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The Second Arrow: Working with Pain · Buddhistisches Tor Berlin Podcast

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Welcome to the Buddhisticious Tour Berlin podcast.
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Here we share talks and reflections from our Buddhist
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centre in Berlin, exploring themes such as meditation,
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ethics and the path of awakening in everyday life.
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We are part of the Sri Ratna Buddhist community and our talks
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are offered freely in a spirit of generosity.
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We hope this episode supports your practice and your life.
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The theme, you could say the theme of today's talk is doesn't
0:45
sound very appealing really. It's actually what we're going
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to be looking at is unpleasant feeling.
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So I'm going to be exploring unpleasant feeling and actually
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interestingly enough, today I was kind of gifted with two
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things. So one of them was a certain
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level of anxiety and the other one was a it was very
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interesting actually like you, you have like a theme that
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you're going to talk about. And then so I was meditating in
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here and basically throughout pretty much the whole of the
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meditation, I had a pain in the middle of my back.
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So the, the kind of question that was coming to my mind is,
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is, is that working with that, that kind of physical sensation?
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Is that wasted meditation? And I would say no, actually, I
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would say, well, depending on what happens.
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So what I, what I would say is that the way I was trying to
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work, which is kind of related to the talk means that the
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meditation was very useful in lots of different ways.
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So it wasn't deonic. It wasn't like kind of, I was in
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higher states of consciousness. I wasn't in a state of bliss.
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I was actually with unpleasant physical sensation.
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That's kind of what was the, the, the main thing in my
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experience, and that's what I was working with.
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That's not always the case, but it's interesting how it just
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really came today, given that I'm giving this talk.
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So what I'm going to do is I'm going to read a Sutter called
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the Salata Sutter, and it's a Sutter from the Buddha and the
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Buddha's talking to some monks. So I'm going to, I'm going to
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read through that and then I'm going to explain it bit by bit
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kind of. And, and also I'll I'll talk
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about it in language that is hopefully a bit more
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understandable. So as I read through the Sutor,
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it might be that you don't get everything or you're not quite
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sure what this, that and the other means.
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That's fine. This will just be the starting
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point and then I'll start to go into it and how it's applicable
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to our lives. So here it goes monks.
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An uninstructed run-of-the-mill person feels feelings of
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pleasure, feelings of pain, feelings of neither pleasure nor
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pain. A well instructed disciple of
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the noble ones also feels feelings of pleasure, feelings
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of pain, feelings of neither pleasure nor pain.
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So what difference, what distinction, what distinguishing
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factor is there between the well instructed disciple of the noble
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ones and the uninstructed run-of-the-mill person?
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So you could kind of say what's the difference between a
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practitioner, someone that's practising the meditation, that
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knows how to work with their mind, and just on ordinary
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everyday whatever job blocks, as the Buddha says, a
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run-of-the-mill person. Not so nice is it really?
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But there you go for us, Lord. The teachings have the Blessed
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One as their route, their guide and their arbitrator.
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It would be good if the Blessed One himself would explicate,
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explicate the meaning of this statement.
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Having heard it from the Blessed 1, the monks will remember it.
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So that's quite funny, I think is that the Buddha asked the
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monks a question and basically the monks kind of get get out of
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it by saying, well, why don't you tell us the answer please
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Buddha. Anyway, so in that case monks
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listen and play close, close attention.
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I will speak as you say Lord, the monks responded.
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The Blessed One said when touched with a feeling of pain,
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the uninstructed run-of-the-mill person sorrows, grieves and
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laments, beats his breast, becomes distraught so he feels 2
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pains, physical and mental, just as if they were to shoot a man.
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So obviously he's talking to monks with an arrow and right
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afterwards were to shoot him with another one so that he
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would feel the pains of two arrows in the same way.
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When touched with a feeling of pain, the uninstructed
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run-of-the-mill person sorrows, grieves, laments, beats his
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breast, becomes distraught. So he feels 2 pains, physical
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and mental. As he is touched by that painful
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feeling, he is resistant. Any resistance, obsession with
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regard to that painful feeling obsesses him.
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Torched by that painful feeling, he delights in sensual pleasure.
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Why is that? Because the uninstructed
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run-of-the-mill person does not discern any escape from painful
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feeling aside from sensual pleasure, as he is delighting in
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sensual pleasure, any passion, obsession with regard to that
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feeling of pleasure obsesses him.
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So I know the language is a bit complicated.
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He does not discern, as it actually is present, the
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origination, the passing away, allure, draw back, or escape
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from that feeling. As he does not discern the
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origination, passing away, allure, draw back, or escape
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from that feeling, then any ignorance, obsession with regard
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to that feeling of neither pleasure, neither pleasure nor
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pain obsesses him. Sensing a feeling of pleasure,
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he senses it as though joined with it.
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Sensing a feeling of pain, he senses it as though joined with
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it. Sensing a feeling of neither
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pleasure nor pain, he senses it as though joined with it.
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This is called an uninstructed, run-of-the-mill person, joined
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with birth, ageing and death, with sorrows, lamentations,
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pains, distresses and despairs. He's joined, I tell you, with
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suffering and stress. Now the well instructed disciple
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of the noble ones, when touched with a feeling of pain, does not
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sorrow, grieve or lament, does not beat his breast or become
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distraught. So he feels one pain, physical
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but not mental, just as if they were to shoot a man with an
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arrow and right afterwards did not shoot him with another one,
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so that he would feel the pain of only one arrow.
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In the same way, when touched with a feeling of pain, the well
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instructed disciple of the noble ones does not sorrow, grieve or
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lament, does not beat his breast or become distraught.
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He feels one pain, physical but not mental.
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As he is touched by the painful feeling.
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He is not resistant, no resistance.
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Obsession with regard to that painful feeling obsesses him.
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Touched by that painful feeling, he does not delight in sensual
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pleasure. Why is that?
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Because the well instructed disciple of the noble ones
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discerns an escape from the painful feeling aside from
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sensual pleasure, as he is not delighting in sensual pleasure.
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No passion, obsession with regard to that feeling of
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pleasure obsesses him. He discerns, as it actually is
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present, the origination, passing away, allure to draw
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back and escape from that feeling as he discerns the
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origination, passing away, allure, drawback, and escape
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from that feeling. No ignorance, obsession with
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regard to that feeling of neither pleasure nor pain
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obsesses him. Sensing a feeling of pleasure,
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he senses it disjoined from it. Sensing a feeling of pain, he
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senses it disjoined from it. Sensing a fever feeling of
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neither pleasure nor pain, he senses it disjoined from it.
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This is called a well instructed disciple of the noble ones.
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Disjoined from birth, aging and death, from sorrows,
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lamentations, pains, distresses and despairs.
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He is disjoined, I tell you, from the suffering and stress.
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This is the difference. This is a distinction.
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This is the distinguishing factor between the well
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instructed disciple of the noble ones and the uninstructed
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run-of-the-mill person. The discerned person learned
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doesn't sense a mental feeling of pleasure or pain.
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This is the difference in skilfulness between the sage and
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the person. run-of-the-mill for a learning person who has
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fathomed the Dharma clearly seeing this world and the next.
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Desirable things don't charm the mind.
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Undesirable ones bring no resistance.
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His acceptance and rejection are scattered, gone to their end, do
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not exist. So this, this particular
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teaching for me is it's kind of like a bedrock actually of my
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practice in a way. And so I'm going to kind of go
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through it bit by bit and try to clarify it more and more.
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So it starts off with this, this thing about the two arrows,
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doesn't it, that somebody is either.
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So when somebody experiences pain, it's a bit like being shot
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with an arrow. And then it's almost as if
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straight away on top of that, they're shot with a second
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arrow. And the way it's talked about in
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the in the Sutter is that the first arrow is physical and the
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second arrow is mental. So the way the way that I tend
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to think about this, and this has not come from me actually,
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it's from Breathworks. So where I did some training,
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kind of like mindfulness training, they talk about
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primary experience and secondary suffering.
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So this also comes because the person that that that founded
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Breathworks Vidya Marla, she's got a very severe long term pain
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condition. So she's living with physical
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pain all of the time. It's just degrees of pain
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really. So she worked with that for a
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long time. And then she kind of, she was
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obviously looking at things like this Sutter, this is where it
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kind of comes from. And then she made this
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distinction. I think it was her our primary
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experience and secondary suffering.
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So, Oh yeah, this is the other thing as well that I'll say.
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So I'm using this flip chart partly.
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It's going to be more like a reference point for you after
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the talk. So I don't know whether like you
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people at the back, whether you can see this very small writing
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on this side, can you? No.
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OK, that's fine. Yeah, I might come back to that
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in a minute. So basically, if if I was going
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to fill out this sense of primary experience and secondary
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suffering, yeah. So when, when I begin to
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meditate, and this is kind of how I to some degree how I
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teach, when I'm teaching people that are new to meditation, what
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I'm trying to see is, is that what is present in my experience
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at this moment. So is what is present in my
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experience, is it physical? So that means sensations in the
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body. So at the moment I can feel like
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a kind of tingling in my feet. It might mean like something
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coming in through the senses. So any of the senses kind of
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hearing, smelling, generally when we're meditating, a lot of
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time the eyes are closed. So some of the senses are not so
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prominent, but maybe hearing with meditation, but any of the
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senses actually. And also that as as there is
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sensation appearing, if that's what my attention is with, is
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that sensation pleasant? Is it neutral or neither
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pleasant nor unpleasant? Or is it painful?
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Now, in a way it doesn't matter. You might disagree with this.
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It doesn't matter that the that the the feeling tone is
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unpleasant. What I know that is if I'm with
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an unpleasant feeling tone, I'm with primary experience.
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So when I was meditating before and I said I had this kind of
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like sensation in my back, in the middle of my back.
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It was unpleasant. It was an unpleasant feeling,
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unpleasant feeling tone. So this is primary experience.
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Yeah, that's what I'm, I'm looking at when I sit down.
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So am I with primary experience or am I with something else?
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Am I more with emotion? Am I more with thinking?
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Am I lost in thinking? Am I imagining now that might
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not necessarily be secondary suffering, but you'll maybe
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you'll see in a minute why it why that could be called
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secondary suffering. So this is one thing that's
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important, particularly for those of you that have not heard
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this before. In Buddhism we make a
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distinction between feeling, so feeling tone, pleasant, painful
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and neutral, and emotion so pleasant.
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Feeling comes before emotion. Emotion's a bit more.
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Don't know. Can't find the word for it,
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whatever that is. This kind of like it's a bit
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more bigger. What did you say?
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Loaded. Loaded.
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Well, sometimes it could be loaded anyway.
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Maybe. Maybe I'll come back to that.
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Fundamental. Fundamental.
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No, not fundamental, possibly dramatic.
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Yeah. But anyway, so, So what I'm
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saying is what I'm, what I'm looking for at the beginning of
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meditation is I'm looking to see where I am.
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Am I with primary experience or am I with secondary suffering or
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at least with thinking and emotion?
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When that has been established, that gives me a sense of where
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do I go next? What do I do?
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What do I need to do? So the way this is sometimes
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talked about, the way this, the movement from primary experience
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to secondary suffering unfolds is that, well, it either unfolds
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in two ways. So when we experience pleasant
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feeling, we crave or we want, we want it, we want more of it.
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When we experience unpleasant feeling, we don't want it, so we
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we push away. So it kind of goes contact
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feeling, and then if it's unpleasant feeling, aversion and
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then grasping becoming. Yeah.
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So you kind of create a habit of of reacting to unpleasant
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feeling. That's one way of talking about
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it. Another way of talking about it
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is independence on contact and feeling and interpretation.
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So what we experience is interpreted, then it moves into
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thinking about our emotion and mental proliferation.
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So that means that there is there is kind of spreading A
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proliferating a yeah, that kind of experience becomes more and
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more kind of dense, more and more fabricated, more and more
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solid. So, so yeah.
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So that that gives you a sense of these two things.
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So primary experience and secondary suffering.
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So if for instance, as I was sat there kind of meditating and
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because this The thing is that we say, OK, so follow the
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breath, follow the breath, follow the breath, follow the
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breath, follow the breath. Duh, duh, duh, duh, duh.
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Sounds very easy. But other things come in, don't
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they? Thought comes in, the emotion
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comes in some sometimes unpleasant physical sensation
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comes in as we're meditating. And then what, what I'm trying
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to explore is like, well, what do we do about that then?
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Like kind of do we just carry on?
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Do we just grit our teeth and kind of like and just push
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through? No, actually there's quite a lot
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that you can do when you begin to experience unpleasant feeling
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in the body. I'll get onto this in a little
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while. So, so at the bottom what we've
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got is we've got kind of what the, the Buddha was talking
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about in that sense of just being hit with the first arrow.
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So we've got contact. So that would just mean that
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because we've got a body and it's got senses and there's a
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sense of touch that as we sit to meditate, a felt sense arises.
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And in this case, in this sort of the felt sense is unpleasant.
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And what we've got here, so some of you will kind of recognise
20:43
what this is, is a gap is a possibility of a gap.
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So that means that that the the reaction doesn't have to happen.
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It might happen. And if it does happen, then we
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come back again to primary experience.
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But it doesn't have to happen. The gap is created by being with
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things as they are there by being.
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If I'm able to be more with physical sensation as it is,
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then I don't go into thinking about it and proliferating.
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So I suppose as an example, I get this pain in my back as I'm
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sat there meditating. And then I start to think, oh, I
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need to adjust my posture or all this has been going on for a
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week. I need to go and see the doctor.
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And then I start to think about where my doctor is.
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And then I start to imagine telephoning the doctor because
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my German's not so good. I get a little bit anxious
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because I'm going to have to talk on the phone in German and
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da, da, da, da, da, I'm in this whole thing.
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I'm meditating, I'm here sat in the room, but I'm kind of not,
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I'm kind of I'm, I'm at that point at the end, I was sort of
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trying to phone the doctor with my OKish German.
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So it's like noticing that and kind of coming back to the
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primary experience. So what is the primary
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experience? Oh, throbbing or kind of jagged
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or kind of tight or contracted. All of that is, is the physical
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sensation. What comes on top of that is how
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I move from physical sensation and how I compound it and how I
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create my own suffering as a result of that.
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So when. So in a way the whole thing is
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it's like if we can reduce the secondary suffering or if we can
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somehow see through that our whole relationship changes to to
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what is happening, there is a possibility of escape.
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Escape does not mean ignoring. Yeah, this kind of maybe again,
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I'll come on to what escape might mean.
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So, so this is another way of, of of kind of looking at the
23:27
same thing. So sort of three, three steps.
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So the first one is that you experience something unpleasant
23:39
in the body. Now, the partly the reason why
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I'm saying this as well is because the way experience
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unfolds is that independence on contact arises feeling.
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So this is happening both when we're sitting in meditation, but
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it's happening in everyday life. So when we if we're going down
24:00
more the line of unpleasant feeling when the person we don't
24:04
like walks in the door, not Tim, he's lovely.
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When the person, when the person we dislike walks through the
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door, we experience something, we have an unpleasant feeling.
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What is that? That's an interesting question.
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Like possibly contraction or kind of like, oh, that might be
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just what happens. It's just the sense of oh, no,
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not them. I was hoping he wasn't going to
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come on Saturday. They said that he wasn't going
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to come in here. They are so unpleasant feeling.
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And then there is resistance, resistance to that kind of like,
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in a way, the resistance is also a bit like a kind of jumping off
24:54
or a jumping away from or a not wanting to be with.
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And as that happens, and as that gets more and more kind of
25:05
compounded, we suffer. And then there's this this
25:11
little thing that you might remember, which is quite good.
25:14
What we resist persists. So, So what this is about this
25:20
resistance, It's about relationship.
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So we have an unpleasant feeling in the body.
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That's all it is. We might not like it, but it's
25:33
just unpleasant. And we have a relationship to
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that because it's unpleasant. We don't want it.
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Do we be honest? So that's our relationship to
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it. I don't want it.
25:48
But already that not wanting it is a resistance.
25:51
It's like something has started to become bigger than it is.
25:58
And, and when, if when we when we resist or when we ignore, it
26:07
doesn't help. It kind of in a sense, it sort
26:10
of compounds the situation. It's a bit like we've got this
26:12
pain and the pain is saying to us, hello, hello.
26:16
Come on, look at me, look at me, look at me.
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Please, please give me some attention and you just go, no,
26:22
I'd rather not do that. Hello, hello.
26:24
Come on. Just look at me like no, no
26:27
thanks. No, thank you very much.
26:30
Do you think this pain is going to be very, very happy about
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that? Not really.
26:34
We know what it's like to be ignored.
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One other thing that that, that I also, maybe this is going off
26:44
in a slightly different direction, but I definitely want
26:46
to say it. This is the part of the reason
26:49
why I'm also giving this talk is because at the moment I'm doing
26:51
a, a meditation course with Aryabhandu and a number of
26:55
people have mentioned unpleasant physical sensations and what to
27:01
do about that. And also what I've heard is a
27:05
kind of view. So the view is that we have to
27:11
stick with it. Yeah, We have an unpleasant
27:14
physical sensation and we have to stay with that a bit.
27:18
Like again, is this sense of like grooming and bearing it.
27:21
And, and we saw, I think this is Buddhist practice.
27:23
It's all about unpleasant physical sensation.
27:27
This is what we're working with. This is what we're trying to
27:28
get. We're trying to work with or
27:30
maybe even we want to get rid of them.
27:32
Yeah. But actually if you, if, if you
27:34
look at what for instance, meditation where it is leading,
27:40
it's not that actually, if you look, if you, if you know
27:44
anything about Buddhist meditation, you know that
27:48
Buddhist meditation can lead you into high states of
27:51
consciousness. The Diana's.
27:54
If you know anything about Buddhist meditation, you know
27:57
that Buddhist meditation has got this element of Vipassana, which
28:01
is seeing through. Both of those things are
28:06
pleasant. Moving into higher states of
28:10
consciousness is like deeper and deeper levels of pleasure and
28:16
happiness. So don't get trapped thinking
28:23
that Buddhism is about just being with pain and grimming and
28:26
bearing it and just changing pain.
28:29
It's not actually. There's lots of pleasure to be
28:32
had within Buddhism and the person are the kind of more
28:36
insight element is completely liberating.
28:40
And when when we see through, when there's a moment of seeing
28:44
through that is freeing, delightful, blissful, kind of
28:52
spacious. Yeah.
28:54
So so I'm kind of saying that because this is where we're
28:57
we're looking today, we're looking at pain.
29:00
But actually in the bigger context, there's a hell of a lot
29:05
of pleasure actually. So the way the way that it kind
29:18
of the way that it works in the in the Sutter is that the Buddha
29:22
starts from this point of view of unpleasant feeling.
29:27
And then he says there's a resistance to that.
29:30
And then there is suffering. And then the the movement, the
29:36
next movement is definitely not being with it.
29:41
It's actually just getaway. Yeah.
29:44
So the getaway is delighting, sensual pleasures.
29:48
So we feel something unpleasant. And, well, we all know this.
29:53
I know this. It's like I feel something
29:55
unpleasant and I reach for the chocolate biscuits or whatever
29:59
it kind of might be. What can I do to get myself away
30:04
from this? Because it's not pleasant.
30:10
And the way that the way that I was kind of thinking about this
30:13
was like, so we have an unpleasant feeling like I was
30:21
saying this sense of what was going on in the back.
30:25
It seems like a problem. So because it seems like a well,
30:30
in a certain sense, from the body's point of view, maybe is a
30:32
problem. That's the body's telling you
30:34
this is a problem. This pain in in your back here.
30:37
But we don't know. We need to do something about
30:39
this. So then because there's a sense
30:43
of problem, we need to find a solution.
30:46
So in a way, the thinking mind is like a kind of, it's a
30:53
problem solving machine. It's like if we really notice
30:57
like kind of when we start to experience difficulty, we very
31:02
quickly go into how can I sort this out?
31:04
How can I solve this? What can I do about this?
31:06
Yeah. So I need to find the solution.
31:10
Then the next thing could be sometimes we can't find 1.
31:16
Like this is the problem with people with with chronic pain is
31:20
that there isn't a way out. Actually there's degrees of
31:25
chronic pain, there's degrees of unpleasant physical sensation.
31:30
Well, the Buddha said actually with his own body near the end
31:33
of his life that the only way out of unpleasant physical
31:36
sensation was to go into high states of consciousness.
31:39
But when the consciousness came back down, then he would be
31:43
experienced experiencing physical pain.
31:47
But somebody in this situation, like kind of you've got chronic
31:50
pain, you look for a solution, but you can't find one.
31:55
There isn't a solution actually. Well, not completely.
32:00
So then you distract yourself. Now what I'll also say is don't
32:07
be so hard on yourself in relationship to distraction.
32:11
So sometimes it's fine to distract yourself.
32:19
Maybe it is the the best thing to do.
32:21
Maybe it's the best you can do kind of at the moment to kind
32:25
of, I don't know, whatever, whatever is your form of of
32:29
distraction. But again, this is the thing
32:32
like kind of be maybe we need to refine our distractions a bit.
32:39
Maybe that will be a step in the right direction.
32:42
Yeah. So I'm not saying don't ever
32:45
distract yourself. I'm not saying don't stay all of
32:49
the time with physical pain. Yeah, so, so the way it goes in
33:04
this in the Sutter is that there's a painful feeling,
33:07
there's resistance, and then there's suffering because you
33:11
resist the unpleasant feeling. Then you sorrow, you grieve, you
33:16
lament, you beat your breast, you become distraught.
33:21
Yeah. So at this point it's like the
33:24
physical sensation has become something very big and you sense
33:28
that there is no escape from it. And maybe you're really kind of
33:31
like you're really cooking up in your mind, like a maybe my
33:35
example was not so extreme. But again, when you meditate,
33:38
what you realise is that the mind very quickly goes to
33:43
extremes. So an extremely physical pain is
33:47
I've got a physical pain in my back.
33:50
And where you suddenly find yourself within two jumps is
33:54
that I've got cancer of the bones.
33:57
This is what your mind tells you.
33:59
Yeah, this is how it is. It's kind of like it's really
34:02
extreme sometimes the mind and then it then it starts to think
34:06
about the solution to cancer of the bones.
34:08
It's like you've just got an unpleasant physical sensation in
34:12
your back. That's it.
34:14
So what is that like kind of throbbing, burning, kind of like
34:20
tight, whatever. That's it.
34:26
So what I want to say a little bit about now is so how do we
34:31
work with unpleasant feeling? So I'm going to give you a few
34:34
different ways of doing that. So what the, what the Buddha
34:38
says is that unpleasant feeling like for the average one of the
34:45
mill person, probably what we like most of the time we're the
34:49
average one of the mill people. The the painful feeling is not
34:54
discerned as it actually is present.
34:59
The origination, the passing away, the allure, the drawback,
35:05
the escape. So I'm not going to go into all
35:08
of that. You could say from a certain
35:11
perspective the origination, you could even go further back than
35:16
this. But one answer might be that the
35:19
origination is the fact that I've got a body and I've got
35:23
senses. One of those senses is touch.
35:26
So therefore I experience feeling pleasant, painful,
35:33
neutral, just because I've got a body.
35:36
That's where it originates. Yeah, but this now maybe I'll
35:46
come back to that. It's the passing away.
35:48
So one way of working with unpleasant physical pain is
35:59
that, so this kind of teaching, it's sometimes called the, the,
36:06
what is it called the bigger container of awareness.
36:12
So what that means is so you're meditating or you're in your
36:15
life, maybe you're meditating, you experience an unpleasant
36:19
physical sensation. So sometimes it's not so bad and
36:23
you can just stay with a breath. Sometimes maybe you need to do
36:26
something about that. So that's the choice.
36:29
So the bigger container of awareness, so this physical,
36:34
unpleasant physical sensation in the body, what else am I
36:41
noticing? So as my eyes are open, so I'm
36:48
going to kind of pretend to meditate as my eyes are open.
36:53
Well, obviously I can see all of you and what I also notice is
36:59
kind of light kind of hitting a few of you.
37:04
That's quite beautiful actually. I can feel over sensations in my
37:12
body. I can feel like a kind of a
37:14
rising of energy in the body. I feel sensations in my feet.
37:23
I can feel my breath kind of moving in and out and just by
37:35
kind of being there, I also noticed like kind of, oh, right,
37:38
it's just a sense of relaxation. So suppose it's like as I'm
37:42
opening out my awareness more and more, the the physical
37:47
sensation, the painful physical sensation is not the only thing
37:51
in my experience. So it becomes one thing among
37:56
the many within a broad spacious awareness.
38:03
So awareness can also be something that you notice
38:05
actually, oh, there's awareness, awareness is there also.
38:10
So this is the bigger container. The other thing that you can do
38:15
with unpleasant physical sensation is which comes back to
38:20
this passing away. So painful feeling not discerned
38:26
as it actually is present. So that is the part of the
38:37
problem actually, that when we experience unpleasant physical
38:41
sensation, we see it the wrong way.
38:45
We don't see it as it actually is.
38:48
We see it as something fixed, solid, enduring, not going to go
38:56
away. So we don't see it as
39:01
impermanent changing flux. So another way of working with
39:10
this is that now you have also perhaps need to be a bit careful
39:17
with this. Perhaps is is that you, you can
39:24
decide. So this is the other thing.
39:26
It's a decision. You decide to move a little bit
39:31
towards it. Yeah, the unpleasant sensation
39:34
is there and you decide to move a bit towards it.
39:38
And the image that's sometimes given is, is of a Bale of hay.
39:44
Do you know what a Bale of hay is?
39:47
Yeah. So you've got a Bale of hay.
39:50
So it's quite soft. That's the the pain and your
39:56
attention. So you're the kind of your
39:58
attention and you sort of lean into it a little bit and you
40:02
lean out and you lean in and you lean out.
40:05
You lean in as much as you want to.
40:07
You stay as long as you want to and you can always lean out.
40:14
That's that's probably quite a safe way of doing it, but in
40:19
some respects. It is, it is only unpleasant
40:26
physical sensation. It isn't the end of the world,
40:30
honestly, it isn't. So what happens?
40:36
So this is, this is the other thing I would say that
40:38
meditation is also like a kind of play really.
40:41
You play with things and see what happens.
40:43
What happens if I take my attention in to that place?
40:50
You could use a question, What do I notice?
40:54
And what you're looking for is change.
40:58
This is really important. I think I, I sort of think
41:00
sometimes this is the, the kind of the key that is sometimes
41:04
missing in people's practising. It's a little bit more from the
41:08
direction of passing or, or seeing things as they are.
41:12
You're looking at your experience from the perspective
41:15
of impermanence or change. So as you go in, what do I
41:20
notice? There might be description or
41:25
it's kind of like vibrating or it feels quite dense.
41:32
But I suppose as you stay with that dense, maybe what you begin
41:38
to notice is that that dense has got a life.
41:42
Yeah, it's physical sensation. It's got a life and it's moving
41:46
and it's changing. So what one of the things that
41:49
you've done is so if if resistance is a kind of ignoring
41:53
a sort of turning, turning away, this is just actually just
41:58
turning towards and being willing to be with.
42:04
And what starts to happen, the more you see the sensation as
42:09
change is that there is a sense of letting go and there is a
42:15
sense of letting be that kind of begins to happen.
42:18
You'll notice that everything begins to sort of open up and
42:26
relax. Actually, that is really
42:33
important to to to work with in your practice to kind of to
42:40
familiarize yourself with really important.
42:55
So that's 22 methods, 1 is broadening out the bigger
43:01
container of awareness and the other is kind of either leaning
43:04
in or going in. But with this, with this
43:08
perspective of can I see change here?
43:12
Can I notice change within this experience?
43:17
Yeah, sometimes because of that, because that you've added that
43:21
in, it's also a bit fascinating. You're interested, maybe you've
43:24
never done that before. Because generally what's kind of
43:27
happening is this unpleasant sensation is sort of distance
43:31
from it. You're not quite with it.
43:34
It's sort of there. It's nagging.
43:36
You don't really want it, but it is there.
43:40
And it's like, oh, So what happens then if I just start to
43:44
sort of edge towards, turn towards, can I notice size
43:48
change? Then maybe the last thing that I
43:53
will say is, is, so sometimes it's said that with mindfulness
43:59
or with awareness comes choice. So what that means is, is that
44:09
there's unpleasant physical sensation in your experience.
44:13
I've already said that that with this sense of broadening out
44:16
like kind of the bigger container of awareness, it means
44:21
that there's lots of possibilities to what might
44:24
arise in your experience. But one of the things that will
44:29
probably be arising somewhere is pleasure.
44:34
So, and again, this is important to sort of notice where in my
44:40
body do I experience pleasure, start to get used to that.
44:47
So, so for me, one of the areas is my hands.
44:52
So when I tapped my attention into my hands, what I feel is
44:58
like a kind of physical tingling and that's pleasurable.
45:09
So make a choice like kind of, OK, so this is unpleasant
45:15
physical experience. So it could be that I've got
45:17
this finger in my back. So what is it like again, this
45:20
sense of playing, what is it like if I just take my attention
45:24
at this moment to my hands, What happens?
45:34
Well, I feel quite energised. So sometimes the, the, the
45:41
sensation reduces or disappears or just the fact that you've,
45:46
you've took your attention somewhere else.
45:49
It's becomes a bit more kind of manageable really.
45:54
But that is really important with this thing about this idea
45:57
of practice, that that practice is about pain.
46:01
I've got to stay with pain. This is what Buddhism is about,
46:04
staying with pain, going through pain.
46:07
No, there's a whole spectrum of experience and some of it is
46:12
very pleasurable. Kind of use that as a, as a
46:16
resource. So that is kind of how we become
46:28
a like, you know, in this, this sort of that is talking more
46:31
about a monk, isn't it? But in a, in a sense, you could
46:34
say to be a practitioner and not to be run-of-the-mill, this is,
46:41
this is what we need to do. We need to learn.
46:44
We need to learn to be with our experience.
46:46
We need to learn to work with our experience.
46:52
We need some tools to kind of to be able to do that.
46:57
And then sometimes where we end, where we end up, sorry, it's on
47:03
the other sheet where we end up is, is with that sense of there
47:08
is a gap. Actually one last thing that I
47:12
will say is that if if you're with if you're with contact and
47:20
feeling. So the sense of the body and
47:25
feeling, which also a sense of the body can include the breath.
47:32
So that's part of it. If you're able to stay with that
47:36
kind of a bit consistently over time, what begins to happen is,
47:43
is that you experience at some point more pleasure.
47:49
And this is the kind of entry point either the entry point
47:52
into high states of consciousness comes by being
47:55
with just kind of really being with the breath.
47:58
But it also comes through having a broader awareness and being
48:04
able just to be with that. This is why for me, this, this
48:07
model of either primary experience and secondary
48:11
suffering is so important. If I'm just with primary
48:15
experience, my whole experience is quite simple and it's not so
48:22
elaborate. There's not so.
48:24
And in a sense, there's actually not so much pain really in the
48:28
sense of lots of thinking and emotional the rest of it.
48:32
And then what begins to happen is pleasant.
48:40
The sensation begins to arise. And it's that pleasant sensation
48:45
that takes you into the kind of the first, the first Yan of the
48:49
first absorption. So hope that we all become, what
49:02
would you say, practitioners and move, move away from being a bit
49:08
more run-of-the-mill. Yeah.
49:11
And in a way I hope kind of what what what I would encourage you
49:17
to do because this has been more me talking to you, hasn't it?
49:21
Go away and try out some of these things that I've said.
49:25
Yeah. The bigger container of
49:27
awareness, if you want maybe actually maybe put the second
49:33
one in, which is choosing, do I want to stay with this or do I
49:39
want to find something else which is pleasurable?
49:42
Maybe that's the second option. Then the third option is what is
49:49
it like to either to lean in and lean out?
49:53
Can I play with that a little bit?
49:55
But particular what happens if I begin to experience this
50:00
sensation as change? What happens?
50:05
Yeah, that's that's your kind of homework.
50:09
Well, that's it. Thank you for listening.
50:20
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