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Teacher: Rodney Smith
Date: 2013-09-17
Venue: Seattle Insight Meditation Center
Series
- Dependent Origination 2013-01-22
Description
With the link of Becoming the sense-of-self is now fully alive within the dynamics of the mind. It does not exist outside of the mind as it likes to believe but as a working confluent whole with the other links of Dependent Origination. The sense-of-self wants to assume the “someone” who is receiving the desired object so it can chase after them, but to do so it has to spin the deception that it is the owner of the mental phenomena. To be perceived as the owner, the sense-of-self fractures the perception into the subject and object: me and my mind, or me and the object I want. Once the deception is complete it must continue to think in terms of past and future to keep the illusion going. If the mind becomes quiet, the past and future ends and the whole of the mind falls into the present where sparation cannot be maintained.
Homework
The story of “me” is an incomplete fable. “I will be fulfilled after I …” is the logic of the mind. The “me” exists because of desire. Fulfillment never arrives because desire is future oriented and overlooks the present. This week examine what is lacking in your life. Has desire and grasping ever ended in complete satisfaction? Turn toward the longing itself, the need to have or be more than you are now. Feel it in your body and how it plays into your mental scripts of dissatisfaction or inadequacy. Do not allow your story to justify the sense of incompleteness. Stop the future search in its tracks by asking, “What is missing in this moment?”
Video
Link to view on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/74799597
TalkID=154 SeriesID=47
