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Cultivation of Insight

Good morning, everyone. I would like to begin by reading a passage from the teachings of the Buddha. There are a number of places where he talks about his awakening, and this is the one that does so in the most social terms, in the context of the challenges of his times. It is touching for me given how challenging our times have become.

I grew up with my parents' generation, who had gone through World War II. I talked to people who had experienced it intimately in Asia and all over Europe. I heard a lot of stories, and the whole experience was very prominent for me. I was always somewhat relieved that we weren't going through the same global level of violence. But in seeing all the challenges hitting the world, I don't think I've ever seen it get as close to the edge of what happened in World War II as we are currently—at least in my way of reading what's going on.

The Buddha's Dismay and Awakening

In that kind of context, there is a very evocative passage. It's a poem in the Sutta Nipāta^[1], one of the anthologies of ancient poetry. I translated it myself, but I couldn't find my translation easily today. So I am going to paraphrase Thanissaro Bhikkhu's^[2] translation:

When embraced, violence breeds danger and fear. Look at people quarreling, and I will tell how I experienced dismay.

We don't usually associate the Buddha with experiencing dismay. There is a way in which he is a highly idealized figure; whether before he became enlightened or after, he is always depicted as being completely perfect. Dismay doesn't exactly represent perfection. So this description is very human, and I really appreciate it.

Look at people quarreling, and I will tell of how I experienced dismay, seeing people floundering like fish in small puddles, in conflict with one another. As I saw this, fear came into me.

Here is another very human side of the Buddha. Again, in the perfection of how the Buddha is almost deified in the history of Buddhism, we don't associate that with someone who is afraid.

The world is entirely without a core. All directions are being tossed around. Wanting a harbor for myself, a safe place for myself, I saw nowhere I could go. Seeing nothing in the end but conflict, I felt discontent. And then I saw an arrow here, so very hard to see, embedded in the heart. Overcome by this arrow, you run in all directions. But simply on pulling it out, you don't run and you won't sink.

This is his enlightenment. This is his answer to all this. His description of his awakening is that he saw something in his own heart that he calls an arrow. Some people translate it as a dart, but it's a metaphor. He sees something and pulls it out. In pulling it out, he is free of his dismay, free of his fear, and free of needing to find a safe harbor in a world that doesn't provide one.

In seeing that it has been pulled out in himself, he recognizes that others have this, too. This is why people are running around like chickens without a head. Maybe none of you are that way, of course! [Laughter]

The rest of the poem describes the practices that he taught to be able to do this deep work. That's what I thought I would offer today. It offers a little bit of orientation. For me, it's a warm-up for the theme of the retreat that I start this week. You'll get a taste of it today, and we'll spend a whole week on this kind of theme.

Preparing to See Deeply

In this poem, the solution came when he saw something. With this ability to see clearly and deeply, he saw something in his heart. I know for myself that when I am agitated, spinning, and preoccupied in my mind, I can't really see myself clearly. I can't see deep into my heart. I have to get quiet and settled enough. The conditions have to be in place in such a way that I can see.

I think this is what the Buddha teaches as well: part of practice is to create conditions so that we can see deeply. This was one of the topics from last week's talk: how can we see deeply? Can we see in a new way? Can we see in a way that brings peace to ourselves? If it starts with us, then perhaps we can offer it to the world around us, a world that needs peace.

If we continue to be one of the fish floundering in a small puddle—dismayed, angry, and afraid—it's all too easy to create the conditions that perpetuate the challenges of this world rather than solving them. People who are afraid, angry, upset, and despairing usually don't behave that wisely. They don't see very clearly what is going on, and all kinds of opinions, judgments, biases, and reactivity come up that don't contribute to greater peace.

How do we settle fear, dismay, and reactivity enough so we can start seeing more clearly?

The theme of the retreat is that in order to see deeply in this tradition of insight, there are conditions that prepare us to see well. I think there is a profundity to it: we cultivate the opposite of what we eventually want to see. According to this teaching, we want to cultivate a deep inner stability, a well-being, and a self-confidence.

Cultivating Stability

First, we want to cultivate a deep inner stability and steadiness that in the tradition is often called samādhi^[3]. Sometimes in English it is called concentration, but that misses the real benefit of what is being cultivated here. We want to have a strong, stable, steady, peaceful, and quiet inner life so that we can see clearly.

The metaphor I like to use for this is the difference between making yourself into a tripod so a telescope can look at the moon, versus standing on a moving train car while trying to hold a telescope in your hand and focus on the moon. Or imagine being in the back of a pickup truck going over a bumpy dirt road, trying to see the moon. You need to be still, stopped, and quiet. Even if you're standing still, you can't hold a telescope steady enough without a tripod.

Our inner life is so precious and valuable that we really need to establish this stability well. We have to stop driving down the bumpy roads of our minds and our lives so that we can see clearly.

Cultivating Well-Being

The second condition the Buddhist tradition emphasizes—which is the opposite of what is going to be seen—is cultivating a sense of well-being, or happiness.

Some people find this counterintuitive. They might think, "I'm despairing and the world is falling apart. The sky is falling, and we'd better just run around. The last thing I want to do is be happy, because that somehow denies how difficult the world is." They feel they have to hold on to the difficulty, or hold on to being a victim, because somehow that understanding is supposed to provide the solution.

But the Buddha says that it is really important to discover your own way to not only be settled and stable but to find a sense of well-being. Don't sacrifice that. Don't diminish its importance. With a sense of well-being, you're not going to be so agitated that you can't see.

This is a basic well-being, not a happy-go-luckiness where you are just whistling and skipping around. It is certainly not a Pollyanna-ish happiness that looks at everything through sugary eyes. It is a well-being that continues the process of settling: settling the heart, settling the stomach, settling the shoulders. This sense of well-being clears the eyes so you can see more clearly. It allows us to be with what is difficult in a way we couldn't if we were already upset, anxious, and struggling.

Cultivating Self-Confidence

The third condition is self-confidence, or inner strength. We want to cultivate a certain inner dignity, a sense of value and importance, and a confidence in our humanity and our beingness.

We want to not be dismissive of ourselves, not undervalue ourselves, and not get caught in insecurity or unworthiness. Instead, we cultivate inner strength for ourselves: strength of practice, strength of seeing, strength of honesty, and the strength to be present without being agitated.

Another way of saying this is that we want to expand our personal capacity to be with what is challenging. When we are highly challenged, we want to be able to see clearly rather than shutting down or running away. We want to be able to stand there in a confident way with the challenges we see in ourselves and in the world around us.

All of Buddhist practice can be subsumed under these three caring qualities: stability, well-being, and self-confidence.

The Three Ways of Seeing

When these are cultivated, then we're ready to see in a new way. The tradition emphasizes three things that we can see. The way I am introducing this to you today is very important, because when I practiced in Thailand and Burma, these three new ways of seeing were emphasized over and over again as if you could just do them from day one. It was taught as if it were simply the truth, and you should just see this way and get over it. I think that does some people a tremendous disservice. It can actually make life much more difficult.

In early English translations, these perceptions were sometimes curiously called the "three stigmata" of Buddhism—the three marks that hurt. They are more commonly called the "three characteristics"^[4] of reality, which makes them sound like an absolute, existential, metaphysical truth about our existence, as if everything is marked by these three characteristics. The Buddha never said that. He wasn't interested in sweeping metaphysical statements. He called them perceptions, or ways of seeing. That is a very different feeling that has more to do with how you see than about the ultimate nature of reality.

Seeing Change

The first way of seeing is to see change: to see that everything is changing all the time, that there's nothing permanent.

Now, we kind of know that. For people who go through the kinds of challenges the Buddha saw in the world—conflict and war zones—they know things change radically. I recently talked to someone whose parents lost everything two times. They lost their home country to war, moved to another country, restarted their whole life, and then the same thing happened again, forcing them to move to a third country. Some children grow up in war zones where things are always changing and always horrible.

To tell them from day one, "Oh, things change, just accept it," makes the whole thing worse. It's terrible to say that when the change people see around them is awful, challenging, and maybe even deadly. People have come to me as a Buddhist teacher and said, "Gil, can you just remind people that everything's changing? It's a Buddhist teaching. Everything's impermanent." Somehow that's supposed to make it better when the situation is really awful.

I think it can do a disservice. Seeing change deeply is the right thing for insight, but that's why it is so important to be prepared for it and to have a context for doing it. We can see change in such a way that we understand the opportunity in it. As difficult as it can be, the opportunity is to find our freedom in relationship to it—to not cling, pretend it's permanent, try to close down, or run away. We can be present for all the change with freedom.

That's what the Buddha meant by pulling out the arrow. The representative metaphor for our contribution to suffering is thirst—this drivenness. If we are addicted or wedded to the idea that the world has to be a certain way for us to be happy, then when that thing disappears, we're crushed. But Buddhism emphasizes a freedom and a different kind of well-being and happiness that comes from letting go of our own contribution to suffering. If we can find and pull out that arrow of thirst, we still see change, but we also see our freedom in the middle of it. Change becomes something we can work with rather than resist.

Seeing Suffering

The second perception is to see suffering in a new way. There is a lot of suffering in this world, and Buddhists emphasize how important it is to see it—but to see it in a useful way.

There are people whose lives are unmitigated suffering. It's heartbreaking what some people are dealing with. I have met people who have a condition where they are in constant pain and no medication works. To say to them from day one, "Life is suffering, just look at your suffering," might make them give up all hope.

But if you can see it in a new way, after establishing a very clear context of stability, well-being, and confidence in oneself, there is a whole new possibility. For me, there was a time as a Buddhist monk living in monasteries where I saw my suffering in a new way. In my early years, I didn't really do meditation practice; I did "suffering practice." It was invaluable because I just stayed present. I didn't try to run away, I didn't deny it, and I didn't try to fix it. Slowly, by just being present day after day, something softened and gave way in me. In its place arose compassion, because I needed it so much.

Regarding suffering, there is a lot of suffering in the world. We want to see our own suffering in a new way. In seeing our own suffering deeply, we see the clinging and the holding. Maybe then we can see other people's suffering in a new way and make a difference. When I saw it in myself, the consequence of doing that inner work was that I decided to dedicate my life to bringing Buddhism to people. To some degree, you are here because of that. This work is consequential; it can change you in a deep way.

Seeing Not-Self

The third perception is to see what is called "not-self" (anattā^[5]). This is often mistranslated to mean that there really is no self, which is not what the Buddha was saying. Rather, he was saying that there is nothing in the world that is appropriate to claim as "This is my true self."

You are important. You are valuable. We are not denying you as a person. But the movement of the mind to latch onto something and be defined by it is a source of suffering. If you say that to someone whose sense of self has been yanked away, destroyed, or devalued—someone who is confused and has never had a chance to really matter in anybody's life—it just makes things hopeless for them. I once heard about inner-city kids who were taken camping. One of the kids had a birthday, and when they threw him a party, he said, "I've never had a birthday party." Imagine never being cared for in that way.

Insight practice teaches us to see self in a new way, but only after you've prepared the ground for it. It's not supposed to be a belief.

When I saw the dart of suffering in myself, I realized that at the core was a certain kind of clinging to self, holding on for dear life. I was surprised to discover this little seed deep inside, and I began to understand that it didn't have to be there. We start seeing that there are many things going on in this world, and we can realize, "This is interesting, but I don't have to construct a self-definition out of it."

For example, if I am irritated, I don't have to say, "This is my true nature; I'm an irritated person." Rather, I see, "This is irritation happening now. I have to be careful with it." Once upon a time, in my early twenties, something happened in my life that made me really happy. It was induced by the circumstances, but it lasted for some months. I had this idea: "I'm never going to be depressed again. I'm now just a happy person." I defined myself by it. Then, in the wake of that, I became more depressed than I had ever been in my life.

If we know the different forces, states, and beliefs inside of us well enough, we can take them into account and be wise about them without latching onto them to define who we really are. That makes a world of difference. I found a degree of freedom.

Cultivation Before Revelation

In this context, we cultivate stability and steadiness. We sit and meditate. We stand with our feet firmly on the ground. I meet with people who sit in chairs to talk to me. Sometimes I point out how they are sitting. Some people sit in ways that don't represent stability, strength, and confidence. I'll ask them to sit up straighter, open their chest, and place their feet flat on the ground. I say, "Now sit and close your eyes and feel that for a while." They do, and when I ask, "What's the difference?", their eyes go wide. They say, "Wow, that's different. I had no idea that in my ordinary posture I'm giving up on myself." An upright, stable posture creates a very different way of being in the world. It allows you to be anchored and not batted around so much.

We also have to steady our minds. How about your mind? Can you steady your mind? Some minds are jumping around all the time from one thing to another. I was surprised when I started web surfing and clicking around, that when I stopped, I thought, "Wait a minute, I've lost my mind." My mind kept moving in the same way: "What's next? What's next? What's next?"—even though the laptop was closed. It didn't take long for the brain to be reconditioned into this momentum of constantly looking. The modern attention economy is designed to manipulate our attention. There was a time when you could just go about your life on a farm without anything keeping you constantly distracted.

The same is true for the 2026 mind that most of us have now. If you could just have a 1966 mind, you'd think you were awakened. You'd think you had been enlightened. The whole world was so different, and it affects how the mind works.

We also cultivate well-being. We do that in Buddhism through loving-kindness, concentration practices, and by taking time to appreciate the simple joys in life—the blue sky, a beautiful tree, a neighbor who smiles. There are a lot of small things that we miss if we're constantly preoccupied. If your whole experience of the world is seen through the narrow filter of the news on your laptop, it gives you a very skewed perception of reality. I was delighted recently to talk to a woman of Haitian background who goes back there regularly to bring her children. She said, "Yes, in the capital and the big cities, it's dangerous. But in the countryside, I let my kids run around and play unsupervised." I realized how biased my perception was, completely shaped by terrible news headlines.

Finally, there is the mystery of being so at ease, so peaceful, and so stable that our mind can stop playing the self game. The mind can stop seeing the world through the filter of "me, myself, and mine" and stop constantly judging and evaluating what we think is ourselves. It's remarkable what's possible.

To summarize, we cultivate the opposite of what we eventually want to see. I sometimes call it revelation: do the cultivation practice until it becomes obvious to you. In this world, the challenges might come to you sooner than you expect. So cultivate these three good qualities soon—stability, well-being, and self-confidence—because you don't know when you'll need them to respond wisely to a changing world, so that you can contribute to it rather than being part of the problem.

I hope this inspires you to do the cultivation part. The revelation part will take care of itself. Thank you all very much.