Tara Brach - Relating Wisely to Desire

Episode Date: August 10, 2011

2011-08-10 - Relating Wisely to Desire - Without desire, this world would not exist. While this universal energy is entirely natural, if we are not mindful of it, desire can become a narrowed fixation or addiction that creates deep suffering. This talk explores the ways we can pay attention that honor this energy without allowing it to cut us off from presence and possess us. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donation makes a difference! Thank you!

Some of you are probably familiar with the language of the middle way or the middle path. Yeah? And it's not the bland thing sometimes we hear it to be. It's a description of Buddhism. And what it means is that to walk the middle path is to walk a path where we're neither possessed. We're not taken over by our thoughts and feelings. but nor are we cut off. So it's a path of engagement

of being completely engaged and yet free in the midst. And there's a cartoon I love that has a dog who's sleeping and the caption says Zen dog dreaming of medium-sized bone. Now this middle way does not describe our culture.

We're not a middle-way culture. We are beyond prone to excess, whether it's the size of the portions we eat, the size of our cars, our homes, this commitment to having an ever-growing economy. We are a very addicted culture. And if you look and say, well, what's behind that? you know what is it that has this amount of grasping in our culture what we find is that if you think of it on an individual level if someone's at home with themselves you know if they're at home in their bodies and their hearts and with each other there's not a need to grasp right

there's not a need to go after more there's more of a sense of enough there's more contentment that doesn't mean there's not desire and longing but there's not that clutching okay but when we're not at home with ourselves when there's a lot of fear in our bodies as a individual and as a culture then that consuming and that pursuing of more more more becomes an endemic right so it is a misunderstanding that I often run into of Buddhism that we're trying to get rid of desire. And this is a bit of the topic tonight, that we're in this path and practice. And I speak beyond not talking about particularly the religion of Buddhism in any path that

is in some way counseling, don't grasp, don't cut off, be present and engaged, the teaching is not to get rid of desire but the teaching is to be awake to be awake so our lives do not get possessed by this energy that so easily proliferates into grasping into that I have to have in order to be all right so so that'll be our theme for the evening

this exploration into well what's a wise way of relating to desire. Now, I'd like to begin by saying that desire is beyond the word natural. I mean, even natural doesn't capture it. I remember last year in the New York Times reading about a new discovery from the Femi Labs in particle physics, where they, as they described it, they said that a mathematically perfect universe wouldn't exist. In other words, if matter and anti-matter were of equal proportions, there would be nothing happening. They would just, they'd cancel each other out, right?

But in their experiments with this accelerator of colliding particles, and they show it kind of what approximates right after the Big Bang, what happens is that to a very small degree, there's a slight bias towards matter so that this universe could take shape. Now if you're a religious type, you'd say, well, God wants life to live. And if you don't want to use the word God, there's something about this universe

that wants to exist. There's desire to exist. And so it is that we each have the desire to exist. That there's this attracting that goes on between particles and between people and galaxies. And it's just part of what's meant to be. It's part of what we are. So there's this naturalness to desire that if we begin to have this idea that there's

something wrong and dangerous about desire, we're actually saying there's something wrong in an intrinsic way with what I am. So instead, it seems that there's a... real beauty to saying desire is natural and we know and I use the word paponcha last week we know there's a tendency towards proliferation where what starts out as desire can end up proliferating into grasping and clinging and suffering and so I want to explore a little how this happens and one of my favorite descriptions from Sri Norsi

Sargadatta who's a non-dual spiritual teacher is that our problem is not that we desire, it's that we desire too little, that our desire becomes too narrow and fixated. He says, desire at all. Open your heart to love the whole universe, and there won't be any problem. But what our minds do is they get very narrowly fixated. And depending on our particular way of being wounded and depending on the culture we're in, family we're in, we will find that our wants fixate onto substitutes, that we have this deep longing for love, for freedom,

for creativity, for happiness. And then what happens is that we fixate on what we think will bring it and it doesn't work and we take ourselves away from the very moment that can be the source of freedom. So what is it we fixate on? Different ones of us we might go for a fix that'll try to carry us through. It could be on approval. We just get another hit of approval then we'll know we're loved. Or for some it's money or for some it's sex. For Rita Rudner, this is the way she puts it, she says, I love to shop after a bad relationship. I don't know, I buy a new outfit and it makes me feel better. It just does.

Sometimes if I see a really great outfit, I'll break up with someone on purpose. And there's that statement that when women are depressed, they eat or shop, and when men are depressed, they attack another country. In some ways that we sometimes describe that it's if only mind and if you look into your life for most of us we have if only mind or we have some idea that if only this would fall in place then I would be happy. Does that sound familiar? If only I'd get my health back or only if I'd get that partner or if only that partner and I would really have it work out right you know or if only I'd lose the 20 pounds or whatever.

It's an if only, and we have this idea that then we'll be happy. There's that story of one woman who went to see a psychic, and she said there's not enough intimacy in my life, and my husband won't talk about his vulnerability. So the psychic's looking into her crystal ball, and first of all, she says, well, what else is new? But then she says, well, in the year 2013, men will start talking about their feelings.

Women within moments everywhere will be sorry. So we have this idea about what we want and we have this idea of what's going to bring happiness and we're often wrong. In fact, there's a lot of research now that shows that in fact there's 13 particular studies that were pulled together. lottery winners are ultimately no happier than non-winners. Parapologics usually become as content as people who can walk.

And they give you a number of examples that we anticipate good things will make us happier than they actually do, and we anticipate that bad things, so to speak, will make us more miserable. We are bad at forecasting. So if we reflect, we'll notice that we have these extradict. that we think are going to do it are going to make it terrible for us. Each of us has those. And the point isn't that we should drop having external things that we're hoping will happen. It's not that we're trying to just wash that all away.

The point is this, and this is the deeper teaching, that our true happiness is never, ever dependent on something outside us. And as long as it is, we are actually kept a distance from the one place where love is possible, creativity, freedom. Because in any moment of wanting, there's a leaning forward. In other words, you can't be fully here if you're wanting things different. Does that make sense? So I will be going over two different ways that we can cultivate our attention so that we relate wisely to desire, which so easily turns into clinging, grasping, and addiction. And one of the ways will be refining a mindful attention to desire and wanting.

And the other, I call tracing back the longing. We'll trace it back to what's really underneath. So those would be the two ways. Now the first way, this mindfulness, importantly, it begins with sensing how wanting creates a kind of contraction or squeeze. How does wanting create suffering? I remember the story of Thai teacher Ajun Cha. And what he'd do is he'd go around the grounds of the monastery. And when he'd notice that one of the monks looked like they were really having a hard time,

his response would be, must be very attached. That's all he'd say, must be very attached. You know, something. There's some hook right there. So maybe we'll just begin by doing a brief reflection on where we know that we are attached. And just sensing what that is like in our mind and body. Just so we get a template here to look at. So letting this be a pause where you just bring an interest and an attention inward.

You might close your eyes. Take a moment to gather with your breath. Maybe scan for a moment and sense, as you've been listening, if you landed on anything for yourself, that's a compelling place of wanting. Where you know you circle around a bit. It may be the wanting for financial security, especially in this day and age.

It might be that you have a really intense wanting for something different or more in a relationship, or for a relationship itself, a romantic relationship. Maybe you're wanting a different look, a change in your appearance, or maybe you're wanting a different experience of health. Maybe you have strong wanting around something material, a house renovation, or having it happen on time or something. Sense where there is a feeling of intensity around wanting. And given

the short period of this reflection, you might exaggerate it a bit, kind of drill down and really sense what it is that you're wanting so much about that. As you begin to sense what's so important to you, what it means to you, that you want it so much. You can even, and your eyes are close, so no one else is looking, just let your body even kind of take the posture of wanting. Just feel like, you know, maybe you're leaning forward, maybe your fists are hands are in fists,

maybe your shoulders are more forward, maybe your face tightens, just sense what your body does if you exaggerate, what is this wanting like? How does it show in my body when I'm really wanting something? That's right. What is your mind like when you're really wanting something, when you're fixated on something?

You want something to be a certain way. What does your heart feel like when you're wanting? If you're with another person, what's the effect of wanting on your way of being with another person? What happens? Last question. Do you like yourself when wanting to? is strong. Okay, so bring your attention back. Now I want to reiterate that sometimes wanting strong,

but we're not hooked in a way that it's taken over, in which case it can be just a strong, passionate wanting, and that's not troublesome. But when it takes over, then we start noticing, and this is when I've done this in smaller workshops and people share what they name, is that when there's wanting, their body feels like it's leaning forward. It's kind of like. this look where I you know it's like give me I need this I want this their minds get small their hearts get tight and when I ask the question do you like yourself rarely do people say yes I like myself when I'm feeling taken over by wanting so how does it proliferate how does it happen that something that's a desire

turns into this clutch into this sense of in order to be content or happy, I have to have this, because that's when they're suffering. And what we see is that wanting comes hand in hand with aversion, that along with wanting is the fear of not getting what we want, right? So you might think of it when it has to do with others, especially. You know, how many people when we want our partner or our child, our, anyone we're working with, with to get it together, to be different. And then they don't cooperate. What happens?

Wanting flips, right? So, and that happens all the time. We are, I'm going to talk about this more. A lot of our wants are for other people to be different. Is that not so? Okay. I have to tell you one of my favorite cartoons. I have two standard poodles.

And in this, you have a female poodle, very uppity, and a hound dog in bed together. And her arms are crossed, and she's looking really annoyed, really, really annoyed. And she's saying, bad sex, bad, bad, bad sex, bad, bad, bad sex. So that's wanting, turning to aversion.

That's one example. It turns to a version when we want ourselves to be different in a very, very toxic way. A very toxic way. It's like we often say, well, of course I should want to improve and this and that. And that's, of course, why not? But when the wanting is a demand and an expectation that we be different,

that our moods be different, our thoughts be different, our behaviors be different, and then they're not, we turn on ourselves. So it turns into self-aversion when we are wanting and it doesn't happen. often our wanting brings up embarrassment we are wanting that means something's missing that we're in some way needy that we're out of control and I want to speak to this a bit because it's one of the one of the most painful parts of wanting mine

especially when it turns to addiction now it can be low key and I'll give you an example which is over the last six months and this is a personal example in my house I have a number of very ordinary rugs but I've always loved really lovely rugs and I got this thing where I was going to get one nice rug and so I started going online and I immediately got hooked into not just one nice rug like the most beautiful art pieces

of Persian rugs that were meant for walls not floors and I just got really hooked on the art of them and when I'd get tired at nighttime I'd go online and start surfing the net for these beautiful Persian rugs. And clearly they were out of my range, but I was hooked on looking at them and fantasizing. And I remember one night at around 11 o'clock, Jonathan came into my office,

and I quickly changed what I was looking at. So I wouldn't see. And that's when I got it, that, you know, this was wanting mine, and I was embarrassed by it. Now, that's a low-key example, because we know what it's like. that we have these ideas of what it's like to be out of control and wanting,

and there is so much pain around addiction. And I can speak again from personal experience that for probably three or four years I was binge eating, and this was late teens and that up to 20. And I remember the secretiveness of it. I remember the embarrassment and shame of it. And I have since then worked for decades and decades with people that are struggling with different levels of addiction. And probably the single most painful part of wanting mind is the tremendous sense of embarrassment and humiliation for having it. And so I find that again and again that in some way that neediness and being out of control is the deepest level of the suffering.

So again, we're just saying, how do we be mindful of the effects? Well, sometimes they're subtle. The body tightens. And sometimes they're absolutely overt as with shame. Now, the biggest overall effect of wanting mind is that in a moment of wanting, as I mentioned, we can't be here. In any moment that we're wanting it different than it is, In any moment that we're fixing on a substitute, we cannot find what really will bring us satisfaction. It's impossible.

And I love the way this has been described by Bill Moyers. And he was at an MIT, this is the son of the well-known Moyers, at an MIT conference in a room full of scientists and addiction researchers. and he himself had been struggling with alcoholism for a long, long time. And he read a lecture that reminded them that treating addiction was more complicated than they thought, and I'd like to read you what he read to them. I have an illness with origins in the brain, but I also suffered with the other components of this illness.

I was born with what I like to call a whole in my soul, a pain that came from, in the reality that I just wasn't good enough, that I wasn't deserving enough, that you weren't paying attention to me all the time, that maybe you didn't like me enough. At this point, the conference room was as quiet as it has been all day. He said, for us addicts, recovery is more than just taking a pill or maybe getting a shot. Recovery is also about the spirit, about dealing with that hole in the soul. So there is no way to deal. with that hole in the soul,

which is really this unmet longing for communion, for oneness, to realize who we are, we cannot deal with the whole in the soul as long as we're pursuing substitute gratifications. So hence we start looking. How am I doing it? What's my if only mind?

So let's explore now how it is that we are, are able to recognize when our attention's fixated on some substitute and how the letting go happens. And just to begin, it's gonna be the same formula that you hear again and again, that we bring a very kind, non-judging attention to what's going on.

Kind, non-judging attention. Because otherwise, if we judge wanting mom, it's the second arrow and many of you are familiar with that that the first arrow is that we're in the grip of desire and we're in the just grip of craving the second arrow is we condemn ourselves for it and that locks us in so that's the that's the most basic teaching that we learn to be mindful to really pay attention without judging I found it really interesting when I heard some years ago that when the courts and

St. Louis were overfilled, one of the circuit judges started giving sentences to the people on probation, to offenders on probation that required taking a meditation course, okay? So this was the assignment, you know, and one of the men convicted for stealing talked about his experience. So I read you what he wrote or what he said. I've discovered that there can be a space between the urge to steal and my actions. This is giving me freedom. I can choose not to. This is changing my life.

So learning to pause in the midst of a challenging situation when we have the tendency to grasp, if we can learn to pause, in those moments, we can bring a healing mindfulness right to what's going on. But we have to pause. That's the prerequisite.

If you'd like to just choose again an area where you get caught, well, practice a little what it means, simply to bring this mindfulness to what's there. Again, as you pause right now, just feel your sincerity, that interest in being a little more awake in a place where you might have been on automatic. And to bring to mind,

will, either the same or if you'd like a different circumstance where you might get caught in wanting mind, where you might get hooked. And as I mentioned, it could be hooked in wanting someone else to be different, in wanting yourself to be different, in wanting to consume or overconsume. Let yourself go to a situation where this is activated. As well as you can in your mind's eye, bring yourself there so you can see what your surroundings are. If it's a consumer kind of over-consuming situation, see where you are. If it involves another person, you might see that person's face or what they're doing when you want them to be different.

If you're wanting to change what your behavior is and the moments you're wanting to be different. And as you visualize this, sense the earth. in you, the want, the desire, the craving for things to be as you want them to be. And let your first response be one of kindness, that you're seeing clearly, okay, this is how it is. And yet there's truly a forgiveness or an acceptance, whatever language you like, that you're not condemning. You're not shooting the second arrow.

Perhaps as you pay attention, you can sense what. what's driving the want, what the need is, what the unmet need is, what the discomfort is inside you. Again, just to bear witness with kindness, noticing your experience, noticing what it's like to want, to feel the contractedness of it. So there's a compassion towards the situation. Don't try to do anything about the wanting. For now, just offer an interested.

and kind presence. See what you see. When Bill Moyers talks about, or William Moyers is what they call them, the whole and the soul, he's talking about how all of us, when we're grasping after something that's not here, are grasping because there's some real longing.

Can we be kind when that's happening? Take a few full breaths and open your eyes when you'd like. I'll share another story as, Because this takes some time. Share another story of wanting mine. One friend of mine who's a lesbian and like many of us was very much wanting the states that were voting a few years ago on a gay marriage to affirm. And when Marilyn voted against, she was really, really upset. So strong wanting, strong aversion.

And then the new wanting was for all of her. hetero friends to understand how horrible this was and how much pain she was in about it, so that especially her married friends to get how much suffering this was causing for her and was, again, very, very upset and aversive when they didn't. So one month wanting was added to another, and she was really upset. She then heard Dharma teacher Ruth King, and this is what Ruth said. We continue to give away our power to us. others, when we need others to get us, to get us, to understand us in order for us to be okay,

to be free. And for this friend of mine, this was a flash of understanding that as long as she was wanting others to respond to her in a certain way, she was giving away her power. She was giving them her power. And she found that she could let go then. and she could still care deeply about what was going on about marriage equality, but without that same tight fist. And then when D.C. ended up voting affirmatively,

she was able to actually marry her beloved and celebrate that. What I liked about this story, and I think we can see this in our own lives really well, is that whenever we have a want, which is really a demand, that others understand us, that they treat us a certain way, that they act a certain way, no matter how right we may be or reasonable,

if our well-being is hitched to how they behave, how they treat us, how they understand us, we've given away our freedom. Our only freedom is, if we know within our own being that we can make peace with life however it is. So Ajan Shah, as I mentioned earlier, writes this. He says, if you let go a little, you'll find a little peace.

If you let go a lot, you'll find a lot of peace. If you let go absolutely, you'll find absolute peace and tranquility. Then he goes on. even though we can't yet let go, we are aware of these states continuously, this holding on. Being continuously aware of ourselves and our attachments, we will come to see that such grasping is not the path.

We know, but we can't let go. That's 50%. Though we can't let go, we do understand that letting go of these things will bring peace. Let me make sure that's clear. What he's saying is that a lot of the time we get it that this wanting and this holding on isn't serving us. I mean, how many of us have been there where we've gotten it? Okay, this is not really doing anything for me.

But we see it, but we still can't let go. But what he's saying is 50% of the job is done if you can see it. Every time you see it and you get, this is causing suffering, there's a little change in our neurocircuitry. And I say this because so often these practices are set up as, okay, bring your mindfulness to this and there'll be an unfolding and a great healing and you'll be free forever after. And it isn't like that. Or it sometimes isn't like that. Any moment that you bring your attention to wanting mind, wherever it's going on in your life, wherever it's going on in your life. And with sincerity, you just pause and say, okay, I just want to see what's happening. Just going to be with this for a few moments. Even if you go ahead and do the very behavior you know is not so great for you,

the fact that you paused makes a difference. And my prayer is that you trust that because I've seen over and over again how just the commitment to pausing and noticing actually begins to break the chain of reactivity. It takes commitment, but it doesn't mean it has to happen all at once. So we've now covered one approach to finding some freedom in the midst of desire, and that's the mindfulness approach.

The second one that I mentioned is tracing back the desire. And we described, you know, this whole in the soul is really this unfulfilled longing to be at home, you know, to be at home, to be at one, to realize the truth of our awareness and aliveness, that wholeness of being. And as long as we're fixating elsewhere, we can't find that. So the more we're in touch with the longing,

the more we actually come home to the true belonging that's underneath it. And I'll say more about that. which is that the starting place is the urge. And the Tibetans talk about this very well. They say, what's considered the poison is the medicine. That if you go right into the heart of wanting, you'll find the longing underneath. Okay?

So let me give you an example of this, and then we'll practice that too. Okay, so this was the story I was going to share with you is a man that came a number of years ago to a retreat, and he was very pained about being sensitive. and he had just ended a relationship, then in his mind was his very, very last chance for love. That was it. Okay?

So he was heartbroken and tremendous amount of yearning in him. And so we explored this tracing back, and he felt a sense of urgency. It was like, that was my last chance, but still I wanted, I want it kind of feeling. And so we started unlayering the onion, and under the urgency was this anxiety. I'll always be alone. I'll always be lonely. And as it went underneath that, it was the pure anguish of loneliness and the wanting to have that special person. And hence the fixation, how to be this special person, she's the one.

So then he kept going, and we kept tracing back, and I said, okay, so if you're had that special connection that you're yearning for, what would that be like? And he started saying, okay, if I had that, what would it be like? And it went from her to what would it be like, oh, it would feel really alive and full and whole and just in love? You know, it was, in other words, the object dropped away and it was just wholeness and in love. So in a way, this special person was a bridge to feeling what he really wanted, which was this wholeness and this aliveness and just in love.

Okay? So then for the rest of the retreat, every time he'd be fixating on her, the one he had lost, he'd feel that sense of anxiety and urgency and underneath that, what am I really longing for? And then he'd say, okay, what would that feel like? And he'd find it right there in that moment.

Over and over again. one of the most powerful teachings that I've ever encountered is this one question, isn't it true that what you most long for, the love, the freedom, the peace is already here? Now, if your mind is tearing in all different directions, you'll say, no, it's not true. You know, I don't feel it here.

I just feel anxious and urgent. But if you take the time to stay, if you keep arriving, you'll find if you're no longer bicycling away from the present moment, that in this moment is this timeless awareness and love, which is what you've been longing for. So for this man, that was what he started discovering, that when he could say, okay, instead of what I'm longing for is this special person, what I'm longing for is this experience. and as he began to trace back to what's that experience like,

it was there in the presence of that moment. I'll share with you a poem written by a member of our community, Ellen Tynan, come home now, my dear, come home and rest. Yes, yes, sweet one, I've seen your brave questing into the future, your tireless forays into the past, but hush now. you can stop your restless searching for love is right here fall into its sweet heaviness like the honey drunk bee surrenders under the weight of its sun dust of pollen into the deep cup of the rose let go be buoyed in the flow of the warm wave salt home you never truly left be still be at peace just rest now love is here

So we begin to discover as we practice what the Buddhists call the blessings of non-clinging, that when we're not seeking outside ourself, when we're not trying to get somewhere, when we're not fixated on substitutes, there's a sense of enough. And I invite you to explore that, because this is freedom. You know, sometimes you hear a person, they'll say, I'm so happy, it's like, I could die right now. I don't need anything different. That's the freedom I'm pointing to.

So I invite you to explore in your life in moments that you might not notice when there's not wanting going on. When you're not wanting, you're present, you're not wanting anything different. And just sense the inner freedom of really it's okay as it is, right, this moment. That's the taste of freedom.

One teacher says, we drop the barrier we constantly erect with the pursuit. In the moments of pursuit, we put up a barrier to our hearts. This is Zen Master Rio Khan. Without desire, everything is sufficient. With seeking, myriad things are impoverished.

Plain vegetables can soothe hunger. A patched robe is enough to cover this old body. Alone I hike with a deer. Cheerfully I sing with village children. The stream under the cliff cleanses my ears. The pine on the mountain top fits my heart. So let's just take a few more moments to sit together. In this pause, you might come home in a very simple way just to feel the rhythm of the breath as you breathe in to yield to the breath. open to the breath. And as you breathe out, just to letting go, relaxing outward. You might explore what it means to have this moment be enough. And if you find now or

other moments, the days to come that your mind is tightening and wanting things, to sense the possibility of pausing and with interest and kindness, investigating what's happened, sense the possibility of tracing back the longing. What really matters? What is it you really want? And isn't it true that the love, the peace, the happiness we long for is already here in this moment

of presence, of listening, of stillness? Again, the words of Zen Master Rio Khan. Without desire, everything is sufficient. With seeking, myriad things are impoverished. Plain vegetables can soothe hunger. A patched robe is enough to cover this bent old body.

Alone I hike with a deer. Cheerfully, I sing with village children. The stream under the cliff cleanses my ears. The pine on the mountaintop fits my heart. Thank you. The talk you just listened to has been freely offered. If you'd like to make a donation, learn more about my schedule

or about programs offered by the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, please visit either my website, which is tarabrock.com, our IMCW site, which is IMCW. Thank you very much.