Dancing With Elements

This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Dancing With Elements. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

The following talk was given by Ying Chen, 陈颖 at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on June 25, 2023. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Dancing With Elements

Wow, just hearing the announcement, you feel the vibrancy of the community. Welcome, joining us together here physically at IMC, and also on YouTube, knowing that we have a broader sangha^[1] all around. I also mentioned that the potluck welcomes everyone because it's us getting together to celebrate this significant occasion. If you have time, please stay around and join us afterwards.

Today, the topic I brought with me is the Buddhist teachings on the four great elements—or five, and sometimes there are six. So I'm just going to say "elements." This just happened to follow Kim Allen's 7 A.M. meditation this past week on the elements as well. For those who didn't get the chance to participate at 7 A.M., I will just offer a little background on these teachings.

The four or five or six elements are often known as earth, water, fire, and air. Sometimes the fifth would be space, and sometimes the sixth is consciousness. Today, we are mostly in the four and five territory. The fire element is sometimes translated as a heat element, so you see those words as well, and the air element is sometimes translated as a wind element, so you may hear those interchangeably. These are the basic elements that make up the world we live in, the planet we live on, the earth underneath us, as well as this body. This body is made of this set of elements.

Different spiritual and religious traditions often relate to the set of elements in quite significant ways. You probably know that indigenous people are often called the stewards of the earth; they protect the earth and the land like protecting their own bodies, their own lives. 2,600 years ago, in the Buddha's time, people also knew about these elements, and there was some significance in the culture as well.

I wanted to share some teachings specifically from the Buddha about the elements, and I'd like to start with the teaching that the Buddha offered to his son, Rahula^[2]. For those who are interested in studying suttas, this story is documented in number 62^[3]. This teaching was offered to Rahula when he was a young adult, maybe his late teens or early twenties.

One day, the Buddha got up in the morning and was ready to go for alms round. When he got up, Rahula got up as well and followed the Buddha to go for alms round. So here they are, the Buddha in the front, Rahula in the back following him. This is when Rahula has been in the monastic community for more than a decade. It is said that he was ordained as a seven-year-old boy; the father brought him into the monastic sangha.

So here they are, the Buddha walking in front—the leader of the community, the awakened being—and Rahula, the handsome young man, following the Buddha. I get a sense that there may have been a certain attitude; Rahula was walking right behind the Buddha, and the Buddha had a little sense that maybe Rahula had something going on. So the Buddha looked back and said to Rahula, "Rahula, you should truly see any kind of form at all—past, future, or present; internal or external; coarse or fine; inferior or superior; far or near—all form with wise understanding: This is not mine, I am not this, this is not myself."

I want to just pause and say a few words. I wasn't going to offer this separate teaching altogether, but here "form" refers to the material aspects of our beings—the material body, the bones, the flesh, the physicality of our bodies. The Buddha said, "You should see all this, and that is not from the perspective of I, me, mine." I get the sense that Rahula might have heard these teachings before. The Buddha went on and told Rahula to also not take feelings, perceptions, mental fabrications, or even consciousness to be I, me, mine. This is known as the teaching on the five clinging aggregates^[4] and not-self, which I will not do today.

But this is the bridge of the story: the Buddha may have had the sense that Rahula was caught up a little bit by who he was, how he was related to the Buddha, and who knows what else. What happened next is Rahula decided, "I am not going to go to the village for alms today." He thought, "Who would go to the village for alms today after being advised directly by the Buddha?" It's so human. You're a teenager, you get advised by your parent, what are you going to do? "I can't follow him around. Nope, no way." So he turned his back, sat down, and started meditating instead of going for food, as a small protest.

Right then and there, a great disciple of the Buddha, Sariputta^[5], saw Rahula and told him, "You should do mindfulness of breathing. This practice offers a lot of benefit."

Later in the evening, Rahula came out from meditation and went to see the Buddha. He had a question to ask, and he knew the Buddha would have the answer for him, so he wasn't holding a grudge so much. He got up, went to see the Buddha, and asked, "How is it to do mindfulness of breathing? When you practice it, there will be a lot of benefit." But the interesting thing is that the Buddha didn't answer this question right away. Instead, the Buddha offered him instructions on how to practice with the elements first.

The Buddha pointed out that in this body, there are earth elements. We can feel the earth elements that are solid and hard: the bones, our teeth, and hair. That is the earth element right here in our bodies. There is the water element. You can feel the moisture or the oil on the hands and the fluid in the body. As I talk, I feel the saliva in the mouth. This is the water element. There is the air element: we breathe in and out, the movements. And there's a fire element.

The Buddha offered the teaching in quite a lot of detail, with examples of what this is in your experience, in the body, in its elemental nature. The Buddha ended each of the instructions with a statement: the earth element is just the earth element; the water element is just the water element; the fire element is just the fire element; the air element is just the air element; the space element is just the space element.

What is the Buddha pointing to with this teaching? In our meditation, we offered this briefly, really feeling and sensing into our experience in this elemental way. The Buddha is teasing out the concept of the body with all these elemental aspects of our being, which we can experience directly here and now. The reason the Buddha offered this teaching is that he knows our minds very well, and knows how our minds work. Often, when we experience something that is quite immediate, raw, and elemental, our minds immediately follow along with a different kind of reality, a virtual reality.

We may have a little moment where we feel some dryness on the skin. It's just a water element, just the dryness. The earth element is just the earth element, the water element is just the water element. But we don't stop there. You know what happens right away: "Oh, I really should drink more water. I haven't been drinking so much water. As I'm aging, that's not good for me. And I have been using this moisturizer for a while; it probably hasn't been working. Maybe it's time to search around and see a better brand. There's a lot more, I don't know, new ingredients and new technologies that are working." And next thing you know, we're in Amazon land.

That's how our mind works. We slip off from this raw, direct experience and lump into stories of our experience. Sometimes it's not even about our experience anymore, but about something totally different that may be filled with desires, identifications, and aversions. The Buddha already knew very well how our minds work. What I'm telling in this particular example is quite a mild and benign version. Sometimes I can see that in my own mind, the stories can be much more dramatic, much more exciting or disappointing. What's more is that often there can be a storyline underneath it: "I'm never good enough. I should be somebody else. I should be something other than who I am, how I am." There can be this storyline running through this.

By offering this instruction to practice with the elements, the Buddha is offering us an opportunity to live more in line with the reality of our lived experience, rather than in the virtual realities that we construct in our minds and hearts. The earth element is just the earth element, not more complicated than that. Maybe that's what the young Rahula needed before he got to the instructions on mindfulness of breathing. Maybe he got caught up a little bit by who he was, how he looked, and his identities. So he needed some instruction to drop out of those beliefs and ideas in the head and drop more directly into the embodied experience.

The Buddha also offered this in the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta^[6], which is one of the seminal texts in the Pali Canon that speaks about how practitioners can practice in order to become free from suffering. Many of the Theravada^[7] meditative practices are taught based on this text. One of the mindfulness of the body instructions is the practice of the elements. It's not just Rahula who may get caught by the stories of our experience. It's common that when our minds and hearts are not trained, we tend to go into our stories and beliefs. When we are in touch with the realities of our bodies at the elemental level, we can begin to see our experiences just as they are.

Some years ago, I had an experience working with this particular practice. It was a period of time when I was practicing this set of elemental practices rather continuously for a few weeks. One day, I was dropping my son off at his swim practice. Right around the swimming pool, I saw all those little kids running around. All of a sudden, thoughts came to my mind: "Oh, this little girl is so cute. This one is a little clumsy." All of a sudden, I thought, "Wow, these thoughts are here." Maybe just because there was some continuity of the practice, all of a sudden what I saw was all the kids turned into skeletons. Little skeletons running around the swimming pool.

Immediately, I noticed a contrast in my mind: all those little preferences, likes, and dislikes faded away. That moment was powerful. I realized, "Wow, this practice has a potent function." It can pull us out of the stories, the likes and dislikes, and the habit mind, and highlight for us their presence and their absence. It was really a powerful moment for me recognizing that this practice has strong potency for us. It was also quite humbling.

The other thing I wanted to say is that when there is a highlight on this, what also becomes available is a sense of choice. That's the moment we can choose. We can choose to follow the storyline—which usually doesn't go that well—or we can choose to drop into our immediate experience. That's another form of empowerment that this practice can offer. When we pause, when we see things directly in a raw, elemental way, we also begin to have choices. We can make wise choices.

It may seem quite innocent sometimes that we have these kinds of thoughts, and some may even seem harmless. After all, it's just a few fleeting thoughts in the mind. Yet when we reflect deeper, our ideas and beliefs about good and bad, inferior and superior, beautiful and ugly—when those harden into beliefs, they have been such dividing forces in our societies. This practice offers something to take us out of that divide that can really separate ourselves from others. Practicing with this has a direct impact on our own well-being and also the well-being of the world at large.

I also want to say that this example doesn't mean we should flatten life just by only seeing elements. After all, there is richness in life. In fact, I would like to say that by practicing with elements, there is much aliveness and richness that can come forth through experiencing the ever-changing dynamic of the elements. There is a dance of the elements right here in our being. Can you imagine if we didn't have the earth element here in the body? We'd be all floating around. Or without the air element, we couldn't even live. The air element animates us; that's how we can move, walk, run, even just lift our hands. That's the air element in the body. And the water element brings cohesiveness. It brings all of those elements together, like water sprinkled on flour to knead dough. It brings it together into something so we can actually sit here with a sitting posture. That's the water element holding us together, otherwise there would just be dust and sand here.

So there is all this dance, and the elements are working through us to bring aliveness and richness into our being. Through this practice, we can really get deeply in touch with this. It is also to see that when we are experiencing in this elemental way, we can come to realize that this is nature. This is the nature of nature. Just like the mountains, the trees, the flowers, the earth we are on—those are nature. This is the earth element resting on earth. There is nature within us, and there is nature without, right around us.

When we have this kind of realization, our relationship with ourselves and all that is around us can begin to shift and change. We care about this body, this being. We care about the beings all around. We care about the earth we stand on. It is said, "The earth is you. You are the earth." When you realize there is no separation, you fall completely in love with this beautiful planet. At this very moment, the earth is above you, below you, all around you, and even inside you. I'm just going to pause for a moment. What's the feeling in your heart when you hear that?

In the love letter Thích Nhất Hạnh^[8] wrote to the Earth, he says this:

"We often forget that the planet we are living on has given us all the elements that make up our bodies. The water in our flesh, our bones, and all the microscopic cells inside our bodies all come from the Earth and are part of the Earth. The Earth is not just the environment we live in. We are the Earth, and we are always carrying her within us. Realizing this, we can see that the Earth is truly alive. We are living, breathing manifestations of this beautiful and generous planet. Knowing this, we can begin to transform our relationship to the Earth. We can begin to walk differently and to care for her differently."

I would like to extend this even further. Besides the earth underneath us, there are all other beings, ourselves, our nature—animals, animate, inanimate. All beings, all things, we live in a network of connectedness. We can't live without them. Just as how we may transform our relationship with the planet, maybe this practice offers a potential and a possibility in how we relate to each other, relate to ourselves, relate to all beings.

In this way, we can go beyond self-centeredness. This is what the Buddha offered to Rahula: "Thus it should be seen with wise understanding that this is not mine, I am not this, this is not myself." Instead, we extend our heart and mind with boundless love, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity^[9]. That's what the Buddha instructed Rahula. Maybe by dropping away the sense of I, me, and mine, the heart can open. Following the element instruction, the Buddha taught Rahula to meditate with love, meditate with compassion, meditate with joy, and meditate with equanimity. The heart is ready. The element practice sets the stage for our hearts to open and to welcome all beings everywhere.

May this teaching offer this possibility to all of us—to live with the reality of our own nature, and to love and care for all beings everywhere. Thank you, everyone.

Q&A and Reflections

Ying Chen: We have a few minutes if there are any questions, comments, or reflections that you may have. You're welcome.

Audience Member 1: I can't remember if I've read Middle Length Discourse number 62 before or not, but now I want to read it, or go back and read it as soon as I have an opportunity. I also wanted to say that I was really divided by the image you brought up of looking around and seeing everyone as skeletons. I don't know if I can be detached enough whenever I'm noticing I have a preference or a like or dislike towards someone, to look at them that way. I don't know if I can be that detached. So what I do instead, if I remember to, is to look on other people—especially if I'm noticing a preference or dispreference—and see a fellow sufferer. That's what works for me.

Ying Chen: Beautiful, beautiful. There are ways that we can shift our perceptions in a way that is supportive for the cultivation of wholesomeness in our mind and heart. There are many ways that we can see that can be supportive. Great, thank you. Someone in the back?

Audience Member 2: Thank you for sharing your story. You shared that before you went to the swimming pool with your son, you saw the skeletons, and before that you had weeks of practice. I'm just curious about what kind of practice you were doing for a week. Was it just like meditation all day every day?

Ying Chen: So it was part of a course I was taking, and this set of element practices and seeing things in these different ways were part of the practice. I was quite consciously practicing just wherever I was around and doing things. In this particular moment, I think it was just the natural momentum of the practice coming alive. I wasn't intentionally trying to do anything, but it just came alive. It's like, "Oh wow, there is this way of seeing," and then it highlighted something. Sometimes people do explicit practices of seeing something as a skeleton, but I think for me it was really just working with the elements somehow that it just arose. Thank you. Any other questions or comments?

Audience Member 3: Hello YouTube. I really enjoyed what you had to share today, and I wanted to share an experience that I'm having that is related, just because it so reflects the importance of honoring Mother Earth, each other, the elements—I feel minimizing to say "elements," but even so. I have begun working with a beautiful team of women who are doing something called surf therapy. The focus of it is being in the ocean, being near the water, and that connection—the ways that it heals us, the ways that it lightens us, all the magic that goes on there. The timeliness of connecting this to my practice, I appreciate very, very much. It's just a reminder to all of us that we can live it. Go out and live it, feed it, and nourish it. I think that's one way to sustain and ride the waves of life too. Thank you very much.

Ying Chen: Beautiful, thank you for that reflection. What you brought up to me was also that sometimes it's just working in the garden or kitchen; touching the water, the earth, can really shift and change our hearts and minds. Sometimes I just go get a handful of dirt in my hand and feel the earth. Those are simple ways for us to keep connected with this.

So maybe that's enough. Those who can, join us right after this. We have a potluck, or just hang around together as a community. May you have a wonderful rest of the day and be well.