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Talk: 19880324-Larry_Rosenberg-UNK-balancing_samadhi_wisdom_or_surrendering_to_wisdom-1549 Leandra Tejedor Start_time: 00:52:36 Display_question: What is the difference between using a primary object and Vipassana meditation? Keyword_search: primary object, Vipassana, impermanence, unsatisfactory, lack of self, insight, change, breath, samadhi, suffering, dukkha, smooth, coarse, joy, anatta, kilesas, self-centeredness, greed, hatred, transformation, mind, body, concentration, wholeheartedly Question_content: Questioner: I have a few questions. Sitting here trying to figure out how to phrase them though. I guess I'm not really clear on the difference between, when you were speaking about how some people use primary objects the way that we've been using it, and Vipassana. I guess I don't… Larry: Oh, okay. Good. Questioner: I don’t need like a Webster dictionary… Larry: No, very good question. Vipassana has nothing... you can stay on the breath, and practice vipassana. It has nothing to do necessarily with having a moving field of objects. Let me make that clear. I think I’m…I hope I'm directing myself, to what you're asking. Questioner: Yeah, I just need a real clear definition of what vipassana is. Larry: Okay. Let's, for the moment, say it's seeing the impermanence, the unsatisfactoriness, and the lack of self in anything, anything whatsoever. In other words, insight into that basic. Okay, I know that you've just…let's take impermanence. Okay, one main meaning of insight is, insight into change. Impermanence. That's a meaning of it, in this practice. You won't find that in the dictionary, perhaps, but that's what this means. Well, if you look at a breath, you can learn it. See, if impermanence is universal, then you can just stick a pin in anywhere, and you'll find it. There's no place where it isn't. So you can stop at the breath. Now, in the samadhi practice, we're not trying to look for impermanence, because we don't want to load the mind up with some, more work than it needs. We just want it to come back, and to stay with it. We don't want it to work hard also trying to figure out is this self, impermanence? We don't want to do that. Just stay there okay. Break_line: Now, if you look at an in breath and you see, oh, look at that, it begins, and then it peaks, and then it's the end of it. Either it disappears by gradations, fades away, or it's a sharp falling off, and then an out breath, the same thing happens to that. As you get quieter you may see that an in breath is made up of a number of, sort of not one thing, but a number of different thing,s that arise and pass away, in rapid succession. Break_line: So you're seeing, oh, this breath is impermanent. Another way you get it is, the breath is so smooth, and beautiful it's like satin sometimes. I know some of you have had that. And then suddenly it becomes very coarse. Like what's a coarse fabric, canvas. It's changed suddenly. Oh. And suddenly you see everything's changing. Or it's long. The out breaths are very long. And then suddenly it gets very short, or it's very slow. And then it suddenly becomes very rapid. In, out, in, out, in, out, in, out. And you can see that just on the breath, you're learning about the law of impermanence. You don't have to go anywhere else. Suffering, dukkha, if you just stay with the breath, sometimes the breath is very unpleasant. Many of you have brought this up. It can even be cutting. Sometimes it can cut the nostrils, feel as if it is. It's so coarse. Break_line: At other times it's just a joy to feel an in breath, and an out breath. So you're seeing the law of dukkha, and in terms of self, anatta, which is what confuses everyone. What you might see is that breathing is happening, but there's no solid, substantial entity, that's doing the breathing. There's a process of breathing, and there's a succession of images, and thoughts which claim each breath as being this is me, that's mine. But those images, and thoughts, also leave, and what you have is breathing, with no breather. And so then you see the law of anatta. Anatta doesn't mean that there's no self. A number of... there have been a few little notes that I've gotten. It doesn't mean this. It means that the self exists. It's not saying it doesn't exist. It exists, but not in quite the way, in which we think it does. It isn't substantial, it does not have a core. What it is, is a succession of representation saying I'm you. And then we grasp onto it, and say, that's right. Sometimes they're nice, sometimes they're not. And then they leave, and then another one comes, and they're gaps. We're not doing it all day long, or it'd be really even worse on us, than it already is. Break_line: The kilesas remember, are largely in the service of perpetuating this self centeredness, they're expressions of it. Greed. Why would we be… it's greed for on behalf of me. Hatred, you did that to me. I can't let you get away with what you did to me. I want that for me. So it's just another way of saying it. So the Vipassana doesn't strip…now, you can do that, but mostly… we see these laws in the body, and in the mind. That's where we're mainly seeing it. And that's what has the most powerful effect, seeing it personally. You can see it in nature as well. You can see that nothing outside of ourselves is substantial either. But it seems to be more powerful, in terms of transformation, when you see it in yourself, at wherever you want to look, the body, moods, anything, that's the essence of it. Break_line: Now when you open it up, and you start seeing all these objects coming, and going, and looking at it that way, then that's more of the Vipassana practice. You can develop samadhi on moving objects. That is, if you can be with an object during the life that it's there, that's a quality of concentration. That is, something arises, and you're with it, and you trace it through the whole journey, until it ends. So you're developing that. But one, some would say the best way to develop samadhi is, to just take one object. And that's what we did. Don't try to learn everything in one time. Whatever you do, whichever practice, whichever version of the same practice, just do it wholeheartedly, and that's all we need. End_time: 00:58:40
