June 20, 2023 Video Class #4 (captions)
Meditation Course Class #4
Aaron: My blessings and love to you. I am Aaron. And so, we move forth.
Last time we met, we discussed being present with challenging objects. It could be a very unpleasant object, or it could be a very pleasant object surrounded with lots of grasping energy.
When an object is very pleasant, and there’s grasping, there’s often a feeling of need: I will not be complete, or happy, or safe, if I do not have that object.
Maybe you’re hungry and you smell a neighbor’s barbecue. All you have for your own meal is a frozen dinner to microwave. You go out on your deck and this wonderful smell comes in. Ah, so pleasant! Ahh, I want that.
Well, you don’t just jump from smelling food to grasping, it’s a gradual process, which we often don’t see.
Nose touching the scent, smelling. Pleasant, barbecue. Whatever you desire, pleasant. Smelling. And then, because it’s pleasant, craving arises: “I want it.”
I want you to distinguish between the pleasant sensation and the craving. The craving is not pleasant. Craving itself is fiery, contracted, unpleasant. Craving does not have to arise when something is pleasant, but often it does. “I want that.”
Last night, Barbara was watching an ad on TV. Actually, she was sitting with her husband. He was watching the news and an ad came up that showed people eating, I don’t know what the brand was, but there were ice cream cones covered with fudge and so forth. Seeing, seeing. She’s been on a very strict diet because of her foot infection and need to avoid sugar. It’s been two or three months now. Seeing, seeing. And there was such a strong, “Oh! I want that!”
Her mind started to play with it. “There’s some ice cream in the freezer—perhaps I could get just a tablespoonful.”
I asked her, “Is that really going to end the craving?”
“Probably not.”
I said, “It won’t hurt you to have one tablespoon of ice cream. Why don’t you try it and see what happens.”
So, she came into the freezer, and she had, it wasn’t even a tablespoon, more a rounded teaspoon of chocolate ice cream, mmm. Put it in her mouth. Gradually licked it with her tongue, tasted it. So pleasant! Such a good taste. She had not had chocolate for three months. Ah, so good!
Put the spoon down. The ice cream had been put away. She sat down, and in about three minutes of meditating I asked her, “Is the craving any less?”
She said, “No, it’s more. Now that I’ve had some, I want more. I want more.”
Going after the object that is craved because it is craved does not usually reduce the discomfort or suffering of the craving.
Find within yourself that which is not craving right there with the craving. What do I mean by that?
For Barbara, she came back and sat in the chair. She did not take more ice cream. She sat down in the chair next to Hal. He was still watching the news. She closed her eyes and imagined the ad and these people. Maybe it was Dairy Queen or some such company, adults and children, and all the dishes and sundaes and cones. And she smiled at them and said, “May you have joy. May you be filled with joy at the delicious taste of what you’re eating. May you feel deeply satisfied. May you feel happy. May you feel the companionship of the family around you. Eat it slowly. Feel nourished by it. Feel grateful for the good taste. May you be happy.”
She meditated like that for about ten minutes, and then she brought herself into the picture. She did not picture herself, “Poor me, with one little spoonful of ice cream.” She pictured herself also with not a huge bowl, but a bowl of ice cream, and imagined herself tasting it. Tasting. She could imagine the good taste. Tasting.
And then, “Thank you for all the delicious treats—ice cream, candy, fruit—all the wonderful things this body, this human has been able to eat in these 80 years of my life. Thank you for the ways I have been nourished by beautiful scent and good food.” Feeling joy for that.
And after a few minutes, all craving diminished. There was nothing left to crave. She felt very fulfilled, satisfied.
Interestingly, then, half an hour later she was just resting; she had opened her eyes, and the ad came on again, the same ad, in the way they repeat these ads at times. She was able to watch it the second time, not just in her mind but there on the TV screen.
Offering loving wishes to these people. “What a joy. Will you eat some for me, also? Include me in your joy of the good taste. I am happy for you, that you can enjoy this taste.” And craving really did not come up again.
So, let’s go back a step. Here you are, taking your TV dinner out of the freezer and are about to stick it in the microwave, when your neighbor’s barbecue scent comes in. Smelling, smelling. Pleasant, “Oh, I want that!”
What are the possibilities?
Well, you can close all your doors and windows, go back into your kitchen, put your food in the microwave and force yourself to eat it, feeling disgruntled.
You can go sit on your deck and enjoy the wonderful smell and think of all the times you’ve had such delicious food, and how wonderful it is that people can eat this kind of food that appeals to the senses.
And imagine, as you’re sitting there, just offering loving wishes out to your neighbor and his family. The food is almost cooked. The children are impatient. “Is it done yet?” The scent is so wonderful.
And your neighbor, who you know well, looks up and sees you across the yard and waves. “Come on over—we have more than enough.” Will you go? Of course.
But if he doesn’t wave you over, it’s okay, you don’t need it. It can take you back to the pleasant feelings of being nourished. And also remembering the fears of not being nourished. What if my needs are not met? What if I don’t get enough for myself?
This is such a basic human fear: What if my needs are not met?
And it is a core of grasping.
As I said last class in a different way, that which is aware of fear is not afraid.
Here I would say that which is aware of feeling lack, feeling empty—empty of love, of what sustains you—that which is aware of that unpleasant experience arising in the human, is not experiencing it.
Let’s come back to experiencing this centered, really empty of individuated self, essence of your being.
Allow that essence, as Barbara did with the TV picture, to feel real gladness for all beings who are nourished and loved. Allow yourself to feel gladness for the ways that you have been nourished, fed, and loved.
Allow yourself to feel sadness for the beings all over the world who are starving, whether physically for lack of food, or emotionally for lack of love. Can you hold those beings in your heart?
Spend a few minutes with this.
Coming back to yourself, allow yourself to directly experience — not ideas, not feeling what if, but direct experience of a time when you have not felt loved, when you have not felt safe.
Then we work with loving kindness for the self. Hand over the heart. Breathing in, I am aware of feeling lonely, unsafe, unloved. Breathing out, I hold space for those feelings. They are very challenging human feelings.
Breathing in, I open with compassion to this human that I am, that has felt unsafe and unloved; has not known how to find what I seek. I’ve felt outside of this circle of love.
Breathing in, I see my own innate radiance and kindness, and I offer love to myself and appreciation.
Saying my name, “I love you.”
Again, saying my name, “I hold you in my heart.”
My name, “I appreciate you. I cherish you. I hold you in my heart. I hold myself in my heart. I will not put myself out of my heart. I am safe within my heart.”
It is only in feeling safe in that way that we can begin to see the ancient stories that each has picked up, of not good enough, imperfect, wrong, unworthy; and not get caught in those stories, but to know, “This is very old. I do not have to repeat this story.”
Begin to ease yourself out of it by seeing; this story protected me in some way. Long ago, when I was so angry that somebody had what I wanted and I didn’t have it, angry enough that I felt I could kill for it, maybe I did and then was killed. Who knows.
But I was not able to be merciful to myself and my own feelings of neediness or sadness. Not able to recognize that this is simply the human experience, and that it’s not wrong to experience. But when I get caught in the stories, it’s very painful.
In meditation practice, you can begin to see which stories are predominant. For many people, unworthiness is a predominant one. And so many things trigger feelings of unworthiness.
Then, with that feeling of unworthiness, there’s the judging of the self. “I should not feel this. I should not feel that. See? That’s proof that I’m unworthy, proof that I’m bad.” We keep building it up.
To move past this, I would say to grow past this, we need to be willing to see the objects that present themselves and are challenging. Not move into a quick desire to push them away, to bury them, not to run the other way, but just to stop and ask, what is this? This emotion, this feeling, this thought, even this body pain. What is it?
We begin to see how this arose out of conditions, is impermanent, will cease. We break the self-identity with it as “me” and “mine” and begin to see this arose because of certain conditions and it is not the essence of self. Then, only then, can the meditation begin to lead us into knowing the true essence.
Who are you when you are not these stories? When you are not this physical, emotional, or mental body? Who are you? What remains?
So much of our meditation practice is geared toward helping us understand: What remains? What is the essence of my being?
This is what we will begin to approach in our next classes.
Thank you for your presence. My love to you. I am Aaron.