Transcription
Some time now, before we end, time for, certainly, questions about anything that's been said today or this whole area of emptiness, or really about anything in the Dharma, really. It's open time. Or about meditation. So it's just time for open questions, or something, a comment, or something you want to share. The time is now. Please.
Q1: seeing in terms of inner, outer, past, and present conditions instead of blaming selves and others
Yogi: When you were talking about blame, you talked about inner and outer, past. Could you go over that again?
Rob: Yeah. As a principle, again, what we're doing, when there's blame, there's a kind of constriction of the view onto the self of another or this self, and blaming the self, saying, "That self was responsible. That's the self's fault." We blame that self, this self or that self. And so we're trying to open out the view and stretch it into corners where it wouldn't go, to do that. And just as a way of helping that process, because it's not the normal way the mind works, you can be a little bit contrived and think about four kinds of conditions, like (1) inner, past, (2) outer, past, (3) inner, present, (4) outer, present. Yeah?
So it's completely contrived, and you'll find things that are kind of, "Do you think that belongs there or belongs there?" It doesn't really matter. The idea is just to stretch it. So what was the example we used? You're talking to your friend, and there's that -- not real empathy. So 'inner, present' might be something like just the fact that you're tired. You know, something like that. 'Outer, present' might be how she's communicating it. 'Inner, past' might be, I'm still feeling a bit resentful from something she said to me two weeks ago that we never really talked about yet, and it's kind of blocking what's going on -- that sort of thing. Yeah? That enough?
Yogi: Yeah.
Rob: Okay, great. So yeah, it's artificial kind of division there, but it's really an exercise. And eventually it just becomes a way of looking that just feels more natural and very fluid, and the sort of normal way that the looking goes, rather than the other, the contracting way.
Yes?
Q2: clinging to happiness; cultivating happiness and deconstructing happiness at different times; establishing confidence in emptiness practices
Yogi: I was just thinking about happy emotions, because we've talked about the sadness and anger, and this and that. I mean, I imagine that the thing to do is to not cling. But that sort of felt like that, and I was wondering. It must be important to see, well, that happiness is just as impermanent. I mean, or is it, sort of, it's not a problem because ... it's not a problem? See what I mean? I mean, it just, it seems like it just didn't get talked about today. I know when I'm happy, I want to cling to it.
Rob: Yeah, thank you. Came up in the Q & A earlier, and it's really important. The situation of happiness is a little richer, because as someone pointed out this morning, it's not obviously a problem. So again, I go back to the flexibility thing. That's the ultimately deepest level, is that there's a flexibility of way of looking.
The thing about happiness is, the Buddha placed a lot of emphasis on cultivating happiness and different kinds of happiness, and kinds of well-being. So when you do something like the loving-kindness practice, generally speaking, it builds happiness and the sense of well-being. And so that's actually really good. When you have a lot of that, it's easier to let go of other stuff. Look, if I feel overflowing with happiness most days of my life, I'm not going to cling so much to money and needing this holiday over there. And why? Because I have enough. Yeah? So happiness is actually very important to build as something that enables us to let go of other things. Yeah?
But in the whole journey, eventually we also let go of happiness too, as something to -- so, sometimes people say, "Oh, let go. You know, don't cling to happiness," or "Happiness is bad," or "You'll get attached to it." I would view it more as different gears. So sometimes we're in the business of cultivating happiness, and sometimes you can shift gear and be in a mode like, let's say, the impermanence practice. You say, "Even happiness is impermanent." So whether it's happiness that comes up or sadness or just a kind of middle feeling, it all gets looked at in the same way. You're in a certain mode, at that time, of deconstructing everything.
[4:36] Eventually, in terms of insight, what we want to learn is that everything is empty, everything is a construction. But that understanding frees us, and brings a lot of happiness, paradoxically. And eventually, it's a curious thing: when I see, let's say, a depressed feeling or fear, and I really see its emptiness, it dissolves. And maybe it just goes to a kind of neutral, open feeling -- whatever. But sometimes it dissolves and it goes to happiness, paradoxically. I look at this, I see the emptiness of it, and what takes its place, takes the place of this depression is happiness -- just through seeing the emptiness of it. When I do that with happiness, and I deconstruct it and see the emptiness of it, it might actually intensify the happiness. Usually when you look at suffering and see the emptiness of it, it doesn't intensify the suffering; it dissolves it. But when you see the emptiness of happiness, it can intensify it.
But in the trajectory of things, what it does is, it might intensify, and then, actually, it -- how could you say? The happiness gets more subtle. We could say it gets less constructed, and what gets built is a more refined happiness. So a state of peace, for example, a very alive state of peace is actually a deeper state, a more fulfilling state, and a less constructed state than the state of happiness, if that makes sense.
Again, this goes back to what someone asked earlier: sometimes you get the impression, in some teachings or some Dharma circles, that the whole [point is], really, we want to just deconstruct everything, like a bulldozer. So just trying to, you know, flatten everything. And I don't know, that makes me a little uneasy. There are some things -- we know it's a construction, but we want to construct it because it's a beautiful construction. It's a helpful construction. So you can deconstruct, and you can construct. Ultimately, we want to know that it's all constructed. But then you can choose. Does that make sense? Yeah?
[6:33] So, going back to this thing about flexibility and what's helpful, sometimes happiness is really helpful. And sometimes it's even helpful, even if we're attached to it a little bit. Is that enough, or ...?
Yogi: Yeah, yeah. No, it just struck me that it wasn't really being talked about, and I think for me, when I'm happy, I'm fearful of losing it, and I tend to kind of try to hang on to it. And I'm sure that's not the right way to ...
Rob: Well, sometimes it is. I mean, if you cling too tightly, it will just strangle it, basically. That's what happens if we cling too tightly to anything, certainly if we cling too tightly to happiness. But one of my teachers used to say the path is a bit like climbing a ladder, and to let go of this rung, to reach the next rung, you actually need to grasp this rung up here.[1] So maybe grasping happiness lightly is actually part of what moves me up. And eventually that rung, too, gets let go of, yeah?
Now, you're aware of this, because you're asking the question. Again, I would just, again and again, so often with all this stuff, the answer is, really experiment, play with it. Careful when you're locked into "I just always do it this way." And see, "What happens when I do it this way?" So for example, when there's happiness, take a little risk, and view it through the goggles of impermanence. Or view it through the goggles of not-self. And see what happens to it, just out of curiosity. See what happens.
Yogi: I was just wondering, if we're less motivated to kind of work with happiness because it's really, just kind of sit back and ...
Rob: Oh, definitely. Yes.
Yogi: You kind of let it be, whereas when you're sad, you have some motivation to kind of ...
Rob: No question about it, yeah.
Yogi: engage these tools. You need them more.
Rob: Yeah, that's definitely true. Yes, absolutely, but I would also add, as something I said very briefly, is that, as you start to go deeper with this thread, this construction thread, realizing the emptiness, you start to really taste the freedom at every stage. And it gives you confidence, basically, that "Every time I see the emptiness, it brings this freedom. And ooh! Maybe that's even true for happiness, that there's a deeper sense of freedom and well-being than even the happiness." And that starts to get you interested in that. And we start to become sensitive to more subtle levels of clinging and constriction. So even clinging to happiness, you actually feel it as a constriction.
Yogi: [?]
Rob: Oh, yeah. And clinging to a tight self-view -- so you're interested in kind of loosening everything. But you have to establish a certain amount of confidence. If I just sit here and say, "Let go of everything," I mean, it sounds good because it's so simple. But it's a little bit ridiculous as a teaching, because you're not going to be able to. If I'm so poor in terms of happiness, how can I ask someone to let go of happiness? It's too much. So it's different ways of doing things, and actually building what's helpful, to be able to do that. Yeah?
Please.
Q3: emptiness, fabrication, moral responsibility/ethics; emptiness practice leads to freedom and love
Yogi: When I hear about emptiness and things being fabricated, I sort of get muddled as to where does responsibility in taking care of things go into it, because it's like, they're not real, right? Why take care of them?
Rob: Yeah, really important question. I mean, my experience with this is -- that's why I said earlier: practice is the most important thing. So we can hear about this stuff intellectually, and that's a very common -- just as the person next to you said, "Well, I feel uneasy." Another person, like you were saying, "Well, I don't know. I'm a bit worried about disconnecting and not caring, a kind of moral nihilism," and all that kind of stuff -- very, very normal reaction, as much as relief was, whoever said that. So there's this whole range. But that's almost like before we really get into it as a practice. My experience is, if you practise with emptiness, particularly in the kind of ways that we're talking about today, the sort of very kind of obvious steps where you're releasing suffering, you realize that it somehow brings more love, more connection, more care. We could explain a little bit of why that is, but the best thing is just to feel it and trust it, and trust that "Oh, this much feels good. I can go the next," rather than take this really radical idea, and then think, "Yikes, won't I da-da-da?" -- which is normal, but not particularly helpful. My experience is that the more one, practice-wise, experientially goes into the sense of emptiness and feels the freedom, the more love opens up. It's like there are less barriers and separation between things. Naturally, there's care there.
The other thing to add, for an example, so -- well, we can explain it a little bit: remember when I talked about, like, when the mettā is really strong, there's one kind of sense of self and sense of the world, and when there's a sort of normal state of consciousness, and when there's papañca, and you've got this spectrum, right? You also start to see, if you practise the way, the ways we've been talking about today, you start to see how much what appears to me depends on the qualities in my mind. When there's love, it's like, a loving world appears to me, so I start to really care about what's here and how I'm relating. It's not that it's irrelevant. So wrapped up in the whole journey of insight is this really central insight that it matters how much I care, because that's what gets reflected back to me. Do you understand? I didn't say that very well. But does it make sense?
Yogi: [?]
Rob: So that's also integral to the whole evolution of the insight, is that, it's -- we can't not care about the state of the mind and the state of the heart. The more we care, the more it opens up beauty and connection. And so we start to see, "Oh, this matters." Yeah?
Q4: wariness about emptiness as philosophy; emptiness practice as open investigation and exploration; emptiness practice does not lead to lack of morals
Yogi: We were talking about constructions at various [?] reality. And I'm just a little bit wary of the view -- I'm not sure that this really was what you were saying, exactly, but I'm a bit wary of any sort of suggestion that any construction or way of looking at things is as valid as any other. And I wasn't quite sure that ...
Rob: Yeah. So, if I have a ...
Yogi: ... thoughts about that?
Rob: Yeah. Is it really a danger for you?
Yogi: No, but I mean ... well, no, it's not. And it probably isn't for most people, but that's because most of us, in our everyday lives, treat certain constructions as, you know, in a meaningful sense, true or [?] generalizations, like certain generalizations about today's weather, we would treat as valid. And some we dismiss as clearly false. And that is the kind of yardstick, and we test things against the evidence. [?]
Rob: Yeah, so in the tradition, there's been a big argument about this. And just to use some technical language, there's the sort of stream of the tradition that talks about, in technical language, 'valid cognition of conventional phenomena' -- in other words, "It is this and not an elephant," or whatever. You know? So that's the conventional: "It's a bouquet of flowers, you know. It's not an elephant charging at me," okay? So that's 'valid cognition.' And so there's a stream of the tradition that really emphasizes that, that that's really important. And there's another stream of the tradition that says, "Actually, there's no valid cognition, in the end," you know. I mean, we could talk about this really quite a lot. That's why I reflected back to you, said, "Is it really a problem?" You're quite right. Generally we take a certain amount for granted. It's not a problem. What we actually need to do is see the emptiness of things.
So again, like with -- what's your name? Rachel. Like Rachel's question, this is all very pragmatic. Rather than trying to fix some philosophical answer and have it all wrapped up before the practice, I would say, have a general understanding where we're pointing. Start practising with simple things. It gets deeper and deeper and deeper. And eventually that will answer all the questions that need answering without any danger there. You see what I mean?
Yogi: I think so, yeah. I'm just a little bit wary, just on one hand, you're implying a certain philosophy, and yet on the other hand, you're saying [?] ...
Rob: I am implying a certain philosophy. I'm also implying a way of going about that. Yeah? So, I mean, do you know much about, let's say, quantum physics or something like that?
Yogi: Oh, a little, very sketchy. [laughs]
Rob: Okay, well. It would be a similar -- I don't know how much you know, but it would be a similar thing that I say, you can't, when you get down to that level -- we tend to assume, "Well, this is all okay. It's a flower." But then you get down to atoms, and then you get down to protons and electrons, and you say, "Oh, that's what's real: the little billiard balls." When you actually get down to that level, that's not what's there at all. There are not billiard balls. It's actually areas of probability, where a thing might manifest as this or it might manifest as that. It might be over here, but it might be over here. There's not the sense of independent reality, independent of the looking, in the same -- that's not saying this atom might suddenly appear as an elephant or something. There's a range of things that are likely, in terms of positions and how it shows up as a particle or wave. So it's similar like that. There's still a sort of range of how much can be perceived.
But in terms of your question about philosophy, it's like, you know, I think what I was really trying to do was not so much set up a philosophy and say, "It's like ..." Rather, invite something, and then set up a way of practising where one can follow and find out for oneself. And in that, there will be -- I would say that I've never encountered, for someone who's practising, a problem with the kind of thing that you're talking about.
Yogi: Inviting an openness to experience, so rather than going around classifying it immediately and saying, "This is how reality is," we sort of just say, "Well, let's wait and see, and see what we find out."
Rob: Yeah. So like I said this morning, it's like, when I talk about things like getting in that state of papañca, and such a vortex, and "This person's really like that, and I'm like this," and we feel, "This is so real, and this issue's like this," and after a little while we realize, "Oh, that was a fabrication." So the invitation that I'm trying to put out is, what if we just kept open the question of what is fabricated? And see that, "Oh, there's a thread here we can follow," without deciding in advance what is and what isn't fabricated. Now, in the middle of that, I was also throwing out, like a little -- what's the, you know, temptation thing? Because some people -- just kind of saying, this is going much deeper than we think. If you keep open that question, "What is fabricated?", and don't limit it, and just keep exploring, the answers will be quite revolutionary -- but without imposing that as an idea first. So it's really practice, again. Yeah?
And my sense, again, with people who have ideas without practising, and maybe have certain imbalances psychologically, etc., yeah, all kinds of ugh is possible. But generally, for most people, the tendency is to solidify in this sort of common-sense way. And what needs to happen is practice, you know, goes deeper and deeper, starts unsolidifying. There's never any danger of craziness or inappropriate, or selfishness, or, you know, a lack of morals. It tends to take care of itself through the practice. That's my experience. Is that ... yeah? Okay. Good.
Yes?
Q5: emptiness practice allows one to hold views of self, responsibility, and story lightly; flexibility of view
Yogi: But going back to blame and responsibility, something that I'm curious about. When I did the blame, I became aware that what got me [?] blaming was when I felt that someone had not done what they were responsible for. And then it put me back to, moving on from that, that one still has responsibility to the world, whatever emptiness or -- but it's perhaps how you approach or [?]. Because if somebody's blaming you furiously, you really don't want it at all, and [?]. So I don't know, I just felt a little, actually, maybe the answer's somewhere around responsibility, but taken a little bit lightly.
Rob: That's one answer, yeah. So it's like, you know, we can talk about responsibility and entertain that notion, and similarly, entertain the notion of self that that involves. But we can hold it lightly, you know. And seeing emptiness is part of what allows you to hold different perceptions and conceptions lightly, like responsibility of self, or whatever, story. It's another thing: story, my personal story. I can concretize it and constrict around it, or I can hold it very, very lightly, and actually see, "Well, there's more room in there than I thought," for instance. Not quite as real as I thought, but I'm still holding it. You know, I entertain -- so that's one answer. And the other answer is what we said before about flexibility. So some situations, some times in life, or whatever, require entering into this view of responsibility: "My moral choice now. The buck stops here," whatever it is, whatever way of, you know. And other times, it's much better to just not see in terms of responsibility. Yeah? So there's a flexibility there.
Yogi: How do you not see? How do you get out of seeing [?] responsibility?
Rob: It depends what we're talking about, but something like the blame practice we did is opening up the view beyond the notion of "That person or me was responsible for that." So it's seeing in terms of conditions, for example. That would be one way.
Yogi: The conditions?
Rob: Like all the -- were you here for that this morning? Can't remember.
Yogi: Oh no, I think I missed it.
Rob: Oh, you missed it. Okay, we did a whole thing about seeing in terms of wider conditions instead of seeing in terms of the self.
Yogi: Oh!
Rob: And that would be one way of doing it. Am I answering your question?
Yogi: You're helping! [laughs] I don't know if it's a got a total answer, but yes.
Rob: Okay. Do you need anything more right now, or ...?
Yogi: No, that's fine.
Rob: Sure? Okay.
Q6: insight into the extremity of one's own stupidity can be a gift
Yogi: It's not really a question at all, but I was thinking about the process of the [?] self [?] ... you realize the inevitability to reactions to people. And it opens up the responsibility to [?] ... kind of sad about lost time or something, or the times [?].
Rob: Yeah. Well, do you need an answer, or ...? No? Okay. [laughter] But yeah, it can happen, yeah, definitely. And I disagree with this, but that same teacher who taught, who said the thing about the ladder, also said that basically, insight ... I don't agree with this, but insight is basically seeing how stupid you've been.[2] [laughter] And it's hard. It's hard for that reason. I'm not sure I agree with that, but there are some times there's something of that. And there can be the sense of, "Oh, what a waste. I was caught in that for not just a few minutes or hours, but sometimes years, years and years, or decades, in a certain way of solidifying something about me." And yeah, it's like, "Ouch."
Going back to that therapist story I told you about, that was so intense for me, and so painful, and so stuck that it was almost like the very extremity of it made that so clear, that it was so obviously -- at some point, it's like, the coin just dropped. And had it not been so strong and so kind of, you know, blatant like that, maybe it would have taken me longer to learn that. But it was so clear that once that coin dropped, it was like, that's it, and I can no longer even think about, in those other terms any more. Sometimes, the things that are most painful and most stuck, it's like the very black-and-whiteness of them is actually a gift, painful as it is, because it's like, you really learn something. So it's kind of -- swings around. That's ... yeah. What do you think?
Yogi: I think so. [laughter]
Rob: [laughs] Good, yeah. Yes?
Q7: problem solving and reflection during meditation practice
Yogi: I just have a beginner's question.
Rob: Sure, please. Yeah, that's good.
Yogi: Just starting practising meditation. This is just what I've been thinking a little bit about the exercise you did with blame this morning. So an idea that I've sort of taken from [?] introduction, perhaps, is not to be too analytical, try to do much in the way of problem solving in the course of meditation. So I don't necessarily know if that's the right way to think about what the exercise was. It was a kind of problem solving; we're taking an issue into meditation -- in your case, you know, the example of a blame situation. And you take that in, and you kind of make that a focus in meditation. Is that a kind of problem solving, or ...? It's one question there: is that something that is better left for, you know, a more experienced person? Is that something that ...?
Rob: Yeah, I think it varies, to be honest. For myself, I mean, sometimes when you hear about insight meditation or mindfulness practice, you get an idea, "Oh, this is how you do it, and you don't do that kind of thing. You don't deliberately bring something in. You certainly don't bring something that involves thought. You're trying to kind of put thought aside and relate to things and see things in a much simpler way, trying as much to leave the verbal out of it, and the sort of machinations of mind." But to me, it's still open as a possibility, and it's valid, both. Again, you're back to these different gears at different times. You understand? Yeah?
Whether it takes more experience to do that -- I'm not sure. I mean, sometimes it will, because sometimes a person can't even keep the mind focused on an issue, so forget about it, you know. Or something comes up emotionally, and they have no way of dealing with that emotion, because they don't know how to work with their emotions mindfully. So sometimes it does take a bit of skill. But it's also the kind of thing that you could do in an armchair, just with a piece of paper, thinking through it, writing. It's still valid as something that's opening up the view. So it might be meditative. It might be reflective, in the armchair with the paper. But it's all good as ways of freeing.
What I would say -- it's all practice. So in this other gear, where you're not so much engaging the verbal and the mental that way, you're practising a certain way of relating to things which is actually really helpful. But it's not the totality of what practice is about, certainly not. It's good to develop that, but not only that. Make sense?
Yogi: Thank you.
Rob: Yeah. Any more with that, or that's okay?
Yogi: No, no.
Rob: Yeah? Okay.
Yogi 2: May I add something to that? You gave the instruction of this cognitive engagement [?]. I really appreciated the invitation [?]. So it kind of helped me not to just [?] the blame, but feel ...
Rob: Yeah. To me, that's very important. But again, going back -- what's your name? Steve. Going back to Steve, you know, your ability to do that -- so I was aware of throwing that out, but your ability to just say, "Oh yeah, good idea, and oh, I can feel that here" -- someone, not everyone has that ability yet, because they haven't developed it. And so, for some people, they just don't know how to be aware of the emotions and how they reflect in the body. They just don't have that capacity. They haven't developed that sensitivity. They haven't developed the ability to hold it. So if you can, yeah, great, then you can bring the two together, and it's not just this kind of abstract, disconnected thinking, you know, which tends to be the case. We're sort alive from here up, and the rest is off somewhere. Then you can really integrate. It becomes very powerful. But for a lot of people, that needs developing through meditation. So yeah, great, but yeah, depends.
Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu writes in "At the Door of the Cage" (30 July 2003), https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/Meditations1/Section0043.html, accessed 11 Dec. 2020: "It's like climbing a ladder. To climb up the rungs of the ladder, you already have to be holding onto a higher rung before you can let go of a lower one.... The same principle holds true in the practice: You let go of lower attachments only when you've got something higher to hold onto." ↩︎
Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu writes in "The Path of Concentration and Mindfulness," https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/NobleStrategy/Section0011.html, accessed 11 Dec. 2020: "When discernment comes to the mind, the basic lesson it will teach you is that you've been stupid." ↩︎
