This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation w Matthew Brensilver; Dharmette: To Care and Not to Care Simultaneously. It likely contains inaccuracies.
The following talk was given by Matthew Brensilver at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.
Okay folks, so welcome. It’s nice to see a lot of familiar names. I’m happy to be practicing together. So, let’s find our posture, whatever that is for you.
Just let the reality of goodness soothe you, soothe your heart. It’s almost unimaginable how much ordinary goodness there is. And we, here together, try to take that ordinary goodness as a kind of object. Let it motivate our action, consolidate our love, commitment, and resolution.
Usually, we direct our attention to our breathing, to the body, to feelings. But maybe for now, we just let goodness soothe any agitation, worry, or fear, and then see what’s left in the mind, where the attention goes.
It can feel like meditation puts pressure on ourselves to perform some intentional ritual, to be good, to not get lost in thought. It’s not that meditation puts pressure on the self; it’s the self that puts a kind of pressure on awareness.
Ego dramatizes everything, maybe. It makes life feel dramatic, melodramatic. We just relax, surrender the sense of self to awareness, and meditation starts to do itself.
We must forgive our minds at a very deep level. And through that process of forgiveness, we come to trust our mind, trust awareness, trust love. The goodness of your mind doesn’t depend on you.
The more we cling, the more world there is. As we cling less, there is less world, and more aliveness. Just take our cues from the silence.
Whatever can be enjoyed in the field of your experience, really enjoy it. If it feels overshadowed by other things, just enjoy what can be enjoyed.
T.S. Eliot’s1 poem, Ash Wednesday—I’m not a scholar, I don’t know what I’m talking about—but apparently it’s often read as a kind of conversion poem, his conversion to Anglicanism. I think from Unitarianism to Anglicanism. It begins this way:
Because I do not hope to turn again Because I do not hope Because I do not hope to turn Desiring this man’s gift and that man’s scope I no longer strive to strive towards such things (Why should the aged eagle stretch its wings?) Why should I mourn The vanished power of the usual reign?
And twice in that poem, he uses the phrase that’s been quoted quite often in Dharma talks: “Teach us to care and not to care. Teach us to sit still.” This part doesn’t get quoted so much, but the very next line is, “Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.”
Generally, I’ve understood that “teach us to care and not to care” in a sequential way. There are moments of care, but then there are other moments when care is absent. I’ve described a kind of dialectic of love and rest. The urgency of love, and yet we know that even beautiful love fatigues the heart. And so we must find ways of resting—not closing the heart, but resting. I’ve been preoccupied in trying to work out in my own life what a good life entails, working out this relationship between compassion and equanimity. What is the kind of balance point between nihilism and frenzied, inefficient suffering?
We know it doesn’t take long to realize that a path devoid of compassion is kind of dismal, pathetic, really. And yet, caring is costly. So there’s love in the face of suffering—compassion—and then love in the face of powerlessness—equanimity. We move between those modes sequentially: sometimes caring, sometimes that care is absent. As we practice, this sequential rhythm gets smoother. The kind of stickiness, the holding on, the ruminative mechanisms that keep the past alive, settles out quite a bit. The trace of the last moment is abridged. In other words, tears in this moment, laughter in the next, each moment very fresh. And so the poignancy of grief need not cast any shadow over ecstatic joy. To care, and not to care.
Is it possible, though, to care and not to care simultaneously? Not sequentially. One description or manifestation of emptiness is the simultaneous experience of caring and not caring. It is the experience of utter problem-lessness. This moment, as it’s come to be in its imperfection, is without error. And we rest in that sense of the errorlessness of it. We rest in, progressively, the perception of “no thing,” as the things of perception start to drop out, to melt away.
In a sense, what becomes more prominent than anything are the three marks of existence: Dukkha, Anicca, Anatta2. You know, unsatisfactoriness, impermanence, not-self. Emptiness, we might say, is the perception of less and less. It’s not like a metaphor; it’s the perception of less and less with more and more aliveness. It’s the tranquilizing of perception.
From the Cūḷasuññata Sutta3, the Lesser Discourse on Emptiness, we’re first transfixed by the perception of the busyness of the village. And then the perception of the village drops away. All the agitation of that perception drops away, and it’s just the perception of the human beings. Then that drops away, and it’s just wilderness, perceiving wilderness, refining out the more agitated forms of perception. Then the wilderness drops away, and it’s just Earth. Less and less perceptual disturbance. And so the basic agitation of samsara4 is being progressively refined out. We keep noticing the absence of coarser phenomena. It’s so striking; we’re beings that long for peace but accept mere pleasure.
The perception of the wilderness drops away to increasingly subtle forms of somethingness, but not much something. The perception of infinite space—no body, no mind, space without anything on the other side of it. This is a kind of not caring. “Teach us to care and not to care.” This is “not to care” in the sense that happiness is independent of the ordinary sensory world, very independent, extremely confident in the mind, in goodness, in the Dharma path. So there’s less and less, but there is still mind.
There’s a sutta5 that goes, “Just as if there were a roofed house or a roofed hall having windows on the north, the south, or the east. When the sun rises and a ray has entered by way of the window, where does it land?” “On the western wall,” the person replies. “If there’s no western wall, where does it land?” “On the ground.” “And if there is no ground, where does it land?” “On the water,” they reply. “If there is no water, where does it land?” “It does not land.” And then the Buddha responds, “Where consciousness does not land or increase, that, I tell you, has no sorrow, affliction, or despair.”
There’s a very beautiful image. We can know it. It’s not exactly a metaphor. It is like light. That light is like light from very distant stars. And maybe you can say that is a very benevolent light. You might say there is care, just the way light from distant stars warms us.
So, to care and not to care simultaneously. I offer this for your consideration. I’ll be away next week, but we’ll start back up after that, I think February 5th. Okay folks, may you be well.
The following talk was given by Matthew Brensilver at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.
Okay folks, so welcome. It’s nice to see a lot of familiar names. I’m happy to be practicing together. So, let’s find our posture, whatever that is for you.
Just let the reality of goodness soothe you, soothe your heart. It’s almost unimaginable how much ordinary goodness there is. And we, here together, try to take that ordinary goodness as a kind of object. Let it motivate our action, consolidate our love, commitment, and resolution.
Usually, we direct our attention to our breathing, to the body, to feelings. But maybe for now, we just let goodness soothe any agitation, worry, or fear, and then see what’s left in the mind, where the attention goes.
It can feel like meditation puts pressure on ourselves to perform some intentional ritual, to be good, to not get lost in thought. It’s not that meditation puts pressure on the self; it’s the self that puts a kind of pressure on awareness.
Ego dramatizes everything, maybe. It makes life feel dramatic, melodramatic. We just relax, surrender the sense of self to awareness, and meditation starts to do itself.
We must forgive our minds at a very deep level. And through that process of forgiveness, we come to trust our mind, trust awareness, trust love. The goodness of your mind doesn’t depend on you.
The more we cling, the more world there is. As we cling less, there is less world, and more aliveness. Just take our cues from the silence.
Whatever can be enjoyed in the field of your experience, really enjoy it. If it feels overshadowed by other things, just enjoy what can be enjoyed.
T.S. Eliot’s1 poem, Ash Wednesday—I’m not a scholar, I don’t know what I’m talking about—but apparently it’s often read as a kind of conversion poem, his conversion to Anglicanism. I think from Unitarianism to Anglicanism. It begins this way:
Because I do not hope to turn again Because I do not hope Because I do not hope to turn Desiring this man’s gift and that man’s scope I no longer strive to strive towards such things (Why should the aged eagle stretch its wings?) Why should I mourn The vanished power of the usual reign?
And twice in that poem, he uses the phrase that’s been quoted quite often in Dharma talks: “Teach us to care and not to care. Teach us to sit still.” This part doesn’t get quoted so much, but the very next line is, “Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.”
Generally, I’ve understood that “teach us to care and not to care” in a sequential way. There are moments of care, but then there are other moments when care is absent. I’ve described a kind of dialectic of love and rest. The urgency of love, and yet we know that even beautiful love fatigues the heart. And so we must find ways of resting—not closing the heart, but resting. I’ve been preoccupied in trying to work out in my own life what a good life entails, working out this relationship between compassion and equanimity. What is the kind of balance point between nihilism and frenzied, inefficient suffering?
We know it doesn’t take long to realize that a path devoid of compassion is kind of dismal, pathetic, really. And yet, caring is costly. So there’s love in the face of suffering—compassion—and then love in the face of powerlessness—equanimity. We move between those modes sequentially: sometimes caring, sometimes that care is absent. As we practice, this sequential rhythm gets smoother. The kind of stickiness, the holding on, the ruminative mechanisms that keep the past alive, settles out quite a bit. The trace of the last moment is abridged. In other words, tears in this moment, laughter in the next, each moment very fresh. And so the poignancy of grief need not cast any shadow over ecstatic joy. To care, and not to care.
Is it possible, though, to care and not to care simultaneously? Not sequentially. One description or manifestation of emptiness is the simultaneous experience of caring and not caring. It is the experience of utter problem-lessness. This moment, as it’s come to be in its imperfection, is without error. And we rest in that sense of the errorlessness of it. We rest in, progressively, the perception of “no thing,” as the things of perception start to drop out, to melt away.
In a sense, what becomes more prominent than anything are the three marks of existence: Dukkha, Anicca, Anatta2. You know, unsatisfactoriness, impermanence, not-self. Emptiness, we might say, is the perception of less and less. It’s not like a metaphor; it’s the perception of less and less with more and more aliveness. It’s the tranquilizing of perception.
From the Cūḷasuññata Sutta3, the Lesser Discourse on Emptiness, we’re first transfixed by the perception of the busyness of the village. And then the perception of the village drops away. All the agitation of that perception drops away, and it’s just the perception of the human beings. Then that drops away, and it’s just wilderness, perceiving wilderness, refining out the more agitated forms of perception. Then the wilderness drops away, and it’s just Earth. Less and less perceptual disturbance. And so the basic agitation of samsara4 is being progressively refined out. We keep noticing the absence of coarser phenomena. It’s so striking; we’re beings that long for peace but accept mere pleasure.
The perception of the wilderness drops away to increasingly subtle forms of somethingness, but not much something. The perception of infinite space—no body, no mind, space without anything on the other side of it. This is a kind of not caring. “Teach us to care and not to care.” This is “not to care” in the sense that happiness is independent of the ordinary sensory world, very independent, extremely confident in the mind, in goodness, in the Dharma path. So there’s less and less, but there is still mind.
There’s a sutta5 that goes, “Just as if there were a roofed house or a roofed hall having windows on the north, the south, or the east. When the sun rises and a ray has entered by way of the window, where does it land?” “On the western wall,” the person replies. “If there’s no western wall, where does it land?” “On the ground.” “And if there is no ground, where does it land?” “On the water,” they reply. “If there is no water, where does it land?” “It does not land.” And then the Buddha responds, “Where consciousness does not land or increase, that, I tell you, has no sorrow, affliction, or despair.”
There’s a very beautiful image. We can know it. It’s not exactly a metaphor. It is like light. That light is like light from very distant stars. And maybe you can say that is a very benevolent light. You might say there is care, just the way light from distant stars warms us.
So, to care and not to care simultaneously. I offer this for your consideration. I’ll be away next week, but we’ll start back up after that, I think February 5th. Okay folks, may you be well.
The following talk was given by Matthew Brensilver at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.
Okay folks, so welcome. It’s nice to see a lot of familiar names. I’m happy to be practicing together. So, let’s find our posture, whatever that is for you.
Just let the reality of goodness soothe you, soothe your heart. It’s almost unimaginable how much ordinary goodness there is. And we, here together, try to take that ordinary goodness as a kind of object. Let it motivate our action, consolidate our love, commitment, and resolution.
Usually, we direct our attention to our breathing, to the body, to feelings. But maybe for now, we just let goodness soothe any agitation, worry, or fear, and then see what’s left in the mind, where the attention goes.
It can feel like meditation puts pressure on ourselves to perform some intentional ritual, to be good, to not get lost in thought. It’s not that meditation puts pressure on the self; it’s the self that puts a kind of pressure on awareness.
Ego dramatizes everything, maybe. It makes life feel dramatic, melodramatic. We just relax, surrender the sense of self to awareness, and meditation starts to do itself.
We must forgive our minds at a very deep level. And through that process of forgiveness, we come to trust our mind, trust awareness, trust love. The goodness of your mind doesn’t depend on you.
The more we cling, the more world there is. As we cling less, there is less world, and more aliveness. Just take our cues from the silence.
Whatever can be enjoyed in the field of your experience, really enjoy it. If it feels overshadowed by other things, just enjoy what can be enjoyed.
T.S. Eliot’s1 poem, Ash Wednesday—I’m not a scholar, I don’t know what I’m talking about—but apparently it’s often read as a kind of conversion poem, his conversion to Anglicanism. I think from Unitarianism to Anglicanism. It begins this way:
Because I do not hope to turn again Because I do not hope Because I do not hope to turn Desiring this man’s gift and that man’s scope I no longer strive to strive towards such things (Why should the aged eagle stretch its wings?) Why should I mourn The vanished power of the usual reign?
And twice in that poem, he uses the phrase that’s been quoted quite often in Dharma talks: “Teach us to care and not to care. Teach us to sit still.” This part doesn’t get quoted so much, but the very next line is, “Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.”
Generally, I’ve understood that “teach us to care and not to care” in a sequential way. There are moments of care, but then there are other moments when care is absent. I’ve described a kind of dialectic of love and rest. The urgency of love, and yet we know that even beautiful love fatigues the heart. And so we must find ways of resting—not closing the heart, but resting. I’ve been preoccupied in trying to work out in my own life what a good life entails, working out this relationship between compassion and equanimity. What is the kind of balance point between nihilism and frenzied, inefficient suffering?
We know it doesn’t take long to realize that a path devoid of compassion is kind of dismal, pathetic, really. And yet, caring is costly. So there’s love in the face of suffering—compassion—and then love in the face of powerlessness—equanimity. We move between those modes sequentially: sometimes caring, sometimes that care is absent. As we practice, this sequential rhythm gets smoother. The kind of stickiness, the holding on, the ruminative mechanisms that keep the past alive, settles out quite a bit. The trace of the last moment is abridged. In other words, tears in this moment, laughter in the next, each moment very fresh. And so the poignancy of grief need not cast any shadow over ecstatic joy. To care, and not to care.
Is it possible, though, to care and not to care simultaneously? Not sequentially. One description or manifestation of emptiness is the simultaneous experience of caring and not caring. It is the experience of utter problem-lessness. This moment, as it’s come to be in its imperfection, is without error. And we rest in that sense of the errorlessness of it. We rest in, progressively, the perception of “no thing,” as the things of perception start to drop out, to melt away.
In a sense, what becomes more prominent than anything are the three marks of existence: Dukkha, Anicca, Anatta2. You know, unsatisfactoriness, impermanence, not-self. Emptiness, we might say, is the perception of less and less. It’s not like a metaphor; it’s the perception of less and less with more and more aliveness. It’s the tranquilizing of perception.
From the Cūḷasuññata Sutta3, the Lesser Discourse on Emptiness, we’re first transfixed by the perception of the busyness of the village. And then the perception of the village drops away. All the agitation of that perception drops away, and it’s just the perception of the human beings. Then that drops away, and it’s just wilderness, perceiving wilderness, refining out the more agitated forms of perception. Then the wilderness drops away, and it’s just Earth. Less and less perceptual disturbance. And so the basic agitation of samsara4 is being progressively refined out. We keep noticing the absence of coarser phenomena. It’s so striking; we’re beings that long for peace but accept mere pleasure.
The perception of the wilderness drops away to increasingly subtle forms of somethingness, but not much something. The perception of infinite space—no body, no mind, space without anything on the other side of it. This is a kind of not caring. “Teach us to care and not to care.” This is “not to care” in the sense that happiness is independent of the ordinary sensory world, very independent, extremely confident in the mind, in goodness, in the Dharma path. So there’s less and less, but there is still mind.
There’s a sutta5 that goes, “Just as if there were a roofed house or a roofed hall having windows on the north, the south, or the east. When the sun rises and a ray has entered by way of the window, where does it land?” “On the western wall,” the person replies. “If there’s no western wall, where does it land?” “On the ground.” “And if there is no ground, where does it land?” “On the water,” they reply. “If there is no water, where does it land?” “It does not land.” And then the Buddha responds, “Where consciousness does not land or increase, that, I tell you, has no sorrow, affliction, or despair.”
There’s a very beautiful image. We can know it. It’s not exactly a metaphor. It is like light. That light is like light from very distant stars. And maybe you can say that is a very benevolent light. You might say there is care, just the way light from distant stars warms us.
So, to care and not to care simultaneously. I offer this for your consideration. I’ll be away next week, but we’ll start back up after that, I think February 5th. Okay folks, may you be well.
T.S. Eliot (1888-1965): A prominent poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic, and editor. He was a central figure in the Modernist movement in poetry. ↩ ↩2 ↩3
Dukkha, Anicca, Anatta: The three marks of existence in Buddhism. Dukkha (suffering, unsatisfactoriness), Anicca (impermanence, change), and Anatta (not-self, no permanent soul or essence). ↩ ↩2 ↩3
Cūḷasuññata Sutta: The “Lesser Discourse on Emptiness,” found in the Majjhima Nikāya (MN 121) of the Pāli Canon. It describes a progression of meditative states where the object of perception becomes increasingly refined and subtle, leading to the realization of emptiness. ↩ ↩2 ↩3
Samsara: The cycle of death and rebirth to which life in the material world is bound. It is characterized by suffering and dissatisfaction (dukkha) and is perpetuated by desire, aversion, and ignorance. ↩ ↩2 ↩3
This is a paraphrase of a simile found in suttas such as the Bāhiya Sutta (Udāna 1.10) and the Kevatta Sutta (Dīgha Nikāya 11), used to describe consciousness that is unestablished or does not land on any sensory experience, leading to the end of suffering. ↩ ↩2 ↩3