Lessons
Introduction - Why Meditate?
15:12 2How to Meditate - Taking Your Seat
12:59 3Placing Attention on Breath
04:32 4Labeling Thoughts as Thinking
06:35 5How to Meditate - Leaving Some Space
12:19 6Bringing Meditation Into Everyday Life
11:30 7Digging Into the Practice Part 2
05:51 8Obstacles Along the Way
08:29Obstacles Along the Way Part 2
08:59 10Body, Emotions, Mind, Stress, Anxiety
26:56 11Body, Emotions, Mind, Stress, Anxiety Part 2
06:28 12The True Meaning of Success
18:28 13The True Meaning of Success Part 2
03:40 14Developing Compassion for Ourselves & Others
04:39 15Compassion for Ourselves & Others Part 2
29:34 16Compassion and Mindfulness
26:27 17Compassion and Mindfulness Part 2
08:11 18Happiness and Joy
18:15 19Happiness and Joy Part 2
04:06 20How to Go Forward
10:59 21How to Go Forward Part 2
07:31Lesson Info
Obstacles Along the Way
So there's this notion of talking about obstacles. Uh sometimes we perceive the obstacles external. You know, I I don't have enough money, I don't have enough time to do that. Uh I've got a really bad relationship here, and it's sort of taking all the time out of me pursuing the kind of things that I want to pursue. Um I have, my job is very difficult, My health is difficult. You know, we perceive the obstacle to us pursuing our intention as an external event of some kind. And then we have internal obstacles, which could be just some kind of resistance, stubbornness, laziness, you know, negative feelings of self worth feelings about ourselves. And those can be quite powerful because that's like um mixed in right there with our intention is the undermining their of sort of as part of almost the same organism and separating out our intention and clarifying that and going forward with it. Almost immediately there arises this sort of second tier of commenting, criticizing naysaying, you kn...
ow, sort of like in those, you know, early days, the angel and the devil on the shoulder, you know, come on David, you can meditate and be good for you and sit for a half hour a day and you feel much better and, you know, you do and the other one's gone, I'll listen to him. You know, we this isn't gonna work for you. You're too this is not practical, this is uh you're not going to be good at this, you know, and the two voices gonna expressing obviously what is expressing our own inner duality. Um, so it's interesting to identify both voices. You see sometimes we just want to identify the inspirational voice and, you know, and then other people emphasize the shadow side. Why don't you look at the dark side, the forces that are pulling you down and out? So both of those are valuable in terms of our approach is developing some clarity about our positive intention and the capacity to generate that and what the obstacles are and what they're made of. So one of the things that we like to say is that the obstacles in this particular type of practice can be seen as sort of solid or deep or real, or they can be seen as something that we can work with. In fact, actually they are, what we work with is a whole another way of saying that if we talk about a path, any kind of path at all, in some sense, the obstacles are the path, they're not in the way of us getting from where we are going, they are the actual thing that we're processing. So in terms of a change of view about what we experience as obstacles, we sometimes say obstacles as path, which is a very different way of looking at obstacles. Um That another simple way of saying that is that is when we have the opportunity to learn the most is when we experienced that intense obstacle situation. So I was hoping we could take a look together at obstacles and taking the view that there a all going to be workable, you know, there's none that are insurmountable from from a kind of warriors perspective obstacles are just a form of challenge but not considered um insurmountable. Uh So they awaken us in a way they arouse our spirit. We need to to browse our energy to to to meet those. Um but even going further that seeing the intelligence in them, the idea of practices working gradually right too many people, I think we're too addicted to sudden transformation here and it goes along with the idea of sudden happiness, you know, by buying something, you know, and it's sort of a materialistic approach. Now, even if you have lots of money, you could be happy or not happy if you have all the things that are advertised that you want, you can be happy or not happy, and some people don't have very much and they're extremely happy. So the issue of contentment is a powerful issue that cuts through um our own dissatisfaction. And if we look at the engine of our dissatisfaction, it really has very little to do with accumulation. That's a very I mean it's observable. So um that could lead to a kind of renunciation point of view. You go like, I don't want to participate in all that stuff anymore, but it could also lead towards a very worldly point of view, in which contentment is allowed in which you're actually allowed to be satisfied and content with what you have and that's of course a very powerful theme in terms of even these projects that we undertake here in this kind of environment to get more and more things more and more things under your belt, more capacity is more capabilities, the idea of doing that, but at the same time having the mind of contentment as you, as you, as you develop capacities and capabilities that underlying that there's some kind of fundamental piece containment that comes from working directly with the mind and no other way. So, um we're really basically coming down to sort of the core or the root of all of these upheavals, All these obstacles is one's own kind of, you could say negative habits and patterns that have accumulated over our lifetime, and the biggest notion that we have is that they're not permanent. We take them to be, oh, you know, that's his personality or whatever. Um, of course that's true to a certain extent that we identify each other by our obstacles. This person is difficult in this particular way. But what if they shed that, would even, would we even recognize them if our husband or wife didn't present themselves that way? Would we even still know who they are? Would we know who we are without them, you know, who are we without them? You know? So there's a sense of comfort and security and kind of fear based clinging to a certain kind of uh attitudes and, and habitual patterns, that is something that we begin to see through really with meditation practice, but it's very gradual, you know, it takes a lot of time and if there's a lot of dedication, you're not really working with how fast can I do this, you know, and what the results are because you're more process oriented. So the notion of obstacles as they incline us towards process, but if we flip it and look at his opportunity for us to practice some quality of um personal cultivation, how we relate to it, you know, might be precision, might be clear, seeing clarifying the whole situation could be being more generous of spirit, but the main point is that we take that obstacle obstacle and we transform it right on the spot into an opportunity to develop ourselves more. So it's a very advanced kind of point of view. It's a very um kind of conquering mentality because even if you look at obstacles which are normally the things we go, I'm off my game here as an opportunity uh kind of you can never really be defeated. Um it's sort of what we call all victorious. It's there's everything that's coming at you is included in your sense of practice. So that's a very powerful point of view. Um, so I want to look at what obstacles do we experience in terms of, even if this is not your way of cultivating everybody has some way of cultivating themselves. You know, it's part of part of human life to improve oneself, to develop oneself. So in the context we're talking about, we're talking about meditation and contemplation. Practice is an important part of that. But what do we experience these obstacles? Why is it hard to stay with? You know, I think that people in this room or sort of have some sense of wanting to do this kind of practice and maybe some of you out there are hearing about it the first time or it's something you want to participate in more? What obstacles do we face? What, what what do we take to be in our way
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