This is on. Can you hear me? No, does it say mute? Is the mute one and the on one on? I only see the on. There's no mute. Oh, okay. This is a different one. Oh no, someone... like this. A little strange, but. It's gonna be somewhat distracting, but. I don't think it's working. Hello, can, yeah. Let me see, does this work? Generally, it's really only for the recording because

[01:00]

Ever since I was a little kid, I was always the one who got in trouble at school because the teacher could always hear me whispering in the back. All you have to do is hit record. Is it moving? One, two, is it?

[02:41]

Is that jack of the mic of the headset in all the way? One, two, three, one, two, three, hello. One, two, three, one, two, three. Why can't we do it with C and I? It's whether the meter's bouncing around. Okay, so we'll start again. Let me give a quick overview of what the plan is.

[03:48]

This morning, I'll start out with a talk, maybe 45 minutes, maybe a little more, about the kind of main framework of the Middle Way, which I'll speak about in the terms of early Buddhism, since that's my own background, and then, consider, start to give some examples about how our Enneagram type distracts us from or distorts our understanding or in various ways, makes it harder to actually find or practice the middle way. And that's the main thesis of this workshop. And I'll end that with some some personal observations about how this plays out in my own case as a one. And then from there, see if I have some questions for all of you, and then we'll start to try to get some reflection and discussion going, how the themes I introduce play out and operate in each of us.

[05:09]

In the afternoon, which we expect will have fewer people due to a lot of people asked if it's okay if they only attend the morning. So not all of us will be here in the afternoon. We'll continue to explore the issues. There won't be any much more talk by me, but more just interactive and how much closer. Hopefully you'll want to bring up some of your experiences with meditation and I and others can help explore them, ask questions and use the Enneagram to help us become more aware of how we distract, how we kind of lose balance, or the biases that our types introduce into meditation practice, whatever form that may be, Buddhist, Christian, or Zen, Theravada, what have you.

[06:30]

That's a quick overview. I wanted to do a little check-in first, get a sense of what Enneagram types are represented. And there may be some of us who aren't sure about our type, and that's okay as well. So we'll just go down the line. I know there are at least three ones here. Are there any more? Okay, there are four of us. Any twos? Oh, that's great, a two. Threes. Fours. Last time we had loads of fours. Fives. Sixes. Sevens. Three sevens. Eights. Nines.

[07:34]

Is there any uncertains? Okay. This won't be designed to help you find your type, but hopefully from hearing people, you'll eliminate some possibilities and maybe find, the way some people speak and what they speak about gives you some hints where you might be in the, around the enneagram circle. It's interesting that we don't have an abundance of head types. I generally teach in so-called Vipassana centers. And on Vipassana retreats, always more than half the people are head types. especially sixes and fives and some sevens.

[08:39]

And one of my curiosities is how the different schools of Buddhism play out typewise. Like is Zen more gut? I do know some heart types that are more drawn to Tibetan practice with all that compassion stuff. It's not yet, not yet had an opportunity to do a responsible survey, but just curious. Oh, and so I want to know, of us, how many of us are primarily doing Zen practice? So, it's most of us, about 12. How many are doing some form of vipassana? Tibetan style practice other okay so we're we're mainly zenies

[09:50]

Yeah, the three triads, they're sometimes called, or I think of them as the three corners. The heart corner, 234, the head corner, 567, and the gut or body corner, 891. That'll come up a bit later. because that's one of the things that can bring some distortion into our practice. So I'd like to talk a little bit about the middle way in classic early Buddhist terms. I'll be curious to find out if this corresponds at all with the way Zen folks understand the Middle Way. I suspect it's not terribly different, but we'll find out.

[11:03]

In the Buddha's first, it's often called the first desana or sermon, although the Pali word desana means appointing to. So in the Buddha's first pointing to the Dharma, he talked about the middle way, and he framed it as the avoidance of two extremes, which are innoble, unproductive, and not leading to the end of suffering. One is indulgence in pleasure. Any form of seeking after and indulging in different forms of pleasure, especially traditionally that's sensual pleasure, that was considered one extreme, or anda in the old language, which can also mean end.

[12:11]

to go off in one direction is indulging in pleasure. The other direction is indulging in pain or discomfort. So that was the first way historically that the Middle Way was presented. And that's been understood in terms of the Buddha's own life story. His life as a prince pampered in palaces, although, The palaces of his time in the part of India where he grew up are quite a bit smaller than the houses of affluent upper middle class people in places like Marin County or the box communities growing up around Chicago where I live. It's kind of funny, they're called palaces, I'm not sure how much bigger than the Zendo they were. There is actually some archeological evidence for that.

[13:17]

So anyway, his life story was one of growing up pampered and then leaving home and trying a very hardcore ascetic life. And so the middle way is somewhere between being some pampered rich guy or a fluent, sensually indulgent person or a self-mortifying ascetic. Most of us are probably in the middle of those two extremes. There are many, many other ways that the middle way came to be framed. as the teachings of early Buddhism developed and then later developed into all the various schools. Another frame for this is the middle way that it avoids covetousness and grief.

[14:23]

These are two Pali words, apicca and domanassa, where you could think of covetousness as any kind of sort of positive grasping. where we seek to get, have, maintain things that we take as positive that make us feel good. And then sadness would be, it's kind of like indulgence in pain, I guess, but it's not on the more external self-mortification side. It's more the emotional indulgence in what is negative, or sad. And that can even be simplified further to liking and disliking. So whenever the mind is drifting off into liking, or another early term is delighting, delighting in things,

[15:26]

And then on the other hand, disliking or what's the opposite of delighting sort of being negative about stuff. So. That's another common way of expressing the middle way. Notice that none of the expressions quite try to pinpoint what the middle way is, and I'll be following through on that today. I don't think it can be pinpointed, and this is one of the ways Enneagram can be helpful, that each of us as we seek out the way, the middle way. We come from our different backgrounds of socioeconomic class, gender, ethnicity, and many other things, including a neogram type.

[16:30]

you know, we're coming metaphorically from different directions, so the middle way is gonna always look different. And I believe there's no way that any teacher could just say the middle way is like this, and then sort of give us a little manual that gives us all the details of how to do the middle way. that happens in Buddhism and other traditions where these things get sort of rigid and mechanistic. With some understanding of Enneagram type, though, I think that that kind of thing makes no sense at all. Because even as we're somewhat mature in our practice, it's still going to look different because our filters, the filters of our personality and the momentum of our habitual behaviors from the past are going to make it look different.

[17:40]

And so even when we find the way, we're going to talk about it different. And it's not just a matter of whether you're a Zen Buddhist, a Theravada Buddhist, a Tibetan Buddhist, a Christian, a Baha'i, or an anarchist or whatever. It's just never gonna look exactly the same due to enneagram type and other factors. Another way of talking about the middle way is it's the thusness that is neither of any side of an opposing pair, any kind of dichotomy, good, bad, conservative, liberal, male, female. hetero, gay, any kind of pair of opposites or duality that our mind can create, the middle way is not gonna be either.

[18:52]

Even things like, and this is common, or not common, but it's clear in the early Buddhist teachings, people who would make philosophical statement like all is one, the Buddha would not accept that. all is different, he would not accept either. So all is one, all is different, everything exists, nothing exists. These kind of concepts and positions created by our mind are not the middle way. And so in the end, any position that we take up whether cognitively, intellectually, philosophically, or emotionally. When we hunker down into some fixed place or position, then the middle way has been lost. So it's kind of what extreme or on the end boils down to our mind,

[20:01]

grasping at, you know, both cognitively and emotionally and sometimes viscerally. If, if we keep in mind the three Enneagram centers of gut, heart and head, when there's a grasping on these different levels in the attempt to find security or to affirm our own existence, our own value and importance and all those kinds of ego projects, then, than the middle way has been lost. So those are reflections on the middle way in broad terms. They, I believe, apply both to our zazen or sitting meditation practice and the rest of the activities of our lives. The way that the Enneagram, I feel, can be very helpful and relevant here is that it helps reveal certain extremes or emotional, psychological, even what in Buddhism we call view, some sort of perspectives that we are committed to,

[21:33]

from the basis of our personality types. We, certain extremes, to keep using that word, although I'm not sure it always, it sometimes sounds too strong, but I'll keep using it anyway. There are certain extremes embedded in our personalities. And it's been my, I was gonna say experience. It seems to me that in a lot of Buddhist practice centers, a lack of understanding of this can waste a lot of time. Where we practice without always recognizing the imbalances created by our personalities.

[22:38]

So this is something that Enneagram is, I think, in a great place to be helpful for meditators. So I'd like to give some examples of how our personality will distort or get in the way of or distract our ability to realize and follow the way. One is that part of the personality structure is an attentional habit. And this will be one of the things we explore in more detail later. There's an attentional habit, for example, in ones, we pay a lot of attention to right and wrong, to rules, to principles, you know, abstracting a principle that will guide us in how to do the right thing in a certain situation.

[23:59]

We pay a lot of attention to that, too much in fact, and in the process overlook other things. So there's an inherent bias in the attentional habit or style of each type. Or for another example of fours, the, the attention to what is missing what is distant and then longing for what is far away introduces distortions into our practice. For example, if your breathing is right here, that's not something that seems special and kind of magical. So there's a tendency in the four's habit of attention to go off to what is missing.

[25:10]

That makes it kind of hard to find what's present, it seems. And there are similar ones for the other types, and we'll come back to this and talk about the attentional styles of all nine types. closely related to the attentional style is what's often called the avoidance in the case of twos Avoidance is neediness, avoiding one's own needs. So it's kind of the flip side of the attentional style. Twos pay a lot of attention to the needs of others and struggle to pay attention to their own needs and avoid, twos avoid being in a position of being in need.

[26:14]

and being dependent on others. So how does that avoidance distort the practice of twos? An example that comes immediately to my mind is it really can muck up the relationship with the teacher. If your operative style is to avoid being dependent on somebody, you're gonna have a very hard relationship with the teacher. And the usual, to go a little bit beyond the avoidance, the usual two-style is to sort of seduce the teacher. Not necessarily sexually, but emotionally. And there's a kind of pride that the teacher somehow needs me more than I need the teacher.

[27:19]

I'm exaggerating a bit here in our real life too. I might clarify things later. But because it's very hard for a two to just face up to and accept, it's totally natural to have needs. That tends to feel shameful to twos. And that's gonna make it hard to face and just simply accept some of the stuff we find inside. And in the example I've been giving also how we relate to a teacher or another example of avoidance is, uh, sevens avoid limitation. And along with that, um, pain, pain, limitation, sevens tend to avoid commitment, not having choices, commitments, naturally limiting.

[28:24]

Well, at some point, a difficulty in making commitment is gonna be a huge obstacle in our meditation practice. Because at some point, there's no way to go except deeper. And that's it. But if you're not willing to commit, you're not gonna go deeper. And so that becomes a major obstacle. Or what do you do when it gets boring? You know, you're sitting here with your breath. Maybe you're on session and you're with your breath for hours and hours. And it's just the same old boring breath going in and out. So there's a distortion in the avoidance of something and the, the inability or the difficulty in just being with it.

[29:29]

And then there's a, there's a flip side or, or byproduct of this. All of us, whatever our type, you know, the avoidance of other types may be easy for us. And so we can have a certain pride. You know, we're hearing about other people's problems, you know, you know, who cares what the teacher needs? You know, I'm here to just learn from the teacher. And some of us, that's not an issue. And we can, uh, develop a little pride hearing about how other people are distracted or stuck. And that's a convenient way to not notice how we are stuck. And this can be common in different groups because the experience of the teachers are always limited. And so the teacher will have a type and will have a better understanding, even if they don't know a neogram, just by the way it works, they will have certain understanding of some of the personality dynamics and there will be others that don't compute.

[30:48]

So what you hear from the teacher is not going to cover all the nine full spectrum of possibilities. If there are, you know, there's a teacher and maybe some senior students who share in the teaching, then you might get more variety, but often groups will take on a certain personality style. As I alluded to earlier, a lot of vipassana groups are kind of in the five, six corner. And so the examples we hear might be coming from one, one, one angle or a few angles of the enneagram. And we might think we're doing fine when actually we're just stuck in a way that people aren't talking about. Another way our personality can interfere, and this will vary a bit in the form of meditation we do.

[31:58]

Some of us, for example, practice with the breathing in a much more active way, like I tend to. Others, And we discussed this last time I was here in Zen, you don't quite hold on the breath as an object, the way that that's taught in early Theravada teachings. But however, whatever one is paying attention to in some way in our practice, different types I have one way of grouping the types is a tendency to move towards the object of attention. So for some, whatever you're doing in meditation, there's a tendency and I can think of twos would be this way, maybe threes to move towards whatever it is you're trying to do.

[33:07]

Other types in fives would probably be the most clear example of this, but fours, nines probably do it. A tendency to more move away from or withdraw. In some types like my own, it's to more go against, not towards in kind of embracing, but more to go up against, it's more oppositional. And so this might apply also to sixes, at least some sixes. So this is yet another piece of our personality, is our basic way of interacting with things, one of reaching out and sort of embracing, or one more habitually where the default, I mean, we all embrace some things and withdraw from others, but part of the personality structure is to have a default movement in this area.

[34:15]

As came up towards the beginning, there are the three centers, the three energy or centers, or sometimes called the centers of intelligence, head, heart, and gut. As I understand these, they express partly our orientation to the world and to ourselves. Some of us, our orientation is basically somatic kinesthetic through the body. Others, our orientation is much more heart or emotional. In others, it's more in ideas, thought, and imagination or head. That's if you spend, give more attention to filter your, you know, if you're primarily filtering experience through your body, that's going to affect things differently than the folks who are filtering it through emotion.

[35:27]

where if your basic area of processing is in your heart or kind of an emotional processing, it's going to come out different than those who are mainly processing in their heads. And sometimes the gut types don't even realize they're processing because we're kind of stupid, you know, and it's just. I was talking with somebody yesterday. I've gone through major decisions in my life, and in retrospect, I saw them building for five years, but I didn't know it until kind of the time came, and then, oh, okay, time for a change. Because a lot of it is not going on cognitively, or somewhat, in my case, emotionally, but I don't always pay attention to that. So the centers of head, heart, gut are express a kind of orientation, um, a sensitivity.

[36:33]

We're more sensitive in one of the three than the others. It's how we filter. It's kind of how we know and how we respond. then perhaps most obviously the so-called passions and fixations of each type will introduce major distortions and bias. So, um, are you all familiar with the nine passions or at least the passion of your own type? Is that, or do I need to, okay, Quickly, we've all got most of these, but one of them is central in the operation of our personality structure. So for ones, it's anger. It doesn't mean the ones are always the angriest person in the room, by the way, but anger is central to their ego structure.

[37:43]

Twos is pride. We've all got pride, but Um, it's central in twos. Three is, um, I'm drawing a blank. Oh, this is all always happens to me. Yeah. Deceit is the, um, the passion. Fours is envy. Five avarice. six, fear, seven, gluttony, eight, lust, and nine, sloth. So wonderful. Although some teachers have been going back to the Latin word asidia, where it's a sloth, about towards one's own spiritual growth, an unwillingness to focus on and channel energy or not so much an unwell, kind of unwillingness, kind of inability to pay attention to one's own spiritual growth.

[38:59]

And I think in today's context, that's a good way to see it. So these are considered to be the, the stirred up what in my form of Buddhism we would call concocted energy of the heart. And the traditional Buddhist word for it is, these are kilesa in Pali, or kleshas in Sanskrit, these so-called defilements, or Tibetans refer to them as reactive emotions. And then there's a mental fixation that goes along with these. For one's resentment, Both help stir up and sustain or lock in anger. For twos, flattery. Does that with pride. For threes, some writers use the word vanity.

[40:02]

And this is not an emotion of vanity, but it's a mental preoccupation. Fours, it's melancholy. kind of a sad, oh, kind of thinking. What's it for fives? Stinginess. Cowardice for sixes. Planning mind for sevens. Vengeance for AIDS, which is a kind of, I'm gonna get you kind of fixation. And nine's laziness, which is something like distractibility, a mind that's just able to distract and think about everything except what ought to be thought about.

[41:11]

If these get stirred up, they will clearly distort and knock off our practice. So that's the main theme or thesis for today. And what I hope we can do over the next few hours is that although we're not going to be able to pinpoint the middle way through more understanding of how our personalities knock us off or keep us off the middle way. You know, kind of by understanding what the middle way isn't in the, the Buddha's original example, it's not this and it's not that. If we, by studying our personality structure, if we're clear what isn't, even though at times our personalities sort of tricked us to think something is right practice and it might've turned out not to be.

[42:32]

Like an example I'm familiar with in the kind of Vipassana centers where there are a lot of fives and sixes, there's, I believe a distortion of how practice is understood to be sort of in your head, watching and maybe figuring out, trying to figure out the Dharma instead of realize the Dharma. And it can be very difficult for head types to, to know when they're not thinking. And I've heard a lot of thinking about non-thinking. And it's, I think for head types, very, very tricky. Other types have their own problems. I think for the heart types, some of the loving kindness and compassion type practices can be very tricky.

[43:41]

For the gut types, no problem. We're just... We're just kind of straightened down to earth and I'll come to that type of stuff shortly. So first of all, by being clear what's off track or off center, even though we're never going to be able to pinpoint the center or the middle, we'll have a better sense where to look for it. and be more able to recognize when we're drifting off. Some of these things are quite subtle, just energetic balances and things. And we can be more attentive and sensitive to them. By the way, I'm not in a position to always say how it is for this or that type.

[44:46]

I think this kind of exploration requires people who are meditating, people who are willing to explore the dynamics of their own type structure and then talk about it. So it's, I'll share what I can. but for types, especially types other than ones and maybe fours and sevens where I have direct connection, those are the ones I maybe understand better and a little bit twos and nines. But generally we're going to all have to help to illuminate some of these things. I also hope that understanding the distortions that personality will introduce can give us a better appreciation of the variety of middle ways. You know, sometimes the language, the middle way is generally presented as singular.

[45:53]

But in fact, and this was in the title, finding our own middle way, nobody's middle way is going to be exactly the same as somebody else's. And I think some of the more difficult dynamics in a Dharma center are because we keep forgetting this, It's so easy to want to defend our own way. And usually when we're defending it, it's no longer the middle way. It's just our, you know, we've taken up some position and it's often more about security or image or being accepted or liked or whatever. The more we can, except even if we don't fully understand the varieties of how people are going to be working out their middle way and then how that will change over the years.

[47:01]

I hope that this gets somewhat more tangible for us. And I hope of course then that this will help each of us to, to find our, our own way and also recognize it, which isn't so easy because another way the personality will interfere is sometimes We don't even recognize when things are, if you don't mind the one word, right. I'd like to conclude this talk by giving some personal examples of what I'm talking about. And I'm doing so partly to encourage you to do the same.

[48:06]

After we take a short break, So I've jotted down some of the ways that I've noticed my one stuff interfering with and distorting my meditation practice. And most of this, of course, applies off or outside the meditation cushion. but I'm trying to keep the focus on meditation practice. One distortion comes in with the one focus on getting things right. When I was first learning to meditate, it was very important to read a lot and study the theory and get a lot of information so I could figure out the right way to meditate.

[49:08]

I'm sure that non-ones do some of that, but ones can get so caught up in little details and kind of, you know, worrying a lot. You know, well, this teacher said this, and that teacher said that, and guess what? They don't completely under, you know, you wanna bang their heads against each other, because all these damn teachers, they don't agree. And if you're looking for the one right way, it can be frustrating. So I practice on a panacity according to some of the early Pali teachings, at least try to follow the frameworks that are given there. And so, for example, with breathing, my personality can get in there trying, you know, what's the right way to breathe.

[50:11]

And although I'm a body-based type, the sort of ones tend to have an active mental thing going on, which is often associated with the superego. And so this kind, there's this mental short circuiting of just physically breathing and experiencing in doing the breathing. So this way it may be a little like some of the head types. And then, but with a controlling or the reaction formation kind of, going against opposing and controlling tendency that's very strong in ones. That's very easy for me to slip into controlling the breath along with the, the, the deeper pattern of controlling feelings, uh, controlling bodily impulses and that kind of stuff.

[51:17]

Another area is being sort of overly fastidious in my attitude towards practice. My own version of one has to do a lot with, especially in the past, wanting to read a lot, get the information and then just follow kind of how to manual approach to meditation. And then I was early on put in a position of teaching. So I was out there, you know, giving everybody this elaborately detailed manual. I still do it, but maybe with a little less seriousness. Another aspect that has shifted a lot for me recently after, you know, what, 18, 20 years, is because, and this is one of the areas where Enneagram helped me a lot, the tendency to kind of tighten up

[52:37]

be sort of stiff or tense is so strong. It's been going on all my life. And it's so easy, like sit down for a while, kind of comfortable. And then for me, my right buttock starts to be uncomfortable. And it's taken me years. It's embarrassing how long it took. And as a one, I feel like a real idiot about it. I'll still say it, that when there's, say, discomfort, and there's a physiological reason in me why it's in my right buttock, but instead of when there's discomfort, just relaxing. It's really easy to do once you get it, but it takes a while to get it for some of us. The oppositional tendency in me as a one is to tighten up against it.

[53:42]

So I actually kind of found myself fighting the cushion. I don't know if other people, that may sound strange or really bizarre, but kind of tightening up in sort of, yeah, fighting the cushion. when it's so much easier just to relax and soften into the cushion. So there's some discomfort, big deal. But the kind of fastidious one perfectionist mentality is trying to tweak it and fix it and improve it instead of just soften. And then, by tensing up or fighting it, it creates more restlessness because there's a lot of this kind of body energy. And when you tighten up around body energy, you know, it's hard to sit still, but that's wrong.

[54:45]

And so you get into vicious circles. And by the way, it's even worse if they stick you in front of the room and you have to look like a good meditator. It's hell, by the way. Another area, it's funny, another one of those things where I feel really stupid, took me maybe 15 years to start to notice, I mean, I kind of knew this, but I didn't fully let it register. It took me a long time to start to really take seriously in the Buddhist description of the path, as it really starts maturing, the words for contentment, satisfaction, pleasure, joy, tranquility, happiness are all over the place. You know, but in my one mind, happiness, this isn't about happiness.

[55:51]

You know, that's just candy we throw to those, you know, hedonistic young Americans or whatever. It was really hard for me to accept that there is a place for pleasure. Now for some of you, you think that's all it's about. And that's a different distortion. And I've been trying to educate you for years and failing. But what I had to learn and keep learning over and over again that yes, there are forms of indulgence in pleasure that are distractions, but It's very clear in the early maps of that I studied the most, that pleasure plays a key role in meditation. And it's how we relate to the pleasure that ought to naturally occur and then be increasingly refined.

[57:05]

That's a very standard part of early Buddhist teaching. And I would just kind of pretend it's not there or rationalize my way around it. Or when by accident or whatever, I would actually experience a lot of pleasure in meditation, my mind would sort of poo-poo it. Although there were times I found myself envious of like people would be brand new to meditation and they come in with a big smile. This is wonderful. I feel so great. So another area in my case is the shoulds. Meditation can become a should or an obligation for ones. And it's still better to meditate as an obligation than not at all, I believe.

[58:11]

But it's much more effective when it's no longer a should or an obligation. And each of our types will have its own kind of distorted motivation to meditate, like for fours it might be, you know, wanting to deeply connect with something. Well, that's just the standard for obsession. it's not really, you know, for a four that can be problematic. Although part of me says, yeah, yeah, meditation ought about be about deeply connecting. And so, In each of the personalities, there is something it understands well, but it tends to overdo what it understands and leave out other pieces. So having shoulds, especially when they're external shoulds. In my case, I was a monk for many years.

[59:12]

So the shoulds around being a monk. The shoulds around being a teacher could get in the way, because those are all external things, but getting caught up in them frequently would interfere with the actual practice. And then related to that is this could be because of my nine wing. Because what my personality is comfortable operating by is shoulds, ideals, notions of what's right. When I've been able to let go of those, which is increasingly frequent, then I don't have a clue what to do. It's, you know, gut types especially seek clarity.

[60:18]

And so we've got false clarity. Nines. I have many nine friends in my life who've latched onto my false clarity to give them false clarity. Um, If, if the nines here feel that that's unfair, you can read, but in a later time, but in my case, the shoulds, the ideals, the detailed maps have provided a false clarity. And then the neogram has helped me to see that. And then there are times, you know, okay, I'm meditating. What the hell do I do? and it's easy just to kind of be fuzzy. And so finding a natural clarity, because I do believe the middle way, there's a big piece of it that's about clarity or brightness is a term used in the early teachings a lot.

[61:24]

The mind that is clear, bright, transparent, But our personalities will create false versions of these. And when we drop the false version, it may seem that the real version is even farther away. Although I suspect it's not so far. But it's like giving up a pacifier. The last example I have is at times when I'm experiencing what some people would call a good meditation or a deep meditation or Samadhi is quite good, like no thinking, a lot of clarity, brightness, awareness.

[62:25]

the latent tendency of the personality structure that wants to be in control. And part of this is universal. And in my case, it seems to have a one flavor or edge that although there's a sense of a quite beautiful, joyful kind of surrender and opening up and letting go, It's scary because there's this whole momentum in my case of a one ish ego structure. Part of this I think is true for all the types where in, in different ways I can sense that just release and it will be so pleasurable. And that's partly scary. There's still in me a deep suspicion of pleasure, which is very one-like.

[63:35]

So I think, so far, understanding these things is giving me a better sense how to work with them. but I can't say that I've completely worked through all of it. So those are some thoughts on today's topic. Should we stretch for a bit before continuing? Seth? It's about almost quarter after, so we'll stretch about 10 minutes, and please no more than 10, and then we'll come back and do some things for another 40 minutes or so. And the things we'll be doing are related to what I was just talking about. So if you want to do some soul searching, This is available, probably lots.

[64:48]

Also, there's a flyer for, I forget, I don't actually know the details, but is it Helen, Peter, and are gonna be leading an ongoing, is it panels? Here in Berkeley. Helen Palmer and Peter O'Hanrahan, who's one of the heirs apparent. And Pat's Peter's wife, Peter's her husband. So if those of you want to learn more about Enneagram, a great way to do it is to attend panels where people from each type will be speaking about their own experience of their type. And this is the way Helen Palmer's primarily taught it, letting people speak for themselves more than the teacher explaining things.

[66:04]

And that's a good lead in for, there's also a brochure about Liberation Park, my center in Illinois, for those of you planning to move to the Midwest. Trying to get away from earthquakes and stuff. Of course we have tornadoes and Mayor Daley, but you have Arnold. Okay, in the spirit of panels, I'd like to take the rest of the morning time to consider the influence and role of avoidances. In the examples I gave, I wasn't always explicit, but The one avoidance of error was running through much of what I was reporting about my own experience, not wanting to get it wrong, not wanting happiness to, you know, turn into some horrible addiction that would mess everything else up.

[67:29]

This is about the end of suffering, not happiness. or controlling emotions because we all know how messy those little buggers can be or big buggers. So there are other ways to frame it, but the avoidances I think can be very helpful. So let me, Let me list them again. I think I already did once. I didn't. So the, the words I've learned and we don't need to be wedded to these particular words, but in the case of one's error to neediness threes, Failure. And feel free to write them all down, but you mainly need to know the one of your own type.

[68:34]

Four is ordinariness. Five, lack. Six, helplessness. Seven is limitation. Eight's weakness. Nine's conflict. The avoidances have an important place in the whole structure. They're related to attendance, the sort of deep underlying beliefs each type has about the world. They're kind of the flip side of the attentional habit that I've referred to. And they help keep the whole ego structure in place. So I think it'd be interesting for us to take some time to ponder how the avoidances impact our experience of meditation, how we understand meditation, how we go about it,

[69:52]

what we shy away from and, and so on. And, uh, as I was writing these down earlier this morning, it occurred to me one of the nifty things about Zazen or meditation practice is that it will definitely push these buttons. So isn't that wonderful that inevitably whatever it is that deep down inside you want to avoid at any cost. If you're, if you have a decent meditation practice, you're not going to be able to avoid it. That's one of the reasons I think that Those who want to work via neogram will do so much more deeply with a consistent, regular meditation practice.

[71:03]

And then another aspect of that is if we don't let our meditation practice confront or get in the vicinity of these avoidances, we may not be meditating. We may just be sort of hiding or protecting. So this thought didn't occur to me while I was planning, but in a way these avoidances will be a sign that you're actually practicing. If your practice is enabling you or forcing you to rub up against that which you would rather have nothing to do with, then something good is happening. You may not be happy about it,

[72:06]

But it's good. And that's not just the masochistic one attitude, you know that? No pain, no gain. I think there's something legit in that. Okay, so pretty much everybody has paper. And if anybody needs some, we can share. You don't need to write this down, but it might be helpful. I'm going to ask some questions and give you a few minutes to ponder and scribble. So first let's, you do. Okay, first, let's reflect on the influence of your type's avoidance.

[73:20]

So just focus on the one that's relevant to your type and synonyms, things closely related to it. How do these influence your meditation experience? So the question, how might your avoidance of neediness or failure or ordinariness, et cetera, distort or bias, or in some way influence your meditation practice. What?

[75:20]

This might take the form of ways you protect yourself against conflict, weakness, lack, and so on. Or it may be ways that you pretty much refuse to go into certain things. or it may show up in the way you overemphasize what feels kind of secure, familiar, easy. Okay, I have another question.

[77:11]

In your practice, when you meditate, what do you find yourself paying attention to the most? This might include external distractions, What are the kind of externals that distract you the most? And or internal preoccupations. What kind of internal stuff do you find yourself paying the most attention to? Now, of course, there's maybe the thing you're supposed to pay attention to, however you do zazen. So I'm talking about the other stuff you're paying attention to. And it's not just what you pay attention to, but how.

[78:34]

That's a little trickier, but. For example, some people maybe end up paying a lot of attention to the folks on either side of you. But how are you paying attention? What about them? Are you concerned? Are they happy? Are they having a good meditation? Or he farted, what a rude blankety blank. And do you find some pattern in these things that you're paying a lot of attention to that's connected with your type's attentional bias?

[80:08]

For example, the, for twos, the needs of others, for threes, paying attention to image and success. Four, paying attention to what's special, unique, meaningful. Five, giving a lot of attention to data, knowledge, information, analysis, compartmentalization. Six, giving a lot of attention to safety and security. Seven, giving attention to what's fun, pleasant, positive, bright. Eight, a lot of attention to power, justice. Nine, harmony, smoothing things over, going along. Ones, paying attention to what's right, principles, standards, rules.

[81:18]

Are these questions working today? The third one is the heart kind of harder, but so you have to guess a little bit what is being ignored, repressed, fuzzed out or not seen in the process. You might, sometimes we kind of know, but we're just not going there. So you kind of know there's this whole area that we're just trying to stay away from. Or it could be from hearing about others' experiences. We suspect something's going on that we're fairly oblivious to. So what are we missing because of the avoidance and the attentional habits?

[83:10]

Okay, I already provided examples from one of the gut types, so would one of the head types like to share some of what you scribbled down about how your type avoidance interferes with or affects your meditation practice and experience? Any fives, sixes, or sevens? Want to give it a go? What I wrote was I make myself small and separate. So I'm sort of, in a way, I do this, but I'm thinking So you said my avoidance was lack, and I don't think that.

[84:47]

That is what it is, but somehow the way I get there is by not connecting. I avoid lack by not connecting with what's happening. And where I go, I kind of go to fantasies, stories of how well I understand. It's like me spitting out a fantasy of how well I understand the dharma or something. As a way to... I kind of leave my body in a way. I can avoid that pull back into my body.

[86:02]

So that I feel that that's what I'm avoiding is my connectedness. I think that connection with lack is, you know, if you're connected or open, then the limited resources, emotional, physical, whatever, can be sucked out or lost. And so by disconnecting, then it's kind of a false safety. I keep trying to withdraw to avoid my sense of alienation, but I just get more and more alienated.

[87:19]

It's one of those feedback loops. Yeah, I think part of the universal part of that is how we, there's something uncomfortable and we react out of type and it often makes it worse. Like for me, if it's discomfort, I try to fix it and then I keep kind of fine tuning and tweaking it. that tends to make it worse. It would have been a lot easier just to relax and, you know, a little discomfort's no big deal. Right, so what I've noticed is just how counterintuitive that was.

[88:30]

In some way, the whole thing is. Yeah, I'd say it's counter-habit. the personality, it's all this default. Unless we're really mindful, we go into the default. There may be a point in our practice where the default changes. And there are probably areas where we've seen that, where what we always did habitually doesn't happen and it's been replaced with something much more Yeah. But I think some of this personality stuff goes back, you know, it's pretty deep. So it's going to be a while till it's replaced. Thanks. Um, any sixes or sevens would like to, to share something? Are you a seven? Six. But anyway... But you're not sure.

[89:39]

Well, I think I'm about 80% sure. That's pretty good for a 6. Yeah. I'm remembering, I'm also thinking back to the early times of practice, which is probably when the tendencies were most evident. But I remember being on a one-head And I go, well, I don't want to do that. And then I think the other thing is about choosing not wanting to really have a teacher have control over me.

[90:46]

That's been a very big issue in my practice. I'm trying to figure that out. And the way some people talk about their teachers really puzzles me and makes me nervous. mm-hmm and that's clearly connected with avoiding helplessness and not wanting a teacher to be in control Right. Right. And that's a good example though of how our type frames it in an unhealthy, helpful way.

[91:49]

So a false response would be, Oh, I have to let the teacher have control. It's the frame that's wrong. That it's really not about you being in control or the teacher being in control. but our type frames it that way or yours does especially. And that's often how, where the problem comes in. We look at it with that frame because it's not really proper that the teacher has complete control. But if you're still holding onto control, that's not going to work either. The middle way is not either of those extremes of you being in control or the teacher being in control. that make some sense? You didn't ask for it, but I'll give you my opinion on that, which is, if that's okay.

[93:19]

I don't know. I just don't want to step on toes. like the use of the mantra, it seems to me could be fine. There's a way to use something like that in a very heavy handed way. So it, it is just continually sort of repressing something, but, but it can also be, as you phrase it, a skillful channeling of that excessive mental energy that would just keep thinking the way I experienced And then it seems to me something like that, like what you're saying about mantra, it's useful if it's not so much about the thinking as getting to what's going on that makes you think so much.

[95:28]

So if the mantra helps you relax the thinking enough that you start to see why, you know, what, in this case, maybe a kind of anxiousness, a habitual underlying anxiety that keeps stirring up the thinking. So again, not to make it, and you didn't, not to make it about thinking, but what underlies the thinking. Okay.

[97:03]

Thanks. Um, it's noon. Should we hear a couple of heart types before we break? Do we have any heart? We've got some, Oh, we've got a whole bunch of fours in one, two. Any takers? I feel very... I've been living in some centers for six years in three different places, and following the schedule was really important to me. Why is it so important?

[98:20]

That's a two. Or it's more two. For others, yeah. More too, I think. For me, I think that too, I'm a wad and I've been in that position, but there's more of the should, you know, and it's kind of about others, but it's also, if I don't there, I feel somehow kind of dirty or, you know, retrograde if I don't show up. They need me. It is silly.

[99:24]

They can sit perfectly well without you. But boy, that would be horrible if they could sit without me. They wouldn't know it. I always sit in the same, we all have the same seats, so if I'm not there, everybody knows me. We're all looking at the wall too. That's, so I guess that. Sounds like a fair amount of distractibility in there. But notice, so again, it's kind of like our sixth friend, the two frame around needs. you know, other people are being needed kind of distorts.

[100:29]

Well, what is actually the purpose of being there? And so we sort of get off into our personality issue instead of what is, what is the actual middle way or practice of that moment? Could it be that taking proper care of yourself is sometimes the actual practice. And it's not about other people. And other times maybe it is about other folks. Anyway, I interrupted, you wanna say? It's okay, but it'd be good to hear more from some too. Now,

[101:44]

And those are great examples because that's the type doing its thing. And is it, in Zazen, is it clear to you that that kind of preoccupation with your friend is a distraction or is it something that's easily legitimized? Has it always been clear? because I'm thinking there in my case, there's some of it where part of me, you know, well, there's a good reason to think about this and sort of legitimize it. And then a point where no, no, just it's where I finally really get it is a distraction, but earlier it may not have, I may not have wanted to admit that.

[103:25]

So thanks. Okay. Any fours or closet threes? Well, the other can go after lunch, so don't worry. I have a young daughter, and so my responsibilities in terms of my family, and also have my father's high school. And so I haven't come to this end of my life as much as I did for many years. And I'm pretty aware that that's a distraction.

[104:45]

So I try to talk to people about it. And I try to come at it like I'm not planning on dropping the practice. But that does come up. The idea that it's not what it should be. meaning the way you're doing it now and is it you that's not special now or the practice so you used to be here in a special way and people noticed You know, but I feel like I'm not deeply connected.

[105:50]

Then I can laugh at that. I know that's my edge. And I think in truth I am deeply connected to this Sangha. It sounds like there might be a little shame involved. you know, that once isn't enough, kind of.

[107:02]

Strength. It could be. What I was thinking is, you know, if you're only coming once a week, it kind of, you know, that's not good enough, and here you are showing up to be seen as not good enough, whereas if you didn't come at all, you just kind of drop out of the picture, and then you're not seen as not good enough, something like that. I mean, what I was thinking that showing up once a week has got a kind of edge to it, like worrying what are people going to think of me or whatever it is for is due.

[108:22]

Yeah. Well, I mean, I think, you know, something about the standard, you've got to be like, you know, all the time, you know, what, you know? I think I already think probably that everybody thinks she won't come. I've heard once. But I kind of know that's silly. I've heard of Zen groups where there are people who never come. They only come to certain meetings or something. So, I mean, it feels, on the other hand, it feels really right to me that I can only come once, because that is the middle way right now. It's what the schedule is allowing me to do.

[109:25]

And I think it's really, it's the right way for me as a board, because it is another way. I kind of know that, but it's an edge. Right, it's kind of, again, our type frames, instead of just accepting this is the way it is, our type makes an issue or a problem out of it. Okay, thanks. All right, it's quarter after, so maybe we should break. I kind of want to get another gut since you heard me. We have an eight and a few nines. during Zazen?

[111:07]

Well, uh, just in, in life. Um, you know, how is that expressed in Zazen? I don't know. I don't see the connection so much. Well, the, the, the, the kind of relationship between protector and weakness, or at least one of them is, that the eight understanding of how the world works is the world's about power. And if you show weakness, the bastards will get you. So there's this kind of projecting strength that will hide and protect what we perceive as weakness. And because the ape mind is framing things in this kind of weak, powerful dichotomy.

[112:12]

Things are interpreted to be weak that aren't necessarily weak, like just kind of an openness where apes have a thing about innocence and vulnerability, and those are misinterpreted as weakness. And so, maybe for an eight meditator, you find yourself kind of being strong on the cushion as a way to not open up to what feels kind of weak, vulnerable. Any of that ring true? Yeah. I mean, I feel like they say that interpretation can always be tougher.

[113:34]

neutral body stance. And then if someone else finds that, but standing up too straight, that's their problem. That was kind of, so anyway, kind of a, so I don't know. Yeah. Okay. Well, just check it out. Um, but the part of the thing about eight is, excess so it was interesting that you had this interpretation that you Somehow you could always be more straight or more, you know, it's like there's no limit you can you know, so I'm picturing getting straighter and straighter and Suspecting that it it can't go on forever without you know, you're like the Mr. Fantastic or something. Anything.

[115:16]

Yeah. The defense of AIDS is denial. You just don't see them until they hit you hard. Okay. Thanks. Thanks. I just think we should break. Is that okay? It's 20 after. Should we come back at 1.15? Or is that enough time to eat? Okay. Huh? Okay, should we come back? Well, I was thinking to sit for the first, say, 15 minutes. So how about anybody who comes back sooner just sit? So when we come back in, we're coming into a zendo. And then after, say, about 1.25, if there's a bell, we then carry on with the workshop.

[116:22]

Is that okay? I want to check, some of us can't be here in the afternoon. We're sewing and parenting or whatever. Who will be back? Okay, there'll be about a dozen of us. Okay, thank you all for coming, those who are moving on. Does anybody not know where to get lunch?

[116:51]

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