Q & A

... A period of questions open, if anyone would like to ask. Juha?

Q1: differences between jhānas and satellite states; working with emotional, energetic, and soulmaking practices

Yogi: I have a question about primary nimittas, and you've talked about satellite states a few times. So last night, as I was practising with my base practice, it didn't feel like there were primary nimittas of pīti or sukha around initially, just with the base practice. Then, after a while, I noticed a sense of physical well-being in the body, which didn't exactly feel like pīti as I'd been used to, and it didn't really feel like happiness either. It was more of a physical, gentle calm. But that was what was around, so I sort of tried to absorb into it, and that worked to some degree. There was quite a lot of absorption into that state. But it didn't feel jhānic in the ways that other states have felt before. So then I started thinking, "Is this some kind of satellite state? Do all of the jhānas have satellite states?" And I also thought perhaps this is another kind of pīti which I haven't ... you know, it's a sense of physical well-being; it just didn't fit the box of how I've conceived of pīti before. And also some questions around primary nimittas, that you've encouraged us that the primary nimitta needs to be what we want to be focusing on in jhāna practice, and I began to wonder, why is that? If love is one of the characteristics of the second jhāna, for example, what happens -- why do you not encourage us to sort of focus on those aspects? And then also some questions around soulmaking, where you talk about infinitude of qualities that we can theoretically absorb into. So it's not one question, but just sort of an exploration of those themes.

Rob: Yeah. Well, how nice was it?

Yogi: It was nicer than any hindrances! [laughter] I think it could have been a bit brighter, perhaps. It felt a little bit sort of low-energy, maybe.

Rob: The pleasure could have been brighter?

Yogi: Yeah, the pleasure, or the state itself.

Rob: Okay. So it doesn't sound -- again, it's like, when to fuss over "Is it? Isn't it?", you know? But that's kind of partly what you're asking. So it doesn't sound jhānic. And yes, the nature of the pīti will change over time, and it will certainly change, as I said, after you've got more into the third, fourth, etc. They really have a sort of effect on the pīti. But the pīti -- they have an effect, but it's still, like, really yummy. It's not just they make it kind of "ngh." It's actually really nice, it's just different. It's mellower, but really, really nice.

So yes, we could talk about satellite states, or states in the neighbourhood. I'm not sure I would call that a satellite state, or a state in the neighbourhood. I'll talk, hopefully in the next few days, about different kinds of satellite states, where there's this very clear, amazing state, and there's this very clear, amazing state, and there's this very clear, amazing state, and they have some things really in common, as if they're part of a larger constellation. In a way, what it sounds like you're talking about is something just where some of the jhāna factors are a little bit gathered together, but not really in a way that they're really blossoming, you know? So I don't know, strictly speaking, that I would call that a satellite state, but it's in a certain territory.

The question practically, then, is "Is this fruitful, to hang out in that?" And obviously, compared to papañca, and compared to whatever else, it's skilful. It's fruitful. Is it going to be fruitful in the way that I can hang out in it, and the way that I'm hanging out with it allows it to blossom into an actual jhānic state of, say, peacefulness, or something like that? As I said when I talked about the third jhāna, it's a much safer bet to go through the happiness, and really drink. It's not to say that it's impossible, the other way, with just there's this kind of nice, calm feeling. It's not that it's impossible, and it's worth playing with and trying, you know? But generally speaking, it will be more the other way: from a really ripe, full, fleshy satisfaction.

Yogi: It didn't feel like how I would think the jhāna would feel like. It wasn't refined in that way. It was sort of the similar level of refinement as pīti, just without the sort of movement and energy.

Rob: Yeah. It doesn't sound at all like the third jhāna. So a lot of people, it will be very common -- we've talked about this several times now -- to mistake a kind of sense of calmness, maybe even one that they're familiar with (deep peacefulness, very quiet mind, etc.) for that territory. But the question is whether the way that I'm being with it can refine it. So it didn't feel refined, but the question is, can I be with it in a way that refines it? It is possible, but that's going to depend on a lot of things. Partly it will depend on, if I really have a lot of experience with the third jhāna, then the chances of a state like that refining into the third jhāna are much, much higher. If I don't really have much experience of the third jhāna, the chances of a state -- and I mean the real third jhāna deal -- if I don't have much experience of that, then the chances of a state like that refining and ripening ... it's not impossible, but it's not very high. Rather, it's much more likely to ripen through the second jhāna, etc., and that real fullness, and really, really getting into it.

As for the other secondary nimittas, you know, none of this is black and white. Of course, there's a lovely love there, of course you're going to want to explore that. It's just that if you make that your primary thing, it will ripen in something else. It will go in a different direction. So what we pay attention to is what gets amplified, but it also then sets a direction. So that's the reason. If we were on a retreat about exploring mettā, and different heart openings, and different kinds of love, and that kind of thing, then of course we would do that. But because we're on a jhāna retreat, we want to ... It's really something to keep this intention. It's like, "Okay, this is my road. Yes, there are lots of interesting things at the side of the road, and I can explore all that, but I need to remember this is my road," if we want to develop the jhānas.

As to soulmaking, yeah, there's an infinitude of that. What was the question with that? There's an infinitude of different states, and lovely things, and different openings, and ...?

Yogi: Yeah, I guess the question is that we're sort of selecting, in the jhāna path, a very specific trajectory, which you were just talking about. And then there's a curiosity of, well, what are the outcomes? How does it unfold if one begins to absorb into these other qualities? Like, sometimes in the second jhāna, there's a sense, or just in the sitting, there's a sense of nobility, for example, and then that would be more of an imaginal practice of taking that as an object, or feeling the resonance of that.

Rob: It may or may not be a fully imaginal practice. It could just be an energetic practice. So we did a thing ... was it on the opening evening? Just getting in touch with the sort of sense of devotion. Do you remember that? Something like that, it's very skilful. Laurence mentioned working with anger, then it goes to power. So those things are emotional/energetic practices, transformations. They don't necessarily need to be imaginal. For something to be imaginal, it involves a lot of different things happening. Yeah, all of these fruits are there, but like I said, what do we want to do? And it's not better or worse, because for some person, actually being able to feel into their devotion that's connected with their desire that way, and actually feel it in the energy body, and let that empower that, it's huge. For another person, or like what Laurence was talking about, the ability to be with an anger in a way that's not fragmenting the being, driving them crazy, hurting everyone around them, toxic, etc., to actually distil that in the alchemical vessel -- actually, let's not use that word; distil that energetically, emotionally, and find the power and strength there, that everything coheres around it, and then sit in that, and kind of act from there, speak from there, be from there, perceive from there -- that's huge, you know? Those things are huge.

So again, we have to really get clear: what is the larger context of what we're doing here? And to me, the larger context of what we're doing here, as I said in the opening, it sits within all these other practices, and feeds and complements all of them, and is fed and complemented by all of them, but it's also distinct. And if we're walking down this road, there's all sorts of, "Look at that lovely pear on that tree! And look at that over there!" It's fantastic. In the context of our larger life of practice, yes, we can go to that, and then there's a side road down where the apple orchard is, or whatever it is. Brilliant. But jhānas won't deepen unless that intention is really, "This is my road. This is my road. This is my road." It doesn't mean you can't have a few apples and pears on the way, but there's something about keeping it that way, to deepen in jhānas.

But yeah, there are more potential riches and openings than anyone can ever experience in their whole lifetime, whoever you are. That's the thing, especially when you get talking about soul -- I mean, when we talk about soulmaking. So there are things that are just kind of part of what I would call basic Dharma training, by which I mean things like working with anger that way; things like being able to be with, get a sense of my nobility, and that's energized in the heart, and it affects my sense of self, and it affects my life; things like being with the sense of devotion, and letting that empower; things like working with the emotions; emptiness, da-da-da, all that. And that's all a very large plate of stuff to get through in terms of basic Dharma practices. Very possible. But once you get to soulmaking, it becomes infinite. By the nature of what the soulmaking dynamic does, it will always create new openings, new states, new perceptions, new territory, new beyonds. It will create and discover new aspects of reality. So there's a kind of distinction there. But I guess what I was just calling the sort of tray or the plate of basic Dharma practice, it's probably quite wide, maybe compared to some other sort of presentations. But it's definitely possible, and that's something that one can do in a lifetime. Soulmaking, you'll never get to the end of it. Emptiness, you can get to the end of; jhāna, you know, etc. Does that make sense?

Yogi: Yes. Thank you.

Rob: Okay.

Yogi: Maybe just -- not a question, but a request. Earlier on in the retreat, you were saying that you were going to talk about soulmaking, and the relationship of that to the jhānas. You mentioned you had something, and then ...

Rob: Not as a big topic, certainly not. Maybe it was one little thing, which I've probably noted somewhere, to come later. But not as a whole big thing, no.

Yogi: Okay.

Rob: I don't think so. It would be too much, yeah.

Yogi: Thank you.

Rob: Hannah, yes. Please.

Q2: distinguishing pīti from sukha

Yogi: I wanted to ask about the difference between pīti and sukha. I got more used to pīti yesterday and today, and it really opens, almost opens up like an egg shape around the body that kind of pulsates in the same texture or vibration. And it felt it was becoming more subtle and more refined, in a way. And if I compared this to the sukha, which is still very wild -- I have to laugh sometimes, like, loud -- and I don't feel the sukha is more refined as the pīti. I just wanted to make sure if this is still something that can happen.

Rob: Do you mean by 'refined' calmer?

Yogi: No.

Rob: Okay.

Yogi: It could be a language barrier. I thought about this as well. I thought about this [?] that gets more ... fine.

Rob: Auf Deutsch? [yogis speaking German in background] So what you're using for 'refinement,' the word 'refinement' in German would be ...?

Yogi: Finer.

Rob: Like in English, finer, right?

Yogi: Yeah. Okay.

Rob: Hmm. I don't know. I mean, all I can say is it's early days yet. That's the thing about these Post-it notes. It may be that, at first, the experience of the sukha is just of a certain bandwidth of sukha, with a lot of bubbliness, which it sounds like. I don't quite know from your description what you're describing as pīti. So the egg shape thing should be there in every jhāna, because that's just part of what it is to have an extended energy body, and as the Buddha says, "permeating and pervading, saturating ..." So that's neither here nor there. That goes with anything. It is very much the case that there's a whole bandwidth for each jhāna, so there's a bandwidth of pīti in terms of, yeah, refinement, possibility, and even calmness, etc., and also with the sukha. So just from what you've said, it's hard to say. But I think it's good just to keep the exploration open. As you get more into the sukha and more into what you're calling pīti, maybe it starts to get clearer what the differences are, and you can discern a little bit. Other than that, from what you said, I'm not quite sure what else to say. They're both nice?

Yogi: Yeah.

Rob: Yeah, great. So no problem there.

Yogi: Okay.

Rob: Just keep exploring. It's almost like the more familiar we become with the kind of states we tend to open up into, the more we visit them, the more it becomes clearer what the distinctions are for us. Maybe that's all that needs to happen, really, at this point.

Yogi: Okay. Yeah, I just wanted to make sure that I'm still on the right track.

Rob: Very probably you are. But again, I would say provisionally, from a teaching point of view, if you think, "Oh, in my first jhāna, have I skipped, and I'm calling something that's actually the beginnings of the third jhāna, am I still calling that the first jhāna, and then I'm calling the sukha something else?" Do you see what I mean? If that's a concern, though, I would check with the emotion, because the emotion in the sukha is going to be primary -- this very warm, tender, exquisite peacefulness or satisfaction or whatever it is, depending on the level. But you're shaking your head, so it sounds like it's not that.

Yogi: No, the emotion is clear. It's more the refinement that I was concerned about.

Rob: Okay. Yeah, so I don't know, other than just hang out in both, lots and lots, and hopefully it will get clear. It should get clear. Yeah. But, you know, don't rush all these things. Probably everyone's got kind of Post-it notes still at this point, and that's appropriate, you know? Things mature. Things change. We notice different territories. We notice more as time goes on. Yeah? So basically, it's really nice, you're enjoying it, and it's just asking you to get more and more familiar with it, and then it will get clearer.

Yogi: Okay.

Rob: Yeah?

Yogi: Thank you.

Rob: Sure. There was someone here ... Andy, yeah?

Q3: going from second to third jhāna; spontaneous 'not me, not mine' arising in second jhāna

Yogi: So I have a question about going from second to third. Sometimes it feels like, especially if it's come from quite a kind of bubbly end of second, that when I get into third it's like coming from a really bright place into a darkened room, where it's kind of hard at first as we make out the nuances of third. It's like, "Okay, right. It feels peaceful." But I haven't yet seen the crystal clarity, or the tenderness, or the divinity, or those qualities. I've found that sometimes I actually end up in a space a bit like what Juha was saying, which is not really what I thought it was. So it's like, "Okay, that's not quite the kind of deep, dark pool of third." So ... yeah, what would you recommend at that point? It's just better to go back, or try and refine?

Rob: You could go back, because yeah, probably that place that you're describing that's not quite 'it' is one of these -- not hangovers, but habit results of your insight practice over the years. It's a state of relative equanimity and quietness, and the mind has got quite used to that, so you're ending up in that. So one thing you could do is come back to the second. Maybe you could even start feeling the drinking of the happiness as satisfying (as a verb, in present tense). You understand?

Yogi: Mm-hmm.

Rob: And maybe that will take you, for instance, to then satisfied. So you're tuning a little bit more to something more specific, that's more related to the third. So that's one option. Another option might be, or should be, with time, that you can ... you know, a lot of this, again, it just starts to become memory and subtle intention, so that what you're remembering -- and again, if it feels mature, if it's at that point where it's actually mature to do this -- you're actually remembering the whole set of qualities of the third jhāna, that whole gorgeous, realm-like, exquisite -- we were using 'divine' and those sort of words. You're actually remembering that flavour, and you bring that. You actually go there, try going there by memory of those things. Yeah? Does that make sense?

Yogi: Yeah.

Rob: So it's really a realm that you're remembering, almost, as opposed to just hanging out. Because you've been practising so long, there's probably a lot of momentum, and habitual momentum, to get into these other states that are, as we were saying, relatively skilful, relatively equanimous, relatively peaceful, relatively non-eventful, etc. It's all good. But if you want to make sure you don't bypass the actual third jhāna -- which, by this point, you can see the qualitative difference is quite marked -- then you have to aim a little more, either in the process of the second jhāna, with the 'satisfying, satisfying.' You see, what you're doing there, you're actually inclining the mind towards a certain emotion in the present, whose fulfilment is the third jhāna. Does that make sense?

Yogi: Yes.

Rob: Or, as I said, you're remembering a whole realm, or other aspects of the realm, apart from the fact that there's equanimity and peace there, you know? It may not be ready for that, but it may be getting there. We have to see. But that's part of the whole mastery deal. And you can maybe remember that when it's going well in the second jhāna -- you can maybe just lightly, subtly intend to remember that. Does that ...?

Yogi: Yeah, that's really helpful.

Rob: Good. Okay.

Yogi: I just want to ask one more thing. Yesterday I was sitting with a really bright, bubbly, quite silly, actually, happiness in second, and just really enjoying it, and then, suddenly, this spontaneous 'not me, not mine' came out of it. Just completely from nowhere. It was really surprising. And so then I had this happiness that wasn't about anything and didn't belong to anybody, and it had this kind of -- it was this really wonderful, magical, just like, "Wow!" And I just wanted to know whether there was anything worth exploring there, or whether I should shelve that for later.

Rob: I think that probably, to some degree or other, there is less self-identification with the happiness in the territory of the second jhāna. So usually when we're happy, it's connected to a story, and quite a more fabricated sense of self who is feeling very happy about something or other, and there's a whole projection in time, and with one's life. And all that's going, even if I'm not thinking and thinking and thinking. That's all there. It's all being fabricated to a certain extent -- the self, and then taking this happiness personally. In the second jhāna, naturally -- which I'll get to in the next couple of days -- the self, as we go through the jhānas, the self is less and less fabricated. I may modify that statement at some point. But it's less and less fabricated.

So in the second jhāna, there's very little personality. There's very little story. There's very little background history, and where I'm going, and what I want, and the whole rest of it, yeah? There's even very little psychological history. It's just happiness. So already, to a certain extent, there's a kind of, to some degree or other, there's a sort of "it's not me or mine in the same way that it would be for the usual sense of self." This is something we kind of notice as it goes on anyway. But because it's a little less identified, then it lends itself more to being seen as less identified, and you have a history of 'not me, not mine' practice, of anattā, of disidentifying, so it just kind of piggybacks on that.

It's available as a practice -- and again, I hope to talk about this at some point, and maybe even a few times on this retreat: we turn an insight way of looking onto a jhāna. Or let's say it this way: the jhāna itself, or the primary nimitta, becomes an object for an insight way of looking. I wouldn't recommend that to anyone at this point, okay? It's a whole other level of skill and art. But one can then regard this or that jhāna, the whole thing or one aspect of it, as 'not me, not mine.' And that becomes a super powerful practice, if you stay with it. You have to stay with it, stay with it, stay with it, and see what happens. But I wouldn't do that before you really know that jhāna inside out and it's really got established. Again, if you do that too early, so to speak, you risk being the foolish, inexperienced cow kind of thing that the Buddha was talking about.^[1] It will probably just slide all over without kind of knowing where you are, and then you might lose control. So we really want the jhāna itself to be consolidated, thoroughly familiar, thoroughly steady and established, and then, for some people, they can start doing their insight ways of looking on the jhāna itself, and that, as I said, is a both very lovely but super powerful way of practising. But I will try and talk more about that another time. Yeah?

Yogi: Thanks.

Rob: Yeah? Good. Mikael had one? Yeah.

Q4: balancing opening with penetrating and probing

Yogi: Thank you. I have a quick technical question about steadiness and enjoyment. What to do when it seems that when I emphasize steadiness, I start to lose somehow the capacity to enjoy, and when I emphasize enjoyment, I lose my steadiness, and mind starts easily wandering? They seem somehow to close each one out to some extent. What could be the answer?

Rob: What exactly happens when you emphasize the enjoyment?

Yogi: Well, my way to emphasize enjoyment, generally, is to open and open and open to the enjoyment, and really let go, and somehow fall into the lap of, say, happiness or pīti or something -- really let go, and let the whole consciousness and energy body sense open, and I just fall, somehow, into the arms of the nimitta. I wondered if this really opening, opening, opening strategy is actually causing some -- it's kind of, like, too much.

Rob: Yeah, thank you for saying that. This is so individual, and can change with time, but just immediately when you say that, it sounds like -- you know, you can't open too much, but what you can do is open too much relative to how much probing you're doing. So there's no end to how much you can open -- I don't think there is. We're infinitely deep human beings. We can just open and open. But relative to how much penetration and probing you're doing ... You can hear it in the way you're languaging it, Mikael. When you're doing that, you're kind of going into quite a passive mode.

Yogi: Yeah.

Rob: And that's the problem, okay? Whereas when you're penetrating and probing, with the intention, the agenda of enjoying, then it's really like they go together; the enjoyment and the sustaining go together. You understand? So it sounds like, for you, right now, in the mix of things, upping the penetrative probing with the enjoyment in the mix. For other people, for a lot of people, it's more opening that needs to happen. I said this already: people can think, "But I am opening," but actually one isn't opening as much as one could. One's so used to only a limited amount of opening in the being that one thinks, "I'm opening," but actually there's more opening to be able to do there. So all this is very individual. There are lots of modes of attention, but if you keep in mind these two sort of principles -- one's a bit more yang, if you like, and one's a bit more yin; one's a bit more active, one's a bit more passive or receptive -- if you just keep that in mind, and the necessity to play with both, and to move around, then the question becomes -- well, there may not be a question; it's all going fine. Or it might be like, "Am I overdoing it a little bit right now on one or the other?" And 'right now' might be for this six months I've gotten into a habit of overdoing on one side or the other, or it might be just in this moment, or this five minutes or whatever. Does that make sense?

Yogi: Yeah.

Rob: So when you probe, there's no mutual exclusivity between enjoying and sustaining. If I'm just probing, trying to enjoy to the max, I will obviously try and sustain -- it's like, of course. But if I go into too receptive a mode, then everything gets a bit loose. I'm not doing any work. I'm not really working there. I'm expecting everything to happen. But again, this is an answer I'm giving you right now, and for someone else, it might be that what's needed is the other one, and oftentimes without realizing it or recognizing that's what's needed.

Yogi: Yeah, thank you. Would you say, generally, that steadiness arises out of the balance of opening and probing? When it really hits the sweet spot of opening and probing at the moment, at the nimitta, at the context of the practice, that's where the steadiness arises?

Rob: I'm not sure. I feel a bit -- hmm -- hesitant to say that. The probing and the opening thing is a very fluid, responsive, sort of unformulaic thing. So really, we were just saying the most general thing, like, "Don't neglect one for the sake of the other," you know? So I'm not sure there's a sweet spot, per se, as much as just, you know, that whole movement is not only going to help sustaining -- it's going to help deepening, it's going to help absorbing, it's going to help all kinds of things. If we go back to the Buddha's original image, or rather, the image for the soap mixer with the first jhāna, it's quite active. You're kind of mixing something. There's something about moving between those modes that's also part of mixing. And, in a way, that applies to the other jhānas as well, in a way, or at a much subtler level. So I don't know that that's just about sustaining, as much as the whole show is just worked better. It's like kneading bread, working it in, the flour and the ... yeah?

Yogi: All right. Thank you.

Rob: Good. Yeah. Is that Nic back there?

Q5: what to do when probing leads to opening and the probing is lost

Yogi: Yeah, it's just related to part of that question about the probing and the receptivity. You just called it 'passive,' as well as the more active being with the nimitta. So I've just really noticed, naturally, I'm just much more receptive. The opening comes much more naturally, so with the pīti, it's really opening to that. And I've been really trying to, yeah, develop a sense of what the probing is like. It's unfamiliar to me. And what I've found, several times when I've ... So I've taken a part of the energy body which has felt particularly strong in pīti, and really put my concentration there and probed that, and what tends to happen, immediately there's an opening. The sense in the energy body then is, the probing goes almost immediately into -- it's like the sensation there just opens right up, quite big, and I feel like I've lost the probing already. And I don't know if this is just because I'm not very good at it yet, or if that's something that happens: when you probe into anything, there's space in there, and that's what you kind of fall into. So I'm a little bit confused about how to work with that.

Rob: Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I think it's very normal, and that's where I use that image of, like, imagine someone diving into a lake. That's a probing movement. That body becomes kind of streamlined in its shape, if you're diving and not just sort of splattering into the lake. If you're diving, there's this streamlined probing of one point in the water. But then, very quickly, you find yourself surrounded by water. You aimed at a point, but then it was like, "Oh, now I'm in a new territory." So that may happen [snaps fingers], as you're describing, very quickly, or it may happen at some point when you're probing. Very normal. But then you can just do the same thing again. So it's not like you're getting it wrong; you can just, "Okay, same again. Same again. Same again." And it's not like, "Right, same again, immediately! Quick! Don't lose any time!" The whole thing's just like, what feels helpful right now? So if it feels good, great. And then you may try doing it again and again and again. Or you may, at some point, switch to a more open mode, you know? It's not that we're trying to kind of eliminate any gaps in the probing. Do you understand? If it's opening that way, something is working. Does this make sense?

Yogi: Yeah, it does. Does it mean that you can't sustain the probe in one area, that it just won't sustain, but you can go back a bit later and probe somewhere else? Or can you stay much more probing?

Rob: Well, let's take this person who dives into a lake, yeah? They dive, and then they're underwater, and it's all around them. They could, if they want, just keep going in the same direction. They're in a bigger space, but they could just keep going in the same direction. It's something like that. Their perception is, rather than a spot that they're aiming at, aiming to dive right on that spot in the water, their perception is, "Now it's 3D around me, but I can keep going in the same direction."

Yogi: So it's more like a direction than ...

Rob: Yeah, yeah. Something like that.

Yogi: Okay. Yeah, thank you.

Q6: spectra of pīti and sukha, exploring the spectra or moving on to the next jhāna

Yogi: I'm wondering about the kind of spectrum between pīti and sukha, because I've been exploring the really, really subtle, fine end of pīti, where it's just really beautiful, tiny explosions, and loving it. And I'm less familiar with the sukha. But there are times when I'm in that bubbly, really bubbly energy, that that has much more pīti in it than, say, the fine end of pīti does, and I've been kind of playing with cross-fading pīti and sukha, and so it seems almost like pīti has this -- it's here, if that's the pīti spectrum, and then the second jhāna spectrum is here, as though you can almost go finer in pīti than you might at the top of the second jhāna. Does this make sense?

Rob: Not quite, and I couldn't quite see what you were doing with your hands there.

Yogi: Sorry. That's okay.

Rob: Can I say something and see if it helps? And if not, we'll try again. Okay?

Yogi: Yeah.

Rob: Yeah, so there is a spectrum of refinement across all the jhānas. As I said, the eighth jhāna is just unbelievably refined compared to -- well, actually, compared to any of the others, but compared to the first, certainly. So there's that spectrum of refinement. Then there's a spectrum of refinement -- well, again, it's maybe these words, 'subtlety' and 'refinement,' that get a bit confused. So I would probably say there's a spectrum of ... let's use the word 'calming' and 'refinement' differently. What gets confusing is maybe the word 'subtlety.' So there's a spectrum of calming sukha, for instance, through the second jhāna, and there's a spectrum of calming, the peacefulness in the sukha, in the third jhāna, as it gets towards the fourth jhāna -- all that. In the first jhāna, it's like, although pīti has a large range, in a way, it's not that the deeper end of pīti has a subtler or more refined pīti. If I said anything -- I probably wasn't that clear, because I think these words are getting slightly overlapped and confused, and I'm perhaps not being consistent with using them. The thing about subtle pīti is just that if that's all there is, then we need to be good with that, and be able to work with it, and kind of really okay with that.

Yogi: Yeah, I've been loving subtle pīti.

Rob: So that's all we need to do -- if you're loving it, and you can work with it, and you can get into it, great, fine. Tick. You've passed that particular thing. And generally speaking, then, it's like, if I've got all the other elements of mastery of pīti, then I really want to just be getting into the pīti, no matter how strong it is, until it just goes to the second jhāna, rather than keeping it at a subtle (or what you're calling refined) state. Do you understand? It's like, let's just do this thing until it gives birth to the sukha, and then we're going with the sukha. Does that make sense?

Yogi: Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, it was kind of like a nerdy question more than a problem, really.

Rob: Okay.

Yogi: I think that happened, and I can tell the difference of refinement in the quality between the pīti and the sukha. The bodily sensation of them feels different, and that seems clear to me.

Rob: Yeah, good.

Yogi: It just seems like there's ... Yeah, go ahead.

Rob: There are probably all kinds of, like, nerdy -- your word! -- corners we could get interested in and all that, but in terms of, like, okay, what do we want to do on this retreat, it may well be it's time for the second, and really ripening into that, and really getting into that. And then maybe sometime later you can come back and explore this level. In terms of priorities of ... yeah. So yeah, it may well be, and there are all kinds of interesting things, and that's great, but just in terms of setting our priorities, it might be that it's ripe now, and you're just holding yourself back a little bit unnecessarily, and we want to kind of move on, it sounds like, to me. Yeah? Okay.

Q7: micro-probing vs sustained probing; maximizing pleasure vs maximizing enjoyment; how certain kinds of attention make the unpleasant disappear

Yogi: I've developed two habits in my working with pīti that I wanted to check out with you and just make sure I'm not veering off course. The first is, because I think I'm not so good at probing without probing too hard and kind of turning it into -- what was the word the Buddha used?

Rob: Snatching.

Yogi: Snatching, yeah. I find myself kind of, like, micro-probing just for a second, like, "Pleasure over here! Pleasure over there! Pleasure over here!", and what can the being do to maximize it just for a split second here or there. Does that feel like a suitable substitute? Should I work on the way you describe it more?

Rob: My intuition would be no, it probably wouldn't really cohere that way, and it would be much more useful -- and probably useful in your life as well -- to be able to really sustain a kind of probing intensity without it being too tight.

Yogi: Okay.

Rob: So there's a jhānic skill here, but there's probably a mirroring on a life level of also, like, what is it to really be able to focus on something, and sustain that effort, and sustain intensity, without it being problematic, you know? But really, having said what my intuitive sense would be, I should have first said, "Well, how does it work? Does it work well?"

Yogi: It has resulted in jhāna, in first jhāna, a few times.

Rob: But not so consistent, or it feels like ...?

Yogi: It's probably the most useful thing so far, but I haven't had a whole lot of -- I don't feel super successful about attaining jhāna on this retreat compared to my expectations in the past.

Rob: Yeah. So you could do it sometimes, and also think about developing the capacity to probe, be very directed, be intense, without it being a kind of problematic grasping.

Yogi: Yeah.

Rob: And view that as something that you could develop. But don't give up this, because as you said, it's been successful sometimes. In the end, we want to find out what works best for you. No matter what I say or anyone else says, it's really what works best for you. But if you've got nothing to compare it to, then you're not actually going to know, "Is this the optimal thing for me, this method? Or actually, is it second or even fifth best?" And there may well be, like a lot of these things, when we talk about opening, when we talk about hanging out, there are fruits here to developing certain ways of working that may be worth more than the jhāna, in terms of life, in terms of desire, in terms of capacity to be intense sometimes in life and sustain that. Some of these things are much more significant than whether or not I get into the first jhāna or whatever it is. So there are different levels here. But try a few things, and it may well be that what you're describing actually is your method, and it works fine, no matter what anyone else says. But you don't know yet, because you haven't tried enough.

Yogi: Okay. Cool. And the other thing that I find myself doing, you've said "maximize the pleasure," and I think because of all my insight practice, I notice that my attention goes so easily to pain -- maybe it's just being a human. What I noticed myself doing yesterday was, "How could this not hurt, this place of pain?" Because when the jhāna comes, gross pain pretty much just goes away, and what I was finding yesterday was that focusing on a spot where there's pain, the pain would go down, just from the attention. I guess there's a certain degree of letting go in the way the attention is. That, I'm not sure -- it doesn't really seem synonymous with "focus on pleasure," or "maximize the pleasure." I'm just wondering your thoughts on that.

Rob: Well, there are two things. First of all, I didn't say "maximize the pleasure." I said "maximize the enjoyment." They're very different. Pleasure is in the object; enjoyment is in my relationship with the object. Do you understand the difference? Is that clear? This is really important.

Yogi: That's helpful.

Rob: That's really important. Then, just now, you said "focus on the pleasure," and that was an instruction at some points, because what we are trained in, maybe just as human beings, or habitually, and certainly as insight meditators, is paying attention to the unpleasant and the difficult. Mostly that's what most people spend most of their insight meditation retreats doing, is paying attention to what's difficult, in one way or another, and there's a real encouragement given for that, and development of willingness, etc. So when you come to jhāna practice, you realize that sometimes, what you can choose to do is focus on the pleasant. When there's unpleasant and pleasant, you can focus on the pleasant. You can choose to do that. And in doing that, you can learn all sorts of things -- not just about the tendency of the mind; actually, it's really hard, because the mind keeps wanting to go to the unpleasant. You don't say, "Why don't you just stay there?"; it just will go there. So there's something to learn about the tendency and habit patterns of the mind. But there's also, again, something to learn about dependent arising. Sometimes, when I focus on the pleasant, that pleasant amplifies, and it takes over, and the unpleasant disappears. What's going on? What do I need to understand about perception there? So there are at least two things to understand, if that's the case. One is just a jhānic skill -- that if I want to develop in samādhi, there are many occasions when it will be more helpful to focus on the pleasant and not the unpleasant. There's a life skill in that, but there's also a samādhi/meditative skill in that.

But then there's another level that has to do with dependent arising -- dependent arising of perception. How is it that this pain that has been there for however long disappeared, was unfabricated when I looked at the pleasant? Really, really important. Then there's a third option, or a third category, which is, as you said, sometimes I bring the attention to the unpleasant, and the unpleasant disappears. Just bringing attention to it makes it disappear? No.

Yogi: A certain kind.

Rob: That's the thing. It's a certain kind of attention. This is the thing: we talk about mindfulness, as if mindfulness is just mindfulness, and it's a pure thing; you bring mindfulness to this, you bring mindfulness to that. We don't. We bring mindfulness, plus about a hundred other things. Maybe not a hundred, but. We bring mindfulness plus intention, plus relationship, plus subtle aversion or grasping or not, plus equanimity, plus mettā, plus self-view, plus reality view. All this is in a moment of pure, so-called 'bare' attention. It's not bare at all. There's no such thing. Do you understand this? This is really, really important.

So what you find is sometimes I bring attention to a pain, and it makes it worse, because there's more aversion wrapped up, or there's a certain view, or there's a certain time-view: "How much longer?" Or whatever it is, or a certain reality-view -- all kinds of things. What's wrapped up in the mindfulness in that moment, or while I'm looking at it, is actually just fabricating more unpleasantness. Other times, one looks and brings an attention, and what's wrapped up in that attention, or what's absent from that attention, allows the pain to unfabricate. Other times, you bring it, and it just stays the same; whatever's in the mix of mindfulness is just kind of holding it at a level point.

Two important things. One is to realize this. There's an old teaching -- I remember a teacher saying, "If you pay attention to a pain, three things could happen: it could go away, it could get worse, or it could stay the same." And what's the insight there? In that, the insight was, "You can't do anything about it. Just put up with it." In other words, you're not in control of pain. This isn't my teaching; I'm talking about [someone else]. Have you heard this before? Have you heard anyone say that? It doesn't matter. Anyway. What we're saying here is, can I realize two things that are extremely significant: (A) that there isn't such a thing as 'bare attention' or 'pure mindfulness.'

And how do I know that? (I'll try and talk about this tomorrow.) Because I start experimenting with noticing what else is in the mindfulness, and then changing what else is in the mindfulness, playing with what else is in the mindfulness. And that equates as playing with perception. Okay, what is it to have a mindfulness that has much less aversion in it? Going back to Andy's thing, what is it to have a mindfulness that has "this pain is 'not me or mine'?" It has much less 'me' or 'mine,' much less identification. What is it to have a mindfulness that has much less "this is a real thing," or much less time-sense in it? These are all factors, in the real sense of the word. They do stuff -- from the Latin, factus. So they do stuff, and we want to realize that. And the only way we can really realize that is by actually getting skilled. Learning the art of playing with this is really, really subtle. And you start to realize, when I bring this kind of attention, let's say with no aversion, the pain will decrease. When I bring that kind of attention, let's say with more aversion, it will increase, etc., and all these other things. And they equate as, playing with this equates as what I'm going to call 'insight ways of looking.' I start to get really interested in "How does the way of looking affect the perception?" In this case, we're talking about pain, but it could be anything.

And in my view, that's the whole road of insight meditation. I start learning about playing with perception and its effects on the perception of anything -- the dependent arising of perception. And that has to do with emptiness (I'll go into this when I talk about it more), meaning this pain does not exist as a thing unto itself. It's dependent on how I look at it. When I say "how I look at it," or "way of looking," I mean how I relate to it, everything that's involved in my sensing of it. 'Way of looking' is just a shorthand for what's in my sensing of it -- my conception of self, of it, of reality, of materiality, of time, and also my relationship with it (a little bit push away, a little bit "I need to hang on to this because it's an important" -- whatever). All that's part of the way of looking, and the art is to really start exploring all that, and really playing with it, and eventually coming to the conclusion, "This thing, and that thing, and that thing, and that thing, and that thing, and this thing, and that thing -- everything, every thing, no thing exists independently of a way of looking. It's not any thing by itself." And that's what emptiness means. A thing, every thing, is empty of independent existence, of an existence inherently, independent of the way of being looked at in the moment. Does that make sense?

So there's a lot here. At the moment, it sounds like what you're bringing is a skilful attention, and it's disappearing. What I'm adding to that is: fantastic, and that little discovery there should pique your interest (as it is), and there's a huge, gorgeous avenue of insight exploration that takes you to the most profound insights, if you want to follow it and explore all that.

Yogi: But in the context of a jhāna retreat, should I not be doing that?

Rob: No, in the context of a jhāna retreat -- so then you've still got these different options. We could say, what order do we choose them in? So here's this pain. First thing is maybe don't focus on it. Just focus on the pleasantness. That's my first choice in the context of a jhāna retreat. I'm still, as I said, learning about dependent arising there, if the pain disappears. But in this context, if that doesn't work, then I can bring the attention to the difficult, and I can actually bring the attention -- you're doing the mettā as your base practice, right?

Yogi: For the most part, yeah.

Rob: Okay. So then I can bring my attention to the difficult, and I can work with it in two different ways. One is -- and we mentioned this already -- what if I make that very difficulty, that unpleasantness, that stuckness or whatever it is, I make that the centre of the mettā? So then, in a way, if we talk in terms of attention, I'm bringing a certain kind of attention to it. I'm looking at it in a certain way. There's a certain way of looking, which is, "Let's just imagine that that's where the mettā is coming from." [It] also involves the imagination, yeah? That would be like a second-choice way of working.

But a third choice, in this context -- in other contexts, it would be the first-choice way of working -- but in this context, you bring the attention to it, but you take care of what's wrapped up in that attention, primarily in terms of aversion and identification. But there are lots of other possibilities, and as we get deeper in this whole insight exploration, you also get much wider in terms of how many possibilities there are, and also the power of different ways of looking, so that, for example ... Does that make sense? The three?

Yogi: Yeah.

Rob: Yeah? So just to finish, then, going back to what Andy said, to view something as 'not me, not mine': "This pain is not me or mine." The conventional view is, "Yeah, well, it's happening in my shoulder," or whatever it is. So automatically, without thinking about it, we identify with it: "It's me or mine." To bring in a view, and actually practise this subtle view -- it's not a philosophy; it's a subtle [view], subtly woven into the attention; or, you could say, what we're doing is subtly taking out the habitual, subtle 'me, mine.' You understand? Rather than adding something, you're actually taking something out. Does that make sense? You're taking it out, rather than putting something in. Yes?

So then you start to realize, "Wow, that's really powerful." Then, as you develop this more and more, there are whole other kind of more powerful ways of looking. So to get to the point where you're sensing this pain, and woven into the sensing is "It's not real. It's empty. It doesn't exist independently," that's even more powerful, or rather, it works even more powerfully to unfabricate. Again, you could put that, flip it around: it looks like you're doing something extra, and people say, "I don't like doing in meditation. I don't like doing. I want to just be." Well, we're doing plenty all the time with this unconscious, habitual "me, mine, me, mine," or "It's real." Now, I don't walk around thinking and obsessing -- actually, I do, but most people don't walk around thinking and obsessing, "It's a real knee. It's a real pain," or whatever. There's just automatically, subconsciously, non-verbally, woven into the way of looking, 99,999 times out of 100,000, views of "me, mine" -- not verbal, not conscious -- and also views of "This is a real thing. It's a real thing."

At first, of course, when you do these practices, it feels like you're doing something: "Oh, now I have to remember 'me, mine, me, mine.' What a lot of work. I do this over and over," or 'not real,' 'empty,' etc., and there are different variations of that. But actually what you're doing is you're taking away in that moment, in those moments, a doing that has just become so habitual and is so unconscious that you don't even recognize it's a doing. Do you understand? So you can view that, as well, as a kind of less doing.

Who knows the story of Bāhiya and the Buddha?^[2] Monica, surely you know the story of Bāhiya! Yeah. "In the seen, just the seen." What does it mean? What's the Buddha getting at? It's bare attention, right? "In the seen, just the seen." You could read it that way. You could read it, "In the seen, just the seen," let's see what else, let's investigate what else we're adding to the seen, habitually, unconsciously, through avijjā, through ignorance, that we don't even realize. And "In the seen, just the seen," let's start taking those things away. See what happens. And that's why the Bāhiya Sutta ends with a description of the cessation of consciousness and perception, of the Unfabricated, the transcendent. The Buddha says "No air, earth, fire, water. No sun, no moon, no nothing. There's no form, no perception there." If it meant just bare attention -- he's given Bāhiya this instruction of bare attention, Bāhiya's gone and done his bare attention practice, and then what should Bāhiya end up with? He would end up with some kind of vivid sense of this moment and its pristine sort of reality. That's what you get from bare attention practice. But if you actually think about "in the seen, just the seen," maybe, hidden in there, is a teaching about, "What else is there? Can we remove those factors, and then see what you get?" And what will happen is all these factors are fabricators. To just say in different words what I said before, every time we're sensing something with an unconscious 'me, mine,' or an unconscious sense of its reality, it's fabricating that thing. I start taking out those -- and there are lots of hidden ones, even the belief in a present moment, it's hidden in, and then conception of time: there's a past, there's a future, there's a present. It's so everyday, woven in. No one's walking around like, "Is there a present moment?" It's not at that level.

Start taking these things away, what's going to happen? You're going to end up -- unfabricating, unfabricating, unfabricating -- end up in the place that's at the end of the Bāhiya Sutta, which is "no this, no that" -- disappearance of everything. That's why Bāhiya became an arahant. It's not because he ... Anyway. [laughter] Do you understand? So again, how we can read something or hear something a hundred times. I don't know -- how many times have you heard about the Bāhiya Sutta or read about it? Many, yeah. It's very common. And we just read and hear, and we're just thinking, or reading and hearing, listening with the same old ...

Yogi 2: Fabrication?

Rob: Fabrication, same old view, same old box, and it filters out any ... Actually, maybe -- I won't insist on it; I don't mind -- but maybe there's a whole other level here, and that actually makes sense of the two parts of the Bāhiya Sutta, because otherwise they're very strange. And it's an Udāna sutta. Udāna means 'inspired utterance.' And the inspired utterance in that sutta is not the "in the seen, just the seen," which is what you often hear in the teachings, as if that's the thing, that's the golden piece: "In the seen, just the seen," as an instruction for bare attention. The inspired utterance is actually at the end, when the Buddha describes the Unfabricated, the cessation.

It's a very terse instruction. If you take it as meaning one thing, it just totally disconnects the two parts of the sutta. They just don't make any sense together. They don't belong together, and the udāna has gone, the inspired utterance. It's gone, and it's significant -- that's why you hardly ever hear it mentioned in the context of the Bāhiya Sutta. Do you understand? I'm going to ... [laughter]

But anyway, the principle is really, there's a way of understanding what insight meditation is or can be. There's a way of framing what insight meditation is that just keeps opening up deeper and deeper into this territory of emptiness and dependent arising, and I would like to talk -- I've obviously talked about it already a bit, but. That's really also understanding what attention is, and things like that, and understanding these kinds of experiences that you're describing, and that's so, so important; so, so potentially profoundly fruitful. Yeah? Okay. Good.

Andrew? I don't know what time my interviews are. Does anyone know? Do you have a sense it will be a quick one, Andrew? Or you're not sure? It wouldn't be a quick one. Shall we save it for another time, and put you first on the ...?

Yogi: [inaudible]

Rob: Well, why don't you take the mic?

Q8: clues to deeper insight in the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta

Yogi: I really enjoyed that, Rob. I wonder if you could do the same thing with the mindfulness sutta, the Satipaṭṭhāna or the Ānāpānasati Sutta, whether within them you can also find clues to deeper insight.

Rob: I think so, yeah.

Yogi: And maybe also the jhānas in there somewhere. I don't know.

Rob: The jhānas in the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta?

Yogi: Yeah.

Rob: I'll just say one thing about the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, or one clue in the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, if that's okay for now, and then maybe we'll pick up the rest of it another time. Is that okay?

Yogi: Yeah.

Rob: Who knows the refrain in the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta? Like the chorus? What does it say? Does anyone remember?

Yogi: It says "arising and ceasing." [inaudible]

Rob: Yeah. So it says something like -- it goes through each foundation, a description of what you pay attention to, and then there's a refrain after each one. And part of the refrain says -- I can't remember the words as it usually gets translated, but something like, "Mindful of or attending to arising and ceasing." Do you remember? Something like that. "Attending to arising and ceasing of something with regard to vedanā, with regard to mind states," or whatever like that.

And of course, we read that, and we think, "Oh, it's an instruction about anicca, impermanence." But the Pali word is actually samudaya, and that word, it's the same word that the Buddha uses in relation to dependent arising, and the teaching of dependent arising, and how suffering arises. So when he present the Four Noble Truths, dukkha is something that samudayas -- it 'arises together.' I can't remember what the Pali is, but something like, "Pay attention to origination factors and dissolution factors, factors of arising and factors of ceasing."^[3] So to me, it's possible, one could interpret that refrain as saying, "Pay attention to not just the fact that things arise and cease, but how they arise and cease." So coming back to Jason's question, it's like, okay, here's a pain, and it arises and ceases. Okay, great. That's a really good -- it's good to realize that pain is impermanent. And I can take that practice, and I can develop it, and notice more and more impermanence. Or I could start getting interested in what we've been talking about: the fact that when there's this kind of attention, a pain intensifies or arises more. When there's that kind of attention, it fades. It gets fabricated more, fabricated less. And I'm interested in the origination and dissolution factors of vedanā. Does that make sense? There are other suttas, and they're kind of repeated, and I can't remember where, where the Buddha says, "How do you move from this level of awakening" -- I think it's to the final level of awakening. And the Buddha says, "A practitioner should train themselves to pay attention to the aggregates," vedanā, and perception, and body, and all the rest of it, mental formations, consciousness. And the usual English translation is something like, "And see, and pay attention: such is its arising, such is its disappearance."^[4]

But I think the emphasis there is on the 'such.' In other words: how? How is it arising? How is it disappearing? Otherwise, it's just a teaching on impermanence, rather than a teaching on this whole business of the dependent arising of perception. Is this making sense? Yeah? But, you know, this is what I tend to emphasize as being what I feel is the more interesting, profound, liberating, and sort of coherent view. Whether it's what the Buddha meant and da-da-da -- it's like, I'm not particularly interested in that. But it's what I tend to teach. Now, of course, like I said, noticing impermanence is important. Just relatively speaking, the liberative power, and the kind of radicality -- sorry, Boaz! -- the radicality of what gets uncovered is of a whole different order, because to say that everything is impermanent is -- okay, you could say it's 'radical,' but to say that nothing really exists at all as any thing is a whole other level of, to me, radicality. It's a whole other level of "Whoa! We've just gone to a whole shift in our reality view." So, again, people will know that's what I tend to emphasize. But the impermanence thing is really important, too, and fruitful. Anyway. Is that okay for now?

Okay. I think we're definitely going to need to end, so why don't we have a bit of quiet together?

[silence]

Okay. Thank you, everybody, and time for tea.

---

1. AN 9:35, Gāvī Sutta, or the Cow Sutta. ↩︎

2. Ud 1:10. ↩︎

3. MN 10: "He remains focused on the phenomenon of origination [samudaya-dhamma] with regard to ..., on the phenomenon of passing away [vaya-dhamma] with regard to ..., or on the phenomenon of origination and passing away [samudaya-vaya-dhamma] with regard to ..."\ ↩︎

4. E.g. SN 22:89. ↩︎