On the meditation seat and off, we may experience significant insights – realizations that shift our perceptions of ourselves and world, and help relieve suffering. Insights may be sudden or gradual, major or minor, but we naturally want to be able to hold on them instead of forgetting them and going back to our previous way of thinking or being. Yet sometimes these insights seem to slip away or fade with time. Our effort to hold on to them sometimes causes them to recede even further. How can we integrate insights into our lives and practice?
Quicklinks to Article Content:
The Nature of Insight in Buddhism
Small Insights Which Make a Real Difference in Our Lives
Mistakes We Make in Trying to Hold on to Insights
Four Steps for Integrating Insights
The Nature of Insight in Buddhism
First, let’s explore the nature of insight. Here’s some definitions of the word from dictionary.com:
insight – noun
- an instance of apprehending the true nature of a thing, especially through intuitive understanding: an insight into 18th-century life.
- penetrating mental vision or discernment; faculty of seeing into inner character or underlying truth.
- Psychology:
a. an understanding of relationships that sheds light on or helps solve a problem.
b. (in psychotherapy) the recognition of sources of emotional difficulty
c. an understanding of the motivational forces behind one’s actions, thoughts, or behavior; self-knowledge.
The first definition includes the word “apprehend,” which means “to grasp the meaning of; understand, especially intuitively; perceive.”[i]
A good definition of Buddhist insight includes many aspects of the standard definition – apprehension, seeing underlying truth, and recognition of sources of difficulty. I offer the following definition of insight as we mean it in Buddhism: An insight is apprehension of something which subsequently relieves suffering or increases wisdom, compassion, or skillfulness. In other words, an insight furthers us on the path of practice.
I particularly like using the word “apprehension” when it comes to insight, as opposed to “understanding,” which could be limited to the intellect. Apprehension, on the other hand, is experiential, including the mind but not limited to it. It’s easy to overthink the process of apprehension or experiential insight – we may wonder how on earth we can “know” anything without the mind, or how we can exclude the mind from the process. How can we register an insight consciously if it’s physical? However, apprehension is really not a big deal as long as we don’t overthink it. Most of what we are aware of is registered through all of our senses in a natural and integrated way. For example, how do you know whether it is warm or cool right now? What time of day it is? Whether you are safe? What your relationship is to the content of this podcast?
Insights arise most readily when we’re not dividing mind and body, when we’re just ourselves. This is why many Zen texts refer to a person as “body-mind.” Sometimes insights come with words to explain or describe them, sometimes they don’t.
Regardless of the mechanics of an insight, by definition it causes a positive change in us. At least for the moment, our orientation to the world is different. Our understanding of ourselves is different. Some delusion is seen through, or some new possibility opens up.
Significantly, Buddhist insights are about matters directly related to your life. There are many questions in the world for which we cannot directly, personally, apprehend the answers. Is there life on other planets? What is the best way to reduce crime in a society? What’s going on in your partner’s head? Is there life after death? We can learn about many things intellectually, or through trial and error, and what we learn may even inform us at a deep level (e.g. seeing pictures of other galaxies!), but we can’t apprehend directly. However, according to Buddhism we can apprehend everything we need to in order to live our best lives – in order to relieve suffering for ourselves and those around us, and increase wisdom, compassion, and skillfulness. The matters we can’t directly apprehend, fortunately, are questions which “do not tend to edification,” or do not further us on the path of practice. It may be fun or useful to know the answers to such questions but they are not central to our practice.
Insight may be small or major, sudden or gradual. They may involve a radical change in the way we see the world, or only a subtle shift in how we see one particular aspect of our lives. Generally speaking, though, there is at least one moment where we go, “Oh!” as we recognize the change in our understanding.
The original insight in Buddhism was, of course, the Buddha’s. (In this passage, the translator Thanissaro Bhikkhu use the word “stress” to translate the Pali word dukkha, which is often translated as “suffering;” mental fermentations are sensuality, becoming, and ignorance, or the mental/emotional phenomena which perpetuate suffering for beings):
“When the mind was thus concentrated, purified, bright, unblemished, rid of defilement, pliant, malleable, steady, & attained to imperturbability, I directed it to the knowledge of the ending of the mental fermentations. I discerned, as it was actually present, that ‘This is stress… This is the origination of stress… This is the cessation of stress… This is the way leading to the cessation of stress… These are fermentations… This is the origination of fermentations… This is the cessation of fermentations… This is the way leading to the cessation of fermentations.’ My heart, thus knowing, thus seeing, was released from the fermentation of sensuality, released from the fermentation of becoming, released from the fermentation of ignorance. With release, there was the knowledge, ‘Released.’ I discerned that ‘Birth is ended, the holy life fulfilled, the task done…’”[ii]
I won’t discuss what Buddha realized here, just note his substantial, “Aha!” (Want to know more? Refer to Episode 9 – Shakyamuni Buddha’s Enlightenment: What Did He Realize?) The Buddha has been searching for an answer to the question of human suffering and found it in a way that radically altered the way he saw the world, and relieved him of suffering in a profound lasting way.
Small Insights Which Make a Real Difference in Our Lives
In some of my previous talks and podcast episodes, I’ve called smaller moments of insight “enlightenments.” (See Episode 200 – Story of My Spiritual Journey Part 4: Enlightenments) Classically, Buddhist “enlightenment” is either kensho (seeing the true nature of self), which is really just a significant early step on the path of spiritual development, or the world refers to a life-altering realization like the Buddha’s. However, most of (all of?) our progress on the path occurs in smaller steps, in “enlightenments.” These are insights which make a difference, however small, and add up over time.
I shared an example of an insight in Episode 200, about my own spiritual journey. All my life, up to the point of this story, I had been troubled by the question, “What is the meaning of life?” To me, life seems okay, but it seemed to have no point. Certainly, no deeper meaning that would render acceptable all the misery in the world. One day, however, I decided to try walking down the hallway at work without the question, “What is the meaning of life?” I didn’t arrive at an acceptable answer to the question, I just set it aside. As I did so, I realized how many assumptions went along with the question. Basically, it was based on a fixed view of the world which was essentially closed to any input except the one I wanted, and I couldn’t even formulate what answer I hoped to find! I realized that insight into life’s mystery was not going to come to me as long as I kept insisting on meaning as I defined it. Ever since the moment of this insight, I have been free from the angst that a search for meaning used to cause in me.
Now, if someone had said to me the day before this insight, “You know, asking the meaning of life is just making you miserable, you should drop the question,” that would not have helped me at all. In fact, it probably would have just made me resistant to doing anything that appeared to be following the person’s advice. Insight isn’t just a matter of the content of what we realize. What matters is that we realized it for ourselves, our body-mind, experiential, directly, in real time. “Oh!” we exclaim. And usually, later, if we describe what we realized to someone else it doesn’t sound very remarkable at all. And yet it made a real difference to us – a lasting and positive change in how we think of ourselves or relate to the world.
Mistakes We Make in Trying to Hold on to Insights
So, how do we hold on to our insights? How do we avoid forgetting them, so we don’t slip back into our old way of seeing, thinking, speaking, or behaving?
Over time, in Buddhism and Zen, you may pick up the understanding that “we shouldn’t hold on to insights.” That we should just “let them go.” This reflects the reality that a certain way of trying to hold on to them is ineffective and problematic.
We may want to preserve the memory of the experience of insight, recalling what we thought, saw, or felt. Often, an insight comes along with a sense of release, relief, or even joy, and we naturally hope those feelings will continue to arise in association with what we have learned.
We may want to preserve the sense of a significant shift in being that the insight brought about, whether that was a shift in perception, in the way we think of ourselves, or the way we relate to the world. An experience of insight may feel empowering or give us hope.
We may want to hold on to the clarity of vision we experience in the moment of insight, or to the content of the insight itself, so we can be sure to carry with us what we have learned.
You might describe these efforts as trying to hold on to, to preserve, the experience of insight. Naturally, we are doomed to fail at this. We can never re-create an experience – and the more special the experience, the less likely we’ll be able to recreate it! This is true of any kind of experience (love, intimacy, joy, being moved by beauty, feeling incredible because of taking a drug for the first time, etc.)
When we try to hold on to an experience of insight, the precious thing inevitably recedes in our memory. Although it may have seemed incredibly vivid, significant, and life-altering at the time, we find the memory getting more and more fuzzy. It no longer evokes the same feelings. We may even start forgetting exactly what it was we realized, or, when recalled, the realization no longer seems very remarkable. The experience starts to feel stale, and we may feel regret, sadness, grief, disappointment, or pain at the loss of something that seemed to promise to us greater clarity, peace, and a better way of being.
When we experience insight, then, it’s very tricky – what now? If we try to hold on to the experience, we’re doomed to fail. So maybe we do the good Zen thing and “let it go.” To some of us, this means dismissing or pushing away the insight, not daring to appreciate, contemplate, or celebrate it, because we might get caught in trying to hold on to the experience, suffer disappointment, and prove we’re not a good student.
Four Steps for Integrating Insights
What can we do? We can start by differentiating between seeking to integrate our insight and trying to hold on to the experience of it. The memory of the experience will inevitably fade. We may feel some regret about this, and that’s okay! We’re used to this, though – we all know that we sometimes experience wonderful things and can’t hold on to them.
So, the experience can’t be held on to – which includes the sense of newness, and of the new perspective being remarkable. It includes feelings of hope, joy, or freedom, and our inevitably inflated hopes about what a difference this will make to our lives. It includes the experience of exceptional clarity as we suddenly apprehended something we needed to know.
But we want to hold on to what we learned. “Hold on” isn’t a good term of course, suggesting we should grab on and try to keep it from changing. But we don’t want to forget. We want to integrate the positive shift in our understanding, and to continue the learning process!
I’ll offer four recommendations for integrating insights. I’m sure you will have some of your own!
1. Celebrate and appreciate the insight with open hands. Insights/enlightenments are always wonderful. For as long as the memory lasts, let it arise. Appreciate the insight with gratitude while reminding yourself that the memory of the experience itself will fade, and the contour and texture of what you have learned will also change. Being prepared for this will help you be less confused or upset about it if or when the memory fades.
2. Gently explore the edges of the insight to see what else it might lead to. Try to do this with natural curiosity instead of with an agenda. Think of the insight as a living thing – a being you can scare away if you’re too aggressive or impatient. It’s usually not very satisfying to ruminate on an insight and try to squeeze more juice out of it. However, the insight might have implications which will become obvious if you spend some time with it.
3. Allow the insight to make changes in you. This is not an active process, nor is it a passive process. This is not about the Executive “I” analyzing the insight, trying to get more out of it, or making a plan for how to change. Nor is it about us checking out or distracting ourselves. The process of integrating an insight is like our zazen, like our life: Things are best, more lively, when we offer undivided presence as much as we can, but without adding the narrative of the Executive “I.” Our zazen and mindfulness practice help us learn how to be present without necessarily trying to control what’s happening.
4. Trust the process and know you will never be the same after your insight. Sometimes insights last and that’s great. Other times, though, we lose track of exactly what they were about, or whether they resulted in a lasting change in our thinking, speech, or behavior. Occasionally we may wonder why an insight didn’t have a bigger impact on our lives: How can we continue acting the way we do, feeling and thinking the way we do, after what we realized? I’ve always found comforting these words from my Dharma grandmother, Roshi Jiyu Kennett: “Having seen a ghost, you can never again be someone who has not seen a ghost.” No matter what we are consciously aware of, our insights change us. The change may not be what we expected or as dramatic as we’d hoped, but they inevitably become part of who we are.
Endnotes
[i] https://www.dictionary.com/browse/apprehend
[ii] “Maha-Saccaka Sutta: The Longer Discourse to Saccaka” (MN 36), translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight (BCBS Edition), 30 November 2013, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.036.than.html .
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Image by S. Hermann / F. Richter from Pixabay
