Good morning,
Good afternoon,
Good evening.
So let's imagine a little glass,
A little beaker,
A little container,
And it's full of water,
And it's shaken,
And the water spills out,
It's easily shaken,
The water is easily upset,
It spills out.
Now imagine putting that water into a container 10,
20,
30,
40,
50 times larger,
Same amount of water,
Shake it,
If you can get hold of it,
It doesn't spill out,
It doesn't get upset.
Now imagine that the glass,
The small glass in the bigger container is a human being,
Is you,
Which one would you rather be,
The larger container wouldn't you,
It's less upset,
And that's what we're doing here,
So what upsets us now,
A remark,
A red light,
Influenza,
Whatever,
Whatever upsets us,
It'll still have an impact as the container grows,
But with less spillage,
You can contain it,
It's got a bigger space to live in,
There's more ease and more,
Well ease is a good word,
Equanimity,
Not so easily upset,
Yet we're still moved,
We're moved by,
The Buddha once described the state of just realising who we are as being moved by everything but touched by nothing,
In other words,
We don't spill,
Yet we're moved,
More than ever,
But that container,
Imagine that container just gets bigger and bigger and has actually no edges,
No boundaries,
Now that's a big leap for most of us because we're so identified with this small little ego self,
It's so,
It can appear so small and confined and vulnerable and fragile,
You know,
It's,
Put another way,
It feels so fragile and vulnerable and small because it's an image,
We have a mental image of ourself,
That's really all ego is,
It just resists everything,
So what we're doing here,
Always is building a bigger container,
It's the ABC of happiness,
The ABC of practice,
It's not complicated,
It's a bigger container,
And we do it by observing and experiencing,
You can't force it,
It just happens,
You open,
Open,
Open,
Open,
Open,
Open to your natural state,
I'm not saying you're not the body by the way,
But I'm saying you're not only the body,
You're not merely the body,
If we totally identified with this mental image,
There would be lots of suffering,
It's a case of mistaken identity,
We feel we are the small glass with all this stuff inside that's easily upset,
Okay,
So we're going to just do a very simple just sitting,
Of course you can include the breath,
You can start off with the breath or even the mantra,
You've all done the mantra,
How you start off,
It doesn't matter so much,
It helps to settle the system,
The nervous system can quiet down,
A couple of breaths,
Just drop into the body and feel what we find,
Just becoming more and more sensitive to what's actually happening,
Don't force anything,
You must relax,
Because awareness presence is already here,
So relaxing into a warm bath,
Where are you now,
So there are maybe sounds of the birds,
The traffic,
The heating system,
The heart is beating,
The body is breathing,
Those sensations,
Just feel those sensations,
Just hear those sounds,
It's all a great miracle,
But we miss it,
Too busy thinking about what's not happening,
Just checking that you're not tensed up,
You're all tight,
Feel overly caught up in mind,
Just use the breath,
Count the breaths for a few minutes,
These are tools we can use,
What's happening right now,
Each moment the container grows,
Just feel what's here,
Okay,
That's it for today,
Have a little movement,
Thank you guys.
