Day Two continued (Section 20)

Question: (In Spanish) You talked about form and emptiness, the bowl and the empty center. Where do I have to go when I go in? Do I have to go through form to reach emptiness? What goes into the form or emptiness?

Barbara: In order to go deeper, what part of the bowl do you go into? Is that the question? There is no separation between the empty part and the walls. You're going into the whole bowl. Whatever is predominant in your experience at first may seem like it's the form, but as you go into the form you find that emptiness is an essential part of the form, by which I mean that neither can exist without the other.

It's pure awareness that goes deeper. I don't really have another name for it. It's a place where conscious mind, the chattering, discursive mind, ceases. When discursive mind ceases, what's left is pure awareness.

I would like to give you an example of how insight meditation works in one's life, just a very simple example from my own experience. I'm trying to think of an actual example, not just a hypothetical one. A very simple one is, as I'm sitting I may suddenly remember some argument with my teenage son. He wants the car or he doesn't like what I served for dinner, blah, blah, blah, whatever. I feel him attacking me a little bit and I feel annoyed at that. So, the memory of that anger comes up as I'm sitting. 'Feeling anger, feeling anger.' When there's a little spaciousness about the anger and when it's not pulling me so much, I come back to my breath.

I'm not finished with it, though. Another image might come up of somebody else being angry with me. I note that, my own feeling of anger in response and the unpleasantness of the memory, feeling somebody being angry at me. It changes or dissolves. I come back to my breath.

A third, related image comes up. Then, I might note, 'There's a connection here.' Just that much, noting this series of images about feeling attacked. I allow myself to note 'feeling attacked, feeling attacked.' That's what the anger was about in all of these cases, feeling attacked. Come back to my breath.

And, in that quiet, I suddenly become aware of a sense of feeling helpless. Some very old images or thoughts might come up, being a child and being scolded by my parents, feeling inadequate in some way, as if I hadn't met their needs, feeling helpless. As I allow myself to touch with more kindness on this feeling of helplessness, I also become aware that there's a part of me that's very strong.

And, through all of this, I'm just noting these little bits of thoughts as they arise, noting them and coming back to my breath, not getting caught in the story of the memory. The sitting may end. It may be half an hour later that I realize as I'm talking to somebody that there's a discomfort of some sort in feeling strong. Surprise! So, I start to realize there's something within me that wants to feel helpless. But there's something in me that wants to feel strong, too. What is feeling strong? What is that about? What is this balance of strength and helplessness?

Then, in another sitting, I might sit with it and, because I give it permission to come up-I'm getting more hypothetical now and out of actual self-experience-I may start to see what feeling strong means to me, that it was scary to feel strong, that I wanted to be taken care of, maybe. Or maybe I got some kind of negative feedback when I was strong because my parents wanted me to be more dependent on them.

As I understand how all of this works, I find some freedom from reactivity to these mind states. That's one fruit of this practice, just this immediate level of added freedom.

I also start to access a place where I see that the entire pattern is just the different movements of mind. Certain conditions arose, the mind made certain responses, other conditions arose, habits started. I move, let's say, out of the shell of the bowl and into the center, increasingly into the pure awareness which can watch all of this going by and not have to get involved in it anymore.

There were all these patterns, feeling helpless, feeling strong, feeling angry, feeling good, feeling bad, etc., etc., etc. There was a strong idea of a 'somebody' who owned these patterns and defined herself by them. I begin to see the conditioned nature of them and the self-identity with them weakens. I don't have to get involved in it anymore. So I bring to my meditation practice that spaciousness that starts to let these different mind states come up without having to own or fix them. Then I start to be able to bring it out into my daily life. Increasingly, I rest in what I call the true self, instead of in the fearful small ego self. So, I allow myself permission to live more from this place of center. The more I do that, the more peaceful I find I am.

This is just one piece of the practice. After I become better able to relate to my daily life with more spaciousness and without attachment and fear, then I let myself go deeper and deeper into this that I'm discovering is my true being and start to really understand what that is. It's something I can't define for you, but it's a continuation of the practice as the insight deepens.

We're going to end the talking here, to stand mindfully and stretch and have a short break.

Whatever your needs, to have some tea or use the bathroom, please do it mindfully and in silence.

(Break)

Barbara: As we come to the end of the afternoon, I want to teach you a meditation practice which can be a support for insight meditation. It's called tonglen, or giving-receiving practice. Many of you who work with people who are sometimes in great physical or emotional distress have asked me for a practice that can help you be with such people and offer something to people when there's really not much you feel you can do besides sit there and hear them or hold their hand. You've asked me how you can stay present in the face of great pain. This practice offers such a way. It's a way of opening ourselves and looking at the barriers we build around ourselves, letting ourselves be more open and less defended, and also less attached to what we feel is safe and good in us, letting it move out, practicing that kind of generosity.

It's a very simple practice with two parts. The first part, I want you to feel yourself sitting in a cylinder of light. If God is real for you, let it be God or the light of God moving through you, the divine within the self and all of the universe. Or you can be even more specific and let it be Jesus, the Buddha or some other Master. You can be very unspecific and just feel energy moving through you. You have many different belief systems. Personalize it as fits your own needs.

Feel this light coming in through the crown chakra at the top of your head-energy and light coming down to your heart.

With the in breath, draw it in.
Exhale.

Inhale. Let it enter the heart.
Exhale. Drawing the light further into the heart.
As you inhale, visualize somebody who is suffering, whether a present person or an image. Visualize the person who is suffering, and with the exhale, send that light out from the heart. If there is any desire to hold it for yourself, just note that desire with mercy and kindness. Note it as 'fear' or 'holding,' or feel the tension of it in the body.

Inhale right through the crown chakra.
Exhale. Let it come down to the heart.
Inhale, visualizing the one who is suffering, intention to release it.
Exhale, sending it out.

Inhale light.
Exhale, bringing that light into the heart center.
Inhale, intention to release.
Exhale. Send it out.

Inhale light.
Draw it into the heart.
Intention to release.
Send it out.

(Some time of practice.)

And then, the second part of the practice. Resting with the person who is suffering, visualize their suffering as a heavy, black, tar-like mass, very dark, sticky, heavy.

Inhale. Breathe it in. If there's resistance, simply note 'resistance.' If there's grabbing at it and wanting to be the martyr, note that, too. Breathe it in. As you exhale, let it also come in and touch the heart. Really let yourself feel that suffering.

Inhale. Intention to release.

Exhale. Release it out to the universe, or to God, the Buddha or Jesus.

Please note any desire to be rid of it. Just note it as aversion, fear or contraction. If there is desire to be rid of it, there is. No need to fight with that fear; just know it's present.

That's the whole second part. Inhale the suffering, exhale, letting it come into and touch the heart. Inhale, intention to release. Exhale, let it go.

(Some time of practice.)

We'll put the parts together. They alternate.

Inhale light.
Exhale. Light to the heart center.
Inhale, intention to release.
Exhale. Send it out to the one who is suffering.
Inhale, drawing in that suffering.
Exhale. Feel it in the heart center. Feel the heaviness of it.
Inhale, aware of the light that surrounds you.
Exhale. Release the heaviness.

Inhale light …

That's it. Let's do it for ten minutes.

(Silent practice.)

May all beings everywhere be free of suffering. (Bell)
May all beings find the healing that they seek. (Bell)
May all beings everywhere find perfect peace. (Bell)