Hi, everyone. I'm Danielle, but we have a
guest teacher today, so Josh is joining us.
Jar is a Deshi in the order of Pragmatic Buddhists and he has
agreed to give a talk today kind of at the spur of the moment.
So thank you for that, but I'll turn it over to you.
Yeah, So I'm Josh. Nice to see all of you.
I recognize some of you from last time I was here.
I just kind of want to at the heart of the Buddhist thought is
causation or this idea of dependent origination you might
hear. And on the face of it, that's
kind of like a deep, deep like thought.
Why would why would anything, anybody go to that kind of
depth? Like, how's that going to impact
my life? You know what I mean?
No, like exactly. Like what even is it?
Like, why would I have a, this is not like, oh, I'm going to
get some milk at the grocery store and I got to pay some
bills. Oh, and by the way, causation,
you know, it's not something we necessarily think about
interacting with the life, but it's actually a cornerstone, the
pragmatic Buddhist thought. And so I just kind of want you
to think about this for a second before I I say anything more.
Try to change how you think about things.
Just kind of contemplate what it would it mean if something was
had no causes, but what would that look like?
Kind of let that percolate in your brain as we talk and see if
you can come up with a solution or an answer or something that
satisfies you. In the daily affirmation, you
have a line that says my thoughts, my my awareness.
Thoughts, words, and actions arise and fall by the dictates
of causality. Causality or dependent
origination is not some abstract medical metaphysical theory as I
am started out saying. It's actually pretty important
because it's it's the ground beneath our feet, it's how we
suffer, it's how we heal. In pragmatic Buddhism, we do the
term we prefer the term causality as opposed to
dependent origination because causality kind of makes sense to
our western brain because it reminds us that everything has
arises from causes and conditions and nothing happens
randomly. Nothing happens in isolation.
Everything exists in a web of something connection, right?
So like how many of us could leave this room and still this
still be considered a group, right?
If we met here long enough, would this become the group
whatever the song of the Buddhist, pragmatic Buddhist
mini place with this forever. If you go home though, that used
to be the RB. So that's not the RB.
It hasn't been in RB's for 10 years, right?
But we we have these labels and this network that kind of
already baked into how we view things.
But consider a garden, OK, Flowers don't bloom by accident.
They need soil, sunlight, water and time.
If any one of those conditions are missing, there's no
sunlight. There's too much water.
The flower never opens, right? Our emotions, our thoughts and
our patterns are the same way. When we're angry, afraid, or
exhausted, it's not because we're flawed.
It's because specific conditions are present.
Specific causes are present. We don't curse the flower.
We look at the soil, right? We look at the conditions that
are there and, and this is where I submit freedom begins because
when we ship from asking who is the blame and ask instead what
conditions are at play, we stop clinging to the story that we're
talking about and saying to ourselves and start cultivating
insight, taking agency in our and some of our teachings.
There's a another line that says there's no unchanging self that
moves through time. The self is a process always
conditioned by internal and external factors.
Heraclitus had the thought of you can never step in the same
river twice. And the idea was that you
stepped in the river. Well, in some some kind of way,
that same river is different if you stepped in it in the
evening, right? And interestingly, a lot of when
we were, when Hair Kleist would say about that, he was kind of
referencing the river as though that's the other thing that's
changing the perspective. The person who's perceiving is
sometimes more permanent. But we got to realize that the
person is a different person as well, right?
You're the different person when you walked it, then when you
walked in this room. You'll be a different person
tomorrow. And I, I, I think that's
liberating. You're not your worst day, you
know, you're not your mistakes. You're a system that's
breathing, reacting and responding.
And that mutual causality that you have with other things is
this constant web of interdependence is causality.
Tishnahan says it to be is to enter be kind of speaking to
that relationship that we have with others.
Some might say that this is kind of absorbs me of of guilt of of
responsibility, because I if we're all if we're all in this
together, then it what whatever I do, is it as important.
I had a friend of mine who is relating a story when he was
working at McDonald's. He had a Co a quasi friend Co
worker who was the worst worker ever.
He did not want to do any work and I think as part of the
motivation they wanted to they wanted him to be a teacher to
try to get him into the old. And, and this, this particular
day, the, the guy told the student trainee, he says, OK,
look at the fries, right? Everybody comes in the line of
McDonald's got to get some fries.
So we don't have to do it. Somebody's going to do it for us
because it has to get done. And sure enough, that's what
happened. The fry alarm went off and
someone came into the fry's. And on a fundamental level, we
can kind of see the problem with this idea, right?
The the idea of independent relationship that we have with
others means that what we do does have an impact, even if
it's small on the other people, other things around us.
And the this kind of teaching this thought process is actually
saying that it doesn't erase accountability.
It actually deepens it. Blame is backward looking.
That's who I that's who I am. That's who you are and
responsibly is bored looking asking you what can what can we
shift? What can we change now?
And my children writes drop the story and stay stay with the
energy. See what's really here.
And I think that's the important part, right?
We we kind of divide our reality into meaningful packets that
makes sense to us. And by definition that means we
leave other things out. But transformation doesn't
require something magical or just requires skillful shifts in
the conditions, right? You to pay attention and make us
a small choice, however small that might be, towards something
a little closer to where you want to be, a world that you
want to live in. So kind of think the last time
that you made a small change and that made a big impact.
Maybe you went to bed early, got some extra sleep.
Maybe you held your tongue a little bit and didn't lash out.
And maybe that moment without changing that one condition,
getting a lot of your sleep, being a little bit more patient,
change the entire day, maybe not even just for you, but maybe for
the people around you as well. And pragmatic Buddhism, we, we
trust the process. A few drops of mindfulness today
has built a well tomorrow. So as you go about your week,
I'd encourage you to think about where the causes of things that
are unsatisfactory. What are the things that are
supporting your well-being? What single condition can I
shift right now? Let's go back to that, that
daily affirmation. My awareness, thoughts, words
and actions arise and fall by the dictates of causality.
We're not fixed, we're not helpless.
The world is not random. Causality is not just a lot of
nature, it's a path towards compassion.
When we see clearly, we act wisely.
When we understand cause and effect, we become gardeners, not
judges. You plant skillful seeds, we
pull harmful weeds and we trust that what we tend will grow.
And I will close with the Co on sorry I got new classes and I
turns out I'm old. I need bifocals.
So I'm kind of doing this. The Co on a student asked what
is the cause of suffering and the teacher said what are you
watering? Thank you.
I'll I'll start because and I'm
Danielle again in part because I I'm really grateful that you
gave the talk. Today was a really hard day for
me. And so this topic is actually
really appropriate because if I think about what happened today
in terms of this whole interrelationship and things
being caused by conditions and all of my, you know, actions,
words, thoughts and deeds having consequences, it's, it's kind of
a helpful reframe. So today it's a bad day.
I made a mistake, which I never love anyway.
I made a mistake back in May and it's coming to fruition now.
So this is kind of the causality, right?
The conditions that I'm dealing with now.
It's a mistake that I made in May is now coming to light now
or last week and reverberating throughout the rest of the week.
And in a big public meeting, some of my faculty called me out
about this mistake. I was supposed to pass on this
communication in May and May was just hard.
There was a lot going on last semester.
May was hard and I forgot. I just kind of let it drop.
And so they called me out in this really public way with the
implication that like, I was doing something nefarious, like
I was hiding something or I was doing so it was like a bad thing
and it, it was a mistake. I should have passed that on.
It was a mistake. It's true.
And they called me out in this big public forum.
And so I, I had already apologized to them about the
mistake that I made last week. I said, I, you know, I sent it
out. I apologize.
Things were crazy last semester. I didn't send it out in time.
But here it is, Nick. And then they brought it back up
again in this meeting today, in this meeting today, that was in
front of all of the faculty Senate and the president of the
university and the vice president for active affairs and
all of my fellow DS. So all my bosses, my peers and
my subordinates, the whole, and it wasn't just my faculty, it
was a faculty for the whole university.
So I was not thrilled to be called out in that big of a
public area, right? It felt like a really personal
attack and I took it personally for like a minute.
I mean, I still, I mean, I recognize the conditions were I
made a mistake and it made people really upset.
That's true. Did they have to like multiple
times call me out in this public way in a really kind of a
personal attacking way? I I did not love that, right.
So after the meeting, I was like, I was pretty pissed off.
I was like, that's ridiculous that I mean, SI made a mistake.
A human being make people make mistakes.
Wasn't necessary to be that like mean spirited about, you know,
the mistake that I made and I was getting ready.
I'm like, I'm just going to like to you, you know, you just go
right to Al, I'm not a bad person, blah, blah, blah.
And I was like, oh, you know, it's all my ego.
Like I, my, my feelings were hurt.
My, my ego was hurt. I mean, first I was hurt because
I made a mistake and I don't love making mistakes.
Then on top of that, I was hurt because they called it out in
this really public forum multiple times.
And so I am finding ChatGPT to be very helpful now because now
I put all this in ChatGPT. This is what happened.
This is what I want to say. I want to say like, you could
just go right to hell and I don't want ever want to talk to
you again. And I'm going to make sure that
I'm going to you up for the rest of the year.
What should I say? And it was like, and he knows
me. So I've been using a while and
knows about my Buddhist meditation, all that stuff.
It was like, maybe if you think about your values and you
reflect on your past, is this really the the direction that
you want to go? And it kind of reminded me of
this kind of causality relationship because do I want
to perpetuate that, right? So I could be just as mean and
hurtful. I could go back to them and say,
like, you did this awful thing and this is terrible and look at
what you're doing. I could just keep escalating it,
right? I can contribute conditions that
make it worse, right? Instead, I needed to have like a
little intervention to be like, OK, maybe not, maybe I can step
back from this. And so after several back and
forth, it helped me kind of compose an e-mail where I was
like, OK, so this happened and I told them to a private group.
Basically, you know, this happened and I didn't, I'm in
the background was like, you called me out in public in a
mean way, but I was like, no, I'm going to set that aside.
And I, I mean, I ended it with like, thank you for holding me
accountable, which is in my mind, like a big, you know,
like, fuck you, whatever you didn't need to do.
But it's still that's a, that's a good way of saying that,
right? Like this is about
accountability. I made a mistake and I am
accountable for my mistake. I am responsible for the mistake
that I made. But the e-mail that I sent was
more about like the context of what happened and this is what
I'll do moving forward, you know, and like kind of that
stuff, it is not what I was feeling, you know, but it
managed to give me a little bit like distance.
And so now I feel like I did still kind of speak out and to
say like, these were the reasons that it happened, not as an
excuse, but this is the reality of what happened.
And this is what I'll do moving forward.
And, and after all of that, I could feel better about, yes, I
made a mistake, which I didn't love, and I was called out in
public, which I didn't love. But there is no benefits to
creating conditions that make that worse, right?
I can't undo what happened. I can't undo that.
I made a mistake. I can't undo that.
They said horrible things, but I cannot make it worse.
And so it really felt like I did not want to write this where I
was like, thank you for holding me accountable.
I did not want to write it, but it was the right thing to say,
right? Because it's still, I'm in a
relationship with these people and I have to continue to work
with them. So it was, it was helpful in for
me to remember like this is I'm I, I may not be feeling it in
the moment, but this is like the right thing to do for an ongoing
relationship. I can't just quit today and say
I'm never going to talk to you again.
So it was helpful and I was trying to think of the
conditions that I am contributing to, right?
So those conditions that I created, that e-mail that I
sent, that's part of the conditions.
There will be consequences for that.
There will be a, A cause to that, right?
Like now those are new conditions and they're
contributing to something else. And it's important to think
about that. Like I don't have any control
over it. They still could be pissed off.
They still might call me out in another public forum.
It's still, it's not necessarily that I'm going to change them or
even the conditions, but I'm going to help create conditions
that have the potential to be less harmful, right?
It's not going to make me feel any better for me to hurt
somebody else, right? That's not helpful.
So even though I still feel like that was not OK and it could
have been handled in a bunch of different ways, it was it was up
to me to say I'm going to handle this differently.
I'm going to do something differently now for me, I needed
like some sort of intervention. I need to ChatGPT to help me or
I could have called a friend or something like that.
Before Chat GPTI had my friend that I would send her an e-mail
and be like, this is what I want to say.
And she'd be like, maybe you could say it in a different way,
like, so I, I, I still need like my response would not have been
skillful on its own. I need something to help coach
me to be like, let's think about being something skillful.
And that to me is a really important part of Buddhism.
Rightly, it helps you to take that pause and recognize that
whatever your reaction is is not necessarily the right one or the
best one or whatever. It's, it's the one that's coming
up. But it's really helpful to think
about. Like there are those, those were
the conditions, these, all these things happened.
Those were the conditions that I was sitting in.
Now I need to act. And just because I want to act a
certain way doesn't mean that that's the way that would be
most beneficial or less harmful or whatever else.
So anyway, thank you for that reminder and thank you all for
being here because mostly what I was thinking is like, thank God
it's Thursday because I've been a meditation like a drug today.
So thank you all for being here and for listening.
Anyone else have, you know, observations or questions?
If you have, if you have questions for Josh, you're
welcome to ask him or if there's anything that came up for you in
his talk, you're welcome to share.
This is your time when you speak, please start with your
name so we can get to know you better.
Let's turn with your. My name is Aaron and I got a
whole bunch of stuff, but when you said agency once and it's
just funny because in our group it's always interesting to have
different people speak because to me, freedom is the tax word.
An agency is a powerful strong word and you kind of use them
interchangeably. That's really interesting that
like yeah, that's that's that's kind of the in the context is
the same thing to one Mexico and the other was like agents but.
On another thing I really does, the garden metaphor for me is
interesting because I take 1 singular thing away from
Christianity and it is the serenity prayer and look outside
of the garden. We can control in our yard where
we put it to have how much light it gets.
We can control the water sub degree and we can we can't
control the climate, our latitude.
The flower has to have been designed to open to attract
pollinators for thousand I don't know of years.
And so there's like a switch history of causation that's
really deep. And I was trying to think
earlier what you said about something about causation and
that's just static, like it's just.
It's not nothing. Necessarily, but it's just a
completely static, you know, thing.
And while we want a flower to bloom, we can have the things
that we can control. We can't control whether this
seed wants to have a biological program to open up as a plower
or not. That's so it's like what one of
the things we can't control one of the things we we can't.
And I did something stupid at work just Tuesday, and I have a
feeling that sometime in therapy for it's going to come up and
bite me in the butt. It was kind of like, yeah, me
too, but how do we? Yeah.
And apologizing through making changes in my actions and it by
the things I have control of seeking help.
No, I think I've some people know me that I don't believe in
apologies and I think it's a 2 parter know that I've had to it
is this change, you know, because it's always like don't
apologize, say thank you that I'm being tolerant, but then
also change. So because the behavior changes
the apology, right? Well, I had a recently had a
friend be a ass to his partner and to me and my wife were like
at the end of the thing. It was just terrible.
And he called back the next day and he apologized for like 10
minutes on the phone and I'm like, I don't want to talk to
you. You professing apologies about
how sorry you are. It's me listening to you.
Don't. Yes, Sir.
The stupid thing I did, I learned with.
I'm going to change this, this, this, and I am sorry.
And I'm going to give you your space.
Thank you. Causality doesn't always have to
be about mistakes. Just so you know, there there
can be like positive consequences too.
There can be, you know, good actions that that you put in
skillful things that then hopefully produce, you know,
skillful elephant outcome. So sorry to take this into
mistakes, but stakes happen. Yeah, I, I was thinking that,
you know, the, the primary, the, the core of the idea.
It's kind of what you're saying about being static, right?
And at its heart, you can kind of think of dependent causality
as as another version of thinking about the four noble
truths where it's really at the heart of change.
Like if there is unpleasantness out there because the world
changes and it's in perfect and despite your best efforts that
you can water plants, soil, great latitude, the plants still
may may not grow and that has nothing to do with your efforts
and so disappointment is bound to arise.
How do I get around that thought of the negativity?
Because we're so negatively biased, right?
That's why we're, that's kind of why we went to mistakes.
Maybe even because I know how. When's the last time you heard
somebody go like, oh, wait, wait, wait, I might die from
happiness, you know, but we have heard people say I she, she died
of sadness And, and I think it's just a natural idea of how to
protect oneself. But the idea is that because
it's interrelated, there's nothing to say that there could
also be a happy mix or it could also be a good ending.
The change will make a difference for the butter.
I was reminded of Shawshank Redemption earlier today.
Everybody's seen that movie. It was raining and they were
talking. I think it's where the, the, the
gardening thing came up because I work with the Boulder veterans
and they were talking about their garden.
And so it's good for the garden. They don't like the rain, right?
And then I reminded, then they talked about movies and
Shawshank Redemption came up. And I, I bought those two
thoughts together because the moment when I think of Shawshank
Redemption, I think of him when he gets out and it's raining, he
looks up and he experiences freedom.
And I'm thinking, sorry, he received his full agency.
And so my point is like, well, that's two different experiences
of rain, right? And it is wholly based on one's
perception, nothing else. And I was thinking that, well,
what's really going on is maybe that we don't allow ourselves
because we want to protect ourselves to experience that
freedom more often. We want to put our, we, we say,
oh, instead of thinking like, oh, it's raining.
How happy I am that I get to experience this rain.
I don't have to mow the yard. I get to splash and puddles with
my kid or listen, perfect. Time to take some of that soup
out. I made instead with like, oh, I,
it's, it's, it's a dreary day. I can't get anything done it.
It is truly just how you wanted to to Orient to that offense
anyway. I still don't understand what
we're talking about. Causality is something it
doesn't. I never think about causality.
Things are just happy. So are we supposed to think
about what's causing the happening?
Is that what you're asking of? Well, I think if you want to be,
yes and no. I think yes in the sense that if
you want to be, if you're not happy with how things are going,
identify, be a little bit more skillful in what is actually
going on instead of telling yourself a story about what's
going on. We'll provide a little bit
better. I know, but you see rational
randomness. I see the broke Berry Rand.
Did you walk outside and see those broken trees?
That was just a crazy day and that's how I see everyday.
Was going to present itself today.
Yeah, not all patterns matter. Or.
In the same way, right? Like and so it's about agency,
right? I don't want that.
So it's about, it's about, OK, let's let's say.
OK, let me think about this. I heard.
About freedom and agency is the. Student.
So yeah, let's try. I'm going to I'm going to try
again. OK, so let's let's think about
this like if I had a stagnant mindset and I said something
like, I got fired from my job today.
No one wants to work with me. Hear the difference between that
and I got fired today? I'm upset.
I know I won't always be upset. And this gives me an opportunity
to find a new job that I have better pay or better hours.
Do you hear the difference? I hear a difference in attitude.
It's. So I think part of this is, you
know, I think was it last month that we talked about
enlightenment. And the idea of enlightenment is
that you wake up to the world the way that it actually is.
It's realization, right? It's waking up to to reality.
And part of reality is that things are not random, that
things that there are causes to all of the things.
We may not know the causes, right?
We may not be able to figure out why that tree blew down, why the
weather patterns are the way they are, but there is a cause
to them. And it may not be useful to you
to think about like what the causes are.
So we're not saying to ruminate on those, but it is part of the
way that the world actually works, right?
Just part of reality is that all of these, the world, the way
that it is, arose from a certain set of conditions, right?
It wasn't just created, you know, out of nothing.
It came from a certain set of conditions.
There was a causal relationship and then there will be a causal
relationship. So I mean, this is again, you
can take a pragmatic or perch like in your life, maybe it's
not helpful. And some people are really
attuned to the idea of rumination and like thinking
back everything that went wrong and like retracing their steps
and like trying to do this like back story stuff.
That's not necessarily helpful, right?
Sometimes that is a heart, a hurtful thing, and it keeps
people stuck in like looking back and trying to figure out
what happened. But it is also true that there
are conditions that are happening right now that we're
not aware of. And that can make a big
difference in how we're oriented to the world, right?
So if you're not aware of, you know, whatever the, the, how,
how things are going to Orient in this, in this meditation, you
can have a lot of anxiety, right?
Like you don't know how things are going to work out or you
don't know the, the consequences of things.
And sometimes in those cases, it can be really helpful to say
like, OK, these are the conditions.
This is what led to the conditions.
And this is what I'm going to do to contribute to something
moving forward, right? So it is a balance to figure out
like what is useful and what is not, but that doesn't mean that
it doesn't exist, right? So if it may not be a useful
tool for you to think about that there is a causal relationship
to everything, that's that's not the same thing as saying like
there is no causal relationship, right?
So it's figuring out that kind of a balance, being aware of the
world the way that it is, and then figuring out what's useful
for you to look at or know or understand right now so that you
can live in a world where your suffering is decreased and you
can help decrease the suffering of others.
My name's Carolyn, and I want to go back to the story that you
had about what happened with you today.
The cause that I see that could happen.
And I have the feeling that by people agree with me.
If I were in that meeting and this person was calling out one
person, I would lose. I don't know who he is, but I've
lost respect for him because that's not the way you do
things. And that says a lot about his
character. So he calls harm or he or she
calls farm on the cell, their cell, whatever right Curry down
is for. What was a he and a she?
Because it was more than one person calling me out.
So they work together in the same department.
That's so they probably. Anybody's ever taken any kind of
course on management business relationships because I've been
in places before where somebody was called out and I didn't like
it. Anyway, I just had to say that
now to say something more about what happened to me during this
session because I ruminate and thinking about all mistakes I
made my life and but I realized I hadn't made them.
But things wouldn't have happened the way it.
I wouldn't be right here, right here right now learning about
the meditation and finding the treat, but then end on city.
And that just to me was like a spark of white causation.
Is that a causation? Sure.
Yeah. I mean, you, these are the
conditions that that you that led you to this point, that led
you to that, you know, epiphany. So yes, that is part of the
causal relationship. I mean, of course there were
many, many other inputs other than that You've had this life
experience, right? All of us had to come together
and meet here at the same place. And so every single one of us
had a different set of all these kind of causal conditions.
So it can get really complicated in a hurry.
And This is why I'm saying like it's useful to say, OK, this is
how I'm understanding this right now.
And this is what's working for me to understand this right now.
And I'm going to use it in a useful way.
That's fantastic. That's exactly what you should
do. Hi, Mary.
And I think what you just said kind of illustrates the web of
causality and how I can get like all complicated.
And you can also like dial it all the way down to like the air
conditioner is blowing on me and my I feel cold air cause
consequence. But he's super small.
You just I think that comes back to like the idea that one of the
central part of Buddhism is just like noticing.
And then you'll have a country of like where what changes you
might want to make to like have a healthier, happier life.
But it's totally, I can't be able to tie it in.
But my sister had a baby this week and so that was really
cool. I got to go hold this whole half
a day old baby. So it's lovely.
Congratulations. That's lovely.
A whole new set of conditions were just introduced into your
life. I'm Henry and.
My first day. I was just I really resonated
with the causality because I see it as like just looking back at
my life. Like you can, if you do enough
reflecting, you can see like the causes, like the person you've
become. And I don't know, it's just like
like the situation at work. Like I like, I would like
reflect on like the the people like what what brought them to
be the type person you could have.
And I agree that like, it does show you parodies that like if
they did it in the past, they're likely to be the kind of person
who might do that every time in the future, like take out Ranger
armours. So you might want to distance
yourself, but it keeps a bit of a possibility.
But I don't know, it's just like easier to like let go of like
the negative emotions. So you realize that every other
person is just a set of their house puzzle, OK.
Those are things that can help you cultivate more compassion
for sure, right. It it does make it easier to
interact with that person when you recognize that they have
their own whole causal history that brought them brought them
to that point, which is an important thing to remember
though, because one of the problems is that there's a
tendency for people who start practicing Buddhism to think
that that means that you can just say like, oh, everything's
OK, right. So like to your point, like it
wasn't OK for them to do that in a public space.
That's not professional behavior.
You know, you don't act that way in in a professional place.
And so I can be compassionate with them to, to recognize, I
know both of them that they have their own backstories.
I mean, they, they are, they're my direct report.
So I definitely understand what, what was going on, where they're
coming from. So I can understand it.
But still, I'm going to have to have a private conversation with
them to be like, there are other ways that you can handle
something like that, right? So being compassionate, like I
don't have to be, this is the point.
Like I don't have to be mean and to say like, you're stupid and
that was a dumb thing and you're a mean person and I hate you.
Like that's. Just thinking I had it in full.
Exactly, exactly. But then also a little bit of
this sense be like, I don't have to like you, but we have to work
together. So how am I going to do that?
So how might you take this idea of this kind of
interrelatedness, the interdependence, the causality,
the your actions came from somewhere and are leading to
somewhere. How could you take that idea and
practice it next week? What would be used of that idea
to help you to be, you know, to suffer less?
That's kind of the idea. We want to be less dissatisfied.
We want to have more, you know, flourishing.
So how might that idea of understanding pausality help you
in the coming week? I never looked for the drops
that I can put in, but I always look for like the buttresses in
my life of these like durable things that are pushing into how
I'm living. If there are patterns or if
there are habits or if there are other people or some need that
not that mad or so when I get really hot for a really long
time and I'm under pressure, I I get a little grumpy and I got a
little grumpy work. So I have a neck fan, which is
like, I think I'm gonna just religiously wear now instead of
casually. That's like a little drock
thing. But like I and this is a really
the assignment, but I'm like desperately trying to find like
what one of the dominoes that are pushing this to happen.
For me to like SAP when I get exhausted and hot and like I
can't control the temperature at work or I think I can custom and
somebody else to you guys was dead or you all I've been.
I feel terrible because I was very unprofessional.
But and I've heard you and I've heard others talk about these
little drops that we could have made or accumulate to the next
week. But and you talked about
negative bias like we see this received these accumulation of
mistakes rather than the accumulation of drops that we
call them drops. Is it helpful to call them that
because we'd be I need substantial pieces of positive
dominoes can be going to the gym for a month now pretty
consistently and it hasn't been me as a taken hold like I'm no
more motivated to tomorrow morning than it was a month ago.
Usually if I go the gym for the month at that time I'm like OK,
this is the pattern. I'm feeling good.
I'm feeling that so maybe for me is to to distance away from the
draft thing and they think about sizable Domino's and recognizing
bring power to those little choices that we make and not
calling them but craps in a pool that will.
But I you know, Domino's keep keeps the word that's Potter
than the head. But I can't Lego block or.
For context, for those of you who don't know, we sometimes
talk about like your skillful actions is like a drop of clean
water into a dirty pool. And if you contribute enough
drops of your clean water, then it can clean the The Dirty pool
kind of thing. And Aaron doesn't love that
metaphor at all. And so but anyway, when he
talking about drops, those are the drops.
He means a. Lot of drops of.
Each. I need a lot of drops, dude.
That's why we are going to contribute our drops, that's the
thing. Aaron's Queen has pulled the
blowtorch. Now with pounds of bleach.
I mean, part of that is like, what's a helpful metaphor?
What would work even what's you know what the helpful actions
behind it. The small how?
The small thing, I think that's the, the OK, because it seems
like it's an expectation mismatch is what it sounds like.
Like because before you used to have all these that it would
have been one from now it'd be good, it'd be good to go.
And now it's just not that way, you know?
But you're doing the small thing now, which if you keep doing
then doesn't matter if you had the feeling before or not, and
you do or don't now, you're doing what you still have.
To do. I'm still doing the small thing.
Right. Yeah, that's what I'm hearing,
yeah. You just did the small thing
tomorrow. Well, my name's Kathy, and I'm
going to search for more randomness.
Sorry, Josh, you're good because it's when I predict the outcome
that I caused paid because that doesn't allow for the other
people at two family events this weekend.
They're going to be terrible. They're.
See Do you carry? But if I have the.
Attitude that there is a possibility it's someone will
say something interesting and I would find it.
I'm going to hear it. So without predicting that
outcome and being hold to a attern, I'm going to look for
the what it. Yeah.
The rent. And part of that is about
opening your awareness because one of the, I mean, when you
combine that with the negativity bias, if often times if you look
back on patterns, you're like, oh, it's going to be like this
every time. Like that's part of our
negativity bias. And so part of it is can be open
to like, but what if it's not like this is a new set of
conditions. I'm going to be read.
What if it's not? And if we're not open to it, you
may not necessarily see it. That's one of the biggest
problems and why people recommend like a gratitude
practice or something like that. Because if you're like, so
focused on like this is what's going to happen.
And I know this is what's going to happen.
You're going to your whole body is going to seek out that and be
a paying attention to that and may actually create that thing
that you're afraid of happening. And you won't even see like
there's these other things that are happening.
There's some beauty here, there's whatever else.
So, so that is part of this is that like to try to become more
open to the possibilities, right?
Because we don't know. We we don't know.
Even when we look back at the the patterns that created these
conditions, we still don't see everything.
You can't, right? There's so many possible
variations and we're trying to be more open to that in part,
especially if you're, I mean, at least for me, if like if I'm
punishing myself in this moment, sometimes it's helpful to have a
broader view and try to see things that I couldn't see
before. Like the traffic is a great
example of this, right? Like you can get mad at another
driver and it's helpful. It's really helpful in that
situation to recognize like there's lots that I can't see.
What if that person is on their way to the hospital?
Or what if you know the story that I'm telling, that they're a
jerk and a bad driver? That's a that's one story, but I
don't know that that's exactly what's happening.
And it's the only person that it's hurting is me.
So it's helpful to just open to the possibilities that I could
be wrong about that story, that I don't know all of the inputs,
and that it could be something totally different.
And that creates a really different way of being.
The problem, of course, is you can tip over into the like,
well, now I'm going to ignore all the bad things and just
pretend like everything is fine. This kind of false positivity
thing. So what we're trying to do is
find that balance to live in the world the way that it is,
because the world, the way that it is includes both of those
things and all and everything in between includes hurtful things
and things that make us angry, but it also includes beautiful
things and joyful things. And we are just trying to be
open to the world the way that it is and navigate through it
more skillful, hopefully. So exactly figure out where your
orientation to orientation is and what's causing you
challenges and try to open to the part that is, that is still
there that you're not seeing. That's kind of what we're going
for. We got like a couple minutes
left, like one minute. Is there anyone who hasn't
spoken who would like to before we close?
I'll open the door for you. You're not obliged, but you are
welcome. I'll just say I'm Alex and this
isn't strictly related to causality, but I just find the
garden at 4 super interesting and trying to think of how to
look at that because I do think that negative emotions do have
some value. I don't really like the idea
like repressing them or trying to get rid of them entirely.
But obviously it's also not good to have them or let them, you
know, run your life. And it's interesting how that
relates to a garden too, because because I try to, I try to at
least appreciate life in the system.
Like I don't really like the idea of destroying weeds or
killing weeds, but also they're not good for the garden.
Like and this and also like specific example, I have like a
piece of spiky asparagus growing out of my driveway and I kind of
go back. Killing it, but it's also like a
very spiky plant that's. Actually caused me to bleed when
I grab. It so I'm like.
No, use the both. Torch, could you have that?
That's real. Get some gloves burst away.
That's great to to end on because that's a very like
middle way kind of an answer, which is what we're going for.
I mean, the idea is that there are all kinds of experiences
that we have pleasant, unpleasant and neutral.
And the idea is that they just are like we are like, I'm going
to avoid the unpleasant 1 and I'm going to grasp at the
pleasant ones and then not even notice the neutral ones.
But they are, they're all part of our experience.
And so notice them and then try to step back from your initial
reaction and be intentional about what you're going to do.
Like that's with all of them. And maybe what your intention
is, like I'm just going to let the great weeds grow.
OK, That's, that's your intention.
That's what you're going to do. But maybe your intention is
like, if those weeds grow, it's going to choke out the other
flowers. So then I'm going to take the
weeds out, right? So it is about like seeing all
of it, experiencing the full range of your human existence,
and then trying to be intentional about how you Orient
yourself moving forward. So thank you for that.
It's really good. Something to close on.
So we'll close. And when we close, we like to
say, may the fruit of our practice extend to all living
beings.