1996-07_07 Vipassana Retreat, Part 7 of 8 - Q&A 2

Talk: 19960707-Larry_Rosenberg-UNK-vipassana_retreat_part_7_of_8-43311 Start_time: 00:23:00 Display_question: If you’re choosing a dominant object in choiceless awareness, how is that choiceless? Keyword_search: kind, wisdom, humor, glad, Question_content: Questioner: I just wanted to follow up on what... Larry: Oh, more love. Jesus. Okay. Questioner: I guess I'm just feeling really emotional about just having been here with us all week. And had this combination of kindness and wisdom and humor. Larry: It's getting worse by the moment. Questioner: I'm doing this for me. I’m just really glad, and I told you I came because I thought you were gonna be Jack Rosenberg. I didn't even know Larry. Larry: Someone else thought I was Jack Rosenberg? Questioner: No. But anyway, it's just like the universe sort of conspired to get me here, and I just you know, I can critic, be critical of so many things in my life, and this is just one of those that I'm not. Larry: Okay. But maybe Jack Rosenberg is even better. Please. Questioner: First of all, I think Jack was about… <inaudible> That is not the question. I guess I'm still trying to grasp the concept of choiceless awareness. And I think what you had said earlier about choosing the dominant object. If you’re choosing something, that’s not really choiceless is it? Larry: Yes. Yeah. It's not so much of your choosing is that it arises in consciousness. There it is. For example, you're sitting and breathing, and you can feel the breathing happening, and then suddenly there's a sharp pain in your lower back. Did you have to decide to go right, “let's see…” It's there. It's chosen you. Do you see what I mean? Just sit in a state of receptivity and let life come to you. It's a slightly different attitude. Do you see what I'm getting at? Questioner: I guess in my case, the pain across my upper and lower back tends to persist during sitting. Would you advise keeping that and going into that? Larry: I don't know. That's up to you. It certainly would be. If it's strong, it might be a useful way to practice. At the beginning, there will be an element of will. I think that was part of your question, Bob. Until you see, we're learning the art of surrender, and that doesn't come so easily. We want to be in control, and so that can't be forced. So that's what I meant by we're simulating it. We're approximating it. And so there'll be pain, and then maybe a slight hesitation, and then a decision to go to that pain. It's already there, so there will be some doing in it. And sometimes there is an element of choice. That is, you have a choice. You can stop and examine a particular object, like what you just described. Break_line: For example, many of you, a number of you have told me about this, and I have a hunch it's probably true for all of you or for a lot of us. The body is going to be a place where you'll be spending a lot of time, and that's fine, because the bodily sensations are much more accessible at this point than some of these moods. They'll just take you away, and you're not able to practice with them yet. It's an individual thing. I'm speaking in general. If you can practice with fear and loneliness, of course. But if not, they turn up in the body as well. If you have anger, you'll feel it in the body. If you have fear, you'll feel it someplace in the body, and that's much more accessible. So that you're there. Now, you may wind up spending the entire sitting being with those sensations in your back. That's fine. Break_line: But you could also decide not to do that and to be with other things. The key thing that's happening, it's not so much the objects, is that you are practicing being attentive. Independent of what the objects are, you're strengthening this capacity to be attentive. That's what makes the difference. As attention gets stronger, steadier, more natural. Do you see what I'm getting at? So, I'll leave that up to you. Break_line: Some of it, for example, if it's so strong and constant during a sitting, if you aren't with it, if you start flitting around, it's probably going to keep grabbing you back anyway. But let's say you're with it and with it, and finally you've had enough. Then go to the breath. It's okay. Then breathe in, breathe out. Either finish up the sitting that way, or, as we say, take a breather. It's literally true. Break_line: So, this isn't assembling a vacuum cleaner, these instructions. It's artful. You have to learn how to move into your own experience and to see what I've just given you a few guidelines. New people in a town, events that you're familiar with. You see them arise and pass away, arise. Here's another one: “Oh, I have to look more carefully at that.” You'll see that that also arises and passes away. What's important to see—first, you have to be able to be with all these events. As your ability to do that improves, then you can begin to see that independent of the content. Break_line: For example, if we had some way of, probably there is a way now, monitoring everything that went on in our minds during this last sitting. The content would be staggeringly different for all of us. But the process is identical. No matter what it was that was on your mind or my mind, it arose, it passed away. And it's seeing that, now there's a turning point in practice. To begin with, we all are much more interested in content than process. It's only natural because we're very concerned about our story. “I used to be. I am. I will be. If I do this practice, then I will be fantastic sometime in the future. I used to be an awful person. Now I'm not as awful because I've been practicing,” and all that. But after a while, you get tired of your story. Break_line: How many times can you see “Gone with the Wind”? For me, it was four times. I walked out the fifth time. Finally, I didn't want to hear what Scarlett or Rhett or any of them had to say. Okay. So there comes a point where, especially as the mind starts becoming very, very calm, you're not as interested in your story as “Isn't that interesting that no matter what's there, it doesn't last. Gone.” And you start, more and more, being able to turn to the process aspect of reality, seeing that everything, the nature of all formations, anything that comes into a form, subtle or gross, it must pass and that it lacks substantiality. The substantiality that it seems to have is given to it by us, through imbuing it with energy, by identifying with it, making it “This is me, my worrying, my fear. I'm worrying. Poor me.” So, it's always about our story or our ego, whatever language you like. End_time: 00:30:59