Sailing Through Attachment and Aversion

This morning I left Whangamumu Harbour at 6am on a SE course for Great Barrier Island. I haven’t been there yet, and I’m looking forward to meeting this “yachties paradise”. With 75 nautical miles to cover today I’m not expecting to get there until after dark, wind dependent, so there’s a bit of downtime to think and write. An analogy struck me, and it’s a wonder that it’s never struck me before: Meditation–and especially working with attachment and aversion–is just like sailing. Let me explain. 

For any non-sailors, as much as sailing can seem like a daunting act, it’s really quite simple. Once you understand that the wind is not just pushing the sail, but that the sail is acting like a wing with aerodynamic forces moving on both sides of it, creating lift and actually pulling the boat forward, it’s all quite simple. It then becomes a case of helping the wind hit the sails at just the right angle, which propels the boat forward. I always tell newbies that it’s really easy to sail OK, to get the first 80% out of the boat. The hard part is getting that last 20%. That’s what separates an olympic sailor from the Friday night rum racers. 

There’s no need to get into the deep technicalities of sailing here (and trust me, there are more capable people to teach you if you’re interested), but suffice to know that sailing a boat well is a matter of having things ‘just right’. When you sail too close to the breeze (that is, when you turn into the wind too much), your sails will start flapping all over the show, lines will go flying around and you will start to loose power and drive (someone once told me “a flappy sail is an unhappy sail”). And if you steer too far away from the direction of the wind, you will all of a sudden become overpowered as the sails catch too much wind. Here there is a real chance of getting ‘knocked-down’ and breaking gear. Both of these angles of sail are uncomfortable, inefficient, and should be avoided. 

Now the thing with the wind, especially around the coast, is that it’s not always constant. Sometimes you’ll get a gust or a lull and you’ll need to adjust your angle of sail to account for this change in wind speed. You need to respond to the situation, adjust the boat and keep things locked in that zone of ‘just right’. 

This is exactly the same as dealing with attachment and aversion in meditation. Picture yourself meditating for a moment. You find that space of easeful mindfulness where you settle into the practice and things start to figuratively ‘sail by’. You’re in the zone, just breathing, observing. Next, a thought appears in your mind like an abrupt change in the breeze. The mind wants to react to this thought, to steer towards it with attachment or away from it with aversion. But both of these reactions will take you away from your easeful practice of just gliding through your meditation. Your sails will go flappy, or you will get knocked down. Some moments later you will realise you’re lost in the thought, and that meditative space you created will need to be regained–you will need to get your boat back ‘in the pocket’. 

Now, just like changes in the wind, we can expect thoughts in our meditation. If there is one thing to expect, it is that thoughts will try to upset our practice. What we need to do is knowingly respond to those thoughts and adjust our practice in the moment, just like trimming a sail. 

What this looks like in practice is firstly seeing the thought, then noticing whether the thought has created attachment or aversion, mentally noting it as so, then letting that go and returning to our practice in our breath and body. 

You first learn to notice the thought (the basic practice of mindfulness), then you learn to notice attachment and aversion to the thought. Just as noticing (becoming aware of) a thought takes its power away, the act of placing the resulting attachment or aversion in our awareness similarly reduces its power and starts to unwind it. 

All thoughts generate attachment or aversion. That is the nature of thoughts. So just like responding to a wind change under sail by steering into or away from the breeze, we need to actively respond to our attachment and aversion to get our meditation back on course. 

In fact, we can take the metaphor further. When a gust hits a boat under sail there is actually an opportunity to make it go faster. By being prepared to adjust the sails in just the right way, that extra bit of wind can generate extra power and thrust. In fact, responding to gusts in the right way is where races can be won and lost. Just like this, if we respond diligently and mindfully to our attachment and aversion resulting from our thoughts, knowing that everything is impermanent and constantly changing, we can actually sink deeper into our practice. Our mind is layered like an onion, and each time you notice a thought and the reactions your mind has to it, you cut deeper into your layers of cause and effect. Responding skilfully to attachment and aversion is the path.  

One more thing (this metaphor really keeps giving) and this is a very important point. When you’re sailing you are constantly moving. You’re always going forward and responding to what nature throws at you, nothing is ever still. When we sit in meditation—and actually, when we do anything in life—we sometimes have a felt sense that things are still, constant or even static. This is a fundamental misconception of what life is really like. At every moment of life you are traversing a path of cause and effect, a constantly moving stream of action and reaction. Even inaction is action. Sitting, meditating, sleeping, these are all actions. They are all causes, and they are all effects as well. To understand this is to understand the fundamental Buddhist law of impermanence (annica). Take the position you’re in right now reading this, and instead of the relatively still environment surrounding you, imagine yourself cascading through space and time, a million moments every second careening past you. This is how reality actually works, our mind just paints it as still. 

This might be hard to grasp at first, but perhaps the metaphor of a moving yacht will help you get to know the feeling. Next time you are driving your car, sitting in a waiting room, meditating, consider yourself like a sailboat, cutting through the wind of life, constantly shifting, heeling, and responding to what the universe has thrown your way. 

Understanding yourself as a constantly moving, changing process, not as a static entity, is the most rewarding attitude you can uphold in life, and it all comes down to how your respond to attachment and aversion. 

Fair winds!