Seeing clearly
One thing that meditation practice teaches us is how to pay attention. A large part of practice is simply learning to refine our power of attention with the aim of seeing more clearly so that we begin to see the ways in which we enmesh ourselves in views and opinions about the world and about ourselves that don’t always serve us very well. Almost without realising, we reify our views and opinions and give them a solidity and reality which they don’t actually possess. In doing so we often fail to look beyond them or to look more deeply into our lives.
We could say that seeing clearly is a way of penetrating more deeply what we believe to be real and solid – to discover what lies behind the surface, to find something more real, or more authentic. Seeing clearly can also be a way of analysing and deconstructing our views and opinions so that instead of unconsciously letting them colour and filter our lives and experience, we instead start to test their apparent solidity and question our assumptions about what the world is like and what I am like. In both cases the result is likely to be an increased openness and receptivity to life that allows a more vital and direct contact with experience that doesn’t rely on what we already know. So by seeing more clearly we don’t aim to arrive at a different point of view or a new perspective, but rather we aim to become more sensitive to how our preconceptions, views and ideas obstruct clear seeing. In this way we seek to discover what is true for us when we don’t rely on our existing concepts, views and ideas.
In my own practice, while I find myself feeling far more open to a greater range of possibilities and a sense of not-knowing, I’m also aware of a desire to arrive at a point of some certainty. Seeing clearly requires an impetus to know, as without that we wouldn’t look beyond the surface and would instead stick to more familiar ground. But settling for a static knowing when our experience is profoundly dynamic means that fixed certainties are far more likely to obscure rather than illuminate our lives. So this wanting to know is fundamental to spiritual inquiry and has the potential to liberate us from our limited world view – but only if we do not fall into the trap of being supplanting one perspective with another and settling for a new but equally partial view.
From experience I know this cycle repeats and there is enough wisdom to recognise the latest perspective for what it is – just the current state of knowing, rather than an end point. So in seeing more clearly, I need to work with the unravelling of previously held certainties and actively loosen yet another layer of the views and beliefs which structure and constrain how I experience and receive life.
Not holding onto fixed ideas about the way things are makes possible a more authentic exploration of what is – simply because I am more open to possibility. In that I find a beautiful simplicity and peace that is not found in arriving at a fixed conclusion.
One of the things I have most benefited from in my practice has been the opportunity to be in regular contact with a teacher. What I value most about these interactions is that while a teacher can provide specific ‘answers’ or guide me through a particular practice or process, they always throw me back on myself to find my own understanding and to access my own wisdom. Ken McLeod writes that when working with a teacher “Change in you comes through your efforts to learn what the teacher is teaching and to put it into practice” and I think that this is a good description of the process. The Buddhist path is an experiential one and ‘trying things out’ is essential before we can really know for ourselves whether what the teachings are pointing to is true.
So I approach working with a teacher from the point of view of gaining a different perspective on my own exploration and understanding, and reporting back on how my process is unfolding. At times this might involve asking questions, or it can be more of a two-way discussion or sharing of experience. It can also take the form of an inquiry, or it can be in silence – with both of us simply sitting in the presence of the other and seeing what arises and whether anything wants to be expressed. All of these different modalities have been beneficial and quite often I won’t even know before a meeting what form the interaction will take. Writing this also reminds me that while my practice doesn’t have to look a particular way, neither does teaching – life shows up just as it is.
My most recent session with a Gaia House teacher emphasised the importance of curiosity and experimentation in our practice – to investigate meditative states from multiple angles and viewpoints. By not arriving too quickly at a firm conclusion about our experience we can hopefully avoid mistaking a limited view for the whole picture – a kind of spiritual myopia which can easily occur when we become focused on a particular aspect of our experience as this is all that we see. If this happens, that which reveals our experience is overlooked and instead we only see that which is revealed.
Having the guidance of someone who already knows the territory is invaluable, they can alert you to aspects you might have otherwise overlooked and point out where you might be falling into a uni-dimensional view that divides experience and fails to recognise its integral wholeness. For me working with a teacher has helped to round out and broaden my understanding, and while it is up to me to put my understanding into practice, this support has has made a big difference.
Some weeks ago while on retreat at Gaia House I asked myself a question: “What has made the most difference in my practice?” Given the great variety of practices and paths available and the different approaches of teachers, I wondered what had made the most difference for me. Was it trying to see the emptiness of phenomena? Was it the long retreats? Was it the release of my stories? Was it the reading, study and reflection? Was it meeting or working with certain teachers? Was it particular meditative experiences or insights? Or was it a consistent daily practice?
Often I would think that more, and longer retreats were needed. Or, to spend more time in India, or perhaps more time with enlightened or inspiring teachers. At other times study of Buddhist texts has seemed invaluable, and of course I have been pulled towards different practices and teachers.
Over the years as I have come to see more clearly the way my mind works, and it is usually looking for a quick fix, or better moment than this to wake up in. In fact anything other than to meet this moment as it is. Even while on retreat I could be distracted by thoughts of the next retreat, a longer one, or one with a different teacher, not understanding that right here and now is where wisdom can arise. To see deeply that this movement of mind where I am distracted from examining my actual experience and taken into the future, to some imagined place or situation, is what actually prevents me from seeing the way things are – right here and right now. To simply be present for whatever is arising and to know this experience directly.
In case you are wondering, the answer that came in response to my question was somewhat surprising to me. It was that generosity and compassion had made the most difference in my practice. I shared this with my teacher, and her response was “Sounds like you’re in good company” – and I agreed.
The most obvious sense of self we have is our physical body. A more subtle sense of self is the mind-made self which can arise from the mind-made body we can experience in meditation, then there is the formless self which we can take ourselves to be where there is neither physical nor mental form – such as in the higher formless jhanas. Whichever level we look at, we usually have a very real sense that there is something that exists I can call ‘me’. But this is an incorrect view arising from identification with one of these three senses of self. When questioned, the Buddha refused to answer the question of whether or not a self exists but he did teach the concept of ‘not-self’ or anattā, which is quite different to ‘no self’. He taught not-self as an approach to looking at how we create our own suffering through a misunderstanding of who and what we really are. So understanding and relaxing this incorrect sense of self is an important doorway to greater freedom.
Our sense of self usually asserts itself when its either not getting what it wants (usually more of something), or when it wants to bring an end to a particular experience (usually unpleasant ones). It seems that a belief in a separate and enduring self is either implicit in our mind or endemic in our physicality as we know ourselves to be ‘a person’ experiencing the world ‘out there’. Because of this mistaken belief it leads to a way of relating to experience that is concerned with having things a certain way that will satisfy ‘me’. But for this self, complete and enduring satisfaction is impossible to obtain and our sense of self is instead strengthened by the push and pull of craving for things to be different from how they actually are. In fact the self we take ourselves to be can never actually be satisfied precisely because we are not what we take ourselves to be. This seems to be a fundamental delusion that keeps us bound to the wheel of samsara. So how to begin to unravelling this?
What I notice is that when I am quiet and calm and there is no pain in the body, the sense of self is diminished. But when difficult mind states or bodily pain is present, the sense of self and the importance of having things ‘my way’ increases. So the sense of self increases or decreases dependant on conditions. Put another way, when the sense of self is less strong there is less craving and when there is less craving the sense of self is less. This shows that the sense of self is not consistent – sometimes it is apparently absent while at other times it seems to dominate all other concerns.
During meditation we can observe the relationship between self and craving. With a quietened mind it is possible see more clearly how we resist unpleasant experiences and grasp after pleasant ones. I notice the arising of self manifesting as a contraction of heart that has a defensive and hardened quality. It also manifests mentally as the mind seemingly locked on to a specific aspect of experience that I want more or less of. Calming the physical body by intentionally relaxing any holding in my body, opening the chest and bringing awareness to my arms, legs and the rest of my body helps to ease any sense of constriction in the heart. To release mental clinging I bring attention to the contraction around a very limited aspect of experience and this is usually enough to broaden the focus. The balance, calm, and ease of mind this release brings is palpable and is a direct result of letting go of difficult mind states and their physical expression.
Seeing how the sense of self arises dependent on conditions releases us from being the centre of experience and being a concrete ‘self’ that needs to be fulfilled and kept happy. This understanding brings me into a more intimate and direct connection with life, rather than living and acting from a place of greedy or aversive reactivity. Because my relationship with life depends less on having things ‘my’ way, freedom and happiness are increased.
Sometimes people might wonder ‘why meditate?’. Very often meditation is equated with being more calm, or less stressed (see Rohan’s recent post at www.21awake.com for more on this) but this isn’t really the main purpose of meditation. Yes those things are likely to occur as a result of meditation, but I see them as worthwhile by-products of meditation rather than the main aim. The aim of meditation as I see it is actually to understand how and why we suffer in life and help us recognise the part played by our own minds in creating our suffering.
Now this runs somewhat contrary to commonly held views such as ‘life is a mix of good and bad, and you have to go with the flow’. Following this logic all we need to do to be happy is either not get too excited about the good and try to ignore or avoid the bad. We might even judge ourselves and our lives to be more / less successful on the basis of such views and equate having less difficulty with success and more difficulty with failure. But as most of us know, life is at best uncertain and all too quickly the highs turn to lows and we wish we were in a different situation to the one we are faced with – even if deep down we know it won’t last forever.
The first noble truth declared by the Buddha is that there is suffering. Initially this may sound a slightly depressing analysis, because there is also happiness right? But we are mistaken if we understand this as saying there is only suffering, but rather he is saying it is an inescapable fact of life that suffering exists. The pali word actually used by the Buddha for suffering was ‘dukkha’. While this is commonly translated as suffering, it is more accurately rendered as discomfort or dis-ease, which covers everything from the most minor irritation through to the most terrible existential pain and suffering. The second noble truth is that the cause of dukkha is craving. Put simply, this is craving for things to be different to how they are now (usually for an experience we dislike to be replaced by something more pleasant), or craving for a pleasant experience to continue. So from this perspective our difficulties in life are seen as dissatisfaction with whatever is arising in the present moment – either because we see it as unpleasant, or if it is a pleasant experience, because we want it to continue.
Meditation is one of the ways in which we can begin to examine this predicament where we are never quite satisfied. By engaging in meditation we start to understand the conditioned responses we bring to experience and hopefully find a way to live and act more consciously. While there are many different types of meditation, the aim of most (and certainly that of insight meditation) is bring some well-being and clarity to our lives. Now this isn’t simply a case of making ourselves feel better, but a question of seeing clearly what is actually happening in our experience as opposed to what we think is happening, or just reacting to life in conditioned and unconscious ways.
In the Sallatha Sutta the Buddha taught that while we cannot avoid dukka, we can at least learn to avoid adding to the initial suffering by creating mental anguish through our reactions to it:
The Blessed One said, “When touched with a feeling of pain, the uninstructed run-of-the-mill person sorrows, grieves, & laments, beats his breast, becomes distraught. So he feels two pains, physical & mental. Just as if they were to shoot a man with an arrow and, right afterward, were to shoot him with another one, so that he would feel the pains of two arrows; in the same way, when touched with a feeling of pain, the uninstructed run-of-the-mill person sorrows, grieves, & laments, beats his breast, becomes distraught. So he feels two pains, physical & mental.
So meditation is actually concerned with training the mind so we can observe how unquestioned patterns of reactivity come in to play and build a whole world of desire or aversion around the initial contact with experience. In doing so we start to find ways to weaken the push and pull that creates the lamentation and breast-beating the Buddha spoke of. When we drop our habitual responses to life we can actually experience release from this struggle with life and start to respond with greater compassion, kindness and wisdom to life as we know deep down that it will never be perfect and that a wise relationship to the conditions of life is therefore what is required. Seeing clearly the ways in which our minds fabricate mental anguish won’t necessarily liberate us immediately and forever, but it does begin the process of relaxing our relationship to life and frees us from being quite so caught up in our conditioned ways of being.
So I meditate because it leads towards a happiness that is not dependant on conditions, and any other benefits that come from meditation as part of that journey are also appreciated.
Reflecting on how my view of awakening has changed over the years seems an appropriate topic for a first post on InThisLife. I’m aware of how my relationship to awakening has changed from the early days of my investigation, where (to some extent at least) I somehow came to see enlightenment as a transcendent state to be obtained, or an experience that might happen to me. This is significantly different from my current perspective where awakening is seen more as a process of unfoldment, and the cultivation of qualities of heart and mind that transform my relationship to the world and my idea of ‘me’. But it is also different in very subtle ways because of the almost un-noticed changes in my ways of seeing where the belief in ‘me’ being an objective observer and experiencer of life has significantly relaxed.
Despite hearing and on some level understanding that enlightenment is not a thing to be owned or possessed, it was perhaps inevitable that early on the path I unconsciously and subtly objectified enlightenment as some ‘thing’ to be attained by ‘me’. Not because I actually believed it intellectually, but more because I unconciously related to experience in a subject-object kind of way. At that time my primary orientation to life was through the sense of ‘I’, of ‘me’ being the agent through which the world ‘out there’ was experienced. Although I had experienced transcendent states of mind, however subtle the sense of separation was, I was still someone having these experiences and even though I knew they pointed to something beyond the existence of a purely personal self.
This objectified view of awakening (the word I now prefer over enlightenment) carried with it the implicit view of awakening as an end state – some ‘thing’ to be attained by someone. Now this is quite natural as our conventional ways of knowing is through the sense of a separate self that experiences an external world. And in large part this was due to my spiritual immaturity, but I also find that since wisdom teachings point to that which cannot be known through concepts, ideas of awakening, enlightenment or nibbana are almost inevitably grasped by the conceptual mind which makes them into a thing to be attained since this is the only way it knows of relating to the world. This results in a situation where we either believe ourselves to be awakened, or (more usually) dismally unawakened and so we are very likely to see what lies ahead as a process of looking for more of what we think we need, and getting rid of what we feel we don’t need, or see as unhelpful.
My first teacher Shantimayi once said that no-one ever wanted to drop the things they liked about themselves, they only wanted her help in letting go of the things they didn’t like. Now this makes perfect sense if you approach spiritual practice from the point of view of attainment, or becoming a better ‘someone’. From this perspective you would see awakening as being a state of having more of some things (the nice bits), and less of (or avoiding) the not so nice bits – however refined the view of what the good/bad stuff might be. I remember being quite struck by the idea that awakening meant letting go of the supposed good stuff as well as the supposed bad stuff. Here awakening was presented as something which my mind couldn’t conveniently define and obtain as it required a fundamentally different relationship to life rather than a life that looked a particular way. It required a fundamentally different way of seeing where ‘I’ was not at the centre of experience.
Now despite hearing and understanding teachings (on an intellectual level at least) that presented a view of spiritual unfoldment as transcending the personal and the limited, it seems that the untrained mind is very likely to fall into the trap of trying to reduce awakening or enlightenment to a concept that is clearly defined and can be realised by ‘me’. Such an approach is starting from the wrong place but perhaps the only place we can start from. It misses the mark because awakening is still seen from the perspective of subject-object-time and so it can never be found as ‘someone’ has to have an experience of awakening at a point in time (usually in the future rather than right now). For me the lesson in all of this is that only by arriving at a more informed understanding about the way my mind operates and creates a view of a separate self was I able to identify this problem, and in that, the seed of a solution. From this perspective awakening has far more to do with the impersonal than the personal, but at the same time it reflects and includes the personal through a sense of greater opening and receptivity to all of life. For me this also manifests through through greater simplicity and a significantly reduced belief in an individual self.
In some ways I feel less clear about what I am looking for than when I started on this path, but perhaps that is no bad thing. There appear to be fewer (though almost certainly more subtle) assumptions and ideas about what awakening does or does not include. I am also more present with my actual experience as it unfolds and have a reduced tendency to lean into the future towards some imagined situation or state which is different to whatever is here in this moment. I’m also not trying recapture or recreate past experiences but instead I am very much interested in what is happening right now (whether that appears to be good or bad) as an opportunity for insight and freedom. In some sense I feel like I have no goal, but it is probably more accurate to say that I have relaxed around my relationship to the goal and found a place of greater ease, well-being and rest in which the sense of ‘I’ has less purchase.
So a spiritual life is not seen in restricted terms of attaining something transcendent and beyond the conventional sense of self or in being a ‘better’ person, but instead I am far more interested in deepening into wholeness in all of its personal, embodied and transcendent forms. To me this feels like a significant shift in understanding, if only because of where I started rather than any specific progress that might have been made. This more intimate contact with all of life is appreciated all the more because it was so unexpected and the conventional world is held with greater respect and compassion because of this.
So what am I looking for? Well on one level this question doesn’t require an answer because what I am looking for is not a thing, but also includes everything. What I have found is that wholeness, generosity, compassion, clarity and simplicity arise out of a deepening into what is, rather than needing to be searched for. I’m also not looking for ‘an answer’ or ‘the answer’ to that question and as I’m all too aware that however I might conceive of awakening, it is limited and partial at best.
I look forward to sharing further reflections with anyone who happens across InThisLife.
