Welcome to Thursday night with Deconstructing Yourself. Let’s begin, as usual, with some samatha. Last week we did a complete hour of just shamatha, respiratory and relaxing. Tonight, we are going to return to our normal set-up, after which do some fun, interesting stuff once we get ourselves within the zone. So, first we’ll do some shamatha, just respiratory and relaxing, and focusing. An enormous a part of samatha is having fun with it, and having fun with the pleasantness. You won’t go to Buddhist hell for having fun with your meditation. It’s perfectly wonderful to have nice feelings within the body, and have nice emotions once we’re doing shamatha.
Get in a pleasant posture. I would like you to feel confidence on this meditation. This isn’t about getting it right, not about some technique that you could have to chew through 100 miles of broken glass to get correct. That is something that’s price doing at every level, right or mistaken, good or bad, just trust, have openness, a slight sense of playfulness. This isn’t the tip of the world, no less than not tonight while we’re meditating. So, let’s just settle into the posture, and permit the body to calm down and turn into very still. One in all the things I even have you do–often we do the deep belly respiratory. This stills the body and passifies the mind, and, if you happen to do it for 10-Quarter-hour, you’ll begin to feel some nice buzzy, tingling within the body, what we would call energy. That’s still along with the stillness, just a pleasing, yummy, brilliant energy. Almost like if you happen to took an awesome hot shower, and also you stepped out of the shower and your whole body is form of humming on the skin. For those who do deep belly respiratory for 10-Quarter-hour, you’ll get that humming body energy, very nice, very relaxing, and simple to deal with.
So, for now, we’re doing deep belly respiratory. Long deep in-breath–to a level that’s comfortable for you–then a protracted out-breath. Let’s try this for slightly while.
Now that you just are respiratory and relaxing and settling in, I would like you to permit the muscles of the eyes to release and calm down and let go, so the eyes turn into completely relaxed and still. They is likely to be flickering around a bit, but you’re not looking around inside your closed eyelids. They are only still, relaxed, no tension in any respect. You’ll be able to test for tension by attempting to open them. For those who can’t, it’s because they’re so relaxed you would need to tense them as much as open them. So get them to the purpose where you possibly can’t open them without tensing them back up. Then allow the cheek muscles, your lips, your mouth to calm down, and your lower jaw to open barely enough in order that your upper and lower teeth will not be touching, and your chin is barely tucked. That opens the back of the neck in a really nice way. I would like you to feel this relaxed stillness in your face. The entire face getting kinda melty, soft and relaxed, the scalp releasing. Any of the muscles of the back of the pinnacle or ears, or anywhere within the mouth, completely released, and the tongue floating within the mouth, as if it were a lingual zeppelin.
Good. Now, let’s calm down the neck and throat and shoulders. Allowing that region to simply release and let go and turn into soft. The shoulders rolling back and opening up, and allowing the upper arms, elbows, forearms, hands and fingers and thumbs to go limp, as if they’d been stung by Shelob of Lord of the Rings. They go as limp as a boned fish, they usually just calm down and let go. No tension anywhere in arms or face, just open and simple with a pleasing easy energy, form of melting, opening, releasing, a form of soft glow. Feel your upper body as if it were a pat of melting butter. Continuing to breathe and focus. Notice how the breath can co-mingle with this nice energy within the body, and turn into fully confounded, confabulate together. The breath could be causing the brilliant, sparkly energy within the body, and this nice, relaxed, open energy within the body appears to be making the respiratory occur. There’s this glorious symbiosis between these two aspects.
Now, notice that the upper chest relaxes in front, on the edges, within the back. The entire chest region becomes very soft, full of a pleasant pleasantness, a pleasant glow, a pleasant buttery glow in the guts. Just feeling your whole upper body coming together, unifying, becoming one cohesive beautiful, relaxed energy.
Now, let’s include the lower abdomen, particularly the abdomen, noticing how the deep respiratory out and in is allowing the belly to almost give itself a massage. The perimeters of the belly region and the back and the lower abdomen, all of that becoming very relaxed, open, super nice. Feeling some nice, smooth energy all the way in which from the underside of the torso to the highest of the pinnacle, each relaxed and open and energized and brilliant. Also, slightly bit clear, not muddy, sleepy leisure, but brilliant, clear leisure.
Now, the hips, your butt and thighs and knees, lower legs, calves, shins, feet, and toes, all goes limp–totally relaxed, utterly no tension there. Notice now that the entire body is now one big glowing field of relaxed nice energy, that the breath is each soothing and opening, relaxing and massaging, and the energy is moving the breath and mixing with the breath in a pleasant way.
If that’s beginning to resonate for you, you’re beginning to get that sense of the breath, the energy and the relaxed muscles together, just let your mind dissolve into that. Let your whole awareness dissolve into that, in order that it becomes the whole thing of your focus, not in a decent way, but in an entire manner.
Now, in a variety of the Buddhist texts, they’re very clear that space and awareness are various things. But they often say that if there’s anything that awareness is like–like a metaphor–it’s space. So, let’s drop into vast spacious awareness, just drop every little thing, concentrating on nothing in any respect, and allowing–just simply–the mind to rest in vast spacious awareness. If that’s available to you, just go directly there. One other way we are able to do something similar–not the exact same–but very similar, is the dropping the ball technique, which is a form of ungrasping.
To “do” dropping the ball, anytime the mind grabs onto any object of attention, just let go of that. If the mind grips onto a sound, listening to the sound of that dachshund trotting down the hallway, with a variety of pep in its step, you simply hear that click-click-click of its toenails, I’m just going to let that go. If thoughts are arising, something about my life, blah, blah, blah, I just notice that the mind is getting inquisitive about that, hanging onto that, I’m just going to calm down, and let that go. If I’m really used to meditating on body sensation, or simply did a complete bunch of that, and my mind continues to be going to the body, and hanging onto the body, I’m going to, as a substitute, let go of that. So, we are only relaxing and opening the mind, relaxing and opening the mind.
I brought up the dachshund because that’s the dog that we’re metaphorically playing fetch with. Remembering my old example that there are dogs that like to play fetch who go get the ball, run after it with great vigor and zest. And so they come back, and dutifully and playfully drop the ball at your feet, because they know that’s how you choose it up and throw it again. Now we are able to have this flowing loose, open play. But there are some dogs–and in my mind that dog is a dachshund–that get their mouth on the ball and don’t let go of it. They even bring it back, but just sit there with the ball clamped of their teeth, growling. And now, the sport is over. You’ll be able to’t play ball that way. So, what do we wish the dachshund to do? We would like it to drop the ball. Let go, release. It’s a variety of effort to hold onto that ball and growl, taste the saliva of the tennis ball, or whatever. But you would like to just metaphorically calm down the jaw, drop the ball, and wag your tail. Each time you choose up the ball, you simply drop it again. If the mind picks up a ball, you simply drop it again and wag your tail. Joyful, you simply keep dropping the ball. Actually, you’re the world’s worst dog at playing fetch, but you’re really good at each time you choose it up, you simply let go of it again. You might be easy, open, and pleased. So, let’s practice that.
Continuing to let go of anything that the mind grabs onto, I would like you to ensure that that you just’re not getting aversion going. You’re not subtly pushing stuff away, or making it go away, or developing a form of irritation when the mind grabs onto things. That’s just constructing aversion–we’re not trying to do this, not attempting to construct not liking. As an alternative, we’re just opening the mind and letting go. Letting go just isn’t pushing away, it’s not disliking, it’s not attempting to scrape some crap off your boots with a disgusted look in your face. You’re simply relaxing, and opening, just like the flower is just blossoming, it’s totally, easy, relaxing, opening, effortless. And, regardless of the mind was holding onto just drifts away of its own accord.
So, you don’t wish to be constructing any aversion. We would like to have a form of holy indifference, or equanimity with whatever arises, after which we are only not grabbing onto it. So, there is sort of a difference between just relaxing and dropping that ball, and kicking the yucky ball away and getting mad and frustrated with it. For those who are doing that, just drop that, that’s just more gripping. For those who’re attempting to work out, what does he mean?–just drop all that. That is about just dropping it, over and all over again. Anything the mind is tightening around, the dropping is only a serene opening, a complete letting go. Letting go, letting go, letting go, letting go. Still awake, still aware. Awareness itself may be very brilliant, very clear, very lucid and awake. Letting go of every little thing. Dropping the mother fucking ball.
Good. In fact, you might be welcome to maintain doing that, it’s an exquisite practice. You’ll be able to do it for the remaining of the meditation if you happen to wish, that’s perfectly wonderful. If you would like to keep going, using this open, vast, spacious mind that’s relaxed and alert, very broad, very awake, to do some exploration, then, follow together with me here. The thing I would like to work with here is the sense of relief that happens once we drop that ball. As an alternative of simply dropping it and letting go, I would like you to really bring slightly little bit of vipashyana clarity to that moment of letting go. So there’s slightly little bit of effort, we’re doing slightly bit more meditation on purpose. I would like you to note that moment of dropping the ball, notice the moment of opening the mind.
There may be a Zen text called Opening the Fist of the Mind, they see that as an analogous metaphor, as just relaxing that fist. In that moment of letting go, I would like you to note the relief that happens. That relief may be very small, but it surely is noticeable. It’s not gigantic, not like a wave of enormous leisure, pleasure coursing through the body. It’s just slightly , a tiny little nice letting go of something. Then, if the mind grasps onto something again, then that tension is just slightly bit unpleasant, and the relaxing, the letting go – , is a relief, is slightly bit nice to let go, to do the ungrasping. So, I would like you to–not generate or fabricate or pretend or imagine that niceness, that pleasantness, that relief of letting go–but allow awareness itself to be clear, lucid and vivid enough to note a way of slightly little bit of . You don’t should take care of that anymore–not aversion–only a form of releasing and letting go. So, see if you happen to can feel that nice relief within the ungrasping. You could have to look fastidiously to see that, but, give it a shot.
Continuing to simply drop the ball, calm down the mind, but really getting super clear about that moment of letting go, the moment of relaxing away from the item, and noticing the pleasantness, the mild little frizzon or thrill of delight at letting go.
Good. Now we’re going to try something slightly different. As an alternative of letting go, or dropping the ball, or relaxing the mind in the way in which we’ve got been doing, I would like you to permit awareness to simply notice that the item itself goes away. If we don’t hang on, the item will dissolve, vanish, it’ll turn into dreamlike or wispy like fog, smoke, or a soap bubble of its own accord. Even when we don’t let go, objects themselves reveal their emptiness and start to fade. And, as the item vanishes, the sense of having the ability to grasp it, to hold onto it’ll dissolve as well. Every time the item fades or dissolves or falls apart or quiets down after which vanishes, the grasping, the gripping vanishes too.
So, just notice you can not only drop the ball, not only calm down, open and let go, however the objects themselves are already doing that. If we don’t hang on and check out to maintain them together, keep them clear or solid with a form of tension within the mind, they simply dissolve of their very own accord. So, in a way, they drop themselves. Here we’re going to let the ball drop itself, or, notice that the ball isn’t a ball, the ball is empty, dissolving, is just like the wind, is a dream. If that’s too weird, just come back to noticing the relief of dropping the ball.
Notice that every time an object fades, a perception vanishes, dissolves, relaxes, lets go, reveals its emptiness, shows its dream-like nature. Every time that happens, there’s an analogous relief, an analogous letting go, form of an inner every time an object does this dance of opening, relaxing, letting go, fading, dissolving, going away. That very same type of pleasantness is accessible. So just notice that.
Remember to expand this to things that initially you’re not even aware that you just are holding onto, corresponding to the sense of awareness coming from a specific place within the body, the body sensations of that place; corresponding to the sense of feeling the chair or cushion beneath you, or the mental images of the room around you. All this stuff we let be there, these orienting fabrications. See if you happen to can notice that those are dissolving, unfabricating, deconstructing, fading, demonstrating their emptiness also. And, in the event that they open up like that, at first it’s a significant relief. They may come back, or it is likely to be slightly disorienting. In the event that they come back, just notice that they fade again. Whether it is disorienting, notice that that sense of disorientation is a few thought, some emotion that can also be fading, dissolving, relaxing, opening, demonstrating its emptiness. So, herald a way of relief when it does.
Now, just calm down and let go, deeper than you could have ever relaxed and let go before. Allow awareness to drop, drop, drop, deeper, deeper, an increasing number of expansive, more letting go of every little thing, letting go completely, falling backwards, down, down, down, letting go, opening, relaxing, letting go. Any time anything starts to arise, notice that it dissolves into emptiness. The bottom, the environment, the sense of the body, the sense of a mind, the sense of the world, the sense of getting a history, of being an individual, of any response to experience, the sense of meditating, the sense of doing anything, of being anything, noticing anything in any respect–dissolves, fades and vanishes, again and again and over. Keep going. Don’t rest, keep allowing emptiness to disclose itself in any resting place. That is falling through space, nothing to impede the drop, and, at the identical time, nothing and no person dropping, and no space, and no direction, and no time, and nothing that’s not completely empty in all directions. Just ultra ball drop. Let go, let go, drop every little thing, in every single place in every direction, utterly empty, vanishing, not even there.
Not resting even now, continuing to release, noticing the emptiness even within the sense of doing anything, the sense of being anyone, the sense of noticing anything in any respect. Awareness itself–empty. Self and world–empty. Every thing is totally empty, offering no ground, no place to land, nobody falling, no refuge. Except, after all, the vast relief of that much emptiness, that much letting go, ungrasping, tremendous wave of nice relief. Almost a tsunami of letting go, of relief.
And, now, allowing things to start to solidify again, materialize again. Perhaps allowing some self and world to arise, allowing there to be orientation, direction, space, ground, a spot to face, a spot to be. Imagining now, in your mind, the incredibly beautiful, celestial sound of a single bell ringing, as we end the meditation. Allow yourself to return back to yourself, in a way. Fabricating enough to orient to the room around you. Feeling free to maneuver and stretch. Opening your eyes, moving your head slightly bit, to orient to the room. Feeling your body, gently moving your fingers and toes, and on the point of ask some questions.
One in all the ideas we’re fidgeting with here is that there’s a gripping of the mind onto objects that has a certain tension or unpleasantness related to it. After we either let go of the item, either we will not be grasping onto it, or we’re letting it go as an object–meaning that we allow it to turn into a non-object, we allow it to dissolve and vanish, which is one other form of ungrasping–we’re going to notice this relief. It’s a relief from , the pain of hanging onto that thing. So, as we let go or notice the emptiness, and calm down, it allows an actual sense of pleasantness to arise, which is the dearth of unpleasantness. The unpleasantness dissolves, then we’re noticing that that feels good.
It’s an interesting conundrum because we do wish to experience the world as lovely, brilliant, colourful, powerful, interesting, and at the identical time, there’s the sense that if we grab onto it in such a way that we make an actual, solid object out of it, that may have its own unpleasantness related to it. That could be unpleasant. So there’s this in-between zone that is gorgeous, where we’re interacting with the world skillfully, powerfully, and at the identical time there’s an actual sense of it being a dream, and that at any moment it could dissolve. At any moment we are able to let go, open up, so we’re fully involved within the divine play, the . We will not be backing out, or rejecting, or avoiding it, and in addition fully aware that it’s a play, a dream, that may fundamentally dissolve and open in that way. It’s a really beautiful, powerful way of understanding.
Michael:Any questions on this?
Questioner 1: Are you able to comment on the seeming disconnect from the drop-the-ball state and having the ability to behave on the earth?
Michael: That’s what I’m commenting on. If we sit down, and are nice and still, we are able to do that super, ultimate dropping of the ball–really letting go in a really deep way. If, alternatively, we want to avoid traffic and cut vegetables for dinner, because we’re eating at home, and we’re getting good at cooking, putting peanut butter on a rice cake, we don’t wish to break the rice cake. For those who’re lost in a dropping the ball place, your rice cake is likely to be in danger, so that you do wish to let it come together slightly bit. Not only immediately notice the vanishing, but as a substitute, benefit from the play, benefit from the upwelling of the world, noticing its display, and the display of you with it, and stepping into it, engaging in a way.
So, there’s slightly little bit of non-dropping the ball, slightly little bit of coming together–and that’s wonderful, because, when you understand that, in a Matrix form of way, there isn’t a ball, it’s empty and vanishing anyway, which is what we were doing on this meditation. Noticing you can let go, or you possibly can just notice there’s nothing there to let go of in the primary place. When you get good at that, then we are able to play with these in-between zones of engagement with the world and with every little thing interesting, powerful, beautiful, awful, terrible, tragic thing of life, we are able to engage with it very fully, very completely, while still never quite buying its object-ness. We’re at all times capable of dissolve into the dream at any moment. That’s where the interplay happens, where the energy happens. I do know that sounds slightly paradoxical, but it surely is simply paradoxical if we try to be absolutists. After we let things have some gray zones, some in-between areas to play, it begins to make more sense. It’s not only dropping the ball vs. not dropping the ball, it’s more about, are you able to notice that the ball is a dream to start with.
Questioner 2: Someone is saying that the continual dropping the ball felt effortful.
Michael: Notice that that sense of it feeling effortful is empty. Notice that if you happen to try, it’s simply that the habit of grabbing back on is actually sticky. So, that’s the part to note the dream of, notice it’s dissolving, it’s emptying out, and is empty of itself. And, who’s it that seems like they try to start with? Go deeper, not into the, “boy, this feels effortful”, but deeper into “who’s it that feels there’s effort happening anyway?”
Questioner 3: You mentioned that awareness and space are analogous modalities.
Michael: Actually, I didn’t say they were analogous, I said that space is a metaphor for awareness.
Questioner 4: Sometimes once I’m dropping the ball, I ponder if I’m confabulating consciousness and vast spacious awareness, or fabricating self.
Michael: Well, don’t fabricate, if you happen to are. For those who are sensitive enough to pay attention to that, just let go of that. For those who are only sitting there wondering, am I fabricating? Well, that wondering is its own extra fabrication that you just are hanging onto, so drop that wondering, or notice it’s dissolving, or let it go. So, if you happen to are noticing the fabrication, drop that. If, alternatively, it’s just an mental query, that’s even much easier to drop and let go of, because we’re noticing its co-dependent arising, its construction. Every thing is co-constructing.
So, if you could have a tripod, you simply should knock out one leg–it could be any one in all the three, but you simply should knock out one leg, and the entire thing falls over. So, we calm down the hand, that’s a form of letting go; we notice the emptiness, that one other leg of the tripod. Actually, it’s a 5-legged tripod–there are other legs we are able to knock out–but you simply have to knock out one in all them to get this effect.
I noticed throughout the meditation that I’m getting used to simply talking to this phone on this empty bunker, and at the identical time, I’m really aware of you guys on the market. Quite a lot of you I do know personally, a variety of you I even have never met personally, but I’ve talked with you a bunch on the phone, or on the web, or via email, and so, I’m really noticing a sense of affection and togetherness, and just missing you. Just saying hi, I’m so glad you’re on the market.
So, before we get too lost within the emptiness soup, and it feels like I’m spewing nonsense–regardless that I’m actually saying something that’s core Buddhist philosophy. Before we get too lost in that, I just want to recollect to say, hey, you guys, I like you, I miss you, I can’t wait till we are able to get together again and meditate. I’m going to do lots more online stuff, because that’s what we’re about, for the following month no less than in California. So, that’s how we’re doing it. It looks as if you might be quiet tonight on the questions. Be at liberty to comment on the video afterward, or send me an email on the deconstructingyourself.com website to inform me the way it’s going, the way you like or dislike the meditations. See you guys next week.
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