Truth or Experience?

From: A Trackless Path II 6

Full transcript 

Audioclip

Ken: Now there are experiences which arise. There you sit and the mind becomes still. "Mind" means the way we experience things, so let's get rid of the word mind for a few moments. The way that we experience things becomes very still and open, and in that stillness and openness there's no experience of something other. Does this mean that there is no I and no other? No. It is a way of experiencing. But that way of experiencing makes such a difference and is so profound and so impactful that people label it as the truth, when actually it's just another way of experiencing.  

Not only do they label it as the truth, they celebrate it. And one of the most elaborate celebrations of it is the Avatamsaka Sutra, which is like a thousand pages celebrating impermanence as change and the joy of change, and suffering as opening into the intensity or bliss of experience and emptiness as the interdependence of everything, so that we're all connected. Just thousands of pages of celebration. 

Student: What sutra Ava-tamsa?

Ken: Avatamsaka--it's been translated into English a couple of times I think, Flower Garland or the Flower Wreath Sutra, but there are many, many others. The Prajnaparamita: The Perfection of Wisdom in 100,000 Lines is a celebration of this, You can't say anything about anything! [Laughter] And it just goes on for a hundred thousand things because they're just blown away by this! 

And then as the human mind does, somebody says, "This is how things are." Somebody else says, "That's the truth." And now the fixation comes, and that screws everything up, as we know, time and time again. And so you get Saraha coming along and saying, "Oh those that believe in reality are stupid, like cows, but those who believe in unreality, they're even stupider." [Laughter] And he's absolutely right because they've moved from this way of experiencing things to saying, "This is how things are."

Experience your feelings completely

From: Heart Sutra Workshop 3
Full transcript
Audiofile

How many of you got angry over the last week? How many of you took the anger that arose as a fact that you just had to act on? Yeah, let’s be honest. You got angry—all of you did! And we do that because we don’t know at that moment what anger is. It appears to be very solid and have a lot of force, etc.

But if we experience it completely then we know that it is a movement in mind. In the same way that a wave is movement in water. I imagine most of you have had the experience in your meditation of sitting there fuming over something that happened the previous week or the previous day and just sitting there, Grrr! Grrr! Err. And think, “Okay back to the breath, but he said this and he said that.” Grrr!

Anybody had this experience? [Laughter] And it goes on, you know, for ten minutes or fifteen minutes or twenty minutes or whatever and then suddenly you find yourself sitting there like this…and you’re not angry at all. And you didn’t decide not to be angry. You didn’t say to yourself, “Oh, I’ve worked through this now.” It just stopped. Right? And some part of you may go like, “What happened? I was so angry three minutes ago.” And you try to remember the situation but you can’t get any juice in it. Anybody had this experience?

Well, that arises because the anger has actually been felt. You know it may sound a little stupid but I say a lot of stupid things. So that’s nothing unusual. But the function of a feeling is to be felt. And a feeling can’t be complete until it is felt.

Now what happens if a feeling comes up and you try not to feel it? “No, I don’t really love him.” How well does that one work? You know, “I’m not really angry with you; I just have a few things to tell you.” [Laughter] Or the Charlie Brown version of this. Lucy says to Charlie Brown, “I’m going to do you a favor Charlie Brown, I’m going to tell you every thing that’s wrong with you.” Next frame, “Why don’t you get a sheet of foolscap.” Next frame, “Draw a line down the center.” Last frame, “On second thought, get two sheets.” [Laughter]

No anger here at all. But when we experience it and a lot of us don’t do that very gracefully but when it’s actually been felt, been experienced, then its finished. When we know this about feelings, then we can open to the experience of them. And we experience them vividly, just like our friend here, this piece of paper. And they come and they go.

And something very important happens then. Can you be something that you experience that comes and goes? No, if it comes and goes in our experience, we can’t possibly be it. So we can’t be anger. Anger arises but it can’t be what we are in the way we were talking about this morning. Oh, okay.

And not only that, we experienced it, we felt it and the world didn’t come to an end. Most people don’t actually experience the emotions because they’re afraid that if they do the world will come to an end. Or they’ll die or something like that will happen. So the more intimately we know our experience, the more we’re able to just experience it.

Shattering the illusion

From: Guru, Deity, Protector 8
Full Transcript
Audioclip

Ken: One of the impressions that you get from most Buddhist traditions--but particularly the Tibetan, I think more so than the others--is that you get to a point where things just take care of themselves. I've not seen any evidence for that.

Jamgön Kongtrül, author of this long prayer, quite an extraordinary person, and his autobiography has been translated into English, you can get it. And it's a typical Tibetan autobiography, with long lists of empowerments and teachers, and ceremonies that he did, and things like that.

But, interspersed in all of this stuff, you get a feeling for the person. I think that he lived to 89 or so. He was born in the beginning of the nineteenth century, I think it might be 1812. Died at the end of it. And very shortly before his death, he says, "I'm quite concerned about dying now."

And don't forget, this is one of the great lamas of the nineteenth century. [Ken paraphrases] My mind is very clouded and confused. A couple of years ago, my mind was really clear, and if I had died then, I think I would have been okay. But I am really not sure what's going to happen now.

I read this in retreat, and went like [Ken makes a facial expression of shock].

Student: Was it discouraging?

Ken: Well, yes and no. It shattered the illusion for me. And for this I'm quite grateful. And you can say this was discouraging if you wish. That you get to a point where everything is hunky-dory. And on the other hand, I was left with the appreciation--it doesn't matter how far you get, or what you get to--you still have to meet the next experience. And Uchiyama, in Refining your Life, makes the same point in a very, very different way.

He describes this experience he had when a cut on his foot became infected, and he got blood poisoning. And he was in excruciating pain and horrible fever. And unable to go to a doctor, because he was very unusual as a Japanese monk, he actually earned his living from begging, in the 50s, which was like hadn't been done for about a century. He took dharma somewhat seriously.

So he couldn't possibly go to the doctor, because he had no money. And a woman who lived in the neighborhood eventually gave him some licorice bulbs, which he packed around the cut in his foot, and it drew the poison out. And so he got better.

But then he writes, "I would only be fooling myself if I thought that getting through that experience would be any help, if I were to encounter a similar intensity of pain and suffering again."

You can hear things like this, and you can go, "well, What are we doing all this for? It doesn't help!" Well, it does, but not in the ways that we usually hope it will. You know what I mean? I think...well, I'll just speak for me--I don't know about any of you--I have my suspicions, there's always a secret part of us that goes you know, "If I do this, everything is going to turn out okay. Life will go well, I'll be happy. I won't have any more problems." You know, this part of us; I think that all of us is always hoping for that.

And then we find ourselves in some kind of crisis or really unpleasant situation. Maybe our spouse quite unexpectedly breaks up with us, or someone close to us is dying, very painfully. Or we get very ill--I mean these things happen. And everything is up. You know, all our hopes and our disappointments, and our fears, it's all there. But we've trained, and because we've trained, and we've come to some kind of understanding, while it's very, very vivid, something in us knows that the only thing to do here is experience it. And so we do. We don't fight experience. We may not enjoy it, but we don't fight it. It's there.

Whether we're insane, or depressed, or frightened, those are the easier ones to work with. When we're being admired, loved, center of attention, those are the more difficult ones. But it's all just an experience. And we still have to do things: take care of this person who's ill; work through the challenges of the situation in which we're terrified; put our life back together when our spouse leaves us or child dies, or something like that. We still have to do...still. But there's a knowing, I think, in which we know that it's okay, whatever it is, it's okay. It's just there. Okay.

Criticism and Intention

From: What to Do about Christmas?
Full Transcript
Audioclip

Student: How about when something really is imposed from the outside, such as judgments and criticisms are going to be coming my way, and I’m not really sure about how to have an intention about that. 

Ken: Ah, when judgments and criticisms come your way. Well I think one can have an intention. It can vary. One very common intention is, I’m going to disregard this.

But another, possibly more fruitful one, is: what can I learn here? In my own experience, whenever somebody fires some criticism or judgment at me, which happens quite frequently, one of the things that I’ve found very useful is: there must be something I have done that has led this criticism to come.

Now it doesn’t mean to say that I’m a hundred percent responsible. I don’t mean that for an instant. In some cases I may well be. But that’s not an a priori assumption. But there’s some reason that this person is focusing their criticism on me. And it may be because at one time I spoke in a certain voice which reminded them of their critical father. Something like that. It maybe a very small bit on my part.

And so what I try to do in situations where I am being criticized is, what can I learn from this? What was my part in it? And I look at it that way. And that way, whenever criticism comes I don’t regard it as a negative. Now I don’t know whether that applies to you or not, but possibly.

Student: It’s from my mother and I don’t understand where it comes from except that maybe I’m an extension of her and her self-criticism.

Ken: Now instead of trying to figure it all out, why don’t you make your intention to be in the experience of being criticized. Just to be right in that experience. Because it sounds like this has happened a few times before. Right? And you are still buying into it. I mean — you know who you are. Are you this terrible person?

Student: [Unclear]

[Laughter]

Ken: That’s up to you! You know. So, just work with what we were discussing at the beginning. You know, just be right in the experience.

Student: Okay.

Ken: And see what happens there.

Student: I can make that the intent.

Ken: You can make that the intention, yes.

Student: Okay that will work.

Ken: Okay, very good.

Drive all blame into one

From: Mind Training Santa Fe 3
Full transcript
Audioclip

Ken: Whatever happens, you experience it as completely as you can. Now, there are a number of instructions here which help you do this. And you can see that they fall into three categories. The first two pertain to how we interact with others. And the first one is wonderful: 

Drive all blame into one. 

Basically what this means is that you are responsible for everything that’s gone wrong in the world. Each one of you. You know, in your life, in the life of every being on this planet, you’re responsible for everything that’s gone wrong. How does that feel? 

Student: Power. [Laughter] 

Ken: Either you’re very clever, or you've just walked into my trap. [Laughs] Say more.
Student: Well, if I’m responsible for everything, then I can have that power to change things. 

Ken: Exactly. What happens to guilt? 

Student: It goes. 

Ken: Exactly. So if you’re responsible for everything, you’re to blame for everything--guilt’s gone. You don’t have that luxury anymore. Okay? 

Student: Life is [unclear]. 

Ken: Mmm-hmm. But now it’s just become the law of the world. You’re you’re to blame for everything. You’re the universal screw-up. [Laughter] Everything that goes on in the world--your fault. That’s it. Now, when you really sit with that, how does it feel? Does it feel heavy? 

Student: No. 

Ken: No. Yeah, very freeing. That’s transformation. Now, it’s very easy to do it right now. We’re just doing it, like, theoretically. Okay? So, you leave this retreat, you go to work, and your boss says, “Where the hell have you been? Do you know that we lost these contracts, and so-and-so’s left, and all this stuff is falling apart. This is the last time you can go on vacation.” You didn’t know this was a vacation, right? [Laughter] Okay, now do this instruction. What do you do? How do you respond? [Laughs] 

Student: Yeah, I know. 

Ken: Shauna? [Laughs] 

Shauna: What? [Laughs] 

Ken: A little too close to home? [Laughs] How do you respond? 

Student: Well, it actually might help... 

Ken: Yeah, but if your boss is there it’s probably not a good idea just to go, “Yeah.” [Laughter] So? [Laughs] Right. What do you do? 

Student: You agree with him. 

Ken:  Yeah, Say it again. 

Student: You agree with him. 

Ken: Yeah.

The function of a thought

In the talk, What to do about Christmas, Ken gives us a little nugget. Often we hear about thoughts but not what thoughts /stories work to destroy-our attention. Once we're off and running it's hard to stop them. BUT, for me the construct that thoughts take me away for a reason has been helpful in dissolving those stories/thoughts. After hearing this talk I now ask myself, what experience am I avoiding by this story?

The function of a thought (from What to Do about Christmas? 00:09:37.5 - 00:12:20.0)

So what I would like you to do now is to take any one of the things that you thought of you regret and move right into the experience of regret. Not with a sense of chastising or beating yourself up because that is really not fruitful. It happened for whatever reason, and when you move into this there is going to be a natural tendency to start thinking about “Why did I do this” or “How could I have done something so stupid," or silly or selfish or mean or cruel or whatever. All those things are going to come up. But do remember that the function of thought is to take you out of what you are experiencing. It’s to dissipate attention. These stories are going to arise, but don’t get lost in them. And the way to avoid getting lost in them, the way to prevent that, is to be right in your body, to be in the experience of the body.

This is where we have the first foundation of mindfulness: the mindfulness of the body. Very, very useful. Now, that’s going to be in some cases a little uncomfortable. When you actually feel the regret right at the physical level. So if you feel a little nauseous or sick or really itchy or antsy, that’s the experience. Again, touch into it to the extent that you can.

As you do that you are going to become aware of emotions connected with this. Could be the emotions of regret and possibly shame and guilt and all of these different things. Just keep sitting in all of those and just let them be there along with all the physical feelings, physical sensations. And see what happens.

So you are going to have all those three components. You’re going to have the physical feeling, the sensations, the emotional feelings, and you are going to have all of those stories flying around. That’s what constitutes the experience. Just be in it. In attention. Totally awake to the extent you can. And let’s see what happens.

Two Worlds of Experience

In Wake up to you Life, Ken describes it thusly on page 379, "Experience is a mystery... The names we give to objects are not the experience of the object, whether it be a thought, feeling or sensation.Language abbreviates and condenses experience for the purpose of communication. Because connection is a basic human need, we readily forget or neglect the world of our own experience (limited and conditioned by habituated patterns) and take the world defined by communication, the world apparently shared, as what is real."

Two Worlds of Experience (HSW03) (from Heart Sutra Workshop03 00:33:56.1 - 00:42:36.6)

(download into iTunes)

Now whether you do it with a table or a chair or a chariot, which is a very traditional thing, you know--a glass, a cup--things seem solid. You know a book (Ken bangs the book on a table) seems solid. But we have to be careful here, because Buddhism is not talking about the world of things.

We have two worlds: The world I think I experience and the world I actually experience.

The world of objects, careers, family, responsibilities is this the world I actually experience or the world I think I experience?

How many vote for think? How many vote for actual?

Student: Do we have a choice? (Great laughter) We picked a winner.

Ken: If you think that's practicing the middle way, think again. (giggling)

The sensations, thoughts and feelings I talked about earlier--are they the world you actually experience or the world you think you experience?

Student: Closer to actual.

Ken: Yeah. In the world that we actually experience there are only three things: sensations, thoughts and feelings. That's it! There isn't any drum, there isn't any bell, there isn't any paper. There isn't any paper--there's white, rectangle, seeing. This is what the Sarvastivadins were getting at with their dharmas.

The world that we think we experience is a shorthand which we use to communicate. There is a very interesting difference between these two worlds.

I know this is California and we talk about sharing experience, right? So anybody have a good lunch today?

Student: Yeah.

Ken: What'd you have for lunch?

Student: Falafel.

Ken: Falafel, I'm not going to ask you to share that experience, I hate falafel. (Laughter) Anybody else? Who had a good lunch? (giggling)

Student: I had salad.

Ken: Oh, very nice. What kind of salad?

Student: Greens and tomato and avocado and walnuts.

Ken: Sounds good what kind of dressing?

Student: Like a Chinese chicken salad.

Ken: Oh, excellent. Did you enjoy it?

Student: Very much.

Ken: Could you share that experience with me, please?

Student: I don't think so.

Ken: Are you being selfish?

Student: No.

Ken: Why do you say I don't think so?

Student: Because it happened already.

Ken: Well, can you recall it?

Student: Oh, okay, you want me to share the product I experienced?

Ken: Well, do you have a memory of it?

Student: I do.

Ken: And when you have that memory can you sort of feel the textures and the tastes and all of that?

Student: Exactly.

Ken: Could you share that experience with me?

Student: I could try.

Ken: Please. I mean I had a salad but I didn't have that salad. I didn't have the walnuts.

Student: Would you like words about my experience?

Ken: No, I want to share the experience. I'm not interested in words. I want the experience.

Student: I can share with you tomorrow. (Laughter)

Ken: How would you do that?

Student: I would make you a salad.

Ken: Oh, so now we're going to eat out of the same salad? This is getting a little intimate but we'll go with it.

Student: Out of the same large salad.

Ken: Yeah, yeah, okay. Two separate plates here, you know we're not cohabiting yet. (giggles) So when I eat that salad I will have an experience and you're going to have an experience. I want to share your experience! I know my experience but I want to share yours.

Student: I'll...that same one.

Ken: Well, are you going to share it or not?

Student: If I could I would!

Ken: What do you mean if you could?

Student: My experience is going to be different experience from yours. My experience--you won't be able to experience the same thing.

Ken: I can't experience your experience?

Student: No.

Ken: You can't share your experience?

Student: No.

Ken: Is this because you're being selfish?

Student: No.

Ken: Well I don't understand. How did this phrase, "share experience", come about if you can't share experience? I mean I moved to California because I heard that everybody (laughter) shared experiences. And now you're telling me I was lied to. (greater laughter) Is that right?

Student: Yes.

Ken: So in this world there's no possibility of sharing experience?

Student: No.

Ken: Wow! Okay forget about sharing, can I buy it?

Student: No matter what you pay you will not experience what I experience.

Ken: Wow! So no buying, no trading, no exchange, no sharing, none of that stuff! It's interesting isn't it? In this world there is no form of exchange possible. Your experience is your experience and that's it.

In this world, we buy and trade and exchange all over the place.But in this world, it's not possible at all. This is the world that Buddhism is talking about and that's often not understood.

Subject-object

The experiencer, the watcher, the self. When we separate from experience all sorts of disconnects happen. Stories abound. A short discourse by Ken on subject-object.

Heart Sutra Workshop02 (from  HSW02 1:01:25.7 - 1:03:57:8)

(download into iTunes)

So we have this experience of seeing and at the same time--we'll come back to this again this afternoon--we don't know where it comes from. We can't say where it comes from. We can't say where it is and we can't say where it goes. Which ordinarily we say doesn't exist. But I want to point out one particular thing.

When you focus on the experience of seeing, what happens to subject-object? 

Student: Dissolves, unite?

Ken: Dissolves, unites, either way sense of subject-object just disappears right? It's like what subject, what object, okay?

The twelve sense fields was a map developed by the Sarvastivadins to eliminate the notion of the self as the experiencer. Or as you say the objective pole of experience; that's what the self is. And you see when you actually look at experience itself, that sense of being an experiencer that somehow stands outside of experience just vanishes.

In simple terms, to talk about an experiencer and an experienced makes as much sense as talking about the two ends of a pencil without talking about a pencil.

We actually have a far more intimate relationship with experience. You know, everything that we experience we're intimately connected. As connected as the two ends of the pencil. But we ordinarily ignore this. So we have the experience of separation.

So that's what this particular map is about.

Buddhahood

A gem from Then and Now, session 36:

Buddhahood (from TAN36: Then and Now (class) 01:02:31.00 - 01:04:31.40)

(download into iTunes)

Knowing things as they are and knowing things as they appear is possible when we can rest in knowing without the projection of thought or emotion, which is a different way of describing those two distortions. The distortion of conceptual knowing is the projection of thought. And the distortion of emotional reactions is the projection of emotion. So we can say that what buddhahood is, is to know things without projection of thought or emotion.

Now, just take that in for a moment. What would that actually be like? And the first thing that often arises is--we can’t imagine this. Because we are so conditioned to thought and emotion. But if we stay with it a little bit longer than that, we can see that it's going to be a clarity and a precision and an immediacy in that kind of knowing which are almost unimaginable. And there is going to be no possibility of editing, there’s going to be no operation of preference or prejudice. And there’s actually not going to be any sense of separation between subject and object. There will just be experience itself. Experience and awareness arising together. Do you follow?

Five-Step Practice (Seeing from the Inside)

In teaching people, I give them this meditation whenever they're encountering something that prevents them from resting. If one can rest, then one rests and lets the resting deepen on its own. When one encounters something difficult, then more specific effort and attention, as in this practice, can help.--Ken McLeod

Five-step mindfulness practice:

1.
Breathing in I feel this emotion/pain/problem
Breathing out I feel this emotion
(detailed guidance) 

2.
Breathing in I feel the reactions to this emotion
Breathing out I feel the reactions to this emotion
(detailed guidance) 

3.
Breathing in I feel calm in this emotion
Breathing out I feel calm in this emotion
(detailed guidance) 

4.
Breathing in I feel at ease in this emotion
Breathing out I feel at ease in this emotion
(detailed guidance) 

5.
Breathing in I understand/know how this emotion arises
Breathing out I understand how this arises
(detailed guidance)

Related Material:
Working with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.
Fom A Trackless Path II, a clip on how the five steps evolve.

Ken often calls the five-step practice Seeing from the Inside.

A Difficult Situation

How do you feel about dying? Are you OK with that? Right now? OK, don't worry, it's just practice:)...

A Difficult Situation (from SUS07: Sutra Session (questions) 00:11:25.80 - 00:13:47.70)

(download into iTunes)

How many of you would like to be able to experience what arises in you more completely without getting completely freaked out in the process?

Okay. Well let’s do a meditation. I think I’ve done this here before. We’re just going to jump straight into the deep end. Okay. Now it doesn’t have to be really, really deep and you don’t have to have giant squid in the bottom of the pool or anything like that. But what I want you to do is take something from your life--maybe it’s something you’ve got coming tomorrow when you go back to work. Maybe it’s something that happened over the holidays. But something that was a bit of a problem for you--a real problem. Maybe it’s something you felt inside you, maybe it was an interaction with somebody else. But I want you to take something you ran away from. Figuratively or literally, sometimes people run away.

So everybody got something they can use? Anybody have a shortage?

You don’t have a problem? May I give you one?

How do you feel about dying?

You okay with that? So think about it now, you okay with that? You okay with dying right now? There you are. That’s the one you can use. I have a deep bag of these. Okay. Anybody else need one?

So just think of that situation or let’s use the term situation--it covers everything. And as you think of that situation say to yourself:

Breathing in, I experience the situation. Breathing out I experience the situation.

So let’s just do that for two or three moments together.

Thanks to Ann Brown for the transcription!