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Purifying Gold

Welcome! Nice to see you all. How is the volume? It feels a tiny bit loud for me. Does it seem loud to you guys? Is this okay? I have to talk non-stop for an hour for this to work. Can I get a thumbs up? Yes, okay, thanks.

Introduction: Our Heart's Deepest Longing

Sometimes it's helpful to think about or reflect on what our heart's deepest longing is. Recognize that we have limited time to be alive, limited resources, and limited energy. Are we spending it in a way that's meaningful for us? Are we spending it in a way that's going to help us go in the direction that we would like? What are our deepest aspirations?

Maybe we'll just take a moment to think about them. It's useful to reflect on this. Take some time. What are you most inspired by? What makes your heart sing when you think about it? Or maybe it isn't clear right now, and that's perfectly fine. But when we align with an aspiration, or we remind ourselves or touch into what's really important for us, there can be a feeling of lightness, or some ease^[1], or maybe some openness or relief.

In contrast, there is this feeling of, "Oh, I should do this." That's kind of the opposite of this openness. The sense of "should" has a sense of contraction, restriction, or limitation. This kind of reflection is good to do regularly, otherwise life just passes us by while we're taking care of all the things that need to be taken care of. Sometimes it's easy to get disconnected from what's most important and to feel unmotivated. Even if so much of our time and energy has to go in one particular direction, maybe there's a way we can weave into our life something that supports our aspirations.

Spiritual Aspirations

With regard to our spiritual life, we might think that "aspiration" sounds too much like a goal. "I don't think I want to have any goals with my spiritual life. I just want to have a spiritual life without any goals." There might be some people who have that idea. But then we might be able to say, "Well, maybe you have a goal to be mindful and practice mindfulness regularly, or to have a regular meditation practice." Maybe you have a goal to listen to Dharma talks or read Dharma books, or to practice with the Eightfold Path or with the precepts. We might consider those kinds of goals.

And then we might ask, are there some goals that are okay to have, but not other goals? Do we dare to aspire for more and more freedom? Do we dare to aspire for more and more peace and ease? Or do we somehow feel like that's not available for us?

Maybe you have this wish in your heart for some happiness. Maybe you have a wish for happiness not only for yourself, but for others. Maybe you have an aspiration of service, supporting others in whatever way makes sense for you and in whatever way your life supports that. There's no right answer. It doesn't have to be one particular way. I'm sure all of us have our own versions of this, or our own flavors of it. Even if we have a similar aspiration, the way it gets expressed will be different with everybody. Service is such a big, general word, and it should be different for everybody. Or greater freedom—maybe that looks different for everybody.

The Buddha recognized that there are aspirations. Of course, he's promoting the aspiration to Nibbana^[2]. He is teaching about suffering and the end of suffering, so he's highlighting the ending of suffering. But he gave some talks on how to support our aspirations, which include a list of things. Are you surprised? It is a list that has maybe not the usual things that we hear. Some of them are the same, but there are some things that are a little bit different.

I appreciate that in this sutta^[3], the Buddha starts by saying that just in the same way that a child of a monarch has this aspiration to be the monarch, in the same way, a practitioner has the aspiration to find freedom. When we think of the children of monarchs, everybody just assumes that they're going to take the throne next. We just assume that's what's going to happen. This is the direction their life is going to go, and maybe their whole life has been geared around preparing to take the throne, wear the crown, or whatever it might be. I like the simile that just in the same way, practitioners will find freedom. Maybe their whole life is going in this direction, or getting prepared for that. There's this way we can just assume, "Yeah, that's the direction we're going," in the same way that the children of monarchs assume that they're going to take the monarchy at some time.

So what are these qualities that the Buddha lists?

1. Confidence

The first one is confidence. Confidence that the aspiration is even possible. I'm a little bit inspired to think about the Buddha's story of becoming awakened^[4]. Some of you may know this story. Part of it is that he had some meditation teachers, and with those teachers, he achieved some significant meditative attainments. He became just as adept as his teachers. His teachers were the most senior in their tradition. They were the equivalent of the Buddha; they were the leaders of their own religious traditions.

The Buddha had the same proficiency that they did, and yet he felt like, "Oh, there's something more." Even though there wasn't anybody else who was saying there was something more, he had this sense. He had this confidence that there was something more, that there was more freedom available. After the first teacher, he went to a second teacher and achieved even higher meditative attainments. Yet he still had this idea: "There's still freedom available. There's a little bit of suffering here. I can feel it. I believe there's an ending of suffering."

Maybe we don't have that same kind of confidence that the Buddha did, but I'm pointing to tuning into or becoming aligned with the sense that we feel like, "Oh yeah, there can be more freedom, there can be more happiness, more peace, more ease." Whatever word you want to use, whatever inspires you, whatever your aspiration is.

In the classic teachings, they will talk about confidence in the awakening of the Buddha, or confidence that the Buddha is awakened—knowing that this is possible, that people do get enlightened. But it's not only confidence that enlightenment exists, or whatever your aspiration might be. It's also so important that we have confidence that we can do it. Otherwise, that will just seem dismissive, and we will not really apply ourselves. If we have this idea, "Yeah, that'd be nice, but that's for other people, it's not for me. Yeah, that'd be great, but I can't do it," that's a very different feeling from the confidence that the Buddha had.

The Inner Critic

I'm just going to say a few words here about the inner critic. I bring this up often in practice discussions with people. I know it comes up, and it certainly has come up a lot for me in my life. It's this constellation of emotions or thoughts inside of us that is belittling us, making us think that we're inadequate in some way, or making us feel like we just aren't capable. It's a way of blaming ourselves for everything. It's a voice of negativity, often with a quality of harshness. Or maybe it's just a quiet, soft, "You'll never make it."

When this constellation of thoughts and emotions is up and running, there's this feeling of "should." "I should do this," "I should have done that," "I should stop doing this." When there's a sense of "should," it feels really heavy and oppressive. This is the opposite of aligning with our aspirations, which has brightness, openness, and ease.

Having this set of "shoulds," this pressure, has a lot of effects on us. One of them is that it not only squeezes the joy, happiness, or ease out of practice, but it also blocks our capacity to ask deep questions. When we have this inner critic that's really loud and authoritative, we don't even dare to ask what our higher aspirations are. Maybe for fear that we won't achieve it, or maybe feeling like, "Who am I to even aspire for something beautiful for my life? Who am I to even think that I can do that?" This ability to ask these questions gets strangled by the pressure of the inner critic. The inner critic isn't true, but we believe it's true. It's very persuasive and authoritative.

But what are some ways that we might work with this? For quite some time, I taught about the inner critic in the context of what a "happy hour" was, which I did for a number of years on Tuesdays and Thursdays. There is a playlist on Audio Dharma about working with it.

What's one thing we can do with the inner critic? Practice with kindness. Kindness wherever it's easiest. Sometimes when the inner critic is up and running, it's a really tall order to say, "I'm going to love myself." That might not really work so well. Instead, do some loving-kindness^[5] practice wherever it's easiest. Puppies, kittens, babies. Somebody in your life who just really makes your heart melt when you think about them. Or maybe somebody who was in your life—a coach, a mentor, a teacher—who really helped and supported you. To bring them to mind allows that to soften your heart. Do some regular loving-kindness practice. This softening of the heart removes some of the harshness of the inner critic and shifts the mood of our heart. That is one way to work with it.

Another way is allowing it to be there, but not buying into it. Giving it some space. Like, "Oh yeah, there you are. I recognize you. Okay, come along. I'm not going to listen to you, but you might as well come along. You can keep on talking, but while you're talking, I'm going to go do this." We're honoring and respecting that part of our experience, but we're taking away its authority, taking away its ability to boss us around.

Or maybe we can start to learn how to question this inner critic. Do some dialogue with it. Something like, "Really? Is that so? I'll never do it? Well, there was a time that I thought I couldn't do X, but I actually did it." It doesn't mean that we haven't had failures, but our whole life has not been one constant failure. There are some things that we have done. We've gone to school. We've gotten dressed in the morning. Some mornings we don't get dressed, and that's okay! We don't want to set a really high bar. Just notice that we're not complete failures.

So this first thing is to have confidence, and it is helpful for aspirations. I wanted to address the inner critic because sometimes we don't even dare to have dreams. We don't even dare to aspire because they get undermined by the inner critic.

2. Being Honest and Open

A second quality (I changed the order of these, you know, in Buddhism there are all these lists and they're usually in a particular order) is being honest and open. The word sometimes gets translated as "sincere." This is not the usual "don't tell a lie," but instead it's to be open with others and yourself. In particular, it talks about being open with wise friends. To have somebody, or some group, in which you can share a little bit about what's happening with you, or maybe even about your practice.

For those of you who have participated in Gil's or my year-long courses, we have people in breakout groups and we have them talk. Part of it is just getting that opportunity to share. You don't have to tell your deepest, darkest secrets. But there's something about sharing a little bit about how practice is going with others that normalizes what's happening. And there's wisdom in other people! You might learn, "Oh, I never thought of it that way," or "Oh, that's a great idea, I'm going to try that." We can borrow the wisdom from other people and not feel so isolated. Having a meditation practice is not the usual thing that people do, and it can be really great to connect with other people. In the classic teachings, it talks about this openness with the teacher and other spiritual companions.

Especially in these days when we have social media, we have curated existences online. It gets posted on social media as the best version, so often. There's this pressure to only share what's absolutely picture-perfect. But what's being pointed to here is to step away from that, and say, "Here's what actually happens in my practice." To recognize that all of us have the hindrances^[6]. Nobody is exempt from that. All of us have struggles. All of us have difficulties with getting to the cushion. It can be really great to be able to connect, whether you have good spiritual friends, or you come here on some Sundays and join discussions after, or on Wednesdays when there's an informal lunch where people can talk. Tanya Weiser's teachings also have people get together to talk to each other. It's just recognizing that it's really nice to have somebody to talk with, being honest and open.

There's another element to this idea of being honest and open: we have to be honest with ourselves. We might even say that this is what this practice is all about—really just seeing what's actually happening with ourselves. Sometimes we don't know. We're disconnected from ourselves, we're busy, we have lots of things to do, we're distracted, or maybe it's painful and we're trying not to be with our experience. I am not saying jump into the most painful experience. By no means am I saying that. But this practice so much is about the truth of what's really happening with us. We might even say that without a commitment to truth, there isn't really a path of practice. Because this practice is so much about being with what's actually happening. Not our ideas, or what we wish were happening, or what did happen, but actually seeing the truth of the moment, the reality of the moment.

You might even go so far as to say that the Dharma is all about truth. Being honest and open is one way to express the Dharma and practice with the Dharma. It's not only that; it's just enormously helpful to learn what our patterns are. What are our habits? What are our sensitive points where we get triggered, derailed, confused, or where we shut down? Learning that about ourselves so we can work with it skillfully is so important. Instead, we often end up spending our lives trying to avoid those areas, and then our life gets smaller and smaller. We want our lives to be big, rich, and full of whatever we want it to be full of.

With this getting to know ourselves, our habits, and our patterns, maybe we can have a sense of how to move towards our aspiration. Maybe you're the type of person who wants to feel into where there is more spaciousness and ease, and follow that. Or maybe you're a person who feels like, "You know what, I like to follow rules, and I'm going to learn what the Buddhist teachings are and really stick to that to inspire me." Or maybe you're somebody who's going to sketch out a detailed plan. Learning what motivates us and what derails us is enormously helpful. I'm not telling you anything you don't already know, but I like to think that the Buddha recognized that each of us needs to learn for ourselves how we can apply these teachings so that we can reach our aspirations, so that our life can unfold in the way that we want it to unfold.

3. Applying Energy

A third item on this list is applying energy, applying effort. It makes sense. It's one thing to think and dream. It's one thing to get to know oneself, and certainly that is part of the path of practice. But there is a recognition that effort will be required for these aspirations. We might use words like perseverance, forbearance, or steadfastness. When I hear those words, it just feels like so much hard work. But it is effort, right? The Buddha wasn't able to just go, "Shazam, everybody's awake!" He pointed the way, but he couldn't just make everybody awakened. (Not to deny that apparently there were some people who heard the Buddha's teachings and instantly became awakened!) For the rest of us, we have to apply some energy, some effort. Part of the practice is to learn where we should apply our energy, and how much energy we should apply.

I like the simile of a goldsmith. I've shared this a number of times, but I'd like to share it here because sometimes when we hear that we have to apply energy, it feels like it has to be full-on effort and pressure all the time. But this simile of the goldsmith points out that's actually not the case. It goes like this:

Suppose a goldsmith would prepare a hot furnace, heat up a receptacle, take some gold, and using tongs, put it into the receptacle. The receptacle goes into the furnace. From time to time, the goldsmith blows on the gold to make it hotter. From time to time, the goldsmith sprinkles water on it to cool it down. And from time to time, the goldsmith just looks on as the gold is heating. If the goldsmith were to only blow on it, the gold would just burn up. If they were to only sprinkle water on it, it would just get cooler and not be malleable. And if the goldsmith were to just look on, then the gold would not reach the right consistency. But if the goldsmith, from time to time, blows on it, sprinkles water on it, and just looks on, then the gold becomes purified, bright, unblemished, rid of imperfections, malleable, wieldy, steady, and attains imperturbability.

All those qualities are how the Buddha described his mind right before awakening. I appreciate that sometimes it's a little more effort, sometimes it's a little bit less effort, and sometimes it's just looking on.

4. Health and Balance

The fourth quality is something that we often don't see: the recognition of the importance of health, like our physical health. In the sutta, it's stated as being "seldom ill." You don't have to have perfect health, of course. I'd like to open this up to being able to work with whatever our health is. Old age and sickness are going to happen to all of us, and it doesn't mean that we can't practice. The Buddha knew this. It doesn't have to be perfect health, but I'd like to expand this to mean having balance in our lives.

Are we so busy that we don't make time for our spiritual life, for meditation? Do we have work and play? Do we have play in our lives? Do we have time with others and time alone? And of course, do we have exercise and rest? We need to have balance in our lives in order to reach our aspirations, to have the best life that we can. I appreciate that the Buddha is pointing to health. I imagine that life thousands of years ago was very different than how it is now. Living closer to nature as they did, their lives naturally changed with the seasons, so maybe they had a little more balance than we do here, where we're living in buildings and can be completely removed from the seasons. We have all these nice lights, so it doesn't matter that it's dark outside.

5. Wisdom About Impermanence

And then the last quality to help support aspirations is having wisdom about impermanence^[7]. I interpret this in two ways.

One is that having wisdom about impermanence reminds us that we're going to die, just like everything else does. Things end. Things that have the nature to be born have the nature to die. Sometimes we might think, "Oh, I'll get to this aspiration stuff tomorrow. I'm going to do it later, as soon as something or other is done." It's perfectly natural, we do this so often. There's an encouragement here to ask: is there a way that you can do something today that moves your life in the direction that you want it to go, towards those big dreams that you have?

Also, this idea of impermanence helps us see that not only us, of course, but everything is impermanent. There's nothing that is permanent. There's nothing that we can really hold onto to be a source of lasting happiness. Nothing is consistently going to be a source of happiness forever. That just doesn't exist. Yet we keep looking for it. We keep holding on to what is bringing some pleasure or a certain amount of happiness, but there will be a time when it doesn't bring the amount of happiness that we wish. Of course, we all know this, even though the advertising companies want us to forget it, and we do forget it. I don't want to beat us up for forgetting it, but when we have insight into impermanence and really see it in a deep way, we stop asking all our experiences to be sources of lasting happiness.

Instead, there's a letting go. There's an opening, a softening, and we're letting our experiences just be our experiences, instead of demanding that they satisfy us in some particular way. And it turns out that this is enormously satisfying—just to let experiences be experiences. Rather than saying, "This is mine," or "It's only happening to me," or clinging around it in so many different ways, assigning meaning to it like, "Because I had this experience, it means this about me." Letting all that go, and instead just experiencing it. That allows some letting go, and that is the ending of suffering, which supports all aspirations, no matter what your aspiration is. The ending of suffering allows that to happen. Well, that allows anything to happen!

Summary

So, there are these five qualities to help us with our aspirations in the same way that the children of monarchs aspire to become the monarch:

1. Confidence.
2. Being honest and open.
3. Having enough energy, or applying effort.
4. Having some health and well-being (which I'm expanding to say balance in our life).
5. Seeing impermanence.

Having some wisdom about impermanence can motivate us, as well as help us not to cling, which leads to less suffering and more freedom.

Maybe with that I'll open it up and see if there are any questions or comments.

Q&A

There doesn't have to be. I don't want anybody to feel pressured!

Question: I get a little confused between aspirations and experiences, because sometimes my aspirations are for an experience. I don't know where the line is drawn. What is an aspiration?

Diana Clark: I see. I think I'm defining experience a little bit differently than you are. I think I'm saying "experience" like, right now I'm experiencing that there's pressure against my backside while I'm sitting here. That's an experience. Absolutely mundane, just what the body is experiencing through its senses. What it sees, what it hears, what it feels, what it tastes, what it smells. That's kind of all I'm saying is an experience. Just daily, being-alive things, as opposed to "the Disney experience" or something like that. Does that help?

Questioner: That's helpful, yes, thank you.

Diana Clark: Thank you for the question. I love getting questions that help me clarify things, so thank you for asking that. Somebody else have a question? Norman.

Question: I like the part from the sutta that you talked about—the goldsmith both watching the gold, blowing on it, and sprinkling water. The picture I got from the way you told it was that, although skill was needed and no doubt it took some effort for the goldsmith to develop that skill, once he had the skill, doing those things was just kind of methodical and maybe didn't seem like effort. He needed the discipline, he needed to put the time in and do the things, but it wasn't so hard. I guess if you can just get your frame of mind about figuring out what the meditative process is, and practicing enough to develop the skill, maybe it doesn't seem hard.

Diana Clark: I see. I was interpreting it a little bit differently. Just the sensitivity to like, "Okay, how is the gold now? What is needed now? Now a little bit more effort is needed, now less effort." Or backing off, or cooling down if you feel agitated. And sometimes it's just to do nothing, just to abide. That's how I was interpreting it. And then what you were saying is a little bit different than that, I think.

Questioner: Yeah, I was thinking about how you can get to a comfort level with whatever you're doing—in this case, I think we're talking about meditation—so that no matter how much effort is required, there's something easy about it at the same time. Joyful.

Diana Clark: Yeah, just like everything we do, it gets easier. But I don't think we ever stop having to feel into, "Is a little bit more effort needed here? Is a little bit less here? Or can I just hang out here in this experience?" I think we're always having to do that. I would say that's part of the art of meditation, is knowing this. It's like, when do I need to apply a little bit more mindfulness or effort, and when can I just let it be? Because no two meditations are exactly the same. Exactly.

Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Okay. Thank you for your kind attention, and I'm wishing you all a wonderful rest of your evening. Thank you.