Transcription
We talked about this idea of developing ways of looking, cultivating and kind of training in ways of looking, ways of relating to the moment, to experience. And as I said, we're actually going to explore three in particular of these. Actually, the staying at contact is also a way of looking, and mettā is also a way of looking, but three in particular called the three characteristics. And the first one was the impermanence. Now, as I said, we're moving quite quickly through these, because I want to throw them out. So it was only two days ago we did the impermanence. I'm aware of that. As I said, people will find different of these more helpful. Each person will find, perhaps, a favourite or a couple of favourites. Just to try, and see what works. You may find, for instance, that you try the second one, but actually the impermanence works better for you. And then, after you've tried all three, then you know that's where you're kind of putting your eggs.
This second one -- there are two ways of doing it, two main ways of doing it. And the first way is really just a whisker, a hair's breadth away from the impermanence. This second way of looking, the second characteristic of the three characteristics, is the dukkha. And that's a very rich word in the tradition. I mean, usually it gets translated as 'suffering,' but it's very rich. It has a lot of depth, breadth, and subtlety to it. So for our purposes, for this particular avenue of meditation, maybe we want to translate it as 'unsatisfactory.' And so it's a way of looking at a phenomenon, an experience, an event, and looking through the lens of knowing that this thing, this phenomenon is unsatisfactory. What does that mean? Anything that arises, anything that is born, anything that is impermanent, any conditioned phenomenon is unsatisfactory, partly because of its very impermanence. It cannot fully satisfy me. It cannot lastingly fulfil me. I cannot be fulfilled forever, happy ever after, from this experience, from this phenomenon. So because of the fleeting nature of things, because they don't last, there's a kind of, we could say, an unsatisfactoriness that goes with them.
(1) With that, one is deliberately seeing things, and kind of even labelling them lightly, as "unsatisfactory, unsatisfactory." Bird sounds -- beautiful, but it's unsatisfactory in the sense that it can't fill me. This feeling of whatever feeling I have in the body, whether it's pleasant or unpleasant, it's just unsatisfactory, unsatisfactory. With that, what we're really doing -- again, all of these three characteristics, it's that they're ways of supporting letting go. That's all they are. They're just different angles of supporting letting go in the moment. So when we regard something as unsatisfactory, we're kind of unhooking, in a certain way, from that thing. We let go, we don't cling, and we also see: I don't need to reject this thing. It's just dukkha. It's just unsatisfactory. [4:18]
In the Christian mystical tradition, they have two phrases -- beautiful, beautiful phrases. There's 'holy discontent.' That's this same sense of, whatever the experience is -- lovely, majestic, whatever it is, beautiful, mundane, boring, difficult -- there's a sense of, "That's not it. That's not it. That can't do it for me. This cannot do it for me." And there's a sense, actually, that that feeling of holy discontent, that sense of holy discontent, is something one wants to cherish. It's a precious gift, that one is not just content with getting what one wants in the phenomenal world, hanging on to what one likes. And out of that holy discontent comes this attitude as well of holy disinterest. But the emphasis is on the 'holy.' So it's not just grumpy discontent because I'm in a bad mood. [laughter] And it's not just disinterest because I'm kind of bored and, you know, I'd rather watch TV or whatever. Holy discontent and holy disinterest. And again, they're ways of looking, ways of relating to the present moment, and the passing parade, the show of what happens in the present moment, in consciousness.
So Meister Eckhart -- probably one of the most profound of the Christian mystics -- he has this teaching, and it's really a meditation teaching: "Let go of creatures." He's not talking about, you know, "Don't keep goldfish" or something. [laughter] He means -- what's a creature? Anything that's created, anything that's born, anything that's a conditioned phenomenon. Let go, let go of creatures, because a creature cannot be -- I mean, in the Christian mystical tradition, a creature is not the Creator, cannot be that. If I want to know, in that language, if I want to know what God is, I have to not be so entangled in the created. I actually don't want to go into all that right now, because there's a lot there. So I'm more just wanting to present the instructions.
This is not -- I mean, it might sound, I'm quite aware, this might sound, "Well, that sounds life-denying." It's not that at all. I would rather see it as, rather than life-denying, it's not limiting life. It's not limiting life, or being limited to life. [7:20]
So what happens? What happens if I'm not caught up in phenomena and not limited by phenomena? What happens if I just, again, sustain this mode of relating, this mode of looking? What happens? Not to be caught up, not to be limited in that way. Everything -- just let go, let go, let go, let go. And this isn't a denial, of course. And so, remember, these ways of looking, they're just modes, they're just gears of our car. Another time, of course, this heartache, I need to be right with it. I need to give it attention. I need to explore where it's coming from, and understand it, and work in a different way to bring the healing. So they're just modes. They're just gears.
It's also, as I said, it's not a disconnection here. So it's not about boredom or just a kind of mundane disinterest. That's more when aversion has crept into the practice: I'm just not interested. I'm just bored. Whenever there's boredom, there's aversion. There cannot be a feeling, an emotion of boredom without aversion there, rejection of experience.
So if one lets oneself play with this, as I said, it's just a hair's breadth away from what we've already been doing with the impermanence. If I just let myself play with this, this letting things go because they cannot fulfil, because they're impermanent, I see that's not something cold. It doesn't lead to a coldness at all. So when I say something's unsatisfactory, it's not that I'm pushing it away or disgusted with things, or repulsed by the world of phenomena. It's not that at all. It's more that there's letting go, letting go. It's a practice of letting go -- you could say a practice of releasing, releasing the grip.
Yogi: They can't fulfil you on a permanent basis?
Rob: Yes, yes. And also, as we see as we do it, there are limitations, even on a temporary basis, of how much a finite, impermanent phenomenon can fulfil us. Even on a temporary basis, that has a real ceiling to it.
Should I speak, and we'll see what's there later, and maybe there's something for tomorrow as well?
Okay, so that's the first one. It's really not that -- as I said, it's just a little step more than the impermanence thing. (2) The second is working more directly with the relationship with phenomena. Actually, the first one is, of course, as well, but I'll explain what I mean. So we've thrown out this word, both Catherine and I, at several points: vedanā. And as we've said, what that refers to is the felt sense -- with any experience, at any of the sense doors, the texture of it being pleasant, or unpleasant, or somewhere in between, kind of what they call 'neutral.' So that's the vedanā of any experience. It's just felt as unpleasant or pleasant or neutral.
Yogi: Meaning, it's the texture? The texture is pleasant?
Rob: The texture is pleasant. Or yeah, the experience itself is felt as unpleasant or pleasant, yeah, or neutral. Does that much make sense? Yeah? Now, when there's a vedanā, there's an automatic reaction with vedanā: that when it's pleasant, we want to hold on to it, and we want more of it. And when it's unpleasant, I want to get rid of it. I push it away. I reject it. There's aversion. And neutral can go a couple of different ways. I could just completely lose interest, decide there's not enough here for me, and push it away out of boredom and a sense of lack, or go off in some fantasy. But this is what we're interested in: the relationship with an object, or the relationship with an experience or a phenomenon. How do I know what that relationship is? How do I know? How do I tell whether it's grasping -- trying to pull the thing towards me and hang on to it -- or pushing away? What tells me that?
Now, obviously, sometimes, the mind is screaming, "I've gotta get out of here!" You know, it's really loud. "This is terrible," etc. It's obvious what the relationship is, because of the thoughts. But oftentimes, in practice, that level of reactivity quietens at times, and there's still the presence of pushing or pulling, aversion or clinging, but it's not manifesting through thought, through a thought -- rejection, or greed, or whatever. So then how would I notice it? How do I notice that, if the mind is not what's telling me, if the thinking mind is not what's telling me?
Well, if I'm a little more spacious in my awareness, just a little bit, maybe -- we've been harping on about the space of the body -- I can begin to get a feeling or a sense, in the body, of when aversion or grasping is around. Actually, aversion is, almost for everyone, easier to notice, interestingly. It's easier to feel the presence of that. But I notice something in the body. What do I notice in the body? That there's some of degree of contraction or tensing in the body whenever there's aversion or grasping. It might be in one area. It might be that the shoulders go up past the ears. It might be that the belly contracts. It might be some other area. It might be just in that sense of the space of the whole body, that there's just a sense of contraction. The space itself contracts of the body. And that's partly why, with the mettā practice, we were saying, "sensitive to the whole body." So this, too -- it reflects the mind, in a way, more clearly sometimes than the mind itself is showing. [14:13] Now, sometimes this is very, very gross. You know, really, the whole body is clamped up. And sometimes it's very subtle. It's just a ripple or a slight tensing -- slight contraction, not even tensing -- coming into the body sense, space of the body.
I'll throw this out now, because at some point, either on this retreat or another retreat, it will be useful: sometimes it's even more subtle than that. And it's not even in the body sense that it's reflected. There's just a little bit of pushing away of something, or a little bit of trying to hang on to something -- push-pull -- and doesn't even barely reflect in the body. The body has become so open or light or kind of disappeared, it actually reflects in the sense of the spaciousness of the awareness, of the mind, of the consciousness. The sense of the awareness is quite open, the body is very light, and then that space of the awareness just contracts a little bit. So this is very, very subtle. It's reflecting the presence of subtle pushing or pulling.
So, what to do? What to do then? In this form, the second form of this dukkha characteristic, this way of looking, we're getting sensitive to the presence of aversion and clinging, and seeing if we can relax it, relax it. So it's a funny thing. When there's pushing or pulling, as I said, the body tenses a little bit or contracts. And then, funnily enough, if I relax the body, the clinging relaxes. It works the other way too. Is this making sense, guys? Yeah? Good.
So the practice, then, is kind of -- actually, I'm dividing this second one of this second characteristic into four possible ways of doing it, just to show there are lots of possibilities here. (2.1) So the first one is just doing it again and again. One's sensitive to the presence. We're developing a sensitivity to the presence, the feeling of pushing or pulling, rejecting or holding on. Developing the sensitivity to what that feels like, and then relaxing it. And then again, and then again. So it's really just doing that over and over and over, relaxing this push-pull.
So with that, I want to feel, and really feel in the body, again, how does it feel to push or to pull? How does it feel when there's aversion and craving? And how does it feel when that's relaxed, when there's letting go of aversion, of resistance, of craving? So it feels certain ways, and there are things to notice there. And one of the things -- it just feels better to let go. When there's aversion and grasping, it doesn't feel very good, right? Okay, so the first one is going via the body, and just relaxing that, relaxing, just relaxing over and over, because via the body, we're relaxing the relationship with the thing.
The second and the third are really just repeating what I said about the unsatisfactory before. So sometimes you're there, and you're paying attention to the relationship with a thing. You know there's some aversion here with whatever this is, this pain in the body or whatever, and there's some aversion. (2.2) And a way of relaxing the relationship with is just reminding yourself of the impermanence of this thing, or just tuning again into the impermanence, acknowledging the impermanence. When I see the impermanence, then there's a tendency to let go. [18:18]
Yogi: We're still working with the vedanā there? We're just looking ...?
Rob: You're working with the vedanā, but we're prioritizing the attention to the relationship with, and not the vedanā itself. Yeah, that's quite important. So yes, there's a vedanā there, but I'm more interested in the relationship. We're working now on the relationship with things. That's the thing that's being emphasized and prioritized.
Using the impermanence to help you relax the relationship, you can sometimes, if there's a sense of space opening up in the practice, sometimes you can kind of see phenomena disappear. You see them dissolve into the space. [19:11] I don't know if anyone's glimpsed that at all, but that seeing them disappear and dissolve also really -- and letting them dissolve into the space, letting them just disappear. It's like raindrops landing on the sea, or landing on the lake. They just land there, they dissolve, they disappear. And seeing their dissolution, that helps letting go, which relaxes the relationship. (2.3) And again, of course, third possibility is, you can just reflect: unsatisfactory, unsatisfactory. Same thing -- it will relax the relationship. Yeah?
(2.4) Last possibility, number four, is get really close to what's going on. So maybe I have a pain in the body, maybe it's a sound, maybe it's an emotion. Whatever it is, get really close. Get up close with the awareness to it. Get intimate with it. And then, rather than trying to be really clear about what it is, and really noticing precisely every aspect of the phenomenon itself, the experience itself, it's getting up close, and then "allowing, allowing." You can even drop in that word, as a whisper, into the mind as a gentle suggestion. It's like, allowing, allowing this thing, allowing this experience, allowing this phenomenon, as fully, as totally as possible. So here, the emphasis is on, really, again, on the relationship, and on supporting a relationship of 100 per cent allowing of this thing, allowing it to be there. So you could also say opening to it. Again, I'm not so interested in being really clear what the experience is, etc. I get up close, as close as possible. Then it's opening, allowing. Or you could say, "Welcoming." Again, you can drop that in: "Welcoming." So I'm not so interested in the clarity about the object, the precision about the object, but about the relationship with. It's that that we're interested in here.
Yogi: Rob, just clarify -- so at this point, you're talking about the object, not the vedanā, with the allowing?
Rob: Both. Both, yeah. Definitely both. Thank you, yeah. The vedanā is always wrapped up in an object. So you could either be aware of the vedanā, and then allowing the vedanā, just allow it to be unpleasant. Allow it to be neutral. Allow it to be pleasant. Welcome those vedanā. Or you're welcoming the object itself, and that includes the vedanā. So, a subtle distinction, but really the same thing. [21:55]
So when Nina asked about the fear yesterday, a little bit in the way I was showing you how to work, that's also -- it's like creating space, and then really allowing this thing, allowing the actual experience, welcoming it, giving it space. Now, obviously -- well, maybe it's obvious -- allowing is the quietening of aversion. Do you see that? When I allow something, I'm not aversive to it. But it's not clinging. Allowing is a different attitude. It's the quietening of aversion, but it's not clinging. So in this mode, we're really emphasizing allowing, allowing, allowing -- very beautiful practice, really, really beautiful.
And if I find what works for me in all of those possibilities, maybe different things at different times, of course, I start to see something we've touched on before, but it's so important to see it, and repeat the seeing of it. I see that 99 per cent of the suffering, the dukkha, comes from the relationship with the thing. It comes from or because of the aversion or the clinging, not because of the thing itself. Suffering comes from my aversion and my clinging. And we could change the language -- say, the thing, as we've said before, the thing itself is empty of inherent problem-ness-itude.
And that's an insight I want to repeat over and over until it's burned into the heart: that the thing by itself is not a problem unless I make it a problem through aversion and clinging. And here, again, the felt sense. Here I am, sitting, and if I use my old example, the injured hip or whatever, then I feel the suffering of that when there's aversion and clinging. I actually want to feel the sense that there's some suffering when there's aversion and clinging. And then, as I let go of that, as I allow more, relax the relationship, whichever way I'm doing it -- see it, you know, let go -- as I allow that, some freedom, some degree -- might not be remarkable, but some degree of freedom comes into the experience, some degree of relief, of release, of peace, of spaciousness, of joy even. And it's like before/after -- feel both sides. So the whole insight, it's like, has two sides of the coin: the pain of it when there's aversion and clinging, and the release of it. And I want to get a felt sense in the whole being of both. I need to taste that pain, but I also need to taste the release. If I don't fully taste it, it's like the insight doesn't go in at a cellular level.
Yogi: So you need to taste the pain?
Rob: You need to taste the pain of holding, and being aversive, and clinging. And then correspondingly, taste the freedom of letting that go, the relief that comes. It's like it's one package, and they help each other. [25:15]
Now, this can unfold in many ways, and it's for you to take away and play with. But I'll say one thing. It's possible, sometimes, it's possible with this ... So one's basically finding ways to let go in the moment, in relationship to something, and one lets go. Let's say it's the hip thing or whatever, and there's some pain there, and I let go in relationship to that. And then sometimes, I might notice that when there's letting go, calmness comes into the being. Or calmness is allowed, we could say. Stillness is allowed. There's the emergence or revelation of some calming or stillness.
Why? Because not letting go, the opposite of letting go, pushing and pulling, is exactly what agitates the consciousness. It's nothing else that agitates the consciousness but the pushing and pulling with things. Right? So sometimes, when I let go, it's like a little stillness, or a lot of stillness, some degree of stillness sometimes will come in to body, and to the consciousness, to the mind, from letting go.
Now, that's quite interesting. Let yourself enjoy that. Let yourself bathe in that a little bit. But sometimes, also, it's possible that because of the stillness, which has arisen because of the letting go, or has been allowed because of the letting go, it's possible that, because of the stillness, it's like the lake is stiller, and I can see more deeply. I can see more subtly, and perhaps I can see more subtle layers of clinging and pushing away. Yeah?
So, in a way, I become, because of the stillness that's been allowed from letting go, it's like, what is also allowed in that is more sensitivity, more sensitivity to pushing and pulling at a more subtle level. And then, maybe, I can feel that, and feel that that, too, there's dukkha when there's pushing and pulling. It's a more subtle dukkha now. The word 'suffering' may not even feel at all like it's the right word. It's just some sense of constriction, etc. And it's possible I'm sensitive to it. Then maybe I can let that go, at that level. And then maybe that goes to another level, or maybe it stays, you know. But there's a possibility, in a very beautiful way, at times, there's a possibility of just this thread of increasing subtlety unfolding, taking us down and down, so to speak, into layers of pushing, pulling, reactivity, clinging that exist in us, that go on all day and all night, that we're not even aware of. What happens when I begin letting them go, when I begin releasing them? What happens?
So that possibility is there. But the real practice is just releasing whatever clinging I notice, whether it's more subtle than I've just noticed, the same subtlety, or more gross than I've just noticed. The practice is basically just becoming aware of how that feels -- push-pull -- and releasing it over and over and over. It's a very beautiful practice. And it goes for all experience. So it's tempting to just tune into the ones that are difficult. But actually, what about if we include the more neutral experiences? What's the subtle clinging that goes with neutrality, or with pleasant? So include the whole gamut, the whole range, not just with difficult.
So some degree of spaciousness -- it could just be, you know, the sort of bubble of the body that we were doing with mettā -- some degree of spaciousness helps us to become aware of the relationship with things. If I'm too focused on the thing itself, too one-pointedly in the middle of the thing itself, that can be very helpful, directing the attention that way. But oftentimes, it's almost like one gets a little blinkered to what the relationship is, because I'm so burrowed into the phenomenon itself. Do you see?
So again -- we said this before -- both directing the attention, and also opening it out is really, really helpful. And that capacity we have as human beings of being able to actually choose, and sometimes, you work one way, and sometimes, you work another way -- that's really, really important at this stage, because each way will kind of reveal different insights, if you like, regarding emptiness. I won't get the whole picture if I stick with just one way of doing it.
Yogi: [inaudible] open out ...?
Rob: More like at different times. At different times, you're working in a more open way, at different times you're working in a more direct way. But you might find with one phenomenon that you're trying to work in a very directed way, and you can't really let go. It's not really happening. And maybe opening out really helps, or vice versa. So if you feel like you're stuck a bit, maybe go into a different mode. But generally, I think I'm saying just to explore both working in direct relationship with, let's say, this hip pain, and one's looking right at it, and seeing if I can let go in relationship to it. Or one's working in a much more open way, and kind of letting everything go, letting everything go. This kind of letting everything be.
Okay? So take it for a spin. Take it for a test drive. Probably you'll find, in a lot of ways, it's a softer practice than the impermanence practice, especially if you're doing this kind of really probing, microscopic impermanence. So there's something very lovely in that sense. It's interesting. Juliet asked yesterday about doing, and the sense -- sometimes, people feel very ambivalent, at the least, about doing in practice. This practice and the next one that we'll do, the anattā -- they're actually less doing. But it might not seem that way at first. I think we said this in the Q & A. I'm so used to pushing and pulling and pushing and pulling and pushing and pulling, and that's the doing. When I let go of it, what I'm really doing is not doing. I'm not pushing and pulling. But because I'm so used to it, it might feel like a doing at first. Yeah?
But actually, you can feel your way into the sense of, it's a kind of non-doing here. And in that, also, is a softness, and there's relief. We're so used to clinging all day long that we have to kind of train in not doing that. So the habitual -- it might feel easier, but it's not so helpful. [33:00] I'm saying that because it might not be obvious, at first, that actually what we're doing now is a non-doing.
In terms of the balance, mettā's still really important, really, really important. So it may be that you -- and it might be really good, actually, to be doing more mettā even than the insight practices in the mix. But at least 50/50. Minimum of 50 per cent mettā -- really, really helpful.
You know, there are a few more things I could say, but I think my feeling is to let you play with it a little bit, and see what comes up for you, rather than saying anything more.
Yogi 2: Does it matter if you only choose to practise one of those four?
Rob: No, no. But find what works for you. I mean, you might as well, you know, at least discover which works. If there's one that definitely works best for you ...
Yogi 2: Well, that last one that you -- the allowing, everything that you just described is exactly what happened to me this morning. So it's really helpful.
Rob: Good. Yeah. Go for it. Yeah.
Yogi 2: I guess my ... yeah. I think I know where I am.
Rob: [laughs] Okay. Now, certainly, one gets a sense, sometimes, of practice just opening in a certain direction, and it's natural to just follow that. Hopefully, the life of practice is long, and one can try different things from different directions at different times. But you don't have to force anything. So yeah, if it feels like that was working well for you, just keep doing that.
Yogi 2: It does seem naturally ...
Rob: Yeah. That's the sort of thing I would expect sometimes, yeah.
Yogi 3: I was just thinking that it seems very similar -- I mean, all the angles quite similar in some ways, particularly the one about relaxing the vedanā via the body, with the allowing that you mentioned.
Rob: Relaxing the relationship via the body, yeah.
Yogi 3: Yeah, with the allowing that you mentioned. I guess what I'm wondering is whether I'll just need to try it to find out, and I had [?] now on whether it just needs to happen.
Rob: I'm really going into that, breaking it down, just because it's just a subtly different angle on it that some people might find it more helpful this way or the other way, but basically, you need to play with it. It's really all the same thing, just slightly different.
Yogi 3: Not to worry too much?
Rob: No. Basically, if you can find a way of -- if we sum it up -- relaxing the relationship with things, quietening the push and pull in relationship to things, whatever way you do that is right. That's what we're practising here in terms of this. Yeah?
Yogi 4: Well, that's what I've been doing with the mettā practice, I'm feeling mettā and then just allowing it rather than holding on to it. In a way, there can be both responses sometimes. And that latter just, as I was saying, it just gets bigger and more subtle and deeper, and [inaudible].
Rob: Okay, so that's -- should I go into this now? We could bring it up another time, or ...
Yogi 4: Well, we're meeting with you today anyway, so ...
Rob: But there's an important point there that probably should come out at some point. I don't know, how are you guys feeling now? Should we stop for today and go tomorrow, or ... yeah?
Yogi 5: Seize the moment!
Rob: Meaning, which ...? [laughter] What's that? No, sorry, I think it's better to leave you that. Play with it, because this is a very powerful practice in terms of insights. And so, what I think I'd rather do is, you play with it a little bit and then discuss what comes up, because there are insights into self, self-construction here, what Hannah just said in regards to the interface with mettā. There are all kinds of things, all kinds of possibilities. So if that feels okay ... yeah? So play with it a little bit. And Catherine is speaking tonight, and we can talk about this in the interviews and the Q & As, etc. So basically, it's like, just doing it and seeing what happens. What does it mean about self? What does it mean in terms of freedom? All of that.
Okay. So let's have a quiet moment together.