Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this session from Buddhism without Beliefs, Stephen Batchelor explores how we encounter our moment-to-moment experience through the lens of attachment and grasping. He challenges the common misunderstanding that freedom from attachment means indifference, proposing instead the concept of creative engagement: a way of meeting life with stability and openness rather than reactivity and exaggeration. Drawing on the twelve links and the role of contact and feeling, Batchelor walks through each sense in turn—vision, sound, taste, smell, sensation, and thought—showing how grasping narrows and solidifies our experience into exaggeration and proliferation, while creative engagement allows flexibility and movement. Using concrete examples from daily life (cleaning dirty plates, viewing an unkempt French lawn, hearing mobile phones on trains), he illustrates how recognising the moment of contact gives us genuine freedom to respond rather than react. The retreat is designed to cultivate awareness of this choice point, both in formal meditation and in all daily activities.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 11 BwB.mp3
UUID: 2d49c3c4-20b8-4d7e-8125-3dc2072575ce
Teacher: Batchelor
Collection: Buddhism without beliefs (Batchelor)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Words: ~4,686
I’d like to take a lead from something he was mentioning this morning. When he talked about the awakening mentioning awakening of the Buddha, he mentioned that poem about, in a way, the awakening being of seeing very clearly dependent origination. But in the poem, what the Buddha was saying was that as part of the effect of seeing that dependent origination, that in a way there was that freedom from attachment. And often one talks about freedom from attachment and sometimes I feel that people are not so clear because often I think when people talk of freedom from attachment, there is this feeling, but then would that not lead to just being indifferent or to just kind of be really removed from the world. And also in this afternoon, the discussion we are talking about free will.
And Steven was saying that actually in the experience of meditation itself, it’s at the level of contact in the twelve links, contact and feeling that in a way there was the freedom of choice. And so that’s what I like to look at in a way today about this moment. And I think this meditation retreat is very much about, in a way, becoming aware of the moment where we can have a choice. Because I think in daily life, generally, we are in a way too caught up in things and various things that happen to actually have the time to see that, yes, there is a moment. And to me, the meditative practice which helps us to be more stable and open actually help us to see this not only during this retreat but also in our daily life.
How can we have the stability and the openness of that? We can see that moment of contact, of feeling and see that actually we have a choice. I don’t have to do what I do all the time. Maybe I can do something different. And and so in a way, personally, I would rather talk instead of freedom from attachment or even freedom from grasping, saying that freedom from grasping would actually give us what I would call creative engagement.
Because often we have the feeling if we not attach, then nothing matters. But actually, I think it is something else that we develop. We open up the space for a creative engagement on contact instead of in a bit maybe more a blind reaction. Because as of what I was saying, things arise and things cease. I mean, this is very much what it is about.
So in a way, when something arise, do we see that arising? This is a question. Often we actually get caught. Straight away we get caught in the arising. And so we don’t have the choice, I think, in the seizing or in being able to be with it differently.
So in a way, think, in being with it differently, often the seizing actually happens and there is often the freedom in that. So in a way, looking at that, as that arising, that contact, and what happen when we grasp? And what happen if we, instead of grasping, we were to creatively engage with what we come in contact with. And in a way, often I think what happen when we come in contact and we grasp, generally, have exaggeration and proliferation. But I think when we have creative engagement, in a way, there is more.
There is no exaggeration and no proliferation, but you still encounter the thing. You have not disappeared. The thing has not disappeared. The event or the experience has not disappeared. But there is a different encounter.
And so in a way, maybe during the time you want this retreat, exploring exploring that contact, that kind of experience of contact throughout the day. So not just in the meditation, but also whatever happens. So first looking at the process of grasping so that we can, in a way, what is it we are dealing with? What is this grasping? How does it happen?
And I think when there is grasping, generally together, I mean, that’s part of the grasping process, there is identification. I mean mine. I am seeing this. I am experiencing this. This is happening to me.
This is mine. I think this is the first thing that happened. There is this identification and through that identification together, there is what I would call a solidification. When we grasp at something, we solidify ourselves around it. And through that, in a way, we limit ourselves to what we grasp at.
And I think this is very important to see that, to see that when we grasp, we actually are limited by what we grasp at. And to me, this is, in a way, the main problem with grasping, is the fact that we reduce ourselves to just one of the contact we have in the moment. And through that, in a way, we stop any potential from being able to arise, any creative potential. Because by grasping at something, we hold on to it and then we stuck with it. And by being stuck with it, in a way, we magnify it.
And so when you have a problem, in a way, that’s why it feels like you have a problem forever after. That’s why we’re parentalize because we exaggerate. But we exaggerate because we hold on to something in a specific way. And it seems to me that if we instead were to creatively engage upon contact with this stability and openness, then there can be movement, then there can be in a way flexibility, there can be different way to encounter whatever comes towards us or within us. So first, I’d like to go through the senses, to look at contact through the senses.
That in a way we come, we see, we have eyes, we see. And so in a way, we come in contact with whatever we see. And what do we do? What do we do when we see something? For example, if you are the washer upper and you come to the big pile of plates and if you encounter a plate which is full of leftovers, which has not been very well scraped?
Do you encounter it in the same way that you would encounter a plate somebody has deposited with totally clean, very nicely scraped? Or do you go into exaggeration? Oh, really? You know, this person, they always leave all their rubbish. Or and they wasting whatever.
Or, you know, oh, look at the food they waste and proliferation. Exaggeration make the thing bigger than it is and proliferation makes kind of like you go from this one plate to actually, you know, kind of the whole ecology of the universe or whatever it is. You kind of it’s interesting. I’m not saying you want to not be worried about ecology, but it’s interesting to go from one plate to something which is much further from that one plate. And actually, is required of you, in a way, in the contact as a washer upper is to clean the plate.
But what do we do? And to me, this is very interesting. When we see something that we like or we see something that we dislike, what do we do? Very quickly, we grasp, and through that, we exaggerate or we proliferate. Or what it would would it mean to creatively engage with a plate or with a toilet?
Because I presume here too, you have some of you have to clean the toilet. And, again, what do you do? With smell, with dirt, with possibly certain brown forms existing in the toilet bowl. Because that would that was my big fear. When I was a house cleaner for ten years, in my younger days, that was be always my fear that, you know, there would be a big brown turn in the toilet.
I was always kind of coming to the toilet, a little tense, you know. Are they going to be one of those? And in a way, what I was doing is exaggerating. I was exaggerating in a way the dreadfulness of that. Until one day, I was doing meditation but still had to do kind of some cleaning.
And I go down and I open the the kind of the thing, the cover, and there was a big one. And I looked at it. And I saw that it was just a form. So it had a reason as a form, but also it was going to cease because I had to flush the toilet anyway as part of my job. So to see that the creative engagement is not to see it’s not there, but to see it is there.
And in a way to creatively engage and adequately deal with the situation. So in a way to see the difference when we have this grasping and that exaggeration, then often you have this tension. And I think that’s why often we have tension in our life because we grasp. And that generally puts up tension because of the exaggeration, the proliferation. When I think the creative engagement would make us see, oh, what is this?
What do I need to do? How do I need to deal with this? Or if you have some pleasant form, you see something very pleasant. Like seemingly there is a cherry tree in the garden over there, but I also saw a little cherry tree over there in the orchard. And if you love cherry, you might think, oh, you know, I want one of those.
And you might think, well, you know, if I if I take it and everybody take it, then there is no not enough cherry for everybody or whatever. Again, proliferation. Or you could just see there are cherries and they’re just there. And they’re not ripe yet, so anyway, you can’t have them. But in a way to see, what what do we do?
What do we do with kind of just seeing something that is pleasant? Can we just see it as it is? You know, enjoying that there is a tree with cherry in England. I think this is great. And so in a way to see just the form as it is and not necessarily have to do something with it or if it’s necessary to do it.
But also what I think is interesting with visual contact is to become aware of what I would call the double vision. Like often we go about our life with a double vision. We see what is there and next to it, we see what we want to be there. So we want possibly, I don’t know, a better house, a better car. For Steven, it could be a better lawn.
Because in France, it’s very hard to have a really nice lawn, you know, green and all that. It’s very difficult. It’s only like that for about two weeks in the spring when it really rains. And now that lawn is going to turn very yellow, and I can see Steven looking at this lawn. And I can see in a way he sees two lawns.
One which could be an English lawn and a French lawn, which is a little different. And in a way, when we try to make it into a French lawn, into an English lawn, and we line with seeds and all kind of thing. We see it is kind of endless. It’s kind of it doesn’t work. It’s not possible.
And in a way, now we have to engage with this French law. What does it mean to have a lawn in France? You know, like it’s not like in England, there is not so much rain. So just to be with it as it is and to say water but by trying to water it all the time. And just it’s yellow, that’s the way it looks in summer.
And then it gets a little greener later on. But in a way to see, to me this is often we create a lot of tension in our life and a lot of frustration with that double vision of things to kind of notice. Sometime we see ourselves, sometime we see others, sometime we see situation, and to see that this double vision is problematic. Because in a way, we’re grasping at something that is not there. I mean, that you grasp at something that is there, I can understand.
Fair enough. Mhmm. But to grasp at something that is not there is in a way adding something more suffering to the experience. Then there are sounds. There are sounds in the room.
There are sounds outside. And tomorrow I will introduce sounds as an object of meditation of awareness and to really try to work with that contact. When we hear a sound inside the room, somebody might cough, somebody might sneeze, blow their nose, move, whatever it is. How are we with that sound? Are we in a way grasping at the sound and judging it?
Or are we just with the sound as it is? And to me, that’s part of the practice of creative engagement on a retreat, of course, is when we hear a sound to actually not name it. But can we hear the sound just as a sound without representing it to ourselves? Just a sound, a kind of a sound wave in the moment. Can we be with that, you know, with the the experience as it is without naming it?
Because often, as soon as we name it, generally we like it, we don’t like it, and we can again at this exaggeration, proliferation. In daily life, what I found is interesting is mobile phone nowadays. You walk down the street and you think you are alone in the world, though there is lots of people around you, and suddenly somebody is talking to you. Mhmm. And you think, there’s somebody I know here.
And Then you realize you don’t know anybody, it’s just somebody talking on the phone. And I find that very interesting at the level of contact. Because you hear a voice which normally means somebody is talking to me. But actually, it is not so. They’re talking to somebody who is miles away.
And to look at that contact, what do we do? To kind of what do we do with this sound that are around us? People talking on the phone or whatever it is. How can we creatively engage in a way with this new mode of communication, new mode of generating sounds around us? This is one of the favorite activity of Steven, but he cannot do it so much anymore.
This is to go in the quiet compartment in a train, when you’re not supposed to have any mobile phone. And as soon as he sees somebody, he wait for them. I can see. He wait for them. This is his, you know, favorite activity.
He jumps in. He’s not very Buddhist or creatively engaged. But this is interesting. You know, this kind of grasping. And because this is a new thing.
This is a new sound that is around us. What do we do with sound? What do we do with this mobile phone? In a way, how can we creatively engage with that technology? Another thing which is interesting here, because tomorrow I will introduce sound, is a fact actually like this afternoon, it was so silent.
It was so silent. And so actually, this is what is a little difficult. I, you know, I tell you to listen to sound. And actually what you end up doing is listening most of the time to silence. And again, I find that an interesting training because sometimes we love silence and sometimes we don’t like silence whatsoever.
We want sound. We want to hear something. We want noise. We want activity because noise means activity, means life. And I think it’s interesting when we sit in meditation for a whole day, just listening to silence, when there is not much going on and what it means to be focused of not much going on.
And to be with that. Because often what we do is we associate it with boredom. If there is silence, if nothing happens, very quickly we think this is boring. Nothing is happening. Even the meditation, what can I focus on?
And I would say focus on the silence. How quick you creatively engage with sounds, but how also can you creatively engage with silence? Where there being no sound, you know, with nothing happening at that level in this moment. Also words, words are sound. So in a way, at this moment, we you are in silence most of the time.
So it’s true you can hear us. And then what you can you can do is kind of see when we speak, the word we use. What do you do with this? How you how are you in contact with that? Are you exaggerating or does it lead to proliferation?
Or can you just listen? And when you leave the room, just let it be. Just present to that arising and also present to the seizing. But I think often we try to remember talks, but I think generally they come and they go. And then you can’t remember anything of it.
But that’s okay. I don’t think we have to grasp at them in any way. They just appear, they just disappear, but you notice what do we do when we hear words? And how we how we kind of, you know, agree, disagree, or why do they say this? And they could say it this way.
Once, twice. Once I had this I was doing a retreat in Scotland long ago. And in an interview, one fellow came and told me, I don’t like the sound of your voice. You know, because I could see. He was like, oh, I show up at the back of the room.
And I said, well, you don’t have to listen to it. You know, you don’t have to come. I mean, if you if you cannot stand it, you know, don’t come. You’re not obliged to whatsoever. And he still continued to come.
What could I say? Another time, there was a lady who’s that that was very interesting. She came to me and said, I thought, as a Buddhist, I feel you should not say this word. I said, what’s the word? And the word is argue.
You should not say, I argue. That’s not good as a Buddhist. You know, you’re supposed to be, you know, not no war, you know, peaceful, you know. I said, alright. What what else can I do?
So that’s when I said, it is interesting and that kind of I suggest, you know, or whatever it is, but I don’t use a word. But it’s interesting for me to see how can I in a way, what kind of word can I use? What kind of effect does it have? And also for the other people who listen, how do I keep this? How do I come in contact when I listen to a word?
Then there are tastes. And taste, this is again an interesting experience for you at lunch time, especially, but also possibly at breakfast or at dinner to kind of, you know, you see the color of the food and then there is a taste of the food. And what is interesting is very quickly you have the contact with what you see, also what you smell, and then there is a feeling. This looks good. And then you put generally a little more.
And then you sit down and you start to eat it, and it really don’t taste like you thought it would. And you think, how am I going to get rid of this without anybody seeing it? Maybe that’s a person with a plate. But it’s interesting to notice how do I come into contact with what I taste. The contact with the taste itself, and then so quickly, the pleasant.
Unpleasant, and and so quickly, I don’t want it, I want it, I want more. So to see how we’ve taste very quickly, either we exaggerate, god, that tastes awful. Or we proliferate, this is really nice, you know, and then go on and on with it. And in a way, can we be with the taste? Again, creatively engaging with it, just tasting it, knowing it, eating it.
And of course, if it’s not good for our stomach, then not eating it or whatever. But come in again. What does it mean not to grasp at the taste? And that was the experience I had in New Mexico. I was in New Mexico recently, and there was these trees.
I love cherries. And there was these trees with cherries. And so I thought, well, you know, it’s not my center, da da da. You know? And then finally, was curious, so I tried one of these cherry.
Finally, I kind of picked one, and I put it in my mouth, and it was bitter. And then it was very easy not to grasp at this cherry whatsoever. But it’s interesting that, you know, you see something, then you taste it, and then what do you do with that? With the taste, what is interesting, what it shows us is what we do with what I would call newness. And that’s what you can again, in New Mexico, in Albuquerque, in an Italian restaurant.
I have eaten the best, best, best polenta I ever had, And I love polenta. And it’s called me up. And it really really was very nice, very nice. I enjoyed that polenta. I still think about it.
Possibly a bit of grasp ing here. But this is a question. If I had gone the next day to the same restaurant and add the same polenta, would it have been such an amazing experience? Possibly not. Because the first time around, it is new.
The second time around, it is not new anymore. So actually, we will have often a very different experience. So to see how sometime we don’t just grasp at the object itself, but we grasp at the newness of the experience, and then we try to repeat it. So we endlessly, in a way, chasing chasing after new experience. So in a way, to notice that sometime, I think food can show us that quite clearly but of also of course we can see sometimes that with objects.
Then there is smell. And again, in a way to see when there is an unpleasant smell, what do we do? You know, if we go somebody has done a big something in the toilet and we go after, it’s a little kind of, you know, certain odor. What do we do? And it’s interesting.
If it’s us, we don’t mind. If it’s somebody else, we do. But it’s interesting. And you are all of you here. So you can how how can I be in contact with that smell?
Or if it’s a nice smell, a nice fragrance. Yeah. Now there are a few tree who are quite fragrant and you pass, this is very nice. Can we just enjoy it as it is as we pass? Because I think creative engagement is not to enjoy something, but to appreciate it and then to let it be.
Instead of kind of, you know, continuously coming back to that tree, kind of doing standing meditation in front of it. But in a way, can we have that? To me, in the creative engagement, there is movement. In the grasping, there is stasis. There is this kind of, in a way, this stopping of life moving.
Because in a way, we’re continuously in contact. And often what we do by grasping is stopping ourselves from, in a way, having further contact of a different nature. I think it’s important to see often how we obstruct ourselves, our experience through the grasping. Then there is sensation. There is sensation.
Again, we come into contact. This is I think important to see. A sensation arrive. We come into contact with a sensation. It’s pleasant, it’s unpleasant, it’s neutral.
What do we do with that? Do we exaggerate? Do we proliferate with it? Or do we just creatively engage with the sensation in the moment? And I think we can in a way, at the moment, which is extremely rare in England, we can play with heat.
You know, I mean, you go outside and it’s hot, really hot. I even thought I needed a hat today. This is extremely rare in England. And, you know what? What do we do with this heat?
How I mean, it doesn’t mean you have to stand in the heat for ten minutes to really know the creative engagement creative engagement and contact. But as you are in the heat, how can we creatively engage with it? Not proliferate, not exaggerate. How can we engage with being in the cool? So get just the sensation.
How are we with sensation? Then there are thoughts. And again, we come into contact with thought. Often we we think thought are so much present in our head, in our being that we think in a way we don’t see the contact. And to me, this is one of the thing about meditation to see there is contact.
Before, the thought was not there and then the thought has arisen. And so we come in contact with this thought. What do we do with that thought? Do we grasp at it and by grasping at it, really exaggerating it? Because if suddenly in your mind, you have a thought, this is hopeless.
Actually, if you grasp at this, this is hopeless. Everything is hopeless. Everything is meaningless. There is no hope in life. And you become really generally very depressed, very kind of and I would say paralyzed.
And I think this is very important to see that by grasping at the thought, we exaggerate and we proliferate. And I would say meditation actually is to be with thought in a different way. It doesn’t mean we don’t have thought, they appear. But I would say that meditation is a lightening up, making the thought lighter. So they arise, but there is because you don’t exaggerate and you don’t proliferate, you can decide to think.
What I would call, do meditative creative thinking. But then your thinking will be different. It won’t be just repetition because of a lot of the time, our thinking is very repetitive because we have contact with the thought, we grasp at it, and what do we do with that? We just repeat it, and repeat it, and repeat it. And you might have noticed, you have been two days sitting here.
And who knows, you might have a kind of a certain planning thought for a hundredth time. And do you need to have it a hundred, fifty times? Or can you just, okay, planning, let it be. Maybe I don’t need to plan in this moment. I can see the planning and the creative engagement.
Is to see, I don’t need to do this planning now. Or if you want to creatively engage with your thought, you take it up, but you try to think differently about it. To me, this is, you know, if you have really something on your mind, something possibly which is difficult in your life, to look, to to see that to think about it, to focus on it once a day for I would say thirty minutes, but to try to think differently about it. Can I think something about this I have never thought before?