Emptiness of Thought, Emptiness of Self

okay here we are again that looks better on this end um i don't see the choppiness anymore but you let me know if you see choppiness i'll wait till somebody actually arrives there we go how's that look choppy not choppy looks okay on this end we'll try to get this together anyone but let me know if uh it's still choppy or not it looks fine on this end yeah it looks much better on this one okay i'm gonna uh then continue and you let me know if you have a problem uh we'll just do what we can uh good sorry about the computer issues this evening i'm not sure what was going on there but it even looked choppy on my end so it was something you know not even to do with the internet all right so i think actually it's the sticks i think the new stick power is possibly too much for my computer i can't take the beauty of the sticks um in any case uh let us just dive right in now that we're a little bit late um we'll dive right into the meditation i think most people are here yeah all right so what i want you to do is settle into your meditation posture and remember that your meditation posture means that your knees are below your hips so that your pelvis is tilted just a little bit forward just enough to get your lower back straight that lower back straight and then um so your lower back is curved and your that makes your back straight and then your shoulders are back if you're holding your hands together your elbows are not out they are back so that your shoulders are open that's going to feel a lot better okay and then what i want you to do is there's a thing that um i always say you know tuck your chin but i want you to kind of lift your head up first and then tuck your chin okay so just notice how that feels in the old books in sanskrit they call it making your neck like a swan you know but of course it's not really like this one it's just a little bit up and a little bit the chin is just tiny bit down just a tiny bit you just don't want it to be you know up and out or tilted back you want it tilted forward um and then your tongue is usually touching up there right behind your upper teeth so it's kind of on the upper palette there okay so that's the posture now typically i would say you can have your eyes open your eyes closed your eyes half open looking at the floor i'm going to say it doesn't matter you do whatever you want i think for these meditations do what you're comfortable with okay so but let's keep the posture don't move once you once you set up your posture get your posture you can go back and forth like this you can go back and forth like this but once you get your posture set after that just stay there don't move like i'm always saying sit like a mountain sit like you've never moved for 10 000 years unfortunately because of doing youtube and so on i have to move a bit but as you all know if we were meditating to meditating together i wouldn't move either so um or at least maybe you all don't know that but if you've sat with me before in person in a room you will know this to be true um so now that you've got your posture all settled it and you are now relaxed and motionless sitting like a mountain what i want you to do is remember your bodhi chitta so this is the fact that you are already fully awake you are a fully awakened buddha right deep down inside there's a fully awakened buddha that is you and it's not something you have to develop it's not something that someday you're gonna you know uh be good enough to earn or something it's already completely there and the only thing that's in the way is just sort of the um the mishigas of your mind right we want to settle the mind we want to settle the constructiveness of um of our uh foreign world just enough so that the buddha nature the tata the karma the what we would call ground of being that is already fully awake can shine through so your goal for the meditation always is to allow the buddha to shine through the buddha within to shine completely bright this already awake aware buddhahood to shine through so that's number one the other goal is that that shining through of this buddhahood will help all the beings around you we'll help the people around you will help the animals around you it will help every other kind of being around you to have a better life to enjoy more comfort and ease and peace and love and also that their buddha then their buddha nature will begin to shine through for them also okay so just just tune into that for a moment tune into the fact that you're sitting for the purpose of noticing your own buddha nature and that you're doing that for yourself but also for everyone around you so let's just tune into that for a silent minute while i drink some caffeine and notice that of course the buddha nature is used so you can use this buddha nature to help you feel confident in your meditation to help you to know how to do your meditation correctly the buddha already knows how to be a buddha you can so it's confidence it's understanding and it's filled with love and compassion right there's a tremendous amount of joy warmth love and compassion there that's already present so you know this is there for you and i want you to sit in the mood of already knowing what you're doing of already understanding what i'm talking about and if you get confused or you don't know just come into the mood of like what would a meditation master do what would the buddha do you know and just see if that can help you to understand or help you to zoom into the meditation a little more completely a little more fully a little more deeply okay good so from here let's begin meditating on uh whatever shamatha object you like to meditate on as usual for the group i'll say let's meditate on the full body breathing so you want to feel wherever in your body you feel the breath coming in you feel it really clearly in the body so you feel maybe the the chill air in your nose you might feel the air going down your windpipe you'll definitely feel your uh chest expanding both in front and in back and on the side you can feel your diaphragm pulling down you'll feel your belly in front expanding and maybe your kidney area in back expanding and then you'll even kind of feel the bottom of of your abdominal region sort of pushing down that's all the in-breath and notice it's not some concept about breathing it's actual physical sensations in your body all the way down for the in-breath feel feel feel feel all the way to the bottom of that impact notice the bottom of the inbred and it switches over to the out breath feel the abdominal region coming up the belly retracting the diaphragm coming up the rib cage retracting and maybe even the air which is now warm coming out of coming up your uh trachea and out your nose okay and then feel that feel that feel that muscle uh action and the air action all the way to the end of the out breath look for it look for it look for it look for it meaning feel it feel it feel it and then when it happens switch and come back in now you're doing this while breathing normally if you want to you can breathe slow to help yourself relax which is fine but it's not about catching every detail at this point it's just about maintaining contact with the breath through the entirety maintain contact with the breath all the way all the way all the way all the way on the in-breath and then maintain contact with the out breath all the way all the way all the way all the way all the way okay maintaining contact in this shamatha portion and what i want you to realize is that you as an already fully awakened buddha have metacognition on your side you have meta awareness on your side so in other words you are being aware of these body sensations but i want you to use meta awareness to keep your attention on track and notice if attention is going off track don't spend a lot of time off in the weeds think it or the sticks thinking about this or that stay in the middle on the track and notice if you start to go off track your meta awareness brings you back on track okay so we're staying staying staying staying staying with the in-breath staying staying staying staying staying with the out breath that's that's what we're doing we're contacting it all the way through but we're also being very very very sharp and clear about the fact that we're not getting distracted the fact that you're maintaining attention on the correct object okay [Music] and i'll just let you do this for a few minutes here remember staying with the breath feeling the breath at each moment and making sure you're staying on it noticing if you're getting off that noticing if attention is drifting now the key to keeping attention even more firmly connected with the breath is to look at the details feel the details of the breath at each moment for example feel how the inside of your nostrils feel as the air touches them the um whatever sensations the details of the sensations of the breath going down the throat feel there's many many many sensations about the ribcage expanding both in front and back inside on the sides all that the diaphragm too it's a lot feel in your diaphragm once you get used to that muscle pulling down that powers the in-breath you can feel a lot of sensations there the belly expanding the abdomen all of that all of those points are spots to tune in more carefully noticing more and more detail as you notice more and more detail your attention will engage with the breath even more fully so let's bring in more attention on the details of the feeling of the breath remember to use your meta awareness to keep yourself on track it's just a little bit of the mind is checking continuously whether you're on the breath or off the breath and it's bringing you back over and over now as you engage more and more completely notice if there's any part of the breath where you're losing it and then look for more detail there remember just feel what you feel you don't have if you don't feel anything in the trachea in the windpipe don't worry about it just go to the nose if you don't feel things in the nose just go in the chest but for the whole time of the breath i want you to be contacting the breath okay and if there's any gaps find more detail during those gaps so you stay engaged and then they're not gaps anymore right engage more fully engage more completely okay good now let's switch to simply sitting in awareness so we are letting go of any focusing technique and simply allowing awareness to be open and without any particular object this is shamatha without an object so if the mind starts grabbing on to any particular thoughts any particular emotions or whatever we just gently relax the mind and come back to just being wide open okay [Music] so the object here is to do as little as possible we're not thinking and we're not engaging with thought if thoughts arise that's okay just don't engage with them and don't try to think at all these must be just automatic thoughts that are happening that's fine but we're not listening to them we're not engaging they're just in the background and instead we're allowing the mind to stay open in awareness if this is too hard if the thoughts are too sticky and it keeps pulling you out of awareness and you get engaged in the thought then feel free to go back to doing shamatha on the breath okay you do shamatha on the breath and as you get more and more and more and more and more engaged with the feeling of breathing the um stickiness of the thoughts and feelings will reduce enough space will open up and you'll be able to take this view of awareness either later in this meditation or later in another but assuming you're able to stay out of the thinking just rest in awareness if there's anything at all you're doing here it's just that you're holding this uh being of awareness it doesn't have to be vast it doesn't have to just be an awareness and uh not in the thinking mind it's a really simple idea the thoughts can happen we're just not coming from thinking we're coming from awareness we're sitting in awareness just holding that view of being awareness if emotions come up that's okay just let them happen in the background don't engage if thoughts come up that's okay just let them happen in the background don't engage just stay here as awareness itself stay out of the thinking mind let the machinery of the thinking mind just grind away in the basement but do not get involved in that thinking mind maintain the view of awareness simply awareness itself resting bright clear it's not it's not dreamy or sleepy or fuzzy or dull it's very bright and crisp and clear but you're not coming from thinking you're coming from awareness so just maintain that home base in awareness remember do not get involved in thinking just contact awareness okay good now we're going to do something a little bit further so from the perspective of awareness allow your sense of self to arise within awareness so notice being yourself usually this is composed of thought and feeling but it might be subtler than that but just the feeling of being you and i want you to notice that this is empty it's a construction it's there it's obviously an experience i'm not saying there's no self i'm not saying it's not there i'm saying allow awareness not thinking allow awareness to notice that the sense of self is empty it's a construction it's just in your mind and just keep allowing awareness to notice this sense of self arising inside awareness now if the sense of self is too sticky and you keep you know getting sucked back into that sense of self you can go back and just be awareness again or even go back further and just do shamatha with an object but what i want you to be able to do here is from the perspective of awareness notice the emptiness of the sense of self meaning it's like a dream it's like a cloud it's like mist it's nebulous it's just an idea in your mind it's not an actual thing it can't ever really be you it's just the feeling of being you and that's empty so notice that now from awareness and notice when you're [Music] being awareness noticing the sense of self you can't think about it this is not something to figure out this is not something to try to see if you're doing it right because you're not engaged in thinking just hold the view of awareness and notice the sense of self you are an already awakened buddha your buddha nature knows how to do this be awareness noticing the emptiness of the sense of self the emptiness of the you and allow awareness to look for the sense of you in different parts of your body is there a you in your legs and feet look feel into your legs and feet using awareness not thinking feel into the legs and feet is there a sense of self there if there is notice its emptiness then you can look into the torso the pelvis and the whole torso is there a sense of self there maybe in the heart maybe it feels like the sense of self is located in the heart okay notice the emptiness of the sense of self sure there's some feelings in your heart do those feelings add up to a being or is it just some sensation that's felt in the heart region it's just empty now look in your arms and hands is there a sense of self there maybe you type all day and so it feels kind of like there's a lot of me in my hands on a sense of self in my hands look feel into the arms and hands and notice whether there really is a self there or if that sense of self is just empty it's just a kind of a mental construction it's like an avatar in a video game it's not a thing it's just a an image just a like a dream and then look in the the the head and the face usually there's quite a bit of the sense of self in the head and the face but look carefully is there really a you there or is there just some sensations and thoughts and you notice their emptiness now i want you to keep moving through the body like this looking for any sense of self and when you find it notice it's emptiness and remember we're doing this from awareness we're not thinking about this i'm trying to evaluate with the mind awareness is simply doing this very quickly very accurately very precisely and because you're an already awakened buddha perfectly well so let's continue to do this for a little while continue to look for that sense of self bring it up over and over again and notice it's emptiness maybe you're noticing some emotions that feel particularly like me right now notice the emptiness of those emotions maybe some thoughts are arising and they're kind of sticky notice the emptiness of those sticky thoughts and you're doing this from the perspective of awareness awareness is very very good at this okay good now [Music] move back into simply being awareness doing nothing at all but notice now you're not only staying out of thinking you're staying out of a sense of self we're in a kind of a deeper kind of awareness a different level of awareness not only outside of the machinery of thinking but outside of being a you it's just simply awareness now again thinking might arise but it's just empty sense of self might arise but it's just empty we're just holding the view of this uh deeper sense of just abiding in awareness the dude abides in awareness the dudette abides in awareness the gender-free dude object being provides an awareness if the sense of self becomes sticky and tries to pull awareness back into it just relax let it you already know its emptiness maintain the view of awareness if thoughts or feelings try to pull you in come back to just being awareness do not engage with thought or feeling do not engage with a sense or self hold the view of awareness bright clear vivid awareness simply being aware maintain the view just be awareness do not get involved in thought or feeling or sense of self those can arise in the background we just let them be we don't engage we stay centered in awareness awareness is our home base awareness is our true base it's our foundation it's where we're coming from it's our perspective hold the perspective hold the view come from awareness do not drop out if you drop out re-establish it good now from this viewpoint in awareness that does not have thought or feeling does not have a sense of self allow thoughts and feelings to arise and just notice them as vivid display allow a sense of self to arise which is essentially just made of thought and feeling and notice it as vivid display it's empty completely empty but it's bright it's lively it's moving it's has uh direction and movement and beauty and brightness and clarity you don't have to think on purpose you don't have to feel on purpose you don't have to bring up a sense of self if that stuff is happening if you got so quiet that none of that is happening then bring it up on purpose and just notice what's coming up not as a category but just notice that it's coming up in and see it almost like fireworks in in the sky there's this big beautiful empty sky and there's these tremendously bright vivid colorful uh kinetic fireworks moving through it the fireworks are thoughts feelings a sense of self that can all be there right we're not trying to get rid of it but we want to see it clearly awareness itself to simply notice the thoughts the feelings and the sense of self don't get stuck in the thoughts don't get stuck in the feelings don't get stuck in the in the sense of self awareness itself is just noticing those allowing them to be vivid allowing them to be a fabulous spectacular intense subtle gorgeous [Music] display you may even notice that sounds same thing sounds are vivid clear bright moving through this open awareness without impeding it in any way if your eyes are open even visual stuff is just images arising empty sound empty image empty thought empty feeling empty sense of self but all clear vivid shocking beautiful intense display the display of form in the sky of emptiness maintain the view of absolutely open sky of awareness noticing the display of thought feeling sense of self sound and world all around notice how fast awareness works it so much faster than thinking or being a person being a sense of self awareness is almost instant it notices everything and sees its awareness very very quickly what i want you to start to do here is see if you can notice the awareness of the emptiness of things sooner see if awareness itself can just notice the emptiness right at the beginning right when the thoughts are starting right when the feelings are starting right when the sense of self arises right when a sound arises right when some kind of visual thing happens see if you can begin to notice the emptiness see if awareness can begin to notice the emptiness sooner awareness is very fast see if it can notice the emptiness much much quicker much much sooner not after the thing has already manifested if it's too hard come back to just something like just the thoughts and just see if you can just in that one stream of thought you can notice the emptiness before it's too late but right when they're just starting again away you have to do it from awareness only awareness is clear and fast enough very fast very fast very fast awareness just seeing the emptiness of things instantly noticing their fabulous display okay good now you can let go of seeing all that display all that emptiness all that fabulosity maintain this view and simply allow awareness to contact breathing again we're back to just feeling the breath but don't don't make it difficult just allow awareness to do it just a tiny bit we're mainly just resting in awareness resting outside of thought resting outside of feeling resting outside of sense of self that's the main thing we're just holding the view but we're just allowing awareness to lightly enjoy resting on the breath this is really easy let it be easy resting is wide open perfectly still perfectly bright and clear awareness just slightly paying attention to the rising and falling breath and allowing yourself to relax to open to settle even more fully let's let this be very very very very without effort if there's any effort at all it's just staying in this awareness resting outside of thought resting outside of feeling resting outside of ego just allowing awareness to be bright and clear and fresh really really relaxed and open and just lightly resting on the breath noticing the rising and falling of the breath without any real effort you're not really trying to concentrate it's just sort of a toe hold on the breath okay good now let's end the meditation there and just bring it to a close just for a moment remember that we were meditating for our own awakening and for the benefit of others and so just for a moment just make that wish that our meditation tonight help all beings uh and if it's not doing it magically somehow maybe we're helping other beings simply by being more relaxed and less reactive after our meditation and then feel free to move and stretch take care of your body allow yourself to run to the restroom if you need to stuff like that now normally i give a talk here um but i'm feeling like just diving into questions so if you have questions tonight start asking and i'll dig into answering them right away we've got quite a large number of people here live so feel free to ask questions i'm happy to work with any questions that have to do with this meditation what we're doing but also anything else about meditation if on the other hand you're feeling relaxed and open and blank like there's nothing in your mind that's okay too yeah uh while we're waiting on questions it's interesting you know that we think that we have to somehow generate this special state where we're in awareness we have to do special things with our feelings and so on um but of course that's all already there the awareness is already there all we're doing is stilling [Music] the waves of the mind until we can notice the awareness and then once we establish ourselves in awareness it's easy to look back at the waves of the mind and have that be okay so tennyson is asking how do i determine if it's a sensation that arises as an eye or a sense of self are they all that um you know that's like saying how do i determine if if a taste is salty you just know um it's not a it's not a hard thing it's not a con concept to determine whether something's a sense of self think of how you would feel if you were really proud for a moment you know what would come up there would be a sense of being i did something good you might even have words in your mind i did something good you might have the emotion of pride but there would also be a sense of those words and emotions coming together to be a me um so it's not hard it's not a complex concept it's very direct okay but usually we think of a sense of self um being made of thought and feeling in that way i hope that's helpful um micah is saying can you explore the emptiness i was talking about in the open awareness all the things that are empty are arising in awareness so they are in the open awareness if you're asking is the awareness empty that's a deeper question and i would say for now let's just work with phenomena thoughts feelings sense of self uh the world sound uh sight the feeling of objects all of that we're going to look at the emptiness of that okay and all of that is arising inside awareness ramit says um i've been feeling like open awareness i'm out of my body so to speak all the time the out doesn't really describe it and that's correct in fact the body is inside the awareness so when you're in open awareness you're fully in contact with the body because the body sensations are arising inside of awareness normally we picture awareness somehow coming out of your body right like essentially meaning it's generated by your brain and it's happening because your eyes are open and your ears are open and so it's sort of like the body's over here and i'm projecting awareness or something that's kind of the normal view more or less but when we take the stance the view the viewpoint the home base of awareness we notice that body sensations arise inside of awareness and in fact thoughts and feelings arise inside of awareness a sense of self arises inside of awareness and when we go more deeply which we did not do tonight when we go more deeply we notice even the world sights sounds the feeling of objects the entire world arises inside of awareness okay so you're never actually out of your body as much you're in contact with the body internet animal says have you ever had an out-of-body experience from deep meditation and what is your take on them sure i've had out-of-body experiences again now and then and those are cool um but my take is just that that's a kind of um i'm not gonna i'm not gonna say whether i think they're real or not like if there's a something going out of the blah blah blah none of that matters to me right now from the viewpoint of awareness all that's happening is my thoughts and feelings are in a special state and awareness can be aware of that state and aware of the emptiness of that state and aware of even the weird stuff i'm seeing in that state that's what's important right it's helping me to go up to have the perspective of awareness that's the important part that's what that's awakening right we're going towards awakening so in other words even out of body stuff arises inside of awareness that's the point weird stuff happening um you know i've had endless endless endless cool psychedelic experiences that endless endless endless cool psychic stuff happen while not on what not on any drugs just seeing psychic weirdness or visionary material all the time all the time all the time and if you want to not get awakened really concentrate on that material get into cool a lot of body stuff get into cool psychic stuff and it will stop you from awakening why because you're getting involved in the content what i keep trying to say here is that what we care about is being awareness content arises within awareness and of course eventually way further along we see that content and awareness aren't separate they're one thing but as long as we're seeing them as separate when we're concentrating on content we're not uh um maintaining the view of awareness so in other words psychic stuff out of body stuff all that crazy stuff it's cool it's fun whatever but it's a big dead end in terms of awakening until we can hold the awareness perspective then if uh dream material comes up lucid dream type stuff even deep sleep type stuff into the field of awakening then it's actually helping us to maintain the view even more deeply because we see the emptiness of that okay so that's um the really really important point thanks for asking that question internet animal sean is asking how do you access that beautiful awareness in everyday life see here field noting doesn't really do it it's just once you know how to take the view you just do it right notice just come out of thinking for a minute be awareness come out of being yourself for a minute be awareness and then if thinking and feeling and awareness the sense of self are happening that's fine maintain the view of awareness now usually that's hard to do if walking around the world you're doing something difficult so don't do it while driving please don't do it while driving don't do it while having a tense negotiation or something but if you're taken if you're taking a walk in the woods or whatever it's much easier okay alex is it possible to grok staying in awareness connect connecting with awareness or re-establishing awareness because i just don't is it something that can't be explained in words until you uh until you grack it you don't rock it once you crack it you then it's groked but it's not like it's some kind of mystical thing it's super simple uh alex right now if you feel what do you feel like you are you know what are you staying in what do you uh where are you coming from probably if you're trying to figure this out which is what croc kind of means um you're being thinking i am i am my thoughts i'm coming from my thinking i'm trying to understand from thinking i'm trying to do from thinking it's a very normal state of mind but i want you to notice really carefully that there can be a space between two thoughts and so if you're coming from thinking [Music] who are you or what are you coming from in that space between the thinking what's that that's the awareness okay that's all it is the thinking is happening inside awareness so when the thinking pauses for a minute that's just awareness it's not any more complicated than that okay but that's why we do the shamatha first so our thoughts get at least more still so that it's easier to just rest in awareness okay it is not complicated people just explain it in funny ways all i'm saying is who is alex between two thoughts where is alex's mind where is alex coming from what is that that's just awareness with no thinking if you can be awareness with no thinking that's staying in awareness that's connecting with awareness you were never unconnected from it okay i hope that's clear i mean like everything is transparent and it's always like this and then if you get dragged in to thinking and feeling you notice that and pop back up that's right that's exactly right maintain the view and things that are transparent or things that appear are transparent that's the emptiness another good word for emptiness is they're transparent it's like there but not there um and continues today i fell back into that awareness and the head feeling like being your head right and it was yucky yeah being stuck in thoughts once you're used to coming for awareness being stuck in thoughts if you don't see their emptiness being stuck in non-empty seeming solid seeming thought sucks it's a painful place where most of us are stuck a lot of the time same thing with emotions being stuck ins in sticky uh solid emotion not seeing its emptiness but sticky solid emotion that's the meaning of suffering that's what it is being stuck in thought and feeling and thinking it's so solid and it's me that is the meaning of suffering my friends and even if you can't get the thing about how to be awareness which you already are you're already our awareness it's not a new thing you're doing but even if that doesn't make any sense begin to notice the emptiness of thought and feeling how do you know if you're doing it right because even when the thought and feeling are there they will hurt they will be less sticky they'll seem less solid and the suffering will start to reduce okay they will hurt less okay johnny says um not so much coming up in the awareness not sure what that question is but i assume it means if the awareness is really still sometimes thought and feeling and the sense of self are not arising but as i said when we're doing the when we're looking for the emptiness on purpose bring up thought and feeling on purpose if they're not just automatically happening okay we don't want to just get stuck in like empty you can do it if you hold the awareness really really tight you can start kind of making thought and feeling and the sense of self not arise at all but that's not actually people think that that's like deep meditation it's not that deep we want the thoughts and feelings to be able to arise just arise as empty from the view of awareness so when we're just resting in empty awareness that's fine but when we want thought and feeling to come up allow them to come up and if they don't during the meditation then actually make them come okay uh jamie is knowing a synonym for awareness uh you know there's lots of synonyms the more words i give you the more confused you'll get but yes awareness here's what here's a classic way to describe it they would say in sanskrit that it is like space space in sanskrit is called akash that's where in english we get the idea of the akashic records they're like hidden in space but that's akashic the word akash is the word for space so awareness is like space except it's knowing space itself doesn't know anything awareness knows so it's spacious knowing and that we could call it consciousness we could also call it in a funny way we could call it experience not the remembering of an experience but just the fact that anything seems to be happening right now if you are a rock with no awareness nothing seems to be happening right now once you have awareness something seems to be happening glenn says i've heard you refer to sensory clarity in meditation is it possible to deliberately cultivate clarity of mental imagery um yes i've did that for years or decades you you know mental image is something that comes up and you cultivate clarity now i want you to i want to be clear i'm that's different than cultivating stability and vividness in mental imagery it's in fact almost the opposite of emptiness and mental imagery so sensory clarity can kind of we can do two things with it we could be saying okay whatever happens to be coming up in mental imagery no matter how faded no matter how half there no matter how quickly it's coming in and out no matter how indistinct and who knows what it is it is i'm having sensory clarity on exactly that kind of like confused not very clear jumble but i'm clear about the fact of what's there another kind of sensory clarity you can have in mental imagery which is a different technique is attempting to make it sharp clear bright vivid on purpose so if you're attempting to make the image like let's say you want to make a mental picture of a buddha and you want it to be really really really the right colors and the right shape and you want it to stay there and be really stable that's a kind of shamatha right you're doing just concentration and by making the sensory objects clearer and brighter and more stable you're getting more concentrated that's one thing the other thing i described where whatever's happening in mental imagery i'm really clear about it that's the possum so one is the other one's vapasana or okay so those are two different ways um so if you want if you're trying to develop because i think your question's about developing visualization skills that's shamatha okay then you you're working on making it stable you're working not making it bright you're working on making it clear and you're working on making it more detailed that's from it and yes that totally works that's not the kind i worked on very much i've done it but not very much the kind i've worked on is the possum of mentality seeing what's there as clearly as possible without influencing it um eric you're getting jolts of energy in your body that often coincide with moments between thoughts also disturbingly cartoonish violent imagery that comes and goes yeah so energy can happen weird uh images can happen and that's uh just what we're dealing with right that's what you just notice okay don't get involved in it don't get all interested in the energy don't get all interested in the cartoonish weird imagery just be with it or observe it um let's see how was my retreat david asks it was great i'll tell you when we talk on the phone jake sorry if you covered this but is the sense of self only associated with thoughts and feelings or can we identify through a non-conceptual pure sensation isn't that a feeling a non-conceptual pure sensation is that not another kind of feeling um now if by feeling you mean emotions then yes this is another thing just the feeling in the body the feeling in your skull but i'm lumping together when i say feeling i'm lumping together two separate what i consider to be separate things emotion is one kind of feeling regular body sensation is another kind of feeling both of those count those are feelings okay so yes sense of self also comes from just regular old body sensation great question jake all right everyone now let's switch to generosity hopefully as part of this meditation uh it's bringing up the spirit of generosity so that you with the people around you with the animals around you with the world around you you feel more open and generous you have something to give and you give it freely and you give it beautifully and you give it with a sense of joy not like not like suffering uh um martyrdom right but rather with joy with ease with openness that's what we want that's the real meaning of donna okay a secondary meaning of jana of donna i mean not jonah of donna is giving uh specifically financial uh financially to a teacher or to a group so as you may know this these meditations on thursday night are sponsored by the san francisco dharma collective and the san francisco dharma collective wants you to have to give donna to the world wants you to give from your open heart a sense of generosity to the world and also uh myself in san francisco government collective is open to you giving donna to them san francisco dharma collective and then they will split that donna with me and that will help keep these meditations coming and they will also help other people get these meditations for free if you look back on these meditations a lot of them you know a thousand or uh 1300 or 1500 or 2000 sometimes people watch these meditations and very very very few people are contributing that's okay that's my donna right that's my spirit of generosity me and san francisco derby collective want thousands of people to watch these meditation videos for free and to get something out of it however if you are feeling a spirit of generosity and you would like to help us do this please feel free to donate uh using the links that you're seeing in the chat window if you are coming to this meditation after the fact then you can contribute to either to me through my patreon or to san francisco dharma collective through their website and but just make sure you say it's for michael taff's uh meditation class uh katie is reminding me that on saturday we have death sangha death sangha is um not on youtube there's a couple of them they were mild death songs that we did on youtube but dasonga is just too intense to have out there on the internet so we're going to do it on zoom we have a secret link you have to register in advance and it's the registration link is there but why would you want to come to death sangha well because we're going to get down with death we're going to meditate on death it's going to be gory it's going to be morbid we're going to really encounter our fears about death our deep feelings about death we're going to look into the ways that death [Music] makes life more meaningful life more vivid my life more clear remember that buddhism christianity judaism islam hinduism all the other isms all the other religions really it's all about how we work with death because how we work with death determines how we work with life and what we want in this life is to treat other beings with respect we want to treat other beings with kindness we want to see the inherent nobility and the beauty of all other beings and it's very hard to do that when we're in denial of death but when we meet death clearly and solidly in meditation makes it much easier to remember our place in this world that we're all made of clay we're all going to dissolve nobody's better than anybody else and that we have a real opportunity in this life to bring kindness and relief to other beings to help everyone find the journey of life to be just a little bit easier and maybe just a little bit more joyful so that they too can help others in that very same way so come to death son i love it um be prepared though you know it's intense and so if you're feeling you know like maybe uh you're having a hard time keeping it together lately like really you know on the verge of cracking up or something probably death sangha is a bad place for you this this month um it's very intense people get triggered couldn't have a bigger trigger warning that ever you know death sangha is intended to trigger you so um we come there to work in our meditation on dealing with death and in a way and one way of looking at it that's the whole goal of meditation it's part of awakening right to remember that death is ever present possibility for every one of us all right human beings and other beings whether you're watching this right now live or a thousand years in the future it's been wonderful to be with you and i look forward to uh i and my stick like decorations look forward to seeing you again next week feel free to if you're watching this some other time ask questions in the comments and i will everyone smile have a peek at those comments and answer questions and so on and of course in the comments i like just hearing how it's going i didn't read everyone's really wonderful kind nice comments in the chat window but thank you for those i really appreciate it thanks everyone for coming this evening sorry about the technical difficulties at the start but blame the sticks playing the stick decorations we'll be back next week see you then

Channel: Michael Taft

Views: 3,089

Keywords: meditation, mindfulness, vipassana, relaxation, buddhism, dharma, nondual, mahayana, vajrayana, zen, dzogchen

Id: D0IU_yo6sSQ

Length: 83min 14sec (4994 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 19 2021