This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video The Eight Worldly Winds - Ines Freedman. It likely contains inaccuracies.
The following talk was given by Ines Freedman at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.
Good morning. This morning I wanted to talk about the relationship between the eight worldly winds and our intentions, the intentions that we live with throughout the day. They’re called the eight worldly winds because they tend to toss us around like strong winds. They can even batter us around quite a bit. It reminds me of New Zealand; sometimes the wind in Wellington gets so bad that they actually have places to hold on to at the street corners when the winds come. It’s not that unusual, but a lot of the time, that’s really what’s happening in our minds. A lot of what keeps our minds from being at peace in our lives.
No matter how carefully we set up our lives, how hard we work to always get the winds we want, it doesn’t happen. It doesn’t work. So we’re always kind of chasing these winds, trying to get the good ones and avoid the bad ones.
They are four pairs. The first two are the personal ones: Pleasure and Pain, my pleasure and pain; and Gain or Loss, things you gain or lose in your life. The other two can be more interrelational: Praise and Blame. I mean, we can praise and blame ourselves, right? Some of us are very familiar with that, but it’s also something that happens in the bigger world. And the last one is Fame and Disrepute. Now, a lot of us might think, “Oh, I don’t want fame,” but there’s something very related to fame called status. So fame or status, which sometimes can be as simple as being seen as a good artist, just that little bit of wanting to be seen as a good something. These are all the very common human things that drive us.
Slightly changing gears a little bit, the first time I saw a living statue—does everybody know what a living statue is? I was in San Francisco. A living statue is a performer, usually a street performer, who will perform at fairs. Basically, what they do is they get in a costume and they paint themselves. The first one I saw was just a silvery white. They’re in costume, their face is painted, everything’s silvery white, and they just don’t move. They’re just like a living statue.
I remember at the time I was a yoga student, and I really struggled for five minutes holding still standing up in what they called Tree Pose. Just standing for five minutes was really hard. And this person, I kind of went for a walk, came back an hour later, and they’re still standing. It’s quite a feat.
Now, moving up some years later, there’s an artist, a musician performer, an unusual one, her name is Amanda Palmer. Maybe you’ve heard of her, maybe you haven’t. But before she made it in music, she was a living statue. She did it for seven years, and this is how she made a living. Her gig was called “The 8-Foot Bride.” She would stand on a pedestal, paint herself white, dressed in a wedding gown with a veil, and holding a bouquet of real flowers. She would basically stand there for an hour and a half at a time per set. There’d be a little basket on the floor where people could leave a donation.
When she reflected on it—she happened to be a Zen and yoga student—she said, “Yeah, I’m really not a disciplined person, but when I thought of doing this, I thought I can do one thing at a time, and that’s just stand still. That’s all I have to do, just stand still.” And then she qualified it: “Stand still and love whoever shows up.”
So this is what she did for seven years as a way of making a living. People would come up to her and look her deep in the eyes, and she would be really connecting with each person. This was like her practice, to really show up fully for each person. And then if they chose to give a donation, she would surprise them by moving and handing them a flower. It’s just very, very sweet. But what really struck me was just the way her intention was to do one thing. She wasn’t going to do a lot of things, but just this one beautiful thing of lovingly standing still.
A living statue is also affected by the eight worldly winds. And so, maybe you can connect with these yourself as you reflect on them.
Pleasure and Pain: This can refer to the really small little pleasures, like sipping a cup of warm tea, or the really big pleasures, maybe reconnecting with a long-lost friend and just feeling all this intense pleasure and joy. It can be physical, it can be emotional. Same thing on the other side: the little aches of standing in line too long, or the really strong ones of when we’re ill or heartbroken. Pleasure and Pain can be this huge realm.
All of you here, I think you all experienced a little bit of one of those in the last sit, right? Anybody feel a little discomfort at some point? Anybody felt a little bit of peace, a little bit of happiness, pleasure? Maybe some actually felt a lot of pain; some of us have different conditions in our life. The art is, how do we relate to those when they arise? If our intention is to always feel good, it means that we’re in conflict with probably half of what happens to us. And what happens when we always want to feel good? That means that we start grabbing at it. “Oh, don’t go away, that good feeling. Let me have my third cookie. I know I’m full, but I want a little more pleasure.” We’re always chasing after it, not wanting to let it go.
The example that I often go to with this is my mother. I moved away from her, so I didn’t see her that often. But whenever I would come to see her, she’d open the door and her eyes would just light up with joy to see me. She’d just be so happy, so delighted. But before I even got through the door, she’d say, “How long are you staying?” And whatever I said wasn’t enough. Only if I moved back in would be enough. But this is what we do. We keep chasing after those good feelings, those pleasures.
So what’s the alternative? Instead of seeking to be comfortable all the time, seeking to be at peace with whatever shows up could be an alternative. What kind of intention can we bring to our lives so that we are present for whatever shows up and we’re at peace with whatever shows up? It doesn’t mean that if we notice, “Oh wow, I’m really sitting crooked, maybe I’ll be a little more comfortable if I sit a little straighter,” we might still rearrange and be a little more comfortable. There’s nothing wrong with being a little more comfortable, but it’s how we hold that. We might not be able to get more comfortable. So how do we still find a sense of happiness, or at least a sense of peace? Having an attitude, an intention of goodwill towards ourselves, or of kindness toward the situation. What can be your intentions in the moment? An intention of letting go. In Buddhism, we teach the three wise intentions: goodwill, non-harming, and letting go or renunciation. Those are the three qualities that really allow us to be present with whatever shows up and have a heart that’s at peace when these worldly winds arise and fall away.
Gain and Loss: You think about the living statue; I am positive she had plenty of cool wind feeling really sweet and probably quite a bit of “wow, this hurts,” and learning to meet that. At one point she said, “I have the best job in the world.”
We all get things, right? We get things we want all the time. It might be something simple; we go to the store, we buy dinner materials. Or we get the bigger things in life: we might get a relationship, a friendship, a career, family, all the different things. Skills, like learning how to play music or work with wood, or sports, learning how to play tennis. Maybe we travel, we get a nice place to live. We have all these different things we can gain in life. And we can lose all of them, right? People who’ve been master pianists have injured their hands and lost that skill. Everything we have—people get divorced, children move away. We all have losses in this life. This life is made of both all these great things we might get, minor or major, and we have all sorts of losses.
One teacher said, “Spiritual growth is a constant state of loss,” which is kind of an interesting thing, because we are actually constantly letting go of everything, every moment. Otherwise, how would we show up? Some people give such importance to some things. One thing that’s always amazed me, and I’m just culturally not in tune with this, is that people get devastated when their team loses in sports. Incredibly devastated. So we give things a lot of meaning. The meaning must be, “This is really important they win, my life depends on it.” At least some people act that way.
I remember my first newer car. It looked perfect. And somebody came by on a bicycle and just keyed every car down the street. I remember thinking, “Next time I get a car, I’ll do that right away. I’ll key my car right away, then I don’t have to worry about it anymore.” But gain and loss, right?
We lose everything. Eventually, we lose our health, our abilities, our capacities, and we lose our lives. We lose everyone we’ve ever loved, everything in our lives we eventually lose. Suzuki Roshi1 said it beautifully. He said, “Life is going to sea in a boat you know will sink.” I love that, because that’s the reality of it. There’s nothing wrong with wanting healthy relationships and working towards these wonderful things in our lives. It’s how much the heart is at peace. Sometimes people become workaholics. They’re working in their career, but they’re so tight. We actually have a name for them: Type A personalities, people that give themselves headaches and high blood pressure from being so contracted, instead of working out of joy, instead of working in a peaceful way.
Praise and Blame: Now we’re getting into the relational part. As I said, we can often blame ourselves or praise ourselves. “Oh, I did really great, didn’t I?” Or blame yourself. I used to play racquetball with this guy, and every time he missed a ball, he would hit himself in the head and say, “God, idiot, idiot.” It was kind of unpleasant to play with him. I thought we were playing a game.
I remember when I first started really paying attention to my mind in meditation, every time I got distracted, I would blame myself. “You screwed up.” There’d be this mean little voice that would blame me. “You failed, you blew it.” And of course, you do that a hundred times a minute, especially in the beginning. Maybe only 50 in the advanced.
The thing about failure is, failures are the building blocks of learning, right? If you watch a little kid learn to walk, what do they do? They fall down. And how many times do they fall down? They don’t think, “Oops, I blew it, I didn’t get it perfect, never trying again.” They just fall down, fall down, learn to get up, and that’s how they learn to walk. They learn to figure it out, they learn to strengthen their muscles. And that’s how we learn any skill. Playing piano, you hit the wrong note, okay, now you hit it right. You’ve got the wrong rhythm, okay, now you’ve got it right. This is how you learn, but you have to fail to learn. So to have a wholesome relationship with the natural failures of life is important.
The quote I really like from Niels Bohr2, the Nobel Prize physicist, is: “An expert is someone who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.” I love that. The expert is the one who screws up the most. So let’s make lots of mistakes. It’s okay. This is how we learn. We learn more, we try more, we’re more adventurous, we’re more willing to talk to a stranger, more willing to make fools of ourselves.
Amanda, the eight-foot bride, she would get people who would say, “Oh God, you’re awesome, you’re great, thank you.” She’d get all this wonderful praise, and she noticed she would feel herself kind of puffing up with the praise. And then people would come by and say, “Get a job.” And she said her mind would come to her defense: “I have a job, this is my job.” And eventually she was like, “Okay, praise, blame,” and just allowing them to course through her. Because when you’re just doing one thing, being still, you see pretty clearly. Eventually, you see these things, these movements of the mind grasping. And again, what are we doing in meditation? We’re living statues, right?
The Buddha said, “They blame those who remain silent, they blame those who speak much, they blame those who speak little. There is none in the world who is not blamed.” How much energy do we put forth trying not to be blamed?
Fame and Disrepute (Status): The last pair, status or fame and disrepute, this is about our image, or how we are seen in society, our place in society, how other people see us. Some people like to brag about everything they accomplish, make sure everybody knows. I think you may have done that, or maybe you’ve seen other people do that. I remember kind of looking for places in conversations where I could weave in my accomplishments, the little ways that the ego wants to get its little perks.
I’ve also been where I had a really good idea, shared it with a group, and then somebody’s sharing my idea, and everybody’s really liking the idea. It’s like, “I want to make sure they know it’s my idea. It’s mine.” These little pieces of status, the wanting to be seen: “I’m the one who did that. I found the best restaurant, the best one. It’s me who found it.” Not, “I want to share this really good food with you,” but “No, no, I’m the one who found it.”
You see the other side of it. You see Olympic athletes who are just incredible, and people who get the bronze and feel like complete failures. We attach these things to status. The bronze, for them, was failure. You really see it in school. In grade school, high school, you’re either popular or unpopular, you’re in this clique or that clique. And then you see it reverse, right? You see some of the nerds who now have these huge companies, and they’re the successful ones, and the other ones have the lesser jobs. And it just kind of goes on, this whole status game that people play. But it’s not so much fun. It’s not a fun game. We create a lot of suffering for ourselves.
I want to tell you a Zen story. Maybe some of you have heard this. It’s about Su Dongpo3. He was a Chinese 10th-century poet, artist, and statesman. He had a good friend who was a Zen master, Foyan, with whom he would often discuss Buddhism. He was a very serious Buddhist student; he really took it to heart. They lived across a river from each other, so you had to take a raft to get across.
One day, Su Dongpo was very inspired by his meditation and he wrote a poem. It’s just four lines:
I bow my head to the heaven within heavens, Rays of light illuminating the universe. The eight winds cannot move me, Sitting still upon the Golden Lotus.
He was impressed with himself. He sent a servant to hand-carry the poem to Foyan. The servant took the raft across the water and brought him the poem. Foyan looked at the poem, smiled, and he wrote one word on it and sent it back.
The one word on it was: “fart.” [Laughter]
Su Dongpo gets the manuscript back, assuming that he’s going to get praise. He sees that, and he is outraged. “What the hell? That lousy old monk, who does he think he is?” He gets dressed, goes across the river, rafts over, but the door’s closed and there’s a note on it for him.
It says: “The eight winds cannot move me; one fart blows me across the water.”
[Applause] [Laughter]
But this is what we do, right? This is how we are. These little insults.
As Amanda Palmer said, as a statue, all she needed to do was to be still and love. That’s it. And that’s what the practice leads us to. It shows us to show up for each moment with a certain amount of stillness and with a heart full, a heart open, a heart ready, regardless of what winds of change have shown up, what pleasures and pains, what gains and losses. We just keep showing up with an open heart to whatever shows up.
In Zen, they very much stress the benefit of doing one thing at a time. You kind of hear a little bit of a put-down on multitasking, not being quite a Zen thing to do. There was a Zen student who heard this teaching regularly: “When drinking tea, just drink tea.” One day, he sees his teacher drinking tea and reading the newspaper. Of course, he goes up to him, kind of shocked, and says, “I thought you said when drinking tea, you’re supposed to just drink tea.” And the teacher says, “When drinking tea and reading the newspaper, just drink the tea and read the newspaper.” [Laughter]
We don’t need to be perfect. We don’t need to be rigid. We can just be. These winds are there, our attachments are there. How do we hold our attachments? How do we relate to getting caught up by craving? Can we hold them with just, “Oh yeah, being attached to that,” but being attached with an open hand? Can we be attached to something and yet give it room for it to be seen, to be healed in its own time?
We can aim to show up for whatever is in our lives, whatever comes next, with this open-handed attitude towards any wind of change that shows up. Just be completely open-handed. Whatever arises can arise, including our most ridiculous egos sometimes. Sometimes the ego has these things that you don’t want everybody to see, right? It just wants a certain way. “Oh, that’s what showed up. Okay.” The moment that we can meet that with an open-handed acceptance, it transforms it. It’s no longer “I am that ego.” It’s “Ah, that arose and that went away.” It has room to change. It has room to do both, drink our tea and read the newspaper. It has room for both.
So, thank you.
Suzuki Roshi: Likely refers to Shunryu Suzuki (1904-1971), a Sōtō Zen monk and teacher who helped popularize Zen Buddhism in the United States. ↩
Niels Bohr: (1885-1962) A Danish physicist who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum theory, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. ↩
Su Dongpo: (1037–1101) A renowned Chinese writer, poet, painter, calligrapher, pharmacologist, and statesman of the Song dynasty. ↩