Transcription
Rob: It's a very weird -- I got a lot out of that [working with the psychotherapist], like I said. She was really, really gifted in a lot of ways. And I worked really hard. She made me work really hard and get honest with myself, and really hard at communicating, learning to communicate with difficult situations and things like that. And a lot of heart opening, etc. But -- I don't know what to say -- she kind of gradually went mad, maybe is one way of saying it. It's a very bizarre story. I have a close friend who also was working with her, and sometimes we kind of say to each other, it's almost, like, too difficult to explain exactly. Afterwards, I saw Narayan -- if you don't know Narayan, she's a teacher at CIMC.
Lila: I've heard of her.
Rob: Yeah. She was one of my teachers, one of my main teachers. After I'd been through all that, and I had a lot of anger in retrospect -- partly I would try to explain to friends and stuff, and it was like, "How did you ... you kind of complied in that. You were complicit." And Narayan said to me, you know, "It's a little too simplistic." I mean, it's true, but it's a little too simplistic, because so much wonderful stuff was happening, so much gift, so much opening, so much healing, so much learning, that I both wanted that and trusted that I was on that, and then somehow it got mixed with this other really strange stuff, you know? And I didn't know, in the end, she wasn't actually fully qualified. She was working somewhat semi-legally, and she didn't have a supervisor -- all this stuff.
Anyway. What should I say about it? It's very intimate as well. I'm really not sure what to say about it. She kind of found the vulnerable spot where a person could be hurt. This is her bad side. So for me, it was around purity. I showed up there pointing to things like, "I have problems with my relationships." Who doesn't? [laughs] And then there was, like, sex was not easy for me, and complicated, and I wasn't free sexually. So I kind of brought this to her, and this thing that I said to you about emotions -- like, "I don't understand myself." And it was clear that I was very dedicated spiritually. That was the kind of mix. And somehow, within that, I became convinced -- she sold me this idea -- that I was somehow impure at some very deep level. And I was so -- following on from the earlier story about the movement in meditation -- so committed to doing whatever it took, and spending money also, whatever it took, until my father died [laughs], but anyway! Just whatever it takes. So if I'm really deeply flawed and damaged and twisted and dark inside, then okay, I'll go there.
There was the thing for me -- and it's Virgo -- about purity. That was the thing with me. With my friend, it was something different. She had a different thing that was her vulnerable point. So I was sold on this: I need to purify this, whatever this is, that I don't even quite understand.
So I would have to go three times a week, and really dedicated, and on the off days I'd journal for hours and really track my process, looking for all these monsters inside. And there was a lot of fear. That's coming back to what I said before: in the sessions there would be a lot of fear, because sometimes I would get stuck in this whole thing, and she would say, "You're doing that weird thing again. You're psychically abusing," and just crazy! And I was like, "What, what's going on?" "You're not in touch with your ..." It was super intense.
So back to what Christopher said, something in his teaching, just about "See how something dependently arises." You go there with this fear, based on a certain self-view. You get stuck, and you think, what, it's because it's reflecting a reality here [pointing to self], or there's something in the situation? Hello! You know? I got interested in his teachings right at the end of working with her. And she was getting really kind of crazy, and really abusive, you know? She would throw me out and charge me extra money and all this stuff. It's weird -- it's like, I'm being filmed now! But it's okay. It's a really weird thing for people to hear about. Like you said, they look at me and you'd think, "But you're so strong and independent-minded." I was caught up in something that was complicated, and I didn't quite understand.
Anyway. I got interested, I got back into meditation, towards the end she was getting crazier and crazier, and I didn't trust her spiritually. So I had this kind of sureness of spiritual navigation that I kind of found again, if you like. And I said to her, "I don't trust you spiritually." I think she was really shocked. But anyway, at some point, hearing Christopher's teachings about emptiness, and then understanding, "Oh, dependent arising. So much here is a dependent arising." And it just -- [snaps fingers] -- like I got it, you know? And because I'd lived, seen it in such extreme ways, it made it so clear. It wasn't a subtle thing. It was really black and white. It took a lot of courage to stop working with her. And I went to her and said, "It's finished. I'm not doing this any more." It took a lot -- I was a young guy, and I had to really find my centre there in my belly, and "This is not right." In hindsight, I should have done that two years before.
Lila: No, no, no!
Rob: But it's ... it's okay. It's complicated to explain. Like Narayan said, it's like, there was so much good stuff. And I had this vulnerability about purity and about dedication. I had friends, if she'd have been like that with them, they would have just, like, "Pfft. Screw you." [laughter] You know? It's like, "All right. So I fucked up. Well, fuck you too!" and then walked out. But I was like, "Okay, well, I really need to find out ..."
Lila: It's not that simplistic -- she helped you a lot!
Rob: Absolutely, yeah. Yeah.
Lila: That's why you were staying. It's not just what you said ...
Rob: Yeah. I grew so much in that. And I grew a lot in confidence. Something was blossoming. And people could see. Something was really blossoming, like in my soul and in my heart. So it's complicated. Anyway.
Lila: I really hate to sound too simplistic here, but it's a lot of, like, with a parent, like a father, giving so much, and abusive, and giving so much, and abusive, and you never know when ...
Rob: Yeah. I think for me the thing was more, like, if I look back, the thing was around the hook about purity, as opposed to a repeating of my father. But I do struggle with authority figures. I have to say that. [laughter] Astrologically, I have Saturn opposite my Sun, and a lot of other planets -- there's a lot around my Sun and Mercury, and I can't remember what ...
Lila: What's your horizon? Do you remember?
Rob: Horizon? What's that? Ascendant?
Lila: Ascendant.
Rob: Taurus. I don't know them much better. So I've got this Saturn thing, authority figures, and I just get like a bull. And it's hard. I obviously had that with my father, really intense, with all that intensity. And this kind of, typically, there's something in me, like I said about music, something wants to come through, and it wants to express, and that's all with that sign and whatever, Mercury and all that, there, opposite this authority thing. So I've seen that. I still struggle with it, or it's still part of my karma or whatever you want to say.
Lila: With Christopher you didn't have that issue?
Rob: No. Christopher I had a very different relationship with. I've sat with Christopher maybe two or three retreats.
Lila: You listened to him.
Rob: I listened to hundreds of his talks, really hundreds, and I drank in what he said and I loved it. I never went to Bodh Gaya, never did those retreats. I heard loads of talks. I heard the scent of those retreats -- from a certain time period at least -- that, just, I loved. He was very inspired and it was great. So I really took in the teaching, and I really absorbed it, but I didn't have any personal relationship with him. He probably wouldn't remember me. These are long stories here, but anyway, his teaching was very influential, and I got back into insight meditation.
Then I was in graduate school now in music and studying composition, in fact -- I'd changed to classical music and classical composition. And I was finishing, and my visa was running out. I had this opportunity to work for a music publisher, just copying music, but I went there and it was such an uninspiring vibe, so I thought, "This is not ..." [laughs] "So I'll just go back to England, and I'll go to Gaia House for a year." I thought I could go and sit with Christopher later. And then Narayan said, "He's not even there."
Lila: What year was this?
Rob: This is '98. I decided, gave up my visa, and I'd put in an application for a PhD in composition. I put that, and then I got on a plane to England for a year. That was a very beautiful year. Through the therapy, I'd actually become very estranged from my mother, and accused her of all kinds of things -- terrible. [looks at camera] It's on film. Anyway. I went back ...
Lila: Do you want it on film?
Rob: We'll see. Yeah. When I went back, I lived with my mum for a year. It was really healing for us. It was really nice. My father was dead, and she was kind of blossoming after their very difficult marriage. It was nice -- she still had her health and her energy, and she had grandchildren. It was lovely. We sort of healed our relationship -- not with any big process; just being there. [12:34] I did retreat after retreat, and getting into it. And because of all this crazy movement, and because I'd just finished with this therapist, you know, Narayan said, "Maybe you don't want to jump into three months. Just see how it goes." So I did a week, and another week, and another week, and then maybe a month. I think I did the November Solitary. But it was fantastic. It was great. I was so into it, and practice just blossomed -- jhānas a little bit at that point, and insight. It was lovely stuff. And then at some point in that year, I also got very ill with my Crohn's disease.
Lila: First time?
Rob: No, it'd been on and off for a while. I signed up for a three-month retreat and then had to cancel it and make it much shorter. But in a way, it was good. I also met a sexologist, and worked ... The thing about purity actually had a lot of stuff around sexuality, and really twisted, you know? I was almost like a medieval Christian monk for a certain period. I was celibate for eight years deliberately in my twenties and early thirties, because of the "I need to figure out these impurities and ...", you know?
Lila: You thought you were that bad.
Rob: Sort of -- to be honest, a lot blossomed in that celibacy. But it wasn't ...
Lila: But it came out of the intentional ...
Rob: It came out of that and her kind of, like, "You need to not be sexual for a while."
Lila: "Because there's something really wrong about you."
Rob: That came later, yeah, more and more. Yeah. So it was all very mixed, you know. Anyway. What was I saying?
Lila: You went to see a sexologist.
Rob: Yeah. So when I got back to England, I saw a homeopath for my Crohn's. It wasn't very helpful. In his same office, he had this guy who worked as a sexologist. And I had become so confused around sex. So I went in as part of my thing with [my therapist]. And it got even more twisted and confused, and in pain about it, like so kind of trying to repress my sexuality, confused. It was like I wouldn't -- in my twenties, not looking at women on the street. It's ridiculous, you know?
Lila: Like a monk really.
Rob: Like a monk, but a really severe monk. So a lot blossomed in that celibate monk -- it was amazing, and it got really twisted.
Lila: There was a price.
Rob: There was a real price, yeah. So I saw the sexologist. He was great. He was half Spanish and half German. He had a real sense of humour. I saw him, instead of three times a week for eight years (which I had with the other one), I saw him every few weeks for I think six months or something. And just immediately, all this stuff crumbled. I wasn't on retreat, so I was living at my mum's place, and composing music, and met a young woman, and we got into a relationship. It was really healing for me sexually, and working with this guy. It was all like -- everything had become so complicated, and it just became very simple. And it was like, "What have I been twisting myself up ...?" [laughs] There was a kind of liberation sexually, and just a -- I don't know what to say -- a comfort and an ease and an opening, and this woman, she was very beautiful and very at ease that way. So it was great. The whole year was really, really healing, and really rich in terms of meditation and stuff.
By the end of the year, they told me I got a place doing my PhD, so I went back to Boston and was in the PhD programme. But I was really into practice, and I was really on fire. So mostly I'd say, that year, I was a little bit with Christopher, some groups, and a lot of Christina. And then I was in this PhD programme, and practising a lot, and doing solitary retreats and different group retreats and things. And at some point, I did a solitary retreat in the woods -- completely solitary in the woods in western Massachusetts. It was great. The samādhi went to a whole other level -- for me, then, the third and fourth jhāna; it was amazing, in the woods, and I just absolutely loved it, you know?
Lila: No more shaking?
Rob: No more shaking. Nothing. It was all gone, all gone. Completely gone, yeah. And just really discovering the jhānas for myself, and playing, and experimenting. I was also getting into Ajaan Ṭhānissaro's teachings I think at that point, and finding the ... It was just wonderful, you know? And on that retreat, as much silence of the mind and all that as there was, there was now what I'd call an imaginal fantasy of being a monk, a Theravādan monk. It was kind of part of what was inspiring me on the retreat. It was just really in the background, but I was aware of it. And then, I think, somehow, after that, both the confidence I gained just from doing that retreat -- completely on my own, and also the year in England, but just seeing, "Wow," what's possible in practice -- and then this monk fantasy, that really started to become a real fantasy, like, "Maybe I could be a monk." I have to say, I'd had that fantasy since I started meditating, reading Ajahn Chah. I just loved that lifestyle. It was so romantic for me, you know? [laughs] I was just in love, as an archetype, just loved it, and that Theravādan thing, and the simplicity, and the freedom, all of it.
So I was working as a composer, and I was doing really well as a composer. People were starting to pay attention. They have a very rich university, so I had everything paid for me; I didn't have to worry about money. I taught two hours for the undergraduates, and then I was free to write, and I had enough money to live, everything. But there was this monk thing coming, and at some point, I just was like, "Why shouldn't I?" It was really that solitary retreat that tipped me over. And then I thought, "I'm going to do this." The other thing I have to say about music is, like I told you, I had really started quite late. And then I was so -- I felt so, I don't know the words, touched I think, by what I was able to do, despite starting late. Not even 'despite' -- it touches me, the things I wrote. I was never a virtuoso, certainly, but in the composition, something came through, and I felt really blessed to have done that and to be part of birthing that and that that came through.
At that point, with the monk thing, I felt really good about the music thing, and it was like, "Well, I could just keep piling up these compositions, or I could go really into the Dharma, really give myself." And I thought about my death, and I thought, "What would I regret?", etc. And it just tipped me over into the monk thing. But it was hard to give up music. The academic year was starting, and they said, "Are you going to be teaching this year or not?" And so I said, "Okay, if this is a real thing, it will stay." So I committed to the year ...
Lila: "This" meaning the monk.
Rob: The monk thing, yeah. I committed to the year, and just watched what happened to the monk. But it stayed. It got stronger and stronger, in fact. Then I thought, not as a reality statement, but my impression at that time of the Ajahn Sumedho lineage (which is where I would go, into Chithurst or something) was that they weren't meditation-intensive. So really great as a way of life, but I thought, "Maybe I'll do a long retreat at Gaia House, get that under my belt, and those tools, and then go and ordain." So I signed up for a year retreat at Gaia House. This was 2002 to 2003.
Lila: How did you know it was possible?
Rob: All things are possible. [laughter] Maybe it isn't now. I don't know. But it certainly was. And I managed to do it. They had a certain system then. It wasn't that expensive, actually.
Lila: Wonderful. One year?
Rob: One year.
Lila: Silent mostly?
Rob: Yeah, yeah. My brother got married about halfway through, and so I went to his wedding, and his friends were like, "What, is he going to come and just be silent?" [laughter] I also had kidney stones, which they thought were kidney tumours at first. So there was that whole hullabaloo, and I had to go into hospital for an operation for I think two days. Christine was very sweet; she came and brought me food. So I had that, not silent. But otherwise, yeah, it was silent.
Lila: For the marriage and the kidneys in the hospital.
Rob: Yeah. Otherwise completely silent. [22:06] And that was just amazing. I took up my jhāna practice were I left off, and just was really into -- it was like, "I really want to explore this." That was great. And then loads of insight, and just beautiful. So I was working almost entirely with Christina that year. It was great, really helpful for me. And then, actually, even during that year, I started to get more independent in my thinking, back to your thing about independence. I could see what I was interested in that maybe she wasn't so much, but it was like, "No, I want to do this. These are the questions I have."
Lila: Do you remember?
Rob: Well, one was about the nature of awareness. I had this real thing about, when people talk about the Unfabricated or the Unconditioned or the Deathless, some people make it sound like they mean this, and some people make it sound like they just mean awareness, and some people ... you know? And I was like, "I really want to know." All this Dzogchen stuff, and ... I think I said on a talk somewhere, at some point I was crying. I had this thing; I was kind of independent in that sense. It wasn't that someone, some teacher was saying, "You really need to ..." And actually people said, "Oh, who cares?" or "It doesn't really matter." But I was really, really -- that was my ...
So my independence, in the sense of thinking for myself, I think was really starting to emerge there. I was very influenced by Christopher and by Ajaan Ṭhānissaro as well, and Christina helped me hugely.
Lila: Do you remember a certain point at which you can say here was some kind of fork in the road, and she really, really helped?
Rob: There was one thing that was really simple. I can't remember when it was. It might have been in '98 when I was there on and off. It was really simple: I was in a lot of physical pain, just from trying to sit cross-legged and not having the body that does that. And she said, "Just alternate. Just sit on a chair and then sit cross-legged." From that point, my practice just went so much deeper, just taking the pressure off. Again, I was so willing to work with the pain, you know? [laughs] It really wasn't fruitful. I had the determination. I could put up with it. And I could sit with pain and all that stuff. That's a certain training, and good. But there wasn't a lot of breadth in practice either. There wasn't a lot of really deep samādhi or a lot of heart opening, because I was just dealing with this pain all the time. So certain things got developed and others didn't. But she just said that, and suddenly [laughs] it just went ... But lots of things, she was helpful in a lot of ways.
And at some point, I think it's fair to say, I just started to get my own interests and my own independent -- my own, like, "I won't take that for an answer. It just doesn't satisfy me." So I kind of got on my own roll with things. And I started reading a lot more Mahāyāna stuff and taking that. And I did a lot of experimenting. That's the other thing. There were these Mahāyāna descriptions. In the original texts, it's very little meditation instructions. So it's, "How do you meditate?" I would kind of invent ways to meditate, some of which found their way into Seeing That Frees, my book. I started to get very experimental. And then I got really obsessed with the emptiness thing. It was just ... [laughs] It was really my thing! The awareness thing was part of that, in a way.
It was creative and it was beautiful and experimental. I can't remember at what point, but things started to come together, and sort of a way of conceiving of the whole thing, where everything kind of made sense together in terms of fabrication, ways of looking, and that whole thing. Just taking that and going with it, and seeing how so much can fit together, and understandings of dependent arising. A lot of that was triggered partly by Christopher, partly by Christina, and to a significant extent by Ajaan Geoff, Ajaan Ṭhānissaro, and the way he talks about fabrication. But then, probably, I think it's fair to say I took it all to a place where he wouldn't be comfortable with, I think, because he's quite Theravādan.
I just started to feel like -- maybe it's confidence; just confident in my own ability to experiment, find out, and ask questions, and stay with something, and reconceive things, you know? So that, I think, maybe just gradually blossomed. And after the year, I think Christina asked me, "Do you want to think about teaching?" And I was really, "I'm not sure." Certainly part of me was attracted, and to be honest, you know -- I don't know if you've had this -- sometimes I'd be sitting in meditation, and there's like a spontaneous Dharma talk going on. [laughter] But then I realized, again, it's this kind of expression thing -- it's not just ego or wandering mind; there's something else. Anyway, so I thought about it for a while, and ...
Lila: What year was it?
Rob: 2003. That would have been the spring of 2003 when she probably asked me. And I said, "I need to think about it."
Lila: Because it was 2002 that you did your ...
Rob: Yeah, 2002-2003 is the year retreat. And she said, "Well, Bhante Bodhidhamma, the resident teacher, is leaving. Maybe you could think about taking that job." So it was straight in doing that. I thought about that for a while, and I said "Okay."
Lila: But what about your dream to become a monk?
Rob: Oh, yes, thank you. During the year, again, I had lots of health problems. My digestion, by the end of that year, was a complete wreck. I couldn't eat anything. Anything I put inside was ...
Lila: The Crohn's thing?
Rob: It was Crohn's, yeah, in a larger sense. I was a complete wreck. And I remember going to Ajahn Sucitto one day. He was visiting a house, actually in the States, and I went, a few people went to listen and whatever, pay respects. And the meal was there. I think I got some really nice bread and a salad or something. I took that. Other people brought food. And I went there, and I talked to him, which was helpful, actually. And I looked at the food, and it was like, "The only thing I can eat here is what I brought." I was super allergic to milk and dairy. People would bring all this stuff with cheese. Basically I would starve as a monk. I don't think I have the robustness physically. So that was one thing. Second thing was, during that year, it exceeded every expectation I could have had for practice in terms of what opened up, and I just thought, "Does one need to be a monk?" It's like, "Look at all these riches." It recalibrated my thought.
And then the other thing I have to say is I visited a couple of monasteries in California. I really loved them, and I saw some stuff there about -- I don't know what you call it -- psychological development, and sort of not really -- let's call it this: not really very developed in terms of femininity in the monks. Kind of a bit over-masculine. Relationally, they weren't that skilful. And I had done -- in all the good stuff with the therapy, that had really opened, relationally and psychological awareness and, if we use this language, a sort of blossoming of my feminine side. It felt like going into that would be a bit of a step backwards.
So all these things came together, and Christina said, "What do you think about teaching," which is a way to be fully in the Dharma. So I thought, "Yeah, that feels right," after a while. It took me a little while. Then there were still two years before I moved into Gaia House, but I did a lot of retreats in that time, and I started teaching during that period, and just developing my way of thinking about things and my way of experimenting in practice and developing. A lot of that stuff that's in Seeing That Frees was developed during that period. It was great; it was really creative. And then it came time for me to move into Gaia House. The first six months were difficult because there was nothing for me to do, you know? I had very little responsibility, so it was hard.
Lila: You could just practise?
Rob: I could, but it was more like -- I don't remember exactly, but I remember feeling very unchallenged, and feeling like, yeah, something wanted to come through and there wasn't ... yeah. But there was something about that that was difficult in the first [six months], but then I started just ... more and more, and it was very full-on being resident teacher. It was really a lot of work and quite an intense crucible.
