This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video The Spiritual Life with Maria Straatman. It likely contains inaccuracies.
The following talk was given by Maria Straatman at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California. Please visit website www.audiodharma.org to find the authoritative record of this talk.
Good evening. I’m Maria Straatman, and I am here for Diana who could not make it tonight. What I would like to talk to you about is the spiritual life.
Does talking about a spiritual life make you uncomfortable? Is it not really what you think of when you’re doing your practice? Does it make you feel like you’re at home? “Oh, yeah, great. Now I’m going to know just what it is. I’m going to have all the answers.” Let all of that evaporate, because none of that’s going to happen.
Today, the IMC newsletter came out, and Gil had a really lovely essay in there opening up that newsletter about his own spiritual journey, which I highly recommend that you read. If you’re not on the email list, which is where I saw the newsletter, you can find it on the website and just see what he has to say about what it was like these last 50 years that he’s pursued meditation and this way of life.
I want to talk about this because I’ve been contemplating my own spiritual journey—its twists and turns, its missteps, and its blossoming—and kind of assessing. I remember setting out on my journey and saying, “You know, I’ve ignored my spiritual life for some time.” I think it was a therapist who asked me what my spiritual life was, and I said, “Hmm, maybe I better go find out.” This was despite the fact that when I was young, I had every intention of becoming a nun. I was going to be a nun; I was quite determined. There are three primary vows: poverty, chastity, and obedience. I had a lot of trouble with the obedience one. I just didn’t want people telling me what to do. So, I’m not going to tell you what to do, because I’m really opposed to that.
Also, as I’ve reflected on this, the thing I want to emphasize tonight is the trap of efforting in your spiritual path, in your examining of how you are in the world and what it means. The wanting to be something better than you are, different than you are, to have certain characteristics. “If I was just like this, then my practice would be perfect, and I would know just what to do.”
Because the one thing I am most clear about is that a spiritual path begins right here, right now, with conditions just as they are. Right here, right now, just this. The only thing I have to work with is this imperfect being that I am. And this is my spiritual path—not to become a better person, although I have aspirations like everyone else. But what’s become really clear to me is that the effort that goes into trying to be something other than I am is not the spiritual path.
Over the weekend, I attended an art show, a ceramics art show at the Palo Alto Art Center, which is a very good show, by the way. One of the exhibits was 100 small cups, like teacups that you might find in an oriental tea set, in two shadow boxes on the wall. Each of these cups was different. It had a different glaze or a slightly different shape; some were round, some were very pyramid-like. Some of them had extra clay around them. They were all different, 100 of them.
I want to read you the accompanying statement. The artist’s name is Kina Yang. Here’s what she said:
As a hobbyist ceramicist, these 100 cups, made over the course of three weeks, represent more work than I had ever made up to this point. I chose this quantity of cups within this time frame to release myself from my own expectations of how perfect a piece needs to be to share it with someone else.
“I chose this quantity of cups within this time frame—100 cups in three weeks—to release myself from my own expectations of how perfect a piece needs to be to share it with someone.”
There are two ideas in here that struck me as relevant. One of them is that she was able to abandon her expectations of perfection. She was willing to just see what happened if she didn’t have to have each one exactly right. She could have chosen to do just one piece and have it be truly exquisite. And I’m sure some of the pieces that she made as she was going along had to be discarded, but maybe not. She was fairly skilled; these were nice-looking cups. She probably had some missteps. Not all of them were perfect.
The idea of what happens if I give up the need to be perfect? What kind of art do I present then? And am I willing to present myself? Am I willing to make myself vulnerable to doing this? This idea of presenting oneself is really relevant. This is the part where we say a spiritual path is about showing up. And you have to show up for yourself. You have to say, “I’m here, warts and all. Here I am.”
Meeting this moment, meeting this day, meeting this time with these conditions. As I was sitting here, I felt my knee and I realized that this morning I had a treatment on my knee, and the doctor had said to me, “Now, no big exercises. I don’t want you bending that knee, you know, no bridges.” And here I am, sitting in this position. I thought, “Well, this is the way it is, because this is how it feels for me to sit in meditation.” He would not approve.
This is how it is. Life is not something that we set up, and our spiritual path is not something that we set up only when conditions are perfect. This is it. This is the whole thing. Alan Watts wrote a book called This Is It. I used to have it on my shelf, and I would just look at the title of it and say, “Hmm, this is it. This life, right now, this moment, this is what we have to work with.”
This is a place of being with just what arises. Whatever the clay decides to do in our hands at this moment, I’m here for this. And I have to enter into this moment with whatever is here. It’s really about entering into this moment. It’s not about achieving something or being somebody different or attaining some magical state of perfection or ecstatic joy. Not that these things don’t happen. But it is the very act of showing up with the intention of seeing what is here. How is it to actually experience what you’re experiencing?
When I first started meditating, I think probably about week four or five, something like that, I remember driving down the freeway and thinking about what I was doing. I was mindful of driving, I was mindful of my hands, I was paying attention to all of this stuff. And I said, “You know, I am inhabiting more moments of my life than I ever have.” And what a realization that was for me. That mindfulness is not something you do instead of living. Mindfulness is totally inhabiting your life, being totally engaged with what’s coming up.
Okay, so if that’s the case, face it: it’s not all going to be roses. You may not even like roses, especially yellow ones. Life is just as it is. And the trick is somehow to enter into the experience without constantly wishing it was otherwise. That constantly wishing it was otherwise is suffering.
Last week, I had a plan. I wanted to get people together; it was family. I wanted to merge some family things, and so that was my primary intention in getting things together. But you know what? It wasn’t anybody else’s primary intention. Their primary intention was to have a good time. And after a while, I realized how tense I was becoming about people wanting to go off on their own. “No, no, no, no, no. We have to be here together.” And I realized that however wonderful the intention was, it was creating suffering for me and everybody else because I was so stuck on it. I was so stuck on what it would be like if we were all happy together.
And so I had to walk away. I walked away right before I said something really hurtful to my sister, so it’s a good thing I walked away. And it was totally unnecessary. As I walked away, I could feel the energy ebbing, ebbing, ebbing. Okay, letting go of having it a certain way allowed me to just go back. It was okay then.
The secret to a rich spiritual life is not perfection. It’s how you deal with imperfection. How you’re willing to meet it, how you’re willing to enter into it. How you enter into the experience of life.
The other day, I went to my husband and I said, “You know, I’m just feeling distressed.” And he said, “What can I do to make it better?” Doesn’t that sound great? It’s very generous. And I said, “Well, maybe you just need to listen about why I’m distressed.” Now, I didn’t say that to him. I just said, “Okay, you’re right. I don’t need to feel this way.” And then after a while, when I just allowed myself to be distressed—I didn’t roll around on the floor about it—I just said, “Okay, distress is here, but I’m going to do this thing with my husband.”
I was able to just see, “Okay, I’m distressed. Distress is here.” And I cried a little, and I watched the energy fall out of that. And then I noticed what a beautiful day it was and how nice the food was that we were eating. And I still knew the distress; it was still there. The things that were causing me distress were still true. But it didn’t define me. It didn’t define the day. It’s constantly changing.
What I’m talking about is not so much saying anything that is distressful is okay. I’m really not saying we have to accept life as it is. I’m simply saying we have to see life as it is and say, “And now what?” It’s not the effort that says, “I’m never going to get angry. I’m never going to be upset. I’m never going to be too attached to my views. I’m never…” No, no, no, no. That’s a lot of extra stuff. The comparison, comparing myself to this person or that person, is extra stuff. Not needed, not important.
No expectations of the moment, but a curiosity about what’s true here, what’s happening here. What this does is allow what is arising to be there. It’s, “Oh, this is what’s happening. Oh.” Now, when I see clearly, I can see, “Oh, I don’t want to be doing that. That just makes me unhappy.” This is what happens as we practice. It isn’t so much that we set out to become better people, but when we see, “Oh, this behavior is making me sad, and you sad,” then we stop doing that. And when we see, “Ah, this sitting in silence and just breathing is opening… Oh, that’s kind of nice. I’m going to do more of that. I’m going to be more with that.”
One of the great problems that we have in our society is that we’re all very conditioned toward goals. “I’m going to do this. I know how to do this. I’m going to set my goals, and I’m going to accomplish this, and then I’m going to accomplish that, and then I’m going to do this other thing,” and the result of all that is the payoff. It’s extremely difficult to step away from that. It’s extremely difficult because we’re kind of geared for that. “This is what I want to do, so I’m going to do all this stuff to make it happen.”
One of the consequences of that is that we begin to harden ourselves with resolve, and we harden ourselves to an approach, and we become rigid and unyielding, and the heart becomes rigid and unyielding with ourselves, with others, and we can’t get past that. But if we allow the vulnerability to slip in and say, “Well, so what? What happens if I allow my heart to soften a little bit?”
If we take the example of my telling my husband that I was distressed, I could have said—by the way, his technique is, “You got to fix that distress,” and my technique is, “Okay, it’s here.” Now, there could be a clash there because he likes to fix things that are wrong. And so if I noticed that I am resistant to his efforts, or resistant to the distress, or resistant to how I feel about something, I’m beginning to feel a kind of pushing away of the experience. Now I’m not engaging in the experience; I’m rejecting the experience, and I’m aversive to the experience. When I see that, I can say, “Oh, you’re trying so hard,” and I can feel the softening in my heart.
Now, a soft heart can be seen as something that is very risky. It can be seen as risky, but it isn’t. It isn’t, because what it does is open up for you the possibilities of seeing things in a way that produces a different outcome. So when I was walking with my husband this afternoon, I talked him into going for a walk because he was very stressed. And so he said, “Well, okay, I’ll go for a walk because I’ll feel better afterward.” And I said, “How about just feeling better? How about just going for a walk without expecting the walk to make you feel better? What happens then? How about just changing and dropping the attitude of, ‘I’ve got to do something responsible, better,’ but simply abandoning that stress, that efforting?”
And saying, “This is what needs to happen now.” What needs to happen now is I need to abandon that, just for now. This is what we do when we meditate. We sit and follow our breath and say, “Just for now, I’m not going to tell myself stories. Just for now, I’m going to let go of that. Just for now, I’m just going to sit here.” This is practicing the letting go of expectations and needing things to be a certain way.
And what can arise in that moment, if you’re open to it, is something else in addition to whatever you brought into the moment. You can see something else. But when you’re rigid, oh, it’s like tunnel vision. You can’t see it. It’s not available to you.
It’s not the same thing as doing nothing and saying everything is okay. That’s a different kind of trap. That’s a delusion trap. “I’m going to pretend it’s not there.” It doesn’t work either. You have to know it’s here. Whatever it is, it’s here. We don’t want to fix barriers against the experience. Go ahead and inhabit the experience, just inhabit it. “Okay, this is what’s happening.” How you respond to this moment is enough. It doesn’t have to be better. It’s just here. “Here I am, and I’m willing to trust myself to present myself in this moment and see what happens.”
We can just be good enough.
We want to get away from the idea that life has to be a requirement, and we want life experience to be an unfolding, just an unfolding.
I’m going to end my comments with a poem by Jane Hirschfield1. In this poem, there’s a reference to a place called Haydarpaşa Station2, which I think is in Istanbul. It’s a train station. It’s certainly in that part of the world. The name of the poem is “Tin.”
I studied much and remembered little. But the world is generous. It kept offering figs and cheeses. Never mind that soon I’ll have to give it all back. The world, the figs. To be a train station of existence is no small matter. It doesn’t need to be Grand Central or Haydarpaşa Station. The engine shed could be low-windowed, with cold dust under a slat-shingled roof. It could be tin. Another mystery bandaged with rivets and rubies, leaking cold and heat in both directions, as the earth does.
Our experiences allow us to be a train station of existence, which is no small matter. Your existence in this world, just as it is, is no small matter. Treat it with joy and respect, and that’s what you’ll get back. Thank you.
Maria Straatman: So, does anybody have any comments or suggestions as I straighten out my leg? Dr. Wall will be very happy. Does it make sense? I’ve really been struggling with how to explain the idea of not having a predetermined approach to life. That the spiritual path is really an unfolding and not a direction or a series of steps that you take that guarantee that you get somewhere else. That really the freedom that we seek, the freedom from suffering, can only arise by just being in this experience, this one, as you are, whatever you are experiencing, and not needing it to be anything else. You know, I would just assume my knee didn’t hurt, but it’s just a knee. It’s just a painful knee. It’s not more than that. It doesn’t have meaning. It doesn’t have weight. And I can act on it or not act on it. The engaging with life, just this experience, and seeing it just as it is, not how I would like it to be or how I thought it would be—this is the route to freedom. The freedom that says, “I don’t have to be other than I am. The world doesn’t have to be other than it is for me to experience ease in the moment.” It’s not the ease of “everything’s okay.” It’s the ease of, “Ah, I’m here with this.” Does that make any sense?
Audience Member: Definitely. Whether it’s distressful or happy, be there.
Maria Straatman: Be there. And if something is painful, you can move.
Audience Member: Thank you for your talk. When you were talking about the spiritual life, I remember—I can’t remember if I read it or I heard Sharon Salzberg talking about how when she was a beginner in meditation, she said she would do walking meditation, but she was never noting anything because she said, “I’m just waiting for something spiritual to happen.” Right? Like, “Well, you know, okay, I’m meditating and I’m walking, but now when is something spiritual going to happen?” And I think about that sometimes when I’m having sort of a blah meditation or walking, you know, it’s just like, “No, nothing’s happening,” you know? And then it’s like, “Huh, what’s that about?”
Maria Straatman: Great. That’s great. Thank you. You know, I remember being in meditation one time and thinking I was about to fall asleep. I had been meditating for a couple of weeks, so I was very concentrated and still. And here I was, I was just about to fall asleep. And I thought, “Well, maybe I need to sleep. Or maybe I just need to know what it’s like to be falling asleep. Or what is it like to be falling asleep?” And I felt myself walking on this edge, you know, like if I fell off a cliff. I could just fall off this cliff into sleep, but I’m right on this edge. There was just enough alertness to notice being on the edge of falling asleep. And how exciting that was, how really thrilling it was to be on that edge. Which is, you know, I was just falling asleep. And I think that’s the same idea, that a spiritual life is not about something else. It’s not about something else. It’s really… yeah, that’s the best I can do.
Audience Member: I empathize so much with you about the knees. Because I’ve been able to sit on a Zafu3 most of my career sitting, and this is a beginner question. When your knees are hurting so much, then what story do you tell yourself? You tell yourself, “Well, I’m doing this practice, this looking at this pain,” and where’s that going? Or I have to give myself a reason for doing it, or something bigger than myself, because sometimes it’s so extreme, it’s so hard to just stay with the pain and just try to deal with it, you know, even especially on a long retreat when you’re doing it day after day after day.
Maria Straatman: On a long retreat, I don’t spend all the retreat sitting cross-legged on the floor. I spend a lot of time in a chair. Even though there’s a certain energy that comes from the triangulation and sitting this way on the floor that feels right for meditating, I can’t do that because I’m too distracted by pain.
Audience Member: That’s right. That’s what… so there’s no point.
Maria Straatman: There’s no point to that. The object is not to meditate a certain way. It’s to be still and see what arises. That doesn’t require me to sit a certain way, even if I think I’m more comfortable that way. Because if all I’m doing is focusing on pain, I’m just focusing on pain. It’s just one big struggle.
Audience Member: So sometimes it seems like just remembering to be present in your daily life for five minutes or 10 minutes or some small something through the day is better than to sit through all that.
Maria Straatman: Well, I don’t want to quantify it, right? But it’s very important to notice during the day, “Where am I? How am I? What’s happening here? What’s my attitude? What’s the energy level?” It’s a primary part of my practice.
Audience Member: Thank you very much. Once you become addicted to mindfulness, it’s pretty hard to get away from it.
Maria Straatman: I’m sure you are more mindful than you give yourself credit for.
Audience Member: Possibly, sometimes.
Maria Straatman: But we’re not measuring. You see, it isn’t about measuring. Just celebrate every moment that you notice you’re standing on the ground. Celebrating being here tonight.
Audience Member: There we go. I’m very happy. I’ll celebrate with you.
Audience Member: I love that phrase, “train station of existence.” That’s perfect. And I think I have Grand Central because it’s exactly like that. And what I notice when I’m mindful is how much actually is going on in there at one time. The sensations, the impulses, the worries, the fears, the tensions, plans—all these things, all at one time. This cacophony. If I understand you correctly, that’s fine.
Maria Straatman: Yes. Sometimes it’s busy.
Audience Member: Yeah, or a lot of the time.
Maria Straatman: To be fair, it’s busier sometimes more than others. But it can very much be that way. It’s like you can watch it go by like a parade.
Audience Member: Yeah.
Maria Straatman: And what might be useful is when you notice all of that cacophony, to ask, “And how do I feel about that? And how am I responding to that? And what’s the energy like? Does that cacophony cause jitteriness or excitement or aversion?” Just notice whatever is happening. That’s what’s happening.
Audience Member: Well, it’s kind of like that. I think the mindfulness helps because it used to be if I wasn’t aware of it, I’d just be distracted or all over the place. And now it’s like, “Okay, there’s all this stuff floating in there. What do you need to focus on now?”
Maria Straatman: Oh, see, that’s it. So I spent some time today thinking about priorities, that we’re always trying to set priorities, right? And this has a higher value than that, so that has a higher priority. And that whole valuing our experiences can really get in the way, that this is a more valuable experience than that.
Audience Member: Yeah, well, I meant like eating. I mean, you have to eat, right? Something like that. But no, I totally get what you mean. You can get yourself more worked up for sure, making a kind of priority list and thinking, “I got to do this first or that.” But I don’t have that too much, but I do have the train station existence. I’m never going to forget that. That’s perfect.
Maria Straatman: It’s a great phrase. I love that Jane Hirschfield said that.
Audience Member: The problem arises of the desire to just have a moment of nothing, emptiness, or quiet or something. And you just can’t arrange that. It just happens.
Maria Straatman: No, you can’t. But the desire is always there, so it’s hard. So you notice the desire. Notice that and just remind yourself what you’re doing is wishing things were other than they are.
Audience Member: That’s right.
Maria Straatman: And then, of course, you say, “Oh, no, I’m not going to do that.” And then you can feel your heart softening. Say, “Oh.” And in that moment, you can feel the ease, too. And it is that very moment. Don’t miss it.
Audience Member: Very helpful image.
Maria Straatman: Does anybody else have comments or suggestions? So, I am thinking that this has been delightful. Thank you. Good night, everyone.