About RAIN

RAIN is a powerful form of meditative self-inquiry. The RAIN meditation typically uses emotional challenges as a starting point to discover subconscious knots that keep us stuck. This talk describes the stages and challenges related to the practice of RAIN. Note that this version of RAIN has unique emphases compared to versions offered by other teachers.

Transcript

I'd like to say a few words about the RAIN practice.

As I speak,

I'll invite you to continue to maintain your primary attention on your breath and your body.

Maybe 70-80% of your awareness staying within your body and only 20-30% actually listening to the words that I'm saying.

Trusting that whatever I'm going to say that's important will get in.

Many of you have heard this talk before,

Yet each time we hear it,

It probably bears hearing again.

We hear it in a new way.

As Rob talked about last night,

This idea of having a beginner's mind with this practice and we discover it anew again and again.

So as we remember,

The acronym RAIN,

Recognize,

Allow,

Investigate,

And the N is non-identification.

Rob said it was insight,

Also nurturing,

All of those things.

But I'd like to focus on the non-identification piece first.

And as we mentioned yesterday,

This idea of non-identification isn't something we can will.

Just spontaneously happens.

Let me give you a little bit of a sense of what non-identification means.

It's kind of a strange word.

Imagine that someone criticized you and you found that your system went into a reaction.

Your body got tight,

Right?

Or there's a sense of in the emotion,

Maybe anger or fear or hurt.

The mind goes into a story about how they're wrong and they shouldn't be thinking that way.

All of those are indications that you're identified.

You're identified in some way as a self that shouldn't be criticized or needs people to like them or whatever it may be.

It's kind of this automatic response.

We just get sucked into it.

That's identification.

Non-identification would be somebody criticizes you and your response is,

Hmm,

Okay.

Maybe they've got something I need to hear.

Maybe something's going on with them that they haven't figured out.

But my inherent sense of self and who I am is unaffected.

There's a freedom that's there.

That's non-identification.

That's the aspiration of all of this practice.

The sense of freedom no matter what else is going on.

Now,

As we said,

Non-identification can't be willed.

I can't simply say,

Well,

I'm not going to care if they criticize me.

Because when we check deep inside,

We realize all that reaction's still there anyway.

We're just kind of trying to bypass it because we think we should.

So we can't actually will the non-identification to occur.

So that's where the other steps come in.

And the R of RAIN is recognizing,

Recognizing all of the reactivity,

The tightness in the body,

The emotions that get strong,

The mind that goes into a hamster wheel.

It says there's something I need to take a look at.

But here's the thing.

Most of the time in our daily lives when something arises outside ourselves and we find ourselves getting reactive,

Our natural tendency is to want to fix the thing outside ourselves.

If only that got better,

Then I'd be okay.

The trouble is that even if I convinced this person that they were wrong to criticize me,

The next time somebody criticizes me,

The reaction's going to happen all over again.

So we use this experience,

This aversive situation outside ourselves to shine a light on what's going on at a deeper subconscious level within myself that gets me stuck again and again.

And to the degree that I can untangle from what's within me,

That's the degree to which I walk this world with greater freedom.

So we start with the recognizing.

Ah,

Something's up.

Okay,

Maybe it's time to practice the RAIN meditation,

To practice inquiry,

To see what's here.

The second phase is that of an allowing.

And we talked yesterday,

This can take some time.

One of the biggest mistakes that people make is they try to rush through the allowing part,

Get right to the inquiry before they're ready.

We can think of allowing in this way.

When something is arisen that brings about reactivity,

We're taking that thing outside ourselves to be a threat.

Now in the animal world,

A threat is typically a life death situation.

And the body immediately goes into fight or flight as a way to escape death.

A number of things happen,

But one of the things that happens is the rational mind goes offline.

As we said yesterday,

You know,

If the zebra is being chased by the lion,

The last thing the zebra wants to do is stop and say,

Okay,

What's the best path to take to get away from the lion?

It just takes too long.

And so the system knows that.

And so it just simply goes into this automatic response,

This automatic way of being.

And the rational mind gets out of the way.

But for inquiry to happen,

We need that rational mind available.

If we go into inquiry,

Into investigation too soon,

We find that the rational mind is not there.

We're caught in a hamster wheel.

We're caught in reactivity.

We're caught in story.

There has to be a sense of bringing that reactivity down enough so that the rational mind opens up again.

And investigation inquiry,

Authentic investigation and inquiry can occur.

As a rule of thumb,

What I have discovered is that if you consider our reactivity on a scale of one to 10,

With 10 being the most reactive,

That I generally find that authentic inquiry happens when I can get the reactivity down to about a three.

Maybe a four is tolerable,

Two is okay,

But too far out of that range.

If it's too high,

The rational mind is offline.

If it's too low,

I don't have any contact with the experience anymore.

So there's a range that we try to get to so that we can do this inquiry authentically.

And that's what the allowing phase is about.

It helps to calm the nervous system down sufficiently so that that rational mind can open up again.

We do it in a number of ways and we'll practice that in a few minutes,

But largely it's about bringing attention into the body and out of the mind,

At least for a little while.

We tend to want to have our minds fix things,

But as long as that mind is not really available,

It isn't capable of fixing.

So it's just a habit and we stay stuck in reactivity.

So for a period of time,

We bring the attention down,

Out of the mind and into the body.

And the other practice we use is holding ourselves with kindness and compassion.

We do it for long enough until we feel that the system is ready for inquiry.

Sometimes this allowing phase takes a few minutes.

Sometimes it can take a whole meditation.

Sometimes it can take many,

Many meditations.

The invitation is to be kind and patient with whatever our process happens to be.

And then when we practice the inquiry,

It's important to keep in mind that the purpose of inquiry is not to fix the problem in the outside world.

That might be a result that occurs,

But it isn't our primary aspiration here.

Our primary aspiration is to shine a light on what's going on deep within ourselves.

It's important too to recognize that we can't even have this sense that we need to fix ourselves.

We want to go in more like with the attitude of a scientist who wants to get to know,

To understand,

To see what's here.

And the more we get to know and understand,

The more there will be spontaneous insight about how to work with our system to bring about greater ease.

But if we try to force it,

We end up circumventing the process.

It won't let it actually happen.

So when we say that these insights are spontaneous,

They come out of the practice,

But we can't make them happen.

The other aspect of this practice of inquiry is that is a combination of mind and body.

Our subconscious minds,

Where much of our sense of meaning is stored below the surface,

Originally speaks to us through body sensations and imagery,

Not so much through rational thought or logic.

So when we inquire,

We let a question arise,

And then we listen to our bodies.

We listen to what spontaneously arises out of it,

Rather than the figuring out of our experience.

Now many of you have gone through RAIN meditations before.

Some of you have gone through my RAIN meditation before.

The practice that I'll be inviting here as we go through this meditation is kind of a scaffolding.

We want to get deeper and deeper into what's happening for us at more subconscious levels or even vulnerable levels.

And it takes some tenderness and care.

So when we talk about nurturing,

The sense of nurturing,

We hold ourselves with the deepest kindness for whatever we discover.

Even if it's something that some part of us thinks,

Oh my God,

What is that?

Who is that person?

Given that,

There's a sense of deep care and a trust that somehow this too belongs,

That there's some message here.

We nurture our whole experience all along the way.

So with that,

We'll begin.

Reviews

Excellent explanation. Thanks for the help.