Nathan Glyde: Talk - Not What You Know

taking the time to make yourself comfortable and feeling free during the talk to make any adjustments to make yourself comfortable. Yeah, maybe from the outset just to kind of say I'm not entirely sure how long this talk will be and I've taken Mark's attitude to having your arm cut off as it'll be fine. It'll be fine and if it tends to go too long then I'll save some bits for the meditation instruction in the morning but you can also just remind yourself of that. So there's a different perspective I can take around all of this. So I wanted us to spend a little bit of time in that meditation enjoying it. I think I said marinating in it which is maybe a term we haven't really used so much and could have done with some better explanations but you can probably imagine a bit of tofu hanging out and absorbing sources of thinking in and kind of feeling good in any well being that props up in the practice at all. So I'll say one part of what this talk is about, slightly tempted just to tell you the whole thing in one go, but one part of what this talk is about is it's really important to keep enjoying expansive states of being. Really important to keep enjoying expansive states of being and not but and it's really good to put those expansive states of being in a bigger context of liberating context of what they reveal and what they show and how they're conditioned. How they're conditioned. Which can sound like we're saying, yeah, they're not all that, are they? Really. So is there some way, you know, because there's more, like what am I doing this stuff for? Shouldn't I be doing the more? And that's where it really takes dedication and discipline in the reverse order rather than dedication and discipline to come on, there's more, let's get to it. But actually with dedication and discipline, stay in this marinade longer. Marinate longer. Like, is it necessary for this to be in any way diminished by there being more than that? Is it necessary? So no, it's not. I could hear you saying it and I thought I'd do it for you. Yeah, that these can be beautiful, wonderful and from the title of this talk, you know, fulfilling stillnesses. Yeah, fulfilling stillness. And they're doing so much for us, they're delivering so much for us as well. You know, the insights I've been hearing in the groups, even just today I really hope we can keep those insights alive. I hope we can keep them alive for our life. But I certainly hope you can keep them alive for the duration of this talk. So, insights like someone was speaking about having this state of confusion. Having this state of confusion, absolute confusion. I'm realizing that knowing wasn't confused. It was revealing this confusion with absolute precise clarity. Yeah, I could see every bit of entanglement with the confusion. Something here is not confused. Yeah, I'm absolutely clear. I am completely confused. But not completely, just enough not confused to know that I'm completely confused. And what bit am I going to rest into? Ah, what about the clarity? There's a clarity here along with the confusion. What an insight. And I can choose. Interesting. That's going to be useful. That's going to be useful. It's probably going to be useful in this talk when it gets confusing. Yeah, but in life too. Yeah, someone was also sharing. I hope it's okay. I'm just sharing completely anonymously. That not only the sound and the silence are both arising in silence. Both the sound and the silence are arising in silence. And not only that, when that sound is unpleasant, the unpleasant is arising in silence. The aversion to it is arising in silence. There are both going on. The silence is here. And the aversion is here. And it's like, I don't need to... Which bit? Like, oh, I'm not going to go on the aversion. I'm just being able to see it. And not only did they arise in silence, they disappeared into the silence. And so did the aversion. It disappeared into silence from whence it came. Profound. Profound. Beautiful. The utter piece of that, really priceless. So this talk might be a bit too much. Sometimes they are. And we might be like, I'm getting through this retreat. It's going okay. I'm getting the handle on these things. It's a bit much, but there's only two more talks. I mean, they couldn't. They wouldn't. They wouldn't. And I've got my fingernails on this. It's only one more day to go. Yeah, it's that kind of talk. So bigging it up, making it sound scary. You know how sometimes you can come in and your meditation cushion has been turned into one of those, what are they called? Artificial bulls. Just trying to hold on to experience. And someone turns it up. And so what we're going to do now is actually pour some grease on the artificial bull and we're going to start dissolving the handle that you used to hold on to. Here we go. Alright. But maybe those of you who've had the chance to listen to Joseph Goldstein teaching will remember that he has a moment in the story that there's a story of a nun. And this nun has been practicing a really long time and then they speak of their awakening like a clenched fist in the mind. Opens. Opens. And they fall into everything. And so we'll also be doing that this evening. Yeah. But whatever happens remembering you've been developing a skill here, not the last experiences. I mean developing a skill here. And skills last experiences. You know, we know they don't last. But skills last. Skills are developed and skills will be available. Yeah. And in addition to that, I hope that you can really trust in the goodness of your practice, the goodness perhaps of your being. Yeah, that you're showing up, that you're dedicated to all of this. And trust in that in the way that we trust in it in you. Also which is true. We do. Yeah. Kind of said that bit flippantly. I trust in your goodness. Yeah, really do. Okay. Enough waffle. So the Buddha's quest. The Buddha sets out on this quest and asks a few questions that are really important and important for us to reflect on. The Buddha asks, why would I subject to birth? Subject to falling apart. Yeah, the decay of illness, death, aging, all of this process. Yeah. Subject to birth, subject to illness, subject to aging, subject to death. Why would I subject to all of that? Seek freedom, seek well-being, seek happiness in things, other things that are subject to birth, subject to decay, subject to death. Shouldn't I be seeking something that is not born, not decaying, not dying? This exquisite relief, this unexcelled rest of what is unborn and undying, unfabricated, unfabricated. And aware of our modern attention spans. Yeah, they found it and hopefully that's not a spoiler for anyone. It's a pretty old story now, but yeah, they found it. They found the unfabricated, unexcelled ease and rest in the being. Yeah. By not clinging to what is inconstant, stressful, fabricated and not identifying with any of it. Yeah, not identifying with any of it. So we're probably on board with this much. All appearances are fabricated. All appearances are fabricated, conditioned. Yeah. Fabrications, fabricating, fabricated, fabrications. Yeah, I won't go on as long. What we might not comprehend, sorry, actually this question, what might we not comprehend is fabricated? What might we be thinking is not fabricated? Which is, sorry, it's not like a question for you. Yeah. Yeah. But you can say. Do you want to say? Awareness itself. Awareness itself? Yeah. Seems like it may not be fabricated, right? So what we're saying is like, what seems like it arises independently? Yeah. What do I not see as dependently originating, dependently originating? Yeah. So it's a really important question. Like what seems independent to you? Before we get up to awareness, right, early on we might mistake duke as not fabricated. Yeah, duke is not fabricated. And of course when it turns up in some kind of new manifestation in some kind of new makeup, I don't recognize you there. I also think, oh, that's a pity. Nothing you can do about that. You just got to wait for these things to pass. You got to wait for these things to pass. There's like a clue in there, isn't there? What am I waiting for? Well, I expect the conditions will, oh, the conditions. It's conditioned. The conditions will change and then the duke will change. So hopefully if we hang out with it long enough and we have a language that leads us into it. So I say, oh yeah, actually duke is conditioned by conditions. And not all of those conditions are out of my reach, out of my domain. We might assume that we are not fabricated. I'm not fabricated. Who are you calling fabricated? It's like, yeah, but you change, right? There's like good states, bad states. So what does that mean then? Like they're not fabricated? And when I call you fabricated and you're all up about not being called fabricated that's because you're fabricated. If you weren't fabricated you wouldn't mind, would you? You know, all that, you know, so we can get to see. If I was independent, you couldn't affect me. Nothing could affect me. But I'm affected because I'm fabricated. And as we're saying, as Anna said, in our practice we might assume that awareness is not fabricated. And the way that we've been encouraging these practices, we've been permitting of that view. See it as real. See it as substantial. Don't see it as inconstant and unreliable. We're not bringing those lenses towards it. We're really tuning into it. Why? Because that can really support the deepening of that lens. And opening of those experiences that support that release. And so we want to know, insights are useful to apply to experiences. They are primarily, and sometimes exclusively useful to apply to the more duke experiences. Yeah? Does that make sense? So like use your seasoning on the right vegetables. If you've got a plate of deliciousness, use a seasoning that opens out the deliciousness until you've really, you know, fed on that and tuned into that. We might even have encouraged or allowed for at least a sense that I am this awareness. That's who I am. I'm not all this. I can tune into that. Rest as that. See as that. Live as that. Which interestingly, if I am this awareness and this awareness isn't fabricated, then I'm not fabricated. Which is kind of a little break from being fabricated. But you may already be able to see the seams are showing in that statement. Because now I'm that. I've kind of tarnished awareness with my fabricatedness as well as awareness's fabricatedness. Kind of tarnishing mine. And we're actually all fabricated together. I had this image, I don't want to go into it too long, but it's kind of a bit like a Hollywood film. The sad music, the scenes are playing and awareness is coming up to this kid and it's saying, you know, I'm sorry kid. It's like, not you too. It's like, yeah. I'm fabricated. I've always been fabricated. I held it together so long. But there isn't time to tell you. Time? Yeah. And this clock comes out. I'm sorry kid. I've always been fabricated. I didn't see it. Yeah. And it's not just us. It's you too kid. We're all fabricated together. And then happy music starts and the fabrication film carries on. So we might have this sense that consciousness, awareness, knowing in some way, it's not fabricated. And it feels that way. And we spoke a bit about why it feels that way. It's kind of continuity of awareness. Any way you go, there it is. Yeah. Just feels it. You can just rely on it. Like, if there's a moment, there's a moment of consciousness. Can't get outside it. Yeah. Drift off into sleep. Wake up in the middle of the night. Consciousness is there. I was ready for you. It's like, don't you sleep? It's like, no. All right. Okay. I'm going back. Come to that. Go back to sleep. It's always there. Always present. Always available. And then we might look through the teachings. Is there anything in these teachings about consciousness and select out a few lines? And this is a lovely line that the Buddha speaks in the Majinakaya. Consciousness without surface. Endless. Radiant all around. Consciousness without surface. Surface. Endless. Radiant all around. You think, oh, yeah. That's what it's like, isn't it? That's what consciousness is like. It doesn't, it's not disturbed by whatever it's showing. If there's peace, peace. Doesn't say, hey, give me a minute. Now, no, immediate peace. It will show whatever it shows. There's no trace. Nothing left behind. But consciousness, awareness or knowing, however we call it, it's not unfabricated. It's not unfabricated. That's a very reserved term in the teachings. It really means what it says. Not fabricated. Not conditioned. Not dependently arising, dependently failing. Caviar to get us through the first part. Not at least a consciousness that knows anything. Okay? Not at least a consciousness that knows anything. Which is kind of what we mean by consciousness, right? Okay? A consciousness without surface seems to be meaning something many of us have not experienced and will come back to that. But remembering all the beautiful experiences that we've had that we've tuned into, that we've been exploring. That can be really lovely, really insightful, really conducive to awakening if we hold them well. Yeah? If we hold them well. Which is what this talk is about. So consciousness apart from that little place where we just mentioned consciousness without surface, endless radiant all around. Consciousness is usually used in the suitors in general to mean a fabricated consciousness. A consciousness that is linked one by one, one consciousness each to each of the scent stores. Yeah? Covered this already. Yeah? Hearing consciousness is not presumed to be consciousness radiating through hearing but a hearing consciousness. That when it's done with hearing is replaced by let's say seeing consciousness. And then I'm, you know, letting go of the hearing and I'm in the emotion and it's the consciousness of the intellect that feels the emotional tone. Yeah? And then I think, oh, that emotion, I find it in the body and then tactile consciousness is present. And these different consciousness are seamlessly touching each other. And why is it seamless? Because what's that kind of general anesthetic? Yeah? Which is deeper than sleep. Apparently you go into general anesthetic and then you wake up and there's no sense that time went by. Right? It's not that time goes into a subtle sense. We wake up in the morning or we wake up after five minutes and we think, oh, I haven't been asleep for very long or I've been asleep for very long. This is, and back. Yeah? And there's seamless gaps between those. Yeah? And in a moment by moment conscious experience we just go from one consciousness to the other conscious and those unconscious bits in between aren't appearing. And they certainly aren't very long because we know we didn't miss much. Or we don't know if we miss much because we weren't there. Right? But we said, oh, it seems consistent. I felt that emotion and I felt it in the body and then I could smell lunch and then I had that thought. And it's like, it all just flows together. Yeah? What we've been exploring here is this knowing that is temporarily arising dependent on a known object. We've then extended that out, stretched that out and then brought that type of consciousness to bear. But it's that same conditioned consciousness that arises dependent upon objects. Yeah? Dependent upon sense stores. And we just kept a sense in the being of stretchness spreadness in there. And so the consciousness has appeared within that stretched sense. It was conditioned by the attention going on in the experience. And then it can even feel like, ah, consciousness is expensive. Yeah? But it's conditioned by that. It's conditioned by the sense of expense. And it reveals that sense of expense. Just as when Soha was guiding us to bring more meta and then also more Medita, the appreciation and more Karuna, that kind of compassionate, caring, resolved to what's in trouble, it's flavored by that. Ah, consciousness is rich with meta. It feels in that moment that it has that characteristic. And so they're changed by how much spaciousness there is, changed by how much timelessness there is. And it seems to just kind of effortlessly reveal these things. But in fact, is it ever just it? Just knowing, not knowing anything. Not flavored in any way. Pure unadulterated knowing. Really? Or is it always in some way impacted? Yeah? Impacted by what's appearing in it? Also, yeah? Shaped by that. Shaped by the attitudes of which we're holding it. Shaped by how much we are identifying with it and not. Yeah? So it's not independent in many of the ways we could feel. And so thus the awareness is affected by the attention. And what arises in attention is affected by both of those, by the attention and the sense of the awareness in that moment. Right? And that thing arising in there, which is affected by that, is also affecting them both. These are dependent arising things. Because they're all activities. And if I take you back three talks, when I was last speaking, we spoke about the minimal assumptions the Buddha made for the awakening. That there's nothing neutral anywhere. And that the activities are effective. They are affecting things, affecting things. And there is favorable and unfavorable conditions. Yeah? And outcomes there. So the Buddha's approach to awakening rests on those two assumptions. And those two assumptions we can see at work. Yeah? That activities are efficacious. Yeah? They have effects. And that their effects can be either favorable or unfavorable. And that's what we're moving into in these domains. Like, ah, that's supportive. That's liberating. That's wholesome. That's, you know, opening more things. And that is the skill. And it also, all that that describes why it's fabricated is also the very thing that we explore in the practices is fabricating. Yeah? Fabricating more skillfully. And that is the skill that we're building. The capacity to be able to fabricate in more skillful ways. And being able to skill, fabricate in more skillful ways means being able to fabricate less. Yeah? The less fabricated is the more free, liberated. And there's a quieter sense in awareness. There's a quieter sense in the self. And there's a quieter sense in time. And a quieter sense of appearances appearing in all of that. And because we can shape consciousness even, yeah? We can affect awareness. That knowing as we normally mean it is not independent. And we get to understand something about consciousness. And we gain a skill in being able to work with consciousness. Right? Because those two things go together. And all of that doesn't mean we reject any of the fabricated, conscious experiences that we've been having. Right? Not at all. Right? Oh, they were good for working out my skill, but now I'm onto something else. Not at all. They are beautiful, supportive and often really precious experiences for us to have. You know, just taking back to that. Radiating through consciousness a sense of boundless goodwill to whatever arises. That's not something just to do one day on a retreat. It's something really to learn that is somewhere to go. A resting place. A resting place for us. A nourishing place for us. A place to bring the attention to feed the being in a really deep way. There's a reason why they're called divine abodes. Yeah? Heavenly realms. Right? So yeah, I used to go to the supermarket any more. I just go to the supermarket and the unfabricated. Oh, I can go there. Filling the cosmos. That's what I was saying. Filling the cosmos in all directions. Radiant. Unbound. And some use the language of holy or anything else. You know, religious language starts to slip out of the tongue. It's like godly, transcendent types of experiences available there. And that doesn't mean that they're not fabricated. Still good. Still better than good. Yeah? B