Born free: you can’t catch me, and neither can I. Gutenstein Retreat, 2005

Gutenstein Retreat, September 2005

James Low

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Transcribed by Johanna Stoll
Edited by Wendy Chozom

Excerpts:

Rather than the mind being a possession of the self, the self is a construct of the mind. When we don’t realise this, the openness of the mind is ignored by grasping at a product of the mind – the self.

ཨ ཨ ཨ

At the heart of meditation practice is the subtle work of re-balancing the tilt away from the centrality of the felt ego-sense of self, and towards the more open and relaxed direct experience of the mind.

ཨ ཨ ཨ

It’s not so much the reactivity or the interaction of body and mind and environment that is the problem, this interactive flow is just how things are. The problem arises with the interpretive or narrative structure through which we make sense of an event. We are trying to make sense of our situation by taking in some things (those we like to arise) and pushing away other things (those we don’t like to arise). However, all of this is movement; this is the energy of the mind which reveals itself, but you can’t see the source if you are caught up in the product

ཨ ཨ ཨ

The suffering of samsara arises because we know that we are infinite and unchanging but, in an effort to realise this stability of identity, we project our knowledge on to the individual ego-self which is always changing.