May 11, 2014 Sunday evening, Seattle, Barbara and Aaron

May 11, 2014 Sunday Evening, Seattle Retreat

Barbara's intro and how she met Aaron; Aaron's story of his final lifetime and awakening; Dharma leading to the end of suffering; Non-dual awareness. The simultaneity of relative and ultimate; Milerepa, head in the demon's mouth; Some discussion of the bookHuman; Akashic field practice.; Clear Comprehension of Purpose;  Yeshe Wangyal's "Famous Person" practice; consciousness vs awareness; questions.

Barbara: Good evening. We're having a different retreat, with people coming and going. Two are new this morning. Usually in a retreat we choose a theme and we develop the teachings and deepen them as we go along. I don't really know anything about either of your meditation practices or where we can jump in on common ground, so I'm just going to try to talk about something that's universal experience. Aaron and I are going to share this period, with me talking first and then Aaron coming in.

Do you know about Aaron at all?

Q: I've read a little bit of the book, so I'm a little familiar.

Barbara: A little, okay. In 1972, when my first child was born, I lost my hearing, just like that. Medically uncertain exactly why, but for some reason there was no blood circulation into the ears. The ears became oxygen-starved and died. So there I was with a newborn infant and suddenly deaf, not knowing anything about deafness. It was traumatic.

I had a stable meditation practice at that point, but my practice more or less led me into some kind of comfort zone, a place where things got quiet and pleasant. It didn't really prepare me to deal with very difficult experience, except by going away, moving into a very blissful state. Which I could do, but when I came out of the blissful state, the agitation and the pain, the loss, were still there.

I lived my life in a skillful way. I had two more children. I had and have a loving husband. We've been together for 48 years. I was teaching sculpture at University of Michigan, so I had work that was fulfilling to me. I had friends. But there was this deep sense of loss and anger. Why me? Was I being punished for something? Was God punishing me? What does God have to do with this, anyhow? Why did this happen?

I felt very isolated and abandoned. I had loving friends, and they learned this A, B, C, D, finger-spelling alphabet. People speak to me by spelling the first letter of each word. I don't spell it myself so I'm not fluent at it, but people who are fluent do it easily. So, many of my friends learned this. But when something as simple as, when I was having lunch with two friends and one of them turned to the other, holding a menu, and said, "Are you going to have the gazpacho or the tomato soup, the gazpacho or the vichyssoise?," I don't need to know that, but so much grasping came up. "I need to know!"

So I was suffering and I blamed the suffering on my deafness. If only I wasn't deaf then everything would be fine, I would be happy. And of course we all have that myth, just about different topics. If only this were different then I would be happy. What was creating my suffering was not the deafness but my separation from myself, and the difficulty to be present with my anger, especially. The pain, the anger, even calling itmy anger,my pain, rather than knowing it as the pain. Really, existential pain, the pain of being human. The pain of losing what we love, not being able to hold onto what we love.

So I struggled along with this, in many ways living a skillful life, as I said; teaching sculpture, making sculpture, and having exhibits. I was successful in my work. Raising three great kids. But there was just this "something is missing," and the anger that no matter what else I did, I couldn't get past it.

I prayed for help. I don't know what kind of help I was expecting. I was not saying, "God, help me," I was just saying somewhere, somehow, I need a lead on this, I need some kind of way to understand my isolation and my anger and how to live with this.

The day after sending out that request, that, let's call it an intention within a prayer, I came into my living room to sit, to meditate, early in the morning. I felt this huge energy, and "something." I can't explain what it was. Just, I could see his face, almost a biblical looking face with a long white beard, piercing blue eyes, a brilliant white light around him. And I was startled! I got up, I went into my kitchen, got a cup of tea. I thought, "Either I'm hallucinating or it's real," and I wasn't sure which one scared me more. There was just nothing in my life to prepare me for this.

I came back. I sat. He was still there. I had tried to just ignore him and meditate, noting tension, tension, seeing, seeing. Eyes closed but seeing him clearly. Finally I said, "Who are you? Why are you here?" And he said, "You asked for help. I'm here to help." I didn't take it any further that day; I just sat with that answer. About two days later I said, "How are you going to help me?" He said, "You're suffering. Let's start there. Let's look at the roots of the suffering and how they can dissolve."

I had just finished a big outdoor piece of sculpture and mounted it on a building. My studio was empty. My kids were all school-age at this point, and after seeing them all off to school in the morning my house was empty. So I started to sit in meditation and listen to the thoughts of this being. He said just to call him Teacher.

He pointed out to me in many ways that my deafness was not the cause of the suffering but the grasping, wanting it to be otherwise. He pointed out if I was in a situation where other people were being disturbed by a loud noise and I was not disturbed, I didn't hear the noise, I was grateful for not hearing. It wasn't about the deafness. It was about the expectations.

Buddha dharma spells this out for us in a very clear way. Objects arise out of conditions, and when the conditions pass, the object passes away. The sky is blue. Certain atmospheric conditions come in and suddenly there are clouds. The clouds are the result of a condition. When the conditions change, the clouds drift away or dissolve and the blue sky is available again. Anger arises out of conditions. We don't know what the conditions are. It's easy to identify atmospheric conditions; not so easy to identify the inner conditions that bring the cloudiness, the fear, the grasping, jealousy, agitation, whatever it may be. But we can understand that whatever has come is the result of conditions, and that attacking that result doesn't get rid of the result, it simply gives more hatred, more energy, more fear, more contraction. But when we can hold space for what has arisen, just opening our hearts to it and being peaceful with it, we resolve some of the conditions that have held it in place, and it can begin to dissolve.

In the Dhammapada, the Buddha says "Hatred never resolves hatred, only love resolves hatred." But how do we bring love to these most painful things in our lives? How do we even see that we're not bringing love to it? How do we open our hearts to ourselves and the world around us?

So I began to understand that up until then my meditation practice had been about finding a place that was peaceful and connected. I had the skills through many years to allow me to slip into that place. But I was not getting much insight into the roots of the inner turmoil. I was just taking a vacation from it. So my practice shifted to invite me to stay present with what was arising; to know it as pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral ; if it was pleasant, to see any grasping to hold onto it. If it was unpleasant, to see any aversion to it, wanting to push it away. I began to really see the aversion to not hearing.

In normal situation, the eye touches an object, like candle flame, and there's seeing. The ear touches a sound, and hearing consciousness arises. The mind touches a thought and remembering or planning or judging or fantasizing, some kind of thinking arises. Hand touches, touching. Nose, taste.

What was happening for me is eye consciousness would make contact with a mouth and the expectation, "I should be able to hear that," – grasping! No hearing. So it was all about my expectations. And the turmoil was really happening in my mind because of the expectations and the fear, "I'll miss something. I won't be in control. I won't be safe." Can I just hold space for that?

Aaron offers a wonderful metaphor. He says if he came into the room here or a room this size with a tarantula in his hand, and put it down on the floor, we'd all run! At least most of us would. Maybe we have some spider lovers, but I would run! If we had a room ten times this size and completely devoid of furniture, a big open space, and he put the tarantula down in the far corner, can you see how you could stay there for a bit? As it started to move toward you, you might get up and move to the far side of the room again. But we can put a bigger container.

We learn in meditation how to give all these habitual energies that have run through us forever a bigger container so that we can stay present with them and see what's really there. We're often so afraid of our experience. I was afraid of my anger. That was the primary thing for me. I was so enraged, why me? And my anger was separating me from myself. I couldn't love myself because I was so angry. So I felt like the deafness is causing all of this pain, and if only the deafness would go away, I wouldn't be angry anymore. And of course that's not so.

Gradually our hearts open to ourselves and we begin to see how all of these experiences–anger, loneliness, craving, how they all arise out of conditions, and we don't take them so much as self. We're still responsible to attend to them, but we don't become so self-identified with them. There's a wonderful story about Milarepa, the Tibetan saint. He's sitting by the fire, and all these demons of greed, craving, anger, hatred, fear, they all come up. They're dangling bloody knives and swords. They have a foul scent. They're hideous. Milarepa looks at them, and they say, "Aren't you afraid of us?" He says, "No. Your hideous appearance only reminds me to be aware, to have mercy. Come sit by my fire, have tea."

We're learning through our spiritual practice to invite our demons in for tea. But there's a key rule here. These demons, they want to engage us in dialogue, and we say, "Have tea, but shhh. I'm not going to get up in the story, 'It's not fair! This shouldn't have happened to me!' Shh, just have tea." Or maybe the opposite, "You shouldn't be angry. Look how horrible you are to be angry."–"Shh, just have tea." What are our demons? How do we make peace with our demons? So we open our hearts to all of this.

For me, this is the heart of spiritual practice, just learning to live with more loving kindness, more presence. The title of Aaron's book really says it perfectly:Presence, Kindness, and Freedom. When we're present in this moment with things just as they are, maybe not liking things as they are but present with them with kindness, then we have freedom. We don't have to keep reacting in the same old ways, which means we're not recreating and reinforcing the old conditions that keep the negative patterns going.

The second part of this for me, and I don't know exactly what Aaron's going to talk about, but I'm simply sharing what he's asked me to share. In the beginning there's a duality. There is anger, but if I bring enough loving kindness to the anger, finally I won't be angry. We're still thinking in terms of "this, not that." But we reach a point where we see the simultaneity of fear and love, of anger and peacefulness, of contraction and spaciousness. We start to see them just as the two sides of one hand.

Then finally we're able to let go of trying to fix things. That which is aware of anger is not angry. So we rest in this field of awareness, truly not experiencing anger on one level, while the anger is still roiling in us in the other, and we're just holding with spaciousness and giving it tea. There's no denial that the anger has arisen, or the fear or the greed or whatever emotion it is. There's no denial of the agitation. That which is aware of agitation is not agitated.

We begin to move into this still place, and learn that we can live from this still, deep, heart-centered place, the place that is the essence of our true nature, our own divinity. And that we can live in the world grounded in that without fear of the emotions. When negative emotion arises, it simply means that the conditions for those emotions have not yet been purified. And we're never going to purify them by taking a stick and trying to chase them away. We purify them by presence and kindness, just witnessing, allowing, and letting them go.

Aaron, is there more you would like you to say? He says that is sufficient, thank you.

I mentioned how I met Aaron. There was the startling moment a few weeks into this friendship when someone asked, "Can I talk to him?" I said, "Well, if you can hear him!" I knew nothing about channeling. Aaron just said, be quiet and repeat what you hear. I was already writing down what he told me for myself. He said, just say it out loud. Don't write it down; say it out loud. And somebody said, "You're channeling." "What's channeling?"

It was scary at first. I trusted Aaron by this point, but I wasn't sure I trusted myself not to distort what was coming through. And I knew that I could do harm if he said something to somebody that I wasn't comfortable saying out loud, if I distorted it in any way. So it led me to do a lot of work on myself and with my ego. Aaron was very clear: if you cannot say this clearly, if you cannot get beyond your own ego, then you have no business doing this work, and I will not speak through you.

Gradually I began to trust not only him but myself. We did it this way, conscious channeling, for a number of years. And then I was led into trance channeling. His energy is very high, a much higher vibration than mine. I was at John of God in Brazil. I said to them, "I'm always exhausted after channeling," and they said, "There's too much difference between his high energy and your energy. You need to get out of the body, get out of the way." They taught me how to do that.

So now, these past 10 years, Aaron simply incorporates in my body. I release my whole consciousness out through the crown chakra and Aaron comes in. He animates the body. When he's done, he leaves. It's much easier. I don't have to listen and try to translate, I just go out there and rest, and he speaks. Most people feel the difference between him and me; not everybody. I struggle climbing a flight of stairs; Aaron takes step two at a time. He uses the body differently than I do.

You don't have to believe he's real. The question is simply, is what he says helpful to you? If it's helpful, use it. If it's not helpful, discard it. As simple as that. That said, I'm going to bring in Aaron. I will not be here. I won't know what he's saying. I read about it afterward in the transcript. I can't even listen to the talk on the audio file because I'm deaf. So I get it a few days or a week later.

(Aaron incorporates)

Aaron: My blessings and love to you all. I am Aaron. I want to focus tonight on duality and non-duality.

(A request is made to introduce himself to new participants)

How shall I introduce myself? Which of my hundreds of lives would you like to hear about! (Q: The last one!) Who am I? Who are you?

The last one. In my final human lifetime in the 1500s I was a Buddhist monk in Thailand, not my first lifetime in Buddhism. I have been male and female, of every color of skin, of a great many different religions, followed many different sacred paths. But in this lifetime I was a Buddhist monk.

A deeply painful experience for which I was partly responsible led me to leave the monastery where I was the abbot, the teacher, and to go off into the wilderness, where I lived for ten years, exploring dualities, among other things. Exploring mind and the nature of mind, and the nature of conditioned versus unconditioned mind. The pure mind, the awakened mind that's not someplace out there on a linear path, but is right here in this moment.

The culmination of this ten years. I was walking along a forest path, delayed by a rainstorm while going back to my hut. A fierce wind blew up and heavy rain came down. Then a tree with long thorns came down, and I fell into the ground, into the mud. I was scratched by the thorns but nothing really penetrated deep in. So there was a bit of blood, there was scratching. I couldn't move. The thorns were right there against my back. I was pinned down.

I lay there with some degree of equanimity, uncomfortable but, this is the way things are. Sometimes it's uncomfortable. I felt that eventually someone would come on this path. It's not a well-traveled path, but within 24 hours somebody will come down it and find this tree on top of me, and move it away and free me.

Hours passed, and then I heard sound that I recognized as the footsteps and breath of a tiger. She was right there. The thorns that kept me pinned down kept her away from me. How brave was she going to be to risk these thorns? Was she going to chew off my feet first, or was she going to kill me first? How was I going to die? Fear came up, and anger.

My practice was very strong at this point, and I recognized that I was bringing up these conditions in my mind that were literally co-creating my death by this tiger or by fear, one or the other, that I had a choice. And perhaps I did not have a choice whether the tiger was going to eat me, but I had a choice how I was going to relate to life or death, to being eaten or not being eaten. There was suddenly complete clarity, that through this whole lifetime I had been the only one responsible for all of these conditions. No one else was to blame. And I wasn't to blame either. I had complete freedom of choice, but I was heir to my karma and repeating that karma. And here was the opportunity to awaken into complete freedom. And I felt so much love for this tiger, for her part in awakening me. I pictured her as a hungry tigress with cubs. At some level I literally offered myself to her, if that was her need.

I just lay there and breathed. I can't say I fell asleep; I was totally awake and alert. I was wet, cold, and uncomfortable. But I was not afraid. I was not separate. I was the tiger. I was the mud. I was the thorn bush.

She eventually went away. And as I expected, early in the morning two monks came down the path. They saw me there. They lifted the branches away. I stood up. They bathed off some of the scratches. I recognized that I had had basically a deep experience of the Unconditioned, and that the karma that had held me on this samsaric wheel was resolved.

So what does one do? I went back to the old monastery where I had been the abbot. It was ten years later. Some of the same monks were there, some were not. They took one look at me, and I suppose they could see by my radiance that I had had a profound experience of awakening. I simply took over the job of sharing the dharma again. What does one do? If one is a dharma teacher, one shares the dharma.

So that was my final human lifetime, with nothing left to pull me back into a new incarnation. But I repeat: I have lived in many different cultures and religions, skin colors, male and female bodies. There is no one path to awakening. I teach vipassana because this was the practice that I used in that lifetime that helped me find awakening, so I know it is a clear path to awakening. But it's not the only path. It's simply one path and a very viable, workable path. I cherish the dharma in all its faces.

But I ask you not to look at me not as some enlightened being up on a pedestal. We use the tradition of spiritual friend: not the master high above you but the person walking the path with you, seeking awakening with you. Because although I have awakened in that lifetime, I am always learning, and you all teach me as much as I teach you. You teach me compassion. You teach me love. You remind me to keep my heart open all the time. Compassion is infinite. If it were finite, I could not learn, but it's infinite, so I keep learning. And I'm very grateful for the opportunity to be with you and to share dharma with you.

So much of your suffering comes from creating this versus that. "This is good, that is bad." Things may be pleasant or unpleasant. Things may be wholesome or unwholesome. But there's a difference between unwholesome and bad, wholesome and good. Sometimes the unwholesome can teach us a lot. Does that then make it good? Can we then just dispense with the terms good and bad?

There is no ultimate evil, in my experience. There is negativity, and I define negativity as contraction, that which lives in fear, contraction, and service to the self. I define positivity as that which lives with an openhearted spaciousness, more intent on service to all beings and not separating itself from others, knowing its own well-being is dependent on the well-being of all that is, and that one can never thrive if others are suffering. So I do see in terms of negative and positive polarity, or contracted, service to self polarity versus spacious, openhearted, positive polarity, based in love and non-duality.

The world is suffering terribly at this time; not more so than a hundred years ago, but suffering terribly. You have harsher weapons that cause more damage. There's a great deal of fear, a great deal of violence. Those of you who are here on Earth at this time, many of you, have come for a specific reason, which is to support a transition into a higher consciousness of love.

You're not making something happen. It's a linear spectrum. Think of water. The top is rippled so you can't see the bottom, many ripples on the surface. The nature of the water is clarity. As the wind stops breaking up the surface into waves, you can see straight down to the bottom. The innate clarity is returned.

Look at the window, here. You can see the dog's nose marks on the window. Do we break out the glass and put in new glass? The nature of the glass is clear. And it has smudges. We don't deny the smudges. We take a soft cloth and wash off the smudges.

In the self, we see the negative thoughts, negative impulses, fear-based impulses. We don't deny them. We don't say, "I won't have anger," that's just more anger. "I won't have fear." We open our hearts, watching how these emotions have arisen out of conditions, and with a strong intention not to enact them in the world. But, as Barbara introduced this, the anger is the result of conditions. And we don't go after the result; we ask, what are the conditions? The primary condition is the whole belief in a separate self.

So our dharma practice allows us to open to the direct experience of non-separation, to know ourselves as interconnected with all that is. Then we juxtapose these: this reality that you've experienced in meditation, me, the tiger, the mud, the thorn bush, all one, versus the arising of fear, desire to preserve the self at all costs. And increasing based on-- do you know the word sila, moral awareness?–based on sila and the strong intention to do no harm, we find the possibility to truly live with non-harm to all beings, including ourselves.

There's a mixture here. There has to be the intention. There has to be the growing confidence in the self to enact that intention, first on the level of the human, separate. But then as the meditation experiences deepen and you have profound experiences of interconnection and literally of the Unconditioned itself, this eradicates the causes and conditions.

There's a difference between conditions and causes. I'm using those words, but I want you to understand the difference. If I have a small seed, warm sunlight, fertile soil, moisture, I have all the conditions for a plant to grow. But the cause is my intention that puts the seed in the earth. Can you feel the difference? All the conditions are there, but they must be brought to fruition. And it's our hearts that create that impulse, either the cause for great negativity and pain, great suffering, or the cause for loving kindness, peace, and <>. We ourselves are the essence of this. We give rise to the causes.

So our practice leads us ever-deeper, seeing how everything is erupting out of this whole world of conditions, and how we have the opportunity to continue to enact those conditions in the old ways, or to more deeply awaken into our interconnection with everything. Our deep intention to do no harm but only good. Our innate clarity, our innate radiance, that we are already awake and beautiful, and that we can choose to live that. And interestingly, it takes more courage to live that than it takes to live the fear. Can you see that? It takes a lot of courage to live from that pure glass, that pure being. But this is why all of you came into incarnation, because all of you, as old souls, came into this life with a deep intention, in whatever ways were possible, to bring peace and joy, openheartedness and connection into the world. I would not use the term healing, but opening to the ever-healed, awakening to the ever-healed. Knowing it in yourself and in the world. And then you can invite it forth.

Barbara and I have both been teaching a lot the past two years with a practice that I call the akashic field practice. Tibetan Buddhism uses a word All Ground. In a non-dual sense, this is not a primordial purity, which would be dual with anything negative, or service to self; it's the ground out of which everything is expressing.

Sometimes in practice we seek that primordial purity, and that's fine to seek that to come to know it. But if you create a duality that says, "Only this and not that," then you begin to look at whatever is negative in your experience as separate.

There's a beautiful teaching from the Tibetan saint Milarepa, a different one than the "invite your demons in for tea." Again he comes back to his cave and he sees it's overrun by demons. He's carrying firewood, and he takes a big stick of it off his back. He starts to chase after them and they're delighted, what a wonderful game! Of course they're faster than he is and he can't catch them. Finally he realizes that he's just feeding them energy.

So he calms down, he sits down. He says, "I know-- I'll give them a dharma talk about loving kindness. That will quiet them. They'll learn something and they'll go away." But they just roll their eyes at him. They know he's trying to manipulate them with his words.

So he lets go of this. He says, "I'll just let them be for a while and see what happens." As he's no longer feeding them energy, no longer entertaining them, so to speak, most of them get bored and wander off. He thinks to himself, "Maybe they've always been here and I never saw them before." But they eventually go, all but one big monster with bulging eyes and gaping mouth, huge fangs. He follows Milarepa around. Milarepa is determined not to be reactive to him, to offer him tea, so to speak. But as the days and weeks and months go by, he still sees that he's separating himself from this demon, thinking in some subtle way, "If only I could get rid of the demon, everything would be fine." And he realizes that the only course of action is to end the separation. So he turns to the demon, puts his head in the demon's mouth, and says, "Eat me." Do you understand that teaching?

Q: And then?

Aaron: And then what happens to the demon when he puts his head in the demon's mouth? Does the demon get stronger? What happens to the demon? He dissolves, because there's no longer any separation. What happens to the "demonic" elements in yourself when you end the separation with them, truly open your heart to yourself, seeing that this anger, this resentment, this jealousy, these are just arisen from conditions, and you stop self-identifying with them? Then the true nature of the glass can show. Your inner radiance can shine out. Basically you've taken a soft cloth and wiped off the smudges. "Eat me."

Q: In the bookHuman, I like how you say that when this dissolves, when we offer compassion, that the loving heart can then assert its authority.

Aaron: Yes, because otherwise it's blocked. It's like the sun cannot express its authority when there are heavy clouds blocking it. But when the clouds dissipate, then the sun shines through. The sun has always been there. The loving heart has always been there, this awakened nature, whatever you call it–Buddha nature, Christ consciousness, this innate loving nature, awake and present, has always been there. What's blocking it? Mostly just the old habits.

We are publishing a new edition ofHuman that will be lovely. I hope we'll have it out by June. It's coming. This old spiral-bound edition has been around for 20 years. It's time for a new edition, which will have a barcode on the back and so forth and can go into bookstores.

Q: I hope that you make it as a coffee table edition.

Aaron: It will not be a coffee table edition. It will be the same size, a thinner book thanPresence, Kindness, and Freedom. A little bit smaller, the same size.

Q: So it will be like a sequel,Human II?

Aaron: It will be the same book, exactly. The same contents–not exactly the same contents. It has a very beautiful new cover, not just the spiral bound with plain paper, a beautiful new cover, and Barbara's son Peter's photographs interspersed between the pages, photographs that are, for example two hands clasping. You don't see the faces, just the hands. One of people in silhouette dancing by fire. We've avoided specific faces, to get a more overall human experience. A mother's arms holding a child, but you don't see the faces, just the tenderness. So I think it will be a very beautiful edition, but small and affordable.

So I'm talking a bit about the akashic field. It's a fancy term for that container that holds everything and out of which everything is expressing. What expresses is dependent on you. If you have not purified the conditions out of which negative thought and action arise, that's going to express. But the nature of the container is such that it's capable of expressing the utmost of loving kindness and compassion, the deepest truths.

We were practicing at the last retreat two weeks ago with a meditation. We were on the beach by the ocean for a week. There were some boats out there, boats bobbing up and down on the waves. I asked people to envision themselves out there on the ocean, the water relatively calm, and maybe a hundred little rafts, small rubber rafts with people floating on them, lying comfortably and bobbing up and down. Then suddenly a big storm started to blow up. Waves got bigger. People started screaming, "Help me! Help me!" Rafts being overturned.

The ego comes up and says, "I have to save them all! What am I going to do?" Fear, agitation. The ego can't do it. Picture yourself having the ability to extend yourself 200 feet, stretching your legs down and down through the current, through the ripples of disturbance in the water, until you come to a still place. Anchor yourself in that still place. Then gradually, once you are stable there, extend yourself up, reaching these small rafts. There's a Coast Guard cutter there. Lift them off and place them on the Coast Guard cutter. It's no longer you doing it, it's love and compassion doing it, because instead of being caught up in the tumult of fear and activity on the surface, you are grounded into this still space.

This is really no different than the practices that most of you do, I'm just giving it a different name. I'm introducing the concept of a field, a non-dual field, which is grounded in positive polarity, the primordial purity underneath. But it's not only the primordial purity here and negativity out there, it's all one. The primordial purity seeps up through a permeable membrane into this Ground. Negativity can creep in. Everything is there. We don't try to get rid of anything, we simply focus on what we want to bring to fruition, which is compassion and wisdom, and we let go of the rest.

There's a beautiful dharma teaching called clear comprehension that has four parts. Clear comprehension of purpose. What's my highest purpose? Right now, to live not from the ego but from a place of connection, for the highest good of all beings. Is what I'm about to do suitable to that highest purpose? To rush from the ego and say, "Save them! Save them!"? No, not suitable. How about to sink down and ignore them? Not suitable. What do I do that's suitable to my highest purpose? Taking it into meditation and seeing the arising of the ego, the arising of fear, and that it's simply arising from the conditions, impermanent and not of the nature of a separate self. And then I don't have to be a slave to it.

Clear comprehension of the dharma. Seeing the big picture and how the suffering is arising in this situation, and the clarity of non-suffering in this situation. There are many other practices like this. This is a beautiful one. You don't need innumerable practices, only something to remind you, "Follow my heart." What is my highest intention? And then, gradually the ability to speak and act from this deeply grounded and connected place comes to you, as it did to me in that final lifetime, literally being one with the tiger and the mud and the rain and the thorns. No separation. Fear dissolves. There's still the ability to act appropriately.  But appropriately is no longer centered just on the needs of the self. Thus one lives increasingly from this awakened space.

And this is why all of you are here. You're not here for personal enlightenment. You're not here just to get away from the everyday suffering of the human. You're here also because there is such a deep intention to be of service in the world, to hold the world with love and respond to the world from a place of love. And the more of you that do that, the more it will bring this higher consciousness and vibration into the world.

(Looking at a copy of Cosmic Healing) The chart on Consciousness and the States and Stages of Consciousness. The gradual development of all sentient beings into a higher vibration, a higher consciousness. This is the path you're all on, awakening into this higher consciousness.

So I want to speak of this, to put your practice in a bit more perspective. To help you understand that if you say, "I'm going to practice so I will be free of suffering," it's very different than if you say, "I am going to practice so that the whole world can be free of suffering." And it's not prideful to say that.  Rather, it's a statement of clear intention. You can do it. But you as the ego don't do it, love does it.

That's all. I'm happy to hear your questions.

Q: You mentioned four stages: clear comprehension of purpose, clear comprehension of...?

Aaron: Clear comprehension of purpose.

Clear comprehension of suitability.

Clear comprehension of the domain of meditation, is the formal term.

Clear comprehension of the dharma.

(Q asks why Aaron invited him personally this morning to come here.)

Aaron: I'm glad you heard the invitation.

Q: I did.

Aaron: We all hear each other, if we allow ourselves.

Q: Who is my spirit guide?

Aaron: Ask! I'm not going to tell you. All of you have guides. Part of your responsibility is to open to them and hear them, the same way Barbara describes this inCosmic Healing, meeting me for the first time, the story she told you. It surprised her. It alarmed her. But she was suffering, and I was offering something that seemed to give her some information and support, so she began to listen.

We are here. We will not open the doors for you. It's up to you to open the door. But we're right here as soon as you open the door. What's holding the door closed?

Q: I'm ready.

Aaron: Good! Then meditate and open the door. Ask for help. Read that beginning ofCosmic Healing, as Barbara describes how she first met me, "Let me help you."

Q: How do I overcome my ego?

Aaron: You don't overcome your ego, son. If you're trying to overcome your ego, that's ego. You note ego, the contracted feeling around ego that usually arises when there's fear. Breathing in, I am aware of the tensions of ego. Breathing out, I smile to it. The tarantula-- I hold space for it. Let it be. Don't wage war with the ego; that just empowers it. Can you see that?

Q: It's hard.

Aaron: Of course it's hard, because part of you so deeply aspires to be loving and good and clear. But we cannot grasp at loving kindness or at stillness. Whatever we're grasping at, it's still grasping, and it's still the root of suffering. When we move into the non-dual awareness in our meditation, that that which we seek is already there, and learn to rest in it, then we can begin to see what calls us on the other side and just gently say, "No, no, no. I'm not going to be pulled into this," whether it's judgment of others or judgment of ourselves. Anger at others or anger at ourselves. "No."

Q: I want to be on my spiritual journey but I have so many responsibilities that are holding me back. How do I get to my destination?

Aaron: Once again we look at the dualities. I don't know what your situation is, perhaps to support others or to run a business, whatever the situation is. As soon as we feel something as burden for which I, ego, is responsible, then we feel burdened and weighed down. But when we start to relate to everything in the world as a gift, teaching us, and we start to understand our true unlimitedness and power, that the only limitations in terms of our energy and our time and everything are in our mind, we begin to release it.

There's a beautiful practice Barbara has been working with, with her meditation class this spring in Michigan. It's from a Tibetan lama, Yeshe Wangyal Rimpoche. It has a number of parts. The first part is called Vision is Mind. The lama talks about what he calls the "famous person." He says everybody has a famous person in their lives, or many of them. The famous person may be a neighbor who shouts abusively at you over the fence because your apples are dropping in his yard. It may be your boss at work. It may be your spouse or your child. It may be your leaky roof or your car that's breaking down all the time. It's something that, when you think of it, you become agitated.

This neighbor with your apples, his mother left him as a boy. He's not a bad person. A lot of people think kindly of him. But when you think of him, tension comes up, anger, fear. "I don't want this person." So the practice is to begin to reflect on the fact that this is not about that person or even that leaky roof. It's about what's happening in my mind when I think about this situation, the agitation. It's all in my mind. That doesn't mean that the other person is not abusive, he may be very abusive. But his abuse does not cause your agitation; your mind causes your agitation. Vision is Mind.

I'm going through this in a very brief way. If you wish some of the teaching transcripts on this, Barbara will be happy to send them out. We've been spending a whole semester on this teaching, so it can't be fairly covered in 5 minutes.

Mind is Empty. We look at how everything is arising–the glass, the pure glass, the smudges. The glass is not at all impacted by the smudges; it's all on the surface. This agitation and this anger, this contraction, this is happening on the surface of the mind. But underneath, the mind is empty and clear. We don't use that as a way to deny the agitation, but we come back again and again to the innately clear mind and heart. Vision is Mind. Mind is Empty.

The third stage, that's as far as I will go. Emptiness is Clear Light. We begin to see the innate clarity of the glass, of the heart. We begin to trust, this is who we all are. That recognition makes it easier to hold compassionate presence with whatever the catalyst is for the agitation. We do say no to the abusive person, but fear and hatred don't say no, compassion says no. So as we rest more fully in this clear light, we're more able to say no from that place.

I'll be happy to ask Barbara to send out the teaching itself to you all, if you'd like to read it. Are there other questions, others with questions?

Q: Just a comment. I think one thing that helps me is that the clear heart is not diminished at all by the clouds, nor is it enlarged by the ego trying to be loving. It is not enlarged or diminished at all, ever. It is as it is. And I find comfort in that, that I don't have to struggle to have a better heart.

Aaron: Because the conditioning goes so deep to do, to fix. And surrender is not the right word. Relax is a better word. Relax into the innate purity of being. This is part of the reason why we teach pure awareness practice along with vipassana. Vipassana watches the arising and passing away of conditioned objects, with the idea that somewhere on that path we will open into the Unconditioned. Pure awareness practice rests in the immediacy of the Unconditioned, and from that space watches how objects do arise and pass away. Coming from both sides of it and strengthening both is very valuable.

It's just what you're talking about. The more you stabilize pure awareness, the easier it is to watch conditioned arising, especially contracted conditioned arising, without becoming self-identified with it.

A note here for those who are not familiar with what I teach. Buddha dharma talks about consciousness as mundane consciousness. The Pali language word is citta. Lokuttara citta versus kuttara citta. Kuttara, the mundane citta, or consciousness. Eye seeing a candle, seeing consciousness. It's a consciousness really on the mundane world level. Lokuttara citta is the supramundane citta based in the Unconditioned. The Abhidhamma texts spell this out in detail, but more simply put, instead of using supramundane consciousness or lokuttara citta, I simply use the distinction consciousness versus awareness. Using conditioned consciousness, the term consciousness, as that which arises out of conditions and then passes away, and awareness as the base container, awareness of the nature of the glass itself. Full presence. Nobody present. Just presence.

So the vipassana practice is important to help you deepen observation of what arises and passes away, and what the habitual patterning is, and the heart's intention to release the unwholesome habitual pattern. But this can evolve into a great deal of doing. Instead, we rest in awareness. So we watch an object arise, pass away, and instead of coming back to the breath or whatever primary object, we simply rest in that spaciousness. And by these little glimpses we start to know this pure awareness mind, to truly open ourselves to it. It just becomes more and more stable.

For those who have interest, we have a retreat in June in Michigan.

Are there other questions?

Q: What is consciousness?

Aaron: Consciousness in terms of Buddha dharma is simply that which arises when contact is made. Sense organs–eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, or mind, touching an object, when that contact is made, that consciousness arises. Consciousness has at least the edges of a self in it. There is an image of somebody being conscious, as distinguished from awareness where there's nobody being aware, there's just awareness.

We need consciousness. It's a tool. We need the ego. That's a tool. We don't have to be self-identified with it. The Buddha dharma talks about, once you've crossed the stream, letting go of the raft. You don't carry the raft with you onto the other shore. We use the ego as a tool. We use consciousness as a tool. But that's not who you are.

Again, going back into basic dharma. The skandhas or aggregates, these aspects of the self, the form, the body, the mind, consciousness, perception, and so forth, we look at each of these and see how they have arisen from conditions and are impermanent. This form that you're in, it's different today than it was 10 years ago. Your thoughts are different, different than they were an hour ago, probably. Perceptions are different. Everything changes.

Hold your hand like this in front of your face, fingers open. Let's wiggle the fingers. Stare at the fingers. All you can see are the fingers. The form, the feelings of pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral, perceptions, consciousness, impulses, thoughts, it's all there. It's all you can see. Now keeping the fingers moving, look through the fingers. The fingers are still moving. Hold them up. Look through. See the space that's there beyond them. The peripheral vision captures the fingers, but the vast spaciousness it there.

We do have to be responsible for these aggregates. We take care of them. But the human tends to become self-identified with them, and that's where there's no freedom. That's what keeps you going on the wheel. Once you understand the spaciousness then you can take care of this and this and this. You attend to it. It's not really you attending, it's just kindness, wisdom, love, attending. This is awareness. So consciousness is simply one of the conditioned aggregates, in the terminology that I'm using. No different than body or mind. We could go much deeper, here. That's just a brief answer.

Again, any other questions?

Q: Forgiveness–how do we forgive without losing part of us?

Aaron: Why would you lose part of you when you forgive?

Q: Because you feel you're defeated. It's hard, it's difficult in this environment.

Aaron: When compassion is complete, there's nothing left to forgive. We still attend to whatever has arisen that's negative and hurtful, but there's nothing left to forgive. If I see somebody who has been violent and harmed another or harmed me, and I truly put my head in the demon's mouth and I see that I am capable of that, compassion opens my heart. Then from a place of compassion, I say, "No, you may not do that harm." But it's not me as ego speaking, it's compassion speaking. It's clarity speaking. One heart to another. The other may not be able to hear. But at that point there's nothing left to forgive. Can you see that?

We practice forgiveness as a pathway to that compassion, but the practice of forgiveness is still coming from the ego.

Let us end here. Normally we'd end with a sitting, but I think we should just let that be optional so you can take care of your children. My blessings and love to all of you. Thank you for allowing me to be here tonight and to share this precious dharma with you. I love you all.

(session ends)