Focused and Fearless | Shaila Catherine | Talks at Google

Hi, good morning, my friends. For those who don't know me, my name is Ming. And for those who know me, my name is still Ming and I'm the jolly good fellow of Google. I've been a meditator for most of my adult life, which is like a very long time. Even though I'm younger than John McCain in the past few years, I am very privileged to have our speaker today, Shaila Katrina, as my primary meditation teacher. Now, Shaila is a very wonderful teacher. She's very warm, very compassionate, and I've met many other teachers who are very wise. And Shaila is also wise. But in addition to the depth of her wisdom, she also has a depth of knowledge of the Dharma, which I appreciate a lot. Shaila is also very gifted in clarity. She has this ability to explain very difficult concepts to mere mortals like myself, which again, I appreciate a lot and a little bit about Shaila from her bio. So Shaila has been practicing meditation since 1980, which is after John McCain was born. And she has seven years of accumulated silent retreat experience. She has been teaching since 1996 in the U.S. india, Israel, England and New Zealand. And she studied at Shamham College for her Buddhist studies in England. I should have learned to read this before I came up here. Sorry. When you reach my age, you get kind of like me. Sorry. And she dedicated six years to studying with masters in India, Nepal and Thailand. She's also the founder of the Insight Meditation, South Bay, based in here, Mountain View, California. Before I bring Shaila up, just a reminder that during the Q and A session, please use the mic for questions so that the folks on YouTube can hear your questions. And with that, we welcome Shaila Katrina.

Hello. I think Meng had intended to, but forgot to mention that this is an author's event and there's a new book out which is called Focused and A Meditator's Guide to States of Deep Joy, Calm and Clarity. Many of the books that are offered have already gone, so there are some cards over there that just give you information about the book if you were not one of the lucky early ones to get it. The topic for the talk is called Happiness and the Focused Mind. And I want to focus on overcoming distractions and distracting thoughts. Sometimes our achievements are limited because our minds are distracted and we don't quite know the joy and the calm of a quiet, clear and concentrated mind. So most people seek to strengthen their concentration, perhaps motivated simply by wanting to be more successful in our work and our careers, wanting to be able to hold a complex problem in our mind long enough for the creative solution to emerge. Or perhaps you may have sensed the deep joy and happiness, the bliss that comes when the mind is calm and concentrated, and we would like to have more of that happiness in our lives. The concentrated mind is a bliss filled state, and it's considered one of the primary conditions for liberating insight. Concentration is a central feature of the contemplative life, and it's cultivated through friends formal meditation practice where we might sit still with our eyes closed. But we also develop concentration through a whole variety of daily activities. It brings with it a natural joy that arises whenever the mind is settled and undistracted. A surgeon may love surgery, not because the operating room is a particularly pleasant place to hang out, but the task at hand requires such an intense focus that concentration develops. And associated with concentration is happiness, joy, and deep states of ease. Kayakers are often enveloped in rapture, not because it's pleasant to sit in one of those cramped little boats and be splashed with cold water all day, but because again, the task at hand has demanded such an intense force focused, that concentration develops and the mind experiences the happiness associated with concentration. So the concentrated mind is focused, unified and stable, whether or not the conditions are particularly comfortable and luxurious, or uncomfortable and austere. In this talk this afternoon, I want to interweave some silent moments of short meditations with talk about concentration. And so just now I'd like you to take a moment to just sit easily with your feet on the floor. Feel the contact with the chair, the placement of the hands, and have a simple sense that right now you are sitting, Sitting and breathing. That simple, that easy. You may allow your eyes to close if you feel comfortable and feel the breath move in the body and out from the body. Whether we're developing mindfulness or concentration, we generally allow the breath to be natural, which means it doesn't matter if it's short or long, rough or smooth, shallow or deep. But sometimes it can be very helpful to take the first few breaths, three to six breaths, to allow the exhale to be a little bit slower and a little bit longer. So you might allow a natural in breath. And then as you breathe out, imagine you're blowing through a straw so that the exhale is a bit controlled and a little bit calmer. So we use the breathing to calm the mind. And then allow the breath to come at its own rhythm, its own pace, and just feel the sensations of breathing. So you give yourself permission to let go of all the busyness of the day and just for Some moments do this simple activity of awareness of the present moment, sitting and breathing it. Thank you. As I continue to speak, you might sense that you are always sitting and breathing. And at any time you can allow part of your attention to rest in that simple awareness of sitting, breathing. Now, sometimes we rush scattered here and there, trying to do six things at once and, and never quite being fully present for any one thing. So even a simple activity of just feeling a breath can restore energy to the mind. The approach to developing concentration that I've shared in my recent book, Focused and Fearless, centers around meditation techniques that have been preserved in the Buddhist tradition. When a person establishes deep calm during meditation, those beneficial effects, though, spill out into every corner of our lives. They tend to dramatically improve our professional or academic achievements. They enhance creative problem solving and increase that quality of calm patience that allows us to endure traffic jams and children playing and all of the various demands and pushes and pulls that happen in our complex lives lives. Concentration practices also have a remarkable effect of diminishing, if not sometimes even in strong concentration, eliminating any tendency towards anxiety, worry or depression. Basically, in many different ways, concentration brings with it not only mental clarity, but deep and profound happiness. Although there are lots of beneficial aspects that we experience when we've developed concentration in our daily life. Improvements in work, improvements in family relations, living a more easeful, joyful life, the Buddha was not particularly concerned with improving the productivity of a workforce, and he wasn't really interested in trying to help people stand out regarding worldly achievements. The Buddha was a person who lived 2,600 years who understood how to harness the potency of a unified mind and transform a conventional practice of concentration into a catalyst, a catalyst for spiritual awakening, for uprooting the very seeds and roots, the very causes of suffering. So concentration has a very deep potential that we can use it for. And when we develop concentration, we might work with the simple range of just developing concentration enough to get through the week with some ease, enough to complete the reports that we need to at work, enough to focus on a complex problem that really needs your attention and an unusual solution. But we can also use the power of a concentrated mind and take the mind itself as the object for the concentration. This is what we do in a meditative practice. We use the present moment, the body and the breath to bring the attention to such stability that we can focus on the mind as the object and then accept explore deep states of concentration that in the Buddhist tradition are called jhna. They're states of such intense concentration that the mind is literally absorbed with its object or feels as though it's absorbed in its object. The sequence of these four traditional stages of concentration are included in the book as a small component of of the text about there's five sections, four of them work with concentration in daily life. And one of them is sort of a if you were to go and retreat and really focus on these practices, how would you do these four stages of Jhna? Any of the experiences associated with concentration that deepen happiness, rapture and ease will radically transform the heart and reshape the mind so that access to these states of happiness become easier and easier, even in the complex encounters of daily life. Jhanas these deep states of absorbed concentration are states of deep and profound rest, healing, rejuvenation, profound comfort. And so they are a stable platform for transformative insights. Throughout the development of concentration and Jhna practice, we intertwine the stabilizing aspects of concentration with the investigating and dynamic aspects of insight. Because the fruit of a concentrated mind is the freedom of heart and mind. Now, sometimes when students first hear about these deep states of concentration and there's a desire to have them immediately, but it can seem daunting, like, oh, I have to do all that work. I have to actually concentrate my mind and go through all of those stages. But I find that this system, the sequence of four specific stages of concentration that have been preserved in the Buddhist tradition to be a system that's easy to follow, very sequential and logical, and surprisingly simple. Each refinement is a very logical outgrowth of the previous conditions, and they develop into a very attainable and predictable, almost controllable experience of these states of refined consciousness, which are altered states of consciousness. Traditionally, these priorities practices were not reserved for special people. They were not limited to those few who had ordained and were living a monastic life during the Buddha's lifetime. Lay disciples and busy merchants would from time to time enjoy the benefits and joys of jhanak abiding. So these practices are not for especially, especially advanced meditators. Diligent beginners will benefit from the stability and strength that's afforded by deep concentration and seasoned meditators. People who have some experience will find that deepening the concentration will add a powerful boost to their insight and understanding. The states of stable concentration remain accessible for contemporary practitioners. For us, if we give it the time, if we put the conditions in place, if we learn to balance our effort in our lives and our practices, if we maintain clear ethical conducts in our lives so that our minds are not worried or fearful, or weighted down by regret and remorse. And if we do, take some time to practice it, both in daily life and periodically in retreat. My new book, Focused and Fearless, emerged from my own experience of doing, of participating and of sitting a ten month silent meditation retreat that was focused specifically on the practices of using these four deep states of concentration as a basis for insight. Before I had undertaken this retreat, I had more than 20 years of experience meditating and had done a lot of retreat practice. So meditation was not new for me. But I was surprised at the powerful impact that these states had on my consciousness and how deeply it transformed my mind and how. Clearly it affected the understandings and insights into what's actually happening, rather than all the imaginings and the wandering thoughts of what we think is happening. But probably most noticeably, I would say that those states opened me to an experience of unremitting happiness that has continued since that retreat that ended in 2004. And when I emerged from this retreat and I started to speak with friends who are meditators and other teachers about these experiences, I realized that the insights and the explorations that I had explored during this retreat were, was something that described a clear path, a very clear path of concentration and insight. And it had not been addressed in contemporary literature, at least not the English literature that is available in the Buddhist tradition or in the contemporary meditation traditions. So I wanted to offer this practice in a way that's accessible to contemporary practitioners so that somebody can, if they want to do the practice, will have the information in order to do it. How do we attain states of deep and profound joy? And how do we live with unwavering happiness? A lot of the experience of happiness comes through accessing the joys of a stable mind, a deeply stable mind. And this is within our reach. It's something that that we can all know for ourselves if we create the proper conditions. However, the Buddha was once asked, why are some people liberated and others not? And you know, he did not say that the people with the strongest concentration are liberated. His response was, quote, whosoever clings to the objects perceived by the senses cannot gain liberation. Liberation. Whosoever stops clinging will be liberated. Liberation through non clinging is the real aim of these teachings, because the human propensity to grasp, to cling this is the problem and meditation is designed to solve it. So working in tandem, the twin practices of concentration and insight create remarkably conducive conditions for insight. The practice of concentration is always based in wisdom and leads to greater wisdom. Undertaking Jhna practice without the framework of wisdom Would really be pointless. And it could have the danger of reinforcing more greed, more clinging. Now for. For concentration pleasures. Instead of just sensual pleasures or worldly pleasures. But I don't find this to be a great danger. Because we undertake these practices with some understanding of wisdom, with an understanding of the purpose, and with the motivation to find and end the causes of suffering. So this book is an introductory guide to strengthening and developing concentration in daily life. And also to give that manual in the center of the book that one section on. If you went into retreat, how could you practice these states in a more intensive way? There are lots of exercises and reflections throughout the book. That support creating conditions that are conducive to concentration. A lot of them circle around. How do we let go of distracting thoughts? Because without a doubt, what most students say when they come to a beginning meditation class and we sit down and do some meditation Is that their mind was distracted, that they were thinking about this and thinking about that. And the ability to free our mind from distracting thoughts Is a skill that we have to develop. And it develops through various techniques. And it develops through practice, through taking the time to practice it. We also work with balancing our effort. Because if we just spurt forward after something that we want. And then we're kind of lazy and don't bother through other times, we don't have the balanced effort that sustains a practice of concentration. Or could even in any kind of daily activity or work project, Sustain you through a process project. You know how you have to start, and you have to have the energy to actually complete it. If there are too many distracting things along the way, you never quite complete the project. And if we started with the ferocious bang. But then didn't have the ability to pace ourselves, we also wouldn't get to the end of it. We have to also learn to free the mind from forces of desire and aversion. Which tend to pull us off track. And strengthen those factors that support this steady, diligent development of the deepening of concentration and wisdom, which include tranquility, happiness, equanimity, delight, joy, peace. So for concentration practice, we establish a very simple task. We choose a single object, and we give our attention to it. So the method that I'm teaching is focusing on the breath as the primary object. And we focus on the breath just here, just at the nostrils or upper lip area. And so I'd like you to, again, take a moment to feel yourself sitting. Let your posture be upright, but relaxed, relatively balanced. So that you're not kind of twisted or with legs crossed. But feel like you're in a comfortable, balanced posture. Feel your feet on the floor, feel the contact with the chair, Feel where your hands rest. Allow your eyes to gently close and feel the body breathing first. Just generally feeling the breath move in the body. As your attention begins to settle in the experience of sitting here, breathing, you might allow the attention to focus more clearly on that area between the nostrils and the upper lip. And notice if you can feel feel the sensations of the breath there. Some people may feel the breath more in the nostrils and some more in the upper lip. You know where the sensations occur the strongest really depends on the structure of our bones, so that's not so important. But see where you might feel the breath and give your attention to that experience of breathing. For the next several minutes. You have no other duty but to feel the sensations of your breath with an attention that is diligent and devoted to this experience of breathing. It. If thoughts arise and and pull you off the breath, simply know that thinking arose. And without judging your ability to do this exercise without thinking, I'll never be able to meditate. Just gently let go of those thoughts and guide your attention back to the breath. We don't develop concentration by hammering our attention on the breath. There's no super glue that can make it stick there. Concentration develops by applying the right amount of effort and that willingness to diligently keep returning every time the mind wanders off. So just let the thoughts go and come back to the breath. Allow the attention to rest in the experience of the breath so that we're not grabbing the breath, we're not forcing our attention, but we're returning and settling gently and clearly. The tradition has adopted an example of a gatekeeper. It's as though we station our attention just at this point at the upper lip and nostrils, the same way that a gatekeeper's duty is to stand at the city gate in ancient India, at the time of the Buddha. And they would stand at the city gate and watch very carefully anybody who entered the city and anybody who exited the city. But it was not the gatekeeper's responsibility to follow the merchant into the village and to see what he did in the marketplace, what he bought, what he sold, what kind of a price he got. Nor was it his duty to follow the merchants, the traveling merchants, out from the city and see where they went next, what villages they went to, and who they met along the path. The gatekeeper's duty was to stay positioned at the gate and to meticulously observe what passes that Point like this, we position our attention at this point point, and we observe the breath passing through. But we don't follow the breath inside to feel the whole body breathing, nor do we imagine the breath as it extends out. But we just keep our attention connecting and sustaining with the sensations that are occurring at that point. Although the initial instructions that the Buddha gave for this practice was, quote, ever mindful, we breathe in. Ever mindful, we breathe out. Most people have found that that's very difficult. And the commentaries on the Buddha's teaching also realized that that was very difficult. So we have a couple of thousand years of practitioners giving us preliminary practices to help us do this not so complicated task of feeling a sequence of breaths, of focusing the mind. And so there are a sequence of practices that train the attention to be able to stay stable on a subtle object like the breath. One of them is saying simply counting the breaths. Some of you may already be practicing this method where you breathe in and breathe out and count one, allow the next in breath to come in and the next out breath to go out and count two. We count up to about 10. Some people like 8, some people like 10. 10. Choose your number, and then when you get to that number 8 or 10, start to count backwards. 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, down to 1 and then back up to 10. So we don't want to keep counting, you know, 85, 260, because it can set a goal, but we want to just keep this movement of 1 to 10, 10 to 1, 1 to 10, 10 to 1. Because what that does is it helps us reconnect. At least we've reconnected with the breath. At least in the duration of one breath, in, out, one, we've reconnected. So let's try that for some breaths still give most of the attention to the experience of breathing and just a little bit of attention to counting. It's not a math exercise, it's a meditation exercise. It's. With this exercise, you're cultivating the capacity to let go of all distracting thoughts and to focus the attention on this simple activity of breathing. It isn't that the breath is such a miraculous or unusual object for meditation, but it's very subtle and it's very flexible as a meditation object. And so we can use the breath in lots of different ways. You might try a different counting tool. I like this 1 to 10, 10 to 1 as a basic counting tool. But sometimes that gets easy and you just go up to 10 and down to 1 and up to 10 and down to 1and up to 10 and down to 1. But there is still an awful lot of distracting thoughts in the course of the in breath and in the course of the out breath. And so there are other techniques where we might reapply the attention many times during the course of the in breath. And if we're using the counting, we could count on the course of the the in breath, 1, 1, 1, 1, one, one, and then on the out breath, 1, 1, 1,. 1, 1, 1, and then on the in breath, 2, 2, 2, 2, two, and on the out breath, 2, 2, 2', 2, 2. Each time we say the number, we don't bash the breath with the number, but we simply use that as a reminder to connect, to come closer, to know it more, to penetrate that object, to really sense focus on the breath. This is the technique that is said to come from ancient Indian caterers who would have to count the rice. And, you know, sometimes there are little seeds and little stones and little twigs and things in the rice. So they would take up one cup of rice and pour it and be counting 1, 1, 1, as with their other hand, while with the other hand they're pulling out the little bits of debris, and then the second cup, 2, 2, 2, as they're pulling out the little bits of debris. So this is the caterer's technique, but I find it to be very helpful to increasing the energy of that connection with our meditation object and dispelling distracting thoughts. So let's just take a couple of minutes to give that a try. Notice the tone of the counting so that it's enough to connect, but not so strong that it overcomes the sensations of the breath. We want to learn to bring our mind to the object at hand, but not distort. And then let the counting go and just allow the breath to be natural and allow the mind to still know sitting and breathing. So we continue to keep some of our attention in this fact of sitting and breathing as we listen to the talk. This kind of a meditation practice trains the attention to stay with a simple and subtle focus. It's one I recommend that you do. You don't need months of meditation training to sit and feel your breath or to count up to 10 several times. I recommend that you all try this and perhaps develop a dedicated daily practice so that every day for some time, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour, whatever you like, you take some time to feel yourself sitting and breathing and focus the attention on the breath. I don't think it matters so much how many minutes you spend doing it, but a daily practice of Any length is going to bring great fruits and benefits in the development. Development of concentration. The basic instruction is marvelously. Let go of all distracting thoughts and steady your attention on your chosen object. But usually people then say, well, how. How do you do that? And it's interesting to watch how we do something as simple as letting go of a distracting thought and focusing the attention on the breath. Sometimes we do things in rather unskillful ways. When I first started my meditation practice. I started my meditation practice when I was still in high school. I grew up in Burlingame, not far from here, and was interested and took a class and loved it right from the beginning. And what I. What I found, though, was that my practice was not actually very skillful in those first few years. And what would happen is, when I sat and I felt a distracting thought, I would bash it away and then come back to the breath. And then another thought would come, and I would bash it away and then come back to the breath. And here I am trying to develop peacefulness, right? I called this the caveman a practice because I remember the cartoon show of the Flintstones where Barney Rubble's son had that bat, and he met every problem with one solution. Bam, bam. And that bam, bam approach is not so useful when we're trying to cultivate calmness in our minds. So we want to learn ways of letting go of the distracting thoughts without necessarily bashing them away. Because if we keep bashing our thoughts away, we could start to think that there's something wrong with thinking, and there isn't. We want clear thinking just rather than distorted thinking. We might start to think, well, if I bash away my thoughts, then I'll bash away my feelings and my emotions. But then we miss the whole dynamic flow of emotional life. Or we might think that we have to eliminate all sensory input, like sounds, and then only meditate when we have earplugs or we're sitting in some exotic cave somewhere. But actually, we can meditate in a busy bus station when we're anywhere. You could even meditate in Charlie's downstairs if you wanted to. The conditions don't actually matter. If we know how to direct our minds, we need to discover a more precise tool. Often it's called the sword of wisdom. But the essence of the sword of wisdom is to know where the problem is. And the problem is in attachment. It's not in thoughts. Can we discover the attachment, and instead of let go of the attachment, instead of let go of the thoughts, let go of the attachment, we remove the problem that Link to craving. Because thinking is a wonderful thing if we're not caught in compulsive or addictive thoughts. So we learn to say a stern no thank you, not now to our thoughts. We cut the energy off at the root, not because we're denying thinking or we're afraid of thinking, but because we simply choose not to go where those thoughts lead right now. So we don't entertain processes that lead to increased distraction. And so when people ask, how can I quiet my mind? How can I stop the mind from wandering? One of the first things we have to do is understand the movement of restless thinking, what pushes and pulls at our mind. Usually our minds are pushed and pulled through desire and aversion, through wanting one thing and not another. And we haven't learned how to relax yet with the simple fact fact of things. So I want to take a minute to just do another brief meditation exercise. And this time I don't want you to notice the breath, I want you to notice the thoughts. So as you sit, allow your mind to relax, the mind to be spacious and open, And let the attention simply rest in the present moment. There is a difference between a thought arising and getting involved in the context of the thought. And this is a critical distinction for meditators to be able to discern. Can you notice a thought as a thought without the story that it's telling? So as you notice a thought arising, count the thoughts now instead of the breaths and count the little thoughts like oh, I wonder if that was really a thought or if that was two thoughts, or I wonder how I'm doing, should I get a high score or a low score? Oh, that was an interesting thought. It. Thoughts are rapid. You might count many or few, it doesn't matter. Another approach is not to count them, but to catch them. When a thought comes, it's almost like it arises from somewhere or it comes at us from somewhere. See if you can just catch it for a moment, take a look at it, oh, that's a thought of the past, or oh, that's a thought of a project. And then realize, oh, not now, you know, and then set it aside, roll it back, toss it back. I sometimes imagine it's a little bit like catching a softball and then tossing it back to the pitcher and catching the softball and tossing it back. We catch a thought, we look at it for a a moment and then we roll it back. A well settled mind is not devoid of thoughts, it's just not seduced by the. So we contrive different exercises in order to discern the difference between a thought and the content of the thought. It. Many people find that certain thoughts proliferate and they preoccupy the mind. During meditation, somebody may sit down to meditate and find that they're thinking about everything else except what's actually happening in the present moment. And sometimes we find that we're disappointed about an event. And then when we realize, oh, this is all thinking about the past and it's long gone, it's over, we can recognize that whole world of thought that we had been experiencing, emotion reliving, was really past, it wasn't real. And sometimes we can realize that we're caught in anxiety and worry about something that we have to do in the future. And then we can recognize, oh, this is just a thought. It's just a thought about the future. And if I'm caught in the content, I'm reacting with fear and anxiety about something that hasn't even happened yet. So as our concentration develops, we learn to rest more and more in the present moment and let go of all of that discursive thinking. One student gave me a very clear illustration of this process of discursive thinking when she said she lost her hair clip, one of these barrettes, and she had lost it, and she was at work, and so she realized that she was going to have to buy a new one. And as the morning went on, the mind started to proliferate. Oh, I was so stupid to lose that hair clip. I wonder where I could have left it. I keep losing all these things. Where did I put my shoes the other day? Thinking about all the things that she lost. And then she starts to think about having to go buy a new hair clip. And then she realizes that, oh, well, if I have to buy this new hair clip, then I have to go to the store. And I don't really have time to go to the store because I'm supposed to be working today. And I have this project that has to be be finished. And I don't really have a lot of money. I don't want to waste it buying things just because I lost them. And I don't have any money because this job doesn't pay me very well. And so then she starts to think that she should get a new job, and she starts to feel depressed and angry, and she's angry at her boss because he doesn't pay her enough and she doesn't respect her enough for all the work that she does. And she's really proliferating out in all of these thoughts and emotions and at some point she kind of realized, oh, these are all thoughts. I just lost my hair clip. But she had gone to the break room during lunch, had gotten a newspaper, and was circling want ads for new jobs. And I thought it was such a good illustration of the proliferation of mind. Because sometimes we react to things just because we have imagined them. And if she had just come back to the simple thought, I lost my. My hair clip, then she could do what had to be done. And if what needed to be done in the future was getting a new job, she would have a better reason than having lost her hair clip for taking that step. But sometimes, if we don't develop a stability or concentration in our mind, then things proliferate out and they become quite. We become quite reactive and out of control. So sometimes, sometimes we need to talk back to our minds and say, no, that's not real, it's just a thought, or not now, that isn't the time for it, or this isn't my concern. If you ever notice your mind thinking about somebody else's problem, like if you're really good at telling, at thinking about what your brother should be doing and what your sister should be doing and what your roommate should be doing and what your parents should be doing and what your neighbors should be doing, then you might just use the thought, not my concern, not my business. And so we restrict the range of our thinking to things that we actually value and are real. It's not to limit thinking, to say we can't have creative and imaginative thought, but the compulsion and addiction that often circulates around thinking energy gets limited. Most of our distractions are not out there in the world. Our distractions arise because how we relate to them creates an attachment so that we are pulled and seduced into the energy of those thoughts. I'm sure all of you have been in complex situations where you've stayed very focused and right on task. A very simple thing is going to the train station and needing to meet a train. There are people coming off other trains, going to different platforms, moving here and there. There are people doing all sorts of things, but you stay on your route and concentration practice helps us stay on our route. We might still notice and enjoy all these other things, but we stay on track. This doesn't mean that we don't respond to the situations or around us. When I went to Nepal one time to receive some teachings from a Tibetan lama, I had gone with a group of friends. And as we were, the Tibetan lama had a monastery up on the top of a small Hill or a small mountain hill, whatever it was. About a half an hour walk up a switchbacked trail to get to the monastery. And we were a little bit late one day in rushing up to get to the teachings. And. And I turned around to see that a couple of my friends had fallen back and were kind of lingering in the last little village near the base of the hill. And so I went back to see if everything was okay. And I discovered that these two friends were speaking with a group of people. And a young girl was sitting there, sitting on the ground, kind of squatting and crying. And it seemed that she had been sent to the local shop with two rupees to buy eggs. And she had broken one of the eggs on her way home. And she was from a very poor family. And she was terrified to go home for fear that her mother would beat her. And so a friend of mine had taken out two rupees from his wallet, had sent a local boy to the shop. And now people were just waiting around until the boy came back with the egg and the girl could go on her way. And by the time this all occurred, then we went up the switchback trail and got up to the teachings. Of course, we were late, and the doors were closed, the room was full. And we just sort of hung out by an open window, perched against the wall, trying to hear little bits and snippets of sentences. Basically, we missed the teaching for that day. But was this a distraction on our path? I don't think so, because the deeper part of the path Is a compassionate and wise response to what is real and what is at hand. And in that moment, the stopping in the village seemed to be a more important and more real activity. Than racing up the hill to receive these teachings. Even though we had flown halfway across the planet in order to get these teachings. Teachings. When we develop concentration, we become attuned to when the mind is stuck and when it's simply at rest. We develop the skills to observe the mind. So that we notice the space between thoughts. We notice the space between breaths. We allow time and an opportunity for attention, to rest, to pause. So that in that deep rest, we can stay focused on our practice, focused on our object, but also respond and open to whatever is happening around us. This quality of deep release and deep relaxation is something that we train in. It seems a little bit odd to say that we have to learn to relax, but most people do. Sometimes when we go to a park and we're taking a hike in a park, we're actually not even aware of the beauty of the flowers and the sounds of the birds because we're so preoccupied with our thoughts. And sometimes if we go on a vacation and we're hanging out on a beach, we're still worried about something that might have happened two months before or might happen two months in advance. So we have to train the mind to experience rest. Deep rest, deep and profound ease. Difficult experiences in life happen. We're not going to get away from old age, illness and death. The world includes betrayal and cruelty and injustice. This is all a part of our life. We're not going to avoid them. But we can cultivate such a vast openness of heart that the mind remains undistracted in the face of all. It's as though there's a glass of water and we take a teaspoon of salt and put it in the glass of water. If we then stir it up and drink the water, it's going to have a strong impact on the mind. But if we put that same teaspoon of salt in a lake, the impact will be very tempered. And so meditation practice creates the mind and the heart that is spacious enough to be undisturbed by the fact of life's experience. We remain balanced in the fact of life's changes. So though abrasive conditions may occur, we're not shaken by it. The heart remains drenched in happiness, tranquility and joy. The Buddhist texts have an interesting phrase and they say that after deep concentration, practice and experience experiencing these states of absorption called jhna, it says that the mind is now fit for work. Once the mind has been sharpened with concentration, once our attention is clear and precise, then we can apply it to the work at hand, developing clear awareness and discovering the causes and the end of suffering. So let's just end with a moment or two of silence. Allow the mind to relax. And sense yourself just sitting present, at ease. Trust your capacity to let go of thoughts that pull you to the future or to the past and just rest. Just relax. Sitting and breathing. For one moment, aware. And just listen to the sound, sound of the gong to end the meditation. It. Well, thank you very much.