“Bhikkhus, suppose there is a guest house. People come from the east, west, north, and south and lodge there; [all classes of people] come and lodge there. So too, bhikkhus, various feelings arise in this body: pleasant feeling arises, painful feeling arises, neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling arises; carnal pleasant feeling arises; carnal painful feeling arises; carnal neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling arises; spiritual pleasant feeling arises; spiritual painful feeling arises; spiritual neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling arises.”
– From The Connected Discourses of the Buddha: A New Translation of the Samyutta Nikāya (Teachings of the Buddha). Translated Bhikkhu Bodhi. [My amendment.]
Kent has formal mindfulness training, which makes his inquiry a very creative process. Formal training gives him enhanced ability to track his experience, to empathetically sense his body, feeling-tones, and attitudes; and, to be able to think of these in terms of their dynamics. He’s learning how he is organised by his past, and discovering how new ways of behaving, speaking and thinking can emerge. Today he discovers a new way of being.
Let’s say that this session happens months after the session where he was ‘slightly depressed.’ Over time he’s become familiar with the sadness, which was under the depressed feeling. On this occasion he finds himself feeling into it, and not identifying with it. He has a distinct strong sense of being a guest house for his sad feelings. By that he means, not only that they are allowed to come and go in him, but, that he will be a kind host for his mind-states.
I will intersperse my commentary in square brackets, with reminders (in bold) of the dynamics which the Nikāya Buddha pointed out to Sakka. You can skip the commentary and read the dialogue straight through, of course; and come back to read the comments later, if you like.
Another way to approach understanding this process is to consider R.A.I.N. The teachers trained by Jack Kornfield, a U.S. Buddhist Insight Meditation teacher, teach a mindfulness process called R.A.I.N – Recognition, Acceptance, Investigation, and Non-Indentification. (Here’s an article by Kornfield about that. http://www.jackkornfield.com/articles/dharmaandpolitics.php) R.A.I.N. makes the mindfulness process easy to spot; and I mention it so that you can keep an eye out for those processes in the following dialogue – either when I invite a part of R.A.I.N, or they happen in Kent’s process spontaneously.
Kent: I feel it in middle.
Christopher: You mean like here? (I place my hand on the upper part of my lower abdomen.)
Kent: Yes. (Silence, while he feels in there.) It’s the feeling like when I was a child, and the little girl next door stopped playing with me. I never saw her again.
Christopher: He’s feeling…?
Kent: (Waits for the feeling to get clear.) Abandoned.
Christopher: He’s feeling abandoned.
Kent: (More silence). I’m letting him know it’s okay to have that.
Christopher: Right. You’re just being with him.
[There have been a number of occasions when we explored this pattern more emotionally, and much understanding has emerged from this. Today he is more subtle with it. Being organised by childhood patterns is an example of erroneous concepts (vittaka), because they are out-dated patterns fashioning behaviour now.]
(A long silence, though he looks like he’s got more energy, as though something new is there.)
Christopher: And, what’s next?
Kent: It’s funny. It’s like a feeling of what’s missing.
Christopher: Oh, lovely! What’s that like?
Kent: What missing is someone wanting him.
Christopher: Feeling wanted.
Kent: He doesn’t want to be alone. Being alone is really scary. If someone wants him, he doesn’t feel alone.
[Here we spent some time receiving the feelings and beliefs of the ‘child’ pattern. Uppermost were the feelings of abandonment, and of having no value. This, again, is an example of an erroneous concept; that is, that Kent’s well-being is dependent on how a childhood pattern (an ‘inner child’) versions him. Most people are victims of this concept.
Then his inquiry shifted to a more existential level; that is, the belief was that if he had ‘someone else’ – or even just had a longing for someone else – that would make him feel like he is a separate someone ‘in here.’ (Self-bias and dualistic perception.) Again, staying with his changes with kind, curious acceptance meant that the longing was able to move in him, and to change.
Notice that we can cling to the experience of having a longing, for what such a desire can do for us. It can feel pleasant, that we are longing. This way, the longing plays a role in keeping ego structures in place. During inquiry, such longings can play the part of fending off the feeling of dying, which comes with one’s ego structures dissolving.
Then, in Kent’s session, a shift happened that was dramatic.]
To be continued…