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Guided Meditation: Unhooking; Dharmette: Hindrances and Wholesomeness (5 of 5) Sensual Desire - Kim Allen

The following talk was given by Kim Allen at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on October 04, 2024. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Unhooking

Hello, everyone. It is nice to be with you again for our meditation today. Before we begin, I want to comment on something you may have noticed about the mind: it is very associative. When we are sitting, a sense experience appears—perhaps a sensation, a thought, a sound, or even a visual if our eyes aren't fully closed—and the mind immediately brings a cloud of associations along with it.

It reminds us of something, or we react to the content. If an experience is pleasant or unpleasant, the mind has something to say about it. We don't just get the bare experience; we get a cloud of things surrounding it. Often these clouds, which are innocent enough in how the mind functions, have "hooks" in them. Something happens, associations arise, and one of them is sticky. We get drawn into it and find ourselves off on a thought trail or a reaction.

There wasn't necessarily anything wrong with the initial input or the functioning of the mind, but we essentially mistook the association for the next moment of reality. We go off onto a side branch, and several minutes later we realize, "Oh, right, I'm supposed to be meditating."

The invitation today is to observe this process. Understanding these hooks is an important part of learning how to be with the mind as we go through life.

Settling In

Let's settle in, finding a comfortable position for meditating. It is fine if you are sitting, lying down, standing, or walking. Allow yourself to come into the sense of being in meditation. You can close your eyes if that's comfortable for you. Allow the attention to settle inward, feeling the body in whatever posture it is in.

Perhaps take a couple of long, slow, deep breaths. Breathing in, breathing out. On the out-breath, soften a little bit more comfortably into your posture. Let the body be soft and relaxed, yet also alert and upright. This brings energy and dignity to what we are doing.

Take a moment to connect explicitly with the body. Soften the muscles of the face, letting the expression relax. Let that relaxation move down into the shoulders, arms, and hands. Feel the chest and belly area. If you are sitting, feel the contact point of the seat, letting yourself be supported. Relax down into the legs and feet, releasing any bracing. We invite ease into the body, connecting gently with it just as it is.

Sensing Mindfulness

Now, connect with the mind and heart. How are you? Sense any mood that may be present, and notice your energy level. Again, invite some calm presence and ease. If there is agitation, that is fine; we just stay with it.

Become aware that the mind is, for the moment, mindful. Have a sense of what mindfulness feels like for you right now. It might feel broad and spacious, warm and connected, or like a cool observer. It might feel very intimate. How is mindfulness right now?

In the middle of all that experience, sense the simple flow of the breath in and out. We don't need to narrow down onto the breath, but let it be a simple, friendly presence in the middle of our experience.

Following the Flow

Keep the breath as a background flow or pulse. Open to the flow of changing experience: sounds—my voice, sounds in the room, or sounds outside—and natural body sensations. Notice the flickering thoughts or emotions in the mind. Even when there isn't much input, the mind is generative. A birdsong might remind you to add water to the birdbath, or a thought about yesterday might remind you to call a friend today.

This is the natural operation of the mind. However, in meditation, we want to stay with each experience as its own thing. Each one is like a single flower; instead of creating a bouquet out of them, we move from one flower to the next.

One way we get switched from being with the flow to following a thought trail is when there is a hook on the experience. One of those associations isn't just noticed; it has some "juice" to it. We decide it is more interesting, driven by a desire or a belief that that is the way to go.

You can become aware of the hook itself. It is a visceral sense—a little bright spot, a sticky spot, or a sharp spot. See how you experience it. Stay with the flow, and when the mind gets hooked, look back for the hook before resuming the flow.

The Mindfulness Eraser

One way to work with the mind's tendency to wander is to keep the attention on a single object. Another way is to allow those associations to appear as little flickers to the side but choose not to follow them.

Experiences might start to look like they have "streamers" trailing from them—associations we could follow, but don't. Sometimes it's helpful to imagine a "mindfulness eraser" that erases those streamers so we just have the bare object, or a sword that cuts through them, freeing experience to flow without those trails. See if this resonates. Learn to navigate your boat through the water without getting caught in the kelp and the reeds that could drag it down.

Let experience be released from the mind's hooks, associations, and embellishments so that it just unfolds. No wind drag, no seaweed holding it back—just flowing, frictionless.

Unhooking in Daily Life

As we get a sense of how to unhook in meditation, we find ways to carry that into daily life. We can flow more flexibly and freely with experience. We are less likely to fall into habitual emotional responses or to close down in certain situations. We notice the hook and see that we have other options.

This brings benefits to us and to others. We can see people more freshly, finding alternative ways of relating rather than following the habitual paths lined with hooks. Others can feel more free in our presence because our mind is more open, gentle, and less caught.

May you see more freshly today, especially the people around you. Even for someone you have known for decades, could you see something fresh in them today? See what opens up when we don't take the easy route of traveling from hook to hook.

May our world find some measure of unhooking from habitual ideas and ways of relating. When that begins with us, there is possibility. May all beings find happiness, peace, free flow, and an opportunity to live without hooks.

Dharmette: Hindrances and Wholesomeness (5 of 5) Sensual Desire

As human beings, we live in a world rich with sense experience. The Buddha even defined "the world" simply as the six sense bases¹ and their objects: seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, and the mind. This is it; this is our world.

A relevant spiritual question is what to do with this sense world. Buddhism suggests that it is our mismanagement of the sense world that brings stress and suffering, and that it is possible to learn to handle it well—even to the point of having no dukkha² while still having a body and sense experiences.

Today we reach the final hindrance in our list, which is classically the first: sensual desire.

The Buddha's Quest

As sensual beings, we must be careful how we understand this, because we are by definition immersed in the sense world. It is not easy to understand "sensual desire" clearly, especially when we are told it is a hindrance. This week, we are exploring how the five hindrances are unwholesome responses to experience, and how to discover the wholesomeness uncovered when we are not under their sway.

Consider the story of the Buddha's quest for awakening. He had the natural wish for happiness that we all have, but he went through a long process of learning to relate to the sense world skillfully.

The Buddha started out relating to sense experience with greed. He was wealthy, had access to many pleasures, and was protected by his parents from aging, illness, and death. He lived the way many of us do by default, pursuing pleasant experiences as an end in themselves. However, he found this spiritually unsatisfying.

Next, he tried relating to experience with delusion. He learned refined, formless meditation states where the body disappears. He thought he could transcend the sense world by seeking loftier spiritual pleasures. While this works for a while, it is ultimately unsatisfying because even the loftiest pleasures are impermanent.

Then, he related to the sense world with aversion. He became an extreme ascetic, trying to crush his wish for happiness through austerity. He deliberately sought out painful experiences, becoming a "connoisseur of pain." Alas, this too did not free his mind.

Finally, he remembered a time from his childhood when he was relaxed and happy, and his mind naturally entered a state of unification. His sense experience was fully present, and his mind was in a state of contentment, clarity, tranquility, and vitality. He realized this was the path: cultivating a tranquil, clear presence that harmonizes the experience of the moment. He had found a wholesome thread within the sense world—a path to happiness.

Sensual Desire as a Hindrance

With that background, we can understand sensual desire as a hindrance. It is a way of missing the path in this moment because we mistake the pleasure of a sense object for the deep spiritual happiness we are actually seeking. Fixating on an object of pleasure covers over the open ease of the path.

It is a major turning point in spiritual life when we realize that the happiness from sensual pleasures is limited, and that there is a middle way³ that neither settles for that limited happiness nor tries to deny pleasure.

Joseph Goldstein⁴ tells a story about being on retreat, reflecting on the Buddha's freedom from greed, hatred, and delusion. In the middle of this inspirational reflection, his mind suddenly switched to thinking about his favorite comfy meditation sweatshirt and how he'd like to have several of them in different colors. His mind collapsed from great spiritual aspiration onto a sweatshirt. We all have similarly humbling experiences.

When we buy into sensual desire, it narrows our experience. We stop seeing the whole scope and start seeing partially. There is a physical sensation of leaning or tumbling forward—a contraction. It might feel pleasant ("I want that!"), but there is a feeling of collapse. We lose the "whole" for the sake of the "part."

The Buddha likened sensual desire to being in debt. We enslave ourselves to the future by wanting to get or keep something, and then we have to expend energy to "service" that desire, just as one services a loan. If we are mindful, we can feel the weight it places on us.

Finding the Thread of Ease

There is no fault in enjoying a pleasant experience that comes to us, nor in choosing things we enjoy. If you need a meditation sweatshirt, get the comfy one! But know that it cannot provide lasting happiness, and watch how your mind narrows when it moves toward the desirable.

A few days ago, I was walking and passed a free book exchange kiosk. My vision narrowed from the whole street to the kiosk, then to a poetry book. I thought, "This might be good for Dharma talks," which felt wholesome. But then I realized I didn't actually need it. Taking the book would add one more piece of "stuff" to my life, and in that moment, it felt burdensome. So, I decided not to take it.

Notice in any given moment: is there a burdensome feeling to this object I am zeroing in on? If so, there is likely a hindrance.

Sensual desire is tricky because we must fulfill basic needs like food, shelter, and community. Yet we must do so without expecting these limited things to supply deep and lasting happiness. Buddhist texts say that while ill will is more "blameable," it is easier to remove. Sensual desire is "less blameable" but much harder to remove.

We overcome it by learning to see its weight, stickiness, and burden. This allows the path to open. The path is a kind of ease that doesn't depend on any specific pleasure. A good way to sense it is to cultivate a tranquil knowing of whatever is arising, whether pleasant or unpleasant.

The sense world is not our enemy, but neither is it our salvation. Instead, there is a thread running through it—the path—which consists of an ease unhooked from the associations our mind makes.

Next week, we will move from the hindrances to wholesome qualities. Classically, these are the Seven Factors of Awakening⁵, but we will look at a list of the qualities of the mind of the Buddha. What is a mind like that can live freely in this human life? I hope you'll join me then.