I'm Danielle, and tonight we're going to focus on the five
aggregates. So we talked really a little bit
just about what the concept of not self is in Buddhism and
really at its core is trying to rethink the way that we think
about who we are instead of what we normally think of as like a
permanent unchanging self, like who you are.
I think about this a lot. My mom always tells this story
like you are who you are on the birthing table, even though we
have direct proof, like my sister was a particular way she
got into a marriage in a very abusive marriage.
She totally changed like who she was, how she interacted, the
things that she valued, and then she got divorced and then she
changed into another person. So it's interesting that my mom
still holds this belief that you have this permanent, unchanging
self even with direct evidence. And she's not the only one.
Many of us believe about ourselves.
Like I'm a Hawaii. I've always believed this is
always who I am. And one of the things that
Buddhism is trying to tell us is that that belief about having
this permanent, unchanging self can cause us suffering.
So tonight we're going to focus on the five aggregates and how
that can help us kind of unpack the idea of the self.
And these five elements, the Buddha says is like, this is
what makes up a person. These are like the the
characteristics, the elements of the of a person and we end up
getting overly attached to one or more of these and that's what
leads to our suffering. Not that they exist, but that we
get attached to a particular incarnation of, of one of these.
And I'm going to focus on one in particular because I think it's
the one that is, that it's the source of the, the ego actually.
And that's I think one of the things that causes us the most
trouble. So the five hour aggregates.
The 1st is form, and this has to do with our physical form.
This is, you know, the body, the material world, our material
sort of self. The second is feeling or
sensations, sensations that arise in particular with contact
from the external world. So contact that comes in through
our senses, pleasure, pain, you know, neutral sensations, those
kinds of things. The third is perception, and
this is the recognition or identification of objects,
events, and experiences that we had just sensed.
And then the 4th are mental formation, Mental formation,
Sankara. These are the thoughts,
emotions, intentional intentions, volition, volitional
actions. This is the one that I'm going
to focus on the most. And then there's consciousness,
you know, the awareness kind of our overall awareness of sort of
what's happening. I think when we're take we're
talking about the concept of the self, it's kind of easier for us
to recognize the form. Like we can recognize our body
has changed over time. We're not necessarily we may not
love it. Those of us who are aging, we
may not love that our body is changing, but we can at least
recognize it's something that bodies do.
We recognize that our body is not the shape that it was when
we were two years old and we can let go of that.
We recognize that's part of of who we are is changing.
We do get attached to that. I know from experience of aging
when you're like, hey, you know, 10 years ago I could walk up and
down the stairs no problem. And now it like my knees crack
and ache every time. I don't love it.
And I wish that weren't the case, but it is the case.
And at least we can recognize that.
Even the other ones about like sensation and recognition, we
recognize sometimes, you know, we get misinformation through
our senses. We think we hear something and
it's not what we heard. And we can revise that.
We can recognize like, oh, I misheard something or I
interpreted something in a particular way.
There's a lot of these that I think we can identify more and
let go of. We still get attached to them
and that does cause us suffering.
But I really think that the one that is the most challenging, or
maybe it's just challenging for me, we can have this.
This discussion are the Sankara is the mental formations,
because this is where our beliefs about who we are really
live. This is these mental formations,
you know, our, our thoughts and our feet, our emotional
feelings, the, the, the way that the things that we believe are
our values, those kinds of things.
And this is where we often get really, really attached and
what, what we think of as defining our self, defining what
we are. Like I am, I mean, and this goes
all through Western philosophy, you know, with Descartes.
I think, therefore I am like, well, Buddhism is like you
think, but that's not who you are.
Like we all have thoughts. It's not kind of who you are
doesn't necessarily define you, but we get so attached to our
thoughts or our emotions as if they said something profound
about who we are. Like if you have a thought that
means something significant, I've told this story for you to
you before. One of the benefits of sitting
in Zazen is you have the opportunity to observe all of
this. Thoughts arise, you know,
feelings arise, sensations arise and you are here to just sit.
That's that's what you're doing. But you have the opportunity to
see the kind of randomness that comes, but that doesn't have
anything to do necessarily with who you are.
And this, my example of this is always one time when I was
sitting pleasantly. James knows his story.
He's laughing already. I was sitting pleasantly in
Zazan, just having a moment. And I thought penis.
And then I was like, holy shit, why am I thinking penis?
What does this mean? Does this do I have to cry
because I'm gay? And I was like, do I have to
question my identity? What does this mean?
And so I was like, oh, my God, it's just a thought.
It's just a word. So this is what I always tell
people, you know, you have a thought, you have a belief, you
think it's important, you think it defines who of you all who
you are. But sometimes it's just penis.
So this is part of like, can you let go of that?
And, and so, and if you can identify some experience that
can allow you to let go of these mental formations, it helps a
lot. So now whenever I'm attached to
some emotion or I attached to some, you know, thought or some
belief that I have to do this or that, or the other thing I can
say like maybe this is just penis and it allows me to kind
of step back and be like, OK, I feel like this thought is really
important. This feeling is really
important, but maybe it's not really important.
Maybe it's just a random thing that my body is throwing up.
Maybe I can just sit with this and just be like, OK, so I had
this random thought. I can move on.
But we tend not to, right? This is where in the mental
formations is where like our like we get offended by things
because we believe things about ourselves.
The stories that we tell live in these Sankaras in this in these
mental formations, the beliefs that we have about I'm this type
of person. These are the things I like.
These are the things that I do. And then somebody says like you
did this really hurtful thing and that's not the story you're
telling yourself about yourself. You can get really hurt and
offended. And instead, what Buddhism is
asking us to say is like, OK, so first there's some emotion
that's arising up. Somebody said something about
you that you believed was not true, probably because it's
contradicting some story that you told about yourself doesn't
mean that it's true. It doesn't mean that it's true
that you did it. It doesn't mean that it's true
that somebody pointed it out to you.
It doesn't mean that it's true that you felt it.
It's just a thing. It means that it's a thing,
whatever that experience is, that happens.
And if we can get to the point where we just have an
experience, somebody says something hurtful to us, we
think something hurtful to ourselves.
If we can just acknowledge like that's just a thing that
happened, then we might be able to act more intentionally.
We might be able to, let's set that aside and do something more
intentional. But typically what we do is we
react so strongly and so quickly to these kind of stories that we
tell about ourselves or our, our mental formations that we don't
really have an opportunity to even recognize that something
has happened, right? We have an experience, we react
so quickly that it just it, we, it causes us our suffering.
And this is one of the reasons why one of the things that I
find most transformative and powerful about Buddhism is
saying that we do have the power within ourselves to avoid our
suffering. We can transform ourselves.
We don't have to suffer as much as we as we do.
The trick is that we have that power because we cause our own
suffering. So it's, it's good to to
recognize that and this is where we can do this, that if we can
think about these kinds of mental formations and how this
is where kind of our ego comes from.
And when we get offended and we get hurt and we get stressed and
we get hiding all of these kind of feelings of suffering, It can
be really helpful to just recognize like this is just a
thought that I'm having. This is just a feeling that I'm
having. It doesn't have to carry the
weight that I'm getting it. You can step back at for it from
a moment and then you can kind of act more intentionally.
But how do you do that? So this is part of the
challenge. It's one thing to say like you
can do that. You have the power to do this.
And we could probably all of us identify some experience in our
life that something happened and we didn't have a big, huge
emotional reaction. We just noticed this really big
important heavy thing happened. And I just noticed it and I
responded and kind of like an intentional, skillful way.
We've all had an experience of that.
What we want to do is to have that experience happen more
often to become more skillful. We want to be able to develop
within ourselves the ability more skillfully to recognize
like, oh, I'm having a reaction or I have this thought for
pattern, or I'm, I'm feeling this emotion without it
overwhelming us and spinning us into like reactivity.
It is of course, easier said than done, but it's exactly the
reason that we practice. So one of the ways that you can
practice in Zazan is observing exactly all of those mental
formations that come up and not responding to them, which you've
already done, right. So you probably, I mean, did
your, did your legs fall asleep? Did you have an ache or a pain?
Were you feeling sleepy? Did you have any of that?
And you just sat, you just sat through it.
You just observed like, oh, this is a painful thing and you just
sat. That's practice, right?
So you are training your body and your mind to experience
whatever that is, whatever that mental formation, the thought
that you had the the emotion that you had, whatever it is,
you're training yourself to experience it, not to react to
it. And then do some if, if you
decide there's something that you need to do right, like maybe
if you, maybe if you were having a pain in your leg or something
and you sat with it and then you realized, like, actually, this
is going to cause me distress later.
So I need to adjust. But it was an intentional
adjustment, not just like, oh, I've got to get out.
It's, it's not based on a version and craving it to be
different. So that's part of the way to do
this. And, and it can be really
helpful if you've spend part of your practice just in observing
like, oh, this is, this is something my mental formation is
arising and I'm just going to sit with it.
Because if you give yourself more practice with that on the
cushion, you can have more practice with it in the world.
If you are in the world, not on the cushion, it's more
difficult, right? Because especially if if you are
in an interaction with another person and there's an
emotionally charged situation or something like that, it's more
difficult, of course, to just say, like, oh, I observe, I'm
having this tremendous emotional reaction and I'm just going to
slow down. It's still possible, but that
takes a little bit more practice.
So probably it can be helpful to kind of look at your this the
past stories that you have about yourself and your past and your
experience, which might show you where your future stories are
likely to come from, right? We have a tendency to have a
certain kind of a personal inertia, like the stories that
we told about ourselves tend to influence the stories that we
tell about ourselves in the future.
In terms of like the end of the interactions with people.
If you have a difficult person in your life, life, you probably
when you go to interact with this person, you're like, I'm
going to set myself up because it's going to be a difficult
reaction, right? Like when I put on my armor so
this person doesn't offend me. And typically often just the
process of like, I'm going to be strong about this actually makes
you more vulnerable and more sensitive.
You're priming yourself for the difficult emotion.
You can, on the other hand, say like, OK, I'm going to have a
meeting with this difficult person or I'm going to visit my
family and it's just going to have a difficult scenario.
If you can open yourself up to like, I'm just going to be
aware. It is likely that I'm going to
be telling myself stories. It's likely that certain
emotions are going to come up so that when they come up, it's
less of a surprise. And you can.
It gives yourself maybe an opportunity to pause, take a
breath, and then figure out how to engage more intentionally.
If you do that kind of thing often enough, you will get more
skillful at it. It's not necessarily a linear
relationship. It's not like if you do it 10
times a day, you're going to be 10 times better about it because
that's just not how human bodies and minds work, right?
But if you regularly practice this idea of observing when you
are creating a mental formation, when you're telling a story
about yourself, about an experience, about somebody else,
if you can recognize that you are constructing that mental
formation, it gives you an opportunity to not to, to not
create that story or to at least recognize what is the possible
consequence of creating that kind of a story.
How, how is it likely to influence your kind of
reactivity and, and that sort of thing.
So I'm going to leave it with that and I'm going to turn it
over to you. And I'm happy to hear if you
want to talk about any of the other aggregates.
You're welcome to. Maybe you're not as obsessed
with Sankar as as as I am, but you are.
You're welcome to to talk about the mental formations or
anything else. So I'll turn it over to you.
And when you speak, please start with your name so we can get to
know you a little bit better. This time is yours.
I'm Megan, so dig hearts. I think they're far.
I came under fire from me with my experiences around
association and depersonalization.
So basically with these, you're you're just not attached to your
mind, you know, so you're not thinking.
And then it's like, then what am I?
And that's why depersonalization is often often has existential
thoughts that come with it like these weird existential thoughts
like is this real? And then yeah, it's it's
strange. So really challenges the notion
and also that phrases from Cartesian duality, which is kind
of what Buddhism doesn't do. Yeah, exactly right.
So Buddhism is much more about like the connection between your
body and your inner mind is one of the things that you see with
these five elements is that part of it is in your physical body,
part of it's in your mind, part is in your like emotional
reactivity because it's all connected.
And then it's all further in Buddhism.
And that's just typically not true in terms of Western
thought. Western thought tries to
disassociate. Like the body is all the yucky
messy stuff. Like let's just try to ignore
all of that and let's like live the life of the mind.
And if you can just think, you know, rational thoughts, then
everything is going to be fine. And this is exactly 1 of the
reasons. This is probably why I focus on
the mental formation so much, because that's been my whole
life. Living in a Western culture has
told me if you just read enough books, if you understand the
concepts well enough, you won't suffer.
Like, you can read the book and it gives you the answer and then
you're going to be fine. It it took me learning like,
yeah, but especially for me, that's got to settle into my
body. My body has to understand and my
body doesn't read. So this is exactly the same
thing like that. The connection between the body
and the mind. Yeah, it's incredibly powerful.
It's like disrupted when you have dissociation and
depersonalization. And I, I read an article that
called it enlightenment, evil twin dissociation, the
personalization. Personalization.
Yeah. It's it's really rough.
Yeah. I hope no one has to go through
that. Did you, are you through it?
Is it something that you experience regularly or is it
like? I see myself in parts, so I have
a part that that has that response.
It's actually a defense mechanism.
It doesn't actually have to be disorder unless it goes on a
prolonged amount of time. So it's something that NAMI
National Association of Mental Illness, I think yeah, says 75%
of people have an episode of depersonalization in their
lives. So it's not uncommon at all.
You can even have it if you have burnout for example.
So most people equate it to doing drugs and it can come from
CPTSC as well. Which makes a lot of sense,
yeah. I mean, in terms of like the
kind of trauma responses we tend to have, it makes sense.
That kind of a deep personalization or not unhooking
of the kind of connections that are going on in our body would
make a lot of sense. And it's one of the reasons that
I really appreciate that Buddhism is like, like, yeah, it
all matters. But as we said previously, like
it all matters. The way that you're oriented may
matter in a different way than the way that I'm oriented,
right? So we talked about this like
this kind of a spectrum of all of these things.
And if you, we usually talk about this in terms of
compassion, right? So if you are really good at
being compassionate to other people, but you're really mean
to yourself, well then probably where you need to work is being
more compassionate to yourself, not double down on being
compassionate to other people. Likewise, if you're really good
at being compassionate to yourself, but you're really mean
to other people, well, then you need to work on being kinder to
other people. So it's the same sort of thing,
like figuring out, I mean, this is what I appreciate.
It's not saying like don't have mental formations.
It's like it's part of being human.
You're going to have mental formations.
Be aware of the mental formations, but you don't have
to lean into them. And you can identify the, the
harmful consequences of the mental formations.
So don't, don't try to them, Although, I mean, one of the
interesting arguments is that if you practice like resisting
forming a mental formation, you may not form as many as you
moving forward, right? So you may get more skillful at
just not being so reactive moving forward.
So but that but that shouldn't be the goal.
The goal isn't like, I'm going to, you know, the the
stereotypical Buddhist thing, like, oh, empty your mind, Like,
Oh no, he can't do that. Like mines don't work that way.
Oh, yeah. Oh, have you read Eckhart Toll?
Yes. OK.
He he had an experience with something that was like
depersonalization where he claimed he sat on a park bench
with a like blissed out for two years or something.
Have you heard that? No, I'm like, I'm.
He made it into a pleasant experience.
So probably wasn't depersonalization, but he said
it arose from like, like this thought he had or something.
And then just blink. There was kind of somebody in
joining. His awakening experience send
him to like live in in the now, the power of now, live in the
present moment and the way that looked for him was just like
being able to sit in the park and be blessed that.
I make this feel pretty blissful, especially if you're
in a lot of pain I guess. I think he also claims to that
and I say claim not in a, you know, to disqualify that, that
leading up to all of this was, you know, a lot of depression, a
lot of it, you know, all the the really hard stuff.
And then a moment I was overwhelmed and then kind of
losing himself in this one particular moment.
And then from then on, kind of many of these moments were
available to him. And so kind of interesting, you
know, it's kind of it's kind of roams with enlightenment
sometimes kind of kind of thought process or, or, or being
aware in the moment, you know, that thing.
Interesting, funny character. Hi Stacey.
The the aggregate that always that I'm always most associated
with is again in the Sankari. But for me it's more in the
emotion like a more of a spieler person than a theatre person.
I think as far as I just feel a lot.
And that's the thing that I tend to identify with.
Like if I get a strong emotion, it's that's my challenge is
seeing that, being with that and not identifying with it like so
much that that is who I am, you know, and that's I'm very like
long practice of just letting the emotions like come through,
not reacting to them and not like clinging and identifying.
And yeah, this is, but I am not necessarily a like I just said
that I'm an abortion person, right?
I that's kind of how I tend to identify myself.
And it's just interesting thing and all the I've read a lot
about Buddhism and lots of practices and they can all the
things that I read tend to really kind of emphasize, I
think a lot about the mind, not so much about the feelings.
So that's just a little side note.
Yeah, I mean, we do talk about that in this in the group, you
know, kind of like where where your strengths are in your like
feelings or in your kind of mind.
And it's my bias just as my, my, like my training is like all
about, about the mind. Like I have, it's been through
Buddhism where I'm like, OK, so feelings you can't just like
turn them off, which is what that's what actually brought me
here. Like I was dead to most of my
emotions because I was like the way through is to not feel
anything. And I was like, oh, Buddhism,
they tell you not to feel anything.
That's my jam until I got in and they were like, no, you're
supposed to feel all the things in a respectful amount.
And so it took me like years and years to be like, you mean I got
to feel the thing. I don't want to feel the thing.
The thing is shocking, but it's been, it's been a like, that's
where my practice has been like allowing.
It's a lot of allowing. Like here is a feeling.
And of course I meant immediately have a story like
that's a bad thing. Don't have that feeling.
You shouldn't have that feeling. And it's taken me a long time to
be like, but you have the feeling.
So just just have the feeling, but you know, give it the I,
what I say is give it the respect it deserves and no more.
Because that's where it would be either like my, I would not give
it any respect, try to starve it, which doesn't work right
because it comes back later stronger, or I would just give
it like all of the attention and let it consume everything,
right? So like, trying to learn how to
just be a regular human that has feelings without like, just
feeling like I'm, you know, a walking nerve end or something
like that, right. So yeah, that's part of the
practice too. This also brought me to business
with the opposite was I was just feeling so much and I was like
this is just a walking around involved suffering this feeling
so much and see if I can like figure out a way to live with
that and a still work. And and have you do that so
that's part of your. Goal 'cause I'm eating.
Ups and downs, exactly. There have been definite times
in my life where I've practiced a lot and I have felt, you know,
equanimity and I have felt where actually seeing that, you know,
especially after retreats. So those kinds of things where
something will happen that I would have had emotional
response that would really throw me off where I just did.
It just didn't happen. It wasn't surprised.
It wasn't like I was pushing it down.
It's just didn't happen. Yeah.
Yeah, it's kind of fascinating to see that like I responded all
of these ways before and I was like, right, it's great.
And then you're wondering, like, who am I?
But it does seem like I'm just, for me, it's practice.
Like it has to be a consistent kind of thing.
Like I'll fall off and Bruce why I didn't like I practice for a
while and then I'm like. You know, I mean, we talked
about that kind of thing a lot because that's, that's what we
are going for. It's just like, it's not about
like it's not effort about suppressing a thought or a
feeling or whatever. It's just you are becoming more
skillful in that thought, feeling, whatever it is that
doesn't arise. And one of the things we see
this a lot in this group because we often get a lot of like, like
newcomers because they and they come because they're in
distress. Typically like this is the way
that that people, for whatever reason, people find this group
because like they're in distress and they, their therapist just
told them that meditation and Buddhism would help or, you
know, they, they found it online or something like that.
So they typically come because they're in distress and then
they start to feel better and they're like, good, checked it
out the list. And those kind of like emotional
reactions or the thoughts, the obsessive thoughts or whatever
don't arise as much And they're like, great, I'm all better now.
And then they don't come back anymore.
And then they come back another year later.
They're like, well, that turns out didn't stick.
I was like, yeah, I know because it's a practice.
It's not about like, it's not like it's going to stick.
It's not permanent in that sense because nothing is permanent.
But the practice helps you keep doing the practice over and
over. It means that it's just going to
be less likely to come up again or as strong again.
But it's always going to come up again because that's just, you
know, part of what it is. But not as overwhelmingly strong
or frequent. I have a time where I too
thought that, you know, it, it was about not feeling anything,
you know, being calm and equanimous.
And actually that's a form of spirit of by fasting.
So. Yeah, isn't.
Yeah. So Buddhism is a but the
equanimity is about just being there with my feelings, not like
saying, oh, I have to be enlightened and I have no
feelings. I have no hate and anger.
Yeah. That's, I mean, that's what I
thought too. That's what I was most attracted
to booties. And I was like, oh, you'll never
feel anger again. You'll never feel pain.
You'll never feel suffering. Yes, sign me up immediately.
And this was actually, I've, I've told this story too, like
when I first started practicing, this is how it worked for me.
I came here same like with everybody else.
I was suffering and I was like, I wanted to stop suffering and
I, I stopped suffering. And then I kept practicing.
I kept practicing and I started like getting training in the
order. And at one point, like I started
feeling all the feelings, like even more than I did before.
And I called my teacher. I was like, OK, I'm doing
something wrong because like, I've suffering like a lot.
There's a lot of pain happening. And I thought I was supposed to.
And she just laughed. She was like, yeah, yeah, this
is what happened. Is it's kind of one of those
things like you turn off, you try to suppress everything, then
you open the door. There is a little bit of
Christopher Neff from the Mindful Self Compassion group
talks about this is like backdraft, you know, and I like
a fire where you like there's a fire and you shut the door and
you're like, it's like, oh, I'm going to just starve it.
But it's like getting power and power.
You open the door and it's like kind of fire.
This is like the emotions, like you shove them down, you shove
them down. Once you start opening that
door, you're like, OK, it's being healthy to emotions in the
emotions are like, I have oxygen now.
They like blow up everywhere. So it is part of the practice.
And and this is where that's when for me, that was really the
hard part of like the Buddhist practice happened because I was
like, like, I can't just pretend like I don't have feelings.
I have to just acknowledge that I have feelings.
And that is the way through, right.
Like I thought I could starve the feelings and then they would
go away. And I learned that wasn't true.
And what I have learned is that you have to have the feelings
because they're just because they're there.
That's part of being human. But you can have them in an
appropriate, skillful way and not overwhelming way.
And yeah. James, I was thinking about how
when you were talking, I was kind of thinking like that that
person at work or that situation or and you know, for me, I talk
a lot about stopping recognition, right?
That it's happening because when you were at the point where you
didn't recognize something was happening, you were just, you
know, flowing wherever the river took took you, you know, and
didn't always feel comfortable if you had a lot of these this
automatic negative thoughts or your condition, you know,
habitual thinking and just the recognition that that's
happening is giving me a lot of relief and work to do right at
the same time, right? The relief is that oh, that
that's not who I am. It's part of who I am, but you
know, I don't have to respond to it.
And so there's there's work there.
The other part of that that's interesting to me is then
finding that other perspective. Say you did a talk at work,
right? And it didn't go as well as you
wanted it to go. And there's all there's the
negative, you know, thoughts and some of that part.
But then while working with just that, there's also the others
aspect of and I hate to get into certain concepts like resiliency
and you know, the next buzz topic, but like finding the
growth in it. So like how how to find, you
know, there's a line somewhere where you cross and it's a
different perspective and a different way, at least for me,
a different practicing a different muscle.
So I don't know, that's just some bouts that I was having
while you were talking, but you know, kind of kind of two
different parts of the same process.
Does that make any sense? Hell.
But that's a good reminder because there are there's
certainly some situations where going into it, you know, there's
going to be some challenges coming up or you're or you are
afraid there. This is again, part of the
stories that we tell ourselves like, oh, this is going to be
bad. It's going to be a bad
situation. And it can be helpful just to
recognize like, oh, I'm telling myself a story about what this
interaction is going to be like. And maybe it is going to be like
that, but maybe it's not. And why don't you, we just let
the interaction be what it is. If you have to do the thing for
work, you have to do the thing for work, maybe let's not make
it harder than it has to be. And then when it happens,
whatever happens, because you're probably nervous about it for a
reason, something might happen. And the debrief process can be
less about mental formations and emotions and storytelling.
It can just be like, oh, this is what I observed without putting
a lot of weight on it. That's where we're trying to get
to anyway, right? One of the one thought that
occurred to me when you were talking about, you know, like
reacting to to keep all up and you're happy, like an
interpersonal thing is like I came very attached just to being
a Buddhist, right? Like myself of being a Buddhist.
And then through that, I was like, well, I have to react like
a Buddhist. And what I've noticed just
throughout my life is like, that's a a problem too.
Because you can then fall into situations where you just let
yourself be abused really, because you're like, oh, well,
this person's verbally abusing me or emotionally abusing me,
but I'm a Buddhist. I'm not going to react to and
it's OK because I'm just going to be fine with whatever.
And that's like, I think something that happens to people
and it's not really necessarily a lot, but, and I've experienced
that where you get attached to even the good things that are
kind of, you know. Yeah.
I mean, I talk about that a lot as like using Buddhism as a
weapon usually against yourself kind of thing.
And there are, there are there are people in Buddhism that talk
about just that in terms of like unskillful compassion or
boundary boundary very list at compassion.
And and really the idea is, is exactly this.
Like we can learn all of these things.
We can learn all of these patterns that we can say, OK,
yeah, that makes sense, right? Like I, I'm, I'm telling all
these stories, I'm having these emotions.
It's not helpful or whatever. So I'm not going to do that
anymore. And I'm just going to allow all
of this, I can see all this bad behavior.
This person is doing a bad thing.
That person is doing bad thing. But I'm going to be a Buddhist
and I'm not going to say anything.
Instead of like what they're saying is like, you still have
to be part of the world and it is still compassionate.
It is still, you know, an appropriate response to say like
this pattern of behavior that you're engaging in is harmful.
The trick is how to say that in a compassionate way and that
that's what we're trying to learn.
Like it's not compassion isn't just about like, oh, I see that
I'm telling a story or you're telling a story and oh,
everybody just has their stories.
You know, I'm OK, you're OK Everything's fine.
The, the, the idea is like, oh, did, can you observe like the
story that you're telling or the story that I'm telling is
causing this harm or that harm and saying that having that kind
of difficult conversation is difficult anyway, But often
that's what's doing kind of the greater good.
That's what's more compassionate And the idea if we can let go,
because even though, like I'm a Buddhist and I'm going to do it
the right way, that's an ego thing, right?
Like, I mean, I, we talked about this sometimes like competitive
Buddhism and I'm just like, I don't think you understand the
Buddhist part of this is like, but it's like, I'm AI can
meditate longer and I'm, I'm a better Buddhist and I know more.
And I was like, like, well, that's congratulations.
That's a fantastic thing because Buddhism is not a competition.
And so it is, it's in this ego realm that that that kind of
lives and it comes from a good place.
So many of our stories and our feelings, all these kinds of
mental formations, they come from a good place often, not
always, but often. But we don't always recognize
that just because it came from a good place, it doesn't mean that
it's a good thing to perpetuate or keep going or that it's a
good thing in all other circumstances, right?
The other thing that we focus on is like social context really
matters. So that thing that you did that
was really useful and good and helpful over here, now that
you're over here is not the skillful response.
So you have to actually pay attention to, to what's
happening. So I know it's, I'm glad that we
call it a practice because it's a reminder.
I think that like you're going to have to, you're going to make
mistakes and you're going to try to get better over and over and
you just got to keep doing it. I'm glad you said the word
helpful. Is it helpful just because we
walk in a door, we step into the Buddhist room, like, guess what,
we're still there, right? The shit that we had on the
other side of the door came in with us.
So for for better and worse, it's not a it's not a bad thing.
It just doesn't disappear when we step down this path.
So. I'm I'm glad you brought up a
thing about abuse when it comes to do because I've speed at a
lot and it's really hard to see people talking about this
basically push pushing the boundary was banned boundaries
as Buddhism and endless toleration and unconditional
love when mean if you're not receiving it back then why are
you still giving like coloration doesn't mean that you need to
accept abuse. And I think that's what a lot of
people miss. They, they want to have
compassion for all living beings.
And that includes abuse of people.
And we can have compassion for them and we don't need to take
that on. You can't have compassion for
abusive people. That doesn't mean that you can.
You have to justify their abuse, right?
And that's what we're trying to learn.
How can you be compassionate to the people that are causing us
pain that are that? And we all do.
I mean, it's probably why most of us are here, right?
That there are people, places and things in our life that are
causing us pain and we want to react to all of that with
compassion. But that doesn't mean to say
like, I guess now I just have to put up with it.
I just have to like tolerate it and try to like not react.
I mean, I'm having it. I mean an abusive situation.
Just don't react, don't react, don't react when part of it is
like, but the other part is actually, this is an unhealthy
situation. This isn't on, this is a harmful
thing and I need to do something about that.
And that's another facet of this and it's difficult.
Sounds of wisdom, Compassion. Passion.
Important part though, right? Because you know, if, if we, if
we're not looking upon ourselves and others with that compassion,
all of a sudden they can push the balance into the other side,
into aversion, poisoning ourselves with, with hate and
anger, trying to, you know, look at this more of a power struggle
instead of somebody's own challenges, right?
So I think the compassion and even though I totally agree with
what we're saying, right, is it appropriate, you know, to let
somebody, of course not, you know, and also if we are judging
them and saying that they're bad, that's not, that's not
helping us either, right? So the compassion is still still
really important for ourselves and for them, for our own peace.
Megan, last week you said like, well, is Buddha nature?
Is that really the, the self? And it kind of relates to this
because I, so I said I'm going to look into that.
And what I said last week was like, no, I don't think it is.
It didn't feel like that's that's what they're saying the
self is. And it kind of depends on what
you mean, of course, right? Isn't that always the Buddhist
answer? It depends.
Yes, no, but usually maybe. So it depends on what you mean.
So the idea, I mean, So what is the self, right.
So we have this, all of these five aggregates.
OK. So the self is not your form
that decays and changes. The self is not these mental
formations. They change like all this.
So that's not the self. So then what is the self?
And I think if what you mean by like, so is Buddha nature, the
self, if what you're saying is that like the, the potential.
So generally Buddha nature is like that you have the potential
to have this kind of clear thinking, to be compassionate,
to have wisdom, like you have the capacity in yourself to do
that. And that is sort of what they're
saying. Like in Buddhism, what is the
self is the, is the, is your ability and, and the trained
mind. So that to become more
skillfully compassionate, to have more wisdom, to have a
calmer mind that like those are that's the self, your calm mind,
your compassionate mind, your self, you know, those kinds of
things. It's developing those sort of
skills. So in that way, like kind of
right, that, that part of it is that we have the potential, we
have the power to train our minds and our bodies to calm our
minds to, to think more spontaneously, compassionately,
to feel in a more balanced way. Like though we have the the
potential for that. When we do those things, that's
our self, like when we are acting, thinking, believing, you
know, processing in a way that is skillfully compassionate and
balanced and equanimous and. Full of wisdom, that's ourself.
So I think probably you would say yes, I'm still going with
maybe because I can't stop with the Buddhism, but I think it's
probably, I'm guessing that's what you're thinking.
Like that's what that is. Yeah, maybe.
Yeah. I've always heard it's, it's the
Buddhist teaching was that there is no self.
But people like to say like, that's hard, right?
A hard thing for like our rusted mind to grasp because we've like
all been like raised in this kind of society where like we
have a soul and there is like this theme and inherently ours.
And so it's very hard for us to like hear all of that concept.
So it's what the way I've always understood it is like there's
there is no, there's no self that's solid, right?
That like, there's nothing there that's like unchanging.
Yeah, even even like the the thinking, even if you do have
this kind of balanced mind and you're kind of balanced body and
all that sort of stuff, that's going to change because the next
moment something will happen that's going to kind of throw
that off. And and so this is one of the
reasons why I'm saying like, well, when maybe it is about
this idea of Buddhist Buddha nature, because that is an
active process. Like you have to continually
practice to to kind of calm your mind.
You have to continually practice to cultivate wisdom.
And so like, if the belief though, if what you're saying is
like, Oh yeah, but no, I did it because I read the books and I
meditated. So check, I am now enlightened,
right? So, and that's, that's the same
sort of belief, like I that I, there's something I can do and
then I'm done. And then I'm the good version of
myself and I'm done with the bad version of myself.
And instead of what they're saying like this, always a
process. I say how you little boy go
popped up. No structure is built to
withstand. If it's a set structure, I
definitionally cannot stand, it's going to topple because
it's an aesthetic world. So when we're selling these
things as structures, this is our self.
I hear that as biz and biz and I'm jumping analogies like I
always do, but I think a bot stuff that's a big puzzle that
they own PC puzzle out. That's not puzzle.
Like here's what puzzle, but that's not it is a it's a peace
puzzle. So even like Descartes running
the elementary school there and there's about a few subjects
that pay attention to. He was right, he wasn't wrong.
It is as if we're thinking if we're lost, we went so far to
not duality. We're sending the FARC
everything this is request out inflated, disconnected or
whatever way that looks. If we can think of welcome here.
I feel lots what is said that thoughts there's shortest
connection. Wow, I'm not just that, but
Muslim not knock it. I think that's where we are.
It's fond like maybes the this is this, isn't it?
Wow, So no, I think about that a lot like if we let the building
go for a week, it's the immediate start to crumble.
It's gossip being maintained. It's still exists, but it's not
sick. They also dear this makes a no
he's. I'm, I'm Jared.
I feel like that that kind of idea of like how to reconcile
Windows cell and the Buddha nature kind of that really that
that that feels right to me. A lot of the there's a lot of
like Jewish, like non orthodox and non Christian Orthodox.
The a lot of the Mystics think about kind of like how to how to
be how to be in your like most holy state, kind of similar, a
similar factory course, you know, being pragmatic.
We just real. We are considering that the
actor like having the same life, but they the thing about it is
like a process of of be all you just say, I think.
You know. You don't reach an enlightened
state. It's often it's a continual
process. It's a process of being
lightning, not RIP a sheeting night.
You gotta check them where you're at and.
Right, Yeah. I mean, this is we talk about
enlightenment as a verb and and not a noun.
And I think that's really useful.
It's the same sort of idea that it's really dynamic and, and I
think, you know, sometimes talking this way can seem kind
of nihilistic, right? Like like, oh, there's no form,
there's no body, there's no self, there's no, there's no
point kind of thing. And I think what we're saying is
like, it is, you are still here. This is a moment that is
happening that you need to engage with in a inappropriate
way. And because of that, because
there isn't a moment that is happening now, it feels like
it's very fixed. It feels like it's very
tangible. And our challenge is to
recognize that this is a moment we are having an experience and
I can feel the experience happening.
And that's true. And now that moment's gone.
And now there's a new moment. So how do we sit with this
feeling of solidity and this feeling of like weight and sense
of self and all of that stuff and also recognize that even
though we feel this kind of solidity, it's still very
dynamic. That's the idea of like, that's,
that's what we're learning to live with.
Can we just continue to roll with it?
And that's what we're trying to get more skillful at.
Like can we like be enlightening?
Can we just keep rolling with it and recognize that part of what
it means to be enlightened and to be enlightening is that
you're going to recognize that this is, it's all still moving.
But I can recognize like the I like we are talking to each
other. That is the thing that's
happening. And now things are changing and
now I have to adapt to this sort of a change.
So how can we get some sort of a feeling, a solid grounding
without believing that that's now like now we're planted and
now this is this is what's real as opposed to something else.
Like it is just it's really trying to find that that kind of
a balance and it can be sort of tricky.
So I often tell people is like just to explore the places that
are difficult for you, because it may be that that's what you
kind of need to lean into is that difficult part.
But if what you find yourself is getting completely overwhelmed
and unbalanced because you're leaning into the difficult part,
then come back to a place that feels like it's solid and real
and, and keep practicing and you'll recognize like, OK, I
needed to tell myself a story that this was solid and real
because I was way off base. Now I'm like, OK, now I've got
my footing. Now I can go back into that kind
of difficult thing. If we can keep doing that sort
of a process, we can get more skillful at just recognizing it
is all dynamic. It's moving and I still have a
there's it's a meaningful place for me to be right out, even
though it's being dynamic. So we'll just leave you with
that since you all spoke no homework today, but nonetheless,
I mean except for continue practicing like continue to
become enlightened this. Is your practice always?
So we'll close, and when we close we like to say may the
fruit of our practice extend to all living beings, Baha.