Most thinking is in the service of habituated patterns

From: A Trackless Path 9
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Audioclip

Tom: So I'm sitting in my practice and some material comes up. And my understanding is that I'm to sit in awareness with that material. How can I get to the bottom of this without doing a bunch of thinking and noodling on this?

Ken: The way you get to the bottom is not doing thinking. And the reason is that most of the time thinking is in service of habituated patterns. The Age of Enlightenment suggested that reason trumped emotion. It's absolutely not true. Emotion determines the framework in which thinking takes place. And so when something comes up in your life, if you think about it, and we're all intelligent people, we find ourselves where we can think of arguments on this side and arguments on that side and arguments on three or four different sides. 

And, you know, there are all of these wonderful schemes about, you know, weighting, things like that. I don't know about you, but whenever I try these, I'm always cheating in the weighting. And that's the emotional stuff running. You know what I mean?

So this thinking process is extremely unreliable. To give you an idea of how unreliable it is, World War II, the British Admiralty resisted the use of convoys for a very long time. Because their statisticians assured them  that convoys made of large numbers of ships are more subject to attack. And so it would be less effective than single ships trying to sneak across the Atlantic. But the U-boats were so ineffective that they eventually said, "The hell with this," and they started using convoys 'cause that wasn't working. And they found that large numbers of convoys would get through.

When they went back and examined their data and analysis, the statisticians had made the error that the probability of finding a fleet of a hundred ships in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean was for all intents and purposes the same as the probability of finding one. This is the kind of thing that if you just rely on thinking you can get into. 

So something comes up, and rather than relying on thinking, what I suggested to you is you go to the body, first. And you become aware of and open to the physical reactions that arise in connection with that issue. Now what happens is that as we do this we start hitting those physical reactions, story number one pops off, story number two goes off. We're just flooded with stories. And the function of those stories is to dissipate attention so that the issue is not actually felt or experienced.

Now what we do in practice then is as soon as we notice we're off in another story, okay, come back. Come back to the body. And as we do this over and over again we'll begin to be able to stay in the experience of the physical reactions which may be various kinds of tension, discomfort, openings. All kinds of things are possible. It can be pleasant, unpleasant. They're aren't any rules.

As we develop the capacity in attention to be present with those bodily sensations, body sensations, we'll then find ourselves beginning to experience the emotional sensations associated with that. And that's similarly challenging, especially if it's a deep issue. And again there will be lots of stories. But they won't quite have the same power 'cause you've already taken a step.

Eventually we're able to be in the body sensations, the emotional sensations, and all of the stories and associations. Now we are in the complete experience. Being in the experience this way we know the stories to be stories, not true. And that is how we get out of the mind killing. And that's essentially what's outlined in Seeing from the Inside, that practice. That is actually how you get out of mind-killing, by coming as deeply as you're capable of into your own experience. Because what mind-killing is doing is shutting you down from the possibility of experiencing what is arising for you.

Note:  Here's a clip & quote on mind-killing

How do you know when it's a reaction?

From: Eightfold Path 1

Full transcript

Audioclip

Student: How do you know when it's a reaction?

Ken: I think it's sometimes very difficult to tell. But one of the qualities--the couple of qualities--one is stickiness. You know, it isn't quite clean, it's like...and it's a little sticky. This is not a rational way, I'm describing a quality to it. And another way is insistence. Insistence: it has to be this way!

Whenever the internal vocabulary is: has to, must, always, never. Very, very good chance that there's a reaction, a reactive pattern operating. Well it just has to be this way!

I mean, one person I was reading recently says, "Belief is where we stop thinking." This is actually a pretty good indication of reaction. When you stop thinking and it just has to be that way, then you're in reaction. Because you've closed down, it's fixed. So insistence, fixedness, stickiness these are the qualities I use to recognize reactions. Does that help at all?

Hurt and Harm

Hurt - Harm (from FI 01: The Four Immeasurables 00:29:36.00 - 00:32:00.00)

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This is probably a little more arbitrary distinction, but I also like to distinguish between hurt and harm. Hurt occurs in relationships whenever two people interact in a way that doesn't fulfil the expectations or wishes or hopes or aspirations of the other person. They're hurt. Harm is when they're damaged in some way. So in this world of interaction, it's probably, I won't say absolutely, but it's probably difficult to avoid hurting people from time to time. But I think we take as something very fundamental in our practice to live our lives in such a way that we don't actually harm people. Because when we harm people, what we're actually doing, or one way of thinking about what we're doing, is that we are affecting them in such a way that we're increasing their reactive tendencies and so increasing their suffering. You follow?

Okay. So, out of this very brief discussion we come to this point. We're here to end suffering or we're here to learn how to interact without harming people.

Completing the Process

Completing the Process (from TAN01: Then and Now (class) 00:59:40.95 - 01:02:40.10)

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Jessica: Why is it that when you practice for a while and then you stop practicing, the energy that you’ve built up in the practice then goes back into that cycle even worse?

Ken: Well, electricity is a good example. You put a lightning rod on top of your house to lead the electricity down into the ground. And practice, in a certain sense, is a way of grounding us very profoundly. Okay? Now suppose you leave that nice iron spike on top of your house but you break the connection with the ground. Now what happens?

Jessica: I don’t know, but it’s not good.

Ken: Well, lightning is far more likely to strike your house and kaboom! So when you build up some energy, but are no longer making an effort in attention, that energy’s going to go somewhere. And it’s going to flow where there are habituated patterns; but because there’s more energy in the system, the habituated patterns are going to be stronger. You follow?

And your question is quite relevant here because Gampopa’s just said samsara doesn’t dissolve itself, so we start working on it. And it becomes important once you start working on it to complete the process because otherwise you end up worse than before.

Jessica: What does that mean, really: “completing the process?”

Ken: Well I think there are different stages of completion, but at the very least, come to a point where there is a self-sustaining shift in the system.

Rest - Refresh

Energy Drain - Rest - Refreshment

Rest - Refresh (from ATP10: A Trackless Path (retreat) 00:45:23.00 - 00:57:22.00)

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Larry: It depends on what you call resting.

Ken: Thank you Bill Clinton!

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LOL

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Larry: ... I mean, I can rest on a cushion, I can rest going out for a walk, I can rest reading a book...

Ken: That's not the same, the last one.

Larry: Or listening to music?

Ken: Maybe the same.

Larry: Maybe? Because, a book is too linear and analytical?

Ken: There is an engagement.

Larry: And not with music?

Ken: As I said, it depends.

Larry: On me or the music? [Laughter] I am sorry! [Laughter]

Ken: I was going to just say both. Now...

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Ken: No, I see it's refreshing body and mind is the end result. Refreshment.

Larry: Refreshment... OK. Thank you.

Ken: Yeah, because, this has a lot to do with what I was talking about the other night in terms of the rhythms of practice. We need to respect the rhythms of practice. ...

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