Transcription
I have a few things that I wanted to mention, but let's just see what comes up, if they come up anyway. Does anyone anything they want to ...?
Q1: difficulty with mettā for another while walking
Yogi: It's not a question, it's just that with practice I find that when I'm walking, I find it difficult to be doing mettā for someone else. It's much easier for me if I do mettā for myself, as I walk. And sitting I can do for myself or the other person. But when it comes to the other person, I find it much easier if I'm sitting, if I'm still, and I'm working with it. I don't find it so easy walking and working with someone.
Rob: Okay, what happens that it feels difficult, Ruth?
Yogi: I don't seem to feel very much.
Rob: Okay. Is it to do with -- it could be to do with the way that one's including the attention to the body. In other words, it might be ...
Yogi: That's what I try to do, I try to include attention to the body at the same time.
Rob: Yeah, but like right now, so we're looking at each other, and there's a sense, with your eyes open, of, for instance, you could offer me mettā, I could offer you mettā. I guess I'm just wondering what makes that difficult as the body's moving. If there's a sense of, as I'm looking at you, and I think, "May Ruth be well," there's a sense of the whole visual field, and you there in the visual field, and that can stay while we're walking. Do you understand? That can be the frame of what's going on. So ... do you have a visual imagination?
Yogi: Very visual.
Rob: Very visual, okay. So if you were to walk between two points, and imagine someone at the other end, it may be a sense of having that whole visual field as your kind of field of mettā, if that makes sense.
Yogi: No, explain that a bit more.
Rob: Okay. Well, as you're looking at me now, you can see the whole visual field, and you can kind of single me out if you want, and ...
Yogi: Yes, and I'm seeing everyone else.
Rob: Yeah, good, right. But there's a sense of that whole visual field, yeah? Now, what if you just stood up right now? Do you want to ...? And is it still there?
Yogi: Yes.
Rob: Okay. I'm just curious -- let's see, if you centred lightly your attention in your chest, in your heart centre. You can move around radiating that out. So you're kind of towards me, but you have a sense of the whole space, and something coming out of the body like that.
Yogi: Okay. Yeah.
Rob: There's not much room to walk. [laughs] Just wondering -- maybe you could just stand by the door, Ruth, and then walk even just a few paces towards me. So you've got your body sense, and you've got this whole big space of the room, but within that space you're kind of focusing on me, and from your heart centre perhaps, just staying with that as you walk. Don't worry about your feet and all that. How's that?
Yogi: That's good. I think what I was doing, I was trying to -- it wasn't just coming from the heart; I was trying to at the same time focus on other parts of my body to see what else was reacting, and perhaps it was just too much going on.
Rob: It could be, yeah.
Yogi: Instead of just staying with the heart.
Rob: Yeah, so there are two things. So that's great. There are two things. One is, yeah, it may be that centring in one place in the body might be more helpful, and then from that place, maybe eventually the awareness begins to kind of expand out to include the whole body and the whole field of the body. If it does, great, and you might notice more things. And if it doesn't, also great. You've still got your heart centre. And the second piece is just how fast you walk. So it might be easier walking fast or easier walking slow. I would play with that as well. And then feel very free to just stop and reconnect with that and then start again. Eventually, you'll just get the hang of it. It's just a matter of finding the right way in to settle your attention. Okay?
Yogi: Yeah.
Rob: Okay, great. Good.
Q2: mettā at end of walking path or walking side by side
Yogi: I can relate to what Ruth is saying. The way I address it is that I stop at the end, when I arrive at the [?] and I'm not moving, I'm standing there and doing the mettā for [?], and that works for me much better than when I walk and just focusing on the walking. Because I've done so many walking meditations, not doing the mettā at the same time, so it's like ...
Rob: Yes, sure. Would you be open to experimenting and seeing if you can actually have a bit more choice there, so that you can actually walk and do the mettā?
Yogi: Well, I do to some extent. I use Catherine's advice, which is to imagine you're walking with a friend.
Rob: Uh-huh, side by side, yep.
Yogi: And the friend I picked is someone very close to me, I live with, so it's easy -- I can visualize very easily there. And it's, in that case, it works quite well. But what I find difficult is to have a huge, big space, you know. The space around the body, the awareness is not huge at the moment, so I need the person fairly close.
Rob: Good!
Yogi: Side by side works best.
Rob: Yeah, it doesn't have to be huge, this space, yet. It may well get huge in time. But it's not like the bigger the better, necessarily. So that sounds like it's working. It's working really well. You can have them at the end. You can have it side by side. No problem. I think it would be really good to feel like when you do walking meditation, or walking in the city, wherever you live, you can be doing mindfulness of the body, or you could be doing mettā. That would be really good. So you can kind of get to decide what you're developing, what you're cultivating in the heart, and you have choice over that. Great, yeah.
Q3: choosing between cultivating mindfulness and mettā
Yogi: Can I ask how you choose one from another? You were saying with the walking meditation, cultivating mettā, cultivating mindfulness of body ...
Rob: Could you hear that at the back? Mei-Wah's asking: why would we choose sometimes to cultivate mindfulness of the body when you're walking, and sometimes to choose cultivating mettā? I guess they just work in different ways. So when we're doing the mettā practice, we're actually working directly on the heart, to open the heart, to soften the heart. What we're really doing with the mettā is transforming the kind of groove of where the mind and the heart sits. So we're moving it to a place of more loving-kindness, so that intentions of loving-kindness are more common in the mindstream. And that's the principal thing that we're doing when we do that. When we do mindfulness of the body, well, there are all kinds of things that can happen in mindfulness of the body, but it's a kind of grounding practice, and you might notice different things, so you're kind of setting yourself up for different directions there. I'm not sure if that answers? No, not quite? Okay. Can you say a bit more?
Yogi: I don't know if [?], but it's just about the different kinds of practices. And where they lead to. But I should probably read a book.
Rob: You "should probably read a book"! [laughs] Well, let's see what we can do. There are lots of different practices. There are lots and lots of different practices. On a more obvious level, a person might be moving in their life, whether they practise or not, and realize that there's quite a stream of unkindness, or harshness, or judgmentalism. And you could say, "Just practise mindfulness." I'm just watching, and I just begin to notice that, and that will have an effect in letting go of some of that. But probably to deliberately practise the mettā will be, you know, kind of extra powerful. You're really addressing that head on, the judgmentalism.
Eventually, all practices come together. When the Buddha taught, if we go back to what I think I said in one of the first talks -- if we take a big step, it's like, what's practice about? You could say there's the cultivation wing. There's a bird with two wings: a cultivation wing and the insight wing. And freedom comes about through both. So we cultivate qualities that bring happiness. Loving-kindness -- some of you may have noticed it already -- when it's around, there's happiness around, there's well-being around. So cultivating the well-being is part of what enables us to let go. It also just gives us resource. If we say the point of practice is letting go, and if we just say, "Well, just let go. Just pay attention and just let go," that's very often what we might say on a mindfulness [retreat], "Just pay attention and let go," I may not have enough resources inside to let go. I know it hurts me to hold on to this. I know it's painful. I can see that I'm holding on to it. But if I don't have enough inside, if I feel like I don't have enough, enough nourishment, enough resources, I won't be able to let go. Something in me keeps holding on.
So part of the very, very powerful function of these cultivation practices -- generosity, loving-kindness, compassion, etc. -- is that they allow, they deepen our resources, a really deep nourishment. So we have enough. And what is it to move in life feeling like I have enough, not like, "I don't quite have enough. I don't quite have enough"? How does that affect how I am, say, in an intimate relationship with a partner? It's like, if I'm in that relationship and I feel like I don't have enough, I start putting all kinds of pressure on the other person, and guess what? The whole thing goes through the floor sooner or later. But the same thing in relationship to food, the same thing in relationship to this or that. I need this well-being. If I put all my eggs in the basket of just mindfulness, and I hope that if I just pay attention, everything's going to kind of let go, it will bring a lot of letting go, but there'll be some pieces that I can't, because I just can't somehow manage to convince myself to let go.
I feel like I could talk a lot about this, but I'm not sure when to stop. [laughs] Is there more there? Are you sure? I will say a little bit more. Cultivation and insight. Mindfulness is in the service of insight. So we start paying attention, and then sometimes just sitting there, as you know from your practice in the past, just sitting there and just being mindful, just walking and just being mindful, or at home, or in the street, just being mindful, we start to notice more. And sometimes that noticing, insight arises. We understand something, and we're able to let go.
These cultivation practices are building happiness. They also build stillness and clarity. In other words, a happy mind is also a clearer mind and a stiller mind, and able to see more deeply. And so not only does it let go more easily, but it sees more clearly and more deeply. Later in this retreat, when we start to do more of the emptiness practices -- I'll repeat this later, but there are other ways to get insight. In other words, we could be kind of just simply mindful, and let insight arise, or you can deliberately play with the way you're looking at things, or what you're cultivating, and out of that, insight arises. And sometimes also out of the mettā practice. Some of you may have noticed this already: insight arises out of the mettā. We'll get back to that. So how does that sound for now?
Yogi: Okay, thank you.
Rob: Okay. All right.
Jacqui, yeah.
Q4: practising outside of sitting and walking
Yogi: Are we meant at the moment to be repeating the phrases just when sitting and walking or in the rest of the time?
Rob: Good, yeah. So you've got an option at this point. See what works for you, okay? The movement towards continuity of the practice is wonderful, but you also don't want to feel too imprisoned or too burdened by it. So what I was going to suggest is perhaps beginning to take it out of the formal practices just a little bit, out of the sitting and the walking just a little bit.
So what might that look like? It might look like, when you remember, as you're walking down the corridor, whoever crosses your path, or walking in front of you, just wish them well. So it's like, it's a very fluid practice. Or you're standing in the lunch queue, and someone's in front of you or behind you -- just wish them well. Or you're scrubbing potatoes, and the person next to you. Or you're sitting at lunch, and these people. And you just dip in and out of that for a few minutes, or a few seconds even. So it's quite ad hoc and quite fluid, and really just in terms of who's coming into your field of awareness.
Now, people are different with this. Some people, if they're using the phrases for the mettā, they keep those same phrases going off the cushion, so it's "May I be, may you be," etc., and they keep that going. Other people would find that, do find that, much too burdensome. It's like the mind needs a rest. And so it could be that you just go down to words, like "peaceful." Or just sometimes the word mettā, mettā. And you just sum up your intention, this moment of intention, whoever's next to you, just this moment of mettā. So again, just finding what feels right for you, because you might be a person who is really happy just keeping the phrases going, the full phrases going all the way through, or you might feel that's way too heavy feeling.
So experiment a little bit, and let it begin spilling over in actually what's a very lovely way of just, "Well, whoever comes, I don't know you, or maybe I do know you, I don't know anything about you, but just wish you well, wish you well." And then they pass, and then there's no one there, and you forget, and then the next person. So if you want to play with that a little bit that'd be ... yeah? Okay. But see -- now would be a good time to begin opening up to that a little bit, after a couple days, but see what feels right. If it begins to feel heavy and pressured, let it go, or just do it much less.
But it's interesting because sometimes we can feel like, "Ugh, that would be so much work," but actually, I remember -- I can't remember; maybe a two-year period or something, all I did was mettā. It wasn't a retreat. I was living, when I lived in the States. I tried to keep it going all day, so would go into work, and in the street, and in the shower and everything. And I began to notice at a certain point, it's actually much more restful to be doing the mettā than it is, you know, all this junk going through the head! [laughs] And it's like, we think, "Well, what about my freedom to think and my creativity, and da-da-da-da-da," but actually, as I noticed, most of the thoughts that went through the mind, it's like I'd had them a thousand times before. It wasn't anything particularly new. And actually, once finding ways to get into that rhythm, it was a really lovely, very spacious feeling. Unfortunately, what the Buddha would called the untrained heart and mind will eventually snake into trouble. It will find trouble for itself. [laughs] You understand? If I don't, if I'm not what the Buddha calls guarding the mind, sooner or later it goes off -- this fantasy, this daydream, and next thing I know I'm creating some trouble for myself. Do you guys know what I mean? [laughter]
So it might feel like, "Ugh, God, I don't want to do that. That's too pressured, or I don't want to put pressure on myself," but actually we're really taking care of ourselves. It's like, "Just settle down in this, and oh, that's nice," you know? So there's a little bit of inertia to want to kind of let it fill the day more. But it's a haven to be in the simplicity of it. It's, as Catherine was saying -- was it this morning? -- brahmavihāra means a divine dwelling or abode or place to hang out. It's like, this is a good place to hang out, rather than all the knots and the complications and the contortions we so often get in when we're not paying attention to where the mind is. Yeah?
Hannah, yeah, please.
Q5: energy body bubble vs more open awareness
Yogi: Something about the field of awareness, this bubble. I can have a sense of a held field close by, and then I'm doing mettā, and I can feel that gets filled up. But as it expands, it doesn't -- I'm wondering what [is] the purpose of having it as a held, contained space.
Rob: More small?
Yogi: Well, not even just the size of it, but having a boundary to it. Because I feel like sometimes -- and I don't know if this is something for me to work through -- but there's tension in that. Whereas if I just let it go, actually everything's much more easeful, but perhaps the awareness isn't quite so focused, exactly where it is or exactly what's happening. And I'm just wondering if that's something to work with, or allow, or ...?
Rob: When you say the awareness isn't so focused, what do you mean by the awareness? The mettā feeling or ...? What's not so focused there?
Yogi: It feels like my attention then goes out very far, but only in specific trajectories, rather than uniformly throughout. So I can go right up there, but I'm forgetting about this bit.
Rob: Okay, what's in that space, then? What's in the big space? What does it feel like?
Yogi: You mean the whole space, or the held space?
Rob: The whole space, the big space.
Yogi: It's just everything. Not anything particular -- existence, infinity, space, that kind of thing.
Rob: Would you say it has mettā in it? Does it feel like it has mettā in it?
Yogi: Sometimes it's very, very palpable that it is mettā, and sometimes I just kind of like the openness of it.
Rob: Yeah, okay. Great.
Yogi: It feels nice to have the boundary relaxed, but I'm also aware that then the mettā that I've built up in the bubble isn't so focused on me or so concentrated.
Rob: Could you think of it as having two possibilities there?
Yogi: What do you mean?
Rob: So one 'gear,' so to speak, of this vehicle is with this bubble being not too much bigger than the body, so it's really here. And yeah, may creep into that some tightness, as you said, at times, and then it might be a matter of working within that bubble, but just kind of letting yourself open to the feeling there. So if there's a feeling -- does it feel nice, this bubble?
Yogi: When I'm doing mettā, yeah.
Rob: Okay, so then letting yourself really open to that enjoyment, okay? So there can be a quality of receiving, opening to the feeling in that bubble. And if you go into more of that receiving mode, it will tend to feel less tight, but it's still here. So there's a sense of bathing, sunbathing, metaphorically, leaning back in this mettā and soaking it up, and it's not quite so tight and pressured. Yeah?
Yogi: And not trying to expand it out, just keeping ...
Rob: At that point, no, that's first gear, is not trying to expand it, just bathing in this here, and just doing everything you can to enjoy that, and let yourself bathe in it. When it's expanding, is it expanding by itself, or you're letting it?
Yogi: I feel like it's, that my awareness doesn't really know why it's trying to hold a particular space. It just kind of goes ... [?]
Rob: Yeah, all right. So they will do different things, a bit like Mei-Wah's question. It will work in different ways, and they're both important. It's like, this car needs at least two gears, okay? It doesn't work so well just in one gear, eventually. So when you keep it more here, it's doing a lot of work on the energy system. It's keeping the mettā more focused in some ways. And then you can let it go at times, but for our purposes -- well, you know, sometimes it will feel like that space is filled with mettā, like the whole big, wide space, maybe even infinite, is filled with mettā. And that's good, but see if you can find a way to make it more uniform, or to allow it to be more uniform. It's actually the case that when we focus on one thing in the space, it becomes less uniform; it's like everything shrinks to that point in the space. Does that make sense?
Yogi: No.
Rob: No? You were saying that there were areas of the space where it's like you're not paying attention, and areas where it feels like there's some ...
Yogi: Well, my attention goes forwards much more than it goes backwards. That's one thing.
Rob: Okay, that's quite normal. We're used to our attention going forward because our eyes are there, etc. I wouldn't worry about that too much. But if you can sometimes just imagine it going backwards. Just gently use your imagination, and imagine it more a 360 degree space, just opening out, yeah? Does that make sense?
Yogi: It does. I mean, then I start getting tension putting my awareness backwards. And I guess my question was more around, is there a purpose in actually just letting it -- I guess what you're saying sounds like when I have it as a held field, it's more about me receiving and feeling it. When it's open, it's about just being in it and letting it flow out or around or through. I mean, I've had it at points where it is just, the whole field is mettā, but a lot of the time it's just been an in-between space. Yeah.
Rob: What's the question there?
Yogi: I think my question is, what is the best place to work? Like is it best to work with this bubble that you were saying, that you've been guiding us to, or with the sense of the openness?
Rob: I would say both, so two gears. So you've got first gear, and you've got another gear which is much, much more open. Most people will find with a lot of mettā practice that it will naturally open up to a kind of infinite space. And it will naturally, the quality of the mettā will feel different in that space than it does in the ... But even that big, infinite space can have different qualities of mettā in it. So sometimes -- and this applies even when the bubble is small, you know -- like we were saying, sometimes it feels warm, sometimes it feels very tender, sometimes it feels very bubbly, sometimes it's very bright. Sometimes it's just more spacious and really still, but it's still got, like, it's a more subtle flavour of mettā. And sometimes it's very warm and very kind of passionate, you know. All of that's good. I would just explore these different spaces for now. And notice, just for now, notice how they're different, and include them both.
Q6: different resonances and malleability of perception
Yogi: Going on from that, Rob, you said that the mettā in the bubble has, feels, different.
Rob: At different times, yep.
Yogi: I've been doing, kind of using one word, rather than a phrase. And then checking back in to what the envelope feels like. And so I've said something like "joy," and before I've kind of -- this was doing it to a friend, so I was sending joy, just check, and then there was another one, and what I've noticed is that if I'm thinking or feeling joy to send, then the mettā's always the same. When I'm thinking "joy," it's kind of sparkling and light. But when I'm thinking, like, "cherishing," immediately it has a different quality. So what's in my mind is colouring the mettā. Is that right?
Rob: Yes, definitely. Yeah.
Yogi: So when I see that, what's in my mind, in my awareness, in my consciousness, has quite a profound ... I mean, which consciousness is that? Is that my personal one?
Rob: Which consciousness is that? How do you mean, which consciousness? Is it personal or universal?
Yogi: Yeah, when one's deep in mettā.
Rob: I'm not sure I know the answer to that. I mean, certainly we can see my individual consciousness, when I think X, it colours the mettā like this. When I drop that word into my consciousness, it colours the mettā like this. Going back to Hannah's question -- this may be later for many people, or maybe coming up now, or whatever -- there's a way when the mettā gets really deep that it really opens up. The whole field opens up, and there's a sense of oneness in there. The sense is not so much of a separate consciousness here and a separate consciousness there. It all begins going into oneness.
There's also a sense very much -- and this is quite an important point, and I'm not sure how much I want to go into it at this point in the retreat -- but it can feel very much, especially in relationship to what you've just observed, Rose, that "Oh, well, I'm colouring this mettā. I'm somehow building the mettā." And yet, again, as it deepens, one gets the sense that what one's really doing is revealing mettā. One's kind of getting out of the way, and mettā is, you could say, at some level, a fundamental aspect of reality that pervades the universe. You could say that love pervades the universe. And within that, it has different shades and qualities, etc. That's as true as saying something in my brain makes a neural connection, and this makes it different. They're both equally valid truths. So, you know, it's like, both, if you want.
I think practically, there are two things. One's in terms of understanding, and one's in terms of practice. In terms of practice, what's really important is your observation. Several people have noticed this, and I mentioned it in the instructions at some point. I say different phrases and different words, and because of this openness to the energy body and the sensitivity, I feel the different resonances, and I can really ride those waves, and they feel differently. If I want to hang out in one, I can do that, and just kind of, "Well, I like the feeling of when I say 'joy.' Certainly not every time, but sometimes when I say the word 'joy' in the mettā, there's a little or a lot or something, a little bit of a something, and I can hang out in that, and let it build, and kind of get into that. Let it pervade, maybe, just kind of ride that for a while, then maybe it settles." So practically speaking, we are, as I say, surfing these waves, and being very responsive. It's a very malleable energy, and we're really learning to kind of coax it, and yeah, surf those waves, practically speaking.
And like I said, feeling cannot be there all the time. It cannot be there all the time. But as I was saying -- was it yesterday in the instructions? -- it's like, if I put too much pressure and demand, I won't notice some of these more subtle resonances. But if I'm not, not so much pressure, and I just let myself be open and sensitive, I actually acknowledge there are these resonances. They might be unremarkable, no problem. We're not kind of intensity junkies here. That's not what it's about: the more intense the better. It's just, it's actually more about sensitivity, and picking up what's there, and just going with that, and slowly kind of cultivating something through that. So that's the practical side.
The other side has to do with insight, and has to do with emptiness: that what we perceive is dependent on what's in the mind. In other words, the mind colours what we perceive. And we may or may not get more into that as the retreat goes on. But that, again, going back to Mei-Wah's question, that is probably the most profound blessing of mettā practice. I'm not even sure how much we're going to get into it on this retreat. But it has to do with, when I engage in cultivation practices, the mind starts moving in a greater range of mind states than it does if it's just left alone. In other words, sometimes when the mettā starts working well, you start going into places of calmness or openness or softness that you wouldn't otherwise have gone to. The range has expanded.
As the range expands, the perception changes. The mind is different, the consciousness is different, and I start to see everything differently. The body feels different, the body sense is different, the self-sense is different, the world-sense, the front lawn is different. What is it to go out on the front lawn, and you're grumbling, and you look around, and [continue grumbling]? And what is it to go out there when the mettā is really ...? It's different. You're out in a deva realm. Which is real? What's the real front lawn? [laughter]
So this, actually, this is the most profound -- if I can approach it with my intelligence, and I want the insight out of it, that's actually the most profound blessing of these cultivation practices. I start to see something about the malleability and what we call the emptiness of perception. And it comes because my range of mind state has grown. So we may or may not get more into that, but there's a lot in what you're saying. Yeah. Does that makes sense when I say that?
Yogis: Yeah.
Rob: It's one thing, obviously, to understand it intellectually, and the blessing, again, of practice is you go in and out, and in and out, and in and out, and then it's a real question: what is the real front lawn? It becomes a real question. It's like, what is the reality here? And the same thing about the inner reality. What is the real body right now? What is the real emotion, all of that? And as I say, in and out, in and out, and seeing it over and over, and again, with this questioning, it starts to undermine the belief in independent existence of things, which has everything to do with emptiness.
Just for someone who hasn't spoken. Yeah, Julia?
Q7: sending mettā vs hanging out in it
Yogi: It was just when you said about mettā pervading everything and kind of about bringing more a sense of devotion into the mettā. What I'm really noticing is that I don't really want to send mettā to me or anyone else; I just kind of want to hang out in mettā, and yeah. You said something about channelling. So just be good to hear ...
Rob: Yeah, very good. This mettā is so rich, and experientially, it moves through so many different ways of expressing and manifesting, etc. And it also relates to what both Rose and Hannah were asking, so ... One way of doing mettā is what I call the very -- I was going to say 'human' way. It's that humdrum human way, and it's like, "I'm wishing you well. May you be well. From this human to that human, may you be well." That's important.
But there are other times -- and people are different with this, but I would say for everyone, with a lot of mettā practice, it deepens into a different sense of things, and there is a sense, as I said, of mettā just pervading everything. And then it's not so much like I over here am giving mettā to you over there; it's like we are in mettā. And what it is is just recognizing and feeling that one is in mettā. So that's an actual, what you could say, meditative, mystical perception -- call it what you want. But it opens up very naturally in that way with time. You know, different people have different preferences. And then the job is more to let yourself soak it up. Recognize that you're in it, and bathe in it, open to it. Am I opening to it? Am I receiving it? It becomes less of a doing, and more of an opening, more of a receiving. But then if you're thinking of mettā to someone else, it's also like, realizing that they're in it, and they're soaking it up.
Now, there could be another way, which is Kuan Yin's over there, and she's beaming her love into someone else, or she's beaming her love into your heart and it's going into someone else. You can play with it; it doesn't really matter. One of the interesting dimensions that differs is how much it feels like I'm doing it, how much I'm doing it. And that's a very interesting piece. And again, as it goes deeper, it will feel like, over time -- this could take weeks for some people, months, whatever; it doesn't matter -- but it begins to feel like I'm not really doing this. It's there somehow. It's there to reveal, to tap into, to allow and acknowledge. But I would still say, even at that stage, it might be important to be able to shift gear into the more humdrum human, "I want to give you." Why? Because that's also part of life, and we exist on that level as well as the more divine level. And it just completes the richness of the mettā practice. So go for that if that's what's working for you. But then sometimes just see if you can do it the other way too. Does that make sense?
Yogi: Thank you. Yeah, and I think that's a good idea, because they often feel very separate.
Rob: Yeah, they will start to feed each other. In other words, go with what works for you, what feels like it's helpful. And then after a while, that makes everything else easier, too, so you can just build on that, rather than trying to build something that's more difficult for you.
Yogi: Okay, thank you.
Q8: effects of intention or prayer on healing
Yogi: First time I went on a mettā sort of retreat and was practising mettā, it very much reminded me of -- I was doing an energy healing course prior to that, and it very much reminded me of distant healing that we used to practise together in a group. And I guess the question I have is, I just wonder whether, you know, obviously our thoughts and our loving intentions, whether that sort of affects the person you're sending it to, really? I guess I've always wondered that.
Rob: Yeah, yeah. I wonder that too! [laughter] Apparently there have been some studies that show some effect of prayer and that kind of thing. I don't know exactly what they were, but they showed some definitely positive effect of that. I would say, though, that though that might be the case, and it can definitely be the case, there are certainly limits on that. That's where the equanimity also comes in, because there are limits to the effects of our love on other beings. You can love someone, but they're still choosing what's maybe not so good for them, etc.
But more importantly, the primary thing that we're doing here is working on our own heart. And when I do the mettā -- and Mei-Wah's question -- when I do the mettā, I'm transforming the habits of intentions of my heart. So we may not typically think of the heart as a sort of collection of habits of intention. It's not very cuddly sounding. [laughs] But in a way, that's what it is. We have habits of seeing things a certain way, intending a certain way. Oftentimes, unfortunately, the habits are not so much towards kindness. Kindness brings happiness. Kindness brings well-being. Kindness opens the heart and consciousness. It softens things. It does all kinds of good stuff. So the groove of the mind is usually not in that. The intentions, the habits of thought are usually not in that.
So what we're doing is we're changing the habits, slowly. There's one real level that we're reconditioning the heart and mind through mettā practice. Does that make sense? Yeah? The more we do that, it begins to be that the groove of the mind is more habitually in kindness. That's where it hangs out more. That becomes more its natural home. When that's the case, I start to be in the world in a different way. What I choose in the world, instead of just being about me, me, me, etc., it starts to spill out so my actions become in the world more -- bringing more healing, etc. And again, like we said with Mei-Wah, I have enough. And when I have enough, I can give. If I don't have enough, it's hard to give, and it's hard to sustain giving. It's hard to even care. When I have enough, naturally the looking and the giving and the sensitivity starts to flow out in a way that's sustainable and healthy. So changing the heart habits, transforming the heart habits over time starts to spill out into the world, into our care in the world.
[48:00, pause in questions]
How are you guys doing? I need to -- well, I'd like to say just a couple of short things. What do I want to say? I can say some stuff tomorrow. One thing very briefly: we've got categories, yeah? So far we've got three: the self, the easiest, and then the friend. But friend is easy -- easy friend, meaning if it feels like, "Oh, we're doing the friend today, and I was really conscious of these difficulties, or the ways that there's some heaviness in that relationship, or some problem in the relationship," choose another friend. They belong in a different category right now. So we're wanting to kind of go where it's easy, easy right now. Sometimes I use the analogy, mettā's a bit like getting a campfire going. You don't come with a big, soggy log, and plonk it on the ... [laughter] You come with the dried bits of kindling and bits of paper and get that going, get it going, get the fire going a little bit. When it's ready, that log will burn. Okay? So you might love your friend, but there might be some difficulty with them, and if there is consciously, then they belong in the difficult person. We're going to get to that much later. So at the moment, keep it light. We're cultivating this buoyancy and lightness and brightness as much as possible. For where we're going with the emptiness and the mettā, that's really going to help us. Does that make sense? Okay.
Yogi: Are the questions over?
Rob: I'm not sure. Catherine needs to go. We could stay a little longer or ...?
Catherine: I have a meeting. Thank you.
Rob: Well, let me ask: do you want to end now, guys, or do you want to continue a little bit, or ...?
Yogi: It's very helpful. You've got a lot more work to do than us!
Rob: I'm happy. I'm in my element! [laughter] Why don't we set a limit, though, so we that we can at least have a little quiet time? We'll take another ten minutes. How's that? Does that sound okay? Okay.
So Jane, yeah.
Q9: relating skilfully to pain
Yogi: It was actually something that Rose said that I wanted to follow on from, where she talks about how the word, the words, bring up a feeling, like a quality. And as you know, I get a lot of pain. I get a lot of pain in my chest, and sometimes it's quite difficult with the mettā. I feel like I've got kind of those two things happening.
Rob: Yeah, coexisting, yeah.
Yogi: And I've been focusing on the space, and the kind of expansiveness, and the allowing. When Rose said that about the words -- because I really felt that, that each one of the different phrases feels like it brings something different.
Rob: Yeah, good.
Yogi: And I thought that if there's an area where there's a lot of pain -- for instance, like for me, in my chest -- and there's an unkindness inherent within it because it's painful and it feels restricted and it feels -- the actual thing of it, it feels unkind. I mean, pain, it doesn't feel kind. And it's quite difficult to somehow get the expansiveness, and you know, the whole journey with it. And I thought about really just going, actually going into it, going towards it, just with a word, just go there and just say "love" or "kindness." Because it feels like it's just that different message. Because the thing in itself, it feels -- yeah, it's difficult, you know? What do you think about it?
Rob: I think that's absolutely fantastic, yeah. So, great.
Yogi: It just feels right.
Rob: Yeah, go for it.
Yogi: Not to work so expansively, but just, not all the time, but some of the time just contradicting the message of the actual physical pain in the body.
Rob: Yes, most definitely. But I would keep the idea of having different gears. So you know, sometimes be more expansive, and it's like giving it lots of space that we talked about when we met. It's like, allowing, allowing. And sometimes putting a different thing in, putting a different response in, which is the word "love" or "kindness" or something. You're actually adding something different.
You see, what typically happens -- and again, this has everything to do with emptiness -- what happens is something goes on for us, inner or outer, and we've always got a response to it. There's always a response to it. There's always a way that we're relating to that thing. And oftentimes the way that we're relating to that thing is not fully conscious. But with pain, for example, we're usually relating to it with "I want to get rid of it," which is a kind of unkindness, even; it's a kind of aversion. And that tends to feed the whole thing. The whole thing becomes a kind of nest of unkindness, and starts injecting energy into the actual pain.
When you start kind of learning to, or developing ways of relating differently to what's going on, that means the whole mix of what's happening begins to be different, and so something different starts to unfold. And we can do that in lots of different ways. So when you're adding, when you're saying, going right there and putting the word "love" in, that's dropping something different into the water. Because maybe even not realizing it, what's there is some fighting it and some anger that it's there and all that. And that's there, and the love is the opposite of that.
Yogi: I know that I'm fighting.
Rob: Yeah. And that's, it's like pouring gasoline on a fire.
Yogi: It's very difficult to just stop doing that.
Rob: Of course, yeah, but that's the habit. And that's what we're saying with Nina. It's the habits of heart. It's okay -- you're talking about something very human. So don't imagine that it's only you with this.
Yogi: I think I'm with the mettā experts! [laughter]
Rob: You're talking -- no, this is really, really important: you're talking, Jane, about a pattern that goes with the nature of consciousness. It's not even just human, actually; it goes with consciousness. When there's difficulty, there tends to be aversion. And that aversion is like pouring gasoline on the fire. And then I've got a whole other ... We'll talk more about this, maybe. And learning to actually not pour gasoline on the fire, but start to pour water on the fire. Really, really important.
Actually, it's not even that the gasoline and the fire are separate things. It's like the reaction to it and the thing itself are one thing. They're feeding each other. So what you're doing is you're changing that whole ... you're learning to not react in a way, and something different can come from that. So I would experiment with that, most definitely. And then the other thing you're doing, the spaciousness -- because also what happens is, when there's pain, we contract around the pain, and that contraction is like a pressure cooker. It heats it up more. It's, again, like pouring gasoline on the fire. The consciousness -- have you noticed this, with physical pain, or fear or something? Everything gets smaller. That smallness is not something separate from the thing itself. It's part of the whole pattern. It's like one pattern: the pain and the smallness around it. And if I start creating or allowing some space, I've got a different pattern then.
Yogi: I think what happens is, you know, I go through the day, and I do the different things, and different things are happening, the mettā bits. And then what happens is it tends to go, "Oh, here again. It's the same. Nothing I've done has done anything." And I guess that it's just to be mindful of that, because that's probably not -- you know, that's not really true. Well, it seems true. It seems like it's exactly the same as it was this morning, or as it was yesterday.
Rob: Yeah. So this is very important, Jane. What about if we just backed off the question of trying to get rid of this thing forever today? What's going to get rid of it? It's a number of things. It's partly changing the heart habits, and eventually it will dissolve. It will dissolve. I can guarantee you that.
Yogi: Can you?
Rob: Yes, actually I can. It will. But more importantly, what's going to be significant is the understanding. The understanding is the piece. And if I start to understand this piece that we've been talking about -- how I'm adding gasoline to the fire, if we stay with that image -- if I start to understand that, then I can learn to stop adding gasoline to the fire. And that's what's going to make the difference. So there's a piece about just doing things differently, but through doing things differently, understanding. So that means that, in a way, it will go back and forth. No problem. But in the going back and forth, I start to understand things. So as you say, it's like, that thought, "Here I am. It's just the same. It's never going to change," guess what that is? That's gasoline. That's gasoline right there.
Yogi: [?] bunch of mettā experts! [laughter]
Rob: No, well, I'm not pretending this is easy. These are deep, difficult human patterns. So, you know, I might say it like this just for the sake of clarity, but I'm not saying that it's easy or quick. But that's the thing that's going to make the most difference eventually. It's understanding how is it that the mind pours gasoline on fires. And you could say that's what the Buddha understood, underneath that tree. That's what he understood: at the deepest level, how the mind pours gasoline on fires unnecessarily.
So we're in this to kind of understand that. And that means I'm going to see it over and over. But thoughts like that, you can feel their poison. You can feel they draw you in. And again, if we talk about perception and what's reality, they draw you in to a certain way of looking and believing. We begin to see, "Is this really real? Or is it adding something to something?"
So, you know, sometimes patterns that have been around a long time -- sometimes they go like that [snaps fingers], and sometimes they take longer to go. You know, it's a gradual process of just changing the energetic grooves but also the understanding. But if you can think about it as this sense of, for anyone who's not a Buddha -- that's everyone in this room [laughs] -- anyone who's not a Buddha, any time there's some difficulty, we add extra difficulty without realizing it. Okay? And the question is, "Can I begin to see how I'm doing that, and kind of begin to stop doing that?" So everything that you've said, this noticing, and if I put the word "love" in, it's like, it's telling you, it's part of that understanding. And it's that understanding that will, that's going to really have a lot of power, as much as just the patience with doing things differently, They both come together. Going back to Mei-Wah, the cultivation and the insight. They come together, and they're very powerful. Sometimes it's sudden, sometimes it's more slow. But that question, just being interested in, "Yeah, okay, the mind is doing something that's adding more," and I'm interested in learning how it's adding more so I can begin not adding more. Yeah?
Yogi: Thank you.
Rob: You're welcome, Jane.
Yogi 2: I'd just like to say to Jane, this is my first mettā retreat, so I'm no expert! [laughter]
Rob: Yeah, yeah.
Yogi: I'm sure it's like that, but I was just kind of acknowledging that kind of ...
Rob: Hands up -- who's a mettā expert? [laughter] Yeah.
I think it's probably good to stop, if that's okay, just in terms of containing it a little bit. Does that feel okay? Yeah. Okay, so let's have a bit of quiet together.
