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Dharmette: Common Reactions to the 3 Tones of Vedana

I wanted to say a few more things about vedanā^[1] in our exploration. When we notice the pleasant vedanā, pleasant feelings, it's important to realize that seeing the pleasant vedanā in this practice is not supposed to be a killjoy. You're not supposed to notice that, "Oh, joy. Oh, you're not supposed to have joy in this practice, everything's supposed to be gray." Quite the opposite, in fact.

The Buddha declared himself to be the one living in happiness. Unlike other ascetics, he wasn't afraid of pleasant feelings. The idea of noticing pleasant vedanā is not to squash joy, but to see our relationship to it and develop a wholesome relationship. In fact, the Buddha remembered his childhood happiness and pleasure from concentration, from samādhi^[2], under the bodhi tree. When he remembered that joy, that pleasantness, that delight of the state of samādhi when he was a child, that supported him in waking up, knowing that this is the path, not the path of self-mortification.

Many have asked in the past, "If I practice meditation or Buddhism, will my joys become squashed and deadened? Will everything become gray and neutral as they're rising and passing and accepting?" In fact, the levels of happiness that can arise from the sense of awareness, from the sense of contentment, from deep concentration, and from a sense of freedom through realization are unlike anything that is worldly.

As I mentioned yesterday, there is eudaimonic versus hedonic pleasure or joy. The hedonic ones being the ones that we're familiar with, hedonic pleasures, and the eudaimonic ones are the ones that arise from practice, which are deeply, deeply satisfying. At the end of this practice period, I invited you to notice a sense of gratitude, appreciation for yourself for having showed up and having practiced, and for the sangha^[3]. That sense of pleasantness that arises from that eudaimonic appreciation, it's not from experiencing anything outside.

So noticing that our life is the constant movement away, it seems, from the unpleasant and towards the pleasant. Is it possible not to always try to avoid the unpleasant or seek the pleasant, but understand them with equanimity and wisdom, and develop wisdom towards them?

Unpleasant Vedanā

A few words about unpleasant feelings or unpleasant vedanā. The Buddhist path is a middle path between worldly pleasures and the self-affliction of ascetic pain and mortification. Of course, neither of those is the path. Not seeking worldly pleasures all the time—this hedonic pursuit of pleasure doesn't make us happy anyway. We get on the hedonic treadmill and the level of pleasures is never enough. We want the next thing: the next big car, house, experience, food, travel. It's the next hedonic treadmill, as it's called in psychology. After you acclimatize to the level of pleasures you have, it's not enough; you need more to kind of squeeze satisfaction out of it. And of course, self-affliction of ascetic pain and mortification is not the Buddhist path, as I hope all of you know by now.

One thing that tends to happen when we notice unpleasant feelings is that we try to either distract ourselves from the unpleasant, or we try to suppress it or push it away, make it go away, make it stop. So one invitation is mindful observation of unpleasant vedanā. It's just unpleasant. As the week goes by, we'll explore this more. It's just an unpleasant feeling tone that's arising, and it will pass. We'll explore impermanence in various aspects in the next few days, but it's just unpleasant.

Can there be this new, profound relationship to the unpleasant, to notice it instead of reactively thinking, "Unpleasant, stop! Unpleasant, make it go away!"? Oh, it's just unpleasant. Can we mindfully observe it?

Similarly, this training ourselves in noticing unpleasant vedanā can be extremely helpful in working with physical pain. Because with physical pain—which I've had plenty of, having had a chronic illness for a long time—when we resist, or not like it, or push it away, it gives rise to stories. It gives rise to second arrows of "why me?" or this and that. It just increases the overall level of suffering.

So with pain, observe that it's just a physical sensation, and it's an unpleasant vedanā—sensations alone. What are the sensations like? Sharp, hot, burning, stabbing, pulling, heavy, light, whatever it might be. Just the raw sensations, and ah, there's an unpleasant vedanā associated with these sensations.

When there is an unpleasant vedanā, an unpleasant feeling tone, we don't like it. We become aversive, we push it away. Notice that habitual relationship that we have. Can we just observe? Is it possible? Sometimes it may not be possible. That's why it's a training. That's why it's a practice. We keep practicing little by little by little.

Noticing unpleasant vedanā is a profound practice for working with pain and illness. It's been one of my practices, and it's been just life-changing.

Neutral Vedanā

Just to say a couple words about the neutral feeling. The neutral feeling tone, neutral vedanā, usually leads to checking out or boredom. Sometimes it may not be easy to notice neutral. In order to notice that, maybe it's easiest to notice that pleasant and unpleasant are absent. If those are absent, then ah, you can get to notice neutral; the neutral is there. Sometimes if you stay with neutral actually, you'll see the impermanence there. You'll see that it can shift to positive or negative.

Notes from the Field

A couple of notes from the field. I appreciate those of you who shared your practice experience yesterday in email, sending me email through my website. One of you noticed the bird song from the right ear was pleasant, from the left ear was unpleasant. Both were bird songs, different birds, different vedanā.^[4] Just interesting noticing, oh, vedanā is there! There is so much to learn. We take it for granted it must be this way, but it isn't. So let yourself be curious.

One of you shared an observation that in the sitting they noticed future planning, that there was a pleasant vedanā anticipating goal satisfaction. And with the future planning there was unpleasant vedanā feeling time pressures. Like, "Oh yes, these thoughts always have vedanā associated with them."

Another one of you shared that when they were labeling distractions in meditation as "unpleasant, unpleasant," when they noticed that they were doing that, they then opened up to actually noticing the quote-unquote distractions with kindness and openness. That whole process of observation became pleasant. The vedanā shifted, it became pleasant to notice the quote-unquote unpleasant distractions. Again, these are all labels that we put. That's not inherent in what's happening in the world.

My invitation today is to notice. To notice throughout the day when vedanā arises and what's your relationship to it. What is the habitual relationship, what happens in the mind? It can be so instructive to notice what our habitual relationship is to the pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral throughout the day.

Thank you all. Thank you sangha for joining each other and myself for practicing in this moment. May you all be well in every way. Take good care. See you tomorrow.