Live Guided Nondual Meditation by Michael Taft
Streamed survive Feb 10, 2022
Introduction
Hi sentient beings, you already know, normally I make an inventory of beings you is likely to be like; hello humans or non-humans or alien beings. Tonight, as a substitute of creating the list, although I suppose I just sort of have made the list, tonight I’m going to only say hello sentient beings, beings with sentience, beings who’re conscious, we could also say samsarins but I’m not going to assume that you simply aren’t bodhisattvas. I’m not going to assume that you simply’re trapped in samsara. So I won’t call you samsarin but I’ll say sentient beings. Hello, hello my earthly name, they call this earthly vessel Michael Taft, at the least on this planet which is a technique of interpreting the term earthly. And I’m here with you this evening or every time you’re watching this to do some guided meditation.
Meditation
We’re going to do something really fun tonight so let’s jump right in. What I’d wish to have you ever do is take your seat, your meditation seat and prepare to do the thing. In order usual I would like you to–if you happen to’re sitting in a chair–scooch away from the back of the chair, allow your back to carry up your back as a substitute of the chair to carry up your back. But hopefully, you’re sitting on a meditation cushion, one which has your knees lower than your hips and that makes sitting up straight very easy so that you simply’re not doing it with a lot effort. But you may also lay down. You too can stand. Just be comfortable and alert. And normally we do sort of an extended section of resource gathering and sometimes, as you already know, if you happen to’ve been doing these meditations, I like doing those where we have now a picture for sitting. Sometimes we sit like a mountain. Sometimes we sit like an ocean, that sort of thing. Tonight we’re going to do a complete sequence of those so let’s just–we’re going to skip the resource gathering because in a way the entire meditation is resource gathering, okay? Or at the least three-quarters of it. So we’re going to essentially be specializing in that part tonight.
So just settle in and I would like you to recollect and produce up for yourself; why are you meditating? Why did you make the time to come back here and meditate? What’s your reason for meditating? Get that clear. That helps to bring a little bit more energy, a little bit more intention to the sit. So just state that aloud to yourself unless you’re within the room with other people then silently state it to yourself.
After which what I’d such as you to do is; let’s just spend possibly just a few minutes just meditating on respiratory. So we’re just going to do easy shamatha with the breath. Simply to all join together here and to start allowing the system to settle together, to sort of come together, to integrate. So what I would like you to start doing is solely respiratory in and respiratory in and out a really gentle light easy way following that body sensation of respiratory in and respiratory out we’re going to do that for about five minutes after which we’ll get going with sort of the principal meat of the meditation here if you should and provided that it’s comfortable I’d such as you to do deep belly respiratory during this part, not like pranayama, but just deep belly respiratory. And with long out-breaths, even if you happen to don’t do the deep belly respiratory, see in case your out-breaths could be longer than your in-breaths. These are often done through the nose, respiratory in and respiratory out through the nose but you breathe in after which long out-breath and one method to make this easier is to do the ujjayi breath, the Darth Vader breath. So on that out-breath, you do the thing that makes your voice do this–but in fact, you’re not speaking but it surely’s the thing that makes your voice do this and also you’re just respiratory that way and that lets you regulate the speed of the out-breath and you may make it nice and long. And in fact, this goes without saying, don’t do it in any way that’s uncomfortable, you already know don’t make yourself get out of breath or something like that. Do it in a way that’s easy, a way that’s healthy, a way that doesn’t strain the system.
Okay, so long and short in-breath or regular in-breath after which long, long, long, long, long, long out-breath. And also you’re just staying with that. In the event you want you should utilize a label to enable you to stick with it so after which And really feel that in-breath and feel that out-breath. So let’s do that for a little bit while together. And just stick with that feeling of the in-breath and stick with the sensation of the out-breath really allowing it to settle the whole lot and allowing you to feel integrated and picked up and grounded.
Okay. Good, and now only for a moment, like one minute, I would like you to only confide in the already existing naturally present vast spaciousness of your personal awareness. So just chill out as open awareness, not forcing it to be open but allowing yourself to only notice that awareness itself is of course boundless vast open comfy shiny clear, and so forth. And just notice that for just a little bit while here.
Okay. Good. Now we’re going to undergo a five-element meditation here. That’s going to be the beginning we’ll do a little bit bit after the top but we’ll start out with a five-element meditation so we’re going to start and I would like you to take a seat like a mountain. So that is in fact the earth element and the earth element in this manner of serious about elements. Again, these are the normal elements, so there’s just five: earth, air, fire, water, space. And so we start with earth. Sit like a mountain and so I would like you to feel–tune into the sense of tremendous groundedness, tremendous stability, to a way of integration and cohesion, right? So sit like a mountain there’s this sort of immovability. And so with this earth energy, we feel our scattered mind becoming unscattered and picked up. We feel our sort of like possibly energies which can be in every single place coming into cohesion. The earth element has that sense of gravity, things coming together and clumping and stabilizing and becoming integrated and solid. So sitting like a mountain also has this sense of permanence and stability and even nobility, right? So begin by sitting like a mountain–whatever which means to you. And let’s work with that element first this earth energy, this sitting like a mountain is great, as I said if you happen to feel scattered or you are feeling off balance just tuning in to the pull of gravity and the solidity and stability of the earth element. Remembering the body has a whole lot of earth element and it’s very soothing and stabilizing, very collecting and connecting. So just notice how good it feels to take a seat like a mountain; the earth energy.
Okay. Superb. That’s sitting like a mountain; the earth element. Now we’ll go to the subsequent element so as and that’s the water element. And so the image here is to take a seat like an ocean, a peaceful ocean. And once we sit with the water element, we feel the sense of calmness, we feel the sense of fluidity and we feel a deep sense of peace and luxury and ease. Water is effortless.
Okay? And in fact, it’s an enormous ocean of water, and in fact, your body itself is principally water, right? It’s mostly water and the blood moving in your veins could be considered water, there’s the lymph, there’s all the assorted fluids but even our mind has a water element of this sense of deep fluidity and peace and ease and luxury and effortlessness. So now sit like an ocean tuning into these qualities. So just notice the soothing comforting qualities of this water, the fluid ease-full effortlessness of it, and, in fact, the vastness of the ocean of water.
Okay. Good. So we sat like a mountain with the earth element after which we sat like an ocean with the water element. The subsequent element is fire. Remember last week we sat as fire and the image here often I might use is the sun. In the event you want you should utilize the sun like a ball of fireside or you should utilize something nice like a campfire or a hearth in a fire. Whatever works for you as a picture of fireside. And fire is a superb element to meditate as. It’s the essence of joy and creativity and inspiration and in fact, fire could be very purifying, and it’s very mobile, right? So it has this real sense of creative joy, creative inspiration but in addition a way of purification. So sit as a hearth and in addition feel that warmth and the comfort of fireside, right? It’s very wonderful. So enjoy the hearth element either as like a campfire and even something just like the sun.
Within the history of meditation practice, fire has been a extremely vital element, a extremely vital image, again for purification but in addition the entire idea of meditation is typically in comparison with a hearth. It’s the hearth during which we burn off the impurities or burn off the dross leaving this tremendous energy of fireside, the enjoyment of fireside, and the heat and luxury of fireside. So sitting as a hearth could be very powerful.
Feeling the enjoyment of that fireplace meditation we now move to an excellent lighter so to talk element which is air. So with air, I would like you to assume being wind, a delicate breeze, and even a powerful wind, and the air element is all about movement. It’s about flexibility. Again, if we imagine this sort of boundless wind with a type of energy of movement, energy of change this could be very powerful–especially if you happen to feel stuck or you are feeling depressed or you are feeling down–this energy of air could be very uplifting. It’s very–it gets things moving again. And in fact in tantrism, in yoga, and so forth that is the element that we’d call prana, right? The element that we’d call chi or lung it’s the really vital element for a whole lot of spiritual practice, a whole lot of meditation practice. So sitting just like the wind and feeling that movement and alter and suppleness could be very impermanent. Identical to the hearth–really impermanent feeling element and this offers you the flexibility to vary. It gives you the flexibility to maneuver and in addition energizes the entire body in a extremely nice way. So let’s notice this energy of air. So meditating just like the wind. After we tune into the energy of air, once we meditate just like the wind, this brings a whole lot of equanimity because we’re flexible. We are able to handle whatever is coming up because we have now flexibility and the flexibility to vary and move. So the wind element can–and meditating just like the wind or the air element–it could bring an amazing sense of equanimity, even with all of the movement, all of the change, there’s this sense of like, “yeah, we will roll with that.”
Okay. Good, that’s the air element, meditating just like the wind and now let’s do my favorite meditating like space, like infinite unbounded space, the fifth element on this tradition. And once we meditate like space we’re noticing that there may be boundlessness there’s room and there’s an actual sense of openness and acceptance of the whole lot. We are able to notice that space is special, right? All the opposite elements exist in space, and arise in space, and pass in space. And space is the closest element to only pure awareness itself. So meditate like vast boundless space and see that there’s just room, there’s barely enough room for the whole lot, and we will handle whatever’s arising because there’s just a lot openness. Space is accommodating, right? The whole lot on the earth, whether it’s good or bad, or big or small, or hot or cold, or whatever it’s all given space, right? It has enough space to be. So space has this tremendous quality of accommodation and openness and a sort of–again, only a sort of a way of room for the whole lot. So now, just sit like space, like vast spaciousness. Notice how peaceful and the way much ease it brings to take a seat as this vast space, just allowing the whole lot, being with the whole lot, totally open, totally free vast space.
Okay. Good, now let’s move from the five elements directly into awareness itself, which remember could be very very similar to space. I all the time say vast spacious awareness, right? So in other words we let go of those elemental ideas, we let go of any visualization or any imagination and just rest in our nature as vast spacious awareness. Now, what’s the difference between space and awareness? Space is non-conscious but awareness, in fact, is what consciousness is. It’s conscious, but in every other way it’s very very similar to space, so it’s vast spacious but awake. It’s awake. It’s aware. It’s experiencing.
So now I would like you to only sit as awareness itself, not engaging with anything, not grabbing on to anything, simply resting as your deep nature, which is awareness itself; wide awake, quite aware, shiny and clear. Remember, the thought here is to not get entangled with anything. Awareness itself allows for the whole lot, allows all the weather, allows for thoughts, allows for feelings, allows the world to arise but it surely isn’t involved with anything. So if you happen to end up getting involved just drop that, come back to only resting in your nature as vast spacious awareness. Awareness itself is sort of a mirror, the whole lot is reflected in it, but not one of the reflection, not one of the things reflected actually disturb the mirror or change the mirror in any way. There could be every sort of scene going by. There may very well be a nighttime scene, a daytime scene, a number of people, no people, forest animals, cityscapes with skyscrapers, all that. All reflected within the mirror and the mirror is uninvolved with any of them, unchanged by any of them, and yet perfectly reflecting, perfectly clear. So sit as vast spacious awareness with this sense of unaffectedness, this sense of uninvolvement.
Okay. Good, now inside this awareness notice that space is there. Space is arising. The element of space is there. There’s room, there’s spaciousness, there may be accommodation, right? So we have now space there and in addition notice that the element of air is there, the movement, the change, the wind, the sense of the flexibility to unstick. That impermanence is there and in addition, in fact, the energy of wind, tremendous energy. So inside awareness, there’s the space, there’s the air, after which there’s the hearth element–that sort of joy and inspiration and creativity, the heat and the purification of fireside, okay?
We are able to feel the air that we’re respiratory with our body. We are able to feel the heat of our body, right? We are able to feel the space in our body that enables the heat and the air that we’re respiratory to be there. After which we feel the water element, right? We feel our blood and we feel the fluidity of our body and in addition this sense of comfort and ease and that real sense of effortlessness of the water. After which there may be the earth element, the soundness, our bones, and our weight, and that sense of cohesion and groundedness and connectedness and stability and solidity that’s so characteristic of the earth element. So inside awareness, all these five elements are present and just sit with that now. Feeling them integrate, feeling them interact in a super manner. They’re just flowing into one another and turning into each other and balancing in order that we have now, just up inside ourselves, an ideal harmony of those elements.
Good. Now let’s let all of those elements come along with a way of joy and inspiration and a way of freedom and openness and movement and a way of connectedness and a way of ease and openness and beam out love and joy to the entire world, beaming out, radiating out a way of inspiration and creativity and aliveness to the world, beaming out a way of healing and strength to the world, and beaming out a way of equanimity and openness and accommodation to the world. So really, really just feeling how all of those five elements arising inside awareness are only streaming out to your complete universe, to the multiverse, to each sentient being within the multiverse, to whom all these meditations are freely given, we beam out this joy, this healing, this sense of peace and ease, creativity, inspiration, groundedness, openness, the flexibility to vary, the flexibility to purify. We’re wishing the entire universe and each being within the universe, the entire multiverse, and each being within the multiverse, we’re wishing them well, including ourselves. I would like you to only radiate out, beam out, flow with that energy now.
Okay. Good, let’s end the meditation now.
Dharma Talk
That was a pleasant meditation, right? It’s good to attach with these elements. So allow your body to get cozy and move and stretch and feel yourself moving. The body loves to maneuver, regardless that in meditation, once we’re doing this sort of meditation, I’d such as you to stay very, very, very still, once we’re done meditating then we get into the enjoyment of movement, at the least a little bit bit. Feel, allow your body to only do what it must do, don’t get in the best way, don’t prescribe what you think that it should do, but feel into what it desires to do. And possibly have a drink of water. The white one is water, so we can have some water here. There’s a little bit little bit of lemon in it too. That’s very nice.
And so let’s speak about this for a minute. So, in fact, regardless that I’m calling these in modern English these aren’t elements, right? Elements are things like beryllium and cobalt, but in the traditional way of speaking, these are the element’s ancient meaning of the term. And in fact, these terms change over time, like, for instance, the term right? Now it has a really specific meaning, not the sun or the moon, a planet is a really defined thing. But originally planet comes from the Greek word which just means something that’s moving within the sky. Because planetos means wanderer, something that’s moving within the sky, and specifically it meant stuff that’s moving against the background, the supposedly fixed background of those stars. So originally the meaning was way more open similar to the word , right? Now it’s got a really specific definition, highly precise, mathematical, blah blah, but in fact, in years and centuries passed by we could use the word energy in a way more open way. The definition is rather a lot looser, and the identical with elements. So I’m using an earlier, looser definition that has–it’s a little bit bit more like what we’d now call states of matter, right? So there’s solid and liquid and gas and that might be earth and water and air, right? After which there’d be fire, the energy, right? And space continues to be the room for it to occur. It’s like space, space-time.
In order that’s sort of a fun semi-translation of how we could take into consideration what we mean by these elements now, but in fact, it’s more of a way of serious about some different states of mind, some different states of our own internal space, and possibly even the external space. Again, with these states of matter, you already know the issue is now there’s latest states of matter like plasma and superionic ice, all types of stuff that don’t really…you already know, people keep discovering these states of matter so it doesn’t really fit the five element scheme either. So we’re just going to say the five-element scheme is its own thing, right? It’s its own imaginary way of considering the world and it’s actually quite a pleasing way and a useful way and sort of a creative and interesting method to take into consideration things. After we do–you already know every time once we start a meditation, fairly often we only do one in every of these, so I desired to have a meditation tonight where we do all of them together and feel how they integrate and in addition feel how they exist inside awareness itself. And that’s a strong thing.
If we were doing traditional practices like tantric style practices, we use the weather in very specific ways. If we’re doing–even further back, like shamanic practices, we use the weather otherwise. If we’re doing non-dual-like meditation traditions, we will even use the weather in a 3rd way, right? And we did a few of that tonight where–notice once we went to awareness the weather are there but now we’re not using them as sort of states of mind, we’re saying there are things which can be arising inside awareness itself. And so there’s sort of other ways to–or let’s imagine different levels at which we’re engaging this concept of the traditional elements, or this more open way of serious about elements.
And in fact, there’s even using them psychologically like–oh, I feel depressed so I’m going to meditate on air because that offers me freedom and movement and you already know it sort of loosens things up because depression can feel like a sort of stuckness. Or–I’m feeling type of flat and dull and uninspired so let’s usher in some fire element because that’s inspiration and creativity and it’s got energy. Or–I’m feeling all scattered and my brain is in 600 places, oh hey, let’s bring that earth element that has that cohesion and collectedness and stability, you already know. Or–I feel like I’m working too hard and the whole lot is difficult and so let’s usher in water. The water element, which is effortless and has that sense of ease and luxury. Or–the whole lot’s just too up in my face, I’m anxious because there’s just an excessive amount of occurring and there’s no time to reply and the whole lot’s too…and so let’s usher in the space because within the space there’s just good enough room for the whole lot to occur. In order that’s sort of a psychological method to work with these. There’s you already know there’s just so many levels and so many techniques and so some ways that we will play, creatively play, with this concept of those five elements.
So I’m not suggesting that that is the one true way of viewing the world or something, but it surely is a superb method to work, and it’s excellent for meditation, excellent also psychologically, you already know, too as a metaphor. But additionally as type of like properties to tackle. We are able to see where we’re imbalanced and tackle these elemental properties at the least as an imagination exercise.
So there you will have it; some five-element meditation and if you happen to go way back, I haven’t done this for some time, but if you happen to go way back to the mandala meditation that we have now done prior to now on these YouTube videos we will make those work together too. That becomes very interesting where the–remember we have now the mandala with the five quadrants, well there’s a reason it’s five quadrants because those quadrants match elements and we will tackle those properties as well. So it gets really interesting. It’s sort of a thing to assist organize our practice, but in addition only a fun method to play with life and to play with experience, right? So there you will have it.
I feel the purpose I used to be making while we were meditating that I would like to come back back to is that space is sort of the super element. All the opposite elements arise in space after which awareness is outside of the weather but it surely’s most like space. But in fact, additionally it is conscious. So we will say all those five elements, regardless that the 4 elements arise in space, all five of them arise in awareness and we will–similar to the whole lot–experience itself is arising in awareness. The sense of our personality, the sense of our body arises in awareness. The sense of stuff happening outside; arising in awareness. So all of that comes back to the whole lot arising in awareness and if we go way more deeply we will say even all of the things arising in awareness aren’t separate or different from awareness, right? So there’s a much deeper teaching available there as we begin to learn to contact awareness.
It’s funny after I say contact awareness because My query, that is my koan for you; what’s it that contacts awareness? I often use that phrase, hey we’re contacting awareness or we’re stabilizing our contact with awareness, but if you happen to give it some thought deeply, who or what’s contacting awareness? And once you do this, and in fact the sort of typical answer the straightforward answer is; well I’m. But what do you mean once you say I? Because in fact, the teaching here, at the least a part of the teaching, is that you already know typically once we say “I” we mean my thoughts and feelings and possibly my body, but really deeply my emotions and my thoughts, that’s me. Because you can, for instance, lose an arm in an accident and that might be tragic, so a part of your body’s removed but really your thoughts and feelings are still right? You’re not–you wouldn’t consider that as changing the essence of your being irrespective of how much it modified your life. So regardless that we do tend to consider the body as us, much more deeply we predict of the thoughts and emotions as us. But that is one in every of the primary stuff you learn in meditation; the thoughts are only changing and moving on a regular basis, those can’t be you, the emotions are only changing and moving on a regular basis, that’s not you. So who’s you? Right? is you? If anything it’s the attention during which the thoughts and feelings are arising, and in fact we–there’s problems if we attempt to decide on awareness as a solid thing but where, in truth, it’s empty. But still there’s a giant move to see oh after I say, “I’m connecting with awareness,” we sort of should get it but it surely’s awareness that’s connecting with awareness. And awareness was never separate from itself.
So once we quote connect with awareness all we’re really doing is relaxing into what’s already there. That’s why I kept saying our natural, already existing being as awareness, right? That’s all the time there, all we do is chill out into that. You don’t make that blissful. You don’t really connect with it. You don’t someway turn into aware of awareness, you’re already aware. That’s the essence of your being. If there may be an essence, it’s awareness itself. Funny because essence is one other way of talking about elements but I mean otherwise, right?
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