Notes from Swami’s talk · Meditation Dojo

Notes from Swami’s talk

Hello folks, I took detailed notes, so figured I’d share it here. The next lecture is tomorrow at 9:30 at 13508 Broadmeade Ave, Austin, TX 78729

He talked about the four practices in spirituality

1) Discernment - seeing the harmful from the helpful. That which brings pain vs joy. That which strengthens vs weakens us. That which is permanent vs impermanent.

2) Non attachment - having seen this clearly, we stop being attached to the impermanent or that which causes pain in the long term

3) The six treasures (restraining the mind, restraining the senses, pulling back, forbearance, concentration and deep faith)

4) An intense longing from freedom

I’ll elaborate only on 3 since I didn’t take notes yesterday when he talked about 1 and 2, and he’ll talk about 4 tomorrow

Restraining the mind - just as we are careful about what food we put in our bodies for physical health, what we put in our minds via what we read, watch, ideas we ponder and whom we spend time with affects our mental health

How do desires come in? Our mind is like a house with a small living room and a giant basement. We polish only the living room where we entertain visitors and put all the garbage in the basement. And we’re rarely aware of what’s in the basement (unconscious).

When we engage in an activity (eg drinking coffee for the first time) and enjoy it, a new conditioning enters the basement. Next time we pass by Starbucks, we’ll have a desire to drink coffee. We drink it again, and the conditioning strengthens.

If we later decide we need to not indulge in a desire (eg refraining from sweet things after a diabetes diagnosis), we need to exercise will power. Saying yes strengthens it. Saying no weakens it

Knowing when to say yes vs no needs wisdom. Pain comes from getting this wrong.

Restraining the senses - Some of this has been discussed above. Additionally, our senses have a defect. They always look outward. They are not good at asking “who is seeing this world?” Or “what do I know about this person?”. When we shut our external perception during meditation, we may have better luck in looking at this person.

Pulling back - We cannot always shut out our senses, obviously. Sometimes we have a trigger and the mind breaks free. A useful strategy for when an unwanted impulse enters the mind is to create an opposite wave. If I am supposed to reduce sugar intake and I see a cookie, I must think “the pleasure will last 5 seconds. After that it is all pain”. Sometimes this works. Sometimes this doesn’t. But pausing helps. And we should always try

The other side can happen too. If I get triggered into intense hatred, dislike or anger, we can detect it and create an opposite feeling. If I detect anger, I can smile, even if a little bit. It is very hard to be nasty with a smiling face 🙂 Otherwise we may say or do something we regret. The other way is to leave the room

Forbearance - It is in seeing that everything in life cannot go our way, and to accept what we cannot change. We must “bear the unpleasant without resistance, grumbling or anxiety”. I was confused about what he meant by resistance, so I won’t elaborate. Fear can be managed. If I’m afraid of a snake, I can avoid it. Anxiety is much worse for it has no cause. Grumbling is also a useless activity that just makes us cranky. Forbearance is a recognition that I’m not the center of the world

Concentration - This is one we are all familiar with. It comes only to one who has a pure heart and mind. And for that we need the other practices. That is why these six are grouped

Faith - every activity in life requires faith. When flying, we have faith that the pilot slept last night and knows the way. When eating, we have faith that the food doesn’t have arsenic. Likewise we must have faith that the spiritual path will lead us where we want to go. While spirituality may need faith to begin, it mustn’t end there. Eventually we must realise the truth for ourselves. Until then, faith is invaluable.

Other cool sayings

Humility is not in thinking less of ourselves, but thinking of ourselves less.

Non attachment, contrary to expectation, makes, love deeper. Attachment is to our ego. Love is about the other.

There are two ways to serve. Not is the obvious via external action. But a potentially more powerful way is to do spiritual practice and express true unconditional love and joy. When others see that, they feel uplifted. And for me that’s a big reason why I take every opportunity to see a monk. I can get their sayings anywhere on the internet, but seeing them operate is different

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