Experiencing: an edited talk by Elihu Genmyo Smith
Student: When there is a big upset there is anger. Anger doesn't feel good; it feels rough, scratchy, no peace. Working with emotion for a long time there are many opportunities to see how being caught in emotions doesn't help, even if it feels good. It is not ultimately satisfying. I'm amazed that even seeing this, sometimes I would rather be pissed off.
EGS: Yes, it's amazing that we would rather do that. Not just you. Lots of us act so, getting angry at some one or at something. Can we use the energy of starting on that path of anger to notice getting angry? Can we notice the story "we are angry about?" It is important to find a way to notice when we are on that path of anger, to find a way to short circuit that path rather than acting on it and continuing to feed it and fuel the fire of anger. One step is experiencing bodily, physically, the emotional state. This body sensory moment of life.
Student : Sometimes, you know, seeing the stories I am creating about the anger, I can rest in that energy and sometimes I just want to ignore it, even though I am aware of the story. It seems hard to rest in. I find it is really hard for me to trust that if I really experience the anger that it will go away.
EGS: It might not
Student: I guess I'm just kind of afraid to go down that hole, and maybe not come out anywhere. It just feels so painful.
EGS: Yes. Experience that fear, that painfulness. I don't say it is going to go away. It might, it might not. Similar circumstances might arise "over and over." The fear or the painfulness is in part a result of our story about it. That may be why we do not want to experience, because we are afraid, as you used the expression, we will go down that hole and never come out. That fear, and noticing it, is our entrance into being, into experiencing. We use whatever we need to remind us to make that effort, because otherwise our habit is not to make the practice effort. Our habit is to go off into the anger, the story we are holding onto. Sitting is experiential, not just conceptual or intellectual - to bodily know being present. We get to trust experiencing, "who we areness." See, in practice what we are doing is learning for our self, tasting for our self, this body-mind. We come to trust, just as when we take a step, because there is that connectedness, of feet, floor, we trust that we can step. And when foot, leg, body, floor isn't working there is a sense of knowing of that too from within rather than from without, rather than as something extra.
Our life is experiencing. Joyousness is experiencing - experiencing seeming happiness, experiencing seeming sadness, experiencing seeming fear, seeming dullness, seeming energized. This is being awake. Complete and whole of it self, being present, being bodily sensory moment, being just this. This is practice. Doing what we are doing, being just as we are. There is no special effort, nor special awareness. And yet there is a need for practice effort, practice intent. Practice effort can be seen as if having two aspects. In the midst of living, we may find ourselves caught up in thoughts, emotions, reactions. Right here is a very clear practice effort of noticing. Noticing holding thoughts, noticing holding emotions, noticing holding belief, noticing not wanting to notice. Not because there is anything wrong or bad with thoughts, emotions, feelings. Yet, the holding, caught upness in them results in difficulties, suffering. It is what cuts us off, or how we cut our self off, from being alive, awake. In being caught-up, there is holding and believing the self-centered emotion-thought as the truth of the moment. It is the thought-belief as what seems real, seems "how I should act," "how I feel," "how I am" or "who I am." It is vital to notice this holding. To over and over, to make the effort to notice, to find ways to notice believing. For example, to notice that we believe he should not speak in the way he is speaking. Or, notice being caught-up is the endless forms of self-centeredness. The self-centeredness that is interwoven with thought is often expressed in the holding to and the caught up attachment. When that is so, the whole of our practice of the moment is noticing.
Noticing is itself a practice opportunity. You might call it a feedback mechanism, a feedback leading to experiencing, being this bodily sensory moment. As body-mind are not two, experiencing does not exclude thought. Nevertheless, it is not limited to the seeming thought-emotion, in which we are caught up, by which we limit our life. When we are caught up in the anger we are not being the anger, we are thinking about it, believing all sorts of causes and shoulds, acting and spewing it out, reacting. Practice is noticing when we are caught up, so as to allow experiencing. Holding to thought prevents experiencing, cuts us off, and it is when holding is "transparent," (or we can say when solidity dissolves) that experiencing is. Being, there is nothing extra to notice. Being is the ordinary functioning of life, with all the faculties of the moment, responding in the midst of the circumstances with the abilities and faculties of this body-mind life. Unless it is so, there is ongoing practice effort necessary.
It does not matter if we are practicing one day or fifty years. These two very basic aspects of practice are appropriate. This is our effort. In different ways this is so throughout our life. The subtlety of noticing, the subtlety with which we see how and what is held matures as we practice, as we make the effort. . Our ability to make the effort, to be present, our willingness to make the effort matures as we practice.
As you sit, you notice very quickly the nature of emotion thought functioning. You become familiar with its texture. There is no need to analyze, to figure out, to create some theory about how holding and beliefs develop. In fact, doing that is "more thinking about" to which we attach. Do not turn practice or sitting into that! Being familiar with the texture of our holding and attachment is a natural ability of being human, to notice, to observe. As we practice observing, this functioning manifests. Experiencing manifests observing, nothing special, being as we are.
Experiencing is not passive, it is our life, sometimes active, sometimes passive. It is being alive, this functioning of being joy. And it is this functioning of being joy in the midst of pain. It is not about joy or pain, it is experiencing, this as it is. Being awake. Because we do not notice holding to beliefs, there is a feedback mechanism, called upset, pain, emotion, reaction. If we are upset we know we are holding something. It is a reminder. When there is emotional reaction, upset, we know there is some holding there, an attachment that we are not noticing. Often we would rather not notice, rather continue attachment. The warning mechanism will keep ringing the bell. It is like our personal "han" (a wooden block struck to signal that sitting in the zendo is starting), calling us to practice right here, now. The han of our reaction, calling us to make the practice effort of noticing and opening to experiencing. Experiencing isn't something that we need to create. It is this Unborn Buddha Mind functioning all the 24 hours, reading this right now.
(c) 2002 Elihu Genmyo Smith