And so, I'm going to talk about coming to our senses both literally, because really,
how do we know anything except through the senses? And
even science, all scientific instruments are an extension of the senses.
Whether they're telescopes or microscopes, or spectrophotometers, or seismometers, or
whatever it is, or thermometers... They're all extensions of the senses. And
the only way there's any possibility of knowing is to know through the senses. And
the Buddhists throw in, of course, something that we tend to ignore,
although more and more we're not. More and more we're interested in it.
But the mind - as a sense, because without the mind you could,
you wouldn't know what you were seeing. You wouldn't know,
not just what you were seeing, you wouldn't know that you were seeing.
In a sense, there wouldn't be seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting,
because we have to connect, otherwise we miss huge swathes of our life. Why?
Because we are preoccupied with what's going on in the mind.
When people hear that meditation is really about the cultivation of attention,
very often the first thing that pops into their mind is,
Wow, that must have some applicability to attention deficit disorder.
And I go, Yeah, there might... [LAUGH] And attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Yeah. Might. And then I like to say, you know, from the perspective of
the meditative traditions, our entire society has attention deficit disorder.
[AUDIENCE LAUGHTER] Big time. And all you need to do is look, and
you'll see that the mind is here and there and everywhere, all over the place,
interrupting itself constantly. And also always on the way someplace else.
Have you noticed that? I mean, you don't even need to be a meditator to
notice that your mind is always on the way to someplace else,
and... [CLICK SOUND] Did I do something? No. Most of the time
it loves to hang out in the future, trying to arrange things to be a certain way,
or worrying about how they're going to not wind up that way. And so that's like
driving your car with the brake on. Huge amount of burning goes on. Worrying,
worrying, worrying. And then when you're not worrying, you're planning [NOISE]...
...[AUDIO CUTS OUT]...
[AUDIO RETURNS]...that offensive. Okay. [AUDIENCE LAUGHTER] I'll put it in my pocket.
We'll see if it likes that better. And then, of course, there's always the past.
And, you know, in the meditative traditions they like to emphasize a lot
being with things as they are. So, you know, that sounds reasonable.
Let's just be ... with things the way they are.
As long as they're the way I want them to be.
[AUDIENCE LAUGHTER]. If we're going to be with things,
I mean, it might as well be the way they, you know, the way we want them to be,
because otherwise it's going to be agony. So a lot of time,
we make sort of this compact that well, we'll be with things as they are,
as long as we can make sure that they're the way we need them to be. And
of course, in order for that to happen, we have to continually operate on the future,
so that we ensure that it will be that way. And continually run from what we
don't want out of the past, that has been harmful or awful, or whatever it is.
And in the process, if we're not careful, the present moment gets severely squeezed.
And with it, all of those inter-embedded availabilities that we have for
actually recognizing that we are more whole than not,
no matter what we're carrying. And the word to suffer in Latin is from,
means to carry. And when we don't recognize our wholeness then,
of course, we're completely caught up in the demons of it not being right, and
if only it were right, or it will never be right or, and, and... So,
to just recognize that awareness doesn't have,
can hold all of that and isn't caught by it,
is one of these orthogonal shifts. And nothing needs to change.
We're not talking about fixing anything, making anything better. Or curing,
getting back to some other state where it was all okay then, and that's what I want.
I want it to be the way it was then. But instead, healing. Which means, in my book,
coming to terms with things just as they are. And how can we know how things are,
just as they are, unless we start to really pay attention? And to pay attention
in an open-hearted way to the full range of our capacities and resources. And
for learning, for growing, as I'm saying, for healing, and for transformation. And
for adventuring, for living the life that's actually ours to live,
as if it really mattered, and as if those elements that are deepest and
best and most beautiful in us are actually already whole. And
they are. And those 16,000 people who've been through this stress reduction program
discover that on their own. We don't give sermons about it, or lectures about it.
You find it out in your cells, in your bones, in your heart beating.
In your discomfort in your body, in, during the body scan, or
sitting meditation, or yoga, or whatever it is. So, in brief,
you could say that meditation, in particular, mindfulness,
is the cultivation of, is coming to our senses literally, literally.
And seeing if we can sustain our awareness of one or another experience,
because you know full well, if you just take eating as an example,
you can eat a whole meal. You remember we eat raisins, you know,
as like a first meditation in the stress reduction clinic is often eating a raisin.
One, takes quite a while, but you know that you can eat an entire meal
without tasting anything. Because in a sense we're eating our ideas, and
we're caught up in habits and conditioning from the past that,
you know, has us eating with no awareness, talking with no awareness, hearing with no
awareness. Just think how many of you have ever had the experience of somebody who
you love deeply, and who lives with you, say to you, You never listen to me.
That ever happen to anybody here in this room? You never listen to me. And,
of course, you immediately would tend to get defensive and say, What are you
talking about? I'm always listening to you. I hear everything you say.
Well, you do and you don't. We're very selective in our hearing.
Yes, it's coming in through the ears, but no, maybe it, you don't allow it
in because it's not coming in the way that you need it to come. Okay?
And so we'll only let certain things in if it comes my way.
And then we generate this whole story of what my way is.
Although, a lot of the time we don't know. But we know we want it.
We tell our kids, you can't always have your own way, but we want our,
don't we always want our way? I mean it's like, you know, we make that bargain.
We'll be happy. We'll be with things as they are,
as long as they're pretty much the way we want them to be and
can handle them. So, imagine if you were to just really open it up,
and drop more into a comfort zone of awareness. We've been so
conditioned to be, in critical thinking. I mean, I remember when I went to school,
some of you have heard me say this, but of course I'm always saying the same thing.
I mean, I never say anything different.
[AUDIENCE LAUGHTER]. There are just different ways of saying the same
thing. But I remember very clearly when I would ask in junior high school,
Why do I have to learn this? And whether it's, you know, geometry or
algebra or whatever. And they say,
Well, it's going to help you with critical thinking. You'll learn how to think.
Well, my sense is that we've really learned how to think very, very well.
In fact, it's very hard to, you know, sometimes we're plagued by our thoughts.
And our thinking can get seriously deranged. Have you noticed?
[AUDIENCE LAUGHTER] And it's coming at us 24/7 with very often a lot of
different voices. A lot of different opinions. A lot of different contradictory
views and opinions. And with a huge amount of emotional charge associated with it.
So just holding all of that in awareness immediately allows for
a new way to navigate or be free.