Seattle Insight Meditation Society

For much of our practice history we work on faith. For the first few years we are not certain where we are going and look for visual clues, usually in other more experienced practitioners that show a reward for the spiritual work we undertake. This process keeps us leaning away from our own internal process toward those who “know” more than we do. We reason we should be more like them than the way we are. This looking outside ourselves rather than within can easily become the conditioned way we relate to our spiritual journey. Assessing where others are in relation to our own practice has no value other than ego fulfillment or diminishment, but it is a difficult philosophy to break. After years of trying to get away from our ordinariness, we learn that we are not going to become someone special through our spiritual growth, and listening to others only leads us away from the self-discovery that is essential for deepening our journey. The journey is to understand our own mind, not externally following and imitate someone else’s mind. As we tune ourselves to ourselves, we slowly become less and less dependent upon others and more aware of the pain that leads to that dependency. We may be drawn to others who seem to emanate a clearer understanding of reality but we do not become enslaved to their truth and give away our own. The single most important power we have is to make our own decisions free of other people’s influence. To give away that function is to cast ourselves into darkness without a light to go forward. We may think we are not moving fast enough or deeply enough, or that we are not loving or wise enough, but those assumptions are born from our ignorance, not from reality. We are not seeing beyond the film of our conditioning. The mind misses what we are by affirming what we think we are. In fact we are moving at our own unique pace. To assert our ignorance by acting on these assumptions that we are not moving fast enough is to go astray, or to become dependent upon someone else’s realization assures that we will limit our own understanding. Looking for truth in another’s words is mutually exploitive, with the teacher imposing his/her will on the students and the students forcing the teacher to maintain his/her importance. What then should we do? We should look directly at the issues themselves and the pain that ties us to those issues. We must explore the beliefs that we are without love or wisdom. By exploring our need for dependency on others and our tendency to disbelieve ourselves, we begin to reverse that couplet and affirm our own way forward. We stay within ourselves, no matter what. Even when the Buddhist scriptures point in one direction and all our friends concur, still we examine the point thoroughly according to our own truth, through our own understanding. “This is where I am now. Maybe later I will understand that passage, but now I am here, and it is from here that I can go forward.” Staying within ourselves when we are racked with self-doubt is difficult to do. The logic of our thinking concludes we would be better off listening to someone else. Listening to others is not the problem; the problem is listening to someone else without seeing if what they are saying is true for us as well. Taking what someone says on blind faith makes us obedient but not wise, a strong group member but not independent. What is remarkable about Buddhism is that the teaching ultimately frees us from Buddhism. We learn our way out of all religious trappings, all spiritual texts, all ritual adherence, and all the Buddha’s words and into our realized and integrated truths. We live within the stark nakedness of our life without any covering or shield, fully exposed, and fully alive. This talk is also presented in video here: http://seattleinsight.org/Talks/Talk/TalkID/861

The Wanting Mind forms a central pattern to our suffering and is a critical area of practice. Becoming very intimate with how Wanting reveals itself in your life also reveals a fundamental expression of suffering. In this talk, we explore the different ways Wanting appears in the suttas and how steadiness of mind, intention, and sincerity allow us to meet Wanting with the Dharma. This talk is also presented in video here: http://seattleinsight.org/Talks/Talk/TalkID/860

The 2016 election has created shock and fear for many people. It is a vital time to practice and has the potential to deepen and integrate our wisdom and compassion. In this talk, we explore the relationship between the stages of grief and dharma practice, in relation to the the election. This talk is also presented in video here: http://seattleinsight.org/Talks/Talk/TalkID/859

The Buddha said, “There are two kinds of persons rare in this world, one who takes initiative in helping others and one who is grateful.”  Referencing the Mahāmangala Sutta, the Discourse on Blessings, we will look at the conditions for happiness and the practices of gratitude and proactive compassion as vehicles for awakening to our most precious roles in life. This talk is also presented in video here: http://seattleinsight.org/Talks/Talk/TalkID/856

When we really think about it, the only point of all our efforts in practice boils down to what we do in any given ordinary moment. An ordinary moment can pass without notice, can pass through a lot of reactivity and aversion or can get pulled away from a clutched heart wishing it could last forever. Yet it is in our ordinary life moments that practice comes alive. This month we will look at two aspects of practicing in ordinary life – the continuity of suffering and the continuity of mindfulness. Liberation can be found in both. In the continuity of suffering we practice within the cyclical nature of suffering, gradually becoming increasingly aware of the way out of this circular trap, inherent within the moment. In the continuity of mindfulness we practice within the strengthening nature of mindfulness, gradually deepening our capacity and confidence in seeing each moment for what it truly is – an ordinary moment in the natural flow of life. This talk is also presented in video here: http://seattleinsight.org/Talks/Talk/TalkID/855

Pursuing a goal almost instinctually calls forth an egoic response of tension and personal evaluation. We usually become very critical and self-evaluative when we are challenged by an important task. It can bring up a sense of being either useful or worthless depending upon our backgrounds, but productivity always ties us to a measurable result and anything measurable usually carries a component of judgment. Productivity also engages our storyline and narrative, can activate our emotional traumas, and compounds our thinking. In short, focusing on worldly doing can create its own spiritual undoing. When spiritual teachers suggest that the path of practice is the path of non-doing, what do they mean? Obviously it does not mean disengaging, becoming a couch potato, or stop working, and it certainly does not mean continuously sitting still and meditating. This may become clearer if we explore doing in relationship to time. Usually when we have something to do, the doing holds our attention and there is a goal we want to accomplish. From a spiritual perspective, looking ahead into the future toward a goal is a loss of connection with this moment. So the first caution is how we hold the doing. Do we lose perspective and disengage from the present moment or can we complete the task as a simple moment to moment connection? Secondly, does the doing force our pain body forward so that we lose ourselves in our psychological judgments? Suddenly we feel pressured and watched when we may be the only person in the room. If pain does arise during work, is the pain forcing an unhealthy relationship to the task at hand? Can we hold our pain body sufficiently so that we are not being governed by our unconscious tendencies? Next is the issue of quantitative or qualitative doing. If we are just interested in getting through the project and on to the next, not only will our work suffer accordingly, but we will have lost any resemblance of caring and focused attention. Caring is not just for personal relationships, we hold a caring attention within each and every act we perform. When completing the action becomes more important than the attention offered, the end result will have little connection to wakefulness. We may accomplish the task but we will have lost our spiritual orientation in the process. All of us have experienced a piece of art or craft that was carved from wakefulness, and all of us have experience an object created with worldly intentions. We sense and feel the difference in our bodies and bones. So too every act of body, speech, and mind carries the signs and energy of wakefulness or, conversely, the blindness of unconsciousness. Any physical action can be a product of either doing or non-doing. When we work within an anticipated result our lives will either feel rewarded or discouraged by the final product. Is it possible to work within a creative display, meeting the designated deadline but without our personal worthiness at stake? The quiet of non-doing is movement from awareness, birthed from presence. The body is simply here and can be used in the service of doing or non-doing. Why not allow the body to live without the tension of expectations as it moves throughout the day? Such movement always feels like we are at home in ourselves regardless of our location. This talk is also presented in video here: http://seattleinsight.org/Talks/Talk/TalkID/854

This talk is also presented in video here: http://seattleinsight.org/Talks/Talk/TalkID/853

The Judgmental Mind represents a deeply held place of identity and belief. Who we take ourselves to be is closely tied to judgment of ourselves and others. As we begin to investigate this mind state, leading with compassion brings the heart into the process. Without the heart, we may slip into a thought and belief dominant process, leading to “judging the judgment.” As we connect fully with the actual experience of judgment, with compassion and allowance, we may find ourselves asking “What is the payoff for judgment?” If asked with innocence and vulnerability, deeper foundations of judgment may emerge. These foundations help establish and maintain the sense of self. This talk is also presented in video here: http://seattleinsight.org/Talks/Talk/TalkID/851

In the beginning it seems as if awareness is like a light switch that can be turned on and off. We are aware and then we are not. What is actually happening when the switch seems off, is that awareness is being smothered within our thinking. It is being compressed into and confined by believing the thoughts we are having. It is not dead, the aliveness within awareness has been confined by the images of the thoughts and is contained through the rigidity of our attachment to concepts. Our work is to free that awareness so that it can move without confinement. When awareness is confined, we are unconscious as human beings since we believe only what our thoughts are saying. When awareness is free of confinement, our thoughts are no longer controlling our behavior and we are open to new experiences. Every time we are willing to see anew, to look into areas of denial, to be accountable to our minds, and to go where we have been afraid to venture, we are freeing that trapped awareness. We are no longer held within our previous beliefs and ideas and are no longer held within the known. Awareness is very willing to exit the prison we impose, but it needs our assistance. First we must feel the limitations of what we are doing by knowing that awareness freed is a vastly different life than awareness confined. We feel an expansive aliveness both bodily and mentally when the genie escapes the bottle. Next we have to reexamine the assumptions that limited awareness in the first place. As we begin to challenge more and more of our opinions we see the irrationality of many of our beliefs and fears. We interpret much of life through the fear of what we are afraid this experience might mean (whatever it might be). All of these knots, desires, and hesitations have nothing to do with awareness but have everything to do with our past. When we view the past with awareness rather than simply believing in the past, it all begins to fall apart and awareness begins to slip the bonds of containment. To free awareness from being bound by thought, we have to see the limitations that thinking imposes. We have to go inside thought and compare what it says life is to what we see when we are not looking through concepts. Thought follows conditioned pathways, and we think the way we have thought in the past because it is easier to follow our conditioned ways than to see something in a new way. Finally we have to understand that when we think we are stepping back and considering the situation. Although useful at one point, this begins to limit us at another phase on our journey by robbing us of spontaneity and true sense of belonging. In the end we have to take thought on and spiritually understand the power we give it, look at thought with awareness rather than following the mandates of thought mindlessly. Our yearning to become conscious in the face of ignorance demands that we question thought at every turn. Becoming conscious simply means waking up out of the imagination induced by thought.   This talk is also presented in video here: http://seattleinsight.org/Talks/Talk/TalkID/849

Note: The recording begins as Cheryl is already speaking. This talk and sit explores a few of the many dharma teachings and practices that can help us effectively respond to afflictive emotions. Emotions are a natural part of being human, so what makes some of them feel so overwhelming? What is the nature of the overwhelm and the nature of the emotion itself? How can we regulate ourselves back to equanimity with self-soothing practices, investigative mindfulness, self-compassion and ethics? Freedom from emotional stress is available to us in the here and now, if we’re willing to “face our demons” armed with the wisdom of the dharma path.   This talk is also presented in video here: http://seattleinsight.org/Talks/Talk/TalkID/852

The question is not whether we suffer, everyone struggles, but whether we have struggled enough. Like a football player who endures the concussions and bodily pains in order to reap the praise and exhilaration of team sports, we can overstay our struggles for many reasons. Some of us may feel deserving of our pain and reluctant to release its causes and conditions. We might feel a nobility and pride that we have endured whatever life brings our way, or we may believe that we need to suffer almost as a recompense for our years of guilt. There is a dharma maturity necessary to call an end to our suffering and to step out of the closed loop of its perpetuation. The beginning of dharma practice is coming to that conclusion and witnessing how our struggles are an internal response to objective conditions. The external difficulties will come and go with each turn of events but our internal response can always be independent of those conditions. Understanding this is the beginning of the Buddha’s path. This lesson is often learned gradually. We access this critical point through our internal conversation, our personal narrative. It is here, within our storyline that the machine of self works its continuance. What are we saying, what are we believing, what assumptions are we making, and what are we projecting onto the innocent to avoid our own responsibility? It is all contained within our thinking, and nothing in meditation works in alignment with its intended purpose until we are fully accountable for our thoughts. The twisted logic on which these thoughts are based often reside within our painful memories and stories of our early years of development. As we learn to hold and release daily thoughts, emotions, and memories, we also learn to forgive and let go of our distant past. We slowly become more current and begin to see that it is the present that contains the past. There is no past outside the present, and if we can live emphasizing the present, we can learn to release the past as it is arising. Now suffering takes on a more nuanced look. As the egoic density lightens, new expressions of contention arise. We begin to sense that we live in a slightly contracted state most of the time. This state serves our need for a personal image and individual authority, but it begins to grate upon our heart, which yearns for wider pastures without boundaries. We become inquisitive about this newly discovered and more subtle expression of struggle and turn our attention toward it. What we witness is that life seems to be outside of us, and we are looking in at it, like we were tourists on a cruise ship through some exotic landscape. We begin to explore the life that seems to be outside and the life that is in here, and a fundamental question arises. “How many lives are there and why are they separated?” This inquiry sends us deeply into the configuration of our perceptions, the you and me, the this and that of our observations. We walk through this inquiry between the desire to understand and the fear of what we might discover. It is our yearning hearts that keep us steady of gaze and solidly present. All we are ever asked to do is what is natural for us to do. Simply allow the natural questions of the heart to arise in curiosity while keeping our eyes open for the anwers. This talk is also presented in video here: http://seattleinsight.org/Talks/Talk/TalkID/844

The Buddha taught, 'hatred does not cease by hatred, only through love'. When, in our life, we encounter conflict and pain, what does this mean? Through the cultivation of awareness and non-resistance, we can discover a radical ability to meet both our ‘inner' and 'outer' experience with profound harmlessness. From this perspective, whatever is happening for us can become a path to true freedom, where deep and innate wisdom and compassion arise in response to the way things are. This talk is also presented in video here: http://seattleinsight.org/Talks/Talk/TalkID/842

For science to be valid, the results must be replicable trial after trial. The techniques we use to accomplish the unvarying outcomes then become the mechanistic way toward similar findings in the future. Dharma practice begins mechanically for most of us. We have heard that if we do such and such, this outcome can be expected. For example, if we follow the breath, over time, we can expect that our ability to focus our attention will improve. And it does. There are entire models of spiritual progress based upon the repetition of results from many students over many years. An example of such a system is the Progression of Insight authored by Mahasi Sayadaw. I personally practiced that system for the first few years, and can verify that the progressive account in the texts is fully experienceable. The problem is that it left a mechanical imprint on my methodology. If I had a problem, instead of exploring and understanding the difficulty I applied an alternative solution, noticing it and moving on. Since anything mechanical requires an operator, I was left in charge of my practice. A number of insights resulted but most were induced by maintaining a high level of focused samadhi. When I was off the cushion, that level of samadhi waned, so I waited until I was back on the cushion to offer my full-hearted intention toward further insights. It soon dawned on me that the problem was with my methodology and assumptions, and the Dharma was more art than science. There is no one size that fits all in Dharma practice and no model that replicates the softness of heart necessary for spiritual fulfillment. Tenderness and sensitivity are not produced by constant training but are the results of being open and affected by the whole range of experiences over time. Being vulnerable in the face of pain is not a training, but a letting go. We have to pursue the questions that resonate the deepest, the most personal longings, the timing that is ours alone, and the speed and duration that is unforced and unhurried. We cannot quicken our learning or our embrace of life any more than we can hasten love. The foundation of practice established through the mechanics of science is the beginning of the beginning of the Dharma. It is like buying all the right equipment to hike a trail. The equipment is not the hike. It sets us up for the hike, but the trail has yet to be traversed. The trail of the Dharma is the path of the heart, of vulnerability, learning, receiving, and opening. That is not a training in science but an opening to the art of living in the present where there are no set rules of order, no road map for awakening, and no certainty of progression. The mechanics make us feel as if we are doing something advantageous, and for a short while they do, but ultimately we must release the science to discover our true path. This talk is also presented in video here: http://seattleinsight.org/Talks/Talk/TalkID/841

For science to be valid, the results must be replicable trial after trial. The techniques we use to accomplish the unvarying outcomes then become the mechanistic way toward similar findings in the future. Dharma practice begins mechanically for most of us. We have heard that if we do such and such, this outcome can be expected. For example, if we follow the breath, over time, we can expect that our ability to focus our attention will improve. And it does. There are entire models of spiritual progress based upon the repetition of results from many students over many years. An example of such a system is the Progression of Insight authored by Mahasi Sayadaw. I personally practiced that system for the first few years, and can verify that the progressive account in the texts is fully experienceable. The problem is that it left a mechanical imprint on my methodology. If I had a problem, instead of exploring and understanding the difficulty I applied an alternative solution, noticing it and moving on. Since anything mechanical requires an operator, I was left in charge of my practice. A number of insights resulted but most were induced by maintaining a high level of focused samadhi. When I was off the cushion, that level of samadhi waned, so I waited until I was back on the cushion to offer my full-hearted intention toward further insights. It soon dawned on me that the problem was with my methodology and assumptions, and the Dharma was more art than science. There is no one size that fits all in Dharma practice and no model that replicates the softness of heart necessary for spiritual fulfillment. Tenderness and sensitivity are not produced by constant training but are the results of being open and affected by the whole range of experiences over time. Being vulnerable in the face of pain is not a training, but a letting go. We have to pursue the questions that resonate the deepest, the most personal longings, the timing that is ours alone, and the speed and duration that is unforced and unhurried. We cannot quicken our learning or our embrace of life any more than we can hasten love. The foundation of practice established through the mechanics of science is the beginning of the beginning of the Dharma. It is like buying all the right equipment to hike a trail. The equipment is not the hike. It sets us up for the hike, but the trail has yet to be traversed. The trail of the Dharma is the path of the heart, of vulnerability, learning, receiving, and opening. That is not a training in science but an opening to the art of living in the present where there are no set rules of order, no road map for awakening, and no certainty of progression. The mechanics make us feel as if we are doing something advantageous, and for a short while they do, but ultimately we must release the science to discover our true path. This talk is also presented in video here: http://seattleinsight.org/Talks/BrowseTalks/DharmaTalk/tabid/90/TalkID/1840/Default.aspx

When we open to the gift of Sangha there is but one response – gratitude. Gratitude is made up of connection, appreciation, generosity and love. Being a part of Sangha provides us the opportunity to serve others, express our generosity and to inspire a fellow practitioner. Gratitude goes hand in hand with forgiveness. Together they diminish the influence of greed, hatred and delusion and fill our practice with motivation, reassurance and enthusiasm. This week we will consider the role Sangha plays in cultivating Metta. This talk is also presented in video here: http://seattleinsight.org/Talks/Talk/TalkID/840