Transcription
So I don't know how much experience each of you have had with sort of online group interviews and things like that. I've had very little, myself -- just a little bit with different sized groups. But I still feel like I'm finding my way with them, and very interested in how to make it a space, or help it to be a space for everyone where we can all really be present -- there is that intimacy, the body is involved, the heart is involved. So easily online, with screens and virtual reality, it's easy to get a bit disembodied. So just an encouragement now, as the session goes on, to perhaps just remember from time to time to keep checking in with the body, with the mindfulness, how's the heart doing, the emotions, the intention? Just very, very light, to keep connected to that and caring for that and rooted in that, so that we can all practise a more embodied and full presence with each other.
Okay, so because of the size of the group, it's probably unlikely that even if everyone did have something to ask about practice, that we would get to everyone. I mean, we might, in the time that we have, but it's probably unlikely. So it's really fine to just listen, and bring your interest and curiosity and openness and heart. But if you think you have a question, and you feel a bit nervous about asking, it's really, really normal, but I would just encourage you to nudge yourself over the edge and ask, because almost certainly your question will be helpful to someone else -- maybe many other people. Very often we think, "Oh, my question is stupid," or "it's too simple or too basic," or "too clever," or whatever it is, "too advanced." All of that is just mind stuff. Again, if you can feel your heart, and just remember: it's probably going to be really, really helpful to others as well. So the encouragement, if you do want to ask or share about practice, and explore that together, to really encourage you to do that.
Also, I'm just aware that English is probably, almost certainly, your second language, and I don't think I know one word in Finnish, in fact. [laughs] So I apologize for that. If you're trying to say something and you feel like you're struggling with the English, or if I say something and you feel "I didn't quite understand that," please, we're small enough a group to just put your hand up and say, "Can you just say that in other words?", or ask perhaps Sari or Kristian for help with your English. Not a problem at all. I'd really rather that you can participate really fully and that everyone can understand, and that the language is not a barrier, so that we all feel really together and included. Okay?
Okay. So basically, as you know, the theme is about emptiness practice. It could be questions about or sharings, explorations about the nuts and bolts of practice -- what's actually going on in practice, what you're encountering, what you're perhaps unsure about, what's unfolding -- or maybe the bigger picture of understanding. They go together. So anything at all. Would anyone be willing to start?
Q1: effects of seeing everything as "just a perception," playing with the subtext to alter the effects
Rob: Hi, Annamari.
Yogi: Hi, Rob. How are you?
Rob: I'm okay, thank you.
Yogi: Okay, so I've got a question about perception. I've kind of noticed that if there's something really beautiful, soulful, meaningful -- a beautiful, soulful, meaningful experience, sometimes it can be said that it's just a perception, among other perceptions, which ... in a way it's true, but it somehow seems to take away something, kind of seems to flatten things: "Okay, it's just another perception, and the beauty of things is that every perception is not realer or truer than any other perception, not even the mundane ones." At the same time, it feels like some perceptions, the soulful and beautiful ones, in a way, require -- in order to be discovered and created -- more elements coming together, compared to some everyday, stressful perceptions of the self and the other and the world. I'm not actually sure what the question there is, but kind of about the perception of saying that "everything is a perception," and at the same time, it doesn't dismiss some of the beauty and the mystery.
Rob: Okay, thank you. Let me see if I understand what you're asking. We have the possibility to regard things, in the sort of whole range of emptiness practices, we can regard things as just a perception: "It's just a perception, just a perception." And yet, there are also clearly for us in life some perceptions that are more meaningful, more important, and more soulful, as you say, than others. So it seems a bit as if it flattens out that importance that needs actually some care, you know? Is it something along those lines?
Yogi: Yeah. Like, in order to experience something soulful, it seems that so many things have to come together, like inner things, outer things -- that it doesn't happen as easily as something that seems very flat and mundane in so-called everyday life.
Rob: Yeah, yeah. So a few things here. Always remember that whatever practice we're talking about, whether it's emptiness practices, or soulmaking practices, or mindfulness, or brahmavihāras, we're always just being pragmatic, which means: what am I trying to achieve here, at this moment, with this practice? Right? And that varies depending on what practice we're doing in the moment. So I can relate to any experience, any perception, and have quite different intentions depending on what practice I'm trying to do. Because the intention of soulmaking is different than the intention of just finding some peace in the moment, and it's different than the intention of maybe cultivating mettā in relation to this, whatever it is. Now, these intentions may overlap, but in a way, they're different, and we need to be clear. So the intention in the moment, for whatever it is that we're working with, determines what tools I use, yeah? So it might be that there are ways of regarding the emptiness of things that kind of make everything equal. Everything is just, like, nothing special, like that -- at a certain level, they make that. And that may not be that helpful for that thing and that perception in terms of soulmaking.
So it really depends what my intention is in the moment, whether I'm viewing it that way or not. It's not like there's a right or wrong. That's one point. The second point, maybe a little more subtle, is that this phrase, "just a perception," is, to me, a very interesting phrase. It's three words -- "just a perception" -- but it has what I call a subtext, or it has possible subtexts to it, okay? So when you were explaining it, it sounds like, "It's just a perception among other perceptions," is what you said, as if it's like, "It's just another perception," okay? But "just a perception" might have a different subtext to it. What I mean by "subtext" is a different understanding of what's implicit in my view when I'm engaging a way of looking that's saying "just a perception." So it could be, "There are many perceptions, and this is just another one," is one interpretation, one subtext of "just a perception." But another one is that, "It's fabricated. It's dependent on clinging," for instance, okay? But even that, "dependent on clinging," could have a negative connotation -- "Nyeh, it's dependent on clinging" -- or a kind of more mystical connotation -- the magic of the fabrication of things.
So we need to kind of bring a lot of subtle discernment and very delicate play to these kinds of views that sound so simple -- "just a perception" -- but actually we could write paragraphs on each time we use it: what exactly is wrapped up in that way of looking, in those three words that are kind of summing up the way of looking? It's not enough to sum it up. "It's just a perception," there are many variations there. And depending on what's implicit in the subtext, in the view, in the practice, in the moment, will also kind of lead to more of a magical sense of the perception, or a sacred sense, or a sense that it's -- "Nyeh, what's the big deal?" kind of thing. It will flatten out this almost sacred gift sense that we get with soulmaking. You understand?
Yogi: Yeah.
Rob: And we could say a lot more about this. Or maybe as a little homework [yogis laugh], if you like, if I can give you that, maybe it's better, rather than me just rattling off ... To really explore and fill out what possibly can be wrapped up in this "just a perception." You can see how that way of looking, we can have a view which is very kind of dismissive, what I call holy disinterest. It's just, "Not this, not that. It's all ...", you know? On the one hand. And then a whole spectrum all the way through to the mystery of fabrication, or the gift of perception. So usually when we talk about ways of looking, we think, or something in our mind is still thinking, "I have the agency. This citta, this mind, has the agency to choose a way of looking, and dependent on that way of looking, this or that will arise," right? Once you start to see, well, the self is empty, and the citta is empty, and the awareness is empty, and the intention is empty, and the way of looking is empty, and once you've gone -- here I am giving you some clues, but -- once you've gone even beyond, see the emptiness of the Unfabricated, then everything opens up, and you could see "just a perception," it could contain with it something of a divine gift, and that would be more of a soulmaking view, etc. But that's not taken as a reality; that's a view that's entertained.
So, I think better for you to take your question and just unpack all the possibilities -- not all, but some of the possibilities that "just a perception" could mean, and really play with them. Not just in the mind, but really play with them and feel in the heart and in the soul, as well as what it does to perception, the effects, you know? One more thing. With these emptiness views, as some of you will know, as I look at something, as I engage a way of looking with this thing, this perception, whatever it is, with some emptiness view, it begins to fade a little bit, or a lot, or whatever. And then we can actually play with how much it fades. You understand? So how much I lean on that emptiness view, in the way of looking, in practice, at any moment, will determine how much this perception fades. As it fades more and more, there's a kind of mystical beauty in the fading. That's another perception, but it's mystical beauty. But I can also lean on it somewhat, but not too much, so it's less substantial and it seems kind of transparent and radiant and diaphanous and empty but appearing. I'm keeping it in the middle range by not leaning too much. Does this make sense?
Yogi: Yeah.
Rob: Yeah? And in that middle range, it's still appearing, but now, rather than this, "Eh, it's just a perception," it's actually got this almost divine quality to it, and it becomes a lot more malleable. So there's both what's included in the "just a perception" that we said before. That's one point. The second point is how much I'm leaning at any time towards the fading. Now, the fading itself can reveal, as I said, a kind of mystical beauty, which is itself a perception, or I just -- not so intense, and I just kind of let it hover in this kind of mid-space between, let's call it emptiness and form, or empty appearances or whatever, and that, too, can have this real sacred beauty, and have with it all the elements of the imaginal and the soulmaking that you know. Yeah? So lots of homework to play with.
Yogi: [laughs] Thank you!
Rob: Yeah? Okay, good. Lovely. Anyone else?
Q2: working with uncomfortable intensity in insight practice by balancing it with samādhi and softer insight practices
Yogi: Hello, Rob.
Rob: Hi, A-P [Ari-Pekka]. We've never met. Hi, there.
Yogi: Hello. Nice to meet you.
Rob: You too.
Yogi: So I've been doing some forms of emptiness practice for a couple of years, but I found your book just a few months ago. During, let's say, the last six months, there has been a quite intense and a lot of this kind of perception where spontaneously, during the day in different activities, the perception switches a little bit so that there's more clarity, more vividness of colours and intensity in the way of looking. There's joy and many kind of wonderful feelings associated with it. During this month, it has been happening more often, and more intensely. But, let's say, in a couple of weeks now, it has been a little bit too much, you know? It's a little bit too much. I would like to not have so much of this, because it makes me feel a little bit like being too much in the sun or something like this. So I was reading your book, and there was something about perhaps this insight and samādhi being in balance. So this could be one thing here, to have more samādhi, perhaps. But I'm not sure, so I was thinking about what do you have to say about this, some insights on this.
Rob: Okay, thank you. So can I ask particularly what practices you've been doing in the last few months as this has gotten more intense, really, as the intensity of experience has built up?
Yogi: Well, for the last couple of years, I've been doing more or less this kind of "looking at the one who looks." I'm not sure what you'd call this practice. It started to happen more spontaneously, but this is how I have been kind of calling it -- awareness of awareness, perhaps.
Rob: Okay, good. Lovely, and a really lovely practice. I think -- a couple of things. That's actually quite an intense practice, just focusing on awareness itself. And in some Tibetan traditions they say that -- you don't have to get worried about this, but they actually say it can cause, in Tibetan medicine, what they call a wind condition, etc. There's something about it that does something that affects the energy, so it's quite intense. I wouldn't necessarily worry too much about that. I think maybe at this point, more in line with what you were thinking, that it might be good to balance your insight practice with either some samādhi or some mettā practices, and really to do those in a way -- you said you had the book, so in a way that's as described in my book, that really involves the whole body, and the energy of the body.
Again, when we talk about samādhi, there are ways of doing it that can build intensity in ways that sometimes are not that helpful, okay? They can be great and really useful, but sometimes, and depending on what else is going on, they're not that helpful -- they're a bit too intense, or they tip the system in a way that, yeah, as I said, is not that helpful. So, for example, intensely focusing on a small point, and really concentrating on a small point, probably at this point not that helpful. There are ways of practising samādhi, in my book, in Chapter 5, for instance, if you want, or you can find recordings online, or speak to Sari or Juha, for instance, that involve the whole body and the energy. And these start to open up, and get softer, and nicer, and warmer, and one just kind of melts into that or dwells in that. What it really does is it integrates body and consciousness in a soft, warm, lovely space, and that would be a really good balance to what you're doing. So that's one thing.
Yogi: Yeah, I was actually cycling today, and I was having this kind of experience, and I then moved it more to watch the heart, and the whole body, and after fifteen minutes or something, that kind of feeling a little bit sick vanished, and I was feeling great, and actually the intensity of this clarity was stronger but not with these negative associations.
Rob: So there you are. And you can really develop that, and I think it would be a really good idea. I think it would be a really, really good idea. So even what you did today when you were cycling, and if you want you could develop it further, and I think that would be very good. There's another thing, as well. So everyone teaches emptiness in different ways, and it means different things to different teachers, and you'll come across that. But in the way I would understand emptiness, this kind of what you're calling clarity and vividness and intensity of experience -- the colours, everything getting sharper -- it's really just an initial stage of practice, and in a way, we want to also go beyond that, where it seems like the opposite is happening. Instead of things getting more vivid, they actually begin to fade, okay? Everything begins to blur and fade and get softer, if you like. It's not that we want to live in a state of blurred, faded softness, but there's something about that movement from normal experience, to this kind of clarity, and then the whole spectrum of fading -- there's something about that that's of fundamental significance in the whole exploration of emptiness.
So in a way, that's just understanding where this experience that you're describing sits in the journey into exploring emptiness, where it's placed in the trajectory of what we're trying to do. It might also be that there are other emptiness practices that would be really helpful, in addition to what you're doing. So we talked about the samādhi or the mettā, but also it might be good to do some -- the one I'm thinking of right now, if you have my book it's called the second dukkha method. And really what it's about -- you can look it up later, and I think there are some guided meditations or instructions online somewhere [e.g. 2010 Meditation on Emptiness retreat, "Three Characteristics - Three Avenues to Freedom and Joy"; 2011 Metta and Emptiness retreat, "Ways of Looking (2): Dukkha"] -- but really what it's about is relaxing the relationship with experience as it comes up. When I'm doing that practice, that's the job that I'm doing. I'm noticing whenever there's a kind of pushing away or pulling, even subtle, and I'm just relaxing that, again and again and again. So you can hear, even when I describe the practice, it's a soft practice, it's a softening practice. That doesn't mean it's not profound and powerful; it's incredibly profound and powerful. But the whole flavour of it is much softer and more melting and relaxing, etc. Sometimes what that does is it allows more depth to happen, without this kind of turbulence. Yeah?
Yogi: Yeah.
Rob: So another kind of emptiness practice would be watching very rapid impermanence, really microscopic impermanence -- fantastic practice, but that one, too, can bring quite a lot of energetic turbulence and intensity and kind of rock the boat for some people. So it might be good, like I said, in addition to what you're doing -- not just the samādhi or the mettā, but also to have one or two other emptiness practices which have a very different way of unfolding, a very different flavour and tenor to them. Equally powerful, but just unfold in different ways that will allow the whole thing to deepen much more stably and much more easefully. Yeah? Does that sound okay?
Yogi: Yes, yeah. Very good.
Rob: Okay, thank you.
Q3: exploring the middle range between full-on fabrication and deep unfabricating, bringing soulmaking into creative work
Yogi: Okay, can you hear me, Rob?
Rob: I can hear you very well. Nice to see you again, Mikael.
Yogi: Nice to see you. I'm very happy to see you.
Rob: Me too.
Yogi: What you said in the beginning, of questions being helpful to others, it's just funny to see how Annamari's question and A-P's question is somehow related to what I wanted to ask. This question has more to do with emptiness in the bigger picture of my life, or anyone's life. I would like to ask about your description of the spectrum of emptiness, or emptiness being a spectrum with complete cessation of perception at one end, and then full-on fabrication at one end. The question is basically how to bring more stability or more range to the moving through of that spectrum, or moving somewhere else than the extremes. I'm asking this because in my life and in my practice, I have this tendency to move towards the extremes somehow. I'm either interested in practising full-on emptiness practices, going full-on, deeply into the emptiness side of things, and loving the cessation and all the freedom that it brings, or then I'm full-on fabrication, full-on creativity and art -- in my case, music and writing. And that seems a completely different world than the emptiness side of things. There does not seem to be a middle ground, or middle range, as you just said in the previous answer. In a way, yes, I could live like this, bipolarly [laughs], but it's a little bit straining to move like boom, this end, and boom, this end, back and forth. Also, although it seems like there's a wide range, I actually have started to feel like it's quite narrow, in a way -- basically I'm craving for more colours, not just black and white. So how to bring more stability, or more colours to the range between cessation and full-on fabrication.
Rob: So is it a double question, in the sense that you're asking both about your everyday life and work, as well as formal meditation practice? Or are you talking just in meditation practice?
Yogi: Well, in this case, I might be asking a double question. I'm interested in both, yes. [laughs]
Rob: And when you say cessation, what are you doing that opens up an experience of cessation? What practices are you doing?
Yogi: Well, lately I've been practising samādhi and the jhānas, and especially in the context of emptiness -- treating or seeing the jhānas as ways of experiencing different levels of cessation. And then also experimenting with seeing the emptiness of awareness.
Rob: Okay, so when you say cessation, you really mean a spectrum? Because I usually use that word as just an end point. You really mean more fading, towards more fading?
Yogi: Yes, yes.
Rob: Okay. So this is really important. I wonder, similar to Annamari's question, if there's a possibility -- let's backtrack, before I even answer, because this often influences what people choose to do. Already there's a desire in your question, expressed in your question, for a desire for more middle ground. As you say, it's actually quite narrow, because really I have one point here, and one point here, as opposed to a whole range between them. So your desire is there for that middle ground. If you ask me -- and again, it's in the book, towards the end -- it's like, where is all this going, all this emptiness business? Again, depends who you ask and what their interpretation of it is, but all this business about fabrication, and fading, and the fading of perception, that whole spectrum, it's not for the purpose of living down at that end, okay? It's something we understand in that, getting to that point, or getting somewhere towards that point. We understand something about this world, about this world and this self.
So one thing is prioritizing understanding over experience. Some people really do like the deep end of fading -- it's very lovely. And you can enjoy it, but part of you always wants to prioritize understanding: "What does that mean then about the world?" And this understanding, this is what we call the Middle Way. Emptiness is not saying, "Nothing matters. I might as well not write. I might as well not do music." Then I've gone towards nihilism, all right? So the understanding maturing is both kind of keeping on that Middle Way, or wobbling about it quite closely, so that actually your passion and your love and beauty and commitment and values can all still be there. If they go, something's tipped over too far, okay? In that moment, it needs a little rectifying.
So that's one piece. But also the understanding is really to do with the fabricated nature of what we call reality, perception. We don't stop there, though, in the way that I would present it. Okay, you might get to the Unfabricated and deep ceasing, but then you even see that that's empty, and that starts to change your whole kind of relative valuing of cessation or fading over not. Everything opens out in a different way. In some Mahāyāna teachings and Vajrayāna teachings, they say that a Buddha is one who is able to deeply know the emptiness of things, and still perceive forms. They don't fade, necessarily. We can imitate that. That's what tantric practice does -- it's an imitation of a Buddha's state of mind. It's like a fake Buddha. So if we say, where are we going with all this emptiness business, anyway? It's not that we're just going to the Unfabricated. It's that we're going towards an understanding which liberates, and then there's freedom to play in this kind of pretend Buddha-land, if you like, that's, as I said to Annamari, hovering in this space -- things are empty, they're more transparent, they're less substantial, they're magical, and divine as well. And that means actually you have to have some control over how deep you go by, in a way, how intensely you're holding a certain emptiness view at any time, like we said with Annamari.
One way of helping this is to -- and again, it's somewhere in the book -- it's in the chapter about emptiness and love, Emptiness Views and the Sustenance of Love, Chapter 24, if you want. What that's doing is it's taking other beings, or this being, or the experience that we have, and, for example, giving mettā towards this being, or compassion, or offering up this dukkha that I have, or this happiness that I have, giving it for the sake of other people. I might see it's empty to a certain extent, but I can't dissolve it too much, because I have to retain some sense of another person and some sense of these things that I'm offering up to them with this kind of bodhisattva intention, yeah? If they fade too much, I've lost the beauty of that particular practice. Everything fades. It's great, but it's all the same. So there's this kind of very exquisite middle range, but what might help explore it is if part of your intention is really to be doing practices like mettā or compassion or exchanging self and other with emptiness in the mix of those practices, so you're kind of hovering in that mid-range. Does that make sense?
Yogi: Yes.
Rob: Okay. The more you do that, the more you're really opening up some of that middle territory, you know? There are other ways, too, but let's just say that for now. In terms of your life, and your work, writing and music, here, perhaps, my first inclination is not necessarily to try and pull the emptiness in there, okay? I would rather pull the soulmaking in there. So here is work and a project to be done, or creative projects to be done, and the self that's doing those projects. Now, we could say that self is empty, and you just see it that way, and the project is empty. Sure, you could do all that. But it might be -- I know this is an emptiness interview, but I just think it might be more fruitful to let those creative processes and projects become more imaginal, let them be more imaginally infused. Now, that's going to include the project itself, who your audience is or your whatever, and the self that's engaged in that. In being imaginal, then they will start to occupy the imaginal Middle Way, which is also neither real nor not real. It's not a complete fading at all, but there's a way they fill out a space that's kind of empty but in a different way. And it can still have all that beauty, and dedication, and hard work, and soulfulness, and joy in it. Yeah? And that might be a way, because, in some ways, they're close enough, this imaginal Middle Way and the emptiness Middle Way. They're close enough to kind of -- what would we say? -- stretch the bubblegum between these two points that you have, you know, so it's across the range there. Does that sound okay?
Yogi: Yes. Yes, that sounds really helpful in many ways. Yeah, thank you.
Rob: Do you want to say something more, or is that okay? You don't have to.
Yogi: I was just reflecting on things that came up to my mind as you were speaking, because I just notice part of the problem is that actually some part of me has a distaste for anything neutral. This might be a personality trait also; I know that I have a personality that is tending towards the extremes in many parts of life. I appreciate you bringing up that the creative process might not be benefiting of the emptiness ways of looking, at least right now, because that kind of perception has, to me, before seemed like something that Annamari was describing with the flattening, and somehow making it more boring, making it more middle, making it more neutral -- whereas, actually my personality would like it to be extreme. That has its problems, but ...
Rob: Sure. And there's always this question of, like, what is actually needed by a certain soul? And what is just a kind of pathology [laughter], and actually you need to see a psychiatrist. I would encourage you to let it be soulful. But remember, like I said, part of soulfulness is an imaginal Middle Way. When it gets too reified -- when the self doing it gets too reified, and the project -- it starts to actually contract and not feel so fertile, not feel so soulful and beautiful. You know when you're in that territory, and you get more discriminating, "Now I'm out of the territory." And it might be because I've reified it and made too much pressure for this self to be fantastic and intense and whatever it is, and I've believed it all too much, in some way that's actually squeezing the joy and the juice and the soul out of it, yeah? That's one thing.
Now, because you said what you said, and you shared about what you -- I think also, you know, it might be really good just to go back at some times, it doesn't have to be all the time, but just a little bit here and there in the big picture of your practice at the moment, and just spend some time doing some basic mindfulness practice with, like, neutral vedanā, you know? Listen: neutral and subtle are very close together. Most people are not interested in neutral. You get the same thing with the brahmavihāra practice -- sometimes the neutral is more difficult than the difficult, because it's just not interesting. So we need, as practitioners, to be able just to hang out with the neutral. When I hang out with the neutral and I'm not interested, it becomes boring and actually slightly unpleasant. When I hang out with the neutral and I bring a kind of subtlety of attention, a subtlety of sensitivity to it, actually the neutral starts to become coloured, and, in its own way, beautiful. Everything that arises is dependent. It might not ever get super intense, or it might, actually, dependent on your way of looking at it, but there's something to explore in that neutral range.
I'm not saying, "Change your life, go see a psychiatrist." I'm not saying that at all. I'm just saying there's a middle range there, just in practice. Even if it's ten minutes here and there, "You know what? I'm going to sit down and just feel the sensations in my bum right now, or in my big toe," and yeah, unless you're either in pain or jhāna, they're not going to be either here nor there, but there's something about just being willing to hang out there, and what can I learn, what can I tolerate, and developing the capacity to include that range in my attention, but also in the sensitivity there, to learn about dependent arising: what is this neutral? And once we start getting into some of those practices like exchanging self and other, with neutral sensations, what was neutral starts to be mystically coloured and beautiful, and profound sense of participation in it, etc. So just because it's neutral doesn't mean that it's kind of doomed to be not interesting, yeah? How the neutral appears depends on how you relate to it.
What I'm really suggesting is, within the context of your practice, everything that you've described, just ten minutes here and there, just being willing to show up for the neutral and bring some sensitivity and some attention to that, in different sense spheres, etc. It doesn't have to take over your practice, but you just throw that in a little bit as well. Okay?
Yogi: Yes, yes. I will do that. Thank you.
Rob: And then write to me and tell me how that bit's going at some point.
Yogi: I'll do that. Thank you.
Rob: Okay.
Q4: effects of different styles of personality on practice; the liberation that comes from practice and one's path being soulful
Yogi: I think I'll ask my question at this point. I don't know if it's eros or craving, but I'll go with it anyway. [laughs] You could say that, in some sense, my question's related to what you just said about is it a pathology or is it soulful -- it's kind of like this eternal question. I need to give a little bit of a context. So I've been reading your book since it came out, and sort of digesting that material in some form. In some ways, these emptiness practices and the entire framework, it feels very natural for me. My mind naturally somehow thinks in terms of multiple viewpoints and sort of the relations between them. I'm known for being -- like, if I open my mouth, usually I end up talking quite a lot, and it's because it's hard for me to find a sentence that doesn't immediately ... there are these disclaimers, and "Okay, so it's hard to find anything that's actually true, because it's always contextual." As you can imagine, doing emptiness practices doesn't necessarily make this easier. [laughs] And then there's this sort of drive -- you know, I've been analysing myself for years from various points of view, and one of these fundamental drives that doesn't seem to be reducible to anything else is this drive to sort of understand everything, or understand things deeply. It usually, for me, means finding out how things are connected, and what they are most fundamentally, if anything. Emptiness is sort of the ultimate drug here, because it's kind of like the ultimate connection between different things. So that's been very appealing in that sense.
I've also, as long as I've been studying the Dharma, I've been trying to study it from different angles, because I kind of want to find -- if there are two teachers who both seem to make sense to me, then I want to find a conceptual framework that can somehow accommodate both of them. I need to somehow contextualize them. Even if it turned out to be that yeah, these can't be reconciled, then I can still reconcile them -- "Okay, these are two fundamental things, these are the poles" or whatever. So this might sound really abstract, but it's very concrete and fundamental for me. So the issue, like in actual practice, it's always been difficult for me to actually do techniques, or even observe one object. I remember that used to be, a long time ago, confusing for me -- what does it even mean to observe one object to the exclusion of something else? Because, you know, things are always connected. And I've noticed it's also kind of hard for me -- I'm not even sure how to map that to my experience, like how to choose one point of view. So that's kind of -- I've been reading; I just finished reading your book for the third time, and it really resonates with me. I can find, you know, in the different practices or techniques that are listed, some of them feel familiar, that yeah, I've kind of done something like that, but at the same time -- and I don't know if this is my personality or pathology or both, but I have this kind of fantasy, I want to see things, in a sense, connected to each other. I want to see in my practice -- in a sense, I'm always doing the same thing, because I want to view practice so generally that it somehow includes everything that, to my best understanding, seems that it should be included, if that makes sense.
Rob: Not quite, the last bit. Can you try that again?
Yogi: Yeah. So what I mean is I've kind of been, mainly, in practice, I've been practising in the U Tejaniya style, that you're maybe familiar with. But I feel like it's not like I'm actually doing bare mindfulness or just being with things as they are -- it's more like, when something is happening, experience, there is something being experienced, and then I just sort of unleash my mind on it. So it will naturally consider it from different points of view, and sort of reflect on everything that it's sort of digested. Of course that process is conditioned, so what's prominent right now probably depends on what I read yesterday and things like this. That's what I mean by -- it's very hard for me to sort of approach practice like, "Okay, now I'm going to do this technique." I've never been able to do a guided meditation, for example. I've been practising for quite a while, and there's just something ... I can understand it conceptually, and I can sort of imagine that it works like this for some people, but it feels kind of alien to me. I can understand intellectually -- originally I was very much like a "myth of no myth" guy, and I can critique that intellectually, that there's no such thing as doing nothing or just being with experience, because there's always some point of view that conditions what's happening. But yeah, I don't know ... Does this sort of explain?
Rob: I think I understand -- I get a picture of where you're at. Is there a question with this, or ...?
Yogi: Right, so I guess the question, like I said originally about what's a personality trait and what's pathology -- so I can analyse, I can understand how what, say, U Tejaniya teaches, how it fits into the framework that you lay out in Seeing That Frees. I've also listened to some of the imaginal talks. So, for example, you could say that there's the dukkha practice because we're working with clinging all the time in different situations; there's a certain amount of anattā; there's this kind of cultivating the view of seeing things as nature (he doesn't like the word anattā, but that's basically what he's pointing at, as far as I can tell). There's a measure of holy disinterest, and so on. I guess the question is is this a problem, because I don't want to limit myself, but at the same time I want to kind of respect -- I've had similar problems in other areas in life. For example, I've been singing for twenty years, and that's been a kind of journey, finding how I should approach this. And I can see that it works in practice. I can see that my practice works in practice, at least in some sense. I guess I'm not entirely sure if there's a problem here or not, and how I should sort of approach that.
Rob: Yeah, thank you, Kristian. I don't know. Occasionally I get asked something exactly like this, and I think my honest answer is really a question. If it feels like it's progressing, then you can trust it. If it feels like there are certain openings or experiences or understandings that I kind of get, I understand the description or whatever, but I have no idea how I would get there, then I would still have that question: how is that going to happen? It's not to say you should or shouldn't do. It's just to say, as I said, I don't know how certain openings will happen. I don't know how, for example, a complete fading of perception would happen without some kind of sustained and kind of comprehensive and deep letting go, you know? But it doesn't mean it won't. And maybe it's -- my personality is different, but I can't really see how that happens. All kinds of things happen, so it's really not as linear as it seems, or as sort of formulaic as it seems. Sometimes intuition operates; things are kind of coming together almost in the unconscious; and then there's a sudden realization of something. So it's definitely possible. I think if I'm honest, I don't see it be that deeply successful without some kind of more careful application of exactly what one's doing in meditation. But that doesn't mean it can't be. So, I don't know.
Yogi: Yeah, I mean, I've been trying to -- at some point I was thinking that maybe it's actually just a point of view, because in some sense I feel like I'm always doing the same thing, but if I actually look at the details, then that's not entirely true. I'm not doing exactly the same -- or rather, I can frame it in a very abstract way, that my practice is sort of, figuring out there's some sort of mindfulness, some sort of awareness of what's going on, and then there's some kind of response to that. And then it's kind of a question of point of view -- am I doing something? Or the mind just sort of naturally responds? I guess, yeah, it feels like you can look at it either way. If suddenly the mind realizes that okay, this is going to lead to suffering, so I better stop doing that, did I actually do something, or did it happen by itself? Well, that's kind of a question of point of view.
Rob: Yeah, but there's a slight difference between, "I'm confronted with this problem," whatever it is, this dukkha, and then either deliberately, consciously, or, as you say, just the mind doing it -- that dukkha getting dissolved or whatever. That's great. That's an important part of practice. It's a whole other thing then to kind of follow a track deeper and deeper into emptiness and the nature of reality, you know? They're connected intentions, but they're actually a little bit different.
Yogi: Right.
Rob: And I think it's really the second one that -- it can happen in just this ... absolutely, it can. And I want to be careful about what's my personality style, and not imposing that on anyone. I had an interview with someone the other day -- it's like, "I'm not going to tell you to practise, 'And this is the only way to liberation.'" I'm not going to say that. I don't even think that. But I actually can't understand quite how it might happen the other way. In terms of just probabilities, it seems less likely. I mean, you might get lucky and things -- I don't know. But it's hard. So there's two things. I'll throw something else into the mix, which is maybe a slightly contentious thing to say, provocative thing to say, which is what also matters here is your sense of -- let's call it the soulfulness of your practice. But what I really mean is, how exciting is it all to you? How much are you really interested in all this stuff? How much is it a thing of beauty that you're engaging these questions, that you have this practice, even if it's not mapped out like someone like me or someone else would ...? There's a certain liberation and beauty and opening that comes just from feeling we're on our track, you know?
And it's a weird thing to say, because it rarely gets talked about in practice. We just talk about, "No, liberation is this thing where you see this, and this happens," as if this kind of -- yeah, let's call it the soul-sense of our practice, has nothing to do with it. And actually that's not really true. You may have heard me say: we need to have a fantasy of ourselves as practitioners, and a fantasy of the path, and a fantasy of tradition, and a fantasy even of reacting to certain things in the tradition. All of that makes up both the sense of beauty in what we're doing, and soulfulness, and also the liberation, because they go together. So there's a whole other level of this, as I said, that rarely gets talked about. You might want to check in with that, and actually that may be more important than someone like me saying, "Oh, no, you really need to use this approach," and someone else saying, "No, no, no ..."
So I wouldn't underestimate the power of the intuition, but I don't know in terms of probability. But there's this whole other kind of dimension, as well, that's, I think, really, really important. We're as liberated by feeling like we're on an exciting journey of exploration, and we stand somewhere in a history of tradition, connected to the past and to teachers that are mythical figures, and we're at our edge exploring, and things are opening up, and we're wrestling with things -- all that's actually really beautiful and liberating. People say, "Isn't that just self?" It's like, hmm. It's a lot more, I think, interesting than just kind of ignoring it or dismissing it. So there's that whole other dimension. That would be, again, a question back to you. It's like, well, is that there? How much is it there? And if it's not there, then that would be another reason to really kind of consider what you're doing and try a few different things until that sense comes. And it can't be there all the time; in a lifetime of practice, you're always going to get some periods of doldrums, some periods of like, "I'm just a bit stagnant here. I'm less inspired." But generally speaking, that's a really key element and key engine, furnace for our practice. So there's that aspect to consider, as well.
Yogi: I guess you mean eros ...
Rob: I mean eros, but in the larger sense, that the whole thing has become -- if I say imaginal, some people might not have listened to that, it's like, "What are you actually talking about?" But yeah, I mean that, but the whole thing, including yourself, and the path, and all these texts, and the history, and all that becomes exciting, and I'm grappling with it, and I'm on my journey, and I'm on my edge, and I feel myself expanding into new territory and that's exciting. And also there's some dukkha in it -- there's like, "I want it, and I don't know how to do this piece, and I'm just at an edge here." Even the dukkha actually can be very beautiful and ensouling, and, in a strange way, liberating, you know? So that's my view, at least, whatever language we call it -- but yeah, basically the imaginal and eros in relation to you, and your path, and your practice, and the tradition, and all that. That's a really important piece, I think. It vitalizes, it gives life to things, yeah? And in that life is a certain amount of liberation.
Yogi: Yeah, thanks.
Rob: I was going to say I wish I could give you just a straight answer, but ...
Yogi: I know, but I didn't give you a straight question, either. I've been thinking probably as long as I've been reading your book, at least, like, what would I ask Rob if I ever had the chance? So there's three years worth of thinking that I tried to put into a few minutes. Usually I run into trouble when I try to ask just a normal, simple question, so. But this was actually helpful.
Rob: Good. I was going to say I wish I could give you a straight and simple answer, but actually looking inside, I'm not sure that I wish that I could. [yogi laughs] Maybe it's better to kind of give it back to you and let it be open, rather than me [audio cuts out] something too simplistic like that.
Yogi: Definitely, yeah. Thanks.
Q5: loosening identification with specific body sensations; concern that seeing the emptiness of something will make it seem less precious
Yogi [Sini-Maria]: It's about the sense of self, my question. Somehow it's easy for me, or easier, to kind of feel the emptiness of the self when it's relating to some thing, but when I go somehow into my body and sense my body, it kind of feels that there is some intensity or ... not contraction, but I don't know another word in English. [yogi asks for a word in English]
Kristian [moderator]: Something like denser, like there's something more solid?
Yogi: Yeah, density, the sense of density. And when I'm with [audio cuts out], really real.
Rob: Can you say that last bit again? It just cut out slightly.
Yogi: Okay. Yeah. So when I go into my body and kind of sense the body, it feels that there is density. Usually it's around the chest area, and it kind of feels really real, and it kind of feels, "Oh, that's me," even though I know that there's no little me inside there. But then, if I have something that's outside, or if I have some thought or something else, it's easier to maybe see that that's not me or not mine. Somehow with the body and the sense of the body, that feels very kind of real. I don't know -- if you want to say something about that. I don't know if I have a question, but it's ...
Rob: Yeah, okay. So if I understand you, it's quite common actually for exactly that -- a certain kind of density or contraction in the body, to feel like somehow that's where the self is, even if we don't really think, "Oh, there's a little doll there," or something. It's quite common, and it's also quite common then for people who are practising to kind of slowly, over time, start to feel like that place is a problem, and the way that the self is constellated there feels like a problem. It's almost like we begin to get a very slow waging war on this experience there. So yeah, what you're describing is relatively common. I think it needs a lot of care, you know? I wonder a few things. It might be important to not approach it so directly, okay? So, for example, as you say -- again, I go back to that practice that I called the second dukkha practice, or any other practice (maybe impermanence, or some lens like that, some way of looking like that), but don't necessarily focus on this place, first of all. Focus on other things, and let this place eventually be included. But, if you like, you use the momentum of seeing the impermanence of other sensations in the body, or thoughts, or whatever it is -- you let that build more.
A couple of things will happen then. Once that has built, or you've, for instance, let go of the push and pull, the clinging, the pushing away, the grasping and aversion in relation to lots of phenomena, but not necessarily going there to this place first, then it will be easier, to take that kind of pervasion of that other way of looking -- it begins naturally, like water, to just lap over that area that feels a little bit like it's not being affected, in time. But if I go straight, head-on for it, even if I'm doing my best not to, I've already set this place up as a bit of an enemy, as a bit of something I'm trying to get rid of and obliterate, and that very stance in relationship to it, that very conception in relationship to it -- which can be very subtle -- is already a kind of aversion, and I'm approaching it trying to get rid of it, which is a kind of aversion, which will only sustain it, because it's a kind of clinging that will fabricate it more. Does that make sense?
Yogi: Yeah, it does. The funny thing, when you started to talk about making it as an enemy, I actually feel the opposite, that it feels so precious somehow, that I don't even -- there is this kind of maybe like, "Do I even want to find it empty?" Like, "Do I even want it to fade away?" somehow.
Rob: Okay. So that's really interesting, and again, this, too, is important: we tend to think, "I don't want to see something is empty, because I feel like if I do see it's empty," this goes back to Annamari's question at the beginning, it's related, "if I do see it as empty, then I won't recognize its preciousness." So very understandable, but it's actually, in the end, it turns out to be not a complete enough understanding of what it means for something to be empty. So really, something can be empty and it can be gorgeously precious and beautiful and sacred, and we can be in that, and even -- when we really understand this -- I can even identify with it. So no problem. Sometimes it might help just intellectually to understand that that's actually where we're headed, and this fear that you have, or reluctance there, is very normal but is based on a slight misunderstanding of what emptiness means, a bit too much on the nihilism side. Very normal.
But again, I wonder if the answer is still a little bit the same. It's like, not to put too much focus on this -- in the period that you're exploring an emptiness practice, don't worry too much about this. Don't say, "Oh, I'm going to have to see that thing as empty." Just get on with ways of looking in terms of other phenomena, other places in the body, other perceptions, etc., and the relationship with them. At some point, as you do that, kind of almost out of the corner of your eye, so to speak, you will begin to realize that this place of density starts to feel different, and not in a problematic way. Or it might be sometimes that a little fear arises, but the general trajectory is you start to, "Oh, oh. It's different now," and then all kinds of questions: "Well, which one is the real sensation that corresponds to the real me? The denser one, or the less dense one?"
But you're not actually -- I wouldn't make a project of trying to see this is empty, or trying to get rid of it, or even trying to retain it. I would, perhaps, just get on with doing the emptiness practices in kind of soft ways, like the second dukkha practice -- but it could also be anicca (impermanence), or anattā; whatever works for you. And as you do that more pervasively, the whole experience of everything, but including the self, and including the body and the density of the body, will just very gradually begin to change. And you'll start to get more and more aware of what those changes are, notice them as they're happening, and more and more comfortable with them. So this tends to be, "Okay, this thing can be looked at as self, and felt as self, and also seem to be not-self, both." There's a freedom there. But still, making it a target in any way sometimes tends to backfire with emptiness practices. So it might be much more helpful, like I said, to just let whatever ways of looking you're using, let them just get occupied with other phenomena, and let that pervade more, and then that will do the work it needs to do here, if that makes sense.
Yogi: Yeah, it does, yeah.
Rob: Okay? Anything else about that, or that's okay?
Yogi: No, no. Thanks. I think that's a very helpful view for me.
Rob: Yeah. And don't judge or let anyone kind of criticize you, saying, "Oh, if you're identifying with this place in your chest and you think it's important and special, that's not Buddhism," or "that's not right." Don't worry about that. Just keep with what feels beautiful and important and meaningful and even sacred to you, and just do the emptiness practices as well, but not so much targeted on that, and everything that needs to happen will happen, but in a much softer way rather than more kind of combative or resistant or whatever. Yeah?
Yogi: Yeah, yeah. Thanks.
Rob: You're very welcome. So my clock says it's time to end. Is that correct?
Kristian [moderator]: My clock agrees.
Rob: Can we have just a few moments of silence together? Is that okay?
Kristian [moderator]: Sure. [pause]
Rob: Okay. Thank you so much, everyone. It's really lovely to spend time with you in this way, and to meet those of you that I've never met before, at least a little bit. There are some faces I recognize, but I don't think I've ever spoken to, and also some people I know. So really, really lovely for me, and thank you for sharing the time and being present and open in this way.
Sari: Thank you, Rob, very much. It was a really rich and lovely and beautiful offering. It was really lovely to hang out with you and explore these things. And also, I want to thank everyone who was joining and having the courage of asking the questions, because it's not always easy to be seen and heard this way, in a Zoom, so it was really lovely to have this opportunity. And I would like to just -- as it's been a really beautiful offering from Rob's side, I would like to revisit something I was writing about earlier in the email, when I was inviting all of you to the Zoom. Just reminding of something that all of us are actually very familiar with, the culture of generosity and dāna, and how Rob's been offering us his time and the wisdom and love of Dharma and all this beauty that we've been listening to for one and a half hours now. Just if you feel inclined to offer something back, there is this link in the email I sent you. There was this "donate" button for Dharma Seed page where you can, as it's really important to have this chance to offer back, you can use that to offer something to Rob for this beautiful teaching.
Rob: Thank you. Thank you very much, and thank you to Kristian and to Sari for organizing, and I think Juha was involved but he wasn't able to join us. Thank you all for being here. I really appreciate what you brought. Thank you. Bye-bye, everyone. Blessings for your practice.
