Turning Towards Life: Part B

Buddhism is a way of turning toward and relaxing into what life brings. It doesn’t protect us from misfortune. But it does give us resilience. And it doesn’t fix us, because we aren’t broken. It’s a way of discovering what’s already here deep within.

Transcript

Comments?

How'd that go?

How so?

That's a really quite common feeling for a lot of us.

We're out there,

You know,

In a place by ourselves.

Good,

Good.

What else?

I tell her my background.

I've been an engineer all my life.

I woke up in the morning and all the year with the customer,

The problem is with you,

You face every day.

You don't deal with the problem.

The customer will turn and scratch your head.

And from a CEO down to an engineer,

A senior manager,

He was forced.

So it's a lot of stress.

So who can I sit with and do that?

You have to deal with problems all the time.

But right now I'm facing problems with my wife.

I'm satisfied with her all the time,

But I don't know her language.

So I said,

For this reason I come here.

I said forget it,

I don't have to fight with her anymore.

She already said that for me already,

I come here to try to understand,

To learn the stuff.

Before,

Three months ago,

I don't know any stuff about Buddhism.

Although I have Buddhism all the time in my life,

I come from Taiwan.

But it's not really Buddhism,

It's just so-called Cacho.

It's not really prayer.

It's not really doing something,

Philosophy stuff.

Because I read all of Buddhism,

Philosophy,

I started learning right now.

So that is a very good point.

But when I compare Buddhism and with the Christian stuff,

Buddha lives in pastimes.

I compare.

Either the waves come in,

Don't resist,

Open up,

And try to embrace,

Try to please.

It's a common sense of Buddhism,

But it's a little bit because we have a hyperactive culture.

So by comparison it's passive.

But at its core it really isn't.

It's more of a sense of you need to open up and see what's there so that you can respond in a wise way.

And for a culture that sometimes wants to shoot first and ask questions later,

It does seem,

What are you waiting for?

Well,

We're waiting to understand more deeply what's going on.

It's like when your customers come in with a problem.

They could come in with that and say,

Well,

This will fix it.

Well,

No,

As you're saying,

You need to stop and listen and feel at what it is.

So Buddhism can be quite active in that way.

And sometimes it actually calls on us to,

But the action is not glorified over actually receiving and understanding first.

And there are lots of different flavors of Buddhism and people who come in from all kinds of different ways.

So if you have some confusion about it,

You come by it honestly.

If you weren't a little bit confused then you would have been deluded.

Yes,

Yes,

Yes.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah,

Good.

So what else?

A couple of years ago,

It was very hot in the west.

I just came out of a very cold office and went into my car,

Which was 99 degrees in the city.

I didn't open the windows.

I guess I just turned the air conditioning.

By the time I got home,

I was really sick.

I realized probably had some kind of my understanding is you really need to stay in even temperature for a while or get into stroke.

But I was waiting for Barry to go and meditate for a month and get on the plane.

That was fine until I got off the plane and it was horribly humid in Boston.

I mean,

Horrible.

And when I got to the meditation center,

My room of course did not have air conditioning,

Not like here,

But the meditation hall did.

So going back and forth between the hot and the cold was,

And obviously I must have gotten scared because two in the morning,

It always happens at two in the morning when there's no teachers.

And I woke up and I was in terror.

And I tried to do yoga.

I couldn't move it.

And finally I just got back in the bed.

And so I just had to go on like that.

Well,

I don't have a car,

You know,

And you can't use your phone here so I can't call my husband.

And they didn't have the emergency phone.

And I just sat there and said,

And I just laid back.

And I felt fine.

I guess it really the whole story was then I went to one of the teachers,

And she looked at me,

And they don't usually say this,

But you're very courageous.

And I had no idea what to do.

I now have been studying how we prepare to die,

And we all run away from death.

I mean,

We don't face it.

So this whole culture is not facing death.

So it catches us from behind.

Yeah,

Sure it does.

So I just completed my book on how to prepare to die because for me it was something I didn't.

And I didn't say,

You didn't die?

It was a very important experience.

I actually had to face something.

Thank you.

What's the name of the title of the book?

The book is called How to Prepare to Die on the Way from a Mass.

I'm a good writer.

I love that shirt.

It's my book,

And it's at the editors right now,

So pray for a publisher.

So you breathe the next life,

When you do that,

You breathe the next life.

You believe in an afterword.

I believe there's a comment this year.

I'm pretty good at it.

Another comment?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

So we'll leave it at that then.

I wanted to see if I can fold this back into some core Buddhist teachings.

Relaxing into is not very easy.

The Buddha didn't recommend it because it's a snap,

But he did recommend it because it is so,

If you can do it,

It is so effective.

It brings the calm,

The peace,

The openness,

A lot of heart,

A lot of clarity,

Eventually wisdom.

So he actually offered many,

Many different kinds of teachings and different techniques in ways about going at this,

And I want to talk about just two of them,

And then maybe we'll end with a short sort of guided contemplation that pulls all the stuff together.

We'll see what happens.

So the Buddha's,

Actually his first successful teaching,

Wasn't his first teaching,

But his first successful teaching,

It's a long story.

His first successful teaching was with some of his old meditation buddies in this forest,

Sort of wildlife refuge in Sarnath,

Which is a small city,

13,

14 kilometers from Varanasi,

India.

And in this teaching,

He first outlined what we know now as the Four Noble Truths,

And that's even back to his terms,

The Four Ennobling Truths.

It gets closer to the spirit of them.

And I know many of you are familiar with these four,

So I just want to talk a little bit about the first three and how they relate to this.

But first of all,

So what's the first Ennobling Truth?

Suffering.

Suffering,

Right.

So we've already talked about that suffering happens.

And the second truth?

Pardon?

Suffering has a cause.

Suffering has a cause,

And he names it.

Tanha.

Yeah,

So this instinctual tightening that we're talking about.

It's a pre,

It's important to notice that it's a pre-verbal,

Pre-conceptual body instinctual tightening.

And Tanha,

As some people said,

Is translated as craving in lots of other ways,

But it's just this pre-verbal tightening.

And the third truth?

There is an escape.

Yeah.

And do you know the name that he puts on that?

Cessation?

Yeah,

Narota.

Narota Cessation.

Okay.

So all that means is that when we relax this instinctual tightness,

There's a sense of relief.

So you can do it right now and just test it out.

So tighten your body up.

Now relax it.

What feels better?

That's all he was saying.

And it takes it to a very deep level,

But these are really simple.

And I don't think,

I know,

I'll just say a no,

I don't think,

But I know that the Buddha didn't intend these to be statements of faith.

Some people don't have a lot of exposure to the sea,

The four noble truths,

As sort of the Buddhist Nicene Creed,

You know,

Or something like that.

When I first was learning about these from Buddhist teachers,

They said,

No,

These were truths that you were supposed to try out in your own experience to see if you could validate them.

But I don't think the Buddha,

I don't think that's what he really meant by them.

I mean,

I think that's all true.

But instead I think that these were actually part of a training program.

They were actually part of a practice.

And so I think in some ways,

Rather than call them truths,

They were like observations.

So the observations themselves are not noble.

I'm sorry,

There's nothing noble about suffering.

Root canals and broken bones.

Every time in the Dharma when they talked about noble,

That meant it was past the truth.

Yeah,

No,

It's an idiomatic expression and the noble actually refers to the mind of the person who is perceiving it.

So what he's saying,

And this is where Stephen Batchelor's ennobling comes in,

That if you can engage this observation,

This truth in a wise way,

That it will ennoble your mind.

Noble is a tricky word in our culture.

But in the Buddhist culture,

Noble was an all-out good thing.

They didn't necessarily have the beat-em-up ideas we have towards authority,

At least not publicly.

Can I just add something to that?

And my perspective on that is in the time of the Buddha,

The noble people of that day,

In other words,

The nobility,

The kings and princes,

Were expected to serve the community in all kinds of ways,

Religious ways,

They had to protect them,

They had to make sure that their crops got harvested,

The roads were open,

And they were protected.

So the duties of the nobleman exceeded everybody else's duties.

So it was the hot to act out at the highest standard.

And that's how it looked.

So this gets carried over because the Buddha took all these and put a slight twist on it.

And so he was talking about anyone can ennoble their mind-heart with this practice.

So what he did was he assigned a verb,

He assigned a practice to each one of these.

Are you familiar with these?

Yeah.

So for those who don't know them,

Samyutta Nikaya 5611 is one that has a description.

Usually you just hear the four truths,

But there are actually these practices that go with each one.

So what's the verb that goes with dukkha,

With suffering?

Understand.

Right.

So he said that suffering is to be understood.

And it's important to get that he wasn't talking about intellectual understanding.

If you think about what it's like to have somebody who understands you,

It's not to have an intellectual understanding,

But they kind of know how you tick.

They know what gets you up,

What drags you down,

What your longing is for,

What your strengths and weaknesses are.

So he was saying that suffering needs to be understood in this way.

And so in order to do that,

You really have to turn towards it and open up to it.

You're not going to understand what suffering is by running away or by controlling it by fight or flight or giving up and defeat or something.

It's a matter of opening up and relaxing into so you can understand it.

Okay.

The second truth,

Kānha,

The source of all our suffering is this instinctual tightening.

And what's the practice that goes with that one?

It's a very dramatic term.

You know,

When I look at these suttas,

I like to get five or six different translations from scholars and compare them all and say slightly different words,

But they all translate this one with the same word.

It's abandon.

It's abandon.

And I suspect that in Pali abandon doesn't carry the connotation of leaving a baby on the doorstep of the church.

But it is a very dramatic term.

So there is this instinctual tightening and he said,

Well,

How do you get ennobled when you experience this tightening?

Well,

You abandon it.

You walk away from it.

You leave it.

You relax completely.

It's not even subtle about it.

It's really a very large one.

And then cessation?

Yeah,

You know too much of this.

We're in a study group together.

So the word is realize.

So the difficulty with the relief,

With the cessation of suffering,

Is that it comes from releasing the tension so there is no tension to draw your attention to the lack of tension.

And so there is a tendency when we get that relief,

The mind can just actually pass over it very easily.

So what he is saying is no,

When this relief comes you really need to realize it or some people say to really make it real,

To savor it,

To feel it,

To embody it,

To really get what's happened.

It's not enough just to experience it fleetingly but you really have to,

It's almost like savor it.

So the subjective experience of this is like relaxing into a wave,

Not relaxing away from it but relaxing into it.

You see the suffering,

You turn towards it,

Open up so you can understand it,

Abandon any tightness or tension that's in there,

Feel the relief,

The uplift that comes from that and really know it,

Really know that it's there.

So your kids diving into the wave turns out to be a very interesting resonance.

Yes,

Yeah.

It sounds a little bit like the six Rs,

Doesn't it?

So that's where they come from.

People ask where they wake,

You won't find the six Rs in the text but you can see as you try to implement this stuff,

That's right where it goes.

So the fourth observation,

The forced ennobling truth was the eightfold path and we could go through all that and see how it resonates but I don't want to take that much time tonight because I want to look at just one of his other teachings on this which is that the Buddha was very explicit,

Quite explicit and detailed that when the wave is bearing down on us,

What is it that we pay attention to and what is it that we ignore?

The suffering has come towards you,

What do you pay attention to and what do you ignore?

So for example,

You have a big wave of meditation,

Maybe it's a big thought wave or a storm of restlessness or you're worried about some problem or something,

What is it that you attend to and what is it that you ignore and all of that.

And what the Buddha said was don't pay attention to the storylines,

To the concepts,

To the beliefs,

To worry about who did what to whom,

All those ideas,

All that stuff.

But notice how the thoughts feel,

What's their mood,

What's their texture,

What's the attitude in the mind heart as it receives these,

What's the tone of it?

Now I'm guessing that some of you may think that doesn't sound like any Buddhist text,

But think about it,

The Buddha goes into very explicit and highly refined detail in all this and independent origination.

It's laid out there in an incredible amount of detail.

We'll spend another night,

I'm talking about dependent origination,

But just to give you just a nutshell version of it,

To see how it relates to this turning towards and relaxing into and then eventually just ignoring the storylines and paying attention to the tone.

So you can think of dependent origination as a series of dominoes and they're all lined up and you push one and it hits the next and the next and it goes down the line.

Only in dependent origination,

Each domino is bigger than the one that hits it and knocks it over.

So the first domino down there is very subtle,

It's very difficult to see,

It actually takes very very deep meditation to see those directly.

And the domino at the end is the whole catastrophe,

Grief,

Lamentation,

Sorrow,

Despair,

The whole works.

So you get that picture,

So the domino where storylines,

Concepts,

Ideas and beliefs and all that comes in is very near the end,

It's way down there.

So it's a great big domino,

It's got a lot of momentum,

It's like a locomotive that's running down a 30 degree grade at 100 miles an hour.

Good luck in stopping that,

As we all know because we've all tried to stop thought storms and it's just really pretty futile to try to take it head on,

There's just too much momentum in it.

Right here in the middle of this whole sequence is a much much smaller domino that's called,

Guess what?

Craving.

Tanha,

Okay,

So Tanha craving precedes thought by quite a bit and it's much subtler,

It doesn't have as much energy,

So the bad news is it doesn't have as much energy so it's more difficult to see.

The good news is it doesn't have as much energy,

So if you can see it,

It's relatively easy compared to the other ones to actually soften the tension so it doesn't fall over and hit the next one and set off this whole string of thoughts and the whole catastrophe at the end.

That make sense?

Yeah,

It can be and it can also be bhanda,

Wholesome desire.

Yeah,

So it's usually classified as that but I would say it's how you use it.

As I was talking about last night,

If you grasp for well-being then it's not helpful.

If you say,

Ah,

I would like to feel better in what is it,

Independent origination,

What is it that creates the causes and conditions that that's likely to arise and then your actually effort is to create those conditions without an attachment to the results.

So if it works,

It's fine,

If it doesn't work,

Then you've learned something,

You try something else.

In monotheistic traditions,

It's very easy to describe this,

They just say you do your best and you dedicate the fruits of your labor to God.

In other words,

What happens is none of your business,

You just do the best you can with it.

It's a little harder to get that image into Buddhism that is really atheistic,

It's not untheistic but it's really neutral on God.

But it's that sense,

If you do what you can and then whatever arises from that is interesting.

Well the raw sensations come in a little before a tanha,

So there's the raw sensations and then they give rise to the pleasant,

Unpleasant or neutral.

And then the tanha is either,

You know,

Wants to grab what feels good,

Push away what feels bad and space out.

Yeah,

The Buddha said over and over that the best place we have a chance to break this whole chain of events is the tanha domino.

Well it's where the problem,

Like with raw sensation,

It's like its roots and it gets started is so subtle.

I mean it is possible in very deep meditation for some of that to go away but boy it's not that easy.

And even pleasant,

Unpleasant,

You know,

A tack goes in your finger and you try to stop it from feeling unpleasant.

Good luck.

Yeah,

Yeah.

But,

It's already happened,

It's there so you're trying to change the past and so what happens,

And also the instinct to get rid of it,

You know,

Comes up pretty automatically.

It's just there.

But it hangs around a little bit and even if it's already there you can relax it.

Pardon?

Right.

That's right.

Well,

And what happens as this practice goes deeper,

As the six R's get wired in,

I used to do a thing,

I would just sort of gently invite my mind,

Is it a six R something before I perceive it?

Because what we know is,

You know,

It takes about half a second between the time the sensation comes in and by the time we don't actually become conscious of it until it's been processed by the frontal lobes a little bit with so many connections it takes about half a second.

And so I was inviting the mind to just,

You know,

To release and relax it before I was aware that it was there.

And when the mind gets quiet enough you begin to see all these things just fading away.

And so you can get that wired in as a deeply ingrained habit.

And I think that's what this practice is about,

Is actually it's ultimately it has to do with some rewiring to just get it so it's deeply embedded and it just becomes automated.

Yeah.

Yes,

That famous white matter.

So just to sort of summarize,

I mean the obvious implications of this is that in meditation to try to stop your thoughts is really,

It's a pretty futile enterprise.

So you don't want to get involved in the thoughts or storylines at all,

But to just shift your awareness.

So you let the locomotive go,

You let these restless children go out and run around the field,

Do whatever they want.

You don't fight that.

You just turn and look at the mood and soften and relax that.

So do you want to do a little guided meditation with this?

Okay.

So to start,

Just,

Yes.

Well my experience is over the,

So what's,

It does reduce the power of it,

It can unless you want it to and then it will just hang around as long as you want it.

It doesn't really reduce it until you don't care whether it's there or not,

But it can help you get into a more neutral place to it.

So it definitely,

It will soften it,

But the caveat is that if you do the six hours because you want to get rid of it,

It doesn't work.

You really have to get out of the way of it.

So ultimately it has more to do with identification.

With what?

With identification.

You know,

That it's,

Because where the practice goes to and the six hours just actually kind of set up a platform and an opening that allows this of taking a really dispassionate view of whatever comes up.

Can we go back to the way back machine?

To the what machine?

To the way back machine.

Way back machine.

Professor,

If you evaluate the way back machine,

You'll rewrite history.

I was watching Captain Kangaroo,

I guess.

Anyway,

So you first started talking about the essence of Buddhism,

So is your point there to relax into tension?

Yeah,

It's to turn towards the difficulty rather than turn away from it and actually relax into it.

Right away.

Well,

As soon as you notice it.

Before it poncha and it upticks and becomes the runaway.

So to recognize the tack and relax into it instead of who?

Yeah,

Well,

You might want to pull the tack out.

I mean,

That's okay.

There's nothing wrong with doing whatever is sensible,

But you do whatever you can and it still hurts.

And that's where you can actually feel the sensation as a sensation,

The unpleasantness as unpleasantness,

And the urge to push it away as an urge to push away.

And that urge to push away is one that has the tension in which you can soften.

And as that,

Did I give my favorite example here of a loose tooth?

So I remember as a kid we had a loose tooth and it creates this kind of sharp sensation in there.

And so what do you do?

You wiggle it.

You wiggle it.

And it really wasn't suffering.

Because it meant I was a big boy,

The tooth fairy was going to leave me a quarter.

There was all these wonderful things.

Well,

If you were frightened and really did not want to have that sensation,

It would be hell.

But there was that openness and actually relaxing into and actually some curiosity.

I see a lot of that.

A lot of curiosity.

Even exploring what the sensation is,

Even if it was unpleasant.

And so it's actually beginning to adopt that attitude,

To just explore it and to see what's there.

And to understand suffering,

You have to open up and relax into it.

And a little bit of curiosity helps as well.

And then there's a little wisdom that comes into it just so it doesn't all sound like a cartoon.

As you go along with this practice,

You begin to recognize what is it that you can actually turn towards and open up to and relax into.

Fine.

And what is so overwhelming that it just becomes too much.

That it's more than your system can handle.

And then so what you want to do,

If there's something that's coming that's more than you can handle,

Is you do something to stop it externally or if there's something to be done.

Is to sit with pain,

With a contracted mind,

This wisdom in the background,

I hate it,

I hate it,

I hate it,

And say I'm open to an open,

I hate it,

I hate it,

You know.

That doesn't work.

Once there's that,

You know,

So it really requires that open mind.

And if you're identifying with it and fight it,

There's no wisdom to come out of it.

But if you can open up to it just a little bit,

You know,

Then there's a whole lot of wisdom that comes from that.

Okay.

Other questions?

So this will just be a short little thing.

So just think of some difficulty in your life.

Again,

It could be something big or small,

Some concern,

And it can be a very private matter.

I'm not going to ask you to say anything to anybody about it.

And then,

Yeah,

Just close your eyes and relax and send out a little metta.

Now if it hasn't already appeared on its own,

Just bring up that your issue or concern.

And see how it presents itself in the mind and heart.

If there are stories or opinions or ideas that show up along with it,

Just let them be.

Don't fight them.

And let them drift out into the pasture and run around if they want.

Instead just notice the mood of the thoughts,

The attitude of the mind.

Recognize the tone of the feeling.

And release it just by letting it be what it is without pushing away or holding on.

Just let it be what it is.

And then notice any tensions in the mind,

Heart,

Or in the body.

And invite them to soften.

It's not a demand.

It's just an invitation.

Relax.

And if they fade,

Don't push it,

But if they fade,

Just enjoy the little quiet that comes up in their wake.

Just savor it without holding on or pushing away.

Just realize that moment of peace.

And then radiate a little bit of that peace or that kindness to yourself or to your concern,

To your issue.

And if thoughts return to take over the mind's attention,

Just recognize them,

Release them as before,

Ignore the storyline.

Notice the mood in the mind.

Abandon any tension by softening.

Smile.

Return to sending metta.

We're not trying to change or get rid of your issue.

Just releasing it and relaxing the tension it creates.

And then realizing,

Feeling,

Knowing the ease that follows.

Allow little patience to come in.

And it's okay to repeat this process over and over until all the residual tension is released,

At least for now.

Comments?

Yes,

Definitely release a little tension.

Yes,

That happens to me a lot.

I think I'm perfectly relaxed and I come in on a relaxed step and suddenly my shoulders drop an inch.

Okay,

It feels different actually trying to keep us all synchronized in the process,

So used to this individually.

Any other comments?

Is that enough for tonight?

I'll just read you a little journal entry.

It's about this whole process and I want to share this with you because it showed me how this works even when my intentions were all pretty messed up.

Sitting in an airplane on the tarmac,

The PA system sputters to life.

We want to give you an update on our progress.

A silent groan went through the passengers.

The word update meant the problem wasn't fixed.

A cheery voice said they had identified a difficulty in a communication board for which technicians were seeking a solution.

We took off an hour late.

My itinerary gave me 57 minutes in Dallas to make a connecting flight.

I was going to the East Coast.

I planned to get a Tex-Mex lunch in the airport,

Stretched my legs before the next segment of the journey.

Instead,

I raced from Terminal C to Terminal E.

The airline had already given away my window seat.

The agent found one on the aisle.

I scooted on as the ramp closed.

I liked to look out airplane windows.

The woman by the window closed the shade to watch a movie.

The woman next to me drank three small bottles of liqueur of some kind,

Put on earphones and laughed as she watched the movie.

I was not interested in the movie.

I did not feel like laughing.

I was hungry.

I read a little.

I slept a little.

I worked on my computer a little.

I stared at a Sudoku puzzle a little.

Nothing was satisfying.

Turbulence kept the fasten your seat belt sign lit.

I could not even walk the aisles.

There was nothing left for me to do but meditate.

I did not want to meditate because I had so much aversion about all the things that had not gone the way I wanted.

But when I closed my eyes,

I was too warm to fight the aversion.

I did not try.

I just felt these chunky thoughts,

Cranky thoughts,

And relaxed because I was too tired to fight them.

The aversion turned out not to be a pack of grubby monsters that I had feared.

It was like a four-year-old complaining that Dad had cut the crust off the sandwich.

It was sad but kind of sweet and endearing.

I remembered that crucial meditation lesson,

Resistance is futile.

Fighting reality,

Wanting things to be different than what they are,

Is what Gene Houston calls schlock suffering.

Life has its unavoidable discomforts,

But they do not turn into anguish unless we have the hubris to think it should be different just because we want it to be different.

Depression is like an ocean wave rolling towards us.

We try to run from it,

But it is likely to catch us from behind,

Sweep us away,

Or knock us flat.

The Buddha recommended turning towards discomfort and getting to know it,

Even if it means diving into the wave.

Then we experience its true nature,

Water,

Which has passed by in a rush.

Not so bad.

And after it,

There is that lovely quiet in the wake.

Sitting on the plane,

I learned this for the thousandth time.

Old habits of turning away are deeply conditioned,

So I have to learn over and over until relaxing the wave becomes a deep habit.

It is almost midnight when my sister picked me up at the airport.

I was worn,

Tired,

Hungry,

And unexpectedly light in spirit.

May we all know that resistance is futile.

May all beings know that resistance is futile.

Responding is fine.

Resisting.

May we all know a natural ease that comes from turning towards.

May all beings know their true nature.

May all beings trust the wisdom and the flow and the ease that is already there behind it all.

May all beings be free.

May it be so.

Namaste.

Reviews

A rich unpacking of the wave mechanics from Part A. So much came from the discourse, stories, & your final reflection, thank you! May we all become ennobled with each wave 🙏🏻