Transcription
Okay. So I think today we'll just have some questions and responses, rather than give you more material. You've got enough to work with and work on for a while. I don't want to overwhelm you more. So maybe just a couple of things before we open it up. Well, just a general thing to say: remember what I said about the hindrances, right? They're going to come, in case you haven't noticed. [laughter] They're going to come and go. The whole thing is like this. What do we want in relation to the hindrances? We want to be working on them -- antidotes, what can I try? The same creativity, the same responsiveness, the same awareness and sensitivity working on them when they come. But we also want, in terms of the wisdom, we want not to take them personally. It doesn't mean my practice has now forever fallen through the floor into the hell realms and I'll be stuck here forever. It doesn't mean I can't do this. It doesn't mean you're a failure. It doesn't mean any of that. Really, really important, because when the hindrances are around, they're like little poisons, and they poison the mind, and then the mind starts believing all kinds of things -- particularly about the self, about one's practice, etc. So we really need to kind of keep the view screwed on right with them -- really, really important -- and recognize, "Oh, this is a hindrance. It's a hindrance." Self-doubt is a hindrance: "I can't do this." It's doubt. It's a hindrance, okay? When they come, they make us prone to believing all kinds of things about someone else, about Gaia House, about ourselves, about the retreat, about life. They really are like a poison dart. They fire, and then it spreads in the bloodstream, and everything gets caught up and toxified through that, and the whole way we look at things.
So not to take them personally, and not to believe the stories they spin. A hindrance, in itself, is not at a complex level of the mind. It's a very basic level of the mind. When we're not careful, the complex story-making, world-building levels of the mind get infected by the hindrances, and that's papañca -- then we go bonkers. So over time, the papañca bit, we learn to wean that off, to refine it off the hindrances, and a hindrance just becomes more like, "Just a bit antsy," or whatever it is. It's the basic energy of it, without it proliferating (which is what papañca means, 'proliferation'). We're not proliferating to these other levels. But they will come and go. So on the scale of things, how you feel right now -- and some of you will be flying, and some of you will be really not flying, and feeling this or that -- it's just part of the up [and down]. If you're up, guess what? [laughter] And if you're down, guess what? And if you're in the middle, guess what? It takes a while to get used to this, but if you were to do a really long jhāna retreat, it's so obvious. It becomes so obvious that our whole relationship to it becomes -- we have a different perspective, much more spacious perspective. Yeah, of course we prefer the hindrances to not be there. Of course. But the whole added sense of, "Oh, this is terrible. I'm terrible," all that stuff, it just goes, more and more. So that's kind of what we're aiming for with the hindrances a little bit.
Okay. So let's open it up to some questions -- questions that feel relevant to your practice, wherever that is right now. So whatever you're working on, whatever your -- I keep forgetting that phrase -- learning edge playground, or something I've said about the bigger picture, maybe "How does that fit together?" or whatever. I actually had a question I could start with. But I'll come back to that. It's from Andy, wherever Andy is. Maybe we'll come back to that, if that's okay. Yeah? So anything, please. Anyone. I can't see -- is that Lauren? It is Lauren. Okay.
Q1: working with over-efforting, fear, and grabbing at pīti
Yogi: On the one hand, I want to ask about over-striving, over-efforting, but then also, with that, I'm sort of in the midst of a lot of world-building around my relationship to over-efforting [inaudible].
Rob: Let me just repeat the question, if I understand it. Lauren's noticing a sort of cyclic pattern of over-efforting, and when that pattern is there, it's very convincing to believe that you have a really major problem with that, with getting stuck in over-efforting, and that you need to back way off. What's the question, then?
Yogi: I think maybe I just need some moral support. I know that's not true, on one level, but it's also -- I'm really believing it. [inaudible]
Rob: Okay. So needing some moral support and some skilful ways of working with it. Okay. Moral support: I don't know if it helps you, but it's certainly a pattern I can relate to. It's certainly a pattern I can look back over the -- I have to remember how old I am -- over the last thirty-six years and say, yeah, I've really been in that, in different ways, in different modalities of practice, at all kinds of levels, and felt like I was stuck there, or felt like it was a real personality problem and all that. So I don't know if that makes you feel better or worse, but ... [laughter] I look back at all that, and I feel like, for myself, that yeah, there was a lot of cost to it in different ways. There has been a lot of cost to it in different ways. But there's been more blessing than cost. I'm glad that I had ... You know, over-efforting may come from a really deep love, and a really deep desire, and a really deep yearning for something, and these are all really, really beautiful qualities.
If you have something like that, then you have -- sometimes I say to someone, and I'm actually saying it to someone else who's here -- it's like you've been given a really powerful horse to ride, and you have to learn how to handle that horse. You could have been given one of those -- I don't know if you've been to Dartmoor and seen those little ponies. [laughter] They're very different kinds of animals, and handling one and handling the other, it's like ... So there's a tremendous gift here, but it also takes longer to learn how to handle it, yeah? Does that make sense? So that's one thing. You know, it really can be learnt, in terms of how to harness the power of that, and how to let that willingness to really give yourself in effort, and apply yourself, and bring your intensity, and bring this -- what I was talking about -- this cohesion of mind and energy and desire, and let that really gather power. We were talking about soul-power and all that. It's a really great gift, and it takes time to learn how to let those things come together in a way that they're actually balanced and it works. So it's not a small deal. It's a big deal.
And as I've said in here, anyway, the whole question of effort is going to be around for everyone, in everyone's practice, for the rest of their lives. For any serious practitioner, you bump into it. And I would say any really serious practitioner is also going to find it really painful at times. It's not just the effort; it's also the wanting. So there's an energetic side to over-effort. Did I share in here? I can't remember. If I think back to the late eighties -- well, what I said about that shaking movement stuff, you know? I had a really long period of being stuck in that, and it got incredibly wacky. I mean, it was just bonkers. I was 21 or 22, whatever it was. And of course, I was just trying really hard. The teachers at that time had no idea what it was. It got really, really intense, and very weird in terms of its manifestations. It went on for a long time. Looking back now, I see that the principal causal factor there was slight over-efforting.
So there's an energetic side of this, and we really need to learn how to handle that. It can have very gross effects, or you can just feel like something just locks or something, or it can have this kind of weird -- it looked like I was just completely a raving lunatic. But it has quite marked effects. Or it can have very subtle effects, like I said. It's just a little bit too much effort, and it actually creates, it stimulates the mind to think more and to get slightly distracted more. It gets, relatively speaking, quite a subtle effect.
But anyway, everyone's going to have to deal with the question of effort, you know? I'll share something else. I remember being on long retreats here, and just in terms of wanting something so badly, and not being able to find the answers, and finding that so difficult, you know, in tears. I felt like I didn't have anyone to ask, or anyone who would give me answers that would satisfy. So it can be intense. When we really give ourselves to something, it can be really intense. To me, it's still a good sign. It's just saying, "Okay, you've got a powerful horse you've been given. Let's learn to ride this," you know?
So I would have to hear a bit more, Lauren, about what ways you're feeling stuck, and what you mean by backing way off. When we talk about working with effort, we've got a huge range, and one is backing way off, which means just stop meditating, stop whatever -- sometimes it's a fretting about a question. Just take half a day off and go for a walk. That's pretty rare, but that would be backing way off, for example. Or backing way off can look like I'm just sitting here, but I'm going into a very different mode in terms of my relation with whatever the principal object I'm working with, whether it's pīti, whether it's breath, or whatever it is. Or it might mean going to an insight practice for a while. But I'm still doing samādhi; that's my intention. I'm just taking this kind of detour into a practice I know brings a lot more ease, and it's within a much larger context, you know? Or it could be finding an imaginal image that you've worked with in the past that has been helpful in this relationship.
Really, in terms of samādhi practice, again, Newton Abbot can then become, you know, not just pīti -- it can become whatever it becomes. There are lots of ways there. And if it looks like, "Well, right now, I'm headed in the wrong direction to Newton Abbot," it might look like that, but in the bigger picture, it's really not. If you go into some imaginal thing that kind of changes your whole relationship with being on retreat and what you're doing, that might be really exactly what's needed. It looks like a detour. It looks like you've given up samādhi, but you haven't. Some part of your consciousness has firmly got the intention and the navigation and where you're going in mind, and it's just very skilful to go off into something else for a while. Does that make sense? Do you want to say a bit more about the specifics, or is it better something to work with one-to-one in the interview, do you think?
Yogi: [inaudible]
Rob: Okay. So if I understand, there's fear, in the larger picture, that you've been asked or told to back way off, and maybe that same thing will happen on this retreat, and we'll say "Don't meditate," and maybe even "Maybe it's better if you go back home" or whatever, at that scale. To address that first, I've very rarely done that as a teacher. I would be extremely surprised. That wouldn't be my usual way of teaching. So I don't think that's going to happen on this retreat.
The fear is not a neutral factor. It's not like, "This thing is happening, and the fear is there, but it's not affecting anything." When fear is present, and when it's strong fear, it's doing something, you know? So when we talk about these, what look like detours, it might actually be working with the fear in different ways. We can also maybe talk about that in an interview. But it sounds like the fear at this point is strong enough, and kind of prominent enough, and probably having quite some effects, that that itself needs working with. It needs understanding. Something in you needs reassuring. You need to be able to kind of defuse the power of the fear, its energy, and its kind of contraction, and the belief in the thinking. So there are different parts to fear, as I said. There's energy; there's the cognitive component, what we're believing, that we're afraid of; and the contraction. So one thing is to work with fear. Again, we can meet in an interview, or with one of us, and really go into that -- actually work in real time with the fear, yeah? As I said, that's not just, "Oh, it happens to be there." It's not a neutral factor. It's doing something, and almost certainly what it's doing is not helpful in the mix.
In terms of when there's pīti, grabbing at the pīti -- this is really quite common to some degree. I think I mentioned it briefly in one of the talks. The Buddha took the trouble to say exactly that. Why would he say that? Just partly because he must have encountered it a lot as a teacher, is my guess. So it's normal. Two things, just for now. I think it would be good to meet one-to-one, but let me just say two things for now. One is: is there access, at times, to lovely states? Not necessarily jhānic, but lovely states, sort of other than the pīti, that are much softer, or warmer, or a bit more expansive, or something like that?
Yogi: [inaudible]
Rob: Okay, so at times you're able to ask the question, "What's pleasant?", and find a kind of mild pleasantness, yeah? And does that mild pleasantness have a kind of quality of softness to it? Because pīti can sometimes also be a bit intense, and that's also sometimes part of the issue. It does? So that's good. The softness itself is not a neutral factor. It's softening something. That's the thing about jhāna. There's this whole thing about marinating and resource. Whatever the jhānic quality is, it then affects the citta and the body. So if there's something soft, and warm, and maybe even soothing that's lovely, then actually hang out in that, you know? And take your time with this. Hang out in that. Feel that touching the heart, touching the body, touching the consciousness, etc.
Sometimes you may want to then put the fear in that. Take the fear, the idea that you've had, and put it in the middle of that -- whatever your language would be, of this soft, warm space, and just see what that does. Put the two, the difficult and the lovely, into contact with each other. Other times -- and you don't need to rush this -- you could see if you could hang out in that soft place, and really -- the second thing I want to say with all this is: snatching is this kind of movement, okay? Although it looks like a movement that I'm doing, it feels to you right now that you're not in control of it. The mind is just grabbing beyond your will. Is it possible that the more sunbathing posture is ...? You can spend a lot more time there. So both with the softness, and then I think that's quite key, to go into that and practise that posture, that stance, that poise with what's lovely. Over time, maybe that resets the habit. So the habit is not so much immediately to grab forward, but it's also to soak it up, which is much less doing. You're training the habit so that they become more equalized, and eventually you will have autonomy, because they're equally available possibilities, they've both been practised equally, and therefore you can begin to choose.
With that, then, you can really soak up that soft whatever-it-is. Let's not even worry whether it's jhānic or not jhānic. It doesn't matter. It's a skilful state. You want to be tuning into the very softness, the warmth, the healing. There's something that reassures the whole system, the whole nervous system, and the mind, eventually. But you're really just lapping it up, like really soft, gentle water, just lapping over the being. And then, when you've got used to that, at times, maybe, then you can see if the pīti can come up, and you have the same stance/poise in relation to the pīti. And when it goes out of that, the mind might quickly want to sort of panic a little bit: "Oh, here it is again, my over-efforting," and all that stuff very quickly gets ignited. But can I keep bringing it back to this more open, receptive, sunbathing, showering poise, relationship, mode of attention?
So you also have to think about you're retraining the kind of -- again, it's a very sort of basic level of the mind in terms of the saṅkhāras doing that. That grabbing movement is a very base-level mind movement. So retraining often happens just by over and over and over, over and over and over, doing something different. When we notice it, defusing that by doing the opposite, defusing that by doing the opposite. Partly just knowing that's what you're doing -- it will come up; this habit will come up, you know? You're going to encounter it so many times you can't count. It's like, "Okay, can I not freak out? And is it possible to just switch the mode in that moment?" Let's see how that goes. You'll have a meeting with one of us soon anyway, but bring that to the interviews, because it gets very individual. There's lots of detail here. So much depends on micro-moments and micro-choices at a kind of subtle level, yeah? But how does that sound for now? Yeah? Okay. That's really good.
Mikael, yes?
Q2: nimitta fading with increased absorption -- why and what to do
Yogi: I'd like to ask about SASSIE. It was interesting to hear differentiated all those different elements. Personally, I became aware that absorption is something that I had not been that interested in when practising the jhānas. I've been interested in other aspects. But yesterday I tried to work with the second jhāna, and really absorb and give myself to the depth and absorption, and feel the jhāna around me. It worked quite well. I got into a quite deep, silent state with sukha. After a while, I noticed that I am inside some very deep state, but the sukha somehow has disappeared. It has got so silent, so absorbed, that the sukha that was there is barely present, barely perceivable. With that, I noticed that the energy body sense, or perception of body, has almost disappeared also. I had decided to work with the second jhāna, so I sort of had to back off a bit, like reverse and try to build more energy body sense to find that sukha and find that body sensation again. Actually I had to open my eyes and move my body a little to find that. But I was wondering what's going on there. Does it work in that way, that if you go deep enough into the absorption it automatically starts to fade, the nimitta, and the energy body sense? Is it possible to endlessly absorb into a very specific -- in this case, sukha -- without it getting faded?
Rob: Right. I probably have to repeat that for the mic. Let me try. Have we got the roving mic? Well, maybe do it for the next one, yeah. So Mikael is asking: he hadn't heard much about the absorption, which I mentioned as one of the elements of this SASSIE, and thought he would try that, try focusing on that, and pick the second jhāna (or that's where your playground is anyway). He said, "Okay, let's see if I can get absorbed." And then did, indeed, after a bit of work, find himself very absorbed in this state, very deep state, but the happiness, he noticed, at some point, had gone, and also any sense of energy body experience.
So if I ask you, well, what was prominent in your consciousness at that point? No happiness, no energy body. What was it?
Yogi: It was silence and peace. It felt like a quite vast, dark space, where nothing was moving very much.
Rob: Okay. So yeah, this is definitely possible. There are two possibilities, really, within that. One is that what happens is the mind does get more absorbed, more concentrated, whatever we say, and actually goes beyond the second jhāna, either into a less fabricated state (so I'm going to have to explain this more; I've mentioned it a couple of times), and there's no longer the fabrication of the perception of happiness. So it might have gone into something like the fourth jhāna, where there isn't the fabrication of the perception of happiness. It might have gone even beyond that. As you say it was quite vast and empty, it might have gone into the beginnings of one of the formless jhānas -- no body sense, no dominant emotional sense, really, apart from kind of stillness. Or it might have gone into something akin to that, that isn't, strictly speaking, one of the classical jhānas, but it's in that sort of territory.
So yeah, it's very possible. This is what I think I said yesterday: if you want to practise this or that jhāna, I need to know what's the factor in it that's the most important, yeah? And in the second jhāna, it's happiness. Unquestionably, it's happiness -- for me, at least; that's the way I would emphasize things. It's not even the fact that there's no thinking or whatever; that's secondary, and I'll come back to that when we talk about the second jhāna. It's the happiness. Now, within the second jhāna, the quality of the happiness -- as I said, jhānas are not one uniform experience. It's not like the second jhāna is like this every time: you could take a snapshot, and it's just the same thing. There's a whole range within the second jhāna. So you get a very bubbly kind of happiness, and much, much stiller happiness. Part of the art of really learning the second jhāna is knowing that territory, getting to know that territory, but also learning to keep the mind focused and fed by the happiness.
What can happen, because it gets more subtle within that range, the mind is actually not quite able to stay -- it hasn't been trained in staying with that more refined object, that happiness. And it might, because of past experience, be actually more trained with staying with a big empty space, even though, technically speaking, that's even more refined. So partly what you can think of what you're doing in each jhāna is training yourself to really stay with and really absorb in the primary nimitta of that jhāna over its range. And then the other thing is that, in the first four jhānas, that means -- happiness is an emotion; it's a mental quality, but you really want to feel it in your body as well. So this double-aspected nature of the primary nimitta is actually quite important in the second, third, and fourth jhānas, particularly.
If you stopped a guy in the street in Newton Abbot, and just, I don't know, asked him to think of something that made him happy, and then said, "Can you focus on that happiness?", it would be the strangest thing. Most people would say, "How do I focus on happiness?" So we're actually learning to do that. And part of what helps, and part of anyway what is the nature of the jhāna (because it's a rūpa-jhāna) is that we feel the happiness in the energy body, as well as in the mind, but what we're focusing on is the energy body experience of happiness, as well as the mental. That has to be there. If you're saying, "Okay, my playground is now the second jhāna," I really have to keep it within those bounds. And for all kinds of historical reasons, it might want to slip out of it: the mind wants something deeper; the mind is just used to going to big, open spaces or whatever. But I have to keep bringing it back.
And in terms of the happiness, the intensity of the happiness, as well as its subtlety, can vary. Sometimes, in the second jhāna, you're really talking about this upsurge of joy -- it's almost overwhelming. And sometimes you're talking about almost like it feels like this underground spring that the Buddha was talking about. It's really the subtlest thing. It's the subtlest thread that you're paying attention to. And your job, if that's your territory, is how can I keep paying attention to that? And by paying attention to it, I keep it in that realm. Yeah? How does this all sound?
Yogi: Yeah, that was the intention, to stay in contact with that subtler sukha. So if I understand, it might have been that the subtlety of attention was not able to stay with that subtlety of the sukha in the deeper absorption.
Rob: Exactly, yeah. The subtlety of the attention was probably not enough to stay with the subtlety of sukha as it got more subtle, yes.
Yogi: The silence that I experienced was somehow surrounding ... [inaudible]
Rob: Yeah, sure, and you're probably more used to that silence a little bit, in different forms. So again, there's a habit of mind that's just created a groove there. It's great. It's not that we're saying, "We don't want you ever going there ever in your life." We're not saying that. We're just saying, "Okay, this is my playground." Eventually we want you to have everything, all the toys, and all the swings, and everything. But it takes a certain training for when the happiness gets subtle. Can I keep it on that subtle happiness, without it sliding somewhere else? That's a training.
In terms of what you said about backing out, yeah. So you can back right out, open your eyes. That's great. Well done. Then you come back again. In time, you can do it much more subtly than that. You can remember back a certain happiness that you can pay attention to, and then just do it again, you know? But you have to have enough experience with the happiness to be able to remember it back and call it back. Or if you're familiar with the first jhāna, you can go back to the first jhāna. Rather than opening your eyes and all that, go back to the first jhāna. There's definitely, by definition, the bodily experience in the first jhāna that's more gross. The first jhāna is less refined, more gross than the second jhāna. So you find that, hang out in that for a while, and then see if it goes again by itself, or you can just encourage it to go, yeah?
So this kind of manoeuvring, as you meet different difficulties, that's all part of the art of it: back up into a lower jhāna; sometimes even go forward and then come backwards, which we'll talk about. Yeah? Well done. That's great.
Q3: working with the jhāna the mind is more inclined to hang out in / tips on developing earlier jhānas that aren't going as well
Rob: Let me read Andy's note. Is it okay, Andy, if I ...?
"The citta wants to move towards peacefulness -- a deep, delicious, beautiful, dark, juicy peacefulness -- rather than pīti or sukha, which have been around. I've been working with the peacefulness just as recommended (SASSIE, etc.) and will continue to do this, as it feels like what the mind/heart really wants. There was such a sense of relief when I let it. Is there anything else I should consider or do on this front?"
Yeah. Part of the work/play you want to do is get used now to that peacefulness. Actually, let me ask you a question first: would you also say it's got love in it?
Yogi: Yes. And grace as well.
Rob: Love and grace. So it has got love and grace in it. Would you say it has a tenderness to it? Okay, it's got tenderness. Would you say it has a kind of emotional warmth? (And almost by implication, it does.) Yes. Okay: tick, tick, tick. Good. It sounds to me like we're in the right territory. Fab. Great. So what you want to do is let yourself go -- the mind really does have -- it's like it wants to go somewhere. And partly this is dependent on your past experience, a lot of sitting in different places and all that. So yeah, let it go. Let that be your primary playground even now. And your job then is to really know that territory inside out. And to me, there's quite a lot to discover about the third jhāna -- things start to get really quite interesting then in terms of the different aspects and levels of it. So rather than me tell you what to look for, you just hang out there with the awareness, with the sensitivity, noticing what changes, and then you can report back, and one of us can talk about it. Yeah?
Second thing is there's also -- what would you say? -- particular challenges, particular subtle difficulties, that are particular to each jhāna. And there are some that start to arise in the third jhāna -- also, obviously, some really beautiful stuff that starts there -- but some particular challenges that arise. And again, rather than me tell you what they are, you'll begin to encounter them: "Oh, sometimes this happens, and I wasn't quite sure what to do," whatever it is, or "This happened, and I figured out what to do," whatever. So those are two things to watch out for as you're getting to know that.
However, given the context of what we're doing -- we've got this grid of the elements of mastery, and then all the jhānas -- how are you doing with the first and second?
Yogi: [inaudible]
Rob: Awfully? Okay.
Yogi: [inaudible]
Rob: Yeah, yeah. So the first and second jhāna have been terrible. Pīti and sukha have been there, but first and second jhāna are just a no through road; it just doesn't go there. And then a lot of hindrances started to come, and difficulty. And then there was a sense that the mind wanted to go to peacefulness. So this sense of where the mind wants to go, this is also part of the territory of long-term jhāna practice. Some people have a style of practising jhānas, it's just I sit down, and I see where the mind wants to go, and I just follow that. So I'm going to say yeah, that's great. And we also want to say (again, back to the horse analogy), it's like, sometimes you just get on a horse -- I don't know, do you ever get on a horse and just see where it wants to go? Does that ...? [laughter] No, it's a serious question. Maybe it's a stupid question, but ... [laughter] Kirsten, does one ever do that? Yeah? Okay. So that's a possible relationship with a horse ride. But we also want the ability to, "No, I want to go to the bingo hall," or whatever it is. [laughter]
So we want that control. Often my answers to questions, "Should I do this or this?", it's like, "Yes, both." We want to have this range. So sometimes I just let go of control; sometimes, no -- I want to have the choice and the mastery. But this is the reason why I chose to read this out, because what might be needed here -- okay, in the long term, I do want the mastery of the first and second, but how I get there might be different. It might well be that actually taking the third right now as your learning edge playground, really getting to know that, and really hanging out in that, that's your priority, okay? After you've been sitting in the third, and you're just feeling really, really nice from it, then see sometimes if you can go back, backwards from the third. By that point, the mind has got a lot of what it wants in that particular sitting. It's drunk from that particular, beautiful well. It's had its submerging, refreshing dunk in that spring, yeah? And then it's much more amenable to going back.
You'll have to see: maybe it goes right back. You just have the intention to go back to the pīti. Maybe it's the sukha. So you go back to the sukha. That might be even easier.
Yogi: [inaudible]
Rob: Yeah, very good. Exactly. First of all, the third jhāna has sukha in it, so it's easier to get a sense of the sukha, and secondly, the mind is just -- here's where I'm really stretching my horse riding [analogy] -- the horse hasn't been given the right water to drink. How's that? [laughter] The right food to eat. Once it has, it's satisfied, and it will go. If it knows the food's that way, that it likes -- the carrots are that way -- and you want to go to bingo, and they won't let the horse in the bingo hall, then once you give it the carrots, it's happy to go to the bingo hall. Yeah? So that's one thing. It's also, as you said, the happiness is closer to the ...
Now, it might be that you just remember the happiness, and it comes back. Well, actually, if the happiness is there, it's fine. Sometimes people can't get back to the happiness, and then we would offer something else, but I'll leave that for now. And then from the happiness -- remember, in the second jhāna, it has sukha and pīti, and the first jhāna has sukha and pīti. So you're just kind of, in a way, slightly shifting what you're bringing out of the mix. But again, attuning to a quality in the mix amplifies it. I amplify the sukha in the second jhāna, amplify the pīti in the first. And then going back to that, again, will be much easier, and the mind will be more amenable to that. Does that sound okay? Yeah, please.
Yogi: [inaudible]
Rob: Yeah. Well, no, not in the next few days. Marinate in that. That's your primary playground. But as you already reported, the happiness that's prominent in the second jhāna is already available after you've marinated for an hour, or two hours, or whatever it is, right? So after you feel like, "I've had a good, long, lovely, refreshing drink of the peacefulness," then try to come back in the happiness. But at the moment, you can spend much, much less time in the happiness and the pīti, and let the peacefulness be really where you're hanging out the most.
Look, I don't think there'd be anyone who said the first jhāna is a better experience than the third jhāna. I mean, unquestionably the third jhāna is lovelier. Maybe there's someone, but it would be pretty unusual. So there's no arguing with that. But what we do want is a sense, eventually, that "Gosh, they're all lovely. They're just lovely in different ways." And even the pīti, which, relatively speaking, is gross, it's like, it's really a treasure, you know? So somehow, whichever way we arrive at it, we want to get back -- or get, if you haven't had it before -- a sense that, "Yeah, the first jhāna is a really lovely place. The pīti is a lovely thing. I have a really good relationship with it." Yeah? So we're just kind of finding which way will help you get to that being the case. Does that make sense? Okay, very good.
Anything? Please, yeah. Shall we try that [the roving mic]? Yeah, let's try that, if you're happy to do that. Yeah, please.
Q4: equanimity in insight practice and jhānic equanimity / working with unpleasant pīti or energetic blocks
Yogi: So I've been on a bunch of insight retreats, and never deliberately spent time cultivating jhānas. I believe I'm one of a few people who have experienced third and maybe fourth jhāna as a result of just relaxing in the midst of an insight retreat, and the mind wanting to go to a very peaceful place. In all the experiences of jhāna on and off of retreat -- first of all, I've never really verified this with anyone -- but it tends to have a flavour of, like, the floor kind of goes out from under me, and I drop into a place that's very different from normal, sometimes incredibly peaceful, sometimes incredibly blissful. So I guess my first question is ... well, you don't want us to ask, "Is that it?", so I'm not sure if it's even necessary ...
Rob: Don't want to ask what?
Yogi: Like, if I'm on the right track in those experiences.
Rob: Oh, you mean if they are the right experiences? No, no, it's not that I don't want you to ask. Let's take our time with this. I do really think it's important to differentiate between jhānas: "Is that what we're talking about? Is that not?" But I think all that stuff I was saying is just because people can get so hung up on where the division is, and "Have I achieved it?" The relationship with that question is not so helpful. But it may be really fine: "Is that the fourth jhāna we're talking about?" So it's not categorically that I'd rather people didn't get into that. I absolutely do think it's important. You need to map out the territory for yourself. There are certain ways that people can relate to that, and that's quite common, in a way that's kind of fed, that's really not so helpful. So I would need to hear more about those experiences, just based on what you said. And again, bring it to an interview. Are we in fact meeting today?
Yogi: We are, yeah.
Rob: We are. So bring it to the one-to-one. We'll find out a bit more about what's involved there. What can happen is, for someone who's done a lot of insight practice, as I was saying before, it might be that because of the insight/mindfulness, letting go, letting go, letting go, equanimity is a result of letting go, okay? You get that, right? Equanimity can be defined as the relative absence, the relative attenuation of pushing things away or trying to grab on. In other words, it's a relative degree of letting go, and equanimity is a result of that. Another way of defining equanimity is a relative degree of letting go, and if you just keep letting go -- aware, letting go, aware, letting go, aware, letting go -- you will end up in some state of equanimity. Equanimity will arise. Does everyone understand that? Yeah?
Whether that state is a jhānic state of equanimity ... and technically speaking, equanimity begins in third jhāna and goes all the way to the eighth, actually. We'll talk about this when we get to the formless jhānas. The Buddha sometimes describes the formless jhānas as almost like perspectives on equanimity, or things you do with equanimity. So where you are, I'd have to hear more. That's one thing. The second thing is whether it's an actual jhānic state of equanimity. You know, again, relative to the normal consciousness, any state of equanimity, and stillness, and peace, and the mind is quiet, is going to feel like, "Wow." We still don't know whether it's a jhānic one. So we do need to map this stuff out. And partly we need to map it out because, again, it might give us information about, "Okay, well, how do you need to move now? What do you need to prioritize? Where's your playground? How do we need to progress from here?" A bit like Andy: "What order are we going to move in here?"
Bottom dropping out from you -- yeah, that can happen. One thing that can happen in the fourth jhāna is there's a real sense of sinking. Everything kind of goes down. In the fifth jhāna, though, the bottom can fall out, the floor falls out, because there's no solidity. It really feels like, "Oh, they've taken the floor away, and there's just space," you know? So there are different kinds of bottoms falling out. But we can explore more, unless you have more now ...
Yogi: That was sort of the setup for what's happening now.
Rob: Ah, okay, pardon me.
Yogi: Sorry.
Rob: That's okay.
Yogi: I mean, I figured it was useful for people.
Rob: Okay.
Yogi: What's happening now is nothing jhānic, actually, on this retreat, as far as I can tell -- nothing like those experiences, in any case. It feels as though, at times, there's plenty of pīti, sometimes plenty of sukha (less often), and I will feel kind of the beginning of that dropping that I'm used to, and sometimes be able to even conjure it, and it feels as though it's on the verge of entering a jhānic state. What happens instead is that I'm confronted by more intense -- I guess it sort of feels like energetic blocks in the body. So as the resolution is being turned up, and the subtlety and the sensitivity is being turned up, that's what becomes prominent, and it kind of pushes me out.
Rob: So you're turning up the resolution at that point? What resolution?
Yogi: The sensitivity of the attention is going up. It sort of all at once goes up quite a bit.
Rob: How do you experience that? How do you know it's going up? What tells you that?
Yogi: The pīti becomes much more intense, at least in the times it's happened on this retreat. There's a sense of the pīti becoming prominent, and physical form becoming less. It's sort of happening now if I just relax into it. Yeah, so physical form becomes less; pīti becomes more, and pretty pervasive over the body. But at the same time, unpleasant emotion becomes ...
Rob: Emotion or sense of energetic ...?
Yogi: The sensation that I associate with emotion, which I was calling an energetic block.
Rob: But it's more of an emotion?
Yogi: Actually, in this moment, it feels like sadness. But sometimes it just feels like a contraction without much emotion.
Rob: So it's not always the same thing, and it can be in different places in the body as well?
Yogi: It can be in different places. I wasn't realizing that it's sometimes emotion till now.
Rob: Okay. So again, we're in the context of a jhāna retreat, so in another retreat I'd give a different answer, but let's just say a few things for now. One is it looked like a little more opening could happen. In other words, that mode of more opening, okay? So here's the pīti. It was building, and it was there. It was pleasant. And then more opening to it. And if there are movements, let it come out the top of the head, etc. Really go into that more kind of hedonistic sunbathing mode, but really more, you know? Really practise kind of leaning into that more and more. I think that, itself, is going to make a difference. That's one thing.
Second thing is, in the context of this jhāna retreat, what we do with contractions and emotions that come up -- remember, I think I said this on the opening talk -- my first choice is not to get too involved in that. So I give my attention more to where it does feel good. It might be, "Okay, there's some contraction here, but actually up around here, especially when I open, it starts to feel better." And then you can play with all the ways we were talking about spreading. It's like, "Okay, let me, later, join this nice feeling to this not-so-nice feeling," you know? And just put them in contact with that imaginary ... All the things we listed might really work and be helpful there. On another retreat, we'd say, "Sadness. Okay. Can we go towards that? Can we open to it? Can we care for it? What does it need?", etc. But the first choice on this kind of retreat is actually something else. Does that sound okay? Yeah? If you've got notes, go through all the things that we suggested.
Third thing to say is, it's mettā you're practising with, right?
Yogi: Yeah. I will say I don't feel like I need to do it much of the day, because usually there's enough pīti to work with, that I'm more in the energy body with the pīti.
Rob: Okay. So there doesn't need [to be] much time with the base practice for the pīti.
Yogi: Maybe a couple hours.
Rob: Yeah, okay. Are there times when the pīti feels pleasant, or you're actually a bit ambivalent about the pīti?
Yogi: There are times when it feels pleasant.
Rob: Definitely. And relative to the times it feels like "Well, I'm really not sure I like this," what would you say?
Yogi: I would say it's 10 per cent incredibly pleasant, like 60 per cent mildly pleasant, and then 30 per cent not sure.
Rob: Okay. That's not bad. So I was just wondering about whether you needed to bring in some of those other experiences that you've had, some of those other states that you've gotten into on the insight retreats, and actually let that help. But it doesn't sound like it. It sounds like the pīti's fine; it's just sometimes you want to be playing with the relationship with the pīti. As I said, it looked a little bit like more opening would be the thing. And when I say "more opening," you know -- we can have words like "opening" or "paying attention," but really, like I said, dial it up to '11,' if we're talking about opening. Yeah? What does it mean to maximally open my being, and surrender and abandon? Just that relationship with the pīti, you're in a different relationship. Everything is a dependent arising, meaning how we experience pīti, and what it does, depends primarily on my relationship with it.
One way of thinking about what we're doing is we're playing with our relationship with the primary nimitta. That's all we're doing. And we're playing with our relationship with other things which allow the primary nimitta to arise. So coming into a different relationship with something will shape the perception of that thing. When we talk about this emptiness, dependent arising, playing with perception, we're talking about playing with the way of relating, and noticing that the very experience, appearance, perception of this thing -- in this case, pīti -- changes dependent on my relationship. It's not always the case that there's a formula: "Okay, you always need to go into this opening mode." What we need, again, is this kind of willingness to be responsive, to try this, to try that: "Ah, that's better," or "That begins to ...", or "That suddenly makes it much better," or just gradually makes it better. But the very sort of willingness to be responsive and really try different relationships. It might be, a lot of the time, that it's more of that opening -- you know, really, really go into the opening mode. It might be that that's just sometimes, and other times it needs something else, you know? How does that sound? Yeah? But we'll still talk later. Okay. Great.
Anyone need any help with the hindrances, or anything? Nicole, yeah?
Q5: working with constant mental chatter about how practice is going, over-efforting
Yogi: I'm thinking of it as a hindrance; I think there are probably different ways to think about what happens. And it happens for me on every retreat, but for this one it's really turned up, which is that I have a constant conversation, like I'm in an interview with one of you, about the experience as it's happening. [laughs] In some ways, I really like it, because it's kind of the way that I'm, "Oh, yeah, you said this, so okay, I'll try that," and in part it's quite a positive thing, because it's a way that I'm experimenting and playing. But also it gets exhausting. There's a kind of neurotic tendency to keep doing that throughout the day. So I've been, since it's on this retreat, trying to play with it as a kind of restlessness of the mind, and open the energy body from the top of the head, and see if it can get more space around it, and also trying the breathing and the counting in relationship, to add more pegs. I also went on a walk, and did a little inquiry around maybe some more psychological reasons why that may be. But it is really insistent.
Rob: Okay. When you a say it's a neurotic tendency, does that mean that you feel, for instance -- well, one question I would have is, do you feel like the tone of it is quite anxious? Or, for instance, are you, "Oh, I'm trying to impress," or "I'm afraid how they're going to judge me," or what's the ...? I'm just interested in those words, "neurotic tendency," as opposed to just "habit of mind."
Yogi: Yeah, maybe it's more of a habit.
Rob: Yeah, that's my sense. So this is really, really common. If it was more like, "Oh, my gosh, I'm going to have an interview tomorrow with someone, and heavens, what will they think?!"
Yogi: There's sometimes delight in it as well.
Rob: Yeah. I'm just kind of saying for the teaching: if it was more that other one, then we would need to unpack a little more psychologically, etc. Back to Ajaan Geoff's translation of vitakka and vicāra, this evaluative thought, you know, it may partly be your way of processing and understanding your experience, that that's part of what's going on, and it does involve some pondering and that. So I personally wouldn't be too worried about it, you know? What might help is actually writing down your questions, very, very briefly. By doing that, you're telling the mind, "Look, I've got this. You don't need to keep rehashing it. It's there. I'll take it to the interview or whatever. That might help, just something like that, kind of reassuring the mind that it will get dealt with, you know?
In terms of a more moment-to-moment level, yeah, again, we can make so many things enemies that don't necessarily need to be enemies. If I think, "Oh, but this is all about stopping thought," etc., then it's going to be regarded as an enemy. I just wouldn't go there. I don't think it's a problem.
Yogi: The only thing is that it feels like it's sometimes stopping absorption.
Rob: Yeah. So what I was going to say, on a moment-to-moment level, is there's a difference between a thought arising and me being entangled in a thought. Here's the thought, it's going over there, and it's dragging me along with it, or I'm willingly going along with it. Yeah? So if you're not clear on that, that's something to notice: what's the difference between a thought arising, and actually being attached to a thought so we get dragged along with the thought and we move with it?
Yogi: Oftentimes there's still pīti while it's going, and I can focus on the pīti, but I have a desire for it to be quiet so that the pīti can be more.
Rob: Yeah. I think this, again, is totally understandable, what you're saying. I just think in terms of strategy, it's like I said -- when Ajaan Geoff, one of my teachers, started meditating, it was in a building site. I'm sure he had the desire that the -- whatever those machines are called -- demolition machines and all the rest of it, that they weren't there, but that was just there. And so it has to be in the background. Or imagine we were here and there was just a radio playing, or we're having a conversation and there's a radio playing. It's just, "Okay, we'll deal with it." It doesn't have to be we get into this, you know? If I get into too much desire of, "I wish that would just shut up," then actually my attention is going over there in not a very helpful way. So if I can come into relationship with this, just, "Okay, it's just there. It's like a radio playing," there may well be some useful material in it, as I said, about digestion, and about what I need to remember, and all that stuff, but you can take care of that by making the notes, and in the moment, or moment to moment, if you're trying for more absorption, just aim at what's the prominent thing, and just get more and more into that.
The other piece is: remember what I said about that word, 'drifting' -- it's a subtle manifestation of restlessness. And one way it often manifests is the mind does have more thought, and it tends to follow those thoughts a bit more. Sometimes that drifting is coming from too much effort, okay? Just a little bit too much effort is actually stimulating more thought in the mind, and stimulating the mind to follow those thoughts. So it could also be an effort thing. And then, of course, if I get into a desire for it to go away and absorb more, then that can just add to the over-efforting, because the usual thing is, "There's more thought. I need to try harder." It may be the case in some instances, but it may be exactly the opposite: "There's more thought. There's more of these kind of threads unreeling in the mind, and actually what I need to do is back off more, go into a softer mode, a more receptive [mode], etc." So it could well be related to that as well.
Yogi: Yeah, that makes sense, because I am also working with over-efforting, and finding the retreat really tiring, so I get most annoyed with the voice when I'm tired.
Rob: Yeah, yeah. Look -- this is for everyone -- this is hard work. Sometimes it just feels completely effortless and it's great and it's all wonderful. But a lot of the time, it's going to feel like hard work. It's hard work for lots of different reasons and in lots of different ways. But it might be that, yes, just a little bit too much effort accumulates to become very tiring after a while. Like I said, it's not like, "Oh, when will this effort question go away, and I can get into the real stuff?" That is part of the real stuff. It's not going to end. It will actually just become subtler and subtler, this effort question. So we really have to get our view screwed on right about that as well. So yeah, it sounds like not that you need to stop meditating and go for walks or all that. It sounds much more a question of subtle effort, and learning to back off, which may be more about this opening/receptive mode. It may be stuff like that. Is that okay? Okay.
Q6: a note about skilful work in turning contraction into something lovely
Rob: Let me just share a note that I got -- I think it was last night:
I just wanted to share some practice. As I was listening to your talk [I think this was yesterday] I kept noticing some contraction and dukkha in the energy body. Finally, as you moved into the Q & A, I decided to see if I could untangle or smooth out whatever was going on. Just a little reflection on emptiness and some long breaths opened up a beautiful, peaceful tranquillity. It was time for tea, but I continued to sit till my bladder suggested it was really time to go. I was inspired by what you said about carrying the jhāna around, so I thought, "Why don't I try that now?" I made it all the way to the loo [laughter] and after that, through tea, fairly slowly, and into the lounge. I kept working, playing and re-establishing the jhāna, or perhaps more accurately, the connection to the sense of tranquillity. It was so easy! I really had a view of not being able to carry this kind of mindfulness/concentration outside of the sittings very well, and it has been a source of some measuring and self-judgment. I felt some of this healed tonight.
So I just wanted to share that as an example of skilful working with something that was initially a contraction, and then can quite easily, quickly -- this thing about quantum shifts happening quite easily -- turn into something lovely, and then a long-term view of being inadequate or measuring oneself, and actually, something opens up, and it's like, "Oh, this is possible for me. I can do this." So the content could have been different, but in terms of that general pattern, it's like, not to believe this "I can't do this. I'm like this. I'm not built for this" or whatever. It's so much an important part of this. In time, confidence comes. Confidence comes. So it's really important.
**Q7: follow up on previous Q & A question about *ekaggatā ***
Rob: Oh, there was something else. Boaz asked yesterday about ekaggatā, and I felt I could have said something else about that word. Usually it's translated as 'one-pointedness,' which I said was a good translation. It's just that in English, I think most people thinking of 'one-pointedness' would think of one narrow spatial point, and I said a better (though clumsy-sounding) translation would be 'with one thing prominent.' Boaz asked, "Well, why is that a significant factor in the jhānas?" In the Abhidhamma, as I said, in Theravādan Buddhist psychology, and maybe in the Mahāyāna as well, they would say every moment of mind has something that's prominent in it. The difference in the jhānas is that a jhānic state continues. It's moment after moment after moment after moment. So jhāna, that word, is from the Pali word jhāyati, which means 'to burn.' People say, "A jhāna is like a candle burning steadily," or "Jhāna will burn up your defilements" -- either way. But the point is, it's something continuous. So this ekaggatā, what makes it characteristic of jhāna is moment after moment the same thing is prominent. So there's a kind of temporal extension of what's prominent, if that's clearer.
Yogi: [inaudible]
Rob: Yes, I think it's e-k-a-g-g-a-t-ā. In the first edition of my book, I completely mistranslated it, so I changed it in the second edition. I had missed the double g, and I had translated it 'gone to oneness,' like unified, but that's wrong. It's actually to do with one prominence. So I made that change, yeah.
Anything else? Who is that there?
Q8: feeling pulled into different states
Yogi: I'm noticing that I keep falling in some stages -- I don't know if it's a jhāna or not, but I find this very tiring and very intense, and I feel I can't stop it. Right now I was kind of going. It's like a pulling. I get pulled into some stages I don't really know.
Rob: Okay. Like we've been saying -- I don't know quite what you're talking about -- that sort of thing can be quite normal. We can get pulled into a hindrance. We can get pulled into a jhāna. We can get pulled into some other state that's more familiar because of our meditation habits. Again, I would probably say: come to a one-on-one, and we'll really try and identify what those states are, because that identification will help guide us. "Okay, how do you need to move from there?" Sometimes it's not a bad thing; it's just, "Okay, now we're here a lot. How do we move from there?" Other times, it's like, "Okay, we need to maybe help it not go there, in which case we need to try and do this and this," but we need to probably hear more about what it is, what those are.
Yogi: This sounds quite helpful, to know what it is.
Rob: Yeah. So bring it to a one-to-one interview, and we can really hear more about it (or them, if there's more than one), and get a sense of what it is, and that will guide us in terms of how to respond. But that sort of thing is very normal, yeah.
Yogi: Thank you.
Q9: strong pīti that feels very sexual
Rob: Good. [Robert, inaudible in background] Oh, I already said it, but just to say: if the pīti is really strong and feels very sexual, and like an orgasm, it's really, really completely okay. [laughs] Just enjoy it. Really get into it. Is that what you're ...? Yeah? So you see what Robert's going to bring to the retreat. [laughter] No, it's really important, because we have this, "This can't be right," or we feel like, "Oh, am I maybe emanating some kind of weird sexual energy into the hall? It's going to pollute the pure Gaia House pristine atmosphere of renunciate celibacy and all that." It's completely not an issue. It's just a manifestation of pīti. Open to it. Enjoy it. The whole same thing applies. There's absolutely no shame in it. It's something to open to and get into, and it's doing good stuff. It's really good.
I can't see who that is. Okay. Sabra, please.
Q10: difference between elation, excitement, happiness and sukha
Yogi: Just a clarifying question. I feel like I remember hearing you warn about elation, and I'm wondering about the difference between elation and excitement, and happiness and sukha.
Rob: Yeah, thank you. The difference between elation, excitement, happiness and sukha. I don't know -- that 'elation,' I'd have to look up the original Pali and whatnot. It was something the Buddha [said] when he was talking to a small group of super-advanced meditators who were working on psychic power meditation and stuff like that.[1] One of the things they were doing was -- what's it called? -- the clairvoyance, the seeing far away in their meditation. And one of the subtle hindrances was either you get excited at being able to do that, or what's opening up, or it's new territory, or what you're seeing, or whatever. So I don't know the Pali offhand, and I'd have to find it. But my sense of it is it's something like excitement, is probably the closest thing.
Excitement's an interesting thing. If there's too much excitement, it can lead to the snatching, for example. It also can cause a certain amount of agitation that disturbs the serenity. We're really not going to talk about it on this retreat, but for those kinds of powers and whatnot, it needs a very still mind, super, super still. Any kind of excitement there is just going to make the waters a little bit turbulent, so it's going to be a hindrance relative to that. So that's my guess is what the Pali kind of translates -- I don't know, but that's my guess.
But excitement itself is quite interesting. It's almost like an energy, like all these things. We go back to what I said with Jason: sometimes people come to me and they say, "I have fear about X or Y." And it's like, I'm wondering if this is fear or excitement. It's actually excitement, and the mind is relating to it in a certain way, and labelling it a certain way, that it actually becomes fear. It becomes an experience of fear. But at its root, so to speak -- it's not a good word, but let's use it for now -- it's actually excitement, or more naturally, it's actually excitement. So they have to learn to play with the relationship with it so that it can become excitement. And actually the excitement can be energizing, empowering, galvanizing, give you courage -- all kinds of things. But excitement itself can also kind of wobble in different ways. So an excited energy could become bubbly happiness or pīti. All these things are quite close. And partly, you know, the different modes of relating to something like excitement will, again, shape the very perception so it becomes something else. Excitement and pīti, for example, are very close. And actually, there are probably times when pīti has even been, in the tradition of translating Pali to English, translated as 'excitement,' I imagine, or, I think, vaguely remember. So it's very close, and I would say part of the experience of the first jhāna, especially at first, is excitement. It's super exciting for lots of different reasons -- the energetics of it, but also the sense of "Wow! Look what's happening!"
But the point is, we can come into different relationships with the energy of excitement, and that will actually -- because of dependent arising, because everything depends on the way of looking; there's no independent appearance of anything -- it can shape it. In itself, it's open to malleability, and you can shape it towards pīti. Maybe you can even shape it towards sukha. Sukha I usually translate as 'happiness' -- I'm not sure what Keren had in mind when she asked yesterday, but just because that seems to me the closest word in English to sort of encompass the territory that it includes. I don't have them here, but looking back at some of the English translations over the past, say, thirty years, there have been all kinds of different translations of pīti and sukha, and some of them even reverse what each means. I find that a bit baffling. But I think probably, as time has gone on, it's gotten more consistent. So I use that word, 'happiness,' to translate sukha.
But you'll see, as well, when the third jhāna opens, the kind of happiness that's characteristic of the third jhāna -- it's still technically sukha, but most people will never have experienced that kind of happiness. It's super serene. It's almost other-worldly, you know? Not almost -- it really feels like an other-worldly kind of happiness in its flavour and texture. I just use that word because it seems to me the broadest, most stretchable word in English to cover the different ranges of what sukha might mean. So sukha, excitement, pīti, and elation. Does that ...?
Yogi: That's great, very helpful. Thanks.
Rob: Okay, good. I think last one. Is that okay, Danny?
Q11: training attention at each level of subtlety / being clear about intention for mettā (base practice) vs intention for jhāna vs intention for inspiration in creative projects
Yogi: That was helpful, actually, because I've been experiencing a lot of that kind of excitement today. It's getting in the way of my clairvoyance. [laughter]
You said that we need to train attention at each level of subtlety. So I'm really noticing that. It's like with a lot of pīti, there's a particular kind of papañca that comes with pīti, kind of very inspired ideas which seem really great, and I think they are, but they're a distraction from the point. So that's kind of one part of what's going on. My base practice has also mostly been mettā. And it seems like as there's a shift to more subtlety, the kind of habitual way of practising mettā doesn't work in generating the qualities that I associate with mettā. So there's been this exploration of, "Well, how do I practise mettā at this kind of level of subtlety?" So that's one alive avenue of exploration, and maybe moments of success, but not a lot of sustained, "Oh, I've got that now." There's just generally a lot of pīti, but just this kind of energy, and sometimes it's more blissful or whatever. So then, also, the question of, well, if that's not working -- and it feels like every time I try and do that, I'm kind of trying to squeeze something, like I'm trying to use a gross practice at a subtle level. So maybe I should just abandon that, and just go with the pīti or do something else.
Rob: Okay. So let me see if I understand this. Let's take the questions in the reverse order. Is that okay? Yeah, everything changes. I mean, in a certain way, things get more subtle, and then I have to learn how to work with that different level of subtlety. So even if this wasn't a jhāna retreat, if it was a mettā retreat, I would expect things to get more subtle. You'd have to, "Okay, what do I do now that things are more subtle?" If there's a lot of pīti, at that time, in the context of a mettā practice for jhānas, you'd have a couple of choices, okay? One choice would be, okay, let the mettā go at that point. Let the mettā intention go. And if the pīti is at least strong enough that it's definitely pleasant, and stable enough (it's there for a few minutes without disappearing and coming back), then you can work with the pīti directly. Forget about the mettā. Let the pīti become the principal thing, okay?
The second possibility, which would be confined to -- if this was a mettā retreat and not a jhāna retreat -- would be that the pīti itself then becomes ... that is the mettā. In other words, "I'm feeling some really lovely stuff here. You have some. I want you to have some." And you radiate it out. And anyway, you're bathing in it. So it's not like you get it and I don't, if I'm having the pīti. So the pīti becomes the flavour of the mettā, and that's what you imagine radiating out.
So, like I said, if this was a mettā retreat, and our intention was not to go to jhānas, or if this was a long enough mettā retreat, everyone would be experiencing pīti and sukha and all the rest of it, and it would just be, "Okay, that's the flavour of the mettā right now, so that's what I'm radiating." In order to radiate it, I still have to feel it, you know? At least that's the way I teach mettā. I wouldn't just trundle through the phrases at that point. This is actually, "This is the flavour that I want to share with you." And if that's super serene, subtle happiness, like sukha of the third jhāna, that's still the flavour, so I actually have to feel that, feel my energy body, and it's radiating out from every pore of my being, from the whole energy space. And you can kind of do this [palms up/outward], and imagine it coming from your hands -- you know, that sort of thing. So you get used to integrating the mettā, the pīti, and the bodily experience, if you want to keep the mettā around, and when you want to do that with the pīti. Other times, just get into the pīti.
Now, if it's a question of it's not so much pīti, but there are more subtle manifestations of mettā around, and I don't know how to work with them, I don't know how to... Was that ...?
Yogi: Unfortunately not, because it's like I can't conjure mettā. It's just kind of a general well-being, but I can't bring up, like, those qualities at all, almost.
Rob: Of mettā?
Yogi: Yeah.
Rob: Okay. So ...
Yogi: Except -- sorry -- just, like, not so much in formal practice, but if I'm walking around, and I have occasion to hold the door open for somebody, then that just, like, deeply touches my heart.
Rob: Yeah, lovely. So again, it may be, Danny, that it's a question of intention. So on this retreat, the fact that you just told me that there's well-being there, but there's not the mettā, not a problem on this retreat, because you're going with the well-being. If it was a mettā retreat, it would be like, "Well, okay, how do we get the mettā back?" Yeah? So you have to kind of remember your intention. Remember what I said about intention on the opening day. It makes so much difference. And even just a subtle kind of bifurcating or shift in the emphasis of the attention to "I'm worried about my mettā now" -- don't worry about your mettā. You have plenty of mettā. You can worry about that on a mettā retreat, about developing that more and more, but (A) it's not something to worry about for you, and (B) it's not something to worry about on this retreat. It's the well-being, and you can let that be more primary. Does that answer the question?
Yogi: Yeah, I think so.
Rob: Yeah? What about the subtlety business? I didn't ...
Yogi: I think you spoke to it.
Rob: Okay. In terms of the first thing, yeah. So where there's pīti, there's often excitement, and there's often all kinds of creative ideas about projects that I'm going to do, and stuff like that. Sometimes, more than that, there's actual -- I don't know what you'd call it -- creative, not just the idea to do something, but actual ... you know, you start hearing poetry or music or whatever. Second jhāna, for some people, even more. It's almost like this spring that the Buddha talked about can be a spring of inspiration and creative -- you can kind of plug into something. In a way, any of the first four, at least.
So this is a big deal. Again, I hesitated to even say that, what I just said, but again, really, my invitation and hope and wish to stress: we're on a jhāna retreat. At some point in your life, when you've developed a bit more of this jhāna business, you might decide to take a retreat where you actually meditate for a bit, get in touch with that inspiration, write whatever it is that's coming (poetry, whatever it is), go back to the meditation, do that, and actually do that. That's great, you know? Doing that now will pretty much abort your progress in jhānas. So I think, personally, my real hope is that you'll all keep the intention. That's why I'm here. That's what I'm hoping to serve and support. But if you get into this, there's no reason why you can't have another retreat at another time. You go somewhere for a week or whatever it is. You're playing with that. But that's your intention, and then that's clear. Here, if you really want these treasures to open up, it's what I said on the opening talk: there's something very, very powerful, much more powerful than we realize, about keeping the intention really clear and single and steady. Mettā's a great intention. Even creative projects -- I don't know what it is, but creative projects. They're all great intentions. But too many, pulling in too many directions, you'll end up with not so much.
Yogi: That connects, to me, to what you said, which I found really galvanizing, around this kind of gathering of soul-power.
Rob: Yeah, yeah. Exactly. That's good. Okay? Great. Let me just see. Do I have anything else? [shuffles papers] No. I think that's okay. So why don't we just have a few quiet moments together? [silence]
Okay, thank you all. Time for tea. See you soon.
MN 128. The Pali word translated as 'elation' is uppila. ↩︎
