Transcription
Welcome, everybody. Very warm welcome to Gaia House and to this retreat. Just sitting here, feeling, actually, it's a real blessing for me to be here. I feel it's a blessing for me to be here, to share the teachings with you, to share the Dharma with you, to share the practices with you. I see many familiar faces, and many unfamiliar faces. I feel moved tonight to talk about something in particular, around a particular area. I know some of you have travelled quite a way today, and I hope you're not too tired. I hope you're awake, and if you are tired, I hope you can find some energy to listen. Oftentimes in opening talks, it's sort of, "Hi. Welcome. Relax. Good night." And actually, there's something I feel I want to go into.
Retreat time is very precious time. It's extremely precious time for us as practitioners and as human beings -- very, very precious. Just on one level, some peace and quiet -- quite difficult to come by. The atmosphere of silence -- very rare in our world these days. A chance to be off work for a while, chance to just unwind, let things unwind. All of this is very, very important, very, very lovely for us. And on top of that, more than that, deeper than that, retreat time is a time of devotion. We are devoting this time, we're dedicating this time to our deepest aspirations, our deepest wishes for life, in life. It's a time where we don't have to worry about too much else, and in a way, we can let those deepest aspirations become our main focus. We become kind of solely preoccupied this week with what's most important to us.
So I feel, all of us in this room, all of us are very privileged. We're very privileged. We're privileged to be here. Like I said, I feel it's a blessing. I feel it's a blessing for us to be together exploring these teachings, together practising for a week. But we're also privileged in the sense that we have so many possibilities in life. All of us have so many possibilities in this life. Sometimes having a lot of possibilities in life is experienced as a difficulty. It's not easy to have a lot of possibilities. I could do this. I could do this. What should I do? Could do lots of things. I could devote my energy to a lot of things. I could develop a lot of different aspects. And life is short. Life is -- it doesn't last long. Years go by, decades go by, life goes by.
Now, I feel it's totally crucial that in that short span, in the brevity of our life, we're asking a really, really deep question -- several really deep questions. But one is: what do I really, really, really want? What is my deepest heart's longing, my deepest desire in this life? What are my deepest longings? What do I really want? Am I really asking that question in my life, deeply, with energy? And what might be possible for me? What might be possible for this life? We hear about freedom, and opening the heart, and peace -- what of that might be possible for me? And to what degree? And we hear the promise of the heart opening in love. What might be possible? Joy?
We can talk about two words. We can talk about aspirations and intentions. Aspirations are what I've just been talking about. It's this deep sense of direction, deep sense of what the heart, the being longs for most. Where am I headed in this life? I'm always headed somewhere. Where am I headed? And on a kind of other level -- I don't know if this is right English; doesn't matter -- but on another level, we can talk about intentions. In a way, aspirations are a sub-group of intentions, or whatever. Intentions are, "I intend to have a cup of tea. I intend go to bed. I intend to walk over here," whatever it is. And on a retreat, we have our deep aspirations. But all the time, many, many thousands of times a day, intentions are coming in, all the time. The mind is full of intentions. And so we can be in a climate of "I have a deep aspiration," but in the middle of a sitting or walking meditation, it's really, "I'm just trying to get through this." And another intention comes. Another intention is actually driving us.
There's always an intention in the mind. The citta, the mind, the heart, is always moving towards something. That's not obvious for us, but we're always moving towards something. There's always an intention. And you could say intentions are the engine of our life. They're running our life. So it's important to know that. It's important to know that, because that's where our actions, non-actions, speech -- that's where we're coming from. We're coming from our intentions. If that's the case, then it's also important to know: what are my intentions? What are they right now, today, in this sitting, as I'm at lunch, whatever? [7:23]
Which ones, which intentions am I feeding in life? Which intentions am I feeding? Which am I nourishing? Which am I watering? It can be, sometimes, unfortunately for us as human beings, that the intentions that are maybe not so deep, not so rooted in what we really, really care about, not so rooted in our aspirations, that those intentions that are not so important to us -- a bit like weeds in a garden, or creepers around a tree -- they begin to actually take over, and kind of overgrow or obscure what we really deeply care about. This is all too common for us as human beings, all too easy for that -- almost we don't realize it's going on, and we're in that place.
So we need to bring awareness to this as human beings. We also need to ask ourselves a question: might it be that I am limiting my sense of aspiration in life? So this is in the spirit of open questioning. It's not about judgment. It's not about anything -- it's just, it's an open invitation of a question. Is it possible that I am somehow, for some reason or reasons, limiting the sense of what I'm aspiring to?Questions like this, and some of this is not that comfortable, can be not that comfortable sometimes. And there's a range here. Even in this room -- I think we're about fifty people now in the room, something like that. There's a range here. There's a tremendous range here, and that's completely fine. It's not for me, or it's not for anyone else to tell you, individually, what you should aspire to. That's for you. No one else can tell you that. It's not anyone else's business to tell you what to aspire to.
And there's a range here. And that's natural as human beings. It's going to be a spectrum. That's completely okay. Each one of us, hopefully, finds what is really our true aspiration. What's really true for us, in terms of what we want to aspire to? The important thing is that it's true, that it's really true, deeply true. Many people limit their aspirations, limit their sense of what they might even think about aspiring to. Unfortunately it's very common. And I see it even in people who've been practising a long time, in long-term meditators, long-term practitioners. And at the same time, teaching quite a lot, I find myself so often -- it's beautiful -- so often the witness of people surprising themselves, being surprised at what they didn't even consider as a possibility, either suddenly or gradually emerges as a possibility for the being. And there's surprise there. There's the freshness of that, and the openness of that. And it's a beautiful thing to witness -- so often surprised.
If you're new to Gaia House and all this, the tradition that we're rooted in is called the Insight Meditation tradition. And just reflecting on this, one of the real strengths of Insight Meditation is its practicality, its kind of groundedness and relevance. We very much, in this style of teaching, talk about/to where people are at, what they're dealing with -- very much everyday kind of meeting people where they're at. And that gives, as I said, practicality, groundedness, a relevance to the teachings of the whole tradition. As part of that, what we as Insight Meditation teachers tend to emphasize quite a lot is learning to 'be with' one's experience, learning to relate well to one's experience. That actually, in my experience, for most people, takes years -- takes years. Mostly as human beings, we don't tend to know how to be with our experiences unfolding or relate to it well. And that can take years -- months and years.
And particularly we tend to emphasize, in this tradition, our developing the capacity to meet difficulty, to meet what we call dukkha in the tradition: suffering, dis-ease, discontent. When things don't feel right, can we meet that? So this is really, really, really a fundamental part of the way we approach teaching: learning to meet what's difficult, and learning to be with experience. And so, can I do that? Can you do that? Am I learning how to do that? This is so, so important. And to me that's a real strength of this tradition.
However, anything that has a strength also has a weakness. And sometimes the very strength is the very weakness. This learning to be with experience, this capacity that we're developing, to meet dukkha, to meet dissatisfaction and dis-ease -- that's not everything. That's not all of practice. And it can be, sometimes, that we overemphasize that. Can be that we're giving that too much emphasis. So partly on this retreat, I want to, having said that, kind of a little bit balance the thing by leaning -- not at all completely; there'll be plenty of stuff like that -- but balancing a little bit in what doesn't usually get brought out so much. Because is 'being with' my experience, and is meeting dukkha -- is that it? And if you're a long-term practitioner, or you've been practising for a while, has that become one's view of practice, one's view of the path, and even one's view of the goal of the path? Is that it?
A little while ago, there was a very experienced psychoanalyst/psychotherapist on retreat here. We were talking, and we were talking a little bit about this. She had felt, after decades of working at quite a senior level in psychotherapy, she felt like a similar kind of thing. There was an over-balance on the negative, an over-balance of people dwelling on their difficulties, searching out their difficulties, kind of getting entangled that way in their difficulties. And an overemphasis on 'my stuff,' and the need to figure out and kind of disentangle 'my stuff.'
So, please, I'm not at all saying that's irrelevant, at all -- that's hugely important. But I'm talking about balance here. Will there be an end to 'being with'? If that's what I'm doing in practice -- I'm being with, I'm being with, I'm being with -- is there an end to that? Will it just go on forever? Will there be an end to meeting dukkha, meeting dissatisfaction? Is that a process that will end, that will see an end? Is there even a subtle investment in there not being an end, sometimes? I don't know.
So the Buddha taught very clearly. He said, "I teach suffering and the end of suffering. And that's it. That's what I teach: suffering and the end of suffering." That approach to spiritual life -- it tends to bring people to this kind of path, to Buddhadharma particularly -- people who are suffering, and interested in seeing a way through that suffering. Of course, that's wonderful. But oftentimes then it becomes this particular suffering, this particular issue, or this particular pattern. And something in the way we're seeing the path can get contracted. [16:35] So it's great that there's that practicality, but there's a danger of contraction there.
So the Buddha, when he talked about the end of suffering, I think he meant much, much more than that -- much more. He meant something quite beyond that, quite extraordinary, something that, at a very deep level, it addresses the most existential sort of basis of our existence. The word 'Dharma,' when we talk about the teachings, the Dharma, it's actually a word that has lots of meanings. It was a word that was around even before the Buddha. And one of its meanings that it had beforehand was 'duty.' So the Buddha took that word -- there was a duty, you had to keep a sacrificial fire going, and you had to do this, and you had to do that in India at the time -- and he said, "I'll tell you what your duty is as a human being. Your duty is freedom. Your duty is in the path and the goal."
That's a little strong for a lot of people, to say, "This is your duty." But it's almost like sometimes it's as if the Dharma is inviting something. And somehow, we don't quite believe the invitation. Or we don't really consider the invitation. So a question, as I said before, for all of us: am I limiting my sense of what's possible? Am I limiting my aspiration? And if I feel that I am, why? Why am I?
Usually when we limit, it's not completely conscious. The reasons why are not completely conscious. And the asking "Why?" is moving from what's unconscious to what's conscious, bringing what's unconscious to consciousness. Questions like that, you know -- your life, my life, our lives may well depend on asking a question like that: am I limiting my aspiration, and why? If so, why? Our life, our whole life, how we end up, where we're moving towards -- it may well hinge on questions like that. In a way, it's one of the most important questions. It's not an easy question.
So we talk about, "What's possible for me?" But in a way, there's a whole other level to the teachings as well, and the promise of the path, which is: it's not just about myself. It's not just for myself, all this sitting and walking and practice and teaching. It's not just for myself. And in the teachings, they talk about bodhicitta. It's much more of a Mahāyāna concept, the later teachings. In its classical sense, it means: "I vow to become totally awakened so that I can help other beings." That's a very high ideal. "And I will stick around so I can help all beings in this immense capacity."
People use it in very flexible ways. It can also mean that "I have a sense when I practise really deeply that I'm not just practising for myself. What I'm putting myself through, and what I'm trying to develop, and all the effort I put in is really a gift, that I want something to come out of me and flow into the world, from what I'm caring about when I practise." And for some people, it can have another meaning, which is more about making sure that as we practise, the inner work, the looking inside is balanced by outer work, caring for the world -- an outpouring of service, of care, of generosity. So it means all of that.
There's also this aspiration to what we could call an extraordinary love. There's a possibility of something happening in the heart, and it just expands in a way that we perhaps don't even conceive of. And so, saying bodhicitta, and one might think, especially if we use the classical definition, "That's so far out. I can't even hope to begin." But it's almost like, is there something inside us, a little seed inside us that feels even interested in that, or even moved by that, or even curiously touched by that? And that's enough. That's enough to start. That's more than enough to start. [21:40]
So what would it mean, practically, for us on this retreat, to bring an attitude of bodhicitta in, of that kind of outpouring? Well, one thing is to really see, as I just said, to see one's practice -- so one develops so much in a sitting. Oftentimes, when the sitting is difficult, and the knees ache, and the back aches, and the mind's crazy, one's developing tremendous patience, tremendous spaciousness. One might not see it in that moment. But is there something in me that knows, "I'm doing this because I care about what will be developed, and I want to offer that to world. I want that to be what flows out of me into the world"? And actually, one sees one's difficulties, one sees one's challenges, one sees one's efforts in practice in that light. "It's not just for me."
Within ourselves, as a community this week, it's almost a sense of, every time we come in here, when we sit down, and we stabilize ourself in the meditation, etc., and we dedicate ourselves for that period -- however long it is, half an hour, forty-five minutes, whatever it is -- we have a sense that our doing that, and our stillness, and our efforts are actually supporting everyone else. And we can feel supported by everyone else. And when we go, and we do the walking, and we give ourselves to that, connect that in the heart, make a heart-connection. It's the heart: "I'm doing it even if I don't feel like doing it. I'd rather get a cup of tea, go upstairs, and lie on my bed. That's what I really want to do. But actually, I'm doing this for you."
So, you know, I feel very rooted in the Insight Meditation tradition. It's the tradition I sort of grew up in. And I explored other traditions, as well, but that's sort of my basic root tradition. But sometimes I look at us as a community of Insight Meditation teachers, and I wonder -- saying this with some humility -- I wonder if we're doing enough in terms of the outer. We're, I feel, very, very, extremely skilled and sophisticated at the inner looking, and the, as I said, being with, the meeting dukkha. But I wonder if collectively we're doing enough in terms of the outer, in this sense of practice is not just for me. This bodhicitta is for all beings.
Recently, someone told me they were at a sister centre in California, a sister centre to Gaia House. And they were in a group interview. And it was a young persons retreat. And someone was saying that they were coming up from southern California to sort of mid-California. And they had been wondering whether they should drive or fly. And I think it was a fair drive, about six or seven hours, probably, and they're wondering -- they shared this with the teacher, and the teacher just said, "Can you be with that uncertainty? Can you hold that uncertainty? Can you just rest with that and feel it?"
On one level, that's a very skilful response. I have no idea who the teacher was. It was a very skilful response, and there's a lot of spaciousness there. But I just still question: is that enough? Some of this moving from the inner -- the inner is challenging enough; moving to the outer is a whole other challenge, and sometimes we need, a little bit, to press against what's difficult, and challenge something in ourselves. [25:48]
Again, in terms of the Insight Meditation tradition -- of course I'm speaking about myself as well -- but one of the senior teachers was asked to write an article about climate change, and the relationship of Dharma and climate change. And very humbly and honestly, the first thing he said in it was, "I was surprised to be asked, because I actually haven't thought about it." This is quite recently. It's in the last six months. "I actually haven't thought about it."[1] Why is it that that's not being thought about? How is it that that's not being thought about? So there's something about the totality of life, inner and outer, and the totality of the being, beings on the earth, that we bring into practice, that practice is for. And then we bring the questioning in and the investigation in.
So, you know, you don't need to hear from me, but the earth is in a difficult time right now, and the climate change, and the possibilities. It's Earth in the balance. I found this quote: "Most of us seem to think that 'they' [in inverted commas] will sort it out. But who are 'they'? It's tough to realize that there is no 'they' and take responsibility into our own hands." I very much feel that's what practice is about. It's about developing enough inside that we actually can offer something profound to the world, that there's something unshakeable in us, unshakeably courageous, unshakeably giving.
In a similar theme around what the earth is facing, what we as human beings are facing, this is from Václav Havel:
The only option is a change in the sphere of the spirit, in the sphere of human conscience. It's not enough to invent new machines, new regulations, new institutions. We must develop a new understanding of the true purpose of our existence on this earth. Only by making such a fundamental shift will we be able to create new models of behaviour and a new set of values for the planet.[2]
[28:26] This, again, to me, is very much what practice is about. It's making that inner shift, but deeply and profoundly. There's a beautiful quote, again, from Ben Okri, the writer and the poet:
The meltdown in the economy is a harsh metaphor of the meltdown of some of our value systems.... Individualism has been raised almost to a religion, appearance made more than substance. The only hope lies in a fundamental re-examination of the values that we have lived by [he says] in the past 30 years [I'd say a bit more than that].[3]
I really, really, strongly feel that the potential of practice is that it enables us to be a real force in that change, in that transformation in the world. And there is possible a whole different relationship with the totality, a whole different relationship -- completely different. So when we talk, when I talk now about deep aspiration and the heart's longing, and these kind of things, how does it feel to hear that? How does it feel for you when you hear this? For some, there's a kind of leaping up inside. There's a kind of opening. There's a kind of connection, a charge. Something meets, and "Yes! Yes!" And to me, there's something beautiful in that, that the heart -- having that spark, and connecting with the sense of the beauty of aspiration, of the focus of aspiration, which, to me, is something so precious in our life.
This, I'm not quite sure who he is -- I assume he's an Anglican minister -- Bishop Richard Holloway:
Simplicity, clarity, singleness: these ... give our lives power and vividness and joy.
So as I said earlier, all of us individually, it's our truth, what we arrive at in terms of aspiration -- not for me to say, not for anyone else to say. [30:57] But if I find that I'm limiting it, if I look inside and I really ask, and I find I'm limiting it, asking why that is, as I said. And it can be complex. To me, this is a really -- just teaching a lot, this is a really, really interesting area. What happens? What happens in there? It's very rich. There's a lot that goes on for us as human beings in relationship to this. It's complex, but we can get clear about it. And it's important to get clear about it. It's extremely rich, but I actually want to pick out a few of the inner movements that can go on, that kind of block our sense of possibility, our aspiration.
One is the structure, the inner sort of structure that we might call the 'inner critic.' Now, I'm going to devote a whole talk to this, because I think it's so important and so unfortunately prevalent, and needs a lot of healing. The inner critic -- there's such a fear of failing if I set an aspiration: I might fail, and that might be painful. And with the failure comes a whole barrage of inner criticism and judgment and berating and all the rest of it. Or I feel, "I'm somehow -- I'm not worth it. I'm somehow worthless at some level, that it's not worth me aspiring." And a person might say, "Who am I to aspire to any of these ideals? Who am I to aspire to that?" You know, in Nelson Mandela's Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, he addresses this, actually. It was beautiful. He said, "Actually, who are you not to? Who are you not to aspire? Who are you to withhold that?"
If I squash that, it's a kind of violence to myself. It's like amputating something, or smothering some part of my being, or strangling, constricting the blood flow to some very important organ of the being. And I'm depriving the planet, I'm depriving the earth of what I might offer, the fullness of my potential. I was talking with someone recently in an interview. He's been -- not on retreat, but doing a lot of work around the way he communicates, and speech, and bringing kindness in, and honesty, and really a lot of deep and subtle work. And he was getting very excited about it, and very sort of passionate about it. And one of the first things he said to me when we spoke again was, "There's a real sense of urgency around now," that he'd been investigating this. It was a lot of energy and a lot of urgency to sort of really go deeply and do this really thoroughly and openly and comprehensively.
And then he said he was suspicious of the urgency, which was interesting, because the quality of urgency -- the only thing from his past (and this is unfortunately very common), the only thing that he could relate it to was a kind of inner pressure, the pressure of 'should' or self-judging. That's what it had the most in common with. And so he was really questioning whether it was an authentic and deep inner movement, or it was just that, just the same old pattern. Sometimes we get suspicious.
Sometimes, of course, it's just the busyness and the sort of accumulated pressures of our life. There's so much going on. There's so much calling our, demanding our attention and our sort of dealing with. And in that, we lose sight of something. It gets veiled over.
One of the functions of practice is just to be able to calm down a little bit. And that calmness is not necessarily an end in itself, but it's in the calmness -- the intimation of something else, of something other than all this stuff that we're just kind of trying to cope with and deal with. Something other can begin to attract the being very deeply, feel very deeply drawn. That's one of the functions of calmness. It's also one of the functions of the silence in a retreat centre, one of the beauties of the silence, so that we can begin to kind of hear a whispering of something.
And sometimes it's just, we've lost sense, we've lost touch with that sense of urgency. So I don't know how many people have seen it already or know about it, but there is a human skeleton in the walking meditation room. Did you know that? You know now. There's a human skeleton in there. And it's there for a reason. There's a long tradition in Asian Buddhism of having skeletons around to remind us of death, remind us of the brevity of life, the preciousness of it, and to set our priorities, set our compass, set our aim, set our course. So it's there to contemplate, to be with. You can walk, and you're walking in the presence of death -- which we are anyway. It's just we put it at a distance and look the other way. And if you want, you can sit with it, you can be with it, and you can contemplate it. One of the things it should do is, it feeds compassion. Also, it feeds urgency. And sometimes a person just says, "All this business in my life" -- and sometimes it comes to it, that it's actually time to make some life choices, and choose differently.
Not easy. A lot of this stuff, I know, is not easy. It's not easy. Sometimes, a person doesn't aspire, we don't aspire, because it's like we don't really believe that something more than what we have, a kind of deeper happiness, a deeper fulfilment, is actually possible. Or maybe we feel it's not possible in general. We think, "It's just a kind of fairytale, the whole teachings." Or we feel, "Others might be able to do it, but not me. I can't do it." Sometimes these kind of beliefs are beneath the level of the radar. They're not quite fully conscious. They're operating, and they're running our life, but they're not quite in our sights. We're not aware of them.
Again, one of the functions of practice is actually to just gradually, very gradually, not in a linear way, we begin to taste a different kind of happiness, a different kind of fulfilment, a different kind of sense of things. That gradual taste gives us a confidence, slowly, in the possibilities.
Urgency -- spiritual urgency, if we can call it that -- it actually needs confidence. So that's interesting, and I don't think that's often obvious for people. But it needs confidence. If I don't have a confidence that it's possible for me, oftentimes the whole kind of energy of things inside can't reach any sense of urgency. So I see that a lot with people. A lot has to do with confidence.
Where does confidence come from? Well, one of the places it comes from is this sort of dying down of the energy of that inner critic, which I will talk about. It also comes from tasting little -- I'll use the word 'successes' -- in practice. Successes. It's not a popular word in meditation circles, in spiritual circles. But tasting little successes in our practice, and enjoying practice. I really want to emphasize that in this retreat, because that begins to give us a sense of success, a sense of progress -- also another kind of taboo word. Where does that come from? Where does success and progress come from?
One of the things it comes from is from experimenting, comes from allowing ourselves to actively experiment in practice, shake it up, inject a little life into it. I'll amplify much of this as we go through the days. It also comes, as I said before, from not just looking at 'my suffering' exclusively, and 'my process,' and 'my, my, my.' So something begins to happen. The enjoyment builds success, builds a sense of progress, builds a sense of confidence, builds a sense of possibility, builds, allows a sense of aspiration and urgency. [40:49]
Sometimes we think, "Well, if I have these little successes that you're talking about, won't I then get attached to them? And I thought I'm not supposed to be attached." But actually, in life, we're attached to all kinds of stuff. A lot of it is not really that helpful. We're attached to a lot of unhelpful stuff -- inner and outer. Again, the function of enjoying the meditation, having some sense of -- yeah, progress -- is that these, what may be temporary attachments, help us let go of the lesser attachments, the less helpful attachments.
Sometimes, a person hears about words like 'aspiration' and 'success,' etc., and it sounds like goals, sounds like, "Well, it smells of goals to me." And there's a kind of wholesale rejection of goals in the spiritual life for some people or some kind of approaches. Oftentimes this isn't fully considered, fully thought through. It might be a little silly to completely reject goals. It might not even make sense. It doesn't fit life. When we have a spiritual life that's no goals, and a life that's actually full of goals, where's the meeting? It's almost like two separate worlds. Is it realistic? If I say, "I want to be present. I want to be mindful," there's a goal already. "I want to be with what is" -- there's a goal. If I say, "I want to have no goals," that's a goal. I can't actually get through my day without having goals. So you made it to the cushion. You made it to the retreat centre. I made it to here. You know, dinnertime -- goals are everywhere, all the time. Why is it that some goals are okay, and some are not okay? What's the difference there? What makes the difference, that some are problematic and we object to them, and some are not? We could talk a lot about this. I'm going to leave it there.
Sometimes it's just a matter of the nuts and bolts of practice. We get into a tangle with practice, because we get contracted around the effort that we're putting in. And everything feels like it's becoming very tight. But rather than rejecting goals, rejecting aspiration, etc., it's rather about learning a kind of skilful responsiveness with effort in our practice. And I will talk very much about that in the instructions as we go along. And knowing which efforts -- because I have energy in life. We have energy. And I direct the energy, and that's what we call 'effort.' Which efforts, which direction of energy is actually helpful? I could do a million press-ups, and I wouldn't be anywhere nearer enlightenment. I need to know what's helpful.
And this brings me to the final piece of the list I want to run through. Sometimes our aspiration is kind of blocked because we don't understand how the path works and how it fits together. This is, again, something that it's not obvious. What does it mean to practise well? We can really simplify this and say it means two things -- very simple, two things. One is, it means the cultivation of beautiful qualities of heart, beautiful qualities of mind. So we talk about calmness, and patience, and mindfulness, and generosity, and loving-kindness, and compassion, and equanimity, concentration, samādhi -- all these, they're beautiful qualities, and they become a real resource for us. So at least one half of practice is really developing those -- developing, developing, cultivating -- so that we have this inner treasure inside, a room full of different treasures inside. And that makes all the difference in our ability to let go in life. We draw on those resources. That's one half.
The other half, we could say, is investigation. We have cultivation and investigation. What does it mean to investigate? [45:52] We'll split that into two, being very simple here. First thing, first investigation is, what is it that leads to suffering in life? And what is it that leads to freedom from suffering? And am I really, really clear about that -- very clear, very deeply clear? And am I doing what leads to freedom from suffering? Am I cultivating that? That's one part.
The other part is a little harder to put into words. We could sum it up as practising learning to see, and learning to view experience in ways that lead to freedom. I'll say that again. That's how I actually see Insight Meditation -- that we're practising learning to see experience, learning to view experience, we're practising learning to see and view experience in ways that lead to freedom. Something happens if we follow that journey of learning to see. Something happens. It deepens, and it deepens, and it deepens, and we learn, actually that the way, the whole way we see as human beings -- unawakened human beings -- is actually a mistake. There's something woven into the whole way we perceive things that's actually a mistake. And we're perceiving things wrongly.
And we learn to perceive things differently. It reveals what we call in Dharma teachings the emptiness of things. I will talk about this much more on the retreat. And the whole question, as part of this learning to see in ways that lead to freedom, the whole question of, "What's real, and what maybe isn't so real?" unfolds out of that direction of seeing.
Okay. On this retreat, about five, six days, whatever it is together, I want to explore with you and emphasize two practices, two kind of parallel streams of formal practice. I'll be talking about much more. But in the practices, I want to explore two parallel streams. So one is breath meditation, and it's a certain approach to breath meditation that I just want to offer you, and see if it's something that is helpful for you. And those I'll be doing in the morning at 9:30, and offering instructions, and sometimes guided meditations. And the other practice, sort of complement, parallel/complement to that is working with a spacious awareness and different aspects of or flavours of a more expansive awareness. And that I'll be doing at 2:30, mostly in the form of a guided meditation.
So right there, there is the kind of cultivation -- the cultivation of calm and concentration and depth of meditation through the breath, and learning ways to see that open freedom in the other practice. So actually, not just in terms of practice, but in a number of ways, this retreat, I feel, is a little bit of an experiment. I hope you don't mind being guinea pigs! But it's a little bit of an experiment -- just a little. [laughs] I hope, I would ask that you, too, can also have an attitude of experimentation in the meditation practices. I feel it's really -- it's so indispensable for us as practitioners. So it might be that the practices that I'm offering, you know very well. Still, can there be an attitude of experimentation? It might be they're completely new. You feel completely new to the whole thing. Might be one is new, one is not. Can there be an attitude of experimentation?
'Experimentation' means 'playfulness.' What does it mean? Do we have that sense when we're meditating? Does it feel playful? Or does it feel heavy and kind of serious and hard and tight? When there's experimentation, when there's playfulness, it allows a kind of juice. It allows juice. It allows space. It allows curiosity, discovery, aliveness, creativity, lightness. These are really, really important qualities for us as practitioners.
So those two practices, I'll be developing in the instructions and the 2:30 sitting, and the guided meditation. I'll be developing them kind of gradually over the days in the instructions, etc., and as I said, offering kind of different variations or takes on them. It may be that the order in which I unfold the instructions is perfect for you. It's like, "Ah yes, this was exactly -- then I received this piece exactly when I needed it, da-da-da-da." It may be that it's completely backwards, and you get to the fourth day, and you think, "I wish I had that on the first day." It's impossible to say everything at once. Please be patient with that. There should be something for everyone in terms of angles and finding ways in.
More people are here than I anticipated. I didn't think so many people would come, which is wonderful. However, it means that the interviews will be in groups -- pretty much, for the most part, in groups. Usually, on a meditation retreat, in interviews, individual and group interviews, I am happy to, and it's an open field for anything that a person wants to bring up -- really, any life situation, inner or outer, whatever's going on, anything that they want to bring up. However, on this retreat, I really want to emphasize the meditation aspect. And so the interviews are really for checking in about what's happening in the meditation: how's it going? How are you relating to these practices and these particular techniques that I'm offering? And kind of tweaking those, developing those.
Another aspect of having groups is that people, of course, on this retreat, have very different histories of practice. Some of you are very new, but many of you have quite a lot of background. And something can happen to us, unfortunately -- it has to do with this inner critic thing that I will talk about -- in groups, that we feel, "Oh, my question is too basic. I shouldn't ask that." But also the opposite happens: a person feels like, "I shouldn't ask, because it's a bit advanced, and people will think I'm arrogant," or whatever it is. And so I just ask, can we be human beings together? Can it be okay that people have different histories, and different relationships with different practices? And can that just be okay? Why shouldn't it be okay?
Please ask questions related to the meditation in the interviews. And you know, your questions will be helpful. Sometimes, we feel, "Oh, it's just irrelevant. It's just me and my silly little thing." Almost always, the questions that you ask will be helpful, whether they feel very basic or very advanced. [53:54]
So what I want, what I really want, and the way I approach this is, I want you to take away with you practices that you can use, tools that you can use, ways of reflecting -- as I say, ways of seeing. I want you to walk away from this retreat with that, to be able to use, if you want to, ways of relating. So certainly the practices, but also the talks are for that function. They're not for anything else. And that's what I kind of want for this retreat and for you.
The talks -- I don't know how you felt tonight, but you may feel, in the talks, there's quite a lot said, a lot of material, a lot of things to sort of reflect on, think about, look at from this angle, other angle, etc. More and more nowadays, I kind of think of talks as something not to be listened to once. That's why we tape things. And I really have a feeling that they should be re-listened to. And one will probably find that they pay back, re-listening to. In other words, there's stuff that you -- it's almost like we can't take everything in at once. And there are different pieces we'll get at different times. I'm just saying something about a style of teaching. And it may not feel in the moment like it's your cup of tea. It may feel like it's too much, or there's too much going on, or too much to kind of address. It's fine if you want to take notes. I have no problem with that, if that's your style. If it's not your style, don't worry about it. But the talks, as well, offering something so that you can practise what is taught -- they're practices, in the largest sense of the word, ways of working.
So to me, a talk is not just about a nice feeling for an hour in the evening of a retreat. And sometimes, if we're honest, you know, on a retreat, feels like a long day, and we want to go in and have a little bit of entertainment in the evening. And that's normal and understandable. And I hope it's entertaining, you know.
In the Tibetan tradition, they actually say listening to the Dharma is difficult. It's difficult. It's a practice. So again, I don't know how you felt tonight, but there may be elements of some of what's said in the talks, etc., that are challenging, that one finds challenging to one's -- well, every level of one's being, every aspect of one's life, perhaps. Maybe.
There's a very famous sūtra in the Mahāyāna tradition by Nāgārjuna, who's a very famous teacher from the first or second century, called Precious Garland Sūtra -- Precious Garland Text, really. He says:
Rare are helpful speakers. And good listeners are very rare. But rarer still are those who act at once on words that, though unpleasant, are beneficial. Therefore, having realized that, though unpleasant, it is helpful, act on it quickly, just as to cure an illness, one drinks dreadful medicine from one who cares.[4]
Just a few more things. There's something about being on retreat that's about simplicity, about simplifying our life. There's very little we need to concern ourselves with on a practical level here. And it's almost like letting yourself sink into that simplicity, giving yourself to that simplicity, abandoning yourself and surrendering yourself to that simplicity. That means the schedule -- this time, this time, this time, if you haven't seen it, sitting, walking, whatever it is, talk, instructions -- and just surrendering. It's a beautiful quality, surrender. If you feel like you've arrived from work, etc., or whatever, there's some business you need to tie up, please tie it up tonight. You know, take your mobile phone quite off the grounds. Or there's a payphone at the back which you should've been shown. And take care of that, and then just feel yourself arrive here. Feel the body here. Walk around the grounds, if you want. Feel yourself here at Gaia House, in Devon, in the beautiful nature that we have here, the silence that we have here. Feel the being arrive. And then surrender. An invitation to surrender. Simplicity.
Another precious aspect of retreat is the silence. [59:07] And really just a deep encouragement to not underestimate the transformative power of silence. That's why we do retreats in silence: because it's immensely powerful. I know some of you have tasted that. But don't neglect it. Don't neglect it. Give yourself to the silence. The silence makes something possible. Something becomes possible in this atmosphere of silence. One other thing that I'll mention briefly is, it allows the things that we get caught up with -- this and that, and the kind of less deep intentions -- it allows them to kind of, like mud, to settle to the bottom of a lake, and allows to reveal, it reveals what we really, really care about, our deepest aspirations. That's one of the functions of silence.
And as meditators, as human beings, even, we can listen to silence. We can feel it embracing the being, embracing us, holding us. Something very beautiful about that, very profound. And actually, I'll be talking about that as part of the practice. So mobile phones, including texts, blah blah blah, even though texts are silent -- no, nein, taboo, etc. Please just turn them off. It's been apparent that a lot of people don't turn their mobiles off on retreat. But please, please just turn them off. And just put it in the bottom of your bag. It's a real gift to yourself, to be free of that.
I have to say, over the years, I do see a correlation between those who really give themselves to the silence and those whose practice really blossoms. There is that correlation there, and not to underestimate it.
And finally -- which I think Doug already mentioned, about the ethical guidelines -- did he? Yeah? Good. This aspect of what we call sīla in the tradition -- so, not to harm, to practise non-harming, not to take what is not given, to practise care and respect around our sexuality. And in the context of this retreat, it's abstinence. Care and respect and kindness and consciousness around our speech -- on this retreat, it means the noble silence, the being silent together. And lastly, really deeply caring for the quality and the sensitivity, the deep sensitivity and the capacity for receptivity of our mind and our heart, really caring for that by being careful about what we take into the body and to the mind. And on this retreat, that means abstinence from drugs and alcohol.
But all these guidelines, what we call the five precepts, they are a movement and an expression of love, caring for each other, creating an environment where everyone can kind of relax, settle, open, be off their guard. They're a gesture of respect to each other and to oneself, care for oneself and care for each other. And they allow trust. They allow trust. They allow us to be a safe community together of practitioners for five or six days. This not needing to guard, not needing to watch what's going on, and watch one's back, and watch what's coming my way -- that allows a softening, allows an opening, allows a disarming, a disarmouring of the heart, which is indispensable in practice. All of us are committing to these five precepts, and to see it as a gift that we give ourselves, that we give each other.
Joseph Goldstein, "Facing the Heat," Tricycle (Summer 2009), https://tricycle.org/magazine/facing-heat/, accessed 9 May 2021. ↩︎
Václav Havel, "The Divine Revolution: Lifting the Iron Curtain of the Spirit," Civilization (April/May 1998). Reprinted at https://www.utne.com/community/thedivinerevolution, accessed 9 May 2021. ↩︎
Ben Okri, "Our false oracles have failed. We need a new vision to live by," The Times (30 Oct. 2008), https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/our-false-oracles-have-failed-we-need-a-new-vision-to-live-by-nm6qdm6nzzp, accessed 9 May 2021. ↩︎
Jeffrey Hopkins, Nāgārjuna's Precious Garland: Buddhist Advice for Living and Liberation (Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 2007), 114. ↩︎
