June 20, 2023 Video Class #5 (captions)
Meditation Course Class #5
Aaron: My blessings and love to you. I am Aaron. It is a great joy to share these teachings on dhamma and meditation with you.
At the end of session three I asked you to practice. I’ll read aloud just a paragraph or two. “…how, when a physical object arises, often thoughts will arise with it…” One is repeating this chain, the chain of dependent origination. Contact with the object. Consciousness arises of the contact. Consciousness brings feelings: pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. Because this has arisen in my experience, because there is contact and consciousness, then may arise a pleasant or an unpleasant feeling, or a neutral feeling.
Then the mental formations may come based on those feelings. By feelings, I do not mean emotions, I just mean pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. Then the mental formations—and I’ll talk about this—then the stories that come with the mental formations.
For example, sitting in your backyard. Suddenly, you see a movement. Eyes touching the object, and what you see is black with a white stripe down its back. Seeing. At first in seeing, there’s no skunk, there’s just seeing. Then the consciousness comes. “Oh, that’s a skunk.” And because of past experience with skunks and the unpleasant odor, unpleasant feelings arise, and, right there following unpleasant is aversion. Unpleasant. Unpleasant memory of how a skunk smells. And then, “No, I don’t want this skunk!” Aversion.
One has a choice, then, to be present with the direct experience of aversion as a new object. How does aversion feeling the body? What is this experience of aversion?
There’s probably contraction in the body. Aversion, aversion. Breathing in, I am aware of the aversion. Breathing out, there is space for the aversion. Just letting aversion be there. I don’t have to be afraid of it or fix it or control it, just aversion. It’s not a problem. It arises as a conditioned object, and it passes away.
Right there with aversion is spaciousness. To experience this spaciousness too, is the next step. So, aversion is contracted and there’s also, ahhh, the one who is aware of aversion; this one is not feeling aversion, just spaciousness. I’ll talk more about this in a few minutes. Let’s just go through the various arisings first, to remember them.
With strong aversion, if you are caught in the aversion, there will be stories. What will I do? What if the skunk comes closer? What if he stinks up my backyard? What if he comes running up to me and sprays his scent on me? Fear, contraction—so many objects. Mind is running rampant with objects.
Stop. Just note it as a thought, an emotional steam, a waterfall of sorts, flowing, flowing fast. Stop. Breathe. Recenter on the breath.
Look again. There’s still a skunk there—far away across the yard, not close to you. But you see the black and the white striped creature through the bushes and shrubs.
Breathing in, aware of seeing a skunk. In seeing, just seeing. Breathing out. Breathing in, aware that the thought ‘skunk’—and it’s just a thought now; he’s far away—but the thought ‘skunk’ brings up unpleasant memories. And from those unpleasant memories, aversion.
There are a number of ways to work with this. And then in the next three classes, this is what we’re going to focus on: the ways we work with strong unpleasant or very pleasant objects.
Perhaps what you saw across the yard was a beautiful bird, a bird you’ve never seen before with beautiful plumage. What is it? You’re attracted to it. Seeing. Consciousness of seeing a bird, and of pleasant. And then, thinking, “I want it to come close. I want to see it. It’s beautiful.” Almost lusting after it, grasping it.
And again, the stories. “Why doesn’t anything like that ever come close to me so I can have the joy of it?” Well, you have the joy of it right now. Nothing is blocking that joy except your grasping. It’s the same as working with aversion.
With aversion, just aversion. With grasping, just grasping. And if the stories come and are strong and solid then you move attention to them.
Perhaps as you saw the bird and there was the sadness, you realized it came from a time as a child when you were very close to something so beautiful and then an adult came running out and shooed it away. Said, “No, don’t let it get close.” But you wanted to get closer. Maybe it was a goose or a duck walking across your yard or a pretty robin.
In stories, just stories. I want you to get the idea of what a story is.
I’m reading again from last time.
“I want you to practice catching that point where it shifts from something being simply unpleasant—the headache—to the reactivity, the mental formation that has you with the story, ‘I’m going to need brain surgery to have them remove a tumor.’ It’s just a story. There is no fact to it. I’m not saying there could not be a fact; if you have constant headaches, you want to see your doctor and find out why. But you understand what I’m saying, how things trigger a reaction in you, each of you with your own particular set of habitual reactions.
“And this is not a curse upon you; this is a place of practice. It comes as a teacher. The headache and the anxiety about the headache—’Ah, thank you, teacher.’ Right now, just holding loving space for the headache, for the pain in the foot or the anger at the lawnmower”—or the discomfort with the skunk. Just present, offering a full presence. So, I’ve digressed a bit from the reading.
When we are present with something, you watch it. You smell it, you hear it. Whatever sense is foremost, you are present with it.
Consciousness is open. There is a feeling—pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral.
This next step is like popcorn. We see it and thoughts arise so quickly it’s impossible to keep up with it. You don’t want to try to keep up with it, just to note, “thinking, thinking, thinking,” or “remembering.”
Focus on whatever is predominant. The old memory of the skunk and the way he got close and sprayed you and your pet. The old memory of the parent shooing away the goose, just as you were about to get close to that goose and goslings.
Grasping, aversion. And if stories come, one is able to simply note, with the term ‘stories’. The story, “Skunk’s horrible,” or, “I wanted that, and it was not allowed; poor me.” Thousands of stories.
But you’ll find that they pop up one after another, after another, without end. The practice is not to go after them and unwind them, not to try to figure them out. Simply to note ‘story’ and come back to the experience of this moment.
Right now, the skunk is far across the yard. Can you just be there seeing skunk? If it still feels unpleasant, note it as unpleasant. Unpleasant does not have to lead to aversion; it’s just an unpleasant feeling.
Because we don’t like having an unpleasant feeling, we try to push it away, and that’s where the aversion arises.
But that aversion has nothing to do with the object; it has only to do with you, your past experience and fear, and wanting to armor yourself.
Thus, I find a handy note is ‘armoring’. Armoring. Think about it for a moment. How does it feel when you begin to armor yourself against another person, or an idea, or a situation? Holding yourself separate, armoring.
Armoring, here, is the predominant object; the experience of armoring.
I said the flow is like popcorn. One kernel pops and its heat makes another one pop, and another one pop, and another, and another, and another. There’s no way you can keep up with them. The heat of each one, or several, pops the others.
There’s a wonderful Pali language word, papança. It means the proliferation of objects.
So, feeling the headache, they’ve been coming recently. Fear comes up. And then the thought, “Oh no, what if I’m getting a brain tumor? What if I’m going to die?” The thoughts are coming so fast, so strong. Immediately, you have yourself in the hospital having brain surgery. But it’s just a headache.
Seeing that skunk, the memory of the skunk that sprayed you and your pet as a child. Unpleasant, aversion, fear. How do I get rid of it? And one object after another, papança. Each object becomes the ground for a new object.
Now, what happens if we sit here? Seeing, seeing. Seeing this far-away black and white creature back in the meadow at the back of the yard. Visible, invisible, and then visible again. There’s nothing unpleasant about what you’re seeing. The unpleasantness is all in your mind.
We could ask, is the skunk coming in to bother you, or are you going out to bother the skunk? Think about it.
The skunk is just walking in the grass. But it has your attention, and you’re immediately feeling afraid of it and hostile to it. What is the predominant object? Fear, sadness. The fear that one cannot keep oneself safe. The fear that one may be harmed or made uncomfortable. Aversion may be the object, aversion to skunks from that childhood experience.
So now, sit back with me, ahhh, and look at the skunk. You can’t really see the whole skunk, just bits of black and white. See it walking through the grass. Ahh…
Offer it loving wishes, expressing thoughts to that skunk, “May you be happy. May you be safe.” This is what all sentient beings want. “May you be safe and happy. May you feel love. May you have enough to eat.”
Can you feel the possibility as you open your heart to this creature that the aversion dies away, and you can return to simply seeing? Seeing something black and white moving in my meadow.
I want you to see how you can get caught in this stream of consciousness, one object after another, papança, each building on the next. Or, you can say, “No, not this time. This time, a deep breath and kindness to myself, noting my fear.” That may now be the predominant object, feeling unsafe, feeling afraid.
Perhaps what can most help here is just putting your hand on your heart. Breathing in, I am aware of feeling unsafe. Breathing out, I offer myself love. Breathing in, I am aware of feeling unsafe. Breathing out, I hold myself in my heart.
I do not criticize or judge myself. I hold myself in my heart and note that it is a human experience to sometimes feel unsafe. I am not bad because I experience that. I do not have to push my fear at the other creature in my yard. Just something walking back there. Ahhh…
Feel how the heart can begin to open when you offer it some kindness. It doesn’t have to armor itself.
Meanwhile, whatever is walking in the tall grass back there, it’s been quite active. Relaxing, now able to watch it with interest, but without the aversion. Without even unpleasant feelings. Curious now.
You notice that it’s coming closer through the grass. It was fifty yards back, just bits of it visible, and now you see more black and white approaching you. Breaking through the grass onto your lawn. Oh! Alarm; seeing, seeing. “It’s coming!” Breathing in, I am aware of contraction. Breathing out, I hold space for the contraction.
Again, hand on the heart, opening, offering loving wishes to this creature. “May you be safe. May you be free from harm. May you feel loved.”
It’s coming closer now; it’s been hard to see through the brush. It’s all the way onto the lawn. And—it’s not a skunk at all! It’s a black cat with a white strip down its back.
See the sudden shift from “skunk, skunk” to “Oh, what a lovely cat.” He walks up to you, closer, closer. Puts a paw up on your knee. Jumps up on your lap, because you seem open to him. And he’s purring very loudly and circles around and settles on your lap, purring. Ahh…
And then, after a few minutes you’re settled, you’re comfortable, you look up back into the meadow again. There’s something black back there with a white stripe. Is it a skunk? The cat is still on your lap.
Watch the mood move back and forth, present with just seeing. Moving into pleasant with the cat, unpleasant with the idea of a skunk. Closing into aversion and taking that aversion as an object. Noting “aversion, aversion.” Once again, that which is aware of aversion is not feeling aversion.
So, this ego self is feeling aversion. The wise heart-opened center to self, the awakened self, if just watching this whole show. Seeing unpleasant, what’s unpleasant? Seeing something black and white back there? How could that be unpleasant? “What if it’s a skunk?” makes it aversive.
The cat is still on your lap. You watch, settled back, and this time a kitten comes out, bounding across the lawn, wanting its mother. Jumping up onto your lap, right there with the mother. You’re laughing. “I wonder if there are more kittens back there!”
You watch a few minutes, and you see something else black and white. “Oh, another kitten.” Seeing, pleasant; no longer unpleasant. “Another kitten!” You’re delighted. You wait for it to break through the tall grass and onto your lawn. Seeing, seeing, seeing. It’s a skunk!
So, it’s a skunk. Can the heart stay open? If it comes closer, you’ll put the cat on the ground and go indoors. Almost certainly, he will not want to come closer when he sees a human with cats on its lap. He’ll see you and he’ll run off.
Our practice is just to be present with what is predominant in this moment, catching it when you have planted stories that are taking over; not getting caught up in the stories.
Whatever the object is—it might be an object that is seen, like the black and white movement. It might be body pain, like the headache. It might be a memory that comes. It will be pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. The question is not, “what is this object” but “how am I relating to it.” Am I heightening the seeing of something that feels a little uncomfortable into “unsafe,” even when all it is, is maybe just the kitten, just a little headache.
Watching fear, anger, the old stories. Watching them come up, and saying, “No. I come back to my breath. I choose not to be caught in all of these old stories.”
Breathing in, we have to acknowledge the discomfort. Breathing in, I am aware of the discomfort. Breathing out, I hold space for the discomfort. Breathing in, seeing something black and white. Breathing out, just seeing.
But if mind keeps running into “What if it’s a skunk?”, breathing in and aware of a thought. It’s a strong thought, ‘What if it’s a skunk?” Just present with that thought. It’s just a thought.
Breathing in, I hold space for the thought. I allow it to resolve itself. Just a thought.
So, this is how we practice. I’ll pause here and we’ll move further in the next gathering.
Thank you for your attention. I love you. I am Aaron.