In love with the world - 2. Acknowledge the wave but stay with ocean

Contributors

Laura, Carles

Content of the session

Reminder of chapter 1 key points

Mingyur Rinpoche waits for the train in Gaya station together with other travelers, pilgrims, beggars, porters, venders, animals. It is noisy, tumultuous and dirty. Mingyur Rinpoche has never travelled in this way. This is his first time to travel in the lower class, without an attendant. He chose to travel as an itinerant yogi, to experiment unfamiliar circumstances, to become unfamiliar with himself and his role.

He was experiencing shyness and vulnerability, more than ever before. Monks are not respected in India, so he was experiencing scrutiny or indifference for a man of no rank. He wanted to hide but there was nowhere to go. His mind experienced discomfort and judgement; stability cultivated by a lifetime practice, was also present but it felt fragile.

This were his considerations: We perceive the world and ourselves as solid and real. But this is illusory. 

• No self (anattā): Everything can be broken down in molecules, atoms, electrons, protons and neutrons.
• Interdependence (pratītyasamutpāda): Every phenomenon exists in interdependence with other phenomena.
• Impermanence (aniccā): Despite appearances, no aspect of life ever stays the same. Life is change and impermanence, impermanence and death.

Rinpoche relates his situation to the encounter of Naropa with Tilopa, he considered the possibility of eating fish guts, but not the simple reality of the train station. 

So he was telling himself: acknowledge the wave but stay with the ocean. This will pass if I let it. He finally managed to enter the train, which was completely packed, and he was squashed against the floor, pressed against other bodies. He missed air and felt overwhelmed. He felt no connection with the people in the train. To him, they were alien creatures with dirty clothes and bad odor. He started to wonder where this aversion came from. He slowed intentionally the breathing but he mind continued to comment and judge every detail.

He reviewed all the lessons he received as a student. When he was 13 his tutor Saljay Rinpoche taught him to identify pleasant and unpleasant sensations in his body. There is always a sensation in the body in response to attachment or aversion, even if it occurs at a subtle level. Even though Mingyur Rinpoche had imagined the trip by train, he had not felt it as he was in the very moment.

Sensation is the link between the object and the mind, and part of the training is to become aware of the subtle sensations, connecting the mind with them and seeing how they influence us. Then we can get distance on our reactivity and this leads to liberation. Without awareness, we can get completely lost in the outer world. The spacious awareness of the natural mind is like open skies and oceans and of course more immeasurable.

Once we learn to recognise the ever-present quality of awareness, that we are this spacious awareness, then our thoughts and emotions manifest as waves or clouds inseparable from awareness. With recognition, we no longer get carried away by the stories that keep our mind spinning. The more familiar we are with awareness as an innate quality of the mind the less effect the waves and clouds have on us. They will not disappear, they dissolve and rise again.

"Do not run away from unpleasant feelings.  Stay with whatever arises. Stand at the edge and watch the water flow by, without being caught in the current."

Question

What do you feel in your body, what do you think, what emotions arise when you have an unpleasant sensation?  

What do you feel in your body, what do you think, what emotions arise when you have an pleasant sensation?  

Meditation

Unpleasant and pleasant sensations