Understanding Our Experience: Mindfulness Of Feelings

Attention to the "charge" each experience has, whether it is pleseant, unpleseant, or neither, is the key to understanding why we suffer. We grasp or push away based on these feelings and, consequently, are ultimately never satisfied with what's happening. Mindfulness breaks this cycle by separating the feelings from our reaction to them.

Transcript

Sometimes called,

And it's called pleasant,

Unpleasant,

Or neither unpleasant,

Pleasant or unpleasant,

Or sometimes called new.

And this very simple practice can really have a transformative effect on our ability to experience happiness.

So I'll guide a meditation first that focuses on this sort of mindfulness,

And then have the talk and we'll have time for discussion at the end.

So we can start by just checking the posture,

How you are right now,

Seated in the chair,

And making any adjustments that you need to,

To feel that you are erect and aligned,

But not straining anything,

Just settling into a way of sitting in which your body feels naturally aligned and wakeful.

If you feel comfortable,

You can close your eyes.

Coming into contact with the breath,

Aware of the movement of the breath in your body.

The inhale,

Drawing the breath in,

Expand,

Exhale,

Leaving the body with the in-breath,

Air,

Filling the lungs.

You follow the sensations of the breath.

You can ask yourself,

What is the feeling,

Charge,

The experience,

Or the sensations experienced as pleasant,

Unpleasant,

Or either one,

Just simply neutral,

Turning,

Sensation of the breath coming in,

Feeling tone,

Mental,

Yes,

Pleasant,

Yes,

Unpleasant,

Yes,

Just neutral,

Moving to the body.

First,

Bringing awareness to the weight of the body,

Sitting in the chair,

To the arms,

Wherever they're resting,

Sensation of the feet,

Where they make contact with the floor,

In the awareness and sweeping through the body,

Noting different sensations you find there.

And as you sweep the attention through the body,

Just directing the awareness to the sensations that you recognize in that moment that are pleasant or unpleasant,

Or neither,

And simply neutral.

You can do this very lightly,

Without too much effort,

A gentle mental note for each yes,

Pleasant,

Or yes,

Unpleasant,

Or yes,

Either pleasant or unpleasant,

Just neutral,

Or by beginning asking as you sweep the awareness within the where do I find sensation of pleasant right now,

Sensations,

Unpleasant,

Which sensations right now in the body feel either pleasant nor unpleasant,

Or just simply neutral.

Now,

Being into contact with sounds around you,

Opening hearing out to recognize sounds inside the room,

Sounds where in your house or apartment or office,

Sounds farther away,

Inside,

Into the whole world,

The whole constellation of sound,

Arising and passing away,

Intimate with the sounds,

To signal sounds,

Identify the pleasant,

Soothing sounds,

The birds outside,

Are there sounds that are pleasant,

Unpleasant,

Annoying,

Or distracting,

Traffic noise outside,

Sounds that are neither,

That are just neutral sounds,

Background sounds,

Sorting them,

Noting pleasant,

Unpleasant,

Find your mind has been swept away,

Memories or thoughts,

Feel the pleasant sensation of coming back,

Contentment to be back,

Contrast between mindful presence,

What's here,

You're ready.

How does happiness work?

Or maybe another way to say it is,

Why am I not happy?

And I think that often the answer is that the conditions are not right,

That that's something is wrong with my current situation.

And the sense that if I could fix certain things about my current situation,

Then I could be happy.

The mind just naturally goes down this road and starts to identify things that could be better.

And it could be about partner or kids or parents or friends or job or,

Or health or what's happening in the world.

And there's certainly nothing wrong with improving conditions for ourselves or others.

But the interesting part is when we add to that to say,

If only,

And then you can fill in the blank,

I will be happy.

There's also I think the universal experience of wanting something,

Whether it's,

You know,

A job or a house or whatever it is,

And then getting that thing and feeling like that it's good.

But it didn't quite make me happy.

Happiness seems still elusive.

So then,

So then the question arises in the mind,

Well,

Well,

Do I ever get to be happy?

Like when,

When is this going to come?

Or is it never?

Is that the answer?

Or maybe the better answer is,

We chase a kind of happiness that that we can't ever find.

And in fact,

That the search for happiness itself just seems to exhaust us and itself makes us unhappy,

The search for happiness makes us unhappy.

But I think that there's also there's always a sense,

Because we're searching,

That there is there is an there's another goal,

That's different,

That it's still there,

But it's somehow different,

That it's not based on passing experience.

That's based on something that's that's much sturdier,

That's much more fundamental.

The Buddha began by just simply intensely observing his experience,

And this was 2500 years ago,

And carefully identified three things that happened in experience.

And they all they happened very quickly,

One right after another,

To the point where most of the time,

We collapse them and feel like it's just one thing that happens.

But in observing them very closely,

He identified these three steps.

The first thing is the initial contact with whatever's going on,

It could be something in the body or in the mind.

The next step is that the mind then immediately sorts that into these categories that it's either pleasant or unpleasant,

Or really neither unpleasant or unpleasant,

Or unpleasant,

It's just neutral.

And then the next step is that for the pleasant experiences,

Then the mind says,

Oh,

Pleasant,

And then starts grasping and wanting more and looking to extend and expand and repeat that thing.

Because pleasant experiences are pleasant,

Right?

And then on the other side,

The unpleasant,

Naturally,

Then the mind moves to escape and avoid and distract and push away.

And then the neutral,

I think often,

We get bored.

So then we go search for something else.

Like this is not whatever this is,

This is just neutral,

It's not interesting,

I got to find something else.

And it's not to say this is the only way of looking at experience.

But in looking at experience this way,

It provides some deep insights into why we suffer,

And what makes us happy or unhappy.

And this is,

You know,

You may be saying to yourself,

This is psychology.

I mean,

This is maybe you say this is not,

This is not quite meditation,

This is just psychology.

And it has deep resonances in modern psychology that has picked up on a lot of this.

But for the Buddha,

This is the second foundation of mindfulness.

The first foundation is the body,

There are four.

Second foundation is mindfulness of exactly this thing is what is the feeling tone that is associated with any experience,

That initial contact is kind of slowing down experience.

So you can look at this little gap between the thing that happens.

And what is the that feeling tone,

And he just saw working backwards that the way the way it works is,

We grasp after these pleasant experiences,

And then we push away unpleasant experiences.

And for neutral,

We often,

You know,

Try to find something else.

And that this is the cycle,

Then our mind works like on a daily basis,

This is kind of how we go round and around and around.

And the,

And the difficulty is that there's no endpoint,

You never get anywhere.

And you're ceaselessly disappointed with reality,

Because the pleasant can't be extended,

The unpleasant,

You know,

You can't get away from it.

And then things just keep things just keep being neutral,

You know,

Over and over and over again.

So,

So to say it differently,

The Buddha recognized that desire,

This thing that drives us so much is really highly constructed.

It's like we create these desires,

The pushing and the grasping away,

It was experiment with college students.

And they had them put their hand in a bucket of ice water.

And the first group were told to put their hand in and try to distract themselves from the sensations.

And the second,

They were told to focus on how unpleasant the experience was.

And then the third group,

They said,

Just put your hand in and feel what happens.

And then they were asked to report back about their experience.

Was it good or bad,

Or just neither.

And the third group that was just asked to put their hand in and feel the ice water,

As you might expect,

Said that it was just a neutral experience,

Or some said it was even like an interesting or a positive experience,

Sensing what this was.

So this grasping,

This pushing away,

Are very much constructed experiences.

So I'm just going to talk a little bit about the all three pleasant,

Unpleasant and neutral.

As far as pleasant goes,

You know,

The big problem with pleasant is that really intensely pleasant experiences just last a very short time and then are gone.

And a quick story about a summer day years ago before the pandemic,

I was sitting with my brother-in-law outside after work.

We went to have a beer downtown and it was a hot day and sitting there,

It was a cold beer.

And I took that first sip and it was magical.

Somehow it was magical,

Feeling the sensations.

I thought,

Where have you been all my life,

Beer?

I mean,

I can't believe this experience.

And then so we continued to talk and then I waited because it was pretty good.

I was going to get another one and I took another sip and I'm waiting for that feeling.

And it was,

This just tastes like beer.

It's very disappointing.

This is just beer.

And I kept drinking and I kept thinking,

This is just beer.

So it's the grasping that just then creates this incredible disappointment for us.

And then the unpleasant,

Another quick story on a long silent meditation retreat,

Meditation hall,

Become aware system.

Don't they know it's disturbing?

It doesn't work well.

And I'm going to write a letter.

I'm going to put a note up on the board.

Mind was spinning off and spinning off and spinning off.

And then I thought,

Well,

What's happening right now?

What's happening is there's this unpleasant experience,

This fan.

And then I got interested in it and thought,

Let's listen to it a little more closely.

And then it had actually had different rhythms,

Different tones.

And before long I found it was,

Well,

It's okay.

I was meditating on this sound.

And then in fact,

The next sitting,

The next meditation sitting,

We took a break,

Came back.

The system had turned off and there was no sound and I kind of missed it.

I missed the sound.

And then the neutral,

Always looking for something that has a bigger spin or push or charge to it.

One of our children,

When she was young,

Would sometimes have this little sing song.

She would say,

I'm bored,

I'm bored,

I'm bored,

I'm bored.

Highly unpleasant for parents to hear this.

But she was sitting in the midst of toys and games and possible play dates,

But she was bored,

Bored,

Bored.

So life is constructed and we can't change the feeling tone.

You can't change the pleasant,

Unpleasant,

Neutral,

But you can change how you relate to it.

And you can make a decision about whether there is an okayness to the pleasant and unpleasant and neutral.

And without that,

Really there's very little room to maneuver,

I think,

Very little freedom for us.

Or as one meditation teacher says,

You get taken for a ride by experience because you can't break the cycle of the contact experience,

Pleasant,

Unpleasant,

Neutral,

And then the grasping or pushing away.

The psychologist Eric Fromm,

When commenting on Zen,

Or he could be really talking about all about mindfulness,

Says,

Zen is the art of seeing into the nature of one's being.

It is away from bondage to freedom.

It liberates our natural energies,

And it impels us to exercise our faculty for happiness and love.

If there is a repeating thought over and over,

Feel it in your body and simply ask,

Is it pleasant,

Unpleasant,

Or neutral?

And another modern psychologist said,

The reflexive tendency of the mind to incessantly make a narrative of everything that arises in experience is itself the cause of much of our suffering.

And meditation offers a refreshing refuge from every every datum of sensory input to the construction of a meaningful self.

So let's go back inside for just a minute to conclude.

Again,

Close your eyes if you wish,

Sensing into anything experienced right now in the body or mind with this question.

Experience pleasant or unpleasant or is it neutral?

You can know what it is and just move or move closer to it.

Feel,

You can just be with what that is.

Rest in the oh,

Just pleasant.

Oh,

Just unpleasant.

Oh,

It's just neutral.

A sense of okayness.

Now you can come gently back.

And again,

Just relax.