KRISTIN : Hey dear Sanga. So while while we start, we brought lessons from our past into our present. And so now we'll spend some time with our aspirations for the future. I'm going to keep my sharing very brief because I intend to let Dr. Larry Ward speak to all of us tonight for about 16 minutes.
I do want to say a little bit about how I found my way to this talk, so continuing the themes that we've been exploring on Thursday nights for the past several weeks. I just, you know, get the sense that so many of us are deeply reflecting on who we are right now and how we show up, that we don't want to feel helpless, and we don't want to be overextended.
We want to show up in a world that's hurting and we know the world is enormous and at the same time, we don't want to be so focused on the world and its entirety that we miss what the people and situations right in our daily lives need, right? We want to be present for the people and situations and in our lives every day, you know, in our homes and on our commutes and in our neighborhoods, without forgetting the earth and all of the suffering that she's carrying right now. We want to look to heroes and teachers and models, and we also want to be ourselves, because my and your path will be unlike anyone else's, right? So who am I? Who do I want to be right now? What is my unique expression of love and compassion, right? How and where can I be beneficial? So one of the things, one, one of the many things that stands out to me in this talk by Larry Ward, is that he gives very practical, concrete advice that is at the same time so poetic and saturated with the darma. And he's talking about how we can create our identities in a secular setting, where the danger because of the context, I think, is very real of portraying our identities, like they're permanent and solid and fixed. Like we are our identities instead of being the one who is aware of the roles that we play. And instead of the sensibility in his talk, the dharma shines through, right? There are identities and the roles or things that we pick up and try on every day, but we don't have to be caught in them or ensnared by them. We pick them up. We hold them gently, we remember their costumes, and then we let them go. When we want to or we need to. And so when we know, when we hold on to them too tightly, we suffer, we can suffer. And when we play them, like our identities, like instruments, though they can be quite beautiful. Also, on a very practical level, find the clarity of his guidance so instructive. I've also been sitting a lot with, you know, how do I talk with friends and family who are struggling about how to help right now? And I have found that one way is to quote Larry Ward. So that's been very beneficial. So with that, I’ll bow out in a moment after I thank you, George, for bringing the video up as he's doing that, know the link to it is in the announcement, and we can also put the link to it in the chat for you before we leave for the night. So you can feel free to relax and listen with ease, knowing that you can find it again later if there are nuggets that you want to go back and capture. Now, I'm bowing out and Larry Ward will be with us.
From audio of Larry Ward’s 2013 video: “….Water, park, wishes, drifting across the rivers of time. Please stay in the pakoda, says the abbot. "If only I could. "I am here now, waking up in the changing room of my soul's department store. I am becoming what my young self once knew. Gazing at stars from the attic window, following a yellow and green caterpillar on the sidewalks of Cleveland to New Worlds. Books, poems, songs, preaching love, and being love is all I ever wanted.
“we can enter the labyrinth or we do enter the labyrinth of I-making or self invention, whatever the energies of self transformation are stirring within us And if we bring unwise attention or no attention at all to this process, we run the risk of inventing a self, which upon reflection, we may rather not be, or a self that remains a shadow of our true potential, or a self which seemed frozen in past characters that no longer fl fit to play of our precious life.
My first visit to give a speech in California with some years ago, and at the time I was living and working in New York City, and I showed up dressed as if I was giving a talk in New York City. 30 seconds after I stood up and after I was introduced, a note came from the back of the room and it said, "P, sir, remove your time. You're making all of us really uncomfortable. Welcome to California. Now, the labyrinth of I-making, when we bring consciousness to it, it's a journey within the landscapes of our own hearts and minds, and in it, we can discover turns and passages of awakening to uncertainty, to longing, to realization.
Now, how does one walk this path, navigate this labyrinth with dignity, patience, and insight? I have learned a couple of things, and I continue to learn. First, is to enter into dialogue with our autobiographical self, our self that creates the story of ourself, ourself that creates the story of our memories, of our hopes, of our dreams, of our fears, of our gains, of our losses, our self that tells the story of our emotional journey, our self that tells us what actions we are capable of and not capable of. The task is to bring wise attention to this process, to practices that I have used and to learned that have helped me continue this journey. First is asking authentic questions. And what I mean by an authentic question is you ask the questions that could change your life if you got the answer. Second is developing the skill to acknowledge and align the nourishments of your own becoming? Assuming that we make our eye, we make ourselves, we invent ourselves, we create our becoming through our thinking, through our words, and through our deeds. These seven questions I have found helpful, but I'm sure there are more, but these are seven I've actually worked with. What did to these am I no longer making? Meaning, what identities, am I no longer investing in, giving energy to, and hoping for the outcome home? Why? I am no longer investing in the identity of becoming a professional gol. Which head work back was not out of the Ask your friends. Ask your loved ones. forget to do self, that's emerging is worth living with. Number five, Am I entangled in self images and scripts and mind that are caus for me? or for others? Scripts. Damien has already done a wonderful job of illuminating some of the scripts. I can't. I'm already defined. My story fits my expect level of expectations. But check into your own self image, your own script. I mentioned I'm working on it dissertation, and the first script I had to get over was that I'm the oldest student in my class. I got over it. 'Cause I'm also one one of the more successful students in my class.
Now, conduct an inventory if you dare of your lifestyle and ask yourself, what do I maintain? What do I keep? What do I improve? And what do I gracefully throw away? So one of the same I'm throwing away is the education and cultural assumptions I've had about retirement equals endless summers on the beach. But come up with your own list. What do you keep? What do you improve is what do you throw away? And filling out the blank space on my tombstone, I would say he or she lived and died passionate about what? I used to do a seminar in the first conversation of the opening night was, we used to call the tombstone conversation. They used to freak people out. But I have discovered in my own experience, that conversation amongst a thousand conversations I've involved in my whole life is the most important one in terms of making myself, in terms of inventing myself or reinventing myself.
Now, the secret of wise action upon these questions comes to a process that the Buddhist tradition describes based on the teaching that basically says, "Nothing can live without food." Our identities require nourishment. There is a movie some time ago called Wool Shop Rep Horrors. And then it is the florist. who finds a small plant that he begins, he discovers this plant and live and grows blood. However, in order for the plant to continue to grow, the florist has to start to feed it people. And it gets bigger, and the more people it eats, the bigger it gets. Our identities are like that. Self transformation is vary to check in. Check in what identities are you nourishing?Cause I sometimes discover I am feeding a part of myself, I'd rather not become. or I am under feeding a part of myself, I really want to be. Four kinds of nutriments in this teaching. First is i-cal food, what you actually eat on a day to day basis. I want't going to the details because I want to read you another poem before I'm done. Edible food, youact your body, it impacts your mind, and it impacts the world. A friend of mine who used to live in Tokyo, I went to visit after a long time on a business trip, and I met him, and he was on a new diet. He was going 700 miles an hour and a 30 mile zone. And I said to him, I think your diet may not be quite balanced. Sensory impressions and contact, what we see here thinking and feel and touch, nourishes us. The beautiful author of "The Rape of NanKing, who committed suicide in 2004, when people entered her apartment, her room was filled with images of horror and tragedy. And I don't mean we don't need to pay attention to tragedy. I mean that's not all we have to nourish ourselves with. Intentions and our volition, our sense of purpose, our direction, and our planning feeds our I-making, feeds our self invention or reinvention. What are you planning to do with the rest of your life?
Have you trained yourself to recognize the difference between what's urgent, what's necessary, and what's important? I've discovered even in consulting with top CEOs. Most of us have not. Feed your I-making with a fresh vision that expresses your deepest intention, and how you can use your gifts and talents and just world. Habit energies is the fourth nourishment. patterns, repeated patterns of how we think, how we speak, how we do. There's a great story from Buddhism, the monks and the Budd walking one morning, and a farmer who lives near the monastery is coming down the road on his horse, and one of the monks tries to him is, where are you going so fast?" And the farmer says, "I don't know, ask the horse. "If we are not careful, we end up living like that farmer. For our patterns, our driving us this way and that, learn to acknowledge your comfort zones, your well being zones, your frozen zones, your victim zones, your happiness zones and what speeds them
I'm going to read the last book that I wrote for you. Enter your life like a grace epic poem, R the colors of change with the wind, unafraid and unattached. In the light of the coming and going of all things, savor the stars in the dark blue sky. Trust the sun in your heart to guide you home. Here, between earth and sky, listen, Hear your own footsteps in the leaves of time. Fix your gaze on the horizon of the not yet, but stay in this moment and ask this great symphony, whathat is my instrument? What is my music, what is my song? And then, and then surrender to the crucibible's alchemy, and it becomes the Mandala of your holy life. Cross the wake of life's great mystery, like a swan, embodying grace, embodying peace, embodying compassion as you head toward the other shore.
KRISTIN: And so friends for for our Dharma sharing, you may want to consider these questions or share something else that you're sitting with this evening.
What identities do you currently give energy to? What I(s) are you making? What I(s) are you no longer interested in making? What aspects of your lifestyle do you want to maintain? Which will you love, which will you lovingly let go, because they no longer serve things that matter to you or what inspiration did you find to invite from Larry Ward, or have you found another experiences with him over the years?
As always, when we share, we'll bow in, when we're ready to speak and we bow out, when we're finished. We'll be concise. There's many of us here tonight. And so I'll I'll follow our recent tradition where at three minutes, I'll wake the bell so that you know that it's been three minutes and can find a way to wrap up so that others have a chance to speak. When we share, we address the entire group. We don't address one person or do cross talk or offer rebuttals, or advice. Instead, we offer our deep listening, and we offer our loving speech. We remember that what we intend to say, or b might or will likely differ from how others receive it, and so we leave space for all of those possible meanings. If you tend to speak first or quickly, you might want to consider waiting, if you tend to hold back, you might want to consider sharing sooner once you feel your heartbeat quickening or however your body tells you, you have something that might want to be said. And thank you all for helping to create a safe space for everyone belongs. So with that, I will bow out and open the space for Dharma sharing.ellian.
Lisa: Thank you, Kristen, for offering up the facilitation tonight, and I hadn't really known about Larry Ward, and so that was a special gift to be introduced to him. Two things that I really enjoy in this is his poetic sensibility, as a poet myself, I really appreciate it the ways in which he framed the conversation and um and so two of the things that struck with me was it reminded me of that line from a Mary all over a poem that ends with tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one precious life? And so everything that he was saying to this kind of resonated with that. So it was, if I substitute life with the identity, it's sort of, as I'm sitting here now, I feel like once the next precious identity I might be sitting with. And the second thing was he said, "A a question that if you knew the answer, it could change your mind." And, you know, I really resonated with me, because I feel like, again, with an illusion to poetry, there's a passage by Rilke that asks us to sit with these different questions in our life, not always because we know the answers, but that one day we might grow into the answers. And so I just felt really stirred by those passages. So thank you, Kristen and also to all of you who you, I'm so sorry for your loss of I'mty teacher. Thank you. This out.
Ahhh Chick bowing in. Kristen, thanks a lot for tonight's topic and for the Larry Ward talk. Yeah, I guess what really impressed me is really such almost feel like letting go of a burden just to appreciate that's I can have I can embrace so many identities. Now at the same time necessarily, but yeah, I mean, life is really letting go of things, isn't it? And included in these identities one that I've hung on to was it to be a bagpipe player and I was a bagpipe player for a while. And then abandoned it and tried to pick it up over the last since the beginning of COVID, actually with no success. but recently I've been really into saying, yeah, it's okay I don't need to do that anymore But it's just a good example of carrying a burden that sometimes felt like, oh, what's wrong with me and I can't, you know, can't keep doing this. But anyway, in what kind of identities can I look forward to? I mean, I don't know, but to think that, yeah, you know, just try new things on.
So thanks. George Valette. I would love to be on Tuesday to find out about the seventh day celebration of Larry's transition. So I attended that a Zoom meeting with about 650 other people. and it was pretty moving. Nice to learn that Larry had given many Latin American countries who eve African countries and other kinds of places, as well as various parts of the US and how deeply people that spoke about him care and had been. There's been in? Thank you. for creating this topic up tonight, and my rewards work. It's been my experience that, how myself, can retired now, and.
I am Dev(?). I'm definitely on to new and different experiences. back now, they realized that that I believe for a core belief of mine has always been that we're constantly transforming ourselves. There is no steady state when it comes to life. and. I don't mean that to sound. fearful. Not at all. I think it does. I see it as a great zero of potential, you know, and in a sense that whatever we are today, if there are things we don't like about ourselves, you can change them, you can change them tomorrow. Some things take longer, of course. I was back over my life and I'd met. I' made many changes. and only quite recently have I seen that pattern. and that that self, I transformation or I'm making as Larry Ward puts it, I think it's a continuous process. It has everything to do with the nutrients, nutrients as the tide. explains them. We are what we're consuming. and I think that's a good thing. I think it's inevitable, actually. That's what life is. Bow down.
It's Kristen bowing in. I hesitate to interrupt such a a rich silence that we're sharing. But I did want to offer the space if there's anyone sitting with a sharing that you'd like to speak, now would be a good time we're in our final minutes of Tarma sharing going out.
Mitchell bowing in. Thank you very much Kristin and just say so many things to like about that talk. But one thing I noticed was just his knees. He was both rehearsed and at ease and had a wonderful flow to her. He was very accustomed to the public speaking. And the other thing is often send to people, I mean, don't teach to sit to darma teachers, in others who. Don't teach my practice. Teach your practice. And that's something Larry did there very well, and very much took to heart that. Counsel from T. which were now.
This is Tina and, um, this past, I guess it was in the fall, last year, I took an ecodorma class, and it Larry was there, and Peggy it was my first encounter with Larry. And it was after the elections, and we were all very fearful, and he was fearful. And it was really interesting what he talked about. and he said that this, we're going into a time where we need to regulate our trauma and we need to help the world and I was so impressed with his activism, you know? He told us about days with Martin Luther King. Tramhan and he said that the world right now has been focusing on the left brain, the left hemisphere, neglecting the right, and the right hemisphere is art and dance and nature. And when the left handphere meets the right hand sphere, they don't understand one another. And that we need to bridge those t views and help people understand both hemispheres. I just thought I'd share that, because I found it to be beautiful and leaves us with, like, a task for the future. And he's a wonderful man. Thank you. Who's
Kristen bowing in. In lieu of words for me, for me, I'm going to offer one sound of the bell, so we can sit with the energy of transformation that we've built up together. Transformation that's both his continuation and of our own becomings. It's a simple one sound of the bell. And with that before we close this portion of our practice tonight, I'm going to see Mitchell Rachel, are there any announcements or things that you would like to share share with everyone? Kristen Bia.
Rachel: I'll get us started. Thank you so much, Kristen, is a lovely topic and really a lovely presentation. from Larry. It was wonderful to see. I just want to remind folks about all the work that it takes to bring programs to you that we do this evening, like all the preparation, that Kristenving we put in, and there's a lot of things that folks can do being here, being present, being authentic. It's a wonderful way to share and give to the community. And if you have the means to provide a material, a contribution,, you can do that too. I realize I had the link, and I lost it just a moment here. But there is a link that I'm gonna put in tag. It's fair rich. Oh, it's there, our tech bud that did it for me. for Donna, and I do want to introduce another concrete thing that folks can do that I'll be talking more about. But we're working on trying to gather really a team of folks to work on the social media. I don't know if you've seen our Instagram or, or Facebook, feeds. I think they're they're okay. I' work on them. And you could make them lonelier and really be part of a social media son guy that works together to sort of communicate with the dman of folks. So if you're interested in that here, I'm just gonna I'm gonna tell you, I will be telling you more as the committee sort of think more about what the roles will entail, but if you're interested, you could just drop me an email, let me know, or if you have any questions. Thanks.. For many things, but especially for being a pillar of a social media work for the last several years. for those who are for stillowwater offers of 15 different medications each week, different days, different times, it's all on their website, because you're invited to keep coming to this one and joining one of the other ones. And also coming up, we have three in person events, we slowly getting back to where we started with more new person events, and there will be October 4th, All Stillwate Pablo. Barbara Asher's house, just south of Baltimore. And on September 7th, we have our monthly in person walk at Budan Sanctuary Shry Chase, Maryland, which is really lovely, notclock in the morning, and on the November 12th to 16th, they our annual Stillwater Blue Cliff retreat, orbody who wants to leads together, that blue cliff, we used to have five days, four nights there to practice together with the monastics, and this is our third year, it's been really powerful for many people. And if you up information about all this is on our websites or on NPc.org, thank you very much. Thank you again, Chris. Good night. Good. all be safe from harm. May we all make friends of our minds.. May we all make friends of our bodies, and may we go with ease? Have a good night friends. Thank you so much. Thank you. It was wonderful. Thank you.
“The purpose of life is to recreate yourself anew in the next golden moment of now, in the next grandest version of the greatest vision ever you held about who you are.” Neale Donald Walsch
Together we’ll consider:
- What identities do you currently want to give energy to? What identities are you no longer interested in making?
- What aspects of your lifestyle do you want to maintain? Which will you lovingly let go because they no longer serve identities that matter to you?
- What inspiration do you find in this talk by Larry Ward?
Enter your life like a great epic poem
Ride the colors of change with the wind, unafraid and unattached.
In the light of the coming and going of all things,
Savor the stars and the dark blue sky.
Trust the sun in your heart to guide you home.
Here between earth and sky, listen,
Hear your own footsteps in the leaves of time.
Fix your gaze on the horizon of the not yet,
But stay in this moment and ask this great symphony:
What is my instrument?
What is my music?
What is my song?
And then surrender to the crucibles alchemy
And it becomes the mandala of your holy life.
Cross the lake of life’s great mystery like a swan;
Embodying peace
Embodying compassion
As you head toward the other shore.
~ Dr Larry Ward
I am here now with waking up
in the changing room of my soul's department store
I am becoming what my young self once knew
gazing at stars from the attic window
following a yellow and green caterpillar
on the sidewalks of Cleveland to new worlds -
books, poems, songs
preaching love and being in love
is all I ever wanted
- Dr Larry Ward
The Labyrinth of I-Making: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwjfAMzYvSo
white and red dogwood trees reach toward the blue sky
yellow daffodils shoot up from the earth
bright Forsythia everywhere
swaying in the gentle breeze
the warmth of the Sun
the freshness of spring is in me too
opening, growing, smiling to life
there's not much time left
the Earth continues to turn
and I am certain now of what I must do
I am out of rhythm with the one who knows
I steal moments to come home to myself in the still of the night
I sing the songs of silence
at the dawn of the day
I find my breath in the gentle mist
robins sing outside my window
I hear the sound of ducks
winging their way over the pond
it takes time to offer the best to myself
and I have not had it
and it makes me sad
a beam of moonlight changed everything
a ride on the perfume river brought me all the way home
floating candles on dark water
heart wishes drifting across the rivers of time
"Please stay in the pagoda," says the Abbott
if only I could
