Gavin Milne: Talk - Wisdom is Not Enough

So good evening everyone. And again with these teachings really allowing what feels resonant or a spark for your curiosity to land and if anything doesn't feel like it feels so helpful just it can be there for another time. As I mentioned the other night that in a very real way the best we can do is point. And much of it we're then trying to work out in our own direct experience. And I also mention that because in a certain way maybe straying into some things that are a little hard to put language around. It's the possibility of nuance being missed and we work with languages that are so binary and we say one side of something and then the other side gets missed. And yet there's something in the domain of what we're doing where some things are a little paradoxical. And that's the sort of the shift from language into direct experience, suchness. And I guess I had a little bit of a flavour of this when I was thinking of the title of the talk actually. I kind of had a bit of initially I was going to say tug of war but I think maybe it was Jake's Ikeaido that was happening inside of me. The title that wanted to come was Wisdom Alone is Not Enough. And the initial idea was A Beautiful Life which is how Jake finished his talk yesterday and maybe in some way this is all kind of part of the same thing. So I mentioned on the first evening that there are these two rupas, these two forms, these two statues in the Dharma Hall here. And when I first came to Gaya House that wasn't the setup, we just had the Buddha here right in the middle. And at some point whilst I was here as a coordinator I think Kuan Yin arrived maybe first a little bit lower down in front of the Buddha and then to the side and then Kuan Yin's now up here. And there's probably everyone at Gaya House probably has a different explanation as to how that happened. But I like to think there's something just a little more subliminal going on. And just to say a little bit more about Kuan Yin, she's in a very meditative posture here but that's not always the case. She appears in different versions of her around the building. And first of all very much the feminine sense here. And she's sometimes depicted particularly when painted in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition as having, I think it's a thousand arms going in all directions. And on each hand there's an eye as in like a seeing eye. And it's a really powerful image. She is the embodiment of compassion, the Bodhisattva of compassion, and very central to the more recent traditions of Buddha Dharma. But I also like the nuance in this sense of the thousand arms. It's not just actually about seeing everything in all directions with this sort of wise detached view. It's actually also to do with the sensitivity and precision and responsiveness that each of these hands can offer. So you can imagine a young baby who's crying once a particular type of response or other difficulties in turbulent parts of the world. Different response or an adult who's struggling with something, a different response. So there's this sense of attunement with this figure, Kuan Yin. And also you know his Holiness the Dalai Lama who's effectively in that framing of things in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition and a very real emanation of this quality of compassion. He quite often and it's quite interesting and maybe he's wanting to say this more and more in the world these days. He'll say things like my religion is kindness. And so there's something when we're in the domain of love we really are also starting to come out of this or that. Indeed in some ways anything we can particularly put into a box and it's just very curious that he very often will say that and really emphasize that. You know my religion is kindness. I want to see the similarities between people, not the differences so much. So it translates from the Chinese, the one who perceives the sounds or attends to the cries of the world. And so there is this sense of sort of also responding, needing to hear those cries. There's something very immediate of the moment of the time that Kuan Yin rests in. And in the later traditions there's also this idea here with these two qualities. So wisdom represented by the historical Buddha, compassion, Kuan Yin. This sense of the wings of awakening which is a lovely image because we know how birds fly and what's required. And also this sense of both wings being somewhat different but also very much part of the same thing as well. But balancing, working together and also love the image of flying, needing to be really attuned to the air, to the conditions, to the wind, this kind of thing. So a sense of balancing each other and very much a kind of hallmark perhaps of the later traditions. And it's quite interesting because in a sense the practices that we're grounded in here at Gaia House or though very much the movement kind of weaves in aspects of all the different Buddhist traditions is actually the early Buddhist teachings. But if you like really a representation here very much of the one of the later traditions called the kind of Mahayana sense of really being in the world in a monk's step. So this evening in a sense sort of a bit of an exploration of this quality of compassion and sort of already acknowledging I'm going to be limited with words. But hopefully to point to something in our experience that we can explore. And also to say that my own practice and experience there's something here that doesn't feel like it's ever particularly going to be resolved. But there's a certain sense of a directionality that feels like it's becoming clearer in my own experience. So this sense with love, compassion, the immediacy, it's always in relationship to the here and now, to this world these times. So it's not necessarily something we can ever fully put into a box and say that's it. Kind of know exactly how this all fits together and what a path of practice needs to look like and what it does and all of these things. There's something maybe much more alive, dynamic and personal in amongst this terrain. So the teacher, Gil Fransdale, this is really from the perspective of how the qualities of love and Buddhism sort of correlate with our practice of freedom. He just uses a nice little analogy. Just as blood nourishes the heart which keeps it flowing, so love nourishes spiritual freedom and is in turn kept flowing by it. So again, some of these analogies might sort of point a little better than just regular words. And so in early Buddhism, compassion is one of the four, what's known as the Brahma vaharas, divine abidings or boundless loves. Now there's many, many different types of love, but Buddhism is very much to do with freedom, supporting freedom in ourselves, freedom in the world. As we mentioned, the primary bind according to this map, this understanding. So it emphasizes the forms of love that are characterized by freedom, support freedom. So it's really important again, you know, living the kind of lives that we do, that there's many, many different varieties of love, some very, very personal. You know, we've already spoken about courage in the meditation hall. This is a particular type of love. But there's also these loves that in their essence can be boundless, not limited in space at all. And thus something that can be nurtured and expanded on further and further potential. It's potential to bring more of these qualities into the world. Divine abidings is another translation of Brahma vahara. I like sometimes in my mind somehow they sort of, I kind of tune into the sense of an ocean, you know, qualities of like an ocean of love. And that sense of boundlessness, of expansiveness, of flow, of fluidity. And so the first of these is meta loving kindness, which we've been nurturing and practicing together. So there's again, there's different ways to imagine this, but this sense of this underlying boundlessness, if you like, that in a very real way we can start to nurture into our being. And this is actually a pretty good translation of what we usually call meditation practice. But the word in the old language, Bhavana, actually means more closely bringing into being. So that maybe already has a slightly different flavour, you know. I know when I heard that I thought, goodness, that there I was trying to kind of quieten this monkey mind down and kind of press it into a concentrated shape. And actually what we're doing here is maybe a little bit more like gardening, you know, bringing into being, coming out of some of the tides of the surface and all the waves that we can find ourselves in and starting to open perhaps to deeper and often more boundless qualities. So meta loving kindness. Now in the early tradition there's also a sense of these somewhat kind of building upon each other as well. So we practice loving kindness, this sense of, you know, sort of closeness, connection. And then we have karuna, which is compassion, which lies at the heart of these qualities of love. And then we have mudita, which is sympathetic joy, translated as often, appreciative joy. And upayka, which is often translated as equanimity. And you know, again, sometimes the words don't quite land fully for us or point closely enough. Again, sort of return to this sense of the ocean, the loving kindness, this sense of, you know, just the connectedness of the ocean. It's fundamentally connected. And then compassion may be this sense of, you know, the ocean, the water always being able to move in accordance with the pressure. You know, where is the turbulence? Where does the water need to move to to resolve some of the turbulence? This is one way in my mind that I sometimes think of these. And mudita, appreciative joy, could be like the swelling up of the ocean sometimes. You know, sometimes we can feel this in our experience. It's kind of someone else's joy or good fortune. We kind of rise up with that too. And the fourth upayka equanimity, just the sense of the oneness of the whole thing. So someone that teaches here, sometimes Martin Aylwood sort of frames these quite nicely. The love that cares, loving kindness, the love that responds, compassion, the love that rejoices, mudita, and the love that allows. Equanimity. You can see how there's really a place for all of these qualities. Sometimes compassion, the felt sense of it sometimes, and you can probably all relate to this in our own lives. The quivering of the heart in response to suffering. You know, it's right there, isn't it? Like, what does that actually tell us about who and what we are when we have that quiver in our heart when someone else is experiencing pain or difficulty? It's almost, our interconnectivity is almost staring us in the face that we don't see it, you know. That it kind of is love, isn't it? So in terms of practice, there's huge possibilities with these qualities. It's the sense of an expanded heart, the essence of these qualities. It's possible to embrace all living beings and someone like His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, really do sort of sense that with Him, this sort of capacity to really care for all living beings, it seems to me, in a way that doesn't seem contrived. And also very helpful to know because, you know, if we think of meditation practice as a little bit like gardening, this potential to nurture different qualities when we come out of the disentanglement of the things that usually keep us on the surface, these qualities very much associated with well-being, steadiness, and also strength. So in the teachings they're spoken of as strengths, you know, sometimes sense of friendliness and if we're practicing, one or two of us might have been practicing loving kindness or friendliness towards a fluffy dog or animal yesterday, you know, it can have a little bit this, or loves a bit fluffy and you know, but in the teachings very clearly spoken of as strengths. So again, very helpful to know we can lean towards some of these qualities depending on the circumstances of our life and they also arise naturally through the practice of what we've been doing here, nurturing the qualities, curiosity, awareness. And there can be this sense that, you know, compassion supported by a base sense of friendliness. Although again, one of the things I wonder in these times whether it might be, might sometimes feel a little bit different if I really look in myself, I sometimes think, you know, compassion is the movement that feels more primary to me sometimes. And again, you know, we're in times, aren't we, where the cries of the world are a certain way and we can be sort of true and interested about, yeah, what happens for us in relation to that, you know, the sense of wanting to turn away, which is completely natural, you know, absolutely, especially if we don't really have a sense of what's possible with these qualities. Oh, too overwhelming, you know, or at times it just breaks through and it's like, my goodness. And so part of what I want to touch on this evening is really how compassion and wisdom work and in a sense mature together and what's possible in that. So I think one of the sort of perhaps misunderstandings that we can carry or it might be at times there in our culture or, you know, we just pick up along the way is this sense that compassion to a degree is sort of maybe at the taking on of a certain burden versus being utterly to do with happiness and deep well-being. I say that sensitively because in amongst all of this it really does feel overwhelming and burdensome sometimes, but in its essence the quality that we're really pointing to, it kind of actually, it really serves our well-being too and actually has the capacity to meet what we're turning towards. And it's really helpful to know that again something, His Holiness the Dalai Lama really seems to want to communicate fairly regularly. If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion, he says. But also helpful to know, you know, we're not just talking about a particular feeling that can be there sometimes, but also an attitude and intention. And so really helpful to know in a sense, you know, if we really track it back, I'm pretty sure the reason that we're here is to do with some form of care, you know. And it's very apparent sat here at the front of the hall looking at all of you. It's like goodness me, you know, what a, what a kind of movement of care that's happening here. And yeah, there may be, you know, critical inner voice may have a slightly different take on things, but really the, perhaps unconscious movement is to do with care. It's kind of, it's all about care. So with the Wings of Awakening, there's this sense of it being important that it is balanced with wisdom and that the two work together and support each other. Because, yeah, often it can be just the various things that surround the heart, this sense of overwhelm and fear can also be there. So sometimes the wisdom is like, I need to take care of here first. This is a little bit like the oxygen mask on the aeroplane that's in trouble sort of analogy. And then from there, we have different options available and options that might serve us just as well as they might serve others or the world around. And you might even sense here, you know, on this retreat, this sense of how turning towards our own experience here is really connecting us with this quality, this intention. We've been using the word kindness, but when we meet that which is more challenging, more difficult, this is the aligning with the intention, the possibility of compassion. And I was reflecting a little bit today actually. And again, this might be, I think the thing that I'm curious about is how our inner landscape is sort of obviously mirroring the conditions of our life in many ways. You know, we are the conditions of the situations we've grown up in, the culture and such like. And I was reflecting on the rain steps that we've been exploring and applying, particularly when there's been more challenging things going on. And it's interesting that the acronym initially was Recognize, Accept, Investigate, Non-Identification. And then it's kind of evolved a little bit over the over the years. And there's this version of Recognize, Accept, Investigate, Nurture with Care and Compassion. So there's a sense in that of both these wings being represented in the under the end. And you know, sometimes it is, and I can share a little bit my own experience with this, you know, I kind of thought, I just, you know, non-identification was definitely my favorite, you know, I just, it's just stop identifying with that. Yeah, stop identifying with that. And at a certain point it was just like, this is not enough. This is not what this experience is needing. I wasn't listening to it. I wasn't interested in where it came from. I was just pretty clear it's impermanent, you know, move on through. I want something else basically. And it's been sort of a humbling but also amazing shift to really start to discover that no, something else was needed here. And it is the case that sometimes, you know, in the language that we receive it in, it can often feel more or receive the teachings in it, more on the side of the non-identification. And of course that very, very helpful, you know, we need to kind of find some space and come out of the, you know, the particular way where we're stuck or identified. But this other possibility of really listening of, and this is, I don't know, maybe for some of you you sense the same, but for me this is a really significant shift and then hadn't seen it that clearly before, but in the RAIN realising, oh, this is a kind of shift that's happened in that framework too. And so again, you know, it's all available. There's a sense of attuning to what's needed in our times and this sort of paradox that, you know, they're kind of both sort of sides of the same thing, if you like, but what's really needed here. And so, you know, we've been inviting that in our practice and exploration here to see and, you know, very alive and dynamic. It's not always clear what's needed. But sometimes, you know, even thoughts that are persisting, they just need to play themselves out or tell the story or, you know, just be held or met or this kind of thing has been my experience. So the words actually from the EN revised and updated by Tara Brakh, sense what the wounded frightened or hurting place inside you most needs. So we're really talking about one of these arms of Kwan Yin here, just kind of like, what's needed here, what's needed here. And, you know, the wisdom of, yeah, I'm not also not stuck in this. This isn't the whole story, but this pattern, this experience also wants to be free, be freed up. So again, sort of first experience of language, sort of hard to find the words, but maybe you get the sense here and, you know, part of us might want it to always be clear what's needed here. But this is what we're being invited into as we practice and this sense of it in a way supports the curiosity, doesn't it? Supports the awareness, supports the immediacy. And we've always got options in this flow. My teacher used to, I used to hear him at the front of the hall and there were words that seemed to resonate with me, but they fit well with this. A practice of being deeply connected to but not bound up by, he used to say, you know, this is kind of his strap line in a way deeply connected to not bound by. And it's like, oh, this is it, connection and not fully bound by. And it's curious sometimes we can end up feeling just as bound by trying to, you know, just not identify with something. And actually that movement of, ah, here we are. And the release, it's almost sometimes like the young baby then getting what it needs and then it releases rather than, you know, let's try and unstick. I mean, you'd never want to do that to a baby, would you? Unstick from, so we're, you know, Tara Br