Against The Stream

The Buddha. As he discovered mindfulness and really started to investigate his own direct experience, he saw everything perceived as, “pleasant and unpleasant and neutral” But, we have this instinctual craving - drive - to cling to the pleasure; to want it to feel good. And we don't have much built-in tolerance for pain. We have aversion. We have resistance to pain.

Finding Balance in Practice.

30-minute guided meditation and dharma talk at. Against The Stream, Venice, CA.

How often have you, at home, thought, “OK. I'm going to sit for 45 minutes…and then 15 minutes in you're like, **** it. I'm going to go do the dishes. I'm going to check my email.”

But you know when you’re in community, most of the time, you stay.

Even when your mind's like, “Yo. You should split.”

And on retreat..Even on retreat sometimes your mind says, “Yo. You should split.”

On my first retreat, I went to the teacher and was like, “I'm leaving this is *******. It’s lame.” My mind was making up all of the reasons why I shouldn't stay on the retreat.

I was a 19 year old kid like fresh out of juvie and my dad said, “why don't you go to this meditation retreat?”

And it was so hard. So I went to the teacher on the second day of the retreat and said, “I think I'm done.” …And they use the Dharma teacher trick on me and said to me, “Well, you leave if you want, but why don’t you listen to the Dharma talk tonight? And then after that, make a decision.”

Rumbling and suffering, I was like, “OK. I’ll listen to talk.” And then I listened to the talk and got so inspired. It sounded so good: they're talking about freedom. I want to be free, but they were also saying, ‘Yeah. You can be free. You can end your suffering. But you gotta do it by sitting on this cushion and letting your mind abuse you and learning not to take it so personally.’”

I'm so grateful that I had stayed and that I kept coming back to retreat and kept doing this process, because everybody that's been doing this for anytime knows it's just not a quick fix.

I feel like there’s a gauge in us. We all start at suffering. Or empty. Some dissatisfaction. Some difficulties. And that every time we meditate, every time we do some renunciation practice, the precepts, engage with community, something slowly shifts, in such slow increments that you don't even notice it until a few years in you look back and you're like it's a bit better than it used to be. I'm still suffering some. I'm still a self-centered human that takes things personal and clings and craves and it is getting better.

Do No Harm. Take No Sh**!

Dharma Talk & 30-Minute Guided Meditation. Against The Stream Meditation Center, Venice, CA.

Antidotes to Greed, Hatred and Delusion

Dharma Talk & 30-Minute Guided Meditation. Against The Stream Meditation Center, Venice, CA.

Dharma Talk & 30-Minute Guided Meditation. Against The Stream Meditation Center, Venice, CA.

The antidote to resentment, anger and ill will.

30-minute guided meditation and dharma talk at Against The Stream Meditation Center.

Each one of us has a core primary personality tendency that falls into one of the categories of the causes of suffering.

The three causes of suffering for us human beings are: greed which is craving, clinging and attachment; hatred which is being easily annoyed and aversive and angry, and delusion which means, for example, the deluded personality shows up as being maybe spaced out, sort of in a fantasy land.

If you have been practicing Buddhism for a full long time you know yourself according to this system; I'm a greed type or I'm a hatred / aversion type, or I'm a diluted personality tendency.

If you don't know yet, the way to self-diagnose is to think about when you enter a new space, a new room for the first time our personality will kind of run the show.

Greedy types will first see what you like and then maybe later you'll think, “they should really build some ******* shelves over there.” You might also have some judgments but first you'll see like what you like.

The aversive type first walks into the room and has a personality trait tendency to see what you don't like first; this carpet needs to be shampooed, the art is a little crooked, fold the ******* blankets, these chairs are not six feet apart. This is irresponsible! You are kind of characterized as a pessimist. You might come around to being like, “I do kind of like the art,” so it's not all negative, but it’s not your first thought is aversive.

The diluted type is harder to talk about, maybe you are sort of too into yourself to even have that sort of craving or aversion 'cause you're just kind of like what the **** is going on here? I was thinking about something else the whole time.

Can you diagnose yourself? And, do you think personalities can actually change?

How Often Do We Recognize When We Are Not Actually Suffering?