Wisdom, Art, Balance (Part 3)

We're talking about exploring these ideas of mastery, mastering the fire and forging strong vessels, that we borrowed from the alchemical maxims, and exploring what that might mean, and exploring the extent to which that's even possible in work with eros and soulmaking. But generally looking at, yeah, what's involved in mastery. What might we mean by that, and what might be included and necessary to develop there and practice in all that? So most of the previous two parts of this talk, we're looking really at, if you like, practice as a whole, and the whole of life, and what I was calling 'collateral' -- the development of certain qualities, etc., long-term, a long-term development of certain qualities that will serve us well and support us well in extending our meditative explorations and widening our practice to include this work with eros and soulmaking.

Now what I want to get into is, what about in practice? In the moment in practice, in the heat of practice, what might mastery mean there, mastering the fire? What might be involved in that? What might be called for? And what does it mean to forge strong vessels, adequate vessels, and how might we do that? So we said, I think, already that the balance we're talking about here is a fluid balance. We're not talking about something static. Fluid balance, in this case, in practice, means exactly the ability, the skill, the art of navigation, gliding this way and that, responding to what's actually arising, and the balance of qualities, energies, directions, and the art of skilful response in the moment, which sometimes is really quite subtle, even in terms of discerning what's happening, and then this very subtle sort of micro-adjustment, very graceful, it can be. As always, there's a range. We're really talking about fluid balance.

In regard to fire, what might that mean? When do we welcome the fire? When do we stoke the fire? When do we guard it? How much? And which fire, exactly, or what exactly needs the fire? But this navigation that we talked about, this moment-to-moment skilful responding, is actually forging the vessel in the moment, forging the vessels in the moment. So as I said, I think, before, it's not that we arrive with a prefabricated vessel. That's not completely how it is. We're actually always creating, shaping, forging the vessel in the moment by all kinds of things that we're doing, perspectives, emphases, etc.

As always in practice, there are options, and I want to go through, take a little time and go through different options in practice in this regard. 'Options' is a key word, because it implies that there's flexibility. There's a range here. The art and the wisdom is in the use of the options. It's in the flexibility, and in that flexibility of response and range of possibility that we can develop for ourselves in practice.

You know, sometimes, considering all practices, all meditative practices, sometimes I think that there's only one real mistake, if you like, and that would be always to do the same thing. Talking about any practice -- always an emotion comes up, or something comes up that's difficult, and I always be with it. That's all I ever do. Something comes up, I have to go be with it. Or I always drop it, the kind of opposite. Something comes up, drop it, come back to my breath, drop it, come back to my breath. Doing always even just one of those two, it's going to really short-change us in the long run. It's going to really limit our insight. It's going to limit our freedom, going to limit our capacity, going to limit certainly our fluidity of response. It's going to limit what we're capable of, not just in meditation, but in life. Or sometimes people are just always paying attention in a very kind of microscopic, very narrow, intense way. You know, great. Wonderful. It's the always that's the problem. Someone else, always paying attention in a kind of relaxed, open, spacious awareness, wide sort of panoramic view, if you like. But always doing either one or the other of those two, it will limit the insight that arises. We get certain insights through a microscopic attention that perhaps are not so easily available through a wide awareness, and vice versa.

So this is a general point about the importance of range in practice, flexibility, and not getting locked into one thing, not just doing one thing. I could give countless examples, but there are two just from a more sort of standard set of practices. As you're listening to all this, you might consider for yourself, "What's my usual tendency?" Either in regard to an emotion coming up, or in regard to desire coming up, and feeling that pressure/heat of desire. What's my usual tendency? Am I locked into a habit here, that I always respond in a certain way? Even if I think, "Oh, that's a skilful habit. That's a healthy habit." So to be aware of what one's tendencies and habits are, and to know that this can be, and probably -- well, probably I am encouraging the opening up of the range of individual possibilities for any individual.

So this is all for exploration, for development, so that we can develop this flexibility, this range, and that opens up a greater range of possibilities for us. It's all part of the art -- the exploration, the development that develops our art in practice. A lot of what I'm going to be saying hopefully is repeating or will be repeated in the instructions over this course. So the question is, when desire is present, when I feel that movement or force of desire in practice, or in a moment when I notice it in life, then what? This isn't in any order, by the way, so just listen to what your tendencies are, what you know how to do, what could be developed, etc. I want to emphasize a certain subset of what I'm going to say. But let's just run through some options.

(1) One option is: here's desire, here's a movement towards something, here's an impulse towards something or other, and one possibility is let it go. Put it down. Am I confident of my ability, my abilities, to do that? And certainly with the kind of small, petty stuff in life. That cup of tea while I'm walking in meditation, or in between the sitting and walking, do I really need it? I mean, I might. It might be that actually I do need that break, and that space there, and that easing off the sort of gas pedal of the effort. But oftentimes, it's these small things, or that cookie, whatever. Learning to put this stuff down, to let it go, you know -- really, really a good development, a helpful development, as one of our options.

(i) There are lots of possibilities here. Tracking. I think we've talked about some of this already, but I'll just briefly go through them again. Being mindful. Let's say, take that cookie, and really be mindful of the arising of pleasure in the seeing, in the anticipation, in the whole sensual experience of it, moment to moment, and really being mindful, really paying attention to the pleasure as it arises and passes, moment to moment. If there's enough attention, eventually -- sometimes, actually, the initial giving more attention to the pleasant reveals more pleasantness, but eventually, we start to kind of see in the whole experience: how good is this, really, relatively speaking, in terms of the kind of pleasure that a human being can get and whether it's really worth it? How good is this, really? But I have to pay attention to answer that question. I have to really pay close attention to the pleasure (or whatever other sensations, because they might be quite neutral), arising moment to moment. I've talked and written about that elsewhere, and plenty of people have, so we don't really need to go into it.

(ii) But another possibility there is actually, in this close attention to the arising of pleasure in having what I want, actually then asking, where does the pleasure go? Where did it go? Oftentimes it's so brief. So we can incline then with all this, where did it go? We're inclining towards seeing the impermanence, seeing the endings. Really not just seeing, but sensing, feeling the endings, the impermanence of things, giving attention to noticing endings, really honing in on impermanence, moment-to-moment impermanence, the ending of this pleasure. Really feeling that, really sensing that. So there's an inclination there, an inclining, towards the practice of anicca, of noticing impermanence, and really you start to see: this pleasure, where did it go? It dissipates so quickly.

(iii) So out of that, a related, third option is, what will it give me? Really, what will it give me, this thing that I want, this cookie? I mean, if I'm really genuinely hungry, and that's what I have to eat, of course it's going to give me nourishment and things, and it will give me some pleasure. But how much, and for how long? These kinds of reflections, we could say all kinds of things, but they're related there. I have to pay attention enough to notice, and I have to pay attention perhaps to impermanence, and that forms a basis for a kind of reflection that allows a letting go. So that kind of thing -- letting it go, putting it down -- as the first sort of general direction or navigation in relation to desire coming up. We could fill that out with all kinds of other possibilities, but let's just keep it at that for now.

(2) A second possibility -- and actually related, and again, I think I mentioned this already on this retreat and certainly elsewhere -- is here's either a pleasant sensation, pleasant vedanā that I'm enjoying, or unpleasant vedanā that I'm craving to get away from or end or push away or whatever. One possibility is to really take up again a kind of close attention with the mindfulness, and a kind of intensity, if you like, of mindfulness, an intentness, and focusing on the actual vedanā, moment to moment, pleasant, unpleasant, whatever it is, and noticing within that not just the vedanā, but noticing the sort of craving that is, if you like, coupled with the vedanā. So these ebbs and flows, little impulses and waves of craving that arise, if you like, with or from the vedanā, or in relation to the vedanā, and just noticing how they keep dissolving.

This impulse, this craving, this little swell of craving -- "I want it," or "I want more of it," or "I'm pushing it away" -- it's not so much in the mind, or certainly that's a level, but in the actual energetics. I'm talking about below the level of thought here, something more fundamental than that, more hardwired even than that. But focusing on the vedanā, noticing these swells and dissipations of craving, the dissolving of craving. Doing that is a really good training, because then one finds that, in the noticing of the dissolving of craving, one actually is developing the capacity not to get dragged by it. And over time, this grows, so that we're less automatically and unconsciously pulled by vedanā into craving, away from or towards something or other. So a really, really good skill to develop that, a very specific meditative focus. You can do it with any sense door, etc.

(i) Very related to that, then, is a kind of slight shift in the focus to really train the mindfulness on, in a bit more spacious way, probably, the feeling of the pressure that goes with craving. So with craving, I really want this or that, and I can feel it build as a pressure. Again, not so much in the mind, necessarily, as in the energy body, in fact. This pressure, because it's hard to tolerate, usually we just want to get rid of the pressure. How do I get rid of the pressure? The easiest way seems to be eat the cookie, take it, have the cup of tea, get it over and done with, whatever it is, light the cigarette, etc. But with practice, I actually begin to notice this pressure. And what I need to do is kind of notice it with a more spacious mindfulness, allow it, give it space. What pressure needs, often, is space, right? That's a kind of physics. You squeeze something, there's more pressure. So you want to give it space. It's like giving a gas more space. It just takes the pressure off. It lowers the pressure. We just allow that pressure.

And again, there will be a kind of swell, perhaps over quite a bit of time, over some minutes, even, perhaps -- a kind of swell of pressure. There may be micro-movements within that, micro-swells within that, this kind of swelling of pressure. But if I can just be mindful of it in this kind of very allowing way, giving it space, I can see that I can actually tolerate it easier. I learn, I develop my capacity, to tolerate the pressure of craving or the heat of desire or whatever it is. Learning to tolerate gives me confidence in the long run. And you find that this pressure and the craving begins to ebb away, and then I'm free. The next time it comes back, it will probably be a little less strong. And eventually an addiction can be -- some addictions can be -- healed just by doing that. A really, really good skill to have. So either focusing on the vedanā, noticing the craving, or focusing more, feeling on the pressure, and allowing, giving that space, tolerating it. So two kind of versions of a second possibility there, okay?

(3) A third possibility has more to do with, if you like, holding -- I mean, these are all related, and they can overlap certainly, and they do overlap, but -- holding with a kind mindfulness, or kindfulness, or mindfulness imbued with kindness, the emotions that are wrapped up in or underneath the desire and the craving. So, for example, a feeling, an emotion of a sense of lack, or even the fear of lacking, the fear of missing out, the fear of losing that's impelling me, compelling me, pushing me to cling on to something, or to crave something, or to fill up in a certain way, with food or whatever it is. It could be actually any kind of fear -- fear of boredom. Sometimes this is quite subtle and not obvious. We have to notice it, discern what's going on there, and then kind of hone in very delicately on this emotion, and hold it, care for it. What does that mean? Sometimes it can be an agitation. It can be all kinds of things. There's an emotion wrapped up in or underneath, that's sort of firing this craving or whatever it is. Sometimes, as I said, it can be very subtle. Sometimes it's not so subtle. But that's what needs the attention. That's what needs the care.

What does it mean to hold caringly the complex that's involved there? (i) One part of this is holding and caring for the self, for me, who is feeling this complex of emotions or whatever it is, feeling of lack, feeling of emptiness in the not-Dharmic sense, a feeling of fear, whatever it is, boredom, uneasiness, stress. Holding and caring for the self there. Sometimes with mindfulness, we kind of too quickly, or at the wrong times, we skip over or through the self. It's almost like we laser-beam the attention down to the sensations of the emotion (which I'm going to come to in a second, because that's actually quite important or valuable as an option). But sometimes also the level of the self. So this self that is feeling this difficult emotion, and the emotion pushing me into craving, and maybe I even know it's not going to be helpful and all that -- hey, can I hold and care for my self there? Can I give mettā to my self, or just hold my self in this kind of kind awareness? It's the level of the self, of the being.

[20:27] (ii) But a second level is, as I just alluded to, kind of honing the attention on the emotion rather than the self. So here's this emotion, and one way of doing it is kind of like a laser beam with a lot of intensity, these sensations arising in my throat or in my chest. It may or may not be that that kind of laser-beam intensity or bearing down on it is what's needed. It may be, but sometimes, with some emotions, in some situations, it's not what's needed. We need something much more delicate, much more caring with that. So what is it, again, to hold kindly, almost to cup in the hands like you would hold a little, fragile bird, or something like that, to hold with mindfulness? Bring the mindfulness, but the mindfulness has a lot of holding and kindness imbuing it. To hold with mindfulness that emotion as it plays out in the energy body, but the emotion of it, the actual emotion, the experience of the emotion, the phenomenon of the emotion, is what's being held.

So again, these shade into each other. There are really blurry boundaries here. But we're talking about subtle shifts of emphasis which can make all the difference in practice. I'm not talking about theory here. I'm not talking about neat, clever distinctions that are a very nice package together. We're talking about really subtle leanings and emphasis in the moment, in the heat of practice, meeting the difficulty, meeting the beauty, whatever it is. These subtle distinctions, this is where, when we talk about mastery, when we talk about artistry, when we talk about the beauties of practice, this is really part of it, this kind of subtlety and the micro-leanings of attention. Think of an eagle, or one of those beautiful birds of prey, as they glide and ride the airways, or a surfer riding the waves. The joy, the art, is in the micro-adjustments. It sometimes can be really effortless, really subtle, almost barely noticeable to anyone else. You're riding the currents: what's most helpful here? What's available? So all this, this applies to everything -- actually everything we're talking about in general in practice, certainly everything on this retreat, but particularly what I'm talking about in this talk or this little group of whatever it is, three or four-part talk.

(iii) And then there's also the possibility, in holding and caring for the emotional complex, of mettā to the phenomenon. It's what I call directing mettā towards phenomena. Mettā to the phenomenon of the emotion. So not so much mettā to my self, but actual mettā, with phrases. I've taught this elsewhere, so I'm not going to go into the technique. You may already know it, and you can find it elsewhere. But mettā directed towards the actual emotion. What you'll find, if you do not try to get rid of it in this way, is oftentimes the emotion fades. If you do not try to get rid of it, which is usually another form of aversion, but actually I'm loving this emotion -- which means it's welcome; it's really, really welcome, fully, not in a kind of theoretical idea, but a real, embodied opening, softening of the relationship to it, welcoming, allowing, and actually directing the mettā to the emotion. You can do it in different ways. But what will happen, because of dependent arising, because that is a reduction of the clinging, oftentimes the emotion will fade. But you can't try for that, because oftentimes it's just aversion, trying to get rid of the emotion.

But depending on which of these emphases you do, sometimes the emotion fades, but other times, other things might happen. Something else might happen. An image might arise. Something might shift in the energy body. All kinds of things. Just some kind of healing with the emotion, some change in the relationship with the emotion (which still stays). All kinds of possibilities. We said the first one is let go, put it down. The second is focusing on that vedanā and craving, or on the pressure of the craving, allowing it, giving it space, tolerating it. The third is what we could call kind of holding, meeting and holding, tuning in, noticing, meeting and holding and caring for in different ways, whether it's the self, or the emotion, or giving mettā to the emotion.

(4) A fourth general sort of possibility in our navigation in practice when desire, craving, whatever arises, is actually to make a conscious choice to navigate away from it. The Buddha, plenty of times, describes this sort of skilful avoidance. We're not talking about fear of it: I'm afraid of the eros, I'm afraid of the intensity, or there's some kind of knee-jerk reaction there. We're actually talking about a conscious, skilful response to actually just lean, incline the consciousness somewhere else. Because sometimes what we see is that this craving, or this desire that is arising right now, is actually arising in part, or even predominantly, because I'm not feeling nourished right now. I mean spiritually nourished, nourished in my being, in my heart, or in my energy or whatever it is. I'm not feeling nourished right now, and actually, I would do better to concentrate on giving myself some nourishment, opening to some nourishment.

Or I'm feeling restless, and the restlessness is impelling this craving. Craving and restlessness, or aversion and restlessness, go intimately together. These hindrances are intimately connected. Or, generally, there's not enough space in my consciousness. The consciousness is getting cramped. That's often because there is already some craving, but that crampedness is actually just fuelling, that lack of space is fuelling the craving in a not-very-helpful way. So there's a kind of intensification or snowballing effect because there's not enough space in the consciousness. Or there's just not enough energy: I'm depleted in some way, and I'm irritable, and there's craving, aversion, away from or towards something, or whatever my particular pattern of vulnerability is when I'm tired, etc., depleted.

(i) One can deliberately kind of recognize, "Okay, let's just incline towards some kind of nourishment right now." That doesn't necessarily mean getting up off the cushion and going for a walk or taking in nature, for example, talking to a friend. Of course it can. Of course all that is possible. But within the practice, still sitting there or walking or whatever it is, still in the form, I can just move into a samādhi practice, for instance, or to mettā. It doesn't mean necessarily to give myself mettā if I'm feeling depleted or not nourished. I could, but sometimes I might just as well give mettā to other people, and I'll still get nourished from that. For sure I will. Or if it's space that I need, opening out the consciousness, maybe taking the walking meditation or sitting meditation outside to help me, with the outdoors, the sky. But sometimes just opening to listening, 360-degree listening from all distances, near and far, just opening to listening will open the spaciousness of the consciousness kind of organically there.

(ii) Or, generally, some kind of practice that inclines towards fabricating less perception. There's a whole host of these. I'm not going to describe them all, but, for instance, anattā practice, if you know it, or actually any kind of emptiness practice. The samatha, the mettā, and the spaciousness are also practices of less fabrication. So there's a navigation away from the fabrication that's wrapped up in and with the desire, and instead a navigation towards practices which are less fabricating -- samatha, mettā, spaciousness, emptiness practices of different kinds, etc. Really, really skilful at times, and to know that one has that option to develop these options so that they are available and accessible, and to experiment with gliding between these different practices, and really feeling the resource, knowing and being nourished by these different things at different times. So that would be a fourth option.

(5) A fifth option. I'll just mention it here, and we'll introduce it in the instructions. I am referring to what I actually introduced a few years ago in the talk "The Beauty of Desire (Part 2)" in 2011.^[1] Very briefly: here's some difficulty that I'm experiencing, some pain or some confusion, some anger, whatever it is, some sadness. Sometimes what can happen there is there's probably some desire wrapped up in this difficulty that I'm feeling. Or it might actually be that I'm conscious of a desire that it seems like I can't have or something, or I shouldn't let myself have or something or other. But it might just be some other difficult emotion. There's probably a desire here. Can I just give myself enough of a platform of deciding to entertain some trust, deciding maybe there's a treasure in that desire? Maybe that desire is a kind of treasure. So I'm just opening the view away from what I might have been taught or what I might believe already, and just saying: maybe there's a treasure in this desire. First step.

Second step, what am I really wanting here? So it seems to be I want this person, or it seems to be I want this to happen. We'll go into this in more detail, but what am I really desiring? What's the deeper desire? If you like, [what's] the more general or abstract desire here? And to find out what that is, just gently with the inquiry. And then really, third step, open to that. Open to the current, the force of that desire in the energy body. But I mean really open, really opening the sense of the body to that, what can sometimes feel like a torrent or a stream. Really, really opening to it and allowing it to flow. So three steps there, and something quite remarkable can happen in terms of the whole state of consciousness and the freedom in relationship to the desire. It's not coming from putting the desire down. It's not coming from navigating away from it. It's not coming from just being mindful of it in the usual sense. There's a different order of something that's available here in terms of, and it really turns upside down, probably, the beliefs that we've kind of become a little bit entrenched in, in relationship to desire, perhaps over the years of practice, etc. But here there's more an emphasis on the energy of the desire itself, rather than the image, and also, as I said, the more generalized desire or more abstract desire -- the kind of deeper level, if you like. So it's away from the image, towards more this generality of what I'm desiring deeply, what I really want, and more towards the energy and that kind of general level, rather than the image.

[33:51] So there are five options. But actually, this talk -- and maybe the next one; we'll see how we do for time -- what I mostly want to go into is staying within imaginal practice, with the desire that's arising in the imaginal, with the eros, with the erotic-imaginal, with the beloved other. Staying with the image. Not navigating away, not going just to the energy of the desire as I just described, not putting it down, not just finding the emotions underneath and being mindful of them and caring for them, but actually staying within the remit and the direction of imaginal practice, keeping the image alive and working with the eros there, okay? But remember, all those options that I've just been through -- navigating away from the desire or from the image, any of the previous ones that we've just been through are available, as is stopping the meditation, pausing, opening your eyes. It's pretty rare that that's going to be necessary. Maybe some of you are thinking, "God, this is going to be really intense, this eros business and desire and fire and all that." Yeah, maybe sometimes, but I would say it's pretty rare that [for] someone it's just way too much, and they need to stop and open their eyes. It might be. But generally speaking, again, there's a real range here.

So all those options that we've just been through are possible. Or, what I want to really explore shortly, is subtle shifts and inclinations, shifts of emphasis and adjustments of emphasis in the imaginal practice that allow us to, as part of the mastery, find our way, allow it to find its way, to open, the paths to open in the imaginal, in the erotic-imaginal; allow the vessel to be strong in the moment, etc., and elastic if it needs to be. So that's really what I want to go into. Before I do, a couple of things. One is, sometimes it's valuable to be clear -- in fact, most of the time, probably, it's valuable to be clear what I'm actually responding to. If we're talking about the art of skilful response, and subtle responses to subtle or not-so-subtle things or energies or qualities that are arising in the practice, it's good to be clear: what am I actually responding to? If or when the eros that's present in an image, imaginal practice, feels hard to bear, if or when eros feels hard to bear sometimes, why right now does it feel hard to bear? In other words, what exactly is hard to bear about it? This can be an interesting question at times. It's actually quite a helpful inquiry at times. Not that you have to always go into this inquiry, but sometimes.

Sometimes, for example, in what's happening in an erotic-image in the practice, there's a sense of merging, perhaps, with the beloved, or dissolving into them or together, and there can be fear in relation to that -- fear of that merging, fear of dissolving. And that makes the whole thing hard to bear. Or it could be that actually there's a lot of bliss arising, a lot of pleasure, and if one isn't used to it, or doesn't know how to work with it, that can feel hard to bear. Or kind of related but a little bit different, just the erotic charge, the energetic charge can feel hard to bear. Or sometimes what's happening in the imaginal practice with the erotic object, the erotic beloved, is there's an opening of one's being, and that opening of the heart and the whole being feels vulnerable, and that feels hard to bear; we feel unsure about that. Or perhaps it's gone into craving, and the craving is bringing a certain constriction, and that feels uncomfortable, hard to bear. Or it might be a matter of trust: here I feel like I'm not sure, and we're feeling uneasy because there isn't enough trust in place in this practice, in the eros itself, in the kind of image that's coming up. To the mind, it feels, "Oh, this is weird," or it's too this or that or whatever, or not enough this or that or something.

Or it could be sometimes what happens is there's a really deep longing that arises in relation to certain images and fantasies, and it has this kind of bittersweet, a little bit hard to bear, or very hard to bear quality to it. So there are multiple options with all of these. But I remember just not too long ago working with someone. She was working with an image. We were working with it together. And she said, "Oh, the eros is a little bit hard to bear right now." And I asked her what exactly is hard to bear, and I went through some of these possibilities. She was sort of checking in and looking, and she said, "No, what's hard to bear is the giving." So this was -- "Okay, what do you mean, the giving?" It was part of the image that was already unfolding for her, that she was, if you like, in. And this was an image that was more bodily than visual. It was coming through her body, and she was moving her body in expression of the image, and sensing the image through her body. We've talked about that with the different senses.

But what was needed was actually a little bit more entering into the image, inquiring into the image, and then this sense of, "Oh, it's the giving that's a problem." "Okay, giving. Tell me about the giving. What is being given?" And then going into that whole image of the giving, she felt herself to be a divine womb. So the whole thing just went to another level, in the image, into the image, and it opens up. She was a divine womb, a sort of generatrix. Her body was turning out sacred texts. So she was making this gesture with her body, kind of rolling her arms. It was puzzling to her. She was following her body. And the image was of this divine womb turning out sacred texts on her arms and with her body, and these texts sort of emanated, radiated, and then became the cosmos. So there's some kind of divine goddess birthing the cosmos in hierophanic time here, and birthing also the beloved other. It's quite a powerful, beautiful, and profound image. But it took actually going into the question of, "What's hard to bear there?" It was an aspect of the image. And then opening that up.

So in other words, exploring the image more can sometimes make the whole thing easier, and give rise to more space. This is the emphasis, this last one that I've just been through, that I want to explore shortly. But as I said, please remember: there are options with all of these. For instance, if there's a lot of bliss or a lot of pleasure arising with an image, oftentimes the secret here is to open the energy body. Give it more space. Give that bliss space to flow, to move. Allow it. The emphasis is really on opening and allowing and enjoying. If you really open, really allow, and kind of surrender to it, like you surrender to a powerful shower or a waterfall, even, you just really open the body to it, and let yourself enjoy it, you'll find almost always that that actually takes the unpleasant edge off and the intensity off the pleasure, makes it much more tolerable.

Now, you could do that almost like this kind of gently veering away from the image to just a meditation on the energy body. You let the image go, and you're just working with the bliss and the pleasure in the energy body, really opening, really allowing, and letting yourself enjoy it, surrendering, abandoning yourself to that pleasure. You'll find that it becomes a meditation in itself on the energy body, on the pleasure, etc. It can go to samādhi and different things. Or you might do exactly that, but keeping the image present. Again, it's all about shades of emphasis. There the image is present. I'm not letting the image go; I'm keeping that, but I'm, at the same time, working with opening the energy body, and allowing and enjoying and surrendering and all those things, while I'm still engaged with, in relationship to, the image. Lots of possibilities. Similarly with the erotic and energy charge that we talked about before -- in other words, really opening the energy body, etc., but there are other options with the image.

In terms of just the list we went through of what might feel hard to bear, if the opening of the being is what feels vulnerable, then, again, you can go back to kind of meeting that vulnerability, feeling in with mindfulness. What does that feel like? Caring for it. Maybe some mettā. Maybe just the caring, kind of holding with mindfulness. Maybe, again, stopping and pausing. You don't need to push yourself through something that feels too much of an edge for you that you're not ready for. If it's too vulnerable, stop. Pause. It's okay. It's really okay. But again, there are other options, keeping the image around, playing with that edge, working with the energy, but with the image, or rather, primarily with the image even more than the energy or the emotion. The energy and the emotion shift from the different relationship with the image. This is what I want to go into.

The first one I mentioned there of the list of what might feel hard to bear was this fear of merging. Imminent dissolution, it might feel like, or tendency to dissolution. In a way, what's helpful there is more this kind of collateral investment, if you like, from before, if you have experience from other practices of a lessening of fabrication. That's what dissolution is: lessening of the fabrication of self and the perception of other, the perception of anything. If you're familiar with that from practices of samādhi or mettā or emptiness or those kinds of things, then that familiarity, you realize over time that you can really trust this dissolution. If it does go to dissolution, or if it wants to, or if you want to go to dissolution, really there's no danger there. There's no danger. Things can dissolve, merge into oneness, all kinds of different kinds of oneness and luminosity and all kinds of stuff. No danger at all. You're not going to get stuck there. You're not going to lose anything permanently -- at least, nothing that's worth keeping.

But generally, one goes into these experiences and comes out, with familiarity, with time, dipping in and out, through other practices or even this kind of practice, and you realize there's no danger. It might help you, if that's really very new to you, hearing from a teacher, hearing me say or Catherine say or whoever say, "There's no danger." You can dip into that just a little bit, a little bit more, maybe a little bit more sometimes, and it becomes a real beautiful option, completely trustworthy. Or sometimes what happens is, there's a sense of the fear of the dissolution, or the fear or the sort of melting, and what you can do is just kind of know that there's fear there, and at the same time, just notice it's also very nice. It's pretty yummy at that point. And you can just -- not push away the fear, but just notice the yumminess that's around in the body, in the mind perhaps. That's around as well as the fear. And just very gently kind of incline the mind or the attention towards the yumminess, without ignoring or pushing anything away or trying to get rid of the fear or anything. Just enjoying that yumminess, that pleasure. That can really, really help.

And with all this, it's important to just be aware that (we've said this before) often in eros, with eros, there is a tension. There is what we're calling an erotic tension. Partly because of the pothos, partly because there's always this 'more' there, and partly because there's a tension between this attraction towards the beloved other, the erotic object, while at the same time retaining twoness. So there's like a pull in opposite directions: there's a pull towards the object, and there's a pull away from, to retain, to keep the twoness. All of this kind of creates what we're calling erotic tension. And sometimes that's quite noticeable, and other times it's barely noticeable at all, you know. But just to know that can be a part of eros. Yes, there are all kinds of different experiences of peace that we can have in and with the eros, quite particular ones, senses of peace that we'll hopefully get to in this retreat, and kinds of equanimity or balance in and with the eros. But strictly speaking, equanimity is really about the drastic lessening, if not erasure momentarily, of any pulling of the object towards oneself or pushing it away, any movement of desire that way.

Because it's that lessening of the push-pull towards something, it actually kind of moves towards a fading. We mentioned this in the last part, or the part before of this talk. So equanimity and fading go together. Deep equanimity involves deep fading. A state of deep equanimity is a state of deep fading. And that's not really what's happening in a state of eros, for the most part. I mean, it might go towards this melting and union, and sort of dissolving in light with the beloved other or whatever, but generally speaking, as I said, the eros will stay engaged with an other, will retain the other, whereas deep equanimity will dissolve the other, dissolve the thing-ness, and actually not be in engagement.

This is a funny thing. I'll throw it out anyway. Some of you will be interested and some won't be. The Pali for equanimity is upekkhā. The Sanskrit is upekṣā. That's from upa and īkṣā. Īkṣā means 'seeing,' or 'to regard,' or 'to consider,' or 'to watch over.' Upa tends to mean, usually means, 'towards' or 'near' or 'together with.' So you get this sense of watching closely something. We say 'equanimity,' and we tend to think, with mindfulness, it's a watching closely of something like that, but the word upa also actually has the implication of extinction, of killing, of diffusing something. So at a stretch -- I mean, if we just play with words now -- upekṣā, upa + īkṣā, could mean something like 'the extinction of looking'; in other words, the fading of perception. Now, I'm not claiming that is the etymology. I mean, it might be actually involved in it. But personally, I find arguments over etymology and picking over the etymology to try and find the authentic, real, one meaning that the Buddha had for these things -- I find that a bit silly, to be honest. I would rather use words to open doors, to give us pathways -- a kind of more suggestive hermeneutics there.

But anyway. Eros is different, really, than equanimity. We can talk about kinds of equanimity and kinds of peace that can be mixed with the eros or part of the whole opening of the erotic-imaginal, but actually there's a kind of tension, an erotic tension, that remains, for the most part and to different degrees, when we're working with eros.

Okay. So let's look in more detail in the next part. Let's move into what I said I really wanted to talk about, which is staying with the images, and working, and the subtle shifts of emphasis and inclination that can happen in imaginal practice, in the moment.