In this talk, Michael discusses how life is imperfect, how the Buddha was enlightened and had problems, and that our job is to engage the circumstances of our life.
“We need to love all the mundane stuff because it’s the stuff of your life, even vacuuming.”
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Here is an excerpt:
“So what I was saying in the sitting meditation is: it’s so easy to sit on your cushion and waste time. You’re here for twelve days. It’s not a long time. When we chant, we say, “Life and death are of supreme importance. Time passes swiftly, really swiftly. Don’t squander your life.” We could say, “Don’t squander your time. Don’t squander your time.” So we’re there. We’re just sitting those periods in the morning. Show up and really try to undo that knot that keeps you in the momentum of narrative. It’s really important. It’s important for you, but it’s important for the people around you too. We all know this about the people who are around us—we love them. And it’s really hard to love them when they’re caught up in their stories, in their habits and their ways of seeing where they can’t see. And they can’t see it and we can see it so we say, “You should do some sitting practice.”
But it’s happening for us also all the time. Happens for me all the time.
When we sit, we’re not sitting for an end result, we’re just sitting to follow the breath until the breath gets quiet, the nervous system starts to calm.”
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