2022-12-13-Gil-Insight Pentad (2 of 5) Disenchantment

7:48AM Dec 15, 2022

Speakers:

Gil Fronsdal

Keywords:

disenchantment

troubled

disenchanted

insight

meditation

momentum

disinterest

meditate

lottery

entranced

happen

support

desires

person

life

disinterested

control

feeling

arises

sit

So here we are the second day of this series on the insight, pen tad. And the East pen test of yesterday last week, and this week, the gladness pen tat and the insight pen that are descriptions of a natural unfolding in Buddhist practice and meditation practice. So first, there's the idea that we don't have to be the end always in the driver's seat of our meditation, always controlling it, making it happen, measuring it, doing it to kind of, you know, write writing, writing close and tight. And there's a time and place where we want to kind of allow a natural process to unfold that unfolds better if we start giving up control and allow something to happen. But that giving up control and allowing happens with best happens when there's already some centeredness in the present moment, some momentum of being focused here and present. That the that there's very little tendency to get distracted. And a lot of tendency, a lot of interest in being really connected to our experience connected to the breathing. And so because if this, if there's a kind of this momentum exists within us of being present, then letting go and like giving up control, we're letting go into that momentum, and something can begin happening. But without some opening, and allowing something to happen. There's no room for it to happen sometimes, if we're, you know, trying to turn to always trying to operate from our control and desires and all that. So, with time, as we said, settle in, there's insight, we see something really clearly. And exactly what we see varies from person to person. And classically, one of the key things this they see is how changing our experiences moment by moment. And we can't hold on to it, we just got to kind of allow allow for the changing nature of it. Some people don't understand why this is so significant. And some people have other insights, other understandings that are key as the big kind of kind of keep unfolding. So what's interesting to see is, what these insights lead to, if we would take kind of insights we're looking for lead us in a certain direction, and open to something. And if we understand what they're opening to, then we can look back and see personal understanding of all the different things that might support all kind of insights that might support that opening. And, and what it opens to, in the is, as English is usually translated as disenchantment. And it's a kind of strong disinterest in continuing with some of the business as usual, some of the usual things that are mind heart does. And so a disenchantment a disinterest, a kind of a healthy, you know, enough already and I've done this and I've done this enough kind of sorta unhealthy kind of weariness or tiredness or this is you know, enough already. And it can happen for example, if in meditation say for you meditate every every morning for half an hour. And after 252 days, you realize that every morning, you are obsessing about lottery numbers, and that's all you're thinking about. So you get to the 253 days, and you realize, wait a minute, a good part of this last year, I've been thinking about lottery numbers to no avail. It hasn't helped me win any lottery. I haven't been had a single accurate number and any lottery anywhere in the planet. And I'm spending an inordinate amount of my time in meditation and thinking about lotteries, let alone outside of it. You know, maybe it's enough already I feel tired from all this thinking and figuring in Calculating I do in meditation. And I'm, you know, I'm really getting tired of this now. And two there's a disenchantment a disinterest, maybe person hasn't won any lotteries. And so there's a real there was there were so enchanted and so entranced with the possibility that of what would happen if they won the lottery. And so if you're after 253 days of this, that finally the person starts becoming disinterested disenchanted with maybe they start falling out of the trance of instant wealth that maybe the lottery provides. So, so in we call it disenchantment. I like the word disenchantment, because it implies that you've been enchanted, you're under the spell of something. And we can be under the spell of our desires, under the spell of our fantasies, under the spell of certain beliefs, that if only my partner behaves better than I will be, then I'll have a good life, if only the only spell there is this spell of conceit. And this is all kinds of ways in which we are overly interested or caught in ideas about how terrible I am, how wonderful I am, how mediocre I am. All these ways of being entranced with that. And so as we sit and meditate, sometimes the repetition of the same kind of thoughts and behaviors and interest, we start seeing it more and more and more clearly. And we start seeing this as a high cost. You know, I've been resentful for 252 days, you know, maybe I didn't realize I was doing it every day. Now that I meditate, I see it. And only because of the familiarity and seeing the regularity Do we understand the cost of daily resentment, resentment, meditation. And so then there starts to be a disenchantment starts to be a disinterest. And, and so the, our attention or life energy doesn't go into those thoughts around that thing. And, and rather now it's more available for this momentum that we're talking about. In practice, this momentum can make you get getting out of the way even more for the momentum of concentration, the momentum of mindfulness attention, the immense momentum of being more settled as a chance to kind of operate because we're not activating ourselves with at all. So to become disenchanted with craving, discontented with ill will disenchanted with all kinds of fantasies, we have disenchanted with conceits. Self preoccupation, boy, I'm always self preoccupied. Some of that might be okay. It's not totally wrong. But to see the regularity, and how little it does for us, how not only does it benefit us, actually, sometimes deleterious for us to have this, and the opportunity meditation to sit there quietly, dignified, valued, respecting ourselves, and seeing in this kind of embodied respect and presence. Wow, there's a lot of nonsense in that mind. I had no idea. And we started maybe becoming disenchanted, disinterested. And so this movement towards disinterest. And some of that comes from starting to see more clearly, the difference between events in the world and our relationship to them. So as I said earlier, in the meditation, we might have troubles in the world, you know, the car has a flat tire that's troubling, maybe, or might be much bigger ones troubles we have, maybe we have family members, who are ill, and we have to care for them. And it's troubling, it's a trope, you know, it's a trouble, it's a trouble, it's a challenge. It's a problem to figure out how to do it well. And so there's the troubles and then there's being troubled by it. And just that distinction, separating those two out, then we can start seeing the feeling of being troubled as being something that we're contributing to it something that was subjective and arising from within us. And we might not feel like we have much choice or ability to do anything about it. But when we sit and meditate regularly, I know really bring a lot of mindful store experience and see how often we're troubled and start cutting, stealing, getting some handle on it. seeing it clearly, and be able to kind of observe it not being in it, not being absorbed in it, the relationship to feeling troubled, might change. And we might become disinterested disenchanted with the value of feeling troubled. And some of the energy that goes into it, the tension that we hold around, it begins to soften and relax.

And then we might discover, we can take care of the issues, we have to take care of much better, if we don't feel the tension or the burden, the weight that comes with feeling troubled. So there's himself kind of becoming disenchanted with some of the reactivity and responses within us to events in the world. disenchanted with the second arrows, we, we shoot that ourselves, so. So the idea of becoming disenchanted, it's considered to be a form of wisdom that will support the momentum and the deepening of freedom in our lives. So it has a tremendous value. And it arises out of insight into seeing something clearly. And so whatever you see clearly enough that allows for this deeper movement of disenchantment, maybe that's insights for you. So the question the homework for today, would be, what wisdom what understanding what insight you have about what's happening for you and how you react, how you respond, how you think how you feel how you desire that might awaken or support, a healthy disinterest disenchantment with some of your desires, some of the things you're have been caught up in. Give yourself some time today, maybe having tea going for a walk. And considering this topic of disenchantment, healthy, disinterest, and aware how can how might that kind of be evoked more, more strongly, so that it supports you in your life? So thank you very much. And then we'll take this another step tomorrow. And to see where as this this interest, become healthy disinterest. disenchantment begins to take hold. What that allows for or what we could allow to happen next, on this journey to freedom. So, thank you very much.