Oct 2024 Retreat: Orientation-Day 1 Metta Instructions Oct 11, 2024

So I'm not really going to talk too much about the instructions, because you can watch the first intro video that's there, and also there was a guided meditation that I did for the last retreat, and you can follow that along just to figure out how to do the practice for those who are beginners. But as I understand it from the list, we have a majority of people who are advanced practitioners, so I won't really give much instruction, except for a few guidelines. And then I'll talk a little bit more about the practice in terms of what this practice is all about and what you should take away from this retreat and what the intention should be for this retreat.

So first and foremost, I always want to start off by saying that there are two things that you will see with retreat participants that they generally have a struggle with. And number one is trying too hard, making too much of an effort with the practice. So I want you all to take it easy. I want you all to understand that this retreat is not supposed to be hard work. It's supposed to be a time of, I mean, that is what a retreat is. It's a time of reflection, it's a time of letting go, it's a time of being with yourself, so to speak, and really understanding your intentions, understanding your thoughts, how your mind's attention moves from one place to the other. This is what mindfulness

is mindfulness. Mindfulness is composed of two aspects. In the Pali we have sati, which is generally translated as mindfulness, and we also have something known as sampajanya. Sati literally means memory, it means to remember, and it means to remember to be here, be present in whatever it is that you're doing. Sampajanya means comprehension, it's the understanding of where mind's attention is moving from one object to the other. So this is what we're talking about when we say mindfulness is remembering to observe our mind's attention moves from one thing to. And this is one core component of meditation. When you think about meditation, meditation is made up of four components. So the first component, as I said, is mindfulness. The second is attention. The third is collectedness, and the fourth is right effort.

Attention. Attention is basically where do you place your mind on? What is it that you're paying attention to? Collectedness is different from one-pointed concentration. Collectedness is where the mind remains observant and orbiting, in some sense, giving a space between you observing and the object of meditation that you are observing. There's a tendency for people who are hardcore meditators, not from this, let's say, this school of thought, not from this tradition, that want to meditate in such a way that they become one with the object of meditation. This is that one-pointedness that we talk about. It is this process of absorbing the mind into the object of meditation, and all that does is create an artificial space, an artificial environment in the mind where there is nothing going on, and there seems to be some great level of joy, happiness

collectedness, focus, equanimity, and so on, and absolutely nothing else. I mean, the mind basically what happens is it's like suppressed. You're in an environment that's like active noise canceling. You know, when you put active noise canceling headphones on, 99% of the world outside you can't hear, right? But that's not where we want to be, because the whole point of meditation is not an escape, because when you try to escape from something, you have an aversion to it. You have to change your attitude to how this meditation process works. So the attention is basically the place where you place your attention. That's what we're talking about, how you intend to place your attention, which is you're bringing up this loving kindness if you're a beginner, as you'll see in the instructions, or you are sending it out in different directions if you're an advanced

practitioner, and the collectedness happens as a natural result of the bringing together of mindfulness and the energy of the mind to become collected. This process of collecting the mind is a process of anchoring the mind. It is a process of orbiting the mind, or letting the mind compose itself around the object community. And this only happens as a natural fruit of you remaining present and mindful of the object. You cannot force collectedness. You cannot force mindfulness either. Mindfulness is a natural process that arises whenever the mind relaxes. You need to have a mind that is relaxed, a mind that is open, a mind that is free-flowing.

It doesn't attach to anything, even when you have an object of meditation like loving kindness. You're not holding on to it, you're just observing it. You're allowing it to be there, you're allowing the mind to be with it instead of becoming with it, becoming one with it. And then this process of collectedness happens, and this happens where once you have this collectedness, this is known as samadhi. In Pali, you start to get into the first jhana and the second jhana, and that is because through that collectedness the first jhana arises, where you have dropped any of the hindrances, any of the unwholesome states, and the mind naturally becomes relieved of being in that wholesome state, and as a result of which you experience joy and so on and so forth. You'll see all of these in the subsequent talks that you'll be watching for this retreat. And then you have something known as right effort. I also call this skillful effort, because it's the right effort, it's the balanced effort, and this is the crux of the practice. This is what is known as the six R's.

Six R's are essentially the process of dealing with a distraction. So what is a distraction? A distraction is anything that takes your mind's attention away from the object of meditation. A distraction means here I am now with my object, and now my mind is looking at that distraction, and it's no longer on its object. Then you are set to be distracted. If you have thoughts in the background, let's say I have loving kindness as my object and I'm staying with that, but there are thoughts in the background, there's little whispers of this or that. Did I, did I leave the gas, the stove on? Did I close the fridge door? Did I do this, or what was going on here? That's all there in the background, all of these different ideas and thoughts and whatever it is, but I'm still with my object

right. Maybe there's a little bit of pulling away, but I'm still with my object, and I'm still not distracted because I still have mindfulness. I'm aware of this, and I'm also aware of my object. But if I get lost into that background such that it becomes the foreground and now the object is gone, now I'm distracted, and I'm distracted because now my mind is in this whirlpool of various kinds of thoughts, whether thoughts about craving, thoughts about aversion, restlessness, doubt, sloth and torpor, whatever it might be. These are the five hindrances. So while I'm there, what do I do? Well, I recognize that I got distracted. I notice that my mind is distracted.

This is the first step. In recognizing that the mind was distracted, I then let go of my attention to that distraction. That is release. And I bring my attention back to the present by anchoring it to the mind and body. And when I do that, I relax the mind and body. I consciously relax, because craving manifests as holding on, like a fist, grasping, gripping, clutching, punching. That's craving. But if I let go and I relax any tightness and tension in the mind and body, then I experience this mundane form of nirvana, this clear, collected mind that is free of any thoughts in that moment, and I feel in that moment a sense of relief, and I come back to the smile.

Let's re-smile. And this is how you start any meditation practice. You sit down, you sit down, take a few deep breaths, come back into your body, relax, notice any tightness and tension, relax it. And now when you're ready, you bring a smile on your face, a small Buddha smile, right, a smile in your eyes, a smile in your heart. And when you smile, you are actually bringing mindfulness before you, in the suttas. This is what it is said: he brings mindfulness before him, in front of him, by being collected, by understanding what's there in the present moment. And whenever you smile, you come back to the present moment. You come back with mindfulness in whatever it is that you're

doing. So you re-smile, and then you return to your object, whether that's loving kindness or sending it out in the different directions, your spiritual friend, whatever the object may be. Coming to the spiritual friend, I'll come back to that in a couple of minutes, but first I want you to understand this six R's process. It doesn't need to be stretched out. It is a process that lasts two to three seconds, four or five seconds max if you want to kind of slow it down. But it's basically: okay, I noticed I got distracted. You've already done Recognize. I noticed I got distracted. I'm coming back to the mind and body. I'm releasing my attention now. Whenever I say okay, come back to the mind and body. You don't need to say it verbally, but you just consciously do that. You're releasing your attention, your mind's attention, from that particular distraction.

And then I consciously relax. That's Relax. Bring up the smile if it's not there. I'll be aware of the smile if it's there. Be smile. Come back into the object. Come back to loving kindness, or come back to, you know, radiating. It takes you no more than four seconds, five seconds at the most. And then repeat whenever necessary. These are the six R's. Now, I just want to say a little bit about the spiritual friend. When it comes to the spiritual friend, for the newcomers, for the beginners who are starting this process, you want to start off with 10 minutes of loving kindness to yourself. And that can start off with loving kindness in the form of gratitude, in the form of may I, you know, verbalizing in your mind, may I be happy, may I be well, may I be free, may I be filled with loving kindness, whatever works for you.

And the smile might actually help generate that feeling of loving kindness to you. You can imagine a cute baby smiling back at you. You can imagine yourself as a baby looking back at you, holding yourself in your arms and sending loving kindness. Or you could think about a wholesome memory that uplifts you. You send loving kindness. So you feel it as a glowing, warm experience in your heart center, in your chest. And it's just there. It's just there. And whenever you get distracted from it, you just use the six R's. You do that for the first 10 minutes, and then you switch over to the spiritual friend. The spiritual friend is somebody that you admire, somebody you respect, somebody you look up to, somebody who you don't have any sexual thoughts towards.

Somebody, and this is why traditionally it's said somebody of the same sex. But we live in a world, of course, where there's all kinds of orientations. And so I would say just find somebody who you don't have sexual feelings toward. You won't have sexual feelings toward them. So you find somebody who is alive, not a family member, somebody who you admire and respect. And it's helpful to be somebody you know personally. It doesn't have to be, but you have that personal connection. So it's easy for you to send loving kindness to them than it would be to a public figure who you might have great admiration for. That's a start, but you want to really feel that personal connection with them.

And you can experience them as standing in front of you, smiling at you, in your mind, or just put them in your heart and let them bask in the warmth of the loving-kindness. And so for the beginners, I would say you want to sit for a minimum of 30 minutes. If you can sit longer, please sit longer. For the advanced practitioners, always start with radiating in the six directions, whether that's loving-kindness, compassion, joy, or equanimity. You do what works for you. Start off the first couple of days with loving kindness and let that transition into whatever it transitions into. If loving kindness jumps all the way to joy or jumps all the way to equanimity, no problem.

But you always want to start with at least 10 minutes of radiating, because that's going to bring up, prime up, the energy in the mind. Now, one important aspect of this retreat is the interviews that you will be having with me. In these interviews, one or two people might show up with me. Ignore them. They're just there in the shadows wanting to learn how to do the interview. And these interviews are just between you and me. In these interviews, you are going to be asked five questions. In our first interview, I want you to understand a couple of things. In our first interview, I do not need your background. I don't need to know where you're coming from, how long you've meditated, what tradition you've started from, and so on.

Let's start with the basics, the five basic questions. From the top of my head, if I remember them correctly, first is: what was your object of meditation? How long did you stay with that object of meditation? What happened when you got distracted? And what did you do when you got distracted? In other words, how did you implement the six R's? Did anything interesting happen? These are generally the questions. The actual five questions are there. I will ask you, not necessarily all five; I might skip some. I might just say, all right, what's up, what's going on? Tell me what's going on. When I tell you that, that means I'm asking you first and foremost how long did you sit, or what was your longest sitting? What was your best sitting? Tell me about your best sitting. This is probably the most important of those questions, because it's your time to tell me all of those things. If I tell you, tell me about your best sit, I don't need to know

every single sit that happened. I just need to know your best sit. Your best sit could be your longest sit, unnecessarily your longest sit, but your best sit is generally where your mind was most collected, free of most distractions, and there were some interesting things going on there. Maybe the mind got calmer, maybe there was more equanimity, whatever it is. Okay, so I want you to know I'm not your therapist. We're not here to provide therapy. I don't need to know about anything regarding other practices, what's going on with your family, what's going on with your friends, whatever it is. No, I'm not here to chit chat. I'm here to help you insofar as guiding you through this practice, and I can only do that when you answer those questions. When I ask you, just tell me. And if I interrupt you, don't take it personally. I just want to get to the core of what's going on with your practice. So help me help you. All right? You don't need to use all 10 minutes.

If it's going to happen in two, three minutes, no problem. Move on, keep practicing. I'll go to the next person. You have questions, perfectly fine. You can ask as many questions as seem viable in those 10 minutes. But don't just ask questions for the sake of asking questions, because that's going to waste your time, waste your energy, waste my time, waste my end. Okay? So the interviews are very vital, but they are important and helpful only if you follow the instructions I'm giving you. And if you don't follow the instructions, then I'm going to have to figure out what to do with you. I'm going to have to put you in timeout.

I'm going to have to give you a warning and tell you, look, you're not following instructions. Next time I'm here with you on the interviews, please follow the instructions, and I want to make sure you follow the instructions. So we'll figure that out if you decide. If there's one of you who is rebellious here, let's see. If you are rebellious, you will see what happens. Yes, David is one of them. That's right.

Anyway. So that's the interview process. It's very important. Now, with the Dhamma talks, the videos that are provided to you, you just watch one a day according to your time. You can make your schedule as you see fit. In terms of the precepts, you can take the five precepts or you can take the eight precepts. It depends on your particular schedule, it depends on your particular lifestyle. So I'm not too focused on that. You have to take five or eight, it doesn't really matter, but take them. Do the morning precepts and everything else set given to you. And then do your schedule as you see fit. You want to bring more meditation into your day than work.

I realize that some people have emails to answer or phone calls to take. Try to keep that at a minimum. And keep noble silence everywhere you go and in everything that you do as much as possible, because noble silence helps you to bring down that verbal chatter, not only vocally but also in the mind. And so true noble silence, you will see, is a noble silence of the second jhana, where the mind's verbalizing starts to dissipate. And that can only happen when you practice noble silence in vocal terms. When you sleep, when you go for your

rest, try to make a commitment, a determination, to say that when I wake up in the morning I will wake up with a smile on my face. And when you do notice, are you smiling? If you're not, smile. And now keep that smile going. This is going to help with your mindfulness. So what are some of the takeaways that you should get from this retreat? Well, that just depends on you. It depends on your dedication and your commitment. Now, I told you there are two things that people have difficulties with in the retreat. The first is trying too hard, and as I said, when you try too hard you're only causing suppression. So you want to relax.

This is a process of relaxing. The second thing that people have difficulty with is not accepting themselves, or not accepting things as they are, in the retreat and in the practice. Things are not going your way. Things are not going the way you expected. Welcome to the real world. This is samsara central. This is what samsara is. It's waiting for things to happen. It's expecting things to happen a certain way, and that's not what happens, and so on. So what is this retreat helping you deal with? It's helping you to deal with how you take things. You take them personally. You set expectations for yourself and the world.

When you set expectations for yourself, when you set expectations for the world around you and the people around you, you are setting yourself up for failure. Why? Because we notice all the time in our lives that nothing always matches exactly our expectation. Either they fall short or they sometimes exceed those expectations. It's better to let go of expectations. And this is why I always say that nibbana, the experience of nibbana, cessation, whatever it is, happens when you least expect it. And here is why: because every time you have expectations, every time you try too hard, every time you push yourself too hard, every time you're not able to accept things as they are in the present moment, whatever is happening, you are activating the thinking part of your mind. And that is what we want to let go of for this

retreat. We want to let go of the thinking mind. We want to quiet the thinking mind, and we want to bring up the spontaneous intuitive mind that is able to make the dots and connections in an open, spacious environment, which is the meditation practice. This allows the mind to teach itself where its attachment

lies, where its sources of aversions or aversion line, and when we teach ourselves this we're able to let go of them. This is why I say, with hindrances, beat them like your teachers. They are your teachers. They show you, they shed light on where your attachments lie, and that doesn't mean you need to judge yourself for it. Just let go of that. This is where it's happening. The more impersonal you make this process, the easier it's going to become for you. What does that mean? It means that instead of saying my craving has come up, why did this craving come up to me, why is this distraction coming to me now, instead of going in that direction, you take that and you say, oh, here is a distraction. It goes from why is this happening to me to oh, it's only this. You give a little space, take it less personally, and it's much easier for you than to let go. And the more you're able to let go, the less these hindrances pop up.

The takeaway for this retreat is basically teaching yourself how your mind works. What are the things that you take personally? What are the things that bother you, and how do you navigate through them? How do you manage them using the 6R's, using the right effort? And this practice does not just mean practice in terms of sitting down or in terms of walking in meditation. How do you walk in meditation? For the beginners, you stay with the feeling of loving kindness and your spiritual friend. You keep that going in your walking. You don't need to walk slow, right? You just walk at a normal pace and you keep that going, at least for 20-30 minutes.

For the advanced practitioners, you are radiating in different directions in your walking. You're aware of the loving kindness surrounding you and in all directions. The meditation is not just the sitting and walking practice. The meditation is, or will become, should you choose to continue with this practice, lifelong. It's a practice that allows you to notice, in the moments that are crucial, where your reactions are, and transforming those reactions into responses, going away from the thinking mind that is reactive to the mind that is responsive, rooted in intuition and spontaneity. Understanding how to de-escalate situations of conflict with yourself and with others between yourself and

others. It shows you the triggers that you have, and the softening of those triggers, and the eventual remainderless fading away of those triggers, happens when you're able to use the 6R's in this way. The 6R's are not meant to be used as an aversive tool, meaning just because this distraction is here, I'm going to swat it away using the 6R's

that's aversion. I'm going to be with it. I'm going to stay with it. I'm going to say, okay, here you are, and I'm okay with you being here. I'm acknowledging it. And now I'm choosing, instead of paying attention to you, I'm going to bring back my attention to the present. I'm going to stop paying attention to you, release my attention, come back here, and I'm going to consciously relax the craving. And then I'm going to uplift the mind by smiling, and then I'm going to bring my attention back to the object. When you do this, you're doing right effort. Right efforts are to recognize when an unwholesome state is present. You let go of that unwholesome state, to bring up a wholesome state, to do through the smile, and to maintain or keep that wholesome state going, which is what happens when you stay with your object: meditation, loving kindness, or radiating, or quiet mind, whatever it might be. I think that should cover it, unless you have anything else in mind. There we

go. May suffering ones be suffering free, and the fear-struck fearlessly. May the grieving shed all grief, 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. All right. Thank you everyone. I will see you all on Sunday. Enjoy, have fun. Thank you.