January 8, 2019 Tuesday Evening, Dharma Path Class, Part 2
Blessing for Food; Instructions: Mindfulness of the Balance of Divine Feminine and Masculine
The question was about eating living (sentient) beings).
John: This meal prayer may not be exactly what Yeshua is referring to, but because…
Yeshua: John, let me just say something, because I’m kind of picking Aaron’s brain, here. He’s saying, “72 labors brought us this food…”, is the start of it. Is that the one you’re looking for?
John: No, that’s not the prayer that I have. (inaudible) But I know the prayer that you’re talking about. But I do not know it by heart, so I can’t recite it.
Q: Do you want to read the one you have?
John: I can…
“This food is the gift of the whole universe— the earth, the sea, the sky, and much loving work.
May we take this food in gratitude and mindfulness so as to receive it fully.
May we transform our unskillful habits and learn to eat and live in moderation.
May we take only foods that nourish us and promote a vibrant good health.
We receive this food for the realization of the way of understanding and love.”
That’s the prayer.
Yeshua: Perfect. Thank you, John. So, I have known communities of people who often have lived on grubs or ants, vegetables, or whatever was growing; going through dead limbs pulling out grubs and stopping to praise the grub before they ate it, giving thanks. Does that answer your question?
Q: Yes. So, in America particularly, it’s part of our learning to move through the distortion we’ve been taught about food, not honoring it.
Yeshua: Exactly— learning throughout the world, not just in America, but in any place in the world. To diminish the distinction that one sentient life form is better than another— “I can eat vegetables but I can’t eat fish. I can’t eat chicken,” whatever. The vegetable also has sentience and will give itself gladly if it is honored. It’s part of learning to honor every life form, to respect and cherish every life form, and to understand the interdependence of every life form. And that no being anywhere can live entirely on its own.
It has sometimes been implied that as Yeshua ben Joseph I did not eat meat. And that’s not true. I ate whatever was offered to me, cherishing and giving thanks. If I had a choice of what to eat I would probably usually choose vegetables or, more often, things that were easily replenishable, like honey, eggs or milk— the non-fertilized egg, the cheese. But I could not survive just on that. I needed to eat vegetables. And if fish was offered, I ate fish. If lamb was what was offered, I ate of the lamb, with gratitude.
Aaron is saying perhaps enough, because he was going to ask us to stretch for 5 minutes, and then he wants to give us some instructions as to the next stage in practice. So, I realize that some more of you may have questions for me. I love this group, and I would be very happy to come back and speak again! I thank you for inviting me into your circle.
Please feel my blessings and love to all of you. As I am, you are. The love in my heart is no different than the love in your heart. My power and energy, my light, is no different from yours. Each of you is a precious and beautiful entity. Cherish yourselves, as I cherish you.
For those of you who tend to get lost in stories of unworthiness when I speak of your beauty and power, please begin to ask yourself, “Would Yeshua think I am unworthy?” What do you think? So, don’t get lost in that story. Cherish yourself, as I cherish you.
Aaron, do you want to just come back into the body, or me to give the body back to Barbara? He is asking, how many — wave your hands on the screen, here— how many need a 5 minute break? Alright, I will give the body back to Barbara. Aaron will start again.
(break)
Aaron: My blessings and love to you all. I am Aaron… In relation to Yeshua’s talk, here’s something interesting for you to work with for the next 2 weeks. What do you think of or experience as feminine energy? What do you experience as masculine energy? Watch mindfully and see if there’s a preference in yourself to live more fully from one or the other. If one seems more— how could I phrase it?— comfortable to your being in the world than the other.
Begin to look at what is beautiful and to be cherished in each. Begin to see the ways they come together and help to shape each other. Continue to ask, am I allowing the fullest expression of the Divine Feminine within me? Am I allowing the fullest expression of the Divine Masculine within me? What are each of these?
Next week, in your small groups, some discussion: how do you experience the Divine Feminine or Masculine? Do you experience them both together versus only one, the other lacking? When you are in a stressful situation, which is the first to come forth— what you think of as the masculine or the feminine?
I’m asking you a number of areas to watch for. When one comes forth, is it very open and spacious, or is it contracted? In situations of stress, are both equally contracted, or is one more contracted than the other, and if so can you bring mindfulness to that contraction— not fixing, just observing it? Increasingly I hope you can experience— when I say balance, I don’t mean a stagnant balance but a constantly flexible balance, in yourself.
That’s it. Are there questions about the instructions?
Q: Can we get that group of questions, just by itself, sent to us?
Aaron: Not until it’s transcribed… We’ll ask J to transcribe those questions. But, you don’t need the precise questions. Just ask, what is the balance within this body, moment to moment, of masculine energy and feminine. And, how may they be held in balance, not putting one above the other, but noting how important each is to the other, and that they come together.
When you eat, when you offer gratitude to the food and receive the food, is there perhaps stronger feminine energy when receiving? When you bite into the food, is there a stronger masculine energy? To chew— is it is more masculine or feminine? Watch it. Neither is right, neither is good or bad. I simply want you to note, to become mindful of any places where you have moved out of balance, habitually more into one direction or the other. And understand the value to invite the return of balance.
I’m reminded here of our teaching with qualities like humility. There can be an expression that resembles humility that minimizes the value of the self, that cuts back on the self. The opposite of humility we can think of as pride, putting oneself in front, forward. Holding oneself as best; putting oneself as least. Where do they come together? What is the balance (neither pride nor shame and minimization of the self)?
So the same thing with the masculine and feminine energies— not one or the other, but begin to see how they feed into each other and support each other, to allow you to live from that balanced place.
When you are in balance, what is the kind of power you feel? How does it feel? Where is it in the body? Does it come from down in the womb? Does it come from the chest? The heart? Does it come from the jaw? Where is your power? If it comes from the jaw, does it come more through speech? If it comes from lower down in your body, how does it emerge out into the world? No right or wrong, here. These are similar to the Mussar qualities with which we worked in Venture Forth, but in a different area that we have not much discussed: masculine and feminine and how they come together in balance.
Are there questions?
Q: I get hung up with masculine/feminine, and I just call it Energy A and B.
Aaron: You can, Q, of course. But I think it would be valuable for all of you to begin to notice what I am calling masculine versus feminine energy, because there is not one of you who does not have some distortions in this area. In order to recognize the distortion, you have to begin to notice whether this energy is more of the— it’s never going to be all one or all the other— is it more tending to the masculine, is it more tending to the feminine. It will help you to determine how to invite balance.
If it feels irrelevant to you, as for all the practices I’m introducing, simply let it go. I am not saying you must do this, only, here is a practice, like the Vision is Mind practice or the Four Empowerments or loving kindness meditation. Here is a practice that may be helpful to you. Try it and see what it reveals. And if in the end it feels, “This is not meaningful to me,” then let it go.
Q: Lately I have been noticing how much contraction there is when there is pushing away, or not wanting to acknowledge something that wants to arise. So I’m guessing that’s an imbalance of male energy?
Aaron: The feminine is more the receptive. Feeling pushed, if the feminine pushes back, perhaps it’s because the feminine is not allowing itself to be fully feminine and receive. But also the feminine is strong and knows how to say no. So, the understanding of balance becomes important in receiving and compassionately saying no. Coming to the Vision is Mind practice— that compassionate “no”. But it’s strong.
That strength is neither masculine nor feminine, it’s the balance of both. If it’s an abrupt “No!” with some anger behind it, that’s different than if it’s just a clear no, which is also different than with just yielding and not being able to say no. Simply notice: does this connect in any way to masculine or feminine within me, and to my ways of holding that balance?
Where we’re going to go with this eventually is deeper recognition of the experience of clear light in the feminine energy. The experience of — how can I best phrase it?— divine radiance, divine light; and the experience of sacred darkness, which is really balanced in both, but is often experienced through the masculine. We’ll be inching into this gradually—probably not starting any talk about sacred darkness until next fall. For now, just understand the experience of feminine and masculine in the self, and gradually begin to see the light in both.
All of this, of course, is related to your vipassana practice and deep mindfulness. So please, if you don’t do anything else, please do vipassana practice. This is the core. Pure awareness practice as well; we’ll be doing more pure awareness practice this spring. All the other support practices, they’re wonderful but vipassana practice is primary; vipassana practice from the place of the loving heart.
Thank you. It’s 9 o’clock, so perhaps best to end here. Tomorrow night, my Open Aaron talk, and some of you perhaps there live, some of you online. Please feel free to join me—it will not be a repeat of tonight’s talk. My blessings and love to you all.