Lessons

Lesson Info

The True Meaning of Success

I thought that today we could talk about issue which is tinged with a kind of which point of view you can take, which is success and Success is such a loaded topic really because right away I think most people actually don't have their own idea of success. They got it from their parents or the rebelling against their parents idea because it's so strong, the expectation of the parents are so strongly ingrained in the, in the people. And so either I know people are just going gung ho to duplicate what or surpass what their parents did or else they're just in complete rebellion against it and you know, their actions are sort of determined by being the opposite. Um but I think this afternoon we're going to take a look in a contemplative way at what success means to us because then you when you get that personal about it, you go you actually already meditating. If you even think about what success means to you, that's a form of meditation, you're putting your mind onto a very core topic and...

seeing how you feel about it. Um what it means to you, what does it mean to have a successful life? And personally I feel it's much more effective to open questions out and let people kinda mix their mind with the question and that's sort of the spirit of contemplation because any attempt that we make to define these things for people, it's just gonna, it's like did you ever shoot the the rubber band and somebody in school and depends which end, If you let go at first, if you let go this end of course then it goes and hits them. But if you can confuse you, let go this all of a sudden telling you. So we have to be very careful about just laying our agenda and our program onto others. Um uh but at the same time, there was a certain, you could say wisdom of the ages that that's been crystallizing, coalesced, and that's what we call that in, in my tradition, kind of lineage, the idea that we're not the first people on this planet, We're really not. Some of us come from much older cultures. Um, uh, and there's a certain accumulation of, or distillation of wisdom. Um, so I would say the buddhist tradition is kind of combination, you know, of that distillation of wisdom over hundreds of thousands of years and also a very fresh, very fresh take, you know, very creative take. And that's almost a sign to me of a great teacher is there's a sort of mastery of what's come before, but there's a willingness to be very, very fresh and on point and not dogmatic. So, but to start with, we say, okay, let me just start right here we put remember Maxwell smart and the cone of silence and even remember that it was just to send you know, and we're sort of in a way creating a containment field for ourselves so that we can come to a nice direct relationship with our own mind. That's kind of a very actually very polite thing to do before we go below uh to everybody else. You know, we kind of catch ourselves up and we synchronize up our body and our mind through this practice of meditation. So we're going to do that first, then we'll move on to a discussion of success and contemplation about success. So if you could take your seat, I'm gonna again just give us a brief outline of the instruction for the mindfulness meditation practice. This is again the core of our of our practice and our time together. Mm If you're just joining us, this instructions included in a two page outline when you enroll in the course. So um you can review it that way and first stepping, take a good seat, either cross legged on a cushion or on the floor. I won't go through all the details because we've done that already. You can you can review those and just have a nice strong sense of upright posture. If you're sitting on a chair you can just put your feet on the floor in front of you and then just either situation and just rest here, hands on your knees. This is kind of classic meditation posture And keep your eyes open with a soft downward gaze on the floor in front of you about 4-6 ft in front of you and have a sense of resting your sense perceptions at ease but not shut down. You should feel porous, you know like that you're out and in the world are open to each other. It's a feeling of just um almost like being in water. You know how that's like you just kind of outside and the inside of her really equalised. And then um after you've taken a comfortable seat like that, you can take your time settling yourself in and just taking the seat has tremendous sense of settling in itself. Do you feel that everybody you feel that this has sort of allowed you to settle down for a moment and then begin to just sort of pay attention to the natural breath going in and out the tip of your nose. Just use that method for right now. Just bring your awareness of the tip of your nose and let it rest there as the breath goes in and out. You feel the breath going in and out of your body when you're mind wanders off, usually goes foraging for entertainment. Either in your past or future projections. And you notice you're thinking about something and as we said last time, it can be very dramatic kind of thought with a lot of emotional charge. It could be thoughts about your body situation, could be things you want to happen in the future, things you're sorry about in the past or that you're nostalgic for whatever form that thinking takes. We just when we recognize that that's where we are. We sort of wake up on the spot and kind of label that thinking and bring awareness back to the breath. So of course we're gonna be doing that repeatedly over the course of the session. Whenever you notice you're gone, they were thinking come back to the awareness of the breath. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, uh huh. You know, we're always sort of evaluating should I do this or not? You know, and everything. We we're not really a kind of um we're not doing things so much in at least in the United States because somebody told us to, we've sort of our whole cultures sort of formulate on this kind of idea of individual freedom. And in fact, if your parents told you to do it might be a problem that you would do the opposite. So every culture is not the same in that way. But starting with the premise that many of us have been trained that way. If I tell you this is a good thing for you to do, probably you won't do it. I'm gonna say no, definitely don't meditate, really. So that's how you trick your kids, right, David? No, no, no, no, no, don't don't don't sit and be quiet and be a good boy. Uh, so, the question is really, in our own individual barometer, our sense of the world, working with that individualistic culture, you know, is this a good idea or not? And it's really gonna come down to that for you people out there in cyberspace who are exploring this. Obviously, I, Roseanne, Roseanna Danna have come to the conclusion, this is a good idea for me, you know? So, um, you know, I practice this because I feel it's effective and good way for me to kind of, um, develop a more settled state of mind, uh work with turbulent situations without freaking out so much. Um, and cultivating those things that I wanted to cultivate in this very lifetime. So, that's the choice I've made now. Um, that's a choice like any good discipline that you kind of, you keep reviewing and upping the stakes on it. Um and how much you want to practice and how you want to go about it, who you want to study and practice with and whether you want to do it at all. And I'm just telling you that people, even people who you might view is very committed, are gonna go through their ups and downs with these kind of things. So um we have to recognize there's some individual process going on and what is it tied to? It's time to our notion of what our whole life is for? What's the point And not just from metaphysical point of view of like, you know, like being a good philosopher. Well, life is for this life, your life, your individual life actually, by the way is um an hourglass that's been turned upside down, you know what an hourglass looks like with the sand in it when you're born, they go like that, another sand is going this way, and when that sand runs out, this particular life is over. So that's just a very bare fact. That would you would anybody argue with that? Does anybody want to take a different point of view? So using the hourglass is the determination. What do you want to do in that in that time? You know, that's really what we're juggling with and how do you want to spend your life? What would you like to achieve? What's your aspiration? So I don't want to tell anybody whether to meditate or not, actually, I'm just too lazy Uh two and different in a way and you know, kind of don't want that responsibility. So the process I like, is where we get into a kind of discourse and you somehow I tricked you into coming in conclusion yourself. That's a good idea. And then we say, well that was a really good idea that you had, you know, so um the question is within a successful life however you frame it, what is the role of contemplation and mindfulness and awareness? Does it have a role to play? So I don't want to jump to that conclusion. I want first we're gonna do a contemplation of success as it currently resides in our mind. What is success. So um I think we could do this as a contemplation and it's a little bit experimental, I have to freely admit to have never never done this before, but it seems like a good idea in this context, because I think a lot of people are coming and taking these uh these programs so that they can be more successful in some way, you know, that they can develop themselves in some way and have more success. And I think in talking to Michael Producer about this segment that people are looking for achieving their goals and sort of shifting their reality around to be more inspirational and more in line with what they really like to accomplish in life. So I want to invite everybody to take your meditation seat now that you just had and you were kind of basically just exploring kind of the play of your mind and now to introduce a theme which is the contemplative meditation, so you can take your seat again if you would out there and in here and then we're gonna have plenty of time to discuss this. I feel like this is really a juicy conversation that we can have together. So even closing your eyes, you know, so you can really focus, you can visualize a blackboard in your mind and really thinking about what ideas are kind of coming up for you and write the words. Success on that blackboard. It's interesting to look at the kind of letters you've chosen. Are they big letters? Is it's sort of a proclamation. Are they little tiny letters? Are you kind of embarrassed about the whole topic? Success And then what word comes up next for you? So for me, the word You came up? Success. Yeah, we were successful. We won. We achieved were manifested, we conquered obstacles of all kinds and we flourished. Let's see what comes up for you after the word success. What other words are writing themselves onto your mental blackboard there and take note of them. Don't write them down. Hopefully you remember some of them and we can talk about them. And let's just explore the meaning of some of those words, go into one of those words. And the question is whatever that word is, whether it's sort of flourishing or conquering or being victorious or feeling good about yourself, whatever you wrote on your blackboard, what's that feeling right now? Do you have that feeling? Have you achieved that? Is that something you could identify with your current situation, your current work situation, you're relationship? Is your relationship successful? Is your diet successful? Is your exercise program successful? And if not, if you feel like, oh I'm sort of not really there, try to visualize the obstacles between you and achieving that. What's between you and that could be an internal obstacle? Some feeling that you have about yourself could be situational obstacle may be a difficult relationship, financial situation, cultural societal situation keeping you from feeling that success in those terms and think about those obstacles if they somehow removed, would you then be ready to step into that feeling? And let's say we do step into that feeling. We've defined success in our own terms. Now we've visualized the obstacles coming in. We've removed those obstacles and we've stepped into the feeling of being truly successful. What characteristics are there? What does that feel like? What kind of thoughts are we having? What kind of actions are we inclined toward? And now bring others. Think about your family, and your friends, and your co workers and citizens of the town you live in and citizens of the whole country and the rest of the world? What implication does it have in terms of how you feel about them? What are you raiding radiating out to them? What do you want to offer it to them? Or do you need something from them? Do you need recognition? Do you need money to need power? What do you want to give? And what do you want to receive? And then just take that whole feeling? And it has since dissolve it? And what kind of imagery comes up for you? If you could describe it as a picture or an image of something? What kind of feeling do you have right now? You're successful in your own terms, You've removed the obstacles you've recognized and remove the obstacles. You've stepped into that feeling and you've radiated it out and communicated with your entire world based on that. And now you're dissolving all of that. And is there any kind of imagery that comes up for you? Any kind of picture or feeling that you could describe? And now just kind of let that whole process dissolve into space and gradually open up. Your eyes come back into