Q3-20040306-Larry_Rosenberg-IMSRC-studying_the_teaching_studying_ourselves_examples_from_the_anapana

Talk: 20040306-Larry_Rosenberg-IMSRC-studying_the_teaching_studying_ourselves_examples_from_the_anapanasati_sutta_part_4-6093 Leandra Tejedor.json Start_time: 00:41:25 Display_question: How can I engage with my emotions, when I have been trained to disengage, in order to focus on the task at hand? Keyword_search: trust, disengage, emotions, dharma practice, Buddha, British, World War II films, Russian Jew, Italian, Hispanic, allowing, intimate, restraint, indulgence, culture, temperament, attention, awareness Question_content: Questioner: Can you trust that later when you sit on the cushion, and something comes up…I think I’ve been trained, and many of my friends speak of this, they’ve been trained to disengage from the emotional aspect, with whatever’s going on, to function for the sake, not to learn, to do this job… Larry: It's a different path. It's a different path you've been on. Somewhat different than this path, spiritual path that you've been on? Questioner: Trained like from childhood… Larry: Oh, okay. Yes, I understand. I do know. Questioner: This is what you are supposed to do, and I find that for me, if I disengage from that emotion, in order to function, at whatever task I am called to do, or with someone else, it’s sometimes hard to go back, and connect with…what the rawness of the experience was, the truth of that experience. Larry: Yes Questioner: And I can’t really release it because… Larry: I understand. Questioner: Does that come out when you are sitting in mediation? Larry: Let me put it in a larger context for all of us. I will repeat the question. I'll repeat it. Let's say your training is to disengage from emotions, in order, so that you can do what's right for others. And if you do that enough times, or even when you do it, you're losing touch with yourself. Is that reasonable? Yeah. Look, dharma practice, the revolution, the Buddha’s teaching is, revolutionary. Always was, in any society. It's a different way of relating, to the same experience. Typically, the dominant way in which all of us have been trained, brought up is some blend of restraint, and indulgence. But let's say your nature, and what might have been encouraged, different cultures are… some cultures very restrained. If you're British, like the World War II films, or bombs dropping, everyone's dying all around the British officer, with the swagger stick closed, nightly pressed, oh, good show, no problem. In the meantime, you might be, if you're a Russian Jew, you know, like or Italian or Hispanic, you know. Break_line: Okay, so dharma is neither denial, repression, avoidance, et cetera, or drowning, getting lost, swept away, just acting out everything. It's somewhere right in the middle. At least that's the skill that we've been cultivating here, whether you know it or not, the whole week. Which is we're not repressing, and we're also not acting on it. We're allowing it to be there, whatever that is. To give us the… let it flower. And we're learning how to be with it. So, it's neither of the extremes. Your extreme, and others, have had a different one. They're both aberrations. They're distortions, in a way. And this one is just letting it flower. It's a human tendency. If you have that feeling, that's what's there. Let it flower, let it tell its story. And we're watching it, and we're opening to it. It is intimate. You're experiencing it, receiving it, and something good happens from that. Now that training is over. Right? And so here you are. And what do you do if your tendency has been that, and the person on the next cushion, is the other one? Break_line: We all start from where we are, and the practice is just to begin there. And so, no doubt, some of that will start to come up with you. And the practice will be beneficial for you, as you start. It might be hard for you, as emotions come up, that you've been trained out of. Out of knowing. And then you have to learn how to let it go. You may have resentment towards your trainers. Then you have to work with that, et cetera. So, we all have some kind of… it's skewed in one way, or another, by each culture, by each family. And then we have our own temperament we brought to this life. So, your practice, your path is unique, and it's different than everyone else's in this room, and so is mine. But what's the same, is the attention, and the willingness, to learn, from that awareness. Yeah End_time: 00:45:58