Guided Nondual Meditation with Michael Taft
Introduction
We’re live. Hello everybody, just ensuring ‘don’t disturb’ is on. We don’t need to be disturbed. Who desires to be disturbed? Wouldn’t that be nice in case your mind had a ‘don’t disturb’ switch? Just turn it on and then you definately never feel disturbed by anything. That’s what we’re learning to create in a way with our meditation, a mental ‘don’t disturb’ switch. In order that’s good. Welcome to tonight’s guided meditation, as you already know I’m Michael Taft and you’re whoever you’re. And we’re here tonight together to meditate.
Meditation
So without further ado let’s hop on in. So begin by settling into your meditation posture, as at all times that is sitting nice and upright with an alert posture, okay?
Comfortable, comfortably alert, we would like our body to be joyful and relaxed but additionally upright. If we’re sitting, not leaning against the back of a chair, not leaning against a couch or something, you’re using your back to take a seat up, okay? And this–you possibly can make this really, very easy by having your knees much lower than your hips like possibly you already know just a few inches lower than your hips. And then you definately’ll get that nice curve in your spine, your back goes up straight and just stays there, okay?
Otherwise, you possibly can meditate lying down. I like to recommend having your knees within the air when you do this and your back flat so long as you possibly can stay wide awake. Staying awake is actually, really necessary. You too can, when you’re having trouble staying awake, meditate standing up. But regardless, when you get into your meditation posture I need you to remain there. You will note me in the course of the meditation in case your eyes are open and also you’re watching the screen, which I don’t recommend. Don’t stare on the screen. In case your eyes are open, just type of meditate looking someplace else. But either way, I need you to remain still. And when you’re taking a look at the screen, you’ll notice I’m not staying still, I’m taking drinks, I’m working with the pc sometimes and so forth because I’m running the meditation and I’m speaking so I actually have to drink some liquid. So do as I say not as I do and please remain nice and still in your meditation.
Okay, so let’s begin meditating and what we’re gonna do tonight is begin by taking up the mood of–what do we would like to be the mood of? Let’s meditate again because the sky, okay? So just be the sky and just picture this vast spacious sky. And the properties I need you to type of resonate with and form of express in your meditation are that spaciousness of sky and the boundlessness of sky. You possibly can’t really find the sides of it, the sides are nebulous, so there’s a boundlessness, there’s a spaciousness, there’s room within the sky, and nothing bothers the sky. There will be clouds, there will be lightning, there will be birds flying through it, there will be jets flying through it, however the sky fundamentally just isn’t bothered by any of that. There’s a lot room within the sky and the sky is at all times perfect. It’s not bothered by anything that’s happening in it. So the mood I need you to start with for tonight’s meditation is to be just like the sky. So just take that in for a moment, meditating tackle the mood of the sky; spacious, accepting the skylets, every part arrives inside it and it’s fundamentally undisturbed by all that. It’s boundless.
Okay, so we tackle these properties of sky-like mind or being just like the sky and just take that in and picture that you simply are nothing but sky, the sky that’s spacious and boundless and fundamentally accepting of every part and fundamentally undisturbed by anything. It’s all good with the sky, there’s room for all of it. So just feel that now. It feels good.
Now, in fact, on the earth the sky is stuffed with air, so let’s let go of that visualization
now and just begin our breath meditation. I’m going to begin out by meditating on our breath and to start with we’re just going to easily breathe. Breathe completely normally, don’t change your breath in any way. And I just want you to remember whenever you’re having an in-breath and whenever you’re having an out-breath, that’s it. If you must you need to use a label like then on the out breath That’s it, just stick with the breath in the best most simple manner. Let’s start there.
So just keep settling in, relaxing, being vast and spacious just like the sky, regardless that we let go of the visualization, we’re still having that sense of feeling relaxed or feeling open, feeling spacious, every part’s good. And just stick with the breath. Respiratory in you simply recognize that you simply’re respiration in. Respiratory out we recognize that we’re respiration out, so hang with that.
Good. Now if it’s more comfortable for you, just stick with this sort of respiration, if then again, you must do some light pranayama style respiration, then what I’d such as you to do is 2 things; you’re taking deeper breaths, not super deep, but deeper breaths with longer exhales so the exhales are longer than the inhales, only do that if this feels comfortable for you, after which, if you must; make the exhale really long, you possibly can do your ujaya breath, right? Where you make that sound in your throat by tightening your throat on the out-breath. So that you breathe in type of deep after which out-breath nice and long. Now, this could feel good. Don’t do it if it doesn’t feel good. Take a pleasant deep in-breath, soak up that life-giving oxygen, after which do an extended out-breath. Don’t do it so long that you simply find yourself having to yawn or soak up extra air again. It should feel very nice but we do the breath since it allows us to let that breath go free, that out breath go for even longer, but you don’t need to do the yoga breath, you possibly can just do longer out breath if that feels good. And if the long deep inhales and long exhales don’t feel good, then just breathe normally.
But what we do–we do the deep inhale, long exhale–after which what I need you to do just isn’t only do you already know when the in-breath is occurring and when the out-breath is occurring but I need you to note the top of the in-breath and see the top of the out-breath don’t change them. Don’t, you already know, manipulate it but just notice that moment when it ends. So let’s do this now.
Okay. Good, now I need you to only stick your attention right on that breath, so that you’re noticing every moment of the breath from the start of the in-breath through the whole in-breath to the top of the out in-breath, the start of the out-breath the center of the upper at the top of the out-breath. Just stick your attention right on that and really, really stick with it. Don’t miss any moment of the breath. If labeling helps you to do that, that’s great.
Okay. Good, in order that’s our shamatha for now. We’re going to change on to vipassana–which suggests to note the emptiness of something, on this case, what I need you to note is the emptiness of thoughts. So we go from meditating directly on the breath to meditating directly on pondering. Thoughts are arising within the mind but we notice something really fascinating about thoughts; they’re probably not objects like billiard balls or ashtrays or clocks or something, they are only type of events that go through the mind. You possibly can’t really define the thought–when it starts, when it ends, what it’s product of, what its boundaries are–it’s just form of this moving thing that passes through the mind and you possibly can never pin it down. You possibly can never define it. You possibly can never really find it and so that is the aspect of thoughts that we might call emptiness. Sometimes, if I say I need you to note the emptiness of thoughts, people think what I’m saying is that you simply don’t have any thoughts or that your mind has stopped or whatever. That’s not what I mean, I mean you notice that thoughts are just a few activity passing through awareness.
Remember, once we’re meditating just like the sky, thoughts would just be, you already know, some clouds moving across the sky type of fast, or possibly something just like the wind within the sky, they’re probably not solid, real, necessary things. They’re just moving, changing activities that don’t really hassle the sky in any way. So I need you to note this emptiness of thought now. The minute you get caught up in a thought–now you’re not noticing its emptiness anymore–you’re taking it as real. You’re grinding on it. You’re enthusiastic about it. So remember, what we’re doing here is resting as sky, and just noticing thoughts and allowing the thoughts to either noticing their emptiness or allowing them to only be empty.
Okay, so let’s begin working with emptiness of thought. If this really is mindless and it’s super hard and also you’re totally confused and also you’re just pondering, pondering, pondering, then just return to meditating in your breath, that’s totally wonderful. Thoughts are identical to wind within the sky. It’s not that they’re not there but they’re probably not separate from the sky. So we’ve got this vast sky with these thoughts moving through it. So we’re not attempting to stop pondering. We, actually, welcome all thoughts but we see their emptiness clearly. The sky just isn’t disturbed by the thoughts. The sky doesn’t really change when the wind moves through it, it’s still the sky. And we’re not caught up within the pondering, we’re not adding anything to the pondering, we’re not attempting to follow the pondering, we’re just aware that it’s there and noticing its emptiness.
Let’s just expand this a bit of bit to note that every part that’s arising within the mind is empty; thoughts are empty, again, they’re like wind within the sky, they’re there but not there, they’re there but they don’t disturb. But even emotions–any emotions we could also be having–are empty too, they’re there but not there. The sense of our troubles, the sense of the things we’re involved with, the sense of being sure up, all of it–in experience. And events, all of that’s just empty, right? It’s like wind within the sky. So notice the emptiness of thoughts and feelings and of even being an object called you. There isn’t a object called you. That’s empty, that’s wind within the sky, notice that now.
If it’s a thought, awareness is just aware of the thought and it dissolves into the clear empty sky. Eventually, it’s an emotion, awareness could be very aware of the emotion and it just dissolves into the clear empty sky. We’re not attempting to dissolve it or attempting to make it go away but we’re just noticing that it was empty from the start. It’s identical to ripples within the sky, wind within the sky, it’s not separate from the sky, but neither is it not there in any respect. So just notice that, regardless of what arises, it passes within the mind, and in between arising and passing it’s only a type of a ripple. It’s probably not a thing. And so thoughts and feelings and even our sense of self are simply empty.
Good. So I need you to note that your mind itself is empty, right? It’s identical to an enormous spacious sky of awareness, it’s got room for every part, it accepts whatever arises, thoughts move through it, feelings move through it, the sense of self moves through it, but all of those are only wind within the sky. The sky itself is utterly, completely open and empty, open and accepting, open and clear. So notice the normal metaphor for the way the thoughts and feelings and all this stuff that normally move through your mind are; they simply don’t have any–whenever you see their emptiness they simply don’t have any grip anymore. It’s as if there’s this metaphor that claims a thief comes into your home at night but can’t find anything, there’s nothing to steal and so the thief just leaves, right? So the thief got here in but there was nothing to steal, so the thief left. In the identical way, thoughts might come into your mind, thoughts come into the sky of awareness but there’s nothing for them to persist with, so that they just eventually just type of sail away. Emotions come into the mind, the sky of awareness but there’s nothing to persist with, there’s nothing to grab, to grab onto so that they just eventually sail on their merry way. And even the identical with the sense of being of self, being me with all my problems and stuff, that comes into the mind but there’s nothing for it to grab onto so it just sails on its merry way. And more thoughts come and more emotions come and more sense of self comes but there’s nothing for them to persist with because we fundamentally see that the mind is inherently empty. It’s just an enormous boundless sky of awareness.
Okay, now the subsequent step here, once we see that our mind is empty, thoughts are empty, emotions are empty, even our sense of self is empty, there’s just this clear sky–now the subsequent step is to note that the sky just isn’t nothing, right? The thoughts aren’t nothing, they’re there, they’re just empty. Feelings aren’t nothing, they’re there, they’re just empty. Sense of self just isn’t nothing, it’s there, it’s just empty, and moreover, there’s this sky. What’s the sky on this case? It’s this eternal awareness, it’s the thing that knows the thoughts, it’s the thing that knows the sentiments, it’s the thing that knows the sense of self, nevertheless it’s not separate from them in any respect. It just knows. It’s the knowing. It’s not a knower, it’s not an individual, it’s not a personality, it’s not a thought or feeling, it’s only a sky of pure awareness, and this awareness knows itself since it’s aware. Now what I need you to do is rest as this awareness which you already are. You’re not doing anything to remember, and no thoughts could make you more aware, and no feelings could make you more aware, and no nothing can. So just see the emptiness of all that and rest as vivid, clear, wide awake awareness that just isn’t particularly involved with anything. Let that occur now.
Notice that this just isn’t nothing. That is even not only boundlessness or openness nevertheless it’s awake, it’s aware, it’s crisply awake. Nobody is doing anything to make this awareness occur. It’s just there, it’s at all times there. So just rest as this awareness. Notice the brightness, the clarity, and don’t get entangled in any particular object. If the thought arises, we just let go of it. If emotions arise, we see their emptiness, we just let go of it. If we begin to contract or grab onto anything, just calm down and are available back to only being an open sky. Don’t grab the bird, don’t attempt to grab a cloud, don’t attempt to grab an airplane, they’re all just moving by but we’re resting as sky, vivid, clear sky and all these events are identical to wind within the sky. I need you to note that we’ve been talking about two things; this spaciousness and the notice, right? There’s this vast space and it’s aware but they’re probably not separate, there’s a union here, the union of space and awareness, the union of this vastness and openness, and awareness will just rest in that union now. There’s space and it’s aware. Anything that moves through it’s just a few…only a ripple, it doesn’t affect the openness and it doesn’t fact affect the awakeness, or the notice, in any way. Don’t grab on. Can you simply simply rest as spacious awareness with this union of space and awareness? And when you can’t, and suddenly you grab onto something, all you do is calm down, and the grabbing fist relaxes naturally and opens, and whatever you grabbed onto just falls out. And we just come back to resting as this union of space and awareness that’s at all times there, that’s naturally there with no effort.
One other way of claiming the identical thing is that if thoughts are arising they too are only spacious awareness, emotions arise they’re nothing apart from just aware space, a way of self arises, it’s just the identical vast spacious awareness that’s awake, that’s alert, that is obvious, that’s vivid, that’s vivid. Every thing is just this vast space that’s awareness. And awareness and space are one. They aren’t different, space and awareness are one. Rest as vast spacious awareness noticing that every part that arises is just more of a spacious awareness with no doing, with no grabbing.
Now this space of awareness, this awareness in vast space is of course joyous, it’s naturally kind, it’s naturally warm and loving. And so let the sky of awareness just radiate its love, its kindness, its joy, its friendliness out in all directions. The sky has no boundaries, so just let this joy and kindness and love and caring and compassion just radiate in all directions in all places. Really feel that kindness, love, compassion, caring, flowing in all directions from the sky–sky which has no center within the sky, which has no boundary. Joy and peace and bliss and compassion radiate in all directions, to all beings of each sort in all places. Let’s feel that very, very clearly now. Excellent, so let’s end the meditation there.
Be at liberty to softly move and stretch or simply wiggle your fingers and toes or move your face around or whatever feels good. You wish it to feel really good. And have a drink of water,
wet the proverbial whistle with some water and permit your body to only feel that natural goodness prefer it does.
Dharma Talk
Okay, so it’s really necessary that we learned that the stuff that we’re normally tuning into is wonderful, right? We are able to tune into our each day world and work, do our work. We are able to tune into our relationships and be with others and revel in that. We are able to tune into the fantastic thing about the natural world and profit from that and play with that. We are able to play, we are able to love, we are able to work, we are able to do all this stuff and yet, we do them matters. The traditional way that we’re taught to do them is by being engaged with them. I’m going to fuse with my pondering, and have interaction with my pondering, and even like pretend that I’m my thoughts. After which I’m like type of glomming into pondering after which I’m my thoughts. And even, more preciously, more deeply, I think I’m my emotions and I’m gonna glom into every emotion that arises, and just be that emotion. And there’s my sense of self, who I’m on this planet, and what others take into consideration me, and if my boss likes me, and thinks I’m great, and if the web thinks I’m cool because I post pictures of doing cool things, and that type of sense of self on this planet. I’m going to glom onto that, and when it goes up a bit of bit I’m going to feel that, and when it goes down a bit of bit I’m going to feel that. And we could just keep moving around with these different changes, right? The thoughts are constantly changing, (I’m turning on some lights here) the emotions are constantly changing, my sense of self on this planet is constantly changing, and that changingness if I’m glommed into it, then it’s identical to being a tennis shoe in a dryer, right? It’s just all day long and as much as you are trying to manage that it’s just gonna keep turning and turning and turning.
Within the type of traditions of South Asia, or the Asian spiritual traditions, we might call that state samsara, right? The wheel of suffering is identical to turning and turning and it just never stops, type of having this nature of just being. It’s never what we would like it to be, it just turns and turns, and it’s at all times mistaken, and in order that’s the Eastern spiritual, the quote “Eastern”… the Asian word is samsara. But within the west, the normal vision is a tennis shoe and a dryer, right? A stinky tennis shoe and a dryer, just type of gha-gha-gha-gha bump, and in order that’s what we’re taught to do, that’s how we’re taught to live, to glom on to thoughts, to glom on to feelings, to glom onto our sense of self. And that’s going to lead to us just bouncing around, bouncing around, bouncing around, and each considered one of those bounces hurts.
And so sometimes people say, well, we would like to stop the thoughts, and we would like to only have good emotions, and we would like our sense of self to be this, you already know, form of a positive thing. All of that’s unnecessary, you possibly can do this, you possibly can go right into a deep meditative state, especially when you go right into a retreat for like three months or six months or a yr and do you already know your…you’ll get to a spot where you might have no thoughts all day long and that feels good, it does, sure, since you aren’t…there’s no thoughts to glom onto. They’re just not there and so it’s not painful in that way. Or you already know, we are able to work on attempting to only have positive emotions by being in our special you already know room on a regular basis with our beautiful things and you already know…but these ways of working are fragile, right? For those who need a meditation retreat to get your thoughts to go to zero, the minute you come out of the retreat the thoughts spin up again and guess what, you haven’t learned to not glom onto them. As soon as they’re–once they weren’t there you simply couldn’t glom on, but once they’re back you glom on again. In order that retreat experience vanishes in a short time.
Same thing when you’ve got a setup to only feel good, since you’ve got just the best flowers and excellent incense and you usually feel good whenever you’re in that room. And that way the minute you permit the room, you’re glomming onto emotions. And boy, the massive one, as soon as someone says, “Oh, I just like the thing you said on Twitter,” you already know we glom onto that, and we feel good. Or you already know you say something on Twitter and someone you respect is like, “Oh my god, that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” now your sense of self goes down. We’re glommed onto it. We feel terrible. So these situations are only the situational glomming of thoughts and feelings and sense of self.
It comes back, it comes back instantly if we’re doing practices which might be trying to only calm it down. It’s necessary that we learn to not glom on and if we learn that, then it doesn’t matter how much thought is occurring, it doesn’t matter what type of feelings are happening, our social situation on this sense doesn’t matter because we’ve learned to not be it, right? We’ve learned that it’s empty, it’s not a thing, and subsequently it’s not an identity. All those things are happening but they’re happening on this vast space of awareness, and it’s an enormous space of awareness, and that vast space of awareness just isn’t something we are able to glam into either, but we are able to rest because the vast space of awareness. Okay? We rest as vivid, clear, awake awareness and we are able to rest in. And once we’re resting as awareness, awareness just isn’t a tennis shoe and a dryer, it’s an enormous sky that’s at all times peaceful, that’s loving, that’s joyous, that is actually vivid, that’s really awake, after which if there are thoughts happening? Great. If there are other emotions happening? Great. If there are social feelings happening? Great, right? All that’s wonderful because we’re resting as this natural awareness and it’s spacious, there’s room, there’s room for every part to occur.
Now people can think that this awareness is super special, but like I’ve been type of yelling at everyone about for several weeks now, it’s not a special state. It’s at all times there, okay? You don’t need to, you already know, make a special awareness occur. It’s at all times there. People feel—I often
hear like, “while I used to be, you already know, attempting to make my awareness vast…” and it’s like—no, it’s already vast! It’s at all times vast. You don’t do anything to make awareness vast. That’s its nature.
Or, you already know, “I used to be attempting to have more awareness” and it’s like, you already know, that’s an English phrase, and we all know what which means, like, “I need to have more awareness about my eating,” it just means to listen to it. In order that’s a superbly normal way of speaking but in the best way we’re talking now, on this awareness that we’re describing, you possibly can’t make more of it. It’s at all times there and it’s at all times all the best way on, right? So it’s already vast, it’s already spacious, you don’t need to in some way make it spacious. It’s already aware, that’s its nature, that’s what it’s. Let me put it one other way, you already know if there’s space, then it’s already aware, and if awareness is already aware, it’s naturally spacious, right? There’s nothing to do, moreover, as we’ve seen, the one who thinks they’re doing anything in any respect is empty anyway. We’re doing these meditations, however the deeper we go into the meditation the clearer it’s that there’s that the sense of the self doing it–that’s empty too. Doesn’t mean there’s no meditation, meditation is occurring but nobody’s doing it, and it’s just type of naturally unfolding. Awareness rests in itself, awareness is spacious and really wide awake and at rest. Arrests, it’s the alternative of a resting, it rests in itself absolutely with none effort in any respect.
Okay, so we do make efforts to do that shamatha a part of our meditation, where we’re just attempting to calm things down a bit to make this easier to note. And we do make effort in our vipashyana to see the emptiness, see the emptiness, see the emptiness, but eventually, we see the emptiness of effort, after which we just rest as vast spacious awareness. Now if that gets clogged up with a bunch of feelings that you simply’re glomming onto, don’t fight, just come back to resting as spacious awareness. For those who can’t do this, if that’s too hard, each time I attempt to rest I’m still caught up within the thoughts and feelings, okay, back up, do the vipashyana on emptiness, notice the emptiness of the thoughts and feelings time and again and over. If that’s too hard just return to meditating in your breath, that can chill things out a bit of bit, you’ll feel a bit of more relaxed and open, so that you simply at all times know what to do, okay?
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