Transcription
Okay, so we have some time now, if there are any questions about certainly anything that was said, or some discussion. Also, just really feel free to ask questions about Dharma or practice in general. So it doesn't have to be solely around what we were talking about, around the area of judgment, or anything I said. Feel free to ask anything about Dharma and practice. And as well, if you just would like make a comment or share an insight, or ... feel free.
Q1: fear and sleep; wakefulness; reconditioning the mind and heart with mettā; wholesome fear; medical conditions, sleep, and dreams; working with fear; acknowledging and welcoming fear
Yogi: [?] For example, thoughts. [?] And it's the response that matters. If you have no control over those, for example, you know, you're asleep or something like that. It's kind of like a fear of doing something when you're not conscious and not aware. I guess similar things apply in terms of not attaching yourself to that fear. [?] When you're not so conscious, not so aware.
Rob: Yeah, really important question. So a lot of what we cultivate in practice is a kind of wakefulness. So, not to be asleep. You know, that's partly why there's the fifth precept about alcohol and drugs, etc. It's that, when there's too much of that, basically, the mind is clouded, cannot make -- an impulse comes up, and there it is. And the cultivation of mindfulness, etc., is really to encourage that wakefulness, and in a way, to have as much as possible of one's life not sleepy.
At the same time, alongside what I said, I suppose, going back to the piece about mettā, there is a kind of reconditioning that goes on in practice. A very large part of practice is about reconditioning the mind and the heart, which means also reconditioning the kind of thoughts and impulses that come up. So over time, violent impulses, angry impulses, destructive, etc., they actually do subside. And again, it's not linear, and it's gradual, but they do subside, because we're taking care of -- like a garden -- letting go, so to speak, as much as possible, of what's negative, and you're planting positive seeds. So there's that piece too. And that really does have an effect over time.
In terms of the fear, well ... I'm not sure. Did you want to be a bit more specific? Is there ...?
Yogi: In many ways, it's quite an irrational fear. [?] Acted upon those fears of sabotage or destruction. It's almost like, it's a very rational fear. I can see the rational side of it. [?] Letting go of the fact that they're thoughts. That's already had an impact on, certainly, reducing that. But I guess it's just sort of taking it a bit further. [?] Yeah, just thoughts of doing harm when you're asleep. Maybe everyone I mentioned it to has just the same thoughts.
Rob: Sure. One only needs to open the newspaper, to see that the world is full of incidents of people acting out impulses that are not wholesome when they're not conscious of it. So what you're talking about is -- there is such a thing as a kind of wholesome fear. There's a word for it in Pali, which I've forgotten, but a kind of fear of wrongdoing.[1] Now, if that fear gets too strong, it becomes kind of paralysing, and we begin kind of mistrusting ourselves, and that whole kind of -- we're too bound up in it, wrapped up in it. But essentially, it's good to have -- I mean, maybe 'fear' is too strong a word, but some concern, caution, whatever, about taking care of our wakefulness, taking care of what kind of -- gradually changing, reconditioning the mind. That's fine. It's when it gets too strong that it becomes kind of constricting or paralysing, that fear. And then you actually said it: that fear is just another thing that you can work on, you can let go of as a condition.
Yogi 2: Even when you're actually asleep?
Yogi: Yes. [?]
Rob: Oh, I was wondering about that! I thought you couldn't mean that. Okay. You mean actually ... sorry.
Yogi: I mean also other states that kind of, you know, we're not totally awake, for example if you have been drinking or taking drugs. But in particular, I was thinking about when you are asleep.
Rob: That you would get up and sleepwalk and ...?
Yogi: Yes.
Rob: Oh, okay. That's what it sounded like you meant, but I thought, "He can't mean that." Okay. Sorry! [laughter]
Yogi 2: [?] And there's that terrible case in America where that man actually murdered his wife. He was asleep. He did end up in prison! [laughter] But there is a medical condition. It has a name which I can't pronounce, where people actually -- yeah, yeah, yeah. I think on the program they just said, "Seek medical advice." [laughs] It's a very interesting programme! [laughs]
Yogi 3: [?] And the more she meditated, the more horrible her dreams became. And she started slaying people's heads off in the dreams. And she had most violent dreams, and one right after the other. It was really, really horrible. And she took it as a purification. And because maybe also she was believing in reincarnation, she was believing she was living something out, maybe from her subconscious mind, that was still there. Because she was doing this meditation practice, it got that she could watch it now, and detaching herself. And then like what you said, detaching herself a little bit, not getting completely freaked out: she was the most horrible person, and oh, she's going to go out and do these things. But there was somewhere in her needing to release it. And by just thinking, "Oh, this will come out, if I watch it like a movie," that helped her.
Yogi 4: It's just like it's found that releasing mechanism. The process has started. [?]
Yogi 3: [?]
Yogi 5: [?] [laughter]
Yogi 2: [?] Some of the people had terrible dreams of people hurting them, so they were very, very fearful of their dreams.
Yogi 5: [?]
Yogi 2: [?] Exactly, they were! And it was a quite haunting programme, really. And they said it was more ... [?] That was stress-related, they said, for her. She changed her job. I couldn't comment, really, but I would guess the meditation would help.
Rob: I'm just curious if John has anything to say.
John: No, the only comment I would make is that I suspect, for every one person who acts out on it, there are a million who have the fear. And I think actually responding to the fear in a fearful way, by trying to suppress it or squashing it down, is one of the most reliable ways of keeping it going.
Yogi: [?] Yeah, that's exactly what seems to have happened. I suppressed it for many years. Suddenly, recently, I started thinking about it and talking about it. Thinking about [?] you control things, that when you're not in control, what will happen? When you're in control, it's fine.
John: Yeah. I mean, there's always the possibility of sort of being very specific about the kind of non-identification, the not-self kind of practices that Rob was describing in relation to urges. You know, actually practising watching urges just as events in the mind, and just not buying into them, but just sitting there, and watching them come and watching them go, and go up and down. And certainly, I think most sort of cognitive behavioural treatments of obsessional kind of urges, the sort of compulsion to do things, find that that's very effective. If you can just sort of do whatever is necessary to not actually act on them, and then just sort of sit and watch what happens to them.
Rob: I just want to pick up on one piece that John said, actually, about fear, because that's a whole other subject, working with fear. But one piece that John mentioned was fears -- we are afraid of fear. So we tend to cycle it by a kind of reaction to fear of fear. And if we can just kind of accept that fear is there, as you're beginning to do, where you start to talk about it and not suppress it, that actually acts as a kind of release mechanism of the pressure. And it can just kind of, "Oh, it's just there," and it begins to dissipate and lose some of its intensity. If we react to fear out of fear, out of suppression, actually it's, as John says, guaranteed kind of fuel for the fire.
Yogi 6: [?]
Rob: Yeah, the habitual reaction to fear is fear of fear and wanting to suppress it. It's so unpleasant, and fear itself is scary, and we're afraid of the consequences of fear. We tend to suppress it and fear it. So one of the approaches with fear is to learn how to completely welcome the fear itself. So completely open [the] door to the fear itself, which may mean, in this case, talking about it. But just completely acknowledging and letting it be there. And that counters that kind of vicious cycle.
Anybody else?
Q2: maintaining a regular meditation practice
Yogi: My greatest problem with the meditation practice is just trying to keep it going. [?] I find that, meditation, the more I do, the more I benefit. Because I've benefited, I feel a lot better, so I don't particularly feel the need to kind of ... [laughter] But then time goes by, I'm like, "Oh, I meditated two weeks ago." [laughter]
Rob: It's like a foul-weather meditator mind, yeah. [laughter] It's really common. There's something about maybe recognizing the value of steadiness. So it's like, sitting down and doing it no matter how we feel. And recognizing that if we show up and just sit there, and try for however long -- if we do that every day, then that's an embodiment of steadiness, and that steadiness begins to come into the life, which is really, really important. But recognizing the value of that.
I don't know if we have time to hang out a little bit after we close here. But here's a room full of meditators living in Cambridge, and it can really help to meet with someone, get together, and support each other in that practice. It may be just, you do that a few times a week, or maybe even once a week, something that keeps that continuity going. It is very hard for maybe the majority of people to keep it going steadily on their own at first. So I would really say that's a very important piece, if possible, having some kind of support. Probably the most important piece. Yeah, it would be good if you could find some regular time. Maybe your schedule really doesn't allow, so that's unfortunate. But sometimes kind of setting up a period of time, like a month or three months, and just saying very firmly, sitting down at the beginning and saying, "Come hell or high water, I'm going to sit every day the next three months. And I'm going to -- one month, whatever it is, and ..." [transcriber's note: The recording ends mid-sentence.]
Possibly ottappa. ↩︎
