Dharma Seed - dharmaseed.org: Jose Reissig's most recent Dharma talks

(Rhinebeck Sitting Group) The problem with our habitual search for our home is that we restrict it to the outer world, bypassing our inner being.

(Rhinebeck Sitting Group) Habitually we stage our life as if it were a theatrical production. How about, instead, just being with life as it unfolds?

(Rhinebeck Sitting Group) The appropriate response to the conflicts that come our way is equanimity, rather than adding fuel to the fire by rushing to take sides. Equanimity also requires that we let the conflicts touch our heart while we defuse them. It is surely not indifference.

(Rhinebeck Sitting Group) Sure, we need to do both. The problem is that the dealing usually takes over, leaving no room for intimacy with the world, and with ourselves.

(Dominican Sisters center at Saugerties) Dropping our self-centeredness is a requirement for becoming partners with the world. And true partnership requires also that we, eventually, dismantle our sense of inhabiting a separate life.

(Dominican Sisters center at Saugerties) Our practice is meant to capture the flow of the real. The practice of "choiceless awareness" is most helpful for that.

(Dominican Sisters center at Saugerties) We tend to deal with the world by fragmenting it and stowing each fragment into a separate compartment of our mind. In so doing, we distance ourselves from the flow of life.

(Dominican Sisters center at Saugerties) To truly join the world, we need to both appreciate and contribute to its diversity.

(Dominican Sisters center at Saugerties) Too often we live inside tunnels we construct to avoid being with the real. Let us get out of the tunnels and join the world.

(Dominican Sisters center at Saugerties) An invitation to experience life through our direct connection with our five senses and through their reverberations in our hearts and minds.

(Dominican Sisters center at Saugerties) We habitually see the world dislocated into fragments, ignoring that all its aspects are profoundly intertwined. Let's see it all of one piece. Let's join the world.

(Dominican Sisters center at Saugerties) This talk is a sequel of the previous one ("Searching For Me"). It invites us to forget our own press-releases, and to empty the screen of our mind.

(Dominican Sisters center at Saugerties) We spend much effort trying to define who we are. At times we even use our DNA for that. This search brings only suffering. Let's drop it.

(Dominican Sisters center at Saugerties) We have come to believe that life is about fabricating an identity for ourselves. Yet this brings us much suffering. Only by dropping this obsession for self-identity can we create a space where the many facets of ourselves can unfold.

(Dominican Sisters center at Saugerties) The habitual way to secure predictable outcomes is through ownership. When this way prevails, we disconnect from the path of love.

(Dominican Sisters center at Saugerties) We tend to orchestrate our lives so as to secure predictable outcomes. As a result we end up enclosed in artificial scenarios. The alternative, which sets us free, is to trust the unknown.

(Dominican Sisters center at Saugerties) Our mind often functions in a shared space. In that case it is not sufficient to empty the individual mind, but we need to find ways to extend the clearing to the collective mind as well.

(Dominican Sisters center at Saugerties) When we have emptied our mind of its clutter we can see not only things as they are, but also the underlying vastness.

(Dominican Sisters center at Saugerties) There is much stuff that burdens - "pre-occupies" - our mind, and most of it has to do with the construction of who we think we are.

(Dominican Sisters center at Saugerties) The primary role of the outer teacher is to empower the inner one. And in order to let this empowerment in, we need to drop our shields and embrace freedom.

(Dominican Sisters center at Saugerties) Much of our daily life is make-believe. To be with the real we have to withdraw from this charade and embrace our actual experience, including the perception of impermanence.

(Dominican Sisters center at Saugerties) We often see the Earth as just a territory to be subdivided and owned. Meditation helps us to move away from this as it provides us with a sense of connectivity and attunement with the Earth and all its creatures.

(Dominican Sisters center at Saugerties) We picture the World as separate, the Mind being just a passive spectator. But meditation practice reveals their interweavement.

(Dominican Sisters center at Saugerties) The Occupy Wall Street movement questions the hegemony of the 1%, and seeks to empower the 99% instead. Our practice, likewise, questions the hegemony of the ego, and seeks to empower the 99% of us.

(Dominican Sisters center at Saugerties) In the process of relating to others, we often barricade ourselves behind some form of collective identity; be it our family, clan, race, nationality, religion, whatever. To truly connect we need to drop this we-ego ("wego") and allow ourselves to be vulnerable to love unconditional.

(Dominican Sisters center at Saugerties) The problem with money is that it takes us to a strange and separate world, where only the bottom-line counts. The wall separating this world from the rest of our life stretches out inside ourselves, and splits us in two. A wholesome life requires that we take down this inner wall.

(Dominican Sisters center at Saugerties) To do so we must go inside - not to our impersonation by the ego, but to our complex being. Having done so, we are ready to transcend this complexity and find the peace of emptiness.

(Holy Cross Monastery) When nothing is "me" our separations vanish. We come to inhabit an open space. Last February, Cairo's Tahrir Square became emblematic of such a space.

(Holy Cross Monastery) Having become aware of the fictional nature of our persona, we can look into whatever remains.

(Holy Cross Monastery) The fictional nature of our persona becomes evident when we are willing to examine the ways in which we fabricate it.

(Dominican Sisters center at Saugerties) Our dedication to appropriating all that comes our way has wreaked havoc with our collective life. It has caused much collateral damage to both society and the environment, and has grievously damaged the core of our social integrity. To reverse the damage we need, first and foremost, to restore this integrity.

(Dominican Sisters center at Saugerties) Much of our life is dedicated to establishing ownership of all that comes our way: things, territory, others, etc. In so doing we end up fragmenting both the owned and the owners. To become whole we need to divest from this project. Time: 39:34

(Dominican Sisters center at Saugerties) To practice meditation is to practice intimacy, first with ourselves, and eventually with all beings. Time: 42:30

(Holy Cross Monastery) We have allowed our planet to be run by an elite, which is not at all connected to what happens on the ground. This alienation needs to come to an end.

(Holy Cross Monastery) We have each disconnected our mind from the ensemble of our being, and allowed it to be run by our ego. Unless we reconnect, we will continue to live mindlessly.

(Holy Cross Monastery) In order to be useful, the teachings must be in tune with the culture of the time without compromising their essence.

(Dominican Sisters center at Saugerties) Usually we see this as a dilemma: do I look after one (me) or after the others? This is a false dilemma, resulting from the separation we have concocted between me and you, us and them.

(Dominican Sisters center at Saugerties) To catch means both to physically capture and to understand. This follows from the belief that in order to understand we have to pluck items out of their context. Can we learn to do otherwise?

(Dominican Sisters center at Saugerties) Indifference is the "near enemy" of equanimity: the former insulates us from reality, while the latter gives us the strength to dive into it.

(Dominican Sisters center at Saugerties) This newly coined term refers to the web of connections with our inner life, which remains largely unspoiled by conventionality. The Innernet stands as an invaluable tool for our trying times, and for the even more difficult times to come.

(Dominican Sisters center at Saugerties) An invitation to reinstate our genuine and uncorrupted beginner's mind.

(Dominican Sisters center at Saugerties) A review of the very basic teachings of the Buddha - i.e. The Four Noble Truths -, paying particular attention to their pragmatic and experiential nature.

(Holy Cross Monastery) A call for bringing tenderness to the world instead of feeding conflict. (40:55)

(Holy Cross Monastery) We have been conditioned to mistake our constructions for reality. Let us stop doing it. (30:21)

(Holy Cross Monastery) To center the mind we first need to learn to focus it. Only then will we be able to explore our inner chambers. (44:52)

(Dominican Sisters center at Saugerties) To be with change ... Or not to be. Since life is steeped in change ("anicca"), unless we participate in it we are not showing up for life. Length 45:49

(Dominican Sisters center at Saugerties) Our conventional strategy for knowing involves apprehending ("getting it"). Hence that which cannot be apprehended remains out of reach. Shift strategies, and all becomes available. Length 34:38

(Dominican Sisters center at Saugerties) For all its usefulness, language limits us as well. Eventually we need to explore what lies beyond. Length 40:01

(Dominican Sisters center at Saugerties) When ruled by the I, we see the world around us -- politics included -- through the narrow focus of whether "our side" wins or loses. What a waste!

(Dominican Sisters center at Saugerties) The goal of the I is self-evaluation. Evaluation -- like a yardstick -- leads to unidimensionality. We end up losing sight of our inner fullness.