Expert: Joe McSorley - 6/25/2007

Question
Hello Mr. Joe!

While reading I have come across such sentences:
1. "Regard all that you see, hear, taste, touch, smell, think, feel, value, or believe, as if you were dreaming it."
Does it mean that I should live in a dream world instead of a real one?
2. "Gain is illusion; loss is enlightenment. I take all loss and defeat from others; I give all victory and gain to them."
I understand that when we gain something it is just an illusion, but why loss is an enlightenment?
By the way: Do you do any exercises to train your mind? What are they?
Thank You

Answer
Hi Luke,
 Here goes:
1. "Regard all that you see, hear, taste, touch, smell, think, feel, value, or believe, as if you were dreaming it."
Does it mean that I should live in a dream world instead of a real one?
 It means that you already live in a dream world of perceptions.  What you see, hear, taste, etc. kicks up a thought in your mind so you don’t experience these things as they are but what your mind perceives them as.  To see these things in the moment without thought, memory or judgment is to see them cleared.  This is the idea of mindfulness or mindful practicing.  To try to be in the moment and be ever alert without paying attention to the workings of your mind. Empty your mind and see what is without your cognition.


2. "Gain is illusion; loss is enlightenment. I take all loss and defeat from others; I give all victory and gain to them."
I understand that when we gain something it is just an illusion, but why loss is an enlightenment?
 To lose your own view of the world, the sense of “I” that separates you from everything else is the loss that is being spoken of here.  When we stop paying attention to who we think we are and blossom from the root of existence we have lost the ego self but gained the true self. It is to know who you are that asks the questions and seeks answers.


By the way: Do you do any exercises to train your mind? What are they?
 In the every day sense training the mind is a problem because you need to know who it is that is training.  If you are trying to train Luke’s mind then that is the mind that separates itself from everything else.  You have to find the exercise that resonates with you be it mediation or mindfulness.  Try to always be alert and aware, in the moment without thought.  Let the body do what the body does naturally and let the mind disappear in the moment.  Do this at all times, just pay attention, don’t day dream, muse or speculate, just do what you are doing without the mental dialogue, still the mind.
     Take care,
           Joe