Day Three continued (Section 27)

Question: Will you repeat the instructions for the tonglen meditation or can we do it again?

Barbara: I was going to close with a metta, or lovingkindness meditation, the meditation we did on Tuesday. If most of you would prefer, we could end with tonglen. Do you have a preference? Tonglen. Okay, we'll close with that.

Question: Please talk about food. Especially, do I need to be a vegetarian if I'm sincere about spiritual practice? What else should I be aware of? Eating carefully is hard for me.

Aaron: I am Aaron. If you had a beautiful temple, would you store garbage inside of it? Each of you will need to determine for yourselves what supports your body and what is harmful to your body. I do not believe it is necessary to be a vegetarian. Do you think the carrot that you eat does not have spirit to it? What matters is not what you eat, but how you eat it. When there is gratitude to that being, be it a fish or a carrot, that has given its life to support you, you lovingly bring the energy of that being into yourself.

As Barbara spoke of earlier, all things are interdependent. The wooden chair is made of sunlight, soil, oxygen, grain and the energy of the carpenter. You are made up of the energy of all you take into yourself. What matters far more than the precise nature of what you take into yourself is what the energy of that being is.

A chicken that suffered, was kept in a confined space and fed, only to be slaughtered, has a very unhappy energy. A chicken that was allowed to be a chicken, to wander the earth and pick up good food, to enjoy sunlight and fresh air, and then was killed, not with trauma in an assembly room, but with as much kindness as could be offered, asking forgiveness and offering love; this animal offers very positive energy. The same is true of your carrot or your orange. It must be raised, harvested and cooked with love.

There are certain things that seem to be harmful for your body. Anything in excess can be harmful. Learn to ask your body, not, 'What do I want?' but 'What do I need?' We're not talking about the taste. Your body knows what it needs. Learn to ask it.

I would generally consider caffeine to be harmful. I would generally consider an overuse of an alcoholic beverage to be harmful. The occasional cup of coffee or glass of wine is fine. Does your body need it right then?

When you eat, if you learn to eat mindfully, you can begin to feel the effects on your body of what you take into your body. Does it make the body hyper? Sluggish? Is it difficult for the body to digest it? If the effect is negative, then put it out of your diet. So, there are no hard and fast rules, simply choose with mindfulness and love. I pause.

Barbara: Are there any other meditation related questions?

Question: Do you say that we should meditate for forty-five minutes?

Barbara: I do not say you should meditate for forty-five minutes. I say that seems to be a useful length of time, not too long, not too short.

Question: All at once?

Barbara: Yes, forty-five minutes all at once. I like people to meditate twice a day. If one sitting can be forty-five minutes and another five or ten minutes, that's fine.

Question: I think the benefit is greater when I meditate longer then that.

Barbara: Longer is fine if it works for you. It's important not to get so involved in meditation that we neglect the rest of life. Meditation can become an escape. I'm always cautious when people report that they meditate for five hours a day or something like that, outside of retreat. It can be fine but we must look at why we're meditating for that many hours. Is there some grasping involved, some state we want to create, or some aversion to the sensations and emotions that arise outside of formal practice?

For many people, I do think that forty-five minutes seems to be a good time for a single sitting, because most people are able to develop the ability to sit still for that long. Longer than forty-five minutes, often the legs fall asleep more or there's more body discomfort. Less than forty-five minutes is okay, but forty-five minutes seems to be long enough for mind really to settle down and move into this fluidity of staying with whatever is predominant, to be awake and present. So, forty-five minutes seems to be a good length of time for one sitting. But, don't take that to mean that if you don't have forty-five minutes, you have to just say, 'I can't meditate today.' If you have twenty-five minutes, meditate for twenty-five minutes. If you can meditate for forty-five minutes, wonderful!

Question: Must we keep our eyes closed?

Barbara: I'd prefer that people keep their eyes closed for this practice. There are other practices where we do keep our eyes open. There's too much stimulus if your eyes are open. Too many things to attend to. So, if you close them, it's a little bit quieter. Okay?

Question: I felt like my body was moving constantly. At the end, I felt disconnected from my body but very happy, blissful. It was hard to come back. I felt angry.

Barbara: First, you said that your body seemed to be moving constantly. Then, you said that when I rang the bell, it was hard to come back. Was there still awareness, still feeling the body was moving or had the body quieted then? (The body had not quieted, but there was no more discomfort with the movement.) Let me answer this as best I can and if it still leaves you with questions, please ask.

Sometimes when you wake up at three in the morning with a very small insect bite, it tends to itch enormously. You're very aware of it, because everything is quiet. So, all your attention comes to this very small pain. In meditation, as everything quiets, we really begin to experience our bodies on a cellular level.

I was watching not just you, but everybody. You were not moving a lot in outward ways. What you were experiencing was an inner movement of the body. It's very minute. As body quiets, awareness becomes more precise, more able to feel the very small sensations, like a heartbeat or the pulse. Sometimes we can really feel the blood moving through our body. We can feel food digesting. We really are feeling that. I think that that's what you're experiencing when you feel movement.

Now, the second half of this. Given the waves on the ocean's surface that rise and fall down into the sea and may feel wild and out of control, first we try to jump over the waves to try to control them or do something with them. Then, we just let them go. As you sat with all of this movement of the body, it began just to go past without your attaching yourself to fixing it. Then, you were in a very quiet, possibly even blissful place. Then, I rang the bell. You may have experienced the contraction of desire, 'I want to hold onto that peacefulness,' and anger arose.

Desire to maintain blissful or expansive states is just another kind of contraction to watch. We can't hold onto the peacefulness of meditation. To try to hold onto it destroys the peacefulness.

When there is desire to hold on to blissful states, a sense that we'll lose something, we can start to ask, 'What is it that I can't lose?' Do you understand what I mean by that? I'm going to read you something I was re-reading last night in The Ground We Share, and which I find very beautiful. Brother David Steindl-Rast is talking. He says:

A long time ago, I was sought out by a Christian sister of a religious order who was doing intensive zen practice. She had been told by a teacher to let go of everything and found herself in a dilemma. How could she possibly let go of Christ? I got in some trouble for telling her there was absolutely no question, that she was obliged to let go of Christ, and that she didn't have to worry the least bit, because anything important about Christ would only come to her after she let go.

Do you understand what he's saying? Meditation is a constant process of letting go. We keep coming to a new edge, a new place where we've held on, and we let go. And then we go a little further. We let go again. A little further. We let go again. We have to let go of everything, of attachments, of aversions, of pain, of bliss, whatever there is that we're holding on to. That's the ego self holding on.

To come to the true self, we have to keep letting go. The ego self gets thinner and thinner. Then, we start to experience the true self. When you're in a meditation and it's very blissful, and then the bell rings, or it's time to get up and go to work, or whatever is happening, one wants to hold on to the blissful state. This is the small self that obviously prefers bliss. Whenever bliss is noted, not just at the bell but as quickly as the state is noted, such as 'seeing lights,' or 'floating,' just bring attention to it, like you do with anything else. We note contracting, wanting, smelling something good-'pleasant, pleasant'-smelling something pungent-'unpleasant, unpleasant.' We note the contractions of wanting or aversion. Blissful states are no different. Note the state in whatever way seems appropriate. If it's pleasant, note, 'pleasant, pleasant.' Note any contraction of wanting to hold on to it. When the bell rings, we note, 'hearing, hearing.' If there's awareness of the blissful state, wanting to hold on, we just notice it as 'wanting, wanting.'

The blissful states come and go just as uncomfortable states do. A peace much deeper than those blissful states takes their place when we stop needing to hold on even to the blissful states. This is so important I'm going to repeat it. The blissful states come and go, and a level of our being that is a profoundly peaceful level is experienced when we are no longer attached even to the blissful states.

It's time for us to close. Please stand and stretch silently. Then we'll end with tonglen.

Experience yourself sitting in a cylinder of light. This is not just imagination. You really are sitting in a cylinder of light, only there's not usually much consciousness of that. Right here at the top of the head, at the crown chakra, there's a light and energy cord entering our bodies. You can use your imagination and allow yourself to feel it almost like a shower of light, touching your head and shoulders.

Breathe in, bringing in that light into the heart center. Breathe out. Breathe in that light again. Let it come down and feel it in your heart. Breathe out. Again, drawing in light with the inhale, feel it in the heart as you breathe out. Now this time, breathe in the light. Feel it in the heart center as you exhale. Breathe in, visualizing a person who is suffering, ideally somebody that you really know, maybe an aging parent or a sick friend. Breathe out, sending that light out, almost as if it were a ray of light coming out of your heart. Send it out with the breath to that person who is suffering.

Breathe in light. Exhale. Feel it in the heart center. Inhale, visualizing the one who is suffering. Exhale, sending it out to them, a gift to them.

Breathe in light. Exhale. Feel it in the heart. Inhale, visualizing the one who is suffering. Exhale. Send it out. Inhale light. Exhale from the heart.

Draw in light, into the heart, intention to release. Offer it out.

Inhale, heart, intention to release. Exhale. Send it out.

In. Exhale. Intention. Send it out. One step for each breath.

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, experienced as a heavy tar-like mass,
Exhale. Feel it in the heart center. Feel the heaviness of it.
Inhale, aware of the light that surrounds you.
Exhale. Release the heaviness, the darkness.

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 wholeness that is their truth. (Bell)
May all beings everywhere find perfect peace. (Bell)