Notes on Monk teaching selected for next chapter in goodreads book project (here is a snippet)

For those who are enjoying the book writing collab in our Moments of Hafiz group, we found the next chapter! We had presented BIG ISSUES in chapter one, and People doing good things in chapter two! Many people have been curious about how this project was going to unfold next! Here is a preview of the next chapter! 

Several sages (including Huang Po) have asked "how many minds have you"?

Or how many you are there, how many truths, how many loves, how many powers?

Should we really live with drama as we do, and not ever stop to look at it or question the reasons for its existence? What is it creating and why? Might it not be a kind of rope that we make to climb our of a pit and then tie ourselves up with while rigging it?

Just how far are the joys of imaginings from sorrows?

We want to somehow dissolve our unawareness. As it dissolves we react and imagine. In this dissolution we become aware. So our imagination must contain both elements at once  -- unawareness and awareness, avidya and vidya.

Now which is the active element, awareness or unawareness? We cannot tell, but we experience freedom and peace with awareness. Awareness is not to develop a new idea or opinion, but to dissolve the need for an opinion and idea.

Where do we dissolve it? Into the mind, into the Hafiz, into creation itself which has absolutely no need for our opinions and ideas. The need for a gun as protection to walk in the jungle is based on an opinion and idea. These are based on a belief and a fear, and these arise from unawareness of what a jungle actually is.