2022-11-04-Dharmette: Similes for Meditation (5 of 5) Lake Clearly Seen
5:56PM Dec 15, 2022
Speakers:
Gil Fronsdal
Diana Clark
Keywords:
simile
ordinariness
standing
ordinary
teacher
absorptions
awakening
gravel
states
ways
lake
nature
meditation
pebbles
shells
water
clear
zen center
coming
supposed
The following talk was given at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California, please visit our website at audio dharma.org.
So on this Friday, I offer my fifth and final reflections on the Buddha's similes for meditation. And the previous similes all came from the previous discussion about the four absorptions. And the today's will be his analogy or simile for awakening, often following the absorb absorptions. And it's a remarkable simile because of its ordinariness. The four absorptions are states of deep meditation that are very satisfying. And people have very variety of attachments to them. Attached to wanting to have it when they don't be upset when they don't have these states of meditation. Wanting to have it again in some sometimes desperate way. If they have at once. Sometimes they're a little bit frightening because they're so different than ordinary life ends up people pull back and it's what was that and and sometimes they lend themselves to feeling of great, certainly bliss, rapture, wonder, wonder isness amazement, the light that can be very healing, there's lots of benefits with concentration practice. But they kind of are extraordinary states of mind, at least from the point of view of everyday life. In the middle of these, some states of concentration, if they're not too intense, it can feel like oh, this is the natural mind, this is a natural state. The altered states of consciousness is everyday life of anger and desire and confusion and all the stuff that goes on that when we're agitated in the mind, but the mind is settled and quiet and peaceful, it can feel like this is the this is healthy, this is natural. But in any case, some of the states of concentration are kind of extraordinary, in some ways. The simile for awakening comes back to something ordinary. And for all that Buddhism for all the ways in which awakening Buddha's practice emphasizes not-self The, the similes for absorption kind of involves a kind of disappearing of the person and deeper and deeper states of concentration until the body disappears and and they're kind of like the person is not quite there not because discounting you as a person meditation is just that the mind has gotten so quiet and peaceful. In the simile for awakening the person has come back a person is standing and the clarity it's in my mind of just standing standing into place here definitive location standing a person standing upright and this person is looking into a very clear lake and the person is looking into the lake and seeing because it's so clear can look right down to the bottom to the lake floor. And the person sees their different kinds of shells the text translates that is always their shells that are kind of in the in the water also sees gravel and pebbles in the water in the floor and sees schools of fish either swimming around together or are just kind of hovering stuff is still in the water. And these are seen clearly. So that's the simile and and then I think there's nothing extraordinary symbolic that's supposed to be represented by what these objects in the water because The emphasis here is on the clarity of seeing. And then when sees something so clearly, and so obviously, that its uses seems like ordinary, the mind isn't for or against is not excited by it. It's not, you know, making a self out of it not congratulating one selves, it's just the things, they're just objects of nature. You know, gravel and pebbles, you know, we don't make much about them. Shells, maybe we don't make much of them at them unless we want to eat them. And, and, little little, imagine this metaphor, the schools of fish are very small fish. So there's not, you know, any, like you want to fish them. Because, you know, there's way too small to, to, to eat. So it's just kind of this natural scene in the water. And in that ordinariness of awakening, maybe there's something extraordinary about the freedom and the release of awakening, but of attachments. But there's also something amazingly ordinary, extraordinarily ordinary. And that we're seeing nature, we're seeing what's natural, we're seeing what's here, as part of nature as its naturalness. And this is part of the release, we're releasing all the ways we want to extraordinary all the ways in which we attribute meaning and purpose and self and, and philosophies and all kinds of kind of layers and layers and layers of building cathedrals of ideas and stories and meaning and self around experience. Those get released and freed. And what are we left with? and I were left with simplicity, very simple, just standing see and clearly seeing clearly as if everything is in the naturalness of everything. So now I want to read the simile. So with that background, and this is bigger bodies. Translation, it's in the 39th discourse in the middle length discourses also in second discourse of Long Discourses. And so goes bigger bodies, translation goes like this, just as if they were a lake in a mountain recess, clear, limpid, and undisturbed. So that a person with good sight, standing on the bank, could see shells, gravel, and pebbles and also shows a fish swimming and resting.
And, and he might think that person might think there is this fish swimming about and resting. There is this lake clear, limpid and undisturbed. There are the shells, gravel, and pebbles and also the shoals of fish swimming about and resting. So
exactly how we are supposed to interpret this similarly for awakening. can, you know there's different choices in ways and certainly there's much more to be said about this. But what I'd like to do by ending this week, is to emphasize the ordinariness of it, the ordinariness of you standing still and quiet and peaceful. And seeing and seeing the ordinariness of life seeing the simple things around you, without the mind wanting and needing and avoiding and building and fantasizing and making up itself in relationship to it. In this simile the person does not disappear because sometimes that is extra this idea I'm not supposed to be here supposed to be empty, I'm supposed to be somehow vanish and have no self here or I'm supposed to kind of be habitant non dualistic relationship with a world where I disappear just the world and and no, everything disappears or everything is somehow mature Putting a simile is just you're allowed to stand and be here. But if you're alone in the mountain is kind of in a safe wonderful cozy place and looking at the water the many people just kind of their the self the social concerns that exist in urban settings live living around people kind of disappear just here and not needing identity not needing to prove oneself defend oneself assert oneself not needing to be anything for anybody just standing there looking into this calm peaceful lake and seeing the most you know, ordinary things in it. And gravel shells, small fish swimming around. And so what would it take for you to have trust enough that it's okay to be this way to stand tall and confident in a certain way, that kind of confidence that looks confident from the outside but the inside you're neither confident nor not confident. Just be willing to be as you are. And be able to kind of gaze upon everything the world yourself content to know what is obvious. Not searching for meaning not searching for what's behind it the cause of the history and fault and blame and there might be time in place for those things but what do you say to just sit stand there and gaze upon things as if everything is just a natural everything obvious everything seen clearly as it is in the present moment. Whatever it might be just seeing it as nature no greater lesser value than gravel in the lake bed or small little fish swimming around a marvel of nature but not something to get to appropriate or be greedy about or to hate or to not something supernaturally phenomenal and fantastic that you can write postcards home and say wow, I had this amazing experience it was so far out and not to diminish the value of fart out experiences but
just the ordinariness of being here with clarity so so similes. So part of the value of similes is they can be interpreted understood in different ways. They can kind of sometimes like poetry may be you don't have to always understand the author's intent behind the similes. but rather by exploring them and interpreting them and seeing them on different days, different months, different years. They might point to something or speak to something or clarify something that is new and sees the world in a new way. She's herself. So new ways similes are kind of have this wonderful power to reach deep inside of ourselves to understand new ways, expand our senses. And because all of these symbols have to do with meditation, kind of the path of the dharma, there is a place to try to understand what they mean dharmic li what they mean as part of this path and and how do they work together? How do they unfold together? For the purposes of freedom, of freedom that in the end allows us to be ordinary a glorious ordinary we're free from all the burdens that we carry.
So thank you very much. And so as I said yesterday, I want to repeat the announcement that it looks like I won't be here for the next four weeks. I'm teaching retreats, three of those weeks. And then I'm going away a family trip for Thanksgiving. And, and for the next two weeks, I have guests coming. Wonderful, as a couple wonderful to to people in the IMCs teacher training wise teacher trainees who are already great teachers and done a fair amount of teaching already. And, and they are, I think they're the youngest teachers and the teacher training are among the youngest. And now so it's kind of like a new generation coming along, which is kind of exciting. And I'm very happy to introduce them to you this way and have them come and, and so I think you'll enjoy them quite a bit. this coming week, it's codo, codo Conlin, and now he's also a priest at San Francisco Zen Center. So he has a similar background than me that I was a priest there and also trained to be the pasta teacher. And, and then there's may Elliot, who is a longtime Vipassana student, and also a student at San Francisco Zen Center and teacher there. And so and then the fault last two weeks, I'm not sure what's happening yet. We're kind of a little bit dependent on having volunteers help with technology for broadcasting this. And we have to make for people are not here at IMC with to make a Zoom Room for them. And then head they teach through the into the Zoom Room and that gets transferred over to YouTube. So it's not clear we have volunteers to do that. And so I'll still wait and see if we have if teachers if I don't find teachers to come, then there'll be we'll do replays and, and hopefully make a nice choice from this huge collection now of the 7am teachings we've done over these almost three years. So thank you very much. I look forward to coming back in a month. I think it's on the fifth of December. And and I hope that you take good care of your your 7am sangha during this month.
