This video features the Sunday “talk” only. Watch the full service on our Facebook page.
OVERVIEW
Liberating Your Mind – Rev Aimee Daniels
Our emotions, while not mechanically created by our beliefs, strongly influence our perceptions, interpretations, and reactions to the world around us. When these strong emotions come up, we can feel like we no longer are in control of our minds and we may find it hard to stop thinking the thoughts that go with them. What if you could begin to liberate your mind? To find a more neutral stance when this happens, we can practice deeper inquiry and consciously choose to question how our thoughts are impacting us? Join us this Sunday as we continue to explore the tools and practices that create “a mind at home with itself.”
TRANSCRIPTION
This transcription was auto-generated, please excuse typos, errors and omissions.
Rev. Aimee Daniels (00:04):
Good morning, Cityside. We’re just working out a little tech here, and thank you Paige and Ben for that beautiful song. I have to say, I was listening to the song, I was feeling all emotional. I’m like, how am I going to get up and give a talk right now? So let’s all take a breath together. Just breathe in and breathe out. Just release whatever came before you. Today we’re talking about this amazing book, A Mind at Home with itself this month. And this book is really on two levels. One of the levels is Byron Katie’s work, which is the four questions. But the other level is they’ve woven it with Buddhist teaching the Diamond Sutra to be specific. And I just want to say she is such a profound teacher if you listen to her. I’ve also been listening to her. She just really lives in the moment.
(01:08):
And so I just want to say I’m not sure I’m going to do her justice, but I’m going to do my best. So let’s dive in. The Buddha. According to Buddhist tradition, he was born a wealthy prince and he was sheltered his whole life. He never saw anything outside of the palace. And then one day sort of accidentally, he was exposed to the world and he found out that there was death and suffering in the world, and he had no idea. He had no idea that there was sickness. He had never seen anything like that. And he decided to go on a spiritual quest. So he renounced his prince wood, whatever you call it. And he went on a mission to understand and also to alleviate human suffering. And he tried a lot of things. He went to pretty much any teacher he could find.
(02:03):
He practiced asceticism, he practiced pleasure, all the different paths that one might find to enlightenment. And eventually he arrived at mindfulness, and most of us know the story. He sat down under the Bodhi tree and he was kind of being haunted by his thoughts in that moment. He just had a lot of obsessive thoughts, he had a lot of upset, and it really, all his past worries and things came up. And somehow through that, at some point he let go and he just experienced what we would call enlightenment. And his story really emphasizes the power of spiritual practice to transform our lives.
(02:59):
And he taught the Buddha taught. The root of suffering is attachment. What do we mean when we say attachment? It’s anything that we grasp for or cling to. It could be a physical material possession or it could be a person in our life. It could be having life be a certain way. It could be our thoughts that we’re clinging to. And so we’re working to release our attachment, especially to our thoughts. Eckhart Toll had an experience of enlightenment similar to the Buddha. He was deeply troubled and he was actually very depressed. He was suicidal at one point, spent a lot of time sitting on park benches and had this realization at some point that he could let go of his thinking. And so he teaches us that non-resistance, non-judgment and non-attachment are the three aspects of true freedom and enlightened living. Byron Katie, similar story, very troubled.
(04:11):
One day she woke up and her mind had shifted. She started questioning the thoughts that had always been in her mind, and she realized that there’s no past and there’s no future. There’s only the now. And think about this for a second. There’s no such thing as the past or the future. I don’t know about anyone else, but my thoughts are also often in the past, what happened? Here’s my story about what happened or here’s the future. I’m worried about what might happen, but in the present moment, all is well. And I was thinking about experiences I’ve had in my life where I had a moment of awareness. I’ve shared one of them before, but I was very sick and just laying there, being very sick, I just had an awareness about some of the things that had happened in my life that I never understood.
(05:11):
And it created an opening for forgiveness, which was what was needed in that case. So that’s what we’re going for. We’re going for transcending our suffering so that we can really be in the present moment. The work really helps you to release what I would call unhelpful thoughts, that thoughts that make us feel separate as if we’re kind of them and us, that there’s an other out there and healing that because the only thing that’s really happening is the present moment. And in the present moment, there’s always love that can be challenging to get your head around because so often we’re in what we would call our present moment and we’re really present. Does anyone else relate to that? I don’t have my phone here right now, but that would be my major thing that keeps me out of the present moment or just distraction, just being worried and concerned about what might happen. So that is where we’re going to do our work. And the Buddha says the teachings are raft. And the raft leads from one shore, which we might call our unenlightened selves, where we’re suffering to the shore of freedom. We might say liberation, and that’s the purpose of the teaching. But when you reach this place of freedom and liberation, you don’t need the raft anymore because you’ve shifted. And Byron Katie says the same thing about her work. The four questions and the turnaround help you move from confusion, suffering to clarity, freedom.
(06:55):
So in reality, there’s only one shore and we’re already on the shore, but we don’t know we’re on the shore. Just like all the spiritual teachings you might’ve heard the person who goes looking for the gold and then they find out it was actually in their backyard after they traveled the world. That’s our spiritual journey because we already are it. We’re already connected to it. That’s why we sit in contemplation so our spirit can speak to us. We get quiet and listen, just a few spiritual concepts to throw in before we go into actually working with her work.
(07:39):
The whole universe and everything in it is kind. It’s for you. Everything that’s happening is happening for you. And that can feel kind of, it’s a challenging thought in today’s world. When we look around and we see all the many things that are happening in the world of form, it’s hard to think that thought. And what Byron Katie would say about that is in this moment, that’s not happening here. So the things that we are concerned about are not happening here in this present moment. And when we are seeking anything, in this case, she’s talking about seeking love. But when we’re seeking anything, then we’re coming from an awareness that we’re not already it, that we don’t have it, that it is outside of us. And when do we feel love? We feel it in that present moment when we’re able to really be where we are. So let’s talk about the four questions of the work. Reverend Rod kicked us off brilliantly last week I thought. And he really talked to us about being in inquiry, questioning the things that come up in your mind, really questioning your beliefs about your life, questioning your thoughts and asking the question, does this thought serve me? Is this thought leading me where I want to go? Is this thought causing me to suffer right now?
(09:26):
And I like to think about this expression. What got me here won’t get me there. Does everyone know that expression? So what got me here, my beliefs, my thoughts is not what’s going to carry me into a more powerful future. And we have the power to change things. Byron Katie says, placing the blame or judgment on someone else leaves you powerless to change your experience. When you take responsibility for your beliefs and your judgment, it gives you the power to change them. So that’s what we’re doing. We’re taking responsibility for our beliefs and our judgments. What happens when we do that? What happens when we question our thinking? We no longer impose our thinking onto reality. We’re free. We’re not creating reality from our thinking. We’re just able to be a little bit more neutral about it. And when we question our mind, our mind will meet us with understanding. And this is what I imagine the Buddha was doing when he was sitting under the Bodhi tree. He had his breakthrough, but he simply reached a point where there were no more questions to ask, and he came to a place of peace. He moved beyond his thinking and he was liberated.
(11:00):
So when we inquire, we want to practice careful listening. We do this a lot here in visioning what is spirit’s highest idea for my life? We can also question the judgments that are arising in our mind, and we can start to just find some inner freedom, inner freedom to move forward. And when we challenge our thinking, it loses its charge.
(11:34):
Has anybody ever noticed that if you challenge your thinking, it loses its charge? So let’s talk a little bit about when you would want to do the work. It might seem obvious, but I want to talk about this a little bit because as I’ve worked with the work, I’ve realized I could use this on everything. I could use this on anything I think or believe in my life. So here’s some examples of when you might want to use it. Your mind is spinning on a repetitive thought. Anyone ever have that one? I seem to get that on Sunday nights when I’m lying in bed, when I’m worried about the week, I’m like, could you just stop right now? But when you know you’re triggered, how do you know you’re triggered? You lose touch with your conscious mind. Literally, your mind is just spinning in this place or your saboteurs are acting up.
(12:26):
We’re going to talk about your saboteurs in a moment. And you’re just having a lot of self-sabotaging thoughts in your head, or you’re struggling to think or you are really in your story. I spent the weekend with my family last week, and I’m going to tell a story in a second about an opportunity I had to practice the work, but I realized being around my family that there’s just so many stories that we play over and over again. This person is like this. That person is like that. And it made me realize, wow, am I unconsciously sometimes saying my story out loud or am I saying their story out loud? Just this idea, our whole life is a story. We made it up. And in our relationships, we can continue to live in stories that don’t serve us, right? We’re trying to get ourselves to a neutral place.
(13:24):
And any thoughts that you’re having that are causing you to suffer, this is a place for you to do this and do the work. So let’s talk about your saboteur. Some of you have seen this before, but this is based on the work of a guy named Shiza Shain. And if you want to go take the saboteur test, I have the link there, it’s free. But our saboteurs are the voices in our head that create negative emotions. So our thoughts are creating our negative emotions when we’re trying to handle the things that are going on. And these are created when we’re little. It’s how we solve the problems of our childhood or how we coped with what was going on in our childhood. And they served us when we were little, but now we don’t need them anymore. But still, we have neural patterns in our head and they continue to run until we consciously break them. And so we want to be aware of what they are. So there’s the judge. Everybody has the judge. And you might say, oh, I don’t have that one. Just listen in your mind for a few minutes. You’re assessing. We went to a concert last night. Oh, that person should be a backup singer. That person shouldn’t be a backup singer. This person should do that. They shouldn’t do this. Your mind does it all day.
(14:49):
And so we’re always, because that’s how we’re protecting ourselves. And then I think it becomes a habit. And so we just do it with everything. But I want to invite you to think for a second. Who do you tend to judge? Do you judge yourself first? Do you judge someone else first or do you judge the situation? And we do all do three, but just give me a shout out and I don’t care if you talk over each other yourself, others, or the situation. Just give me a shout out. So we got a bunch of different ones, but we want to be aware of that voice because it’s taking us out of the present moment. It’s taking us out of our ability to be right where we are because our minds someplace else. And so there’s nine other accomplice, saboteurs. I’m not going to go through all of them today, but these are also created when we are little.
(15:46):
So if you take the test, you’ll find out or you can pull the deck up later, I’m happy to send it to you. A lot of people are going to look at this and say, I know what I am. So I’m a pleaser, avoider and hyper achiever such a shocking thing. But I can look at my childhood and I see how that got created. My parents didn’t really get along very well, so I was always trying to make everyone happy at home. But in my family, you sure weren’t going to talk about it or say anything that wasn’t nice. And then I was kind of this geeky kid, so I got picked on. And so then I’m like, okay, well that reemphasized the pleaser thing, but it also caused me to be a real achiever because it’s like I just got to be good enough.
(16:31):
I got to try hard. And so those voices can still live in my head, but now I can name them. Now I know what they are. So I can have a talk with myself and I can say, my pleaser thinks this. My avoider thinks this. My hyper achiever thinks this. I can name the voice. And when we name the voice, we can move into move from our saboteurs to the sage. Who’s the sage? The sage is your spirit. It’s that part of you that already knows it, already knows its own wisdom. And we can uncover the sage by doing the work. Sometimes when we’re triggered, we need to take a moment and center. We need to breathe, we need to ground ourselves. We need to get some prayer, perhaps meditate, but then we can do the work. And I encourage you to say to yourself, when you notice this, just name the voices.
(17:40):
My pleaser right now thinks I should be doing this. My avoider really doesn’t even want to talk to that person. And my hyper achiever doesn’t seem very present. I’m going to tell you a story from my own life. So that’s what I’m thinking about. But then we turn to the questions. We know that there are four questions, and then there’s called a turnaround at the end. I’m focusing on the third question. So Rod kicked us off with is it true? And can you absolutely know that it’s true? And the question I’m focused on is how do you react when you believe that thought? And the next question Linda will handle next week, but I’m probably going to cover it a little bit, is who would you be without that thought? And then you take it into a reframe. Okay, so I’m actually going to give an example.
(18:28):
So this happened last weekend. So I was away visiting my brother Michael. My brother Michael has, he’s in memory care. So a little bit emotionally charged. I have to say he was better than I expected him to be, which was a blessing. And I can still see his smart ass self. He will change the subject or repeat the same thing every five minutes. But that sassiness, which is his essence, it’s always kind of been his essence. It’s still there. So I was there with a couple of my family members and his kids were there, and I was having a conversation with someone in my family, and she brought up to me, I was sharing some news with her. She brought up to me a grievance that she says someone else in our family has against me that’s about five years old. And she said, this person wants to heal the situation with you. And I said, I have no idea what you’re talking about. I said, I really would’ve expected that he would come talk to me if I did something that upset him, and I’m pretty sure I would want to know that.
(19:48):
So anyway, we have this conversation and I go to bed and I’m laying in bed, and I’m so pissed. I’m just like, really? You’re coming to, Krista coming to me to tell me John’s mad at me. And I grew up in a family that did that a lot triangular. And I was just like, wow. So I’m laying in bed and the person is laying in the bed next to me, by the way. And I’m just sitting there and I’m just fuming. I’m fuming. And I don’t usually get mad, but I’m like, okay, it’s really time to do the by. And Katie work on this right now. So I stated the situation, and it could be stated different ways, but my family member expects me to heal a situation. That’s how I stated my issue. Is it true, feels true to me, feels true to me? And I could give you the whole story about how that’s been the truth my whole life. It doesn’t help to go into your story here, by the way, but it feels true to me. So I’m going to say yes, but can I absolutely know that that’s true?
(21:07):
No, I can’t absolutely know that she expects me to heal the situation. And when I believe that thought that she expects me to heal the situation, my emotions that come up are anger was angry. I was also really sad, and I was super disappointed that the person wouldn’t come and talk to me, right? If I did something that accidentally offended you, please come tell me. I’m sure I didn’t consciously do that. And so that’s how I felt when I believed the thought. I’ll be honest and say I probably had some judgment about the person who was telling me to my story about that person. But who would I be without that thought I’d be free? I’d be free on the inside. So I’m asking myself these questions, and what I noticed is that it started loosening up for me in my head. I started to have some compassion that came in, and I realized the person who was sharing this with me, I think it was causing her fear.
(22:22):
Her fear that the relationship would be broken and just anxiety, really just anxiety. So once I was asking myself these questions, I was like, okay, I can have a little more empathy here. And so if I were going to do a turnaround on myself, so my family member expects me to heal a situation, I might say, I expect me to heal a situation. If I think about my anger, that kind of feels true to me. I expect me to heal it, right? And that’s my pleaser, right? My pleaser’s like, I got to go heal this. But my avoider is like, no way in hell are you going to heal. You are not doing this. You’ve been doing this your whole life. You are not doing that. So that’s one turnaround. Another turnaround might be there’s nothing to be healed, right? There’s a lot of different ways you can turn around to the thought.
(23:29):
But what I found is in simply inquiring, and as I’ve sat with this week, and as I got prayer about it, it just loosened up for me. It loosened up for me. And that’s what inquiry and questioning does. It loosens up what’s going on. And that’s really our invitation because we want to liberate our mind. We don’t want to be in that place where we’re spinning or we’re unhappy. And when my mind is, especially in the situation, if my mind is spinning, I am unwilling to go talk to someone, it probably I haven’t done it yet, and the person wanted me to go talk to someone else, to schedule talking to the person. I’m like, I’m not doing that. This is how families can be. But now I feel willing feel to go have a conversation because my intent is harmony, right? My intent in my family’s harmony. But I had to do the work to get to myself, to the point where I was like, okay, I’m willing. I’ll be the one. I’ll go have the conversation. So that’s how this work can help us. Satguru says, your mind need not be controlled. Your mind needs to be liberated.
(24:52):
And in this teaching, in the new thought teaching, we can be so focused on what do I believe? What do I think? How do I direct my life consciously? And what we really want to do is we want to open. That’s really what we’re trying to do. That’s what the Buddha did. That’s what Eckhart told did. That is how Byron Katie lives her life. Just simply being open, being open, getting yourself to the point where the thinking stops. And you’re the only one who can do that. No one can do that for you. And no one can do that for me either. So how do we liberate our mind? We embrace inquiry. We release our attachment to our thoughts, to our stories, and we make the space for our spirit to lead and guide us through our spiritual practice, questioning your thoughts. Is this true? Can I absolutely know that this is true? And how do I react when I feel that thought? And what’s revealed when we liberate our minds is the love that’s happening in each moment. That’s what is revealed. When our thoughts stop, we can really be present in the moment that we’re in, we can have an experience of peace. And so I’m going to invite you now to turn within,
(26:34):
And I want you to bring to your mind an area in your life where maybe you’re feeling some upset, maybe you’re feeling some negative thinking, judgment, whatever label you might put on it. And I just invite you to ask yourself the question, is it true? Yes or no? Can I absolutely know it’s true? And how do you feel when you believe that thought? How do you react? And what would you be without that thought? Call to mind a quality of spirit.
(27:57):
And in this moment, I just know the presence and power of spirit, this infinite, eternal, loving presence and power of good, this goodness, this grace, this freedom, this liberation, this spirit, which always and everywhere is expressing the divine love that is in as and through all things. And I know that this divine healing power of love is in as and through me. And I know that it is in as in through each of the people hearing my words. I know that it is the truth of our being, that at the center there is love, there is grace, there is goodness, there is possibility. And so from this place of oneness, I know and declare that there is a shift today. I just know that each person is experiencing a liberation from their thoughts, a liberation from the patterns of the past, a liberation from their judgments. And I know that principle is not bound by precedence. So I know that whatever past experience you’ve had, I know that that’s not the truth that is happening right in this moment. And I know and declare a shift. I know that spirit is with you right where you are. And I know that this inquiry, this inquiry into self, that spirit says yes to this. That spirit meets you exactly where you are. That spirit is moving forward, your life with perfection, with ease, with goodness, with flow, with grace.
(29:44):
I just know that this is already fulfilled. I’m so grateful for it. So grateful for the liberation of our minds, so grateful for the liberation of our spirit. So grateful to know that this loving presence and power is guiding and directing each and every one of us, and that all is well. And so it is.