Gavin Milne: Morning Instructions - Practising the Causes of Freedom & the 5 Challenges

So good morning everyone. Another day of practice and exploration lies ahead. And I'll speak for a little while and then we'll have a couple of minutes to move the body, shift the posture before we settle into some sitting practice together. I'm really just continuing to build on the instruction from yesterday, this dance we have of trying to sort of offer words that in a way actually help us simplify into the actual experience we're having in the moment. And so often our relationship with life is kind of accumulating and trying to get different things and we don't see that actually that fills us up, that clutters us and very often obscures something really important. So the orientation in these few days is really one of exploring simplicity itself, exploring experience in the moment itself. What's that like? We might not realise that things are obscured in our day-to-day life. And there might have just been a few glimpses already this retreat for some of you to the sense of wow, something here that haven't necessarily noticed before. So just a sense into this invitation, this orientation in a sense, it's a very simple practice but the possibilities are profound. And as we're discovering it's also not that easy. So simple invitation to be present starts to reveal all the movements and forces within us that actually take us away from that. As we touched on last night, you know, this is really in a sense the predicament we can find ourselves in as humans. So it's nice to tune into and reflect on this attitude, this orientation that we've been mentioning, kindness, patience, curiosity. Also really helpful to know that this too is a practice and sometimes it's just having the intention that's enough and pretty much when we come into the hall that is the intention. And then the fact it's like, oh it doesn't feel like I'm being particularly kind to myself, we can just kind of maybe take a little bit of a backward step and say, yeah, but that's the intention. And you find that that just starts to creep in more and more. And then there might be times where it's like, oh yeah, there really is a little bit more patience here. So actually in the teachings the intention is the most powerful thing. Again, something we can often discard in day to day life. So really helpful to know that because that is here already. And then there's a sense of that intention just starting to kind of lead to other things in our experience. And in a sense we're pointing to something quite significant when we talk about qualities or orientations like patience, kindness, curiosity. We can start to sense into how in a very real way they are the causes of freedom in terms of these teachings, the causes of freedom. So the essence of this sort of turning that I was mentioning last night, this different relationship with life where we start to kind of engage in the moment in such a way that might lead to things starting to open up for us. And we can never make those happen. So it's a difference from trying to control things and make things happen. It's a sort of an unbinding, if you like, again, helpful to know that. Just, okay, what's here right now? What's possible in terms of how I engage, how I show up for this experience? So in the Buddhist teachings it's helpful to know a little bit about the causes of suffering, the causes of dukkha, the causes of this disconnection. You can really get the sense of how they sort of create this sort of movement of disconnect, of moving away from life and how that can just grow and spiral. So in the teachings we point to movements of ignorance, craving and aversion, the root causes of the disconnection, ignorance, craving and aversion. Nothing much here to see, just switch off from it, no awareness. Before I came to this practice I was semi kind of asleep to my life, just not really there, not really sort of connecting with it. And then that inadvertently leads to these other two movements, if I don't like this I want to push it away. I like that, that feels more pleasant, I want more of that. And then that thing ends and we try to get more of it again. For a while we don't necessarily see the pieces, this growing sense of disconnection, never fully arriving or landing here in this moment, in this life in a sense. So it's helpful to sort of feel into oh yes, qualities or orientations of patience, curiosity, kindness. So kind of the opposite of these, curiosity, awareness, opposite of ignorance, sense of patience, giving our attention to this moment, honouring it, this is what's here, it's a sense of generosity to life, opposite of, which one's it the opposite of? Which one? Sorry, so you've got ignorance, craving and aversion. So kindness is the opposite of craving, so rather than trying to sort of get something in particular, we're actually giving our attention to this moment. And then the opposite of aversion is kindness. So you get a sense of just starting to practice the causes of freedom. And then from here it's helpful again just to kind of draw on some of these teachings that enable us to illuminate some of the landscape we encounter. So the instruction very much the same as yesterday, sort of beginning again, reconnecting, having our anchoring experience there in the home base, the place to come back to, and allowing the possibility with the curiosity of just a sense of a little bit more intimacy, the sense that often we are sort of moving away from experience. That's the potential just to start to soften and relax in a little bit more, and at times you might feel just a little bit more intimacy. Again it's just only when this is the experience you're having not to force it or anything like that, but sometimes it can just feel this little bit more connection with the breathing, sense of the sensations, the actual sensations happening in the moment. A little feeling the air moving across through the nostrils down the throat. Or any of those experiences that arise that take our attention for a while, just exploring, just softening a little bit more feeling, sensing in the body how they feel. So sometimes it can be helpful just to move a little bit out of the narrative, the particular story that's there just to know, okay there's lots of thoughts here as well. How does that actually feel in the body? Where do I experience that? That's often the place where the sort of the push-pull ends up happening a little bit more. So one of the teachings that was sort of offered two and a half thousand years ago, and it's kind of nice to tune into this as something that was as relevant to human beings back then as it is today, is the teaching on these five sort of particular challenges that we can encounter in spaces like this. And in a sense they often lie a little bit below the surface in day-to-day life and keep propelling us into avoidance, distraction, various different things, just again never quite feeling that what's here is enough for us. And so it's actually a little bit curious when we encounter them more in spaces like this because they present in a sense a real opportunity, opportunity to sort of navigate something that normally takes a hold of us in day-to-day life. So we're just going to run through these a little bit just now, these particular flavours that can arise. And there also might be different variations of these for you as well, but these are kind of broad brushstrokes of the kind of thing that we can encounter. And we sort of started to mention them already. And one of the sort of invitations with these is to see what's possible in not having them co-opt our attitudes so much. So just being able to recognise that they're here, see if we can sort of notice how they're affecting us and just again returning to this sense of kindness, patience, curiosity. So the first of these is the movement of craving. And it's quite interesting in retreat space because often we can see this quite clearly. We're sitting practising and the mind starts to fantasise a little bit about sense pleasure or lunchtime or tea time, these kind of things. And it can sort of seem a little bit interesting on the meditation cushion, you know, clearly here to practise and these kind of fantasies of some of the things that might be nice to have can kick in. So craving very often goes in the direction of sense pleasure when we're on meditation retreat. Not always, it can be other things. Might be sexual fantasies, all this kind of thing. And it's really helpful just to kind of know and normalise that this can happen as we practise in a space like this. And what we're sort of just trying to support gently is just a sense of letting go, just like it's okay that this is here, maybe sort of exploring a little bit how it feels in the body and potentially just seeing if we can just let it go, not needing to do too much with it but certainly normal that it arises, craving for sense pleasure. And the second is sort of, this is more on the push side, the aversion, ill will, frustration that can arise in our experience. So it's just to, with this similarly just notice that it's there and arising and just see if we can let it be, noticing how it feels. So the kind of the primary push pull, craving and aversion, these are the first two. And with all of these there's this sense of just sort of wanting to take our awareness, move us almost away from the present moment. So kind of primary energies that do this. And of course there can be various different variations of this but anything that's got that kind of pushing aversive feel to it can be to do with this one. And then a little bit sort of associated with these but a little bit sort of more underlying perhaps we have dullness and drowsiness. So real sense of sort of disconnection from our energy. Just feeling dull, drowsy, sort of mind is a bit sort of blurry and vague and the body can feel really drowsy. And with these it's very helpful to know that it's, our energy is there. It's just that we're feeling disconnected from it. So it's a bit different to kind of sleepy tiredness. I need to go to sleep. It's just something that can very much arise in practice and there's a real opportunity if we can just keep showing up with it. And so inevitably it can kind of affect our attitude of, oh, just want to sort of, you know, just flop this kind of thing. And it can be helpful with this one just to connect with anything that just gives us a little bit more energy. So it might just be focusing a little bit more on the in-breath, energizing in-breath. As I mentioned yesterday, sort of putting your hands up in meditation, something like this. This sense of once we recognize these, there's a real opportunity actually to traverse something. So very normal that this can arise. You know, we can be quite surprised in a meditation just how drowsy we become having felt really quite awake in the previous meditation, but this can very much happen. So to keep an eye out for these. And then almost the other side of this is sort of the energy is there, but it's kind of trapped in us and we can feel a lot of restlessness and a lot of worry. So this sense of kind of, you know, the body can feel really jangly, just like we can't really relax and settle. There can be lots of worrying thoughts, anxious thoughts in the mind. And often we get taken by the content of all of that. You know, we think, oh, worried about the future, worried about what's going to happen after this. And we don't quite see the terrain that's there, which is, oh, this is one of these particular challenges that can arise in meditation practice. So restlessness and worry. So it can lead to lots of thinking. And yeah, sometimes can just be hard to be with ourselves, just be practicing a lot of restlessness in the body. Just checking, is this making sense so far, folks? Okay. And when you start to talk about these, you start to experience them a little bit yourself, which is quite interesting. So hopefully trying to model a little bit how to practice with them. You know, it's just this sense of just seeing what's possible in them, not sort of taking over your attitude too much, not identifying with them too much. They're just very natural things that can come up at any time. And there's a real possibility we can start to relate to them as a real doorway to something deeper. So I'm not going to sort of put too much into the arena this morning, but this sense that quite different things lie at the other side of these particular challenges. So if we can stay steady with them, there's a real opportunity. They're almost like a bit like our protective shell, which we very much needed throughout our life. But at a certain point, maybe less so. There's something that we're wanting to kind of discover within. But in day-to-day life, we very much end up just recoiling. You know, whenever we feel bored or dull or drowsy, we reach for something. Too much restlessness, we reach for something. Craving for some sense pleasure, we normally go for it. So there's a real opportunity here, frustration ill will. We get caught up in the narrative. That person's really annoying me. That situation's really annoying me. So we kind of experience them sometimes in a clearer way here on retreat, because almost it's like, well, that's a bit absurd. There's no really, really frustrated about how your blankets folded on your cushion or something like that. Or the way those shoes are on the way into the meditation hall. It's like, oh, the thing that that teacher just said. And so it reveals to us, again, the golden turning, not to take this too personally. We so often identify and get caught in the narrative. And the potential is, ah, this is something fairly timeless that I can traverse. And it keeps me stuck in this situation of duke. So craving for sense pleasure, ill will often, or aversion often in the form of ill will, restlessness and worry, dullness and drowsiness. And then the fifth one, potentially the most slippery. So with with the restlessness and worry, we can lean a little bit more towards the outbreath, something that helps to calm and settle. Again, just as a support for our attitude, we're not trying to make the experience go away. We don't want to try and push it away. It'll pass in its own time. Also, you know, anything that just supports a little bit more ease, softening, relaxing, but the outbreath can be helpful for that. And then the fifth one, this is the one that is really helpful to illuminate. It's sometimes called skeptical doubting mind. And so some of you will have had this. And it's tricky because it's really important that we do doubt. It's really important that we say, I'm not quite sure what's going on here, or I'm not quite sure how this is going to be or, you know, evaluating the things in our life and what's good for us and what isn't. But we might get the feeling with this one. It kind of has a bit of a to-ing and fro-ing feel to it. It's like, should I do this? Should I put my attention on the body? Should I put it on the breathing? Maybe I should try the hands. Should I do this posture? Should I be in a chair? Can I do this practice? Can I not do this practice? Am I good at meditation? Am I not? And it has this sort of to-ing and fro-ing, like it's trying to keep something together. And once we're on to this, it's so, so helpful, because it's the one that we often identify with most. You know, we really are trying to take one certainty in the moment in this ever-changing, uncertain world. And in a sense, the practice we're doing here is about addressing the predicament of needing to be fixed about anything. You know, a sense of opening, if you like. So when we get on to this one, really, really helpful, just keep it super simple. So just sensations in the body. It doesn't matter what the work, the thoughts are doing. Oh, I'm not very good at meditating. I'm not sure I like this retreat. I know I do like this retreat. But I'm going to hold that, keep it simple. And you can make a little agreement with yourself. Well, the only way I'm going to know is through exploring the practice and keeping going. And that can help a little bit. It's like, okay, no, we'll evaluate at the end, or we'll evaluate in a few weeks' time. But right now, let's just see, because we're doing something a bit different. So again, if our lives prior to coming here have felt a little bit like that, do I need to do this type of job or this? And we're kind of clutching for these different things, a lot of uncertainty. Just to really normalize that, it's very, very... There's a lot of possibility. You can feel quite disorientating, can't it? It's a bit like, oh, I'm not quite sure here. I don't know what to do. And there might just be something else to be discovered as this starts to relax and soften. So without very helpful, a few words with yourself. Try to recognize it if you can, and just keep it simple with the body sensations. Sometimes just knowing the body is here, I just need to keep coming back and putting my attention on it, and that's it. And sometimes it can be really stormy. It can feel like a lot of confusion. Not quite sure what we're doing or where to go. Okay, so helpful to tune in this sense that these are challenges, throughout the ages, that people doing what we're doing have been encountering and hopefully sensing the freedom of not needing to take these so personally. We often, this is what we identify with. We're feeling ill-will or dislike, we might think. I'm supposed to be being kind and nice, and here I am having these sort of hateful thoughts about so and so. It can feel really problematic. But then with this wisdom teaching, just, oh, okay, this might actually be an opportunity. There's nothing going wrong here. They just all want to naturally take me away from being present. Let's discover what might be at the other side of these. So craving and aversion, restlessness, worry, dullness and drowsiness, and doubt. And then what we're interested in doing is finding out for ourselves in our own direct experience. Okay, so let's just have a couple of minutes to stand up if you want to, or have a stretch, and I want to, if you might want to shift into a chair. I don't know if there's a spare chair at the back there, is there? And then just no rush, but in your own time you can come back to sitting posture. So as you come to sit, maybe just tuning in, you know, so a sense that maybe one or two of these have been there for you, completely fine if they haven't. It's just shining a bit of a light that hopefully can help us simplify, because particularly if doubts around it can all feel much more complicated. Like there's really something to resolve or figure out. There can also be, with the doubting one, quite a lot of self-judgment and harshness towards oneself. So we can kind of sense into how just illuminating this one can help us reconnect with the underlying intention of kindness, patience, curiosity. And this is a type of curiosity that's really to do with awareness itself. So it's not kind of needing to figure things out or learn things in the usual ways. It's about this experience, this moment. And so of course when there's dullness and drowsiness or something like that around who don't feel particularly interested, but we're just supporting ourselves to incline that way. So there's this curiosity itself, almost a quality that we might start to get to know that can come through in practice as we traverse this kind of terrain. So just hopefully feeling that these kind of illuminations can help this exploration of simplicity with experience as it is in the moment. And it can generally be helpful if you sense that some of these forces might be around and if you're not quite sure what's going on in your experience or something feels like a problem, one of them probably is, then just helpful to sort of come, have a single anchoring place to come back t