Ajahn Jutindharo: Embodied Knowing

So just so that you know I'm planning on just talking for a little while Hopefully about 20 minutes Something like that. Yeah, please Be comfortable So it's just to acknowledge really that we're on the third full day of the retreat We're now well into the time together and Three of us Teachers leaders for the retreat we think we're quite aware there's a big range of experience and experiences in the room Think some of you Doing you know, I'm quite happy enjoying some of you Quite a lot of stuff coming up maybe going through quite a lot Some of you maybe still I'm I still have I quite arrived yet still only day three So just to acknowledge that There's no right way that ought to be nice three days into retreat and I should have had some some Jhana by now Where's the bliss and and then with that also to acknowledge and to encourage a lot in the same ways that we've been speaking about really from the beginning It's tuning in Recognizing what is happening for us so being As honest as we can with that This is how it is Because that's our starting point Or I say this is how it is this may be another way better way might be to say this is how it seems to be There is this present Maybe there are other things present as well so maybe not to make what seems to be Center and foremost the only thing and sometimes that quite often some of the Like the the antidote if you like to some of the things which are challenging difficult. They're also there Also present But harder for us to notice so then in terms of practice and part of the Learning for us all is Is a sense of do I need a bit more do I need a little less? Do I need to be Trying harder trying less do I need to be a little more structured and Just trying to use words fairly carefully here, but you might have your own worstlies fairly disciplined about things You know, what do I actually need to soften that? Maybe I'm a bit too rigid too tight And maybe what would be what's needed now is Somehow to find a way to soften that and often this is about Challenging or Recognizing our some of our underlying tendencies in our habits. So one example You know something like that would be an assumption that Like I have to I Have to be somebody I have to do something I Have to be a certain way. I ought to be I should Maybe I want to be and when we practice in the meditation when we're quiet and and A lot of the day-to-day Demands and busyness and activity Is And we put it aside then these With like the the unconscious script is still running It's still there and it shows up even in our practice In different ways so I can give an example my own experience was was Coming to meditation I started off with mindfulness of breathing method Fairly structured and you know certain amount of Ability to do that In the early stages and that gave me some encouragement. It's like oh, I'm not quite sure I'm not very good at it, but I can notice some difference some benefit. So I think I'm doing something good here So when I wanted to carry on And actually one way or another that led me to actually ordaining as a monk And over the years of course I quite quickly found my my ability to Stay within the sort of technique the method was quite limited getting very frustrated very If I'm not getting frustrated, I've just wandered off and I'm somewhere else anyway So This isn't really working terribly well for me and even though I'd heard Many teachers and my teachers saying you just have a broader attention Doesn't need to be so Focused in a sort of narrow way and I'd taken that on board and those Okay, a bit more spacious, but after about 15 years one day I'm in the monastery big big monastery lots in the big community lots of monks and nuns lots of lay people are there And I'm relatively senior by this point I'm on the sort front row of the monks So it's the evening meditation time the community is all there and I've been really tired Working really hard Sometimes when I lived there that time I'd be it was like I was doing a full-time job and then I have chronic fatigue But I like to go to the meditation But I've sort of acknowledged that over a while I My practice was really flat Basically, I was bored. It was going nowhere That's all going through the motions so one evening I'm sitting there 15 minutes into the meditation and I thought what am I doing? What am I doing? and I'm really grateful that I had It wasn't a sort of what am I doing and just get up and walk out It was it was it was a more reflective What am I doing? What's going on and of course the reality was I was exhausted and And and the practice was going nowhere So I was frustrated irritable frustrated with myself And I started to notice okay, yeah, that's that But what am I doing? What am I what am I trying to do and I recognize that although it's quite subtle I Had this sense of I really want my meditation to be nice Although I was trying to be quite spacious my tension just Often inclines back towards the breath Sometimes I can be beautiful, but it wasn't at that time So my tension was with the breath breath is not comfortable. The body is not comfortable It's aching It's sore and fed up and what am I doing and what I was doing was I was trying to make the breath just be right Just like I could feel myself leaning into my breathing. It's quite subtle, but I could feel that in my body I'm leaning forward a bit my head is a little bit up when I'm sort of stretching That's really interesting. So I didn't do anything About it. It's like just noticing and then made that The object of my curiosity, that's what I'm interested in. This is really interesting It's not very nice. It's uncomfortable And I know I don't want to be doing this or something be much more comfortable if I wasn't But I don't know quite what Don't know quite what to do and of course Well, like any of us I have the capacity I have the capacity I could have just picked my head up or Okay, and I just sit back and Relaxed how myself to relax and do something But it occurred to me Now if I do that that's still coming from this place of me trying to make things right Me trying to fix things and that's not really working I'm very used to doing that quite good at doing that some of the time but maybe maybe there's something different needed here and So I don't want to be coming from that place with that intention. How do I do that? I don't know What to do? So I was just staying there. It's getting it's getting uncomfortable. I don't And then it occurred to me. What do I feel like doing? It's really sore here Why I just dropped my head and my neck's hurting my shoulders are hurting So I thought Might just be kind More like a practice of loving kindness Or some compassion for this body Rather than telling it what to do and pulling it around and Come on do this and do that and be like this If I oh It's hurting. It's tired It just I want to sit here. Okay. Maybe I can just still now my head to drop And my shoulders. I just gently found myself This feels so good My shoulders Thank you, thank you. I'm just allowing myself to stay Don't it's just so nice. I'm not in a hurry to pull myself up and get back to the meditation I'm just gonna stay here for a while 15 years. I think I deserve it It's okay. It's all right. I think so Of course and then then the question is this is not a very comfortable position and I get back egg so Little while What am I gonna do now? Again because I don't want to be coming from Being directive It would I've found myself in a play well. Wow, this feels really nice really good Don't know why I wasn't doing this earlier How can I come out of this or what what next because it's going to start it's already getting a little bit uncomfortable It's all so what what to do and again just staying with not not being sure not knowing knowing that Somehow I need to come more upright, but I'm not quite sure how that's going to happen and then So just staying with our not getting too anxious around the whole thing Backstabbing the hurt and come on. I'm gonna do something. No, no, it's okay at the moment It's all right. I'll be with it for a little while. Let's just see And then I noticed When we Contracted in that sort of way chest is compressed Breath is compressed. It's not terribly comfortable. So my breathing is quite shallow. I just happened to notice Oh when I'm with the inhalation a little sense of energy and Little lift and with the exhalation. I don't need to Can stay soft, but I don't need to sink So it's very gradually with each Little breath and just allowing the breath to be as it was. There's just a little sense of just very slowly Breath by breath is coming more upright and as we started to come more upright the breath Actually gets longer Because the chest is more open Feel that feels good. Yeah, it feels just good to come up and the body wants to do it came into being upright and Sitting there. Oh wow, it's feel Really refreshed My neck's not hurting my shoulders aren't hurting And you know the amazing thing is body's breathing and it just feels comfortable All this effort I've been making It's been too much needed to be a bit more soft and Notice what else was going on And the tend to that as well and then everything's just seems to have come together more easily It only lasted a little while Before I had the idea. Okay. Well, I haven't been meditating now So in a matter of to get back to the meditation and And there's this movement towards the breath I couldn't stop myself doing it because that was my habit and what happened My breath just goes No way and tightened up It's uncomfortable feeling in the chest. It was a big lesson So I've talked for as long as I wanted to I Carried on with that practice and over over days and weeks It's been being curious about that noticing Okay, there's a signal here something's not working It's not because I haven't been trying I haven't made effort in a certain way Maybe I need to be not only to adapt that somehow and Been willing to experiment and I started to experiment a lot more around Making effort not making effort and for a long time I had a Question I can't say really a serious doubt. But it's like am I really meditating? Yeah, okay. That was nice. But is this really meditation? And something in me was like Well, if this is I mean whatever I was doing before I Think after 15 years it wasn't working very well for me. So I'm gonna give this a go and if it's a dead end I can I can come back and I can say well, okay back to back to just you know Plugging away at the breath or maybe something else. I don't know But actually it opened it opened doors And say for quite a long time I just felt my heretic here on That evening when I've been bent over like this I had I was sitting at the front Front row would look most of the community behind me and there'd have been if they had their eyes open They would have seen me What are people going to think And I knew it was ridiculous I don't care actually but What what people going to think I even open my eyes and just Jokingly for myself. I'll just repeat to my right And a peak to my left Just To engage with what's out there. I thought reality check. Yeah, and the monk to my right And usually it's out very well and very nice posture and he was sitting there Eyes closed of course inside fine and the monk to my left was doing this Which was like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah often seem doing that yeah No, it's like whatever, you know if anyone's got their eyes open fine. That's no problem So again, it's like finding ways Sometimes we can do it with a bit of humor Or bulls or playfulness And that can be something also really helpful in our practice when we're getting very serious and very stuck and Something just a little bit left field We're just having that possibility that something else might come in and I'm just not Noticing it because I'm so fixed on this So just a few little Reflection if that's useful for anyone so Let's take Let's just take a minute or two if you want to stretch and then maybe we can sit for Maybe 25 minutes 30 minutes We'll just sit stand Lie down never feels right never feels good. We'll have a period 45 minutes walking or Carry on sitting or lying down standing