June 29, 2023 Video Class #7 (captions)
Meditation Course Class #7
Aaron: I am Aaron. My blessings and love to you.
When we last spoke, we watched how with vipassana, with presence, we can watch the stages of contact to an object; consciousness; feelings—pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral; the arising of mental formations; and how we can get pulled into the story or not pulled into the story. How we can begin with loving kindness to see that which grabs us and sucks us in and say no to it, with compassion for the self.
Ahhh… kindness. I noted that the loving heart is always there, and the armored, contracted, fearful self is arising and passing away due to conditions. But the loving heart is always there.
Let’s talk a bit about what I mean by loving heart. What is this essence of your being? What and who are you?
Of course, you are Sally, John, Sue, Mack, whoever you are. That’s who your name identity in this lifetime. That may be all you know of yourself right now.
I call you sparks of God. For those who do not believe in a god, sparks of whatever you consider the essence of divinity to be. It doesn’t need a name. If you are here with me, it’s almost certain you trust that there is something bigger than yourself, even if you have no way to name it. And I don’t need to give it a name. But there is this divine essence of being, and you are expressions of that essence.
This course right now is not focused on the broader aspects of spirituality but on meditation, so let’s stay with that, because you do not need to take my word for it that such essence exists.
This is one of the greatest gifts of meditation: to move into the spaciousness that allows us truly to know that essence from direct experience.
If I were to tell you about honey, and you had never tasted honey, I could explain it in a thousand ways—how sweet it is and where it comes from—but you still don’t know honey. But if I give you a small spoonful and say, “This is honey; dip some onto your tongue,” then you know honey.
For me, one of the most wonderful, really exquisite parts of meditation is that it takes us to the direct experience of All That Is, this essence, divine essence, however you name it. And to the experience that you are expression of that, never separate from that, although you do move into the experience of the separate self.
Is my hand separate from me? Here it is, a hand. Oh, it’s a hand, just a hand. But of course, it’s tied into me. It has no existence except expressing from the essence of me.
But this body is just one expression of that essence. My thoughts are an expression. My loving energy.
Can you feel me loving you? (looking intensely into camera)That’s an expression of me.
It’s an expression not of Aaron but of the essence. And that essence is an expression of something greater, for, just like you, I am an expression of that All That Is.
In another series, we’re going to be exploring spiritual background. We’ll talk more about it then. For now, I want to help you understand how you can come to a direct experience of this All That Is in meditation.
Let’s look at two different paths, and in future sessions we’ll take each one a bit deeper.
One path uses vipassana and what we call access concentration. We’ve already led you part of the way there. As concentration deepens, and an object has arisen, one experiences contact and consciousness. Feeling of pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral.
When attention moves to knowing that feeling—knowing that the bump I just got on my elbow hurts and the pain is unpleasant;’ knowing that the scent of bread wafting in to me—ah, pleasant!—when I am present with it in this way, I do not move to grasping or aversion.
But if those arise, attention immediately moves to them. And when it knows aversion as aversion, it doesn’t harden so much. It calms and gradually softens. And the same with grasping. We don’t get caught in those so strongly. We watch them arise and pass away.
Mind begins to rest in a spaciousness that’s able to watch this whole flow. The arising of any kind of experience. Contact. Consciousness—visually, a hearing experience, a taste, a smell, a body touch, a thought an emotion. Contact. Consciousness. Feelings. There will be feelings, yes. They’re not bad or good, they’re just part of being human. Feelings. Pleasant, unpleasant, neutral.
When you are fully present with that pleasant feeling or unpleasant feeling, you may watch the body starting to move into aversion and say, “I do not choose that.” Come back to just unpleasant feeling. And you develop the ability to do that.
In this type of practice—and this is very clearly delineated in Buddhist teachings of 2500 years ago, this whole path, Path of Purification it’s called, a text called Visuddhi Magga, Path of Purification. It lists all the specific stages that one moves through.
I, as Aaron, and in past lives have explored all those stages. Millions, I would say, of practitioners have explored those stages and found ah, this is a clear map.
It is a clear map to freedom, to freedom from reactivity to the various things that touch this body and mind. I can stay spacious and present with my heart open, whatever comes, and therein is freedom, because then one doesn’t contract and strike out against what is coming or run away from it. Just holds presence to it.
This presence, this witness. “I see you. You’re pleasant or unpleasant. You may even bring up fear within me, or desire. But I see how those arise and I am not self-identified with them. Just present.”
And in this presence, mind moves to a different place. It opens into the spaciousness of it’s innate truth: presence and love.
In that space, one starts to directly experience the true Self, this expression of All That Is, and to directly experience this All That Is; one name for that is the Unconditioned.
So, this is not a deep immersion into the Unconditioned. I would liken it to having walked for endless days across a desert, until you finally come to trees and then the sea.
The first glimpse of the sea. Wading in, standing ankle deep. Watching waves break and gently lap over your feet. It’s a direct experience of the sea. You have heard about the sea and disbelieved it. But you can’t turn it away any longer—you’re standing in it. Here is the sea. This is what access concentration takes one to.
Eventually, one will swim out a hundred miles into the middle of the sea; a different experience of the sea. You develop the capacity in your lungs to dive down a hundred feet; a different experience of the sea.
But for now, access concentration. Just being present and knowing the experience of the small self, who you have believed yourself to be, and knowing the experience of All That Is.
You don’t know the relationship yet, but you know you’re part of this, you’re not separate from it. I am All That Is, and All That Is, shines through me.
This kind of experience brings such joy, such a sense of at-ease-ment in the world and in your body.
It all grows out of meditation. So, repeating the instruction here briefly, the object has arisen. Contact, consciousness. Feeling of pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral with that object. If pleasant, liking. If unpleasant, disliking. Watching any impulse to move into contraction of aversion or contraction of grasping. And, at that point, noting contracting, contracting. That’s the new object. Pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral.
Contact with the feeling of grasping, of unpleasantness, of contraction. Contracting, contracting. Breathing in, I am aware of contracting. Breathing out, I hold space for contracting. That which is aware of contraction is not contracting.
With the most direct access concentration instruction, we simply note each object that arises. Watch any move from pleasant into grasping, or unpleasant into aversion, and note at that moment the move into aversion. And note contracting again as the predominant object. Present with it, watching it dissolve.
Spaciousness surrounds you, grows around you, and you begin to rest in this phase of presence we call access concentration, thusly named because it is the doorway into the Unconditioned. It gives you access into the Unconditioned.
We cannot access the Unconditioned from the small self, from the reactive self. But through meditation you find presence which is clear, open, and beautiful.
That’s the first half of today’s instruction.
Taking this to a different perspective, at that point, when one is contracting, and contracting again, doing this practice, having moments of resting in spaciousness, and then there’s body pain again or a loud sound again, contracting, unpleasant, moving into aversion to it, contracting.
The second part of this practice that can be very helpful is simply to ask, who is contracting?
Who am I? Am I this body? Am I this mind? Who is contracting?
That which is aware of contraction is not contracting. What is this awareness?
Up until now, we’ve been working with everyday mind. Now we shift off into what I call awareness. Very different than mundane consciousness. Who is contracting?
We’re going to spend a whole class on resting in awareness, so this is just to give you some notes of what’s ahead.
Ahhh… contracted. Right now, where Barbara’s body is sitting the air is filled with smoke. The sky is gray. Smoke wafting down from the intense forest fires in Canada down into Michigan.
It burns in her eyes; it stings in her nostrils. She does not have air conditioning in her house; she uses fans, and of course that will not help her with the smoke.
So, she was sitting over breakfast indoors, eyes burning. She could feel her body contracting.
And I asked her, “Who is contracting?”
She said, “Me, this human.”
I asked her, “Is there aversion to the smoke?”
She said, “Yes.” And she said there’s aversion to the fires, sadness at the immensity of the damage, all the forests that are dying.
So, I asked her to shift into loving kindness meditation, to spend ten or fifteen minutes just doing—we will do this in another class—specifically loving kindness meditation.
Drawing in space, and offering loving wishes out to all those beings, those trees that are dying; animals dying. Breathing in spaciousness and breathing out love and light to all beings—many beings who are not just uncomfortable like Barbara but are made sick by the smoke. Holding it all in a spacious loving heart. To release the armoring and allow the body to be spacious and open.
Then I asked her again, “Whose eyes are watering?” This was maybe twenty minutes later.
She said, “Love’s eyes are watering.”
I asked her to speak further about it.
She said, “My eyes are the eyes of all sentient beings, all beings everywhere who have been trapped in forest fires. All of those eyes watering, burning.”
Breathe in, awareness of those eyes burning, and breathe out love to them. Watch how it shifts from being MY eyes to THE eyes. These eyes are the eyes of the world, the eyes of all being. Can they be held in love?
It is only from that space that one can respond in an appropriate way to whatever the catalyst—the forest fire, the angry person. Ahhh…Holding it in love.
Coming back to not this small personality self, although we respect and cherish that self, but to the true self, this essence of the Divine that each being is. Truly loving those beings. Ahhh…
Try it with me. Breathing in light and love, and breathing out, ahhh…
Releasing anything that is contracted, not pushing it out but letting it go.
Bringing in light and love. Ahhh…
Breathing in spaciousness. Breathing out tension.
Breathing in, “I am love.” Breathing out tension.
Breathing in, “I am light.” Breathing out tension. Just releasing it.
Breathing in the power of the radiant heart and releasing tension.
Breathing in the radiant heart of Jesus, of the awakened heart of the Buddha, the love of so many beings that have awakened throughout the world.
Breathing it in, you are that. Breathing out tension.
Allow yourself to be the awake one that you are, the love that you are.
(Breathing)
Feel the joy of it.
And so, we come home to our true selves.
In future sessions we’ll talk more about the specifics of access concentration and the practice of Pure Awareness. Also, about the conditioned and the unconditioned, more specifically what I mean by that, and how they are part of each other.
For now, practice this, just breathing in spaciousness and relaxing tension, and the steps that we did with access concentration.
Let your practice develop naturally. Don’t try to push yourself into “I should do this because Aaron has suggested it’s the next step.” Just presence with whatever is predominant, choiceless awareness.
Contact, consciousness, feelings of pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral. And then, if mental formations arise, by which I mean thoughts about what has arisen, just know it, and as it dissolves, come back to your primary object again.
We repeat this; this is the basic practice, and you’ll begin to see how much freedom it gives you from reactivity when it’s practiced lovingly. Not “I should” but “I do this practice out of love for myself and all beings. And I am capable to awaken more fully to my true self and live in the world with more love.”
I love you. I am Aaron.