Episode

Teacher: Rodney Smith

Date: 2007-11-13

Venue: Seattle Insight Meditation Center

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Homework The fear of death includes the fear of silence. Noise defines us and silence intimates not being. The heart seeks quietude even as the mind avoids it. Reflect upon the question of how dependent you are upon noise. Watch how you fill your day with the external sounds of radio, TV, music. Notice your need to speak without saying anything meaningful. How essential are the thoughts you think to your living experience? What is the value of all this noise? How does it help confirm your existence? Try paring back the external and internal noise, eliminating what is not essential. Ask yourself, “Is this thought really necessary?” If not, release yourself from it. As you move more into silence notice the effects on your heart. Are you more sensitive and caring, do you have an easier time seeing interconnectedness? This is what it means to die to oneself.

TalkID=480 SeriesID=22

Teacher: Rodney Smith

Date: 2007-10-30

Venue: Seattle Insight Meditation Center

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Homework To gently bring home the truth of our own mortality, gather old photos of a few people you have loved who have died (friends, grandparents, or other relatives). Look into the face of each person and see the vitality, and then reflect that this person has died. Watch an old movie of the early twentieth century. Notice the life and glamour of the leading men and women; reflect on the fact that everyone in the movie is now dead. Now say to yourself, “This too will happen to me and everyone I know.” What feelings arise with this realization? Honor those feelings. How does this reflection affect the way you think about your life today? Does it reprioritize what is important? Does it affect your relationship to the dharma?

TalkID=479 SeriesID=22

Teacher: Rodney Smith

Date: 2007-10-16

Venue: Seattle Insight Meditation Center

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Homework The Buddha is reported to have been asked, “Do all mortals fear death?” He is said to have replied, “Only those who (1 )pursue sense pleasures endlessly, or (2) are vain about their bodies, or (3) perform a lifetime of unethical behavior, or are (4) confused about the nature of reality, fear death.” Pick one of these categories that best exemplifies you.
Study this pattern. Watch every facet of how it operates. (Above all be easy with yourself! This is not an exercise to reinforce self-hatred.) How does this pattern keep you resisting any thoughts of your death? Can you visualize yourself on your deathbed and see how this pattern could hold you back from letting go into the unknown? Conversely, how can reflections on death help you with this pattern?

TalkID=478 SeriesID=22

Teacher: Rodney Smith

Date: 2007-10-13

Venue: Seattle Insight Meditation Center

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TalkID=476

Teacher: Rodney Smith

Date: 2007-10-02

Venue: Seattle Insight Meditation Center

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Homework Begin each sitting meditation this week reflecting on your death. Sense the fragility of your heart beat, the tenderness of each breath, the irreversible ageing of the body. What assumptions are you making about the continuance of your life? Are you certain there will be an in breath after this out breath? Feel the edge of fear as you allow the uncertainty of each moment to surface.
Off the cushion, start bringing death into your day-to-day observations by intentionally reading the obituaries in the newspaper, observing road kills, noticing the dying leaves of autumn, and perhaps visiting nursing homes or hospitals. Be sensitive to your fear of the subject. Is it too much? If not, learn all you can about the immediate reality of death.

TalkID=477 SeriesID=22

Teacher: Rodney Smith

Date: 2007-09-11

Venue: Seattle Insight Meditation Center

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Homework Follow this simple exercise this week: Sit outdoors in nature where everything is moving in a natural rhythm. Allow yourself to slow down and become quietly aligned with that rhythm. Ask what is seeing the movement in front of your eyes (the swaying of trees, the flight of birds, etc). That which sees movement is not moving. Time is movement and it takes the timeless to see time.
Bring your attention from outside to inside yourself, allowing the same nonmoving attention to see what moves inside your mind. Now, looking inward, ask, “What is seeing this mind?”

TalkID=475 SeriesID=23

Teacher: Rodney Smith

Date: 2007-09-07

Venue: Seattle Insight Meditation Center

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TalkID=473