First, I just want to say hello and welcome. And I'm really honored and
delighted to be here with Peter. And it really came,
I think this time together came out of our personal inquiry into our own practice.
And for me, my background has been, for the past 15 years,
in Vipassana, more in the Theravadan tradition. And it's really supported me,
and it's still a foundational part of my practice. But over the past five or
six years or so, as I've also started to explore the nondual traditions,
what started arising for me was noticing how in my practice I
was using certain of my techniques to try to make things be a certain way,
to try to get to certain states of consciousness. And
that there was a subtle sense of striving kind of underneath a lot of my practice.
Trying to make things be a certain way. So even be a certain way so
I could be peaceful, or a certain way so I could be more generous, or
more compassionate. And there was always this sense that it's not quite right.
Or I'm not quite right. Or there's some better place to be.
And there is something extraordinarily liberating in just letting all that go,
and bringing a certain acceptance,
allowing kindness, curiosity to my experience and
a spaciousness. And so, when we were talking about this nondual Vipassana,
it still feels like I have this scaffolding of my mindfulness practice.
And yet there's so much more freedom in it. And so that's,
I think, what we're going to explore a little bit today. >> And
I love the word curiosity. So, I think the nice thing about curiosity, it's just open
to seeing what is. It's not about trying to get anywhere or make anything happen.
And... I would say the nondual aspect for me is the idea that,
not the idea, but just realizing there is nowhere we're trying to get to.
There's nothing we're actually trying to do, nowhere we're trying to get to,
but more, for me it's about just letting the mind relax, and
just relax back into being in the moment. And my own background,
I got in, when I first got involved in meditation, I was very involved in TM,
transcendental meditation. And what attracted me to it in the first place...
I was reading one of the Maharishi's early
books, and he said something about effortlessness, and
why meditation had to be absolutely effortless. Using any attempt to try,
any effort at all, starts confining the mind, tightening it, and
we want to do the opposite. And that just struck me as so obviously right--and yet
everything I've been trying in the way of meditation was concentrating. If you
really discipline the mind and practice years of discipline, you can really hold
off all thoughts and you will finally, with great, great effort, reach samadhi.
And it's like, and he was just turning the whole thing inside out and
saying, No, no, no, just let go, relax. And, so I was involved with TM for
many years, and then about ten years ago started visiting Spirit Rock,
just because I wanted a place to just go in retreat.
I had no particular interest in Vipassana. I was interested in Buddhism, but
just here was a place locally where I could go on retreat and
just meditate, and... There's no mind police there. You can do what you want.
>> [AUDIENCE LAUGHTER] >> And, instantly I just saw this marriage,
between... I came up instantly in my very first retreat...
I think it was the first date, like, Ahh, transcendental Vipassana.
>> [AUDIENCE LAUGHTER] >> Which was taking that complete effortlessness of TM,
and then applying it to mindfulness. And what I noticed,
is sometimes mindfulness--I sit with various mindfulness teachers...
Sometimes, I think this is what Shauna's pointing to, is that very slight
intention to arrive at a particular state, to get somewhere. And
I just, I don't know, hang on, why don't we just let go of any striving... And
just totally accepting what is, in the moment.
And over the years, I've been just noticing,
watching my own mind, but just noticing where that little bit of striving,
wanting, comes in. That bit that says, Oh,
this isn't quite it. This meditation isn't quite good enough. And just, well,
that's all just part of what is. So when the striving comes in, for
me it's accepting the striving as well. The striving comes in, thoughts come in,
the wanting comes in. But that's part of what is...
it's nothing wrong with that. >> And I think that's a big piece of it,
is when the striving comes in, to allow and accept the striving. >> Um-hmm.
>> So a lot of my students, when I'm teaching, they, and I,
I talk about mindfulness as having these three elements of intention, attention,
just paying attention, and then your attitude, this non-striving curious kind,
compassionate attitude. And some, you know, someone will raise their hand and
say, Well, I don't feel compassionate or
kind right now. And... It's such an important clarification that
I am not inviting them to have to feel the kindness or the compassion, but
to have some spaciousness around whatever they are feeling. So
there's this container of welcoming and inviting all of it,
even when they notice the striving occurring. It doesn't mean you immediately
have to let go of your striving and assume the effortless, relaxed state.
It's that there's some, that the awareness that's always already here is
already effortless and relaxed. And that they can rest back into that. And
that can hold whatever their experience is. Even if the experience is striving.
>> Yeah. Yeah, the way I put it, that's something,
it's not resisting the resistance. >> Um-hmm. >> And actually accepting that and
noticing it. It's like, Oh, I'm in resistance, what's it feel like?
Or in others words, accept the non-acceptance.
If I'm not accepting the moment, accept that you're not accepting the moment.
It's like stepping back and bringing it a level of, just almost, observation.
Here I am, I'm trying, I'm resisting, I'm feeling something should be different, and
just letting that be. And letting that be, it tends to dissolve. If you resist it,
it's that old Werner Erhard line, What you resist persists. >> Although sometimes,
what starts to happen is the mind gets tricky and
it says, Okay, if I just start letting go and letting this be, but
secretly, you're hoping that it's going to, you know, immediately... >> Yeah.
>> Dissolve the thing that you're not wanting to be there. And so
what will come up is, Okay I'm relaxing into the pain, or I'm relaxing and
letting this judgment be here, and, Oh crap, it's not going away,
right? That I, that I did my trick of totally accepting and allowing. And so
you have to go to even a deeper level... >> Yeah. >> Of really allowing, allowing
even for it not to dissolve when you accept it. >> Yes. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Yeah.
Is there anything else we should say? I think just,
just to say one thing I always say to beginners, because there may be
beginners in the group here, is... not to get concerned about thoughts...
There's an idea around that in the sort of general public that meditation
is about not thinking, it's about quietening the mind, and so
you shouldn't be having thoughts. If you're having thoughts, they're getting in
the way of meditation. Thoughts are going to happen to all of us. I think the most
advanced meditators have thoughts coming in. It's not about not having thoughts,
it's about, as Shauna says, it's attitude. What is your attitude to the thought?
Thoughts are going to bubble up, and what the nature of thoughts are,
they take us out of the moment. We start imagining something,
planning something, wanting something, or start thinking about the meditation,
whatever it is. The basic instruction is whenever you notice yourself thinking,
whatever it might be, any thought whatsoever, any thought...
Just to let it be, not to feel you've gone wrong, to judge it and
say, I'm a bad boy or girl, or whatever. But just gently.
And we'll be doing this, just gently coming back to the experience in
the moment. Just gently coming back to the experience. And
the mind will wander off again. You just gently bring it back.
One analogy I've heard I really like it's like teaching a puppy to sit. You know, if
you're teaching a puppy to sit, you press, you press its backside down and you say,
Sit--but you don't hold it there to make it sit. Like, this is what sitting is, you
sit, and you let go, and being a puppy, it's, soon it's off running around again.
You say, come back--this is sitting, and you just press it down gently and
then let it go. And I think it's the same with the mind, okay. Come back to here,
come back to here. Just sit. Just let the attention rest in the moment, and
it wanders off again, just let the attention rest. >> And I love
the puppy analogy, and I think what's so important is when the puppy wanders off,
when your mind wanders off, because it will, is to notice how you bring it back.
Because we're training the mind in some way and so...
And this is where it's not an effortful striving, and
kind of whacking the puppy and saying, Back, sit. There is some discipline,
there is some awareness that the mind has wandered.
And, in that moment of awareness you're already back in the present moment,
you're already... The awareness is here, so you don't have to do anything, there
doesn't have to be any judgment. I noticed in myself, when I would be practicing, and
I would notice my mind wander from the breath, which was my object of attention,
there'd be this, you know, Dammit, Shauna, why can't you just pay attention?
This isn't that hard. Why can't you? And
there was kind of a whacking the puppy back. And so, I think our invitation is
really to notice where the mind goes, again with this light curiosity and
this, and this kindness, as opposed to forcing it to be a certain way.
And I think that's true with everything, not just thoughts. When we hear sounds,
when we feel sensations in the body. When any kind of energy arises to simply
be with that experience. Feel our awareness holding it.
It's not so much, sometimes it's people will say it's witnessing it.
Where we get a distance from our thoughts, or a distance from the experience. But
in my experience there is the witnessing in the sense that... I'm not caught by it,
but it's so intimate, that I'm right there in my experience and that,
that's where the nonduality arises. That sometimes in the Vipassana practice,
there can be a real sense of duality, of here's the witness over here and
here's the experience over here. And for me, what's really softened is just
being in the experience, but not being identified or caught in it. >> Yeah, nice.
>> Can I ask a question? >> Sure. John. >> I'll
try to speak up so you can hear. To me especially since you're playing with,
oh, okay. Since you're playing with this whole concept, if you will, of a nondual,
I guess, version of Vipassana or perspective on it. I wonder if you
could comment a little bit about what certainly seems like a contradiction. And
I know in my own teaching, people often experience it as this,
which is it does sound like you're speaking about a kind of manipulation
of the mind. This kind of training of the puppy.
Bringing it back. Bringing it back. And, which is fine, but
it does still sound like control, even if it's subtle,
of experience. And I wonder if you could play a little bit with that
as it relates to your own, I guess, evolving understanding of meditation.
>> Do you want to go first? Yeah.
>> I think that's a wonderful question and there is that paradox that comes up
of in some ways completely letting go of control, and then in some ways,
there is a certain subtle intention we have to be aware, right?
To not just completely space out. And yet, for me the intention is the awareness
as opposed to forcing the puppy to come back to right here. So it's more of
awareness watching where the mind is going, as opposed to stopping my thoughts,
or forcing my thoughts to immediately evaporate the moment I'm aware of them.
There's more, there's more gentleness in just being with the awareness. >> So
is awareness separate from the moving mind? >> I would say no. Awareness isn't
separate from the moving mind. And I'm not trying to control the awareness. But
I'm trying to stay with the moving mind, instead of being on automatic pilot and
then being separate, I think. >> Yeah, yeah. >> Whew.
I answered that one okay. [LAUGH] >> Saved me. [LAUGH]