October 2017 Dharma Dialogue Video
Out of the Shadows – The Path of Clear Light
Aaron: My blessings and love to you all. I am Aaron. We’re still here at the cabin, with the lake in the background, and the woods. I hope you’re enjoying the energy here. I’m going to pick up on the book now, from where I left off. This is what I would consider Section 2 of the book (The Path of Clear Light).
Now let us consider the human experience.
The human knows pain in the body and in the mind.
This pain is a reality, but not an ultimate reality.
However, to declare that it is somewhat less “real”
can be cruel.
The human experiencing such pain
knows the reality of it.
For that human, in that moment, it exists.
Compassion,
which enters into the suffering of another,
also knows the reality of it.
How do we respond to these human challenges
with wisdom and compassion,
and without taking pain, fear, and contraction
as permanent
and as owned by the self ?
What is this self who is experiencing?
we might first ask.
In dhamma discussions,
we sometimes speak of “no-self.”
No-self ” does not mean you don’t exist;
it simply means that what you are
is the expression of many conditions,
all coming forth in this moment.
None of these many expressions can be called “Self,”
nor can their totality.
Nevertheless, something does exist.
We do not say,
This set of conditions would appreciate
a particular set of conditions in that set of conditions.”
We use the shorthand,
I” would like some “salt” in “my” “soup.”
I is a concept summarizing a set of conditions,
salt is a concept summarizing a set of conditions,
my is a concept summarizing a set of conditions,
soup is a concept summarizing a set of conditions.
But we all understand what is meant by the phrase.
In the same way, when we think,
I would like this discomfort to go away,”
“I” is a concept and “discomfort” is a concept.
When we personalize such concepts,
and make them into a self-identity,
we suffer.
I am not the discomfort,
but it has arisen from conditions
and must be attended to.
The one experiencing these concepts
is the mundane realm experiencer,
the conscious mind,
sometimes called the small self.
There is also the level of Awareness,
the One
who witnesses
the mundane consciousness —
the higher self.
For the human untrained in mindfulness,
the small self, or mundane consciousness,
is the aspect of mind that relates to whatever arises.
It attempts to fix or control that arisen object,
in order to somehow become comfortable again.
When a challenge arises in the mind or body
and the human attempts to deny it,
that denial takes energy.
The contraction of denial gives energy
to the object that has arisen,
ironically holding it more firmly in place.
How ironic that denying our troubles
is like trying to outrun our shadow on a sunny day!
If a strong wind blows,
the tree that bends and sways
and dances with the wind
will survive.
The tree that is rigid will snap and break.
The question is not whether things will push at you —
but how you relate to that push.
As an aside, many of you who have worked with me for years know that this has been a heart of my teaching. How to dance with the push. Continuing…
Imagine a sudden heavy downpour
that wets and chills you.
Will you stand outside
ranting in anger at the weather,
or will you seek shelter?
You could scream to exhaustion at the cold and rain,
thusly depriving yourself of the energy
to find a place that is warm and dry,
until you lie soaked and shivering on the earth.
What benefit derives from such
fear-based reaction
to what we experience?
The habitual human reaction to a push
is one of the mammal: fight, flight, or freeze.
But you came into the incarnation
to transcend such ancient patterns
and demonstrate the ability to live from the heart!
Fight, freeze, and flight impulses
involve contraction.
This contracted state arises out of conditions.
It is impermanent.
It is not Self !
By that I mean contraction
is not the Unconditioned essence
but is merely arisen from conditions,
with no ultimate reality.
The fact of contraction is not a problem
but a teacher.
A vital practice
when one is mindful of contraction
is to ask,
Right here with contraction,
where is Spaciousness?”
“Right here with darkness,
where is Light?”
Yes, I am equating Spaciousness and Light.
When you harden yourselves
with contraction of body or mind,
how can the radiance of the Unconditioned shine in?
How can your inner radiance shine out?
Here is an essential starting point.
While Light and Spaciousness
are direct expressions of the Unconditioned,
and can never be lost in the ultimate sense,
still you must practice to retain a connection
and not turn your back to the sun.
As an aside here, this takes us to the heart of our human experience, our habitual reactivity to the push. Hardening, closing out the light that would shine in, and closing out your inner light. It is essential to begin to recognize the parallels of light and spaciousness. It’s the next step.
Returning to the reading…
In the empowering words of the Buddha,
“If it were not possible,
I would not ask you to do it.”
You have free will to choose:
Spaciousness or contraction,
darkness or Light?
You came into the incarnation
to know your divinity
and to remember the ability
to live from your Light.
The purity of the human heart
sees the impulses that drag you down,
and knows them for what they are.
An impulse arises from conditions
and has no ultimate reality.
There is no need to be enslaved by it.
But what if you reacted from unconscious habit
to the storms of life,
the rain and wind?
There you lie in the mud,
soaked and shivering.
What next?
Awareness notes,
Wet, cold, disappointed, angry, afraid … .”
Whatever is predominant,
one greets these unpleasant mind and body states
with compassion.
Again, an aside: this is the heart of it. There is so much habitual reaction, when disappointment, fear, anger, pain arise, to contract and push them away. And contact with your innate compassion is lost. The essential practice is to learn to relate with what arises, from the heart, with compassion, even while there is fear and anger. Not denial of the fear, anger or negativity, not denial of the pain, but right there with the true aversion to what has arisen, compassion for the human.
I continue to read…
This expression of free will to choose
what is wise and compassionate
is the heart of human learning.
It means you have the ability to say no
to eons of old habitual patterns
that have pulled you down into the muck.
I repeat again;
please listen closely:
You have the ability
to choose
to live in the Light.
I understand that, at first,
to thusly choose
can be terrifying.
As long as you merely react
and continue to believe
you have no choice,
you hide in the belief of powerlessness.
What if you truly are
powerful beyond measure?
You say you desire power.
But you also aspire to be loving,
so power often frightens you
because the most intense emotions are not yet purified.
There is fear you may backslide
and enact those emotions.
You then perpetuate the perceptions
that seem to prove that you are powerless!
The first step then is to know
that you have free will.
You always have a choice.
That choice is often between listening
to the many voices of fear —
or to the voice of Love.
You must learn to listen carefully.
Fear often seems to scream loudly;
love comes as a whisper.
Only the Heart’s awareness
can hear that whisper.
But it is always there
if you will learn to listen.
So, you move through your human life,
asking how to discern this whisper
through all the loud voices
that seem to perpetually echo in your head.
If you move toward the exit of a dark cave,
have you any difficulty discerning
where there is Light
and where there is Darkness?
You know the direct experience of Light!
With the cave and bright sunlight,
the distinction is clear.
But sometimes there may be confusion
within the shadows,
for the eyes that mingle light and darkness.
How do we know the light within the fields of darkness?
I am going to repeat that.
How do we come to know the light
within the fields of darkness?
It it not so difficult.
End of reading for today.
The next section of the book will begin to go into specific practices to center yourself in light, even when you are experiencing darkness, pain, fear, anger and other negative experience. How to ground yourself in that light without denial of the negativity. We will move more directly into what I call the practice of clear light after these preliminary practices as part 3. So part 4, moving into the practice of clear light.
I hope by this time that you are seeing this, October I presume, the book itself may be available. So some of you may enjoy reading the book even as you watch these Dhamma Dialogues and hear some of my thoughts about them.
Once we have the book available, I will read a bit more quickly and spend more time talking to you about the practices, which will be important as we move more directly into the clear light practice. I will also be asking you to practice what I’m suggesting, not just listen, so it becomes a firm ground for you, and you can access it.
My blessings and love to you. Thank you for being with me today.