The Joy of Ordinary Things

beautiful sunny morning.

Namaste. So welcome to the people watching later. Just started the recording of the Zoom. This is a talk called The Joy of Ordinary Things. We're going to take it in turns to do a bit of speaking this morning, and Satya Robyn is going to kick us off.

And so before we start, I just thought it'd be nice to have a few moments of silence. Just so we can all settle in. So, namomi tabu.

Namomi tabu.

Whenever we choose a title to things to speak about, it's always a bit overwhelming because there are so many things that one could say about any topic. So something I like to do is to find a few words from other people as a bit of a launching off point. We haven't really prepared too much what we're going to say, so who knows what will happen, but we've both got some things in mind, and I wanted to start with a poem from this beautiful anthology, one of the three anthologies that Neil Astley has made. 'Being Alive,' this one. They're full of amazing poems, I'd really recommend them. And this is Mary Oliver, and it's called 'Look and See.' This morning at waterside, a sparrow flew to a water rock and landed by error on the back of an eider duck. Lightly it fluttered off, amused. The duck too was not provoked, but you might say was laughing. This afternoon a gull sailing over our house was casually scratching its stomach of white feathers with one pink foot as it flew. Oh Lord, How shining and festive is your gift to us, if we only look and see. I've been holding this poem this morning and just wondering about it. What's it saying? And there are a few different things. Just going to mute you, Madra. There we go. Could you try and do that? Um, there's something about, um, there's something about what's already there, that what's already there is How does she put it? That what's already there is shining and festive— wonderful words— and that all we have to do to receive those shining and festive things is to see them, is to is to somehow open our eyes to what is present. So that's one thing, is that it's already there. The joy is already all around us. The other thing that struck me was the simplicity of the things that she found joy in, in the poem, that there were two very small incidents. One was a little mistake made when a little bird kind of landed on another bird, and that just kind of being able to catch that little moment and the reaction of both of the birds involved. And the other was just a kind of a— that relaxed moment of the gull, was it, scratching itself, just kind of flying along and, you know, kind of like, feels like catching it smoking a fag, or doing something casual that's unexpected. Both of those moments were very simple and ordinary, but also completely unique and, and, and, um, unrepeatable. There's a little bit of magic in them somehow. And the other thing that strikes me is how, how there needs to be some spaciousness around those things in order for them to shine, that if she had caught them even and but was hurrying off somewhere else, somehow they wouldn't have had the opportunity to become that gift that they were, and of course for her they became such a gift that she wrote a poem, and then there's the gift of the poem, which is not just a gift for her, but a gift for me having read it this morning, and a gift for you. So there's something about whatever our entry point is, we can, we can, we always have an opportunity to either notice, to look and see and receive the gift, or not. And that the gifts tend to be pretty ordinary, that it's not fireworks, it's not, it's not fancy parades or buildings being— when they blow a building up and it kind of comes down, those sorts of big moments that we don't experience very often, they're great, but really what's available to us on a moment-by-moment basis is the very small things. As I look around my office now, I can see the wood grain on my desk, which is my lovely school desk that I've had for many years now. Picked it up for £40 somewhere secondhand, and I can just see the light falling on the grain of the wood and kind of showing up the texture, and I can see outside, the clouds are really lit up by the sun, they're really textured and fluffy looking, and the sky is really blue. And even if I look at my window, there's a little tiny leaf that's just been caught in a spider web that's just shivering a little bit in the breeze. Those very simple things that unless we pause and look and see see that we miss them. We just rush past with our brains full of thoughts. And it takes a bit of courage to leave space around things. I was just thinking about my feelings about offering you this talk. One of the thoughts that comes to me when I think about sitting down and speaking to you, to you guys here and to the other people that may watch later, is that I really feel like I ought to say something really clever and do some research and cram in lots of advice and usefulness and cleverness and spiritualness and all that stuff, whereas actually that poem with some space around it, some space that you are also creating by sitting and quietly listening, is enough. We don't need as much as we think we need to be happy. We don't, we don't, we do rely on, on many, many things to prop us up and to fill our time and to distract us and to make us feel better about ourselves. Actually, there's, there's a process of stripping away those things in order to come more into relationship with joy. It's, it's, for me, it's, it's not about adding, it's not about finding more, it's about seeing the stuff that's in between me and the sky and letting that relax very slowly. Lots of things I could say but I feel like it might be time to hand over to my compatriot, my esteemed colleague, my very esteemed colleague, Namomi Taboo.

When Satya read the poem, what came to mind to me were the two forms of Buddhist meditation that some of you may have heard of, samatha and vipassana. Samatha meaning stop, Anvipassana, meaning look. Essentially, this is the foundation of many kinds of Buddhist practice— stopping and looking. And what is it that we see when we stop and look? Either we see ourselves or we see Buddhas. Those are the two options. The first teaching that I heard Dharma Vijja give, Buddhist teaching, years ago was on the Lotus Sutra, on the chapter of the stuttering bodhisattva, Gathgadasvara. And one of the vows of Gathgadasvara is to appear in any form that is required in order to enlighten the people around him, or the beings around him. And Dharma Vijja picked up a teacup and said, This chipped mug could be the stuttering bodhisattva, Gādgaḍhasvara. Even this chipped mug, something very simple, has the power to enlighten us. So let me unpack that a little bit. So what is it that we see when we see a Buddha in the form of a chipped mug, or a desk with fine wood grain on, or a sparrow landing on the back of a duck?

Two—

there's two aspects to the Buddha appearing as these things. The first is the imminent It's the actual material concrete thing, the living thing or the, the, uh, the object that our senses are coming into contact with. And as we meet that, what we notice is the stream of causes and conditions that have created this simple thing, this ordinary thing, this beautiful thing. That is coming to us. So we can experience gratitude for the sparrow, the duck, the desk, the leaf in the cobweb, understanding all of the causes and conditions, the material qualities, the great processes, the living beings that have been involved in bringing those things into our field of awareness. The more and more we do that, the more we notice how dependent we are on the world around us, how we're supported by innumerable causes and conditions. The room that we're sitting in is in a 200-year-old building made from Malvern stone that probably formed thousands of years ago. That whole history of action and natural processes that supports us and allows us to be here. So paying attention to that, to that material quality of what's in front of us, can unlock a sense of gratitude, a sense of being in receipt of all these wonderful things, and also the impulse to then want to take care of things properly and to want to give back to the world, to look after what is in our field. Of awareness. The second aspect, joined to the first one, is the transcendent, the, the spirit of the Buddha, essentially understanding that each of these objects, when we see them with clear eyes, reflect love and compassion. There is something about the eternal that we discover in each thing that we pay attention to. And it's really quite a small step from being grateful for the material processes that bring things to us to appreciating that actually the spirit that brings those things to us— and I mean spirit in quite an ordinary sense of the world in the one hand, you know, like the spirit that I offer a gift in can either be generous or selfish— and the more and more we pay attention to the things in our field of vision, what we discover is the spirit of generosity in the things that are coming towards us, which again deepens our sense of gratitude and fosters that impulse to want to take care of the things around us. And as Satya said, occasionally we might experience that in very big ways, in spiritual experiences, or when something dramatic happens, or when we receive a particularly beautiful gift, but we can also, one, come to see in the very ordinary things around us, and two, trust that actually we are always in receipt of these things. And I suppose the other aspect, or to pull out a little bit more about the spirit of these things coming towards us, it is the spirit each of these things is showing us the Buddhist teaching. Each of us is showing us the Dharma. Each of these things is showing us the Buddha because they are real. They exist from their own side. They're nothing to do with us at all. And like William Blake, each looking into that dewdrop, each one can reflect the whole world in a small moment. Shall I pass back to you there?

Thank you.

That makes sense. I'm aware it's kind of something a bit nebulous, but there's really trying to get to something that is slightly beyond words.

Yeah, and that's a nice little segue. Thank you. I'd also like to say a bit more about the second kind of spirit that Caspar identified the more— what's that word— ineffable, the more ineffable, ineluctable. There's lots of words, I can't think of them right now, but they're all really lovely, that point towards that unknown, the mystery, the transcendent quality. And I'm interested in the last stanza of this poem. I was talking to somebody yesterday about Mary Oliver, and she was saying how much she loved Mary Oliver, and that she didn't think that she was a religious person, but she kind of knew that she had a spirituality which was very embedded in nature. And I know that Mary Oliver is was, is, she's still around, a religious person, that she's Christian, and this poem for her seems quite rare because she mentions the Lord. The last stanza is, 'O Lord, how shining and festive is your gift to us, if we only look and see.' And I think for me it's impossible to really enter into the joy ordinary things without them pointing me towards something that is way bigger than I can understand. And that, for me, my life changed when I allowed for The idea that there might be something much bigger than me that I didn't understand, that had some sort of— this is a very long sentence— had some sort of knowledge about what was going on, or, or had some kind of oversight in terms of the much bigger process that we're a part of, that has more idea than I do of what I should be doing. And for me, that's the crucial bit. It's that, that maybe, just maybe, I don't know what's best for me, but there is something much bigger that has much more wisdom than I do about what I should be doing, or what is—

not what—

not just what I should be doing, but what what my destiny is, to use a bit of a cheesy word. What's, yeah, what's meaning for me? What's What's it all about? What is this life all about? And I really love that she names her higher power in this poem. Oh Lord, how shining and festive is your gift to us. So she's thanking the Lord for the gift that he/she gave her. She's very explicitly connecting with that mysterious seriousness. And the more that I live a spiritual life, whatever that means, the more I immerse myself in spiritual writers and teachers and the wisdom of the little leaf and the trees and the sky, the more important that conversation becomes for me and the, the more foundational it is. When it comes to living well, and living well for my sake, because I want to— I don't want to waste these gifts that are being offered all the time, but also living well for the sake of others, for the sake of other humans, for the sake of other non-human animals, for the sake of plants, and for the sake of non-animate objects, which I struggle to see as completely inanimate. I think that anyone that's kind of, you know, visited a mountain or some body of water or looked at the sky, it— for me, it's difficult to to see that matter as completely dead. There's something that, there's some spirit in it, there's something that enlivens it, and the more that we see it as enlivened, in my experience, the more that our relationship with it takes on meaning and depth and magic. So it feels a bit counterintuitive to say that really the trick to enjoying ordinary things is to see them as God, to see them as manifestations of Goddess Tara or Kuan Yin, or, you know, all the spiritual ancestors from all the amazing traditions we have in this world. But for me, that's the trick, and we need to approach that in our own way. We need to find our own language, we need to find our own way of thinking about that, we need to have our own experiences, because that's the only way to really connect, is for it to be real in our bodies, for it to be real, for it to be embodied, for it to be for it to become a part of who we are. And there are lots of things that get in the way of that. I often quote this idea from the 12-step programs that you're either taking a step towards God, higher power, nature, spirit, love, or away from it, that you can't stand still. You're always doing something that takes you nearer or further away from the Buddha. Oh, I hate that, because when I say it, I realize how many of the things I do every day take me away or keep me away. And there's sadness in that too, because when I am stepping towards, it's wonderful, and everything starts shining. But so often I'll turn towards sugar, or compulsive thinking, or planning, or comparing myself with other people, or thinking about how things will be better in the future, or thinking about how I got things wrong. All of that stuff gets in the way, and that's how it is to be human. You know, luckily, as Pure Land Buddhists, we have the Bambu Paradigm to kind of make us feel not completely crazy, or make us feel like other people in that respect. But it's good to notice it as it's happening. The more we notice whether we're stepping towards or away, the more likely we are to just catch ourselves sometimes and think, oh, I could watch this thing that I know is going to leave me feeling just a bit buzzy and unsatisfied, or I could just go and sit in my room and 'Just sit with the Buddha for 3 minutes. Just sit there for 3 minutes and then decide what you want to do. And if you want to watch the TV, that's fine, but just go and be with the Buddha for a little while.' And those are the moments that we catch ourselves, little tiny moments. But yeah, to not get too carried away in thinking that we can control that a lot of the time, because all all we can do is just about turn, turn towards the Buddha a little bit. Yeah, so I really like that Mary Oliver names the Lord, and I do wonder if a lot of her poems are less religious because people these days are wary of of religion, for very good reason. Lots of awful stuff has happened and still happens in the name of religion. Human beings get really tangled up when it comes to forming institutions and holding power and thinking that they know better than other people. I'd like to speak up for a kind of a reclaiming of of religion, a reclaiming of words like grace and faith. And that might not be very popular, and that's okay. Some people will get it, or some people will hear something. Hmm.

Thank you. There's an experiment or a practice that is sometimes offered at the beginning of a mindfulness course where you're given a square of dark chocolate and asked to place it on your tongue and really pay attention to the different tastes and textures and sensations as the chocolate melts and fills your mouth. And I can almost taste that just as I'm describing it. And that's a great thing to do. And as I said earlier, it can— that experience you can take in two ways. You can take it as a lakshana, a signpost back to your own self, to selfishness, your own processes, your own entanglements, or as a signpost to something that has life from its own side. So it might be that when the chocolate melts, you— oh yes, I really like this, I wonder where it's from, maybe I can go and get some later and keep it in the cupboard, then when I'm sad on another day I can do this. Or, oh, this is a good practice to do, really paying attention to things, I need to make this into a habit, so every time I get up I'll I'll make sure that I pay attention to one thing, and really creating or engaging in what Suzuki Roshi calls confections of the mind, appropriately enough, speaking about chocolate. Yeah, Satya's holding one of his books now. Confections of the mind, all that frothy stuff that the mind engages in, that is about that is really about, or comes from, our own insecurity in the world and trying to find some way of righting that insecurity through all of these different strategies. Or the dark chocolate can be a signpost to itself, which is nothing to do with me and my insecurities. It can be a signpost to the kind of soil that the cocoa bean was grown in. I learned last year that good chocolatiers never use the same recipe because the beans taste different each time they harvest, so they have to adjust the recipe, whereas these big companies use the same recipe to try and produce exactly the same product each time. So something about the life of the bean and the sugar and the particular water that's used to create this bar of chocolate. And in that moment of appreciating its own liveliness, Dōgen describes that as body and mind falling away. And what he means by that is my own needs falling away and just praising, worshipping, appreciating something that exists in its own right. That's the kind of material aspect of it. And the second thing that can happen in that moment, when the Buddha appears in that piece of chocolate, is that it guides us towards love. And this is the key feature of an encounter with the Buddha, with the Lord, with a Bodhisattva. It guides us towards love, unconditional love, love that is not about getting something in return. It's not the gift I give where I then want to borrow 5 minutes later because I really bought it for myself. It's the gift I give because I really thought about what was going to please you in this moment. It's that kind of love that we're guided towards. So as the chocolate melts There's the love for the natural world and the gratitude for those processes, but there may also be a thought that appears, perhaps planted by the Buddha, that says maybe you can spread this joy around. Maybe the next time you have friends over, they can each take a square of dark chocolate and sit and really appreciate the different textures and flavors and If you're really tuned in, of course, you'll know which of your friends will like the really dark chocolate and which of them will find that a bit too much. And maybe you'll get some slightly less dark chocolate in as well for those people. So, and in that love appearing, that is the Buddha appearing, something that guides us, continually guides us to be more loving, to be more kind, to appreciate more and more what is around us. This morning I've been reading a book by a Zen priest who is writing a commentary on a spiritual text that Jūken Roshi wrote, and in the commentary he talks about spiritual practice having two aspects. There is the aspect of training and the aspect of compassion. And even when I read that, I thought, oh yeah, that's things I do, and that's my compassion for others. He describes it— I think it's a he, could be she— they describe it as the two boats that, that are taking us from the shore of delusion to the shore of enlightenment training and compassion. And they say actually the boat of compassion is the compassion that is flowing to us. This is Buddha as Nyorai, the one that comes to us, appreciating that as we tune into these things around us, these very simple moments, it isn't just us moving to towards them, it is us receiving something that is continually coming towards us. That's true in the material sense, but it is also true in the sense that the more and more our faith develops— so training, I guess, is what we do following the precepts for us, saying the Nembutsu— the more and more grounded we are in that, the more available we come we become to receiving this compassion from outside of ourselves, which may simply be a feeling of, ah, I'm okay just as I am, I'm accepted by the Buddha, and may also be a feeling of, and this is the space that I need to move into next. So this, what we're touching on, is how real ordinary simple things can be a gateway into something quite mysterious and religious, where we become somebody who is guided by the eternal, by the Buddha, by the transcendent, into more loving relationships, into deeper compassion, into deeper appreciation for the things around us. And really, that's the way of checking whether we've been guided by the Buddha or by something else. Is it— are we— are these impulses, are these messages we're receiving as thoughts, as feelings, as images, as a feeling of movement, are they guiding us towards deeper love? If so, then we can say that's the Buddha appearing. And the thing I wanted to say, which Satya touched on just now, and I also really felt like it was important to include, is my experiences, both of those things with the chakra, that sometimes it guides me closer towards the Buddha, and sometimes it guides me more and more into my own confections and machinations and my mind turning and turning. And the confusion. And there's a real, there's a real skill here in finding the middle way between taking these talks and teachings as, well, they are ideals, and we can use those ideals to become very self-critical of ourselves, or we can go, oh well, I I'm just a bamboo being, so I don't need to worry about it. And actually, we are a practice school. So the middle way is to know here is the ideal and here is me. This is— this duality is the religious relationship. An ordinary person in relationship with the ideal, trusting that there is an ideal, even if I can't manage it. And that Trust. That is the beginning of faith. Am I meant to be?

Am I meant to be? I'll just read the poem again to finish.

Thank you. Don't tell Mary Oliver's estate that we're reading her poem in this talk.

Thank you, Mary Oliver. Mary Oliver's estate and Mary Oliver. I think she'd be— she might not be pleased, I don't know. Look and see. This morning at waterside, a sparrow flew to a water rock and landed by error on the back of an eider duck. Lightly it fluttered off, amused. The duck too was not provoked, but, you might say, was laughing. This afternoon, a gull sailing over our house was casually stretching its stomach of white feathers with one pink foot as it flew. Oh Lord, how shining and festive is your gift to us, if we only look and see. No moan me to do.

I really would recommend Mary Oliver's book of essays on creativity that I can't remember the name of, but it's also— it's not really about creativity, it's about living a meaningful life, and it's very well done.

Yeah, she knew what she was talking about. So there will be an opportunity for questions, and I think we'll leave it recording. Yeah, so if anyone— sorry.

Yeah, we'll leave it recording. If you want to not be recorded asking a question, don't ask it, then wait till the recording's finished.

And if you want to ask a question, just unmute yourself. Have you unmuted everybody? It's dangerous.

Okay.

Yeah, so if you want to ask a question, just unmute yourself.

But no pressure.

No pressure. And it can be anything that's arisen from what we've said or anything else related to spiritual matters.

So I can't ask about that recipe for sourdough that you've been using?

No.

Okay.

Hello.

Hello, we can hear you.

Yeah, it's just something that rose up for me while you were talking about it. That I've got this iPhone, which I'm using now, my friend bought for me, with copious photos of the last 3 or 4 years. And I think because it's been— we've been very wound up in, you know, everyday life, I've felt like I'm skimming over the surface. And it's only— it's really funny, I just don't feel like I'm digging deep enough into that kind of experience you're describing. And it's nice in a way that the only way I can do that is when I look back at the photos and I actually live the moment but in retrospect. So I guess it's nice I've got that. And I mean, on another sort of subject, I don't know, that type of your experience you're describing, it did bring to mind a few experiences I've had over the years of, would you call it a moment of grace or something, when, I mean, there's a film called Bellevue Rendezvous, and I think it's the opening scene which is just describing, I think it's the grandmother, isn't it, and her grandson, the process they go through of waking up and, you know, turning on, turning on, it's sublime, and that came to mind, and Then I've had a few moments, I think twice many years ago, once and then more recently, when I've been on a meditation retreat and you, you kind of get into that state of mind of— I remember coming out, this is when I was 19, coming out of the meditation and I literally was, for lack of a better description, I was a bit like Neil from The Young Ones, like, 'Look at this blade of grass!' You know, I wish I could be like that all the time actually. And the last year has been very, let's say, just living at 1,000 miles an hour. And I'd love to get back more to that state of mind. And I guess perhaps the route for that is doing more meditation. So Yeah, it's sort of interesting what you were saying because it obviously kicked off a lot of things. So something to focus on, I think. That's all.

Yeah, thank you, thank you. And it's interesting, isn't it, how I think when people speak about grace, we recognize it. We recognize it even if it's little moments from a long time ago. And I think that's really helpful to just just notice it. Notice it in retrospect, notice it when it's happening. And it may be doing more meditation is the way, it may be doing less meditation, it may be that you take some things out and that you leave space, have some little moments of— yeah, yeah. So I think that the tendency of our brains is to think, if I do this, then dot, dot, dot, and then straight away we're off. As Kasper was saying. So it's a fine balance. And also just accepting that we're gonna be human, that, you know, those bits that are hard on us about not doing it properly, just say to them, "Oh yeah, there you are, that bit that's hard on me. Thank you. Thanks for your concern." And just be kind to it, rather than letting it take over.

Yeah, thanks, Helen, too. Thanks for that for One, I really like that idea of appreciating things now that happened a long time ago through seeing it on the camera. Partly I like it because it sort of gives the lie to the teaching about always being in the present moment. Actually, sometimes it's really nice to be in the moment that happened a few years ago and really remembering those. There's a real joy in that. And also how easy it is to make this into something that we must do, as Satya Robyn was saying. Actually, I think Dogen would say that our job is to play our appropriate role in life, and that when we do that, when we kind of take care of the things that are appearing in our life, actually we're more— grace is more likely to enter. So it's rather than beginning with— completely understandably, and I fall into this as well— oh, I'll do these things and I can get more of those experiences. And probably even I was speaking in a way that suggested that. Dogen's view would be, oh, when I take care of the things that are in front of me, grace is more likely to enter. So my job is to be a good person, more or less, and then the spaces appear where I can experience those things.

Maybe even not to be a good person, but to be yourself.

Yeah, well, there's lots of different windows. Yeah, yeah, anything can be— all of these teachings you can take I think the Buddha used the simile of the snake and the Dharma. Like, you can take a teaching— if you take it by the head, then you can hold it and it can be really useful because you can get the venom from it. It's obviously a thing they used to do in ancient India. But if you take the snake by the tail, then it just turns around and bites you. And any teaching we can use either to make our lives more complicated or to make our lives more graceful.

Yeah, thank you. Anyone else like to ask a question?

I'll just ask you both, with all the advantages of being present and the peace and tranquility and noticing, why is it so difficult? I might be aware of this but then spend 10 seconds of a 24-hour day actually been able to make it possible?

Yeah, really good question.

I think I hinted at it when I said it's about our insecurity. We— the world is not always a kind place, so we, we arrive wounded into this world, and we develop ways of keeping ourselves safe that, as well as protecting us, also keep out all of the grace and the things to be grateful for. And to experiment with being more present means coming into contact with the unknown, which for some parts of us can feel very risky because perhaps they don't know that actually we're in a really safe place right now where we can let our guard down. They've just learned that our guard must be up all the time. And that is true for almost every human being because of the nature of how it is to be human. We all get knocked about and build walls, or either build walls or build habits that take us away and distract us. And in letting go of those, that those habits can feel from their own side that that's a really risky thing to do, to stop keeping us safe in that way, because they don't know that grace is there. So that's why it's an act of faith, an act of trusting that when we begin to relax, the good things will come in and we'll be held by something.

Yeah, yeah, I would completely second that. And to come in from a— look into from a different window My experience as a psychotherapist is that these woundings that happen often happen when we're very young and we're completely vulnerable and helpless and dependent on one or two people who have their own baggage, as we all know. And so when those woundings happen when we're very little, they really stay with us because we don't have friends to talk about it with, or a different home to go to, or ways of making us safe. So the ways we make ourselves safe are by developing all these habit patterns and protections, protections that keep the world out, or that manage things, or make us feel like we're in control, and lots of habit patterns that are— get us out, so distract us from binge eating, you know, they can be like alcoholism or watching too much TV or all those things that take us away from, from being present. And for me, all of those things happen to stop us from being flooded with the emotion that is being held by these kind of young parts of us, these young wounds. So with my other hat on as an IFS therapist, what we do is we enable those wounds, those young parts, to be healed, and that when those young parts are healed, those protective bits have less need to try and keep them quiet, shove them in a cupboard. So that process is a psychological one, but it could also be talked about spiritually, that if we have faith in something, if we take refuge somewhere, we can begin to show the Buddha our hurting vulnerable bits, with the permission of the bits that are kind of keeping them safe and in a cupboard, keeping us safe from them. And that can begin to transform in the light of the Buddha. So that's a really— I don't know if that makes much sense, because that's a very short summary of something that's quite complicated, but there are always good reasons for us taking ourselves out out. There's always a good reason for not becoming present, and I'd say 99% of the time it's because we don't want to feel something, we don't want to go somewhere inside, we don't want to risk being overwhelmed by usually old feelings that are kind of trapped. Does that make any sense? It does, thank you.

Yeah, I think the thing I would add that I've started I'm noticing is actually the experiences that leaves, that leave wounds. It isn't just a traumatic experience that leaves the wound, it's a traumatic experience that isn't held by a community of people with some faith and trust, or even one person, or compassion. Yeah, or one person. Actually, we can be very resilient when we're in relationship with grace that maybe comes through another person. But when we experience a wounding or a trauma and we're in relationship with somebody who is afraid of feeling emotions, or who hasn't got the capacity of supporting us through that, or there's nobody there, that's when we begin to build those defenses that either build walls or take us away. So the antidote is to bring us Satya said, is to bring those things into a community of faith, or into another person with faith, or into relationship with the Buddha, where they go, "Oh yeah, life is hard, and I can still be loved in the midst of this difficulty." And when Casper says trauma, we don't mean sort of being beaten, We mean the kind of the breaks in relationship that happen in all families.

So it may be that a parent doesn't quite attune to us, so they don't understand what we're needing. It may be that they get overwhelmed by our crying, so they kind of leave us occasionally. So it's just, it's the things—

It can be very small things.

Very small things, yes.

Someone's having a bad day or a long day at work and a child can comes home and says, "Can I show you this picture?" You just go, "Argh! Just in 5 minutes!" And actually, if that isn't repaired, if the parent doesn't then go and say, "Oh, sorry, that was to do with my day at work and it wasn't anything to do with your picture or you," it can create a hardening in the heart.

The child may think, "Oh well, I must be too needy because this is the reaction I had," rather than they were having a bad day. And when we're very young, we don't know that the other person is having a bad day, we interpret everything as being something we've done. We must be bad, we must be worthless, we must be ugly, or, you know, too needy, or— they're very common beliefs.

We could talk about this for a day.

We could. That's another talk. Maybe we'll do one of those as well. But thanks for the question. It's a really, really good question.

Yeah.

Any other— maybe time for one more question if anyone has one?

All right, well, thank you very much for joining us. It's really nice to talk to people rather than no people.

Yes, we were— we discussed beforehand if nobody came, we were going to do the talk anyway. I'm not sure if we would have invented an audience or not, but we haven't had to, so that's very nice.

Lovely to see your smiling faces and just expressing gratitude for what we've received that allows us to pass on some of that to you.

It's all second— not just secondhand, but hundredhand probably. And my invitation for you today is that you look and see, and see where that takes you. Just experiment with receiving the gifts of the universe. So, namaste. I'm sure we'll see you all again soon. Have a lovely day.

Let's go and find a square of dark chocolate.

Yes, square of dark chocolate for everyone now, I think.

Bye-bye.

Bye.