Authenticity and Fullness as Practice Matures

Some people who are in the Energy Collective and participating in the Month-long Intensives have been doing their internal work for a long time. And it is clear that they are immersed in their process. Others have been at this for a year. It is great to see them transform.

 

There seems to be an apparent maturing in their process. It’s really fun and inspiring to see. I want to talk a little about that below in a casual conversational way.

 

When I was in the monastery, I was sitting for a good year or year and a half riding this type of intensity.

And what happens there is you can get in this oven of intensity and have that carry you. You are cooking cooking cooking.

 

And you get to a point there where you’ve been there a while and that stops working. You are sitting and it’s day five of Osesshin and you are stuck, suffering…

 

You’ve been working at a certain level and then as you deepen, as your practice matures it has to nurture and be nurtured in different ways.

 

The energy can’t come from trying really hard or being a spiritual hero. It can’t run on adrenaline either.

And then what you see in people is that they get completely lost. They have no idea what they are doing. Kind of fish flopping around on shore.

 

They will be sitting and they think, “My Ki/Qi is all gone. I’ve got no sense of ki.”

 

It’s like the onion peeled and other aspects must blossom through.

 

All of the tricks I have been using, they don’t work anymore.

 

And when people can honestly work at this time this new type of authenticity begins to come through. For the energy to happen, it’s got to come form this authenticity.

 

The honeymoon is over, you’ve got to really connect in this real way.

 

It’s not glamorous, not shiny.

 

I feel that people in the energy collective intensives have been getting more of a sense of that authenticity.

This authenticity starts to become this fullness that is there all of the time. In Japanese we say “Ipai”. Full and taut.

 

This bubble of authenticity, of essence as we call it in zen,

This essence starts to permeate more.

 

It’s like it’s real real real real

 

That fullness starts to permeate more what we are doing

 

Rather than random pyrotechnics, wild energy happening here and there, a real fullness manifests that people start to consistently work with.

 

In these classes we talk about merging, connecting with what is happening, but in a real way connecting with what is happening is so powerful, so rare.

 

And once you get a sense of this, it becomes a guide to orient through our practice. We know when it is there, and we know when it is not. And so practice moves away from fantasies and ideas and more to a felt sense of connecting.

 

And for some people who are kind of in that or starting in that process, maybe getting a little lost, just keep going.

Just be more and more authentic. Getting a sense of this fullness, this process more and more.

 

That’s where the real energy is, the sublime energy. The deeper, bigger energy. Maybe doesn’t feel dramatic, doesn’t feel special.

 

I’ve been talking about offering ourselves in the last bit of the Intensive, and this fullness is what we can begin to offer to people. This is a real secret of this work. Well, it’s not a secret once you touch it and learn to use it, but until then it is just some idea.

 

Peoople will be around you and begin to think, “Oh, that’s really happening, that’s really interesting!”.

People will begin to feel something with that person, maybe they don’t even understand it, but their cells will resonate with it.

 

So just exploring that. Just keep going more and more honest. Thanks so much to all of you! So great to work with you all!