Latest / Buddhistisches Tor Berlin Podcast / The Second Arrow: Working with Thoughts & Emotions

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The Second Arrow: Working with Thoughts & Emotions · 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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So I'm going to be giving a kind of follow up talk from last
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week. So I'm going to be recapping
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what we did last week and then I'm going to be talking a bit
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about working with thought and working with emotion in
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meditation in life. But before, before I go kind of
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back back into what we looked at last week, I just want to start
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with with a kind of quote. So it's the beginning of a song
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by a Buddhist practitioner called Shabkar.
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So I think he was round about, he was around round about the
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14th century. So as I was preparing the talk,
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this particular text was just kind of by my side and I read it
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and well, it's, it's amazing. And it's a bit like what I'm,
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what I'm going to do is just give you a sort of a glimpse of
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the goal. That's kind of what he's talking
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about. So in a certain sense, it's a
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bit like you get at the beginning of the talk, you get a
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little glimpse of enlightenment and then we'll go backwards and
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then we'll try and work out how maybe how we move in that
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direction. So it's not the whole reading.
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So it's just free lines. So he says all appearances are
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vast openness, blissful and utterly free.
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With a free, happy mind, I sing this song of joy.
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All appearances are vast openness, blissful and utterly
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free. With a free happy mind, I sing
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this song of joy. So this is kind of like a song
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that he would sing because he is realised, he's awakened and this
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is the beginning of the song. So all appearances means
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anything that appears. So that means all thoughts.
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It means all emotions. So all thoughts are vast
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openness, blissful and utterly free.
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All emotions are vast openness, blissful and utterly free.
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All sensation is vast openness, blissful and utterly free.
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Whether that sensation is pleasant or whether that
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sensation is unpleasant, it's blissful and utterly free.
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Every time we imagine something, it's blissful and utterly free
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from his perspective. So what we looked at last week,
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we looked at a particular Sutter from from early Buddhism.
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So it's a Sutter that the Buddha gave to a group of monks and
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it's called the Solitar suitor. It's a very good, very good
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suitor. So I'm going to try and sort of
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not spend loads and loads of time on this sort of recap.
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You don't quite know where you're going to go.
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Sometimes it might take longer than I think, but that's what
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I'm going to begin with. Like a bit of a recap from last
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week. So the the Sutter is called the
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Solitar Sutter, which means the arrow.
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And what it looks at is it looks at the Buddha is asking a
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question. What is the difference between a
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practitioner and a non practitioner?
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What's the difference between somebody that can work with the
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mind and somebody that's got no idea about working with the
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mind? He's actually talking more about
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in a way he's talking to his monk.
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So he's kind of saying a disciple of the noble ones or
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just somebody He he calls it a person run-of-the-mill.
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So kind of anybody. Yeah, the difference between
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those two and what he says is that the difference is, is that
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an everyday person, when they're when they experience physical
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pain, it's like being shot with an arrow.
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So this is the first arrow you experience physical pain and
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you're shot with an arrow. And then he says, and then
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straight away after that, it's like being shot with a second
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arrow. And the second arrow is our
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reaction, our reaction to the physical pain.
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So this is kind of probably maybe as well how a lot of us
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respond or react kind of quite often.
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So it's like being shot with two arrows, one after the other, one
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of them's physical and one of them's mental.
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Probably you don't even feel the much of A separation between the
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two. There's just a reaction to that
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physical pain. And then he says for a
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practitioner, what happens is that they experience physical
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pain or they experience painful feeling and they're shot with an
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arrow bunk, but there isn't a reaction.
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They're just able to stay with just that pain.
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So what I also said last week was because I'm going to be
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talking a little bit about pain and more difficult experience,
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don't fall into the idea that Buddhism is just about being
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with staying with pain. It isn't.
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And the fact that Shabkar says all appearances are vast,
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openness, blissful and utterly free shows you that actually, in
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a way the goal leads to one way of describing it is to a state
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of bliss. Going into higher states of
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consciousness in meditation are very pleasurable, and you feel
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more happy, you feel more spacious.
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And so there's a lot in Buddhism which is more about pleasure,
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actually. So sometimes we can have this
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idea Buddhism because we've got things like the four noble
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truths, suffering, the cause of suffering, ceasing suffering and
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end of suffering, and the path leading to the, to the end of
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suffering. I've already got all of them
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mixed up. But what I'm saying is that you
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can get this sense of, oh, it's about pain.
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Yeah. And what I'm saying is it's not.
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So keep really keep that in mind as we're looking at what we're
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looking at. So the way, the way you can see
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these two, these two arrows, so the physical and the mental.
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And actually that's the other thing that I need to say to you.
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In Buddhism, there's also a distinction that we make between
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feeling and emotion. So feeling in Buddhism just
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means pleasure, pain or neutral. So it's, it's kind of like, it's
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quite basic. It's just what happens.
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It's what happens when we experience sense contact, when
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we see something, when we hear something, when we taste
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something, we have a feeling response and that's either a
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feeling of pleasure, pain or neutral emotion.
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Kind of comes a bit later. It's a bit more elaborate, it's
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a bit more complicated, it's a bit more.
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There's more to it really. So the way that that is
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sometimes talked about, well, yeah.
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So, so this thing about contact and feeling, one way of of
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looking at that is that that is what we can call primary
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experience. And then what if we react to
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that, then there is a kind of movement which is more mental
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and that's sometimes it's talked about in different ways.
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So it's either talked about that.
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So independence on contact, there's feeling independence on
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feeling, there's craving, grasping and becoming or
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aversion, pushing away becoming. That's one way it kind of, it
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sort of opens out another way of talking about it is that there
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is contact and feeling and interpretation.
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And then what happens is we start to think about something
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and then the mind proliferates, the mind opens out and it's like
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there's more and more thought that kind of happens.
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So it's like we will have definitely experienced this
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because to some degree, probably we've experienced it this
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morning. It's like we've had the
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intention to cultivate loving kindness.
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And I imagine you haven't been able to do that for the whole of
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the meditation. At some point your mind would
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have gone off somewhere else. You would have been more
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distracted by something. Yeah, I can.
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I imagine that is probably true for everybody, unless there are
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a few awakened people in the room.
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So this is just what happens. The mind like from from physical
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sensation, it just kind of spreads out in a particular kind
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of way. Maybe I'll come back to you
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later on more so this this is also how then in this particular
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Sutter, what the Buddha then says is that the person
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experiences unpleasant feeling to unpleasant sensation in the
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body. And then what very quickly
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happens is there is a resistance to that.
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And because of the resistance, there is suffering.
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So the resistance is, is how we're relating to our
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experience. So we have an experience of
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physical discomfort. Like again, actually this as I
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was meditating, we was doing the metabarwna.
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Yeah, I was into the practice and also at the same time there
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was some physical discomfort in my body, like kind of part and
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there was a part on my back which was quite sore.
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So I was sort of, that was there in my experience.
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So if I would have kind of got gone into that rabbit hole of
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that unpleasant physical sensation and I had a sense of
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like, I don't want this. Actually, I'm, I'm trying to
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cultivate loving kindness and this is getting in the way of
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that. I've got an unpleasant physical
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sensation in my body and I want to send loving kindness to my
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friend Padma Sagra. But actually it's like this
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physical sensation is just quite dominant and I'm sort of
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starting to ignore it. I'm starting to push it away.
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And then I might get into a whole story about that like,
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well, where's it come from? And it's been here for ages and
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what is it? How can I get rid of it?
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Do we need to go and see a physio?
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Do we need to go to Padmasthagrapher and Alexander
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technique session? Whatever kind of like might come
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into my mind. I was kind of saying this sort
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of last week. So it's like all's there is, is
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physical sensation in this case painful.
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And quite quickly I've sort of jumped off it, I've resisted it,
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I've not wanted it. And then I'm into thinking about
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and trying to solve the problem of it really.
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So then there was this, this kind of thing that I, that I
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mentioned last week, which, which is what we resist
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persists. So that's also kind of good to
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remember really. So the fact that we're, we're
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having this particular experience and we kind of turn
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away from it. We don't want it, we're ignoring
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it, but it's still there and it does want our attention because
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of that movement. It's not heard, it's not felt,
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it's not listened to. And it, it's, well, sometimes it
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might even get louder actually, because of the fact that we're
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ignoring it. So we're resisting it.
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And because we're resisting it, it's persisting.
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That's not to say that that simply turning towards a
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sensation will make it go away. It might still be there.
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But the turning towards is a change of relationship.
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The turning towards is no longer resistance.
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The turning towards is, oh, what's there, what's happening
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kind of oh, that's sore or whatever it is.
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So anyway, what we resist persists.
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And then in, in the Sutter, what it says is that the way this
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unfolds in this particular Sutter is that from this sense
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of unpleasant physical sensation, there is resistance
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and then there's suffering. So the suffering is more the,
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the layering of thoughts that come on top.
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And then the, the, the sense is, is that there is no way out of
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this unpleasant physical sensation.
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The only option I've got is distraction.
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The only option I've got is pleasure.
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Now this is a little bit tricky because I also said last week
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that that one way of working with unpleasant feeling in the
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body is to choose. Because we've, we've
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mindfulness, when we have more awareness, we've got, we've got
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choice. So one option is we can choose
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to place our attention somewhere else and that might be pleasure
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in a part of the body that feels pleasurable.
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That is a good thing to do actually.
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You feel very, you feel more resourced.
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So it is a question about whether you want to go into this
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sensation or not. Remember what I said about
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Buddhism is not just about unpleasant sensation.
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And there's also lots of other things that are going on in our
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experience that we can tune into and pick up on, which again,
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alter our relationship to this physical sensation.
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But in a way, the way it unfolds in this particular Sutter is
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where you end up is you just distract.
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You distract yourself from it. I also said last week that don't
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be so hard on yourself for distracting yourself.
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Sometimes distraction is a good option and maybe part of it is
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refining your distraction sometimes.
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Like what? What is your go to when you
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experience something difficult? So the one of the ways that I
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was thinking about this is that as we experience a physical, a
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physical painful physical sensation in the body, we will
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experience it as we, as we meditate in our life.
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The way it appears is that we see it as a problem.
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So because we see it as a problem, we need to find a
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solution. That's the next layer.
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Sometimes we can't find a solution and maybe I'll go into
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this again in a bit. So because we can't find one, it
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feels like the only option we've got is just to distract
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ourselves from it. So like I said, maybe I'll come
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back to that in a while. So then what I said last week
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was that that I gave 3 three ways of working with painful
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feeling. The first one that I said was,
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was that it's called the bigger container of awareness.
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So what that means is, is that there's something unpleasant in
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your experience, physical sensation, and the bigger
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container of awareness means you broaden out.
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So that means you start to notice more and more of your
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experience. So might be the space of the
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room, it might be sensations in my feet, it might be my
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breathing, who knows. It might be that I smell
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something, that there's some incense burning.
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It might be that light is coming through the window and I feel
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the light on my skin, I feel the warmth kind of on my skin.
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So it's like I start to include more and more things that are
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going on, so everything broadens out and I'm less focused on this
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unpleasantness which is happening.
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So that's one way opening out the bigger container of
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awareness. The other thing that that I said
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last week, which is what I said a little while ago, is that
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there's this also this choice. Yeah.
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So, so there's a decision about do you stay with this sensation
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and possibly go into it or do I, I decide or, or kind of play
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around a little bit, which is also partly related to the last
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thing you maybe you find a, a pleasant sensation in the body.
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Yeah. And as you start, as you get
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more trained in this, you, you will have your go to places in
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your body which feel comfortable and feel nice and all the rest
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of it. So I've said to some people,
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like for me, sometimes that's my hands.
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My hands feel very alive when I put my attention there.
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There's a, there's pleasure. So I can choose.
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I choose, OK, so I'm going to put my attention with my hands
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and feel that sense of pleasure. How does that affect this pain?
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Yeah, that was the second option.
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And the third option is, is it comes here.
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So this is this is one of the other things that the Buddha
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says in this sutra. He says that the unpleasant
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physical feeling is not seen as it is it's origination, it's
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passing, it's allure, it's drawback and it's escape.
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So picking up on the passing or arising and passing, what that
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means is that the physical sensation or actually anything
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within our experience is constantly changing.
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So if you decided to to look at the physical sensation.
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And again, I also mentioned last week that there is there's a way
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of doing that, which is like you kind of lean into it and you
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lean out and you lean in and you lean out as much as you want.
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Yeah. So again, you can if you got
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this sort of choice, but if you kind of go more and more in like
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for instance, if I was to go into that sensation that was in
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my back and I begin to experience that.
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And what I'm looking for as well is I'm looking for the fact that
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it's changing. Yeah, that's, that's the view
21:39
that I'm using. That's the way I'm looking and I
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start to, well, it is there. It's all things are always
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changing. So I start to experience the
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sensation like that. It's moving, it's changing, it's
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flickering, it's throbbing, it's burning.
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And as I stay with burning, it's kind of got a particular sort of
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vibration to it. And I'm starting to see this
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kind of like the change of it already in doing that, I've
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turned towards. So there isn't the resistance.
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And I've brought in another perspective, which is his
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perspective of change. Yeah.
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And so we're not doing this. This is really important.
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We're not doing this to get rid of our experience.
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We're not doing it to get rid of unpleasant physical sensation.
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Yeah. And it'll also be the same with
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thought and emotion when we. So maybe I start getting into
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the whole thing about thought and emotion now.
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So at the end of the talk last week, a few people came up to me
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and also in the meditation course I'm doing, and a few
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people asked the same question. So does this kind of what you've
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said, does it work in relationship to thought and
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difficult emotion? Well, the simple answer is yes.
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But what I find interesting about the question is, is that
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it says something about the person that's asking it, I
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think. And it kind of says something
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probably about all of us, which is when we experience something
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difficult, we want to get rid of it.
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So we want to get rid of a mind that which is racing and there's
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lots of thoughts. We want to get rid of difficult
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emotion, yeah, whether that's anger, whether that's
23:47
depression, whether that's anxiety, kind of whatever it is
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the kind of common difficult emotions that we experience.
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But as soon as we we start to do that, there is what arises is
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that sense of resistance and that compounds our experience.
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It fixes our experience. So that's the first thing to try
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to notice. Like I'm having an experience.
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So now we're talking more about thought or emotion.
24:27
What is my relationship to it? Even I've I've kind of set
24:33
myself up in a particular way. So I'm meditating, I've set
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myself up in a particular way and the way I've set myself up
24:42
meditating, it kind of doesn't allow for the fact that I'm
24:47
going to think and experience difficult emotion.
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You've kind of, there's a sort of attitude which is sort of
24:55
saying this isn't all right. Actually, it's not what should,
24:58
it's not what should be happening in this space where
25:02
I've come to be calm, but it's your experience, it's your
25:07
experience as it is. We don't know what our
25:09
experience as it is is going to be, perhaps as we sit down to
25:14
meditate. So I'm going to say a few things
25:23
about about thought. So yeah, maybe the question mark
25:40
is, is for a problem. Yeah.
25:44
Is that how how we feel about it?
25:48
So it's obviously disturbing our meditation.
25:50
It's kind of like it's distraction.
25:53
Is it a problem? Well, from a certain
25:56
perspective, it's not. Actually, it's no problem at
26:00
all. That's good to know.
26:08
Why is it not a problem? It's not a problem because, like
26:14
physical sensation, it's arising and passing emotion.
26:20
Difficult emotion is not a problem because it is arising
26:25
and passing. But we haven't seen that this is
26:29
part of the problem, and we haven't trained ourselves to
26:31
look in that kind of way. Maybe starting with sensation
26:35
and then starting to move our attention into different areas
26:38
of what's happening in our experience.
26:41
Because we haven't trained in that.
26:45
When we experience something difficult, we experience it as
26:49
fixed and we experience it in a way that it defines us and it's
26:58
very solid and doesn't feel like there's a way out of it.
27:05
So what? What happens with thought?
27:09
So thought is very seductive, like kind of when our thoughts
27:13
come and they tell us something either about ourselves or about
27:17
somebody else, it seems as if what they are saying is true.
27:23
It seems as if and, and what we automatically do is we believe
27:27
them. So as our story starts to kind
27:30
of arise, we believe kind of what the thoughts are saying.
27:36
So and and it's like the way we're talking to ourselves also
27:43
has a particular effect. So like a very simple example.
27:50
So I always take the rubbish out.
27:53
That might be the fault that comes into your mind.
27:56
They never take the rubbish out. So within that sentence there's
28:01
always and there's never. And in, in that moment that does
28:06
not get questioned, it seems real.
28:10
This is actually how it is. I always take the rubbish out.
28:15
They never take the rubbish out. But is that true?
28:19
Like kind of, well, maybe you start looking then in your, in
28:23
your, whatever your house or whatever and you're checking,
28:25
yeah, I've done it again. And yeah, and I've done it again
28:28
and I've done it again. But maybe occasionally they do
28:31
do that. They, they set the rubbish out.
28:36
So it's not, it's not true or not necessarily true, but we
28:42
believe them. This is part of the problem with
28:45
faults. So that, so this is the thing,
28:52
they appear as fact, but you have to you have to question
28:57
whether it's true or not they appear as fact.
29:09
They tend to have a tendency to, to kind of to proliferate like
29:13
kind of one fault linking to another, linking to another,
29:15
link to another, linking to another.
29:17
So there's this kind of spreading that happens, this
29:19
mental proliferation that can happen very fast, just sort of
29:25
what how it is really. And that becomes very fixed and
29:29
solid. Our view that is getting created
29:31
in the moment becomes very fixed and solid.
29:34
And it's believed once again, we need to somehow kind of wake up
29:46
from that dream really. So the fact that far is
29:50
constantly changing. And if you start to see that,
29:56
you see that actually, well, they do, they do, they do come
30:01
and go. They're not, they don't define
30:03
you and they don't define other people.
30:08
But when we believe them, other people, we, we and the other
30:12
person is defined. There's a very strong definition
30:15
of who and what they are and what they do.
30:28
So I, I suppose in a way you, you could kind of see like
30:34
again, this this is kind of part of sort of like training the
30:37
thing or training the mind. You can start with something.
30:40
Yeah. So for instance, if you start to
30:42
pay attention to sound in experience, this is what you,
30:46
you might do this for a, for a part of a meditation experience,
30:49
sound experience sound coming and going.
30:55
Then you get used to that and you see that sound comes and
30:58
goes. That becomes more the way you,
31:01
you see it. And, and maybe you get to see
31:06
that you're not well, you're trying not to add on to sound,
31:09
just sound as it is. It comes, it goes without the
31:13
story that might follow. So then apply that to thinking
31:20
and thinking is just internal sound.
31:25
It's the same sort of thing like it that appears in the mind and
31:32
disappears in the mind. Again, we don't tend to see it
31:37
like that, but that's kind of all all it is really.
31:43
But we get we get trapped, we get locked in.
31:47
So that that's a little bit on on fault.
31:52
So what about what about difficult emotion?
31:58
So maybe I don't know whether this will work on that and I
32:01
don't know what will come my way, but somebody just give me a
32:05
difficult emotion that that is difficult Anger.
32:10
Yeah. OK.
32:12
So anger, we all experience it from time to time.
32:18
Some of us experience it more often than others.
32:21
So this is the other thing. We have got our own particular
32:23
kind of favourites like kind of well worn paths.
32:33
So anger has got its own particular story.
32:39
Anger has got its own particular way of kind of of when we're in
32:44
it, we're viewing the world in a particular kind of way.
32:47
Yeah. Usually there's quite a strong
32:49
sense of I am right and they're wrong.
32:53
I know what I'm doing. They don't know what I'm what
32:55
they're doing. I'm better at than this, than
32:57
them, whatever. But it's all about this sense of
33:00
me. It's kind of very well, all of
33:06
these emotions are very. There's a strong sense of me or
33:09
a strong sense of I. And again, it's like we're
33:12
identifying with whatever, whatever the story is about,
33:18
particularly about the other person.
33:20
Like generally with anger, there's also quite a bit of
33:24
blame that is going on. So we need to, we need to notice
33:28
that, but what is also happening with within this whole like with
33:36
with an emotion, the way I kind of turn to see emotion, it's a
33:39
bit more like a kind of patterning.
33:40
It's a bit more complex. So there's a physical, there's a
33:44
physical element to it. There are thoughts and this
33:47
whole fit and this imagination and this whole thing we kind of
33:52
label as anger. So what is what is the actual
33:57
felt quality of anger? I'm, I'm actually asking you
34:03
that. Like, what is it like to
34:06
experience anger in the body? What does it feel like?
34:12
Burning. Burning.
34:13
Yeah, yeah. Contraction, tightness, energy.
34:20
Yeah. Any others?
34:28
Empowering. Empowering.
34:30
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So this is interesting,
34:35
actually. So powerful and empowering is
34:40
like. So there is an energetic quality
34:43
to anger. It makes us feel very big and
34:46
strong. This is probably why it's quite
34:50
addictive in a certain sense. There's a strong sense that I'm
34:54
right and I'm big and I'm strong and I'm powerful and I can tell
34:59
you how things are. This is kind of it's way of
35:05
being in the world. But what we're interested in, I
35:09
would say in relationship to meditation is this thing about
35:15
the more the physical sensation of it.
35:18
Yeah. So on its own, powerful is quite
35:27
a, a thing to experience and there is nothing wrong with it.
35:33
The energy of anger is powerful. It's interesting in Chinese,
35:41
like in Chinese medicine, they sort of talk about it's the,
35:44
it's the emotion that goes with the, the time of year of spring.
35:49
So it's kind of got this energy to it anger, which is a bit
35:53
like, I'm not going to take any shit and I'm kind of and I'm
35:57
going to push through anything that gets in my way.
36:01
But like that sense of the the the seed that pushes up through
36:06
the earth to grow. So it's actually got the energy
36:10
of it in and of itself is powerful and strong.
36:15
And we don't want to lose that. Actually, what is trigger is, is
36:21
the fact that we're so caught in the thoughts and the sense of
36:28
the other person being wrong and me being right, and then
36:31
therefore blaming them more the story and how we're thinking
36:38
that is is is more the problem. But again, all of those things
36:45
are changing. So anger also like, yeah, it's
36:52
probably worth saying that Buddhism does make a distinction
36:55
between skilful and unskillful states.
36:59
So it's like you are aware that you're in an unskillful state of
37:03
mind. That's important to know.
37:05
And also that actually, if I let this run and if I keep on adding
37:10
sticks to the fire and keep on thinking in this way, there's
37:14
more of a chance that this is going to come out in my actions
37:18
and my speech. That's the problem.
37:22
That's the, the, where the, the, the, the, the kind of
37:25
destructive power of it really, or violence, bodily anger.
37:32
But in and of itself, the energy is just part of being human.
37:45
So kind of this is sort of what what I think we've got to sort
37:49
of untangle a bit with, with with difficult emotions.
37:54
I suppose there's also other things like like the, the
37:57
traditional antidote to anger in Buddhism is, is meta loving
38:02
kindness. So that's another way of working
38:04
with anger is to do lots of loving kindness practice.
38:08
But I suppose what I'm talking about is a little bit more how
38:15
we were working with it as it's kind of there.
38:18
And maybe as we sat with it in meditation.
38:21
Well, again, you might be doing the meta above and then that
38:23
helps. So sometimes I've kind of said
38:30
this in the in the kind of the, the meditation class that I've
38:33
been doing. Sometimes for me, what can help
38:38
is, is actually just using labels.
38:40
So getting a sense of I'm thinking about this or I'm doing
38:45
this, I'm imagining this. Yeah.
38:48
So again, this is the other thing.
38:51
Sat there meditating, angry farts start to kind of come in.
39:01
What is actually happening, What is happening is in my
39:07
imagination, there is a kind of sense of me.
39:11
There is a sense of over, there's a sense of the world and
39:14
I am in this argument with this other person.
39:21
That's all. Just kind of appeared.
39:30
I lost my friend with that, but well, I suppose part part of it
39:34
is the fact that it's appeared means it can also disappear.
39:38
Yeah. That is one of the things
39:41
letting, letting go. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
39:45
I think yeah, definitely. There's kind of like there's a
39:46
letting go that can happen. I think that's it.
39:49
I suppose the letting go happens by the fact that that we we are
39:55
able to name what it is that is actually going on.
39:59
And sometimes it's, it can be as simple as you're sort of getting
40:02
a sense of, Oh my, I'm sort of saying this in my mind.
40:05
I'm saying that and I'm imagining that what is it that's
40:08
happening? What's happening is I'm
40:11
defending myself. This is the other thing,
40:15
actually. Maybe I'm just going to talk
40:18
about anger and nothing else, but.
40:22
One of the of questions that I was asking myself in
40:24
relationship to these this thing about difficult emotions is I
40:30
actually wonder whether whether the root of quite a few of them
40:35
is actually fear. A bit like fear is the primary
40:40
emotion, which a lot of the other emotions spring from.
40:45
So partly why I'm saying that is because this can also be a
40:50
question that we can ask ourselves.
40:53
So, and I've asked myself this when, when I've been in conflict
40:57
with somebody or someone is in conflict with me.
41:01
And so I'm, I'm on the receiving end of something.
41:05
So if I'm on the receiving end of something, I can ask the
41:08
question. What are they afraid of?
41:16
I don't mean this in in, I'm not saying this in a judge mental
41:20
way. I'm saying it in a curious way.
41:22
What are they afraid of? Or if I'm, if I'm the person
41:26
that's also kind of like giving it out, what am I afraid of?
41:31
Super important question. Because what we see is that
41:38
there is something in us which is threatened.
41:41
Yeah. Like, like the other day I, I'd
41:51
left a spoon on the side in somebody's house and they told
41:56
me that I shouldn't do that and that I should put it back.
42:01
And it was really hard just to stay with that.
42:04
Like kind of, OK, fair enough. I haven't put the spoon back.
42:08
I'm sorry, I didn't say that. What I said was, well, this,
42:14
this terrible. Well, just just just look at the
42:17
state of your kitchen. So, so why, why is this little
42:23
spoon kind of like so offensive? Because the kitchen was a bit of
42:28
a mess. But what is happening there for
42:31
me is it's like I can't just. And, and the, I suppose the
42:38
question was, what am I afraid of?
42:41
Yeah, if I ask that question, what I'm afraid of, I've got an
42:45
idea of myself that I'm quite clean and tidy and that I do
42:51
things right and maybe I'm caring or kind or whatever.
42:56
And this person sort of showing me, well, no, you're not
43:00
actually. You're kind of like, you didn't
43:02
take care there and you didn't think about that and you didn't
43:04
think about me and the fact that I've got to clean this up and
43:07
put this in the dishwasher. And I'm telling you that I kind
43:11
of for your benefit, but I but I couldn't take it.
43:16
Yeah. So the question, what am I
43:18
afraid of? How is this showing me how I
43:24
define myself? Yeah.
43:26
Because again, Buddhism is all about this thing to do with we
43:32
this, this sense of releasing ourselves from a fixed sense of
43:36
self, which is, which is like lots of definitions, we're
43:40
defining ourselves in a particular way.
43:42
Once we define ourselves in a particular way, then we've got a
43:46
strong sense of self and a strong sense of other.
43:49
And then there's more chance that with that strong sense of
43:52
self and other, there's more clash.
43:56
And if I could just be more relaxed, if I could be more like
44:00
Shabkar. All appearances are vast
44:02
openness, blissful and utterly free.
44:05
This this sound comes when you haven't put the, the.
44:10
Why did you leave the spoon on the on the side?
44:13
All appearances are blissful and utterly free.
44:17
It's like, are they not? No.
44:35
Yeah. So I suppose, I suppose the, the
44:37
the kind of, because I'm going to round up in a minute, I
44:41
actually thought I'd do this quicker and it'd give you more
44:43
chance to ask questions, but that hasn't happened.
44:47
Maybe just just to kind of reiterate some of the things
44:49
that I've said, particularly about thought and emotion.
44:52
So these are things for you to go away and play with.
44:55
Yeah. So thought, am I believing it?
45:05
Is it true that's that's a good question to ask Or as it starts
45:11
to happen, is, is this true all of the time?
45:23
Yeah, like I said that thing before, didn't I Like about the
45:26
not taking out the rubbish, It's like, is this true all of the
45:29
time? Every single time?
45:31
Has this person never ever taken out the rubbish in their entire
45:34
life? And what effect does it have?
45:38
Like when I think that thought, what, how what effect does it
45:41
have on me and them? How does it solidify our
45:43
relationship? So our thoughts, fact.
45:47
Or can I see thought as temporary arising, passing?
45:54
Yeah, just like another sense. Can I see thought like, like I
46:00
said, just an internal sound that arises and passes.
46:04
Is that a possibility? And then emotion coming back to
46:12
the physical, that's really important.
46:16
So this is also a question that you can ask yourself.
46:20
How does that feel in the body? So it's going, it's spinning off
46:24
in the mind, thinking and kind of all the rest of it.
46:27
We're really kind of cranking up with the with the anger.
46:30
How does that feel in the body? Perhaps it feels powerful.
46:36
What is that like? Oh, lots of energy already.
46:43
My, my experience has changed. I've become interested and that
46:48
lots of energy is quite thrilling.
46:53
Perhaps I'm not talking about at this point, I'm not in the
46:58
story. I'm just with the raw physical
47:01
sensations of it. Yeah.
47:03
And the the thing that often happens with these states is
47:06
like so hard to stay with unpleasant feeling, so hard to,
47:13
to, to because that's kind of what we're coming back to really
47:18
feeling in the body. Pleasant or unpleasant.
47:21
We don't really know. We jump off kind of very, very
47:25
fast into the thinking and into the imagining.
47:29
And it's kind of like noticing that, possibly labelling that
47:33
and coming back to the sensation or doing the metabarna going for
47:42
a walk, whatever it is, this is the other thing, isn't it?
47:45
It's, it's, it's also a, it's a, it's a state of arousal.
47:51
I mean like kind of as in nervous system arousal.
47:58
So it's like we do need time to come down.
48:00
Actually, when we've been, everything's gone up, the
48:03
adrenaline's gone up, gone up. It's like we need to give that
48:06
time. This is why when we sometimes
48:09
get a message or an e-mail or something which kind of gets us
48:16
and we start to think about it and, and try to solve the
48:20
problem and maybe just give it a bit of time and space.
48:25
Let yourself come down a bit and then look again.
48:27
What has actually been said kind of in this thing?
48:37
Yeah, there's probably probably kind of lots more that could be
48:42
said, but that hopefully gives you a little bit of a sense of
48:47
something that you can play with.
48:48
Try talk about, ask questions about, see whether it kind of it
48:54
has any sort of effect or not. Thank you for listening.
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