[meditation bell]
Jon: Bring the mic up if you can, so I'll be able to hear you. Can you do that?
Alright. Ok.
Participant: Can you bring your little friend out? Jon: You need the bunny?
Jon: Ok, hold on. [laughter] He has to come out of his hutch...
[laughter] Jon: he has a very special entrance...
[ Aaah's]
J: He's a little shy. [laughter and aaah's] He needs to go to the...what is it?
Participants answer: "the speaking circle." Jon to bunny: "You need to go to the speaking circle."
[laughter] J: He's not ready.
[laughter]
Jon: He's going back into his hutch. Maybe he'll do it later.
Participant [laughing and crying]: This is why I'm here. Jon: Ahh....
J: Love.
J: The tenderness of our bunny hearts. [Participant crying] J: We are all one in the bunny heart.
J: Puppy heart, kitty heart, whatever you choose.
Participant: Except I never chose tenderness before. Jon: Ahh...yeah.
P: Even the teacher I had for ... J: hold on, I've got to turn my volume up a little...
J: Go ahead. P: [crying] Even the teacher that I spent the most time with in my life--17 years--
would kick my ass around the block.
Jon: [sighs] Yeah. Old school. Yeah.
J: I had a violent teacher like that--my first one.
J: Screamed and yelled and swore at me when I was six.
Then he'd sit there and pick the wax out of his ear with his key while I was playing [violin].
[astonished laughter]
J: He pounded his hands on the fabric-covered chair so hard that my parents had to recover the chair.
[audience astonishment]
J: He would say, "God in heaven, dammit to hell you jackass!" I was six.
P: Ah-ha... ..So you know my dad?! [laughter]
J: My dad was a whole other kettle of fish. [laughter]
J: Just as intense.
J: Yeah, I do know... I do.
J: The hardest thing that I had to learn, along the way, was to be gentle with myself.
J: It was one of the hardest things, because I was...VERY hard on myself.
And people who know me well, know that.
J: I used to make Type A look catatonic.
P: Yeah, I see the way you are with your little things...
J: Yeah?
J: Yeah, I USED to be fussy. [laughter]
P: Well, thank God that's over! [wild laughter]
J: I'm very laid back now. [laughter....]
[laughter]
J: You should have seen me then!
J: But it's what it took at 16, I'll tell ya.
To sit in that bean bag chair and blow through the universe.
It took... indomitable will.
To not move.
J: There's a good side.
But then it's important to know how to ease up.
How to love. How to soften. How to be tender.
If you've learned to be hard, you need to learn to be tender.
J: There it is. Feel that? Yeah. Beautiful.
[long silence]
J: You should get one of these [bunnies]. [Participant laughs] I'll tell you how to get one.
J: Keep it with you all the time.
J: One of my clients gave it to me. He has one in his suit pocket all the time.
I ordered a half a dozen. [laughter] I've given them away and....
P: So this sounds a little silly, but
I don't know whether I need to "open the lens" or close it more.
P: Because, while I tend to be very hard on myself, and everyone...
I'm also extremely passive and
don't have a very strong...will or discipline.
Jon: Ok, let me be clear about the description of "wide lens/wide angle."
This is a great question. Thank you.
J: Um...Wide angle does not mean profoundly present.
It doesn't mean passive.
No. It means: fully alive in a very big space.
J: Feel the difference right now? P: Ah-ha. J: That's it.
J: It's not passive and it's not spaced out.
When I say more space, I don't mean spaced out.
It's just when you are trying to keep infinite energy in a limited container, it's going to start shaking and all that.
You gotta let your energy... and this is true for various people who have lots of energy.
P: That's why I like to dance a lot.
J: Oh yeah, dancing is awesome.
Dancing, singing--those things are natural expressions of the human spirit
that's why they exist everywhere forever
in human society.
J: Beautiful.
J: Yeah, something's really nicely coming open through here now.
J: Hmmmm. That's nice.
J: See we all have infinite love to give
and to receive. That's when we are fulfilled.
When that's cookin'.
That's one of the reasons these retreats can be so amazing and wonderful.
To realize that.
J: Beautiful. You feel that? Feel that wideness?
P: Uh-ha. J: That's what I'm talking about.
J: Beautiful radiance.
J: We are infinite beings of light. We're not,
you know, contracted little critters that have to behave.
I mean, we are, I guess, in social whatever, but ... not really.
It doesn't mean we go running around, screaming naked in Safeway down the isles.
[laughter]
That's not what I'm talking about.
It's not about acting out in some crazy way. It's about being fully awake.
It's beautiful and it's very simple too.
J: So let that heart keep healing and releasing all of that
burden of being hard on yourself and being treated harshly.
Let that all just transform out of your heart.
And let it turn into beautiful, loving light. Ok?
J: Oh, wait a minute, for you... [laughter]
[everyone: Aaaah!]
Jon, later that day: "He was ready to be seen. He came out of his hutch. [laughter]
He's feeling safer now
in your presence... He usually stays in his little hutch... [audience Ah's and laughter]
It's a good retreat, I can tell.
Earlier we were talking about softening,
and really letting the warmth, and love, and tenderness in.
Like Professor Yu.
Softness is actually permeable
and transformative. And that's why
the Ho'oponopono works.
because it's about loving.
It's all about healing and opening the heart.
Because forgiveness
and gratitude
open the heart.
Gratitude is one of the biggest...
generosity and gratitude are the biggest openers of the heart.
I'm sure you know that.
And so when you're loving, when you're really in the connection of loving,
it is the richest.
And you are actually in those moments when you are totally connected.
You are giving fully of yourself. And that's when we're the happiest.
And here on retreat you are learning, if you haven't already learned,
how to actually give that to yourself... first.
Because love starts here and so does peace.
We can't give what we don't have access to.
So the retreat is... we should be jumping up and down for joy that
we're working on
the healing and transformation of the human.
Not just transcending into samadhi.
I mean, that's fine. Samadhi's groovy. You know, I like it.
We all like bliss and ecstatic states. It's great. It's wonderful.
But to love fully
that's the greatest high there is.
Then you are happy.
You're truly happy.
There is no true happiness without an open heart. There just isn't.
So that's the ... seed I want to plant.
Is that seed of tenderness,
gentleness, kindness, patience, forgiveness.
May you be fulfilled, no matter what.
Yeah. ... I'm just planting little seeds into the garden.
[meditation bell]