Day One continued (Section 4)

Barbara: I want to read you something very short here, and then we're going to try this meditation for ten minutes. This is from a beautiful book that's a favorite of mine called Flight of the Garuda. It's a Tibetan book translated into English.

Once again, noble children, listen carefully!

Rest your mind loosely in naturalness and
See how the mind is when calm.
Observed, it rests calmly in the continuity of awareness.
Calm, and yet empty, thus is the state awareness.
Fortunate heart-children, you must understand this.

What he is saying is that as we meditate and see how mind latches onto physical sensations, thoughts, and emotions, we also find that there's a very quiet level of awareness that watches all of these mind states come and go without grabbing hold of them, without fixation on them or ownership of them. This is the core of the meditation experience. So, being present with whatever arises, well, I will not say it's not an end in itself. It's important to be present with what arises. But, the fruit of being present with what arises is that we start to find that within ourselves which is not attached to, not identified with what arises, but lets it flow past. Everything comes flowing past, all of our thoughts, all of our physical sensations, all of our emotions, none of it is who we are. Then we come to experience that state of pure awareness which just watches it all coming and going.

Give rise to a thought and observe how it arises.
Since it does not depart even in the slightest
From the state of empty and luminous awareness,
Arising and yet being empty is thus the state of awareness itself.
Fortunate heart-children, you must understand this.
This is how arising (Barbara: arising of thoughts, of anything) is the play of the mind.

It's just mind at play, moving from this to that, nothing we have to grab hold of.

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 motion,
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.

An illustration of that stanza would be the sun and sunbeams, if we used the sun as a metaphor for the state of pure awareness. Sometimes, when there's a cloud in front of the sun, you can see sunbeams coming out from the sun. They are an expression of the sun. When you see the light and shadow on the ground, that's also an expression of the sun. When you look at the light and shadow on the ground, the sun itself is in that light and shadow.

When thoughts arise, instead of thinking, 'I have to get rid of the thought in order for mind to be quiet,' the arising thought can take you right back into the quiet mind, just like the sunbeam can take you right back into the sun. So, we get out of the argument with thoughts coming up in our minds. Each thought, rather than being something we have to get rid of to come back to quietness, just reminds us to ride it back home to the place of quiet, to this place of what Aaron calls pure heart and mind, pure awareness.

I'm going to read the last paragraph again and one more paragraph.

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 motion,
The mind never departs from awareness and emptiness, even in the slightest.
So rest, since whatever rests calmly is the state 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 it 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 the stillness, occurrence, and awareness,
Then practice these three as one.

We are going to sit now for ten minutes. What I would like you to do is start with the breath. Whatever arises in your experience, a physical sensation, a thought, label it. As it changes or dissolves, come back to the breath, just that. Let us do this for ten minutes, then take a short stretch, and then Aaron will talk for about half an hour and tie some of this together.

(Bell rings three times.)

So, a mind doesn't stay still, but it's okay that it doesn't stay still. We can be present with it wherever it is. What we're going to do now is take several minutes for you to stretch, then Aaron is going to talk, then we're going to take another break, and then we'll come back and have time for some questions and discussion and more meditation.

(Break)

Barbara: Again, we're waiting for the sound system, and for some people who walked outside. Are you impatient? We all want our lives to be stress free. It's wonderful to begin to see the things that create tension in us, such as this moment's impatience. When we're not present, we don't see that. But then you start to really experience the little things that create the stress. We need to understand how we start to feel stressed, what creates that. Where does tension gather in you, in your belly, in your throat? Where do you feel it? A wonderful meditation practice that you can do all day long is just to note … 'tension,' or 'contraction,' to see it come up, see the body contract, and literally let it go. Letting it go is not getting rid of it. There's a very subtle, but important difference. Getting rid of says, 'This is bad. I don't want it.' Letting it go says, 'Out of kindness to myself, I don't need this. I just release it. If it doesn't go, that's okay.' With getting rid of, it's got to go, so there's more tension. Letting it go, we could almost just say, 'Let it be.' But there's a willingness to release it because one sees that it creates suffering. It's love, not fear, that's willing to let go.

Letting it go. Letting it go to do what it wants. It's like holding a bird in your hand. Your hand is closed on the bird. To get rid of, you throw and get rid of the bird. To let it go, you open your hand. The bird can fly away or it can sit there. Either one is okay. But it's kind and skillful to open the hand.