Teacher Training, Nov 16, 2003

Aaron to the Teacher Training Group at Sunnyside Retreat, Nov. 16, 2003

My blessings and love to you all on this lovely, soft and misty day. I wish you a good morning. There is only one dharma but there are many ways of expressing it. Since the dharma is vast, no one way can encompass it all. There are many slightly different views on where the focus lies. For each being, that focus will be based on their vision of dharma and on their own uniqueness. Yesterday D asked Barbara what her long-term vision was for Deep Spring Center and if she would write that down. I certainly hope she will write her own vision, but what I present here is really the vision that we share and that Barbara and I have discussed many times.

In some Buddhist traditions, the teachers have what they call dharma heirs, that is those who will carry on the dharma when the teacher is gone. You gathered here and those of this group who are absent today are all my dharma heirs. It is unto you that we entrust this vision. Each of you is unique and each of you will have your own way of bringing forth the teachings as is resonant with your own life and your own experiences. This is the beauty of diversity. Because there are so many different kinds of people in the world, they need different ways of hearing the dharma. Through each source it comes flavored a little differently.

The essence of my vision is summed up in the title of my book, Presence, Kindness, and Freedom. What do these words mean? You are all divine energies, here temporarily in this, heavy density human form. You have all been moving through this cycle of birth and death for countless lifetimes. On one level, you are a heavy density being with heavy body and emotions. And on another level you are fearless, infinite and radiant.

Liberation is sometimes explained as freedom from this samsaric cycle, so that one is no longer karmically pulled into new incarnation. I understand freedom in a subtly different way. It is true that with liberation you are no longer karmically impelled into incarnation, although incarnation may still be chosen, in service to beings. That is one meaning of freedom. But an equal if not greater freedom is the freedom to express your innate and infinite radiance, goodness, fearlessness and beauty. These qualities are released from captivity, from the darkness of delusion, so to speak. This freedom only comes when there is no longer reactivity from old conditioning. So there must be understanding of how conditioning arises, how you identify with its stories, and that you do have a choice. This whole movement must be based on kindness, and on the uncontracted state we have been discussing this weekend. It is very simple. If you are very present, with kindness, wisdom grows. If you keep returning to the innate kindness that is there, then all of your actions begin to come more from the place of kindness than fear. When fear dissolves, contraction dissolves. In your innate spaciousness, there is room for everything!

Fifteen years ago, in my first address to a group of you, when people asked what I taught I said, "The power of love to dissolve fear." This is still the essence of what I teach. But we become increasingly sophisticated in understanding the mechanics of it. You cannot choose love from a place of anger and grasping. You cannot say, "I will kill fear." Love must be brought into everything. This is the practice of kindness.. Love can only be brought in when there is presence. Presence and kindness are the tools with which we find freedom.

Through my many lifetimes, I have found many tools for presence. The tool I have found to be most flexible and direct is vipassana practice. Buddhism also gives clear articulation, to the situation of dukkha and liberation from dukkha, and to knowing our true nature, and that is why I focus my verbal expression in this direction, but you understand I am not teaching people to be Buddhist, but to be free.

Later today you are going to have a discussion over lunch about your Teachers' charter. An important question was raised by one of you in a discussion with Barbara, about the title and contents for an upcoming class that included the term, "meditation" but not "vipassana," or insight meditation. Are we a vipassana center? That seems to narrow to some of you. What is it that we teach? What is our focus?

Let us regard the word vipassana. Passana means seeing. Vipassana means a deeper, clearer seeing. There are many ways of practicing such deep, clear seeing. The practice we teach offers such seeing, but free of contraction, tension , fear and control. I don't want to suggest that vipassana is the core of our work; vipassana is the tool by which we may come to that core. The core of our work is learning to be the free, radiant, truly glorious and unlimited beings that you are. To be carriers of love into the darkness, to hold that space for love with increasing stability, not perfect on the human plane but with increasing stability.

There is a fine line. We are not teaching people to be Buddhists; we are teaching the tools for liberation in a way consistent with my definition of freedom. And we are teaching people to bring that innate goodness and radiance into the world.

I think it's very important that you all understand vipassana as path to presence, kindness, and freedom and recognize what is consistent with this tool as support practice? For example, the brahma vihara practices, tonglen, forgiveness, dzogchen and other pure awareness practice, all support presence, kindness, and freedom. Prayer, chanting, yoga, which in part is mindfulness of the body, support it. Discussion of non-duality in many traditions such as the teachers' group is now undertaking, supports it. There are some practices that are inconsistent with what we teach. For example, a fixed focus practice like TM or jhana practice would be contradictory to what we teach; it could confuse students. Let me explain.

My deepest vision of DSC, and my reason for speaking through Barbara to all of you is to guide you to be what is sometimes called a Light Center, a place where light may shine out into the darkness. DSC is a Light Center, and you are all, individually, such shining beacons of light. Any teaching that carries a strong tradition of control and force is not appropriate. There is much beauty in jhana practice. It can be taught and practiced in a very open-hearted way, but for many practitioners there is some distortion of control through forcing the mind into a certain pattern. Such contraction limits the light! This is the primary reason I do not teach it.

Jhana practice can also lead people into much grasping for those blissful states, it can be very confusing to people to move into jhana and then let go of the jhana to practice choiceless awareness. It is not necessary for freedom. But the foremost reason why I don't teach it is it teaches the mind force and control. It is very difficult for the inexperienced practitioner to bring forth that one-focusedness from a place of expansiveness and the primary teaching here is expansiveness not narrowness. Jhana can come later, after expansiveness has been learned, but not at the beginning. For the same reason I would find TM quite contradictory to what we teach.

We are a Light Center. I don't mean that in the way where people may say prayers wishing for light in the world but don't attend to the darkness in themselves. To be a true Light Center, it's not enough to send out light, you also have to send in light and understand what blocks the light so it can be completely received within, so you come to know your true nature. This is what many so-called new age groups do not do. I think what makes DSC so special is that all of you aspire to express this light into the world and to find it in yourselves and are willing to do the hard work, to investigate and release the shadow and to break through the shadow, to transcend it and find that core of innate perfection. And you are willing to teach this to others, both in your vocal teaching and demonstrably in your lives.

Understanding the uncontracted and the nature of contraction is essential to my definition of freedom. I would like you to join me here for a brief guided meditation. Begin with a few deep breaths. (pause) Raise your attention to the third eye. If it is possible for you, breathe in and out the third eye. That is, feel the breath entering there and coming down into the body, and release it from the third eye. (pause)

Allow yourself to see the light, filling the third eye, as radiance. Let it be any color in the spectrum that presents itself. It may be clear white light or it may have a specific color to it. If no sense of light comes to you, try to imagine it. Don't try too hard, as trying will impede the experience. The light is always there but sometimes the filter of self prevents the experience of it. What you can do, literally, if you wish, is look toward one of the lamps in the room.

Breathe in and out through the third eye, focusing on the light, breathing in the light and releasing it. Filling the body with light. (pause) Breathe it all the way down to the base chakra. Breathing in light, feel it filling the base chakra. (pause) Breathe it in to the 2nd chakra, and feel that chakra spinning. (pause) Relax. Let the body be at ease as much as possible. Breathe light into the solar plexus, release. (pause) Heart. (pause) Throat. (pause) Crown. (pause) All coming and going through the third eye. And finally into the third eye chakra itself. A whole rainbow resides inside.

About six inches residing above your head is a spinning ball of brilliant white light. (pause) Let yourself be this light. Relax into it, allowing the boundaries of the body to fall away. (pause) Be the light that you are, spinning out, each of you in its own glorious pattern. (pause) Visualize or imagine the pattern of your light, noting what colors are predominant, how far it goes beyond the edges of the body. Is it moving rapidly or slowly? Swirl, zig-zag, what kinds of patterns? Be the light. Step out of the personality self and the body and be this radiant and intelligent light. (pause)

Bring into mind one other person in the room. Think of their light moving in their pattern, just as yours moves in your pattern. I would like you to invite that person to dance. Not a body-based dance, just light swirling together. Some of you may find that you have invited each other back and forth. For others, A has invited B, B has invited C, C has invited D and D has invited A. It does not matter. I want you to experience how it feels to deeply connect your energies in this kind of dance, each retaining its own energetic field but fully open because there is nothing to fear from the other. (pause)

If you start to get lost, such as if a thought comes or a body sensation pulls you away, just return to the experience of light in the third eye, center in that light, consciously release the identification with the body and come back to the dance. (pause)

Explore how freely you can move, no heavy body. You are light, its full radiance and color, expressing joy and gratitude, peace, playfulness. And also expressing sorrow if there is any. But there is no fear here, no sense of limitations. There is no sense of vulnerability because there is nothing that can be harmed. (pause)

Release each other from this dance now. Come back into awareness of your own light and energy field. You might notice if it has changed at all from the dance; is it more energized or calmer? Has the color changed at all? (pause)

You may feel you are not "getting it." Be with your breath, let the boundaries release. Don't try to get somewhere. Just focus on the third eye. Breathing in light, breathing out light. Some of you are experiencing a type of an overlay, the body not fully released but superimposed over this swirling light. That‚s fine. The body is there. I am just asking you to temporarily to release the focus on it.

Radiant light, expanding. Flashing, brilliant, dancing. Some of it circling the area of the physical body, some of it moving far out, unlimited. Feeling totally at ease. (pause) Now I ask you to imagine the approach of something with which you are uncomfortable; a snake, spider or grizzly bear, or an angry person, someone who is difficult in your life. As you see this being approaching you, see how a sense of contraction pulls in the light, pulls you back into the sense of a body, a person, into a sense of fear and limitation. (pause) With awareness of this contraction and holding the intention for the good of all beings, for the liberation of all beings, without dismissing the fear or trying to fix it, with out trying to fix the contraction, begin to breathe in light through the third eye. Invite yourself to return to where you just were, dancing with a friend. (pause) Instead of seeing the form of that creature that is uncomfortable to you, begin to see its energetic patterns, its light. (pause)

On the physical plane, the grizzly bear can tear you to pieces. On the energetic level, its just light. See how possible it is to dance with this difficult person in your life, this literal or figurative tarantula, rattlesnake, rat or what have you. Touch on the sense of fearlessness and spaciousness. (pause) Even if that being is caught in its own fear and small self and out of that fear it means to strike out at you with harm, see how you don't have to run from it. (pause) What does this spacious, radiant, light form of your being do with that relative plane danger? Can you see that it never was a danger? (pause) When you contract, the small self moves into a relationship with the other small self, but from spaciousness you simply move around it. Contracted, there is not space to let it slide through you; you are too dense. Spacious, it just passes through. (pause) 

Once during a long ago lifetime, I needed to crawl into a long, narrow cavern, just big enough to creep in on my belly, and into a larger space in the far back where I would sit for a few days on a vision quest. There were poisonous snakes in that area and I knew they might inhabit that entry passage and cave. When I sensed them approaching, I stopped. I understood that if I did not send fear energy out to it, it would not see me as an enemy. I still had to sit there long enough for it to slither out past me. Sometimes I could feel it moving along my body and out past my feet.

Although that cave was filled with snakes, I was not harmed. This is the meaning of fearlessness, to rest in that spaciousness even when fear does arrive, to choose not to believe in the stories of fear but, deeply moved by the intention for the good of all beings, to hold that space and fearlessness.

The theatrical "Man of La Mancha" has a beautiful song. I will not ask Barbara to sing it, but offer some of the words:

To dream the impossible dream, to fight the unbeatable foe, to bear with unbearable sorrow, to go where the brave dare not go. This is my quest, to follow that star, no matter how hopeless, no matter how far. To be willing to give where there is no more to give. To be willing to die so that honor and justice may live. And I know if I'll only be true to this glorious quest that my heart will lie peaceful and calm when I'm laid to my rest

To fight for the right, without question or pause, to be willing to march into hell for a heavenly cause.. And the world will be better for this, that one man, scorned and covered with scars, still strove with his last ounce of courage, to reach the unreachable stars

This is your quest, my dear ones, and nothing less than this. To reach the unreachable star, to find within you your true being, your radiance, your unlimitedness, your fearlessness and to bring it out into the world so others may see it.

Breathing in light, expanding outward, being the light. Feel how it feels to meet that foe, that dreaded thing, with spaciousness, with peace, with kindness, with fearlessness. Can you feel how that fearlessness and love make you invulnerable? (pause) I am not denying the snake can still bite you, only that this radiance of yours cannot be destroyed. Bodies come and go; your true nature is indestructible. This is what you are here to learn, that the Light always exists but may be hidden by clouds; hatred and fear will never help to bring forth light. Spaciousness allows the light to radiate within and outward. Contraction blocks it.

When you are completely uncontracted, you are almost always physically safe, not always but almost always. But if that being does strike out at you, it's okay to say no. This is the outer movement of compassion. It is not compassionate to allow another to harm you, but kindness, not fear, says no. It must come from a place of fearlessness and from your knowledge of that place of your own radiance in yourself. You must come to trust this light that you are because you must live it, not just experience it in meditation. The work is to live it in the world. That is what I intend to teach here. That is all.

(Q&A session yet to be transcribed)