MR. GODWIN SAMARARATNE'S TALKS AT THE CHI LIN NUNNERY IN 1998
Day 1 : 7th October 1998
Topic : Why Is Meditation Becoming Popular
Godwin
Firstly, I like to welcome each one of you.
I am very happy to be back and I am also very happy to see some of my old friends here. It's also nice to see some new faces.
So I will give a short talk and there will be time for questions and then we can do some meditation together and we can end with some chanting, both Chinese and Pali.
So when I arrived here this time, my friends told me that there is more interest in meditation now in this country and that there has been many teachers, many masters, who have been also visiting this country. I was very happy to hear this and in a way, it did not surprise me because I know that everywhere in the world there is more and more interest in meditation now, especially in western countries. So a question arises : why is there this interest in meditation in the present world ? We can think of different reasons but a general reason is, I think there is more and more suffering in this world. So human beings, at least some of them, are finding ways and means of finding some peace, a way out of the suffering. So I'll be presenting some aspects of meditation which will help us, as I said, to experience more peace and to find a way out of suffering.
In this modern world, one of the things that is happening because of mechanization and industrialization is that human beings are also becoming more and more machine like, automatic. So here in this connection, meditation offers two very important solutions.
One is when human beings are becoming more and more like machines, they also like machines. They don't seem to have feelings and one aspect of this lack of feelings is that people are becoming more and more violent. More and more violent towards themselves and more and more violent towards others and also even becoming violent towards the environment, the surroundings that we are living in. This is why the problem of environment and ecology has also become a very serious problem in the present world. So in this connection, meditation of loving kindness, meditation of compassion, is extremely helpful in working with this aspect of having lack of feelings, lack of warmth.
A phrase that I often like to use is that meditation of loving kindness helps us to be our best friend. If you can be your best friend then naturally your behaviour will be not something unskillful, unwholesome to you and you create more and more happiness for yourself and more and more happiness for others. So meditation on loving kindness helps us to open our heart to ourselves and learning to open our heart to others.
Another way meditation of loving kindness can help us is that again, due to different reasons, we can be having what I call wounds. Wounds created from the past, wounds in relation to what you have done to others, wounds in relation to what others have done to you. And I think there is no human being who has not been wounded in one's life. I think a great source of suffering in the modern world is holding onto these wounds and these wounds can generate lots of suffering for oneself and lots of suffering for others. So meditation of loving kindness helps us to heal these wounds by learning to forgive ourselves and learning to forgive others. It's only when we can heal these wounds that we are carrying that we really experience joy and peace in ourselves. And when we experience this joy and peace in ourselves, this can become infectious, it can even affect others.
So these are some very important aspects of meditation of loving kindness which the modern world needs very badly. I would suggest that this is the only way to work with the global violence, violence that we have in this modern world.
Another important aspect of meditation which can help us to work with human beings becoming more and more mechanical is the practice of awareness. The practice of being present. It's a practice of being alert and awake. And like meditation of loving kindness, this aspect of being aware also has many benefits. One is, as I said, it helps us to be conscious, it helps us to know what is happening in us, in our mind and body from moment to moment as far as possible. And this awareness can help us to develop insight, to see what are we doing to ourselves and to others. Again to see how we create suffering in ourselves and how we create suffering in others. And what awareness helps us to experience is that sometimes, or most of the time, how we create our own suffering. And when you see very very clearly, with awareness, how we create our own suffering, then it becomes clear that only we can free ourselves of the suffering that we created. Sometimes I like to define meditation as a way of discovering the medicine for the sickness that we create ourselves.
Another aspect of awareness is that it helps us to experience the present moment. It is interesting that most of the time, we live either in the past or we live in the future. And we hardly know that we are living in the past and living in the future because again it happens habitually, mechanically, unconsciously sometimes. So here again awareness helps us to realize how we are using the past and the future which again can create problems for ourselves and for others.
So we need to use the past, we need to use the future. One simple way of using the past and the future is if we can learn from the past, whatever has happened in the past, if we can see the past as a learning experience, as a teacher. So whatever mistakes we have created in the past, rather than hold onto them and then feel guilty and suffer from them, if we can ask ourselves : what can I learn from my past mistakes ? It can be a very useful way of coming to terms about the past. Otherwise what happens is we carry the past as a burden. So in a way this type of thinking, this type of practice enables us to let go of this burden that we are carrying all the time, most of the time. And in the same way, if we can use the future, again as a friend. As we know, when we think of the future, sometimes what happens, we feel anxious, we feel insecure. But if we can make friends with the future and learn to be open to the future, again we will be learning to relate to the future in a much more creative way. So with awareness, we can learn to experience the present moment when we breath consciously. And then in relation to the past and the future, if you can see the past as a teacher and if you can see the future as a friend, this will be really beautiful, creating happy and peaceful way of living.
Another way where we can use awareness is to use awareness to learn, to discover, to explore, to investigate what is happening in our mind and body. A real problem we have in everyday life is how to relate to unpleasant emotions. A problem modern man is confronted with is the problem of stress. It's a problem everywhere. So now people are finding ways and means of working with stress. It is interesting that there are now workshops, courses, which are called stress management. So they're not trying to get rid of stress. They want to manage it, control it. So awareness helps us to find out under what circumstances do we feel stressed, what really happens to us, mentally, physically, when we experience stress. So in this way, we can explore, learn, investigate, any unpleasant emotion that we experience.
I think everyone here is familiar with other unpleasant emotions like anxiety, fear, sadness, guilt, all these are quite familiar to us. And what normally happens is when we experience them, we have no way, we have no tools how to work with them. So human beings have become helpless victims of these unpleasant emotions which really control us, overwhelm us and affect us. So in meditation, there are techniques, there are ways, to work with these unpleasant emotions. In fact there has been a very interesting book that has come out recently, "Emotional Intelligence". Has anyone heard of this book ? So the author, who is a buddhist, says that human beings are trying to develop more and more high I.Q. but what is more important is not to develop a high I.Q. but an intelligent way of working with emotions. And this has become a bestseller and there has been lots of workshops on this problem because again, in this modern world, unpleasant emotions are a real challenge, how to work with them. So here again, meditation, specially the aspect of awareness, helps us to work with these emotions. One such method is not to repress them, not to control them, nor to express them but just being aware of the emotions when it is there. In fact in meditation there are other tools, techniques, of working with these emotions. In a way we cannot prevent these emotions from arising but what we can learn is how to work with them when they arise rather than continue to suffer as a result of them.
Maybe another aspect of meditation is that it helps us to learn to be our own teacher, to be self reliant, to have complete confidence in yourself. This is a hard teaching but it's a very important teaching. To develop your own resources, to develop your own self reliance, to develop your own tools, how to work with suffering when they arise. So what arises from that ? That is that we learn to take responsibility for what is happening in us, without blaming others, without blaming the surroundings that you find yourself in. When there is a change that takes place in our mind, then we'll be able to handle whatever arises in a particular environment, in whatever surroundings you find yourself in.
I like to conclude by presenting a buddhist symbol which shows how we can live in any environment and learn how not to be affected by that environment. And the symbol is a lotus flower. As you know, a lotus flower grows in muddy waters. But though it is surrounded by muddy dirty water, the lotus is able to not be affected by what is there around the lotus.
So in this modern world, there can be lots of challenges, lots of difficult situations, lot of problems that might arise but with the practice, with meditation, we'll be still be able to see them as challenges and learn like a lotus, still not being affected by the surroundings that we find ourselves in.
So if there are any questions, you can please ask them.
Please ask questions. It is very important to ask questions.
Question
When joy and bliss arise during meditation and when the body starts to tremble, is that correct or is that O.K ?
Godwin
I'm happy you are experiencing joy and bliss. It's a very important aspect to experience joy and bliss in meditation. So when joy and bliss arises, when the body trembles, just know that the body is trembling, just try to find what exactly the sensation you are experiencing if the body is trembling and just to be with the sensation. What is important is when we have these positive emotions, not to hold on to them.
Any other questions please.
Question
How to use our future in a proper way. For example, in the office when I deal with my boss, at first I may find that my boss has got some incorrect or improper views and then I have this anxiety that the situation may turn bad in the future and I find emotion arises. Then I try to alter my boss's attitude and then I think that the situation maybe O.K. But afterwards, I find that I have not handled the situation properly. I could have done better. So my question is : How can I ensure that what I'm doing at the present moment is the correct way to handle the matter rather than having done it first and then look back and regret what I have done.
Godwin
So just a few practical suggestions : How to work with such bosses. One thing is you said that you would like to change the attitude of the boss which you can never succeed. Arising from that is you should learn to change your attitude towards the boss. It is if you can use the boss as your spiritual friend because the boss is teaching you something, to look at your own mind. So as I said this is the importance of awareness. So the emphasis is not what the boss is saying or what the boss is doing. The emphasis is looking at your own mind. How you are relating to what the boss is saying or what the boss is doing.
So it'll be interesting to start experimenting with your boss. So rather feel angry with him or rather than see him as a problem, as I said, you learn to see him as a spiritual friend and then find out : Now when I'm with the boss, what are the emotions that arise in me ? How long will these emotions stay with me ? So that you can experiment : Now today, this is what happened with the boss. Now let me see what happens with the boss tomorrow. So you are looking forward to be with the boss because it's a very valuable learning experience for you. So you can really feel grateful that you have such a good boss, that the boss is really showing you a mirror to watch your own mind. So without giving a minus to the boss, without giving a minus to yourself, you can give pluses to yourself and pluses to the boss.
And these suggestions that I offered , one can use in any situation in relating to people, it need not necessarily be the boss.
I think there's time for one last question.
Question
Master, normally people practise meditation by sitting down with their legs crossed but what happens if I'm a little bit old and I have kidney problem which makes it difficult to sit too long to practise meditation. Is there no way for me to practise meditation , or alternatively can I do meditation by lying down on my back ?
Godwin
There's still hope for you. You can just sit down on a chair with your spine erect. And as you rightly said, you can use the lying down posture but what is important is, in that posture you have to be very alert and awake because from lying down you might start snoring but it is still interesting to learn to meditate lying down in that laying down posture.
I'm very happy that you have asked some very good practical questions. So now let us take a short break, about 5 minutes and during this time, please as I said, see how you can be aware of whatever you're doing. So when you are standing, when you are walking, whatever you are doing, please try to slow down your movements and as I was emphasizing, the importance of awareness, just try to practise it as far as possible. And being silent will be helpful in practising this awareness.
So please come back after 5 minutes if there's a need to go outside.
[ Break ]
Godwin
The meditation which you are going to do is something very simple. In my talk, I emphasized the importance of being aware, being mindful, being awake. So let us develop this very important skill.
So during the sitting, we can try to be aware, mindful, alert, from moment to moment as far as possible.
Just knowing. Just knowing what is happening in our mind and body from moment to moment.
And in my talk I also emphasized the importance of friendliness, gentleness. So we will try to combine awareness with friendliness and gentleness. Feeling friendly and gentle to whatever is happening in our mind and body as far as possible.
So as I said it is something very simple that we are going to do now.
You can please close your eyes.
If you're having thoughts, just know what thoughts you are having very sharply, very clearly.
If you are experiencing sensations, just know what sensation you are experiencing from moment to moment.
You can experience the present moment, just feeling the peace and the stillness in this room.
Feeling what it is to sit with your body completely still.
If the body is still, the mind may become still and you can feel the stillness around you.
Feeling friendly and gentle towards our mind and body.
[ Bell ]
Now please don't think that the meditation is over. Just please continue to know what is happening in your mind and body from moment to moment. And will you please open your eyes.
In a way, there is no beginning and ending of meditation. This is the importance of awareness, of knowing.
Thank you. Thank you very much for sitting so peacefully and calmly.
Let us do some chanting now.
So I'll be presenting three chants. The first chant is Buddham Saranam Gacchami, Dhammam Saranam Gacchami, Sangham Saranam Gacchami. S.K. will explain the meaning of the three sentences. The next chant is Sadhu which means well said. In traditional Buddhist countries, you will hear this word very often. And then the last Pali chant is Shanti which means peace. Then we'll be ending with some Chinese chanting.
So while chanting let us try to experience the present moment, the here and the now, with the help of the chant.
[ Chanting ]
Thank you very much. Please make an effort to put in practice some of the suggestions that I made. Please learn to be your best friend and also to be a friend of others. Learn to forgive yourself and to others and then heal any wounds that you are carrying.
Please make an effort to live consciously, to live with awareness, to live with a mind that is fully awake.
And as I suggested, try to work with unpleasant emotions when they arise.
Please try to find a new direction in your life, a new way of living where you will live in such a meaningful way that you will be not creating any suffering for yourself and any suffering for others.
And may you experience more joy, more peace and again friendliness to oneself.
Thank you very much and hope to see you tomorrow. And tomorrow we'll be speaking about the technique of being aware of our breathing, what advantages we can experience through this technique.
Once again, thank you very much.
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MR. GODWIN SAMARARATNE'S TALKS AT THE CHI LIN NUNNERY IN 1998
Day 2 : 8th October 1998
Topic : Anapana-sati and its Advantages
Godwin
I would like to firstly welcome each one of you.
I'll be giving a talk and after the talk, we'll have a discussion. and then we'll meditate. And after meditation we can do some chanting, both Pali chant and also chanting in Chinese.
The subject that has been suggested to me is to speak about the benefits of meditation on our breath. So we can reflect on this question as to why the Buddha choose the breath as an object of meditation.
Now one thing is, as I said yesterday, a very important aspect of meditation is developing awareness, mindfulness. So here we can use our breath to develop awareness. In Pali this technique is called Anapana-sati, developing awareness, mindfulness in relation to the in breath and the out breath. So again to repeat, we can use the breath to always develop the practice of mindfulness, awareness because we are breathing all the time so that as it is with us all the time, we can make use of that to develop awareness. Ahjan Chah, one of the meditation masters in Thailand, has said that if you remember to breath, then you remember to meditate. If you have time to breath, then you have time to meditate. So this is the first point I want to make as to why the Buddha might have chosen breathing as a technique of meditation.
Another important aspect of meditation is learning to experience the present moment, the here and the now. So here again, when we breath, it is very interesting, we always breath in the present, we always breath in the here and the now. Sometimes I like to refer to our breath as our friend. So if you make a connection with your breath as a friend, then whenever we think of our friend, the friend will help us to experience the present moment. Whenever we are lost in thoughts about the past and the future, and there is confusion and disorder in our mind, you have only to think of your friend and immediately you can experience the
present moment.
Another important aspect is, as we all know here, we are sometimes affected by our thoughts. Most of the time thoughts control us. So here again our friend can help us maybe for the first time, to learn to let go of the thoughts, to learn to control the thoughts rather than allow the thoughts to control us with the help of our friend by again being with the friend and experiencing the present moment, letting go of the thoughts about the past, letting go of the thoughts about the future.
And related to our thoughts is our emotions. There's a very strong connection between our thinking, between our thoughts and emotions. So sometimes thoughts can create emotions and then what happens is when we have emotions, again with thoughts, we can make it bigger. Here again if we can remember our friend, immediately it will help us to recover ourselves from emotions because if we can spend a few minutes with the breath and in such a situation, it will help us to find some space in our mind and then that space can help us to recover from whatever emotions that we are experiencing. You can experiment with this. You can try it for yourself.
Another useful thing that our friend can show to us is our state of mind. We all know what happens to our friend when we are affected by a strong emotion like anger, fear, excitement, stress and insecurity. What happens to our breath? As we know, it moves very very fast. So it can be a very useful signal, a very reliable signal, to show us what is happening in our mind. So if someone has problems with emotions, maybe to take an example, like anger, our friend will immediately show to us from the way the breathing moves that we are getting angry. So it can be a very very useful signal as I said and then if you can listen to the signal, heed the signal, you'll be able to recover from that anger or whatever emotion immediately.
In the same way, when our mind is calm, when our mind is relaxed, when our mind is still, what happens to our friend ? The breath also becomes calm. Sometimes it becomes so subtle that you don't even realize that you are breathing. So as I said, if we can learn to make a connection with our friend, the friend will always tell us what is happening in our mind. Some of the friends we have can be sometimes wrong, or maybe most of the time they can be wrong but you'll realize this friend is always right, this friend is always reliable.
Our friend also shows about our body. Here again the way we breath can indicate to us our state of physical well-being, our state of mental well-being. If you can focus attention on the breath, sometimes you'll realize the breathing can be very relaxing, sometimes the breathing can be very deep, very deep and also shallow. And when you realize that your breathing is shallow, it will always show that you are having tension in your body. And it is interesting that our friend will show that our body is tense and naturally it will create an emotion or it will indicate how we are connected, inter-related, the connection between feeling tense and emotions. And the only way, or one of the ways of letting go of the tension is again using our friend. In such a situation, sometimes if you can breath, if you can take some deep breath, immediately or to a great extent, you might be able to relax your mind and body.
In Buddhist meditation, there are two aspects. One is the aspect of experiencing calm, tranquility, which is called Samatha. Another aspect is developing Vipassana, insight or wisdom. So it is interesting that the object of meditation, this technique, is relevant to both these aspects. So when we are being aware of the in breath and the out breath and if we can learn not to react to what is happening, then the mind becomes calm and the mind becomes tranquil. And then this technique also helps us to develop wisdom or insight or vipassana.
One aspect of vipassana is to experience the fact of impermanence, the fact of change. And when we are aware of the breath, you'll realize how, whatever is happening in our mind and body including the breathing, changes from moment to moment. So if you are having thoughts you'll immediately realize how thoughts are arising, how thoughts are passing away. And the same thing becomes very very clear with our breath. And here again if we can be aware of the sensations, you'll realize how from moment to moment there is variations of sensations taking place and again how sensations are changing from moment to moment. So we learn to be open to any changes that will be taking place in our mind and body from moment to moment. And this insight which you develop through being open to change and impermanence internally will help us to be also to be open to changes, the fact of impermanence when it happens externally. As we know, sometimes we have no control of what is happening inside us and we have no control of what is happening externally certain events in our life. So suffering arises when we resist this change, when we resist impermanence. So if we can really be open to impermanence and understand the nature of impermanence, this is a very powerful way of overcoming suffering. And as I said, we develop this very important insight : how suffering is created by resisting change and how we can overcome suffering by being open to change and an understanding of the nature of impermanence.
Another important insight, wisdom that can arise in relation to our breath, is to realize we can have moments of it when you realize that there is only the breathing that is taking place, the rise and the fall and then there is no ego and there is no sense of "I" or "me" that is breathing but just the process of breathing from moment to moment.
Another very important insight is to realize that we are all inter-connected, inter-related, inter-being, but we think we are separate, foreign to each other in a sense. But when we reflect on breathing, we realize that what is common to all beings is this fact of breathing. So this should enable us to have this feeling of oneness with beings around us because what unites us, what is common to all beings is this fact of breathing. And we have to realize that we breath the same air, that in relation to the air that we breath, we can't separate the breath and say this is mine, the air that I'm breathing . So there is universality.
According to a Buddhist text, when we die, when we pass away, those who have meditated on this object can easily remember the breath at the time that we die if we are conscious. I know some people who are working with people who are dying and one of the techniques that they use in helping people to die is to get them to breath at that time, to learn to be conscious of the breathing at that time. So when we are dying, if we can experience the present moment with our friend, we have a good chance of dying peacefully. So our good friend helps us to live peacefully, it can help us to sleep peacefully. Before you fall asleep if you can spend sometime just to relax your mind and body, with the breath we can sleep peacefully. And then we can die peacefully. Is there anything more that we need to live in this world peacefully ?
So if you have any question, we can discuss them. So please feel free to ask any question, specially about this technique that we discussed.
Question
Yesterday, we heard from you that some people are teaching other people how to manage tension and you were saying that it's best to get rid of it and I'm very glad to hear you just followed up on what you said yesterday by telling us to get rid of tension and other emotions through watching the breathing or having smooth and deep breathing. Can you elaborate more on this because it is very useful. Thank you.
Godwin
So as I said, when we have emotion, unpleasant emotion, what makes it worse is our thinking, our thoughts. It is very interesting when we have an emotion. If you have the space of mind to watch our thoughts, you'll realize how thoughts come so quickly at the time and we can create a big story from what is happening. And sometimes a small emotion, it can really blow up by just this process of thinking, thoughts.
Maybe a practical example would be if someone has made you angry, at least you think that someone has made you angry. Then what happens to us ? So you'll be using thoughts about that person, how that person has been behaving in the past and all those things so that our whole attention is about that person and with the thoughts, negative thoughts about that person, our anger becomes worse and worse. In such a situation, we lose control. Actually at that moment the emotions and the thoughts really control us, they really overwhelm us as we all know. So someone who has been making a connection with our friend in this way, at that moment, immediately, if you can spend some time with the breath, just the in breath and the out breath, just being completely being with it, then at least for a few minutes, this brewing up of that emotion with thoughts, it will become less.
And as I said in relation to tensions in our body, it is again if we can really, consciously and deliberately do some deep breathing, this can also to a great extent help to work with that tension. In a way, one can say being with the breath or just being with the sensation can be the same because we are experiencing the present moment with the help of the breath and the sensation in the body.
An interesting process to discover is how again thoughts, emotions are involved in creating tension. Supposing someone is afraid of dogs. So when such a person sees a dog, the thought comes : Ah the dog is there, maybe the dog is going to bite me. And immediately, quickly, that thought gives rise to emotions. Emotions of fear, anxiety, insecurity can come. And then that can give rise to tension in the body. So again with meditation, if we can see this process taking place slowly, it can be very very useful, there can be very important discoveries that we can make for things. And again the process continues. We react to the tension with thoughts and then it becomes emotions. So it really becomes what can be called a vicious circle.
So how can we interrupt this vicious circle ? How can we break this vicious circle ? One way, one very powerful way is to spend some time with the breath because immediately your mind comes to the present and then all these things, the process that has been taking place as I described earlier, there can be some space that is created by this focusing on our friend.
So I took some time to explain in this way because I think we all can relate to what I have been saying. So what I would suggest is to please experiment with what I am saying. Just find out for yourself whether it works.
Any other questions please.
Question
Some people when they teach this breathing technique, they mentioned that there should be four steps. They are soft, shallow, smooth and long and when I tried to follow these four steps, I found that my heart beats faster. And when I counted the breathing, I found that even my breathing becomes faster. So how do we deal with this situation?
Godwin
I'm not surprised. Because it seems that you are trying to force the breathing in an artificial way. What is important is to spend some time just allowing the body to breath naturally. Our friend knows very well how to breath. Even when we are asleep our friend continues to breath. In fact this is what I'll be emphasizing when we try to experiment with this technique, to spend some time firstly just allowing the body to breath naturally, without controlling it, without manipulating it, without interfering with it. So, and then in a very simple natural way, just knowing, just being aware of what is happening to the body when the body is inhaling and exhaling. So it is a very simple technique but we are very good at complicating a simple technique.
It's interesting in the text, it says when you realize that the breath is long, you just know that the breath is long, when you realize the breath is short, you know that it is short. So whatever is happening naturally, you just know, that is all. So I like to suggest to you to please try out the way I'll be presenting the technique and after you finish, to please come and tell me what your experience was.
I think there is time for one more question please.
Question
Master, when we meditate, when we are doing meditation, very often we cannot meditate well. Our body, our mind, or breathing is not peaceful, calm. What should we do ? Shall we just stop and do something else ?
Godwin
It's a very useful question that has been asked. So I like to offer a few suggestions. That is when we sit to meditate, please don't have any expectations of what should happen or what shouldn't happen. And without any expectations, if we can just know whatever is happening and what is important is not to judge, not to give a plus, not to give a minus but just knowing from moment to moment what is happening in your mind and body with an openness.
The whole idea of meditation is to experience freedom, to be free of suffering but sometimes the way we try to meditate with our expectations, the meditation itself creates suffering for us. So if we have an expectation that my mind should be calm, that I should be only having positive experiences and if they arise, what we do is we hold on to them. And when we are unable to hold on to them, that creates suffering. And then when the mind is not calm, when the mind is not relaxed, you will think you're not meditating rightly and then, that is creating suffering. So without this idea of positive/ negative, just be open, just to be friendly to whatever is happening from moment to moment with awareness, can give us immediate freedom. So I'll be emphasizing this aspect when I'll be presenting this technique.
So now please take a short break and then during the short break as we did yesterday, please try to develop awareness when you are moving, try to move slowly and consciously as far as possible and what can help us is to practise complete silence during this short break.
[ Break ]
Let us begin the meditation without any expectations of what should happen or not should happen.
We will begin with what is called the beginner's mind. Not knowing what is going to happen.
Let us begin by being aware of our body. The different sensations, the different movements in our body.
Let us learn to feel friendly towards our body.
Feel what it is to sit with our body completely still.
See if you can feel the stillness around you.
And now please allow the body to breath naturally.
The body knows very well how to breath. Just allow the body to do what it likes.
Now please find out what happens in the body when the body is breathing naturally.
The different movements, the different sensations in the body when the body is breathing.
Let us just be with the different sensations, the different movements in our body from moment to moment.
Just being with our friend.
Experiencing the present moment with the help of our friend.
If you are having thoughts, just know that you have thoughts and then come back to your friend.
If the mind is calm, you know that the mind is calm. If the mind is not calm, you know that the mind is not calm. No plus no minus.
What is more important is to be with our friend.
[ Bell ]
Now please don't think that the meditation is over. Just continue to know what is happening in your mind and body from moment to moment. And whatever you do, please do it mindfully, opening your eyes, changing your posture.
There is no beginning and ending of meditation in a way.
Now let us do some chanting and while chanting, let us also learn to use the chanting to experience the present moment. And I would like everyone to join in. It's very beautiful when there is group chanting.
S.K. will explain the meaning of the three chants we will be doing.
[ Chanting ]
Please try to make a connection with your friend, the breath, and the friend will always help you especially when you are not doing sitting meditation. So our friend can be very useful in our everyday life.
So thank you very much for the beautiful chanting and also asking very good practical questions.
And tomorrow and the day after, we'll be discussing some very important aspects of the Dhamma. How to develop qualities of our heart is a very important aspect.
Once again thank you very much.
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MR. GODWIN SAMARARATNE'S TALKS AT THE CHI LIN NUNNERY IN 1998
Day 3 : 9th October 1998
Topic : Metta, Karuna, Mudita, Upekkha (1)
Godwin
Once again I like to welcome each and every one of you.
So today and tomorrow, we are going to talk about a very important aspect in Buddhist meditation. It is relating to develop four very important spiritual qualities in ourselves. They are called " The Four Sublime States" or beautiful states. They are also called "The Divine Abodes" so that when we develop these qualities, we can be like divine beings, like gods.
I like to see these four qualities as our friends because if we can encourage these four friends to be with us most of the time, this will help us to experience a lot of joy and lightness and this will also help us to give joy and lightness to others. To put it in another way, when these four friends are not with us, this can create lots of suffering for ourselves and lots of suffering for others.
And these four qualities in Pali sound so soothing, so nice. They are Metta, Karuna, Mudita, Upekkha. So Metta is loving kindness, friendliness. Karuna is compassion. Mudita, is sympathetic joy. And Upekkha, is having a non-reactive equanimous mind.
So today I will be talking about the first two qualities, the first two friends and tomorrow I'll be talking about the last two friends.
So Metta in simple terminology means just friendliness. So the interesting question is : where do we begin this friendliness ? It is psychologically interesting that we are to begin in ourselves. I think it is difficult to be friendly to others unless you are friendly to yourself. A phrase that I like to use is : Metta enables us to be our best friend. But we don't realize sometimes that we can be our own worse enemy. And generally speaking we see enemies outside ourselves and maybe all our life we are trying to find and get rid of the external enemies but we don't realize, as I said, that we can be our worse enemy.
In what way do we become our worse enemy ? One is that we can be extremely critical and hard on ourselves. The phrase that I like to use is, it can become a very strong habit in us, to give ourselves minuses. And when we have this habit of giving ourselves only minuses, we'll also be giving minus to other people. So we can create a hell where in this hell, only minuses exist. So meditation of loving kindness helps to see this very clearly, how we become our own enemies by giving ourselves minuses and minuses to others and then we learn to see more and more the positive qualities in us and others. In this connection there is a beautiful word that is used in the Buddha's Dhamma, the word is rejoicing. To rejoice in our own good qualities. To rejoice in the positive aspects in ourselves. Now at this moment, everyone of you can rejoice. Rejoice that you have made a commitment as meditators. So in this way, to see more and more the positive in us and learning to rejoice in our own goodness can bring about lots of joy and lightness in ourselves. And when we experience more and more joy and lightness in us, then it also can be infectious to others, it can also influence and inspire others also to experience more joy and lightness.
In the Dhammapada, one of the very important books about the Buddha's teaching, there is a very interesting phrase there, that we should try to overcome our suffering through joy. Sometimes we are trying to overcome suffering through suffering. Because when we experience more and more joy and lightness, when suffering arises, when we experience unpleasant emotions, it becomes very easy to handle them.
Another aspect of rejoicing is when we take to meditation as our spiritual life, naturally we learn to lead a harmless life, a skilful life, wholesome life, not creating suffering for ourselves and not creating suffering for others by harming others. This comes under a moral or ethical behaviour which is very much emphasized in the Buddha's teaching. And here again there is a beautiful phrase, I like to use the Pali words, Anamaja Sukha. And what Anamaja Sukha means is joy and bliss that come from harmlessness, joy and bliss that come from a skilful wholesome way of living. So you see how clearly how from being your worse enemy, we can learn to be our best friend.
Another way where we can be our own enemy is when we hold on to the wounds that we carry in relation to what has happened in the past. Wounds can be generally speaking created by what you have done to others and what others have done to you. And in relation to what you have done to others, a very destructive emotion that we can be holding on to is guilt and remorse. And wounds in relation to what others have done to you, the emotion that we can be carrying within us is hatred and ill will. And when we have these unhealed wounds, it can affect us in many ways. It can affect even our body sometimes. We can have psychosomatic illnesses which are created due to psychological reasons. It can also affect our body where it can create certain tensions in our body. And also it can affect our sleep and we will be having dreams in relation to some of these unhealed wounds. So we can be experiencing sadness, we can be experiencing fear, guilt, even while we are sleeping. And at the time that we die, some of these unhealed wounds can surface in a very strong way so that we'll not be able to even die peacefully.
So it is extremely important for us to learn how to heal these wounds. So here again meditation of loving kindness can be extremely helpful in learning to just forgive yourself and just to forgive others. Forgive ourselves by realizing that we are human. Forgive ourselves to realize that we are still not enlightened, we are still imperfect. And in the same way, forgive others by realizing that they are being human, that they are also imperfect like you. And this is also a way of learning to let go of the past otherwise we carry this past as a very heavy burden that we are holding onto. So it is only when we can really heal these wounds and let go of the past and the burden that we are carrying that we can really experience joy, peace and more compassion for ourselves and more compassion for others.
Now I like to say something about our second friend, Karuna. Usually Karuna is associated when you see suffering in other people. It is extremely important to learn to do something, to have friendliness when you see suffering in other people. In this world, as I said on the first day, there can be more and more suffering in particular situations. So we need to develop this important spiritual quality of compassion where we need to do something, even small things, little things, when you see someone suffering. One of the spiritual teachers have said that it is not so important to do big acts of loving kindness to other people when you see suffering but small acts, little acts that we can do are very very important.
And this reminds me of again a quotation by the Buddha where he was emphasizing the importance of loving kindness when he was addressing a group of monks. He told them that if you can practise loving kindness during the time it takes to snap your fingers, you're worthy of being monks. So it shows that even practising loving kindness for a few minutes, that is good enough.
In the same way, as I was saying, doing little acts, sometimes even talking to a person, sometimes smiling with a person, such little small acts even for a few minutes is a way of developing this quality. And when you develop this quality, wherever you are you are bound to see such opportunities, even travelling in a bus or going on the road, you're bound to notice situations where you can be of some help, show some kindness to others.
And I like to suggest that this quality of Karuna, one should also learn to relate to yourself. When you see yourself suffering, when you realize that you are suffering yourself, you'll be your worse enemy if you're just allowing yourself to continue to suffer in this way. So having Karuna for yourself is trying to do something about the suffering. So now we realize the reason why these qualities are called beautiful qualities, that they are divine qualities because it helps us to do something about our own suffering and it helps us to do something about the suffering of others. And here again like loving kindness, when you develop this quality of Karuna and when you can see that whatever help that you have given is having the desired effect, you can be very happy about it. And when you can see that you can do something about your own suffering, this can develop lots of self-confidence and you can be happy that you have found a way to work with your suffering and also found a way to eradicate the suffering of others.
So tomorrow I'll be speaking about the third quality and the fourth quality and now we can have a discussion so if you have any question, please feel free to ask them.
Question
I would like to ask if there is any limit for compassion and loving kindness. For example, I have a friend who asked me to lend him some money because he said he was poor but in fact I later found out that this friend went gambling. The first time I realized that I forgave my friend but the next time my friend came back again to ask for money , I gave him money again and again a second and third time and forgives him. So is there a limit for forgiveness and loving kindness and compassion.
Godwin
Very good question. Because in everyday life we sometimes have to face such situations. So it is very important to realize that loving kindness doesn't mean allowing others to exploit you. This can be considered as idiotic compassion. In this connection there is a very interesting story. It is one of my favourite stories. I like to share this story with you. It comes from the Indian tradition and the story is about a cobra who was practising loving kindness. So there was this cobra practising loving kindness in the forest saying : may all beings be well, may all beings be happy, may all beings be peaceful. And an old woman who was collecting fire wood saw this cobra and mistook this cobra to be a rope. So she used the cobra to bundle the fire wood that she was carrying. So as the cobra was doing loving kindness, the cobra allowed this woman to do anything. So the woman carried the bundle of fire wood home and then the cobra escaped with lot of physical pain, physical wounds and went to meet his teacher. And then the cobra said : See what happened to me. I was practising your loving kindness and see the wounds and all the pain that I'm experiencing in my body. The teacher very calmly said : You have not been practising loving kindness. You have been practising idiotic compassion because you should have shown that you were a cobra. You should have at least hissed. So in relating to people like the person you described, we have to learn to hiss and you'll be doing a service for that person.
Any other question please.
Question
Master Godwin, I have a problem I like to present here. A couple of times in my life, in fact recently, lots of things were going wrong, things like losing control and it was just like that I was in the eye of a hurricane spinning and spinning or like a rat climbing on the wheel trying to keep up with the spin and I don't understand that , I can't be really, that my own mind would create such a horror. I want to know do you have any idea what really is causing it, how to get out of it.
Godwin
Anyway I would like you to, if you don't mind, meet me personally and I like to get more details on what exactly is happening but in the meantime, I might try to offer one or so suggestions.
The first suggestion I like to offer which in fact I should have mentioned when I was speaking about loving kindness, is learning to make friends with unpleasant experiences. When we experience unpleasant experiences, whether it is physical pain or mental pain, what normally happens is we don't like it, we resist it and then the result is we start hating ourselves for that. By hating such experiences, by resisting such experiences, by disliking them, sometimes we might be giving them more power and more energy. So here, loving kindness can be used in this context by making friends with this situation that you are experiencing. A phrase I like to use sometimes is just to tell yourself : It is O.K. that I don't feel O.K. This is the first suggestion I like to offer.
The second suggestion I like to offer is making friends with it, being open to it and then you can explore, investigate, learn about what you are going through. Sometimes we may have such an experience when we have unrealistic goals in life, when we have expectation how you should behave, how others should behave, how life should be. Sometimes in a way, we can be making strong demands of how things should be. And when these demands are met, you're happy but when these demands are not met, this is where we start to suffer, this is where we start to hate ourselves, hate others and hate life. So with friendliness, you can learn to find out, learn, explore, more about what you are really going through.
The third suggestion I like to offer is, which is related to the second suggestion, is to find out whether this condition is created by thought, whether it is created by emotion, whether it is created by sensation. Sometimes when we have such unpleasant experiences, it's a very good practice as I was suggesting yesterday, to spend some time with the sensations in the body or the breath in the body and that technique can help you to create some space and then you'll realize that these sensations are changing all the time. So if we can be really be open to the sensations, whatever you are experiencing in your mind and body, being open to the change, then whatever happens, to a great extent, you'll be able to relate to it in a different way.
And the last suggestion I like to offer is, also find out when you don't have unpleasant experiences. It is extremely important in everyday life to find out if you are bothered by a particular emotion, to know the times when that emotion is not there. Perhaps if you can be open to that, you might be surprised that during the day, there are moments when this condition that you are describing is completely absent. I'm sure you're not experiencing that now because I can see you smiling.
So I would suggest try to use some of these tools and still if they won't work, you can either call me or to come and please see me. Thank you.
Maybe one last point is, if we can learn to see such experiences as valuable experiences, as opportunities to learn, then it's a beautiful way to live. To learn from unpleasant experiences, to learn from conditions which we think are negative, to really see them as opportunities to use for our spiritual growth.
I think there is time for one last question.
Question
Usually when nothing happens, it is very easy to say let's have loving kindness to ourselves and to others but when things happen, for example, somebody say or do something around us and make us very unhappy, my experience is I get very very angry, to such an extent that I completely forgotten everything about loving kindness and I can't even sleep for a few nights and this hatred remains for a few days. I want to know whether you have had any such experience before. If you have, how did you handle it?
Godwin
Very good question, very good question. I'm very happy that you're presenting very practical questions relating to everyday life.
So firstly I will share how I work with such situations which hopefully will help you to work with what you described.
The first point is : don't be surprised. Because as I said, we are still human, we are still imperfect. So as long as we are human, as long as we are imperfect, we are bound to get angry, so why should we be surprised ?
The second point is : don't give yourself a minus because you are getting angry. By giving yourself a minus, what you are doing is, you are angry about the anger and you're hating yourself because you have anger.
The third point is that if you are unable to observe the anger at the time that it arises, at least later on. Later on you can start reflecting on what happened. So why did I get angry ? Why did I use those words ? What really made me lose my control ? So as I said earlier to the earlier question, our failures can become very valuable spiritual friends. And this kind of reflection has to be done in a very friendly, gentle way rather than do it in a very hard way, trying to beat yourself and unnecessarily experiencing guilt and remorse in relation to what has happened. And then as I said in my talk, you can forgive yourself. I'm still human. I got angry but let me see now when I meet that person next week or whatever, I will see how I will be relating to that person. So that you'll be learning from such experiences, then you can sort of experiment with such situations.
And if we need to have an ideal, the ideal should not be that I will not get angry. The more realistic ideal we can have in relation to anger is how soon we can recover from that anger. So this is the importance of practising awareness in every day life.
So that if you can practise awareness, and as I said yesterday, if you can have a connection with your breath, then as you are getting angry, the breath will tell you that you are getting angry, and with awareness, you can notice it and that will help you to really recover from that anger.
I met a woman who had a terrible temper, anger was her big problem. I gave her a simple suggestion and it worked very well. I told her to carry a mirror in her pocket. And I told her whenever she got angry, please look at the mirror, don't open your mouth but just look at the mirror. And when she did it she was shocked to see the person. So whenever she did that she felt bad about how she was looking because she was concerned about her appearance. And again there was an immediate recovery from the anger and sometimes she was able to laugh at own anger.
So I'm afraid there is no time now so we will take a short break and during this short break, as I was saying the last two days, please move slowly with awareness and also please maintain silence and enjoy the space that silence creates in your mind and please come back after a few minutes.
[ Break ]
Feeling grateful that we have this body, that we can use this body for our practice.
Can you see yourself as your best friend. Can you really feel it? Feel it in every part of your body, your whole being.
Feeling it in the area of your heart and allowing your heart to open up to yourself, like a flower.
And feeling yourself as your best friend, can you forgive yourself for any mistakes you have made in the past.
In forgiving yourself, can you really say to yourself and feel these words : May I be well. May I be happy. May I be peaceful. May I be free of suffering.
For anyone who does not have such wounds, you can feel happy that you have healed your wounds.
For those who have wounds in relation to what others have done to you, let us also learn to heal these wounds by learning to forgive others, by learning to let go of the past.
Learning to let go of any hatred or ill-will that you are carrying.
Can you think of them and also wish them that they be also well, that they be also happy, that they be peaceful and may they be free of suffering.
In healing our wounds, may we experience more joy, more lightness, more friendliness to oneself and more friendliness to others.
Let us now learn to rejoice that we are learning to develop loving kindness to oneself, to develop loving kindness to others.
[ Bell ]
Before we start to chant, let us just feel the peace and the stillness in this room.
[ Chanting ]
May you all be well, be happy, be peaceful and be free of suffering. And may all beings be well. May all beings be happy. May all beings be peaceful. May all being be free of suffering.
Thank you very much.
* * * * * * * *
MR. GODWIN SAMARARATNE'S TALKS AT CHI LIN NUNNERY IN 1998
Day 4 : 10th October 1998
Topic : Metta, Karuna, Mudita, Upekkha (2)
Godwin
I like to once again welcome everyone.
Yesterday I spoke about the importance of these four qualities, four beautiful qualities which the Buddha emphasized. So they are Metta: loving kindness. Karuna: compassion. Mudita : sympathetic joy. And Upekkha: equanimity.
So according to the Buddha's teaching, when we develop these important spiritual qualities, we can become like gods. That's why they are sometimes called "The Divine Abodes". I like to see them as four of our very beautiful friends. When we have these four friends within us, they will make us beautiful, they will make us experience more joy and lightness and this can also infect and affect others around you.
Yesterday I spoke of two of these qualities. Metta, loving kindness and Karuna, compassion.
So Metta can be seen very briefly as learning to be your best friend and then also learning to be a friend to others. Metta helps us to open our heart to ourselves. It also enables us to open our heart to others.
Karuna is when you see suffering in us, in ourselves, and when you see suffering in others, doing something to overcome our own suffering and doing something to overcome the suffering of others, is developing the quality of Karuna, compassion.
In this modern world, where there is lot of suffering, the suffering manifests itself in different ways, it is extremely important to develop this quality of Karuna in relation to others and in relation to your own suffering. In this connection, the Buddha has said : Helping others is helping yourself. Helping yourself is helping others. And eventually you see no difference between ourselves and others.
So today I like to speak about the third quality and the fourth quality : Mudita, sympathetic joy and Upekkha, having an equanimous and non-reactive mind.
It is interesting as I said, Karuna is responding to suffering in whatever way it turns. Mudita is when you see others happy, you are happy because others are happy. So this is sometimes not easy because the opposite of this quality of Mudita is jealousy and envy, specially when you see others doing better than yourself. Is it possible for us to really be happy and joyful that others are experiencing happiness and joy ?
And another aspect of Mudita is making an effort to make others happy. In a way one can relate it to Karuna because when you see others suffering, trying to do something about it and then getting them to experience some joy and lightness from their suffering and when that happens, you can be extremely happy about that.
Now this sympathetic joy or Mudita has another interesting aspect. Learning to rejoice as I said yesterday. Learning to be happy about your own happiness. Though again this sounds simple, in practice, sometimes for some people, it is not easy. I know some people when they experience happiness and joy, they would say : I don't deserve this. I'm such a bad person. I don't deserve to be happy. And I know others who say : How can I feel happy ? I feel guilty because there is such a lot of suffering around me and how can I experience joy ? When I experience joy, I feel guilty about it. So therefore it is extremely important to learn to develop this quality and then this word is very very interesting : To rejoice in your own happiness, to rejoice in your own goodness, rejoice in seeing more and more the positive in you and when you see the more and more the positive in you, then you are bound to see more and more the positive in others.
And as I said yesterday, every one of you right now should rejoice because you have made a commitment to follow a spiritual path, to be meditators. You should rejoice that you have made a commitment to lead a harmless life, learning not to harm yourself and not to harm others. And you should also rejoice that meditation sometimes or most of the time, is trying to work with our unpleasant experiences, whether it is physical pain or mental pain. How many people in this world are really prepared to do this ? So again to repeat : Shouldn't we rejoice that we have made a commitment, that we are prepared to work with our unpleasant experiences in whatever form they arise. And as I said, trying to learn from them. To ask the question : What can I learn from this ?
And I'm very happy to find that some of you have been coming for these talks regularly. So again to rejoice that unless you have this motivation, an interest, you'll not be doing that. So again to rejoice in this strong commitment, the motivation you have to listen to the Dhamma and to practise the Dhamma.
Being hard on ourselves, being critical about ourselves, giving ourselves minuses may come sometimes for some people quite naturally. That is why we need to deliberately and consciously cultivate this positive quality of rejoicing in some of the qualities that I mentioned. Sometimes I reflect that we, all human beings, have the potentialities to become free. So these qualities of freedom are just within us. So meditation can be seen as a way of acknowledging this, realizing this and allowing these factors of enlightenment to arise in us. So I hope you realize the importance of this beautiful quality, the divine like quality of Mudita, sympathetic joy, in relation to ourselves and to others.
The last quality of equanimity, of having a non-reactive mind. Again, it is a thing that we have to cultivate, to work at. So when we are meditating, when we are doing formal sitting meditation, whatever happens in our mind and body, so if they are pleasant, if you are having a non-reactive mind, an equanimous mind, we should learn to just to relate to it without giving it a plus and just holding on to it and wanting to continue it. And when we have an unpleasant experience whether it is physical pain or mental pain, the immediate reaction is giving it a minus and not liking it, resisting it, disliking it. So having an equanimous mind is whether it is pleasant or whether it is unpleasant, no plus no minus, no liking no disliking, learning to see things just as they are.
As I often emphasize the importance of being human, I like to suggest that as we are still human, there are moments when we like, when we dislike, reactions can be there. So here again I would suggest that if you are reacting, just to realize that you are reacting and then to find out, in your own experience, when you are liking something, when you are holding on to it, how it creates suffering for yourself. And when you are resisting something, when you are disliking something, how it again creates suffering. So again from our reactions, from a reactive mind, we can also learn.
When we are reacting, just know that you are reacting, to make that as a learning experience and learning not to react to that. And when you are not reacting, just know that you are not reacting and see for yourself the results, the benefits of it. So that if we can really learn to be open, learning to be open to both the reactive mind and the non-reactive mind and see the difference between the two, that can be considered something very important.
This as I said is how we can try to practise when we are doing formal meditation. Now can we learn to do this in every day life as well which may be more difficult but this is the practice. So if you can be observant, if you can be aware in every day life, in different situations, you can catch yourself how in certain situations we like certain things, we like certain things to continue, we like to give pluses and in other situations we don't like, we like to get rid of them. So like doing formal meditation in every day life, when you like something, when you identify yourself with something, again see for yourself what happens to you, what it does to you. Then you will realize, it is a very very important discovery that you'll make : That we can't be demanding from life how things should be. So in a way what we are doing is making demands from ourselves, how we should behave, how we must behave, making demands from others, how they should behave, how they must behave and also demanding from life, how life should be, how life must be according to our own terms. Making demands is one thing, the reality is another thing. This is a simple way how we create our own suffering. So here again, it is very important in every day life just to see how we create our own suffering with the demands we are making.
This brings us to what the Buddha discovered as the Four Noble Truths. Is there anyone, I'm curious to know, who has not heard of the Four Noble Truths. Please put your hands up.
So the Four Noble Truths is, briefly the first noble truth is the fact of suffering. And there is no human being who is not familiar with the first noble truth. Everyone here, including myself, has experienced the first noble truth. Maybe some of you are experiencing it even now.
An interesting question arises : Why is suffering a noble truth? What is noble in suffering ? It is an interesting useful question to reflect. I suggest that it is noble because, from the suffering, if you can go to the second noble truth, you can find a way out of suffering.
So in every day life when we are suffering, if you can tell yourself : I'm experiencing the first noble truth. That is an interesting way of saying suffering. And then what happens to most people is they just stick only in the first noble truth, only suffering.
The second noble truth is more difficult sometimes because you have to find out how you are creating your own suffering by your likes and your dislikes, by the demands that we are making, to see how we create our own suffering. And I would suggest that this is a very very important realization for us to see because if we can see that we are creating our own suffering, when you have the realization that only you can free yourself from the suffering that you create yourself, that brings us to the third noble truth and the fourth noble truth.
So if you have any question about the Four Sublime States I mentioned and also the briefly mentioned Four Noble Truths, please ask them. And I must tell you that in the last few days, you have been asking very useful practical questions.
Question
I don't understand the relationship between the Four Sublime States that you have mentioned. For example, when you mentioned about equanimity, you said that we should not distinguish between liking or disliking or any outside circumstances but when you talk about loving kindness, compassion and sympathetic joy, we have to feel for others, we have to feel for external circumstances, so we have to get involved in what happens outside. So how can you reconcile the three qualities where we have to get involved with what happens outside while the fourth quality is that we should not distinguish.
Godwin
Very good question. Very good question.
I like practical examples. So let's take a practical example where you are walking on the road and you see someone fallen on the road. Then if you have loving kindness and if you have compassion, there is a need and an urge to respond. Here again there are two very important words : reacting and responding. So reacting would be getting emotionally involved, having fear, insecurity, you might even start crying. And if there is a reaction, you'll not be able to respond clearly about what to do about that person. So this is how the four qualities come together. So then with an equanimous mind, you learn to do something about it, just responding without reacting. I hope it's clear.
Anything else ?
Question
If we only handle the situation as you have just said, then if we go on this way, I feel that we may get cold and very indifferent to what is happening outside. Only handle the situation and do not feel anything. So what is your suggestion?
Godwin
Yes. Well this is why my response to the earlier question was that you have to have Metta, Karuna, when you see the person has fallen on the road. If there is no Metta and Karuna, you'll just see the person fallen on the road and you just walk by. It's only because of Metta and Karuna that this person felt the need to do something, to act, to show some concern and care for that person. And from that sense of concern and care, that kind of response to act just happens. This is what is beautiful when you cultivate these qualities. When there is a need to use them in such situations, there is just the response. So I hope the answer is clear.
Question
How can we cultivate these four qualities during meditation.
Godwin
Another good question, practical question.
This is how it can be done. Now what I suggest sometimes is we choose one of these four qualities. Maybe today we can do what we did yesterday, the quality I chose was loving kindness.
If one wants to develop Karuna, then supposing when you are sitting there is physical pain, there is suffering in yourself. So rather than continue to suffer as a result of that physical or mental suffering, you try to do something about it, you learn to be friendly in relation to that, you learn to let go of that. So this would be practising Karuna in relation to meditation. And when you do that, you can immediately perhaps experience sympathetic joy, to feel happy. Very nice. That instead of suffering, I tried to do something about it and now there is a change taking place. So you can experience joy about it, happiness about it. Then you can experience the last quality, realizing maybe I should not hold on to this joy, a non-reactive mind to the joy. So you see one particular situation, simple situation, one can develop Metta, Karuna, Mudita, Uppekha, the four qualities.
So may be today when we meditate, I might try to offer some guidelines, including all these four aspects.
Question
Can I just come back to the big qualities, Metta, Karuna. Are they not reactions, feelings, that one would have when one sees a child fallen down on the road ?
Godwin
I again repeat the same point and take the example of the child. So when you walk on the road, so instead of a man you see a child fallen. So it's the same principle because with a child, you can really react, you can even start crying, you can even feel sad: Oh see what has happened to the child ! And when you are getting involved with this, you will not be in a position to help that poor child. So like doing something to the person who has fallen, here you show some concern and then you would do something about the child. This is why I used the two words, please get the two words very clear : reaction and responding. And as I said earlier, if we are reacting emotionally, we can again learn form that. What made me become so sad ? What made me become so depressed ? What made me so insecure ? Because you might have the thought : may be my own child would be like this. So we can create a huge story from that typical incident that you have seen on the road. So if that happens, you can reflect on that : Oh why am I reacting ? So that becomes an object of meditation.
And may be in another situation, you might be able to respond. Respond very clearly, very calmly, with a still mind, what has to be done. So you see the difference very clearly : Ah see what happens when I react and see what happens when I respond. Just see the difference.
And the same principle applies to what is happening internally. Now here it applies to some external event and when we are meditating, someone who is very habitually reactive, can be reactive to what is happening in meditation also. To take an example, so supposing your knees are in pain. You can say my knees are in pain, who knows my knees might break, I know some meditators who have broken their knees and like in that incident, you can create a huge story from the pain in the knees. And from the pain in the knees, you can have anxiety, you can have fear, you can have insecurity, you can have all these unpleasant emotions. So responding would be just observing the pain and learning to make friends with it and if it becomes unbearable, you change the posture.
So thank you very much for asking questions. So now let's take a small break before meditation. And during the break, please try to continue to move slowly with awareness and also practise silence.
I was very happy to hear some of my friends telling me that they noticed the very very peaceful calm atmosphere here. I was very happy to hear that so if you would try to maintain it as far as possible.
[ Break ]
So let us begin with meditation of loving kindness, Metta.
We will try to radiate, extend, lots of friendliness in all directions.
May all beings be well. May all beings be happy. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free of suffering.
Let us now think of the people whom you know are suffering. May be physical suffering, may be mental suffering.
Let us feel for those people who are suffering. Let us feel concern for those people who are suffering.
May they be free of the suffering that they are experiencing.
Can you really wish this from your heart.
Can you now feel happy that you are trying to develop qualities of loving kindness, Karun@, concern for others. Rejoice in this.
Can you be happy with yourself that you are trying to develop these qualities of the heart.
Let us now try to develop the important quality of a non-reactive mind. Whatever is happening in our mind and body right now, can you relate to that without liking, without disliking.
If we are experiencing physical pain, physical discomfort, can we relate to it without reacting.
If your mind is not calm, can you just know that the mind is not calm and not react to it, not give it a minus.
If you are experiencing pleasant experiences, can you not like it and if you are experiencing unpleasant experiences, can you relate to it without disliking it.
Just being open to whatever is happening.
Learning to see things just as they are.
[ Bell ]
Let see how far you can continue to have a non-reactive mind in relation to what is happening in your mind and body.
We will do some nice chanting now.
Before we start to chant, let us create some space in our mind by just feeling the peace and the stillness in this room.
[ Chanting ]
May every one of you here be well, be happy, be peaceful and be free of suffering.
And when you go to sleep, may you sleep peacefully and wake up peacefully. Thank you.
**************************
MR. GODWIN SAMARARATNE'S TALKS AT THE CHI LIN NUNNERY IN 1998
Day 5 : 11th October 1998
Topic : Meditation In Everyday Life
Godwin
So I like to welcome each one of you for this one day meditation program.
So I would like to just share with you what we will be trying to do today.
The first point I want to make is that everyone of you should feel very happy because being a Sunday, being a holiday, to have decided, to have the motivation to come here and spend the whole day in meditation, everyone of you should rejoice, everyone of you should feel very happy about this.
One of the things that we have been emphasizing in the talks and also a very important aspect in meditation is the practice of awareness, mindfulness. So today we will make a special effort to develop this very very important skill, the skill of being conscious. And also related to that, we will try to have continuity of awareness from moment to moment as far as possible.
So whether you are sitting, standing, walking, eating, doing yoga, whatever you are doing, going to the toilet, what you do in the toilet, please make an effort just to know, just to be conscious, just to be present, of what is happening in your mind and body from moment to moment.
And it is also important to learn to use awareness with friendliness, with gentleness. There is a very interesting Mahayana text in this connection where watching yourself, observing yourself, is compared to a mother. So like a mother, just watching, just observing, just noticing her child in whatever the child is doing. In the same way, if you can watch, if you can observe, if you can find out what is happening in your mind and body with awareness and friendliness, this combination is extremely important.
So another important aspect of awareness is to experience the present moment, the here and the now. So today let us make an effort just to forget whatever has happened in the past. We cannot change the past. It's gone. And then let us not think of the future because the future has not yet come. So in a way thinking of the past and the future is not being with the reality. So today we will make a special effort to use awareness, to use friendliness, to experience the present moment as much as possible, as far as possible today.
A very important area that we need to work with is the area of emotions, especially emotions that create suffering for us which we all know like sadness, fear, insecurity, shame, guilt and all these things in everyday life. These are the things that create suffering for us. So I'll be presenting techniques which will help you to work with these unpleasant emotions.
And it is also important to know, to find out, when these unpleasant emotions are absent. Here again what will be helpful to us is the practice of awareness because if you know how to be aware, then you know what unpleasant emotions you are having and if there is awareness, you know when they are not there. And what is important is I will be presenting one or two tools which will help you to work with these unpleasant emotions.
So it is important to have self-confidence. I know when these unpleasant emotions would arise, I know what to do with them. So we need not be afraid of them. So I hope today all of you will discover some of these tools and I really hope that you'll develop this self-confidence in you, the trust in you and the trust in the Dhamma so that you realize problems will arise, suffering will arise but I know what to do with them, I know how to recover from them. This is extremely important.
And whatever we are trying to do today, there'll be a time for group discussions. And in the group discussions, please ask questions or share your experience about what is happening here, today. This is very very important. So only things which have a practical significance which we will be trying to do but as I said, only ask questions or present difficulties in relation to that.
So in conclusion, I like to suggest that you make a real effort to make full use of your stay today. As I said, in a way you have made a big sacrifice in coming here on a holiday. So let us make an effort to make full use of today and get a glimpse, get a taste of what meditation is about and then to have the confidence that through my own efforts, I can find a way out of the suffering that I create myself. Thank you very much.
Let us now begin the program with sitting meditation.
Let us begin by just feeling friendly towards our mind and body. friendly and gentle towards our mind, friendly and gentle towards our body.
Can you see yourself as your best friend ? And can you really feel it, feel it in every part of your body, your whole being ?
And being your best friend, you have complete confidence and trust in yourself.
Now let us just be mindful, just be aware, just be alert and awake of what is happening in our mind and body from moment to moment.
Please realize what we are doing is not to develop concentration but just learning to be aware, learning to be conscious, learning to be alert. So please don't try to achieve anything. Whatever is happening in your mind and body, just know what is happening.
If you are aware, do you know that you are sitting completely still and that you will feel the stillness in this room.
Now we will use our awareness to become aware of our breath. So please allow your body to breath naturally and just be aware of the sensations, movements you experience in the body, in your breath.
You know when the body is inhaling. You know when the body is exhaling.
Feel friendly towards your thoughts and just return to your breath.
Experience the present moment with the help of your friend, the breath.
When the breath is long you know that the breath is long. When it is short you know that it is short. When it is deep you know it is deep. When it is not deep you know that it is not deep.
Feeling the stillness in the room, you inhale. Feeling the stillness in the room, you exhale.
If there are unpleasant sensations in the body, just learn to feel friendly and gentle towards them. Don't see them as disturbances or distractions.
We will now end with meditation of loving kindness.
If there are unpleasant sensations in the body, how far can you make friends with them without disliking them ?
If you are experiencing any unpleasant emotions, how far can you feel friendly towards them, not dislike them, not wanting them to go away ?
If you have thoughts that you don't like, how far can you feel friendly towards them and just to allow them ?
If you are not resisting any of these things, there is no suffering.
Please don't make any noises.
[ Bell ]
Now please don't think that the meditation is over. Please continue to know from moment to moment what is happening in your mind and body.
We can meditate in four postures. Sitting, standing, walking, lying down. So we'll be exploring three postures. Sitting, standing and walking.
Now let us do some standing meditation. And when you stand, please stand slowly, observing every movement when you are standing and observing the intention to stand. And please learn to stand slowly so that you will not be disturbing persons around you.
Now just feel what it is to stand. Feel the different sensations, the different movements in your body when you are standing.
So when thoughts come, gently let go of them and come back to the body, the sensations.
Experience the present moment with the help of your body.
Note carefully, sharply how sensations in the body change from moment to moment.
Feel what it is to stand with your body completely still.
And can you feel the stillness around you.
Not thinking about the past, not thinking about the future.
Experiencing the present moment with the help of the sensations and stillness.
Whatever you experience in the body, just see them as just sensations, sensations arising, sensations passing away from moment to moment.
[ Bell ]
Let us now explore walking meditation. So S.K. will give some directions, some suggestions how it can be organized.
Please be aware of all the movements in your body while you are walking. Again, experiencing the present moment with the help of walking, conscious walking.
Feel the different sensations, the movements in your body while you are walking.
Please look at the feet of the person in front.
Let go of your thoughts gently and come back to walking.
Just enjoying conscious walking.
Please don't look around. Please look at the feet of the person in front.
Can you walk as if you are walking on lotus flowers, be conscious of each step that you are taking ?
Can you feel the sensations in your knees ? Do you feel the sensations of the feet touching the floor ?
Now please try to slow down the walking so that you can be really conscious of each step that you are taking from moment to moment.
Let go of your thoughts gently and come back to walking.
Please stand wherever you are and please close your eyes.
We will now do a short sitting before yoga. So please walk slowly with moment to moment awareness to where you were seated and then we will do a short sitting. So continuity of awareness from walking to sitting is very important.
Please have moment to moment awareness.
This is going to be a very short sitting so we'll try to sit with a mind that is really alert and awake from moment to moment. And as it is a short sitting, please learn to sit without moving.
[ Bell ]
Thank you. Thank you very much. I think it was a really peaceful sitting.
Now before yoga and after yoga, please go to the toilet so that during the sitting after yoga, please try to avoid leaving the hall to go to the toilet or to go outside. Thank you.
[ Yoga ]
Discussion with Group A
Godwin
We can discuss what we have been trying to do today. So what we will try is do is go over some of the things we did today and then if you have any questions, you can present them.
So the first technique we practised was just being aware of whatever was happening. Does anyone have any question in relation to this ?
Question
When I practised walking and standing meditation, I was able to be aware of the sensations and what happened at the time but when I practised sitting this morning, I had many passing thoughts and I was carried away by these passing thoughts. So later in this afternoon if we are going to have sitting again, then if I am again carried away by the passing thoughts, can I do standing meditation instead of sitting or what other suggestion you would give to me.
Godwin
Yes. Very clear question.
In that technique I presented, it is something very simple, just to observe the passing thoughts. To just to know very clearly, very sharply, what thoughts are arising from moment to moment. So having passing thoughts should not be a problem when we have this awareness of whatever is happening.
Anything else about this technique ?
Question
Thank you for your teaching. Now I know that my suffering comes from my expectations but this is my habitual pattern, this is my bad habit. How can I stop this bad habit from coming back again. That is the first question. The second part is should I deal with this situation with sympathetic joy or with equanimity ? And the third part of the question is if I deal with it with equanimity, would there be another expectation of what I have to do?
Godwin
Well it is quite right to say that suffering is created by our expectations and that it is a strong habit in us and this is where awareness is very important. So with awareness, you catch yourself immediately when your habitual pattern arises. And then to realize that it is just a habit and that it is not reality. So that it is again, to repeat, being aware and catching the habit when it arises in whatever form and then learning to let go of it, aware that it is just a habit, nothing else. So if you can catch it as it arises it will be great because then you'll be really handling it effectively working with this habit. As I often said, as we are human, sometimes we might fail to catch it as it arises and we might become victims of this habit. So when that happens, again to reflect on what has happened when the event is over and then learn from what has happened and learn to experiment with such situations. And the best technique to work with this is of course awareness and equanimity as you have pointed out. Learning to have a non-reactive mind to whatever is happening.
Whether to have a non-reactive mind is another expectation is again to realize : I'm trying to be non-reactive but sometimes it might succeed, sometimes, it might fail so that if you can have that openness, there is very little likelihood of it becoming a strong expectation.
I'm very happy that you have made a very important discovery and I would like to say that with the aspect of discovery you are to make, I'm sure you have confidence in it, more and more discoveries, and I feel that eventually you will succeed in working with this habitual pattern.
Another thing that you were doing was focusing on breathing. Now does anyone have any question, difficulties about that technique.
Question
When I walk normally in the streets, there is no problem, very natural but when I tried to practise walking meditation and place the mindfulness on the feet, then I find that my walking was unstable.
Godwin
Actually my question was about focusing on breathing, whether there are any questions but it is alright that you asked a question about walking. I will try to respond to that.
Very interesting point that you are making because in meditation also, we have to do things naturally. This is why in the meditation of breathing one has to learn to breath naturally. In the same way when doing walking meditation, it's only slowing down but in slowing down one is learning to walk naturally. But if you try to, whether it is breathing or walking meditation, try to do it differently and not naturally, then naturally we have problems.
A very interesting point that arises from that question is when we are meditating, we feel that we should do something different, something special. So if you try to do anything as if it is something special, as if it is something different, then there'll be special problems. So please realize meditation is not something special. It is something very natural. It was so beautiful when I had a session with a group of children, so natural, simple and uncomplicated.
Anything else ?
Question
I usually meditate at night at about 1:00 a.m. and I find that when I breath, my eyes appeared to be pulled inwards. When I meditate during the day time, there is no such problem. So I would like to know whether there is a difference between meditating at night and meditating in the day time.
Godwin
It depends. If you are getting up at 1:00 a.m. I feel that maybe you are trying too hard. I am very happy that you are so motivated to start meditating at 1:00 a.m., a big plus, I like to suggest to you to try to meditate between 3:00 and 4:00 in the morning, maybe 3:30 or 4:00 and maybe the problems that you were describing may not happen then. In most meditation centres in Sri Lanka, we get up around 3:30, 4:00, 4:30. And I think it is very important that we should get enough sleep, of course depending on the individual.
There is time for one more question.
Question
When we meditate and focus on the breathing, sometimes we may find that the air around is polluted. For example when somebody is cooking nearby and there are smells, the focusing would be disturbed by the smells or polluted air. So what should we do under those circumstances. Should we stop meditating or what ?
Godwin
No, I would suggest you continue with the meditation because it might be difficult to find a place where there is no pollution. And the problem is not with the smell of food but the problem is with ourselves. If we can find ideal places where there is nice air, where there is no smell of food, that is very good. But does that mean that we should not meditate in places where there is smell of food and not very pure air ?
So in relation to the smell of food, when you get the smell of food, what you can observe is what are the thoughts that you have in relation to the smell of food. So it will be a very good insight when you get the smell of food but it is only smelling and there is no reaction to the smell that you are getting. So if that happens, you have a very important insight, a glimpse, that the problem is not with what is happening externally but what is happening inside us.
So what is beautiful about meditation is the so-called distractions and disturbances, they become teachers. Rather than waste such situations, we should learn to confront such situations and see how far even under those circumstances that you can meditate and this will give us lots of self-confidence and this will be a very very important breakthrough.
And if we meditate in a place where there is pure air, where there is no smell of food, do we think there won't be any problems for us ? Then we might have other problems.
Thank you very much for the useful questions that have been asked but what struck me was all the questions were asked by ladies. I hope the men do not have any problems.
Discussion with Group B
Godwin
Do you have any questions about what we have been trying to do today ?
Question
When we sit, is there a posture which we must stick to ?
Godwin
I would say the ideal posture will be the cross-legged posture and even in the cross-legged posture there is variation like the lotus posture is one. So anyway with whatever cross-legged posture, what is important is to have your spine erect because when you have your spine erect, it is very easy to become alert and awake and really be conscious. So this is where sometimes yoga exercises can help you to work with your posture. In the afternoon session, if you have any problems, difficulties with the sitting posture, please ask the yoga Master and he will help you with the sitting posture. And here again what is important is to have your posture where you can feel relaxed with your posture. This is very very important. To be mentally relaxed, to be physically relaxed when you meditate is extremely important.
Anything else ?
Question
Can you kindly repeat what you have said about focusing on the breathing because I was not here on the night that you were talking about focusing on breathing.
Godwin
Very briefly, firstly is allowing the body to breath naturally and then be aware of the sensations you feel within the area of the nostrils and other parts of the body when the body is breathing. And it is just simple, using the in breath and the out breath to develop awareness and to be in the present moment.
Question
When I meditate and after I have completely relaxed, I find my eyes usually became moist and tears came out. I would like to know what has happened in that situation.
Godwin
I'm happy to hear that you feel relaxed when you meditate. And then when you are relaxed if something is happening in the eyes, if that is happening, just know that it is happening. When we meditate, we really don't know what is going to happen in our mind and body. So many different things can happen in our mind and body. And if you ask the question : Why is this happening to me ? Is it the right thing or the wrong thing and then if it is right and if it is wrong, it can create more problems and it creates more suffering. So meditation is something very very simple. So whatever is happening, you just observe, you just know, and then continue and then something else is bound to happen.
Question
I would like to ask questions about the Four Sublime States, not about meditation. I work in a coroner's court as a clerk and whenever I read reports on the cases, in each case there is a deceased person. He or she may have been killed in an accident or he or she might have committed suicide. Whatever the cause of death, when I read the reports, I have to write down his or her age, occupation, address, reason for death etc and there is a code for each age, occupation and when I did this, I found that no matter whether a person is young or old, man or woman, there are a lot of suffering and it is because of those suffering that they have committed suicide or because of some negligence that they were involved in accidents. So whenever I write down a code in the file, I felt pain in my heart and sometimes what I did was do some reciting like Namo Tassa and then the pain may become a little bit less. I also found that my mind expands, thinking that the person who has committed suicide must have suffered a lot before committing the act and even thereafter in his next life, he may have to go to a place where he has to continue with the suffering so I became very unhappy. I would like to know how to handle this situation. Should I try to lessen the pain or should I just allow the pain to go on.
Godwin
I'll give a simple suggestion. You can think of the person doesn't matter how old, how young, whatever the circumstances and then think of that person wherever that person may be, may he or she be well, may he or she be happy, may he or she be peaceful, may he or she be free of suffering. So in place of the pain, in place of the grief, instead of your suffering, you will be developing loving kindness for that person. It will be good for you and it must be good for that person.
Question
Most of the time when I meditate, I found that it is very difficult to relax because there are many passing thoughts. So what is your suggestion ?
Godwin
What is wrong with passing thoughts ? There is nothing wrong with passing thoughts. Or did you think that I should not be having passing thoughts then you complain that you cannot relax. If you try today, I repeatedly mentioned, please make friends with your thoughts, please make friends with your emotions, please make friends with your sensations. I can't understand why meditators hate their passing thoughts. Poor thoughts. So when we don't meditate passing thoughts are no problem and when we are meditating, no passing thoughts. So when you're not meditating, passing thoughts, you feel very relaxed and when you're meditating, you can't relax because of the passing thoughts. Aren't we very funny ? See what we are doing in the name of meditation. Please see this very clearly.
Question
Previously, I have practised some other kind of breathing where my breathing is not natural. Now I would like to practise natural breathing and then I found that because of this change of my breathing pattern during the sitting, my body became stiff and even my skin is affected. I would like you to give some suggestions as to what I should do.
Godwin
Now when you are seated in this posture, I'm sure you're breathing. Is that creating a problem ? No. So when you sit, there's nothing special. So you see most of the questions are very interesting for me that when you meditate, it is something different, something special. There is a meditation Master in Sri Lanka who tells that when you sit and if you aim for something special, you will have special problems. Please realize that meditation is a way of living. Please realize that meditation is not only involved when you are sitting. As I said, whether it is sitting, standing, walking, lying down, in any situation, one has to have meditation of just being aware. Then meditation becomes natural, then meditation becomes part of us, then all these questions about what happens in sitting may not arise.
I think we have time for one last question.
Question
The first question is that when I was younger, I was able to sit cross-legged but now I am much older and I cannot sit cross-legged. So I would like to ask whether I can meditate in the posture in which I am now sitting. The second question is that I practise visualization and I visualize some deity or Bodhisatta and there was a night when I saw a deity coming down from the sky and I would like to ask whether this phenomenon is O.K. or not.
Godwin
First question. You are looking very beautiful, very peaceful when you are sitting on the chair.
Question
So when I sit like this, can my feet touch the ground ?
Godwin
The way you are sitting now is perfect.
Question
I am now 91 years old.
Godwin
I'm very impressed and inspired that at 91 you could be sitting so beautifully on the chair and that you could so clearly ask these questions.
About the second question, I am very sorry I have not practised visualization meditation. I'm sure you must have a teacher who is teaching you about visualization, so I think you should ask the question from the teacher. I'm very sorry.
Question
The teacher who taught me visualization has passed away.
Godwin
Then I will try to offer some suggestions. So when you visualize, when you have pleasant visualization or when you have unpleasant visualization, just try to have a mind that is equanimous in both situations. And I am sure you will be able to do that.
Thank you very much.
Discussion with Group C
Godwin
Yes. So are there any questions ?
Question
When I have negative feelings and thoughts when I sit in meditation, then how can we be friends with them and deal with them.
Godwin
A suggestion is please see it as an opportunity, as a learning experience because it is extremely important and valuable for us to learn about unpleasant emotions.
The second suggestion is , as I have been saying this morning, how far can we make friends with them, how far can we say I don't feel O.K. but it is O.K. not to feel O.K. How far can we say this.
And the third suggestion is try to find out, try to learn, what exactly is negative, unpleasant about it. Is it a thought, is it a sensation, is it an emotion ? Trying really to look deeply into what you consider as negativity.
Another tool is to think of our friend, the breath, at that time. So breathing, or as we did this morning, whilst standing, just become conscious of the sensations in the body. Just being with the breath, just being with the sensations and then if we can just be with the breath and with the sensations, you might be having less thoughts and this will help us to really to create space around that unpleasant emotion you are having.
The next tool is for us to realize that whatever arises passes away. What is funny is that if you have an unpleasant emotion, if you tell the unpleasant emotion : don't leave me, don't go. What will happen ? It won't stay. Or even if you say : stay with me. It will change. So we have no control. So these things arise, these things pass away. So just to be open to that important aspect of what the Buddha taught.
Another very important point is when these unpleasant emotions are not there, just to know that they are not there. So because it is changing, sometimes we have pleasant emotions, sometimes we have unpleasant emotions. We can't be having all these pleasant emotions nor will we be having all these unpleasant emotions. So again to be open to both and to know when they are there and when they are not there.
And the last tool is to realize these are visitors that come to our mind. So you must be a very good host. So let these visitors come and let these visitors go. So when visitors come, as a good host you must say : Hello, welcome. Make friends with them. Talk to them. Why have you come ? What can I learn from them. And when they leave, say : Goodbye. Come back. So in this way, we can sometimes learn to play with their coming and going. So rather than see them as problems, you see them as very interesting situations, challenges, to work with these interesting visitors we have. And it has a very deep Buddhist insight which means that these visitors do not belong to us. The problem arises when we think they belong to us and say this is my sadness, this is my anxiety. So I hope you will wait for these visitors to come and learn to use some of these tools. When you develop lots of self-confidence, that when they arise, you know what to do.
Anything else ?
Question
I want to share some experience on how to make friends with unpleasant experience.
Godwin
Thank you very much.
Question
At the beginning, I think it may be difficult for us to welcome unpleasant experiences . When they come, we will not like them but I think reflection is very important. After the unpleasant experience has gone, we can reflect on the situation and gradually we will discover that we can really learn a lot from unpleasant experiences and they are really my great teachers. Then gradually we will even welcome unpleasant experiences. So I think reflection is very important.
Godwin
So I hope that those who have problems with unpleasant emotions will have the experience of learning to make friends with emotions.
Question
When I meditate, it's not necessary that there is unpleasant or pleasant sensations. Sometimes there are practical questions which arise which need to be answered. For example, in daily life there are things which we should handle. As you said, we should respond but not react. So when those questions arise, should we think about the solution during the meditation because it is very natural that when such questions arise, we need to think how to handle them. So can we think whilst we meditate ?
Godwin
Yes, a useful question. So here this brings up an important technique in meditation which is called reflection.
Reflection is using thoughts in a very creative way. Usually we use thoughts destructively to create our own suffering but here when you use thoughts creatively, you're using it to work with the suffering, all kinds of suffering. So what is important is with a mind that is calm, with a mind that is clear, you start to reflect on the problem you are supposed to be having. And a very interesting exercise is to see that problem, to see that situation, from different angles. Usually we see only one or two aspects of the problem but when we reflect in this way, we can see so many areas, so many aspects of this problem that we are reflecting on. So this in itself, as I said, becomes a meditation and from this, a solution to the problem may arise in this kind of meditative reflection.
Question
Master, when we practise a non-reactive mind, we have this negative feeling, we try to overcome this negative involvement, say worries, things like that, negative emotions. Would we become a piece of wood or lose interest in life or lose the ambition to succeed? Is there a problem there?
Godwin
In relation to unpleasant emotions, I offered many tools. So when I offered the tools, I never spoke about a non-reactive mind. Working with unpleasant emotions, you should not have the idea that you will have a non-reactive mind. In which case, I should have just said there is only one tool, a non-reactive mind. I didn't say that. In Sri Lanka, people who have grief, they have lost a son in the war, I just can't tell them : Just have a non-reactive mind. It doesn't work. So I would tell them to start with that it is natural that you have grief inside. We all have grief in us. So it is natural and then try to, as I said earlier, to work with them and then, try the different tools that I mentioned.
I think maybe the problem with the question is I think with the phrase, non-reaction, you feel that you do not need any action. Is that the problem you have ? Is that what is worrying you ?
Question
No. If we are non-reactive to things, outside circumstances, there may be a danger that we would have no feelings and as a result, not interested in anything else.
Godwin
Yesterday, for a few days I have been speaking about Mett@, Karun@, Mudit@, Upekkh@. And I said that they are really making an effort to open our heart because they are all qualities of the heart. So firstly, when you have Mett@, you learn to open your heart to yourself, feeling for yourself. Then when you have Mett@ for others, you really open your heart to others. So you're relating to others with warmth. And the second quality that I mentioned was Karun@ which means really feel for the suffering of others. Really feel concern and care for others. So if you do not have feelings, you cannot care and have concern for others. And in the same way, if you do not care for yourself, then you don't have Karun@ for yourself. I have been emphasizing so much the importance of joy and lightness. And joy and lightness is nothing but the area of your heart, feelings. And non-reactive mind, maybe I should use a different phrase for you, that is : to be cool without being cold. So I like to tell my friend not to use the word "non-reactive" but to use the words, "cool but not cold". Is it clear now ? Thank you.
Question
Can you give us some idea how to try to maintain your joy and compassion and warmth to people you see day in and day out who are negative. I find it very difficult. I get swallowed up in their negativity after a while and I can't help them and then I can't help myself.
Godwin
Although it is time for yoga, I will still respond to that question because it is a very important question. Because I think everyone here can relate to that question specially in everyday life, sometimes we are forced to see people whom you consider as negative. Maybe starting with your husband or wife or probably your boss. So what do we do when we have to relate to such people ? Fortunately or unfortunately, you can't avoid them. So you can't escape from them. Then what do we do ? So I will give some suggestions as usual. First suggestion is don't be surprised. Why ? They are unenlightened beings including yourself. So it is very very important to realize that we are living in a world which is full of imperfect human beings including yourself. Put it in a more stronger language, according to the Buddha, until we are enlightened, we are all crazy. We are crazy in the sense that no one can claim that we can always see things as they are. We all see things subjectively not objectively. So in this sense, we are all crazy. So we are lving in a crazy world. So when you see imperfections in every day arising whether in yourself or in others, please don't be surprised.
The second suggestion is when you see imperfection in others, try to remind yourself : I am also imperfect like that person. Otherwise, we have a self-righteous attitude : I am perfect, the other person is negative. I am positive, the other person is negative. Is there anyone here who is always positive ? Are you always positive ? So just to realize : Now the other person is negative so I can also be behaving like that. Then you become more and more humble.
The third suggestion is try to see them as your gurus, as your teachers, as your masters. I like to mention now that I have been called a master but I like to see myself as a spiritual friend and not as a master. But please when you see negative people, please see them as masters. Why ? The master is showing you a mirror. So what we do is when we are angry, with the mirror, look at your face in the mirror. So whichever way the master is behaving, look at your own emotions. What are the emotions that are coming ? I'm giving that person a minus. See I'm getting angry. I'm getting annoyed. I'm getting agitated. See all the emotions that are arising thanks to the master. The function of a good master is to try to test whether you are good meditators. So this master is testing you whether you are a good meditator. And then something very difficult, something very interesting is : can you see the master sometimes as if for the first time. Sometimes we come to the conclusion this person is a negative person. So everytime you see that person, you relate to that person with that conclusion, with that prejudice, with that bias. Sometimes we see what we want to see. So poor master, even if the poor master is behaving in a positive way, see how negative that person is, see the way that person is looking at me because we only want to see what we want to see.
And the last suggestion is ask the master what are the negative things you can see in me. That will be very revealing. Thank you very much. Enjoy your yoga.
[ Yoga ]
Godwin
So we will now try to meditate on our thoughts because in the discussion, there were people who were having difficulties with thoughts. So let us learn to meditate on thoughts.
So just learning to observe, just learning to watch. Thoughts that arise and thoughts that pass away in our mind.
So let us learn to make friends with our thoughts. To observe them very sharply, very clearly.
Let us see how far we can observe the thoughts without judging them. No plus. No minus. Just letting thoughts come, letting thoughts go again.
If you are judging the thoughts, just know that you are judging them. And see the difference when you are judging and when you are not judging the thoughts.
If some of you are having difficulties with unpleasant emotions, can you allow them to arise now if there is a need to arise.
Sadness, fear, anxiety, depression, whatever you don't like, let them arise now.
If there are no such unpleasant emotions, just to know that they are not there and if they are there, just to know that they are there and then make friends with them.
[ Bell ]
So I will offer some suggestions how to integrate meditation in daily life.
One can see meditation as medicine. Medicine for the sickness that we create ourselves. The first point to be very clear in your mind is : Are you really interested in taking the medicine? Have you really made a commitment to take the medicine? Because if you have really made a commitment to take the medicine, one can never say I forgot to take the medicine or I have no time to take the medicine. You all have different priorities in life but where this taking medicine figure in the list of priorities ? So this is a very important point to be clear. This is the first point I like to make.
The second point is, as you know, we have been emphasizing the importance of just knowing, just being aware, just finding out what is happening to us especially in our daily life. So one has to make an effort, a sincere effort, during the day, to make conscious effort to try to be aware, to try to be conscious of what is happening to you. Maybe a good time to do this is in the morning.
Now just as we wake up in the morning, you may have lots of things to do but just as you wake up in the morning, can you just spend a few minutes just even lying down on your bed. I mean it would be ideal if you can do some sitting meditation in the morning even for a short time but let us assume that you are too busy in the morning but at least lying down and spending even 5 minutes in the lying down posture and maybe start the day with loving kindness meditation just feeling friendly towards yourself and maybe radiating thoughts of loving kindness. And it is useful to have just a wish, today during the day, may I get an opportunity to practise loving kindness, Karun@, Mudit@ and other things that we have been discussing. So this is a beautiful way to begin the day. It won't take more than 5 minutes, less than 10 minutes.
Then there are certain things that we have to do in the morning. However much you are busy, I think everyone will brush their teeth in the morning. No one will say I don't have time to brush my teeth. Now here again, can we just practise a little awareness, mindfulness when we are brushing our teeth, just as an example. What happens when we brush our teeth ? Again, we have thoughts. We hardly know we are brushing our teeth. This becomes a very very strong habit in us. So as it is a strong habit, thoughts will come. So just with awareness, knowing thoughts are arising, knowing thoughts are coming and then, just learning to let go of the thoughts and come back to brushing, just conscious brushing of your teeth.
However much you are busy, you are bound to go to the toilet. It is interesting in the main text, the Buddha described how we should develop awareness and in this text it says that when you are even in the toilet, try to be aware, try to be conscious of what is happening when you are in the toilet. So I call this toilet meditation. So if you are really interested, if you are really motivated, if you really want to take the medicine and if you are so busy, at least you will have time to do toilet meditation.
Then I think you will definitely be having breakfast. I won't be telling you to eat breakfast in silence because it is not possible. At least spending one minute before you start eating breakfast feeling grateful. Maybe someone has prepared the breakfast for you. It is beautiful to feel grateful for that person or even if you have prepared breakfast yourself, just feel grateful now today I prepared my breakfast and now I'm eating my breakfast. Just to develop this quality of feeling grateful. This is a very important aspect, very important spiritual quality.
Then at least to make an effort not to allow the eating of breakfast but at least occasionally, to come back to awareness, just to come back to tasting, just to come back to swallowing, chewing. Just make an effort to do that.
Then what happens ? Maybe you have to go to work. Now work is a very very interesting place. Very interesting challenges. Now in the place of work, a very important aspect, and also in everyday life, is the problem of relationships. How to relate to people around you. Because as I said, we live in an imperfect human world. So most of the time, all the time, we have to encounter, we have to have relationships with imperfect human beings. Now here what we can try to do, as I suggested, is try to learn from them. The importance of meditation, the importance of awareness is trying to watch your own mind in relating to others. And it is natural, don't be surprised, you are bound to have unpleasant emotions in relating to people. So this is the importance of awareness. This is the importance of watching. This is the importance of learning. And see how we can work with the emotions, how we can understand them, how we let go of them. Supposing at that time, we are unable to do that and we get angry, we get annoyed, we show our anger, we express our anger. And what happens when we do this ? Again, please don't be surprised. Please learn not to give yourself a minus. This is very very important. If you do not have time there, when you go back home or when you have a little space, then what you can do is to reflect on what really happened. As I said earlier, learning to reflect and this reflection, this exploration, has to be done in a very very friendly gentle way and not in a harsh hard way, being extremely critical of yourself and seeing yourself as a failure.
So this would be a very creative way of living where we really learn from our mistakes. Our mistake becomes an area for our spiritual growth. I like to suggest rather than give yourself a minus, please give yourself a plus for this. You deserve a big plus because you are learning from this, you are trying to use them as part of your spiritual growth. So shouldn't we rejoice for this learning, growing and our effort to do this. Again to feel grateful for such an opportunity.
Now here it does not mean allowing others to do what they like to do, allowing yourself to be exploited. So sometimes in certain situations, we need to be assertive, we need to be firm because some people understand only that language. So here again you very deliberately, consciously, now I'm going to be very firm, I'm going to be assertive in relation to this person. So you do it with complete awareness. I know some meditation teachers, some meditation masters who pretend they are getting angry with their students in order to awaken their students. So it can be used as a tool. It can be used as a device.
And I also would like to suggest that during the day specially if you are very busy, just try to take very very brief times when you can spend some time on yourself. You don't have to leave the place of work and you can still be seated on your chair and you can even have your eyes open so no one really knows what is happening and then, please spend some time with your friend, the breath. Even for 5 minutes, it will create space in your mind. Even for 5 minutes, the build-up that is happening in your office, or whatever you are doing, there can be some recovery and some space and this will really help you. And of course you have the freedom when in the office also to do some toilet meditation where you can be completely alone, secluded. So during the day, whatever emotions that would arise, whatever states of mind that would arise and they are bound to arise in a place where it is busy and so on, but what we have to do is to make them the objects of meditation.
And when you go back home, maybe you'll be too tired to meditate, so at least spend 10 minutes, maybe not in the cross-legged posture but just lying down on a chair and just reflect on how you spent the day. Try to do this reflection in a very friendly gentle way : Now how did I spend the day today ? What were the times when I had unpleasant emotions ? What were the times when they were not there ? This is equally important. Sometimes you might be surprised that for the whole day, you were angry only once. So in this way, this can really help you to understand, to discover about yourself, about how you are relating to yourself, how you are relating to others. And this can naturally bring about a transformation in oneself.
Maybe another point related to this is, as I have indicated earlier, it's a really powerful, very practical direct practice, is to see the Four Noble Truths in everyday life. It will be really excellent, it will be wonderful when you are suffering during the day, if you can remind yourself, here I'm experiencing the Buddha's first noble truth. You will see if you can tell yourself all this, if you can remind yourself, you'll be relating to that suffering in an entirely different way. And then if you can really from that move to the second noble truth : Now let me see, in what way am I creating my own suffering ? And then you can use the third noble truth and the fourth noble truth in this way. During the day, just find out when you are free, when there is no suffering and then find out : Now there is no suffering, what is the reason, why is there no suffering ? So if you can really learn to use the Four Noble Truths in daily life, in this practical simple direct way, you'll be living in the Buddha's teaching whether you are suffering or whether you are not suffering. Isn't that a beautiful way to live ?
Maybe a few more practical suggestions. In the Buddha's teaching, spiritual friends are very much emphasized. So you are very fortunate here that you have many groups doing meditation. So it is good to join one such group and it is good to cultivate friendship from spiritual and noble friends.
So spiritual friendship is learning to grow together. I was speaking about relationships earlier. In the relationships you have with different people, if you can also see them as spiritual friends, again it is a very positive way of relating to each other. Anyway, if there are meditation groups, please join one of them.
Another helpful suggestion is to read about the Buddha's teaching. So here again there are some very valuable books that have been translated and I think some of them are already distributed here. So it is good to read them and good to reflect on them. So this can really inspire us and this can also be an incentive for us to practise and this would be reminding ourselves of the importance of taking the medicine.
I like to pause now and if you have any questions and I feel the kind that might be more valuable is if you can present me with difficulties and say now in this situation, how can a meditator respond ? So if you have such situations, such difficulties, in your everyday life, we might be able to discuss such situations.
Question
Master, I like to ask if we are sick and we are suffering from great pain or other things, spiritually can we practise meditation because I think in that way, we are not in a fit state of mind.
Godwin
So if I understood the question correctly, it means there are certain situations where we are really overwhelmed by emotions where there is lot of suffering and it is not possible to think of meditation at that time.
So what I would suggest is that you can wait until you recover from that state of mind. It does not matter how long it takes and then as I suggested earlier, then you can look back, you can reflect : Now what really happened to me ? What really made me go through the physical and mental suffering ? What can I learn from that experience ? And maybe this is why the importance of spiritual friends, maybe at that moment, if you have a spiritual friend, it is something very wholesome, very skillful, just to share your suffering with another person. This is how we help each other.
Any other question ?
Question
I occasionally join talks on Buddhism like this one and I sit and meditate occasionally. There was an experience when I was sitting, I felt some force or very strong sensation arose in my abdomen towards my heart and it made me very uncomfortable. And then emotion arose and I cried. Can you comment on this phenomenon ?
Godwin
As I said this morning, when we meditate, we really don't know what is going to happen. As it happened to you, the most unexpected thing can happen. So when such things would happen, please don't be surprised and please don't blame yourself. Please don't give that experience a big minus. And as I said this morning, please don't try to understand it. Sometimes we don't know. Sometimes we cannot understand it intellectually. So what we can do is just know it. This is the beauty of awareness. This is why the Buddha said this is the only way. So just to realize this is what is happening to me and just to be with it. And as I said, if it is very unpleasant, you can say : I don't really feel O.K. but it's O.K. not to feel O.K. Just really feel it, just really say it.
And the last point, and I consider it as a very important point, is