Part Three

January 22, 1997, Wednesday Night Group

Aaron: Good evening and my love to you all. I am Aaron. In the past weeks I've been talking about a very specific teaching directed toward learning to rest in the innate open and loving heart and, additionally, cultivating that within the self which aspires to offer its energy with love to all beings. All of you here aspire to offer your energy lovingly, but what "lovingly" means has shifted through your incarnations.

Once, many incarnations ago when you were young, you did not aspire to offer your energy lovingly to others, but primarily to the self. This service also is "love," but is a narrow perspective of love, biased by fear. You used your fear as an armor, and with that armor sought to cherish and protect the self no matter what cost to those perceived as others. As you matured, you began to understand that you could not find happiness and still separate yourself from others in that way, that your own happiness and the happiness of those around you was inextricably connected and so could not be selfishly derived.

All of you, as human, experience occasional fear and delusion. Out of that fear and delusion arise emotions of anger, jealousy, greed, pride and so forth. You began to believe that it was the arising emotions, themselves, which were cause for your suffering. Without those emotions, you believed it would be easy to offer the self in service to others, which openhearted offering of service was seen increasingly as the desired goal. So there was the thought that these heavy emotions were the cause of your confusion, and the work was to destroy the heavy emotions.

This distorted perception both supported and was fed by distortions in all of your major religions. Your traditional religions name the heavy emotions in ways that have very negative connotations. Christianity calls them sins. Buddhism calls them kilesas, which term is translated as "defilements," although I consider the proper translation as "tarnish." Certainly greed, pride, anger, jealousy and so forth, do create real pain. In the book on which I have been offering commentary, in the fourth chapter, Shantideva talks about these negative emotions as the enemy. He says you can't make friends with these, says he has been slave to them for how many lifetimes. He says that although his mortal enemies die, his heavy emotions continue to enslave him and trap him in misery. "I do not care if my guts ooze out … never shall I bow down to the enemy, the defilements." (Chapter four, phrase forty-four.)

Certainly we can all understand what he means by this. And yet, such thinking does lead us in a direction of hatred of these emotions. Is he asking us to get rid of them, or to cease to be enslaved by them? What really ends such enslavement?

Here it gets very tricky. Certainly it would seem skillful to be rid of them. There's no argument with that. The argument is in how we get rid of them. Again, your different religions offer different slants on it, different techniques. But within most different techniques there is that twist of negative bias which says "I must conquer this" and speaks of it as an act of will, and that you must literally cut out something from yourself which has attached to the self.

My dear ones, if you are already whole, how can you be asked to do surgery on yourself and cut away that which you have deemed "bad"? I ask you to visualize a garden. You plant flowers in healthy soil. Seeds of weeds also blow in and entrench themselves in the soil. Do you really need to get rid of the weeds in order to have healthy plants? If you fertilize these plants, give them plenty of water and sunlight and loving care, and gently bend away the weeds which are closest to the plants, the plant is going to thrive. If you tear out the weeds, might you not also disturb the roots of the flowering plants?

The metaphor loses its power here because of course the weed will also thrive. But if the plant gets big enough, eventually the plant will choke out the weed. You do not have to go in with a trowel and dig out the negativity in the self, but simply to note it with awareness, to note that it is not skillful, to deepen the resolve not to be enslaved by that negativity, and to come back to the loving heart, to the deepest strength, beauty and purity of the self which is and always has been there.

Please notice that I am not suggesting that you can just let the plant and weeds all grow together without any care of the plant. Yes, if the plant is not nurtured, the weeds will take over. If the loving aspiration to offer your energy with as much purity and clarity as possible is not nurtured, then these fear-based emotions will take over. So I'm not suggesting mere complacence, not suggesting that you simply shrug and say, "Oh, it doesn't matter." It does matter. Of course it matters. But how are we going to treat this fear?

Some years ago at a very traditional Theravadin Buddhist meditation retreat led by a well-known eastern meditation master, Barbara came into his presence for a private interview. He asked her what was happening in her practice and she described the mental noting that she was doing. Then he said to her, "It is good that you know how to note. Stay very present and aware and continue noting. If you are totally present, then there is no space for the defilements to arise. Be vigilant and you will conquer the defilements." She received this teaching very precisely, as the translator wrote it word by word in her notebook.

Barbara felt very disturbed after this meeting because she deeply wished to do just that, to conquer the defilements which brought her such pain and brought pain to others. And yet intuitively she understood that to wage war on them was simply to empower them.

A friend has told us of a similar meeting with a Catholic priest during a retreat. The priest suggested to her, each time a mind-state of anger or desire arises, abolish it, forbid it to be present, turn your attention instead to God and forbid the presence of that evil mind-state. It's the same teaching, the same distortion. We understand the intention, but there is a slant which must be noted and attended: kill the defilements!

I say to you so many times that as long as you are human, physical sensations will continue to arise because you have a physical body, and emotions will continue to arise because you have an emotional body. Do not give them power over you. They are merely tarnish on the wings of the angel! Yet, given that your deepest aspiration is to express the purity and beauty of your true nature free of these heavy mind-states, what are you to do?

Those of you who have worked with me for many years have worked in depth with my fundamental teaching, "Whatever arises, simply note its presence and make space around it, and do not move into a relationship with it which will empower it." You all understand that teaching. Those who have worked with me for some time know how to do this quite skillfully. You've learned the basic technique for disempowering them, which is mindfulness of their arising, mindfulness at all the sense gates so nothing may arise without your presence, may not sneak in and take over like a bandit who enters in the night while the householder sleeps. There must be mindfulness of how they arise, due to conditions, mindfulness of how you do get snared into combat with them, and finally, a willingness to make more space around them so that you do not have to suppress them or enact them.

The teachings we are currently working with go one step further. I emphasized last week the importance of a willingness not to get into relationship with them. We talked about this process of reflection and regret that these had arisen, of deep resolution to move into a clarity within which they at least may begin to cease to arise so strongly, and a willingness to work with the antidotes to them.

You have got to know deep inside, "I'm willing to do this hard work." It would be as if you had a deep splinter in your foot and it was painful every time you took a step. You might build a fence around the pain, try to pretend it wasn't there, but it is there and it does agonize. At some point you're going to have to go into the wound, open it up and pull out that splinter. This is the antidote to the splinter, and the application of it can be painful. So the natural tendency is to try everything else first.

Note that the application of these antidotes can be painful. Have you tried everything else? Are you willing to continue to live with the powerful arising of these emotions? If not, what helps support the resolve to offer the antidote? Let us use the example of fear-based greed. I'm not talking here about somebody who is very stingy, someone who will never give of themselves but deeply enacts their fear, I'm talking about the kind of people in this room who offer their energy, material resources and their hearts very generously to others, but are aware of the occasional arising of fear. You have learned how to attend that fear and not need to be reactive to it.

Now, what if I say to you, especially to those of you for whom this is a primary issue, one of the antidotes to this greed is the conscious practice of generosity? What if that which I ask you to do is, whenever something comes to you which is of special delight, to give it away? Can you feel yourself recoil from that idea? "But Aaron, it's too much." Give it away!

I'm not talking about giving away the air you must breathe, I'm talking about giving away the pretty pair of socks you got for Christmas, or the record. Listen to it, enjoy it, and then give it away. You must do it mindfully. There must be deep awareness of the fear that's present. There must be a willingness to be present with that fear and to offer deep lovingkindness to the human who is afraid.

Just for trial's sake, give away that record and promise yourself, "If I can't live without it, I may go out next week and buy myself another copy. But just for now I'm going to see how it feels to be without it, and, with the practice of mudita (sympathetic joy), to relish somebody else's enjoyment of it." Don't be harsh with yourself; don't push yourself far beyond your limits, but do push yourself right up to those limits and then just a little bit beyond. Keep challenging yourself.

For those of you for whom anger is a primary issue, I would ask of you to sit in meditation and from the heart to look deeply into the situation or at the being toward whom there is anger, to reflect upon the thoughts and emotions that gave rise to that anger, to allow your heart to touch that which really feels sorrow about the anger, and to allow the heart to touch on a deep resolution, to transcend anger in your life. Of course we do this with implicit forgiveness toward the human self who is not going to be able to perfectly transcend anger. If anger arises, anger arises. There's nothing there to become excited about. But each time it does arise, I challenge you to move through this process of reflection, regret, resolution and a willingness to apply the antidote.

And here, one antidote to anger is service toward the one toward whom you are angry. You must really connect yourself with that person or situation. If it's your boss, and this boss is overbearing, judgmental, never gives you credit for your work but always complains, I would ask you as part of this challenge to put first into your mind the question, "How can I offer this very unhappy human some release from its pain?" Of course, you can't make anybody else happy; he must find his own happiness. But in what way can you serve him so as to bring a bit more joy into his life and still not compromise your own truth? I'm not asking you to become a doormat to his abuse, not asking you to allow yourself to be abused by him. You must say no, lovingly, to abuse. But perhaps he'd like that record album. Perhaps there's some other small kindness you can do for him.

You try to look deeply and to see a suffering human there. This opening into the heart of compassion, and nurturance of sympathetic joy, is one of the antidotes to anger. But you must be willing to apply the antidote, which means you must be willing not to hold onto your anger for your own empowerment. This is the hard part. In order to do it well you must be very honest with yourself. You must look deeply at that which wishes to hold onto greed, to anger, to pride. You must look deeply at the way those emotions have made you feel safe, or whole, and you must be willing to find your safety elsewhere. This is very difficult and demanding work, but it's workable. It can be done. And-as aside-it needs to be done without pride or enhancement of the ego! Aha!

The defilements, sins or however we name them-I prefer the very neutral term, "heavy emotions"-these will arise. No matter how hard you work, at some times they still will arise, but they will arise less and less and less until you find yourself very largely free of them. This will not happen by willpower nor by attack of them. It will not happen with a "fix it" mentality which fragments the self. It will only happen by coming to know your wholeness, and by taking increasing responsibility for being the whole human being that you are, not hiding behind your heavy emotions, not hiding behind blame.

The greatest support for this work is what we have been discussing for the past two weeks, opening this deeply loving heart, what the Buddhist tradition calls inspiring bodhicitta; what the Christian tradition might call dwelling in the Christ Self. Know, my dear ones, that you are divine and it is your choice whether to enact that divinity or to hide it in helplessness which does not yet feel able to declare the divinity.

There are many other supports for this work. The practice I described last week, called in the Buddhist tradition, "The Seven-fold Prayer," is a very powerful support. I remarked last week that this prayer finds its parallels in every other religious system. I offered the Buddhist model only because it's the one in which I have the deepest understanding. But it doesn't matter in which tradition you find it, the process is the same.

I'm not going to repeat these seven steps. The written transcript is available. In coming weeks and months, however, we will expand on the practice of bodhicitta, using these seven steps as a base. We'll take a closer look at various pathways toward more fully living from your divinity, and how to nurture the willingness to do so. It must always come from a place of deep kindness and love. And if you fall short on occasion, there must always be compassion and forgiveness. In this way you cannot help but succeed in the end.

The fourth chapter in Shantideva's book is about carefulness or vigilance. As I close I would speak briefly about that chapter. I have already stated that I contradict the interpretation often given to Chapter Four, which says these are my foes and I must attack-yes, he does say that, but the translation is a bit distorted from his original intent. Within his original intent there was some distortion toward attack, but translations all carry that distortion further.

Chapter Four is about vigilance. There must be carefulness, as the poem suggests, but towards what? Not carefulness toward eradicating the heavy emotions, but carefulness toward nurturing this ever-present, deeply loving heart and its aspiration to express itself with great purity and love. Carefulness not to let these difficult mind states arise without awareness lest they deepen their habitual hold on you and further the unwholesome karma which surrounds them. Carefulness to be mindful and note each arising of the heavy emotions with a wisdom and spaciousness which does not invest those emotions as "self," nor deny them, but looks deeply and compassionately with an intention to understand so as to deprive them of power, all of this for the good of all beings. This is the carefulness one requires, constant mindfulness that doesn't cease the nurturing of this aspiration for a moment, but that attends every moment of experience with clarity and truth.

Barbara: (Question and answer in italics added August 5, 1998 while proofreading the transcripts.) I have a question, Aaron, about this new chapter and the teachings on vigilance. So many of the sutras speak of the need for restraint. It's often phrased "restraint of the sense gates." I'm not comfortable with that phrasing. How do restraint and vigilance relate?

Aaron: There is fear-based restraint and love-based restraint. Restraint based on fear closes the sense doors so that the conditions which might give rise to the heavy emotions are no longer present. Restraint based on love stands like a guard at the sense gates, observing all that enters. That vigilant guard pays close attention. If one enters who carries a formidable weapon, the guard does not restrain him, that is, forbid him entry, but watches carefully to see what will follow. He notes that harm could come from this fellow if he is not watched. He acts in ways to prevent that damage from arising.

I offer an example. To see that which is beautiful is not a necessary condition for arising of craving, but is a contributory condition. Without the contact and sense consciousness, craving can not arise, but with the sense consciousness, craving will not necessarily arise. In other words, because "seeing" arose does not mean that craving must arise, but only that it may. We call this a causal rather than necessary condition. Seeing arises, and may lead to craving if other conditions are also present. We must note "seeing" and watch what comes from that seeing. In seeing, can there be just seeing? If it is pleasant, what does the mind do with that sensation? Exactly where does simple seeing, or the sensation "pleasant," shift into craving. Here the process and observation become wisdom!

Would you never observe the beautiful? How severely you would limit the incarnate experience. If craving arises upon seeing beauty, the work is not to cease seeing beauty, not to cut off either object or consciousness, but to use this experience (of the arising of craving) as a motivator to investigate the sense of self in whom craving arose. It is ignorance that is the issue, not the object nor the consciousness of the object.

Vigilance is that which stands guard, not to prevent the entry of contact and consciousness but to be present with the entire processing of that consciousness and observe the move through feelings of pleasant, unpleasant or neutral, and into mental formations. The mental formation did not arise because of the open sense gate nor the object, but because of the move into a "self." This is what must be attended.

The arising mental formation may be painful. Let it be a teacher, a reminder to such vigilant awareness, not something which is seen as evil or as enemy.

However, there are situations where the being is not yet able to deal with the power of the contact. We don't invite a starving man to a banquet and expect that craving will not arise. Rather, one employs restraint, limiting the sense contact wisely to that which feels manageable within the limits of that being's wisdom and experience. One person may manage the whole banquet; another may need to choose only rice and gruel. As wisdom grows, that which the sense gates perceive may be broadened. The mental formation is still teacher, even when it overwhelms, but then the teaching becomes more difficult and unwholesome karma is increased.

I thank each of you for your attention to my words and thoughts. My deepest love to each of you and my greatest respect to you for the hard work that you are willing to do to learn how to express your own divinity and offer it to the world. I will be glad to answer your questions, both related to my talk or questions of any sort which you have brought with you tonight. I pause.

Barbara: I'm paraphrasing Aaron. He says he's especially interested in your practical, real, everyday life questions. How does one apply this? He says, does his challenge to you sound possible? What do you think of that? He pauses.

J: Not only possible, very do-able. And I wish to acknowledge and thank Aaron for the teachings provided as I personally have been working diligently, and now see the situation much more clearly.

Barbara: Aaron says he thanks you. He says you say "very do-able"-do you also acknowledge "very difficult"? (Yes.)

Other questions?

Aaron asks again, how do you feel about this challenge he has offered? He says, a few of you may be feeling angry, saying "Don't push me!"

Ce: I'm ready to learn and I accept the challenge. I have learned a lot in the past few years, particularly around the relationship I had. I was glad to have learned from that. And now I am beginning a new relationship and some of the same things are coming up.

Barbara: Aaron asks, are you surprised?!

Ce: I am conscious and able to work with what we have learned, but, yes, it is difficult.

Barbara: I'm paraphrasing Aaron here. He's saying, do you see how important willingness is, that this is the vital ingredient and what you guard with care, nurture and protect, is this increasing willingness to take risks, to step out from behind the old fears and sense of limitation.

Aaron is asking me to talk about my experience many years ago, the first time I was asked to lead a meditation retreat. John asked me to come down and lead a retreat with him in North Carolina. It was the first retreat that I was to lead. I said, "Who me?! I'm not ready to do that." I could see how much fear there was of making a fool of myself. There were questions like, "What if I don't teach it well and I hurt people?" But there were much more ego-based fears than that, such as "What if people don't like me? What if I'm an inadequate teacher?"

I could see very clearly there could be ego working both ways: if I was really not ready to teach it, it would be ego to lead the retreat. But if I trusted John and (name of another teacher) and Aaron too, who were telling me "You are ready to lead a retreat," then I would need to put aside that sense of limitations. So there had to be a real willingness to confront the fear. And no matter how enormous the fear, I had to say "Okay, I surrender this fear. I'm not going to be a slave to it." It's in part the practice I've done with you of clear comprehension of purpose, but there also must be great honesty and a deep connection to that which is deeply touched by suffering and knows it's capable, in some way, of supporting freedom.

Aaron is saying, that's the kind of willingness we need to nurture. Sometimes it feels very risky. He would like to hear from you some of your experiences with this kind of risk and how you feel about his challenge. Also what past experiences you have that make you feel, as J said, it's workable, it's do-able.

L: … Whenever I have taken a big risk, the support has always been there, interestingly.

Aaron: I am Aaron. I thank you, L. You must nurture that which is willing to take the risk. You say, whenever you have taken such a risk the support has always been there. But there must be enough presence and mindfulness to see the ways you might be inclined to sabotage yourself. For instance, if Barbara had not been entirely honest with herself in leading that first retreat and with her fears about it, she might have surreptitiously manifested incompetence. She might have failed to teach well because she became "the teacher" or allowed herself to become deeply confused or unfocused and forgetful. Part of her readiness was simply the readiness not to need to indulge in such sabotage!

Her highest motivation was not to manifest such incompetence. Her highest motivation was to share the dharma as she understood it. But if she had not been honest with herself about her fears, she might have experienced as highest motivation, instead, to protect the self and avoid embarrassment. She might not have gone in the first place. If in having gone, her highest motivation was never to have to face such a situation again, she would have manifested absolute failure, and then she would have said, "See? I told you I'm not ready."

The support is there but there must be absolute honesty that there are multiple motivations. Some are love-based and some are fear-based. It is only when you no longer need to react to the fear-based ones that you allow the self to connect with the support to enact the love-based motivations. Thus, awareness of the support's presence is token of your own inner work. I pause.

Barbara: Others?

V: I am working with my anger, especially toward my mother. This Christmas I went home. Usually my sister is there with me but this year she couldn't come. So I was alone with my mother and step-father. I do that very consciously as an act of service to them. But not always with a completely loving heart. So it is often very difficult for me. This year went very well overall, partly because my mother was very sick and in pain, which made it easier for me to open to her. Also it makes her kinder. My mother is a better person when she is in pain. But there were several moments when she touched on subjects that made me so angry and were so large that I couldn't cope with them, so I avoided her eyes and we changed the subject. Those are still areas I need to engage with her on, but I think I need to be able to do that in a way that is loving. So I need to work on that by myself first.

Aaron: I am Aaron. I thank you, V, for sharing of yourself. My dear one, can you see that a big factor in your success in this visit was your increased kindness toward yourself when anger was present? In the past you have chastised yourself for that anger. There's got to be a balance. Ultimately we seek the cessation of anger, the transformation of anger, but for now, if anger arises then anger is here and we must be honest with ourselves. So I think that this was a major factor for you. Because you were able to be kinder to yourself about your own anger, you were able to be kinder to your mother. I pause.

V: I can see that.

Barbara: Aaron says that's not the only thing that was happening, of course. But there was much more mindfulness. But there was also much less self-judgment. Others?

J: When that anger is directed towards oneself rather than another, what are Aaron's suggestions in treating with lovingkindness?

Aaron: I am Aaron. I have two suggestions, J. The first is simply to be aware that the anger is directed toward oneself. Perhaps this anger toward oneself is displaced anger toward another. Just consider that possibility. The question you might ask is, if I were not angry at myself right now, is there something else I might be angry at? Is there some devious safety that I gain through directing the anger toward myself? Here there must be honesty and clear-seeing.

The second part of the answer is simply "lovingkindness." Here one brings to mind all the different painful things that have happened in the past and are happening now, and how all of these conditions are coming together to create a condition of fear which is expressing itself as anger. If your best friend was telling you this story, you would feel such compassion for their pain. Can you allow yourself to feel compassionate toward your own pain? More precisely, what blocks such compassion? Such compassion is not a statement of permission to enact the anger. There still is the resolution to understand it and resolve it. But there's not judgment about it. There is a willingness here to move into that which transmutes the anger, no longer to hold it as a barricade in some way or another. Do you understand? I pause.

J: Very well, thank you.

Di: What antidote does Aaron have for spiritual grasping?

Aaron: I am Aaron. The antidote for spiritual grasping is very simple, Di. It is knowing the truth of yourself. Very specifically, your dzogchen meditation practice can help you more firmly to rest in that truth. Practices such as the sky yoga and guru yoga practice are of help. There cannot be spiritual grasping when you realize deeply that there's nowhere to go, that divinity is already present. So, that is one antidote.

The other is simply to note this as you note any kind of grasping, being deeply aware that there's some kind of fear which lies at its base. Acknowledge the presence of that fear. You may ask yourself, what is my highest priority here, to perpetuate this fear or to move past it? Here you may work with practices such as those elucidated in my book, The Path of Natural Light. The practices on release, at the end of Volume One and the beginning of Volume Two are useful here. First you come to see this is old fear, that you do not need to perpetuate it, but it's okay that it is here. There's no attachment to get rid of it, but it's skillful to release it. Then you work very precisely with these release practices. That's another kind of antidote. A third, when working with fear of any sort, an antidote to fear is lovingkindness. And so, simply, note the fear-self that wants to grasp, and stop and do metta (lovingkindness meditation). This helps to shatter the power of fear.

Of course, one must also attend to grasping, as to any mind state, with clear awareness of the nature of that which has arisen as a conditioned phenomenon which is impermanent and not-self. One observes these characteristics in all arising, and knows that when they are not clearly understood, then suffering arises. This is another type of antidote, the willingness to stay present with all that arises, and not be taken in by it. But this work must be done with kindness.

Does this sufficiently answer your question or may I speak further on it? I pause.

J: I lost Aaron's last part of his last comment, regarding lovingkindness and fear. Would he repeat it please?

Aaron: I am Aaron. My statement was simply that the antidote to fear is lovingkindness. You must first note that there is that which is attached to the perpetuation of the fear and cultivate a willingness to move beyond fear. Once there is willingness, and the willingness is noted, then you may simply do a formal lovingkindness meditation. Does that answer your question? I pause.