Jessica Stover 0:09 This recording is an offering of Networks for Training and Development's Online University. Rosa McAllister 0:24 Hi, everyone, this is Rosa McAllister. And this is our monthly Healing Circle Call. It's 2pm here in beautiful Hawaii, 8pm Eastern time in Pennsylvania and other area. And I'm calling to help lead us in this discussion today. This is our monthly call we make and join together on the first Monday of the month 8pm Eastern time for about 20 minutes, sometimes a little bit less, sometimes a bit more. Rosa McAllister 0:54 It's a time for us to just convene, to gather together, whoever of us would like to be together, just take a few moments, to breathe together, be together, to enjoy one another's company, and to hold each other and a circle of hope and healing light and believe with one another. Rosa McAllister 1:13 You know, so oftentimes we gather together for various reasons for meetings or for parties or for various issues or items or reasons. But this was designed a number of years ago, with folks just asking if we could come together, just whoever wanted to, just quietly breathe together, a way of meditation or prayer or whatever you want to call it, in order to just recognize that whether near or far, we are here together. We care about one another. And so we started doing this through Networks on a regular basis a couple of years ago, and I personally love this time and look forward to it each month. Rosa McAllister 1:57 So this month, this call I'd like to talk about and introduce you if you're not already familiar with with one of my teachers. His name is Lama Surya Das (L-a-m-a S-u-r-y-a D-a-s). And he jokingly refers to himself as the "Brooklyn Buddha". He is well known internationally known, excuse me, as a Buddhist teacher. And yet he has this very, first of all very Brooklyn accent, he is from Brooklyn, New York. And he has a very fun, teasing, playful, sarcastic way of talking about life as a practicing Buddhist. He does not call himself lightly a Buddha, and that is part of his jokes. He calls himself a human being trying to be more Buddha-like. Rosa McAllister 2:58 As life happens sometimes, and things kind of come at you or at least for me and sometimes it's not just a one thing that comes it's two or three or four until I kind of notice like "oh my"... so I have that interestingly in the last couple days with Lama Surya Das. He is someone that I have sat in his presence and listened to and taken classes with over several decades. He is someone that I've read several of his books and listen to his podcasts. And interestingly enough, I just finished rereading one of his books, Living in Buddha Time, Standard Buddha Time, excuse me. And as I was driving yesterday to my granddaughter Olivia's first ballet recital, I was listening to NPR (National Public Radio) in my car, and guess who was being interviewed? Lama Surya Das. And I couldn't help but notice the little wink from the universe and listened intently to him. And actually pulled over on a couple of occasions and took some notes. And then as I was thinking about what I wanted to talk about today and lead in our few minutes together, I thought, let me talk about Lama Surya Das and what I relearned from him yesterday. Rosa McAllister 4:16 He probably has one of the best takes on the idea of meditation that I've heard. And I love the way he talks about meditation and himself and his life. Because he talks about his imperfections. He talks about his human-ness. He talks about his foibles and issues and ongoing struggles with being a human being in this world. But how he talks about meditation I think is really, really wonderful. Rosa McAllister 4:46 So what he said or how he started, he said that as a young child, playing hide and seek outside with his cousins and siblings in both Brooklyn and Long Island (Long-a Island, as he would say!), which is where he was born and then later grew up in Brooklyn. He learned a very early meditation lesson. And that was while playing hide and seek, if he would stop and simply tune in and sense directly, in the immediacy of the moment, he would realize that he became more focused and everything became clearer, much clearer for him. The more he would be able to see and hear. And his cousins and his friends dubbed him the "hide and seek master", because people could never find him because the more he would quiet himself in body and mind, the more he could actually see and hear... very early meditation practice. He said this was his useful introduction to the harmony and the oneness available through a heightened wakeful, as he called it "present awareness". Rosa McAllister 6:03 And he said he remembers talking to his Bubby, his beloved grandmother, he grew up Jewish in Brooklyn, and Long Island through his parents culture and religion, and his Bubby, who he adored his grandmother. he remembered talking with her about this idea of being "wakeful", as he called it. He said that it was his idea that he was almost asleep, because he was so still, but he was actually more awake than ever and more than his usual and that's when he could see in the dark, and hear things that otherwise he couldn't see or hear. And he also realized that when he became wakeful, as he called it as a child, that's also when problems and other things seem to kind of process themselves out. Unknown Speaker 6:53 So, interestingly enough, he has become one of the leading experts on how to meditate and again I love his definition and his way of talking about this. He says that being mindful or mindfulness, as we now call it, and it's such a buzz, it's not much more than just counting to 10, before acting, another lesson that he learned well from his Bubby as a child, that one should never react or respond in a heightened state of emotion be it joy, or sadness, or anger or fear or whatever. And that's sometimes the big mistakes we make in our life is when we do just that, when we react without waiting. And the old adage that Bubby taught him to count to 10 and to breathe before reacting, is another way towards this mindfulness or as he called it, wakefulness. Rosa McAllister 7:51 He also goes on to say, that being quote, "one with something", this idea of the being one with something is another way of thinking about mindfulness or wakefulness or meditating. And he said that his favorite practice of meditating or being mindful or wakeful, is walking his dog. He said that for years, you know, he has two very, very large dogs, and they need to be walked at least twice a day. And he said, for years, he would kind of think of it as a drudgery or something that you have to go to, especially because he now lives in Massachusetts. And there's hard winters with snow and high winds and some teaming rains and all coldness. So he said, one of the things he actively tried to do to bring more wakefulness or mindfulness into his life, was this idea of trying to be one with something, to just count to ten, take some time to just do something or not do something. And for him, what he chose to do is to take these two times a day of walking his dog and turn them into his favorite times of day. Rosa McAllister 9:07 So he talked about how he would pick out his outfit, or pick out initially music he was going to listen to, or pick out what time of day or what snack to bring or something like that so that he could more enjoy these times of day. Rosa McAllister 9:21 But then he realized what he really needed to do more of is just walk the dog, be one with the dog. And so he started realizing and looking at his dogs, and how happy they were. You know, all you have to do is say to the dog "wanna go for a walk?" And we all know immediately what they do. They start jumping and licking and dancing and smiling and the tail starts wagging and wiggling and because they're happy, because it's a joyful part of their day, maybe the most joyful and part of it is getting outside and part of it is running a bit and part of it is being with you. Rosa McAllister 10:01 And he said when he started looking at that, and realizing that he needs to wag his tail a little bit more, when he walked the dog, that he should have a similar reaction with the thought of "let's go for a walk!" And so we started to try to incorporate that and try to build this into his two favorite parts of the day. And he said, that's what's happened. He gets excited, even if it's raining. He has special boots now that he puts on, kind of like a little kid, and a raincoat. Or if it's snowy or slushy, or cold or hot or whatever the weather or whatever is going on, he tries to build this into, "oh, I'm going to wag my tail and I'm going to go out with my dogs and we're going for a walk!" and being one with something and embracing it for what it is. He reminds us that dog by the way is God spelled backwards, as we all know. Rosa McAllister 10:55 He said that being one was something is the same thing as with your beloved. You know, there's moments when you're just with someone that you care so much about, that you almost fall into the same breathing patterns. You might not even be talking, you might just be sitting, maybe you're watching a movie, maybe it's the quiet before you go fall asleep. Or maybe it's when you hear your beloved beside you falling asleep and they've already they've already drifted off, and you listen to the breathing. And it's the moment just before you join them. Or maybe it's early in the morning, and you've woken up and they haven't yet. Or maybe it's that time with your child, when they're a young one, a baby, and you pop in on them in their sleep and you just watch them sleep. Rosa McAllister 11:47 All of these are examples of being one with something where everything else kind of melts away, when you're just literally in the moment in a wakeful state. Where everything is heightened your emotions, your awareness, everything. Rosa McAllister 12:07 He talks about a very famous Zen master, who described that for Americans, the moment of Zen is a hug. He noted that us Americans, we hug a lot. And that if we would just realize how beautiful and blessed it is, and if we will linger in the hug just a little bit more, how much more mindful and wakeful, we would be. Rosa McAllister 12:32 Lama Surya Das has played with a lot of words and turning them into verbs. Because he said that for himself when he thinks of things and puts them into actions, into verbs, they mean more for him, and he's more apt to do them more often. So he talks about this idea of awareness and he tells himself to, to aware, that is the verb or be awaring. He adds ing on a lot of words, awakening be more awakening, be more smiling be more presencing, be more stilling, be more quieting, be more wanting. And he says that for him, that's part of the trick that he plays with himself is "How can I be more one? How can I make it an action, a goal and I'm actually working on every day?". Rosa McAllister 13:37 He ends by talking about that all of us should try to be a Buddha. We should try to find the Buddha within us... that smiling, happy guy, or girl, that's just kind of there, that people want to be. It doesn't mean that you're happy all the time. It doesn't mean that you're not getting annoyed. It doesn't mean any of that other stuff. We're, none of us are that evolved and he admits that even he isn't. But finding the Buddha inside in yourself means stopping, thinking, not reacting, breathing, stilling, presencing, awaring, awakening, minding, and smiling. That's it. Rosa McAllister 14:27 There's one last thing that he says he wants us all to remember. And to try to do every day, many times every day, maybe an increasing amount each day is to breathe, relax, and smile. Breathe, relax, and smile. Rosa McAllister 14:50 So I leave you with these loving words... and I'm sitting here in my car in beautiful Maui at 2 something In the afternoon, and I'm breathing with you. I'm relaxing with you. And I'm smiling with you. Rosa McAllister 15:11 Sending you so much love and aloha. See you again next month on the first Monday of the month for a Healing Circle Call at 8pm Eastern time. Jessica Stover 15:31 Thank you for listening. We hope the information provided was helpful. Don't forget to stop by our website and take advantage of all we have to offer. Transcribed by https://otter.ai