Nathan Glyde: Morning Instructions - This is a Perception, This is Fabricated

As a community, this is our last full day of practice. Some of you may be staying on for more days of practice. Some of you may be intending to see the next days as days of practice, just changing forms. But as a community, it seems like that's something that's true for all of us. And in that, there's quite a range of freedom that we have. So we're actually free to spend today thinking, to spend today planning. We're free to utilize our quite subtle and refined minds to make travel plans, to compose a perfect letter or poem, or develop a business. We're free to do that. And we're free to develop a skill worth having. Worth investing in. A refined attention. Worthy of our endeavors. Or a journey within that's not always available to us. To compose this body-heart-mind moment. Or to develop some sublime, hard to see entrance way into some sublime, often inaccessible realm of experience. And so we're free there. Free to do different things, which can be tricky. What's the right time, the right place for the right endeavor? So all this silence and generations of practice embedded in this kind of location, whether we mean a physical location or something else. Now this continuity of practice, what's it really good for? What's it here for? So it's a precious opportunity today for practice. And we want to devote a lot of today for that in the way the schedule unfolds. And we also felt it would be helpful, not just for those who've been here for almost 16 days of retreat, but all of us to spend a bit of time having a space around 4.30 where we can experience a bit of speaking and listening in community. So we'll say a little bit more about it when it unfolds, but there'll be the 4 o'clock silence sitting. And then at 4.30 we'll have that period for about 30 minutes in small clusters, speaking, listening. Practicing that skill and practicing being meditative within that realm in small clusters. And then that will flow out into a movement practice for another half an hour or so before we go into the tea. So if you want to participate in that you'll be able to decide at the time, it'll be a 4 o'clock silence sitting, which there always has been, but it'll only be half an hour and at 4.30 we'll have time for some speaking and listening together. Okay, does that make sense? Great. So we'll adjust the schedule so you don't need to remember anything like that. Okay, so I'm going to make some suggestions, have some ideas for practice related to the talk last night. However that lands for you, okay? But with all of them, their suggestions, proposals, and you don't have to do something because I say you should. And having said that, now I feel like I can really tell you you should do it because you know that you don't have to, right? But if you want to, then you really should. Yeah, you really should. But you don't have to. But you should. Regardless, I think you should keep marinating in any wholesome, enjoyable states of being that are available for you. Because cultivating wholesome states of being, it's not a side project. Yeah? It's not like, oh, we do that because you know just meditating in harsh ways and letting go of the things we love, that's you know, that's difficult. It's actually, it all supports it, it all supports it, right? Those wholesome states of being are less fabricated states. Yeah? We are fabricating less in them, have that sense. It's less self, it's actually less time pressure there. You know, awareness itself, subtler, whatever else, you know? It's like, it's all a much subtler thing. And so it is in a way going, you know, down the construction and fabrication of experience. And it also supports, you know, maybe going beyond fabrication. So rushing ahead really might not be wise compared to marinating through and maybe actually kind of dissolving into the marinade might be a really helpful thing to do. And we can drop in some seasoning, yeah? And the seasoning I want to suggest today, maybe it's kind of comparable to like, maybe you're cooking in a friend's kitchen and they've got chili flakes. You're not really quite sure how strong they are, so just sprinkle one in and we see. We can wait for it to marinade itself into the sauce. You know, they can take a while to dissolve. And it's like, oh yeah, that's it. That's working, yeah? So you may have noticed through the retreat, we've been using conditioned, fabricated, dependently originating, yeah? And some of you would be familiar with empty of inherent existence. Yeah, they're all saying the same thing more or less, yeah? Something's conditioned, has conditioning coming into it. It can be conditioned, built up, it can be conditioned, built down. And so it is fabricated in a different way. You know, it's made up and it fades back. Because it is dependent upon those conditions, it is dependent for them to originate that way, to come into being that way. Things that depend and utterly depend on those conditions to be there, to be that way. I said not to have an independent or inherent existence, meaning their existence, their way of being, does not in here, it is not in here for them. Their existence is not in them, it depends how they exist, how they appear. They depend on conditions, they are fabricated. Yeah? Is that clear enough? All right. So if you're familiar with any of those terms, well yeah, that's what we're doing. That's what we're talking about, okay? And seeing that is one of the strongest of insights, to really see that and hold that, to penetrate experience in that way. It's quite profound. And it's quite profound because we actually have a very strong tendency to take things as independent. And it's not so much a mistake, it's actually kind of a convenience of perceiving. Yeah? So when we see and we know something, we know that's how it is. This principle has a name, and some of you may have heard it before, naive realism. That we naively intuit this is reality. This thing you're in now, this is the real reality, isn't it? This is how it really is. All of this, it's really happening. Good. Okay. Because we want you on that point, yeah? Just as it's really helpful that you think that you're sitting on your cushion in your bit of the hall. And so when you come in, you go and you sit on your cushion or your bit of the hall. And yeah, if you come in and someone else is sitting on your cushion in your bit of the hall, they're like, yeah, no, no, no. But we don't really think it's my cushion or my bit of the hall. It's a convention, it's a convenience. But it can build up and then it's like ownership minus gets added on there. Yeah? And in a certain way it's helpful and hopefully tomorrow you'll be not having that sense if you're leaving the hall. Yeah? That wasn't really mine. Yeah, it wasn't really mine. And we can bring that sense towards our experience and see, ah, it's fabricated. And some of it's useful, some of it's not. But it's all added on. It's all added on. So the sense we have, naive realism is that sense that we have that what we sense is what it is. When I sense my sense of self. Yeah? Even if it's sublimely out the corner of my eye in the experience, I sense, yeah, that's who I am. That's who I am. And it's functionally useful. Yeah? Just as we joked about that position in the hall, yeah, it's good that you come and you sit there. It's easy, it's convenient. If you lose that sense we might be worried. Try and encourage you to get it back. No, no, that's your bit. Yeah? So our sense of time, our sense of self, our sense of awareness, it's like they're just happening. That's how they are, yeah? And we may not even think to question it. And yet when we do, we see they're not independent. They're actually not independent and they change. What we're saying is it's a perception of self. Not the self. It's the sense of a perception of the self that I experience. It's a sense of a perception of time that I experience. It's a sense of a perception of awareness that I experience. And so we can bring a lens in, a different lens towards experience that can kind of open that up. This is a perception. This is a perception. This is fabricated. Yeah? So maybe that's a bit too fast. So we'll go back again a little bit slower over the same territory so the conviction lands a bit better. We're not, let's say, solely or entirely actually fighting against naive realism. This assumption, okay this is the way it is. We're actually utilizing it. We're actually taking a different stance, an alternative stance, maybe even a contradictory stance. This is myself. This is not myself. And then it comes. It's like, oh yeah, it's not myself. What was I thinking? And that's naive realism, playing its part again. It's like, yeah, it isn't me. It's not mine. Or like, you know, I am awareness. Yeah, of course I am. Wow. And we're kind of utilizing it, but what we're also doing is undermining it. I didn't used to think I was awareness. Now I do. And I see this way. And everything's fabricated differently. I used to think this was my body. And then I thought about it. It's like, I don't do any of these processes. I don't digest the food. Imagine if the stomach said, no, I'm not doing that anymore. You digest it. You metabolize. I haven't got a clue. I've heard the word, but I don't... You see out of the eyes. You create perceptions. You know it. We don't want to do this stuff anymore. It's like, yeah, is this me, mine? And you say, well, no, it's not. Actually, what am I doing here? I'm expendable. And I say, ah, and then naive realism says, yeah, you always were. You always were pretending to be the big boss. You know, interesting. So naive realism, it just plays along. It's part of perceiving for us. But it's constructed and it constructs. Yeah. And so getting that sense, we can come into that experience in different ways, take different lenses. And so that's what insight lenses means. Yeah. So we're practicing in the insight meditation tradition, but much of the time we're not doing insight meditation techniques. Much of the time we're doing the really helpful stuff of getting ourselves into more calm and steady states of being, more lovely, more better relational fields. So that we're able to relate to thoughts, feelings, body sensations, and the other beings around us in ways that reduce agitation, reduce reactivity. And it feeds all back in. It's like, ah, less identification, less reactivity. That's all a good thing. Now those things that we're letting go of. Yeah. And so insight lenses then are placed into that, into that. And they're kind of postures, we assume, but not postures of the body, kind of like postures of the mind, conceptual postures of intentionality, of attention. And we take ideas and we hold those ideas and allow them to penetrate through experience. And there are many insights that are offered in the teachings, famously these kind of three more liberating ways of looking, where we don't assume constancy to things. When something comes up, we elongate it in time, we build it up, we make it a drama because we sense it's going to last. And we can drop in a sense that it isn't going to last. It's not going to last. It's not things that have lasted, hasn't it? Everything that's arisen has also passed. We can forget that and hold that lens. It starts to change how things feel, how they are. We can project onto things that they are independently dissatisfying or satisfying that that would be the solution to all of me. It would kind of complete me like it's a piece of the jigsaw puzzle I'm missing and then, ah. It wouldn't do that, yeah? It wouldn't do that because actually all of that missing jigsaw piece is made up of the reactivity that was going into getting all these jigsaw pieces to put in the play. We let go of that. We say, ah, it's not that the satisfaction's out there. It's the releasing of that. So these insight lenses are really helpful things that we can land into our experience. And the insight lens of it's not about me. It's not mine. I don't need to take ownership, identify with all of these appearances. And that relates back, you know, to the Buddha's search. Why would I be obsessing about something else that's also born, decaying, dying? When I could seek something that's not inconstant, not unsatisfactory, not to be taken as I, me and mine. Something beyond all of that. And so those insight lenses are helpful. And media help us to be more calm, steady, relate well. But they also lead us beyond normal ways of perceiving. And so these lenses are really helpful, really benefit in the moment and on retreat. You've ever used any of them. You'll know that. But they also reveal conditioning. If I see as if things are transient, they appear transient. If you look around your life, can you find anything that is not in movement, in transience, that is itself inconstant in any way? You can't, because you're looking for that. You're looking for that quality and that's what you find. That's one way of seeing it. Or there's a way of seeing it with the naivrilism is I look around, nothing is constant. Nothing. That's how it is. Interesting, because naivrilism might be right, might be wrong. You don't know. You look for inconstancy or you find disconstancy. Interestingly, when we stop, we can perceive things as, oh, it's lasting. I've always been me. Always. Somehow. We bring together these elements of the practice, supporting that clear presence, that well-being, that inner nourishment, and keep going with that. Keep going with that. Nourishment for the journey. When we're clear and steady, the insight, we can just drop it in and let its impact, its effect, be felt. And then we know it ourselves. We see that the sense object there is affected. The sensitivity flowing through the sense organ is affected. And the very sensitivity and the sense ability of our sense consciousness is affected there. What isn't changed? The all of the all, the dependently originating phenomena and the dependently originating processes that give rise to phenomena are deeply impacted by all of these insight lenses. And so it's not just that it's inconstant, it's actually that it's changeable, it's malleable, it's conditioned. And that brings a confidence and a conviction. Conviction, wow, it's Dharma. Probably true. You know, it's a line in the Dharma, like, see dependent origination, you see the Dharma. To see the Dharma, it's to see dependent origination. All of these practices point at that. See? You look within constancy, you find in constancy. Things are changed. That's what matters. They've changed from this to that. We've changed the condition by changing the conditioning. And the conditioned condition is changed by the conditioning changing. A seemingly complicated sentence that made perfect sense to me. I hope it landed for you, yeah? If the condition of things is conditioned and we change the conditions, then the condition of those conditioned things is in a different condition, yeah? What is the real condition of conditioned things? The real condition is that they are conditioned. May not be needing any more than that. Any more than that. This is fabricated. This is fabricated. This is a perception. All perceptions are fabricated. All of those lenses are fantastic. And Sariputa, who is also the one who said see dependent origination, you see the Dharma. See the Dharma and you see dependent origination, had a pointing out kind of instruction there for us. Which is this is dependent. This is not independent. This is dependent. And for some of us that will just, yeah, get it. Land in that way. So just to catch everyone in, we take one more lens towards this and then bring it to a practice. Let's use something a little bit more pragmatic. I don't know what this sentence means, but I like it. DJ Shadow has a track called Building Sand. Building Steam. Building Steam with a grain of sand. I don't know what it means. But this is what it means to me, yeah? Unlike the 118 chemical elements in the periodic table, the Buddha would speak about four elements, sometimes five, sometimes six. Elements that make up this body-heart mind. Yeah? And it's not supposed to be a description of the universe as much as a practical way of looking that supports release. So this body is like the Earth. It has solidity in it. We don't come into the world, we come out of the world. We're made of the world, this body. This body is made of Earth-the-ness elements, the solidity. And kind of quality, yeah? Remember we were talking about awareness without surface, endless, radiant all around, and that wasn't built on the Earth-the-ness of Earth. You don't see the Earth-the-ness in the Earth and believe in it independently. But if we look at it, we say, yeah, there's Earth-the-ness in this body, solidity. There is wateriness here in this body. The cohesiveness, the binding together of parts, yeah? Imagine if your muscles were all dried out. They need that to cohesion, to hold together. There is fireiness in this body. There's both heat and there's energy, yeah, in the system. And when that cools and disappears, the body doesn't function. So we need the solidity, the structure, the skeleton. We need the cohesion, the blood, the fluids, you know, all the fluids in the mouth right now. And we need the fireiness, the aliveness, the energy. And we need the air, the movement, the pressure, keeps the eyeballs inflated, all of these types of things. We need all of that as well in this system. But none of those are personal things. Actually, like, universal patterns. Nothing we need to take pertinely is I, me, or mine. And there's also space between things, the openings, the gaps, the rooms for things to exist, for movements to occur. Yeah? And maybe right down inside anything that even appears solid, it's actually mostly space, mostly space. And we look at it that way and we realize, oh, gee, maybe it's all mostly space anyway. Why? Because we look a certain way and we see a certain way. Because naïve realism is our friend in this case. We look a certain way, we see a certain way, liberating views. And there is a consciousness, a knowing or cognizing element to all of this. We're not just a lump of matter, we're also rich with awareness. But none of that's... none of that has to be taken personally. And so we can let go of identity views in that. Let go of the identity view of this body. Processes, unfolding. I don't need to add that ownership on top of. And it can still work in so many beautiful ways. These thoughts that arise that I didn't plan to think these thoughts. I don't make thoughts about future thoughts that I'm intending to think. The intentions I have, a rising, known experience. I don't need to add that ownership onto it. I don't need to add that onto knowing either. My knowing. There is knowing. And those stances we can take, which the Buddha puts into a sentence that's maybe too complicated for right now, but we'll do it anyway. The Buddha says, how about that you take a stance that says, I am not anything belonging to anyone, anywhere. I'm not anything belonging to anyone, anywhere. Nor is there anything belonging to me in anyone, anywhere. I am not anything belonging to anyone, anywhere. It's not me. It's not mine. It's not anyone else's either. So we're letting go through these practices of that thirst for appearances that this isn't the that that we were exploring yesterday, holding that space open. It can also be letting go of an assumption of any fixed position within any of that if we choose to, if we're willing to, permitting to, like a reference point. And we're letting go of those inclinations to becoming and to non-becoming, either. Not giving up on existence, not taking possession of it. So we're going to practice this for the next 20 minutes or so. And mainly we're going to be supporting, nourishing that well-being in us. So we'll start from that. Get into a comfortable posi