Being In Ceremony ~ Stephanie Nash · 真善

Alright I'm going to do a really non Dharma teacher thing right now. I want a video of my view of all of you so just way this is the first female Dharma talk OK.

So.

So I would like to invite everyone right now to imagine that today is your birthday. You can do that. Alex is birthday was on Friday. Does anyone else have a birthday that's actually happening over here, so just imagine.

But today is your birthday.

How would that change things?

Would you feel different about? What goes on if today was your birthday?

How do you look at the day when it's your birthday?

You think about a little differently right to different kind of focus.

The special day.

I'm going to talk about that kind of focus.

I grew up in a tiny little town in Ohio, like 4000 people in our house was in the Woods. Ann I would go out. I loved to get away from what was going on in the house. I went out into the Woods. That was my refuge with my dog. I'm a dog person and on my birthday. When I was somewhere between 10 and 13. I can't remember anymore and by the way we have no speaker system so I'm projecting so if you can hear me at any moment just do this.

And I won't assume you're saying it's good can you hear me OK now I don't know if I'm going to be able to look at you? The whole time, Alright It's my birthday, it is your birthday.

So, just imagine today's your birthday and I'm going to tell a story about birthdays and that feeling you get on your birthday. So when I was somewhere between 10 and 13. It was my birthday and what was going on in our houses was it was a special day that I specially wanted to not be in the house for that day so for my birthday. I wanted to go in the Woods and get lost now in a small town when you grow up. Everyone knows everyone and you know every inch.

Of the town so the idea of going somewhere in the Woods, and we had like there was a couple acres of Woods and there were some Woods over biopharm. I'd never been over 2 by myself at that age and the idea of being someplace where you didn't know where you were was beyond my imagination. So on my birthday for this time I went out with my dog who was also thrilled to be out of the House and we went in the Woods and I deliberately in few hike you know to keep track of where you are you always look back. So you know with the view will be going back I didn't.

I looked down, and I was twisting and turning because I wanted to get lost. An I went all like this all the way and I finally got over to a part of the Woods that I hadn't been before and it was starting to get very exciting and I finally got to a place in the Woods and I stopped and I looked in all directions and I had no idea where I was or what weight ago. There was a little moment of fear, but it was thrilling. It was this and everything stopped for a second.

I can't tell you what that was 'cause I was only.

10 or 11 or 12 but I just kind of Bast in that moment of not knowing where I was and then I just picked a direction to go. My dog was kind of happily beside me an in about less than 5 minutes. I knew where I was and I went home.

15 years later or so in my late 20s. I'm in New York City trying to be an actress which means I had no money and it was my birthday.

And I wanted to get lost in the Woods. If you've ever been to Manhattan. Their Central Park and it's a lovely park, and I know every square inch of it and I know the one place. You can stand in the park and not know that not see any building, but you're still not lost in the Woods.

So I didn't have any money. I had no way to get out of town in New Yorkers don't have cars. So I called everyone. I knew to see if they knew some place. I could go where I could get lost in the Woods and my little brother. It just graduated from Georgia Tech and he had a friend whose dad, who had a cabin North of Jasper, GA, which is North of Atlanta and they were going to be gone for this 10 day period and I could go down there for free. If I can get myself down there and so I was so excited and I got myself down to.

Jasper GA and it's this little town. Rabbi talks like that, and says Price Jesus all the time, but they are happy and so I just saw. These beaming beautiful People and I'm going to get lost in the Woods and I did praise Jesus with all of them because why not I was happy to be there and I finally got to my cabin in the Woods and there was Orange Shag Carpeting. There was a fireplace and everything else was Woods and there was a little Lake there away from everything else. There was nothing else anywhere near it.

And the light didn't have a path around it, but that's where I was going to get lost. So I would go around the Lake every day and there was no path so I'm climbing over things and it wasn't like my Woods. There was more brush and stuff, so I'm scraping and getting over and at one point, I'm hanging from this tree over a ravine that went down about as far down as that is high and I was hanging in there for a minute and I thought you know if I fall. No one will ever find me no one knows I'm here.

No one on the planet knows I'm here was very exciting and I would make it around them. I made it around the Lake and back. It took me about 3:00 or 4 hours 'cause again. There was no path and I'm scraped and dirty and happy and I get back and I'm in the House and I brought cassettes of James Taylor, which tells you how long ago. This was an I had concerts of Steve Martin. Let's get small but I just wasn't in the mood for that and so I played. James Taylor and I lit a fire and listen to James Taylor all night and I did the same thing the second day.

And the 3rd day, I just couldn't listen anymore. James Taylor and so I went around the Lake again. An I came back and it's silent.

And this is the first moment, it occurs to me that never in my life. Have I been alone. I have lived with someone at all of my life up until this point.

Uh in New York City. I don't know if you've ever lived in New York City. But if you seen the movie The Matrix and when Keanu Reeves character wakes up and he's in that thing and he sees that's New York City. Whoever did that. Obviously was in New York are coming from the Woods in New York City. Even if you are alone in a room. There's someone above you. There's a apartment above you an apartment below. You there's someone to that side someone to that side you are stacked up on stack to Ponce tax if anst active on stack to People so.

And you can't walk out without a human being somewhere, I'd always lived with someone I had never an we've lived in a house in the Woods, but there was always someone else in the house.

I had never been totally alone before and it hit me this 3rd day with no James Taylor and there's no TV and there's no radio and I'm alone in these and so it's just quiet and so I came back from my hike in the Woods and I built my fire and I sat there and then suddenly, I started to get this pain in my chest and it got worse and worse and I realized I was feeling this intense loneliness.

Then I don't think I'd ever felt before and it was this pressure was this ache and it just got worse and worse and I thought I'd I had just never felt anything like this before, and then I started to cry. But then I thought well. That's stupid? Why are you crying lonely don't you know I like talk to my judged myself out of crime but crime still happened and then if you've ever seen. The Wizard of Oz. I use that analogy for everything but this time, I'll use it when the house pins and everything's going around the cyclone and you see all the.

People going around as she spinning in the house before she lands and everything. It's like I saw flashes of all these things from my life. None of which were good. There was nobody. I was longing for to be with it was every fight every horrible thing all the bad things that happened to me and they were all flashing to me as I had this aching. Oh my God, the loneliness. It hurts so bad and I just take so bad and I didn't think you could take that that and it just.

It just get more and more and, yes, Peacocks, it was like that.

It was like a dying cat, but it was just I just didn't know you know, I didn't know what to do, I'm alone in this house. I plan to be there for 5 days. I'm only on the 3rd day and then I looked over at the fire.

And it's moving.

And it's alive.

And I kind of walked over to the fire and I looked at it and it was like this living creature and I started to get mesmerized by the fire and I was looking at it and I spend a lot of time with fires. We have 5 fire places in my house growing up and I was looking at the fire and you know on the Top was the most massive part of the fire and down below's I was looking with these like down around 1:00 log when it a little individual flame would come up and then another.

Individual family like these little individuals that weren't part of the massive the whole and I don't know if you've ever watched fires, but they're happy fires aren't sad and I was looking at. This fire as I was feeling the sake and the more I just kind of went into watching this fire. I became kind of hypnotized by it. It was kind of entrance by this fire, and I started looking at these little individual fires that were separate. They were their own thing and I've watched him and I.

Watch the move and how they were happy and moving around and they were kind of like these living creatures to me and then I notice. These little creatures and they have their own life and their own dance and then if they had any opportunity at all. They tried to join the big fire, even though if they join that big fire.

They disappear, they're Anaya lated they don't exist anymore. It's this individual little event and suddenly. It's just part of the big it disappeared for me. Hell was like someone, said Oh just like being a drop in the water to me that would be hell. I was in New York trying to be an actress right. It was like the fact that these little flames were seeking out other flames and they had this life and they were sacrificing their life happily to become part of the big happy.

And I just kept watching this fire. This later years later, I refer to this as a fire meditation that.

I did years later, but this was decade before I meditated and I was watching. This fire, and later on in the fire. I notice that I have become quite calm as I was watching. This fire, and then the fire started to get less and less than the fire had been my friend. It was like this living creature and I was watching it live and die. And be born little ones get born and then they would join the other and give up their lives to be part of this whole and then ask the fire got less and less, I realized that I was feeling.

Quite peaceful and happy and instead of going in the bedroom to sleep that night. I slept in front of the fire and we went to sleep together and I woke up the next morning and it was a fascinating thing.

The loneliness was gone.

And I have never for an instant since that moment experienced loneliness. It was gone.

And I in the last 40 years of my life, I have lived alone for 30 of them and I've never been lonely. In fact, I take vacations to be alone because I don't get enough alone time. Maybe it's 'cause I teach in Acton went on with People. I'm really with People an I call these things I called my People fast and I go camping.

An I go and it when I came to California 92 is when I really started doing it. and I go camping by myself in total solitude usually on Top of a mountain, although for the last 15 years. I have a nice little spot up on the coast of California, where I get to watch the sun and moon set into the ocean from my sleeping bag and it's an environmental site. There's no one anywhere, and I go up for anywhere from 4 to 12 days by myself at least twice a year.

Never lonely for an instant OK.

And People when I tell them I do these camping trips. I usually get 3 questions. The first one, is or too afraid.

And, of course, don't be silly. This is my refuge nature is my that's my room right. The 2nd question for some reason I don't know why everyone asked it. But what do you eat I have no idea why People ask that question and I used to just take whatever food I could have, but after I did a vision quest. Years later, which I'll tell you about in a minute, but a vision quest is a Native American ceremony. We spent 4 days and nights alone on a mountain with no food or water.

And, of course, the alone on the mountain part is what they think of as a sacrifice. I'm good with that no food. I could go no water. You know you lose your mind a little bit on the 3rd night or I did anyway. But the reason I'm bringing that up in terms of what do you eat on your vision quest you have no food so you relationship to animals is quite different when you have no food right.

Animals just want to know are you going to eat them or connected something you have right and I remember when I went on my vision quests. You know you're in a small 6 by 6 foot of space with no tents. You don't have a tent there and you're out me open and it's surrounded by prayer ties, which are you pray with tobacco when you put it in a little piece of cloth and you rap it up. You make a prayer with it in there. Your prayers and there's 200 prioritize. So, your prayers are surrounded by your prayers in this little.

In this little open Excel exposed spot and they say animals will not cross your boundary that you know the wae looter will protect inviting the animals to smell the tobacco. But in any event. When I did my vision quest. It just so happened that I put my site in the middle of what turned out to be a 4 Lane Animal Highway. It was the only spot where two bridges joined so all the answer at night when it got night. You know the day I'm going isn't this wonderful and at night.

Right here, the animals come in. They go stop. You know like what's there. Some big animal made a nest in the middle of their path and then I heard them all kind of gathering around going? What do we do I don't know? Do we go around with it and then I kind of made sounds like I wanted them to go about their business. But I wanted to about mine and they just realized there was an animal in their path that made a nest? What do they do and so I just started making sounds because I thought that I wanted them to know.

Said I'm staying but I'm not interested in them so I Yonaguni. Yeah, this kind of did it and settled and then slowly then little once which is kind of go by a little ones. We go by, and I went to sleep with animals. Just kind of moving around during the course of the night and I love that relationship with animals during my whole vision quest once with someone just kind of come up and sniff and go by so People. Ask me back to my camping trips? What do I eat and I take very little food for that reason I like that relationship with Inns?

There's a third question, I get when People say you know you're going up for 12 days alone on a Hill is what do you do?

And in fact, Shinzen asked me what do you do but I said really you don't know what I do no I really don't? But I think maybe he couldn't imagine being alone on mountain. Maybe that was part of it, but one thing I do say whenever you want to ask me what do you do?

I say I don't know, but that 12 days goes by like 4 hours. It just goes by like that it's gone.

Now I have a different techniques. I do usually when I'm on the Hill. I'm sitting here and I'm looking at the ocean and I'm on a little jet of land that goes out into the ocean on the California coast so it's kind of like I'm at sea, like whales will be out there and I've got Sky. Moving all around and I've got the grass right here blowing in the wind and you know, I can see it right now in the trees are right here. And so there's this flow everywhere and I know I just.

Sit there an watch flow until there is just flow and I'm not really there anymore. and I also know that when I get there. Climbing up because to get to this site that is away from other People. You gotta hike in and I take stuff. So it takes me. 4 hours of going back and forth and the Hill is about 45 degree angles. So I get this little kind of little cart behind me and I don't weigh a lot. An I put a lot back there, so the cart sometimes a little.

Heavier than I am 'cause I wanted you know get stuff up there and so I'll have the cart behind me and so I'm bent over forward at a 45 degree angle. So my face. The dirt is here in my face, is here. Sorry my Madonna thing is moving and so I will literally go up the Hill that way. and I used to go into meditation and do see rust or see out or something like that, and then but what I now do when I'm carrying my cart who is seeing.

Who is pulling I just do a couple questions of self inquiry and then there is just activity happening and I'm not really there right and so that's kind of so when I'm on the Hill. Everyone says what do you do it's like I don't know 'cause I'm not there I'm not there so anyway. The other thing I wanted to say is what I notice started to happen. These trips started is my gift to myself for my birthday, then they became something I had to do.

It's like if I didn't do it that year. It was like I forgot. It's like saying, You forgot to eat or sleep or breathe or you know it was an essential thing. I need in fact, I'm going on a trip after this retreat for a week, but I notice something started happening.

When I'm getting ready to go.

I'm packing up to go for camping. I notice the minute I'm done fixing everything. I have to do in my life. You know you had to come on retreat, giving you the minute I start packing something would click an I was in ceremony. It was like I got it from my birthday ceremony. It was like it was my birthday. There was something about the packing and everything that it didn't matter if I was there or not. In fact, I've been there, so many times. I know every rock 'N' thing. I don't even have to go. It's here. It's inside me.

You know, but the packing itself something clicked in and I was in ceremony and I was just happy driving up and it didn't matter if I was doing a meditation technique or not. This this kind of in ceremony thing would click in and happen and I didn't have the word in ceremony until after I did Native American ceremonies. That's where I learned that then I'm going to shift for a moment, too, so I was doing that here from 92 to 98.

And I was having all sorts of interesting experiences from 92 to 98, some but I guess we would call mystical or spiritual experiences were happening, but I didn't know anyone to talk to about that. I was a New Yorker and if anyone said. Mystical or spiritual. I'd leave the room usually that I was a very cynical New Yorker. So I hadn't cultivated friends to talk to. In fact soon as this stuff happened is when I left New York. So I didn't even know anybody out here, so I spent 6 years with these things happening kind of creating my own system of what to do with them.

And then I thought you know, I really want to talk to somebody about this and I just didn't know who knew about this and so I kind of go and this was before Google and Internet and you know you could call operators and ask them questions about things but they don't really know go on this Phone book and look at centers and kind of put my head in the door and they say. No, you have to bow to this person or you have to do this over here and I knew that wasn't the direct route, I wanted 'cause I knew where it was.

I just wanted to talk to someone and finally I said, You know, I don't think I'm going to find anybody so maybe all meditated the idea of sitting still for 5 minutes. I thought it was one of the most ridiculous concepts. You could have and but I thought you know, maybe I'll do that. And there's something there, so I went down to the Bodhi Tree, which is this a spiritual book store. That doesn't exist anymore in LA and I asked the young guy behind the counter who had a Walkman again. I'm dating myself and I looked at all the books and it was just overwhelming and I said.

I like to experience things I said Assyrian I kinda.

Taper recording and he said over here, there's a 5 meditations by this guy named Shinzen Young and and I said perfect so there's 5 different kinds of went perfect. I can get an appetizer platter. I can pick which one I like. And so I went. I was house sitting for someone in Mar Vista. So I lit candles and I made a basket. That's what I thought you had to do to Meditate and then I got stoned 'cause I thought that.

And so every night. I did one of these meditations and there was Karma Yoga and Mentre and loving kindness and cover law. I thought of Kabbalah, but it's not it's Qabala and and then the Posener was one of them and I really went out each one. I was like. Yeah, that's that works so well. Until I got to that vote possible one. I've got that is just a little too. Technical that one. But the other four were great and then I thought you know, but I come from a family of Teachers. My mom's a teacher my sisters are teachers, they're all like.

Famous teachers in their worlds and so I thought you know that guy explains things really well. Let me see if I can find him. But I tried to find La Meditation Center and the operator was not helping me at all because it didn't exist anymore. Anyone Oh well and then about a month later. Some guy called me so do you know that guy that you were looking for? He's on KPFK now and I turned on KPFK and I heard him. He sounded older still sound like a woman. But he sounded older and I listened to him and they said.

This is shinzen young for possible support Institute and I went all man of all those cool meditationes. Heat choosable possible problems. The technical, one, you know, but he was the teacher might you know when I went to college. I said, what should I learn to my mom and her mom both said. Just go to what the good teachers are teaching. I thought not listening to you. I'm going to learn just with the good teachers are teaching, but now I wanted a good teacher and he explained things well so I find myself in a first retreat.

I've never sat for longer than 5 minutes in my life and I'm in a meditation retreat and everyone's got these mats in which it Holy Spirit up in Encino and everybody at the beginning going around in there, so long haul like he would be up here and it's a long hug and everybody wants to get up close, and you're all sitting around and getting their little what I thought were campsites. And they get their little campsites here and everyone had their campsite and they wanted to real quick get there and it really depended on where they were, and then they sit and close your eyes and they're closing your eyes facing a blank wall there's nobody here.

And I thought, What does it matter where you are in the room and for your eyes look close. I didn't understand this and then Shinzen came in and then talked and was eloquently went that's the guy. Oh, wow, listening to him was so inspiring. He was talking about things I knew but with clarity and shining light on it, and different way. But then they talked about you know you talk about this are there was zabuton and a zafu and Yasa and so I assume this was a bow?

I thought there was a sophomore, everything right and so on this retreat. Everybody is walking around when they're talking up to this retreat. He had been teaching is his meditation technique, apparently and by the way since then. I've done a 7 hour video interview with him of his beginning all the way up through the five ways. And for 20 years. He taught nothing but noting location of body sensation where you just sit there Goni.

Elbow knows you know shoulder that was it and at this retreat. He was doing talk image field and everyone was freaking. The F out they were like? What are you doing? Can we just please go back to noting location of body sensation and I didn't know what any of it was right. But first timers we had to go on a room in count 1:00 to 10:00 and you had to visualize the number one say the number one and then do it on your breath so you're feeling a bra.

Seeing and hearing the number one and we had to go 1:00 to 10:00 and I thought that was the stupidest thing anyone had ever asked anyone to do and I looked around, and everyone's like Oh yeah. This is interesting and I thought. I need to leave this room now OK. I thought you know, I'm just going to listen to him when he talks. You know, I have something I can do with my eyes close is good and then I'm walking down in everyone's fluttering to sign up for something called an on line, where they go in some room and talk on the telephone.

No thank you and I'm going down the Hall and there was only one man. I talked to the first day. Michael Michael Baessler. You might know and he was walking down the Hall and he was going in one of those roots and he pulled me aside and said did you sign up for one of these and I went no and he said. You really need to do this and I went. It's OK. I'm good and he went he said. No, you take mine.

And he just kind of thrust me into that room that moment kind of changed my life. So I'm going in this room. I'm putting on a headset going. This is so weird. This is so weird. And I'm sitting there looking around? What are we supposed to do and then shins in Congo's Michael and I said no this is Stephanie Michaels had me come in instead of hitting 10, so how is your practice I've never meditated?

I said, I'm a new person and he was Oh, so do you have any questions and I said you know actually? I do you know this whole talk image feel thing you know? I teach People? How to juggle? I know how to do I know how to get 3 things going. I can do that. So it's not that I can't do it. But what is the point I mean, it plus it's so technical it feels like playing scales. I was an oboe player I stopped because I hated playing scales. I just wanted to play the music.

And he said.

You know it is playing scales.

But the music is your life.

Good answer good answer music is your life, I stood in one, she don't want to do it, but that was a good answer impressed with that and then I said.

But.

You know, I can close my eyes, I had a spontaneous experience about a year earlier. That happened to me and ever since then. All I had to do was close my eyes. Everything dissolves into this light that is everything. There is no me. There was no effort anything. An I can. Just go to that. And when I open my eyes. I have barely beaming down everyones beaming down and I see how that light is really all the Tier 2 and it fills me with love and everything through the world I said, I can do that.

You still think I need talk image field.

And he said, and People whenever I told that to People they go Oh you're going to a blissey place.

And I thought that seems kind of condescending I go can you close your eyes and you know, but either way, and I said this is what I do People have told me it's a blissey place and I said, you still think I need talk image feel, and he said.

There's going to come a time when the Doo Doo hits the AC and you're not going to be able to go to that blue place.

An I said yes, I am I said, I can do this anytime. I want I've never not been able to go to a ***** place and he said. No there's going to come a time when things happened circumstances in your life and that will not be available to you and then what do you do, he said I'm teaching you techniques to be able to work with your sensory experience in a way so that you can optimize anything that happens in your life.

Another good dance.

And I said, OK, Alright and so he said, so try it and I'll get back to you in 25 minutes.

He had 5 people in the room and then OK so I went OK. That was a good answer, Alright I'll try and I started doing it in about 4 minutes later, he comes back online. And he says can you teach anyone? How to juggle an I said, Yeah.

Pretty much he said. Can you teach me how to juggle and I said well Have you ever played a ball sport and he said? What's that?

And I said Have you ever had to take a ball in a mid throw it in name? Where it goes and he went Oh no and I'm really spastic. Ann I said, OK, well, then it'll take longer, but you know about that, so after that retreat.

Over the next 3 months about 5:00 or 6 times. I am over it. Surely Fenton's house, she's in bed. Shintens here, an I am teaching him? How to juggle and I'm saying no no no no no no put your hand here put your hand here into my hand so if I'm here beside you put it here. So I'm in a teacher mode to him and he's going and then one time he got like a flash. We just kind of throw 3 and catch them and I said that's a flush and **** anyway.

First I didn't price and I thought wow. This is the same man that gives those amazing Dharmatala.

You know, and so I had a different relationship with him from the first moment right so anyway because of this relationship with him and when he asked me to teach him to juggle he said. Then I will meant are you in your meditation practice, so he would call me on the Phone all the time and say so. How's your practice like? Well, you know? I'm doing this? And this and I ended up marrying. The Man� set next to it. The first retreat and he'd been wishes in 7 years and he said. You know shins on his never once called me to ask me about my practice and I said, Yeah, but you're not teaching him how to general.

So then Shinzen takes me to a Sweat Lodge, Sarah.

OK and we're going to go to a sweat, Lodge ceremony. You talk about a lot OK and they talk about how hot it's going to be and I'm really good with heat and I'm in the back seat of the car with him in another man built insurance ends in the front see pounding so loud on a drum and howling in Yokota. You know the songs going isn't this great and you just going on and on and on the whole car is Raveling with this and then they stop and they turned you sure they go Oh yeah, wasn't that one hot and yeah that was yeah, we really.

Purif ride on that one, you know, and they were just talking about this heat and I'm getting kind of nervous. You know, I just want to know if I'm going to survive little things like that. And so I kind of mentioned I go? How long actually are we in there and you know, I'm going to little nervous about this and shoes and turns around goes all your nervous then your ceremony has begun. The ceremony has reached forward in time and grabbed you by the belly button.

And I said excuse me and he said. If you're focusing on it, you're connected to the ceremony already and in that moment. I remembered what happened before. I went camping. When I kind of want in ceremony before I went camping. I was there except this was more of a sense of dread and fear and that kind of stuff well. Finally we go to the Sweat Lodge. An I love. There is a fire. It's around a fire. I'm happy I like fires, and there was a fire there and their sage and it all smells good, and we go inside a lot.

And I'm behind him and and then they come in and these red hot rocks come in and it's Oh. It's like primal. It's so cold. They put him in the centre. They bring him with antlers you know, and then they bring in the walk on the water in a big bucket of water and they closed the door and then the rock clothes and then they take the water and then they start to sing. He singing a song and he throws it on the rocks and wherever he supposed to water on the rocks. It goes black there, so the light starts going up.

And then he throws it on 3 times from here. This is the is the water hits. The rocks and then suddenly, it occurs to me that water and rocks will be steam. I'm great with heat. I'm great in Cenis. I can't breathe in the steam room. I don't do well listing. No one ever said the word steam for some reason, it never occurred to me that we were going to be sitting in steam heat. Yes, good steam. No, I am panicking and I'm going to shoot. This is going to be steamed. This is going to be steamed.

Internal talk does running amok and then suddenly this big wall of steam hits me and Enveloping. You just like and I think I didn't breeze for a moment and then there's a little hysteria in my head, but the steam kind of kept me going for awhile and Shinzen warn me. Whatever you do, don't you good out. This lodge early because you're representing me OK.

And he's right here in front of me like I'm right here with the rocks and he's right there and I'm like why am I doing this, I'm going to die. This is the end of my life as I know it right and I can't you think you can't breathe right. So I make it through the first round and then they lift the flap and I know there's going to be 3 more in these so I went OK. I survived that one, I can survive 3 more. The 3rd rounders, where they don't sing and all they do is sit there and put the water on the rocks and all you hear is the sound of the water.

And the **** going on the rocks and they do it and that's the purify round where it gets so hot, I sat there in my ears were singeing and then it literally. I started getting goosebumps, all over my skin is if I was cold and I literally sat there and then suddenly.

My mind stopped it was so hot, my it just like the Heat just went from.

And I was in a suspended period of no thinking for the first time in my life.

It was amazing and so after that, I thought OK that was interesting. We had another round. We came out shinzen and villain are getting in the car and I just feel euphoric. I'm just like wow. That was really great and shins and said yes. That's the taste of purification and I went OK and he said yes. It's in and eat pizza purification long and I love this ceremony. They had where everyone came with this focus and they had a way of talking when you're in the lodge.

They had a uh a way they do activities. Everyone's focused comes in and creates this ceremony and this purification and in that lodge if you cry in that large that's a blessing to the ceremony. I thought This is so freaking cool. I fell in love with it and I did sweat. Lodge every week for the next 6 years, except on nights that women can't go. You can't go on your own time so but other than that. I was there every night for the next 6 years. I thought that was kind of the greatest thing in the world.

And then

When I after that, then I did a vision question that I told you about a little bit and one thing I want to say about the vision quests is that?

Shinzen kind of tricked well anyway, how I did the vision quest is another thing, but one thing about a vision question being out in nature, and that ceremony and that's another ceremony where People commonly support you and they have that kind of special focus on it.

You're sitting in one spot in nature, watching the sunrise go across the Sky and down all the stars come and it comes up again, but the time you're 60 will spent about 22,000 days on this planet and rarely do you ever stop to just watch one of them?

So the vision quest is where I learned that time would shift.

It was three days but it was like time opened up and there was more time. So my camping trips after the vision quest. I stopped moving before that, I was hiking after my vision quest. I just sit there and I don't move for 12 days and I don't need much food. When I'm not moving but that ceremony so the sacred ceremony of the sweat. Lodge and that's when I started calling my camping in ceremony and this notion of being in Sarah when I started using it in my life going. I'm going in ceremony now.

Everything I do now will be sacred. There is a certain kind of focus in on it, and I usually light a candle to remind me, I'm in ceremony.

Um one thing, though I will say when I camp alone there. What there there were maybe 4 occasions. In 20 years where I did cautions.

And one time I called Shinzen, I was out on the Hill looking over everything and I decided. I wanted to hold all visual auditory. Insta matic experience at the same time, but keep them separate and distinct and this was before see here feel this is the five ways where what we were rocking and rolling on it.

And so I said, I want to spatially hold them. All I was a very ambitious meditator. So I went OK feel is easy is in the body got a sense of that see it was before seeing if it was visual was easy 'cause. It's here and it's all forward here was a little Turkey 'cause. It's here and it goes out to the site so that space of here to hold both here in and here it was a little trick here 'cause. It went out. Inherency kind of crossed over a little bit here, but I did it and I got to.

They had all of them at the same time, and then I treated it like a 3 dimensional pizza and I wanted to cut the cheese. I wanted to really draw a line between us. So I had distinct lines between all of them in cutting around the body was easy between C and here was a little gnarly and I would just I was really. I was in deep concentration that I was really and I finally and I was just at the edge of cutting the cheese on seeing here and then I did it, I cut the cheese and then all three of them flew apart.

See flew out there here flew out here body flew out here, leaving nothing in the centre an?

I mean, I'd experienced the source before, but not that way.

And I went that is so cool. I have to caution then I have to tell him this is what we should teach everyone. All you have to do is A3 slice pizza visual auditory cinematic cut the cheese and so I cautioned down on the phone and I say This Is It. We're going to do this in cut the cheese and he went.

Uh well here's what I see is an issue without he said. Everyone's not going to be able to hold all three spaces and.

Some People are going to find it difficult to as you say it cut the cheese and he said. And I'm quite happy with the five ways right now? I really think that is the way we're going to go and I said that this is just three things they can get they could even take him a week. You know, and he's like thank you. But I think I'm good with the fire boy, he and I was disappointed and I watched my sensations, but I went back and I thought that was the most novel thing in the world so.

What 4 years later 5 years later when he came up with see here we always like Siri because at that time feel was just emotional so I called it seeing hearing body is what I called it but basically it was called the 3:00 slice cut the cheese anyway. That's an example of that ceremony. Then, after doing my ceremony. In doing the sweat. Lodge ceremonies for a long time I started seeing retreats is the ceremony.

And I thought you know it's really interesting. We all kind of come. It's sacred. Everyone is bringing their focus is one thing about the Native American ceremony. Everyone brings their focus, but everyone's working on their own thing right you cry for you. We all get bust by that. And here I thought everyone's coming. Everyone is working on their own thing, but yet were supported by the group and there was something kind of sacred about that and I started seeing retreats is it kind of kind of ceremony and then.

Then I started to see how the ceremony held it's like in the sweat. Lodge ceremonies you know the drummings there and everybody the whole ceremony itself kind of supports you kind of in the way Tiens. I was talking about this. Then you do that and then that kind of movement support you in that way. and I started seeing how this kind of supported us and everyone has a time on retreat when you're you know you can't get focused or you're getting emotional or your knees or butt hurt or you think you're doing the technique wrong or someone in the Zendo.

Is moving or eating a sandwich or something right and there's just something going on? That's a challenge and there's always somebody who's doing their own practice.

But it's inspiring right so everybody's own practice contributes to this kind of whole ceremony that we can do and as I started seeing that as a ceremony when I came I started packing for retreats in the way I did for when I was camping. It's like I'm a ceremony now an I'd come and I'd listen to a Dharma talk and even if it was like Oh. I'm too busy. I didn't stop your life to come in and then after the second day, I'd listened and I go.

This is the most important work we can do you know all that other stuff I had to do this really, really important that have all these lists that are going to do when I get back. This has to happen first. If everyone on the planet was doing. This there would be no problems right. I thought wow. This work is sacred. You know what we're doing. We're not coming here in gathering around of fire. We're gathering around this brilliant man who's created of vocabulary.

An and uh vocabulary and terminology for sensory experience, so we can talk about the most subtle in deep aspects of anything and communicate about it and we can tell him what's happening in his teachers. We know what's going on with somebody and we can share this language and be able to help People and I'll just say as a teacher on this Richard getting a good workout, but I will say.

The joy is a teacher to use his system is a teacher. The effective result of it is. Unlike anything I mean that newcomer group that didn't just have newcomers. I mean, you guys Rock You know it right. I mean, the reports of what they were doing with things that most people I know weren't doing till the 3rd retreats. They were pressing Oh yeah, I had this huge feeling and I let it go through and then I felt I was just like Rock and roll. We do high fives for that stuff, but it was, I really like.

At this retreat, I appreciated having this to work with to help People honoring it. But I also and in my life with People who don't notions on system.

I'm using his system to help People rewire habit patterns of thinking feeling behaving to help them suffer lesson be happier. You know, but they don't know the system so here People are coming in with these advanced questions of depths of the system so I got a good workout. I haven't had in a long time and I thought wow. It just made me feel so like I'm doing something I'm supposed to be doing and then I thought I'm not meditate here.

I can teach here they're kind of the same thing except one I'm talking more right like the fulfillment. The Moody to Oh my gosh. This is Moody tell city here at the moment and you know what that is.

And so anyway, I was just feeling this gratitude for this, this man who is created this.

Vocabulary in this system.

Of categorising sensory experience and giving a strategies and techniques that are the yellow brick Rd to the source and happiness.

And.

There is an infinite variety of ways within their system you can take.

You can go whichever way feels good for you all roads lead to the source and I just always every time I'm teaching it every time I'm working with someone who's getting a has an and shifting I. I feel this thrilling kind of excitement ingratitude. That's kind of like how I felt on my birthday ceremonies right with this that. We're all kind of coming together and and and also the other thing that he developed is this.

Interactive meditation who else does that.

That's like exploratory surgery someones meditating you can meditate with him and interactively.

Whatever is happening, they've got an expert guiding them. Where to go, which is what he does a non lines but his teachers we learn how to do that? What a tool for helping the planet?

So, sometimes were challenged and we can get inspiration from those that are sitting longer and other times, were sitting here inspired with gratitude.

And we can come here and an?

Get insight.

Into how we are born in each moment.

The waves.

Come in and go out in between them, the foam is created and that's us.

To quote him, we were born in the cleft of expansion and contraction.

In each moment.

And we come here in this ceremony to share this.

And if we're born and each moment.

Then today is your birthday today is our birthday.

And I.

Wish that your I hope that your birthday ceremony.

Contributes to you.

Becoming a better person.

And experiencing happiness.

Independent of condition.

Happy birthday.

Thank you.