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.
Welcome to a new era of Zen Wisdom for Your Everyday Life. As the new year comes, In the next podcasts we will explore what it means to truly live, a life with value, fulfillment, connection and joy. The question of what it means to live is explored as we would explore a koan. We'll also look at the ways in which, unknowingly, we sabotage the great goodness that is right here before us.
The deepest truth is that it is easy and joyous to find out way, that Life is always beckoning to us, and all we need to do, is fully stop, pay real attention and connect with what is right in front of our eyes.
Good morning, good morning. It's Brenda Ash and Shoshana back again with a new era in our episode of Zen Wisdom for Your Everyday Life. Firstly, I really, really want to wish you all a happy holiday. End of year, new year, end of moment, new moment, end of day, new day, new life. This era, this chapter of the podcast, Zen Wisdom for Your Everyday Life, is going to really be similar but a little bit different, and it's called An Invitation to Live. To live. Which of course also means to love. Just not love each other, but love our life, love ourselves. Love, of course, each other. You know, the you know, the basis, the very root of all the teachings is love your neighbor as yourself. That's one of the roots, very big root for every single pathway. You could call it the way of life. But let's explore, and it's very, very important to explore what it means to live and to love. There are many, many, many, many ideas and concepts and theories about it. However, they're not quite connected to the true flow of real love and real life. There's a lot of ideas of what I've always called counterfeit love. It seems like love, but it's not. And it has different consequences. Which is very that itself is a very interesting and confusing often point. We think we love someone so much, but we're just attached. We want to hold on, we want to cling to them. We want to make sure they don't go away. That's not love, that's more like possession or insecurity or many, many other things. You know, it's so interesting. It says, love your neighbor as yourself. We have a few questions about that. And as you recall, a question is a koan. A koan. In a deeper way of answering the question and the koan is to let it answer itself. Because these koans, their answers aren't logical or rational. They come from a much deeper part of our being, and that's what we want to connect to in order to truly live freely and fully and beautifully and happily. The way of life, it's also called the Tao, it's also called the the truth of all the scriptures, a fulfillment, of meaning, meaning, and value. These words are so, so neglected these days, and they must be spoken. They must be heard, they must be listened to carefully and actualized. You know, it's one thing to hear podcasts or read books, it's quite another to actualize it. That's live it. That of course is where our beautiful Zen practice comes in, which is simply about actualizing, experiencing for ourselves, tasting it, digesting life, and living it in a truthful and simple and fulfilling manner. I like those words, truthful, simple, fulfilling. They all actually go together. A moment that's truthful is simply in the moment. It's simple. And it's is congruent with what you're feeling. It's sincere. Congruent with what you're truly feeling. The inner and the outer are the same. You're not smiling when you feel like you're dying inside. You're smiling when there's joy. You're not fighting yourself and contradicting yourself all the time. So much of our pain that we ascribe to so many other things just comes because we're contradicting ourselves, we're in conflict, when we don't know which part, which moment is true and which isn't. So that's a very big beginning is to just we start off by quieting down, calming down, stopping the racing, the running, the clinging, the hoping, the not hoping, just quiet down. In them practice, we sit down on the cushion, many other practices as well. And what is the purpose of just sitting down? It's to calm down, quiet down to begin. So we can actually see what's in front of us, not all the many, many confusing thoughts and messages that we receive morning, noon, and night. We we don't listen to that in the beginning. We go into a quieter state of being, more natural, more simple, more healthy. We just pay attention to this moment to begin. And of course we're breathing now, and nobody thinks that's so what? We're breathing, everybody breathes. No, no, not so what? Not so what? Because without the next breath, we wouldn't even be here. So that's quite a gift that we're receiving, the next breath, and then the next breath, and then the next we don't cherish it though. We take it for granted and we erase on to what's happening next. What is there going on for me? That's what we think. What's next? How can I be happier? How can I be more successful? How can I be more wealthy? Whatever we're trying to to accumulate. But that takes us away from our original natural wealth and what's really given to us all the time so that we don't have to always, always race, strive, hunger. If we the first step to see that and to feel that is to stop. Stop. Pay attention to what's here right now. Pay attention to the breath. Going in, going out. Pay attention to the snow falling if it is. It's been falling here a little bit. Rather than ignore all the beautiful things that are happening, pay attention. Take notice. And one might even say become one with them, which means really taste it deeply, digest it, feel it. And when you can do that and begin to do that, you are entering the way of life. The way of saying yes, let me experience the moment, let me experience the relationship, let me experience my own breath, and let me let me find out who I am. What's going on here? Without any judgment, rejection, acceptance, without adding anything to it, just be present and available to the moment fully, to what's happening in front of you. At first, of course, we may say, well, I don't want to, I don't like what's happening. I want to change it and make something else happen. Right away the conflict starts. I'm not saying that difficult events won't naturally and inevitably change. They will, they have to. But it's not your job to constantly from a point of view of franticness try to change things because we don't even know what is happening and what we're changing them into. But when we become quiet and really listen and are really present to what's happening, not only do we know that it just inevitably comes to us, the way the next breath comes, the moment comes we know what's next. We know what's needed of us. We just do it naturally, organically. And things work out well, they work out much, much better than when we're acting out of that frantic, hopeless, desperate feeling, which doesn't take us anywhere that's positive. And this practice of an invitation to live, which is very connected to the Zen wisdom for your everyday life, invitation to live, the same thing really. We are we we are having we are living, but we're not really often in touch with that. So it's an invitation to turn our attention to what it means, to what's actually happening right now, and what true living means for you. Well that's a beautiful ko on and a beautiful question, and it's important. It's really, really important this pausing, and just I'm not saying to think about it in your mind over and over, but just know that's your question and sit with it, let it sit with you. That's enough. When we all enter the silence together and just don't move around a lot, but just let our being recognize and be. All kinds of beautiful surprises come, beautiful moments which are here already. It's not like they're coming from nowhere. They're already here. It's just that we haven't been paying attention to them. You know, there's a beautiful Zen, a little story that I really love, and I said a student went to a Zen master and said, Well, what is this anyway? Well, what is this practice? And the master said, attention. And the student said, That's it, that's all, attention? And the teacher said, attention, attention. The student was even a little more befuddled. Well, what do you mean, attention, attention? And the master just smiled and said, Attention, attention, attention. Beautiful. A true teacher, but a master doesn't mean they're greatly superior to you, it just means that they have mastered this practice. And what they don't say a lot if they because that just gets you into your conceptual thoughts. They're pointing it out directly, simply, clearly. And then the work is done by you. It's up to you. You join right in. It's not something that can be given to you unless you're fully participating with it. Attention, we all have that ability to pay attention, and even with practice to pay attention to that which is life-giving, problem solving, and does produce a feeling of warmth and love and meaning. It's really lovely to be back speaking with everyone. It's been a while. I've been in my own form of silence, thank goodness, and I want to share with everyone, especially as the new year's coming, and I I have some new things I want to talk about in the podcast now. As I said, it's a new era. Add a few things, focus a little bit more on relationships, dialogue, and on the actual power and experience of what love truly is. Because whatever practice we're doing, whatever it is, without the emergence of real kindness and love and what that really is, we only have the empty shell. Many, many, many confuse what love really is, and then get confused about why they're having consequences that they never thought would happen. Because so we will explore that in this next era. I love the phrase era. But that's what it is. And it's nice to allow our life and our living and ourselves to experience different eras. Actually, they're inevitable because events change, relationships change, the days go by, it's inevitable. And sometimes we fear a new era. We don't know what's going to happen. How can I handle this? Well, everything, everything, you can live beautifully and contribute beautifully through all the eras. And here we're going to learn how to welcome the eras and welcome ourselves and take new steps forward. So that's a really wonderful way to approach the end of the year and the beginning of the new year. And I thank you, thank you for listening. The website for our podcast is www.zenwisdomtoday.com. Please join in. Share it if you think someone would find meaning in it, and have a beautiful, beautiful day. Bye bye.
