First of Four Dharma with Barbara Evenings - September 19, 2005

Barbara: Good evening. It feels good to be back here after a summer away. I planned tonight's talk with no idea who would be here. Long-term students, moderately experienced people, new people? What words to that range of practitioner can be meaningful to everybody? But the dhamma is always helpful, when spoken clearly and heard with attention.

The most frequent question I've been asked through the years is, what is your practice? I know this question touches us all. It's a very hard question to answer! It depends what day you ask me and what time of day, and what's going on in my life in that moment. So the practice, I don't want to say it changes but it takes up many different strands of practice, moment to moment.

Practice is both a tool and a way of living. As a way of living, practice is just being present, with an open heart. In that presence and kindness, there's no place to go. As tool, it's meant to do something, to take us somewhere. So we've got to know what it is we want to do, where do we want to go. I don't know what practice I need to do until I know where I'm going.

Where are we going? Why do people come to spiritual classes, meditation classes? What is our purpose here? What is our fundamental purpose in life? Some people might say my purpose in life is fun. I've seen a bumper sticker that says, "Whoever dies with the most toys wins!" It's probably not what anybody in this circle would be wearing on a bumper. But certainly we all know people who are just really here to be comfortable. I can't criticize that. If that's what they want out of life, I wish them well.

What do I want out of life? I would ask you to ask yourself the same question. Some people might say, "I want liberation." Now this has a hook in it because there's a big "I" in that statement. Who wants it? With the self, there is grasping. There can be real lack of kindness to oneself and other people if one is just trying to get liberated. I remember reading the Buddha's words that if we do this practice for seven years we'll find liberation and thinking, "Let's see, that will take me to 1993. That's not too bad; I'll do it!" Ha! Yes, perfect mindfulness for 7 years would bring liberation, but if I'm only mindful 5% of the time, …. Well, you figure it out. And it leaves us asking, "What is liberation, and who is liberated?"

Some people have said to me, "Well what I want is to become a better meditator." That also has a hook to it. If I were a carpenter I might say, "I want to become a better craftsman," but not, "I want to become so outstanding at using the drill press that there's nobody in the whole world that can use a drill press better than I can." Do we want to become meditators or kind and compassionate, wise people?

Meditation can be misused. If we're trying to become a "good meditator" and we don't have a clear sense of where we're going, there can come to be hardness to the practice, a sense of trying to control everything, to force it. "I'm going to be a good meditator." Does being a good meditator mean that the mind never wanders? I don't know anybody whose mind never wanders, including the most experienced spiritual practitioners that I know. Sometimes the mind wanders.

So we need to know what it is we want. "I want peace." That seems to fit better, but there's still an "I". The Dalai Lama is quoted as saying "Kindness is my religion." That really resonates for me, to work with practices that lead me deeper into that already-existent heart of kindness, into the already-existent peace, and already present liberation. With the growth of kindness and wisdom, freedom will certainly come, not as goal but just as a natural result.

Another one might be, "I want to become more present." That works for me, to learn to be more present in my life. "I want to become more present," still has an I and wanting, but we must distinguish between intention and grasping. Right effort does require focused intention. Wisdom and compassion can't develop without presence so this one seems to come first. Yet kindness informs presence. Even presence is not enough by itself because there's got to be a texture to that presence. I can be present with a tension that's ready to jump on everything, or I can be present with a lot of spaciousness. So presence and kindness intermingle for me. No surprise, the title of Aaron's book is Presence, Kindness, and Freedom.

When I first met Aaron, I was doing a primarily devotional meditation practice, with a lot of chanting and prayer, chanting the names of God, a very openhearted practice. And I was doing a kind of vipassana practice, but there was a distortion to it because I thought at that point that vipassana meant staying with whatever object arose. My deafness and lip-reading had developed enormous concentration, so I was really able to stick to something. So if there was pain in my body, I would grit my teeth and watch the pain, and consequently push away the object of aversion to pain. It was a practice with blinders on, no willingness to see the big picture. So I was using my practice in some ways to protect myself from things that were uncomfortable.

Body pain can be very uncomfortable, but the anger around the pain can be even more uncomfortable. Anger was a very difficult object for me. There was commitment to non-harm, commitment to a "spiritual path," strong aversion to anger, and a deep belief in the idea, "I shouldn't be angry." I was able to protect myself from the anger by just focusing on the pain. I did this in every area of my life, not just with physical pain, but with the pain around being deaf. I believed that if I stayed with that pain, eventually it would disappear. I'd drift into some vast spaciousness. And then along came Aaron and he said, "No, that's not how it is. It may disappear, it may not. Is it pleasant or unpleasant? If it's unpleasant, know it's unpleasant. If it's pleasant, not the pain but some other body state, know it's pleasant. If pleasant, is there grasping? If unpleasant, is there aversion? Watch the flow of experience."

So my first practice with Aaron, 17 or 18 years ago, was learning what we call choiceless awareness, to just be present with whatever arises into our experience. Not building any stories around it, mind watches the emergence of the story also as an object.

Some of you know what I mean when I say stories and some don't. Sitting. Pain arises in the knee. Unpleasant. And then the thought comes, "I don't want this." And then another little thought, "What a poor meditator I am, I can't even sit still for 15 minutes." Judging, judging. That is just a thought, "I'm a poor meditator." But I may carry it to an extreme and say, "I might as well just get up and quit this. I can't possibly meditate. My mind is all over the place, I'm no good at this." Stories. Or maybe with pain there's a story, "My knee! Maybe I'll need to go to the ER. I won't be able to walk again for weeks!" We can call this story telling. We all do it. At least, I do it. I assume you all do it too.

Yesterday morning, was it just yesterday? Sunday? Sunday dawn. I was still out at the lake.

Q: Lake mind!

Barbara: Boy was I in lake mind! I was floating in a canoe. The sky was pink. It was so beautiful. I was just so present with the beauty. It was so wonderful, so peaceful. And into came this thought, "But I have to go home today! I don't want to go home today." Well, that's just a thought. But then the thought came, "I shouldn't be thinking about that!" My practice is strong enough that I caught that and just said, judging, judging. And it opened up and I was back with the serenity, for a short time. Then the little voice returned, "But I don't want to go home today!" There was the presence to just note, "thinking, "and return to the breath and to the spaciousness that was there, right along with the thought.

But we all get into the stories, keep going and going and going and going. I know that in another time I could have spent 10 minutes there trying to figure out how I could commute for a couple of weeks. Planning: "Go home today, do the meetings I have with people, do the dharma talk, come back to the lake tomorrow night. Maybe I can do that!" Ah, stories, stories!

So we all have these stories. It's so important we be on friendly terms with ourselves, to hear the story but not indulge in the content of the story. Just know, here is a story.

One of the first ways I learned to do that was by bringing space into my vipassana practice. A number of you have done formal dzogchen practice with me, pure awareness practice, and this is one way of bringing space in. But there are many ways.

Space is everywhere. Look around the room, look at the different objects and people. Look at the floor, the ceiling, the lamps. Are there pleasant objects? Are there any unpleasant objects, neutral objects? If there was a pile of dog feces on the floor, you'd say, "Phhhth! Unpleasant object!" And some neutral objectstape recorder, that's a neutral object.

What about the space? Can you see all the space in the room? What if a big truck came and filled the room with sand, completely full. There wouldn't be any space left in it. Space is interesting because it doesn't have any special quality of its own. It's not beautiful, it's not ugly, not heavy or light, bright or dark. It has a pleasantness to it, once you get used to it, but some people feel it's frightening.

Look at any 2 people in the room, and see the space between them. The space between them is defined by the edges of their bodies. Space. Every object that arises in our experience is preceded by space and followed by space. Watch my arm. First there's nothing above my head. Then the arm comes up, moves over, and then it's gone and there's space there again.

Listen to the bell. No sound; space. Then there's going to be sound, (Bell) and the sound dies away into space.

For me, my practice is a balancing act. When I'm not present with objects but tend to get lost in all that vast space, I need to bring in more mindfulness and be very present with objects, such as body sensations, thoughts, or whatever kinds of objects arise. When I'm overly present with objects so that I can feel a tension in my body, grasping, holding each object as if I'm trying to push my way into it, then I need to step back, take a deep breath and find the space. I need to be present in that space as well as with the object.

There are a number of ways that I do that. One is just watching the breath and finding that space at the beginning and the end of each in-breath and out-breath. Try it with me. Breathing in, space. Breathing out, space. You can really go into that space, it's profound, it's immense. Breathing in, space. Breathing out, space.

You can see it with pain in the body. Last week I was drifting on the lake in my boat, and out of nowhere, literally, a yellow-jacket flew into my face and stung me. Big pain! Ouch! I just had the most fleeting glance at it and it was gone. Physical sensation of burning, stinging. So I took water and washed my face with it. I actually laid down on the boat and put my face in the water, to feel the coolness of the water on my face. So there was the heat, then there was cold. And when I pulled my head up, there was heat again. I had to keep pulling my head up to breathe. The sting was on the cheek near the mouth so it was hard to get my face in and keep my mouth out. So I was just putting my face in, cold, coming out, hot, going back in cold. Hot.

Then Aaron asked me, where is the space between the heat and the cold? Can you find it? I found that space where there was really no sting. It was a very interesting experience to feel the burning, put my face in, feel it get cold, and then as I pulled my face out and wasn't cold any more, it wasn't burning. It was probably only for a second, 2 seconds, then it started burning again.

Space. So we remain aware of that space.

The phrase, "I am", is a thought. "I am." There's a space before and a space after it. We tend to judge certain words; we think, "Wow, that's profound," or "That's ridiculous, meaningless," or whatever we may think about it. But when a thought arises, it's just an object like the bee sting. "I am" is an articulation of a thought. It's a thought that there's an "I" that exists, me, I am.

The breath exists, rising, and then it's gone. There's a space, and then the falling breath. Certainly at some level, I am. There is awareness, there's something there. But we also start to see the space around any thought and how the whole content of the thought can collapse into the space the same way that the burn from the yellowjacket collapsed into the space. There's just a vast amount of spaciousness. The burn is little; the space is immense.

There were times in my practice when I began to get lost in the immensity of that spaciousness, preferred it to anything uncomfortable that was happening here and now. Then my practice would shift to being more present in the body, more present with the mind, a deeper mindfulness of the present moment and to the objects arising in the present moment.

It's really all mindfulness, with mindfulness of the body and mind and mindfulness of the immense space into which these objects arise, and out of which, into which they fall away.

Into that basic practice of vipassana and spaciousness, 10,000 little practices have come. They change depending on what's going on. A major practice for me this summer has been gratitude. Remember I spoke about balance. When I start to feel tense, I find just pausing and really feeling the gratitude that's there, really touching in on the wonder of whatever is before me, and expressing gratitude for it, opens my energy field. If I'm starting to pull out of my body, gratitude pulls me back into my body. If I'm tense or the body energy feels contracted, just, "thank-you."

That day on the boat, drifting around after the first 10 minutes of, "Why did that sting me? I wasn't bothering it! That's not fair!" and then shifting into the sticking my face into the lake practice, which was cooling so the sting didn't burn so much, I just stopped and started to say, "Thank you." That sting was a little wake-up call. Be more present. Be more present in the body. Everything that happens has some reason, and I may not know the reason, but in some way this was an invitation to be more present. I had been just drifting, literally drifting on the lake in a slightly spaced out way, and this certainly woke me up and brought me back to the present!

Gratitude for all the bee stings I did not get in the past year. Gratitude for the rest of my body that didn't hurt. It pulled me in almost immediately to people who are experiencing very severe pain in their lives, people in very difficult situations where there's strong body pain, not just something that's fleeting that will be gone in a half hour, but people with long-lasting pain. Gratitude for the health of this body.

In the morning, drifting on the lake, gratitude has been my predominant practice. I usually paddle down to the west end of the lake, so that I can look east at the sunrise. It's pretty dark at the time that I set out, but by the time I reach the other end of the lake and look, the sky is getting pink; then I just float in this beautiful cove. As the sun begins to come up, there's a big marsh behind me and hundreds of birds appear, waking up and swooping over the water, swooping over the marsh. The first rays of sun come over the hill and start to hit the water where I am. The water is absolutely still, mirror smooth, often covered with mist. There's just enormous gratitude for the gift of this incarnation, for this opportunity to be alive and to experience such beauty. Joy is tied in with it because one can't experience that kind of gratitude without joy.

I find this creates a balance for those moments of tension, "How do I handle this? How do I handle that? Will this come out okay? Will that come out okay?" Worry, stress. I'm finding that it comes together, that more and more when I'm feeling stress or pain about something, if I can stop and breathe and remember there's a gift in this, and really allow myself not just to hold a concept of gratitude, but to touch that place in my heart that feels genuine gratitude, something shifts. My mind doesn't fixate on whatever concern is there, but the spacious mind comes back.

A lot of practice for me is this returning to the spacious mind. We need to remember in our practice that we're not trying to create anything. It's not like I start with a small, tight mind and if I do it right finally I'll get a spacious mind. Rather the spacious mind is there and I haven't seen it because I've been too busy looking elsewhere. When I relax, suddenly there it is, spacious mind. Big mind. Peace is there. Joy is there.

So a lot of my practice is in looking at what blocks the direct experience of peace and joy, contentment, spaciousness in this moment. I don't mean in an analytical way, looking at what blocks it, but rather, it's as if my back was turned to the window and I said, "Why is it so dark? I don't see any light coming in any windows." Somebody said, "Turn around. Look out the window." There is light! , We need to remember to turn around. The window light, spaciousness, peace are always there, but we get so involved with looking in, trying to figure out how to fix this, or control with that, w e forget to breathe, we forget to look at the light.

So much of my practice is about just coming back to big mind, to all that light, space and joy. And yet remembering not to grasp at it and try to hold it, not to push away relative reality, which is sometimes troublesome. They're both there, the light and joy and all those stumbling blocks, those objects we stub our toes on in relative reality.

Working with the elements has been a major part of my practice. Aaron first taught me element practice sitting on a rock high up on top of the Greek island, Santorini. The island once was round; an ancient volcanic eruption knocked a chunk out of the circle, leaving a crescent. So from one side the land rises like a gradual cone and then it drops almost straight down on the other side, blown away. There are many caves in that steep side. Some of them have been made into hotel rooms, very rustic, but a bed and running water, a lamp.

So there I was on top of the world. I got up the first morning and walked out of my cave onto a tiny flat space, with rocks on the outside and then a drop-off going hundreds of feet to the sea There I sat.

There was a beautiful blue sea. The volcanic island across from me is still steaming, still smoking a bit. Very interesting to watch it. It's not an active volcano. But there's just this little bit of smoke coming out of it. Sun beating down. So I've got volcano fire, sun fire, sea, strong breeze blowing, and of course the mammoth rock I'm sitting on, earth energy.

It was the first rest day after much travel. Mind and body held tensions, and planning. Aaron asked me to note the tension that I was feeling, a lot of fire energy. Agitation. He said, when one element is predominant, don't try to get rid of that element, but note its predominance and draw in what's lacking. Bring in the earth, feel the solidity of the rock I'm sitting on, bring in the water, the coolness of it, the fluidity of it. Bring it in and allow it to balance the fire energy and the agitation.

He suggested I move into the shade so I wasn't getting so much fire energy coming at me. I did that. Then looking at the water, feeling the rock, and I could feel the energy in me coming into balance, and mind quieted.

So all those 5 days, I did this practice. It was just a perfect place to learn about the elements. When I felt lethargic, bring in more fire energy. It didn't necessarily mean to go sit in the sun. Feel the fire energy in the air, look at it in the agitation of the waves, the wind blowing the water, the volcanic smoke Just sit in the shade, and see the sunlight out there. Start to feel that fire burning in the body, balancing lethargy.

This has become a very predominant practice for me now. It's something I do almost without any conscious direction to do it. When I feel tension, if something happens that creates tension, like a traffic jam when I'm late, and I start to feel agitation, I don't have to look out at the vast sea, I can just close my eyes for a moment and imagine that big expanse of water. And I can feel the water in my body. Our bodies are mostly water. Feel it moving gently back and forth through the body. Feel the spaciousness. Just sitting there in my car, I know my car is on the road, the road is ground, and I feel that earth energy. I feel the possibility of opening.

I use that word in a hesitant way, the possibility of opening, because we're always open. What we're really experiencing is the innate opening that's always there, like turning around and seeing the window, seeing the light. Seeing that which is open and balanced. So when I work with balance it's very important not to think I'm doing something. I'm not creating balance, I'm inviting myself to reconnect with the innate balance that's there and allow myself really to feel that balance.

Sometimes we hold on to our anger. We're feeling annoyed at something and we just want to be angry a bit. In the long run we probably don't want to be angry, but just then it feels good. So it's very important when you're doing a practice like this element practice, you have to ask yourself, what is my intention here? If I want to hold on to my anger, then I don't want to tune into this innate balance. But if I really do want to release my anger, then I really do want to tune into this innate balance. If I'm not tuning into the balance, I can't say, well my energy is just unbalanced right now. My energy is unbalanced as a result, in some way, of my wanting to hold onto the anger. I've got to acknowledge that. Maybe it's just habit energy. Somebody says something and it's irritating and the mind is spinning around with, "What should I say to him? I don't like what he said." I need to acknowledge, anger is here, and there is some attachment to the anger, or to the power I feel through anger. So a big part of my practice through the years has been the non-duality of the agitated state and the spacious state. The non-duality of anger and peacefulness.

It's both challenging and wonderful having an inner teacher who's always thereI can't get away from him. Occasionally when I'm holding on to anger, after a few minutes Aaron says, "Are you enjoying your anger?" "Yea, Aaron, I am!" Then he asks, "How long do you want to hold on to it?" Just a gentle reminder, you have a choice here. If you're holding on to the anger, at some level you want to hold on to it. Acknowledge that and make it clear, "I am holding on to my anger." How does that feel? Is it a pleasant or unpleasant feeling? Is this really what I want in the long run? Feel the spaciousness, which doesn't mean the anger is gone. The body may still be resonating with anger. But, there's also spaciousness. It comes back around to object and space.

This is why it's so hard to answer when people say, "What is your practice?" They all are interdependent. I feel as I look back, that it's been as if I said, "I want to become a carpenter." And somebody said to me, "OK, you have to learn to use a hammer and nails." And after a couple of weeks of practice I was really proficient at driving a nail and I said, "OK, I'm done. Am I a carpenter now?" "No, you've got to learn how to use a drill and a screwdriver. A saw. A miter box. You've got to learn about the grains of wood."

So at first it seemed like there were so many different places where my attention was going. I couldn't see a connection between them. It was the feeling one has doing a jigsaw puzzle. When you get all the red flowers together, and here's the orange tabby cat, and the blue vase, but you have no idea where they go in the picture. With trust and relaxing, it will all come together. Those connecting pieces will appear.

This is what happens in our practice. As we're working with one specific form of practice or another, there's that moment of deep insight when we realize, "Ah, this is how these parts go together." And then there's an ability to utilize those pieces more stably , more skillfully, toward the desired end result of living our lives with more presence and kindness, finding more peace.

In Theravada Buddhism, there are many lists. The Three jewels of Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha, the Four Noble Truths, the Five Spiritual Faculties, the Seven Factors of Enlightenment, the Eightfold Path, the Ten Precepts: those are just lightly touching the total. As I studied these many years ago, I couldn't see any connection between them. From the perspective I have now, I can really see how they all relate to each other and that each one has an importance.

I remember early on with Aaron, he was teaching me the Seven Factors of Enlightenment. There are arousing factors like joy. There are calming factors. Mindfulness is in the middle. He began to teach me the hindrances and to point out to me what Factor will bring balance with any specific hindrance. For example, which of these factors of enlightenment balances lethargy? He would remind me the Factors of Enlightenment are not something you're going to get someday; the factors are there, seeds under surface that can be nurtured.

So if you're feeling lethargy, then more joy, more mindfulness, concentration, will help awaken the lethargy. If you're feeling a lot of agitation, concentration will quiet it down. One focuses directly on the experience of agitation in mind and body. If you're feeling anger, joy and gratitude and reflection on metta will bring balance.

There is the learning to use each tool, discovering how it works and what it balances, and learning to hold firm in awareness what it is that I want. No matter how much I might at that moment be enjoying my anger, awareness knows what is aspired to in the long run is not to hold on to that anger but to transcend the anger. That's what will really bring happiness, not holding on to it. The intention is to move beyond the anger, beyond the greed, beyond the fear, beyond living based on a sense of a small self. These supports invite us to move outward, more and more and more into the depths of our practice and to trust the practice and find what works.

The toolbox just keeps growing. All of you have already pulled together a pretty big toolbox. It might not be articulated in Buddhist terms; that's fine. But you all have a vast toolbox. What works? There's got to be clear intention, willingness to let go, willingness to step beyond our prior limits, our fears, the small ego self, and so forth, and just ask, in this moment, what works?

Last week while thinking about what I would talk about I came to the teachers' circle that we have once a month. People were discussing what was going on in their lives. Somebody brought up a practice which has also been a very important one for me, the practice of "Just this." It's the practice of not trying to take everything on at once, but being present with one experience, and knowing it as pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. We see it as it is, not compounding it with all kinds of what-if's and fears. Just this. It's the practice that allows me on a very busy day to be as deeply present as I can with each thing as it comes along, rather than getting lost in all the planning or mind running back into what I could have said or done earlier in the day. Just this.

Right now, just this. Not what I've said before in that talk, not what I will say as I finish. Just this.

I've found that a very powerful practice through the years and I keep returning to it. Some years ago, John Orr and I were talking with Aaron about mindfulness and being more present in the moment. And Aaron suggested something that I did for about 6 months, and I think John also. He said, every time you go through a doorway, stop, take 3 breaths, and know, "I am passing through a doorway." Know where you're going, know where you've been, but most important, stop in the space of the doorway and just hold the space. Just this. Then move on to wherever you're going. But no stories while standing in the doorway, just this, just this doorway.

I did that for about 6 months and I found it wonderful. I would smell something burning on the stove, remember that I had left a pot on, and start rushing through from my office. Stop at the doorway. Three seconds more are not going to matter. Just this. And then I would arrive at the stove not agitated, just ready to stir the food. Instead of frantic, "Oh! It's burning!", just this.

"Just this" has many meanings, but for me one of the biggest meanings is coming back to spaciousness. Just this. Then I find that in each thing that comes up, no matter how busy during the day, there's always space around it. There's always time. Just this.

When I practice in that way, I'm a lot less agitated. I'm a lot more peaceful. I'm kinder to myself and to people around me.

There are so many more little practices I could talk about. The main one of course is vipassana, mixed really with the awareness of space and with kindness. It feels like I'm writing a cookbook here: 7 parts vipassana, 3 parts kindness, 4 parts mindfulness, and a deep breath. Probably one, maybe 2 parts trust, just learning to trust your practice and to trust yourself. Add a liberal sprinkling of joy.

This practice has been life-changing for me. I can't imagine having gotten through the past 30 years without it. But there is no "this practice" to point to, the practice is just everything we come to in our lives. Everything is practice. Holding the intention in this moment to live my life with as much love and as much presence as possible. That's all I need to do. And then to trust, I know what to do. I know what to do to bring forth that intention.

I'll pause here and give you a chance to stretch and then have some time for questions and discussion.

Q: I want to take a few minutes to tell a story of what I saw at the lake yesterday morning. First of all, there was the moonset in the morning. Very bright. As the sun grew stronger, the moon became lighter. In the very still water on the lake, could see the reflection of all the surrounding land including the blue heron on the floating dock reflected in the water.

I looked towards the other side of the lake and I saw a canoe with bright yellow paddles. The dual kind of paddles like used in a kayak. Double paddles. And the water was so still I could not see who was in it, but I sort of knew. It looked like a dragonfly when the anonymous canoe person held the paddles parallel. The reflection without looking at the water, just looking out, was 2 sets of wings.

When that anonymous lake person, water nymph, paddled, the reflection made a shape, stroking on this side, 2 bright yellow dots going down into one yellow dot. Then stroking the other side. It was so entertaining!

It reminds me, don't believe everything you see.

Barbara: But it was a giant dragonfly! Must have been; what else could it have been?

I put my kayak away on Saturday for the winter, so I had to use a canoe on Sunday morning.

Q: I guessed it was you when the canoe came closer and I could hear the paddle banging the gunnels.

Barbara: I was trying not to. But I was also sitting down on the bottom of the boat rather than up on a seat… Bang, bang!

Q: So the dragonfly was coming alive with noise…

Barbara: What you missed was when I first came down and dragged the canoe into the water. I have terrible balance. It was a cold morning, and I had on a sweatshirt with a windbreaker on top. I put one foot in, started to get in, and turned the whole canoe over, landed fully submerged!

Q: I heard that!

Barbara: But the sun was warm. I had to drag it out and turn it upside down to drain it. Unpleasant. But the sun was warm!

Q: I do have a dharma question, actually. When you spoke of the space between the inhale and exhale, my experience with that has been, one, I recognize a kind of tension of anticipation in watching for the pause. But really looking closely, there is still motion. There is not stillness. And I began to understand that for me, at least, a way of looking at it is between the inhale and the exhale there is a break in the concept of breath. And that in itself the word "space" used in that context is another concept to drop.

What is happening for me is not really motionlessness or pure stillness between the inhale and exhale. It is merely dropping the concept.

Barbara: If there's any expectation looking for the pause, that's another object. It's coming right on the tail of the inhale, so here's the inhale and here's the expectation impulse, and there's just a little bit of space, it's hard to see it sandwiched in that way, but it's there.

Q: But the body sensation, when I look at that body, there is constant motion. Just because it's neither inhale or exhale doesn't mean there is no motion.

Barbara: Stillness and motion are non-dual. Do you remember those beautiful lines on this from "Flight of the Garuda," Song 15. I can't quote it perfectly but I'll paste it into the transcript.

To illustrate this, no matter how many waves may arise,
They never depart from the ocean even in the slightest.
Similarly, whether still or in movement,
The mind never departs from awareness and emptiness even in the slightest.
So rest, since whatever rests calmly is the state of awareness.
Rest, since whatever arises is the manifestation of awareness.

To believe that meditation is only when the mind rests quiet,
and maintain that there is no meditation when the mind moves
Is proof of not knowing the core of stillness and movement,
And of not having mingled stillness, occurrence and awareness.

For this reason, fortunate and noble heart children,
Whether moving or still, mind is the continuity of awareness.
So when you have fully comprehended stillness, occurrence and awareness,
Then practice these three as one.
This is how stillness and thought occurrence are nondual.

(excerpt, Flight of the Garuda, Song 15).

New Q: I understand what A is saying because the deeper I go into my body, the more aware I am of all that is going on. Blood and energy moving. There's tons of activity. And I experience occasionally a very deep stillness which still is far from stillness. We call it in energy work a stillpoint, when much comes to rest but not the atoms.

Barbara: Do you experience that stillpoint in the breath? (yes)

Q: I have a different question about that same practice. When I'm working with that practice, I usually get caught in controlling my breath. I love it, it's a fun practice. But usually I find myself holding my breath longer and longer. And there is a kind of gap in that space, but I also sometimes feel contraction in my lungs and breathing mechanism. So it's an interesting practice.

Original Q: I have experienced the gap more as a transition because there is still motion.

Barbara: I experience this gap in a different way, perhaps. As C just said, if I'm watching the breath here, sometimes it becomes controlling and there's tension. I like to watch the breath at the back of the throat. Breathe in and feel the throat opening, and as you breathe out it closes gently. The very back of the throat. I feel that opening and falling more when I breathe through my nose than my mouth, but either one. The throat opens and closes. And there's a space.

What happens is, as I focus on that, really focus into it, a concentration practice, not fixed, but it's such a predominant object and nothing else is coming up, the mind is relatively quiet, or if there's a thought I just note, "thinking," and it goes. So I keep coming back to this sensation. After awhile, it's like a slow motion movie, the gap gets bigger and bigger. I become increasingly aware of the beginning, middle, and end of the inhale. The beginning, middle, and end of the exhale. As the whole thing slows down, the gap becomes very big. I just rest in that gap.

If I experience an expectation of trying to get it, or an expectation of, "Is the end coming," the end of the inhale, I just note tension. I bring my attention to that body tension, note that tension also has arisen out of spaciousness and I watch it dissolve into the spaciousness. It's the same space. As it goes, I bring attention back to the breath. It's still linear, but the sense of the length of each moment opens up.

Q: Before I learned meditation, I took scuba diving lessons, and my instructor underwater hit me on the head because he said I wasn't breathing. And I, at that time, became aware that I had a rather long pause on the outbreath where it wasn't apparent that I was actively breathing. I got in trouble for it in scuba diving but it's helpful in meditation!

Barbara: You should take us all on a scuba diving trip.

Q: I have a question. Is the space more a pause between breaths or a pause of thought?

Barbara: They both exist. There is no difference. Where there is a difference is between the relative and ultimate spaciousness. There is a relative plane space, and the infinite spaciousness of which "Garuda" speaks. We begin with noting the relative pause, between thoughts, between breaths or anything else. It takes us into the larger space.

Everything arises out of that space and dissolves into the space. When we first begin to practice, we watch the objects. Let's try a familiar exercise. Hold your hand 6 inches in front of your eyes. Wiggle the fingers. Look hard at the fingers. The in-breath, the out-breath, a thought, an itch, all these objects, horn honking outside, (wiggling a finger to each word) objects. Now keep the fingers wiggling and while they're wiggling, look through them. See the vast space that's there. Keep the fingers wiggling. Now come back to the fingers. When you're focused on the fingers, you can't see the space, but when you break through the fingers, you still can see the fingers wiggling, you don't lose the fingers, but the space is there.

Because of the way meditation is taught, people learn to look at objects arising. Watch the inhale, watch the exhale. Watch hearing, a tingling sensation or a thought. We do develop a lot of wisdom in that observation, seeing that objects arise out of conditions and that when the conditions are gone, they pass away. We learn by observation that everything in the whole conditioned world is like that.

This is one piece of our work, to deeply understand the nature of the whole conditioned realm. When we understand that, we start to see that this "I" is also arisen out of conditions and that it's just a lot of different cells. There may be a spirit aspect to it, there are physical and mental aspects, there's an energetic aspect, but the physical body and the ego, the mundane mind, are arisen out of conditions. Then we stop creating so much of a solid self. We begin to feel our interconnection with everyone.

But this is just one aspect of practice, and people can get stuck there, forever simply watching objects arising and passing away. The practice is not just to develop deep wisdom about these objects, but also to break through. Practicing with presence and spaciousness allows us to see the object and to attend to the object, because sometimes objects need attendance. I spill my tea, I need to get a towel and wipe it up. Somebody screams outside; we need to go outside and see what's happening.

But we don't contract around those objects and build a self and stories that keep us going in this circle of samsara, of birth and rebirth. We break through the sense of a self to whom it's happening and we start to move more and more into the spaciousness. So our practice needs to hold both. It needs to help us to be present with kindness in our mundane world, but not to get pulled into the solid self around what arose, but to open into spaciousness. Working with the breath is just one small tool to see the spaciousness between the inhale and the exhale, and so forth.

We can see the space between thoughts. With any thought that arises, I'm always reminded of a comic strip with little blips of thoughts that come out of characters. Blip! Here's a thought. Blip! There's a thought. But these are not scrawled across the whole page, they're little blips of thought with all that space between.

It doesn't matter where we find it. An itch is a good place to watch, because unless you have a mosquito bite that itches in an ongoing way, the kind of little itching that comes up on the skin is intermittent. It itches, and then you watch it. Pleasant, unpleasant, noting tingling, burning. And then it's gone. Suddenly it's not there any more. Where did it go? So we learn to just watch the object and rest in the space.

One of the places where I do this a lot is with contraction. If something startles me and I contract, an ongoing practice has been, right there with the contraction can I find the non-contraction? It's not a denial of the contraction. If somebody says something and anger comes up, it's not a denial of the anger to see non-anger right there. Spaciousness is right there. Can I give equal time to it, just paying attention to it? When we start to look, we find it everywhere.

Q: I have taken the beginners class many times. Sometimes when I meditate, I feel like I must have misunderstood or missed something because the instructions were to focus on the breath. And when you have a thought, you would turn your attention back to the breath. And that was all that there was to it. I kept getting that instruction…

Barbara: People sometimes hear the instructions in selective ways. The instruction goes further, but as you focus on part one, you may miss part two. You have a physical body. Is there a sensation right now of sitting, touching the chair? Is there a sensation of hands touching the lap. We have a physical body. The nature of the body is to feel sensation. This is how our body works. The nature of the mind is to give rise to thought. A thought just arose and you expressed it. There's a vast difference between going with the thought and into the stories, going with the body and into the stories: Your hand is splinted. Imagine, "Oh, my hand hurts. Am I going to have to go to the hospital? What's happening? Maybe it won't get better. What will happen to me?" This is a story.

A physical sensation of tingling or something in the hand, that's very different. When we meditate, we start with the breath, noting its coming and going with choiceless awareness. Whatever comes into the experience and becomes predominant enough to take attention from the breath, we go to it. We don't build stories around it, we're just there with the bare experience of it, such as tingling in the hand. But if anxiety comes up as a thought, "What's going to happen?" you note, "Thinking." A thought is just a thought, an object. As you note, "thinking," the thought is gone. You return attention the breath.

But the experience of anxiety is not the thought. The thought is one expression of the anxiety, and the anxiety is the expression of the thought. If the anxiety is very strong and you feel it as contraction in the body, if it's predominant, the breath is no longer predominant. Just be present with this body tension, naming it as "tension, tension", or "contraction". If it's pleasant, know it's pleasant. Probably not. If it's unpleasant, know it's unpleasant. If stories start to grow out of it, such as, "I shouldn't be anxious," this is judgment. It's another object. Name it, "Judging, judging". If the tension is still very strong, don't try to force attention back to the breath, just stay there with "tension, tension". It won't stay forever. As it opens up and is no longer predominant, or if mind starts to drift off someplace, come back to the breath. Does that make sense to you?

Q: Yes, that does. But should I also be looking at this space in between breaths?

Barbara: You should not start off trying to find it. First just be with the breath. As the body and breath settle down, the space will reveal itself. If you go after it, you won't get to it.

Other Q: It seems in my experience, something I always remind myself, is, there comes naturally a kind of lightness of mind, and in that light, to remember whatever is the object, to touch it gently and lightly. Because I'm a true grasper! So in M's case, when her mind has another primary object, to touch it lightly. Then see, is it still there? If not, return to the breath. And the lightness can be helpful in working with the breath.

Barbara: And the lightness itself can become the primary object.

Q: Ooh, that sounds like fun!

Barbara: That's a direct experience, of lightness, and it's very pleasant. It's important not to space out into it, but it's a very pleasant experience, of spaciousness, of lightness.

Q: Because I understand what she said. In my initial instruction also I realized I was training the mind in some concentration, but then natural ability of concentration is enough.

Barbara: There are different views on this. In some places, they teach a firm concentration first before they teach the choiceless awareness practice. My view and Aaron's teaching to me, when he taught me this, is if we train that kind of concentration then we've got to learn to break away from it. It's easier to trust that there is a natural concentration that will develop and deepen as we just start with the choiceless awareness practice.

But a lot of people, when they start meditation, have this confusion that they think they are supposed to push this object away and stay with that one. That just creates a lot of tension. There's so much ease in meditation and we lose it because we're trying to make something happen.

We talk about Christ Consciousness or Buddha Nature, this innate divine essence of our being. If this was something we had to create, our practice would be very different. Then we'd have to be very busy trying to make something happen. But what we're doing is just breaking through all these conditioned layers of being , of thinking up a solid self, getting caught up in the body and the ego , breaking through that and finding the immense spaciousness and the radiance of this spirit or essence of being, however we phrase it, this Unconditioned. Everything is entering into that vastness, into God, and expressing from it.

Q: I feel like my meditation instruction feels like Groundhog Day, the movie, where it just keeps repeating.

Barbara: We will keep revealing instructions. The misunderstanding you've had is a very common one. I think that often the teachers articulate it correctly, but people are just so geared into, "I'm supposed to do something," that trying to control comes up for some people. We feel like, "I can't just rest here, I've got to be fixing or doing something."

Other Q: I also think that a period of developing concentration by returning to the breath is not harmful in developing meditation practice. It will get corrected soon enough if people continue to come to class. But a period of practice where people return to the breath can be helpful.

Barbara: I see both sides of it, because the problem is people then may not correctly hear the instruction to let go of that.

Q: I know. I'm just saying it's not wasted effort if people have been practicing that way.

Barbara: Oh, it's not wasted effort at all. It's very useful effort. Only then one has to hear the next instruction, let go of forcing attention to the breath and just stay present with whatever is there. The prior practice has helped develop concentration and so it's helpful. It's a supportive tool. Now, the next step.

So, I understand what C is saying. Don't think, "I've been doing it wrong and now I'm back to square one." Not at all. You've developed something that's very useful. Now, the next step. Don't force attention back to the breath, just hold presence with whatever is there.

That's a good place to end. Good night. Good to share tonight with you. We will do this again next month.

(taping ends)

Copyright © 2005 by Barbara Brodsky