Dharmette: Blamelessness (5 of 5) Equanimity and Seeing Things As They Are

This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Dharmette: Blamelessness (5 of 5): Equanimity and Seeing Things As They Are. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

The following talk was given by Maria Straatmann at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on July 28, 2023. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Dharmette: Blamelessness (5 of 5) Equanimity and Seeing Things As They Are

Hello everyone. My name is Maria Straatmann. I've been here this week for Gil. It's been a delightful week for me. Thank you all for being here.

What we've been talking about this week began from a place of how we deal with self-criticism and self-blame. We've been spending the week thinking about what gives rise to self-blame and self-criticism, and how we can cultivate the state of blamelessness. This is the state where we are not turning against ourselves and constantly criticizing what we do, at the same time as we are doing our practice and living our lives with all of the fullness that is inherent in that.

We talked about the effect of impermanence (anicca^[1]), the unsatisfactoriness (dukkha^[2]) of things, because they arise and pass away and cannot be depended upon. We talked about judgment: the effect of judgment, and how judgment and comparison drive us to think something less of one thing over another, less of ourselves over another, or less of ourselves compared to an ideal. We talked about doubt: the effect of doubt, how doubt undermines everything and clouds everything. It is like walking in fog. And then we talked about forgiveness, which is really the act of not placing blame. Not condoning or excusing, but not placing blame; not denying the effect of impermanence.

Today, it turns out I have fifteen minutes to talk about three different topics, which is clearly not going to happen. [Laughter] So I'm going to try to limit it to something that makes sense.

When I was in my late twenties, I went to work for an engineering firm. I was a chemist. I was also the only woman outside of the accounting office and the secretaries in the front office. I was very confused about who I was and how I fit into this very heavily machinist environment that I existed in. One day, a painter came up to me—someone who had just come in to paint—and he said, "I am totally confused by you. Some days you're wearing a tie-dye, you look like a hippie, you have a T-shirt and jeans, and then some days you have a suit on. Who are you?"

That has stuck with me: Who are you? Is it an accumulation of all kinds of things, all kinds of aspects of yourself, all kinds of conditions that you find yourself in? Who I am is changing all the time. I don't wear tie-dyes as often as I used to, though I remain very attached to them and enlivened by them—the colors and the brightness. But I also have days when what seems appropriate is the closed-in quietness of just black. These colors reflect attitudes, changing pieces of myself, things that I need to see. And I've given up the habit of needing it to be a certain way.

Because here's the thing: our suffering depends not on having things the way we want them, but seeing things just as they are. Just as they are, and not expecting them to be a certain way. Even though it's very human to expect things to be a certain way, to see when that is what's operating—seeing things clearly—leads to non-blame. It leads to blamelessness.

To see that suffering co-arises with wanting things to be other than they are: "I want more of this," "I want less of this," "I want you to be this way," "I want these conditions to be that way." All of this wanting and not being happy unless what we want is realized—this is what leads to suffering. So how do we get to the point where we can really see things clearly? Where we're not confused by the views that we bring into the moment, or the attitude that we have when we get up in the morning, or whether we're wearing a tie-dye shirt or a suit? Not to be confused by this, but to just see: this is what's happening.

Our suffering depends on seeing things clearly, checking in with our intentions, and then taking the next step. That's all we have control over, just the next step, what operates from our intention. If we have in our hearts ill will, irritation, anything that creates tension and ugliness in our lives—if that's what we're feeding, that's what's going to feed into this moment. That's the condition of this moment. That's what I can see. I can see my being angry with that person, or being upset with that person, and really wanting not to be. I really don't want to carry that into the future.

I heard Gil say one time something that was just absolutely wonderful. He said if you can't let go of the ill will, at least notice that you're a person who wants to let go of the ill will. This is a softening of the heart. "I want to let go of that. I want to let go of it." Just that very act is shifting. The small shift is what makes a difference; that's what changes everything. "I want to"—but only if you want to. And that's the part about seeing clearly.

Being in touch with our intentions means noticing what our intentions are. We have global intentions. I have the intention to be open-hearted. I'm not always open-hearted, but it is my overwhelming intention. Sometimes, a person cuts me off on the freeway, and I'll feel the anger go into my body. I feel my belly tighten, I feel the adrenaline rising in my body, and then I notice that all of that's happening and I say, "Yes, but... yes, but..."

And then I see it isn't that this is a bad person; that's not what's happening. What's happening is I was startled. I was frightened by someone pulling in front of me on the freeway. Oh, that's what was happening. Now I go to, "Oh, I want to be safe. I want everyone to be safe." And suddenly I've gone from ill will to, "May everybody on the freeway be safe." Including this driver, who may not have had evil intentions when he cut me off. Maybe it was the last chance he had to get off the freeway and he didn't know where he was.

But I don't have to make those conditional statements about this person. I can just change what's happening in me. I can notice I don't want to go there, and see that there's something else. That act of noticing—"I don't want to go there, I don't like this feeling, this is uncomfortable"—allows us to see something else. Because we're not spending our time justifying that ill will, when we don't use our precious time that way, we have time in that moment to see something else is happening. To give space for, "I just wanted to be safe."

We live in a world where bad stuff happens. Now, we can say that if everybody was good, bad stuff wouldn't happen. But somehow I don't think so. Good and bad being comparative terms, what's good for me may not be good for you, and what's bad for me may not be bad for you. And there are gradations all along the spectrum.

So what do we do when we discover a family member is hurting themselves? They're lost in alcoholism or drugs, and we care about them, and we see very clearly, "If they just did this, it would be so simple." Or we see for ourselves, "Why can't I do this? Why can't I stick to this plan? Why can't I always have kind speech in mind?" Why is this happening? Because it happens. It doesn't have to have the meaning that someone is at fault, that someone is blameworthy.

Nor does it mean that we excuse deliberate actions of ill will; that's not necessary. But it turns out that taking responsibility for making everything in life wonderful is a large part of suffering. What can we do about that? What we can do is try to arrive at the place where we say, "Okay, my intention is to see clearly."

My route to this: at one time, I felt totally destroyed by how alienated I had become from my family over something that had happened. Something that I did in response to something. It was roundly—not everybody in my family condemned it, I have eight siblings, so there are lots of people with lots of voices—but I did something that I felt was essential, that was important for me, to not support bad behavior. I was not well-liked in my family as a consequence of doing this, and I was plagued by that.

I went off on a month-long retreat at the Forest Refuge^[3] and I told Joseph Goldstein^[4], "Oh, I have this real problem, this great problem. My family's so disappointed in me, and I know I'm right." And he said, "Ah, I know what you can do!" He seemed so excited he knew just what to do. He told me to do equanimity practice.

Which I had never really practiced before. So what I did was take a few standard phrases:

• I am heir to my own karma^[5].
• My suffering or lack of suffering depends on my own intentions and actions, not what others may wish or what I may wish.
• Despite what I may wish, things are as they are.
• May I see things just as they are.
• May I meet the arising and passing away of all things with equanimity and balance.

For this month on retreat, every time I did walking meditation, I repeated these phrases in my head. That's thousands of times. I just repeated these phrases over and over again. I would occasionally insert that opening from the Dhammapada^[6], which makes it easier for me to see the route of karma than to just refer to "karma". I don't want to get off on what karma means, but just that I am heir to my own attitudes and the conditions that I create.

Not what others may wish or what I may wish. And you can say this for others as well: "Despite what I may wish, things are as they are. Their happiness depends on their own intentions and actions, not what I may wish for them."

Over time, after about two weeks, I came to the place where I realized my suffering is the result of my actions and my intentions. That's it. It comes home right there. My unhappiness is caused by my not accepting, my mind being unwilling to see things just as they are.

So I offer these phrases to you. They've been life-saving for me. They've allowed me to continue reevaluating my entry point to the moment. Evaluating: where am I now? Despite what I may wish, things are as they are. Let me see them clearly. Let me see them bright as they are. What's happening for me now? What's the energetic state in my body? How am I feeling? Where in my body am I feeling that? Rest in the here and now. Don't get pulled off into the story. Just here and now. Just this.

Here is another Jane Hirshfield poem from the same book that I seem to be hooked on this week. The book is Ledger. The name of the poem is "You Go to Sleep in One Room and Wake in Another."

You go to sleep in one room and wake in another. You go to sleep in one time and wake in another. Men land on the moon, viewed in blurred black and white and static on a big screen in Central Park, standing in darkness with others. Your grandfather did not see this. Your grandchildren will not see this. Soon, no, fifty years back... unemphatic, the wheelbarrowed stars hung above. Many days, like a nephew, resemble the one beforehand, but they are not the one beforehand. Each was singular, spendable, eaten with pepper and salt. You go to sleep in one person's bed and wake in another. Your face after toweling changed from the face that was washed. You go to sleep in one world and wake in another. You who were not your life, nor were stranger to it, you who were not your name, your ribs, your skin, will go as a suitcase that takes inside it the room. Only after you know this, can you know this. And a knocked glass that loses what has been spilled... you will know this. Only after you know this, will you know this.

My saying it, your hearing it doesn't do it. Once you know, then you know, and it's always with you.

May we all see clearly. May we all see what is before us and what we are part of. To see it not as meaningful, but in the being of it. May you be in this moment and be free. Thank you for your time. I'm open to questions and comments.

Q&A

Host: Thank you, Maria. We've got Layla from YouTube. She asked about an earlier comment you made this week related to: "Around judgment lies all Buddhism." She was hoping you'd elaborate on that.

Maria: I don't quite remember saying that, but I might have because I don't plan everything I say. [Laughter] Apparently, I was thinking about Buddhism and the Four Noble Truths^[7]: that suffering exists, suffering arises, we can see the cause of suffering, and we can see what leads to the end of suffering. In that process of realizing that things arise and pass away, we see that we have some effect on whether we choose the arising of suffering or the ending of suffering. Judgment is the place where we very often go astray. Instead of saying, "This is what gives rise to suffering," and then stopping and vowing not to do that again, we get lost in establishing blame for what has happened, blaming ourselves or others. We get lost in the story and we forget to just look at, "Ah, this gives rise to suffering. This ends suffering."

When the Buddha was instructing his son, Rahula^[8], who had done some horrible thing—he turned over a monk's bowl, so the monk didn't get to eat that day—instead of castigating his son and telling him how wrong it was, he said, "You know, Rahula, this is it. This is all of it. Before, during, and after any action, think: Is this causing suffering for me, for you, or for either of us? If it's causing suffering, stop. If it's not causing suffering, cultivate it." This is Buddhism, and it requires seeing really clearly. So I'm not sure exactly what I was thinking at the time, Layla, but I hope that answers your question. That's how I relate to it now.

Host: Thank you, Maria. Also, if people want to raise their hand in Zoom, please feel free to do so, or you can post your question in chat. A follow-on question that happened on YouTube from Marlene was: How does one see clearly?

Maria: Seeing clearly has to do with not taking the first piece of information you get. Like, "That person hurt me by tearing in front of me in their car." Instead, say, "If I let go of the string of that story, what else is true now?" It's a process of saying, "Well, I'm a little scared," and noticing that shakiness. Not calling that shakiness anger. "Well, yes, I'm shaking in anger." No, I'm just shaking. What does that have to signify? The mind automatically goes to a story. Over time, it's a process of learning one's mind habits. What does my mind do when I get shook?

Last night I was having dinner with our family. The dog was under the table, and I didn't realize she'd crawled close to my chair. Suddenly she stretched, and her claw hit the side of my sandaled foot. I jerked up, and people said, "What's wrong?" I said, "Oh, it's nothing, I was just startled." Never underestimate: if you're startled, you're startled. It doesn't have to mean, "Oh, that crummy dog shouldn't be under the table." Just notice: "Oh, I'm startled." Don't be in a hurry to name something. Naming something is very useful in meditation, but not so much if you're just trying to see what else is here. Whenever you name something, it creates a story. So just leave space.

Participant: Hello Maria, hello everybody. I'm going to be a cheerleader for Maria, because I just thought this week was terrific. Secondly, the lines that you said were from Mr. Goldstein—you told me those lines about ten years ago, and I have to say it was an amazing turning point for me. It has opened up a whole world of looking at conditioning as part of my responsibility, as opposed to selfing myself. I memorized them at the time you said them to me, and I use them almost every day to just ground me. I recommend them really highly to everybody. It just brings you right back to the essence of this moment. It really helps with that tendency to blame, because you're seeing conditioning as part of it. So thank you, Maria, for everything.

Maria: Thank you.

Host: A question came from YouTube asking: Are there any suggestions for working with tight areas in one's body, e.g., tightness around the heart area, which occurs with me often?

Maria: The natural thing is to want that tightness to go away. I would want it to go away. But when I notice that tightness, rather than trying to think of ways to ease it, I focus on the tightness as the core of the rawness in me. This is the place where I feel the physical pain of whatever my emotional state is. And in seeing that, I empathize with myself. I see it: "Oh, you're trying so hard." In that shift to, "Oh, I see you're trying so hard," there is a shift to compassion for oneself. Being able to empathize and see clearly—"Oh, that's painful"—not pitying, but "I see that in you," softens the heart.

It isn't in that moment going to just change everything, but it is a gradual seeing. "Oh, there's tightness here. Does it feel like a crushing tightness? Does it feel like a stretched tightness? Can I see something else about this tightness other than it's tight? Does it feel protective? Does it feel overextended? Does it feel camouflaged? Does it feel like it's hidden from me?"

I was very aware at one time—the reason I talk so much about an open heart is that when I first began meditating, I became very aware of how protected my heart was. I literally imagined it with a brick wall and iron gates in front of it. It was a formidable structure. First, the gates kind of opened a little bit, but that brick wall was still there. And then one day, it wasn't there anymore. But it's a gradual crumbling. So I don't know the nature of the tightness in your heart, but never underestimate that some of the tightness can come from over-efforting and trying to break it loose. Sometimes what's required is to just say, "May the tightness in my heart relax."

One of the breakthroughs for me was suddenly recalling that when my dog had cancer, they sewed her back up and tried to give her a drug to ease her pain. She had the opposite reaction and became very agitated. I climbed into the cage with her, and I thought, "Anybody that will climb into a dog cage to comfort the dog is not heartless." I couldn't see it for myself, but I could see it in another way. Don't give up on yourself. The way to work on it is to befriend yourself. Be your own grandma.

Host: Thank you. Catherine, you can go ahead and unmute.

Catherine: Hi Maria. Thank you, it's been so helpful this week, I'm really grateful. I want to name the particular challenge of chronic conditions that feel like they lead to a lot of suffering. For myself, I'm on day eight of a migraine, and I live with chronic pain all the time, but sometimes it flares. On day two, I'm like, "Okay, equanimity. Let me observe." But as these painful conditions continue, it gets tiring. These intentions get harder to hold. Clear perspective gets harder to hold. And at the same time, it gets easier to start to blame myself for the conditions. "Am I the heir? What have I been doing that has caused this karma?" which is awful. I think many of us live with conditions that don't just change, and it's very easy for the mind to ask, "Do I believe in impermanence when it's been thirty years of intense pain?" And then starting to think, "It must be my fault that I can't keep continually coming to the present moment and seeing it afresh when it seems so repetitive." I know the basic approaches here, it's just hard. Any sort of support and boosting for those of us in similar situations, I would be grateful for.

Maria: Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for all your suffering, really. Buddhism is not a bolster against pain, only the additional suffering we cause ourselves for that pain. The place of refuge is to befriend oneself and to realize that this is painful. Unlike other instructions around mindfulness, it is not always useful to concentrate on that pain. Is that useful? It is just there. It's rather like I ate in a restaurant the other night, and the noise was so loud. All those surfaces were hard, and it was so loud it hurt my ears. After about ten minutes, I was no longer noticing. It was still loud, but my awareness had kind of moved on. Whereas if I had focused on that loudness, it never would have improved; it always would have been very loud.

Now, that's not the same thing as the pain from a migraine, which I understand is overwhelming. When one is faced with overwhelming business: this is what's true in this moment. To admit to oneself, "This is overwhelming, and despite everything, I am still here." There's a sort of reinforcement of the confidence that comes from saying, "I am still here. Here I am with all the things that are true. It may feel like this is killing me, but it hasn't. I'm here. I'm here, wounded, weary, and undaunted by that woundedness and that weariness."

We do this in the presence of grief. We do this in the presence of all sorts of catastrophes that happen in life. When we feel like there's nobody else to blame, "It must be my fault that I can't overcome this." Existence is not about overcoming anything, but to just be here and say, "Ah, damn, that hurts." And then to let that go. Not to stay with that story. Not to stay with one's awareness in that place. I'm not saying to divert one's attention, but merely then to notice something else. To light a candle, to look outside and see something that pleases you, and know that that's here too. Not instead of, too.

There are some recordings on Audio Dharma on how to deal with chronic pain, and those teachers might be more useful to you than I am. You can go to Audio Dharma and search by topic or by teacher. If you put in my name, you get all of the things that I've recorded over the last fifteen-plus years. There are lots of resources there that you might find useful. Ed Freedman^[9] has done a lot of really lovely things on the subject of pain.

Host: Thank you so much. Okay Teresa, you can unmute.

Teresa: Hi Maria. I have a quick question. Yesterday you said there were some openings on the group sessions, and I went there yesterday and there was nothing left. I'm having trouble getting to that Genius sign-up site through IMC. I can do the individual ones, but I'm having trouble finding the group one. Yesterday I found it, except there weren't any more slots left.

Maria: No, they went very quickly. I used to do more sessions, but I've cut back a little bit. They're on a rotating basis. Right now, I've set them to three weeks in advance. I used to do three a week, and now I'm doing just one extra every other week, so that limits the number that are available. I might change that in the future, but that's how it is right now because I'm quite busy.

Teresa: Okay, well don't they open up each month?

Maria: The way to get to those is through IMC. There is a link in IMC to those sign-ups. The other thing I would say is check back, because people often cancel. This Saturday's group was full, and then two people canceled. Shortly before, sometimes those positions open up.

Host: Roni?

Roni: Thank you, Maria. I want to clarify something in my mind which I'm a little confused by. When I am struggling with judgment or the inability to forgive—to find that equanimity, it's mighty hard. I think usually I would end up going to some form of compassion practice to offer myself that. Going to look for equanimity when I'm so stuck in my pattern... can you offer some advice on that?

Maria: On the practice of loving-kindness (mettā^[10]), it can be useful to use it to soften your heart. Not to sort of repair what's going on, but when you find rigidity being established—"I can't let go of that, I just can't let go of that"—then sometimes a mettā practice just for yourself, not for others, just wishing yourself well, will do that little shift I mentioned before. You can shift from all that heavy effort to just, "I'm not really trying," and there's a kind of letting go and a little relaxation of breath.

In the Dhammapada, the verses I read yesterday about "hatred only ends by non-hatred"—that has often been translated as "hatred never ends by hatred, but by love alone does hatred end." But we don't have to go so far as to love what's causing us pain and suffering. We just have to stop hating. And so it's the letting go of the story. Every time I hear myself justifying, "Well yeah, I'm mad because..." or I hear myself say, "Oh, you always do..." or any of those triggering things that are the messages in my brain, I relax that story. I'm not going to keep telling that story. Sometimes I stop in the middle of a sentence. It's so familiar to me and it's repeating in my head, I'll stop in the middle of the sentence and just say, "I don't have to say that. I know the source of that pain. I don't have to tell myself about it." It steps down from both having to defend how I feel—the rigidity I feel—to saying, "This is where it is," and to rest. Even, "I wish I could let go of it." There's a place where one finds refuge in resting in one's good intentions. It's not giving up, it's not saying it's okay, it's not excusing, but it's seeing very clearly how much one wishes to be free of the curse of not being able to lay it down.

Yesterday, Susie reacted to my saying "refusing to let go of", because she'd never heard me say that before. It's recognizing that sometimes that harm that we have received has become a familiar partner and feels somehow right. It's making it part of me. And the refusal is not overt or conscious, it's just, "Oh yeah, just what I was expecting." The familiarity of a chronic issue—feeling how familiar it is, is not your friend. You have to notice, "Oh, I'm becoming used to this. Has this become a habit as opposed to how I'm reacting to what's happening right now?" The closer you can get to just what's happening now, the closer you can get to seeing things clearly, and to realize that what you think about it—the opinion you have about what's happening—is not what's happening now. What's happening now is the pain of that opinion. Consider that, just see if that opens anything for you.

Host: Well, thank you for your teaching this week, Maria. I think that's pretty much everything, all the questions and raised hands. So thank you very much.

Maria: Thank you, everyone.