Okay, let’s just take some deep breaths. You don’t must do it like this, you may do it any way you wish. I used to be just having sort of an intense conversation. It’s just sort of moving some energy here, after which do slightly movement. The crazy movement we do, which is anything your body wants to do this feels good—just do it—even when it’s sitting still. But don’t exercise or stretch, as an alternative, let your body just express whatever feels good. End up in your body, moving, keep moving slightly longer. After which, as usual, what we sort of do is start to simply get into spinal movement. Then with the spinal movement, we make our spines feel good. Spines wish to feel like liquid, so the less it feels tight or solid, and the more it feels relaxed and fluid, the higher.
Then, just let the circles or the movements, the S-curves—whatever it’s doing—let it get smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller, until you may’t actually tell in case your spine continues to be moving or not. After which, stay there, where it’s still fluid, still relaxed, still supple, still open, and perhaps even moving. Then, just kind of land there. Notice how different that’s than assuming a decent posture, it’s very relaxed, very open. It’s very relaxed.
Then, just allow yourself to examine out the way you’re feeling immediately. What’s it wish to be you? How your body feels, how your emotions are doing, how your mind is doing. The trick here, the necessary point is: nevertheless the mind and the body and the emotions are doing, just allow them to be that way. Feeling it, or experiencing it clearly, but letting go of any agenda to in some way manipulate, or control, or deny, or change it. As a substitute, just letting or not it’s exactly the way in which it’s, and to seek out some sense of ease with the way you’re doing, even when the way you’re doing is actually not easeful or easy in any respect. Even when it’s really unpleasant, or in some way stressful, or in some way tight, or whatever. Finding some ease with even that. Letting or not it’s that way, because attempting to make it go away just makes it worse, more tight, more unpleasant, more stressful. So, just let or not it’s the way it is.
If that’s really difficult—I just want to alter it, I would like it to go away, I would like it to be different. Okay, then accept that you’re feeling that way. Let that be the way in which it’s. A method or one other, allow what your experience is to simply be your experience, just exactly the way in which it’s, just as bad because it is, pretty much as good because it is, as boring because it is, as ecstatic because it is, as jangly because it is, as upset because it is, as depressed because it is, as miserable because it is, or as wonderful. Just quit trying to alter it for some time.
A giant help for doing that’s to step outside the pondering mind, so if that’s available to you, just try this now. What I mean by that’s, you may be there, there could be as many thoughts. As all the time, we’re not trying to alter the quantity of pondering, but slightly, we’re simply not engaging with thought. You may engage with body sensation, you may engage with emotional sensation, you may engage with the sights and sounds, and smells and tastes of the room around you, you may engage with every part except, for now, except thought. Feeling your butt on the cushion or chair, hearing the sound of the heater and the rain and the cars. When you’re meditating together with your eyes open—and I do recommend that, although you don’t must, but I like to recommend you have got your eyes open, resting on the sights, the colours, the shapes, the textures, the patterns, of the room around you, engaging with all of that in easy presence. Just simply being present.
Every time you end up engaged with thought, just just drop it—and by drop it, I don’t mean make it go away, I mean just don’t engage. It could possibly sit there and think as much because it wants, meanwhile you might be resting in easy presence.
When you want slightly something more to hold on to, notice the complete body experience of respiratory. Not intimately, we’re not specializing in it, just feel that the body is expanding and contracting with the breath, within the easiest way possible. Non-engagement with thought, simply present within the room, feeling the breath entering into and out. This can be a way of being totally open, since it’s only within the pondering mind that we’re accepting and rejecting, and accepting and rejecting, time and again, but in easy presence, whatever is present, we’re open to it, we’re totally open, totally here.
When you end up really working really hard indirectly while sitting here, just let go of that. When you’re trying really, really hard to be focused or something, just let go of that. When you want something really big to occur, or you wish a giant mind-state shift to occur, just let go of that expectation.
See if you happen to can find any ease and any openness, any letting go, any acceptance, any softness, any relief or release. That is the direction, just relaxing and opening, relaxing and opening. Coming into easy presence. If we leave all of it—and leaving means getting involved in a mental daydream, getting involved in thought—as soon as you notice, just turn out to be lucid within the thought—oh, I’m in a mental daydream, and are available back to simply being present. Being present in a room filled with people meditating will not be exciting, particularly, there’s not quite a lot of really loud, vivid, chaotic, stuff happening, there’s not quite a lot of explosions and helicopters crashing and gunfights.
So, if you happen to’ve trained yourself lots on that sort of stimulation, or big social interaction stuff,
it may be, at first, difficult to sit down in presence, because we’re not used to this level of stillness. So the pondering mind gets real greedy, it wants increasingly stimulation, and increasingly stuff to chew on, and we’re, in a way, setting it aside, and just saying, only for an hour, just sit there. We’ll feed you more later, but for now, I’m just going to rest in easy presence, and let go of all that stimulation, and all that intensity, and all of the dopamine. As a substitute, I’m just going to feel my body be within the room, and feel some ease, feel some openness, feel some rest.
Over and another time, just return to easy presence. It’s actually very easy. When you find your mind grabbing onto the pondering, like grabbing something in your fist, where you’re grabbing onto an entire bunch of stuff and holding on to it—which is what engagement with thought is like—all you have got to do is loosen up the fist, and the thoughts fall out of your palm. Then your palm is just open and easeful. So, every time that grabbing motion occurs—and see that that’s a voluntary activity, you’re actually grabbing onto the thought. It might be so automatic you’ve lost the sense that it’s a volitional act, but you’re actually doing it on purpose. You’ve to contract on purpose, like grabbing something together with your hand on purpose. You do have agency here. Once you find that you simply’ve grabbed on, just loosen up again—metaphorically loosen up the fist—and the thoughts will just pour out of your hand like sand. Then your hand is just wide open, just sitting there, wide open, relaxed. So, let’s proceed to practice with that for slightly while here.
Remember, we’re not attempting to stop the pondering, or suppress it, or deny it, or control it. It could possibly think as much because it wants. We’re just not grabbing on, we’re letting the thoughts metaphorically just flow by. As a substitute, our attention is on body sensation, emotional sensations, the sights and sounds of the room, and so forth. Coming into our actual being, not lost within the virtual world of thought. Feeling your legs on the chair or cushion, feeling the way you’re connected to the core of the Earth through gravity. Just feel that tug, that’s keeping you on the cushion. Feeling the expansion and contraction within the breath, feeling whatever emotions are arising—perhaps it’s frustration, perhaps it’s sort of a nice sense of contentment, perhaps it’s the rest, perhaps an entire bunch of emotions directly. Don’t take into consideration them, just feel them. If thoughts are happening in regards to the emotions, don’t grab on to them. In case your eyes are open, seeing the sights of the room, hearing the sounds of the room. Coming back into this presence, many times, with tremendous ease and openness.
Let that fist of doing-doing–doing, just release, just let it go. Don’t make that right into a latest doing—such as you’re trying really hard just let go.
Good. Now, you may proceed sitting with that, but you could begin to note something else is here in the straightforward presence. It’s not precisely the body sensations, and it’s not precisely the emotional sensations, and it’s not precisely the sights and sounds of the room. It’s not exactly any of that stuff. Let’s imagine it’s the stillness behind all that the space of knowing itself. Once I say something like “the space of knowing,” there could be an urge to search for that, “I’m going to seek out the space of knowing, and have a look at it.” But, the thing that’s looking.
So, if that awake space, that Gnostic, boundlessness, is clear, then come to an excellent deeper sense of presence in that. It’s not a thought, it’s not a sense, it’s not a sight or a sound, it’s not a special experience. It’s just the space of experience itself, the awake space itself. There’s no thought that may get at that. There’s no way of looking that gets at that. It’s the looking. When you attempt to be the one finding it, the one taking a look at it, that’s just a few thought and feeling pretending to take a look at it. It’s the looking, it’s just experience itself.
When you can notice that, then contrast that with sights, sounds, feelings, even thought—all of that are moving, all of that are changing, all of that are vividly displaying. For there’s the knowing, but, in a way of talking about it, the knowing is outside of the mind. It’s even outside of the body. The mind and the body are contained in the knowing. Notice the difference between them. There’s the stillness and clarity of awake space, after which there’s all of the stuff happening inside it, including thoughts, including emotions, including feelings, including sights and sounds, etc., and the knowing is perfectly still. It’s never modified, ever. It’s utterly awake, it’s been perfectly complete and pure since beginningless time. Notice how, against this backdrop of stillness, no amount of pondering or feeling or sights or sounds—or the rest—can disturb that stillness. When you make stillness in your mind, it would all the time turn out to be unstill again, since the mind is unstable. Attempting to make your thoughts stable can’t work except temporarily, so we do it temporarily, just to permit things to die down a bit. But the true stillness has all the time been present, and can’t turn out to be unstill. It’s the wide open, sky-like, space that knows.
Notice the easeful, open, restful, relaxed, openness of that space. That space welcomes all experience, that space pushes nothing away. That’s your true identity—awake space. When you try to take a look at it from the mind, you’ll all the time miss it. The mind is just the sock puppet of awake space. Over and another time, let go of being the mind and the body, and all of that, and just loosen up into being openness, being clarity, being stillness, being relaxed.
When you attempt to figure it out, you’ll all the time miss it. The move into the mind to attempt to figure it out is already hopeless. When you’re resting as awake space, and then you definately go, “I ponder if that is it? It seems pretty boring, but perhaps it’s it,” and also you start checking from the mind, you simply lost it. Once you taste sugar, you don’t go, “Was that sugar? That will need to have been sugar, let me figure it out. Was that the taste of sugar?”
Rest because the sky-like awakeness, not because the thoughts and feelings. They are going to constantly change, constantly come and go, constantly display their wonderful transience. Nothing incorrect with that—that’s their nature, it’s the character of the awake space to be the openness that hosts all that activity. Rest as that openness, not attempting to get a specific sort of thought, not attempting to get a specific sort of feeling, because that openness is its own unique flavor. An individual in the traditional mind constantly tries to get a special thought, or a special emotion, or a special body sensation, all of the while knowing that it’s just going to go away. And, again, that’s nature, that’s the order of things—advantageous, they arrive they usually go. Nobody’s complaining about that, but notice that you would be able to rest because the awake space itself, and never chase after anything, or push anything away.
Excellent. So, if that is a superb place so that you can proceed resting, please try this. If that is fairly familiar, then notice something interesting. Notice that, though I keep calling the boundless space still, it’s actually stuffed with tremendous energy-like potential. You may feel it. It’s an incredible potential, and that potential keeps bursting forth creatively in every moment. It gives birth in every moment to a bloody, squalling, writhing, moment—time and again, again. Beautiful, squalling, writhing, bloody, moment, time and again, again. And, what’s that? That’s the thought, that’s the sensation, that’s the emotion, that’s the sights and sounds, that’s self and world and others. The awake space constantly, creatively, gives birth to every part. The body sensations aren’t separate from awake space, they’re the expression of awake space upon itself. Thoughts, feelings, world, sights, sounds—it’s all awake space, painting upon itself with itself for itself. All that movement, all that change, is solely awake space dancing, joyously, effortlessly, spontaneously, playfully.
So, from that stillness of awake space, all activity is solely the activity of space bringing us back into our true nature, time and again and over. Letting go of all considered any kind, just have a look at what’s having this experience immediately. When you can do it as a wordless query, “Who or what’s even aware of this moment? What’s it that knows this moment?” Look. Look, really deeply. When you’re in your mind, you’ll be saying stuff like, Well, me—or, I don’t know, my brain or something. Those are only thoughts. We’re letting go of that, and truly looking, really looking. Just actually curious. When you’re stuck being miserable, just let go of it, only for a minute, and just actually look. How do you even know you’re miserable? What knows that? What’s awake? What does it mean that the lights are on?
Look directly, nakedly. What’s having the experience? Notice that you simply find openness—an area—and you discover knowingness, awakeness, whatever you would like to call it, consciousness, experience. And, the very openness of that have, the incontrovertible fact that it says no to nothing, and yes to every part is a sort of warm, kind, welcoming, presence. So, consciously now, and really connecting with that from the core of awake space, from the depths of awake space, notice this fundamental warmth and kindness and presence. Notice the way it fills all of space. It’s not positioned in a single spot, it’s in all places. There’s a fundamental goodness, and a fundamental openness, and a fundamental sanity and clarity in all places. See if you happen to can notice this warm, kind, presence, radiating out in all directions, filling all of space, touching every heart, in all places, but additionally returning back, or being radiated back from all space, from all beings in all places. Coming and going, giving and receiving this fundamental presence of kindness, openness, warmth, caring.
Feel that clearly, and from the energy, and the potential, and heat, but additionally the uplifted joyous quality of this presence, let’s do slightly bit just a brief little bit of together, like we all the time do. Again, the sound of the mantra comes from space itself, not from the ego, not from the mind, not from even the voice, but from space itself. So, you simply let go, and let the mantra radiate.
[chanting] Om Mani Padme Hum
We’d like slightly more joy and energy.
Now, just feel it within the silence, stillness, openness.
Okay, let’s end that there. Be at liberty to maneuver and stretch, run to the restroom, whatever is vital. There’s a—we’ll call it a tug of war—there’s been a tug-of-war because the very starting of individuals doing meditation, or doing spiritual stuff, it’s a sort of a tension that’s built into what we’re doing. The stress could be characterised as a matter about who’s even doing the activity, and it’s there in all spiritual traditions in a single form or one other. In Buddhist practice, it’s the contrast between sudden Awakening and gradual effort. The trail of accumulation—the trail of doing stuff, versus just there it’s. But yow will discover it in every tradition. It’s all the time there, in Christianity is it Faith or good works that get you to heaven? It’s the very same query—are you doing it, or is something else doing it, or it’s just happening. And this tension is there in all spiritual activity. Are you doing it, or is God doing it? Is there something to achieve and achieve, or is it already there, and you simply sort of notice it? It’s been such a central thing for therefore long, you may probably guess that it doesn’t ever resolve. There’s no right answer.
You’ll see different traditions land really hard on one side of that or the opposite, normally, but then, due to nature of the query, they then fill in the opposite side in some way or one other, because you wish each side.
Something that I even have found interesting in my very own really sad and pathetic meditation path that has taken without end, is that, with no results in any respect, certain points of which have been really annoying and frustrating for a very long time, after which suddenly aren’t. It’s weird. It was the case that if someone within the front of the room was saying something to me, like, “there’s nothing to do, and even attempting to do it’s—you’re lost, and you may’t really do it. I’d just wish to throw my shoe at them, I can’t get it, and it’s making me insane. But, you notice I’m up here saying that, and it’s because—and I don’t mean to imply that there’s one big thing, there’s many little things like this. We’re all somewhere along the journey in various ways, but it surely’s because you may’t see the thing until you see the thing, and so the instance I need to provide within the meditation we’re doing, is that I’m telling you to step outside your mind, or not engage with thoughts. And that is perhaps its own sort of struggle thing. If it’s a struggle—please don’t struggle—just try to just keep relaxing, and the thoughts just do their very own thing. Struggle doesn’t really help.
Notice that’s an attempt, in a way, to permit the mind to calm down, allow the thoughts and feelings to sort of settle slightly bit, to let the snow globe that’s whipped up just kind of calm down, get slightly clearer, get slightly stiller. We’re doing something to do this. We could do lots more stuff. We could do a bunch of mantra practice, and a bunch of pranayama practice, and a bunch of visualization, and creation phase yidam practice. There’s lots we are able to do to make things really still, and all that in our thoughts and our feelings. And it’s super helpful to do this—it’s incredibly helpful, since it’s only when that stuff gets still that you would be able to begin to see—to place it in a terrible way—what’s behind all that. As a substitute of all that thought-feeling activity, the kind of awakeness by which that’s displaying, if the thoughts and feelings are only too big and exciting, you simply can’t see the background.
It’s like if you happen to’re in a movie that’s really, really a giant motion film, and stuff’s happening, and spaceships are flying, and stuff’s exploding. It’s really hard to keep in mind that it’s a physical screen there, to think in regards to the white reflective screen behind all the sunshine. So if you happen to desired to have an audience see the screen, you wouldn’t have a giant exciting film like that, you’d have a still shot of concrete, or something really still, and then you definately’d start going notice the wrinkles in the material of that thing behind the pictures. You could possibly begin to point to it, and since you wouldn’t be distracted with all this movement within the ears, with sounds and shaking of the constructing, you possibly can actually begin to see that screen.
So it’s really useful to calm things down. Notice, that’s doing something that’s gradual, that’s the trail of effort. But, then something really weird happens, and it may occur really slowly—like in my case, it takes without end to sink in, or it may occur really fast. You notice the screen, and then you definately keep noticing the screen, after which it’s weird because now they’ll start playing sort of a busy movie, and you may still notice the screen. When you’ve seen it, you simply get good at seeing it, after which, after some time, you may’t unsee it. There’s all the time a screen there. So, eventually, whenever you get really good at noticing the screen, since you’ve just seen it so clearly. You may have an enormous motion film happening, and it doesn’t matter. You continue to see the screen. That’s whenever you go, it doesn’t matter what the thoughts or feelings are doing, the awakeness is just there. You could possibly have seen that each one along, you didn’t must calm anything down—Grace—it was all the time there.
In order that’s how people find yourself sounding annoying, but it surely’s true—it’s all the time there to be seen—it’s no more there from practice. So, this is the reason it’s sort of an irresolvable thing, because effort is required until it’s not, and also you realize, it never was, so each are there, and it’s not some final thing, it keeps repeating, so that you get good at noticing the screen, after which it just so happens they show a movie that triggers a bunch of stuff out of your childhood, and now you’re back in it, and also you forget there’s a screen, and you have got to start out over, calm things down, and eventually come back to, okay there’s the screen again. So it’s not some final, I’ve arrived, and I can never fall out of it. Little by little, under increasingly situations, with increasingly things happening on the screen, you’re just resting because the screen.
And, after all, this can be a metaphor. There isn’t any screen, and, who’s taking a look at the screen, anyway? The screen sees itself, so the metaphor falls apart. But, notice, we all the time do walk, we calm things down, we step outside the mind to make it real still, so you may notice, What’s this thing that’s noticing? Oh, there it’s, that’s there. After which, whenever you’ve done that enough that you would be able to’t unsee it, then letting all of the thoughts and feelings occur—no problem. But, they will probably be transformed in a extremely interesting way at that time.
So, I’ll shut up there. If anything’s coming up you would like to speak about, we’ll bring a microphone around—elegantly saunter around with a microphone in a way that can’t be trained, but can only be appreciated—it’s God’s gift. So, if something’s come up for you, raise your hand, and I’ll try to reply to it. Or, if you have got a matter, as all the time, remember that is live to the Web, so though this will likely appear to be a comfortable room of kind meditators, it’s also the open big eye of the Web.
Questioner 1: Hey, so, there’s something about speaking that seems to perturb the stillness for me, prefer it looks like as soon as we did the om mani, it’s just nothing could perturb the stillness except my very own voice, or something. Then I quiet it out, and let others keep going, after which I used to be more involved with awareness itself, but perhaps I’m pondering the words before speaking them, or something like that is occurring.
Michael: It’s just in regards to the clarity of recognition. So, drop into recognition, after which speak, and then you definately’ll come out, and drop into recognition again, after which speak, and also you come out. When you try this enough, you won’t come out anymore. It’s only a matter of getting used to it. Nothing actually disturbs the stillness, it’s the meaning of imperturbable. But you’re grabbing onto—the Mind kicks up, like I used to be saying over the weekend, the hybrid vehicle on the stop lights, the engine kicks on. It’s just like the thoughts sit back up, and also you grab on, so you simply got to get used to that occuring, and noticing that the attention doesn’t change when that happens. So, it’s a protracted technique of deep recognition, but I’d say, acclimatizing to recognition.
Questioner 1: Thanks.
Michael: There’s a weird esoteric teaching—I’m not saying I do know this, but it surely’s interesting, they’re talking in regards to the nadis, the energy channels within the body, and the Prana, the energy within the channels, they usually were saying that breath that we use to talk, or the Prana of pondering, is within the side channels. And if it goes into the central channel, it becomes silent, so that you literally can’t speak it. I just thought that was interesting. Again, I’m not saying I do know that from my very own experience, but that’s sort of fascinating.
Questioner 1: Thanks.
Questioner 2: I can see the worth of, if I’m super indignant, disidentifying with my anger, but the way in which that you simply people [laughter] speak about ooh, I’m the attention, I’m the awakeness, like what’s the deal?
Michael: What the large deal, who gives a fuck? Is that what you’re asking?
Questioner 2: Just well that’s like more disidentification for usefulness and like there’s something way greater than just the pragmatism of, oh I can recover at things in my life if I don’t get hooked on every part that passes through. It just looks like there’s something more, something so essential…
Michael: It is important.
Questioner 2: Are you able to speak about that more?
Michael: Do you understand who you might be? Who’re you? We will say that I used to be born in such and such a spot, in such and such a time, with this culture, to those parents, with these siblings, or whatever. All of that, but does any of that answer the query? And, if it doesn’t, that’s already sort of interesting. It is advisable to know who we’re, deeply. And it doesn’t mean like what we like and dislike, or anything like that, something way more fundamental. Something way more essential, something way more true, than all those sorts of random incidentals.
People sometimes do that thing on social media, like here’s a pile of my books and DVDs, and that is kind of a definition of me. When you like these books and DVDs, you understand what sort of person I’m, and I mean that’s cute, but what a pile of random bullshit. It’s just likes and dislikes—that’s not an individual. That person has no idea who they’re. None. I’m a Disney film—no you’re not. That’s not a criminal offense, I’m not against them, I’m saying, wouldn’t or not it’s interesting to look slightly more deeply than your bookshelf or your DVD collection, or your Pinterest, and truly start to return into some literal self-knowledge? So, I’ll just say, it has to do with that. And to me, that’s incredibly necessary, and perhaps, even to make use of your word again, essential.
What I’ve discovered, anyway, and I believe other people are inclined to discover this as well, is, I had not the slightest clue who I used to be. And the more that you simply define it with these likes and dislikes, the less you might be, you’re much more lost about who you really are. It’s 90 degrees from every part. In order that’s one answer, anyway. Notice, the large query is, “Who’s even having this experience?” It gets right to it: Who’s having this experience? What’s the reply? Look. Anyway, thanks, it was great having you on the retreat.
Questioner 3: Hi Michael, I just desired to follow up on that query. I don’t know if I’m going to get all your query I didn’t hear the primary part, however the last part, I believe, when you answer the query, who you might be, once it’s answered for you, and also you not discover with the likes and the dislikes, and whatever else might discover you, the larger query is, Why you’re here, and what it’s good to do, and the way—that is something that I’m grappling with. Once you might be in a position to drop in and stay consistently drop in that doesn’t necessarily answer that query.
Michael: Really?
Questioner 3: Well, perhaps I’m doing it incorrect, so please enlighten me, but that’s something I’m continuously going backwards and forwards. Am I doing what I’m presupposed to be doing? Am I doing it right, or am I not doing enough, or should I just stop doing and just stay within the dropped in state.
Michael: As I said, the awake space itself continues to be, but it surely also has tremendous energy. It’s like potential energy, and that energy doesn’t need your mind to know what to do. It’s already doing it, and it never stops doing it. So, it’s not like a job description, life is a continuous flowing forth, and all you do is stop attempting to figure it out, and loosen up into doing it. But it surely may really conflict with what our mood board says we’re, what our ego wants us to be, or what we’re trained to do, or any of that stuff, although probably not, probably if we actually worked with something for a very long time, it’s probably a part of that.
I’ll say that, again, that is where it flips to that, Are you doing it, or is it happening through you? Is it just happening, and the stuff that’s just happening is already happening. It never stopped, it didn’t go dormant, it’s attempting to occur on a regular basis. So that you don’t must figure it out, just let go of attempting to figure it out, and you will note it’s already doing it. I do know, from one side of the equation, that feels like bullshit, however the minute you notice it, you’ll realize, it was all the time doing it, because the first day you remember of your life, you’ve been doing it.
Questioner 3: So the impetus doesn’t come from…
Michael: The creative thing that’s making self and world shine into existence immediately is creating all of the activity that you simply do. If we were in nondual Shaiva Tantra, it’s called it sounds very like Crowleyan or something, “the ability of the desire”, but it surely it doesn’t mean what I need to do, it means just what the energy already is doing, and it’s all the time doing it, and perhaps every part that your thought and feeling mind has caused you to create has just been a giant distraction from the thing it’s all the time doing.
Questioner 3: Thanks.
Michael: Yep.
Questioner 4: I’m interested in your encouragement to maintain your eyes open. I’ve meditated with eyes closed, and feel like that helps me go deeper, so I’m sort of curious to see what you think that are the advantages of keeping your eyes open.
Michael: It’s about whether we’re attempting to still the mind, or, once we get up, to have the ability to walk around in a waked-up place. So, if you happen to’re within the thing of attempting to get into an altered state of stillness and quiet, in order that it’s easier to note, then during that part, closing your eyes might help. However the minute you’re like, okay, that is the awakeness, now I need to stand up off my meditation cushion and walk around while remaining here—having your eyes open whilst you’re meditating obviously makes that lots easier. So it’s sort of stage dependent.
Actually in most nondual traditions, they simply keep the eyes open the entire time, because if you happen to don’t get used to closing your eyes, you learn to meditate together with your eyes open just advantageous. I even have a zillion yr background of meditating with my eyes closed, and so for some time—there was a yr of like, whoa, that feels weird. But, after some time, it’s just no problem. But the entire point is: nothing changes, right?
Questioner 4: Yeah, it’s helpful, thanks.
Michael: Other stuff coming up on the market?
Questioner 5: Hi, not likely sure methods to ask the query, but I’ve noticed that it seems easy to wander away in pondering daydreams after they’re especially related to love romantic or sexual stuff, and so there’s one like a thought that may like wrestle with that—that’s not likely happening now, be present. But then there’s also just having fun with the show, so do you have got any advice?
Michael: There’s a lot I could say there, but I’ll just say, if that’s where you’re at, then try this. Eventually you’ll recognize that just nothing’s happening. It would just be that that’s fun and interesting, but it surely is perhaps that there’s some fundamental discomfort that you simply don’t wish to feel, perhaps. Or, perhaps that there’s a deeper joy, deeper fun in not daydreaming, perhaps even deeper than that. Or, coming back right into a daydream, but completely lucidly for once, stuff like that. what? Daydream all you wish, and whenever you’re bored with it, here’s what you do, okay?
All right, let’s end that there. As all the time, it’s really wonderful to sit down with you guys.
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