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Well, at the very beginning is the introduction to open intelligence.
And the introduction is as simple as to stop thinking for a moment.
Just to pause your train of thought
and identify the intelligence that is looking through your eyes.
Identify the alertness by which you know anything at all.
And when you stop thinking for a moment
you just pause that need to describe and understand and analyze
Then you allow yourself some space to recognize this intelligence.
Now it's always been there
it's always been the basis of all of your experience.
It's just for most of us it's gone un-noticed.
So, all we're doing here is learning to notice and then to rely
on this opening intelligence that is the basis of our experience.
And what is absolutely key is this direct, instinctive recognition
because this is what gives us the evidence
of the profundity and the efficacy of this approach.
We have this very direct, very clear
direct recognition
of the fundamental nature of our mind
of the fundamental nature of reality.
And so when I first tried this for myself, when I first
took a short moment of just relaxing everything
allowing everything to be as it is, all of the descriptions
all of my thoughts, all of my emotions, all of my physical sensations
whatever the experience was that was going on.
And you can do this right now.
And just to allow that to be however it is
without trying to change it
without trying to do anything with it
just allowing it to settle in its own place.
And in that moment of just complete openness
this intelligence
becomes obvious.
Now, previously I had trained myself to focus completely and solely
on all of the descriptions.
And in the Balanced View Training
we call all of those descriptions "data."
So, we don't need to divide them up into different kinds of experience.
We don't need to have lots of complicated descriptive frameworks.
We have data
shining forth and known by open intelligence.
This keeps it so simple.
It allows me to recognize the fundamental nature of my experience
whatever's going on.
So wherever I am, whatever I'm thinking
whoever I'm with, whatever I'm feeling
I have the same opportunity
to allow that data stream to flow on by
and to recognize
the opening intelligence that is at its basis.
Every moment is exactly the same in that it has this same potential.
I can either focus in on all of the data: the descriptions
and manage my life in a way that refers to all of these
ideas I have about what they mean
and what I need to do about them.
And often that means
avoiding descriptions that I've decided are negative, like sadness.
And trying to accumulate or hold on to
descriptions that I've decided are positive
like happiness.
And this if you like, is the conventional approach to life.
Try to manage my circumstances so I don't feel sadness
or I minimize the sadness
and so I maximize and try and
arrange my circumstances so I feel as happy as possible.
And this is what I tried for many, many years.
And
probably, like many of you, I became quite skillful at that.
And working out, “Okay, well what is it that makes me happy?
And how can I bring about this feeling of happiness
cause that's really, really good.
And what is it that makes me sad? And how do I avoid those situations?
How do I avoid those experiences in life
that bring up this thing called sadness
which obviously I shouldn't be feeling.”
And that's the way that I approached life.
But no matter how skillful I got at that
no matter how carefully I tried to rearrange
everything that was going on
and tried to structure my life and my relationships
there's no way I could hold onto the happiness.
And there's no way that I could keep the sadness at bay.
And that became quite frustrating.
And I thought, “Okay, well I need to work harder.”
You know, “I obviously need to refine my ideas about what I need.
And I need to
create even more skillfully this set of circumstances
that somehow is gonna make me happy.
And then have this happiness as a continual
experience.”
But it just never came about.
It never happened.
And when the happiness was there
there was this slight sense of fear because I knew it wasn't gonna last.
And so instead here
we are trying a new approach
of allowing the descriptions to be however they are.
So, when you're feeling sad
rather than desperately trying to do something about it
you allow it to be exactly as it is.
Now for me, this was absolutely radical
because for the whole of my
thirty five years before I'd met this Training
I had never done that.
Not once in my life.
So when something like sadness had come up
then often my approach had been very analytical
very rational. Trying to work out why I'm sad
what's making me feel sad?
And then trying to work out how can I avoid this feeling?
What needs to change?
Maybe I need to go somewhere else.
Maybe I need to leave Arambol because I'm feeling sad
and I'm in Arambol so that's obviously the cause of it.
I'd go somewhere else and I'd feel happy for a bit
and then guess what?
I'd feel sad or lonely or depressed
or angry, or irritated
or one of these really negative descriptions.
Okay, so it's obviously Delhi that's making me angry and irritated.
I need to go back to Arambol now.
And it just became this really complicated game
of constantly being on the move.
Because wherever I was there were these
descriptions that came up that were telling me
it seemed that there was something wrong.
And
for the first time in my life, I was given this instruction
of just allowing those things to be exactly as they are
just for a short moment
and see what happens.
And when I began to do this
it was incredible
because these things that had seemed so powerful
that seemed to have such a grip and a control over me
were actually seen to be this brilliant
shining forth of open intelligence and its dynamic energy.
And it was only by allowing them to be as they were
that I saw that I could actually face them
that I didn't have to run away from all of these things.
And I saw so clearly
the way that I had been behaving as if I wasa victim to these
different data streams for the whole of my life.
I'd been a complete victim to them
allowing them to push me around
allowing them to control the way that I was in the world
allowing them to send me on this chase around
the globe looking for this sense of peace and well being, and
happiness and satisfaction
But actually, I was on this endless hamster wheel
of just continually running faster and faster.
Thinking, “Okay, well it's not quite right now
so I need to run faster. That's where my solution lies.”
And instead, I saw I could just step off that hamster wheel
and allow all of this stuff just to do whatever it was doing.
And
it was amazing to discover
that there was this sense of stability
this sense of okay-ness, this sense of ease
that was always accessible.
And so that was the first benefit that I felt.
This was the first evidence of the power and efficacy
of this simple instruction of taking short moments of
relying on open intelligence whenever I naturally remembered.
There was this immediate sense of relief
this immediate sense of benefit
an immediate sense of stability.
And what was even more interesting was that when I
did do this
it was seeing that my intelligence was always opening
always expanding
that all of this flow of data
was this ceaseless
flow of potency, of potent benefit.
And when I relaxed my mind
and allowed this data just to flow on by
then I could see everything clearly.
So, rather than being at the bottom of the valley
and this valley of complicated descriptions and ideas
and hopes and fears, and
complicated analysis of what the situation was and what it meant
instead it was like being on the top of a mountain.
And I could see everything clearly.
I could see my own behavior
very, very clearly
the way that I'd been trying to manage my life.
And seeing this was actually
a mixture of sadness and humor.
Sadness at what I'd been doing to myself and
humor at seeing how ridiculous this way of going about life was.
And also this sense of really seeing that
I'm not prepared to live my life like that anymore.
I'm really not. And
the analysis and the rationalization was hilarious.
Now when this happens, when you feel something or you think something
and then you try and work out why it's there.
And sometimes this happens so quickly
you know, it's just like an automatic response.
And just to allow that to be exactly as it is too is fine, and
I make myself laugh with these
ridiculous stories that just come up in my mind stream.
Trying to explain away what's going on.
And more often than not my descriptions
and stories about what's going on and
why somebody said something, or why somebody didn't say something, or
or why something happened
bear no resemblance at all to what is actually going on.
And I'm living this world of complete fantasy.
And when I rely on open intelligence
and I rely on the support of the Four Mainstays
which is the support network in Balanced View
then I align myself with reality as it actually is
seeing everything clearly
crystal clear.
Your mind is completely clear and wide open like a cloudless sky.
And this is what you can rely on. This is what is dependable.
This is what is constant.
The data, the content, are continually changing.
The power to know
your basic cognizance
is the constant throughout all of your experience.
So, to try and base your sense of satisfaction and happiness
on the continually changing data
just doesn't make any sense. It's like trying to build a house on
foundation of shifting sand
There's no solidity there, there's no stability.
And yet when you start to rely on open intelligence for short moments
then you discover
what is completely dependable
what is always reliable.
Because open intelligence is always on.
There's no “on” switch and no “off” switch. It's always on.
Inseparable from whatever you are thinking, right here and now.
So the data
these are where you discover open intelligence.
It's not about getting rid of your sadness
so that you can rely on open intelligence.
It's about allowing the sadness to be as it is
so that you can recognize open intelligence
shining forth as sadness.
And there is the relief
in the direct perception, in the immediate perception
of everything exactly as it really is.
This is such a powerful way to live.
You give up this right to be a victim
and you become a complete master
completely empowered to
live your life in a way that is of benefit to yourself and other people.
What I saw for myself is this
complete self-focus and self-concern
just naturally opened out
into a far more expansive kind of intelligence
far more comprehensive.
That included myself
but wasn't limited to these very narrow, very
constricting definitions and ideas and limitations
about who I thought I was.
I haven't had to change anything about myself.
All of is seen to be already
completely relaxed and completely
perfect just as it is.
But at the same time
none of these old, tired definitions
have seemed to have the grip that they thought they had.
If my mind is always pristine and clear
it's always pristine and clear.
And this is what I began to discover.
And the support that I received
in this Training made that possible.
The arrogance and pride of thinking that I could do it on my own
was something that I'm very familiar with.
And I certainly was
so full of that arrogance and pride that when I came to this Training
that was my approach.
I thought there were some brilliant things being expressed here
“So what I'm gonna do is I'm going take those away
and I’m going utilize those on my own.”
And so that's what I tried
and I had some success.
But there were things that still completely took me down.
There were things where I was
totally unable to recognize the open intelligence
shining forth within that particular data stream.
And so, to see that when I began to ask for support
when I began to write to a trainer
participate in trainings and spend time with the community
everything got so much easier.
I saw that I didn't have anything to prove.
It wasn't me against the world.
It was me with the world.
We're all in this together.
We're all this opening intelligence expressing this beneficial potency.
And when I began to recognize that, it just didn't make any sense.
Why on earth would I want to do it on my own?
I'm not on my own. We're all in this together, intimately connected.
I thank you all so much for being here and just for showing up.
It really is incredible what we're all doing here.
You know, do not underestimate the power of
what is being offered here
and the power and importance of your contribution
even if you haven't understood a word, just by showing up
that's a huge step.