You actually receive most of your thoughts, you don’t produce them. Why? Because there isn’t anyone; there’s no solid you. What you’re looking at you cover up with your projections. The truth is painful; as the buddha said, life is suffering.

https://youtu.be/XV1VCqd-e48

https://youtu.be/e9oOtkn8YMQ

How do we put others before ourselves in the midst of our negativity? Look at the way you can’t quite do that, even though you’ve received this vow. Don’t fix anything. If you practice and practice and practice, eventually you will see reality.

https://youtu.be/xkWi-7wT0i4

Meet everything where it’s at, starting with what’s arising in your own mind stream. Don’t add to it, don’t subtract it, don’t judge it and don’t blame somebody for it. The emotion is yours. Be responsible for your feelings.

https://youtu.be/x4U_a7VIv5s

Whatever shows up, don’t shift it to something else. Be responsible for anything that arises in your mind stream. The ability to respond means that you will consider everything that’s in your milieu to see what this is fundamentally.

https://youtu.be/AqPVTWzfar4

What was it that set the foundation for the lineage we call Zen? Chiezan talks about the beginnings of our tradition of direct transmission of the mind.

https://youtu.be/V3RcVdrqrGU

We quite often hear about of empty of self, that there is no one here. It’s also empty of other. Another way of addressing this is non-duality, or advaita. There is nothing observed and there is no one observing. Bluntly stated, it is the illusion of consciousness showing up as this or that individual. There’s just observing, or consciousness only.

https://youtu.be/C29LvAWWcd0

I’m looking at confusion all the time. My teachers have helped me see that you don’t have to get rid of anything. It will not particularly be comfortable, and it doesn’t mean you don’t feel the confusion and distress, because consciousness always finds whatever form that it needs. Look at the leading edge of everything.

https://youtu.be/8YNRI6WJFng

Suddenly something just starts to get hold of us and draws our attention away from what we were intending to do. Just feel it, receive it, be it, and don’t accept it, reject it or ignore it; that’s the path. Just keep returning and observing. When the emotions get stirred up, just receive that.

https://youtu.be/lFiT4mbcTTI

There’s a natural boundary between any two things. There are the boundaries we set up to protect our property, and boundaries based on fear. It is about being aware of them, not about believing, judging or concluding. This is why we sit down and gaze at the wall, to see the delusions that are the walls of the mind.

https://youtu.be/Qx7KND0tv_M