This “pilot” of sorts called ‘Ask Us Anything’ marks the start of a monthly, open-audience, open-discussion with co-host Denny K Miu mostly about meditation practices and related topics.
Our format isn’t set in stone, but it may gel more over time. We may invite guests. Audience members may talk more. We may freestyle with zero preparation, or do the opposite and pre-plan for (highly) specific theme or topic. Feedback is welcome and encouraged.
Some topics we discussed:
- The importance and intent of/for (a) daily (meditation) practice (for ourselves and how to help aspiring meditators)
- The importance of feedback on/about/in/with/for meditation training/practice — including feedback from self, spiritual friends and teacher(s)
- The Buddha’s four ways to answer questions:
- In Walpola Rahula’s short introduction to Buddha’s teaching, What the Buddha Taught [PDF], one reads that the Buddha evidently replied to questions in one of four ways:
- He answered some questions directly.
- He analyzed some questions to determine what they meant.
- He answered some questions by replying with counter-questions.
- He put some questions off to the side.
- In Walpola Rahula’s short introduction to Buddha’s teaching, What the Buddha Taught [PDF], one reads that the Buddha evidently replied to questions in one of four ways:
- Practice wisdom and lessons during lockdown
- How to establish a formal meditation practice
Other AUA references:
“Meditation, or Chan, Buddhism is perhaps the most Sinicized (rendered Chinese) of all Buddhist denominations. Because of the initial difficulty and obscurity of Buddhist sutras to the Chinese audience, many of whom were Daoists, the Chinese emphasized an intuitive understanding with or without the reading of the sutras, which is the original meaning of Chan, or meditation.”
- On what’s skillful, wholesome, important and what to pay attention to:
“….don’t go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, ‘This contemplative is our teacher.’ When you know for yourselves that, ‘These qualities are unskillful; these qualities are blameworthy; these qualities are criticized by the wise; these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to harm & to suffering’ — then you should abandon them.”
“….overcome by [greed, ill will, and/or delusion] his mind possessed by [greed, ill will, and/or delusion] kills living beings, takes what is not given, goes after another person’s wife, tells lies, and induces others to do likewise, all of which is for long-term harm & suffering.“
From the Kalama Sutta
“As for the qualities of which you may know, ‘These qualities lead to utter disenchantment, to dispassion, to cessation, to calm, to direct knowledge, to self-awakening, to Unbinding’: You may categorically hold, ‘This is the Dhamma, this is the Vinaya, this is the Teacher’s instruction.’”
From the Gotami Sutta
“As for the qualities of which you may know, ‘These qualities lead to dispassion, not to passion; to being unfettered, not to being fettered; to shedding, not to accumulating; to modesty, not to self-aggrandizement; to contentment, not to discontent; to seclusion, not to entanglement; to aroused persistence, not to laziness; to being unburdensome, not to being burdensome’: You may categorically hold, ‘This is the Dhamma, this is the Vinaya, this is the Teacher’s instruction.’”
From the Satthusasana Sutta
Audio: Why We Practice | (8/25/2020 — Introducing: ‘Ask Us Anything’ With Denny K Miu)
Or listen via Insight Timer (app or website)
Join Denny live Saturdays online for Yi Jin Jing and mindful joint, stretching, breathing, and qi exercises via:
Full list of links at DennyKMiu.com
The raw unedited YouTube transcription of this podcast:
um so we have um josh and helen with us today hopefully that this would be an ongoing
event we’ve been talking about this for a long time having some kind of regular event uh we we we we had when we
first talked about it we called this uh au aua asked us anything right
so so what was and josh kind of just mentioned that um a couple of days ago we thought that
maybe we should try it once so so let me um let me i guess most of you know me my name is danny
meal um and um and and i have with me uh josh
uh josh dip pot right devold sorry strange last name surname yeah
okay hey josh why don’t you introduce yourself
well um you were born in uh missouri very close to i think in fact you were
born in saint louis when you’re not well not known not necessarily so i was actually born in cape girardeau so it’s
about an hour and a half um away on the interstate so that’s and then i
grew up in southeast missouri and um went to school in columbia missouri
for a couple years dropped out worked for about 10 years there and then moved to st louis in about
2012. so well the other day when we when we talk about the theme and the people we should
invite right i think i mentioned uh i guess i’m kind of confused i think there’s a saying about the 12 degrees of
separation and then there’s another one kind of the reverse of that which is six degrees of of
of connection something like that right correct me if i’m wrong something like that so so um i’m hoping
uh more and more people will join but um but um on the other hand um i think just
having this regular forum uh connecting with people who are who are watching uh would be already a very nice thing and
and so what is that what is the degree of connections that you and i have
well before we start off here and dive in i just want to give a disclaimer that uh probably some of the stuff i’ll
be mentioning and talking about um obviously don’t take it as
at you know face value or as truth or anything like that it’s just a reference for everybody to do their
own due diligence and sometimes i’m not the greatest at giving the exact
source material i just happen to remember things like so if i mention suta sutas
or just different things and i don’t remember where it came from it could just be a starting point for
your own research and whatnot so our connection denny um is well we
we first met out at maba right mid-america buddhist association on retreat um right
okay so so you wanna um and i think we hit it off right away and
just kind of um how enthusiastic we were we were and are about practice
meditation practice um just great opportunity we had there too yeah yeah so the reason i i kind of uh coach
our conversation that way is as much as we we talk about the connection and and we’ll
elaborate on that but um i just want to make sure that we don’t represent anybody
we don’t represent our teacher we don’t represent a particular um
lineage of buddhist practice we just represent us right and
which so so you and i get together for this because we do have at least one degrees of of connection
which is that we share a the same dharma master master uh message zero
who who who is a very interesting person and and hopefully we’ll will uh we’ll talk more about him and um
hey it looks like holly is joining us hey holly exactly i was just talking
about um the uh the degree of connection between josh and i but as it turns out
um you the three of us share the same degrees of connection which is that we we have the same dharma master and and
now i just i mentioned uh master zero’s name we but um so so so
in any case um so george and i uh as josh was saying that um we met uh at one of the retreat uh in
uh in august augusta uh missouri which is an hour drive from uh
saint louis and and then the other time that the other times we follow up with a relationship
was actually um a three-day meditation retreat uh in in last
december right burlingame california yeah burning oh yeah
yeah so we’re hoping that so we kind of put that out there and then but what we’re really
hoping to do is is is use this forum to kind of talk about
more on on a uh more should can i use the word academic or
more technical what should what is the well i think we’re this is almost an experiment now we kind of talked about
yeah we could talk about yeah academic uh maybe a scholarly approach but also
practice based too so if we just want to jump right into that that’s i’m i’m good with that as
well yeah okay well how about how about we do this how about we do this we kind of go around the table and kind of say
hey how how you know what what what is the what is the quote unquote practice what does it mean to you
all right you want to do that first josh what is your well what are you trying to achieve
right that’s that’s that’s a great thing um yes and also i think the intent
is really important in practice something i don’t reflect on enough because it all comes back to why are we doing this you
know what is the purpose behind this and i just think it’s so manifold the benefits
and reasons and purposes and what kind of the end goal is right so i
mean it has just layer upon layer of that um i guess i can go into that a little bit but yeah
if i may if i may judge um i you know i’m always pretending that there are other people watching this you know like so this is
this is my thing you know like this all these followers you know thousands and thousands of them so i
gotta i gotta make sure that they understand what we’re talking about first you know because i don’t wanna lose them this is one of the things that i learned
from business is that you don’t ever lose the customer you know it’s hard enough to get them but once you get them you don’t want to use them yes on the audio side so i
want to make sure that people understand that when what what we when we talk about practice we’ll talk about meditation
okay and there’s so many different ways explaining that so so i so so so um josh um go ahead uh sorry
for it yes yeah thanks for pointing that out i forget who the potential audience is anybody right not pretty much
so um so yeah it’s like and then i would say the core maybe is what i’m talking about is a formal
meditation practice with majority on the sitting even though that’s not
um that’s only a very tiny portion of it but i’ll just uh maybe keep it at that for now
um so like on the cushion they call that too um so the benefits are just the everyday
for everybody the i mean i’m sure everybody’s heard about meditation right so the benefits are really obvious like um less stress
calm blood pressure i had psoriasis and and that’s actually a scientific
thing that it helps with that and that went away when i started this um
um just but it’s called practice i think for a reason because um
it’s to better meet our everyday lives so where we come from a place of
responding instead of reacting so it it allows more of a space where we have
a choice on how we respond to our everyday situations in our everyday lives instead
of being on autopilot um acting out habit patterns um
and just reacting uh out of habit uh it seems like way a lot of times so it provides a space to allow to open up
and be able to respond for me to be able to respond to situations instead of just
reacting um it’s the outer but personal space right yes and it’s a space between your mind
and your brain right we always think that the mind and the brain are one of the same but they’re actually it’s actually not yeah
because you can actually physically find the brain you i don’t know where the mind is you know we can’t i
can’t hunt that down we can’t google it um so the original question was uh you
know why are we doing this is that that is that what it was yes okay the intent so and then on on on a higher level it
just um it’s more you know we talk about um there’s a sudden awakening
right and then gradual awakening so the the ultimate goal is to awaken and be
free so that the awake awakening so it just means to
to be less ignorant and to have freedom a lot of times freedom from
things so freedom from stress and suffering and it just gradually
increases that type of freedom um like i said earlier it allows choice more choices too to to be
able to see more choices available and just to know what what
choices are skillful wise and wholesome it just becomes more self-apparent it’s
kind of hard to explain like that um but i’m going to pass it on i’ve talked long enough and i can come back
and continue this as as i get as the memory gets more jogged that’s another thing too mindfulness is
another interpretation for sati uh this ancient word that the buddha said to rediscover
um right is um it’s it’s often uh interpreted as mindfulness there’s
the other interpretations i like are body fullness which is actually you know sometimes we
think it’s such a mental process but it’s actually an embodied knowing body fullness some people
interpret it as awareness but also remembering too that’s a that’s the one that uh
shifu uses right and master giroud uses it’s remembering i love that as well it’s just it’s really that’s another
whole topic too so i’m just gonna pass it on now you know in japan
it’s very important to understand the custom which is that you never pour your own drink so even if you have a bottle of beer you
pour for someone else and you put it back on the table and someone else pour for you so i asked the question and now it’s
your turn to ask the question oh i like that yeah okay um and then why don’t you ask holly and
then we just go around yeah yeah if you’d like uh so what is your what why why do you meditate why do you
have a daily uh meditation or a meditation practice
uh what is you what how does it help you
what’s the point um yeah i don’t i uh just switch gears here
what is the point yes um
and it can be secular um be more aware as i journey through this body and in this
world and to do to leave the world better than i find it
you know as i just to the more i don’t know the more that i
can kind of heal myself and be aware of my own
triggers traumas and everything else the better i am able to help other people
do that and to be of service you know i’m here to be of service to people um in the world
so it just helps me do that it helps me center um
yeah i don’t know it’s just it’s it’s it’s like a calling i just do it you know
and the mindfulness you know it just helps me to be mindful in everything that i do you know packing
my bag for traveling and you know interacting with people on the street and [Music]
being mindful you know especially now of everybody’s feelings and fears and whatever around where we’ve
been for the last six months you know um
yeah you know and kind of stepping out of my own way and looking at it you know without like okay there’s no judgment
you know so we all have our own path and our
paths intersect they go different ways they come back there’s ebb and flow
you know and just trying to stay within the flow and the stillness and this just you know
it’s it helps me to remember the impermanence of life of this of this life this body that i’m in now
the space that i’m in now i’m leaving it and i’m going to a different space and time and yeah
it’s i think it’s important to remember that you know as we go through life it’s just the impress it’s always
changing and you know how do we flow with the change and stop resisting it
you know and it’s hard because we do resist it because we’ve become so conditioned in habitual patterns whether
they’re whatever they come from you know but just okay so this is a way i can look at
it this is another way i can look at it does that make any sense absolutely not
okay that’s what i thought no no
as you’re saying it you know i was i was i was talking i was just telling myself how do i kind of just
you know bring what you said into just a few words i mean but so many things pop up one one thing that pops up is is
personal hygiene in the sense that you know if you go to the doctor’s office you
know they put on masks is it because they’re sick no they’re they’re they’re sick they won’t be there
but it’s it’s a it’s there it’s basically taking the responsibility
of not causing harm and so i think one of the things you said holly and correct me if i’m wrong is that
you’re in the position or you like to be in a position to provide uh servers to people in on a on a on a
on a spiritual level so it’s like putting on a mass it’s making sure that you yourself
is is is in a in a in a mentally healthy position before you
reach out is is is that correct that’s very yeah you said it better than me i mean
of course yeah i’m the marketing guy here come on i mean i’ve actually i’ve been working
this whole pandemic with kids and families i haven’t stopped and you know there was always you know i
followed protocols i had protocols set up where
it felt safe as long as i felt safe they felt safe in in meditation i was able to tap into
something where i just kind of instinctively knew who needed the help
and who i could continue working with and who i couldn’t work with physic like in person
and this is um you know this is why isn’t john buddhism considered um they interpret as
a an intuitive path so i don’t know if that’s right or not but
it does it seems that meditation also builds our intuition muscle uh so like holly was saying she just
kind of innately knows um the right choices to make it’s kind of hard to explain intuition rationally
you know just just kind of an inner knowing um yeah so yeah and that’s another thing um
it’s just because when we take care this is like another teacher i have he calls um like different spiritual practices
energetic hygiene so this you know it’s like um meditation is like a consciousness and energetic
spiritual hygiene so when we’re able to take care of ourselves then we can help the world right
so that’s one thing i forgot to mention as well because uh i’m in really no not a really decent position to help
somebody else or pretend or try to help somebody else when i’m when i’m a hot mess myself you
know so this we always talk about the importance of physical exercise this is more of a kind
of a mental exercise or a combining of body and mind centering grounding you guys i’m gonna
have to know because it’s nature because i have to go out in nature and my friend is back home now
that’s all right yeah so hopefully next time wherever you are
holly just check in next time okay well so keep sending them to me because i’ll be in scotland at this time
next um next week or whenever you do them so the time in scotland right now 6 20
which is great okay okay well this is this is recorded so when you have a chance to
come back and then you would know you know what we say when you’re not here
[Laughter] now you can talk about me yeah i should
definitely talk about you okay thanks ali thanks all right holly
and then helen if you if you’re interested in talking just under your mic so we know that you you want to talk
otherwise we’ll just keep going yeah so the other thing that that um
holly mentioned uh in in her kind of uh uh part of the conversation
that kind of pops into my mind is is one time my wife and i traveled um in new zealand and we saw this girl
walking around with a bag that says just because i’m wondering doesn’t mean that i’m lost
it’s a bumper sticker now around here all that all who wonder aren’t lost so so i immediately took a picture of
that in senator holly and she really liked it and so i i think part of what she said is that um
other than you know in addition to the work that she does which is really um kind of uh i would say just
kind of body and mind oneness you know how to how to how to fix someone who who has uh
physical illness by tapping into their their their more of a spiritual
level you know so that’s really what she does but but at the same time she is really the world wanderer you
know and i think what she said is is to me it sounds to me that that when you wander around the world i
often thought about this is you know do you is it best to have a compass or is it best to have
a gps there’s a very subtle difference there you might as well get involved yeah
no well yeah if you have a choice you get both but but do understand the difference i mean so
so so a compass is external
right so if you’re wondering if you are wandering alive
and you realize that you’re getting direction from something external you have to stop and think hey you know
i’ve been do i i’ve done this long enough maybe there’s a different way and in some way meditation is is really
finding yourself and it’s really like developing your own uh inertial guidance system where
you’re not following someone anymore you’re following your own and so i think it just what what holly
said just strikes me is as someone who’s who’s who’s in search of that right
in search of that who that is so so so for me my own practice and i said
this before it’s it’s about freedom it is about freedom it’s about exploring and it’s about
freedom freedom not in a in our materialistic way
because the definition of freedom is is choice you know
i i remember uh back in the days when i was when i was running my own company people
talk a lot about commitment you know that you have to have commitment this is when like the japanese quality circle were big and so they
always talk about you know you have to be committed to a bigger cause you have to be committed to the company
so people talk a great deal about commitment and i often make the joke they say as well that’s what the nail thought when he
stuck into the board that he’s committed to that piece of wood where in fact is actually stuck
you know so you have to really understand the difference between committing something and being stuck into something and so that to me is is
the ultimate definition of freedom which is hey you know do i get to choose
what i get to choose so my my my own pursuit is is the is is now that i do have
freedom not that i do have choices from on a material aspect
how do i go further and have freedoms on more of a spiritual or mental aspect
so that ultimately i can make better choices and of course the the path in doing that
is one of understanding just just know that know that you know what is that like you
were saying i like the way you said it is like brain is not mine they’re actually
different although the problem is that we don’t know what mine is yes and um
those are great metaphors denny yeah and then the commitment is this is a tricky one for me it’s it’s
sticky one because it’s what are you committed to i think commitment’s important but if you’re committing to all these
you know superficial things and having all this responsibility uh committing to things that really
don’t matter in the long run i mean we all have to have certain you know daily commitments and stuff but what do we really want to
commit to put our energy and time and effort into you know what’s important what’s
needed um so that’s yeah so like you said so many people
want uh so want so many people to commit to their own things certain things of that but what is
ultimately gonna lead to more freedom to liberation to peace to ease you know all these
that’s an um one other cool thing is um for me instead of moving from goal
driven well actually i never really was super goal driven although those are important
if we have core values then every moment of our life can be in alignment with
those core values so it leads to more satisfaction and what we’re after anyway
instead of just going from one goal to the next to the next to the next although we you know we still need goals but like
for me my core values um are just kind of like i kind of took these from um
i teach dharma talks and teachings like a bird so the wings of a bird you
have wisdom on one wing and uh and the heart qualities kind of like the
loving the brahma biharas of loving kindness compassion equanimity and sympathetic joy
altruistic joy um vicarious joy however you wanna and then so we need we can’t just have one of
those wings both of them balance out each other so um the wisdom
um on one end and then the heart qualities on the other and then also the bird um signifies
freedom right so a bird is completely free and then what else does a bird need to be um flying a high high in the air what
needs effortless courage it has such courage is so effortless and inbuilt
that doesn’t even really consider it anymore because to go way up if we were to fly way up without any
you know just by ourselves it would be scary because we thought we we could drop any time well a bird can drop any time
but it’s just completely fearless in the sky right because it’s just natural ability so it
has courage but yes so help me get back on track here yeah
yeah so no no no i think i think i think if i if i understand it right is you
know when does commitment becomes attachment yes exactly so if we want to have attachment or healthy
attachments i think it should be towards complete and utter free and liberation until we get close to
that point and then we can even let go of that right yeah yeah but but i think i think i
think yeah you’re pointing out in the end it’s it’s how do you know whether you don’t know
we’ll see that’s work because because we don’t have we we don’t we’re not trained and and unless you have training and
practice you don’t have the visibility and if you don’t have the disability then they’re just words right
then they’re just words so so for example uh you know like like we in in buddhist teaching we we don’t
like the word attachment right because it means that your attachment another another um another
uh word for that is we don’t like clinging i like that better yeah you take a saran
wrap you know that that happens right every time you take a saran wrap if you’re not you know you lay it down on the countertop because if you’re not
careful then it’s really hard to you know take it then you have to start all over again right so so so this is we so one thing that we
don’t like is this idea of clinging clinging means that you’re so attached to something that
that it that that it’s like it’s like it’s like it’s like traveling you know it’s good to have a
destination but often we we are so attached and so we we’re that the destination becomes so
important that we forget that the journey is also part of the part of the part of the the
travel and and so it is the same it’s the same about uh attachment i i actually think that attachment
is important as long as long as we know how to do it health uh you know skillfully and
wisely attached and then also be able to um detach but i like the word um because you know
there’s psychological kind of balance baggage around this the term uh i think in buddhist that’s
more healthy is non-attachment right but then the attachment can also be needed though to we know like in
psychological kids want to be able to have a healthy attachment to their parents right um also we might
need to attach to something temporarily to really study and observe it right but
then when the time comes we can disengage or detach from that um yeah but this is what we comes in
really important of discernment skills so um like i mentioned before the show um
and some notes this is where um you know you said well how do we know if we can’t you know have if we don’t have the
visibility well this is where spiritual friends are so important and then a valued
teacher or you know master yeah so that’s that’s where it comes in for so i guess
we can transition maybe to feedback about our practice too and how to do so so just i mean
there is that very tiny micro up possibility that we at least have one audience okay that
that actually stay with us you know in 30 minutes okay that just you have to be open to that possibility so so i do
want to at this point kind of do a summary which is that um between
josh and i and you know whenever harley can check in and helen and other people
that want to join us in the future what we really want to do is is is spend some time here
to exchange ideas and experiences in our practice and
one of the way that we do that is is we take these terms whether they’re attachment and aversions and
you know all those things that really like like have each one of us explain how we you
know what does that mean to me and and then to have that so so i so so um i i if i may
uh one of the things that i wanted to do is summarize what josh uh talked about is is ultimately it’s
it’s about under discernment and visibility it’s about knowing what is considered quesola or
a quesola right which is a very interesting term uh because it’s different from good and
evil it’s really yes right yes because
yeah is is translated as wholesome and a silhouette the opposite of kusala
is translated as unwholesome and so one of the interesting things that i find in buddhism is that it’s just
you when you when the word a is magical you know it’s just like magical it’s just like this is this is what it is and
this is not what it is right so just put an a on it and then and then that becomes the other part
which is different from from other religions that when we talk about good and evil because
when we talk about good and evil implicit in that is that there’s an
authority there’s someone out there right who judges you
and i think that in our practice whether you want to call it buddhism or not then
ultimately we’re talking about we our own we have to decide if this is good for us
or not good for us and we do it because it’s quesola or we do it because it’s a quesola right
so the word crystalline is important that is this good for me is this something healthy right it’s like it’s like
deciding what to eat it’s like deciding what exercise you want to use does it
lead to our long-term happiness and the long-term happiness of others yeah so
again um the in the simplest form to explain
what we would like to do in this forum and what we like to do going forward is to just each of us have
our own way of explaining you know what makes us happy and how do we go about that and
and not necessarily in a material standpoint not about having a lot of things although things are
important but to ultimately put some perspective to that is that well that that is important that that’s the
foundation upon a point you know which we can build more right and it’s all about knowing uh what is
that more what is that right what’s going on right and and so so we talk about practice we talk about
sitting meditation walking meditation ultimately to really understand um
the body and the mind the body and mind right can i i want to i want to just one more
thing and then i want to switch topic because you have you you had a bunch of suggestions
um i want to pick up on what you said though too so go ahead no go ahead you do first you do
it first okay just real quick the kusala kusala you know um
the the good evil i this is this is really helpful for me because it just kind of sets aside this whole
argument of good and evil although you know i can see a purpose for that too
but to just go beyond that so even people who think they’re good or i’m doing this good and
you’re bad that it just sets that aside and it’s able to connect with everybody because i haven’t yet to find anybody
that can um really go against skillful or unskillful wholesome or unwholesome
you know they’re just it just it’s a neutralizer it just it gets rid of all these arguments over
who’s right who’s wrong um good and evil you know um because it’s just that that’s been going
on since the dawn of time you know good and evil um and then also um
what were you saying about the um uh
well now i’m i’m drawing a blank maybe maybe it’ll come back to me but yeah well no no let me let me let me
let me continue with just as you’re talking i i you know just continue with that um so
so good and evil crystallization
a lot of times the problem i i’ve been a professor for nine years so so uh i’m in a good position to talk about
their some of the the deficiency or our formal educational system
starting from kindergarten all the way to graduate school and in fact i think that um
with this pandemic and and and idea of doing remote learning and all that all
of a sudden you you you removing um
um learning from from physicality and and that’s gonna change that’s gonna change and and so one of the problem
with our formal education is and and knowing you know being a professor i can tell
you this um the students are trained to know two things that for every question there’s an
answer and not only that the answer is unique
think about it hi as a teacher you that’s how i look look i i put on an
exam and i put out a question it’s it’s it’s not it’s not acceptable for me to
put up the question that doesn’t have answer and it’s not acceptable for me to put
out a question that has non-unique answer because the world
the world will go up in flame the academic world will go up in flames right yeah okay so so what is that
problem the problem is that not every you know in real life outside of academia not every question
has an answer and obviously clearly there is more than one answer and and so
what the problem the problem with with with institutionalized religion
is that there’s only one answer and going back to the good and evil that’s what’s implicit
in the the discourse of good and evil is that there is only one answer
what’s also implicit in the discussion between chris allah and a crystalline is that for every
individual there is an answer so your answer is different from mine and i have to respect your answer as
much as you should respect mine i hope right all right it’s a very different
conversation it is a very very different concentration it’s it’s like it’s like you know it’s like earth and venus
yeah and this is where the the buddha goes into there’s i forget the suit uh where um is it the kalamas where they
were so confused they had all these teachers going and they’re like what do we what should we pay attention to um and the buddha goes through and
lays it out and that’s one of the things about knowing what’s wise skillful wholesome um you know it won’t be rebuked by the
wise i forget all the exact things but he lays it out you know um you know what uh basically it comes back
to knowing for yourself and that he gives a list of qualities right um i wouldn’t pick up a loose end here
before that um is you said happiness for each of us know our happiness and i love that
little it’s almost a cliche saying at this time that happiness is an inside job
right yep okay so now yeah transitioning real quick unless
you want to pick that up uh speaking of questions um i had on there the four ways that the buddha
address questions so i don’t know if anybody else um knows this but i heard this and i
forget which suit it comes from by the way it’s the same full way that master jew uh address our questions
yeah the same oh yeah yeah yeah so you’re all familiar go ahead and you can you can help um you
can correct and refine me so well i mean um it would
it should be the way that it’s it’s not only the way that historically buddha have um answer
question and it’s not only the way that our teacher have asked questions answer question it should be the way we answer each
other’s questions right some of the ones are so rare that they we don’t even think about doing it
right yeah so what are the what are the four ways that we should answer each other questions so the the obvious ones that we hear all
the time or the first two or two that i’ll say first is uh well kind of a quick brief um
yes or no or uh you know direct simple concise answer the next one is uh expanding on that
with an a you know a longer explanation right um if i’m getting this right but then the
other ones that hardly anybody does is probably because you’ll be socially rebuked is not answering just just not giving an
answer there was one um story in the sutures where somebody asked you know is there a
self is there not a self and then the buddha wouldn’t answer uh and i guess the reason he gave later
for that is because no matter which way he told which way he answered that he would have
given the wrong impression or you know not given um conveyed it right depending on that situation
because of the temperament and the situation the context but anyway the last one is um the last one is answering a
question with a question so sometimes we just don’t have enough information about the actual question
itself or sometimes the person is asking the question for a certain reason that an appropriate response would be to
say to to respond with a question because of that unique situation right so so so so so these are the four things
right these these are the four um what we call the canonical forms
right of of of interaction one is that um someone asked the question because we after all we call this show
as us anything so if they ask us a question we should respond directly
with the understanding that this is our experience and understanding right at the same time we should then
ask them to clarify why they ask that question
okay and then finally we should ask more questions
by exploring because sometimes people don’t don’t understand why they ask the question so
you didn’t need to kind of explore that and sometimes you just have to ignore the question
not in a very polite way put it aside by just saying that i don’t know i’ll go
find the answer or i’ll find someone else who find it and did you know that do you know that that these are
the four ways of interacting customers that is the way that i usually train my sales
staff excellent always answer the question so this is the most important thing when your
customer asks you questions don’t don’t don’t go in you know don’t try to go in
and talk about something else and thinking that you know 20 minutes later you will come back to answer no answer the damn
questions first right away that’s a good idea right away and just saying don’t be afraid to say i don’t know because so
are afraid to say i don’t know because just because they want to appear like they know or smart or yeah or they’re deficient if
they can’t say if they say i don’t know they think they’re in deficient and then diddy i’ll let you finish i might want to come back
to though this all ties into the education system and how questions and knowledge are viewed outside of the
schooling system because of the schooling system well i can get into that um some some
ideas about that later we have to leave something for the nationals okay but but we got we got about 10 minutes
um so so um i want to i want to pick up on this this question that you have which is um
we’ve been we’ve been sheltered in place for damn six months right wow
six months i remember celebrating the 100 day because this was like you know as soon as it was
in san francisco it started with st patrick’s day it started with st patrick’s day because because the mayor
decided that if if she didn’t do that then people are going to go out drinking that night and so she actually started to practice
in place and just shut down everything which turned in retrospect was the right move
so so this this was the middle of march so so now with them towards the end of august right so this
this is this is a long long time so missouri though by the way this is
california we’re talking about just in case we’re talking about california yeah we’re talking about california and um well come on in missouri you’re
always distancing come on out in the country right rural areas yeah we’re used to
that so the question is the question is what does practice in place mean what does sheltering in place
mean how did you how how did how did that affect your
practice in in both good ways and bad ways so you go first well actually i don’t know if that
really applies to me so i’m gonna get you back uh or throw it back to you real quick so
there hasn’t really been any of that here i think i can’t even remember so i don’t want to miss speak but
there’s really not much of a curfew or i think there maybe was for a couple
days or something but um and then even masks a lot of times are
optional in certain places in um in businesses now um but a lot of the
businesses have switched to curbside service and and some of the stuff it’s a
you know there’s similarities and differences um but what i can see what i noticed the most
about this whole um thing going on um is the amount of fear
that it put in people especially at the beginning and i noticed it myself and a lot of people around me it’s not as
great i don’t think now it’s just that i can see where it’s actually
that could be more detrimental or just as detrimental as any kind of
virus because it can run down our immune system right if we’re in a constant state of fighting flight
and fear but then again if somebody’s already in that state to tell them oh you shouldn’t be in fear
well then they’re just they’re just gonna get more in fear right so that’s kind of the kind of a paradox
with that but that’s another reason why meditation is important is to um is to address our fears instead of
trying to hide from them and cover them up because um that’s one i look at there’s
the opportunities of this as you know uh so some unmet or unprocessed
fear it can bring up which is a good thing because how would we know kind of um the opposite of fear if we
didn’t if it didn’t come up and and deal with it um and some people probably aren’t really
even aware that they’re in a state uh of fear right um so and then
it it we did um since everything kind of people are kind of going back to a more i would say natural state they’re not
running around uh mindlessly consuming like they would usually right so they’re kind
of spending more time in isolation contemplation um yeah just kind of having to look uh
at how they are their state and maybe reviewing their lives and what’s been important up to this point and
a lot of that stuff that was once important during this isn’t really that they can’t do that anymore so they’re
they’re just kind of in like either no man’s land or don’t really know what to do so that’s another thing that our practice
has helped us prepare for i feel uh because this is really not that new to us
it’s just maybe a different context it’s also you know if somebody wanted to do a self
retreat or things like guinea does on zoom i don’t know if it’s mentioned that that he does
well he’s going to go back to this right the how you’ve been doing this practice uh group practice on zoom since
since the very beginning this started and that’s what i’m gonna um i think i’m gonna wrap it there and
throw it back to danny to to answer his own question and then build on that with um that what he’s learned from uh his daily
practice on zoom and everything else that goes along with this yeah yeah so so my my answering my own
question is is how did this pandemic affect my own practice or affect the practice of people around
me you can’t it’s it’s a it’s a huge
uh event huge humanity event but it’s still not big enough to change
people’s way you know so you you can only the the
effect of in terms of any positive effect it’s it it’s on the edge you know it’s really on the edge that
that if you have people who are inclined to practice already
this gives them a sense of urgency right because it’s it’s like it’s like
you roll it down the cliff if you already passed that point you’re just going to keep rolling and just accelerate and so for a lot of people
it’s i think it’s very difficult to go to someone who had never practiced this this
spiritual have i don’t have any kind of spiritual practice to speak of and then to be able to grab them by the
neck and say hey you know do this and they’re already too this is too catastrophic event
it’s it’s they’re already you know what if they’re going down to the incline incline this just
accelerate and it’s just very about my experience this is my experience it’s very very hard unless they said unless they see
they took time to seek it out for themselves during this time say oh hey what can i do i’m going to go oh
wait i’m going to try this you know that’s the old yeah i agree with you other than somebody saying oh hey
what what do i really need to do now maybe i should look at this other than that yeah i agree so those
those individuals are even if they don’t they haven’t started their practice they know enough
that they they have they wanted to do it and what this what this epi this pandemic does is that
it really puts the urgency okay so so that’s that’s a fine difference that i’m talking about is
that you know if you’re if you’re in this incline and you already you were already going down that incline
to begin with this event just pushes you gives you momentum now and it’s very very hard to
grab them take it back on the other hand i think you’re right josh is that there are people who who is thinking
about it you know and then and then now they’ll say oh yeah and then if you just provide them with the right condition
you know then they they would think that oh this is i understand that this what what this path pandemic has in
if we talk about positive effect is for those of us who already have a practice already have
a a habit it really puts the urgency in us
it really puts the urgency as and and also at the same time
there’s that utility aspect which is hey all of a sudden you know we’re not doing anything anymore
you know so so um in our case we we i just i didn’t know if there was
anybody interested i just knew that this is what i need so i throw out an announcement about a
daily practice and also people show up and he’s oh this you know let’s do
this and some people do it just our curiosity and some people know me already and they say yeah you know
let’s let’s do this and and now it’s to me it’s inconceivable that we would
stop right even afterwards even after this
um well first of all i argue if there’s going to be an outright right right yeah i mean yeah nobody unless
you’re psychic right yeah yeah yeah so no i mean it’s it’s like it’s like putting the hands back in
the clock think about it you know
once you understand that a clock should have hands what’s the point of taking it off again
wow that’s pretty profound under yeah i haven’t heard that you know so anyway um i
i think for for for me speaking personally
it is i hate to use this but it is what it is i hate this
but i i’m making the best of it you know i’m making the best of it and
because it has put urgency back into my life and that urgency i actually knew
because when i visit uh prisons you know back in the days when when prisons were still open which is only a couple months
ago that was the one thing that i noticed is that when you’re when you are prisoner when you are
already inmate and you don’t have this freedom quote-unquote to speak of
about your physical presence then the only freedom that you research
is the spiritual freedom and and that’s where the urgency comes
from that the more you know that whereas for those of us who are on the outside
normally we don’t have this urgency and with the pandemic it puts that urgency back so
i’m grateful for that you know i hate to say this as if i said i’m happy for for the for the
but i’m just like personally my own feelings i’m i’m i’m i’m office i’m
i’m very gracious there’s uh well it’s hard to be upset when you’re um
when you’re grateful right and that um you know they talk about uh you can put somebody in prison you can
do all this stuff to them but you can never capture their spirit right so that right spirit is where the the freedom lies
right um or whatever you want to call it right the internal state uh buddha nature or whatever and then
there’s a poly word that talks it’s called i love this word sam vega it means a spiritual urgency and that’s
exactly what this is that’s exactly what i guess prison is um you know um it’s it’s it does it like
really prioritizes things and kind of lights a fire under your butt right um and we notice it benefits immediately
and how important it is it’s just yeah it just makes sense immediately all right then denny i guess the other
thing real quick maybe we can get to um a daily practice though for
anybody wanting to what are some supports for a daily practice and the
important well we talked about the importance at the beginning but um what can people do to establish a
meditation practice a regular meditation practice tips and instructions um
it’s very difficult to if you if you don’t have a regular practice a regular um pattern
for for practice very hard to do that on your own it’s very very hard to do that on your
own so um i i i think it’s also very hard for
people to kind of jump from zero you know to light speed so so it’s very hard for someone to commit
to a daily practice but on the other hand maybe a weekly practice right and so
josh and i um and the other students uh at least on saturday eight o’clock
pacific time ten o’clock central you guys you call it central right yes central time okay no i guess i said
mountain central yeah yes that’s right we we we get together and it’s i i like to see us um you know focusing
on the judicial weekly practice eight o’clock my time and the other thing that i like to do is
is at least not necessary you know sit down meditation
but to really understand what what does meditation mean and that there are there are other
ways to do this that you could have both a static and a dynamic form
and you could have all of those so so if if you are interested in joining us i’d like to see us developing this saturday
forum into into something and so if you join us on saturday uh eight o’clock night time we can we
can explore and then um i’ll answer my own question real quick with a couple things i like the analogy of
it’s like brushing your teeth you can miss a day but you wouldn’t want to i just find the
the importance of a a daily practice but we start where we’re at right so um yeah like denny was saying it
could be a weekly could be anything there’s a free app online insighttimer.com that
gives you a virtual community as well seek out spiritual friends a teacher explore online and then once
you establish a habit then it’s not a big deal anymore you don’t even think about it there’s so many there’s so many so many so many uh
avenues a friend of mine used to say to me he says until i until um until i was this joshua army i didn’t
realize there are so many green trucks [Laughter]
there’s so many so many people online and and that they can you know just just
to start somewhere right now somewhere okay we’re at too okay well josh you know i know you so
long and i like this form this is actually where you and i can actually have a conversation and other people who check
in as well okay we should continue we talk about how often we should do this okay all right thank you thank you both
for sharing thank you hello thank you bye bye
i’ll just go ahead and log off now okay okay bye
Integrating Presence 
63 thoughts on “Why We Practice | (8/25/2020 — Introducing: ‘Ask Us Anything’ With Denny K Miu)”