RAIN: Recognition, Acceptance, Investigation, Neutrality - Dhamma Talk With Bhikkhuni Vimala

Bhikkhuni Vimala, Buddhist nun at Blue Lotus Temple in Woodstock, IL teaches us a helpful acronym to aid in meditation. RAIN stands for Recognition, Acceptance, Investigation and Neutrality. This is especially important to remember outside of meditation, as well.

Transcript

I wanted to talk today not about the precepts again, It will be another week or so before I get back into those. I wanted to talk about a meditation, I guess it's a technique, It's a way to work with the meditation that we practice and you may have heard of it. The technique is called RAIN, R-A-I-N. Tara Brach teaches it and it's part of a lot of therapists and Buddhists practice it. If you want to hear a beautiful guided meditation, I think hers is the best one. I've taken an online class in this same technique on tricycles so it's very available. The way it works is very simple and very easy in our own practice. It's a way for us, So in the practice that we do here, When you're just being with your breath, You're not trying to pay attention to your thoughts at this part of the practice. We're just trying to learn to let thoughts arise but don't chase after them, Don't make stories out of them, Don't get caught up in the thoughts. So we began to just observe the thoughts that are going through our head but mostly what we're observing is how crazy they are, How out of control we are in relationships to our thoughts. So what we begin to see is we're not consciously going, I think I want to think about this. Those thoughts are just, Our brain is working hard to get us distracted from sitting and our brain really wants us to pay attention to the thoughts, It's cranking out, Thinking it's for our benefit, Right? So most of the time during the day, We're just, Whatever thought comes to our head is what we focus on for that moment and that's what we call monkey mind. So once we start practicing, We begin to see that these thoughts, If they're directing us, They're going to take us from one corner of the world and back every day. So the very most important part of our meditation practice is recognizing that we get distracted by these thoughts and that they're not necessarily the thoughts we want to pursue or spend our time on and we can recognize that point. Oh, I'm already off in a daydream, I'm already three miles out. Wherever we recognize it, Right away or way fifteen minutes into a daydream, We can recognize, Oh I'm not paying attention to anything but I'm off in thoughts and we can bring our attention back to our breath. That's what we're learning to do. That's what we're learning. We can't control our thoughts, What we can do is work with them, Learn when they are distracting us and know what to do about it. We can simply come back to our breath. So that's what our practice is. It's like learning to, I like dogs, So it's like learning to teach a puppy how to become potty trained, House trained. And if you're gentle and patient, You just keep teaching that puppy to come to a paper, Then you get them outside and then you get them, If you've got a smart dog, They're a fast learner, If you have a regular dog, They're pretty slow. And if you've rescued a dog that hasn't been trained at all, It takes a long time and your patience has to probably last the life of the dog. And it's just like people, It's just like our minds. It depends a lot on our previous training, Right? How we've been taken care of in the past or taken care of ourselves. So what we work with is noticing, Oh I'm distracted, This isn't what I want to be doing right now. And we learn how to gently and firmly come back to the breath. And so if you're able to do that at any point, It's working for you. So we don't beat on ourselves because we have monkey mind. We don't beat on ourselves because we can't control our thinking. We just can't do that. What we do is just encourage ourselves because we're beginning to see how distracted we get. There was a lot of noise going on at the beginning. And I had no idea what it was and I know there are people coming for a donna next door, So there's probably a whole bunch of families coming in and then realizing they have to go next door and they didn't know they could go through the kitchen door. But that's very distracting because one, It's just noisy and usually we're focused on the noise out on the traffic. So we've kind of got a pattern right of letting go of that distraction. But today there was this noise suddenly coming from a different place and it's not Buddha kids, They don't make that kind of noise until they're coming up the stairs and we're ready for that. But it was a different kind of noise. So that one means it could be irritating because it's a new source of a distraction. And then two, We get curious about it and that can range from just mildly curious to just what the heck's going on down there. And then we start recognizing, Oh I'm not supposed to be getting distracted by things and so what do we do with it? But we go through that maybe 10 or 15 times, Right? And as soon as I said something about it, It seemed like it started to get quiet but then the door would open. And so these are our teachers. This is why this is good things like this happen because I could realize like out of my left ear I'm hearing the traffic noise and how I'm almost comfortable with that. And then suddenly there's this new source and it was like, Now what's going on? So my mind's all over the place then. It's over here, Then it's over here and one thing is okay. I'm used to it so it's almost, It's not really neutral because I'm paying attention to it but it's not unpleasant. Then suddenly this new thing automatically has to be unpleasant because I don't want it to be noisy in here, Right? So it's not what I want. And so then it's a neutral, It's not goes from neutral, That side of the building is usually neutral and then suddenly it's not neutral anymore, It's irritating. What is that? And then I have to just start letting it go. I have to keep bringing that puppy back to the papers. There's been an accident somewhere in the house. Start the training all over again. So that's what we're doing when we sit. And then the more we sit and we see these thoughts going through our heads and we're getting less distracted by them, We can start just observing. We start noticing without adding a lot of thoughts to it. It's just an observation. Like oh there's an angry thought or there's a happy thought or there's a food thought or coffee. Oh, Code and coffee be good right now. So we start seeing what our thoughts are and maybe because we sit here about the same time every Saturday, You might even see oh I have a lot of, Like I don't eat breakfast before I come so I start having hunger thoughts. So if they're cooking downstairs I'm sure to pick up that aroma. Or if I didn't have any coffee I'll pick up, Oh coffee sounds good right now. But you start seeing the kind of thoughts that are going through your mind. So you're not so worried about getting, Spinning out with a thought. But you start to notice, Man I have a lot of, Maybe a lot of anger thoughts or boy a lot of my thoughts are really sad. And you might see a pattern in a lot of your thoughts or they might be a lot of thoughts about oh that noise is irritating or this thing bothers me or I don't like the person sitting next to me, They're breathing, They're breathing. Or we see thoughts that might be critical of ourselves like oh why can't I sit still, Why can't I, Why does my, Oh my knee's going to start hurting, You know why does, Or is it okay if I change my posture because it's so quiet right now. We start seeing thoughts that make us start criticizing ourselves and we can see a pattern or we're thinking about maybe it's, We're blaming other people. Are we, You know we start seeing our patterns and we start noticing certain things. And that's good, If we just see it then we can let it go. But then that gives us more to start working with in our meditation. Then we can begin to just see those things rising and we can begin to work with it in our bodies, In that level of oh when I have a lot of those angry thoughts, You know I'm feeling it in my body. That's when my body starts really needing to be moving around a lot or that's when my stomach starts to hurt or that's when I get a headache. So we start just connecting those emotions with what's going on with the rest of our body. So the RAIN technique is really good when we're able to sit quietly and we're beginning to just be able to see these things that we need to observe and work with. The technique is great. So RAIN, In different times I've taken the training, In different times I've heard people talk about it, They'll use slightly different words. The first is recognition and the second is acceptance, Acknowledgement, Acceptance. The third is investigation and the third I'll call neutral. So recognition is the first step in this process. So if you're just sitting, You're just sitting, Practicing. And sometimes you might not be practicing but suddenly something kind of, I like to think of it, It kind of just drops down and suddenly you've got this, There's something you're aware of that this could be something you might want to work with. So you might just decide I'm going to sit right now, I'm going to make the time to sit because the issue is here. So that recognition is very important because a lot of times, Especially since we all want to be good people, And that's probably everybody in this room wants to be good, It might be easy for us to not want to recognize like a really ugly thought or something that really suddenly just provokes anger in us or hostility towards someone. We may not even want to recognize great sadness or other emotions that kind of overwhelm us because we either don't want to deal with them at that moment or we don't want them to be there. You know, It's like I thought I worked on this, I thought I dealt with this thing a long time ago, So I don't want it to still be there. I think I'm not going to acknowledge it. Well this is delusion, Right? We have things that come up, Those things that kind of drop down might all of a sudden be something from a childhood experience that opens a window for us to look through to see something that's going on now. But a lot of times it might be, I've already dealt with that, I've closed that window, I've locked the door, So you know, I'm not going to do this. So the first thing is, If we're meditating, If we're sitting, Practicing, Or if we're in a place where we can just be with it, When we see that thing and my experience with it has been when I'm working with this meditation technique, If I'm quiet, Something inevitably will just kind of like come down and just be there. It's like, It's probably something that's connected to some other issue I'm working with in my life, But something I may not have seen or it might be a pattern that I'm suddenly recognizing. And so the recognition is really important because the first thing we want to do is to not recognize it, Usually. So allow it to be there because it's not going to hurt us. What might hurt is if we block ourselves to it because it's not going to go away and it's not going to come up in a way all the time where we can work with it. So if you're sitting and it's peaceful and it's quiet, Your mind has some level of, Just a little bit of tranquility is all it needs. You don't have to be in a jhana state. You can just be, Oh look at me, I stayed with my breath for three counts. That's good enough. But then suddenly you're feeling quiet, Peaceful, Calm, Some thought or some energy or some something that you recognize will just kind of plop down. So we recognize it. And then we have to acknowledge it then that this is something that I want to look at. I'm not going to push it away. And then what I think is the most interesting part is the way we investigate it. So this is the I. So we don't investigate it by thinking about it. That's the hardest rule. Because if we think we're thinking, We're not meditating, We're adding to the problem usually. And I always believe that it's our thinking that got us into most of the problems that we experience. So our thinking is not going to get us out of those problems. We just try to think harder, Right, Or think more or come up with more solutions. And you can spend a lifetime doing that. So now what we're trying to do with our practice is to work with things, Issues, Our own issues, Our own kind of stumbling blocks or it might just be something that hasn't been real clear for you. We investigate it just by kind of walking around it and seeing if we can just look at it from different perspectives. So I like the image of a big jewel that has a lot of facets on it. We just want to walk around and see if we can see this jewel from all different directions because we'll see the light reflected and we'll see a different, We'll get to see a little bit different image of that jewel just by walking around it. We don't have to be thinking about it or thinking how did they cut it that way and why is it so multifaceted, Why is there so much to look at or why isn't the light better. We're just going to walk around and look at it. It's like a seeing person. We all know the story about the blind people touching a part of an elephant. They're all at different places so they see a different, They all see something different, Their reality is different. This is more like a seeing person seeing the whole picture, Seeing it maybe not just from the trunk or the tail and we're just looking at it. So kind of walk around it. It's so hard not to say just think about it because that's what we want to do. So don't think about it, Recognize it, Notice it but then acknowledge it that this is a real thing for you, That this is okay to look at it. Then walk around it and try to get as many views of your elephant or as many facets of your jewel as you can. What I've experienced with it, With things that come to me, That it might take a few times, Doing the practice, But sometimes seeing what this is from a lot of different sides, Investigating it that way, Suddenly it's clear what it is. It puts it into place for me and it's like a piece of a puzzle and it's allowed me to let some things go or recognize something and realize, Man this has been maybe a pattern in my life so now I can choose to keep the same pattern or I can let go. Then that comes, That may come after looking at it. I've recognized something and so my decision about it might come after it's come up a couple of times. Then after we investigate, Then we return to neutral so we let it go and we come back to a calm, Tranquil place. If it's something that's been disturbing, We don't want to end the practice or end our meditation being disturbed. Sometimes when I've done this with another group, Somebody can see something that almost takes their breath away and so you don't want to leave yourself just hanging there and go, Okay, Then let's be done. So you want to take the time to come back to a safe place because it can open up something that doesn't feel so safe. So you want to recognize, I've looked at it, This is enough for now and I know this is important now. So when you're ready, Come back to a place that feels tranquil and calm and breathe long enough that you can be okay with whatever has been going on with you. You can make this process for RAIN via 20 minute meditation or you might not be even thinking about it but you see something when you're just breathing and relaxing into your breath. You might have that something that wants to be looked at will drop down. That may be the time when you think, Okay, This is something that wants me to look at it. This is important. That monkey mind. So this doesn't have to be a thought that we just watch go. Then we can change to that technique and work with that one thing but we don't want to get it cluttered up with anything else. So we look at it. We might end up seeing things we can really appreciate from it. It might give us some insight or some wisdom that we didn't have before and the wisdom may be I need to look at this area in my life or I need to investigate this more. It may be something that we think, Maybe I need to talk to a therapist about it or maybe I need to journal about it and maybe I need to keep going. Maybe it's something that I know this has happened with me. Maybe it's something that I knew and then I decided at some level that I wanted to forget about it. And I'm sometimes amazed at that pattern. Like something I'll think, Oh yeah, I did know that and then I forgot that. And so that's when we might want to write it down or make a commitment to ourselves some way that we'll remember that this is not something that we want to forget. It's too important. I guess we forget about it until it's important enough that it keeps coming up for us. So that's the technique and it's so easy. Just remember the words, The word rain. And now this one course I took on tricycle, They have a program called, I can't remember, I took the course two years ago. But it's rain, I think it's rain drop. So they've added another, They've added four more things to do. And I think rain is a good start, Right? Then I'll go back and study my notes and see if the drop part is going to work. But this is so simple just working with rain. Because a lot of times we don't know how to meditate. We don't know what we're supposed to do. What do we do when this stuff pops up and we think, This is something important, I can feel it or it's just sort of there. There are times when we do begin, That's what this meditation is moving towards. Even if you don't have the rain technique, As you sit and become calm and that becomes more and more your practice, You feel like you're doing just great with it, That's when you just have to keep doing that same thing. Because then you'll start doing this naturally. You see things come up in your body. But I think it can help to have a technique for a way to look at those things that come up without judging them and without thinking. Because thinking is just, It's always going to take us out of our meditation. Okay, Thank you very much.

Reviews

Thank you very much for this technique