March 24, 2013 Sunday Afternoon, Seattle Retreat, Q&A

q/a on the final afternoon of the Seattle retreat. Dissolution; consciousness and awareness; relative and ultimate, and finding the balance of both. Living our practice.

Q: Aaron invited me to allow myself to move deeper into dissolution. I would like to ask people here who have had that experience how they do that. Are you in pure awareness and then.... ?

Q: What is dissolution?

Barbara: Okay, let's start with that. Dissolution of body, dissolution of ego. Really nothing is dissolving except the self-identity with the body and the ego. Mind lets go of that self-identity, and there is the seeming experience that the body dissolves, that the ego dissolves. We directly experience the nature of the “self” as just being particles floating in emptiness, and interconnected to everything,. There is no separate body. The body, of course, is still sitting here. It hasn't gone anywhere. What's dissolving is the self-identity with it and experiencing it as separate. The same experience happens with the ego and consciousness. Ewe have an immediate experience of consciousness as arising from conditions, not “me” and it seems to dissolve into an undifferentiated awareness.

Normally we are very self-identified with our bodies and with our egos. Usually in meditation the first experience of dissolution is with the body. We suddenly find ourselves in a place where there doesn't seem to be any solid body. Usually it's a feeling that the body is just molecules and that in this moment they're touching in this way, but they're constantly changing, there's nothing solid. So it's one deepening step of dharma insight: everything is continually changing. Nothing is solid. Everything is arising and passing away. And this body, right now, this body is different than it is now. It's constantly changing.

So with vipassana, there's sometimes an experience that, not that there is no body, but there is no “my body”. It's just constantly in flux. Ego dissolution is usually a harder step for people, because people are more self-identified with consciousness and the ego than they are with the body. So my body may seem to dissolve, but not “me”. The body is not me, but this is my consciousness, is the thought people have. So that dissolves slower.

But eventually it's the same experience. There's nothing here that I can call my consciousness, including the ego. They are only eyes touching an object and seeing consciousness arising. Hand touching a surface and touching consciousness arises. Mind touching an object and thinking consciousness arising as remembering, planning,  or whatever. It's all in flux. Where is the self in it?

Eventually the whole sense of the separate self, as related to consciousness, also dissolves. This is where we differentiate consciousness from awareness. You say you come into this experience from pure awareness, sometimes. There are two ways into this experience: from vipassana and from awareness. They're different experiences. When we come into it from the vipassana perspective - some of these things are really hard to pin down with words - when we come into it from a vipassana perspective, we're starting with consciousness, mind and body consciousness, nama/rupa, and how they interrelate. And deepening insight, it's all arising and passing away out of conditions. It's sometimes termed “no self,” but I prefer the term emptiness of self. Everything that's arising is empty of a separate self.

From that vipassana practice, first, as I said, the body seems to dissolve. There's an awareness sitting here, but it's not me. There's a body sitting here, but it's not me. And the whole thing just opens into a vast spaciousness. So from the vipassana perspective, that's the experience of body and ego dissolution.

From a pure awareness perspective, awareness is watching the body, watching consciousness, sees how it seems to solidify, how it seems to dissolve, lets go of any solidity to it, and shifts back into the spaciousness awareness. From the vipassana path, when body and ego seem to dissolve, people are often startled into a, “Will I annihilate myself? There's nothing left.” And because the noting may not be steady, noting fear for example, they get pulled off into those thoughts, into fear, and everything re-solidifies again. Me! Mine! I own it again.

When we rest in pure awareness, pure awareness is able to watch consciousness, watch the body, all seeming to dissolve. Watch any fear that comes up while anchored, resting securely in that spacious awareness. It's not that fear doesn't come up, but that awareness then has the capacity to deal with fear, whereas consciousness is more ego-bound and says, “Whoops! I'm gone”. But awareness just says, “Ah, dissolution.” So it floats in that bigger space.

Q: Can awareness perceive the consciousness that arises when hand touches and sense consciousness arises, or when eye contacts something and sight consciousness arises?

Barbara: I'm speaking here from my own experience. I am not an authority on this. You can study the Abhidhamma, which goes into this in great precise detail. But I'm not quoting Abhidhamma here, I'm just talking about my own experience.

I experience simultaneity of consciousness and awareness. Consciousness first perceives touching. Awareness is holding the larger space that perceives consciousness perceiving touching. So the whole thing becomes a flow. If there's no awareness, just consciousness, then there's still the small self trying to control consciousness. But as we're resting in awareness, that small self may be there but it's not controlling anything, because it's so clearly seen as illusion and this awareness is not limited to a space or a person. It's non-dual, connected to everything.

Q: For a practical practice: light energy, take it in through the crown into the heart chakra. Expand your aura throughout your whole body. When you get comfortable with that, you as an individual will merge with the energy.

Barbara: What Q has just said relates to the different expressions of the Unconditioned, direct and indirect. We talk about luminosity, nada, energy; these are all direct expressions of the Unconditioned. There's also a mundane level to it-- mundane light, mundane sound, mundane energy. But again, it's all like a pole or bridge, I like the bridge image. We talk about dharmakaya, nirmanakaya. Dharmakaya, the Unconditioned. Nirmanakaya, the mundane body. The truth body, the form body. And sambhogakaya, Together they are the bridge. The word kaya means body. Dharmakaya, truth body. Nirmanakaya, form body. Sambhogakaya, the translation is wealth body because it contains the wealth of both. It contains the fullness of the dharmakaya and the nirmanakaya.

All of these expressions of the Unconditioned like energy exist both in dharmakaya and nirmanakaya. From that bridge, we hold it together. If we only go into the dharmakaya aspect of it, we can't transform anything on the Earth, because we're on the other side of the bridge. If we stay on the nirmanakaya side of it and are just with the mundane form, we can't transform it because we're only seeing the mundane aspect of it, and not the lighter aspect of it. But when we're centered on the bridge, we hold it together. I'm just adding that to what Q just said, not correcting anything, just adding.

Q: The one powerful first time that I experienced dissolution, I was experiencing it and then I thought! I thought “Wow!” And then it was gone. It wasn't fear. It was wow!

Barbara: Because you're seeing the whole field, not just a small slice. It's like getting close enough to the middle of the bridge that you can see the whole Dharmakaya, even from where you're still standing on the bridge. Until you stand on the bridge, you only get this limited slice.

Q: And then when I thought “Wow!”, and there was a thinking self. I was a thinking body.

Barbara: The wow factor is “Wow!” But we can't live from that wow place. Coming back a step or two onto the bridge, it becomes more stable. Then mind can also hold the “wow” and any fear too, within the spaciousness.  It doesn't really lose any of its wow, but it's not so vast; we can connect to it from a human perspective as well.

Q: I have come close to it again, but never that huge experience.

Barbara: When the weather warms up, go sit up on your roof and do some dzogchen with that vast view, especially on a day that's clear enough to see the mountains. Just, the vastness of that view, sky, mountains. Try that. But don't try it, trying to get somewhere.

Q: I guess maybe sometimes this has happened very fleetingly when I experience visual poetry, like something shifts and there is this space of, not emptiness but just that space, in it.

Barbara: We get used to the constantly changing perspective. The important thing is to know where you are in any moment. Sometimes more on the nirmanakaya end of the bridge, more in the physical realm. Sometimes on the dharmakaya end of the bridge and more in the supramundane realm. If our intention is service in the world, we need to keep it in balance. These wow experiences do teach us and do help us, but we can't hold onto them.

Q: You used to do sculpture. That experience of being without being, that you are simply part of the... it's a no-separation experience, a non-separating experience.

Barbara: Are you talking about the doing of the sculpture, being a sculptor, being a writer, being an artist, a dancer, a musician....

Q: It's letting the dance dance you, or the art make itself through you.

Barbara: It's an experience of body and ego dissolution. There's no longer a doer. But there is still something happening. The dance is flowing or the painting is being painted. But there's no me imposing my will on the painting. The painting is co-creating with me how it will emerge.

Q: Is that being on the bridge? I experience that a lot.

Barbara: Yes. It's being toward the dharmakaya end of the bridge, as opposed to the dancer who's trying to discipline the body to certain specific moves, and not flowing with the dance. For people who run or play tennis, all different realms of activity, we experience this; the place of co-creating with the universe. Aaron is saying that everyone here in this room remembers doing this in ancient times, especially in Lemurian times. When there was no individual will creating, there was only the act of creation happening in co-creation with all that is. He says, we all have some memory of that kind of co-creation.

Aaron: I am Aaron. I am speaking first person, but not incorporating. There is a beauty in human intention, holding a certain vision and inviting the material to co-create that specific form, painting, dance movement. But the ego is not imposing itself on it. Ego is literally dancing with the form of the dance. That's very different than back at the other end of the bridge where the choreographer designs the dance, finds dancers and trains them into the steps, and doesn't allow for co-creation.

You have learned at your mothers' knees how to be on the nirmanakaya side of the bridge. You are learning in your meditation what the experience is of the deep end of the dharmakaya side. Now your work is to learn how to keep yourself in the middle. The direct fullest experience, stepping off into the dharmakaya—wow! This is helpful because it gives you an experience of what it is like. But you don't need to stay there.

Barbara: Other questions or sharing? Aaron is saying that for most of us, staying toward that far end of the bridge where we're in touch with the individuated ego but not having it be the controlling force, this is the work of the moment. And this is the hardest work, because the individuated ego, once it's allowed to be present, says, “I want power! I want to be in control.”

And then we remember clear comprehension: My highest purpose in this moment is not for the ego to be in control, but the deepest service to all beings and for the highest good. And so I don't have to act with the individuated ego's desire for power and control, but I can still allow the individuated ego to function, with choice for the highest good and for love.

He says, so we're not trying to get rid of the individuated ego, although that is sometimes a mistaken concept of our intention.

Aaron is saying that he really likes exercises in which people can work together, allowing the individuated ego with its intelligence and experience and so forth to function, but fully connected to everyone else. He asks me to describe some exercises we've done at Deep Spring.

One that was fun was that we divided people into groups of four and put each group in front of a big sheet of paper. Everybody had markers. The rule was that you could draw as much of a line as you wanted, but you couldn't lift it up and move it around. You draw a line until you are finished with that line—a jagged line, a flowing line, whatever. Then the next person would come in and draw a line. Some lines might be just a little one. Then the next person would draw, and the next person. It would go around several times until the group all agreed it was done.

When people did this practice, the first try at it, people were saying, “Aw, I was trying to draw this and he was drawing something else!” And there was kind of the ego trying to push, “I want this. I want that.” “He's drawing jagged lines on my smooth flowing lines.” But by the time they did it maybe a third time, it was just flowing. Everybody was in tune. Sometimes a color or line was jarring, but everybody simply made space for it and found ways to include it into the big picture. Holding the whole picture of what everybody was putting together, rather than my picture versus your picture. It was a really fun and learning exercise.

Another one we did out in the parking lot one warmer day. I had come in with about 15 different colors of yarn, each cut into lengths about 40 feet long. We got one person, you didn't know who would be at the other end of your yarn, there were not teams, but one person took each piece of yarn and then people took the other ends and wove them back and forth a bit, so it wasn't just straight lines. People changed places, so that the person who picked up the yarn first was not the one who ended up with it. They passed them back and forth.

And then they stopped. The goal of the exercise was to simply take your yarn, curl it up on your hand, and of course you would come to places where the yarn overlapped others. And sometimes there would be four or five people at that knot. Stop and hug each person, as their yarn crossed your path. Simply lift it under or over and then continue on. They weren't just straight lines, they were going every different direction.

It took about half an hour. In the beginning everyone was trying to find their partner at the other end. And gradually people relaxed and just enjoyed the flow of, “who knows who I'm going to meet next.” Co-creating this untangling. Co-creating this connection. Slowly the self trying to do anything dissolved, and it just became a co-creative exercise with all 30 or so people. Just connecting. Each time you crossed somebody's path, you stopped and hugged them or took their hands and looked in their eyes, connecting, and then untangling and moving on. It was beautiful to watch. It really became a dance.

So these may give you some ideas of how you can shift from the ego-directed movement into the co-creative movement.

(to Q, a florist) You co-create with your flowers. You don't tell the flowers what to do. You ask them, but you also inform them they're not the boss, you're not the boss. Am I correct?

Q: I don't think it too much. I just see the flowers and let it happen.

Barbara: Exactly. But you don't simply walk out of the room and say, “Okay, flowers, put yourself in a vase. You have to be there to help them arrange themselves. But you're not imposing your will on them, although sometimes you may. You may say, “This needs one more purple iris,” and lift it up and put it in.

Q: Sometimes I start with some color idea, like I want to go with bright colors or soft colors. Or I pick one that I really want, and then I find something that I want to go with it. And I'm saying “I,” but I'm not thinking “I” when I'm (doing it).

Barbara: Other things people would like to talk about?

Q: Yesterday, because I've been working, I was able to come for a short time to sit and practice. And then I went back to work and was driving, and I must have built up a certain amount of concentration here. But when I was driving, I had a very concentrated, wandering mind.

Barbara: When you say “concentrated wandering mind,” you mean that you were aware that it wandered?

Q: No, no awareness! The bridge by my flower shop was closed, so I had to go a different route. And I totally bypassed the entrance to the freeway, and didn't even realize I had passed it until a half a mile later... And I went through two intersections and made two turns before I realized that I had totally missed the entrance to the freeway. Like, “Oh my god, what happened?”

Barbara: So you were sin a place of spaced out concentration, rather than in the present moment.

Q: Exactly. Something had happened at the shop, so I was thinking about it. But it was so alarming that when I woke up out of the thought, it was like, “Where am I? How did I get here?” It was like my mind was so concentrated in a thought that I had totally missed everything. It was like, “How did the car get here?...” It was a little bit frightening that I totally missed everything where I started on that road and when I came back to attention.

Barbara: Everybody has had those experiences. All we can do is, whenever we wake up to the present moment, to simply note: where am I? Going back and saying, “How could I have missed it?!” doesn't really help. Just, drifting, was somewhere else. Can I come back to this moment? And in this moment, what do I have to do to redirect myself to where I plan to go?

Q: It just seemed like the level of concentration was more deep than normal, not just some ordinary, “Oh, I missed the thing.”

Barbara: Your concentration on the stories of what you had to do was deep, but not your present moment concentration.

Q: Exactly. It seems like in an ordinary consciousness, the mind might be shifting around between things faster. I think because I had done a little practice here and the concentration got deeper, must be lacking energy or mindfulness, maybe too much concentration.

Barbara: I don't think it's too much concentration; it's about  where we choose to direct concentration. There's a wonderful story told by somebody coming home from a several-week meditation retreat. After two weeks of silence and vipassana, he gets in his car and is driving on the highway. Suddenly he hears a siren. An officer pulls him over. The officer walks up to the car and says, “Do you what speed you were going?!”

“I didn't think I was speeding.” There's a 65 mph speed limit. “Was I going 70?”

“No.”

“75? 80?”

“No. You were going 20 mph!”

So it's not quite spacing out, but it's not being present. Concentration is one wing, mindfulness is one wing. It's a bird with two wings. Concentration without mindfulness can get us lost. Mindfulness without concentration can keep leaping from place to place and not have any stability. But when we combine mindfulness and concentration then there's clear focus and presence in this moment.

So that's what we're aiming toward. That's what we work to support in our practice and sometimes it comes, sometimes it doesn't come. If it doesn't come, don't get lost. I just drove with several people to Toronto. Somewhere less than an hour outside of our hotel destination in downtown Toronto, I handed the steering wheel over to another person and got into the back seat to close my eyes and relax. The Toronto skyline was visible.  In the front seat was the driver and next to him a pilot with Google Map instructions.

When I next opened my eyes about 45 minutes later, some inner timing saying we should about be there-- where are we? We were an hour NE of Toronto! They had completely missed the turn. They were going on and there were kind of alarming signs saying that the next city coming up was something an hour east of Toronto. They were very concentrated, but they weren't mindful.

Balance. But it's so important not to chastise ourselves when that happens, but just to say, here is the intention to bring it more into balance. Sometimes we get it right, sometimes we don't get it quite right. More balance.

Q: I was just going to follow up on the conversation about the ego on the sambhogakaya, the bridge. Lately I have been feeling lots of compassion for the human mind and body, and respect for what the human mind is designed to do. It plans! It can safely figure things out! If I want to create something, it will safely run about to find a way to do it.

All I wanted to share was the compassion, no need to get rid of the ego mind. It can be useful.

Barbara: Very useful. But it's a servant, not a boss. (Q: Right.) The ego mind as a tool is not grounded in self. It's a tool of awareness, that understands how to use—if I'm driving a car and somebody starts to pull out in front of me, it's not ego necessarily that honks the horn, but kindness. And yet, there's some aspect of the educated self that knows, if somebody's about to pull out in front of me, honk the horn. We know what to do. But if that one who knows what to do becomes grounded in self, “I know what to do,” then it founders.

What's the difference between insight and an ego's saying, “I know this.”?

Q: I think it's the point of awareness. If I am in awareness of serving the mind, there is no ego self.

Barbara: In the situation I just described, driving to Toronto, I opened my eyes and said, “Where are we?” and they said, “Oh, we've been watching the road. We've been watching for that turn off.” And you can see the city of Toronto way over there (behind us) in the distance! “Have you opened your eyes and looked around, rather than just looking at the signs?” I was tired, it was late, I wanted to get to the hotel! Clearly, we were along the lake shore going to Toronto and suddenly it's way off in the distance. Did anybody look? No, we're just looking at the road signs.

Q: Is looking at the mind from awareness “right view”?

Barbara: Looking at anything from awareness is part of right view. But even there, resting in awareness, there still has to be something that steers the awareness, some intelligence, some intention. We're not just resting in awareness. They could have bypassed it and not noticed it (while) resting in awareness as well as too focused on, “Where is the sign?” It's that balance that's able to see the big view and, this is what's happening right now. So again, it's being in the middle of the bridge.

Others?

Q: How is it best to deal with contrary opinions when you can't move off of your spot, because you feel it would be unfair to take their point? It would be unfair to me... a conflict resolution kind of thing, in the context of meditation and that sort of thing. (rewording for signer) How would it be best to meditatively work with a situation, to solve a contrasting situation...

Barbara: I'm not sure what you mean by a contrasting situation...

Q: The difference of an opinion where another person won't change their position. I want to solve the problem but feel I will not serve myself, is the best way I can say it. If I go with the person, if I agree, then I feel like I'm not serving myself. How do I meditate on that?

Barbara: I have a clear response from me to that, but I'd like to hear from others.

Q: I find it can be helpful to envision a common goal or higher purpose. Why are you with this person? Or, do you have a common goal or purpose? This pulls both of you out of the single self and opens the door to a solution beyond your two positions. It can really shift the energy.

Q: You mean say it openly: why are we together?

Q: Yes. What is our vision or common purpose or goal? In my relationship with my boyfriend, our higher purpose is to be loving and create a loving compassionate relationship, for example. If we remember that and recommit to that, then it shifts the energy away from (gesturing) me to us. Together we are going there. Then new possibilities open up.

Barbara: Anybody else want to share something about this?

Q: However, there will be times when the person and you cannot find a common vision. The other person cannot find a common vision with you. There are those situations.

Barbara: I don't think there's ever a time when the person can't find a common vision, if you go far enough. But as you approach the specific question, you may not be able to find a common answer. The vision could be as simple as finding an answer, finding a smooth way through that we both can agree upon. But “It's gotta be my way!” gets in the way.

This takes us back into dharma and non-attachment to view, and looking deeply at the ways, when this person is saying, “This, this, this!” and you're saying, “No, that, that, that!”, in what ways does my attachment to my own view prevent me from really hearing the other person? It's not a question of right or wrong so much as transcending both our views, to find a place that comes together. But as long as I'm attached to my view and you're attached to your view, we can't transcend our views to find that commonality.

So we come back to the dharma practice, and simply asking, as you listen to the other person, in what ways am I attached to being right, or having it my way, or having them hear me? More focus on really hearing them.

Q: But it takes two people, to try to hear each other. There are some people who can't enter into this sharing, from their own fear.

Barbara: Some people can only hear what they want to hear. And you can't force anybody to hear in a different way. But if you push, generally they push back. And if you hold space, generally they open up into that space.

You've probably all done the pushing arms exercise with me. (demonstrating) Push, push. I push back, we just keep pushing at each other. But if you push, I just let the energy go past me and then return the energy back to you. And if you want to push again, you push again, and I just let it go past me again. I don't fall on the floor, I don't back away. I keep the energy moving. I return it to you. As soon as there's resistance, I stop pushing and let you handle it from there. Are you going to push again? I just let it go past me, and then I feed the energy back to you.

This is a perfect metaphor for dialogue, the other person pushing their view, and we see our impulse to vocally push back. Hold space around that impulse. Let their push go as far as it wants to, until it starts to slow, and then just energetically feed it back, with just, “I hear you. We see it a different way, but I hear you.” You can repeat what you heard them say, or ask, “Are you feeling fear about this.” Or just, “I hear you.”

Then they say, “So you think I'm right.”

“I didn't say I think you're right, only that I hear you, and that we have a different view on the matter. I'm trying to hold space for your view and really listen, to understand how you're feeling.”

So in that way I'm giving back. Gradually the person will start to ask, “Okay, how do you see it?” Then there's the possibility of an open door for dialogue. But if they say, “I see it this way,” and you say, “No! It's that way!” there's no room for dialogue.

Q: You can combine that with projecting green chakra energy, heart chakra. If you project that, it softens... ahhh.

Barbara: But it may be unskillful to project it, if the other person is not aware of their energy field or chakra energy. We can't use our knowledge of energy to try to manipulate them, only to try to quiet what's going on in ourselves and re-center. Otherwise we're using a certain power that we have against them. We can invite them unconsciously to center their chakras, but we can't do it for them.

Q: It's not for manipulation. It's to soften the energy being projected.

(Group comments on softening one's own projection vs. manipulating the other person's.)

Barbara: I'm thinking of the scene-- in Star Wars?-- I'm not sure, where he wants somebody not to see him. He has that power and use of his energy, “The Force,”  to make them look the other way. But morally, we can't use our energy to force other people in that way. I can use my energy to hide myself, to become invisible to the other person, but I can't use it to make them look away. Perhaps that metaphor works for you.

What I mean is that if this person disagrees with me and is pushing his view at me, using my chakras I can center myself into the heart, hold this heart space open, and invite the other person's heart space to open. But I may not, although possibly I can, I may not manipulate their chakras and energy in order to try to get them to try to change their view.

Are there any questions for Aaron?

Q: I feel that I am in transition about what my next goal in life is. I think of greatest good for all humanity, but there are many ways I might go. What do I do?

Barbara: Let Aaron speak.

Aaron: My love to you. I believe I understand the question, and many of you may have similar question.

I'd like you to look at the way that question comes from the ego self, that still has an agenda to get it right, as opposed to the open loving heart that knows, because it holds this intention as the highest, to be of service with love, that if it invites that, what comes will be wholesome. There's not a better or worse.

There might be a more enjoyable, something that's more suited to your skills, perhaps. But when you manifest or co-create in the world, first you hold the big intention, service to all beings with love. And you can include in that “The most wholesome use of my skills and personality and readiness for whatever comes next.” Then the ego comes in and says, “What is it gonna be?” Begin to note that ego and the tension in it and say, “No, this is not where I co-create the next step. This is where ego grabs at the next step.”

Step back from there into this spacious heart. Do it again and again and again. And stay aware, because something is going to come, and if you've invited it in but you've got your eyes closed, you're not going to see it.

So it's a matter of sorting out the very busy ego and the spacious awareness, and giving the spacious awareness more space to function, by noting the ego and just saying, “Shh! Be quiet so the heart can speak.”

Others?

Q: At the Casa, they bless the water. What can we do to raise the vibration of our tap water?

Aaron: It's hard to raise the vibration of your tap water, because it has so many impurities in it. If you start with purer water, bring it into the place where you meditate. It's better in glass than a plastic bottle. Hold the glass container in your hands. Do something like tonglen with it, sending out loving light energy to it, receiving anything that's impure from it and releasing it. Bless it from your heart. So you can do that in an ongoing way and raise the vibration of your water.

If you have a Casa crystal, you can put it in the glass and that will help raise the vibration. The raising of the vibration-- your body is so much water content - as you work with the vibration of your own body and raise the vibration of the water content in your body through love, through mindfulness, through spacious ease, then you simply put your hands around this glass and offer the blessings of the open heart to this water. This water is not separate from you. You're going to take it into yourself. Offering the blessings out and thanking the water, gratitude, bringing it in, gratitude, helps raise the vibration. So all of these will help.

I hope this weekend has jump-started your practice, those of you whose practice has fallen off a bit. I hope you will rekindle your commitment to service to all beings with love, and the intention to release anything that blocks that commitment, which includes the intention to see what may be blocking it, a willingness to see. Not to be defended, with “Don't show me that,” but open. Sometimes it's hard to see. We don't want to. The human ego doesn't want to. But from within the heart, there is the loving intention. Just increasingly honor the intention and ask, “In this moment, what's most needed?”

Meditation does not have to be a “Now it's 6:30am, I must sit down for 45 minutes.” If you have the ability to sit on a daily basis, by all means do so. But otherwise, just take 5 minute breaks here and there to be present in this moment. Keep your highest intention in front of you at all times, because it's so easy to forget it. In this way, your practice will flourish. I'm not saying don't sit regularly, but don't chide yourself if you cannot. But rather, do what you can. Otherwise it's just more negativity.

If there are other questions, I'm glad to speak to them. If not, perhaps we will end and just sit for 10 minutes together. Is there anything else you would like to ask me?

Let me release the body to Barbara. My blessings and love to each of you, and thank you for being here with me, for this weekend. (session ends)

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