Letting the mind settle. Public talk. Geneva, 2019
James Low
Letting the mind settle: how to find freedom without searching and striving
Public talk, Geneva, 7th July 2019.
Organised by Manon Widmer.
Transcribed by Sanatan.
Listen to the audio recording here.
Extracts
…If instead of applying the concept ‘flower’ we just look and open to it like the Buddha did, simply sitting there. When thoughts and feelings arise we don’t enter into them. When we look at the flower and don’t layer the flower with our interpretations, we find we have less and less to say, less and less to think. This flower, when we don’t fill it with us, shows us our emptiness. The more knowledge we have about flowers and the more we fill its shape with us, the more impossible it is for the flower to fulfill its task of freeing us.
…Everything which arises, passes. The more we stay with that the more we see that we are grasping only echoes. The sound has already gone, the moment has already gone. This is just some echo or some shadow. That is what concept is. Concept is like a snail on the ground that leaves a little silvery trail behind it. We are always tracking the world after the moment. We are always behind in time when we are following concepts. But, when we are on the point there is nothing to say, and yet we get everything. Everything was freely available. That is the basic way of proceeding in both mahamudra and in dzogchen…