1983-07_24 Awakening Intelligence Q & A - 2

Talk: 19830724-Larry_Rosenberg-UNK-awakening_intelligence-1557 Start_time: 00:03:04 Display_question: What can I do when afraid or overwhelmed during meditation? Keyword_search: let go, letting go, social, convention, should, benefit, dishes, note, revolution, culture, condition, sleepy, fear, meditation, control, drop, awareness, rain, let go, breath, artfully, gradually, stronger, throw, overwhelm Question_content: Questioner: I'm finding that I spend so much time thinking about how others feel about me that it makes it hard to give, to really give. Instead, it's a matter of social conventions and letting those things take the place of saying, “Well, what really would benefit me and benefit the other person?” Instead, I just slip into, “Well, she's first in line, or I have to go to the meditation center, so I'll leave the dirty dishes behind.” At first, I didn't even think about it. And then as the days went on, I started going, “What do I do?” And finally I said, “Well, I have to do something that will be a compromise for both and leave some of my… and if that means I have a note to go wash the dishes. And if that means saying I'm not able to keep that in my head. And I thought that's something like I should be able to think about or something. And that’s uh, so I'm finding that that's really something that through my life has probably… Larry: Okay, are you learning about that here? Can you give me, let’s say has anything like that come up, let's say in the last sitting? In other words, what might be helpful is to make it really concrete. In other words, what to do with it when it comes up. See, you're talking about something that's not here. Right? This is all a lot of it sounds it has to do with people not at the center, an action that was before you came here. Questioner: Right. But while I'm at the center doing things, it occurs to me that these happen in my life over and over again. Larry: Right. Questioner: And I don't know how the sitting would relate to it exactly. Larry: Okay. It’s more… it comes up and is it a new seeing into yourself or is it something you've already known? Questioner: I think I've known about it, but haven't really felt it was important before. It just seemed easy to think about it at one point and then just ignore it. Larry: Okay. Questioner: Now it seems to bother me more when I think about it or when I find it out. It seems to be a real concern. Larry: Okay. So that I want to make sure I understand you. That is, are you finding out that this going along with convention is very costly to you? In other words being, in a sense, pushed around by convention is very costly to you? Questioner: Well, yeah, sure. Larry: Okay. In a sense, meditation is an ongoing revolution, no matter what culture it comes up in, no matter what time, even if we're in a very stable society, because what each person is doing is looking at their form of conditioning. It's not that America is so awful or the modern world is so awful. It may be. But even if you grew up in a harmonious society, to be free, you have to be free of how you've been conditioned. Otherwise, the behavior is on the level of, it's mechanical. And that's why it's a very silent, bloodless, ongoing revolution. Because what you're trying to do is to free yourself from the way in which you've been processed to be a full-fledged social member of the society. And yet it doesn't mean to become a misfit. And step number one is seeing our predicament, the predicament that certain of these conventions have been drilled into us, and they kind of push us around. And it's costly emotionally, and it damages the quality of life. And so when it comes up in the sitting, I don't think the instructions are any different than anything else. You just really feel it. Questioner: I think that's why he, someone, asked about the breath, what that means to him and to me, because I'm struggling with that so much. I think that's the idea of control and it's something that you are in partial control of where you can be. And so here, on the one hand, there's letting go and there's holding back, and that’s… Larry: Okay, here I think it's very important to, I have to understand what you mean by “letting go” because that term is used a lot now and often what I have found that there's a subtle way in which it's used where people are really saying “throw away,” which is active and doing. To me, letting go would be letting be. In other words, if you really let it be, let your resentment or whatever it is about what's happened, let it fully be there and bring awareness to it, it's on the way out. In other words, it's burned up in awareness. But otherwise it has a little bit of, “Well, I know I'm not supposed to do this, so I'm letting it go.” But it's not, it's throwing it away, and it'll come back. It's a form of control. We're not controlling these things. We're letting go of them. We're letting them drop away. Break_line: In fact, it seems that a large part of this intelligence that we're talking about tonight has to do with learning to see what we can allow to drop away. Seems like so much of what we're doing is not necessary for us. But we let it drop away not because some expert told us but because we can really see. You know, it says immediate as putting your finger in fire and getting burned so you don't do that anymore. You sit crooked and you see you have much less energy, et cetera. So then you sit straight, and you see the sitting is a little bit different. So some learning goes on. Is there anything else about that? Questioner: Well, I find that when I try to bring awareness to the breath, my other organs go into battle, it seems like. So that at the moment that I know where my breath is and feel it, then my heart starts going, and then my digestive track starts going. So it's so something or somewhere. Fear, I think, which is big in my life, is just encompassing me. And at some points, I can just say or just say, “Let everything do what it wants to do, and I'll just take it or whatever.” But at other times, it just starts going faster and faster, and I say. “Oh no no.” Larry: Okay, this practice is so ruthless. There's really no escape. If you see your mind escaping from the breath because of the fear, seeing that is not a waste of time. In other words, seeing the escape route is part of meditation. It's not that you have to rivet yourself to the fear. You know, sweat pouring down. In other words, it’s moving, seeing the way of the mind. So you're learning that the fear comes, something frightening comes up, and your mind doesn't want to look at it. That's step number one in learning how to look at it. Do you see what I'm getting at? Questioner: Yes, I do. But still I feel that when I'm in that situation, if I don't absolutely face it at that point or at that moment, that's the last chance. Larry: True, for that particular occurrence. Okay, but we have to work appropriately, and it's perhaps more and more possible that you'll be able to do that. Let’s see if I give you a sense of what I mean by appropriate. If you are being overwhelmed by the fear and getting lost in it, then you might have to do some other kinds of work. In other words, not try to tackle it directly, all at once. It would be good to face it. It's like Krishnamurti's example. But is that right for you right now? And so sometimes if you're being overrun by it, you kind of retreat. I don't mean this as weakness, but it's necessary. And maybe you go out and you do some walking. Now, in one sense, that's avoidance of it, but you have to work artfully. You know, if you're finding that it's too much, that it's overwhelming, then perhaps you have to do something else. But you're still practicing awareness. Break_line: And then, little by little, the day comes because in practicing awareness, even on something other than fear, that quality is getting strengthened. And then it becomes easier to meet the fear when it comes up with awareness, which is now a little bit stronger. So we have to approach certain things gradually. And as we get stronger, I think by and large, we're allowed to see what we can see. In other words, most people don't get in over their heads. If you do, then there's something off, maybe a lot of ambition, or you shouldn't be on a retreat or something of that sort. What actually have you done? Questioner: With regards.. Larry: Let's say the fear comes up and then what do you do? And you feel you can't handle it. What do you do? Questioner: Sometimes I'll go to my room. Today I said, “I'm feeling overwhelmed by being around all these people and being struggling. So I'll go to my room.” And I meditated on the rain rather than on my breath, because that was when I I had said, “This I can't do when I got my breath,” and it was making me want to give up. And then I said, “But I don't really want to give up, so maybe I can meditate on something I'm interested in…” Larry: Yes. Questioner: So I meditated on the rain and… so it was better for me. Larry: Yeah, I think you handled that beautifully. I'll end with this anecdote. I have a friend who, when he went to India, wanted very much to meditate, doing sitting meditation, extremely sincere, very dedicated, but had never done it. And he found he couldn't sit. It was disillusioning, it was humiliating. He went to all these teachers and he had a very hard time, physically and emotionally. And he went to one teacher and said, “Okay, so you can't sit right now. So just do an enormous amount of walking meditation.” He would walk for hours, and little by little, his attention developed, and he was able to sit a little bit longer. He couldn't sit for maybe ten or 15 minutes, and he wanted it very much. It wasn't that he was casual. And, little by little, it developed. He's now a Zen monk. He sits about 10, 12 hours a day–so watch out! Break_line: Can we have a moment of silence? End_time: 00:15:39 ___________________________________________________________________________________