What I'd like to do is I want to say a few words about making difficulties into the path.
Making difficulties into the path,
So that the difficulties shine the light on the work we need to do.
And then I'd like to make the point that we can't do this if our hearts are closed,
If our heart is closed.
We can't do this.
We're not really able to.
We don't have the capacity.
The mind doesn't really allow us to really do that if we're caught up in fear,
Or if we're caught up in some afflictive state.
So I want to emphasize the importance of what we call the heart practices of loving kindness,
Compassion,
Joy,
And equanimity,
Particularly.
There's others as well,
But those are the kind of core four.
And we'll finish with a meditation.
I hope the meditation will be hopefully about half of the time.
And so try not to make it too dense in information.
I think one of the most important skills and practices of mindfulness meditation is to see difficulties as really an intrinsic part of the path,
To see what we normally relate to as problems as really an essential part of waking up,
Of finding freedom from suffering.
As I was saying somewhat earlier today,
When we experience difficult or unpleasant situations or feelings,
Our default really is to push them away,
Avoid them,
Get rid of them.
I don't like this.
I don't want this.
This should be different.
And it's amazing how that tendency,
That habit of mind goes on even through years and years of practice.
Maybe hopefully it softens some.
But when we get caught up,
We can still get caught up in that this should be different.
We may have worked to let go of different things.
Oh,
This should be different.
Oh,
Maybe it doesn't have to be different.
But then something will come along.
And oh,
This really should be different.
I don't like this.
I don't want this.
This is unpleasant.
This is painful,
Et cetera.
So however small it is,
However big it is,
Or anywhere in between,
If it's difficult and we want to reject it,
Push it away,
Resist it,
Any of those things,
That's like a mindfulness bell.
Pay attention right here.
There's something to be seen,
Something to be learned,
Something to be grown through and from that can help me wake up.
So rather than seeing difficulties as a problem,
It really serves us.
It serves our happiness,
It serves our freedom to really learn to see,
Oh,
This is a gift.
That short poem from Mary Oliver today,
Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness.
It took me years to understand that this,
Too,
Was a gift.
That something that seems to us,
How could this be a gift?
This,
Whatever,
Yeah,
This,
A gift.
But if it wakes us up,
And that could be the most difficult person in our life,
It could be the politician we hate most in the world.
And it could be,
Oh,
This is where I need to pay attention.
This is where I need to really pay attention and look and see what I'm holding onto.
What am I believing here?
What am I clinging to?
What am I not willing to let go of that maybe I could let go of,
That maybe I could open to?
So when we take that on as really a view,
As a way of looking at our experience and at our life,
That we walk through our life,
Our day,
Our work,
Our different activities,
Say something that comes as a difficulty,
Whether it's the traffic jam,
Whether it's the colleague at work,
Whether it's your kid or your parent or politics in the country or the world.
OK,
Whatever it is where we go into that fight off light,
I want to change this,
Or I want to hold onto this,
That can be the other version of it.
Not always the pushing away,
But also it's difficult when we crave in the more traditional,
In the more way we normally understand craving of wanting,
Wanting,
That kind of more addictive kind of craving.
That too is part of something I need to look at here.
What am I believing here that isn't in fact true?
That this thing that I'm wanting is going to give me happiness.
Obviously,
The extreme version is addiction.
We think the thing,
The drink,
The drug,
The whatever,
Is going to make me happy.
And even though we know it isn't,
Except for a very short period of time,
It won't give us real happiness.
We're barking up the wrong tree,
As it were.
You bark up trees?
That's what you do,
You bark up trees.
Barking up the wrong tree.
So when we take this difficulties as the place to wake up,
Then they become a doorway to freedom.
Haven't brought Rilke into the retreat yet.
Where are you?
Where are you?
Yes.
Many of you may be familiar with his letters to a young poet.
You know,
The poet,
Young guy who wanted advice from him when he'd kind of become fairly famous.
I think Rilke was only about 30 at the time himself.
But he'd become quite renowned and recognized.
He wrote these series of nine letters back and forth.
The young poet,
Actually,
His letters have been published.
But that's all aside.
Because what I want to just I want to highlight just one piece of one of his letters.
He says,
We have no reason to harbor any mistrust against our world,
For it is not against us.
If it has terrors,
They are our terrors.
If it has abysses,
These abysses belong to us.
If there are dangers,
We must try to love them.
And if only we arrange our life in accordance with the principle which tells us that we must always trust in the difficult,
Always trust in the difficult,
Then what now appears to us as the most alien will become our most intimate and trusted experience.
Always trust in the difficult.
And the difficult then becomes our place of learning,
Our place of growing,
Our place of waking up.
He goes on.
How could we forget those ancient myths that stand at the beginning of all races,
The myths about dragons that at the last moment are transformed into princesses?
Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act just once with beauty and courage.
Perhaps everything that frightens us is,
In its deepest essence,
Something helpless that wants our love.
So if we see the scary,
The fearsome,
The dragons as really teachers to us,
Places where we wake up,
Just want to see us act just once with beauty and courage.
It's like in a dream.
We're being chased by the scary monster.
But if we have the resilience or the courage,
If you like,
To turn around and look at the monster,
What often happens in dreams is that the monster goes away,
That what's scary dissolves or goes away in some way.
Because the scariness depends on us being scared.
We say in Buddhist language,
It's a codependent arising.
They arise together,
The scariness and the being scared.
They're not independent of each other.
This is some of the deepest teachings of Buddhism about emptiness,
That everything is a codependent arising.
But don't get me started.
Go there.
No,
Not now.
Anyway,
Always trusting in the difficult.
In Zen Buddhism,
They say the obstacle is the path.
The obstacle is the path.
And I think it'd be really,
Really helpful to just let that sink in if you can.
If you could walk through your life,
And instead of doing what almost everybody does,
Is when the difficult comes along,
We treat it as difficult.
We treat it as like,
This is a problem.
You're doing this.
How dare you do this?
How dare you be who you are?
How dare you act in the way you are?
And it's because we get reactive in this way that we kind of keep that loop going.
We want the world to be different.
And I'm not saying we shouldn't want the world to change in ways.
We do want a more peaceful world.
We want a more compassionate world.
But we won't get it through fighting with what we define as the other,
The enemy.
We'll get it,
Really,
I think,
By changing the way we meet our experience and changing the way we engage in the world so that we're not coming from that conflictual place,
But we're coming from the place of compassion,
But caring as well.
So it even can be a fierce compassion,
A clear,
No,
This is wrong.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine,
No,
It's wrong.
In any terms,
It's wrong.
Do everything we can to change it.
But that doesn't mean we have to hate the Russians,
Or hate Putin,
Or hate whoever.
That doesn't serve us.
It only creates suffering for us.
So just to say again,
The difficult provides the perfect conditions to free ourselves from clinging and suffering.
But it's so counterintuitive to us,
To our kind of visceral way of responding.
You know,
We kind of want,
When our buttons get pushed,
Well,
We want to push back,
Don't we?
We want to respond.
Yeah,
No,
Don't walk all over me.
You know,
Get pulled.
And similarly with the pulling and the pushing.
But this really would come under what the Buddha spoke about as right view,
Wise understanding.
It's really our big picture view of the world.
Can I look at experience in a different way than I normally would?
And what happens when I do this?
What happens when I do treat the difficult as,
OK,
What do I need to wake up here?
What helps me wake up here?
What do I need to let go of?
What do I need to untangle myself,
Or get unhooked from here?
I wish I'd understood that 20 years ago,
Or 30 years ago,
Or something,
You know?
And even understanding it,
I mean,
Maybe I did in some intellectual way understand it some time ago.
And yet on a more gut level,
On a more day-to-day visceral level,
It can take a lot for it to really sink in.
People who are pushing our buttons,
If we don't treat them as our teachers,
And we turn them into our enemies,
Then we'll stay in that loop of suffering.
But if we can see,
OK,
Even this very difficult person,
Even the person that may be doing harmful things to us or others,
If I'm getting caught and hooked,
What do I need to see here?
And what do I need to let go of?
And again,
Just to say again,
It's nothing about condoning or saying it's right what they're doing.
And they may be doing terrible things that need to be changed.
But I'm just talking about our piece of it,
What I talked about as somehow being implicated in it,
You know,
Being involved in our own suffering.
So I think I'd invite you to just explore that in your own life.
You know,
Where do you come down on that?
Where do you turn difficulties into more difficulties?
Where do you turn difficulties into second arrows and third arrows,
You know,
And stories and things that just get you even more entangled?
And can you kind of do that?
In a way,
It's a kind of a martial art kind of thing of using the energy of the,
You know,
That's coming at you to get around it and to untangle yourself from it.
I think John Kabat-Zinn sometimes talks about that as Aikido in communications,
Rather than pushing back and hitting back directly.
Just,
OK,
I don't need to do this.
I can take this as thank you.
Somebody says something unkind to us or what comes across as mean.
Thank you for your thoughts on that.
Not easy to do,
I know,
Particularly in the heat of the moment.
So making the difficulties into the path,
Making the obstacle,
As they say in Zen,
The obstacle is the path.
So we get caught up in pulling and pushing.
Really,
Our happiness depends on really shifting our orientation.
And in a way,
It's shifting our view,
Our view,
From one of seeing things as problems as problems to seeing problems as places to wake up,
Places to wake up.
So with this way of seeing,
With this orientation,
Everything becomes a doorway to freedom.
Nothing is outside of it.
Anything,
You get into traffic when you start driving home tomorrow,
Or you deal with too many emails and it feels like,
Oh,
Big burden.
OK,
How can I hold this in a way that it's,
Rather than seeing it as like,
This shouldn't be like this,
I say,
OK,
This is like this.
And how can I be in a way that can hold this and respond wisely,
Compassionately,
Appropriately?
So the difficulties point us to the door we need to unlock to free ourselves from suffering.
That's kind of putting it together with what I was saying about the Four Noble Truths,
Like seeing the difficulty and say,
OK,
What am I holding onto here?
And can I let go?
Can I change my way of seeing and way of being so that I'm not locked in the conflict,
But I'm through awareness with kindness,
I can find my way through and out?
And then what can be a problem in our lives?
What can be a problem?
Because if it comes up as a problem,
Then it's just one more opportunity to wake up.
So we're never short of opportunities to free ourselves if we can take on that view,
That understanding of the world.
So I think that's the invitation I would give.
I think I want to say this more in different ways,
So it's not the same thing.
Because it feels very,
It's like something worth really internalizing.
What I want to say,
Though,
For the second point is we can't do this.
We can't open to the difficult when we are really caught up in it.
We have to find a way to help ourselves into that view.
So all of the practices we are doing are kind of helping us relax enough and open up enough so that we can then say,
OK,
I can work with this now.
I can open to this.
If we're caught up in the midst of it,
Then we're still really on the wheel.
We're still really just keeping that dukkha,
That suffering going.
So what helps us to step away?
One of the things,
And this is where I want to go now,
One of the things,
One of the ways of opening that I think is most helpful and powerful,
I'd say ways,
Are the heart practices.
Because they open our hearts through practice,
Through training,
Through cultivation,
We can kind of soften our relationship to our experience.
We can be kind and compassionate to others,
To ourselves,
And to experiences.
A wonderful teacher from the UK,
Christina Feldman,
Has a book called Boundless Heart about these four heart practices.
And if you haven't read it,
I think it's an amazing,
Amazing book.
One of the things that was kind of a new way of seeing to me,
Just an angle that was a bit different,
Was bringing loving kindness not just to ourselves and people,
But to events and situations as well.
When we are locked up in suffering,
Bring loving kindness and compassion to the suffering,
The suffering that we have,
Let's say,
With another person.
So it's not just to the person,
Not just to ourselves,
But to the whole kind of entanglement,
Just bringing kindness,
Befriending that.
So everything really can be an object of our befriending.
The lovely thing about these heart practices is they're spoken about as being boundless and immeasurable.
There isn't a limit to how much kindness we can develop,
That we can cultivate.
I often say,
It's not as though we can be compassionate to 23 people,
But 24 is the straw that breaks the camel's back.
It's like,
Oh,
No,
Can't do it.
I mean,
That's the illusion of compassion.
Oh,
Compassion fatigue,
Too much compassion.
But it's not too much compassion.
It's because we're caught up in dukkha that we're not able.
It's not the compassion.
Compassion,
If we're really practicing compassion in an authentic way,
An opening to suffering,
There really is no end to it.
You think of the Dalai Lama as an example.
You think of the Buddha.
You think of other people whose hearts are open.
And they don't say,
OK,
I've had enough compassion for today.
My compassion jar is full right now.
No room.
No room at the inn kind of thing.
No,
We can.
And obviously,
The more we get caught up in afflictive states that everyone will do,
I'm sure,
If the Dalai Lama have how far along in his enlightenment he's gone.
But if he's got any work to do,
He'll still get caught up in things.
And then he's going to have to do a little work to,
OK,
Can I let go of that?
He was asked about anger.
And I think he said,
Yeah,
I get angry.
Yeah,
Sure,
I get angry.
But I just kind of feel it coming.
And I don't feel it.
So it comes and it goes.
I think that was the Dalai Lama who said that.
But that's what we can do.
It's not that the anger never arises.
I'm sure,
I think,
For the Buddha,
Which probably in the history of,
Certainly in the history of Buddhism,
Is kind of the fullest expression of awakening,
He still had his old karma.
He still had his old conditions that were there before his enlightenment,
Before he was awakened.
So that something like an old habit comes up.
But he has the wisdom to see,
OK,
That's a lovely story.
I could go down so many alleyways.
I'll just tell you one story.
Some of you know this.
This is a story about Mara.
You might have heard of Maro as the kind of tempter figure in Buddhism.
And when the Buddha is under the tree,
Mara is saying,
Oh,
I'll give you all these riches.
I'll give you my beautiful daughters for you.
You can have all this.
And the Buddha says,
And finally he says,
What right do you have to claim you're awakened?
And the Buddha puts his hand down.
It touches the earth.
And he says,
The earth is my witness.
And then in the movies,
All the lights go off and the thunder and all of that.
Seven years in Tibet or whatever,
Those Buddha movies.
Anyway,
So what the story I want to get to is that Mara in the story,
In the Buddha's teachings,
Mara appears again after the Buddha's enlightenment,
This kind of tempter figure.
I think of him as a bit like Gollum in Lord of the Rings,
My precious.
And Mara comes to the edge of the assembly.
And the Buddha says,
Mara,
I see you.
And when Mara is seen,
Mara then scuttles away.
And I love this as a metaphor because it's like when we see our clinging,
Then there's a possibility of letting go.
We say,
OK,
I see you.
So we see the getting caught,
Oh,
I see you.
Then we can.
We have that capacity for letting go.
So we will get caught up until we've let go completely.
We will get caught up in afflictive states.
So these heart practices are really powerful ways of opening our hearts,
Of befriending all of our experience,
People,
Situations,
Experiences,
Events,
Ourselves,
Everything.
So what I'd like to do is to do a meditation on self-compassion.
I'm going to give a few words of introduction to this very brief words.
And then we'll go into the meditation just to provide a little bit of context to self-compassion.
Self-compassion as an area of research has grown enormously in the last 10,
15 years.
One of the leading teachers is Kristin Neff,
N-E-F-F.
She's done a lot of research and a lot of teaching on self-compassion.
And it's probably the area in the last,
As I say,
In the last 10,
15 years that's really kind of blossomed.
They have courses on self-compassion,
Eight-week courses.
And one of the things that Kristin Neff has done is,
Along with some colleagues,
Is to kind of elaborate a framework,
Really,
An understanding of self-compassion,
What's going on with self-compassion.
And from a research standpoint,
From a scientific study standpoint,
She has kind of isolated three key components in self-compassion.
The first is self-kindness,
Being kind to ourselves,
Being gentle,
Understanding towards ourselves,
Rather than being critical or judgmental.
So kindness at one end,
Critical,
Inner critic,
Judgmental on the other.
The second is recognizing our common humanity,
Recognizing when we're suffering that other people are suffering too,
And seeing that we're not alone.
Our proclivity towards that end of the spectrum,
Or to think that I'm alone,
There's nobody here for me,
I'm carrying the burden of the world's burden on my shoulders,
I'm the only one experiencing that.
Again,
The spectrum of that.
And the third being mindfulness,
Either holding our experience in a kind of balanced awareness on one hand,
The other end of the scale being really identifying with our stories and all the ways we get caught up.
And she's used this scale,
The self-compassion scale,
To kind of put people,
Just for a period where they are,
Where do they come out answering a series of questions around common humanity,
Self-kindness,
And mindfulness.
And somebody who answers,
Oh,
If something happens to me,
Am I aware of it,
Or do I get pulled into it?
Oh,
I always get pulled into it.
OK,
They'd be over at that end,
Similarly opposite on the other end.
So based on this scale,
They've done a lot of research into it.
And they found self-compassion is associated with deactivating the stress response and activating the caregiving response.
So if we can come out of fight or flight and move into caring,
It's going to mean that we're going to be able to be more engaged,
More compassionate,
More supportive of others and of ourselves.
It's self-compassion is associated with strengths such as happiness,
Optimism,
Wisdom,
Curiosity,
And self-exploration.
It also helps promote health-related behaviors like sticking to a diet,
Exercising,
Reducing smoking,
Seeking needed medical treatment.
All of these are associated with self-compassion.
The higher we are on the scale,
The more we're likely to do these things.
The last thing I want to say before getting into the meditation takes us back to what I was saying last night,
That the mind can be trained.
We can train our mind.
And we can train ourselves in self-compassion.
We might be here at this moment,
But we can be somewhere else six months ahead,
Six weeks ahead.
And a study that Kristin Neff and a colleague,
Christopher Germer,
Did,
They developed an eight-week mindful self-compassion program.
And they found that the program,
On average,
Raised participants' self-compassion levels by 43%.
So they measured at the beginning,
Measured at the end.
I think they did some post-measures as well.
But this is the only thing I have right here.
So we're not set.
We're not like,
Oh,
I'm compassionate to myself,
And somebody else is not.
And that's a given,
And that's where we are.
It's like,
I might be here now,
But I might be way over here later.
And that's a wonderful thing,
That we can train our minds.
We can train our hearts.
So you can begin this meditation by just sitting in a relaxed and comfortable posture.
Just take some moments to relax and let go of any tension in the body and mind.
You might take a couple of deeper breaths,
Just relaxing the belly as you breathe out.
Relaxing any area of tension in the body.
You could invite a smile.
Now,
If you feel like,
Well,
You may not be in a place where you can lie down,
But if you want to,
You can,
By all means,
Lie down.
Just be as comfortable as you can be,
Whatever posture you're in.
And just bringing a kind awareness to your experience right now.
And as you bring awareness to your experience,
Your body,
Your emotions,
Your mind,
Notice if there's any anything that you want to be different.
It may be something that you're aware of right now.
It may be something you've been feeling,
Perhaps,
Through different times of the day.
It could be a feeling of sadness or loneliness,
Worry,
Wanting something you don't have,
Wanting something to be different than it is.
Anything that just feels like this should be different.
I want this to be different.
And if you can,
And maybe if you can't,
If nothing presents itself right now,
You might think of something in the past and how you felt then,
That you wanted something to be different,
Just to have something to kind of focus your attention on as you do this practice.
And meet your feelings,
Whatever comes up,
With kindness and care.
You know,
You might,
If there's some situation that kind of triggers it,
You might just touch into how you felt or how you feel right now.
But let go of any story.
Let go of a narrative about,
Oh,
This is always happening,
Or they're always doing this,
Or I should do this.
Let go of the story.
And just stay as grounded as you can.
And just stay as grounded as you can with your direct experience.
If it's helpful at any time to put your hand on your heart,
On your belly,
Just do,
You could do that.
So open to whatever you're aware of in the body with kindness,
With acceptance.
And set the intention to meet the painful feelings or difficult feelings with care and compassion and understanding.
And as you feel,
Touch into,
Or even think about this difficult experience,
Know that you're not alone.
Know that you're not alone,
That others,
Too,
Are experiencing difficulties,
Pain,
Loss,
Maybe some experiencing things fairly close to what you're experiencing.
And that this is really a shared human experience.
When we're caught up in suffering,
We typically feel that we're alone.
Just remembering,
Reflecting,
That others are experiencing pain,
Difficulty,
Suffering.
And that this is a shared human experience.
And as we do with the loving kindness,
Meditations,
Many of you familiar with those,
You can use phrases.
And there's certain set phrases that are typically used for self-compassion.
Just beginning with a wish for your own safety.
May I be safe?
And you might just reflect on that,
Wishing that for yourself,
Intending for yourself that you be safe.
It's very hard to open to difficulties if we don't feel safe.
So just wishing that for yourself.
You could take in that silently,
That wish,
That intention on your in-breath.
May I be safe?
May I be happy?
May I be happy?
As the Dalai Lama often says,
We all want to be happy.
And we may go about it in ways that don't lead to happiness.
But we want to be happy.
So just wishing that for yourself.
However you see it perhaps manifesting or expressing itself.
May I be happy?
May I be truly happy?
If you can,
Just take that in with the breath.
As though you're breathing in happiness.
If that,
If you can connect with that,
If you can feel it.
May I be kind to myself?
May I be kind to myself?
May I be kind to myself?
So many have the tendency towards judgment and harshness,
Criticism.
So just consciously having that wish,
That intention for yourself.
May I be kind to myself?
May I accept myself as I am?
May I accept myself as I am?
When we're caught up in judgment and criticism,
We're really not accepting ourselves as we are.
So just having that wish for ourselves.
May I,
Like that intention,
That orientation,
Just to be kind to ourselves,
Be compassionate.
May I be,
May I accept myself as I am?
May I be kind to myself?
May I accept myself as I am?
So you might just silently repeat these phrases.
You know,
Just let them drop in like drops of water in a bowl or a cup.
May I be safe?
May I be happy?
May I be kind to myself?
May I accept myself as I am?
There may be some other words or expressions of your own that you might want to drop in.
Something like,
I care.
I care about this suffering.
Or it might be something more bodily,
Like kind of giving yourself a hug,
Holding your experience,
Yourself with kindness,
With a hand on the belly and a hand on the heart.
There's a real sense of taking it in on a somatic,
On a bodily level,
Not just in the head.
Wishing ourselves well.
Just silently repeating the phrases to yourself,
Opening to whatever bodily feelings may be present and meeting whatever you experience with kindness and acceptance.
So even if your mind goes to,
Oh,
I don't like this,
Or I'm too tired,
Just meet that with kindness.
Can you be kind to yourself right now?
You can let go of the practice,
But see if you can bring in some kindness.
Kindness,
Acceptance,
Compassion.
When the mind wanders,
Just gently bring your attention back to repeating the phrases silently to yourself or to the bodily feelings that may be present.
At a certain time,
You might let go of words and just connect with feelings if feelings are present.
It's that sense of caring.
Or even if there's not caring,
Just having the intention to care.
Maybe you feel a bit closed,
But you can still have that intention,
That orientation of the heart and the mind.
Most of all,
Really,
Just having that orientation of kindness to yourself,
Whether it's words or feelings or images,
Just having that,
Inclining the mind towards kindness and compassion towards yourself.
Just caring,
Caring for this being that you know better than anyone else in the world.
Take this practice with you.
Know anywhere.
Just come back to these wishes and intentions of kindness.
And we'll finish with this another poem from Mary Oliver.
I worried.
I worried a lot.
Will the garden grow?
Will the rivers flow in the right direction?
Will the earth turn as it was taught?
And if not,
How shall I correct it?
Was I right?
Was I wrong?
Will I be forgiven?
Can I do better?
Will I ever be able to sing?
Even the sparrows can do it,
And I'm,
Well,
Hopeless.
Is my eyesight fading,
Or am I just imagining it?
Am I going to get rheumatism,
Locked jaw,
Dementia?
Finally,
I saw that worrying had come to nothing and gave it up and took my old body and went out into the morning and sang.
