Transcription
Danny, yeah. Please.
Q1: expanding on what sensitivity, attunement, responsiveness, and refinement mean
Yogi: [inaudible]
Rob: Yeah, so expand a bit on these different words: sensitivity, attunement, responsiveness, and refinement?
Yogi: [inaudible]
Rob: Yeah, attunement, sensitivity, responsiveness, refinement. Okay. Let's take the example -- we were talking with Jason. Here's mettā, and I'm practising the mettā, and I'm noticing the different flavours emotionally and in the energy body at different times. Here's happiness. Here's peace. Here's something that I don't even have a word for, but it just has a certain kind of emotional quality. So sensitivity is noticing all that and feeling it.
Refinement is more just the idea that, first of all, these are probably quite subtle things. They're not big sort of in-your-face ... I mean, they can be, but as the whole thing deepens, things tend to get more refined, meaning more subtle. They're not big explosions, necessarily. And part of what I would want to include in pretty much all practice is that willingness to pay attention, an ability to pay attention and be sensitive to what is refined, and also knowing the possibility that things can get more and more refined, not necessarily more intense (although they can also get more intense).
Responsiveness really is just the, for instance, again, going back to Jason's -- here I'm saying, "May you be happy." Then I say, "May you be peaceful." And I notice that when I say, "May you be peaceful," there's like, "Oh, 'May you be happy' was just okay. Nothing particularly happened. But when I said, 'May you be peaceful,' there was a little ooh. There was a little something there." Maybe it was a feeling of peace or something, and I actually felt that in the energy body and in the heart. So I'm sensitive to it. It may be quite refined. But I'm responding to it by noticing it, and then maybe my response is, "Let's just repeat that phrase a few times." Then I'm riding the thermals, like I said. So that's my responsiveness, for example. But there's all kinds of responsiveness, even a whole macro-level responsiveness, like, I've been sitting, sitting, working with his hindrance, and it's just phlagh. Time for a cup of tea. That's responsive. I'm making a responsive decision. So in terms of how gross or refined the responsiveness, it goes over the whole range.
Attunement would be -- going back to the example -- here I've just said, "peaceful," and there's that energy or emotion, feeling, to it. And I'm kind of listening to that and feeling it. Of everything that's going on, I'm kind of singling in on that. I'm not losing the whole background of my whole body sense, but I'm tuning my receiver to that particular wavelength, and I'm just kind of resonating with the vibe and feeling it. So that would be attunement. And as I do that, like I said today, the very activity of attuning amplifies that particular wavelength, or tends to. Does that make sense?
Yogi: [inaudible]
Rob: Yeah, if you like -- organizing, partially organizing. It's the thing that you're tuning to. It's like when you tune a receiver. There's all this static, or other radio stations. You're just finding that one. You're dialling: "There's that one." I'm tuning, literally like that. I'm tuning to it. And then it's like, okay, now I'm enjoying this radio station. I'm really feeling it, etc. So the feeling it and the enjoying it is part of the attuning, as well as the focusing on. It's all part of the attuning. Does that ...? Yeah? Okay.
There are a couple here. Please.
Q2: attention becoming more subtle as the object becomes more subtle
Yogi: [inaudible]
Rob: Yes, absolutely. What happens when an object gets subtle -- let's say the breath gets subtle. It's very common, on retreats, people to say, "After a while, the breath gets ... I can't feel it any more." Or they're paying attention to the rise and fall: "I can't feel it any more." It's become a subtle object. And, in a way, we could say yes, it's inviting the attention to become more subtle. But sometimes what happens is it becomes so subtle, and we don't let the attention become correspondingly subtle. We just say, "I can't feel it," and then we space out, or lose it, or we get frustrated, or whatever, or say, "Oh, that doesn't work." But if what we can do is, "Ah, the object is getting more subtle. Great. Okay. Interesting," and then what's the art of just letting the attention get correspondingly [subtle], so it kind of matches the subtlety level of the object? And that process, again, I would say, that's more central to what's really going on as samādhi deepens, this subtlizing, if we make it a verb, than something like, "I've been there for 1,348 breaths," or whatever it is.
That process of subtlizing is what allows things to open up, in a moment-to-moment level and in a sitting. But also if we look at the whole scale of what the jhānas are, they're movements into more and more subtlety. So something like the nothingness, the seventh jhāna, is an incredibly subtle state, and the neither perception nor non-perception, it's unbelievably refined, you know? But even, like, the peacefulness of the third jhāna is less subtle than the ... The eighth is more subtle, less subtle, less subtle, less subtle, da-da-da-da, all the way back. The whole spectrum is actually a movement into more subtlety, and understanding that has actually a lot to do with what I was talking about, perception attainments, and the whole view of the thing. But in a moment-to-moment meditative level, yeah, if the object gets more subtle, it's like, "Okay, how can I just let the attention get more subtle? How can I let it shake down like that, or what do I need to do?" Yeah? Okay. Lovely.
Let's just take one more. I can't even see who that is. Is that Marco? Hi. Yeah.
Q3: working with pain; pīti increasing after sitting with pain
Yogi: [inaudible]
Rob: Shift to walking? I think so, yeah. Unfortunately, there are a few different options here. I will talk more about this, but let's say something now, again, partly just dependent on what I know of your practice a little bit. So it might be, at this point, let's say you're sitting, pīti arises, and then at some point, pain arises somewhere in the body. And then, what you can do is get more into the pīti, and kind of keep it at bay. So I would really recommend that's the first thing you do. It's almost like your priority is the pīti, and enjoying it, and absorbing into it, and getting more into it.
Sometimes what helps you do that is actually, rather than concentrating on where there's pīti -- that's one option, definitely, and I'll give other options, too, but let's say for now -- actually seeing if you can spread the pīti into where there's pain. Does that make sense? Sometimes what was painful actually becomes pleasurable as you spread it more. Partly, maybe, what I think you're still working on is really learning the kind of absorption into the pīti. So we don't want to distract it too much by getting into the whole pain thing at this point. So that's the primary thing. But partly, there's also, again, perception -- what was unpleasant can be perceived as pleasant. It's something quite amazing. So sometimes see if you can spread the pīti there. Just imagine it going there, or just imagine, even, just decide to see it as pīti, you know? There are several things you can play with, and I'll give more at some point.
That might work sort of once or twice, for some minutes, and then at some point, you can't do it any more, okay? On this retreat, at this point, that's the time to get up, okay? You're out of batteries, and it's time to get up, and either have a cup of tea, go for a walk, or do some walking meditation, or whatever. If you want, you could stand up and continue meditating, if that's pain-free, you know. So that's an option. But how does that sound for now, as a sort of partial answer?
Yogi: [inaudible]
Rob: Yeah. I think everyone can hear, but I'll just repeat it for the tape. So Marco's asking, he's playing with the pīti in the ways that I already said, but sometimes, remembering from the last retreat, he sat with real firm resolve, adhiṭṭhāna, to sit through the pain, be there. It was difficult, but then when he came back after taking a break, after the sitting, then that's when the most pīti built up. It broke through. Yeah? So it makes him think now, "Well, maybe I should do that, for the sake of that pīti breaking through later." Yes? This is partly what I was wanting to talk about, maybe even starting tomorrow. So pīti arises two ways, and one is this kind of just keep showing up with intensity, and working, working, and then it kind of erupts through. And the other way is here's a little bit of pīti, and we're coaxing it, we're building it, we're adding to it more. So they're just different ways of working, really, but I'm partly wanting to ask you: what were you doing in those times when you were really just with your firm resolve? What actually were you doing with the mind at that point? Because you could sit with pain, and actually just end up a contracted, miserable, crumpled mess, if the relationship is wrong with it. So you were probably doing something. You must have been in some mode of way of looking or relationship with, that then that was part of the effect. The resolve will build energy, and energy is related to pīti, so it can erupt that way, but there need to be other factors there, as well, that have to do with the way of looking and relating. So do you remember what they were?
Yogi: [inaudible]
Rob: Very good. So when I asked him that, Marco said it's a combination of the allowing/letting be practice, insight way of looking, and the anattā (not-self) practice, both of which I would regard as insight ways of looking. And what they do is, when you're doing those, you're not just building adhiṭṭhāna and energy by staying still; you're actually opening the energy body, and opening and letting go of clinging, and that's having a big effect as well. When I say openness of heart, openness of being, I also mean just openness from release of clinging. So all this. Pīti also comes from release of clinging. But a lot of factors, a lot of things need to come together for the moment of pīti to arise. But can you see how that would be significant? Yeah? Because if you'd sat there just gritting your teeth, it wouldn't have given rise to pīti later. Does this make sense?
So as to what to do, in your case here, do both. I don't think it matters. But again, know what your playground is, in terms of what exactly are you trying to achieve at this point, what are you trying to learn, what are you trying to gain mastery of. And that might be -- I'm not sure -- but it might be really absorbing into the first jhāna. It's like, what do I need to do? How do I need to relate right now and practise right now? But I have a sense that's my playground. Does that make sense? Does that sound relevant? Okay. Super.
I think we probably need to stop now. Let's have some quiet together.
