Introduction
We’re going to meditate for an hour, and I’m going to be talking for that whole hour. I’ll be guiding the meditation, with the hope that you simply follow the guidance, but for those who don’t wish to, don’t. The agreement within the room is that you simply stay very, very, very, still and quiet, no matter which experience you’re having internally. So that you’re free to have your individual internal experience, aside from that permit’s just do it.
Meditation
Discover a meditation posture that’s got this sense of openness, perhaps some continuous fluidity and ease. This theme of openness, fluidity, and ease is maintained throughout. So, to whatever extent possible, I would like you to take your pondering mind and just throw it to the underside of hell, and let it burn there until it’s gone. Meanwhile, you might be just resting in an openness. There will be an infinite amount of thoughts happening, that’s no problem, but you might be simply resting in openness and ease. So what which means is, regardless of how much thought is going on, you’re not engaging with it–but neither are you doing a little sort of tightly focused absorption. You’re just sitting in openness.
I haven’t done this in a protracted time, but tonight we’re just going to calm down quite a bit to start with, because rest, ease, openness, and usually feeling good in your body really matters to meditation. We frequently think meditation is a matter of buckling down, and tightening up, and getting my focus like a laser beam, and that’s just completely the mistaken direction. We wish to breathe easy and feel open and let go. So let’s begin, as usual, by asking ourselves the query, what’s it wish to be me without delay? After which, look. Don’t assume you already know the reply–actually look. What’s it wish to be you without delay?
Notice all of the spinning thoughts, wherever that’s happening–at the underside of Hell. Notice all of the emotional waves, mini waves, wavelets, and tsunamis–or whatever is occurring–notice the assorted styles of body sensations which can be arising, and take stock, take a weather report. What does it feel like? What’s it wish to be you on this moment?
Then part two: whatever is occurring without delay, I invite you, for the subsequent hour, to simply let or not it’s that way. Not attempting to improve yourself, or change yourself, or control it, or force it down, or suppress it, or deny it, or twist it into shape, or make it do the tricks you wish it to do, but, moderately, drop all that, and let yourself be exactly the way in which you might be. That is just fundamental kindness towards others being expressed towards yourself. Fundamental kindness towards yourself. You’re letting go of the continual project of being different than you truly are, and only for the subsequent hour, just letting yourself be you.
Have you ever ever just said to a different person, will you simply let me be for a minute? Normally they’re doing one a hundredth of what we do to ourselves, so, here, we’re saying to ourselves, I’m just going to let myself be for a bit of while. Notice the nice a part of that–which is a whole lot of ease coming into the system, a whole lot of releasing and letting go. The difficult part is that then you have got to feel how you truly are, as a substitute of getting involved in a fantasy of being different.
So, just feel how you might be for now. To ask in additional ease into the body, see for those who can just allow a bit of more rest in your scalp and face, just by simply relaxing your scalp and face. You don’t must do anything like exercises or something, just allow it. If there’s voluntary tension there, just let go of it a bit of bit, even when it’s just 3%. Let your face release any sort of pinched, or tight, or fixed, expression, and are available right into a simpler, open, repose. Allow your jaw to calm down, just by separating your upper and lower teeth barely, so that they’re not clenched–feeling the relief and ease that comes from allowing a bit of little bit of release there.
See for those who can invite your shoulder, arms, wrists, and hands to be as limp as wet noodles, in order that for those who were suddenly called to take motion, it will actually take a second or two to re-engage them. We typically keep our arms and hands able to go, but I would like you to release them in the way in which that you simply would release them for those who were about to go to sleep, where they are only really not able to go, but moderately, utterly limp, with no type of idling engine within the background. It’s the thing you do once you go from the next tone of voice to a lower tone of voice, there’s a sort of rest there in your throat. Just let that rest occur, and permit your shoulders to release. If nothing else, just allow them to float down only a tiny bit, barely enough that you are feeling barely more letting go happening there.
Now, notice out of your head and your face, all over your throat and shoulders, all the way in which right down to your hands, that it’s far more at peace, far more at rest, far more relaxed, than it was just a few moments ago. Then, simply to whatever extent it’s possible to do that by intention alone, just intend that your belly region, each in front, on the edges, in back, and all the way in which inside, just release a bit of bit. Let go of among the tension or tightness there, and it just type of relaxes right into a far more open, far more at-rest posture than it was before.
In the event you know the way to do that, you may calm down your diaphragm. That seems to be not that easy for a lot of folks, but, for those who can, just let your diaphragm open up. Then, lastly, do the identical move along with your legs and feet, allow your legs, your upper legs, your knees, your lower legs, your ankles, your feet, to return out of ready-mode into complete noodle-mode–they’re very, very, very, relaxed.
Then, feeling how good your face feels from relaxing a bit of bit, and your legs and arms feel from relaxing a bit of bit, and your belly feels from relaxing a bit of bit, just tune in for a bit of while here, not a protracted while, but a bit of while, into just letting go, and releasing. On the in-breath, you’re feeling peace and ease coming into the body, and on the out-breath, you’re respiratory out tension, respiratory out tightness, respiratory out constriction. In order that with each breath, you’re letting go an increasing number of. There’s no race, and we’re not attempting to turn into literal puddles on the ground, just allow whatever ease is present to be ok, and really enjoy that for just a few minutes here.
We’re doing this from the type of frame of being wide open, almost just like the sky, just releasing, releasing into the sky, nothing constricted, nothing crunched down, all the things open, all the things spacious. In the event you end up growing sleepy, sit up, open your eyes, staying nice and relaxed, but in addition alert.
Okay, good. Now I would like you to seek out a sense of kindness and caring, and beam that towards yourself without delay. Do some self-metta, or self Tonglen, just wishing that you simply for yourself, that you simply be relaxed, that you are feeling peace, that you are feeling healthy, and comfortable, and whole. Forgiving yourself for all of the things you would possibly must be forgiven for, and feel gratitude in a extremely positive way–not guilty gratitude, but true gratitude, for stuff that you simply do feel gratitude for. Let’s do that self-metta or self Tonglen, letting yourself off the hook, really loving yourself up a bit of bit. Let’s do that for just a few minutes together.
This is basically necessary–that we open our hearts towards ourselves. In the event you know the way to do Tonglen, you may even open up the opposite a part of it, where you’re actually allowing the sky-like nature of mind to tackle all of your suffering, after which to beam back kindness, peace, joy, health, courage, gratitude, back to yourself. It doesn’t must be big emotions–the fundamental thing is solely that your heart gets a bit of melty, a bit of more open, a bit of less closed down, more wide open, and soft, and warm, and sort. Even when it’s only a tiny amount, really notice that kindness, and heat, and openness, and sweetness that’s there in your heart.
Good. Now, do it for the others in your life–the individuals who you’re near, the people you interact with. Feel your heart open, and soften, and turn into kinder, even only a tiny bit, but perhaps a bit of bit greater than that, towards the people in your life. If you need to, you may add the Tonglen, and want that you simply tackle all their suffering, when you beam this love and kindness towards them. We’re all alike in a certain way–all of us just wish to be comfortable, we’re going about it in other ways, but we will wish that one another be comfortable, be free from suffering, be free from pain, can earnestly wish that. We will really understand that about anybody.
Good. Now, because, after we sit together on this room, we’re a community of individuals meditating together, let’s do the identical thing for every and everybody within the room. Explicitly wishing that everybody here feel protected, feel comfortable, feel healthy, feel joy, feel peace. Notice how your heart responds.
Okay, good. Now, let go of that, and are available back to easily resting as sky-like awareness, wide open, wide awake, not specializing in anything specifically, just being present, easy presence. The one thing I would like you to be with, and I’m saying being with–not deal with, but just be with, is the flow of thought activity. So, regardless that we threw our pondering minds to the underside of hell, we will still notice the flow of thought activity happening, without narrowly focusing. Simply because awareness is aware, we’re noticing the flow of thought activity. It’s almost as if we’re a sky and a landscape, and in that landscape, there’s a flowing river. The sky is aware of the river, however the sky isn’t specializing in it, it’s not separate from it, it’s just aware of this flow. After all, for those who get caught within the content, then the river freezes up into ice. In the event you notice that taking place, just calm down again, come back to being the sky. You may let go of the river for a minute, after which step by step turn into aware of its activity again.
What we would like is to note that unfixated, totally flowing, fluid, repeatedly changing, stream of thought activity, which we’re aware of since the sky of awareness is aware, but not grabbing on to or gripping down on–and even specializing in in any respect. If that’s too hard, if the thoughts just keep gripping–that’s what too hard looks like then, you may just set them aside again completely, not engaging with them, and spot the flow of breath within the body again–not specializing in, awareness is solely aware of the flow of respiratory. That’s normally quite a bit easier. But for those who can stick with this flow of unfixed thought activity, we’re going to do this together for some time here.
Good. The concept here will not be that we’re standing on the banks of a river taking a look at it. We’re not separate from it. If that’s the one way you may do it, that’s high quality, but remember, the concept here that the open space of awareness is just simply aware of the flow of thought, it’s not in some way separate from it, taking a look at it. It it. So, for those who notice that you simply’re constructing this positionality, type of taking a look at it, just calm down that and see the way you’re aware of the flow of thought activity, whether you make this mental picture of standing outside it, taking a look at it, or not. After all, constructing a mental picture of standing outside it, taking a look at it, is a sort of fixated thought, so we just let go of that. Let that melt, and just be swept away with the flow of thought activity. There’s no must in some way stand outside it. Just let the unfixated thoughts flow.
Good. As you’re doing this, you might notice that very, very weird thoughts come up–dream type thoughts, nonsense type thoughts, perhaps really nightmarish or disturbing thoughts, especially for those who do that for a very long time, since you’re not filtering the content such as you normally do. You’re letting the thought activity flow in an unfixed way, so the unmediated unconscious will start pouring into conscious awareness. That’s high quality, that’s speculated to occur. The very necessary instruction there may be to not worry about it. Don’t worry in any respect in regards to the content, regardless of how weird, or disturbing, or graphic, or intense, or exciting, or boring. We’re concerned with the flow the unfixed flow, not with the content, so just expect that sometimes it’s going to be not the traditional form of pondering, and that’s okay. The less you react to it, the more that your deep unconscious mind works out its knots and tight spots.
On this vast, open, spacious awareness, the flow of thought activity is definitely just a really, very, tiny a part of it. That’s why we’re probably not narrowly specializing in that–it’s just certainly one of the things happening on this wide open space, and all we’re doing will not be getting caught in our on a regular basis thought. Once we are tightly focused down on that flow of thought and really concerned with the content, it’s as if there’s an enormous wide open sky, and we’re sitting out in our garden, and we’ve got our stamp collection, and we’re focused down on the stamp collection, and we never notice the sky, regardless that it’s there the entire time. We’re just really involved with this 1932 Argentinian stamp. We’re way down in there, and we forget this sky–so we’re doing the other here. We’re just being the sky and the “stamp collection” is there, too, it’s just certainly one of the numerous things that’s happening, we’re not ignoring it, we’re noticing now–switching the metaphor, that it has some activity happening there. We’re allowing it to maneuver and alter in an unfixed way.
If it freezes up, or fixates, just calm down. Let it go. Come back to simply being the wide open sky. Don’t collapse down into trying out the stamp collection.
Good. Now, simply let go of even following the flow of thought, and just come back to simply being the sky itself, just the open awareness, without paying particular attention to anything. The flow of thought continues to be there, the flow of the breath continues to be there, and even the flow of activity called being an individual continues to be there. Just stuff arising within the sky of awareness–but we are likely to deal with that flow of activity called being an individual, and discover with it. Those thoughts and feelings are me, and here we’re just letting them be a part of what’s arising on this vast openness. They’re not in some way the vast openness–it’s not that you simply’re that, but that’s only a tiny little subset, tiny little speck, on this vast, awake, open, clarity that’s at all times there. Rest as that.
The wide open, wide awakeness is the one thing that’s not changing or moving–it’s just completely stable. You’ll imagine that you simply’re an individual product of thoughts and feelings who’s trying to have a look at the steadiness, but that’s completely backwards. This wide awake openness that’s so stable the so-called screen upon which the thoughts and feelings are arising. The person doesn’t take a look at that, the person simply an exquisitely beautiful expression of that–the art of God.
So, simply let the wide open awakeness pay attention to itself, and all of the moving expressions inside itself–all of the thoughts, all the sentiments, all of the sights, all of the sounds, all the things that’s repeatedly moving and changing, in a kaleidoscopic expression of that awakeness. Remaining utterly unfixed, all the things just flows, and awareness is just aware of itself and the flow, effortlessly, without tightening, or constricting, or scrunching down, or collapsing. It’s just open flow.
Good. Now, we did metta, or Tonglen for ourselves, and we did it for those near and dear to us, and we did it for everybody on this room, but now let’s do it for the remainder of the world–everyone, all over the place. May everyone, all over the place, be at peace, comfortable, and free from suffering, healthy, beloved, and relaxed. Just feel that radiating out in all directions. If you need to do the Tonglen version, you furthermore may tackle all of the suffering and difficulty of the world into this space of open awareness, which is large enough to handle it. Either way, respiratory out, beaming out, radiating out, love, kindness, peace, gratitude, joy, health, safety, to the entire universe. Make an earnest wish that everybody, all over the place be protected; everyone, all over the place be at peace; everyone, all over the place be healthy; everyone, all over the place feel joy.
Let’s end that there. Be at liberty to maneuver and stretch.
Dharma Talk
As I used to be saying, it’s like we’ve just learned to listen to at least one little, tiny corner of experience. The metaphor is: you’re outside in a good looking garden with distant mountains, and this huge, gorgeous, sky. You’ve got tea, and something to eat, and there are people around, and nice animals, and flowers, and trees. All of this is going on, and also you’ve just got this one little book of stamps, and also you’re just at all times focused on it, and just keep specializing in it. Not exactly ignoring, but just you’re just so focused on that, that the remainder of it’s just–yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever, is going on. I’m here with my book of stamps. That’s the pathological, philatelic, version of meditation. All I can do is take into consideration my thoughts, I’m just focused on my pondering, focused on my pondering, and all the things is my pondering. Despite the fact that I do know there’s a sky on the market, I just remember there’s a sky, so it’s a thought, and I do know there are trees, and animals, and food, and tea–but I’m just remembering it, so it’s a thought. I forget to simply look up, or to listen, or to taste it.
After all, we will do an interesting thing with absorption-type meditation or focus-type meditation–of claiming, as a substitute of specializing in your stamp collection, deal with this flower. That has the effect of getting you to stop being so focused in your stamps, and so it starts to open you up. A number of absorption-type meditation is about that, just refocusing on anything, and that’s very helpful.
We’re doing something different, which is, hey just look up only for a minute. Let go of that, for those who can, and just look, listen. You don’t must narrowly deal with something else, just look up, just calm down for a minute. That’s a extremely tight, constricted sort of focus you’ve got going there. Can you simply look up, and spot all the opposite stuff that’s occurring? If you do this, especially for those who do it over and once more, that seems to be pretty amazing, because there’s a whole lot of other stuff occurring. Moreover, it’s relaxed–that neurotic tension on the pondering is released, so abruptly, there’s experience. As an alternative of fascinated about all of the stuff that you simply remember is around you, you might be experiencing it. It seems that thoughts about things are pretty dead, however the experience of things is vibrant and alive—it’s wide awake. So, the easy trick here is, can we let go of that narrow focus?
What happens is–I’ll say over and once more–I would like you to do that, after which people attempt to do it with their pondering, attempt to refocus on this recent way by fascinated about it, because that enables them to repeatedly keep taking a look at the stamps. Okay, I’m taking a look at the sky now–it doesn’t work that way. So you simply release–but it surely goes deeper than that, or gets weirder, since you recognize that’s just more stuff arising in that space–and that’s cool! The stuff arising within the space is gorgeous, beautiful, exquisite, effulgent expression, but it surely’s just among the many beautiful things which can be being expressed right then. In order that, even the sentiments of the body, and the thoughts, and the emotions, are only more flowers, birds, trees, plants, mountains, clouds, planets, etc., arising in the sphere.
You get to the purpose where you might be the sphere, you’re the awake, open, spacious part—nothing specifically that’s arising. As I’m fond of claiming, you will not be on the planet, the world is in you. You simply begin to notice that an increasing number of, and that there’s no must fixate. The fixation is the thing that hurts. Fixation is the thing that’s causing all of the [grrr]. You’re thinking that you’ll be unsafe for those who calm down the fixation, but it surely’s the other. If you calm down the fixation, then some real life can begin to occur.
So, I can talk in these ways ceaselessly–I feel like I’m being really clear, but it surely won’t be so clear. So, if you have got questions, or comments, or reports about your experience, raise your hand.
Q&A
Questioner 1: If I had higher concentration, would I have the ability to stop taking a look at the stamps for longer periods of time? And, is it mistaken to consider open spacious awareness as a sort of meditation object?
Michael: Yes, don’t consider it that way. It’s not a thing you’re specializing in, it’s what’s focusing. It will probably’t really take itself as an object. It will probably, since it’s aware, it may pay attention to itself, but you’re attempting to make it an object inside awareness, and it’s the attention, so it’s like, can a mirror reflect itself? It doesn’t really work. What happens is, we attempt to be an individual taking a look at awareness–that’s a very reasonable thing, based on the remainder of our lives. I can inform you to have a look at anything, deal with something, and also you deal with it. But this will not be like that, so the more that you are trying to do it from a position, the less you’re doing it.
As an alternative, you simply stop focusing in any respect. There’s no focus there, it’s just–what’s left if there’s no focus. What’s left if there’s no focus? What’s it that gets focused in the primary place? Awareness is the thing that’s being focused, and for those who stop focusing, what’s left is just the attention itself.
So, imagine you’ve got this tablecloth of awareness, and the main focus is crimping, crimping, crimping–attempting to get it multi function spot. All I’m asking you to do is–not in some way move the crimping around, but just let go. Then you definitely’re left with the entire tablecloth, but that’s not a thing you may deal with like an object. There’s some sort of effort if I even have a habit of just taking a look at the stamp. We’re just relaxing that habit, that’s why we started off with physical rest, after which letting the mind just flow, flow, flow, flow, flow, and allowing things to de-crunch a bit of bit, in order that the habit relaxes, relaxes, relaxes.
You may have a habit of, each time I’m going right into a certain work situation, I get tense, but for those who, on purpose, calm down each time you do it, over time, you’re not going to get tense there anymore. In order that rubber band that keeps snapping you back into this micro focus releases. It just takes a whole lot of relaxing again and again.
Questioner 1: Thanks.
Michael: Yeah, just remember, it’s already, itself, wide open–so that you don’t must make it wide open, you simply stop tensing.
Questioner 2: Hi. You were talking about flow, and I tend to consider it as a stream. A stream just flows, and things occur, like if a rock falls into the stream, it’s just happening, and the stream flows around it. What I used to be noticing was the difference between what I’ll call awareness and mind. Awareness is like if someone coughs awareness is that which flows immediately in that direction, without being told to focus.
Michael: That’s attention, what goes in that direction. Awareness is just aware.
Questioner 2: Okay, so attention. So, when someone coughs or something happens that
arises in awareness, then mind is, in my experience, that which then names it, after which perhaps has an opinion about it. The things that I even have a harder time resting as awareness in, is physical–like thoughts, they’re high quality, it’s just when it’s sensation, especially unpleasant sensation, that feels more personal. Is there a way through which you may work with that physical discomfort, to be as open to it as with the environmental stuff?
Michael: Yeah, the truth is, I might say a lot of people have the other experience, where they’ve worked enough with their body that it feels real flowing, open, and permeable, whereas the external world is more real. So, yes, it’s very achievable to note that. You could have privileged access to that–other people won’t feel your body sensation, but it surely’s still simply present as an experience, and just like all other experience, you may begin to note its lack of definability. You may’t ever really nail it down, and since you may’t ever really nail it down it’s…
Questioner 2: I try pondering, what’s the shape of it? What are the qualities of it? Investigating it.
Michael: Yeah, that’s the phenomenological level of vipashyana, which is great, but for those who do this with a whole lot of concentration, what do you notice about each of those variables–the
size, or just that they’re moving on a regular basis. If every variable in a so-called object is repeatedly changing. How is something the identical thing if every a part of it’s different moment to moment? It’s the identical thing only because there’s a box in your mind calling it a thing, and in order that’s the fixation. Let go of that box. It’s the precise thing that a programmer defines as an object. Let go of that, after which the variables vary, it’s just flowing.
Questioner 2: Okay.
Questioner 3: Hi. I notice when I’m going more deeply into meditation, there’s this realization where there’s awareness that appears outward, like awareness that’s aware of perception, after which I notice once I retract, that I turn away from my senses, it appears like awareness almost collapses in on itself, or turns in on itself, and turns more into awareness just being. Then in that place of awareness being, it appears like there’s a good subtler, almost indescribable dimension that just about appears like it’s only knowable in contrast to awareness being. People speak about a level of awareness that’s type of awareness being, after which beyond that, absolutely the, and so they speak about knowing that in contrast to awareness being. Like awareness being is sort of this deepest inner level of awareness after which there’s a state of recognizing that even the beingness of awareness is an emergent phenomenon. Does that resonate along with your experience?
Michael: That’s only half of what’s necessary. Sure, there’s a void, there’s stillness, there’s awakeness, but, as I used to be saying within the meditation, all of this will not be nothing. It’s not a dream, it’s not meaningless, it’s not in some way delusion, it’s not a fantasy. That is the exquisite birth from that thing you’re describing in every moment. Then, what’s necessary to note is that they’re never separate–they’re not two various things, they’re just different sides of the identical thing. That’s what’s necessary. So you may go down that hole ceaselessly, but I don’t recommend it. That’s a dead end. You’re just repeatedly attempting to transcend the world, and attempting to transcend life, and go into this Brahman void of purity. But that purity is in all the things, in order that’s the necessary part. That’s the a part of my experience that I would like to ensure you’re grokking.
Questioner 3: Yeah. What’s interesting is that it appears like we are likely to grokk the physical
world very easily by grokking that deeper part. In maintaining some type of connection to that extremely deep depth while we’re interacting with the physical is what could be very difficult, because even when we treat thoughts because the stamp–the metaphor that you simply were describing, you may even then describe the beingness of awareness as a stamp as well.
Michael: Who’s taking a look at?
Questioner 3: It appears like the attention itself is an emergent, like a meta-stamp throughout the beyondness.
Michael: Well, just keep investigating that. You’re talking Advaita Vedanta, and Advaita Vedanta is broken. It’s only halfway there. They erase the world, and so I’m saying there’s more to do. If you ask me what my experience is, that’s what’s necessary.
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