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Q&A

Joseph Goldstein · Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center · The Path to Awakening: Insight Meditation Retreat · 8 February 2019 · 59 min

0:01 Only easy questions. Suggest a fix

0:07 I Suggest a fix

0:16 have an easy question. Suggest a fix

0:21 We have now moved to there is a body, there is a whole body. And do we stay with a body scan through the entire sit? Or would you suggest moving elsewhere if we have done a body scan? Or would we continue using a body scan? Okay, so in using the suggestion there is a body, that doesn't necessarily imply doing a body scan, although a body scan can be part of it. But it's also possible to use just the frame there is a body and holding that frame and then an open awareness within it where one is simply aware of whatever is arising. And in either of those, you can move back and forth between the two. Really, whatever serves you. But it's not limited to a body scan. Suggest a fix

1:29 I have one easy question. The second one... The easy one is, if you could say more about, from your perspective, the difference between sadness and unhappiness. And then the one that I'm not sure is easy is over the years I've heard many explanations about that which is seeing, that which is aware, but I still don't get what it is that's seeing and what's aware. Suggest a fix

2:14 See, when you don't hold on to things, it's Suggest a fix

2:22 the charitable interpretation. So I think this came up maybe in one of the groups. Did we talk about this in the hall? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I was just talking, and I think it was in a group, that at one point I was just having this experience, which I was calling sadness and naming it in sadness, but it really felt lodged. And even as I was being mindful of it, sadness, sadness, sadness. But I just kind of felt stuck. I was not moving. I wasn't moving through. So that aroused my interest. And so I just started to look more carefully at what the feeling state was. And when I just honed in a little more carefully, I realized that it was not the feeling of sadness. It was the feeling of unhappiness, which they're close, but they're really two different feelings, which I'll get to the difference in terms of my experience. Suggest a fix

3:27 But what was interesting is that once I aligned properly with what was actually there, unhappiness, that's when it all moved through. So it's just the importance sometimes if we're feeling stuck, it may be because we're misperceiving something. So it could be worth just taking another look, particularly with emotions because there can be so many varieties and things that are close to one another. For me, and we may all have different experiences of this, but in a strange kind of way, for me, sadness has a certain quality of sweetness to it. It's like a poignancy, whereas unhappiness is a little bleaker. Suggest a fix

4:19 It's quite different. The feeling was quite different. As I say, it was only when I could get aligned with you know, it's just... Suggest a fix

4:28 Oh, that's what this is. So then that allowed for the release of it. In terms of, you actually answered your own second difficult question, because in trying, well, what is it that knows? What is it that is aware? And the very fact that you can't find it, as I said last night, is the finding. It's like there's nothing to find. And yet the knowing is happening. So it's maybe somewhat analogous. I don't want to push this analogy too far, but it might be somewhat analogous if you think of space. Can you find space? Oh, there it is. It's not like that. There's nothing to find, and yet we can become aware of it. Suggest a fix

5:27 But it's not a thing. So the mind is somewhat analogous to space. It's different than space in that space does not have any knowing capacity, whereas the mind is space -like in that there's nothing to find, and yet the knowing is going on. So the fact that you look for it and can't find it is actually, you might just rest in whatever your experience is of not finding and just play with it. Suggest a fix

6:16 A couple of days ago you mentioned almost in passing that therapy might be useful in conjunction with your practice. And then last night as I listened to you I wondered about therapy and most of the modes of therapy I'm aware of have a central concept of the self and I thought about self -discovery, self -actualization, self -realization. False self, true self, self, self, self. And so I wondered if really therapy is dangerous for more than the usual reasons because it's so contradictory to the core teachings of Buddhism. Suggest a fix

7:04 First I would say, for those of you interested in pursuing that, find a good Buddhist therapist. An enlightened Buddhist therapist. Suggest a fix

7:19 So that aside, I think I've mentioned, and I alluded to it last night, that there are two different levels of our experience. Just in terms of terminology, we might call one the relative level and one the more ultimate level. On the relative level, we're dealing with the sense of self and other and being and personality and personal story. All of that is operating on that relative level. And we often get entangled and caught up in all kinds of unwholesome patterns. So there are times when entering into that level with the concepts of self and other and just taking that all in is fine and good work can be done. Suggest a fix

8:13 It becomes problematic if that becomes the final understanding of who we are. Because then we're imprisoned in that notion of self. But if you can understand, yeah, this is a relative level of experience. There is a more underlying one, which is what we've been discovering here, where even the solidity of the body disappears. And we perhaps get tastes of what selflessness means, the impersonality of it all, and the momentariness of it all. To the degree that we... Explore that realm and have some real experience of it. Then when we operate on the relative level, we do it with much greater freedom. Suggest a fix

9:03 So we can play on it and get whatever value there is from it, but we're not getting caught by that concept. And so I think the two can be synergistic in a certain way. Suggest a fix

9:24 You guys can just pick who. But, yeah. Suggest a fix

9:32 Last night, you spoke about having the saying come to you in meditation, whatever has the nature to arise also has the nature to pass away, and then that led you to this insight of there's nothing to want. And similar to relative level, there is a relative self, I wonder if you could speak to an enlightened or skillful way of of pursuing things, of having objectives and goals as we go about our lives and so on, without getting caught. You know, with that, obviously, as we go through life, we all have goals and aspirations and things we I think the key point to explore, and this takes a lot of clarity and sometimes courage. Suggest a fix

10:28 courage. Suggest a fix

10:31 Is to really get into the habit or the practice of investigating and exploring one's motivation for doing things. Because it's the motivation which really, to a very large extent, determines, we could say, the ethical value of the undertaking. And very often, the motivations may be mixed. You know? Unless you happen to be a saint. Any saints? Suggest a fix

11:16 We can have a really good motivation, but still mixed in with it, there can be some shadow side of it. So it's just to be honest with ourselves about it, so we're not deluding ourselves about what's moving us forward. So I'll just give a very trivial example. of this. This is back in the India days when I was still somewhat new in the practice, but I've been there a couple of years. In the summer months, we would go up to the mountains because it got really hot down on the plains. There would be a kind of small community of people who were living in the mountains doing their practice. Once a week, people would gather on the little lawn in front of the cottage I was staying in, and I would give a dharma talk each week to this. Suggest a fix

12:08 Just a group of friends. And it was a beautiful thing to do in sharing the dharma. But I noticed that each week before I started speaking, I would count how many people came. Oh, this week there were six people. Last week there were ten people. What happened? Suggest a fix

12:29 My mind just did this. I didn't invite it to do it. I just did it. But I was mindful enough just to be able to see it. I could smile at it. Could let it go. And then as soon as I got into the dharma talk, that was all completely gone. And it felt like the motive was really pure. So it's just to be sensitive to the range of our motivations so that we can, in whatever way, strengthen the positive aspects of it and see the less, the more negative, and let them go. So motivation, I think, is really the key challenge. There Suggest a fix

13:21 are a whole bunch in the back. Suggest a fix

13:26 A couple of days ago, you mentioned taking a moment of delight after realizing a thought. And I'm wondering if you could elaborate a little on what you meant by taking delight. Suggest a fix

13:47 Okay, so as you know very well by now, we get lost in thought a lot. You know, where thoughts come and they kind of carry us away. And then at a certain point, we wake up from being lost. So a very common tendency is to then judge ourselves for having been lost again for the millionth time. You know, I can't do this. Whatever. It's self -judgmental. But of course, that's just getting lost again. I found it much more fruitful. Okay, lost, lost, lost, and then awake. To actually take delight in the experience of having awakened. To appreciate that, and even more than that, right in that moment of having gone from being lost in the thought, which is delusion, to aware that we're thinking, which is wakefulness, right in that moment of transition, it's possible to really experience very directly the nature of the deluded mind and the nature of the aware mind. Suggest a fix

15:02 It's like we get a very clear recognition. Oh, that's what a deluded mind is like. We're just lost in the story. We don't know what's going on. Oh, this is what awareness is. Going back to the first easy question, or the hard question, the easy one. You know, what is awareness? We don't have to have even a language for it, because in every moment of awakening from being lost, In that very moment, instead of jumping to some other object, take that pause and reckon, oh, this is what awareness is. And it's very clear in contrast to having just been diluted. So just that transition moment is very fruitful to explore. Suggest a fix

15:58 Mostly, I think people do tend to rush just to the next, back to the breath or a sensation instead of... extracting the juice of that transition. Suggest a fix

16:23 You've used the language a few times. You had some experience and then you honed in on and you learned something else. Can you give some examples of what hone in on looks like? And similarly, if I could just add, jump on to the last question, what does celebration look like? Is it yay? Or is it wow? Or is it how cool? I mean, is it smile? What is this? Well, the second question really depends on your personality. Suggest a fix

17:13 And in the context of a retreat, for the more exuberant types, you can kind of probably tamp it down a little bit. But more, yeah, it's... I don't remember particularly, although maybe I did use the word celebration, I often use the word delight. It's just delight in seeing something that hasn't been seen before. I think I mentioned this in terms of working with mana or conceit. When I see it in the mind, I'm delighted to see it because I would rather see it than not see it. Oh yeah, there it is. That's mana. That's conceit. So it's that kind of just appreciation of the wisdom or the insight of seeing something that we might not have seen before. Suggest a fix

18:11 In terms of honing in, Suggest a fix

18:22 it can happen in a lot of different ways. The example with sadness and unhappiness. You know, we're seeing something was stuck, and it's almost like holding the question, well, what's going on? What's here? Just simple questions like that. Or we've mentioned throughout the week, often asking the question with respect to different experiences we're having, what's the attitude in the mind about this? What's interesting to me about the use of these questions is that the Suggest a fix

19:11 power of the question is not so much In getting a printout of an answer. So that's not the point of the question. The point of the question, we're using the question as the vehicle for honing in. You know, it just is directing our attention to part of our experience. And we don't even have to have a verbal answer. And so I can't remember whether I mentioned this to the group, but one time I was sitting and just watching the breath, I was just feeling the breath completely ordinary sitting. Nothing special going on. I just felt easeful and just feeling the breath go in and out. But then the thought came to me just to ask that question, well, what's the attitude in the mind? Suggest a fix

20:00 And it wasn't, I didn't have any premonition that there was some big attitude. It was just a tool that arose. So I'm just feeling in and out, in and out. What's the attitude? Just by asking the question, I could feel my mind relax back from a wanting that I didn't even know was there. Kind of the wanting, that leaning. With the breath, I don't know, in order to get more calm or more peace or more concentrated. Some subtle energetic. And so just by asking the question, Suggest a fix

20:42 the asking of the question had the effect, not the answer to it. So sometimes just questions are a way of honing in. Suggest a fix

21:00 I do have a few written questions. I can read a couple of those as well. Can you just say something about awareness and levels of awareness? So we're here and we're super concentrated and then, or for me, I'm here, I'm super concentrated during the sit and then I go to lunch and boy, there's a lot going on and I'm still really aware but not. At that super deep level. And then when I go home, it's just like 50 % awareness or something. And so I guess if you could say something about, I don't know, how to deal with that, how to maybe accept that, what's enough? Okay, so Suggest a fix

21:54 don't take this as a metaphysical truth. It's just my impression of the experience you're talking about. I don't think, off the top of my head, I wouldn't talk about levels of awareness. It's like, Suggest a fix

22:19 at least to a large extent. We're either aware in the moment or we're unaware. What you're calling being less aware sounds to me like there are just more moments of being distracted from being aware. So here, maybe... There's a kind of momentum buildup where there's a flow of mindfulness, a flow of awareness, which is relatively continuous. Then you go out and maybe in the dining room and there's a lot happening. So there are still the same moments of awareness, but the mind may get distracted a lot more frequently. So it's jumping in and out of awareness, and that's why it may feel less deep. So one thing which we have not talked a lot about, but which can be very helpful when you notice that the awareness seems to be losing some of its continuity, for most people, the visual field is the predominant sense store. Suggest a fix

23:34 For people who have good vision, any vision. We live in the world of what is being seen. But sight is not, it doesn't impact us the same way as a sound or a sensation or even a thought. Even those thoughts slip in. Sight even less impactful than a thought. It's like it doesn't, there's not a very obvious impingement. I find that we're just living in this world of what's being seen, very rarely being mindful that we're seeing. We're just in. Suggest a fix

24:26 A good part of the reactivity in our lives comes from being reactive to something that is being seen. I had a very striking example of this on retreat. I noticed that when I would go into the dining room, trying to go in very mindfully, but that my mind would have a comment about almost everybody. Walking too fast, walking too slow, taking too much food. I don't like what they're wearing. It was totally ridiculous. I mean, it was just ridiculous. I was watching my mind do this. And then I realized that all of that mental activity, proliferation, Was happening in reaction to what was being seen. So what I started doing, I would enter the dining room and all I would note was seeing, seeing, seeing, seeing on the line for food, seeing, going to the table, seeing, seeing. Suggest a fix

25:36 It was amazing. 98 % of the judgments and comments were gone because I was picking up. At that point, the point of contact of the sense object with the sense door, I was acknowledging, seeing, seeing, seeing. It just cut all that proliferation which had been coming because of the unmindful seeing. That's an example of how you can begin to carry the awareness through more everyday, even faster -paced activities. Even in these last days of the retreat, I think it would be interesting for you to incorporate the noting of seeing more often. Because if you connect with it, it could be a really powerful force for mindfulness in your life. Okay, let me just read this one question since it came a few days ago. Suggest a fix

26:48 Can you give an overview of the precepts? Why undertake them? I don't recall anyone really explaining the why versus just talking through the what. I'd specifically like explanation on two. Why no sexual activity at all versus the less strict no sexual misconduct? And two, why no dance music, et cetera? As someone who dances, I think there's a difference between art and entertainment. I'm doing all eight precepts, but I feel like I'm just going through the motions versus knowing why. Because that's a good question. Suggest a fix

27:29 So the essence of the precepts, There are a couple of very juicy components to the practice of them. One, which I mentioned just at the beginning of the talk last night, the Suggest a fix

27:49 precepts are all about commitments to non -harming. And that's when we undertake the precepts. We're being very explicit about the fact that, okay, I'm not going to harm. any being in these ways. That's really the foundation of all ethical conduct. Just think for a moment what the world would be like if people followed just one precept not to kill. Suggest a fix

28:29 It would be a different world. We could go through all of the precepts in that way. They're very powerful expressions of non -harming. Suggest a fix

28:42 One of the gifts that we give to others when we follow the precepts is the gift of fearlessness. Because we're saying with our actions and our being, you need not fear me. I'm not going to do anything harmful to you. So what a gift. We're giving the gift of trust. We're giving the gift of fearlessness to everybody we're in contact with. When we're committed to the precepts. So there's really a tremendous value. Another aspect of the precepts has to do with the cultivation of renunciation. Renunciation is one of the pāramīs, one of the perfections of the Buddha. Suggest a fix

29:42 Renunciation has always been challenged. That's not my strongest precept. Renunciation. Suggest a fix

29:52 And I think in our culture and with that term, it's very easy. Renunciation, it kind of has a connotation of deprivation. Oh, yeah, I'll give it up. I know it's good for me, but okay. But at a certain point, when I really looked into the power of renunciation and what it was about, I reframed it in terms of non -addiction. When we're renouncing something, It's like we're settling back into a non -addictive frame of mind. And when I use that terminology, when I thought of non -addiction, the sense and the feeling of freedom was contained right in that phrase. And I think we can all relate to the suffering of different addictions and the freedom that comes from non -addiction. Suggest a fix

30:55 So with regard to the third precept and why we take the precept while on retreat of refraining from all sexual activity, you need not worry because on Sunday we're going to take the lay precept of just refraining from sexual misconduct. So you need not continue your monastic lifestyle when you go home. But it's really interesting to take that precept here of refraining from all sexual activity on a couple of levels. One, as we all know, sexual energy is very powerful. It's a powerful energy within us. And just by refraining, it's like we're conserving that energy or gathering that energy all in the service of the practice and awareness and mindfulness. Suggest a fix

31:53 So just on an energetic level. It's very empowering. In addition, it really gives an opportunity to hone in on the Suggest a fix

32:10 nature of and the experience of desire. Just because we take the precept to refrain from sexual activity, the mind might not have gotten that message. Suggest a fix

32:27 It's not uncommon at all at different times. And also at certain ages, where there can be powerful fantasies, sexual fantasies, and the desire can get very strong. One of the great things that I've learned in all these years of practice in watching the desire, sexual desire, arise in the mind and feeling in the body, and sometimes very powerfully, but having taken the precept. So then I'm just... Being with it and watching it. And what we learn is, and this is not something we necessarily carry fully into our lives outside, but on retreat it becomes very obvious. Okay, so this desire, the sexual desire arises very strongly and just watching, watching, watching. And at a certain point it goes away. Suggest a fix

33:36 And it's not that we're pushing it away. And it's not that we're suppressing it. It's just in its nature, whatever has the nature to arise will also pass away. That's a very powerful lesson because I think more commonly we live with the idea that with desire of any kind really, but it's very obvious with sexual desire, but it could be any other. I think we're often living with the idea that I either need to express it or I'm suppressing it. And that becomes kind of the... A duality of how we're holding it. But the meditation, it just shows us a completely different way of holding that's much freer, where we're not suppressing it. Suggest a fix

34:23 We're being with it, we're feeling it, but realizing it does not have to be acted on. It will arise and pass by itself. And so that gives us a lot more freedom in our lives to be discerning. About when to act on it, when not to act on it, when is it skillful, when is it unskillful. If we're caught in that duality of, if I'm not expressing it, I'm suppressing it, that can lead us into a lot of unskillful actions. So there's a lot to learn from these temporary periods of renunciation. Because then we get to see the impermanent, impersonal nature of desire. Of course, desire is a very powerful force in our lives. Suggest a fix

35:23 I've been struck by the use of words, the noting, the asking of questions even today, the importance of choosing the word unhappiness versus sadness. But I felt there are other times where we've said those are tools and they may fade away for an open awareness. So can you say a little bit about when are they useful? Are they a step along the way? The words and the most obvious use of language in the meditation practice itself is just the tool of mental noting. When we're putting a word in, out, thinking, hearing, seeing. For some people, This is just a very skillful way of helping us stay connected moment to moment with what's happening. So it's a support for that connectedness. Suggest a fix

36:25 If there's an easeful flow of experience, the accuracy of the word is not that important. Sometimes people will say, I'm feeling some sensation, I'm not quite sure what it is. Is it pressure? Is it tension? If we can just be with it in an easy way and it doesn't feel... Bound up in some way, doesn't matter. Just any word is enough to connect us. But when something feels caught, like with the sadness and happiness, that's when looking to see more accurate perception might help us to actually become mindful of it. But even when we're using the word skillfully, using the noting, did I mention to the group NPMs? Suggest a fix

37:19 Okay. So in the course of practice, the NPMs, noticings per minute, go way up. So at a certain point in practice, our perception is so quick, things are happening much too quickly to note. The words are too slow. So then if you have found that the noting overall is helpful, you could maybe note every fifth thing. Just dropping in one, just as a way of staying connected. or to drop the note altogether and just be with the flow of that rapidly changing flow. So they can be used at times skillfully, but they're not the essence of the practice. You could say is the noticing or the feeling into the experience. Suggest a fix

38:09 This was a Suggest a fix

38:26 matter that I discussed earlier today with Josanne, but I'd like to get your perspective as well. I lost a very good friend. During the course of this retreat, and I feel grief at that loss, does that grief indicate that I was attached to him? And if so, is that a bad thing? Suggest a fix

38:59 So, Suggest a fix

39:03 first I'm sorry to hear about the loss. You know, when the Buddha died, so he was obviously this incredibly important person. Countless beings. It said that there was a lot of grieving among his disciples, except for the fully enlightened ones, the ones who had completely uprooted. You could say all attachments, all desire, all conceit, all I am. You know, it finished the work. And again, these are the reports. I'm not talking from Persean experience. But the archons, the fully enlightened ones, were abiding in equanimity, knowing that this is the nature of things. It's not unlawful. It's not what is born will die. And that's true for everyone. Suggest a fix

40:13 So when our realization of that is complete, then I think the mind can stay in a kind of equilibrium. Suggest a fix

40:25 For everybody... Under that very high threshold, there was a lot of grieving. It probably did come from some sense of attachment and loss of a loved being, but it's kind of the natural expression of human life at these levels. Even the Buddha, his Suggest a fix

41:00 two chief disciples, Sāriputta and Moggallāna, died before him. You know, and... Suggest a fix

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41:07 Given the Buddhist cosmology and the stories, these were beings who had been with the Buddha through countless past lifetimes. They were all fully enlightened beings. You can imagine the communion that existed among them. It's very interesting. The Buddha commented after they died. Suggest a fix

41:37 He said something. This will be a bit of a paraphrase. You know, so the - Suggest a fix

41:41 This order of disciples, of nuns and monks and lay people now seems empty to me. It feels like the limbs of a great tree have been cut off. So it's clearly expressing kind of poignancy and acknowledgement of the loss. But then he goes on to say in that same teaching, Suggest a fix

42:11 and this phrase, I'm not sure whether I'm putting this in or I remember reading it. Suggest a fix

42:20 What I seem to recall is said, but isn't it remarkable that even in experiencing the loss, the mind of the Buddha, the Tathāgata, is not grieving? That was a very interesting juxtaposition for me, to see the difference between loss and grief and how, at least perhaps at a certain level or in certain situations, We could be open to the feeling of loss and feel it deeply as the Buddha. I find that very poignant in the loss of his great disciples. To see the possibility of opening to the feeling of loss, which carries its own kind of pain. Suggest a fix

43:26 It's not necessarily a pleasant feeling, the feeling of loss. But that grief is something else. Grief is a different feeling. It's a response to the loss. It could be interesting. Often in these situations, people have come to me at different times, describing just what you said. It's a very tender situation. The heart is very vulnerable and open at that time and sensitive. It's also a question of timing and interest. You know, whether people... Just want to be with the feeling as they're feeling it and letting that work through. Or there's interest maybe in some people of investigating something like, oh, well, what is the feeling of loss? Suggest a fix

44:23 What is the feeling of grief? There are ways of diving into it, but it's very individual. When one is ready to or interested in. Suggest a fix

44:38 It's a very poignant and rich arena because it's universal. Suggest a fix

44:51 It's not only the loss of others, but it's our own death. How do we relate to that? These are big issues. At one point or another, worth exploring. We come to as deep an understanding as possible. Suggest a fix

45:15 Thank you, Joseph, for answering all these questions. I have a question and a reflection. The question is, I think I'm a little confused about what insight is or these moments of insight you shared last night very graciously from your own personal journey. Would you consider those moments of awakening and how do you discern between an insight and a thought that's empty? I guess I'm asking because I have had thoughts that have arisen that I found useful in clarifying and going deeper. Would I even know it inside? I'm just a little confused on that front. That's my first question. One at a time. Suggest a fix

46:10 It's getting worse. Suggest a fix

46:14 I did not promise an easy question. I was teaching at the retreat that Ram Dass was leading in Maui in December and I was giving a talk and there was something in my mind in the midst of the talk and the thought came of something that I really wanted to say and by the time I finished the sentence that I was saying, it was gone. Suggest a fix

46:38 I still remember that. I think it's interesting to notice, at least for the most part, maybe not all the time, but for the most part, the thought itself is not the insight. The thought is an expression of something you've understood. Suggest a fix

47:00 Just as a simple example, it's just very simple. Suppose you're sitting and you're tuning in experientially. you know and so Suggest a fix

47:12 to the truth of things arising and passing, that things are coming and going and coming and going and coming and going, so you're experiencing that. The thought is just an expression of the insight you already had. It's not the insight itself. It's just giving expression to the insight. So when you have those thoughts that seem insightful... You might just check to see what was your experience just then that gave rise to the thought. And just begin to play. Now it is possible that maybe an insightful thought will come independent of what your present moment experience is. And so you could just acknowledge that and see if it's valuable for you. But mostly I think it has to do with... Suggest a fix

48:15 Insight in the context of meditation, it's really about different ways of viewing experience. I think we mentioned in the hall, and Bonnie had talked about the different distortions or hallucinations of mind. They're basically a few basic distortions of where we take what is impermanent to be permanent. When we take what's unsatisfying to be satisfying. When we take what's non -self to be self. So in the course of our practice, when we're just seeing, oh, things really are impermanent or are unreliable. And so that becomes our lived experience, not simply an intellectual understanding. But sometimes those lived experiences hit harder than others, right? Suggest a fix

49:13 Yeah, that's true. Sometimes they're really impactful and sometimes they're mild. Is there a problem with that? If it hits more, presumably I will shift the way I think about the world more. Yeah, I think that's true. But don't also undervalue the small ones. Yeah, like maybe I'm kind of thinking about like a hierarchy of importance. Suggest a fix

49:46 Don't. You know, in one way, we could think of the practice. There is a scientific element to it in terms of the methodology and the lawfulness of how it all unfolds. So there are very detailed descriptions of the whole unfolding path. So that is one aspect. Another aspect, meditation is more like an art. As much as it's a scientific methodology, Suggest a fix

50:26 it's like we can view our life as art. It's like we're artists creating our lives. The world is the palette. Then one little dab of paint in a corner may have a big impact on the whole picture, but if you think, oh, it always has to be big dabs. Big splashes of color. So then we miss maybe some of the subtleties of what's going on. So that's why I say don't make a hierarchy. Suggest a fix

51:01 Years ago, this was like when I was a freshman or sophomore in college. I was in New York and just going to some of the museums and Suggest a fix

51:13 really just learning. I didn't know very much about art and even how to look at paintings. But I would just go and really look. First things that struck me, and it was vivid in my mind even now, 50, 60 years later, that when I was looking at a painting, the curtains in the background were as important as the figure in the foreground. They were equally part of the painting, but the tendency is to focus on what's most obvious, what's most in foreground. And in some way diminish the importance of what's in the background. So that was a great lesson for me, to see things whole rather than create a hierarchy. Suggest a fix

52:12 So I don't know if that insight will stand up among the artists among you, but that's what my experience was. Can I also share the reflection slash? I guess after your talk on Anattā last night, Over the course of today, I found myself saying I a lot in the thoughts that I had come up. And I felt a fatalism and hopelessness. Because short of living in a cave where I never have to deal with people and talk about myself or be in the world, it just seems like, as you said, language is very conditioning. This is not a problem. It seems very difficult. It's not a problem at all. It is totally fine, and I think I mentioned this, to use conventional language and conventional concepts. It would be very awkward to go through life saying, these five aggregates are doing this and that. Suggest a fix

53:19 No, we say, I'm going for a walk. Suggest a fix

53:24 There is absolutely no problem with that, and in fact, there would be a problem if you didn't do that. So even as we use conventional language and conventional concepts and even relate in conventional ways, you know, if you're there, and as I said, the whole mettā practice is on this conventional level. It's sending loving thoughts to oneself, to other beings. So it's all on this relative level of experience, and that's the level we live in a lot, and it's totally fine. It's just that we also want to Suggest a fix

54:02 Deepening understanding of what's underneath that conventional level so that to the degree that we have some experience of the selfless nature, the impersonal nature. So then as we're operating on the relative level, we get caught much less because we're infusing that level with a deeper wisdom. But there's no problem at all. In fact, I think the maturity of spiritual practice It's learning the union of the relative and more ultimate levels. They're not two different things. It's just the same experience seen on different levels. And our practice is just learning how to integrate all that. It's not a problem. Suggest a fix

54:58 Concept of time. I guess the question is then looking at things as a whole. Dreamwalking, meditation. Feeling the sun, the fire, and then coming and eating and feeling the temperature of the food but the transition of how it was cooked. Suggest a fix

55:25 Maybe not in this retreat but it was hit a little bit in expressions such as ceremony or where we're sitting on this land. But being mindful and taking showers and then it's raining and having that Is this looking at the conceptual and the relative? How does one go about in being with the whole? Suggest a fix

55:58 The elemental whole, I guess, I'm talking about. I think what you described was beautiful. That was a good expression. You were an example of how the whole gets incorporated or understood. In very simple activities. So one way of fostering that intuitive connection with the whole, I think it probably happens more when we're practicing in the mode of open awareness rather than directed awareness. And I'm not putting a hierarchy on this. There are times when the directed awareness is really necessary and important. And at other times, it's more open and choiceless. But in that openness or choicelessness, then we really are open. Suggest a fix

56:55 There is no choice in terms of what we're being aware of. We're being aware of whatever presents itself in the whole. And I think that allows for the mind to intuitively make lots of connections, which we might not have made when we're simply focused on a more narrow object. So from the meditative point of view, it seems to me that it's in that open awareness that what you're talking about becomes more likely and possible. And it is beautiful, just to, I might say, feel into different dimensions of things, which is very hard to do if we're just caught up in our own desire and craving. That's the famous little quote. Suggest a fix

57:52 When a pickpocket meets a saint, all he sees is the pocket. Suggest a fix

58:02 It's like when we're just narrow in our wanting, we miss everything. Suggest a fix

58:14 Okay gang, could do this for a long time. Let's just sit for a couple of minutes and let everything settle. Suggest a fix

Talk by Joseph Goldstein, recorded at Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center, 8 February 2019. Original at Dharma Seed: https://dharmaseed.org/talks/54695/. Licensed CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Transcript generated automatically and may contain errors; the audio is the authoritative version.

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