Presented By: Mark Collins October 31, 2013

1. Someplace ElseApplication of “The Method of Three Hands”During the Transition From Corporate Americato a Blissful Retirement Presented By: Mark Collins October 31, 2013

2. Someplace Else“Do not stand upon the shore. It truly is a sad and lonely place.”Mark Collins

3. Someplace ElseImagine that you are driving and that the driver in front of you is braking unexpectedly. The bumper is getting very close, very fast. This is the analogy that we will return to through this presentation.How is this similar to leaving corporate America and entering retirement?

4. The Method of Three HandsA Primer Situation: Corporate America mandates a focus on the physical world. Profits are disconnected from spiritual growth and harmony. People often are focused on groceries, mortgages, and 401(k)’s. Leaving Corporate America can cause suffering … due to the new environment that incorporates more of other worlds. Examples: How do I fill my time? Why should I get out of the bed? What is my purpose? How do I restructure relationships and priorities? What matters?

5. The Method of Three HandsA Primer Returning to the analogy … .. You are the car and the bumper is your retirement.

6. The Method of Three HandsA Primer Resolution: Suffering exists, acknowledge it. Understand that suffering has a cause. That cause is a loss of awareness. With awareness, suffering does not need to continue.

7. The Method of Three HandsA Primer The Three Worlds (The Three Hands): Physical Spiritual The Acceptance of Invitation

8. The Method of Three HandsA Primer The Three Worlds (The Three Hands): Physical Heart (It’s Heart Beats with Blood) Spiritual (It’s Heart Beats with Peace) The Acceptance of Invitation (It’s Heart is Indescribable)

9. The Method of Three HandsA Primer Continuing the Analogy: Our Spiritual Self is to the Physical Self … As a Driver is to the Car. Our physical death and decay provides sufficient evidence that eternal does not reside in our physical. The physical self is a land of beginning and end. Push and Pull.

10. First HandThe Physical State Body, Mind, Thoughts, Ideas, Emotions

11. First HandThe Physical State I am happy. No, I use happiness. I use sadness. Return to the analogy of the car and driver. Change the radio station … sadness to happiness. I have thoughts. I do not become those thoughts. These thoughts are used, like tools. Self Restraint … A Blessing or a Curse?

12. Second HandThe Spiritual State Spirit, Values, Religion, Awareness, Sense of Peace

13. Second HandThe Spiritual State Spirit, Values, Religion, Awareness Greater Clarity Between “It Is” and “Right/Wrong” … or … is it wholesome. Be wary of those that provide too much description. Example of spiritual state at full potential.

14. Second HandThe Spiritual State We can only achieve these things if the first hand, the physical world, does not distract and does not interfere with the spiritual world. Consider the implications of: being still, inconsistent breath, stress and anxiety.

15. Second HandThe Spiritual State The Problem of the Physical: To Cling, To Crave. The indispensable providing the dispensable. “If the roots remain untouched and firm in the ground, a felled tree still puts forth new shoots. If the underlying habit of craving and aversion is not uprooted suffering arises anew over and over again.” S.N. GoenkaMoral Conduct, Concentration and Wisdom

16. Second Hand Continuing the Analogy: Our Spiritual Self is to the Physical Self … As a Driver is to the Car. Our physical death and decay provides sufficient evidence that eternal does not reside in our physical. The physical self is a land of beginning and end. Push and Pull?

17. The Second Hand And a coin is flipped into the air, mind is one side and body is a second. The person of spirit is able to, figuratively speaking, stop that coin in mid air as if time had stopped. Or perhaps better said … they are able to make the coin disappear in midair as if it were magic. And the spiritual self, we must recognize, is exactly that which flipped the coin into the air. Or perhaps, had dropped the coin unable to identify its usefulness.

18. Third HandThe Acceptance of Invitation Indescribable, Undefinable, Unmentionable

19. Third HandThe Acceptance of Invitation The first two hands provide awareness of the self. Everything else (if there is an everything else), is the third hand. And this hand is providing an invitation to become aware of how the self relates to everything else. We have traveled inward. Now let’s travel outward.

20. The Method of Three Hands So the bumper is of the car is closing in very, very fast. The bumper is retirement. Your physical self is the car. Your spiritual self is the driver. The invitation is that red cardinal on the tree branch, appearing somewhat disinterested in the collision. What else may be lost?

21. The Method of Three Hands The sooner we apply the brakes, the better we can … The sooner we turn off the radio, the sooner we can … The sooner we observe the red cardinal, the sooner we can … The more capable we drive, the more capable we … The greater the context around us, the greater the … The more knowledge the driver has of the car, the more … And if there is a collision, we should …

22. The Method of Three Hands Awareness of or spiritual self and our physical self … allows us to accept the invitation of relationship with the cosmos, with the universe that is all around and within us.

23. The Shore“Do not stand upon the shore. It truly is a sad and lonely place.”Mark Collins Hand one physical – the shore Hand two spiritual – swimming close to shore Hand three – someplace else, with land not insight.

24. Someplace Else Hand One (Physical) – The Shore Hand Two (Spiritual) – Wading in the Water Hand Three (Someplace Else) – No Land in Sight

25. Someplace Else There is no someplace else. There is other awareness. And this is a matter of different practice, not different location. For if there is only water, what relevance does “different location” have?

26. Establishing Your Practice Today Your path is not to avoid fear and pain. Your path, your practice, must be based on developing awareness of more than the company’s accounting books. Your path, your practice, must be based on developing awareness of how the three hands can be coordinated. It is a question of balance, mindfulness, and … practice.

27. Establishing Your Practice Today Reinspection of the Second Noble Truth: “… the cause of suffering is craving, desire or attachment. The problem seems to be that we are always wanting something, feeling we are lacking something, or wanting an existing something to go away. We could say that the cause of suffering is a generalized mentality of poverty.” Bercholz and Kohnn, An Introduction to the Buddha and His Teachings How have we been thinking of poverty?

28. Establishing Your Practice Today “Our suffering stems from ignorance. We react because we do not know what we are doing, because we do not know the reality of ourselves. The mind spends most of the time lost in fantasies and illusions, reliving pleasant or unpleasant experiences and anticipating the future with eagerness or fear. While lost in such cravings or aversions, we are unaware of what is happening now, what we are doing now.” S.N. GoenkaMoral Conduct, Concentration and Wisdom

29. Establishing Your Practice Today The importance of now … How can our spiritual self proceed with our physical self caught in the past, captured by the future? Truth, we reside both as a physical and spiritual being. Perhaps this loss of awareness creates our greatest divorce. “There is no past, no future. This simply changes. This, in rearranges.” Mark Collins

30. Establishing Your Practice Today The Method of Three Hands: A Policy The Method of Three Hands: A Procedure The Method of Three Hands: Work Instructions

31. Someplace Else No … a something else. Different awareness. Different peace.