Curiosity as the basis of practice

Ken: Last week it was suggested that I talk about interacting around practice, right? How do you actually do that? In thinking about this, I thought I’d open it up to a bit of a larger topic. I’m not quite sure what to call the topic, but if you’ll bear with me, and sort of fumble away towards it. And it really has to do with how does the practice become alive and awake in your life? Now, there are several challenges here. One of them is the need for instruction, guidance, support, and something that’s a little more difficult to describe, but we might call the revelation of possibilities.

When we start into this process of waking up, we can go back to the time of Buddha’s own life. Buddha was inspired a little bit, but wasn’t the spokesperson for the intelligence of the universe or anything like that. He never saw himself that way, never regarded himself as the instrument of divine revelation. You’ll recall that Buddha starts off because he’s confronted with the facts of old age, illness and death. And wonders, how is it possible to be at all happy when this is the inevitable result of life? Now, I say he was inspired a little bit because after those three encounters, he also saw this mendicant, sadhu, who seemed to be completely serene. And the paradox, or the contrast, between his own extreme agitation—when as a young adult, he realized that the inevitable results of life are illness, old age and death–and the quality of serenity of this sadhu, religious mendicant. And how is this possible? Now, he never studied with that person. And he certainly wasn’t ordained as a prophet or anything like that, which very much are the religious models that we’re used to.

But this conundrum, I suppose, motivated or led him to say, “I’ve gotta get to the bottom of this.” So, Buddhism and the practice of Buddhism has always taken, at the bottom, that the basis of practice is our own individual curiosity into the predicament in which we find ourselves by virtue of the fact that we are alive. Dilgo Khyentse was once asked, “Why do we practice?” His response was, “to make the best of a bad situation.” [Laughter]

The carrot or the stick?

Ken: Now, many of you have heard me talk about the carrot and stick approach. You have a donkey; you load up the donkey with some stuff. Now, the challenge is to get the donkey to move. There’s the carrot approach. You hold a carrot in front of the donkey, and the donkey goes, “Oh, food, mmm,” and it leans its head forward. But if you’re the donkey master, do you let the donkey bite the carrot? No. It defeats the purpose of the exercise. You withdraw the carrot and the donkey reaches further and further, and eventually he can’t reach any further without taking a step. And so you get the donkey to move. Does the donkey ever get the carrot? No. Then there’s the stick approach. You go find a good two by four, whack the donkey on the back. Donkey decides that this is not a good place to stand, starts to move. Now, do you hit the donkey again? No, not unless it stops.

Now this may sound like cruel and unusual punishment to some of you, but how many of you practice on the basis of the carrot? Let’s be honest here.

Student: [Unclear]

Ken: [Laughter] Well, I don’t think much of your honesty, because I’ve talked with many of you individually. How many of you approach practice with any kind of expectation? Now thank you [laughs]. Right? Carrot, you know, “I want this.” Now, we all have an idea of what this is. Where does that idea come from? Well, most of it comes from here. We conjure up an idea of, “Wouldn’t it be nice if … ?” something along those lines. And, “I want to be free of a sense of self so I don’t have to suffer.” Ring any bells?

Student: Mm-hmm.

Ken: Sounds cool, doesn’t it? “No self, yay. No suffering, great.” Yeah. “I want to be totally aware of everything in every moment.” Yeah. Sounds good, doesn’t it? “I’d like to have a clear and open mind.” “I’d like to know that everything is an illusion.” How many of you have had little inklings of thoughts like this? [Laughs] Pardon? No, not you, Peri.

Now, we hear all of these wonderful things. For instance, Rinpoche, in his standard speech on nature of mind: “Mind is empty, clear, unimpeded.” And emptiness, it just sounds like this magical thing that solves all the problems you have. And how many of you would like to understand emptiness? Yeah. See, now you’re being a bit more honest.

Now, we hear all of these words. We hear all of these descriptions, and we form ideas. And sometimes they’re very inspiring. We hear somebody and think, “Yeah, that’s what I want.” But that’s not how it turns out. Because at this point, we just don’t know. And we may have a little inkling here or something like that, but we really don’t know. It’s all an idea. And we have lots of people to thank for these ideas, because there are hundreds, thousands of people who’ve written thousands of words on this stuff over the course of two and a half millennia. So there’s a lot of basis for all of these ideas. As long as we practice on the basis of those ideas, we have a couple of problems. And for this, we have to return to the donkey. In the carrot approach, where’s the donkey’s attention?

Student: On the carrot.

Ken: On the carrot. Okay? Is the donkey aware of everything around him?

Student: No.

Ken: No, he’s not. It might be one pointed, or single-minded attention. Yeah. It’s on getting that. So there’s another problem here. There’s very definitely “a gaining idea” to use Suzuki Roshi’s phrase that the donkey’s operating from.

Student: It’s futurizing, right?

Ken: Now, how present can you be if your attention is on what I want to get? Okay, this is one of the main problems with the carrot approach. Let’s try the stick approach. This was Buddha’s approach: suffering is part of life. I don’t like this; there is a problem here. And it’s very interesting to differentiate how Buddhism approaches this versus how, say, Christianity approaches this. Buddhism, suffering is taken as a fact of life because everybody has that experience, right? Okay. You say, “Have you ever suffered?” Yeah, I can relate to that. And the whole thrust of Buddhism is about what you experience. In some formulations of Christianity, there is belief in an all loving, all powerful God. And not just in Christianity, this crops up in a number of other religious traditions, but it’s the one I’m more familiar with. As soon as you postulate an all loving, almighty God, you have a profound theological problem. Why is there suffering? Why is there pain in the world? And C.S. Lewis, who was, I would say, a profoundly devout Christian, really, really thought about these things very deeply. And he wrote a little book called The Problem of Pain, which is an exploration of this.

And, and it’s an interesting contrast in two different approaches. Now, from the Buddhist point of view: there is suffering. And so we immediately find ourselves in the first of the four noble truths. The second one, what is the cause? Now it’s usually translated as cause, but I think the better translation—and have started to push this out to a few of my translating colleagues—what is the genesis of suffering? How does the damn thing get started? And you can see, now we’re getting into curiosity. We go back to our donkey. There I am standing with a load and, whack! “Ow! What’s happening here? This hurts.” Now how good is a donkey at looking behind them? Not really good.

Student: No.

Ken: So they aren’t going to go into psychoanalysis, you see. [Laughter] It’s just got to relate to that experience right there. “Ow!” So from the donkey’s point of view, what is the genesis of suffering? “I’m standing in the wrong place!” [Laughter] Okay? “The way I am in the world, it’s not the right way to be. Something’s wrong here. I’m going to move. Ah.” [Laughs] See, I think this is quite deep, the carrot and the stick. Okay? Now, does this connect with your experience?

Student: Mm-hmm.

Paying attention without formulating theories

Ken: Okay. So, practice is very much about paying attention to what our actual experience is. And not formulating any theories about it. That’s very important. Not formulating any theories about it, but relating to what it actually is and saying, “What can I do about it?” If you were to carry this analogy, maybe stretch it too far, one can imagine the donkey kneeling down and praying that whatever is causing this suffering should stop, praying for divine intervention, or what have you. Now, what’s that actually going to do in these circumstances?

Student: Oh, a great deal [laughs]. The owner might take pity on him.

Ken: I doubt it, might say, “hmm.” Not if you’ve been in the Middle East [laughter].

Student: Here, it might work.

Ken: So, it’s about relating to our actual experience, and by investigating that experience completely, uncovering other possibilities. It might take the donkey a little while to figure out the problem is: that he’s standing in the wrong place. It might take the donkey quite a while, but eventually it gets there. Now, how many of you are standing in the wrong place? Ah, Okay.

Student: Well, part of the problem is also thinking you’re in the wrong.

Ken: No. Thinking that you’re in the wrong and standing in the wrong place are very different things.

Student: Well, no, I’m talking about it in terms of your state of being, just feeling there’s something wrong with you.

Ken: I understand. And that’s another matter. Okay? If I can, I’ll come back to that. This is not working at that level. And, what you say, it’s a source of suffering for many, many people. And, I’ll see if I can incorporate it in, but I want focus on something that’s a little simpler at this point, that: “There is something wrong with how I am approaching life,” which is not the same as saying “There’s something wrong with me,” you follow? Okay.

Susan: But not to be difficult, but I tend to be …

Ken: To be difficult [laughs].

Susan: Is it really thinking that, or is the donkey just wanting to get away from pain?

Ken: Yes. Donkey just wants to get away from pain, don’t you?

Susan: Yeah.

Ken: Right. Okay. Well, I’m just saying—

Susan: But that’s not necessarily synonymous with thinking I’m in the wrong place. Is it? In your—

Ken: No, no. But here’s the donkey, “I want to get away from this pain.” Now the donkey can’t see what’s happening. He just moves, right? And that’s the result of, “I’m in the wrong place.” So he moves. Whether the donkey actually formulates the idea, I don’t know.

Susan: Probably not.

Guiding others

Ken: Now, the reason I’m going into this in such detail, Susan, [laughs] is that, in thinking about things this way, there is the key to how you interact with other people when you’re talking about practice. When you’re interacting with other people, you don’t give them theories. You don’t tell them what you think is happening to them or in them or around them, or whatever. Your role is to help them understand their experience, period. Okay? Is to help them understand their experience. Now, when they understand their experience—and you all know this yourselves—when you understand your experience clearly, do you know what to do?

Student: Yes.

Ken: And this is one of the points about understanding. One can formulate problems in different ways, but often a formulation of a problem doesn’t give you any information about how to resolve it. And in that case, I feel that the formulation of the problem is incomplete because it doesn’t point to anything.

And some time ago I was coaching, or doing a workshop with the legal department of a corporation. And, I’d worked with these people a few times before, and so they knew me and that was fine, and I’d interviewed everybody, and they all got along very well, and they were good in their communications. And the day of the workshop was approaching, and I was beginning to panic. What do I do? You know, because one of the areas I work on is communications, but they didn’t have any communications problems, nothing major. And being lawyers, they knew all about conflict already, so there’s nothing to do there. What’s this workshop going to be about? And I was building up to a fairly decent level of panic. And I said, “There’s something I’m missing here.” And I went through my notes and in my head all of the interviews, and then I realized that everybody had said one thing over and over again: “We have too much work and not enough time.” Oh, okay, that’s what we talk about. Now, too much work and not enough time. That’s a statement of a problem, right?

Well, those of you who have worked in a corporate environment, what can you do about the work? It just keeps coming, doesn’t it? Yeah. Okay. So nothing to be done there. What can you do about time? Anybody figured out how to get more than 24 hours in a day? No. More than seven days in a week? No. Can’t do anything about that. So this is the formulation of a problem that doesn’t point anywhere. And that’s where I started the workshop, divided them up into groups and said, “Your first challenge is to come up with three formulations of this problem that doesn’t use the word work or time.” We got three very good ones, and one of them which we could work with variously, was, “We have difficulty in establishing priorities.” And that just opened up. And so we had a great day in which we discussed how to establish priorities, what were the priorities, and led to very significant reorganization of some of the workflows and things like that.

Know your experience completely

Ken: This is what I mean about a complete formulation of the problem. That’s when you understand the problem. And when you really understand the problem, then you have a direction for a solution. This is what’s contained in the four noble truths. There is the problem, which is suffering. And then you have the genesis of the problem. And you see we’re moving to a more complete understanding right at this point, which is emotional reaction, okay? And the deepest level of emotional reaction—which is that blanking out when an experience arises—that’s ignorance, not knowing. So what’s the solution? Hmm? Oh, okay. I’ll give you the Buddhist term for the solution, but then you’ve gotta translate this into English. Nirvana! That’s a solution [laughs]. Now, you translate it. What’s the solution?

Student: No self.

Ken: [Laughs] No.

Student: Knowing?

Ken: Knowing! Exactly. Knowing your experience completely. That’s it. So, what is the intention when you interact with each other about your practice?

Student: Each one know their own practice or know it.

Ken: Well, when you’re interacting with a person, your role is to help them know their experience completely. Yes, Janneke? [Laughs]

Janneke: And how does one accomplish that? In terms of the way you interact in terms of the questions—

Ken: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was gonna get there [laughs], because that’s the fourth noble truth, isn’t it?

Janneke: What?

Ken: The way, exactly. It pays to learn this stuff, you know, it’s really useful [laughs]. How do you do it? Now, the reason I’m making such a big deal about the setup, is that if you have this clearly in your mind to start with, you’re going to interact with each other much more productively. Now, how do you do this? Okay, so I think we should probably do this in terms of demonstrations rather than me just talking. So, anybody got practice questions?

Student: I have a question before you go on.

Ken: Okay.

Student: Why is it our role to help other people know their experience as opposed to focusing on knowing our own experience?

Ken: The question arose at the end of last week is that students are going to be meeting together. And so they wanted some guidelines about that. But you remind me of something I think Mark Twain said, which was: “It’s said that I’m here to help other people. What I can’t figure out is why the other people are here.”

Student: And then my other question is, is there a certain irony in using a fundamental Christian concept of genesis to describe a Buddhist principle?

Ken: Well, there is an irony, of what, perhaps, I don’t know. It’s just that, the Sanskrit word is hetu, the Tibetan word is rgyu (pron. gyu). And it’s almost always translated as cause. But in English, we cannot say, except in a rather technical philosophical sense, that an acorn is the cause of an oak tree. But that’s exactly what the term means in Sanskrit and Tibetan. We can however say that the acorn is the seed of an oak tree, and that’s fine.

And for a long time I translated this as seed and would get everybody really angry because they said, “No, this is cause.” In fact, one person who’s really, really bright, we were on a committee together, and I said, “No, I think we should translate is as seed. He said that “[If] rgyu isn’t cause, this isn’t a book!” Not happy. And and I just said, “Well, I don’t know how it is in Italian,” because that was his native language, “but we cannot say in English that an acorn is the cause of an oak tree.” However, we can say that an acorn is the genesis of an oak tree. In fact, that works very well. And as far as I know, nobody’s used it that way, but it’s actually much, much more accurate. Yeah. And we have this association with genesis, but that’s actually what genesis is about. How did this whole thing get rolling? Where did it come from? Okay, so practice question?

Student: Well, you know, can I ask another question before we get to that?

Ken: Yes.

Student: When I hear you say that, what you just said, it makes me nervous about sharing practice questions with others because I think it’s so hard for people not to have themselves in the answering, you know, where they’re basing it on themselves and not on you, your knowing, but on their knowing. That’s my worry.

Ken: Yes.

Student: Okay. It’s your worry too.

Ken: It’s a fact which has to be dealt with. Yeah, it can be problematic. We’ll get into that.

A coaching session

Ken: Practice question, Rami?

Rami: I have a question [unclear].

Ken: [Laughter] So much for this demo. Three strikes, I’m out. Okay, go ahead, Rami.

Rami: What I wanted to ask, and I don’t know how to relates to this, but we talked about setting an intention for a practice, having an intention going into it.

Ken: Yeah.

Rami: Just realizing I just sit there and I just go and practice. I don’t necessarily sit there and have an intention do it.

Ken: Mm-hmm.

Rami: I was wondering if it’s necessary to go into every practice with intention, is it more helpful?

Ken: Yeah, it is. Okay, so who wants to take this one? You’re gonna be coached.

Joe: I’ll give you a short answer.

Ken: You’re gonna work with Rami here?

Joe: Yeah.

Ken: Okay.

Joe: I think you do have—

Ken: No, just a second.

Joe: Oh, I’m sorry.

Ken: Remember what I just spoke about for the last 15, 20 minutes?

Joe: Oh God. [Laughter]

Ken: I mean, this is the first, point you see? Okay. Rami’s out.

Joe: Oh, I’m telling him what he is experiencing. Oh God, yes, okay.

Ken: No, you’re telling him what you think.

Joe: Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Ken: Are you helping him understand his experience?

Joe: Probably not.

Ken: Well, why don’t you do that?

Joe: Okay. [Laughter]

Ken: That’s how quickly it operates. Okay. The first thing is, “Oh yeah, that resonates with this in me, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” That’s our first thing. Okay? That’s what you were referring to, right? Okay. That’s the knee jerk response. Okay?

Joe: I dare you guys. [Laughter]. Oh dear.

Ken: Okay. And that’s what happens. But that’s why I laid all of that groundwork, because the intention here, when somebody raises a question, isn’t for you to tell them what you understand. What that degenerates into very quickly is a contest. “Well, I understand this, I understand that.” And it comes up all the time. But, that’s not the point. The point is: help him understand his experience. Go.

Joe: Oh man.

Ken: See what happens when you sit on the right hand? [Laughter]

Joe: Yeah. I’m not sure what you mean. [Laughter]

Ken: Okay. What’s everybody’s take on that?

Student: Good. Better.

Ken: Yeah. Well, it’s what Joe actually needs here. Okay? Rami.

Rami: Okay. Well, I think with your daily practice, you get into a routine where it’s almost like automatic. You just do it. You just sit there and you go, it’s like driving a car. So, what I was thinking is that if there was …

Ken: Now this is wonderful. I’m gonna help you a little bit here [laughter]. So Rami, if I understood you correctly, you started off by describing what sounds like a bit of a conundrum for you, intention for practice. But after a while, you get into a routine. And so you just sit down, you do your practice and you’re not quite sure whether intention comes into that. And then he sets this up wonderfully. Should you have an intention and should you do this? And should you do that? And should you do this? Okay? I’m gonna give you a little hint here. Big trap.

Joe: For?

Ken: For you. [Laughter]

Joe: I’m sorry. I’m always trying to set it up …

Ken: Big trap there. Do you want more than that or—

Joe:
No, no, I could feel that.

Ken: Yeah. [Laugher] Okay. That’s good. Okay. Now this is another important point. Okay? Joe says, “I could feel that.” What was your experience here? What was your experience when you were hearing, “Should I have an intention? Should I be formulating that intention? Should I have that intention going for me in the practice?” and all of that. What was your experience when you heard Rami asking those questions?

Joe: My experience was, first of all to try to make a judgment there. And then I realized I was making a judgment there, and it had nothing to do with him.

Ken: Okay. I want you to go back a bit further. Okay. We know about this experience business, we have this body, emotion, mind thing.

Joe: Yeah.

Ken: Okay. You’re into stories. Okay. What was your experience in the body?

Joe: Oh, I got tense and scared.

Ken: Okay, so “tense” was the body, “scared” was the emotion. And stories with all that business about judgment.

Joe: Right.

Ken: Okay. Now go right into all of that experience. [Pause] Just be right in that. [Pause] What happens? I”‘m even more scared, more tense.” [Laughs]

Joe: It was a re-creation, so it wasn’t quite as intense as it was.

Ken: Right. Yeah.

Joe:
But I, yeah, okay …

Ken: Okay. What happens when you go into that experience?

Joe: Well, it dissipates.

Ken: Something opens, maybe that doesn’t dissipate completely, but something opens. Okay. This is very important. Now, can you come from that and respond to Rami?

Joe: I wish I could help you here. [Pause]

Ken: Don’t forget. Your intention here is to help him understand and know his experience completely. How can you do that? Peri, you’re looking very pained right now.

Peri: It’s empathy. [Laughter]

Ken: Ah, okay. Is this helpful, Susan?

Susan: Yes.

Ken: Good.

Joe: It seems to me that you want to have an intention. Do you think that …

Ken: Is that the case?

Joe: Is that the case?

Rami: [Long pause] Umm …

Ken: Now, you notice what’s happening with Rami when you ask that question. He has to go into himself and weigh that. That’s moving him into his experience, right? “Where am I here, actually?” So that was good [laughs]. Sighs of relief [Laughter]. Rami?

Rami: Yes and no.

Ken: That’s fine. But what we’re going to do here is somebody else is going to pick up the ball. So, “yes and no,” continue, Rami. So everybody pay attention to this because you may be next [laughs].

Rami: Umm … [Pause]

Ken: So, is it helpful to remember or have your intention clearly in mind when you’re practicing, rather than just sitting with the breath? So forth, in essence, right?

Rami: Yeah.

Ken: Okay. So you pushed Rami and now the question’s a little clearer, right? By not telling him anything that you understood, but just asking him, “Well, is it like this or is it like that?” He’s reflected on his experience and now he’s come up with a refinement of the question. Okay, who wants to pick this one up? Okay, George.

George: I would ask you what you want to accomplish with having intention?

Ken:nHere, George asked the question, “What do you want to accomplish?” Rami immediately feels confused. What does that indicate?

Student: The question didn’t clarify the issue for him.

Ken: Right. There you are. Okay, next person. Chuck.

Chuck: He had said that it’s like driving a car and driving it automatically. But it seems to me like when you’re driving a car, initially you have an intention of somewhere to go, and then it goes to on automatically.

Ken: Okay, Chuck, what are you doing here? No, let Chuck answer.

Chuck: Becoming too analytical.

Ken: Maybe becoming too analytical. But you are telling him what you think. Are you helping him understand his experience? Yes? No? Maybe?

Chuck: Maybe. He did mention that, he brought that up.

Ken: Right. But do this in a way which is helping him understand his experience, and tell instead of telling him.

Chuck: I see. Can I still use the car analogy?

Ken: It’s up to you. Just take another crack at it.

Chuck: Okay, let’s go to the car analogy now, which you brought up. Okay, when you get in your car, do you have any intention of going somewhere?

Rami: Yes.

Chuck: You have an intention. When does this become automatic?

Ken: Okay, Chuck, I’m gonna bring up something else, and this is important. So you ask a couple of questions and that’s your way of helping him move into his experience. But there are two types of questions we can ask. And they’re generally called open questions and closed questions. Closed questions are answered by yes ,no, or a simple fact. Open questions invite or require the person to reflect and consider. Okay, which kind of questions were you asking?

Chuck: Closed.

Ken: Right. And in this business—most of the time, I won’t say all the time, but most of the time—open questions are going to help a person move into their experience and understand their experience more, because it’s going to push them back into it. They’ve got to reflect, rather than yes, no, 3.6 seconds after I started [laughs]. Okay? So take another crack here.

Chuck: Well, you did say you had an intention when you start driving in a car? [Pause]

Ken: Not used to thinking this way, are you? That’s okay. Somebody else here. John?

John: Do you feel better? Are you—

Ken: Talk to Rami [laughs], not me.

John: Do you feel better when you have a meditation with intention?

Ken: Now, that is a closed question, but it does put him into the experience. He’s got to look at his experience to be able to answer that.

John: How do you feel?

Ken: Yeah.

Rami: How do I feel when I have an intention?

Ken: And I would actually suggest you word the question more broadly. That is, “What’s your experience of having an intention in your mind or not having an intention in your mind?” So that just opens up the field completely. Do you follow?

Rami: What is my experience?

Ken: When you have an intention in your mind, and when you don’t have an intention in your mind. [Long pause] You can see that when you work this way with someone, there are going to be periods of silence. When you are in Joe’s or John’s or Chuck’s position and those periods of silence arise, it’s very easy to get antsy.