Video of Dave's introduction and meditation (27 minutes)

Included in the introduction is an excerpt from the 20-minute video, Sanctuary, by Jack Kornfield (from 5:19 to 13:26)

In this segment, Jack says that we need to recognize both our larger self, which has no boundaries (our "Buddhanature", which is unchanging and unlimited), and our more conventional individual self (our "zip code", which is limited and changes over time), and forgetting either one is problematic.

About "Dialectics":

The dialectic in Marsha Linehan's Dialectic Behavior Therapy:

(a) you are okay just as you are, you don't need to change to be loved
(b) you need to change if you want things to get better
(See Linehan's memoir: Living a Life Worth Living).

Other dialectics (paradoxical positions both held simultaneously):

(a) let things happen, just let them "be"
(b) take initiative, "make" them happen

(a) everything is perfect and beautiful just as it is, there is nowhere to go and nothing to do, and nobody "doing" it (non-dual: everybody is already "enlightened - they just don't know it)
(b) spiritual progress is the result of dedicated practice (meditation, retreats, courses, etc.)

"Effortless and choiceless awareness is our real nature. But one cannot reach it without effort, the effort of deliberate meditation." - Ramana Maharshi

Love says "I am everything." Wisdom says "I am nothing." Between these two my life flows. - Nisargadatta Maharaj

There ain't no answer. There ain't gonna be any answer. There never has been an answer. That's the answer. - Gertrude Stein

In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.- Dwight Eisenhower

    [This] story is about a little wave, bobbing along in the ocean, having a grand old time. He’s enjoying the wind and the fresh air — until he notices the other waves in front of him, crashing against the shore.
    “My God, this is terrible," the wave says "Look what’s going to happen to me!”
    Then along comes another wave. It sees the first wave, looking grim, and it says to him, "Why do you look so sad?"
    The first wave says, "You don’t understand! We’re all going to crash! All of us waves are going to be nothing! Isn’t it terrible?"
    The second wave says, "No, you don’t understand. You’re not a wave, you’re part of the ocean."
           - from Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom

    The moment you have an individual, you have separation, and the moment you have separation you have the longing to end that separation, to heal the divide, to come home. It's the wave longing to return to the ocean. And of course on some level the wave knows that it was never for one moment separate from the ocean - that the sense of being a wave is merely a temporary contraction of the whole.
    The little wave is inherently a seeker, and he runs around the world like a headless chicken, trying to find something which of course he never lost in the first place. And he never lost this because he never had it. He always was it. The wave was always, always, a perfect expression of that which cannot be expressed. You - the character, the person, the individual - were always the divine expression, expressing itself perfectly, completely, and exhausting itself in that expression, leaving no trace, no residue.
           - from An Extraordinary Absence: Liberation in the Midst of a Very Ordinary Life by Jeff Foster

     The Indian guru with whom I studied, Sri Nisargadatta used to laugh, “You identify with everything so easily, with your body, your thoughts, your opinions, your roles and so you suffer. I have released all identification.” He would explain by holding up his hand. “Look how my thumb and forefinger touch. When I identify with my forefinger I am the feeler and the thumb the object that I experience. Reverse the identification and I am the thumb, feeling this forefinger as an object. I find that somehow by shifting the focus of attention I become the very thing I look at . . . I call this capacity of entering other focal points of consciousness love. You may give it any name you like. Love says ‘I am everything.’ Wisdom says ‘I am nothing’. Between these two my life flows.”
           - from Love Says We Are Everything by Jack Kornfield