20210709-Gil_Fronsdal-IMC Vedanā (5 of 5) Non-Clinging to Vedanā

1:27AM Jan 30, 2023

Speakers:

Gil Fronsdal

Keywords:

unpleasant

pleasant

clinging

ideas

feeling

tones

sensations

kaleidoscope

philosophies

thoughts

identity

ephemeral

changing

experience

buddha

mind

pleasantness

constant

neutral

moment

So this will be the last talk on vedanā The feeling tones, a affective quality of our experience, net, all things have, among all the different qualities as things have experiences have all the different characteristics of them. They have, they have, they have either have their pleasant, or unpleasant or neither pleasant or unpleasant. And, and we're kind of focusing on the real specificity of one to have a moment of experience of something in the complexity of life, when many things happening and kind of swirl of complexity, there could be a combination of all those that we can identify. But when we get quiet and still and really kind of tune into the details, particularity of what it is, then the the you know, they're pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. And one of the really fascinating teachings of the Buddha is that people's philosophies, people's view of life, peoples, maybe he doesn't say this, but even though maybe their politics have at their base or at their, at the root, somehow a reaction to what's pleasant, unpleasant or neutral, and very sophisticated philosophies, very sophisticated justification for political political systems or views might have its beginning, in a reactivity to things that we find pleasant and unpleasant. And, and this idea of pleasant and unpleasant that we're talking about here is not the raw, unpleasant unpleasantness, of experience, there is no such raw thing. Because almost right away two things arise pleasant, unpleasant, with our perceptions or devaluation or associations with it. So that this pleasant, unpleasant, sometimes in it's referred to as liking and disliking. So this movement of liking and disliking being for or against, is so deep. And it's kind of amazing that if we really trace back our where the basis of how we react in the world is. Then we have this choice of back, it all begins with pleasant and unpleasant and this is what I said earlier. So anyway, the teachings of the Buddha is that the, the, all these philosophies and ideas of use speculation, speculative views about life, the nature of life, can have their roots in the simple thing pleasant and unpleasant. And the one that's most significant for many people who were interested in becoming free, is the way in which ideas of self identity can have their roots, the way we not not identity that we are born into, or that other people assume about us, or, you know, there's a lot of identities which is come with being human being that but the act of identification, the act of latching on to an identity, and, and these all these different identities that we swirl around in Kaleidoscope are relevant at different times. If we latch on to it, cling to it, hold on to it, then we'll suffer. And this clinging to identity clinging to ideas of self has at the root of it. This concern with pleasant and unpleasant, pleasant and unpleasant can be a very deep conditioning for this movement towards me myself in mind. And one way it takes shape is when we say when we identify with the feelings themselves. When the feeling tone of experience, when things are pleasant. It's like this is I'm the one who's experiencing the pleasantness or I'm the one who experienced the unpleasantness. This is my pleasant experience. This is my unpleasant experience. And and this very close kind of wrapping ourselves around, clinging it and having a sense of self in relationship to feeling tones is one of the great sources of suffering. And one of the great kind of possibilities of freedom is to allow the color Eat a scope of feeling tones of how things appear and disappear as pleasant and unpleasant to just come and go, and kind of float in them or, or make room for them or be spacious around them. And, and so and feeling this feeling tones are something that if you really tune into them or really get close and feel them, they're not stationary, they're not fixed. They're actually quite fluid and changeable. And the analogy that Buddha gave for them is that they, when there's a big rainstorm, and the rain is formed, falling, raindrops are falling on a lake. There's a spell the spattering and little bubbles and smatterings of, of you know, a splashing of lake water from the drops, and those appear ephemerally they're there for a brief moment, and then they dissipate, and sort of feeling tones, whether things are pleasant, unpleasant, or neither have that kind of ephemeral quality to it. And if we can really settle back and open up in the spaciousness of the mind, to feel intimately that kaleidoscope of changing sensations, that's where sometimes we can loosen up the grip of self around the sensations themselves. And to let go. And it's not meant to let go of necessarily like or to philosophy, philosophical views, ideas of what self is, at the core, what this Buddhist tradition is about, is letting go of clinging, any kind of clinging. And one of the means to do that is to be aware of the pleasant and unpleasant and neutral quality of our experience. And if you could kind of tune into the, the changing impermanent in constant nature of those feeling tones, you'll be well on your way to not to appreciate that clinging to it doesn't really work. And that sometimes we claim to is not that pleasant and unpleasant. But rather the concepts and ideas we have pleasant and unpleasant. And and that makes them stationary seem like they last longer than they really do. And more constant than they really are. And, and so this idea that. And so to discover non clinging, through feeling tones, discover freedom to feel feeling in feeling tones. And one way to do that is to appreciate the space around each feeling tone, this stillness, the silence within which the raindrops are splattering. And so feeling tones, pleasant, unpleasant and neutral, and becoming aware of the ephemeral nature of them. And if they don't feel ephemeral, they don't feel you don't see them or sense them as somehow changing, maybe flashing in and out of existence. So there, there is continuity over time with some sensations. But they are actually in the moment. They're kind of flashing in and out of existence in a certain way. If you don't see it that way, chances are, that you're living in your ideas of them, your thoughts of sensations, your thoughts are pleasant, your thoughts of what's unpleasant. And but if you really turn the lens of mindfulness around carefully, to the thoughts themselves, you'll see the thoughts to our insubstantial thoughts, too, are like raindrops that come and go and are there for a moment and then they fade away unless we holding on to them or unless we somehow in the clinging, are stringing a whole series of them together. So they look like they're constant. But in fact, there's actually a lot of space between thoughts between ideas, if we don't string them together, if we just allow each thing to be there in its own uniqueness. And in that space, there can be freedom, freedom of the mind, that does not cling. So those are my thoughts on this topic of vedanā. And I look forward to being back in a little over a week. And I hope that

your weekend is pleased sent and in the pleasantness. You see the inconstant nature of pleasantness not holding on to it, not clinging to it, but learning how to enjoy without clinging whatsoever so thank you all.