Transcription
[00:06, guided meditation begins]
Taking a few moments to establish yourself in your meditation posture. Collecting the attention within the body, inhabiting the body with awareness. So this meditation has three parts, and you might find yourself relating more easily to one part or another. It's not important at all; that's completely fine. But before we start, just spending a few minutes calming, collecting the mind, the attention, whether it's with the breath or the mettā, whatever works for you to unify a little bit mind and body.
Beginning to tune the attention into the hands, the way that the hands feel right now, the sensations that are present in your hands right now. Bringing the attention there and seeing what you can feel in the hands. Connecting with those sensations. And then particularly tuning into their impermanence, their changing nature. May feel the sensations pulsing, throbbing, flickering in and out, arising and passing. Staying with that, the sensations, and really tuning in, focusing in on the fact, the experience of the change, the fluctuation, the impermanence. Constant change.
When you're ready, bringing the attention up to focus similarly on the sensations in the face. Feeling in to, tuning into all the sensations that are present in the face. And again, really interested, really tuning into deliberately their impermanence, their changing nature. So the mindfulness is very present, but also relaxed. You don't have to pressure the awareness to see a particularly fast rate of change. Just seeing whatever change presents itself, whatever rate of change presents itself. Just tuning into that.
[10:26] Again, when you're ready, letting the attention move, directing the attention to some other part of the body, wherever you may feel some sensations. Perhaps itching, perhaps heat or warmth or cold, perhaps tingling, perhaps pressure, whatever it is, wherever it is. Tuning in, feeling it directly, and noticing the change, change, change, flickering, fluctuating, waving. Just watching the show of change, of impermanence.
Now is it possible to expand the awareness just a little bit to embrace, to include the whole body, the global sense of the whole body? And, in a way, the totality of the sensations in the body. Opening up the attention in that way. The sensations dancing, appearing, disappearing in the whole body. Tuning into impermanence, anicca, change. Just however it presents itself, however slowly or quickly things move, things change. The body can almost be a field of flickering sensations, like fireflies, bands of pressure moving, pulsing.
Now seeing, is it possible to stay connected with the whole body and the changing sensations in the whole body, but opening the awareness out even further to include sounds? Sounds, voice, sounds from inside the room, sounds from outside the room. Just like sensations, appearing, disappearing, changing, coming into and out of existence. So body sensations and sounds, impermanent. Tuning into that impermanence. Impermanence, impermanence.
Keeping your eyes closed, slowly moving your hand up in front of your face. Slowly opening the eyes and moving the hand. Impermanence, change in the visual field. Seeing the change. The change is the thing that we're interested in. Closing the eyes and moving the hand back down. Opening the eyes again. Maybe nothing is moving, and there's some awareness of change, change. What's changing? Closing the eyes again. And returning to the bodily sensations and the field of bodily sensations.
[20:31] The second contemplation will begin. Notice in the field of bodily sensations that some sensations arising are relatively pleasant. And some are relatively unpleasant. And some are relatively kind of neutral, in between. So letting the awareness be open, spacious. Seeing if it's possible to feel, to get a sense of when there is some degree of aversion or rejection of unpleasant sensations. We may feel the presence of that aversion, actually feel it in the body, perhaps as a contraction somewhere, as a tension in some area of the body or the whole body. Might be very subtle. Is it possible to notice that, the presence of aversion, and also at times the presence of craving, of grasping the pleasant. How does it feel when there's aversion to the unpleasant and when there's craving to the pleasant? Noticing how that feels. It's reflected in the body primarily.
And if/when you notice the presence of aversion to whatever degree, or craving to whatever degree, is it possible to relax it? To relax the body and relax the aversion or craving. So sensitive to aversion and craving, and then relaxing it. Is that possible? Again and again and again, actually over and over, becoming aware of it, sensitive to it, and then relaxing, and then again. Can be gross or subtle or very subtle. It's all good.
So developing -- partly what we're doing is developing a sensitivity to the presence of aversion or craving. Usually feel it as a contraction in the body or in the sense of spaciousness, either one, and then relaxing it. Over and over. How does it feel when there's aversion, resistance, craving? How does that feel? Getting familiar with that. And then how does it feel when it's relaxed, let go of? So we're working subtly here, letting the awareness be bright with this.
So another way of going about this second contemplation is really to emphasize allowing, allowing, allowing the sensations. More than mindfulness, really allowing, practising letting be, letting everything be. We say letting go -- what we really mean is letting be. Practise letting the sensations be, allowing them to be, allowing. Whether it's pleasant or unpleasant or neither, allowing, allowing. Opening to allow.
[29:51] Moving on to the third contemplation. I sustain the attention to the body sensations, either in one part or the whole body. Begin to see -- is it possible to see they're coming and going by themselves? Coming and going by themselves. If I just look, one area of sensation or the whole body in a spacious awareness, they come and go just like sounds come and go, by themselves. Can you see they're all just happening? It's just happening. You sustain the attention on the sensations, and sometimes get a sense of they're just floating there, appearing and disappearing. Is it possible to get a sense of this? Unhooking the identification, seeing them as not me, not mine. They're just happening. It's all just happening. It is not me. It doesn't belong to me. There's no one that it belongs to. Nothing solid that these sensations belong to. Is it possible in the just letting them be there to have a way of seeing them -- not-self, not me, not mine.
So sustaining the attention on the sensations, but being very light and spacious with that. It's almost like you're just letting them be, leaning back almost from them, and unhooking the normal identification that we have. Whether they're unpleasant, whether they're pleasant, whatever. Just happening, not-self. Not me, not mine. So the key for many people with this is relaxing. Not forcing it. We're gently encouraging, very gently encouraging a way of seeing, of seeing experience. Sometimes a very, very soft, quiet label -- "not-self" or "not me, not mine" -- can help. The key is relaxing to unhook the identification. Maybe it's possible with a spacious awareness to have the same sense, the same way of seeing thoughts -- just happening. They're just happening. Not me, not mine. Just like sounds, in a way.
When you're ready, again raising the hand a little bit closer to the face and opening the eyes to look at the hand, the palm of the hand, or the back of the hand. Is that me? Is that mine? Just looking. Simply looking. Closing the eyes when you're ready, returning the hand. Just unhooking the identification very lightly, letting go. Things are just happening, not me, not mine. Keeping the eyes closed, and again raising the hand to in front of the face. Eyes closed. Suddenly opening the eyes. Who sees? Who's seeing? It's just seeing, just awareness. Returning the hand, closing the eyes.
[41:56, guided meditation ends]
Okay, so I'm going to talk much more about this tonight and fill it out and put it into context, etc. What I would like is for you today to really explore these practices that we did and play with them. Really play with them and experiment with them and find your way in. You will probably find that you have a favourite, and that's fine. But play with them all a little bit, actually over the coming week, even.
So just to briefly review now, actually four approaches, we could say:
(1) The first one is contemplating impermanence, really tuning into change and the fact of change. When I'm looking at anything, whether it's sensations or sounds or emotions or whatever, thoughts, what I'm most interested in seeing is change, impermanence. That's what I'm tuning into. I'm more interested in that, when I'm doing that contemplation, than anything else. I'm more interested in that than the texture of the experience or whatever. So that's the first one.
(2) The second one is -- these, some people will know, it's called the three characteristics; so impermanence is the first characteristic, anicca. Second characteristic is dukkha, but I'm dividing that in two, two ways of going about it for now. (2.1) The first is to, first of all, notice that experience has the flavour of pleasant, unpleasant, neither, and then notice that there's usually a relationship with that pleasantness or unpleasantness of experience, and learning to get familiar with what a relationship of aversion or craving feels like and just relaxing that. Just relaxing that. (2.2) Then there's a slight variation on this second one, on this contemplation of dukkha, which is really the same thing, but it's just a slightly different flavour of going about it, is to actually emphasize in the awareness not so much the awareness or kind of sensitivity but emphasize allowing, allowing things to be, allowing things to be pleasant or unpleasant. Just allowing. Letting things be and really emphasizing that. That's what we're doing, just letting things be, allowing, allowing, coming back to that relationship with things.
(3) And the third one is anattā, is learning, training, to be able to see things as not-self. So the default way of seeing things is a self, as somehow me or mine. And learning actually to see things as not-self, just happening by themselves. So you can do this in the walking practice, too. All of these you can do in the walking practice as well. You're walking and there are body sensations -- same deal: impermanent, some we like, some we don't like, watching the aversion or letting be, etc., seeing them as not-self. With the visual field as we're walking, which is changing, etc., and with sounds -- all of that's present in the walking. So it's a very portable practice.
I said at some point that what we want is 50/50 roughly, roughly, with samādhi and insight practice. So this is now introduced, sort of formal insight practices. And play with the balance between samādhi, just collecting, calming, unifying, dropping into that, roughly 50 per cent of the time, and roughly 50 per cent of the time these more insight contemplations, practices, meditations. So just play with that.
Yogi 1: Doing one sitting [?], one or ...?
Rob: Oh, good. No. Thank you. Not necessarily. So it could be that you devote a whole sitting to samādhi or a whole sitting to insight. It could be you just divide it up in two. You can start with either one. Sometimes people, "I have to start with my samādhi." Not necessarily. So if you want to divide a sitting in two, or ... None of this has to be exact. It's all very loose. Don't get too -- you could do a third of a sitting insight and two-thirds samādhi. It's okay, you know? Just generally have a sense of balancing these two practices, complementing each other, over the days, in whatever way that happens.
Yogi 2: I'm assuming [?] insight practices can be changed and combined?
Rob: Yeah. I'll talk much more about that tonight. I think what I want to say now is just go away and play with it, and I will talk much more, and there will be a question and answer period tomorrow, which I may even change to later in the day so you have even more time to play with it. And then come back and ask. Yesterday there were some questions, and I feel like I want to respond a little bit, especially in the light of what I've just given you. So don't go chasing experiences. Okay? It's very easy -- and we talk in here, and I talk, and maybe John talks, too, about experiences that may or may not happen, and someone raises a question and says this or that, but that's not what we're doing here. We're not chasing experiences. So to be very careful, because sometimes the mind, without us even realizing it, has gotten into a mode of chasing experiences, of gunning for experiences, of hunting for experiences, and usually it's to measure ourselves with in some way (usually, not always).
So don't get hung up on the whole notion of experiences and meditation experiences. We're doing something different here. I've said it many times. I'm going to say it again because it might be, it's quite, I think, for a lot of people, a subtle shift. We're not hunting experiences. We're learning ways of relating to and looking at experience that decrease the suffering. Do you see? We're not hunting experiences. We're learning ways of looking at and relating to experiences that drain at least some of the suffering out, or as much as -- it's a different thing than hunting. Nice experiences may or may not happen, and I wouldn't -- to go back to Bruce's question -- say they're irrelevant or pointless or anything like that, but that's not what we're actually doing. We're learning a way of relating to experiences. Does that make sense? Yeah?
Okay. So have fun with this, play with it. It's some new toys. Enjoy.
Yogi 3: When you say "experience," do you mean just anything moment to moment to moment?
Rob: Yes. We are learning ways of looking at anything, moment to moment to moment, that bring more freedom. Yeah, that's it.
Yogi 3: I wanted to unpack the word 'experience.'
Rob: Yeah, so I guess what I was saying is don't -- it was actually partly in relation to something you said last night and also Nick said and Bruce, that we hear someone else's fantastic meditation experience and we say, "I want some of that." We're not hunting those kind of things, per se. What we're doing is, in relationship to all experience, moment to moment to moment, as you just said ...
Yogi 3: Watching the sunset last night?
Rob: Anything. Absolutely. Yeah. Sunset's a prime example of impermanence, isn't it? Some people report to me after they watch a sunset, "Oh, I want it longer, longer." Grasping, you know? Clinging. You can feel that. How does that feel? What happens when I let it go? So visual, auditory, tactile, whatever. I'll go into all this in much detail. We're talking about any experience, moment to moment, any experience, learning different ways of relating and looking at experience that bring more space, more freedom.
Yogi 4: When we sort of looked at our hand and asked who was seeing or what was seeing, for me that seems a different practice to 'not me, not mine.' There's a different practice ...
Rob: Yes, it is. Well. How did it feel when you did it? In other words, can you articulate the difference for you between those two?
Yogi 4: Yes, it's sort of -- the question sort of puts you in a space of just uncertainty, not knowing. And watching experience is more just stuff happens and you're watching.
Rob: Okay. I will go into this in much more detail tonight. I'll just be very brief -- it's worth repeating because it's not that easy to understand, and it's important, too. There are lots of ways of going about all these emptiness practices and the practice of anattā, of letting go of self-identification. One way that's very popular is "Who am I?", or "Who's doing this?", or "Who's watching?", or whatever. And oftentimes, for people, what that does is, as you said, it brings a kind of uncertainty up. It brings a space of uncertainty. I think that wasn't actually quite my intention here, but that's totally fine. So on this retreat, I'm not going to -- I don't think John is either, but I'm not going to be emphasizing that particular practice too much -- like "Who is?", and then a sort of uncertainty about knowing. It's really fine; it's a beautiful practice, but I'm not going to be emphasizing it too much.
The other way of doing it is kind of just getting a sense of everything's happening, rather than the default "It's mine" or whatever. I'll explain this -- this is where it gets quite subtle. If, let's say, right now, I have some uncomfortable sensations in the legs, and usually I'll take them as me or mine. Then I can see them as not me, not mine, but then the identification tends to go with the watcher and with awareness. But relatively speaking, that's a more free state. Later -- it's a more subtle thing to let go of the identification with the watcher. To be honest, I wasn't really expecting -- well, you never know, but we'll talk about getting to that and ways of doing that. So it's possible sometimes that just someone says that and you jolt into a space of "There's just seeing and no seer," so to speak. Does that clarify? It's a subtle point, but good, yeah, important.
