20 hours to get to this town in Tibet.

Are you sure this is what you want to do?

Can't I interest you in a cruise around the Caribbean?

That seems like it might be more appropriate.

And the mother is like,

Nope,

I want to go to Tibet.

So he goes,

Okay,

Does all the paperwork,

Gets her flight tickets,

And off she goes to Tibet.

She gets to Lhasa,

She takes the buses to the next destination.

She finally reaches this little town,

This remote little town in Tibet.

And she wanders down into the main part of town where the monastery is.

And there's a long line of people waiting to see the master,

The guru of the monastery,

The High Lama.

So she gets in line,

And she's waiting very patiently as the line kind of slowly edges up.

And as she gets closer,

Some attendants come out and they're letting everyone know,

The line is very long today,

So we're just allowing each person to say three words to the Great Lama.

So just three words,

And she's like,

Okay,

No problem.

No problem.

I got this.

So finally,

She is before the Great Lama.

She looks at him in the eyes.

She says,

Harold,

Come home.

So it does not matter whether you are the Great Lama or not.

You are still,

If your mother tells you it's time to come home,

Your mother tells you it's still time to come home.

And so it's not so much about how other people see us on this path.

In fact,

It's not at all how other people see us.

And that's what we have to be really mindful of,

Because we have this tendency to,

We haven't seen our family for a while,

And you've been meditating,

And you're on Dharma talks,

And you've been going on retreats,

Or maybe you haven't seen some good friends for a while.

And we have this tendency to imagine how they're going to see us as being so different now,

Because now I'm so peaceful,

I'm less stressed.

I'm sure they'll all notice.

I'm sure they'll all treat me differently,

Because now I'm a meditator.

And so we end up inflating this image of ourselves ahead of time.

We're thinking,

They're all going to see me this way.

And then inevitably,

We're disappointed,

Because they don't see us this way.

They see us just as the same person they've always seen us as.

And I just want to say thank you,

Matt,

For the donation.

I think that's Matt.

So peace,

Real peace,

Is not dependent upon how other people see us.

And it's not dependent on how we see ourselves.

And in fact,

Any time we see ourselves as any image,

Or imagine how others are going to see us as this image,

We just set ourselves up for suffering.

That's all.

Because peace,

True peace,

Isn't seeing images,

Isn't getting attached to images.

It's seeing how all things are arising and changing moment by moment by moment,

Based on millions and billions and trillions of different causes and conditions.

That's what's peaceful.

Not the image of me as peaceful.

But the seeing,

The seeing that as we go about our day,

Not just at the family holidays,

But just as we're going about our day,

And being clumsy,

Or saying the wrong thing,

Of having a moment,

A little stressful moment,

And being okay.

Because maybe those were the conditions that were arising in that moment.

You're a little bit rushed.

You had to be somewhere.

You were a little late.

And you run into someone,

And there's a few delays.

And you can feel a little bit of that sense of urgency rising up and a little bit of stress could be arising with it.

That's okay.

Stress is arising,

And it's changing moment by moment,

Based on causes and conditions.

But we so hold to this image of me,

No,

I'm a meditator now,

I'm so peaceful.

I can't ever experience stress.

I can't ever experience disappointment.

No,

Of course we're still going to experience it.

If disappointment is what's arising,

Be with it.

Let it move through you.

You can make an image out of me disappointed.

And especially when that image is tacked onto the image of me being peaceful,

Now the image of me is disappointed.

And I'm doubly disappointed because I was so attached to the image of me being peaceful.

It sets up more suffering for us.

It sets up more suffering when we get attached to the image,

The image of me peaceful,

The image of me as a meditator,

The image of how others are going to see me now because I meditate.

And I think we do have a benefit in being lay practitioners.

Because you can imagine if you're a monastic,

And not all monastics,

I mean,

Not all monastics are enlightened,

First of all,

Very few.

People are novices,

They start early,

But they're wearing the robes,

The heads shaved.

And people are bowing to them,

Right?

People are acting differently around them.

Let me get you something.

We don't want to offend them,

The monk or the nun,

And we want to make sure they're looked after.

And you could imagine if your practice isn't really grounded in wisdom,

You could imagine how that you'd start to believe that after a while.

I'm so special,

I'm so special.

Until the monk or the nun goes home and realizes,

Oh,

My family still doesn't see me as that special.

But we have that benefit of not being special to anyone,

Right?

No one bowing to us.

We don't walk in the supermarket and all of a sudden the line disappears.

Oh,

You go first,

Because you're,

You know,

You're this great monk,

This great llama,

This nun,

Or this great spiritual teacher with the number one New York Times bestseller,

Right?

It's not like the C parts,

Right,

For us.

And that's a good thing.

That is a really good thing,

Because we could get caught up in that image and really start to believe it.

And we do see this sometimes,

Sometimes on the downfall of a teacher,

If they weren't really there.

And then too much of the adoration and too much of the praise and the being treated in this way,

And then the ego just inflates itself around it.

So we have the benefit of nobody seeing us as special,

Of being in the world and interacting in the world with other people,

Just as normal people,

Just everyday people.

No one's special.

No one's different.

We're all humans.

We all make mistakes.

We all have flaws.

We all say the wrong thing from time to time.

Like,

We're all just human.

And we don't have to live up to any image either,

Because I think that can go along with it as well,

Right?

If you're the big teacher that has the thousands of people that come on your retreats and you're on Oprah and you've got your own TED Talk,

Right?

You've also got to live up to that image.

What a nightmare.

What a nightmare,

Having to live up to some image of who you think other people think you are.

And so it's good for us that we live as lay practitioners,

Living in the world,

Still practicing but living in the world,

Because we're constantly,

Constantly getting those reminders that everything is just arising and passing away.

To not cling to any image of being different,

To not cling to any image of being peaceful,

Not clinging to any image that you might associate with meditation.

Any image is not what we're doing here and will only bring suffering,

Disappointment,

Pain,

When everyone fails to see us like that.

Or when we fail to see ourselves like that.

We just perceive we've done something unspiritual.

We had a mindless moment,

Oh no,

What's wrong?

My little image is a little shattered now,

A little askew,

So now I better beat myself up about that.

So you can see how it really,

The image,

You're creating so many problems for us.

But mostly the biggest problem that it creates is that as long as we see this image,

We are not really seeing,

We're not really paying attention,

Because we're having a conversation with them and we're just wondering the whole time,

How are they perceiving me?

Are they validating who I think I am?

We're not really with the person,

We're just trying to gauge,

Do they see me the way I want them to see me?

So we're not present,

We're not engaged.

If we're having a conversation and someone has a difference of opinion,

Right?

People do have different opinions than us,

You know,

We cling to our views and opinions.

The image of me being right,

Because we can't stand the image of me being wrong.

We cannot even entertain the thought,

What if I'm wrong?

Which is a good thought to entertain a lot by the way,

A really good thought to entertain,

What if I'm wrong?

We get lost in this little image of me being right.

And I've got to convince my uncle at the dinner table,

At the Christmas table of why they're wrong for who they vote for,

Their views on climate or social issues,

Whatever the issues might be.

I've got to convince them.

And we spend so much time lost in that little thought thinking,

I will be free if I can just get them to believe the way I need them to believe,

For me to be right,

To hold that image of me that I'm right.

But what if I thought,

But what if I'm wrong?

What if I'm wrong?

Notice how all of a sudden you're free.

Even in that,

What if I'm wrong in that way,

Not,

Oh my God,

I'm wrong,

Right?

There's an image in that,

But what if I'm wrong?

Notice how it all falls away.

But we do,

We cling to these images and around the holidays,

It can be very tough for people.

Going home to family,

All those old triggers and all those old habits and of course around our family,

Like no one holds back,

Right?

It's not like with friends at a dinner or something like that,

A restaurant,

No one holds back.

And it's really good for us to see this.

It's good for us to see how it's all arising.

When someone starts bringing up some story about something we did when we were young that maybe is embarrassing and instead we're like,

Oh no,

No,

No,

We can't have anyone remember that because I have this new image of me,

Right?

We laugh along with it,

Oh yeah,

I did that,

That was really stupid,

Right?

Or again,

Anytime the conversation starts flowing in a way where there's some disagreements happening or something along those lines and instead of getting too attached to it,

Instead of thinking,

Oh no,

This isn't the image of how I even saw me at the dinner or the image of how I imagined this was all going to go,

Instead of just,

Ah,

Conditions arising,

Changing moment by moment by moment,

Nothing to hold on to here,

Nothing to cling to.

That's what we're trying to see.

And anytime we are holding an image of ourselves,

A good image or a bad image,

Both images are inextricably linked together.

If I have the image of me as the good meditator,

As the good spiritual teacher,

Well then what happens when I give a class that's not so good?

Because that happens.

Now I'm the bad spiritual teacher,

Right?

If I'm the good meditator,

Mind is crystal clear in the meditation,

You're in samadhi,

You're investigating the nature of reality and then the next day your mind's all over the place,

Now I'm the bad meditator.

The good image and the bad image are two sides of the same coin.

You can't have one without the other.

Any image is suffering,

Any image.

And so be very mindful as we,

Some of you are maybe going home for the holidays or just even as you're meditating,

As your practice continues and maybe you're seeing some friends that you haven't seen for a while or you haven't seen your family for a while,

Notice that tendency,

We've all done it,

We've all done it,

Where we think,

Oh they're going to see me as different somehow,

No they're not.

And it's not for others to see us as different,

That's not the point,

That's not the point.

It's for us to be able to walk away from a conversation and we just said something stupid,

Maybe we didn't hurt someone's feelings or anything but we just said something that we forgot someone's name or something that could be a little bit embarrassing and to walk away and to not have any image associated with it.

It doesn't matter what they're thinking about me now,

It doesn't matter.

It's not to say if we didn't,

If we hurt someone's feelings,

If we had a moment where we weren't very kind in our speech but then when we go to say I'm sorry,

It's not because I need you now to fix this little image of me because I don't like the image of me that could hurt someone,

Making it about me again,

We go to say I'm sorry because I think I might have hurt you and that was never my intention,

I hope you're okay,

Making it about them because maybe we've hurt them.

So be very very mindful of the images,

The images of how we see ourselves.

It does not matter how anyone else sees us.

We don't need anyone to see us as peaceful,

As meditators,

As spiritual practitioners.

We don't need that.

It's just to see how things arise and pass away,

Arise and pass away.

How interdependent,

How interconnected,

How impermanent it all is.

We talked about this a few weeks ago when we talked about the image that arises,

How it's just changing,

Constantly changing.

Nothing permanent there,

Nothing there to hang,

Nothing to hold on to,

Nothing to grasp at,

But we do sometimes still get lured into that good image,

The image of the meditator,

The image of the being peaceful and how will they see me now.

As soon as you notice that thought arising or that image arising,

Be mindful,

Come back,

Breathe,

Snap yourself out of it.

It was just an image arising,

Don't get mad at yourself,

Right?

Just an image arising,

But don't believe in it,

Don't believe in it.

You will only cause yourself suffering.

And the more you believe in the image,

The less seeing that you are doing,

Right?

We can't see if we're imagining ourselves as something else.

We're not imagining ourselves as anything,

Any image.

It's just seeing and hearing and touching and tasting and smelling and being in the moment and seeing it arise and change.

That's what we're trying to do.

That's where the peace comes from,

From the lack of grasping at anything.

There's always grasping in the image,

Even in the good image.