Transcription
Welcome, also, from me to everybody here. Thank you to John and Jackie and the team for inviting me back. Usually when I do these day-longs, I go places and I feel like I know almost everyone there. Now I feel like I'm looking out to a group of new faces, which is also lovely. And on that note, who feels that they're a beginner in meditation, very much kind of starting? One, two, three, four. Okay. Later on today, in the walking period before lunch, I will have a group in this little room next door for if you feel you're a beginner, and you want to ask specifically about the nuts and bolts of meditation practice. I'm really happy to go into that. But that's not actually the main theme of the day, meditation. Did anyone come specifically wanting to learn how to meditate? Good. [laughs] We will touch on that, and I'll be going into stuff, but that's, as I said, not the theme. Did the theme get advertised? Yeah? Okay.
So the theme is about desire for today. As I said, I will talk about meditation kind of alongside that, and we'll be doing that. It's very much an experiment, okay? In a lot of different ways and at a lot of different levels, what we're doing today is an experiment. It's an experiment for me in terms of teaching differently. There are sort of habitual ways of teaching. I want to do it quite differently, in a number of ways quite different today, partly as an experiment. But most of what I'm talking about today is not at all advanced, so don't feel like if you're relatively new that I'm talking about something advanced. I'm not. But it will be different, probably, and probably different if you've been involved in the Dharma and Buddhism and that kind of thing. Probably a little bit different angles and approaches and range of what we're talking about than you might be used to. So not more advanced; just different. And that's part of the experiment. I also want to communicate in a different way today, and hopefully take care as well of the meditation nuts and bolts, and as I said, there will be that group.
Okay. So the theme is desire, like we said. If you've read or listened to teachings or spiritual teachings, whether they're from Buddhism or some other spiritual tradition, then you may have come across this notion of enlightenment -- sort of where it's all going, where it's moving towards, the end of the path, or moving towards that. Maybe one resonates with that whole notion of a goal, and maybe one doesn't. Fine. But anyway, there is, for the most part, probably, the image or the sense of what we're moving towards, enlightenment. If you think about, "What would that be? What's a person who's enlightened? What are they like? What's their inner experience like?", one of the things that probably for most of us would come to mind is that they don't want anything to be different, that they are content with what is and how things are. There isn't this sense of wanting things to be other than they are.
In a sense, then, there's not the movement of desire so much. They're not so much in that grip, or not at all in that grip. They're just moving in life without that. And from Buddhist teachings, and from other teachings, of course, we hear, "Suffering comes from clinging, from craving, from desire." This is a fundamental message in the Dharma, and in Hinduism, and all kinds of spiritual teachings. So, "Beware of these forces of desire. Let them go." And the Buddha, many, many times talks about this. Just to give one quote in relation to sense desire, which means the kind of pleasures that we get through the senses, from eating and whatever else, and nice tastes, he said:
Impermanent are sense pleasures. They are hollow, false, and delusive. They are conjurer's tricks, a magician's tricks, tricks which make fools prattle.[1]
It's pretty strong language. He's not beating about the bush.
If we look at this -- and this is partly what I want to go into today, and it's a huge subject, so I'm only going to explore from a few angles -- if I look at my life, and anyone, whether they're a meditator or not a meditator, and just honestly looking at one's life and one's experience, it is true, of course: I can't help but see that suffering comes from desire. Desire often leads to suffering. I can see that over and over. You just have to think about someone, or when we are caught in our addictions, for instance -- how much it's that the whole movement is tunnelled, funnelled into desire and the gratification of desire, and how much misery comes out of that. It's a prime example of suffering that's coming from desire, to be caught, entwined in an addiction or addictions, whatever that is, whether it's an obvious one or a more hidden one.
We can see in our own lives, again, the effects of greed. What's the effect of greed in my life? What's the effect of greed socio-politically and globally? Enormous, absolutely enormous. What's the effect of greed on the environment, on the planet? In so many ways, of course, this incredible challenge we face as a human species now around climate change, how much of that is a result of human greed, the collective momentum of human greed? Somehow it goes unchallenged. It's unquestioned, the growth economy and all this. We want something in our society, and if it means that someone in the developing world has to stay with not what we have, so be it. In a way, the whole political structures and the votes, it's all supporting that. So when it came to Copenhagen in 2009, was it George Monbiot saying, well, basically it ended up, instead of being "How can we agree to come together to help the climate?", it was countries trying to divide up the right to emit carbon dioxide. Why? Because we want to keep our economy ahead. Why?
So a huge, devastating impact of that momentum of desire, the unchecked, unconscious momentum of desire in our life. And the Buddha says not getting what I want, for example, is suffering. When I don't get what I want, it hurts. It's suffering.[2] So all of this, we can see that. I just need to be honest and conscious, and look at my life. I don't even need any meditation to see any of that.
Given all of that -- desire/suffering, the relationship there -- spiritual teachings, Buddhism and whatever else says, "Let go. Let go of this clinging, of this craving. Let go." And I don't know. If you've been around these circles and read and heard, how many times have you heard that? "Let go." Have you heard that before, someone saying "Let go"? Yeah? How successful has it been? [laughter] Sometimes I can let go. Someone says "Let go," me or someone else, or you read it. "Let go" sounds fantastic: "Let go! Great!" And when one tries, there's limited success. Sometimes it's good, and oftentimes it's not happening.
Now, why is that? Why is that the case? This is actually a really interesting question. Why is it that sometimes I can't let go? And many, many reasons. It's complex. Oftentimes we will blame ourselves: "It's because I'm not evolved enough. It's because I'm not spiritual enough. It's because I'm da-da-da-da-da." All the blame goes here. But maybe it's more complex than that. Maybe some of the reason it's so difficult to let go is that desire itself is not as simple as we might imagine. Desire is not so simple. There's more to it.
Some time ago, a practitioner, a student of mine who I've worked with on and off quite a bit, had a retreat or something, or an interview with another teacher. I also know the teacher quite well, in fact. And this student was reporting her experience, and reporting actually her -- what would you say? -- spiritual longing. She was longing for God. She came from a Christian background. And the teacher said to her, she reported to me the teacher said to her, "Longing for God is just another craving like all others. It's just another kind of craving. It will bring suffering because it's craving, because it's desire. It will bring you suffering." She said, "It's also an attempt to escape what is: I'm not okay with what the experience is, so I go into some idea of God. Let go. Let go of that."
Now, this is interesting to me, because I know this student quite well, and I know the teacher quite well. And I actually wonder whether it's the other way round, and in this case, some people, and this teacher, are actually afraid to desire. There's a fear of desiring, and particularly a fear of desiring deeply. In our culture, it's a very unsupported realm, the realm of deep desires, or to desire for deep things, the longing for deep things, and there's fear of that. So we can talk, and again, in spiritual/religious or whatever circles, about non-clinging and all that, but it may be that there's the fear of desire, and even in the talking of non-clinging, a lot of other, smaller desires are actually left unchecked. So we let go of something like the longing for God, if you relate to that or not, but one doesn't look into this or that desire for comfort, for convenience, for security, etc. How much fear comes from desire? It's complex. One can dismiss desire at one level, and actually, it goes completely unchecked at another level.
So I have a question for everyone, and all this is questioning for me. This is part of the experiment. I'm talking as much to myself as I am to you today. Is it your personal experience, your honest, personal experience -- is it, as they say, empirically proven for yourself, through experience, that desire brings suffering? Is that your experience? Is it so simple as that?
Yogi: I think there are different desires.
Rob: Yeah, very good. We're going to get into that. Okay. So that's good. It's already rich, yeah? Is it always true? There are different desires, different movements. Maybe there's more than just different desires as well. Could it also be that sometimes the absence of desire, the non-acknowledgment of desires, and the non-nourishing of desire actually bring suffering? Could that be true, or is that true sometimes? I don't know -- I think that's a very interesting question to explore there.
So this is partly some of what I want to go into today. And like I said, a lot of experimentation. I want to come at desire from different angles today, and principally three. There are many [angles] that we could, but principally three. So in a way, three parts to the day. [Editor's note: the second and third parts are in second audio/transcript, called "Beauty of Desire -- Talk."] But they're not linear. It's not like one leads to two leads to three. There will be actually three different directions. Rather than me being the teacher, and having conclusions to share with you, saying "This is how it is," which I might often do as a teacher, or one might often do as a teacher, rather, today, I would seek to open things up, and to open an investigation for us all -- in a way, to take a lid off something. And rather than me just saying, "It's like this," I want to open something. Openings rather than conclusions.
Probably today I would say that whether you've been around these kind of circles just a little bit or a lot, I would say that some part of what we're going to go into today should -- what should we say? -- rock the boat a little bit. It should stretch things and challenge and really make you want to reconsider, wherever you're at and however you're thinking of things, something in one of these three approaches, or maybe more than one. And if it hasn't, I haven't communicated well enough. I haven't got it across. So what we're really going into is something involving open-mindedness and an openness of questioning.
Actually, what I want to start with is a kind of guided meditation, to take it in one direction. So if you've been sitting, and you just want to stretch for thirty seconds, and move the body. You've been sitting for about half an hour now.
[16:16, guided exercise begins]
Okay, so, I'm not even sure if I would call this a 'meditation.' Whatever is a comfortable posture for you, but it probably is helpful if your back is straight, and there's a certain kind of wakefulness. It's good to be awake for this. But you could have your eyes open, or your eyes closed, or moving between open and closed. Really whatever helps you to connect with what we're doing. It's more a kind of process of inquiry. So whatever works for you, really, and feel free to even adjust your posture or whatever.
Let's start just by connecting with the body a little bit and relaxing. Finding your way into a posture that's comfortable, and then, perhaps beginning by feeling into your face. Just noticing how the face feels. And particularly noticing if there's any tension, any holding, anywhere in the face. And just relaxing, as much as you can, any tension that you notice. It might be around the eyes, for instance. Just sensing in, and letting go, relaxing. Or perhaps around the mouth, or the jaw. Just feeling and relaxing. And the neck and the throat. Tuning in and releasing, just as much as possible. Not a problem if all the tension doesn't release. Not a problem. The shoulders. Just sensing in and releasing, letting them drop downwards. The upper back. Just accepting how it feels. Really not necessary to get rid of all the tension. It's really okay. Just relaxing what you can. The arms, the hands, the chest. Just feeling in and releasing. And then the abdomen and the belly, and particularly the lower belly. Just tuning in there and letting it go, letting it hang down towards the floor.
And really just feeling yourself sitting here. Perhaps sensing into the sensations of contact of the feet or the legs on the floor. Very simple sensations. How does that feel right now? Just connecting with the bodily experience. Sensing into the sensations of the backside on the chair, on the cushion, the bench. How does that feel? What are those sensations like? Just letting yourself feel the totality of the experience of sitting right now. Very simple. What does it feel like to sit? How does it feel like to be in the body, to inhabit the body right now?
[22:11] And staying in this sense of connecting with, inhabiting the body very simply, the simple experience of life in the body, staying in touch with that, seeing if you can connect to a sense of all meditation, and all practice, and any exercise that we might do or you might do in your life or in meditation, any inquiry, as a gift, as a kindness to yourself. Whatever we're about to do, any time we sit down to meditation, we're coming out of kindness. This is the movement. This is something we're giving ourselves. This is a kindness we are giving ourselves. And that's all it is. And that's all it can ever be. We're taking care of ourselves. We're giving ourselves something lovely. Just connecting with that's the direction, that's the intention, that's the motivation, that's the sense of what practice is, this kindness, this holding oneself dear.
If it helps you to calm a little bit, you can connect with the breath right now, just for a moment or two before we begin this journey. So the breath and the being with the breath as kindness, as a kindness -- not as any pressure. This is something we're giving the body and the mind. So the invitation is for the whole inner space to be one of kindness. And if, in the next half an hour or so, you feel like you're losing that sense of kindness, you can always return to it and remember: this is why we're doing this. This is a movement of kindness. So just remember that.
[25:54] Staying connected with the body as much as possible in this invitation, in this direction, this sense of kindness, this intention of kindness, staying in the body, when you're ready, if you feel ready, you can start with an imagination. This bit is optional. This imagination is optional. But if you want, if it feels okay for you, you can imagine yourself, hopefully years from now, on your deathbed. The time has come for the end of your life, the end of this journey -- being born into this world, and moving through the world, and all the experiences. The time has come for the ending of that, and you know it's the end. You know this is the deathbed. Yet you're clear. You're lucid. Death is coming, perhaps in the next day or two. And you are lucid and clear enough to look back on this journey, look back at your life, the whole of your life, from the perspective of knowing that it's ending. This bit's optional, but it may help what follows. It's just optional. See how it is for you. It could be a visual imagination; could just be a sense. And just let's pause there, and notice the feelings with that, if you are doing this imagination. Just notice how that feels and what comes up for you. Staying in touch with the body, staying in touch with the emotions. Just noticing.
Now, whether you're using that deathbed imagination or not (it's fine either way), bringing in the question (and perhaps this is you looking back on your life from the perspective of the end of it), dropping in the inquiries, the questions: what did you want? What did you want from life? What was it that you were wanting? This miracle, this wondrous journey is ending. It will end. What do I want from it? What did I want from it? All this is unfolding in kindness, that space of kindness, in touch with the feelings, taking care of yourself.
We could put the question another way: what did I, what do I, want to put my energies towards? A human life has limited energies, limited time, not infinite. What did I want to put my energies towards? What did I want to move towards?
Play with this. Be creative. Maybe the words I'm using or the image doesn't help you. What helps you to connect with this and bring this thread of questioning alive? Play with it.
We can flip the question around, as well, and perhaps at the end of life, or with the overview of life (even if it's from right now), we can say: what would I regret not doing? What would I regret not trying, not going for, leaving out a movement towards? What would I regret? You could ask it that way. See if you can find a way to make this work for you, to bring it alive.
Not putting the mind under too much pressure, the heart under too much pressure. What works for you? And noticing, really opening and noticing: what comes up when you drop these questions in, when I ask myself these questions? What comes up for you? Just noticing, in a way, the totality of the experience, everything that goes with it, the answers that come, the responses, the reactions, the feelings.
[35:10] So really noticing everything, just everything, and allowing, allowing whatever comes up, whether it's a thought, or an emotional reaction, or a disconnection, a dislike. Whatever it is, a judgment, a feeling, allowing whatever comes up in response to this inquiry. Noticing and allowing. And just checking that there isn't an assumption that there are right and wrong answers here, that there is a right response and a wrong response, a good or a bad, or that one's categorizing one's responses that way, or projecting onto me as 'the teacher' that I'm looking for something in particular, or I have an idea of what might be right or wrong, because that's completely not here, completely not present. Or there's a bias for deep desires versus superficial. This is actually about honouring the truth of what comes up for you. Really honouring your own truth, truths.
Really opening up the field inside to look and look again. A real openness of inquiry. If it feels like not much of interest is being yielded here, that can be for a number of reasons, and that's okay too. Perhaps you already feel like, "I know exactly what I want. I've always known. I've known for years." And one looks and asks the question, and one gets the same old thing. Maybe that's fine. But check whether my familiar answers are actually still true. Just check: are they still true? Is it still current? Is it still alive? Really softening the assumptions around everything. It's okay if you get distracted. Just come back. Just come back to this inquiry, to this kindness of asking oneself penetrating questions.
Now, you might have noticed this already, or it might help open it up a little and enrich it a little: we could say, or you might notice, is there a difference between, so to speak, what I want outwardly, in the outward life (maybe there are certain desires outwardly), and what I want inwardly, for the inner life? Maybe they're the same, or maybe they're different. That might help differentiate the inquiry a little bit, sharpen it a little bit. What helps you to connect to this? Bringing the questions alive for yourself, finding ways. Or perhaps is there a difference between what I want to receive from life, what I wanted to receive from life as an area of desire, and what I wanted to give to life? Are they the same or different? Does that open something else up?
What comes up when I put this in? Is it one thing, one thing that I want in my life? Is it a few things that seem really important? Is it many things? Or is it some other feeling altogether, and the whole inquiry goes in another direction? Perhaps it brings up fear. Noticing how you're relating to the whole question, questions, and the whole experience, and the responses right now. How are you relating to the responses? How are you relating to the questions, to the feelings, to the thoughts? Am I assuming it's better to have just one desire, or many desires, or no desires, wants for this life? What's the assumption?
Does it feel like some desires, if there are more than one, some desires, do they feel more important than others? Can you feel a difference there? Can you feel into the desires and what they feel like? How does the body feel in asking this, in getting different responses? What does it feel like? What comes up? What comes up with this? Just noticing and feeling, even if it's resistance or disinterest, disconnection, whatever, judgment. Just noticing what comes up. Feeling it. Allowing. Very much feeling things in the body, that's one part.
But also really noticing and interested in the thoughts and assumptions that come up, of what is good or not good, or right or wrong. Maybe a desire comes, a want comes as a response, and some part of the mind says, "But that would be impossible to get that. And not getting it would be painful," or "There's no point wanting that. I could never possibly get that," whatever it is. Maybe that's a response of part of the mind. Noticing. And how does that feel like? What effect does that have? If I have a want, maybe some part of the mind says, "But I might fail. I might fail." Is that kicking around? How does that feel? What does that do? Sometimes some part of the mind says, "I don't deserve that. I can't want that. I won't even let myself think about wanting that, because I don't deserve that, or this, or those things." Maybe that's one of the responses.
Just seeing. Seeing the effects, and seeing the feelings. There can be fear of desiring, fear to let myself have this desire, to feel it, to open to it, to enter into it. It's possible, one or some or maybe none of these responses. Just seeing what's there. Noticing and feeling. Or it's possible that joy comes, joy comes when one asks, when one listens to the responses, or love even, or energy, or peace. These, too, are possible. Really just noticing and feeling. Coming back to the sense of this inquiry as a kindness to yourself, if you're losing that.
And in relation to this desire, these wants, plural or singular or whatever, does it feel important that you reach or get that thing? Does it feel important? Does it matter if the object or the goal of the desire materializes or not? Or is it just, perhaps, giving oneself to it fully, and the sense of knowing that one is giving and has given oneself to it fully? Would that be enough?
Just ending this inquiry, again, with the sense of kindness to oneself, and again, this reminder of the direction of practice, of meditation, of inquiry, as simply that kindness, that care. We're caring for ourselves, and through caring for ourselves, we're caring for the world.
Whenever you're ready, opening the eyes, if they've been shut.
[55:11, guided exercise ends]
So I'm a little bit curious how that was. How did you find that? You don't have to share, but just if anyone does want to say a little bit, or give some feedback. I realize in a group of people you don't know, it's not ... It's not important if you don't want to, but I'm just curious if anyone does want to say anything.
Yogi: I find it quite difficult.
Rob: Can you say what was difficult, or why?
Yogi: I kept judging myself during it.
Rob: Yeah. What were you judging?
Yogi: Thinking I should be doing this a bit better than I was.
Rob: Okay. In what sense?
Yogi: I'm not sure how to ... Discovering more, perhaps.
Rob: Yeah. Did you feel like you discovered anything?
Yogi: [?], I'm not quite sure what though.
Rob: Okay. Would it feel like it might be interesting to do it again at some point?
Yogi: Yeah.
Rob: So it might be that one session with those kind of questions doesn't really reveal much, but a few times, actually, it begins to open up a bit. And yeah, of course one can have complete revolutions of insight, etc., or just a little thing -- it's not important. But this sense of feeling like we're not doing meditation or any kind of practice right, it's completely rife in our culture. Almost every time one teaches meditation, I would say that most people in the room have that view, that "I'm doing it wrong, or there's something I'm not quite doing it right." And it's just enormous in the culture. I'm going to talk about that in a minute, but somehow, we have to find a different attitude to this whole idea of getting it right and getting it wrong.
Did anyone find that uncomfortable? Was it difficult?
Yogi 2: I didn't find it uncomfortable; I found it conflicted with the basic concept of being in the present, when you're in a kind of desire-free zone, no future and no past. So what's the point of even doing the vision? I did. I looked at it. But that was my ...
Rob: Yeah. Could everyone hear that? This is partly what I want to go into today. As I was saying: the image of where we're heading is this desire-free zone of just being in the moment, no past, no future, being in the present, almost as if that's what practice is about and where it's all supposed to be leading. Partly what I'd like to do today is just question that. Is that really where practice is supposed to be leading? Is it really a realistic idea, or something else? If that was the case, what would be the results of that that may be unexpected, etc.? And is there some value to actually going against the grain of modern thinking a little bit? Anything else? Did people find it difficult in different ways? Or was it difficult what came up, or ...?
Yogi 3: For me, it brought two things: one, the confirmation of what I want. Maybe because I have angst, that's a question to myself many times in my life: what do I want to do with my life? So it brought a confirmation what I want in life. The other thing is, when I think of that, it can bring two different responses. One is enthusiasm: "Yes! That's it, a movement towards." On the other hand, also, this feeling of feeling daunted for the task, because I know more or less where I am, and I have a great sense of where I want to be, and the gap, so big. Sometimes, yes, it's daunting.
Rob: Yeah. Maybe that goes with any desire of anything that's quite extreme or big like that, that there will be a sense of it's a risk. It's a real risk to want something that's big.
Yogi 3: It is big.
Rob: Yeah. And that's a little bit where faith comes in as well.
Yogi 3: Faith. That's curious that you mention that, because I've been reflecting on faith a lot in the last few weeks and months. It's the only thing that can keep you going.
Rob: Yeah, absolutely. And we need, if you have a big desire like what you're talking about, Ramiro, it's like, then I need a sense of faith; I need a real belief that something is possible. That's a whole thing.
Yogi 3: St John of the Cross, when he talked about the dark night of the soul, the only thing that can keep you going is faith, that security.
Rob: Yeah. I'd say in Buddhist teaching, faith is a little bit different, in the sense of pigeon steps based on experiencing something that's working, and then that enables you to take the next step and the next step. That's the "faith in the darkness" that would be a St John of the Cross word. Yeah. It's a big subject. It's good. Did anyone find any joy coming out of that? Yeah? Okay, good. Did anyone bump into a sense of -- a little bit similar to what Ramiro's saying -- a sense that engaging with wants actually brings up a sense of lack, of not having something? No? Yeah? Okay. Did anyone feel overwhelmed in any sense? Okay. I'm just checking. Did anyone run into the inner critic at all? [laughs] That's what I want to talk a little bit about now.
That's huge, and in relation to this -- what's your name again? Anne. In relation to [Anne's report], the inner critic comes in everywhere, everywhere, everywhere. In this, it was in relation to just doing the exercise: "Am I doing it right? I'm probably doing it wrong." But it could also come up in relation to what our responses are when we ask what the desires are. And so quickly this self-critical voice, this character inside comes up, and it will squash. It will squash what we want. It will ridicule and dismiss. And especially in relation to deep desires, what we really want, what we have a lot of deep desire for. It will squash it -- squash it so much that it can't even see the light of day in some cases.
[1:03:54] A little while ago, there was a retreatant at Gaia House, and she came in for an interview. She was saying, "I feel this thing coming up, that I want to move" -- she was in her late fifties -- "I want to move directions, and move into serving more, serving people more. I can feel this is what I want. But immediately, I know I won't be able to, because ..." And then she gave a whole list of reasons of what was wrong with her and how she was not good enough, etc. For example, "Because I'm closed to people, and how can I serve people if my heart is closed to people?", etc. What was interesting -- and I know her quite well, because she comes quite a lot -- is that it wasn't that the self-criticisms that she was giving herself were completely untrue. There was some truth. There was a degree of closedness, etc. But somehow in this self-criticism and all the reasons, there was no chance for the desire, in this case to serve, there was no chance that it could grow. It was like completely stifling a plant.
What if somehow I can let the desires grow, and see the effects of the growing desire? Somehow, maybe, like a little baby plant, one needs to protect it, protect the actual desires, especially if they're deeper. Very quickly, what happens is one goes into thinking, "What am I going to do, practically speaking?" This desire to serve, and then, "How would I do that exactly?" Maybe it's actually helpful to separate the "what exactly?" and "whether I'm capable of it," separate that from the actual, if you like, more vague initial impulse of desire to serve, so it doesn't get immediately squashed in the practical and the question of, "Am I going to be able to succeed in this?" If I get embroiled in that, it's like a bunch of ivy growing around this plant and strangling it.
When the desire grows, then maybe it affects and informs the questions of what exactly I will do with it and whether or not I'm capable of it. It's almost like the force of desire itself, when it grows, starts having a really strong impact on how I feel about those questions. Do you understand? No? Am I losing you guys? Hello? [laughter] Is anyone there? [laughter]
Yogi 4: I lost you.
Rob: I've lost you. Usually I feel the initial bit of desire, and immediately I go into, "Am I going to be able to do this? Will I succeed," just as Ramiro said, "or not? And what exactly will I do?" So I want to serve, and then immediately, "Oh, I could do this, this, this, this, this," some practical scenario. I get embroiled in those questions, those two questions, and that squashes the whole thing. If I stay more with the energy of the desire, maybe that desire grows, and out of that growing, it starts affecting my very sense of capability. Do you understand? I have more energy in the desire, and I start to feel more capable. And the clarity about what to do practically becomes more clear, just by itself, just by the actual energy of the desire.
Yogi 5: What if the energy of the desire is quite uncomfortable?
Rob: What happens if the energy of the desire is quite uncomfortable? I'll talk about that later this afternoon, because there's a sense of really opening to it, really, really opening to the energy, and letting it flow more.
Yogi 6: Can some desires be an inner guide?
Rob: Absolutely. And that's what I want to go into. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Yeah, beautiful. In this case, this woman that I was talking about, immediately she had this -- even that she let herself experience the desire, to want to serve, was something new for her. It got a little bit of the light of day, but then immediately comes all this other stuff. And then she starts bringing in Gandhi and Mother Teresa and da-da-da. It's like, "Well, I could never ... da-da-da-da-da." What's the point of bringing up people like that? All that did was like taking a big measuring stick and whacking herself, whacking the desire and herself on the head. That's the only function that it served to bring up Mother Teresa and whoever. It wasn't even that she let herself be moved by the example of their life. There was no sense of emotional connection. All it was was a measuring stick to batter.
What if, again, I could let that inspiration (if there is some corollary inspiration), let that in on an emotional level? And again, similar, the emotion will work, and it will work on the self-view and the sense of possibility. It's a different way round. Inner critic inhibits desire, especially deep desire. Inner critic squashes deep desire. Interestingly, with most internal things, if not all of them, causality works both ways. In other words, inner critic squashes desire; desire growing squashes inner critic. Mysteriously, it works the other way. This happens, and very much happens in meditation. Following on from what Anne was saying, what happens to -- take just one area -- my spiritual aspirations, or my meditative aspirations of practice? How much, for instance, the fear of failure will constrain what I let myself explore or try for. So common. So common people tell me that: "I don't want to try such-and-such a thing, because I might fail."
What does it mean, what would it mean, if I fail? What am I taking it to mean or imply about me if I fail? Maybe it's okay if the fear of failure is there, but is it running the show? Because if it runs the show, and if it calls the shots, and if it sets up a roadblock here and a roadblock there, then what? And if it does that for all of us -- and Anne's question was speaking for almost everyone -- if that's the case, and all these roadblocks are set up, then what? Then what happens to us all? And then what happens to the Dharma? What happens to this whole movement? So sometimes we actually shrink back our libido or our eros or whatever out of this fear of failure, out of this inner critic, etc.
[1:10:54] Typical spiritual teachings and Dharma teachings, as I said earlier, desire, clinging, going out of the present moment, etc., and wanting something other than 'what is,' that brings suffering. Drop it. That's very usual, and you've probably all heard something like that, right? It sounds relatively familiar. But let's dwell on this a little bit, because have you ever had the experience that you've had a desire, if you look back at your past, and you wanted this thing or that thing, you really wanted it (this person, or this relationship, or this thing, or this house, or whatever it was), and you didn't get it? You didn't get it. And then some time goes by, and you look back, and you honestly say, "It was fine I didn't get it. It was really fine." Have you ever had that experience? It's important to realize. In the moment, it feels really important that I get this thing. A little time goes by, and it's like, it's okay.
I remember a very, very silly example, and there's a reason I'm mentioning it, which I'll come back to. I started meditating in England -- I think I was 19 or 20, and quite young. And then, after a couple of years, I moved to America. I got really into it, and I wanted this book. I'd heard about this book that explained about deep concentration states. It's an ancient text. I was looking everywhere for it. There was no Amazon.com back then. [laughter] So it was actually quite hard to find. I asked everybody. I traipsed everywhere, in all these obscure antique bookshops, etc. It was really quite a hassle. I did the same when I got to America. No one knew where to get this book, and I was, "I really, really want to find out what it says in that book. It will help me explore." And then I never found it. And you know what? It was fine. It was completely fine. Silly example, but I'm mentioning it for a reason, which I'll come back to. But it was fine.
Okay, you notice that. You've all seen that. Have you, on the contrary, have you had a desire, and got what you wanted, and then a little time goes by, and maybe not a very long time, and you realize, "Hmm ..." [laughter] "It wasn't as fulfilling as I thought. It didn't bring lasting satisfaction." Have you had that experience? Have you heard these kind of teachings before? Yeah? Right. Good. So I don't need to go into that today [laughs], because you've heard it before. We know that, right? We're familiar with that. And yeah, we need to see it again and again, but we've heard, right? It sounds familiar enough, yeah? I'm going to go in different directions today.
That book, that text, that weird text, someone actually gave me a copy a few years ago. Now I look at it and I say, "Why on earth was I interested in this?" [laughter] "It's not interesting at all." But I look back on it, and I wonder -- okay, it's a very weird little example; I'm choosing it because it's weird and obscure and seemingly ridiculous -- it wasn't the book that I wanted. It was because it said something about a certain avenue of practice at a time that I was really -- it was about jhānas, and I really wanted to find out about that. And jhānas, some of you might know, they're states of deep concentration which bring a lot of pleasure, a lot of bliss. But it wasn't even the pleasure and the bliss that I wanted. That wasn't what I was after. What I was after was the sense of consciousness, of exploring the depths of consciousness. That's what I wanted. I was hungry for that kind of discovery, like a deep sea diver, or an outer space explorer wants to explore. That's what I was hungry for. It wasn't the book. It wasn't even the pleasure of the bliss. It was something else. And in this ridiculously dogged way, I kept pursuing trying to find this book.
What was the fruit of that? Well, it was a hassle, and it was annoying and all of that. But also, I wonder -- and this is a question; everything today is a question -- I wonder if that did not bring me a lot of energy, energize the being; if it didn't cultivate and carve out in the being a sense of energy, determination, devotion even, power energetically, dynamism, growth, soulfulness, depth. The very sort of clinging to something, of what I want, actually carved out something -- a capacity for more beautiful qualities, by trying to follow and trying to follow.
And conversely -- and again, it's a question -- if I just don't desire and don't desire and don't desire, might it be that something gets disempowered? Might it be that something becomes weak, flaccid, impotent in some way? Especially if I'm not letting myself desire and cling to a desire out of fear, fear of desire, or fear of desiring deep things -- let's say love. What happens if I don't let myself really desire love? What happens to me? What happens to my life? What happens to me over years and decades if that's in the driving seat?
This is complex. If I only allow more superficial desires -- I'm always following this pleasure or this comfort or this convenience, but not the deeper [desires] -- maybe something gets weak in the being over years. Something gets lost maybe. I don't know. What's an answer? To hang on to the deep desires and let go of the superficial ones? We could say "let go of all desires." In part two today, which I'll get into after lunch, that's actually impossible. Lovely as it sounds as an ideal, a spiritual ideal, it's actually impossible. I can't. I cannot. There will remain, if I just have that as a sort of spiritual attitude, there will remain subtle desires that are unseen and un-understood. I'm going to go into that.
This goes back to Christina at the beginning, saying there are different kind of desires. Even the Buddha had desires. Maybe there are always desires. Right after his complete, unexcelled awakening, one of the first things he thought was, "Who can I share this with?" He wanted to give something. And then he started looking for people, and then he thought, "Oh, my friends." They were over 200 miles away in India, in the hot season, and he walked because he wanted, because he had the desire to teach. Oftentimes in stories of his later years, he would think, "Who's ready to hear the Dharma now? Who's ready for teaching?" It's a question of desire. "I want to give something. I want." He would seek out those who could understand, deliberately seek out those who could understand.
Okay. This is the end of part one. [laughter] And as I said, it's leaving things open. So I hope that that raises more questions for you, more sense of, "Hmm, this perhaps is quite interesting to explore." And it may connect in some ways to the other parts, but really coming from different angles today. You can see there's quite a lot to ponder here, yeah?
Yogi 7: That meditation didn't get my inner critic out, it got my outer critic out. I was thinking, "When is he going to stop talking?" It really annoyed me after having some peace! [laughter]
Rob: Yeah.
Yogi 7: Interesting.
Rob: Yeah, sure. Yeah. I mean, it's hard, if you're teaching: some people need you to say something more, some people need you to say something less. You can't please everyone.
Yogi 7: No, I just started looking at my desire, not thinking it's -- I have no right to criticize it. That's not what I mean. I just thought ...
Rob: Yeah. Okay. Good. Did it feel helpful at all?
Yogi 7: I tried to block it out ...
Rob: No, the whole thing, the exercise. [pause] Okay, maybe not! That's fine. That's completely fine. Would you feel ...
Yogi 7: I think the whole thought is interesting, desire. The whole thought, it's very Buddhist.
Rob: Yeah, yeah.
Yogi 7: So yes, it was interesting.
Rob: Do you think, similar to Anne, if it wasn't helpful now, that at some point, on your own, without me yakety-yakety-yakety, that it might prove fruitful to do something similar?
Yogi 7: Yeah.
Rob: Okay, that's fine. I think today will leave you with more questions than it will answers, and more sense of, "I could pursue that or pursue this or pursue that." So I'm hinting today at things you could pursue; that's all. And you're quite right: from a Buddhist perspective, this will be quite interesting, because as Andrew was saying, it's opening up maybe how we might circumscribe an inquiry because of a Buddhist background.
Yogi 7: What was interesting, what it called me to, the questions you were doing looking back at your life, it was making me look at situations which I wished I had done differently, and then I thought, "I'm going to use this time to heal that." So then I wished you would stop talking so I could have some space to look at that.
Rob: Right, okay. Yeah.
Yogi 7: Yeah? Because it was a process, but because you kept on making your own suggestions, it didn't leave me space to go into this on my own. Does that make sense?
Rob: Of course, yeah. So again, it's something you could do on your own, when no one else is talking, and that would be one direction where that go could in. But that would be slightly different than the intention with which I brought it up, and that's fine. Maybe another time you go into it, it would be more in line with what I was saying, whatever. It's all fine. It's all good. Yeah, please?
Yogi 8: I was just thinking, because in Buddhism, from my understanding, there's unskilful desire and skilful desire (kāma- and dhamma-chanda). It may be a wrong view that's coming in [?].
Rob: Yeah, very good. You're quite right: in classical Buddhism, there is a distinction, and yet, in a lot of modern meditation circles, it's like almost all desire gets -- and that's why I'm bringing this up. And then the question is, what is skilful and what is unskilful, and how does that work? That's partly why we did this. But even then, to come with a preconceived notion of what's skilful and what's unskilful may not be that helpful.
Yogi 8: [?] Maybe it's through identification. To push away desire [?] aversion. We're acting from a place of a fixed view.
Rob: Mm-hmm, good. Very good. That's partly what I want to come back to in part three [discussed in "Beauty of Desire -- Talk" along with part two], and open the thing up even more, that there's quite a lot here about self and preconception, etc., around desire. But classically, yeah, there's a distinction of skilful and unskilful desire. And we have to be careful nowadays that just all desire doesn't get, in some notion of what we're supposed to be moving towards, that's not quite maybe fully helpful -- put it that way. That's great.
Okay. That's enough for now. We'll do a walking meditation now.
