Good day everyone. Welcome back to dreams warped podcast that helps you sculpt your dreams into reality for this episode. We are going to be talking about the creative nature of this reality and how we can take a greater more active role in realizing the creative potential that exists in every moment that you are alive, sit back relax and enjoy this episode.Hey y'all, before we get into this. They just need to allow a quick word from a sponsor. Thanks for your patience. Hey there listener. If you haven't heard about anchor it's the easiest way to make a podcast. Let me explain it's free. Number one. There's creation tools that allow you to record and edit your podcast right from your phone or computer. I do it from my phone. It's very very easy. Anchor will distribute your podcast for you so it can be heard on.If I Apple podcasts and many more that's one of my favorite features. In fact, it automatically uploads to a bunch of different platforms. You can make money from your podcast with no minimum listenership. It's everything you need to make a podcast all in one place download the free anchor app or go to Anchor F dot f m that's anchored FM to get started. Alright everyone. Let's go ahead and get into this. My name is George and if this is your first time I'm here first. I want to say thank you for taking some time to check out the content on this podcast this podcast presents a psychotherapist and Zen Buddhist perspective on the mind and how it manifests your moment-to-moment reality. Ultimately this information is healed here to help you create the life. You want live with more peace more happiness more joy and most importantly to feel more connected to the highest Part of Yourself source. You're interested in that kind of stuff. You've definitely come to the right place. And on this podcast. We have a couple of series. We have our Tuesday taoism. We also have our Zen stream on Sundays. And today we're going to be going into our Zen stream. So again welcome and thank you so much for listening. So for those of you who have been listening to the podcast for a little while. Just want to take a moment here. I have been taking a little bit of a break. It's actually been today. I think it's been exactly three months since I have uploaded a East and I really want to express thanks to all of you out there who've come over to my YouTube channel and have asked about the podcast George what's going on? Where's the podcast? I miss the podcast when you're going to be doing another episode. I'm really really really really very grateful for that. I have been doing well. I've just been extremely busy. I managed a couple of other YouTube channels one that I do with along with my wife and it's just been exceedingly a very very busy. I'm exciting time, but very busy. I was kind of burning out a little bit and you know, so enough about that I am back and I'm going to be uploading podcasts here as often as I can and I'm hoping to do at least two. Okay, at least two per week, you know because they'll just going to do my two favorite which is our Tuesday taoism enters and stream on Sunday. If I have extra time, I will throw in another episode here and there on other topics, but all that Being said let's go ahead and get into what we're going to get into today. We are reading as I had been doing in the past from this amazing book actually have a couple of different sources here for today's topic and I'm going to start with the usual which is this book by tick not Han pretty well-known Vietnamese Zen Buddhist. He wrote this great book called your true home. It's a collection of very short meditation. So I did find one here that I'm going to read and share on this topic. Little bit and I'm also going to be possibly quoting another zen teacher that I recently discovered and his name I would have probably going to butcher. This is a Korean monk Heyman pseudonym. I think that's how you say it Heyman pseudonym. Anyway, he's got a very very interesting little read here that touches on what it is that I hope to get across in today's episode and Hopefully it'll help you. Like I said in the intro develop a greater realization of how we are literally creating our moment-to-moment experience. That's of course, very fascinating subject to me. I hope it is to you as well. And I think it's safe to assume that if we can make that real that truth that I'm pointing to which is the creative nature of our moment-to-moment experience if we could actually Rasp that in other words turn it from a neat sounding mental concept into a solid technique or a solid realization or like Ed cartel says in his book turn it into a self-evident reality. Meaning that we don't understand it just as a mental concept that we believe in but we actually managed to make it real in our lives emotionally realize it that's a whole different ball game and I hope that the material in this episode what I'm going to be sharing here with you helps you to do exactly that exactly that take it from a neat mental concept of yeah. I'm creating my moment-to-moment reality to to an actual real living experience. So let's go ahead let's do this. I'm going to be starting here with tick not Hans bit and then we'll use the other one as as needed as we move along. So this is called his this little chapters of meditation is called false views and it goes like this. people normally cut reality into compartments and so are unable to see the interdependence of all phenomena to see one in all and all in one is to break through the Great Barrier that narrows one's perception of reality a barrier that Buddhism calls quote the attachment to the false view of the self attachment to the false view of the self means belief in the presence of unchanging entities that exists on their own to break through. This false view is to be liberated from every sort of fear pain and anxiety. And that's the end of the little chapter right there. I'm surprised. I must have thought that I read it but it's actually know we're in here. Maybe I just put it in there and my own mind but I believe what he's referring to here is piercing through the veil of our more. What's the word? I'm looking for like relative practical level of how things appear in our lives. So what I mean? That is kind of like for many of us myself included the way that we grew up processing our experience, right? There were separate people their separate experiences their separate phenomena happening outside of us everything and we feel like disconnected from all those things, right? They feel like things are entities that are separate from us. So there's us right and then there's all this stuff outside of us and we do not feel maybe some of us felt some connection, but But usually it's pretty limited and I find especially in more Western type cultures we do tend to as he says here. He quote he says cut reality into compartments and thus we are unable to see the interdependence of all phenomena. So this is a concept that comes up pretty often in Zen Buddhism other branches of Buddhism as well nichiren Buddhism talks a lot about this interdependence. And the reason that we have such a hard time. Spinning this like really grasping it it has to do with the way that we create time the way that we create space through our perception. Remember that our perception of reality is never the same thing as reality itself, right perception changes reality. It is not direct experience. And in my opinion Zen practice is somewhat about moving from our perception of reality to the direct experience of reality. And of course, no one can point at something and say this is the real reality. This is not the real reality. Right, but what we can do what we can but we can make a practice is slowly dropping our preconceived notions about our experience our moment-to-moment experience because as I've shared had be shared here before Our mind is very powerful tool. Okay, it's very very I'm not knocking our our conventional rational thinking mind here. Okay, it has its purpose. It's important and we we need it but one of the things that it does and it does very well, is it remember that its main concern is survival? Okay at at its root. It's almost of you kind of used a computer as a metaphor computer program The Root Drive the most important over right? Ting thing that that really supersedes all other things that the mind creates is survival, right? That's number one is survival of you all heard of the survival Instinct fight/flight response. That is the most important thing to this human organism is that we will do anything pretty much anything to survive to live. And so what happens is that as the Mind interacts with the environment when it is when it first Encounter something that is unfamiliar with many times. There is a level of anxiety agitation fear. We usually fear going outside of our comfort zone We Fear experiencing new things. We're more on edge or paying more attention is another way to put it but after we've experienced that thing repeatedly over and over and over and over again our mind develops a sort of program right for oh, yeah. I know what that is and it files it in a sense in the mind so that when It experiences that phenomena again. It doesn't really pay as much attention to it, right? It frees up our awareness to be on the lookout for the next kind of new thing. Right? Right. So I kind of use the the the amount the analogy or the metaphor here of when you're driving somewhere that for the first time you're paying a lot of attention you're turning down the radio your, you know to looking for landmarks you're paying attention to street signs. Maybe you're watching the clock to see if you're running late, but once you've done that drive, A hundred times, you're barely paying attention anymore, right? You're listening to the radio. Maybe you're talking on the phone. Maybe you're daydreaming about future vacation. You have coming up you're reminiscing about the past whatever but very little of your awareness is needed to drive. Okay, and this same phenomena that our mind does a lot of our life is run that way. It's run through these Loops, right? And so what happens is that over time? We become very dependent in a sense on these Loops. They are what make our functioning possible and while that's definitely a how do you call it? A good has a good utilitarian purpose, you know, it kind of helps us live and and it you know, it has its place. It has its function. It's not all bad that process right? It's amazing. Actually that our mind can do that but a side effect of that is that if you start to run everything on autopilot, you're no longer feeling. Very creative about your life. It's almost as if these running programs have taken over and they are defining life for you. So you in a sense. It's almost like you're living your life by default. You're almost you're not really alive. You're just a pattern of action and reactions that have been programmed over and over and over and over again. And so all of Life starts to feel can start to feel kind of mundane. Boring and as I've said, which is pretty amazing to me and I think it's a hundred percent. True is Every Breath You Take every moment that you're alive infinite potential exists for anything to happen. But most of us fail to experience each and every moment that we are alive in that way which is much closer to the ultimate truth than what we are experiencing because what we tend to experience is moment after moment after moment, that seems exactly like the last moment right and we keep looking forward to some future moment. That is somehow going to change something. But if we don't take time to change the mental patterns that are creating these moments back to back to back to back right now. We don't become aware. Our of those and change those then no matter how much we're looking forward to Something in the future as that future arrives into the present. It starts to get processed exactly the same way. And so we lose that feeling of how creative are life really is are thinking really is now. Let me just pause here for a quick second because I want to refer to the other author for just a moment here. I want to allow quick word from a sponsor and I'll be right back. All right, you all thank you for your patience. So as I was saying I wanted to share with you a little excerpt with this other Zen teachers and master Road here. Again, the name is Henman Hammonds Unum get a probably butchering that but anyway, he wrote about one of my favorite sutras which is the heart Sutra heart Sutra and Zen Buddhism sutras just a word for teaching for those. You are the maybe your newer here, but it's basically just a word for teaching and it talks a lot about emptiness and form, right and and one way that we can understand emptiness and form which is still not the ultimate understanding I would say but it's a good one just for purposes of what we're talking about here emptiness is almost like the material out of which all phenomena can arise in our lives. So it's almost like using a bit of Law of Attraction language like Source energy or God energy at car toll refers to it as the unmanifested. It's sort of like I said the potential out of which all reality arises so with every inhale that you take it's almost as if potential arises and then as we exhale, we are manifesting our current experience through our perception our beliefs and Andre. I mean you could go I could go on and on about this, you know is how perception arises It's a combination of sensory information. So everything we hear taste touch smell feel with our skin all that sensory information is goes into our brain and our brain then has as I've just been talking about a set of patterned responses. It's a way of interpreting that sensory information that makes the moment make sense quote unquote. And then it did then presents options of how to react depending on what we want on what our needs are for that moment. Etcetera Etc. But every moment is basically just that it's just sensory information along with I would have to say along with you could make the argument our memories, right? So we're comparing the sensory information of the present to experiences from the past and we were also at the same time considering possible Futures things we want Right and it's amazing. The Mind does all this in right like split seconds and then it you have your present moment. So at that moment when that present is so quote-unquote created that is the the forms, right? So it's like I said, it's the emptiness and the forms and he's talking here in this little excerpt this author about the relationship between emptiness and form and how an ultimate in an ultimate sense emptiness and form are not Not separate which is very very interesting fascinating. I would say and it's something that's also touched on in taoism as you know with the Tuesday taoism series. I talked a lot about this kind of thing. So let me just read here this quit. I want to read too much to you. But some things here, I think are important. So he says the first step in understanding the inseparability of form and emptiness into and is to investigate what's going on for you, right? Now and then to ask yourself a few simple questions, so he says right now you are looking at your computer monitor or in this case. If you're listening to the podcast you are listening to my voice and you were probably looking at a photo of well, you know, he's just going on and on with it, but basically just think about what you're doing right now listening to this and pay attention to whatever it is that your eyes may be gazing upon and then he says there is your awareness. And then there is the object of your awareness The Next Step involves asking yourself the questions that pick apart this Duality. Can you separate the object of your awareness from awareness itself? So the Hammond soon mm that you see here or this voice that you're listening to if you're listening to the podcast does it exist apart from your awareness or is it that awareness and the object of your Ernest appear in the same single instant. Can you hear my voice somewhere outside of your awareness? The answer of course is no you can't and the reason that I love, you know paying attention to this is how many people really pay attention to this stuff. Okay. Now not many some people may think it's kind of crazy actually, but what we're really doing when we try to pay attention to that is we're really paying attention to what I think is one of the most fundamental things are important things about living and living fully is how I actually experiencing my life how much attention am I paying to this experience of being alive? How much of my life am I choosing to have? To be how do you put it? This is really about becoming so aware of how you are creating your moments moment reality that you are then able to take a more active role in what you are choosing in each and every moment instead of just allowing those old patterns of thinking to choose for you that is similar to the experience of imagine that you are in a dream. Right and in a dream what's happening is all of these things are happening, but you don't feel like you're in control. These things are just kind of happening around you and in the dream, you may be scared. You may be hurting you may be sad, you may be in despair. But then all of a sudden one of two things happens, right either you wake up and you realize whoa. It was a dream. I'm okay, right and suddenly you feel more in control or in some cases. You actually become aware that you're dreaming, right? And some people have experienced. I was into it for a little while the whole lucid dreaming thing where you actually awaken within your dream and then you can create the dream in whichever way you want. So what I'm saying here is that the practice that I am talking about in this in this particular podcast episode and really I hope that I'm pointing out in general through all these podcast episodes and through the videos on the YouTube channel is that You have a choice you have a choice in what you are creating in each and every moment now, I will add let me add because this is important is that some of the mental patterns that are choosing our reality for us? They are very powerful right there. Very strong. They may have they may be patterns that have been in place for many many many years right some from childhood some that were Formed in part through very heavy emotional experiences some traumatic experiences and always pulling here from my mental health background a little bit. When we have these types of patterns that are created out of very emotionally heavy experiences or traumatic experiences. They automatically become much more solidified. They seem much more real and while ultimately they are still changeable, right and Reality there. Everything is basically just a loser rewrite. It's a perception thing but subjectively right subjectively from where we are looking they can appear very very powerful and they could have a whole lot of control. So I'm not sitting here suggesting that from one moment to the next you could snap a finger and poof be free of all your mental patterns. Unfortunately, my personal opinion is that that takes actually some work, It takes work for me. It happened through combination of things. It happened through years years and years and years and years of Zen meditation and it happened through some therapy that have done myself. But but I think it can be done and what I think we can do okay in spite of perhaps needing, you know, some time is that we can take this moment to Simply become aware. That this is happening. Right does it mean that we have to get rid of all our patterns this instant or that we can get rid of them this instant, but it means that through listening to this you can take a moment here and really see how your your awareness and all the objects of your awareness are not separate right? Nothing happens outside of your awareness. It goes back to that quote that I shared with you a while back and that really just stuck in my mind even though it sounds so Oculus when I say it out loud, it's it's so profound when you really think about it and it is this I said the Buddha faint if I mean we never you see or read by the way guys when you see a statement it says Buddha said this we don't know that the man lived, you know, 2,000 2,500 years ago. I think a lot of times people just say stuff the write down stuff everything sounds cool. And then under it. They put Buddha right unless you're going straight to the sutras. I'm not sure. In the sutras were written by others, you know his students. But anyway, one of the things that supposedly he said which is still profound whether he said it or not. He says that when the foot touches the foot wait, I always get it mixed up when I first started saying it the foot feels the foot when the foot feels the ground. That's it the foot feels the foot when the foot feels the ground what what that basically means is that we never feel the ground directly. We only feel Sensations from our foot. Right the ground we don't have no idea what that feels like. All we feel is chemical messages coming from the bottom of our foot that tells us what feels like but we never feel it directly meaning that the experience of the ground is all happening within us write all our awareness is happening within us and when you really really understand that profoundly your whole perception of reality changes and Your ability to choose your next thought your next emotion your next Behavior becomes more powerful. So think about that today in your practice. I really hope you got something useful out of this episode. I really want to thank you for listening and I will be back on Tuesday with our next installment of Tuesday taoism. Have a great day.
Hey there! Welcome back to Dreams Warp, the Podcast that helps you sculpt your dreams into reality. I know I've been out of the loop for a little while...3 months to be exact. Been busy with other projects! But I'm back and I'm excited about it. In this episode, you KNOW what day it is....it's Sunday! That means it's time for our Zen Stream. For this episode we're going to be discussing exactly how our consciousness works to create our moment to moment reality, and how we can become more aware of this process so we take take full advantage of our ability to choose and create. For those of you who are new here, welcome, and thanks for checking out the Podcast. This podcast presents a psychotherapist and Zen Buddhist perspective on mind and how it creates our moment to moment reality. Ultimately this podcast is here to help you master your life, or your reality, by mastering your mind. We discuss Zen Buddhism, Taoism, Law of Attraction, and modern psychology and bring the best of what each has to offer. If you're into self-help, self-development, spirituality, and / or philosophy, you've come to the right place! I hope you get value out of this episode and this Podcast, and I really want to thank you for listening! ---   This episode is sponsored by  · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. 