Student questions

Student: On the title it says, “A summary of how an awakening being behaves.” [Laughter] Is awakening accurate or could it be awakened? How did you decide on that translation? Number two, are the dates accurate?

Ken: Are the dates correct?

Student: On the front, he would be 124 when he died.

Ken: I’ll have to check that. But part of the problem there is you have 60-year cycles in the Tibetan calendar, so it can be difficult to tell over a factor of 60. I’ll have to check that one. But those are the dates they’re usually given, I think. Okay, awakening. The term for awakening being is bodhisattva. Bodhi is the word for awakening, and sattva is the word for being. You ask whether it should be awakening or awakened, translator’s choice here. I use awakened for buddha and awakening for bodhi because bodhi is the process that leads up to buddha. Even though the etymologies are somewhat different, it’s very difficult to put into words what the word is referring to. It’s something that people can know experientially.

The way I like to think about it—because I find this the most helpful way of thinking about it—is that you experience the world in a different way. And it’s not that you have woken up, but the experience is like that when you compare it to how you were in your life, you feel like you’re awake now. And this is exactly what Buddha said when he was asked originally, “So, what makes you different?”

He said, “I’m awake.” And one of the things I think we have to be careful to remember is that, when things are said in Buddhism, they’re a description of an experience, not necessarily a description of a fact. So, he’s describing what it’s like. “I’m awake. I feel alive and really present in the world in a way that I didn’t before.” Anything you wanted to follow up there? Okay. The other question?

Student: The other reason I personally like that is because I tend to think that a lot of us have this goal of being awakened, if you will. And I think if you look at the travels, that your life changes and your outlook changes, but that you’re not really trying to search for some end, if you will. At least I like that in my own personal view.

Ken: Well, you’re not the only one. There’s a Japanese teacher, Uchiyama Roshi, who I really like. I’ve never met him, but I did meet one person who studied briefly with him. He told me what he was like in person, which is nice. But his teacher was a person called Sawaki Roshi, who was a professor of Buddhist studies at some university in Japan, but also a very deep practitioner of Zen and quite untraditional in a number of ways. So, when Uchiyama was in his mid-20s or so, he’d just started to study with Sawaki Roshi, he said, “Do you think if I practice zazen with you for the next 20, 30 years, I could be something like you?”

And Sawaki Roshi, apparently, who had this big booming voice says, “No! Zazen is useless. Zazen does nothing. I was like this before I practiced, and I’m like this now. Nothing changes.” [Laughs] And Uchiyama commenting on this said, “If you’re a violet, it’s pointless trying to be a rose. And if you’re a rose, it’s pointless trying to be a violet.” It’s something to remember.

There’s another question back here. Yes?

Student: Thank you so much. I noticed that every time a question is sparked in me, when I look at my questions, they’re pretty much always the same question. And it seems to have to do with this idea of experiences coming and going and being willing to accept that that’s what life is, because our society has so dictated that. The other question that seems the same is, when I’m told to ask what is truly important to me and focus on what’s truly important to me, but it seems like in my life, what are my values and are they so important to me or what I’m being told? That’s not what life’s really all about. And those are all going to change. So, I’m just kind of stuck with figuring out how to be [laughs].

Ken: Oh, that. Well, you could do a lot worse than take verse number three to heart. There’re three quite extraordinary people who had major influence in the world affairs. Anwar Sadat—who was the leader of Egypt—brokered a peace with Israel. That’s the recognition of Israel by the first Arab country, and changed the Middle East very significantly. Mahatma Gandhi, who helped to guide India to independence shortly after the Second World War. And Nelson Mandela, we all know from South Africa, the end of apartheid.

It’s interesting that all three of these individuals had a common experience. They spent a very, very long time in British jails. I’m not sure what it is about British jails. Pardon? They’re good jailers? I don’t know. Not all the time. But as Leo Strauss observes, it is the experience of silence in which character grows. And there’s a very important reason for this. In our lives—and I think this is what you expressed in your question—our relationship with the world and, in consequence to that, our relationship with ourselves, is almost always mediated by a third party. Now, that’s totally appropriate.

When we’re a baby, we learn about who we are through our interaction with our mother. Then it’s extended to our father, and then it’s extended to the family, and the educational system, and then the social system, the culture. But we learn who we are in relationship with other people, other things, and so forth. And that all we know is what is reflected back to us. So, it’s always mediated by a third party.

Meditation is like looking into a mirror

Ken: In meditation, there’s no third party. So, by sitting and experiencing ourselves, because whether you like it or not, that’s what happens in meditation. And most of us don’t like it because ourselves are just these rambunctious people who just can’t keep a thought straight for two seconds.But we start developing a relationship with whatever it is that we are, unmediated by any other party. And that’s extraordinarily important in my opinion.

I’ll give you a very simple example. There was a woman I worked with many, many years ago in Orange County. I don’t know what she does now, but at that time she had a business in which she provided shipping services at trade conferences. So, people would come, they’d get all these samples, and they would want to get them back to their office. And she would just say, “Give them to me.” And she’d arrange it through UPS and FedEx and things like that. And she had people spread all over the country doing this at all kinds of trade shows. That was her business. Now, this is a customer-service intensive business, of course.

So, she was always getting phone calls from one person or another, saying, “Where’s my package? Where are the things? I gave them to you at such and such a thing, but they haven’t arrived here yet. And I want to know where they are.” She was always getting phone calls like that. And she adopted, which is the very good business principle of “the customer is always right.”

And she’d say, “I’ll look into this, etc., etc.” Because she was always looking after her customers, she was just stressed to the gills and always chasing after stuff. After about six months of meditation, she noticed that her relationships with her customers were changing. So, she gets some CEO of an organization calling up, saying, “Where’s my package?” and things like that. She’d quietly look it up on her computer, and say, “I think it was delivered to your assistant two days ago.” [Laughs]

What developed was a quiet confidence in her. Because now through her meditation practice, her relationship with herself was no longer mediated by anybody else. So, she just started to discover who she really was, that she was a very consistent, competent person, who took care of detail very, very well. And 90% of the complaints that she got was something that was going wrong in their office and had nothing to do with her. So, she just started reflecting this back, didn’t lose any customers over it, but certainly got a lot less stress in her life. And that’s just a very little example of what it means to develop a relationship with oneself.

Sometimes what we find in ourselves is not very nice. And then we have a real big choice to make. It’s a very important choice. Meditation practice in that way is like looking into a mirror, and we see ourselves often for the first time. And if we don’t like what we see, then you have a choice. You either turn away from the mirror or you go to work. And that’s an individual choice. And I know people who’ve turned away from the mirror and I know people who’ve done the work. Does that help? Over here, one second please.

Student: In verse seven, what is meant by the three jewels?

Ken: That is a traditional expression for the buddha, dharma and sangha. The way it’s described is: buddha is the teacher, dharma is the way, and sangha are those with whom we find support and guidance.

Student: Now it sounds familiar. Okay.

Ken: Now it sounds familiar. Okay, good.

The self is a story

Ken: One more question and then we’ll start on the afternoon. Back to you. What do you have for me now?

Student: Anatta, or whatever. No, actually I was thinking of something right after I spoke with you, which is that I also have had my experiences with chronic pain, which led to depression, which led to a therapist, which led me to Buddhism. And one of the things that my therapist would say to me is that this thing, whatever it was that was causing me anguish, whether it be the pain or the depression or whatever, “This is not you.” And so I found that this is so pertinent to what we were talking about.

In my studies, one of the things that came up, and maybe many of you have read Jon Kabat-Zinn, and his practice with mindfulness is to see what comes up. So, this pain, this is the experience of pain, and not that there is a person with consciousness that is this embodiment of pain, or that your depression is like this little conscious self. But these are sensations of the body, that your consciousness, we’ll say you, the thinker, the watcher, the whatever, can observe occurring within your body. But this is not an attribute of the watcher. It is just an experience of the body. So, my question is, do you have anything to say about that?

Ken: I thought you were’nt going to give me any grief about anatta [laughs]. The shift that Jon Kabat-Zinn is seeking to guide people to is very important. I can say it’s a shift from a story about the world or about oneself or about the life to the actual experience of life. And as long as we’re engaged in the story, we are one step removed from life. And yet that’s where most of us live most of the time. And the self, going back to that, is a story. When you shift to experience, then everything changes.

And you can do this, just a quick demonstration. Pick up any object that you have handy. It can be a water bottle, it can be here I’ve just taken this little stick. It can be a piece of cloth, it can be a pen, a piece of paper. It doesn’t matter. Just pick up any object. Now you know what the object is. This is a striker for a gong. So, look at your object, name the object, what it is, and just look at it in terms of that name. That’s what it is. So, if you’re holding a pen, it’s a pen. If you’re holding a piece of paper, it’s a piece of paper. And what’s that experience like? Okay, now just let that go completely. Now hold the object in front of you and know the object. No labels, just know it. What’s that experience like? And what’s the difference? Back to you.

Student: What’s that experience like?

Ken: Was there a difference there?

Student: Yes.

Ken: How would you describe the difference?

Student: Knowing, the process of knowing, in that moment was more intense. Communing with the object. I think labeling it just enabled a dismissiveness. It’s almost like, “Okay, well yeah, that’s what it is, pen.” And like knowing it, it’s like, oh my gosh, I have to know it as opposed to just name it.

Ken: And the two experiences, what was the difference in your sense of self between those two?

Student: I’m not sure.

Ken: Well, when you’re sitting there, “Okay, this is a striker, I’m looking at a striker, okay.” That’s one, right? And then there’s knowing it. What’s the difference? And the latter one, how conscious were you of your self? Yeah, exactly. Not so. This is this difference that Jon Kabat-Zinn’s referring to. When we relate to the pain or stress in our lives as a story, we are one step removed from it. And it has this whole story quality to it, and it is self-propagating, etc., etc. When we step out of that into the actual sensations—which is not always easy, but it’s a capacity we can develop—then everything changes. Because now it’s not a story. Now it’s an experience.

As we were discussing earlier, when we’re relating to things in terms of experience, then things become much more intimate, much more vivid. And also we could be aware of so much more. So, even when we’re dealing with quite intense chronic pain, we begin to become aware that there are fluctuations. It goes up and down. We’re able to tolerate it more sometimes and less sometimes. Whereas if it’s the story about chronic pain we’re experiencing that way, it’s just an enemy and we want to get rid of it. So, that’s what I have to say about that. Last question.

Student: Sometimes learning the labels and the names, open us to the experience of knowing. When I first began birdwatching and learned the names of the birds and the patterns that they flew and all of that, suddenly the whole world of birds was much more open and clear than before.

Ken: Let’s be very careful here. What I’m going to suggest is that learning the names and the patterns allowed you to make distinctions that you couldn’t before. And it is the ability to make distinctions that makes the world more rich, not the labels themselves.

Student: Ah, yes.

The importance of compassion

Ken: Okay. We’re going to do this in two sections, because we don’t have 11 verses to go through. We just have a few. But they’re very easy verses, ha ha ha. So, I want to start with verse number 11, which is where we left off before lunch. We treated this very cursorily. I want to treat this in a bit more depth now. I said this morning that the practice of compassion and the capacity for compassion is the definitive spiritual quality. It is, in my opinion, everything. And I feel quite deeply that compassion is a natural part of the way that we relate to life, except in extreme cases, I’m talking about sociopaths, psychotics, and so forth.

There are a lot of people who are researching, is there a biological basis to compassion, etc., etc. I don’t think we need to be concerned with such questions. What is important is that through compassion, we have a way of being with people that is not ordinarily available to us. When we encounter pain in another person, our first response is usually to contract away from it. And we want to get away from it. We want to take care of ourselves. In addition, if we have to deal with that person, we want them to stop hurting so that we stop hurting.

The consequence of that is that compassion can very easily become control or tyranny. And that becomes a problem in its own right. So, in cultivating compassion, we’re really doing two things. We’re developing within ourselves the capacity to be present with a person when they’re in pain, and by extension to be present in painful circumstances. And the second thing we’re doing is we’re developing the ability to be in those circumstances and not have to control them or to be directing what happens to them.

I’m sure many of you have had the experience in your lives where someone you know has been hurting and they’ve come to you and they said, “I just want you to be with me.” Anybody know what I’m talking about here? And you hear what’s going on with them, and you want to help, you want them to make them feel better. But they say, “No, no, I just want to be with you.” And you think to yourself, “What good am I doing here?” But you’re actually doing an extraordinary amount of good just being there. And that is the actual exercise of compassion. Until you can just be there, you cannot know what to do.

Because if you can’t be there, then you’ll be driven to do something which is going to make life more comfortable for you, for the situation that may or may not be helpful to the other person. It’s only when you can actually be there yourself with them, with their pain, and not be withdrawn, just actually be there. Then other possibilities open up.

There are many people who think that they can create a better world. They may have insights into what would create a better world, and then they turn around and seek to create that better world through the use of force. It never works. In fact, it visits suffering on people sometimes in very, very horrendous ways. So, compassion is no easy matter. It involves being present with pain, and it involves being present without control. And out of that comes the possibility of seeing what actually can work, might be able to work, might be helpful. And if nothing can be, then this has the capacity of still being able to be in that situation with that person.

So, this is what verse 11 refers to.

All suffering comes from
(I’m going to translate this slightly differently here)
wanting to make our world okay at the expense of others.
Complete awakening arises from the intention to help others.

37 Practices of a Bodhisattva, Tokmé Zongpo, verse 11

And why? Well, this is a little glib, it’s one of my favorite quotes from Mark Twain. He says, “They say we’re here to help others. I can go with that. But then, why are the others here?” [Laughter]

Well, they are. And as we were exploring a little bit this morning, the others are our world, and that’s really important. The others are our world. That is what we experience. Right now, I’m experiencing here talking with you. So, you are my world just as much as this body and all the thoughts that are going on in it. That is the world as I experience it right now. So, this idea that others are separate from us is a rather mistaken notion. But it’s the one through which we habitually relate to life. So, I want to do a short period of meditation, which is the central principle of taking and sending.

A meditation: taking and sending

Ken: Many people have [unclear] this as emotional suicide. If none of you survive, that’d be a good thing. And it goes back to the question that I posed this morning: If you could take all of the suffering of the world into you in a single breath, would you hesitate? I’m going to approach this in at least two, maybe more ways.

But first, I just want you to take a few moments and just think about your own life at this point. But as I said a few moments ago, what is your life consists of all of the people with whom you have relationships. That is what your life is. And I want you to think of all those people, all of people you know, and all of the difficulties you know that they’re experiencing. They may be experiencing more than you know, but just leave that for the time being, but just all of the difficulties you know about in their lives, all of the struggles, all of the problems that they have, whether they’re material shortcomings or character flaws or bad luck or whatever, doesn’t matter.

Whatever leads them to struggle with life, whatever they experience in their struggles with life, whatever they have to live with because of their struggles in life, imagine taking it from them. It comes to you in the form of a thick black smoke coming in your nostrils and down into your heart, and you experience it. And in the process of you experiencing it, they’re freed from it. That’s the first part. The second part is whatever joy, whatever wellbeing, whatever happiness, whatever capability, whatever skill, whatever intelligence, whatever brings you pleasure in your life, you think of that as coming out of your heart in the form of silvery moonlight, and going out your nostrils and going to all of these people that you know in your life. And they receive it. They receive your confidence, your patience, your equanimity, your love, your compassion, your joy, your intelligence, your skills, the pleasures you know in your life, everything.

So, that’s the exchange. You take on the suffering of others, or you take in the suffering of others and you give your own happiness. There isn’t any transformation here. It’s an exchange. You get their suffering, they get your joy, period. Now, I mentioned the nostrils. So, we do this with every breath. With every breath, you take it all in. With every breath you take all the suffering in and all the negativity. With every breath you give all your joy, all your virtue, all the happiness you know in your life. And you say, “I can’t think of all of that in one breath.” Well, of course not. You just feel it. You can feel it all in one breath. You may not feel it deeply. We are just practicing this, that’s okay. But it’s very important to do both with each breath. And you’ll say, “Well, maybe if I just focus on a little bit … “

And I’ll say, “Well, you could do it that way.” But I actually want you to do the whole thing with every breath. No half measures here. So, we’re going to sit and do this for a while. And then we’ll take up your experience and any questions you may have about it. Now you think that this is going to kill me. Well, it’s going to kill a part of you. Maybe that won’t be such a bad thing. It may bring up parts of you that just like, “I don’t want have anything to with that.” I understand, just bear with me, we’re just going to do it for a little while here. So, you can do it as an exploration and then we’ll see how it goes. [Pause]

Student feedback

Ken: [Gong] Okay, I know it’s after lunch but how is this anyway? Where’s the mike? Questions, comments, insights, challenges. Yes?

Student: It’s just so counterintuitive to try to take on somebody’s pain. It’s kind of scary. I noticed a lot of resistance coming up, especially when you said we couldn’t transform it.

Ken: Everybody wants to take that little dodge.

Student: Yeah. After a while though, taking it in and sending it out kind of became the same feeling. But if I was to really take on the suffering, I don’t know how I would react. Probably a lot more fear and aversion.

Ken: At this point, almost certainly. However, the way that we change is not by turning an on-off switch or adjusting the dial. We think we can do that, and we used to change channels on our television by turning a dial. But that’s not how change takes place in us. Change takes place in us by initiating a process of evolution.

And one of the great, very simple examples of evolution, is what happens when you plant a seed. You have a seed, put it in the ground, it gets warmth from the sun, and it gets moisture from the ground. And things start to change in it. Certain cells are activated and they start to reproduce, and the husk of the seed gets soft, and that allows more moisture to come in. And then eventually nutrients and other cells get activated and they start evolving and certain things. And after a while, there’s this little green thing that pokes its head above the ground. And now it starts getting direct sunlight. And that initiates other processes.

A month or two later, there’s a plant there. And a couple of years later there’s a tree there and so forth. But the actual process is one of evolution. It’s not like you just put the seed in the ground and bong up grows a tree. Understanding that deeply, or even understanding it at all, allows us to work in a realistic way with changing the way that we relate to our experience of life. And that is, we just start things moving in a different direction. Sitting down to practice meditation every day is already starting things to move in a certain direction or a different direction.

And then adding to it something like this, where you’re taking in, just imagining that you’re taking in the pain of suffering and giving your happiness and joy to others. It’s starting things to move in a different direction. And it increases the likelihood that when you encounter painful circumstances, your training is just going to click in. And instead of going, “Ooh, I can’t stand this!” You go, “Oh, may this come into me, may my joy go to them.” And you find yourself actually in the situation, not contracting, not trying to control it. It’s something that comes about as a result of the practice. Yes.

Student: I’m having difficulty understanding. You’ve heard the phrase “fake it until you make it.” And it seems like—

Ken: I live in Hollywood. I have to have heard that phrase. [laugh].

Student: To control your experience, to force yourself to feel something that you’re not feeling. Maybe it’s better to notice the times that compassion arises naturally and try to build on that rather than to say, “Well, right now I’m going to take on somebody’s suffering, even though I’m afraid of it, and I don’t wanna suffer.” You know what I’m saying?

Ken: Yes. Very well [laughs].

Student: So, can you really train yourself by forcing yourself to experience something that you’re not really feeling?

Ken: I actually never used the word force. That was your—

Student: No, that’s my word.

Ken: I was saying we start things evolving in a certain direction and I agree with you, we have to work within our capacities. Because the moment you start applying force means you’re shoving something else down. And yes, initially we’re only going be able to do this in small areas. But that’s where it grows. Again, it’s like the seed. Having said that, it’s also useful to explore a bit: What am I really protecting here? And often it’s another aspect to ourselves that is relating to the world in very counterproductive ways. So, you get to question that. Sometimes they’re very young ways, and there’s a part of us that has never grown up. And so that itself presents a challenge. Now, I agree with you completely. Trying to force change is rarely, if ever, productive. And that’s why I use the example or metaphor of evolution.

Here we’re just briefly touching on these instructions. The standard manual in this is a book that I happened to translate back in the 80s called The Great Path of Awakening. And it goes into this practice very deeply, how to do it. There’s also a section in Wake Up to Your Life where I talk about it. Pema Chödrön has written extensively about it, etc., etc. So, there’s a lot of stuff available.

But one of the other instructions in this whole tradition is, start with your own reactive emotions first. So, you think, “Oh, I’m going to take in the pain of others.” And part of you says, “No, you’re not.” There’s your reactive emotion [laughs]. So, there’s something in you that just wants to shut out all of the pain in the world. You follow? Okay. That’s where you start, is with that part of you that is that shut down. We have to start with our own reactive emotions first. Okay? Other questions, comments? Yes. Over here.

Student: When I’m faced with a situation that evokes compassion for another person, the way I look at it, all I have to do is sit there like a lump, and I’m helping that other person. I don’t have to do anything at all. That’s number one. Number two is, you mentioned that, that we’ll put on earth to help other people?

Ken: That’s what Mark Twain said.

Student: No, no, I thought it was Albert Einstein.

Ken: Albert Einstein also said something quite similar to that, too. But he wasn’t making a joke out of it [laughs].

Student: Thank you.

Ken: Yeah, it can feel like we’re just sitting there like a lump on the log. It could be very, very helpful to others. But I think we have to be careful here. When we are there, we’re not like a log. Our physical presence, there’s an energy there. And, by being willing to be with the other person when they’re in pain, we’re providing, through our physical presence, a way that helps them be present with their pain. And when they can be present with their pain and not reacting to it, that is what opens up other possibilities for them. So, there’s something quite tangible, quite palpable, that takes place. Who else? Right here.

Magical thinking

Student: Say in practicing, I guess it’s tonglen, what do you think about the idea of energy being transferred from the giver to the receiver, so to speak.

Ken: There is an energy transformation component in taking and sending, but it isn’t literally from me to the other person. When we explain things to ourselves that way, a couple of problems emerge. One is, it’s very easy to get into the idea that we can control our experience that way. And the other is, we think we become subject to other people’s energy. And both of these are actually forms of magical thinking.

The energy transformation that does take place is that by being in the experience of taking in that suffering—and all of the sensations that that elicits in us as reactions, etc.—in being in that experience, we’re transforming the energy—which would normally go into rejection or pushing away—into attention. And when we are in the experience of giving away—sending our love, compassion, good fortune and so forth to the other—then the energy that normally would go into attachment and holding onto that is also transformed into attention.

So, through this practice, we actually raise the level of attention in ourselves. And it’s that raised level of attention, which gives a sense of presence. So, that when we’re really with somebody in these things, they really feel that we’re there. It’s not that we’re giving them energy or taking their energy, it’s that by raising the level of energy in our own system, we become more present. And that presence is often felt in a very beneficial way. You follow?

Student: Even to the recipient?

Ken: Well, yes. We all know this in our own experience. Sit down with a person who is not paying much attention to you. How does it feel? Sit down with a person who, when you sit down, just looks at you quietly and utterly at peace, but really takes you in. How does that feel? And that’s a difference. It is through attention that we form connection. And if you want to have an experience of connection with someone, then give them your full attention. Usually we think, “No. They need to give me their attention.” But it doesn’t have to be that way. You give them your full attention, see what happens. Okay? Marie, you had a question?

Marie: I actually don’t have a lot of experience with this practice. But it feels like two vast seas coming together at the same time. And it’s physically quite powerful.

Ken: Yeah. So,?

Marie: I have the sense that building capacity is really important.

Ken: Sure. That’s why you practice.

Marie: To be a container for this vastness is, I guess that’s why you need space and stability.

Ken: How do you move a mountain?

Marie: Piece by piece.

Ken: Yeah. One stone at a time. Okay? Now, when you think of moving a mountain, you go, “Oh, I have to be so strong. I have to have so much capacity to do that.” That’s the story, makes it intimidating. This is a mountain and I am going to move a mountain. But if you just go one stone, another stone, and you’re just in the experience. And you do it because that’s just what’s to be done, then there’s no sense of moving a mountain yet the mountain is moved.

Marie: Yeah. I feel like I need to learn to work with the body aspect of it because it’s quite intense.

Ken: Right. So, you do this and you think, “I’m taking in all the suffering.” And your body goes [sound effect]. Something like that?

Marie: No, the heart chakra just goes …

Ken: Oh, okay. So, you just go [sound effect]. Okay, that’s fine. So, you just experience that. And if you’re going to do one breath, and you’re kind of blown open, that’s fine. Just rest there for a few minutes. And then do another one. There’s nobody watching the clock here. Okay? Very good. Back here.

Boundless suffering and infinite joy

Student: When you first gave us that instruction, my reaction was, “No way. I know people that are really suffering. I’m not taking that in. And I’m going to give them all my joy and happiness. No!” Because I’m going to shrivel up and disappear, there’ll be nothing left of me. But then the more I did it, and I don’t know whether this is cheating, I started to get the sense that it wasn’t the “I” contained in this physical body that was taking it in. And it wasn’t just my personal joy and happiness that I was sending out. That I was kind of, to use a word from the 80s, there was sort of like a channel thing going. That I had boundless joy to give away, which I don’t feel like I have in my real life, and that I could contain boundless suffering because it wasn’t really me. I was just channeling this into … I don’t know if that was sort of cheating, but it just came to me and it made it possible. I don’t know.

Ken: Well, you’re getting a bit ahead of the of the game here. So, what would it be like to relate to your life from the perspective that you’re capable of taking in boundless suffering and capable of giving infinite joy? You have infinite joy to give away. It doesn’t matter how much you give away, there’s still plenty more where that came from. Would you like to relate to life that way? [Pause]

Student: Wow.

Ken: Wow? [Laughs] [Pause]

Student: That would … I can’t imagine, but I just did.

Ken: Yes, very clearly, you just did [laughs].

Student: I feel like I would walk around completely captivated by that notion, and that would be the most active thing in my mind. And I would be bumping into walls and falling off of curbs.

Ken: Say that again.

Student: Oh, sorry. I feel as if I would have those thoughts forefront of my mind to the exclusion of every other capacity. And I’d be bumping into walls and falling off of curbs. That would just be so big.

Ken: Okay, so it’d take a day or two for you to adjust.

Student: A day or two [laughs]. But that totally blows every construct that I had walking into this room, apart. The pain, everything.

Ken: Gee, I guess you got your money’s worth, didn’t you? [Laughter]

Student: And of course the immediate fear is that this will go away in a minute and I’ll forget what I just thought, so I’ll have to write it down. This is mind blowing.

Ken: Like that’s going to help [laughs].

Student: It’s really quite extraordinary.

Ken: Yeah. And—

Student: And it’ll go away in a minute and I’ll have to think it again.

Ken: Well, of course, because there’s this little matter of habituation. But a seed has been planted and you can nurture it if you wish.

Student: By just going back to that place and calling it up.

Ken: Going back to that place, calling it up. And it’s always going to be different because that’s how a seed is as it grows; it’s never the same thing. So, don’t expect it to be exactly the same because it won’t be. But another possibility of approaching life is opened—at least that’s my sense from what you’re saying—and you can choose to nurture that if you wish. Anybody else? Over here.

Student: So, towards the end of the sit, I found myself feeling that the suffering that I was taking in from everyone was really a form of love. Just like when you see a small kid that’s acting up and you know that the kid is really in need of love and is asking for it in the way they’ve been taught to ask for it. And then when I heard you say that this is part of an extensive practice, that’s actually when I became a bit uneasy. And I’ve had this before with meditation where I’m given a practice that, I have a reaction to very initially, and then I find out it’s part of a larger complex practice and I become uneasy because I feel like I don’t have the foundation. Or after a while I find uneasiness, and then I find that I was missing a certain kind of foundation. So, I’m wondering about this practice and in general, this issue of the starting place. Where do you start a practice?

Ken: This is how you start a practice. This is actually how it happens. The first time I came in connection with this teaching, I was in Delhi and I’m Canadian, I happened to know the Canadian High Commissioner. And he called me and he said, such and such lama, and it was a very distinguished lama, is in town at this address. You can go and pay your respects. Well, most of the year Delhi is pretty uninhabitable. It’s hot. And this was a very, very hot day. And I was going to a part of the town I knew nothing about. And trying to find streets, let alone street numbers, is bad enough in Delhi. So, it took me a very long time. And I was very hot, very hungry, very, very thirsty, had by this point an absolutely splitting headache.

Eventually I found this address. And there was only one question I had in my mind: How do I get rid of this suffering? Because I was just miserable. And this is the practice he gave me. He just said, “Take in all of the suffering of others and give away your own joy and happiness.”

And like several people have said, “Oh, yeah. Right. That makes sense. Yeah. What joy and happiness am I feeling right now? I’m totally miserable.” That was my first connection with this practice. And I thought it was completely stupid. Then, it was about a year later, I was in Vancouver with my teacher. He asked me to stay on in Vancouver to translate for a lama that he was leaving there to teach. And just before he left to go down to Seattle to get on the flight back to India, he handed me this text—Tibetan texts come shaped like this. You’ve seen them? Okay. This was on really, really thick paper, almost like cardboard. And it was handwritten text, very nicely written, very good script. And he said, “This could be useful to you.” I didn’t do anything with it. I just put it away because I was still learning Tibetan and wasn’t sure I could even read this.

And about a year later, the lama they’d left behind said, “Remember that text that Rinpoche gave you? Why don’t you bring it up? I think I’m going to teach it.” And it was the basic manual on this practice. That’s when I started to learn about it, really learn about it. And that led to me translating it. And it was one of the first translations that appeared in English of this practice. And I took it very seriously myself.

I did a six-week retreat just doing this every day, and thought I knew something about the practice. I found it very difficult. A lot of time it didn’t make much sense, but I just did it. And then, a good two years later, at least two or three years later I would say, maybe even more, I was in the three-year retreat. And Rinpoche had put into the schedule of the three-year retreat, two months on this practice, which for a three-year retreat is a huge amount of time for any practice because we did like 150 different practices. So, this is a big hunk of time.

And I thought, I’ve done this practice, I know this practice, so I’m going to spend a month on the foundations, the preparation for this practice, which are meditations on loving-kindness and compassion. Well that may have been a good thing. It was like putting a knife in my heart. I got a tremendous amount out of doing those practices on loving-kindness and compassion. And it was excruciating because I had to meet all of the things in me which were really not interested in loving-kindness and compassion at all. And it gave me a completely different appreciation of this practice.

Now I’m going into all of this detail because you said sometimes you get this practice. And then you start getting into it and you find out it’s part of a whole system, you don’t have the foundation. Yeah, that’s exactly how it works, [laughs]. And as you find more and more about the practice, you say, “If I’m really going to do this practice and take it seriously, I need this little bit here too. And I need this piece here and I need that piece here.” And you start putting it together.

We come into contact with this stuff in strange and mysterious ways. They come into our lives often when we’re not in the least looking for them. And that’s where it starts. I know this is no comfort to you at all, right? [Laughter] I sit up here and I talk about these things. And I don’t know, sometimes I think I’m planting seeds all over the place. I don’t don’t know whether those seeds are going to do anybody any good. Sometimes it blows people’s life apart. Sometimes it transforms their lives. Yeah. It’s life.

Student: It brought up another thing in the experience of doing the meditation, which was a really profound sense of compassion. In the sense that when anybody does something that ends up harming me, for example, if I can take in that suffering literally, even if it translates into my own physical suffering or psychological suffering, and experience that suffering act as actually a form of love. It generates a place of compassion.

Ken: Yeah. I think that’s good. Be careful. Sometimes people are just being mean, right? And you can say that their meanness is the only way that they know how to communicate. It may be a little too much to say it’s a form of love. But it may be the only way they know how to communicate. There’s a program, a three-year program that I did with a small group of people a few years ago, and there was one person in that group who’s really difficult. But this is precisely the reason because she only knew how to communicate in a certain way. And of course from the program, she discovered there was another different way to communicate. She didn’t have to rub people the wrong way in order to get their attention. Sometimes she could just ask for it. But it was an astonishing revelation for her because in her family background the only way you could communicate was by controlling people, coercing them. She knew no other way. And we’re all like that to some extent. So, relating to people that way, oh, this is how they know how to communicate. And then you can respond to them without that reactive stuff. That’s great.

Taking and sending, part two

Ken: Now, are there any more questions? Okay, I want to move into doing the same exercise but in a different way. And this is going back to something we touched on this morning. I want you to take a part of you that you don’t want to have very much to do with, a part of you that you would happily disown if you could. How many have such parts? Okay, no shortage. Now, just between you and me, how happy is that part of you? Not terribly happy. Okay. So, what I would like you to do is just do taking and sending, just what we did, with that part.

Not seeking to change that part. That’s important. Not trying to change that part. Instead, what I want you to do is, whatever you imagine or whatever you know to be the pain, unpleasantness, negativity, anger, hurt, fear, jealousy, greed, it doesn’t matter—whatever’s in there, whatever’s causing the pain—just take it and feel it yourself. And if you can feel it in your body. Just imagine taking it in and feeling it. And you give to that part the joy you know in life, the happiness you know in life, the confidence you experience because you’ve been able to live and be successful in your life, the skills and expertise that you’ve acquired and experience you’ve acquired. Whatever the sources of joy, whatever the sources of happiness, whatever the sources of wellbeing, this you give to that part.

And I want to emphasize, don’t try to change that part. You’re just taking that part’s pain and giving your happiness. They/he/she/it may or may not take it up, may not accept it, whatever, that doesn’t matter. You give it and you take that pain. So, let’s just do this for a few minutes together and tell me how this goes.

Student: [Unclear]

Ken: It doesn’t matter. That’s up to you. You can if you wish, if it’s helpful, imagine that part in front of you. Or you can just feel where it is in your body, or you can just do it as imagination. Whatever way works for you.

[Long pause]

[Gong] Going to take a break in a few minutes, before we do, what was your experience with doing the practice this way? Over here?

Student feedback

Student: I made myself keep repeating the exchange, but it was really uncomfortable and I couldn’t wait for it to be over. [Laughter] And my arthritis flared up during it.

Ken: Looks like you’re in the right place [laughs]. Well, when we’re working with deep-seated patterns, because that’s what it sounds like here, go gently. And going back to your point, Wendy, it’s very, very important not to force anything. So, it may be, and I’ve done this with many people, you have this part of you which you don’t want to have anything to do with, and you try to connect with it. And as you say, you get hot and the arthritis flares up and you get headaches and your body contracts. Well, okay, imagine it at some distance from you, whatever distance is necessary so that you can experience it, but tolerate the experience. That’s where you start.

And for some people, it’s had to be on the other side of the state. It’s still in their awareness, but it’s such a hot issue that it had to be really, really far away before they could feel any kind of safety with it. And then over time, you just bring it closer and closer until you can actually be in the same room with it. And this changes your whole relationship with that part of you. But again, it’s something that you evolve to. It’s not something that you force. Okay? Anybody else? Well, lots of people now. Yes.

Student: I found this one a little bit easier because to me, the suffering of the whole world was just so overwhelming. It’s like the blackness would come in and this little tiny bit of light would go out. And this time, because it was only for me, it just seemed much more manageable. It was like it would come in and it would go out, and they were a lot more even as far as volume wise. So, that for me, the second one was easier.

Ken: Okay. And it also tells you, your experience, how to work with the first form of doing it, which is you start with something you can manage and build up. And again, it’s that notion of building capacity. Not expecting, just do it, just like that. Okay. Very good. Somebody there? Okay.

Student: I started out with giving compassion to the part of me that had a fair amount of anger and has disturbed me and even nightmares. And as I went on, the anger, the figure became not angry, but I felt its fear and grief. And then it, it wasn’t a separate part of me, it was myself.

Ken: This is very important when we’re dealing either with anger or hurt because they come in pairs. Wherever there is anger in us, there is also hurt. And wherever there is hurt or sadness, there is also anger, and very, very fruitful to include the anger and hurt together, and do it with both. That way your dealing with the whole pattern of reaction and not just one part of it. That’s very good. The woman in red here or orange, whatever that color is, vermilion.

Student: Well, that brought up a lot. I’ll have to take time to process. I think, one awareness is … it’s easier to feel compassion for other people than for myself.

Ken: For some of us, that is true. Yes.

Student: I don’t think I can say more right now [breaks into tears].

Ken: Well, that’s plenty right there. And this is a very powerful form of practice. And all I wanted to do was to give you a taste of possibilities. If you choose to engage this on your own in the future, then I very much encourage you to work gently, not try to force anything and do what is actually possible. When we run into stuff like that, we feel how much anger or hurt is in us. And it can be a little intimidating or maybe very intimidating. And if it is, then just touch what is possible. And through that, you gradually increase your capacity and view it as a process of growth rather than trying to make something happen.

And your body will tell you when it says, “I’ve had enough.” Okay? Then you just respect that. And when I say touch it, some of these old hurts, I literally mean touch like that. You don’t have to spend like we spent, it was about 10 minutes we were practicing there. You don’t have to spend 10 minutes, you can make it 30 seconds, 15 seconds. That’s touching it. And if you do that on a regular basis, it starts a movement. And some of these old knots can actually untie. Okay? Sophie.

Sophie: When you were speaking about just now of touching, for me it created a lot of pressure in my chest. It just felt like enormous pressure. So, I don’t know if I was trying to get away from the practice, but I found myself focusing on my breath and trying to feel myself on the cushion again. And I didn’t know if I was avoiding the practice by doing that because I couldn’t get back to it. Every time I’d go, I would just feel more and more pressure. So, I wasn’t sure which way to go with it.

Ken: Well, you were working in the very sensible way here, because you open up this possibility and you move into a relationship with this part. And the first part is overwhelming feelings. Feelings that you can’t stay with, such as the pressure in your chest. And there may be feelings of deep pain or fear or anything like that. And they’re just too much. Now, often when that happens, people flip straight into a story about it, and that’s not helpful. What you were doing is you went to your physical sensations and you grounded yourself in the body. That’s how I understood. Okay. There I was. Okay, there’s the [unclear]. Let me reconnect with my body. Okay, there we are. And so you’re reconnecting with your actual experience, not some interpretation of experience. That’s what’s important. That’s why I say it’s a very sensible way of practicing.

And so you come back to that: you ground, and then you touch it again, and you ground in your experience, and you go back and forth this way. This is how we actually practice. This is how you build capacity. There’s nothing wrong with this. In fact, there’s a great deal right with this. It’s not avoiding something. It’s touching, “Okay, that’s as far as I can go here.” And coming back, connecting with the breath, connecting with your body, connecting with where you are right now so you don’t spin off into some kind of story or fantasy or trance or what have you, which a lot of people do. And then when you’re ready, you touch again, and then again, and then again. And that touching it periodically, little by little is what initiates the process of change. And you let the change happen in its own time. You don’t try to force it.

In Four Quartets T.S. Eliot writes: “For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.” Okay? You’re welcome.

Student: I’ve been doing tonglen practice over the last several months and found it really helpful, found it very deep and very opening in a lot of ways. And I’ve had some very intense experiences getting in touch with some very painful parts of myself that it felt very wholesome and good to be getting in touch with. And so when you said, “I want you to now practice taking and sending with the wounded part of yourself or the hurt part of yourself.” I thought, wow, this is going to be very intense. We’re going for the jackpot here.

And what I found was—unlike the first period that that we did where I was there and I was present and I was taking and sending with the people close to me—very shortly I was off on a dream. And I realized, oh, I’m dreaming. Come back and I’d do it again, and boom, it was just like come back, boom, rug got pulled out from under me and I found myself dreaming again. The way I was working with that was just coming back and coming back. But if you have any insight into what was going on or suggestions to work with that, I’d really appreciate that.

Ken: Sounds like you hit the jackpot. [Laughter] Well, when we hit really hot issues inside us, attention is destabilized [finger snap] just like that. And that’s what you’re describing is how your attention just fragments and it’s gone. But you were doing exactly the right thing. Oh, my attention’s gone, come back.

Student: Good to know.

Ken: And you weren’t forcing it. You weren’t going, “I’m just, I’m going to do this until one of us dies.” Well, usually one of you does die. It’s not the right way to go. You come back, and it fragments again, come back, it fragments again. But you just, little by little, build up capacity. It tells you that whatever this issue is in you, you have much less of a relationship with it than you might’ve thought. [Laughs]

Student: Yeah.

Ken: So, it tells you what’s going on. And this is exactly what Thich Nhat Hanh says about meditation practice. Meditation practice is the study of what’s going on. And so this tells you what’s going on in you. It also tells you where you can’t stay present in your life. Because anytime anything that is connected with that issue comes up, it’ll kick up this part in you and you’ll be gone. Does make sense to you?

Student: Yeah, totally. Yeah. I’m going to forget that. But my wife will remind me when I do. So, thank you.

Ken: She’s written that down, has she? Okay, very good. [Laughs] So, that’s really important. But again, the image that I want you to carry with you here is one of planting the seed and letting it evolve. I’ll give you one other image, which I find very useful. These parts of us are like closed flowers. Now, how do you open the flower?

Student: [Unclear]

Ken: Okay. Your body is the water, your attention is the sun. But that’s all you do. And the flower opens in its own time. You do not have any say in that. And that may be irritating to you, but that’s how it is [laughs].

Student: I know exactly that what you’re saying is exactly true and exactly what I need to be doing.

Ken: Okay very good. One more comment and then we’ll take our break. Anybody?

Student: I just wanted to clarify aspects of the method here. So,, you are using concept in a minimal way in that for me, there’s a sense of memory, like me remembering some part of myself or remembering I think of some person and that evokes, uh, experience or emotion. But that my understanding, that’s all, that’s the only concept that comes in is just maybe to evoke experience.

Ken: Well, this is very conceptual practice. I mean it’s using feelings and sensations and to a certain extent the stories that we’ve associated with them. And we’re using that material. In that sense, yes, it’s conceptual. This is not mahamudra or dzogchen or anything like that. There comes a point when you can bring that perspective to this practice, but that’s not where we are right now. And so, yeah, there’s part of you, and all we’re doing is taking what is actually going on in us and giving it a dramatic form. Okay? There is part of us, it feels like this other person that we don’t have any relationship with, and it runs.

How many of you are fans of Calvin and Hobbes? This is what Calvin and Hobbes is all about. There’s this tiger which just does stuff or is telling Calvin, “I don’t think we should be doing this.” But it’s like this alter ego, if you would. And we have not just one, but probably hundreds of them. So, we’re taking one of them and working with it. So, yeah, it’s very conceptual in that way. But by doing it and then using that framework as a way to elicit the experiences in us, which keep this whole thing locked up and tight. Because as we’re able to experience all of that contraction and pain and suffering, and connect with it, that’s what creates the conditions for things to let go.

Student: Yeah. I can see how that’s a good training, because you’re just out in daily life and you meet an experience and you don’t need to create it. Because there it is. It evokes itself. And it’s evoking your response.

Ken: Yeah. And if you trained in this way, then when that comes up, then you have a different relationship with it. So, you start acting in a different way. It’s not that you decide to act, it’s that the training there has opened up other pathways.

Student: Right. Your automatic response is to—

Ken: To move in a different direction.

Student: Thank you.

Ken: Okay, so let’s take a ten-minute break here and then we’ll come back for the final chapter of today, which will be even worse.