Stepping Out of the Waves

The forest tradition has its own way of interpreting two important concepts: indulgence in sensuality and indulgence in self-torment. You may remember that these are the two extremes that the right path avoids. In the forest interpretation, indulgence in sensuality is indulging in pleasant moods, indulging in self-torment is indulging in moods of anger and dislike. In other words, you go for the things you like or you indulge in moods about things you don’t like.

It’s only to be expected, when you meditate, that you’re going to run into these extremes, and you have to learn how to let them go. We’re walking on a middle path, trying to get the mind to settle down and be clear. There is a pleasure that comes when the mind settles down, and that’s actually part of the concentration. You don’t want to let that go quite yet, but the excitement that comes when the meditation is going well, and the opposite mood that comes when the meditation is not going well, are things that you have to steer a clear course through. And it’s to be expected that you’ll run into them before you can learn how to get between them.

But one of the things you’ll notice is that when moods like this come up, they come up like a wave, and you go diving into the wave. That’s where you’ve got to learn to catch yourself. No, you don’t dive into it. You can back off a bit.

This is where it’s good to be sensitive to the breath energy in your body, because as that wave comes over you, it’s going to have an effect on the body as well. A certain amount of tension will build up. It might be in your hands; it might be in your feet. Different people find that it builds up in different places. For some people, it’s in the core of the body, the middle of the chest or the solar plexus. Wherever it is, you have to learn how to let go of those waves. Think of them scattering. Think of whatever tension building up as just scattering, going back to where it was before. That helps get you past the moods.

At the same time, you have to learn how to let go of whatever the mind is saying to itself that goes along with the mood. Just stop whatever that sentence might be. Stop it in mid-sentence. You don’t have to complete the thought. Just notice, “There it is,” and stop it. It’s as if you drop it, as when you’re holding a dish and you drop the dish. A part of you will be a little afraid that the dish will break, then you have to realize that these moods, even though they hit the floor, they don’t break. They will dissipate, they will disappear, and that’s actually what you want.

It may sound dry and dull, all these interesting waves of emotion that people like to ride, and all of a sudden you’re being told to disperse the waves. But you find that a greater sense of well-being come to the mind when you’re not diving around through the waves. You step back a bit. You’re the framework in which these waves come and go. If you’re going to identify with anything, identify with the framework.

You’ve got this larger sense of the body, so learn how to see that larger sense of the body as part of your concentration. It, too, is a form of breath energy. Learn to see it as energy rather than just as something solid. It does have its solid aspects, but you don’t have to focus on them. Focus more on the sense of its being energy that can flow in any direction, that has no barriers, no boundaries. When you can think in this way, it’s a lot easier for the mind to settle down. Then, when things come up, you can just watch them pass, watch them pass. You’ll find that the stability which comes from being able to watch events in the body, watch events in the mind as they come and go, gives a much greater sense of well-being, much more solid, reliable, much more resilient.

We’re here to learn a skill. Although there is a certain excitement when the skill finally comes together, if you’re prey to that emotion, it means you’re also going to be prey to the emotion of getting upset when it’s not going well. Neither one is what you want to get involved in. They’ll come, but you can allow them to disperse. Think of them just like that—dispersing, dispersing, disbanding, disbanding—and you’re right back where you were. Otherwise, if you’re waiting for these things, it’s like having your sail up, waiting for any little breeze that comes your way. Then all of a sudden the storm comes through and knocks you over.

So take down your sails. You’re here to watch. You’re here to master a skill. There’s work to be done. In the course of doing it well, there is a pleasure that comes from knowing that it’s done well. Not the excitement of saying, “Hey, it’s finally going well,” but a deeper pleasure that comes from seeing yourself handle it well. That satisfaction goes a lot deeper.

So try to have the attitude that you’re mastering a skill. Whatever mental and emotional skills you’ve used in the past to master different skills, bring them to bear here. That’s how the meditation progresses.