150613 Emrich Aaron's short intro of himself and the retreat: vipassana, living the dharma; non-duality

June 13, 2015 Saturday, Emrich retreat

Aaron's introduction to himself and the retreat.

Aaron: My blessings and love to you all. I am Aaron. You may think I look like Barbara. If you want to think I'm Barbara and she's imagining my presence, that's fine with me. I have no need to be real. As Barbara said to you, simply listen to my words and if they are helpful to you, use them.

I'm very delighted to greet all of you, and happy that you have all come to this retreat, some for 3 days, some for 6 or 7 days, I'm not sure how long it is. However long it is, let's not measure it by days but by moments. Each moment is precious. Breathing in, just that breath. Breathing out. There's nothing in this moment but this breath. So drop off the idea of, "I'm here for the weekend, the week."

Be here for this moment. In this moment there is the possibility of awakening. In this moment there is the possibility of greater love, of releasing some of the old conditioning that has weighed you down forever. In this moment you are whole. You are radiant. You are awake. You are at peace. Just this precious moment.

Who am I? How can I define myself to you? I have been Buddhist, Christian, Jew, Moslem. I have lived in many different native traditions in many countries, with different colors of skin, in male and female bodies. I am all of these and I am none of these. I am, as you are, spirit. You happen to have a body at this point in your flow of consciousness. I don't have a body. I no longer have any karmic need to carry a body. You call that awakened. I call it expanding into my true self. You are all in the process of expanding into your true selves, to waking up to the truth of who you are. So you think you're of this or that religion; that you're a carpenter or a scientist or a teacher; that you're a parent or a child; that you're healthy or you're sick. Who are you beyond all of these things? I don't want to call them concepts. Some of youare here in male bodies, some in female bodies. Some of you have more pleasant health and some of you have health concerns that cause pain. But who are you beyond any of this, and why are you here?

In my final human lifetime I was a Buddhist monk in Thailand, and though I have practiced in many spiritual traditions, in that lifetime I truly awakened to this essence of my being. All of the old concepts fell away. All of the notions of separate self fell away and I knew whom I was. And the delightful thing was, in that knowing who I was, there was no longer an "I," nor even one to know it. There was just being and love.

Since that lifetime I have had the joy to teach in several lifetimes through this medium. People ask me, will you incarnate again? I think not, not because I fear it but because I'm more useful here. I don't have the danger to get trapped again. There is that risk! You come into the incarnation, you forget. Whoops! You fall into that big hole that you didn't see and then you have to get out again. So from up here I can see the holes. It's easier to talk about it from here.

But you also teach me compassion. It's not that I know everything, that I am the teacher and you are the student. You are my teachers. You remind me of what it's like to be human, and how much courage you have to be human.

People frequently ask me, well why are we doing this? Why come into these bodies again and again? Why practice vipassana or other spiritual traditions to try to get out of the body, why did we come in in the first place?

You and all the universe around you are evolving into a higher consciousness. There is along the way a choice between love and fear, positive service to all beings, uncontracted, with a high vibration of love, or a very self-centered negativity based in fear, service to the self, contracted, armored. All beings have a balance of both. It's not one or the other; it's the subtle weight of that balance.

Your whole earth hangs in that balance. The universe hangs in that balance. Just as if you have a perfectly balanced scale and adding just one grain of sand at one end can tilt it slightly, so each of you that moves deeper into a positive polarity, by which I mean that which is truly unarmored and loving, of service to all beings with a deep intention to love, each of you tips the scale more, and the universe has the opportunity to shift into this more loving polarity. So the work you do here is not just about you, it's about the whole universe, and your intention, conscious or not conscious, to help move the universe into the Eden it could be–not just your Earth as Eden but the whole universe as Eden; to co-create at least for this world a world of love.

You ask me, what do I do about the hatred, the negativity, the fear, and the terrorism? All you can do is to address it in yourself. With each of you, you have the opportunity to address greed, anger, fear, and even hatred, as it arises in yourself, and instead of trying to control it or fix it, to see how it has arisen out of conditions, is impermanent, is not self. By that I mean there's no separate self there, it's just the outflow of conditions. You can respond to such negative emotion with kindness. It takes a lot of practice, but each time you do this you shift the scale a little bit more.

The whole world learns by watching how people respond to negativity and pain, and that they don't have to respond with hatred and force, but that they can respond with kindness. I think of the image of Gandhi as he was shot. In that moment, instead of anger coming up on his face, "Somebody has taken my life!", just drawing the prayerful hands together and OMM.... I do not know; I'm not reading his mind, but I'm guessing in that moment there was complete forgiveness for this personal violence and for violence all around the world. How can we truly open our hearts in this way to ourselves and to all beings?

So this is what we'll be looking at together this week, I'd say we have a threefold area of focus. One, deepening in vipassana practice. Just watching how everything arises out of conditions and passes away, pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral; and how you're relating to it, the mental formations that come up. I like this, don't like that. Just because something is pleasant doesn't mean you have to grasp. Just because something is unpleasant doesn't mean you have to push away. Just be centered and watch it all.

Part two, how do I bring this practice into my daily life? A messy spill on the table, and you have kitchen duty to clean up. Anger comes up. We practice with jobs not just to get the jobs done but out of the meditation hall, in real life–how do I relate to this or that? How can I relate in this moment with a bit more kindness? So we use the wisdom of our practice and the loving heart.

And the third part of our purpose is one of non-duality. And I know Barbara emailed out some documents to a number of you, but unfortunately not to all of you because her computer malfunctioned and she was not able to send it to the final list... Please read them. There are paper copies available.

Deep Spring, we define ourselves not as a Buddhist center but as a center focused on non-duality. What I mean by that essentially is, right there in the moment of fear or confusion–let's use fear-- that which is aware of fear is not afraid. There is a consciousness, a mundane consciousness that says, "Oh, I'm scared of this!" We must honor that. That human in that moment is experiencing fear. But we also learn the practice to rest in a broader awareness that can look down with compassion at the human who is afraid and not be so self-identified. This is part of the vipassana practice, and also what we call pure awareness. We rest more in the spaciousness of awareness, not to escape the fear or the anger or the body pain or the confusion, never to escape, but to hold what has arisen with compassion. And to back away from the conditioned tendency to self-identity with what has arisen; rather, to rest in the spaciousness of the open heart; not so caught in the experience.

We'll take these practices deeper, both in the meditation hall in instruction and more in the afternoon teachings, which are more optional. So you may choose just to follow more of the vipassana path for the retreat, or you may join me more for some of these non-dual teachings. No one way is better. Trust your own heart and intuition.

People tell me I like to talk! I could talk for hours here about the dharma. I could keep you here talking dharma until 10 o'clock tonight. We want to hear you introduce yourselves, so I'll stop here. We'll give you a few minutes to stretch and then go around so that you can introduce yourselves. Please give your name, where you come from and what drew you here. It is a chance to meet each other, and then we go into silence. We find this helps people who are new to the practice to feel more comfortable, getting to know each other a bit so that you don't feel you're simply in a room full of strangers for the week.

That's all. I'm going to release the body back to Barbara. I thank you for this opportunity to do more than introduce myself. I love you all and I look forward to getting to know you this week.

(talk ends)