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Steadiness - Maria Straatmann

The following talk was given by Maria Straatmann at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on May 14, 2024. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Steadiness

Hello. The voice is coming. I'm happy to see you this evening.

My name is Maria Straatmann, and I am here for Diana tonight. She'll be back next week.

Last week we talked about intention, mindfulness, and the journey. We talked about intention as a motivator, an instigator—the thing that gets us started on the path and guides us. It tells us we're going in the direction we want to go and sets the tone for what we're doing on our journey. It takes effort to sustain that, to get it going, and to persist in the journey. Mindfulness marks the journey, keeping us on the way and bringing us into the "now" of being here with what is happening.

All of this has to do with what we like to call the first three factors of enlightenment¹. First is Faith or Confidence—that intention leads to faith. I know I'm going in the right direction, and every step reinforces that, increasing confidence in the path. Second is Effort—that which keeps us persisting in the path. Third is Mindfulness—without mindfulness, we're not going anywhere because we don't know where we are going.

This evening, we're going to talk about the last two: Concentration and Wisdom (or Discernment).

When I list them that way, it sounds a little bit like a catechism. You have to do this, this, and this. We have definitions for what those are, and it's just one more part of our practice. If you recall, one of the things I said is that I always feel like I'm starting in the middle of the story because everything affects everything else. It's not as if we do this, then that happens. In fact, everything influences everything else.

What I really want to talk about is the effect of concentration on whether we have faith in the journey. How does concentration affect mindfulness? What does mindfulness have to do with concentration? Why, when we sit down to meditate, do we become so obsessed with "I'm not concentrated"? Does it make any difference? Why do we do that? What's the usefulness of that?

By the way, what we practice here is Vipassanā², which is Insight Meditation. Where are those insights, anyway? How do I get them? What do I have to do?

It's not as mysterious as all that. When I point to these factors, I really want you to understand that you already have them all. All we want to do is cultivate them. All we want to do is learn how to use them skillfully. All we want to do is have them as supports for the practice that we do. They're not goals or endpoints. They're not things that we have to have or pack in our suitcases. They're maps. They're aids. They're the GPS. But they're not the journey.

A few days ago, I was in the sleep clinic at Stanford. One of the technicians was very attentive on the subject of being "grounded." He said, "The only way you can get good sleep is you've got to be grounded. You've got to be grounded."

I was trying to figure out what he meant when he talked about being grounded because people mean different things with these words. As he talked about the importance of being grounded, it occurred to me that it's not unlike what we think of as the stillness that arises when we're doing mindfulness. It is the continuity of mindfulness when we're in the flow, when we're centered. Sometimes we say we're centered; sometimes we say, "I've got my feet on the ground"; sometimes we say, "I'm right here with my breath." But it's that gathering together of the forces. It's the centering, pulling in, settling in.

That is the part I really want to talk about in concentration. There are two different forms.

One of them has to do with what we usually think of when we do concentration, which is one-pointedness. "I'm going to concentrate on my breath, and I'm going to be stuck on that breath, and I'm going to be with that breath, and all I'm going to think about is the breath." And the mind goes away. Most people have a hard time with this, though some people are very good at it. I'm not. For years I tried to do that, and what a waste that was.

One-pointedness is a kind of absorptive concentration. It can be very important. It's a very good place to notice the basic characteristics of existence—a very good place to directly experience impermanence because the mind slows down, and we are free of all the distractions that are normally part of our experience. We can see things arising, persisting, and passing away, and impermanence begins to make sense. It's something that we can actually see. We realize that impermanence is not only about things ending but also arising.

I can sit here all day and tell you that, but the direct experience of it is so much more profound. You'll never truly have faith in it until you have the direct experience of, "Oh! I just watched that. It was here, and now it's not. I saw it come, and now it's not." The thoughts come and they go.

I remember one time on retreat, I was having a really difficult time because I couldn't seem to get concentrated. I talked to Gil³ and said, "You know, I'm really restless. But fortunately, I believe in impermanence. I know it's not going to last."

He said, "Come and talk to me when you've got a little more fine structure on that, would you?"

He didn't want to hear that something was going to change in an hour. He wanted to hear, "I can see it arising and passing away." The instantaneous arising and passing away. With one-pointed absorptive concentration, you can see that. So yes, it's important, but it's not the only kind of concentration.

There's another kind of concentration, the kind that we call moment-to-moment awareness. That's more common when we sit in meditation and when we have continuity of mindfulness in our everyday life as well. We see the breath comes, and the breath comes, and the breath comes. We know it's leaving, but we're watching it. We're continually following it, but we're not absorbed in it.

What we see in that kind of state is a little different. We develop a steadiness of mind where the mind is not running off to Hawaii, or running off to the argument we had with somebody this afternoon, or trying to understand how to solve a particular problem. We're staying in the room. There's a certain steadiness of effort. Being in a meditative state becomes easier. It's not so much of a struggle. We're just there.

It's not that the mind doesn't wander away, but it more readily comes back. We can pull it back and say, "I'm here." Then we start noticing something about the quality of the thoughts, or the quality of our feelings, or the quality of the itch. We can see things happening when the mind is steady.

When the mind is running around all over the place, it's very difficult to see anything. If you're constantly chasing crises with your mind—if you're still trying to solve the problem that you left at work, or figure out what to do about next week's party—the mind is rattling around. Until you can step back and say, "Ah, the mind is worrying," and develop a little distance so that the mind can be steady in the midst of that chaos... that's a form of concentration as well.

It's a very important kind of concentration. It's the kind that allows us to notice: "I'm wanting, I'm wanting," or "I really don't want that," or "I'm restless," or "I'm just sleepy." We become aware of the hindrances⁴. You do not become aware of the hindrances if you have no concentration at all because the mind is off.

Most people don't give themselves credit for the settling that they have, for the easing that they have. When you begin to notice that is what is really happening here, it becomes easier to see it and to watch and say, "Okay, now it seems very peaceful. Now it seems jittery. Now it seems anxious." You can begin to see what's happening without having so many opinions about it. You become an observer of your experience. You can see things happening and experience what's going on in front of you without grabbing onto it, being caught by it, and having to tear it apart because you have just a little distance.

The first thing we want to think about when we're thinking about concentration is that we are trying to develop a steadiness of mind—a kind of resilience. Think of it as flexibility. "I am here. I'm right here, and I'm following this."

I remember another time on retreat when I simply could not settle. It was about a day and a half. I was on retreat: sitting, walking, sitting, walking, sitting, walking. And it was torture. So I decided something had to happen, and that the problem was that I was trying too hard to settle.

I decided to give the mind something particular to do. I wanted it to notice when this muscle in my thigh twitched when I took a step. I went out and did walking meditation and tried to notice when that twitch occurred—the first twitch of that muscle in my thigh. So much attention to something in particular took so much one-pointed effort that it all went away.

It's sort of like if you put your hands together and hold them so that the fingers just barely touch. Not where you clamp them together, but where they just barely touch. It takes a great deal of effort to hold them where they just barely touch. What it does is gather your attention right there. You do that long enough, and all of that scattered mind dissipates because you've pulled it together. It's that gathering in that you do, and everything slows. It just slows. It's not that the thinking stops—the thinking doesn't stop at all—but we steady. It's like we're no longer rocking; now we're just walking upright. It keeps us from getting too caught up in the thoughts and the feelings and all of the other energy that we've brought into the exercise.

As it turns out, this happens even when you're not meditating. Have you ever noticed there are some people that always seem to be sort of chill? Everybody's going crazy, and there's this person who seems to be just totally unaffected by it. You ever wonder what's going on with them? How can they be that way?

I started watching some people, and it was very similar to what that sleep center person was trying to tell me about being grounded. They simply did not engage in the frenzy. It just stopped.

Just stopping is a form of moment-to-moment awareness where you just say, "Wait, I don't have to do that." In the moment of stopping, you give yourself a moment of rest, a moment of gathering, a moment of pulling yourself together so that you can say, "Ah, things are crazy right now, but I'm not crazy." And then you go back to attending to the craziness, but it gets you out of that mode of being totally tied up in it.

It's a settling of the mind. That's what we're looking for. A settling of the mind. That's the place from which we have a position for insights.

Since what we do is Insight Meditation, everybody wants to have insights. When was the last insight you had?

I had one this afternoon where I realized, "Look what you're doing. Look what you're doing. You're running around. You don't have to do that. You're worrying because you can't find this reference. Why don't you go for a walk?"

The energy of being caught takes energy away from everything that's going on. If you can just see, "Oh, this is what's happening," and realize you don't have to get caught by it—that's an insight. Just the realization: "I don't have to."

My husband was trying a new recipe this afternoon, and one of the things he needed was black bean paste. He went to three grocery stores and could not find black bean paste. He came home and found out that he could substitute miso. He was very excited about that.

I thought about a time where I was helping somebody in a kitchen. We were making guacamole for 40 people. We had it all made up, and it had way, way too much garlic in it. I mean, way too much garlic. So the cook said, "Do something with it."

So I started adding things. It was 20 years ago so I don't remember what we did—I know it involved almonds—but we kept adding things to this, trying to cut down on that garlic taste. As it got more and more voluminous, of course the garlic kind of dissipated because there was more volume there to begin with. Finally, we realized that the real problem was calling it "guacamole." As soon as we gave it another name, it tasted wonderful. It was great. All we had to do was stop calling it guacamole.

Very often when we're looking for insights, it's because we're looking for something in particular. We want to explain this thing, and it's not only that we want it—we want it to be blue. Well, what if we give that up? What if we give up looking for what we think is true and just say, "What's going on here?"

Get closer to what the intention was. In this case, it was to have a sauce to go with the Mexican meal that involved avocados. But it did not have to be guacamole, and it certainly didn't have to be named that. Everybody raved about that sauce and they wanted the recipe. We just smiled like the Buddhas we were; we had no idea what was in it anymore.

We were free of it having to be a certain way. So much of our suffering is about having it to be a certain way. "If you loved me, you would bring me flowers." Fill in the blanks. We set up tests for ourselves. We set up tests for those around us. We set up tests for what proves that we're doing the things right.

So part of what we need to do in this practice is notice when we're setting up a false test. Notice, "Oh, I'm unhappy here because I want something to happen." But what do I really want to have happen? It isn't that you do this thing; it's that I want you to love me. Oh. Well, maybe I should change what I'm looking for.

I can see that only if my mind isn't busy building stories around what I expect. I can see that because my mind has slowed down enough that I can see what's happening. I gathered it together enough that I can see, "Oh, this is what's happening." This is the value of concentration and the importance of concentration in the form of stillness. Steadiness of mind.

To develop the steadiness of mind is how we learn to be non-reactive—by coming to a place of saying, "Ah, I can take a breath here. It doesn't have to look this way. It doesn't have to be this way." We can come to a still point.

When a pendulum swings, it goes back and forth. At a certain place, it changes direction, but it doesn't really stop; there's kind of a null point. The same thing is true in your breath when you're breathing in and breathing out. At a certain point, nothing's happening. Catch that point where nothing's happening. Familiarize yourself with "nothing's happening."

We're very often in a race for something to be happening. "Concentration is going to look like this, so if it doesn't look like this, I'm not concentrated. The mind is still working, so the mind must be too busy. There's something wrong with my thinking. There's something wrong with my meditating."

Instead of looking for what's wrong, if we can just say, "Ah, this is what's happening. Doubt is here, but I'm not doubtful. Doubt is here." I can come to a zero point where I don't have to call it good or bad, me or not me. I can just be here in this null place.

Sayadaw U Tejaniya⁵ is a famous Vipassanā teacher, and he said: "The work of awareness is just to know. The work of wisdom is to differentiate between skillful and unskillful."

It's when we see when things are happening, and how we're contributing to what is making them skillful or unskillful, that we can discern the difference. This is what we call wisdom. It's not that we suddenly know something that we didn't know before. What we know is, "Ah, it's what I'm naming this that is at fault here. It is trying to see things a certain way instead of how they are that is at fault here. The skillful thing is to see: this is what's really happening."

Where we learn to discern between skillful and unskillful is where we see where we get caught, and when we are free of that being caught. We see: "Wanting it to be this way is what's making me unhappy."

It used to be that at every holiday I would make four or five different entrees because everybody in my family was on a different diet. I would drive myself crazy trying to make everything perfect for everyone. I was miserable, and I couldn't figure out why I was trying so hard and why I was so miserable. It's because I wasn't actually getting to spend any time with my family. How did I know whether they were happy or not happy? I was totally blowing it because I was saying, "If I do this, then they'll be happy and I'll be happy." But doing this was exactly wrong. Making five different entrees was crazy. It was only when I told everybody, "Bring your own entree," that I started having a good time. So simple.

The first time someone told me, "You know, your being unhappy is your own fault," I just about threw her out of the room. But it was true. It was my own fault. It was not what I wanted; it had to look like what I wanted. That's what was causing the suffering.

Being able to still the mind, draw it together, is what allows us to see clearly. The pause. "Oh, that's happening." No blame. Just, "Oh, that's what's happening." Because then we know what to do. Then we know what's skillful. Or if we don't know, we can try the next thing, and we'll say, "Well, that worked," or "That didn't work. I can try something else." But we're not repeatedly trying to do the same thing. We can discern the difference. We stop trying to make the guacamole better, and we rename it, and we realize what we really want is the sauce that just happens to use avocados and a little garlic.

I'm going to read you a poem. This is called "This Shining Moment in the Now" by David Budbill. This is the wrong time of year for this poem, but I like the ending, so I'm going to read it anyway.

This Shining Moment in the Now

When I work outdoors all day, every day, as I do now, in the fall, getting ready for winter, tearing up the garden, digging potatoes, gathering the squash, cutting firewood, making kindling, repairing bridges over the brook, clearing trails in the woods, doing the last of the fall mowing, pruning apple trees, taking down the screens, putting up the storm windows, banking the house—all these things as preparations for the coming cold...

When I am every day, all day, all body and no mind, when I am physically, wholly and completely, in this world with the birds, the deer, the sky, the wind, the trees... When day after day I think of nothing but what the next chore is, when I go from clearing woods roads, to sharpening a chain saw, to changing the oil in a mower, to stacking wood...

When I am all body and no mind, when I am only here and now and nowhere else—then, and only then, do I see the crippling power of mind, the curse of thought. And I pause and wonder why I so seldom find this shining moment in the now.

In the midst of all the work, all the activities, all of the cares that you normally do, can truly be found the shining moment in the now. You simply have to notice it.

Q&A

Participant: I'm really relating to what you were talking about—how unconcentrated we can get and the mindfulness goes away. Just last week, I had an incident. I was very upset from something that someone said which wasn't true. I was upset, and I didn't want to react. It was bothering me, and I was trying to look at it, meditate, observe it, and embrace it to be able to let it go and get a good sleep. I lost the sleep over it.

One thing I notice is that there are moments where you lose the concentration and lose the awareness of what's going on.

Maria Straatmann: So when anger arises in me—because I've watched it a lot, I used to have a lot of trouble with anger—I can feel it in my belly before it comes to my head. So I have an early clue, and I realize: "Uh oh, I need to pay attention to what's happening here because I'm aware that I'm getting angry."

The thing about anger, hurt, or any kind of reactivity, is there are chemical things that happen in your body. When you're angry, you have adrenaline shooting through your body. No matter what you're doing in your mind, you've got to deal with the adrenaline in the body. So know that. Know, "Okay, there's energy here. There's a lot of energy here."

When you stop for just a moment, I have just a moment to remember that I have an intention toward kindness. Okay, is it more important to be right or kind? We're in the quality of discernment here. But the energy is up. I need to do something with that energy. Because I've stopped and I have an intention to be kind, I haven't burst out. But the person can see it in my face. I'm sure I telegraph everything; my arms are waving. I've learned about my arms waving when I'm angry.

So I will go and wash my hands. I will do something physical with my hands that is not directed toward the other person. I pay attention to the fact that there's adrenaline in my body that I have to deal with.

It's a matter of where do you place your awareness. Are you going to fight the guacamole, or are you just going to figure, "Okay, I got to deal with the fact that this is happening."

When you stay with something like "I'm hurt by this person," you don't step out of the story. When you move into the body—"Oh, this body is aching now"—you have something you can work with, and you're not tied up in the story. When you're in the story explaining it, justifying it, understanding it, it just repeats it and restarts the emotional cycle over and over again. Somehow you have to step out of the story.

One of my favorite stories was when I had just begun a diet. It was a very strict diet, and I had to eat every four or five hours because I got hypoglycemic. My husband was going to fix dinner and he had this elaborate plan. I said, "You know, I'm really hungry." He kept saying it was coming. I said, "I'm hungry." Pretty soon I was yelling at him. I left the room, came back seconds later, and was yelling again. I left the room three times. The third time I came back, he handed me a carrot. Which was just the right thing. I couldn't do anything about the fact I was hypoglycemic; leaving the room wasn't good enough. But we somehow managed to communicate: "I'm hungry. Forget anything fancy. This woman needs to put food in her body because she's falling apart." It was nobody's fault. You step away from "it's somebody's fault" and you deal with "this is what's happening."

Participant: I'm pretty new to meditation. I feel like when I am meditating, I struggle to find direction, and I think that can lead to a lack of concentration. What are some basic productive things to focus on?

Maria Straatmann: Well, the first thing is focus on your breath. Do you do that kind of meditation?

Participant: Yeah, that's what I've started with.

Maria Straatmann: One thing: are you familiar with Mettā?⁶ There's a form of meditation called Mettā in which one has a series of phrases that are wishing oneself well and others well. You begin with yourself. I might say silently to myself: May I be filled with loving-kindness. May I be well. May I be peaceful and at ease. May I be happy.

Those are phrases that are very familiar to me, and I would mentally repeat those to myself over and over. It forms a kind of mantra and gives the mind something to do. It is, in fact, a concentration practice. When I'm really having a difficult time, I'll spend maybe the first five or ten minutes of my sit doing that. That will tend to slow me down and settle me. It's rhythmic, the way that I've arranged my phrases, so it kind of lulls me into that settling. And then I go back to my breath. I set that aside.

Mettā practice has a particular purpose for softening the heart, which often is the problem when we can't concentrate. We have things on our mind, we have irritations that are bothering us, and there's a kind of rigidity in place. We have to be able to relax a little bit in order to get that concentration. Sometimes that relaxation involves softening our attitude of mind, which also is a benefit of Mettā practice. It's the primary reason I do Mettā practice—to soften my heart. That's one suggestion I have.