September 11, 2013 Wednesday Evening, Consciousness and Its Objects
Short Intro to Dependent Origination
Aaron: My blessings and love to you all. I am Aaron. Welcome. It is a joy to be with you in this beautiful new space, to consecrate this space with our love and with our commitment to deepen our practice, for the highest benefit of all beings.
Q: There is one newcomer this evening who has never met you.
Aaron: Greetings, son. I am going to remind you, you do not have to believe I am real. Don’t try to figure out who I am. If what I say to you is useful, use it. If not, discard it.
We are planning to pull many different ingredients together for this class, with the intention to deepen your understanding of consciousness and of awareness. These are not the same thing, but two different terms. I don’t want to get into a semantic discussion. The way I use these words is simply this. Consciousness is what happens when body sense or mind, touches an object. With that contact, consciousness arises. When the eye touches these bags on the floor, (closed grocery bags are here in preparation for an exercise). “Oh, what’s that?”, seeing, seeing consciousness arises. Awareness is the larger, non-dual field of awareness.
Our intention was that Barbara was going to teach you the rest of this, the heart of it. I was only going to give a short inspirational talk. I will talk for a while and then I will tell Barbara what I’ve spoken of and she can pick it up from there. Through all these 24 years of teaching with Barbara, it has always been my statement that I would not teach through her what she can teach for herself. There’s nothing I am saying here tonight that she cannot explain, but I wanted a chance to connect with you, to share with you.
You have five physical sense organs: eye, ear, nose, tongue, body; the mind is a sixth sense organ. Each of these sense organs makes contact with an object. Eye sees bags, seeing consciousness. Nose smells the sweet scent of your tea, smelling consciousness. Or not up here, but nose might smell a skunk outside, smelling consciousness. Mind might touch a memory, or move into planning. When everyday mind touches a mundane object, mundane consciousness arises. As long as there is contact, consciousness will arise.
When consciousness arises, feeling arises. This is not feelings as emotions but simply pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral. With feelings come perception. Sometimes one is first, sometimes the other. If you touch a hot stove, before you register “hot!” there will be a feeling of unpleasantness, and then you register the perception “heat”. At other times there may be a perception of something—let’s say you’re walking on the ground and you see what looks like a pile of dog dirt. Perception, and the feeling of revulsion might arise based on the perception. But as you approach it you see it’s not dog dirt at all; it’s just some garden soil that fell onto the sidewalk. Then there’s a different feeling that comes.
So we have contact, consciousness, feelings, and perceptions. Then mental formations arise based on all that has come before. Technically this is called the chain of dependent origination. It means nothing in the conditioned realm exists independently, but each object arises based on prior conditions and ceases when the conditions cease. Now, everything I’m saying is useful knowledge, but what’s important here is not remembering specific terms. What’s important is understanding the process in yourself.
With that in mind, we’re going to work with these bags. They contain any number of things. I don’t know what’s in all the bags, only the ones packed by Barbara. They could contain anything. One thing we did not use that was proposed was to go out and buy a container of fishing bait with worms! Barbara decided some of you might really be upset putting your hand into a bag and feeling worms, so we skipped the worms. But who knows what you’re going to find in there. Rose petals? Pleasant. Coffee grinds; unpleasant. There is nothing that will harm you, I promise you. But the texture of it might feel strange or unpleasant, or it might feel very pleasant. You can sniff the bag; it’s not just about touch. Don’t look, but either feel or smell. You can shake it, listen to it. We want you to see if contact with it gives a pleasant or an unpleasant or a neutral feeling. What’s in here? It feels like sand. This one feels soft and neutral, maybe Cheerio’s; neutral. What is it? You don’t need to know what it is. What is the feeling that arises with contact? What is the feeling of not knowing?
After feeling and perception, mental formations may arise, such as grasping or aversion. They do not necessarily arise, but they may. What conditions invite that arising?
What I want you to watch for, and I want you to watch this with your experiments with the bags, and then I want you to take it home and watch it in your daily life, is the shift from pleasant to grasping, from unpleasant to aversion. Up until that point there’s really no energetic going out to or pushing something away. You’re in a centered space, simply open to your experience. I want you to see that moment where you contract into a separation, me against this, yuck! Or, “Oh, I want more of that!” Just to watch it.
In your vipassana practice, you have all been taught to be present with the primary object. Let’s take a look at the primary object for a moment. How many of you use the breath as the predominant primary object? How many of you use nada? You may use more than one thing. Luminosity? Space? Energy? Others, other objects I’ve missed? We call these direct expressions of the Unconditioned. Nada is the cosmic OM, the sound of silence. It’s a sound like crickets chirping. It doesn’t come and go. It is always present but you may not experience it constantly, or even at all.
In the conditioned realm, conditioned objects arise dependent on conditions. We call this the chain of dependent origination, which is a fancy way of saying if this has arisen, it can give rise to that. If that has arisen, then the next thing will arise. As this dissolves, that dissolves. So we watch what brings us into an experience of “yucckkhh!” – strong aversion, contracting energy. We don’t try to pin it down; we just note it as contracting, aversion. But this is all within the mundane realm, conditioned mind.
What brings us into an experience of anger? What happens when we really separate from the people around us, from our life situation? We all say we want to be more loving, more compassionate, wiser, and yet we have so many triggers that send us off into a contracted pattern. What happens?
So one doesn’t just find (clap!) there’s anger, although often that’s what seems to happen. It seems that suddenly there’s anger. Pause and notice, this has arisen from conditions. It’s like having your back to the window and not noticing the clouds darkening, the approaching storm. But when you watch, you know it is approaching and can better attend to it. The conditions are present; it is arising.
Just because there is anger in this moment does not mean you have to condemn yourself, or blame somebody else, or to fix it. You do have to be responsible to it, to take care of it so you do not harm others with it. And then you just sit still and watch.
If you try to fight with the anger, you just create more tension. Who is this “somebody” who must constantly fix? If you relax and allow space around the anger, you are not perpetuating the conditions. You don’t know the conditions that gave rise to it. You don’t know all of them, at least. But in that moment you have a choice: to attack the anger, to attack yourself for being angry, to attack somebody else, or just to hold a spacious compassionate heart, noting, “Anger has arisen in this mind and body. Breathing in, I am aware of the anger. Breathing out, I hold space for the anger.” It arose out of conditions. It’s impermanent. It’s not self. It will go. I don’t have to be afraid of it. Anger is energy.
I’m focusing on anger, here, because it’s such a common human emotion. But we could equally talk about fear, jealousy, impatience, disappointment, any of these emotions. They’ve all arisen out of conditions.
Tonight, you’re going to take a bag. You’re going to start by just sitting and breathing, centering yourself. Breathing in, breathing out. Present with the primary object, whether it’s breath or nada or whatever it might be. Then, put the hand into the bag, or open the bag, eyes closed, smell it, shake it, put the hand in. Contact. I want you to do this in slow motion so you’re aware of contact. Feeling, pleasant/unpleasant/neutral, or perception, whatever comes first. A bag full of snakes, a bag full of frogs—they’re hopping up and down! Whatever it might be. What feeling arises? Pleasant, unpleasant, neutral. Watch if mind goes to perception, how that colors the feeling. If you think it’s worms, how will it feel? If you realize it’s not really worms, it’s… whatever, something that feels like worms, what happens to the aversion?
I want you to watch if something is very pleasant. The rose petals, “Mmm, I don’t want to pass this bag. The texture is lovely. The scent is lovely. I just want to hold onto it.” Grasping, holding. If it’s unpleasant, “Get that out of here.” What happens in your body when there’s aversion? What’s the direct experience of aversion?
There is no need for perception to identify the contents.. Watch any pull to do so. Does the identification process give a sense of control? Who is trying to identify?
Now the second part of this. In our practice we rest with the primary object, but when another object becomes predominant and pulls your attention away from the primary object, you bring attention to this new object, an open, spacious attention. If, following through this chain, suddenly there’s a strong contraction of aversion, then that becomes the next predominant object. You do not try to force the aversion away with, “I shouldn’t feel aversion.” That’s just more aversion. How does the aversion feel in the body? Where is it in the body? Note “contracting, contracting.” This is the experience of aversion. Is it pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral? How does it feel? And as you watch it, does the aversion dissolve? As it dissolves, just come back to the breath. Or if your hand is still in that bag with slimy seaweed, then just know “slimy, slimy.” Is it still unpleasant? Does it change?
Do you understand what we want you to do? So it’s just going to be an exploration. There is so much more we could say here. But I want to make sure that we all get around and try this practice with the bags, and then we’ll have some time for Dorothy Ann to share some of her experience with dependent origination practice and the learning from No Chain at All, and for Barbara to share some.
Q: Once we have some idea of what’s in the bag, do we open our eyes at the end? Or if we’re taking it home with us, do we look at it at home?
Aaron: You’re all going to sit around here and pass the bags around. After you finish with a bag, pass it on. If you wish you may look, but not until you’ve experienced the bag, scent and sound and tactile, because opening your eyes will give you a very different experience of it. We want the direct experience of seaweed, or whatever. I do promise you there’s nothing harmful and nothing that would really be unpleasant. We didn’t catch a skunk and squeeze its scent out into a bag. Later you may take them home.
I’m going to release the body to Barbara. Are there any questions? I don’t want you to get overly caught up in the terminology. I want you to experience the moment of contact and consciousness arising with contact. Of feelings arising. Of perception, if there is perception. Or it may be just not knowing, as perception. Watch that shift into any kind of mental formation and into aversion or grasping.
Q: Even the feeling arising before you reach in.
Aaron: Yes; perfect Is there eagerness? Hesitation? Resistance? These are also objects. Just be present in each moment with gentleness to yourself. There is no way to do this exercise wrong. There’s nothing you can do wrong. We just want you to slow down and watch this chain of experiences. So we’ll spend 20-30 minutes experiencing these bags. Then we will talk
(recording ends)
Barbara and Dorothy Ann’s comments and the class sharing not recorded.