Guided Nondual Meditation with Michael Taft
Let’s begin with somewhat little bit of seated movement, whatever you wish. Circles can be good. Don’t just move, actually tune into moving. Feel your hands moving. If you happen to can, notice the sensation of the hands moving. Then get your elbows going, too. Tuning into it. Move your head some. You don’t should follow what I’m doing, just let your body move, but keep tuned in: don’t try. Then get your spine going, your shoulders going, so numerous circles. Every thing’s a circle, but you may do it in whatever pattern you wish–or non-pattern–or mixture of each pattern and non-pattern. Or neither pattern nor non-pattern. The tetralemma of circle movements. Just keep feeling the way it feels to maneuver like that. If you happen to can, find something that feels good, and do it a few times. Just let your body feel good.
Get up somewhat bit to the body. Tune in, and feel the circles, okay? Then start bringing them in, making them smaller, not tighter, just smaller. Still loose, still open, but they may be little. Really feel the sense of energy increasingly more to the middle. Then steadily smaller and smaller, feeling it, feeling it. Stay tuned in. Then steadily you’re making a circle that’s so small that you would be able to’t actually tell should you are making a circle or not. But you may still feel it, feel it, feel it, as you might be doing it. Now, are you continue to, or are you continue to kinda making a circle? Then, that’s the spot.
Superb, then from this place, as usual, I need you to ask yourself the query: What’s it prefer to be me right away? Don’t assume you already know the reply, but relatively, look, feel, tune in. What’s your thought realm like? What’s your body sensation realm like? What’s your emotional world like? What’s the general psychic weather for you right away? Just tune into that. And see if, as a substitute of analyzing it, or criticizing it, or trying to alter it or control it, you may just let it’s the best way it’s. Exactly the best way it’s right away. Let’s sit with that for a number of minutes together.
Now, begin with just allowing your mind to be wide open. Sometimes I say, Meditate such as you’re the sky, which is similar request, but I’ll say it with less fervor, and say, let your mind stay nice and open. Your awareness, nice and open, relaxed, brilliant, clear awareness. Remember, there’s nothing to do to make awareness open or brilliant or clear. It’s already like that, just noticing that.
And, as usual, notice should you are engaging with thoughts, hanging onto thoughts, following thoughts, spinning with thoughts, tumbling like a tennis shoe in a dryer with thoughts, you only let go of that. And by let go, I mean don’t engage. The thoughts may be there, we like thoughts. Thoughts are cool, they will occur as much as they need. Just don’t engage. Metaphorically, we are only going to set the machinery of thought aside. It will probably run as much because it wants, but we’re going to set it aside. As a substitute, stay on this nice, clear presence. It’s very easy to do, so long as we put aside engagement with thought.
If you happen to end up engaging with thought, disengage. Come back to presence. Presence just means wide open, brilliant clear awareness that’s already there. So, sitting with spacious clear openness. Any engagement with thought, we just drop it. Simply drop it. And you would possibly should drop it every 5 seconds for the entire meditation, and that’s high-quality, you only drop it. You’re not fighting considering. Pondering can occur, you’re just not engaging. Not struggling to disengage, just disengage, and are available back to presence.
So, we come back to presence by dropping the ball of thought, just drop it. The image is of a form of dog that if you play fetch, they grab the ball and won’t let go and just growl at you [grrr]. And also you go drop it, drop it and so they won’t. Here we would like to only drop it–open your mouth and let the ball drop out. What we are inclined to do all day long is bite on and go grrr and never let go of it. Here we are only dropping the ball. We open and the ball drops out.
There’s no struggle in any respect. There could be work within the sense of: you may have to do it again and again, however it’s not a struggle, you only loosen up and let the ball drop out. It could be work because you may have to do it numerous times, but still, all you do is loosen up, and are available back to presence. If it’s not that easy so that you can rest as open awareness, regardless that that’s already there, it could be not that easy to search out. It’s okay to come back back to another presence, like listening to the room, or feeling your butt on the cushion, or something along with your breath. Whatever you might be coming back into presence with, don’t get tight or stiff or narrow and concentrated. We’re staying relaxed and open and spacious.
It will probably be much easier to remain alert and present with our eyes open. With this type of meditation, you don’t should have your eyes open. It’s not a requirement, but, it does are inclined to make it quite a bit easier. Just because you should remain spacious and alert. Sometimes after we close our eyes, we are able to get dull or form of collapse inward, and we would like to not sleep and present and spacious.
Every time you end up latching onto the spinning wheel of thought, it’s going to begin spinning you and spinning you, just let go, and also you’re back to spacious presence. All you’ve got to do is to let go repeatedly of that wheel you grab onto. The wheel of samsara is admittedly just the wheel of considering that you simply grab onto. It’s all the time a alternative, it’s never making you hang onto it, just can’t let go. This won’t result in a special state, it can result in a very easy presence in the conventional moment, but it can be a standard moment without samsara.
The difficulty with doing that is that you would be able to’t be involved with all of your stories. And after we will not be involved in our stories, we will not be distracted, and after we will not be distracted, we’re forced to feel what we are literally feeling. And to be with this particular moment, and that’s often what people hate essentially the most. Wouldn’t need to be with my actual feelings and just face the groundless space of this moment. I’d much relatively be caught up in my drama or in my stories, or my stories about stories, or my Harry Potter part 7a, or whatever, than simply be on this moment, nakedly.
We use all those stories like thick padding and mattresses and football pads and armor against just the naked brilliance and openness and groundlessness and almost intolerable fantastic thing about this moment. However it also has pain.
All we’re doing is just, each time we’re grabbing onto the considering, just drop the ball–drop it, drop it! After which, being with whatever you’re feeling or whatever is there. Perhaps you may have a stomach ache, that’s what’s there, okay. Just keep returning to the spacious open presence of clear awareness on this moment. And also you do this by just dropping the ball. If you happen to pick it up, drop it again. Sometimes it stays dropped, and you only should be with that. Even whether it is painful or unpleasant, boring, upsetting, or whatever. Even when it is definitely quite difficult, without the wheel of thought, the turning wheel of thought being engaged, it can still be spacious, it can still be free. It’ll still be alive.
Really, meditation comes right down to the query, Are you able to sit in a quiet place with none distraction and never get eaten alive by your mind? That is one strategy to do this, learn to drop the ball. Each time you decide it up, just loosen up, let it drop.
I’m going to ask you a matter, and I need you to reply without picking up any thoughts. You don’t need to make use of your considering mind to reply this query. All you’ll want to do is look, or simply do it, in actual fact.
So here’s the query: Am I present for my life right away? Right away? You may look, or you may actually be present, but don’t give it some thought. It’s a matter to look into, to analyze. Am I present for my life right away? Look again. I’ll just keep asking, so just keep looking. Am I present for my life right away? Again, after we come into presence, it won’t be any special moment of anything but presence. That’s what’s special about it–you’re present, you’re not lost within the samsara of thought, you’re not lost within the machinery of considering. So keep asking yourself the query, and keep looking. What’s the reply right away? What’s the reply right away?
Once we’re caught up in considering, it’s like we’ve put ourselves in a cage. The minute you drop engagement with the thought. Again, the thoughts can still occur, we’re not stopping, we’re dropping the engagement. The minute you drop the thought, you’re out of the cage!
In order that’s the following query I need you to take a look at, not take into consideration. Am I within the cage right away? And, in fact, should you notice that you simply are, drop it. If you happen to notice that you simply’re not, then, that’s good! Am I in a cage right away? If you happen to are, it’s you that’s putting yourself there, so just drop it. Am I in a cage right away? Look. Which cage? The cage of all my thoughts, all my stories, all my ideas about stuff. Are you in a cage right away? Or did you forget, and have interaction, and put yourself right back inside. Probably you only keep doing it. That’s okay, don’t make that into one other thing to fret about, just drop it. Come back to presence, openness, spaciousness, ease, clarity, brightness. It’s all there the minute you come back into presence, come out of the cage. Most individuals prefer their cage, by far, they love their cage. They decorate it inside bars, they’ve got little ribbons and little decorations throughout. It’s painted just the best way they prefer it. I’d relatively be in my cage. Outside of the cage, you might be exposed to the naked clarity of actual existence. You may’t numb out, you may’t distract. Can’t dramatize. But you’re alive, and it’s spacious, free, and deeply joyous. Even when it is admittedly uncomfortable moment sitting with a toothache, and cold air. It’s deeply joyous.
Are you present in your life right away, on this moment? Are you within the box?
Next query. What’s it that’s awake right away? Don’t give it some thought, don’t engage thoughts. Look. What’s it that’s looking? What’s awake? Right away. Find it, find the awake thing. If you happen to’re like Well, I do know what he means is that there isn’t a awake thing because every thing is empty. You’re in a box! Stop it, you’re within the cage. You’ve engaged thought. Look: what’s it that’s awake right away? Find it. If you happen to keep out of the box, chances are you’ll be noticing that you simply are quite present right away, quite outside the cage. It’s not very hard, you only should be relentless. There’s not only seven , there’s like seven million. Just keep going after the following one, the following one.
What’s it that’s aware right away? What’s it? Look! Don’t drift off into grabbing onto the thoughts after which beginning to spin the cocoon of numbness around yourself again. The wheel of considering just spins this thread of numbness that turns right into a sleeping bag that you would be able to fall asleep in. Sleep with total suffering. Once we’re out of the cage, unengaged with the wheel of thought, we’re very spacious, very wide open, and it’s very clear, super relaxed.
Next query. Don’t engage with considering, just look. What time is it? What time is it? Look. What time is it? Right away. Perhaps your mind is like a difficult Buddhist mind that’s saying, It’s now! That’s still within the cage, just look. Now isn’t a solution, it’s a dodge. Look. Tricky answers get you flunked. Immediate flunk.
Are you present in your life right away? What time is it? What’s it that’s aware, right away? These have all been super easy questions, but you guys are doing pretty good, so I’ll provide you with a tough query. Remember, you may’t give it some thought, you only should look. It’d hurt. What am I avoiding feeling right away? Or, higher, What am I avoiding right away? Not another time, right away. By looking, you’ll find it, and also you won’t be avoiding it. If you happen to give it some thought, you may give it some thought ceaselessly, and that’s avoiding it. If you happen to just look, What am I avoiding right away? I don’t want my leg to feel uncomfortable. I don’t need to feel that emotion–oops! What am I avoiding right away? Once we look, we’re not avoiding it.
That is what’s so awful and sensible about working like this: You may’t avoid. If feelings are there, there they’re. What am I avoiding now? Am I present for this moment? What time is it?
Look.
What physical discomfort do you retain attempting to move away from, and keep attempting to move away from, that you would be able to actually just face. Or emotional discomfort, or another sort of discomfort. Notice, how, even within the presence of that discomfort, the spacious clarity continues to be there, just as spacious, just as clear. So long as we don’t get wrapped up within the considering.
What am I avoiding now? All you may have to do is look. what you might be avoiding. Just have a look at it. Just feel it: don’t avoid it. If you happen to are really tricky, you would possibly say, well, Michael, I’m avoiding engaging in considering. But, that’s avoiding. Perhaps there are some feelings in there that you’re feeling. There it’s–now you might be present, wide awake on this moment. Present in your life, present for what’s happening. Engaged. What am I avoiding? Look
Next query: Remember, don’t pick up the considering, just look. What’s spaciousness? Look in your personal experience right away. What’s spaciousness? What’s spaciousness? Look. The minute you look, there it’s: spaciousness. If you happen to begin to give it some thought, it starts to fade or go away, so that you’re back within the cage. So, ask yourself again: What’s spaciousness? There it’s.
Just to modify gears, without engaging, just because it appears that evidently someone is admittedly stepping on the gas pedal of the Kalidah Death Machine right away, the murder machine, is admittedly working extra time. Let’s see if we are able to just generate some goodwill and kindness and love and caring inside ourselves. Then allow that to fill all of the space, all that spaciousness that intermingles with all the opposite spaciousness in all places. All of the people on this room, feeling love and kindness and compassion and caring, and beaming it outward. Every other person within the room, feeling it from all the opposite people within the room, after which beaming it outward, outward, outward, and feeling it getting back from all the opposite hearts in all places, in all directions. The easy, kindness and joy and love and caring that’s present after we’re not involved in our mental drama. It’s just immediately there. Just allow that to radiate out in all directions, and be received back from all directions. This straightforward wish that everybody look after one another. Everyone look after one another. May all of us look after one another.
Dharma Talk and Q&A
So, in a way, that is the crux of the problem. And possibly, the best strategy to approach it, a really, very stripped down, utterly easy strategy to approach it. Just disengage with that form of thought. Don’t fight it, don’t struggle with it or try to alter it, just disengage, and just come back to your personal immediacy, your personal wakefulness, your personal presence, and your personal feelings. Emotions will probably be there, the complete richness of every thing is there, you’re just not grinding on all of the drama. So that is dead easy, this is so simple as it gets. And that may take you all the best way that you simply’re going to get.
Then again, it’s also super hard. Quite simple, and super hard, since it’s like, Okay, throw yourself back into the naked experience over and once again without really working with it in any way, just being with it. So it may possibly be really gnarly–doesn’t should be–but it may possibly be. So the upside is super easy. The downside is that you simply’re not getting numerous tools, just sit there. Some weeks you come here and we’re doing energy stuff and space, somewhat vipashyana. That’s far more complicated. There’s quite a bit to do and things to grasp. Then again, it also possibly gives you tools to make this thing somewhat less gnarly, so you may have more ways to work with it. So, sometimes we do the dead easy thing, sometimes we do stuff that’s more complex, but possibly less raw.
For some people, they’re really interested in the simplicity, just sit there–beautiful, total ease–however it’s also super gnarly. Other people just like the complexity, and likewise the skillfulness that we are able to work with it using complex methods like energy, vipashyana, getting in there. If you happen to’re like me, you want doing each. They’re each form of interesting. They’re each powerful, and each have their uses. Some days you should do one, other days, the opposite. They will not be in conflict. Especially should you understand that all of it matches together in a single path.
The downside of the complexity is a) that it’s complex, there may be stuff to learn, and b) you may wander off in it–it may possibly develop into something else you may get distracted in. I’ve got these 97 methods, and I’m attempting to tweak on them–that may begin to be its own mental spinning. In order that’s why it’s kinda nice sometimes to only go, Fuck it! Sit. Shut up! So each are good–different days, different moods. Space dragon. Sometimes you’ll notice the naked wide-awake openness may be terrifying: there’s no ground, there’s nothing to carry onto, there’s no cage to be secure inside. Is the cage keeping you secure inside, or is it keeping you locked in? Sometimes it appears like it’s keeping the sharks out. So, as you come out of it, there’s no ground, no safety, in a way. It’s not likely safety, it’s the ego safety of numbness and distraction and story that we construct around ourselves. so it may possibly be really scary–Wiley Coyote off the cliff, running in air for a moment before you fall. The excellent news is, you never hit the bottom. The opposite thing is that it may possibly be really intense, especially if we’ve been using numbness and distraction and drama to not feel something. Anything but that! Then if you drop out of considering, here comes the sensation that you simply were avoiding. Now you’re going to feel it. And I’m not going to take a seat here and inform you that That will probably be great! since it could be really awful for some time. Some feelings really hurt, and possibly they hurt for some time. Although they’ll hurt for a shorter time should you’re not engaging the thoughts which are keeping it going, keeping it going.
So, we let go of engaging the thoughts, then here it comes–the monster you were keeping at bay, the sharks which are out of the cage, you get eaten. But, whew! Need some mint aftershave! However it ends–emotions arise and it’s intense, you’re with it, and it’s passed. You’re not living to avoid that anymore, and that’s a relief.
Ultimately, this manner of working–any of those ways of working, in the event that they keep resulting in the spacious, open, wide-awake place, it’s the definition of relief. It’s joy and freedom. That’s why you do it, because living within the wheel of samsara really sucks. All of the suffering, the concerns, the issues and grinding that’s there; and it doesn’t help anything. While you step outside, then, even when it’s uncomfortable, there may be peace and freedom and openness and ease. You may still think, do math, write. It’s not such as you’re lobotomizing yourself. It’s the actual form of considering where you’re getting involved in drama, stories, chains about yourself. That’s the actual thing we’re setting aside.
So, questions on that, comments, reports? Stuff coming up?
Questioner 1: I used to be really inquisitive about the query, What time is it?
Michael: Yeah, what time is it? Everybody? What time is it? Look.
Everyone: Now
Michael: That’s the improper answer. [laughter]. You’re out!
Questioner 1: I mean, I kinda went with Now. I used to be like, that’s not good.
Michael: That’s still a solution coming from thought. Now continues to be a location in time–it’s different from the past and the long run. It’s a thought. Just look. The minute you look–do it right away. What time is it? Tell me what time you discover.
Questioner 1: I don’t really find it.
Michael: Right! That’s not a thought, that’s not even now, that’s just, huh? Right? Time–what the fuck is that? Look, I’m not kidding, it’s just an idea. So, now you’ll go–oh, there isn’t any–that’s a thought. You could have to look every time, and see, you may’t fucking find it, and yet, we torture ourselves with these things. It’s not even there. Look.
Questioner 1: Thanks.
Michael: What else? Another questions, comments coming up?
Questioner 2: I suppose my experience of the time thing was that there was all the time something happening, and so the best way that I answered the query within the moment was that this was the time that I’m having this experience, of whatever sensation was coming up. But possibly that’s only a strategy to put story on it.
Michael: But what story is it, you’re just saying this experience. That’s an ideal answer, because, where is time in that? It doesn’t mean nothing can occur. Every thing keeps happening. This experience, beautiful, looks like an ideal answer.
Questioner 2: It is a report/query. I discovered while doing this, I wasn’t in a position to loosen up, or there was unpleasant body sensation, sorta like bracing. It felt like there was some form of tension or negative feeling tone.
Michael: Yeah! So, that’s the thing you’ve been avoiding. As soon as we drop out of the distraction–there it comes. It won’t be a pleasing moment, there could also be some body tension. The more you sit with it and don’t engage the story about it, it can no less than develop into open and known to you. I won’t say it can necessarily go away, because possibly someone has a terrible illness, and it’s going to harm. But I’ll say that the less story that’s there, and the more they only sit with it, we are able to engage other tools that help us interact with it more skillfully, it can develop into no problem in any respect.
Questioner 2: Yeah, like there’s no have to provide you with some scheme for changing it.
Michael: Yeah.
Questioner 2: Thanks.
Michael: Yeah. It’s not necessarily a completely satisfied moment, but it may possibly still be joyous.
Questioner 3: You’ve talked quite a bit concerning the perspective of individuals feeling discomfort outside the cage. For me, outside the cage is all the time awesome. There is generally pleasure there, and the mind desires to stay on what’s pleasurable, interesting, whatever. And yet, sometimes when the habit of the mind machinery has been so strong, it’s like, I need to be outside the cage, however the cage keeps jumping over me. I’m not going back into the cage, the cage is coming back over me.
Michael: Habitually.
Questioner 3: Yes.
Michael: That’s what I used to be talking about. You only let go again, drop it again, drop it again.
Questioner 3: But that’s not a alternative to get in, the alternative is to get out.
Michael: Something’s selecting there but, right.
Questioner 3: There are occasions that I attempt to look underneath that stuff, and sometimes it’s pointless to go there. It’s just, I suppose that will be vipashyana, to look.
Michael: That’s what I mean. You may work with a unique technique, get in there with skill, and deconstruct it, and there’s nothing improper with that. And you would also just drop it again, drop it again. And eventually–you already know the rolled-up map metaphor, right? You could have a paper map in a tube, and also you bring it out and you may have to place weights on the corners, otherwise it keeps rolling up. But should you do this enough, it can lay flat. So we just drop it and drop it and drop it until eventually your mind just lays flat.
Questioner 3: This is generally shamatha, but we are only really leaning in on the do-nothing?
Michael: That is non-meditation. Depending on the view.
Questioner 3: I’ve found that, after the instruction to drop the thought was repeated numerous times, the motion of dropping the thought itself felt like a motion, and I desired to drop the dropper. To drop the dropping.
Michael: That’s the difference between dropping as a struggle and an effort, and just relaxing. I did attempt to indicate the difference between those two things. Right? There’s a doing dropping, and there’s just relaxing. Okay? So, if you’re doing dropping, there’s still some story in there, there’s still some engagement with considering. I’m doing it. But eventually, you only loosen up.
Questioner 3: At a certain point, I did do this, allowing the experience of not dropping to remain there, as a relaxed back in there.
Michael: If it doesn’t just wrap up again, then that’s good.
Questioner 3: A more integrated version, then, can be to have it drop deeply in a full way, or would that be a continuation?
Michael: It is dependent upon what you mean, truthfully. While you’re just letting it stay dropped, if it’s wide open, not engaged, that may deepen over time, dramatically. But there’s no more to do. Just sit there, wide awake, letting it stay open. Then you definately’re present, you’re in it. You could be present in a very reified world of stuff, but that’s what starts to dissolve, because should you’re not feeding the engine of the thought machine, it can slowly allow every thing to de-reify. Okay?
Questioner 3: Thanks.
Questioner 4: That was dope! My query is, in that space, that dropping, how do you approach unifying the dropping back with words, if you end up talking with people?
Michael: It just takes time. After some time–it doesn’t mean you may’t think, it’s only a certain relationship with thought. But, at first, you only don’t. Then eventually you notice that you would be able to still talk just high-quality. However it might at first sieze back up, so that you get good at dropping the ball, and eventually, you’re talking without getting seized up. So, it’s just habit, you’re employed at it. It’s like if you get good at vipassana whilst you’re sitting, then you definately start working at it if you’re walking, but you walk real slow. Ever do this? Really? Slow walking.
Questioner 4: No, never.
Michael: Really, you’ve never been a vipassana zombie?
Questioner 4: No, I’ve never done vipassana.
Michael: You do slow walking, I’m feeling the ball of my foot rolling onto my toes. You do this for days and also you get used to moving, then you definately can move faster. It’s the same process. You only try saying one word to someone and check out to remain open. Perhaps you may’t, but eventually, you may. Okay?
Questioner 5: That was great, thanks. Once I’m meditating with my eyes open, sometimes I ponder whether I’m getting distracted by my visual field, or whether it’s alright to form of intensely engage with the visual field, because it is a component of the present experience.
Michael: The reply is, go ahead and have interaction with the visual field. I wouldn’t recommend getting real narrow with it, like specializing in that one spot. You may, and it can bring you into presence, but don’t get tight. It’s like if you’re meditating on body sensations or whatever–stay real broad with it. So, the identical with the visual field, still stay broad. It is admittedly easy to tighten up, and we would like that openness flavor. Sure! Mark’s blanket is sufficient to put me into meditation, if I just stare upon it. It’s powerful. However it isn’t narrow, keep it open.
Thanks in your questions.
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