Much of our life revolves around playing with toys and putting so much time and effort into getting them, keeping them, and then when the toy is worn out finding an updated version. Including relationships. But Uchiyama Roshi says, when we are young we play with toys, when we grow old we want the real thing." What is the real thing in your life? What is that which is abundantly available, natural and provides lasting satisfaction and joy?
Much of our life revolves around playing with toys and putting so much time and effort into getting them, keeping them, and then when the toy is worn out finding an updated version. Including relationships. But Uchiyama Roshi says, when we are young we play with toys, when we grow old we want the real thing." What is the real thing in your life? What is that which is abundantly available, natural and provides lasting satisfaction and joy?
Good morning, so lovely to be here with you today. This is brand new and the podcast is in wisdom for your every day life. Here we are back for the next episode, which is called playing with toys. Um, I love this particular concept and I'm going to talk about it quite a bit today. It's actually comes from a zen master who Chiama Roshi, and his quote is when we are little, we play with toys. When we grow older, we want the real thing, the real thing. We could also have named the podcast for today, the real thing, but these are, you know, it's toys are toys. The real thing is the real thing. It can be a little difficult to differentiate between the two. Sometimes we think something is real, but it's not, it's, it's a toilet break. It'll will tire of it. We'll want to get the newest version of it. When I was talking, I'm thinking about toys. I was thinking how many of us, including myself of course, have so many things that we cling to that we feel we must have that gives us pleasure. It's fun. Or We base our life around it, trying to get it. Sometimes it's clearly to something like a new car or a bracelet, a pair of shoes. Sometimes it's something a little more, but seems seems substantial. The word is seems a new home furnishings. Of course, I'm not at all saying there's anything wrong with having these things. They are important. They're fun, they're good, and they're the props. I would use the word, the props have a very nice life, but the difficulty comes when we don't see them as props or as toys, but instead we see them as vital, essential, crucial. We make it the centerpiece of our life and for many, all their energy goes into gathering these objects and you become focused. We can become addicted to them. We can become obsessed on my God, if I don't get that dress, I can't go to the party. I won't be as good as someone else who has the dress or if I don't get that at home or the new car. And it actually becomes our identity. The way we define ourselves. And, and you can see many, many crashing up against the rocks, so to speak, when they don't attain these so called objects or toys, you know, something. The very nature of a toy is that when we're finished with it, we want the latest updated version. It doesn't really last forever. It gives us pleasure, have fun for a while, but then it ultimately it uses it. Whereas that it's welcomed. It's enough. We want the next one, the next iphone, the next updated pocketbook or whatever it is that we are playing with. Unfortunately, this way of relating to life and to objects can also be true of relationships or relationship can become a toy and again, when it ceases to give us pleasure or fill the bill or with them, we're looking for the newest updated version of our partner and we discard that as well. The person or the relationship as well, it's used up, it's done. I'm moving on. You hear that all the time. Time to move on and which is not to say we don't move on in life, but it's an orientation towards our very existence is if it's here to make me happy and I want the most shiny, the biggest, the brightest, the best, and that's what we define our goals and our activities around, so that's why you Chiama comes and says to us when we're young, we play with toys. Everything is a toy. We have fun, we throw it away, we get another shiny toy, but when we're older, which means as we see this pattern, as we realized that these toys aren't giving us really ongoing or profound or deep satisfaction, their momentary and a momentary satisfaction can last a few years even we begin to yearn for something for the real thing. She says something I would define as more fundamental, more integral to who we are. Something actually which isn't going to disappoint us, which we're not going to want to throw away and get the latest updated version of it. The real thing, this is a Koan. The real thing is deeply nourishing just by itself and we don't have to compare ourselves to someone else. Did they have. It is our real thing. As good as there is not at all because the real thing is real. It's just real for everyone. There's plenty of it for all. There's actually no competition for it. You actually can't lose it once you find it because it's real. There it is. It's not part of the things that come and go in our lives. It's the real thing. It's actually the foundation upon which we can live where we can stand with our own two feet on solid ground, even though it might shifting it's solid ground because it's real. We're not trying to prop it up, make it pretty, make it shiny. It's real. Some relationships we have are real. They're just there for us and for themselves. They're real. Doesn't mean we might not have disagreements, so difficulty at times, but there's something fundamental that sustains us and sustains their relationship, sustain itself. That force is not manmade made. It's not a toy. When we run into it, when we have a taste of it. When we have an encounter with it, it's extremely healing and surprising. Sometimes I hadn't. That happened with the taxi driver the other day. I was in the taxi. We were driving along and we had such an incredibly meaningful exchange. It was real. It was natural. It was organic. It made my day. What made that encounter and those words so nourishing and so uplifting. It was the real thing. Now I can't say. I don't want to say we cannot define or limit what the real thing is in your life. That's where the beauty of Zen comes in, where we don't define it per se, but where we do experience it for ourselves and each one dwell upon that. Look for that. Understand that, the difference between that and that which is just transient, breakable, loser bubble. One of the exercises I'd like to offer in keeping with this, it's just to stop a moment and said, well, what's real in your life? What moments come when people come? What, what comes? What is it that gives you that sense of that you can settle here? Uh, this is truly a place of calm, of piece of meaning. You touched something, touches you. Usually when the real thing comes, you know, we don't have to struggle for it. It's the right there. We don't have to be good to deserve it. We would don't afraid of losing it. It's like when a beautiful wind blows, the breeze blows when we're warm and we're sitting under a tree and suddenly, ah, I want a beautiful breeze. Oh my, what a moment. Oh, what a beautiful person. A moment or that the. So the real thing comes by itself. We don't have to grasp it. We don't have to really search outside all over. It comes when we are in the state of mind to actually receive it and taste it and enjoy it. So I would just for this week, let's look at what are the toys we play with in our lives. I don't mean this in an insulting way at all, but it's very good to define it for what it is ticking that time. Has a beautiful quote. Call me by my true name. Call the thing what it is. So we'll really know what it is we're really interacting with. It's very helpful to say, oh, this is a toy. It takes a lot of the urgency out of it in terms of having it holding it. I must have this new dress will really. Is that true? Is this a prop, a toy or a prep something? We'll give you an immediate or passing pleasure, sense of wellbeing, but it won't last and it's not real. I mean in the terms of a real thing. So take a look at what are those toys that you are demanding of life that you are maybe putting a lot of time and energy into attaining, including maybe a relationship. Is it real? Is it organic? Is it plentiful? Is it there for you? What makes it, what makes it really sustainable and valuable? This is the question that we're really asking. That's a lovely exercise and then just me and may not have an answer about what's real, but start noticing moments that do feel real and healing and helpful and beautiful. Notice them and recognize it and enjoy it and maybe everyday spend more and more time encountering that which is real or devoted to that which is real. Maybe a little less time in grasping and clinging to that which isn't or putting all your energy into trying to attain something which is a toy. So it's just something I'm offering for today. I want to thank you so much for listening and for your beautiful emails. They're very, very wonderful to exchange with you. By the way, if you want to reach me, you can at top speaker at Yahoo Dot com and also you know there's some very nice audio books and other books that you can find online that I've written. One is called fearless. It's an interesting book that really is a way to dispel different fears and I'm going to be this Tuesday night coming up. Next Tuesday night I'll be at white plains offering a talk at the White Plains Zendo, which is at the bar thought St Bartholomew's church on prospect street. Be There at seven from 7:30 to nine. Have talked and love to see you. If you're in the area and you want to come on up, come on up and join us. It's lovely Zendo. Run by Russ Mitchell's and I'm white plains and that org. Okay, so thanks a lot for being here. We will soon be announcing, as I mentioned before, the new podcast called worry free. It's going to be fun. It will be related to this one connected and um, I have more tools to offer you and more guidance, which is slightly different oriented is also sin, but it's an and releasing and Zen and your everyday life, more goal oriented toward letting go and seeing what it is that really allows you to live a life that's fully alive and fully healed. So again, I thank you for joining me today. It's lovely to see you in to speak to you. And you can. The website for this podcast is www zen wisdom today.com. And my personal website www.brendashoshanawithtwoendsshoshanna.com.
Speaker 2:I will see you next week.
Speaker 1:Bye Bye. Have a wonderful week.