(upbeat music) - This podcast is brought to you by Free Buddhist Audio, the Dharma for Your Life. Our work is funded entirely by donations from our generous listeners. If you would like to help us keep this free, make a contribution at freebuddhistaudio.com/donate. Thank you and happy listening. - Okay, yeah, so I'm gonna take us around to the next realm within this mandala. I thought that I'd just talk a little bit about why we recall these figures, why we evoke these figures, and a building a little bit more where it comes from. So, Emily Odin was talking about how these figures are archetypal figures, and they have come down to us from the minds of steep meditators sort of throughout history. So, these figures were to sort of reveal themselves to meditators from the depths of their meditation practice. But it all goes all the way back to the time of the Buddha. So, I've enjoyed today how Danyita has been talking about what's traditional and what's non-traditional. What's very traditional is to recall the Buddha, and it happened very naturally when the Buddha Shakyamuni died. So, the historical Buddha who was born a human being, he taught for half of his life, and he gathered lots and lots of disciples, and they would sit around him very much how you're all sitting now around this figure of the Buddha here, to listen to the Buddha teaching, to sort of guide them. They'd come and they'd ask him questions, all sorts of different questions and problems, and he would respond to them and tell them what to do. And some of them got enlightened, but some of them didn't. So, when he died, it was awful probably for those people that hadn't become enlightened. If you could imagine meeting the most incredible person you've ever met in your whole life, they've discovered away a whole path of practice that you want to follow. You might be encountering this as you come along, something of value, something of beauty, something of meaning, that you want to dedicate your whole life to, and then that person dies. It's sort of tragic, isn't it, it's awful. So, what they would do, because they longed to be with the Buddha, they longed to be in the Buddha's presences, they would just recall the image of the Buddha, they'd meditate on the Buddha, they'd call him to mind, and what they would call to mind, much like when we do, when we do them at a barber, is they'd call to mind the Buddha's qualities. So, all the different qualities, his kindness, his wisdom, his energy, his generosity, they'd call all those qualities to mind, and they'd evoke the spirit and the presence of the Buddha in their minds, and they'd feel like they were with the Buddha, and we all do this. If you have loved one that's died, you can get a sense of their presence, can't you, when you sort of bring them to mind, you can even have communication with people who've died. So, this is where these practices come from, and like Amelie Oden was saying last night, these particular Buddha, so we had Acchobia last night, tonight we're entering the realm of Ratna Samba, this golden yellow Buddha, this Buddha represents a facet of the enlightened mind, and the particular facet that it represents is the facet of generosity of abundance, and Ratna Samba is associated with the colour of golden, like the sunshine, and his time of day is noon, so it's the sort of bright beauty of the midday sun that just shines, and sort of, well, allows life to flourish, so Ratna Samba is connected with a maturation, he sort of grows beings, I really love that image, that's sort of magical, apparently he's connected with harvest magic, 'cause I think in ancient India, they would sort of call on sort of magical rites, Ratna Samba is connected with the sort of magic of harvest. Yeah, so his direction is also south facing, I quite like that somehow, so he's connected with the south, and his wisdom is the wisdom of sameness, and they each have a poison which they overcome, so the particular poison which Ratna Samba overcomes his pride, so I'm gonna say a little bit more about those two things, this wisdom of sameness, and overcoming the poison of pride. So to meditate upon these figures, to call them to mind, just like we're doing, just like we did last night with Akshobian, just like we're doing with Ratna Samba, this evening, as I talk about him, and you'll have particular resonances, you can start to bring Ratna Samba to mind. It's a catalyst, it's a catalyst for deep, inner transformation within you, and that's why we sort of bring these figures to mind, it's not just because it's sort of nice, it's because they bring deep transformation, and each of their symbols speaks to us about something about our potential, so Ratna Samba means jewel-born, so he holds a wish for filling jewel in his left hand, so you can see on this image here near the front, he's holding a wish for filling jewel in his left hand, and his right hand extends out in the mudra, so in the gesture of generosity, of boundness, generosity. So just in itself to think that there's a jewel that I could fulfill all your wishes, is pretty radical, isn't it, that's quite nice, and that there's just abundance, this hand just gives and gives it, it never, never runs out, he gives energy, material, wealth, richness, spiritual richness, so that's just pouring down all the time. So we can bring Ratna Samba ver the jewel-born to mind, and as we do that, what we realize is that we are jewels, so each of you is a jewel, your mind, your heart, is a jewel, and you can call to mind this quality, but you need to activate it, so it's no good just sort of thinking, I'm a jewel, and sort of swanning around. Well, maybe that would work actually, you could try it, I haven't actually tried it, you could try it. But in order to sort of make the jewel wish-fulfilling, you need to activate it. And so you need to sort of breathe life into these qualities, so there's a Ratna Samba ver here on the shrine, I'm gonna talk about Ratna Samba, I'm gonna evoke all of his qualities. And then what we need to do to bring Ratna Samba ver to life, to bring Buddhism to life, actually, is we've got to breathe life into the qualities through what we think, what we say, and what we do. So Ratna Samba ver is the Buddha of beauty, and abundance, and generosity, and creativity. So in order to bring Ratna Samba ver to life, we've got to act beautifully, we've got to think beautifully, speak beautifully, act generously, take in others, give. So it's not a passive practice, we've got to activate it. Yeah, so in order to do that, we've got to really, really put those qualities at the center of our lives, it's no good. Well, you know what it's like, it's, you sort of think, oh yeah, being kind is a really good idea, meditating's a really good idea, and matter's a really good idea, but life gets busy, our email account fills up, people are annoying, and we don't sort of follow through on our best intentions, and also, we don't sort of remember, actually, that we have these dual-like qualities, actually we've got the potential to be majestic and beautiful. Similarly, we've got the sort of potential to be awful as well, and it's up to us, really, to sort of remember our sort of majesty, and to act from that, and it's not easy, that's why we come together in large numbers, actually, to try to gather around what is of value. So we're revoking in these evenings this five Buddha mandala, and the mandala, the most simple way to sort of describe a mandala is a circle, essentially it's a circle. When we talk about the five Buddha mandala, we're talking about putting something of beauty and integration and true positivity and unification right at the heart of something, and then we surround it with beauty. And that's what we're doing on this retreat. So everything that we're doing on this retreat is trying to point towards truth and point towards beauty, and this shrine room is the heart of that. So we're all gathered around, aren't we, around this shrine? The central focus of the room is something which represents transcendent human values. So yeah, depth, beauty, truth, compassion, wisdom. And we're meditating, we're turning our minds towards those things, and we're living communally, we're trying to take each other into account. We're trying to live in a way where we're putting beauty and truth and meaning right at the center of our lives. So as well as the five Buddha mandala, you can also think of your own life as a mandala. You're each like a little mandala. There's the mandala of your own mind and your own heart, and then there's the mandala of your life. And you can think just now on a sort of day-to-day level or on a sort of more macro level of your life, what do you put at the center of your mandala? So what's at the center of your life? You could think about that. Often, what we put at the center of the mandala can't hold and the mandala caves in. I love this image somehow, it's sort of tragic, isn't it? But we've all experienced it, right? Where the mandala, what's at the center of the mandaless? What's at the center of our lives? Can't hold, we didn't realize it couldn't hold it. We sort of had a vague instinct, it might not hold it, but we hoped if we tried really, really hard and did everything just right, it would hold. But it doesn't, and you know, we have those experiences where life just falls apart, or we have the experience where we get what we want, we've put something at the center of our life, we've made it a goal, we've worked really determinedly to get it, we get it, and then you're like, oh, is that it? And it's sort of almost the promise that it was gonna deliver just evaporates and what you're left with is little old you, just the same as you were before you achieved that thing, or you got that job permission, or whatever it was. So when that happens, it's a sign that we've put something at the center of the mandala that can't hold, and so it's caved in. And what I'm arguing or sort of realizing for myself is that all those things that I've put at the center of my mandala that haven't held, and when each time the mandala of my life's caved in, it's actually because I've put myself at the center of the mandala, sort of in disguise. So, you know, the job was like me, and how good I can be, and how effective I can be, and the status was also me, and like how much people think how great I am in joining the audience, yep, yep, recognize that. The lover, the partner, the gorgeous partner that I met, and I thought, you know, when you meet someone, the person that you fancy, fancy, you back it's so rare, isn't it, and when it happens, you're like, oh my God, it's amazing what a miracle. And then you know, like what did I'm going to say, three months? I thought that was a bit short, I'll do six months. And then it's like, oh, you're just a human being, and you're fallible, and I'm also, you know, when you fall in love, it's like you get to be the ideal person of yourself for that three or six months, and then you sort of stop being that person. So again, it's sort of me and how lovable I am, and how sort of wonderful I am, sort of caving in, so that you're quite quickly sometimes, depending on the person and the situation. So yes, so when we have that experience of the mandala caving, it's because we put ourselves at the centre of the mandala, sort of in disguise a status, career lover, whatever beauty, sometimes it's just physical beauty at the centre. Sort of desperately buying anti-aging creams, I love anti-aging creams. (laughing) You know, I'm still getting older each day, so. Yeah. And it's quite interesting actually because, you know, I've worked at the Buddhist Centre for, well, nearly nine years actually, and I moved into a Buddhist community at the same time, and I came on this retreat 11 years ago to the second five days, and when I came on this retreat, I've been meditating for about two months, and I just had this amazing experience of, wow, this is just what I've been looking for, this is what has been missing all my life, and I didn't quite realise in it, and it's so simple, and I felt like I encountered such value and such meaning, and I was, when I got back from the retreat on New Year's Day, I just thought, right, well, I will reorientate my life towards this, and you know, I did actually, I was quite lucky, I was, I just 10, 26, and I didn't really have, I could do that, basically, I was in a position where I could start to orientate, sort of the externals of my life, towards what I'd encountered here, that was a value and of meaning, and actually it's quite interesting because we were doing a similar theme of the five Buddha mandala, and I really remember those rituals of like never having really done rich, I hadn't had a very religious upbringing, and going up to make an offering and feeling like, oh, this is what's been missing in my life, is something sacred, something divine, something sort of bigger than me, and what had brought me to the Buddha Center was actually getting my dream job, so getting a job which felt really creative, really altruistic, where I was helping people, I was using art, it was really hands-on, I had loads of autonomy, it was in this beautiful, big art studio in a hospital, and it was amazing, and the team was lovely, and it was this perfect job, and it was then, after two months into that job where my mandala just totally caved in, and I was like, and I'm still really unsatisfied, like, is this it, it's like the nice house, the really nice flatmates, the nice family, this nice job, and still such loneliness and sort of this gnawing emptiness inside, which I felt actually connecting to something that had transcendent value and meaning brought me, so I went home, and bit by bit, step by step, I started meditating every day, I started going to the Buddha Center, really regular, I remember Dhani Ta saying, "Oh gosh, "you're here all the time!" And I was like, "Oh, is that okay?" And I was, I kind of started going to the Buddha Center and sort of never left, and sort of haven't ever left, really, I am there all the time still. Do you're wondering where I am, it's probably there. So the point that I'm trying to make is that I, yes, I made a lot of external changes, and loads of internal changes as well, I really sort of sort of devoutly did the mindfulness of breathing in the metabolic alternate days, sort of most days, actually, I really enjoyed the meditation practices. I developed friendships, there was a lot of internal change as well. And yet, and yet, I still realize now, I still put myself at the center of my mandala all the time, like I had a realization just writing this talk, I was like, "What's at the center of my mandala?" It's me, me, me. And it's like, as soon as I start thinking, "Oh my God, I'm at the center, I'm at the center of my mandala, I'm at the center." It's like, as soon as I start agonizing about that, I'm getting more and more at the center, it's like the centrifugal force is getting even stronger. So it's sort of this strange thing of, so all the externals are pointing towards value and meaning and truth, but I'm often just thinking about me, like, how can I have a nice time? How can I have a really, it can transfer onto spiritual things, like a good meditation, a peaceful morning, where I get to reflect on the dharma. (laughing) And early nights, it's like all of these spiritual things, but it's me at the center. And that leads to anxiety, it leads to dissatisfaction, it just caves in on itself, all the time. And I can remember actually me and Dan Yutai used to work really closely together, so I asked Dan Yutai if I could tell the story which he said that I could, so I think I've been working at the Buddha Center for about three years, and I was, you know, sometimes it's quite hard working at the Buddha Center, it's not all abundance and beauty, sometimes it's quite challenging, and I was having a challenging time, and I was crying to Dan Yutai and probably blaming lots of people and complaining, and it's like, "Oh, man, that's so hard, my emotions and don't you?" I was called Holly then, she said, "Holly, "you know, the world doesn't revolve around you." (laughing) And I was like, "Whoa!" Oh my God, that's so good. (laughing) You're right, it was like, it was so, well, we'd call it like Vadric, how many Aiden was talking about, the Vadric, it was so like, it cut through, like, me and my emotional world, and my, everyone's being horrible to me in my life so hard, and I can still get into it. Now, I can get into quite a strong kind of victim hood around, particularly around work, when I'm giving loads, and, you know, I won't recognition, and sometimes I don't get it, it's terrible. (laughing) He's actually not a jay hook for her. (laughing) Yeah. Yeah, so, you know, still, I'm putting myself at the centre of my mandala, and it leads to that, actually, it leads to this feeling of emptiness, actually, and dissatisfaction. And pain, actually, it's like this, just sort of like, getting tighter and tighter around my sense of self, and we've all been there, you know when you know that you're worrying about yourself too much, and then the awareness always makes it worse, 'cause you know you're worrying about yourself, then you start worrying that you're worrying about yourself, then you start feeling bad, 'cause you shouldn't be worrying about yourself, but then you're just, you're winding yourself tighter and tighter. So, rather than putting yourself at the centre of the mandala, you can put rat in a samba for it at the centre. You can put a jewel at the centre of your mandala, a wish for filling jewel, you can put beauty, an abundance and generosity at the centre of your life. And even just thinking that it's like such a relief, just saying, oh yeah, it can be something else at the centre. What that requires us to do is to actually really, really take responsibility for our minds, it requires me to really take responsibility for my mind, which is what Daniel told, was helping me to realise when I was sort of complaining and crying to her. Was that I was creating the problem? It actually wasn't all those people that weren't giving me recognition or that were giving me a hard time, it was I was creating the problem. I was making everything, all the difficulty, all the sort of struggle mean something about me, rather than just, oh yeah, human life contains pleasure and pain, it contains difficulty, it contains joy, it's just because things are difficult, it doesn't mean that I'm doing something wrong, actually, that's what human life is like. And I've got to take responsibility for my own mind and really, really renounce blame, actually. I think so often, when we're at the centre of the mandala, we're in this sort of blame, or we're in this sort of inflated sense of intoxication of like, I'm really great, I've done all these really good things, I'm a self-made woman, I'm independent, or I'm like, or I'm a victim and all of these problems, I'm either sort of like the worst or the best. So yeah, so Ratnassambever is the antidote to this. So each of these budders will have like a poison that they're the antidote to, and the poison that Ratnassambever is the antidote to is pride. So it's that pride is what I'm talking about. So even if you, I think that you're like the worst, little wormy person, you can't do anything, you're rubbish at meditating, you always lay, you sleep in, blah, blah, blah, blah. Hidden like deep within that is a little ego test, right in the heart of that, 'cause you're the worst one. So it's like you're making it all mean something about you. And the most sort of confident, arrogant person who thinks they're so amazing, sort of buried underneath is this really, really insecure person. So there's just inversions of the same thing, it's pride and conceit. And again, it's like putting yourself right at the heart of your mandala, it's not gonna take you anywhere apart from tighter and tighter into painful states of mind and a painful sense of separation. And more than that, from a budders perspective, it's just completely deluded. Like you're not gonna get anywhere in your life basically until you start while practicing something else, which is what I would recommend that you practice. Well, yeah, I'm recommending it but the budders recommending it more, run a sec. (laughing) Is to start practicing appreciation. So there's this beautiful idea of putting value and meaning and beauty and a jewel at the center of your life, which is actually in a way, I think, parentically, just thinking about that, for me, actually really helps me as well. But if you wanna sort of chunk it down into action, the first thing to do is to start cultivating a mind of appreciation. Then, once you start cultivating a mind of appreciation, you're bringing rat in the Samba ver and the jewel born into the center of your life. So reflect on everything that you've received in your life. You could reflect on just how you've got here, you could reflect on everything that you're in receipt of right now, the clothes that you're wearing. Think of all the people that have contributed just to clothe you. We've been fed, we've been watered, we've slept. This shrine room's beautifully lit. All the pipes that have sort of been laid down to bring us water when you turn the top on. It's like, actually, every day we could be on our knees or an appreciation of everything we're in receipt of. And that is putting rat in the Samba, that's putting beauty at the center of your life. And when we cultivate a mind of appreciation, what happens naturally is it's the foundation. It's like, it's the bedrock of meta. So I really liked it this morning that Amelie Aidan said that the meta barfner is the meditation practice which makes you the best looking. I hadn't heard that before, but it kind of makes sense to me that it would. (audience laughing) It feels like it's connected 'cause rat in the Samba is the Buddha of beauty. So appreciation, reflecting on what you've received and naturally puts you into a more positive state of mind. It's a really, really skillful thing to do with your mind is to reflect on what you've received to practice appreciation and gratitude. When you feel in receipt of something, you naturally feel more open, you naturally want to give. So generosity flows from appreciation. That's my experience. I personally find it sometimes like, sometimes I just don't want to be generous basically 'cause I feel like, no, I want it all for me. And there's a lovely vision of the Buddhist vision, the Mahayana Buddhist vision is of the Bodhisattva which is a being who just gives and gives endlessly which responds to all the cries of all the beings, all the suffering in the world. The Bodhisattva just gives and gives and gives. And sometimes the thought of that to me is terrifying 'cause I think, oh no, it sounds exhausting. I don't want to keep giving, like what about me? So when I feel a bit like tight or tense or like I don't want to give, I don't want to like take someone else in. I don't want to do that next thing. What I do is I practice appreciation and gratitude. And from there, something shifts and then generosity naturally flows. So I think the first step to having wrapped the sandal having generosity at the center of your life is appreciation. And then when you're appreciative, you feel abundant, you feel rich, you feel full up. And if you appreciate even more than you overflow with appreciation and you just give, it just flows. And you know, it's like we have to cultivate that. Sometimes, like we don't want to give, it's really interesting today, like that I'm giving this talk about generosity and abundance and appreciation. I've been really grumpy and I just like, I don't want to be happy. And we come into contact, don't we? When we try to cultivate something positive, sometimes when we sit to do the metabarbner, what we're confronted with is our hatred. When someone invites us to be grateful and appreciative, often what we can feel is our own sense of lack or everything that we've missed out on or how we haven't been given to. That's all part of the practice, actually. And you can still practice appreciation. Asha, I've got another story about Darnita, she's featuring heavily in this, which was when we were leaving, we used to live together, we're leaving the house and there's these beautiful roses which grow outside our house and they're this lovely colour of sort of pink and red and they turn into yellow just at the end of the petals. They're really beautiful, they grow really big. And sometimes we have to stop people from picking them 'cause we live on a busy street and people want to pick them. We want them in our garden. So I was in a particularly bad mood again and we were leaving the house. (audience laughing) And we were going to teach yoga class and I was complaining and saying, I don't want to go and I'm in a bad mood. And Darnita stopped and she said, Jess and look at this beautiful rose. And I was like, no, I will not look at the beautiful rose. And I just didn't want to look at the beautiful rose. Do you remember that? No. Yeah. Oh yeah, did I do that or did you? Yeah, so I picked up the thought. I mean, I didn't know how this relates to the story but seen as you've started it. I just picked the thought up that looked and put it on my nose. (audience laughing) It probably helped shift my mood a bit, didn't it? Yeah. So I think it did work. But what I was going to say was that I, you know, when we're in that state of, I think what I want to say is it's about taking responsibility for our minds because when I'm in that negative state of mind where I'm really turned in on myself, I actively don't want to appreciate. So Darnita was saying, look, there is something right in your, literally in your front garden that is beautiful. Why don't you look at it? And I was like, annoying, like don't, don't try and get me out of my bad mood. You know, even though I didn't want to be in my bad mood. So there'll be resistance basically. And that's why we have these figures embodied because they can help us. So when you're feeling really like really resistant, call on Ratna Samba, when you feel an inner sense of lack and poverty and when you're feeling really wermy, or when you're, yeah, probably that 'cause when you're feeling intoxicated, you probably won't need to, you won't think you'll need to call on him, but when you sort of fall off your perch, call on Ratna Samba there because he will come and he will pour spiritual riches and abundance down upon you and he'll take you out of that sort of narrow self concern. So you can call on Ratna Samba there. And if you don't quite fancy doing that, it's temperament, isn't it? You might not want to call on Ratna Samba 'cause you might not think he's real or you might be a bit confused about if he's real or not real and you can talk about that in your groups. I'm not going to go into that just now. You can cultivate appreciation and write gratitude lists, speak to people about what you're appreciative of rather than meeting up with a friend and telling them everything that's been so annoying in your day. Call to mind what you've appreciated. Not in a kind of like happy, clappy kind of way. The reason that we're doing it is because we want to practice generosity. So appreciation leads to generosity. Generosity aligns you with reality. So when you practice generosity, you step out from the sort of limited circle of yourself into another person's world, into the world. You align yourself with other beings. And this brings us to Ratna Samba, his wisdom. So his wisdom is the wisdom of sameness. So he sees how all beings, all life is made up of the same stuff. And that stuff isn't sort of fixed. It's constantly changing. It's constantly in flux. So as beings, we're constantly sort of coming into being, arising, changing, passing away. Everything is doing that. So Ratna Samba sees that play of arising, forming, passing away, arising, forming, passing away. He sees how everything is made of that, particularly, well, not particularly everything, but all beings. So all beings are precious. All beings have the potential to grow. All beings are worthy of love. And Ratna Samba is connected with the midday sun and his love shines on all beings equally. So because he sees that all beings are the same, all beings are precious. So it's not like a cold, hard thing of like, oh, you're all the same. I mean, we kind of are all the same, all we're actually causing are in problems a lot of the time. And like I said, we all have this potential for growth and yeah, majesty. So when we sort of dwell upon Ratna Samba and Ratna Samba's qualities, we feel a sort of greater solidarity with all beings. Often, we don't feel that solidarity with all beings, do we? That's why we have the five stages of the Metabarvaner. Often, we're compartmentalizing beings, aren't they? Ones which we want nearest ones, which we want a little bit further away. Ones which are deserving of our loved ones, which aren't. We don't treat all beings the same. And it's often because we're sort of seeing what people can give us, you know, like, yeah, it's quite a utilitarian approach that we take to other beings. So I want to associate with this person because they're cool. Rachel's quite cool. (laughs) Or like, I want to go out with this person because they're attractive and they're going to bring this into my life. And I don't really want to be of that person. So we sort of, we sort of, we don't see the sameness of all beings. We don't see the beauty in all beings. We don't see the potential in all beings. Often we write people off, don't we? We don't even care about getting to know them. We don't even notice them. So we're sort of often engaging in the world in this utilitarian way of what's useful to me. What does this situation mean about me? What does this person, what can this person do for me? It's quite a stark reflection and you might be hearing this and thinking, oh no, I don't do that. But just notice and see if you do. You might not, but I bet you do. (laughs) Because actually, that is what we will be doing. That is the conceit, that's the sort of poisons that we're often assessing. We're putting people either above us or below us or at the same of us. We're putting ourselves apart. We're setting ourselves apart from beings. We don't see that actually we're deeply part of life. We're co-creating life all the time. And life's much, much richer, much, much more beautiful. Like beings are much more beautiful. Often then we realize and when you did the communication exercise, you might have got a sense of like, wow, another human being sitting right in front of me, a whole mystery, a whole world, right in front of my eyes and something sort of magical might have opened up. Or you might have just thought, this is really awkward. When's Danny talking about you? But you can sort of transcend that limited sense yourself, yourself, to something much, much more mysterious and beautiful. If you step out beyond that sort of utilitarian way of engaging with other beings and with the world. So the last thing I'm going to say is that when we step beyond that utilitarian way of being in the world, what we enter is the realm and the world of beauty. So rather than seeing sort of like, well, what something can do for us, we can just see it's beauty. And that path of beauty is a whole path in itself. It's like a lens that you could look at for the rest of your life. If you just try to attune yourself, so try to attune your mind, your speech and your actions to what is truly beautiful. Well, that would be your life so well lived. You know, who cares about the lover or the career or whatever it is, the new house. Put the lens of beauty across your mind and your heart and look at the world through that lens. And you move beyond utilitarian approach to life. You step into deep connection with other beings and the sort of magic and mystery and the potential of the world and of life will open up to you. So when you look with the mind and the heart of an appreciation, what you'll see is more beauty. When you see more beauty, you start to transcend that fixed and limited painful sense of yourself. Beauty helps us to transcend ourselves. We don't need to know something's beautiful, do we? The other day when I was in the countryside, there was a full moon rising up. I was in the countryside, but I was also by the sea. The full moon was like, was rising up from the ocean and the, it wasn't quite nighttime. You know when the moon rises and the sky's still blue and the moon's kind of white, I love that. So walking along and then turn around like, wow, the moon rising from the horizon. It was a moment of beauty and I sort of forgot myself in that moment. And that was a moment of sort of transcending that limited sense of myself. I felt deeply, deeply connected and just not neurotically sort of thinking, oh, what's happening next? Who am I? It's just the moon, it was beautiful. And you'll notice on this retreat, you'll have more and more moments of that. Those moments of beauty and it's often happened sort of unexpectedly, but if you want to cultivate them, then what I would recommend is to do nothing. So sit and just do nothing. The quiet periods are really, really good for this. So we're entering a period where there's gonna be more silence. You can go and sit somewhere in nature or sit by a window and just sit and do nothing. And you can start to attune your mind, attune your heart to beauty and beauty will reveal itself to you. Sometimes you've got to go through some layers of boredom and restlessness, but beauty will arise. And then when you're doing that, you're on the path of beauty and you can trust that and you're putting Rat in a Samba Ver, the dual born at the center of your mandala and that will hold like that deep, rich beauty will hold. Yes, that's it. We hope you enjoyed this week's podcast. Please help us keep this free. Make a contribution at freebuddhistaudio.com/donate. And thank you. [MUSIC PLAYING] (gentle music)
