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Journeying - Diana Clark

The following talk was given by Diana Clark at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on May 28, 2024. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Journeying

Introduction

Welcome, welcome, good evening. Hello and happy Memorial Day. Here we are on a holiday. Wishing for all those families who have lost loved ones in wars, wishing the best for them and honoring those people who have died in so many different ways.

Sometimes for a Memorial Day—we didn't do it this year, but in years past—my mom and I would get some plastic flowers and we would bring them to the graves of our family who have died. And then I just love to bring tons and just put them on other people's graves. You know, I don't know who these people are, but just this idea of honoring other people and imagining the delight if a family member were to come and see, "Oh look, somebody left some flowers for our family member here." So just holding in our hearts those families who have lost loved ones.

The Path of Practice

Today, I'd like to talk about something... maybe I'll weave together a tapestry in some kind of way, using different elements. I use this word "elements" to point towards something, and this whole idea of journeying, or this idea of being on a path, maybe a road trip in some kind of way.

I'm going to start with a passage from the Majjhima Nikāya¹. This is Gaṇaka Moggallāna² who was talking to the Buddha. And he had asked the Buddha, "Do you have a training program?" Like all the other professionals have training programs—the accountants (he's an accountant, Gaṇaka means accountant), the people who do archery have training programs, people who work with elephants have training programs. Gaṇaka Moggallāna asks the Buddha, "Do you guys have a training program also?" And the Buddha says, "Yes," and he describes this training program, which is the gradual training. I'm not going to go into the details of that right now.

But then, after the Buddha gives that long explanation to Gaṇaka Moggallāna, he asks, "So when your followers are instructed and advised by you, do all of them achieve the goal?" This is a legitimate question. You have a training program, but does it work? Does anybody become awakened? Do they reach Nibbāna³? I appreciate that kind of... you know, he's just asking them, "Do all of them achieve it, or do some of them fail?" And the Buddha responds, "Some succeed while others fail."

And then the natural next question is, "Why? Why do some of them fail? Though Nibbāna exists, the path leading to Nibbāna exists, and you are present to encourage those who wish to find Nibbāna, why do some succeed and others fail?" This is a good question. And then the Buddha answers this question by asking a question back. "Well, I'll ask you about this in return, and you can answer as you like. Do you know how to get to Rājagaha?⁴" the Buddha asks Gaṇaka Moggallāna. "Do you know how to get to this other city that's far away?" "Yes, I do." "So what do you think? Suppose a person were to come along who wanted to go to Rājagaha. This person would approach you and say, 'I wish to go to Rājagaha, please point the way.' And then you would say to this person, 'This road goes to Rājagaha. Go along it for a while and then you'll see a certain village. Then continue and go a little bit further and then you'll see a certain town. Continue and go a little further and there you'll see Rājagaha.'" In my mind, this maybe goes like, "Go to this village and then hang a left," or something like this, and then, "Go to a town and hang a right." It's just like, you know, here are some different landmarks that you'll see and here's how you get to Rājagaha.

And then the Buddha says to him, to Gaṇaka Moggallāna, "So, instructed like this by you, they might still take the wrong road. But a second person might come along and ask you how to get to Rājagaha, and they may make it there to Rājagaha." And then the Buddha asks him, "Why is that? Why, even though you gave them clear instructions on how to get there, some of them make it and some of them don't?" And Gaṇaka Moggallāna says, "I don't know. I gave them instructions. It's up to them to follow the instructions." And the Buddha says, "Well, it's the same for me too. The Buddha shows the way, but all of us have to walk it ourselves. He can't do it for us, of course not."

So then I'd like to share this other little excerpt where the Buddha gives a little bit more detail about this path, this road to Nibbāna. And this time he's talking to somebody named Tissa. And he says to Tissa, "Suppose there were two people, one who did not know the path and one who did know the path. I could say, like, knew the road, knew the directions, or who didn't. And the person who didn't know the path would ask the person who did know the path about the path. And then the person who knew about the path would say, 'Come, this is the path,' and would show them. Then this would be part of the description: 'Go a little way and then you'll see a fork in the road. Avoid the left-hand branch and take the right-hand branch. Then go a little bit further and you'll see a dense thicket. Go a little bit further and you'll see a vast marshy swamp. And then go a little bit further and then you'll see a steep precipice. Then go a little further and then you'll see a delightful expanse of parkland.'" So he's describing these literal landmarks that you'll see: this fork in the road, this thicket, a swamp, a steep precipice, and then you'll get to this parkland.

And then the Buddha says, "This is a simile, and I've made up this simile to describe the path of practice, and these things stand for certain things, these things that you might find in nature." And he says, "The person who doesn't know the path, this is for a regular practitioner, a follower, but someone who is not awakened. But someone who does know the path is somebody who's awakened."

And then the fork in the road is a designation for doubt. We can think about doubt, as it's often described as a hindrance, as this hesitation, this vacillation, like, "Should I go here? Should I do this? Should I do loving-kindness practice or should I do mindfulness practice? Should I do open awareness practice or mindfulness of the breath?" You know, this kind of way in which it might not be clear what practice we should do. That's one way that doubt often shows up. But often doubt shows up too as, "Well, I'm not sure about this whole mindfulness or insight tradition, or maybe I'm not so sure about the teachers, or maybe I'm not so sure about the Buddha, or maybe I'm not even so sure that I can do it. Maybe it's a fine path, but it doesn't seem like it's the one for me." So doubt can show up in all these different ways. And so I love that he's describing it as the fork in the road, because often what happens when we have doubt, we just get to this place and we stop, and we're not sure how to go forward, and we end up kind of stuck there with this doubt.

And then the Buddha goes on to explain, and he says, "Well, the left-hand path is the wrong Eightfold Path, and the right-hand path is the right Eightfold Path.⁵" I think many of you have heard this before. "Right," we might translate this as "wise" or "helpful." I think "helpful" may be helpful. So it's the unhelpful path and the helpful path. I'm not going to go into details about this, but many of you are probably familiar with this: wise view, wise intention, wise speech, wise action, wise livelihood, wise energy, wise mindfulness, and wise concentration. These are like eight different elements that really support our movement towards greater and greater freedom. But there's a way in which we can have unwise action and unwise livelihood, in which we're causing harm, and that would be like going down the left fork.

And then he talks about going to this dense thicket, where you can't see your way through, it's not clear how to go forward. And when you're in the midst of it, you're just kind of stuck in it. And the Buddha says this is a metaphor for ignorance. Like, just not knowing. That's often how it is, we can't see, we don't know. And there's a way we have to use different faculties to know how to go forward. Like, we can't use the visual faculty in the way that we are accustomed to. So when we're in the middle of a thicket, maybe there's a way in which somebody shows us the way, or maybe we follow intuition, or maybe we follow just trial and error. It's just not clear, we just don't know the way forward.

And then after this dense thicket is this marshy swamp. And the Buddha describes this marshy swamp as getting stuck in sensual pleasures. There's a way we can do this, like chasing one pleasure after the next, after the next, after the next. You know, psychologists call this the hedonic treadmill, right? Even though we might have one thing that's pleasurable, okay, then we start to get accustomed to that, and then we want something even more. And then we get accustomed to that, and then we want even more. And we can spend our whole life just chasing pleasures. And I kind of like how this is a swamp. It can feel like you kind of get in quicksand, like maybe sunk down in there, and it's not easy to get out, especially because there's so much of our society that's really promoting this sense of entertainment, you know, find something titillating. Even the news often is given in a way just to poke you a little bit, like, "Oh, I better pay attention." You know, it's given in a way to entertain you in some way. Even though it's uncomfortable, often the news, but it's also meant to grab your attention and keep it in the way that entertainment does.

So then after this marshy swamp is this steep precipice. And again, this is all on the path to Nibbāna. So I don't know, I just love this. He's not saying, "Okay, look, it's neat and tidy, just go here, hang a left and you'll be there." It's like, no, there's these swamps and there's this dense thicket like a forest and you're apt to get lost in there. And there's going to be this steep precipice, which he describes as anger and agitation. And I kind of like this being a precipice because anger can be helpful, indicate to us when boundaries are being crossed or when things are inappropriate are being done. But there's also a way in which anger can tip us over off of a precipice when it's mixed with hostility, when it's mixed with this, maybe it's a subtle sense, but of wanting to cause harm in some kind of way. And then agitation, right? We just often don't have access to the best version of ourselves when we're agitated. So this steep precipice of agitation, maybe having to watch each step and be careful on the way to Nibbāna.

So that's one of the ways that the Buddha describes this path. Gaṇaka Moggallāna described it as, "Oh, you see this village, you see this town, and you'll get there." And the Buddha says, "Well, here's some specifics." In a different sutta, he's saying, "Here are some specifics." And then the Buddha ends this by saying, "You should be happy, Tissa, for I am here to advise, I am here to support you, and I am here to instruct." So he's saying, "You know, look, there are these difficulties along the way, but I can help." I appreciate that. It's not pretending like everything's easy-peasy or something like this, because sometimes it's not uncommon for people to feel like, "Oh, this is really hard," or "I'm getting lost," or "I'm confused." And somehow we feel like, "Oh, I don't understand it, there's something wrong with me," or something like that. But instead, I mean here the Buddha, he's just pointing out that's part of the path, that there will be confusion, there will be uncertainty, there will be difficulties, and just to normalize that instead of this idea that we have to know everything and have to be comfortable all the time.

So then we might say, "Well, why are some reasons why people don't go on this path?" The Buddha was saying some people don't reach it, and it might be that maybe they don't really start. Maybe they have an inkling that, okay, there is a different direction that's possible, but they don't really want to. Like, they maybe dip their toe in, which is okay. That's certainly how I started, and I think that's how a lot of people start, with just maybe dipping a toe in. But also there can be this hesitation to begin. Maybe it's doubt, or maybe it's just uncertainty about what to do or how to do it. Or maybe they realize, "Oh, this is going to be hard. There's going to be swamps and thickets and steep precipices, cliffs," and they feel like it feels dangerous, it feels scary. And it's not uncommon for people in their meditation practice, when they reach some different meditative experiences that they haven't reached before, some people are like, "Oh, cool, check it out, never experienced this before." And some people are like, "Whoa, what was that?" And it's okay, whatever experience we have is the one we have. So there can also be some hesitation based on tasting something that's different and not quite sure what it is and how to hold it or how to be with it.

Or maybe people don't finish on this path, or maybe they just start a little bit because they get distracted. And part of the reason why they get distracted is because maybe their life is better. They've started a meditation practice, maybe they have a little bit more ease in their life, maybe they have a little bit more ease in their bodies, a little bit more relaxation, and they feel like, "Okay, that's enough. You know, my life is better than before, but I don't really want to look in some of the corners of my mind and the corners of my life. I'm not quite ready to do that. I might have to make some difficult decisions if I do that. I might have to do things radically different." And maybe they don't want to do that. It's perfectly fine. All of us get to choose our own way, our own pace, our own path. Certainly, there's no requirement to do any of this. It's kind of like an if-then statement: if you're interested in more and more freedom and peace and well-being, then here are some things to do. It's completely up to us, of course.

The Journey by Mary Oliver

But now I'd like to point to, rather than reaching back thousands of years ago, somebody who's talking about this path that goes to awakening and freedom, to use a modern voice from a poem that was published in the early 1960s. But I think it does a good job of describing part of what it might be like to maybe endeavor on this path, partly on the beginning of this path. The poet is Mary Oliver. Many of you are familiar with this poet. She won the Pulitzer Prize, but I regret that I don't know which year she did. So she's a recognized poet, and the name of the poem is called "The Journey." So again, that's Mary Oliver's poem, "The Journey."

One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice -- though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. "Mend my life!" each voice cried. But you didn't stop. You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations, though their melancholy was terrible. It was already late enough, and a wild night, and the road full of fallen branches and stones. But little by little, as you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do -- determined to save the only life you could save.

It ends there. Part of this poem that I just love, there's a lot of beautiful elements here, but I love this ending: "determined to do the only thing you could do, determined to save the only life that you could save." And then I think many of us in our minds are going, "Oh yeah, save my life," or "save your life." Like, we're completing the poem in some kind of way, as the poet is leaving it to us to make that next step. She's leaving it blank.

Reflections on "The Journey"

This poem begins with, "One day you finally knew what you had to do." In Buddhism, they sometimes point to this as this feeling of urgency, this feeling like, "Oh, I need to find a way to greater freedom." And sometimes this arises because we have a lot of suffering, or sometimes it arises because we receive a terrible diagnosis or a loved one has a terrible diagnosis. Or maybe it's just an intuitive hit.

I worked in Corporate America for quite some time, and I had this fantastic job. I had a great job, and I felt like, "I just don't quite feel happy in the way that I expected to, having this great job." I had my professional success that I wanted, and I thought, "What am I going to do now?" At that time, I worked for a company that... yeah, it was a great job, I'll just say this. And then I was thinking, "Oh, should I leave this job? But it's not going to get better anywhere else. I'm not going to find a better job, I think." And it took me quite some time thinking, "Should I do this?" feeling like, "No, I can't. Oh, yes, I should." And then for some reason, one morning I woke up and it was just so clear to me. I will always think that I should work more, I should get higher in the corporate ladder, earn more money, all these things. I will always think that, that's not going to go away. But somehow, I don't know why, I can't explain, I just had this intuitive hit: "I need to leave this job." And the story I told myself, "I'm just going to leave for one year." My life situation allowed me to do that, certainly that's not available for most people. "And then I'm going to come back. I just need one year to figure out what to do next." I was working so hard, busy all the time, but I couldn't figure out what to do next. I thought, "Okay, I just need a little space to figure out what to do next." I can't believe that was so many years ago now. What I said I'd be gone for one year, and I guess it's been 18 years now. So I didn't find my way back. Instead, I found the Dharma, and this is where I've been ever since. But it was just like I had some clarity. This doesn't hit so often, but sometimes it does, where we have the sense of like, "Yep, this is going to be hard," or "It's not clear, I can't figure it out, but you know what? I'm going to do it anyway." There's something inside of us that says, "I'm going to do it anyway."

And the story that I told, my life situation allowed me to do that. Maybe making a radical change isn't available to people because they have responsibilities and other people that they care for. But my point is that sometimes there is a gut feeling that we have. Not always, but sometimes there is. Or maybe it's not a gut feeling or an insight, but maybe it's just an understanding. Sometimes with a meditation practice, we start to see things differently. We start to see ourselves differently. We start to understand like, "Oh, I'm like that because of these conditions. It doesn't mean I'm a bad person. It just means because I'm always hungry at 3:00, that's why I'm yelling at the person that does something or other." You know, I'm just making this up on the spot, but when we start to realize, "Oh yeah, all these things are connected," and we as individuals are not unique in that we're not connected to everything. We are connected to our conditions, everything around us. Of course we are. So the things that we do, we sometimes take credit for them, but we also blame ourselves for them, not recognizing, "Oh yeah, well the person that we were speaking to was really angry because their partner didn't take out the garbage like they said they were going to, and they come into work and they're irritated because they had to take out the garbage," or you know, whatever it is. Things that we have no idea about impact us and affect us.

So maybe that's this type of understanding. We start to see, "Oh, it's not that I'm always this way, it's that there are conditions in my life which create the conditions for me to be that way, support that way." And there's something we can have a little bit more sense of freedom, a sense of possibility. "Oh yeah, maybe if I spend less time watching things on social media that are mean and hurtful and demeaning and disrespectful to other people..." You know, of course it impacts us, whether it's geared towards us or not, just to know that humans can do this and to know that that kind of venom exists there in the world. So maybe there's a way in which you can listen to sometimes these quiet voices that are saying, "Yeah, something else is possible." And maybe we don't even know what that something else is. And maybe the change that we make is something small, very small. It doesn't have to be some radical thing about going down a whole different path. It's like, "Well, maybe I'll meditate more, maybe I'll spend time in nature more, maybe I'll do something creative more." You just allow something for our hearts and minds to blossom and have some breathing room. Often our lives are feeling cramped and we're feeling like we're pushed around. So there's so many ways that this "one day you finally knew what you had to do." Well, maybe we can interpret it as the poet here saying you knew what you had to do, and maybe all you know is that you have to do something different. And maybe it's not even clear what it is. Just this feeling like, "Oh yeah, maybe even something different is possible." And then just this willingness to be curious about, "Well, what would be different? What would be helpful for my life?"

Because the next line in this poem says, "though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice." The people that are in our orbit, so to speak, often, especially if we've had relationships with them for a long time, there's a way in which we kind of set up this dance, like, "Okay, you do this and then I do that in response, and then I do this and then you do that in response." You know, I'm looking at the really, really big picture: "I get angry and then you get quiet, and then I'm mad that you're quiet so then I go call my friend," or whatever it is. You know, these dynamics that get developed in all relationships. And sometimes this "shouting their bad advice" is like, "No, don't change," even though you can see that it would be helpful for you to maybe let go of some patterns of behavior, letting go of staying up late and not getting enough sleep because you're on social media. I don't want to beat up on social media, but there is a lot of bad things on there, right? We all know this. There's some helpful things there too, but there's a lot of very unhelpful things. So there might be a way in which they want us to stay the same in some kind of way. Or maybe these voices that keep shouting their bad advice, maybe it's part of the inner critic, that's, you know, these are voices inside of us. And so this poem is pointing to knowing that there's something to do, even though there is pressure to not do things differently, but instead to go on this journey.

And then the next line is, "though the whole house began to tremble." Like things start to feel a little bit more shaky, right? When we decide, "Okay, I'm going to do things a little bit differently," it doesn't feel as solid, doesn't feel as steady. But that's what it feels like to grow. That's what it feels like to stretch our capacities. That's what it feels like to touch something new, experience something new, go a different direction a little bit. Like the house began to tremble, it's not the same. And also, maybe if we start taking a few steps on this journey, maybe we look back at the house and we see, "Oh, maybe it was trembling all along, and we just didn't notice it because we were in it and we were shaking along with it." Maybe we take a few steps and notice like, "Oh yeah, it's a little shaky."

And then I'll skip forward to this other line in the poem. It says, "It was already late enough, and a wild night, and the road full of fallen branches and stones." So this is describing when they're going out onto this journey. I love this, "it was already late enough." We could interpret that a number of different ways. It was nighttime, maybe, but "late enough" could be later in our life. It's maybe often when we are younger that we make these decisions, and then it's not until later in life... you know, this is not uncommon for people to feel like, "Hmm, I think I want to make some changes and go a different direction." So the poet is pointing to maybe late in life too. This isn't just something that young people do as they go off to start their lives. And then, "it was a wild night with the road full of fallen branches and stones." It wasn't a perfect setting. It wasn't neat and tidy and clear and pretty, but there were going to be these obstacles on the way. Here they're getting described as fallen branches and stones. The Buddha was describing it as swamps and thickets and cliffs. This is a recognition that journeying towards awakening, going towards greater freedom, going towards greater peace and ease in our lives, going towards the best version of ourselves, is going to encounter some difficulties. That's part of the path. It doesn't mean you're doing it wrong. And there are others that can help. There's teachings that can help, there's friends that can help, there are teachers that can help. This is some place maybe where social media can help too. There are communities online that can be a support for this journey.

And then lastly, I'll end with this line from the poem that says, "there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own." So pointing to transformation, pointing to this new voice, this new way of seeing things, the new way of thinking about things or speaking about things. And you realized, "Oh yeah, this is some of my wisdom that I've earned on this journey of life that's supporting me."

So the path of practice of going towards greater freedom, the Buddha talked about it and described it as having difficulties, not necessarily being neat and tidy. Sometimes when we hear "the Eightfold Path," it's just, you know, "here are these eight things, and do them and you'll be fine." It would be great if it were that easy and straightforward, but it's not always easy and straightforward. And I want to normalize that this path has beautiful parts and it has difficult parts, because that's what it means when we talk about transformation. Of course, it isn't going to be completely simple and straightforward and painless. There's going to be some stretching and growing, and we're going to realize, "Oh yeah, this cloak that I used to wear doesn't really fit anymore, but it's my favorite one and I really like it," something like this. To this idea of the journey. The journey. And I'll end there and open it up to see if anybody has any questions or comments.

Q&A

Audience Member: It's as if it's simple and straightforward. I get these little messages and I ignore them. It's terrible. You said something about little messages earlier, and it's exactly that. Perfect. I hear them, I mean, I don't really hear them, but they come to me and it's like I say, "Oh no, that's not for me. That's not me." It's terrible. You have to listen to those little messages.

Diana Clark: Well, that's my take on it. But yeah, and part of this skill is learning, well, which ones do we listen to? All of them? Do we listen to some of them? And how do we know which ones? Right? That's part of maturing in this path. But here's something that I use to guide me on whether to listen to these messages or not, and often this is very subtle, so I have to pay attention. If the message says, "Do this," and then very quietly it says, "...in order to get this," whatever "this" is, usually those are the ones that aren't so helpful. If the one says, "Do this because it's the right thing to do," those are the ones that tend to be more helpful. But the ones that are trying to be a means so that you can get something... I mean, maybe it helps you get that thing, but this is what I'm using for myself as a guideline of which one of those little voices to pay attention to. When it says, "Well, because it's the right thing to do." And then how do you know what the right thing to do is? Maybe I'll say something because there's a certain sense of ease or spaciousness in the body, like, "Yeah, okay, that's the right thing to do." You're not in your head, you recognize this, even though it might feel difficult or not what you want to do or something like that. Yeah, thank you. Does anybody else have a comment or a question or something they'd like to share?

Audience Member: It would have been nice if all those obstacles were visuals that you described. Yeah, that's true, that's very good. But unfortunately, I see it as more kind of a minefield where you're kind of walking along, things are going well, and then boom, something just comes out of nowhere, and that could be challenging.

Diana Clark: Yeah. Do you have the feeling that they come out of nowhere? I'm just asking.

Audience Member: Sometimes, yeah. Just an interpersonal relationship or... well for me recently it was, I came home and my roommate's like, "I'm not redoing my lease, and this is your 30-day notice," you know? And I'm like, "Oh, darn." You know, things like that. Yeah. Or I'm a teacher, so in schools too, you never know what's going to, what you might step on. So that's kind of the way I look at it.

Diana Clark: Great, thank you. This idea of minefields, that just sounds brutal or gory, you know, there goes a limb or something. Great, thank you. Does anybody else have a comment or something they'd like to say?

Audience Member: I'm so happy I came today because you were talking to me at this point of my life. And I need to make some changes, and I'm so comfortable with what it is. And then at this point, this just... in my meditation and in my gut says, "Do it, no matter how difficult it is." And my God, the whole talk tonight is all about, you know, it could be difficult, but the path is to freedom of what's been not comfortable all along. So I'd like to thank you for that.

Diana Clark: You're welcome. Yeah.

Audience Member: I'd just like to share this with you.

Diana Clark: Thank you. Thank you. Happy to hear that.

Okay, so I think we'll end the evening. Wishing you all a wonderful rest of the evening. Thank you. And if you'd like, you're welcome to come up here and talk to me.