And what is the secret to this surrender? Surrender this false center, this “I.”
Once you are already approaching these meetings and have been investigating this for some time – at least reading about it – have heard about it, researched it or watched some videos…
What, in fact, is this surrender? What is this surrender?
Here it’s about surrendering the “me,” the “I,” this sense of separateness, this sense of presence.
It’s curious to use the expression “sense of presence.” The sense of presence is, in fact, the true absence of the presence. When there’s the sense of “someone,” there’s no Presence of Reality because it’s exactly the sense of “someone” that determines this absence of Reality.
That sense of “someone” is the sense of separation. If you are present, the illusion is present.
You might say: “But this is too complicated. How can I get rid of this ‘me,’ this ‘I’? How can there be such surrender? How does it happen?”
Because that’s the question many of you ask: “How can I surrender this ‘me,’ this ego, this ‘I'?”
I’d like to ask you something: when do you look without that “I”? When do you listen without that “I”? When do you perceive what’s around you without that “I"? Maybe you say, “No, that’s not my experience.” And I’ll keep on stating here.
Since childhood, you’ve been experiencing this, but you’ve never appreciated it. When you were very young, you had much more access to what I'm saying than you do now, but this is still present.
There are moments in your life when you look without the “I,” when you listen without the “I,” when you perceive experiences around you without the “I”. It’s only a few seconds later that thought arises to name the experience, to discuss the experience, or to firm up in the experience. A few seconds later, that sense of the thinker, the observer, the experiencer arises to say: “I'm here to feel this, to see this, I'm here listening.”
So, that sense of “someone” is not always present. Then, when you ask me, “What do I need to do to surrender the ego, the “I”?
I’m already giving you the secret of Zen here. In the monastery, the Master teaches the monks to sweep the courtyard, collect leaves, cut potatoes in the kitchen, or fetch water from the well. How do you do it without the “I"?
There are times in your life – this has been going on since childhood – you just look at, you don't name it, don't agree or disagree with what you see, you're not against, you're not horrified by, you're not scared by what you see, you just look. When there’s that reaction, there’s not that look.
Maybe what I'm saying may sound surreal, but we all know because we've experienced it. But this now, as a memory, won’t work. It won’t work.
We all know about times when you weren't present and yet You were present.
The most beautiful, extraordinary, nameless and fantastic moments in your life were moments where you weren't present and yet there You were.
It’s always the sense of “I” to react with rejection or acceptance, naming, classifying – that of [classifying] “how beautiful,” “how horrible.”
It’s always the sense of “I” to compare, to compare this: “look how different that one is.”
It’s always this sense of “me” coming in. That happens really fast. This is a programming that has been followed since childhood.
But the fact is that surrender is not an impossible thing because that’s innate, already present. All you need is to learn how to unlearn what you've learned.
You've learned to compare, judge, what’s beautiful, what’s ugly, to name, and react. Then, the sense of “I” came along separating itself from experience.
Do you follow this? Can you follow this?
It’s not when you look that the reaction is present. It’s when speech comes, when thought comes, then there’s a separation.
So, what is this surrender? It’s to remain as indicated by the Master in Zen to the monks: when sweeping, let there be only the sweeping; when eating, let there be only the eating; when walking, let there be only the walking; when looking, stay with just the looking.
The thought present isn’t the reality of what is here and now. Thought is always a representation of memory, of remembrance, of images. See how this is very basic, people.
So, don't say to me: “Oh, it’s complicated to surrender the ego.” No, it’s not complicated. It requires full attention. It’s what is put into Zen to the monks: mindfulness, full attention.
The word “mindfulness” in English means: the mind in that alertness, in that totality of alertness. Mindfulness: full attention. It requires full attention.
Looking without naming, without opening the file, without placing the element that will react, without the observer, without the thinker.
“Gualberto, then what does not react mean?” It’s the looking, the listening, the feeling, living what is shown here and now without conflict, without a conflict.
“Ah, so looking at a beautiful woman, at a handsome, muscular man…” Looking is not the point. The conflict of desire is the confusion, the emotional disorder, the psychological disorder, it’s suffering. The problem isn’t in the object. The problem is in the illusion of the subject in the experience.
So, what’s surrender? It was the question that was asked just now, here. Surrender is staying now, here in your Being, which is Consciousness. Don't open the drawer; don't name it unless you have to name it. It’s different. So, don't confuse this.
Objects fill us psychologically or physically, but they don’t fulfill us, because there’s no Love in sensation or pleasure. Pleasure is pleasure, sensation is sensation and Love is Love.
Love is present when the sense of the ego is not present, and when the sense of the ego is not present, there’s the appreciation of Beauty or of what Is and here, in this sense, Beauty is in what Is.
An artist looks at a rubbish heap and takes a picture and it becomes stunningly beautiful because he has found beauty where you, with your mind, see ugliness, repulsiveness, the ugly.
The beauty is in this encounter with Silence, which at that moment, the artist wanted to capture and in a mysterious way, he even succeeded, but that’s gone. It was just another flow state. He had a moment of absence of the ego, where his body, mind, emotion and Being were completely present at that moment: that is the Flow State. This is also known in the positive psychology, but people seek this state as the state of excellence and athletes have discovered that this state is possible, then they become obsessed with it and receive training to achieve it.
But this is the Natural State of the Sage, of the Realized Being; He is in a Flow State. As there’s no conflict, since there’s no sense of separation between Him and the experience, He is flowing with the moment, with what Is. This is high performance, beauty, an encounter with Reality, with your Being. I’ve called this the Real Flow State.
The Real Flow State. My proposal here for you. I’m not an extreme sports or sport coach; I’m training you to enter this dimension of Pure Consciousness.
The Master in the Zen monastery talks about this Mindfulness, this state of full attention, what some have also called mindfulness through techniques or practice. It doesn't require practice, or technique, it requires attention, attention.
The problem is that I'm not going to tell you that this full attention is easy to understand, that the principle is easy. Assuming this isn’t easy, because we’re negligent in the ego, lazy in the ego, we are part of the habit, part of the routine, we are too identified with a program of separateness.
So, when we witness an object, the movement of the egoic mind is very fast, because there’s no exercise of full attention. It enters right away, the sensor enters and says: “I liked it,” “I don't want it,” starts naming and doing [this] due to this inattention.
This inattention has taken over the sense of the ego. It’s in this state of complete inattention in which the human being lives — in this complete inattention — that all craziness, all madness, all human insanity is present. All suffering is in this inattention.
We have to receive this training and that’s what I've been trying to do here. I want to show you how to sweep the yard, wash the dishes, and look without the observer; how to have the thought and not put a thinker in it, how to go beyond thought, and you go beyond it when the thinker is not present.
People want to get rid of obsessive, repetitive, negative thoughts. They want to get rid of the stress, the suffering that thinking causes, but they always put a thinker behind it, exactly by rejecting the experience of thinking. It won’t work. It won’t work. It doesn’t work like this.
They lie down to sleep and thoughts start running around inside their head (pa pa pa pa pa). They don't realize that they are in the same process all day long. If they don't do this during the day, if they don't break this model... Do you follow this here? If they don't break this model during the day, when they go to bed the body is relaxed, the mind gets loose — the egoic mind gets loose — because it no longer has anything to distract itself with, then it [egoic mind] says: “It’s my time.” It gets loose.
This state of insomnia is a delight for the ego in contradiction, in conflict, in fear. That’s the state of human neurosis, of psychological disorder of human beings: that’s insanity.
So, we have to discover the art of Meditation and this art of Meditation is based on self-observation. This self-observation breaks that conflict that occurs when the experiencer, thinker and observer arise: that’s True Meditation. It’s not sitting cross-legged, breathing a certain way, listening to quiet music, since there’s not always quiet music for you to listen to. Sometimes, the neighbor puts on some heavy rock and you're in time for your meditation and then what’s it like? Or you're driving, or in your day-to-day life, in your daily life and you don't always have a moment for meditation.
Why do people have to have a moment for meditation if they are in the Self and the Self is beyond all moments? It doesn't have to be a special moment to Be What You Are. You have to learn what that represents. This is real surrender. This happens because of a work of Self-awareness, of self-observation, of True Meditation, and that’s what we've been talking about here.
The point is to become aware of yourself, conscious of yourself. Then, it’s possible to go beyond this duality, therefore [to go] beyond the sense of “I” and that’s Real Surrender. Ok?
Let ’s stop here.
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