Poetry of Practice (2 of 5): Stuckness

This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Poetry of Practice (2 of 5) with Diana Clark. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

The following talk was given by Diana Clark at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on August 15, 2023. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Poetry of Practice (2 of 5): Stuckness

Introduction

Okay, good morning. Welcome, welcome. Good afternoon, good evening, wherever you are, whatever time it is. Even future—your future self maybe even listening to this—welcome, welcome.

Today I'm going to continue on this theme of the poetry of practice by introducing some poems. One I'll introduce during the guided meditation and just drop in, and then I'll repeat it during the Dharma talk^[1], and we'll talk about it a little bit and provide some other poems that are on a similar theme, all about this idea of practice.

There's something about poetry that allows for this compactness of expression. There's a lot packed into just a few words or a few lines, and to have this compactness requires some directness or some simplicity. In the same way that we have a non-distracted mind in meditation, this kind of simplicity and pointedness that we find with poetry might be in some ways similar to a meditation practice. We might even imagine that the poet has a still mind in order to really hone in on the right words or expressions. For the one who's reading the poem, it requires a dropping away of all the extraneous, spurious thoughts, and instead being brought to this directness of what's being pointed to. So in some ways, poetry and meditation are just natural companions.

I'll offer that as an introduction, and let's just begin the guided meditation now.

Guided Meditation

Taking a moment to settle in and feeling the sensations of sitting. I like to begin with feeling connected and grounded to this location and this moment.

Feeling the pressure against the body. Maybe the feet are touching the ground; feeling the groundedness of the feet on whatever they're touching. Maybe the backs of the legs are touching the chair or the cushion; feeling the connection. The buttocks sitting on the chair, cushion, bench, couch, bed, whatever it might be. Most of us spend a good portion of our days sitting upright in a chair or in some other way. It's a way that we can imbue this experience of feeling the pressure against the body with some awareness. Sitting feels like this.

Maybe the back is resting against the back of the chair or couch, whatever it might be, and we feel that connection also. And if the back isn't being supported, can you feel that sense of uprightness? This internal support, the spine holding up the body. Can we inhabit this body with aliveness, with presence? Bringing life to the body and the way it feels right now.

You might notice there are some areas of tension, some tightness. Maybe the shoulders are up a little bit. Can we let the shoulder blades slide down the back? And maybe tuck the chin just a tiny bit. Such a small movement that maybe no one would notice that you did it, but we tuck the chin and then move the chin straight back, up the back of the neck. In a very small, subtle, but impactful way.

Sometimes tension is held around the jaw or around the eyes. Checking in with the sensations on the face. You don't have to make them be different, but bringing some awareness might allow for some softening. Just being with this experience of, you might say, bodily life right now. Opening to it, allowing it as best we can.

Is it possible to set the sense of direction, the attitude that we're using or is present, as one of kindness? That there be some warmth, some softness, just for this meditation period. Can there be some care, openness?

And then allowing that attention to rest on the anchor. For most of us, the anchor will be the sensations of breathing. For some, it might be sounds or the body. But tuning into the experience of breathing. The body breathes; we don't have to make it breathe. We don't have to change the breathing. We're just noticing the sensations of breathing.

What would it be like to give yourself over to the sensations of breathing? Feeling the complete inhale, and the complete exhale, and the transitions between inhales and exhales. Then when the mind wanders, as it's apt to do, within this attitude, this field of kindness and warmth, just very gently, simply begin again with the sensations of breathing.

(Meditative silence)

So I'm going to drop in a poem. You don't need to do anything with this poem. Just allow it to land, touch you or not. It's okay, whatever arises. And the poem goes like this:

When everyone else was meditating, I'd be outside circling the hall. Finally I went to confess. "I'm hopeless," I said.

The elder nun smiled. "Just keep going," she said. "Nothing stays in orbit forever. If this circling is all you have, why not make this circling your home?"

I did as she told me and went on circling the hall.

If you find yourself partly in and partly out, if you find yourself drawn to this path and also drawing away, I can assure you, you're in good company. Just keep going. Sometimes the most direct path isn't a straight line.

If you find yourself partly in and partly out, if you find yourself drawn to this path and also drawing away, I can assure you, you're in good company. Just keep going. Sometimes the most direct path isn't a straight line.

(Meditative silence)

Dharma Talk

Okay, welcome everybody. In the guided meditation, I dropped in a poem. That's where I'm continuing this series on the poetry of practice. It's a poem written by Matty Weingast^[2]. His last name is W-E-I-N-G-A-S-T, and it's from the book The First Free Women.

Matty looked at the poems of the Therigatha^[3], that is, the first awakening poems of nuns that are preserved in this Buddhist tradition. Matty was inspired by those poems and wrote his own poems that are based on those but include some modern thinking and modern twists. So they're not translations necessarily, but he uses them as inspiration. I think these poems are just wonderful because Matty is pointing to something that we recognize in practice but maybe we haven't articulated so well or even understood so well.

The poem that I dropped in during the meditation is pointing out that we get to be exactly who we are with this practice. It's not asking us to be somebody different. It's not asking us to completely transform ourselves into something or somebody that we're not. I love this. This is so important. It's asking us to move towards authenticity and to cultivate the skillful, the wholesome, and the helpful parts of ourselves, but not to pretend like there aren't other parts of ourselves. Instead, we just fold everything into our practice, and this is the way forward.

Sometimes this poem is pointing to the fact that we feel stuck. We feel like we just can't get anywhere. We think we should be different than how we are, but we can't stop being how we are, and therefore we feel stuck. We think, "Oh, I shouldn't be doing it this way," or, "You should be doing that and not be doing this," and we find ourselves going around and around in circles, not really finding a way forward. This poem also points out that it can be helpful to practice with others, especially when we're feeling stuck. Whether it's a teacher, somebody else on the path, or maybe someone who isn't even on the path but is a good listener sensitive enough to recognize what's going on with us. Maybe it takes somebody else to point out something that we haven't seen to help us get unstuck.

I'll say a little bit more about this, but here's the poem again:

When everyone else was meditating, I'd be outside circling the hall. Finally I went to confess. "I'm hopeless," I said.

The elder nun smiled. "Just keep going," she said. "Nothing stays in orbit forever. If this circling is all you have, why not make this circling your home?"

I did as she told me and went on circling the hall.

If you find yourself partly in and partly out, if you find yourself drawn to this path and also drawing away, I can assure you, you're in good company. Just keep going. Sometimes the most direct path isn't a straight line.

I like that the poet is using the word "circling" in this poem. We can imagine it might be literal circling, like walking around and around the hall, never quite coming into the meditation session. Or maybe there's this way we sign up for retreats but never quite go. Or we might put on our calendar, "Yeah, I'm going to get up early and listen to those talks," or, "I'm going to stay late and attend those Dharma talks," whatever the offering might be. We feel like, "Okay, I'm going to do this," but yet we just find ourselves kind of circling around. This, of course, is not uncommon. This path is not the usual way we do things in the world, so it might take some circling around before we can settle in. This might be one way we understand the word "circling" here.

But maybe circling also means the sense of being stuck. Not getting anywhere. Just moving a little bit, but feeling like it's a circle where there's no sense of forward direction or center movement.

Something to consider is that this feeling of stuckness, of not getting anywhere, of just circling, is most likely related to holding onto views^[4]. Holding onto beliefs or particular notions that we hold, intentionally, at the top of our minds, or unknowingly. Views have a sense of embeddedness, a sense of inertia—a resistance to change. That's partly what makes them views. They are there, we may not recognize them, and they are not shifting. In fact, maybe the only things in our experience that don't shift or change are views. Everything else is changing. Our experience is changing; the things we see, hear, taste, and touch are all changing. Only views—notions we have—seem unchanging. So if we have this feeling of stuckness, there's a view we're holding onto that we're not quite noticing.

In this poem, the practitioner has this view: "I'm hopeless." She has this idea, right? Implicit in this idea is, "I can't do this. Everybody else can, but I can't do this." We might recognize that as the hindrance of doubt^[5]. This is a part of practice. Doubt feels like this hopelessness. It feels like wanting to give up. It feels like I am somehow separate from everybody else—I can't do this, but everybody else can. There is something deficient or insufficient in me.

So what can we do when we feel doubt? There are a few things. One is to investigate what doubt actually feels like in the body. Maybe it feels like a heaviness in the shoulders, a deflation, or a sense of giving up. That's one way to investigate the actual experience. Another way to investigate doubt is to see if there's a question we can formulate. Is there something we can boil this doubt down to instead of just, "I'm hopeless"? Maybe the question could be, "Why?" Or, "Is everybody else having this difficulty?" "Is this part of the path to recognize how out of control our minds are?" "Is it the case that in the beginning practice is difficult, or some days are easier than others?" I just offer these as suggestions for a second way to work with doubt.

This feeling of being stuck or circling is most likely related to holding onto views. One view, as in the poem, is the sense of, "I'm hopeless." This view is doubt about one's capability, and you can investigate it. Investigating is the perfect antidote for doubt. I'm not going to ask you to just "believe." That's not what this practice is about. Practice is investigating what doubt feels like and what, specifically, you have doubt about.

There's another view getting held onto in this poem that's supporting the stuckness: the idea that things can't change. "I'm hopeless, it will always be like this, it can never be different." Implicit in the idea of "I'm hopeless" is the view that there will be no change. Of course, there's a part of us that knows everything changes. It's absolutely not true that anybody is hopeless, but it feels like that sometimes. Can we notice that the view being held onto is that things are not going to change? When we feel stuck in practice, we can ask ourselves, "Is there a view here that's not being seen?" Chances are it's a view just under the surface. It might be something we could drop into our meditation practice: What view is not being seen here? And we can tune into the experience we're having. That is right in the practice—just being with what's actually happening right now.

One last thing I'll say about this poem and the idea of circling is that there are seasons of practice. A season may last one day, one week, one month, or one decade. It's different for everybody. There might be seasons of practice where there's a lot of learning and excitement, where we consume all kinds of information, listen to lots of Dharma talks, and have deep enthusiasm to understand. There might be a season where we just really want to sit and explore the mind and this experience, listening to guided meditations. There might be a season where we want to sit without guided meditations. And there might be a season where we feel that community is more important than sitting alone in meditation, reading Dharma books, or listening to talks.

Can we respect that there are seasons of practice? Retreats, no retreats—it doesn't always look the same. Whenever we feel stuck, maybe there's a way to just notice that there are different ways in which practice shows up.

I'll read this poem one last time:

When everyone else was meditating, I'd be outside circling the hall. Finally I went to confess. "I'm hopeless," I said.

The elder nun smiled. "Just keep going," she said. "Nothing stays in orbit forever. If this circling is all you have, why not make this circling your home?"

I did as she told me and went on circling the hall.

If you find yourself partly in and partly out, if you find yourself drawn to this path and also drawing away, I can assure you, you're in good company. Just keep going. Sometimes the most direct path isn't a straight line.

Thank you, and I'll see you tomorrow for some more poems. Thank you for your practice.