Training in Compassion – Roots of Compassion 2026
Roots of Compassion 2024 | Four Talks by Tim Burnett

Sometimes practice is really all about reminding ourselves over and over again, gently, steadily with feeling, of some really simple ideas.

The first simple idea is “what you practice grows stronger.”

If you practice tuning back into what’s happening here and now mindfulness grows stronger.

Where we go astray is we think that for mindfulness to be present there needs to also be an absence of worries, of obsessive thought loops, of upset. It’s supposed to feel like “calm” to e mindfulness.

We’re such problem solvers that maybe we think: well first I need to solve this issue in my mind, and THEN I’ll be calm and mindful.

But actually mindfulness is the process of returning even in the middle of an agitated mind. So simple. Just returning. To presence. Not always problem solving and fixing. Not always strategizing around how to prevent this or that difficult thing from every happening again.

Not to say that we don’t need to put some energy from time to time into problem solving. But the balance gets off, doesn’t it? Sometimes extremely off.

All of our energy gets sucked into problem solving and very little into being present in our lives as they unfold in front of us. Often it’s a kind of false problem solving isn’t it? Worrying, anticipating, rehearsing. More like a dog worrying a bone than thoughtful action that might help the situation. Better to forget about it and breathe. And maybe you can do that for one breath – ahh. And probably then it’s back but there’s mindfulness in action!

Say it’s an interpersonal thing, those can sure catch me.

The other day I received some criticism that felt very out of the blue – in a text of course. I actually think did a decent job responding evenly and calmly. Sorry you feel that way kind of thing, but not apologizing for my actions which I thought were quite reasonable. More: “you’re upset and I hear you”. I was kind of proud of myself actually. It felt resolved.

But, of course it wasn’t. Next day he brings it up again on the email to a group of us. “hey everyone here’s an example of the way this is supposed to be done…just FYI!” I’m sure he thought he was clarifying but it felt manipulative to me. Aggressive. And boy did my mind start spinning.

After reading that – remind me why I ever read email on my phone in the middle of the day? – I just couldn’t get the annoyance and how much I wanted to straighten him out out of my head.

I went on what should have been a lovely bike ride on a rare sunny Sunday in the Northwest Winter with my wife, and the whole time my mind was going around and around about it. I don’t need to tell you about the thoughts and emotions – you can imagine.

But to be fair to myself: I did practice mindfulness on that bike ride.

I did remind myself to tune back into the beauty of the sun on Bellingham Bay, to the trees and sky, to my wife riding along with me. I was with what I was doing some of the time.

And my mind was also often on this issue. I wanted it resolved, I wanted it solved, I wanted it to go away. I wanted the other person to see it my way mostly if I’m honest.

So no, I didn’t enjoy that sticky mind state. I wished it wasn’t happening and I wished I could be fully present and enjoying the bike ride.

But I also was practicing mindfulness, I also was enjoying the bike ride to some extent and I did know my mind wouldn’t be that intensely hooked forever.

I did okay, I think, not beating myself up for the way my mind was. It was the way it was, and I was out on a beautiful bike ride with my wife. Both were true. I was practicing. Coming back. And that mind state is really unpleasant.

Can you relate to all of this?

What you practice grows stronger. Mostly I wasn’t practicing being pissed off although that was there, I was practicing seeing my mind as it was, I was practicing coming back to my surroundings.

Of course the mind that wants to judge and evaluate was not very impressed – dude, so distracted! Why are you giving him so much space in your head?! – actually I did okay. The mind gets that way and I was enduring it. Trying not to make it worse at least.

Being calm, out in nature say, or in a sweet period of retreat, is lovely. And then maybe it does feel like mindfulness is about a calm state. Very nice, enjoy! And mindfulness can help us enjoy and feel those times when everything comes together in that way for sure.

But actually mindfulness isn’t a calm state of mind, it’s a process.

And the more we practice it the stronger it gets. The more available it is to us.

I have no way of knowing if my icky stuck mind so easily triggered by being criticized would be a bigger challenge in my life if I’d never gotten into mindfulness and meditation, but it sure seems reasonable to think that. There is a role in this for trust, for faith. And some healthy skepticism of our own ability to evaluate who “good” we are at it.

A simple definition of mindfulness we use from Jon Kabat-Zinn is “Mindfulness is paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally.”

That was happening for sure during my hour of agitated bike riding. Seeing the light on the bay. Recognizing that the mind was upset and agitated. Responding to something my wife said.

And non-mindfulness was happening too, sure: judgmental thoughts about my criticizer – about how he could have been a whole lot kinder in how he brought his view up with me and so on. Being somewhere else and somewhen else. And my whole history with this person bubbling around in mind, too.

But paying attention on purpose in the present moment with less judgement was happening too. So wonderfully simple that way of looking at mindfulness. Am I here? Am I more or less open to what’s happening? Okay! This is mindfulness.

That’s the root of what we’re doing here. So simple, but it sure does happen in a complex consciousness in a messy world! Sometimes pretty difficult, other times so graceful and natural that we hardly notice we’re doing it. Just being here. Look at that. Life goes up, life goes down. Always changing but here’s a snapshot of that flow we call “now.”

Mindfulness is the base for compassion – our big topic this week. Without the stability of mindfulness, real compassion is not possible. So we start there and return there. Over and over and over and over again.

Compassion is a fascinating word in English, it actually adds something to the word used in Buddhism which is rare in the translations. Often something’s lost in translation. Here something is gained.

The word “compassion” comes from Latin and is a combination of two parts:

• Com-: Meaning “with” or “together.”
• Pati: (From the verb patior) Meaning “to suffer,” “to endure,” or “to undergo.”

Literally, compassion means “to suffer with.”

This points out a key ingredient that makes compassion really sing. It’s counter-intuitive at first but it’s far better to feel the pain in ourselves, in another we’re trying to help. Better than holding that pain at arm’s length or putting it in a kind of conceptual box.

Somehow if we act from heart, not just from head, our response is deeper and wiser and more helpful. And also more healing for us and whomever else is involved. Haven’t you found that to be true? There’s some interesting research that backs this up too.

For example saying a probably wise thing like, “Oh that makes perfect sense you’re feeling that way” feels and lands very differently if you’re feeling the pain in the situation than if you’re just thinking “oh that’s tough, darn” without really feeling it. Maybe it lands more like pity. Or more like advice giving. Less “we’re in this together, fellow human, and it’s tough, you’ve got this.”

But compassion is not just feeling, it’s feeling an a willingness to engage. To be with. And to help.

The early Buddhists used the Sanskrit word “karuna” for what we’re calling compassion and that word is a word of action. The Sanskrit root kṛ means “to do, to act” so compassion is active.

The action might be doing something concrete, sure, but it could also be the quieter action of fully showing up for someone. There are plenty of times there’s nothing concrete to be done but our response can still be karuna, still be active. Compassion is open, sort and receptive and active and engaged both. It’s a very rich thing worth a lifetime of study and practice.

And goodness knows the world needs this now doesn’t it? I’m frightened too about what’s going on in this country. And how to allow myself to feel that fear and the many other layers of feeling that are there and also stay engaged. To take action in some way. It’s hard. I probably won’t bring up the outside world again this week – we also need to take time away from it to be helpful in it – but I want you to know that I’m very much feeling that.

The intention here isn’t to hide out in ancient Buddhist wisdom or hole up in this beautiful retreat center. But we can also give us the gift of being fully here for 5 days of dropping into these practices and teachings. It’s a gift that helps the world too, not just us.

So how to practice compassion? It seems more complex than that simple basis of mindfulness we’ve been talking about.

Mindfulness is about meeting the moments of our lives more fully.

And compassion is about how we meet these moments isn’t it?

Am I feeling the depths of this moment? If there’s joy here am I feeling it? If there’s pain, fear, or sorrow here am I feeling it?

And how do I respond. Compassion is active. Feeling the feeling deeply, being willing to feel it, being willing to stay with it, and responding. From the heart, from our gut, and sure the mind and everything we’ve learned over the years is a part of it too.

My talks sometimes fall into being long introductions so I guess that’s what just happened. A long introduction to a wonderful system from Buddhism for developing compassion. For shifting some of the mental habits that block compassion especially.

It’s a system that makes use or phrases – of slogans. Maybe you’re familiar with loving-kindness mediation which is a close cousin of compassion with it’s phrases like “may you be happy.”

Language is powerful. Language weaves the concepts through which we perceive the world. You could even say language weaves the concepts with which we create the world depending on your philosophical bent.

So these practices use language in a deliberate way to shift that conceptual story we’ve woven about who we are and how it all works. Because that story can be such a stuck and limiting story, can’t it? Like in my little story of reactivity and rumination I could invest energy in the idea “I’m so thin skinned! I always obsess over disagreements.” Or I could invest in blaming the other person. And sure those ideas came up, but I also know that I can change and that I can’t fix anyone else. And I also can broaden the story remembering that it’s good that I’m sensitive and not callous – that’s how I want to be!

A brief historical note about these particular bits of wise language for compassion trainning.

They come to us originally from an Indian Buddhist sage named Atisha who lived and taught in Bihar, India, in the 10th century. Bihar is in Northeaster India next to Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Nepal. Whether Atisha invented them or learned them from his own teachers who knows.

And then as Buddhism traveled north into Tibet, the Tibetan Buddhists really got into them. A famous 12th century book called Root Text of the Seven Points of Training the Mind by a teacher named Geshe Chekawa Yeshe Dorje became a standard text studied and much commented on by all of the schools of Tibetan Buddhism.

But until the modern era these teachings weren’t well known in other Buddhist countries and cultures. My own Japanese Zen ancestors wouldn’t have know of them. Nor would the wonderful mindfulness practitioners in Thailand and Burma in the southeast of Asia. We do live in a fortunate time in that way – we have access to so much.

The main book I myself have studied, among others, is by my own Zen Teacher, Norman Fischer called Training in Compassion the website mentioned this. I have a personal connection to this book as was there for many of the talks that led to it. It’s fine if you have or have not read the book. Maybe later you could if you like.

The Seven Points in the original Tibetan book are seven themes, seven groups of these compassion mind training slogans. Sometimes the Tibetan word “lo-jong” is used which just means “mind-training”. But here it’s mind write large – not just your thinking and worrying – more like consciousness. More like your whole wide rich range of experiencing is “mind.”

Before I use up all of our time introducing the topic, let’s get to a specific point and an example slogan or two. These are very rich and can be pretty challenging in daily life but at retreat maybe we can get the hang of them.

The point is called “Transform Bad Circumstances into the Path”. The seven points are big ideas and this one sounds very lofty and difficult, doesn’t it? How do you do that? The slogans within them the nuts and bolts.

I’m trying to practice today with the 3rd slogan in this point which is: be grateful to everyone – Not so hard to do when met by Francine’s warm and enthusiasm last night maybe! But that’s in this practice too – not taking her for granted. Thank you for your kindness. Thank you for welcoming us so warmly. It’s sweet that you called me, “my darling” about half a dozen times. I’m grateful she’s one of our hosts.

And what can I also practice gratitude with my critical colleague and his reactive text? Can I be grateful there too? Every reaction and difficulty has the seeds of wisdom in it doesn’t it? Is an opportunity for growth and healing. That’s actually true I think. But we have to each find our way to it in our own ways too, someone telling you that a difficult thing is an “opportunity for growth” is pretty irritating, no?

AND of course we have more knowledge now about our psychological limits – about the power of triggered past traumas for instance – we know more about this than probably they did in 12th century Tibet – which was also a very hierarchical, male dominated culture.

So maybe some things are just so far out of our window of tolerance that we can’t access gratitude and really just need to put our shields up. But I think we’re also learning it’s a barrier to growth to hide out in our identities, including the identity of trauma survivor as real that that suffering is. is there space for gratitude here? Learning to allow ourselves be surprised by our resilience and wisdom is a deep part of this point “Transform Bad Circumstances into the Path” too.

But here I am talking about the example in my life from a few days ago far away from this place!

Let’s bring our practice here. Retreat is generally a pretty darn safe place. It helps a lot that no one is talking to you, much less texting and emailing you!

And yet stuff comes up – we are a group of humans. We are interacting. We are rubbing shoulders. We are all bringing our wisdom and our baggage with us to retreat.

So if someone, or something, rubs you the wrong way can. you bring up the phrase, “be grateful to everyone”?

We can extend that to this place and the staff. And everything that went into this even being here. The visionaries who thought of creating this place, the architect, the builders, the donors who help is keep going – I don’t think the lodging fees we’re passing on to Rainbow Lodge would be nearly enough to cover a place with this much staffing.

Sitting in my room just now, which has a drafty window and a quite loud air handlers just outside, can I be grateful to everyone? Not that it’s bad that some irritation arises – that’s natural and normal – but as it arises can I meet it with gratitude instead of what I, in my infinite wisdom, think they should have done differently when they built this place? Or installed the heating system.

A great start is to breathe with these phrases in meditation. Not to try to figure them out or weave them into an action plan. But to be with the words deeply and steadily. To kind of like drop them down the well and see what echoes back in your heart-mind. Be grateful to everyone. Be grateful to everyone.

Maybe after a while that’s a lot of words and you just breathe with grateful. Grateful, grateful, grateful.

Maybe after a while even forming that word in your mind is unnecessary. There’s a feeling that’s being nurtured in your heart, in your gut. And you let the word grateful fall away into the silence and sit with the feeling of it.

If you try out “be grateful to everyone” and it doesn’t ring in your heart here’s another slogan that’s really great for retreat practice: “don’t figure anyone out”.

This is a great way to notice how easily and automatically we make up stories about people. Maybe you learned a thing or two last night about a few of our colleague here and that becomes the seed of a story about what they’re like and how great, or, sadly, often the mind is interested in how annoying people are if we’re honest. This isn’t about remembering that we are all majestic and wonderful, if flawed, human beings. It’s not about telling a better story. It’s about not telling stories at all.

“dont figure anyone out” – you can breathe with that to set it in your heart just like with “be grateful to everyone” – and invite it forward when sure enough pretty soon you’re doing just that with someone.

And eventually this slogan gets really rich and juicy as you start to include yourself in the “anyone” – we get so very busy trying to figure ourselves out too, don’t we? It can be so exhausting! This constant attempt to figure ourselves out so we can fix ourselves. Ack! So maybe after a while you could also practice “don’t figure myself out” – or you could make it into a phrase that’s a bit more immediate like, “no need this figure this out” No need to figure this out. No need to figure this out.

Well that’s a long winded start to this exploration. We’ll get into more phrases (and less about my own lunacy) in the next days. Thank you for listening.

LOGISTIC: I’ll put out the sign up sheet for those small group conversations after this. We’ll say more when we gather, but they aren’t so much conversations as each person having the opportunity to bring something up and Nikki or I will try to respond in some helpful way. The blessing of this is both the opportunity to bring something up and see if we can help a little from our perspective having done this stuff a while, and the opportunity to find out a little about what’s up with a selection of your neighbors. Totally optional as I said. It’s an invitation. And I think we’ll start those tomorrow afternoon. Nice to just stay quiet the rest of our first full day.

As you might recall the Tibetan compassion training system has 7 categories, or points, and within those are distributed 59 practice slogans.

We met a few from the point Transform Bad Circumstances into the Path yesterday.
“Be grateful to everyone” and “Don’t try to figure others out.”

Several of you have taken the Mindful Self-Compassion class. Maybe you remember the exercise about finding silver linings from difficult times in the past. That exercise was inspired by this point except like most of MSC it’s gentler that its Buddhist underpinnings which. That exercise helps you see that there have been times in your life when you Bad Circumstances did Transform into your life’s Path. Something difficult ended up opening another door that proved to be really important to you is often how it goes.

I have another difficult colleague story I tell sometimes about how I was more or less kicked out of the ranks of elementary school teachers. It was painful and hard and confusing. And I learned a lot. It’d set my sights on becoming a school teacher, went back to school in my early 30’s for it. And then my career only lasted a couple of years largely because of a toxic co-worker’s actions.

But I never would have been able to go to all the retreats and trainings I needed to go to become a Zen teacher or a mindfulness teacher if I’d stayed locked into the elementary school teacher’s schedule. Sure they get nice break in summer but during the school year, man, you are LOCKED IN to the school schedule. I remember I had two personal days per year. Two! This retreat would have required 4 and unless i wanted to lie and use sick time I couldn’t have done it. Any current public school teachers here? [pause] – didn’t think so. So that’s an example of finding a silver lining.

So the suggestion in those teachings on Transforming Bad Circumstances into the Path is more like see if you see it that way real time. Could I have seen Pat, that was her name, as my teacher? Could I have realized the stresses I was under could be a benefit to me? I really don’t know. Maybe.

These teachings suggest that though. That we can learn how to engage in the difficult with that kind of spirit. Not just be glad years later that things did work out. A higher lift but maybe a greater benefit.

The Buddhists just tend to go for it in general, and the secular programs that emerged from these teachings like Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and Mindful Self-Compassion soften things to make them more accessible, probably a wise choice.

The Buddhists set their sights higher.

Not just stress reduction, but complete freedom from the mental processes that lead to stress.

Not just more Self-Compassion but a life completely dedicated to compassion for all beings and that the self-compassion piece comes not from becoming wiser about recognizing what you need right now, but freeing yourself from your limited views of who and what you are – more like freedom from self than self-care. It’s a radical agenda.

So these lojong – mind training – teachings are definitely radical teachings. And we can take them at the level it’s wise for us to take them, we can explore, and stretch our minds and hearts a bit too. We can appreciate their enthusiasm for ultimate freedom and radical unconditioned compassion for all beings without dismissing them as impossible or being overwhelmed by them.

Maybe we let them creep up on us and don’t worry too much if some of the points here seem unobtainable and unrealistic.

I actually started us in the middle yesterday. So going back to first of the Seven Points.

It has a mellow-sounding name “Resolve to Begin” – warm up your intentions to be a more compassionate being – and in that point there is just a single slogan: “Train in the preliminaries.” To it makes sense to put those together “Resolve to Begin, train in the preliminaries.” So let’s see what they had in mind.

I mentioned death and dying a little bit yesterday. I painted a little story of how beautiful and powerful it can be to sit at someone’s side in their last days and hours.

And of course it can be very difficult too, I didn’t mean to exclude that. It can be the hardest thing in the world. Some deaths are harder to be with than others, but often the difficulty is something unsettled in us – something we’re bringing with us.

In his book Norman talks about this very eloquently and here you’ll see again this important point that real compassion requires us to feel our own pain and fear.

[Training in Compassion, p 32-33]

The graceful and peaceful compassion that can arise at someone’s deathbed isn’t guaranteed. We have to be able to feel and fully accept what’s going on. And that’s hard when we have ideas that this shouldn’t be happening.

As we train in accepting that “this is the way it is” we include all of our reactions, we can see the powerful thought that this shouldn’t be happening, that we hate that it’s happening, that this person doesn’t deserve this fate. And we pair that, gently but firmly, with “this is how it is.”

This brings us back to the central insight of mindfulness and compassion training: what you practice grows stronger.

As hard as it is, when something difficult happens if you practice being with it, feeling it, accepting that this is what’s happening not only are you a lot more helpful in that situation, you are strengthening your ability to be present for the next one. And we do know, even though we prefer not to think about it, that there will absolutely be a next one.

Back to the nuts and bolts of this system. This initial Resolve to Begin, Train in the Prelimaries, section recommends two things:

1. Take up a meditation practice.

This is an intention we all share I think and we’re sure living into that this week. Please do be kind with yourself after retreat. It’s true that it’s hard to maintain a meditation practice on your own. Nothing you need to strategize or do about that right now. You’re doing EXACTLY the best thing today. I’ll send some suggestions in the follow up email after we all get home about keeping this up.

2. Reflect on the four points

Buddhism is full of lists with generic sounding names. The four points, the five strengths, the eightfold path. Here’s what the four points are. They are pretty intense:

• Human life is rare and precious
• Death is inevitable
• Suffering is inescapable
• Our actions are awesome and indelible

Pretty heavy, yes, and yet serious long term practitioners I’ve know tend to be light and joyful. We can also think of famous examples like HH Dalai Lama who’s often joking around, and the sweet smile of Thich Nhat Hanh as he shares the Dharma.

So how does heavy and intense somehow lead to light and joyful?

Maybe because you go through a journey with your deepest fears and make some peace with them. By this I don’t mean not having fears and insecurities anymore, but exactly making peace with them. Seeing them, understanding them a little, accepting them.

This list is similar to another similar list called The Five Remembrances which adds the point that illness and the loss of those we love are also inevitable. I’ve often recommended practicing with that list. This one is a different Buddhism’s version.

Let’s go through these 4:

• Human life is rare and precious

How easily we take being alive for granted. When what’s foremost in our minds is an annoyance or difficulty, a challenge or a stuck situation, or even having a lot of fun for a time, maybe we let the amazing joyful incredible truth that we’re alive fade into the background. This reflection reminds us that it’s a lot more likely to be not alive than it is to be alive.

Remember at our opening meeting we were marveling for a moment at the zillions of circumstances that had to line up for all 25 of us to end up here at Rainbow Lodge for a mindfulness meditation retreat. We could think for hours about all of the incredible lines of choices and actions in all of our lives and the generations before us that made this possible.

Somehow had to figure out that meditation is a good idea sometime thousands of years ago for starters. And somehow that knowing had to come down through the generations to each of us. I always say, “I would never have thought of this: sitting quietly and doing nothing is one of the most beneficial things you can do in life.” Never in a million years. And yet it’s something I now see to be true.

Or we could jump to this place: some sincere Christian leaders had the inspiration to create this place in the 1970’s and somehow they made it happen. I read that the founder with the dream was a Baptist minister in Issaquah named Dick Birdsall. Another church member named Fred Lind owned this land and donated it to the project. And then they had to fundraise and make a million decisions and build the place – I’ve done a version of that now myself and it’s a lot.

So thank you Rev. Birdsall and Mr. Lind for your incredible vision and generosity and that that vision was open and inclusive enough to include a mindfulness meditation group with roots in Buddhism at this Christian-inspired place. The place we lead retreats in the Skagit Valley, on Samish Island, is a similar situation. Amazing.

SO that’s all really wonderful but maybe let’s not forget the root miracle in our gathering here of 25 sincere souls is: that we’re all alive.

So this first reflection is so powerful and important:

• Human life is rare and precious

This is a great thing to remember. Very empowering and cheering really. Sure we sometimes are overwhelmed and in pain and that’s hard but if we can let this truth arise with that it can really help. The good news is I’m alive. Even if you have a serious illness and possibly only a little while to life, you are still fully alive until you aren’t. That’s something I really want to keep training in.

The second reflection is back to the hospital rooms we were just visiting:

• Death is inevitable

This is probably the most difficult reflection that a human mind can imagine. Even though it’s a simple statement and an obvious truth it might be that all of our personal and societal dysfunction is in some way connected to our low ability to be straight up and accepting of the truth that death is inevitable.

And as Norman’s sketch of his mother’s death reminds us, sometimes we’re deeply unsettled when this truth is unavoidable and right in front of us.

But death is for sure inevitable. Sometimes a second phrase is added to this: “Death is certain, only the time of death is uncertain.”

We all have internal guidelines about which times of death are okay with us and which aren’t. 85 years old might be okay, but 62 is a bummer. 37 is really not okay. So we kind of accept this truth but we argue with it too.

I checked in at home last night and got some scary news.

A dear dear friend of ours, one of the sweetest warmest women you’ll ever meet, had some difficult abdominal pain and post menopausal bleeding. The doctors figured it was probably endometriosis which is a non-cancerous growth in the lining of the uterus that leads to cramping and fertility problems and sometimes bigger issues down the road.

She’s 55 and her children are in their 20’s so they decided the simplest thing would be a hysterectomy. She went into it, more or less, “well I’m done with my uterus anyway – surgery’s a thing but oh well let’s get this done.”

As you may have guessed already is wasn’t endometriosis, it was a rare form of ovarian cancer.

One that’s slow growing but also not responsive to treatment with chemotherapy.

And yes I cried when I heard this, my wife cried when she was telling me, she shared that our friends’ husband – a very dear man – was crying as he shared the news.

And I could feel myself preparing for my friend Chris’s death. “Death is certain, only the time of death is uncertain.” Very sad. I felt into it. I found myself imagining her bedside. Feeling the echoes of her and her husband’s pain and fear.

Hard but not overwhelming.

But I don’t know if my practice was helping, or if there was still a good bit of compartmentalization or denial, but I was able to get to sleep okay.

I was able to keep alive some hope and connect with not knowing I think. It was dire news, the worst, but we also don’t know what’s going to happen. Bad news and our projections of what will happen are usually a little or a lot off. This doesn’t make it not bad news but do you understand what I’m saying. There’s much to how we hold it.

Happily, I got another update this morning that the first level screen suggests they might have removed all of the cancerous tissues with the hysterectomy. There are more tests and biopsies and pathology reports to go but at the moment things are optimistic.

And we still don’t know what will happen. None of us do.

So yes 55 and vital, they just became grandparents actually. This would be a very hard one but we don’t control death. We just do our best to maintain the conditions so we can stay alive to enjoy life and serve others. We meditate, eat well, exercise. Not because we think we’ll stop aging or “cheat death” but because that’s part of our commitment to ourselves, to this world, to our aliveness.

We’d do well to remember this more fully in our hearts. Don’t you think?

It’s weird that it’s not a macabre downer kind of thing. There’s also a feeling of great wonder and delight. The preciousness and temporary nature of our aliveness reminds us of how wonderful it all is too. What a gift it is.

None of this means day to day we’re always cheerful and delighted, although it might be the full implications of these practices taken to their conclusion – remember the Buddhists aim high – could be that we’re always in touch with joy and delight even in the face of death and difficulty.

Which brings us to the 3rd reflection in “Resolve to Begin, Train in the Preliminaries”

• Suffering is inescapable

I suffer, you suffer, everyone suffers. The word suffering is a translation of a Buddhist term with a lot of shades of meaning. It’s not just the drastic painful moments like finding out you have cancer.

For now just know that includes every feeling and mind state that’s “off” in some way. From mild irritation, to that kind of vague dissatisfied “is this all there is?” feeling, to full on panic and horror and so on. And the root of all of it, says the Buddha, is our wanting things to be other than they are.

So we practice with accepting this deep truth. These deep truths.

We study our suffering, we listen to our suffering. When we and others are suffering we practice letting it in, feeling it, allowing it, breathing with it. And as we’ve seen that’s a key ingredient in real compassion. We need our suffering. And it’s hard for us to admit that. Our impulse is to avoid it, fix it, try to escape.

But what happens when we try to escape?? We suffering more and we suffer in a worse way. Without awareness, colored by resistance and refusal to accept that is.

So this “suffering is inescapable” is not a bummer, it’s a path of hope, connection, and joy. As weird as that sounds. Do you see what I’m saying? And being mixed up human beings we’ll forget all of this, but when we see it clearly even for an instant that makes a deep deep impression in us that really helps.

The fourth and last reflection is the path. The way forward.

• Our actions are awesome and indelible

I don’t know if “indelible” is a direct translation from the Tibetan but it’s an interesting and powerful word. What we do has a lasting effect. Indelible ink doesn’t fade. Our every choice from the words we use to talk to someone, our work in the world, how we spend our money and use our time, it all matters.

There’s a danger here if freezing up of course: what if I’m making all the wrong choices?? Shouldn’t I be doing better. More compassionate, more generous, more forgiving, more kind?

And there’s another danger of trivializing our own importance. In his book, Norman, has the chutzpah to say, yes, we can and should do better. That we not be confused and think the important and famous people’s choices matter but we the choices we humble and unimportant people don’t matter that much. This teaching is that everyone’s choices matter a lot. Including ours. He writes:

Strong words!

And again the trick is not to let these wise and lofty sentiments paralyze us. We will make mistakes if we do anything at all. We will help, and we will also cause harm even though that’s the last thing we intended. But we have to try. And the chances are quite excellent that our positive root motivation to be of service, to a force for compassion and good, will lead to good things for us and for everyone we encounter. It’s just that the web of cause and effect is so complex and often invisible to us so we’re make our share of misjudgments too, for sure.

But then we’re willing to apologize and forgive and keep moving.

So this initial section offers us these 4 powerful truths to chew on:

• Human life is rare and precious
• Death is inevitable
• Suffering is inescapable
• Our actions are awesome and indelible

I admit to feeling some trepidation in bringing this up. Especially the raw and powerful example of my friend who just found out about ovarian cancer. I know there are cancer survivors in this room and I know there are people who’ve lost loved ones to cancer and all kinds of other conditions.

But I swallowed my hesitation and also set aside my tendency to be a little jokey and light. It just seems to so clear and so true that we all have to keep working on facing this stuff doesn’t it? And what better time and place than on retreat with the support of this structure.

But still I am sorry if this talk was triggering or hard. If there are tears, may they be the tears of opening to pain in healthy ways. I also do trust our psyche’s ability to self-regulate. Maybe I trust this too much I don’t know, but I trust that what arises in us, what we feel and think of and remember, comes up when we’re ready to be with it. I may be really hard. But we are ready. That if we weren’t it would stay repressed and buried longer. Maybe I’m ignorant of the psychology of trauma and being a bit naive – that’s reasonable – but maybe it’s okay. I’m always open to feedback and ready to help if I’ve stirred the pot in a way that’s just too much.

We will have the additional support this afternoon actually. After our 3pm Qi Gong, I’ll invite Wednesday afternoon group A to come huddle together in the solarium off the dining room. We can close the doors in there and have some privacy. It’s a lovely space. Then after we’ve each been heard and responded to we’ll rejoin the meditation hall and Nikki will invite group B. The same pattern tomorrow afternoon.

We are doing okay checking your notes regularly I think and remember that I’m in room 109 and Nikki in 108 – the last rooms at the end of the downstairs hall. And how nice the way they post each person’s name by the door so we don’t have the anxiety of assuming we remembered wrong and are about to knock on the wrong door.

Take care friends. We’re in this human thing together. This wonderful and hard journey. I hope these teachings and probably more important than anything I could say, your own steady efforts to be present in your practice are deeply supportive and healing. It’s funny saying “healing” in a way though isn’t it as being alive is a terminal condition, but you know what I mean.

Much love.

[sorry to miss Nikki’s body scan – she has such a deep feeling for the body -I’m a head person and so appreciate body people, I learn a lot]

I have a wonderful follow up from the example I gave in my life of the temporary nature of human life. I got this message this morning from our dear friend Chris who just found out she had ovarian cancer:

Hi friends!  I got fabulous news with the pathology results!  The cancer was contained within my left ovary with no sign of spreading, not even to the surface of the ovary.  So it was the best possible outcome, which is such a blessing.  Thank you for all of your support. 🥰

I thought you’d like to know. As always we just don’t know what’s going to happen. The best outcome or the worst or somewhere in between.

That while death is certain, the time of death is uncertain. And for a day or so it was looking like it that time’s arrival would be measured in months, but now it’s back to being wide open, but still unknowable.

I can now enjoy the hope that my dear friend has many years still to enjoy her life and will get to be there as her grandchildren grow into adulthood. May it be so. And actually that wish can actually be even sweeter knowing that it’s not a prediction that makes something happen. This sounds odd but I think it’s really true. It’s a learning to hold the true unpredictable nature of reality – to hold it lightly but with clarity. That our tears of joy always include knowing that they will become tears of sorrow. And in the end are those tears actually all that different?

[pause]

Well we’ve looked at some very big picture compassion training slogans so far. Being grateful to everyone and not trying to figure them out. We’ve pondered how we might feel and act if we really took in that human life is rare, precious, and temporary. We’ve looked a at suffering and I shared the spontaneous slogan that came up for me this morning, “Don’t complain.” We’ve thought a little about the importance of our choices, attitudes, and actions.

The lojong system also has a big collection of slogans that are more directly about daily life. They always reflect back on the true nature of our inner life, for sure, but from different practical angles that we can really use in everyday life.

So here are some in-life slogans to enjoy. And being revolutionary and radical Buddhism the first once I want to share seems to contradict my having good wishes for my friend Chris.

• Abandon hope
  The phrases tend towards being a bit stark and startling to help us wake up to our unquestioned assumptions and patterns. This one doesn’t mean never be hopeful. It’s talking about hope with clinging. It’s talking about wishing things were different from the way they are. The, “I hope this all goes away!” kind of thought.

Inquire into yourself when you hope for something – some change, some outcome – what is this really about? Is it about not being able to accept how things are? Is it about our conditioned fears and lacks and insecurities. Is it loaded up with clinging, yearning, or fear? Is it avoidant in other words.

In that case it’s really best to forget about it. To bring the mind back to what’s in front of you. To exhale and release as much of that energy as you can. It’s not helping you, it’s hurting you, to invest in those kinds of hopes. They can end up hurting others too. And be a big barrier to compassion.

On the other hand if it’s a hope with lightness and joy and openness, if the hope includes at a sense of not knowing, humility, and acceptance that you don’t know what will happen, then it can be quite encouraging and uplifting. More like a loving kindness phrase perhaps. Less this is what’s supposed to happen, more may it be so.

And again it’s all about our inner awareness.

Here’s another definition of mindfulness we appreciate, this one from Linda Carlson and Shauna Shapiro.

“Mindfulness is the awareness that arises out of intentionally paying attention in an open, kind, and discerning way.”

So we’re tuning in, we’re becoming more aware, we’re paying attention to our assumptions and attitudes, and we’ve worked with ourselves to be more open and discerning. More able to daylight our dysfunctional views as well as our wisdom. And the kindness piece they include. Yeah. We’re kinder to ourselves, we don’t blame ourselves for being how we are.

We realize that our sticky spots and hang ups are nothing to be ashamed of, they are human things that make sense in a human world. We see that they aren’t our fault, but we also see that they are our responsibility. So we resolve to begin; we resolve to continue our mindfulness and compassion training. We show up. As Norman was scolding us a little yesterday around the power of our actions: we see that we can and should do better, we take our lives more seriously. But not out of shame or doubt or a toxic kind of hope that’s really just fear or range or an unwillingness to accept reality. We endeavor our of love and care for all beings including ourselves.

So that’s the odd sounding

• Abandon hope

And we can practice with that here too. Notice when the sticky desire for something, or someone, or some menu, should be different from how it is. And say yourself “abandon hope!” not gonna happen! With good cheer.

An example from me: my wife’s a diabetic and suddenly I’m a lot more aware of the dangers to her and so many from too many carbs and too much sugar. But high protein foods low carb foods like eggs are great super helpful. She probably won’t eat another potato in her life as it’s just not worth it – empty carbs pretty much.

I noticed the first morning they served a mix of potatoes and eggs. So I took advantage of their generous request for feedback and wrote a note on their pad about how serving the potatoes and eggs separately will help people. And then this morning: we had eggs and potatoes.

So in the near term I can need to “abandon hope” with more or less good cheer. Not write another longer and more emphatic note in their notebook.

And I can still hold awareness of this and if there’s an opportunity with the retreat manager, Brandon, I’ll mention it. I also have in mind the scented laundry detergent they seem to use to launder the sheets. Simple changes that make their place more accessible to all seems very in accord with their values.

I don’t like giving feedback, rocking the boat makes me uncomfortable, but I will as that’s my responsibility. But if one action doesn’t go the way I’d hoped…let it go. Give up hope in that way.

Here’s a fun one:

• Don’t be so predictable

If I ask you who you are, what you’re like, and especially what you like, you could probably come up with a list. I’m an introvert (even though it doesn’t seem like it when I’m doing lots of public speaking), I’m pretty shy (ditto), I’m a bit insecure, I really like apple pie a la mode, I don’t like it when people talk loudly, I regret not spending more time in nature, and on and on. We have long lists like this. And the more we think about them and live into them and share them with others the more tightly woven they get. We built a kind of box around our lives and the walls just get stronger.

But once in a while we break the mold. We try something new. We take a healthy risk. We surprise others and probably ourselves.

I had a very turbulent period when my first marriage was breaking up when I was acting in all kinds of ways I don’t usually. I was suddenly much, much more social for instance. One time I found myself flirting with someone at a bus stop – that last thing I’d ever expect from the person I’ve always called me!

And eventually I realized I was changing. And that probably I was changing in a big spurt as I’d put myself into a pretty tight and predictable box in the last decade of my marriage so I’d fit into a situation that I didn’t fit into anymore.

This sounds like a bunch of tidy realizations but as I’m sure you know from your experience it was also a horrible mess and people did get hurt, my ex wife for one. For sure, and I feel sad about that. But it was a change that had to happen, as mess as it was. I had to stop being so predictable in a big way.

This slogan is great day to day too. Don’t be so predictable. Maybe we’re predictable out of a fear of bothering others. We intuit, or assume, that they’ll be more comfortable if we act like the same old me. That it’d be weird if we ever acted differently. So we reinforce our identiy and impead our own freedom and growth for them. At least we think it’s for them. How do we know they won’t actually be delighted if we surprise them a little?!

So don’t be predictable. It doesn’t mean deliberately be unpredictable though! The phrase isn’t “be a wacko” but it’s don’t suggest we stop being so constrained by our ideas of who we think we are.

Here’s an interesting slogan:

• Correct all wrongs with one intention

To make sense of this I need to share a little backstory about the broad school of Buddhism that these teachings originated in. To oversimplify a little: the earliest Buddhism emphasized individual suffering, liberation, and freedom. The stated goal was to become a person deeply at peace. Unruffled by anything. The traditional term was becoming an “arhat” which means someone who is worthy and someone who has “slain the defilements” – someone who has released themselves from all the craziness we’ve been looking at with in. Totally stable. A saint we’d say here in a Christian place perhaps.

Now of course these were probably very kind, generous and compassionate people but being so deeply at peace they’d be just as happy as hermits, they wouldn’t be reading the news or showing up a protests probably.

Later Buddhism shifted the ideal in a radical way. They felt like the dial has been turned too strongly towards wisdom, towards this peaceful ideal, and actually the life of a follower of the Buddha is a life devoted to compassion, not just to peace.

To be more complete they actually wanted it both ways – peaceful and compassionate. Engaged and grounded. We started our retreat on Martin Luther King day. From his actions and writings he sure seemed to embody this later Buddhist ideal, which they called the “bodhisattva” – a being devoted to the awakening and uplifting of everyone.

Here’s a famous quotation from his “Letters from Birmingham Jail” where he was because of his civil disobedience work where he and his friends were willing to put themselves in harms’ way in our racist society and not fight back.

So for him the one core idea that he always came back to was “justice.” Not so different from “compassion.”

This slogan, Correct all Wrongs with One Intention, is about knowing your core values and coming back to them. Knowing your north star and reorienting to that when there’s suffering, or confusion, or you act out in some way. Maybe it’s compassion, maybe it’s justice, maybe it’s “being a good person” – this slogan invites us to know our One Intention and live into it.

Apparently these words from MLK was a response to a white clergyman in Birmingham, Alabama, who called him and his group “outside agitators” – seeing as he was from so far away in Atlanta. 150 miles away!

And of course we’re hearing the same language now. Applied to different groups to dehumanize them and silence their voices. Outsiders. Foreigners. Not like us.

But here I go again out into the big world that we’re taking a little break from, sorry about that.

Back to us here and now. How do we practice with Correct all wrongs with one intention at retreat? Well “wrongs” is a little heavy. How about “Meet resistance with one intention.”

And the curiosity for us there is what is our one intention. Maybe compassion is just fine. Or mindfulness. But it’s important to make it your own. One of the things we admire about MLK jr is how deeply he made “justice” his one intention.

And Thich Nhat Hanh made “mindfulness” his one intention sticking to that single theme for 60 active years of teaching. Although with a broader frame perhaps than MBSR’s mindfulness and a deep knowledge of layers and layers of teachings and understandings behind it. But always he came back to mindfulness. He was a brilliant person and a deep scholar and you can see that in his writings and lectures. But whenever he was somewhere we he felt it was more helpful to talk about mindfulness in a simple and direct way he didn’t pull out quotations and subtle teachings. I remember watching an hour long teaching he gave to engineers at Google. These are the exceptionally smart people in our world at least in one way of looking at intelligence. What did Thich Nhat Hanh talk about? Relationships, mindfulness, and suffering. The opening was something like, “I think you have very good lives and also it is hard to be with others because many times you are not there. When you are not there you can not have a good relationship. When you practice mindfulness you can be here. And then you can have a good relationship.” He said this in maybe a slightly more subtle way but not much. I remember the phrase “when you are not there you can not have a relationship” that rings in my heart deeply. And he did this with a sweet smile and they’d pan the camera to the audience and he had their rapt attention. For an hour. These super speed twitchy computer programmers listing and breathing and seeing the truth of what he was saying.

So for Thich Nhat Hanh the one intention was always mindfulness.

A wonderful reminder to use that as complex as we are, and as complex as the world is, it’s good to land on something simple. To come back it. To commit to it.

Correct all wrongs with one intention.

One more and I’ll give us some time for once for more walking practice before lunch this time!

This one is a personal favorite of mine:

• Don’t expect applause

Yeah. The slogan kind of says it all.

Our neediness and desire for praise can run our lives.

And the idea here – where I think psychology and Buddhism are pulling together well – is that there’s nothing wrong with that if we’re mindful of it.

But when it runs our lives subconsciously, oh boy. We suffer. We are looking for water in all the wrong deserts. And rather than realizing, hey this is the desert there’s no water here, we just keep walking to next desert and looking harder.

It’s nice to be thanked, for sure. But needing to be thanked all the time: not gonna work out well.

And it brings up an important question when we think about the awesome and indelible power of our actions: why are we doing what we’re doing?

Are we just doing what’s meaningful us, what’s in accord with our one intention, or are we doing it seeking that praise. Seeking applause?

And being complex humans it’s often a mix of both isn’t it? We do do something kind, something generous, something helpful. We do do something with great skill and execution. Look at that: that came out great! We take a step back to admire it and then there’s that kind of looking around – we want someone else by our side saying, “wow that’s amazing! good job!”.

Sometimes I have mixed feelings about the simple kindness of telling you, for instance, that you’re doing a great job practicing retreat – thanking you for your practice. I do feel that way. And Nikki does too, we can feel that. But I sure don’t want to feed that part of us that is doing this for the external validation.

So do me a favor, so I can keep being nice and not feeling funny when my co-teacher says “thank you for your practice” – please hear that as an invitation to notice your own gratitude for your devotion and practice. We feel it or we wouldn’t say such a thing, but we don’t want you to look for it in our eyes, we want you to see it for yourselves. Where it really matters.

Don’t expect applause. Look at me sitting so still! I’m a great meditator!

Versus: it’s a joy to sit in ease. I sit here with determination and kindness for the good of all. For my own one intention. I’m glad this is possible, I know I’ll never do it perfectly (if there is such a thing) but am glad.

And when you hold that in your heart it doesn’t occur to you to wonder if your neighbors are impressed.

This kind of orientation is also helpful in the other direction. The fear that your neighbors are disturbed and annoyed by you. We can each think of all kinds of ways that could be happening right? Like for me since I had this bad cold in December I’ve been a little congested kind of constantly and I sometimes sort of snort without even noticing it (at least so my wife is reporting). Sorry if I’m disturbing anyone with my snorting but I also don’t worry about it too much to be honest!

So we can also hear don’t expect applause as “don’t fear criticism” – you do you, if your in some kind of accord with your one intention, if you’re abandoning that unhealthy clingy knd of hope to allow your life to unfold, if you’re giving yourself a little more freedom not to be so predictable….it all works out. It really does. I have a lot of faith in that.

Okay well, maybe a little bit less time today. Let’s use these minutes to train overselves in walking meditation. Remember my suggestion to ground deeply in every step – feeling the bottom of your foot meeting the earth. And how this magical living being that you are is a breathing body. Breathing the foot rising, breathing the foot lowering and landing. Ahh…. each time is new, each time is precious. Make it a little easier on yourself by picking a kind of back and forth “lane” on the carpet or on the path outside or on your mat. This is easier because your letting go of going anywhere or deciding anything about where to go. I’m here and I’m just going back and forth until the bell rings. Sure I may get a little bored with this or feel a little awkward or feel like “this isn’t my thing” or something but it’s part of our training this week. It’s not just a filler in between sitting periods. When the mind is into that kind of stuff don’t argue with it, just bring awareness back to the foot that’s in motion right now. Back to the breath. Back to the feeling of being a body with this amazing ability to walk. It took a year to learn how to do this. Let’s re-learn how miraculous that is.

Here’s a Thich Nhat Hanh quote since i was bringing him up:

I’ve been sorry to miss Nikki’s body scans. Hasn’t it been wonderful to learn from her deep understanding of the body? The lovely mix of stretching and yoga and pausing and qi gong she’s blending for us first thing in the morning has been so wonderful. It’s so clear how she’s integrated book knowledge of anatomy and physiology with her own felt experience. I actually didn’t fully appreciate that about Nikki until now and I’m grateful for it. I’m a bit of a head person (obvious from these rambles, no?) and I it helps me so much to be with body people and listen to them. And of course that’s a bit of a silly way of talking as we’re all body and mind people but it seems like one side or the other can be more developed or more natural in us.

So, someone sent me this note: Perhaps “Abandon Hope” is “Let go of expectations” 😉

Exactly! A wonderful example of making these teachings your own. Just what we’re inviting across the board in this style of practice. If there’s a way you can modify your posture, change the wording, move the body differently, or choose another way that feels better, that’s great.

And it also makes me want to share something I’ve noticed which seems like a barrier to us in receiving the full value of these kinds of traditional teachings. Maybe it’s a cultural difference kind of thing.

That is that sometimes our first impulse is to criticize or reject something that framed in an unfamiliar or, perhaps negative sounding, way. The mind goes to what’s wrong with it and how it should have been done instead of going to “that’s interesting, I notice I have a bit of a reaction, I wonder what’s there for me?”

We can end up losing some opportunities to learn and grow when that kind of mind gets the final say.

Buddhist teachings do tend to be framed in the negative.

Instead of “be wise in what you expect” we have “abandon hope.”

Instead of “find the intrinsic value in your actions” we have “don’t expect applause.”

All the way up to the most basic early teachings. In the first of the famous Four Noble Truths for example: instead of “discover where true satisfaction lies” we have “conditioned life is suffering.” (which unfortunately gets truncated to “life is suffering” and then we’re all headed for the exits, who wants to listen to a tradition that says that?).

Maybe because I had a good teacher and I’ve spent a few decades getting used to these teachings, but I’ve actually come to appreciate the stark tone they use. Even when it’s negative.

It’s a bit jolting sometimes but maybe that’s just what we need. The conceptual web we’ve each woven seems so real, so obviously true – this is how things are, and this is how I am. Period. Done. Now I have to figure out how to deal with it. Maybe practice will help me improve things a little anyway.

Sometimes maybe we need a wake up call and something a little stark like “don’t figure others out” or “don’t be so predicable” can give us that little…

"wha??!!" but figuring other out is what we all do all the time, it's how the social world works! Hmm, I think I'll ponder that one. 

Or

"woah, am I just being predictable all the time? dang that's not very lively of me!". 

But yes of the ones we’ve met so far maybe “abandon hope” is the hardest to take at face value. We’ve got our limits!

So sure “let go of expectations” could be a great phrase to breath with and invite into the conversation you’re having with your daily life choices and relationships. Play with it.

Or you could keep the “abandon” – that’s a powerful word for letting go. “abandon expectations.”

Or you could get more direct like “Expectations? let go!” a little more active in tone. What suits your style?

You could get playful with “Expectations? Wrong!” if that’s helpful. Why not? It’s your mind.

The clever thing about this system is that these slogans aren’t just ideas to play with.

They aren’t rules to memorize.

They are more like seeds we’re planting in our hearts with the hope that we hope will pop up when we’re under stress or bothered by something. That they might short-circuit our reactivity and make space for a wiser and more thoughtful response.

When we’re reactive we do get narrow minded and righteous don’t we? Or maybe we shut down and feel helpless. It depends our particular brand of conditioning.

And in those kinds of stress reactive states there’s not much wisdom or compassion available.

And then maybe some words come bubbling up out of nowhere. “Don’t expect applause!” say. And when this stuff works we have a little waking up moment. More of our heart and mind comes back online.

“Oh, I’m sad and upset about how that person treated me partly because of the expectations of praise I was waving around.” Oof! And we may be able to re-connect in a way that’s more helpful for us and the others involved.

We are a careful about our expectations of such things (hmm, a little irony there…wasn’t there something about abandoning?).

We come know that nothing always works. And that it’s foolish to expect to always be seeing some kind of “progress”. And that gives us resilience we find ourselves doing the same dumb reactive thing that we have done so often before and are certainly likely to do again.

But we do build some reasonable hope the some of the time, maybe more often over time, these alternate pathways take hold. And that good teachings can help. Can facilitate this.

And as I keep saying like a broken record, the great advantage of contemplating these in retreat is our inner soil is more fertile.

These are good conditions for planting these kinds of seeds. It’s easier to access and tend our inner gardens in this situation than when we’re running around in our lives. Even when retreat is exhausting this is better for that. Maybe especially when retreat is exhausting!

But boy, yeah, this kind of stuff is a deep dive into delayed gratification. Does everyone know about the famous marshmallow test from the early childhood researchers?

[If anyone doesn’t know, explain briefly – long term outcomes from Walter Mischel around health, measurable intelligence, emotional regulation]

However I did recently learn that more recent research shows that the kids’ socio-economic reality is a huge factor here which confounds these results. If I grew up in scarcity in a poor family putting that big juicy white marshmallow in from of me is a whole different experience than if I grew up in an upper middle class family with dinner on the table every night. Maybe this even points to yet another mechanism by which those divisions get even bigger so there’s also something very sad here.

But still the point that there is value to strengthening delayed gratification is well taken. (As long as we don’t just tip that into perfectionism and totally neglecting self-care anyway!).

But the process that’s in these teachings and in this whole practice of meditation and mindfulness and compassion cultivation doesn’t give quick results. Sometimes there is a sudden shift of some kind, that can happen, but that’s not the nature of it all. It’s basically a slow boat. And you’re looking for quick results and great flashed of insight, it’s hard to stay with this. You wouldn’t still be there at Rainbow Lodge if you weren’t already pretty solid in this department. Or maybe you’re just stubborn.

So planting seeds. Plant these slogans. Bring them into your heart.

Probably I could have done better bringing them back up in meditation while here, or maybe it’s good to mostly just sit and settle and you can pick a favorite slogan to put on your fridge and your bathroom mirror and repeat it to yourself while you wash the dishes. Maybe it’ll pop up when you need it next time your have a grouchy interaction. I hope so.

And all that said…. “abandon hope” of any ideas of how this is going to improve things!!

[pause]

While there are many practical slogans, especially around relationships, there are also a set of slogans that just invite trust and a kind of radical openness to everything that arises.

The back story there is an encouragement in Buddhism to sense into the aspect of reality that’s not what we see, and feeling, and think about. This is something every culture senses I think and has different words for but it’s slippery because it’s the aspect of existence that’s beyond words. The mystery. Spirit. The beyond. The early Buddhist used terms like “the absolute” or “emptiness” which sounds weird in English. Lately what’s come to me is the “inconceivable.”

(Although fans of the classic movie The Princess Bride will have to release from our memories of Wallace Shawn constantly muttering “inconceivable!” whenever his character didn’t like what was going on)

What I mean is we spend our waking days in a world that’s conceivable. We have names and ideas and memories and predictions and desires and worries that are all expressed in words and concepts. We take it for granted that that’s how it is because we’re so in the middle of it and were doing all of this talking and thinking using the very same tools: words and concepts.

When we’re dreaming it gets a little slippier of course. Things kind of make sense and kind of don’t. There is an inconceivable element to the experience of having a dream. And yet we do recognize that we’re having, or have had a dream. I think that’s why dreams can be so hard to remember – there are elements of them don’t fit into our conceptions.

The Buddhists, and I think sages and shamans and saints in all traditions realized that to think we’re only in a conceivable world is to shrink our lives and our hearts. That it’s the ultimate tight box to put ourselves in. That it’s a place of endless striving and also endless suffering. That only the conceivable world isn’t the world of a complete person.

And we do have everyday language and concepts for things that are actually inconceivable – like love. What is love? You can’t see it, you can’t touch it. There are so many feelings associated with it but it doesn’t seem right to say it’s just a feeling. It’s bigger than that.

Like we can describe mindfulness, or compassion, as a process with different components and we can do research studies on them, and write books about them, and all that. But on those occasions where you’re really settled into the practice there’s something to it that’s beyond all of that isn’t there? It’s not like you can say to yourself, “Oh! this is paying attention on purpose in the present moment and non judgmentally” and capture even a tiny fraction of what that is.

So here is a phrase pointing to the inconceivable world because the Buddhist sages realized if we limit this to the conceivable world our compassion will just be too brittle, too fragile. We’ll find all kinds of problems with in with our conceptual minds and our hearts won’t be able to really open.

• see everything as a dream

Back to dreaming. Can we radically soften the lenses we look through at this conceivable world and allow ourselves, and allow each other, the same degree of fluidity and freedom and unpredictability of a dream. In a dream you don’t think you know where the dream is going usually right? At least I never have. Can we bring that spirit of openness to so called regular life? Seeing it more like a dream.

And as we look more closely at the arising and passing away of our moments – the practice is so essential here – we also get more of a feeling of flow and fluidity don’t we? One minute one thing seems so important and prominent, how will I ever deal with this? And then that thing somehow slips away into the silence. And we’re just breathing and being.

We talk about problems as possessions. I have a problem with so-and-so. How our conceptual mind works in the conceivable world. But in a moment when we’re more aware of what’s here right now, and that problem is nowhere to be seen, do we really have that problem?

Our conceptual mind jumps in quickly and says, sure we do you just weren’t thinking about it just then – maybe you were avoiding it – but as we get more comfortable with this bigger vision of life – as we practice seeing everything as a dream – maybe we aren’t quite so convinced. Maybe we even grin a little at the kind of mind that’s acting like a scorekeeper for us – yes I’m keeping good track of our problems, especially all of the people who are annoyed with us, we have to deal with this stuff! And it’s not wrong, but maybe it’s also not quite that way.

Similar question with a chronic disease. If there is no experience of the symptoms in this moment, do you have that disease in that moment? That insight was an important one for Jon Kabat-Zinn and the folks in his early MBSR classes with chronic pain. To notice a pain free moment, to really notice that, and have a moment of relief from the powerful concept “my body always hurts” is huge – that’s a kind of a touching into the inconceivable world. The vaster world. The world that’s like a dream.

Which is also this world. There is just one world of course. One experience. It’s a way of talking to short circuit a limiting way we look at things.

Oh boy, it’s hard to talk about this stuff – due to the nature of the inconceivable!

A meditation retreat, again!, is a great setting to explore this. Trying breathing with “see everything as a dream” hang with that. See how that feels. Does is shift how you experience tings a little? You could be more direct and say “everything is a dream” or even “this is a dream” – “this is a dream.” As you sit and breathe. Or just “a dream” “a dream.” Trying practicing this as you walk around these beautiful grounds. As we wait for the kind staff to give us food. As some of our friends get the giggles – definitely good evidence that it’s all a dream there! Apparently it’s a good dream.

So we need a big view. Otherwise these clever teachings are just new spiritual tools for the endless and ultimately unsatisfying life on the hamster wheel. Maybe we’ll navigate the conceivable world a little better but we’re still stuck in it.

But little by little this kind of stuff seeps in. And it’s been seeping in all along. You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t have a sense of this – a feeling that there’s more to it than the usual idea of “this.”

And yeah, I do love the everyday practical ones too. Here’s a nice pair and then we’ll stop. I do have a surprising ability to say alot about this stuff but I’m running out of gas finally I think.

Here’s a triad of them that we can talk about together

• Don’t be a phony
• Don’t be tricky
• Don’t wait in ambush

Now another barrier to using the slogans fully is our pride and shame, right? I don’t know what they mean by this but I am definitely not a phony and I am not tricky. I am genuine, straightforward, and honest.

And I’m sure we all are.

And yet…

These slogans encourage us to look more deeply – assuming we hang in there and don’t reject them out of hand.

Don’t be a phony means: look at how we present ourselves to others. Often we don’t even notice we’re doing it but we put on a certain kind of look, or act. We want to be seen as a good person or whatever, and we act in a certain way. Or we don’t want to burden others with what a mess we actually are – this come up in one of the small groups – so try to hide the anxious or insecure parts of ourselves and put on a cheerful face. Sometimes we call this “fitting in” but whatever we call it it’s not 100% honest is it?

So if you want to re-write this one maybe it’s “just be yourself”. Be quirky. Admit your confused. Be honest that you’re late because you were depressed – no need to burden everyone with all the details and there’s also a way of being so into being a mess that you’re just being a phony in another way – you’ve met people who seem that way too I’m sure.

And don’t be tricky and don’t wait in ambush are about behaviors that arise from this zone of not just being yourself and letting others be themselves.

Being tricky is as much about tricking yourself as tricking others. And it’s very much a quality of being stuck in the conceivable world. Convincing ourselves we’re not still grieving for a big loss is a kind of being tricky – maybe avoidant is as good of a word here. Or maybe we kind of know we’re a mess but the particular style of being a phony is all about being bright and funny and clever to distract people away from our pain.

And don’t wait in ambush is a favorite of mine because I experience it pretty often as the ambush-y as a side effect of being in the spiritual teacher role. People sometimes expect something of me and they’re watching to see if I’ll perform up to snuff. If I’ll be always patient and kind in every possible setting and in every possible email or interaction they ever have with me or even even hear of. And if I don’t they’re ready in overt or passive aggressive ways to let me know I didn’t measure up.

And I know there are ways my pride can manifest to reinforce that whole thing. My way of being tricky is probably acting a little too…spiritual… maybe smiling vaguely and acting more relaxed and at peace than I really am at time. Putting myself up on the pedestal making a good target for people to wait in ambush below me for the time I inevitably fall off of it.

Maybe I’m not doing a great job generalizing about these 3. I can only think of examples from my own life just now and anyway we all have to find out for ourselves anyway. But three connected slogans that are all about being fully, and completely, maybe sometimes it feels like brutally, yourself. Neither puffing yourself up or putting yourself down. And learning to perceive everyone else’s complete complex mixed up and wonderful humanness with appreciation and love. The love of equals who also understand that we are really different at the same time if that makes any sense.

• Don’t be a phony
• Don’t be tricky
• Don’t wait in ambush

Probably the wise journey with this little set of gritty gems is very much to figure out your own phrase for your particular brand of dysfunction in this territory.

Okay well that’s it for now. Thank you for listening to these four talks. I’ve managed to record all of them and when I post them on the Mindfulness Northwest website I paste in my written notes which are more or less what I end up saying. The notes are good for things like terms and lists anyway. Maybe sometimes it’s interesting to see the things I thought of saying a few hours ago as I was preparing then when I got there during the talk I chose not to say that! I dunno how deep you want to go into my mind – it’s kind of wild in here. But you’re welcome for whatever good it does ya.

Assuming I can arrange it this evening will be a little different. (one less practice & bonfire). And tomorrow morning and tonight lets’ be really careful with the silence. It’s okay if you get the giggles but maybe don’t be the one who gets them going if you can let go of the urge to do so. And if you did – oh well, no real harm done. We’re all friends here.

There will be more details tomorrow about check out. Basically we just need to pack up and be out of our rooms after breakfast so they can clean but we’re here through lunch. And let’s do our best to actually be here, fully here, until we’re not. There’s a full 24 hours of practice time left, it’s precious and let’s not dilute it any more than our conditioning makes us. This is the time to open to the inconceivable not get obsessed with the conceivable notions about the future or whatever catches the mind.