(notes from a talk by Judith Ragir, Zen priest)

You need only make a few degree shift in your direction, and
over the years that few degrees becomes a big arc of change.
And so it has been for me.
My life has always been complicated as all our lives are.
My spiritual life has not been altogether easy or clear.

This is about taking what appears to be a conventional life
and opening it up radically as the Path.
The ordinary and the profound will meet
in the present moment – the intersection of time and space.

Thoughts (the way we think – fabrications of the mind)
make our emotions and reality.

The mind is wonderful and it is hell.
It is creative – what makes us humans over animals.
It can also be hell - untrained, non stopping, on and on,
circular, even when we have resolved an issue it goes on
to next thing to chatter about. (Some might know this from meditation.)

Learn how to place the mind.
Placing in present moment – mostly the moment.
Placing mind on the dharma. (Dharma, not Karma)

Goal: no discursive thought, just merge with what we are doing.
Very simply. Live in the present moment.
(Walking meditation). Though this sounds appealing, it is not easy to do.
Why can’t we live in present moment?

What stimulates thought so much that we live in future and past
in delusion or illusion or fantasy that our mind is creating?

It is because of the storyline of our life.
A storyline demands a linear state of mind. It must go from one thing to another to...
The weighty burden of past – the things I lost, pushing away things I hate or don’t like,
ignoring things – addictions spring from this.
What makes suffering? Suffering comes out of misperception of what reality is.

The Mind’s Storyline is not reality. Desires are not reality- suffering, pleasures. Living life from this desire basis, suffering is produced: anxiety, dissatisfaction, nothing is ever enough, always slightly dissatisfied. Ignorance is misperception of reality. Karma or cause and effect can yield trust.

Wisdom correctly used is that ability to judge what is harmful, what is helpful .
(Wisdom is Truth tempered by love.)
Clarity comes from sitting in meditation. The more I sit the more I am in touch.
Karma – the more you do it the stronger it gets. The stronger it gets the more you do it.
Habituated patterns that produce suffering. (Law of Addiction) What you put out is what you get back.

Do good. Do good. Do good.
Deeply believe it will manifest in the universe as positive energy.
(If I practice a tiny bit of good it will help me and the world.)

The real reality is in peace and harmony. In a Universal view – we see the Earth as mysterious, peaceful, working in peace and harmony. Or in microcosm go inside the body and see the mystery of perfection.
And it has nothing to do with discursive thought! Everything is working exactly as it should.

Insanity – Doing the same thing over and over expecting different results (pop psychology).

Sanity - Acknowledge pleasure, pain, success, failure, likes and dislikes - radically accept them. So the eight worldly winds
are these:

• pleasure and pain
• gain and loss
• success and failure
• praise and blame
• fame and ill repute.

These are the eight worldly winds that blow through our days and lives. These things MUST be accepted. Recognize these things deeply to know peace.