Ch. 12 - What’s Happening When It’s Not Working?
Trying to Purify the Mind with an Impure Mind Doesn’t Work
Part of the Purification is to be Equanimous to the Fact you are in an Unpleasant State
Breaking Down Our Pride
Willingness and Unwillingness to Relinquish ‘Self’
Understanding Alone, Does Not Equate to Liberating Insight
[This discourse was given on an eight day Vipassanā retreat and explains why our meditation falls down and how to skilfully navigate through this.]
Trying to Purify the Mind with an Impure Mind Doesn’t Work
So, a question: What’s happening when it’s not working? I see a lot of gnashing of teeth, internal gnashing of teeth going on. And why is that?
Q: Is it the trying? Because that is effort, which is the volition, which is disturbing the harmonious mind?
A: But you do have to try hard, and right effort is part of the Eightfold Noble Path.
Q: But if you try with the wanting from the lower mind or the self, then you can’t get that harmonious mind, because the harmonious mind just allows things to be as is.
A: Yes, that’s right. Think about it like this. We all want progress right? So what would be the gap between our aspiration or ambition and our capacity to apply ourselves? What part of the ego?
Q: Grasping?
A: Yes, grasping. Okay? Greed! Now, it’s a difficult one this. We want to purify our minds. Why? Because we want to stop suffering. Because we want a peaceful mind. Maybe just because we want to stop suffering. Now, if you try and purify your mind with a mind that’s impure, it won’t work.
It sounds like a paradox doesn’t it? But it’s not a paradox. If your mind gets too frustrated with things that you don’t want to be there, too attached to the idea of how you want it to be, you are using an impure mind and it doesn’t work. Only the mind that does not currently have defilements arising within it, is refined enough to purify the old stock of habit patterns and tendencies.
It would be vanity to think that a mind that is still full of restlessness and agitation and greed and jealousy and pride, could purify itself. Do you understand what I am getting at? You have to put forth the effort that is necessary to create in your mind enough purity at the time at which you try to perform the work. And if the mind is not clear enough, then all you are doing is wanting the unpleasant to go away, and that doesn’t work.
The unpleasant goes away when the virtuous condition for its non-arising appears within you. So you have to keep an eye on the terrain. It’s vanity to sit there just pushing and pushing and thinking that because you are sitting there all day long, sooner or later ‘this’ is all going to go away. It’s not going to go away until you dig deep enough to find the qualities that surmount the things you are trying to let go!
So, if your mind is not composed enough or virtuous enough or pure enough in the moment that you are trying to practise vipassanā, you have to go back and create the ground for success. And if that isn’t coming back to a state of serenity where there is enough equanimity, then maybe you will have to go back and practise loving kindess. And if you can’t practise loving kindess then you have to go as far as going out in the daily life and making some merit and gladdening your life, gladdening your mind, with the feeling that you are doing something good, or free from remorse or regret at not living well, etc.
If you are a hedonist who goes out binge-drinking, (not judging you for being a hedonist), delighting in sensual pleasure, and I don’t know, womanising and staying up late, and then you come on meditation retreat, hoping that you are going to wake up one morning without a hangover, then you are being totally unrealistic.
If you continue to look at rubbish on the internet or watch violent movies or pornography, or talk about nonsense and gossip about your friends, or be dishonest and cheat people at work, and then you sit and try and practise vipassanā hoping your misery is going to go away, it’s not! What will happen when you sit on the cushion is you’ll just get all your misery arising.
Part of the Purification is to be Equanimous to the Fact you are in an Unpleasant State
So you mustn’t be frustrated when you are sitting there meditating, and your mind is in a state of disorder. Part of your purification is to be equanimous to the fact you are in a state of disorder and to accept that. You won’t be able to go back and purify the stock of old kamma until you’ve cleared the presently arising kamma, and presently arising hindrances which is the confusion in your mind right now. So, it’s never not working, you always get what you need to get. It is an invitation to find the response that’s appropriate.
Our frustration at not getting what we want, is just vanity, when we sit there and we get frustrated thinking, “I want to be meditating with deep concentration and strong mindfulness and be able to purify all the bad reactions from my memory, and all I’m getting is a cloud of confusion and frustration and restlessness.” Well, that is what needs purifying and it takes equanimity, which means it starts to work even when we just sit there patiently, knowing, “I’m not going to get any concentration for the moment. This gross energy is currently arising in my body is kamma. These poor qualities in my mind are also kamma.”
The hindrances, the impediments that appear within your mind when you try to practice vipassanā is kamma – it all needs to be purified. You don’t wait only for the time when it works smoothly. You see absolutely, that when it’s not working is really the time to do the work that needs to be done. There’s never an opportunity when there isn’t something extremely beneficial to be gained.
Patience is maybe the only quality you can bring to bear sometimes when the mind is turning and it feels like it’s upside-down and your body is restless and you are lying in bed at night and there’s no sleep coming to you because the body feels like it’s utterly broken or breaking apart and the mind is turning and whizzing and fizzing and popping like a firework display. Even when there’s no equanimity, there is still a capacity to find patience, or to start to.
You always have to go further down the line to find the tool that will work with what you have to face right now in your life. If you can’t bring the sharp insight that profits your mind through vipassanā, to mind, you have to go back to serenity. And if you can’t find the serenity you have to go back and find what virtuous qualities you can in your mind. Practice loving kindness, make reflections upon patience, or sometimes we have to just perform acts of merit. Go and do some kind of service, do something helpful when usually you don’t do something helpful. Go get off your backside and go do something that you didn’t need to do but you could do because it’s going to help people, and gladden your mind.
The practice doesn’t start to function until your mind is at least free from regret and remorse. You shouldn’t feel full of regret and remorse about the fact that, “I can’t practice vipassanā very clearly” or, “This is very slow progress.” If you look back at the way in which you’ve conducted your mind in the past, would you be surprised that you find it difficult to sit down now and get strong concentration and purify everything? Maybe not! So if that’s the case, then you should make reflection, “At least this is the start of putting into place habit patterns that are going to support my practice, or are going to support me being happier, are going to support me being less miserable.”
So your mind has to be very pure, to purify past kamma. Do you understand? If your mind is the same quality now as the quality of mind that produced all the suffering in the past, it’s not going to have the capacity to purify it. It’s like taking a dirty rag to wipe a dirty table – it doesn’t make it clean!
So, look at the quality of your mind right now, and say, “Well. Okay. It’s not surprising that I can’t make all this restlessness or pressure or uncomfortable feeling in my body go away. My mind is still full of restlessness.” Or greed or craving, or wanting this or not wanting that, or anger, even jealousy, even pride, maybe sitting there comparing yourself to the people around you. There are all sorts of things that you have to momentarily surmount so you can balance the bases now, so that you can go back to review unwholesome mind-states in the past that produced unwholesome kamma in the past.
You know, we’ve started by reviewing wholesome mind-states. The first thing we did was to get to the state where the mind is wholesome – when we are reviewing wholesome mind-states the mind should remain equanimous. But when you do bring unwholesome mind states up within you, at least be equanimous to their presence, as in accepting, “Well, there we go. That goes to show that sometimes my mind is clear and tidy and sometimes it’s very messy.” And this understanding we have to accept. So, no pulling your hair out, just patience. And if the mind isn’t composed enough, compose it, put it back together again. Your mind has to remain equanimous to purify unwholesome kamma. Alright? Good.
Breaking Down Our Pride
Q: When we review unwholesome states, I still get the feeling that I get to the point, and I just don’t see enough. Maybe I don’t have enough concentration? And wrong view, I can see things happening and I know it’s wrong view, but I don’t really see it....do you know what I mean?
A: You don’t see the ignorance there?
Q: I don’t know. Sometimes I...
A: Give us an example that you are trying to break down.
Q: Pride, for example.
A: Okay. Let’s take one discrete moment of pride, and break it down. So give me an example?
Q: Not doing well enough. Or having an idea that I should be doing better than what I’m doing. So the frustration that comes with that, the comparison to others, and, you know...so I break it down...
A: Okay. So how do you break it down? This is important for everybody.
Q: The feeling...it’s unpleasant...and so then I see the perception of that... is that I am not doing well enough, and I compare myself to others, to what I should be....
A: Alright, so what’s the wrong view?
Q: The idea of me.
A: Yes, okay.
Q: But that’s logic, you know.
A: Yes, but at that stage you’ll be in your body feeling that you feel unpleasant.
Q: Yes..and there’s aversion...and greed at the same time....
A: So the experience is that I am greedy. I feel greed and I feel anger, in this time...yes? So you have to see that it’s the personal process. It’s not the idea of me, it’s the experience of me that’s creating the suffering. Yes?
Q: Yes.
A: Now, go to the formations aggregate – you’ve just called it pride. What’s there? What’s going on in the mind? Look into it. Let’s talk it through. You are making a comparison, “I should be doing better and am frustrated that I’m not.” Something like that, yes?
Q: Yes.
A: Okay. So what is that pride made up of? Break that down. What would cause us to make this comparison – I should be doing better than I am....
Q: Because I have an idea of myself?
A: Yes. So there’s more self there.
Q: But I know all this. It’s like, when you review the body, there is a point I think in samatha where....you know?...the jhānas. You are supposed to see things when you apply them to this practice and you go further. I just see that I won’t go further because my samatha is not strong enough.
A: Not because your samatha is not strong enough, but because your insight is not strong enough at the moment.
Q: Doesn’t that come out of your samatha?
A: Well, it will, but the point is that you’ve got to be willing to investigate each of these formations more. There’s still too much compactness to it. You are only briefly looking at the formations aggregate and seeing that there is pride, without seeing what it’s made of. You are only briefly looking at the perception aggregate and saying, “Well, there’s an idea of me,” without experiencing that idea of me in the perception. Do you understand?
You have to keep breaking the compactness down more, because when there’s that much mindfulness that is seeing it in an uncompacted way, that pride won’t be present. So, we have to break the formations down. Pride is a compound experience, isn’t it? You experience it as a bundle of mental states. So this comparison, which has this idea of me, the idea that I’m better or I’m worse. What’s that? Break it down. Break that idea down. What kind of mental state is that?
Q: Separation? Greed?
A: It’s arrogance, it’s conceit, isn’t it? I think I’m better than I’m appearing to be now, and I’m frustrated by the gap, yes? So now you understand where the frustration is coming from.
Q: And then I get there and there’s also the thing that I feel...there’s some part of me that says, “There’s rage coming out,” and, “I don’t want to let it go.”
A: Yes. Because again, what’s that? “If I let it go, I have to see where I’m at.” Rather than, “Hold on. No, there’s something wrong with the process here. I can’t do it, but I should be able to because I’m better than that.”
Q: Exactly.
A: Yes. So again, that’s where the rage comes from – it’s attachment to self.
Q: But I can’t go beyond that.
A: Because you are unwilling to relinquish. Like I’ve said, you have to see your unwillingness to relinquish, yes? So, you have to contemplate your unwillingness to relinquish and work on willingness to relinquish.
Willingness and Unwillingness to Relinquish ‘Self’
Q: Hmmm...
A: The whole point is that our ego gets violated, and there will often be unwillingness to let go. We have to work hard to surmount it, or stop as far as our ego is allowing us to go. So, at the moment there is getting something that you don’t want. That’s like, “I know what’s best for me, but they say this Dhamma is good for you. I need to accept that, but I’m not sure....I don’t want it!” The Dhamma isn’t good for the ego. It does nothing but violate our ego or our pride.
Q: Of course it’s best for me. Of course! But there’s something in me that says, “No way!”
A: Yes. Yes. So, like I said - if you review and practise without seeing no-self clearly enough, you’ll get this nibbidā, that I spoke about last night. If it’s not working, accept that the mind isn’t pure enough to purify itself. Therefore, all I have to do is see that and be patient. “My mind isn’t yet ready to surmount these defilements. It needs to be cleaner, purer.”
So, we go back, even if it comes back to doing some act of humility or patience or that which is selfless in some way, which surmounts the ego at that level. That’s why if you can’t arrive at the experience of loving kindness, you go to do some kind of service where you perform acts of generosity – go and give some dāna or help someone in need because in this way it breaks down our pride. In small ways it gets to the point where the mind becomes pure enough to clean itself.
But, if it’s not willing to go to that level of purity, then why should we expect it to purify itself? It’s kind of like...it’s nonsense. So, just see that, (not judgmentally) “While one side of my mind sees that I should get it, I see that my mind isn’t yet clean enough for the vipassanā to perform that function. I can understand it intellectually, but I can’t let it go.”
Yes? This is why I wrote on the board: What’s happening when it doesn’t work? Our mind is not yet clean enough to clean itself. Now it sounds like a paradox but – it is clean enough in its willingness to be pure or it’s clean enough in its willingness to be clean but there is still unwillingness to let go the things that are in the way. When there’s still unwillingness, then either we accept that and we say, “This much vipassanā I can do and the rest will have to wait,” or we work at surmounting that unwillingness to let go. And you have to work at it. You don’t get it just because you want it – that’s the whole point! The frustration is because we don’t get what we want, and we’re used to getting what we want.
So you have to go right to that and see, “Arrgh! this is really violating my ego! This isn’t how I expect things to be. I expect to get, one way or another, what I want.” Whether it’s because you can convince someone to give it to you, or whether you are charismatic and appealing enough that you usually get your way, or whether you are cunning and deceitful enough that you get your way, or whether you are just fortunate.
Though we’re used to getting what we want, we tend to ‘spit the dummy’ when we don’t. And part of the purification is to be okay with not getting what we want. “Arrgh! I’m not going to get this yet! And I have to be with that. And that’s my purification right now. And there’s my humility that surmounts what is not my humility.” And there it is, working and purifying you at the level you need to be purified, right now. Yes?
If we say, “The level of purification I want right now is to see Nibbāna!” and you can’t see it, that’s just not the right attitude. So don’t pull your hair out going, “Arrgh, if I don’t get it tonight, I’m going to go home!” Just be a bit more patient and accepting of where you are at.
Q: In terms of practice, and kamma – if you come to the arrogance conclusion, would it make sense to break further down where does this arrogance come from? Why do I have such a level? Where do I have to be at, in order to feel calm? Does it make sense to further break this down?
A: Well, this is where we find out how much we’ve invested in our idea of self. And that’s not the same for all of us. In some people the investment in self is extremely strong, and very dogged, and they are very unwilling to let go. And sometimes there is an investment in self that isn’t so strong, and a little bit of insight can break it down. But some people need a lot of insight and still it won’t go, and so then they need even more.
Understanding Alone, Does Not Equate to Liberating Insight
So in a way, as we were saying, it’s not that it’s not enough samatha, actually it’s that you haven’t got enough insight to shatter that dogged attachment to self, yes? So, you’ve got to wait until you can get more insight. And just because we can understand it, doesn’t equate to insight. Do you understand?
So, your gnashing of teeth is that unwillingness to let go, which is that much energy that’s invested in that idea of self. And how much self is there will determine how much you have to chip away at the old block, yes? Until there’s nothing left in your way and that’s it. That’s what it equates to.
So if it takes a long time and we keep coming on these retreats thinking, “I’m getting nowhere!” when we’ve clearly understood it at an ideas level then we have to see, “I’ve really heavily invested in my idea of self and it’s going to take a while to break that down.” But don’t get frustrated. Instead, see where the frustration is coming from. All this is part of the insight we need so we can get our mind straight about how it works and what’s actually happening. The insight into no-self and seeing that is part of the purification that ripens us for the practice, to go further. So, we can see self. But remember, that might just make us frustrated, realising how much self that’s there.
Q: Hmmm...yes.
A: You start to see no-self within the experience when your mind is pure. You won’t see no-self in your experience when your mind is impure, you’ll see self. So you have to keep going back to the purification that creates that state of absorption in equanimity with just these presently arising five aggregates, the suchness of what is in the present. Even if you are just sitting looking out there at the morning light through the trees, and you are not reviewing it as four elements, the point is there’s now enough capacity to immerse yourself in your experience so that there isn’t a sense of ‘you’ impinging upon it.
It’s that experience – that when there’s no-self there, that the experience is satisfying. It is this that prompts us to clearly recognise that when there’s self there, the experience is lacking in some way, or we feel we need to add to it in some way. Up until now, like we say, our pride, or our investment in our self would make us believe that even an unsatisfactory experience is acceptable on account of the fact that it’s mine. I’ve made it meaningful to me, (personally).
We are all prepared to go through all kinds of hardship, seeking that kind of gratification until we have had enough. Take getting drunk or high for example. How much suffering are we willing to encounter the next day in the name of seeking gratification at some level.
Q: If you’re looking at the sun’s magnificence and you are completely connected with it, at the point that you recognise the beauty of it, then that’s self isn’t it? I’m not quite sure..
A: No! You can’t work that out in the mind. This is something you get, in stages. You are looking out there trying to immerse yourself in the beauty of the place. This is your mind trying to enter into that state of appreciative joy. But then there’s just a moment where all of that’s gone, and the appreciative joy is there but it’s spontaneously arising, there’s no evaluating its beauty and no sense of you who is enjoying it; just immersion in the experience.
Q: Because when the meditation is good and there’s bliss, then comes a recognition...[laughs]..that comes in that is pleased. Is that self?
A: Yes, this is the idea of self, wanting to own the experience, feel special because of it, etc. That will fade away, and watching yourself appreciating it will stop. Yes.
So, yes, what you are having is moments of appreciation and moments of enjoying your appreciation or being pleased about your appreciation, sort of noticing, “Oh, I’m appreciating that now!” So this is the momentary arising of self in moments where there might be less self. This is the need to feed it back and make it personal, yes?
Which actually if you notice, even if you do succeed in sort of making it personally meaningful to you, that moment is never as satisfying as that moment where you are just there with it. The point is, to realise that the experience of self doesn’t have a capacity to enrich the experience. And the only way we get to that absolute knowledge is by getting the enriched experience evermore deeply, gradually informing us, “Gosh, there’s me trying to analyse why the Mona Lisa is a beautiful painting and being quite pleased about the fact that I ‘understand’ it. And there’s me just looking upon it.” And that’s it!
In the seeing there’s only the seen. And eventually we realise that that is the more enriched experience. But it takes time. In Taoism, we call this turning the mind around. There is no reference point any more. And it happens in stages. So, you can’t think that through. It’s a change in the way in which we function.
Q: So the see-er comes out of the equation? So there is just seeing?
A: Yes. Well, they say that the knower, the knowing, and the known, become one. Alright? Unpicking it more and more each time, that’s the point. Very good! Let us continue. . .
