Dukka and Black & White Thinking

This is the fifth of six weeks looking at Dukkha from various angles. 

So for these six weeks we are looking at Dukkha, or some ways in which we make life hard for ourselves. Dukkha is that ‘second arrow’ – the first arrow is something that happens and the second arrow is what we add on top through our thinking. We looked at interpretation (how we make sense of what we observe), expectations (what we expect or want to happen), and how we act. This week we will look at how the mind likes fixing things and thinking in black-and-white terms.

Perhaps all of us have had the experience of trying to sit here meditating but some pain or discomfort, or perhaps an itch, gets in the way. What is that like? The whatever it is can easily come to dominate the experience so that all we feel is discomfort. On the other hand perhaps in another meditation the body feels relaxed and comfortable. Comfort and discomfort is an example of opposites that we use as labels for the whole of our experience – so that we polarise our experience, see it all as one extreme or another. We want one pole (comfort) and we want to get away from the other (discomfort), and it is that wanting that makes the situation polarised.

But in reality is that what is going on? Most likely, even in the most uncomfortable situation there is some part of the body that feels quite good, and even in the most comfortable meditation some part of the body will be feeling a bit squashed or out of sorts. The real story is more complex and nuanced than the simple labels allow.

Mindfulness encourages us to see whatever is going on as it is, it calms down the bit of us that wants things to be different, and that can allow us to see beyond the black & white thinking to the more nuanced view. Perhaps you have experienced this – if you can hold the sensations in the body with mindfulness that can calm down the tendency to have any discomfort (or comfort) dominate the experience.

Here’s a famous Zen saying on the subject: 

The Great Way is not hard if you do not pick & choose. When love & hate are both absent, everything becomes clear and undisguised. Make the smallest distinction between things, however, and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart.

There are many other examples of opposites where we tend to want one of the pair and not want the other, and therefore tend to polarise our experience into a simple black & white picture where either one is true or the other, and there is no middle ground allowed. I’ll read some out in a minute and invite you all to choose a pair that seems interesting to you – and we’ll use it in the reflection. OK?

Here they are: I’m happy, I’m miserable; the world is friendly, the world is hostile; success & failure; tiredness and brightness of mind; calm and agitation; mindfulness and distractedness; illness and health; pain and absence of pain; stillness and movement of mind; aversion and acceptance. Or perhaps some other pair of opposites has come to mind that interests you.

Reflection

Closing the eyes, feeling the bum on the seat, the feet on the floor. Feeling that contact and solidity. Perhaps taking a couple of deep breaths and then letting the breath settle into an even rhythm. Tuning into the sensations of breathing. They are always there as an anchor if the thoughts get too scattered or go out of control.

·      Bringing to mind the pair of opposites that we’ve chosen.

     First focusing on the one out of the pair that we don’t prefer – for instance, in the example of comfort/discomfort, this would be discomfort.

·      Imagine being in that state. What does it feel like in the body?
What does it feel like emotionally?

Now bringing to mind the other of the pair – the one we prefer.
Imagine being in that state. What does it feel like in the body?
What does it feel like emotionally?

[letting that dissolve, and coming back to the breath for a few moments]

Now bringing to mind your two opposites again. Are they realistic? Or is experience really a mix of the two opposites, or somewhere in between them?
Imagine being in a more realistic state – a state that is a mix between the opposites, or between them. What does it feel like in the body?
What does it feel like emotionally?

<a little more time> Now letting the reflection dissolve, and coming into meditation.