So I'm going to endeavor to speak, staying connected to the spirit of relax and be aware. Maybe you might explore what it is to listen from a place of relax and be aware.

And last week and this week, I've been giving a little bit of an overview of the teachings, at least how I present them, practice them, Theravāda Buddhism, insight meditation, etc. And something I wanted to sneak in here at some point is to approach the most unpopular teachings in Buddhism. And I think you can learn a lot about a community based upon how they relate to the ones that are culturally difficult.

And so as a short list, these teachings might include rebirth, the realms of existence, the unsatisfactoriness of sense pleasure, teachings on devotion, seeing Buddhism as a religion, some of the asubha practices, the non-beautifulness of the body. The list could go on and on, but those are some of the big ones. And right off the bat, in talking about these, I wonder if we can hold these teachings without needing to accept or reject them, to sit in the tension of, oh wait a minute, rather than that quick reflex that our polarized world wants us to do of say, I don't like that, I do like that.

That's not for me, that is for me. Can we find that place in the middle where, oh, maybe those different sentiments or inclinations are there, but I don't need to just quickly identify with them and grab onto them. I also think of separate places in the suttas where people come to the Buddha and ask him questions like, so Buddha, the cosmos, is it finite or infinite? The self, is there a true self or is there not?

There's a whole slew of these philosophical views people come to the Buddha with, and often he refuses to answer. And he says, I'm not here to teach speculative views. I'm not here to give you some position to hold on to. And then you can go around and say, yep, I talked to the Buddha. The cosmos are infinite. Check. He's like, no, that's not what this is about.

And so to me, I hold all of the teachings in the tradition with a quality of curiosity, not needing to accept or reject. Some of them I see almost more like poetry, which for me, that framing helps me go to the essence of what the teaching is pointing at without getting caught up in all the details. I can sit with them and, okay, to what degree is this pointing to something really helpful.

Maybe sometimes I fail to find it, but there's the inquiry there. And so, you know, and even just broaching these, I like in the course of a calendar year to make sure to sneak them in at some point or another. And if talking about them, if it makes you a little uncomfortable, this is good. There's something to work with there. What is it that elicits a reaction?

What is the part that you don't like? And not even that you need to get rid of the dislike, You need to come to the place of embracing it, but just to see, oh, interesting, there is this sentiment inside me. Maybe I'll just jump into them. So probably the biggest objection that I get in having taught for a while now is the objection to the unsatisfactoriness of worldly sense pleasure.

You know, talking about things like an ice cream cone or a sunset, a concert or a movie or a play, sex, all sorts of ways of being comfortable and feeling good. And there's this teaching that, oh, those are ultimately unsatisfying. And the Buddha points to, well, of course people like these things because they feel good. If they didn't feel good, people wouldn't like them. And so can we just see that on the preliminary level?

It's like, yeah, they feel good. They're nice. He says, but if that is your refuge, if feeling good is the thing you take refuge in when you're having a hard time. Like, I had a rough day. I need to feel good. Let me get the candy bar. Let me get the movie. Let me get the whatever the thing is. He says, it's a really shaky refuge. And he says, this path that I teach is about finding a deeper refuge, a more stable refuge.

And so it starts with unworldly pleasure, the inner pleasure we get from deep meditation, The inner pleasure from living ethically, with integrity, generously, with kindness.

And then even deeper still, the pleasure that comes from letting go, emptiness, just abiding peacefully, independent of whether you feel good or bad. He says, this is where this goes. And so rather than hearing this is, wait a minute, the Buddha said, or David said, I need to give up movies, or I need to give up candy bars. That's not really it at all. But maybe through the course of practicing, you realize, wait a minute, tangerines feel way better on my system than candy bars do.

Maybe you don't renounce candy bars, you just notice you naturally want to have a tangerine more than a candy bar. Maybe you naturally feel like, I don't want to hold on to this resentment anymore. It feels better to forgive. Maybe, yeah, on some level, these thoughts that I churn are pleasurable. I like my own inner dialogue, but when I've had these experiences where I'm just kind of quieter in there, I think I actually might like that better.

And so the Buddha says this is how the trajectory moves, not from this act of will and renunciation and this forceful way, but just if you embrace a path, it's a natural shedding. And it can be scary to say, well, wait a minute, is this going to change who I am? Maybe, I don't know, maybe not. And I think there is that opening to change that is really a central part of spiritual practice.

Whatever it may look like, just trusting, it's pointing us somewhere good. Another big one people have a hard time with is the whole rebirth realms of existence thing, which is rooted in the principle of Kama, that actions have consequences.

How you are in this moment or how your mind is spills into the next moment. And so similarly, how you are in this life, how your mind has been developed, spills into the next life. There's something in you that is reborn, maybe in a human realm, maybe an animal realm, a heavenly realm, a hell realm. In the Buddhist cosmology, there's all these realms. I think there's 31.

Don't quote me on that. And each visit is temporary until you do the next rebirth. As it goes in the tradition, until final enlightenment, then you break free from it all. And so on one side, when people hear this, you have the people who say, well, yes, this is true. It's everywhere in the old Buddhist texts, even on the night of the Buddha's awakening. He had three big insights, two of them related to rebirth.

One of them, which is the one us Western Buddhists talk about all the time, is the noble truths. It's like, oh, that's interesting. Two of the three were about rebirth. Maybe there's something there. So you have the people say, yes, this must be true. This is true. This is Buddhism. and then you have the people on the other side who reject it. They say, I don't know, just a cultural artifact.

There's no real proof here. It's not really relevant to the undertaking of practice. I can see how kama is real, how actions have consequences without needing all this extra belief stuff. Maybe they stop meditating altogether. It's like, ah, I reject that.

And then, as I said in the beginning, and I want to just be straightforward, this is just how I approach it. I don't think this is the right way to do it. But can I not take a position? I say, oh, interesting. This is clearly part of the tradition. I've heard firsthand accounts from some very wise deep practitioners who have firsthand experiences, or so they believe, of their past lives.

Okay, can I take that in? And also take in that, well, I really have no direct experience. I personally haven't experienced my past lives, so I can't verify it myself. But rather than needing to make a position, I'm this way, I'm that way, can I sit in that tension? yeah maybe so and in that just embrace that principle of kamma whether it applies to just this life or all the lives my actions have consequences how i develop my mind spills into tomorrow and that's really the central nugget i wanted to talk to about relating to buddhism as a religion with all its devotionalness and i recognize a lot of westerners come to buddhism not as their cultural path of origin a lot of us came through christianity or other paths and so there's often in westerners a bit of an allergy to religion it's like why i'm into buddhism because it's more of a lifestyle or a philosophy i don't really want all this bowing and chanting and hierarchy a bunch of buddhist statues things that make no sense to me and i would this was me for a long time i was really didn't want any of that stuff but i guess as i've gone on i've seen some of my resistors just drop off and like i said at the beginning can i relate to this is what i found helpful to all that religious stuff is poetry.

And when I do that, there's actually a lot of beauty in it. It's like, oh, there's really some heart of tenderness and care and devotion and appreciation for the sublime and something bigger than I can imagine. And I'm not needing to figure everything out and live so much in my head. And yes, this is right. That's wrong. And it's just, well, wait a minute. Poetry touches a different part of our being.

It evokes some different quality. And so, however you land with the whole religion thing, again, I don't think there's a right or a wrong position. And so, you don't need to think what David thinks. I guess I'm just trying to present some of the way that I've related to these, where we can listen to them and not have this big accept-reject thing going on. It's like, huh, let me sit with that.

Just the last thing I'll say here, you know, there's so many more unpopular teachings that we could go into. But when people are struggling with a particular teaching, what I often say is, well, you don't need to take this all wholesale. This is one of the beauties of Buddhist practice. It's not like you need to believe this thing to get the goodies. And if you don't take it all on, you don't get the goodies.

Well, take whatever works for you. And I think I got this from Goenka. He said, you know, Buddhism, it's kind of like a brownie with sprinkles. You don't like the sprinkles? Fine. Leave the sprinkles off. Eat the brownie. Maybe the day comes where you realize, oh, those sprinkles look pretty good, then put the sprinkles back on. They'll be there waiting for you. But eat the brownie in the meantime.

The brownie is good. So this morning, as we go into the sit, whatever the brownie of meditative or Buddhist practice is for you, really gobble that down. And you can put the sprinkles on if you want. You can leave them to the side. They'll be there waiting for you. And you can never eat them too, because the brownie is still delicious. So we'll pause here. We'll see you in a bit.