Transcription
Okay. I was planning on doing a Q & A today, but I changed my mind. I want to start by talking about Q & As, actually, because when I thought about doing a jhāna retreat, that was the first thing that I thought about, and the thing that I felt would be most challenging for everyone, including myself. How do you put a group of people with hugely different backgrounds, who have hugely different amounts of experience with a goal-oriented practice like jhāna practice -- how do you put them in the same room, and allow them to ask questions and hear the questions of other people, without psychological mayhem, and extreme dukkha, etc.? [laughter]
So this -- I'm not exaggerating -- this was really the main thing for me about the retreat. It wasn't about mapping the jhānas. It wasn't about teaching the nuts and bolts and all the subtleties. It was that. That was the thing, and "Hmm. How are we going to do that?" And I meant to talk about all that near the beginning of the retreat. I don't know what happened. Sari says I did, but I don't remember talking. [laughs] I meant to really, really raise it as an issue, and really put it in the room for us to be conscious of and to take care of. Maybe it's just all the preparing for the retreat, and the busyness, and the medical ... I don't know what happened, but I didn't, so apologies for that.
You know, what happens for some people, at some times, when we hear someone ask a question, and it sounds like, well, they're at a completely different level than us? They're way beyond, or whatever it is. Or we feel, "Hmm, am I going to be perceived as some kind of grandiose, fancy, arrogant meditator if I ask my advanced question?" Or "Is my question not advanced enough, or too beginning?" All that, all that dukkha, all that potential for comparison in an unhelpful way, self-judgment in an unhelpful way, making conclusions about selves, about others, views, etc. It can be very difficult to ask questions for some people, very difficult. Even the people that manage to ask questions, it can be so difficult that oftentimes -- not on this retreat, but on other retreats -- a person has asked a question in the hall, or if we go into the lounge or whatever, and I've given a response, and they're there, and they're nodding, and da-da-da-da-da. And afterwards, we have an interaction, and I say, "Was that helpful?", and they say, "I don't know because I was completely checked out after I'd asked the question, and I just wasn't there."
So all that's very, very normal, and it can be very painful for some people, at some times, to hear a certain question, or whatever it is, or a certain back-and-forth, or a certain instruction. I mean, it's not just about Q & As. Even yesterday, just moving to the second jhāna, giving instructions for those -- even though I say, "You know, your pace is your pace, and it needs to be your pace," how easily we can think, "Oh, I'm not there yet," and how painful it can be to just hear things in teachings, about states or openings or insights, whatever, that seem to be beyond us, and what can happen, and the way the mind can tie itself in not just knots, but knots of barbed wire, you know? Really, really painful.
We could, and maybe we should -- I don't know -- add the possibility of asking questions by note, as well, so I can just get some notes, and they can be anonymous, and I can try my best to do that. Maybe if the person wants to identify themselves, they could, and if they don't, they don't, and just hope that my answer kind of hits the spot. That's certainly a possibility. We can think about it. But, in a way, you know, I just wonder whether, to some degree, that might be avoiding a much larger issue. I think the issue is cultural. I can't think of one passage in the Pali Canon where it reports something like this: "So-and-so was there, and wanted to ask a question, but felt they would be judged," or "They heard so-and-so's interaction with the Buddha or Ānanda, whatever it was, and they felt really bad." It's just not there. And I don't think it's there, as far as I've heard -- I haven't really practised much in Asia, with Asian people, a lot, but I have teachers who have, and from what I've heard it's not really there. Somehow they're able to be in a group together. One person is working on the last stage of awakening to final enlightenment, and the other person's in the middle somewhere, and the other person's somewhere else, and it's all somehow okay. So I think the larger issue is partly a really cultural issue.
So what has happened to our culture -- I mean our Western culture, with all its gifts, and all its wondrous achievements -- what has happened that this has become such a difficult sort of scenario to be in together? And it's partly to do also with -- and I think I've mentioned this in here, and certainly other talks -- we actually have quite a different sense of self. Not just an idea of what a self is, but actually our sense of self is very different. We live in a different culture, that the self is differently supported and differently alienated. And there are pressures on the self in our culture, in our time, that did not exist, say, for example, at the time of the Buddha or in other cultures. There are a lot of gifts that come from that in terms of individuality and self-expression and creativity, but there's a price. Sometimes those very potential gifts -- my potential creativity, my potential self-expression -- they become really, really painful things. They don't become gifts. They become things that become really painful because a person feels like, "Well, I know I can, and I should, and other people seem to, but where's mine?", or "Mine doesn't compare."
To me, it's a really interesting question. I really mean: what actually has happened? How did this happen to our culture, and to our society, and our sense of being together? I'm not going to go into that. I certainly don't know all the answers. But I find it really interesting, and it's something I think about, and something I try and read about and whatever.
So I just want to say a few things. And having said that, you know, with all the teachings on the retreat, and everything that's said, it's like, some of it will feel relevant to you right now, and some of it won't feel relevant, but it should be relevant at some point. So these issues should be relevant at some point, about the problem of having a goal, and the problem of comparison, and the problem of having a desire for something, and what comes up with that, and the problem of really wanting something and getting frustrated. So if it doesn't feel relevant now, it should at some point. If it never does, then that's, in a way, its own problem. That should be relevant, the inquiry: why do I never feel any issue about that? So it may or may not feel relevant today, but that goes for all the teachings in the retreat. I think it will be, should be, relevant at some point.
Some of what I want to say is just some reminders of things. There was a lot of information the first -- whatever it was -- six, seven days of the retreat. Some of it will be reminders. As I said, there was a lot that was said there, and some of it, the significance, I think I said -- I don't know if you remember me saying -- you won't realize the significance of some things I'm saying. So some of them I'm going to repeat, just as little reminders.
The first is: you can do this. You can do this. Everyone in this room can do this. And by 'this,' I mean what I'm talking about with all the marination, and the mastery, and the wonderful-sounding experiences. You can do this. Sometimes you believe that you can't, and that you never will be able to, but you can do this. You really can. I was just hearing from someone yesterday -- a couple of days ago in that, "Ohh, I can't," and everything shrinks, everything gets contracted, stuck; hatred, self-hatred, the whole show gets going. [The yogi] still shows up, thankfully, and then a couple of days later, lo and behold, an opening like they'd never had before. You can do this.
If you have ever experienced some lovely well-being from meditation, in meditation -- say, pīti -- some lovely well-being through the body, I stand by this: if you have ever experienced that, it means that everything, what I'm talking about, is possible for you. The whole thing, the whole nine yards, the whole eight jhānas -- it's possible. You can do this. The fact that there is a dip, a disappearance of what you had experienced before, a non-occurrence of it for an afternoon, a day, three days, whatever it is, does not imply that it has then become impossible for you. It doesn't actually even imply that you're going backwards in practice. It really doesn't imply that.
What it should imply instead is -- okay, here's the dip. It's probably just a hindrance attack of one form or other, one degree or other, that has maybe got more and more, spinning out more or less papañca. So it's a dip. It should rather imply, "Okay, what should I do with this? What can I do with this?" It should bring some questions, which is part of the whole art of responsiveness that we've been stressing. What might be helpful right now in relation to this, in relation to this dip, in relation to this non-occurrence? And dips, in the context of jhāna practice, yeah, they can last three days or something, and three days on retreat in a dip, in a hindrance attack, especially if it's wound up and gotten the papañca stuff going, three days is a long time to sit through that. There's no TV. [laughter] It's Christmas, and you haven't had a drink, and it's like ... [laughter] It's a long time to be through that. If I'm believing it, that's a long time, and it seems like forever. It's not. It's a dip that's lasted three days. Of course you can get dips of a couple of hours, or half a day, like I said.
Responsiveness, question: "Okay, what might be helpful now? What should I try? Let's play." Of course you feel very heavy and down; you don't feel playful. So think of it as work, or think of it as play. Just find a way of relating and responding. How should I view the meditation object? What way of viewing it right now, when things really don't feel like they're working, what can I play with there? How should I view my practice as a whole? How should I view jhāna practice? How should I view my self on the path? Remember I said that? The view of the self on the path is extremely significant. It's a make-or-break factor. I know people -- I don't know if I said this; I'll say it again -- I have known people meditating for years, have had all kinds of deep experiences, all kinds of what could be very liberating experiences, and somehow they're not. They add up to very little over the long run. And what's kind of locking the whole thing in this unliberating incapacity is a kind of self-view that's operating. They're not even really conscious of the view of the self on the path, and it's almost like it strangles anything else. It squeezes out the potential of any experience or opening or insight delivering anything really either stably or radically liberating.
How should I view, then, the object of meditation? How should I view my practice? How should I view my jhāna practice? How should I view my practice in general? How should I view my self on the path? How should I view this dip, this absence, this trough of the wave? I mentioned for the soulmakers how important it might be to have a really supportive imaginal fantasy of the self on the path. Or is it actually, "Okay, it's not going well right now. It's either very rough or very dry or something, and I just need to stay steady with that. I just need to keep plugging away. It's a hindrance attack. I just need to keep showing up. I need to be patient and just keep working"? The pivotal question, really, is: does it imply a reality or a truth about you, this dip, this non-occurrence, this absence (even if it's three days)? Or does it really imply a truth about you, and about your practice, and your capacities as a practitioner? Or is it just that there's a habitual tendency of believing something about the self? I'm just used to believing that I can't, that I'm a failure, that other people can -- whatever it is.
So I put that question to you. How do you hear it? It's kind of like, "Rob's saying nyeh-nyeh-nyeh-nyeh ..." [laughter] "He's being kind and nice and saying don't worry about it." No, I mean it for you to take as a question, and ask the question intensely sometimes. You can, "Nyeh-nyeh-nyeh-nyeh, nice, nice, nice." It's not! I really mean it as a question. Is this, does it really imply a reality, a truth about me? And what might I believe that truth is? Or is it a habitual tendency to believe something about the self? So it's a real question for you. Remember this thing about listening on your toes? That's what I'm talking about here. We can easily hear something like what I just said, and it's just -- you've heard it so many times on insight retreats, like, "Oh, yeah, here's the nice, kind bit" sort of thing, and it goes in one ear and out the other. No! Grab it by the ... [laughter] Yeah? Ask it! Intensely ask it.
I tried to remember -- I can't remember, so these figures may be a little wrong -- but if I remember back, I wouldn't say I stumbled into the first jhāna, because it was something that I was interested in right from the beginning, when I first heard of them. They really piqued my curiosity in practice. But somehow or other, I got into the first jhāna on an insight retreat years ago. I'd had quite some pīti and stuff, and actually problematic relationship with pīti that, as I said, I went pretty lunatic for a while. So there was that whole period -- really pīti in a very unfruitful way, quite some years, in fact. You don't have to replicate my mistakes here. [laughter] I just want to give you a kind of reality check. Remember I said this thing about "drop schedules"? If you're attached to a schedule, it will bring dukkha, is what it will bring. Remember me saying that?
So just to give you a comparison: I had this opening to pīti, which was very pleasurable for a little bit, and then got very, very problematic for really, I think, the better part of two or three years. I had to stop practising for quite a while, do all kinds of other explorations, and then come back to practice and start very gently again. You don't have to do all that. It was partly, as I said, coming from over-efforting. Then I resumed practice, and in time, I got a little bit of pīti, and then even some happiness at some point. And then a little while later, on a retreat, I got into the first jhāna. It was an insight retreat. Luckily, the teacher that I told, I'm pretty sure, was Christina, and she was very, very pro-jhāna, encouraging of that (at least she was to me). I didn't get a negative, "That's a bad thing."
Then I was lined up for a whole series of retreats. I can't remember exactly. Then I think I came on a month retreat, and most of that month I didn't do anything else but jhāna practice. That was my intention. It took me the whole month to really feel like it became stable, and it became good, and there was maybe some of that mastery. Then, quite a while later, I came back for more retreats, and I sort of started -- I probably didn't need to, but I took the time; I don't know if I needed to -- I took the time to do it all over again. What I'm really saying is: it's a slow process, or it can be a really slow process. If you're thinking, "Oh, Rob's sitting there. He probably just ... this and that," it's not true, okay? I've said this in imaginal contexts as well. I'm not particularly a person who has a lot of images or whatever.
So is it something about you, or is it something about the way we relate? What I can say is -- and I'll come back to this -- I feel like I've worked hard at how I related to things that I really wanted, goals that I really wanted, openings that I really wanted. That makes the difference. It's not some super-duper talent or something, a natural inclination. I can't remember if that's exactly, completely ... but something like that.
Sometimes in the hall, someone will ask a question, and maybe I might even say, "Oh, yes, that sounds like the third jhāna," or something like that, and you feel like, "Well, if I'm still trying to get pīti stable or coming ..." But maybe that person who's asking that question about what seems to be the third jhāna, what may well be the third jhāna, you know, maybe they've been doing this for years. Maybe they've been doing jhāna practice for years, or on and off for years. So it's just good to bear that in mind, and also bear in mind that, okay, they may have that opening, but they may have other gaps in their practice, or they may be struggling with other difficulties that aren't in the question at that point. The mind shrinks so easily around what it hears, and with comparison, etc.
Another thing I said earlier in the retreat was I see this three weeks, or however long we've got together, I see it in a much larger context, a much larger potential context of your lives and your practice. I would really encourage you to see it the same way. So this three weeks that we're spending together has its context in potentially years of jhāna practice. I think I said one time, you could take a three-year jhāna practice -- yeah, if that's what you want to do, and if the opportunity arises. But I mean just periods. Most of you -- maybe not all of you, but most of you in this room -- will be dedicated seriously to Dharma practice for the rest of your lives, and I hope those are very long lives. And within that, you may have periods, stretches, where you just revisit jhāna practice, and I'll talk about that at the end of the retreat. So I see this retreat in that context.
It's interesting, you know -- a lot of people wanted to come on this retreat. There wasn't room. For some reason, Gaia House made it a much smaller retreat, the number. So a lot of people were disappointed. And I partly felt like, "It's only three weeks." It's like, don't put too much pressure on, expectation on these three weeks. The recordings will be there. The teachings will be there. So really, it's like, what is it to work and play now, on these three weeks, as I say -- play hard? Play hard. Give it wholeheartedness, your work and play, but without putting too much pressure on these three weeks.
I really, really mean this. It's not like, "Oh, if I say that, somehow you'll feel better" or something. I mean, you hopefully will, but ... three weeks is just three weeks. This retreat is just three weeks. The fact that I'm here, it's like, it's not that much difference, you know? Or the fact that we are together, and that other people are not now with me here.
Okay. So a lot of this is repeat. Am I doing the practices that have helped, in the past, give rise to well-being and pīti? Am I actually choosing those practices? Or am I, for some reason, choosing other practices? That's a really important question. If you ask that, and you find you're not, then why? What's actually happening there?
A couple of other reminders of things I said earlier: remember about the intention, and how important that is. What do I think I'm doing when I come into a formal practice (sit, walk, stand, whatever it is)? What do I semi-consciously or sub-consciously think I'm doing? I'm wanting to develop pīti, wanting to develop jhāna, but there are a whole host of other, beautiful things that we could potentially realize that we're developing at the same time, such as ... [yogis respond in background] Attunement, wholeheartedness, sensitivity, patience, kindness. Very good. Trust, love for Dharma, mindfulness. What was the other one? Non-judgment -- beautiful. This is really important. Those are really, really important qualities. So if you get to the eighth jhāna and you're just as unkind, or just as self-judgmental, or just as impatient, it's like ... [yawning sound] It's not that interesting. We have to look at the big picture. So those are really important qualities, and opening up the intention, again and again, to realize: this is what I'm doing here. We get so tight. Even now, some of you, this may not be landing at all. We get so tight. Opening up the view will help everything. It will help your well-being.
We talked also about opening up the intention so that it's not just about me, right? We talked about practising for each other, and showing up for each other, and practising for all beings. And again, this is one of the things it's very easy to sort of like, "Oh, yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah." Can you be radical with this? Would you know how to do that? So we can just, "Oh, yeah, that's a good idea," and kind of do it once or twice, like a bit half-heartedly. What would it be to be radical with this, really radical? Try. And if you don't know what it means to be radical with something like that, try. This intention to practise, like I'm just giving away the intention, not for myself; for others, radically for all beings -- see if you can get a sense of that and the power of that sometimes.
I talked about exchanging self and other. Some of you don't know that practice, but I briefly described: this dukkha, these hindrances, this misery, this pain of stagnation, this pain of not getting what I want, of not opening to what I love, this pain of self-comparison in a negative way -- whatever it is -- I take this dukkha on, I take this suffering so that, magically, somewhere, someone can have the openings that they yearn for. That can apply to all kinds of dukkha. It's a radical practice. It's a radical re-orienting of will, of intention, etc.
Okay. Who's heard of the noble eightfold path? Who's heard of the four foundations of mindfulness? Who's heard of the seven factors of awakening? Okay. You're good at this. [laughter] Who's heard of the four bases of power? Mmm! [laughter] Iddhipādā. It's one of the Buddha's lists, iddhipādā. Four bases of power, sometimes translated as 'four bases of success,' 'four bases of accomplishment.' I'm not going to go into them. I'm just going to mention the four: desire, persistence, intent, and discrimination (discernment about what is skilful and unskilful). So I'm giving a very shorthand version, but the four iddhipādā, four bases of success -- let's call them that, four bases of success or accomplishment: desire, persistence, intent, and discrimination about what's skilful and what's unskilful. [inaudible question from yogi] Iddhipāda is the Pali for siddhi, basically.
And the Buddha says,
Whoever develops [whoever cultivates, whoever gives attention to] these four bases of power gives attention to and develops the eightfold path [the path to the ending and to liberation. And] whoever neglects these four bases of power neglects the eightfold path [neglects the way, forsakes the way to liberation].[1]
It's quite interesting to me that most of you had never heard of this list before. Sometimes it's a list that gets associated with psychic powers and stuff, but actually, in the quote I just gave from the Buddha, it's very connected with the eightfold path and liberation. It's quite interesting that we haven't heard of this. Why do you think we haven't heard of this? Might it have anything to do with the fact that desire is one of them? And the word 'power,' yeah. So 'power' is not 'power over.' In physics, power is kind of related to the capacity to work, the capacity to do or to make something happen. It's like, "Oh, desire. Let's maybe sweep it in the corner. We'll put it under the rug where it won't be seen to be part of ..." I wonder whether that's partly to do with the whole deal.
So I want to talk a little bit about desire. And I've talked an enormous amount about desire, as some of you know, in other contexts -- in the context of talking about eros and soulmaking and all that stuff. I don't want to talk at great length. I just want to say a few things, and not so much about the soulmaking and eros aspects of it.
Here we have a desire, and a desire is always for something. We always have a desire for something. So there's -- whatever word you want -- something I want to achieve, or a goal, or some thing I want to open or attain, experience. And then, in this case, we're on a retreat. We're working or playing and trying to move towards something that we desire. Here's the desire, and I'm not just going to abandon my desire. I want to get that, whatever that is (in this case, jhāna or whatever). What I learn in that process, what I develop in that process, what I learn about my relationship with desire, and about my relationship with goals, it may well be the biggest or the most important part of this practice. It may well be more important than attaining this or that jhāna. How many people believe what I just said? [laughs] It's really interesting! Okay. I really, really mean that.
So what happens when we put ourselves in a context like this? We're only really doing this practice. We're only really meditating. There's nothing else. And then what we're putting most attention to becomes what the self is most likely to judge itself about or in relationship to. If we were doing something very different, you wouldn't be judging how your meditation is going, and the self would be constructed around something very different. Put yourself in an environment like this, it's meditate, meditate, meditate, there's talk of different goals, there's nothing else really going on -- that's what the self will get constructed [around]. The self needs something in relation to which it constructs itself. It constructs itself either in a nice way, a good-feeling way, a grandiose way, a problematic way, a contracted and difficult way. But in this kind of environment, it will construct around practice and around how practice is going.
So we notice: practice can't help but be up and down. And what happens in this environment, when there's this emphasis, huge emphasis, kind of obsessional emphasis on meditation -- and not just meditation, but meditation along certain lines and towards certain ends? Practice goes up and down, and then how much, because of that, with it, the mood goes up and down. And with that, very easily the whole belief gets dragged into that, and the whole perception and belief of self, of others, of the world, of practice, of Gaia House, of whatever it is. This is so, so important.
So this business, this real up and down, where everything feels like it's really difficult, feels like I'm not getting anywhere, feels like maybe I'm failing, etc., this -- what's the word -- the amplitude of that curve, if by the end of the retreat it moves to this, the amplitude is smaller, that would be a massive success. And what makes the amplitude smaller? That we don't believe so much what the mind is saying then. Back to this thing when I talked about the hindrances: I don't believe so much the stories that get spun. When I have a strong desire for something, an intense desire for something, it gets charged. It becomes a focal point of charge, and in relation to that focal point of charge, my mood and my whole sense of self gets constructed in a very turbulent way on these waves. And then the whole world of papañca can get constructed with it. And if the amplitudes of that construction and that whole curve can decrease, that would be huge. It gets less primarily through learning not to believe what the hindrances are saying, what the mind is saying, what the conclusions, what the beliefs are about self, about practice -- not to take them personally. I'm just repeating what I said before, but it's of such great significance.
So really, I'm being totally honest saying this stuff. By the end of the retreat, I would view that as a huge development and a huge success if that's what happened, that's what you could report back to me. And in terms of the whole life, that may be more significant, and more transformative, and more liberating than that you attained this or that jhāna. Or another way of saying it is: remember I said jhāna practice is this, it's not this? It includes the difficulty and how I'm relating to the difficulty. Remember I said that? Jhāna practice includes the really grotty, grimy, sloggy, boring, unsexy, unglamorous, unimpressive bits. I really, really invite you, again, into that much bigger view of what we're doing. This is what I mean by jhāna practice. Anything smaller is a kind of immature understanding. It will not bear the same fruit. If I have a limited view, I will limit the fruit. So I really, really, again and again, invite you into this much larger view of what you're doing here, what the territory is, and what counts as fruitful jhāna practice. It doesn't always feel good. The half of the time, or whatever is the proportion of the time, when it really doesn't feel good is just as valuable, at least as valuable. So can I somehow have that bigger view, and work, and play, and play hard, and be wholehearted and all that, without giving up the desire?
Slight risk in saying this, but I'm going to say it anyway: what exactly the desire or desires is or are in doing jhāna practice, or devoting time, at any time in your life, to a period of jhāna retreat or jhāna practice, what exactly the desires are, what exactly are you wanting there, and why, and also how we relate to those desires or that desire -- those two things, how we relate to our desire and desires, and what exactly are we desiring and why are we desiring -- so all that whole conglomeration there, that may be, it may be extremely significant and determinative in what actually unfolds for you. It's interesting. I'm tentative to bring this up, but ... Why would I do a jhāna retreat? I might want the pleasure. I've heard about these lovely states of pleasure. Or I might have, for instance, met or read some monk who said, "Oh, you need to have jhānas, and if you don't have jhānas, you're kind of wasting your time on the Buddhist path," so I should. Is my desire for the pleasure? Is my desire coming out of a should, in which case maybe it's "I should because I really want liberation," but maybe that's another should? Going into the desires a little more, actually unpacking the range and the layers, the variety and the layers of desires.
Is it because I like the teacher? Or maybe I know someone who likes the teacher, and they said he/she/they were cool, whatever? Is it because I want to achieve something? I want to get my badges? And again, why? What's that coming from? I talked about this yesterday -- it's like, how the desire for achievement may be coming from different places or different impulses in the psyche, in the self-sense. Is it because I want to improve my focus, the ability of my mind to concentrate and focus on something? And again, if so, why? And then maybe I get an answer to the 'why,' and then again, why? Is it that I heard about these mystical states, and I'm curious about them, or I have a desire for a mystical kind of opening? Is it that I want to go on this or that particular retreat because my friend is going, or my partner is going, and they're really enthusiastic, and I just kind of go with them? Or is it I'm actually not quite sure, or I really don't know? Or lots of other things.
Do we realize what the mix of desires and intentions and impetuses are? And do we realize what I said earlier, that they're actually very significant, and that my relationship with the desire is extremely significant in what actually unfolds? Again, I would say that, for many people, that, what I've just said, is more significant as a teaching than if I were to give a certain technical explanation, how it might help to move from this jhāna to the next jhāna. Remember I used this phrase, developing a nose for it? Partly what I mean, and what I was talking about then is, what's significant, and what's less significant? What has a kind of meta-significance, and what just a kind of smaller significance? So if I were to give two teachings -- let's say, one about what I've just said about desire, and one about, let's say, what I just said: "Okay, here's how you can move from this jhāna to this jhāna. Just try this" or whatever -- do I have the kind of wisdom and the kind of intuition, the kind of nose for it that recognizes, "That's the really significant teaching. This is subsidiary"?
I hesitate to say all that because all what I've just said, and those questions, and those points, they may be quite agitating for some people, and maybe confusing for some people. But a few of you, or a few people listening to this, let's say, a few people maybe need to get clearer about that, or there may come a time when exactly those questions, and going deeper into those questions, is exactly what you need. And it may be there are people listening who don't realize that later on, at some point, it will be a very significant question. But do you understand this thing about -- it's like, I think it's hard for human beings sometimes, or it's hard for us to listen and get a kind of structural understanding of teachings? That's partly what I mean by "a nose for it." What are the sort of top-level hierarchy teachings, and what are the sort of lower-level detail teachings? It's quite a rare sort of gift or skill to actually develop this sense of being able to order the hierarchy of teachings. Something on a top level is actually much more significant. Oftentimes, when it's given as a teaching, it doesn't sound significant. The thing that sounds significant is this little detail or little tip or whatever it is. But over time, I think, we can develop that art and skill, actually learning to think more structurally, more globally, and in that process, it's not so much a thinking as -- well, it is a thinking, but it's also an intuition. I feel it's really, really important.
So, you know, what happens to us as human beings with desire, when we have desire, when we have strong desire? Do we even recognize, as I said, what kinds of desire we have, or what's actually moving us? And is it a deep desire in our being, or is it something else? What's running us? What desires run in us, etc.? But having a deep desire and something you really want, it's difficult. Unless you just get what you want immediately, it's difficult. I've been in this hall as a yogi lots of times. I remember in another context -- it wasn't a jhāna retreat -- I was on a long retreat, and hearing an interaction between a student and teacher, and it seemed to me at the time that the teacher was corroborating this student's awakening. And, you know, I had to go for a long walk after that, a long, long walk. At that time, it didn't generate all this, "I'm a failure," etc., but, you know, I wanted something so much, and just to hear -- back to what we were talking about, about Q & As and that sort -- just to hear or witness something where it seemed like someone had something that I wanted so deeply, so much, that I cared so passionately about, it was difficult. It was difficult for me. And that was even without the whole self "I can't, I never will, da-da-da" by that point. That was not there so much.
To give you another example, some of you know I was a musician before I was a Dharma teacher. I started playing the guitar very late. I was introduced to Jimi Hendrix at about 17 years old, and just fell in love. I was also introduced to this young guy I watched on TV playing a guitar concerto, and I just thought, "Wow, I want to do that." And it doesn't matter the details, but I went to university, had to do the whole academic thing at university. I was really a beginner for years after that, into my twenties, etc. I went through university studying something else, and I really, really, really wanted to do music. I had such an almost viscerally painful desire that felt like something wanted to come out and express and manifest. This could be a very long story, but ... [laughter] So for different reasons -- complex, painful reasons -- my father was really not supportive of this idea, and for him, it was very important that I pursued an academic career and this sort of thing, etc. What happened was I disagreed with him. I found a music school in America where I could go, still being pretty much a beginner, and they would let me in. I had enough money for a few months -- not even a whole year. And I just went. Very difficult with my father, etc. There are reasons for him for that; we don't have to go into it.
People around me thought, "You're crazy! I mean, clearly you're into guitar, but you're not very good." And it was true. I wasn't very good. I was a beginner. I want to say a few things together about all this. It's about desire and how we handle desire. My mother, I would say, if I compare musically myself and my mother -- well, first thing is musical talent is not one thing. There are lots of different talents in music, as there are in meditation. It's not one thing that we're talking about. There are a lot of different talents. So in music, it's like, okay, there's compositional, and how your ear is, and the ear can do this and that, or the sense of form -- there are a million different things. Even compositional talent is a bunch of different things; improvisational talent. I was into jazz guitar. It's like, even that's a lot of different things. My mother, I would say, is, in some respects, at least, much more talented musically than I am. She can do things easily that, for me, didn't come easily or naturally.
So here I was. I probably could have had my pick or choose of any academic direction at that point that I wanted to go in. And I went off to America instead to try and become a jazz musician, with not much money, etc., but I had this intuition. And I knew I wasn't very good; I mean, it was obvious. [laughs] I knew I was a beginner. I had this intuition that my desire and my longing and my eros, the depth of love that I had for music and the sort of need for it to come out -- it was obvious that it was much more than my mother's. She's able to do this or that, quite facile, but she doesn't love music anywhere near the depth that I love music. And so she never really developed it. But I had this intuition that somehow the depth of love and the depth of my desire was somehow proportional to my talent that wasn't manifesting, or the possibility. My love and my desire itself indicated something that wasn't visible. It indicated something about what might be possible for me. And it indicated something about a talent that really was not visible. You're probably thinking, "Oh, yeah I bet he was brilliant, and he's just ..." No, I was really a beginner.
And so I got to this music school where the joke was, "All you need to get in is a cheque and a pulse." [laughter] And I took advantage of that. At least for a third of a year or whatever, I had the cheque. I didn't know what I was going to do after that, but I had that cheque, and I had the pulse. Then the joke went -- the second half was, "Lately it seems all you need is the cheque." But this school, at that time, it was pretty much the only school in the world where you could study jazz, so that was the place to make it to. This was years ago, in the eighties. And so I was really the bottom of the bottom there, and I really mean it. Because it was the only place, a lot of people would come from all over the world. They were already totally accomplished musicians. They were just there so they could get an American visa for a while, so they could make connections, move to New York, and be a jazz musician in New York, etc. You had this enormous range -- I mean, really, really super-accomplished musicians; they didn't need to be taught hardly anything -- all the way down to me. [laughter] And I had this, like I said, visceral desire, so I would go to college, and I was really happy to be out of that whole scene in England and doing what I loved, but it was really, really painful. I would go and have a sort of humiliating day in college, playing and being heard, and then hearing other people play and all that. I would sometimes drag my guitar case home. I'm not exaggerating. It was really, really difficult. I'm glad you find it funny. [laughter]
Somehow I stayed fifteen years, and I developed as a musician. I worked so hard at it. And it was difficult in all kinds of ways. My point, really, is if I love something deeply, if I really desire something deeply -- and I was right about the talent thing; I feel really touched and blessed by what eventually manifested. So that intuition about "If I love it this much, there must be something that wants to express," I would say that turned out to be right, and I feel very humbly touched by what came in the end. But the main point is: if we really desire something, if we let ourselves feel that desire, and don't just throw it away, and don't just shun it, then I've got to find a way of tolerating that, tolerating, being okay with the pain that comes with it often, the cut of it, the burning of it, the frustration that comes with it sometimes, the setbacks of that whole journey.
So one journeys with a desire. The desire, that's why it's 'the bases of success,' 'the bases of accomplishment' -- it's part of the fuel. And somehow, if I have this desire, and I'm not going to throw it away, and I'm going to let myself be on fire, then at least some of that time, I'm going to meet frustration. I'm going to meet difficulty. I'm going to meet setbacks. I'm going to meet hurdles that seem insurmountable or problems that seem "I don't know." I'm going to, and the question is, how am I going to hold that? How am I going to relate to that? Can I tolerate it?
Looking back on all that time in music, from one point of view, I suppose I could say the desire to express and to manifest what wanted to manifest, I suppose I could say that that desire was bigger than my desire to be free of the pain that came with the desire, the pain of failing, of not measuring up, the pain of feeling like I was behind people, of comparing poorly; the pain of, for a long time, falling short of where, even in my mind, what I could hear in my mind -- what manifested was so poor in comparison. What manifested in terms of what came out was so poor. The pain of all that, that desire, one way of seeing it was, thankfully, that was less than the desire to manifest.
So this is interesting. To me, it's interesting. How much of my dukkha right now, in relation to my desire and whatever it is I love -- in this case, jhāna practice, on this retreat -- how much is about negative self-view? In other words, it would almost latch onto anything. Put you in another context, and it would latch onto that. Put me in another context where everyone's doing this, and we're doing this all day, and it would latch onto that. How much of it is coming from that? It's just the propensity for negative self-view, finding some charged [object], or object that becomes charged through repetition, through teaching, through environment, and the dukkha builds on that, the negative self-view builds on that? And how much of it is from the frustration about what I deeply love, which is a different (to me) dukkha?
How much of my dukkha right now is coming in relation to there's something I really deeply love, and it's just frustrating not to be there, not to have that opening, not to reach it, but it's in relation to something I deeply love? And how much of my dukkha is actually just a kind of propensity for negative self-view, which could latch itself onto all kinds of things? If I put myself in another situation where we're emphasizing again and again and again something else, that thing gets charged, this practice, that practice, this thing, that thing, and other people around, and then the self gets constructed, as I said before, in relation to that charged thing through repetition, through environment, and then the propensity for the self to get constructed with a negative self-view in relation to that thing -- how much of my dukkha is that kind of dukkha, and how much of my dukkha is the other kind? I don't need to know in percentages, but in terms of practice, it's more like, is it possible at times to focus on the former, on the real, deep desire?
Now, to do that, I might have to go into and through my pain -- not around my pain -- because there will be a certain kind of pain with that desire: I want something so much, so deeply, I yearn for it, and it's not here. But the pain is different than the "I'm crap, and I can't do this, and da-da-da," the self-view pain. So can I focus on the former, desire, through focusing, finding that pain that goes with that, feeling that? Where there's that pain, there will be the desire that goes with that pain. The pain, that specific pain, takes me to that specific desire. And that specific desire is actually a beautiful thing. Is there a way that I can then be with that desire in a way that I feel the energy of that desire, and the love in the desire, and the devotion in the desire, and the alignment in the desire, and even the beauty of desire?
So there's a kind of potential alchemy here through the dukkha, but I have to, again, discriminate, discern: which threads am I following here? Desire is hard. It's hard. If I say "yes" to desire, I'm saying "yes" to -- the Buddha's analogy -- a burning coal. Either I throw that burning coal away, or I learn how to relate to it, and I tolerate my burning. And where there's burning, there's beauty, and even blessing, benediction, and gift. But I have to find the right way to let myself be on fire, let that fire burn in me, let that desire move in me, in a way that's actually fruitful. Some of that takes quite fine discernment through the pain.
Okay. That's all I want to say for today. Maybe that didn't feel relevant right now. It should, at some point, feel relevant, because if you do this kind of stuff long enough, if you have the desire, it can get hard. So I hope that, at some point at least, it will certainly be relevant, but also feel relevant, and you'll recognize that.
[1:05:10, guided meditation begins]
Let's just have a bit of quiet together. Right now, is it possible, however you're feeling, and however you feel your practice is going -- whether you're flying right now, and really pleased with how things are opening, or whether you're actually quite struggling, and quite unsure, and feel a little bit disappointed or dejected about how it's going, or somewhere in between -- is it possible right now for you to get a sense of the beauty of your desire, the beauty of your desire to practise, for practice, for what you want in practice? For the deepest callings that brought you here? Can you get a sense for how beautiful that is, how beautifully it manifests in you, that seed and that calling? The desire itself is something beautiful. Your desire, your soul's desire -- a treasure. For sure a double-edged sword, but something wonderful, miraculous, potent, a gift.
Is it possible, too, perhaps, to look back, perhaps over the days of this retreat so far, perhaps over your life of practice, and recognize, acknowledge, open your eyes to, open your memory to all those times you've been willing to show up, try again, put effort in, put up with what's difficult, worked patiently, played persistently? Recognize that. Is it possible to acknowledge that? Can you, again, see the beauty of that, of that willingness, of that work, of that play, of that patience? Can you love that one? That one who keeps showing up? Can there be appreciation towards that one who keeps showing up? Kindness towards that one? Cherishing of that one? Maybe even a hug for that one? However modest or imperfect they might seem to you, your desire, your willingness, these are the gifts in you, to you, planted in the core of your heart from the divine, from the Buddha-nature. Seeds planted, this desire, this willingness -- your desire, your willingness. Seeds, jewels, given to you, planted in you, coming through you from the divine, from the Buddha-nature.
[1:16:00, guided meditation ends]
SN 51:20. ↩︎
