How meditation clicked for me
I spent the winter of 2023-2024 in the Rains Retreat in Plum Village (France).
I had started meditating ten years ago, and routinely four years ago, and yet during this retreat I found myself completely lost with regards to meditation. I was at a point where I was wondering what was the point of it, what was the goal (if there was any), and how it should be done. The information I was receiving felt completely contradictory and unconvincing, and I was growing increasingly frustrated about this.
And then a friend introduced me to Rob Burbea’s book “Seeing that Frees“. I remember us sitting on a bench under the sun, outside of Son Ha (the small monastery where I was staying), and talking about Thich Nhat Hanh’s notion of Interbeing (which I wasn’t finding particularly helpful at the moment). My friend mentioned then Rob’s notion of “Ways of Looking”, as lenses through which we can look at reality, experiment with them, and see to which degree they lessen suffering. Interbeing could be seen as one of these ways of looking, and not as a statement about reality. I wasn’t aware at the moment, but this notion completely changed my way of relating to the Dharma.
Probably within a day or two I bought Seeing that Frees and fell in love with Rob’s writting and pragmatism. I started listening to his talks as well and they felt like fresh air. Never in my life had I encountered a teacher which spoke about meditation in terms I could relate to so easily, and with such level of subtletly, beauty, curiosity and experimentation. I saw no dogma, no hard to swallow beliefs, very little right and wrong, and many open questions. Many aspects of the Dharma were not seen as statements about reality, but as ways of looking which we could play with, and which could bring freedom and liberation from suffering.
I learned a bit about his takes on Metta, listened to his talks about ending the inner critic (which were enormously helpful), and his retreat on the jhanas. My samadhi skyrocketed after listening to this talk on the hindrances, when I changed my focus from “trying to concentrate” to “what hindrance is present right now? And how can I work with it?”. Metta started to feel real for the first time, and I could see how some sittings completely changed my state of mind, from troubled to incredibly joyful and blissful. My inner critic subsided a lot as well (with ups and downs).
So now I had an approach to meditation through which I could achieve a good level of samadhi and wellbeing, and I could use metta to soften my heart and alleviate my inner critic, and was experiencing big (not permanent) shifts in my perception of life and myself. I think at this point I hadn’t understood yet Rob’s approach to insight into emptiness through his “ways of looking”.
And during the same retreat I discovered (again, through the same friend) Leigh Brasington‘s book “Right Concentration: A Practical Guide to the Jhanas“. His instructions were incredibly simple and useful to me, and they brought me a renewed hope in meditation. I could do X, gain a certain level of concentration, then do Y to deepen the concentration, then Z to enter the first jhana, etc. There seemed to be a clear path: deepen your concentration with the jhanas, then do insight practices. The approach is simpler, more traditional than Rob’s, but this simplicity allowed me to finally have a framework which I could understand and made sense to me.
By the way, we are translating Leigh’s book to Spanish! Check Sukha’s website.
Now my practice is mainly influenced by Juan Manzanera, Leigh Brasington, and by Rob and his colleagues and disciples (Catherine McGee, Yahel Avigur, Juha Penttilä). I’ve just started a yearlong online program on Seeing that Frees which I’m very excited about, and about which I would like to write throughout the year.
Mentioned resources
– Leigh Brasington’s webpage
– Hermes Amara, the foundation devoted to keeping Rob’s teachings. You can find here all his talks, among many other things.
– Plum Village
– Juan Manzanera’s webpage (Spanish)