Transcript
[0:02] Hello and welcome
[0:06] to our morning meditation.
[0:11] And in this week we're looking at the
[0:15] bundles, the five bundles.
[0:19] Today the topic is sensations.
[0:23] And so
[0:24] for this meditation it'll be
[0:29] the focus of it.
[0:31] And
[0:33] the way that this insight meditation
[0:36] practice, Vipassana, was taught to me in
[0:39] Burma.
[0:40] It was very much a sensation-based
[0:43] meditation. We were It looked like we
[0:45] were told to make breathing in the
[0:47] default. They just kind of keep keep our
[0:49] attention at the home base of breathing.
[0:53] But they never said it that way. What
[0:55] they said was be aware of the movements
[0:58] in the body associated with breathing.
[1:02] And what they were emphasizing was
[1:05] pay attention to the sensations
[1:07] associated with breathing.
[1:10] That's the heart of it.
[1:12] And if we pay attention to other things,
[1:14] pay attention to the sensations
[1:17] of the emotions you have. Pay attention
[1:19] to the sensations of even your thinking.
[1:22] Sensations was kind of the foundation
[1:26] by which the mindfulness was cultivated.
[1:28] So it's a It can be very important for
[1:32] for mindfulness practice.
[1:36] This weekend my wife and I drove over to
[1:38] the East Bay. We crossed one of the
[1:40] bridges to go across San Francisco Bay.
[1:44] And the weather was spectacularly clear.
[1:48] Maybe kind of unusually clear, so it was
[1:50] noteworthy. We noted to each other. Wow,
[1:53] it's everything's so clear.
[1:55] Um and we could see the the hills across
[1:58] the bay very clearly. We could see the
[2:01] beautiful sky.
[2:02] Crossing the bridge, we could see the
[2:05] very still, beautiful
[2:08] uh bay water.
[2:11] We could see trees and buildings and
[2:13] boats and everything was kind of clear.
[2:17] And um
[2:19] And you can so you What clarity means,
[2:21] you can see the clear distinction
[2:23] between things.
[2:26] Sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's in
[2:29] the fog. And then we don't see the
[2:31] distinctions. We might say see rough
[2:34] outlines, but we don't really see the
[2:36] sharp distinction between things.
[2:39] So the same thing with us.
[2:42] We can sometimes live in the fog of
[2:44] thinking.
[2:46] And we don't really see clearly because
[2:49] we're in the ideas of things, the
[2:52] stories, the
[2:54] um attitudes, the beliefs, the
[2:56] judgments, the commentary.
[2:59] And we don't see clearly.
[3:02] What we're trying to do in Vipassana is
[3:05] to see clearly
[3:07] without that fog.
[3:09] And one of the consequences of that is
[3:12] we see the distinction when the fog
[3:14] clears,
[3:16] we
[3:17] things aren't a big mush. Rather we see
[3:20] very clearly
[3:22] that there are sensations.
[3:25] And distinct from the sensations is the
[3:28] mind that knows them.
[3:31] That doesn't make it dualistic. It just
[3:33] just like it doesn't make
[3:35] the
[3:36] uh
[3:37] the water still water on the bay
[3:40] um is not being different than the
[3:42] mountains around the bay,
[3:44] different than the sky.
[3:47] Uh
[3:48] that's not dualistic to see those
[3:50] distinctions. It's just the nature of
[3:52] things when there's clarity.
[3:54] So, to see clearly
[3:57] sensations,
[3:59] see clearly the mind knowing sensations,
[4:03] and see clearly that the mind is telling
[4:06] stories about the sensations, having
[4:08] attitudes about it, having ideas of
[4:11] being for them or against them,
[4:13] preferring or not preferring,
[4:16] all right and wrong,
[4:18] planning how to fix it and change it,
[4:20] how to keep it,
[4:22] how to celebrate, and how to be
[4:24] depressed around what sensations we
[4:26] have.
[4:27] There's all this whole mental chatter
[4:29] and world that lends itself to a fog.
[4:34] And uh and more than that, sometimes to
[4:36] a lot of suffering.
[4:40] And so
[4:41] in this
[4:42] teaching today
[4:45] is to start seeing that clear
[4:47] distinction
[4:49] between the sensations
[4:52] and the whole mental universe of
[4:55] thoughts and attitudes and beliefs
[4:58] about the sensations.
[5:01] Or if your thinking is disconnected just
[5:04] to the sensations,
[5:06] just feel and know you're completely
[5:08] disconnected. You're really in a fog now
[5:11] in in relationship to really being in
[5:13] touch with yourself in a deep way.
[5:17] So to assume a meditation posture
[5:25] and to gently close your eyes.
[5:32] And without anything more for a moment,
[5:35] just feel the sensations of your body.
[5:38] The way that they show themselves to
[5:41] you.
[5:43] Rather than searching out and scanning
[5:46] the body for sensations,
[5:49] relax and let the body
[5:52] speak to you, announce itself to you
[5:56] in whatever way it wants, whatever
[5:58] sensations want to come.
[6:02] Being careful
[6:05] that you don't
[6:07] the mind doesn't fixate on anything.
[6:11] Doesn't get preoccupied or worried and
[6:14] caught in that.
[6:19] Let the body in a random and open way
[6:24] reveal different sensations in different
[6:26] moments.
[6:31] Throughout the body.
[7:02] And then within the body
[7:04] as part of the body
[7:06] become aware of the sensations of
[7:09] breathing.
[7:11] Whatever way they show themselves.
[7:49] And is there any
[7:52] place in the breathing you can relax
[7:57] as you exhale.
[8:47] >> Breathing in, breathing out.
[8:50] Feeling the sensations.
[8:53] Meaning how the body senses sensations.
[9:01] Being present for the place in the body
[9:06] where sensations
[9:08] and sensing
[9:11] occur together.
[9:39] Where the direct experience of sensing
[9:42] sensations
[9:45] is is silent.
[9:49] In and of itself, it doesn't need any
[9:52] thoughts, any words.
[10:02] The sensing sensations in and of itself
[10:07] is free of words.
[12:03] And as you feel the silence of the
[12:06] sensations themselves,
[12:10] can you see the difference, the
[12:11] distinction
[12:14] between sensations
[12:19] and your thinking about them.
[12:22] Your ideas, preferences,
[12:28] explanations, commentary,
[12:33] predictions,
[12:39] and to see them as two different things.
[12:44] And if you can,
[12:52] rest the awareness close to the
[12:55] sensations themselves.
[12:59] The sensations of breathing.
[13:08] And if you can,
[13:11] don't give energy, don't give it
[13:15] attention over
[13:19] to the thinking, the thoughts,
[13:23] opinions
[13:27] you have about the sensations.
[16:21] >> Mhm.
[18:23] >> Mhm.
[20:26] >> Mhm.
[21:27] >> Can you see
[21:30] a distinction between sensations
[21:35] and the ideas
[21:38] that you have about them?
[21:41] The thoughts,
[21:44] preferences,
[21:48] meanings you assign,
[21:54] stories of past and future.
[22:09] The sensations themselves
[22:14] are
[22:16] substantial, concrete, or
[22:20] physical.
[22:25] The thoughts
[22:26] are ephemeral,
[22:29] insubstantial,
[22:36] lighter than a feather.
[22:53] And if you see the difference between
[22:55] sensations and the ideas,
[23:00] is there any stickiness between you and
[23:02] the ideas?
[23:07] Any gravitational pull?
[23:12] Attachment?
[23:17] Strong energy of
[23:21] being pulled into your thoughts,
[23:23] believing them?
[23:34] And what difference does it make to see
[23:36] the ideas
[23:40] and to also see the stickiness
[23:46] or the attachment
[23:51] to them?
[26:33] >> As we come to the end of the sitting,
[26:40] to find that place within you
[26:45] where you can feel the silence
[26:48] of sensations
[26:51] in and of themselves, a place that
[26:54] the noise of your thoughts, ideas,
[26:58] thinking
[27:01] is not found.
[27:06] A place of silence,
[27:10] softness,
[27:13] stillness.
[27:31] And from from the perspective of that
[27:34] stillness,
[27:35] silence,
[27:40] free of ideas
[27:43] of right and wrong, should and
[27:44] shouldn't,
[27:48] to gaze upon the world
[27:52] kindly.
[27:58] To gaze upon the world through the
[28:01] silence,
[28:04] so kindness is unfiltered,
[28:13] uncompromised,
[28:19] a goodwill towards all beings.
[28:29] And may it be that the meditations we do
[28:35] is connected
[28:41] to our desire
[28:44] to contribute to a better world.
[28:48] A kinder world.
[28:53] May all beings
[28:56] be happy.
[29:00] May all beings
[29:04] be safe.
[29:07] May all beings
[29:11] be peaceful.
[29:15] May all beings be free.
[29:21] And may our ability to distinguish
[29:26] between what we see in the world
[29:33] and the ideas and stories and commentary
[29:36] and opinions we have,
[29:40] help us to see clearly
[29:45] putting our opinions in the right place.
[29:50] May all beings be happy.
[30:13] Thank you.
[30:56] >> So, hello to welcome to the second talk
[31:00] on the five bundles.
[31:03] In
[31:04] the
[31:05] language of the Buddha, they're called
[31:09] the five khandas.
[31:11] And khandas can mean mass, a grouping of
[31:14] things.
[31:16] Um
[31:17] and uh
[31:19] and what we're looking at here is five
[31:21] ways in which
[31:23] we
[31:24] uh group our clingings, five areas by
[31:27] which we hold on and tie together
[31:30] a big
[31:32] bundles
[31:33] of attachments.
[31:36] And the reason the Buddha focuses on
[31:37] this
[31:38] is that attachment the or clinging
[31:41] itself, the word is clinging more than
[31:43] attachment.
[31:44] Clinging is one of the primary sources
[31:47] of suffering, the compulsion of
[31:49] clinging, the insistence of clinging,
[31:51] the uncompromising nature of clinging,
[31:55] the holding tight and contracting and
[31:57] being tight and
[31:59] being disappointed or being aggressive
[32:01] and assertive and conceited.
[32:04] Uh
[32:05] all based on a kind of holding on tight
[32:08] to ideas, to preferences, to opinions,
[32:12] to ideas of self. There's a whole world
[32:16] of things that we are clinging to.
[32:19] And
[32:20] this early Buddhist tradition emphasizes
[32:23] that freedom
[32:25] that profound freedom, a profound
[32:27] ability to live for the can the care of
[32:30] the world
[32:31] comes with non-clinging.
[32:36] And rather than just say don't cling."
[32:39] uh the early tradition says,"Study your
[32:42] clinging. Understand what you're
[32:43] clinging to. Understand how clinging
[32:46] works."It's like understanding a magic
[32:48] trick.
[32:50] If you can watch a same magic trick and
[32:52] not understand
[32:54] how it's done, it can seem magical. It
[32:56] seems
[32:57] amazing, and maybe you never tire seeing
[33:00] it.
[33:01] But as soon as you see how the trick is
[33:03] done, then you've seen enough. You tire
[33:05] quickly.
[33:07] And um
[33:09] so the magic trick of clinging, where it
[33:11] kind of camouflages itself by being so
[33:14] preoccupied with what we're clinging to,
[33:16] the object of clinging that we don't see
[33:19] that we're clinging sometimes. And and
[33:21] there's a lot of clinging. Some of them
[33:23] are kind of maybe
[33:25] moved to the back room while we're
[33:27] focusing on other clingings, but there's
[33:29] a whole pile of them ready to be
[33:31] activated.
[33:33] And the Buddha puts them into five major
[33:35] categories.
[33:37] So, it's the what I'm calling
[33:40] appearances, rupa.
[33:43] Today, it's sensations or feeling tones,
[33:47] vedana.
[33:48] Uh tomorrow we'll talk about
[33:50] recognition, sanna, sometimes called
[33:53] perception.
[33:55] And then sankhara meaning uh
[33:59] mental formations, mental constructs.
[34:02] And then the last one is vinnana
[34:05] which is usually translated as
[34:06] consciousness, but as you'll see that I
[34:08] propose a different translation when we
[34:10] talk about it Friday.
[34:14] Uh yesterday I talked about
[34:16] uh rupa, this appearances, usually
[34:19] translated as form.
[34:21] And um the simile the Buddha gives for
[34:24] form is foam floating on top of a river.
[34:29] The river foam is not the river.
[34:33] It covers the river, but it that's what
[34:35] we see when you look down the river on
[34:36] the surface. And it's amorphous. It kind
[34:39] of has no real substance of its own. It
[34:42] can shifts and changes. It You can pop
[34:45] it. You can
[34:47] shape reshape it in different ways.
[34:49] And um
[34:51] and uh and it dissolves and goes back
[34:53] into the river eventually.
[34:55] So, um
[34:57] appearances is what's put on top
[35:00] of the river of sensation, the rivers of
[35:03] change.
[35:04] Uh our direct experience of life is a
[35:06] constant shape of flow of sensations of
[35:09] changing sensations.
[35:11] And um and on top of we put our this
[35:14] thing thing called appearances, the the
[35:16] prioritization or the concepts, the
[35:19] ideas, or what we think is important in
[35:21] the world of appearances.
[35:24] But, they're insubstantial just like uh
[35:27] uh clothing fashions change over time.
[35:30] They come and they go. They're
[35:32] They're just foam that that uh is there
[35:35] for a while and disappears.
[35:39] For the next uh bundle,
[35:42] it's uh uh
[35:46] vedanas, I'm calling it sensations,
[35:49] not uncommon, more commonly called
[35:52] vedana,
[35:53] which means uh usually translated as
[35:55] feeling tones.
[35:57] The simile for it is a rain falling on
[36:00] the river.
[36:02] The rain just drops. It makes a little
[36:04] splash, and then it's in into the
[36:05] becomes the river, but it doesn't last
[36:08] very long. It's just momentary.
[36:10] And the world of sensations, the world
[36:12] of feeling tones,
[36:14] um are in and of themselves are
[36:17] momentary little sparks of uh the nerves
[36:21] firing to give us pleasure and pain, to
[36:24] give us smell and taste and sounds,
[36:27] and uh sights.
[36:30] It's the the the simplest way in which
[36:33] sense experience is sensed.
[36:36] The sensations that come up from sense
[36:38] experience.
[36:40] And those sensations uh can have
[36:43] qualities of pleasure and pain, Uh
[36:48] built into them that's they come along
[36:50] with that. So, sometimes we may
[36:52] emphasize the sensations, the
[36:54] characteristics of them, and sometimes
[36:56] they emphasize how they're pleasant and
[36:58] unpleasant.
[37:01] But, they're still momentary.
[37:03] And, but they don't we don't often
[37:05] experience them momentary.
[37:07] And, the under Buddhist understanding
[37:10] for that is that we have ideas, stories,
[37:14] uh, we have preoccupations with them
[37:18] sometimes that makes them seem more
[37:20] solid than they actually are.
[37:22] Uh, the mind constructs solidity
[37:25] in the same way that the
[37:27] uh,
[37:28] the old, you know, 16 mm movies were all
[37:32] these still shots shot on the screen,
[37:35] and but the mind constructed movement
[37:37] through them.
[37:38] So, the the mind is
[37:41] thinking and considering and reflecting
[37:44] and making up stories and reminding, and
[37:47] that preoccupation of the mental mind
[37:50] with sensations sometimes makes the
[37:52] sensations more solid than they actually
[37:56] are.
[37:58] And, but as the mind as we stop thinking
[38:01] so much, stop reacting so much, stop
[38:04] telling stories about it, stop being
[38:07] preoccupied by these,
[38:09] get calm and settled in the world of
[38:11] sensations, they're more like raindrops.
[38:14] They're they flitter and come and go
[38:16] come and go and
[38:17] and they might come and go frequently,
[38:19] so
[38:20] so it becomes something the mind
[38:21] constructs as being ongoing, continuous,
[38:25] but actually they're just coming and
[38:27] going, sparking here and there like
[38:29] raindrops.
[38:31] Whether that's the case or not, what is
[38:33] important here is that
[38:36] we get attached, we cling to sensations,
[38:38] we prefer some,
[38:40] we some people cling to the comfort and
[38:42] are pursuing a lot of effort to be
[38:45] comfortable.
[38:46] Some people are aversive to discomfort,
[38:50] pain, unpleasantness.
[38:52] And sometimes a lot of human behavior is
[38:55] so simple, it's almost amoeba-like,
[38:58] uh for pleasure and against um
[39:00] discomfort, what's painful.
[39:04] And so there's a reactivity around it.
[39:06] And sometimes that And it's not just
[39:08] amoeba-like, but the relationship to
[39:11] pain and pleasure goes through the mind
[39:15] thinking about it and analyzing it and
[39:18] predicting it and
[39:20] having judgments and opinions and
[39:22] preferences.
[39:23] Uh we inherit from our we absorb from
[39:26] our society, family, religions ideas
[39:30] about what is
[39:32] allowed and not allowed, what's
[39:34] appropriate and not appropriate, what we
[39:36] are supposed to be experiencing or what
[39:38] we're not supposed to be experiencing.
[39:40] And um and uh
[39:43] there's a complicated world
[39:45] of ideas
[39:48] that go come into come alive when we
[39:51] experience sensations.
[39:55] And um and uh sometimes without those,
[40:00] uh things are a lot simpler.
[40:02] The um I remember once I was hitchhiking
[40:06] and um
[40:07] in Europe and it was night, I was
[40:10] dropped off at dark.
[40:12] We couldn't see very well, but there was
[40:14] a small next to the
[40:16] road, there was a small stone wall,
[40:19] about maybe 3 ft tall.
[40:21] And uh it looked like a park there and
[40:24] there was trees and shrubs and greenery
[40:27] and grass and
[40:29] and I thought,"Oh, what a nice place."
[40:31] And I'll just sleep here for the night
[40:33] and rolled up my sleeping bag kind of
[40:34] under a kind of a
[40:37] big bush that had a clearing under it.
[40:41] And I felt very content and happy to be
[40:43] in a felt like a safe place, quiet
[40:46] place, see if I park,
[40:48] how nice.
[40:50] And I woke up in the morning to discover
[40:52] that I was sleeping in a cemetery and I
[40:55] had actually put my sleeping bag on top
[40:57] of someone's grave.
[40:59] And so, the whole inner world of ideas
[41:03] that came alive for me and what was nice
[41:06] and what was not nice, what was,
[41:08] you know, maybe frightening, not
[41:09] frightening, what was appropriate, I had
[41:12] I done wrong, what did did I do right,
[41:14] what was going this whole world of
[41:17] thoughts swirled around my mind.
[41:20] And some of them were not comfortable.
[41:22] There was attachment and clinging to
[41:23] what was right and wrong and fear and
[41:27] all kinds of things.
[41:29] But the raw experience didn't have in
[41:32] the dark, it was very very simple. I
[41:35] I had my the own ideas there, but they
[41:38] were ones that were pleasant.
[41:40] So we can have a whole world of ideas,
[41:44] concepts,
[41:46] beliefs, opinions, preferences around
[41:50] sensations.
[41:51] And those are not innocent sometimes.
[41:54] Sometimes they come with a lot of force,
[41:57] a lot of purpose, a lot of insistence
[42:00] and what Buddhism would call clinging.
[42:04] And and they can cause a lot of
[42:06] suffering. Some people's lives are
[42:08] destroyed by clinging to pleasure,
[42:13] uh
[42:14] trying to avoid what is what is
[42:15] unpleasant. There's in fact it can be
[42:18] extremely intense. Addictions are part
[42:20] of this world.
[42:23] And um
[42:25] so to
[42:27] so one of the offerings in this practice
[42:29] of mindfulness
[42:31] is to be able to tease apart, to clear
[42:34] the fog so we can see the difference
[42:37] between sensations and the world of
[42:40] ideas that we have about it.
[42:43] And become wise about those ideas. Some
[42:45] of them are appropriate, but some of
[42:47] them are not. And some of them are less
[42:50] than appropriate, but actually harmful.
[42:53] And um but more important is to see the
[42:56] clinging we have.
[42:58] And um and uh the insistence, the
[43:01] compulsion around
[43:03] uh things being a certain way, having to
[43:05] do with sensations.
[43:07] And can we free ourselves of the
[43:08] clinging? The clinging to those ideas,
[43:11] clinging to those beliefs.
[43:13] After all, the sensations themselves are
[43:15] fleeting.
[43:17] It's the clinging to the thoughts and
[43:19] ideas that persists and lasts sometimes
[43:22] for lifetimes.
[43:25] Can we relax the mind's clinging? Can we
[43:27] relax this forcefulness of the opinions
[43:30] and stories that we live to in
[43:33] relationship to sensations?
[43:36] The The bundles, the bundle of clinging
[43:39] towards sensations, that is empty.
[43:44] All five bundles are empty.
[43:48] And seeing that, you'll be free of
[43:50] suffering.
[43:53] Form
[43:54] These appearances are empty.
[43:57] And emptiness is the appearances.
[44:00] This The bundle of sensations.
[44:04] So, it isn't the sensations themselves,
[44:07] but it's the the bundle.
[44:10] The bundle that we built up and create,
[44:13] that is empty. There's no substance
[44:15] there. That's just a gathering together
[44:19] of a lot of strong ideas and
[44:21] attachments.
[44:22] Um and we Some of us carry huge bundles
[44:26] in relationship to sensations.
[44:31] So, um
[44:32] the uh way the Buddha talks about these
[44:35] bundles, he calls them upadana kanda.
[44:39] And upadana means clinging.
[44:41] It's the bundles of clinging.
[44:45] And um
[44:46] and we can untie them.
[44:48] And then the sensations are just
[44:50] sensations.
[44:52] They're not a bundle.
[44:53] Because they're not gathered together.
[44:56] And then there's much more freedom.
[44:58] And one of the great pleasures of
[45:00] mindfulness meditation is when we can
[45:03] just relax into the river, the flow of
[45:06] sensations, and just absorb them, and
[45:09] receive them, and and kind of just let
[45:11] them move through us
[45:13] uh free of our attachment.
[45:17] So, thank you.
[45:19] I'll continue tomorrow.
