150615EmMonEveC Barbara dharma talk: Nature of suffering; grasping; “Is that so” for our stories; clear comprehension and non-contracted intention; non-duality; dependent origination; “presence, kindness and freedom”

June 15, 2015 Monday Evening, Barbara's Dharma Talk

Nature of suffering; grasping; "Is that so" for our stories; clear comprehension and non-contracted intention; non-duality; dependent origination; "presence, kindness and freedom"

Barbara: It's very easy when Aaron gives the talk. Sometimes when I ask him, "What are you going to talk about?" he says, "You don't need to worry about it. Just go take a nap or a walk. When it's time, I'll give the talk." Sometimes he gives me a clue about the topic, sometimes not. Effortless. But when I have to give the talk, I have to figure out what I want to talk about?

This dharma is so precious. There are so many parts of it I'd love to share with you. I see here people who are new to practice this week and people who have been practicing for 30 years. What can I tell you that you don't already know?

For me, the heart of the dharma has been, as is the title of Aaron's book, Presence, Kindness, and Freedom. Bringing presence into each moment with an attitude of kindness. Not presence with an, "I'll out-stare it. If I watch it hard enough, it will go away or change." Just presence; the willingness to investigate. How is this right now? What is this experience? Can I relate to it with more kindness?

Lack of freedom, for me, is reactivity. When something pushes my buttons and it's not the way I want it to be, and when I'm reactive to it, there's no freedom. There's almost a compulsion, "Got to act this way."  With spacious presence, there is not the ultimate sense of freedom but a very real freedom that comes for me when I can open my heart to things as they are in this moment.

At first, this investigation is one of mundane reality. What am I experiencing in this moment on the mundane level: Difficult emotions, body pain, confusion, sadness, loss? All of these arise within us because we're human. When there is spacious awareness and kindness rather than fear and contraction it changes everything.

Let's use kindness as a catch-all. Not just kindness but an openhearted willingness to just be present with whatever arises; in a sense, to surrender to things as they are in this moment.

That doesn't mean I cannot change the things that are unwholesome in my life, but when I bring an openhearted awareness to it so that I really see what it is, the dharma jumps in. Everything has arisen out of conditions. It's impermanent; it's not self. I think you all at this point in the retreat, even the beginners, understand what I mean by that. Certain conditions made this object arise and brought it into my experience. It's impermanent. When the conditions cease, it will cease. I don't have to build stories around it. But it takes an enormous amount of love and courage not to build those stories. If we keep building the stories, we suffer. We experience aversion, we experience grasping, and we buy into them. "I have to have this! I have to get rid of that!" And we suffer.

At our June retreat maybe 10 or 15 years ago, Emrich was closed for a season and we held it at Howell retreat center. There was a day camp for children on the lake, and they were taking children out on the boats. I can't hear so I didn't know this was going on until somebody told me. But apparently a little girl dropped her water lily into the lake, and she came back screaming, "I WANT MY LILY PAD!"  She was screaming for half an hour. Such intense suffering.

I was concerned this was really going to cut into the silence for people. It's going to be really hurtful for people. So many people came up to me afterward and said how deep a compassion this child's suffering aroused in them.  They could really see their own, "I want my lily pad!" I want the relationship. I want the good job. I want my health. "I WANT IT!" The intensity of that. So many people were doing metta with this child, people's hearts opening.

Can our hearts open in the same way to ourselves? It takes stability and depth of practice to do that. In the beginning, we just don't know how. For me, I'm taking this back 43 years when I lost my hearing. I think you all know the story. I had a newborn first baby. Gradually through the days and weeks after the childbirth-- it wasn't instant, but it happened over the course of about 2 weeks-- no hearing, no balance; and so much grasping. "I WANT MY HEARING!" How do I fix it? Feeling intense anger at the experience. Feeling like I was being punished. Building all kinds of stories that enhanced the suffering. To be deaf is one thing. To believe you're being punished because you' have become deaf is another very painful thing. To believe, "I can fix it. I have to fix it. I have to hear;" more suffering.

It's not just hearing but the various things that might happen–a broken bone, a very sick loved one. If we don't attend to these things, we can't energetically support the changes. So how do we find that balance? Not to grasp but to know the possibility not only of that which is "broken" but of that which is whole, and to live that balance.

It took me many years to gain any insight, fifteen years from the time I lost my hearing until I met Aaron and began to understand the dharma behind this, and how to work with it in a skillful way. In those early years, I coped. I was stoic. And I did great. I raised 3 kids. I taught sculpture at the university. I had and continue to have a loving husband and friends. My life was full and rich. But there was denial behind it. "Nothing is going to stop me from living a full life! This deafness doesn't matter." But of course it did matter, and my heart was closed to the pain and to myself. I believed at that early point that if I acknowledged the pain, I would really collapse. The only way to keep going was to deny the pain.

Can I say it wasn't wholesome? No. it allowed me to continue. It allowed me to raise my kids. It allowed me to live my life; but at a very high price. I kept paying that price and becoming more and more contracted, angry, and fearful, until that point where I met Aaron and he said, "Let's look at the causes of the suffering."

I wasn't ready, 15 years earlier, to look. It was too scary to look. What does it mean not to hear? What does it mean not to see? Not to be able to love? Not to be able to walk? What does it mean to have any kind of physical or emotional body limitation? Similarly, what does it mean to go though life feeling unlovable, as so many people do?

Gradually we grow into a readiness where we understand, "I'm creating more suffering for myself by holding to this rigidity, to this old story, to this denial. And, painful though it might be, I have to look." The image that comes to mind is somebody with a deep splinter in the foot. It's festering. It hurts. The whole foot is becoming inflamed. You just keep slapping more Band-Aids on it. If you've got a thick enough layer of bandages, you won't feel the pain. But eventually the whole foot is going to become so inflamed they're going to have to amputate. Is that what we want? Maybe it is, for some of us, because looking is so frightening that we head into such darkness. In classes and retreats ask sometimes people to ask themselves, "What does this repetitive story protect me from?" If I were not feeling this anger or confusion and its stories, what might I be experiencing?"

One of the first things Aaron introduced me to was the practice of clear comprehension. Many of you know this practice, but it's beautiful, so I want to bring it into the retreat.

Clear comprehension of purpose. What is my highest purpose here? Is it to avoid looking at the splinter in my foot? Is it to think some miracle will happen and fix the splinter? What is my highest purpose? Is it to be openhearted and honest with myself and with my experience? Is it to bring love and kindness into my experience?

Second part of clear comprehension, clear comprehension of suitability. Is what I'm about to do suitable to this purpose? If I'm about to slap another layer of bandages over the sore on the foot, maybe it's not suitable to the purpose of healing. If I'm about to retreat further into denial or into anger or fear, or conversely, to work up very unbalanced effort, "I WILL fix this," gritting the teeth and pushing forward but without any kindness to myself, maybe this is not suitable to my highest purpose.

What happens when I deeply open to my highest purpose in that moment, with that particular area of my life, and really bring forth what is suitable?

Clear comprehension practice has more steps. I won't relate them all. But we bring it back into the dharma and into meditation. For me, it involved seeing this deafness arose from conditions. All conditions in the mundane world are impermanent, arising and passing away. But I cannot grasp at hearing by saying it's impermanent, it will pass, because at that moment all the doctors were telling me, "There's no way you will ever hear again, the nerves are dead." However, if I believe, okay, the nerves are dead, I'll never hear again, do I then destroy any possibility of hearing? Because who knows what can happen. Everything is impermanent.

My first year at the Casa, I met a man from California with an ongoing eye disease he had since childhood. Gradually he had lost his vision, and now he had reached a point where he was blind in both eyes. The doctors in California said the nerves are dead, there's no optic nerve. You cannot see again.

He tells how he was at the beach with his wife, and he waded into the water and he prayed to God, "Help me to see and I will do anything to serve you, to serve love." He was speaking from a deep place in his heart. And just after that, his wife read about John of God and the Casa.

So they went. The first year down there he was there for 3 days, and then he wanted to go on a tour of Brazil afterward instead of resting and remaining quiet. He didn't follow the surgery protocols. So, three amazing days–vision came up! He could see! He hadn't seen in years and suddenly he could see. And then he went off sightseeing. Then he was blind again. So he understood, I can't have it on my terms. I can't dictate the terms. I'll come back and I'll follow the surgery protocols.

So he came back for several weeks. They did more surgery. At this point he has 20/20 vision in both eyes. When US doctors examine his eyes, they say, "You can't possibly see. Your optic nerves are dead." But he reads reasonable sized print. He can see distances. He has a very inspiring story for me, because the doctors have said, "You can't possibly hear." Who knows what's possible. But if I say, "It's possible. I'm going to get it," with grasping, then that grasping cuts me off from opening and receiving what's possible. If I say it's not possible, of course that cuts me out. How do we hold that middle ground in all the areas of our lives, in terms of our health, our relationships, our material lives; in terms of our spirit, our emotions?

The supreme healing that each of us seeks: possible/not possible. How do we really begin to trust it's all possible, and to do that without grasping? I become aware everything arises from the conditions, and my deepest being in this moment creates the conditions of the next moment. If my heart is open and I'm willing to look deeply at what's happening in this moment, I open the door for new conditions, wholesome conditions, to arise. If I'm closed and full of opinions and old conditioned beliefs, I prevent any movement. I'm locked in place.

It took me two years from the time I heard of John of God to get down there because I wasn't quite ready. I was still grasping at, "I'm going to go there. I'm going to hear." I had to go down there saying, "I am open. If it's for the highest good, I choose to hear. And anything is possible. But if I don't hear, it doesn't mean that I'm bad."

So all those years that went before were not wasted. Really my body has always been a center of my spiritual practice, from that time in 1972 when I lost my hearing and on through different areas of experience in the body. How do we keep our heart open when we are in emotional or physical pain?  For each of us, our unique conditioning comes up. For me it was: I'm not worthy. So the first 15 years or so of being deaf, the main theme playing was, if I become worthy, then finally I'll be ready to hear.

If I become worthy? How could anyone either be worthy or unworthy? We may be kind. We may be loving. We may be openhearted. We may be clear or confused. We may be generous or self-centered. But worthy and unworthy are meaningless words.

But it took a long time for me to see that. A gift of my deafness in those first 15 years was that every time I saw people talking to each other, it brought up such a sense of unworthiness and separation. "If they loved me, they'd communicate with me." Well, people really tried.  A prevalent experience: having lunch with a few friends; looking at the menu and one says, "Are you getting the chicken salad or the tuna salad?" I don't need to know that. But so much grasping came up because of the old feelings of unworthiness. It was all about me. If I was good enough, I'd either hear this or they'd tell me, or I wouldn't be cut out of the conversation. It brought up so much pain.

It wasn't until I met Aaron that finally I was able to make that shift and know this is not about me. This is simply the arising and passing away of conditions. People talking, seeing lips moving, knowing people are talking, watching grasping and suffering. The suffering was not about not hearing, it was about the grasping. "Why am I being punished by the deafness? Why am I cast out of this circle?" It felt like walking down a cold rainy street past restaurants with big glass windows, and looking in the windows at tables full of people, warm and comfortable, eating delicious meals while I'm out there starving. There was so much grasping to be inside. The window metaphor came because you can see people talking through the glass but you can't hear them.

Gradually with Aaron's guidance I began to look at,who is starving?Who is outside the window?Who is cast aside? Is this a reality or is this an illusion? Can I come deeply into knowing the whole concept of unworthy is an illusion? Not the deafness, the deafness is real. But the whole idea, I can't hear because I'm unworthy, I'm unloved, unlovable, where did that come from?

Looking at my experiences of this lifetime, looking at past lives, and inviting the healing of that myth. This was the first healing. It wasn't until I did that work that I was able and ready to consider, maybe I CAN hear. Because hearing was no longer a repair for unworthiness. Hearing was simply hearing.

So after all of that work, when I finally heard of John of God, I was ready to say, "Okay, let's go take a look." Not, "Great! Somebody's going to fix my ears!" But let's go take a look. Let's just see what's there. Open to possibilities.

It was 2004 when I first went to the Casa. About 1995 Aaron started to really focus on the non-duality teachings, but they were more conceptual. I didn't fully get it. But by the time I went to the Casa, I understood more. That which is aware of deafness is not deaf. The essence of me is not deaf. But because of the arising of certain conditions, the ears do not function. The nerves are dead. Can there be compassion for the human that doesn't hear, but not get caught in a concept, "Okay, I'm deaf. Nothing will ever change. It's a fixed condition forever"? How could anything be a fixed condition forever? Even death is not a fixed condition forever. You'll incarnate again. Everything changes.

So, going down there, there was still some grasping, but an open heart and a willingness to be with whatever came out of this trip. The entity took my hand very lovingly. When I say the entity, I think you all understand what I mean. I know some of you don't know much about the Casa. But John of God, Medium Joao, channels entities in the same way I channel Aaron. They incorporate in his body. So the incorporated entity took my hand, looked very compassionately into my eyes, and said, "You will hear." Hooray! Today? Tomorrow? It brought up all kinds of grasping again.

A week later I came back to the Entity and said, "I don't hear yet." He said, "It will take time." I tried to pin him down. How much time? Sometimes he tells people, "Come back three trips and you'll be cured." I didn't get any of that, just, "Patience. You will hear."

The work at that point was to hold compassion for the human who so much aspired to hear. Not grasped, at this point, but wished to hear. Wanted to hear water running off a waterfall, birds singing, children laughing. It wasn't even about communication, it was just about all the beautiful sounds in the world. I needed the wisdom to know this is possible, and the balance and stability to just be with things as they are, including sadness when it came up. And most years, my trips down there, right up to the present day, at some time during the trip I start to cry because there's a part of me that says, "I want to hear." And the Entity takes my hand and says again, "You will hear. Be patient." --But, but! "You will hear." I want him to just touch my ears and work some magic, but that's not how it happens.

There came a time, I don't remember what year, when I was sitting there in the meditation room and people were singing. I had my eyes closed. I had no idea what they were singing. I just was sitting there meditating with my eyes closed. Suddenly I heard so clearly the words and music of the song Amazing Grace. It was so clear that I opened my eyes. There was a man who was a professional opera singer with a beautiful voice sitting right behind me. I turned around and began to lip read, and I could see hewas singing Amazing Grace. I could feel the energy, the music, the sound. In my life before I was deaf I had never heard the song Amazing Grace, so I don't know the tune. But the next day he met with me, the two of us and some friends, and we began to sing it together. I knew all the words, he knew the music. But as I sang with him, he said to me, "You're hearing it. You're right on tune, perfectly on tune." John had told me sometimes, when I'm chanting with him,  I'm hearing the harmonium.

So this has inspired me. It's helped me to know, as with my friend who was blind: yes, this body can hear. Remember, no ultimate can/can't. Just opening to possibilities. Keeping the heart open. It doesn't matter whether it's about the body, about hearing or body pain or some other area of the body, or about emotions. For those who feel their hearts are closed, and what they want is to have the heart open, to really be able to love and connect with others; of course the open heart is always there. In this moment, the heart is closed. It's not either/or; it's both.

We begin to know the potential for wholeness. Our dharma practice allows us to find more equanimity with things as they are, and to watch grasping as an object, not get caught in the stories. Not to feel, "I WANT MY LILY PAD!" as if there's nothing else in the world. But really to open our hearts to things as they are in this moment, and with love. It's a very powerful experience when we find that degree of equanimity.

Equanimity is not resignation. Resignation is a very contracted energy. Equanimity is a very spacious energy. Within equanimity, we know the possibility of everything, and we're at peace with things as they are right now. There are some things that we can change, and some things, in this moment, that we can't change. All we can do is hold them with love.

I know many of you have experienced the death of loved ones, of parents, friends, siblings. My 97 year old mother died a year ago. She was very healthy until the last month of her life. When I was visiting her at the end, I saw how attached I was to having my whole, vibrant mother who could walk and enjoy life. Well, I was blessed with her for 97 years. That is amazing. Yet we always want more.

I was sitting and meditating with her while she was sleeping and I started to think, if everything is possible, I invite her vibrancy back. Well, that's not her free will choice. She's dying, she's ready to go. Equanimity says it's okay to let go. It's okay to let go of the loving mother. It's okay even to let go of the previously healthy body and see it age. I'm in my 70s. The body is aging. I can't do cartwheels anymore. I can't climb trees. I can't surf the ocean. Not fair! This year I've discovered how much joy there is in watching kids climb trees and play in the surf. I don't have to do it myself to enjoy it. This is equanimity with the present limitations.

So there is a joyful spaciousness but it doesn't say I'll never be able to do it, only, right now in this situation, it would not be wise for me. Emerald Isle retreat in April, watching the people surfing. Q and another friend took me down to the water. We walked down there. I sat on a bench up to my ankles and knees in the water, and there was so much, "Oh, I want to go further!" But there was also the deep wisdom that said, "No, not suitable for this body." And then after some time of sitting, there was so much joy just feeling the waves touching my feet and coming up to my knees and moving back. The whole of me was in the water. I didn't need to be any further in the water. I was in the ocean. One finger in the ocean would have been enough, but having my feet in was wonderful.

We start to find this real joy and equanimity. And it's in this spaciousness of energy, of heart, of mind, that we begin to understand the potential: everything arises with conditions, and we've created the conditions for which there can be certain kinds of physical, emotional, spiritual healing. That doesn't mean it will manifest, only we've done everything we can to invite the conditions, and then we see what happens.

The ability to do this grows out of the deep wisdom: it's all impermanent, arising and passing away, not of the nature of a separate self. Let it be just as it is and invite that which is wholesome. Keep the heart open, with compassion for this human.

This for me has come in stages, because 2 or 3 years ago at Emerald Isle I still felt, "Oh, I want to surf. Not fair." And this year was really the first time that I was able to get my feet wet in the ocean, and just get my feet wet in the ocean. And I know that there will be times in the coming years when I'm at an ocean that's just calm, very little swells, when I can wade down and walk in and swim and enjoy it. But yes, the joy of climbing on a surfboard and zooming over waves, I guess I can't do that anymore. That's okay.

For so many of us, the question is spiritual healing, finding our wholeness. Finding what we always believed was broken in ourselves, and seeing wholeness more clearly. On the one hand there is perhaps loneliness or sadness or fear or feeling of separation. We see how the deep meditation experiences cut into that and tell us nothing was ever separate. Right there with sadness there is joy. Right there with loneliness there is connection. Yet there may still be sadness and aloneness. We start to know the non-duality of it.

For me, the body has been the most profound teacher. I was talking just now about the Emerald Isle retreat. This is a retreat that John and I have led together for 15 years. The sangha rents a big house on the beach at Emerald Isle. My wave accident was the second year. I was surfing. Probably at my age I shouldn't have been surfing, but I'm a very strong swimmer, and I felt comfortable out there with mild waves. And then an extra-big wave came along, caught me off-balance, threw me onto the ocean floor, and knocked me out. I was pulled unconscious from the ocean after a near-death experience. I had very severe injuries. That's how I lost the vision in the eye that's blind. There were back injuries. There was so much contraction. How do I fix this?

How do we open our hearts to our human experience? I just got an email from my son, who's in his 40's, that his best friend since they were in 2nd grade, and whom I've known since  then, that his wife just died yesterday of cancer. They have a young child. Looking at this kind of loss, we can't say, "Oh, it doesn't matter. I have equanimity." It matters terribly. There's enormous grief, fear, pain. What will happen? What will happen to the daughter? Will they be okay?

But we start to trust, out of the ground of our dharma practice we start to trust: It's all arising and passing away from conditions. And in ultimate reality, we are safe.

We take refuge. We take refuge in the Buddha, the dharma, the sangha. What does it mean to take refuge in the Buddha? We're not talking about refuge in a statue or a man who lived 2,500 years ago. We find the refuge in that which is awake. We find refuge in the awakened heart-mind, which is present in all of us constantly in our experience. We take refuge in the Dharma, knowing all conditioned dharmas are arising and passing away. Everything is impermanent. That means when things seem good they are probably going to decline. When things are challenging, they are going to get better. We start to trust this. We open our hearts.  Only with that spaciousness and that sense of support, that refuge, can we begin to find the equanimity that opens us to the energy and spaciousness to invite that which is wholesome, in that moment when it's unwholesome.

As I look back on my life, perhaps the two most challenging times in my whole life were the losing my hearing and this wave accident, and losing the vision in one eye; that was part of the conditions for all the body pains which I'm still suffering. These were also the two greatest gifts of my life, and I wouldn't trade them away for anything, because without these I would not be who I am today. I would never have developed the open heart that I have, or the wisdom. I would never have really gone deep into the experience of the Unconditioned and finding the refuge there.

It's not a trade-off. I still choose to hear. I'm still doing everything I can to walk well and keep the body tuned up. But it's all impermanent. The body is going to get older. Maybe I'll make it to 97 like my mom. Maybe I won't. The body is going to get older. How do we do it without attachment? How do we do it with love?

So in the end, my practice leads me to a very deep coming together of compassion and wisdom. We call them the two wings of the dharma. The bird can't fly with only one wing. It needs wisdom and it needs compassion. The wisdom and compassion bring it together.

I have the wisdom to know it's all going to pass away. I don't have to be attached. But that doesn't mean shutting myself out, separating or disassociating from the wonder and beauty of life around me, but keeping my heart fully open and engaged. I also find compassion for this human who still sometimes feels sad. Frustrated because I sprained my knee somehow on that Emerald Isle retreat. Then a lot of body pain started, and "I don't want this pain! Make it go away!" Can there be compassion for this human? Knowing it's impermanent. Attending to it.

Clean to here

At the Casa the year after that wave accident, I was fully blind in this eye. I could only see dark and light. I had 20/100 in the good eye, which is very poor vision. I could see, but not anything clearly. I was considered legally blind. I had spent many months reflecting on that, whichcan see. Not stuck in that which can't see, but aware of that which can see; really being open. But I was still blind! It was terrifying!

I asked myself, "Is there anything I don't want to see?"; the hatred in the world, the violence in the world. What do I choose not to see? What do I choose to see? I invite vision. When I first came to the Entity that trip and he took my hand and looked at me, I didn't say anything to him, just stood before him. He just said, "You will not be blind." And in 3 weeks there, the vision in this blind eye shifted to 20/50. The better eye shifted to 20/20.This despite the fact that I had had countless steroid injections and other treatments, laser surgery, things performed, and the doctors at the eye hospital in Ann Arbor had said, "You will not see." Anything is possible. Everything is possible. But don't grasp at it. Invite it with an open heart.

Let me say one more thing. Watch how objects, pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral objects, arise and pass away. Be aware of sensation, aware of sound, aware of thought, and aware of awareness. Watch awareness itself. Begin to reflect, who am I? Am I my body? Am I my thoughts? When I'm not any of these aggregates of body, thought, perception and so forth, of consciousness, what remains? Who am I? And is this essence of what I am distorted or damaged in any way? How could that possibly be? Not the essence. Yeah, on one level, this eye is damaged. On another level, it's perfect. On one level the ears are damaged. On another level, they're perfect. How do we invite wholesome change, not shutting doors, but not grasping? We open the door and invite, and when it's ready to come in, it will come in. If it doesn't come in, we probably didn't need it. Let it be.

So watch how this can work with your practice. Watch the grasping mind. Watch aversion. Watch especially any concepts–I am this, I am that. I am limited in this or that way. Use the little phrase, when the idea comes, "I am limited,"– "is that so?" I am an unworthy person. Is that so? I am not lovable. Is that so? I am a good person. Oh, is that so? I'm not saying I'm not, but that's just another concept. I'm good, I am bad. Use "Is that so?" to raise the question, how am I buying into old concepts? Who am I, what am I beyond these concepts? What is this pure, awake, awareness, this awakened Buddha nature or Christ consciousness, what is this? How directly and clearly, free of distortion, can I experience this awareness, this true self? Can I just be that?

I'm passionate about this. I could talk to you for another half hour, but I think this is enough. So I'm going to stop here and let you get back into silence and your practice. Thank you for giving me a chance to share with you.

Thank you for this opportunity to speak to you.

(session ends)