Investigate - 2

This is the second talk on an important part of our practice and that is the practice of investigation. Investigation is not rumination. It gets a little blurry because quite often we end up chewing the cud of the story. The mind just loops. The mind can’t help but loop and loop and loop but it also compounds suffering.

With investigation it has more to do with not reliving the episode. That’s not a useful investigation when we’re very enmeshed. In the middle of it. It has a different flavor. There is a little distance, not in the sense of detachment or not caring but not being fully identified with the story.

Transcript

So this week we're exploring an important part of our practice and that's the practice of investigation.

Now investigation is not rumination.

It's not deeply cognitive.

It gets a little blurry because quite often we end up chewing the cut of our story.

You know the mind just loops and loops.

And the mind really can't help but loop and loop.

But it also,

In the looping,

It compounds our suffering.

So we want to be careful with noticing this investigation or the mind looping,

The ruminating.

We want to be careful with it.

Investigation really has more to do with not reliving the episode,

The experience from the perspective of the protagonist,

The star of the show.

That's not a useful investigation when we get enmeshed or we're in the middle of it.

Investigation has a very different flavor than that.

There's a little bit of distance,

Not in that we're detached or not caring,

But we're just not fully identified with the story.

We see the story.

There's a little space where we're just not embedded in the narrative.

So how I've learned to practice with this is kind of checking in with what I'm experiencing immediately.

What is my experience with this happening or this situation?

From the standpoints of how do I feel and what do I need?

So this kind of enters into the realm of nonviolent communication a little bit.

Looking at what is my judgment here in this situation and what am I believing?

And then getting to once we sort of see the feeling tone of it,

Then we can kind of get to the need of it.

And meditation is the tool really for not getting caught up in the narrow story.

So when we ask,

What is going on here?

How can I take care of this pain that I'm experiencing?

What am I holding on to?

What am I protecting?

And then what is being asked of me to let go of?

Because when there's a deep story that we're sort of chewing on in this ruminating mind,

There's a grasping.

And we can't,

Unless there's a little bit of space,

We can't see that we're grasping.

So we're not trying to figure out what's happening or have somebody else figure it out for us.

That's not wise investigation.

It is not problem solving.

And it's not disengagement either.

It's an embodied sense,

Sensing the moment in the body.

And this is where I really love the work of,

Oh,

I'm forgetting his name.

The nonviolent communication author is,

Last name is Rosenberg.

And in this book,

It really talks about working with,

What is the feeling?

What am I feeling?

And identifying feelings can be really challenging because we often have a very narrow view of feelings.

And when there's a tremendous amount of feeling tones,

We often kind of associate with just a few in our lives.

And then after examining the feeling,

Getting in touch with the feeling,

Then to actually look at what is the need?

So that's the work of nonviolent communication.

The author is Marshall Rosenberg.

So my teacher,

Gil Franzstahl,

Said on this path,

He once said in a sort of an offhanded way that he didn't know if it was mindfulness practice that we were doing or if it was more like honesty practice.

And I really appreciated that because somehow what we're actually doing is we're coming into true with ourselves.

You know,

It's like tuning an instrument.

We're coming into true.

We're like the aspects of really looking at,

You know,

How does mindfulness really function in our lives?

And it's kind of like noting what's true.

This is the point of investigation and not true in a sense of projection onto something outside of us,

But what's happening inside of us.

What is true in my experience right now?

It's been said that everything that you want and everything that you need to learn about Buddhism or freedom,

You can discover through your own powers of observation,

Your own powers of observing and investigating.

It is the core aspect of vipassana practice,

And it's kind of enshrined in one of the lists called the seven factors of awakening or the seven qualities or characteristics that are embodied in a person who is liberated.

So this is the second factor of awakening,

The factor of investigation.

And you don't have to memorize these factors,

But just to know the seven factors are mindfulness,

Investigation,

Effort,

And then joy and concentration,

Tranquility and equanimity.

And it's my experience that equanimity balance actually is sort of the the root of them all.

You know,

When I first sit down to meditate,

It's not that useful for me to drop into investigation because what's going on right now?

My mind is is kind of fairly busy when I first sit down,

And if I try to apply investigation and the capacity of the mind into the stream of thinking,

Then investigation becomes really heady and more like an analysis of thinking.

So the cultivation of stillness,

You know,

I find that it's helpful to have a little bit of guiding and I internally guide myself to settle and feel the breath.

And as thoughts come and go,

Then the practice of kind of acceptance or allowing for whatever arises to be there and not get troubled by it,

Not by getting hooked into a sound or a sensation or a rumination of the mind.

But just cultivating,

Just being very still in the body and observing this rhythm of breathing and coming back to it as the anchor,

You know,

It's a pretty straightforward way of cultivating some stability.

It's important,

I think,

To remember that we're practicing for the cultivation of wisdom and for learning,

And learning is actually about being with our own minds,

Learning to be with the way that the mind is in a compassionate way,

Learning to be with the changing nature of the mind.

And when we get some practice going,

You know,

The one thing that we really become aware of in some ways is the resistance to change,

The resistance to what's happening in the moment,

And that change is so painful.

And what really where to look really is the resistance to what's happening,

The pain of that.

You know,

We don't want to ram up against resistance,

But we want to learn,

Oh,

This is resistance in the mind.

This is what resistance feels like.

And so that noting practice again,

I've said this,

I feel like a broken record in a way that the mental noting is so incredibly helpful.

Just noting,

There's nothing to do.

It's just noting.

The tendency is often to look out at the conditions or other people and try to blame other people for the experience that we're having.

Instead of judging ourselves,

Which I'm not encouraging you or asking you to judge yourself,

But it's not outside of ourselves.

The experience that we're having is our experience.

You could be sitting and there is loud construction happening next door.

And you're saying to yourself,

This condition is disturbing my ability to be peaceful and to concentrate.

But your ability to be peaceful and concentrate has very little to do with what's happening outside of yourself.

Our ability to cultivate ease in the face of whatever is happening.

That's what we're doing here.

You know,

I've been at this practice for half of my life now.

And I have resistance to some of the stories in my mind.

I still believe the story that my father said of my unworthiness.

Like it comes up.

It does.

And so,

And there's a resistance to that story now.

It's like,

You know,

Kind of tired of it.

But right there,

Right there in the resistance,

That's my teacher.

Hello,

My good friend resistance.

Hello,

Welcome.

I was hoping you'd come up again.

And here you are for me to look at.

So the hardest thing to do is to be okay with resistance.

It may have been the way that we protected ourselves.

One beautiful metaphor for practice is that if you had a closed flower bud,

You know,

You just visualize and see in your mind's eye,

A closed flower bud.

And the practice is one of sort of opening.

And a flower,

It doesn't open drastically and quickly.

You know,

And that's like us,

We can't just open to life as it is,

Because there's a range of joy and sorrow and pleasure and pain.

And what we tend to want for ourselves is we only want to open to joy and pleasure.

We don't want to open to the pain and the sorrow.

And that resistance,

It protects us from pain.

It protects us from sorrow.

And until we have enough mindfulness to actually enter it and experience it,

We resist.

And we replace resistance gradually with a kind of mindfulness,

A kindfulness in a way.

It's like there's a mindfulness of kindness,

You know,

So that we can open.

So that we can open.

So we just have to see what we're resisting,

That we've protected and open and be strong with that.

Trusting.

The strength really comes by knowing we can change our relationship to what's happening.

We can change our relationship to what's happening.

So if we have a conditioned response,

Say fear comes up and it's like,

Oh no,

I thought I got rid of this.

That's resistance.

If there's awareness in that moment,

We can step out of the fear.

We're not lost or drowning in the fear.

There's a strength of attention to pull back and to look at it and get in relationship with it.

So there's not the feeling of fear as something to get rid of.

It's something to get in relationship with.

So we're not afraid of it.

And it's the same with any emotion.

It's the same with boredom.

It's the same with anger.

It's the same with resistance.

Anything that appears.

When we resist,

What happens a lot of times is we're,

It comes up in the mind as bad and wrong,

Needs to change.

No,

It's just resistance.

And so then we become aware of,

Oh,

So how can I be with resistance?

And what can you do if you can't be with it?

What I do,

What I recommend doing is to anchor,

Anchor my attention in my body,

Anchor my attention in my breath.

If you're out in the world and there's resistance,

Pause,

Slow down,

Breathe.

We can anchor ourselves in formal practice and we can anchor ourselves out in the world.

We just arrive in our body as if we're standing in a fast moving river and we just root down into the present.

Root down into the present.

Noticing how is my judgment impacting my experience right now and just rooting down into the present moment.

What else is here besides this resistance,

Besides this judgment,

Besides this,

Whatever it may be,

Whatever's appearing.

This practice,

It's a way of life and it's a way of being and there's an art to it.

There's an art to living in this practice,

Really being aware of your life.

Suzuki Roshi,

In his book,

Zen Mind,

Beginner's Mind,

Describes mindfulness as a soft readiness.

It feels so close to the truth,

A soft readiness.

Readiness is implying something so profound,

Like a mind that is ready for anything to happen and that's a strength and that's what we're doing.

A soft readiness.

Thank you for your kind attention.

Reviews

So valuable, thanks so much for these teachings ✨🙏

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