Day Two (Section 12)

(We begin with twenty minutes of silent meditation.)

Barbara: We're going to do standing meditation. I would ask all of you to stand up in place now. Close your eyes, feet about six or eight inches apart, so you're comfortably balanced, hands relaxed and to your sides. Feel the weight on the soles of your feet. This is a different primary object than the breath. Note it please as 'touching, touching, touching.' Feel how your body balances. Can you feel the weight in your hips? Feel the way your shoulders sit to balance you. Really be in your body, 'touching, touching.'

Now, I want you to put most of your weight on your right foot. Now shift it back to the left foot. Note 'shifting, shifting.' I don't mean to stand solely on one foot. Be comfortable, but let the weight shift so that most of it is on one foot and then back to the other, 'shifting, shifting.' Do that for a moment or two at your own pace, each time noting 'shifting,' and then after you shift, note 'touching, touching,' the weight on your foot, then shifting again, 'touching, touching.' Now bring the balance back so it's centered. I'm going to be quiet now for a moment. Just stand and be aware.

If a thought or physical sensation arises and pulls you away from the primary object, label it just in the same way you did with sitting practice. Stay with it until it changes or dissolves.

(Some time of practice. Bell. We all sit.)

Barbara: We covered a lot of ground yesterday. Today we're going to go deeper, both more meditation instructions and also more concept in which to ground those meditation instructions. A lot of what I teach is about non-duality. I like to draw my teachings from many religious traditions, because I find, much to my joy, that these same teachings are written in many different traditions. I want to read you a few pages from a book (Open Secrets) written by an acquaintance who is a rabbi. This book is simply his translation of letters that belonged to his great, great grandfather. This ancestor moved from Europe to the United States and wrote to his rabbi. These are the rabbi's words back. I find them very beautiful. I'm going to read excerpts from several pages.

You ask me of God, to define the nameless, to place in your palm the ultimate secret. Do not imagine that this is hidden somewhere far from you. The ultimate secret is the most open one. Here it is. God is all. I am tempted to stop with this, to close this letter, sign my name, and leave you with this simple truth, yet I fear you will not understand. Know from the first that all that follows is but an elaboration on the simple truth, God is all. What does it mean to be all? God is reality. God is the source and substance of all things and nothing. There is no thing, or feeling, or thought that is not God, even the idea that there is no God, for this is what it is to be all. God must embrace even God's own negation.

Some would argue that God is a spark inside each being. Others would argue that God is above and outside creation. I teach neither position. God is not inside or outside. God is the very thing itself. And when there is no thing but only empty space, God is that as well. Picture a bowl in your mind. Define the bowl. Is it just the clay that forms its walls or is it the empty space that fills with soup? Without the space the bowl is useless. Without the walls the bowl is useless. So, which is the bowl? The answer is both. To be a bowl it must have both being and emptiness. It is the same with God. For God to be God, for God to be all, God must manifest as both being and emptiness.

Being is the manifestation of God that appears to us as separate entities, physical, spiritual, psychological. Emptiness is the manifestation of God that reveals all separation to be illusory. Everything is simply God in differing forms. This teaching is called schlemut, the completeness of God. To be schlemut, God must contain all possibilities and paradox. To be complete, God must transcend the notion of opposites. God must be both being and emptiness simultaneously. Being and emptiness both reside in and are expressions of God's wholeness.

These three terms are crucial to understanding God and almost everything else. They are the key to your spiritual awakening and tranquility. Learn them well. The details of the world are the myriad seemingly separate beings we humans perceive when we look at the world from the perspective of self. This perspective is not the only one. If we learn to look at the world from a position of selflessness we see no separate beings, only a wondrous unity. This can be likened to a person viewing the ocean, first from shore and then from beneath the surface. From the shore the sea is a vast field of waves, each separate and unique. From beneath the surface the waves disappear into a sameness, a unity. Which view is right?

Both are right. The waves are no less real for the ocean's oneness, nor is the oneness less real for the waves. Separation and unity are both part of the greater reality that is the ocean.

Barbara: I find this very beautiful. At times it almost reechoes word for word both Christian and Buddhist teachings. These are universal.

When we speak of non-duality, when in meditation we speak of reaching that place in which the self disappears, we're not speaking of negation of the self. We are not saying that the human has no value or that we get rid of the human, but that both exist simultaneously, the human and this pure spirit essence or pure awareness.

The way the Buddhist teachings offer this idea is to talk of the world of phenomena as conditioned. The teachings say that everything that arises in this phenomenal world arises when conditions are present for it to arise and ceases when conditions for it cease. We can see this in our daily lives. If hunger arises it is due to certain conditions-empty stomach, our body's need for nourishment. When we fill our stomachs then the hunger pains stop. If a feeling of coldness arises because cool air is blowing on us and we put on a wrap, then the sensation of cold disappears. It's very straightforward.

Buddhist teachings also talk about an Unconditioned. Buddhism is a non-theistic religion. In other words, it does not talk of God. However, in the Udana scripture, the Buddha said to a group of monks, 'Monks, there is an Unborn, Undying, Unchanging, Uncreated. If it were not so, there would be no reason for our work.' I can't personally think of a better definition of God than unborn, undying, eternal, changeless. So, there is an Unconditioned which we can experience directly in meditation.

Yesterday I spoke about some of the fruits of meditation practice, of finding more peace in our lives, less judgment of ourselves and others, and this is very important. But there is a greater fruit. As meditation takes us deeper, we do come directly into this experience of the Unconditioned or of God. Then, God stops being something out there, and takes on a personal meaning. We really understand what I just read, that everything is an expression of God. Experiencing this truth was a very powerful teaching for me. I had understood that my anger, for example, was not something evil, that my opinions or judgments were not bad-sometimes unskillful, but not bad. I had understood conceptually that it was all an expression of God. But, in meditation I was able to directly experience it so that the words 'It's all God' stopped being a concept.

I read to you yesterday from The Ground We Share. In the conversation between the Jesuit priest and zen master a big piece of their dialogue is about this precise experience that the zen master calls the experience of the Unconditioned, or enlightenment experience and the Jesuit priest calls the experience of God. They talk around it for a while.

It's very hard to find words to fully express one's experience, so we have to really listen to one another. We frame our experience in the language of our own religion and culture. Sometimes we can't directly share the experience. When they get past the language differences, though, it's so clearly the same experience.

So, I offer this to those of you who have asked me, 'How does using a Buddhist meditation process fit for me as a Christian or practitioner of any other religion?' We're not talking about the ways in which your own religion may take that experience and interpret it. We're talking about the experience itself, this direct experience of that which is nameless, of the Unconditioned or God.

Some Buddhist teachings take all of this one step further. Here I'm going to share with you some ideas and, for the sake of clarity, three specific Sanskrit words. I've tried as much as possible to avoid any technical language. You're all familiar with the word karma, yes? Is there anyone here who doesn't know what the word karma means? Okay. It's a very useful word. In English it has no direct translation. I don't know if it does in Spanish. So, we use the word karma. The three words I want to give you also have no direct translation and, rather than talk around them, I'd rather just give you the words.

First, a short word, kaya. It simply means 'body' in Sanskrit. Dharma means 'truth.' So, dharmakaya is the truth body. I have come to understand this basically as the Unconditioned or God, that which we enter into in the deepest meditation practice, that which is the core of each of us. It's not identical, but close enough so we can translate it in that way, for now.

At the opposite end is nirmanakaya. Nirmana means 'form,' so this is the form body. In the book that I just read from, the rabbi talks of being, emptiness and completeness, using Hebrew terms. Being and emptiness both are nirmanakaya. They are both forms. The completeness is dharmakaya. As he pointed out in different language, right there, within the nirmanakaya, is the dharmakaya. They are not separate!

The relationship of these three aspects is subtle. It's important. I want you to think about all of this for a moment. It's easy to see that being is a form. A book is a form. A tree is a form. A human body is a form. A thought is a form. There are many different kinds of forms, mental forms, physical forms. So, it's easy to see that being is Nirmanakaya.

The space within the bowl is also form of sorts, an 'empty' form. The being and the emptiness are both expressions of God. They have no separate existence. So, we have dharmakaya or truth body and nirmanakaya expressions of the dharmakaya. Dharmakaya expresses nirmanakaya. Within the nirmanakaya, we find the dharmakaya seed. Aaron phrases it, 'The relative resides in the ultimate. The ultimate resides in the relative.'

These teachings emphasize the fact that being and emptiness are not dual nor are they dual with the completeness of which they are expression. It's exactly the same thought offered by the rabbi. Within the completeness of God, within the Unconditioned, is both being and emptiness, the form bodies in all of their myriad expressions, millions of expressions of God. They're not separate from one another.

The third term is the hardest one to understand, sambhogakaya. The English translation confuses some people. It's 'wealth body.' Aaron uses the term 'transition body.' Sambhogakaya is the bridge between the divine itself and the formed expression of the divine. For example, from the very, very purest part of me there may be a very deep love which finds its final expression in giving something. That giving is the outermost form. The pure core is the source. All the intentions within me, all the deep aspirations, all of that energy, that's the wealth. That's what inspires me to give.

In the same way, if fear arises in me and the outer form, the nirmanakaya expression of that fear is to push somebody away, all of the tensions, the anger, the desire to protect, those are the sambhogakaya expression. I can feel that contraction in me. The pure core remains the same; that dharmakaya cannot be distorted. But at the sambhogakaya level there is distortion which is one condition touching the expressed energy. So sambhogakaya is not just 'positive' wealth, but the fear-based emotions also may be part of it.

None of these three kayas are separate nor are they stagnant. Think of a spring of fresh water deep underground. Let's use that as metaphor for dharmakaya. Underground we have no access to it. It's really on another plane, existent but out of reach of the relative universe. It emerges through the surface. That first stream of surface water is nirmanakaya, yet the spring, the pure core, is right there in the beginning of the stream. There's no separation.

The stream is nirmanakaya/form body and also will become the sambhogakaya/ wealth or transition body. Picture this spring as it first bubbles to the surface. There is no river yet, only the first stream of water just emerging from the ground. This is the end form in this moment. But the newly emergent stream becomes that which feeds the river. Then the river is nirmanakaya and the stream is sambhogakaya. No sharp edges separate them. In each moment, the form body serves as the condition for future arising and that new form becomes the outermost expression.

There is only one sambhogakaya, not many, but in that moment when dharmakaya first expresses into the relative universe, but has not yet been touched or conditioned by that universe, we have what Aaron calls the 'seed level' of the sambhogakaya or transition body. This is the place in our everyday world where we have clearest access to that everperfect of dharmakaya. Returning to the spring metaphor, here is where the pure spring water first emerges. It has not yet been touched by the outer environment; there is no pollution.

The reason that I emphasize these three kayas and bring them into my talk today is that we can begin to get in touch with the experience of sambhogakaya, wealth or transition body. It's very valuable when we do this. Sambhogakaya is not just a concept. It is energy that can be directly experienced if we are attentive and understand what to look for.

Sambhogakaya manifests as the whole level of intention. We can know when we are present, resting in pure awareness, resting, really, in that mouth of the spring where it first emerges into and touches the relative plane. Then, if a catalyst appears, we may begin to feel the contractions of fear in our body. When a thought gives rise to fear and leads us to the intention to react in a certain way, at that moment our experience is like the stream newly bubbled out of the spring. It is no longer the pure spring but it's not yet a wide and solid river. The course it will take has yet to be established. When we note what bubbles out with kind, spacious attention and observe the conditions that give rise to it, we add a new input to those conditions. Our deep aspiration to offer our energy with love becomes a force, as does the innate kindness of the Awakened Heart. Increasingly, the river is informed by the Heart and not by fear and delusion.

We must begin to know that we have a choice. We can't shrug in helplessness at the rivers of fear, anger and greed that pour out of us. We can hide in our fear or we can declare a deeper truth that exists alongside of the fear, a truth of love, fearlessness, spaciousness and joy. Do we choose to express only the fear-based part of our truth or all of it? We do have a choice!