Transcription
A little unsure how much to say this morning or whether to split it in two, because now we have two branches, two parallel streams to our practice, with the mettā and what Catherine was talking about last night. So let's see how it goes. Just really instructions this morning. Quite simple.
So with the mettā, yesterday Catherine introduced the category of the difficult person. And as we've said quite a few times, we're basically moving towards this fullness of what the mettā is. The ideal aspiration of the mettā is all beings, all beings without exception. Completely limitless and boundless, the extent and the radius of the mettā. So the loving-kindness embraces all beings without any exclusion. That's what we're going to be introducing this morning.
In a way, you know, we could have gone much slower with the whole thing, and sort of spaced the categories more evenly. This will be obviously the last category. But what we'll have from now on is we'll have six categories of mettā that you can choose from. So you'll have the self, the easiest person, the friend, the neutral, the difficult, and all beings. That's sort of six gears the mettā practice can be in. And from now on, at this point in the retreat with the mettā practice, having that sense of the availability of all six categories, and just like, "What works right now? What's helpful in the mettā right now? And am I trying to get the fire going? Or am I trying to stretch the heart a little bit where it perhaps doesn't want to go?" To be flexible with that sense of choosing from these categories in any sitting or in any period, sub-period of a sitting. So mix them up, and just choose in that way.
Sometimes -- well, I'll get to this -- sometimes actually all beings is easier than any single person. There's a way that it's very simple. We'll talk about that in a second. It's very simple. Sometimes it feels like too much to do all beings, and you need to be more with oneself or one specific friend or whatever it is.
And just to touch on something I've mentioned before: it can be, and we've said this, it can be really, really healing over a period of time to really emphasize the mettā to oneself and really give oneself that tenderness and that care, and that holding and receiving, that oftentimes we haven't so much, or we may be in need of. And so weighting the mettā practice towards oneself can be hugely skilful. And can sometimes be unskilful. [laughs] This goes with everything in practice. If I am giving mettā to another person, I am meditating and the mettā is going to another person or to all beings, there's a very real way that I am getting healed in that process. It's almost like, this energy has to move through me on its way out to other beings. It cannot reach other beings without saturating my body and touching me. So sometimes the sense, like I told you, whenever it was, the other night, I just want to hunker down in my little cocoon of mettā to myself -- actually, it cannot not pervade me on its way out. Do you see that?
And I wonder sometimes, the inclination -- it's very understandable, and I've done it in the past as well, and it's been very fruitful, but sometimes when it's, "I just want to give the mettā to myself," I wonder if sometimes that can partly be connected with this fear, really, that a person can have. It's a sense of there not being enough love to go around. "There's not enough, and I better keep it here. There's only so much, and I've only got so much, and there's only so much in the universe, and I better make sure that I get my share and not squander it to all these other people." [laughter] Like so many things, there's not a right and a wrong answer. What's right is to have the openness of questioning. That's what's right, rather than there's a right answer and there's a wrong answer. And is that questioning alive? And am I open to considering how I'm doing things? And it might be that one really wants to emphasize the mettā towards the self. But to keep that openness and that questioning alive.
When we get to the loving-kindness to all beings, there are different kind of techniques that you can use. And I actually don't mind which techniques. So one way that's quite popular for people to use is by direction. So it's, so to speak, all beings to the north (actually, that's east, but never mind!), all beings in front, you could say. All beings to the north, all beings to the south, all beings to the west, and all beings to the east, all beings to the up, and all beings to the down. That's six. All beings to the north-east, all beings to the north-west, all beings to the south-east and all beings to the south-west. Some people even go all beings to the north-north-west. [laughter] So if that's your cup of tea, go for it. Honestly, that's really, really fine. And it can help. They're all beautiful ways of practising. That's not my particular favourite, but it's actually very nice.
Another possibility is categories of being, okay? So you do something like all insects, all humans, all mammals, you know, all small furry mammals, all slithering things, all angelic beings, whatever. But then you could go all men, all women, all children. You can split it up in lots of different ways. You can be quite creative there. So that could be very interesting, if you want to explore that. You can also combine these two methods. So, you know, all small furry animals to the north-north-west ... [laughter] If you want. Have fun with it. So all that's possible.
My preference, and I'll give you a reason for this, my preference is actually to be much simpler and kind of just going from this body sense that we've been developing, this openness to the body and this sense of the energy of the body and the space of the body. It's actually just that begins radiating out, and this kind of sphere of light, of mettā, of energy or whatever it is, begins just radiating out like a ball. It's just a ball and it just goes 360 degrees and in all directions. So it has to touch everything that it encompasses, and eventually it gets infinite. You're just opening that out. And what you're really doing then is you're starting with this body sense that we've already been emphasizing, and that openness of the body, and then just allowing that to expand, and allowing the mettā to expand with the sense of the mettā, and the imagination of the mettā, even, to expand with that. So in a way, just spatially, it will then encompass all beings very naturally.
Yogi: So is that without saying anything?
Rob: You can still use the phrases, absolutely. But you could say, "May all beings be da-da-da," or May we ..." Yeah, thank you, Jane. That's important, because sometimes a person's saying, "May all beings," and just, what's crept in is, "All beings except me," without even realizing it. So "May we" might be interesting as well. Yeah, you could use the phrases if they're helpful, or if they're feeling like, at times the phrases are not so important or helpful, you just let them go, same as before.
So like everything, there are many ways to do it, and even with this sense of spaciousness that can extend, for some people, just like -- remember when we said with the body sense, and you can just feel into the body sense, and then kind of interpret that as mettā? Do you remember we talked about that? Yeah? Same with the space, actually. And for some people, it's actually allowing themselves to get a sense of really big space, and then just hanging out there, and then realizing that there's -- mettā naturally begins to fill that space, just by virtue of the spaciousness of consciousness opening up. Does that make sense?
So one obvious way is how we've been doing it. You do the mettā, you just open it up and extend the mettā. The other way is actually letting things become spacious, and just paying attention, very light, very delicate to the quality of that space. Some people, that works better actually -- spaciousness first, and then noticing, "Oh, look! In that space, it has the quality of mettā in it." It might be quite subtle. Might be.
And with that, or with all this, opening to this spaciousness, it can be, it's possible -- I'm not saying it will happen; it's possible -- that a perception is allowed, let's say, a perception is allowed that, as I was saying just now, it's like the love imbues the space. There is this space. The universe is obviously full of space, at one level. And it's filled with love, it's filled with mettā. And it's a sense of one noticing that or perceiving that. It's shot through with love. Love or mettā is, you could say, woven into the fabric of the universe.
So it's possible that, at times, for some people in the mettā practice, that kind of perception begins to open up. We've actually touched on it in here before, I think in a Q & A. And a person begins to wonder: "Well, what is 'love' then? What is 'love,' this word? And 'it's this, it's that,' define it this way, define it that way." Actually, the deeper one goes into practice, the more one sees, it's going to always be beyond my concept of it. You can't put it in a box like that, this word, 'love,' and say "It's this. It's that." Do you remember those little cartoons, "Love is ..." with the two naked little children? [laughter] "It's this, it's that." It's all of that, maybe.
So all that's good. Maybe something like that opens up, and if it does, wonderful, beautiful. And fine if it doesn't. It's all good. All these senses of love that we have, all these perceptions, really, is what they are, perceptions of love, they're all important and they're all good. Julia asked a question one time -- sometimes the sense of love is very personal; it's this self to that self, and wishing you well. Really, really important, really beautiful. And sometimes, for some people when the practice deepens and opens in this way, there's a sense of love being almost something impersonal. As I say, it's just 'in the universe.' It's a kind of mystical perception. So the human and the mystical, the personal and the impersonal, all of it's there for us. And all of it's important. Not to kind of -- what's the word? -- close the door on one or the other, or prioritize one or the other even.
What ends up being more significant here is the change in perception. Again, we've touched on this, I think in Q & As and things -- change in perception. So it's like, things open up, practice goes 'deeper,' if we use that word, and there are changes in perception. And it's the fact that perception changes that's really significant, and how it changes. This has everything to do with emptiness. And we see, and I think -- I can't remember if I said this at one point -- I see: I have this sense of a problem, a difficulty. I'm having a difficulty with a person, or with something in myself, or with a situation. It could be here. It could be elsewhere. And it really seems like it's a problem. And then, because I'm doing the mettā practice, and I just see, I go in and out. If I'm really dedicated to the mettā practice, putting the time in, it goes in and out of different mind states. Sometimes it's soft and open and relaxed and there's that warmth there. Sometimes I'm tight and contracted and reactive. And everything in between. And I just see: the mind state swings back and forth, back and forth. It swings.
And with that, the perception changes. When I feel contracted and reactive, what's my perception of this problem? It's problematic, right? The problem is definitely a problem. It looks like a problem. It's obvious that it's a problem -- quite clear. I feel it as a problem. It seems like the problem is in the problem. And as I swing the other way at times, the mettā practice begins to open out, and warm up a little bit, etc., there's this opening of the body, of the texture of things. And what happens? Sometimes it swings enough that I look at that same problem, and where's the problem gone? Have you ever experienced this? [laughter] It's dissolved. We say, in technical Dharma language, we say the problem is empty of inherent problemness. It's empty of inherent problemness. It's not really a problem without me making it a problem. I have to make a problem. Nothing in itself is a problem, by itself, independent of me. We say it's empty. It's empty of inherent problemness, problemitude or whatever the word is. [laughter]
So we can see this, but it's like, how many times do I need to see that till I get it, till the coin really, really drops, and I cannot any more believe in the inherent problemness of things? And then what is it to move through life knowing that in the heart?
Yogi 2: I could hazard a guess?
Rob: What's that?
Yogi 2: On how many times. [laughter]
Rob: What is the answer?
Yogi 2: I don't know ... millions?
Rob: Well ... I've heard [laughs] that it takes 10,000. Something to do with the brain neurochemistry or something. [laughter] "A lot," I think is the answer. I don't think it's so linear actually. And that's partly -- if we go back to me harping on about this body sense and the samādhi, etc. -- the deeper the samādhi (in other words, the deeper the sense of quietness and openness and harmonization of the being), the much greater the chance of an insight that you have really taking deep, deep root in the soil of the being. So I can say, I can throw out a thing like that, and if you're agitated, and even in the middle of agitation, say "Yes, yes, I know, that makes sense. Of course that's right," it doesn't make any difference at all. When the being gets really quiet -- that's why we keep saying, "Go where it's easy. Really develop that. Let it get quiet when it can." It's not always going to be like that, but something happens to the soil of the consciousness at those quiet times.
The same insight -- and that insight in that moment might not even look very remarkable or feel very remarkable. In other words, intensity is not a marker of how deep an insight goes. "Had this fantastic experience!" Or "This awful thing I've just went through, and then I saw, and it was like an explosion and da-da-da, and the lightning came and the heavens ..." [laughter] And it's like, great! And then half an hour later ... [laughter] Sometimes intensity goes with lasting insight, and sometimes it really doesn't. I might just see, I'm just sitting, and the *samādhi'*s gone deep, and things are opening up, and I'm just looking at a little niggle in my back. It's really not even that painful. And I'm just seeing that it takes me to make a problem out of it, and that by itself it's not a problem. And the shift even from the amount of suffering to the release of that suffering is not even that dramatic. But it could be that one's seen it really, really deeply, and that stays in the heart as something very powerful, because one's unpacking, unbinding this sense of what reality is, or beginning to do that. So it may be intense, it may be not intense, etc., but a problem is dependent on the mind state.
Related to that, today is an absolutely beautiful day so far. Beautiful light and stillness. And the last few days have not been that. They've been cold and rainy and windy and all that. One teacher I had who was very influential for me, he said sometimes, "If it's cold and raining, and you don't feel like going for a walk, go for a walk. If you're hungry, don't eat. And if you're tired late at night, don't go to bed yet." And a person can hear that and say, "That's not kindness! That's not kindness! I want to be cosy. I want to wrap myself in the cosy, take care of myself." We're missing something there. We're missing something.
Now, see where this lands. Oftentimes we don't see that there's aversion around. Look outside on a day not like today, and it looks cold and rainy and the air's wet and everything, and there's aversion to that. I think, "If I go out, I'll get soggy, and it'll be damp and cold and unpleasant." And there's aversion to that. Or sometimes even with tiredness, there's a sense of, "I don't like this feeling of tiredness." There's aversion to the tiredness.
That aversion is a non-openness of heart. Do you see that has everything to do with love? I'm not sure if it's obvious. [laughs] It has everything to do with love. When the heart is open, first of all, energy comes, in terms of tiredness. But also, the heart being open is the same as aversion getting less. So it's maybe not obvious, and I'm seeing some people look puzzled there. So we tend to think of the heart being open having to do with this sense of kindness towards beings and softness, etc., da-da-da. But actually, when there's aversion to something like cold, windy rain, there's a closing of the heart. Check it out. Don't just believe me. Check it out, explore. When you feel like you don't want to go outside, what state is the heart in? Actually check with your heart centre, right in the centre of the chest. Is it open or closed? Just check, check it out. So again, love is bigger than we think it is. It doesn't fit into this little image that I might have.
Yogi 3: Would you say the same for clinging and attachment?
Rob: Yes, yeah. Generally, yeah. It's a little, maybe a little more complicated, but yeah.
Yogi 4: It's kind of pretty cool going to sleep sometimes though, as well, isn't it?
Rob: Going to sleep is pretty cool?
Yogi 4: Yeah.
Rob: Well, we need to sleep.
Yogi 4: When you get into bed, and you're like, this is so cool. You know what I mean? [laughter]
Rob: Of course, and then eating when we're hungry, of course. And staying in with a cosy cup of tea when it's cold, all of that. Again, if I go back to what I said at the beginning, it's like, it's not a right and a wrong here. What I'm interested in is, am I questioning the habitual ways I relate to things and the habitual ways I assume around things? So of course we need to sleep, and it's lovely to enjoy that at the end of the day, just lying there, etc. And we like warmth, and that's why we build houses and build things, you know, obviously. [laughs] But something in here can get contracted in a way that we wouldn't even make the connection with love. We don't even think of the two together. We don't even think of that having anything to do with this. And it does, it absolutely does. All I need is an honesty and an openness and a sensitivity to how this is all feeling, and I'll start to notice that.
Yogi 5: So is it kind of a container again? Containing experience?
Rob: Which?
Yogi 5: To stay up when you are tired?
Rob: Maybe put it this way: when there's aversion (let's say) around, we either get dragged along by that aversion. It tells us what to do. Aversion is a movement of closing. We're closing the heart. We're closing the consciousness. Yeah? Do you see that? Do you see that aversion is closing? When we go along with what aversion says -- aversion says, "Don't go out there. You might get wet" [laughs] -- there's a closing. We go along with that closing of what it says to do. And how do we end up feeling? We end up feeling more closed. And we might say, "Well, I want to have the love, but I don't want to ..." [laughter] It's like, maybe I can't have one without the other.
Say I'm tired at night. And of course, I'm just trying to open things up a little bit here, and the questioning. It's a similar thing: tiredness comes, and there's a sense of wanting to close down. You know, when we go to sleep we're actually closing down. We're closing out the world, hunkering down, curling up and closing everything -- which of course can be a movement of kindness, and it is. And yet that closing down, it's like, if I'm going along with it, I'm just closing, and I close the whole system down, and right here in the heart as well.
If I don't, then actually it's possible -- you're free to play with all of this as you wish or not, and there may be some discoveries here. It may be late, and I stay up, and actually, if the heart opens more -- maybe everyone else has gone to bed, and I'm just working, and the heart starts to open, and suddenly I have more energy. Now, where did that come from? It's just to do with the aversion, opening or closing. When the aversion is there, it closes the being, closes the energy system. We feel tired. Now, not to make too big of a deal of this, because like I said, the heart opens and closes all day long. The energy system opens and closes all day long. That's normal. It's completely normal.
Yogi 6: Sorry to bump in. Do you think that's a key area where the aversion arises, at the heart centre?
Rob: Every time there's aversion, it will affect the heart centre, no question. And every time the heart centre is closed, there is likely to be some aversion causing that and resulting from that. Yeah, definitely. But not to make too big a deal. The heart opens and closes all day long, many times, and most of the night as well. And we want to understand the influence that has. When the heart is closed, things look, I feel, a certain way, etc. When that opens, that changes. And also we can support some of the conditions here. Like I said, we can actually start questioning things and playing with things somewhat differently.
Yogi 7: Are you saying if you notice that you're feeling a bit contracted and painful, one response might be, "Right, I'm going to open my heart! Out I go"? And you could end up with it feeling kind of forced ... something open. So you're saying obviously that wouldn't be a wise thing to do, but you might want to play.
Rob: You might want to play. Forcing rarely works. Sometimes forcing works. But it's like -- so many examples: I'm in an interview with someone, and they're quite upset about something, and you know, they're working with it. And then they say, "I think I'm going to just" -- this is quite common, relatively common; they say, "I think I'll just go and get under the covers now." And I understand. It feels vulnerable, etc. And sometimes my sense is that's completely the wrong thing. It's completely the wrong thing. Actually what they're doing is shutting something down there. And what might be good is to go for a walk and open something up. Or just the fact that I don't feel like it, and then I do it, it can reverse that movement of the contraction. It's not a forcing, it's just -- it's more like opening things out and experimenting. I have this view, and it just seems so obvious that what I need to do is hunker down with a cup of tea, and kind of do this [curling up], and that looks like kindness. And maybe there's something about opening up the whole thing.
I never intended to talk more than about two minutes on this. [laughter] Here we are. It's obviously hitting a nerve here! [laughter] There's not a right way and a wrong way. It's the third time I'm saying this. What I'm more interested in is, how open are you to questioning? That's what matters. That's what matters to me. Someone could always be -- you know, they're from the SAS or whatever, and they always go out in the rain, and they always push themselves, and they always force. Great. They might need to work a little bit on the cosiness factor.
It's like, I need to look at myself, and what's my pattern? I always go for the cosy cup of tea and the early night and the da-da-da and the whatever. And if that's the pattern, am I closing myself without even realizing it, and I've just gotten used to it? So for me, always what's more important is: how open and alive is your questioning? Where you end up in terms of result, I actually don't care at all. I really don't care. What I care about is the aliveness of the questioning. That makes all the difference, all the difference. It's so easy to go through life driven by certain movements inside ourselves, without even being conscious of what they are and how much they constrict us. So easy. Until I start opening to that and questioning, and trying different things, it's like ... there it goes. And the days go by, and the years go by, and the decades go by.
It's interesting that that lasted longer [laughs], but what I really wanted to point out is, this question of heart openness maybe touches on more than we think it does, in terms of what love is and what kindness is, and how the heart opens.
Yogi 8: Just what Catherine was saying last night, it follows on from that, but she also talked about we were going to be doing the two practices kind of alongside of each other. I thought you might have said something about -- you were saying in a sitting, we do mettā, and then we use also what Catherine was talking about as well?
Rob: Yeah, thank you, Jane. So here's the deal -- that's why I said at the beginning, I'm not sure whether to split this into two today. So it's now 11:30. I can talk a little bit about that other practice. I could do that now or later. But the day's a little tight just in terms of my scheduling. What's your preference? I'm happy either way. I'm certainly happy to talk a bit more now, or have you kind of had enough?
Yogi 9: Later would be my preference. But I don't mind.
Yogi 10: I was kind of quite eager to know how to do it. But also if there is a possibility for later, that's fine.
Rob: Why don't I come back at four o'clock and really speak briefly then? And then I probably need to be elsewhere. But I'll just try and keep it brief at four. Does that sound okay? And just be quite specific about how to work with that other practice for now. Is that okay? Okay.
[31:58, guided meditation begins]
So why don't we sit now? Finding your way into your posture. Filling out the posture with sensitivity, with awareness. Beginning the mettā practice when you feel ready, just wherever it feels easiest. And in the course of the day today, taking some time to explore really allowing the mettā to open and to be unbounded, to touch all beings. As always, allowing the playfulness, the creativity, the responsiveness to come into the practice. And finding what works for you.
[34:45, guided meditation ends]
