Use one practice

Ken: Guidelines. Does anybody else have the sense that time sort of stopped for the last ten days? It’s like, you know, just here. Reminds me of the three-year retreat where you just did the same thing every day. And one day you’d look out your window, and it’s spring. And another day you’d look out your window, and it’s summer. And a little while later you’d look out, what are those leaves doing on? Oh, I guess it’s fall. You know, it’s just a certain timelessness.

Use one practice to do everything.

The Great Path of Awakening, Jamgön Kongtrül, Ken McLeod (translator), p. 37

This is about a practice. Now, at an advanced stage, you can say practice is about doing nothing. Or doing nothing is a practice. But I’m not going to let him get away with that one at this point. So, even though we’re talking about being present, that’s actually the result of an effort. So a practice is something you do. And in many cases, I’ve observed that when people say, you know, “My practice is presence” or “I just … that’s what I do.” Or even if I ask people for an intention, they say, “My intention is to be present.” That can be a way of avoiding internal material. Or actually, sometimes external material, stuff that’s around.

So in the technique that I introduced yesterday: focus, field, and internal material, and out of that one moves into presence. Both the field—which is the whole sensory field—and the internal material—all the thoughts and feelings—one really has to include both of those.

Often I’ve heard the words, “This is a very spacious feeling.” And when I go a little further with those people, yes, it is a spacious feeling: they’re spaced out. And so I’m often suspicious when people describe their practice as very spacious, because in many cases there’s been either a dulling out, or an actual ignoring going on. When you’re really present, things feel open, but they’re also very vivid. And there isn’t any really floaty kind of feeling. And so I always get a little suspicious around that one.

So, in the classical approach to this, whatever you’re doing, you’re doing it with the intention of training the mind or helping sentient beings. What does this mean in terms of something like sweeping the floor? Well, by sweeping the floor in attention—if you put this in the context of bodhisattva vow—you are fulfilling the bodhisattva vow. Remember that the bodhisattva vow says:

Just as the sugatas of former times aroused awakening mind
And progressively followed the training of an awakening being,
I, too, for the benefit of beings arouse awakening mind
And progressively follow that training.

Daily Bodhisattva Vow

What is the training? Training in attention.

Student: What is a sugata?

Ken: A sugata? It’s an epithet for buddha. Literally it means thus gone. Yeah, it’s thus gone or thus come. It’s a strange epithet, and it’s explained in many ways. The full one is one gone—or come, depending on your point of view—to thatness, or suchness. You have that one, and then you have tathagata, which means one who’s gone to the nature. And then you have sugata, tathagata, and there’s another one, which means one gone to bliss. I can’t remember the sanskrit. But they’re all epithets for buddha, for being fully awake.

Student: [Unclear]

Ken: I will leave that to you to determine. Franca?

Franca: [Unclear]

Ken: Come, come, come, beyond come, completely beyond. Doesn’t quite work.

Franca: [Unclear]

Ken: I’ve seen it interpreted as come definitely. Dezhung Rinpoche [unclear]. And the Tibetan, I’m not sure about the sanskrit, but the Tibetan can mean either come or gone. This is the verb gshegs pa (pron. shekpa). It’s the honorific to travel.

Student: [Unclear]

Ken: Oh, yes. Either to train the mind or to help sentient beings. So when you’re sweeping the floor, you sweep the floor in attention. And that is following the training of the buddhas, bodhisattvas that have come before. And it is by how you do the activity that fulfills the working for the benefit of sentient beings. Because through that, you are training your mind to be in attention, so that you can be present in every situation.

There’s a woman who was a well-known Zen teacher, I think in 19th century Japan. And her son died. And of course, she was quite upset. And at the funeral, when the son was being buried, she was crying. And her students were very confused by this, and said to her, “You’ve always said, ‘Don’t form attachments, and everything is impermanent, and everything is illusion.’ Why are you crying?”

And she looked at them very fiercely and said, “Every one of my tears saves countless sentient beings.” Okay? Yes.

Student: [Unclear]

Ken: That’s right. That’s a very important point, because many people feel that when you do this practice enough, you’re not meant to feel anything. That’s quite right. I’ll let you sit with that one for a while.

What we are doing in our lives, and by making our practice our lives is—one formulation I use—is tending to the world of complete experience. And I’ve already suggested some ways you do that: by opening to that world, and wherever we sense imbalance, bringing attention to that, and dissolving the sense of subject-object that arises with imbalance. And things move back into balance. It’s that we do the same thing during our life. When we’re walking around interacting with other people, and wherever imbalances arise, we work right there. We tend to that. That actually is the expression of compassion.

Use one remedy

Ken: Now, the next line:

Use one remedy for everything.

The Great Path of Awakening, p. 37

In Buddhism we have many, many tools. And in the Tibetan tradition we have too many tools. Learn to use a few tools very, very deeply. Now, there are a number of tools which have overall applicability. For that, I offer for your consideration doing what’s next: faith or loving-kindness, impermanence, and compassion. Now any one of those tools is actually all you need. Yes?

Student: Doing what?

Ken: Doing what’s next. Your awareness. Just whatever’s next, you do that.

Student: [Unclear]

Ken: No. It isn’t. I think you probably could call it mindfulness in action, or something like that. But I prefer to use this formulation. But no, there’s no Tibetan that I’m drawing from. I’ll dig around to see if I can find something.

Student: [Unclear]

Ken: Okay. Which is why there isn’t a nice one for doing what’s next, because power is not an explicit tool in most practices, most traditions.

Student: My question was [unclear].

Ken: And I said yes. [Laughter]

Student: [Unclear]

Ken: In the Tibetan tradition power, which is what that one corresponds to, is not used in practice very much.

Student: What about [unclear]?

Ken: Effective action? Yeah. That’s right. It’s in there, but there isn’t an explicit practice of it that I’ve come across. It’s implicit in a lot of things. And what I’m trying to do here is make these explicit. Now in each of these four tools, you can choose any one of them. And what we’ve been working with in the course of this retreat is primarily the fourth one, compassion. But every one of those tools, you have to be so deeply trained in it that you can actually make four different kinds of efforts. Which are, again, the four ways of working. That is, you have to know: how to restore balance, which is about power, make connection, which is about ecstasy, come to understanding, which is about insight, and serve, which is about compassion.

So loving-kindness, for instance, isn’t all just mushy and everything’s soft and nice. Because when you really train deeply in loving-kindness, you know what’s yours, you know what’s the other person’s, and you can be very open to that, but you don’t take care of stuff for them. There’s a maintenance of appropriate boundaries and balance. And there’s an understanding that comes from really being open.

And the same thing with compassion. Compassion can require one to be very, very clear in situations. And clear, which can feel like cutting right through all of the confusion.

Student: What was the phrase?

Ken: I didn’t use a—

Student: To restore balance?

Ken: Service. To serve. Balance, connection, understanding, service.

Two things to do

Ken: Okay

Two things to do, one at the beginning, one at the end.

The Great Path of Awakening, p. 38

As you may recall, this is setting an intention at the beginning of the day. And reviewing the day, how you did, at the end of the day. This is just a very effective way of keeping your intention in mind. And that way it’s a support for practice.

Be patient

Ken:

Whatever happens, good or bad, be patient.

The Great Path of Awakening, p. 38

Another way of looking at this is, whatever happens, it’s not necessarily about you. You know, everything starts going great in your life, well, that happens. It may not be because you did certain things. Everything starts going bad in your life, may or may not be about what you’ve done. And the point here is just to open to the experience.

Work with taking and sending. And everything that arises, approach it as just experience. And if it’s a pleasant experience, use it to develop loving-kindness and a sense of giving. And if it’s an unpleasant experience, use it to develop compassion in the sense of taking.

Now you may recall last night that I was explaining how at a certain stage, when you’re practicing chö, you—and this is not limited to chö by any means—but you develop very intense states of faith, compassion, loving-kindness, and mix them with emptiness. And you do that very deliberately, to undo the idea that these things themselves are real, or solid, or whatever. All experience is simply an arising in your mind. Not just the negative stuff.

Keep these two

Ken:

Keep these two, even if your life is at risk.

The Great Path of Awakening, p. 39

The two being your vows, and mind training, in the classical commentary. Again, you can see this as another injunction to constantly strengthen and reinforce one’s intention and the framework of one’s practice.

On a more internal level, yesterday I talked about dying as part of practice. You can use your intention to help you die to the worlds created and maintained by your projections. And if you consider one’s life here, the life of presence, then you die to all other worlds. This is the one life you hold onto. Of course, it’s no life to speak of but … [Laughter]

I just love Buddhist logic that way, you know, you’re holding on desperately to nothing at all. The amazing thing is it works.

The three challenges

Ken:

Train in the three problems. [Learn to meet three challenges, 2005 ed.]

The Great Path of Awakening, p. 39

We discussed this in detail earlier. Recognition of a reactive pattern, developing a practice to work on it, and cutting through. I gave the one method of recognizing reactive patterns: observing what you don’t notice, observing what you don’t question, and observing what you don’t laugh about—that’s important. And I found those immensely helpful.

There are other methods. Another one, which I think I may have mentioned, but I will, is to observe where there’s a consistent discrepancy between your intention and the results. This is very reliable.

You want another one? Okay. This is a tough one. Anything you do, which you suspect may have some reactive components in it, make a practice of doing that very precisely one day, and behaving exactly opposite the next day. And you alternate the two. If there’s a reactive process in there, it will start to scream after a very short period of time.

Student: Can you give us an example?

Ken: Sure. If you think there’s any reactive component about the way you present yourself to the world, one day you dress absolutely impeccably. You know, everything is just so precise, the way you’re groomed, what you’re wearing, how colors match, appropriateness in the situation, etc. It’s just perfect. Next day, it’s a complete mess. Good enough?

Student: [Unclear]

Ken: Yes. That’s right. I said this is a tough one. Another example. And I’ve done this. I had a couple of students doing this at various points. I suspected that there was an element of pride in one student that he was not acknowledging. So his assignment was, one day he was to act as if he was the lowest scum of the earth. And he was in a business situation. He was the vice-president of a dot-com company when he was doing this. And he was just to act like he was the lowest scum of the earth. And, if anybody asked him to do something, even if it was a subordinate, he would just do it. And so, no pride whatsoever. Then the next day he was to act as if he was lord of the universe.

And things got really interesting quickly. And he was quite comfortable acting as if he was the scum of the earth because that was his internal image. It built up a certain amount of resentment. But it took him a little while to be able to act like he was lord of the universe. But he got to it. And then much to his dismay, he realized this was what he actually wanted. So it was a whole level of unacknowledged pride, which was the basis for the other side of the pattern. So things became a lot more open after that.

So this is a tough practice, but it’s really effective. Yes.

Student: [Unclear]

Ken: Don’t question. And the order is important. What you don’t notice, what you don’t question, what you don’t laugh about.

Three key elements

Ken:

Work with the three primary factors. [Foster three key elements, 2005 ed.]

The Great Path of Awakening, p. 39

The three primary factors again are: your teacher, practice, and the conditions for your practice. And in the classical interpretation it was the saying, if you have those, great, give them away. And if you don’t have those, great, take them on; take on that deficiency from all sentient beings.

The underlying point here is, whatever you are experiencing, be right in that. Don’t wish it were something else. And don’t take what you do have for granted. It’s what you happen to be experiencing right now. A little application of this. Maybe a little diversion but … You form a relationship. It can be an intimate relationship, a social relationship, a business relationship, whatever. What’s the one thing you know about that relationship?

Student: It’ll end.

Ken: Yes. It’s going to end. Okay? Maybe it’ll end with the death of one of you, last a long time. Maybe it’ll end tomorrow. So what is the appropriate thing to do, effort to make, with something that you know is going to end?

Student: Experience it.

Ken: Yeah. Experience it fully. Or as a friend of mine puts it, savor it. That’s it. That’s it. What it is right now. And this gets very interesting when troubles come up in a relationship. Move right into the experience of that, of those difficulties. That’s what the relationship is, right then.

So it’s an idea that’s implicit in this work with the three primary factors. And whatever your experience is, that’s it. It’s what you wanted it to be, fine, give it away, in taking and sending terms. If it’s not what you want it to be, experience that. And take in all that feeling of deficiency, and resentment, and unhappiness from all sentient beings. These are tools by which you relate to exactly what is arising for you.

Prevent three kinds of damage

Ken:

Don’t allow three things to weaken. [Take care to prevent three kinds of damage, 2005 ed.]

The Great Path of Awakening, p. 40

Again, the three things were: confidence or faith in your teacher, enthusiasm for practice, and your ethical code—your behavior. Each of these is important. If you consider what the three responsibilities of a teacher are, there’s an interesting correspondence here.

The first responsibility of a teacher is to show you presence, or what it means to be awake. And I think I discussed this earlier, did I? It can be done in two ways, usually a combination of both. One is the teacher is modeling that—not in the sense of acting it out, but doing it—so you observe by being around him or her. You think, “Oh.” And that, incidentally, is the traditional way in which Buddhism has spread. You just watch a person and go, “There’s something different about him or her. What is it?”

And the other way is the teacher—through your interactions—elicits an experience of being awake in you. So you are shown what it is, very directly. So having faith and confidence in one’s guru corresponds to that responsibility of the teacher.

The second responsibility of the teacher is they give you the tools with which to train and develop the capabilities, so that you can become present, can wake up. So the enthusiasm to use the tools, or the willingness to make use of what the teacher gives you, corresponds to that second one, to the second responsibility of the teacher.

And then the third responsibility of the teacher is to point out to you the internal material in you that gets in the way of your being present. This is what makes interacting with your teacher somewhat like interacting with a dentist. “This won’t hurt a bit.” [Laughter]

I had a group in Orange County many years ago. And one of the people in the group was a dentist. And we were discussing the topic of lying. And one of the other people in the group said, “Dentists always lie.”

And this other person took umbrage and, “What do you mean?”

And he just said, “This is only going to hurt a little.” [Laughter] And everybody broke up.

So when the teacher points out your internal material, another way of looking at what he or she is doing at that moment, in exercising that responsibility, fulfilling it, is they’re pointing out when your internal process, or how you’re acting in your life, is coming out of reactive material. Right? Coming out of a reactive pattern. That’s what they’re pointing out. In effect, they’re pointing out where you are deviating, or not fulfilling, the ethics of presence.

So, Don’t allow three things to weaken. One way of looking at it is: How do you relate in this interaction with your teacher in a way that is complete and whole? You know, you open to, or you try to pick up, what they’re pointing out to you in terms of presence. You have enthusiasm for the tools, and you practice them with enthusiasm, the tools that you’re being given. And you receive what they’re pointing out to you in terms of reactive patterns as a way of refining your own ethics in how you live your life.

In one case was a CEO of a hospital who negotiated the sale of a non-profit hospital to a for-profit company. And he had run into a fair amount of resistance from various stakeholders in the hospital community. But he successfully guided it through. And after about six or eight months under the new management he didn’t feel very good at all about what he had brought about. Because he saw that the whole character of the hospital now was changed and it could not serve the community in the way that it had. And it was very painful for him to see how his reactive pattern had blinded him to what the real consequences of this transaction were going to be. This kind of thing happens all over the place.

Engage all three faculties

Ken:

Keep the three essentials. [Engage all three faculties, 2005 ed.]

The Great Path of Awakening, p. 40

The three essentials are engagement of your body, speech, and mind in the practice. Now, I don’t know how this developed historically. I have some ideas, but I really don’t know. But at least in the Tibetan tradition—maybe this has something to do with Tibetan culture—body awareness is really not very strong. And an awful lot of practice goes on in the head. And it’s really in the head, it’s not even in the heart, much less in the body. And I know that there are similar … even though Zen comes from a body-based culture, there are similar problems there. Theravadan, it’s less so because there’s the emphasis on mindfulness in the body. It’s one of the first foundations of mindfulness. So there seems to be more connection there.

But body, speech, and mind all must be engaged in the practice. And one of the most reliable ways for you to become present and to work deeply in your practice, whether in formal meditation or in your daily life, is to pay attention to what your body is experiencing. And I think you’ve heard me say this a couple of times during the retreat, and I’ve certainly brought it up in interviews. Every emotion that arises has … there is an emotional sensation and a physical sensation. And for many people, becoming aware of how that emotion manifests in the body—so they become aware of the physical sensation connected to that emotion—is the most effective way of learning how to be present in the emotion. Yes.

Student: [Unclear]

Ken: Okay. Yeah. Where are you, Jeff? There he is. He’s fully trained in Feldenkrais, if you want to speak to him about it. And what you say is more about how yoga is practiced here than yoga itself. And this is something that’s happening when … I was reading an article in, I think it was the Shambhala Sun, the article on yoga and Buddhism. And one person was describing, when she was in Australia she saw the cover of the equivalent of Vogue in Australia.