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The Importance of Direct Experience

Good evening. It seems to me that the volume can be just a tiny bit higher. I'm having to strain my voice just a little bit. There we go, thank you. Nice to be here with you all to practice together.

So, I feel like I just want to keep on sitting. Some of you know that when you go on retreat, especially on the long retreats that are a month or longer, but also in the shorter retreats, it's not uncommon for there to be a bowl where participants can write down a question and put it in. Then the teachers go through, organize the questions, and answer some of them. Some of them they don't answer because they feel like it's not quite related to what we're talking about, but they'll answer them to the hall in general so everybody can hear the question and hear the answer.

It is kind of interesting that sometimes participants write these really complicated philosophical questions. Maybe this is what they're thinking about; maybe this is what their retreat is about. But as teachers, we tend to not want to answer them. Well, some teachers do. They want to because the point is to practice, not to think our way to some greater understanding. When we're on retreat, the emphasis is not on education; it's on just being with our direct experience.

It is about being with what's actually happening—whether our mind is all over the place, or whether we're starting to feel settled, or whether we're just going to really dislike that person that sits next to us because they're doing whatever it is that they're doing. Whatever our experience is, the practice is to be with it. In the same way, many of you know that Gil and I teach a sutta^[1] study class. Sometimes people say, "Wait, so if this is true, then wouldn't it feel like that?" And I don't want it to feel like that.

For example, the suttas are filled with insights into impermanence. A really deep insight is not just a thought, but an experiential knowing that things change. We all know this on an intellectual level, but there's a way in which we can know it in a deeper experiential way. Then some people might say, "Well, if this is true that everything is inconstant, impermanent, then wouldn't it seem like things are chaotic or uncomfortable?" Or, the same with the teaching of no-self: "If there's no self, then how does that work? Wouldn't that seem scary? I don't want to not have a self."

These two examples point to how sometimes we might think that practice is just about gaining the right knowledge and understanding things correctly. In fact, it is really pointing to our experience, to what's actually happening. But sometimes the difference is not so clear. Certainly, before I started a meditation practice, if you had said to me, "It's not what you're thinking about, it's what you're experiencing," I would have thought, "Yeah, okay, whatever." But it's not until you have a meditation practice that you start to really understand the difference between direct experience and thinking about something. In fact, I would say such a big part of practice is making this distinction, even though it may not be apparent or obvious. I would say this can be transformative if we can consistently and reliably make this difference: what are my ideas about something versus what does it feel like?

Is it a pressure? Is it a stabbing? Is it a tightness? Is it an openness? Is it tingly? Does it seem like it's flowing, or does it feel like it's stuck? I'm using really different language to describe a kind of experience than some intellectual understanding. I will also add here that often when we are upset or troubled, we're not necessarily upset or troubled about the experience—about it being tingly and spacious, or constricted. Maybe there's a stabbing sensation that is uncomfortable but tolerable. Really, when we're uncomfortable, it's our thoughts that are about the experience: "Oh, because I'm having that stabbing experience in my knee, it means that I won't be able to sit on the floor anymore in a cross-legged position. I'll just sit in the chair, and that's kind of a bummer. People will wonder what happened to me; I used to sit on the floor and now I have to sit in the chair, and I'll have to explain." I don't know why we make all these stories.

So often, the idea about something is like a label that we slap onto our experience, and then the label doesn't change. It's just a label, a word: "pain." Our experience might be all over the place, changing, moving, morphing, going away, and coming back. But we're having a relationship with the label, not with what's actually happening. This is where a lot of our difficulties in our life stem from.

Of course we do this. We are socialized and educated to think about when to value our thoughts. We have plenty of experience of how the way we think about things helps us to solve problems, plan, and communicate so that we can put the plans into place. We can see where there's this real value in thinking. It's a radical shift to come to this practice and to say, "Even though I've been rewarded in my career or my education for what I'm thinking, actually it's a little bit different here."

I'd like to point out how the Buddha points to the importance of actually just tuning into the experience as best you can. I am not saying that thoughts are not important, I'm not saying that thoughts don't have a value, and I'm not saying that you should never have thoughts when you're meditating. I'll get to the value thoughts have, but before I get there, I want to talk about the value of just the direct experience.

In one of the suttas, the Buddha categorized all spiritual leaders in his time. Somebody had a question about spiritual leaders, and he said there are different types. There are some that are relying on their sacred texts, the oral transmitters at that time. The brahmins, who had the dominant religion at the time of the Buddha, memorized all those texts, and that was the role of the priest. So there were those who had just memorized and knew the texts.

Then there were those that had a lot of faith that they believed in. Maybe they don't know the texts, but they have this feeling of faith, maybe a little bit of devotion. It might be the words of a particular teacher, it might be a God, but there was just a belief, a faith. There was a third type that were using reasoning and logic, which maybe would be more like a philosophy. Or maybe even like a lot of us—certainly me too, I do a lot of, "Well wait, if this means that, then that should mean that..." And then the fourth are those who rely on their experience.

The Buddha talked about these four different ways, and then he put himself in one of these categories. He said, "There are some mendicants who, having directly known the Dharma for themselves, having reached perfection and consummation of direct knowledge here and now, teach the fundamentals of this spiritual life. I am one of those mendicants." So he's highlighting that his teachings come from his experience.

And not only does he highlight the importance of having direct experience because that's how he had it, but he goes on to criticize other people who seem to have this blind faith. In another sutta, a whole bunch of brahmins come to meet the Buddha. It's a long sutta that kind of asks why they even came to meet him, but they come to meet him and they are having a discussion. There's this young brahmin who keeps on interrupting the conversation. The Buddha says, "You're interesting me, but you're also interrupting your senior elders in your community, so you're being rude." The senior elders say, "Don't say that to him. He's actually quite smart and competent even though he's very young."

So then the Buddha turns to him and says something along the lines of, "Well, do you have a question?" And this young brahmin says, "Well, we know the truth because we believe in our scriptures that have been passed down for generations, and they are true, and everything else is not true." The Buddha asks, "Well, has anybody actually seen what is in these scriptures? Does anybody actually directly know what is in these scriptures?" The young brahmin says, "No." The Buddha says, "Okay, that's fine. Well, do you know anybody that knows somebody that knows these teachings and has this direct experience?" "No," the brahmin replies. And then the Buddha said, "Well, isn't this kind of like blind people leading other blind people, who haven't seen for themselves, telling other people what practice is about, what the spiritual life is about?"

Some harsh words, but again, the Buddha is pointing to the importance of seeing and knowing for ourselves. He doesn't put forth some metaphysical views. He has this idea that people who have views are just putting it forth as "okay, this is the truth." He says there are different ways in which people do this. They have these ideas about what happens after death, what is the nature of the universe, is it infinite or not. He says it's impossible to know these answers, so these can just be views.

Then he says this expression that I like: "These views are for those who do not know and see." If you don't have direct experience in other things, then you tend to be more in your head and be thinking about these things that really don't have answers. He's highlighting that this does not bring you to greater freedom. This doesn't bring you to greater ease, trying to figure out the answer to some of these things. He says, "These speculative views are a thicket of views, a wilderness of views, a contortion of views, a vacillation of views, a fetter of views." I don't know exactly what all these words mean, like a "contortion of views," but it sounds complicated, right? It's not spacious and easeful.

He continues by saying, "These views are beset by suffering, vexation, despair, and by fever." If you're trying to find the answers for some of these things that don't have answers, it's troubling to want something that you can't have. But also to feel like your happiness depends on this, or your future happiness depends on this. The Buddha goes on to say, "Having these views does not lead to disenchantment, dispassion, cessation, peace, direct knowledge, and awakening." So it's not the way towards awakening.

So what is part of the way? It occurs to me as I'm talking here, I'm giving all these ideas and I'm talking and saying, "Don't be concerned about ideas," but here's a lot of them. So there's a little irony here in what I'm saying. But I'm trying to pull some quotes from the suttas to support this idea that it's really about our direct experience as opposed to our thoughts, our views, our beliefs, and making that distinction such an integral part of practice.

Here's something else that the Buddha says. He describes the Dharma—that is the teachings, or we might even understand the dharmas as the way things are—saying that the Dharma is directly visible, immediate, inviting one to come and see, applicable, and to be personally experienced. The Dharma is directly visible. It's something that you can come in contact with, you can see. It's not some complicated philosophical idea. I would even say you don't have to go on super long retreats and meditate forever. It's directly visible and immediate, not something that you have to figure out later. The Dharma can just be knowing what the experience is right now, as opposed to our ideas about it. It's being able to tease apart the experience from our reaction to it.

It's also saying that the Dharma is inviting one to come and see. He's not inviting one to go and see, in another time, in another place, where you'll figure it out. It's actually pointing to, no, whatever the experience is right now, whatever it is—pleasant, unpleasant, neutral—we can get in contact with it and see the Dharma, the way things are. We can start to see, "Oh, these things are changing." Of course they are. Our experiences are really changing, and the quieter the mind gets, the more that we can see the change. Or we can see, "Oh yeah, actually this experience is not a source of lasting happiness." It might be a little bit pleasurable, but not a source of lasting happiness. So, seeing the Dharma just in our experience, whatever the experience is.

And then the last thing here is saying it's "to be personally experienced by the wise." So, not to philosophize about, but to experience. I appreciate that he's saying "by the wise," so here wisdom is getting defined by somebody who's having direct experience, who's tuning into whatever's happening right now.

I just said that you don't have to sit long retreats. Sitting and meditating regularly is certainly helpful. Sometimes I talk about long retreats because I like to do long retreat practice, but I don't want to give the impression that that's the only way to go forward. That's a trap, to think, "Okay, as soon as I go on a long retreat, which will have to wait until my life situation changes, then I'll be able to have some real insights." You don't have to wait. The Buddha is inviting us to "come and see" (ehipassiko^[2]). Come and see.

But he's also saying it's not the easiest to see. If it were, then everybody would see the Dharma and become enlightened, and we'd all live happily ever after. He's saying the Dharma is "profound, hard to see, peaceful and sublime, unattainable by mere reasoning, subtle, and to be experienced by the wise." This is part of why we meditate: because it's subtle, hard to see, because we're so often thinking that what we want is out there. It's outside of our experience, either with our thinking, or getting focused on the next moment, what's going to happen next, or lost in fantasy or memory. But I like that he's saying that it's peaceful and sublime. Tuning in and being with what's actually happening without adding these big commentaries on top, just allowing whatever the experience is to be there. That act of allowing creates some of this peacefulness, and the sublime is not wanting things to be different.

Part of the reason why the Buddha is pointing to direct experience is because awakening, liberation, enlightenment, greater peace, and greater freedom are associated with direct experience rather than just thoughts, views, beliefs, or ideas. And one of the ways is having insight.

I want to make a distinction between insights and thoughts, beliefs, and views. Insights might be something that happens with our mental capacity, but one way that I understand insight differently is that we all know that people die. We all know that pets die. You ask anybody, they will know this. But it's not until somebody you love dies that you really understand it, right? There's a different understanding that comes from the experience. That's what's pointing towards insight. It is this different type of knowing that goes beyond just intellectual understanding. It's like knowing in your bones or blood.

I'll add one other thing about insight in the context in which we talk about it here. Insight is an experiential knowing that also reduces suffering. There's this recognition of something, and with that really deep knowing, there's a letting go of something, and there's some greater ease and peace. It might not even be immediately clear what is let go of at that time, but this is part of what insight is.

Before he was awakened, the Buddha described how this had an impact on him. He said that he attained liberation by understanding and having insight into the rising and passing away of experiences. Seeing how experiences come and go, rise and pass away. But not only that, there's this expression saying "their gratification, their danger, their escape."

Gratification is sometimes our experiences when our desires are fulfilled and we feel like, "Okay, I'm not desiring anymore, I don't have that sense of lack. I feel a certain ease here." It's true, we have pleasant experiences and our desires get fulfilled, of course they do. To recognize that is the gratification. They create the conditions for pleasure, joy, love, all kinds of beautiful things.

The danger is that sooner or later, this gratification is going to end. What is pleasant may just become a neutral feeling. Eating your favorite ice cream at the beginning is great, and then it just becomes a habit, like "Okay, I better finish what's in the bowl." It's not so great anymore, and if you had to eat even more, it starts to become uncomfortable and unpleasant. So the danger is that sooner or later the gratification part, the pleasure part, ends. To the extent that we were attached to that pleasure—like, "Okay, I finally got my desires fulfilled, now I can be happy, I'll be happy as long as this stays"—the tighter we're holding on, the more difficulties we're going to have when those things change and go away. Of course, sometimes we hold on and our sense of self gets involved: "I'm the one who has this, nobody else has it, and I have this." But things change. They rise and they pass away.

The escape from them is to step out of this attachment and craving, to allow the experiences to come and go, and not be adding thoughts, ideas, views, or labels on top. We're no longer with our experience when we're being with the label. Can we just step out of this habit of trying to get attached or hold on in some kind of way? Sometimes it's really subtle. There are two ways we can do this. One is with a meditation practice. As the mind quiets, some of the letting go just naturally happens. Getting into some of these absorptive states, there's a lot of letting go and there is not a lot of agitation from experiences. The other way is awakening. Awakening is the escape; there isn't craving, there isn't agitation.

Meditation supports this. It is a way to get in touch with our direct experience and also to see how some of the thoughts or the ideas that we have aren't the way forward, because thoughts beget thoughts, which beget thoughts. We go right into these thought streams and we start to get really disconnected from what's actually happening. I'm not saying that we don't need to plan. I am not saying that we don't need to solve problems. I am saying that there's a way in which sometimes we're adding on to our direct experience. We're holding on to this whole narrative: "It means this about me," or "It means this about something else," or "the universe." That's extra. We don't need it; it gets in the way.

I've been talking about the upside of working with direct experience, and I want to mention more specifically some of the downsides of just relying on thoughts, philosophy, ideas, beliefs, and notions. First of all, again, I want to acknowledge that thoughts are important. I'm not saying we shouldn't have thoughts. In fact, I would say they're very powerful and can be beautiful. Humans have written love poems, have cured diseases. We've eliminated pain in a lot of situations that otherwise would have been painful. Tylenol exists now, right? That is the work of somebody's thoughts and planning. We've explored outer space, ocean depths. All kinds of great stuff has come from thoughts and planning. But many of the views, opinions, beliefs, stories, and thoughts that we have are the basis of our suffering.

"I should be mindful all the time." Having a thought like that can be a basis of suffering, because chances are you're not mindful a hundred percent of the time. Or, "My practice won't really take off until I'm able to sit still for an hour. And I can't sit still for an hour, so maybe there's no hope for me." So many thoughts that we have just aren't helpful. In fact, I would say that they're part of our suffering. I would also say that holding views—having these ideas about what practice is, or about this idea that we have to figure things out—can lead to some complacency in our meditation practice. If we're thinking that it's just about solving problems or ruminating or figuring things out, then we will spend our time on the cushion figuring things out. But if we have this idea that direct experience is important, then we'll tune into what is the experience of breathing, what is the experience of sitting in this posture, what is the experience of hearing those sounds.

Maybe I'll just say this one last thing, too. If we have this idea that we only want to have views—we're really holding on to some of our ideas—this might be an indicator of something bigger that's happening in our life. It is a certain amount of arrogance. I could maybe use that word: that we think, "Okay, I already know what I need to know," or "I don't need to really tune into what's happening. I'm smart enough, I can figure it out." Or maybe it's a certain amount of closed-mindedness, like, "I don't really want to learn anything new. I just want to be quiet and I hope that I feel some relaxation. I don't want to open up to any new experiences or new ideas." Or maybe clinging to views is a part of wishful thinking. We might have this idea that if we think something enough, then it will be so. If we convince ourselves, it'll be so. Of course, that doesn't work so well.

So this idea of thoughts, thinking, views, and beliefs versus just tuning into experiencing whatever there is to tune into and experience. I recognize that for some people, their experience is really difficult and overwhelming. So there are ways in which we can work with that. Like tuning into your experience and then coming back out, opening your eyes, for example, so that we don't fall into overwhelm. But you won't be able to work with it by avoiding it and just thinking about it. If we could all think ourselves to create our life, we would have done it already.

And maybe I'll end with that and open it up to some questions. Does somebody have a comment or a question that they'd like to say?

Q&A

Questioner 1: When you talk about insight, could you elaborate a little bit on the difference between insight versus wisdom? Are they the same, or is there any difference between them?

Diana Clark: Thank you, that's a good question. I would say different teachers at different times would say different things. This teacher at different times would say different things! I would say all insight is wisdom, but not all wisdom is insight. Some wisdom is just recognizing, "Oh yeah, I'm lost in thoughts." That may not be an insight, but that's just recognizing, "Oh yeah, mostly in thoughts, and I remember that when I'm usually doing this, it doesn't have a good outcome." Is that helpful?

Questioner 1: Yeah, that helps.

Diana Clark: Anybody else have a comment or a question?

I was also thinking that part of why I mentioned earlier the irony—that I'm giving all these ideas to say it's not all about ideas—was because in my life, I so much thought I could think my way through. In my early twenties, if I had a question or was having a hard time, I would go to the library and think, "Okay, there's got to be a book here that has the answer." And I have a lot of books, but it turns out they didn't have the answers that I thought they would.

Questioner 2: I really am excited about this idea of wise people being a result of direct experience. And I know you're saying it's not necessarily experience out there, but aren't we then just cultivating experience, and how does that relate to being still? I don't know, it's a hard question to ask, but that makes me want to just go and experience everything, and I think that's a little bit too wild and crazy.

Diana Clark: Why do you think it's wild and crazy?

Questioner 2: Because I think there's a seeking and a distraction that happens with that. Perhaps not enough reflection and insight, and the balance between those two things.

Diana Clark: Yeah, so searching after stimulation just gets exhausting and doesn't necessarily lead to some greater understanding. When I was thinking about experience, I was using words like warm, or cold, or tingly, or stabbing, or spacious, or closed, or tight, or relaxed. I'm pointing towards this idea of direct experience; I'm really talking about really basic experiences. We can turn whatever it is—whether it's after going out and experiencing everything—we can just be with them, and then we would just notice, "Oh, this is energetic, or more bubbly." So I wouldn't say it has to be only certain types of experiences. But if we're really with our experience, we will notice the downside of certain experiences, like, "Oh, this always comes with some tightness and tiredness when I am having these certain types of experiences." Is this helpful?

Questioner 2: Yeah, I think really it sounds like getting really in tune with that somatic experience. Not the thrill-seeking feeling. Thank you.

Diana Clark: That's right, because we do use this word "experiences" like travel brochures are filled with this word, or "experienced" like Jimi Hendrix. What does that mean? That's right. Thank you.

Questioner 3: Diane, I think I see a parallel between what you said tonight about distinguishing between reasoning things out and understanding the benefits of direct experience, and something that both you and Gil taught recently. Namely, that when you look at the Four Noble Truths, you see the parallel. When you look at the Four Noble Truths, instead of thinking about the Second Noble Truth—suffering is caused by craving—instead, just experience. Just at a fine-grain level, be aware of, notice craving, and notice suffering. And when you have a lot of awareness of your moment-by-moment experience and how things change, the insight really sinks in better. Maybe you want to restate it a little bit better!

Diana Clark: I thought you said it very nicely! We can understand the Four Noble Truths as recognizing, "Oh, there's suffering." (This word suffering, dukkha^[3], we could say stress or dissatisfaction.) One way we can understand the Four Noble Truths is to say, "And there's the arising and the cessation." So just to see the experience: "Oh, it's arising and it's going away, and there's a path that leads to the cessation, to the ending of the suffering." That's in contrast to thinking about, "Oh, there's suffering. What's causing it? Oh, it's caused by this, but then what's caused by that?" That might be a cognitive activity as opposed to just experiencing the arising and passing away. And Bill, I did get the idea for this Dharma talk based on the class that you were in on Thursday. [Laughter] So that was nice that you caught the connection there!

Questioner 3: I want to add that the reasoning part has been tremendously helpful to me. "Oh yeah, craving causes suffering," and then I can see how I'm leaning into, shall we say, a social situation. That leaning causes suffering—maybe both directions—so pull back. The reasoning part has been helpful, but I see what you're saying.

Diana Clark: Yeah, reasoning. We need it, it's important and it's helpful. It's an integral part of our lives, and I would say practice too. But sometimes we get disconnected from the experience or think that, "Okay, I just have to learn more. I just have to understand better, and then I'll become awakened." But yeah, thank you, Bill.

Okay, so we're at the top of the hour. I'd better wish you all a wonderful rest of the evening, and if you'd like, you're welcome to come up here and talk to me. Otherwise, be safe and thank you.