Tools For Depression & Anxiety (Part 2)

Part 2 of the tools for depression and anxiety include the practices of letting go, emptiness, not-self, and wholeness. Where is the non-anxious you? Where is the non-depressed you? That is also here now. Some of these tools might be best understood by Buddhist meditators.

Transcript

So this session is going to be looking at emptiness and wholeness.

Emptiness is a returning.

We're emptying out meditation.

Our whole life really is emptying out to return to our wholeness,

Our true nature.

And I was thinking this morning,

Being here in the fall,

There's a wonderful haiku,

That poem that says,

Simply trust,

Don't the leaves fall down just like that.

And that haiku really evokes for me this spirit of these things are happening,

But we're just relaxing and trusting.

Simply trust.

So the word in Buddhism for emptiness is Shunyata.

And there's different spellings of it,

But all the Buddhist traditions use the same word.

They have different interpretations of that word Shunyata.

In the Theravada tradition,

Which is this retreat,

Shunyata or emptiness means not self.

In Zen,

It means primordial,

Empty awareness.

And in Tibetan,

It means emptiness as wholeness.

And this isn't a spiritual bypass.

This is knowing emptiness in your body as you.

So you're both form and emptiness,

Emptiness and form.

So it's a really deep teaching and often emptiness is taught really far on in the practice,

But I think the world is going to need more and more of this ability to,

Not as a spiritual bypass,

But to come to emptiness for grounding and wisdom.

The Dalai Lama says,

Shunyata,

Emptiness is both the emptiness and the connection to all things.

All things as one whole,

Not separate,

Not a separate you.

Depression and anxiety focus on the you viewpoint,

Which is mistaken view or limited view.

Buddhists call the viewpoint of wholeness or emptiness right view.

So here he's even speaking to depression and anxiety and how its relationship is to emptiness.

And this is part of the Eightfold Path.

The first piece is right view.

I once heard a Tibetan story about analogy of this self view that's not quite right because it doesn't include emptiness.

It's like when we're looking at the world through our self perspective,

It's like we're looking at the sky through a straw.

And you know,

We're seeing the sky,

Right?

But a really limited portion,

It's kind of labor intensive.

And as we come more into our wholeness and more things get taken away,

The straw gets taken away or the straw gets bigger and bigger.

So it's not that the self view is a problem,

It's just limiting.

Emptiness is eventually seeing the sky without the straw.

And like we mentioned earlier today,

You know,

A lot of times we come to emptiness by things getting taken away.

The whole of the spiritual path is grief work.

So we're often undoing the false sense of I,

Me and mine that we created.

We're taking things away.

I often think about we're getting undone.

Where we were tangled is untangling.

And that can feel like a loss,

But make sure you focus on what's coming into being when things are getting undone.

And this is impermanence,

Like we do this chant.

You know,

In the evening,

Things are falling away,

But things are coming into being as well.

And we'll do a practice today about that.

What you are coming to be is a vibrant wholeness that includes everything.

And that's why we meditate.

It's not an empty empty,

It's an empty wholeness.

As parts of you and identifying with your parts falls away,

There's just this presence of you that still knows what to do and has feelings and emotions,

But you're not identifying or clinging to any of them.

That's the key.

Again,

The second noble truth of clinging and that falls away.

So we're emptying out and that's a good thing.

And I was thinking about the question earlier about not getting what you were hoping for this retreat.

And Stephen Mitchell once gave a talk at Insight Meditation Society and he's now married to Byron Katie.

And he was a Zen student for a long time and they gave him his Dharma name and he was really happy with it.

And he was really happy with his Dharma name,

But she didn't really know what it was.

I think it was in Japanese,

I guess.

And he asked and his teacher said,

Oh,

It means no enlightenment.

And he was like really bummed.

He goes,

I got the Dharma name,

No enlightenment.

And his teacher said,

Yes,

It's the highest name possible.

And it took him years to realize,

Oh,

No enlightenment.

To be able to let that be was his practice.

And I'm sure there's a lot more of the story than he told at that time,

But that settling in to the emptiness of things,

Right?

I don't get mine,

Right?

And that's its own teaching.

And for him,

That name was perfect.

So you can have no insight,

Cloud Mountain Retreat.

Highest retreat possible.

So a couple of things to think about with emptiness and some exercises.

Everything returns to silence.

Just like right now.

We could scream and yell and human beings will make a lot of noise forever.

And we could be in a situation where we could be in a situation where we could be in a place where we could make a lot of noise forever until we wipe ourselves out.

And guess what?

It all returns to silence.

So silence is the natural state.

Silence is the ground to be.

We don't have to work hard for there to be silence.

Notice that.

Don't think silence is the ground to be.

You have to get to or maintain.

You are the silence.

Life is the silence.

It's the default.

And everything returns to it.

So kind of all you have to do with this,

The emptiness of silence,

Is just relax back.

Let it.

Right here.

Right here.

Right here.

It's not hard.

My teacher,

Ajahn Chahti,

Jokes.

He's like,

We get all concerned like we're sitting down on the cushion.

We're going to meditate.

He goes,

Did ever you think about what you're sitting down on the cushion to get is already here?

We're getting ready to sit.

Well,

It's already here,

Whatever that is.

And also after you've done retreats a lot,

You get exposed to the life-changing insights or not life-changing insights,

Small things coming,

But that you want to keep.

So you're sitting down on the cushion.

You're going to meditate.

He goes,

Did ever you think about what you're sitting down on the cushion to get is already here?

We're getting ready to sit.

Well,

It's already here,

Whatever that is.

And also after you've done retreats a lot,

You get experiences,

Life-changing insights,

Or not life-changing insights,

Small things coming,

But that you want to keep.

And it's really good to say,

Well,

Where would it go?

Any peak experience you've had,

It's still here.

Just check your body.

Where do you think it would go?

It changes your cells.

It's always here.

So in that way,

We don't have to grasp.

Your deepest experiences are still here.

Silence,

Always here.

Whatever you're trying to sit down for,

Meditation already here.

And just notice that it allows us to relax a little.

Empty stillness really permeates everything.

Permeates everything.

In fact,

The more I do this practice,

I see that everything's kind of vibrating,

This emptiness.

All forms are vibrating.

Empty presence and fullness and wholeness.

There's no place that you're going to look that you won't find it.

And some people feel that wholeness as love or compassion,

Whatever you want to call it,

But everything is like a streaming device for the unconditioned.

And I've seen this.

I work with people that are dying and often they're really hyper-aware.

Supposedly,

They're just like,

Oh,

I'm going to die.

Often they're really hyper-aware.

Supposedly the moment of your death is like a hundred times more powerful than a regular moment.

So when people are dying,

They often see things and they'll talk about this.

They'll mention just the awe of how everything is vibrating empty wholeness or love.

So we don't have to wait till our death moment to start to feel this.

In your daily life,

You can listen to the sound of silence.

It's a common practice.

One of my first teachers,

Achang Sameto,

Was a monk in England and he had to sit through endless board meetings.

Laura can probably attest to some of this.

And you know,

All these boards and talking about their center.

And he said he would just listen to the hum of silence,

Below all the yakking about fundraising.

And he would just tune into the sound of silence.

So you could do that anywhere.

It's easier here,

But.

.

.

Well,

Some of us don't have any silence in our brains,

But I'll talk about that.

A really dear friend is in jail for 10 years and it's really unfortunate because it wasn't warranted,

But it is what it is.

And every week we talk and jail is a very noisy place,

Like really noisy.

Constant,

Like just a din,

Just deafening noise.

And I told him,

I said,

You know,

Listen to the silence underneath the noise.

And he's a Dharma practitioner,

So that's been really helpful,

Even in jail,

To listen to that silence.

And he's able to hear it,

The quiet behind all the noise.

And part of that is,

You know,

There's quiet behind every,

There's spaces between everything.

So this is part of the silence.

There's space between my words right now.

That's how you can hear what I'm saying.

It doesn't all run together because there's space.

There's space between every one of your thoughts.

There's space between every one of your emotions.

So we can focus on the arising thought,

Thought,

Thought,

Thought,

Emotion,

Sound,

Even now.

Or we can focus on the endings.

Everything's ending into this quiet space.

Quiet,

Quiet,

Quiet,

Quiet.

And again,

I'll do a little practice and a little later about this.

So you decide what you want to bring your attention to.

The things that,

The thoughts or the space between them.

The emotions or the space between them.

All parts of you return to presence.

So again,

It's the same principle.

We can look at,

Oh my god,

I have a part that's trying to understand this,

Right?

I have a part that's confused.

I have a part of me that's wondering this or that.

I have a part of me that's irritated.

I have a part of me that's confused.

I have a part of me that's irritated with the media.

That's fine.

What's the presence of you that all these parts are coming and going in?

What's the part of you that's restless,

That's occurring in what?

If you have all parts,

You step back.

Any thoughts,

Any feelings,

What's left?

Just this presence of you.

And these are harder concepts to understand.

So if you have a part that's struggling,

Just let it relax and trust that your system will know and feel or pick up whatever it does.

And part of the undoing that we do is,

You know,

When we're born,

We start to experience pain and traumas and things that clench our system.

And all parts of you developed as a coping to some kind of trauma or clench your tension.

And then those parts carry burdens.

They're almost like a muscle that starts to clench because of an injury.

Emotionally,

We develop these protections via fear,

Anxiety,

Obsessions,

Worries.

And when you can start to see these are just pieces of you that developed that picked up burdens to handle stressors.

And more and more,

If you can start to feel what's the me that's not defending against anything in life?

What's my natural state?

What's your natural state without all your protective parts?

Not identifying with any emotions or thoughts.

What's your natural state?

Maybe feel a little bit of that right now,

If you can.

In Zen,

The phrase is,

What was your face before you were born?

And they mean that energetically.

What was your energetic signature before you were born?

It's here now.

What's the feel of you going to be after you die?

Not thinking about it,

But feeling it.

It probably won't have the signature of depression or anxiety.

It'll just be this.

And you don't have to wait till you die or go back in the past before you were born.

It's all here now.

Your energetic signature of emptiness as wholeness,

It's right here now.

Let all your parts step back.

Let all thoughts just be.

And there's this vibrational presence of you.

And it's very subtle.

That's you.

That's you.

And it's not something you can put your finger on or label.

I mean,

Even talking about it's too much.

But that's you.

You want to celebrate that or at least go,

Yay,

That's.

.

.

It's nothing and everything.

Another part of emptiness and wholeness is our presence,

Our minds.

It's kind of like a kaleidoscope.

Have you guys all seen a kaleidoscope?

That might be a generational thing.

Just all these pieces,

Mosaic pieces coming together,

Falling apart,

Coming together in forms.

But there's no form there.

And just to see like these things just coming together,

Falling apart,

We're a process.

Each one of us is a process.

Coming together,

Falling apart constantly.

The more you can see,

We're not a noun,

We're a verb.

It's constantly coming together.

This is emptiness,

Form,

Emptiness,

Form,

Wholeness,

Nothingness.

The more you can start to see this,

It gives us tremendous power.

When you really know you're just this process,

You can do anything.

Because there's no fixed you.

There's lots of possibilities.

And when we realize we're a process,

We don't have to be perfect.

Bungee wrote notes about perfection.

We're a process.

Where's perfection in that?

Perfection's in an object that you're trying to define in a particular way.

I want to be this kind of person.

If you're a process,

You're a verb,

Do you really have to worry about perfection?

No.

It can just be that kaleidoscope.

Depression comes together,

Falls apart constantly.

Anxiety comes together,

Falls apart.

Like I talked about last night,

Just waves and waves and waves.

And the more you can be in that witness and that knowing of all these things coming together,

Falling apart.

Who's looking at the kaleidoscope images?

Yeah,

You get these parts that give you psychedelic images all day.

This,

I'm this,

I'm that.

I feel this,

I feel that.

But who's the you that's just watching it all?

What is that?

How does that feel?

Let what comes,

Come.

Let what goes,

Go.

See what remains.

Rama namaharshi.

And if you have a part that's trying to grasp this then just see that.

It just is.

You just are.

There's this natural presence of you.

Don't the leaves fall down just like that.

And it's so simple.

Like I said,

There's not a lot to say.

It's more a feeling.

It's more a dropping into the vibration of emptiness as wholeness.

It's a vibration.

So I wanted to do just a few practices.

Really simple things you can take with you to remember this.

One is if it starts getting complicated,

Do what I call wide mind.

Just make your mind really wide.

I call it,

The Hawaiians use the term kahi,

K-a-h-i,

Which means to make your mind like the night sky full of stars.

So when it gets complicated,

Even with anyone out there inside,

Just make your mind like the night sky full of stars.

And you can feel what,

Again,

The vibration of what that's like.

It's just like,

Oh,

You know,

Everything can happen under the night sky full of stars.

People die.

People make love.

People,

You know,

Create castles.

People destroy castles.

It's all fine.

The night sky is just letting it all be unmoved and yet connected,

Empty yet whole.

So feel your night sky full of stars mind right now,

And you can widen it.

I have a therapist friend.

He does what's called wide time.

You can widen your view.

You can widen that sense of time.

He calls it wide listening.

This is always available to you.

Don't have to wait how special circumstances.

My guy in jail can do this as well.

And,

You know,

It's fun to watch when you've gone into that tiny little worry room.

There's a little box called the worry room or the depression room,

And then just take yourself out of the room,

Go under the night sky full of stars.

I joke sometimes.

I go,

Oh,

I've entered the little worry cubicle.

Oh,

No.

Also,

The second practice is just noticing endings.

You have to play with this practice because for some people it can be depressing.

It's not ultimately depressing,

But a Burmese monk named Ukundala who's now deceased,

He was known throughout Burma as this incredibly effusive with metta or loving kindness monk.

He was called Mr.

Metta,

And he got to this metta by way of doing endings practice.

And I sat on a number of retreats with him where he taught this practice of noticing endings.

And a lot of us,

We notice the arisings of things,

And the Pashtana Buddhism tends to have you looking at what's arising.

You know,

When you're labeling and noting,

You're noting the arising,

Right?

So this practice,

It's noticing the falling away.

Oh,

Amida's voice just ended there.

That leaf just ended.

Silence just ended.

No,

The voice ended.

So you're watching just everything end,

End,

End,

End,

End,

End.

So just take a moment.

Close your eyes and you can even do that now.

Just experiment whether this is a practice that feels good to you or not.

So sounds are a great place to start.

Sound ending,

My voice or the rain on the roof.

See if you can relax and notice everything just ends on its own.

You don't have to do anything.

You might feel or notice ending into what?

Every emotion,

Every thought,

Every sound,

Every breath.

Always ending,

Ending,

Ending,

Ending.

But there is something that doesn't end and that's the awareness itself.

Or maybe it does.

Look and see for yourself.

Maybe the awareness ends with each passing away and then restarts itself.

It's really what you see and feel.

But this practice allows us to see the emptiness of all things.

They end,

They end,

They end.

And like I said,

This practice for this one monk brought him tremendous joy and love.

Ending,

Ending,

Ending.

Can even make the mental note ending if you want.

Feel what things end into.

You know,

Where's the you in all this?

Nowhere.

Even the idea of you ends.

And it's a very quiet and wonderful practice that actually leads to gratitude.

I said during the group that there's a story about a monk who actually had his favorite cup.

And he said,

You know,

Every time I use it,

I already know it's broken.

So there's a sense when he's holding it and drinking from it,

It's already ended.

What a beautiful combination of emptiness and wholeness that can be.

Reviews

“When the student is ready, the teacher will appear”. I came across your tracks this morning and I am so very grateful that I did. Your talk is exactly what I needed today. I have so many tools to call upon after listening to you. Thank you