Transcription
I really want to say thank you to you guys for your practice, for the willingness and openness to try different things, and bring the fullness of yourself, and open to perhaps new ideas, and to throw yourself into something -- it's such a beautiful quality. I feel like saying: thanks for coming over to play! [laughter] It's really, really beautiful and precious.
And so the vessel, the vessel of the retreat ends. But life goes on, certainly, and practice goes on, and the path goes on. And you know, creating these kind of vessels, creating vessels, or discovering vessels, really, really important. It's not to jump to the absence of any distinction between retreat and life, everyday life, so to speak, off retreat. There is that distinction, but in a way, there is no distinction either. Practice goes on. Practice needs to go on.
So just to pick up something Catherine just touched on: what would support that? What would support practice? Not just putting the time in and, someone used to say, just sort of 'treading water' until the next retreat. What would support and sustain a growing of practice, of these practices, of your soulmaking off retreat? This is a real question. What supports it? What might sustain it? What might enable us all to grow, for our practice to grow, for our vision to grow, for our sensibility to grow, soul to grow, to digest that, what we've discovered in the growth, what we've discovered here, to fertilize, to be fertile, to expand the edges? What would sustain it? What might help? What would support that?
It's interesting, in the last few months, I've come to realize something that I was vaguely aware of before. But it's become more clear to me that, at least Insight Meditation culture, we have somehow -- certainly not everyone, and there are people in this room who this is really an exception for -- but it seems to me, there's a kind of, for people whose lifeblood is practice, who have deep passion, it's maybe the thing, the path, and their engagement with the path, and that whole movement, and that whole opening and receiving is perhaps the most important thing in their life. And curiously, it's those people who often feel so lonely, even in a Dharma world. Somehow we have set up or has emerged a kind of culture of maybe not non-sharing, but limited sharing.
And this is really interesting to me. So I know this from my past. How is it that the ones on fire end up being the lonely ones? Actually, there's a lot to that question. What has happened? And what might open it up differently, and support the beginnings of perhaps a new way of relating? What happens, or has happened to you in the past, perhaps -- not everyone; I know that -- where there has been an attempt at sharing, and something has happened that we'd rather back off, or it's ended up that we have backed off? And we yearn to be seen, and to see, and to share what's at our edge, what's most alive, what burns in our heart.
And so people might go to sitting groups, and it's fantastic. And yet the things that are aflame in them, the things that are really on their edge, are the things that are not shared. They're not explored. I'm not saying everyone at all. And I know people in this room who have created something or relationships where there really is that possibility. And there are others in this room where that -- much as they want it, and much as they know they want it, it's not. And there's still interaction with Dharma people, and friendliness and everything. Some level is missing. And it's difficult. What comes in? There's the whole measurement thing. Maybe I share, and I'm not up to the level of the other person. Or maybe I share, and it's beyond them, and then there's this whole trip that they think I've got a big ego, or whatever it is. Maybe a fear they will judge me in some way. There's vulnerability in, as you know -- part of what we've talked about is the vulnerability in being together, all the complexity and vulnerability in being together.
Last night, while you guys were listening to the talk, I went for a walk, and I went up the hill, and maybe some of you know, came to some houses quite a way from here, a farmhouse. Everything was just getting dark, and this lovely dog came out. And it was just in the middle of the road, just sort of flipped itself onto her back, and just opened her belly to just ... [laughter] "Rub my belly!" [laughter] It was so unguarded, and so simple, and so beautiful, you know. Really, really lovely dog. And then when belly was rubbed, and we had a sort of connection there, it was like, "Okay!" [laughter] Off it went, off she went, wagging her tail. And it's usually more complicated for us as human beings. [laughter] We have another practice to give you. [laughter] Not on this retreat. Next one. [laughter]
Yeah, it's complex. We have a history. It's not easy. We are complex beings. There are parts that haven't been seen, or have a history of being unrecognized, or slighted, or disrespected, or misunderstood -- all of that. It's not easy for us, unfortunately. So again, I go back to this question: what would support? What would support that intimacy? What would support the soulmaking? Whatever has been meaningful, whatever has been your edge, why can not there be a sense of a growing edge off retreat? There can. There absolutely can. It's really a myth that it all happens on retreat. So the question: what supports that? What supports that?
And we talk about vessels, okay? So there are different kinds of vessel. This retreat was a vessel. You know, just coming together and being in silence and sitting together can be a powerful vessel. And I know that you know that. Listening to talks together, reading, studying together, discussing what you've read, studied, listened to -- that's a vessel as well. It's a certain kind of vessel. Sharing images is also a vessel. And it's a particularly -- I don't know what to call it -- potent vessel, or can be, you know. The images -- have you noticed? I'm sure you have -- how intimate images are to us? Maybe some of you get that sense. When I was [preparing to teach] the Path of the Imaginal retreat, I was saying to Catherine before, "I'm not sure how it's going to work. Are people going to feel okay to share this together?" So there's a lot that needs to be taken care of when/if we share images with each other, because they're so intimate. They can be. Do you recognize this?
So, might it be another kind of vessel to actually share images with each other? And what does that need? How do we, how might we take care of that? And you know, perhaps you've gotten a sense here, in an interview or in a group, or in these little dyads and triads, perhaps, of a vessel being created, or just formed spontaneously, perhaps, that actually really takes care of something. And then there's an alchemy in the sharing, and in the listening, and something in the togetherness, in the mutuality. But it needs a temenos. Soul, images, need a temenos. That's a Greek word. It means a kind of 'sacred space.' We don't have to make a big deal of that, but it basically needs respect and care and holding.
That can be formal. So you could, you know, set up really formal structures, like when we do these dyads, and you take your posture, and all that stuff that we've been doing, and there's, "Your go, and then my go," and all this. It's a formal posturing and structuring that can really, really help the intimacy. Or other times, it's a much more informal back and forth that helps. But both are possible. [10:27]
A whole other vessel is to share live images. What's the image? Catherine asked yesterday -- I don't know how it was for you in the dyad -- what's alive for you right now? And maybe some of what came alive in that moment was imaginal perception. So while you were playing -- while you were working [laughs] -- then Catherine and I just sort of did it for like a minute or whatever. And she asked me that question. And I can't remember exactly what I said, but I noticed as she was asking me, the light, the divine light coming out of her eyes. And this is an imaginal perception. And I shared that, and I said that.
And I don't know if you noticed this, but for me, I noticed something very interesting: that in the sharing of it, it took the imaginal perception, it opened up the dimensionality. I know some of you know this. If I go back to the question I put, threw out the other [day], what is it that sanctifies? How do things, how do others, how do selves, how is the world sanctified? Lots of different ways: through body, speech, mind, through way of looking. We sanctify, we bless, we open our ways of looking sometimes through what we share verbally, or in writing, and sometimes through listening. So sometimes there's even a vessel that deepens our images in the moment.
I'll just talk about Right Speech. The Buddha talks about Right Speech. It has a whole other level when you realize how the speech feeds back into the consciousness and into the perception -- and not just in the sense of if I go out trashing people in my speech, and lying, then I get a dull mind and a worried mind about what people are going to be saying about me and all that, but also in this kind of speaking of that which is most beautiful, taking care about how that is expressed, trusting, putting that in a vessel that can hold it, that can care for it, feeling that mutuality. And then the whole thing gets reflected back by, so to speak, the walls of the vessel, and by the other. And we hear the echoes of our speech. And it does something. It's part of the alchemy. Yeah? [13:08]
So this is not so common in our culture. But the main point here is that, again, I go back to this question: what's going to support? What will support? You know. Or you will find out. Or you will begin to experiment or something. Lots of possibilities, lots, lots. What will support?
Okay. Bless you and thank you all.
