https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=IXWB60QaAVA
Welcome to Meditating with John Brevecky. I’m a cognitive psychologist and cognitive scientist at the University of Toronto. There I study scientifically, academically, mindfulness related phenomena like insight, flow, mystical experience, transformative experience, and cultivation of wisdom. I’ve also been a practitioner of Vipassana meditation, Meta-contemplation in Tai Chi, Chuan, and Chi Kung for over 29 years. I’ve been teaching it professionally for close to 20 years. This is a progressive course. If you’re joining us for the first time, you’re welcome to stay. But you’ve missed four teaching lessons. You can go back into the playlist on my channel, and you can find the number of lessons, see the exercises in order to teach an important principle in practice. That’s how you can catch up with us. Normally, what we do is Monday is Dharma Day. That’s the day in which I do a teaching. I’ll do that today. And then for the remainder of the weekdays, Tuesday through Friday, we still meet at 930. But what I do is do review, and we sit together at the end of every session, including Mondays, there is Q&A. So a reminder of that schedule change, we only do teaching days now on Mondays, Dharma Days, and that there are no classes on the weekend, Saturdays and Sundays. All right. So today is going to be a longer lesson than normal for teaching, because I have sort of a lot that needs to be taught together. I don’t want to break it up. And that is today I’m going to teach you a contemplative practice that complements a meditative practice. Now, there’s a lot of sort of confusions around a lot of the terms that I’m going to be using today in teaching. And so that’s why I have to go carefully and unpack them and try to present particular interpretations of these terms. One is, for example, let’s start. These two terms tend to be used interchangeably, meditation, contemplation. I believe that’s a mistake. And you can notice that, as I’ve shown you, the word meditation refers to this practice of moving in. We’ve talked about finding your center, moving towards the center, that kind of thing. Contemplation, the word contemplatio, it has at the root temple, the Latin for to look out, to look up to the sky. It’s also a translation of the Greek word theoria, which is where we get our word theory from. And theoria means to look deeply into reality. So do you see the difference? Meditation is about this looking deeply inward, and contemplation is about looking deeply outward. And you need the two together. Think about our metaphor of standing back and looking at the glasses in meditation. This is meditation, standing back, looking at, right, that’s good. Looking at the mind rather than automatically through it. I hope you’re getting to see how useful and important that is. But suppose you think you see distortion. How do you know if you’re now no longer, your glasses are no longer distorting your vision? Well, you have to put them on. You have to put them on and look out and see if you can now see differently. You see, unless you complement meditation with contemplation, you’re not actually engaging in a process of transformation. You need to be doing the two together. This is, of course, one of the things that my work on insight is. You need, right, when I insight you, you have to step back from the inappropriate framing you’re in, but you have to look through, right, to a new and more encompassing framing. Meister Eckhart’s name, it’s word for this, that has been sort of actually reduced in meaning to just meaning and insight is Dirkbrück, breakthrough. You have to break the old frame, but you have to move through to the new frame. So meditation and contemplation are not identical. They complement and correct and need each other. And I was privileged, as I said, to be taught these three together, a meditative practice, Vipassana, a contemplative practice, Metta, and a moving, flowing practice, Tai Chi Chuan, because all three of those are really conducive to what we’re going to talk about much later in the course, prajna, wisdom. Okay, so Metta. Okay, so now we face another issue because Metta has become quite popular in North America. And I want to challenge the popular notion of Metta that people might be familiar with, because I think it’s not the most felicitous interpretation of the Metta practice. I don’t think it goes well, I don’t think it sits well with the Buddhist sutras, and I don’t think it sits well with our best cognitive science. So I want to compare. That’s why I need this time. So I’m really asking for your patience this morning. I want to compare the emotional interpretation of Metta, M-E-T-T-A, a contemplative practice, with the existential interpretation. So the emotional interpretation is that Metta is largely about generating positive feelings towards all beings. And this is problematic in a lot of ways. First of all, it confuses feelings and emotions, and then it confuses emotions with what Metta is. Take a look at the word in English that is most frequently used to translate Metta, which is loving-kindness. Notice it’s a hybrid word. It’s a hybrid word. First of all, it’s made up of loving. And first thing we should notice is that love itself is not an emotion. This is a mistake people get into, which means it’s even less a feeling. If I love someone, their presence will make me happy. Their absence can make me sad. Their being under threat can make me angry. Love is not an emotion, even less a feeling. Love is a way of being. It’s a way of knowing, and it’s a way of being known. It’s a commitment to a way of life with someone. So love in itself is something much more existential than emotional. What about kindness? Well, kindness isn’t itself an emotion. It’s not even a feeling. Kindness is a virtue. To be kind is a way of being virtuous. The original meaning of the word kindness, if you go back in old English, it was spelled with a Y by the way, had to do with initially causing an increase and then later with noble deeds. You see, it was the act of sort of opening things up in a virtuous manner. Now think of the word virtue, the word virtue like virtual. Virtue is having a power, having a capacity. So if I have the virtue of courage, I have the capacity to see through the illusions of fear into what needs to be done. If I have the virtue of temperance, I have the capacity to see through the illusions of greed and do what needs to be done. So I’ve got this existential attitude, love, which is a positive existential attitude for sure. And it affords a virtue. It gives me the power to see through a kind of illusion into what needs to be done. See, the word loving kindness is this hybrid word because it’s specifically not an emotional term. It’s an intercategorical term. It’s trying to put together things that for which we don’t have a singular English term. It’s putting together this existential stance of love, loving, active, and kindness, which is virtue. OK, so let’s say that what’s happening, are there positive emotions being invoked in meta? Yes, I’ll explain those to you. But what I want you to understand is that the positive emotions are not the goal. That’s the that’s I think the primary mistake of the emotional interpretation of meta. The positive emotions are a method by which we get an existential stance that allows us to see through an important kind of illusion and into what needs to be done. OK, so what is an existential mode then? If the emotional interpretation of meta is inadequate, it’s too simplistic, it’s too truncated. What is this deeper meaning? Well, thankfully, we have two really important sources, both of them who are deeply familiar with the Buddhist tradition. We have Eric Fromm, and he was also deeply familiar with the historic tradition, because this what I’m going to talk about was also discovered basically, I think, in the historic tradition. And we have Stephen Batchelor in his book on Buddhism, an existential interpretation of Buddhism called Alone with Others. OK, let’s what is an existential mode? So what I want you to think about is a process that is all happening all the time, but it’s normally happening automatically, unconsciously and reactively. What’s that process? It’s a process that I call co-identification. What does that mean? It means that whenever I go into any situation, I’m automatically assuming a particular identity. Right now, I’m a teacher. And I’m automatically assigning identities. You’re my students. This wall isn’t just a wall. It’s my support, right? Because I’m assuming the identity of a meditator. When I’m not assuming the identity of a meditator, this isn’t a support. It’s just a wall. It’s just a barrier. So I’m always assuming an identity and assigning an identity. And we’re doing this both with other people and as I just indicated with the wall, with objects. So the existential mode is how that process of co-identification is occurring in you. Now, the thing about this, and this was Eric Fromm’s deep insight, and Stephen Batchelor came to it independently. Many people have actually converged on this across different wisdom traditions, both Western and Eastern. Is that there’s two really important existential modes we have to talk about. They’re oriented around some of our fundamental needs. Let’s talk about one that Fromm calls the having mode. The having mode is your existential mode, the kind of identities you assume and assign. And those are co-determining when you’re trying to meet your having needs. These are needs that are met by having something. I need to have water. I need to have food. There’s nothing immoral or wrong about this, by the way. So I don’t have water. I don’t have food. If I pursue that kind of self denial, which was rejected ultimately by the Buddha, then I will die. So notice what I have to do. I have control of things. I have to bring them under my control. I have to be able to consume them. Oxygen, water, air, shelter. We consume shelter in a way, and we’re aware of all of this very acutely right now. This is very important. And notice something about these needs. They require me to solve problems very readily. And in order to do that, the kind of identities I assign to things are categorical identities. This is the identity something has by belonging to a category. Because when it belongs to a category, I can predict its behavior. I can familiarize myself with it. I can control and manipulate it to solve my problems. This is a pen. I readily and quickly recognize it as a pen. It’s like it reminds me of many other pens I’ve had in the past. If I lose this pen, I readily know what to look for in order to replace it. And that’s good because I need to be able to use my pens readily, effectively. Okay? So this is, to follow Martin Buber, this is what’s called an I-it relationship. There’s nothing wrong with I-it relationships because you need to have categorical identifications with things. Right? And in order to do that, in order to satisfy your having needs. What kind of I is it that’s related to its? Well, it’s a manipulator. It’s somebody that’s a problem solver, a categorizer, a controller, and a consumer. Again, that’s not evil. Okay? That is necessary for your homeostatic needs. But it’s not your only existential mode. You have another existential mode. These, this is what Fromm calls the being mode. I think the becoming mode is a little bit more accurate, but it’s his term, so we’ll use it that way. These, right, this existential mode, the kind of identity you assume and the kind of identities you assign, right? This existential mode is built around your developmental needs, your needs of being. These are needs that are not met by controlling and consuming things. These are needs that are met by becoming, right? Coming into being. So I need to become mature. I need to be mature, right? I need to be in love, right? That means that’s a state of becoming. It’s a kind of person of becoming. I need to be courageous. I need to become kinder. These needs are met by going through transformation. And so your relationship to your identity is fundamentally different. And the identities you assign to things, if that’s even the right word now, are not categorical identities. There are the identities by which you come to transformation, not control and consumption, but transformation. Think of the prototypical relationship of identification or development when you are in a loving relationship with someone. When you come into a relationship with your beloved, you don’t relate to them I it. You don’t relate to them categorically. If I was to say to my beloved partner that I’m with her because she readily reminds me of all other women so that I could easily predict and control her behavior, I’m in trouble in that relationship. I have really radically misframed it. And she is going to reject because she doesn’t want to be very rightly so. And it that I control and manipulate, she wants to be a vow with whom I’m in a relationship of mutual development and becoming. We are reciprocally opening each other up. That’s how you engender love, by the way. You open up and go through transformation and what you’re in relationship or who you’re in relationship is also opening up and going through transformation. And that mutual reciprocal opening, that mutual transformation, that’s what the research shows. When people do that with each other, they fall into love, romantic love, friendship, love, etc. OK, so. Is existential mode of like the being mode is not about controlling and problem solving. It’s about coming into a relationship where we’re reciprocally opening with things I vow because we are identifying with them in a way of mutual transformation. Each one of us is bound to realizing the moreness of the other. How they and that’s just so people when we’re in a loving relationship, we’re not finished with them. We don’t consume them. We don’t ever know them completely. There’s always a mystery to the person. This, of course, happens when we take objects and we change them from being categorical to being vows. When we make an object into a work of art, we’re supposed to come into. Listen to my word, a contemplative relationship with it so that the work of art more and more discloses itself to us and we and more and more disclose ourselves to it. We fall in love with it and we become other than what we are and it becomes other than what it initially was. That resonating moreness in the mystery between the mystery within you and the mystery without. Why is this all important? Well, because people fall into modal confusion. They use the wrong mode for the needs that they’re trying to meet. And you can see things like stoicism in the West and Buddhism in the East as trying to get us to realize. This is what from an argue is modal confusion. What would modal confusion look like? I need to become mature so I have a car. See what I’m doing? I’m trying to meet my being needs from the wrong existential mode. I try to meet my being needs from the having mode. And so I’m frustrated and not actually becoming mature. So I need a better car, maybe more cars. I need to be in love so I’m going to have lots of sex. I need to be courageous so I’m going to have power. Again, it’s not that having mode is wrong. The error, the deep error, the existential error is modal confusion. Modal confusion. What meta is designed to do, I’m arguing, is to first awaken us to the process of co-identification that’s normally happening unconsciously, automatically, reactively. And then awaken us from modal confusion so that whatever we’re relating to, we have the capacity, when it is appropriate to do so, virtuous. To know it by loving it. Which doesn’t mean feeling affection or having emotions or feeling. It means being in the being mode with relationship to it. That’s why I even hesitate to use the word love because we have so reduced love to an emotion and then so reduced emotions to feelings. I think it’s even a mistake to use that word now. So instead, this is why I’m trying to teach you this notion of coming awake to existential modes, the process of co-identification, and then waking from how we can be modally confused. Because this is the key. Sati means to deeply remember. But not remember the level of facts. So when you say that, you’re talking about the level of facts, it means to remember the being mode, to remember, to recover, to be able to live within the being mode. So that your being needs are ultimately met. So the positive emotions that we invoke in meta are not the goal. So what Fredrickson’s work on positive emotion shows is that what positive emotions do is they broaden and build. They open us up. They open us up to transformation and learning. They open us up to that reciprocal opening. They are an affordance. They make possible the remembering of the existential modes and the remembering especially of the being mode. Of seeing through the illusion of modal confusion. So this is why, and I think this makes great sense, and I’ve pointed out some names, and there are others. This is, I think, the correct interpretation of meta in the Buddhist sutras. And it lines up with similar practices and very convergent across multiple wisdom traditions. So that’s why I’m critical of the emotional interpretation that is so common and pervasive. We want to be able to take Vipassana, insight, not in our mind, but to the level of our being. We want to take it into our existential mode. That’s the kind of insight we want. Okay. So we’ve talked about how we need a contemplative practice to complement a meditative practice. I’ve talked to you about what the contemplative practice is. I’m going to teach you meta, and I’ve given you the existential interpretation of the meta practice. How do we actually do it? How do we actually do it? Well, this is how we actually do it. We take time to get into Vipassana. We always, we center, we root, we find our flow, we find our focus. Then we’re going to move to a mantra. And the mantra is now, again, not something, the mantra is like the lenses you’re looking through. And the mantra is, right, whoever you’re directing meta to, a traditional form is, may X be happy and healthy, or may I realize X is true sectionist, or a more modern one or a more recent one that I would propose to you is, may I see the moreness in X. Which doesn’t necessarily mean you like them or have affection or positive feelings for them, but you’re trying to change your relationship from a having mode to a being mode. You’re trying to first of all become aware. So we start with meta towards ourself. So maybe it’s, may I realize the moreness of John. What happens when you try to connect to and identify with yourself, when you direct a sense of connectedness to yourself? What does that feel like in your mind and body? Do you tense up? Are you sort of thrilled? Is it kind of noxious for you? Does it feel empty? So first of all, always, what’s the embodied taste of it? And then try to sense, first of all, get into that embodied sense, always the embodied sense. And then within that, don’t try to make, but try to see, are you having yourself or are you becoming yourself? Is yourself a thing that is within you that you hold onto, your identity? Are you the same or is yourself actually an ongoing unfolding process that’s always in relation to the world? Can you shift from having yourself to being yourself? Well, that doesn’t mean just expressing your true self, where that means realize yourself as a process in development. That there’s more to you than what you know. It’s a kind of humility. So first, become awake, really deeply sense as you direct metaphor to yourself. May I be happy and healthy? Maybe use the traditional. May I realize my suchness? May I realize what more is here? Try them, experiment with them. What you’re trying to do is to come into a sense of what kind of identity are you assuming and assigning to yourself? Maybe it’s your role. I’m a teacher. You identify with your persona. Maybe it’s your personality. I’m a happy-go-lucky person. These are things you have. What kind of identification are you doing? And is it ultimately having or being? Now, next, you do meta towards somebody you’re close to. Somebody, maybe I’ll pick my son, Jason. And I call up the image of Jason in my mind and I direct meta towards him. May Jason be happy and healthy? Or may I realize Jason’s suchness? Or may I see more in Jason? And what I’m trying to do is, again, first of all, what identity do I assume? I’m his father. He is my son. I’m assuming and I set an identity. But, of course, he’s much more than that. And I can be much more to him. I have to unlock my identity to realize more of his identity. I have to get it into reciprocal opening. So what identity am I assuming? What does that feel like in my mind and my body when I assume that identity? What identity am I assigning? And am I having him? Because we often try to live vicariously through our kids. Even if we have wonderful affection for them, we could be having them. Or are we in the being mode? So I want to wake up to the co-identification and I want to potentially wake up, start to see through any modal confusion that might be there. Now I pick a neutral person. Maybe somebody at your convenience store, somebody who delivers things for you. Somebody you just know generically. Direct meta towards them. Maybe the traditional. You don’t know their name, just their image. May you be happy and healthy? Or may I realize your suchness? Or may I realize what’s more about you? What identity do you assume towards a generic person? What identity do you assign? Do you just have them? Are they just a unit? Can you remember the being mode with respect to them? The next is the person that you’re in conflict with, potentially the tradition calls it your enemy. You may not have any enemies, people dedicated to your destruction, but you may have people you’re in conflict with, even people that you love. Call up the image and the name of the person that you’re in conflict with. Direct meta towards them. What identity are you assigning? What identity are you assuming? I’m the victim. They’re the villain. I’m the conqueror. They’re the defeated. What identities are you assuming? What identities are you assigning? And are you ultimately having yourself and having them? Are you locked in the having mode? Can you remember Sati, the being mode, which doesn’t mean necessarily having affectionate feelings or forgiving them. It means remembering the being mode, not getting locked into the having mode. And then finally, we direct meta towards all human beings. Some people direct it towards all sentient beings. I recommend all human beings. And you don’t worry about getting an accurate image. You probably just imagine a crowd of people. That’s fine. Direct meta. What identity do you assume? What identity do you assign as a human person? And is that something you have or can you remember the being mode? OK, so let’s review. You go in to Vipassana. Always, always, always. Find your center. Find your root. Find your flow. Find your focus. Do a bit of Vipassana. Then take up meta, the contemplative practice. Direct meta towards yourself, your heart area. May I be happy and healthy or may I realize my suchness? The suchness is what is that about you that goes beyond your categorical identities? Or may I see more? May I see more or may I realize the moreness? And again, first, awaken to the co-identification. What identities are coming into mind and into body? What identities are you assigning and assuming? Get the feel, the deep feel, the deep sense of that identification process. And then see if, right, how much of it is a having. Can you catch a sense of what it is to shift into the being mode in relationship to yourself? And then to somebody you’re close with. Probably three or four times for each one. Don’t do the mantra quickly. Do it slowly, mindfully. That’s why you set up Vipassana first. Somebody you’re close with. Somebody you’re neutral with. Somebody you’re in conflict with. And then all people. Okay. So this will be very different for you. And that because you’re doing a contemplative practice and it’s very mantra-based. However, one thing is the same. If you’re distracted, label the distraction with an ing word. Return to your breath befriending yourself. And notice how all of Metta is about learning how to befriend. Because friendship is ultimately a way of being, a way of reciprocally opening. It’s a virtue. Okay. So you come back. You label the distraction with an ing word. You come back to your breath. Do a few breaths of Vipassana. Then return to where you were in Metta. And do that whole, let’s say I was in the neutral person. Start from the beginning of the neutral person and do your four recitations of the mantra when you go back. Okay. All right. Now, unfortunately, we have to set a timer. I recommend normally don’t set a timer with Metta. Pick a number of recitations you’re going to do for each area, four, five, or six. And then do them slowly and mindfully. And then when you’re done, you’re done. Unfortunately, we’re going to need to set a timer for today. We’ll set the timer because we’re already over. We’ll set it for 12 minutes. All right. So do your Vipassana sort of as quickly as you possibly can. I don’t want to rush you. But I want so you get some time and you get a sense of what it is to do Metta. All right. We’ll begin when I say begin. All right. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Slowly began to come out of your practice. Practice. You’re not trying to just vacate your life. You’re trying to educate yourself for your life. Metta is particularly powerful to try and bring into your everyday consciousness and cognition because it is trying to reawaken the being mode. And you can have the being mode towards things in your environment that you can’t really see. You can’t see the world. You can’t see the world. You can’t see the world. You can’t see the world. And you can have the being mode towards things in your environment. As you look around, try to get into what would it be. To remember the being mode of things. It brings with it a sense of wonder. A glimmering sometimes of all. Also it reveals things that might be unpleasant, that you’re avoiding seeing. In things. Because you’re letting things come into. You’re letting things come into your life. You’re letting things come into your life. And you’re trying to hold on for them. One more time. That remind you. Having mode is not evil. You’re not trying to avoid the having mode. You’re trying to not fall prey. To modal. Confusion. So the past and meta are like the two feet by which you walk the path. The pasta and meta. The pasta and meta. Meditation. You need to be able to. You need to be able to have the being mode. You need to have the insight. Remembering the being mode. Affording insight. Remembering the being boat until we get deep insight, deep transformative insight. So we get a profound remembering. Of the being mode. That’s what we’re after. And that is most conducive. To you. Right. Satisfying those needs for meaning. That are only found. about how we don’t want to confuse the events with the meaning of events. But right now, let’s break free as much as we can. Dirkbrook, break through the mode of confusion. All right, I won’t have time for too many questions right now, because we’re already significantly over our time. I will answer a lot of questions. It would be good if everybody tried meta a couple of times. I recommend that you try to do Vipassana alternate. If you’re only gonna practice once a day, which is fine, do Vipassana one day, meta the next. If you’re doing or want to do two things per day, this is a way of doing it that’s a little easier than trying to do just Vipassana twice. You can do meta perhaps in the morning, sorry, you could do Vipassana perhaps in the morning and meta in the evening or vice versa. Play around with it until you find what works. But try to now alternate between the two of them, because you want to start to get the two feet going. The two feet going. So it’s really important to always keep both of these and always remember, don’t go directly into meta, get Vipassana going. Find your core four and find Vipassana first. I don’t know if there’s any questions. What I’m gonna recommend is we’re already over time for today, considerably, 10 minutes or so. So I’m going to recommend that what we do is that we, we’re gonna table literally all these questions and I’ll make sure they get addressed. I’ll try and increase, because tomorrow we’ll just review the Q&A maybe for 15 minutes and get a lot of question and answers about meta for you tomorrow. I want to thank you all for joining and really encourage you to practice meta, not just Vipassana. I want to thank, as always, Amar, my techno mage, and Jason, my beloved son. Please subscribe to this channel so that you can get notifications, so that it’s easier for you to find the playlist, go back to the other teaching lessons. You can also find a whole host of videos. You can find lectures in Awakening for the Meaning Crisis on this whole idea of sati as awakening to co-identification, awakening from world confusion, sati, a deep existential remembering of the being mode. Please think about inviting others who might benefit by sharing this series. I’m offering this because I think it is beneficial. Many of you are saying it’s helpful and it would be very good if we could extend this as widely as possible to help as many people as possible. We’ll be doing this every weekday morning at 9.30 EST. For the rest of the week, I will be reviewing. I’ll go over meta again. I’ll answer questions throughout the whole of the week. That way, we will take the whole week to really sink our teeth very deeply into this practice. Thank you very much, everyone, for your time and attention. Keep up your practice. It will transform you and your life. Thank you.