Nondual Meditation
I’m going to steer an hour-long guided meditation, which you’re invited to return together with me. However, in case you don’t wish to do it, then just use this time in a bunch meditation to do your individual meditation, or—and that is type of the blended model, you follow me within the guidance until you reach a spot that you simply like, after which just stay there while I move on with the remainder of the guidance. You stay there, and just keep doing that. All of this stuff are high quality. What you do within the privacy of your individual mind is your individual business. I’ll offer a guided meditation in case you want it. Aside from that, in case you’re seated on the ground, and also you’re not used to being on the ground for an hour, it would get really uncomfortable. I’d quite you, as an alternative of trying this out for the primary time, and doing floor pretzels the entire time, it is advisable to just get in a chair. So, I’m offering that. Aside from that, let’s begin.
Very very first thing I’d such as you to do is just drop all the things, after which take a look at what’s left. Check-in with what it’s wish to be you at once. How your body feels, how your emotions are doing, how your mind is. We’re not likely meditating on it, you’re just noticing it. How’s it getting into there? It’s not an issue to reply good or bad, as an alternative, you answer the query by looking. What’s it wish to be you at once? Look. Look—feel your body, feel your emotions, think your thoughts, and just notice what that’s like, without trying to vary them, judge them, control them, make them go away, make them sacred, make them anything. We’re just noticing what they’re like. We’re just being there with them, with no agenda to vary them in any respect. Though we are usually not changing our considering, we’re letting it do whatever it wants.
To the very best of your ability, don’t really engage with considering, just let the body be there, let the emotions be there, let the thoughts be there. We’re simply allowing, allowing, allowing, and see that the mood here is one among letting go of fundamental aggression against ourselves—this need, desire, duty mantra, that we must change—we’re letting go of that. As an alternative, seeing in case you can just allow yourself to be exactly the way in which you’re at once.
Again, we’re not likely specializing in any particular thing with concentration, or something like that. You’re just feeling, and considering, and just being there, and letting or not it’s the way in which it’s. So let’s do this for a little bit while together, with the basic mood of non-interference, nonaggression. Just let or not it’s the way in which it’s.
Okay, good. Now, from this place of radical self-acceptance, where you’re allowing yourself to be just the way in which you’re, proceed allowing the thoughts to do whatever they’re doing, but put aside any involvement with them. So the thoughts are still doing their thing, but you’re just not going to select them up. Just allow them to do their spinning without engaging with them in any way. So, we’re not interfering, we’re not attempting to suppress them, or make them go away, or make the mind to be quiet, or anything like that. All you’re doing is—to place it barely inaccurately, not paying any attention to them. As an alternative, allow your awareness to be just like the sky, just real open, not narrowly focused down on anything.
If you desire to concentrate to something, then, for the moment, just let or not it’s the easy rising and falling of the wave of the breath. The breath wave rises and falls of its own accord, and awareness is aware of it with none effort. We’re not narrowly specializing in the breath, we’re just wide open. Imagine in case you were laying in bed, and you place your hand in your belly, you would feel that without specializing in it, feel it perfectly well. There’s that feeling of that hand, and doesn’t take any concentration in any respect. In the identical way, just feel the breath, without engaging with thought. Should you do engage with thought, then just leave the room—I’m kidding, in case you do engage with thought, just notice that you simply’re doing that, and let it go. And, in case you engage with it again, and also you notice you’re doing that, it’s okay, just let it go. Just keep letting it go, coming back to a skylike mind, just noticing the rising and falling of the breath wave.
As you’re doing this, again, without struggling in any way, or efforting to attain something, see in case you can let go of trying too hard. Let go of forcing anything, let go of struggle. Just calm down and open, let go of intentional tightness, intentional struggle, intentional forcefulness, and see if there’s any ease available within the system, any already existing sense of settled-ness, or peacefulness, or looseness, or openness.
Should you feel such as you’re falling asleep, just sit up, open your eyes. It’s really hard to go to sleep in case your back is straight. All the time before you drift off, you’ll start slumping, so in case you don’t slump, you won’t find a way to go to sleep.
Now, from here, I need you to tune into the already existing sensations in your body. That may include the breath wave, but it will probably include nice sensations, painful sensations, medium sensations, every type of sensation, and you may either feel the entire body without delay, just arising in that sky of awakeness. Or, you may individually tune in, without an excessive amount of focus, only a more relaxed focus—never more narrow than like a basketball. Just start noticing, in a very relaxed, open, way, these body sensations. What does it feel like in your belly—not that you desire to answer that in words, just tune into your belly, or tune into your upper back, or whatever, and just feel these areas, in the best possible way.
Again, to the very best of your ability, not engaging with considering in any respect, but just simply feeling. If we were all sea slugs, we’d be really good at this, just feeling, with no engagement with thought in any respect—just feel those body sensations. They is likely to be hot or cold, they is likely to be painful or nice, or neutral. The sensations can feel like physically large or physically small, they could be in the center somewhere. They could be intense, or gentle, or somewhere in between. That is the way in which we would like to come across these sensations, not as ideas like that’s my left buttock, but quite, it’s hot, it’s cold, it’s big, it’s small, it’s painful, it’s neutral, it’s nice—but, after all, all without words, just feeling.
Should you had one among those buckets of Goo, where it’s like a bucket of snot, after which there’s all types of sparkles, and plastic beads, and various objects in it, and you close up your eyes, and you place your hands in, and you simply feel it. You’re not attempting to think in regards to the words, you’re just feeling it. That’s what we’re doing with our own body sensations here, we’re just feeling them—but you’re feeling them with a variety of curiosity and interest, a variety of openness and clarity. What? Oh, yeah, just feeling it, feeling it. Let’s do this together for a little bit while.
Letting go of any engagement with thought, and just feeling. It’s possible you’ll notice that sometimes it’s uncomfortable. Not all the sentiments are that good, and so while you’re noticing—let’s say you’re meditating on some painful sensation, you simply keep relaxing your stance towards that sensation, let the sky of the mind just be open to the feeling, even when it’s painful. You’re not resisting it, manipulating it, editing it, attempting to make it go away, attempting to make it turn right into a positive sensation, attempting to make it dissolve into empty confetti, or something. Just sit with it, even when it’s uncomfortable.
Remember, you may all the time sit up and open your eyes if drowsiness is hitting. Feeling the body, feeling the body, feeling the body. Notice that you simply come equipped to feel all the things within the body directly.
Should you notice that you simply’re having this mental image of beaming your attention out of your head to somewhere in your body, that’s just a completely pointless fantasy. A number of people do it—it’s not a criminal offense, however it’s actually just a few thought you’re engaging with, so, in case you can, feel the sensations contained in the sensations. That doesn’t take any effort. You’re wired to do this, however it does require kind of letting go of this very false mental picture that you simply’re beaming your attention out of your head. So, again, feel the feeling from contained in the sensation. Feel the feel of it, feel the scale and shape of it, feel all of the qualities of it. We’re capable of have tremendous sensitivity, tremendous finesse, in detecting all of the little qualities of those sensations, and that’s the sport here, we’re stepping into the qualities of sensation in a nonverbal, non-conceptual, way. Not fascinated by it, just feeling it, but feeling it like an artist, feeling it like a sculptor, feeling it in all its detail, and quality, and wonder.
Don’t resist any sensation, don’t judge, or control, or attempt to push away, any a part of any sensation. Allow them to all be there, no less than in the course of the meditation. Even when it’s, oh, my neck hurts, and if I just moved it… Just let your neck hurt only for a little bit while. You may stretch it after we’re done. Should you’ve built up a bunch of tension doing this, and also you’re trying real hard, just calm down. It’s okay, you don’t must try real hard. Awareness is aware—that’s its nature.
Okay, good. Now, you may either stay here and proceed doing this, or if you desire to, you may notice something a little bit deeper about these sensations within the body, which is that each one these qualities about sensation are all constantly in flux. All the feeling within the body is constantly different. Should you’re staying in your mind, in case you’re engaging with thought, the sensations will seem stable, because your mind keeps putting the identical label on them, but in case you’re actually engaging with body sensation itself, it’s constantly different. The placement changes, the scale changes, the three-dimensional shape changes, the textural quality changes, the density changes, the relative painfulness, or pleasantness, or neutrality, shifts, and shifts, and shifts. All of the qualities that you simply’ve been noticing shift constantly. None of them is ever the identical from moment to moment.
If that’s not available, then just keep on with meditating on the qualities of body sensation, just feeling it. But, if in feeling it, it’s very clear that they’re just changing, changing, changing, changing, changing, let go into that allow go into that changingness, and permit this fashion of experiencing to shift from these different qualities of sensation being foremost, shift from that into the changingness is foremost. It’s as if all of body sensation is a constantly changing river of sensation. Never the identical river from moment to moment. All the time changing, all the time vibrating, flexing, waving, shimmering, shifting, and so forth. Tune into that changingness.
Remember, you’re not imagining the changingness, or in some way imagining flow—that’s engaging with thought. As an alternative, you’re just tuned in enough that it’s super obvious that all the things’s just different, and different, and different, and, different. For some people, a number of the time, it’ll just feel just like the qualities have taken on this very nice changingness. For others, it’ll begin to feel like energy within the body. So, deeply, deeply, deeply, tune in to the changingness, without engaging with thought, feel all the things changing, all the things flowing, all the things pulsing, all the things vibrating, all the things in flux, in change.
It’s very interesting, because, typically after we’re stuck in thought, we imagine that the body is quite static. It’s like a automobile, or something, the parts are only the parts, and so they’re there, and so they’re not moving, or changing. But that’s not what the experience of a body is like in any respect after we set thoughts aside, and just feel the body. After we just feel the body, the way in which it feels itself it’s a vibrating, pulsating, shimmering, fluxing, shifting, field of energy. That’s what it appears like.
I’m not saying that’s what it’s or something like that—I’m saying that’s what it appears like. But, notice, while you experience the body in that way, something—or some things—will start to only release or let go. Certain flavors of feeling stuck can grow to be unstuck, since it’s really hard to be stuck when all the things’s a river.
Resting as wide open sky-like awareness just feel this vibrating, shimmering, pulsating, throbbing, shifting, open, energy of the body—it’s alive. It’s not some dead machine or equipment, it’s alive. Letting go of any engagement with considering, we’re just setting that aside. The thoughts get to do what they wish to do, but we’re not hanging out with them.
Okay, good. Now, if that is working for you, be happy to remain right here, or proceed doing whatever you’ve been doing. As our engagement with body sensation as constantly changing deepens, it becomes possible to note something really interesting—centrally interesting, essential. In this fashion of working, which is that in case you’re staying with a sensation that’s constantly different, in what sense is that the identical sensation? In what sense are you coping with an object in any respect? The more that you simply keep on with this constantly changing, flowing, moving, shifting, expanding, contracting, sine-waving, experience, the harder it becomes to hold onto it in any way. There’s no hook to hold your hat on.
Previously you would have the mental concept, which is a thought. You may have the mental concept, for instance, that’s the sensation in my shoulder blade. There it’s, I’m meditating on the feeling of pain in my shoulder blade, that’s the thing I’m staying with. But then, we let go of thought, and we notice that the feeling is changing, changing, changing, changing, changing—it’s only a flow of sensation. There’s no thing there. There’s just an experience, and the experience doesn’t have a label. All of the labels you were putting on the experience, just like the refrigerator magnet poetry you’ve been putting on the refrigerator, the magnets got degaussed, and so they all fell to the ground. There’s no more labels capable of be placed on it. It’s just experience with no-thingness.
So, notice, in case you can—if that’s not available, that’s okay, just hang with the changing, or hang with the qualities—wherever you’re at. Should you can, just notice that each one of body sensation just type of opened up. It’s identical to a bunch of experience occurring in an enormous space of awakeness—the truth is, in that sky-like mind that we started off with. There’s just the sky of awakeness and mirror-like experience flowing in it, with nothing to hold on to in any respect. Nothing to hold on to in any respect just, vast openness, and awakeness, with experience flowing in it like reflections in a mirror. You can not grab onto the things reflected in a mirror, they’re just vivid appearance, with no thingness. Vivid feeling with no thingness to the sensation.
It’s as if all the body is transparent and permeable. There’s no boundary to it that we will find. It’s wide open. All of body sensation is sort of a mist, transparent, vivid, shining, utterly different from moment to moment, tremendously light. Each time any a part of it seems to return back into thingness, just notice it’s changing-ness again. Then, as you tune into that more deeply, notice you can’t actually discover a thing there—you simply find the vivid reflection of constantly changing experience.
Good. Now, take a look at the mirror. What is that this mirror of vivid experience? Have a look at it. Let the mirror of vivid experience see itself, not as some type of imagination, which is only a thought. We’re letting go of thought. Just let it see itself. There’s nothing to see, and yet there’s a mirror of vivid experience. But as much as you look, you may’t really find it. However the looking does something. In fact, there’s no actual turning around involved, there’s no looking backwards, or something like that, since it’s in every direction. Allow this awakeness, the sky of awakeness, to only be awake to itself on this utter stillness and openness. If there’s anything in any respect that you simply are, it’s that skylike awareness. That’s the mirror of all experience, the non-thing that knows. Be what knows.
Let’s just switch now to taking and giving practice, Tonglen. You might be allowed to make use of your imagination here, so on the in-breath, breathe within the suffering of beings—any beings, it will probably be particular beings, or some beings, or all beings, but absorb the suffering, the pain, the problem, the disease, the tragedy, the grief, the agony, the despair. Breathe that in, with all its discomfort, and on the out-breath, breathe out every good thing you’ve got, all of your joy, all of the nice sensations, all the great things about life, all of the stuff you hang onto, all that you simply’ve got. Just breathe it out, and provides it away, just like the last day of the world, hang onto nothing.
Breathe within the difficulties, problems, pain, suffering, illness, terror. Breathe all of it in, without holding back, in any respect. Then breathe out all the good things, all the good things you’ve got, and just give it away to all beings, with joy—here you go, here you go. Here’s relief, here’s kindness, here’s joy, here’s health, here’s sweetness, here’s comfort. Here’s all the good things—love, being seen, being cared for. Here, I give all of it to you, and I’ll take all of your pain, because that wide open sky of wakefulness is so big, it will probably handle any amount. It’s so big, it has limitless kindness, and joy, and all the remainder, to present. So just feel that beaming out, beaming out, on the out-breath, and on the in-breath, taking in all of the sorrow, all of the pain, all of the despair, all the fashion, all of the injustice, all all the things. Just breathe it in, take it, take it, take it, because the enormous sky is undaunted. Then, from that infinite reservoir, just beam out all the good things, holding nothing back for yourself. Give all of it the way in which, all the way in which, all the way in which, all the way in which, all the way in which. Give all of it away, beam it out, send it out. You’ve got good enough to spare.
Chanting:
Now, for the following half hour, just sit in that stillness. No? Okay, let’s end that there.
Dharma Talk
So, knowingly or unknowingly, you simply went through the stack sequence, which is a stage sequence that leads you thru the best way to do vipashyana. Going from, on this case we were only using body sensation, but you may do it with any variety of experience. Going from easy contact with an experience into its impermanence, and eventually into its emptiness. We undergo several stages there, and it’s not likely something you may make occur, meaning, if the impermanence part isn’t available yet, you’ve just gotta keep meditating for days, or weeks, or whatever, until it becomes available. If the openness, emptiness, spaciousness, no-thingness, awakeness, quality isn’t available yet, then just keep meditating, and eventually, it becomes available. You may’t skip to the tip of the pregnancy, you’ve got to undergo daily of it to get a baby. You’ve got to undergo every a part of the sequence to get to the emptiness part. You may’t really jump. Should you do jump, then you definitely already knew the best way to do this. So, either way, it’s unskippable.
Simply to undergo the formal stages. We did this on body sensation, but you may do it on anything. You may do it on considering, you would do it on external sight, or sound, you would do it on emotions, you may do it on smells and tastes, or the rest. That is step one. I call it the conceptual phase. You’re still fascinated by the article. I did my best to maneuver us beyond that in a short time by saying, don’t engage with any considering. It’s very hard to meditate on an idea of a body sensation—you may’t really hang on to fascinated by it. You may imagine, at first, you’re like, that’s my elbow, that’s my elbow, that’s my elbow, and, really, 95% of what you’re doing is considering, and feeling a little bit little bit of elbow. So, that’s first base, while you’re just starting. Then, in case you do this enough, with good instruction, you’re going to maintain going towards the qualities your elbow, so the sensation in my elbow, it’s a little bit painful, and it’s tingly here, and warm there, and there’s a little bit little bit of coolness there, it’s type of tight and constricted on this one part, and kind of gloopy and expansive on this other part, and there’s a pair parts I can’t even feel. Every now and again there’s type of a jab of discomfort-like quality.
You’re not doing all that talking in your head, but I actually have to speak it to you in words, in order that’s what it appears like—these various qualities of feeling my elbow. In order that’s the second stage, or second base, or second station—you’re into the qualities, which, in kind of a precious way, we could call the phenomenological or the outstanding level. That’s where you’re starting to truly meditate properly, you’re into you’re actually within the experience, not fascinated by the experience.
So, it’s pretty straightforward, I don’t want you to think, salt, salt, salt, I need you to taste the salt. So, that’s the difference between stage one and stage two. For a variety of people, in case you haven’t done a ton of meditation, that is likely to be where you’re at for some time, and, yet, still, that’s where it’s beginning to work. You may really feel that is different than sitting there fascinated by it, you’re in it, and it’ll begin to feel—even when the sensations themselves are usually not nice, the steadiness of attention on the qualities is sort of nice. You’ll get that feeling of meditation, there’s a kind of containment.
Then, the third stage, or third base, or third thing, we go into is actually noticing all those different qualities—it’s hot here, it’s cold here, the scale is like this, the form is like this, there’s a scratchy part here, and a smooth part there. Should you’re really taking note of those, they’re never the identical, they’re shifting, shifting, shifting, shifting, it’s growing, it’s shrinking, it’s getting warmer, it’s getting cooler. The itchy part is moving around, the stabby part sometimes isn’t stabby, or whatever, it’s never the identical. I’m describing this as if we’re only talking about body sensation, but that is true for each sensation. At a certain point, that changing becomes foreground. As an alternative of the qualities of the feeling, just the incontrovertible fact that it’s changing, changing, changing, changing, becomes the interesting part, and that’s deeper. That’s a way more profound thing to be noticing.
That’s impermanence, it’s there, it’s being impermanent, and that may feel like amoeba stuff, but it will probably also just feel like energy. For a variety of people it just appears like, wow, piti, there’s energy in my body. If I feel bones, they only feel like vibrating energy. So, it will probably be either way, it’s not like one is healthier than the opposite, but actually, people feel it in another way, or have several types of experience with this impermanent quality within the body, and in some other sensation. It’s very odd, because at that time, there’s no concept left of the body—or, perhaps very, very, little, but almost none. It’s really hard to think about it as a automobile, a machine, and it’s got metal skin, and it’s very defined. It’s more like this weird, fog bank, amoeba thing that you would put your hand all through. It’s just doing its fog bank, amoeba, thing. That’s the third place, the place of vibration, of flow, of impermanence, whatever you desire to call it.
Then, lastly, we get to home base, or the ultimate, the fourth station, fourth level, which is, if something is constantly changing like that, how is it even a thing? That’s the last thought that is likely to be there, the last little little bit of concept, is that it’s a thing, versus other stuff. But, if it’s all the time changing, you may’t put a label on it anymore. It’s different on a regular basis, and in order that seems type of abstract, but while you experience it that way, it’s not abstract. There’s still an experience there, but there’s no thing there.
Formally, that’s called emptiness, but while you hear that word, emptiness, in English, it feels like you’re saying there’s nothing there. Empty could be “there’s nothing there.” If the cup is empty, it means there isn’t any tea, however the word doesn’t mean it’s not there. It implies that the overall experience is there—you’re still tasting the tea, it’s hot, it’s got bergamont flavors, it’s bitter, so there’s a complete experience there—and it’s not there at the identical time. There’s no thing. So, the metaphor is that it is sort of a mirror, where if I held up a mirror to you all at once, it could show the entire room, and it could show every detail, and it could show every strand of each hair, and it could be a vivid experience—actually quite different than nothing. But you couldn’t touch any of those people. It’s there but not there, that’s the flavour of it.
Since the last concept got dropped, the concept of there-ness, that the thing is there. When that drops, that’s good. It becomes really hard to get real fixated on stuff, or real caught-up, or real crunchy about it. It starts to be very, very, releasing. So, that’s if we’re talking in regards to the so-called objects there. The final thing we did was, metaphorically, take a look at the mirror part—not the reflections, however the thing that’s reflecting, i.e., that space of awakeness, which isn’t a thing, either. But, it’s awake, and it’s an area through which all the things’s experienced. That’s interesting. Let the mirror see itself.
Attempt to do it again, at once. You’ve gotten experiences—a giant reflection in a mirror of wakefulness. Let that mirror of wakefulness take a look at itself, at once. You may’t really find one, however it’s actually there, so even that has got that weird empty property. It’s each there and never there. But, do you notice, while you let the mirror take a look at itself, so to talk, something shifts. It’s such as you drop in, or something.
That’s the stack model, and that is the universal translator key. Should you’ve been doing vipassana style meditation, or mindfulness meditation, or any of the usual stuff, and need to shift into nondual type meditation. What I all the time heard was, those are two various things; you may’t shift one into the opposite; what you probably did in a single isn’t any good in the opposite—and that’s utterly and completely false. As an alternative, you simply do what I just showed you to do. You’re taking your mindfulness skills, or your vipassana skills, and you simply do what traditionally you’re presupposed to do with vipassana, and also you go deeper and deeper into the openness and emptiness and spaciousness of objects, and so-called objects, and see that “there but not there” quality, and be the mirror, despite the fact that in one other way you may’t find the mirror. Now you’re working in nondual territory, so your vipassana practice was not wasted in any respect, and it’s like riding a motorbike. Should you haven’t done it shortly, it didn’t go away, you simply get back on the bike, and also you’ll remember. Possibly you’re type of out of practice, and also you’ve got to do some riding to get your muscles back, but you didn’t forget. It’s just doing the work.
Questions or comments about that?
Questioner 1: I feel like I got to emptiness.
Michael: Good. Now just do this quite a bit.
Questioner 1: I’m scuffling with the mirror metaphor, which was the mirror seeing itself.
Michael: It’s just the opposite side of seeing the emptiness of objects. Now, what’s seeing the objects? It’s the identical thing.
Questioner 1: Yeah, the mirror thing is confusing me, because once I’m not here…
Michael: If you’re not here, are you continue to having an experience?
Questioner 1: Yes.
Michael: Have a look at that have. Are you able to take a look at the experience?
Questioner 1: I believed that’s what I used to be doing.
MIchael: Good, good, after which, what’s looking? That’s all that the mirror metaphor is saying, is, what’s looking?
Questioner 1: But that wasn’t there already?
Michael: It was.
Questioner 1: I mean it was, however it wasn’t, it knew it wasn’t looking, however it was. I don’t know, perhaps it’s an issue of language.
Michael: It feels like an issue of language. It’s easy. Straight away, are you having an experience? Okay, what’s having it? Look.
Questioner 1: It’s harder when persons are taking a look at me.
Michael: Hint, you won’t find a way to seek out a thing that’s having experience, but you’re still having an experience. That’s the emptiness property of the notice itself, and that’s cool to take a look at. Does that make sense?
Questioner 1: Not likely, but I’m okay with not likely getting it.
Michael: Okay, there’s nothing to get. It’s just saying, are you aware? Now search for what’s aware. It’s pretty easy, but you may struggle with that so long as you would like.
Questioner 1: Yeah I’m okay with the struggle.
Michael: Struggle away. The identical property could be, what’s aware of struggling?
Questioner 1: Okay, thanks.
Questioner 2: Thanks, hi. I’m interested by doing vipassana from head to toe, the Goenka version. That’s what I’m used to. You’re taught in that method to not go from one sensation to a different. This may be very different.
Michael: Do the scan the way in which you’re used to doing the scan, but, eventually, it’ll be helpful to let go of that type of thing, and just find a way to feel the entire body without delay, and stuff like.
Questioner 2: Is there a selected considering behind one or the opposite?
Michael: Two things. One, eventually you’re going to be doing other sense gates, and you may’t do this type of thing with them.
Questioner 2: What are sense gates?
Michael: Body sensations are usually not the one sense you can meditate on. Try doing scanning with sound. You may kind of do it, however it’s type of meaningless, and so it makes it hard to do those other sense gates in case you’re stuck in that kind of thing. Then, moreover, that kind of thing is type of a rigid system that you simply’re applying along with your concept, and eventually you’re just going to let go of it, so it’s not likely an issue you’ve to do away with, but it’ll begin to get in the way in which after some time.
Questioner 2: Thanks.
Michael: Though we will totally make use of our Goenka practice history, and the incontrovertible fact that we’ve got really good vipassana muscles. But, it doesn’t mean we’re not going to learn some recent tricks, too. Nothing is wasted, but we’re going to learn some recent stuff.
Questioner 3: Thanks for the meditation.
Michael: You’re welcome.
Questioner 3: I, similarly, began in vipassana. One issue that I’ve had in doing the more direct, non-dual, approach, is that, once I’ve had the experience of the impersonal nature of experience, it becomes an idea within the abstract.
Michael: Sure, and also you either don’t engage that concept, or, while you improve, deeper, clearer—we do it here on a regular basis. You’ve done it with me a bunch, we’re going to bring up ideas and see the emptiness of those. So a method or one other, what appears to be an issue is seen to not be an issue. Let’s undergo the stack. First, it’s an idea as an idea, which is what it’s while you’re meditating on thought, but then you definitely go into the phenomenology of the verbal thought, which, for instance, feels like blah blah blah blah blah. It’s just a few sound. It’s the remembered sound of monkey lip slapping. In order that’s the outstanding quality of mental talk, after which we notice that thoughts are really fleeting blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, they’re just whipping by, they don’t come from anywhere, they don’t stay anywhere, and so they don’t go anywhere. So there’s just this thing happening, after which there’s nothing to hold onto there. So that idea that appeared like it was in the way in which, is just seen as this mirror-like reflection, not an issue in any respect, okay? Does that make sense?
Questioner 3: Yeah.
Michael: Doesn’t mean you may do it at once, but, you’ll find a way to.
Questioner 3: Yes, I believe, once I’m contracted in my experience, and things feel emotional, or personal, or whatever, that sequence is difficult to do.
Michael: Yeah, and that’s why we practice.
Questioner 3: I just resort to the abstract, the concept, and I believe it becomes more of a dissociative..
Michael: Don’t do this [laughter] Not doing it just takes a variety of sitting there not doing that. So the pith instruction is: stop doing that. As an alternative, let or not it’s hard. If it’s too hard, too sticky, either stop meditating and are available back while you’re not [grr], or while you’re back up into the flow level. If it’s really gummed up, back as much as the phenomenological level, where the water freezes back into ice. You may still say, this part is like this, this part’s like that. You continue to can meditate on it. Should you’re so tousled you may’t even do this, since you’re just so indignant, or whatever, then just sit there, and just sit there and breathe for some time. Or, go for a walk, or something, till you may. That’s what I mean by, just keep working it, keep working it, keep working it. Eventually, no less than a variety of life can be digestible in this fashion. In Tantra, they call this the goddess digesting experience. What we’re doing, that whole stack, is the goddess digesting experience—all experience just gets chewed up and digested. It’s type of an interesting image.
Questioner 3: Okay, that was great. No more butts. Thanks.
Questioner 4: First, thanks. I noticed the fabrication of some body parts during that meditation, and I’m wondering if there’s anything to do aside from just let those go.
Michael: How are you using the word fabrication on this case? I assume you felt your body the entire time—all of that’s a fabrication.
Questioner 4: I felt like my attention was completely within the emptiness of the flow, after which suddenly, something would—it was almost like there was some type of like manager or ego said, wait a second, there’s an arm there, or there’s a spine there.
Michael: That’s just habit, that’s instability, or that’s a crunchy coming up. To make use of that goddess digesting metaphor, it’s like that’s something to chew up over time, and eventually it’ll stop grabbing like that. Just don’t resist it, it’s okay, after which we work with it.
Questioner 5: I believe, for me, what was really interesting was, we were told to stop considering and…
Michael: No, that was not what you were told. You were told to maintain considering, to maintain considering,…
Questioner 5: In my mind I used to be telling myself to stop considering, after which with that what got here up was, after all, thoughts. With those thoughts, I spotted that what was keeping them around was attached emotions, after which those emotions were allowing those thoughts to linger for me. Then, in noticing that, to see the ability in that, that allowed things to then, disappear. But then, realizing from afar, that they’re still there, but I don’t need to remain in them. It was this realization of with the ability to think and never think. That was my journey.
Michael: That’s amazing. Yeah, and see, what did you do with the emotions that were keeping the thoughts around? You saw oh the emotions are keeping the thoughts around, after which what was the following thing that happened there? As an outsider I used to be following you as much as there, after which it appeared like you said, after which a miracle happened. So what happened right there, while you were seeing that the emotions were keeping the thoughts around.
Questioner 5: I’ve done this quite a bit, and I teach this. I acknowledge that this is occurring, and I allow it to occur, I allow my emotions and my thoughts to take me. But I allow it to occur quickly, in a way, allow them to pass one after the other, after which allowing myself to experience it made the experience a lot swifter, less painful. It was something I could have viewed from afar. I could experience it, but not experience it. Then, that became something constant, and it became something again, much more abstract, that there may be this mirror into my emotions and into my thoughts, but I’m not in them, and there may be nothing being reflected or seen.
Michael: Yes, excellent.
Questioner 5: I just desired to share that, in giving it that power and acknowledging it, it disappears.
Michael: Very cool, and just the way in which you’re talking about it, I can see, they’ve done a variety of this. Eventually, especially in case you’re here each week, you’ll notice that if I’m working with thoughts, we do go into the, now encounter the thoughts, and allow them to go—exactly what you’re describing, encounter it, and let it flow. You understand it’s still there, but you’re not inside it. Things like that, so it’s working on vipashyana in thought. It’s a little bit harder.
Questioner 5: I don’t practice anything specific, it’s just because it occurs, and to permit it to flow, I don’t have names.
Michael: That’s great, yeah, thanks for sharing. Very, very, cool experience. Okay thanks in your thoughts and questions everybody. Thanks for coming out tonight and meditating with me.
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