Episode 173: Balance

The focus of this episode is listening  •  we might think of listening as something passive, but it is actually a very active process, one that is closely associated with paying attention  •  a traditional dharmic example of listening fully and properly is that of a deer in the forest: when a deer hears an unfamiliar sound, its listening becomes instantly heightened  •  listening is talked about as the first step in developing insight or prajna  •  some of the things that prevent us from being able to hear the teachings are distractedness, spacing out, not having control over our mind, and having preconceptions which filter and distort what we hear  •  true listening is based on getting out of oneself, and on not jumping to conclusions  •  true listening includes the entire atmosphere: the gestures, the quality of the day, the other people in the room, the way the room was set up, and the spaces where nothing was said  •  Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche once said, “Hearing does not mean just using your ears, it means using all your senses. For instance, when you hear a Dharma talk, you may smell the incense burning on the shrine, which inspires reverence for the lineage. After that, whenever you burn incense, you have a memory of that, and a connection with the teachings you heard in that setting. You could say that you are smelling the Dharma.”  •  so listening is our gateway into the teachings of the Dharma. 

The Buddha's life can be seen as a template for our own journey along the Buddhist path  •  the Buddha grew up in a palace, surrounded by safety, comfort, and security  •  but growing up in such a sheltered environment, he started to feel claustrophobic and curious  •  one day the Buddha snuck out of the palace grounds with his attendant and encountered a series of “teachers”: someone who was very ill; someone who was extremely old; and the body of a dead person  •  he kept asking, “What is wrong with that person? Does that happen to everyone?”  •  then he encountered a wandering sage — someone who had no possessions, but who seemed totally at ease and untroubled  •  the Buddha’s attendant explained that the sage was pursuing the meaning of life  •  these encounters motivated the Buddha to abandon his palace life, and he began his own long journey of discovery  •  he studied with many teachers, but he grew more and more frustrated and disappointed; nothing really seemed to work  • the Buddha realized he’d have to figure it out on his own  •  so he just sat down under a tree and determined not to get up until he'd figured it all out  •  at that point, a young woman appeared and offered him some yogurt, which gave him physical strength and nourishment  •  freshly revived, the Buddha then sat there, fully present, doing nothing, staying put like a rock mountain  •  he endured all sorts of temptations, all sorts of possibilities, all sorts of escape hatches — but he just stayed there, steady, simple, and unmoving, until he had his breakthrough  •  his awakening was catalyzed by a simple act of human kindness. 

As you get older, your sense of physical balance declines a bit;  and so you might think, well, I'll just try to be balanced and just stay there  •  but if you're working with a trainer, they deliberately try to throw you off balance  •  they're looking to see if you can return to balance when you're thrown off — which is the whole point  •  in meditation practice, we're continually trying to find the balance between too tight and too loose  •  as soon as you start to notice that you're losing your balance, you bring yourself back, until eventually the slipping itself brings you back  •  the Buddhist term “middle way” means finding a middle way between all sorts of extremes  •  for example, finding a middle way between “eternalism” on the one hand and “nihilism” on the other  •  eternalism is related to the blind hope that somehow everything is going to work out, and nihilism is the assumption that nothing is going to work out  •  the middle way approach cuts through both extremes: you don't buy into the assumption that some savior figure is going to come save the day and rescue you; on the other hand, you don't conclude that everything's hopeless and you're on your own  •  in a way, you carry such extremes with you like guardrails: you bounce off them and then come back to center  •  it's a very dynamic process: we can regain our balance; we can find a middle way between such extremes  •  like the compassionate bodhisattva, as soon as we slip, the slipping itself brings us back.  

In this episode, I'd like to explore the topic of confusion  •  a traditional chant has the line, “Grant your blessing so that the path may clarify confusion”  •  as you practice meditation and see how your mind works, you begin to uncover deep patterns of confusion — not confusion in the ordinary sense, but fundamental misperceptions that can lead to increased suffering for ourselves and others  •  for instance, it’s important to clarify our relationship with time: not confusing what you have experienced in the past, what you're experiencing now, and what you might experience in the future  •  in meditation practice we notice how much of the time we're dwelling and obsessing about things that happened in the past or about things in the future that may or may not ever happen  •  in meditation practice we actually invite our confusions and misunderstandings to reveal themselves so we can figure out how to deal with them and how to free ourselves from the traps that they set  • when we extend a warm welcome to our confusion, it actually freaks them out, so to speak, because misunderstandings and confusions thrive on our ignorance and avoidance  •  the idea is to find some kind of middle way: we're not trying to fix anything, and we're not trying to avoid anything; we're just taking a fresh look and cultivating a little more self understanding and clarity. 

In this episode, I'd like to focus on awareness, or vipashyana  •  while mindfulness refers to stabilizing, grounding, and focusing the mind, vipashyana is about clarity, openness, curiosity, and inquisitiveness  •  vipashyana is a natural outgrowth of mindfulness practice: as the mind settles, it begins to naturally clarify  •  vipashyana draws us outward; it is based on taking a genuine interest in the details of our life, in the details of our perception, and in the details of our own character  •  with vipashyana, we use our meditative grounding as a stepping stone to engage in the world with clarity and insight  •  the idea of clarity in vipashyana is more like a verb than like a noun: it's a positive kind of questioning mind, a process of seeking clarity, of not being satisfied with a superficial or vague understanding of our experience or of the teachings of Dharma •  when you hear about something like the Four Noble Truths, what does that actually mean?  •  rather than just passively accepting that this is the way it's been taught, we try to really penetrate and understand it  •  vipashyana exposes how fuzzy we are about so much of our basic experience, how many unexamined assumptions we operate under, how much we miss  •  vipashyana is like having a set of fresh eyes: when you take a fresh look, you see things differently  •  you connect to a vaster world that is more vivid, and fresh, and true. 

The Eightfold Path is one of the early teachings the Buddha gave after his enlightenment  •  they are guidelines for living in accordance with the Dharma; they are guidelines for how to comport yourself, how to relate to one another, how to be in the world in a way that's more wise, more skillful, and more accurate  •  the first of the eight is right VIEW — cultivating clearer seeing, cultivating the ability to see for yourself, be curious, and to look deeply into the nature of your experience and the nature of reality  •  the second is right RESOLVE — having seen clearly what's going on, you develop the resolve to do something about it  •  the third is right SPEECH — not just blurting out whatever comes into your mind, but paying attention to your use of words and how you manifest altogether through your speech  •  the fourth is right ACTION — paying attention to your actions  •  the fifth is right LIVELIHOOD — is our approach to work ethical, and does our work benefit?  •  the sixth is right EFFORT — working with ourselves to develop greater skill with our thoughts, our speech, our actions, and interactions  •  the seventh and eighth — right MINDFULNESS and right CONCENTRATION —are the keys to the whole thing: cultivating mindfulness in whatever we're doing  •  these eight guidelines are not about being good or bad; they're simply suggestions that we can use to help us see how we go about our life altogether.  

As a student of Chögyam Trungpa, I heard the phrase “back to square one” quite a lot  •  he implied that doing something over and over again is very important — in our dharma practice, in our meditation, and in our studies  •  throughout his teachings, Trungpa Rinpoche put a great deal of emphasis on building a strong foundation, and on going back to the very earliest teachings of the Buddha, in particular to the teachings of the Four Noble Truths: the reality of suffering, the causes of suffering, the possibility of the cessation of suffering, and various pathways to do so  •  in a more immediate sense, going back to square one can mean going back to your very first personal inspiration to embark on the path of dharma  •  why are you doing this? what is the point? what inspired you from the very beginning?  •  going back to square one means to always touch back on the foundation  •  no matter how “advanced” you may feel, you always have to check back and ask: are you actually working on yourself, are you actually dealing with your own  neuroses, your own habits, your own obstacles?  •  and as you extend your practice to working with others to cultivate wisdom and compassion and skillful means, how are you working with that?  •  so you go back to the beginning; you start from square one, over and over and over  •  this practice of going back to square one keeps things fresh and honest; it keeps us in tune with the fundamental questions that we need to look into.

Buddhism is often referred to as a path; not as a set of beliefs or a doctrine, but as a trail, a path, a walkway  • it's a direction, or a guideline, or a map of sorts; you have an idea of trying to get somewhere, but you can't see where the destination is  •  so there's a quality of faith that if you walk along this path, you'll get where you'd like to go  •  walking on a path teaches you about your own resilience, your own strengths, your own fears and hesitations  • you're confronted with challenges all the time: the path is washed out, or something blocks the path  •  such obstacles are central to the experience  •  but there's also a sense of accomplishment, of building resilience and strength, of finding out who you are in the face of challenges  •  if you have a fixed idea of some destination, you might begin to wonder, Where am I trying to get anyway?  •  the path keeps unfolding and you keep walking along, but you have no idea how to know if you've reached your destination or not  •  Am I there yet? Is this it? You may even start to suspect that there is no “there” •  all your thoughts about where you're trying to get to can begin to crumble —  which is actually wonderful and amazing  •  you might even say,  now you're finally getting somewhere.

Walking meditation is often introduced in the context of group practice: you're sitting and a gong rings, and then you stand up and begin walking; then another gong rings and you go back to sitting  •  this brings up a couple of interesting things  •  how do we transition from one state to another without losing it and needing to regroup on some subtle level?  •  we are brought face to face with the challenge of having a more continuous sense of mindfulness and awareness, rather than turning it on and turning it off  •  the group aspect also brings up how easy it is to be in our practice bubble, and not really be aware of those around us or the environment in which we're practicing  •  it also brings in a relational aspect: when you are walking in a circle, there's someone in front of you and someone behind you  •  they may be wearing funny clothes, or they may be going faster or slower than you'd like  •  you have to coordinate what you're doing with others, so there's a relational aspect that has a rich texture  •  another important and inspiring aspect of walking meditation is how it's connected with going beyond our own concerns, with making gestures of peace in the midst of war-torn worlds  •  training in walking meditation can help us to be able to touch in with the force of peace, even in the midst of struggle and chaos and suffering. 

In this episode I'd like to explore the topic of walking meditation  •  in some ways walking meditation is a link between stillness and movement; it is a bridge between the quiet and peaceful state of sitting meditation and the activities of daily life  •  but in walking meditation, we're not trying to get somewhere; the walking itself is the point  •  in walking meditation, you place your attention on the contact of your feet with the earth or the floor  •  you pay attention as your balance shifts from one foot to the other foot, and to the pushing off as you shift from one foot to the other  •  it’s very simple  •  the idea is not to be overly precious or self conscious, but simply keep our attention so that when we walk with each step, it's a genuine step, a true step  •  when we walk, we really walk; we include everything in each step  •  walking meditation has the sense of continuous presence, continuous awareness, continuous being  •  you don't have to be in a formal setting; you can notice how you walk, notice how connected or disconnected you are with your walking, and then work with that  •  I invite you to explore what it's like to walk, just to walk, with mindfulness  •  it's amazing how powerful one true gesture can be.