How to Live Out Your Potential - Maitreyabandhu

so yeah my name is my trade bandeau and I are leading this course together yeah just to reiterate do sort of good to saying you know come come early I think most people what they really could do is a bit of a nap you know we should have sponsored sort of napping you know most of us now are working on computers and so on so if you can get here you know ten to seven is we'll be putting out maths and so on but and just lie down a little bit of a nap before it before the class starts and you'll get much more from it than yes so yeah just right that's someone in our group with us we did a bit of what are you hoping for and what are you not hoping for and somebody in our group was saying they're a bit surprised at the numbers they were hoping for peace and quiet poor deluded creature you come off the crowded cheap cheese so some people do find that a bit first the first evening before you know it once you get to know other people doesn't feel like a crowd anymore it's only when you're sort of more alert to who are these people what am I doing here by the time you two or two two or three weeks in you'll get to know a lot of people here and it won't feel like it's crowded anymore that's why okay so I want to start to say something about the content of the course so every week either surrogate or I will suggest talk about one area we were going to particularly explore in the following week yeah and we're going to be following this book that I wrote so it's slightly embarrassing that that wrote here anyway let's be clear I did write it that is my name when we used to do this court when I first started doing this course would give the book out straight away and people would start reading it and I'd say no no actually this is me that is just that's just a typed out things I typed in my bedroom this is actually me but I've seen people seem much more interested in the book that mention me but so what will we're doing is taking you through the stages that are outlining the book I'll say more about the book in a bit so we'll do that every one of us will do that every every week in the second half we'll have the first off a little bit like we've done except for in the group's we're going to be particularly talking about how we got on with putting what we did said we're going to put into a practice the week before into practice you know so I'm going to say a little bit about the first part of this course and then I'm going to suggest that you could take up some home practice quite specific home practice and then I'm going to get you to break into pairs to decide what you get what home practice you're going to do because next week in your group you're going to talk about how you got on with that and that's what we'll do every every week and we're going to finish this evening as well with a ritual to give for you to take the book mainly because I didn't want to walk around handing the books out like I'd like a junior school teacher you know textbooks it feels much more important that you coming take them from the shrine and I'll say something about that in a minute and then we'll finish with that as I said we used to start with that but yeah perhaps another thing to say about the course as it goes on you know sue Rakuten I want want this course to be very practical it's not a theoretic course primarily is not we're not trying to teach but its doctrine we're not trying to you teach a theory much less an ideology we're trying to hopefully share a vision of life and let's try to put that vision of life into practice yeah so we won't be able to say anywhere near as much as this in the book so as the course goes on particularly it's worth sort of flagging this up it would be good to try and get more time a bit more time aside to read I think more and more of us aren't reading very much anymore it's becoming YouTube videos and so on and so taking over from it becoming slightly uncomfortable isn't it for many of us to sort of open a book we'll just sit there reading it without also checking a phone and doing yeah but as we go on particularly in the second half of the course you know in the last four weeks certain I are trying to introduce things that that the serious deep matters that we can't just I don't know give you a five-minute intro to and that's about it you you will need to read more yeah tickety as the course goes on also you want part of growing that part of yeah I was talking about growing part of growing is also growing in your mind in your thoughts thinking more thinking more deeply being stimulated in your mind yeah so as you go on you'll you'll if you can put more time aside to read yeah I try to write it in a way that's very readable you can tell me I've tried to make it very readable it's not like a textbook or and so on but in this car there's two courses there's another one called life full attention which is more possibly more practical and there's less to study in a way this course is more ambitious in what we try to suggest that you put into practice but also what you try to think about so there might need to put a bit bit of time more time just decided to read and also their chances to ask questions in your group also of us as we're here yeah okay so I want to just say a bit about this first stage of the practice yeah and I thought I'd start actually with the trying cuz we've got this wonderful shrine to banish anger actually the founder of the tree Ratner for this order who died a year ago today so for us it's an important day today in sort of cooked was leading a ritual just this afternoon to commemorate badly badly just means a reverent teacher but you can see the his photograph is below image of the Buddha I remember when I first came here I was 25 who came on the Wednesday night from art school and I remember thinking how embarrassing that I thought I was at Goldsmiths art school where you know I was dragging a burnt piece of tire around the car park the idea of having a gold figure it was like you know just like so embarrassing it was so then you know I thought it would least be a video installation you know actually I was also I remember thinking embarrassing at the same time how wonderful I remember that both the same time thinking how then and then thinking the same time something um that great anyway whatever you think of the figure it represents your potential yeah really as simple as that it represents your potential it's not and your potential is a mysterious thing your potential is not something you have but it's not something you don't have if you ever sometimes when you do when you're in strong communication with people sometimes you really can see their potential and it's a very in itself almost mystical experience because you could see who they could be you could see you know and when you see that you sort of see who they really are and you want to say yes to it you want to say that's it there you've got it there I've had that so many times in my life seeing people's potential and you want to say to them what you've got just that that's it live to that that's who you are and as you grow and develop you'll become more of that but you're also aware that it's it's still in potential its I find it quite mystical there's a whole matter of potential because you also know that it's not being fully lived up to and you know in yourself as well so actually even that's apparently simple word that this is a representation of your potential what we mean by that I think is very deep but that's what the figure represents it represents your potential and it represents a potential that you don't realize you've got it's not just your potential as you think of yourself who you think you are what you think you're capable of it's the potential that goes beyond that but it's not separate from that it's quite difficult really to talk about as soon as you start to feel that you're moving towards your potential even if it's only very incrementally you feel like don't you that your life makes sense you feel like I'm now living this is what I meant to do even you feel like this is this is what my life has been trying to do all the time is unfold its potential if you said to me and you can also feel can't you that I'm not living up to my potential if you go either in my life gone through periods of really very lengthy unhappiness I'm rather prone to an happiness that's particularly when I was very young and part of the pain of unhappiness it is it a sense of your of a potential being stifled of a potential that you have being cramped isn't it that you know that there's much more to life than this and you can't find it you can't get to it yeah so you you sometimes know potential in its absence but that's what the figure represents is your your potential um one of the important things about potential is you don't know what it is and you never quite know what it is so I've just got back from a solitary retreat as I said in in Spain just a two-week one not very long it's two weeks on my own and I'm quite an outgoing extroverted type at least that's the interviewee every time I go on a solitary retreat I arrive I exciting moment where you were in pack you unpack everything important in the right place you put your wheelie bag into the bin and you think okay now what you think that's it that's all there is to do for the next two weeks it's just you and the things that you've unpacked and for various reasons this time I did that and I thought you know this really strong experiences like being on my own such a weird thing for me to do how do I not become a Buddhist I would never have ever done it it would have been unheard of I rang rang my mother before I went I said I got two weeks on my own but what I've been discovering in the other practices actually when I'm on my own in that those conditions potentials arise in me which I would never have thought were there I've just never have known that they were there like one evening and quite a few even remember after supper I I just sit in an armchair and it was dark I didn't look like a lighted candle lovely living had no electricity so just living by candlelight Nick makes you sleep much better because you're not looking to screens or time I just sat with the candle and I sat there for about an hour you know just sort of sitting there not doing anything particularly I wasn't reading I wasn't meditating I wasn't reflecting on space and time and I just sitting there yeah with the candle on the table it suddenly occurred to me this is Saturday night hang on this is athena night and Benidorm is just over the mountain you know they're probably not all sitting on their own with a candle lit I mean perhaps they are and I'm a bit behind the times but but if somebody had said to me when I was young you know you'll wander die you'll spend a Saturday evening sitting in an armchair with a candle there doing nothing for an hour I just thought I just can't wouldn't be idea good that'd be awful that would be or I think oh that would be so spiritual it wasn't actually either it was just an experience a simple experience of being content and contentment is um it's not by its very nature it's not very kind of special you know you don't feel very much it's just like it's just all right it's like being a pulsation you know scratchin yeah you know you just you're just sort of all right but it's and then on a sultry retreat you get used to a bit having these times where you just sort of quite often I just sit in the evening and not even mean - I think I'll wash up in a bit perhaps it was that - I do anything else I just sit here and it didn't feel way strained and it wasn't me even tried to sit that I just didn't just want to say a bit longer and it's only getting back here and into my emails into my work realise that's you know I would never have known that that was part of what I could do just sit there for an hour Saturday evening with a candle live now that might not seem like a big deal contentment is probably one of the rarest human gifts discontent is ubiquitous it's now but just being content which is no special thing and yet it's terribly special it's it's so rare and when you experience it it's a bit like the teenage version of you is proud of you you know if I could go back through time and meet myself as I look very unhappy 13 14 year old and say I'll be out too by that time sit in a room and do nothing for an hour and be contented and not being a big storm of you know agony in my mind I'd be like impressed with myself and that's what living up to your potential means it's living up to the person you hoped to be when you grew up you remember when you were young you thought yeah but when I grow up I'll be I won't have those mood swings I won't I won't be agonizing in my mind about what people think of me I'll be like organized you know my room won't be a mess people will write you know and then you get old and old and it seems to keep on being today living up to your potential it's like living up to in a real way what you hoped for yourself like I was reading I will get onto something in a minute I was reading The Odyssey Homer's The Odyssey which I've never read before I was very poorly educated very badly at school in fact when I was in my junior school they thought it was what they called in those days educationally subnormal that's not a phrase it because I couldn't read who I was quite took quite late so the idea of me reading The Odyssey III always thought things like that with a sort of posh people who'd been to university and studied Greek or something or at least could pronounce the names which I still can't pronounce but you know there are was every morning reading something of the Odyssey before I meditated and that's what living up to your living your potential it's like living the life that you would have hoped for yourself now what this figure is getting at though is that that has no we don't know how far that goes in fact Buddhism would say that it actually it's infinite that it kink your potential keeps opening up into realms of experience that people normally worry about because it feels religious it's got this big word religion now which people are very nervous of it's such a shame because really all it's saying is that there are realms of human experience which go beyond things that you could easily chat about in a pod and it's not because you become religious it's just that human in potential has the potential to keep opening up now we know that on another level a much more obvious level which is a level of human invention we still don't know how much human venture an invention can achieve like you know we just sent her something else possibly solar system yeah we've sent of programs a solar system we know that's unthinkable even quite recently we're still you know human ingenuity and creativity and all which is coming out of human minds it's still findings it can discover more and more things we actually don't know even on that level what human potential is we haven't got to the edge of it we haven't gotten sick we haven't got to the point where we say okay that's about as far as we can go folks you know we don't seem to be able to get to a limit do we now this figure is saying that's true in the depths of your own mind and heart that there is no limit to your potential that your potential isn't a thing that you arrive at it's like a guiding star that you move towards so everything that we're doing on this course is about how do I uncover discover follow up explore my potential and one of the ways all religious figures have done that is tried to make an image for it because it helps you externalize it and imagine it yeah well it helps you to some degree can also hinder but it can help so everything we're trying to do is about uncovering our potential which surely must be what we're here to do is to uncover our potential and we don't know what our potential is sometimes you can have a really difficult experience and to your great surprise you discover resources you didn't know you had it's one of the great things to discover in life that you can you that potential can rise to difficulty because it's going to be difficult you know what however you live what you hope from your life is that you can discover potentials that can actually rise to meet difficulty rather than collapse back my own life I think has been unfortunately very touched by sort of fear I've been a little fearful for a person so I've tended to sort of but get in the way of my potential to rise to difficulty I've got better as I got older but you know it's been a strong habit and my life fearfulness and you'll all have strong habits in your life which get in the way of your potential and you know that already don't you if you have a moment's reflection about your life you know that actually that's getting in the way of my potential and that hurts you when things get in the way of your potential yeah you don't want that it's just it's difficult to work out what you do about it so that's always where we're trying to go sir Oh captain on this course is towards opening out our potential but where we need to start with we need to start or what Buddhism start with your mind yeah you could say it's starts into place it starts with your potential imagined here by this figure whether you relate to that thing or not don't worry about that it starts there and it starts with your particular mind you have now and what is going on to you now right now yeah so the first part of this course the journey in the guide is for the first two weeks this week and next week but to deal with owning your life yeah taking ownership of your life you can't realize your potential and be blind to who you are that that won't work sometimes people try to have a potential but it ain't order to potential or on ideal but it's based on not wanting to know things about themselves or it's based on not knowing themselves very well and we inevitably don't know ourselves very well it's much more difficult knowing you something you think you are to yourself like another person that you have to learn how to work with and I'm still discovering that and you will be discovering that that's that's part of it yeah that's what makes it interesting you don't know yet yeah so this uncovering your potential starts with taking hold of your life taking ownership of your life so surah krypton I are going to talk about this over these two weeks I think the first the main thing I want to stress for this week so it will say more about it next week is well being honest with yourself no noticing the sorts of thing you think being honest with yourself that that's that's how you start to own your life if you're honest with yourself but you're honest with yourself in an interested curious way rather than a condemning way yeah you just think going fancy me thinking that fancy me feeling so angry about that fancy me feeling so needy about that what we if you see it it's quite easy for us human being who we want to be a better person we want to have our potential and if we're not careful we think I don't like that so let's just sort of ignore that yeah so this course starts with owning yourself but you what we're trying to help you do that in a way that isn't condemning yourself because that makes matters worse you soon as you condemn yourself you're just making matters worse some people have got a real habit to do that I've got a bit of habit to do that some of you will do I've tried it it doesn't work don't bother yeah but sometimes because one is worried about condemning yourself you're not honest with yourself either so you're trying to treat yourself like someone else you don't know and that by being privy to their thoughts their actions and their speech you're getting to learn who they are and you try to take ownership of that we'll say much more about that next week so where that starts is noticing what's going on in your mind yeah that the kind of I mean we tend to say your thoughts but thoughts is to ground a word most of what happens in our mind is not our thoughts is it it's not that we're thinking about I don't know the nature of time of space or even thinking how to get to the airport on time we've just thought as it were pours through us doesn't it thoughts images memories associations you know our arguments that we're having in our mind on my thoughts retreat I was having an argument with somebody in my mind I kept on saying okay I think I think we've grabbed it right but you need to do something about that you need to talk to them when you get back because I haven't I've allowed this person to be not really not very good in some ways not be pleasant to me in a way that wasn't in his interest and certainly wasn't in mind but I haven't haven't it look like I think I asked you to stop doing that anyway so I can't go through that scenario and I kept thinking okay yep really good point next time we see them that's going to talk about that and we can deal with that and then I just go through it again I think great marvelous point I got that when you see them again let's do that you know to call that thought is to ground isn't it really it's not you know it's shopping how friends it's just repetitive driven associative often quite noisy stuff isn't it what is it I've got a word for it which means poor puncture they think actually they think it they think it comes from that gesture that you're because the word Punk is to do with hand it comes from a root to do with your hand so it's it's sort of saying that your mind does that doesn't it it spreads down it keeps spreading out connecting one thing with another and you can live in this highly associated associative highly driven unaware state of mind where you're just lost in it on you yeah so you see that calling that thought isn't right because you do think that's not like that this is just noisy driven unaware so thinking yeah that can be the largest part of your life if you're not careful you can live mostly in that con you in noisy driven associative thinking that you even say to yourself please stop like in my on my sorrows with it okay great point we all do that when I get home you know and then that's you know I'd really later I'd find myself back in it again you can say to yourself please stop and even that please stop can become part of that noisy yeah why don't I stop I can't believe I'm thinking about again what guys do because am I you know even trying to make get your mind to stop thinking becomes part of the problem because you can't stop thinking it's not possible so Buddhism calls that propulsion and that's where we need to start yeah notice seeing poor puncture and and first of all learning golly those are the sorts of stuff that go through my mind you know I had to keep on this solitary thinking this is really obviously affected you this situation with this person what do you need to learn from that clearly the reason why it's being reiterated again and again is it your mind trying to flag up that you've got to learn something here yeah so that you try to notice for puncture and try to notice what it's trying to tell you yeah so that's one of the things we're going to be trying to work with is noticing poor puncture the the first thing we're going to try to do is notice it but I noticing I mean clocking you I am thinking this sort of thing and I'm actually often thinking about such as well yeah but not in a critical condition an Otis in way you know if you can with a bit of a sense of humor you like with a bit of a sense of humor if you can it's important to have a sense of humor if you haven't got one go and get one now because life is difficult and you need a sense of humor so then we tried to instead of trying to work it out why am I thinking that which usually just makes it worse doesn't it why why do I keep thinking that I can't believe it that usually just gets you more and more stuck in it so what you need to do what I try to do if you keep stepping out of it into how does it feel in my body to be thinking like this what what's happening so that's all very constructed it's all very cerebral it's all very it's very constructed isn't it it's very fantastical so you can not even notice what's going on around you if it's very strong someone can talk to you and you know you don't hear it because you're so we're cut so cuz so caught up in what's happening in our mind so as soon as you notice it you just say okay that's fine don't worry about that how does my body feel just now what's happening in my body just in more direct sensory sense sense your sins what's going on yeah just try to so you keep stepping out to propanol into the in out of mental preparation out of rumination as it's sometimes called into let me just feel my body yeah so we I'm going to start now to say here's some ways that you can start to work with that internally and I want to suggest a way to work with it externally yeah because not just enough it's not good enough just to work with your mind that's not enough that won't work you need to work with your life so internally as a practice during this week see if you can notice propulsion yeah see if you can notice how it that it changes a lot sometimes it's fairly quiet and so happy happy burbling ninety seconds of my shirt or whatever it is that you verbal sometimes it's quite a ghen izing isn't it can't be quite agonizing and noisy and almost terrorizing self terrorizing it so you can notice it changes keep noticing you with and try quite consciously not to criticize it because that will make it worse I mean you can criticize if you want to but that will make it worse yeah try quite constantly I'll to criticize it I think ok let's me use that as a cue to feel the body and if it's very strong you won't be able to feel your body very much because so much of your energy is caught up in your mind you but that's alright just feel what you can feel now I could say okay just do that for the week and then come back and say how you got on and what you say is mostly forgot to do it yeah you think great idea I must do that you'll be hard push to even remember it by the time you get off the tube if you could you'd be enlightened by next week if you could do that for the whole week just keep noticing the body and then you can take up tonight and so what we're suggesting is you do these three breathing spaces a day yeah three vans they take about three minutes I've sent you all I hope unless you booked very late a recording of me if you got it yep because if you haven't right come and talk to me at the end now I'm getting to tell you how to get it it's a recording of me I know it's a good recording of me doing the taking you through a breathing space yeah so takes about three minutes something like that do and that will finish with it this evening do that three times a day yeah and what I'm going to ask you to do in a moment is work out when would be good time to do that you can also written about it in the book I can't know what page is it on but you'll soon find it it's very simple just do that three times a day do and do that every day until you come next week and then to how that got on you see how that's becoming that's still of challenging but manageable yeah so you might see one on the tube to work I don't know one when you wanna Lou oh sorry tutorial one wall that you back home soon that yeah and you might think ok I'll listen to my chair vanity or I might not whatever so do three of those a day and what you're doing in the breathing face basically is okay what's going on bet you watch a lot of what's going on is mental noise so let's step out of that into you okay and how do you feel in the body let's take a few breaths and let's go back into the day really simple try not to if you can that's better so try not to do it against good people then try not to be too worried about how that went or not just do it yeah don't don't think I had a really good effect made me feel really relaxed just do it and see what happens over time yeah because if you have a aim for what should happen that can get into trouble so that's the internal practice I want you to consider in a minute I'll get us to talking in pairs about can you do that when will you do that yeah and do it three times a day and then the external practice in the book I think I've talked about cultivating mastery I won't go through what was I can't just mean by mastery but what it roughly means is that you do something this week that takes a bit of effort the ports your life in order a bit more yeah so you don't need to worry at the moment about some mystical potential if you're honest with yourself there are things about your life that aren't working for you on there right now do something about one of those things yeah all you need to do is think okay what what what's the sort of things I put off you know I had a friend of mine who used to end up not opening you know requests for mother bills you know and they I mean you had a really bad habit of it and of course they become this terrible presence in his life they would literally bet it was I mean I would freely freak me out it didn't do him any good at all but he had quite a habit of that so something that you know you could do something about and you could do something about it in this week so two suggestions are what could you do to simplify your life is a simple approach to it what where do you deregulate your life and how could you regulate it a bit better so do you end up being on the screen let very late at night is that the sort of thing you do do you do you lie in bed first thing in the morning and look through your emails what what do you do that you know actually isn't in your interest but you feel compelled to do something so simple in that way and we all do stuff like that don't worry about it what is there that you could do to simplify your life or so that's one simple way of putting it okay I'm going to try and go to bed at this time I'm going to gather for that time but be realistic so in your pairs check that it's realistic and then another way you might do it is anything what am I putting off that I could do what what do I eventually put off doing could I do that in the week coming up so if you do that if you do what you've been putting off you'll find that you're proponent goes down a bit so if you're the sort of person who just your your whole room is a kind of tip as it were her and you put off doing anything about it that weighs on you very much and creates lots of mental noise when you clear it up you find that you're the mental noise coins down you have to work on both internally and externally so you might try and think of what have you what do you what have you been putting off doing that you know that you need to do really can you do it it needs to be something you can actually do that you could then talk about next week so

Channel: London Buddhist Centre

Views: 4,387

Keywords: Triratna Buddhist Community, London Buddhist Centre, Buddhism, Meditation

Id: duSy5IStFEw

Length: 39min 52sec (2392 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 08 2019