I have a hard time when I meditate and I just keep getting distracted. I get into organizing those distractions: “Oh, that’s planning,” and “Oh, that was a worry,” and “Oh, that was a memory.” I get so caught up in labeling.

My question is about a piece of advice that I’ve heard from you, Ken, on numerous occasions, namely: ‘In the face of confusion, go to the body.’ This seems like good advice. Yet sometimes the body seems to be giving contradictory messages. How is one to discern when the mind of the body is leading us to appropriate action and when it has been overcome by the force of pattern tendency?

I was just curious, if you could spend a moment to define the differences between the various meditation techniques you mentioned like Theravadan and Vipassana. I’m wondering what the values are— different techniques, so there must be different values.

For lay Western students with limited resources and busy lives, is the Vajrayana path recommended if one can’t do the three-year retreat, is unlikely to get to the completion or self-initiation stages, or has very limited access to his or her root Lama? One hears a lot about the higher tantras being the fastest path to enlightenment, but can one accomplish very much in this life given the limitations mentioned?

I have no trouble becoming aware of my breath, of sounds, sensations, pain in the body, wind against my face. I have a little trouble with emotions, not always, but a lot of times I identify with them. Sometimes I can step out and say, “Ah, I’m getting angry,” and I can look at it as an observer. But what I have not been able to be an observer of my thoughts. It seems like when I’m thinking and the thoughts that I think, that’s who I am.

For almost two years, my experience of practice, or life, is feeling like my heart is bleeding all day long, all the time. It doesn’t necessarily feel like a bad bleeding or a negative. It’s just very consistent. And, at first that felt like that was difficult or something I felt very conscious of. And now, it just is, but I’m relating to it in a way that doesn’t feel like I’m really resting. So I don’t quite know how to open up and rest because I feel like I’m going to lose something.

Why do people leave a teacher? There surely are many reasons. I want to zero in on solid ones. I certainly understand if, say, there are scandals or if the student-teacher relationship somehow isn’t working out for one or both. But what I want to know is, why leave if there are no such problems? Do some students feel they’ve reached a plateau with a certain teacher?

I was wondering if you would say something about what happens in spiritual organizations. My experience has been that, there’s usually some sort of a political mechanism operating that is not spoken and that causes people to do things that are completely opposite from what they’re professing

I was wondering if you could touch on impermanence, dealing with death and the fact that it’s inevitable, that we are all created from the same things, and we all end up in the same place. It becomes ever so apparent to me in my practice because I’ve learned now that I’m not my material possessions. I’m not my clothes. I’ve come to learn that I’m not my thoughts. And as I grow a little older, I’ve realized that I’m not my body. So can you talk about how this relates to who we actually are, beyond our body, thoughts and possessions?

Could you speak a bit on the process of finding a path and finding a teacher? My interest in finding a path and in finding a teacher is coming from me, and also from my experience of people close to me who have done that. And from the outside, seeing their experience—their specific choices might not resonate entirely with me. The completeness of their investment does, and is something that I feel a pull towards. And that pull I think is particularly in the search to have my own inner center rather than finding a center in a partner or in prospect of having a child or in a career.

Ken, I have two questions: Here’s the first one: if there is no shared experience and separation is an absolute, please explain this in terms of dependent origination.
The second part of the question: please explain awakening mind and conventional mind in terms of practical application to meditation and everyday life.

In my experience, the questions behind practice change over time. I started out wondering how to stop being engulfed by anger, but a consistent practice has been helpful, hell realm experiences have diminished, and life is much less difficult. So now the core question seems to revolve around how to use whatever time is left to me. What is my practice about now? Is bringing one’s changing questions and motivations into awareness what you mean by finding the edge in practice? And if so, how do I work with the edge?

I would like to know how to bring the meditation into daily life. How to—in the moment—be able to respond rather than react. The more insecure and scared I feel, the less I remember in the moment to pause, and the more I just habitually respond with whatever—usually not with kindness and compassion, unfortunately.

I’m working with the primary practice off the cushion. I can do simple tasks for minutes at a time, but this doesn’t work with reading. Sometimes all sensory information moves to the background as I engage with the reading. Other times, I’ll suddenly effortlessly drop into an opening with ideas or issues in clear focus. Other sensations are in the background, but they’re dim, almost transparent. Again, I’m losing clarity and detail. Is this a capacity problem, or am I going about it wrong?

I’ve been experimenting with different kind of forms of meditation. So following the breath is what I’ve always done, since I began meditating, but recently have been involved with some sitting with a teacher who talks about reflective meditation—actually kind of following the thoughts. And then reflecting on those afterwards. Following sounds. I sit at the beach and follow the waves. It seems actually to be helpful to do different forms—but is it?