In my last post, I mentioned that I’ve been teaching meditations based on a Buddhist discourse called the Honeyball or Honeycake Sutta. This teaching helps us relax our sense of being separate from the world. On one level, it’s about just being with our experiences without reacting to them. That’s the approach most people take. On another, deeper level, it’s about not identifying any of our experiences as “me” or “mine.” We stop thinking, “this is my experience” or “this is me having an experience.” Instead, we just let experiencing happen without thinking of it as something that belongs to us. It’s a radically simple practice once you find your way into it, and helping people find that way is what I strive to do.
As I taught these meditations, my practice often took unexpected turns. For me, meditation isn’t always something I actively do, but something that happens within me. It has a life of its own, and it’s always interesting to see where it leads.
Toward the end of these sessions, I started seeing my experiences as being like a movie. This gave me some interesting perspectives. But before I dive into that, I want to mention another teaching from the Buddha that intertwined with the Honeycake Sutta. This teaching is called the Phena-Pindupama Sutta. “Phena” means “foam,” and “Pindupama” means “lump,” so it’s known as the “Discourse on the Lump of Foam.”
In the Phena-Pindupama Sutta, the Buddha stands by the Ganges River and tells the monks that our experiences are somewhat illusory. Using water metaphors, he explains that the physical forms we see, including our own bodies, are like lumps of foam drifting downriver. Just as a discerning person can see that foam has no substance, we find the same emptiness when we examine physical form.
This might sound strange because our bodies seem so solid. But in meditation, when we delve deeply into the body, what do we really find? All we can experience are sensations. Our mind translates these sensations into concepts like “substance” and “solid,” but they remain just sensations. Sensations we think signify something solid are really just feelings of resistance. When we closely examine these or any other sensations, they lack solidity, existing only as fleeting points of perception. They’re unstable, continually appearing and disappearing. Anyone can verify this with some dedicated observation.
The Buddha also compares feelings to bubbles that form and vanish quickly when raindrops hit the river. We think feelings persist over time, but close observation reveals they’re just internal sensations. Like splashes in a rainstorm, each feeling lasts only for an instant. Feelings and other sensations similarly flicker in and out of existence rapidly. The Buddha asks, “What substance could there be in feeling?”
Later in the discourse, the Buddha moves beyond river metaphors. Thoughts and concepts are like a mirage, emotional impulses are like the pith of a banana tree with layers but no core, and consciousness is like a magic trick. These things lack substance, and this lack can be confirmed in our experiences. Consider your memories, imaginative images, anger, desire, and even consciousness itself—none have true substance.
The Buddha’s metaphors were apt for his time and remain useful today. However, in my life, the most fitting analogy is from cinema. My physical, emotional, and mental experiences are like a movie. My body creates sensations, my brain creates feelings, my mind creates sounds, images, and concepts. All these are insubstantial, observable like a film.
Watching life as a movie makes it less serious. Whether my feelings are positive or negative, they’re something to be appreciated, just like a film’s various scenes. Negative impulses can dissolve when I recognize their unreality. My thoughts, memories, and future imaginings are all movies playing in my mind. Seeing them this way is simple, effective, and new to me, though I’m still refining this understanding.
Some may misunderstand this to mean that nothing matters, but that’s not the case. What really matters is loving everything—especially the parts of us and others that think the movie is real. These parts need our love and compassion, which gives life its meaning. Love and meaning are part of the movie, but also what the movie is about. We don’t have to believe this; it’s simply the way things are, and our task is to see it clearly. Our true nature involves connectedness and compassion.
If we lack love, purpose, and meaning, viewing life as a movie might not be helpful. But with a foundation of love and appreciation, this perspective can deepen those qualities. It frees us from the beliefs and attachments that obscure our sense of connectedness and compassion, revealing our true nature.
Thank you for helping me develop my awareness.