Joseph Goldstein: Letting Go of Expectations & Craving

Excerpt from a dhamma talk given in 2008 by the Insight Meditation teacher Joseph Goldstein. He talks about expectations, desires and related mind states and how Buddha taught that as we learn to let go of them we come back to the Natural Wisdom of Awareness.
The entire audio file is about an hour, and can be downloaded for free from dharmaseed, here. It's entitled "2008-07-24 The Buddha; Song Of Enlightenment: Achieved Is The End Of Craving"
www.dharmaseed....
Further information on Joseph Goldstein, his teaching schedule and IMS:
www.dharma.org/...
Biography
Joseph Goldstein has been leading insight and lovingkindness meditation retreats worldwide since 1974. He is a cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, where he is one of the organization's guiding teachers. In 1989, together with several other teachers and students of insight meditation, he helped establish the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies.
Joseph first became interested in Buddhism as a Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand in 1965. Since 1967 he has studied and practiced different forms of Buddhist meditation under eminent teachers from India, Burma and Tibet. He is the author of A Heart Full of Peace, One Dharma: The Emerging Western Buddhism, Insight Meditation: The Practice of Freedom, The Experience of Insight, and co-author of Seeking the Heart of Wisdom and Insight Meditation: A Correspondence Course.

[@ethandorfman8485]

Excellent advice ... here is my transcript: The expecting mind often comes disguised as something. Just like doubt comes disguised as wisdom. Expectation can come disguised as aspiration. We think - “Oh I just have an aspiration for my meditation to develop.” It’s very tricky because expectation and aspiration are two very different qualities of mind. For example, we can be practicing the very beautiful aspiration of bodhichitta, that aspiration that our lives and our practice be for the awakening, for the benefit of all beings. That’s a beautiful and noble aspiration. And at the same time we can realize that same aspiration is not fulfilled by expecting, it’s not fulfilled by craving. It’s fulfilled by letting go into the wisdom mind of awareness. That aspiration and the force of expectation are two very different things. I’ve also noticed in my practice how expectation for anything in practice in meditation so easily leads to the comparing mind. Now we get into this competitive sitting as if it’s some kind of race for the finish line. There’s a big difference between being inspired by other people’s practice and getting caught up in either self-judgment or pride about our own practice relevant to other people’s practice. And I went through this in a big way the first retreat I sat with Sayadaw U Pandita. It was in 1984 at IMS, it was a 3 month retreat, very intensive. We were sitting 4 hours a night, seeing him 6 times a week, it was very pressured. And at a certain point I just had this idea of my fellow yogis and you know some of them seemed to be doing so well and I was going through so many struggles in my mind. So there was just a lot of self-judgment, you know, about myself, about my practice. It was suffering. It was really suffering. It was springtime in Barre at that time. And I went out and just outside the main building there was just outside the main walkway the flowers were just starting to come up, the tulips were just starting to come up. It was a tremendous lesson in looking at the tulips. Because some had come up and looked fully opened, blossomed and opened. Some had come up and the flower was there but still closed. Some had come up and was just kind of poking through the ground. And I realized: Our practice is just like that. You know, they develop, they grow, each at their own rate, their own speed, according to their own conditions. Those flowers were not racing to see who could bloom first. It was amazing. Just by looking at those flowers, I could just let go of that comparing mind and settle in to letting my own practice unfold. Letting it blossom in its own time. It’s helpful to see this comparing mind and how it plays out in our practice but also in our daily lives. When these desires are unnoticed, whether it’s the desire, you know, the strong obsessive desire for sense pleasures, or just, you know, minor moments of the wanting mind, or comparing or expectation. When they’re unnoticed, just like the other hindrances of doubt and aversion, they hinder concentration and obscure the natural wisdom of our minds. We need to notice them. We need to become aware. In addition, and somewhat ironically, and this is something I think we should really pay attention to: our desires don’t even deliver on their promise of happiness. I mean if they delivered it would be one thing. But they don’t. We believe that experiencing sense pleasures, you know, whatever our own desires are, will bring us happiness because of the pleasant feelings that come along with them. And they do for a time. But, as we all know, the problem is that these pleasant feelings are very impermanent. And so they are continually disappearing and changing. We go after another, and another, and another and another and this becomes our life. It’s like trying to quench one’s thirst by drinking salt water. We just get thirstier. How many sense pleasures have you enjoyed in your life? Countless, beyond number, yet we never seem to come to a sense of completion. They do not bring fulfillment. And we all know this. You know even though we still get caught up in desire and craving we know pretty deeply that the don’t really deliver - or you wouldn’t be here. You know this is not where people come, like a silent retreat, to be on vacation. So we all know, you know, that desire is not at the root to fulfillment. But we forget. Now this doesn’t mean that we should never enjoy ourselves or not experience the pleasantness of different sense contact. It’s just to understand the transitory, very impermanent nature of this enjoyment. And really to consider how much of our lives and how much of our energies do we want to invest in the endless pursuit of them. So it’s not about not enjoying it but where are we putting our energies, what are we dedicating our lives to. Dharma practice opens our understanding to possibilities of much greater happiness in our lives. So this is the first arena of craving, the desire for sense pleasures. Something we need to explore, to understand, to really look at in our lives. The second kind of craving goes even deeper. And this is the basic urge for desire to be. It’s called the craving for becoming. It’s the desire for renewed existence, particularly in pleasant circumstances. Now in traditional Buddhist understanding it refers to desire for rebirth in some pleasant realm. Now we may or may not believe in rebirth even though it is a very classical part of the teachings. It’s right there in the teachings and Manindra, he would often regale us with stories of the heaven realms, the deva realms. And I loved hearing about it, I was - tell me more. But a lot of people in our group did not believe, you know they had a kind of western skepticism about it. It’s not part of our understanding. So Manindra would always say, you know, you don’t have to believe this. It’s true but you don’t have to believe it. So you don’t have to believe it and I don’t know whether it’s true. But for us there are more immediate and direct experiences of this craving for becoming. We can leave rebirth aside. We can see this craving for becoming every time we get lost in a planning mind. Just imagining ourselves in some future situation. Notice how often in the day, or just think back to today, how often the mind is lost in the mind creation of some future self. More than once of twice. I’ll do this. I’ll go there. I’ll - we just project in our minds. We’re not there. In our minds there’s this desire to craving for becoming. The Buddha gave some very specific and also challenging instructions in this regard. And what’s, I just love so much about the Buddha’s teachings is that it’s so direct and so to the point, and challenging of our ordinary way of viewing things. So this is what he says: Not reviving the past. Not hoping to be in the future. Instead, with each arising state, Not craving after past experience. Not setting one’s heart on future ones. Not bound up with desire and craving. So just imagine what it would be like to practice living like that. You know this is not, this is not just some kind of theoretical thing, the Buddha is saying this is the instruction for freeing the heart. So what would it be like to actually practice doing that? Not reviving the past, not setting one’s heart on future experiences. Almost all of our lives are spent in those two activities, reviving the past, looking forward to the future. What would it be like to just settle back, instead with insight, see each arising state, not bound up with desire and craving. That’s a challenging practice. So we can notice what this is like for short moments. Instead of thinking - oh this is some unattainable goal, well it sounds good and maybe some day. No, we can practice it for short moments, many times. And we begin to experience for ourselves what is the heat and mind like in those moments free of craving. We pay attention. On a more momentary level we can see this craving for becoming just in the unfolding process itself. Now have you noticed how often we practice leaning into the next moment? As if somehow the next moment of experience, the next breath, the next sensation, the next thought … will resolve everything. As if somehow the next one will bring us what we’re looking for. The next one is not going to do it any more than this one. We can come to completion in this moment and that leaning forward is just thiscraving for becoming, desire for becoming. I call this the “in order to” mind. We can see this that we are watching something in order for something to happen. How often are we in this mind state when we’re feeling painful sensations? Watching it, aware of it, in order for it to go away. That leaning forward. Or with some emotion. Maybe there’s some strong emotion arising and we’re with it in order to open further. You know we have some agenda. That’s craving for becoming. We want something else to be happening. And we’re not seeing experiences as simply empty appearances arising and passing away in the moment. We forget that liberation is not about holding on, it’s not about getting, it’s not about becoming. It’s not about getting something, by having some new experience. It’s about not holding on, not craving, not clinging.

[@carolinewood7878]

thank you for your transcript

[@raresmircea]

Indeed, thank you!

[@chanthasoe]

Thank you so much for your kind effort.

[@joyboardman7579]

Thank you so much for taking the time to do the transcript!! So helpful :)

[@oliverfirst7040]

Thank you!

[@troycountryman7988]

Listening to Joseph Goldstein has inspired me to be a better person.

[@js2010ish]

Thank you

[@ethicalphytophage]

Joseph is amazing when it comes to clarity. It's rare to see such a clear unpacking of the Buddha's insights that can be readily applied. Thanks for the upload.

[@toddboothbee1361]

Freeing working memory makes a person more effective, vivid, and original.

[@revivantes]

Great talk this morning! I liked the reminder that the past and future are just thoughts - light as a feather, not something that we're actually carrying around - even though we often feel burdened by both. Liberating.

[@paulwhite4612]

I read Mr. Goldstein's book Insight Meditation years ago. A great read for anyone on the spiritual path.

[@abrarahmed3285]

"we are not seeing experiences as simply empty appearances arising and passing away in the moment." They are empty(sunyata) no substantial reality, they are arising and passing away(annica) impermanent. Damn !

[@accadia1983]

This is what 50 years of investigative practice sounds like. What a karma! 🔷️ four noble truths ♾️ eightfold noble path 🧘🏻‍♂️ mindfullness 🌬🤲🏼🦋❤️ sending metta

[@abrarahmed3285]

Whole Bhuddism was explained in a nutshell. From craving and aversion to impermanent and emptiness.

[@wikramanayake2011]

Excellent talk. May we have more vedeos/talks please? thank you

[@lauralunaazul]

Excellent! When can I listen de rest of it please? Thank you!!

[@TheDripPodcast]

Ok, how do you it?!?!?

[@markfuller]

I came at it from a secular (not new-age, not buddhist/hindu legacy) using "guided mindfulness meditation (on the present moment)." If you can click my username, and then playlists, the first video in that playlist is what I did. The important thing is that you don't "do" it. What you do is become an observer of your self. A witness. There is a "you in the moment" that is individual from "you thinking/narrating/self-talking in the moment." That's what the mindfulness video guides you to experience in brief moments (before another thought enters your mind). If you click "view full playlist," I wrote a description that explains how I would tell myself how to come at it (10 years ago). You become aware of the present moment, your existence (breathing), the sensations of the moment (your sensory inputs), and "now this thought entered my mind. I'll choose not to think about that right now (not judge it, or fight against it. Just 'not now.'). And then, what exists in that 1/4 second before another thought enters your mind? This is individuating yourself from your thoughts. There is a *you* that exists without thinking. It doesn't depend upon the narrative to exist. When you shift to that familiarity with yourself, then you can have a veto power over your otherwise ruminating/autopilot thoughts. You can know the difference between your self and your self habitually confabulating. It's huge. But, you don't "do it." It does you. The whole point of mindful, in the present moment, existence is to know the difference between "you" and what's "doing you." It's just a witnessing of this mental/personal reality. Ultimately, it's ego m*bating to itself because that's "better" (more fulfilling) than the present moment (without narration/explanation/rationalization).