April 27, 2014 Sunday Evening, Aaron's talk Expressing our true nature; non-dual experience; akashic field and vipassana/ mindfulness

Expressing our true nature; non-dual experience; akashic field and vipassana/ mindfulness.

Aaron: Good evening. My blessings and love to all of you. I hope you have had a fine day. I know some of you got down to the beach, waded, or even swam. This is such an idyllic scene. You have a loving sangha for support, caring teachers, wonderful food, quiet, I hope, and all of the elements to nourish you—drawing in that sunshine, the breeze, the water, the vast sky. And yet I would conjecture that all of you at some time during the day had some kind of troubling thought-- a bit of anger, sadness, self-judgment, regret.

I want to build on my talk this morning. That jewel that you are, that radiant jewel, that doesn't mean that its expression will be 100% radiant, only that the core essence of you is of that radiant jewel. I mentioned this morning the truth that you are mammals. If you startle a wild animal, it will fight or it will flee. Its body will contract. This is the body bequeathed you as human. It is a mammal's body. And that doesn't make it good or bad, it's just the way it is. You could have come in the form of a fish or a bird. Instead, you're in the form of a human.

When the conditions are present for something to arise, it will arise. I often use a window as an example. The nature of the glass is clarity. But if it gets covered with dirt, do you need to break out the glass? You don't say the glass is ruined because it's dirty; you simply take out a soft sponge and wash it. You don't take out scouring pads or you'll scratch it. Your intention is to reveal the true nature of the glass again, to reveal its clarity.

The nature of all of you is clarity, radiance, kindness, intelligence. This is part of what you are. Now you can easily say, “Yes, but I'm also sometimes irritable, afraid, greedy, impatient, so maybe that's my true nature.” I don't see it so. Your true nature is like the glass, clear and radiant, and sometimes due to certain conditions the impatience, the greed, the anger, develop, just as the dirt develops on the glass, and then we attend to it and rinse it off.

We talked this morning about right effort. To nurture wholesome mind states already arisen. To invite the arising of those wholesome mind states not yet arisen. To release negative mind states already arisen, rinse them off. And to attend to the conditions that would give rise to unwholesome mind states not yet arisen, so that you're releasing the conditions before the unwholesome states can arise. All of this takes mindfulness and attention.

I mentioned this morning that it can develop quickly into a fix-it kind of energy-- get rid of, cause to arise. The ego is in control, trying to be oh so perfect. But there's not much compassion there.

In our small group meeting today we talked some about giving birth, being the mid-wife for yourself. Inviting this radiant angel that you are to come forth. But birth often comes with pain and effort. It's not always going to be easy, but the results are beautiful. What is there within you that you have suppressed, that is truly part of your essence and wants to birth itself? Perhaps knowing your unlimitedness, knowing your radiance, knowing joy, knowing the loving heart.

You divide yourselves so easily into those qualities that are seen as worthwhile in the self, those that right effort will bring forth, and those qualities that are unwholesome that you want to release. But you fail to see how they go together.

Now I'm going to pause here and do an exercise. Pass out the pens and paper, please. With no conversation about it, I want you to take the sheet of paper, draw a line, and write down Qualities I Admire About Myself. Qualities I wish to nurture. And then on the other side, Qualities I Wish to Release. Qualities I'm not so happy with in myself. Just write these two lists, and then we'll talk further.

(exercise)

First I would like to ask you, did you come up with a longer list of things you admire or things you regret? How many have a longer list of things you like about yourself? And how many have a longer list of things you dislike about yourself?  (more dislike) How many of you came to a point where you wrote down, for example, “patience” - “Yes, I'm a patient person,” and then had the thought, “But I'm not always patient,” and wrote in the other column “impatient”? And then looked at the two and thought, “Well am I patient or impatient? Am I kind or unkind? Am I generous or am I stingy?”

This is the primary point I wanted to make in having you make out these lists. If you are impatient 10% of the time, patient 90% of the time, you still write “impatient,” because it feels like unless you're 100% patient you have to say, “Well, I'm not patient; I am impatient.” But the reverse isn't true. If you're impatient only 10% of the time, did you write it down? Do you see that the positive quality has to be true 100%, or at least 95%? Why do you judge yourselves so harshly?

On balance, if you are patient 51% of the time, I give you enormous credit for that! And yet, yes, impatience sometimes arises. If you are non-judgmental 51% of the time, judgmental 49% of the time, but judgment still arises, it is arising from conditions. Hold the intention not to enact it and pay attention to the non-judgmental voice. We look at right effort. How do we nurture the beautiful states of non-judgment, generosity, patience, and so forth? Never by saying, “Don't be impatient! Don't be judgmental!” That doesn't nurture the beautiful states, does it? But when we bring awareness to the feeling impatient, judging mind, the anger, the grasping, with kindness—ahhh, we invite it in for tea, as Milarepa's story goes, and sit with it, you begin to find right there with the impatience, the judgment, the anger, that which is patient, non-judgmental, openhearted.

I have a different perspective of you than you have. I see the glass that is inherently clear. I see the human that is radiant and beautiful. And I see the various conditioning that gives rise to some of the less wholesome qualities. And I see for all of you your deep commitment to releasing these unwholesome qualities. I see with compassion how much it hurts you that you can't just go like that and release it. But only kindness releases it. Quoting the Dhammapada: “Hatred never resolves hatred. Only love resolves hatred. This is the truth, ancient and immutable.” Only love resolves hatred.

So how can you learn to be more loving with yourselves? Let's look at the two stories of Milarepa as a clue. Is there anyone here who has not heard the “invite the demons in for tea” story? Okay, you all know this one. So there are the demons. Milarepa looks at them, sits down and say, “Sit by my fire. Have tea.” And they ask, “Aren't you afraid of us?” “No, your hideous appearance only reminds me to be aware, to have mercy. Sit by my fire, have tea. But shhh! No dialogue. I don't want to hear your stories.” So he feeds them tea, and eventually they dissolve. He's not chasing them with a stick. He's not judging them. He recognizes that in some way he has invited these demons to his fire. Something about him has invited them. He's at peace with that. His way of releasing them is not to yell at them or say, “Why are you here?” It's not to beat them, and it's not to get caught up in the stories they're bearing, but just to sit them down and be present with them.

Does this sound like your vipassana practice? That's all you're doing, sitting there, watching whatever demons want to come up and inviting them in for tea. And then for a while it's quiet. No one appearing. Ah, peaceful, quiet. And then here comes another one. No surprise; they keep coming. Clinging to that empty space free of demons is just more clinging, just another demon.

How many of you know the second Milarepa story? A few of you. There are many Milarepa stories. There are two I've told repeatedly, and some of you will recognize this one. I am repeating this one because I think it's important to your practice, and to what I hope you will do through the rest of the week. It's a hard teaching. When I say hard, a challenging teaching.

Milarepa comes back from gathering firewood; he's carrying these big bundles of wood on his back. He approaches the site of his cave and he sees it's overrun by demons. He grabs the heftiest stick off his back and he starts chasing them. They're delighted. What a wonderful game! They're laughing and running away from him, sometimes trying to trip him. He keeps chasing them until he sees it's not working. The more he chases, the happier they are.

So he puts his firewood down, puts his club down, and just looks at them for a bit. Now they're back into mischief, getting into his food, throwing his clothing in the mud, whatever mischief they can find. But he sits and watches them. He thinks, “I know!  I'll give them a dharma talk about kindness. That will teach them.” So he starts to talk about loving kindness to others, not wasting his food, not destroying his clothing, treating others with loving kindness, and they sit there rolling their eyes. They're not the least bit interested in loving kindness, they just want to make a mess.

So he sees it isn't working. He goes off and eats his meal, sits and reflects a bit, just lets them run around. But, as he's no longer trying to interact with them, no longer giving them energy, they become bored after a while. They throw his most delicious food. They pour out his whole jar of honey in the mud. He just sits there. “We're not getting a rise out of him anymore.” So they leave; all but one big ogre. He stays around just watching Milarepa. Milarepa thinks to himself, “Maybe this guy has always been here and I've just never notice him before.” He slovenly, he's loud, he belches when he eats. He eats three quarters of the food Milarepa prepares and pushes Milarepa aside. He wakes him during the night. He's very unpleasant. But Milarepa thinks, “Maybe he's been here all along and I've just never noticed him.” So he watches him.

Days go by. Weeks go by. Milarepa begins to notice how he is separating himself. After a meal—burp!—he belches. The other guy belches louder. Milarepa thinks, “Hmm, in what way am I like this one? I'm judging him so harshly. But maybe I have some of these qualities, too.” He begins to look at the separation, the things he likes about himself, the things he dislikes about the demon. The things he dislikes about himself, the things he might be able to like about the demon.

Finally he walks up to this monster with bulging eyes, a huge, gaping mouth and sharp teeth, looks him in the eyes, says, “Eat me,” and puts his head in the demon's mouth. Many of you have heard this before from me. What does this “eat me” mean? And what happened when he put his head in the demon's mouth? What do you think happened? Did he lose his head so only the demon remained? What happened?

Group: The demon dissolved, disappeared. They became one.

Aaron: They become one. There is no demon and Milarepa anymore. What are your demons? Step one, to invite them in for tea, to make some peace with them. We don't start off with Practice 2, we start off with Practice 1. Then we move into Practice 2, which is the readiness to end the duality. Here I have written, “I'm a judgmental person. I'm kind and non-judgmental. Well how can that be?” Eat me. Bring it together.

Who is this judgmental person? It's just the outplay of conditions that gives rise to judgment. Is there anybody you can find underneath it that is judgmental? Who is this non-judgmental person? Again, is there any solid self you can find who is non-judgmental? But it takes you deeper into the essence of your being. The clear crystal; that which is radiant and beautiful.

So within your meditation you begin to get more in touch with this essence of your being and to trust that this loving heart, this genuine wisdom and compassion, that these are the core of your being.

Here I'm speaking in part of conditioned versus unconditioned. We talk about the Unconditioned and the expressions, the direct expressions of the Unconditioned, such as compassion, luminosity, and clarity. Really, all of your perfections, paramitas, are direct expressions of the Unconditioned. That means that left alone, they will be there. They do not need to arise so much as to be revealed. Whereas their opposite, those unlovable qualities that you wrote down that are unpleasant about yourselves, they arise only from conditions. They are like the dirt on the window. When you release them, that innate clarity and goodness is revealed again.

Now, you don't have to agree with me. I'm simply explaining how I see you. If you see yourself as innately negative, we just have a different point of view. But it's not how I see you, nor any human. Even the most malevolent human has this pure light as its essence, Buddha nature, otherwise there would be no reason for our practice. The Buddha phrased it, “There is an Unborn, Undying, Unchanging, Uncreated; if it were not so, there would be no reason for our lives.” If your practice was one of trying to control negative qualities only, there would be no idea of enlightenment. But enlightenment is really a revelation, a revealing of your true nature. Bringing it forth by nurturing the conditions which give rise to it, which support it, and releasing the negative simply by noting, “Ah, this is arising out of conditions and it is not separate from me, but I don't have to be self-identified with it. Putting my head in the demon's mouth, I release it.”

My call to you this week, then: spend some time tomorrow looking at this list and ask yourself how you are creating dualities. Where is your true nature under all these likable and unlikable qualities?

We practice with spaciousness a lot. When tension is coming up, fear, anger, judgment and so forth, dissolve back into the spaciousness and find that radiant light and space that is your essence. Rest there. Seeing the agitation running through, “Ah, hello agitation.” Bow to it. Invite it in for tea. Keep looking at the ways you're creating dualities, that putting the head in the demon's mouth is not a one-time action. It needs to be repeated constantly. Each time you see that you are separating yourself from others or from yourself, come back and reconnect.

Whose head is it? Who is the demon? Was there ever a demon? That's simply another conditioned idea. Out of that conditioned idea come all of the negative impulses and actions. Out of the habitual energy and karma, the negative impulses and actions will repeat themselves until they are tamed and released. But we don't tame them with a club, only with presence and kindness, awareness, and trust in your genuine radiance. Remember, I call you angels in earthsuits. You may not see yourself as that angel, but I do. And I love the angels sitting here. I trust your ability to recall the angelic loving heart, to live more and more from it, and to forgive yourself when you don't. Simply come back to a compassionate regret that anger flared up and you acted it out. Making reparations for any harm you did, and redouble the commitment to live from this loving center. It gets easier and easier.

Most of you have heard me speak of my final human lifetime, of being trapped in a storm under a fallen tree with sharp thorns, lying in the mud and the rain and hearing the tiger. Anger and fear came up, the aspect of me that wanted to kill the tiger so that I could escape. And then the deep realization: that is not the way to liberation. Finding that which was innately loving. Knowing I am the tiger, I am a beast of prey. Right here wishing the tiger dead, I am the tiger and the tiger is me. And he also has this heart of love that he has not yet realized. So if I am to die, can I die holding him in my heart, with the prayer that he realize his true nature? And if he ends up eating me, that my true nature and his true nature will come together, and he will come into a new rebirth as a realized being.

Visualize the whole Earth taking rebirth as realized beings capable of loving, this is that to which you give birth this week. Not the living being capable of awakening; you already are that, but the realization that you are that. To awaken to that true nature. To cherish yourselves. And to cherish at the same time all of those who are lost in delusion, fear, and negativity. Compassion does not accept their negativity and encourage it, but compassion knows how to say no with love, whether it's to the tiger or to yourselves.

We'll take a few minutes for questions, if there are any.

John: You mention that this clarity of being is always there, our true nature is always there. Sometimes I feel in direct touch with my true nature. When a conditioned state like judgment, for example, arises and I temporarily get drawn into that state, in terms of judgmental thoughts or a feeling of aversion, and that conditioned state is strong enough, I lose touch with my true nature. In those moments, how can I reconnect with my true nature?

Aaron: By mindfulness and knowing that moment-- it may be 10 minutes later before you notice—“Ah, losing it.” As soon as you note “losing it,” you have no longer lost it. You're back connected with awareness, heart open. And if mind does spin off into negative judgment, “Why did I lose it? I shouldn't have lost it,” note that and instead allow that tension to open into compassion. Then you are back in center. The challenge is this whole tendency that most of you have when you lose it to then get spun off into that negativity, go into whatever your own habitual tendencies are—self-judgment, anger, blame. Just watch it. This is just karma.

John: Usually I can do as you say. But there are times when for whatever reason I get more caught up in it and lose the sense of spaciousness...

Aaron: Can you feel the contraction as that's happening? Then stop. Just note “contracted,” and let the experience of contraction be like a flashing warning light. Whoops, I'm getting more and more caught—wait. Clear comprehension, what is my highest purpose here? Is what I'm about to do, to keep running with this contraction and papança (proliferating thoughts), is this in accord with my highest purpose? Bring it into meditation. Bring dharma into it, what you know of dependent arising and such, all the various aspects of dharma. See how this is arising out of conditions and it's taking you deeper and deeper into the mud.

Barbara tells a story of many years ago. Walking in the woods and stepping without awareness that it was there into a mud hole. She fell forward on her face to stop herself. She tried to put her feet down but there was nothing solid under her feet. Her first impulse was to thrash and try to get herself out. And she could see almost immediately the more she thrashed, the deeper she went. Everything in this mammal said, “Thrash and get out of here!” But she had to just stop, gently move her hands forward, find some branches to put some weight on, and gradually drag herself out.

You all know how to do this. Actually today, that bathroom out there, I don't know if any of you have used the one by the pool, but it seems that at least once the door locked and would not unlock. John said just lift the handle. But Barbara tried to lift the handle. She tried to twist the latch. The first panicked thought was, “I'll be here for the rest of the week!” Watching herself panic. “How will I know if anybody hears me? Was anybody out by the pool?”

So she just stood there. Breathe. She found a quiet place within herself. Tried the door again. Lifting, pushing down, turning, it didn't work. Then knocked on the door. Not panic, just knock, knock, knock. “I'm locked in the bathroom. Somebody please open the door from the outside.” It took about five minutes and numerous repetitions before someone heard her, but someone came along and opened the door from the outside. Be warned! You may not want to close that door tight! At least have a buddy on the outside to open it for you.

Panic will come up. Watch the contraction. Wanting to claw your way out of the mud, however that mud appears. To get through the locked door; not to be trapped. Breathe, right down into the belly. Breathe into the heart. Compassion for the human that's stuck in mud or locked in a lavatory. And gradually this clear light comes forth again, because it's the core of your being, and if you don't keep digging further into the mud, you'll return to it.

You cannot lose this light. You can think that you lost it. That's just thought. You cannot lose it.

Q: I had a texting argument with my little sister while I was shopping in Whole Foods. I identified the energy rising. I can almost feel it now as I remember. I caught it. I sent her a text and said, “I'm done with texting. Let's talk.” She didn't want to talk. So my question is, as I watched that energy subside over the next ten minutes, I didn't really take the conscious time to hold compassion for myself and my humanness, nor for her. But if I had, is that the place where the oneness will happen?

Aaron: It's not only that it's the place will the oneness will happen; more importantly it's the place where the karma is released. Otherwise it's coming more from a level of mundane consciousness choosing a practical path. The ego choosing a practical path, knowing, “I don't want to perpetuate this argument. Let's calm it down.” But there's still separation, and there's still the outplay of the karma. It hasn't been healed. But when there is compassion for yourself and the other, clear seeing of how this happened for the millionth time, perhaps-- not with that person, not that situation, but for the millionth time—that's enough. Then you bring compassion to the whole situation, and you begin to purify the conditions out of which it has arisen through your compassion, through knowing that you are compassion. That stops the whole thing cold. I'm not saying it will never happen again, but the next time it happens it's more short-lived, and compassion comes faster.

Q: If I understood, you said that the paramitas, the good qualities, are not dependent on conditions. It seems to me that those qualities arise when there are certain conditions.

Aaron: The qualities take seed and sprout and grow, come to fruition, when conditions are present, but the seed itself is not dependent itself upon conditions. The essence of compassion, of generosity, of patience, of clarity, all of these paramitas, the essence is already there. The fruition depends on conditions. But the essence of non-generosity, judgmental mind, hatred, this is not a seed, it's simply a distortion. Fear and hatred are distortions of love. The seed for love is there, but when it's distorted into separation, love only of myself, separating myself from others, then it emerges as hatred.

Q: Got it. Thank you.

Q: I just wanted to make a comment that I saw a TV program or two that was showing us a present day model of Milarepa. They were prison programs for those victimized to reconcile with the victimizer. In more than one case they became friends. It was the victim putting his head in the mouth of the criminal. And the criminal was transformed.

Aaron: This is beautiful. I've heard stories about this. Barbara read somewhere in the past year the story of a criminal who had murdered a woman's only son, upon whom she was dependent. Through the years she went to visit the criminal. Finally at her urging he had an early release, and she said, “You are all that's left of my son.” And he said, “You are all I have as a mother.” And they deeply connected. The healing there is profound. And perhaps this is the whole reason why these people took birth, to heal this ancient karma in this way.

Thank you for bringing that up.

Q: I'm a little confused about the metaphor of the seed. Thich Nhat Hanh often uses the metaphor of the seed for anger, for many other negative emotions, and talks about not watering those seeds of anger. But that the seed presumably remains.

Aaron: I understand your question. It's a little more complex. First we see the seed of anger bound in hatred, in ego and the fear for the small self, and separation, and we commit not to water the seed of anger or hatred, not to feed it. That means when blame arises we don't go into the stories of blame, we note, “here is judgment, here is blame, and it's only going to deepen the pain, so I back off.” That doesn't mean I automatically forgive the other who has hurt me and say, “No problem, everything's fine.” But I no longer get caught up in envisioning his pain and trying to harm him back. So I no longer water that seed.

But the next step is to understand that the seed of anger and hatred and the seed of loving kindness are the same. If there was not loving kindness, that core seed of loving kindness, there could not be hatred. Because what we are hating is that which we feel will endanger that which we love, ourselves or others who we love. If there was no sense of love, of connection, then we would not be opposed to something that seemed to break us off from that connection.

So we have here the twin emotions of love and fear. At the deepest level there is only love, but as soon as we move into separation, the conditioned mind begins to give rise to fear and all of fear's stories, and then we start to water the seed of fear. We have to then step back, release the conditions that are perpetuating the negative, begin to see the positive that's already there, and to take care of the positive. It's one seed, two sides. How do we water that seed of loving kindness? Q gave one example, opening our hearts, seeing that victim and attacker are one. Putting your head in the demon's mouth.

Q: I just had a comment, coming off what Q said. There was a wonderful series of photographs in the New York Times about a month ago, photographs that had been taken in Rwanda showing reconciliation between Hutus and Tutsis. There would be photographs, for example, of a woman whose family had been murdered by a Hutu soldier, and they would have been reconciled. It's a beautiful thing to go and see these photographs, they're just amazing.

www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/04/06/magazine/06-pieter-hugo-rwanda-portraits.html?_r=0

(thanks Janice for finding this link)

Aaron: Thank you. I would go so far as to say this is a major part of the reason why all of you are on Earth at this time, to truly learn to put your heads in the demon's mouth, to heal the separation. This does not mean that you cease to say no to negative and hurtful action, but it's love that says no, not fear. And this is something that you can learn. And the survival of the Earth depends on your learning these skills and passing them on to others.

Let's stop here. Some short time to stretch and a short sitting.

We'll be working afternoons on the beach or indoors, wherever weather permits. One of the things I want to work with you on is this non-dual teaching and how we can live this with the use of the akashic field practices. We've talked a lot in past years about what is the akashic field. But I want to simplify it for you, try to help you experience it. How in this moment there is simultaneously the reaction toward attack, defend, close off, and the open heart. And how you can hold space for both and make a wholesome choice from the loving heart. How that changes everything. The simultaneity of love and fear, if I can oversimplify in that way.

So for those of you who wish to participate, we'll do that these next few afternoons. That's all.

(session ends)

9