Doubt and Discernment (Part 2)

Because of the practices that we've developed, that we've devoted attention and effort to, for many of us over years -- the practices of mindfulness, and a refinement of attention, the awareness of and skill with the energy body, and the emotional awareness, insights into emptiness, the spectrum of fabrication, dwelling in states of less fabrication, etc., all that -- because of the practice with regard to that, and the accumulation of those skills and arts, the diligence there, we are well-equipped for this investigation that we're unfolding. We have the tools and the refinement of discernment necessary to really open it up and make it fertile. All that comes as a result of practice, for many people.

And at the same time, being, as many of us are, used to a certain range of teaching and concept and direction within a tradition, one can very easily, as I said -- doubts can arise very easily. So very commonly, someone who has had quite a bit of practice, say in the more narrow tradition of Insight Meditation, will say, "Isn't this just feeding the kilesas, the defilements? What you're talking about, eros, and being with eros, and opening it up, isn't it just feeding the defilements -- greed, aversion, and delusion?" So again, can we actually take that doubt deeper and make it fertile -- not paralysing, but fertile, dynamic -- make it into a real question, and look, notice, find out? So that we see that eros, in the way that we are talking about it and practising with eros, has a quality it opens, it supports opening. Opening of what? Opening of the energy body. You can feel this. It needs a certain sensitivity, but you can feel this. With eros, the energy body tends to opening. Cosmopoesis, the perception of the world, tends to opening and deepening. The sense of dimensionality opens. The senses of sacredness and divinity also are opened.

So eros brings with it, supports, instigates opening of all kinds, beautiful openings. And actually, in the way that we are talking about it, because the imaginal is involved and wrapped up in what we're calling 'eros,' then it doesn't bring this pressure to act out, because there isn't the movement necessarily at all to concretizing, to simple concretizing: "I have a desire for X, therefore I must get X, therefore I act to get X." There are all the imaginal dimensions, the opening out there instead, usually. There's also, eros tends to relieve dukkha. Eros tends to relieve dukkha, although there is the pothos, this wanting more, so there's not complete peace there, and there's the erotic tension that we talked about, etc.

But in practice and in life, we can see this tendency of eros to open things up in a beautiful way, to relieve dukkha, and away from a sort of simplistic concretizing or being tied into acting out this or that just because I desire it. Craving, on the other hand, is opposite to all of that. It tends to close -- close the energy body. You can feel it. You can notice it. You can be sensitive to it. It does not open the cosmopoesis. It does not open a sense of dimensionality. It does not open a sense of sacredness, divinity. It tends towards concretizing, and a sort of pressure of the impetus to act out. And it brings dukkha. We can see that, again, both in the meditation practice and in our life. So it's possible to discern between eros and craving, in those ways and in others. It's quite possible to make this discernment, make these discernments.

And it's not always easy and not always simple to discern between the two. Can we dare to experiment? Can we dare to question? Because this is how we're going to really find out and develop our discerning chops, if you like -- our capabilities, the refinement of our discerning. It takes a certain daring to question these things, to open up these questions, to experiment and find out for ourselves. Is it the SAS, the British Special Forces -- they have their motto, "Who dares wins." I think it's them. "Who dares wins." Sometimes, actually often in practice, when we talk about more radical practices, whether it's emptiness or this or that at some edge, who dares wins. It means there's a certain daring, a certain boldness in venturing into the unknown to find out for oneself.

Sometimes, as I said, it's not always easy to discern between eros and craving, for example. Sometimes we think this is eros, and then it gets all tangled, and we feel, "Well, the energy body is contracting. There is a contraction. There is dukkha." But even the entanglement there, or the tangling of eros and craving together, the two threads tangled, doesn't necessarily mean immediately throw the whole thing out. This is quite important. There's a parallel here, for example, for anyone who has ever devoted some time and some dedicated practice to developing samatha or samādhi. If you make that intention in practice over whatever it is, however long, on retreat, off retreat, you will absolutely inevitably encounter this question of, "It's moving towards something. There's something I desire here. I desire to open up these states of samādhi. I desire to discover them, to master them, enter them, whatever." And in that, I meet, I encounter, the question of effort. I need to make effort. There's the desire involved. We talked about the Buddha and his four bases of success, his list there.^[1] I encounter sometimes too much effort, too little effort, too tight effort.

So there's going to be dukkha. It gets too tight, the effort towards the samādhi, and here's dukkha. How many people, what percentage of people in the Insight Meditation world, think, "This is painful. Forget it. This is ego. This is striving. Pick up some other teaching that says 'just let it all be, don't try and make anything happen'" or something, and the baby gets thrown out with the bathwater, basically. And that's a mistake. Rather, in relation to samatha, it would be a mistake. Rather, can I learn about wise effort? Can I learn about having aspirations and goals, and things that I yearn to move towards and to know and experience for myself, in meditation, in spiritual life, in life in general, and learn how to handle that, how to relate to it wisely, without either just getting completely entangled and in pain around that, or throwing the whole thing out and not getting anywhere, not really developing mastery of samādhi, etc.?

[9:07] So just the arising of suffering or contraction, if we're working in this area with eros, etc., you know, I wouldn't just use that as a criterion of discernment between eros and craving. The two can get mixed, and our relationship with the whole thing can get fraught, and sometimes it gets a little tight. Remember I was telling you about those U Pandita retreats, etc., where actually there's quite a lot of suffering in the service of something. So just because we meet a bit of tightness or entanglement or confusion doesn't mean we drop it and throw it out. It's actually asking for more subtlety, more artistry in the discernment, in the balancing, in the responding.

As I mentioned, we can start with eros, all very beautiful, and there's the fullness of the imaginal and everything, and something happens, and it contracts and gets diverted, perverted, into craving. And vice versa: we start with what's obviously a state of craving, and the contraction of craving, and limited seeing, and actually with skilful, artful working, we can re-guide that and navigate to open that into the beauty and the fullness of eros. So there's art here. There's skill. It takes care in the discernment between the two and in navigation, if it is from craving to eros. Certainly in the discernment, there's art, there's skill, there's care. It needs sensitivity. It's asking for quite a refined and, if you like, sophisticated kind of discernment. But we develop that. It's really possible.

And one of the aspects, as I said, that can help us discern is the sensitivity to the soulmaking dynamic and what is happening with that soulmaking dynamic, meaning the mutual insemination, fertilization, ignition, widening, deepening, complicating, enriching of the eros-psyche-logos dynamic, constellation. This tells us that we're on the right track. You can get sensitive to the different aspects of that when it's moving, when it's in progress. So with, for example, if we talk specifically about a sexual image now, as I've said, we can notice the specificity of the image, and the kind of iconic quality of the sexual image, if that's what we're working with. It doesn't tend, mostly, to want to escalate -- the next thing, the next thing, and then, "Oh, now I need to have an orgasm," or "Now I need to release some steam" or whatever, or the next thing, and it goes towards whatever it is -- genital intercourse or whatever. There's this specificity of the image. It's sufficient to itself, I think was the phrase I used. There's an iconic quality. It's not really going anywhere except deeper into dimensionality and divinity and beauty. It's not going anywhere in a kind of narrative accomplishment sense.

The pothos there, the desire for more that goes with the eros that we talked about, tends to go, to find, to discover and create more in the dimensionality, in the multifacetedness of the beloved other and of the self, etc., as we said, and the cosmopoesis. It doesn't tend to seek its 'more' in the acquisitiveness of greed, spreading one-dimensionally: "I have one car. Now I need three. I have one lover, wife/husband (whatever it is), and now I need another sexual partner," because somehow they're not interesting to me enough, because I'm not opening to their dimensionality. So then the 'more' needs to go out sideways to the one-dimensionality. We can recognize this difference. And actually, as I said, we can right it, if you like; we can guide it. If it feels like it's getting diverted, contracted in craving, there are ways of seeing, ways of approaching it, that redirect it back on the track of eros.

So yes, it's absolutely possible that some uses of the imagination, the imaginary and fantasy in the usual sense of the word, are not what we call imaginal. Piaget was a very well-respected child psychologist, very influential when -- I don't know, thirty years ago? I can't remember when -- I was an undergraduate. He, in his sort of developmental psychology, said the imaginal -- well, the imaginary others of children (I don't think he made that distinction), children's imaginary others, are immature and egocentric creations designed for wish fulfilment. That was all he could see in children's use of the imagination. Or it was helpful in planning and learning kind of conceptual structures, etc. But really, is that always the case? It's clear, with a little more careful looking, a little less biased looking, that that's absolutely not the case. That's why I make a distinction with this word 'imaginal' versus 'imaginary,' or certainly just the use of the imagination. So he was enormously influential. I don't know if he still is. I'm not sure.

One wonders, also, what was influencing him. Because already by that time, the imagination had been severely demoted in the Western world-view and psychology. But what he was referring to is certainly not the whole picture, and not what we mean by 'imaginal' and 'fantasy.' You can tell -- is it wish fulfilment? You can tell sometimes in the sense of the autonomy of the image. Some people might want to discern because they sense between, let's say, the imaginal and the imaginary, or eros and craving, because they sense the autonomy of the imaginal other, that it has a kind of independence and intelligence and can actually surprise us. Its actions, or what it says, or what it does in relation to us surprise us. I could give so many examples of this, but just one that's come to mind now is -- actually, there was much more to this image that may be relevant to other points that we want to make later, but I just want to share right now this moment in an image because it's significant. It's relevant to what I'm saying right now, the point I want to make right now.

Working in practice with this beautiful erotic-imaginal meditation, there was something -- I don't know how to say -- in the wider politics of the Dharma world that had upset me. It had affected me directly, but it was sort of really a much wider issue. I was kind of disturbed by that. I could feel that I really wanted to kind of go into that, and dwell with it, and not really engage this erotic-imaginal meditation there. In this case, it was a beautiful woman that was in the meditation there. [She], at some point, took my hands and put them into the prayer mudrā, añjali -- or it's not called añjali, but I can't remember the name of it -- the prayer mudrā, you know, with the palms pressed together. She took my hands, put them in that posture, and then mirrored that gesture herself with our fingertips touching, as if to communicate, "Just forget about that right now. We have this beautiful devotion to dwell on, to feed on, to attend to between us." That really wasn't kind of what I wanted to dwell on at that point! [laughs] Another part of me was really wanting to figure out this bigger situation and upset, and wanting to kind of get into that. So there was a kind of autonomy there, and her intelligence. And of course it was the intelligent thing to do. There was a deeper wisdom there.

But we get the sense -- I could give so many examples of this -- is it really my wish, as I asked the other day, is it really my wish fulfilment that's happening with the erotic-imaginal? Countless examples of that are possible. So some people may want to use the sense of the autonomy of the imaginal other as an indication. That's good, but I would be a little cautious there. I know, for instance, James Hillman really strongly spoke up against any kind of ego-involvement with the imaginal. So if the ego decides to do this or that, he was very suspicious of that. I would like to question that, actually. For me, it's fine if it feels like your ego is initiating something in the relationship there, in the imaginal relationship, or initiating an image or whatever. That is not necessarily a problem. The test is whether it feels soulmaking.

[19:56] So I've said this before, but it's really, really important. You can actually feel the soulmaking in all the ways that we've talked about in the past on the other retreats, and that I would rather be the guide, rather than "Was that my ego? Did I just make that happen?" Don't worry about that. It's fine. It's fine if you did. It's fine if you didn't. I wouldn't get too caught up in that as a criterion. But you can tell if the erotic-imaginal feels like it's soulmaking. It's very clear, the beauty there in the devotion, in the divinity, in the dimensionality, all of that.

So we get sometimes a little unclear what's a problem here in our doubt. It causes some confusion. What's a potential problem? For instance, as I've already touched on, sometimes something that happens with an image, or an image itself, or an erotic relationship with an image, is really intense or just really weird compared to what other people seem to be speaking about or what we know from what the culture feeds us. Very easily, a person can think, "I'm nuts. I'm crazy," or "If I'm not crazy already, this is taking me towards craziness. I'm going crazy. If I follow this, I'll go crazy." This is the voice of fear and the voice of the indoctrination from the cultures that we move in. As I said, the imaginal has no place; it's not given a place in the culture. We have a suspicion, unless it's quite contained: making movies or writing sci-fi novels or whatever it is. So it's understandable that there's fear in relation to this. We have been actually for centuries and centuries kind of indoctrinated, dogmatized (if that's a word), to be afraid. It doesn't have a place. It's not given a place, it's not given respect, validity, purpose, in our sense of our existence, of what healthy psychology is, of the spiritual paths, etc. So there are all kinds of cultural assumptions coming in there in that kind of doubt: "I'm going crazy. This is too intense. This is too weird."

So what we're doing here partly is really trying to support, trying to move towards giving the imaginal and the erotic-imaginal a place, a meaningful place and purpose in a conceptual framework that's coherent, that really serves something, and to come into relationship with these images, wise relationship -- not just drop them and turn away, not just indulge without any sensitivity in a kind of imaginary wish-fulfilling daydreaming thing, seeking pleasure. Through the concepts that we're talking about, through the path that we're delineating and filling out, and through the sensitivity and the artfulness of the living relationships here, living erotic-imaginal relationships, we want to move it towards all that and the fullness of all that. As I also said, we want to also give place to and respect to and trust, if you like, to what seems like the dark or more intense sexual images that come up and eros that comes up. Have a look. Is it disrespectful? Don't jump so quickly to conclusions. Is this disrespectful? If I want to devour you, and drink your holy blood, and lick your bones, and eat your organs, is that a sadism? Is that some pathological cannibalism? Is it because I'm angry? Is it without love?

So easy to assume all this stuff. Actually have a look. Feel. Feel what's there. Is it an objectification? To me, 'objectification' means I don't see and value the totality of the other's being, the being of the other. I don't see and value all that they include. I'm bringing them down to one dimension or one purpose, whether it's an actual person, whether it's a purely imaginal figure. Is that the case? Or we can also objectify because I just see them for me. That includes a kind of spiritual or psychological objectification: I just see this imaginal figure, or this person, this teacher or whatever it is, this partner for -- they just exist, I've kind of shrunk down my seeing of them, they just exist for my growth, for my psychospiritual process. We tend to see imaginal figures that way: "Oh, yes, I'm developing my faculty of X, Y, Z through this imaginal figure." That's an objectification. Or I don't see and value their totality. Is it objectification? And if it is, what do I need to do to let it fill out?

Is it out of control? People often go, "This will take me out of control," or "This is out of control." Is it? Maybe. Maybe a little bit at one level. But that's just the nature of things. But really, one can get up and walk away, or there's so much in the art of navigation and steering that we've talked about. So right there in what, for many, would be kind of taboo sexual erotic-images and interactions, frowned upon, regarded as weird or pathological, right there we can actually sense a holiness, a sense of sacredness, divinity; feel it. Or someone might have the opposite doubt: "Oh, this isn't intense at all. So-and-so shared such a weird image. It was really far out, and incredibly dramatic and colourful. Mine are just kind of ordinary, so it's not working for me, or it can't be very deep." Again, don't jump to such conclusions. Eros includes a great range, from very, very subtle to intense.

And the same with the imaginal. It can be very ordinary or very strange. Intensity does not necessarily translate to potency, and it's potency we're interested in. Intensity can just be right then that experience feels intense, and it's like, "Wow, now I have to tell the teacher, or I have to tell my friends," or I get worried, or whatever it is, and then maybe half an hour later or whatever, a few days later, it's like, nothing came of it -- maybe. Other times something is not intense at all, and actually, because we're relating to it wisely, and skilfully, and with the art, and with the discernment, and the beauty of that navigation, the subtlety of that, actually what was not intense can be very potent long-term. Or someone has the doubt, "I don't really get any images." I've been through this on the other retreats. Really? Look. You might not get any visual images, but images can come -- in the way we're using it, that word, it doesn't just mean visual at all. There might not be anything visual involved at all. It involves any of the senses, okay? We said that before.

And also, our life is full of fantasies and images in the sense that I'm using that word. Look where you love. Pay attention where you love, where there's a sense of meaningfulness in your life. There is the operation right there. Somehow involved in that is the movement and the operation, the saturation of images and fantasies, in the good sense that I'm talking about -- where you love, where things are meaningful, where something is meaningful. But I've been through all that before.

What's more a problem, as I also said, is reification, meaning identification with an image, a rigidification of the sense of self, concretization of the sense of self, a realism of the image or of the self. Jung's word, 'inflation,' is perhaps misleading. I think what he cautioned about inflation with respect to images, etc., I think what he really meant, as far as I understood, is more -- it would be better to have said the problem is identification. Maybe he had a mixed thing in his message, but I would like to say actually that the problem is really reification, identification, realism, concretization, literalism.

[30:04] It's not a problem if, to the undiscerning mind, an image seems grandiose. Oftentimes we think, "I can't possibly entertain that kind of image." Sometimes they're beautiful images, images of service, and someone goes, "Oh, that's too grandiose. That's me in some Mother Teresa fantasy," or whatever. Or if an image seems ungrounded because it's very light and insubstantial and involves a kind of flying or all kinds of things, or if it's weird as I said, or pathological, or if it's not politically correct, or psychologically correct -- for instance, if it's a sexual thing, and it involves some kind of domination or submission, that kind of thing, "That's not psychologically correct. That's not politically correct," this or that. The undiscerning mind can be too quick to jump in here with certain pre-packaged psychological truths about what it's suspicious about, what it's afraid of.

But rather, the problem is realism, reification, identification. It's a problem if, as we said, there's not a kind of equality and pervasiveness of seeing image as image, of seeing the emptiness of everything -- so self, other, world, eros itself, body, all this must be seen. If it's lopsided, where we see image as image and where we don't, where the soulmaking is able to open up the dimensions and where it isn't, that also can be problematic, as we've talked about. Or if there's a rigidity. We talked about, for example, the image or the ideal of being a passionate person, or being an equanimous person, and the image and idealization that's kind of wrapped up in that can actually be a kind of attachment. There's an attachment to an image of what eros looks like, passionate like this, for example. There's a rigidity there to the image. So all these are more the problem.

As I said, I think, certainly on the Re-enchanting the Cosmos retreat, I'm interested in a path that actually really has an understanding of emptiness as a basis for the whole path, understanding the emptiness of everything without exception. What happens when that is placed as a basis of the path? Not just emptiness as sort of something we add on as an advanced thing, or something that's an option. And not an understanding of emptiness that leaves some things tacitly not empty -- the process, or the time, or the awareness, or the 'things as they are,' or whatever it is. So a basis in emptiness lies at the fundament of all this. There's a basis of emptiness, not a truth claim, not some or other truth claim. It's quite a different orientation -- you could say not so interested in building on reality claims and what is reality, but rather on efficacy or potency.

If we look this way, if we conceive this way, what happens? If we conceive in this slightly different way, what happens? What is the effect, the efficacy? What is potent there in terms of what it opens for the being, for the vision, for the sense of existence, for the life? What happens when we conceive only that way, or look only that way? So efficacy and potency (rather than reality) as criteria for how we move here and what we kind of base our judgments and discernments on. This I know is difficult sometimes, this idea of, "It's not real. How do I trust something that's not real?" And if it's not real, or if I'm supposed to question, "Is it real? Is it not real?", and if I have this unsureness there about understanding the real or not real sort of Middle Way, a lot of doubt can come up with that. An understanding of emptiness really opens a tremendous amount of possibility. It gives a basis of legitimacy to all kinds of beautiful and exciting soulmaking avenues for us. When we really understand the emptiness of all this, the doubt can really subside.

But some people may be not quite ready for that. So I appreciate that. I also think that this can be developed. We can really develop this kind of stance and understanding that is a kind of Middle Way between real and not real, a kind of version of the Middle Way related to the imaginal, between existence and non-existence, that that's developable. We can really develop that as we're going with these kind of practices, or rather in parallel through emptiness meditation, or just through the imaginal itself.

In terms of the emptiness understanding, oftentimes there's some degree of insight into emptiness that a person can draw on. For example, someone maybe hasn't done the whole emptiness thing and really seen the emptiness of everything (that's actually pretty rare), but they've done enough to see some degree of the emptiness of self to a certain level. Right there, they can draw on that parallel insight, because they see some degree of the emptiness of self and yet they don't dismiss the self. They don't spit at it or ignore it. They have respect for their self and for other selves. They have care for the self, for selves. And they perceive selves, knowing that they're empty; they have that insight, but they perceive them and they relate to them, and sometimes they drop that perception, etc. Knowing that they're empty, they can perceive, relate to, care for the self.

So that's a level of this seeing that something isn't real and yet entering into relationship with it, a relationship of respect and interaction, and taking seriously and caring. Similar with the imaginal. If you think, "Oh, I don't know how to do that," maybe draw on some level of the insight into emptiness that you already have integrated. You see: emptiness does not mean I need to completely reject something, or I never perceive it, or I never respect it. It's the freedom to move. When we see the emptiness of something, it opens up a freedom of choice of ways of looking. So yes, I can see through this thing, and kind of not give it attention, or I can give it attention. I'm free. The emptiness makes me free either way. I can relate to it knowing that it's empty, but still respecting and caring. Same with images.

And my experience teaching this is also that someone can have very little understanding of emptiness from their previous practice, and there's somehow a sense for them that they can notice in working with the imaginal that, as I think I said the other day, it has this kind of theatre quality to it. It's definitely not real; it has a different kind of quality. The way that I'm seeing this self in interaction, or the way that I'm seeing this other, it's got this quality to it that's as if theatre. It's not real, but there is a kind of reality to it. It's somewhere there, but I'm in between there, if you like, in a Middle Way. I'm not just relating to this self's process, then, the image of the self undergoing this process and in this relationship, imaginal relationship, as just real, or what I see of this self is just a reality there. There's an element, or rather a feel, a quality of theatre to it. I'm not sure whether that word, 'theatre,' is related to the word theos for 'divinity.' But that sense, even without practising emptiness, sometimes people can actually get that sense that, "Oh, yeah, that feels different," even in opening to the imagination in regard to some kind of psychological work on the self.

For example, I was talking the other day with someone working with the inner child, that whole work in therapy which was popular some years ago, or certain other ways of working where the imagination is allowed, some Ridhwan inquiries, etc. There's the imagination at work there, and very skilfully used, very beautiful, but the self inquiring, the self looking at that imagination regards it as real: "This is a real aspect of self." It doesn't have the quality of theatre to it. So imaginal is something different. We can notice when it's one and when it's the other, even if I don't know anything about emptiness. It's got a different quality to it, the quality of theatre, the quality of not being real, yet still being really potent, really beautiful and really moving, really transformative.

[41:01] Again, something I mentioned before, but it's so important to say it again: the big picture, the conceptual framework, will help with our sort of doubt in the big sense, but also in terms of micro-choices, moment-to-moment choices in practice. So that's really, to me, quite important there, to have that sense as much as we can, to build the big picture, the conceptual framework: "How does this all work? How does it fit together? Where are we going? What does this mean as opposed to that?", etc. It really informs our choices. But all this is really an art. I like to think of it as an art. For me, one element or one aspect of art is there is a conceptual framework involved. No matter who you think you are -- free jazz, I'm going out of tonality and out of rhythms -- sorry, there's still plenty of conceptual framework. Jackson Pollock, whatever it is, there's a conceptual framework there.

And, if it's art, it involves a conceptual framework and the intuition, the following of hunches that arise, the arising of what surprises us and what's unexpected in the process of the making of the art, in the process of working in the meditation and with the imaginal relationship. Then there's the improvisation of responses to and the navigation of all that. That includes the art of working with the energy body and the art of the different emphases, and leaning this way or that, more or less, that we discussed before. So all that is involved in the art, and all that helps in relation to our doubts and kind of unsurenesses with regard to all this.

Understanding the conceptual frameworks, as I said, gives context, gives support, like that trellis in the rose garden, giving support to what wants to flower. And out of that conceptual framework, it frames and gives rise to, helps to shape and direct, our intentions -- which help so much, because the intention is for soulmaking, for the increase of the sense of the sacredness, the widening of the sense of sacredness, the diversity of the sense of the sacredness, for the perceptions of the other subtle dimensions, for subtle discernments, sensitivity. All these intentions are given, if you like, are determined or handed to us by the conceptual framework that we're developing. So all that really helps.

But discernment. Discernment is so key. For example, regarding the discernment between what we're calling desire, what we're calling craving, what we're calling eros, and the various responses there, discernment and response-ability. All that's really important. What is the appropriate or right or necessary order for you? Now, at this stage in your practice, in your life, what's the necessary order of practice development with regard to what we're calling craving, with regard to what we were calling clinging and its relationship to that deep investigation into emptiness, and that whole revealing of the deep meaning of dependent origination, and with eros? Even just with those three -- with craving, the exploration of what we're calling clinging, and what we're calling eros -- what's the order necessary for you, your soul's calling? Just discerning that is not always so easy. And I don't want to shove it into a formula: "You have to do this before you do that." I don't think souls fit in formulae so easily at all.

I want to explore making a little more finer distinctions, discernments here. So, for instance, the question of eros in relationship to resting, and also in relationship to jhāna practice, and in relation to mettā practice. Some of this we'll revisit, but I just want to say a little bit about this now. You get a sense of how the discernment can go even deeper. So human beings, you know, we need to discharge, if you like. Kind of like energetic systems, sometimes we need to discharge after we've been charged up, certainly when the charge is just stress, but even when the charge is wholesome -- some creative endeavour or inspiration that comes through us, or beautiful kind of electricity of the being, flame of the being that's there at times. There's a charge there, and the system needs to discharge, often or usually. So we rest. We find different ways to rest.

Now, what's the relationship between rest and eros? Because we can rest with or without the erotic-imaginal. So perhaps more often we're accustomed to a resting, a going to sleep, that's a kind of wanting to turn the world off. It's a vibhava-taṇhā, the kind of craving for non-being, if you like, that we talked about in some of the first talks. There's not the interest alive there; I just want to basically go into a kind of 'not engaging' mode. There's not the interest. There's no image alive there. There's nothing imaginal. And there's no soulmaking or eros there because there's no image. No aliveness there really, and we just want to rest, to turn off.

Other times, probably more rare but really available to us is a kind of resting where we're still in relationship with the imaginal -- either the intrapsychic imaginal other, or the imaginal perception, the fullness of the imaginal perception of something or someone in the actual world. There's the eros there in the imaginal, in relationship. And sometimes there can be, with that kind of resting, a really beautiful, pervasive blessedness at the same time as resting. Here, actually, because the erotic-imaginal is involved, the sense of the self, the image of the self, the other, the world, the eros itself -- all these in that co-constellation are alive, multidimensional as images. They're alive as images. They have that multidimensionality, and perhaps even the sense of divinity that comes with that as the dimensionality gets richer, deeper. The eros-psyche-logos dynamic is alive there. It is working and moving, and there's rest. Usually then the rest feels very -- there's a real quality of beauty and blessedness. So that's perhaps rarer, but really available. Can we discern the difference there?

Sometimes, in regard to rest, what we want is a cosiness. We want to be cosy. And that's quite an interesting one, perhaps, relatively speaking. Is the imaginal operating there with this desire that we have when we want to be cosy and rest? Is that what I just referred to, this kind of resting in relationship with the erotic-imaginal, where there's the blessedness and the aliveness of the multidimensionality? Some of you will know those Celestial Seasonings teas. They make different flavours of teas. There's one -- I don't know if they still make it -- called Sleepytime tea. On the box, the cardboard box for it -- I can't remember; I think I remember -- there's a sort of drawing, picture, of a cute teddy bear dozing in an old armchair in his sleeping gown or frock or whatever they're called, those old-fashioned things that people used to sleep in, and a sort of floppy sleeping hat. He's by the fire in his living room, in his 'snug' -- I learnt that new word because I have one [laughs] in the cottage that I'm renting. A snug is a little, old-fashioned living room with a fireplace and armchairs. It's little, and the whole idea is that it's snug, it's cosy. Actually, the one I have is completely freezing and draughty [laughs], so I don't even sit in there, but that's the idea. He's in this old armchair, dozing, in his sleeping gown and floppy sleeping hat by the fire.

Okay, well, there's an image. There's the image on the box of the tea, and it has a certain attractiveness to us. But I would say it's not an image for us unless there's the eros; unless there's this sense, as I said, of dimensionality, multidimensionality; unless there's a sense of it opening to a kind of sense of sacredness or divinity; unless the eros-psyche-logos, the soulmaking dynamic, is aroused, ignited, inseminating each other; and there's an interest in the image and in the images of self, other, world and eros in the constellation. Now, that image, that kind of image of cosiness may be an imaginal image. It may be an image in the sense that we're talking about. But in the discernment, the question is, is it? In this moment, for you, is it that? Is it really imaginal in the way that we're talking about it, or is it just an image in the flatter, cheaper sense, if you like, that's in common parlance?

[53:07] And of course, even if it's not an image, it may still have its place in our life, you know. That's fine. But we're talking about the discernment: when is it eros? When is it imaginal? When is it not? More interesting than that is the whole question of what's present and what's involved in states of jhāna, or states of less fabrication where there's a lot of letting go, a lot of reduction in clinging and, for example, we're resting in awareness, or resting in a vastness of awareness, or in a state of so-called 'just receiving,' etc.; any of those states of less fabrication or states of jhāna. The progressive states of jhāna are actually states of less fabrication. This is actually more interesting with regard to eros. There's a kind of rest in these states, but they're very alive as well. This is quite interesting. In relation to eros, it's quite interesting, and we'll say maybe more about it as we go on.

In themselves -- is there such a thing as 'in themselves'? Is there such a thing as anything in itself? No, there isn't, because of emptiness and dependent origination. But for the sake of what we want to draw out right now, let's just go along with this idea. In themselves, these states are only soulmaking in a quite limited way. Why? Because they involve actually a quietening of image. Jhāna, etc., states of less fabrication -- both perception and imaginal perception are getting less. There's a quietening of the imaginal faculty, among other things. And although the series of, let's say, jhānas or states of less fabrication, although it moves on -- so there's something beyond this state, until a certain point -- each state by itself doesn't have an unfathomability, a sense of unfathomability of meaningfulness. It might have another kind of unfathomability. I actually think jhānas are unfathomable in quite specific ways -- for instance, the degree of concentration is, in a way, infinitely increasable in any jhāna. But there's not this sense, in each state by itself, in each jhāna or in each state of relative unfabrication, there's not a sense in that state of the unfathomability of meaningfulness within the state.

So this is quite interesting. What does that mean in terms of the eros and the imaginal? It means there's, as I said, a limited kind of soulmaking involved in those states. Now, part, or a dimension of the soul -- at least what I would like to think of now as a dimension of the soul -- there is a dimension of the soul that loves and desires to know oneness that comes with those different states, different kinds of oneness, and desires transcendence, and desires the Unfabricated. That dimension of the soul is, of course, very nourished by these states. But the dimension of the soul that we've more been talking about so far is only nourished and supported by these states, and it's only involved with the practice of the jhānas or these states of less fabrication, through the fantasies and conceptual frameworks that are in place around or are involved in the experiences. These fantasies and conceptual frameworks may support the soulmaking dynamic, the ignition, the insemination, the expansion and enrichment of the eros-psyche-logos dynamic.

It's an important distinction. For example, when there's pīti or rapture, bliss, in the first or second jhāna, say, a person might interpret it -- in a certain context, without a certain teaching or with a certain teaching around the whole experience -- you don't have to be a Buddhist to go into the first or second jhāna [laughs]; it's like, these are just human experiences. But a person might say this experience, this experience of total bliss and rapture and white light or whatever, was or is God making love to me, making love to my soul. There's a certain concept and fantasy, image, of the experience. Or a person might say that experience of the first or second jhāna, or that bliss, that rapture, was my participation in -- I entered into a consciousness of my participation, mind and body were conscious of participating or more fully participating in the divine or the cosmic Satcitānanda, to borrow from another tradition -- the being, consciousness, bliss of some of the Indian traditions that they talk about. Now, neither of those -- God making love to my soul, or my participating in the divine being, consciousness, bliss, Satcitānanda -- neither of those is a classical Buddhist idea, of course.

What's probably much more likely within a Buddhist framework and a Buddhist stream of teaching is the sense of, "Wow, not only was that really amazing and pleasant and beautiful in its way, but I am experiencing what the Buddha described." Come out of this jhāna, first or second, go through these jhānas, however many, and there's really a sense of, "Wow, that really matches his description. I am now experiencing what the Buddha taught and described thousands of years ago. I feel myself walking the path of the elders, walking in the path of the tradition." This can be such a beautiful feeling and such a striking sense.

[1:00:14] But there are fantasies wrapped up in that -- fantasies of tradition, fantasies of self. I'm using this word in a good sense, 'fantasy.' Fantasies of tradition, fantasies of self, fantasies of awakening, moving towards awakening, on the path towards awakening, fantasies of the Dharma, all that. So the soulmaking, in the way that we've been talking about it, comes in the fantasies and in the concepts around the experience of the quietening of the perception, the unfabricating, the jhāna, the quietening of the imaginal, and also in the longing to know, to attain and experience those states that are beyond what I already know. They kind of live in my imagination as a beyond for the pothos to want more of. The very beyondness creates an eros, and in relation to them and the self and the tradition, all of that, there's this erotic-imaginal connection. But it's in the fantasy and the concept around, for the most part, the kind of soulmaking that we've mostly been talking about on these retreats.

To make another discernment, just to draw out the subtleties of discernment here, what about the experience, for example, of resting in the lap of the Buddha, or resting in Grandma's love? Remember if you were there at the Re-enchanting the Cosmos retreat, we did the exercise at the beginning with the imaginal figure of love.^[2] We called it 'the imaginal figure of love.' Some people probably chose a figure, for example, like Grandma, which we talked about a little bit later, and Catherine and Nic sang that beautiful Bill Withers song about Grandma's Hands.^[3] So when I'm resting in the lap of the Buddha, so to speak, or in Grandma's love, is that or is that not the imaginal? And is that eros? So there's plenty of love there. There's certainly the use of the imagination -- Grandma, or this imaginal figure, whether it's Grandma or Grandpa, whatever, and there's the Buddha and whatever. So there's the use of the imagination.

But if Grandma or whoever it is in the image, if this figure of the imagination represents simply mettā or simply unconditional love, that's actually great and lovely, and can be really, really helpful and important, but if it's only that, and I'm not deeply interested in Grandma, if I really want only the feelings of warmth, the feelings of comfort, of cosiness, of security, or if I just want the quality of mettā, then this figure of the imagination will not be soulmaking, will not be imaginal, because there's not the eros there. I'm not deeply interested in them. It won't stimulate the eros-psyche-logos dynamic, or it will stimulate it only to a very limited degree. Grandma, or the Buddha, whatever it is, in that instance, is not for me an erotic object. Remember, erotic doesn't need to be sexual. She's not an erotic object in the sense that has this unfathomability of wanting more, of discovering, of enriching, complicating, through the eros-psyche-logos dynamic.

There's not an aliveness and arousal of the interest in her and her depths, if you like, her dimensionality. There's not the sense of the divinity there. It's very sweet. It's very lovely. It's very helpful. There's not the divinity, the unfathomability, the mystery that one finds. I don't find that in her, those aspects, those dimensions. Maybe with Grandma or with the Buddha in that kind of flatter way, we want to sleep a bit, and just sleep and rest in that kind of love, in that kind of comfort and security. That can be really okay, but it's not soulmaking. Just to make this discernment. It can be really okay, and it may be actually necessary sometimes, perhaps at certain stages in our life or certain stages in our practice. It may be really necessary, but it's not soulmaking. Or it may be that we're relating to it, because we're actually using it in a certain way -- we're using this imaginary figure, figure of the imagination, to get in touch with, for instance, the quality of mettā, or a certain degree of mettā, and then we actually forget them. We forget Grandma. Grandma, in that case, is just a springboard, a kind of touchstone for or towards a quality of mettā. So it's skilful: you use that, you get the quality, and then you can forget Grandma. Great, skilful. It's, as I said, a springboard, a touchstone into the quality of mettā. But the soulmaking then will be limited. It will be limited soulmaking because it doesn't have this interest in her and her unfathomability and her dimensionality and her depths.

So if at any time I'm primarily looking for pleasure or for rest in this sense, or just for the quality of mettā, or if the self and the other, the images of self and other, are too concrete and not unfathomable (as images are, in the sense that we're using them), not unfathomable, they're too concrete, then at best in those cases the soulmaking will be very limited and the opening and the expansion and the fecundity of the soulmaking dynamic, of eros-psyche-logos together, working together, will be very limited. So there are all kinds of discernments that I think are important as we sort of develop these practices, develop our range and go into this territory.

Another discernment, another thing to notice, is where for you is the imaginal, the soulmaking, the erotic-imaginal alive, and where is it not alive. For example, some people, in meditation, or with respect to meditation practice, there's actually very little eros. There's very little arousal of interest maybe in general, but there's very little in the way of images, imaginal images of self/other/world/eros, alive with respect to or in meditation. Whereas in some relationship in their life or some actions in their life, all that is alive -- the interest, the images of self/other/world/eros, are alive there and soulmaking. Maybe in relation to service, or maybe in relation to activism, or in relation to one of those but not the other. Perhaps service but not activism, or activism but not service. It could be anything. Whereas in practice, in formal practice, there's very little eros there. Other people, it might be the other way around: that the eros and the soulmaking is alive in and with respect to meditation practice, but in actual life it's harder to be suffused with the imaginal, to be impregnated with the imaginal; harder for life to become imaginal in our perception; harder for soulmaking in life, in activity and relation to the world more widely.

[1:09:13] Now, either of those two types or categories, if you like -- either the one who has the soulmaking in the world but not in the meditation, or the other who has the soulmaking in the meditation but not so much in the world and activity -- very easily, when something's not working in my practice, very easily one of the sort of answers that a person gives themself is, "I need more concentration. I need more samādhi." Maybe. Maybe that's what needs to happen in your practice to open it out, to make it more potent, etc., more widespread, pervasive in its potency and deeper. Maybe that's really what you need, more concentration. But maybe not.

Again, just a sort of little footnote here: please hear all these teachings in context. I'm a little bit addressing common assumptions that I meet as a teacher, at the same time as probably -- I don't know -- a good proportion of my teaching over the years has been teaching samādhi, teaching jhānas, and really helping people develop that art and the mastery there, and go deeper and deeper through the jhānas. So please take this right now in context. But oftentimes people have this thought, "I need more concentration. I need more focus," etc. It might be that's what needs to happen. Or it might be actually that what needs to happen is the imaginal needs to be released. There needs to be more suffusion and more fullness and opening of and opening to the imaginal -- a wider, deeper imaginal sense, igniting, involving eros, the interest, the eros-psyche-logos dynamic and soulmaking. Maybe that's what needs to happen. So somehow I need to allow it to spread to the areas where it isn't.

Or it might be that the kinds of images and fantasies that are operating are too restricted, too narrow. Again, there could be many, many examples here, and I've given [examples] in the past in relation to engagement or whatever it is, or also in relation to actual meditation. Many possibilities. For example, and just one I'll mention here, sometimes it's very understandable with some people, because of what they've been through and everything, that they tend to look to meditation for rest, for some degree of comfort, and yeah, even cosiness or a sense of safety. That can be very understandable, and quite important sometimes. But maybe a person also has been in that and actually got stuck in a narrow range of image in relation to meditation and practice, and that's what needs to expand, the imaginal range -- for instance, to include images and fantasies of struggle, of courage, of putting up with difficulties; the fantasies of nobility, the nobility of courage, the nobility of being able to sit through the fire, through the struggle, through the difficulty; the nobility of the soul's willingness to do that, the self's willingness to do that, the beauty of that.

Sometimes that whole range of fantasy is missing in a person. They just don't have that there. And without these, you know, with all the best intentions, there's a kind of flaccidity in their practice. Somehow something keeps collapsing because it doesn't have the imaginal support, doesn't have the filling out of the beauty of the fantasy that would allow one to sit through the difficulty. It's not rendered beautiful. The courage, etc., is not given this nobility through the beauty of the fantasy and the richness of the fantasy. There's a caving in, again and again. Something collapses. Something just stops practice. You just stop practice, turn away from the difficult, always looking, every time, for what's easy, for what's comfortable, because there isn't the imaginal support for something else, for a different relationship. If we do that every time, that has massive consequences in terms of the kind of patterns it sets up, certainly in meditation, but also then in one's life. Massive consequences. So that's just one example. I could give many, and quite opposite ones, whatever.

But really this discernment and noticing where the eros, the imaginal and the soulmaking, is alive for us, and working beautifully, and potent, and impregnating, and where it's not. It's for us to look and see in our lives. Related to that, of course, is the discernment and the noticing: what do I really desire? What do I really want? What is it that I long for? Do I even allow my being to have deep longing? This is an interesting question, and we'll come back to this. But there's the discernment of, "What do I long for?" And then there's also discernment if I can let myself feel at times the deep longing of my soul. There's a discernment within the longing as well, which is quite interesting. Deep, intense longing has this bittersweet quality, sometimes hard to bear, and yet it also has a great beauty in it. But that's longing. It's a desire for me: "I want this. My soul yearns for this."

But wrapped up in the very longing is another aspect. It's telling me about what I'm devoted to. It's telling me about what I serve already or what I want to serve. The longing is telling me what I'm devoted to. It's not just "it's for me," but it's telling me what I'm devoted to, what I serve or what I want to serve. So the longing, the experience of longing, if we can bear it and open to it and even nourish it, can help us discern what we want to serve. Through my longing, through my deep desire, it's telling me something. It's guiding me. So with the longing, there's both important aspects: what do I want for me, for this soul? It wants something for itself. And it's telling me about what I want to serve. They're facets, if you like. We can discern between two facets of the same current, the same deep current, deep movement of longing.

And again, in relation to all this and the doubt that arises, why is this important? Why is this thing about longing important? Well, it's exactly what matters most deeply to us. It's almost a definition of importance. It's what matters most deeply to us. And it matters to make these discernments. Craving -- it matters to discern what is craving. If I'm not conscious of craving, and if craving gains in power, in the way that we're using it, what happens? I end up squandering my energy. I end up squandering the treasures I've been given. I end up dissipating my soul, if you like, my citta, the energy, the strength, the coherence of it, the beauty of it, the gift of it. I squander and dissipate. In the end, I squander and dissipate my life and my soul through craving.

The discernment of what we mean by 'clinging,' and the exploration of all that, why is that important? Because through that I can really understand something profound, radical, utterly surprising, in a way that opens up the whole sense of existence. That's important. It's important to know what matters most deeply to the soul, the longing. It's important to know what is craving and therefore squandering or dissipating one's life. It's important if it's given too much leeway and power. It's important to investigate clinging because of the jewel of the Dharma and the teaching of dependent origination, emptiness, what that can open for us. And it's important to discern eros because it brings soulmaking, and soulmaking is what the soul needs, what the soul loves. Soulmaking is what the soul needs and loves. And soulmaking needs eros -- or souls, to different degrees, let's say, need eros and soulmaking, more or less. We'll say more about that later. But it already exists. Eros and soulmaking in our life already exists. It's important to acknowledge it, to see it, to discern, to see that it's different from craving or just any old desire or whatever, to understand its movement and to care for it. It's important to make these discernments, to be clear, and to care for what serves, what opens beauty, opens a sense of the sacred.

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1. SN 51:20, discussed in Rob Burbea, "Dilemmas and Delineations: How did we get here?! (Part 1)" (18 Jan. 2017), https://dharmaseed.org/teacher/210/talk/40163/, accessed 25 Aug. 2020. ↩︎

2. Catherine McGee, "Reflections -- Finding Your Figure of Love" (28 July 2016), https://dharmaseed.org/teacher/41/talk/37002/ and "Practicing With Your Figure of Love" (28 July 2016), https://dharmaseed.org/teacher/41/talk/36995/, accessed 10 Sept. 2020. ↩︎

3. Catherine McGee, "Re-Enchanting Dukkha" (29 July 2016), https://dharmaseed.org/teacher/41/talk/36996/, accessed 10 Sept. 2020. ↩︎