Tag: spirituality

Freedom from Clinging: Kiss the Joy!

One of my first Dharma teachers was the appropriately named Dhammarati – he who delights in the law, the teachings of the Buddha. In 1984 I’d been attending the London (Triratna) Buddhist Centre for a few months following an initial 6-day residential retreat. I spotted a poster for a weekend event he was leading at the Centre and signed up. It was quite an intimate event with maybe 10 of us tucked away in a back study room in the large converted fire station in East London.

 I don’t remember much about the content of the weekend, but one gesture that Dhammarati used quite frequently has stayed with me for over 40 years. It is possible the theme had something to do with the Paramitas (Perfections), one of which is dana, or giving, because the gesture or mudra was of a clenched fist gently relaxing into an open hand. It is such a simple movement, but I find it striking that, rather than the teachings and discussions from those two days, this is what has stayed with me, not just as a memory or an image in the mind, but a visceral felt sense of this is what the spiritual life is about.

Open handed and open-hearted giving are said not to lead directly to wisdom itself but to be a crucial supporting factor. Sangharakshita has said that we should always be giving something; giving of our time or energy, giving materially, or giving of the Dharma. Giving of our confidence or fearlessness is another form of dana much needed in our world today. The Buddha said we should give freely, without expectation of reward or benefit in return. Training in dana as an attitude and an orientation point us towards the mind and heart that are, in those moments of giving, free from clinging.

In a recent interview for Tricycle Magazine, Joseph Goldstein talks about the defining issue that all Buddhist traditions have in common; they are tackling the deep-seated human tendency to cling and searching for the mind of ‘non-clinging.’ In those moments when we give, we go beyond our self-referential desires, including the desire to protect and insulate ourselves by shoring up physical and mental ‘stuff’ around us.  Dana softens the mind and helps make visible the deeper ways that the mind clings.

Clinging is that closed fist, and it hurts to cling. By clinging or grasping, we are trying to guard against losing what we are holding on to, and so we often feel tense and brittle. The heart-mind becomes tight and held in check, and this can translate to pain and tension in the body. This in turn creates uneasiness and an indefinable feeling that something isn’t quite right. Clinging is a deeply ingrained human habit, and mostly, we don’t know another way but to hang on. Our defensiveness is not protecting healthy boundaries but making sure we don’t lose what we consider ‘mine’ or whatever threatens ‘me.’

One of my favourite Dharma teachings is that of the Four Upadanas, four aspects of experience that we cling to. Firstly, the Buddha says, we cling to our sense experiences to try and create a feeling of security. Then there are two aspects relating to views; one to views in general including ideological and philosophical beliefs, and thirdly, views specifically about what we call ‘self.’ Finally, we cling to rituals and practices, creating an over-reliance on externals as a way to Enlightenment. These are a rich source of investigation – and we’ll be exploring them over New Year on a 5-day retreat (more info HERE).

Even though it creates suffering to keep our fist tightly closed, it is counter-productive to try to force it open. Practice is not about ignoring our own psychological defences but using a kindly, spacious, awareness with the intelligence of wisdom, to investigate how we cling and see for ourselves how it hurts. When we see this over time the natural response is to release clinging, to let go. In meditation, when we cultivate an awareness characterised by ease rather than control, and an open mind rather than a pre-determined agenda, we start to get a sense of what freedom from clinging feels like.

When we take awareness practice into our daily lives, we find many opportunities to recognize the tightening that happens when we hold onto views and opinions. At times we can access fruitful territory where we’re able to let go of being right, or of knowing what to do, or of needing to prove ourselves. We might notice the ‘planning’ mind looking to secure a future for itself a hundred times a day; that noticing, allows us to re-connect with the groundedness and groundlessness of present moment awareness. When we can stay with uncertainty and the disorientation that arises, rather than immediately jump to a limited security of thinking we know who we are and where we stand, we start to experience the rewards of non-clinging.

With an open hand and open mind, we can touch into the experience of those famous words by the poet and visionary, William Blake, we ‘kiss the joy as it flies.’ We stand within a flow of momentary experience and experience a kind of gleeful weightlessness. Freedom from Clinging is accomplished through standing, with awareness and wisdom, in the heart of the mind that clings.

Find out more about the retreat ‘Freedom from Clinging’ HERE

The Relationship between Faith and Receptive Mindfulness

Faith isn’t something that is talked about a lot within the practice of receptive mindfulness, so it is good to explore how it fits into meditation practice, especially practice that is emphasizing direct experience. How can we know something like faith directly?

We can use the Buddha’s teaching of the Five Spiritual Faculties to describe the qualities that we are looking to bring into being more and more in mindfulness meditation – and this is what Sayadaw U Tejaniya does. These faculties are mindfulness, wisdom, energy, stability of mind and faith. So here faith is an integral part of what we are cultivating to bring about wisdom and clear seeing.

In my own practice I tend to use the section from the Satipatthana Sutta that is seen as the primary way of defining ‘right mindfulness’ in the early Buddhist tradition. This consists of 4 qualities – mindfulness, clear knowing, helpful energy and a mind free from gross hindrances. This list doesn’t explicitly include faith – although it does emphasize positive mind qualities that are experienced in the quality of awareness free from ‘desire and discontent’.

Bhante Sangharakshita, in his seminar on the Five Spiritual Faculties talks of faith as “for a Buddhist, faith means faith in the Buddha”. He goes on to say that we are really saying when we have faith in the Buddha is that we have faith in the Buddha’s Enlightenment, we have faith or confidence that Awakening is possible – because the Buddha was able to Awaken.

To say that we have faith that Enlightenment is possible is really to say that we have faith or trust in our capacity to grow and to change. We have faith in our ability to change in a positive direction without putting limits on that capacity to grow in many ways. For example, to grow more aware, more patient, more compassionate and wiser.

Faith manifests as a confidence in the teachings of the Buddha, the path to Awakening, and the teachings of mindfulness and wisdom. Looking into our experience directly means that we can recognize in our own heart and mind how that awareness affects the mind. We can notice how the mind feels when faith or confidence or trust are present and see how they benefit the heart and mind. We can see when faith is deepening our ability to practice and serving as a strong motivation.

 We can also learn a lot from a kind of impersonal faith in Awareness itself. We can start to see that when mindfulness increases, the mind starts to understand itself in a new way. Just the act of being aware can stimulate faith by recognizing its role in the positive growth of qualities that allow insight and understanding to flourish.

When, in meditation, we experience the heart-mind brighten or uplift, when we notice the expansive pleasure of deep relaxation of the body and mind through awareness, we can often also notice how these moments of practice increase our confidence in our capacity to tread the Buddha’s path.

Here are a couple of suggestions for practice.

Take faith or confidence or trust as an ‘object’ throughout meditation and into daily life. What does it feel like in the mind-heart or the body? Track your experience of confidence or trust in practice and notice what conditions lead to them increasing or diminishing. If faith qualities diminish this isn’t a cause for concern or judgement but curiosity. If they increase that is also something to get interested in.

Notice what kind of thoughts and feelings might be present when faith is present. What is the relationship between faith and confidence and other qualities such as joy or inspiration, appreciation and gratitude?

The Beauty of Renunciation

Many people begin the New Year with positive intentions but struggle to maintain resolutions, with only 9% succeeding. Factors contributing to failure include lack of accountability and difficulty overcoming deeply rooted habits. Mindfulness supports renunciation by fostering awareness, helping individuals let go of attachments to desires and find lasting satisfaction in presence and wisdom.

It is fair to say that many of us start the New Year with good intentions. We promise ourselves we’ll eat better or exercise regularly or take on a particular ethical precept more intensively. We’ll aim to start something and try and stop doing other things. And while this is admirable it is reckoned that only about 9% of New Year resolutions actually last and are successful. There are a few reasons for this including just acting from convention rather than an integrated decision that you’re really behind, or not anticipating obstacles and that sometimes it will be hard and so we get dispirited and give up. Another reason is accountability; we’re more likely to succeed if we tell someone else what we plan to do or even ritualize the intention as we do on retreats over the New Year period. If we’re not accountable to someone else who might ask us if we’re following through our plan, we’re more likely to fail.

In terms of our practice, we’re often encouraged to have a period of reflection that may well lead to something of a re-set or reorientation. We take stock of how the past year/period has been and anything we’d like to focus on for the coming year. This can be very helpful. It’s also squarely within the realm of renunciation.

Here I’m talking less about renouncing or giving up ‘things’, or bad habits though they have their place in renunciation. These things according to Buddhist teacher Tenzin Palmo are easy to give up. Quite possibly we won’t agree with her here and find it very difficult to make long term changes such as spending less time on our phones or getting ourselves out for a run during the cold winter months. Habits often have deep and strong roots and, as well as our intention to change a habit, other supporting factors need to be in place to have a chance of succeeding.

Tenzin Palmo is saying it’s easier perhaps to make a change like moving into a Buddhist Community or meditating everyday – but how easy is it to actually live every day with a bunch of relative strangers, or to actually be present to what’s happening during meditation. Habits are not just the big moments but all the follow up ones and renunciation is exactly the same.

One of the most supportive mental factors in renunciation is mindfulness. When we commit to being present in the moment, we relinquish other possible actions, or even inhabiting other worlds, for example, of fantasy or wish-fulfilment. Every time we choose awareness we let go of, even just for a few moments, the habits that provide us with some degree of comfort, security, or pleasure, in our lives. Habits are usually formed for precisely this purpose; they reduce uncertainty and feelings of instability in us. They keep us removed from our existential anxiety.

Our habits keep us circling around the pleasures of the senses, and when we’re mindful we’re less concerned with seeking sense pleasure and more interested in being with what’s happening right now. We might feel that the pleasures of awareness and wisdom are less certain rewards – our experience is often either quite dull or at least, a bit of a mixed bag!

However, each moment of reconnecting with awareness strengthens awareness. It also strengthens our capacity to be with that mixed bag with spacious, kindly awareness. Over time this lessens the attraction of seeking pleasure through particular habits of eating or reading or entertainment. We start to choose alternative pleasures such as the satisfaction of presence, the pleasure of interest in the mind, and of recognizing subtle mind states.

This allows for another kind of renunciation to come into play. When wisdom is stronger and working with awareness the mind releases its identification with certain kinds of inner mental and emotional processes through seeing them more clearly.

I think this is what Tenzin Palmo is talking about when she goes on to say ‘genuine renunciation is giving up all our fond thoughts, all our delight in memories, hopes and daydreams, our mental chatter.’ She is pointing to the subtle level of attachment to ideas and dreams that reinforce a sense of self; they add up to what makes me feel like ‘me’.

Mindfulness and wisdom practice help us see how we’re addicted to sense experiences, including the mind ‘sense’ and they don’t necessarily need to be pleasant ones. Any experience that gives the security of ‘I’m here’, ‘this is me’ – even if it’s dull or painful, is worth it.

True renunciation is freeing ourselves from the sticky ties that bind us. The flavour of it is less ‘giving up’ than ‘letting be’ to enable ‘letting go’. According to the Dharma teacher Andrew Cohen  ‘renunciation is where you are allowing yourself to be obedient to the call of the heart….renunciation keeps that spontaneous natural interest in freedom and allows it to manifest and express itself uninhibitedly.’

And it has to start with the precious present; whether it is a moment of sleepy mind, dull mind, wild distracted mind – it is enough to be aware and clearly know. Here we can touch the beauty of the renunciant mind.

The Power of Vedana

A few years ago, I went through a period of what I could call ‘grace’ or ‘flow’. For several weeks I was extremely happy in a way that was characterised by contentment and ease. Difficult things still happened but the mind didn’t react to them.

Right at the beginning of this time I had to make a solo return journey to Virginia Waters, near London. I’m not a confident driver, particularly when I also have to navigate, and I hadn’t been there before.  To add to the potential stress, it was December, and the return 3-hour drive was after dark. At some point a few miles from my destination I missed a turning and got lost. Luckily, I had the google lady adapting to my errors and between us we got me there in the end.

What struck me during the whole journey, and particularly the part where I didn’t know where I was going, in heavy Christmas traffic, was the lack of stress and anxiety in my system. I felt calm and joyful. When I didn’t know where I was, I did my best to listen to the instructions, and to read the road signs. When I arrived, it was with none of the tension and tiredness I would normally experience in such a situation.

For weeks this continued – sunny, open, skilful and joyful states and no or very low reactivity in the mind. And then gradually it declined, and a more familiar mix of mind states started to reappear.

So, what had precipitated these lovely few weeks?

I’d been investigating craving in the mind for quite a while. What this looked like was being curious whenever I noticed desire in the mind, or the mind was hankering after a particular object. I’d narrowed down my field of craving to fairly obvious ones that arose most days. I was specializing in noticing craving for simple sense objects associated with the sense of taste, though this was just a way to look more deeply into how feeling and craving were working in the mind. I tried to be aware of whenever there was pleasant vedana (feeling tone) in relation to taste, or the mind sense’s desire to taste something (craving).

Rather than either having the object (chocolate, pizza, second helping etc) or intellectualizing myself out of having it, I tried to ‘stay with’ with feeling of liking something or wanting it. Each time the mind latched onto something it desired I’d notice the pleasant feeling associated with the object, and any liking or stronger desire to act on the feeling. I’d ask myself whether that little ‘jump’ between a pleasant feeling and acting on the desire it led to, was inevitable.

Explore further on an online retreat in Dec ’24

I kept the awareness light and steady. I was aware of both the object of desire and the reactions in the mind and body. Sometimes I’d deliberately lean into the pleasant vedana of the desired object and then notice the strong physical sensations, and a sort of mental ‘lift’ of liking that would drive the craving. It was very interesting to the mind to observe in this way, and usually the awareness was strong enough not be overwhelmed by the desire and to not have the tasty thing. It was important to the investigation that I didn’t rely on will power but on awareness, and to see that awareness was often enough.

The night before the long drive I was making an online food order at home. I added some Christmas goodies including my favourite ice cream. As my partner looked down the list, he teased me about the ice cream, and I realized I’d completely forgotten about my craving project. Awareness sort of lit up and came ‘online’ and there was a short inner mental tussle followed by several ‘aha’ moments and realizations around craving.

I remember the quality in the mind was completely ‘cool’ towards the ice cream though able to see very clearly the thoughts and different layers of conditioning towards it, and towards the treat mentality I was prone to. Feeling was just feeling, nothing more.

I had a clear sense that it wasn’t inevitable that I act on pleasant feelings. And there was a big moment when I realized that the same was true of all desired objects. I understood that seeing through craving, not acting on it wasn’t a once or twice action but an always action – and I experienced this as liberating.

Even though the effects of these ‘seeings’ lasted a few short weeks, it was very helpful and confidence-giving to see the effects on my whole being of even partial understandings. Since then other ‘seeings’ pop up regularly – the bizarreness of preferring one food stuff over another (not liking apricots in salad, or bananas in curry), or through the mind sense, being with awareness of the unpleasant feelings of anger or shame and feeling their energy liberate.

The earlier experience left a lasting – though inconsistent – habit of ‘staying with’ the feeling. This helps me recognize the craving or aversion present. The mind has developed the habit of finding its own feelings, sensations and thoughts more interesting than having the nice thing or blaming or rejecting the unpleasant aversive object.

Sometimes I notice the feeling tone of ignorance, the mind quality that actively ignores what’s best. The feeling is fairly neutral but undiscerning. The tone is one of low energy with a powerful wilfulness that looks to counter awareness with unawareness. It’s a toss up in those moments who will win out!

‘Staying with’ the feeling with awareness has its own emotional tone. It’s one of satisfaction and meaningfulness that is very close to understanding. Staying with vedana rather than getting lost in the ‘object’ lessens and alleviates dukkha and dis-ease. It helps awareness and right view flourish and strengthen. Awareness of vedana has the power to bring suffering to an end if we can keep the required focus on it.

Explore Vedana further with me in Ways to the Deep: an online retreat between Xmas and New Year.