Godwin Samararatne: Meditators Sharing their Experiences

Godwin Samararatne
Living with Awareness

Retreat Talks in Fa Yim Kok, Lantau Island,, Hong Kong

Day 5: 19th October 1998

5: Meditators Sharing their Experiences

Godwin: Has anyone anything to share?

Retreatant: During working meditation I went to cut the firewood. Whilst I was doing that I had an image of something that happened when I was young, because when I was young I lived in a place where we also had to use firewood for cooking. And then I thought about my mother. That also brought up a memory of the past and this was the most regrettable thing in my life. Once this image came to my mind, all the emotions like sadness and remorse arose. The emotions were so great that almost immediately tears welled up in my eyes. Now the connection between a thought and an emotion is clear to me, how the thought gives rise to emotion. It is very clear.

Godwin: Thank you very much for sharing that experience. I'm happy that you made a discovery through that experience.

Retreatant: The emotion was still with me when we came back from working meditation to this hall to meditate. I was still remembering this particular incident of the past. The tears continued to come during the meditation. As to how this emotion was eventually resolved: when I was still having this emotion and was still meditating, a bee came in and buzzed around me, and the bee somehow touched me and I was very scared. I was so scared that I got very nervous, my muscles tensed up, my heart beat increased, and then I discovered that this strong emotion overcame the other emotion of sadness. So I discovered that one emotion can be overcome by another, especially if they are both strong emotions. The strong emotion of the fear of being stung by the bee overcome the sadness.

Godwin: Maybe one comment arising from this is that sometimes experiences which we consider as negative, like the bee coming, can have positive effects. In a way the bee helped you to recover from the earlier emotion.

Maybe another comment is that when we are affected by what we consider as a problem, as is in this case, then as you rightly said, when another problem comes along the earlier problem dissolves.

Anyway, thank you, very interesting.

Anything else? Anyone else?

Retreatant: Yesterday you told us to dig out our unpleasant memories, unpleasant recollections. After that meditation was over we all went out to do walking meditation and I observed that everyone who was doing walking meditation was looking very forlorn as though they were bankrupt, including myself. Then I recalled a very unhappy incident I had a while ago. Whilst this feeling of unhappiness continued I thought of the sensation of pain, and pain is pain, and you had told us to treat pain as a sensation and be friendly towards negative feelings, but when I am really in pain, how can I be friendly to the pain?

Whilst I was still pondering on this question, I somehow resolved it myself. Pain is there because we have certain attachments. Once there is pain one must deal with it, and if we observe the pain from a third person's point of view, as though one is not the person concerned, then the pain would lessen. When I tried this method, observing the pain as though I was a third person, I realised the pain does decrease and then I tried to catch hold of the pain again but I could not find it again.

Godwin: I'm so happy that you have been making this very important and deep discovery. This is exactly what I am trying to do - to create a kind of atmosphere and to give some suggestions so you make your own discoveries. And when you make your own discoveries, then you'll realise you have lots of self-confidence in handling such situations. And then when the same situations arise in everyday life you can use the same tools.

So what you have discovered is that when you identify yourself with pain then the pain becomes a problem, but when you disidentify yourself, and as you put it so nicely, see it as a third person, then the pain is no longer such an intense problem.

Anyone else?

Retreatant: It's about working on thoughts. I had a walk in the forest and I saw a bee and automatically my heart vibrated a bit as well. So I think when we are not engrossed in thoughts we can see much more.

Godwin: When we have strong pre-occupations, when our mind is full of thoughts, we can hardly see anything externally. You might be passing through the most beautiful place but you hardly notice the beauty because your mind is full of these pre-occupations and thoughts.

In the same way we can't see what is in our own mind because there is no space, there is no clarity. This is why, on the first or second day, I also gave an exercise of learning to awaken the senses by seeing things very sharply, hearing things very clearly. Then that can create space in your mind. And then you can learn to see things very sharply, very clearly. You'll be able to hear things sharply and clearly. You'll be able to feel things very clearly, and also there'll be clarity and space in our mind. However much these things are told, they may not make any sense until you have a glimpse, a small experience of these matters. So this is the beauty of meditation, that you can see for yourself, not because someone says so, or because something is mentioned in the books. So the whole emphasis in meditation is for you to see it, for you to experience it for yourself.

In all three experiences presented so far, each of them saw something, realised something, experienced something, so it really becomes a part of oneself. This is why on the first day I said what will be attempted here is for us to develop some insights, some tools, so that when you discover them here and when you experience them for yourself, then it is just a matter of continuing with that in everyday life.

Now you are free to present any negative or unpleasant experiences because they can be equally important.

Retreatant: I had some pleasant experiences. One thing you always stressed throughout your talks is to create space in our minds. Actually I never really thoroughly understood how to create space in my mind but today when I was doing my work during working meditation, I had no idea what thoughts I had in my mind throughout the period of working meditation probably because I was pre-occupied with my work. I was busy and so I did not know at all what thoughts went through my mind, there was no clarity at all. But when I came here for sitting meditation after that session, I settled down and listened to the sounds in the room and then later on I began to notice what thoughts were going through my mind and what they were. So that experience enabled me to really taste and know for myself what creating space in our mind really means. This is very important.

Godwin: So it is interesting that when we do working meditation, as you rightly said, there could be thoughts in the mind but if your attention is only on the work that you are doing then as you said, it creates space in the mind. And once that space is created then one can really, use that space for feeling things, as happened in your case, for hearing things very sharply and very clearly. So in everyday life when we work also, can we see work as working meditation?

In whatever work you do in everyday life, maybe related to your job, it is possible at the time of doing something to be completely present in doing that. This is a very practical way of integrating meditation with the way we are living. To see work as not something different from meditation.

Anyone else?

Retreatant: Yesterday you said we can allow our pleasant and unpleasant emotions to arise. On other days I tried this type of meditation as well and I found it really very helpful. When I practised this type of meditation yesterday, I waited the whole morning for this but not even one visitor came to my mind. Even by the afternoon when I had prepared tea for the visitors but still the visitors did not come. For the whole day yesterday I found that I did not have any pleasant or unpleasant emotions. The only thing was waiting.

Today you told us to find out the connection between thought and emotion. When I practised this I found the thoughts came so frequently that it was like snowing. Before the emotion could arise from one thought, the next thought was coming already. Even my breathing was much faster than usual. It was not until the afternoon that the thoughts slowly lessened. Even if we have the ability to invite the emotions to come they might not come at all, and even if they do come we have the ability to handle the emotions.

Godwin: Your experience yesterday was very important. This is one of the very interesting and important tools for working with unpleasant emotions or even pleasant emotions. Not to fear them, but sometimes to wait for them to arise. And as it happened in your experience, when you are waiting, preparing for them to come, they don't come. On the other hand, if we fear that they will come, then they are bound to come. But here when you are waiting for them to come, or invite them they don't come. That's a very important realisation.

I'm very happy to hear all these positive experiences.

The Four Noble Truths

So I would like to say something about what we might try to do tomorrow. Tomorrow I would like to suggest that we will try to use what the Buddha discovered when he became enlightened. What he discovered for suffering humanity is the Four NobleTruths. And what is very powerful in this is that we can use it in any situation. We can use it when we are meditating. We can use it in everyday life. As I said, you can use it in any situation.

So in talking about the Four NobleTruths sometimes I like to use the medical model: sickness, cause of the sickness, cure and the medicine. So what I have been hearing about your experiences makes me believe that the medicine is working. In a way meditation can be seen as discovering the medicine for the sickness that we create ourselves. So to use it in a practical way, tomorrow when you are meditating or whatever you are doing, whenever there is suffering don't give it a minus, don't feel bad about it but see: I am experiencing what the Buddha called the First NobleTruth. He called it noble because it is only when we suffer that we can find a way out of suffering. It is only when we are sick that we feel the need to find the medicine. So tomorrow, in any situation where there is suffering just see it as the First NobleTruth. And I think this is a very interesting way of relating to suffering because we are learning to see the Dhamma in the suffering.

But the Second NobleTruth is more difficult than the First NobleTruth, where you have to see that you are creating the suffering yourself by the images you have, by the models you have, by the expectations you have. So this is where one has to see very clearly, to see your own expectations, to see your own models, to see your own images. To see what it is that you are resisting in relation to what is happening. So again, even while we are meditating we can use this. So when we are meditating and when we are suffering for some reason, then you can find out immediately what you are expecting, what you are wanting, what you are demanding.

So supposing tomorrow you find yourself in the toilet like S. You can say: now I am experiencing suffering, and then you can find out: why am I suffering now? Because you have the idea that others should not lock you in the toilet! But other people make mistakes. So then when you realise that, then you see, now can I let go of that idea? And, as S. did, you can use meditation to face the situation without suffering, but trying to find a way out of the suffering.

And I would like to suggest a positive way of using the Four NobleTruths, especially the last two. So if you constantly observe what is happening then you will realise: at this moment there is no suffering, there is no reaction, there is nothing that I am resisting. Then it would also be interesting to find out, why is there no suffering now? Then you will realise: Ah, I am accepting things just as they are now and therefore there is no suffering.

So I would like to suggest that tomorrow let us really make an effort, in every situation, to use the Buddha's very deep and profound but simple discovery and then see how these Four NobleTruths can be a part of your life. Then in everyday life one can use the Four NobleTruths in the same way.

Retreatant: I had an unpleasant emotion, experience this morning. It was something that was very unpleasant for me but afterwards, when it was over, I was able to breathe for a moment and then I felt very calm instead. The point I would like to make is that it is very clear to me now when I practise meditation how I can feel so low one minute and then it is over; not that it never happened but there is not a trace left and I can feel joyous.

Godwin: So it shows that even if you have been meditating for a long time you cannot prevent such unpleasant experiences from arising. So please remember that. Please realise that. It is a very important point. What is important is when such an unpleasant experience arises, learn not to be surprised by it, but then work with it and realise that it can go away. To use the simile of the sickness and the medicine, we are bound to fall sick in the sense of suffering. But what is important is that if you have discovered the medicine, then when the sickness arises you take the medicine.

So in conclusion I am very happy that you are already discovering the medicine and I really hope that you will continue to make discoveries about the medicine so when sicknesses arise, either here or in everyday life, then you can use the medicine.

We can now do some nice chanting like yesterday.