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Guided Meditation: Being with Unpleasant Sensations

Good evening. Welcome. It is such a wonderful thing to be able to practice together. It makes a difference. Chances are, I wouldn't come here to this room and just meditate by myself if I didn't know that there's a whole community of us, whether you're listening to this live or sometime later. There's something kind of wonderful about reaching across space and time together.

So, we'll start with a guided meditation. Just find some balance in your seat. Maybe that requires a little bit of rocking, a little bit of adjustment. It's worthwhile to spend some time finding a place where there can be an uprightness with some balance.

Allow the spine to be upright if you're sitting. If you are lying down, you might consider this energetically. Is there a way in which we might imagine we were just very, very gently pulled up in a way that is not stiff or contrived, but a way that introduces a little bit of space? I want to use this word "uprightness"—maybe there's a better word, but it's the opposite of being collapsed.

Allowing the shoulders and arms to just hang, and then just feeling the body as a whole: the posture, the geometric shape we are in, a type of pyramid. We're sitting, and knowing that we're sitting.

And then we might feel the body breathing, the movements of the chest or the belly, or maybe feeling the air going in and out of the nose. We can rest our awareness on those sensations associated with breathing. Feeling the in-breaths, the out-breaths, and the transitions between the breaths.

It might be that while we are resting our attention on the sensations of breathing, there are some compelling bodily sensations. It's not uncommon—in fact, it's quite common—for there to be a little bit of uncomfortableness in the body. In general, that's why we shift postures, put on sweaters, and take off sweaters. Rather than getting all tangled up with the uncomfortable sensation in the body, we can use a simple label: unpleasant. Unpleasant.

It turns out it makes a difference the tone that we use when we make this label. That is, whether it's even and comes from a balanced even-mindedness—unpleasant—or whether it comes laced with a lot of aversion, hatred, or a "dang it, get out of here, go away" type of a tone. Can we label this unpleasant sensation with as much ease as is available to us?

It might not affect the unpleasantness, our labeling, but it can disrupt the momentum of all that might happen. This aversion to aversion to aversion, this buildup of repulsiveness or a type of hatred—we can undermine that with a simple label: unpleasant. Without worrying about how it got there, or what we're going to do next to make sure it never arises again, can we nip in the bud all the thinking, planning, and story-making by just noticing: unpleasant.

If it feels overwhelming or it's too unpleasant, by all means, there's no need to stay there with that practice. It can be really helpful to notice a neutral part of the body. The top part of the right leg, maybe. Near the left elbow, maybe that's a neutral place—a place with neutral sensations. We're only labeling as a support. If it feels like too much effort or feels burdensome, there's no need to do it. But it can be a way to work with some of the discomfort that arises in the body.

In this way, if we can label unpleasant bodily sensations as unpleasant, we might disrupt the momentum of this unpleasantness that could lead to ill will, anger, or all kinds of different expressions of aversion, which might cause harm for ourselves and for others. Learning to work with or be with unpleasant sensations not only supports our path to greater freedom and greater ease, but also helps protect others from our anger, our ill will, or whatever might arise as a consequence of this unpleasant experience.

May all beings be happy and free.

Worldly and Unworldly Vedana

Good evening, welcome. Morning, good afternoon, whatever time of day it might be for you.

Today, I'd like to continue this series. This will be the third talk following two earlier talks on vedanā^[1]. Vedanā is often translated as feeling, but it's not really feeling, because so often we associate emotions with feelings, which is a perfectly natural thing to do. But vedanā is not about emotions. Instead, it's about the hedonic tone of our experience. That is: is it pleasant, is it unpleasant, or neither pleasant nor unpleasant? So, these three options: pleasant, unpleasant, neutral. It's just this feeling tone, or as some people say, the flavor of our experience. Chocolate, vanilla, strawberry. Pleasant, unpleasant, neutral.

Vedanā arises in response to physical experiences as well as mental experiences. Every single experience that we have, every single sensation that we have, has this hedonic tone associated with it. For example, there might be vedanā of the body. If we stub our toe, there's some physical pain, and the vedanā is unpleasant. But there's also vedanā in the mind. That is, if somebody says something unpleasant about us, the ear is not in pain, but the mind is. So this is a mental vedanā, that little bit of an "ouch."

In the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta^[2], which is the discourse from the Buddha—or attributed to the Buddha at least—on establishing mindfulness, there are these four sometimes called the "four foundations of mindfulness" or the "four establishings of mindfulness." Being mindful of vedanā is the second one: body, vedanā, mind, and then dhammās (phenomena, we could say).

In the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, the instructions aren't just to practice noticing whether all the sensations are pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral, but to notice whether they are worldly or unworldly. That is: pleasant worldly and unworldly, unpleasant worldly and unworldly, and neutral worldly and unworldly.

So what does this mean, worldly and unworldly? It's a little bit unwieldy to say "unworldly" repeatedly. In Pali, these words are sāmisa and nirāmisa^[3]. I think literally they would be translated as "of the flesh" and "not of the flesh." That is, is it associated with the body or not? But that's not quite accurate, because there can be mental sensations that are worldly. Carnal versus spiritual is how I've seen it translated, or sometimes related to the senses versus related to renunciation, or leading to craving versus leading to freedom. These are all different ways in which we might understand this expression worldly or unworldly.

An example might be the pleasant sensation from eating cookies. I love eating cookies; there's a pleasantness about the cookies. There's also a pleasantness from reading or hearing some of the verses in the Therīgāthā^[4]. These are liberation poems from women at the time of the Buddha. When they had some awakening experience, there are verses attributed to them in which they describe their awakening. Beautiful, beautiful verses, and really inspiring and touching, from thousands of years ago. These beautiful verses are pleasant also.

So eating cookies and hearing these verses from the Buddhist nuns about their liberating experiences are both pleasant, but they're not exactly the same. Part of being mindful of vedanā, paying attention to vedanā, is to discover and learn how they are different. How do they feel similar? They're both pleasant, but maybe a little bit different. They lead in different directions. Eating cookies might lead to eating more cookies, and then some revulsion: "Oh, why did I eat all those cookies?" Whereas reflecting on or hearing these poems from these early Buddhist women can be inspiring and uplifting, and might support us to practice. We might rededicate ourselves to our meditation practice, or our Buddhist practice, or maybe we'll be encouraged to read a little bit more, another poem, and feel an opening of our understanding. For me, there is often a softening of my heart and mind when I read some of these verses. Eating cookies goes in one direction, not so agreeable; whereas reading these poems of the Therīgāthā goes in another direction, more agreeable, more supportive for finding more and more freedom.

When we reflect on the experience, the difference between these experiences—cookie eating versus inspiring poem reading—we start to notice and get a little bit more familiarity with how it feels. If we contemplate or allow the mind to rest in the Therīgāthā, the poem readings, the mind becomes more familiar and more accustomed to that type of pleasantness. That type of pleasantness leads to more freedom and supports our practice.

Becoming more familiar with that, we can start to recognize when this sensation arises earlier and earlier in our experience, rather than it being a full-blown experience. Right at the very beginning of the sensation, the vedanā is there, the hedonic tone is there. The more familiar we are with the pleasantness associated with cookie eating versus the pleasantness associated with inspiring reading, the more the mind and body can respond accordingly. Like, "Oh, I know that it's more fulfilling, more satisfying to be with inspiring poems. Cookie eating is not so satisfying in the big picture." But the more the mind and the body become really familiar with just that first taste of the hedonic tone, we can work with it while it's still weak. We can recognize it at an earlier stage, and then we can respond in a way that supports our practice.

Of course, it's not just pleasant vedanā that's worldly and unworldly, but also unpleasant vedanā that's worldly and unworldly. It can be really helpful to be able to recognize when that's happening. When we notice that there's unpleasant vedanā that's worldly—that is, this vedanā that's associated with aversion, or something that's unhelpful—then we can stop cultivating that or going in that direction, because that can only lead to something that's not wholesome. We know about kusala and akusala^[5], wholesome and unwholesome, skillful and unskillful. A big part of practice is to cultivate the arising of the skillful and the diminishment of the unskillful. Practicing at the level of vedanā is one way in which we can do that.

Part of how this works is that associated with the hedonic tone are these underlying tendencies. You might have heard of these: greed, hatred, and delusion. These underlying tendencies are a tendency to react to sensations in a particular way. It won't be surprising that pleasant vedanā often activates the underlying tendency of greed, desire, or lust. Unpleasant vedanā activates aversion, repulsion, or hatred. And neutral vedanā activates ignorance or delusion.

For me, what's interesting about this is that whether there's greed, hatred, or delusion in the mind makes it more likely that the reaction we will have to whatever sensation we're having will be greed, hatred, or delusion. If there's a lot of greed in the mind, then with something that's just mildly pleasant, we're more apt to have some strong greed associated with it. There's this feedback loop that goes, and it can build and build and build. Just being aware—"Oh yeah, this is unpleasant, this is pleasant"—can sort of undermine or subvert this building of a snowball of greed, hatred, or delusion.

Being aware of these underlying tendencies, even after the fact, can be helpful just because it interrupts this momentum and the making of this big snowball. Because sometimes we do unskillful things, all of us, and we are very good at explaining to ourselves and everybody else why we had to do it, making up big, deep reasons behind what we did. But actually, what pushes us to do unskillful things is vedanā. The vedanā does the initial pushing, and then there's the rationalization that happens afterwards. Often we don't see it happen so quickly. There's this unpleasantness, and then we just say "no" to this or "no" to that, and then we come up with all these reasons why. If we can notice the vedanā, the feeling tone—pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral—it can make it less likely that we will fall under the sway of greed, hatred, and delusion, desire, repulsion, and ignorance.

An example is that we might realize, "Oh, I see. It wasn't so much that I was angry about what this person said. I was actually angry because I was having unpleasant bodily sensations and there was just all this aversion, and then I reacted in a particular way and blamed it on what they said. If I was feeling more comfortable, I wouldn't have had the same reaction." I think most of us are familiar with this idea of being "hangry"—hungry and angry. Uncomfortable in the body leads to our being angry. Recognizing this can be sobering. It shows how important it is for us to be aware of the feeling tone that's happening in our moment-to-moment experience, because it ends up affecting so much.

Part of the benefit of practicing with vedanā is to undermine or stop the momentum of these snowballs, to gain greater clarity into our actions. It's also an easy way to disentangle any complexity that we might have, especially in daily life when we don't have the focus or the awareness on exactly what's happening. We might simply be able to say, "Oh yeah, this is unpleasant." I'd also like to add this quote from Nyanaponika Thera^[6], who is one of the predominant figures at the beginning of the mindfulness practice in Theravada in the West. He writes: "If we permit the three roots of greed, hatred, and delusion to take firm hold in our hearts, then their outgrowths will spread far and wide like a jungle creeper, suffocating much healthy and noble growth all around." It creates the conditions for unethical behavior. It creates the conditions for us to say and do things that might cause harm to ourselves or to others. So, being aware of the vedanā is a way in which we can prevent that from happening.

Another benefit for practicing with vedanā is related to this phenomenon which psychologists call myside bias. I learned about this from Bhikkhu Anālayo^[7]. This myside bias means that we always assume that our views are correct and others' views are wrong, and any information that comes in, I manipulate in such a way that it confirms that my views are right and anybody who disagrees with me, their views are wrong. The underlying cause for this, actually, is because there's a pleasant sensation associated with "I'm right and everybody's wrong." It's a little bit of this pleasantness of "I'm right," and people hold on to that pleasantness and hold on to their views and get pretty dogged in their views. We all know the suffering that can happen when there's this real clinging to views, and even though there's all kinds of information that comes in that says these views are not accurate, people are unable to let go of them. It comes back down to vedanā—this pleasant feeling tone, this feeling of "I have it right, everybody else has it wrong."

Working with vedanā gives us the tools to learn to hold views without clinging to them, without holding on to them in a way that is unskillful and unhelpful and causes harm to others. As I mentioned in earlier talks, working with vedanā also helps bring more freedom in general. Vedanā in dependent arising is associated with craving, and craving leads to dukkha^[8].

I want to talk just a little bit about how one might work with vedanā. I had been mentioning just noticing in our present-moment experience: is it pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral? But it's really helpful to have some familiarity with this so that it becomes really quick in the mind. One way to do this is to do a body scan, initially just scanning from top to bottom looking for pleasant sensations. Just noticing the pleasant ones. And then noticing the unpleasant ones. And then noticing the neutral ones, the ones that aren't pleasant or unpleasant. And then do a body scan in which each sensation is just labeled pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. After having done this, there's more recognition or sensitivity to it. So that's four different body scans, and then opening it up to any feeling, whether or not it's felt in the body, including sounds or thoughts.

We don't have to always be labeling it pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. That might be helpful in the beginning when we're just starting this practice, but then using labeling just feels tiring and burdensome. So instead, there can just be this recognition, this flash in the mind—"Ah yes, pleasant, neutral, unpleasant"—without actually using the words. This hedonic tone, vedanā, is always present. It's not always pleasant, but it is always present, though. And the point is to be able to readily recognize it.

A natural question that comes up is, "Well, what about this neutral vedanā, this neutral feeling tone? How do we work with it? What is it?" I think most of us probably recognize pleasant and unpleasant, but I'd like to talk a little bit more about neutral. I would say that due to their bland nature, neutral feelings are the most difficult to notice, to pay attention to, to contemplate, to be aware of. But noticing them can be really supportive of our practice.

One way is we might notice how we tend to dramatize or exaggerate neutral feelings. We tend to make it into something other than neutral, just so that it's easier to be with, or so that it satisfies this need to be entertained or engaged in some way. When there's this blandness, often the mind just starts to dart wherever it can to find something that's more interesting and exciting. So we want to quickly shift to something, and we want to overlay our likes and dislikes: "This is good, that's not good." But when something's neutral, we don't have that habit of liking or unliking; we don't get to express it.

To learn how we are often dramatizing our experiences, and that it's completely unnecessary—in fact, a lot of harm can happen from it—can be really powerful. It's a perfectly human thing to do, but if we can not do that and allow there to be bland experiences, and that to be okay, then we can see that our life can unfold with less drama, less problems, more ease, and more spaciousness if we allow ourselves to linger and notice the blandness.

Neutral experiences don't really support our sense of self. That is, the sense of "I like this" or "I don't like this." With neutral experiences, we're not for them or against them, so they don't really do anything for us. They don't bolster our sense of self. It can be really helpful. The more experience we have with there not being a strong sense of self—"I like this, I don't like this" is an obvious way a sense of self gets expressed—the more familiarity and comfort we have with not propping up this sense of self, the easier it is to find freedom. Because freedom is when there's not a sense of self. The highest freedom, the greatest freedom, is when there is not a sense of self. So any softening, any moving in that direction is a movement towards freedom. The more that we can gain familiarity with that, and rest and abide in just the blandness without trying to make it more exciting or relevant to ourselves and our stories, the more supportive it can be.

If we don't pay attention to neutral experiences, we might have this mistaken idea that there's this neutral, bland experience that's the background to everything else, and this neutral, bland thing is permanent, while pleasant and unpleasant are impermanent. If we don't pay attention to the neutral experiences, they might all merge into this background stage, and we might start to feel like, "Oh yeah, there's this permanentness in which pleasant and unpleasant are arising and passing away." But everything's impermanent. Everything.

By noticing neutral experiences and practicing with them, we might start to see, "Oh yeah, it's neutral, and maybe it shades into unpleasant. So it's no longer neutral. Or maybe it shades into pleasant, or maybe it just goes away." Noticing the impermanence of neutral experiences, neutral vedanā, can be really powerful. It can help create the conditions for us to see impermanence more thoroughly, which creates the conditions for us to let go more thoroughly, which creates the conditions for more freedom, peace, and ease.

In this way, working with vedanā can help lead to more freedom by interrupting this snowball effect where unpleasantness leads us to fill our mind with aversion, repulsion, and hatred, which then feeds on itself so that we might do unskillful or harmful things, which is dukkha. If we can nip that in the bud earlier, then we can find more and more freedom.

Working with vedanā—pleasant, unpleasant, neutral—is something we don't often talk about, but is immensely powerful. It can help simplify our experience and can help bring greater ease to all our experiences.

So, may you find freedom amidst pleasant experiences, unpleasant experiences, and neutral experiences. Thank you.