Talks - Views in Practice

beginning investigating and uncovering the views we have and what effects they have
what do we believe about life? How are wee looking at it?

Exploring one’s views

right view as the beginning and culmination of the path
4 noble truths
- is there suffering? Where is the grasping? Is it possible to relax it?
- what am I putting in in the present moment that’s adding to the suffering?
  - suffering needs inputs in the present to manifest
  - idea of negative emotions bubbling up from the past (can be useful), can we question it?
what brings freedom/happiness/nourishment (Part of right view in long term)
- do I know what leads to happiness?
- happiness in the moment may not be possible, but it can be a long term agenda, cultivating the qualities that have happiness as their fruit (generosity, calmness, renunciation etc…)
Sila as foundation for happiness
- taking care of how we are with other people
- the path makes us more sensitive to how we act
- we develop sensitivity to sila
right view in the moment
- we tend to prioritize fixing the external issues (very important but gives sense of hassle)
  - notion of “how can I see this (difficult moment) differently” takes the back stage
- how can I see this in a way that it moves towards freedom?
  - how can I practice with this?
  - 3 characteristics
- when there's suffering, it means that we're looking wrongly
  - Joseph Goldstein: “When there’s suffering, that tweaks my interest”
    - I need to look at something differently

how much argument and wars come from having different views
basic teaching: don’t get attached to views
- can’t put one view over another?
- is ultimate reality a big pink fish named Barbara?
  - maybe not all views are completely equal

the buddha did say that realizing emptiness is to let go of all views
- we might be tempted by the simple conclusion to drop all concepts
- if we ditch concepts too early, we end up with all the default concepts (me, you, mine, world, thing, thought, emotion, time)
- the genius of the Buddha was to suggest a few concepts that lead to freedom and beyond all concepts (snake eating its own tail, wood burning itself, need to reach the shore before letting go of the raft)
  - 4 noble truths

Ontology as the views and beliefs we have on what is real and not real (dreams vs. waking reality)
- whether we philosophize or not we always have an ontology
ways of looking = in any moment how are we relating to something
- all the ideas, concepts, assumptions, reactions, tendencies, beliefs, likes, dislikes, kinds of attention together make up the way of looking
- we have the possibility to explore that consciously and extend the range of our ways of looking
- different ways of looking have different amounts of clinging and fabrication
It’s impossible to rest from ways of looking
- anything we sense at all is always experienced through a way of looking (even if we’re not deliberately playing with one)

Ontology is anything but abstract and really fundamental for practice
- What happens in our lives once we decide that X is real and Y isn’t