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Nourishing our Practice - Diana Clark

The following talk was given by Diana Clark at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on December 06, 2023. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Nourishing our Practice

Welcome, everybody. Before I start, I have two announcements. [Adjusts microphone volume] It sounds like the volume is a little bit high. Thank you, Jim, if we can turn it down. There we go, thank you. Otherwise, I end up doing something weird with my voice if I feel like the volume is a little bit off.

I have two announcements. There will not be a gathering on Monday night, December 25th. The following week, on January 1st, I am going to change the time a little bit. We will start fifteen minutes earlier, at 7:15, and end at 8:30. The meditation will be 30 minutes long—so it will be shorter—and the Dharma talk will be from 7:15 to 8:30, just so the night ends a little earlier. Those are my two announcements. We have a few more Mondays with the regular schedule, and then January 1st will be the new schedule. I will try to remember to make sure the calendar and the website get updated so there is a notice. If you end up showing up at 7:30, that will be okay too.

Today, I want to talk a little bit about some of the supports for practice, or what we might call the fuel or nourishments for practice. However we define practice—whether it is mindfulness meditation, loving-kindness practice, concentration practice, ethical behavior, generosity, or compassion—the truth is that we do not always feel motivated to do it every day. Of course not; we are humans, not machines. But what are some of the things that can support us?

In the greater world, they sometimes talk about remembering your "why"—knowing why you are doing something. That can help, but perhaps there is a bit more detail we can add here. In the suttas¹, there are a number of things that are supports for practice. They are not formalized as a single list; instead, I have pulled them from various other lists and teachings to gather them here today as a resource or something to think about. What is the most meaningful for you? Perhaps something I talk about will really support your practice. Maybe not all of them will resonate, or maybe you will feel inspired. My objective is simply to offer something to consider.

One interesting thing is that some of these supports are often related to what brought us to the practice to begin with. This is akin to remembering your "why." However, the reasons that bring us to the path are very often smaller—they are not as vibrant, compelling, or provocative as what propels us on the path. I would like to talk about that a bit more, because what really supports practice is connected to deep longings or deep questions that we might not even know we have until after some practice. Perhaps we start to see some benefits, or we notice that as the mind starts to settle down, it touches into other things we didn't even know were there. Something very deep inside of us can be a support for practice.

Practice is an opening up of what is possible. We might have thought, "I am going to start meditating because I have a lot of anxiety." But as we start to practice, we realize, "Yes, I have anxiety, but I also care for other people, and I also have some warmth that I am able to develop." Our ideas about ourselves grow, and our ideas about what the practice can offer grow as well.

With that as an introduction, I will introduce the first of these qualities. The Pali word is saṃvega², which is often translated as a "sense of urgency." It is the sense of, "Yes, this is something I really want to do, and I'm going to get with it."

Some of you might know the story of the Buddha-to-be, before he was the Buddha, when he was just like us. After having an opulent lifestyle filled with every pleasure known at the time, he encountered sickness, old age, and death. Due to the circumstances of his life, he had been sheltered from them, much like how we are often sheltered from sickness and death today. We often don't encounter dying or dead people unless they are immediate family; it is not really part of our popular culture.

So the Buddha-to-be, whom we would call a Bodhisattva³ at this time, encountered old age, sickness, and death. His reaction was, "Wow, this is awful. Is there a way we can get around this? I don't want this." Yet, of course, it is one of the truths of the human experience. This is what spurred him on to practice. As you may know, he left his life in the palace and became an ascetic. He went from one extreme to the other and practiced for many years before becoming awakened.

For us, it might be an encounter with sickness, old age, and death, or it might be a tragedy or loss in our lives. It could be a health issue, the loss of a loved one, the end of a relationship, or whatever brings a deep sense of grief and loss. We might feel disoriented, losing the meaning we had for our life or our ideas of what a good life should be. We might wonder, "How am I going to make my life work now that there's been this tragedy or loss?" Out of this arises the thought, "I think a spiritual practice might be a support for this."

Alternatively, the loss might not be about health or relationships; it might be an existential crisis. It is a questioning of what life is about: "Is this all there is? Is there anything more? I thought it was going to be better. Here I am at this age, and it is still so much work." There are many ways we might experience this. It comes to mind that there is a reason why people in the middle of their lives buy sports cars or do something drastically different—they were hoping there would be something more. So perhaps "sense of urgency" is not a perfect translation for saṃvega. It is also a wish for more, and a belief that there can be more—that there has to be something richer, fuller, or more satisfying.

Thanissaro Bhikkhu⁴ has a definition for saṃvega. He says it is a sense of dismay or a sense of alienation that comes with realizing, "Is this really what life is about?" Coupled with that is a sense of our own past complacency or foolishness. We think, "Oh, I have been following this path and organizing my life in a way that my community and society supports, but it didn't lead to where I thought it would. I followed all the rules, did what society expected of me, and yet my life isn't turning out the way I thought." This is saṃvega, this sense of urgency.

The next quality is chanda⁵, another Pali word often translated as "enthusiasm" or "zeal." I like the word zeal—enthusiasm is a good word, too. In one of the suttas, the Buddha is giving instructions on how to find a way to freedom, to Nibbana⁶, to awakening. He gives a detailed list of steps, starting with finding someone you think could be a teacher and evaluating them. Do they behave in a way that seems to promote greed, hatred, and delusion? If so, they are not a good teacher. If they seem not to be promoting greed, hatred, and delusion, then they could be a good teacher.

So the instruction is to not just believe everyone, but to evaluate them using particular criteria. You are welcome to do that with me: do I have greed, hatred, and delusion? I am not perfect; I am not a completely awakened person. The teaching goes on to say that if you find someone who is not promoting greed, hatred, and delusion, you should go listen to their teachings, reflect on their meaning, and only accept them after consideration. Don't just believe everything the teacher says.

It then says that naturally, some enthusiasm or zeal springs up. You think, "I am hearing someone talk about something that makes sense to me." There arises a willingness to engage with the teachings and put them into practice to try them out. Ehipassiko⁷—"come and see"—is a key teaching. The teacher invites you to "come and see" what the teachings are. With this enthusiasm, you realize you don't have to just blindly believe or do what you are told. Instead, there is a desire: "I want to try this out. I want to see for myself what is being described."

Perhaps something just makes sense to us based on what the teacher is saying. For me personally, when I first heard the Four Noble Truths, it was surprisingly during a yoga class. I wasn't seeking out Dharma teachings. At the time, I felt they were almost forced on me; I thought I was just taking a yoga class, and this little Dharma talk got slipped in. But wow, when they talked about the Four Noble Truths—that there is suffering, there is a cause of suffering, there is the ending of suffering, and a path to the end of suffering—it meant a lot to me. It felt like, "Yes, this is something I really want to pursue, look at, and explore." I had real enthusiasm and zeal from what I heard. I didn't really know that teacher and hadn't had an opportunity to investigate them, but just hearing something that made sense caused this zeal to show up. Remembering what brought you to the practice, and even touching into some of its deeper aspects, can sustain you.

A third thing that can be a support for practice is dassana⁸. This means "vision" or "seeing"—literally, it would be seeing, but it refers specifically to a vision of what is possible. It is not unusual for people to have had a sense of what is possible, either when they were younger or more recently. Sometimes this comes from an extreme experience, like a tragedy, a near-drowning, or a severe accident. Or psychedelics—let's be honest, some people do psychedelics. It is not an accident that many of the founders who brought these practices back from Asia in the 1960s did so because of their own psychedelic experiences. People touch into this view, this idea that there is more to this world, and they want to meditate as a way to see or experience that again.

Sometimes people have meditative experiences that they try to touch into again. This is very common. People think, "Oh yes, there was that time that it was so blissful and happy. I have to do it again! Let's see, what shirt was I wearing? What did I have for breakfast?" We try to recreate those fabulous experiences. I have certainly done my share of that, too. By the way, it never works. But you won't know that until you try it! It doesn't matter that I say this, because as soon as we enter a sit thinking, "I want this again," that very wanting prevents it from happening. So, just a heads-up not to be disappointed if you don't immediately have those experiences again. In fact, I heard the Dharma teacher Steve Armstrong say something about this during a meditation retreat. He said there is nothing that ruins your whole day more than a really good sit first thing in the morning, because then you spend the rest of the day trying to have it again. [Laughter]

But dassana, this vision of what's possible, can be a great support. Even just knowing that there is a different way of viewing or experiencing the world can be encouraging. Perhaps you've had a truly pleasant, peaceful, expansive, and spacious experience where the suffering drifted away. It is true, there are bliss states too. I have experienced tears of happiness—this usually arises more on longer retreats when you have time to really sink in, but it was quite something to feel nothing but beautiful tears. Dassana is another thing that might be a support for practice.

Another support is the Pali word nibbidā⁹, which often gets translated as "disenchantment." Sometimes when people hear a Buddhist teacher talking about disenchantment, what they hear is "discouragement." But it is not about discouragement at all. In fact, it arises in the sequence of liberative dependent arising, a stepwise list of freedom. It follows samādhi¹⁰, which is a collectedness and settledness of the mind. After samādhi comes seeing things as they are (yathābhūta)¹¹, and then comes nibbidā, disenchantment. Seeing things as they are is what leads to this disenchantment.

This points to seeing that things don't bring us the happiness we thought they would. We tell ourselves, "I'll be happy as soon as I get this. As soon as I graduate, get promoted, get that better job, or have the perfect relationship. As soon as my partner stops doing this, or starts doing that." We know these types of conditions. And then, maybe some of those things actually do happen. We graduate, get the job, our partner changes, we lose weight, or whatever it is. And then we realize, "Oh, I am not as happy as I thought I was going to be." This is not an uncommon thing.

We have very powerful industries designed to enchant us. Advertising is all about telling us, "You'll be happy if you buy this, look like that, or do this." Now we have these little electronic computers that we carry in our pockets. If you aren't happy, you can distract yourself with something that will make you "happy enough." Disenchantment is no longer believing the lie. It is realizing, "This really isn't going to be a lasting source of happiness like I thought it was." It is no longer being under the spell. You are no longer enchanted by the belief that something else in the future is going to solve all your problems. That belief sets up a seeking mind, a mindset that "everything will be better later."

If we believe everything will be better later, we construct a life that is entirely about seeking. This practice, however, points to finding fulfillment right here, in this present moment's experience. So, disenchantment is not only breaking the spell; it is also outgrowing certain ideas. In the same way that a snake sheds its skin as it grows, we shed enchantments as our practice matures. We no longer think that pursuing pleasure is the ultimate goal, or that the measure of our life is how many pleasurable experiences we can have, or how much status and money we can accumulate. Often, it isn't until we actually attain a little more money, status, or pleasure that we realize it didn't make us as happy or satisfied as we thought it would.

Or we might realize the flip side: that worrying doesn't actually help, and it just makes us feel awful. We break the spell of thinking that worrying, nagging ourselves, or nagging others is useful. So nibbidā, disenchantment, can be a great support for practice. By realizing that all these worldly pursuits aren't what we thought they would be, we understand that practice is what can truly support a greater sense of well-being and freedom.

Another support is compassion. In Pali, this can be karuṇā¹² or anukampā¹³. Compassion is the wish to do something for the world; we see suffering and we want to help end it, whether in ourselves or others. One way compassion is described is as a warm, loving heart. It is loving-kindness, respect, warmth, and care that radiates outward. When it radiates out, it naturally encounters people who are having difficulties—because there are a lot of people having difficulties, including ourselves. When this kindness and warm-heartedness meets suffering, it turns into compassion. It is born out of warmth and a deep wish for suffering to end. That is karuṇā. Anukampā is also related to the urge to understand suffering rather than simply avoid it. It is the curiosity to ask, "What is going on underneath this suffering?" so that we can truly help alleviate it. For some, this can be a very powerful driver for practice.

We see the difficulties of the world all the time; they are not hidden. In fact, there is a whole industry making sure we see all the suffering everyone is experiencing—the media industry is highly focused on highlighting everything that is awful. Maybe I should be a little kinder in my assessment, but sometimes it feels that way. [Laughter]

Here is a short verse that speaks to this. It describes the Buddha before he was awakened, when he was still a Bodhisattva, encountering suffering. It is written in the first person:

Just look at people and their quarrels. I will speak of my dismay and the way that I was shaken. Seeing people thrashing about like fish in little water, seeing them in conflict with each other, I became afraid. I felt discontent at seeing only conflict to the very end. Then I saw an arrow here, hard to see, embedded in the heart. Pierced by this arrow, people dash about in all directions. But when the arrow is pulled out, they don't run, and they don't sink.

He was seeing difficulties out in the world, like the conflict everyone was having. He was shaken and uncomfortable, saying he felt discontent. Then he saw "an arrow here, embedded in the heart," recognizing that the same arrow in his heart was in other people's hearts as well. It underlined the shared nature of this conflict and suffering. In many ways, this is about compassion: seeing the difficulties, wishing for them to end, and realizing that ending them involves seeing our own contribution. By understanding ourselves, we understand humans in general. If we can show up in a different way, other people will be touched by it.

We all know this. When we are around someone who has calm, ease, or warm-heartedness amidst difficulties, it makes a difference, even in small ways. Early in my practice, I was a chaplain at San Francisco General Hospital. For those who don't know, it is a county hospital where there is a tremendous amount of suffering. It was quite something to show up in hospital rooms, wanting to provide a listening ear for those who wanted to talk. As part of my chaplaincy training, I appreciated the advice I received: sometimes your job is just to get thrown out of the room. Patients in a hospital have no control. They are woken up in the middle of the night for temperature checks and blood draws. But the chaplain? They can throw the chaplain out of the room, which gives them back a sense of agency. I liked that idea. I didn't necessarily have to provide anything profoundly spiritual; the goal was just to alleviate suffering. When I wasn't thrown out of the room, it was a profound practice in staying steady and balanced while encountering types of suffering I hadn't seen in my own life—homelessness, addiction, mental illness. That experience deeply supported my practice. I wanted to be able to show up with warmth, openness, and spaciousness, and that required my meditation practice to keep me grounded in stillness and equanimity.

So, those are the qualities I wanted to offer as supports for practice. It is not a traditional list, but perhaps there is something here that can nourish your practice.

We started with saṃvega, the sense of urgency, which often arises from tragedy or loss. Then chanda, enthusiasm or zeal, which often arises after hearing the teachings. Next was dassana, a vision of what is possible. I remember telling a teacher during a retreat, "I can almost smell that more freedom is available." I just had this sense. Dassana literally means seeing, but it's a feeling that the settling of the mind and the opening of the heart can continue, even if we haven't fully experienced it yet.

Then came nibbidā, disenchantment. Realizing that all the things we thought would make us happy didn't work, so we look to practice instead. Disenchantment is closely tied to virāga¹⁴, which means fading away or dispassion, but I will stick with disenchantment—no longer being under the spell of worldly things. Finally, we discussed compassion—anukampā or karuṇā—the deep wish to ease the suffering of others and ourselves.

These are some of the nourishments that can support our practice. You will notice that the qualities I've described often arise naturally through our life experiences. We might sometimes be dismissive of them, but if we notice them, we can mindfully bring them in as supports for our practice. I will end there and open it up to see if there are any questions or comments about what I shared tonight.

Q&A and Reflections

Questioner: Could you please read the arrow poem again?

Diana Clark: Yes. I will mention that this is my own translation, so if you look it up, you might find something slightly different. It is from the Sutta Nipāta¹⁵ 4.15:

Just look at people and their quarrels. I will speak of my dismay and the way that I was shaken. Seeing people thrashing about like fish in little water, seeing them in conflict with each other, I became afraid. I felt discontent at seeing only conflict to the very end. Then I saw an arrow here, hard to see, embedded in the heart. Pierced by this arrow, people dash about in all directions. When the arrow is pulled out, they don't run, and they don't sink.

I really relate to this idea of people dashing about in all directions. When there are difficulties, we flail around like fish in shallow water; we are not always smooth or elegant. And yes, to clarify, this describes his experience before he was the awakened Buddha, but it is recorded in the suttas.

Questioner: The poem really strikes a chord for me right now. It is a crazy synchronicity because I got involved in labor organizing a few years ago. I was recently processing my experience with a friend and said, "It was like an arrow went through my heart when I started engaging in organizing." It has been a big chapter of my life, but I got myself into some trouble. I think anyone who has engaged in organizing knows how complicated, difficult, and at times even traumatizing organizational change can be. But since I have started coming to IMC, practicing, and going to therapy, it feels like I can just rest in solidarity with others and bring that warm expansiveness into those spaces you were describing. I'm grateful to IMC, and thank you for sharing the poem.

Diana Clark: Fantastic, thank you for sharing that. I love to hear that.

Questioner: Since he mentions in the quote that he saw the arrow, and that when the arrow is removed people don't sink, is it fair to assess that the Buddha already had some level of attainment when he said this? He was not fully enlightened, but he was saying something incredibly insightful. It doesn't feel like a novice is saying it. He was saying it before he was enlightened, yet it strikes a chord just as powerfully as something he would say afterward. So did he have some level of attainment? It is kind of jarring to me that it is so powerful before his enlightenment.

Diana Clark: The context of this poem is never explicitly stated in the suttas. It is part of a collection of poems where none of the contexts are provided, so I cannot give a definitive answer to that question. However, I think all of us can relate to seeing this arrow in our own hearts. I actually gave a Dharma talk on this poem in the past; perhaps I'll dig that up, flesh it out, and present it again. I love this poem too; it is extremely powerful, just as you noted.

Questioner: For some reason, when you read that, the image of a crosswalk in New York City came up. People running around, that intense New York mindset. Everyone is struggling with it.

Diana Clark: Yes, absolutely.

Questioner: I want to circle back to the poem again—or I guess we never left it. Regarding the "fish in little water," I am picturing a fish that has been flung into the bottom of a boat. It is flailing around, trying to find bigger water. I don't know where that metaphor leads, but when you said he sees the arrow, you pointed to your chest. That wasn't the image that came to me at all; I thought there was an arrow on the ground.

Diana Clark: The exact line is, "Then I saw an arrow here, hard to see, embedded in the heart." So that is where I am getting the imagery of it being embedded in the heart.

Questioner: And when people have the arrow removed, they neither sink nor rise? What was the line?

Diana Clark: "Pierced by this arrow, people dash about in all directions. When the arrow is pulled out, they don't run, and they don't sink." For me, the word "sink" brings to mind crossing over to the other shore. There is a common Buddhist metaphor that we are on the near shore, where there are all these difficulties, and there is a far shore where there are no difficulties, with water in between. So, "you don't sink" implies that you can safely get across the water to the other shore.

Diana Clark: Do you want to say more about the fish thrashing about? You were thinking it was in a boat?

Questioner: Well, either in a boat, or maybe the floodwaters have receded and it's trapped. It's ultimately doomed, and it flops around going into search mode, looking for any way to escape.

Diana Clark: Yes, and there is a certain chaos to it, right? It isn't an organized flopping, like, "Okay, I'm going to go over there." It is just a random walk. [Laughter]

Questioner: One last question about changing the hours in January.

Diana Clark: Yes, starting in January, we will start 15 minutes earlier and end at 8:30. So, 7:15 to 8:30.

Questioner: How long is the meditation?

Diana Clark: A 30-minute meditation instead of 45. If you want 45, you can come earlier. To be honest, if it were entirely up to me—well, it is up to me actually [Laughter]—I would love to do an hour sit, but I don't think anyone would come to that! So maybe you can come early at 7:00 and sit, so you can still have 45 minutes.

Questioner: Could we go back to having a longer sit in the spring?

Diana Clark: That is a good idea. I can't promise anything, but I will think about it.

Questioner: When you recited the poem, you mentioned people running around with arrows and thrashing fish, which kind of reminds me of a chicken with its head cut off. It is very interesting how you pointed to the distance between a very active, turbulent place versus a peaceful one. I kept wondering: how does one get the arrow out? It's like a thorn, right? You pull the thorn out and there is relief. How does one get the arrow out?

Diana Clark: I would say that is exactly what practice is about. Our mindfulness meditation, loving-kindness practice, generosity, and ethical behavior—all of these practices pull the thorn out. Then, our mind naturally starts to settle down.

Questioner: Thank you.

Diana Clark: You're welcome. We will end there for this evening. I wish you all safe travels home and a lovely rest of your evening. Thank you.