Transcription
The theme of the day will not be about meditation per se. I want to kind of take things in a slightly different direction, open things up in a slightly different way. What I'm talking about today is not particularly advanced -- at least, I don't think so. If you're new, it might just be a little bit unusual than the kind of stuff you might usually hear, put it that way, but it's not particularly advanced, I don't think. Also I'd like to just experiment a little bit with teaching differently, with going about my part in this differently than I might usually. But we will talk about meditation as well. [laughter]
Okay. So you probably know the theme of the day is desire. If I reflect as a human being, and feel in as a human being, this facet of my existence, desire, it's like -- it might be amenable to so many different ways of looking at it that open it up in different ways. It might be one of those things that's just a kind of mystery of our being. I can't lock it up in one way of looking at it, Dharma or otherwise, maybe. So a little bit what I want to do today is approach this dimension of our being, this aspect of our being, desire, approach it from different angles. It's not linear, so coming this way, coming that way, coming that way. Two or three approaches. And see what that opens.
Rather than me as a teacher today sort of, as I might usually teach, kind of sitting up here and telling you guys how it is, you know, sharing conclusions with you, actually what I want to do is open up some questions, not kind of disseminate conclusions but open things up. So really today is in the service of inquiring and opening things up, shaking things up, in fact. Very easily as human beings, and particularly -- well, as well in the Dharma, it's easy to kind of become settled with certain views about things, all kinds of things about our existence, inner and outer, and just to be settled in certain views that way, and they're only partially examined. This is why I want to shake these things up a little bit. We can get shrunk a little bit around those partially examined views. Something gets rigid. Something gets limited, in a way, and we don't even realize that's going on. Years go by, decades go by, and our existence is kind of trammelled along a certain direction.
So I wonder if I can say this now and you can keep it alive in yourself for the whole day. I've noticed that as human beings, when we listen to something, and maybe something new, maybe something a little bit challenging, a little bit stretching at the edges, sometimes we have a tendency to want to kind of chop bits off it, squish it around a bit, and mould it into the conceptual frameworks that we already carry inside, so that it doesn't kind of challenge those frameworks. It's just, "I'm not really hearing anything new. I just put it in and it will be nice and comfortable, no problem." Oftentimes when we're listening -- and maybe it's just a human thing, like I said -- we're listening in that way, and nothing gets challenged, nothing gets opened. So I wonder if today we can all, including myself, listen in a different way. What is it to listen for that which does not fit? That which will push me, that which leaves an awkward questioning in the being, actually maybe some agitation even? So on the ... listen-out? On the lookout, the listen-out for something that doesn't quite fit, for something that stretches me, something that doesn't fit so comfortably into my conceptual framework.
Okay. A few different angles on desire. Let's start with a bit of an introduction, a question. What's your image of what it might be like to be enlightened? [laughter] What do you think is the inner experience of someone like that? Some people don't relate to that whole word: enlightened, awakened, liberated. It lands in the wrong place. It doesn't resonate. So just what's your sense of what it might be like for someone further on down the line, further down the path? What do you think their inner experience is like, their relationship with things? I wonder if, in part of what we've absorbed in the culture, in the spiritual culture, in the Dharma culture, a part of it is a certain relationship with desire -- that such a person, maybe they don't want anything to be different. Maybe that's characteristic. Something's happened to their desire function, if you like. They're quite at peace and content being with what is. They don't want what is not. They're okay with what is. There's no desire to make something different. They're happy being in the moment, etc., all that stuff.
Maybe that's somehow, consciously or unconsciously, wrapped up in our sense of where this is all headed. Of course, we've all heard teachers, myself included, say, "Suffering comes from clinging. Suffering comes from desire. Beware of clinging, craving, desire. Let it go because it leads to suffering." You can choose many of the Buddha's quotes just around sense desire, for example. This is one quote from the Buddha: "Impermanent are sense pleasures. They are hollow, false, and delusive. They are conjurer's tricks, they are magician's tricks. They are tricks which make fools prattle." It's strong language. [laughter] We don't tend to speak that way. He's pretty clear about this. I don't need to be a meditator to see the relationship between desire and suffering. I don't need to have a big subtle attention and be able to pay attention to my experience in any kind of magnificently mindful way. I just need to look at life. You see, for instance, around addiction, when the being and the consciousness and the behaviour is bound in a certain direction, wrapped up in the desire for what I'm addicted to, whatever that is. It could be the more gross addictions that we think of, or the more subtle addictions that run through our life. You can see, when that is the case, the being is imprisoned along a certain track, and that track and that imprisonment is bringing suffering. It's clear. It's very clear.
We can see the effects of greed, unchecked greed, on the planet. I don't need to be a meditator to see this. What's happening today in relation to climate change? And some of you were there yesterday on the march. What's happening? And the countries right now in Durban meeting to try to agree a way forward. We can't seem to get it together. Just go back two years to Copenhagen, I think it was George Monbiot who wrote what should have been a kind of attempt to agree on ways to lower carbon emissions actually became a kind of competition of economies competing for the right to emit. What's happened? What's going on there collectively in the human species that we can't seem to jettison our greed and desire, and it's okay I want this in my life, and if someone in the Third World out of my range of vision is not able to get X, Y, Z, somehow it's okay? Something's going on in relation to desire, in relation to greed.
[9:17] I think it was the Buddha's first sermon, goes, "What is suffering? Not getting what you want. Not getting what you desire is suffering." That's clear. I want something, I don't get it, it's suffering. So all this is there in the teachings. It's very clear. As I said, I don't have to be a meditator to see that. And so along come Dharma teachings, and someone like me or someone else says, "Let go. Let go," and it sounds great because it's kind of like a slogan. It's kind of simple. Let go. And sometimes you hear that, and you try and let go, and you let go, and it feels better. Sometimes you hear it and you try and it doesn't work, right? Come on, guys. [laughter] It's easy to think, when it doesn't work it's easy to think it's my fault. If only I were more spiritual, more adept, more mindful, more this, more that, then I would be able to let go in a way that -- but maybe there are many reasons, many reasons why we can't let go. Maybe it's complex. And maybe one of the reasons is that desire itself is not so simple. Desire itself is not so simple.
A little while ago I heard from a practitioner. She was on retreat in the States, in a group retreat with a teacher. I know both the practitioner and the teacher pretty well. I used to live in the States. And in a group interview, this practitioner was sharing her longing for God, very deep, very heartfelt longing for God. That was her language of it. And the teacher said in response, "Longing for God is just another craving like all others. It brings suffering. It's an attempt to escape what is. Let it go."
So I heard this from the retreatant, and it really didn't sit very comfortably with me at all, as I said, knowing both of them. Some people, some of us, may be afraid to desire. There may be fear of desiring. Fear, particularly, of desiring deeply, and fear of desiring deep things. For us, as modern lay Dharma practitioners, how are we going to translate this teaching about non-clinging, about letting go of desire, etc.? How am I going to translate that into my life nowadays? What happens in the translation of this ancient teaching into my modern life? Very possible to talk about non-clinging. We talk about it quite a lot. We talk about it all the time, in fact, letting go, etc. And what I might end up letting go of is the deep desires. We talk about non-clinging, and I end up letting go of the deeper desires in the heart, the deeper movements. Maybe. Maybe. And maybe many of my smaller desires, so to speak, are quite alive and unchallenged in that. Something happens -- they go under the radar, the desire for comfort, the desire for things to be convenient, desire for security, whatever it is. Fears, all these fears that don't get challenged in this non-clinging. Fear is a form of desire. It's a negative desire, right? It's an aversion. It's a movement away from something.
Now, I talk a lot about non-clinging, etc., and maybe I end up -- how am I translating? Maybe I end up chopping off certain things and not questioning certain others. So again, I have a question for all of us. Is it your personal experience, is it your personal experience in your life, is it empirically proven, as they say, like an experiment, I can see in my life, experimenting with this, that desire leads to suffering? Is that really my ...? Okay. Is it so simple? And is it always true? Might it also be true at times that the absence of desire, the non-acknowledgment of desire, the non-nourishing of desire also brings suffering? It's a big question. We have to open things up, as I said at the beginning, to reconsider. "It's so easy, I just take this teaching, plunk it in, there we go, done." Maybe there's quite a lot here to look at.
So as I said, today what I want to do is explore this whole question of desire, and what it is, and what it does, and how we relate to it, and explore it from different angles; rather than coming to conclusions, to open things up. So I'd like to take a little step in the first direction right now and, as I said, do it a little bit differently. So I want to do it as a kind of -- not really a guided meditation, but a guided kind of inquiry. We're going to be sitting for about half an hour, so if you want to move your body, literally just for thirty seconds to stretch. You don't necessarily have to be in a meditative posture for this, but you might want to be. Whatever's comfortable. And it's probably a good idea to have the back somewhat upright and the body somewhat open.
[16:26, guided inquiry begins]
You can have your eyes open for this or your eyes closed, or you can go back and forth between eyes open, eyes closed. Just find a way to make it work as we're doing this, to keep it quite relaxed. Whatever helps you. Let's take a moment to really settle in. So feeling yourself sitting. Perhaps feeling the sensations of sitting, the sensations of touch with the floor, the feet, the legs. Feeling the sensations on the back or the backside. Really just bringing an aliveness of attention, of mindfulness, into the body, into the bodily experience. Really inhabiting the body with aliveness, with presence. Alive to the body and the way it feels right now.
Perhaps you want to check in with the face and how the face feels right now. Maybe you notice there's some holding, some tension. Just relaxing that as much as you can. Feeling how it feels and letting go, relaxing. Perhaps around the eyes, around the mouth, the jaw, the neck and the throat, just feeling in and relaxing, relaxing. It's okay if all the tension doesn't go. Just whatever's possible right now. And the shoulders, allowing them to drop down. The arms and hands, the upper back. Sensing in, tuning into how the upper back feels. Just relaxing. And the chest. And then the belly, and particularly the lower belly, the abdomen, really letting that hang down, really relaxing there. Feeling and relaxing.
Just being with this experience of bodily life right now. Opening to it. Allowing, welcoming the bodily experience. Is it possible to set the sense of direction of the next half an hour as one of kindness? This exercise that we're going to do, it's a movement of kindness. It's a gift of kindness to ourselves to inquire. It's a way of caring deeply for ourselves, for our lives. Is it possible to have a sense of this moment, holding yourself in care, holding yourself in a kind attitude, in warmth? All practice is kindness. All practice is a gift of kindness to ourselves. Not a self-improvement project. So at any time, feeling free to return to that sense of orientation of what we're doing and what you're doing. Practice, investigation, unfolds in an inner space, as much as possible, of kindness, of care.
Staying connected with the kindness if you can, staying connected with the body as we do this together. Quite a relaxed way. This first part is optional. See if it feels okay for you. Can you imagine yourself, hopefully many years from now, on your deathbed? You know you're dying. Perhaps two or three days left. It's a period of lucidity, of clarity, and clarity of memory also. Looking back, reflecting back over this journey, this movement of years from birth to death. It's ending now. It's ending. You're about to pass from this existence. Looking back on your life with the knowledge of death approaching. How does that feel? Just noticing your feelings just with that much, if it feels okay for you, this imagination. Just noticing what comes up with that. Caring for what comes up.
So looking back at this journey, this adventure, this miracle of gift of life. Looking back. From that perspective, maybe dropping in the question: what did I want from life? What did I want from this life? What was it that I wanted? Or if it feels more comfortable to do it from the present moment, not from the perspective of the deathbed, what is it that I'm wanting? What do I want from this existence? In the kindness and the care, just dropping the question in and seeing what comes, listening, feeling.
You can play with the phrasing of the question, the words. What opens it up for you? You could say: what was it that I wanted to put my energies towards? What did I want to move towards? What do I want to move towards? Whatever helps you in to this process. Caring for the heart, caring for your life with these questions. Or you could put it in the negative: what did I regret, or what would I regret, not doing, not trying, not going for? What would be a regret at the end of life? What comes up with these questions? Opening to see what comes up. Not pressuring yourself. With care, with sensitivity. The question is a kindness. To connect deeply with ourselves.
Is it possible to notice everything that's coming up around this, everything, and to allow everything that comes up with this? Real uncensoredness and openness, sensitivity to all the inner responses. As much as possible, please don't project or assume that I as a teacher am coming from a certain position with this -- I'm really not -- that there's a right and a wrong, or a deep desire is better than a less deep desire. Completely open. Really honouring yourself and your truth, your truths. Free from authority.
If you feel like you've always known what you want, what you wanted, and there's not much to explore here, just check -- if it feels like you're getting the same old answer, just check that that's still true for you, that those answers are still true. Just check. Look. Feel in.
So you can play with the whole process, play with it to help bring it alive for you. What's helpful? It might be helpful to split the question in two. What did I want outwardly? What did I want inwardly? What do I want in the outer life? What do I want in the inner life? Maybe that opens it up, brings it alive. Or maybe splitting it into two and asking: what did I want to receive from life? What did I want to give to life? Maybe that helps bring it alive. What did I want to receive from life? What did I want to give to life, to share with life?
Remembering the kindness, the holding in care. So is it one thing that comes up, or a few things that you want? Many things? Maybe it's some other feeling entirely that comes up with this process -- maybe fear, maybe something else. Is it possible to include in the noticing, in the mindfulness, how you're relating right now to what comes up? How am I relating to this? Is there an assumption that to have one main desire is better, or to have many is better, or to have none is better? Finding ways to connect, to connect. Do you notice that maybe some desires feel more important than others? Is it possible to feel into a desire that's there? How does it feel? How does it feel in the body, this want? How does that feel? Really including the body awareness. What does it feel like in the body?
So really noticing as much as you can, allowing as much as you can, the feelings, the experience in the body, but also with the mind, thoughts and assumptions: "This is good, this is not so good, this is right, that is wrong." What does the mind say about all this? Perhaps there's a thought: "Wanting that, it would be impossible to get that, so it would be suffering. I could never achieve that or get that. There's no point." So noticing what the mind throws out in terms of thoughts and assumptions. The mind says, "I might fail." Maybe there's a thought, "I don't deserve that. I don't deserve to want that." Maybe you notice fear or resistance to desiring, fear or resistance to asking. Or maybe there's joy there. Maybe there's love that comes, energy, peace. Whatever it is, just noticing, allowing, feeling.
Lastly, if there is a desire or desires that you see there, does it feel important that you get that thing, or that you reach that thing? Does it matter if it doesn't materialize? How would that be? Or is it just giving yourself to it fully that matters? Lots of kindness, lots of kindness.
Maybe just connecting with this simple sense of being here in the room together now, and the sense of kindness, again, of holding yourself in that care. Whenever you're ready, you can open the eyes.
[54:15, guided inquiry ends]
So I wonder how that was. Does anyone -- it's quite a big group, so you might not feel like saying anything. Does anyone want to share a little bit about that experience? You don't have to.
Yogi: [inaudible] ... the dilemma is when to surrender oneself to one's desires. [?] resisting those desires. Or the desires are an illusion. I think, in a way, for me, possibly [?] my desires is more damaging to myself than actually giving in to them.
Rob: Yeah, that's interesting. Thank you.
Yogi 2: I found it really difficult in this environment to actually locate my desires. They weren't there. But I'm also aware that they sneak up on me when I'm outside ... [laughter] whereas in this environment I really struggle to find them.
Rob: In a meditative environment, or with so many people around, do you mean?
Yogi 2: Both. But throughout daily life, they're constantly, "Do this, buy that."
Rob: So what would you conclude from that?
Yogi 2: That meditating is good. [laughter]
Rob: Why?
Yogi 2: Well, there was a moment where the absence of desire scared me; I felt, "Where are they?" There was a fear.
Rob: Yeah. That's very -- can everyone hear? What's your name?
Yogi 2: Ian.
Rob: Ian. Can everyone hear what Ian was saying? That's very interesting. This kind of exercise and today when we're talking about approaching things from so many different angles, it can go in all kinds of different directions. I'll touch on this this afternoon. It may be -- I'm not saying this is the case -- but it may be in our lives that we sort of rope ourselves into a certain position through the movement of desire. Those kinds of desires are like harnesses. That thing, that thing, that thing keeps me in this place and the self in a certain familiar inner sense, etc., in relationship to my world, and the absence, the letting go of that, yeah, scary. A lot goes when that goes, you know? And again, I'm not saying this is the case, but it could be that a certain kind of desire ropes me in place that way. And maybe there are other kinds of desire that, maybe when those ones get quiet, in time, begin to get seen. Maybe, for some people, a prerequisite of opening up to other kinds of desire is the quietening of this kind of everyday desire, "Buy this, do that," that's actually functioning in a sort of, in a way, a defence of the status quo. Yeah? So there's so much to explore here. But that's great. Wonderful.
Yogi 3: I guess I found it quite overwhelming, lots of different things and layers. One of the things that, for me, the desire to meditate, to inquire, is also there. [inaudible]
Rob: Everything else meaning, "You should do it this way, and it should be like this"? Shoulds?
Yogi 3: [inaudible] And also sadness about things that I've done.
Rob: Okay, beautiful. So I want to talk a little bit about what you're saying. The sadness -- can everyone hear that? The sadness might be also really important. It's a difficult emotion, but maybe it's healing something to feel that. Maybe it's like acknowledging something. Maybe that's part of me getting clear about something, letting go of a certain way of doing things and moving on to something else. Though it's painful, there may be something lovely in there.
Yogi 3: I think so.
Rob: I'm quite aware, doing an exercise like this, it can be very uncomfortable, very overwhelming potentially, and one comes really up against all kinds of stuff. That's wonderful what you're sharing. Even just differentiating there was this desire to practise, to inquire, beautiful. I'm going to talk more about that. And there was also this inner critic that says, "Well, if you're going to do that, you should be living on a mountain peak and just eating snow and ..." [laughter] Yeah, great. This is what we encounter. This is absolutely what we encounter. I want to talk a bit about it. It's beautiful. What's your name? Catherine? Lovely. It can be uncomfortable doing this kind of thing. It can be very overwhelming. But it can also bring up joy. I'm just curious whether for anyone there was any joy. Yeah? Good, good.
Yogi 4: This is a question I've been circling around for years, and coming from a place of finding it hard to know what my desires are apart from a small number of very addictive [?]. I actually stopped meditating years ago because it felt like what you were saying, that meditation was doing something that I didn't feel my desires. It made it okay not to have desires, and I know in myself that that not having a desire is not a healthy [?].
Rob: Yeah, very good. Thank you very much. This is part of what I want to go into today. Let's go through the day and there will be questions and time for comment at the end, and if it's still alive for you as a question, we can maybe go into it some more. How's that? Yeah? Okay.
It may be, of course, some people doing that feel like there's no point in this, I don't get the point of the exercise. It might be that another time, or finding a way to make this kind of inquiry work for you, I think I would say that there is a point to it and one can find that.
So Catherine was sharing that she encountered the inner critic, this kind of character inside that is berating us and badgering and criticizing and it's never good enough. Did anyone else encounter this in the exercise? Yeah. Okay. So I want to talk a little bit about this, because it's actually very connected. The inner critic, this constellation of criticism of self and what we do and think, so quick to squash, to ridicule, to dismiss the movements of the heart, particularly the movements of desire, and particularly the movements of deep desire. It wants to dismiss it, to ridicule it, to squash it, especially the movement of deep desire.
A while ago at Gaia House, I can't remember when it was, someone came in for an interview. They'd done quite a fair amount of practice. She was in her late fifties, maybe. She came on her own -- we weren't talking about this, I don't think -- to a realization. The movement of deep desire was, "I want to serve people. I've come to a place in my life I want to serve." Very lovely. But then, boom, so quick: "I won't be able to because ba-dum-ba-dum-ba-dum-ba-dum," this whole list, a whole litany of reasons why she wasn't good enough and why she would not be able to serve because of all her faults.
One of them was, "I'm closed to people. How can I serve people if I'm closed to people?" What was interesting -- and I know her quite well -- was that there was some truth to what she was saying about herself. It wasn't like they were completely -- had no basis in truth, what she was saying. But too quick with that criticism, and it's like the desire has no chance to grow. It's just like stamping on a plant that's just got its little shoot out of the earth, out of the soil. There's no chance for the desire to grow and to see what is the effect on the being, on the consciousness, on the outlook of a desire that has been allowed to grow more powerful. I squash it before I even see that.
So maybe, maybe in my life I need to protect desire in some instances. Like I said at the beginning, this is rich and complex; it's not so simple. Maybe in some instances I need to protect my desire, just like I might protect a little plant that's going to grow into a tree. I need to ring it from the deer, etc., that might eat it. Maybe in that protection I need to separate out the desire, separate it from the question of whether I'll be capable of doing such-and-such a thing. Actually just put that question aside for now and protect the desire itself. And put aside the question, "What exactly am I going to do? What exactly is the form that this desire is going to take?" Maybe separate the desire out from that and keep them at a distance for while and let the desire itself grow.
Because when the desire grows, it starts affecting things in the being, deep in the consciousness, deep in the heart. It affects things and begins to inform how I then look at those questions, how I feel about those questions and how I see things -- whether I'll be capable, what exactly I'll do, etc. Do you understand? The desire itself is a force that transforms my feeling and my looking. In this instance with this interview, it was interesting. She said this and then she starts comparing herself to -- who was it? -- Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela. [laughter] I can't remember. All of which was basically functioning as taking a big measuring stick and just thwack, thwack, thwack, thwack, thwack. That was all it was. It was just measuring myself in relation to these quite extraordinary, remarkable examples of humanity, deep flowering in their lives, and just beating oneself up, and beating oneself down, and beating the life force down in myself. She didn't even pause long enough to be moved by Nelson Mandela and Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King, etc., and their life and what they gave and what they were able to manifest. It didn't even land in the heart at all.
So what would happen, again, if we could let that in first to the emotions? Let the whole thing into the emotions. Maybe when the emotions are touched, it works on the self-view and works on the sense of possibilities, as I said. Inner critic will inhibit desire. Inner critic inhibits desire. Mysteriously, in the inner realm, causality works both ways. Inner critic inhibits desire. Desire, especially deep desire, will inhibit the inner critic. We're talking about what are the gifts, maybe, not just the pitfalls and the dangers of desire, but maybe there are gifts in desire. There are gifts there, there are treasures there. And the force of desire and the beauty of it, the depth of it, can actually drain the force from the inner critic.
This, to me, is really important, because what happens -- again, picking up on what Catherine said -- what happens to my spiritual aspirations with all of this, with the inner critic? What happens because I fear I might fail? For instance, there's a certain practice, or giving myself more fully to something, and I fear I might fail. What happens with that? So I get a roadblock here, and I get another roadblock there, and a roadblock here and there, and sooner or later my realm, my sense of possibility, my sense of even what practice is has shrunk because I'm afraid of the feeling of failure that might trigger the inner critic if I do this, this, this, or try that. What am I taking it to mean if I fail? What does it imply about me if there's a failure?
So maybe those thoughts and those fears, it's okay if they're there. The question, as always, is what's the relationship with that kind of fear? What's the relationship with the inner critic? To me, this is key, because it's like, we're all doing this together, so if we're giving too much authority to fear and the inner critic, what happens to the Dharma as well together? What does it become? Because of the inner critic, because of fear, we shrink back our life energy, our libido, our eros. We hold that back from life sometimes. Maybe there are gifts that desire brings that are not so obvious.
If we, for just a few minutes, dwell on the sort of more conventional Dharma approach about clinging and desire, let's look at that because it's important, too, of course. Typically in the Dharma or in spiritual teachings, we hear something like, "Desire/clinging bring suffering," as I said earlier. "They bring suffering, so drop them. Drop them." Now, let's investigate that a little bit. Can you, in your life, look at the past, look at experiences that you've had, and see a time when there was something that you really wanted? Maybe it was a relationship, or a person, or a house, or a job, or -- I don't know what it was, a car. And you really, really wanted this thing, really, really wanted it. "I really want that thing." [laughter] And you didn't get it.
And then a little time goes by, and it's fine! Have you had this experience? [affirmative noises] Interesting. So I'll give you a really dumb example, and it's a silly one, but I'm going to return to it, so there's a reason I'm giving it. I think I started practising about twenty-five, twenty-six years ago, something like that. It was before Amazon.com and all this business. I started in England, and then I moved to the States. I was very, very keen. I was hunting this ancient text that I'd heard of. I'd heard of it and I believed it was going to have some kind of esoteric information that would help me develop my practice. I looked everywhere for it, everywhere. I asked everyone I thought could have a clue. I went to all these obscure kind of antiquarian bookshops. You couldn't just google it in those days. I trundled through all kinds of weather all over Boston, etc. It was a real hassle. I was really attached to the desire, to wanting this thing. It was a real hassle, and I didn't find it.
A little time goes by, and it was just not a problem. More than that, actually, someone gave me the book a few years ago, and I actually don't want it. [laughter] I'm completely and utterly disinterested in this book. I'm going to come back to this. It's a silly story. I'm going to come back to it. So you've noticed that: had this desire, didn't get it, it was fine after a little while. Have you also noticed this: you really wanted something, and then you got it -- "Uhh"? [laughter] A little time goes by and it doesn't bring the fulfilment or the lasting satisfaction that we thought. Either it changes, or they, the person changes, or I change and my desire changes. Yeah? Pretty much almost everyone has had this experience. Have you heard this kind of teaching before? You must have, right? Because you've heard it before, I'm not going to go into that today. You don't need to hear it again. You've heard it before. I'm going to go in a different direction. You guys know this stuff. It's there, you've heard it, you've read it, etc. No point in me sitting here repeating it.
[1:14:19] I want to take it in a different direction, like I said. That book, that ancient text that I was talking about, it wasn't the book that I wanted. It wasn't this thing. Partly what it was was a large section of it I had heard explained about jhānas. I don't know if you know this word, jhānas. It means deep states of meditative absorption and bliss and ecstasy, etc. That's what I was interested in. That's what I wanted. But actually it wasn't just the bliss that I wanted. It wasn't just the pleasure. It was something about the deepening, the potential of consciousness, the exploration of inner realms. That's what I wanted, and that's what sent me here, there, and everywhere, putting up with that hassle, that discovery. And I wonder -- it's a silly example, as I said, and you can choose your own for this, and I could share many more -- but I wonder whether that being attached to a desire in that way actually brings a certain fruit or certain fruits into the life. Again, we're talking about gifts of desire. Actually through that energy came into the being, it energizes the being. Determination comes as a quality. A kind of devotedness, devotion comes. Power. I don't mean power over anyone; I mean power in the being. Dynamism. Growth. Something starts to grow through the very pig-headed attachment to a desire that seems to matter. Soulfulness, depth. Whatever words you want to choose. Somehow those qualities may be carved out of the being, carved out of the heart by trying to follow a certain desire.
If I let go of desire -- maybe a certain desire; I don't know -- if I let go of desire, maybe the opposite might be true. Maybe something in the being gets disempowered. I'm talking about over time now. Disempowered. Becomes weak, becomes flaccid, loses power, is impotent in a certain way. Maybe even a bit boring, maybe. Especially -- and someone was saying this -- if that non-desiring, letting go of desire, is coming from fear of desire, and maybe fear of desiring for deep things. What will be the consequence, the inner consequence and the consequence in the being and in the life over time if that's the case, if I'm afraid of letting myself desire something deep, like love or whatever else? So what to do with all this? What would happen if I always followed every desire, just the superficial desires? What would happen to the being over time, just following superficial desires? That would probably also be weakening. If I just follow superficial desires, something weakens in the being similarly. So what's the implication? That I hang on to deep ones and let go of superficial ones? I don't want to make conclusions today. So more questioning than anything else, opening something, opening this whole realm up.
Sometimes we might have, as a sense of practice, you know, you might hear and you might hold it as a sort of direction in practice, "Let go of all desire. Let go of all desire. All desire." What does that mean? What would that even look like? If I really ask myself and just reflect, what would it even mean to let go of all desire? Is it even possible? What on earth would it mean for me to let go of all desire? Maybe that's too simple and too unexplored as a sort of slogan, as a spiritual slogan. Actually it would be impossible. It's impossible to move in the world of objects and things and relationships free of all desire, of all movement of the mind towards or away from things. It's not possible. Trying to do that, too simple. What will happen is subtle desires remain unseen and not understood. I want to touch on that a little bit this afternoon.
Maybe there's always desire. Maybe there always should be desire. You think about the Buddha in the mythical story. Got awakened under the tree, so it says in the story. And then almost his first thought is, "I want, I want" -- desire -- "I want to share this with someone. Who can I share it with?" He runs through some possibilities. The only people he can think are his ascetic friends, the five friends. You maybe know the story. He walked, and it's May, in the hot season in India, in the Ganges Plain, and he walked, if you look at the map, more than 200 miles because he wants to share something. There are stories when he's teaching. He sometimes says he seeks out with his psychic eye who is ready to hear the Dharma, and he will walk, he will go to this place. It's the movement of desire.
So, like I said, I'm not going to make any conclusions for you. But just to say -- and someone already touched on this -- I think we need to be careful. We need to be very careful, very open, very questioning, careful that the path that I'm on does not shrink me in some way or shrink something beautiful in me, something that is a blessing. Do you understand? Be careful of what my assumptions are around all this, because I might be letting go of something that is not a good idea to let go of.
Okay. So that's the end of Part One. [laughter] I want to approach different angles and leave things more open. Really what I'm doing is just lobbing a few grenades today. [laughter]
What shall we do now? Let's have a walking period, some walking meditation. Who's got a bell? Jane? Thank you. If we aim to be back for a sitting at 12, Jane. Let me just give some instructions if you're new to this. With walking meditation, we can walk anywhere on the green. Is that right? Yeah? So anywhere outside, really. And to choose a path so we're really walking up and down between two points; it's not sort of just ambling around, but walking up and down between two points. It might be half the width of this room or a little longer. You can start just by standing. It's a very simple practice. What does it feel like to stand? What's the embodied experience of standing? So I feel the connection with the earth, the sensations in the body, the whole body. Maybe I tune into the sensations of contact with the earth. You can stand as long as you like feeling that. When you feel ready, you can begin walking. Just what does it feel like to walk? It's very, very simple. What's the experience of walking? The mind drifts and you bring it back to that experience of walking.
You can walk as slow as you like or as fast as you like. What helps you stay connected? What helps make it interesting, this experience we have, the miracle of being alive, that we can walk and we can feel that? When you reach the end, you can stop. You can stand for as long as you want. Feel the standing. What does it feel like to turn, when you're ready? And again, to just walk up and down. You can stop any time if you feel like you want to centre yourself more and gather the attention. Another thing that people can play with is the sort of size of their attention. You could just pay attention to the soles of your feet if you want and the sensations in the soles of your feet. You could pay attention to how it feels in the legs or the lower legs or the whole body. You could be really spacious and have a sense of sky, air, earth, space, and the sensations of the body walking in that, and that's a big frame, and awareness is very open. So it could be very focused, or very open, everything in between. The question is really, what brings it alive for you? What makes it interesting and supports a sense of connection with that?
Okay? So we have half an hour of walking, and then we'll come back in for a sitting period. Jane will ring the bell.
