The Nature of Struggle with Joseph Goldstein - Insight Hour Ep. 137

use the times of struggle that come and they do come a lot use it as a signal of feedback but that's the time in the place well that's the situation to investigate how it is that we're resisting our experience what is it that we're not opening to [Music] welcome to the Joseph Goldstein Insight hour this podcast is an expression of our shared interest in self-discovery join Joseph as he shares his deep knowledge of the path of mindfulness if you are interested in supporting this podcast please go to beherenownetwork.com Joseph talk about the nature of struggle nature of struggle in our practice and in our lives they struggle ever helpful does it ever help us in our understanding or does it always entangle us in more suffering this question of struggling was addressed by the Buddha in the very first sermon that he gave after his enlightenment the discourse which is called the turning of the wheel of the law of the setting of The Wheel of the law in motion the first discourse of the Buddha after his enlightenment talked of the Four Noble Truths and the first part of this first discourse had to do with the investigation of struggle he used the word dukha it's a popular word in the Buddhist teachings duka it means that the poly word and it means among other things hard to bear or hard to endure the first Noble Truth of the Buddha's Enlightenment has to do with the investigation of this aspect of reality this aspect of dukkha or struggle well what's hard to Bear hard to endure they gave us some clue in terms of where to look for this understanding he told us what was hard to bear and was hard to endure he said that Association with what is unwanted or undesired is dukha his struggle parting from what is desired or what is wanted is struggle or duka foreign what we don't want we struggle when we're abandoned by what we do want we struggle given the fact that everything seems to come and go by itself pretty much out of our control somehow it doesn't seem fair you know we're often associated with what we don't want and we're often abandoned by what we do want and so we're often in this state of Duco a struggle no suffering is there a way to understand this process where we can open to the changing nature of experience free of Duca free of struggle when we see that the nature of the suffering is our resistance to what comes or our attachment to what is changing the struggle or the suffering comes not from the experiences themselves but rather from a certain kind of relationship to experience when we resist what's coming what's there so we suffer when we try to hold on or cling will be attached to that which is changing we also suffer foreign has two aspects one aspect is the is that of it being a misdirected energy it's a misdirected effort it's like we find ourselves fighting with experience fighting with life out of Harmony so it's the use of our energy in this harmonious way but it also has a positive aspect and it's understanding this positive aspect which we can turn to our advantage in the practice and that is at times of suffering with times of struggling in our practice here or in our lives outside that struggle is a signal or it illuminates the fact that we have come to some Edge or to some boundary in our minds in our hearts of what we're willing to be with of what we're willing to accept so we're right at the we're brought right to the edge if at that time we can then investigate what it is that actually is going on what the kind what kind of experience is it that we're resisting or pulling back from that we can't surrender to or open toe then we use that struggle in the service of our own investigation and exploration and opening so that instead of pulling back from boundaries and pulling back from the edge we expand we expand our ability when we expand the range of experience that we can be with what are some of the experiences which come which push us right to the age there are a few which stand out as being particularly helpful in that way big one first big one that comes in practice pain generally when people come to retreat begin intensive practice common experience is that we that we start feeling or becoming aware of all kinds of painful Sensations in the body how do we relate to this pain it's interesting to observe when the pain comes you know by the less sitting in the afternoon and the back hurts and the knees hurt and the shoulders hurt to look and investigate how we're relating to that experience how relating to the painful feeling a few of the common ways that we've been conditioned or habituated to relate to pain one of them is self-hity we feel sorry for ourselves no poor it's it's the poor me in a pattern in the mind everybody in the room is sitting in Blissful samadhi and only my knees hurt you know poor me it's not very helpful kind of collapses Us in on ourselves another way and probably an even more strongly conditioned way that we relate to pain is with fear often we're afraid to feel the pain we're afraid of those sensations of those feelings we've been conditioned in our minds to be afraid so what do we do that fear creates a sense of contraction or pulling back pain arises in our experience and because of the fear in the mind we contract we withdraw and we get tired the effect of that contraction is simply to create more pain we make everything Tighter and more tense so we lock pain on top of pain tension on top of tension it's not a very skillful way or a helpful way to relate to the painful feelings that come is there another way of being with pain a way that's opening rather than Contracting a way that's releasing rather than tightening the first step or the foundation in a truer relationship with pain is a willingness almost a joyous willingness to look at it to actually see what is this thing which we call pain what is this experience instead of being frightened by the impression of pain instead of being fearful of the first signals of it kind of settle back and go into it investigated what is this experience what's happening we begin to see that what we called a pain in the knee with all the attendant feelings and emotions about that of fear and pity self-pity we see that pain in the knee is an abstraction for much more specific experiences what is pain pain is certain Sensations certain physical Sensations that happen to be rather intense and there's a wide range no it could be stabbing it could be burning it could be pulling it could be pressure it could be heaviness could be tearing the long list but you see that when the mind when there's a willingness to go into and explore what it actually is rather than react with fear or self-pity to the abstraction of pain we find that actually the mind can stay open and balanced in a much easier way it says if we become interested in what's going on there's one attitude of mind which is indispensable for this investigation of pain and that's the attitude of acceptance or allowing to the quality of softness of mind is it possible when painful feelings come up when these intense Sensations arise in the sitting or walking or at any time in our lives is it possible for us to relax into the awareness of those Sensations not to pull back not to tighten not to contract but to soften into it it's a very different relationship and it has very different consequences painful Sensations are actually an extremely good object of meditation you know often people have the idea that pain is a mistake or you know if only the pain would go away then I practice you know with deepen and I could get on with it and it's missing how valuable that experience is as an object of meditation because when there's strong sensation in the body the mind is not wandering you know you're not kind of daydreaming and drifting and you're certainly not asleep there's a lot of energy there there's a lot of intensity if we can learn how to be with it in a soft way very quickly deepening of our practice and so in that way these painful feelings can be considered a gift and an opportunity for us but we have to learn how to be with it skillfully rather than in unskillful ways relaxing softening allowing ourselves to go into it sometimes people wonder why when they come to retreat all of a sudden their body is filled with pain right in their lives they're going along and you know there's not much awareness of things being so painful come to sit and immediately everything starts to hurt what is that it's several things one is simply the fact that we're sitting so long in an unaccustomed posture and so that will take some time for the body to settle but more interesting than that is the kind of pain which is the accumulated tension that we're all carrying around and mostly unaware of and you can see as you pay attention to to one's own body or other people's bodies we can see the holding patterns the armory right that we all carry that's painful that holding is tension in the body it's not openness it's not a free flow of energy so we sit in an undistracted way we begin to tune into it we begin to experience what it is that we're carrying around in our lives and what's so freeing and beautiful about the practice is that the awareness itself as we bring awareness to this holding or tension or pain you could think of it as energy knots in the body as we bring awareness to it we create the space for those knots to untie for those knots to release and you will experience it happens daily it's very noticeable over over a period of time of 10 days a few weeks a month certainly within three months you will notice a big change in terms of the letting go of the tension that we're holding but it's not letting go by an act an active command have any of you had success telling the pain to go away unlikely rather than Letting Go the letting go of this holding happens by letting it be by not resisting by not tightening by creating the space or the openness to Simply experiencing as we soften into it we allow for the untying of the knots so in that sense the awareness or the acceptance of painful sensation is a very healing process it's tremendously healing it's healing of the body it's healing of the Mind pain is so interesting because it brings us so quickly to that edge of what we're willing to be with to that boundary which is really for each of us our own particular limitation we can be with this much and no more at this point we start to struggle use the intensity of Sensation that comes in the practice when you get to that point when you're struggling with the pain use that as a signal to pay attention to that point okay relax so often let me be with this too you see that those boundaries or those limitations begin to expand into open in the course of the retreat you will also begin to see and investigate the ways in which we resist doing that the ways we resist being accepting or being open just to mention a couple of them to give you some idea of those areas to pay attention to the mind can get so tricky and so subtle in its habit of not being accepting one way that it works with pain very often is it starts to bargain all right I'll be with you if you'll go away so willingness okay I'll watch the pain I'll be with it in order for it to leave in order to untie this knot that doesn't work because that's not really being accepting that's still pushing against it there's no bargaining the practice of acceptance of being with things is to totally willingly joyfully be with every part of our experience that arises and so look at the mind and see whether it's resisting in this kind of subtle way and when we think we're being with it but not really it's interesting to observe also how fear of discomfort or our fear of pain also conditions so many of our desires so many of our actions is a syndrome of the Mind it's called just in case syndrome I'll have that fourth rice cake just in case I'm hungry later you may not you may not actually be hungry but just in case I'll have it now I'll go to sleep now just in case I would be tired tomorrow morning and we have this fear that you know sometime down the road we may be uncomfortable or feel some painful painful sensation and so we do things we feed our desires in an attempt to Ward that off we don't have to be afraid of pain or discomfort and to see that and to open to that is tremendously freeing in the mind because it allows us to settle back into the moment and respond appropriately to what's happening rather than out of fear of what might happen being accepting being allowing being soft relaxing into it rather than avoiding or Contracting what's also very helpful in working with pain is keeping a sense of humor not only working with pain working with everything that arises keeping keeping a certain lightness sometimes in the retreat especially as people just getting into practice often there's a sense of grimness you know and you're walking around I'm going to be mindful if it kills me I'm kind of grimly walking and sitting foreign that's a grimness and they're two totally different things the mindfulness is very light and very soft and very delicate one teacher a Vietnamese teacher had a wonderful suggestion for his students he told the students to practice with a half smile just now try a half smile it changes things doesn't it it's like just somehow the facial muscles uh connected to the brain someplace it it helps this is not a metaphorical suggestion it's a literal suggestion it helps to stay light with experience to remember that the awareness doesn't mean heaviness it doesn't mean ponderousness that we can be even with even with intense experience like pain with some humor with some lightness pain that's one one big area that pushes us to the edge that if we don't understand how to work with it creates a struggle if we do understand how to work with it it becomes an entryway into deepening practice into a into a greater opening there are other elements of experience which also bring us to an edge of what we're willing to be with which are often at the Hard of our struggles these are different mental States the the mental analogs to pain in the body there are many different kinds of mental States or emotions that we resist that we don't like just to mention a few of them and suggest ways of working with them restlessness it's a big one in the beginning right the mind gets agitated gets Restless hard to sit still it's unpleasant because it's unpleasant we start struggling with it as we struggle we get more Restless the restlessness gets more intense we resist it even more and we're Bound in this cycle instead of struggling with the restlessness see if it's possible in the same way that we work with pain to relax into it to open it to investigate exactly what the nature of restlessness is because like pain restlessness is an abstraction for more specific experiences can you pinpoint or can you dissect combination of experiences which we call restlessness you'll see that it has certain physical Sensations it has a certain emotional tone certain kinds of thoughts if you look very carefully if you investigate carefully rather than react right or pull back or resist the experience then it's possible to transmute that energy of restlessness and the struggle with it into real understanding it's another part of our experience here in The Meditation Center and in our lives it's an energy that often runs Our Lives is it possible to understand it to go into it something that might help you work with an energy like restlessness is he understanding that the mind using the image of the Mind as a camera you can think of it as a camera with two lenses one lens is a telephoto lens or a zoom lens and where you zoom right in very precisely to the object so working with the breath it can get very microscopic while working with a particular sensation in the body zoom right into it but sometimes the zoom lens is not appropriate sometimes you have to change it change the lens on your mind to the wide angle that's what you have to do with restlessness because it's a big it's a wide it's an extensive energy and if you're trying to stay pinpointed in the midst of this big energy then there's a struggle because your mind is not accommodated accommodating the extent of the energy that's present so if you let go of that zoom lens Focus and settle back and open up to that sense of you open to the whole feeling of restlessness it's like you open yourself to it let me be restless let me die from restlessness and it's just a willingness to be with that experience to see what it is not to try to change it not to try to avoid it just you're with it and as you're with it there's a possibility of understanding it seems so obvious doesn't it that in order to understand something we have to be willing to experience it if all our energy is in pushing it away or resisting there's no possibility we never find out what it actually is just as with physical pain with restlessness also there's no need to be afraid of it we've never lost a yogi from restlessness nobody I know has died from it and so again it creates with the proper attitude it creates an interest rather than a struggle it doesn't have to be a struggle depending on our relationship to it another mind state which often creates struggle because we don't relate to it skillfully is boredom I'm sure that there have been times in these last few days you're sitting or you're walking and you just think I cannot take another step if I do lifting moving placing one more time and it's just the boredom becomes unbearable thank you how much of our lives are spent in the avoidance of that feeling how much do we do in our lives that's fueled by this fear of being bored when boredom arises be bored be totally and fully and completely and openly and lovingly bored find out what it is what's going on what is this experience that we've been so afraid to be with that we pull back from and get involved in all kinds of activities you know to to not be with I'll give you a little hint or clue in terms of the nature of boredom something for you to investigate for yourself to see whether it's true in your experience it was actually an observation by Fritz pearls in Gestalt therapist founder of it and it seemed to me very very accurate in terms of our experience he said that boredom is lack of attention boredom arises when our attention is superficial that's revolutionary in a way because what it's saying is that boredom has nothing to do with the particular object or the particular experience it's not the experience that's boring we are born [Music] that's very different but it also gives hope because then instead of struggling with a boring experience and having to endure it we see that actually that state of boredom has to do with our own quality of mind and I think that you'll find when the attention gets very close and very careful inherent in that closeness of attention is interest a little experiment on exercise you can do this this is a walking meditation exercise especially at those times when you're bored with it matter it feels mechanical as a way of arousing interest through closeness of attention see how slowly you can walk and still move as a model for that some of you are probably familiar with this uh Marcel Marcel famous mime once did a routine where he went from standing position to lying position and you never saw him move that's pretty good the increments of movement were so small so slow that you never saw any movement and yet he went from standing to lying if that doesn't hold your interest s see we usually don't play The Edge often we're involved in seeing how fast we can go but very few of us have experimented with how slow we can go and I'm not suggesting that you do this kind of as you know the general pattern throughout the day all the time although slowing down is helpful but just at times to play that edge of slowness and you'll see immediately how much interest comes from the awareness of movement in that context the boredom disappears working with restlessness working with boredom not being afraid of it but going into and exploring it there are so many and there are so many states that we tend to resist and struggle with the principles of the same anger aversion when anger comes in the mind foreign to open to it in a way that it actually is Illuminating of the nature of anger rather than lost in the storyline you know in the melodrama of what this person did and what that person did and what I'm feeling and rather than get into the soap opera of it when anger comes if you can drop a level and open to the experience of it it's intense anger is an intense energy it's it's equivalent to some strong sensation in the body some strong pain it can be extremely energizing if we're not identified with it if we're not claiming it as my anger and you know getting involved in that in the script line then we're opening up to an understanding of another kind of powerful energy that washes through what I'm suggesting in all of this is that there is nothing in our experience which Falls outside the range of practice nothing there is no State whatsoever whether it's exceedingly Blissful or very painful or difficult nothing lies outside of practice and now what we're doing is learning how to open and relate to each of these states from a place of balance not holding on when things change not resisting when things come use the times of struggle that come and they do come a lot use it as a signal of feedback but that's the time in the place well that's the situation to investigate how it is that we're resisting our experience what is it that we're not opening to and so it becomes a tremendous Challenge and a tremendous opportunity to understand this working of our of our mind body process in a wider way and in a deeper way so we use the struggles that come actually and transform it into insight working with pain working with difficult mind States like restlessness or boredom or anger or fear or whatever it is that may come do you have any questions about working with any of these things watch us go on the same station after that can create attention back to the ground um [Music] okay what's the question the question is those two I guess you could say guidances it's the same one actually it's the sense of opening of being with the painful feeling right when you become aware that there's there has been an unconscious intensing or tightening or resistance noticing that coming back to the breath for a while in order to again soften the Mind softens with the breath and then again returns to the awareness of whatever intense sensation there is so it's really it's just a way of returning to the breath is a way of coming back to a place of openness which can then be brought to the to the painful feeling is that clear they're not in Conflict at all sometimes sometimes sometimes you may notice when the when the attention is is quite strong and you can go right into [Music] the field of the painful Sensations and another suggestion in terms of working with it it's not very helpful to stay on the level my knee hurts because that that first of all is totally a concept and an abstraction right and it tends to solidify things and to claim it we create ourselves as the owner and it locks it all in rather than that if you can go right into that field of sensation and go to within that field of sensation go to the pinpoints of Maximum maximum intensity and So within that field of sensation in a particular moment one point will be most intense and you go right to that point and often in the awareness of that it dissolves and then another point it's like it's like a field of you know stars or something with with changing intensities and you're always going to the one that's the most intense and not dissolves the next one most intense that dissolves and in that way the density of it and the solidity of it begins to begins to open up you see that there's no knee that's a wonderful discovery any other questions [Music] what you're saying makes sense if you're having a really coordinated and extremely aggressive I can't I've had I just I can't imagine how to uh do it really so I'm I'm wondering if like the suggestion you made about going right slowly you have a suggestion like that around the restlessness pinpointing something in particular um you could actually the going very slowly might be a good thing to do when you're Restless too while you're sitting here if you're doing the sitting meditation and the restlessness is strong as a way of changing those lenses of the mind you know from zoom lens to wide angle you might leave the breath and just sit and feel your whole body so in other words you expand the field of awareness but instead of kind of a narrow focus on the breath there's a wide open focus on the whole body at once and so you're sitting and and open to the sensations that are going on and see how precisely how accurately you can determine what are these Sensations that are being called restlessness don't be satisfied with the impression of them which leads us to this abstraction restlessness rather get more specific okay what what's the sensation that is restlessness or several Sensations and so you're sitting in open not not in that narrow Focus but in a very open and you take the whole body as a field and you look very carefully okay what is this is it throbbing is it tingling is it pressure is it pulling right you see how accurately you can cognize it that very investigation that way of Investigation again brings the Mind into a balance with it rather than a struggle with it there are times when the restlessness can get so intense and the ability to do what I'm suggesting is just is not strong enough then you could get up and do either some fast walking or some some very slow walking you know just as a way to come back to kind of balance but certainly make the effort you know to to investigate it very precisely the same thing with sleepiness for many of your sleepiness is very predominant which is common the first few days see how precisely you can determine what it is what is sleepiness it's interesting do you think it's going to the depth of experience rather than settling for a surface impression is this clear remember because it's really an important emphasis in practice this accuracy of perception so um I find that what Francis is expected to cry and I don't know if there's a difference between crying and investigating the that's what happened when I when I opened up all right the crying or not crying is not so much the issue the issue that you should look at that's important to determine is whether there is an awareness of the emotion and the experience or whether there's an identification with it and a wallowing in it and those two are very different mindsets one is an identified involvement that sense of I'm feeling so sad and the other is the openness to it with the with a very strong degree of awareness and interest in the nature of sadness not in your particular story of what's making you sad do you see the difference in that what we're trying to do is to discover the nature of mind the nature of our experience and what's so powerful about it is that the nature of mind is universal when we understand the nature of sadness in ourselves we understand the nature of sadness in everybody stories are different like the content is different but the nature of this state is the same so that's why we don't want to stay on the story level on the on the analyzing content level [Music] okay sometimes that's fine you know I'm just crying and and staying Mindful and you feel you know the sensation of the tears on the face and you really stay mindful with it at other times you might experiment with with a gentle kind of restraint of the expression in order to become more finely aware of the energy out of which that expression is happening because often the expression of emotion although at times is totally appropriate and helpful at other times it can be a distraction for us from feeling that energy out of which it's coming you see and so sometimes it would be helpful in a gentle way to restrain the expression and drop back into this more fundamental place you know it's so interesting to this this whole process of of looking carefully not necessarily um it's difficult to look at drowsiness when you're struggling with drowsiness and so if you're feeling drowsy and you're struggling to be awake then it's very difficult to look at anything because all of your energy is caught up in the struggle and the resistance in the same way that you could work with restlessness or boredom or sadness first of all see whether there's a struggle there see whether you're you know you in this battle to be wakeful see if it's possible to let go of the battle to drop into the experience not not worrying about whether you're going to go to sleep or not I mean what's the struggle the struggle is not to go to sleep if you don't worry about that if you go to sleep fine you wake up rested and ready to go again if you give up that struggle and just kind of settle back into it you might find which I found at times but actually sleepiness you can get into a state you know the state just before you fall asleep at night very often it's a very relaxed concentrated state you know because it's like there's not enough energy to be defended and so actually this there's a lot of openness that can happen in that state if you let go of the struggle with it you might find that it drops into something like that you know at times and it's in that space that you could be with you could investigate the nature of it foreign good luck today until I made a resolution that I wouldn't get up from my feet and I I think the fear of having to listen to you all right that's good sure if you can do it with a sense of humor it sounds fine okay I think if you have more questions you could come up um I'd like to remind you just as I you know observe the course of a day here and you're sitting and you're walking often there seems to be you know sort of recess times you know like the the hundredth look at the bulletin board or whatever it's not even so much a question of what you're doing and not doing rather a reminder to see if you can be continuous in your mindfulness there would be a way of going up to that bulletin board very mindfully you know where you're aware of each step and the turning and the looking in the reading and the Turning Away and continuing with what you're doing it's that kind of continuity which is really the power to the power source for the practice this is as a reminder for you to in a light and gentle way not in a ponderous way and not in a grim way very lightly and softly and delicately but to work with that sense of continuity don't be neglectful of the Small Things the small movements because they you'll see that if you can if you can maintain that sense of continuity it really intensifies and deepens the practice in a very beautiful way thank you [Music] [Music]

Channel: Be Here Now Network

Views: 20,561

Keywords: joseph goldstein, struggle, suffering, the nature of struggle, insight hour, podcast, be here now, be here now network, meditation, mindfulness, spirituality, buddhism, buddha

Id: s-KKFO38fvY

Length: 57min 13sec (3433 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 19 2022