Live Session Summary, Sunday, September 10, 2023: It was good to be with you for our Live session exploring some key themes from our sessions over the past three years. Here are some of the main topics, poems, and quotes:
• I spoke of mindfulness as, in the Buddha’s words, ‘the direct path to liberation.’ Through bringing awareness to our present-moment experience we gain insight into the nature of all experience: that everything is impermanent; nothing can be held onto; and nothing is inherently ‘I’ or ‘mine.’ Mindfulness leads to insight, or seeing clearly, and that clear seeing frees us from suffering.
• I discussed the Buddha’s central teaching of the four noble truths: 1) that suffering (dukkha) is to be acknowledged (first noble truth); 2) that the cause of suffering is craving (which includes aversion and delusion or ignorance)—metaphorically, adding a second arrow of suffering to a first arrow of pain or difficulty—and the task of the second noble truth is to let go of craving; 3) the third noble truth is that letting go leads to freedom (nirvana, or the ending of greed, aversion, and delusion) and the deepest peace; and 4) the fourth noble truth is that there is a path to freedom, the noble eightfold path—a training to cultivate wisdom, live wisely and kindly, and train the mind.
• The key to freeing ourselves from suffering lies in being present here and now—what Eckhart Tolle calls ‘the power of now’: We only ever live in the present, in the Now. When we move in a reactive, unconscious way into the past, the future, or away from being present for our experience, it is painful and we live in a narrow and constricted way. As Tolle, says, ‘The present moment holds the key to liberation. But you cannot find the present moment as long as you are your mind… Make the Now the primary focus of your life. Always say ‘yes’ to the present moment.” (Tolle, the Power of Now, p19 and 25)
• At the heart of being present is acceptance of our experience and of life as it is unfolding—which is at the core of the practice of mindfulness. When we meet our experience fully and wholeheartedly, the problematical nature of things dissolves. ‘Problems’ become situations to deal with, rather than something that feels ‘wrong’ or that ‘shouldn’t be happening’ or that needs to change. They are simply how life is unfolding in the moment that call for our response.
The quotes I shared include:
• Eckhart Tolle on ‘The origin of fear’: He distinguishes psychological fear from the fear we might experience being attacked by someone or something that we would respond to immediately and viscerally. ‘The psychological condition of fear is divorced from any concrete and true immediate danger. It comes in many forms: unease, worry, anxiety, nervousness, tension, dread, phobia, and so on. This kind of psychological fear is always of something that might happen, not of something that is happening now. You are in the here and now, while your mind is in the future. This creates an anxiety gap. And if you are identified with your mind and have lost touch with the power and simplicity of the Now, that anxiety gap will be your constant companion. You can always cope with the present moment, but you cannot cope with something that is only a mind projection—you cannot cope with the future.’ (The Power of Now, p35)
• Anthony de Mello: ‘Enlightenment is absolute cooperation with the inevitable.’
• Carl Rogers: ‘The curious paradox is that, when I accept myself as I am, then I can change.’
• Tolle: ‘What you accept fully you go beyond.’
Poems I shared include: an excerpt from Rumi’s ‘The Guest House’; Dorothy Hunt’s ‘Peace is this moment without judgment’; and Mary Oliver’s ‘Tell me, what is it you plan to do // with your one wild and precious life?’ from ‘The Summer Day.’
I hope this is helpful. Please let me know if I missed anything important. I have uploaded new dates for sessions in the coming weeks—and look forward to seeing you again at 9am eastern next Sunday, September 17. Wishing you a joyful and fruitful week ahead. Warmly, Hugh 🙏🏻 💜 🌻
