Hey,
Everyone,
It's Judy Cohen and this is Wake Up Call 496.
How's my sound?
Okay,
Good.
Okay,
Thank you.
So today,
I thought I'd start to share a little bit about the meta retreat that I sat a few weeks ago.
And I guess the first thing that I want to say about the retreat,
And this is like all retreat practice,
I think,
Is essentially it was a nine-day invitation to untangle the mind.
So the retreat was at Spirit Rock Meditation Center.
And if you've been to Spirit Rock or any retreat center,
You know,
There were pretty much no external distractions.
But also,
If you've been on retreat,
You know that,
You know,
The mind is just gleefully generating plenty of internal distractions,
Which I'll say more about in a minute.
And then it was all practice.
So in addition to formal practice,
We were invited to practice as we ate and showered and fell asleep and woke up and did our yogi jobs and rested.
So practice all the time.
And since it was a meta retreat,
The practice was meta.
So I talked earlier this year about meta,
Which is the first of the four Brahma viharas or heavenly abodes.
And they're called heavenly abodes because it feels heavenly to abide in these states of mind or states of heart.
And the four,
Again,
Are meta,
Compassion,
Appreciative joy,
And equanimity.
And you can notice the second and third and fourth have easy one-word English translations.
But I'm using the Pali word meta for the first Brahma vihara because that word gets translated differently by different teachers.
So it gets translated as love.
It gets translated as loving kindness.
It gets translated as unconditional friendliness.
I recently heard it translated as positive personal regard,
Which I really love.
Something maybe for another wake-up call.
Practicing meta,
It's systematic,
Just like practicing insight meditation is systematic,
Right?
So with insight practice,
The invitation is to follow the breath.
And when the mind wanders,
To kindly return to the breath or to follow and return to sound if the breath isn't supportive.
With meta,
The invitation is to incline the mind in the direction of loving kindness by repeating a set of well-wishes for different populations and starting with yourself.
In the ancient teachings,
It says you can search the whole world over and not find anyone more deserving of love than yourself.
Plus,
We know from psychology that whatever attitude we hold towards ourselves is most likely the attitude we hold towards others and the world and vice versa.
So the invitation is to develop an attitude of kindness and positive regard toward ourselves and let that flow out into the other populations that we're working with and into the world.
The classic phrases which we've practiced here,
And I'm guessing many of you have had many other opportunities to practice too,
They include wishing ourselves and others safety,
Happiness,
Good health,
And ease,
Like living with ease.
And yeah,
It sounds good,
But before we start to recite them,
There's this practice of generating a wholesome desire for them to be true,
Right?
So sometimes I've heard meta offered as a kind of fake it till you make it practice,
But adding that first part of generating a wholesome desire for the well-wishes to be true,
It shifts things,
Or at least it shifted things for me toward,
I guess I would say a much more genuine,
Much more authentic practice.
And to generate that wholesome desire,
The invitation is to call to mind a being for whom it's really easy to have good wishes,
Right?
So that could be a dear friend,
Could be a child,
Grandchild,
Parent,
Grandparent,
Could be a pet,
Could be a religious figure,
Could be someone who's here,
Someone long gone,
Can be any being who for when we bring them to mind,
We feel this easy,
Uncomplicated love,
Right?
And then once we have that being in mind,
Then the invitation is to turn that love towards ourselves and others,
And starting with a dear friend,
And then a stranger,
And then a difficult person,
But not the most difficult one.
And the teachers on our retreat gave us this injunction,
No politicians for our difficult people,
Which I thought was wise for the kind of vibe in the room,
You know?
And then finally for all beings,
And I feel like it's good to include the earth too,
And I realized I did not ask that as a question of the teachers on the retreat,
And I really wish I had,
And maybe I'll send one of them a note.
So all day and all night we recited these wishes,
May I or may you be safe,
May you be happy,
May you be healthy,
May you live with ease.
And then whenever the mind veered off,
The invitation was to come back with metta,
Right?
With love,
Right?
Not with like,
Oh no,
What have you done now?
But with love,
Right?
With kindness.
We know enough about neuroscience now,
Or contemplative neuroscience,
To know that what the teachings say is also true from a scientific perspective,
That whatever we think and ponder really does become the inclination of the mind.
And so the idea is that if we intentionally and consistently incline our minds in the direction of kindness toward one person or population,
We're carving neural pathways that make it more likely,
And eventually highly likely,
Or in some cases even certain,
I guess,
That when we encounter that person or population again,
Our minds will automatically enter into the encounter with kindness,
With well-wishing,
With positive regard.
And that without intentional practice,
Quite a bit can get in the way of doing that.
So Temple Smith,
One of the retreat teachers,
Talked about being intentional versus what can get in the way,
And he called that the practice of untangling the mind,
Which I just loved.
And he referenced a teaching where someone asks the Buddha,
Tangled within,
Tangled without,
These people are tangled in tangles.
I ask you,
Who can untangle this mind?
And the Buddha replies that a person developing the mind can untangle the tangled mind.
And he says a bunch more about what developing the mind means,
And we could talk about that.
But this really resonated for me as the days went by,
Because I noticed that my mind was tangled around a number of things,
These past events that it imagined it could magically change or future events that it whispered to me that it could magically make happen or not happen if only it wound around them tightly enough and for long enough,
Right?
Or wishes for myself and others that it claimed,
The mind was making these claims that it could conjure into being if I kind of put my mind to them,
Right?
So many tangles.
And really,
I mean,
For the first few days,
It felt like most of what I could see was tangles.
And what Temple was saying is,
While you're on retreat here,
Where there are so few external distractions,
You can see the internal distractions,
The mind generates the tangles more clearly.
And you can also,
Over time,
Over the retreat,
Over a lifetime,
Right,
Practice loving kindness and other practices too,
To support the untangling of the tangles.
And this was a very cool thing to watch and to help along.
And I just want to say,
It wasn't like untangling the string of a hoodie,
You know,
Where you kind of dig in and you're,
You know,
Trying to push the cotton through the tangle.
It's more like,
I don't have a necklace on,
But it was more like untangling a thin gold necklace or the fine hair of a small child,
You know,
Felt like it had to be done,
Not with pushing or digging,
But gently,
Right?
So doing the untangling gently,
I could see a few tangles loosen,
Right?
Essentially see the metaphrases work their true magic of softening the heart and clarifying the mind.
And I could also see,
Or this is what I saw,
That this is probably all that anyone is ever doing or trying to do,
You know,
Whether they're practicing or not,
Whether they're doing what they're doing with an attitude of kindness or not,
Whether they're pointing at wisdom or not,
Whether they're doing it with hate or with kindness or with violence or with peace,
You know,
Over and over pushing or digging or,
Or gently and kindly,
They're just trying to untangle their own mind,
Right?
And how,
This is the other thing I saw,
How incredibly fortunate we all are to be able to do that together,
You know,
And to do that with love.
So let's sit and let's do some untangling practice,
Aka metapractice together,
Okay?
So with metta,
The invitation is to find a very comfortable posture where you can come to stillness and really relax,
But don't fall asleep.
So settling into that posture,
That awake but relaxed posture,
Closing the eyes if that's supportive for you,
Noticing the breath,
The breath in the body,
Just the body breathing,
Taking a minute to just breathe,
Settle in.
And then today,
Let's just do the first part of inviting that sense of love and wellbeing by calling to mind someone,
Some being for whom you have this very uncomplicated and easy love.
So it could be a human being,
It could be a canine being,
Feline being,
Spiritual being.
Take a moment to just settle on whoever it is.
And then sensing into that,
That feeling of love,
Appreciation,
Connection with this being,
Letting those mirror neurons flash back and forth so that you're feeling the love that you have for them,
But also sensing the love and warm regard that they have for you,
Works both ways.
And even begin to notice where in the body do you feel this sense of love,
This sense of connection?
And wherever that is,
Just letting it expand into the whole body.
And with some curiosity,
As it maybe hits a tangle here and there,
You know,
That tangle could be distraction,
That tangle could be maybe a small argument against the being,
Maybe you're not the right being,
Maybe I should have chosen somebody else.
Could be some self-judgment,
This isn't easy,
I wish I could do this better.
Or any kind of tangle at all.
And if you do bump into a tangle,
I'm not saying you will,
But if you do,
Just meet it with a lot of love,
Meet it with a sense of humor,
Meet it with playfulness.
And then come back to the sense of love and well-being that you have when you call to mind your being,
Your person or your other being.
And then tuck this feeling someplace where you can get back to it today.
And I'm not even going to ring the bell.
I'm just going to say whenever you're ready,
You can flutter your eyes open and just keep this sense of metta with you today.
And yeah,
See where it's helpful,
See where it's useful.
Thank you,
Everyone.
It's great to sit with you today.
Take good care.
