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Venerable
Ajahn Tiradhammo -
The Practise of "Metta" in Insight Meditation
(An edited version of a talk given during a retreat in 1993)
The practice of "metta" is one of the meditation exercises which
is usually taught as a type of Calm meditation. Meditators bring up thoughts
of well-being towards themselves, and then they share this well-being with
other beings, eventually including all beings in the universe equally.
I have found, however, that it is also very useful as an exercise in
Insight meditation. This is partly because our usual way of relating to
experience -- especially the unpleasant things -- is to have resistance. If we
could change our attitude somehow to be a bit more peaceful, or even friendly,
towards so-called negative experiences, this allows us the possibility to come
a bit closer to them in order to see them clearly, in order to have clearer
insight into their true nature.
The Pali word "metta" is frequently translated as
"loving-kindness", however, for many people this can be quite
idealistic. I thus prefer to translate it generally as
"friendliness", although also sometimes as "non-contention,
"peacefulness", "openness" or "receptiveness",
depending upon how we are able to use it.
This practice is especially useful in relating to the so-called unpleasant
experiences of life. For most people, as soon as they notice something
unpleasant or painful, they want to get away. But that does not really solve
the problem ― trying to distract ourselves away never allows us to get
to the real source. You have to first recognize: there is some suffering, some
discomfort, some pain, and then go to it in order to find its source. Only by
removing its source is it really resolved. By distracting ourselves away from
it, it may seem like it’s gone away, but because the root is still there, it
keeps on growing. It just takes other forms – resisted in this way, it grows
up that way.
Of course, as you know, for many people this is easier said than done. Who
wants to go to the source of their pain? Our usual reaction is to get away
from it. But by developing a more friendly, peaceful attitude towards the
so-called negative, towards the so-called unpleasant, we can change our usual
way of relating. At the very least, we do not increase it, we do not react in
the same habitual, resistant way over and over again, but have the possibility
of relating to it in a new way. And this, together with a foundation of
collectedness and clear awareness, allows us to see it a little bit more
clearly for what it really is.
Pain is Subjective
That is why I say it is only so-called "negative" or so-called
"unpleasant". As I mentioned already, what we call "pain"
is subjective. Each one of us makes their own definition: there is a
sensation, there is a state of mind, one person says: "ouch!",
another one says "that’s ok". Not only that, it depends upon our
individual mood too. If we are feeling very distracted, in an unhappy mood,
the slightest little physical irritation can be very painful. Or, if we feel
in a more happy or peaceful mood, we can tolerate a lot more discomfort. So where
is the real discomfort?
In the Buddhist teaching what we call pain or what is unpleasant is in the
mind. It is a particular aspect of mental phenomena. So simply, if we
change our state of mind, we can also change our experience of pain and
discomfort.
Of course, to some people the practice of friendliness does sound a bit
crazy, to be friendly to your pain sounds crazy: "What?! That does not
make sense, to be friendly to my pain?! You should get rid of it, should crush
it out, you should conquer it, defeat it, rather than being friendly with
it."
But then all of this is coming from will power, which is the basis of ego.
"I want to crush out my pain, I want to get rid of my discomfort" is all coming from our ego. And maybe we have to accept
that sometimes it works. But with a broader, longer-term perspective we see it
is not really successful. We get temporary relief, temporary gratification,
but no real resolution of it. At the very least a more friendly attitude
allows us to come a bit closer to some of this stuff with a more open,
receptive, peaceful attitude.
Take something practical, like physical pain for example. Who likes pain?
If you like pain you’ve got to be a masochist. Every sentient being with
feeling, every conscious being, whether it is a human being or a mosquito,
does not like pain. It is like an instinct: get away from the pain! Well, if
you do hurt yourself, do put your finger in the flame, you don’t even stop
to think about it: "This is painful, I should move my finger". It is
an automatic reflex. Sometimes you do not even actually register the pain
immediately, but then there is a reflex and then "ouch, my finger is
burning". First there is some kind of a reflex action.
Body more Intelligent than Mind
I have this theory – which is more than a theory I guess – a belief
maybe, that our body is much more intelligent than our mind. Not that it could
pass an IQ-Test, but I mean the body is first of all very simple. Our mind is
just complicated so it has to go through all these various channels of nerves
to figure out: "hey hey, your finger is burning!". But your
body just responds.
Once I had a little accident up the mountain here. I was walking on a steep
slope and I slipped. Suddenly I was sliding out of control faster and faster
down the slope heading for the precipice. As I was sliding down my brain was
thinking how to get out of it. But separate from my thinking process, for some
reason my body just rolled over to the side of the rock and as I slid
over this ledge I landed on the only piece of flat ground in the whole area --
just big enough for two feet! I immediately came to a stop and stood there in
disbelief. What?! I was not even thinking to tell my body to roll over right
there. But somehow it just did it automatically and I stood there with a kind
of wondrous disbelief, shaking a bit.
It has been several times like that: when one is really pushed to the
extremes, when the mind cannot think anymore, but the body somehow knows what
to do. And many times these situations show that there is another way of
relating to reality. If we are left with the usual way that our mind thinks,
we are hopelessly over the precipice, goodbye! But there is a different way of
relating.
The same with the so-called "negative" and the so-called
"unpleasant". If, for example, we notice some particular pain in the
body, if we try to see it in a new way, if we are able to look at with more
collectedness -- which means that the mind does not spin out to all the old
memories about it, all the fantasies that might happen -- we can perhaps begin
to experience it in a different way. And if we add to that more of an open,
peaceful and friendly attitude, we can change the whole perspective of how we
relate to these things.
Reality Subjective
What happens is that we usually divide up reality quite subjectively. In
reality there are no pleasant or unpleasant; I mean in the real reality. Each
one of us makes up our own personality: "I am the one who says that is
unpleasant, I am the person that says that is pleasant". That is what
accumulates this part of the personality. And so we get a whole backlog, a
whole set of things that are unpleasant and pleasant, then we keep reinforcing
that, feeding that. And when there is any kind of threat that some of that
stuff will be contacted, resistance comes up. That way is simply making it an
enemy, our enemy, and all this stuff is our enemy. Then you want to fight with
it, get rid of it, hopefully destroy it, and burn it and bury it, and
be peaceful, we hope.
However, if we can have a more peaceful attitude, some of this stuff can
come out of the closet and we can see it in a different way -- you can see it
as it really is. And, when we begin to see it as it really is, without all the
subjective stuff, all the subjective colouring: "It’s a threat to me.
That hurts me…," with the point of view: "This is just a thought,
this is just a memory, this is just a feeling, this is just a sensation",
it looses its personal emotional sting. At the very least we can neutralize it
to a certain degree. Because the whole nature of it is based upon our
relationship to these things. For example, if you notice that something like
physical pain comes along, and as soon as you say, "pain" or
"it is me and my pain", you get stuck with this dualistic
relationship -- me and my pain. And our usual way is trying to get rid of it: I
want to get rid of my pain. Of course, it is quite absurd -- how
can I get rid of my pain, because it is me? – That sort
of fight goes on.
But if we see it with awareness then it is a different story. First of all
we are not identifying with it, "it’s my pain". There is a
particular sensation just happening in this time, at this place, and at one
level that at least cuts off the memories and associations we have built up
around it. And if a new "old" pain comes along, we would say
it’s just like last time that happened. And so we get caught in this
repeating the same old patterns based upon memories, not on what is happening
right now -- this moment, this particular sensation, at this particular place,
in this particular state of mind.
The first time when I was in Sri Lanka I had a little hut in a monastery.
Two of us came there and there were two little huts and so we drew straws who
got which hut – and I got the nice one, I got the one with the mosquito
screens. That was a real success, because it was in the lowlands, surrounded
by a swamp, so had lots of mosquitoes. So I thought "Ha, I really got the
good straw this time, for a change." So I went to this little hut and I
was thinking that I was really safe from all the mosquitoes. But the problem
with mosquito-screens is that it keeps some out, but when one gets in, it
cannot get out. So the night came and I closed all the doors and windows and I
thought I was safe. I sat in there and then "zzzzzzz" – one
mosquito! And of course – because it was my first experience of mosquitoes,
I thought "mosquito equals malaria". So whenever this thing was
buzzing around in the room it was OK. But whenever it stopped buzzing, I knew
it had landed somewhere, probably on me. Well, needless to say I could not
sleep the whole night. I would sit there for a few minutes and as long it was
buzzing it was OK, and then it stopped and I jumped up, and then it started
buzzing again…
I could not sleep the whole night for this one mosquito. The next morning I
told my friend. He did not have any mosquito-screens in his place. He said:
"I had no problem sleeping." So I said, "What about
malaria?" He said, "There are no malaria-mosquitoes here." Of
course, it was a Buddhist monastery and I could not kill the mosquito. It
would have been OK for the mosquito to kill me -- malaria, heart-attack maybe,
or something.
But just by having this particular way of thinking, we can create so much
extra suffering for ourselves. Later I learned, after many years, lessons of
mosquitoes. Has anybody been to Thailand? I can give you an unedited copy of
my book "The secret life of mosquitoes". If you let the mosquito
bite you, it bites you once and flies away and finish, you can get back to
sleep again. But the worrying about it, the worrying about being bitten once
kept me awake the whole night!
But if we can have a more friendly attitude towards some of these things
that we usually relate to as being negative or unpleasant, it changes the
whole situation around. And the point is that what we defined as negative is
relative to my point of view -- my ego, in other words. So what happens is,
when we meet some unpleasant situation, we say "Oh, I´ve got a
problem". As soon as we define it that way we have stopped, locked into
and now solidified the whole flow of reality.
Friendly Enemies
What awareness tells us is: there are sensations. They arise and they pass
away. They come and they go. And one sensation comes along and you say
"ouch – that’s pain" and rather than allowing it to cease, to go
through its lifespan, we try to get hold of it with our mind, identify with it
and say "ah, that is painful, I’ve got a painful situation to deal
with." And we are locked into this relationship, and most of the time
that is what the real problem is; between this "me and my problem, me and
my problem".
If we can change our attitude, for example, have a little bit more of an
open and peaceful attitude, what happens is, since <me and the problem>
is <me and the enemy>, to be friendly, I have got to change. I
have got to be different. I change. When I change, the enemy problem changes
too.
If you are friendly to your enemy what happens to them? Simple! They are
just half an enemy! But when we define them as an enemy, they stay that way.
The enemies you see get reinforced by looking upon all the negative things
about them: they are the ugliest and the dirtiest and all the worst, etc, etc.
But if you change your attitude, being at least a bit more friendly towards
them saying, "Well – they are human beings too. Maybe they even have a
few friends, they might even have a little dog, or even a black cat like
ours." Then suddenly they are not such an extreme enemy anymore. Okay,
you don’t have to like them. They still maybe have their unpleasant aspects,
but they aren’t a hundred percent bad, negative and all the rest of it. And
practicably speaking, maybe they are still ninety percent your enemy, but ten
percent changes, and then there is a possibility of some different way of
relating. A ten percent possibility of something different.
The same with this relationship with the so-called "unpleasant".
We have created this "it is me", we have held on to "me"
as a certain person who has this pain, this problem. Identify with that and it
is fixed. The problem is fixed. And we also have to accept some kind of
strange aspects of human nature -- we even like that, at least we know who we
are. If I have a problem, I know who I am – I´m the one with a problem!
However, having a more friendly attitude to the problem at least opens it
up, it allows a bit more flexibility. And if we can develop this we see the
results, we see the benefits and it can increase, providing a lot more
flexibility in this relationship. I mean, it is a bit too idealistic to say:
"Well, really there is no "me", so there is no problem."
But "ouch", it still hurts. Some of these so-called negative things
are well-supported by our memories.
Friendly Change
If we can continue with this practice of friendliness, really, we change.
Our ego
is that which wants to be in control and just get rid of this and get rid
of that, so that it has its own little island of control. But to be able to be
peaceful and friendly towards all things, you have got to give up your ego
position, and allow everything to be just as it is.
Who can do that? Do you allow things to be just as they are? "Yes,
well, but… that is not so nice, I don’t like this, . . ." That does
not mean that you have to agree with everything, and everything is wonderful.
But you see everything has its place. Even the wrong, even the evil has its
place. It doesn’t mean that you are saying now "evil is good".
That is ridiculous. But you see its place within the whole fabric of reality.
And when you can actually acknowledge that there is wrong, then you can start
to make it right. People say it should not be this way, people should not kill
each other. Well, sorry. If we just leave it at "should nots", where
do we even start to change that situation? If you can acknowledge, well,
people do kill each other, then we can consider what to do about it. Where
does it come from? They don’t kill each other just like in a fairy tale.
There is some deep root to it. And we can acknowledge it, which means being
open to that reality rather than saying it should not be that way, they should
not do this – but they do.
Similarly with the pain in the body, "I should not have this
pain". The reality is, or awareness says: "But you have." So we
say, "What, but I shouldn’t have." But it is how it is right now
at this moment. (again, it is not saying that this is how it is going to be
forever.) Just the openness to that changes it. Because it was there in our
unawareness. Our unconsciousness knew it, but we didn’t want to know it. It
is there – our unconscious mind knows it is there – knows that there is
all this stuff, all of the negativity, all of the dark side of ourselves. Our
unconsciousness tries the best to keep it hidden away from us. So that is the
situation. But if we can bring it into consciousness it is quite different --
it does not stay hidden and frozen away. When you can bring it into
consciousness you see it in a different way. When some of this stuff which we
are holding on to begins to come into consciousness, it unfreezes and enters
the flow of reality. And a lot of these things have no substance in
themselves, other than our own mind holding on to it.
With the development of more collectedness and clear awareness we can
sometimes just observe all the confused thoughts, the angry thoughts, the
frustrated thoughts. They just arise and pass away. That’s the nature of
mind. Most people, if they see an angry thought think, "Oh, get rid of
it! Quick, hide it!" And when you do that, you reinforce it, give it a
new life, hold on to it. And then it does stay there. By allowing it into
consciousness, it has its own lifespan: it arises and passes away, just like
the breathing. It comes and it goes.
The point is though, we usually need a more open, receptive, peaceful
attitude to these things, rather than the usual reaction which is to judge it
somehow, manipulate it, do something with it. That’s why if we have some
degree of collectedness, when the mind is a bit more collected and stable and
calm, it does not have to erupt, all this stuff. Friendliness allows us to
come a bit closer to it, to see what it is really like. Most of the time it is
so-called "unpleasant" because we keep it over there, keep it fixed
in a certain fixed idea, a fixed memory.
No Thing
When you come closer to it – what is really there anyway? There is no
real substance other than a memory? How much does your memory weigh? What
shape is your memory? Can you bring up your memories and put them on the
floor? But if you hold on to them in your mind, they are pretty heavy aren’t
they? When you allow them up – where are they? You can put all your memories
into this room and it still would not get full up. But if you hold on to them
with your attitude, they are pretty heavy stuff.
The Buddha’s insight was that all the problems come not from themselves
but because of our grasping them. Holding on, grasping, clinging, clutching
at, that is the whole source of our suffering. But the point is this is also a
fundamental reaction, fundamental reaction of ego. Ego is only there, it only
exists because it has something to hold on to. In the Buddhist time they had
various philosophers and they were saying, what does this ego look like? Or
you can use a spiritual term like the soul, what does a soul look like? There
were all kinds of theories about it – it is a little seed in the middle of
the brain, or behind the heart. The Buddha was using meditation practice, not
philosophizing, but using meditation to see clearly – "Okay, what is
the soul? Let’s look at this! Lets investigate!" Not believe any theory
about it or any philosophy, but look, investigate it with clarity. And while
he was investigating that nature of soul, of ego, he found no thing. That is
called "enlightenment". Simple. Let’s do it again, the course is
over!
But how many of us can really look very clearly at the nature of the sense
of self and not stop anywhere? You say, "Well, OK, I’m not my body.
Yes, sure, but I’m an intelligent mind!" Oops, can’t give that one
up.
It is easy to think about, to theorize about: well, the body, yes. But
then: who is it who is thinking about the body? There is this little mind back
there saying: "Yes, yes, it is all very reasonable, yes." But the
rational mind goes too. Because it is just a creation, a conditioned thing;
conditioned by our rules of logic and our education. And with the practice of
insight meditation we are trying to awaken this new way of seeing. The way of
seeing which comes from direct experience. It is awareness now,
awareness-seeing, not the reasoning, not the logic, not the concepts, but the
awareness seeing what is really happening.
Awareness
Of course, for many people, even this awareness is part and parcel of their
ego. Because we only allow ourselves to see what we want to see -- which will
make me comfortable. This is not really awareness, it is awareness with a
small "a", awareness which is a slave of my ego. But with meditation
exercises we can increase this awareness, we can give it more power of its
own. We start off with "Okay, I am developing my awareness."
This is the little awareness. And actually this word which I translate as
awareness, you know what it means "awareness"? After all one needs
to experience it for oneself. In Pali it is called "sati". And there
are many different kinds of this "sati". Its root is "to
remember". At its very simplest it is just to remember. For example, to
remember to come back to the breathing, to remember to come back to the body.
Than there is – you would say - a little bit more developed level to
recollect yourself. Not only to remember to come back but actually doing it.
It can happen sometimes quite spontaneously. As soon as your mind gets a bit
clearer you come back to the breathing. You do not have to remember, "Oh
yes, what am I doing here, yes 1993, yes this is Kandersteg, yes meditation,
oh yes!, of course, yes, breathing right." You got it! Ting! – the bell
goes. Then recollection is: you can come back much more quicker.
And then there is the level of what I call "awareness". Awareness
is much more flexible. Because we all have some degree of awareness. To some
degree we can walk up the stairs, down the stairs, to find the toilet and
things like this, some degree of awareness, even if the lights aren’t on.
And it can be developed, can’t it? Besides having awareness of where the
stairs are, you can have awareness of the physical sensations in the body. And
over a period of a few days perhaps you can significantly develop this. There
is an increase in awareness.
Me & My Control
We say "increase in self-awareness", which in Buddhism is
awareness of the body, mind, feelings. And if we put some effort into it;
first of all from a selfish level (I am developing my
awareness), once it gets going then we become aware of certain aspects, let’s
say of the body, which we weren’t aware of before. We notice particular
sensations, particular states of mind, particular feelings that before we only
noticed if they really attracted our attention. Or if they were really
interesting so we had some investment in them. As we notice these things we
see, "Hey, this body gets on without me. I don’t need to stay aware:
foot move there, leg go there, arm go here!" You notice that "Hey,
its working anyway. So I can just go to sleep!" And you notice that most
of the activities of the body happen without your conscious interference --
food is digested, the breathing happens, the hair is growing, getting older,
etc. It happens automatically.
If we just are aware of the body within our limited sphere of ego,
"Well, gee, I am in control of this body." So I can say, "Okay
arm: move! Wow, look at how powerful I am, I can move my arm. It took
scientists years to get a robot to do that! I can sit up, I can move, I can
dance, I can sing (well, not as a monk).
But then when it comes to these other things . . . Okay, you can move your
arm, but can you say, "Okay digestion, stop digesting!"? Maybe it
would be useful if you could do some things. Let’s say, "Hair, stop
growing! Save razors!"
But how often do we look at the limitations of the body? We usually look
only at where we have control. If the body gets sick, I don’t want to hear
about it, I don’t want to know it, "I am not sick, keep going, come
on." But finally you have to accept, "Ugh, I am ill, I can’t make
it." And then we meet the limits of our control over the body; usually
only in these sort of crisis situations you’d say.
In the story of the Buddha it was old age, sickness and death which the
Buddha had to confront, and there was no solution. He asked people what does
this mean: old age, sickness and death. Well, what do you mean "what is
it" -- it just happens to everybody. And well, isn’t there some
solution to it? Well, no, sorry. Oh gee, life wasn’t so rosy after all! We
better have a good pension-plan. But it was these limitations of the sense of
self that set the Buddha questioning, inquiring -- aha, the self is not
all-powerful, it is not ultimate, doesn’t last forever, has its limitations
too.
For some people it is a bit of a shock at first. When you see that you are
40 years old and have your first grey hair, it’s a bit of a shock, but you
get used to it. And then we adapt to it, adjust to it and take it in to the
ego realm: now we are comfortable with it. But when we begin to really see
these limitations then we begin to see more clearly what the nature of this
body really is, seeing clearly what it is. Which means we don’t have to feel
depressed about it, to feel irritated about it -- it just is that way. This is
being more at peace with the nature of it.
Sometimes there are experiences which we have had had before and are now in
our memories which are very heavily loaded with emotional content. And to say,
"Just open to them!", is a bit optimistic; because we not only open
to that, we open to all this negativity we have padded around it. However, if
we change our attitude to be more peaceful to that, more peaceful towards all
this negativity around it, then it allows us to open it up, to see it for what
it really is.
So, what happens? If you can be really friendly towards the unpleasant, the
so-called negative, what happens to it? Sometimes if we can be more friendly
towards the so-called unpleasant experiences they begin to open up, become
like a cloud. They aren’t so solid any more. Because they are only so-called
solid because of our clutching, holding attitude. To be friendly one has to
relax one’s grip, one’s hold on it. And by doing that it allows us to
become a bit more flexible. Before, when we looked at the pain, there was only
one answer -- ouch! But now when we look at it again there are different kinds
of "ouches", different kinds of pains, so to say. Its not so simple
anymore. And we have to accept too that we still have our limit. It doesn’t
mean you have to just sit here till tomorrow, "It’s not pain any way.
It’s just friendliness, peace openness…" But this is coming from our
ideal rather than from our experience.
This is something that we can work with. It’s not a magical solution.
Because to some people they do think, "Aha, I’ve now got the magical
formula to get rid of all my pains!" Oh, Oh! There’s the ego speaking
again. The ego is again asserting itself to take over our attempts at openness
and friendliness. And if the ego is involved it’s not going to work, not
really. Because in order to be really friendly one has to totally surrender.
Real friendliness only happens when we can step outside our ego confines,
surrender my ego identities, my ego definitions. Ok, practically this happens
step by step. The more we can develop friendliness, the more we let down our
ego guard step by step.
Unreasonably Friendly
There is a story in one of the post-canonical books of 4 people sitting
together somewhere on a bench. You, your best friend, a neutral person and
your worst enemy are sitting there, having a cup of tea. Not your worst enemy,
no, no, they drink sour-milk! Some murderers come along and say they want one
of you for a sacrifice. You have to choose one of these four people to be
killed. Well, whom would you chose? This is a great moral dilemma, yeah? You
can choose yourself and say, "Well, I am so selfless and holy, take
me!" Or you could say, "Well, take my worst enemy he’s not worth
anything anyway. Cleanse the earth of this fellow." How about the neutral
person? He is nobody special. Or you could be really generous, "Well, I
cannot go because I am making a decision, so take my best friend, he is the
same as me anyway."
We could make a personality test here by the answer people give. So who
would you choose? I said this was a hard one - maybe we leave it for tomorrow?
It has to come from the heart, a heart-felt decision because this is serious.
You can leave your answers on my seat, put your name on it please so I know
who to keep away from, or perhaps to sit with you on the bench. But I will
give you a hint -- you won’t get it by thinking. The answer is not anything
you could ever think about, it is unthinkable. So we’d better wait till
tomorrow.
If we continue with this practice of friendliness what can happen is that
we arrive at an experience which is totally unexpected, totally unreasonable,
illogical, because it is transcending these limits of the ego. In order to be
really friendly to your worst enemy, to the things you define as being the
most unpleasant, you have got to change. You have got to surrender all your
points of reference, all places you are holding on to. And then the result is
unthinkable.
In the story above, the unthinkable answer, if you really develop
friendliness to a very high degree, is that you cannot choose anyone of the
four. Friendliness is developed so extensively that one no longer
discriminates between any of the four persons, one is completely open and
friendly to them all equally – and even to the murderers as well! See, I
told you it was unthinkable.
But we can apply this in a practical way. Gradually we begin to see, first
the resistance, even a resistance to being friendly. There is trying to be
friendly to the resistance, but the resistance to being friendly. People have
come to me after days of practice and said, "I just can’t be friendly.
I am just not capable of it". So one very helpful hint is -- maybe you
have to forgive first, to forgive before you can be friendly. Forgiving means
that we fully receive this experience without judging it, just receive it
fully as it is. When we can fully receive it as it is, then we can let go of
it – because we have absorbed it, taken it in, so we don’t need to hold it
anymore. If we don’t fully receive it, open to it, absorb it, we stay with
our judgements about it and end up with righteous indignation. This comes out
of our own ego-based, reasoning mind – "Yes, I can forgive, it is good
to forgive. But they did this. It’s not right. They should not do
this, and it is not right, it’s wrong, they should do that." But the
point is, in a sense, it has happened, it’s done. So maybe we have to
forgive, receive, absorb that particular experience, that particular
situation, before we can start anew. This is especially true of the past -- we
are never going to change the past. The only real benefit we can get from the
past is to learn from it, and hopefully not to repeat mistakes again. But we
have to really open to the pain and the wrong and the injustice that has
happened there. To open to it, to receive it, doesn’t mean we have to agree
with it or like it. But that is the way it was then, start over again from
now.
Universal Friendliness
This practice of friendliness - I would say very simply - is the single
most useful meditation exercise in the whole practice of meditation. When
people meet some difficulty in the practice, the simplest and most practical
solution to it is more friendliness, more peacefulness, openness,
receptiveness towards it. So wherever we say there is a problem, the problem
is not really the problem in itself. The real difficulty is the relationship
to it. Basically it is "I" (subject) have a "problem"
(object). If we hold this relationship then subject and object battle it out
until victory – I conquer the problem or the problem conquers me! With a
more friendly, peaceful attitude, however, we can at least peacefully
co-exist. And, maybe, if we develop this attitude further, we can establish a
totally new relationship. That is, when I change with friendliness, the
problem changes too! Friendliness implies an opening towards and a softening
towards. And then we notice that the problem also opens and softens. And the
more we open and soften with friendliness, the more the problem opens and
softens – opens and softens until (its possible!) subject and object
dissolve, melt together in friendliness. How does the saying go – Love
conquers all.
But we have to work at this practice too. It is not something that comes so
easily to us, we have a whole backlog of ego-conquering-problem habits. So it
sometimes seems a bit crazy to be friendly to the things which you don’t
like, things that you find unpleasant. But if we see it as providing a new
space from which to relate we have the confidence to change our attitude and
see what is really happening there in a much clearer way. That’s why I find
it useful for Insight meditation. To be able to see clearly we have to be able
to come closer, with a friendly, peaceful attitude to see what is really
there. You can’t see anything very clearly if its off over there covered in
a cloud of resistance.
Friendly Wandering
If you can be peaceful with the wandering mind, then the wandering mind isn’t
a problem. There are two ways to relate to the wandering mind. Some people
think that they should not have it and they fight with it (and the mind
wanders even more wildly!). And others can be a bit more peaceful towards it.
It is still there, but there is no conflict. Wandering mind happens sometimes,
so what?
And when one is more friendly towards it, it starts to tell us its deeper
secrets, just like your trusted friend does. The wandering mind is just one
face to the mind, and not even its true face. But until it trusts you, until
it knows its not going to get criticized, condemned or violated, its not going
to open up its deeper secrets to you. Relating to it with friendliness allows
it to relax, to not have to keep up its particular "face", and to
transform into something quite marvelously different. What that is we don’t
know, but we are peaceful with that too.
There are different kinds of peace too, there is a peace "away
from", peace without disturbance, when your disturbance is all gone and
then it is quiet. But what I am talking about is "peace with
disturbance", being at peace with the noise, being at peace with the
pain, being at peace with the wandering mind -- it is a different kind of
experience. And practically, how often can you really be away from
disturbances? We go off to the quiet mountains, walking peacefully, "Oh,
so peaceful", until one of those Swiss Jets comes blasting over you:
Wrooooaammm! Or here, especially in the springtime, it is an especially good
place for wakefulness. If you go wandering up the path here a lot of little
avalanches come down. You just walk along in a daydream, and then Craaash!
This is a different kind of peace.
Insight meditation is seeing the way things really are. When you see how
they really are, you can be at peace with them. Whatever is there is alright,
it is just the way it is. We don’t make suffering and complications around
it. But in the process it is different. It is a different kind of a wandering
mind. When we are at peace with the pain, it is still there, but it is a
different kind of pain – a soft, peaceful pain. Try developing a more
peaceful, friendly attitude to the so-called unpleasant and see for yourself
what happens to it. Then it will be your experience.
May your practice of friendly insight develop well and bear fruit.
Be well.
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