14 Dec 2021 Online Retreat. Intro on how to practice and Q & A with Delson Armstrong

Okay, so welcome everyone. First Dhamma talk of this retreat. So straight off, I only see a few people smiling. Not everybody is smiling. I'm going to start off with that. It's imperative that you smile during this retreat. That's going to be huge for your progress. Smiling is important because it provides you the ability to be more mindful. It softens things in your meditation practice. It softens hindrances when you experience them in daily living, and it helps you be more collected. So you know you have to smile. You have to smile even if you have to fake it. You know, they say fake it till you make it. There's been research done about this where you put a pencil in between your teeth and it starts to lift up the corners of your mouth, and by doing so it actually elevates the mood and tricks the brain into thinking that it's happy. So it releases all of those feel-good chemicals that you experience. So smile, smile, and smile. Keep smiling. Now, in terms of some practicalities before we go into the meditation instructions

Number one, the focus for this retreat is going to be twofold: sitting meditation and walking meditation. There won't be any reading material provided for this particular format. All you're going to be doing is, if you want, during the meditation, sorry, during the Dhamma talks, you can take notes, but I would refrain from any kind of journaling. If you'd like to take some notes, if you go after a good sit so that you have the details for your interviews, that's fine, but I would stay away from any kind of journaling beyond that. Now, this you have to stick to your own schedule, obviously. These are in-home online retreats that we're providing.

But there has to be some level of routine, some level of discipline, insofar as five precepts you can choose to do, eight precepts you can choose to do, how many precepts you want. Whatever works for your routine, your schedule, your health and so on. But in the morning when you do take the precepts, commit to keeping them, commit to maintaining them throughout the day. Precepts are vital for your meditation. Precepts are basically what constitute the step of sila, of morality and ethics, which is the foundation for good samadhi practice or a good meditation practice. The more you're able to maintain your precepts, the more you're able to keep them and maintain them, the easier it is for your mind to just quickly collect itself, you know, in the beginning of the meditation practice. And you'll see why. We'll discuss more as we explore the connection between precepts and hindrances. We'll get to that soon. So most of you, I think probably about 90 percent, are newcomers. So this practice begins with what is known as the spiritual friend. It's a three-fold practice, or three-step practice.

Initially you're going to start off the first 10 minutes sending loving kindness to yourself. This meditation is not verbalizing words like, "May I be happy," or to a spiritual friend, "May you be happy," and then continually verbalizing that. Instead, if it helps in the beginning for you to start off maybe one or two times to say, "May I be happy, may I be well, may I be free of suffering," you can do that. This you want to feel the metta. This is, as Bhante Vimalaramsi would say, a feeling meditation. It's not a thinking, analytical, or verbalizing kind of meditation. It's a feeling meditation with open awareness. So what that means is you start off, if you want, with verbalizing however you'd like, and then think about or visualize in your mind something that makes you happy, something wholesome.

It can be anything. It could be a happy memory in your childhood. It could be imagining holding a puppy or a kitten or an infant in your arms, whatever naturally brings a smile to your face. And that warm, glowing feeling that is experienced upon imagining or visualizing that image, you put that in your heart. That metta that you experience, you feel as a warm glow in your heart, warm fuzziness that's here in the middle of your chest.

And stay with that feeling. Stay and just rest your awareness, rest your attention on that feeling of loving kindness. And you stay here for the first 10 minutes of your sitting practice. Your sitting practice should be at a minimum 30 minutes. You can sit longer, even better, but at least for 30 minutes when you start out. After 30 minutes, you picture a spiritual friend. In this case, a spiritual friend is somebody who is of the same sex, is alive, and somebody who, when you think about them, puts a smile on your face quite naturally. Somebody you admire and respect.

Right now we're not going to be dealing with family members or anything like that. We'll be dealing with that later on. But initially you want to find somebody who's just a spiritual friend, somebody who, as I said, you respect, you admire, somebody who puts a smile on your face when you think of them. It could be a mentor, a teacher. It could be whoever you want. Visualize about it, because 70 to 80 percent of the practice is about experiencing the feeling of metta, the feeling of loving kindness. The remaining is, if you want, you can imagine that the spiritual friend is in front of you and that they're smiling and they're experiencing the loving kindness that you're sending out to them. That's fine. Some people like to just put their spiritual friend in their heart and just continue feeling that glowing feeling in their heart, enveloped in that loving kindness.

Do what seems most comfortable for you. Do what works for you. So this, in a gist, is the meditation practice when you start out. Now, with any meditation, there will be distractions. There will be hindrances that arise. There are five basic hindrances that we talk about in the Dhamma, but there are many more, as we'll explore in this retreat. But whatever that hindrance is, it's basically anything that pulls your attention away from your spiritual friend or from loving kindness. Now, that doesn't mean if you have thoughts in the background, that that is distracting you from your meditation object. Whatever thoughts there are in the background, and they're continuing on and fading away while you're still with your object of meditation, that's fine. If you see that your attention swerves to those background thoughts and you realize you're no longer on your object in meditation, you are distracted at that point. You use the tools, which are the six R's. The six R's are the key to this practice. They are the central focus. They are the core. They are what constitute right effort.

The way we understand right effort is there are four steps to right effort. Number one, you basically recognize and stop the flow of any arisen or unarisen wholesome states. Number two, you abandon the already arisen unwholesome states. Number three, you generate a wholesome state. And number four, you maintain that wholesome state, in this case that's the object of meditation. So the six R's are basically a mnemonic device for you to be able to know how to utilize right effort in your practice. And the six R's are: recognize, release, relax, re-smile, return, and repeat, when you get distracted again.

So when you recognize what you're doing, first you're meditating, you're with your object of meditation, and then you realize, oh, now I'm thinking about what am I going to have for lunch, or I'm thinking about when am I going to finish that task that I've been holding off, or now I'm thinking about, you know, I remember something that somebody said the other day, and now the mind is just ideas. When you recognize that, oh, I am distracted and you're no longer on your object of meditation, you're utilizing the first step of right effort. You're preventing the further flow of energy of those hindrances, of those thoughts. You have put them at a standstill. When you release, which is the second R, you are taking your attention away from those thoughts, and you're bringing them back to the awareness of your mind and body. Basically you're bringing them back to the awareness of now, to the present moment, with the mind and body being the anchor, or being in the present moment.

When you relax, that's the third R. You are abandoning that hindrance, and you are release, you're relaxing or abandoning craving that is present in that hindrance. The way to understand craving is that it manifests as a subtle type of tension in the body and/or in the mind. The way to understand this, and the way to see how craving is essentially a manifestation, or manifested as tension, is to think about that kind of mind. Let's say once a piece of chocolate cake, there is mental agitation in the mind in the form of hunger, and in the body in the form of hunger. That is the tension. You crave for that chocolate cake, and you go to that chocolate cake and you eat that chocolate cake, and now you're satisfied. The feeling of that satisfaction is the feeling of tranquility and relaxation, of a complete letting go. And now you are happy. Now you're content.

But here in this meditation practice, now that you understand it in this way as an example, the hindrance has arisen. The tension that arises in not liking that hindrance, and seeing that hindrance, is what you have to relax. You have to understand that hindrances are your teachers. They are your friends. Make friends with your hindrances. The sooner you do that, the easier the meditation is going to be. Hindrances shed a light on where your attachments lie. They provide you insight into what you have to let go of, and all you have to do is let go of them. That's it. You don't push the hindrance. You don't suppress the hindrance. You don't fight with the hindrance. You don't question the hindrance. You don't do anything with the hindrance except release your attention from it, and then relax the mind and body, and relax the tension which is associated with the craving with that hindrance.

Once you've relaxed, you then re-smile. Now you're bringing your attention back to the smile, because the smile is the anchor for the loving kindness. You're going to associate the smile with the quality of the Brahma Vihara of loving kindness, or any of the Brahma Viharas. You're going to associate the smile as an anchor for a wholesome object, for a wholesome quality of mind.

And so when you re-smile or you come back to your smile, you are fulfilling the third right effort, which is generating a wholesome state of mind. Now that you have your smile, you can keep continuing with loving kindness by returning back to that feeling of loving kindness. Come back to that loving kindness through the fifth R, which is to return. You're returning back to your object of meditation.

And you just rest your awareness in that feeling of loving kindness. You rest your attention in that feeling of loving kindness. And when you get distracted again, you repeat the process again. So this is really the tool that you use when you get distracted. This is how you retrain your mind from dealing with hindrances in a way that identifies with them. It makes them personal. Anytime you see that hindrance and you have a reaction that says I like this or I don't like this, because hindrances can also be pleasing to the mind. You can have sensual craving. It could be some kind of sound that arises, and you think about that sound, you like that sound, and now the mind is proliferating and becoming distracted by further thoughts associated with that sound.

When you see that the mind gravitates towards it, or has resistance towards it, or just plain identifies with it, it's taking it personal and it's saying this is me, this is mine, this is myself. But if you have equanimity and balance of mind and just see the hindrance for what it is and just use the six R's to come back, then you're retraining your mind to say, instead of you're letting go of it and you're replacing it with a wholesome quality of mind. Now that hindrance might come back again. It might come back again in different cycles. But if you're doing the six R's properly, then that hindrance that does arise a second time, a third time, or a fourth time will be weaker the second or third or fourth time that it comes.

And eventually it will fade away and no longer distract you. A collected mind will be in a state of meditation and will be starting to get into a state of samadhi. So when it comes to the walking meditation, it depends upon obviously where you are. If the weather permits and you're able to go outside and do some walking meditation, then you don't need to pay attention to your steps. You don't need to pay attention to your breath. You don't need to pay attention to bodily movements.

All you're paying attention to, besides obviously where you're walking and the direction that you're walking, is the feeling of loving kindness. So stay with your spiritual friends. Stay with the object of meditation of loving kindness towards a spiritual friend when you're doing the walking meditation. And you want to alternate. Do some sitting, do some walking, do some sitting, do some walking. You want to be able to sit at least for 30 minutes and preferably walk for 30 minutes if you can.

And if you're able to sit for longer periods, then sit for longer periods. Initially, you might find it difficult. It depends upon your experience and your bodily and physiological capacity. Find a posture that works for you, by the way. There's no magic in sitting on the floor cross-legged. Sit in a chair. You can lie down. Lying down, your mind is very attentive to the object because there's a tendency for the mind to fall asleep and become drowsy and have sloth and torpor when it's lying down and meditating, so just keep that in mind. But you can sit in a normal chair, sit in a straight-back chair, keep your spine relatively straight, your chin parallel to the floor. Don't need to be stiff. Just relax and just be straight and start the meditation. So when it comes to the walking meditation, walk at a reasonably normal pace. You don't need to walk slow. You don't need to do brisk walks. Initially, just walk at a medium pace. Walk like you would be walking in the park or on the street or whatever it might be.

And just stay with your object. Stay with the loving kindness. The reason why you're doing this with regards to the walking meditation is because now you're training your mind to be able to experience loving kindness in whatever it is you're doing. So eventually you're going to experience loving kindness while taking a shower, while brushing your teeth, while making your cup of coffee, while having your breakfast, while driving your car if you have to run an errand, whatever it might be. You're staying with the object of meditation. Every time you do this you are practicing right effort. When you do the six R's, even while you're walking and you find yourself distracted, recognize the distraction, release it, relax, re-smile, return and repeat when necessary. So, in these are the meditation instructions. Still, have I missed anything?

No, I don't think so. But maybe stay with one spiritual friend. Don't switch from person to person. And they also should not be dead as a tiny... Right. Yes, they have to be alive. They have to be somebody you know who's alive. And stick to just one. Stay with them. So this is the part where I say these magic words and there is silence for about a minute.

Those magic words are, does anybody have any questions? Yes, go ahead. Just a quick question about when you talked about having some, you can be on your object but you have some light background thoughts that you don't have to be concerned about. Is that just for thoughts, or can that be for, let's say, you hear something on the road or other stuff, or is it just limited to thoughts? It could be, let's say you're walking down the road and you hear a honk, you know, you hear somebody honking. Your mind goes there, but it's still with the object meditation. It's fine if your mind starts to think about that sound and starts to think, get distracted by that sound, and now you see you're no longer with your object, then you're six R's and you come back. But thoughts also, as well as any sounds, any sights, any of the sense objects really. Thank you.

Maybe you could talk a bit about the type of hindrances that people can experience. Yeah. Let me talk a little bit about that. But I think I just saw somebody wanting to ask a question. I have a question. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. How do I know I am generating metta and not something else?

Well, number one, the metta will feel very good to you. It'll feel like an uplifting experience. When you think about somebody that you really care about and you have a sincere wish for them to be happy, you have a sincere wish for them to be free of suffering, that sincere wish is accompanied by a specific kind of feeling that you experience physiologically. And the way we say it is, it's this warm, fuzzy feeling that you feel in your heart.

So if you can center your mind and rest your awareness in that feeling that you have when you think about somebody that you really have sincere wishes for, that's the method. It's not very strong and it's not unpleasant, but it's not also very pleasant. Is this something... am I going on the right way or what do you think? Yeah, that's fine. If you feel good, does it make you feel good?

A little bit, but not a lot. It's okay. It's a good feeling but it's not very special. It isn't. doesn't have to be accompanied by joy it doesn't need to be exhilarating the need to be bringing immense amounts of joy to it's just just this balanced feeling of being happy for that person and being happy for yourself okay thank you so I'll go a little bit into the hindrances the types of hindrances that we have we have primarily five different types of hindrances we have sensual craving we have aversion we have doubt we have restlessness and we have slot and corporate now i spoke a little bit about how hindrances and precepts are interconnected and so i'm putting forward this understanding take it for what it's worth but you might find some clarity in the connection between hindrances and precepts, or breaking of the precepts, rather.

When you harm with intention, you intentionally harm someone, or you have harmful thoughts, or you kill an insect with intention, or whatever it might be, that cultivates ill will in the mind. And that ill will manifests as the hindrance of aversion in the mind. When you take what is not given, so it's not just stealing but actually taking what is not given, so that can mean anything really. That can mean possessions. That can mean attention. Maybe you're trying to swerve the attention away to you in the conversation, or trying to get credit for something that you feel you deserve, or whatever it might be. That creates agitation in the mind, and that manifests in the hindrance of restlessness. Now there is the breaking of the precept, which is abstaining from sexual misconduct, but this also means sensual misconduct. Sensual misconduct means that you have an obsession with some kind of sensory experience, and that obsession blinds your logical, rational mind, and that leads to heedlessness. That leads to you breaking other precepts in the pursuit of that sensual experience. That kind of attachment manifests as the hindrance of sensual craving.

When you lie, when you slander, when you gossip, you break the precept of abstaining from using false speech, and when you do that you create doubt in others about others. You also create mistrust of others in yourself, as well as doubt in your own self. And so that can manifest as the hindrance of doubt in your meditation. That hindrance can manifest as, am I doing the practice correctly? Am I meditating correctly? I don't know if this is working. How long have I been meditating? Should I be meditating?

And then also manifesting as not knowing what is wholesome and what is unwholesome. And I'll get to that very quickly. And then finally, indulging in intoxicants. When you break that precept of abstaining from indulging in intoxicants, that doesn't mean just alcohol and drugs, but that can also mean spending too much time on the internet, spending too much time watching the news, spending too much time playing video games, or spending too much time doing something else that creates, after a certain amount of time, dullness. When that happens, that manifests in the meditation as sloth and torpor. Sloth and torpor is this dullness of mind where when you become

When you start to become aware of your object in meditation, and then after a few moments you start to lose awareness of it, and then a thought creeps in, and then another distraction creeps in, and then suddenly you are lulled into this sleepy, distracted, dull state where it's almost like a dreamy state, and it's groggy. And this is the manifestation of the hindrance of sloth and torpor. This is the importance of keeping precepts, of first taking at least the first five precepts and maintaining them.

Because the hindrances, when they arise, are a manifestation of breaking precepts at a previous point in time, whether it was in this life or a previous life. That's the reason why hindrances arise. But when you make the determination and have the commitment to keep those precepts, then it purifies the mind, because you are starting to retrain the mind. You're starting to re-incline your intentions away from the unwholesome towards the wholesome, and eventually that manifests as better and clearer meditation practice. So whatever hindrances that do arise, they have arisen as a result of previous choices you made. You can't do anything about them but experience them in the here and now. But if you do anything further, which is to push them or pull them, or do anything aside from just relaxing them and letting them go, if you do any of that, then you're only going to further propagate those hindrances and they're going to become stronger. So the way to deal with them is through the six R's process, through right effort. We will talk about karma at a later stage, but understand

Old karma and new karma. Old karma is the effect of previous choices that you've done. Hindrances are old karma. Hindrances, when they arise, are an effect of choices you made in the past, those choices being rooted in breaking one of the precepts. And so, how do you deal with old karma? You deal with it by, some in the sense that it is to be experienced and felt and let go of, instead of being attached to it and identifying with it. By attaching to it and identifying with it, you are creating new karma, which is to be experienced as old karma in a subsequent moment, at a subsequent time. So this is one way of understanding why it's important to take the precepts, and how to deal with the hindrances in the right way, in the effective way. About how do you recognize what is wholesome and what is unwholesome, you have to think about unwholesome states of mind. They create tension.

In the mind, they create this. When you break a precept, there's an immediate reaction: I shouldn't have done that. That creates a tension in the mind, it's a tension in the body. So if you start to see your intentions are inclining to the unwholesome, the way to detect them is seeing: is the body tense, is the mind tense? Or when you see that you're starting to create wholesome choices, is the mind open, is it aware, is it spacious, is the body relaxed, is it tranquil, is it balanced? This is one way to understand the difference between wholesome and unwholesome, how to recognize them. Any other questions? Yeah, can you hear me? I have a question about the... would you agree that if you're not used to the six R's, you still practice three of them, because everybody has to recognize at some point that their mind has wandered, and then you will return, and you repeat that process? So is it fair to say that number two, three and four are unique to the TWIM method? Yes.

Yes, especially relax and re-smile. I would venture to say even the release, because the process of release is an intermediary step. You're going from the recognizing, and the release is a transitory step towards relaxing. So in the process of releasing your attention away from it, you're relaxing. So really, the relax and the re-smile are unique to the TWIM methodology. Been meditating quite a bit, you're very used to recognizing and immediate returning, so that's what happens a lot. And then when you recognize that you have returned, and you recognize, hey, have I really gone through all the six R's, should you actually stop and then go back and go through them consciously, or should you just continue meditating? Continue meditating. And the next time you get distracted, remember to use the six R's.

It's going to be an effort. It's going to be an exercise. And if you forget to relax and you forget to re-smile, don't worry about it. Continue on. And then when you get distracted again, do those steps. Take your time with them. Take about a second or two for each step, so you really get acquainted with that step, and you start to really retrain your mind to do this process.

It's also my experience that, specifically with metta meditation, the six R's are easier than with regular vipassana, because you can't really do metta without being relaxed. And if you practice the smiling when you recognize you've been distracted, you recognize, hey, I still have that smile on my face, right? Yeah. That's why the majority of the time metta is used as the object, because it's just so much easier, and it's so much more relaxed, and it's fun, right? It's an enjoyable practice, it's an enjoyable meditation. That's the whole thing about this retreat: you're supposed to be laughing, you're supposed to be smiling, you're supposed to be like a child. Come back to being a child again. Really what it is, be a happy bunny. On the question there, you go.

And I'll leave you with a couple of other things for everybody. Don't push. There's another acronym that is used, which is called DROPS: don't resist or push, soften and smile. One time I was asked by meditators when they start off with this practice, as a challenge, and I say there are primarily two things that I find. Number one, they push too hard, they try too hard. Number two, they beat themselves up for it, they don't accept themselves. So I would say that whatever effort you think you need to make to try this meditation, do half of that. And then you can always add a little bit more effort.

This is really a very relaxed meditation. Don't push, just relax into it. And if you have problems with self-acceptance and things like that, then we can discuss that in the interview, and I can prescribe you some remedial practices that you can do for a day or two. But try out this practice, see how it goes. And in our first couple of interviews, we'll see how things go. But just have fun with it. Make it like a game. Just see how it goes. And don't beat yourself up. You got distracted. Okay, so what? I got distracted. I'm going to let it go. Come back to my meditation and continue experiencing loving kindness.

So that is all that I will leave you with, unless anybody else has any questions. Yes. I experienced quite a lot of bodily things at the moment. I did recently a 10-day with Dhammasukha, and it went through cycles there too. And now when I took the practice up again this morning, it's like my face starts to go into grimaces, and there is tension in the diaphragm.

And I do the six R's, but it's quite, it's like I come back, I smile, I focus on the metta, but then these bodily things, they catch our attention. So it's like 6R's over and over. And I don't know if that maybe builds more energy. Some people call them kriyas. I don't know, manipulation of the system to experience something.

Here it's a process. Now I'm speaking of kriyas as involuntary movements, not the Kriya yoga stuff. I've done some Shaktipat yoga and stuff, people start to move. It's not that violent for me now. It's just grimaces and in the diaphragm. Okay. Are you able to experience loving kindness for some time or no or is it yes yes yes? I progressed through the later stages on that retreat that I quit like eight, nine days ago, but now it feels a bit like starting over again, but I can generate loving kindness. I feel it even though I have these movements, and they catch me quite a bit. I would say, well, number one is see if you can treat those as hindrances to be let go of. So they might happen. Don't make it a big deal. If there are involuntary movements, it's just a process, it's just a physiological process that's happening. Don't give too much importance to them, just see them as they are and then let them go.

And if there's still some issues where they're still manifesting, then we'll talk about it separately in the interview. Yes. So when I try to generate the metta, I think I'm doing a little bit of an effort, and that effort creates tension in itself. And I do that because it does increase the feeling. But at the same time, I notice it also generates tension. What do you think I should do? Yeah, in this case, if you start to experience the metta, then stay in the awareness of the metta. Once you have it, once you've started going, meaning there's an initial intention where either you're visualizing or verbalizing to bring up that experience, to bring up that feeling. Now that the feeling is there, just let go of the effort to try to maintain it. Just rest your attention and your awareness on the feeling, on the experience, on the object.

Because if you continue to try to make the effort to stay there, the trying to stay there in itself will cause the tension. Yeah, instead of changing your perspective and saying you're going to let the mind rest in it, because the attention or the awareness or the resting of the awareness in the metta will continue to feel that metta without any more effort needed. It'll feel very automatic, it'll feel very much smooth. You're doing it. So I shouldn't be afraid to lose the feeling and make an effort to keep it going on? And okay, all right, thank you. Maybe to add, it's not about how strong that feeling is. Think more about feathers or a gentle fog, and not about getting it to push to the other side, to the world, to that spiritual friend, or whatever. It's not a physical thing, so it can be very gentle, it can be very subtle. But if you know that you sincerely wish yourself or your spiritual friend this happy feeling, then you are experiencing loving kindness, no matter how subtle it is. That is all that is needed. Thank you.

Anyone else? Okay, good. Let's share some merit, and may all beings find relief. May all beings share this merit that we have thus acquired for the acquisition of all kinds of happiness. May beings inhabiting space and earth, devas and nagas of mighty power share this merit of ours. May they long protect the Buddha's dispensation. Sadhu, sadhu, sadhu. Thank you everyone. See you tomorrow. Thank you, everyone.