Avoiding Mistakes On The Spiritual Path

In this excerpt from our Weekly Sangha on Insight Timer, we look at some critically important mistakes we make on the spiritual path, and how easy it is to think we're on the path when in fact we have veered off it.

Transcript

Or even a better word for,

A better translation for Dukkha is really just dissatisfaction.

And that's what all of this is about.

I mean,

This is what the Buddha said,

I teach about the end of suffering,

The end of Dukkha.

Thousands of talks teaching about the end of suffering,

The end of Dukkha.

But all of this is within our capability of seeing reality,

Not for a few special people,

But so much along the path,

So much along the spiritual path.

And I feel like so much of our task as a spiritual teacher is really showing us where we're going off,

Where we're getting kind of really just,

No,

No,

No,

Come back in here,

Come back in here,

You're,

You're kind of going off in the wrong direction.

Because there are so many challenges on the spiritual path,

So many,

Where I've talked about in the past,

Where we use Dharma talks too much,

Right?

We don't want to use Dharma talks as a spiritual crutch,

That Dharma talks definitely have their place,

But after this Dharma talk,

Have a little space,

Let the words settle in,

Give yourself a little bit of time before you listen to another Dharma talk.

Otherwise,

The condition,

The conditioning of doing that,

Of always using Dharma talks,

As soon as you finish one Dharma book,

You've got to get the next Dharma book,

Right?

The conditioning of that is that we never really practice.

We don't allow ourselves to feel the dukkha anymore,

The dissatisfaction,

Because we're always relying on other people telling us what peace is like,

Instead of understanding that that peace was found through the suffering,

That the release of the suffering brought them into the peace.

It's the discomfort of sitting with our feelings when we feel hurt,

Or when we're doubting ourselves,

Or when we're feeling like a bad spiritual practitioner,

That instead of always reaching for something to distract ourselves,

And where we,

We stop reaching for the alcohol,

Maybe,

Or the drugs,

Or the social media,

Or the news,

Or all these other ways that we would distract ourselves,

That now we're distracting ourselves,

Well,

Let me just have another Dharma talk.

Let me just hear about how peaceful it is,

Instead of sitting and being with the unpleasant feelings,

Because that's where the release is,

The boats,

The boats are hitting each other here.

And instead of wanting to feel it and experience it,

And to feel the grasping in there,

The pushing back on it,

I shouldn't be feeling this,

Right?

Instead of experiencing that and finding some spaciousness,

Even within the tension,

Whatever tension is there,

We reach for something else.

So that conditioning keeps us perpetual seekers,

Spiritual seekers.

And there are more perpetual spiritual seekers on the path than there are people that are actually seeing reality.

Because we go,

We,

We go off in,

In,

In,

You know,

We kind of go off the path,

We don't even realize how we're doing it.

So it's like the teacher's role,

I feel,

Is to say,

No,

No,

No,

No,

No,

Like,

Yes,

Use the Dharma talks,

They're helpful.

But don't use them in place of the practice,

Because otherwise you're always,

This is always going to be an intellectual exercise.

And this is something for every single one of us to know.

So yeah,

So it's for us to,

To keep,

You know,

Kind of bringing everyone back in.

So that's creating new conditions to remind you.

So,

So Nina,

Yeah,

You're saying like,

Yeah,

You needed to hear that.

And I say that a lot,

Because I did that.

And I didn't feel like anyone was saying that to me.

No one was saying,

Put the Dharma talks down.

I just kept listening and listening.

And I was doing this back when we had,

We didn't have iPhones.

And,

You know,

In fact,

I would,

I would write away to a monastery in Australia,

For those of you in Australia,

To the Buddhist Society of Western Australia,

Ajahn Brahm's monastery.

And you could pay them,

And they would send you CDs of Dharma talks.

And I would have like these three CDs,

And I would just listen to them over and over and over again,

On my little,

You know,

You know,

You had those little portable CD players.

But no one was telling me put the CD down,

Put the Dharma talks down,

You've got to,

You've got to,

You've got to feel what's going on,

You've got to let these,

You've got to let the talk settle into you got to give some space.

And why I'm also constantly talking about causes and conditions,

No one is in control here.

Because I,

No one was telling me this.

I so believed I was the one that was creating all of this,

That I was the one that was making this happen.

I had no idea.

No one was even,

Even putting it out there.

And of course,

There are when I go back,

When I went back after seeing,

Seeing that,

You can find it in the,

It's there in the teachings,

It's there again,

And again,

And again,

But I didn't,

I don't feel like it's talked enough about that we still,

There's too much on this spiritual path,

There is too much believing that we are controlling this.

Even the spiritual awakening,

We just think we're controlling everything,

And nobody's in control.

We hear the teachings of impermanence and interconnectedness,

And we think it applies to everything,

Except for that one little part of me,

That is actually outside of this causal relationship.

Right?

And so this is why I'm,

I mean,

I think I'm talking about this a lot,

Always trying to say you're not controlling this,

Let go.

That's why,

That's how you let go.

Right?

Otherwise,

You,

We let go,

We definitely let go,

There's,

There's degrees of letting go by seeing the suffering that are holding on to is causing us,

Definitely,

Degrees of suffering,

But the absolute letting go is the seeing that not only is there nothing to hold on to,

Because everything is impermanent,

But there is nothing here that could be holding on.

It's all just arising and changing moment by moment by moment,

Causes and conditions,

And,

And so to be paying attention,

To be looking for that,

To see how you're arising in each moment,

How you see how you end up in one room in the house,

And you're like,

How did I get here?

And you just kind of go back,

And you think about all the little things that happened,

Like all those little things,

I felt like I was the one directing this boat.

Right?

Right?

What's it again?

I want to go back,

Um,

Is it Julie?

Yeah,

So in the,

I felt like I was in there in the boat,

You know,

With my oars making all of this happen.

And you go back,

And you're like,

But this happened,

And that happened,

And that happened,

And that happened,

And even that intention to come into the fridge or to the kitchen to get some food,

Where did that come from?

Because I don't know what my next thought is going to be.

None of you knows what your next thought is going to be.

Whether I'm going to feel hunger or not is a biological process,

I can't determine whether that's the case or not,

Or what my relationship to food is of when I want to eat,

You know,

If I'm eating out of,

You know,

Sometimes we eat out of boredom,

Sometimes we eat just because we're addicted to food,

Right?

We like the high of the food,

Right?

All of these conditions,

Which again,

Just conditions,

Nothing I'm doing,

Just conditions.

And so to really pay attention to that as you're going about your day,

Noticing how you end up in one place versus another,

And to just keep thinking,

Well,

What were all the things that didn't happen then?

I didn't get a text just before I arrived here,

The electricity didn't go out,

There wasn't a storm,

My dog wasn't sick,

I wasn't sick,

All of these things,

It's so helpful for us to remember all of these things that didn't happen as well,

So that we can start to see,

Oh yes,

We are all just in the boat,

No oars,

No oars,

But we're just,

The wind is moving us around,

The current's moving us around,

Our biology,

Our neurotransmitters,

Our hormones are moving us around,

The engagements that we're having with other people,

All of our past experiences,

All of these things,

You know,

Just arising and we're just kind of floating along.

And the more that we can let go of that and recognize,

Oh,

I'm not controlling this either,

Right?

That's where I've talked about many times,

Like all the regret goes away because I wasn't controlling any of it.

I couldn't have done anything differently.

The genuine compassion for other people arises.

Wow,

If I had had their causes and conditions,

I would be acting that irrational too.

I would be no different.

If I had their causes and conditions,

How could I be any different?

So the genuine compassion for others arises.

We still do all the compassion practices,

But again,

It just,

Everything opens up.

The genuine accepting of who we are with all of our our imperfections,

Our good,

Our,

You know,

The whole range of qualities that we have,

It's that it's all just the result of causes and conditions.

Who could push back on this?

It's like pushing back on the wind.

It's like pushing back on the wind.

So yeah,

I feel like we're just,

It's this constant pushing people,

You know,

Kind of bringing people back to say,

When we start on a spiritual path,

To keep everyone on the path,

There's so many ways that we can get lost.

So again,

In just this scene,

Like we take the mindset of the unworthy me,

The me that's unmindful,

The me that's unworthy,

And we want to get rid of that,

And we just want to change it in for a more spiritual me,

A more divine me.

But something solid again,

It's like that's not it.

That's not it.

Every time we look for that little divine me,

You know,

My divine self,

My more spiritual self,

My enlightened self,

Anytime we're doing it,

It's just our ego disguised,

Just our ego disguised yet again.

And it's like,

That's not who you are.

That's the problem is that you think you're something solid and independent now.

This is about seeing reality,

That you are arising based on causes and conditions.

There is not one part of you that is independent and solid.

Not one part of you that is outside of this realm of causal relationships,

Not one nano atom that is part of,

That is not a part of this causal world that we live in.

So if there's nothing that's outside the causal world,

Then how are you arising?

Based on all of these millions and billions and trillions of causes and conditions.

It's like the,

Almost like if you could imagine like as an analogy,

This universe starting like a whole bunch of billiard balls being kind of shaken up and rolled out,

And then just seeing how they keep bouncing into one another.

And that's what we're just bouncing into one another.

How you came on the spiritual path was causes and conditions,

Just conditions.

Not because you,

There was something inside of you that said,

I'm special,

I'm different,

I want to go on a spiritual path.

But you just had those conditions for that.

You had the condition for the dharma touching you in a way that woke something up that said,

I want to keep coming back to this.

Because we all know people,

We've taken them to dharma talks or meditation and they go,

Yeah,

It's not for me,

Because of their causes and conditions.

That's all.

The views,

The opinions,

The beliefs that we all have,

Causes and conditions.

Everything is causes and conditions.

Everything is causes and conditions.

Probably if there's two words I ever say mostly,

If we were to go back all my dharma talks,

Causes and conditions is what I'm constantly,

Constantly saying.

Trying to say it in different ways to bring in different examples,

Different ways that hopefully hit home.

But to always keep reminding you that when I'm talking about causes and conditions,

Every single part of us being the result of a million billion trillion causes and conditions,

Nothing solid,

Nothing independent.

That's when you let go.

That's when you really let go.

Oh,

In the suffering,

In the unmindful moment,

Oh,

I'm not controlling this either.

Oh,

I thought I was controlling this.

No,

I'm not.

I'm not controlling the awakening process.

Oh,

An awakening moment in the middle of that,

Just simply in the letting go,

I'm not controlling this.

So in mindfulness and paying attention and the way that I try to teach it is very much,

I mean,

It is very much the basic of just being that aware of our experience,

Noticing the mind grasping what it's going out for,

You know,

What it's chasing,

What it's resisting.

Of course,

Noticing all that,

Noticing the change in the body,

The tightening that's happening,

Noticing everything that's happening in our experience without any judgment.

And also paying attention to how you are arising moment by moment throughout the day,

You're in the car driving,

How did this happen?

How did this happen?

Right?

You're off to,

To your drive,

In fact,

Because later I'm going to the vet,

Mia had a little something on her paw today.

And then after checking with the vet,

It's like,

No,

I'll come in after class,

Probably gonna have to cancel my later Zoom class because of this,

Right?

Causes and conditions because of Mia's little paw hurt.

So,

You know,

There was a plan,

What was going to happen for today?

And then it's like,

Oh,

Now there's a new plan.

Okay,

Go with the new plan.

Right?

And every time we're going with that new plan,

It's good to reflect in that way,

Not to think,

Well,

Of course,

I made the change because Mia did this.

Well,

I don't even know how she hurt her paw in the first place.

Right?

Something happened this morning,

She did something,

Got attracted by something,

Went running off with one of the other dogs,

Something happened,

And that kind of setting the course for what's going to happen later this afternoon.

And it's so good to keep reflecting on that about how it's,

It's like,

Oh,

Yeah,

That's why.

Not,

You know,

Not me making any of this happen.

But just this is how it's all arising.

And when things change,

Things change,

Things change.

Okay,

Let's see,

Now we're heading in this direction.

Wow,

Isn't that interesting?

And for so many of us,

And this is not the case for everyone on this planet,

This is not the case.

But for so many of us,

We really do have pretty good conditions.

The fact that we are on a call,

That some of you,

It's your morning,

The middle of your day,

Your evening,

That you have the,

That the intention is within you to want to spend some of your time on a Dharma talk to seek the freedom,

To seek the understanding of knowing reality and the peace and the wisdom that comes from that.

Be grateful.

And be grateful that you're able that you're safe enough that you can go hop on a call and do this.

Be grateful for these conditions.

Be incredibly grateful.

We're not special because of it.

But we should be grateful because of it.

Reviews

Another wonderful reminder - one I needed to hear. 🙏

So insightful and true. I need to remind myself that I am not in control of the causes and conditions....very liberating!! 🙏🙏

thank you as always for these encouraging reminders 🌹💖🩷🌹💖🩷🌹💖🩷🌹💖🩷