2022-11-03-Similes for Meditation (4 of 5) Clean and Wrapped in Peace

5:56PM Dec 15, 2022

Speakers:

Gil Fronsdal

Diana Clark

Keywords:

body

concepts

meditation

simile

deep

mind

blanket

feeling

settled

clean

talk

lake

disappear

enveloped

creaky

retreat

cleanliness

conceiving

person

deepening

The following talk was given at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California, please visit our website at audio dharma.org.

Come to the fourth talk on this similes for meditation. And we're going through with the similes that are used for strong concentration practice for the jhānas for absorptions. And where they these similes are particularly apt, particularly representative of some of the deeper experiences and the kind of phases through which clearly clear kind of stages or phases that we go through as the mind gets really settled in focus quiet. And I appreciate how much these descriptions who work for meditation well short of deep absorption, that eye meditation, even though even mildly settled, meditation, goes through phases, and the body citta sense of body changes, or their sense of self changes, all kinds of things changes, as we settle, even modestly, and some of what the similes for deep concentration represent or how they feel, can be experienced sometimes in lighter meditation, and to recognize in the field a kind of supports, the deepening supports that are opening up to settling even more and more. And part of the advantage of being sensitive, some of these shifts and changes and in, in, in more ordinary deepening of meditation is that we're starting to get comfortable with it to recognize it. So when the meditation is really deep, we're already somewhat familiar, and we recognize it and we don't get excited, or sometimes people get afraid, or, or kind of confused by it. We're already familiar with kind of all I know, I know, this is just a deepening of what I've already had and know about. So we come to the simile for the fourth jhana. The fourth jhana, is a state of very deep tranquility and equanimity. And, and in it, the, because the fourth shot of the mind is so still and quiet, that there's very little concepts, conceiving, making of concepts in which through which we see ourselves and the world around us. And, in fact, there's no the eyes closed, there's no thoughts, no conception, no perception of the world around us anymore, because we're so settled and content and peaceful here, that everything else recedes. And one of the things that recedes from awareness, when we're quite settled and peaceful, and the mind is calm, is the sharp definitions of the body, the sharp way we understand the body, and so much of experience of the body is in fact mediated through concepts being self conscious about the body, often has to do with maybe comparisons, one concept with versus another, we compare our body with the someone else's body type, our body is too thin or too large or too small or too something. And, and it's possible to get really wrapped up in body consciousness. And these ideas and concepts that have a lot to do with comparative thinking, comparing ourselves to an ideal to other people, to how we were when we were younger. And this is all navigating in the world of concepts and ideas, which belongs to the world of thinking mind, conceptual mind. The body in and of itself, in terms of its perceptions of itself, where it says proceed receiving sensations of the body. The sensations of the body are free and independent of the concepts we have. And this was a moment you know, with regular street consciousness this might be inconceivable that there we connect, experience the body without any concepts, especially if, if the concepts are so deeply engrained in the mind, we don't even know that we're conceiving them. And, and so but there's, there's kind of this very deep layers of the mind where conceptions operate, even without words, even without images, it just kind of there, and all that can get quieter and quieter. And we can start perceiving the body without the kind of really any, without seeing it without any clear sense that there is a body here. So the simile that's for this is a delightful simile of a person little bit of a embellish it but the person you know, the two earlier ones have to do have the being a lake, kind of being in a lake. And imagine that you've gone for a nice bath, they swim into beautiful clear water, and you've come out of the lake and and maybe even grimy and dirty even backpacking or hiking or something, and you're been maybe days without a shower. And finally, you're able to go to this beautiful quite Lake and clean yourself really thoroughly unwell and all the dirt and grime is off you and and you come back on the shore and you're very contented, very happy, there's nothing to do nothing to be arrived where you want to come be. And, and someone gives you a completely clean, soft cotton blanket to wrap yourself around in and completely enveloped in this blanket so that no part of the body is not covered by this blanket. And, and many land where there's flies and insects flying around, you're protected from those the blanket, you're protected from the sun and nothing comes in. That way maybe you're protected from the wind and just feel so nice and safe and protected inside this blanket. And because you're inside completely enveloped in this blanket, no one no you can't see the body. The blanket kind of the soft kind of gauzy blanket means the body is not see seen. But inside that blanket the person Ube is completely feeling cleans the purity, there's a cleanliness, there's a radiating feeling that can't happen after you're really clean, perhaps a shower or a bath or something. And very content and, and kind of peaceful. Feeling of everything is good, and everything's right in the world. So that's a simile. This person enveloped in a clean cotton blanket. And no part not covered. And, and so in this deep meditation of the blankets shows us that you can't see the body. We don't perceive the body in ordinary ways. The body gets diffuse gets to kind of disappears. There might be individual sensations to here and there. But they're very almost disappear entirely. Remember that similarly, before yesterday, there's still things in the lake. The lake still has a certain kind of substantiality, there's water in it, that and there's individual lotus flowers floating in the lake. So there might still be sensations in the body, they're just floating in the lake floating in this kind of spaciousness of the water. And this force similarly, there's not You're not really almost it can be almost no sensations at all of the body. There's that almost like the body disappears. Except for this feeling of cleanliness, of refreshment that's coming from the, from the bath, this feeling of being peaceful, being tranquil, this feeling of being a quantumness just everything's okay. The work of you had to do has been finished. Nothing needs to happen. There's nothing the next contentment. There's no reactivity of the mind no being for or against anything, just very, very content and deep. There's no clear sense of rapture or pleasure or joy or delight. There's something that feels more satisfying, which is a kind of this kind of feeling of deep kind of cleanliness and purity and peace that seems to radiate kind of where the body used to Be. And,

and it's a lovely experience. I've known people and I've done this where the body seems to slip disappear in the States, and kind of beginning doubting, Do I really have a body anymore if my body really disappeared, and then opening the eyes to see, looking at the body still there, it didn't go away. Because the sense of the body disappearing is so strong, that, that you want to check and make sure it's still there. And so the so one of the important lessons in this kind of, through the simile, but also the kind of meditation that can be a little bit like this is that as meditation deepens, we're experiencing ourselves experience, our life, free of many of the ordinary concepts that we live with, on automatic pilot. And some of these concepts that we take for granted, we believe, to find reality, this is what's really happening, turns out to be provisional turns out to be just concepts concede things of the mind. And they're not inherent, they're not exactly what they have, they would have to be there. And when a lot of these concepts of ourselves, our body and what's going on, bring us a really heavy a burden or bring a lot of suffering and distress. It's kind of surprising and radical, to have all those concepts disappear, and stop and feel this deep peace and contentment. Without anything in the world having been fixed, or anything, you know, challenges in our body that we have fixed, because the body just has somehow there's a different way of experiencing life or a different way of experiencing that is not mediated by the concepts that we are usually navigating or struggling with. And that puts a little question mark, after the concepts after the struggles we have is this really as real as I thought it was? It just really a substantial and necessary as I thought it was, there is another way here. The Buddha when he was at the SUTA is in the discourses, there's the Buddha talking among himself as an old man, 80 year old man. And back in ancient India, there were no pain medication, there was no kind of medications that we have that can make aging so much more easier. There's no There's no palliative care, hospitals to reduce the pain. And, and he wrote, he tells you eat I talked about how much his body hurt and was creaky and that he was bent over in his old age his back and, and, and that the only place that he got relief from all his pain was to go into this deep state of meditation that the assembly is for. And I imagine that's where he got refreshed and renewed. So that he can continue going on with his life. With his creaky, old painful body kind of lifted it for a while and refreshed him and and. And so this kind of meditation is very useful for us, and can help a lot. But the biggest help for people doing mindfulness meditation, it can begin to free us from the authority, the hegemony of concepts and ideas. And we see them as provisional conditional contingent. Not always necessary to live by them. And this is kind of a paradigm shift that meditation can take us to, and hopefully in doing so, help us be much wiser, navigating in the world of concepts. So thank you. And so we have one more simile. And that'll be tomorrow. And I think sometimes people go away on Friday. And so we don't quite have as many people here. So maybe I'll make an announcement today and tomorrow about the next few weeks is that next week codo. Conlin will be leading the 7am while I'm on retreat, and the following week of May Elliott will give the talks he also went on one retreat. And they're, they're related to each other, they're married. And they're both of them in IMCs teacher training program, they're wonderfully promising young teachers. And they have a similar background as myself, in that they have also been practicing with the San Francisco Zen Center have a Zen background. And Coda was actually a priest there. And like I was, and but also very deeply personal practitioners. And now, you know, in our, in our Vipassana insight teachers reading program, they're a delight. And I think you'll enjoy them quite a bit. And and then the following two weeks after that, I'm going away for Thanksgiving, and then I do another retreat. So I won't be here for four weeks. And, and the, but you will be taken care of somehow and during this time, and I think it's very supportive for all of you when you show up for each other here. So I hope that you, you know, you're, you offer that support, and I'll be back in in the beginning of December, but he'll be here tomorrow. Great. Thank you.