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Training the Elephant

Good evening, welcome. Nice to see you all.

For those people who are on YouTube, there was a little bit of technical difficulty. When I was sitting, it was kind of funny, it just popped into my mind, "Oh, this is probably what the problem is." So if you saw me kind of get off here and go play with something, wondering, "What is she doing?" I was just fixing that.

So again, I'll say a really warm welcome to everybody. It is so nice to practice together; it makes a difference.

A few weeks ago, I gave a talk about some inspiring poems, and I wanted to build on one of those poems that, for some reason, really touches me. I wanted to flesh it out a little bit and bring in some other teachings around it.

I'll start with this poem by Matty Weingast, who was inspired by poems in the early literature and then wrote his own. It goes like this:

While walking along the river after a long day meditating on Vulture Peak, I watched an elephant splashing its way out of the water and up the bank.

"Hello, my friend," a person waiting there said, scratching the elephant behind its ear. "Did you have a good bath?"

The elephant stretched out its leg. The person climbed up, and the two rode off like that together.

Seeing what had once been so wild now a friend and companion to this good person, I took a seat under the nearest tree and reached out a gentle hand to my own mind.

Truly, I thought, this is why I came to the woods.

I like this poem; it's very evocative. This idea of the elephant and the person scratching behind its ears, saying, "Hello, did you have a good bath?" It seems very sweet, and there's a certain intimacy there too. And then seeing this—I don't know how commonplace it was in ancient India, but maybe not extraordinary—this little, mundane event inspires somebody. Partly why it inspires this person is because of this line: "seeing what had once been so wild."

The meditator—in this case, a woman—had this idea that her mind used to be so wild. Isn't this true? When we start meditating, the mind seems like a wild thing, a little bit out of control. But then there's this shift in the relationship. In the poem, the person has befriended the elephant, and the meditator realizes, "Oh yeah, befriending the mind is the practice." Rather than thinking that we somehow have to get rid of the thoughts, or make the mind completely different, or that we have to be completely different, it's just this idea of befriending the experience. Reaching out a hand is just a gentle gesture.

This person perhaps has a little bit more maturity in practice. I suspect it's universal that when you first start meditating, you're like, "Oh my goodness, I had no idea my mind was like that!" But then our relationship starts to be more accepting, more allowing, more relaxing, and we just allow things to unfold.

The Gradual Training

At the time of the Buddha, there were questions about training, just in the same way that we might wonder how this elephant got from being a wild elephant to something that steps out its leg and allows a person to climb on board. How does that happen?

There's a sutta featuring Gaṇaka Moggallāna^[1], the accountant. He is talking to the Buddha in the palace of Migāra's mother. Because I'm a woman, I'll make this tiny little statement: it is not so common that a place is named after a woman, but this is Migāra's mother's palace. (In another sutta, we learn her name.) She was a donor who donated this palace. Gaṇaka Moggallāna the accountant is talking to the Buddha; he's not a monk.

They're standing in the midst of this palace, which was donated to the Buddha, and some of his monastics were there practicing together. I imagine that it was recently completed in its construction, because Moggallāna asks if the Buddha's followers have progressive training. Do they have training just like other professions do? We can imagine that at the time, people wondered: "Are you magical? Can you just zap people into awakening, or do people have to work at it?"

When Moggallāna asks the question, he is drawing from his present-moment experience, exactly what he is seeing right then. He asks (this is a quote from the sutta): "Now, Master Gotama..." (That's how the Buddha is addressed by somebody who is not a follower.) "...in this palace of Migāra's mother, we can see gradual progress down to the last step of this staircase." This highlights that when you're making a staircase, you make the steps one at a time. You can't start at the top and then do the bottom; you have to do them sequentially. So they're standing in this palace, and he points to the steps, noticing how they progress, and asks, "Is your training like that?"

He goes on to say: "Among the brahmin priests, we can see gradual progress in learning the scriptures. Among archers, we see gradual progress in archery. Among us accountants, we see gradual progress in mathematics, for when we get an apprentice, we first make them count 'one one, two twos, three threes,' all the way up to a hundred. Is it possible to similarly describe a gradual training for what you're teaching?"

Gaṇaka Moggallāna simply recognizes that there's a natural way in which people learn, and that different people in different professions see the results of their efforts. The people who are counting become accountants, the people practicing archery become archers, and the brahmin priests become priests during their training. In my mind, Moggallāna is also looking around and saying, "Okay, well, there are all these people sitting here, but do they get anything? Is there any purpose to this?"

Moggallāna asks, "Is it possible to describe a gradual training, gradual progress, and gradual practice in your teachings?" The Buddha says, "Yes, it is possible." He then gives a little simile: "Suppose a horse trainer were to obtain a fine thoroughbred horse. First, the trainer would make it get used to wearing the bit." I don't know anything about horses, so I'm just assuming this is what happened! "And then they would train it further. In the same way, when the Tathāgata^[2] gets a person for training..." (that is, when somebody ordains under him), "...first he guides them in one way, and when they have learned that, he guides them further." First one way, and then further.

In some ways, this feels really obvious to us, but when we think about our practice, it sometimes just feels like a whole jumble of things. I know certainly for me, in the beginning, it did. Partly because I would go to dharma talks, and the first dharma talk you hear isn't necessarily where you should start. It took me quite a while to figure out that there is a progressive practice here. It wasn't until I heard Gil [Fronsdal] give a talk about a sutta that I realized, "Oh, this happens before that." So you can imagine that maybe Moggallāna sees these people sitting around, he knows how he was trained, and he's heard some things, and maybe he's a little bit confused.

Showing the Way

The Buddha does give him this gradual training, and I'm going to talk a little bit about that. But before I do, Moggallāna asks another question: "When your followers are instructed and advised like this by you, do all of them achieve the ultimate goal, Nibbana^[3]? Or do some of them not?" Like, what good are instructions if nobody can follow them or achieve what you want them to? I think this is a great question; it's a fair, legitimate question. The Buddha responds, "Well, some accomplish the ultimate goal of Nibbana, while others do not." And then Moggallāna asks the next great question: "Why? Why do some reach it and some don't?"

The Buddha responds and includes a simile. He says, "Suppose a person were to come along who wanted to go to Rājagaha^[4]. He'd approach you and say, 'I wish to go to Rājagaha. Please point out the road to Rājagaha.' Then you'd say to him, 'Here, this road goes to Rājagaha. Go along for a while and you'll see a certain village. Go a little further and you'll see a town, and then go a little further and you'll see Rājagaha with its delightful parks, woods, meadows, and lotus ponds.'" You'll know when you get there because it's really beautiful and you see these lotus ponds and lakes.

The Buddha continues talking to Moggallāna: "Instructed like this by you, they might still take the wrong road, heading west. But then a second person comes along with the same question. You give the same instructions, and instructed by you, they do safely arrive at Rājagaha. Why is that? Rājagaha is present, the path leading to Rājagaha is present, and you are there to give them the instructions. One person takes the wrong path and heads west, while another arrives safely at Rājagaha."

Moggallāna responds, "Well, what can I do about that? I am the one who just shows the way. I just give the instructions." He's not physically carrying them there; he just gives them the instructions.

And then, of course, the Buddha says, "In the same way, although Nibbana is present, and the path leading to Nibbana is present, and I am present to encourage them, some of my disciples instructed and advised by me achieve the ultimate goal of Nibbana, while some of them do not. What can I do about that? The Tathāgata is the one who shows the way." This highlights his role: the Buddha's role is to guide others. We can't make it happen for them, and he can't make it happen for us.

Sīla, Samādhi, Paññā

So what is this path? What is this gradual training (sometimes called progressive training)? Many of you will be familiar with this. From a bird's-eye view, it is sīla^[5], samādhi^[6], and paññā^[7]—ethics, mental development (or concentration), and wisdom. Many of you have heard this, and we certainly talk about the Eightfold Path this way. But the gradual training has some other details in it that we often don't talk about in dharma talks. So I thought I would pull out a few of them and talk about them a little bit.

This idea that it is progressive—certainly in the West, we don't necessarily teach it as "Okay, ethics first, get that down, and then when you're ready, go on to the next step." For some people, that works perfectly fine—not having it be strictly progressive, not waiting to receive the next instruction. But for others, maybe it's helpful, especially if you're feeling stuck, or things don't quite make sense, or you're feeling lost, confused, or overwhelmed. One potential thing to do is to go back to some of the "earlier steps." So what are these steps?

The first one is sīla, ethical behavior, moral restraint—following the Five Precepts for a layperson, or the Pāṭimokkha^[8] for a monastic. I'm not going to talk about ethics today. Maybe I'll back up and say that the gradual training shows up 20 or 30 different times in the suttas, and each time it's a little bit different. There aren't any that are exactly the same. We might imagine the Buddha was speaking to different people and had a sense that a particular person needed something slightly different. There are scholars and practitioners who love to compare all the different versions and postulate why they vary.

I'm going to focus on three supportive practices that are in there that we often don't hear about as much. I'm going to frame them as "if/then" statements. They aren't presented exactly that way in the texts, but I find practice feels a little more like an invitation—something you can try or work with—as opposed to a demand that "you'd better do this." I think many of us don't respond well to that; I know I don't like it when people tell me what to do! Sometimes this gets me into trouble. But I think an invitation is more approachable. By an "if/then" statement, I mean: if you would like a particular experience or outcome, then do a particular thing to help create those conditions. If you're not interested in that outcome, there's no need to do it.

Guarding the Sense Doors

First: If you don't want unhelpful states to overwhelm you, then guard the sense doors.

What's being pointed to here—and I'll read exactly how it is in the sutta—are unhelpful states: akusala dhammā^[9]. Some of you may know the word kusala^[10], meaning skillful or wholesome, while akusala means unskillful. The specific ones being pointed to are greed and aversion. Often, this is a subtle or not-so-subtle feeling of "I want more," or "Get that away from me." These are the first two hindrances—things that definitely get in the way of our settling down and having some peace and ease. Greed and aversion can also be a shorthand way of describing everything that's not equanimity; any response we're having that isn't equanimous.

If you don't want unhelpful states to overwhelm you, guard the sense doors. What does it mean to guard the sense doors? The sense doors, of course, are the six senses: taste, hearing, feeling, seeing, smelling, and the mind.

A classic example of not guarding the sense doors is when you see someone attractive and you just start watching them, turning around to keep looking. This is a typical thing we see in movies, right? Somebody catches somebody else's eye, they watch them, and then usually their partner is angry! That's not guarding the sense doors.

Guarding the sense doors isn't about closing down or always averting our gaze. It's about not prolonging a peak of interest. We're not grabbing onto it and watching it just to have that experience of attraction or desire grow and grow. We might notice, "Oh, yep, that's an attractive person," and just allow them to come into view and out of view. In the same way, you might be standing on the sidewalk, watching cars go by. You acknowledge there are thoughts going by, physical experiences, and visual stimuli going by. You know they are going by, and you also know when it's safe to step out.

Guarding the sense doors is a way of taking stimuli as they are without pushing or pulling. It allows us to have experiences and lets them arise and pass away. It's not shutting down, shunning, or locking oneself up in a cave. When we're on retreat, we do guard the sense doors in a much more exaggerated way than we do in daily life. We isolate ourselves from many things that might impinge on our senses, just as a support. But that's not the expectation for daily life.

Here's how the sutta goes, the Buddha's instructions:

Guard your sense doors. When you see a sight with your eyes, don't get caught up in the features and details. If the faculty of sight were left unrestrained, bad, unskillful qualities of desire and aversion would become overwhelming. For this reason, practice restraint, protect the faculty of sight, and achieve restraint over it.

He goes on similarly with the other five senses. It's a recognition that if left unrestrained, desire and aversion become overwhelming—maybe not overwhelming in terms of being uncomfortable, but overwhelming in the sense that we lose our mindfulness. We get lost in the desire and aversion.

Moderation in Eating

The next step in this gradual training I'll state as an if/then statement: If you want to be healthy and live blamelessly and in comfort, then be moderate in eating.

Sometimes we don't talk about this much, but it simply points to consuming just enough to end our hunger, eating enough so we are not starving. In the Buddha's life story, he experienced both extremes. When he was younger in the palace, we can imagine he was overeating. Later, as an ascetic practitioner, he was starving himself. He recognized that moderation in eating is part of taking care of ourselves, part of having a healthy body as well as a healthy mind. Guarding the sense doors helps protect the mind, and eating moderately protects the body.

It's interesting to note that thousands of years ago, just as today, there was a lot of concern about food. Religious traditions often have restrictions on eating. Monastics in this tradition don't eat after the sun is straight overhead. Today, people are often identified by what they eat and what they don't eat. Think about how much mental energy and commerce is concerned with food—how many websites, advertisements, and apps are focused on it. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, except when we develop a distorted view, where it becomes less about taking care of ourselves and more about the meaning of the food in a way that isn't supportive of practice.

I'm not saying we shouldn't enjoy food from our family or traditions, but it's important to notice that this is a rich area we often avoid looking at. We might use food to cope with stress, boredom, or feeling out of sorts. This is certainly a rich place for me to practice. I have this thing with cookies—when I'm feeling stressed or out of sorts, I like to have cookies. [Laughter] Reflecting on the role food has in our lives and allowing it to have a supportive role is not easy because there's so much societal pressure about the meaning of food.

Here is how it is worded in the sutta:

Eat in moderation. Reflect properly on the food that you eat: not for fun, or indulgence, or adornment, or decoration, but to sustain the body, to avoid harm, and to support spiritual practice. Reflect in this way: "Eating this way, I shall put an end to old discomfort and not give rise to new discomfort, and I will live healthy, blameless, and at ease."

The "old discomfort" is the feeling of hunger, and not giving rise to "new discomfort" means not eating so much that you feel sick. In this way, you live healthy, blameless, and at ease. I appreciate very much that the Buddha is encouraging us to have some comfort and ease. Sometimes when we think about spiritual practitioners, we aren't thinking about comfort and ease; we're thinking about striving, working really hard, asceticism, and hardships. But the Buddha is saying: eat in moderation in a way that supports you.

Commitment to Wakefulness

Having created favorable conditions to meditate—the first being ethical behavior (which I didn't go into detail on), the second guarding the sense doors so the mind isn't flooded with desire and aversion, and the third taking care of the body through eating—the Buddha then talks about meditation practice. He starts by emphasizing a commitment to practice.

It is stated as being "committed to wakefulness." Wakefulness is interestingly used in both ways we might use it in English: to be physically awake (not asleep), and to be aware of what is happening. Being committed to wakefulness means you're not sleeping your life away. And I invite you to consider the ways in which we are perhaps not literally sleeping, but figuratively numbing ourselves—no longer aware of what's happening around us, disconnected from ourselves and others.

For example, watching too much TV. There's a way the mind gets into a stupor. I know this having recently visited someone who had a TV. Just watching it, I don't want to say that all TV watching is bad, but we're not going to become awakened if we're watching TV all hours of the day.

Here is how the Buddha expresses it in terms of what to do with yourself:

Be committed to wakefulness. Practice walking and sitting meditation by day, purifying your mind from obstacles. [Obstacles here are the hindrances again.] In the evening, continue to practice walking and sitting meditation. In the middle of the night, lie down in the lion's posture on the right side, placing one foot on top of the other, mindful and aware, and focused on the time of getting up. [Of course, they didn't have alarm clocks, so they set the intention to wake up at a certain time.] And then in the last part of the night, get up and continue to practice walking and sitting meditation, purifying your mind from obstacles.

This is the idea of practicing sitting and walking meditation right before you sleep and when you first wake up.

The gradual training then goes on to a description of mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom. I just wanted to highlight these three different practices that we sometimes don't hear about, but that can be a real support. I like the way these if/then statements are about having comfort, not being overwhelmed, being healthy, and taking care of yourself. They're not only for meditation, but to enable us to live our best lives so we can bring the best version of ourselves to our practice. By creating these conditions, we allow meditation and wisdom to arise.

Reflections

I don't know how many different steps there are to train an elephant to go from a wild one to one that can put its leg out and allow a person to step up. I imagine there are a lot, and it takes time. Some of those steps are probably mundane, not so glamorous, or not even fun.

In the same way, this practice too has these steps. Some of them are supportive practices that we might overlook, but we might consider them—if we haven't really engaged in them before—as a support on the way to Nibbana. The Buddha says he is the one who shows the way, and we have the opportunity to follow it.

May our practice be a support for finding more freedom, more ease, and more comfort, not only for ourselves, but for all beings everywhere. Thank you.