Kindness & Wisdom Practice

Retreat Day 1: Kindness and wisdom meditation uses two different practices that are deeply intertwined. Kindness is an attitude of friendliness. Wisdom sees clearly and impersonally. Kindness without wisdom is not kind. Wisdom without kindness is not wise.

Transcript

This is a little sutta.

Sutta just means thread.

The idea is you hear one sutta,

It's just one thread.

You need to get a sense of the whole cloth.

So here's one thread.

This is from Arnold Lobel,

Who some of you may know from his children's stories.

This is called the garden.

Everything you need to know about meditation.

Frog was in his garden.

Toad came walking by.

What a fine garden you have,

Frog,

He said.

Yes,

Said Frog,

It is very nice.

But it was hard work.

I wish I had a garden,

Said Toad.

Here are some flower seeds,

Plant them in the ground,

Said Frog,

And soon you will have a garden.

How soon,

Asked Toad.

Quite soon,

Said Frog.

Toad ran home.

He planted the flower seeds.

Now seeds,

Said Toad,

Start growing.

Toad walked up and down a few times.

The seeds did not start to grow.

Toad put his head close to the ground and said loudly,

Now seeds,

Start growing.

Toad looked at the ground again.

The seeds did not start to grow.

Toad put his head very close to the ground and shouted,

Now seeds,

Start growing.

Frog came running up the path.

What is all this noise,

He asked.

My seeds will not grow,

Said Toad.

You are shouting too much,

Said Frog.

Your poor seeds are afraid to grow.

My seeds are afraid to grow,

Asked Toad.

Of course,

Said Frog.

Leave them alone for a few days.

Let the sun shine on them.

Let the rain fall on them.

Soon your seeds will start to grow.

That night,

Toad looked out his window.

Drat,

Said Toad.

My seeds have not started to grow.

They must be afraid of the darks.

Toad went out to his garden with some candles.

I will read the seeds a story,

Said Toad.

Then they will not be afraid.

Toad read a long story to his seeds.

All the next day,

Toad sang songs to his seeds.

All the next day,

Toad read poems to his seeds.

All the next day,

Toad played music for his seeds.

Toad looked at the ground.

His seeds still did not start to grow.

What shall I do,

Cried Toad.

These must be the most frightened seeds in the whole world.

Then Toad felt very frightened,

Felt very tired,

And he fell asleep.

Toad,

Toad,

Wake up,

Said Frog.

Look at your garden.

Toad looked at his garden.

Little green plants were growing up out of the ground.

At last,

Shouted Toad,

My seeds have stopped being afraid to grow.

Now,

Well,

You will have a nice garden too,

Said Frog.

Yes,

Said Toad,

But you were right,

Frog.

It was very hard work.

So when I come at this whole topic of meditation,

What I find is the most common mistake people make with meditation is they work too hard.

At least in the West,

Where we have this kind of gung-ho,

I'll do it,

Kind of attitude.

There was a study not too long ago of some people were concerned that with cell phones and internet and all this stuff,

People never have any time just to be alone with their mind.

So they did a bunch of studies where they would put people in a room just to be alone with themselves.

The only thing that was in the room was this little machine that you could turn on that would give you an electric shock.

And that they found in a very short time,

It was 63% of the men and 15% of the women started to give themselves electric shock rather than just be alone with their minds.

And these were people,

By the way,

That they had this little questionnaire they had to fill out in the beginning.

On it was a question,

You know,

Would you pay somebody in order to avoid being shocked?

And most of them said yes,

And yet still with just a small amount of time,

They were shocking themselves.

It's a very,

Very bad pun and I don't mean it,

But I find that finding shocking actually.

So when I say congratulations to you for getting here,

For making it here,

All the preparations,

I actually mean that in a much deeper way because you all know what we're going to do for the next bunch of days.

We're going to sit around and do nothing and be with our minds.

And in a culture where people would rather shock themselves than be alone with their minds,

There's got to be some piece of wisdom inside you that sees that there's some value to this whole project.

And so as we begin the sitting,

As we begin to settle into this whole process,

And I know many of you have been pursuing this for years,

But just to acknowledge that there has to be some wisdom that has really seen beyond all our cultural conditioning.

And I think it's helpful just to acknowledge that about ourselves,

Just to acknowledge that.

That there is some part of you that already knows what it is you need to do.

And there's all other kinds of stuff that will get you all confused and we'll be sort of sorting through all of that.

But there's a lot of wisdom and a heart in all of you.

Or you wouldn't be here.

Or you wouldn't be here.

So tonight what I'd like to do is to talk a little bit about the practice.

Because I know it took a long time to get here.

And so I'm not going to try and do a long talk tonight,

But I do want to get through a lot of the moving parts of this practice.

Where's Jordan?

For the interview things,

Are you going to set those up or are we going to set up sign up sheets to have people pick a time?

Pick an option.

Either one of them are fine with me.

When I have people sign up for them.

Yeah.

So we'll put up a sheet that has the times on it.

There'll be ten minute slots and you can sign up for what you like.

Okay?

There'll be an afternoon morning when you sign up.

Yeah.

And we will start those interviews day after tomorrow.

Tomorrow morning at 5.

30 we're going to start with the refuges and the precepts.

And one of those precepts is to go into silence.

So you can get the talking out of your system tonight.

And tomorrow we will go into that silence.

And some Theravada traditions they call it noble silence,

But the Buddha actually meant something different.

Noble silence actually talks about as the mind begins to quiet.

It goes into a natural quiet.

What would be wonderful to do is to let everybody talk with the one restriction that you have to be mindful as you talk.

But unfortunately few of us have the momentum of our mindfulness to be able to handle that.

What usually happens in these,

You know,

Yogis that have done a lot of meditation,

Be very,

Very still and open your mouth and the mindfulness just goes.

So if we were doing a two or three week retreat we might just be in silence for a week and then as the mindfulness deepens we might loosen up on that.

But I think it would probably be more beneficial for us just to be in silence.

And I would say the silence is quite fragile.

So it's important if you do start talking,

Even if it's whispering to somebody else,

The energy carries around to people around you.

And so I would invite you to really honor that.

And the Satipatthana Sutta,

The Buddha says,

There's some interesting instructions about speech where he says,

When the person is speaking he's mindful,

When he's not speaking he's mindful.

And I think what that's really getting at underneath is that if we are really mindful when we're silent and we're really mindful when we're speaking,

Then we would start to sort out what is actually useful,

You know,

What is actually mindful speech.

But we mostly just go unconscious.

So we'll hold the silence.

That doesn't count with me.

So if you want to talk to me or if you need to talk to Jordan about something,

That's fine.

Or if you're at the table and eating the salt,

You know,

That's okay.

Just make sure it's utilitarian.

Pass the salt.

It's not,

Oh,

I was thinking about it.

I didn't want to ask you,

But I,

You know,

Would you mind if you passed me the salt?

Just keep it real functional.

It doesn't need to be elaborate.

And again,

As Jordan mentioned,

I will be here at 11 tomorrow.

My thought was I know a lot of you are starting into this practice and I want to give you some time early tomorrow and then mid-morning tomorrow.

And then if you have some questions or things that you're concerned about,

We'll gather and hear those and I'll respond to those.

And then the next day will be individual interviews and there will always be question and answers after the Dhamma talks.

A couple other things,

Some questions that come up.

People ask about reading and writing.

Different teachers do different things.

And what I would say is to be mindful.

I've had teachers tell me not to write at all and yet sometimes I would get,

I would have an insight and I would obsess about it because I was afraid I was going to forget it.

And if I just wrote down three sentences and I could let go of it,

And as far as I'm concerned,

That's fine.

If you want to sit down and write pages and pages and pages,

Pay attention to what's going on.

That probably is not as helpful.

And I would say the same thing about reading.

I would invite everybody to,

If you don't have a copy,

If it would be useful to take a copy of Beginning the Journey,

It has the beginning instructions as Jordan mentioned.

And there's a yogi who paid for the printing of the first 200 of those,

So I get to give the first 200 away.

So you're welcome to those.

If you have Buddha's map,

All the instructions are in there but it's actually spread out across the book,

So that just brings them all together in one place.

And if you have Buddha's map or there's something that you're not clear about and you want to check in there,

That's fine.

But if you get into reading for 10,

20,

30,

40,

50 minutes or something,

Then that's actually beginning to cut into your practice.

The unacknowledged secret,

So 35 or 40 years of practice,

I never heard another teacher say this until Uttar Jnana mentioned it,

But it's so obvious,

Is that when we're doing this practice,

Our intelligence has to be fully engaged.

Even if you're sitting there deciding when to six-R and when not.

So to read,

Et cetera,

Just pay attention to what's helpful for you.

And if you think something would be helpful and then you do it and you find it's not so helpful,

That's actually useful insight.

So just be guided by that.

So we're going to be meditating.

So my first question for you is what is meditation?

And I will say that I do not hold franchise on the word,

So it's not my definition.

Meditation is basically whatever you think that word means.

Meditation is just a word.

But when you heard the word meditation,

What does that conjure up for you?

What are some of the things?

Quiet in the mind?

Inner awareness?

Inner awareness?

Good.

What else?

Cultivating positive states?

Cultivating positive states?

Being present in the moment.

Being present in the moment.

So I think all those are part of it,

And those are all wonderful definitions.

When I'm using the word meditate,

What I'm really talking about is learning to observe how the mind's attention moves,

Learning to see how the mind-heart actually works.

The core of it,

The very core of it is actually becoming aware of awareness itself.

And I think this is what the Buddha was talking about.

So to just give you a little bit of the Buddha's perspective on this,

Let me just tell you a little bit of his story.

And this is a story that many of you know,

But just to review some of what his path was,

Because it reflects a lot on what this practice is,

Before I go into the details of it.

The Buddha was the prince.

He was the son of a king.

He wasn't a monarch.

These were small prince palates,

So it was a small kingdom,

If you will.

But it was a very wealthy time in India.

So he was relatively wealthy.

His father,

The king,

Was actually quite wise.

His mother was generous.

His wife had a warm,

Kind heart.

He was the best educated king in India.

And he had a warm,

Kind heart.

He was the best education,

Refined,

Music,

Cultivated friends.

And at some point he found it just wasn't enough,

That despite all that stuff,

Roofs break,

Crops fail,

Relationships drift,

People get sick and die.

As one of my favorite singers,

Paul Simon wrote once,

He says,

Oh,

Spare my heart.

Everything put together sooner or later falls apart.

And so he was very aware of the limitations.

So he had all the sensory,

All the happiness that the material world could bring,

And it just wasn't enough for him.

And when his son Raula was born,

He looked in on his sleeping newborn and wanted what every father,

What every mother really wants for their kids was happiness.

And he realized that he didn't know how to find it.

And so it's a long story that we won't go into all this,

The ins and outs about what it means that he left.

But he got up in the middle of the night and woke up Chana,

His bodyguard,

And left the palace and traveled a good distance from the palace.

And then he took off all his princely robes,

Cut his hair,

Put on a monk's robe,

And became a barefoot homeless monk,

Giving up the external world as a source of happiness and really wanting to look inside to see if there were a better foundation for happiness.

And there had been at that time,

In fact for eons,

Many,

Many spiritual practices that were used to cultivate wonderful states of tranquility and ease and bliss.

And he engaged in all those practices,

And he literally mastered them to a degree that no one else who was living at that time had.

And he found that even inside,

Anything put together sooner or later falls apart,

That all these inner states that we can cultivate simply do not last.

Sooner or later they fall apart,

He would come out of these deep states,

And he would look inside himself and there was still greed,

Hatred,

And delusion and all kinds of stuff.

If you've ever tried to hold a beach ball underwater,

You know what the problem is.

When you cultivate these deep,

Powerful states,

They get so strong that they're pushed down.

The agitation,

The worry,

The unhappiness,

They just push those out of consciousness until you're in these deeply blissful states,

Which is wonderful unless you relax.

And then all that stuff just pops back up again.

So,

Well,

And the other problem with all those practices,

By the way,

Was that they were killing him.

There was a belief at that time that there were spiritual forces and worldly forces,

And they conflicted with each other.

And so if you suppress the worldly,

Then the spiritual gets stronger.

So there were all these ascetic practices of denial.

And so he was down to the point where he was starving to death,

And he realized if he went any further,

He was actually going to die,

And he still wouldn't be awakened.

And so that didn't work.

And so he left his practice and wandered out of the hills of Rajagaha,

Out into the Ganges plain.

And there's a sweet little story about Sujata and being nursed back to health.

And he was a very,

Very,

Very,

Very,

Very,

Very good teacher.

And so he was very,

Very,

Very,

Very good at it.

And so he got up and he was sitting down in the river,

And he was thinking about Sujata and being nursed back to health.

But what he got up,

When he gained his strength back and then crossed the river over to this river that time,

He saw that trying to bend the mind-heart to its will just didn't work.

It just doesn't work.

The problem is,

Is it works for a little while.

You can get those deep,

Peaceful states,

But eventually it falls apart.

And so I think what went on was he said,

Well,

Look,

I can't control this stuff,

So maybe I ought to just sit down and see if I can see how it works.

You know,

What is it that creates happiness?

What is it that creates anguish?

So he was no longer trying to control anything,

Just trying to see as clearly as he could what was going on.

And when he did that,

He woke up.

It turns out that that is actually enough.

We'll talk about it more some other night.

But basically,

That awareness has this kind of a magical quality to it.

As the awareness gets clearer,

That's enough to bring in the peace and well-being.

You don't have to control anything.

So what we're doing in this practice is that we are just cultivating as much as we can a clear,

Heartful awareness.

And that if we do that,

The awareness itself will take care of us.

So we're stepping out of trying to be in control and just trying to cultivate more and more awareness.

So how do we do that?

There are two practices that work very,

Very,

Very,

Very closely together that we're going to be engaged in.

One of them is what's called a meta-practice.

It works with uplifted states.

When you're smiling,

When you're happy,

When you're relaxed,

The mind is actually a lot clearer.

I'm all worried and frightened and tied up in knots inside.

There can be all kinds of stuff going on out there,

And I'm not aware of it because I'm just so balled up inside.

But when you're relaxed and open,

There's little flutters that happen out there,

And you just notice them.

You don't have to force it.

You don't have to push it.

It just arises.

So I'll talk a little bit about this practice of working with uplifted states,

Which is the meta-practice,

And then there is the wisdom practice,

Which is learning to see what goes on.

So that's where the name of this retreat came from,

That kindness and wisdom,

Metapanya.

It's a Pali term for it.

It's a kindness and wisdom practice.

So this is how it happens.

If you're new to this practice,

The first thing that you do is to think about some person in your life who we're going to call a spiritual friend.

This is somebody for whom it is very easy for you to wish them well.

This is somebody who is alive now and is somebody who you know.

You don't have to know them personally,

But somebody you know of.

But it's important that they be alive now.

It might be a teacher,

Who has always had your best interest at heart.

It might be a friend who always had your back.

Somebody for whom it's just very easy.

So the practice begins by using simple phrases.

You usually start with,

May you or may I,

May you be happy,

May you be peaceful,

May you have ease,

May you have well-being.

And you begin for the first ten minutes of each sitting by sending these qualities to yourself.

May I be happy,

May I be peaceful,

May I have ease.

And it doesn't have to be those specific ones.

Any uplifted state is fine.

So find ones that really resonate with you a lot.

And you send them to yourself for about ten minutes.

And if it's eight minutes or twelve or fifteen or seven,

That's fine.

You don't have to time it.

But it's about ten minutes to yourself.

And then after ten minutes you send it to your spiritual friend.

May you be happy,

May you have ease,

May you have well-being.

So in this practice there are actually three parts to it.

One is the person you're sending metta to,

To be yourself or your spiritual friend.

The second is the feeling itself.

And the third are the phrases.

And the phrases,

They only need about five percent of your energy.

So it's not a lot that goes into that.

They're used to just draw up some of this feeling.

Most of your energy,

The bulk of your energy is going to be with the feeling itself,

About seventy-five percent of it.

And there's only about twenty-five percent that's attending to your spiritual friend.

So the phrases aren't meant to be like a mantra,

Like something that's repeated over and over again.

May I be happy,

May I be happy,

May I be happy,

May you be happy,

May you be happy.

You really just use them very slowly.

May I have peace.

And then you let the feeling arise,

Send it to yourself,

Send it to your spiritual friend.

There are two ways of doing it.

One is you can send it to your spiritual friend out there.

The other is you can put them into your heart and just surround them with that feeling.

Okay.

So is that clear?

At this late hour?

So,

So that's the metta practice.

The real practice,

The one that's really most important is this one that we affectionately call the six Rs.

So you'll be sending metta to yourself,

To your spiritual friend.

And as you do that,

There will be other thoughts,

Other sensations,

Images that will come into your mind.

Does anybody doubt that?

I don't think so.

The distractions come in all over the place.

As long as you are still aware of the feeling and can still send that,

You just ignore those.

Okay.

So if you're used to doing a one-pointed practice when other things come up,

That's a problem,

Right?

Because you're supposed to just be one-pointed on this.

This is not a one-pointed practice.

We're trying to create a mind-heart that's really wide open.

And so you'll be aware sometimes of multiple things.

And as long as you are aware of the feeling of metta and of sending that out or sending it to yourself,

That's fine.

Just ignore the distractions.

But sooner or later,

Your attention will be totally hijacked.

You'll be sitting there,

Sending metta,

And there's this lovely feeling and then you're thinking,

Well,

I wonder about what,

You know,

I wish they'd had something different for lunch.

And you're just gone,

Right?

And when you are absorbing that thought,

There is absolutely nothing you can do about it.

Right?

You're just gone.

But after a while,

There will be a little bit of wisdom that will come in.

And that wisdom will appear in the form of,

Oh,

I was meditating,

Right?

You suddenly come back to the present and you actually recognize what's going on.

What you do at that moment is probably more important than anything else.

It's really the absolute heart of this meditation.

So one strategy people have is just to bring the awareness back to the metta as quickly as you can.

But notice what happens if you do that.

When the mind goes off,

It has always because there's a little bit of tension in it.

You may not be aware of it,

But there's some tension that's drawn it off.

And now you're creating more tension as you bring the mind back.

Actually,

To just force the mind back is a form of greed,

Right?

Or aversion.

I want this state,

Not what's there.

I want to get rid of that one.

I want to come here.

And practicing with greed or aversion is not very effective.

So we need a way of bringing the attention back that doesn't create more tension.

So this brings us to the six Rs.

Somebody want to pass these around?

So this is your six R cheat sheets.

I know some of you have been practicing enough where you may not need these,

And that's fine.

And these are very cleverly designed so they can be folded in half.

And so you have on one side each of the six Rs,

And I'll run through them.

And on the other side is a synonym for it.

And then if you really want to get fancy,

You can do a six fold from that and then turn it into an origami crane.

But anyway.

So mind has gone off.

There is something inside you that just woke up and said,

Oh,

I was meditating.

Where am I?

So the first thing you want to do when you recognize that is to recognize that you have gone off.

That's the first of the six Rs,

Which you've already done a little bit of.

And it's very important.

It's recognizing that your attention has been drawn off.

And if you've been drawn off by a thought,

It's not getting into the content of the thought.

It's just recognizing that you've been drawn off.

If the content of our thought could awaken us,

We'd be living in a totally different world.

Everyone would have waken up a long time ago.

So the content of our thoughts is really a vastly diminishing return on that.

So it's not the content,

But just notice it's been drawn off.

And then the second thing you do is to release that distraction.

Suzuki Roshi,

He once said the best way to control a cow is to put it into a very large pasture.

That's what the release is.

It's not trying to control the cow.

It's not trying to corral it.

It's not trying to chase it off over the hill.

It's just whatever the distraction was,

Whatever came up that drew you off,

You just let it be.

So that's the synonym on the other side is just let it be.

The cow may come back and look you in the eyes.

It may wander off over the field and disappear.

It doesn't make any difference.

The important thing is that you are no longer holding onto it or pushing it away.

When you genuinely release something,

It is free to come or go.

And whether it comes or goes is actually none of your business anymore.

Recognize,

Release.

The third R is probably the most important of all of those.

It is to relax.

It is to relax.

The second noble truth says that the root of our experience of difficulty in this life is called tana.

It's this inward tension.

And it's some tension that has drawn you off.

And it's the tension that when the Buddha was first practicing before he was the Buddha,

They were trying to suppress all that.

And the thing that he did different was to actually not try to control it,

But just to relax.

And you'll see this in all the suttas.

The problem is the translations are so opaque that it's hard to recognize what's there.

There's this phrase that appears over and over of releasing,

Of tranquilizing the formations.

Tranquilizing the formations.

And when I first read that,

I think formations,

Rock formation,

Tranquilizers,

You want me to put medication on a rock formation.

So I had no idea what they were talking about.

But when the Buddha said tranquilize the formations,

The root of the word there is tranquility.

Bring tranquility to things that have,

Formations mean things that have been formed.

Thoughts,

Impressions.

The simplest,

Most down to earth translation is just relax.

Recognize,

Release,

Relax.

And then the fourth is resmile.

And we call it resmile just because we're trying to find an R.

It's basically to bring in some uplifted states.

So the mind has been tense,

It's been a little bit contracted.

So recognize,

Release,

Relax,

Bring in some uplifted states.

And sometimes you can't figure out how do I bring in uplifted states.

You don't want to force anything.

But you can always just raise the corners of your mouth just a little bit.

Smile a little bit.

And from what we know about how the brain operates,

It's just even doing that mechanically brings in a lightness.

So there was tension that drew you off.

Recognize,

Release,

Relax,

Smile.

The mind is in a lighter place and then you bring this lighter,

Clearer mind back to your object of meditation,

Descending out the meta.

So that's the return.

And we throw repeat in on the end just to say you're going to be doing this a lot.

So repeat as needed.

And if you,

In a course of 30 or 45 minutes,

That you 6R,

Use these 100 times,

That's actually a very,

Very good sitting because you're constantly releasing this tension and allowing the mind to lighten.

Okay.

So any questions about that?

How many people are ready to go to sleep?

Quite a few.

So,

I feel like you can go in tomorrow and you know what to do.

No?

Probably not.

Okay.

So where might be a difficulty for you?

Release and relax.

When my thought is drifting away,

Say I'm planning for next day's trip,

I start thinking.

So you are saying not forced to coming back,

But just releasing and relax.

Well first of all,

You have to recognize.

When you recognize,

Okay,

I'm planning my trip,

Not doing my meditation.

And it's enough to just recognize that you're thinking.

So when you say relax,

Meaning starting from that moment?

So you recognize and then you release the thoughts.

So I stop the thought?

You don't actually stop them.

What you'll feel when you're caught in those thoughts is the mind is sometimes kind of shrink wraps around them.

The mind sort of goes like that or it's pushing or it's got something tied up.

You just release that.

What it actually feels like when you do the whole thing is it feels like you are actually relaxing into what was going on.

So it's not pushing it away,

But you just release your grip on it.

That's something I don't quite get it.

Because if I already recognize I'm drifting off,

Okay,

I probably would just instantly come back to the primary subject,

Which is.

.

.

Sending the matter.

.

.

.

Stating my phrase to friends or to myself.

So if.

.

.

So part of the difference is that with this meditation we're learning to observe movements and the mind's attention,

Learning to be aware of the awareness.

So the meditation is really not about the object of meditation ultimately.

Meditation is not about the breath,

It's not about the body,

It's actually about the qualities of the mind.

And so when your awareness,

When your mind has been drawn off to something,

We want to spend just a few moments to actually see what's going on in the mind.

So you see that it's been drawn off,

And sometimes just seeing that is enough to release it.

It may just happen by itself.

That's fine.

So you may see it,

Just seeing something may cause it to release.

When it releases,

It may just relax on its own.

But it's really important to see if there is some tension,

Some tightness in the mind,

Or in the body,

Or in the emotions,

And allow that to soften.

It's surprising because you can be off thinking about something quite wonderful,

And it feels just wonderful,

And then you come to the relaxed step and you realize that actually the body is tightened up a little bit,

Or the mind is tightened up.

And so you spend a moment to just see that and allow it to soften.

And if you come back and it seems perfectly relaxed and you don't notice any tension that can be released,

That's fine.

So it's not forcing it.

But you want to be sure to give a little bit of tension,

Just attention,

To make sure.

And sometimes,

When you relax,

You just smile automatically because it feels good.

It's kind of a sense of relief.

So they can flow quite naturally.

And in fact,

When the practice goes deeper,

They all do blend together.

But it's important,

Particularly at the beginning,

To make sure you do each one of those,

Or at least check on each one of them.

Because very often when somebody's practice gets a little stuck,

They may have been recognized,

Facing,

Re-smiling,

And returning,

And actually left out the relaxed,

Or left out the release.

It's actually,

For those of you who read my book,

When I first came across this,

It reminded me of these old Burma Shave commercials,

These little advertisements along beside the road.

It seems so jingoistic.

But it actually is an incredibly fine-tuned,

Rubber-meets-the-road,

Very practical application of what the Buddha called wise effort.

So it's effort that doesn't have stress or tension in it.

And so just try going through each of those and see what happens.

And we'll have plenty of time to talk.

So give it a try and see what happens,

And then we'll fine-tune it from there.

Yeah,

Thank you.

Other questions?

Or some of you think,

I'm going to ask any questions,

I want to go to bed.

Okay,

Okay,

That's enough.

Let me see if I had anything else I forgot about.

Oh yes,

I did have this.

This will only take me about 45 minutes to do.

Walk-in meditation.

Thank you.

So there are these chunks of time that are set aside for practice.

And I would like you to sit a minimum of a half an hour.

And then,

And some of you will be wanting to sit a lot longer than that,

And that's okay.

But at some point it'll feel like it's enough.

And then you get up and do a walk-in meditation.

You just shift from the sitting to the walk-in meditation and walk for a minimum of 15 minutes.

And you can walk as long as 45 minutes and then come back.

And so you'll be going back and forth from the sitting to the walking.

I'm just saying do a minimum of a half an hour and a minimum of 15 minutes so you don't go five minutes and then two minutes and five and spend all your time popping back and forth.

The walk-in meditation is basically the same.

You are sending metta,

Loving kindness,

Compassion,

Uplift to yourself,

To a spiritual friend.

In fact,

Sometimes it's easier just to send it to a spiritual friend.

You can do it either way.

So it's doing basically the same practice as when you're sitting,

Except now you're walking.

And so since you're walking there's a lot more stimulation.

For many people the mind won't settle as much,

Although for some people,

For me quite now,

Sometimes it just settles very quickly when I'm walking.

But it's a whole different environment,

So it's not going to feel the same.

And so don't worry about it.

You just keep doing the same practice.

As Patricia mentioned,

It's helpful to find a track of 10 or 20 feet and to walk back and forth within that.

And it's helpful to keep your eyes down.

The mind tends to follow the eyes,

So if you're up looking around the mind will probably just take right off.

So if you keep your eyes down in front of you,

That helps the mind stay collected.

What else should I add?

Some of you guys have been doing it.

Thank you.

Moderate.

So there are lots of practices where you go very slowly.

When I was practicing in Thailand,

There were seven movements.

Lifting the heel,

Lifting the heel,

Raising the toe,

Moving forward,

Placing,

Lowering,

Shifting your weight,

Lifting.

It would take me half an hour to walk across my kuti,

Which was about six or seven feet.

And the selling point on that is that it helps build that deep collectiveness.

But the reality is with this practice,

As you'll find,

Is that it can go quite deeply very,

Very quickly.

And it helps to get your blood moving a little bit.

So I would prefer when you're walking to go out and walk at a normal pace,

Unless you're really sleepy,

In which case you want to maybe walk a little bit faster,

Do something to get your blood circulating again.

And I would also say during the first day or so,

What always happens to me when I go on a retreat is what a lot of you are feeling tonight.

It's that your accumulated fatigue as you get in this quiet setting starts to rise to the surface.

And so if you need to go take some extra rest,

Do that.

Do that.

The meditation,

Even though this really does have a lot of relaxation and ease with it,

It really does take some energy.

And if your physical energy is just low,

It's just going to be frustrating to no good purposes.

So feel free to give yourself the rest you need.

And if you find yourself that you're really getting lots of rest and you're sleeping for reasons other than body fatigue,

Then that's a different story.

And you may want to sort of look at that and do something different,

Maybe walk faster or something to get your energy back up.

But please take care of your need for rest.

Thank you,

David.

What else?

Thinking about eating.

Eating's a good thing.

Well,

Eating is quite interesting because basically you get everything going at once.

I mean,

There's taste,

There's touch,

There's movement,

There's the mind thinking about what I'm doing next,

There's sounds,

There's all of it,

And you can get really lost in it.

And so I would just say eat mindfully.

Pay attention to what's going on.

Again,

There are traditions that are a little more militaristic than I am that we're doing.

Lifting,

Lifting,

Lifting,

Lifting,

Lifting,

Touching,

Tasting,

Tasting,

Tasting,

Chewing,

Chewing.

You can do that if you like.

I have a tremendous amount of faith in how this practice,

Between the sitting and walking,

Will deepen your mindfulness,

Deepen your collectiveness,

Collectiveness,

The stability of mind.

And I would invite you just to take as that grows.

So what we're cultivating is this awareness and just take the awareness as it is into everything you do,

Including eating.

From my standpoint,

It doesn't need to be ritualized.

There are times when you can get just incredibly fascinated with,

You know,

What,

You know,

I remember sitting there chewing and just suddenly becoming aware of how my tongue moves when I chew,

How it moves the food around and all that.

You know,

And if you get really interested in that,

Want to slow down and watch that,

That's fine.

But I would rather you not strain or push yourself to do something.

Okay?

Allow yourself to bring as much mindfulness as you can to whatever you do,

Including eating.

And go into the bathroom and put it on your clothes and walking down the hall and all the rest of it.

The other thing that's very important in this practice is smiling.

If there's one simple thing you can do to deepen your practice,

It's to smile as often as you think of it.

So if you just smile right now,

Even in your fatigued bodies,

Can you see what that does to the mind?

Just even that little bit of mechanical stuff,

How it lightens and brightens.

And if you're so tired,

I don't really care,

But actually you notice that actually it feels good.

And it may make you even more aware of how tired you are,

But you can still smile while you're tired.

So keep the smiling going.

Keep the mindfulness going as much as you can without forcing it.

And it's a lot easier to bring your awareness back than it is to hold it steady on something.

So what a lot of this is,

Is just,

Oh,

That's where it is,

And then you recognize and soften.

And that actually strengthens the mindfulness.

And it'll get stronger on its own.

It'll get stronger on its own if you do that cultivation.

Okay.

What else?

I have a question.

Yes,

Susan.

I know how to handle,

But maybe some people,

Beginners,

For beginners,

Maybe how to handle drowsy.

When you want to sleep,

It's sleepy.

How to handle it?

How to handle sleepiness?

Yeah,

Sleepy,

Drowsy,

You know.

So you almost just stop thinking,

Stop feeling how well you're doing,

And then you're going to sleep.

And so on.

But you might even swing to another place,

Just if you're lost.

Okay.

We're actually going to talk a lot about that tomorrow night.

So I'll just say a little bit that when the mind goes out of balance,

There's two favorite ways.

One is too much energy as agitation.

The other is too little energy,

Which is the sleepiness.

And I don't want to talk too much about sleepiness tonight because I know a lot of you are legitimately,

Physiologically just plain tired.

And there are practices that you can work to keep the mindfulness going when you're tired,

But for tonight,

And probably for tomorrow too,

When you're really tired,

Just try taking a nap.

I was,

My second or third 10-day retreat I did,

There was a German monk who talked about people sleep altogether too much,

You know,

Four hours a night is plenty.

And so I tried sleeping four hours a night.

And after two or three days,

My nose was running and I was developing a cold and I was kept on trying to do this.

And I went to,

Actually it was Joseph Goldstein and Jack Cornfield were both leading that retreat too.

And I went to Joseph and I said,

Look,

I'm trying to get less sleep and I think I'm getting sick.

And he said to me,

He said,

Well,

It helps to push it a little bit,

But if it doesn't work,

Just go take a nap.

And I went and I took a nap and I slept for about two and a half hours.

And when I got up,

My mind was so clear that people's systems are different,

But I've learned in my system,

I just cannot oversleep.

Maybe it was from being hyper vigilant as a youth or something like that.

I had too much tension.

But we'll get some sleep and then tomorrow evening,

We'll come back to all this and we'll come out a little more finessed way.

Okay.

Another question.

Pardon?

Another question.

Yes.

For example,

Except the sitting,

We play the 6R.

But when you're eating,

Do you want to play 6R?

Yes,

You can use the 6Rs anytime.

If you're just starting out with it,

Go gently,

Let them come on.

Basically,

What you're doing with the 6Rs is as you do them more and more,

It will become a habit that just starts applying itself.

My concern,

And you can just think about this and just notice it in yourself,

That if you try to push it too hard in too many different places,

You find yourself,

Recognize,

Release,

Relax,

Smile.

You want to allow it to unfold on its own.

I would say keep doing the 6Rs gently.

If you're never doing them,

Do them a little bit more and see how it unfolds.

Then we'll talk about it more as your practice opens out.

So keep as mindfulness.

You don't subject by the noting.

No.

No.

Yes.

There are practices where you label everything.

I've used those.

When I was in Thailand,

I used those for two months.

I think they have some value,

But it's really kind of limited.

I would just stick with this and don't worry about putting labels on everything.

You recognize what's there,

And the mind may come up with a label and may just recognize what it is,

But it's not an extra project.

Just keep it simple for now.

Anything else?

When you say recognize,

Do we actually need to say,

Hey,

I'm recognizing?

No.

Just.

.

.

Yeah.

No.

It's just be aware of.

That's enough.

That's enough.

Sometimes the mind is a little fuzzy.

You're kind of aware of it,

But as you become more aware,

That will strengthen on its own,

So you don't have to force it,

But just be aware.

If the mind is fuzzy,

You notice the fuzziness,

And being aware of the fuzziness actually creates more mindfulness.

A lot of what you're recognizing,

And more and more what will happen is what you're recognizing is basically the attitude in the mind.

Anything more?

Oh,

Please,

Let me go to sleep.

I'm tired.

At the end of each evening,

We'll be doing this thing that the tradition is called sharing the merit.

In some traditions,

They talk about bodhicitta.

It's basically what it is,

Is recognizing how deeply interconnected we all are,

That if you come upon somebody who has a great deal of equanimity,

You can feel it when it's inspiring to you.

They may think they're doing their practice just for themselves,

But it actually benefits you.

When we do this practice,

Some of this is intentionally sent out to a spiritual friend,

But as you cultivate your own awareness,

People around you will benefit from it.

Your family will thank you for it.

My wife likes me better when I come back from a retreat,

And I like her better when she comes back from her yoga class.

At the end of the evening,

We just acknowledge that and then intentionally take whatever it is that we feel we have gained and send that out to all beings everywhere.

Yes,

I forgot I was wired,

So I didn't give Adam a little bit of excitement there.

Let's just come into silence for a few moments here.

I'm grateful for all of you for coming.

Many years ago,

When I began to practice,

I wanted a group of people to practice with,

And if I just invited a group of people together,

Nobody would come.

But if I said I would teach,

Nobody came.

So I teach so I have a group of people to sit with.

So you don't know it,

But you are all here so you can support me in my practice.

I'm very grateful for all your good intentions and your good heart and the effort to come here.

I feel a great deal of gratitude for the opportunity to be here in the center of all this in a certain sense.

So I want to send that gratitude out.

So take whatever it is of value that you have found in this practice,

Or just get in yourself here and send it out to the people in this room and out a little further to the other people who are in this retreat center with us.

And then sending it out around the whole planet.

May all beings know their true nature.

May all beings be happy.

May all beings have ease as they move through their day.

May all beings have sweet dreams.

Reviews

Thank you so much for this sharing. I was looking for a talk on the concept of non-striving and I’ve got a lot out of this. I don’t often listen through a 50 minute talk with such focus! Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you 🙏

Excellent descriptions - I didn’t have time for all the q&a though I’ll come back - I just thought, hey I can do this and I’m off to do it. Thank you.

Thank you for sharing!🙏❤️I enjoyed taking in the calmness of your retreat. Thank you for the 6 Rs👍😊

Thank you for the wisdom of the “6 Rs” & for expressing the wisdom in the application of kindness in allowing the tensions to relax.

Thank you for the opportunity to attend a retreat. I am honored to support your practice. 🙏

Thanks. I felt like I was there!🙏😊

I listened to this while mindfully doing the dishes, it felt like I was with that group in their first evening of retreat. It has some good pointers for your meditation practice, even the practical stuff is a reminder for mindfulness in daily life.

Don't miss this! This talk is a wonderful and thorough introduction to a kind of meditation that Doug calls kindness and wisdom practice. It's a priceless opportunity to learn a very simple and effective method of meditation from a knowledgeable and generous teacher. This recording is Doug's talk at the beginning of a 10-day silent meditation retreat, and you can readily hear the kindness and wisdom that Doug brings to all things. Three years ago I took a class from Doug and went on the retreat he held that year. I had meditated off & on for many years but never experienced the kind of awareness that I felt within just a few weeks of this practice. I wish this talk were a little shorter; it would be nice if the parts about the mechanics of the retreat were edited out. But listening patiently to the parts of the talk that feel unnecessary is a good exercise in just being with what is, isn't it. 😊 It's good to listen to while you are doing a quiet activity -- folding laundry, doing dishes, knitting, combing the cat, whatever -- then set your Insight Timer for 30 minutes, send Metta to yourself & your Spiritual Friend, and practice the Six Rs: Recognize, Release, Relax, Resmile, Resend, and Repeat.