Transcription
Okey-doke. So does anyone have anything? Ramiro, yes?
Q1: the difference between craving and clinging
Yogi: It's a very easy one.
Rob: A very easy one? [laughter]
Yogi: Can you just remind me of the difference you established between craving and clinging?
Rob: Yeah, thank you. I'll just recap. We talked somewhere or other and made a differentiation, a delineation between what we're calling 'craving' and 'clinging.' In a way, I'm making this up. I wish I was better at making words or whatever. It's not necessarily the same as the distinction that you might be already familiar with. Both are manifestations of desire. They're kinds of desire, okay, along with eros. So you've got three kinds (at least): eros, craving, clinging. Clinging, I'm just really referring to, it's a quite, in a way, generic term, but really what I want to say is it has a huge range to it. I really mean any movement of body or mind towards or away from anything. So any time we try and push something away from us. Now, that could be really that the mind is just, "Get it away from me! I hate this!", or very, very subtle: there's no thought involved. There's just a kind of micro-energetic inclination of mind to push something away, or to pull something towards us, or pull ourselves towards a thing.
So any kind of push-pull of the consciousness (something like that) is called 'clinging.' It has a huge, huge range. You know when you're really in the grip of something. Your whole mind is kind of rebelling or obsessed with that thing, and the thinking is going round and round. That's a kind of intense, strong, gross version of clinging, the gross end of the spectrum. Down at the subtle end, you're really talking about micro-movements of push-pull. Sometimes there's no thinking involved. How do I know it? I see some kind of contraction in the being. It might be very subtly in the energy body. It might be just actually in the space of the mind, the sense of the awareness kind of contracting a little bit. At the really subtle end, clinging is involved in any perception. Not everyone in the Dharma would agree with that, but that's how I would present it. To experience anything in the world, there's some kind of clinging. There's Ramiro, and my mind is doing this, basically, and that a little bit, and that's a kind of -- you see the grasping movement, just to have you in my attention for a moment. So any experience inner or outer, there's some kind of subtle degree of clinging.
So that's a very subtle level of clinging, just that's involved in any perception. Wrapped up in that, and also at the very subtle end, are things like here I'm sitting, there's a sensation in the arm, sensation in the backside. Without thinking, wrapped up in the default experience of that, these are my sensations. Of course they're not your sensations. They're not Jill's sensations. So we have this appropriation in regard to any sensations as me or mine. And then we have, even subtler, just the idea that it exists independently of the way of looking. It has inherent existence. That's avijjā, the subtlest level of clinging. All that is clinging. Desire, eros, is a kind of clinging, in fact, and craving as well, okay?
Really the distinction is between craving and eros. So the distinction I would make -- or one of the distinctions I would make, actually, because there's probably quite a lot involved -- is we just recognize that craving tends towards contraction. There's a contraction in the being. And there's a reification of something or other. So the view is contracted: it's a real thing that I want. Real me can get a real thing, or wants to get a real thing, or wants to push a real thing away. With that, the being basically contracts in all kinds of ways, and this we can feel. It's palpable. So there's a kind of solidity and stuckness, reification, concretization, and dukkha involved. Whereas eros, which wasn't in your question, tends to open things out. Because it gets involved in the soulmaking dynamic, what we're calling this eros-psyche-logos business, it will tend towards opening things out, opening the being, opening the perception, opening the sense of things. Do you understand? Does that ...? Okay.
Yogi: It's a [inaudible] to which craving and eros are the extremes?
Rob: You could look at it that way, yeah, very nice. If we tie this in with emptiness teachings, you could say something like: all perception involves fabrication. Perception is fabricated, meaning experience is fabricated. Clinging is part of what fabricates experience -- some degree of clinging on that spectrum. Now, we can fabricate in a way that we call papañca. Do you guys know this word, papañca? Problematic, crazy, ahhh, all that. That's fabrication in a kind of crazy-making, dukkha-making way. Eros and soulmaking is a kind of fabrication, let's say, in a poetic way, in a magical way, in a beautiful way, in a soulmaking way. They're both fabrication, as you put it. Very nice. It's kind of like that, if you like. Does that make sense? Very good.
Q2: is clinging unwholesome? / envisaging a life free from clinging
Yogi: If I may follow up on this question, I was wondering about clinging. Is that an unwholesome factor? The Buddha was [inaudible] forty-five years of teaching; he had perceptions. So ...
Rob: Yuka's asking: is clinging classified as an unwholesome factor ...?
Yogi: In your ...
Rob: In my view? I've just done some other talks, and I spent a long while on just this, but to address it -- is clinging an unwholesome factor? In probably -- I don't know if most or not, but certainly in some, and probably the traditions that you're familiar with -- it will be regarded as an unwholesome factor. It's wrapped up in the whole cycle of dependent origination leading to suffering. Something really interesting happened with the emergence of the Mahāyāna tradition. If there's this understanding that there needs to be clinging for perception to arise, then the question is, how does it work for a Buddha? How does it work for an arahant? And not only that: what kind of a Buddha is he who's just going to die and leave everyone suffering, and not be able to be reborn back into the world of perception? So you could explain the Mahāyāna tradition -- I'm not saying this is the way to do it -- but you could say that's part of what they were trying to answer: how does it all work? What is a Buddha in relation to this understanding of dependent arising and the fabrication of perception? I don't particularly buy those kind of reductive historical models, but you could. And out of that came all this complex Mahāyāna philosophy, which is either horrific or beautiful to you depending on your opinion.
In my view -- that's what you asked -- no, clinging is not unwholesome. Clinging is empty and can be used skilfully or not, beautifully or not, in the service of compassion, in the service of soulmaking or not, etc. So it's part of existence. It's part of what it [involves]. Existence involves clinging. That's part of what we dance with. It's like we had this image of fire. It's a double-edged sword, fire. You can get burnt by fire, but fire gives us so much. It's something like that. Then we have to kind of open up the understanding of, "Whoa, what are we doing with the Dharma here? I thought we were supposed to try and live without clinging somehow." I don't really think that's possible. Nor is it probably, I imagine, what anyone in this room -- well, I won't say that, but I would just ask -- maybe I should ask it as a question. If you envisage a life really free of clinging, what is that? What does it look like? And is it what the being really wants? We can get back to that, but how does that sound? Okay? Yeah?
Q3: transforming craving to eros and moving towards soulmaking
Yogi: I was just asking myself, is it possible that to transform craving as something that is useful [inaudible] ...
Rob: So Nathalie is asking, in a similar way, is it possible to transform craving to something more useful? Yeah. And Sampo -- is Sampo here? Ah, there you are. [laughter] You're hiding behind your hair. [laughter] Yes, absolutely. Not necessarily easy all the time, but as you begin to discern more the difference. Eros can slip into craving without us even sometimes realizing what's happened. Craving can be transformed into eros, into something more open, more beautiful, more poetry-making, more soulmaking. The big art is: how? As we said to Sampo yesterday ["Faith in Soulmaking (Q & A)," Q5], one factor -- I would say two, actually, for now -- one factor is getting the energy body involved. So there is this contraction that happens with craving. Here I am with this thing, whatever it is that I'm craving. If I begin to involve my whole body in the perception of that thing, one can see with one's whole body, or let's say bring the whole energy body involved in the relationship, in the interaction. That usually means opening it out from something that's a little bit more contracted. Do you see what I mean? Everything that's involved in soulmaking is involved together, so you think, "Oh, it's a hopeless tangle trying to understand things," but actually there's a gift in that because it means you can wiggle any one bit and the other bits start jiggling. For instance, because energy body tends to open and harmonize, you can play with that, and it tends to open the soulmaking. So that's one thing.
Another thing is realism, concretization, or not. So craving involves a 'real' thing: I think this thing is real. I usually think I'm real, etc., in a real world, in real time, and all the rest of it. So sometimes what can happen is just some way of loosening that, liquefying that reality perception. This can happen in many, many ways. One is through a little bit of emptiness stuff. Another is actually by going more into the imaginal. So with this thing, it's like, you could say part of the problem with craving is that things have not gotten imaginal enough, yeah? This is completely opposite of what we've been taught and what we tend to think. Because the thing has no dimensionality, I just want that thing, I have no dimensionality -- it's all so flat and so real and narrow. It's almost like meditating more on whatever this thing is -- and it could be anything at all -- and letting it be more imaginal, letting it have its imaginal dimensions. Then the eros has something to move into, and then it can do this eros-psyche-logos. It can expand, and that transforms the whole thing. Does this make sense? So there are different ways with this real/not real.
So there are two things for now, but I go back to this general principle: everything in soulmaking, everything involved in soulmaking, it's almost like they're just facets of the same thing. We think this and that, and there are all these pieces and whatever, but really you can have so many different ways in that kind of catalyse the process and support it, so there can be a lot of creativity, and everything's connected there. Does that make sense?
Yogi: [inaudible] if I feel some craving is happening, could a helpful question be, what does it mean to me or what sense does it have?
Rob: Absolutely. It's a bit like ... So Nathalie was asking ... [laughter] Sampo reminded me. Now you've thrown me. What was she asking? [laughter] When I feel some craving, is a way to loosen it up and help it perhaps move in the direction of soulmaking, is one way asking myself, "What meaning does this have for me"? What was the other phrase you used? "What does it mean to me? What sense do I have of it? What is soul looking for?" So what I would add to that is similar to Linda's question yesterday ["Faith in Soulmaking (Q & A)," Q3]. It might be that one answer to that ignites something, and that's all you need. It might be that one answer is too boxed in. So there's a kind of openness in the asking. I won't get some final, wrapped up, "I understand that now. I've put that down to this, and this is what it is." Sometimes that will work, but sometimes you have to have more of an openness. Connected with that sense of allowing openness is what I would call humility and reverence, these words that I was talking about. It's like, when you asked the last question, "What is soul wanting here or looking for?", listen to that question. It puts the agency, if you like, almost outside you or bigger than you. You didn't say my soul. You didn't say "What am I ..." You could language it like that, but there's a sense of something bigger that I'm receptive to, that I'm humble in relationship to. Do you understand? That attitude is also part of soulmaking. That's an aspect of soulmaking. So again, you're kind of igniting one piece there, and the whole thing can start to shift. Yeah, absolutely. Beautiful. Okay? Good.
Thomas, yeah?
Q4: working with fading through emptiness practices and the imaginal
Yogi: Potentially a somewhat nuanced, complex question; potentially not. I'm not quite sure yet. So I was working in practice today with an image, and noticing the tendency for the subjective pole to dissolve.
Rob: Dissolve how? Actually, I'm going to repeat it anyway, so you just finish your question, sorry.
Yogi: Okay. So working with sort of emptiness practices, and particularly the emptiness of self practices, there is an ease in that sort of dissolution into space. As you sort of mentioned before, that has a tendency to somewhat dampen the eros at times when the subjective pole somewhat dissolves, and then there is an identification with what was previously object. Which is beautiful because there is a sort of ease and falling away of dukkha in that moment that the duality is somewhat softened into a not-duality. Then the question comes: to increase that dynamic, to add juice to that dynamic, or to increase the creative fabrication of a new self in relation to object, right? This is something I'm just sort of playing with right now. I'm a little bit lost. Well, not lost, in the sense that it's very interesting and fertile, but I don't have a particular direction to investigate. I guess to be really specific about my question, do you have thoughts on the intentional, creative fabrication of the subjective pole in relation to any object once it has dissolved, because I don't feel like bringing back my normal patterns in that context -- why would one? Is there something you could say about that?
Rob: Okay. Let's see if I can try and sum that up. Thomas is saying, if I understand -- correct me if I'm wrong -- he's found it very fruitful recently exploring practices that, through some kind of understanding of emptiness, particularly of the self, kind of dissolve the experience, particularly dissolve the sense of self to some degree. Then there's this lovely openness of less fabrication, essentially, less duality, less polarity and all that, and this is really nice. Yet, in that space, because there's not so much of the twoness, there isn't so much of the eros. And how to navigate there ...?
Yogi: Yeah.
Rob: Yeah. First thing: it sounds wonderful, great, fab. This is just for everyone now: I'd put everything that we're talking about on this retreat into a larger context which relates to Ramiro's question. How would you say it? There's unskilful fabrication, what's called skilful or beautiful or soulmaking fabrication, and then there's the path of non-fabrication. Do you understand? So all that is our playground. We tend to say, "Well, this non-skilful fabrication, we don't want to be playing there too much," okay? But actually I'll come back to that, because we can qualify that. So you've basically got a choice as a practitioner. You're gliding around. You can, with time and with development, kind of incline where you want to go. You might have periods of time where you're really into the dissolving thing and emptiness. That's great. Go for it. At some point -- and that might be now, from your question -- you might say, "Okay, that's all very nice. What else is there? What's possible?"
One of the things about emptiness practices is they can kind of -- if I go back to this phrase I think I used before -- make everything liquid or water. It's like, that kind of looseness. Samādhi does it as well. Mettā does it as well. All the traditional practices in the Dharma are actually movements into non-fabrication. Part of what they do is they just liquefy. So sometimes you go into one of these states or whatever it is that you're talking about, and then you just have to kind of back out a little bit, just a little bit. It's like you take the intensity out a little bit. It might be at that point that there's a bit more looseness and liquidity in the being, and in that space images can arise. Yeah? You can be deliberate about it. I think what I want to say is don't be afraid. Don't be afraid of old patterns coming back and that kind of thing. It's like, just view it as a playground and see what happens.
If we go back to the last thing Nathalie said -- I don't want to foist this on you like a religion or a dogma, but I would venture to say that, as this whole thing gets underway, we begin to have more of a sense of soul being something bigger than us, so to speak. And then we even get to a point where it's like my personal dukkha, my history, my patterns also are kind of lessons from soul. It might not be that I'm quite relating to them the right way or seeing them the right way, but even if you take Nathalie's question and apply it to my patterns, this dukkha, there's something -- to use a phrase from the last retreat -- that starts to get re-enchanted, meaning I start to see and experience my patterns in a more soulmaking way, and then they start to take on other dimensions. Do you understand? So if old patterns come back, no problem. And what you want with this emptiness thing is just, it's like -- now I'm talking about emptiness practices -- this facility to sort of, "Hey, it's fine if dukkha arises, if I get contracted." The whole thing gets very fluid, in and out of dukkha, in and out of contraction, in and out of reification. No problem. I'm not trying to live in some kind of state of dissolvement all the time. So don't be so much afraid of that.
And in terms of other self-images coming up, images of self, you could play with a Vajrayāna deity, and just identifying with that, for instance. You could take anything that has already become imaginal for you and just linger with that in the meditative imaginal practice, and -- I'm pretty sure I must have said this last night in the talk; I know there was a lot of info there -- sooner or later the self pole of that whole constellation will start to come alive imaginally. I'm not making that happen; I'm just dwelling with whatever has become alive for me as an object -- it might be the world, it might be whatever it is -- and then at some point I just begin to notice. I expand my awareness, so to speak, metaphorically, and just check out: how am I sensing my self now? What's the image of self? You will at some point notice that the self has become imaginal at that point, and it's taken a different form, or the energy body, or the image of the body, or the whole ... Do you understand? So you don't have to force this. It's more like you notice this stuff. You're kind of letting it happen and gently inclining one way or another. Is this helpful? Yeah? Okay. Good.
Joël? Hi. We've not met before.
Q5: approaching and transforming anger/kilesas in an image
Yogi: Would you say that there could be like an alchemy of anger in the same way that you seem to be talking about the alchemy of desire? [inaudible] the alchemy of confusion or papañca in terms of the logos. The imaginal figure that came to me has an element of anger, but I feel there's something in it, something beautiful. I can't quite touch it.
Rob: Okay, lovely. Yeah, thank you. Joël's asking, we're talking about alchemy of desire, and is there an alchemy of anger, and an alchemy of confusion, or delusion even? Then you've got your three main Buddhist kilesas. This actually, if you like, could be one view of the tantric path. It's the transformation of the kilesas, that there's treasure in each. So absolutely, yeah, no question about it. The other thing I was going to say to Nathalie, as well, and this applies to this, when there's an emotion, when there's something like desire or like anger, it's like there's a lot of psychic energy involved in that. It's just the way we've got hold of it that takes it into the not-so-skilful. But part of playing with this kind of path that we're filling out now is let's just play with the idea that there's a treasure here, that there is -- you know, mercury in alchemy can transform things. We're just playing with the idea that there's something that's potentially golden, potentially a treasure in that. So I would say if you feel comfortable with it, let that anger be there, feel it, energy body, you're caring for it, and let it constellate an image. Does this make sense?
Yogi: The image that came to me was this young man, and he's quite angry, but he's not angry at me or ... it's not really expressing itself violently. There's something -- it makes me think about, like, the angry tantric deities in a way. Maybe some anger against ignorance or something like that.
Rob: Yeah.
Yogi: I'm not too sure exactly what it is. But it's still hard to touch in a way because it's hard to contact this.
Rob: It's hard for it to form an image, or it's hard to ...?
Yogi: To dwell on this aspect of that image without leaning into the unskilful.
Rob: What gives you the sense that it's unskilful?
Yogi: It just feels like a contraction.
Rob: Okay, yeah. Does it actually -- there is an image there?
Yogi: Yeah.
Rob: Okay, so ...
Yogi: The anger didn't start the image; the image had that in it as one of its aspects.
Rob: Yeah, yeah. Would it be possible to just play with the idea of trusting it? It's like, you know, sometimes in practice what you're doing is you're just setting up a playground or a perimeter which is safe in that period, and kind of just seeing what happens if I trust. The presence or the absence of trust makes a big difference. What is he doing, this young man in the image?
Yogi: I think he metaphorically wants to slam the door and leave.
Rob: Leave? [laughs] Okay.
Yogi: Not leave the imaginal, just leave [inaudible].
Rob: And where would he go?
Yogi: [inaudible] It's a real figure. It's a poet. And he actually did [inaudible] poetry at a young age, and just left everything. There's strength, and some ferocious aspect that is also there.
Rob: It might be that by going through different aspects of this image of this poet -- this poet has become image for you, and it might not be going directly first thing through the anger. It might be hanging out with -- he's probably quite a complex character; there's some mystery to him and all that. Maybe going through different other doorways, rather than directly through the anger, might be helpful. When you're meditating with this, do you really feel like the energy body is involved and ...? You do? What happens? The energy body fills with anger or ...?
Yogi: It depends. Sometimes the energy body just has this density, which is not quite like a contraction, but can turn into a contraction, this sort of charge.
Rob: Is that charge the way his body feels?
Yogi: I don't quite know.
Rob: Okay. So that might be something to play with. It's almost like getting a sense of what his body feels like. Sometimes you can enter an image and become him. That might actually do something to the feeling. Right now I'm not sure what else to suggest, but does that give you a few things that you might play with? Yeah? In principle, I absolutely know it's possible -- I mean, speaking firsthand as well. That's exactly the wrathful deities in tantra. It may be that those deities, if they mean something to you, are helpful here, but it sounds like that poet is already an image for you, and to have some communication, some commerce, some really feeling into what he is for you, it will start to fill out and come alive. There's this trusting that. At some point what happens is there's -- I don't know how to describe it -- it's like the anger is transformed. It's not that it's dissolved. It's become something imaginal, and creative, and potent, and powerful, and alive. You can feel that. It's almost like it just pops into something different. But it's absolutely possible, yeah. Does that give you at least a little bit to play with for now? Yeah? Okay. Thank you.
Yes, Jill?
Q6: recognizing the imaginal, long-term images and one-offs, autonomy and fullness of intention
Yogi: I'm still very new to imaginal practice. I'm trying to get my own handle on things [inaudible]. Two things, I just wanted to test them out to see what you think. This afternoon when I was in the meditation hall -- and I noticed this the other day -- I looked out the window, and there was like a corridor of light from the sky to the [inaudible]. Today I used it because I was feeling a bit sleepy after lunch, and I was sensing a sort of energy coming from it. Then that sort of transformed into a kind of connection with the outside of the building, almost like a tunnel. Today I noticed some of the things that you were describing, the sense of mystery and a sense of something bigger than me. So I was just sort of experimenting with that. That's one thing. And then the other, I was talking with Catherine in the group discussion this morning about a story I wrote two years ago [inaudible]. I just wanted to get a sense of -- this is very new to me -- those two things, and how that kind of fits as examples or ...
Rob: Yeah, beautiful, thank you. So I'm not sure I can repeat all that. You shared that story with me some time ago. Yeah, thank you.
Yogi: And that relates to [inaudible], which is my desire to be the [inaudible] meditator. There's something that I feel could be gained from using imaginal practice, to get more strength, to get more clarity and these kinds of things. It feels like I could tap into that and use it.
Rob: So really you're wanting to check out if -- yeah. Beautiful. So Jill's just sharing two images there. One was looking out of the window from the meditation hall, and sort of perceiving a corridor of light out from the window into the nature, and then that came up later, and sort of following that, and sensing the sense of mystery and unfathomability, etc., there. And the second is from a story you wrote a while ago of visiting a sort of wise crone, if you like, up a mountain, living in her cabin, whose husband, who was a soldier, had died in the war, and she transformed her way of life from that kind of armour of battle to the armour of meditative practice and spiritual practice. Yeah? Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.
The range of imaginal practices is just huge. Both of them, absolutely, go for it. You recognize the imaginal not so much in what the kind of image is but in what it does. How do I recognize the imaginal? It's soulmaking. How do I recognize soulmaking? By the emotion, by the meaningfulness, by the beauty, by the depth, by the dimensionality, by all these things. So here could be a king, and a wizard, and a fairy, and a dragon, and you think, "Oh, it's imaginal." It could be completely not imaginal if it doesn't ... or here's this room right now, here's my hat, could be an imaginal hat. [laughter] It is in fact an imaginal hat. [laughter] But it doesn't matter what it is or how weird or ... We tend to think, "Oh, that's mythic," but it's not in the thing, it's in the relationship.
I almost feel like saying, "I don't know how to do it either!" What this is is an exploration, you know? What happens if we bring mindfulness, sensitivity, curiosity, energy body awareness, this sophistication and care around the questions about reality and all that, and we bring all this into this practice, and we see what happens? If you can have that kind of spirit, I think it's certainly better than asking me the answer. I mean, I'm happy to do that, but I don't kind of see it -- I view it for myself as an exploration. We are discovering, you are discovering, I am discovering, and not just images but also how they work and what the kind of conceptual framework needs to be and all that. To me, that's beautiful. So it's there. You're absolutely on the right track.
We talked about the ways then you can work with these things. Sometimes it informs my life, and the directions I take, and what I decide to do, and what I manifest in the world. Sometimes much less so, so it's not obvious. Eventually, it will spread into the world, so the sense of the world begins to get more imaginal. That, for me, is where we're going. Some people will start there, but for a lot of people, I think the intrapsychic imaginal starts expanding into the world, into the world of relationships, into the world of relationship with the self. That corridor of light could be, you know, we talked about cosmopoesis, the way the images start to spread through the world, into the world, nature. That could be one of the ways, a doorway into that.
Yogi: Okay, that's really clear. One small question: so sometimes these images might be transitory, and sometimes a more relational thing?
Rob: You mean by 'relational' more long-term? Yeah. Absolutely. It seems to me we don't know. In other words, sometimes images might be one-offs. They're just one-offs, but still, somehow they do something. They're part of the whole song. They're significant, but it never comes back, and we don't particularly feel called to draw it back. Other images might be around for years, and there's a real relationship there. All I would add is that, like with a human being, if you think about a relationship with a human being, hopefully we don't just have a one-sided relationship like, "What can this imaginal figure do for me?" [laughs] It's like, it's really got that kind of autonomy and that kind of two-way. If we open up, just play with that kind of way of entering into relationship, then there's a kind of fullness and multidimensionality. And yeah, some could go on for years, absolutely. Okay. I didn't repeat that question, but it's probably clear from the answer, I think.
Tea time, guys. Let's have a little bit of quiet.
