Dan Harris

is how quickly the mind is working all the time.

We're moving.

We're like, as my meditation teacher says, throughout the day, we're kind of like a bee in a jar, moving up through excitement or interest and then down through loneliness or anger or fear or whatever.

We're just cycling through these thoughts and emotions and urges so quickly all the time.

And what happens on retreat is

you start to, and this can happen in a daily practice too, you just start to see how wild and chaotic the mind is.

And as a result, you're not so owned by it.

And so I do go through a period of loneliness or homesickness, usually in the first couple of days of retreat.

But the power is seeing

Oh, yeah, I can be with this, and it's going to change.

And you can be with you, right?

It's also like, I'm just going to sit with myself and all that myself contains.

Not all of it's awesome.

Yes.

And this is a little out there, so you may want to cut it.

But then you start to see, like, what is this thing I'm calling a self?

How solid is that?

And that's a very interesting, sometimes a little scary, but ultimately liberating thing.

Because then you don't take your emotions, your anxiety, your anger, whatever...

so personally and you're able to work with them in a more fluid and sophisticated way and so it's a long way of answering your question which is why do i put myself through this retreat well why would you put yourself through a vigorous workout that sucks too but it has many many benefits okay there's so much in there i want to get back to so maybe one of these cards will afford us the opportunity okay next set of three one two or three three three