Welcome to the Backyard Buddhist Podcast where we continually seek everyday enlightenment for the benefit of ourselves and all other beings.  I am Ronn Pawo McLane and I am here in the studio alone today Danny has the day off.  Today I wanted to talk about what this practice and endeavor is all about. 

For me I arrived to a Buddhist practice by accident.  I wasn't looking for it specifically but for all the reasons I showed up were the reasons that it made sense to me.  It started with a quest to relieve migraine headaches, moved tot a desperate attempt to find stabilization in my very turbulent life which progressed to anxiety and depression.  Today it is my understanding of ineffable consciousness and relative awareness that guide me to a peace and calm that is easily accessible.  

Join me for this podcast with just You, Me and a microphone.  

Pawo

We are happy to publish our 20th episode of the Backyard Buddhist Podcast.  We are so happy to have all of our loyal listeners as well as our newest friends joining us.  Usually Pawo settles on the topic for the day and Dan doesn't have any idea what we are going to talk about until the podcast begins. Today we are flipping the script and Danny is asking Pawo all the questions.  Join in the discussion and email your questions for these fun Q & A sessions.  

[email protected].

Welcome to the Backyard Buddhist Podcast where we continually seek everyday enlightenment for the benefit of ourselves and all other beings.  I am Ronn Pawo McLane and I am here with my good buddy Danny Hobart.  Today we are talking about the vast view of consciousness and awareness. 

This journey to awakening dawns many realizations.  First is consciousness and what it actually is, and then through the clarity of that lens we can begin to examine the experience of thoughts, feelings, emotions, and sensations.  As our understanding grows, we see our attachment to those experiences and cultivate compassion for the state of our conditioned existence.  With this wide and skillful view, we can continually offer up the awareness of this consciousness and our human experience illuminating our formerly dark path.    

Welcome to the Backyard Buddhist Podcast where we continually seek everyday enlightenment for the benefit of ourselves and all other beings.  I am Ronn Pawo McLane and I am here with my good buddy Danny Hobart.  Today we are talking about Natural Awakening. 

Your own spiritual compass starts with awakened awareness.  With the lens of that awareness we see the natural state of consciousness as unstained, untarnished, and unaffected by stimulus.  Reactions and emotions are constructs of the conditioned mind and therefore are simply the illusions and abstracts concepts of the ego mind.  The natural state is spacious and formless.  Within that state of awareness thoughts, feelings, judgements, emotions, and sensations come and go, arise, and settle but leave no trace.

We can transcend the thrall of our reactions by simply seeing those emotions as reactions and intentionally turning our attention to the empty open awareness of our natural unaffected state.  This awareness is always there it is never absent. 

Welcome to the Backyard Buddhist Podcast where we continually seek everyday enlightenment for the benefit of ourselves and all other beings.  I am Ronn Pawo McLane and I am here with my good buddy Danny Hobart.  Today we are talking about what it means to go beyond.

Our natural state is beyond the dichotomies of like and dislike.  Far beyond frustration, anger, grief, and separateness.   The masters have provided us shining examples of what wisdom and compassion look like, body speech and mind.  Our inner Guru knows and understands what our own skillful and unskillful actions, words and thoughts look like.  We know the difference and can see first in hindsight and through practice we catch ourselves in the present moment and can shift our awakened actions.  We all have this innate ability and you have seen it in yourself and others.  Slow down, stop and flow in the stream of awakening for the benefit of all begins.   

Welcome to the Backyard Buddhist Podcast where we continually seek everyday enlightenment for the benefit of ourselves and all other beings.  I am Ronn Pawo McLane and I am here with my good buddy Danny Hobart.  Today we are contemplating non-duality and what it means for our practical understanding.  

Duality can be a tricky business to understand.  In the religious sense this can be the dualistic idea that there is a person outside of ourselves that is the ultimate knower.  In the Buddhist sensibility our relative being is simply an aggregate part within the ultimate incandescence of the universe. There is no way to be apart from that interconnected unity.  No separateness, only inclusion. 

Welcome to the Backyard Buddhist Podcast where we continually seek everyday enlightenment for the benefit of ourselves and all other beings.  I am Ronn Pawo McLane and I am here with my good buddy Danny Hobart.  Today we are talking about what is behind the big golden door of enlightenment.

Simple awakened Awareness is the jeweled key to the big golden door of enlightenment. But What is beyond is far more important.  This is the realm of enlightened activity where compassionate action is the outcome of this state of awakened being. 

Welcome to the Backyard Buddhist Podcast where we continually seek everyday enlightenment for the benefit of ourselves and all other beings.  I am Ronn Pawo McLane and I am here with my good buddy Danny Hobart.  Today we are talking about how we continually work at the practice of enlightened and awakened awareness both on and off the cushion.

It is important to remind ourselves that the bulk of our practice is in reconditioning ourselves.  Once there has been a response that we engage with that response to intervene with wisdom and compassion.  Continually working toward enlightened action with the super-power of awakened awareness takes patience and perseverance and daily practice on and off the cushion.   Lather, rinse and repeat as many times as needed.  

Welcome to the Backyard Buddhist Podcast where we continually seek everyday enlightenment for the benefit of ourselves and all other beings.  I am Ronn Pawo McLane and I am here with my good buddy Danny Hobart.  Today we are talking about how Enlightenment 101 – How to find your enlightened, interconnected self. 

The jeweled key to the golden door is awakened awareness but it is behind the door that the be-ing begins.  You already got the job of being you so own the experience of Your Natural Body, Your Natural Breath & Energy, and Your Natural Heart Mind.   Stop craving and chasing the thing that is right here, right now.  Just be, Awake, Aware, Liberated, Whole and Complete.  Right now.  

Welcome to the Backyard Buddhist Podcast where we continually seek everyday enlightenment for the benefit of ourselves and all other beings.  I am Ronn Pawo McLane and I am here with my good buddy Danny Hobart.  Today we are talking about the fourth paramita, Joyful and enthusiastic Effort. 

In its most positive sense, effort (which we may think of as perseverance or commitment) is the delight you feel with doing what you know is the right thing – which, in the Buddhist context, generally means practicing the teachings.   Instead of resisting, you dig in with gusto, knowing that you are on the right track.  Some texts even claim that perseverance or enthusiastic effort is the most important perfection because it gives energy to the other five.

One of the main obstacles to progressing on the Buddhist path, as in any area of life, is laziness – also known as resistance.  The fourth perfection is divided into three parts because each of them counters a specific form of laziness: Overcoming Sloth:   Procrastination and bad habits.   Counters with recognizing this rare and precious life (opportunity). Overcoming attraction to trivial pursuits:   Filling day with unimportant distractions are innately unfulfilling.  Overcoming Defeatism:  overcomes delusions of inadequacy or incompetence. 

Even the mundane of everyday life experience can become obstacles to staying in our practice.  But when we find our mudra, mantra and mind of motivation we tap into a commitment that benefits us in unsurpassable ways.  In the words of Henry David Thoreau: Enthusiasm is a supernatural serenity. Embrace you own compass and continue each day on your journey to spontaneous nowness awareness.