Meditation
Let’s begin, as we at all times do, with checking in with what it’s prefer to be you immediately. Just go inside, and just feel the way you’re doing, how’s your body feeling? How’s your emotions doing? What’s your thought realm like? and so forth. Tune in, and see, what it’s prefer to be you immediately? The trick here is to each be as clear and honest as possible, while at the identical time just letting it’s that way. Nonetheless it’s, is just the way it is. So, for now, just tune in and see what that’s like.
Good. Notice the urge to vary it, the urge to manage it, the urge to disclaim, the urge to attempt to hang on to it, perhaps the urge to, ultimately, control control control, and see for those who can, even when that urge is there, just not take any motion. As an alternative, allow whatever you’re feeling prefer to be that way. Letting go, if just for a little bit while, of the basic aggression against the best way it’s.
Good. Now let’s do some light breath work, just by on the in-breath, respiration naturally, but on the in-breath, feeling the sense of awakeness and clarity and energy coming into the belly. Feel energy coming into the belly, filling the belly as you breathe, brightness, openness, clarity. Then, on the out-breath, it radiates through the entire body and out into space, in order that there’s a type of letting go into space on the out-breath. You’re constructing energy and clarity on the in-breath, feeling that within the belly, after which on the out-breath it radiates out into spaciousness. Each in-breath bringing way more brightness and clarity awakeness to experience, and every out-breath that just dissolves into space, bringing tremendous openness, leisure, release, boundlessness. You’ll be able to just breathe naturally, but when you wish to make it a little bit more powerful, just let that out-breath go on for a little bit longer than you normally would, in fact remaining comfortable and without strain. With each out-breath, as you dissolve into space, noticing that any tension within the face relaxes, tightness and gripping within the shoulders releases, the belly becomes soft and open. The entire body just sinks now right into a way more grounded and relaxed place.
Continuing to feel the energy and spaciousness growing, and, for a few of you, chances are you’ll notice at the top of that long out-breath, it just stays there for some time without you intending for it to remain there. It should sometimes just type of hang there before starting the in-breath, and see on the out-breath, as you dissolve into space, any reference to the mind with pondering, with attempting to do something, just is utterly released. The mind itself just dissolves into space just completely let’s go. In order that even when loads of pondering is going on, we’re not engaging in any respect with thought. We’re being the wide open space, an enormous clear brilliant awakeness. Notice that that wide awakeness is there without you doing anything in any respect. It’s not one way or the other something you possibly can make occur or interfere with, it’s just wide awake of its own accord and its own energy.
If you wish to, you possibly can let go of any engagement with the respiration technique, and easily rest because the wide awake openness, and see if it becomes apparent that this wide awake openness may be very stable. It’s not something you’re doing, and it’s not a type of attention because doing and a focus are unstable. Spacious awakeness is tremendously stable, and so we rest as spacious awakeness itself. Spacious awakeness is just not something you do along with your mind. The mind is something that the spacious awakeness does. Pondering and doing and feeling are all downstream of this wide-awake openness.
Now, let this awakeness concentrate on all of body sensation, just feeling the entire body, not only the breath sensations, but all of the sensations, without bearing down, just allowing the sensations to arise in awareness and see the vibratory quality of the sensations. A few of it’s very obvious: it’s buzzy or tingly or rhythmic ultimately. Other things may at first seem more solid, but as you permit awareness to note them more clearly, their vibratory nature becomes obvious as well. Our image of the body may be very stable, our mental image of the body sees it as levers and pulleys and pumps and electrical wires — all these metaphors. But after we just tune into what the body appears like, to the body, it’s a bunch of vibration, a bunch of buzzy tingly vibratory stuff. So just notice that now. If you happen to only notice it in a single little area, then just notice that. Eventually, you’ll see it’s every sensation, and it’s tremendously relaxing and opening and releasing and nice for the body to be seen because it sees itself — on this vibratory energetic way. It’s alive, it’s supple, it’s fluid, it’s flowing, it’s moving, it’s fabricated from energy. As you loosen up even further, and settle into this awakeness much more totally, the clarity and brightness of awakeness. You’ll notice that the all of the buzzy, tingly, energetic quality of the body resolves into nothing aside from awake spaciousness. That may be a concept, but is something that the notice directly “awares”. The body itself is awake space, stuffed with energy. See that clearly, not as an imagination, not within the mind, but as something we’re directly aware of.
Superb. Now, in the identical way, look into the activity of pondering. Not into the content of the pondering, however the activity of the pondering. Notice that it, too, is solely a type of vibratory movement. If you happen to’re quite relaxed, you’ll notice that as an alternative of 1 stream of thought there’s often many occurring, all together as type of a broad spectrum of activity. There’s just loads of vibration there, it’s just flow of thought energy. We don’t wish to attempt to interrupt this flow, or change the flow, or worry in regards to the content of the flow, or try to vary the content or anything like that. We simply tune into this energy, this vibratory energy of pondering. The more this awakeness tunes into the vibratory energy of pondering, the more obvious it’s that, on a really subtle level, this flow of thought energy is nothing aside from awake space. It’s just vast, boundless, awake space, vibrating as thought energy. Over and yet again, notice this energy of thought as simply vibrating awake space.
Now, you possibly can either stick with that, or if you wish to, you possibly can go together with me to something a little bit more intense. Nevertheless it goes to be intense, so for those who’re feeling not up for that, unresourced or whatever, just stick with doing what we’re doing now. If, then again, you wish to dive into some emotional stuff, then, what I would like you to do is to bring up the sensation that you just’re really attempting to avoid on a regular basis. Regardless of the very worst feeling, emotionally, is, whether that’s shame or rage or despair, or whatever — I would like you to bring that up on purpose now. Remember, you don’t need to do that. Only do that for those who resolve to go together with me here. Bring it up on purpose, just quit resisting, and let it arise, and permit whatever thoughts and pictures are required to make it really come up strongly. That thing that you just spend all day attempting to avoid feeling. Stop avoiding it, and just let it occur. That starts to be relatively strong. It’s pretty easy to note that, by way of the experience of the emotion, not the thoughts across the emotion, however the experience of the emotion itself, is like energy and vibration within the body. There’s type of this intense energy, depending on the type of emotion, it could possibly be really high frequency sharp energy, or it could possibly be really low, heavy, energy, but, irrespective of what, it’s vibratory. You’ll be able to feel the vibration happening on this awake space. See for those who could make it just a little bit stronger, and feel its vibratory, energetic qualities. As an alternative of getting caught within the mental content, feel the physical a part of it, the extraordinary energy, after which, as before, notice that this intense energy, right within the core of this difficult, difficult feeling, expressed as intense energy, is nothing aside from wide awake space, vibrating space, boundless, openness, right in the middle of the sensation. The sensation itself is only a type of really powerful energy. If we don’t resist it, and we let it’s there completely, and see it very clearly, we experience it as awake space vibrating. It could actually even be refreshing, opening, stabilizing, grounding. Remember to permit the mental content around it to even be experienced as awake space, wide openness, boundless clarity. You see that even this very difficult emotion is nothing aside from wide awakeness and boundless freedom itself, without ever doing anything to it. We’re not changing it, we’re not avoiding it, we’re not transmuting it, we’re not bypassing it, we’re going right into it. I’m feeling it’s wide open, wide awakeness of tremendous energy.
It’s the alternative of avoidance, the alternative of sublimation, or repression, or bypassing—we’re meeting it completely and going right into it with no resistance.
Now, notice the room, the sunshine, the shapes, the colours, the textures, the patterns, sounds. We’ve learned to consider it, to model it, to conceptualize it, as stable, but in experience, it’s constantly moving and changing, perhaps barely, perhaps lots.
Notice the experience of the room, and the sound of the room, and the side of the room, the contents of the room. All that have is none aside from vibrating awake space, wide awake, boundless high energy. Really clear. It’s not only nothing — there’s all types of shapes and colours, and it’s also just wide open, wide awake space. If you happen to notice, the room has wide open vibrating space, and emotion as boundless open clear space, and thought energy as a flow of wide open clear spaciousness and boundlessness and openness, and the body itself as wide awake vibrating space, with no boundary and no center. The rest in any respect that arises, arises as an experience as nothing aside from awake space. Then what else is there, but tremendous openness, clarity and energy? There’s a way of unboundedness. That’s the sensation of freedom. There could also be an actual sense of deep joy or satisfaction at this tremendous clarity and energy, totally unbounded, totally unconstricted, open, loose, free. The enjoyment itself is, in fact, just more wide awake, vibrating spaciousness, and yet it may be tremendously powerful.
From here, it’s easy to essentially enjoy all of the arisings, shapes, colours, sounds, feelings, thoughts. The tremendous brightness and variation and enthusiasm of the display is tremendously gorgeous, beautiful, delicious, wealthy. Notice the enjoyment that’s available from this vibrating space. It’s at all times there, deep, deep inside it. Just the enjoyment of the liberty and the clarity and the sweetness. It’s not one way or the other simply trapped in a body. It’s radiating out in all directions and radiating back from all directions, on a regular basis.
There’s a palpable sense of the tremendous beauty and enthusiasm of the world and being is at all times flowing, ever present, totally free.
Let’s end the meditation there. Be happy to maneuver and stretch. If it is advisable go to the toilet or whatever go ahead and do this.
Over the past like 35 years or something I’ve worked with this one Indian woman teacher who’s a conventional Guru, and it’s really common whenever you work together with her that you just type of get knocked into this very altered state. That may feel alternative ways, but often it appears like an ecstatic energized world of awake space, and then you definately do this in a retreat for days and it gets turned up and turned up and in some unspecified time in the future, inevitably, just when that may get really good, she would yell at me and be like, “Mahesh,” which is what she called me, “Mahesh, go chop vegetables.” I’d need to stand up and go to the kitchen and with a extremely sharp knife, chop vegetables as fast as I could, coming out of that place. At first, I believed, that’s only a coincidence, after which after some time, after years of that, I noticed, she’s doing that on purpose, simply to be mean or simply to fuck with you. But, after some time, I noticed that contacting that sense of vibrating awake space is super necessary, super deep, and significant and meaningful, but that’s not enough. It’s not nearly trying out into a extremely nice space, but as an alternative, noticing that the whole regular world remains to be there, and from that place of vibrating awake space, it’s incredibly cool, beautiful, wealthy, interesting, meaningful, deep, powerful. Not only one way or the other erased by nothingness. Your job is to interact with it, but engage with it from awake space, not from some type of constricted little ball of being a personality fighting with every thing.
It’s really interesting. The lesson that I form of got beat into me, which is it’s crucial to note awake openness, and it’s also then crucial to re- engage really strongly from there, and never just Teletubby your way through the day. As an alternative, doing stuff and noticing that that isn’t a contradiction. Those two things aren’t even separate, or they’re different, but they’re not separate. All the pieces is an exuberant expression of that energized awakeness, and never one way or the other like bumming you’re high, bringing you down off your cloud. That’s just not the concept. There can sometimes be an actual sense that there’s a special world of awareness and energy, and that it’s totally different than this. It often appears like that, oh, if I tune in, there’s a separate world of openness and energy and sweetness and stillness, and that is all just in the best way of that. That’s not true — or it’s that that’s just type of halfway there. The remaining of the best way there may be to note that this isn’t in the best way in any respect. This is just not any different than that, and interesting, engaging, engaging, engaging, is what that awake energy desires to do. It doesn’t wish to disappear into its own awakeness hole. It’s here to do stuff and have interaction in and experience and revel in and create. That’s all it does is create. So, although you already know it’s problematic to speak sequentially, I’ll talk sequentially and say at first we’re all stuck within the constricted, reified thingness of every thing. There’s no space and there’s little or no awakeness, seemingly, so the primary a part of our meditation is like prying our grubby tight little fist off of engagement with all of the stuff. Once you finally recognize, after I loosen up and open and just let go of all that tension, there’s just awake space, and that’s it it’s vibrating, it’s intense, it’s wide awake, it’s spacious, and perhaps there’s nothing there.
But that’s part one, after which part two is, wait a minute, all that vibration is making every thing occur, it’s making colours, it’s making thoughts, it’s making feelings, it’s making every thing occur, and that’s not bad, that’s awesome! Now you possibly can actually come back and get into all of it because, there’s no tightness, there’s no grabbing, there aren’t hands to grab with and in a way. So most of the teachings, you’ll discover, there may be just going to stage one. They’ll just type of drop you off within the super vacuum cave — and it’s a cool place, but they’re, like, there you go, enjoy your vacuum cave. It’s enjoyable, however it’s a dead end, it’s silly.
It’s, why were you born? What’s mistaken with you? [laughter]- apart from Lady Red!
Questioner 1: Last week I asked you, in order that’s like the character of mind, why are you sure you’re showing up, and now you’re like, for those who just go to the cave, it’s Superman.
Michael: Here’s what nature of mind is doing! Even for those who work really hard, and it may be sequential, and that’s tremendous to get to that place. There’s more to do, and it doesn’t even need to work that way. You’ll be able to never leave, you don’t need to dive to zero after which come back out. There can just be directly noticing over and yet again.
So what happened on the market? What are your reports? What are your questions, comments?
We’ll bring you a microphone and keep in mind that it is just not only a microphone on this room. You’ve gotten a matter way back there.
Questioner 2: Hello. Really early, after I was beginning to enter into the vacuum cave,
I actually had a sensation in my throat that was like a tickle like I needed to cough. If I’m at home, I just cough, but in an area like this I began to panic and I used to be like yeah
Michael: It’s good to panic. [laughter]
Questioner 2: It was really peaceful, there’s the cave, after which it was Doom. I believe my query is, is it price it to attempt to deconstruct a bodily sensation like that back into space?
Michael: it’s at all times price it, why not but, you would possibly just cough, too. It just depends.
Questioner 2: Nice.
Michael: Sometimes, what if it’s super intense pain which you could’t just cough out? It’s just gonna be there. Your way forward could be, just gotta go into that. So, you could have each moves available, and sometimes you go forwards and backwards. Sometimes you go way into one, other days you go into the opposite. It’s all interesting, however it’s helpful to know the context.
Questioner 2: Yeah, thanks.
Questioner 3: Hello, I used to be not blissed out, but I’d find it irresistible for those who could deliver that for me one time. But what was really cool is like in going through the emotions, certainly one of the things that was really cool for me was actually the energy of disassociation that was coming up for me. To me, that’s an energy, just like every of the others, that I could follow back, and would turn out to be spacious. I used to be inquisitive about your individual journey, experience of twiddling with that, because I believe it comes up lots for me.
Michael: Can you are feeling your body?
Questioner 3: yeah, yeah
Michael: So that you’re not dissociated, and earlier, were you capable of feel your body? Once you say energy of dissociation I’m undecided exactly what you mean.
Questioner 3: What do I mean by it? There’s a way by which I feel in freeze mode, perhaps I’m actually outside of my body a little bit bit, is like what it appears like. It appears like I’m not fully in contact, and my brain, my mind, and my thoughts, might be like, oh, you’re just being very still immediately, however the energy doesn’t move, it almost feels frozen. The mind labels that as bad, so it’s trying to seek out the opposite energy that’s there.
Michael: If you happen to can feel the still frozen energy, you’re not dissociated from it, because
you’re feeling. Dissociation means you possibly can’t feel it, so I’d just say, what if it’s okay that it’s still frozen? Just check that out. Let it do this thing, and perhaps it’s the case that our experience of the body might be much larger than the physical body appears to be. That’s not an issue. It’s not like we’re necessarily escaping anything, it’s just larger. That doesn’t mean dissociation can’t occur, but your description of it, you’re clear that it’s still frozen, so that you’re still in contact with it. So I’d just say, just check that out. Is it really that also, that frozen? You recognize rattling well for those who check into it, that it’s not. That concept that it’s these items and that’s bad, that’s what’s leading you astray there.
Questioner 3: Yeah, yeah. That’s bad is certainly within the subconscious, obviously.
Michael: There’s a way which you could do that to dissociate however the guidance I’m giving keeps making that actually really hard. You’ve gotten to try, so don’t try. I’m going to return back over and yet again, okay. Does that help? Good.
Questioner 4: Thanks. That was really cool. I felt like there was stuff that’s been bothering me lots, that I just felt it as vibration of awake space. I don’t think I’ve ever really felt that before, and it type of deconstructed things. I actually appreciate it. My important query is, what’s up after the cave?
Michael: That’s what I used to be saying. You’ll be able to deconstruct it all the way down to just this awake space which may be very cool, but there’s nothing to do there. Which is, in a way, okay, but there might be traditions that as an alternative of noticing the vibration there, are noticing the stillness, and wish you to only rest there and stay there. But, for those who listen, it’s not still. It’s energized, and the minute you return into the energy, it comes back into all this, but seen in an utterly latest way, not as stuck stuff, but really exuberant rainbow energy flow, right? In order that’s what’s next: Coming back in and noticing that every one the thoughts are like that, all the sentiments are like that, all of the doing is like that. It’s wide-awake electricity that’s having fun. It’s not only sitting there. It’d sit there for some time, but even that it’s vibrational, so it’s total re-engagement, but with all of the knots worked out.
It’s like before you were trying to bop whenever you were only one big cramp throughout, after which now the awake space takes you thru like a complete de-cramping– an actual massage–where all of the knots get worked out, and now you begin moving and it’s a extremely different feeling. It’s deeper than that because who’s even moving at that time? It’s like that feeling whenever you’re in a complete dance flow, where it’s just space dancing. You’re not attempting to do something, so on this case, awake space is dancing the world into being an activity. In order that’s what’s next.
Questioner 4: Cool, thanks.
Questioner 5: Thanks again for that. I’m undecided I actually have a lot of a matter as much as I’m curious what your feedback can be to this. Once you were telling your story of whenever you’re we’re along with your teacher and or experiencing the quantity of Shakti that you just experienced together with her and so forth, certainly one of the things that got here to mind, because I’ve experienced my very own version of that, was Shinzen once talking about there’s no must ever leave samadhi, and so forth.
Michael: That’s the entire talk I’m giving, is what it’s prefer to not leave samadhi.
Questioner 4: There also appears to be on the opposite side of that coin which you highlighted in your story, that I could also relate to, was whenever you’re type of in only being blasted with all that, then experiencing that inside yourself, there is no such thing as a must feel the necessity to cling to that — either to rush and chop some onions or take care of some phone calls or emails. It looks as if we’re more scattered. I gotta get back to that. I remember you commented almost a 12 months ago after I got here back from the monastery, there may be that underlying trust and faith within the practice, and in yourself, of what even when there’s all this, our own nonsense, what’s underneath all of that, on a regular basis? I’m just curious if there’s anything you would possibly need to say about that.
Michael. Just that eventually you notice that every one the activity is just not one way or the other taking you
out of your meditation. It’s the meditation, right, it’s coming directly out of the awake space, which you heard me say already, so I didn’t add anything, but that’s that’s my response. At first it appears like you’re being knocked out of your cave, and that just means you didn’t get it, a minimum of not deeply enough. Eventually you recognize you possibly can’t get knocked out of it, since it’s not a state, it’s not a special, altered state. The awake space is at all times there, at all times, at all times, at all times, at all times.
Last query – or statement or critique.
Questioner 5: It’s a really straightforward terminological query. That thing you’re attempting to point to, which you possibly can either have the there and back again with the vacuum cave, or you possibly can just notice it, is that what is named rigpa?
Michael: Awake space is rigpa. Technically, literally, rigpa is just the Tibetan word for knowledge–just regular knowledge–like every kind of data, but when it’s utilized in a Dzogchen context, it means awake space. Identical to the Sanskrit word for it will be vidya, which is just knowledge. So, it’s just a traditional word getting used in a extremely special way. If we were doing that, we’d just say, notice the awakeness. Why they call it knowledge is, whenever you’re pointing at it like that, you’re knowing it. It’s like that, not the knowledge of that thing, however it doesn’t work that well in English. Today, it’s much clearer to only say the awake space, awake spaciousness, or some people call it awake awareness, you can say awake aware space, that’s rigpa. What’s different is, it’s not only just awareness, because awareness can still be that constricted, tight, clumped. Once you drop all that, you’re not grabbing on to anything, then all that’s left is spacious awakeness. Then, eventually you notice that even the clinching stuff was at all times right, at all times awareness, but unrecognized as such.
Thanks.
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