Satya Robyn shares her personal mantra "go gently" and tells the Buddhist story of Sujata and the Buddha to explore the Middle Way. She reflects on self-kindness, resistance, and slowing down for a meditation audience.
Chapters
Welcome everybody. Thank you for coming. It's lovely to have such a full shrine room. I was counting the seats during practice and thinking we're gonna have to get some more. So for quite a long time now, I have had this little 2-word mantra that I have spoken to myself, and I often write it at the end of my journal entries, and it's 'go gently.' I don't know where it came from. It might have been my head, but it's equally likely to be someone else's head. So credit to whoever, wherever I got it from, if it wasn't me. And when I thought about what I might want to speak about for the dharma talk this morning, what the theme of the day might be, this phrase came to mind and I felt really excited, which is always a good sign for the correct thing to be talking about or thinking about, because it's something that has such personal kind of significance for me, such personal resonance. I've just remembered that I might not be on the mic.
Microphone.
I'm on the right microphone. So there'll be kind of 3 bits to this talk. I'll say a bit about myself, my own experience, and then I'll tell you a story about a milkmaid called Sujata, and then I'll say a little bit more about me. So I If you know me, you'll know this already, but I am a striver. I'm a striving kind of person, and I've been a striving kind of person for as long as I can remember. And there are advantages to that. I've written 8 books. Uh, I run a Buddhist temple. I have a private practice, psychotherapy private practice. I'm really good at getting things done, and there are disadvantages. One of the disadvantages is that, like this week, my diary often gets to that point where I can't quite see where I'm going to breathe or rest. That everything's just a little bit too tightly packed. But probably the biggest disadvantage is the— yeah, so I also do harm to other people with this habit. To give a very small example, Kasper was tidying the alcove yesterday in a very sort of mindful pottery way, and I came in like a— I won't ask Casper to say what I came in like— and just started saying, right, let's chuck this, let's chuck this, I'm taking this over there, and it wasn't welcomed. But that was my Stryver taking over, that was the parts of me that wanted to get it done. I had like 15 minutes before my next client, so I just kind of came in there and set off the bomb of striving energy. So it affects other people in various ways, but the, the probably the biggest effect is the harm that it does to me. It's the harm that it does to my own system. And the word that comes to my mind when I think about that is violence. And, and that sounds like a a strong word, but it feels like there are lots of little internal wounds that happen as a result of that, that way of being. As I'm just pausing, I'm noticing that there are parts of me going, yeah, you need to, you need to look at this, you need to talk about this. They're feeling really happy. Um, and I guess that what's interesting is to wonder about why, why is my system that way? Why is there so much kind of willpower and push and, um, energy that gets focused in a particular way? Because I'm speaking about my striving parts, But what we're talking about this morning is going gently. So you might have a different system. You might have parts that force you to not do things. And they're just as painful. They're just as, they cause just as much trouble. You don't look so good. I've got the ones that give me more of the glory because I get loads of stuff done. But if you've got the opposite system, then, then that's just as painful and just as tiring and just as, just as much internal violence happens. And so as I talk about myself, I'm also encouraging you to wonder about what analogies are there in your own system, what goes on in you. And it's taken me quite a long time to to begin to get a clearer picture of what goes on in me and those bits of me that push me to achieve, that push me to be seen, that push me to, um, get successes in worldly terms, that those bits are all working to try and keep me away from the bits of me that believe that I am not enough, that I am not worthy, that I am not lovable, that I don't, um, I don't deserve to exist, or that I don't have that— there's a word I can't quite find— Yeah, I'm not entitled to— thank you, Mary— I'm not entitled to receive things, and I'm not entitled to receive things unless I do these things. And from quite early in my life, I would have discovered that, that those parts of me got certain things from the people around me, that if I 'If I managed to learn how to walk, then people would be happy with me,' or 'If I learn how to tie my shoelaces,' or, you know, all of those little things that, that we— children are not stupid. They, they, they do something and they get a result, and then they think, 'Oh, I'm going to do that again. That really works. That really worked to help me.' not feel those other things. And to rewind a little bit, those other parts, the ones that feel unworthy, they're there because of messages that I received when I was very little. And all of us will have received a variation on those messages at certain times however lovely our parents are, or however hard they tried to be perfect parents. Our parents fuck us up, as Philip Larkin said. It's just a matter of, of different variations of fucked-upness. So that's where I I want to begin is by sharing with you a little bit of how my system works, that there are those bits that I don't connect with very often, and there are a few of them now because a lot of them have been healed and released. Um, but there's always more. There are those bits of me that don't believe that I'm worthy. And then there are lots of protective bits around them that, that learn how to keep me away from them and learn how to keep those feelings away. And in the process get me stuff, get me stuff from the world. They don't always succeed in getting me stuff, but it's all they know how to do, so they just keep going. And you might recognize in your own system that there are things that you do that, that are an attempt to get something, and you kind of know it's not going to work, but you kind of keep doing it because that bit doesn't know what else to do. So I'll pause there and tell you about Sujata. This is a Buddhist talk, I have to put some Buddhism in there. I've always really been drawn to the story of Sujata. I was told it by my old Buddhist teacher more than 10 years ago. And the way that I was first told it was quite simple, that the Buddha went through a phase of asceticism and got very thin, and he was about to die, and a milkmaid was passing, offered him some milk porridge, he got his strength back, and then went on to become enlightened. And even that little simple version I really love. There's something about being fed, and something about the simplicity of Sujata, the milkmaid wandering through the forest. So I did some reading around this story, and Buddhist stories often have many versions. They've been passed down originally by, by story by mouth, because there was no writing when the Buddha was around. So that happened for a while. And then those stories went into different traditions and countries. So there's always a kind of a, who knows what the original story, who knows what the truth is, but the stories are wonderful because they help show us something. And that there was more to the story, and that this is the one that I'll tell you, although there's some variations. So Sujata was a daughter of wealthy merchant. I can't remember if I've got his name here. Yeah, and she was a daughter of somebody who lived in Uravella Senaningama, and she was basically going to the forest because she was grateful. That's the beginning of the story. She had previously prayed, gone to the forest and prayed to a banyan tree which is the tree that the Buddha became enlightened under, the same variety of tree. She'd asked this tree if it would grant her her wish, which is that she would receive a husband of equal status to her, like an appropriate husband, and a son. And she had received these things. She had got her husband and her son. So she was going back to the forest to say thank you to the banyan tree, to say thank you to the spirit of the banyan tree who'd granted her this wish. And the dish that she brought, in some stories it was like in a golden bowl that was worth a lot of money, but I love this bit of the story. She made this milk porridge and it's called Madhu Payasa. In the original text. Madhu means honey, and payasa is like a kind of a rice and milk together. So it's like a kind of a— sounds quite yummy. Vegan milk, obviously, for me, but sounds pretty good. And she had 1,000 cows, so she divided the 1,000 cows into 2, 500 cows, 500 cows, milked 500 cows, and gave the milk of those cows to this 500 Then she divided the cows again, milked half and gave the milk of half of the cows to the other cows. And she did that again and again until she got down to 8 cows. And then she milked these cows and made the pudding from, from the milk. I just love that. There's little stories like that all through Buddhist texts. And really, of course, she probably didn't do that. But what it's saying is there was a lot of work and love and care that went into this little bowl of milk pudding, rice gruel, it's called different things. So she was going to the forest, to the banyan tree to make her offering, say thank you. And meanwhile, the Buddha 6 years ago had made a decision to leave his palace, to leave all his riches, his future title as king, all the goods and the food and the women that he was kind of receiving as someone of that status, because he felt dissatisfied, because he'd witnessed the three sites, the sick man, aging man, the corpse, and then the holy man, and he'd left the palace to go out and find a better answer to his dissatisfaction than just gorging himself all the time. And he followed various teachers, and a lot of these teachers would do ascetic practices. They would stand on one leg for a really long time, or starve themselves, or undergo various practices that would kind of be designed to strip something away, to get down to something essential. And by this time he was emaciated, and you might have seen pictures of the Buddha at this point in his life. You can see every single rib, like a skeleton. He was really emaciated, and he was in the forest because he was too weak to go on. He was at the point of death. And this is the bit that really moves me, is when she came past, she saw him and she took pity on him. She was moved by his appearance and she fed him. She fed him this special milk and he regained his strength. He was brought back from death and he went on quite soon afterwards to sit underneath his own banyan tree which became the Bodhi tree and woke up, and then went on to teach for the next 45 years. 35, 45, a long time. So if it wasn't for Sujata, we wouldn't be here. If it wasn't for her magic milk porridge. One of the things that Buddhists speak about a lot, or that gets repeated, is the Middle Way, that the Buddha shows us the Middle Way. And sometimes in Zen stories it can become something a bit mystical or something complicated, but today I just really want to stay with the Middle Way in a very kind of simple, pragmatic way. That what the Buddha learned is that gorging himself on whatever he wanted didn't work. And he also learned that starving himself to death didn't work. It didn't bring him to enlightenment. So what link is there between those two stories. When I imagine the Buddha following teachings by other great teachers of the day and starving himself, I guess the first thing that comes to mind is My friend Angus, I'm not sure how this is going to fit in, but I'll say it and see. My friend Angus, who did a hunger strike a few months ago outside Parliament in London, and I think he did about 36 days without eating. When I think about his process, he did it because of the climate crisis. He wanted to get a science— a scientific— a climate scientist to do a talk to the MPs because the MPs still don't get it, because if they did, they'd be doing something different. But that's a different story. It was hard work, it was really hard, and he— I witnessed his courage and his bloody-mindedness. He's a very bloody-minded person, and I think without that, I'm not sure that he would have got to 36 days. He took some time off work and he'd take his— he'd get a chair outside parliament, and he talked to people who walked past all day long, hand out leaflets, and then go back to his hotel at night. And he did that for 36 days. And afterwards he went into hospital, and he's fine. He's kind of back to— as far as I know, I don't think he's had any long-lasting health issues. But yeah, he's doing okay. But when I think about that, I think about how it must have been for the Buddha to undergo those practices, to follow those teachings. And what I imagine is that the Buddha was pretty bloody-minded. The Buddha had a mission that he was going to push through until he got what he wanted, which was to realize what life was all about, how to make sense of it, how to live. And I can't imagine that he would've got to that state of emaciation without some of the parts that I have in me, without some of those parts that push. And there's another part saying, I think you should slow down a bit. And this one's like, no, we are not slowing down cuz we need to do this. This is, this is the most important thing. Um, And what's a joy to me and a relief is that it didn't work. It didn't work for the Buddha. If it didn't work for the Buddha, it's not going to work for us. And I still need to really hear that over and over because there are parts of me that don't believe that, that feel like the only way I'm going to get the good stuff or people to like me, or fame, or happiness, or peace, is to push through, is to force. And the whole point of the story about Sujata is what helped the Buddha was kindness coming from outside him. He didn't design it, he didn't plan it. He was at the end of his energy. And she appeared. And what he did is he accepted her offering. He could have said, 'No, I'm starving myself right now, go and make your offering to the tree instead.' But he knew that he was at his end, and he, in that moment, I imagine him acknowledging that it wasn't working, that it hadn't worked. The last sentence of the little story is, having offered the rice, she walked back to her house full of happiness, believing that she had made offerings to a Deva. So she felt that she had given her milk to the Bhadeva, and who knows, maybe she had. So I'll just finish with a little bit more about what I've learned so far in terms of how we might do that, because it's one thing to say just be more gentle because pushing doesn't work, and it's another to actually shift it. I guess that one way of shifting it is to almost starve yourself to death, and that there is an equivalence of that in other, um, that sometimes we reach our end. We just know that what we're doing isn't working, and, and we exhaust all our options, and it's just there's that kind of rock bottom acknowledgement. So that's one way that we can receive rice pudding. I wouldn't recommend it as the nicest, but sometimes, sometimes we have to go there. Sometimes we have to do that thing that the Buddha did. But I think probably the main thing for me has been to notice, has been to notice when those parts of me are active and to catch them in action, to acknowledge that I feel like something's straining or something is, um, there's like a, a part that's pushing and a part that's resisting. So resistance is always information for us that's really useful because it's highlighting something that needs our attention. And we can't always give it attention. Sometimes if somebody needs us and we don't want to do it, but we just have to do it— that's how life is. That's sometimes there, that's— we just do the stuff that we don't want to do. But whenever there is resistance There is a part of us that is pushing for a reason and a part of us that is resisting for a reason. So let's get curious about what that is. If that part stopped pushing, what might happen? Who might you become? What might people think of you? If that part stopped resisting, what might, what might happen? If you, if your tendency is to not do things, to if the procrastinating bit didn't do its job, then what might happen? And there's always a reason. We don't always get to it straight away, or we maybe it takes years, but there's always a good reason why the parts of us that do what they do, do what they do. Um, Yeah, and I'm still a work in progress. Something that really helps is giving talks about going gently. So anyone wants to write a dharmakanda, you'd be very welcome. And I guess that stories help. I guess that, that coming into contact with stories is helpful because stories show us that something different is possible, a different route, slightly different response to something that's habitual. So there's a lovely prayer by— I'm not sure how to pronounce his first name. Teilhard de Chardin. Any French-speaking people?
Anyway.
There's the word God in this, so if you, if you're allergic to the word God, just put Buddha in instead and you'll be all right. If you're allergic to the word Buddha, put love in instead. And I just love the first line of this poem. I'll just read the first section of it, but the first line is one of those bits of medicine that kind of has helped me over time, and it's called Patient Trust. Above all, trust in the slow work of God. We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay. We should like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new. And yet It is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability, and that it may take a very long time. So above all, trust in the slow work of the universe. And thank you very much for your attention. Namomi debu. So you might have a question or a comment, you might not. I'm curious about what kind of silence is possibly sleepy for some people, possibly just heard enough, want to do something else. Possibly. Is that what you're doing?
There's a story, there's a story in the Pāli Canon about a monk who does walking meditation. It's his main practice, quite a young monk. And someone, I don't know if the Buddha notices, or if someone tells the Buddha, oh, that young monk, you know, his feet are all cut up because he's been walking meditation too much. So the Buddha goes and has a chat with him, and basically says, you're doing too much walking meditation. Really? He says, you should do— you should be like the string on the lute, neither too tight nor too loose. Hmm, nice. Probably he said sitar, I guess, not lute, but you know, that's how it's been translated. Yeah. Yeah.
I feel a little bit like I might have a lot of things to say about going gently. I'm also thinking of all the things I could have said in terms of acts of gentleness to ourselves, acts of gentleness to each other, acts of gentleness to the earth. So that might be something else you can kind of hold with you today in the space, is where are you gentle with yourself, where are you not, why might that be, how much gentleness are you able to receive, and if not, then why, what's the kind of fear or the danger receiving it. Well, I've already started a manuscript yesterday. I hadn't told you yet, so it's funny you should say that. It's in the ether. Any questions about anything at all? Not compulsory. Yeah, I'm sure not everyone's shy. I'm going to stop the video.
