Go Right into Consciousness

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold says Buddhist practice isn’t about turning away. It’s a way to face life directly.

This clip was shot at the Lion’s Roar 2017 Annual Retreat, “Boundless Love.”

Transcript

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold: If you think of how you, how you see the world in a moment when you’re in a rage, or you’re angry, or you’re despondent, or hopeless, or apathetic, and how that colors the world, how much it influences our sense of what people are and what we’re actually hearing and seeing — that’s the power of mind. That’s the power of our consciousness in those moments to create a world that may seem very obstructive, or very uninviting.

And when we shift that quality of consciousness — when we practice and return to a more natural state, the world is transformed. It’s the same world as always, but our experience of it, the world of the mind, is very different.

We’re seeing things as they are, and it’s a much different world to be invited into, and to be called to attend to, and so I think there we see the enormous importance of practice, not as a way to retreat or turn away from, but rather to go right into the belly of things.