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Experiencing Ease

Good evening. I'm not sure I got all my pieces together here, hold on a moment. Somebody had larger ears than I did. Okay, I think we're there.

My name is Maria Straatmann. I forgot to say that last week, so I'll say that now. I'm here for Diana, who is on retreat, but she should be back next week.

Tonight, what I'd like to talk to you about is experiencing ease. When I say experiencing ease, I do not mean that everything is going to be easy, or that you're going to be happy, or that everything will suddenly stop being a problem for you. In fact, it turns out that ease is somewhat difficult to talk about. Mostly, what I'm going to talk about is what ease is not, and then how we might be able to go about experiencing it.

Last week, I introduced the topic by putting an emphasis on mindfulness and the need to be aware of things just as they are—to be able to see "just this." I also emphasized the importance of perseverance; that is, you just keep coming back. You just keep showing up and you don't stop. You just keep being mindful. You keep reminding yourself, recalling, "This is what I'm doing."

Another important idea we talked about is that the whole of experience is a process. It's not a thing; it's a process. (I'm having trouble with my glasses tonight, sorry about that.) Mindfulness is a process. It's not a place. We think of it as a technique, but what we're really doing is paying attention to what's going on now: this is what's here, this, this, and this. Experience, as we know it, is transitory. It comes and goes. Our thoughts come and go. The feelings in our body come and go. Sounds come and go. Tastes come and go. Everything is transitory.

It's conditional. That is, we don't get to determine what it is. It's based on all of the things that have happened before we came here: the environment that we're in, the attitude that we have when we get up in the morning. Whatever our experience is, it is conditioned by all the things around us, within us, and before us, including what we're thinking. It's all conditioned by that, and we don't control those conditions.

And it's uncertain. We don't know what happens next. Despite the fact that the brain we operate with believes that we know what's coming next, we actually don't know what's coming next, because an experience doesn't happen until it happens. We can't make it happen. We can't control what happens. It's in process.

As are we. The person that we call "self" is also in process. We're not the same as we were. This afternoon, I was reading a poem by the poet Wisława Szymborska^[1], who had written a poem about herself as a teenager. She said, "I look at that girl and I say, 'Who was that?'" She can't identify with who she was as a teenager at all. It's very clear: "I'm a different person." Even though she knows both of those persons very well, they're not the same. And that's true of each of us. We're not the same as we once were, not the same as we were a moment ago. What we experience is very momentary.

We experience it through this body, through all the feelings, sounds, tastes, and thoughts of this body. But to think that this body isn't changing, and that there is a "me" that isn't changing, is not paying attention. It's not being aware of the truly transitory, conditional nature of who we are.

This is controlled by memory—the continued processing of information and information retention over time. The neural circuits created in the brain tell us what to do about these conditions. On the way here, I left with plenty of time and I turned onto Sand Hill Road, which is kind of the main artery out of Palo Alto going to 280, the route that I take to get here. I turned onto the street and was shocked to find a line of traffic at seven at night. It's just unusual. Five o'clock, yeah, I get it, but boom—a stop. Then the light changed and we didn't move. I thought, "What's happening?" I could feel a frisson of fear: "Oh, I'm going to be late." All the associated thoughts arose: "I should have checked this, I should have checked that, what if I did this, maybe, and then..."

Instead, I asked, "How is my body doing? What's happening? Am I leaning forward?" That's what I tend to do when I'm rushing—lean forward and grab the steering wheel. No, I wasn't doing any of those things. My hands were quietly, just barely grasping the wheel. I said, "Oh, despite this frisson of fear about how I have to rush, I'm not yet rushing. I don't have to rush." Even though the brain was giving me signals that this was potentially bad and I should prepare for things not being what I expected, I didn't have to react to that.

It was so happy-making to realize I wasn't reacting to that. Even though I felt that frisson of fear, I didn't have to rush. And then I felt contentment. Then I said, "But I have to drive." It's constantly changing, going all the time, but I did not have to get into a mode based on what the brain told me was true.

The mind tends to create a concept around our experiences; it likes to turn things into nouns. What I called a "frisson of fear" was really a feeling in my body that I interpreted as a small excitement. It was only when the mind named it "fear" and set up all those conditions around how to react that I had to worry about it.

What we're interested in—the way to experiencing ease—is to notice there are alternative ways of interpreting what the signals of our bodies and minds are sending us. There are alternatives to the reactive way that is common. We depersonalize the sensation. We take it out of the realm where we say, "This is who I am, and here is what I do in this situation."

In the Satipatthana Sutta^[2], the discourse on the establishment of mindfulness, there is a statement that is really about ease, although it doesn't explicitly say that. The statement is: "One abides independent, not clinging to anything in the world."

On the surface, you look at that and say, "Okay, this is another message about not clinging, not holding on." But the real word I want to draw your attention to is the word independent. The independence here is about being unshackled, unimpelled. It means saying, "I'm not forced to do this. I don't have to do this." The independence is about not succumbing to reactivity. We can only do that by being mindful of what's happening, by seeing clearly: "Oh, this is what's going on."

The mind is continually engaged in the process of wanting or not wanting. "I like this. I don't like this. This is pleasant. This is unpleasant." That string of arising comes from the sensation, the feeling. It all happens very quickly, and the mind is constantly setting this up: "I want, I don't want." We form patterns of reactivity around that, and then we translate those patterns into who we are.

Shortly before I came here, I foolishly looked at my email. There was a last-minute, end-of-the-day message from someone: "Do you know about this form? Call me if you have any questions." I thought, "Oh my goodness, this person is totally misinterpreting this form. I filled this form out long ago, and it wasn't for them, it was for me." My mind immediately wanted to solve a problem without actually knowing what the problem was, except that it was unexpected that he wanted me to call him with my questions. Immediately, the mind went into: "I have to have a solution for this. I have to handle this. It has to be done now." I kind of laughed at how quickly that happened. Now I have to do this? It's already done. But somehow, there was this impetus. I laughed at that person that had to do it.

I spent a few minutes doing a brief analysis of the consequences: "What is the problem here?" Then I said, "Okay, it is how it is. There is confusion." This was contractual confusion between two different organizations, by the way. So it's not just somebody misinterpreting me; it has to do with a lot of other things. I thought, "Well, okay, it's done. We're not assigning them this right. So now all I have to do is manage it." It wasn't so much a simplification as a stepping back from the idea that it's a problem. There may be something to be solved, but the truth is it doesn't require establishing fault, blame, or anything about why this is happening. Just, "This is happening." So now what do I do? It's stepping back from all the defensive things and creating a problem, and just saying, "Oh, now this is how things are."

The practice of finding oneself at ease is not the result of a deliberate action. I can't give you a practice and say, "Practice this and you will be at ease." You don't get to make an agreement with the universe: "If I do these five things, then I get ease." Ease is something that arises out of the conditions in which we're practicing. It has a lot to do with the attitude that we're carrying around: What do I think about how I am in the world? How do I feel about how things are in the world? Am I attached to whether things are desirable or undesirable? Or can I be independent of that decision? Can I be independent of the reactivity on whether this is desirable or undesirable? Is that a function of needing things to be other than they are? Do I need things to be other than they are? That is what gives rise to suffering.

The way to ease is to find oneself in a place where you just let things be what they are. This is not to say being complacent. It just means that you say, "Oh, that's how it is. Now what?" You don't rush to blame, responsibility, criticism, or resentment. All of those things are extra.

Mindfulness from the Satipatthana Sutta says one is aware as it actually is: "This is suffering. This is the arising of suffering. This is the cessation of suffering. This is the way leading to the cessation of suffering." This is the practice: to see things just as they are and to see, "Oh, this is causing suffering," or "Oh, suffering is less when this happens," or "If I do this, I notice the suffering decreases."

There is another system within Buddhism that talks about how we think about obstructions, or wanting things to be other than they are. It is an analytical framework whereby we look at the gratification that comes from having things as they are, we see the danger in that gratification, and we let go of it, which is called escape. Gratification, danger, escape^[3]. If I can see clearly that doing this creates a potential danger—like wanting something so much that it makes my life miserable—I can see that that wanting is very dangerous. Wanting so strongly that it's tying me up in knots is a danger. How do I escape from that danger? By lessening the need to want.

If we think of any affliction—wanting or not wanting—as a form of enchantment ("I really just want this, can't I just want this? Come on, it's not hurting anything"), we see how entangled we are through that wanting. If we see that entanglement, then we are no longer deluded that everything about it is wonderful. We become disenchanted. We're not enthralled by that way of being. When we are disenchanted, we become dispassionate. The energy flows out of it and we say, "Oh, I guess not. I guess no." We have to see what's actually happening. Once I see it, I can't unsee it.

What we're talking about is becoming unattached to what we want. It doesn't mean we stop wanting things; it just means we don't have to have them. We don't adopt that feeling of "I must have." We see when that arises and we say, "Ooh, sticky, sticky." We don't necessarily do anything about it. It's not a call to action. The principle is: when we see it, the tendency to hold on to it is automatically lessened.

I can give you an example of that. Let's say I have something that I'm very resentful about. Somebody has done something that is just unforgivable. I can spend a lot of effort trying to forgive them for the unforgivable, but it's more useful for me to see: "I am resentful. There is resentment here." When I see that resentment, I can say, "That hurts. I hate that resentment." The mind says, "Yeah, but it's not fair. It's not fair." But my need for it to be fair when, after all, it's already happened? I can't affect the outcome of something that has already happened. I can see the futility of that. I can see there's no hope for that. So I'm going to give up wanting it to be better.

I can see that the resentment has nothing to do with the person or group that caused this thing, but everything to do with my desire for what has already happened to be different than it was. The resentment is all mine. The suffering of resentment is all mine. It's not caused by you or your action. It's tied up in my reactivity to wanting things to be different. And it's already happened. It can't be different.

You could argue, "Yeah, but if I just let that pass..." Nobody said anything about letting it pass. It's different. What we're talking about is very subtle. We're talking about the need to have it that way, the need for it to be different. You can feel it in your body. You feel yourself leaning into it; there's a tight energy. When you feel that tight energy, you say, "Oh, alarm! Alarm! I should see what's happening here. What's really happening here?"

The art of just being present for what is true is a kind of uninvolvement. It's not really uninvolved so much as it's unattached. You have to be completely in it, you have to know what's happening to see clearly, but you don't have to hold on to it and make it "mine." It doesn't have to be about you. It could just be, "This has arisen."

When we think about ease, we're talking about what people like to call equanimity. I kind of stay away from the word equanimity, just because everybody thinks it means, "I'm comfortable and everything is balanced." What I really mean is that ease is the attitude that allows you to say, "I see you, whether it's pleasant or unpleasant." It isn't about it being good, or you being good, or anything being better or worse than it was. It's seeing clearly: this is how it is. Resentment is here. I see the resentment, but I don't have to say "I am resentful." I can just see the resentment. If I don't try to justify it to myself—thereby re-energizing it by telling the story—it kind of loses its oomph. It's really actually hard to hold on to it.

There are people in my life... I'm thinking of someone named Mary. She is no longer with us, but when I first met her, the two of us were pretty uncomfortable with one another. We were both strong women with lots of opinions. She wanted to go this way, and I wanted to go that way. We had the same thing in mind, but we wanted to do it differently. We ended up on a committee together, trying to get an increase in property tax assessments to take care of our roads. This was not an easy project—going around and convincing people they should raise their taxes.

We decided we needed to get to know each other because we were both aware of this discomfort we had with one another. I told her that I had worked for a company that built cyclotrons. (If you don't know what that is, it's a very large physics machine that produces radioactive isotopes or radiation beams for a variety of uses; our applications were medical.) I was telling her that I used to build cyclotrons, and all of a sudden everything changed. I assumed she would think, "Okay, so she knows I'm not an idiot, and I know this is a bright woman, so maybe we can be more comfortable." It was only after she died that I learned that her father was E.O. Lawrence, who invented the cyclotron!

She never told me. But the openness to just not requiring her to explain to me what was different, and our willingness to just be open to each other over things we didn't know about each other, led to a very warm friendship. Unfortunately, she died less than a year later. But it is that openness about, "I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know about you. You may make me uncomfortable, but I actually don't know you. So what I'm uncomfortable about has to do with something I wish was true that doesn't have any meaning. It doesn't have any reality." It's not part of the experience; it's what I'm creating out of the reactivity of "I want things to be this way."

The Pali word for equanimity is Upekkhā^[4]. The components of that word break down into "looking over," looking broadly at something. The idea is you're looking at what is unfolding and you just allow it to be. The mind is responding to what's arising, but we don't have to go into the place of reactivity. We can go into neutral: open. "Okay, it could be this. But what if it's not? What if I'm just available for how it changes, for what arises next?"

You can literally feel the energy in your body change, like a rubber band that relaxes, just thinking, "What if I'm wrong?" As long as it doesn't go all the way the other direction to, "Oh my goodness, I could be wrong," developing fear in the other direction. Just that neutral place of, "I don't know what's going to happen." Fear is present, uncertainty is present, anxiety is present. But I don't have to take it in, make tea for it, and turn it into my life story. I can just let it be. I don't even have to let go of it; what I'm letting go of is the need for it to be different than it is.

I'm walking around at night and I stub my toe. It hurts. Fortunately, I don't break my toe. "It's your fault for leaving that there! It's my fault for being so clumsy! It's the fault of the chair for sticking out so far, I should have gotten rid of that a long time ago!" All of those thoughts are extra, creating more stress. It just happened. The pain is enough. We don't have to create more pain by castigating ourselves or someone else, by creating fault. The toe is already stubbed.

Despite all efforts, I keep getting older. Now, older is older than, right? But I'm not really old! If I get tied up in "I don't want to get older," I'm missing the whole point. The point is: I am still here. I am still this way. No, I'm no longer that way, nor am I what I fear in the future. I'm just this. Rather than holding on or pushing away, I'm just here for this. I'm not enchanted by how I wish things could be. I just see clearly.

It doesn't mean that we disengage with life, or that we don't have things we fight for, believe in, or goals we set for ourselves. That's all part of fully living this life. But there is an attitude of mind that can be open to any experience around what my intentions are, without condemning those experiences, without elevating those experiences, by just seeing the experiences as they are.

It's actually not dispassion in the sense that we don't want to be passionately alive. We want to be passionately in this moment. It's when we passionately want things to be other than they are that we get into trouble. The need to change it, to affect it, to manipulate the present—that gives rise to suffering. It is distinguished from the determination that "I'm going to make these changes or improvements," or "I'm going to stand up for these rights." Those are all good things. What is also true is not saying, "If I don't make this happen, I can't be happy. I can never be satisfied unless this is true." We can work towards something without it having to be true in order to not suffer.

What we pay attention to is: "Where am I struggling?" If we're struggling, suffering is present. We can join a struggle without struggling, if that makes any sense to you. We are not free of conditions in the world. We are not free of intentions. But we can be free of the stubborn holding on to our way. We can be free of that.

For years, I had miserable Thanksgivings because I had an idea about what Thanksgiving should be that my family never met. When I gave up that idea, I started enjoying Thanksgiving again. It took me so long to figure out I was the one making me unhappy because they weren't behaving the way I wanted them to behave. When I let go of wanting them to be a certain way, lo and behold, all of that tension washed out. I could just enjoy the family. I had to give up the idea that it had to look a certain way: if the food didn't hit the table at the same time, the turkey wasn't cooked exactly this way, the Tofurky was different. I used to make five meals for Thanksgiving, it was ridiculous! All trying to have it look a certain way. The need to make things as we want them is what gives rise to suffering.

There's another set of three that's important in Buddhism, part of this suffering continuum: Sīla, Samādhi, and Paññā^[5]. That is integrity or virtue (Sīla), stability or meditation (Samādhi), and wisdom (Paññā). Meditation comes in between a virtuous life and wisdom. In order to experience ease, one must be comfortable with these three legs of how we practice.

Forget about the over-emphasis on technique. It's not that if I sit most effectively in meditation, then all of this is automatically going to happen. Because that's not the case. In order to be able to look at things as they are, I actually have to know that I am leading a well-intentioned life. The confidence that comes from "I am living my best intentions" can't be overlooked. It doesn't mean we don't make mistakes or behave in ways we don't like. We can say, "Oh, there you are doing that thing again," but we don't add condemnation to it. We say, "Oh, look what's working."

We develop the virtuous life. We develop the ability to be stable, to follow through on our intentions. That's what we do in meditation when we find a place of stillness. When I described getting in line on Sand Hill Road and asking, "Where is my body?", I felt a stillness in me that told me I wasn't reacting, that there was still time to just be still. You have to become familiar with that place of stillness in order to reach it, to recognize that it's there. I'm not talking about deep Jhānic states^[6] here, just the stability of "I am here. I am in this moment. This person, just as she is, is in this moment." And to feel the settling that comes from that thought.

The stillness and stability of "I'm still here" leads to the wisdom that comes from seeing the habits of mind that are operating: to see a frisson of fear, but realizing I don't have to react. These three areas—Sīla, Samādhi, Paññā—are really about the Eightfold Path, the ways to the cessation of suffering.

The way to ease is to adopt a life that allows you to feel it, that increases the likelihood that it can arise. That involves each of these three factors. It involves being mindful and seeing things as clearly as possible so that we are not enchanted, but become disenchanted, and therefore not delusional. If we can say, "Oh, I see this is what's operating," it may not be comfortable. Or it may be wonderfully comfortable. But I don't know what's going to happen next. Being present for that is what it really means to be alive.

I'm going to give you a quote from Zenju Earthlyn Manuel^[7], who wrote a book called The Way of Tenderness: Awakening through Race, Sexuality, and Gender. She is a Zen priest and a Black woman. Here is the quote:

"I speak simply of just being still, of finding that place where our only act is breathing. In this state of stillness, we do not seek answers for our active minds, but allow one breath to be the total experience of life. A moment is not now; a moment is simply a state of being itself. We too can be in a state of being ourselves and not worry about now. We can be wholly ourselves, as ourselves, while engaging the breath. As a result of this breath, as a result of the meditation that arises from it, our motivations become purified of our wounds, our expectations, our stories, and our distorted perceptions of others."

It is the simplicity of awareness. "This is how it is." The simplicity of awareness—nobody said it was easy, just simple. The fullness of attention on "just this" allows us to see clearly. We have breathing room. We're not constricted by all the ideas we have about what's going on. We just let what we think is going on lie there. Just let it be there. Just know, "It's like this."

I don't have to explain it to myself. I don't have to nuance it. I don't have to know all the details of why I think it's like this. Just, "It's like this." And I remain steady in my purpose. I don't get distracted by trying to explain it to myself. From this, we develop the confidence of "just this-ness"—just being here, just this. And we can say "ease."

Ask yourself: what is ease? What would place me at ease right now? Not a solution to the problem. Here is a practice. Ask yourself: what might you let go of so you can be more yourself? What might you let go of so you can be more yourself?

I have a little thing I want to read to you from David Whyte. This is a poem called "The True Shape"^[8].

In this high place it is as simple as this, leave everything you know behind. Step toward the cold surface, say the old prayer of rough love and open both arms.

Those who come with empty hands will stare into the lake astonished, there, in the cold light reflecting pure snow the true shape of your own face.

I wish you the true shape of your own face. Thank you.

Q&A

We have only a brief minute if anyone has a comment. Yes, would you speak into the microphone because they're recording this.

Questioner: Hello. I could not stop thinking about abusive relationships the whole time you were talking. I was in a very long one where at first I didn't want to get out because I didn't know there was a way out. And then once I knew there was a way out, I didn't want to get out because I was like, "Well, what will I do? Who will I be?" I was attached to this house, attached to this life. So I couldn't want something different or better for myself. Once I began to want different and better and safer, that was the beginning of a self-love journey. I notice my friends around me are in relationships that are very unhealthy, and they're telling themselves they don't want to leave and that there is no better for them. I was hoping you could touch on the nuance of that.

Maria Straatmann: I know what this is like. There's a place where "the devil you know" is safer than what's out there. If it's so scary out there, it could be even worse. You begin to get several ideas that come up. One is, "Well, I don't deserve any more than this." Another is, "It could be worse than this. Now that I know this is bad, even worse could wait for me out there." There are all kinds of variations on that.

What is needed is to say, "Where is suffering? This is suffering. I do not need to suffer." When your sense of safety is tied up with this, the real delusion is thinking that you're safe in that situation. What is needed is reassurance. It actually amounts to compassion toward oneself. To achieve compassion towards oneself, you have to be able to get yourself into the place where you feel, "I'm doing the best I can. I'm really trying hard, and I love me."

Ultimately, it comes down to a decision on whether you love yourself enough to move forward. It really has to be something that settles on your own sense of worth. In order to reach that, you have to look at how you are living in the world: "Am I not harming? Am I not lying? Am I not stealing? Am I not abusing sexuality? Am I not abusing intoxicants? No, I'm not doing any of those things. Then life is good. You are doing your part to be free of afflictions, and so you deserve to love yourself."

To get to the place where your worth is not dependent on other people, where you can just see, "Here I am," involves seeing all the other stuff that you're attached to. It's in that place of gratification, danger, and escape. You see the momentariness of the gratification, and the danger that exists outside of that gratification. The gratification is "I'm safe here," but then it turns out you're not safe there. When you see that really clearly—"I'm not safe"—you can't unsee it. And you don't need to cooperate with being unsafe.

But that's a very personal journey, and it's not one you can do for someone else. In the end, you can only do it for yourself. You can urge other people and support other people, but you actually can't do it for them. And you can't judge that the conditions someone else chooses are necessarily unskillful.

I watched some very negative behavior in my family and encouraged people to do otherwise. They're still my family, and they didn't do otherwise. Okay, those are the choices being made. As a friend, you're in a position of supporting that person, but not necessarily what they're doing. If someone makes a choice, it has to be their choice. To disabuse oneself of the idea that "I can fix things"—that's delusion. You can't fix it because you can't control the conditions. You can only make individual decisions.

Questioner: I really appreciate that response. That was beautiful. Thank you so much. It is more of a focus on the love I have for these people, less on what I want.

Maria Straatmann: Yes, exactly. Exactly. Thank you. Good night, everyone.