April 28, 2014 Monday Afternoon on the Beach, Very clear transcript on many aspects of the akashic field; three kayas; non-duality; all ground and primordial purity; Clear comprehension; conditions versus causes; karma; sila; lifejacket metaphor;

Very clear transcript on many aspects of the akashic field; three kayas; non-duality; all ground and primordial purity; Clear comprehension; conditions versus causes; karma; sila; lifejacket metaphor;

(sound of surf in background)

Barbara: Before Aaron comes in I'm going to go over some past material, familiar to some but not all of you. What is the akashic field? What are we talking about? Is there anyone not familiar with the three kayas—dharmakaya, nirmanakaya, sambhogakaya? Anybody who doesn't know about this?  A few, so Barbara continues)

Kaya means body. The truth body, dharmakaya. The form body, nirmanakaya. The bridge between them, sambhogakaya. Sambhoga translates specifically as wealth, wealth body. It holds the wealth of both the dharmakaya and the nirmanakaya. The nirmanakaya are all the outer expressions in the world. The dharmakaya is that core.

We look at the non-duality of nirmanakaya and dharmakaya. The way Aaron puts it is, if there is a deep crevasse, dharmakaya on this side, nirmanakaya on that side, and we put a plank bridge over it, you can understand that in the middle of the bridge you're touching both sides, yes? How about with the first step on the bridge? What if the foundation goes deep down, the bridge is grounded a hundred yards down on each side, so as soon as you just put the first step on the nirmanakaya side, you're touching the dharmakaya. As soon as you put the first step on the dharmakaya side of the bridge, you're touching the form body, the nirmanakaya. So this teaching helps us to understand the non-duality of dharma, the core essence, our awakened nature, and the outer expressions.

 Pasted in from Aaron's Daily Quote on-line, the day I was reviewing this transcript:

The relative plane is constantly expressing out of the ultimate plane. When you see the trees with their leaves, when you see the flowers, when you see the face of your beloved, all you're seeing is God in its own special, unique, individuated form. It is not either the tree or God, it's both, so that this face of the divine, this essence of the divine, shines through everything.

Back in 2011 I worked with Aaron over the summer on a Tibetan teaching called Circle of the Sun. It's a restricted Tibetan text, which means you cannot go into a store and buy it or on Amazon and buy it, it's purchase must be approved by a lama who has introduced you to it. I was fortunate enough to be given a gift copy of it. I began to work with it. I asked, can I get copies for all of Venture Fourth, who were going on this journey with me, and was told no, only you. So I began to work with it in an extended journal with Aaron over the summer. It comes out to over 100 pages. Aaron said a lot of Circle of the Sun contains Tibetan visualizations and you don't need them. Let's just use what's useful to your current practice.

I began to read it, and where Aaron instructed me, to type a number of pages, sometimes a paragraph or two, sometimes a page or two. Then I would ask Aaron my questions about it, and he directed me back to practice. I really spent the whole summer typing out what was useful there, checking in with Aaron about it, getting his instruction. I will be happy to send out that shortened version, my journal notes, to anybody who wants them after the retreat.

Two predominant terms that came up are primordial purity and All Ground. I'm reading you one page here of my discussion with Aaron.

Barbara: I do understand it from experience of these states but it's very hard to articulate. In the deepest experiences of the Unconditioned, nothing arises or ceases. It is the heart of it. I would want to call that the ‘primordial purity.' It is the Unconditioned before any distortion could be possible.  This is the Dharmakaya. Resting in rigpa, aware of Dharmakaya but not fully immersed in it, I am aware of the akashic field as the layer subtly above the Dharmakaya. May I call it sambhogakaya?  (Aaron; not exactly but close enough) Here there is the possibility of distortion right there with the ever-perfect. It seems this is what the text is calling the all-ground.

Now, coming back to my image, dharmakaya, the nirmanakaya, the bridge. On the dharmakaya side there can't be distortion. As soon as you put one toe on the bridge, you enter the world of expression from the dharmakaya. No longer the pure dharmakaya, but that which is expressing our of the dharmakaya. And there is the possibility of both the dharmakaya and the distortion. Love and fear, if we could put it that way. The further you go into the nirmanakaya side, and finally stepping almost off the bridge, the more fully you are in that realm of possible distortion.

Reading again,

Aaron: This is accurate. You asked how the distortion into ‘original sin' was derived. Can you explain that now?

Barbara: Those who coined the idea of original sin, not Jeshua but those who followed, lacked the direct experience of the Unconditioned. Seeing only the all-ground, the experience was not of the innate perfection but of the possibilities for distortion. Then the conclusion was of original sin.

Aaron: Correct. So you see how essential it is to have that direct experience of the Unconditioned.

B: Yes, but then how can the practice be considered a pathway to liberation, if one needs prior liberation experience to understand the path?

A: This is why the mixture of Vipassana  and Pure Awareness practice opens such a clear path. With just vipassana there is more possibility to create a duality between the three kayas. With just Pure Awareness,  there is less direct access into the primordial purity and knowing it for what it is.  Remember that while one must distinguish between primordial purity and all-ground, they are not dual. These are simply other terms for Dharmakaya, sambhogakaya and nirmanakaya.

B: Must one have a full realization experience, a direct experience of the Unconditioned beyond stream entry, to know the Primordial purity?

A:  No; it is enough to sense that there is such; one will then grow into the understanding of the distinction gradually. But stream entry is necessary to comprehend primordial purity.

Now please meditate on these distinctions.

Aaron, is there anything else you want me to say here before you come in? He says no, that is a fine introduction. Let us go on.

(Aaron incorporates)

Aaron: Good afternoon. My blessings and love to you all. What is the value of understanding this? Many years ago I spent two years teaching on body healing, working with body workers of different kinds of practices. We named it “Project Light.”  This is was perhaps 20 years ago, and was when we first introduced these terms. I'll ask Barbara to find those transcripts also and share them with you.

[Two Project Light transcripts on ever-perfect seed level are appended to the following dharma talk on emptiness and impermanence as doorway to the akashic field and the akashic field as doorway to the Unconditioned.]

http://archives.deepspring.org/Aaron/Retreats/2011/Emerald_Isle/110427AarondharmatalkEIC.php

I spoke then about experiencing a body with distortion, maybe a distortion of cancer or some other illness. This is expressing in the body, yet at a certain level the body is expressing—

A dolphin! (Aaron looking toward the ocean) Just one, there must be more if there's one. I just saw one leaping. There's another, yes. We'll pause a moment so you can look at them...

They are such wondrous creatures. They are truly grounded in this primordial purity and All Ground. They are really creatures of another density, very awake and conscious beings.

So we were working directly with people, some of whom were ill. We had these energy workers, body workers of different kinds of practice, literally feel the experience of the distortion energetically in the body, then go below that experience of distortion to the ever-perfect. I used the example of a pure spring, fresh water, deep underground. You have a five foot scoop you can dip deep down where the spring is first bubbling out of the earth, and scoop out water. But as soon as you bring it out and it touches this realm, bits of dirt can fall into it. It can move into this distorted realm. Your scoop becomes the sambhogakaya bringing it from the dharmakaya up into the nirmanakaya.

Looking at the human with cancer, the cancerous tumor, there's a place of the ever-perfect below it, but you cannot just reach in there and skim off the tumor and bring forth the ever-perfect.

So we looked at what seems to be a subtle film over that ever-perfect or primordial purity. You cannot plunge your hand through the film or you'll break the film and break the perfection of the primordial purity. That means that you have to be in both places in consciousness at the same time. We don't break the film; we simply hold ourselves in the place where the tumor exists and the place where the tumor does not exist at the same time. Am I conceptually making sense to you? (yes)

Let's hold the same thing as true for a heavy emotion like fear. There is a place where the fear has expressed, and a place that is free of it. You can't just plunge through that membrane into the fearless, into the emptiness, you have to hold both at the same time.

This then is the precursor of the akashic field practices that I've been teaching the past five years. It's not different than what you have learned in vipassana, which is to hold the space of the open heart and note the contraction that comes with fear or anger or any kind of thought without getting caught up in its stories, but noting it with loving kindness, the open heart. Then that subtle distortion because accessible to you.

What you do, really, is superimpose the image of the primordial purity, of the ever-perfect, of the loving heart over fear or anger or hatred. Right there with the self that is experiencing fear, anger, greed, or hatred, you begin to know the simultaneity of love and discover how you can live that simultaneity. So we come back to our vipassana practice; it's a vital tool to understanding the work with the akashic field.

The term “akashic field”:  You're familiar with the elements: earth, air, fire, water. We've done a lot of practice with the elements here at the retreat in prior years, and I'm not going to repeat that practice. But if anybody has not done it here before, I would ask you to spend some time just sitting here on the beach, feeling the fire element of the sun, the earth element of the sand, the water element, the air, the sky element, and feel how they intermingle, that you cannot divide them. The sand there is filled with water, yes? The air is filled with water. The sun is filled with water and air. It's all intermingled.

These elements are outer expressions, conditioned elements. They manifest out of conditions. We don't ask what the conditions are for water, but it's a conditioned object, water. Sand, it's a conditioned object. Billions of ground shells, ground by the water and the wind. A conditioned object.

If we had a bowl, I would put a drop of water in a bowl and some sand and catch some sunlight, blow into it. We'd hold them all in this container. The container in that case would be a conditioned material realm container. But think here of the akashic field, or, as Circle of the Sun calls it, the All Ground, as being not a conditioned or finite container but simply that ground out of which everything is arising.

Give rise to a thought. Right now, let a thought arise. Do you all have a thought? Where did it come from? You might be able to trace it back and say, “Well this thought came from that thought,” and so forth, but eventually if you take it back far enough you see that it comes from this infinite container. We can only follow the conditioning back a certain distance before all the conditions merge into this container that is empty of self, really empty of external conditions.

I've been asked often, “Aaron, what created the first distortion?” It's a meaningless question. It's sufficient to know there is the primordial purity, and since we live in a non-dual realm, the realm of conditions, there will be a distortion in that primordial purity. From my own understanding and experience, I would say that fear was the first distortion. And yet for there to be fear there has to be the notion of a separate self that feels fear. So which is the first distortion, the notion of the separate self or fear? It doesn't matter. Somehow they came together and there was the contraction we call fear. And fear is simply a distortion of love. Love is the core, the dharmakaya, and it's subject to distortion.

But fear is not negative; we look at fear and we think of it as negative, but fear is not really negative, it's simply a distortion of love. If there was no love there could not be fear. So instead of being afraid of fear and creating a duality of love and fear, we notice the arising of fear, the presence of fear, and we simply ask, where is love in this moment? That simple question takes us back to the non-dual experience. It doesn't take us back to love apart from fear, but it takes us back to love expressing as fear for as long as it needs to express as fear, until it's done. And then relaxing the fear and simply being love.

We look at light and darkness. In the beginning there was light. Darkness is not dual with light; darkness is simply a relative absence of light, and we go as deeply into that relative absence as is necessary until we break through and see there's nothing here but light expressing itself as darkness. Are you with me?

Therefore, with your vipassana practice it becomes so valuable to watch any “negative” arisings of the mind and body, any contractions, any stories that come up, and to begin to note them as just, “Ah, come in for tea.” Nothing to be fixed here because there is nothing dual. There is nothing evil. There is no such thing as ultimate evil. There is very strong negative energy in the universe, let's call it a contracted energy that is focused on service to self, but there is no such thing as ultimate evil.

As you progress on your paths-- most of you have read my descriptions of the densities and the movement through the densities. If you haven't, it's in many of my books. As we move into 6th density positive polarity there are also very negative beings who move into 6th density negative polarity, but they cannot go any further because the move into 7th density involves the complete release of separation. Negative polarity, faced with that positivity, cannot move any further because it cannot reconcile itself with that <lost to jets overhead>.

(to pilots) I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you believe you are protecting us from negative invaders! And if that's what you need to believe for now, we honor your work, even if we don't agree with it. And some of you may agree with it.

This is the whole pull of positive and negative polarity. So if one is entrenched in negative polarity, one finds at that highest end of 6th density one cannot go any further. One cannot reach that direct experience of the Unconditioned. One cannot fully release the whole notion of a separate self because one is still grounded in the negative polarity. That being eventually has to backtrack all the way to 3rd density, shift in polarity from negative to positive, and gradually evolve through positive polarity.

So we have the many distortions, the many catalysts of your life-- the fear, the grief, the confusion, the pain, the desire, the anger-- and the imperative of learning how to relate with those with spaciousness and ease, and not to create a duality. This is where your vipassana practice has been taking you.

Now that most of you have developed your vipassana practice to the point that you are able to do that some of the time, you're ready to begin these akashic field practices. Barbara noted that these are taught in the Tibetan tradition. How many of you have done any formal dzogchen practice with me or Barbara or others? Most of you. We started dzogchen with what's called the trekchod practice, cutting through. Cutting through the arisings of mind and seeing the basis, that anger arises and right there with anger is non-anger. Contraction arises, and right there with contraction is non-contraction. And then resting in that non-contraction, in that open heart, in that stillness, without trying to fix the contraction with a closed heart, with the agitation. Are you with me so far?

So this is the first level of dzogchen. The second level of dzogchen is called togyal. I am not a dzogchen teacher; I am not a Tibetan Master.  I have had trekchod training in a human form. But I did not have togyal training in a human form. Of course I've been studying it since my last lifetime, and I have good understanding of it, but probably not at all the way the Tibetan master would teach it.

It is simply a practice of non-duality. As Barbara mentioned, the Circle of the Sun has many visualizations. You don't need that. I'm not diminishing that. For some people that's useful. But for you with your vipassana background, you don't need that. What's valuable here is this teaching that relates to the three kayas, and that relates to the relationship between that primordial purity and the All Ground. This relates to your direct vipassana experience; that which is aware of contraction is not contracted. That which is aware of anger is not angry. You've done this with me. There can be no denial of the contraction, no denial of the anger, only a clear choice: holding identification with this anger, contraction, or whatever it may be, is not wholesome and does not lead me in the direction that I choose to go, toward full awakening and to deepest service to all beings. Therefore I let go of the duality, with no denial that this has arisen in me. I take care of what has arisen while allowing myself to go deep into that place in which it has not arisen. That which is aware of anger is not angry.

We use the akashic field teachings in many ways, but the one that I've mostly been teaching is to bring attention to any distortion that arises. Are you clear on the distinction between primordial purity and All Ground?

Primordial purity is the dharmakaya. There is no possibility of distortion there. The All Ground is the bigger container that holds the dharmakaya and the nirmanakaya, in which there is a possibility of distortion. If we simply rest in the primordial purity, we will constantly be at odds with this world in which there's distortion.

There's a dead fish lying over there. How do we open our hearts to that? How do we include that in the dharmakaya? This is dead animal life, the sand, broken-up shells—how many essences of dead creatures are in this sand? We note this is the All Ground. It contains the possibility of everything. So we hold our hearts connected to the dharmakaya without attachment to the dharmakaya, but seeing how the nirmanakaya even in its steepest distortions still rests in the dharmakaya. Are you following me?

Q: Is the All Ground the akashic field?

Aaron: I use the terms synonymously although they are not exactly synonymous. But for our purposes here, until your practice goes much deeper, the All Ground and the akashic field are synonymous. The dharmakaya and the akashic field are not synonymous, because the All Ground contains all the kayas.

we use this practice in various ways. Working with oneself, when there's anger or some other distortion, one can go into the place that's free of distortion, finding the dharmakaya level. But if one fully enters that place, one no longer has access to the distortion, can you see that? So you touch the dharmakaya level, but you can't submerse yourself fully into it.  You can, and it is very peaceful, but eventually you must come out to attend the distortion.

This goes with the image of the practice we did the other day, the boats, floundering on the sea, big waves. From the surface only you cannot stabilize the boats, cannot save the people because you have no ground. From a hundred feet down you cannot stabilize the boats and help the people because they are no longer accessible. But when you drop down into that dharmakaya level, that stillness, and then reach awareness up to the world of distortions, you see the simultaneity of the distortion and the undistorted.

The person out there a hundred feet tall, feet down in the still depths, is not saving people from the waves. He is helping people to understand that they are in no danger of the waves, and to help themselves up onto the boats. Can you feel the difference? I'm not saving you; I'm reminding you of the innate perfection of this moment. And that if you choose to drown, that's your choice. I can't stop you from drowning, I can only hold the possibility, “Look, there's a boat.” You say, “But I'm helpless! I can't reach it!” I reply, “Yes, you can reach it.” And I give a push, gently, toward the boat. Save yourself. I am working with you. I am supporting you, but nobody can enlighten another person. Nobody can save another person. It's the shift in your understanding and in your polarity from the fear-based polarity of “Ah! I'm drowning!” into this deeply openhearted knowing, “I reach for that. I open to that.”

So let's use a simple example that I'm sure all of you have experienced. Let's use anger. Is there anybody who has not felt anger in the past three days? Good. Good topic to work with, then. Anger comes in different forms. Judging mind is a form of anger. Self-judgment is a form of anger. Impatience is a form of anger. We see many different forms of anger.

When anger arises, with your vipassana training you're taught to note, “Feeling anger.” For some of you, your practice is deepened to the point that when you feel that anger there is an instant spaciousness that arises to hold the anger. For others, the mental formations come up, “I shouldn't be feeling anger. Why is he making me angry?” and so forth.

So you look at how these come together, and you have to be honest with yourself. And it will differ from one day to another. In some cases the anger may be so overwhelming that all you can do is breathe with it ,  try to hold some space and not act it out. In other cases there will be much clarity, spaciousness, ease.

What I'd like you to do in this next 24 hours is when anger comes as a mental object or as a body contraction, and there's awareness this is anger in one of its forms, noting anger, without trying to get away from or fix the anger, I want you to see it as we talked about the malignant tumor earlier. There's a place where the anger doesn't exist, but you can't break through the film of the anger and destroy the anger to get into that. You need to hold both together. So I want you to ask, “Where is that which is genuinely not angry in this moment?” Find that place of compassion and openheartedness. Find the intention not to deepen the anger or be self-identified with it, but to hold space for it and release the conditions for the anger. What you're doing is not releasing the anger so much as the conditions for the anger. What are the conditions for the anger? What are they?

Q: Separate self.

Aaron: Exactly, yes, thank you. That's the biggest one. What else?

Q: Fear.

Aaron: Fear, and separate self is a condition for fear. It's all interrelated. Many of the old beliefs, like “I should be beyond this.” Judging mind. It's all mixed together. One bowl of soup with many ingredients.

We're not looking for an original cause; we're simply seeing that this has arisen because of conditions. My strong intention is not to be pulled into it. I can find the place that genuinely is free of this, and from that place I can offer loving energy to that part of me that's caught in it. It's happening simultaneously. I'm not fixing anything. I'm not getting rid of anything. I see the giant field with all these conditions arisen together, and I am willing to attend to that which keeps the separate self, the notions of fix-it, the notions of helplessness or lack of control, the notions of fear, what keeps it all going; this is the fire under the burner. The soup, what keeps it bubbling? We turn the fire down, the soup stops boiling and cools. What keeps the fire burning?

Q: Stories.

Aaron: Stories are part of it. What keeps the stories going? The stories are part of this bubbling. It's all mixed together. This is the akashic field and it contains everything. But you begin to trust that right there with the hot pepper and perhaps unpleasant ingredients are the nutritious ingredients. You are able to choose. There's not a self choosing; there's love choosing. You find it increasingly possible to go into that field and choose.

Q: Do you look for the place where there's no anger in general, or do you look for the place where there's no anger with that person, if it is a person that is a catalyst for anger?

Aaron: Either one, but it's not quite that. You look for the place where there is compassion. And when you find true compassion, you have found the place where there's no anger. Then a moment later the anger may bubble up again. But you come back because of your intentions; do you know the practice of clear comprehension? (no)

Clear comprehension. First, clear comprehension of purpose. What is my highest purpose here? Is it to be right and enact the anger and power over others? Or is it to support loving kindness? Clear comprehension of suitability; Is what I'm about to do supportive of that purpose? If I'm about to go into the stories again, do I really want to do that? What option do I have? <inaudible, about finding the place of genuine compassion>

Clear comprehension of meditation. Taking it into meditation and really understanding how the conditions, the seemingly eternal conditions of blame and fear and so forth are keeping this brew bubbling.

Clear comprehension of the dharma. That which has the nature to arise has the nature to cease. Seeing that it's all bubbling, I let go of this whole level where anger has been churning and sink down into the place where it's quiet. And from there I can better—it's not even attend to so much as shift my focus from that which is bubbling and poisonous to that which is sweet and beautiful, quiet and open. And it's an ongoing choice. It may take you lifetimes to deepen it, but much can be done now in this lifetime.

Do you understand the difference between conditions and causes? If certain atmospheric conditions are present, we'll have rain. If you have a seed, an apple seed that you want to plant, you need certain conditions, like fertile soil, water, sunshine, and if you have those conditions the seed will sprout. You'll end up with an apple tree. This is the fruition of conditions.

These conditions in themselves are not sufficient cause for an apple tree to grow. If I have the seed in my hand, I have sunshine, I have water, I have rich soil, all the conditions are present but they're not yet mingled, in order for the tree to grow I need to mingle the conditions.

You have the conditions for awakening, but you have not yet fully mingled them to give the cause for awakening. The cause is karmic. As we work with this akashic field practice, we for the first time begin to work directly with the causes for awakening, not just fostering the conditions, as we've done with your vipassana practice, but really holding it all together.

So what is the cause for awakening?

Q: To be one with all?

Aaron: The intention to be one, to know your oneness. Not to be one; you already are one. To know your oneness with all, that's one cause for awakening.

Q: Love.

Aaron: Love, another cause. Tell me more.

Q: Seeing with minimal distortions.

Aaron: Really it's a willingness to release distortion.

Q: Intention to end suffering.

Aaron: The basics of your dharma practice—sila, panna, and samadhi, these are some of the causes. The open heart. Somebody said love. So we mingle these together, bring them into balance. And from that balance we invite the wholesome conditions, and we're back to right effort. We nurture the wholesome conditions already arisen, and we invite in those wholesome conditions not yet arisen. We release the unwholesome conditions that have already arisen, such as the delusion of a separate self. We cease to invite the unwholesome conditions not yet arisen, such as hatred, for example.

It's an ongoing process. Most of you have heard my lifejacket metaphor, yes? Anyone who has not?  (two) It's a beautiful day and you want to swim, and your friends are swimming 50 yards offshore, out where the dolphins are. But you don't know how to swim. You come down to the beach and you're looking wistfully at your friends. I give you a lifejacket. You go out into the water and you see that it supports you. A little uncertain, but you doggy-paddle out to your friend Ten years later I see you strapping on the same life jacket, not waterlogged, and moldy. It weighs you down. But you are attached to it and believe you need it....

(group moves indoors due to rain)

Barbara: We've moved up to the living room to avoid the raindrops. Aaron says he wants to set the ground for this so that tomorrow we can go directly into an akashic field guided meditation and really practice working in the akashic field, getting the feeling of it.

(Aaron incorporates)

Aaron: I am Aaron. We continue. We were talking about causes as distinguished from conditions, and that there is no first cause;  they all interplay with each other. But we look at sila, panna, samadhi, intention, intention to do no harm, loving kindness, all of these positive grounds. We look at conditions that arise. So you have the seeds for your apple tree, but perhaps you want to plant your apple tree right in the middle of my sunny yard and I don't want an apple tree there. You can bring these conditions together and cause the tree to grow. At some level it will be wholesome, it will give good fruit. But you're forcing it on something.

We can look at the various conditions out of which a rainstorm is coming. As you become very proficient at this, you will understand how to work with those conditions to cease the rain. However, the farmer needs the rain, so the shaping of intent has to come from the ground of sila, non-harm to all beings. This is the reason these teachings are restricted, that they're only to be offered to those who can use them for positive use, for the highest good for all beings and not for the ego self. Are you clear on the distinction between causes and conditions?

So we cannot just shuffle the conditions and deal a new hand. We need to look deeper at the causes that made the hand deal itself this way or that way. We have various conditions; why are they constantly coming together to create a person who's angry or distrusting? We can't just say, “I won't go in that direction.” We have to come back to the realm of cause, the cause being, as some of you said, the whole idea of the separate self and creating that separate self. And with that separate self, the whole idea of danger from others. Coming back to the cause grounded in love and non-separation from all beings, and the intention to live for the highest good and with no harm. And then we can go into the akashic field and help support that which is truly for the good of beings.

Now some of you may say, “How do we know? Someone like Hitler thought what he was doing was for the highest good of beings.” There has to be discernment. There has to be honesty. If you are on a voyage of Hitler, you're certainly going to suffer the karmic consequences. Yes, he had a lot of power, including power within the akashic field. He knew how to manifest things. But he was manifesting things from a very self-centered and distorted place. If the result is to be wholesome and joyful, there has to be honesty.

We begin to understand this vast container of the All Ground and how to discern, within that All Ground, the primordial purity and the distortions. To see, perhaps a distortion-- this medium has a distortion of fear of spiders. She sees a spider—“Ah!” Swat it! Tension and anger come up. She knows it's not wholesome, that she's taking one category of beings and believing it to be a negative category, where as spiders eat many other challenging insects. They do good and they do harm. Everything does some good and some harm.

Going into the akashic field last summer. When she received the very serious brown recluse poisonous spider bite it brought up so much hatred and loathing of spiders. She wanted to sweep her cabin clean of spiders and spray it with all kinds of poisons, to kill any kind of spider. She saw that this attitude just perpetuating the distortion because it's perpetuating separation. Instead, could she open her heart lovingly to spiders as sentient beings, and go into the distortion of separation, really find herself where she is a sentient being and this is a sentient being, and feel compassion for it. And from that place, make the very clear statement, “No more bites. It is not acceptable to me that you will continue to bite me.”

This is how you work in the akashic field. You don't get rid of the whole genre of spiders. You make the clear statement, “No, I am not going to be bitten by you. And also if there's something I'm doing to offend you, that caused you to attack me, I want to be informed of that so I can understand and not continue to invite the conditions that frighten you so you bite me.”

So we work within the akashic field to invite the clarity of where our heart is leading us, for the highest good of all beings and with love. To release distortion, physical, emotional, mental. Not so different from your vipassana practice, only there's a much more direct access in.

Let's take a few minutes for questions here. Tomorrow I want to work with you with a direct guided meditation within the akashic field similar to the boat one we did, but a deeper one, really helping you to feel the akashic field. Then if weather permits we'll spend some time literally working with it out on the beach. We'll see what the weather is like.

I've given you a lot of information today. Some of it is information you've heard before, some of it is new, varying for different of you. Do you have questions?

Q: Is sambhogakaya the same as the membrane between the primordial and the conditioned?

Aaron: Yes. Between the Dharmakaya and the conditioned. Sambhogakaya is the wealth body, the place where everything mingles together. Sambhoga translates as “wealth.” It is the wealth of containing all the conditions. It's the meeting place. Again, using this image, I am dying of thirst. I want that clear water. I am not willing to pollute that water by taking my muddy hand and plunging it through. I know the water is there. But the membrane is porous. If I push the membrane down, the water will seep up and I can scoop it off the top.

The dharmakaya is always expressing itself out in this way. I can't go through to the Dharmakaya, bringing the outer with me,  without distorting the Dharmakaya. “Me”, trying to do it from the level of a personal self, brings that “outer” and is condition for distortion. But the membrane, the sambhogakaya, is porous. The pure water of life bubbles up and we scoop it off the top. It's there, it's accessible. In the same way, if somebody has serious physical distortion, we can't just reach in and twist it into non-being. We can't go down beneath it and find the place where it's not and pull it up, breaking the surface, breaking the membrane. But we can invite the reality of that non-distortion in the body, that non-distortion of anger of fear, we invite it up. The body is sambhogakaya; it bridges both Dharmakaya and nirmanakaya. Clear comprehension: what is my purpose here? Inviting the conditions that support the opening heart, that support the wholeness of the body, that support whatever wholesome expressions I aspire to support. Seeing that it's already there, I don't have to create anything. Rather, I invite it, and I partake of it and share it out. So in going into the akashic field, in a sense I'm inviting the beautiful expressions to seep through the membrane and become available, and then to participate in them with others.

Think about this in terms of a group of people that's very, very angry. These people blaming those people. Yelling going on, weapons being pulled out. Go into the dharmakaya and finding loving kindness. Go into your own heart. It can be as simple as compassion meditation for all involved. Let the true loving kindness seep through the membrane so that the warring parties can be exposed to it. There's no guarantee they'll participate in it. They may want nothing to do with it. You can't control that. That's their karma. You simply open the door. Other questions?

Q: Are there barriers to accessing the akashic field, or entering that space?

Aaron: Only that you cannot do it from the ego. The ego can't say, “Now I am going into the akashic field.” You need to drop the ego sense of it and enter it from the pure, loving heart.

Q: Sometimes when I know that somebody nearby is getting angry, I will open to their own space with the anger also there, and I invite the person to see the space there and choose it and let go of the anger. Is that something like it?

Aaron: Yes, that's basically it. It's one example of working in the akashic field. But you can only invite, you can't force. You hold the door open. If people are ready, they'll step in. You hold the door open by your own spacious energy and light, but you can't try to talk anybody into it. You can't manipulate people into it. You can only hold the space and trust; “all beings are heirs to their karma and inherit its results.” This is part of a very well-known Buddhist teaching: all beings are heirs to their karma and inherit its results. But you have the opportunity to help them shift the karma by introducing a new condition that can give rise to new causes in them, not just the causes in the ego level, but a much deeper cause for the highest good of all. You are not protected when you do this; you can be killed. Then you just come back and try it again!

You've done this many times, all of you. It's part of why you're here now, because you have reaped the wholesome karma by these deeds that included being willing to give up your life if necessary. I'm not saying you did, but you were willing to in order to bring forth more loving kindness on Earth.

Q: I have been aware of a pattern in my life that seems to be repeating. I make the intention to trust that I'm where I'm supposed to be. And when this pattern arises, I open my heart, I draw on all the support practices that I know, and things are starting to shift. Are you saying that this akashic field practice will do something similar?

Aaron: As described, you are probably already within the akashic field. Working within the Field will do it faster, clearer, because it cuts through so much old conditioning. But there has to be a readiness. I began to speak of the lifejacket metaphor when it started to rain.

So you strapped on your lifejacket and you went out to swim with your friends. All summer you rush out through the waves and swim, and your lifejacket supports you. Ten years go by. I come back to this beach ten years later and I see you strapping on a moldy, waterlogged old lifejacket. “What are you doing?” “This is the lifejacket you gave me ten years ago. It holds me up.” So I ask you to come out with me into deep water and to stop moving your hands and feet, and glub, glub, glub, down you go. It becomes apparent, no, it doesn't support you anymore; you know how to swim. So I bring you in to shore and ask you, “Okay, are you ready to take it off?” Do you see the hitch there? You know it doesn't support you anymore but the conditioning is so deep, “This supports me.”  Fear holds it to you.

You all have these old notions, old armoring, old limiting beliefs, that you believe support you, that you believed that you needed, and perhaps you did need them. At one point the lifejacket held you up and it was wholesome to wear it, at least a choice born of intention to survive and not knowing any other way. Why are you still clinging to some limiting beliefs? Why are you still clinging to these old perceptions?

Then comes the part that takes courage, because you have not yet become assured it's safe to take off the lifejacket. And you won't know that until you take it off. All of the support practices—clear comprehension, the deep intention of sila to do no harm, to do only good, the aspiration to liberation for yourself and all beings, all of these supports come together to help you find the courage to take the next step.

We talked of this in the small groups yesterday in terms of birthing the self. The old self is wearing the lifejacket. What wants to be reborn without the lifejacket? How will it feel? What is the new self? That tiny chick breaking through its egg and emerging into the world, how will it feel? Are you able to trust yourself and the dharma enough to gradually and gently release the old beliefs, the old conditioning? Then you can use the akashic field practice to support this, because you can see the simultaneity of the old and the new, of the whole and the broken, of the limited and the unlimited.

Q: I have heard the phrase “akashic records.” Is there a connection?

Aaron: There is a very distinct connection. The akasha holds everything. We talked about its being the ground out of which all the elements are expressing, and the elements each taking form into flowers, tables, oceans and whatever. The akashic records are also within the akasha. They're simply the karmic memory of everything that's gone on before. We can access the akashic records within the akashic field once we become adept at moving around the akashic field. But that's not why we're doing it right now. It's a by-product that you may find useful eventually.

Are there any other questions? It's 4 o'clock ; let us stop now. Thank you, and I will see you tomorrow...  (session ends)

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