Emotions And Thinking | "Mindful Q&A With Wendy” #20

In this twentieth installment of the ongoing live series with Wendy Nash inquiring into meditation practice on and off the cushion, we explore the highly significant topics of emotions and thinking (again) such as how to train and work with them inside and outside of (formal) meditation including various views, responses, and relationships to/about thinking and emotions.

Amongst other things, we also talk about Wendy's recent retreat experience with an emphasis on context and teachers. We also touch on topics (not in this order) like the body, change, eye gazing, fear, gender, language, context, impermanence, lockdowns, rain retreats, relationships, society, etc.

Transcript

Hey,

What's up?

Yeah,

Well,

Here I am on Gabi Gabi Country in Queensland in Australia and in this 20th installment of the ongoing live series with Wendy Nash,

That's me,

And Josh Dipple,

That's him,

Or his.

Inquiring into the meditation practice on and off the cushion,

We plan to explore the highly significant topics of emotion and thinking again,

Such as how to train and work with them inside and outside a form of meditation,

Including various views,

Responses,

And relationships.

Now,

It was very interesting.

So just I was on retreat that I think the day I was the day after we last spoke.

So last time,

I was just about to go on retreat.

That's right.

And it was very interesting,

Because I thought,

I just really saw both teachers as humans.

I'm,

I'm kind of the same as them,

They were no longer on a pedestal.

And it was very interesting,

Because I got to see sort of the natural energies that come with people.

So that was very interesting.

That trigger all these emotions,

All the reactions,

All the thoughts,

I could see the energy swirling around.

So that was very interesting.

And then you know,

I came back and,

You know,

The usual stuff,

My partner,

He he just got finally a job.

And they asked him to come in for an interview today.

So that's really nice.

So that's,

That's my stuff.

How's it for you?

You're in Copenhagen or in Denmark at the moment?

That's right,

Things are okay here.

And it'll be end of next week,

We'll head back to the United States for three months.

And I'll be there two months or two weeks.

And then my fiancee joins me for two months,

She goes back,

And then I stay an extra two weeks,

And I'll come back here.

That's the plan,

Anyway.

As far as your point to retreat,

Teachers on retreat,

I think this is a really key time in practice,

Where this,

We get even disillusioned sometimes with the teacher,

The teachers,

You know,

I talk about this with my fiancee,

Too.

And some of my teachers I have,

There's this fallacy or potential danger of putting them on pedestals,

You know,

And they are just human beings,

Most of them like anybody else.

Now,

However,

I feel that that needs to be balanced with a degree of kind of honor and respect,

You know,

For where they're at.

But when we see that,

You know,

Unless someone has reached full awakening,

They're subject to the same kind of things we are,

You know,

So to speak.

And again,

And I find this helpful to balance with not letting this go into doubt,

Because if we see someone and we think,

Okay,

Well,

I see this,

This,

And this about them,

You know,

They're not addressing this,

And I start psychoanalyzing them,

Then it could lead to potential doubt about the teachings,

About things like this.

So this is where for me personally,

I like to look at the dharma instead of the vehicle from which it comes through so much,

Which is like the teacher.

And this is,

You can put it like the man or the mission,

And I'm more about the mission than the man.

And that's not to say,

You know,

Again,

Balancing this,

Find these different dimensions of balance of if someone,

I'm not saying Wendy's teacher is or anything,

But if someone is unethical,

You know,

We hear about this time and time again,

In certain dharma circles,

This is to find the courage to go,

How do we deal with this?

What's the best way to deal with this,

You know?

And when is the best time to deal with this and how?

And I mean,

That's kind of a touchy thing.

I mean,

Possibly we could go into something like that.

But I mean,

I've got some ideas.

And so tying it back to today's theme,

Thoughts and emotions,

You know,

The very first one Wendy and I did was about thoughts,

Emotions,

And trauma.

Trauma is a huge one,

Probably not get so much into that again today.

But,

You know,

These emotions,

I think,

Yeah,

I think that's enough to,

Wendy,

How do you feel about this in relation to kind of dharma teachers?

Is there anything else to say about that?

Yeah,

It was actually good.

That's actually a really,

Really interesting question,

Because it is,

There is a difference between the dharma and the dharma practitioner.

So there is,

There is a really,

Really big difference between the two.

And some people are unethical,

Neither of these teachers were unethical.

But I did find one of them very aggressive.

And quite sort of,

She'd been practicing since the 1970s.

And she just said,

You know,

We are the most oppressed people we,

You know,

Most,

And I just went,

I don't know where you live.

But we live,

I live in a place where I have so much freedom,

I have almost too much freedom at some level to,

Yes,

I find myself,

But I'm also a little bit abandoned in that space too.

So I don't,

I don't know,

It would just sort of really struck me.

She was a bit hellfire and brimstone.

So I don't know what her practice was during the week.

And,

You know,

The teachers,

Because there's two of them,

They would have been talking during the week in a way that us students wouldn't have been.

So I don't know what was arising for her in her conversations,

In during interviews,

All those sorts of things.

But I definitely thought that and then it was six days of silence and I got to four days and I think I just felt really lonely and shut out.

And there was,

There was a particular exercise we were asked to do where we were to stand in front of the other person and sort of send them love.

And I,

I had a guy,

Not love,

But you know,

Sort of soft gaze.

And,

And I had a guy with me and I just became hugely aware of the gender stuff.

And then we had to do it three people.

So the next person I had was a guy.

And again,

This gender stuff,

Very acutely aware of being a woman.

And then I finally had a woman and,

And that was,

That was fine.

But it was so weird to have these experiences.

And then I,

I wanted to ask a question,

But we ran out of time and,

And it just,

And I,

I felt disconnected because I felt it was quite disorientating to have all these things triggered in that space and not to be able to talk about it.

And it made me realise that the silent meditation retreats,

Am I allowed to talk about sort of the experience of the retreat and the context?

Okay.

Please do so,

Yes.

Okay.

So what I realised is that,

You know,

The way that those retreats are set up,

The rains retreat,

I mean,

Presumably it's a short rains retreat,

Essentially.

In those,

In those environments,

Normally they are monastic environments.

There's a community and normally they have an opportunity to go out and do things and people come and go,

But it's a very fairly stable community.

You might have a monk at the,

At the,

Or a nun senior,

Who's the sort of abbot,

Abbess,

And then everybody else is there and learning and studying.

And then it's the rains retreat because it's the monsoon season.

So everyone's just basically got to deal with their own cabin fever.

So,

But you know each other the rest of the time,

You have to repair and work on things together to keep the monastery going during that time.

You might be,

You might have an ongoing relationship with that person for 10 years,

And yet here we are in this environment,

We've got a mini rains retreat with a whole lot of strangers coming together.

And then I felt,

I found out on the last day as we're having breakfast,

That probably three quarters of the people in the room had relationships with each other that were quite long-standing,

You know,

People going to each other's weddings and how so-and-so and all this sort of stuff.

So it felt like there was this in-group and this out-group as well.

And that,

That energy was I'm sure in the space.

So I thought,

I thought it was very interesting that we are an individualistic society and so we think we don't register the role of context and relationship with what we're doing and what is different.

We'll just set up a rains retreat and people will come from everywhere and we'll just do it.

But it's completely different in an Asian community where people live there and then they've just got to deal with cabin fever for three months and hey,

Let's use that as an opportunity to work through our staff.

So,

So that,

That was really clear and I,

I found myself being quite lonely and I realized it's not,

Not where I want to go actually,

In terms of my own practice.

I,

I would like something which is more relational,

You know,

More,

I,

I just want to,

You know,

Hang out with people.

So I'm going back to insight dialogue,

Which is what I did for a long time and yeah,

So that's,

That's where I am and that was the result of and,

And was very interesting because I,

I looked around at the group and they were,

Now how would I,

How would I say that,

That sort of demographic?

So I would imagine Boulder has a sort of a progressive,

Left,

Greeny,

Kind of cafe,

Latte,

White,

Middle class,

Sort of wealthy-ish,

Upper middle classes,

You know,

It's got a particular vibe that is quite different to the rest of the environment.

Is that,

Does that,

So,

So if you take that kind of,

That kind of personality,

Byron Bay is a,

Is a particular,

Everyone was from the Byron Shire,

Which is,

Yeah,

Has that sort of wealthy,

Vibey,

Surfy kind of influencer sort of vibe to it.

And I looked at it and these people were lovely people and I looked around at the room and I thought,

These aren't my people,

These just aren't my people,

They don't swear nearly enough for me and there,

There just is this sort of correct way of being,

Which I find quite oppressive,

Which isn't really owned and I,

And I just decided that this,

This thing,

Which I have been a part of for 20 years,

I just went,

This is not me,

I've tried to kind of fit into that space,

It's not me and as soon as I did that,

It was really interesting,

Meditation opened up here,

All sorts of things changed here,

I,

It was,

It was very interesting,

So I don't know how that relates to our conversation but I think,

I guess what I want to say is,

Everything sits within a context and just because in Burma,

Myanmar and Thailand and Laos and Cambodia,

People,

You know,

You have these communities where you do rains retreat,

You cannot pluck that model and plonk it here and have the same outcome because the context is so completely different,

So that's the end of my conversation.

And I want to pick up on these points because I've only done one rains retreat,

It was at a Thai forest monastery and I have to echo everything Wendy says and again,

My fiance talks,

Or stresses again and again,

What you just said,

That it's,

It,

The way everything's kind of set up is not for like a western world as much,

You know,

Some things work,

Some things don't,

You know,

Living,

So at the end of the rains retreat is a more intensive period of meditation and it seemed to work okay but you,

We do have,

You know,

People say not to bring up like cultural differences or whatever but there just are,

You know,

There's,

There's the Thai community there is significantly different in many aspects,

Not good or bad,

You know,

Language,

Behavior,

Social interactions and things than the westerners there.

And I think it actually is quite harmonious and works fairly good in that,

In those,

In that setting but,

You know,

Then we've got the gender thing and we've done multiple shows on that and that is really,

It is a thing,

You know,

There's so many different aspects,

Especially now,

I mean,

I'm an old,

Old-fashioned,

You know,

Traditional gender type thing,

There's still,

And this is where I think it works okay where a lot of interactions within,

You know,

The monastery,

The females are separated from the males and it works a lot of times very well but other times it doesn't,

So there's pros and cons to that approach too.

And then at the end of the rains retreat,

They kind of open up the monastery and what Wendy said about the tight-knit community there,

It is designed for monastics,

Right?

So,

But then it opens up and then people can come in whenever and do more intensive practice.

I liked it,

It worked okay for me,

However,

I switched monasteries,

I don't know if I,

In the middle of the rains retreat and I would recommend not doing that,

It actually,

The place I was in England,

It kind of flooded during that time,

Which was kind of crazy,

That the whole point of these rains retreat was because it was raining a lot and someone,

I think,

Criticized the Buddha that the monks were trampling fields and destroying crops because they were traveling around too much,

So he conceded and it was interesting how I couldn't even get to the bus to get to the next monastery because it was flooded on the road,

So I had to go off the road and I got torn up by briars and I was muddy,

I was lucky to even make it there and I come stumbling into this garden center,

You know,

Disheveled and clothes torn up a little bit and muddy and it was an interesting time.

So,

I mean,

This is so,

All these different dynamics are so far removed from what a lot of Westerners' day-to-day practice is.

What other dynamic was I missing here?

Okay,

So we got socioeconomic class too,

This is a fairly big thing because you have a lot of different emotions and behaviors between socioeconomic classes and,

You know,

Where I really see this shine though are where all these kind of boundaries dissolve if people have a sincere genuine interest in practice in the Dhamma and they can overlook these other things to find common ground.

But like Wendy says,

You know,

Getting in the right kind of communities to begin with where you don't even have to make extra effort,

Where it's just like,

It's like a kind of a homecoming,

You know,

Oh,

This is what I want,

These are my people,

It does make it quite a bit easier.

And the other thing I'll pick up with is the benefits and the challenges and the drawbacks of silent meditation,

You know,

Like when you say there's just certain things that we cannot convey to each other without language,

But vice versa too.

There's a lot of things we miss out on because the language overpowers a more subtle interaction as well.

So again,

Pros and cons.

I think one of the ways that works best with retreat is give enough time at the end to allow reintegration and speaking and these times to interrelate and talk to people and let them know if there's what we're thinking,

What we're feeling about ourselves and others,

And give time to go and seek out and share some of these experiences.

We live very intimately amongst people and not talk.

It's not a way of being that we're really used to.

So a lot of things can come up internally that might be so disconnected from the other person,

Or they might be so in tune,

You know,

Or someone comes to us with something.

We have no idea what they're,

You know,

Where that came from.

I'm like,

Oh,

I'm so glad you were able to tell me that because,

You know,

Now I see that.

I didn't see that while I was,

You know,

During the silent time.

So all these interesting dynamics of silent retreat,

It's,

And I will throw in here,

I got a chance to go to Insight Copenhagen for a day of silent practice a couple of Saturdays ago or something.

And I was,

It was great because I hadn't done a group practice here in Denmark.

And so it was really lovely,

Even though the language barrier for me,

It was okay.

They still accommodated me a little bit.

They gave a little English and they're so inclusive here in Denmark.

It's pretty wild how inclusive everybody is here.

And yeah,

So that's enough for me on all that.

Yeah,

Actually,

I'm really curious,

Can I ask you?

Sure.

Did you notice,

With Insight Copenhagen,

Did you notice differences in the way that it was carried out or a different vibe or,

Because everyone's different.

And Danish culture is so different to American culture.

So much more reserved,

I would imagine,

And maybe more straightforward.

And I just wondered,

Yeah,

How,

How did you,

What did you think?

Well,

The first thing is the huge language barrier for me.

And I don't really look at it as like a language barrier.

It's just that I can't connect the way I usually do with language.

I have to sit there and just feel and either pretend or just keep meditating.

And so at the end,

There was a version of Insight Dialogue where they allowed me to speak in English because I don't have the Danish skills.

And they did read some poems in both Danish and English.

So there was a couple of things of there,

But it is a real interesting,

I don't know if anyone else has immersed themself.

And a lot of people,

I think they can understand language,

Even if they can't speak it.

For me,

I don't know,

Maybe there's a mental block there and it's quite challenging for me,

But I,

The energy,

I am energetically sensitive somewhat.

So I can feel kind of what's going on in the room.

And there wasn't a lot of people there.

And we did get to meditate in nature,

Walking in nature,

This beautiful park in Fredericksburg and the walking meditation periods were there.

And I didn't feel as bad because I'm familiar with the Insight type,

Insight community and just kind of how the practices go.

So it wasn't like I was just thrown into something that I didn't understand to begin with.

It was just mainly the language,

But the culture is kind of more straightforward.

I like the unique humor.

Once I hear it translated,

This put one way that in America,

If you're not happy,

Then something's wrong with you,

But for extended periods.

But it's almost the reverse here.

If you're too overly happy here,

Something's wrong with you.

You're not supposed to express it like bubbly and stuff.

It's reserved.

So if you're happy and kind of like imagine someone from California,

Right?

Oh man,

It's all good.

Love all the time.

Yeah,

Exactly.

You would be kind of looking at like,

Are you doing something wrong with you?

Well,

In California it would be,

Oh man,

Why are you being such a bummer?

Party pooper.

Well,

It was funny because a friend of mine,

He's died now,

But when he moved to Australia,

He's from the U.

S.

He was in New York and he moved to Sydney and he met this guy and he said,

Oh,

You know,

You look genuine,

But you sound like you're full of shh,

You know?

So like,

And he just,

Because of that hype,

You know,

That Americans,

That we say,

Hi,

Wow,

You're amazing.

So incredible,

Da,

Da,

Da.

And Australia used to be like that.

And now it's much more,

I think it's got that American,

It's been very heavily culturally influenced and there's definitely huge differences between people of my generation.

You know,

I'm in my late 50s and people who are in their 20s and the way they use language,

Very different.

So where are we up to?

Well,

I would just say the cultural thing is I've never been to Australia and I would say there's a huge difference between actually kind of reading and seeing things and actually going to the country and experiencing it for yourself.

But you probably see a lot of things on TV that are accurate with Americans because it's so media driven,

Saturated,

But there are so many different areas and diversities within different areas of the United States too.

But so we titled this Thinking in Emotion.

So let's talk about this,

Like on the cushion and stuff.

I just say right now,

Emotions don't happen a lot for me on the cushions,

At least really strong ones,

Like they did in the beginning of my practice.

I've heard that if a natural emotion comes in,

If it's not fueled,

It will only last like 90 seconds.

So I think in another way,

Framing emotions and looking at emotions in general,

Some where the common kind of stereotype is that men are less emotional than women,

Right?

And that's usually used as a pejorative,

Unfortunately,

I think too.

So I think emotions can act as like an amplification,

A very good communication.

They can be a protection too.

When a strong emotion is coming at me,

I can't really,

A lot of the other things kind of fade away and all my attention gets placed on the emotion to deal with the emotion and the kind of my energy level tends to match the emotion if I don't consciously take the intention of what energy I want to bring.

So these are kind of like,

So that's just a little bit of surface level things on these.

Wendy,

What would you say in general about emotions?

So I was speaking with a client the other day and he's a very chilled guy and he's very protective about keeping himself and he's not a,

You know,

A nice gal and you know,

It's going well but he's using this,

I can feel there's this barrier he's creating,

You know,

But I don't want her to take my time.

I'm going time is is really fluid,

It's much more,

It's like you're going to lose it.

What is that?

And I was sort of telling him about a rom-com and it is a guy who is all California and he's really chilled and relaxed and you know,

But I'm totally with the program and stuff but it's actually a veneer,

He's really dissociating and one of the things that the retreat person said,

The one of the teachers who had actually,

She said,

You know,

I had the MF of a year last year.

It just started with three months of just horrific COVID and then she discovered that she had,

You know,

Breast cancer,

Aggressive breast cancer and then she and her husband decided to separate and so then they had to sell the house,

Pack up the house,

Sell the house and then find a new place and clearly the budget didn't go so far so there was a lot of works.

So she sort of opened up with this and she was talking about death,

Death of obviously of the marriage,

Death and sickness,

You know,

With COVID,

Death of capacities and abilities and she said,

And I think this is true,

That in Buddhism there is a shadow that is not really engaged with which is that there is a sort of a life denying at some level and a sort of a depth and a breadth of being emotions.

Now I don't think that's actually what the Buddha said but there,

You know,

It comes out of a cultural context of India and I mean Indians are very funny often,

They have great sense of humour but most much a lot of what we've got today is from Sri Lanka or Southeast Asia or East Asia,

Tibet and I think there are more conservative societies than perhaps the humour of the Indian which is a bit more lively and funny.

So I thought it was,

It was an interesting thing that how do you,

How do you engage with the Dharma in real life and fully and we're full of blind spots and challenges and we don't want to know everything,

You know,

So we're limited and so I think,

I think it is,

I think it,

I can see that I use the Dharma.

I actually do find meditations quite intense when I'm,

They're quite strong emotions.

I mean it's not as overwhelming I suppose but I still find that there are emotions that are quite physically intense,

More subtle,

More subtle for sure but equally and,

And I do think there is this thing that sort of you're not supposed to because I think the English,

Which is my heritage,

Is quite reserved,

Certainly in the Southeast and the German,

It's got that strong Germanic background in the Southeast and I think there is this,

We can't have conflict.

I was watching,

I was listening to a program and I might even have mentioned it last time,

That in North America and,

And the United Nations idea of was it peacekeeping,

But you know,

What it,

When,

When are you at peace and it was,

The guy said it was,

It's when you are not having conflict but in most cultures around the world,

It's when everybody lives with dignity.

That's very,

Very different.

So I wonder if in our kind of Anglo ancestry of your country and my country,

That we have,

You know,

Just included this kind of dampening down of emotions to avoid conflict and,

And it's not about fullness and dignity,

It's,

It's about keeping it sort of a little bit swelched down.

So there you go.

These are great points.

You started off with this thing we addressed too of time,

You know,

And I,

I see this in relationship with guys that they don't think the,

The partner values their time,

You know,

And I know I really respect my time.

I find it so precious.

However,

You know,

Relationships take time and time is,

We're not going to go into the whole perception of time and all that as well.

And this is a,

I think this is a challenging one for some guys in general,

You know,

It's,

It is for me sometimes.

The yeah,

Emotions.

Okay.

So from what I understand,

The Buddha or in the Pali texts,

There is no word for emotion.

I don't think there is a Pali word that's,

Or anything in the Pali can that's directly translated as emotion.

However,

Vedana is a feeling tone or like hedonic tone.

So it's almost like it's taken as,

Our experience is either pleasant,

Unpleasant,

Or neither.

And Wendy makes some really good points here about how peace is perceived,

You know,

As a lack of conflict.

Unfortunately,

That's kind of how I view it a lot of times.

And I think a lot of that has to do with my upbringing.

Like I come from a kind of a rural conservative background in Perry County,

Missouri,

Where it does have a big German heritage.

And,

You know,

There was a significant amount of emotional challenges in my upbringing.

So when there wasn't that,

I mean,

That is a degree of external peace.

And when there's a lack of inner conflict,

Too,

There's a there's a sense more of a sense of peace.

However,

This notion of dignity,

I find,

Overrides that because where I'm coming from,

From that with the lack of conflict,

A lot of times,

That's not a societal thing.

That's just me.

And if I'm either causing conflict or getting conflict thrown on me,

But if we look at dignity,

I love this because it opens it up.

And not that we should go out of our way to start conflict or,

You know,

Disregard,

You know,

That is unimportant.

Absolutely not.

I find,

You know,

The greater amount of less ill will,

You know,

Is going to go a long way for peace,

Stability and dignity,

Which dignity,

You know,

This is everyone is deserving of dignity,

You know,

In the world.

And I think that is like the ground level for interacting with people in our society.

And,

You know,

We see some people that are really maybe on skid row are really challenging.

And it's like,

Are we sensing that their dignity has been stripped from them?

You know,

Like,

How do we see someone in such a decrepit state?

And then,

You know,

Look at our reactions?

Are we picking up on how other people treat them?

Or is it us,

You know,

Then we go to try to show dignity,

And it doesn't seem authentic,

Maybe,

Or,

You know,

Maybe we're met with overwhelming emotions.

I don't know why I'm choosing this example.

But,

You know,

Some people can just show pity instead of compassion.

You know,

Like,

We talked about that before,

Like,

It makes me feel better than the other person if I can pity them.

And a lot of people just don't have the,

Live protective lives and not around other people who are really in a poor state.

They don't really have a reference point on how to kind of be around that in a way that's helpful either.

And vice versa,

Some people have known adversity their whole life,

If they're taking it and put in a context where there really is no reference point for someone like that,

You know,

How did they be?

So it's these really interesting dynamics.

And I will say in the context of meditation,

Emotion is a great,

It's a great place to explore emotion,

Because like it said,

You can feel the most murderous rage.

But if you're sitting by yourself on a cushion,

You're not gonna really act on it,

You can't act on it.

But you can feel it throughout the body,

You can really explore what this is like.

And what I found with anger,

It was one of the more easier ones to drop,

At least the really coarse,

Hard versions of anger,

Is because it doesn't feel pleasant in the body,

It actually feels so unbearably unpleasant.

And so in meditation,

A lot of times if I see I have a choice,

And I see that choosing anger is not really going to have much of a helpful outcome,

Then I can choose not to.

However,

I'm not talking about suppression,

Because I don't think suppression does it either.

I mean,

I don't advocate someone going out and being angry all the time,

Wherever,

Because I don't want to suppress it,

You know,

That's not what I'm talking about.

That's not a healthy expression either.

We don't want to keep it bottled up.

But that's why meditation is great,

Because we can explore that we're allowed to feel that,

And see how that works in our body,

And express it internally,

And actually feel it as physical sensations.

But there's also the other end here too,

And I'll just throw it back to Winnie,

There can be some really pleasant sensations way above sense pleasures in this world,

You know,

Like pity,

And sukha,

Bliss,

And they call it rapture.

And so we get the full,

What's possible that goes well beyond our conditioned sensual world.

In meditation,

There's some,

The amount of human spectrum increases with formal training on the cushion.

So,

Yeah,

While you were doing that,

And there is a common thing that people say that there is no Pali word for emotions.

And I'm sitting there going,

Well,

I'm not sure that's quite right.

It's maybe not a direct translation,

But that doesn't mean to say those don't exist,

And have and have,

You know,

People need to work with it.

So yeah,

There is Vedana,

Which is,

You know,

Positive,

Negative,

Neutral,

Pleasant,

Unpleasant,

You know,

Kind of a disengagement or whatever it is.

So definitely that that is,

Or bland,

Something.

But that is one.

But I think we,

What they call emotions,

I think we are more likely to call clashes.

So,

Or collation,

I think,

Collations,

Yeah,

The,

The taints,

The outflows,

Is that forget?

Yeah,

Yeah,

Defilements.

There's another.

So that's right.

And you know,

Anger is mentioned,

You know,

Bliss.

So these different flavors are mentioned,

But the word itself,

I don't,

You know,

Emotion,

That's the thing.

But yes,

Of course,

Bliss and happiness,

Anger,

You know,

Grief,

Sorrow,

Lamentation,

Despair,

You know,

The,

The translations for dukkha,

The words for dukkha.

So all these kinds of different states,

It's almost like it's framed in a sense of mind state or a state of being other than an emotion,

Which is really interesting because most people in today's world can relate through all these things through emotion,

Right?

And I wonder,

You know,

I wonder what the emotional state was back,

You know,

How many thousand to,

You know,

2500 years ago more,

You know,

It's just unfathomable how life was even 100 years ago.

So I have not the slightest clue how our emotional landscape could be very similar or very different.

It would just be speculation on my part.

It's an interesting question,

Because I think about,

You know,

People in my parents' generation,

You know,

My mother was born before the war,

My father was born,

You know,

Quite a bit before the war.

And that wasn't a psychological sort of time.

That's just come since the 80s,

Really,

The sort of more psychological understanding of experience and,

And children being allowed to,

You know,

I was sort of raised not very far from,

I certainly remember my grandmother saying to me,

Children should be seen and not heard.

And so definitely this idea that children were to be controlled.

So it was a lot more controlled of the environment.

And you had your social status.

And I mean,

As I said,

My parents are English or British.

My father was in India,

But military background,

Which is,

You know,

The education system in England is actually Prussian.

So this is,

So it's got the Germanic side,

Which is quite dry and,

And sort of emotionally devoid.

Bereft,

Yeah.

Yeah.

So,

So,

Yeah,

So I think that we don't know,

But the human condition is the human condition.

And I don't think there's that much,

I think we're perhaps more able to diagnose things,

But they were very clear.

I'm just looking at here at a contemporary,

I'm on Wikipedia,

And it looks,

You know,

Afflictive emotions.

So that's the chalices,

The mental afflictions,

Destructive emotions,

Defilements.

Yeah,

So I think that there,

It is this idea that these very intense,

Strong states hinder our capacity to live well.

But,

You know,

Actually,

Here's one I learned on retreat.

So you know,

We talk about love,

Compassion,

Joy and peace,

Or equanimity.

Joy is actually,

And I'm going to tell you this word,

It's not,

It's we talk about rejoicing in the other or sympathetic joy,

Whatever.

But it's actually confelicity in English.

Now that's a word we never use.

But it is to derive delight and joy in another person's success.

Vicarious.

I like that word,

Vicarious joy.

I want to put that word back in the English language,

Confelicity.

Confelicity.

Yeah.

And people talk about this word valence with Vedana too.

A certain experience has a valence.

But I wonder if this was a strategy by the Buddha,

Not really to overemphasize emotion,

Or not even have a word in Pali for it.

Because like you said,

I can see where,

Yes,

Emotions can be a very rich expression of the human condition.

You know,

They can also be cathartic and healing to a certain degree.

But at,

You know,

I don't,

I don't know,

You know,

It's like,

I don't know how to view this.

But I wonder,

I just pulling this out of the blue here,

If it was actually a strategy by the Buddha somehow.

It's not based on anything.

But I think that's unlikely,

Because I think he was just reporting the way things the way he saw them.

The way the way he experienced them,

That these afflictive emotions,

Which are sort of where we are very caught,

They are sticky in these trances.

And,

And then we have these thoughts,

But there and sensations,

And that are pleasant or unpleasant.

But I,

But what you know,

I don't know how you deal with,

I mean,

Disappointment,

Hurt,

I mean,

Hurt,

Sorrow.

I guess that if you take it all personally in those moments,

But when somebody dies,

It's not personal.

You just,

They die,

They're dear to you.

So I was wondering if,

I'm wondering,

You know,

I've seen some new translations of impermanence.

It's not that the Buddha didn't think that things didn't change,

But that,

And this person went on to sort of several different versions.

I thought it was very interesting.

I can't,

I'm sort of looking for it,

But I couldn't find it.

But I'm just,

I think it's,

How can a person not be sad when their loved one dies?

Because that to me sort of feels like,

Oh,

And,

And I've heard a few teachers,

Oh,

You know,

When my father died,

I didn't feel sad.

I just was happy he was finally at ease.

And I just go,

Oh,

You're bypassing.

I think,

I think it's normal to have,

You know,

A variety of feelings,

And,

And to not recognise that.

I don't know.

That's me.

I,

I'm Western and psychologically minded.

So that's what I think.

I think the,

When it comes to death,

I like,

I do so much better at funerals than I do at weddings.

I'll just put it that way.

Because there's really no expectation on how you should be or shouldn't be during a funeral,

You know.

I think people show grief all kinds of different ways from absolutely zero emotion,

Cold stare,

You know,

Completely distant to just weeping and wailing.

And I think all of this is,

Is not really out of the blue or out of the ordinary when it comes to a funeral.

So I think,

And then a lot of it,

Oh,

I got to act a certain way.

So that's all,

You know,

All these things happen around deaths and grieving.

And I'll just say my own experience,

For whatever reason,

I don't understand why my grandfather when I was younger,

I think that was the most hard death I've ever taken.

Because I think that was the first time someone really close to me happened.

But I will say with practice though,

The grieving process for me has become a little bit more manageable though.

It's of course,

It's still there,

But it didn't really have such a profound influence and effect on me without practice.

I mean,

I'm not saying that the process of life and death is any less profound.

It just seems like we're better equipped to deal with the grieving process with a meditation practice,

Right?

And what was the other point here with thoughts though,

You know,

We're not really going to have much time about thinking,

But it's often said that,

Or at least my fiance points this out,

That it looks like a lot of the Buddhist teachings,

They're more focused on the mind and the body.

There is a lot of Chitta in the Brahma-Viharas,

Which are really lovely.

And they're often emphasized in today's Buddhist worlds quite a bit.

And I love the Brahma-Viharas,

They're so great.

But I mean,

There is this kind of a mastery of mind and body in a lot of the Buddhist teachings.

And it doesn't really talk a lot about a rich emotional life as much if I'm getting that,

You know,

But you know,

It's all about Dukkha and the ending of Dukkha.

And so,

I don't know,

How would you take this,

Wendy?

How would you,

How do you,

What would you have to say about these type of things?

I was just sitting there kind of going,

Which particular part would you like me to respond to?

Yeah,

Exactly.

Whatever strikes your fancy,

Really,

Because we're,

I guess we're running out of time a little bit here,

Too.

Yeah,

We've got over five minutes,

I guess.

And to delve into the thoughts,

Because,

You know,

I started reading Pak Saidao's book,

Knowing and Seeing,

And it goes into like Abhidhamma,

And all the different types of consciousness and Chitta and Chittasaka,

You know,

Like hundreds of different combinations and variations,

If I'm getting that right.

And just such a profound level of minutiae and deconstruction,

And relating it to the three characteristics.

And that's another thing I wanted to say really briefly is Anicca,

Which is usually impermanence,

Or changeability.

And the guy from Puradhamma,

Puradhamma.

Net,

He says that that's,

If I'm getting this right,

It's kind of a mistranslation by early English translators.

One of the ways,

If I'm getting how he puts it,

It's this notion of,

Okay,

If I can just arrange all the external conditions in my life,

Just the way I want them,

Then I won't have a problem.

But the thing is,

That's a setup for failure,

Especially in the long term,

Because something's going to happen in my life where I can't get all the external conditions exactly the way I want them.

And I'm in this delusional state thinking I can do that,

And that's what's going to make me happy,

Then I forget that I can't control it all the time.

And then that's when dukkha strikes,

When I can't maintain those conditions.

And to me,

That just,

That strikes me as way more reasonable,

Because we all know,

Oh,

Yeah,

Everything changes,

Of course.

But no one's,

He says that no one's ever become enlightened,

Just because we know things are impermanent.

Everybody knows things are impermanent,

And they're not really enlightened.

They know it cognitively.

So that's enough.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I was thinking,

As you're saying that they're about impermanence,

And how we got our things together.

And I was thinking about,

You know,

There's burglars or criminals,

And they plan and they say this,

And then we'll do that.

And then if that happens,

We'll do that.

And if that happens,

We'll do that.

And there's a lot of planning and strategizing,

And they get busted,

Because,

Well,

It doesn't work like that.

And in a way,

What you're describing is similar to a criminal,

Just not understanding that the way life is,

Is that there are so many moving parts,

You cannot for a minute,

Imagine that things will,

You will be able to have control.

I mean,

This is what I thought was so interesting about COVID and the pandemic,

Was just how,

Oh,

Like,

We tried to keep everything in control in one level.

But then it,

But then the fact that we don't have to do that,

And we don't have to do that.

And we can change that.

And,

Well,

Why don't we do that?

And all of a sudden,

The whole way that our society is,

Is sort of quite different.

There's something quite different in the energy post-COVID,

Post-pandemic.

So,

Yeah,

I guess,

Yeah,

What,

How do you feel about that?

Well,

It's wild,

Too.

That whole dynamic is on the receiving end.

But just think about how quickly the world shut down overnight.

That was the biggest form of control I've ever seen in my entire life,

Almost instantaneously.

And I don't think anybody saw that that was possible and that it came,

Saw that coming.

And the amount of control that was implemented on people's minds and how they behaved during that time.

I mean,

I mean,

You talk about quick changes in people's behaviors.

I was just completely flabbergasted and blown away about that,

You know,

In a sense.

Yeah.

And that's right.

You know,

Not to get too political here,

But I met with a group and a lot of it seemed to hinge on emergency powers.

So when a state of emergency is declared,

All that other,

All our regular lawful processes and how we normally do,

It's thrown out the window.

And I get it because,

You know,

If there's a nuclear war,

You don't have time to go through all the legislative.

You need to act right away.

But this,

This was kept going on and they reinstated it and drew it out and kept going.

And it was all,

And so none of our regular things.

And so it might have been pushed a little too far.

You know,

It seems,

It seems that way sometimes,

You know.

So it was a huge experiment and I think it's still ongoing,

You know,

Especially in how people perceive it and respond to it,

The choices they make,

The choices they don't make,

You know,

Safety,

Freedom,

All these kind of external things.

And it was a really good time though to go in,

To go inward.

You know,

It was a retreat nobody asked for,

But I think a lot of people did some profound soul searching during that time too.

A lot of things fell off,

But a lot of more draconian measures might've been input.

So it's a really huge dynamic.

One of the biggest things we've ever lived through,

You know,

Externally.

Yeah.

And just sort of going back to that idea about,

You know,

The era that we're born into,

That we have our early life experiences,

The culture around that.

So a friend of mine's partner is a kindergarten teacher and she says that the kindergartners who are coming through,

They're different because they're the COVID babies.

And so they were completely isolated from anyone except the mother who was in this sort of state of,

You know,

Angst and they are not nearly as relational.

So there's something kind of a little bit off or quiet or just not like,

Maybe not as something.

So it'd be interesting to see what happens to that cohort from 2020 to 2022 to see what happened or 2023,

What happened in that era for those babies.

And is that going to be a particular slice,

Like babies who are born between 1939 and 1945,

A particular slice?

So.

Yeah,

These generational things.

And I did see that fear was way more important than most anything because it could run down the immune system so quick to be in such a state of terror and fear for such a prolonged period.

I saw that way more detrimental than just about anything.

And so,

And I've even seen Dhamma circles,

You know,

In the recent past now really addressing fear,

You know,

How do we deal with that?

And maybe that will be a topic,

Upcoming topic that we might discuss.

But yeah,

I think we're about time,

Aren't we,

Wendy?

We are at time.

What a conversation.

It was.

We went in different ways than we thought we would or we normally do,

I think.

I think we sort of take the sort of particular topic and then we go,

Well,

How does that apply with the Dhamma in question?

That's the way I am,

I guess,

You know.

Sure.

Same.

Yes,

I'm glad we got to kind of debrief the retreat experience too.

And tune in next time.

We're going to be,

The topic anyway is knowing and the known.

So we'll be looking at that next time,

Perhaps.

So,

All right.

Be well,

You all.

Bye now.

All right.

Take care.