Day One continued (Section 9)

Barbara: Fear is a very uncomfortable sensation. None of us likes to be afraid. None of us likes to feel threatened or helpless. Yet, often the fear is … it's as if I had a very small object and a big light so it casts an enormous shadow on the wall. I see the shadow and think, 'Oh, it's enormous.' But what it's really about may be very small. Some of what makes it feel enormous is this old mind conditioning.

What happens is, for example if someone was a child whose needs were not met and whose parents were so involved in their own needs that they couldn't pay attention to him or her, then she might feel very afraid. Whenever she saw something that she thought she needed she would want to grab hold of it, hold onto it, because she had learned very early that nobody else was going to take care of her. She believes she's got to collect and hoard or she won't be safe. Then, in any given moment, perhaps she's feeling thirsty, just as simple as that, and thinks, 'I need a glass of water.' She sees somebody walk by with water and may feel she needs to grab at it, or to hoard it if she gets it. A strong fear comes up in her. It's totally out of proportion with what's happening, 'I'm not going to get what I need.'

In this moment all that's happening is she's feeling thirst, but there's so much old conditioning about that thirst, about not having been attended to when she was young.

As I said, if instead of just the thirst, there's an enormous shadow, what she reacts to, then, is not the small thirst which simply knows, 'It's okay. I can go for an hour without water.' It's the enormous shadow, the fear which creates obsessive thought and great aversion or grasping.

This was an example of desire. Examples of aversion mind states such as anger, various mind states of wanting to get rid of, offer a similar experience.

If someone had a father who was always very angry, always yelling at him and putting him down, made him feel humiliated, when somebody approached him now as an adult and was rude to him, instead of just experiencing rudeness, all of those memories of old humiliation would come up. Then, a tremendous amount of anger might arise. It would make it impossible for him to hear this person who was being rude and to understand that their rudeness comes out of their own fear or their discomfort. So, instead of being able to hear them and respond appropriately, he will begin to react based on that tremendous shadow, all of the old mind movement.

When we understand how we move in ways out of proportion to what is happening, based on the old experience of mind, we realize that we have a choice. There's a tremendous amount of freedom in that choice. We tend to think of ourselves as victims, but it's our choice whether we're a victim or not. When we understand how we have gotten into these misunderstandings, then we have the opportunity to make different choices.

Sometimes-I don't know if this is the case in Mexico as much as in the United States-people go into therapy with a psychologist or psychiatrist and look at incidents in their childhood to try to understand the painful things that influenced them. Often they find that even after they understand them there's just as much pain. They may not have to act them out so much anymore, but there's still great pain.

Meditation addresses this pain from a very different angle. Instead of looking at the old pains that we've had and intimately inspecting each one, picking it into pieces, we just start to understand there has been old pain. We start to be able to distinguish what is in this present moment and what is old. We just give it a label, 'old mind,' 'old conditioning.'

The pain does not instantly dissolve. We find some space in this willingness to be with experience. If I'm terrified of dogs because one bit me as a child, I might not be able to be in a small room with a large dog but could be comfortable in a large space where the dog was confined behind a fence and I could just watch it. Meditation allows us to give our old fears more space.

We don't have to trace and retrace a pain's roots in our childhood, although I'm not suggesting that for some people that's not helpful; it can be very helpful. But we get to a point where we just know this particular tension or discomfort is from something that happened in childhood and it's old. For me, knowing that means I have a choice. I can put it behind me and come to this moment, and in this moment I can know my wholeness and I can enact that wholeness in the world. I can be with this fear. I can be with this discomfort or pain and I don't have to react to it or run from it.

So, we start to develop a new way of being in the world and it's very powerful, because we find that instead of reacting from the accumulation of so-called 'wrinkles,' as in Aaron's wrinkled paper metaphor, we start to re-identify ourselves with the perfect sheet of paper that's always there and just to remember, 'That is who I am.'

Then, in meditation we move deeper and deeper into that experience of our true being. All the wrinkles are still there, but they are just the surface, like waves on a sea. Instead of fixating on the waves, we sink into a deeper level of our being where we directly experience wholeness and we start to be able to live from that wholeness.

I would like to hear just one or two questions related specifically to what I've been saying, with questions to me or to Aaron. Then we're going to spend some time in meditation and then come back and Aaron will answer more questions. I would like to add that you may write down a question and pass it forward instead of saying it out loud.

Question for Aaron: You speak of learning to love others, which is the highest form of love. We are not yet so developed, so could you speak about the need to be loved?

Aaron: I am Aaron. Every sentient being, that is, every being with consciousness has the need to be loved. Many of you observe that need in yourself with a sense of fear. It is as if, feeling unloved, you must exclude from awareness the need to be loved because it is so painful to have a need go unfulfilled.

First, you must come to grips with that pain, and acknowledge that there is a need to be loved, a need present not only in yourself but in everyone. Then, you must begin to investigate why it is so difficult for you to love yourself, because the need to be loved is a need to love the self. This is not pride or ego. I am not talking of self-inflation here, which grows out of a fear of unworthiness, but honest appreciation of the divine in the self. Until you develop that in yourself, your seeking of love from another is simply an attempt to bandage a wound. But it doesn't last. The bandage falls off and the wound is raw and sore again.

One choice is to respect yourself enough to give yourself this gift of silence for a half hour or more each day, to simply watch and to be present with the movements of mind. Then all of those old judgments of the self start to lose potency. What blocks respect, even love, for the self? What has conditioned you into the belief that you are unworthy, not only of human love but perhaps even more precisely, unworthy of the divine? The divine seems pure, stainless. Because of the many fear-based impulses of the mind, you view yourself as impure, and therefore as unworthy to experience union with the divine. Meditation allows you to understand the conditioned nature of experience and that you were never 'bad' simply because certain thoughts were present.

Barbara: Is there a question about what I spoke of, this whole process of observing the movements of mind, seeing how uncomfortable mind states arise, and how we can create more space around them? (Pause) No? If not, let us simply go into meditation and try it. We're going to do a longer sitting this time. I want you to do just what we've done before. Note sensations. Label them. As they change or fall away come back to the breath. Note thought in an appropriate way, labeling it, 'planning, planning,' or 'remembering, remembering,' or 'judging, judging, judging,' whatever kind of thought it is, and then coming back to the breath. If there's a strong emotion, be with the emotion. If it's very powerful, is so strong it really feels like a tidal wave coming at you, just breathe with it. Note that which wants to flee. Breathing in, 'I am aware of my fear,' or anger, or impatience, or whatever it might be. The discomfort, or desire to get away, really becomes the primary object.

You may experience restlessness. That's a big one that people sometimes find when they meditate. Breathing in, 'I am aware of my restlessness.' Boredom is another big one. People experience boredom. Breathing in, 'I am aware of my boredom.' Breathing out, 'I smile at my boredom.' And you've got to literally give a little smile. Really relax and allow whatever is there to be there.

What is boredom? What is restlessness? What is anger? If the mind state is very strong, try asking yourself, 'If I were not experiencing this now what would I be experiencing?' Often we find fear or a sense of grief, or loss. Often there's something under that surface emotion of anger or desire or restlessness or boredom. Sleepiness is another one. 'If I were not feeling so sleepy, what might I be feeling?'

This isn't something to dig into with the brain, it's something to question, to let your mind give rise to the question like a scientific investigator with a microscope, and then come back to the breath and be there with the emotion, with whatever is there. Be there with the physical sensations in your body. How does anger feel in the body? What is the experience of anger? How does restlessness feel? Nobody ever died of restlessness, but sometimes you feel like you're going to. What is restlessness? What is sleepiness?

Of course it won't all be heavy. You may experience tremendous joy, see lights or feel a sense of real rapture. Is it pleasant? Does it lead into craving, grasping, holding? The process is the same. Whatever is there, be with it. If joy leads to attachment to joy, not wanting to lose it, just know there is attachment.

Whatever is there, just be there with it. Whatever you are experiencing is okay. You don't have to change it in any way. You don't have to make it go away. You also don't have to hold onto it. Just be there with it. Let it be there as long as it stays. When it goes, come back to the breath. Are the instructions clear? Okay. We'll sit then, for about thirty minutes.