The description for this June 4th Insight Timer live event:
We all need discernment, but how? Let’s look at some ways to cultivate, develop, train and progress discernment. While there’s much to discernment, one key: “. . . one listening well gains discernment” ~from Āṭavaka’s Questions
What is your intent and motivation to address discernment itself? I ask again at end to see if these have changed any. I feel mine are mostly in-line with what the Buddha recommends and also in order to see and address manipulation
I read the entire Āḷavaka Sutta (SN 10:12) then focus mainly on this one question and answer from it:
How does one gain discernment?
from the Āḷavaka Sutta (SN 10:12)
Convinced of the arhats’ Dharma for attaining unbinding,—heedful, observant—one listening well gains discernment
I have heard that on one occasion the Blessed One was staying near Āḷavī in the haunt of the Āḷavaka yakkha. Then the Āḷavaka yakkha went to the Blessed One and on arrival said to him: “Get out, contemplative!”
(Saying,) “All right, my friend,” the Blessed One went out.
“Come in, contemplative!”
(Saying,) “All right, my friend,” the Blessed One went in.
A second time… A third time, the Āḷavaka yakkha said to the Blessed One, “Get out, contemplative!”
(Saying,) “All right, my friend,” the Blessed One went out.
“Come in, contemplative!”
(Saying,) “All right, my friend,” the Blessed One went in.
Then a fourth time, the Āḷavaka yakkha said to the Blessed One, “Get out, contemplative!”
“I won’t go out, my friend. Do what you have to do.”
“I will ask you a question, contemplative. If you can’t answer me, I will possess your mind or rip open your heart or, grabbing you by the feet, hurl you across the Ganges.”
“My friend, I see no one in the cosmos with its devas, Māras & Brahmās, its contemplatives & brahmans, its royalty & commonfolk, who could possess my mind or rip open my heart or, grabbing me by the feet, hurl me across the Ganges. But nevertheless, ask me what you wish.”
Āḷavaka:
“What is a person’s highest wealth?
What, when well-practiced, brings bliss?
What is the highest of savors?
Living in what way is one’s life called the best?”
The Buddha:
“Conviction is a person’s highest wealth.
Dhamma, when well-practiced, brings bliss.
Truth is the highest of savors.1
Living with discernment, one’s life is called best.”
Āḷavaka:
“How does one cross over the flood?
How [does one] cross over the sea?
How does one overcome suffering & stress?
How is a person purified?”
The Buddha:
“Through conviction one crosses over the flood.
Through heedfulness, the sea.
Through persistence one overcomes suffering & stress.
Through discernment a person is purified.”
Āḷavaka:
“How does one gain discernment?
How does one find wealth?
How does one attain honor?
How bind friends to oneself?
Passing from this world to the next world, how does one not grieve?”
The Buddha:
“Convinced of the arahants’ Dhamma for attaining unbinding, —heedful, observant— one listening well gains discernment. Doing what’s fitting, enduring burdens, one with initiative finds wealth. Through truth one attains honor. Giving binds friends to oneself. Endowed with these four qualities, — truth, self-control, stamina, relinquishment — a householder of conviction, on passing away, doesn’t grieve.
Now, go ask others, common brahmans & contemplatives, if anything better than truth, self-control, stamina, & relinquishment here can be found.”
Āḷavaka:
“How could I go ask
common brahmans & contemplatives?—
now that today I understand
what benefits
the next life.
It was truly for my well-being
that the Awakened One came
to stay in Āḷavī.
Today I understand
where what is given
bears great fruit.
I’ll wander from village to village,
town to town,
paying homage to the Self-awakened One
& the true rightness of the Dhamma.”
NOTE
1. This is apparently a reference to the concept of “savor” (rasa) in Indian aesthetic theory. For more on this topic, see the Introduction to Dhammapada: A Translation.
See also: AN 3:48; AN 4:62; AN 8:54; Dhp 354
To the Āḷavaka Yakkha
Āḷavaka Sutta (SN 10:12)
While this Sutta tailors the following three discernment teachings — amongst other things — to a demon, there is much within it to take heed of for all of us:
- Best way to live
- Purification
- How to gain discernment
Again, I primarily address listening based on the following Sutta selection:
Convinced of the arhats’ Dharma for attaining unbinding,—heedful, observant—one listening well gains discernment
I discuss stuff around and in addition these notes:
- Seeing/looking
- Hearing/listening
- Our state of listening, listening habits and abilities
- What do you, and can you really pay attention to now by only listening?
- What do you want to and don’t want to listen to?
- How can these be bridged and connected?
- What hasn’t been listened to in a long time, like types or categories of material, or specific things?
- How can you hear/listen to something new? How likely are you to go out of you way to? Or re-listening to something?
- How about loud sounds?
- Phenomena of mistaking sounds / incorrect identification of sounds
- Temporarily putting aside belief, disbelief, opinions, analysis in order to listen
- Where is what is, or what could be listened to on the spectrum from comfort zone to toxicity?
- How can note taking (or not) — during the first listen, and/or subsequent listens — enhance or detract from better listening? What about if no recording is allowed or available?
- What role does repetition play? Reinforcing? Annoying? [My rose gold iPhone example]
- Listen how you want to be heard / seen
- full body listening
- relaxation’s role
- closed eyes to possibly increase available hearing bandwidth (especially when listening alone)
- Human voice:
- data needed with tv vs. landline
- shortwave radio and tin can
- more bandwidth for music
- How does listening translate to discernment?
- How do we put aside discernment for raw, undifferentiated observation, witnessing, knowing (of knowing), being with more of a sense of unity instead of differentiation, and beyond all this?
- memory [and challenges of past life memory discernment]
- evaluation vs judgement(alism)
- application of reference points (creating new ones, identifying helpful ones, and clinging to ones)
- decisiveness vs (bogged down in) research process
- using:
- gut
- heart
- logic/mind
- reflection
- contemplation
- meditation
- intuition
- alignment, opposition, and polarity with(/of) (what’s attempting to be) discern(ed/ment)
- doubt, lack of doubt
- conclusions
- conviction
- openness
- correcting
- admission of “right” and “wrong”
- What is, and how is the intent and motivation now for (cultivating) discernment?
Heedfulness: the path to the Deathless. Heedlessness: the path to death. The heedful do not die. The heedless are as if already dead.
Appamadavagga: Heedfulness
Suttas/KN/Dhp/2
Audio: Cultivate, Develop, Train and Progress Discernment
Or listen via Insight Timer (app or website)
Listen to the full unedited version of this talk: https://join.wisdom.audio/dRGD
The raw unedited YouTube transcription of this podcast:
wholeness welcome this is josh dippold integratingpresence.com
and today’s event is entitled cultivate develop
train and progress discernment and the description is we all need
discernment but how let’s look at some ways to cultivate develop and train and
progress discernment while there’s so much to discernment one key is quote
dot dot dot one listening well gains discernment and this is from
ottawa’s questions so before we jump in today let’s just
either sit back if there’s too much energy or plenty of energy or maybe come forward a little bit if
kind of could use a little boost of energy and let’s just if you’re comfortable close your eyes
and take a few deep breaths arrive in the room you’re in the space
you’re in wherever you’re at
noticing any areas of tightness in the body
feeling them inviting them to release and relax
letting the breath return to normal
and for a brief moment let’s open to hearing
and listening caring in general so notice what kind of
auditory phenomenon is being noticed
right now so for me
i can hear a muffle of the neighbor’s media i guess
whatever’s playing on the media entertainment system
you can notice a few birds song
very light traffic sound now louder
refrigerator running a little bit and the sound of my voice when i’m
speaking so let’s just spend a few more moments opening to hearing
not necessarily focusing right now on any one particular object
sound object of sound it’s opening to all
sounds hearing
okay now welcome to pick any of these objects and listen for a moment
usually it’s easier with the most predominant object the one our attention most naturally
gets drawn to
and we can notice how that might change too like there might be competing um not
necessarily competing but maybe we can perceive it as that maybe one sound will be louder
taper off and then another sound will be louder and if there’s no particular noticing of
sound we can just notice the sound of silence as well so
again let’s listen in to a particular object particular sound
and notice how we can also the mind can also focus in on one object
and kind of exclude other objects to focus exclusively on a single
object of sound
and then before we close this brief introductory meditation just notice our
relationship to whatever we’re listening to
and looking back on just hearing in general what’s our general relationship to that
likes dislikes
other higher relational values
okay when you’re ready you can open your eyes bring yourself back to the room space you’re in and of course
continue meditating why do this especially since we focused in on sound
and with the sound of my voice right i’m going to do a brief reading here from the sutas so this comes from
sn 10 20 and a few things before i start here actually before i even start with this i
want to ask reflect on our intent for discernment and what is our current motivation right
now to practice train develop discernment it’s the ability to judge well
in christian context perception in the absence of judgment with a view to
obtaining spiritual guidance and understanding so i don’t know how if i really like those as well it’s kind of
an evaluation the ability to evaluate i love the sort of evaluate because someone many of us get caught up on uh
judging right how there’s people who want judgment and justice a lot
for me it’s more remedy and resolve moving towards remedy and resolve but on the positive end of
judging you need to take some authority in yourself to make decisions so either way if you want to just say
judge and judging or evaluating the ability to judge well to discern
that’s discernment okay so in this reading probably mispronounced the locations and there’s two definitions if
you’re not familiar yaaka is like a title or a class of being it’s most of
them and and i’m pretty sure in this context it’s like a demon and then in our haunt this is the final stage of
enlightenment i know that’s kind of a gross oversimplification but pretty much their spiritual journeys done they’ve
done everything they’ve can you know do and they’re pretty much considered fully uh enlightened and awakened with some
other kind of stipulations and i’m not going to go into you can look the definition that’s a big topic too and
then we’ll be focusing on this one particular passage from the short suta is how does one gain discernment and
it’s uh convinced of the arhat’s dharma for attaining unbinding hateful observant
one listening well gains discernment and that’ll make more sense with the context of what i’ll read and so this is
from basically the suta to this yaka this demon alavaka i have heard that on one
occasion the blessed one was staying near alavi in the haunt of the alavaka yaka where
he lived and i’ll probably interject here maybe give a little clarification on some of this then the alavaka yaka went
to the blessed one and on a rival’s arrival said to him get out contemplative
saying all right my friend the blessed one went out come in contemplative saying all right my friend the blessed
one went in a second time a third time the alavaka yaka said to the blessed one
get out contemplative all right my friend the blessed one went out come in contemplative all right my
friend the blessed one went in then a fourth time the alavaka yaka said to the
blessed one get out contemplative i won’t go out my friend do what you have
to do and see in these there’s in threes in the suttas a lot a lot of times
something won’t happen until it’s asked three times but in this case it looks like that’s being kind of abused here
and so after three times it’s the opposite where he’s not listening and my buddha’s not listening anymore just
repeat alabakayaka says i will ask you a question contemplative if you can’t
answer me i will possess your mind or rip open your heart or grabbing you by the feet hurl you
across the ganges big river in india and there’s way more colorful stories
and build up to the suta um i’ll link to that in wikipedia but back to the suta here my friend i
see no one in the cosmos with its devas kind of like angel beings i guess mara’s
like um kind of like a king demon on the highest levels in a way and
brahmas another really high level beings it’s contemplatives and brahmanas brahman’s a
class in india it’s royalty and common folk who could possess my mind or rip
open my heart or grabbing me by the feet hurled me across the ganges but nevertheless ask me what you wish
there’s like three sets of questions here alavaka says what is a person’s
highest wealth what when well practiced brings bliss
what is the highest of savers like savoring a food living in what way is one’s
life called best pretty good questions huh the buddha says conviction
is a person’s highest wealth dhamma teachings of the buddha and truth
when well practice brings bliss truth is the highest of savers
living with discernment one’s life is called best alabaca says
how does one cross over the flood how does one cross over the sea how does one overcome
suffering and stress how is the person purified the buddha says through conviction one crosses over
the flood through heatfulness the sea through persistence one overcomes
suffering and stress through discernment a person is purified
and alabaca says how does one gain discernment how does one find wealth how does one attain honor
how does one bind friends to oneself passing from this world to the next
world how does one not grieve the buddha says convinced of the arhat’s dhamma
for attaining unbinding hateful observant one listening well
gains discernment doing what’s fitting enduring burdens
one with initiative finds wealth through truth one attains honor giving
binds friends to oneself endowed with these four qualities truth
self-control stamina relinquishment a householder of conviction on passing
away does not grieve now go ask others common brahmanas and
contemplatives if anything better than truth self-control stamina and
relinquishment can be found here can be found alabaka says how could i go ask
common brahmanas and contemplatives now that today i understand what benefits the next life
it was truly for my well-being that the awakened one came to stay in all of thee today i understand where what is given
bears great fruit i’ll wander from village to village town town paying homage to the self-awakened one and the
true rightness of the dhamma again that’s from sn 10 12.
these teachings are tailored to a demon kind of but when we just talk about discernment it
was mentioned three ways here that it’s the best way to live i mean that’s a big claim right purification that’s an
interesting one purifying oneself through discernment one a lot of other spiritual traditions
think well you have to do a lot of i don’t know rituals or you know things like bathing in the ganges
abstaining from lots of activities maybe sexual activities or misconduct and so i’m not
saying those things you know aren’t helpful and but discernment can actually tell what needs to be done and what
needs to be abstained from relinquished and given up and then how does one gain discernment so this is the
thing we’ll focus on for the first part of this we’ll go into more than just this part convinced of the arhat’s
dhamma for obtaining unbinding heedful observant one listening well gains
discernment so this unbinding means kind of goes with the clinging right that’s
another synonym for nibada is an unbinding we think about i think you just think
about when we’re entangled in something right i mean knotted up with this that
and the other and how amazing it is when we can undo that nodding that entanglement uh or binding
you know it’s something that’s really for bound to something even though even if we want to let go it’s really hard to
because there’s a binding a tying some kind of outside force almost that’s
causing the clinging and attachment right the unhealthy attachment
so listening you know how does listening do that it’s a really cool question so
we’ll go into that here so we’ll just start off with what we did a little bit in the meditation was
hearing and listening we can also look at it as seeing and looking so when we see
it’s different from looking right seeing is just being open and
the visual phenomena right so there’s eye objects then there’s the physical
eye we’re just talking about external sight here and then when those two meet there’s an
eye consciousness so become become conscious of what the vision same
way with hearing hearing is not really discerning
auditory objects auditory phenomenon there’s the ear apparatus the ear organ
there’s objects of hearing and then without me there’s
sound consciousness right your consciousness but listening is
the ability to tune in on one of those objects or multiple objects to pay
attention on purpose to whatever particular
sound phenomena there is so our state of listening right now let’s take a little assessment of our
state of listening now our listening habits and our abilities so our state of listening i just mean
overall how well do we listen is it we if we had to rate ourselves you
know something that kind of low-level base surface level thing our listening skills how would we
rate them on a scale of one to ten our listening habits what do we listen to are there sounds in our environment that
we’re just kind of forced to pay attention to are those things that we go out of our way to not listen to
when we have the choice what do we bring up you know what type of material with podcasts media
going to certain people in our life and wanting to listen to them for whatever reasons
and that goes in with our listening abilities too we get distracted really easy
so that brings us to the next point what do you and can you really pay attention
to right now are currently in your life by only listening so let’s just think just kind
of reflect a moment on like what types of things do we can we really pay attention to for long periods or longer
periods and then what do we want to listen to and what don’t we want to listen to so there might be some things
we’re not listening to now but we want to maybe some of those things we do listen to some of those things we don’t that we
still want to and what don’t we want to listen to i know it’s probably a fair
guess here safe guest to say well something we find unpleasant or annoying we’re probably
not going to want to listen to it right if there’s no kind of interest or there’s a dislike towards something
there definitely seems to be a proclivity not to want to listen to something we dislike pretty obvious right
sometimes we don’t we’re not conscious of that though sometimes we don’t realize something’s unpleasant and we
don’t want to listen to it but if we knew that there was unpleasantness surrounding it then we could be have a
little bit more space a little bit maybe more tolerance or a little bit more choice on how we view it and respond to
it just by knowing that it’s unpleasant now how can all these be bridged and connected
can we see the value and being able to listen to something that we find unpleasant maybe something might be for
our benefit but you know we just don’t want to hear it right now and it’s understandable too we might not be in a
space where we really have the capacity to listen to something in certain times in our lives
too but you know how can we take what we do like to listen to and our listening
abilities and habits and the things we like and the things we can pay attention to for a long time listening how can we
connect that to things that we want to listen to but aren’t listening to things
that we that might be of our benefit to listen to but we just haven’t yet and you know what i really don’t have
any immediate answers to that so i’m gonna leave that for you guys to ponder and consider on that what hasn’t been
listened to in a long time like types or categories of material or specific
things now this i can give an example of i haven’t really listened to
like standard podcasts in a long time i think maybe 10 20 years ago i was
listening to mainstream podcasts i listened to npr not to knock totally npr
but i used to listen to it a lot and i thought it was really kind of
sophisticated and a little more highbrow a little bit better quality news than
some of the other stuff out there and i would say to a certain degree my assessment of it is a little bit like
that but now my overall my opinions probably change to that but i’ll just leave my opinions to myself right
so that type of material some of the kind of more popular podcasts just for purely entertainment purposes and
for me right now there’s so much what’s called infotainment so out there that
just listening to something for entertainment it’s rare for me i do have a favorite uh comedy podcast though
super ego go super ego it’s a free podcast so as far as infotainment so not
only can you learn things now but you can be entertained at the same time so it doesn’t have to be all dry rote
learning when listening that could be somewhat entertaining too i mean that just makes sense if you’re either gonna
do one or the other you get burnt out on really dry material then you go to kind of entertainment that really just is
kind of a waste of time for a lot of it so there’s these things are combined now how can you hear listen to something new
i know some people out there they really love finding new stuff and discovering new stuff to listen to and
other folks are the opposite taste where they like the comfort of listening the same type of thing over and over maybe
they have a favorite show or something they can listen to again and again so how likely are you to go out of
your way to find something new to listen to and this next one it’s funny as a
motorcycle goes by outside how about loud sounds uh i know i’ve heard this a few times
that the things we’re afraid of in life there’s only a few of them we’re born with supposedly and all of our other
fears we learn and one of these kind of born with fears is loud sounds i
think another one is the fear of falling backwards i’m forgetting another one the other one here
but loud sounds the fear falling backwards that’s one of them because it’s really hard to kind of
break a fall backwards and kind of can break open your skull fairly easily falling backwards loud sound usually
can oftentimes signal danger as well again i think there’s a spectrum to loud
sounds i mean what might be loud for one person might be actually you know pleasurable or not
loud enough for another right so there there’s this phenomena of mistaking sounds
and kind of the incorrect identification early on in my meditation practice this
happened all the time sitting there in silence and all of a sudden would start hearing the sound
outside and it’s like oh and i was like sometimes it’s like oh i have no idea what is this and so the mind will try to
fill in the gaps perception will say oh well this is obviously this and then a lot of times
sometimes it’s true and sometimes it’s not and sometimes you figure out oh yeah i was something entirely different than
what i thought it was one of the common ones for me is still is it takes a little bit to
discern a leaf blower and a helicopter so these are things that i still get annoyed by every once in a while and it
takes a little bit a few moments to discern usually that one’s not too hard because you can tell if it’s coming from
overhead or on the ground but so when it’s far away that’s when it’s challenging but when it gets close by
it’s easier to detect this is funny how the mind can just be so convinced of
what one sound is and how often it can actually be something else
so this is why or one of the reasons why listening very closely can help gain discernment right
one of the beautiful things to do is if kind of in a higher state of consciousness
is listen to music with headphones really rich deep music and then start to discern individual
things in the music oh that’s a hi-hat on the drum that’s the snare drum that’s
a kick drum there the horns maybe you know it’s a trumpet or a saxophone maybe you just know it’s
some kind of brass instrument right and then the different spaces between the sounds
and you know i know some good music it’s like that’s really rich and they’ve
spent i don’t know years and years on it you can almost hear something different each time or hear it in a different way
or notice something you haven’t noticed about it before so in order to listen it’s almost imperative i feel especially
when there’s some resistance is to temporarily at least put aside beliefs
and even disbeliefs in our opinions and analysis in order to listen for me at this point i really
don’t have much interest at all of believing or even or disbelieving
anything because it’s just information to me i take it as information instead of having
this imperative where i have to believe something or disbelieve it so once i’ve erased that from my operating system
then it’s just information right it’s it’s light there’s no emotional investment in it can pick it up if it’s
helpful and then when it’s no longer helpful easily set it aside now you know there might be some people in the
christian tradition listening to this that say well i can’t just give up my belief on god yeah you know i wouldn’t
wouldn’t ask that and definitely wouldn’t uh disbelief right but there’s this notion i’ve heard from a
different teacher of can you have a relationship with god without having to believe in god and he
says yeah you can have a relationship with god without having to believe in god it’s definitely a different perspective
a different way of viewing things relating to things and of course i’ve given the analogy
before about the bicycle right you’ll say you’ve never heard seen a bicycle before but your friend tells you all
about it it’s got wheels it’s uh metal you can hop on it and ride and there’s pictures it looks like this is the
maintenance is how much it cost it’s like oh yeah yeah this is really cool i believe that’s out there i really believe it exists but then you finally
encounter a bicycle and you do all the things that he told you about it and so now when you see a bicycle you don’t
have to say oh i believe in bicycles right you just know it for yourself you know that a bicycle exists and so
there’s really no reason to believe it or disbelieve it anymore because you know it you know
that it exists so where is the listening material on the spectrum from comfort
zone [Music] let’s knock the iphone down where is this at on a spectrum of
comfort zone on one end toxicity on another so on one hand we have this is
very pleasing i feel very good listening to this no issues whatsoever i actually
want to listen to more of this versus okay this i’m interpreting this is really toxic i i don’t like this it’s
actually i feel it’s harming me i don’t want anything to do with it i either want to get away from it or i want to
fight it i want to reach out and i want to kind of attack it either verbally or
with some kind of action because i want i want it to get away from me it’s not
helping me in fact if i could just get rid of it everybody would be better off okay so these are kind of like two
extremes here when we look at what we’re listening to on that kind of spectrum where does it fall so if we’re too much
in our comfort zone right and we’re not kind of getting out of that or pushing ourselves a little bit out of our comfort zone in
order to learn and grow more then of course probably need to go more towards the middle just like on the other end if
we’re constantly find ourself drawn to toxic material uh in in in order to
either get away from it or actually yeah try to avoid it go back to our comfort zone or seek it out in order to attack
it to express our righteousness to say they’re wrong or right or you know
shaming blaming guilting someone for the toxic listening material i know for me i
have a strong dislike towards kind of really loud violent music i just i feel
the pain that the folks are in with that and and that might sound a little condescending or a little bit kind of
pitying tune into that and listen well i used to be the exact opposite though you know i used to listen to some of that
stuff regularly but when just people are spewing out harmful things their intent to harm it’s just i i definitely have a
dislike for that and i don’t really know what to do because we can’t really control other people now there’s certain
situations you can go up and ask them you know kind of have a conversation with them
but it depends on how you do it right because depending on how open they are of listening or and then how do you
approach that right i guess acknowledging the pain that they’re in to begin with that they might have not
any idea of the pain they’re in and that they they’re crying out for their pain to be acknowledged by someone else
because they’re not able to do it themselves or don’t even realize that they’re in pain or realize that they
can’t acknowledge their own pain and don’t have to get that attention from other people all the time again that
might sound a little bit kind of righteous or pitying but i’m still working on that
let’s talk about note taking sure everybody’s been through some schooling systems and education where note-taking
is involved i know in my day a lot of it was paper notes and lectures and there really were no recordings to go back and
listen to some of this was before you know the prevalence of cell phones where you could just make your own recording
if we look at our note-taking habits when listening do we take notes during the first listen or do we wait and
listen to the recording again and do notes on the subsequent listen or do we do ever do any notes at all
and then how can this enhance or detract from better listening so by this uh in my experience from what
i remember when i was taking notes in the first lesson a lot of times i would miss content
um because i was focusing on my own notes and writing what i wanted to write down and so i didn’t feel i was
listening but then on the other hand sometimes i would just it would be so helpful to have that note to go back to
to refer to what was being said and so it was kind of like a reference point to remember more it seems like on the
second lesson especially if it’s recorded it’s more of an obvious thing if you have the time to do that to take
notes in the second lesson it seems a lot better to do it then because then you can kind
of pause and write down and go back and that stuff depending on how much time you want to spend and of course we have
to use our discernment to find out how much time we want to spend taking notes and re-listening to certain material so
that moves into the repetition what what role does repetition play in our discernment skills
do we find it reinforcing when the same things are repeated over and over and we hear
things multiple times is do we find that helpful where it kind of really drills home the message and helps us discern
things learn things or is it more annoying so like oh how many times is this guy or gal going to
say the same thing over and over again and i’ll just give a really brief example i walked into uh speaking of
knocking over iphones i walked into store mac store use mac store to see if you
know a rare chance they would trade trade this rose gold iphone i got from my mom’s old phone because for whatever
reason i mean won’t go into that but and so they had some you know the same type it was just a different color and they
said we’ll probably won’t do this but i’ll go and ask the owner there because you know just to humor you kind of thing
and so he’s you know he says no and then offered me to sell the other ones anyway and i said well you know
amazon weighed less and i forgot to ask him for a trade-in for this or if they’d match prices or whatever but anyway we
got into the thing where it just kind of became a joke right he’s like well i’ve already got he said i’ve already got so
many other rose gold iphones um you know nobody wants some for whatever reason we just started joking back and forth about
rose gold and then so but he started saying rose gold rose gold rose gold
life a little bit wild i was like i started laughing a little bit because it was kind of like this joke but after a
certain point i was just like and i said this as like apple’s address is one infinite loop drive right and you just
keep saying and i have something like you just keep saying this over and over i mean it was i didn’t say it was funny for a little bit but i just so i just
finally left i left laughing but he just kept saying it in a way it was kind of funny but at the same way it was it was
kind of weird and annoying at the same time this next point here can we listen how we want to be heard
and seen can we see someone the the in the same way we want to be seen by them
can we listen to someone the same way we want to be listened to by them
a lot of times i will go and just wait to talk listening a little bit
but it’s just like oh i got to remember this point i want to say to them it’s really important so i just kind of
waiting to talk and reinforcing that point instead of actually listening to the whoever’s talking
that’s not how i want to be heard or listened to so that’s just my example how do you want to be heard and and how do you want
people to listen to you and can you listen to them the same way and i know lydia and i have talked about this on
past ask us any things about full body listening so how can we listen with our
entire body instead of just her head of course the heart is really big because
what everything that we’re saying or listening to has an emotional resonance right or at least an energetic resonance
and that can be picked up on with the heart and the heart lies in the middle of the chest obviously but also just the
energetic portion of it and i know everybody here has probably heard really loud music that will vibrate the body if
you’ve ever been to a concert you’ll be can be close to these humongous speakers and can feel the body at least on the
skin level vibrating so on a more subtle layer and can detect this with our own voice
too we can actually feel the vocal cords uh throat i guess windpipe larnix here
resonating vibrating sometimes it can be felt on through up the nasal passages
and back of the throat too through the top of the head can actually come down into the body too
we know if we just tune into our whole body when we’re speaking too it seems to
come from a more i don’t know authentic grounded place instead of just the head
until i really tuned into that just have been realizing kind of speaking from the chest up but that can also be
discerned when listening to right how in tune someone is with their body when
they’re speaking maybe maybe it’s a little too subtle but also just even if it’s imagination
starting off how can we listen with our full body well one way that helps with this is relaxation right if we’re not
relaxed when we’re listening then it’s going to be hard to really tune into the
body as fully as we can without relaxing we’re kind of more on a surface level
when we’re not relaxed sometimes that’s good though sometimes we don’t need to be in a state of relaxation because there’s too much
going on or we have to act and do something but when we really take the time to relax and listen at the same
time can really deepen i feel our listening habits and abilities and our probably
our comprehension and our attention to attention span i was lucky for ahead a
few years where i did a lot of just listening to other people’s podcast i would get in a really comfortable chair
i would close my eyes and either have the phone or computer nearby and just listen or sometimes with headphones and
so this brings to the next point here about using closed eyes to possibly increase available hearing bandwidth
especially when listening alone if i do that when i’m with someone then some people will be like why is he have
his eyes closed that’s distracting me so it’s unless the other person really
knows what and is comfortable with you doing that when you’re listening to them in real life or you know with video and
whatnot then it depends if it’s distracting you or the other person might not be too helpful but if you’re
alone for me i found if i can close my eyes it kind of gives more bandwidth to
listening the human voice doesn’t need a lot of bandwidth you know you can transmit the human voice at least kind
of the content of it you know just get the words through a landline which doesn’t have much bandwidth you can even
a lot of times hear through a tin can i don’t know if anybody’s here old enough to know what the tin can thing is or
kids will build these tin cans put like a fishing line between the two and you can speak like an old phone and just vibrates to the fishing wire and can
hold up the other end to the ear i think shortwave radios can bounce all the way pretty much across the earth the
other side of the earth from one person’s little shortwave setup now that’s kind of an antique thing a
shortwave but it’s possible right to go great distances and hear someone just
like that not to mention kind of these higher level celestial this claire audience where some people have these
more psychic abilities to hear things in the celestial realms or in other places
but what i’m getting at here is just think about the amount of data that’s needed for video right it’s a
huge amount of data but the voice doesn’t need that much when we
close off the visual then we don’t have to match that kind of processing or go beyond that so it frees
up a bunch of space for the mind and unconscious mind to not have to process a lot of visual
information so when the eyes are closed all that extra capacity
then again on the other end it’s also good to train where on this higher level we can do all that really easily too
but maybe experiment with this and find out if that’s helpful or not and of course you know music needs a little bit
more bandwidth than the human voice right you can have a really high quality music that uses more bandwidth than just
the human voice so it doesn’t apply 100 uh to the phenomenon of sound because
yeah music can use a lot of fair amount of bandwidth too and just not as much as visual so how does listening translate to
discernment and i’m not going to answer this question but like what is the relationship to listening and being able
to discern let’s leave that core question for you guys to ponder on
your own here getting close to the end here now so how do we put aside discernment so
this is almost the opposite this is maybe one of the criticisms of discernment because if we’re discerning
stuff all the time how can we reach this undifferentiated observation this
witnessing this knowing of knowing this being more with a sense of unity instead
of differentiation and even going beyond all this going beyond that all that polarity so by this i mean so yes if we
have discernment skills we can differentiate you know this is that this is that can really tell what is what
but and at the same time can those skills be over developed
and this sense of unity be underdeveloped instead of seeing differences where can
we see commonalities but then again that’s not a good example because of the polarity if the more we can see
differentiation the more we can also see where things are lacking in unity and
seeing the causes that are contributing to a division or a lack of unity too i
guess what i’m getting at here is that just noticing the common thread between
things being able to observe and witness just this raw data without having to
discern anything from each other just witnessing just pure
awareness right being aware of awareness does that take a
discernment that’s a good question i don’t i guess it could probably be answered both ways
uh i don’t know that’s still a little hazy so still working that one out also what is the role and discernment of
memory and past life memories so i’ll link in the show notes to
my little post on discerning past life memories because there’s uh i have a
long kind of laundry list of potential situations where what one initially
feels might be a past life memory can actually be all these other things i don’t know if i mentioned at the
beginning too one of my intents for doing this my own intent for
discernment is all the different deceptions out there i mean deceptions
are really rife they’re everywhere and so when we’re able to discern truth right
discern what is a deception what someone’s agenda might be
what their part they’re lying about what part they’re telling half truths on
what their strategy is for leading someone to believe certain things kind
of deceiving someone by not giving the entire truth or only focusing attention
on one area in order to promote their world views or
agendas not being clear about this sometimes this happens without really
the person’s conscious knowledge they’ve just been trained that way or that’s
kind of like their the organization’s training has trained them to
see the world and act and behave in this way it’s just kind of like second nature because that’s the way they’ve been
trained when these things are spoken out on or pointed out well then there’s sometimes can be not only defense
mechanisms but just different strategies and approaches for
discrediting that redirecting all these different tactics that are used as that and so
when discernment comes up these things can be detected and then the wisdom element comes in and heart qualities of
being kind and compassionate or the best level of energy so they can be seen and how they can be seen if they
can be seen in a better way and then if they need to be responded to in a way and how one might respond so
again that goes into evaluation and judgment or judgmentalism how much are
we evaluating something with our discernment skills and how much are we judging it the more downside of judgment
is judgmentalism oh that’s making a judgment call or a value
call saying well that’s you shouldn’t do that for this reason or whatever and sometimes yeah that’s i mean it could be
totally valid and at the same time some people will beat themselves up because they
have this initial judgment they’re like oh i’m judging this person and i don’t want to judge this person and i feel
judgment really judgmentalism really comes in when someone’s driving satisfaction from putting someone down
making a judgment making them the other person feel bad and horrible but that making themselves feel good for having
done that judging that judgmentalism so it just doesn’t seem right to to
criticize oneself for judging someone if in fact they’re conscious of that and
they don’t want to do that right it just happens and the silver lining to this is that sometimes it’s just an
identification of hey you know i see your buddha nature i see your divinity but that is just not for me right now
and so that’s why i like this word evaluation so we can just evaluate things it doesn’t have to be
cold and uncaring but to make good decisions and develop our discernment we can evaluate
things so how does the application of reference points come in here with our discernment skills can we create new
reference points how do we create new reference points can we identify helpful
reference points and then what reference points are we clinging to i know some people will get really
frightened if they encounter something they have really no reference point for or sometimes we can
encounter things in life where we think we have a reference point for it but it turns out that reference point was so
far off from the actual truth of the thing that happened in our real life that it wasn’t really helpful at all it
was just a little bit helpful then it was almost so much like it was the reference point we had was like a kind
of third grade level reference point where now through this new experience we have kind of more of a high school or
college level reference point to how things actually are and work in the world sometimes
encountering new things without reference points can be very terrifying because they just don’t know which way is up you know what uh where to put it
or how to see it or relate to it usually that’s fairly rare case though because i
mean once you’re in your 20s you kind of have like you’ve not seen and done at
all but you kind of know of most of the possibilities out there in life right and there’s not going to be something
so shocking that comes along that it’s just like oh wow this just changes my
life forever all those things could happen but as far as general categories in life
right okay so this other thing here decisiveness versus the being bogged down in the
research process so when we go to do research and gather information for our
choices there’s this one end of decisiveness knowing exactly how to act
and make the decision almost immediately it’s clear because there’s only one choice or one way forward and whatever
we’re doing in life but then there’s these other things where oh i just i want to get more information i want to
study this more i want to consider my choices i want to weigh my choices and so this drags on and on and on and it
turns in then no choice is really kind of made kind of weighing where we’re at on that spectrum maybe do we need more
decisiveness do we need more research more gathering information more asking for advice
that’s another thing discernment can help with too is if we need to make a decision right away
or we need to gather more info some other ways for discernment here using our gut some people
are polarized on this they’ll say yeah just go with your gut instinct trust your gut right some people will say well
you’re just acting from kind of instinct then and for me it really depends i mean
i got in trouble for ignoring my gut feelings a lot of times sometimes i’ll have gut feelings on things but i’m just
like ah okay well i realize that this there’s something here going on but i
don’t know what it means or what it’s uh it’s trying to tell me but i know it’s important what about our
heart are we making decisions from our heart too what really makes the heart seeing the heart open kind of the heart
either fill with wholesome qualities joyfulness connection warmth caring are
we neglecting the heart or maybe we’re making too many decisions from the heart and you know emotional decisions some
people emotionally eat right they’ll go find comfort in food and not really
realizing that it’s out of uh emotional comfort what about logic in mind i know
that’s where i’m kind of on the heavy end some people don’t have this enough you know they will put off even
considering any kind of logic or mind-based decisions and just go with
their gutter heart some people the opposite how often do we use reflection
when making decisions and gaining discernment a lot of times it just takes time to sit with something
also contemplation and just contemplate it and just spend some time letting the mind and body heart got you know and
beyond just sit with it and really let it sink in
and let kind of uh faculties and things happen but a lot
of times we will just hear or see something and then sometimes we’ll think about something or tune into it but then
this other level is in meditation contemplation and reflection where
get this other level of learning it’s really kind of hard to describe but it’s not like the others
really so intuition that’s a big one too some people are really intuitive some
people are not but where does intuition fit into all this and of course asking
counsel and advice and i’ll put a link into the show i did recently about asking for advice you know some people
won’t ask for advice some people they really won’t make any choices without somebody else’s opinion we might also
want to look at the alignment opposition and polarity with and of what’s attempting to be
discerned in our discernment so alignment where are we aligned when it comes to discernment sometimes we’re not
able to develop and progress on our discernment skills if we’re aligned with the wrong
thing or maybe we don’t even know what we’re aligned with when we’re going into
discernment skills are we aligned with truth are we aligned with appeasing our ego
are we aligned with a particular agenda locked in that our discernment is entirely around that
confirmation bias of well now that i’ve decided this is the way it is well then i’m just going to seek out
material that confirms that bias what is the opposition to the material
that we’re looking at too so can we see um not just one side of it but the uh
oppositional side these at least two different sides i mean opposition can come from more than one side too
that’s more with the polarity than of whatever it is we’re not necessarily whatever but a lot of things have a
polar kind of opposite to it uh polarity if something’s uh really really negative
well then with the law of polarity right there’s going to be a kind of a positive either version or side to that a lot of
times it’s overlooked sometimes the polarity is a little bit more noticeable sometimes it just it totally escapes us
and then of course doubt where is our doubt at and whatever we’re attempting
to discern where’s our lack of doubt what kind of conclusions have we drawn have we
already something we go into to try to discern or we have a lack of discernment
have we already drawn conclusions before we even really assessed and evaluated the situation remade up her mind before
we even uh get into it conviction like the reading said how convinced are we
of certain things or being the way they are i was fascinated for a long time by the amount of conviction some people had
and i didn’t really have much conviction at all i have conviction on things that are true and helpful and kind of like
some of the teachings of the buddha dharma but some people can be so convinced about the most mundane
pointless things and have so much energy poured into being convinced about them
it just fascinated me like that some people can be like that and i mean it’s really not one thing one way or the
other but it’s like how much time and energy are we gonna really spend just knowing for sure something
however you know if we go back to the suta conviction is really important but what
are we can what is our conviction about is it something that’s worthwhile is it something trivial or what about like me
not having hardly a conviction about anything how do we gain more conviction
about what’s really need to be what we really need to be convicted about right openness
how open are we to things when we go into wielding discernment finding things are
we too open are we not open enough correcting this is a big one for me like
how often do i need to correct others right that can be way way overdone some
people won’t what there’s a saying i guess we’re all adults here wouldn’t say poop if they had a mouthful so speaking
up saying something to a mission of right and wrong right i mean for the longest time had to be
right about everything right really got some satisfaction or felt i had satisfaction about being right about
things this person’s wrong i’m right but now it doesn’t really it doesn’t make
much difference to me who’s right or wrong it’s like who’s benefiting is am i benefiting am i
gaining well-being from this or not and then extend it is
the other person too so that’s more important to me now than being right or wrong because that satisfaction dies off
fairly quickly reinforces this bitter kind of stale brittle righteousness i started
this off by what is your intent for discernment we spend a few moments
reflecting now if our intent for the importance of discernment is any
different i know there’s a lot of words here but reflecting again on what is our intent
for being discerning and cultivating discernment and then how might we be
motivated to do this more all right with that i’m going to wrap
this up now and can just let all the words float away for now before you do that you can
take kind of what’s helpful and just what’s not can set aside or let just
dissolve thank you all so much for joining for listening for considering using your discernment
skills to discern what’s helpful and what’s not in this and may you all be blessed with a joyful
peaceful and lovely time of day or night or afternoon of wherever you might be
Integrating Presence 
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