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Teacher: Rodney Smith
Date: 2002-11-18
Venue: Seattle Insight Meditation Center
Series
- The Kalama, Honeyball, and Bahiya Suttas 2002-09-16
Homework
You carry your personal story throughout life. Your history is both reassuring and burdensome. It summarizes the chronology of your affairs and gives you either negative or positive self-validation. It also plants you firmly in opposition to the truth that you are not defined by the conclusions of the story. This week reflect on the value and limitations of your story line. Who or what would you be without it?
Three exercises: (1) Sit down and study an old family album. See it as if you were looking at someone else’s album. Don’t equate who you were then with who you are now. See the figures impersonally. Watch how the mind pulls you into the picture and forms a story around the events. (2) Now sit down with a friend or loved one who you have known for years. Feel the affection but don’t allow the past to inhibit the interaction. See if you can relate to the person free of your past opinions about him/her. (3) Finally, listen to your thoughts in meditation and access the awareness that is hearing them. Notice the link between your thoughts and the past. Are the thoughts “you” or is the awareness “you?” How do you know?
TalkID=714 SeriesID=30
