1996-07_06 Vipassana Retreat, Part 6 of 8 - Q&A 3

Talk: 19960706-Larry_Rosenberg-UNK-vipassana_retreat_part_6_of_8-43310 Start_time: 01:01:36 Display_question: What do I do when images stream through during meditation? Keyword_search: pancake, brochure, concentration, hate, thought, image, daydream, last, self-image, positive, negative, sense, sensation, impermanence, bodily, practice, life, observable, liberation, free, count, taste, smell, coarse, conditioning, identify, objects, listen, walking meditation, walk, meditation Question_content: Questioner: This kind of carries on her question. Anyway, what happens in this meditation, and I think it's developing that artful balance between concentration and awareness. But, there are some thoughts, but lots of images. Not to be funny, but a pancake going by. Larry: That’s true. Questioner: Me folding brochures. Larry: Right. Questioner: All these kinds of things. Larry: Did any of them last? Did any of them last? Questioner: No. Larry: That's all. I just want to establish that. Go ahead. Questioner: When, but it was like certain, it started to have a daydreaming quality, just because there were so many images one after the next. Larry: That means you were losing your mindfulness. Questioner: Right, so I went back to my breath. Larry: But you could also look at the pancakes, at the potato pancakes. Okay, the brochures, whatever is next. Here's the point. Once you learn how to do this. For example, one incredibly profound practice is we all form these self-images. Now there's been for many years talk about having negative self-image and all these practices, you get a positive self-image. From the point of view of spiritual work, those are on the way. But any kind of self-image is suffering. As long as you have your wonderful positive self-image, the amount of work to protect it and keep it going there and then how people don't, they don't see it necessarily how you see yourself and bah, bah, bah. So eventually a good part of liberation is noticing how your mind constructs images of itself. And it can be seen, and you see it as what it is. It's just an image. It's not you. You objectify yourself and put it out here like a blurb in a brochure. Or, do you see what I'm getting at? Break_line: So, yours, potato pancakes, brochures, you could see them for what they are, then that's perfectly good practice. But if you're getting sucked into them and starting to daydream, then you're not practice anymore. You could go back to the breath, or you could be with whatever the next image is, if there is one. Questioner: Okay, so then that's the art unless the quality of it starts to feel, like these images came and went. There wouldn't be… Larry: Everything's going to come and go. See if that's true. Don't believe me. If you believe me. It has no power. You've got to see that these things, their nature is to change. You've got to learn that because as you learn that, that helps help you let go dramatically. If things are changing and you are trying to keep, freeze the world, you're going to really begin to see how much unnecessary suffering comes from that. Questioner: Right. I know I can understand that more and more deeply. Larry: Okay. Questioner: My specific question is let's say all these images last 3 seconds each. But if it just starts to feel dreamy, then it seems like that's not, good to return to the breath? Larry: That's one option. The other is to look at the dream equality itself. Questioner: Okay. Then one more question. Larry: It’s alright. Questioner: That seems like um, not totally would taste… Larry: Not totally. I didn't, just didn't hear the word. Questioner: Totally is what I said. Larry: You said something after totally. I didn't hear it. I'm sorry. Taste? Questioner: Like some of the senses would naturally come out much more strongly than some of the others. For example, we just found that was the first introductory sense and then body sense. Seems like those compared to external touching and taste and smell predominate in practice. Larry: I don't know if it's just practice, it's life. Questioner: Okay. Larry: The reason we might turn to them more is they're more accessible. For example, a sound is an easy one to learn the law of impermanence on. And it's so easy to see it, just comes and goes. It's effortless, like bah, bah, bah, bah, bah. Once you start getting in, the more coarse objects are easier to be mindful of. The more refined ones are the mind itself, and they have the most power. So, but eventually, everything is observable. That's what sets us free. Questioner: Okay. Larry: Including very, very subtle objects. Questioner: That's sort of where I'm headed, but I'm a little unclear. There's the thought, there's the bodily sensations. I mean, there's these sounds. The bodily sensations. Thought, the subtlety, even the thoughts. We don't really focus on the thought, right? If we're putting our mind on this. Larry: You can. Questioner: Because each thought becomes a bodily sensation. Like, how is thought? There's the discouragement. Larry: It's both. Here's the point. It takes a while for the mind to get quiet enough to be able to hear thought as thought. Questioner: I hear it, but when I go into it… Larry: There's no need to, you don't have to… What do you mean by “go into it?” Think about it? Questioner: Let’s say discouraging. Larry: Yeah. Questioner: Or doubt. Larry: Yeah. Questioner: Let me take the most recent one. I didn't have a lot of thoughts this time, but walking. I have a thought. I could easily have a thought of hate. So I go into hate. Or I go into “I hate this.” Larry: What do you mean? Okay. Yeah. Okay, look. Let's say you have the thought, “I hate this.” You had that. And that has a bodily expression in contraction. That's more accessible to be aware of because it's a more coarse—coarse here is not derogatory, just descriptive. So it's easier to begin with to meditate on the bodily expression of fear, of anything. But eventually you'll be able to go right to the source itself, thinking, and you're able to be mindful of the thought. Questioner: The thought precipitated the contraction. Larry: Yeah, it's just whatever is there. A thought is an object just like that sound. It's just it's a very subtle one. And we have tremendous conditioning to identify with our thoughts. Tremendous. Questioner: I had this thing in my head that if the thought comes, that’s the way to be with it. Okay. Larry: The way to be with it is what? Questioner: <inaudible> Larry: No, it's like listening. Let's say there's an important conversation you're having with someone you really care about, and they have something to tell you. And it's a long-distance phone call from Europe, so you're really listening. You only have a few minutes, and you're really listening. So, you hear everything they're saying. Maybe it's whoever it is. So, you've done that, right? I think everyone here has sometimes listened very carefully. Break_line: Now, supposing that call is coming from your own mind. You're listening to the mind unfold. It's going on all the time. Eventually you get quiet enough to hear those thoughts. And part of why we can't do it is the mind's not quiet enough or concentrated enough. The other part is we've had so much practice believing in our thoughts. Break_line: So, one useful reflection is, did you know that thoughts were just thoughts? That's all they are. Now, as we start to reflect on that, it's not that thoughts are worthless—your question. They're extraordinarily important and necessary for civilized life. But they're just thoughts. They then lead to action. Questioner: Okay, here's maybe a better way to describe it then. If I have an obsessive hate: “Hate it, hate, hate, hate.” It seems that if I, and maybe this is where I'm making some kind of thing, as soon as I stop and just be with “hate it,” okay, then it goes into my body. Larry: Fine. Then if it's gone, though, that means it's left and then pursue it in the body. But sometimes when it gets that strong, we devise little antidotes. Made in America. We didn't learn any of this in Asia. Let's say “I hate it.” Was that the one you just mentioned? And it’s obsessive; everyone get your own obsessive one. Just start counting them. “I hate it. One. I hate it. Two. I hate it. Three.” When you get up to about 24, 25, you will roll over from laughter. It's just a complete broken record. Questioner: Can you do that in walking meditation? Larry: Why not? This isn't a concentration. It is a concentration camp, but not that kind. Yeah. End_time: 01:10:23