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The Door To More Freedom Now

Good evening. Welcome, nice to see you all. You're welcome to move chairs or to sit in a place that's comfortable. For those of you that are on the floor, you're welcome to stay where you are, but you're also welcome to move chairs so you don't have to sit behind something.

I'd like to give a talk that builds on a talk that I gave last week. But maybe before I go there, I'm going to say happy first day of spring! I feel kind of happy about the Spring Equinox, even though I just got back from New Mexico where it was snowing. It's hard for me to feel like it is spring; I felt like it's actually winter. But here it is spring. I guess it's spring there too.

I wanted to build on a talk that I gave last week. I was talking about this idea that there's a difference between direct experience—what we are experiencing in the moment—and the labels we give it. An example would be words like stabbing, throbbing, spacious, contracted, or tight. Notice how these are just adjectives; there's not a sentence, it's just an adjective describing whatever the experience is. As humans, we put a label on them, and then we often have a relationship with the label, not so much with the experience.

For example, there might be stabbing in the knee, throbbing, or maybe heat. As soon as we label it "pain," then we have a relationship with the word "pain." I don't know about you guys, but I don't like pain, and there's fear that comes up and all this kind of stuff. But something like stabbing or throbbing feels a little bit more manageable. We might say, "Okay, this is just this experience right now," and might even bring a little bit of curiosity in.

So much of our practice is about getting clear about this distinction between what's actually happening and the label we put on it. Of course, we need labels; I'm not saying we're not going to use them. But often the label can be a springboard for all kinds of story-making and thinking. Sometimes we use this Buddhist word^[1], papañca^[2]. I think it kind of has this feeling of popcorn or something, everything that's going off afterwards.

In the example that I gave about the pain, the human mind has this tendency to elaborate and spread out on pain: "Oh, my knee's bothering me from that bike accident all those years ago. And I can't believe that person did that and caused me to have that bike accident. And that reminds me I need to do this or that." Off we go, based on just having this throbbing or stabbing sensation. Papañca is this idea of the proliferation or effusion of mental commentary, this story-making that happens, or this thinking run amok. This is as opposed to just thinking of what's needed in the moment to solve a problem, or to plan or communicate. Of course, we all need thinking for that, but papañca is just that proliferation.

I'm noticing that you're looking at the flickering light. Is this annoying? [Laughter] Can we turn off that light and leave other lights on? Is that possible? Yeah, okay, so we'll be a little bit more cozy. That's better than the flickering light, I think. Thank you, Jim. Thank you, Bill.

[Laughter] For those who didn't hear, Jim said he thought maybe it was the Metta Sutta^[3] in Morse code: short, short, long, long, short. Kudos to you if you can do some Morse code.

Part of the way that I want to explore this is with a sutta passage, which is a story. I want to give this story and annotate, or maybe give my own version of papañca with this story. Some of you will know this story, it's well known, but I want to emphasize certain parts that aren't usually emphasized.

I'm not going to tell you the title yet. You'll figure it out, because otherwise you'll slap a label on it: "Oh, I've heard this before and it's all about this." I want us to just be with the experience of what's unfolding here.

It starts like this: "Thus have I heard." For those of you who don't know, most suttas start this way. "Thus have I heard. At one time the Buddha was staying near Sāvatthī in Jeta's Grove, at Anāthapiṇḍika's Park. Now at that time, Bāhiya^[4] of the Bark Cloth was residing by Suppāraka on the ocean shore."

Just to put this into perspective, the Buddha is in Sāvatthī in one location. Bāhiya of the Bark Cloth—somebody who wore clothing made out of bark—is near the ocean, about 1,200 miles away. This is a long distance, right? At the time when there's no pavement, there's no roads, that's a long distance to walk without established roads.

So Bāhiya was residing by Suppāraka on the ocean shore, where he was honored, respected, revered, venerated, and esteemed. He received robes, alms food, lodgings, medicines, and supplies for the sick.

A few things we can say about this: he is "of the Bark Cloth," so that means he is not a Buddhist practitioner. Just like today we could tell the difference between a Tibetan monastic, a Theravada monastic^[5], and a Zen priest by the clothes that they wear, in the same way, we can tell by this that he's not a Buddhist. But he's an esteemed and well-respected spiritual leader, enough so that people are venerating him and supporting him in the same way that they might support Buddhist practitioners.

The sutta continues: "When Bāhiya was practicing in seclusion, this line of thinking appeared to his awareness: 'Of those who in this world are arahants^[6]—somebody who is fully awakened—or have entered the path of arahantship, am I one?'"

Here's a little bit of doubt. He has all this attention from other practitioners; they are venerating him and supporting him. But he's wondering, "Am I really awakened? From my experience, do I think that I'm really awakened?" I appreciate that he wasn't complacent, thinking, "Because people treat me a certain way, I must be that way." Instead, he's open to the idea that there's more to learn, more for him to do.

Not only that, he allowed this doubt in his mind to remain there for a little bit. You'll see why in a moment what happens next. He doesn't immediately bat it away, like, "Oh, that's silly. I must be awakened, everybody treats me as if I'm awakened." And he doesn't get into papañca about it. This thought simply arises: "Am I awakened?" He doesn't ignore it or push it away. This willingness to stay present with this openness, this doubt, this question about his practice, then allows what happens next.

Then a deva^[7]—this is a disembodied spirit, we might say—a deva who had once been a relative of Bāhiya's, who was compassionate and desiring Bāhiya's welfare, and knowing with her own awareness the line of thinking that was in Bāhiya's awareness, went to Bāhiya and said to him: "You, Bāhiya, are neither an arahant, nor have you entered the path of arahantship. You don't even have the practice whereby you would become an arahant."

This is quite something, right? The deva just says to him straight out, "You're not awakened, nor will you be. You're doing something completely different." They never say what his practice is, but she's just straight up telling him, "You're not as awakened as you thought you were, not as awakened as everybody else thinks that you are."

Douglas Phillips, who is a Zen teacher and sometimes teaches a little bit of the Theravada also, likes to interpret this deva visiting Bāhiya as some feminine wisdom that maybe Bāhiya was completely disconnected from. But when he opens up this question, "Am I awakened?", and is able to just stay with that inquiry, it allows something else to arise, maybe something in his mind to arise. So that's one way we could interpret this idea that the deva comes and challenges him. Her directness is, well, maybe we might even say brutal. Or maybe it's just fantastic the way that she's not beating around the bush, right? She's just saying, "Nope, you're not awakened, and you're not even on the path to awakening," despite his many years of practice and all of the practitioners that support him.

We might not be visited by devas that say, "Hey, you are not awakened," but it's not unusual for us to sometimes have doubt about our practice in so many different ways. Maybe we find ourselves yelling at a loved one and we realize, "Really? After all these years of practice, I'm still upset, or I still get triggered by things, I'm still really reactive." Or maybe we find ourselves thinking with hostility towards people who are doing something that we feel is really against our values—harming others, harming the planet, or just causing harm in the world—and we find our hearts getting constricted and not being generous in our thoughts towards them.

Maybe we have doubts like, "Is this practice really working? I've been doing all this meditation, listening to Dharma talks, reading Dharma books, whatever it might be." There are so many different ways that doubts can show up. It can be about ourselves: "Maybe I don't have the capacity." Or we might think, "Well, those teachers, I'm not sure they really know what they're talking about; they don't seem to be perfect." Or the teachings might not seem compelling: "Maybe there's something else that's easier or faster," or whatever it is that we're looking for. Maybe we had expectations about the practice that just aren't being met, and doubt arises.

When doubt arises, there are a few things we can do. One is to go down the path of bitterness or resentment: "I can't believe I spent all this time practicing, and I'm still the same." This kind of thinking might bring in self-judgment or even despair: "I thought this was going to help, and if this doesn't help, maybe nothing can." That's one way to go when we feel like our expectations aren't being met. It's a legitimate way, and for many of us, we might have to go down that road for a while before we start to realize that it's really not leading towards more freedom. Instead, it restricts our freedom as we start to collapse and feel disempowered.

An alternative way is to just fold it into practice. Feel like, "Okay, I feel unsure about myself and these teachings. What can I do?" First, we can be mindful: "This is what it feels like to feel unsure or to have doubt." Or we can investigate. We could talk to a teacher, we could talk to other people, we can read Dharma books, listen to Dharma talks. We don't have to just say, "Well, this didn't work." Maybe try a different teacher, a different style, a different tradition within Buddhism, or maybe not even Buddhism at all. But don't just give up and collapse around it; instead, take it as an indication or an opportunity to explore and investigate.

Getting back to the story, after hearing from this deva that he's not awakened, and not only that, he's not on the path towards awakening, the sutta continues. Without hesitation, Bāhiya asked the deva, "But who in this world is actually an arahant and has entered that path?" The deva answers, "Bāhiya, in the northern city of Sāvatthī lives the Blessed One, the Buddha, a rightly self-awakened arahant. He is truly an arahant and teaches the Dhamma that leads to arahantship."

Then Bāhiya, deeply chastened by the deva, left Suppāraka and traveled all the way to where the Buddha was staying. He was just like, "Okay, if that's what it takes, this is what I'm going to do." He packs his bags—or I don't even know if he had bags, right? He might have just been a monastic. He walks 1,200 miles halfway across the subcontinent. It's quite something, because this could have been an opportunity for a lot of papañca: "How dare you talk to me? What do you know?" There are so many different ways we can respond to this, but instead he's like, "Oh, okay. I'm not awakened. Well, what can I do to get awakened? Who can teach me?" At this time, there are not books or anything else to inform a person except another person. So this is why he asks "who is"; that's a way of saying, "Where can I find the teachings?" He doesn't defend, rationalize, deny, or blame; he just wants to go find where he can find the teachings that can make him awakened.

We'll continue with the sutta. Bāhiya walks all the way over to where the Buddha is. When he's there, he finds a number of Buddhist monks doing walking meditation, and he asks, "Venerable sirs, where is the Blessed One staying? Where is the Buddha? I must see him immediately." The monastics told Bāhiya that the Buddha had gone into town for alms. It's kind of like he's on his lunch break, like, "Don't bother him."

But Bāhiya immediately turned to the city where the Buddha had gone for his alms rounds. Bāhiya went in there and found the Buddha on alms round. The Buddha was moving with great calm, his mind at peace, tranquil and poised, with the restrained senses of a Great One. Bāhiya notices right away that the Buddha is different. There's something about him. He has this calm, tranquility, and poise, so even before Bāhiya has spoken to the Buddha, he can tell something's different about him.

He approached the Buddha, threw himself to the ground before him with his head to the Buddha's feet—this is a sign of extreme respect, to put your head at the feet of somebody else in ancient India—and he says to the Buddha, "Teach me the Dharma, O Blessed One. Teach me the Dharma, O Holy One, so that it will be for my long-term welfare and happiness."

He traveled all this way, he wants to hear the teachings. The Buddha said to him, "This is not the time, Bāhiya. I am on the alms round."

Bāhiya pleaded with the Buddha a second time: "Holy One, it is hard to know for sure what dangers there may be for the Buddha's life, or what dangers there may be for mine. Please teach me the Dharma, O Blessed One, so that I may be free and happy." Bāhiya is saying we don't know when we're going to die. I might die before you finish your alms round, or you, the Buddha, might die before you finish your alms round.

And again, the Buddha said, "Bāhiya, this is not the time for me to give a talk. I'm on alms round."

But Bāhiya is persistent. He wants to receive these teachings. But not only that, he has a certain amount of wisdom about impermanence, recognizing that none of us are guaranteed the next moment. None of us are guaranteed that after our next meal everything's going to be fine. He has some wisdom that things are inconstant, impermanent; there are no guarantees.

Getting back to this, he pleaded his case a third time to the Buddha. And this time the Buddha relented and said: "Well, Bāhiya, you should train like this: In the seen will be merely the seen."

Seen, as in what is visually known. And the heard will be merely the heard, as in what sounds are heard. I'm saying this because somebody told me a few years ago that they thought it was like a "scene"—like a pastoral scene with rolling hills, s-c-e-n-e. And then for "heard," they thought, well maybe it's like a herd of cows or deer. They had this whole pastoral scene! That's why I'm spending a little time to say it's visual and hearing.

"In the seen will be merely the seen, and the heard will be merely the heard, and the sensed will be merely the sensed, and the cognized will be merely the cognized."

He is saying keep it simple: no papañca, nothing extra. Just for each experience, be with that experience, including the experiences of a thought. "Cognized" here is what arises in consciousness.

And then the Buddha continues. He says, "When for you there will be only the seen in reference to the seen, only the heard in reference to the heard, only the sensed in reference to the sensed, only the cognized in reference to the cognized, then there is no 'you' in connection with that. And when there is no 'you' in connection with that, there is no 'you' there. And when there is no 'you' there, you are neither here nor yonder nor between the two. And just this is the end of suffering."

Upon hearing this brief explanation from the Buddha, Bāhiya's mind was immediately freed from the defilements and he became awakened.

What's interesting here is what's added at the end. Not only to keep it simple and not do papañca, or allow our thinking to run amok after each sense experience, but the Buddha is also pointing to how we create our sense of self.

For example, we'll get back to the stabbing sensation in the knee. The reaction might be, "I don't like it." Perfectly reasonable, but all of a sudden there is this "I" that has a problem, that has to get rid of it. This is opposed to saying something like, "The sensations of stabbing have arisen," or, "Stabbing is known." I admit that this language is awkward and clunky; we wouldn't normally do this. But for illustration purposes, that's different than, "I am experiencing pain," or "I'm experiencing stabbing."

There's a way in which there can be experiences without having to say there's an experiencer. Because as soon as we start to say there's an experiencer, then all kinds of extra stuff comes along. Things we like and we don't like, and we have to protect and bolster it, and make sure everybody else sees us the way we want to be seen, and that we see ourselves the way we want to be seen. There's all kinds of extra stuff that comes up as soon as we create this self.

We're not doing this intentionally, so maybe I should say as soon as this self is created—a sense of our self built with our stories—it is different from just noting, "There's this experience that's happening right now. It's unpleasant. There's a wish for this experience to go away." These are all true, but there's a cleanness about it. Because with the sense that "I am experiencing this stabbing, and I don't like it, and I want it to go away," there's a certain amount of getting tangled up with it. There's a certain way in which we're clinging onto it or grabbing onto it. We're not just allowing the experiences to arise and pass away, but instead creating the conditions where we are... I'm trying to see if there's a better way to describe this.

Maybe I can describe this sense of self as when there's a sense of "me against the world," or "us against them." Then there's a really strong sense of, "Oh, there's an entity, 'me,' here, and everything else is out there." We have to make sure that everybody thinks the right things about us, whatever we want them to think—that we're smart, capable, attractive, or whatever it is that we might want others to think. Then we feel like we have to show up a particular way.

But it turns out that's extra. We don't have to do that. There's so much freedom available if we're able to put that down. And even if we can't put it down, to just soften it. To not get filled with anxiety about trying to bolster the sense of self, or trying to make our experience be different than how it is. The reason why we want to change our experience is because it doesn't match a sense of self that we might be creating.

We might consider that these instructions the Buddha gave point to what it's like when the self disappears: the seen is just the seen, the heard is just the heard, the sensed is just the sensed, and the cognized is just the cognized. We are perfectly able to move through the world without this extra self, which is the fuel for papañca, the proliferation of thinking that we like to do.

What this teaching is also pointing to is that whatever is happening in this present moment—whatever it might be: impatience, sleepiness, confusion, annoyance, pain in the knee—we can turn towards that and experience it directly. Just that turning towards and experiencing it directly, stopping any contention with reality we might be having, and just acknowledging, "Yep, this is the experience"—that's the doorway to freedom. Whatever is happening—if you're annoyed, if you're happy, if you're tired, if you feel restless—just be with the experience in a clean way as best we can.

If you feel like, "I don't even really know what she's talking about, this seems kind of weird," or maybe you're like, "Yep, I know exactly what they're talking about," consider this: Is there a way that we can hold our experience without trying to make it different, without trying to add on to it? Without being in contention with it, or trying to manipulate, manufacture, or engineer the experience so that it's different in some kind of way?

This is the good news. Sometimes we might think, "Okay, there'll be more freedom as soon as the neighbor's dog stops barking so I can meditate. Or as soon as I get a chance to do a retreat practice, or as soon as I find the right teacher or teachings." We might have this idea that in the future the conditions are going to be better, and then we'll be able to find some more freedom. But this teaching is pointing to this precise moment. This moment, whatever you're experiencing. We don't have to wait for the conditions to get better. There will only ever be more seeing, hearing, sensing, and cognizing; that's the only thing that we will be doing, ever. So why not now? Why not this moment?

I'll close with this: Learning to live fully in this way, being with our experience, as opposed to thinking, "Well, sometime in the future it'll be better, and then I will be with my experience." To truly live this experience opens the door to more freedom now, as opposed to in the imagined future.

Q&A

Question: Thank you so much for that. I was just wondering in this story, what does "cognized" refer to? Is that that we added interpretation to the experience, or just that we thought about it in some way? What does that mean?

Diana Clark: This is such a great question. It's kind of a clunky translation. I would say "thought" is probably a better word to use. Just recognizing that thoughts arise, and then being with the thought without saying, "Oh, I shouldn't think this," or, "I can't believe I thought that." Thank you for asking that question, it's a good one.

Question: Thanks for that talk. I have a question about the end, when you say you can still move through the world after having these realizations. How does that work, necessarily, if you're really only experiencing your senses deeply, not having thoughts about them? How do you continue having motivation to do things day to day, or to go about the world?

Diana Clark: Do you want to say a little bit more about your concerns about this? Are you saying, how do we do it without motivation—that we'll turn into couch potatoes?

Question: I guess from the description of someone for whom hearing is only hearing, and seeing is only seeing, it sounds to me like a passive observer of everything that's happening. I just can't imagine someone in that state getting up, eating breakfast, and going to work. I'm curious how it fits into day-to-day actions when you've reached that point.

Diana Clark: Thank you, that's a legitimate question. Eating breakfast happens. Getting out of bed happens. Getting dressed happens. Planning happens. Work happens. Everything happens, but there isn't so much a sense of, "I have to make it happen." There isn't this sense of, "I have to engineer, manufacture, create, and do everything to make it happen." Instead, there's more allowing. It's quite something, actually, that we're not as in control as we think we are, and we're not creating things as much as we think we are. But when we step back, everything that needs to happen still happens. There isn't this extra thinking of, "What are people going to think about me? Oh, I better do that or take care of this." There's so much more energy and clarity. A person can actually have more impact in the world and can be doing a lot more, just because they're freed up from so many of the things that tie us up in knots. Is that an okay answer? I wish I could say it more precisely, but it is kind of like: "Breakfast eating happens." [Laughter]

Question: Another question that I had was, what do you think is the instructive element of the story in the part where he's asking for the insight while the teacher is on their lunch break, repeatedly asking and being told no, and then he concedes and does share that insight? What is that part about, do you think?

Diana Clark: A few things. This shows up in the tradition a number of times, to be asked three times. It's a cultural thing, I think, from ancient India, to ask three times. It still exists sometimes in some Buddhist traditions; you have to ask three times for a teacher or for certain things. But I'm interpreting it that Bāhiya is persistent. And maybe some version of this did happen. I'm not going to say this is a historically true story, because I don't know, but we can imagine that maybe there was a time when something like this did happen: "Actually, this is not the time." And then there's the tradition of asking three times. That's my interpretation of it.

Question: I didn't finish the whole sutta, but the final piece is he dies. So maybe that urgency was very relevant in this context, that recognition of impermanence?

Diana Clark: Yes. He's telling the Buddha, "Well, you may die, I may die, we don't know." And then come to find out, Bāhiya dies soon right thereafter. I don't know if he knew or was afraid he was going to die. Thank you for that.

Maybe I'll just add a little bit of how he dies. He gets killed by a cow. That's not really explained, but the interpretation is he got between a newborn calf and its mother or something like this, and got trampled by a cow. This is a curious part of the story, but he's not the only one in the suttas; there are other people who get killed by cows too. I don't know what to make of that! But he became awakened.

Question: Between the teaching and the goring^[8]?

Diana Clark: Yes, absolutely right.

Question: It's interesting that the deva tells him that he's not on the path—his current practice is not leading to enlightenment. And yet, he clearly laid the foundation. Clearly he'd been cultivating pāramīs^[9] and cultivating samādhi^[10], so that when he received the teaching, he was well prepared for insight. He wasn't on the path, and yet he was cultivating his mind in ways that made him very receptive, so that his attainment was rapid.

Diana Clark: Great, thank you for pointing that out. Earlier in the sutta, it pointed out that he was venerated by others, so we knew he was a spiritual leader of some sort. He wasn't on this particular path, but his heart and mind were being cultivated so that he was receptive.

Question: I struggle a little bit with this—or a lot. Human beings are pretty naturally sense-making creatures, right? This kind of teaching is inviting us to lay that down completely. I'll frame it as a question: It feels to me that it's inviting us to experience what we're sensing just as what we're sensing, to experience our thoughts just as thoughts. Maybe that's the place where we can have thoughts which are meaning-making, but we don't get attached to those specific stories and cognizations. Is it okay to have thoughts that are making meaning, but to observe those and not become attached to the particular narration?

Diana Clark: Yes, I would say not to get this proliferation of thoughts, right? Not just going off on a tangent. But of course, I don't think it's possible for us to not make meaning. Yes, of course we do that.

Okay, so thank you for your attention, and wishing you a wonderful evening. Thank you.