So many are saying Where is God when I need him? Especially today. Many feel deserted and alone. But it is only that we have been looking in the wrong direction, searching everywhere but at home. The surprising answer to the question tells us instead, that all we need is right here with us in our everyday life. In fact it is right at the kitchen table. It is only that we have been looking elsewhere, searching all around. These episodes offer specific ways in which we can encounter God, fulfillment, enlightenment right here in our daily lives, wherever we go.
We all wish each other a Happy New Year, and mean it. But what does it mean to be truly happy?? Usually we think it includes lots of laughs and smiles, a happy face and demeanor. Certainly, it is a pleasure to feel that way, but how long does a feeling like that last? It comes and goes due to circumstances. When things go our way, the smiles appear, when a sudden thunder storm comes, our smiles disappear. Yet, there is a way to live a Truly Happy Live, a way to greet whatever arises with a feeling of wonder, aliveness and engagement. When we can truly savor the preciousness of our lives, of each moment and encounter, and encounter it fully, this is a life not only of true happiness, but immebaw value and growth.
Good morning, good morning. It's Eshin Brenda Shoshana and Happy Happy New Year back with another episode of Zen Wisdom for Your Everyday Life. For this brand new day, this brand new year, this brand new moment. Every moment brand new, really? And is it a happy moment? We say happy new year, happy, happy, happy. We say that very freely, as if everyone should be smiling and happy and all the time. And of course, certainly we want everyone to be joyful and loved and feeling good. And the question is, what does it really mean to be happy? It's a wonderful question. It's a Zen Koan. What does it mean to be happy? Does it mean that we're going around smiling, grinning, putting on a beautiful face, playing a role, showing what a great life and how great we are? That seems to be happening a lot on social media for sure. Happy, happy, happy. Happy, happy, happy, but as we always so know, that all over the world they are sad, sad, sad, scared, angry, many, many, many, many feelings, many moments, many moments. These are moments, moments that arise and change. One moment of medicine turns into a moment of poison if the medicine isn't taken properly. A moment of happiness can turn into sadness, can turn into intelligence, can turn into everything. Happiness again. It's we flow. We are a flow of everything. So what does it mean in the midst of this huge flow of moments to be really happy? Is it a temporary feeling of, yay, everything is great? And then the thunderstorm comes, oh, everything is awful. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's not real happiness. That's a temporary buzz or a high. And nothing wrong with it. It's fun when it comes, it feels good. It can be also very inspiring at that moment, and then another moment appears. So, you know, in Zen practice, we look much more deeply at what happiness is truly. What is lasting happiness? Well, is there such a thing? Does anything last? By lasting happiness, I mean the happiness that is original to our nature, that cannot be distorted and cannot be eliminated no matter what the circumstances are that appear. Wow. Is that even possible, people would say. What are you talking about? Be happy no matter what the circumstances are, how is that possible? Well, to begin with, we redefine what it means to be truly happy. It's not a feeling that comes one moment and is gone the next. That's not real happiness. For instance, here's a very interesting and strange example, but true, but true. People have reported when they were in hospice passing away, that they have experienced the deepest happiness of their life. When time came of really deep acceptance of their life and of their situation, that feelings of acceptance, not fighting it, resting in what is happening, allowing them to use their precious energy, whatever is left there, to appreciate the people who come to visit, to see them with true eyes, to appreciate each breath, to really, really see what their life is. And also in hospice. I used to work in hospice many, many, many years ago. It was very, very, very, very, very amazing and precious work. I think of it a lot these days. Because it's truly one of the most intense spiritual practices, because you're always looking at the ultimate. And how do we respond to that? Because the ultimate is right here every day, every breath. And let me go back a moment to to the hospice situation. You know, when people are in hospice and they know they may not have that much time left, or they may not have an opportunity again, often they will be able to tell those they love how much they care about them, or talk with honesty. And others may also be able to be open and vulnerable and honest with them and say how much they meant to them. There's a flow of communication which turns almost into communion. It's communication that's not wrapped up in an image of ourselves or in a role we have to play because that's not important at that time. At that time everything disappears, is disappearing. And one of the good things that disappears is the falseness, the phoniness, not for everybody, but for many. And the need to impress and the need to be somebody very important because we really see ourselves differently at that time. No, thankfully, we're not in the hospice. But on the other hand, we're all, we don't know. We don't know. We think, well, I have at least another 30, 40, 50 years. Hopefully so, could be. And we don't know. When we live our life as if this moment, it could be, if this were one of our last moments, what what would life be like? What would it be like to look at the sky? What would it be like to see a loved one? We would really be there for it, to put it mildly. Many of the things that obstruct us and delude us would just disappear. They wouldn't be important anymore. It wouldn't matter how much money you made or what many degrees you had or on and on and on. Those those those things that we live clinging to really wouldn't matter. What would matter the most? That's another fantastic ko on in terms of looking at the new year and a way to live it that's real. You know, when we are real, that's another way to look at what is happiness. It's such a relief that we're happy with ourselves. Doesn't mean we're laughing and smiling every moment, but it's so good to feel real, to be true to ourselves and to others. It doesn't mean we have to rebel and create a big scene. I doubt we would do that, but we could just be real and we could be in a state of truly communing with who we originally, naturally, fundamentally are. That is such a joy. Those moments, we all have those moments naturally, inevitably, moments when we can just be real, things drop away. The phoniness, the pretense, the the grabbing at some kind of honor, oh dear. And that all just drops away. Maybe we see a squirrel looking at us, and boom, we both laugh. We laugh and then the squirrel laughs. We can hear the squirrel laughing. We can enjoy with the world. It's not, oh, you're a silly squirrel, and I am a great person. Not at all. There's a commonality sharing this world together for that moment and many moments. It's a different way, a different orientation to what's important and to happiness itself. And actually, when we take that orientation, nothing can take our happiness away. How can it? How can it? It's inherent within us and within our life. We'll walk outside in the street and something that we might never have noticed before, never. We'll know not only notice it, we'll encounter it. What does that mean? It means it will touch us. We will touch it. There will be an encounter, an interaction. It will be meaningful because it will be spontaneous and natural and wholly alive. Holly alive. What a beautiful, beautiful moment. Most of the time we'll just pass things by. We don't even notice them. They're in our way. Move over. I've got to rush to get to an appointment. Oh dear, I miss the bus. Oh, I miss my cab. Where we're going somewhere doing something. We're not in any way interacting or encountering our moment-by-moment life as it arrives, as it appears, and as it goes its way. Then training is a training actually in that, which is in just being real and being here and being available. In seeing the wonder of each moment, that I mean, not every moment, but we begin to see how wondrous this world is. Instead of focusing on what did he do to me, what did I do to her, you know, oh the dangers, oh, the horrors that are coming, I have to prepare to defend myself against this, that, the other thing. No, no, no, no, no, no. Living that way, we we our life is really sucked out of us. We turn into a knot. We are at the mercy of all of these mental calamities. And I say mental because many of them don't happen. But it's as if it did, because we live them, we believe them, we're preparing for them, so we're engaging in that, in our inner landscape of fear. No, don't do that. Don't miss this day. As my wonderful teacher used to say, this step will not come again, this day will not come again, this smile will not come again. Here it is now. Just as it is, enjoy it. But often we can't. We're so worried about what's coming down the road, so frightened of it. That's because we're like a hypnosis, we're kind of pulled into a vortex of what we call in psychology catastrophic expectations. The strange truth is, the more you live with happiness, fulfillment, and gratitude toward yourself, toward others, toward life, the more people do that, the less these catastrophes can even manifest. They cannot. If the consciousness was filled with love, appreciation, laughter, joy, no, no, no. That vibration is a different vibration, and these horrors could not rise, spread, be attended to. We give things our attention and our belief, and that gives them fuel to stay around. Even in a relationship, when we pay attention to what's not right, what's not right will intensify, it will grow. Our attention feeds it. It feeds it. So what are you paying attention to? What are you feeding? What are you voting for? What are you aligning yourself with through your attention? I'm not saying to be blind and to wipe out and pay and deny what's there, but when we live in an attitude of presence, we can respond much more quickly, naturally, and beneficially to whatever is happening. Doesn't mean we won't be tough. When toughness is needed, we are tough. There are endless stories of Zen Masters being very tough when it was necessary, it was beneficial. It wasn't coming out of rage, it was coming out of benefit to stop something that was harmful. Absolutely. But right now, when we're just ensconced in fear, we cannot respond at all. We are passive, tied up, and not even aware. So this other way of being is so healthy on so many levels. And once you get to do it, once you get used to it, to just putting aside all the horror stories and being present, being available, enjoying the day, the moment, the person, being attending to it fully, not letting anything pull your attention away from that. You'll discover something very, very beautiful for the new year, for your life, for and you'll discover many truths about the world you're living in and how to be truly happy in it. Happy meaning fulfilled, content, delighted. This is a wonderful, wonderful road to take in the new year. A new road, a new day. Let me take a turn in a new direction. Turn a new corner and really see what's there. Try something really new. You know, we d we want everything to be new, new things happen, meet new people, new job offers, those are all great, but how about you? Turn a new corner. How do you respond to all of this? Try something new. Stop judging it, stop hating it. Encounter it. Meet it. Play with it. Appreciate it. Stop hating it, disliking it, disapproving of it or you. Just be with it. You know, children just do that. They can play with life, very important to play. Which means enjoy, engage. And also we see it's it's a play, a divine play. Many see that as we go back for a moment before we end in the hospice. Oh, it's it's a play. It was a play. What a moment. What role did I play in the play? What other role could I have taken? How could I have enacted my role? When we see it that way, that or again, a wonderful freedom comes. So I I give you that as a little new year, hello, a little new year gift. I received some delicious chocolates last night. We had a beautiful sitting here, beautiful. And um one of the person who came, he brought uh tons of little tiny delicious chocolates. Some of them fell on the floor and we were laughing. Laughing, picking them up, putting them to the side. Many gifts. The gift of Zazen, the gift of little chocolates, the gift of laughter. So thank you so much for listening. I appreciate it very much. Uh, the URL is wwwzenwisdomtoday.com, and my email is topspeaker at yahoo.com. And we are really, really thank you, and I wish you all a really beautiful new year. Have a great day. Bye bye.
