Transcription
This morning I would like to talk a little bit about approaching the hindrances. And I think any human being who's ever sat down to meditate, who's ever tried walking up and down mindfully, sooner or later -- and probably sooner rather than later -- is going to encounter one or more of these hindrances. They're going to be qualities, realities that we run into. Now, that meditator may not recognize them as such, may not use that language of "hindrances," but they're going to be aspects of our experience. And they have been around just about as long as people have been trying to do this kind of stuff. So as a teaching, it predates the Buddha. The Buddha was not the first person, I doubt very much, to come up with this concept of the hindrances. Thousands and thousands of years that this has been going on, this has been taught.
So, many of you will be familiar already with the hindrances, but it's really worth going into this stuff again and again, and I want to explore a little bit from a few different angles and offer some approaches. Just to run through: there are classically five hindrances. In the usual order that they're given:
(1) Craving for sense pleasures is the first one, that the mind is locked, is kind of hooked into a desire for some or other sense pleasure.
(2) Second one is aversion or ill-will. Again, the mind feels trapped, sort of rattling around in relationship to something or someone or some aspect of our experience or ourselves with aversion, with ill-will, with hatred, with a knee-jerk kind of wanting to get rid of and destroy.
(3) The third is often called sloth and torpor. So these are Old-y English-y words, and basically it means sleepiness, dullness, drowsiness, heaviness of mind, that kind of mind state.
(4) The fourth one is restlessness, and the mind feeling either very agitated with thought -- sometimes also connected with guilt and worry, worry about the future or guilt about the past; but oftentimes not that, really just spinning around with thought, obsessing, and the body, too, feeling restless, feeling it's very hard to sit still.
(5) The last one is doubt, and the mind vacillating and feeling stuck, really, with doubt.
So I'll come back to those in more detail, and offer a lot of suggestions. But actually, first, what I want to do is step right back, take a big step backwards, and a kind of overview, and say some general things about meditation.
There are many, many possible views of what meditation is. There are many possible views of what meditation is, and there are many existing views of what meditation is. Some of those views of what meditation is are simply not helpful, and some are helpful. Now, it's not the case that only one view of meditation is helpful. It's not just the case that there's only one right way of seeing what meditation is. But one view that I want to pick up in this talk and elaborate on a little bit is the view, the way of seeing meditation as meditation practice being an art -- the art of meditation. And as such, I would say that any art, a significant component, aspect of any art is the aspect of craft or skill.
So that view, meditation as art, involving craft and skill. For example, a painter, an artist who's a painter -- a lot of skills go into that craft. A person needs to understand about composition and about colour combination, about brush technique, about different kinds of brushes, different kinds of materials, canvases, all this kind of stuff. A writer writing a novel or a poem, a footballer -- same.
As I say that, just a question, something to offer out: how does that sit with you? [laughs] I can see some people shaking their head! Remember, this is one view I'm exploring in this talk, and I'm not saying it's the only view. But I want to explore it in this talk. I'm aware, and it's interesting who's here and who's not here, because I'm aware of the people -- I know different people's practices, and some people would not even come to the talk because ... But anyway. Just to be aware of what the reaction is to that.
Now, there are going to be different reactions. Possible to feel overwhelmed by such a view: "Ugh. So much to develop, so much to learn." Possible also to feel very relieved by such a view. It's like, if a skill is part of it, if craft is part of it, it means that me, little old me, can develop it. It means there's the possibility of development. If it's a skill -- skill is a word the Buddha was very fond of using in relation to practice. If it's a skill, it means I can practise it and develop it, rather than there's nowhere to move, there's no possibility of development. So it could be that there's relief in relationship to that.
But here's something I want to throw out for everyone to reflect on, and it's a question: how am I viewing meditation? It's one of these questions that sounds so innocent and so innocuous and so, like, "Pff. Whatever." It's massively significant, and important, I think, for us to reflect on: how am I viewing meditation? The way I view meditation is not insignificant, is not neutral. It's going to have massive effects. Everything affects everything else. The way I see meditation practice is something that enters into, then, the whole realm of my experience, and has its effects. If I'm not aware of actually how I'm seeing it, then I'm unaware of something very significant that's affecting the whole process. This is just something to take away and reflect on: how am I viewing meditation practice? How am I seeing meditation?
In this talk, a little bit emphasizing the angle of the art and the skill and the craft. And that means nuts and bolts of meditation technique and practice. And in that, through that, a kind of refinement, a refinement of our craft, a refinement of the skill, and a subtlety, that there's a subtlety that can come into this, over time, with development. Now, sometimes people might be tempted to put another view of meditation kind of in opposition to this view. I'm not even sure that it needs to be in opposition, but tempting to put it in opposition. And that view would be practice as just being: "I'm just being and letting be." Or, "Practice is a kind of non-doing. It's a non-doing. What I'm doing is getting out of the way and non-doing."
And with that, there is a kind of suspicion or fear that if I enter into practice as a doer, then that doing will build the self, will build the sense of self, and the movement of meditation should be away from the sense of self, and here I am, doing in meditation and building a sense of self. So there's a -- "fear" is a strong word; there's a concern that the self will be born and encouraged as doer, to take birth, the self, as doer, or as meditator. There's definitely something to that, absolutely something to that, and it's an important point, and it needs investigation. But just also to say: however we view meditation, however we go, whatever practice we choose, whatever technique, whatever approach, etc., all of them, each one, there's not one excluded, not one approach or view excluded, that doesn't have its particular potential pitfalls. Whatever it is, however we're seeing it, it will have its particular potential pitfalls. Just in this room, there are people approaching practice in very different ways, and that's actually a lovely part of what Gaia House is. But each one has its potential pitfalls. Do we know what the potential pitfalls of the particular way I'm practising are? Am I interested in that? I need to be interested in that.
If I am going for the non-doing, is it possible that letting go of doing too early in the practice might just shore us up on a kind of default doing that's actually just more subtle than we've got an awareness to see? We just land with a kind of default doing, that we're not aware that it's going on. We don't have the refinement to see the more subtle doing in the practice -- and subtle doing in existence, actually. It might be that engaging in doing, and letting that process refine, refining the doing, letting that become very subtle, it might be that there's something in playing with doing, playing with it the way we play with plasticine or a kid plays with a toy, that we actually understand doing through playing with doing. We understand it deeper and deeper and deeper. In order to fully let go of doing and fully let go of the self, we need to understand doing fully.
So I don't want to make a blanket statement, this or that. I just want to highlight something that I think really needs a lot of real honest reflection, with a lot of integrity to it, a lot of openness of view. Āryadeva, one of the great Mahāyāna teachers, said one of the three qualities of a good student is open-mindedness.
These hindrances, they're not just confined to concentration practice. We might feel them when I'm trying to work with the breath, or I'm trying to sweep the body, or I'm trying to do loving-kindness practice. They actually come up whenever. So we could have a very open awareness practice, and just sitting, and just being with the openness, a lovely openness of awareness. Hindrances will still arise within that practice. They arise in our everyday life, as we're walking down the street, as we're going to work, as we're resting at home. They're a part of being human. It's not that we come to meditation and we suddenly see something different. That's not the case at all. It might just be that we notice them more. We're just more aware.
Here's another question, and it's not necessarily a simple question, but: when is it enough just to know that a hindrance is present? When is it enough just for the simple knowing that a hindrance is present? Sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn't, but the question is, when is it enough? Knowing, mindfulness, awareness, attention, consciousness, are actually not the object of meditation. They're not the object of meditation. That's not the reason that we're meditating. From the Buddha's point of view, we need to understand suffering, and particularly we need to understand the hindrances in this context. And, he goes on to say, we need to understand how to free ourselves from the hindrances.
So in the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, which I'm sure Christina or Yanai have probably mentioned already -- it's sort of the most central discourse of the Buddha for Insight Meditation tradition -- he talks about the hindrances in the fourth foundation of mindfulness. And he talks, for instance, when he's talking about sloth and torpor, and he says very clearly, the practitioner, he or she "discerns how there is the abandoning of sloth and torpor once it has arisen." In other words, it's not just a neutral, "Oh, there's sloth and torpor. It's not just a neutral awareness.[1]
In other instances, quite a number of other instances, the Buddha uses the word "liberation" -- same word he uses for enlightenment. He uses the word in different contexts. And he uses it a lot in terms of liberating, being liberated or liberating oneself from the hindrances, and really encouraging that, to liberate oneself from the hindrances. He says liberation from the hindrances is like you've been in jail. You've been in jail with these forces and these energies, and feel constricted and bound by them. You've been in jail, and then one day, someone comes and turns the lock of the cell, and you walk out, and you're free. That's liberation from the hindrances. Or you've been in debt, massively in debt in your life, and the day comes when the debt's paid off. You're free of debt. Or you've been in hospital with a very serious illness, a life-threatening illness, a long recuperation. The day comes and you're better, and the relief of that. Or, the Buddha's last example, a dangerous journey through a wilderness where there are bandits and wild animals, etc. In those times, vast areas were like that. And you reach the end of your destination -- you're safe. All of that he equates with liberation from the hindrances.[2]
So this aspect of kind of mindfulness, and when is knowing enough, etc., it's a very interesting question. We might add another question, which is: what is with mindfulness? What is with the knowing? When there's awareness, when there's attention and mindfulness, there are always, always, always factors with the knowing. Mindfulness, we might like to think of it, or awareness or attention, as something that can exist in purity, just by itself. It actually can't. And there are always factors that are kind of wound around and wrapped up with the knowing, with the mindfulness. The question is, what are those factors, and what are they doing?
For example, let's take sloth and torpor again. Here I am, and there's dullness, etc. There can be mindfulness there, but it may be that very subtly, wrapped up with the mindfulness, is just a little bit of aversion, just a little bit of wanting to push it away, wanting to get rid of it, not liking it, judging oneself for it -- any of those, any or all of that. And so, with the mindfulness that sloth and torpor is present, there are other factors, and for instance, the factor of aversion. That factor of aversion is going to have an influence, and the influence it will have is that it will increase, it will build, the sloth and torpor. Again, it's not a neutral factor. Why does it do that? Because actually aversion turns out to be a part of sloth and torpor. We tend to think of them as separate hindrances. Very interesting when there's sloth and torpor and tiredness. Pay attention to what the actual experience is. See if you can separate out the reaction to the experience, the relationship to it, and see how the aversion is actually building the sloth and torpor. If the aversion is present anyway in my awareness without me realizing it, it's building the thing. I think I'm just sitting here being mindful, I'm just sitting here and everything's in awareness -- not so!
Okay. So from this perspective, I want to -- and remember, it's just one perspective -- I just want to throw out a lot of possibilities, a lot of possible ways of approaching, to liberate ourselves from the hindrances, to abandon the hindrances. Now, I'm quite aware this might feel like a barrage of information, and that's hopefully just okay, you know? You'll pick up what you need to. You can always come and ask again in an interview if there's something you miss. And just to be aware, there are a lot of people in the room, and different people are going to be picking up different things.
(1) I'm going to take them in a different order, actually in the order of probably what's most common. The most common one is sloth and torpor. That's actually the most common hindrance. Very, very common. How do we know when it's the hindrance of sloth and torpor, and it's not just tiredness? Especially at the beginning of a retreat -- people coming with busyness and a backlog of tiredness and work. Well, one way is that it mysteriously and quite quickly vanishes at lunch. The lunch bell goes, and the idea, "Lunch! Food! Great!", and somehow the mind just brightens and is suddenly awake. Real tiredness might be more of a constant kind of weight through the day that's not really influenced too much by the idea of, "Ah! Freedom from meditation!"
What possible approaches can we have? There are actually ten for sloth and torpor.
(i) First one: reaffirming the uprightness of the posture. Everyone knows this: as sloth and torpor begins to come, the head -- you begin to almost lean on the floor for support with the forehead. That can be just a little bit, but it does something to just reaffirm the uprightness of the posture. The mind conditions the body, so when the mind is slothful, the body loses its tone, and the body conditions the mind. Mind conditions body, body conditions mind. Like all things, they feed each other. So that means, one of the things is that we can just reaffirm the uprightness of the posture, and that helps.
(ii) Second one is not being afraid to use your imagination. If you've got a visual imagination, just imagine a bright white light, like the sun, in the middle of your head or the middle of your body, or sitting inside a sun like that, and really just paying attention to that and feeling that sort of dissolve the cobwebs.
(iii) Third one: paying more attention to the in-breath. So you could say almost inherently the in-breath is energizing. We literally take in oxygen into the blood when we breathe in. Something's happening: the body itself is getting oxygenated and energized with the in-breath. A little more attention to the in-breath, and you'll actually begin to notice the in-breath has a felt quality, we can feel it in the body, of feeling energized. We actually feel that being energized by the in-breath. And if you pay attention to that, the energy can begin to lift, just by tuning into that energy.
(iv) Fourth one: not being afraid to really spend some time breathing long and slow breaths, long and slow, and really, again, oxygenating the whole body, energizing the whole body, whether we think of it in Western biological terms or more in terms of qi or prana. The body is definitely energized by long, slow breathing. Your neighbour doesn't even have to recognize that this is going on; it's not hyperventilating, but really energizing the system.
(v) When we get a mind state of sloth and torpor, there's actually a contraction that comes into the mind space. It can be very helpful to open up the awareness to include the whole body. This is number five. The whole body. And there's more spaciousness to the awareness, that works in the opposite direction of the natural contraction that's part of the sloth and torpor.
(vi) You can further that even more by opening the eyes, and particularly, if you want to, opening the eyes and really taking in a sense of space. This room is a lovely, big room. As I said, when there's sloth and torpor, something happens. It's almost like -- think about when we go to bed at night: we kind of curl up physically, and the mind, too, also kind of contracts and curls up. As you open the eyes, take in the space of the room, that space allows the mind space to expand, and it's the opposite movement, again, of this kind of hunching up that happens in sloth and torpor.
(vii) The seventh one is just standing up if you're doing sitting meditation. Just stand up. I've only ever known one person to fall asleep when they're standing up, and they had been in a monastery in Thailand, meditating non-stop, night and day, for three days and three nights. On the third night, they were in standing meditation, and they just started to keel over. [laughs] They said they fell asleep but woke up before they hit the ground. The mind just knows: "This is not a very good idea right now." You're also really doing a favour to everyone else in here. It has a stigma to stand up, and it shouldn't. Why should it? You're just showing that you're responding skilfully to these energies.
(viii) Okay, eighth one is: when you do the walking meditation, really briskly up and down, really, again, invigorate the body by walking briskly.
(ix) Ninth one: make sure you get enough exercise during the day. Go for a walk, do some yoga, do some tai chi, qigong, go for a run if you want. Whatever it is, really let that be part of energizing the system. Sometimes on retreat, the energies can get a bit stagnant, a bit heavy, and then we sink.
(x) Last one, tenth one: sometimes with this hindrance, it's actually the case that there's something difficult at the edges of our consciousness that we'd rather not deal with -- oftentimes a difficult emotion, maybe some grief, maybe some anger, maybe some fear, some sadness. And it's just kind of there at the edges, and we don't want to deal with it, so the mind automatically goes into a kind of shutdown mode: I'll just hunch up and kind of ignore everything. It's worth opening and just checking very gently, very lightly: is there something around that I'm really trying to avoid?
(2) Okay. So that's sloth and torpor. Restlessness, the second most common one. Six possibilities:
(i) Keeping the body really still, making a kind of gentle but firm commitment to really keep the body still. The impulse is so much to move, though, with restlessness, so much to want to move, and just keeping it still.
(ii) Also, interestingly, keeping the eyes still. Even when we have the eyes shut, there can be this kind of darting movement of the -- what are they called? -- the eyeballs. And usually when there's a lot of thought and restlessness, the eyeballs, even with the eyes closed, are moving quite a lot. So just to make that commitment -- see if you can -- gentle, firm commitment to keep as much stillness as possible, but in a very, as much as possible, relaxed space. That's really, really key with restlessness. You go to the body and just relax the body, so there's this combination of relaxation and stillness. Very, very important.
(iii) With sloth and torpor, I was saying the in-breath is naturally, is organically energizing. The out-breath -- you can pay attention to this -- the out-breath is naturally, organically relaxing. There's a natural letting go with the out-breath. And again, tuning into that quality of relaxation with the out-breath can soften the restlessness.
(iv) Sometimes when there's restlessness, all the energy feels like it's going up and bubbling around in the head and boiling around in the head. Sometimes just to bring the attention down, low in the body -- say, the belly, or sense of contact -- it really helps to bring the attention down, low in the body.
(v) If you're doing a concentration practice, like working with the breath or loving-kindness, really, really helpful to just keep coming back, but watch out that a tension doesn't creep into that, that there's just this coming back, and just this coming back, and just this coming back. Really, really trusting that. Really trusting it.
(vi) The last one is actually, again, using this sense of spaciousness. So really, really opening up the awareness, and encouraging, opening to a sense of spaciousness in the meditation. You can use sounds to help establish that. Right now, the birds are uncharacteristically quiet, but just opening up the awareness to include sound allows the spaciousness to come in. And that, we can have a sense of that spaciousness of awareness kind of accommodating experience. It's almost as if all the experience is happening within that awareness. It's just coming and going and arising and passing. And in particular, within that spaciousness, being aware of the physical little explosions of the feelings of restlessness -- little pockets of these pins and needles of restlessness, impulses to move. They kind of explode in the body. And just letting them explode in this more accommodating awareness, just letting them be there. There's this explosion, there's that explosion, and you're just relaxing in relationship to them in the space, allowing them to be there. A lot in the sense of allowing at a very physical level -- that's really going to make a difference with that.
(3) Okay. Sloth and torpor, restlessness. Craving for sense pleasure is the next one. This is interesting. Sometimes we don't even see that it's going on, because we don't call it that. What comes up is the thought, "I need ..." something or other. It has that language of need. And we kind of convince ourselves of the truth of that: "No, I need ..." whatever it is. Possible approaches here:
(i) One is to actually tune in: how do you feel when that energy is around, when there's this craving for sense pleasure? How does it actually feel? Sometimes we can get lost in a fantasy, and there's a kind of pleasantness to it. But really give it some good attention: how does it feel? And ask, feel into that, and inquire: is it a happy state? Is it happy to be craving sense pleasure? Is it happy? Just to be really, really clear about that.
(ii) Second: what is lacking? Asking oneself, in this moment, is there anything really lacking? In this moment, in the nature of things, is there anything really lacking? So that craving for sense desire is being supported by something. Like all things, like all suffering, it's being supported by views and assumptions. And really to ask: is there anything actually really lacking in this moment?
(iii) A third possibility: sometimes just re-establishing a closeness to the meditation object. Just really becoming more intimate with the meditation object. And, I would say, seeing if it's possible to begin to find, to begin to tune into some enjoyment in the meditation. Is it possible something among the strands of experience of what's going on actually feels enjoyable, that there's some element in the experience of meditation in the moment that feels enjoyable? And is it possible that one can pick up on that? In the long run, this is the thing that's going to make the most difference. This is the thing. And there's a movement towards a deeper nourishment, that the being, the heart, is opening through practice -- long-term -- to deeper sources of nourishment in life. This little sense pleasure actually begins to pale in comparison. For almost everyone, that's a gradual movement. We begin to see: this thing, okay, whatever it is, it's just not got that same depth of nourishing the heart and nourishing the being as the kind of enjoyment that's available in practice, in a sense of love of the Dharma, of community, of being here, of the teachings, of nature. Something about reorienting our sense of nourishment that ends up being immensely significant and the most key thing. And we begin to wean ourselves off the lesser, less fulfilling pleasures in life. We wean ourselves because we actually have something much more beautiful and much more fulfilling. That's gradual, but that's definitely a promise of the Dharma.
(iv) Sometimes this craving for sense pleasure, of course, for us, being human, takes the form of sexual fantasy. Very, very normal, and very typical. It's interesting what happens, what most human beings do when sexual images or sexual thoughts come up, a sexual fantasy comes up. Oftentimes either there's a reaction of suppression or shame, or we get hooked into it, dragged into it, on the level of the fantasy, on the level of the mental imagery and activity. This is very normal. And oftentimes what happens with that is there's a kind of disconnection from the bodily energies. We're too caught in the fantasy, in the imagery, in the mental activity. What would it be, sexual image comes up, sexual fantasy comes up, sexual thought comes up, that we actually really go to the body, and really inhabit the body, and have a real fullness there with the movement of sexual energy in the body, and a real allowing of that sexual energy? Which is just life energy. It's a beautiful part of being human. It can be allowed to move. We can actually even enjoy it. It actually feels pleasant. The danger is when we get just locked and just spinning and spinning and snowballing, in a way, in the fantasy, or there's shame and suppression. So to experiment.
(4) Okay. Sloth and torpor, restlessness, craving. Aversion. Aversion, very common. All of these, there's a whole spectrum to them of coarseness and subtlety. For example, with aversion, it can be complete rage. It can be anywhere from complete rage to just a little bit of irritability. Anywhere along that spectrum. Even more subtle -- fear is actually a manifestation of aversion. Judgment, judging ourselves, judging others, judging the way things get done here. Judgment is a manifestation of aversion. Boredom. Boredom is a manifestation of aversion. It's much more subtle. Body pain, interestingly. Sometimes we sit, and the body, it's just achy, and we just can't seem to get it right, and oftentimes the actual pain is -- it's not really that the body is uncomfortable in itself; it's more that the aversion is kind of making it that way.
(i) When there's aversion -- actually, when there's all these hindrances -- when there's aversion, there's a contraction to consciousness. Consciousness is contracted. When the hindrances are there, consciousness is contracted. So one of the starting places with aversion is really to just relax physically. Really relax the whole body, because the contraction comes into the mind, and it seeps into the body, the body reflecting the mind. Just relax physically.
(ii) And then, asking some questions can be really helpful. There's aversion. We remember something someone said, and the way they said it, or what a person's saying or something. And the mind just easily wants to bite at getting hold of the aversion reaction, or just finds itself following that train of aversive thinking and aversive reaction. Very normal. But sometimes really being firm with oneself and asking: is this taking me where I want to go? Where do I want to go, and is this taking me where I want to go?
(iii) And another question: am I building something? Am I building something up out of proportion? How often that happens with aversion. Something happens, and we just shrink around it, and then build it up, build it up. It seems so significant that this person shuffled or this person this or whatever. Somehow the whole situation has got contracted around something, giving something incredible significance, and then building it up and building it up. Just to ask: am I building something up out of proportion? Because that's what aversion does. We actually need to understand the effects of what these factors do -- aversion, craving, etc.
(iv) Always feeling very free to switch or to take advantage of a loving-kindness practice -- something that can really soften and warm and tenderize the inner environment. Really, really skilful. I know different people are doing different practices. If you're actually doing a loving-kindness practice as your main thing here, just to know that sometimes in the course of doing that practice, it will actually highlight aversion. Similarly, if you're doing a concentration practice, all these hindrances, they stand out in contrast. It's like, "Well, I'm interested in this. I'm interested in calmness. I'm interested in loving-kindness." The very fact of us being interested in loving-kindness and calmness, concentration, will highlight the opposite. It will stand out to our attention even more. It's the way perception works. We see in terms of dualities. So just to know that if one is doing certain directed practices, it will highlight the hindrances. And that's okay. It's really okay. Sometimes it feels like we're going backwards; we're actually not.
(v) Again, with aversion, really, really helpful sometimes to work with a very open awareness, and a lot of space, particularly if it's very strong. Just letting it be there as part of the space. Aversion contracts the mind space around something: "This thing is a problem. It's a big deal." The mind just gets locked, shuttling back and forth on this one narrow track, wrapped around it, building it up, building up the self, building up the thing. Space, open awareness -- can be very, very skilful.
(5) Last hindrance is doubt. And there can be doubt about anything, really. It's amazing. We can doubt the teachings. Can doubt the teacher or teachers: "Do they really know what they're talking about?" Can doubt the self. Probably the most common is doubting the self. Well, it depends, but. "Can I do this? Will I be able to? Am I good enough? I bet everyone else can, but I can't." Or doubting a particular practice: "Well, should I be doing that, or should I be doing this? Maybe it's better if I did that." So, very, very common.
A distinction to be made: questioning is good. I would say never to let go of the spirit of questioning in our life and in our practice. It's such a part of our vitality as human beings, of our passion, of our intelligence, that we keep questioning alive. Our life and our practice are not just sort of passive, just sitting there. Questioning is good. It's beautiful. It's really helpful. Questioning brings into the practice a sense of aliveness, a sense of vitality, a sense of passion, a sense of direction. Doubt, on the other hand -- this is how you tell the difference -- doubt brings a sense of paralysis: "This or this? What should I do?" And we feel like we can't do anything, or we're just stuck. That's the difference between the hindrance of doubt and the, I would say, beautiful quality of questioning and investigation.
Sometimes it's important to ask questions. That's one of the reasons why we're here as teachers. Come to the interviews and ask questions. If I say something, or one of us says something, or you've heard something in a talk, or the Buddha says something, and it's like, "That doesn't really make sense to me, or I disagree, or that doesn't really fit together for me," bring that and clarify.
Sometimes with doubt, it's really important just to recognize that it's going on. It's probably the most slippery and seductive and subtle of the hindrances. There's something so insidious about it, can be. Just to recognize: "Ah, this is doubt. This is the hindrance of doubt going on," really important.
And then, once you've recognized it, it's like, one can say, "Okay, I see that. It's the hindrance of doubt. I'm just going to finish this sitting. Just this sitting. Or I'm just going to finish this walking." And you postpone your engagement with the doubt, and say to yourself, "I will think about this later. I will come back and think about it." And then actually do. Come back and think it through, reflect it through. But in a way, you're reassuring part of the being that you're not just abandoning something that needs attention. Just this one sitting, just this one walking -- you can get through that.
Sometimes doubt comes up for people because -- I don't know how to put it -- the practice hasn't been personalized. It hasn't been made meaningful to one's own heart. It's almost as if we're trying to fit something into this other mould, like what the teacher says, or we're trying to be Asian or something. And so to really ask -- it's really important, a very beautiful and deep question: what do I want from practice? What do I want? Not what I think I should get or what I think I should be doing or this or that. But here I am practising. A lot of you are here for a month or however long. And in my daily life too. What do I want from practice? And really having this relationship to practice of it being something very precious, in a very personal way, so that practice becomes meaningful for me. I know why I'm practising, because this is what I want, and I understand how this practice can open me to what I want, make available in my life what I want, what I deeply want, the most profound longing of the heart. What do I really want? And does it make sense to me that practice actually moves towards that? It's really, really important that practice is personal for us, we've made it personal. It's juicy and meaningful to us. It's not something dry, other, alien.
Okay. So I said before that there's a real continuum here of all the hindrances. We can talk about very gross kind of hindrances -- you're really in a soup of something; you're submerged in something; a sense of overwhelm, even. All of them have a range, to very, very subtle. So aversion, like I said, but also the two most common ones -- this kind of sloth and torpor, dullness. The range, the spectrum of dullness -- it can get very, very subtle. Or the spectrum of restlessness can get very, very subtle.
There are some words that some people use for dullness as it's getting very subtle: sinking. It's sinking mind. We're not falling asleep. We're not yawning. We're not any of that. There's just something in the energy that's just a little bit sinking, a little bit of -- yeah, dullness or fuzziness creeps around the edges. Or drifting is the subtle form of restlessness. This is an interesting one. It's not that we want to run up out of the meditation, or we're checking our watch every five minutes: "Is it over yet?", or anything like that. Or even that the mind is obsessed with a certain thought. It's rather that there just seems to be quite a lot of the mind slipping off at tangents on different thoughts. It's drifting off in different thoughts.
That level of subtlety, what begins to be really interesting is the effort levels, the kind of subtlety of the movement of effort in meditation, the application of effort. Interestingly, sometimes our practice can just be a little bit out of balance, in terms of we're just squeezing a little too hard, just a tiny bit, and funnily enough, its effect is that it actually causes more thinking and more of a tendency for the mind to follow even a spontaneous image that comes up. It's like a random image might just pop into the head, and if there's just a little bit too much effort, paradoxically, the mind tends to get hooked to that image and follow it, drifts off. So playing, very subtle part of the art, if we go back to that analogy -- it's just playing with these effort levels. Sometimes it's the opposite of what we think. We think we need to make more effort, and we actually just need to back off a little bit.
So a lot, a lot, a lot is available, and one of the things I really want to stress in a general sense is the range of what's available, in terms of the way we can work. Sometimes there's a real place for reflecting, bringing the reflective mind in, for inquiry into what's going on. Sometimes what's really necessary is a kind of softening. You soften the energies. You soften the relationship with what's going on. Just soften, just relax, just open -- sometimes. Sometimes there's a real place for being firm with oneself. You're really kind of [rolling up sleeves], "Okay. Let's do this." And just cutting -- one finds oneself kind of indulging a little bit in an aversive ill-will tendency; just cut it. That has its place. Sometimes, as I said, more effort is what's needed. Sometimes less effort.
I feel very strongly that the most important thing is this quality of aliveness in practice, that moment to moment, minute to minute, sitting to sitting, walking to walking, there's this sense of the practice being something really alive. Like I said, it has some juice in it. It has some real sense of vitality in it. We can nurture that sense. We can really encourage it. Aliveness, vitality, juice, is something that we can take care of, we can regard as something that we can nourish. So there can be this quality of playfulness in the practice. I actually think it's really important. Are we experimenting? Do we give ourselves permission? Do we feel the permission to play, to experiment in our practice? "I'll try this. I'll try that. What if I did this? How would it be if ...?" To explore.
That whole curiosity, and the movement, and the freedom to experiment and try different things -- is that alive in us? In a practicalized reality, an embedded reality, do I feel that [is] alive? Or am I sitting down to practise thinking, "Now I've got to get this right, and I'm not exactly sure what 'right' is," and I'm somehow sitting there in a straitjacket of [breathes heavily]? It so much squeezes the joy and the aliveness out of practice. Again, this is our practice. It's personal. It's no one else's practice. And within certain parameters, but quite wide parameters, we can explore, and we should explore. We should experiment. We should play. "Play" is such a good word. It has that sense of lightness, of freedom, of curiosity, of exploration, of aliveness. Can the practice have that quality of playfulness in it, experimentation? So there is really a creativity.
Now, I've thrown out a lot of these kind of standard formulas: "Try this. Try that. Try that." Sometimes that's exactly the ticket. But other times, it's not the formula that works, and it's not just a prescriptive formula for what works. What helps is this aliveness, this engagement, this vitality. That's what's needed. Also, going back to what I said in terms of general views of meditation: am I, as a practitioner, locked into one way of approaching meditation, or one way of seeing what meditation is? Am I locked into that? It's an important question.
The Buddha uses this lovely word for the mind that's trained and the heart that's trained and the mind that has kind of learnt to work with the hindrances. It's "malleable." So that's a result, that when one's freed oneself of the hindrances, the mind is left very malleable. It can do this, can do that, can look at things this way, can look at them that way, can try this, can let go of that, da-da-da. The mind is very malleable, very agile. But that very malleability is also a factor that we need to kind of encourage to work with the difficulties. So is my practice, is my attitude to practice, is it malleable? Is it malleable? What does it mean to encourage that sense of malleability?
Okay, so just to finish. I've given you some very specific sort of approaches with the hindrances, but something perhaps even more important is something to say in terms of general approaches, and this applies to all of them. Three things:
(1) One is the importance of recognizing them, seeing them for what they are: "Ah, this is doubt. Okay, this is the hindrance of aversion. All right, there's sloth and torpor." Actually really recognizing that it's present. It makes a difference in terms of not being so sucked and caught in the vortex of what's going on, in the soup of what's going on. Recognition -- crucial.
(2) The second piece -- and this is general, and it applies to all of them -- is, as much as possible, seeing if I can not be taken for a ride. That's what the hindrances do, is they take us for a ride for the most part. They drag us along, along a certain way of seeing ourselves and experience and others, seeing the world, a certain train of thinking, a certain pattern of energies. They drag us along. Is it possible to not be taken for a ride, particularly in terms of views and perceptions about what is going on and about what's going on in me and around me?
One image I sometimes use for the hindrances that can be very helpful is as if there's -- it's just an image -- as if there's an almost constant sort of fountain of seeds. The being is throwing out this constant fountain of seeds of hindrances. 'Seeds' -- like a sesame seed. So these seeds are being thrown out in a constant sort of fountain, and these seeds have little hooks on them, and the seeds come up and out and they're sort of looking for something to sink their teeth into, hook into, and then they start shaking it around. And they start making an issue out of something.
So the seed of aversion is there, the seed of craving is there, the seed of restlessness is there. And it rises, and it finds something to hook into, and then it causes that thing, that issue, to grow and then to seem real. This is the thing when I said, "Can I not be taken for a ride?" It will seem, in the middle of a hindrance storm, that what is happening is a real thing, it's a real issue, this situation really is like that or whatever. So tempting, so seductive, so convincing. After a while, you just see this movement: the seeds come up, they've got these hooks, these teeth, they sink it into something, and then they start shaking that thing, and it seems real, it seems convincing. One sees it enough times, we begin to lose the conviction in that process of real issues. And I'm not saying real issues don't exist, but just how much of what seems so real is actually this thing that -- an issue has been made as an issue and made to seem real. To recognize, as much as possible, and not get taken for a ride.
(3) The last one: to not take it personally that a hindrance is around. It's a human energy. They're energies that exist for human beings until we're fully liberated. Until there's full enlightenment, they exist for us. And so, not to judge ourselves -- that really compounds the thing. Just to be careful. Is it possible to just see it as a human energy? Why is this hindrance around? It's not that I'm a bad meditator. It's not that I'm a spiritual failure, it's not that dot-dot-dot-dot-dot. If a hindrance is around, all it's saying is that I'm human and I'm not yet a Buddha. That's all it's saying. So as much as possible, snipping off, cutting off this taking it personally. Massively significant, and it applies to all of them. Very, very human.
So we accept the fact that the hindrances arise. It's really okay that they arise, and we accept that, and at the same time, we can work with them. There are ways we can find of working with them.
Okay. I'm going to stop there. Let's have a moment of silence, a few moments of silence together, but then, I was thinking if anyone wants, I'm happy to just stay behind, if there are any questions. I know a lot of the interview spaces are full. If there are any questions at all about meditation practice so far, anything I've said, or anything that's coming into your practice. Maybe I'll stay in here now. And if you're not interested in that, feel very free to leave. But let's have a bit of silence right now together.
Okay. So do feel very free to leave, and also very free to ask anything at all about practice if you would like. Yeah, Nina?
Q1: slippery mind as a manifestation of restlessness or sloth and torpor
Yogi: Something that comes up in meditation ... [inaudible]
Rob: I'll repeat the question; don't worry.
Yogi: It often comes up in the post-lunch meditation. It's slippery. It's where my mind just sort of goes [whoosh]. [inaudible] It's icy. I've always thought it was a form of sloth and torpor. It sounds as if you're saying that's restlessness.
Rob: Yeah. Good. So Nina's saying, particularly in the sitting after lunch, the post-lunch sitting, it's relatively common for her to have this sense of the mind being very slippery and slipping off into something which she's calling kind of icy. She assumes that that's a kind of manifestation of sloth and torpor, and is it possibly restlessness? So what does it slip into? Does it feel ...?
Yogi: It's sort of murky. [inaudible] I can't quite stay as sharp on the concentration. Suddenly you're just slipping into murk.
Rob: Yeah. So, slipping into murk. It could be both -- a manifestation of sloth and torpor, or restlessness. Sometimes, weirdly, you get what's sometimes called multiple hindrance attacks [laughs] in the language, where two things are going on at once. If you think about what the mind does when it goes to sleep, it has this kind of -- if you're aware as you go to sleep, different images come up, and then the mind kind of follows one and goes into a bit of a dream scenario or daydream. It can be that too. It is a kind of sloth and torpor. And it's sinking into this kind of murk and following that.
Again, what I would say is play with it. So try doing something that's really invigorating and see what effect that has. But it may also be that it is a form of restlessness, that the mind is actually -- you're just squeezing a bit too tight, maybe because you're tired a little bit, and then you squeeze. It's very subtle -- just a little bit too tight. And it's almost like that squeezing causes the mind to go off onto these tangents. You understand? It's worth playing with, and just playing with a bit more, a bit less. Playing with, actually doing a little bit -- can only be ten minutes even -- of something that's invigorating, like breathing or opening the eyes, really getting a sense of invigoration, and then going back to it. Or something in the meditation that's actually helping some sense of brightness. Or playing with backing off. So just having a sense, it could be either or both, and feeling free to experiment.
The other thing about the sitting after lunch is that if your schedule can accommodate it, for some people, really skilful to take a little nap after lunch. I don't know if you can. But just to lie down for anywhere between ten minutes and sort of -- certainly not more than thirty-five or forty minutes. Even if you don't go to sleep, that can be really helpful, that when you go to the next sitting, there's just a sense of brightness, instead of oftentimes just battling that kind of "ugh" mind. Can be very helpful. Does that ...? Yeah? Okay. Good.
John, yeah?
Q2: doing and non-doing in meditation
Yogi: [inaudible] Meditation as an art. Let's assume that you want to move, sometime during the November Solitary, to concentration practice. Or you want to devote some time to loving-kindness practice, one form or another. Are you deviating in the sense of moving towards meditation as doing? Let's say you don't do either of those two things I mentioned; you just sit with a very open mind and you don't choose anything to focus on in particular. Does that mean that you're doing the other kind of meditation, that you're contrasting meditation as an art with ...? I'm not entirely clear what the alternatives you described are.
Rob: The alternative in how one's seeing ...? The possibilities are huge, you know. The possibilities of what you actually do on the cushion, in terms of what practices, they're huge. Also the kinds of different views that we might have of meditation are huge. I was just picking out one in particular around the notion of 'doing' itself. So for some people, meditation is clearly a doing: I'm sitting here, I am doing concentration on the breath. There's a real sense of doing. Or I'm doing the mettā practice: may you be, may you be, may you be, blah blah blah blah. And so that's fine, that's one view. Another view is actually meditation as a kind of non-doing. Partly what I was saying is both of these are valid and both of these are beautiful, but actually to be aware of what is around the views and what goes on there.
Yogi: [inaudible] What is meditation as non-doing?
Rob: What does it involve? That's the other question. It involves quite a bit of doing! [laughter] A person sitting down and not trying to change anything in any way, or direct anything in any way, or shape the experience towards anything in any way. So it's almost like letting everything be there, just letting everything be there in a sense of spaciousness, not moving towards any particular experience or encouraging anything in particular, not having a sense of that. That's where one might start.
But one then notices -- and this is where it gets more subtle and quite important to pick up on the subtlety -- is that doing is something extremely subtle. It can seem that one is not doing anything, but actually what one picks up on -- if one does that practice with a lot of interest and a lot of integrity, what one will realize is that the mind is doing quite a lot even if I say I'm not going to do anything. It's doing a lot. And the art in that sense is more, then, to pick up on these subtle movements of doing and just see, which of them can I not do? If I just say "I'm not going to do anything. I'll just sit here. I won't do anything," if I'm honest and I'm actually aware in that space, there will be a certain amount of non-doing, but I'll pick up on some other level of doing. Then it's possible that I can actually let go of that doing, etc., and the whole thing can get more and more subtle. Does this make sense? No?
Yogi: It's sort of choiceless awareness?
Rob: Well, choiceless awareness is something that people use with different meanings. So it's a kind of choiceless awareness practice. Sometimes, for some people, what choiceless awareness means is one's sitting, and whatever the most prominent thing in consciousness is, like right now I have a pain here so that's where the awareness goes, I just let the awareness go there, and then that subsides or whatever, and then I have some emotion and I go and investigate the emotion. So the mind is actually moving between these different things, but there's not so much -- it's letting the mind move between the things, rather than directing it, but it's moving between different things.
Another way that people use the word choiceless awareness is just letting everything be together in a space of awareness, just letting it belong to that space, just letting it be, not trying to manipulate it in any way. So there's more a sense of paying attention to a totality of experience rather than moving between. In a way, well ... I mean, we could talk about this all day! But does that make sense? Is that clear? Yeah?
Douglas, yeah?
Q3: the meaning of "skill" in meditation
Yogi: Sort of a similar point, but you mentioned the meditation as an art form, then you went on to [inaudible]. But you mentioned the word "skills." The skills you're talking about, they're definitely skills in getting rid of these different hindrances. But did you just mean that? What was your link between that word, skills, and the skills you were talking about with the hindrances? Or was it something broader?
Rob: When I first said the word "skills," I meant it in a much broader way. So this working with the hindrances in particular ways is a kind of subset of the whole package of skills.
Yogi: Perhaps it's another talk, but what other skills ...?
Rob: Oh, how long have you got? [laughs] In a nutshell -- I mean, this is just off the top of my head I'm going to say something. In a nutshell, you could say the skills are developing what's beautiful and helpful, and letting go of anything that gives rise to suffering. So you could see two sides of skills.
So in the "letting go" camp, that can be something as gross as here's a massive hindrance attack, and how can I let go of it, and developing a skill at letting go of this big attack of aversion. That's a skill. But it could be like -- you and I had an interview the other day, and you were talking about inquiring into this self/not-self business. You said looking at your garden as just the garden and not my garden, okay? That's a skill, I would say, that's developable. We can develop the skill to look at things outside and inside and see them as not me, not mine. That's a skill that's developable. And again, it has a whole range of subtlety. Does that make sense?
So for someone to -- let's take a country -- for someone to look at their country, for some people it's very hard to just see it as a country, and not my country, and then the whole nationalism, etc. It might be a skill for that person to be able to look at the country and say, "I can see it's my country, but I can also see it's not my country; it's just a convention." Are you following this? So there's a skill there, but it can get more and more subtle. What would it be to be able to do that with the garden? What would it be to be able to do that with your body? So you have a sense, "This body is not me and not mine." I'm then free in relationship to it. What would it be to be able to do that in relationship to the emotions, to the thoughts? What would it be to be able to do that in relationship to awareness?
So it gets much more subtle. But basically it's a movement of developing skill. But to me, it's so lovely and delicate that "skill" doesn't really do justice to it. I guess the word "art" also means a lot of intuition can come into it as well. So anything that's letting go, we can develop skills in doing that. I'm really aware that people hearing that, it can feel very overwhelming. It's like, "There's this and there's this and ughhh. Help!", you know, kind of thing. The beautiful thing is that as you let go a little bit, you get a little bit of peace. So it's not like you're waiting for the rewards when you ... "Finally, when I'm Michelangelo, I'll feel good about my painting." It's not like that. You let go a little bit, and there's a little bit of peace, and that gives you the sense of reassurance.
So if we go back to what John was asking, this sense of kind of resting in an open awareness, and I'll explore non-doing and letting go, well, the skill there actually still comes in in terms of becoming sensitive to the more subtle levels of doing in the mind, and they're extremely subtle. There is a kind of subtle doing going on. And we can tease them out, and let go of them, and let go of them. So still under the umbrella of non-doing, there's this skill and sensitivity involved. Does that make sense? I didn't just mean the hindrances; no. It's a massive subject. And remember, it's just one way of approaching meditation, of viewing meditation. But yeah, it's massive.
Yes. What's your name? Amber, yeah.
Q4: working with jealousy
Yogi: I wonder if you could say something about jealousy and whether that would come under the hindrances or a whole different category.
Rob: That's an interesting question. I guess it's a kind of craving, and it's also -- it might have a little bit of aversion mixed up with it. Do you ...? I mean, what's your experience? Do you feel that there can be some aversion when there's jealousy?
Yogi: Yeah. It's a repetitive thought that comes up about various different things.
Rob: Do you want to say a little bit what it's about? You don't have to. Or an example of what you might ... You don't have to.
Yogi: For example, about my partner spending time with other women.
Rob: Okay, sure. So this is where we have to look at a situation and think, "What would be helpful in this situation?" So sometimes we get, as meditators, the sense that what I really need to do, whatever the situation is, plunk myself on the cushion and meditate on it, and somehow let go here, and there's the thing. This could be a long conversation, but. It may very well be that there's something in communication with your partner that needs -- you need to say something, or he or she needs to say something to you about what's -- you know, reassurance; that you actually need a reassurance in the communication. In other words, it's not just here. You have to look at the whole thing. What level of approaching this is the most appropriate? Which angle of approach? Is it that there's been something in the past, either in your past alone or in your combined past or his past, that leads to that? And if so, do we need to talk about the past in a way that kind of clears it so the present is more clear? Is there a kind of reassurance that he needs to give you? Is it the fact that you need to work with those emotions on an emotional level? There are a lot of [possibilities]. I don't know that there's a formula, again.
What I was going to say in a more general sense about jealousy, which may or may not be appropriate for this, is a lot of it has to do with what I was talking about: nourishment. When, gradually, slowly, over time with practice, there is enough sense of inner nourishment, it really does begin to kind of relativize our neediness in relationship to other things. You do a lot of mettā practice or you do a lot of whatever, and the heart begins to get filled up with loveliness. It makes a huge difference. It's not an even, linear progression, but over time that really begins to make a difference, rather than putting all our hopes in relationship to letting go, in the camp of "I just need to be aware of it" -- sometimes that will be enough. Sometimes it's as if we don't have enough in the bank, we don't have enough kind of weight, enough reservoir from which to let go from. You understand?
So generally speaking about jealousy, that's huge. One just feels like, yeah, there's an abundance. That comes slowly. But for me, that's definitely a part of what practice is about, opening us up to that reservoir of abundance, you know? Some people really don't like looking at practice that way, but I tend to feel more and more that it's really significant. In that situation that you're describing, it might be something much more practical that needs to get communicated or talked through with -- I don't know.
Yogi: I ask because it feels like those seeds with hooks. It feels like jealousy is a bit like that.
Rob: It probably is. Sometimes the mind just moves in habitual ways. These seeds are just like habits. They come out as a habit to hook into something. And it might be a habit for it to come out in this particular way, and see a situation, and see it in these particular terms: spending time with that other woman, therefore jealousy. There's a kind of habitual train there. I'm not sure what the answer is, but I know that there is an approach there that can kind of unhook some of that habit. We'd probably have to talk more [laughs] about the whole thing. I'm not sure if that's helpful. Yeah? Okay. Probably to talk more in detail about the actual thing, but yeah. Whenever there's a problem, it's usually being fed by more than one thing. That's the interesting thing. So it's partly just that it's a habit. It's partly that there's something that needs talking through. It's partly that there's not enough inner nourishment yet. You know? It can be all those pieces together.
Yeah, Jo?
Q5: using images when helpful
Yogi: [inaudible] The criteria could simply be that if it seems to be helpful, it's okay.
Rob: Yes, yeah.
Yogi: I noticed just earlier today, I suddenly thought, "I'm missing images." I started with the Tibetan tradition; it was very complex visualizations. But I suddenly remembered a visualization which was just seeing light [inaudible]. I did that again and it could revive that feeling of love and compassion in a way that ...
Rob: Absolutely fantastic. Yeah. Go for it. Really go for it. In this tradition, the emphasis is really to steer away from imagery, etc., because the emphasis has been "being with things as they are." I actually think that's a bit -- it's a whole other subject; maybe we'll get to it on this retreat, but -- it's a bit of a misnomer, "things as they are," and this idea of bare attention.
The other day I was talking with someone who's a bit of a scholar, and she said she'd gone to this lecture, and a whole bunch of ancient Buddhist sūtras had been found. The mindfulness of breathing, classic mindfulness of breathing, very sort of simple like this, was found with visualization! So "I breathe in blue light," you know. "He/she breathes in blue light, calming the mind. Breathes out green light, calming the mind." All that stuff. It was actually there, but it's kind of been lost.
I would say play with it. Particularly if you're doing compassion practice, or just wanting some compassion to come in in a moment, the mind is very suggestible and malleable, as I said. Take advantage of that. Play with that. You're opening up certain energies for the sake of what's helpful. There's also something to be said about enjoying your meditation, you know? It's like ... why should we not enjoy our meditation? That's actually an art, to learn to really enjoy the meditation. But yeah, the bottom line criteria is what feels helpful, really. So really go for it. Yeah.
Is that Lisa? Yeah.
Q6: lack of enjoyment in concentration practice
Yogi: I came to the conclusion at some point that practising, sort of going with whatever was available, was disjointed for me. I hopped around my mind too much. So I've been working more with concentration, or at least with trying to stay with an anchor like breathing. If something else comes, I just come back to the breath. I struggle with it, because it doesn't feel fruitful. It doesn't seem interesting. I don't enjoy my sittings.
Rob: This is very important. You're not alone in that. [laughs] This is a really, really important question. What to say? Mindfulness of breathing, to develop that, the skill, the art, the craft of that, that's hard. I view that as a lifetime's work. I've got one teacher who emphasizes that as a real lifetime -- it's hard to develop that. Just saying that on one side.
On the other side, first of all, given the choice of everything that you can do in practice, I would say to see if you can find something that feels interesting to you to explore but also feels helpful, okay? So not just to choose, "Oh, I think I should be with the breath." Beware of that word, "should." Really to beware of it.
Now, it may be that you decide, "Actually, I really am interested in developing more steadiness of the mind, etc." And it may be that the breath does it for you. Maybe something else does it for you. That's something you can bring up in an interview, because there are other objects apart from the breath. Even on top of that, it's a matter of -- it really is an art, and finding the way. Let's say you decide it's the breath. Finding a way of doing it that actually has some juice in it for you. Despite it being difficult, you do begin to get a sense of, "Actually, I'm getting some fruit from this. I do actually enjoy it." And there is a sense, without measuring and without ego judging and all that, there is a sense of it being fruitful, progressing with it. So that may take some tweaking with one of us, in terms of, "Should I go about it this way? Or this way?" Or even within what you're doing, "A little bit more of this, a little bit ..." That's all part of it.
If you want, as well, you can think of your practice on this retreat as having two practices. So you've got this sort of moving between different things that seem like they need attention, you know. But when the mind feels too kind of all over the place, you bring it back to something -- which could be the breath, or it could be mettā, or it could be just the body sensations -- that feels more grounding. You collect, and you go out. You collect, and you go out. And you're just playing with that. You're free to move between the two. That might also help. But it sounds like something that needs a bit more talking, to tweak the practice a little bit. Yeah. Is that okay?
Okay. Any last orders? Yeah.
Q7: seeing issues around self-worth as a hindrance
Yogi: [inaudible question around self-worth]
Rob: That's coming up in your ...? Is it a hindrance, you're asking? It could be doubt. It could be aversion as well. Sometimes it's not necessary to -- well, sometimes it helps seeing it as a hindrance. That's a good point, actually. Sometimes here's all this self-worth stuff, and again, to know you're really not alone in that. I think it's the biggest factor in Western Dharma, is a person having this sense of not being good enough and lacking something in themselves or in their practice. This is the biggest factor that's around in Western Dharma. That's not to say that everyone has it, but it's really -- you're not alone with it. Sometimes just to see it in different terms, as a hindrance -- "Ah, there's just some aversion and some doubt come together and made this" -- sometimes that's helpful. Other times, just seeing it as what you're calling it -- sometimes I give it the name the inner critic, or the self-judge or whatever -- and actually seeing it as that, and then finding ways to work with that, that's really important, to address that in the practice. And again, it's something that we can talk about. It has so much clout and authority. It can have so much clout and authority, it can really throw a spanner in the works. But maybe bring it up with one of us, yeah, or with me. Is that okay? Okay.
Okey-doke. Let's just have another minute of silence together and then we'll end.
